Yule, Sir H.; Burnell, A. C. Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases. 2nd ed. London, 1903.

AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION TO THE
FIRST VOLUME OF THE ORIGINAL
EDITION

Much disappointment has been felt in Europe at the sterility of the historic muse of Hindustan. When Sir William Jones first began to explore the vast mines of Sanskrit literature, great hopes were entertained that the history of the world would acquire considerable accessions from this source. The sanguine expectations that were then formed have not been realized; and, as it usually happens, excitement has been succeeded by apathy and indifference. It is now generally regarded as an axiom, that India possesses no national history; to which we may oppose the remark of a French Orientalist, who ingeniously asks, whence Abu-l Fazl obtained the materials for his outlines of ancient Hindu history?[[25]] Mr. Wilson has, indeed, done much to obviate this prejudice, by his translation of the Raja Tarangini, or History of Kashmir,[[26]] which clearly demonstrates that regular historical composition was an art not unknown in Hindustan, and affords satisfactory ground for concluding that these productions were once less rare than at present, and that further exertion may bring more relics to light. Although the labours of Colebrooke, Wilkins, Wilson, and others of our own countrymen, emulated by many learned men in France [viii] and Germany,[[27]] have revealed to Europe some of the hidden lore of India; still it is not pretended that we have done much more than pass the threshold of Indian science; and we are consequently not competent to speak decisively of its extent or its character. Immense libraries, in various parts of India, are still intact, which have survived the devastations of the Islamite. The collections of Jaisalmer and Patan, for example, escaped the scrutiny of even the lynx-eyed Alau-d-din who conquered both these kingdoms, and who would have shown as little mercy to those literary treasures, as Omar displayed towards the Alexandrine library. Many other minor collections, consisting of thousands of volumes each, exist in Central and Western India, some of which are the private property of princes, and others belong to the Jain communities.[[28]]

If we consider the political changes and convulsions which have happened in Hindustan since Mahmud’s invasion, and the intolerant bigotry of many of his successors, we shall be able to account for the paucity of its national works on history, without being driven to the improbable conclusion, that the Hindus were ignorant of an art which has been cultivated in other countries from almost the earliest ages. Is it to be imagined that a nation so highly civilized as the Hindus, amongst whom the exact sciences flourished in perfection, by whom the fine arts [ix], architecture, sculpture, poetry, music, were not only cultivated, but taught and defined by the nicest and most elaborate rules, were totally unacquainted with the simple art of recording the events of their history, the characters of their princes, and the acts of their reigns? Where such traces of mind exist, we can hardly believe that there was a want of competent recorders of events, which synchronical authorities tell us were worthy of commemoration. The cities of Hastinapur and Indraprastha, of Anhilwara and Somanatha, the triumphal columns of Delhi and Chitor, the shrines of Abu and Girnar, the cave-temples of Elephanta and Ellora, are so many attestations of the same fact; nor can we imagine that the age in which these works were erected was without an historian. Yet from the Mahabharata or Great War, to Alexander’s invasion, and from that grand event to the era of Mahmud of Ghazni, scarcely a paragraph of pure native Hindu history (except as before stated) has hitherto been revealed to the curiosity of Western scholars. In the heroic history of Prithiraj, the last of the Hindu sovereigns of Delhi, written by his bard Chand, we find notices which authorize the inference that works similar to his own were then extant, relating to the period between Mahmud and Shihabu-d-din (A.D. 1000-1193); but these have disappeared.

After eight centuries of galling subjection to conquerors totally ignorant of the classical language of the Hindus; after almost every capital city had been repeatedly stormed and sacked by barbarous, bigoted, and exasperated foes; it is too much to expect that the literature of the country should not have sustained, in common with other important interests, irretrievable losses. My own animadversions upon the defective condition of the annals of Rajwara have more than once been checked by a very just remark: "when our princes were in exile, driven from hold to hold, and compelled to dwell in the clefts of the mountains, often doubtful whether they would not be forced to [x] abandon the very meal preparing for them, was that a time to think of historical records?"

