The History of India from the Earliest Ages

the eminent men in the Moghul empire. The portraits were painted at a great charge by artists employed in the palace.

The memoirs of Manouchi fell into the hands of a Jesuit priest named Father Catrou. They do not appear to have been printed or published. In 1708 Father Catrou published at the Hague a history of the Moghul empire written in French; it was based on the memoirs of Manouchi. In 1826 an English translation of Father Catrou's history was published in London.

The history of Father Catrou has often been cited in the present work. It forms the very best authority for the history of the reign of Shah Jehan. Catrou's history of this period is in accord with that of Bernier. Catrou is far more successful than Bernier in bringing out the true character of the leaders in the great war which brought the reign of Shah Jehan to a close. Manouchi must have sent to Europe copies of the correspondence between the more prominent actors. Catrou quotes letters which reveal the inner nature and disposition of the writers. The substance is given in the sixth chapter of the present volume. They impart a dramatic character to the history.

· Father Catrou's history is incomplete. Manouchi wrote memoirs of Aurungzeb, the son and successor of Shah Jehan. Father Catrou closes his history with Shah Jehan, the father of Aurungzeb. He states in his preface that he had written a history of the reign of Aurungzeb based on Manouchi's memoirs; he promised to publish it if his history of the previous Moghul emperors found favour with the public. Neither the memoirs nor the history of Aurungzeb appear to have been published. Possibly the manuscripts

may have been preserved in some library down to our own. time. If so they would be a great boon to the historian. The reign of Aurungzeb is difficult and obscure. Manouchi would have been able to correct by his personal knowledge any bombast or exaggeration that might be recorded in the chronicles.

Under these circumstances the present volume has been brought to a close with the reign of Shah Jehan. Meanwhile the author would be glad of any information respecting the memoirs of the Moghul empire in India by Signor Manouchi, or the history of Aurungzeb by Father Catrou.

There is one other point to which attention may be drawn. It will be seen in the course of the present volume that the Moghuls bore a striking resemblance to the Vedic Aryans; that the Moghul empire in India between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries was probably only a repetition of what has been apparently going on in India through unrecorded ages; that the Moghul empire in India was only the last link in a chain of empires which began in the remotest antiquity. In other words, it will be seen that there is reason to believe that the Vedic Aryans were Moghuls; that Asoka and Akber sprang from the same stock as the worshippers of the Vedic gods.

The authorities for these conclusions are referred to in the course of the history; some extracts from those

The appendices, index, and maps will be published with the second part of this volume. At page 27 it is stated that Hindú history will be treated in "the fourth" chapter of the present volume; it should have been " a future" chapter. The Hindú history of the Peninsula will be dealt with in the forthcoming part of the present volume.

The name of Chitór has been wrongly accentuated in some of the earlier pages. It should be Chitór, not Chítor.

authorities are given in the notes. There is one important passage in the Travels of Father Rubruquis' which has been omitted; it is worthy of being extracted, and is accordingly given in the present place :

"When they (Tartars or Moghuls) meet to make merry, they sprinkle part of their drink upon the image which is over the master's head, and afterwards upon the other images in their order; then a servant goes out of the house with a cup full of drink, sprinkling it thrice towards the south, and bowing his knee every time; this is done in honour of Fire. He performs the same ceremony towards the east in honour of Air; then to the west in honour of Water; lastly to the north in honour of the Dead [i. e. of ghosts]. When the master holds a cup in his hand to drink, before he tastes he pours a part of it upon the ground; if he drinks sitting on horseback, he pours out part upon the neck or mane of the horse before he drinks."

Those who are familiar with Vedic conceptions will bably recognize them in the foregoing extract.

Rubruquis travelled through Tartary and visited the courts of the Moghul Khans in the thirteenth century of the Christian era. At that time the Moghuls carried on frequent wars against the Turks. The antagonism between Moghul and Turk prevailed at every period in history. It will be seen in the course of the present volume that it corresponded to the antagonism between the solar and lunar races, the children of the sun and the children of the moon, which has prevailed from the remotest antiquity. A golden sun, or a peacock, has ever been the emblem of the Persian, the

See pages 123 and 124 of the present volume.

Rajpoot, and the Moghul. The moon or crescent has ever been the emblem of the Turk. The antagonism between the two has outlived their common conversion to Islam; to this day it finds expression in the antagonism between Shíah and Sunní.5

In conclusion the author begs to express his best thanks to the Rev. William Baines for kind help in the translation of authorities in Portuguese, Spanish, and other European languages.

Witham, Essex,

18th December, 1875.

See page 277 of the present volume.

CONTENTS.

Indian Mussulmans

CHAPTER I.

ISLAM BEFORE THE CONQUEST OF INDIA. A.D. 570 TO 997.

Collision between Mussulmans and Hindús: its effects on

Effect on Hindús

PAGR