as the fundamental principle of the Buddhist creed; it holds out the promise that the soul, when sufficiently purified, shall lose all consciousness of separate existence, and be received into the essence of the godhead; and it teaches that this state of bliss is equally attainable by men, angels and demons. It substituted sanctity for sacrifice. "Genuine Buddhism," says Mr. Hodgson, "has no priesthood; the ascetic despises the priest; the saint scorns the aid of mediators." As a consequence, it followed that the Buddhists recognized no distinction of caste, and that, wherever this system existed as a political institution, their creed tended to weaken and destroy its influence. It seems probable that the Buddhists for a time obtained an ascendancy over the Brahmins, particularly in the states of Western India, where symbols of their peculiar creed are found graven on the gigantic cave temples; but in the end they were overcome by the Brahmins, and driven by persecution from the Peninsula. The exiles carried their creed to the vast regions of Asia, which extend beyond the north and east of India; they preached it successfully in Nepaul, Mongolia, China, the farther peninsula, and the island of Ceylon, where it still flourishes with unabated vigour, and is supposed to include among its disciples fully one-third of the human race. It is probably owing to the expulsion of the Buddhists, that so much of the ancient literature of India has been lost, and that such darkness and uncertainty rest upon Hindu history. It was obviously the interest of the Brahmins to destroy every memorial of a contest which had nearly proved fatal to their power, and every record of a creed which struck at the very root of their pretensions.

It is not necessary here, to enter on any discussion of the amount of civilization to which the Hindus had attained, while they continued under the government of their native princes. Professor Wilson's summary of their social state is so complete, and his authority of such weight, that we shall conclude this chapter by quoting his testimony. "The Hindus," says this eminent scholar and enlightened writer, "by the character of their institutions, and by the depressing influence of foreign subjugation, are apparently what they were at least three centuries before the Christian era. Two thousand years have done nothing for them, every thing for us. We must, therefore, in fairness compare them with their cotemporaries, with the people

of antiquity; and we shall then have reason to believe that they occupied a very foremost station amongst the nations. They had a religion, less disgraced by idolatrous worship than most of those which prevailed in early times. They had a government, which, although despotic, was equally restricted by law, by institutions and by religion. They had a code of laws, in many respects wise and rational, and adapted to a great variety of relations, which could not have existed except in an advanced state of social organization. They had a copious and cultivated language, and an extensive and diversified literature; they had made great progress in the mathematical sciences; they speculated profoundly on the mysteries of man and nature; and they had acquired remarkable proficiency in many of the ornamental and useful arts of life. Whatever defects may be justly attributed to their religion, their government, their laws, their literature, their sciences, their arts, as contrasted with the same proofs of civilization in modern Europe, it will not be disputed by any impartial and candid critic, that, as far as we have the means of instituting a comparison, the Hindus were, in all these respects, quite as civilized as any of the most civilized nations of the ancient world, and in as early times as any of which records or traditions remain."

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CHAPTER II.

THE AFGHAN, AND MONGOLIAN CONQUESTS OF INDIA.

BEFORE the discovery of the passage round the Cape of Good Hope had opened India to European enterprize, the greater part of the country had been subdued by foreign invaders, animate equally by cupidity and religious fanaticism. From the earliest ages, the wealth of India has been the theme of so much exaggeration in western Asia, that the Saracens had scarcely become masters of Persia, before they evinced an anxiety to obtain some portion of the riches, which their native traditions as well as the legends of the countries which they had subdued, led them to believe were accumulated in the countries on the eastern side of the Indus. After the conversion of the Afghans to Mohammedanism, which took place in less than half a century from the first promulgation of that religion, frequent incursions were made into the territories of the Hindus: avarice and bigotry combined to stimulate the marauders to cruelty, for they regarded their victims as at once the most wealthy and the most obstinate of idolators.

