India Through the Ages Part 6

"equal in height to the loftiest military towers, while exceeding them in breadth; to serve both as a thank-offering to the G.o.ds who had led him so far as a conqueror, and also to serve as monuments of his own labours. And after completing them, he offered sacrifices on them" (to the G.o.ds to whom he was in the habit of sacrificing, doubtless!), "and celebrated a gymnastic and equestrian contest."

A very different festivity this from that upon the banks of the Indus; and we can imagine the great leader coming back across the wide stream in his oared galley from the useless, unreal ceremonial, with bent head and arms crossed like Napoleon on his way to St Helena.

A picture that fittingly may end the story of Alexander in India; for the record of his retreat is a record of success without aim, beyond the discovery of the Great Sea which encircles the whole Earth.

There is something intensely pathetic in this story of his choice of the river Hydaspes as his means of retreat, of the infinite care for every unit in his force which he showed before that approach of the dawn in late October, when, without confusion, without disorder, he poured a libation out of a golden goblet from the prow of his vessel into the stream, in the name of his G.o.ds and the three great rivers, the Jhelum, the Chenab, the Indus, to whom he trusted; then, doubtless, flinging the cup of gold far into the sliding water, ordered the signal for starting seawards to be given with the trumpet.

So in slow, stately, orderly procession (the "noise of the rowing"

mingling with "the cries of the captains, the shouts of the boatswains," and the choric "songs of farewell from the natives who ran along the banks, into a veritable battle cry"), he pa.s.sed down to the Great Ocean. The voyage took a year, and he reached the sea coast not very far from where Kurrachee now stands. Practically, Alexander was in India proper but nineteen months, and the outward result of his flaming sword had pa.s.sed almost before his premature death at Babylon, a year and a half after he left its sh.o.r.es. But, though India remained outwardly as ever "splendidly isolated," forgetful of the West, she had felt the h.e.l.lenic power; she feels it still. In every little village "Jullunder" (Alexander) is still a name wherewith to conjure, and the village doctor still claims, with pride, to follow the Yunani (Ionian) system of medicine.

That the former should be the case is surely small wonder. India is ever the slave of vitality, and Alexander was vital to the finger-tips. What else could be said of the man who, finding himself checked in an a.s.sault on a stronghold, leapt from the bastion into the fort, and, supporting himself against the wall, kept the enemy at bay with his sword, till one by one his followers, maddened by the sight of their beloved leader's danger, followed him in time to rescue him, wounded, fainting?

But the deed which, of all others, Arrian extols as the most n.o.ble deed ever performed by Alexander, took place in this wise in the desert. His army, parched with thirst, were stumbling on blindly, led, as usual in times of distress, by Alexander on foot.

To him, weary and exhausted, returned scouts, bearing with them water collected in a helmet with great difficulty from some cleft in a distant rock.

He took it, thanking the bearers, but immediately poured it upon the ground in sight of all. "As a result of this," Arrian writes, "the entire army was reinvigorated to so great a degree that any one would have imagined that the water so lavished had furnished draught for every man."

Truly, though he left little of sovereignty behind him, Alexander left enough pictures imprinted on the soil of Hindustan to furnish forth many a gallery.

THE GREAT MAURYAS

B.C. 321 TO B.C. 184

We come here to one of the landmarks of Indian History. There were seven kings of the Maurya dynasty; of these, two gained for themselves an abiding place in the category of Great World Rulers. Their names are Chandra-gupta and Asoka. Grandfather and grandson, they made their mark in such curiously divergent ways that they stand to this day as examples of War and Peace.

Concerning Chandra-gupta's usurpation of the throne of the Nine Nandas, something has already been said. It has also been mentioned that while still almost a lad, he met with Alexander during the latter's brief summer among the Punjab Doabs or Two-waters, so called because they are the fertile plains which lie between the rivers.

The identification, indeed, of the Sandracottus mentioned by Greek writers with Chandra-gupta has been of incalculable value in enabling historians to fix other dates. It has been, as it were, a secure foundation for a superstructure which has grown, and still grows, year by year, and in which every new stone discovered is found to fit accurately in its place.

At the time of this meeting, Chandra-gupta was a nameless adventurer, a political exile from Magadha. Who he really was seems doubtful. The illegitimate son, it is said, of one of the Nine Nandas by a beautiful low-caste woman (from whose name, Mura, the t.i.tular designation of the dynasty Maurya is taken), it is hard to see whence came the young man's undoubted claim to be of the Shesh-nag, or Serpent race; for the Nandas were as undoubtedly of low-caste origin themselves. It is possible, therefore, that some further history of wrong may have existed to make Chandra-gupta claim kinship with the Serpent-Kings whom the Nandas had ousted, and hold himself, like any young pretender, a rightful heir.

Be that as it may, he was ambitious, capable, energetic, and seized the first opportunity given him of rising to power.

