Preface

Preface

INDIA, the most valuable dependency of the British crown, is also one of the most interesting portions of the globe. Even some of its physical features are on a scale of unparalleled grandeur. The stupendous mountain chain along its northern frontier rising gradually from a plain of inexhaustible fertility, has snowy summits which tower nearly six thousand feet above the loftiest of any other country in either hemisphere; while over the vast expanse of its magnificently diversified surface almost every product possessed of economical value grows indigenously, or having been introduced is cultivated with success. Nor are its moral less remarkable than its physical features. In its rugged recesses and jungly forests, various tribes, supposed to represent its aboriginal inhabitants, may still be seen in a state bordering on absolute barbarism. The great bulk of the population, however, consists of a race, or rather aggregation of races, who, though far advanced in civilization, at least in the ordinary sense of the term, since they have for ages lived under regular government, dwelt in large and splendid cities, and carried most of the arts of common life to high perfection, are yet the dupes and slaves of a most childish and galling superstition. That the dominant class, to which all others are subservient, should be full of religious zeal, is nothing more than might have been expected, but a new phase of human nature seems to be presented when those occupying the lower grades of the social scale are seen submitting without a murmur to be lorded over, and treated as mere outcasts whose very touch is pollution. What makes this submission the more extraordinary, is that those who exemplify it are by no means deficient in natural acuteness, and, on the contrary, often give proofs of intellectual culture. Hinduism, though little better than a tissue of obscene and monstrous fancies, not only counts its domination by thousands of years, but can boast of having had among its votaries, men who, in the ages in which they lived, extended the boundaries of knowledge, and carried some of the abstrusest of the sciences to a height which they had never reached before. This remarkable combination of pure intellect and grovelling superstition, nowhere displayed so strikingly and unequivocally as in India, gives a peculiar value even to that part of its history which, relating only to its social state, is necessarily the least fruitful in stirring incidents.

So long as the leading powers of Europe made India a kind of common battle-field, on which they met to contend for supremacy, no one nation could be said to possess any exclusive or peculiar interest in its affairs; but from the moment when Great Britain stood forth, virtually if not formally recognized as the paramount power, the history of both countries became in a manner identified, and ought therefore to be studied as one great whole. The vast space which separates them is a mere circumstance which, if it have any weight at all, ought rather to increase the interest of the British reader, who is not only introduced to new scenes and new modes of social existence, but follows his countrymen step by step, and sees them in a new sphere displaying the same unrivalled talents, civil and military, the same indomitable courage and perseverance, the same enlightened, humane, and generous spirit, which have placed Great Britain at the head of modern nations, and given her the largest and mightiest empire that the world has yet beheld. While India was placed under a kind of tutelage, and those intrusted with its administration, instead of encouraging, systematically repressed the public curiosity, there was doubtless some excuse for a feeling of apathy in regard to its affairs; but now that the anomalous form of government has been abolished, and the Queen, ruling India in her own name without any adventitious intervention, has called upon her loving subjects to unite with her in developing its resources, as one of the most effectual means of promoting the general welfare of all her dominions, how can the call be properly responded to, unless the actual circumstances of the country, and the whole course of events by which these have been formed—in other words, all the details of its history—are carefully studied?

A subject so important and so attractive as that of India could not fail to engage the pens of many writers, and accordingly a number of works relating to it has appeared, some of them by distinguished men, who bore no unimportant part in many of the transactions which they narrate. To all these works, however, there is one serious objection, which, without impugning their merits, goes to prove that so far from exhausting the subject, they have left important blanks, which deprive them of the character of complete histories. Some of them are professedly confined to particular periods or particular provinces; while others of a more general description either omit part of the earlier history, or after bringing it down as far as was practicable at the time, stop short at the very period when it becomes at once most interesting and most instructive. The present work, which differs from them in plan, and is also intended to be of a more popular character, was undertaken in the belief that if written after due research, in a perspicuous style, and with strict impartiality, it might supply a want which had long been felt, and to which recent events had given much additional urgency. It is, as its name implies, a Comprehensive History of India, beginning with its earliest period, and continued, without the known omission of any transaction of importance, to the present time. In composing it, the author has not trusted to previous compilations, but derived his materials as much as possible from original and official sources. How far he has succeeded, it remains for his readers to decide. The only part of the work on which he ventures to anticipate the judgment of the public is that of the maps, plans, and numerous illustrations,¹ which, independently of their merit as embellishments, bring all the leading topics of the history—its campaigns, its battle-fields, its cities, and other localities, and even its most celebrated personages—immediately before the eye, in a manner which not only does much credit to those employed upon them, but must greatly facilitate the intelligent perusal of the history itself.

LONDON, February, 1862.

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