After their first great burst of success, the Saracens sunk into indolence and effeminacy; their sovereigns, the Khaliphs, began to recruit their armies from the wild tribes of Turks and Tartars; in a short time, these mercenaries became masters of the empire, and their generals founded independent principalities, limited in their extent and temporary in their duration. The Samanian dynasty, established by a Turkish adventurer, possessed the eastern provinces of the Persian empire, but obtained only a nominal obedience from the military hordes of the Afghans, who have been distinguished by their love of savage independence, from the time that their name first appears in history. To control these dangerous subjects, they entrusted the government of Candahar, or (as it is sometimes called) Ghazní, to one of their officers named Sabektekin, who had risen from the condition of a slave to the highest rank in the army. His extraordinary talents

enabled him to unite a great number both of Turkish and Afghan tribes under his government; he soon became so powerful that he not only rendered himself independent of the Samanian sultan, but even crossed the Indus to invade the kingdom of Lahore, (A. D. 997, A. H. 387.) Jeipal, a Brahmin prince who then ruled Lahore, or as it is called from its five rivers, the Punjab, assembled a powerful army to protect his religion and his country, but was twice defeated with enormous loss, and forced to purchase peace by the sacrifice of a large portion of his dominions. The causes of the success of the invaders, were the discipline of their soldiers, and the weight of their horses. Hindustan was at this time apportioned among various tribes of Rajputs, who were bound to perform a kind of feudal service for their lands; but the Rajput vassals were an ill-equipped and worse-officered body of national militia, suddenly called into the field on moments of emergency; their horses were the feeble race of steeds peculiar to the country, untrained to act in concert. The Turks, like their predecessors the Saracens, had been particularly attentive to the breeding and training of their horses, and hence the Hindus used to describe the dreaded charge of the Ghazni cavalry, as "the burst of a whirlwind."

On the death of Sabektekin, (A. D. 997,) his son, Mahmúd, ascended the throne; he was bigotedly attached to the Sunnite form of the Mohammedan faith, equally proud of his theological skill and military prowess; from his very childhood he believed himself divinely summoned, to extirpate idolatry and establish the creed of Islam beyond the Indus. Jeipal was once more forced to take the field against invasion, and was again defeated; he was taken prisoner after the fight with several of his kinsmen, and the jewels found upon his person have been valued at eighty thousand pounds. The unfortunate prince, believing that his misfortunes arose from some crime which he might expiate by self-sacrifice, resigned his crown to his son, Ananga Pal, and terminated his life on the funeral pile. The renewal of the war by the Rajput chiefs, who refused to obey Ananga Pal, on account of his submission to Mahmúd, led the sultan a second time across the Indus, when he completed the subjugation of the Punjab, and captured the important city of Multan. A third expedition was undertaken to punish a refractory vassal; but a fourth and more important invasion, was rendered necessary by

the revolt of Ananga Pal, who was stimulated by the remonstrances of the priests to make a great effort for throwing off the Mohammedan yoke. The battle which decided the fate of the Punjab, was fought in the neighbourhood of Peshawur. During forty days the armies remained watching each other: Mahmud at length commenced the battle, but his archers were driven back, and his lines thrown into confusion by the furious charge of the Gakkars, a wild mountain tribe, the ancestors of the modern Jats. The Mohammedans were on the point of being routed, when the elephant, on which Ananga Pal rode, being terrified by the balls of burning naphtha hurled at him by the Afghans, turned and fled: the Hindus, believing themselves deserted by their sovereign, and disheartened by his apparent cowardice, gave way in every direction. A vigorous pursuit was maintained for two days, and more than twenty thousand men are said to have fallen in the battle and the flight.

Mahmúd's fifth invasion of India was undertaken to acquire possession of Nagrakot, a mountain fortress between the sources of the Ravi (Hydraotes) and the Beyah (Hyphasis), celebrated for its strength and reputed sanctity. Its temples were stored with gold and jewels; and that extraordinary spectacle of nature, a burning fountain in its neighbourhood, had from remote ages been regarded with superstitious veneration. Nagrakot yielded after a feeble defence; the treasures, which for many years had been accumulating in its shrines, became the prey of the conquerors, and Mahmúd on his return home proclaimed a solemn festival, that the followers of the Prophet might have an opportunity of admiring his magnificent plunder. The next four expeditions were undertaken to obtain similar treasures, but it is not necessary to recite the particulars; the mind is fatigued and sickened by the sameness of the horrors perpetrated to gratify fanaticism and avarice; towns were burned, temples destroyed, idols broken, and such a multitude of captives driven into slavery, that in the Mohammedan camp the price of a strong man was only ten drachmas, or about five English shillings.

Mahmud's tenth and most celebrated invasion, was directed against the temple of Somnath. The idol of this shrine was one of the twelve famous Lingams or Phalli erected in Hindustan, and was dedicated to Siva under his title of Swayan Nath, or "the Self-existent." Though situated in Gujerat, water was brought