c






››››››››››››››››››››››››››››››„
 

›

› ›
 
.

The earliest traces of civilization in the Indian subcontinent are to be found in places
along, or close, to the Indus river. Excavations first conducted in 1921-22, in the ancient cities of
Harappa and Mohenjodaro, both now in Pakistan, pointed to a highly complex civilization that
first developed some 4,500-5,000 years ago, and subsequent archaeological and historical
research has now furnished us with a more detailed picture of the Indus Valley Civilization and
its inhabitants. The Indus Valley people were most likely Dravidians, who may have been
pushed down into south India when the Aryans, with their more advanced military technology,
commenced their migrations to India around 2,000 BCE. Though the Indus Valley script remains
undeciphered down to the present day, the numerous seals discovered during the excavations, as
well as statuary and pottery, not to mention the ruins of numerous Indus Valley cities, have
enabled scholars to construct a reasonably plausible account of the Indus Valley Civilization.

Some kind of centralized state, and certainly fairly extensive town planning, is suggested
by the layout of the great cities of Harappa and Mohenjodaro. The same kind of burnt brick
appears to have been used in the construction of buildings in cities that were as much as several
hundred miles apart. The weights and measures show a very considerable regularity. The Indus
Valley people domesticated animals, and harvested various crops, such as cotton, sesame, peas,
barley, and cotton. They may also have been a sea-faring people, and it is rather interesting that
Indus Valley seals have been dug up in such places as Sumer. In most respects, the Indus Valley
Civilization appears to have been urban, defying both the predominant idea of India as an
eternally and essentially agricultural civilization, as well as the notion that the change from
µrural¶ to µurban¶ represents something of a logical progression. The Indus Valley people had a
merchant class that, evidence suggests, engaged in extensive trading.

Neither Harappa nor Mohenjodaro show any evidence of fire altars, and consequently
one can reasonably conjecture that the various rituals around the fire which are so critical in
Hinduism were introduced later by the Aryans. The Indus Valley people do not appear to have
been in possession of the horse: there is no osteological evidence of horse remains in the Indian
sub-continent before 2,000 BCE, when the Aryans first came to India, and on Harappan seals and
terracotta figures, horses do not appear. Other than the archaeological ruins of Harappa and
Mohenjodaro, these seals provide the most detailed clues about the character of the Indus Valley
people. Bulls and elephants do appear on these seals, but the horned bull, most scholars are
agreed, should not be taken to be congruent with Nandi, or Shiva¶s bull. The horned bull appears
in numerous Central Asian figures as well; it is also important to note that Shiva is not one of the
gods invoked in the ‘
. The revered cow of the Hindus also does not appear on the seals.
The women portrayed on the seals are shown with elaborate coiffures, sporting heavy jewelry,
suggesting that the Indus Valley people were an urbane people with cultivated tastes and a
refined aesthetic sensibility. A few thousand seals have been discovered in Indus Valley cities,
showing some 400 pictographs: too few in number for the language to have been ideographic,
and too many for the language to have been phonetic.
c





The Indus Valley civilization raises a great many, largely unresolved, questions. Why did
this civilization, considering its sophistication, not spread beyond the Indus Valley? In general,
the area where the Indus valley cities developed is arid, and one can surmise that urban
development took place along a river that flew through a virtual desert. The Indus Valley people
did not develop agriculture on any large scale, and consequently did not have to clear away a
heavy growth of forest. Nor did they have the technology for that, since they were confined to
using bronze or stone implements. They did not practice canal irrigation and did not have the
heavy plough. Most significantly, under what circumstances did the Indus Valley cities undergo
a decline? The first attacks on outlying villages by Aryans appear to have taken place around
2,000 BCE near Baluchistan, and of the major cities, at least Harappa was quite likely over-run
by the Aryans. In the ‘
 there is mention of a Vedic war god, Indra, destroying some forts
and citadels, which could have included Harappa and some other Indus Valley cities. The
conventional historical narrative speaks of a cataclysmic blow that struck the Indus Valley
Civilization around 1,600 BCE, but that would not explain why settlements at a distance of
several hundred miles from each other were all eradicated. The most compelling historical
narrative still suggests that the demise and eventual disappearance of the Indus Valley
Civilization, which owed something to internal decline, nonetheless was facilitated by the arrival
in India of the Aryans.

The ancient ruins of the 'Indus Valley Civilization' at Harappa

c





Î ›
›?

›

0uch of our knowledge about state policy under the Mauryas comes from the
?

 written by Kautilya (more popularly known as Chanakya), who was a Brahmin
minister under Chandragupta Maurya. Though it was written at the end of the fourth century BC,
it appears to have been rediscovered only in 1905, after centuries of oblivion. The treatise in its
present form is most likely not the text written by Kautilya, though it is probably based on a text
that was authored by Kautilya; and in no case can the text in its entirety be ascribed to Kautilya,
on account of numerous stylistic and linguistic variations.

mhe book, written in Sanskrit, discusses theories and principles of governing a state. It is
not an account of Mauryan administration. The title, ?

, which means "the Science of
Material Gain" or "Science of Polity", does not leave any doubts about its ends. According to
Kautilya, the ruler should use any means to attain his goal and his actions required no moral
sanction. The only problems discussed are of the most practical kind. Though the kings were
allowed a free rein, the citizens were subject to a rigid set of rules. This double standard has been
cited as an excuse for the obsolescence of the ?

, though the real cause of its ultimate
neglect, as the Indian historian Romila Thapar suggests, was the formation of a totally different
society to which these methods no longer applied.

?   remains unique in all of Indian literature because of its total absence of
specious reasoning, or its unabashed advocacy of realpolitik, and scholars continued to study it
for its clear cut arguments and formal prose till the twelfth century. Espionage and the liberal use
of provocative agents is recommended on a large scale. Murder and false accusations were to be
used by a king's secret agents without any thoughts to morals or ethics. There are chapters for
kings to help them keep in check the premature ambitions of their sons, and likewise chapters
intended to help princes to thwart their fathers' domineering authority. However, Kautilya
ruefully admits that it is just as difficult to detect an official's dishonesty as it is to discover how
much water is drunk by the swimming fish.

Îautilya helped the young Chandragupta Maurya, who was a Vaishya, to ascend to the
Nanda throne in 321 BC. Kautilya's counsel is particularly remarkable because the young
Maurya's supporters were not as well armed as the Nandas. Kautilya continued to help
Chandragupta Maurya in his campaigns and his influence was crucial in consolidating the great
Mauryan empire. He has often been likened to Machiavelli by political theorists, and the name of
Chanakya is still reminiscent of a vastly scheming and clever political adviser. In very recent
years, Indian state television, or c   as it is known, commissioned and screened a
television serial on the life and intrigues of Chanakya.

¦
  ››
›
c





India has had less of a tradition of political unity than China

or Japan. Indeed, most of the names for India ("India," "Hind,"
"Hindustân") are not even Indian. As Yule & Burnell say in their
classic ?
 
 

 
 ?

      
["    ," Curzon Press, 1886, 1985, p. 433]:

It is not easy, if it be possible, to find a truly native (i.e.

Hindu) name for the whole country which we call India; but the
 
 certainly existed from an early date.  
  is
used apparently in the Purânas with something like this conception.

 
 , , meant the "division of the world" ( ) of the Bhâratas --
the heroes of the great  
 epic. An independent India in 1947 decided to officially
become  
(the short final "a" not being pronounced in Hindi), with the earlier word
emerging as  
  in Hindi. Probably India did not have a clear local name earlier
because, like China, it seemed to be the principal portion of the entire world, and so simply the
world itself.

