Tales from Indian History; Being the Annals of India Retold in Narratives

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1881. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... XX. India: Past and Future. THE annals of India have now been told. Between the eleventh and seventeenth centuries Hindu kingdoms were brought more or less under the dominion of Muhammadan rulers; but since the middle of the eighteenth century the Moghul empire has fallen to pieces before the repeated assaults of the Mahrattas; and the English have been forced to assume the government of provinces in order to preserve their trading settlements, and then to exercise a paramount power in order to keep the peace between the princes of India. Little, however, has been said of the history of the people of India as distinguished from their rulers. Indeed, there are few, if any, materials for such history like those which are available in almost every European nation. There have been no struggles between the masses and a feudal nobility; no developments of a representative government and parliamentary system for the protection of the national liberties, and the promotion of the moral and material advancement of the community at large. Hindu literature is chiefly concerned with religious doctrines and metaphysical speculations; and the pictures of ancient life which appear in Sanskrit epics and dramas are as much wanting in historical AWAKENING OF THE PEOPLE. 267 accuracy as Tennyson's Idylls of the King, or Shakespeare's tragedies of Macbeth and King Lear. The history of the people of India, apart from religious developments, would lie in a nutshell. The Rajputs conquered the aboriginal tribes, and formed them into kingdoms and empires. The Brahmans distributed them into castes, and rivetted the fetters of caste by associating them with the worship of the gods and religious obligations. Buddhism flourished in India, but failed to break up the caste system. The M...