Mr. C. A. Silberrard (President). varies throughout all India trom the Bengal when the following committee was appointe or railway mound of 82-2/7 lbs. to the Factory to inquire into the entire subject anew:maund of 74 lbs. 10 oz. 11 drs., the Bombay maund of 28 lbs., which apparently answers to the Forest Department maund in use at the Fuel Depot, and the Madras maund, which some authorities estimate at 25 lbs. and others at 24 lbs. and so on. tyo:cal instances which are multiplied indef Committees of Inquiry. These are merely nitely. There are variations of every detail of weights and measures in every part of India. The losses to trade arising from the confusion and the trouble which this state of thing causes are heavy. Muncipal and commercial bodies are continually returning to the problem with a view to devising a practical scheme of reform. The Supreme and Provincial Gov. ernments have made various attempts during 40 years past to solve the problem of universal units of weights and measures and commerce and trade have agitated about the question for the past century. The Indian railways and Government departments adopted standard tola (180 grains), seer (80 tolas) and maund (40 seers) and it was hoped that this would act as a successful "lead" which would gradually be followed by trade throughout the empire, but the expectation has not been realised. a The Government of India considered the whole question in consultation with the provincial Governments in 1890-1894 and varions special steps have at different times been taken in different parts of India. The Government of Bombay appointed a committee in 1911 to make proposals for reform for the Bombay Presidency. Their final report has not been published, but they presented in 1912 an ad interim report which has been issued for public discussion. In brief, it points out the practical impossibility of proceeding by compulsory measures affecting the whole 1915, Mr. Rustomji Fardoonji. This Committee reported, in August, in favour of a uniform system of weights to be tols Pro is no doubt that the most widespread and best 8 khaskhas 12 mashes or 4 tanks = 1 chawal = 1 ratti = 1 masha = 1 tola and = 1 large ywe = 1 pe = 1 mu = 1 mat = 1 ngamu = 1 tikal ta = 1 peiktha or viss. the rupee weight. The viss has recently been The tola is the tola of 180 grains, equal to Axed at 360 lbs. or 140 tolas. Government Action.-The Government of India at first approved the principles of the Report and left the Provincial Governments to take action, but they passed more detailed orders in January, 1922. In these they again, for the present and subject to the restrictions imposed by the Government of India Act and he devolution rules, left it entirely to local Governments to take such action as they think advisable to standardise dry and liquid measures of capacity within their provinces. Similarly, they announced their decision not to adopt all. India standards of length or area. of India. The Committee stated that over the greater part of the Bombay Presidency a standard of weights and measures would be beartily welcome by the people. They thought that legislation compulsorily applied over large areas subject to many diverse conditions of trade and social life would not result in bringing about the desired reform so successfully as a "lead" supplied by local legislation based on practical experience. The want of coherence, savoir faire, or the means of cooperation among the people at large pointed to this conclusion. The Committee pointed out that a good example of the results that will follow a good lead is apparent in the East Khandesh District of the Presidency, where As regards weight they decided in the District Officer, Mr. Simcox gradually, favour of the standard mentioned under during the course of three years. induced the the heading "Weights", near the commencepeople to adopt throughout the district uni nent of this article, this having been recomform weights and measures, the unit of weight mended by a majority of the Weights and in this case being a tola of 180 grains. Measures Committee and having received the committee abstained from recommending the unanimous support of the Local Govern that the same weights and measures should ments. At the same time they provisionally be adopted over the whole Presidency, pre- undertook to assist provincial legislation ferring that a new system started in any area or standardisation and stated that "if subse should be as nearly as possible similar to the quently, opinion develops strongly in favour of best system already prevailing there the Imperial standardisation of weights, the Government of India will be prepared to under, take such legislation, but at present they consider that any such step would be premature But Committee of 1913.