History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v1.c11.2

v1.c11.2

For what was the condition of Europe at this time or for that matter at any time in its history? Europe may fitly be compared to India in every respect. Exclusive of Russia, Europe is almost equal to India in extent and population and its people are practically of one race, namely, Aryan and of one religion, namely, Roman Christianity. In the seventh century Hiuen Tsang describes India as divided into about seventy kingdoms (Watters’ Vol. I p. 140). Europe in the seventh century could not have been divided into less. England itself was divided into five kingdoms, France, Germany and Italy into many more. Indeed the condition of society, civilization and the means of communication in ancient times prevented the formation of kingdoms larger than those that existed in India or Europe at that time. And history shows that these kingdoms of Europe were constantly at war with one another. European history is indeed a terrible history detailing the constant and usually sanguinary wars waged by the several kingdoms with one another. Now would it be proper to describe this condition of Europe as one of anarchical autonomy, or to make the comparison still more complete, to say that when the Empire of Charlemagne fell to pieces after his death, Europe reverted to her usual condition of anarchical autonomy? Even now when railways and telegraphs have made the growth of large kingdoms possible, Europe is still divided into a number of small kingdoms which are not larger than the kingdoms in India described by Hiuen Tsang. If we take 6000 li or 1200 miles as the average circumference of a large Indian kingdom like Mahārāshtra the area of an average large kingdom in square miles comes to about 1,20,000 sq. miles. Or we may make calcuation in another way and divide the total present area of India viz. 18,02,629 sq. miles, by 70 and arrive at the area 25,752 sq. miles of an average kingdom in India as it existed in the seventh century. The smaller kingdoms existing in Europe at this day, Belgium ( 11,373 sq. ms. ), Holland ( 12,582 ), Portugal ( 32,000 ), Italy ( 1,10,632 ), Bulgaria ( 33,645 ), Roumania ( 53,489 ) and Greece ( 25,014 ), not to speak of the small states of which the German Empire is composed, are not thus larger than the kingdoms existing in India in Hiuen Tsang's days, and these states of Europe are normally in a condition of war. A decade does not pass without a fight somewhere, and yet these small states are alive and flourishing; and history cannot describe the normal condition of Europe as one of ‘anarchical autonomy’. The mistake lies in looking upon India as one country or a territory that deserved to be one country under one rule and hence, I apprehend, the use of the word anarchical.