A Popular History of British India, commercial intercourse with China, and the insular possessions of England in the Eastern Seas

Front matter

A POPULAR HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA A POPULAR HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA COMMERCIAL INTERCOURSE WITH CHINA, AND THE INSULAR POSSESSIONS OF ENGLAND IN THE EASTERN SEAS By W. COOKE TAYLOR, LL.D., &c, OF TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN ; AUTHOR OP "THE MANUAL OF ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY, " THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SOCIETY," " ROMANTIC BIOGRAPHY OF THE AGE OF ELIZABETH," &C. &C. LONDON: JAMES MADDEN & Co 8, LEADENHALL STREET. MDCCCXLII. LONDON : Printed by Edward Brewsteb, Hand Codrt; XFowgate. TO Sir CHARLES FORBES, Bart. THE HONOURED FRIEND OF INDIA AND HER PEOPLE, THIS WORK IS BY HIS KIND PERMISSION MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY HIS GRATEFUL AND OBLIGED SERVANTS, THE PUBLISHERS. October, 1842.

Preface

. The object of this compilation is sufficiently explained by the title; India has now become so important to England^ that a convenient manual of its History must be desirable, if not necessary, to all who take an interest in the prosperity of their country. It has been the Author's aim to give a simple narrative of facts, derived from the best authorities, without introducing any opi nions of his own, but leaving his Readers to form their own reflections and deduce their own conclusions. So much confusion exists in oriental orthography, that it would seem as if the sarcasm on philology, might be applied to most attempts made to represent European names by Eastern characters, " the vowels count for nothing and the consonants for very little ;" under such circumstances it would be entirely absurd to affect a rigid purity.

The system of Sir William Jones has been adopted, as that which most scholars have recognized as nearest to perfection, but it was impossible to adhere to it strictly, because familiarity and usage with other forms of spelling, have rendered other representations of the names both of persons and things too firmly established to be easily altered. It is probable that this necessity of conceding to popular usage, may have led to some inconsistencies in the orthography used in this Work, but it is believed that there are none of any amount to create difficulty to the reader. vm

PREFACE.

. An account of British intercourse with China has been subjoined, because that trade was, until lately, connected with the government of India, and must continue to exercise a great influence on the Asiatic relations of this country ; but it was not deemed prudent to attempt even an abridged history of the Celestial Empire, as this would have inconveniently increased the size and price of the volume. For the same reason, the notices of the British empire in the East have been made as brief as perspicuity would allow. It is intended in the successive editions of this Work, to bring down the history of the Indian Empire to the latest period. In such a mass of foreign names and varied dates, some typographical errors could hardly be avoided. Should any such be found, the Reader is requested to send a note of them, or any other deficiencies, to the Publisher. London, Oct. 1842. A POPULAR HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA.

Chapter I. Early History Of Hindustan

Both in ancient and modern time, historians have heen unani mous in regarding the Hindus as one of the earliest, if not the first, civilized nations of the world. Few nations, however, possessing such a claim are more deficient in authentic records of antiquity ; instead of histories they possess only vague traditions exaggerated by the imagination of their poets, and monumental remains, which attest, indeed, by their stupendous size, the greatness of their founders, but aflbrd no means of ascertaining the time when their builders existed. Independent of foreign accounts, the chief authorities for the early history of Hindustan, are the eighteen Puranas and the two great epic poems called the Ramayana and Mahabharat. These contain, in their form, decisive evidence of their traditionary origin ; nearly all of them are described as repeated by some person who had heard the story from another, and the truths they contain are involved in such a mass of fable, that it is difficult to determine what statements should be received as realities.

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries of our era some histories of Kashmir were written, which throw some light on the antiquities of India ; and more B accurate information respecting the state of the country during the three centuries preceding the Christian era, may be obtained from the Greek writers, who obtained some knowledge of these distant regions in consequence of the conquests of Alexander. The Hindus appear originally to have possessed only a small portion of India, the country between the rivers Seravoty and Kaggar, which is a tract about 100 miles to the north-west of Delhi, about seventy-five miles in length, and from twenty to forty in breadth. The rest of the peninsula was covered with forests, and tenanted by Mlechas, or barbarians, speaking a rude lan guage. They very soon extended themselves, so that the ancient country of the Hindus may be said to have included the present provinces of Lahore, Delhi, Agra, Oude and Allahabad.