-The whole problem was again brought under special consideration by the Government of India in October, 1913, No history of India can be proportionate, td the oriefest summary must suffer from the ane defect. Even a wholesale acceptance as istory of mythology, tradition, and folklore ril not make good, though it makes picaresque, the many gaps that exist in the early istory of India: and, though the labours of modern geographers and archæologists have been maringly fruitful, it cannot be expected that these gaps will ever be filled to any appreciable xtent. Approximate accuracy in chronology and an outline of dynastic facts are all that the student can look for up to the time of Alexander, though the briefest excursion into the by-ways of history will reveal to him many ailuring and mysterious fields for speculation. There are, for example, to this day castes that believe they sprang originally from the loins of a being who landed "from an impossible boat on the shores of a highly improbable sea "; and the great epic poems contain plentiful statements equally difficult of reconciliation with modern notions of history as a science. But from the Jataka stories and the Puranas, much valuable information is to be obtained, sad, for the benefit of those unable to go to these and other original sources, it has been stilled by a number of writers. The orthodox Hindu begins the political history of India more than 3,000 years before Christ, with the war waged on the banks of the Jumna between the sons of Kuru and the Sons of Pandu. Recent excavations by the Archæological Department in the Indus Valley at Harappa in the Punjab, but more particularly at Mohenjo Daro in Sind, carry us back even farther. They have uncovered sites of cities bearing the marks and containing the relics of a high civilisation stated by the Department to be Sumerian. The excavations are proceeding under special direction and have excited the greatest interest in scientific circles throughout the world, but the general critic omits several of those remote centuries and takes 600 B.C., or thereabouts as his starting point. At that time nach of the country was covered with forest, but the Aryan races, who had entered India from the north, had established in parts a form of civilization far superior to that of the aboriginal savages and to this day there survive cities, like Benares, founded by those invaders. In like manner the Dravidian invaders from an unknown land, Deccan and the Southern part of the Peninsula, crushed the aborigines, and at a much later period, were themselves subdued by the Aryans. Of these two civilizing forces, the Aryan is the better known, and of the Aryan kingdoms the first of which there is authentic record is that of Magadha, or Bihar, on the Ganges. It was in, or near, this powerfal kingdom that Jainism and Buddhism had their origin, and the fifth King of Magadha, Bimbisara by name, was the friend and patron of Gautama Buddha. The King mentioned was a contemporary of Darius, autocrat of Persia (521 to 485 B.C.) who annexed the Indus valley and formed from his conquest an Indian satrapy which paid as tribute the equivalent of about one million sterling. Detailed history, however, does not become possible until the invasion of Alexander in 326 B.C. Alexander the Great. who overran the That great soldier had crossed the Hindu Kush in the previous year and had captured Aornos, on the Upper Indus. In the spring of 326 he crossed the river at Ohind, received the submission of the King of Taxila, and marched gainst Porus who ruled the fertile country etween the rivers Hydaspes (Jhelum) and Akesines (Chenab). The Macedonian carried all before him, defeating Porus at the battle of the Hydaspes, and crossing the Chenab and Ravi. But at the River Hyphasis (Bias) his weary troops mutinied, and Alexander was forced to turn back and retire to the Jhelum where a fleet to sail down the rivers to the sea was nearly ready. The wonderful story of Alexander's march through Mekran and Persia to Babylon, and of the voyage of Nearchus up the Persian Gulf is the climax to the narrative of the invasion but is not part of the history of India. Alexander had stayed nineteen months in India and left behind him officers to carry on the Government of the kingdoms he had conquered: but his death at Babylon, in 323, destroyed the fruits of what has to be regarded as nothing but a brilliant raid, and within two years his successors were obliged to leave the Indian provinces, heavily scarred by war but not hellenized. The leader of the revolt against Alexander's generals was a young Hindu, Chandragupta, who was an illegitimate member of the Royal Family of Magadha. He dethroned the ruler of that kingdom, and became so powerful that he is said to have been able to place 600,000 troops in the field against Seleucus, to whom Babylon had passed on the death of Alexander. This was too formidable an opposition to be faced, and a treaty of peace was concluded between the Syrian and Indian monarchs which left the latter the first paramount Sovereign of India (321 B.C.) with his capital at Pataliputra, the modern Patna and Bankipore. Of Chandragupta's court and administration a very full account is preserved in the fragments that remain of the history compiled by Megasthenes, the ambassador sent to