In Chinese, we get various ways of referring to India. The modern form, , renders
the name phonetically with characters of no particular semantic significance ("print, stamp, or
seal" and "a rule, law, measure, degree"). This rendering, of course, is based on a name from
Greek or Arabic that would have been unknown in China until modern times. The older practice,

however, was dedicated characters that might have a larger meaning. Thus, we get or

, in which can be a kind of bamboo but otherwise is just used for India.

Semantically stronger is , where is primarily used for the Indian god ÿ   (

) and then for compounds involving India or Buddhism. Thus we get expressions

like , "Sanskrit," , "Sanskrit writing," and , "Sanskrit characters." In

Japan, India was sometimes called the g  , , the "Moon Tribe." This appealed

because of the contrast with Japan, the , "Sun Source." The Japanese knew from
Chinese histories that the g   were in the West, and since they were a bit vague about what
c





was in the West, but they knew that India was also, the connection got made. They might not
have known that the g   actually did enter India as the Kushans

When a unified state has occurred in Indian history, it has had varying religious, political,
and even linguistic bases: e.g. Hindu, Buddhist, Islâmic, and foreign. The rule of the Sult.âns of
Delhi and the Moghul Emperors was at once Islâmic  foreign, since most of them were
Turkish or Afghani, and the Moghul dynasty was founded directly by incursion from
Afghanistan. The  
 foreign unification of India, of course, was from the British, under
whom India achieved its greatest unity, although that was lost upon independence to the religious
division between India and Pakistan. The Moghuls and British, of course, called India by its
name in their own languages (i.e. "Hindustân," or , and "India").

With a unified state in India a rare phenomenon, often under foreign influence, and with
only a derivative indigenous name for the country as a whole, one might wonder if the term
"Emperor," with its implications of unique and universal monarchy, is aptly applied to Indian
rulers. However, from an early date there was a notion of such monarchy, which depended only
on a conception of the world, whether India itself was clearly conceived or not, but with some
actual examples, beginning with the Mauryas. The universal monarch was
the
  
, , "Who Turns the Wheel of Dominion." He
could also be called the "One Umbrella Sovereign," after the parasol carried
to mark the location of royalty. Thus, the prophecy was that Siddhartha
Gautama might have become the Buddha or a  
, a world ruler.
The word was ambiguous, since the term can mean simply a sovereign, but
its use is paralleled by the Latin word  
, which simply means
"Commander" and grew, by usage, into a term for a unique and universal monarch. As it
happened, many of the monarchs who began to claim ruler over all of India did usually use titles
that were translations or importations of foreign words. Thus, the Kushans used titles like
‘
, "King of Kings," and  , "Great King," which appear to be translations from
older Middle Eastern titles. While the original "Great King" long retained its uniqueness, thanks
to the durability of the Persian monarchy, the title in India experienced a kind of grade inflation,
so that eventually there were many, many  . With Islâm came a whole raft of new
titles. One was 

, which originally was an Arabic title of universal rule itself but had
already experienced its own grade inflation. Persian titles, like , centuries after the
Achaemenids, were now borrowed rather than translated. With the Moghuls, however, the names
of the Emperors, more than their titles, reflected their pretensions: like Persian o
 , "Seize
(
) the world ()." The most remarkable title borrowed from the West is probably   ,
but the Latin title itself arrived with Queen Victoria, › 0
,   
, in 1876. The
last   
was King George VI, until 1947.

In addition to these complications, Indian history is also less well known and dated than
that of China or Japan. Classical Indian literature displays little interest in history proper, which
must be reconstructed from coins, monumental inscriptions, and foreign references. As Jan
Nattier has said recently [?   

 
?  


 



  , University of Hawai'i Press, 2003]:
c





...the writing of history in the strict sense does not begin in India until the 12th century, with the
composition of Kalhan.a's ‘
 
 . [p.68]

Because of this, even the dating of the Mauryas and the Guptas, the best known pre-
Islâmic periods, displays small uncertainties. The rulers and dates for them here are from Stanley
Wolpert's ?! 

  [Oxford University Press, 1989], the "
c




 by John E. Morby [Oxford University Press, 1989, 2002], and Bruce R. Gordon's Regnal
Chronologies. Gordon had the only full lists I'd ever seen for the Mauryas, Kushans, and Guptas
until I found the "
c
, which has the Mauryas and Guptas but nothing else until the
Sultanate of Delhi. Besides Wolpert, another concise recent history of India is ? 

 
by Peter Robb [Palgrave, 2002]. It is becoming annoying to me that scholarly histories like these
are almost always but poorly supplemented with maps and lists of rulers, let alone genealogies
(where these are known). Both Wolpert and Robb devote much more space to modern India than
to the ancient or mediaeval country, and this preference seems to go beyond the paucity of
sources for the earlier periods.

More satisfying than Wolpert and Robb is another recent history, ? 

  by
John Keay [Harper Perennial, 2000, 2004]. Keay has an apt comment for the phenomenon just
noted in the other histories:

In contriving maximum resolution for the present, there is also a danger of losing focus
on the past. A history which reserves half its narrative for the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
may seem more relevant, but it can scarcely do justice to India's extraordinary antiquity. [p.xxi]

Keay thus does a better job of dealing with the eras (and their obscure events) that fall
between the Mauryas, Guptas, and the Islamic states with their new, foreign traditions of
historiography. One drawback of Keay's book is its total innocence of diacritics. Indeed, it is
even innocent of any acknowledgement of this, which would leave the reader wondering why a
word is given as "Vidisha" in one citation and "Vidisa" in another [cf. p.90]. Keay also exhibits
the occasional ignorance of Indianists for the Persian and Arabic backgrounds of some words,
where here I explain the difference between Ghazna and Ghaznî and between Moghul and
Mughal. We also find Keay carelessly referring the capital of the Caliph al-Walîd as Baghdad, a
city that was not yet founded [p.185].

The "Saka Era," as the Indian historical era, significantly starts rather late (79 AD) in
relation to the antiquity of Indian civilization. Indeed, like Greece (c.1200-800 BC) and Britain
(c.400-800 AD), India experienced a "Dark Ages" period, c.1500-800 BC, in which literacy was
lost and the civilization vanished from history altogether. Such twilight periods may enhance the
vividness of quasi-historical mythology like the 
, the Arthurian legends, and the
 
. The earliest history of India is covered separately at "The Earliest Civilizations"
and "The Spread of Indo-European and Turkish Peoples off the Steppe." The affinities of Indian
languages are also covered at "Greek, Sanskrit, and Closely Related Languages." Readers should
treat with caution some scholarship and a great deal of the material on the internet about the
Indus Valley Civilization and its relationship to Classical Indian civilization, or all of
civilization. The claims have progressed to the point now where not only are all of Indian
civilization and all of its languages regarded as autochthonous (with Indo-European languages
c





said to originate in India, and derived from Dravidian languages, rather than arriving from
elsewhere and unrelated to Dravidian), but the civilization itself is said to extend back to the
Pleistocene Epoch (before 10,000 BC), with any ruins or artifacts conveniently covered by rising
sea levels. The urge towards inflated nationalistic claims is familiar. Particular claims about
India are treated here in several places but especially in "Strange Claims about the Greeks, and
about India."

