Since now this general sketch of the various and contrary directions which the human mind followed in the first ages of history has been rendered more clear and definite by a comparative view of the five principal nations of the primitive world, it only remains for us to subjoin some important traits in the history of each, to complete this picture of the earliest nations; in order to pass over, along with the Persians, to the second period of the ancient world—a period which is so much nearer to us, and appears so much more clear and open to our apprehension.
The origin of ancient heathenism we must seek among the Indians, and not among the Chinese, for the reason we have before alleged: namely, that, in the primitive ages, the Chinese observed a pure, simple, and Patriarchal worship of the Deity; and it was only when under the first general and powerful Emperor of China, the rationalism introduced by the sect of Taosse had brought about a complete revolution in the whole system of Chinese faith, manners, and customs, that a real form of Paganism—the Indian superstition of Buddha—was subsequently introduced into that country. This subversion of the whole system of ancient government—of ancient doctrines—and of what among the Chinese was inseparably allied with the latter, the early system of writing, was a real revolution in the public mind. As the general burning of the sacred books, and the persecution and execution of many of the learned were measures directed solely against the school of Confucius, that adhered to the old system of morals and government; it is by no means an arbitrary and baseless hypothesis to ascribe to the antagonist party, the rationalist sect of Taosse, a great share in this violent moral and political revolution; inasmuch as the powerful Emperor Chi-ho-angti must have been quite in the interest of this party. Although the erection of the great wall of China, and the settlement of a Chinese colony in Japan, gave external splendour to his reign; yet at home its despotic violence rendered it thoroughly revolutionary. And so this mighty catastrophe, which occurred two thousand years ago in the Chinese empire, widely removed as it is from us by the distance of space and time, and different as is the form under which it occurred, bears nevertheless no slight resemblance or analogy to much we have seen and experienced in our own times. To explain the contradiction which seems involved in the fact, that on one hand we have commended that pure, simple, and Patriarchal worship of the Deity by the Chinese in the primitive period; and much that denoted the comparatively high state of civilization among this people, together with a science perverted and degenerate indeed, yet carried to a high degree of refinement; and that, on the other hand, we have pointed out many things in their primitive writing-system, which displayed a great rudeness and poverty of ideas, and a very confined circle of symbols, we may observe that it is with China, as with many other ancient civilized countries, where in the back-ground of a ruling and highly polished people, a close investigation will discover a race of primitive inhabitants more barbarous, or at least less advanced in intellectual refinement. Such a race is mentioned by historians as existing in different provinces of China under the name of Miao—they are precisely characterized as an earlier, less polished race of inhabitants, and they have indeed been preserved down to later times. The historical enquirer meets almost always in the first ages of the world with two strata of nations, consisting of an elder and a younger race;—in the same way as the geologist in his investigation of the earth's surface can clearly distinguish a two-fold formation of mountains and separate periods in the formation of that surface. Thus in China the more polished new-comers and founders of the subsequent nation and state, accommodated themselves in many respects to the manners and customs, the language and even perhaps symbolical writing of these half savages, as the Europeans have partly done, when they have wished to civilize and instruct the Mexicans and other barbarous nations; and as men must always act in similar cases, if they would wish success to crown their benevolent endeavours. All researches into the origin of the Chinese nation and Chinese civilization ever conduct the enquirer to the north-west, where the province of Shensee is situated, and to the countries lying beyond. Thus this only serves to confirm the opinion, highly probable in itself, and supported by such manifold testimony, of the general derivation of all Asiatic civilization from the great central region of Western Asia.
