Indika

Front matter

Class. IS S-AIS.

Book ,H gi?

GcpigM^?

Foreword

The object of the following work is to describe India and Ceylon as they are to-day. But to make clear the existing condition of a country, and to account for it, the past must be constantly recognized. Therefore, at every stage of this work the historical antecedents have been summoned, and made to do duty as interpreters of the existing India and Ceylon. My plan of travel required a journey to nearly all the large places, and to many of the more obscure, throughout the empire. Landing in Bombay, and going across the peninsula to Madras, I proceeded to Ceylon, and went into the interior as far as Kandy, the ancient capital. On embarking from Colombo I landed in India again, this time near its southern extremity, and proceeded northwestward to Mysore. Thence I went to Madras, and there took passage up the Bay of Bengal to Calcutta. After a protracted stay in that place and its environs, I proceeded up the valley of the Ganges, with here and there such digressions as official duties permitted or required. The point where my itinerary brought me most closety to the Himalaya Mountains was Naini Tal, where, one cloudless morning, from Mount Chena, I could see the magnificent panorama of snow-clad mountains which form the southern barrier of Western China. The limit of my tour in the northwest was Labor, whose minarets look down on the swift Ravi and out towards the valley of the Jhelam. This historic plain was the battle-field on which Alexander the Great won India, his last conquest, and opened its gates for the first time to the western world.

v i FOREWORD.

In the United States and Germany I had provided myself with helps for the study of the country and its romantic past. But in Bombay my apparatus was greatly enlarged, and it grew continually during my stay in India. I soon saw that if one desires to understand all that is involved in the Christianization of a land, he must make a special study of the country, its people, antiquities, dead faiths, industries, literature, habits, and political history. It was always a special privilege to meet representatives of the new thought and life of the empire. Every day brought with it something fresh, instructive, and attractive. When the hour came to leave the country, it seemed as if awaking out of a delightful dream. Not until, one February morning, when I was actually on the deck of the Siam, and sailing out of the Bombay harbor, with the vessel pointing towards Aden, was the charm broken. There had been a certain subtle and undisturbed joy which came from the environment. Nor could I know the depth and power of the Indian fascination until the ghats back of Bombay faded into the perfect sky and the eye could no longer see the beautiful islands in that matchless bay.

Subjects which simply suggested themselves on the spot have, by later study, grown into large groups. The astounding advance of sentiment in favor of temperance; the spread of the opium trade, and England's responsibility for it ; the uprising of the natives, not for another mutiny against their rulers, but for a representative government, in which the governed may share ; the multiplication of missionary forces from Europe and America ; the steady elevation of the whole body of the Indian people by the extraordinary educational advantages which Macaulay was the hero to inaugurate ; the new and abundant literature bearing on India and its manifold life; and the constant trend of the Indian languages towards disuse and oblivion, with the English as the sole speech of the future, are topics now of absorbing interest to readers in every part of the civilized world.

FOREWORD. vii

In the plan of the work the personal narrative has been everywhere made subordinate to the general descriptive interest. It has been introduced largely for the purpose of throwing such light on the life of the people of India as might fall to the lot of a guest. Special topics have been treated in the centres which suggested them. For example; the Parsis could be studied to advantage only in Bombay, missions and education better in Calcutta and Serampore than elsewhere ; and the Mutiny better in Cawnpore and Lucknow than in places less central, and which had suffered less in that ordeal of blood.

One of the most perplexing questions has been the correct spelling of the Indian proper names. Some, since the first draught of the work, have required a changed orthography. Other names were adopted at first, then abandoned, and finally both necessity and propriety required a return to the original spelling. The word Marhatta, for example, has needed to be changed several times, and was finally adopted in its present form — Marhatta — in compliance with the usage of those writers whose authority seems most weighty. The spelling of Macaulay's day is now largely obsolete. The Hugh cannot any longer be written Hoogley. M. Le Bon suggests that the English themselves have taken little pains to arrive at unity in Indian orthography. There are no two Indian maps which adopt the same form for spelling the names of places. Even of cities through which the railway passes, one can find four different spellings — one on the railway map, another in the railway guide, a third in the station itself, and a fourth in the postal indication. While it is not very difficult to identify Cawnpore in Kanhpur, Amritsar in Umritsur, Ponclichery in Punduchery, and Conjeveram in Kanchipuram, it is not so easy to identify Tanjore in Tanjawur, Awadh in Oudh, Travancore in Tiruwankodu, and Mandir-Ray in Madras. Thornton's Gazetteer, one of the most important works on India, spells the one word Fath in eleven different fashions: — Futeh, Futh, Futtre, Futick, Futi, Futte, viii FOREWORD.

