The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c31.s9.12

c31.s9.12

The break in tradition seems to be due in large measure to the far-reaching effects of the third barbarian irruption, to which the name of Hūna is given. The meagre literary record of the Hun invasion is supplemented by so many miscellaneous observations in the domains of ethnology, archaeology, and numismatics, that a strong impression is produced on the mind of the student that the Hun invasions disturbed Hindu institutions and polity much more deeply than would be supposed from perusal of the *Purānas*, and other literary works. The Hindu writers display great unwillingness to dwell upon ‘barbarian’ invasions, uniting in ‘a conspiracy of silence’. They never allude to the existence of Alexander the Great, and the Gujarāt historians similarly ignore the sack of Somnāth by Mahmūd of Ghaznī.¹ If Muhammadan authors had not related in detail the story of that famous raid, no record of it would have been found in Indian literature or inscriptions. There is, therefore, no reason for surprise that the Hindu record of the Hun deluge is meagre, and that recognition of its importance has had to be won laboriously by the patient researches of modern archaeologists. It is impossible to set forth the complicated evidence in this place, and the reader must be asked to accept the assertion that the series of invasions by the Huns and associated foreign tribes in the fifth and sixth centuries shook Indian society in Northern India to its foundations, severed the chain of tradition, and brought about a rearrangement of both castes and ruling families. The effects of the Hun cataclysm are obscured partially by the brilliant achievement of Harsha in establishing for thirty-five years (612–47) a strong paramount power able to control the conflicting interests of the various races, clans, and creeds subject to his temporary sway.² When his heavy hand was removed all those elements broke loose, and, after a period of unrecorded anarchy, produced in the domain of politics the new grouping of states described in its leading features in this chapter.