Ayodha, or Oude, appears to have been the first capital of the nation ; it was the birth-place of the two principal families, called the dynasties of the Sun and Moon, both of which are said to have issued originally from Brahma (the Supreme Being, according to the mythology of the Hindus) through his sons, the patriarchs Daksha and Atri. Vaivaswat (the sun) had Daksha for his father, and Soma (the moon) was the child of Atri. The first prince of the family of the sun, was named Ikshwaku. He had several sons, one hundred according to the legend, who established themselves in different places ; but the direct line resided at Ayudha, or Oude, in which Ikshwaku was succeeded by his grandson, named Kakutstha. From fifty to seventy gene rations of the solar race followed, distinguished only by legends, purely mythological, from each other.

After these we come to the most celebrated hero of the solar line, Rama, the son of Damarantha, whose marvellous exploits and adventures form the subject of one of the great epic poems, the Ramayama. Stripped of its fabulous and romantic decorations, his story merely relates that Rama established a powerful kingdom in Hindustan, that he invaded the Dekkan, and conquered the island of Ceylon. But on this simple basis the Hindu poets have erected a structure of adventure, so wildly supernatural that it is almost without a parallel in the whole range of fiction. A brief abstract of the poem will serve to show the nature of the legends which the Hindus have substituted for history, and also help to illustrate the nature both of the mythology and literature of this singular people. Dasaratha, king of Oude, would have been the most fortunate of monarchs had he not long been childless.

By the advice of the Brahmins he determined to propitiate the benevolent deities by the sacrifice of a horse, the most solemn of the religious ceremonies used by the Hindus, and one which requires the labour of years to be bestowed on its preparation. Princes and Brahmins were invited to attend this important rite from afar, and its complete success ensured Dasaratha the blessing of male children. The Devas and heavenly sages who had assisted at the sacrifice, proceeded to the mansion of Brahma, the chief of the Hindu gods, and informed him that the benevolent deities were worsted by certain evil genii, called Rakshasas, commanded by prince Ravanas, and that the good spirits were unable to make a successful resistance, having bound themselves by a promise to render their adversaries invulnerable.

The god Vishnu " the illustrious lord of the universe," arrived during the discussion ; he was " clad in vestments of yellow, ornamented with golden bracelets and riding on the eagle Vainataya, like the sun on a cloud, and holding his discus and mace in his hand." At the request of the deities, Vishnu consented to become incarnate in the persons of four sons of Daranatha ; and, as notwithstanding these incarnations he still retained his dignity and station in heaven, the Indian fable ascribes to Vishnu five separate exist ences at the same time. Rama is born, and on the demand of Vishnu, is furnished with an army of supernatural monkeys to aid him in the approaching war. When Rama and his brothers had attained a marriageable age, a sage named Visva Mitra appeared at the court of Daranatha, and obtained from the king a promise of whatever boon he de sired.

He had made a solemn vow of offering a particular sacri fice, but had hitherto been prevented by the opposition of the Rakshasas from performing the ceremony in a manner accepta ble to the deities ; he, therefore, implored Daranatha to give him the aid of his gallant son, Rama, against those impious demons. The aged monarch was unwilling to expose his beloved son in so perilous a war ; Visva Mitra severely upbraided him for breach of promise, and " at the wrath of the sage the earth trembled, and fear seized even the gods." Daranatha yielded ; Rama and his brothers set forth for the war, and "at their departure a shower of odorous flowers signified the approbation of heaven, b EARLY HISTORY OF HINDUSTAN. and the celestial inhabitants themselves celebrated the event with songs of joy." In the course of the expedition Visva Mitra instructed Rama in the history and nature of every important object they passed ; he also presented him with a suit of celestial armour, even more valuable than that which Thetis brought to Achilles, for each separate piece came without hands when summoned by its master, and was even able to enter into conversa tion with the hero.

