This sudden development of the Japanese is perhaps the most important event of the second half of the 19th century, since it marks the rise of an Asiatic power capable of competing with Europe on equal terms. Their history is so different from that of the rest of Asia that it is not surprising if the result is different. The nation hardly came into existence till China and India had passed their prime, and remained secluded and free from the continual struggle against barbarian invaders, which drained the energies of its neighbours. It was left untouched by Mahommedanism, and for an unprecedentedly long period kept Europeans at bay without wasting its strength in hostilities. The military spirit was evolved, not in raids and massacres of the usual Asiatic type which create little but intense racial hatred, but in feuds between families and factions of the same race, which restrained ferocity and tended to create a temper like that of the feudal chivalry of Europe. On the other hand it is noticeable that the Japanese have little which is original in the way of religion, literature or philosophy. Unlike the Chinese and Indians, they have hitherto not had the smallest influence on the intellectual development of Asia, and though they have in the past sometimes shown themselves intensely nationalist and conservative, they have, compared with India and China, so little which is really their own that their assimilation of foreign ideas is explicable.

8. Korea received its civilization and religion from China, but differs in language, and to some extent in customs. An alphabet derived from Indian sources is in use as well as Chinese writing. The country was at most periods independent though nominally tributary to China. In the 16th century the Japanese occupied it for a short period, and in 1894 they went to war with China on account of her claims to suzerainty. In 1895 Korea was declared independent.

9. India.—The population of India comprises at least three strata: firstly, uncivilized aborigines, such as the Kols and Santhals, and secondly, the Dravidians (Tamils, Kanarese, &c.), who perhaps represent the earliest northern invaders, and appear to have attained some degree of culture on their own account. The most recent authorities are of opinion that the Kolarians and Dravidians represent a single physical type; but, whatever the historical explanation may be, they certainly have different languages and show different stages of civilization. In prehistoric times they were spread over the whole of India, but were driven to the centre and south of the peninsula by the third stratum of Aryans, and perhaps also by invasions of so-called Mongolian races from the north-west. No historical record has been preserved of these latter, but they appear to have profoundly affected the population of Bengal, which is believed to be Mongolo-Dravidian in composition. The Aryans appear to have been settled to the north of the Hindu Kush, and to have migrated south-eastwards about 1500 B.C. Their original home has been a subject of much discussion, but the view now prevalent is that they arose in southern Russia or Asia Minor, whence a section spread eastwards and divided into two closely related branches—the Hindus and Iranians. There were probably two successive Aryan immigrations, and the tradition of a struggle between them may be preserved in the Mahābhārata. The life of the ancient Aryans, as portrayed in their sacred songs, the Rig Veda, was quasi-nomadic and in many ways democratic, but by the 6th century B.C. settled states had been formed in the Ganges valley. They were absolute monarchies, but the power of the king was tempered by the extraordinary influence possessed by the hereditary sacerdotal class or Brahmans. The position of this class, which has remained till the present day, is connected with the institution of caste, a division of the population into groups founded partly on racial distinctions. The peaceful progress of Brahmanism was hindered by the doctrine of the Indian prince Gotama, called the Buddha, which grew into one of the greatest religions of the world. For many centuries the culture and development of the Hindus depended mainly on the interaction of the old Brahmanical religion and Buddhism. The latter was finally absorbed, and disappeared in India itself, but has spread Indian influence over the whole of eastern Asia, where it still flourishes.

In 326 B.C. Alexander invaded the Punjab. The immediate result was small, but the establishment of Perso-Greek kingdoms in central Asia had a powerful influence on Indian art and culture. It may also have helped to familiarize the Hindu mind with the idea of an empire, which appeared among them later than in other Asiatic countries. The first empire, called Maurya, reached its greatest extent in the time of Asoka (264-227 B.C.), who ruled from Afghanistan to Madras. He was a zealous Buddhist and gave the first example of a missionary religion, for by his exertions the faith was spread over all India and Ceylon. No Hindu empires have lasted long, and the Maurya dominions broke up fifty years after his death.

