Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/765

] country of its origin. Asoka, one of the Hindu kings of whom memorials exist in inscriptions found in various parts of India, lived when Buddhism was triumphant, in 250 B.C. The subsequent annals consist of little more than lists of kings of various dynasties settled in various parts of the country, until we reach the period of the Mahometan conquests.

130. Of the western parts of Asia it will suffice to say that about 600 B.C. the kingdoms known under the names of Babylonia, Assyria, Media, and Persia, began to coalesce, and were at length united under Cyrus, the Persian, the &quot;Great King,&quot; whose territories are said to have extended from the Mediterranean to the Indus. During this period the civilisation and learning of Egypt and Western Asia had penetrated into Greece, where was developed, from the branch of the Aryan race which occupied that country, the most extraordinarily intellectual community which has ever existed. The successful resistance of Greece to the advance of the Persians probably prevented the spread of the western Asiatics over Europe, and left that continent open to the evolution of the far higher type of civilisation which is its characteristic. The destruction of the Persian monarchy by Alexander took place about 330 B.C. After the Indian expedition and death of the great Greek conqueror, his Asiatic kingdom fell to pieces, and numerous petty sovereignties were formed out of it. About fifty years before the Christian era, the Romans for the first time appeared on the arena of Asia, took possession of Syria, and soon after occupied a large part of Asia Minor, and at length established them selves on the Tigris. During this interval the more eastern part of the old Persian kingdom, called by the Romans Parthia, had again acquired an independent exist ence, and its monarch, once more assuming the title of the &quot;Great King,&quot; fruitlessly attempted to drive the Romans out of Asia. In the year 274 A.D. later successes of the Romans in the East were celebrated by the famous triumph of the Emperor Aurelian, in which, it is said, ambassadors appeared from all parts of Asia, even from China. The conflicts between the Persians and Romans continued long after the division of the Roman empire, 395 A.D., without any material change of the boundaries of the contending parties. The Romans or Byzantines never advanced beyond Armenia or the Tigris; nor could the Persians permanently retain possessions to the west of those limits, though once (620) they had penetrated to the walls of Constantinople.

131. While these conflicts were in progress, events of an altogether different character had arisen, which have brought a small portion of Western Asia into prominent notice in the world s history. Christianity had its origin in Syria, among the Jews, a tribe of Semitic race, whose sacred writings and history are of extreme antiquity, and have been preserved and are well known by reason of the special interest created in them. The Christian faith spread rapidly over Asia Minor, and soon extended to all parts of the Roman empire, in which it was at length accepted as the state religion about 320 A.D.

132. Among the efficient agencies of Western progress no doubt can exist that Christianity was one of the most active. It necessarily happened that the religion which established itself on the ruins of the superstitions of the Old World should have an important influence on the new forms of society that arose ; and as the Christian faith gradually became the dominant and at length the only religion of Europe, it shared greatly, both through its doctrines and its organisation, in bringing about the intellectual and social advance that has there taken place.

133. But Christianity, though it had its origin in Western Asia, has produced no such consequences there. The progress which it had made to the eastward during the first six centuries was very soon after cut short by the founding of a rival proselytising religion by Mahomet, 620 A.D., whose followers and successors effectually arrested the spread of the Christian faith in this direction.

134. The Arabs, under the influence of the fanatical Its preachings of their prophet, now burst forth upon the countries around them; in less than a century, 730 A.D., they had possessed themselves of Persia and Transoxiana, penetrated to the Indus, driven the Byzantine armies out of Asia Minor and Syria, overcome Egypt, advanced along Northern Africa to the Atlantic, had conquered Spain, and even entered France. Nor was this a mere temporary success. Though the Arabs were at once repelled from France, the Mahometans held their ground in Spain for more than seven centuries, and have not only been domi nant to the present day in all other parts of their earliest conquests, but have since added largely to the area in which the religion of Mahomet has been adopted.

135. It was to the immediate successors of Mahomet that our race is indebted for the impulse given to science, which was so long wholly neglected or deliberately condemned by Christian authority in Europe. But although it is not possible to say that Mahometanism has been with out beneficial tendencies or results, yet the general history of Mussalman races has been marked by horrible barbarities and utter disregard of human life. The annals of Asiatic kingdoms present us, for the most part, with a succession of unscrupulous tyrants, among whom have appeared, at most, two or three sovereigns under whom anything like real progress towards civilisation was possible. And, admitting that rulers of all races and religions have in turn exhibited qualities which can only be regarded with reprobation, and that it is not easy to discriminate between what is due to the influence of race and what to that of religion, it is certain that the Mahometan Mongols to whom Asia was for centuries a prey far outstripped, in the violation of the principles on which civilisation is based, all other communities in any part of Europe or Asia.

136. The Arab empire, under the khalifs of Baghdad, culminated about 800 A.D., but hardly maintained its integrity fifty years more. On its disruption a Turki dynasty established itself in Ghazni, from which sprung Mahmud, who first invaded India in 1001, and extended his rule to the Oxus and Persia. His successors (not descendants) established the Mahometan kingdom of Delhi in 1200, which gradually extended over all Northern India in the next two centuries. After Mahmúd's death another Turki house, that of the Seljuks, established itself in Persia, Asia Minor, and Syria, about 1050, extended its authority to Egypt 1170, and retained its vitality till 1300. The Crusades, between 1100 and 1300, set up a small Christian power in Syria, with which the Seljuk Turks were in a state of almost constant conflict, the famous Saladin (Sálah-u-din) having been one of their chiefs. In the wars between the followers of the crescent and the cross, it is hard to say which party inflicted the greatest atrocities on the unfortunate inhabitants of the country around the Holy Sepulchre.

137. Two centuries before the Christian era the Mongolian races of Central Asia are known to have begun the series of predatory incursions on their neighbours, which so long made them the terror of all parts of the Old World less barbarous than their own. The most important of these irruptions took place about 1220. Chenghiz Khan, a Mongolian chief, having made him self master of Central Asia, established his capital at Karakorum, the precise site of which is doubtful. In 1215 he took possession of Northern China, and then turned westward ; he overran the whole of Turkistan, the countries along the Oxus, Afghanistan, and Persia, and 