FOOTNOTES:
[17] Mill's "History of British India," ed. Wilson, vol. i., p. 375.
[18] Keshub Chunder Sen is the present spiritual director of the Brahmo Samag, the theistic organization founded by the late Rammohun Roy.—A. W.
[19] Mill's "History," ed. Wilson, vol. i., p. 368.
[20] L. c. p. 325.
[21] L. c. p. 329.
[22] P. 217.
[23] Mill's "History," vol. i., p. 329.
[24] Manu, VIII. 43, says: "Neither a King himself nor his officers must ever promote litigation; nor ever neglect a lawsuit instituted by others."
[25] Mill's "History," vol. i., p. 327.
[26] L. c. p. 368.
[27] See Elphinstone, "History of India," ed. Cowell, p. 219, note. "Of the 232 sentences of death 64 only were carried out in England, while the 59 sentences of death in Bengal were all carried out."
[28] Sir Ch. Trevelyan, Christianity and Hinduism, 1882, p. 42.
This will be news to many. It has been quite common to include the Thugs with the worshippers of Bhavani, the consort of Siva. The word signifies a deceiver, which eliminates it from every religious association.—A. W.
[29] Manu VII. 115.
[30] H. M. Elliot, "Supplement to the Glossary of Indian Terms," p. 151.
[31] I see from Dr. Hunter's latest statistical tables that the whole number of towns and villages in British India amounts to 493,429. Out of this number 448,320 have less than 1000 inhabitants, and may be called villages. In Bengal, where the growth of towns has been most encouraged through Government establishments, the total number of homesteads is 117,042, and more than half of these contain less than 200 inhabitants. Only 10,077 towns in Bengal have more than 1000 inhabitants, that is, no more than about a seventeenth part of all the settlements are anything but what we should call substantial villages. In the North-Western Provinces the last census gives us 105,124 villages, against 297 towns. See London Times, 14th Aug. 1882.
[32] "Ancient India as described by Megasthenes and Arrian," by McCrindle, p. 42.
[33] "Perjury seems to be committed by the meanest and encouraged by some of the better sort among the Hindus and Mussulmans, with as little remorse as if it were a proof of ingenuity, or even a merit."—Sir W. Jones, Address to Grand Jury at Calcutta, in Mill's "History of India," vol. i., p. 324. "The longer we possess a province, the more common and grave does perjury become."—Sir G. Campbell, quoted by Rev. Samuel Johnson, "Oriental Religions, India," p. 288.
[34] Vasishtha, translated by Bühler, VIII. 8.
[35] Mr. J. D. Baldwin, author of "Prehistoric Nations," declares that this system of village-communities existed in India long before the Aryan conquest. He attributes it to Cushite or Æthiopic influence, and with great plausibility. Nevertheless, the same system flourished in prehistoric Greece, even till the Roman conquests. Mr. Palgrave observed it existing in Arabia. "Oman is less a kingdom than an aggregation of municipalities," he remarks; "each town, each village has its separate existence and corporation, while towns and villages, in their turn, are subjected to one or other of the ancestral chiefs." The Ionian and Phœnician cities existed by a similar tenure, as did also the Free Cities of Europe. It appears, indeed, to have been the earlier form of rule. Megasthenes noticed it in India. "The village-communities," says Sir Charles Metcalf, "are little republics, having everything they want within themselves, and almost independent of any foreign relations. They seem to last where nothing else lasts." These villages usually consist of the holders of the land, those who farm and cultivate it, the established village-servants, priest, blacksmith, carpenter, accountant, washerman, potter, barber, watchman, shoemaker, etc. The tenure and law of inheritance varies with the different native races, but tenantship for a specific period seems to be the most common.—A. W.
[36] "Sleeman," vol. ii., p. 111.
[37] Sleeman, "Rambles," vol. ii., p. 116.
[38] Vasishtha XVI. 32.
[39] Ktesiæ Fragmenta (ed. Didot), p. 81.
[40] See "Indian Antiquary," 1876, p. 333.
[41] Megasthenis Fragmenta (ed. Didot) in "Fragm. Histor. Graec." vol. ii., p. 426 b: 'Αλήθειἁν τε ὑμοἱως καὶ ἁρετὴν ὰποδεχονται.
[42] Indica, cap. xii. 6.
[43] See McCrindle in. "Indian Antiquary," 1876, p. 92.
[44] See Stanislas Julien, Journal Asiatique, 1847, Août, pp. 98, 105.
[45] Vol. ii., p. 83.
[46] Elliot, "History of India," vol. i., p. 88.
[47] See Mehren: "Manuel de la Cosmographie du moyen âge, traduction de l'ouvrage de Shems-ed-din Abou Abdallah de Damas." Paris: Leroux, 1874, p. 371.
