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" asks the mob, Charudatta replies with the genuine Hindu maxim " An humbled foe, who prostrate at your feet Solicits quarter, must not feel your sword/' Wilson. Digitized by Google CHAPTER XV. LATER PAURANIK CIVILIZATION. IN the last chapter we have tried to give a brief sketch of Hindu life and civilization in the early Pauranik Age, from the writings of the great Hindu authors who flourished in the sixth and succeeding centuries. But it is always a gain to see ourselves as others see us, and we propose in the present chapter to draw a similar sketch of the later Pauranik Age from the materials supplied to us by a cultured and large-hearted foreigner, Alberuni, who wrote in the eleventh century A. D. The value of Alberuni's work on India has long been known to scholars, but a scholarlike edition and translation of it had hitherto been wanting. Dr. Edward C. Sachau has now removed the want, and has performed an eminent service to the cause of Oriental research and of Indian history. Alberuni, or as his compatriots called him, Abu Raihan, was born in 973 A.D. in the territory of modern Khiva. When Mahmud of Ghazni conquered Khiva in 1017 A.D., the eminent scholar was brought to Ghazni as a prisoner of war. It is probably this circum- stance which made him look on Hindus with the Digitized by Google 476 PAURANIlt PERIOD. [BOOK V. sympathy due to fellow sufferers front the conquests and oppression of Mahmud. And while he never hesitates to point out what he considers blemishes in Hindu civilization and literature, he has at least taken the pains to study that civilization and literature in a catholic spirit rare among later Musalman writers, and he never withholds the meed of praise where praise is due. Of Mahmud's reckless work of destruction in India Alberuni speaks with deserved animadversion. "Mahrrtud," he says, " utterly ruined the prosperity of the country, and performed those wonderful exploits by which the Hindus became like atoms of dust scattered in all directions, and like a tale of old in the mouths of the people. Their scattered remains cherish, of course, the most inveterate aversion towards all Muslims. This is the reason, too, why Hindu sciences have retired far away from those parts of the country- conquered by us, and have lied to places which our hand cannot yet reach> to Kashmir, Benares, and other places." (Chap. I.) With regard to the Hindus, the fact which struck Alberuni most unfavorably is that what strikes most intelligent and even well-disposed foreigners in the same way, vis., their complete isolation from other nations of the earth, their ignorance of the outside world, their want of sympathy and communication with other peoples whom they call MlechcJuis. " They are/' says CHAP. XV.] LATER PAURANIK CIVILIZATION. 477 Alberuni, " by nature niggardly in communicating that which they know, and they take the greatest possible care to withhold it from men of another caste among their own people, still much more, of course, from any foreigner. According to their belief, there is no other country on earth but theirs, no other race of man but theirs, and no created being besides them have any knowledge of science whatever. Their haughtiness is such that if you tell then> of any science or scholar iri Khorasan and Persis, they will think you to be both an ignoramus and a liar. If tfiey travelled and mixed with otJier nations, they would soon change, their mind, for their ancestors were not as narrow minded as the present generation is." (Chap I.) In political matters too India was in the last days of her decline when Alberuni wrote. The vast country which had owned the sway or the supremacy of the great Vikram^ditya in the sixth century, was now parcelled out among petty kings and chiefs, all independent of each other and often warring with each other. Kashmir was independent and was guarded by its mountains ; Mahmud of Ghazni had tried to conquer it but had failed ; and the brave Anangapdla, who had vainly tried to oppose the march of Mahmud, had once fled to that secluded region. Sindh was cut up into petty principalities ruled by Moslem chiefs. In Gujrat Mahmud's invasion of Soman£tha or Pattan had left no lasting result ; the Rajput dynasty, Digitized by Google 478 PAURANIK PERIOD. [BOOK V. which had wrested the ruling power in the land from the Chalukyas before the time of Mahmud (about 980 A.D.), continued to rule there after Mahmud's invasion of Somanatha. Malwa was ruled by another Rajput race, and Bhojadeva, who ruled for half a century, from 997 to 1053 A.D., was an enlightened patron of letters^ and revived in his capital at Dhara the memories of the reign of Vikram&ditya the Great. Alberuni tells us a story (Chap. XVII) about