History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c31: Front matter
History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c31
- Language
- English
Front matter
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लाल बहादुर शास्त्री प्रशासन अकादमी Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy of Administration मसूरी MUSSOORIE पुस्तकालय LIBRARY the *Gesta Romanorum*, the *Legenda Aurea* of Jacobus de Voragine, and the *Speculum Historiale* of Vincent of Beauvais. These were the books that fed the imagination of the Middle Ages, and they were the books that the Church, in its wisdom, provided for the instruction and edification of the faithful.
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But the Church did not merely provide books; it also provided the means of their dissemination. The monastic scriptoria, where monks labored in silence to copy the sacred texts, were the precursors of the printing press. And when the press finally arrived, it was the Church that first harnessed its power, using it to spread the word of God to the corners of the earth. The Gutenberg Bible, the first major book printed in Europe, was a testament to the Church's commitment to the written word.
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Yet, even as the Church championed the spread of knowledge, it also sought to control it. The *Index Librorum Prohibitorum*, or List of Prohibited Books, was a tool used by the Church to suppress ideas it deemed dangerous or heretical. This tension between the desire to educate and the need to control would define the Church's relationship with literature for centuries to come.
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It is a complex history, one that is marked by both enlightenment and suppression. But it is a history that cannot be ignored, for it is the history of the very foundation of Western civilization. The Church, in its role as the guardian of knowledge, has shaped the way we think, the way we write, and the way we understand the world around us.
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BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR.
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ENGLISH. | Rs. as. --- | ---
1. Mahābhārata : a criticism | ... 2—8
2. Riddle of the Rāmāyaṇa, ( In press ) | ... 2—0
3. Epic India ( " ) | ... 3—0
4. History of Mediæval Hindu India | | Vol. I—Harsha and Latter Kings | ... 6—8
5. Do. Vol. II—Early History of Rajputs... | 6—8
6. Do. Vol. III—Downfall of Hindu India... | 7—8
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To be had of D. B. Taraporvala Son & Co. Fort, Bombay,
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and the Oriental Book Supplying Agency Budhwar, Poona City.
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SANSKRIT.
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1. Mahābhārata Abridged | ... 3—0
2. Rāmāyaṇa Abridged | ... 2—8
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To be had of Ramchandra Govind & Son. Kalbadevi, Bombay 2.
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OF MEDIAEVAL HINDU INDIA
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(Being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A. D.)
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VOL. III
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DOWNFALL OF HINDU INDIA
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(c. 1000 to 1200 A. D.)
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BY C. V. VAIDYA, M. A., LL. B.
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HONORARY FELLOW, BOMBAY UNIVERSITY AND AUTHOR OF MAHĀBHĀRATA : A CRITICISM, RIDDLE OF THE RĀMĀYAṆA AND EPIC INDIA, ETC.
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Printed at the ‘Aryabhushan’ Press, Poona City, by Anant Vinayak Patvardhan, and published by Chintaman Vinayak Vaidya, at Poona.
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By the grace of God this third volume of the History of Mediæval Hindu India as I had projected it several years back is ready and I place it before the indulgent reader under the second name of ‘The Downfall of Hindu India.’ Indeed the idea of writing this history was originally suggested to me by Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, as Mediæval Hindu empire in its decline and fall struck me as greatly resembling the Roman empire. It fell before the Turks* like the other and its fall closed with the taking of Kanauj on the Ganges as the latter’s did with the storming of Constantinople on the Bosphorus. The Grecian capital became, moreover, the seat of the Turkish Mahomedan empire in Europe as Delhi became the seat of Turco-Afghan Mahomedan empire in India. The Greeks or Eastern Romans had declined in martial virtues and the same may be said of the Hindus generally, though the Rajputs, unlike the Greeks, even then maintained their high reputation for valour and love of independence and still maintain their semi-independence in the sands and hills of Rajputana. Prithviraj and Jaichand strike us, unlike the last Grecian emperors, as redoubtable warriors who have immortalised their names in Indian history by their tragic but heroic end on the battlefield. Yet for various reasons, the generality of the people in Hindu India had become meek and accepted dependence without a tough national struggle.