India by Seleucus. His me.norable reign ended in 297 B.C. when he was succeeded by his son Bindusara, who in his turn was succeeded by Asoka (269-231 B.C.) who recorded the events of his reign in numerous inscriptions. This king, in an unusually bloody war, added to his dominions the kingdom of Kalinga (the Northern Circars) and then becoming a convert to Buddhism, resolved for the future to abstain from conquest by force of arms. The consequences of the conversion of Asoka were amazing. He was not intolerant of other religions, and did not endeavour to force his creed on his "children". But he initiated measures for the propagation of his doctrine with the result that "Buddhism, which had hitherto been a merely local sect in the valley of the Ganges, was transformed into one of the greatest religions of the world-the greatest, probably, it measured by the number of adherents. This is Acoka's claim to be remembered; this it is which makes his reign an epoch, not only in the history of India, but in that of the world." The wording of his edicts reveal him as a great king as well as a great missionary, and it is to be hoped that the excavations now being carried on in the ruins of his palace may throw yet more light on bis character and times. On his death the Maurya kingdom fell to pieces. Even during his reign there had been signs of new forces at work on the borderland of India, where the independent kingdoms of Bactria and Parthia had been formed, and subsequent to it there were frequent Greek raids into India. The Greeks in Bactria, however, could not withstand the overwhelming force of the westward migration of the Yueh-chi horde, which, in the first century A.D., also ousted the Indo-Parthian kings from Afghanistan and North-Western India. The Gupta Dynasty. carried on a considerable trade with Greere Egypt and Rome, as well as with the East. Their domination ended in the fifth century A.D. and a number of new dynasties, of which the Pallavas were the most important, began to appear. The Pallavas made way in tur for the Chalukyas, who for two centuries remained the most important Deccan dynasty, one branch uniting with the Cholas. But the fortunes of the Southern dynasties are so The first of these Yueh-chi kings to annex a involved, and in many cases so little known part of India was Kadphises II (A.D. 85-125), that to recount them briefly is impossible. who had been defeated in a war with China, Few names of note stand out from the record but crossed the Indus and consolidated his except those of Vikramaditya (11th century) power eastward as far as Benares. His son and a few of the later Hindu rulers who made Kanishka (whose date is much disputed) left a stand against the growing power of Islam, a name which to Buddhists stands second only of the rise of which an account is given below. to that of Asoka. He greatly extended the In fact the history of mediæval India is singu boundaries of his empire in the North, and larly devoid of unity. Northern India was in made Peshawar his capital. Under him the a state of chaos from about 650 to 950 A.D. power of the Kushan clan of the Yueh-chi not unlike that which prevailed in Europe of reached its zenith and did not begin to decay that time, and materials for the history of until the end of the second century, concurrently these centuries are very scanty. In the absence with the rise in middle India of the Andhra dy- of any powerful rulers the jungle began to nasty which constructed the Amaravati stupa, gain back what had been wrested from it: "one of the most elaborate and precious monu- ancient capitals fell into ruins from which in ments of piety ever raised by man." some cases they have not even yet been dis turbed, and the aborigines and various foreign Early in the fourth century there arose, at tribes began to assert themselves so successPataliputra, the Gupta dynasty which proved fully that the Aryan element was chiefly con of great importance. Its founder was a local fined to the Doab and the Eastern Punjab. chief, his son Samudragupta, who ruled for It is not therefore so much for the political as some fifty years from A.D. 326, was a king of for the religious and social history of this anar the greatest distinction. His aim of subduing chical period that one must look. And the all India was not indeed fulfilled but he was greatest event-if a slow process may be call able to exact tribute from the kingdoms of ed an event-of the middle ages was the tranthe South and even from Ceylon, and, in addi- sition from tribe to caste, the final disappear tion to being a warrior, he was a patron of the ance of the old four-fold division of Brahmans; arts and of Sanskrit literature. The rule of Kshattriyas, Vaisyas, and Sudras, and the his son, Chandragupta, was equally distin- formation of the new division of pure and im guished and is commemorated in an inscription pure largely resting upon a classification of on the famous iron pillar near Delhi, as well as occupations. But this social change was only in the writings of the Chinese pilgrim