In the next period (c. 150 B.C.-A.D. 300) India was invaded from the north by tribes partly of Parthian and partly of Turki (Yue-chi, &c.) origin. Owing to the absence of dated records, the chronology of these invasions has not yet been set beyond dispute, but the most important was that of the Kushans, whose king Kanishka founded a state which comprised northern India and Kashmir. They were Buddhists, and it is probable that the Mahayana or northern form of Buddhism was due to an amalgamation of Gotama’s doctrines with the ideas (largely Greek and Persian) which they brought with them. Much of Sivaism has probably the same origin. Another native empire, known as Gupta, rose on the ruins of the Kushan kingdom, and embraced nearly the whole peninsula, but it broke up in the 5th century, partly owing to the attacks of new northern invaders, the Huns. The Malava dynasty maintained Hindu civilization in the 6th century, and from 606 to 646 Harsha established a brief but brilliant empire in the north with its capital at Kanauj. This epoch is marked by the renaissance of Sanskrit literature and the gradual revival of Hinduism at the expense of Buddhism. But after Harsha Hindu history is lost in a maze of small and transitory states, incapable of resisting the ever advancing Mahommedan peril. As early as 712 the Arabs conquered Sind, and by the end of the 11th century the whole of northern India was in Moslem hands. Two periods may be distinguished, namely the Turki (1200-1526) and the Mogul empire. The former comprised several dynasties of mixed Turki and Iranian race, but was wanting in coherency. In the neighbourhood of the Moslem capitals, Islam spread rapidly, but in such districts as Rajputana and specially Vijayanagar (Mysore) Hindu civilization and religion maintained themselves.

In 1526 the Moguls descended on India from Transoxiana and seized the throne of Delhi. They never subjugated the south, but the empire which they founded in the north was for about two centuries, under such rulers as Akbar and Shah Jehan, one of the most brilliant which Asia has seen. After 1707 it began to decline: the governors became independent: a powerful Mahratta confederacy arose in central India; Nadir Shah of Persia sacked Delhi; and Ahmed Shah made repeated invasions. A still more formidable danger, the power of the French and English, continued to increase. Amidst such confusion the authority of the Mogul empire rapidly disappeared, but it lasted as a name till the Mutiny (1857).

Indian history until Mahommedan times is marked by the unusual prominence of religious ideas, and is a record of intellectual development rather than of political events. Whatever national unity the Hindu peoples possessed came from the persistent and penetrating influence of the Brahman caste. Kings held a secondary position, and were generally regarded as adventitious tyrants, rather than as the heads and representatives of the nation. Even the great dynasties have left few traces, and it is with difficulty that the patient historian disinters the minor kingdoms from obscurity, but Indian religion, literature and art have influenced all Asia from Persia to Japan.

10. Persia.—The Persians, with whom are often coupled the Medes, appear to be pure Aryans in origin, and the earliest form of their language and religion offers remarkable analogies to the Vedas. It is reasonable to suppose that their ancestors and those of the Hindus at one time formed a single tribe somewhere in central Asia. The religion was remodelled by Zoroaster, who seems to be a historical character and to have lived about the 7th century B.C. About the same time they shook off the domination of Assyria. From the 6th century onwards their empire, then known as Median, began to expand at the expense of the surrounding states. They destroyed Nineveh in alliance with the Babylonians, and half a century later Cyrus took Babylon and founded the great dynasty of the Achaemenidae. The substitution of the Persian for the Median power, which took place with the advent of Cyrus, seems to indicate merely the pre-eminence of a particular tribe and not conquest by another race. The power of the Achaemenidae, when at its maximum, extended from the Oxus and Indus in the east to Thrace in the west and Egypt in the south, but fell before Greece, after lasting for rather more than 200 years. Darius and Xerxes were repulsed in their efforts to subjugate the Greek Peninsula, and Alexander the Great conquered their successor Darius III. in 329. But the greater part of the empire continued to exist under new masters, the Seleucids, as a Hellenistic power which was of great importance for the dissemination of Greek culture in the East. Bactria soon became independent under an Indo-Greek dynasty, and the blending of Greek, Persian, central Asiatic and Hindu influences had an important effect on the art and religion of India, and through India on all eastern Asia. About the same period (250 B.C.-A.D. 227) the Parthian empire arose under the Arsacids in Khorasan and the adjacent districts. The Parthians appear to have been a Turanian tribe who had adopted many Persian customs. They successfully withstood the Romans, and at one time their power extended from India to Syria. They succumbed to the Persian dynasty of the Sassanids, who ruled successfully for about four centuries, established the Zoroastrian faith as their state religion, and maintained a creditable conflict with the East Roman empire. But in the 7th century they were defeated by Heraclius, and shortly afterwards were annihilated before the first impetus of the Mahommedan conquest, which established Islam in Persia and the neighbouring lands, sweeping away old civilizations and boundaries. During the greater part of the Mahommedan period Persia has been ruled by troubled and short-lived dynasties. It attained a certain dignity and unity under Abbas Shah (1585-1628), but in later times was distracted and disorganized by Afghan invasions. The present dynasty, which is of Turkoman origin, dates from 1789.