Mahapadma Nanda became King of Magadha and created

m¦›??››
what looks like the first "Empire" in Northern India. While
Mahapadma Nanda c.450?-c.362? Indian history begins with some confidence with the
Mauyras, the Nandas are now emerging into the light of
Pandhuka c.362-? history with a little more distinctness. Of special
importance is the circumstance that Magadha was the
Panghupati venue for the life of the Buddha. The previously favored
chronology for the life of the Buddha, which had him dying
Bhutapala
around 483 BC (and so a contemporary of Confucius) now
Rashtrapala looks to be wrong, and a much later date, around 386 BC,
looks much more reasonable (making him a contemporary
Govishanaka of Socrates). This would put the Buddha possibly within
the lifetime of Mahapadma, or certainly during the tenure
Dashasidkhaka of one of the Nanda Kings. The First Buddhist Council,
soon after the death of the Buddha, was held at the
Kaivarta
Magadha capital, Rajagriha, and so would have been under
Dhana Nanda the patronage of a Nanda King. However, traditionally it
?±c.321 BC was King Bimbisara of Magadha (of the Hariyanka
(Argames)
Dynasty) who was supposed to have sponsored the Buddha,
and Bimbisara's patricide son and successor, Ajatashatru, who sponsored the First Council. The
reckoning of their dates goes with the earlier traditional dating, with Bimbisara ruling c.545-493
BC. Since the reconstruction of the early Kings of Magadha is based on legendary material in the
much later  , it is difficult to have much confidence in them as history. And the whole
structure of the dates hangs on how long before Ashoka the Buddha lived. If a short chronology
is preferable, some serious rethinking will be necessary about the relationlship of Bimbisara to
the Nandas, whose own chronology of course, such as it is, is speculative.

m¦›0??› ›ÿ
›

Chandragupta
c.322-301
(Gk.  
)

Bindusâra 301-269

? 269-232

Kunala ? 232-225

Dasharatha 232-225
c





The Mauryas are the true beginning of historical India. This

Samprati 225-215
inception is particularly dramatic when we realize that
Shâlishuka 215-202 Chandragupta seems to have actually met Alexander the
Great in person. Perhaps realizing that there were no
Devadharma/ historians writing down his deeds, the greatest king of
202-195
Devavarman the Dynasty, Ashoka, commemorated himself with
monumental rock inscriptions, and especially on a
Shatamdhanu/ series of pillars, erected around India. The most famous
195-187
Shatadhanvan of the pillars is at Sarnath, where the Buddha began
preaching. The lion capital of the pillar at Sarnath is
Br.hadratha 187-185
now used as the official crest of the modern Republic
of India, with the Wheel of the Law (c  ) on it (as at right) featured the flag of
India. Indeed, Ashoka is the most famous for converting to Buddhism (or something, his
references are to the   but are otherwise vague) and sending missionaries abroad. He was
not the first Maurya to get religion late in life. Chadragupta himself is supposed to have
renounced the throne, become a Jain monk, and eventually starved himself to death, in Jain
fashion, in Bhadrabahu Cave in Karnataka.

Ashoka can be rather well dated because he sent letters to the contemporary Hellenistic
monarchs, Antigonus II Gonatas (?
  ) of Macedonia , Antiochus II Theos (?
 ) of the
Seleucid Kingdom, Ptolemy II Philadelphus ( ) of Egypt, Alexander II (?
 ) of
Eprius, and Magas (
) of Cyrene, urging them to convert to Buddhism themselves. Greek
history contains no record of these requests. There is also an attested eclipse in 249 dated with a
regal year date. Ashoka's reign is used to date the life of the Buddha, since tradition in Sri Lanka
(Ceylon) is that the Buddha died 218 years before Ashoka came to the throne. That would put his
death in 487 BC, which is close to the generally used date. The Ceylonese chronology is now
often questioned, with alternative reckonings placing the Buddha's eath about a century later.
John Keay's history inclines in this direction [cf. 
 p.62].

While the Mauryas are the

beginning of historical India, a
great deal had already been
going on (like the life of the
Buddha) that in a Greek or
Chinese context we would
expect to be within historical
time. In traditional Indian
terms, such events were already
covered by the "Fifth Veda,"
the historical Epics of the
 
 and the
‘. One reason for the
lack of interest in history in
Indian secular literature may
have been the feeling that, as
c





only eternity is significant and all other time is cyclical and repetitive, the Epics thus represent
everything that can possibly happen in history. There is even a saying, "Everything is in the
 
." Our lack of knowledge of individual Indian philosophers from this early period,
even though we possess much of an undoubted early date in the  , may also be due to
the idea that such texts, as parts of the , were actually part of eternal revelation and were
not originated by their authors.

Indian Philosophy

Buddhist Philosophy

The decline of the Mauryas coincided with the rise

0?
¦! ?›Î "›!#›ÿ?
m ?›
of a neighboring Greek Kingdom in Bactria. This
$›ÿ
›
was also important for the history of Buddhism, as
the Kings became converts. A classic of Buddhist literature, the "Questions of Milinda,"
(
#) records the conversion of one King in particular, Menander Soter Dikaios
(
, 155-130). This is part of the history of India, but the kingdom is listed with other
Hellenistic monarchies. It now seems like one of the oddest things in history that there was once
a kingdom of Greek Buddhists in Afghanistan. There are no Greeks or Buddhists in Afghanistan
now. The Greek rulers then survive well into the period of the Sakas and Parthians, as follows.

m¦› ?Î?›
›ÿ
›

Maues 97-58 BC

Vonones

Spalyris

Spalagademes

Spalirises

Azes I c.30 BC

Azilises

Azes II

m¦›
?m ?¦›

Pakores

Orthagnes
c





The Sakas (or Shakas) were an Iranian steppe people who

Gudnaphar
c.19-45 AD descended into India, much as the Arya had earlier -- indeed, it
(Gondophernes)
is a pattern that would be repeated again and again until the
Abdagases Moghuls. The Sakas spoke an Iranian language. This is
classified as "South-Eastern" Iranian, which geographically
Sasas locates where the Sakas ended up, but not where they began,
which was on the steppe north and east of the Aral Sea. The
Arsaces Theos "North-Eastern" Iranian languages, Sarmatian and Scythian
(which are poorly attested), ended up in the far North-West,
Nahapa 119-124 AD
north of the Caspian Sea and in the Ukraine, respectively. From
the Sarmatians came the Alans, whose language survives in the Caucasus as Ossetian. Also
North-Eastern Iranian was Sogdian, which remained North-East and continued to be an
important Central Asian language until the Arab conquest. It has a small survivor in the Pamirs,
Yaghnobi. After the arrival of the Kushans, the Sakas were simply driven further into India, into
Rajasthan, where they became assimilated as Hindu Kshatriyas. Since Rajasthan later became
famous for its warriors, this may indicate the cultural preservation of Saka nomadic fierceness.

There are no historical documents or preserved narratives from this period, and the rulers are
mostly known from coins, which may have dates,

but in eras or reckonings that often cannot be identified.

m¦› ?Î?› ¦?›
Since 1957, the National Calendar of India uses the ›
m¦›  ?› %&›?›
¦  (78 AD = year 0), but the origin of this benchmark is
 m!
? ›¦?›
itself uncertain (cf. ¦

 




?
  
?
, edited by P. Kenneth Seidelmann, 2000 AD - 78 = 1922 Annô Sakidae
University Science Books, 1992, pp.591-594). It has been
thought that the Era was established by the Kushan monarch Kanishka I, and may even have
dated his reign, but he now appears to have ruled somewhat later. It is certainly representative of
the problems with Indian history that its own historical era dates an unknown event in a period,
long after the beginning of Indian history, that itself is all but innocent of dates and historical
evidence.