Having slain the sorceress Taraka, Rama, his brothers and the sage, traverse the countries bordering on the Ganges, and at length reach the palace of a king Darned Janaka, who possessed an enormous bow which no person had yet been able to bend. Janaka received the sage, Visva Mitra, with all the veneration which royalty itself was bound to show to so illustrious a Brahmin. At the sage's request he permitted Rama to essay the bending of the bow, a feat which the king had promised to reward with the hand of his lovely daughter Sita. It required the labour of eight hundred men to draw the carriage which contained the ponderous bow. Rama, notwithstanding, grasped it with one hand, and not only drew it, but broke it in the middle " with an astounding noise like the crash of a falling mountain."

Janaka at once consented that Sita should become the bride of the successful hero, and that Rama's three brothers should also be provided with wives. Dasaratha was invited to witness the splendid ceremonials of the marriage ; he came with a large train, and when the nuptials were over, he brought Rama back to Ayodha, and associated him with himself in the government of the kino-dom. Kaikeyi, one of the wives of Daranatha, was anxious that her son, Bharata, should succeed to the throne; and to effect this object, she excited such suspicion of Rama in the mind of the king, that he doomed his gallant son to an exile of fifteen years. Rama, followed by his wife Sita, and his brother Lakshman, departed from Ayodha and retired into a forest, where he lived a life of penance. The grief of the father, when he discovered his error, which brought down his grey hairs with sor row to the grave, is thus powerfully pourtrayed in a passage very faithfully translated by Millman.

" My eye no more my Rama sees— and grief o'erbrims my spirit's sink As the swol'n stream sweeps down the trees that grow upon the crumbling brink. Oh, felt I Rama's touch, or spake one word his home-returning voice, Again to life should I awake, as quaffing nectar-draughts rejoice. But what so sad could e'er have been, celestial partner of my heart, Than Rama's beauteous face unseen, from life untimely to depart! His exile in the forest o'er, him home return'd to Oude's high town, Oh, happy those that see once more, like Indra from the sky come down. No mortal men, but gods I deem, moonlike, before whose wondering sight, My Rama's glorious face shall beam, from the dark forest bursting bright. Happy that gaze on Rama's face, with beauteous teeth and smile of love ; Like the blue lotus in its grace, and like the starry king above.

Like to the full autumnal moon, and like the lotus in its bloom, That youth who sees returning soon, how blest shall be that mortal's doom !" Dwelling on that sweet memory, on his last bed the monarch lay, And slowly, softly seemed to die, as fades the moon at dawn away. " Ah, Rama ! Ah, my son !" thus said, or scarcely said the king of men ; His gentle hapless spirit fled, in sorrow for his Rama then. The shepherd of his people old, at midnight on his bed of death, The tale of his son's exile told, and breath'd away his dying breath. After the death of Daranatha his council proffered the vacant throne to Bharata, but he refused to accept it, declaring that he would not usurp the rights of his elder brother. The sages and Brahmins then resolved that Bharata should go in search of his brother; and he, after having settled a regency, departed on the quest.

After several wondrous adventures, Bharata reached the forest where Rama and Sita lived in the disguise of penitents. He informed the hero of Daranatha's death, and begged of him to return home and assume the reins of government. Rama steadily refused to comply until his fifteen years of penance should be completed ; but to prevent the kingdom from falling into anarchy, he surrendered to Bharata the royal insignia, to wit, the golden slipper and the white umbrella, promising to resume them when his allotted term of penitence should be ex pired. Bharata, in consequence, returned to Ayodha and admi nistered the kingdom in the name of his brother, while Rama, with his wife and brother, continued their penance in the woods. In the meantime, Ravana, the prince of those impious dæmons the Rakshasas, having accidentally seen the beautiful Lita, fell violently in love with her ; by stratagem and force he succeeded in bearing her off to his city of Lanka, situated in an island of the same name, where he kept her in strict seclusion.

Rama, disconsolate for the loss of his lovely spouse, entered into an alliance with Hanuman, the chief of the supernatural monkeys, EARLY HISTORY OF HINDUSTAN. and engaged him to go in search of Sita. .After many vexatious delays and disappointments, Hanuman obtained an interview with the object of his search at Lanka, and after having delivered to her a consoling message from her husband, hasted to rejoin him. Rama and his allies immediately resolved to attack Lanka ; they constructed a wondrous bridge across the sea, over which the allied armies of men, angels and monkeys, marched to the siege of the fortress. Fearful were the battles which took place round the city of the dæmons. Earth, water and air, were equally the theatre of engagement, and heaven itself was alarmed by the furious struggle.