Futteh, Futtih, Futtun, Futty. Even the colonels of regiments have sometimes been unable to identify the places on the itineraries which the government had placed in their hands. In comparing the official map of the government of Madras there was often no resemblance between the names. On five different maps there were five spellings of one river — Tamrapavni, Tamberperny, Tambaravari, Pambouri, and Chindinthura.*

The present tendency of English writers on India is to approach the Indian spelling. But to this there are exceptions. The pronunciation of Indian words has led to an English spelling. For example, a is often really u. Hence the custom arose of spelling Panjab as if written Punjab. The usage of Monier Williams and other recent scholars in writing Panjab has been adopted. The old spelling of Mahomet is now rapidly passing away. The latest of the reliable authorities spell it Muhammed, and the old Koran must now give place to the new Quran.

Throughout the work I have been compelled to balance the orthography, and follow in the path of the safest of the recent guides. f In some instances the usual English method has been pursued. We are not quite far enough as yet to write Kanhpur for Cawnpore, Dihli for Delhi, and Lahknau for Lucknow. The

* Le Bon, "Civilisation cle Uncle" (Paris, 1887), p. 477. f Carter, in his "History of India," published at the Cambridge (England) University Press, takes Hunter as his guide, and says: "Indian names are spelled according to the Imperial Gazetteer of India, edited by Sir W. W. Hunter, which represents the system adopted by the authority of the Indian government in 1870. A few names which have acquired popular currency are left unaltered

"The vowel sounds are represented and sounded thus: a as in rural and for. e as in grey. i as in fill and (\eer. o as in bone. u as in bwll and rwde. ai as in lyre.

"The consonants are to be sounded as in English, except g, ch, s, t, which are sounded only as the corresponding letters in give, church, solstice, tin."

FOREWORD. ix

diacritical points which are commonly employed to distinguish the long from the short sound of the vowels have, in most cases, been omitted.

. For all statistical information my chief reliance has been the full tabular reports issued at Calcutta by the departments of the Indian government. For important suggestions while this work was in manuscript, and for special help during its passage through the press, I am indebted to Bishop James M. Thoburn, of Calcutta ; the Rev. Thomas S. Smith, of Jaffna, Ceylon ; the Rev. B. H. Baclley, D.D., of Lucknovv ; the Rev. Thomas J. Scott, of Bareilly ; the Rev. George H. JVIcGrew, D.D., of New York, and the Rev. Albert Osborn, B.D., of Buffalo, New York.

The title of the work — Indika — I derive from the Greek Megasthenes, the first writer to reveal the inner life of India to the western world. After the conquest of India by Alexander the Great, Seleucos Nicator, the founder of the Syrian monarchy, became possessor of India. His hold, however, was very slight, for, while he was consolidating Syria, Chandra Gupta was arousing India and throwing off the despised Greek domination. Instead of a new warfare, there was a compromise between these two rulers. It was a clear case of barter. Chandra Gupta gave Seleucos five hundred elephants as a present, while Seleucos gave the great Indian chief his daughter in marriage. Seleucos sent, as his ambassador to the Indian court at Patna, the learned Megasthenes. The Greek scholar remained there many years, and travelled extensively, and had all the skill in acquiring information which Herodotus possessed in gaining knowledge from the Egyptian priests during his leisurely tours along the Nile. Megasthenes, on returning to Greece, wrote his book 'IvSt/cd (Indian Things), which was an account of his travels and observations in far-off India. This valuable work, which contained minute information concerning the land conquered bv Alexander, is lost, but such important fragments of it have x FOREWORD.

been preserved by Strabo, Arrian, and ^Elian as to give a certain completeness to many of its topics.

While Indika is not written in any prevailing interest, it may be said that the publishers have been so kind as to suggest the largest liberty in the treatment of missions. It is hoped that the result will be not only of some aid towards a general knowledge of India and Ceylon, but of such service in making better known the magnitude of the intellectual and spiritual needs of the millions of the people as to awake the largest sympathy of all Protestant people, and to aid somewhat in attracting to the Aryan cradle of our Anglo-Saxon race a hundred missionary, medical, and educational laborers where to-day there is but one.

Washington, D. C, February 9, 1891.

Table Of Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. The Theee Seas to India ......... 1

II. Arrival in Bombay 10