and reigned outside the Moghul empire, and were CHAP. VIII. never brought under foreign influences until comparatively modern times.

character of Hin

The so-called histories of Hindu dynasties, written Unsatisfactory by Hindu annalists, have little or no historical value. du histories. They are strings of panegyrics, as truthful and authentic as those found in epitaphs, and with no better claims on the credibility of the reader. They are. mingled with details which have small interest for Europeans, such as fabulous accounts of temples, thrones, and palaces, or wildly mythical stories of gods and Brahmans. They contain sprinklings of authentic data, which serve as guides over the dreary void; but the plainest matters of fact are glossed over with Oriental falsifications and exaggerations. Specimens have been preserved in the Appendix to the present volume, from which a mass of mythical matter has been necessarily excluded; sufficient, however, remains to enable the reader to form an idea of the character of the whole.*

Fabulous origin

of Hindu dynas

It will be seen from these legends that the beginnings of every Raj or dynasty, however modern, are more or ties. less wrapped up in fable. The genealogists, who professed to record the history, found it necessary to coin. a myth which should associate the reigning family with one or other of the heroes of the Mahá Bháratá

* A large collection of these native histories was formed by Colonel Colin Mackenzie, between the years 1796 and 1816. Many were translated into English, written out in some twenty folio volumes, and deposited in the library of the Asiatic Society at Calcutta. As far back as 1862–64, the author prepared an abstract of these manuscripts, and filled a thick folio of several hundred pages. The whole has been digested into the brief narrative printed as Appendix II. to the present volume. Small as it is, it contains nearly all that is valuable of modern Hindu history. After the rise of the British empire, more authentic details were procurable from English eye-witnesses ; and these will be brought forward in dealing with the history of the British Empire in India.

CHAP. VIII. or Rámáyana, and ascribe the origin of the dominion to the supernatural interposition of gods or Brahmans.

Antagonism between Brahmans and Jains.

antagoni-m in

Beneath this overgrowth of myth and fable, it is easy to perceive that one important fact pervades the whole, namely, the conflict between the Brahmans and the Jains; and this antagonism in various forms is still going on in the southern Peninsula. It is a conflict between theism and atheism, between gods and no gods. The Brahmans promulgated a religion which enforced the worship of the gods as the rulers of the universe, or they taught the higher doctrine of a Supreme Spirit, who ruled the universe and was the universe, the Supreme Soul who created and animated all existing things. The Jains, on the other hand, taught that the gods had no real existence; that even if they did exist they had no power or authority to override the inexorable destiny which governed the universe. They promulgated the dogma that the only divine existence which had any force or efficacy was goodness; that the only goal worth striving after was perfect goodness; that the only objects deserving of reverence and worship were those holy men who had become the incarnations of goodness on earth ; whose memories were to be embalmed in the hearts of all aspirants after perfect goodness; and who were to be worshipped as the only true manifestations of a divine life on earth, throughout an eternity of being.

Evidences of the The Jain denies that he is a Buddhist. The disthe Ramayana. tinction, however, between Jain and Buddhist is of little moment in dealing with religious developments. The religion of the Jains is the outcome of the same forms of thought as that of the Buddhists. It is a

rebellion against the worship of the gods, whether CHAP. VIII. considered separately, or resolved in one Supreme Being. This conflict finds expression in the Rámáyana; and it will be seen from the legends in the Appendix that this same conflict is stamped upon every myth and tradition that has been preserved of the religious history of Southern India from the remotest antiquity.

associated with

metempsychosis.

To apprehend aright the nature of this antagonism, Both religions it should be borne in mind that originally one dogma the dogma of the was common to both religions. The belief in the immortality of the soul through endless transmigrations was a fundamental article of faith in the Oriental world. But whilst the Brahmans taught that a higher scale of existence hereafter was to be attained by worship and austerities, the Buddhists and Jains taught that it was only to be attained by goodness, purity, and loving-kindness. Such religious ideas, however, could not always be in antagonism; they must often have mingled in the same stream. There were Brahmans who taught that goodness, purity, and loving-kindness in thought, word, and deed were as essential as the worship of the gods in fitting and preparing the soul for a higher life hereafter. In like manner there have been Jains who taught that so far as the gods were the manifestations or representatives of goodness, they were entitled to the reverence and worship of all good men.

Rávana as a Jain

The religious story of Ráma reveals the nature of Character of this early conflict between gods and no gods. The or Buddhist. conception of Rávana, king of the Rákshasas or devils, is that of a powerful sovereign, who originally worshipped the gods, and thereby conquered an empire. Subsequently, Rávana rebelled against the gods,

CHAP. VIII. oppressed them, and treated them as his slaves; in other words, he prohibited the worship of the gods and persecuted the worshippers. The suffering divinities appealed to the Supreme Spirit for succour ; first in the form of Brahma, and ultimately to Vishnu as greater than Brahma. The result was that Vishnu became incarnate as Ráma for the destruction of Rávana.

Antagonism expressed in Hindu

legends.

Modern Hindu annals.

In the Hindu legends now presented in the Appendix, there is a conflict between Saliváháná and Vikramaditya, which is a reflex of the same religious idea. The incarnations of Sankara Acharya and Basava Iswara were undertaken for a like object, namely, the suppression of the Jains. The historical relics of successive Hindu empires in the south reflect a like antagonism. The legends of the Belál empire of Karnata express both a conflict and a compromise between the two religions. The legend of the Telinga empire reveals something of a Brahmanical revival. The traditions of the empire of Vijayanagar are involved in some obscurity. The empire itself was associated with the worship of Vishnu, and the establishment of the Vaishnava religion in the room of Jains, and also of Linga-worshippers; but it was finally overthrown, not by any religious revolution within the Hindu pale, but by a confederacy of Muhammadan Sultans.

The fall of the empire of Vijayanagar was brought about by the battle of Talikota in 1565, being the ninth year of the reign of Akbar, the most distinguished of the Moghul sovereigns and the real founder of the Moghul dynasty. Vijayanagar was the last of the old Hindu empires, which have dawned upon the world at different periods from the fabled

era of the Malá Bhárata and Rámáyana.* Hence- CHAP. VIII. forth the Hindu provinces became independent kingdoms, and the Naiks, or deputies of the old Vijayanagar sovereigns, became independent kings or Rajas. The history is in like manner broken up into dynastic annals, corresponding to the number of petty Rajas, and bearing a general resemblance in matter and style.

Naiks of Madura.

The annals of the Naiks of Madura are summar- Annals of the ised in the Appendix,† partly because they are more full than those of any other southern kingdom, and partly because they are a fair specimen of the Hindu idea of history in modern and Brahmanical times. They exhibit something of the interminable details. which were compiled by family Brahmans, and passed off under the name of history. Every Raja of any note is praised in turn, but nothing whatever is said. of the condition of the people under their rule. deed, it will be seen that as histories they are beneath criticism; and that they betray in all directions that indifference to truth, which is the main characteristic of all Hindu annals that have hitherto been recovered.†

In

* Some might be inclined to regard the empire of the Mahrattas as the last of the old Hindu empires; but Sivaji was not a conqueror like Síláditya or Asoka, but a freebooter, who founded a principality and dominion on the basis of black-mail.

+ See Appendix II., sect. v.

The evidence of Roman Catholic Missionaries in Southern India at the latter end of the seventeenth century furnishes a real picture of the oppressions of Rajas and the exactions of their Brahman ministers. Some extracts are quoted by Mr. Nelson in his "Manual on Madura." Some realistic descriptions of the countries will be found in the following chapter, drawn from the works of travellers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.