India: What can it teach us? Part 6

[Footnote 19: Mill's "History," ed. Wilson, vol. i., p. 368.]

[Footnote 20: L. c. p. 325.]

[Footnote 21: L. c. p. 329.]

[Footnote 22: P. 217.]

[Footnote 23: Mill's "History," vol. i., p. 329.]

[Footnote 24: Manu, VIII. 43, says: "Neither a King himself nor his officers must ever promote litigation; nor ever neglect a lawsuit inst.i.tuted by others."]

[Footnote 25: Mill's "History," vol. i., p. 327.]

[Footnote 26: L. c. p. 368.]

[Footnote 27: See Elphinstone, "History of India," ed. Cowell, p. 219, note. "Of the 232 sentences of death 64 only were carried out in England, while the 59 sentences of death in Bengal were all carried out."]

[Footnote 28: Sir Ch. Trevelyan, Christianity and Hinduism, 1882, p.

42.

This will be news to many. It has been quite common to include the Thugs with the worshippers of Bhavani, the consort of Siva. The word signifies a deceiver, which eliminates it from every religious a.s.sociation.--A. W.]

[Footnote 29: Manu VII. 115.]

[Footnote 30: H. M. Elliot, "Supplement to the Glossary of Indian Terms," p. 151.]

[Footnote 31: I see from Dr. Hunter's latest statistical tables that the whole number of towns and villages in British India amounts to 493,429. Out of this number 448,320 have less than 1000 inhabitants, and may be called villages. In Bengal, where the growth of towns has been most encouraged through Government establishments, the total number of homesteads is 117,042, and more than half of these contain less than 200 inhabitants. Only 10,077 towns in Bengal have more than 1000 inhabitants, that is, no more than about a seventeenth part of all the settlements are anything but what we should call substantial villages. In the North-Western Provinces the last census gives us 105,124 villages, against 297 towns. See London _Times_, 14th Aug.

1882.]

[Footnote 32: "Ancient India as described by Megasthenes and Arrian,"

by McCrindle, p. 42.]

[Footnote 33: "Perjury seems to be committed by the meanest and encouraged by some of the better sort among the Hindus and Mussulmans, with as little remorse as if it were a proof of ingenuity, or even a merit."--Sir W. Jones, Address to Grand Jury at Calcutta, in Mill's "History of India," vol. i., p. 324. "The longer we possess a province, the more common and grave does perjury become."--Sir G.

Campbell, quoted by Rev. Samuel Johnson, "Oriental Religions, India,"

p. 288.]

[Footnote 34: Vasish_th_a, translated by Buhler, VIII. 8.]

[Footnote 35: Mr. J. D. Baldwin, author of "Prehistoric Nations,"

declares that this system of village-communities existed in India long before the Aryan conquest. He attributes it to Cus.h.i.te or aethiopic influence, and with great plausibility. Nevertheless, the same system flourished in prehistoric Greece, even till the Roman conquests. Mr.

Palgrave observed it existing in Arabia. "Oman is less a kingdom than an aggregation of munic.i.p.alities," he remarks; "each town, each village has its separate existence and corporation, while towns and villages, in their turn, are subjected to one or other of the ancestral chiefs." The Ionian and Phoenician cities existed by a similar tenure, as did also the Free Cities of Europe. It appears, indeed, to have been the earlier form of rule. Megasthenes noticed it in India. "The village-communities," says Sir Charles Metcalf, "are little republics, having everything they want within themselves, and almost independent of any foreign relations. They seem to last where nothing else lasts." These villages usually consist of the holders of the land, those who farm and cultivate it, the established village-servants, priest, blacksmith, carpenter, accountant, washerman, potter, barber, watchman, shoemaker, etc. The tenure and law of inheritance varies with the different native races, but tenantship for a specific period seems to be the most common.--A. W.]

[Footnote 36: "Sleeman," vol. ii., p. 111.]

[Footnote 37: Sleeman, "Rambles," vol. ii., p. 116.]

[Footnote 38: Vasish_th_a XVI. 32.]

[Footnote 39: Ktesiae Fragmenta (ed. Didot), p. 81.]

[Footnote 40: See "Indian Antiquary," 1876, p. 333.]

[Footnote 41: Megasthenis Fragmenta (ed. Didot) in "Fragm. Histor.

Graec." vol. ii., p. 426 b: '????e??? te ????? ?a? ??et?? ?p?de???ta?.

[Footnote 42: Indica, cap. xii. 6.]

[Footnote 43: See McCrindle in. "Indian Antiquary," 1876, p. 92.]

[Footnote 44: See Stanislas Julien, _Journal Asiatique_, 1847, Aout, pp. 98, 105.]

[Footnote 45: Vol. ii., p. 83.]

[Footnote 46: Elliot, "History of India," vol. i., p. 88.]

[Footnote 47: See Mehren: "Manuel de la Cosmographie du moyen age, traduction de l'ouvrage de Shems-ed-din Abou Abdallah de Damas."

Paris: Leroux, 1874, p. 371.]

[Footnote 48: "Marco Polo," ed. H. Yule, vol. ii., p. 350.]

[Footnote 49: "Marco Polo," vol. ii., p. 354.]

[Footnote 50: "Notices des Ma.n.u.scrits," tom. xiv., p. 436. He seems to have been one of the first to state that the Persian text of the Kalilah and Dimna was derived from the wise people of India.]

[Footnote 51: Samuel Johnson, "India," p. 294.]

[Footnote 52: Sleeman, "Rambles," vol. i., p. 63.]

[Footnote 53: Elphinstone's "History of India," ed. Cowell, p. 213.]

[Footnote 54: This statement may well be doubted. The missionary staff in India is very large and has been for years past. There is no reason to doubt that many of its members are well informed respecting Hindoo character in all grades of society.--AM. PUBS.]

[Footnote 55: Samuel Johnson, "India," p. 293.]

[Footnote 56: See "History of India," pp. 375-381.]

[Footnote 57: L. c., p. 215.]

[Footnote 58: "History of India," p. 218.]

[Footnote 59: Mill's "History of India," ed. Wilson, vol. i., p. 370.]

[Footnote 60: L. c., p. 371.]

[Footnote 61: Sir Thomas Munro estimated the children educated at public schools in the Madras presidency as less than one in three. But low as it was, it was, as he justly remarked, a higher rate than existed till very lately in most countries of Europe.--Elphinstone, "Hist. of India," p. 205.

In Bengal there existed no less than 80,000 native schools, though, doubtless, for the most part, of a poor quality. According to a Government Report of 1835, there was a village-school for every 400 persons.--"Missionary Intelligencer," IX. 183-193.