The achievements of the Persians in art, literature and religion are by no means contemptible, but somewhat mixed and cosmopolitan. Owing to its position, the Persian state, when it from time to time became a conquering empire, overlapped Asia Minor, Babylon and India, and hence acted as an intermediary for transmitting art and ideas, sending for instance Greek sculpture to India and the cult of Mithra to western Europe. It is perhaps on account of this intermediate flavour that the literature of Persia—for instance the adaptations of Omar Khayyam—is more appreciated in Europe than that of other Oriental nations. On the other hand, the wars between Persia and Greece were recognized both at the time and afterwards as a struggle between Europe and Asia; the fact that both combatants were Aryans was not felt, and has no importance compared to the difference of continent.

11. Jews.—The Israelites appear to have been originally a nomadic tribe akin to the Arabs, whom they resemble in their want of political instinct and in their extraordinary religious genius. Among many remarkable qualities they have been distinguished from the earliest times by a species of commensalism, or power of living among other nations without becoming either socially merged or politically distinct. Their traditional history represents them as migrating to the borders of Egypt and living there for some centuries. After the exodus, which perhaps took place about 1300 B.C., they moved northwards again and founded a state of modest dimensions, which attained a short-lived unity under Solomon, but succumbed to internal dissensions and to the attacks of Assyria and Babylon. Shalmanezer destroyed the northern kingdom or Israel in 720, and following the practice of the times deported the majority of the population, whose traces became lost to history. There is no reason why their descendants should not be found to-day in various tribes, but the physical type commonly called Jewish is characteristic not so much of Israel as of western Asia generally. In 588 Nebuchadnezzar carried off the Jews in captivity, but after the Persian conquest of Babylonia they were allowed to return to Palestine in 538. Their institutions and ideas were probably considerably modified during this period. Babylon long continued to be a Jewish centre whence the Jews radiated to other countries. The restored state of Jerusalem lived for about six centuries in partial independence under Persian, Egyptian, Syrian and Roman rule, often showing an aggressively heroic attachment to its national customs, which brought it into collision with its suzerains, until the temple was destroyed by Titus in A.D. 70, and the country laid waste in the succeeding years. But long before this period the Jews of the Dispersion had become as important as the inhabitants of Palestine. From choice or compulsion large numbers settled in Egypt in the time of the Ptolemies, and added an appreciable element to Alexandrine culture, while gradual voluntary emigration established Jewish communities in Syria, Asia Minor, Greece and Italy, who facilitated the first spread of Christianity. In spite of chronic unpopularity and recurring persecutions they have spread over nearly all Europe. At the end of the 13th century they were expelled from Spain and many of the exiles moved eastwards. At present the largest numbers are to be found in the eastern parts of Europe. It is remarkable that though the Jews live in relative peace with Asiatics, the great majority of them prefer Europe as a residence.