[48] "Marco Polo," ed. H. Yule, vol. ii., p. 350.
[49] "Marco Polo," vol. ii., p. 354.
[50] "Notices des Manuscrits," tom. xiv., p. 436. He seems to have been one of the first to state that the Persian text of the Kalilah and Dimna was derived from the wise people of India.
[51] Samuel Johnson, "India," p. 294.
[52] Sleeman, "Rambles," vol. i., p. 63.
[53] Elphinstone's "History of India," ed. Cowell, p. 213.
[54] This statement may well be doubted. The missionary staff in India is very large and has been for years past. There is no reason to doubt that many of its members are well informed respecting Hindoo character in all grades of society.—Am. Pubs.
[55] Samuel Johnson, "India," p. 293.
[56] See "History of India," pp. 375-381.
[57] L. c., p. 215.
[58] "History of India," p. 218.
[59] Mill's "History of India," ed. Wilson, vol. i., p. 370.
[60] L. c., p. 371.
[61] Sir Thomas Munro estimated the children educated at public schools in the Madras presidency as less than one in three. But low as it was, it was, as he justly remarked, a higher rate than existed till very lately in most countries of Europe.—Elphinstone, "Hist. of India," p. 205.
In Bengal there existed no less than 80,000 native schools, though, doubtless, for the most part, of a poor quality. According to a Government Report of 1835, there was a village-school for every 400 persons.—"Missionary Intelligencer," IX. 183-193.
Ludlow ("British India," I. 62) writes: "In every Hindu village which has retained its old form I am assured that the children generally are able to read, write, and cipher; but where we have swept away the village-system, as in Bengal, there the village-school has also disappeared."
[62] Rig-Veda I. 87, 4; 145, 5; 174, 1; V. 23, 2.
[63] Rig-Veda III. 32, 9; VI. 5, 1.
[64] Rig-Veda VI. 22, 2.
[65] Rig-Veda III. 14, 6.
[66] This is the favorite expression of Plato for the Divine, which Cary, Davis, and others render "Real Being."—A. W.
[67] Sometimes they trace even this Satya or Rita, the Real or Right, to a still higher cause, and say (Rig-Veda X. 190, 1):
"The Right and Real was born from the Lighted Heat; from thence was born Night, and thence the billowy sea. From the sea was born Samvatsara, the year, he who ordereth day and night, the Lord of all that moves (winks). The Maker (dhâtri) shaped Sun and Moon in order; he shaped the sky, the earth, the welkin, and the highest heaven."
[68] Rig-Veda I. 23, 22.
[69] Or it may mean, "Wherever I may have deceived, or sworn false."
[70] Satapatha Brâhmana II. 2, 3, 19.
[71] Cf. Muir, "Metrical Translations," p. 268.
[72] Sat. Br. III. 1, 2, 10.
[73] Taitt. Âranyaka X. 9.
[74] Muir, "Metrical Translations," p. 218.
[75] Holtzmann, "Das alte indische Epos," p. 21, note 83.
[76] V. 24.
[77] This permission to prevaricate was still further extended. The following five untruths are enumerated by various writers as not constituting mortal sins—namely, at the time of marriage, during dalliance, when life is in danger, when the loss of property is threatened, and for the sake of a Brahmana. Again, another writer cites the declaration that an untruth is venial if it is spoken at the time of marriage, during dalliance, in jest, or while suffering great pain. It is evident that Venus laughed at lovers' oaths in India as well as elsewhere; and that false testimony extracted by torture was excused. Manu declared that in some cases the giver of false evidence from a pious motive would not lose his seat in heaven; indeed, that whenever the death of a man of any of the four castes would be occasioned by true evidence, falsehood was even better than truth. He gives as the primeval rule, to say what is true and what is pleasant, but not what is true and unpleasant, or what is pleasant and not true. The Vishnu-purana gives like counsel, adding the following aphorism: "A considerate man will always cultivate, in act, thought, and speech, that which is good for living beings, both in this world and in the next." About the same license appears to be used in this country and winked at.—A. W.
[78] I. 3412; III. 13844; VII. 8742; VIII. 3436, 3464.
[79] Mahâbhârata VIII. 3448.
[80] Muir, l. c. p. 268; Mahâbhârata I. 3095.
[81] Mahâbhârata I. 3015-16.
[82] This explains satisfactorily how the Hindoos became liars, and of course admits that they did become so.—Am. Pubs.
[83] Satapatha Brâhmana, translated by Eggeling, "Sacred Books of the East," vol. xii., p. 313, § 20.
[84] Sir Charles Trevelyan, "Christianity and Hinduism," p. 81.
[85] IV. 65.
[86] VIII. 85.
[87] VIII. 90.
[88] VIII. 92.