The Calendar in India

Simultaneously with the descent of Sakas into India, Parthians (Pahlavas) or Suren appear from
the west, and some of them become established in India independent (or not) of the Parthian
King. The Parthians spoke a "North-Western" Iranian language, though its origin was far south
of the Scythians. The sources are sometimes confused about which Indian rulers are Sakas and
which are Parthians, since they are never attested as which. Gudnaphar (Greek   ),
who traditionally is supposed to have welcomed the Apostle Thomas to India, seems to have
been Parthian. The legend of the mission of Thomas to India is now of renewed interest because
of the discovery of the text of the Gospel of Thomas, one of the Gnostic Gospels, in Egypt in
1945.
c





The Kushans also began as an Indo-European

m¦›Î?›
steppe people, known to the Chinese as the
Kujula Kadphises c.20 BC-c.30/64 AD

Wima/Welma Taktu c.30-c.80 

, , the "Moon Tribe." They seem
to have been a group who moved far east on the
Welma Kadphises c.80-c.103 steppe very early, speaking a language with many
archaic features. By attacking the Hsiung-nu,
Î
› c.103-c.127 AD

Vasishka I c.127-c.131 , probably the later Huns, the Chinese of

the Han Dynasty drove them back into the Yuèzhi,
Huvishka I c.130-c.162 who then migrated (170 BC) into the Tarim Basin
Vasudeva I c.162-c.200
(the Lesser Yüeh-chih, ) and
Kanishka II c.200-c.220

Vasishka II c.220-c.230 Transoxania (the Greater Yüeh-chih, ),

areas which they dominated c.100 BC-300 AD. The
Kanishka III c.230-c.240 language of the Lesser Yüeh-chih is attested in
Vasudeva II c.240-c.260 Buddhist texts in two dialects of Tocharian (A and
B). The Greater Yüeh-chih, as the Kushans,
Vasu late 3rd century followed other steppe people down into India.
Some small uncertainty perisisted over the
Chhu late 3rd century identification of the Yüeh-chih with the Kushans
and the writers of Tocharian, but the debate over
Shaka 3-4th century Tocharian seems to have been resolved with a
Kipanada 4th century positive identification. The recent discovery of
well-preserved, European-looking mummies along
the Silk Road serves to affirm the European and so Indo-European  
 of the still illiterate
(from a period long before Tocharian) local culture. Unfortunately, the Tocharian texts do not
include historical works, which might have removed uncertainties and added an invaluable
framework for understanding the area.
c





Although the dates are still very uncertain, historical information in India is rather better than for
the preceding period. Of special importance is King Î
, under whom the Fourth Great
Buddhist Council is supposed to have been held, as the Third was under Ashoka. Kanishka is
said to have been converted to Buddhism by the playwright Ashvaghosha. The earliest actual
images of Buddhas and Boddhisattvas date from his reign. Also of interest are the Kushan royal
titles,   ‘
 c
 . ‘
, "King of Kings," is very familiar
from Middle Eastern history, since monarchs from the Assyrians to the Parthians had used it.
 , "Great King," is very familiar from later India but at this early date betrays its Middle
Eastern inspiration, since it was originally used by the Persian Kings. c
, "Son of God,"
sounds like the Kushans
claiming some sort of Christ-
like status, which is always
possible, but it may actually
just be an Sanskrit version of a
title of the Chinese Emperor,
"Son of Heaven."

The Roman trading posts in

Kushan India bespeak a great
deal of trade and contact, about
which we get the occasional
notice in Greek and Roman
writers, but which do not
become a source of any
extensive knowledge of India
or its history recorded by
either. Something else overlooked by Classical historians nevertheless turns up in Chinese
history. That is, a Roman Embassy made its way by way of India by sea to the China of the Later
Han Dynasty. It is recorded that in the year 166 AD (in the time of King Vasudeva I) an embassy

arrived in Lo-Yang from a ruler of , "Great Ch'in," named Andun, which looks like a
rendering of ?
 . The year 166 was in the early days of Marcus Aurelius (Antoninus).
Since we know, besides the presence of Romans in India, that there were well traveled sea routes
to China (see the voyage of Fa-Hsien below), this Roman Embassy easily passes the test of
credibility. It is a shame that such a project, like the letters written by Ashoka to Hellenistic
monarchs, escaped the notice of Greek and Roman historians.

While the imperial maps here until 1701 are based on Stanley Wolpert's ?! 

 
[Oxford University Press, 1989], the map for the Kushans is based on the ? ?




  
, Volume I [1974, Hermann Kinder, Werner Hilgemann, Ernest A. Menze, and
Harald and Ruth Bukor, p.42], which now has been reissued in identical form as  
 
?


 
  
, Volume I [Penguin Books, 1978, 2003].
c





The rule of the Guptas was one

of the classic ages of Indian
history, for whose culture we
have a rather full description by
the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim
Fa-Hsien, who
was in India
between 399 and
414 (see map
below), in the
time of

 ›
"
› . This
was the last time
that the North of
India would be
united by a
culturally
indigenous power. The Guptas patronized the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain religions
equally. Consequently, they now become celebrated, like Ashoka and Akbar, as
examplifying a modern liberal ideal of tolerance and enlightenment. This is
anachronistic but not inappropriate as long as we realize the limitations of such an
identification. The Indian monarchs, however relatively enlightened, were
autocrats, and thus comparable less to liberal democracy than to "Enlightened
Despots" like Frederick the Great of Prussia. Thus, their magnanimous patronage of
religions certainly did not extend to the toleration of political opposition.

m¦› "
m?› ›
›?›

Gupta 275-300

Ghat.otkacha 300-320

Chandra Gupta I 320-335

Samudra Gupta 335-370

Rama Gupta ? 370-375


 ›"
› 375-415

Kumâra Gupta I 415-455

Skanda Gupta 455-467

Kumâra Gupta II 467-477

c





Budha Gupta 477-496 While the name of Chandragupta, the founder of the Mauryas, is
usually given as one word, the "Gupta," ("guarded,
Chandra Gupta III ? 496-500 protected"), element in names of the Gupta dynasty is usually,
but not always, written as a separate word. The "

Vainya Gupta 500-515
c
 writes them together. Classical Sanskrit, of course,
Narasimha Gupta 510-530 like Greek and Latin, ordinarily did not separate words at all.

Kumâra Gupta III 530-540 One of the unique monuments of the Gupta dynasty is the 
›

 › › , seen at right. This is a solid piece of wrought
Vishn.u Gupta 540-551 iron more than 22 feet tall. Delhi may not have been its original
location, but exactly where that would have been and when or
why the pillar was brought to Delhi is a matter of conjecture. The pillar is dedicated to Vishnu,
but any other Hindu structures around it were demolished by the Sultâns of Delhi, who built the
nearby Qutub Minar tower and the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque. Dating the pillar is also a matter of
some uncertainty, since its inscription merely mentions a King named "Chandra." This is
generally taken to mean Chandra Gupta II, reinforced by the evidence of the style and language
of the pillar, in comparison to known art of the Guptas, like the coins of Chandra Gupta II. It is
also sometimes said that the pillar was erected to   
 Chandra Gupta by his successor
Kumâra Gupta I. The Pillar, however, is such an extraordinary artifact that some people reject
the mundane historical explanations and prefer that the object is much, much older, or even the
work of extra-terrestrials. The Pillar does testify, however, to the sophistication of Indian iron
work, of which there is much other evidence. The steel of the famous Damascus steel swords of
the Middle Ages was actually manufactured and exported from India, with techniques that had
been used for centuries. The Pillar, although not itself steel, does exhibit the technique that
leaves it appearing to be a single piece of iron -- forge welding, where hot iron is hammered and
fused together. This is the technique that produced the bars of steel that were exported.