Agreeably to this opinion, the Indian traditions, as we have already mentioned, deduce the historical descent of Indian civilization from the northern mountainous range of the Himalaya and the country northwards; and in support of this tradition, we may cite the vast ruins, the immense subterraneous temples hewn out of the rock, in the neighbourhood of the old and celebrated city of Bamyan. Though the latter city be not in the proper India, but more northward towards Cabul, in Hindu Cutch, still its ruins present to the eye of the spectator the peculiar forms and structure of the architecture and colossal images of India, (whereof they contain a great abundance,) such as are observed in the other great monumental edifices of the Indians at Ellore, in the centre of the southern province of Deccan, in the Isles of Salsette and Elephanta in the neighbourhood of Bombay, in the island of Ceylon, and near Mavalipuram on the coast of Madras. All these immense temples, which have been hewn in the cavities of rocks, or have been cut out of the solid rock; and where often many temples are ranged above and beside the other, together with the buildings for the use of the Brahmins and the swarms of pilgrims, occupy in length and breadth the vast space of half a German mile, and even more. These temples form the regular places of Hindoo pilgrimage, whither immense multitudes of pilgrims flock from all the countries of India; and an English writer who wrote as an eye witness, estimated the multitude at the almost incredible number of two millions and a half. Together with the colossal images of gods and of sacred animals, such as the elephant and the nandi, or the bull sacred to Siva, we find the rocky walls of these subterraneous temples adorned with an almost incalculable number of carved figures, representing various scenes from the Indian mythology. These figures jut so prominently from the rock, that it would almost seem as if their backs alone joined the wall. The multitude of figures is exceedingly great, and in the ruins near Bamyan, the number is computed at twelve thousand; though this calculation may not perhaps be very accurate, for the thick forests which surround these now desolate ruins are often the repair of tigers and serpents, and thus all approach to them is attended with danger. Besides in the ruins of Bamyan many of the figures, and even some of the colossal idols, have been destroyed by the Mahometans; for whenever their armies chance to pass by these ruins, they never fail to point their cannon against the images of those fabulous divinities, which all Mahometans hold in so much abhorrence.
As to architecture, the perfection which this art attained among the Indians is evident from the beautiful workmanship and varied decoration of their columns, whole rows of which, like a forest of pillars support the massy roof of upper rock. Notwithstanding the essential difference which must exist in the architecture of temples hewn out of rocks, or constructed in the cavities of rocks, we shall find that the prevailing tendency in Indian architecture is towards the pyramidal form. On the other hand, it is observed that the art of vaulting appears to have been less known, or at least not to have attained great perfection, or been in frequent use. We find, too, among these monuments, vast walls constructed out of immense blocks of stone, and rudely cut fragments of rock, not unlike the old Cyclopean structures. The amateurs of such subjects have acquired a more accurate knowledge of them by the splendid illustrations which the English have published; for a mere verbal description can with difficulty convey a just notion of the nature and peculiar character of this architecture. Of the political history of India, little can be said, for the Indians scarcely possess any regular history—any works to which we should give the denomination of historical; for their history is interwoven and almost confounded with mythology, and is to be found only in the old mythological works, especially in their two great national and epic poems, the Ramayana and the Mahabarata, and in the eighteen Puranas (the most select and classical of the popular and mythological legends of India), and perhaps in the traditionary history of particular dynasties and provinces; and even the works we have mentioned are not merely of a mytho-historical, but in a great measure of a theological and philosophical purport. The more modern history of Hindostan, from the first Mahometan conquest at the commencement of the eleventh century of our era, can indeed be traced with pretty tolerable certainty; but as this portion of Indian history is unconnected with, and incapable of illustrating the true state and progress of the intellectual refinement of the Hindoos, it is of no importance to our immediate object. The more ancient history of that country, particularly in the earlier period, is mostly fabulous, or, to characterize it by a softer, and at the same time, more correct name, a history purely mythic and traditionary; and it would be no easy task to divest the real and authentic history of ancient India of the garb of mythology and poetical tradition; a task which at least has not yet been executed with adequate critical acumen.
