---

INDIA.
PART V.

the Sati by the

the unprotected state in which widows were left in a HISTORY OF
lawless age, and the harsh treatment they would
receive as mere dependants in the family, must have
driven many a distracted woman to enter the fire
and follow the soul of a loving husband. In a still Glorification of
later age, when the Satí became associated with the Brahmans.
Brahmanical religion, and was glorified as an act
which conferred lasting fame upon the wife, and
immortal happiness upon herself and her deceased,
it is not surprising that the rite should have be-
come general throughout India. In that terrible
hour which succeeds the death of a beloved hus-
band, when the reason is crazed with grief, and the
zenana is filled with weeping and wailing, it is easy
to understand that a widow would prefer a glorious
death before a thousand spectators, and immediate
re-union with a deceased husband, to a life of de-
gradation, in which every pleasure would be denied
her, and her very presence would be regarded as an
evil omen.

This era

of Hindú history

the Aryan con-
quest of Hindú-

Turning now from the patriarchal age, during 2nd. Heroic age which the Vedic Aryans were probably restricted to identified with the neighbourhood of Meerut and Delhi, it becomes stan necessary to glance at the period during which they descended the valleys of the Ganges and Jumná, and achieved the conquest of Hindústan. of Aryan conquest may be regarded as the heroic age of Hindú history, but it is almost a blank to the historical student. In Hebrew history the corresponding period of conquest is depicted with a fulness and truthfulness, which would alone suffice to perpetuate the story to the end of time. Indeed the Pictures of the books of Joshua and Judges comprise the only nished by authentic annals of heroic times, when a patriarchal

heroic age fur

Hebrew history.

INDIA.

PART V.

HISTORY OF form of government was modified by the rise of individual warriors, who conquered new territories, and ruled them with a strong arm, by the common consent of the people at large. In Greece the heroic age is obscured by legends, which have yet to be subjected to a tedious critical process before they can be expected to yield historical results. But in India Meagre relics of the case is even worse. The age of Aryan conquest

the heroic age

in India.

may have been one of convulsion and upheaval.

The valleys of the Ganges and Jumná may have rung with victories as memorable as those of Joshua, Barak, Gideon, Jephtha, and Samson. Old landmarks may have been destroyed, and a new religious faith superadded to the grosser superstitions of the aborigines. But scarcely a vestige or record of the conquest remains, beyond what philologists may elicit from a study and comparison of languages. Even the names of the men who fought the battles and subjugated the country from the Himálayas to the Vindhya mountains have passed away like the memory of the Shepherd Kings. There may have been old Kshatriya ballads which celebrated the establishment of Aryan empires at Delhi, Agra, Nursery fiction. Oude, and Bahar. If so, however, they have long been converted into nursery fictions, like the stories of the wars of Bhíma against the Usuras, or the stories of the wars of the four younger Pándavas in connection with the Aswamedha of Yudhishthira. Mythological Perhaps also they have been transmuted into obscure myths of wars between the Devatas and Daityas, the gods and demons; which may possibly be identified with the conflict between the fair-complexioned Aryans and the black-skinned aborigines; although in their present form they certainly seem to refer

wars.

INDIA.

jas reigning as

mount.

more frequently to the later antagonism between HISTORY OF the Brahmans and the Buddhists. Here and there PART V. in the Epics and Puránas glimpses may perhaps be Glimpses of Raobtained of Rajas who had conquered the surround- lords para a ing Rajas, and had thereby attained a certain supremacy as local suzerains. In this manner mention is made of Indra as a temporal sovereign; of Nahusha, Vena, Prithu, Manu, and others; and of a succession of lords paramount who were known as Indras. But these lists, as will be shown hereafter, are utterly untrustworthy. Some of the sovereigns are represented, in the inflated language of Oriental exaggerations, as conquerors of the earth, and rulers over all its continents and seas. Others are said to have conquered the three worlds, namely, earth, heaven, and the under-world. Meantime the reigns of the several rulers are extended over many thousands of years. It will, however, suffice to state here, that with the dubious exceptions noted, not a single relic has hitherto been recovered, which can be regarded as a veritable illustration of the old Aryan conquest of Hindústan.

respecting the

Two inferences, however, may be drawn from Two inferences existing data, which throw some light upon the heroic period. heroic period, namely:

1st, That the Aryan conquest of Hindústan was mainly carried out whilst the Bráhmans were employed as mere animal sacrificers, and before they had attained political power as a hierarchy.

2nd, That during the rise of Hindú suzerainties, the Brahmans may have occasionally struggled to assert their supremacy; but in so doing they met with considerable opposition from the Maharajas.

The rise of the Bráhmans as an ecclesiastical Aryan conquest

of Hindustan

INDIA.

PART V.

completed be

fore the rise of

ical hierarchy.

Extended employment of the Brahinaus as annual sacrificers in the heroic age.

HISTORY OF hierarchy was certainly subsequent to the Aryan conquest. When Nishadha, Ayodhya, and Mithila were already in existence as independent empires, the Brahman the Bráhmans are merely introduced as messengers and sacrificers; and every attempt to represent them as holding important posts in the government is palpably mythical. The early Rajas were their own priests, and marriage rites were performed not by a Bráhman, but by the father of the bride. Indeed it would appear that the heroic age of Hindú history was eminently an age of sacrifice. During the patriarchal period the assertion of proprietorship over cleared land was celebrated by a Rajasúya sacrifice; and the assertion of local suzerainty by an Aswamedha, or sacrifice of a horse; and it is easy to infer that the acquisition of large territories, and the establishment of substantive empires, would be accompanied by vast holocausts, at which cattle would be slain by hundreds and thousands, and the banquet would be truly national and imperial. It is probable that under such circumstances the mystic sacrificial ritual laid down in the Aitareya Brahmanam was gradually moulded into formal shape; whilst the extensive employment of Bráh. mans at such sacrifices may have originated the caste idea, with which it was undoubtedly associated, that no food was so pure as that which was cooked by a Bráliman.

Early antagonism of the

Maharajas.

During the rise of Hindú suzerainties the BráhBrahmans to the mans seem to have been occasionally in antagonism to the Maharajas. In the myths of successive Indras and other lords paramount, to which reference has already been made, one single idea predominates throughout, which indicates either their Bralı

INDIA. PART V.

manical origin, or the extent to which they have HISTORY OF been manipulated by the Brahmanical compilers. If a Maharaja treated Bráhmans with respect, and adhered strictly to Brahmanical law, his empire was described as prosperous, and his reign as glorious. If, on the contrary, a Maháraja was disrespectful to the Brahmans, and gratified his passions without regard to Brahmanical law, which appears to have been the case with Raja Vena; then, according to the myth, he was deprived of his Raj, and condemned to exile or destruction. The same idea finds full expression in the Institutes of Manu, where certain Rajas are specified as having been utterly ruined because they had not learned virtuous humility from the Bráhmans; in other words, who had not shown that deference to an arrogant priesthood, which was claimed by the Brahmanical hierarchy.

racter of the

myths shown by reference to the

myth of

and Nahusha.

The worthless character of these myths, beyond Worthless chaperhaps indicating an early opposition between the mythological Brahmans and the Maharajas, may be further proved by a reference to the myths respecting Indra. Here it should be remarked that the name of Indra is sometimes applied to deity, sometimes to sovereignty, sometimes to a mortal hero, and possibly on some occasions it may be the eponym of the Aryan race. In the myths, however, his deity is recognized, but serious charges of impiety are brought against him. In a legend already quoted he is said to have seduced the wife of a pious sage; and in the Vishnu Purána he is represented as having treated with disrespect a flower which had been