Fa-hien a part of the development of the Hindu reli who pays a great tribute to the equitable gion into a form which would include in its administration of the country. It was not embrace the many barbarians and foreigners until the middle of the fifth century that the in the country who were outside it. The great fortunes of the Gupta dynasty began to wane- political event of the period was the rise of the in face of the onset of the White Huns from Rajputs as warriors in the place of the Kshattri Central Asia and by 480 the dynasty had dis- yas. Their origin is obscure but they appeared in appeared. The following century all over the 8th century and spread, from their two India was one of great confusion, apparently original homes in Rajputana and Oudh, into marked only by the rise and fall of petty king- the Punjab, Kashmir, and the Central Hima doms, until a monarch arose, in A.D. 606, ca- layas, assimilating a number of fighting clang pable of consolidating an Empire. This was and binding them together with a common the Emperor Harsha who, from Thanasar near code. At this time Kashmir was a small king. Ambala, conquered Northern India and ex- dom which exercised an influence on India tended his territory South to the Nerbudda. Imitating Asoka in many ways, this Emperor yet "felt no embarrassment in paying adoration in turn to Siva, the Sun, and Buddha at a great public ceremonial." Of his times a graphic picture has been handed down in the work of a Chinese "Master of the Law," Hinen Tsiang by name. Harsha was the last native paramount sovereign of Northern India; on his death in 648 his throne was usurped by a Minister, whose treacherous conduct towards an embassy from China was quickly avenged, and the kingdom so laboriously established lapsed into a state of internecine strife which lasted for a century and a half. The Andhras and Rajputs. wholly disproportionate to its size. The only other kingdom of importance was that of Kanauf-in the Doab and Southern Oudh which still retained some of the power to which it had reached in the days of Harsha, and of which the renown extended to China and Arabia. With the end of the period of anarchy, the political history of India centres round the Rajputs. One clan founded the kingdom of Gujarat, another held Malwa, another (the Chauhans) founded a kingdom of which Ajmer was the capital, and so on. Kanauj fell into the hands of the Rathors (circ 1040 A.D.) and the dynasty then founded by that branch of the Gabarwars of Benares became one of the most famous in India. Later in the same century the Chauhans were united; and by In 1163 one of them could boast that he had con were of comparative unimportance, though quered all the country from the Vindhyas to the some great men appeared among them. Himalayas, including Delhi already a fortress Gujarat, for example, Ahmad Shah, the founder a hundred years old. The son of this con- of Ahmedabad, showed himself a good ruler queror was Prithwi Raj, the champion of the and builder as well as a good soldier, though Hindus against the Mahomedans. With his his grandson, Mahmud Shah Begara, was a death in battle (1192) ends the golden age of greater ruler--acquiring fame at sea as well the new civilization that had been evolved out as on land. In the South various kings of the of chaos; and of the greatness of that age Bahmani dynasty made names for themselves, there is a splendid memorial in the temples especially in the long wars they waged on the and forts of the Rajput states and in the two new Hindu kingdom that had arisen which had great philosophical systems of Sankaracharya its capital at Vijayanagar. Of importance (ninth century) and Ramanuja (twelfth cen- also was Adil Khan, a Turk, who founded (1490) tury). The triumph of Hinduism had been the Bijapur dynasty of Adil Shahis. It was achieved, it must be added, at the expense of one of his successors who crushed the VijayaBuddhism, which survived only in Magadha at nagar dynasty, and built the great moeque for the time of the Mahomedan conquest and which Bijapur is famous. speedily disappeared there before the new faith. Mahomedan India. The wave of Mahomedan Invaders that eventually swept over the country first touched India, in sind, less than a hundred years after the death of the Prophet in 632. But the first real contact was in the tenth century when a Turkish slave of a Persian ruler founded a kingdom at Ghazni, between Kabul and Kandahar. A descendant of his, Mahmud (967-1030) made repeated raids into the heart of India, capturing places so far apart as Multan, Kanauj, Gwalior, and Somnath in Kathiawar, but permanently occupying only a part of the Punjab. Enduring Mahomedan rule was not established until the end of the twelfth century, by which time, from the little territory of Ghor, there had arisen one Mahomed Ghori capable of carving out a kingdom stretching from Peshawar to the Bay of Bengal. Prithwi Raj, the Chauhan ruler of Delhi and Ajmer, made a brave stand against, and once defeated, one of the armies of this ruler, but was