Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/800

776 776 INDIA [HISTORY. the total expenditure was 54,260, or an average of nearly 7 per student. School mistresses, as well as masters, are trained in these institutions; and there also the missionaries have shown themselves active in anticipating a work which Government subsequently took up. Of schools of art, the oldest is that founded by Dr A. Hunter at Madras in 1850, and taken in charge by the Education Depart ment in 1856. This school, as also those at Calcutta and Bombay, has been very successful in developing the industrial capacities of the people, and training workmen for public employment. Museums have been established at the provincial capitals and many other large towns. Schools for European and other foreign races have also attracted the attention of Government. In 1877-78 the number of such institutions was 104, with 9121 pupils ; the expenditure from all sources was 80,197, or an average of nearly 9 per pupil. Foremost among these are the asylums for the orphans of British soldiers, established at hill stations (e.g. Utakarnand and Sanawar) in memory of Sir Henry Lawrence. News- Newspajxrs and Books. Closely connected with the subject of papers, education is the steady growth of the vernacular press, which is ever busy issuing both newspapers and books. The missionaries were the first to cast type in the vernacular languages, and to em ploy native compositors. The earliest newspaper was the Bengali Sdmdchar Darpan, which was issued in 1835 by the Baptist Mission at Serampur. For many years the vernacular press preserved the marks of its origin, by being limited almost absolutely to theo logical controversy. The missionaries continued their work ; and they were encountered with their own weapons by the theistic sect of the Brahma Samaj, and also by orthodox Hindus. So late as 1850 the majority of newspapers were still sectarian rather than political, but during the last twenty years the vernacular press has gradually risen to become a powerful engine of political discussion. The number of newspapers regularly published in the several ver naculars at the present time is said to reach the formidable total of 230. The aggregate number of copies issued is estimated by Mr Roper Lethbridge at about 150,000; but the circulation proper, that is, the actual number of readers, is infinitely larger. In Bengal the vernacular press suffers from the competition of English news papers, some of which are entirely owned and written by natives. In the north-west, from Lucknow to Lahore, about 100 news papers are printed in Hindustani or Urdu, the vernacular of the Mahometans throughout India. Many of these are conducted with considerable ability and enterprise, and may fairly be described as representative of native opinion in the large towns. The Bombay journals are almost equally divided between Marathi and Guzerathi. Those in the former language are characterized by the traditional independence of the race of Sivaji ; those in the latter language are the organs of the Parsis and of the trading community. The newspapers of Madras printed in Tamil and Telugu are politically unimportant, being still for the most part devoted to religion. Books. As regards books, or rather registered publications, in the ver nacular languages, Bengal takes the lead ; while the Punjab, Bombay, the North-Western Provinces, and Madras follow in order. In 1877-78 the total number of registered publications was 4890, of which 544 were in English, 3064 in one of the vernaculars, 719 in a classical language of India, and 563 bilingual. Of the ver nacular works, 709 dealt with religion, 663 with poetry and the drama, 330 with language, 195 with science, 181 with fiction, 146 with law, and 95 with medicine. 1 HISTORY. Non- Aryan or Aboriginal Races. Abori- Our earliest glimpses of India disclose two races strug- Rinal gling for the soil. The one was a fair-skinned people, who tribes, ]j a( j i a t e }y entered by the north-western passes a people of Aryan (literally &quot;noble&quot;) lineage, speaking a stately language, worshipping friendly and powerful gods. The other was a race of a lower type, who had long dwelt in the land, and whom the lordly new-comers drove back before them into the mountains, or reduced to servitude on the plains. The comparatively pure descendants of these two races in India are now nearly equal in number, there being about 18 millions of each; their mixed progeny, sprung chiefly