This came with the news of Alexander's death in B.C. 323. In the instant revolt of conquered India which followed, he took a prominent part, and found himself, in B.C. 321, with an army at his back which, having accomplished its purpose and given its leader paramount power in Punjab, was eager to follow his fortune elsewhere.

He led it to Magadha, and taking advantage of the Nanda king's unpopularity, slew every male member of the family.

This was the Eastern etiquette on such occasions; the sparing of a brother or an uncle being considered a weakness sure to bring speedy repentance in its train.

Except in as far as the princ.i.p.als were concerned, this revolution appears to have been easy and bloodless. At least so we gather from the play called the "Signet of the Minister," which, though not written till nearly twelve hundred years after the event, seems fairly trustworthy in fact.

In itself it is so studiously realistic, so palpably free from all appeal to the imagination, as to form a marked contrast to all other dramas of the period. It is most likely the first purely political play that ever was written, for, excluding love pa.s.sages and poetical diction, it deals entirely with the stir of plot and counterplot.

Chanakya, the wily Brahman--whose advice had been Chandra-gupta's best weapon in gaining the throne--realising the insecurity of that throne without the hearty support of the n.o.bles and, above all, of the late King's Prime Minister, sets himself by sheer diplomacy to cut the ground from beneath the feet of his master's enemies, and, succeeding, yields up his signet of office to the appeased Rakahasa, whose final aside when he accepts it--"Oh! vile Chanakya--say rather, Wise Chanakya, a mine of wisdom inexhaustible! Deep ocean stored with excellent rare gems"--shows that he feels himself overmastered by sheer wit.

But the whole play is well worth reading; some of it--notably the parts in prose-reminding one of Shakspeare.

The remainder of Chandra-gupta's career, however, was anything but bloodless. It was scarcely possible that it should be so, considering that he began life as a n.o.body and ended it as undisputed Emperor of India from the Bay of Bengal to the Arabian Sea. A man of iron nerve, born to conquer, born to rule, he went on his way undeviatingly, holding his own despite the constant threats of his enemies, despite the danger of constant plots; a danger which made perpetual precaution necessary. He never occupied the same bedroom two nights in succession; he never during the daytime slept at the same hour.

A story is told of Chanakya's wily vigilance for his master. He noticed one day a long caravan of ants on the wall of the king's room carrying crumbs. This was enough for Chanakya. Without an instant's hesitation, the royal pavilion was ordered to be set on fire and, as the plaint runs:--

"The brave men who were concealed In the subterrene avenue that led To Chandra-gupta's sleeping chamber, so, Were all destroyed."

So far as one can gather, Chandra-gupta's character was not a lovable one; but there can be no question of his power to rule men wisely and well. Megasthenes' account of Paliputra (which applies more to the reign of Chandra-gupta, during whose lifetime the Grecian was amba.s.sador to the court, than to that of any other monarch) gives us a marvellous picture of the grip which Government kept on the people; and kept for their good. Every department (especially the land revenue and irrigation, both of paramount importance in an Indian State) was legislated for with the utmost care, and though the whole system of government was based on the personal power of the king, it was far from being a mere arbitrary autocracy. His greatest contemporary was Seleukos Nikator, who in addition to ceding Kabul, Herat, and Kandahar to him, bestowed on him his daughter in marriage.

Chandra-gupta died in B.C. 297, having reigned for twenty-four years.

A short enough time in which to have accomplished so much; for at the day of his death, the only portion of the vast continent of India which did not acknowledge his rule was a strip of sea coast country about Cuttack, on the Bay of Bengal, and that part of the lessening peninsular which lay southward, beyond a line drawn through Mangalore and Madras.

His son Bindu-sara reigned in his stead. Of him we know nothing; not even if he was born of the Grecian princess. Only this is on record, that he was extremely fond of figs, and, presumably, of learning; for a letter of his to Antiochus, the son of Seleukos Nikator, asks navely for the purchase and despatch of green figs and a professor!

To which the dignified reply is still extant that the figs shall be procured and forwarded, but that by Grecian etiquette it was indecorous either to buy or sell a professor!

Bindu-sara had this merit: he handed on the empire which he had received intact to his son, after a reign of five and twenty years.

So let us pa.s.s to Asoka, who, next to Akbar the Great Moghul, was the greatest of all Indian kings. Curiously enough, both these monarchs, Asoka and Akbar, ruled India through its imagination. Both claimed pre-eminence as apostles of a Faith in the Unknown; both appealed to the people on transcendental grounds.

At the time of his fathers death in B.C. 272, Asoka was Viceroy of the Western Province. He had previously ruled in a similar position in the Punjab, where his headquarters had been Taxila, the Serpent City.