The pilgrimage of #
(Faxian) is

noteworthy for many things, but one
feature in particular evident from the
map is that the entire homeward leg of
the journey was by sea. This reminds us
of the sea routes that had been busy
since the Greeks and extended all the
way from Egypt to China. We
frustratingly have little in the way of
historical documents about this
business, but when we do get an
account, as with Fa-Hsien, we realize
how routine the communication was
(with understandable hazards and
misadventures).

Towards the end of the period, the Guptas began to experience inroads from the Huns (Huna),
the next steppe people, whose appearance in Europe (it is supposed that these are the same
c





people), of course, pressured German tribes to move into the Roman Empire. By 500, Huns
controlled the Punjab and in short order extended their rule down the Ganges. They don't seem to
have founded any sort of durable state and eventually suffered defeats. The Huns were the last
non-Islamic steppe people to invade India.

The following period might very well be called the

 
››m
 ›
p 
› ›
  of India, on analogy with that of
China. Unlike China, however, it would be brought to an Naravardhana? c. 500-?
end only by foreign invasion and conquest.
Rajyavardhana I?
In the political
m›  › "
› ›
fragmentation of the era, Pushyabhûti
0›%›?›
we still have some Guptas,
Adityasena Vardhana c.555-580
Î  
 c.550-560 the "Later Guptas," but
these are evidently former Prabhakaravardhana c.580-c.605
Dâmodaragupta c.560-562 vassals, not relatives, of
the Imperial Guptas, in

'››0

›
Mahâsenagupta c.562-601 Magadha on the lower
Ganges. They are players, Rajyavardhana (II) c.605-606
› › Î ›
but not dominant ones.
&$$›  › 
 606-647
 ›  
, from
0
 c.601-655 Thanesar, north of Delhi,
was one ruler who for a while united most of the North of India
Âdityasena c.655-680 again, and, as luck would have it, we have the account of



 (Xuánzang, 600-664), another Chinese Buddhist
Devagupta c.680-700 pilgrim, who went to India between 629 and 645, during his
time. This follows an account we have from the other direction,
  '
›( › 
› that of a Greek sailor,
 ›

, who visited
›Î
)›%%› India, Ceylon, and even Axumite Ethiopia some time before
550 AD, during the reign of the Roman Emperor
Justinian. Unfortunately, Cosmas was a bit of a
crackpot who seemed just as concerned with proving,
despite widely accepted evidence (recounted in detail
by Aristotle), that the Earth was flat rather than
spherical. Thus, we can imagine that Cosmas, whose
book was the  
 
, was hostile to a
round earth for much the same (religious) reasons that
contemporary anti-Darwinians are hostile to
Evolution.

Harsha enjoyed a long reign but, when he attempted

to expand south into the Deccan, he was defeated by

› of Vâtâpi (or Badami).
Subsequently, we get dynasties whose power occasionally spans the country, but none are able to
secure hegemony for long.
c





Indian Buddhism, although patronized by

Harsha, already seemed to be in decline to
Hsüan-tsang, and some important
Buddhist sites were already neglected or
abandoned. John Keay cites the Pala
Dynasty of Bengal (8th-9th centuries AD)
as the "last major Indian dynasty to
espouse Buddhism" [ 
 pp.192-193].
Indeed, I think the contemporary
development of Tantrism was obscuring
the differences between Hinduism and
Buddhism -- Keay agrees with this [p.194,
in a comment marred by the rationalism he
attributes to the pure original Buddhism of
the Buddha]. It was also during this period that we begin to get identifiable individual Indian
philosophers, like 
  (c.780-820), from whom we have a classic formulation of the
doctrine of the Vedanta School. With the period of the Classical Empires over, it is striking that
only now do individuals appear in the light of history in Indian philosophy. There is speculation
that Shankara already represents a reaction to the arrival of Islâm on the borders of India.

› 
›
›

›*›0  ›

 ››
›

c.543-
Pulakeshin I
566

c.567-
Kîrtivarman I
597

c.597-
Mangalesha
609

c.609-


›
642

  '› Î › $+›

› 
› (› ( ›   ›
 
› › ›
› $+›

 
 › $$+› ? (›
›$›

654/5-
Vikramâditya I
681
c





? (››$%%›

c.680-

  
696

›  ›"
›
›

$&›

c.696-
Vijayâditya
733/4

c.733-
   ›
744/5

› 
› ,

› › ? (›

  ›
›%%›

744/5-
Kirtivarman II
753

 -›
›¦ ›*›0›

c.735-

 
744

c.755-
Î 
›
772

c.780-
 ›  
793

› "
›
' › (›

(

› ›

c.793-
"
›
814


›  › 
› › ›

 -›
' ›

c.814-
Amoghavarsha
880

c.878-
Krishna II
914

c.914-
Indra III
928
c





c.928-
Amoghavarsha II
929

c.930-
Govinda IV
935

c.936-
Amoghavarsha III
939

c.939-
Krishna III
967

c.967-
Khot.t.iga
972

Karkka II c.972-
(Amoghhavarsha IV) 973

 ›
›Î 
.›

m› ›?  973-997

Satyasraya 997-
Irivabedanga 1008



› › 0 › › " ›

›

1008-
Vikramaditya I
1014

1014-
Ayyana
1015

1015-
Jayasimha
1042

1042-
Somesvara I
1068

1068-
Somesvara II
1076

1076-
Vikramaditya II
1127

1127-
Somesvara III
1138
c





1138-
Jagadekamalla
1151

1151-
Tailapa
1156

Î ›

1156-
Bijjala
1168

1168-
Somesvara
1177

1177-
Sankama
1180

1180-
Ahavamalla
1183

1183-
Singhana
1184

 ›

1184-
Somesvara IV
1200

›

1200-
Singhana
1247

1247-
Krishna
1261

1261-
Mahadeva
1271

Amana 1271

1271-
Ramachandra
1311

1311-
Sankaradeva
1313

1313-
Harapaladeva
1317
c





Initial invasions by the Arab Ommayad Caliphs, starting in

m› › %$+›
644, were repulsed by 737, after episodes of the Arabs

›) 
 ›$›
slaughtering local populations or deporting them as slaves.
The following period, then, is the calm before the full force of Islâm burst on the country with
the invasions of Mah.mûd of Ghazna, from 1001 to 1024. While Shankara's views were later
criticized as too influenced by Buddhism, they are more faithful to the Upanishads than the
theism of the critics, who themselves seem increasingly influenced by the monotheism of Islâm.
There also appears to be a decisive influence from Islâm on Indian
dress. While in Classical India women are typically shown bare
breasted, as at left, the rigors of the Middle Eastern nudity taboo came
into full force in modern India, at least for women. I am not aware just
when this transition occurs. John Keay cites several references from the
13th to the 15th century on the nudity of the Indians, including a
Russian traveler, Athanasius Nikitin, who around 1470 described
Indians going about all but naked, with "their breasts bare" [ 

p.277]. By the 19th century Krishna's lover Radha is shown in a full
shoulder to floor woven dress. Someone could easily chronicle the
transition by cataloguing such sculpture and portraiture.

My source for the list of the rulers from the fall of the Guptas (551) to the dominance of the
Sultanate of Delhi (1211), beginning with the line of the Châlukyas, was originally from Bruce
R. Gordon's Regnal Chronologies. I took details of the period from Stanley Wolpert's ? !
 

  [Oxford, 2000, pp.95-103]. There was clearly uncertainty about the dates, since
Wolpert has Î 
› ›  -, patron of the remarkable Kailasanatha temple to Shiva,
reigning 756-775, while Gordon has 768-783. This is, of course, not too surprising, given the
problems with Indian historiography. Later, however, I found a much more thorough treatment
of the period in Ronald M. Davidson's  ¦
  ?  
 




