A literary history of India

A literary history of IndiaA LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA. By R. W. Frazer, LL.B.
A LITERARY HISTORY OF IRELAND. By Douglas
Hyde, LL.D.
Millar, LL.B.
A LITERARY HISTORY OF PERSIA. By Edward G. Browne, M.A. (In Two Volumes.)
A LITERARY HISTORY OF THE ARABS. By Reynold A. Nicholson, M.A.
A LITERARY HISTORY OF FRANCE. By Emile Faguet.
Other Volumes in Preparation.
A LITERARY HISTORY OF ROME. By J. Wight Duff, M.A.
A LITERARY HISTORY OF THE JEWS. By Israel
Abrahams, M.A.
maurice-Kelly.
etc". etc. etc.
A Literary History
R W. Frazer, LL.B.
Ud»nr in Ulugn and Tamil at UnirenUy Celine, and ike Imperial Instttutei
Member of Council, Royal Asiatic Society ; Secrdtny and Principml
Librarian, Loftdon Institution,
and
SICOSD lUPRESSICS
Second „ 1907
Copyright by T. Fisher Unwitty 1897, for Great Britain and the
United States of America
PREFACE
In essaying to set forth a connected history of India from
such evidences as I have selected from its literature, I have
been obliged to evade, and not to emphasise, difficulties
everywhere patent to the scholar or specialist. In most
cases, however, I have accepted the conclusions of those
who are recognised authorities. In those cases where
scholars still disagree I have indicated in footnotes the
evidences on which I had to form conclusions of my own.
On many points, especially those relating to the signi-
ficance of the early, sacrificial systems, to the origin and
purport of the Epics, and to the Graeco-Roman influence
on the form of the Indian Drama, it was manifestly im-
possible, in a work such as this, to enter on any prolonged
discussion.
The main outlines of the history are never likely to be
materially affected by future decisions on these debatable
points.
274102
the darker aboriginal inhabitants, forms the starting-point.
Of these Aryans, the only literary record we possess is that
preserved in the Vedic Hymns, for it does not seem
probable that an unaided Science of Philology will ever
throw much light on their past history or religious beliefs.
The early course of these invading tribes can be traced as
they forced their way among the aborigines, and made
their settlements in the most favoured river tracts north of
the Vindhya range of mountains. The vast area over
which the tribes, whose members can never have been very
numerous, spread themselves prevented them from forming
a united and compact nationality of their own among the
ruder aboriginal races. The tribal deities lost their im-
portance and failed to coalesce into the ideal of one
national God.
significance the idea was evolved of a Brahman, or self-
existent Cause or Force, underlying the Universe. The
nature of this Brahman was ultimately declared to be
Unknowable to reason, but to have been revealed in the
sacred Vedic literature to the Brahmans, or descendants of
the early poet-priests who composed the hymns, prayers,
or incantations to their tribal deities.
The first hope that Aryans and aborigines might become
infused with a common ideal and faith dawned with the
personality and teachings of the Buddha at a time when the
PREFACE xi
full strength of Aryan intellectual vigour was about to cul-
minate in phases of thought which gave rise to the schools
of formulated philosophic reasoning. I have endeavoured
to trace the political effects of these forces, and to indicate
the causes which prevented the great civilising power
of early Aryanism in India from saving the people from
divisions and dissensions, which left them an easy prey to
foreign invaders. The divisions of the people were stereo-
typed by a system of caste originally based on racial and
intellectual differences. The intrusion of Scythian, Persian,
Arab, Afghan, and Mughal hordes but increased the
diversity of the factors into which the community was
divided. The primary forces which prevented even an
Akbar from implanting vital principles of union among the people were religious fanaticism, class distinctions,
and race hatred. While these forces still exist, the in-
troduction of printing into India, and the higher education
of the natives through the medium of English, are im-
planting new modes of thought and new principles ot
action among the class which claims to represent public
opinion. The orthodox Brahmans, and the high-caste
natives of the old conservative school, however, remain
hostile to all innovations, determined to maintain the
fundamental doctrines of their religion, and preserve the
best of their ancient social customs. On the other hand,
the more advanced natives of the new school, whose
trend of thought is, for the most part, towards agnosticism
xii PREFACE
and freedom from all caste and social restraints, strive
more and more to assume the position of leaders of the
people and exponents of their views. The position is
one produced by the deliberate and consistent policy of
education in India. The stage is a stage of transition
and unrest but happily for India it seems to be fraught
with fewer elements of danger than the stage through
which the nations of the West seem destined to
pass.
has been of great difficulty. Cerebrals and nasals are
unmarked, as the omission will not confuse any one
acquainted with Eastern languages, and my experience,
after many years teaching of Sanskrit, Tamil, and Telugu,
is that it is impossible for any one unfamiliar with the
sound of the languages as spoken in India to acquire
even an approximate pronunciation of these letters.