Rama and Ravana encountered each other in their war-chariots ; so furious was the shock of their meeting that the earth trembled for seven days, but at length the prince of the Rakshasas was overthrown, and the gates of his city stormed. Rama and Hanuman made a triumphal entry into Lanka, but the hero after having delivered Sita began to express doubts of her fidelity, and she had to prove her innocence by submitting to the ordeal of fire. Heaven united with earth in the rejoicings occasioned by the establishment of the purity of the princess. Brahma and the other deities descended from heaven to bestow their benediction on her re-union with Rama. The whole party then returned to Ayodha, but Rama, instead of assuming his regal station, resigned the sceptre to his brother Lakshman, and ascended to heaven, his real abode.

After Rama, sixty princes of the same race are said to have ruled in succession over his dominions, none of whom attained any great celebrity. It seems probable that Ayodha ceased to be the capital, and that the seat of government was transferred to Canouj. Another line of the solar kings descended from Nimi, the son of Ikshwaku, by whom the state of Mithila was founded. In this family Janaka was born, the father of Lita, the wife of Rama, and his companion in exile and penitence. The first prince of the lunar dynasty was Pururavas, the son of Buddha, the son of the moon. His capital was Pratisthana, at the confluence of the Ganges and Jumna. According to the legends, he obtained in marriage Urvasi, one of the Apsaras or nymphs of heaven, whose celestial charms were without a parallel. Unfortunately, the king violated the conditions on which alone this unequal union was permitted ; his beloved Urvasi was taken from him ; and he felt the loss so severely that he was deprived of reason.

After many years had elapsed, he discovered her sport ing on the banks of a lake, and implored her to return ; the nymph refused, but at the same time promised to pay him an annual visit. The fruits of their union were six sons, of whom Ayus, the elder, succeeded to the throne. Pururavas was not satisfied with occasional visits from his celestial bride, he sighed for the permanent enjoyment of her society. Some deities pity ing his distress, directed him to perform a sacrifice in a forest, to attain the gratification of his wishes. Fire was wanting to per form this sacred rite, but the king by rubbing two branches of trees together, and reciting over them the holiest verse of the Vedas, generated a flame which enabled him to perform the necessary sacrifice. When this was done he was elevated to the rank of a demi-god, and permitted to enjoy the constant society of his Urvasi in the celestial regions.

From this legend it may be concluded that Pururavas was the first who introduced the worship of fire into India, and there are some other traditions which indicate his being the author of some important innova tions in the Hindu ritual. Ayus had two sons, Nahusha, who succeeded him, and Kahe travriddha, who established a separate principality at Kasi or Benares ; his grandson, Saunaka, is said to have established the distinction of castes, for in the age of purity all Hindus were equal. Nahusha was succeeded by Yayati, who had five sons. Ac cording to the Puranic legend he married the daughter of an eminent saint, to whom he proved unfaithful. The queen com plained to her father, and he inflicted on Yayati the curse of pre mature decay, with permission, however, to transfer his infirmi ties to any one who was willing to give him youth and strength in exchange.

The king applied to his sons, all of whom refused, except Puru, the youngest. After a brief enjoyment of his renovated constitution, the king restored his youth to Puru, and resumed his own former decrepitude. He made this affec tionate son paramount over his elder brothers, each of whom, however, was appointed kings of circles or districts. By their descendants the greater part of southern and western India was colonized, and civilization introduced among the barbarous inhabitants. Puru continued to reside at Pratisthana, and was the ancestor of several celebrated princes, amongst whom Bharata, the son of Dushyanta, exercised such extensive power that India is some times called after his name, Bharata Versha, or the country of Bharata. After about twenty descents from Puru, the crown devolved on Hastin, who removed the capital farther north, to a city which he erected on the banks of the Ganges, and called after his own name, Hastinapur.