 
[Columbia University Press, 2002], which has an extensive summary of the whole
period [pp.25-62], with maps and lists of many of the rulers. Here we find Krishna I with the
dates c.755-772, in much closer agreement with Wolpert, but still, of course, residual
uncertainties. John Keay's ? 

  [Harper Perennial, 2000, 2004] covers the period
with similar thoroughness.

Î ›
›Î  ›


 
. c.711-720

›  › 
›

'›

›%›

Târâpîd.a c.720-725

 ›
c.725-756
0
.

  '›  
› ›

c






› ruled from the 
›
, which now

Î
)› %+›  › "
›
emerges as a force that often intrudes into the North of India.
 ›%%+››
›m  ›ÿ
›
Wolpert [p.101] introduces the subject by mentioning the
Kuvalayâpîd.a ? territory of 0   ("Great country"). We are left with
the implication that the Châlukya Dynasty, which ruled the
Vajrâditya ? area, was of Maharashtran origin. However, Wolpert also
mentions that the Châlukya capital was Badami (Davidson
Prthivyâpîd.a ? says Vâtâpi), "just south of the River Krishna" (Kistna). This
is not in the modern state of Mahârâshtra, but in Î
.
Samgrâmâpîd.a ?
These modern states are drawn with linguistic boundaries.
Jayâpîd.a The language of Maharashtra is Marathi, while that of
c.779-810 Karnataka is Kannada (or Kanarese). As it happens, the
Vinayâdirya
inscriptions of the Vâtâpi Châlukyas are in Kannada, and a
correspondent drew my attention to the problem that it would be a confusion to associate them
with Maharashtra or the Marathas. On the other hand, as Davidson notes, the meaning of
expressions like "Maharashtra" was previously rather vague had more to do with geography than
with language. Wolpert was continuing to reflect that circumstance. John Keay, however,
provides a citation that removes doubt in the matter: Hsüan-tsang met Pulakeshin II and refers to
him as the ruler of "Mo-ho-la-ch'a," i.e. Mahârâshtra [p.168].

m› " ) 
. ›

›))
›*›
 ›

(› c.725-760


››? (›%›

Devarâja c.750-?

Vatsarâja ?-c.790

(› c.790-833


› Î
)› 
› ›

"
› ›

Râmabhadra c.833-836

0 ›ÿ) c.836-885

Mahendrapâla I c.890-910

Mahîpâla c.910-?

Bhoja II ?-914

Vinâyakapâla I c.930-945

Mahendrapâla II c.945-950
c





More importantly, the history of India in this period is not

Vinâyakapâla II c.950-959
the national history of linguistic communities. It is 

Vijayapâla c.960-1018  
, and dynasties like the Châlukya were much more
interested in territory, anywhere, than in national origins,


››0 ››" › homelands, or languages. Thus, Châlukyas ruled elsewhere,
› without much regard for the local language, with branches of
the dynasty in what is now Andhra Pradesh (Telugu
Râjyapâla c.1018-1019 speakers) and Gujarat (Gujarati). When the Vâtâpi
Châlukyas were overthrown by their vassals, the
Trilocanapâla c.1019-1017
Râs.t.rakût.as of Ellora, this was a dynasty definitely seated
Mahendrapâla III ? in a Marathi speaking area of Maharashtra, though they
subsequently moved their capital to Malkhed, virtually at the
border between Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. The Râs.t.rakût.as were in time displaced by a
branch of the Châlukyas again, who in turn fell to the Kâlachuris, a dynasty from a region in
modern Madhya Pradesh that now speaks Hindi. Thus, the language of their domain was not
nearly as important to all these rulers as the possession of dominion.

As the Châlukyas moved, they could also take a geographical name with them. The British
rendering of "Karnataka" was as the "Carnatic" (much like the word in Hindi, where a short final
"a" would not be pronounced). The name "Carnatic" migrated south and south-east, with the
movements of the Châlukya dynasts. On the Bay of Bengal, the Eastern Châlukyas became
established, and we also find the name "Carnatic" applied there. That eastern "Carnatic" then
also came to be associated with the large Vijayanagara realm, which straddled the modern states
of Karnataka, Tamil Nâdu (the language is Tamil), and Andhra Pradesh. Thus, on old maps of
India, the name "Carnatic" can sometimes be found adjacent to the west coast, and on others
along the south-eastern coast. The name disappeared altogether for a while between Maharashtra
to the north and the later state of Mysore to the south. The modern Indian state of Karantaka was
originally itself called "Mysore," but this was changed in 1973 to "Karnâtaka" to reflect its
linguistic character.

Pulakeshin II declared himself "Lord of the Eastern and Western Waters." Although the
Châlukyas never united the north or dominated the country like the Guptas or Harsha, they
would appear there, and I have focused on them and their successors as the best sequence to span
the period down to the Sult.âns of Delhi. There were many other states of similar size and power
during this era, several often called "Empires." Now I include lists for Kashmir and for the
Gurjara-Pratîhâras, whose realm centered on Ujjain in the western part of the modern Madhya
Pradesh. All of these states contended at one time or another for the Ganges Valley and thus
were candidates for achieving a North Indian hegemony. Their successes proved only temporary,
often because of rebellions in their rear.

The Châlukya dynasty suffered a severe reverse when Pulakeshin II was killed in battle by
Narasimha Varman I of Pallava, and Vâtâpi occupied. After reestablishing themselves, they most
importantly planted cadet lines in the East and in Gujarat, which would eventually provide for
the restoration of the dynasty.
c





›Î
 ›

c. 846-c.
Vijayalaya
871

c. 871-
Asitya I
907

Parantaka 907-947

Rajaditya I 947-949

Gandaraditya 949-956

Arinjaya 956

Parantaka II 956

Aditya II 956-969

Madhurantaka Uttama 969-985

) )› › › ›

985-1012
" 


/››
 
›&&›

1012-
)
 › ›

1044

1044-
Rajadhiraja I
1052

1052-
Rajendra II Deva
1060

1060-
Ramamahendra
1063

1063-
Virarajendra
1067

1067-
Adhirajendra
1070

1070-
Rajendra III
1122


 › 
› ›


›
%%›
c





The Râs.t.rakût.as appeared in force in the Ganges Valley

1122-
Vikrama Chola more than once, but they were never able to retain a grip
1135
on the region. The restoration of the Châlukyas was
1135- followed by their overthrow in turn by the Kâlachuris and
Kulottunga II Chola then the Yâdavas. This merry-go-ground of power in the
1150
center of India did no good with the new Islamic powers
1150- of the Ghaznawids and Ghûrids just over the horizon,
Rajraja II
1173 forcing their way into India. There would be no unity of
force such as repelled the Arabs in 737.
1173-
Rajadhiraja II
1179

1179-
Kulottunga III One of the "Empires" of the period was the Kingdom of
1218

. As it happens, this is a realm in origin and history
1218- with a decidedly linguistic basis, in the Tamil language of
Rajaraja III modern Tamil Nâdu. The Chola Kings cultivated Tamil
1246
literature and are remembered as heroic patrons of Tamil
1246- power, learning, and religion. Chola is in the competition
Rajendra IV
1279 as an "Empire" because of it spread north, briefly all the
way to the mouths of the Ganges, and, most strikingly, by
!  '
›( ››%&› its projection beyond the sea, initiated by King ) )› ›
, whose name has the decidedly Imperial ring of
"King of Kings, god." With grave portent for future history, the first such projection of Chola
power was into Ceylon. Tamils had settled in Ceylon and briefly ruled there already, and even
the Chola occupation was relatively short lived, but it all contributed to a durable Tamil ethnic
presence that, in the modern day, exploded into a vicious and protracted civil war, whose
appalling course and sobering lessons are examined elsewhere.