I regret that it is impossible for me fully to acknow-
ledge my indebtedness to the many works I have
consulted. To the delegates of the Clarendon Press I
am especially indebted for permission to quote from the
Series of the " Sacred Books of the East "—a monumental
undertaking full of evidence of the scholarship, untiring
industry and wide sympathies in all matters connected
with the East of Professor The Right Honourable F.
Max Miiller.
To the Rev. Dr Pope, the Oxford Professor of Tamil,
PREFACE xiii
original translations at my disposal, and I trust that I
have not too freely availed myself of his permission to
quote from them. To the Editor of the Series in which
this history appears I owe much for valuable suggestions
and literary criticism, all of which I have most gladly
accepted. To Miss C. M. Duff I am grateful for having
kindly allowed me to peruse the proof sheets of her forth-
coming "Chronology of India." Had I seen her work
earlier I should have been spared several months of un-
congenial labour in preparing a chronological framework
for the present history.
III. The Early Bards ..... 17
IV. The Twilight of the Older and the Dawn OF Newer Deities .... 40
V. Brahmanism ...... 63
VII. Buddhism . . . . .114 VIII. The Power of the Brahmans . . 148
IX. The Final Resting-Place of Aryan Thought 188
X. The Epics ...... 210
XI. The Attack ...... 242
XII. The Drama ...... 263
XIII. South India ..... 300
XIV. The Foreigner in the Land . .332 XV. The Fusing Point of Old and New . 384
FRONTlSPi£CE.~From " Manners in i^n^al/' by Mrs Belnos.
LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA
CHAPTER I.
THE ARYANS.
No invasion of India is feasible in the present day save by a maritime nation holding the supremacy of the seas, or by a force advancing from Central Asia with strength sufficient
to break its way through the defences on the west and
north-west frontiers. From Chitral in the extreme north,
where the Ikshkamun and Baroghil Passes show the way across the Hindu Kush to the lonely heights of the Pamirs,
southwards to where the Khaibar Pass gives access to
Kabul, the Gumal and Tochi Passes lead to Ghazni, and
the Bolan still further south to Quetta and Chaman, on to
the seaport town of Karachi in Sind, a distance of I2CX)
miles, the whole north-west and west frontiers are held
by British troops, backed by defensive entrenchments and
batteries, prepared to meet the first advancing armies that
venture to tread the historic paths of old that so often led
the nomad hosts of Central Asia to the conquest of India.
From time immemorial, bands of warlike invaders have
swarmed down from beyond these barrier passes to conquer the effete inhabitants of the fertile river -
valleys of the
plains of India, only themselves in turn to fall subdued
A
by the enervating influence of the climate, and be swept
away by succeeding bands of hardier invading races.
When the history of India first dawns in literature, it is
through these same bleak mountain passes that tribes
of warrior heroes, bred in cold and northern climes, are
seen slowly advancing to seek new homes beneath the
warm and southern sun. Proud in their conquering might,
these tribes called themselves Arya, or " Noble," a term
denoting the contempt they felt for the dark-skinned races
they found in possession of the land. Full four thousand
years ago, these first historic invaders of India must have
stood gazing, in wonder and amazement, from the lofty
heights of some one of these northern passes, on the rich
valleys lying smiling at their feet. To their gods they
sang their songs of thanksgiving that at length their weary
journey from colder realms was at an end, and that victory
had been given them over their foes, who lurked amid the
mountain forests, and opposed their progress with fierce
cries and rude weapons. These invading tribes were a
fair-skinned race ^ with whom all Brahmans and twice-born
higher castes of India now claim kindred,^ holding them-
selves aloof from the darker-skinned descendants of the
aboriginal inhabitants. The birthright of the Brahmans
of India is to keep preserved in their memories the early
hymns sung by their Aryan forefathers. These hymns— every stress and accent marked as in days long past, every
syllable and word intoned according to ancient usage,
^ " A tall fair-complexioned dolichocephalic and presumedly lepterhine race."
