The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c35.s2.48

c35.s2.48

A learned writer, the late Mr. P. Sundaram Pillai, who was a native of Travancore, rightly claimed that his country possesses claims to exceptional interest, and may be regarded as an epitome of India. Having never been affected seriously by the Muhammadan conquest, it 'plays in Indian anthropology the part of a happy and undisturbed fossiliferous stratum'. To vary the metaphor, the state may be regarded as a museum in which are preserved alive survivals of nearly all the ancient Indian peoples, religions, laws, customs, and manners. The old and new can be studied together within that limited area in a way which is not possible elsewhere. I have already invited attention (*ante*, p. 8) to the view that the scientific study of the history of Indian institutions should begin with the South, rather than with the North.