Pre-Mussalman India- A History of the Motherland Prior to the Sultanate of Delhi

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A correct and reliable history of India has yet to be written. Not only individual peculiarities of temperament, but also in- born prejudices and other defects have, in the absence of trustworthy records, all combined to minimise the historical value of most books on the subject.

This is especially true of the earliest or the Hindu period. Many fanciful theories started over a hundred years ago have, with slight alterations to suit later so-called ethnological conclusions, been accepted and repeated by later writers; and they are now put down in ordinary text-books as if they are all proved history. The fact, however, is that no European has yet correctly. understood Indian Vedic literature, nor the true origin and principles of the caste system which has played such a great part in the building of Indian civilisation. That is because the European Orientalist, however patient his search, however deep his linguistic lore, has never approached Indian sacred literature with the unprejudiced mind, humility and reverence necessary for the seeker after truth ; he has had too lofty a sense of his own superior civilisation, too much confidence in his own wisdom and capacity for critical judgment; this vanity has quite warped his vision. The result has been that many theories which at best are only ingenious guesses have, by being constantly repeated by so-called authorities, come to be regarded’ as more or jess established facts; and are put in as such, without any qualifications, in ordinary text-books. A few instances should suffice taken at random from a text-book otherwise well-written.

"The immigration of the Aryans into India must have commenced about 1500 years before Christ." "The religion of the Aryans consisted in the worship of what was awe-inspiring or what struck them as specially beautiful or beneficial in nature. They prayed to the sun and the clouds, fire and thunder, the dawn and the bright sky." As the Aryans spread eastwards they became less cheerful and vigourous, more ritualistic and priest-ridden ‘and were infected with gloomy aboriginal beliefs." "The caste distinction was at first mainly ethnological. The fair-skinned Aryan felt the utmost repugnance for the dark and stunted savage (non-Aryan)." Buddhism was "essentially a religion of the people as opposed to Brahmanism the religion of a caste." ‘To people so smothered in superstition and so credulous as the bulk of the natives of India, an Impersonal faith such as Buddhism could not carry strong conviction,’ and so Bud- dhism declined.

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