from the ruder stock, make up the mass of the present Indian population. The lower tribes were an obscure people, who, in the absence of a race-name of their own, are called the non- Aryans or aborigines. They have left no written records ; indeed, the use of letters, or of the simplest hieroglyphics, 1 In the preparation of the administrative sections and statistics, the writer specially acknowledges the assistance of Mr J. S. Cotton. was to them unknown. The sole works of their hands which have come down to us are the rude stone circles and upright slabs or mounds beneath which, like the primitive peoples of Europe, they buried their dead. From these we only discover that, at some far distant but unfixed period, they knew how to make round pots of hard, thin earthenware, that they fought with iron weapons, and that they wore ornaments of copper and gold. The coins of imperial Home have been found in their later graves. Earlier remains, lying in the upper soils of large areas, prove that these ancient tomb- builders formed only one link in a chain of primseval races. Long before their advent, India was peopled, as far as the depths of the Central Provinces, by tribes unac quainted with the metals, who hunted and warred with polished flint axes and other deftly-wrought implements of stone similar to those dug up in northern Europe. And even these were the successors of yet ruder beings, who have left their agate knives and rough flint weapons in the Narbada valley. In front of this far-stretching back ground of the Bronze and Stone Ages, we see the so-called aborigines being beaten down by the newly arrived Aryan race. The struggle is commemorated by the two names which the victors gave to the early tribes, namely, the Dasyus, or &quot;enemies,&quot; and the Dasas, or &quot;slaves.&quot; The last remains to this day the family name of multitudes of the lower class in Bengal. The new-comers from the north prided them selves on their fair complexion, and their Sanskrit word for &quot; colour &quot; (varna) came to mean &quot; race &quot; or &quot; caste.&quot; Their earliest poets, at least three thousand and perhaps four thousand years ago, praised in the Riy-Veda their gods, who, &quot;slaying the Dasyus, protected the Aryan colour &quot; who &quot;subjected the black-skin to the Aryan man.&quot; More over, the Aryan, with his finely-formed features, loathed the squat Mongolian faces of the aborigines. One Vedic singer speaks of them as &quot; noseless &quot; or flat-nosed, while another praises his own &quot; beautiful-nosed &quot; gods. The same unsightly feature was commented on with regard to a non-Aryan Asiatic tribe, by the companions of Alexander the Great on his Indian expedition, at least a thousand years later. The Vedic hymns abound in scornful epithets for the primitive tribes, as &quot; disturbers of sacrifices,&quot; &quot;gross feeders on flesh,&quot; &quot;raw-eaters,&quot; &quot;lawless,&quot; &quot;not- sacrificing,&quot; &quot; without gods,&quot; and &quot; without rites.&quot; As time went on, and these rude tribes were driven back into the forest, they were painted in still more hideous shapes, till they became the &quot;monsters&quot; and &quot;demons&quot; of the Aryan poet and priest. Their race-name Dasyu, &quot; enemy,&quot; thus grew to signify a goblin or devil, as the old Teutonic word for enemy has become the English &quot; fiend.&quot; Nevertheless, all of them could not have been savages. We hear of wealthy Dasyus, and even the Vedic hymns speak much of their &quot; seven castles &quot; and &quot; ninety forts.&quot; In later Sanskrit literature the Aryans make alliance with aboriginal princes ; and when history at length dawns on the scene, we find some of the most powerful kingdoms of India ruled by dynasties of non-Aryan descent. Nor were they devoid of religious rites, nor of cravings after a future life. &quot; They adorn,&quot; says a very ancient Sanskrit treatise, 3 &quot; the bodies of their dead with gifts, with raiment, with ornaments, imagining that thereby they shall attain the world to come.&quot; These ornaments are the bits of bronze, copper, and gold, which we now dig up from beneath their rude stone monuments. In the great Sanskrit epic which narrates the advance of the Aryans into southern India, a non-Aryan chief describes his race as &quot; of fearful swiftness, unyielding in battle, in colour like a dark blue cloud.&quot; 3 3 llainavana. I panishad, quoted in Muir s Sanskrit, Texts.