Responsables del Sistema de Garantía Interna de Calidad (SGIC) del Plan de Estudios

June 1, 1932

WE must interrupt our story of the Arabs or Saracens and have a look at other countries. What was happening in India, in China, and in the countries of Europe, while the Arabs grew in power and conquered and spread and then declined? Some little glimpses we have already had—the defeat of the Arabs at Tours in France in 732 by a joint army under Charles Martel, their conquest of Central Asia, and their coming up to Sindh in India. Let us first turn to India.

Harsha-Vardhana of Kanauj died in 648 A.C., and with his death the political degeneration of North India became more obvious. For some time past this had been going on, and the conflict between Hinduism and Buddhism had helped the process. During Harsha's time there was outwardly a brave show, but for a while only. After him a number of small States grew up in the north, sometimes enjoying a brief glory, sometimes quarrelling with each other. It it curious that even in these 300 years or more after Harsha, art and literature flourished and there were many fine public works constructed. Several famous Sanskrit writers, like Bhavabhuti and

Rajasekhara, lived in these times, and several kings, not important politically, were famous for

the art and learning which grew under them. One of these rulers—Raja Bhoja—has become almost a mythical type of the model king, and even to-day people refer to him as such.

But in spite of these bright spots the north was declining. South India was again taking the lead and overshadowing the north. I have told you a little of the south in these days in a previous letter (44); of the Chalukyas, and the Chola Empire, and the Pallavas, and the Rashtrakutas. I have also told you of Shankaracharya, who in a short life managed to impress both the learned and the unlearned all over the country, and almost succeeded in putting an end to Buddhism in India. Strange that even as he did so a new religion should knock at the gates of India, and later come in a flood of conquest, to challenge the existing order !

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The Arabs reached the borders of India soon enough, even while Harsha was alive. They stopped there for a while and then took possession of Sindh. In 710 A.C. a young boy of seventeen, Mohammad ibn Kasim, commanding an Arab army, conquered the Indus valley up to Multan in western Punjab. This was the full extent of the Arab conquest of India. Perhaps if they had tried hard enough they might have gone farther. It should not have been difficult, as North India was weak. But, although there was plenty of fighting going on between these Arabs and the

neighbouring rulers, there was no organized attempt at conquest. Politically, therefore, this Arab conquest of Sindh was not an important affair. The Muslim conquest of India was to come several hundred years later: But culturally the contact of the Arabs with the people of India had great results.

The Arabs had friendly relations with the Indian rulers of the south, especially the Rashtrakutas.

Many Arabs settled along the west coast of India and built mosques in their settlements. Arab travellers and traders visited various parts of India. Arab students came in large numbers to the northern University of Takshashila or Taxila, which was especially famous for medicine. It is said that in the days of Harunal-Bashid Indian scholarship had a high place in Baghdad and physicians from India went there to organize hospitals and medical schools. Many Sanskrit books on mathematics and astronomy were translated into Arabic.

Thus the Arabs took much from the old Indo-Aryan culture. They took also much from the Aryan culture of Persia, and also something from Hellenic culture. They were almost like a new race, in the prime of their vigour, and they took advantage of all the old cultures they saw around them, and learnt from them; and on this foundation they built something of their very own—the Saracenic culture. This had a comparatively brief life, as cultures go, but it was a brilliant life, which shines against the dark background of the Middle Ages in Europe.

It is strange to find that while the Arabs profited by their contacts with Indo-Aryan, Persian and Hellenic cultures, the Indians and Persians and Greeks did not profit much by their contacts with the Arabs. Perhaps this was due to the fact that the Arabs were new and full of vigour and enthusiasm, while the others were old races, going along the old ruts, and not caring over-much for change. It is curious how age seems to have the same effect on a people or a race as it has on an individual—it makes them slow of movement, inelastic in mind and body, conservative and afraid of change.

So India was not greatly affected or much changed by this contact with the Arabs, which lasted for some hundreds of years. But during this long period India must have got to know something of the new religion, Islam. Muslim Arabs came and went and built mosques, and sometimes preached their religion, and sometimes even converted people. There seems to have been no objection to this in those days, no trouble or friction between Hinduism and Islam. It is interesting to note this because in later days friction

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and trouble did arise between the two religions. It was only when in the eleventh century Islam came to India in the guise of a conqueror, sword in hand, that it produced a violent reaction, and the old toleration gave way to hatred and conflict.

This wielder of the sword who came to India with fire and slaughter was Mahmud of Ghazni.

Ghazni is now a little town in Afghanistan. Bound about Ghazni grew up a State in the tenth century. Nominally the Central Asian States were under the Caliph of Baghdad, but, as I have told you already, after Harunal-Rashid's death the Caliph weakened and a time came when his empire split up into a number of independent States. This is the period of which we are now speaking. A Turkish slave named Subuktagin carved a State for himself around Ghazni and Kandahar about 975 A.C. He raided India also. In those days a man named Jaipal was Raja of Lahore. Very venturesome, Jaipal marched to the Kabul valley against Subuktagin and got defeated.

Mahmud succeeded his father Subuktagin. He was a brilliant general and a fine cavalry leader.

