History of Medieaval Hindu India- Rise of Hindu Kingdom (Set of 3 Volumes)

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By the grace of God this third volume of the History of Maliæval Hindu India as I had projected it several years back is ready and I place it before the indulgent reader under the second name of The Downfall of Hindu India. Indeed the idea of writing this history was originally suggested to me by Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, as Medieval Hindu empire in its decline and fall struck me as greatly resembling the Roman empire. It fell before the Turks liko the other and its fall closed with the taking of Kanauj on the Ganges as the latter's did with the storming of Constantinople on the Bosphorus. The Grecian capital became, moreover, the seat of the Turkish Mahomedan empire in Europe as Delhi became the seat of Turco-Afghan Mahomedan empire in India. The Greeks or Eastern Romans had declined in martial virtues and the same may be said of the Hindus generally, though the Rajputs, unlike the Greeks, even then maintained their high reputation for valour and love of independence and still maintain their semi-independence in the sands and hills of Rajputana. Prithviraj and Jaichand strike us, unlike the last Grecian emperors, as redoubtable warriors who have immortalised their names in Indian history by their tragic but heroic end on the battlefield. Yet for various reasons, the generality of the people in Hindu India had become meek and accepted dependence without a tough national resistance.

This volume thus brings down the history of India to about 1200 A. D., when the whole of Northern India practically fall before the Mahomedans. The fall of Hindu India began in the very beginning of the sub-period treated of in this volume, as Kabul and the Panjab fell before Mahmud from about 1000 to 1009 A. D. In the first book (VI) in this volume is given the history of Mahmud's invasions of India, a history which has been reconstructed, so to speak, from original authorities, Mahomedan and Hindu. The common supposition that Jaipal of Lahore was a different king from the king of the same name of Kabul has been found, on a careful consideration of the available evidence, to be mistaken and, as has been shown, the Hindu kingdom of the Shahis of Kabul extending from the Paropamisus to the Sutles, fell before Mahmud. I have tried to explain at the end of this book why the sturdy Hindus of the Panjab fell before the Mahomedan Turks of Ghazni. Thus in the beginning of this sub-period, the Panjab was lost to Hindu India in addition to Sind, which was lost in 712 A. D. For two centuries moro, Hindu kingdoms flourished in the rest of India under Rajput kings and in these kingdoms powerful kings ruled from time to time like Bhoja of Malwa, Jayasinha of Gujarat, Govindachandra of Kanauj and Vikrama of Kalyan, Yet Northern India fell before Shihabuddin Ghorl about 1200 A.D., even though there were such warrior kings as Prithviraj and Jaichand to defend the independence of Hindu kingdoms. The causes of this catastrophe, different as they are from those which led to the downfall of the Panjab, have been discussed at the end of Book VII and they will be found at least interesting and suggestive.

But most interesting will be found Book VIII in this volume in which is taken a general survey of the whole condition of India in this sub-period, which practically led to the demoralization and weakness of the Hindus as a people. It will be seen how caste became infinitely subdivided in this sub-period, how religious schiam increased by the rise of now sects, how the doctrine of Ahimsa again became predominant and led to the adoption of vegetarianism by most people and how bigotry increased and manifested itself in the rise of Agamas, Upasmritis and Upapuranas. This is the most interesting portion of this volume and the views which I have expressed therein may at least be carefully considered by my Hindu readers.