Of dramatic course and great portent in its own way is the other projection of Chola power,
which was across the sea of the Bay of Bengal, through isolated land such as the Andaman
Islands, all the way to Sumatra, Malaya, and the trade route of the Straits between those
Indonesian islands. It is hard to know how much of the area was actually occupied and ruled.
Some maps (optimisticly or nationalisticly) show a Chola domain over entire islands like
Sumatra and over the entire peninsula of Malaya. Other maps (more realistically) show a Chola
presence along the coastlines. In whichever form, this is the first example we know of an
incursion that will be significantly mirrored in later history. Four hundred years after the Chola
presence, the Chinese would arrive in the Straits from the opposite direction and initiate what
was probably much the same kind of process, finally arriving themselves at Ceylon and the coast
of Tamil Nâdu. As we will see below, this did not last long. Not long after the Chinese left,
however, the Portuguese arrived from across the Indian Ocean, themselves occupied Ceylon and
areas on the mainland of India, and then followed in the wake of the Chola voyagers into
Indonesia. This produces occupations of considerable extent and duration, though mostly
consumated by the Dutch and the British who replaced the Portuguese. The Chola "Empire" thus
pioneers the colonial history of Indonesia -- though the hiatus between the Chola presence and
the arrival of the Chinese will see a heavy Islamicization, by influence of trade alone, of the area.
c





Chola was finally broken up by the Sultanate of Delhi, which, however, was unable to retain a
dominant position in the south. Thus, the small kingdom of Madura became the successor state at
the southern tip of India, while the larger kingdom of Vijayanagar came to dominate much of the
South, including the old metropolis Chola, Gangaikondacolapuram.

The map shows the aggressive

powers of the 11th century in
India. In the South, Chola looks
on its way to making the Bay
of Bengal into a Cholan lake,
but apparently it never does
have much success on the coast
of Burma, where Pagan has
grown into a powerful kingdom
with its own brilliant
civilization. The darker green
in the image shows the
conquests of Rajendra I, the
son of Rajaraja I.

Otherwise, what we see is the

domain of the conqueror
0 ››"
. He began raiding into India in the year 1001 (enough to warm the heart of
any ordinalist). Eventually he established a presence in the Punjab, but he also continued raiding
deeper into India, usually with the aim of plunder, to be sure, but practiced with particular relish
in the sacking of Hindu and Jain temples. This allowed for the particuarly Islamic diversion of
smashing idols -- where in most Islamic conquests, in Christian and Persian lands, there had
actually been few to smash. This set a poor precedent in the area, since in recent years the savage
vandals of the Tâlibân regime in Afghanistan determined to smash all the Buddhist art in the
Kabul Museum and that present around the country on cliff-face sculpture, including two great
cliff carved Buddhas in Bamian province, 175 and 120 feet tall. This certainly represents the
worst of Islamic Fascism. Given the fury of his own attacks, Mah.mud's treatment of the Hindu
population was actually more conciliatory than one might expect, and it laid the groundwork,
once the smashing was finished, for durable Islamic regimes in India.

A curious linguistic issue arises when we deal with Mah.mud. The name of the city of Ghazna,

, is written in the Arabic alphabet with the letter "y" at the end. Ordinarily, this would
indicate the long vowel "î"; but sometimes in Arabic, and originally in this case, the "y" is
pronounced as the vowel "a." This is called 

   and occurs in some very common
words in Arabic.

)››0  ›
c





1100-
Ballala I
1110

1110-
Vishnuvardhana
1152

1152-
Narasimha I
1173

1173-
Ballala II
1220

1220-
Narasimha II
1238

1233-
Somesvara
1267

1254-
Narasimha III
1292

1291-
Ballala III
1342

) 
 › › ›$›

1342-
Virupaksha Ballala IV
1346


›$&&›

p  ›p  ›
 ›

1399-
Yadu Raya
1423

Hiriya Bettada 1423-

Chamaraja I 1459

1459-
Timmaraja I
1478

1478-
Hiriya Chamaraja II
1513

Hiriya Bettada 1513-

Chamaraja III 1553

1553-
Timmaraja II
1572
c





) 
 › ( 
› 
› ( ›

0›$›

1572-
Bola Chamaraja IV
1576

1576-
Bettada Devaraja
1578

1578-
Raja Wadiyar
1617

1617-
Chamaraja V
1637

1637-
Immadi Raja
1638

›



›$%›

Kanthirava Narasaraja 1638-

I 1659

1659-
Kempa Devaraja
1673

1673-
Chikkadevaraja
1704

Kanthirava Narasaraja 1704-

II 1714

1714-
Krishnaraja I
1732

1732-
Chamaraja VI
1734

1734-
Krishnaraja II
1766

0 ›  ›

H.aydar 'Alî Khân 1762-

Bahâdur 1782

# › ?
0  › p ›
%$$%$&+› 
› ?

0  ›p ›% % ›
c





Thus, sources that one might expect to be intimate with

p  ›  ›  ›
Arabic, like !
 c
, by Clifford Edmund
  ›
Bosworth [Edinburgh University Press, 1996], use ""
."
In Arabic, where "y" indicates the long vowel "î," we get two 1766-
dots under the letter. However, in Persian, the dots are not Nanjaraja 1770
used (and vowels rarely indicated), the word is written
Bettada Chamaraja 1770-
, and, consequently, 

   tends to end up
VII 1776
getting read in the more obvious way, as a long "î."
Eventually this happened with Ghazna, which today is locally 1776-
pronounced ""
.," which would have been written Khasa Chamaraja VIII 1796

in Arabic. Thus, sources whose focus is more on India 1782-

m.
-›

and less on Islam or on Arabic, tend to project the modern, 1799
Persian pronunciation back on the figure who therefore tends
to get called "Mah.mud of Ghaznî." It is instructive to know m › ?
0  › p ›
why this variation occurs. % &%&+› # › ?

0  ›p ›%& %&&›

 m0› !#› ¦  ›  
›››p  ›

1 ›
1799-
Krishnaraja III
02 .› › .››Î
› 1831

Malik in ÿ › ›  ›

Aybak Qut.b Lahore
adDîn for Ghûrids, 1881-
Chamaraja IX
1206-1210 1894

Ârâm Shâh 1210-1211 1894-

Krishnaraja IV
1940
Sult.ân in
Iltutmish Shams Jayachama- rajendra 1940-
Delhi,
adDîn Bahadur 1949
1211-1236

Fîrûz Shâh I 1236 ?