Year after year he raided India and sacked and killed and took away with him vast treasure and large numbers of captives. Altogether he made seventeen raids and only one of these—into Kashmir—was a failure. The others were successful, and he became a terror all over the north.

He went as far south as Pataliputra, Mathura and Somnath. From Thanesh wara he took away, it is said, 200,000 captives and vast wealth. But it was in Somnath that he got the most treasure.

For this was one of the great temples, and the offerings of centuries had accumulated there. It is said that thousands of people took refuge in the temple when Mahmud approached, in the hope that a miracle would happen and the god they worshipped would protect them. But miracles seldom occur, except in the imaginations of the faithful, and the temple was broken and looted by Mahmud and 50,000 people perished, waiting for the miracle which did not happen.

Mahmud died in 1030 A.C. The whole of the Punjab and Sindh was under his sway at the time.

He is looked upon as a great leader of Islam who came to spread Islam in India. Most Muslims adore him; most Hindus hate him. As a matter of fact, he was hardly a religious man. He was a Mohammedan, of course, but that was by the way. Above everything he was soldier, and a brilliant soldier. He came to India to conquer and loot, as soldiers unfortunately do, and he would have done so to whatever religion he might have belonged. It is interesting to find that he

threatened the Muslim rulers of Sindh, and only on their submission and payment of tribute did he spare them. He even threatened the Caliph at Baghdad with death and demanded Samarqand from him. We must therefore not fall into the common error of considering Mahmud as anything more than a successful soldier.

Mahmud took large numbers of Indian architects and builders with him to Ghazni and built a fine mosque there which he called the " Celestial Bride ". He was very fond of gardens.

Of Mathura, Mahmud has given us a glimpse, which shows us 156

what a great city it was. Writing to his Governor at Ghazni, Mahmud says : " There are here (at Mathura) a thousand edifices as firm as the faith of the faithful; nor is it likely that this city has attained its present condition but at the expense of many millions of dinars, nor could such another be constructed under a period of 200 years."

This description of Mathura by Mahmud we read in an account given by Firdausi. Firdausi was a great Persian poet who lived in Mahmud's time. I remember mentioning his name and the name of his chief work, the Shdhndmah, in one of my letters to you last year. There is a story that the Shdhndmah was written at the request of Mahmud, who promised to pay him a gold dinar (a coin) for every couplet of verses. But Firdausi apparently did not believe in conciseness or brevity. He wrote at tremendous length, and when he produced his many thousands of couplets before Mahmud, he was praised for his work, but Mahmud regretted the rash promise of payment he had made. He tried to pay him some thing much less, and Firdausi was very angry and refused to accept anything.

We have taken a long step from Harsha to Mahmud, and surveyed 360 years and more of Indian history in a few paragraphs. I suppose much could be said of this long period which would be interesting. But I am ignorant of it, and so it is safer for me to preserve a discreet silence. I could tell you something of various kings and rulers who fought each other and sometimes even established large kingdoms in northern India, like the Panchala Kingdom; of the trials of the great city of Kanauj; how it was assailed and captured for a while by the rulers of Kashmir, and then by the King of Bengal, and later still by the Rashtrakutas from the south. But this record would serve little purpose and would only confuse you.

We have now arrived at the end of a long chapter of Indian history, and a new one begins. It is difficult, and often enough wrong, to divide up history into compartments. It is like a flowing river: it goes on and on. Still it changes, and sometimes we can see the end of one phase and the beginning of another. Such changes are not sudden : they shade off into each other. So we reach the end of an act in the unending drama of history, as far as India is concerned. What is called the Hindu period is gradually drawing to a close; the Indo-Aryan culture which had flourished for some thousands of years has to struggle now against a new-comer. But remember that this change was not sudden; it was a slow process. Islam came to the north with Mahmud. The south was not touched by Islamic conquest for a long time to come, and even Bengal was free from it for nearly 200 years more. In the north we find Chittor, which was to be so famous in after-history for its reckless gallantry, becoming a rallying-point for Rajput clans. But surely and inexorably the tide of Muslim conquest spread, and no amount of individual courage could stop it. There can be no doubt that the old Indo-Aryan India was on the decline.

Being unable to check the foreigner and the conqueror, Indo-

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Aryan culture adopted a defensive attitude. It retired into a shell in its endeavours to protect itself. It made its caste system, which till then had an element of flexibility in it, more rigid and fixed. It reduced the freedom of its womenfolk. Even the village panchayats underwent a slow change for the worse. And yet even as it declined before a more vigorous people, it sought to influence them and mould them to its own ways. And such was its power of absorption and assimilation that it succeeded in a measure in bringing about the cultural conquest of its conquerors.

You must remember that the contest was not between the Indo-Aryan civilization and the highly civilized Arab. The contest was between civilized but decadent India and the semi-civilized and occasionally nomadic people from Central Asia who had themselves recently been converted to Islam. Unhappily, India connected Islam with this lack of civilization and with the horrors of Mahmud's raids, and bitterness grew.

52 THE COUNTRIES OF EUROPE TAKE