Chronology, too, shares the same fate with the sister science of history, for in the early period it is fabulous, and in the more modern, it is often not sufficiently precise and accurate. The number of years assigned to the first three epochs of the world must be considered as possessing an astronomical import, rather than as furnishing any criterion for an historical use. It is only the fourth and last period of the world—the age of progressive misery and all-prevailing woe, which the Indians term Caliyug, that we can in any way consider an historical epoch; and this, the duration of which is computed at four thousand years, began about a thousand years before the Christian era. Of the progress and term of this period of the world, considered in reference to the history of mankind, the Indians entertain a very simple notion. They believe that the condition of mankind will become at first much worse, but will be afterwards ameliorated. The regular historical epoch when the chronology of India begins to acquire greater certainty, and from which indeed it is ordinarily computed, is the age of King Vikramaditya, who reigned in the more civilized part of India, somewhat earlier than the Emperor Augustus in the West, perhaps about sixty years before our era. It was at the court of this monarch that flourished nine of the most celebrated sages and poets of the second era of Indian literature; and among these was Calidas, the author of the beautiful dramatic poem of Sacontala, so generally known by the English and German translations. It was in the age of Vikramaditya, that the later poetry and literature of India, of which Calidas was so bright an ornament, reached its full bloom. The elder Indian poetry, particularly the two great epic poems above-mentioned, entirely belong to the early and more fabulous ages of the world; so far at least as the poets themselves are assigned to those ages, and figure in some degree, as fabulous personages. We may, however, observe that in the style of poetry, in art, and even in the language itself, there reigns a very great difference between these primitive heroic poems, and the works of Calidas and other contemporary poets—the difference is at least as great as that which exists between Homer and Theocritus, or the other Bucolick poets of Greece. The oldest of the two epic poems of the Indians, the Ramayana by the poet Valmiki, celebrates Rama, his love for a royal princess, the beautiful Sita, and his conquest of Lanka, or the modern Isle of Ceylon. Although in the old historical Sagas of the Indians, we find mention made of far-ruling monarchs and all-conquering heroes; still these traditions seem to shew, as in the instance first cited, that in the oldest, as in the latest, times prior to foreign conquest, India was not united in one great monarchy, but was generally parcelled out into a variety of states; and this fact serves to prove that such has ever been in general the political condition of that country. The whole body of ancient Indian traditions and mythological history is to be found in the other great epic of the Indians, the Maha-Barata, whose author, or at least compiler, was Vyasa, the founder of the Vedanta philosophy, the most esteemed, and most prevalent of all the philosophical systems of the Hindoos. This leads us to observe a second remarkable, and singularly characteristic, feature in Indian intellect and Indian literature, so widely remote from the relation between poetry and philosophy among other nations, particularly the Greeks. This is the close connection, and almost entire fusion of poetry and philosophy among this people. Many of their more ancient philosophical works were composed in metre, though they possess productions of a later period, which display the highest logical subtilty and analysis. Their great old poems, whatever may be the beauty of the language, and the captivating interest of the narrative, are generally imbued with, and pervaded by, the most profound philosophy; and among this people, even the history of Metaphysics ascends as far back as the mythic ages. This at least holds good of the authors, to whom the invention of the leading philosophical systems has been ascribed; although the subsequent commentaries belong to a much later and more historical period. Thus the Mahabarata contains as an episode a didactic poem, or philosophical dialogue between the fabulous personages and heroes of the epic, known in Europe by the name of the Bhagavatgita, and which has recently been ably edited and expounded in Germany, by Augustus William Von Schlegel, and William Von Humboldt. The leading principles of the Vedanta philosophy are copiously set forth in this poem, which may be regarded as a manual of Indian mysticism; for such is the ultimate object of all Indian philosophy; and of this peculiar propensity of the Hindoo mind we have already cited some remarkable traits. For the accomplishment of our more immediate object, and in order rightly to understand the true place which the intellectual culture of India occupies in primitive history, a general knowledge of Indian philosophy is far more important and necessary, than any minute analysis and criticism on the manifold beauties of the very rich poetry of that country; and this philosophy we shall now endeavour to characterize according to its various systems, and in its main and essential features.