After having long flourished, the city was finally ruined by the encroachments of the river, but vestiges of its remains may still be discovered. Four descents after Hastin brought the crown to Kuru, " who gave his name to the holy district Kurukshetra," north-west of his capital, an appellation which is still retained. It seems probable that at this time the lunar race had been forced backwards towards the north, by the increasing power of the kingdom of Oude, under Rama and his descendants. Vichitravirya, the fourteenth in descent from Kuru, died with out issue, but his half-brother, Vyasa, married the widow, by whom he had two sons, Pandu and Dhritarashtra. Vyasa is celebrated for having collected the hymns and prayers which constitute the Vedas, or sacred books of the Hindus, and for having arranged them under their present divisions ; he also established a school in which they were taught, and the Puranas are sometimes, but erroneously, ascribed to his disciples.

He is further described as the original narrator of the Mahabharat, the second great Hindu epic. When his sons attained maturity, Vyasa resigned the government ; Pandu retired to the Himalaya mountains, where he had five sons ; Dhritarashtra remained in possession of the kingdom, and had a hundred sons, of whom Duryodhan was the eldest. The Pandavas, or sons of Pandu, came from the mountains to claim a share of their father's kingdom : they were at first regarded as impostors, but a strong party being formed in their favour, a separate principality was assigned them, and they erected a new city for their capital on the banks of the Jumna, which was named Indraprastha. It was on or near the site of Delhi. Frequent dissensions between the kings of Hastinapul and Indraprastha led to the Great War, which forms the subject of the Mahabharat, as the name indicates.

Most of the princes of India took a share in this mighty contest, but the chief ally of the Pandavas was Krishna, who having been driven from Mathura, the seat of his family, had founded a new city, Dwaraka in Guzerat. He was, like his allies, one of the lunar race, being a Yadava, or descendant of Yadu, the eldest son of Yayati. According to the legends, Krishna was an incarnation of the god Vishnu, and as such he is still worshipped by the Hindus. Though of royal birth he was educated in the cottage of a herdsman, where he was concealed from a tyrant who sought his life. The frolics and exploits of the deity in childhood, — his stealing milk, his destroying serpents, — are favourite themes with the pastoral poets, and they love to dwell on his surpassing beauty as a youth, when he captivated the hearts, not only of the female rustics, but of the proudest princesses of Hindustan.

As he advanced in years he achieved innumerable adventures ; among the rest, he destroyed the tyrant who usurped his inheritance, but was nevertheless unable to defend his native capital, and therefore established himself in Guzerat. It was chiefly by his aid that the Pandavas triumphed in the great battle, which lasted eighteen days ; Duryodhan and his host of brethren were slain, the undivided kingdom became the possession of the sons of Pandu, but they were so grieved by the dreadful slaughter which their ambition occasioned, that they resigned their power. The end of Krishna was also unfortunate ; he was accidentally killed in a thicket by a hunter, and his sons — driven from their paternal possessions — were forced to seek refuge beyond the Indus. The successors of the Pandavas seem to have transferred the seat of government to Delhi ; none of them attained any eminence, and the kingdom of Magadha became the most flourishing in India, a rank which it continued to retain for several centuries.

Jarasandha, who was descended from Puru by a collateral branch, appears to have been the first monarch of Magadha who acquired any remarkable power. He was slain by the Pandavas and Krishna, during the Great War at his capital, Ragaguba, an ancient city which can still be traced by its ruins. For many centuries the kings of Magadha belonged to the warrior caste, and during their dynasty the Buddhist religion was introduced by Sakya, or Gautma, the son of a feudatory prince, who claimed to be an incarnation of the divinity. The last king of the war rior caste was Mahanandi, who was succeeded by Nanda, the son of a Sudia mother, who consequently was deemed one of that caste. Nanda's posterity held the throne for nine generations ; the last of the line, who was also named Nanda, was murdered by a Brahmin, who raised a relative of his victim, Chandragupta, to the throne.

We now begin to obtain more accurate information respecting India from the Greek historians, the conquests of Alexander having for a time opened the country to Europeans. Previous to his arrival, the western parts of Hindustan had been conquered by Darius Hystaspes, king of Persia, and his son Xerxes, was attended by a body of Indian troops when he invaded Greece. But the Persian dominion was brief in its duration and limited in its extent; when Alexander crossed the Indus, he found Hin dustan divided into several independent states, all of which are declared to have enjoyed a high degree of civilization ; the chief state appears to have been the empire of the Prasii, with its capital Palebothra, on the banks of the Ganges. From the accounts which the Hindus gave to the Greeks, it would appear that the Gangetic States had never been attacked by any foreign enemy, during the long interval between the exploits of Rama and the conquests of Alexander.