himself defeated in the following year. Mahomed Ghori was murdered at Lahore (1206) and his vast kingdom, which had been governed by satraps, was split up into what were practically independent sovereignties. Of these satraps, Qutb-ud-din, the slave ruler of Delhi and Lahore, was the most famous, and is remembered by the great mosque he bailt near the modern Delhi. Between his rule and that of the Mughals, which began in 1528, only a few of the many Kings who governed and fought and built beautiful buildings, stand out with distinction. One of these was Ala-ud-din (1296-1313), whose many expeditions to the south much weakened the Hindu Kings, and who proved himself to be a capable administrator. Another was Firoz Shah, of the house of Tughlaq, whose administration was in many respects admirable, but which ended, on his abdication, in confusion. In the reign of his successor, Mahmud (13981413), the kingdom of Delhi went to pieces and India was for seven months at the mercy of the Turkish conqueror Taimur. It was the end of the fifteenth century before the kingdom, under Sikandar Lodi, began to recover. His son, Ibrahim, still further extended the kingdom that had been recreated, but was defeated by Babar, King of Kabul, at Panipat, near Delhi, in 1526, and there was then established in India the Mughal dynasty. The Mahomedan dynasties that had ruled in capital other than Delhi up to this date The Mughal Empire. As one draws near to modern times it becomes impossible to present anything like a coherent and consecutive account of the growth of India as a whole. Detached threads in the story have to be picked up one by one and followed to their ending, and although the sixteenth century saw the first European settlements in India, it will be convenient here to continue the narrative of Mahomedan India almost to the end of the Mughal Empire. How Babar gained Delhi has already been told. His son, Humayun, greatly extended his kingdom, but was eventually defeated (1540) and driven into exile by Sher Khan, an Afghan of great capabilities, whose short reign ended in 1545. The Sur dynasty thus founded by Sher Khan lasted another ten years when Humayun having snatched Kabul from one of his brothers, was strong enough to win back part of his old king. dom. When Humayun died (1556) his eldest son, Akbar, was only 13 years old and was con fronted by many rivals. Nor was Akbar well served, but his career of conquest was almost uninterrupted and by 1594 the whole of India North of the Nerbudda had bowed to his authority, and he subsequently entered the Deccan and captured Ahmednagar. This great ruler, who was as remarkable for his religious tolerance as for his military prowess, died in 1605, leaving behind him a record that has been surpassed by few. His son, Jehangir, who married the Persian lady Nur Jahan, ruled until 1627, bequeathing to an admiring posterity some notable buildings-the tomb of his father at Sikandra, part of the palace of Agra, and the palace and fortress of Lahore, His son, Shahjahan, was for many years occu⚫ pied with wars in the Deccan, but found time to make his court of incredible magnificence and to build the most famous and beautiful of all tombs, the Taj Mahal, as well as the fort, palace and Juma Masjid at Delhi. The quarrels of his sons led to the deposition of Shahjahan by one of them, Aurangzeb, in 1658. This Emperor's rule was one of constant intrigue and fighting in every direction, the most important of his wars being a twenty-five years' struggle against the Marathas of the Deccan who, under the leadership of Sivaji, became a very powerful faction in Indian politics. His bigoted attitude towards Hinduism made Aurangzeb all the more anxious to establish his Empire on a firm basis in the south, but he was unable to hold his many conquests, and on his death (1707) the Empire, for which bis three sons were fighting, sea fight off Swally (Suvali) in 1612. Toe could not be held together. Internal disorder first factory, at Surat, was for many years and Maratha encroachments continued during the most important English foothold in the the reigns of his successors, and in 1739 fresh East. Its establishment was followed by European Settlements. of and danger appeared in the person of Naair Shah, others, including Fort St. George, Madras, the Persian conqueror, who carried all before (1640) and Hughli (1651). In the history him. On his withdrawal, leaving Mahomed of these early years of British enterprise in Shah on the throne, the old intrigues recom- India the cession of Bombay (1661) as part of menced and the Marathas began to make the the dower of Catherine of Braganza stands out most of the opportunity offered to them by as a land-mark it also illustrates the weakpuppet rulers at Delhi and by almost uni- ness of the Por uguese at that date, since in versal discord throughout what had been the return the King of England undertook to proMughal Empire. There is little to add to the tect the Portuguese in India against their history of Mahomedan India. Emperors continu- foes-the