— Risley, "Study of Ethnology in India," p. 2^^', Journal Anthropological
**
Aryan," with reference to
modern India, it merely refers to those people who speak Aryan languages, no suggestion being made that these people are necessarily of Aryan descent.
As clearly stated by Max Miiller, in a letter to Mr Risley ("Biographies of
Words," p. 245): "Aryas are those who speak Aryan language, whatever
their colour, whatever their language. In calling them Aryas, we predict nothing of them except that the grammar of their language is Aryan."
THE ARYANS 3
remain the sacred treasure of their hereditary custodians,
so that the utterances of the early Aryan invaders of India
live to-day as clear and distinct as when first sung by the
Vedic poets. These treasured verses, as collected together
in the 1028 hymns, known as the " Hymns of the Rig Veda,"
are all that are left to enable us of to-day to pierce the mists
of the long past history of India. To all orthodox Hindus,
they are held as having been breathed forth as a divine
revelation from before all time. The reducing of them to
writing, and even the hearing of their recitation by foreigners,
or by any but the twice-born castes, is still looked upon as
sacrilege and profanation by those who claim the sole right
to hear their sacred sound.
The first of a long line of priestly legislators who strove
to reduce all the laws and customs of the people of India
to ideals founded on priestly ordinances declared ^ that a
Sudra, or one of non-Aryan blood, who dared to listen to
the recitation of the Vedic Hymns, should have his ears
filled with molten tin or lac ; should the Sudra repeat the
words he had heard, his tongue should be cut out ; should
he remember the sound, his body should be split in twain.
These Hymns, though they are still held as revelations
from the Creator of the universe, tell nothing of the long,
dark night that preceded the advent of these Aryan tribes,
who loom so indistinct on the horizon of the literary history of India.
To the Vedic bards, standing as they did on the threshold
of a new world, the story of their nation's past faded into in-
significance before the brightness of its present. Enthroned
in the pride of race, the poet sang of the might of his
people, of his own power to win, by the magic of his words
and cunning of his spells, the favour of the gods, so that
they might lead the Aryan tribes to victory. For him the
hand of time passed by unnoticed. To have told of the
> "Gautama," chap xii. 4-6, S.B.E. vol. ii.
4 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA
past in the intoxicated fervour of his imagination, as he
alone could have done it, would have dimmed the glory
of the present. The time had not come when his mind,
grown full of halting fears, would brood in misgivings over
the future. Yet, strange to say, the very words over which
the poets lingered in syllables of soft cadence, or which
came rushing from their lips with the sound of the heavy roll of war chariots, held the secret, not only of their own,
but of many other people's past.
The torch of learning, set aglow by the first Aryan invaders of India, was kept for long alight by an hereditary
line of Brahman priests, poets, and philosophers, who
ministered, sang, and reasoned far and wide—from the
holy land of Aryavarta, to the distant seminaries in the
South ; from the Buddhist monasteries in the West, to the
renowned schools of logic in the East. Fresh conquerors
appeared in the land, but still the Brahmans kept on their
even way. At length the advancing wave of a Western
civilisation, founded on new ideals, crept up the banks
of the sacred rivers of India, and spread all over the land.
In the eager race for wealth that ensued on the entry of
these new invaders, the whole foundations on which the
fantastic structure of the religious and social life of India
was based remained unnoticed, as though Vedic song had
never been sung in the land, and Brahman had never
existed.
The first to take note of the ancient learning of the land
was the English Governor-General Warren Hastings, who summoned eleven Brahmans to Calcutta, there to compile for their new rulers a code of Hindu religions and customs.^
The reasons set forth by the Governor-General for thus
desiring to ascertain somewhat of the laws of the Brahmans
^ The first published translation from Sanskrit into any European language * was * '
Bhartrihari's ^atakas," by Abraham Roger, first Dutch chaplain at
Pulicat (1631-1641), Grierson, " Satsaiya of Bihari," p. 2.
