and the vicinity of the modern Jabalpúr southwards until it abutted on Golconda and eastwards to Orísá, by which it is separated from the Bay of Bengal. It contains the head-waters of the Narbadah, the Taptí and the Mahánadí. It is a well-watered and wooded but impracticable hill-country, the home of dusky and uncivilized Gonds; it was in all probability desolated from time to time by Musalman marauders, but remained practically independent until the 17th century. In the preceding century there were in it few towns and, for this reason, the more wild elephants and tigers. North of Gondwánah lies Bihár, a partially hilly tract and one which forms a rough quadrilateral between Malwah, a line running parallel to and a little north of the Ganges, Bengal and Gondwánah. Bihár is divided from Bengal by a range of hills which runs S.-E. from Síkrígalí above Rájmahall, towards the Ganges. The whole country lying to the east of these may be called Bengal, as Bengal was from the 14th to the 16th century, that is, the country on both sides the Ganges to the mountains of Ava and from the Himálayas to the sea near Kaṭak in Orísá; i.e. from 85° to 95° E. L. Between the Ganges and its tributary, the Ghágrá, two districts stretch north-west to Barelí in Rohilkhand, viz. Jodhpúr on the south and Audh on the north: fruitful tracts of the bounteous Ganges, rich in wood, water and the products of the earth; lands which subserve the prosperity of their peoples and were consequently fitted for seats of ancient culture, but which, for the same cause, have been the frequent prize for which foreign conquerors have striven. With these closes the ring of Hindústán (in the narrower sense of the

name) and with them closes too the list of countries included within the empire of Akbar during more than the initial half of his reign.

Although no longer belonging to Hindústán even in the most extended sense of the name, mention should here be made of the western border lands, of which the frontier mountains, Sulaimán and Hála, dominate the plains of the Indus.* This mention is due, not only because these lands were formerly politically bound up with Hindústán, but also because they have so often served as the starting point for invasion of India.

The ranges abovementioned would prove a sure barrier against foreign incursion into India, if they were not pierced by two passes which seem designed for entrance gates. Whoever had overcome the brave, if perfidious and marauding mountaineers whether Afgháns or Beluchis, was withheld by no obstacle from trying his fortune in the lands across the Indus; let him have penetrated by the Bolan from Harát and Qandahár or from the Khaibar by Balkh, Bániyán and Kábul.

Many as are its diversities, India suggests a single image. True that, in the park-like meads of Gujrát and the charming pastures of Khandesh and the lower Narbadah, nature has pleased herself by idyllic creation, but, this notwithstanding, the main features of her Indian plan are epic, for in it she has laid out a magnificent theatre for mighty deeds.

* Lassen has pointed out and justly maintained that the Indus should not be regarded as a frontier river, but rather as the natural possession of the one people who inhabit its banks. (1. c., I, 32.) Notwithstanding this, in more modern times it has frequently been regarded by Muhammadan rulers as a political boundary and it was, from ancient time, considered by the Hindus as the limit of their dwelling-place, since they have manifested the same reluctance to cross it as to cross the ocean.

CHAPTER II.

RACES AND TONGUES.

INDIA, by her conformation, would seem especially fitted to fill an isolated place in history, but she has nevertheless been subjected to frequent and convulsing vicissitudes from without, through which she has however, retained many of her primitive characteristics. With the fruitful and alluring episodes of her early story we have not now to do, but only with her peoples and their condition in the 16th century.

The older indigenes of India are endlessly diver sified; they speak a multitude of tongues and their colour varies through all the shades from dusky blackish brown to clearest, golden olive. Colour and speech are, in fact, the distinguishing marks of birth and early location among the present dwellers in India, and any variations in these which may have occurred since the 16th century being inappreciable by us, are necessarily left out of consideration. The importance anciently attached to complexion is shewn by the fact that the Sanskrit word for caste (varna) signifies colour.* It is moreover noteworthy that the darkening of the originally fair-skinned Caucasian Aryanst depends less on their location with reference to the equator than upon the degree of their admixture with the almost black-skinned aborigines; their tint deepening not so much from north to south as from west to east. Even if this fact were not

* Lassen, 1. c. I, 408.

+ Vincent (L'homme, etc.; 3rd ed., Paris, 1836, I., 235) considers them a special race.

completely in harmony with tradition, it would in itself afford evidence that the light-complexioned immigrants entered from the west. In like manner the configuration of the country supplies natural evidence of the march and distribution of the peoples who for thousands of years followed one another into India. The Aryans appear to have been the first foreigners who penetrated beyond the Indus. They moved along this river towards the south, then turned eastwards across the great surface depression into the valleys of the Jamna and the Ganges. Developing early as one of the chief of civilized peoples, they pressed on, partly subjugating and more or less completely enslaving the dusky aborigines and partly driving them north and south, from their own path, into the less accessible regions of the Himalayas and Vindhyas. They seized also upon the more level tracts of the Dak'hin and forced the Dravidian tribes towards the extremity of the peninsula. Hence it is that, even at the present day, isolated groups of Bhíls, Kóls, Gonds, Santhals, &c., are found in the hills of the central plateau, enisled in a sea of Aryans. Generally speaking, these aboriginal refugees have preserved their idiosyncrasies unmodified while, on the other hand Súdras and Pariahs have in course of time lost their original characteristics, with the exception of their dark colour, by enforced accommodation to the speech, manners and habits of their masters.

The languages of India fall naturally into two distinct groups: the Aryan and the Non-Aryan. Of the latter, which are spoken solely by survivors of the

* Vide Section I, Chapter 3.

primitive inhabitants, many have been arrested at a far lower stage of development than others and possess no literature. The full enumeration of the nonAryan tongues would lead us too far, since, according to the most recent researches, they comprise 19 separate families which, in turn, are broken up into sub-divisions and dialects.* The principal are Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kanarese. Of Aryan languages, the most important in direct descent from the mother-tongues of the race, Sanskrit and Prákrit, are the Hindi or Hinduí of Central India, the Bengalí, the Uriyá of Orísá, the Maráthí of the north-west Dak’hin, Gujrátí, Sindhí, the Panjábí and the Dógrí of Northern India and Kashmírí. Wherever, in the above list the locality of these languages has not been indicated, they are, with immaterial exceptions, distributed over the countries of which they bear the names. All, according to their position or the tongues on which they border, are broken up into a number of dialects which are almost all, in their turn, subdivided.†

To the Aryans, as presumably the oldest immigrants, succeeded at various times numerous other wanderers, but down to the initiation of the Mughul invasions all succumbed to the influence of their predecessors and whatever their origin, became merged in the Aryan Hindús. The Muhammadans however were too alien in faith and character for their amalgamation with the earlier settlers to have been possible, except in cases where these had previously become converts to Islám.

* Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. New Series, 1877. Vol. X, Part I, p. 1. On the non-Aryan Languages of India; by Brandreth.

† Outlines of Indian Philology. J. Beames. Lond., 1868. B., E. A.

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