Chosen as Crown Prince from amongst numerous other sons on account of his ability, he had been given this semi-independent control, partly because of his ungovernable temper, which earned him the nickname of "The Furious." He thus seemed to take after his grandfather, Chandra-gupta, who, with all his many virtues, was unquestionably cruel and arrogant. But Asoka was not to follow in his ancestor's footsteps. Forty years afterward, when his long and peaceful reign, marred by but one war, had come to an end, he had earned for himself the well-deserved t.i.tle of "The Loving-minded One, Beloved of the G.o.ds." A great change in any man's life; but nothing to the change which his life was to bring into his world.

In B.C. 260, when he came under the mingled influence of Buddhism and Jainism, those creeds were little more than sectarian beliefs confined to the India which had given them birth. When he died, Buddhism had spread through Asia, and had touched both Africa and Europe. Asoka has been called the Constantine of Buddhism, but he was more than that.

The creed which brought him comfort was not, as Christianity was in Constantine's time, already a power to be reckoned with, it was simply the belief of a few enthusiasts, a few select souls who sought almost sorrowfully for some solution of the Great Secret.

What was the cause which led the Emperor of India, in his luxurious autocracy, to join himself to this Search? Undoubtedly it was remorse; remorse for the numberless lives needlessly sacrificed, the needless suffering entailed on humanity by the one war of his reign--the conquest of Kalinga, a maritime province on the sea-board of the Bay of Bengal. We have this remorse with us still (as we have so much of the innermost soul and thoughts and aspirations of Asoka) in the marvellous edicts engraven on rock and pillar, which, outlasting Time itself, tell to wild waste and deserted ruins their story of one man's struggle towards the light. One can almost hear the break, as of tears, in the voice that clamours still of "the regret which the Beloved-of-the-G.o.ds felt at the murders and the deaths and the violence."

This regret, then, was the cosmic touch which drove Asoka to find comfort in preaching the doctrine of the sanct.i.ty of life. Was it Jainism (amongst the tenets of which this takes first place) which influenced Asoka most, or was it Buddhism? Doctors differ; only this we know, that it was through Asoka's exertions that the latter became the creed of one-third of the human race. For the energy of the man was incomparable. His missionaries were everywhere. "Let small and great exert themselves," is the cry still carven upon stone. "The teaching of religion is the most meritorious of acts.... There is no gift comparable to the gift of religion ... it is in the conquests of religion that the G.o.ds takes pleasure." So his yellow-robed monks went forth beyond the confines of his visible, tangible world, and found their way to Egypt, to Greece, to Syria. Their influence is still to be traced in other religions, though no record exists of their labours.

Thus for some thirty years of his life Asoka set himself to alter the faith of the world. Why? And how? Because he believed with a whole heart, not in ritual or dogma, but in something which--hard to be translated--is best rendered by the "Law of Piety." And this his edicts explain to be "mercy and charity, truth and purity, kindness and goodness."

A good creed even in these later days. Not to be improved upon by conformists or non-conformists!

As to how this gospel of good-will was to be preached we learn from these edicts also. It is by example, by tolerance, by "gentleness and moderation in speech."

"Government by religion, law by religion, progress by religion." This was Asoka's rule, and in it he stands alone as the only king who has subordinated all things to a faith which must only be preached in gentleness and moderation.

The first series of fourteen edicts were cut on rocks in various parts of his kingdom, from Attock on the Indus to Cuttack on the Eastern Sea, during the twelfth and thirteenth year of Asoka's reign. They are, therefore, the first-fruits of his conversion. They range over a vast number of subjects, but in each of them there is a personal note which justifies the belief that they are verily the words of the king, and not the mere drafts of some secretary.

On the other hand, the Minor Rock edicts were carven in the last year of Asoka's reign, and thus gain an additional interest from being the farewell of a king to the people whom he had striven so hard to lead into the Way of Peace. In one of them he says that the truest enjoyment for himself has been making men happy by leading them to follow the path of religion, that "with this object he has regulated his life"; yet, though he has "promulgated positive rules, it is solely by a change in the sentiments of the heart that religion makes true progress." The edict ends thus: "So spake Piyadasi, Beloved-of-the-G.o.ds. Wherever this edict exists on pillars of stone let it endure to remote ages."

It has endured. The Prakrit language in which it was engraven--the spoken language of those times--has pa.s.sed; but Asoka's words are not of Time, they are of Eternity.

He was a great builder, but few of his buildings remain to this day.

What their magnificence must have been we may judge by the topes at Sanchi, where the eye wearies in following the intricacy of ornament, the brain is bewildered in attempting to re-fashion in imagination the whole stupendous structure as it must have been. But here and there some monolithic sandstone pillar still remains, slender, perfect in proportion and execution, still bearing in close-carven character Asoka's message to his people, to the world.

Strange, indeed, that the West knows so little of him! Strangest of all that the twentieth century, with its Peace Party and its Anti-Vivesectionists, should not put Asoka's name as President in perpetuity of their organisations. Asoka, who more than a thousand years upheld the equal rights of animals with men to the King's care, and openly adjured his successors to follow in his steps, and not "to think that a conquest by the sword deserves the name of conquest."