Those who expect from a people like the Hindus a species of composition of precisely the same character as the historical works of Greece and Rome, commit the very egregious error of overlooking the peculiarities which distinguish the natives of India from all other races, and which strongly discriminate their intellectual productions of every kind from those of the West. Their philosophy, their poetry, their architecture, are marked with traits of originality; and the same may be expected to pervade their history, which, like the arts enumerated, took a character from its intimate association with the religion of the people. It must be recollected, moreover, that until a more correct taste was imparted to the literature of England and of France, by the study of classical models, the chronicles of both these countries, and indeed of all the polished nations of Europe, were, at a much more recent date, as crude, as wild, and as barren as those of the early Rajputs.

In the absence of regular and legitimate historical records, there are, however, other native works (they may, indeed, be said to abound), which, in the hands of a skilful and patient investigator, would afford no despicable materials for the history of India. The first of these are the Puranas and genealogical legends of the princes, which, obscured as they are by mythological details, allegory, and improbable circumstances, contain many facts that serve as beacons to direct the research of the historian. What Hume remarks of the annals and annalists of the Saxon Heptarchy, may be applied with equal truth to those of the Rajput Seven States:[[29]] "they abound in names, but are extremely barren of events; or they are related so much without circumstances and causes, that the most profound and eloquent writer must despair [xi] of rendering them either instructive or entertaining to the reader. The monks" (for which we may read “Brahmans”), “who lived remote from public affairs, considered the civil transactions as subservient to the ecclesiastical, and were strongly affected with credulity, with the love of wonder, and with a propensity to imposture.”

The heroic poems of India constitute another resource for history. Bards may be regarded as the primitive historians of mankind. Before fiction began to engross the attention of poets, or rather, before the province of history was dignified by a class of writers who made it a distinct department of literature, the functions of the bard were doubtless employed in recording real events and in commemorating real personages. In India Calliope has been worshipped by the bards from the days of Vyasa, the contemporary of Job, to the time of Benidasa, the present chronicler of Mewar. The poets are the chief, though not the sole, historians of Western India; neither is there any deficiency of them, though they speak in a peculiar tongue, which requires to be translated into the sober language of probability. To compensate for their magniloquence and obscurity, their pen is free: the despotism of the Rajput princes does not extend to the poet’s lay, which flows unconfined except by the shackles of the chand bhujanga, or ‘serpentine stanza’; no slight restraint, it must be confessed, upon the freedom of the historic muse. On the other hand, there is a sort of compact or understanding between the bard and the prince, a barter of “solid pudding against empty praise,” whereby the fidelity of the poetic chronicle is somewhat impaired. This sale of “fame,” as the bards term it, by the court-laureates and historiographers of Rajasthan, will continue until there shall arise in the community a class sufficiently enlightened and independent, to look for no other recompense for literary labour than public distinction.

Still, however, these chroniclers dare utter truths, sometimes most [xii] unpalatable to their masters. When offended, or actuated by a virtuous indignation against immorality, they are fearless of consequences; and woe to the individual who provokes them! Many a resolution has sunk under the lash of their satire, which has condemned to eternal ridicule names that might otherwise have escaped notoriety. The vish, or poison of the bard, is more dreaded by the Rajput than the steel of the foe.

The absence of all mystery or reserve with regard to public affairs in the Rajput principalities, in which every individual takes an interest, from the noble to the porter at the city-gates, is of great advantage to the chronicler of events. When matters of moment in the disorganized state of the country rendered it imperative to observe secrecy, the Rana of Mewar, being applied to on the necessity of concealing them, rejoined as follows: “this is Chaumukha-raj;[[30]] Eklinga the sovereign, I his vicegerent; in him I trust, and I have no secrets from my children.” To this publicity may be partly ascribed the inefficiency of every general alliance against common foes; but it gives a kind of patriarchal character to the government, and inspires, if not loyalty and patriotism in their most exalted sense, feelings at least much akin to them.