Some perplexity has arisen from the inveterate habit, common to all the Greek historians, of identifying foreign deities with the gods of their own Olympus ; thus, they assumed that the achievements of Rama, described in the Ramayana, and the exploits of Krishna, detailed in the Ma habharat, related to their own heroes Bacchus and Hercules, who must of course have invaded India. Alexander did not advance beyond the Hyphasis, one of the five great streams tributary to the Indus ; he only knew the great empire of the Prasii by report, having turned back before he reached its western frontier. The kingdom of Bactria which the Greeks founded, probably became the means of introducing some portions of western civilization into Hindustan, but it could not have been the only, or even the principal source of the Sanscrit language and literature, since, as we have seen, the companions of Alexander are unanimous in asserting that they found a system of civilization already established when they came to the frontiers of India, and also since there is not a particle of internal evidence, to show that the Hindus borrowed their systems of poetry and philosophy from foreign sources.

After the retreat of Alexander, there arose a conqueror in India, known to the Greeks by the name of Sandracottus, who has been successfully identified with the Chandra-gupta of Hindu poetry and legend. He was the son of a woman of low extrac tion, and would therefore have been excluded from all share of power, had not his royal father, Nanda, provoked the hostility of the Brahmins. They united with some prince in the north of India, by whose aid they destroyed Nanda and his legitimate children, after which they raised Chandra-gupta to the throne. The new king not only refused to pay the stipulated reward to the prince, his ally, but procured his assassination. The prince's son led an army to revenge his father's murder, consisting of his own subjects and a body of Greek auxiliaries. Chandra-gupta contrived by crafty intrigues, to excite dissensions between these allies, and thus the invasion was frustrated.

He subsequently entered into a treaty with Seleucus Nicator, who after the death of Alexander held for some time the sovereignty of Upper Asia, and probably by the aid of the Greeks extended his empire from the Ganges to the Indus. The descendants of Chandra-gupta were called Mauryas ; Asoca, the third of the line, established a commanding influence over the states north of the Nerbudda ; he erected columns, inscribed with edicts, for the regulation of the government, which from the remote points of their several positions prove the extent of his government, while their injunctions bear testimony to the civilized character of his policy. The family of Maurya retained possession of the throne for ten gene rations, and were succeeded by three other Sudra dynasties, under whom the prosperity of the kingdom of Magadha gradually declined.

Though the kingdom of Avanti, or Oujein, cannot claim equal antiquity with those already mentioned, it is the first of which we possess any authentic date. The Samvat era, still current in the countries north of the Nerbudda, dates from Vicramaditya, B. C. 56. This prince was a great patron of learning and learned men ; nine of the sages whom he protected were called the Nine Gems of Science, and were scarcely less celebrated than the Seven Wise Men of Greece. Vicramaditya rendered a still more important service to India, by arresting the conquests of the Sakkas, or Scythians, who had overturned the Greek kingdom of Bactria, the modern Balkh. From his numerous wars against these bar barians, he was named Sakari, or the Foe of the Sakkas. It is probable, however, that some tribes or wandering clans of this race, settled in northern India, and became the progenitors of the Najput tribes between Oude and Marwar.

The celebrity of Avanti ceased with Vicramaditya, and the next prince of any note is Salivahana, king of Pratisthana in the Dekkan. The Daka era is reckoned from him, (a. d. 76,) but little is known of him beyond his name. From this time India appears to have been severed into a number of small principali ties, distracted both by political and religious feuds, until it was invaded and brought under subjection by the Mohammedans, in the tenth century of our era. Modern investigations have shown that the Hindus were not the original natives of India, but that they came at some un known age, from countries west of the Indus, bringing with them the Sanscrit language and the religion of the Vedas ; that they established themselves in the eastern part of the Punjab, or the country inclosed by the Indus and its tributary streams ; and that they gradually acquired dominion over the barbarous tribes in their neighbourhood.