a man being transformed into silver, and the piece of silver being still visible at the palace gate of Dhara. Kanouj is said to have then been subject to the Pala Kings of Bengal who generally resided at Monghyr. Rajyapdla of Kanouj had been plundered by Mahmud in 1017 A. D., and in consequence of this, a new capital had been founded at Bclri where Mahipala lived and ruled about 1026 A.D. Both these rulers, like all the Palas of Bengal, are said to have been of the Buddhist persuasion. But Buddhism as a national religion had died out in India in Alberuni's time. The country round Kanouj was called the Madhya- desa by the people, because it formed the centre of India, a centre, as Alberuni states, " from a geographical point of view, "and " it is a political centre too, because in former times it was the residence of their most famous heroes and kings." (Chap. XVIII.) Alberuni gives distances from Kanouj to several important places which continue to be important towns Digitized by Google CHAP. XV.] LATER PAURANIK CIVILIZATION. 479 to the present day. He speaks of Mathura, which u has become famous by Vasudeva " ; of Prayaga or Allahabad M where the Hindus torment themselves with various kinds of torture which are described in the books about religious sects " ; of " the famous Banarasi " or Benares ; of Pataliputra, Monghyr and Gang&sagara or the mouths of the Ganges. In the south he speaks of Dhara and Ujjayini ; in the north-west of Kashmir and Multan and Lahor ; and away from the centre of India he speaks of the fabled causeway of Rama, and of the pearl banks of Ceylon, as also of the Maldive and Laccadive islands. (Chap. XVIII.) From an account of the country we turn to an account of the people. Alberuni makes some brief remarks on the caste system, from which we are able to see that the Vaisyas — the great body of the Aryan people— were fast degenerating to the rank of SQdras. In one place we are told that between the Vaisyas and the Sadras there is no very great distance."( Chap. IX.) Elsewhere we learn that the Vaisyas had already been deprived of their ancient heritage of religious learning ; that the Hrahmans taught the Veda to the Kshatriyas, but " the Vaisya and Stidra are not allowed to hear it, much less to pronounce or recite it." (Chap. XII.) Again we are told that " every action which is considered as the privilege of a Brahman, such as saying prayers, the recitation of the Veda, and offering sacrifices to the fire, is forbidden to him, to such a degree that when Digitized by Google 480 PAURANIK PERIOD. [BOOK V, — e. g. a Sfidra or a Vaisya is proved to have recited the Veda, — he is accused by the Brahmans before the ruler, and the latter will order his tongue to be cut off." (Chap. LXIV.) Let the reader compare this account of the Vaisya's status with that given by Manu, and he will have before him the history of the gradual degeneracy of the people^ and of the growing power of priests. The descendants of the Vaisyas who had an equal right with Brahmans to learn and recite the Veda and to sacrifice to the fire, carne, after the religious and political revolu- tions of the ninth and tenth centuries A.D., to be class- ed with Sudras, and considered unworthy of religious knowledge ! Kshatriyas still held their own as long as India was a free country, but lost their glory and independence after the eleventh century. And then the bold myth was proclaimed that Kshatriyas too as a caste had, like the Vaisyas, ceased to exist, that all who were not Brahmans were Sfidras — all equally incapable of reciting the Veda and sacrificing to the fire ! Does the modern reader wish to go beyond this specious myth of the extinction of the Kshatriyas and Vaisyas, and desire to know what has really become of them and their descendants? He will find them classed under new names, (K&yastha, Vaidya, Vanik, Svarna- klra, Karmak&ra, &c.) as new castes unknown to Manu and Yajnavalkya. And room has been kindly provid- ed for these new castes, formed out of Kshatriyas and Digitized by Googl CHAP. XV. J LATER PAURANIK CIVILIZATION. 48* Vaisyas, in the growing list of " mixed castes n which Manu had reserved for aborigines like Nishddas and Chand&las ! It is an old story, at least in Indian his- tory — the ascendancy of priests has kept pace with the steady degeneracy of the people. And the people wc repeat once more, are more responsible for their degra- dation and submission to priestly authority than the * priests for assuming such authority. The people have to thank themselves for their social degradation and dishonour in the past ; and they alone, by their own exertions, can secure an equality in status, in honour and in rights, in the future. Below the Sudra, eight Antyaja castes are recounted by Aiberuni, viz.