THE ARYANS 5
was, that "the Hindus had for long fallen under the
Muhammadan rule, so that terror and confusion had
found a way to all the People, and Justice was not
impartially administered." ^ The work compiled by these
eleven Brahmans reached England in the year 1776, but
still the Sanskrit on which it had been founded held its
secret safe. Nine years later (1785) a young merchant,
J. Wilkins, sent forth his translation of the Indian Song of
Songs, the " Bhagavadglta," and two years later (1787), the
collection of Hindu stories, known as the " Hitopadesa," the
original source of the famed fables of Bidpai. Yet the
West woke not up to the fact that India possessed aught of more value than bales of calico, rich spices, and gems. Two years later, a drama of Kalidasa, the Shakespeare of ,
India, was given to the West by Sir William Jones. This
drama, the now well-known " Sakuntala," showed that India
possessed a literature. To Kalidasa Alexander von
Humboldt allotted "a lofty place among the poets of all
ages," and of the drama itself Goethe sang in raptures in
his well-known lines : —
** Willst du die Bliithc dcs friihcn, die Friichte des spateren Jahres,
Willst du was reizt und entzuckt, willst du was sattigt und nahrt,
Willst du den Himmel die Erde, mit einem Namen begreifen ;
Nenn' ich Sakuntald dich und so ist alles gesagt."
The attention, not only of men of taste but also of
scholars,* was naturally attracted to these works, and
efforts were made in Europe to study and master the
Sanskrit in which they were composed. So far an interest— an interest of curiosity
—was aroused in the literature of
India, but no expectations were entertained that the West had anything further to learn from the lore of the East I
* Halhed's Introduction to *'The Code of Gentoo Laws" (London, 1776). * F. Schlegel (1808),
" Upon the Language and Wisdom of the Hindus,"
where he derives the Indo-Germanic family from India. \
6 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA
Soon, however, it came to light^ that India not only possessed a sacred literature, that of the Vedic Hymns, but that the
Sanskrit of these hymns was of a primitive and archaic
type, preserving in structure and grammatical forms
affinities with the Aryan languages of Europe. At once
the belief arose that this Vedic Sanskrit was the primitive
language of humanity,2 and the old belief that the East
was the cradle of the human race gained new strength.
It was fondly hoped that the Brahmans of India had
preserved the parent speech, out from which had grown the Greek, Latin, Iranian, Celtic, Lettic, Teutonic, and
Slavonic languages. Soon these hopes were doomed to
disappointment. Sanskrit was found to be but one branch
of the great Indo-European family of languages, and not
even as such to have preserved a structure which can be
considered more primitive than that of the other known
branches.^
The plea for India as the lost home of primitive man died away, and in its place the belief* that the nations of
Europe had migrated in early days from the Bactrian plains
of Central Asia, was held as a fundamental axiom in all en-
quiries into the origin of the Indo-European races. Even the
routes by which these early people spread from their Asiatic
home towards Europe were clearly traced out,^ and acknow-
ledged as correct. The ablest scholars^ accepted this Asiatic
1 F. Rosen {1838), "Rig Veda, Sanhita Sanskrite et Latine." 2 Weber,
" Modern Investigations on Ancient India "
(1857). ^ "Although no historic conclusions may be drawn from the primitiveness
of Sanskrit, that primitiveness itself remains the same as ever."—Max IMliller,
"Biographies of Words," p. 99.
"Of all the existing tongues of the whole great family, the Lithuanian or
the Baltic retains by far the most antique aspect." —Whitney, "Language,
and the Study of Language," p. 203. * Grimm, "Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache," pp. 113-122. ^ Pictet,
" Origines Europeennes," 1859,
THE ARYANS 7
theory, while Sayce^ agreed that "it is in the highlands
of Middle Asia, between the sources of the Oxus and
Jaxartes," that the first traces of the Aryan languages
appear in history.
The most pathetic instance of the unrelenting vindictive-
ness meted out by orthodoxy to originality, is to be seen
in the ridicule showered on Dr Latham, when he ventured ^
upon the enunciation of a new suggestion, that the original
home of the Aryans might be sought in Europe rather than
in Asia.* Various theories followed in rapid succession. It
was not long before grounds were found for locating the
primitive Aryans somewhere to the north* of the Black
Sea, from the Danube to the Caspian, while again on further
investigation, the home was shifted to Central and West
Germany.* The habitat was then removed to the whole…