Marathas and the Dutch. Cromwell ed to reign in name at Delhi up to the middle of by his treaty of 1654, had already obtained the 19th century, but their territory and power from the Portuguese an acknowledgment had long since disappeared, being swallowed up England's right to trade in the East; either by the Marathas or by the British. that right was now threatened, not by the Portuguese, but by Sivaji and by the general disorder prevalent in India. Accordingly, in 1686, the Company turned its attention to acquiring territorial power, and announced its intention to establish such a policy of civil and military power, and create and secure such a large revenue......as may be the foun dation of a large, well-grounded, sure English dominion in India for all time to come. Not much came of this announcement for some time, and no stand could be made in Bengal against the depredations of Aurangzeb. The foundations of Calcutta (1690) could not be laid by Job Charnock until after a humiliating peace had been concluded with that Emperor, and, owing to the difficulties in which the Company found itself in England, there was little chance of any immediate change for the better. The union of the old East India Company with the new one which had been formed in rivalry to it took place in 1708, and for some years peaceful development followed; though Bombay was always exposed by sea to attacks from the pirates, who had many strongholds within easy reach of that port, and on land to attacks from the Marathas, The latter danger was felt also in Calcutta. Internal dangers were numerous and still more to be feared. More than one mutiny took place among the troops sent out from England, and rebellions like that led by Keigwin in Bombay threatened to stifle the infant settlements. The public health was bad and the rate of mortality was at times appalling. To cope with such conditions strong men were needed, and the Company was in this respect peculiarly fortunate; the long list of its servants, from Oxenden and Aungier to Hastings and Raffles, contains many names of men who proved themselves good rulers and far-sighted statesmen, the finest Empire-builders the world has known. The voyage of Vasco da Gama to India in 1498 was what turned the thoughts of the Portuguese to the formation of a great Empire in the East. That idea was soon realized, for from 1500 onwards, constant expeditions were sent to India and the first two Viceroys in India-Almeida and Albuquerque-laid the foundations of a great Empire and of a great trade monopoly. Goa, taken in 1519, became the capital of Portuguese India and remains to this day in the hands of its captors, and the countless ruins of churches and forts on the shores of Western India, as also farther East at Malacca, testify to the zeal with wich the Portuguese endeavoured to propagate their religion and to the care they took to defend their settlements. There were great soldiers and great missionaries among them-Albuquerque, da Cunha, da Castro in the former class, St. Francis Xavier in the latter. But the glory of Empire loses something of its lustre when it has to be paid for, and the constant drain of men and money from Portugal, necessitated by the attacks made on their possessions in India and Malaya, was found almost intolerable. The junction of Portugal with Spain, which lasted from 1580 to 1640, also tended to the downfall of the Eastern Empire and when Portugal became independent again, it was unequal to the task of competing in the East with the Dutch and English. The Dutch had little difficulty in wresting the greater part of their territory from the Portuguese, but the seventeenth century naval wars with England forced them to relax their hold upon the coast of India, and during the French wars between 1795 and 1811 England took all Holland's Eastern possessions, and the Dutch have left in India but few traces of their civilisation and of the once powerful East India Company of the Netherlands. The first English attempts to reach India date from 1496 when Cabot tried to find the North-West passage, and these attempts were repeated all through the sixteenth century. The first Englishman to land in India is said to have been one Thomas Stephens (1579) who was followed by a number of merchant adventurers, but trade between the two countries really dates from 1600 when Elizabeth incorporated the East India Company which had been formed in London. Factories in India were founded only after Portuguese and Dutch position had been overcome, notably in the Attempts to compete with the English were made of course. But the schemes of the Emperor Charles VI to secure a share of the Indian trade were not much more successful than those made by Scotland, Denmark, Sweden, and Russia. By the French, who founded Pondicherry and Chandernagore towards the end of the 17th century, much more was achieved, as will be seen from the following outline of the development of British rule. The French Wars. When war broke out between England and France in 1744, the French had acquired a |