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This volume thus brings down the history of India to about 1200 A. D., when the whole of Northern India practically fell before the Mahomedans. The fall of Hindu India began in the very beginning of the sub-period treated of in this volume, as Kabul and the Panjab fell before Mahmud from about 1000 to 1009 A.D. In the first book (vi) in this volume is given the history of Mahmud’s invasions of India, a history which has been reconstructed, so to speak, from original authorities, Mahomedan and Hindu. The common supposition that Jaipal of Lahore was a different king from the king of the same name of Kabul has been found, on a careful consideration of the available evidence, to be mistaken and, as has been shown, the Hindu kingdom of the Shahis of Kabul extending from the Paropamisus to the Sutlej, fell before Mahmud. We have tried to explain at the end of this book why the sturdy Hindus of the Panjab fell before the Mahomedan Turks of Ghazni. Thus in the beginning of this sub-period, the Panjab was lost to Hindu India in addition to Sind, which was lost in 712. A. D.
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∗ Although Shihabuddin was an Afghan, his army contained more Turks than Afghans; and the Rajputs always called their enemies by the name of Turukdā or the bad Turk.
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For two centuries more, Hindu kingdoms flourished in the rest of India under Rajput kings and in these kingdoms powerful kings ruled from time to time like Bhoja of Malwa, Jayasinha of Gujarat, Govindachandra of Kanauj and Vikrama of Kalyan. Yet Northern India fell before Shihabuddin Ghori about 1200 A.D., even though there were such warrior kings as Prithviraj and Jaichand to defend the independence of Hindu kingdoms. The causes of this catastrophe, different as they are from those which led to the downfall of the Panjab, have been discussed at the end of Book vii and they will be found at least interesting and suggestive.
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But most interesting will be found Book viii in this volume in which is taken a general survey of the whole condition of India in this sub-period, which practically led to the demoralization and weakness of the Hindus as a people. It will be seen how caste became infinitely subdivided in this sub-period, how religious schism increased by the rise of new sects, how the doctrine of Ahimsa again became predominant and led to the adoption of vegetarianism by most people and how bigotry increased and manifested itself in the rise of Agamas, Upasmritis and Upapuranas. This is the most interesting portion of this volume and the views which I have expressed therein may at least be carefully considered by my Hindu readers.
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The history of Hindu kingdoms in this sub-period given in Book vii is based chiefly on inscriptions which have been
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published upto this time by the labours of able researchers, both European and Indian, to whom I am wholly indebted for being able to synthetically put the facts recorded therein into consistent coherent history. Although I have, now and then, differed from these scholars on certain points and have criticised their views, I must record here my extreme gratefulness to them and duly recognise their services to the cause of pre-Mahomedan history of India. The authorities relied on have been quoted in the body of the book, instead of being given in foot-notes as the usual practice is, in order that the reader may have the authority before him at once and in large type. The history of some kingdoms has already been formulated by Bhandarkar, Fleet and other scholars and that part of this history is taken mainly from them. But the history of other kingdoms, notably that of the Imperial Gāhadavālas of Kanauj has been, for the first time I think, put together in this volume and certain difficult problems, such as the identity of the Gāhadavālas with the Rathods, have been solved in it.
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This volume closes this work, though Hindu kingdoms lived on for a hundred years more in southern India. But they were ready to fall, for causes recorded in this volume, at the slightest push, as we actually find that they toppled down at once at the onslaught of Allauddin and his general Malik Kafur about 1300 A. D. Mahārāshtra (Deogiri), Telingana (Warangal) and Karnātaka (Dvāra-Samudra) fell successively in one expedition which Malik-Kafur led upto Cape Comorin. South India rallied once more under Vijayanagar and it fell finally in 1565 A.D. at the battle of Talikot before the combined Mahomedan kings of the Deccan. In one sense Hindu India fell finally at this date and Vijayanagar may be looked upon as the Constantinople of India, though while Constantinople still lives, Vijayanagar has been blotted out of existence. This later history of Hindu India, commencing from the downfall of Deogiri and ending with the catastrophe which overtook Vijayanagar, requires a separate volume, no doubt, written with the view-point taken in this history; but this is a work which I may leave to other hands.
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A Political map of India of circa 1100 A. D. has been added and will be found interesting. But more interesting will be found the three sketches of the battle-field of Chhachha where finally was lost the independence of the Panjab, of Kot-Kangra and of the old Delhi of Prithviraj, which we have prepared after personally visiting these places.
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An Index has been affixed as usual and a chronological table has been added.
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POONA CITY, January 25th 1926. C. V. VAIDYA.