,
››
›&%›

Sult.âna,
Rad.iyya Begum
1236-1240

Bahrâm Shâh 1240-1242

Mas'ûd Shâh 1242-1246

Mah.mud Shâh I 1246-1266

viceroy
Balban Ulugh since 1246
Khân
1266-1287
c





Kay Qubâdh 1287-1290

Kayûmarth 1290

Î).›

Fîrûz Shâh II
1290-1296
Khaljî

Ibrâhîm Shâh I
1296
Qadïr Khân

Muh.ammad Shâh
I 1296-1316
'Alî Garshâsp

'Umar Shâh 1316

Mubârak Shâh 1316-1320

Khusraw Khân
1320
Barwârî

m/›

Tughluq Shâh I 1320-1325

Muh.ammad Shâh
1325-1351
II

Fîrûz Shâh III 1351-1388

Tughluq Shâh II 1388-1389

Abû Bakr Shâh 1389-1391

Muh.ammad Shâh
1389-1394
III

Sikandar Shâh I 1394

1394-1395,
Mah.mûd Shâh II
1401-1412

Nus.rat Shâh 1395-1399

m  
›››& ›

Dawlat Khân
1412-1414
Lôdî
c





While, Islâm came to India in great measure in the person of

 ›
Mah.mûd of Ghazna, this progressed to permanent
Khid.r Khân 1414-1421 occupation under his successors, the "- . Their viceroys
in India, originally from slave troops like the Mamlûks in
Mubârak Shâh II 1421-1434 Egypt, drifted into independence at the beginning of the 13th
century. These "Slave Kings" thus founded the Sult.ânate of
Muh.ammad Shâh Delhi. This began an Islâmic domination of India, especially
1434-1443
IV the North of India and the Ganges Valley, that lasted until the
advent of the British.
'Âlam Shâh 1443-1451

.› The consequences of the Islâmic conquest of India can hardly

be underestimated. Up to a quarter of all Indians ended up
Bahlûl 1451-1489 converting to Islâm. Buddhism disappeared. Some of the
greatest monuments of Indian architecture, like the Taj
Sikandar II Mahal, really reflect Persian and Central Asian civilization
1489-1517
Niz.âm Khân rather than Indian. Indian Moslems became accustomed, as
was their right under Islâmic Law, to be ruled by a Moslem
Ibrâhîm II 1517-1526
power. In practical terms, that meant that they did not want to
0››$› be ruled by Hindus, when and if India should become
independent. Today, the separation of Pakistan and
- .› Bangladesh from the Republic of India, with ongoing strife
between them, and the occasional riot between Hindus and
Shîr Shâh Sûr 1540-1545 Moslems in India itself, are all the result of this.
Islâm Shâh Sûr 1545-1554

Muh.ammad V
1554 0   (Mahisur, Maysûr, Mahishûru, Mysuru) began as a
Mubâriz Khân
dependancy of the rulers of the Deccan to the North. In 1100,
Ibrâhîm III Khân 1554-1555 in the days of the Châlukyas of Kalyân.î, Mysore became
independent under the dynasty that had been in place since
Ah.mad Khân the 6th or 7th century. However, after the passage of the
1555
Sikandar Shâh III Sultâns of Delhi, Mysore then became a dependency of the
Vijayanagara kingdom that was established in 1336. The
Wodeyar Dynasty was a cadet line of Vijayanagara. The subordination of Mysore was broken up
after Vijayanagara was defeated by the Moghuls in 1565. Moghul rule, such as it was, seems to
have ebbed and flowed in presence and affectiveness. The domination by Aurangzeb was
certainly a brief one, after which Mysore was independent.

Mysore lost its traditional Hindu rule and became a center of conflict when its own general,
H.aydar Alî, who had defeated the Marathans, seized power in his own right. The Râjâs were
retained as figureheads until deposed in 1796 by H.aydar's son, the celebrated m.
-. The rule of
these Muslim warriors quickly led to repeated conflict with the British. H.aydar Alî became an
active ally of the French in the War of American Independence, 1778-1783 (the Second Anglo-
Mysore War, 1780-1784), but his invasion of Madras, with some French troops, was defeated.
However, after his death (1782), m.
- crushed a British force of 2000, killing 500 and taking the
rest prisoner. This made him the "Tiger of Mysore." Tîpû amused himself with a six-foot long
c





mechanical figure of a tiger gnawing at the throat of an Englishman and snarling at the turn of a
crank.

Continuing with the enemies of his enemy, Tîpû entered into relations with Revolutionary
France, whose rationalists, deists, and atheists curiously found a kindred spirit in a fanatical and
tyrannical Muslim -- a dynamic we may see today in the affinity of the Left for Islamic Fascism.
When Napoleon landed in Egypt in 1798, it looked like help might be on the way; but there
really wasn't much that the French Republic could do for "Citizen Tipu." The British whittled
away at Tîpû's realm until he was killed in 1799. The Wodeyar Râjâs were restored, doubtless
with some relief to Hindus who had undergone forced conversion and circumcision by Tîpû.

On the map of India in 1236,

the Sult.ânate of Delhi has
completed its conquest of the
North of India, all the way
down the Ganges to the Bay of
Bengal. Although the fortunes
of the state will vary, this area
will generally be preserved
until the coming of the
Moghuls.

This map is based on Stanley

Wolpert [ 
]; but the
following map, and those of
Harsha and of Chola above, are
based on maps in    
?


 
  
 [Pierre
Vidal-Naquet, Editor, Jacques Bertin, Cartographer, Harper & Row, New York, 1986, p.117]. In
assembly information for the maps on this page, this is the only source I have that shows Chola
or the Sult.ânate at its high water mark.

On the map for 1335, we see

the Sult.ânate of Delhi astride
the whole Sub-Continent. This
is the largest Indian state in a
long time, if not the largest
ever. But it will not last long.

The following map below, for

1350, indicates the kingdoms in
the South that are the result of
the earlier states (like
Maharashtra and Chola) being
c





broken up by Delhi, which, then unable to remain dominant in the area, was driven out.

We also see the routes travelled by È
›, the Chinese admiral who led seven great voyages
of exploration, trade, and military intervention during the early days of the Ming Dynasty, from
1405 to 1433. The military intervention became less a factor the further West we get. It was
intense in Indonesia, where considerable battles were fought and kings were made -- or sent back
to China for execution. A Chinese base was established and fortified at Malacca. In Ceylon, we
still get some intervention, with King Vira Alakeshvara of Raigama (1397-1411) captured and
sent back to China. But the Emperor apologized for this, and returned the King to Ceylon
(though not, apparently, to his throne). Further West, trade and embassies seem to have been the
rule. All this stopped abruptly in 1433, as China withdrew from foreign contact. When the
Portuguese arrived in 1498, the Chinese were long gone.

) 
 ›

?"?0?›

Harihara I 1336-1356

Bukka I 1356-1377

Harihara II 1377-1404

Virupaksha I 1404-1405

Bukka II 1405-1406

Devaraya I 1406-1422

Rama- 1422-1430
c





chandra

Vira Vijaya I
1422-1424
Bukka Raya

Devaraya II 1424-1446

Vijaya II 1446-1447

Mallikarjuna 1446-1465

Virupaksha II 1465-1485

Praudha Raya 1485

? ?›

Narasimha-
1485-1490
devaraya

Thimma Bhupala 1490-1491

Immadi Narasimha 1491-1505

m ?›

Vira Narasimha 1505-1509

Krishna-
1509-1529/30
devaraya

Achyota-
1529/30-1542
devaraya

Venkata 1542

Sadashi-
1542-1565
varaya

 
›( ›0›$›

?? ›

Tirumala Devaraya 1565-1572

Sriranga I Devaraya 1572-1586

Venkatapati I Devaraya 1586-1614

Sriranga II Raya 1614

c






›

Rama-
The kingdom of Vijayanagar, devaraya 1617-1632
based in the area of Kannada
speakers again (stretching East Venkatapati Raya 1632-1642
in Telugu speaking country),
originates in revolt against the Sriranga III Raya 1642-1646
Sult.ânate of Delhi, which only
Venkatapati II Raya 1646-c.1660
briefly dominated the South,
but nevertheless broke up the older powers in the area. Vijayanagar reestablishes local
independence. It will continue dominant until the arrival of the Moghuls. We do not, however,
see a simple conquest any cleaner than what Delhi had managed to accomplish in the same area.
In 1565, Akbar defeated and disrupted the power of the state, but the result was not Moghul
occupation. Instead, a cadet line of Vijayanagar at Mysore begins to overshadow its parent state,
as recounted above and shown on the maps below. By the time Aurangzeb returned to briefly
conquer the area, Vijayanagar had faded away. In 1646 the capital itself was seized by the
Sult.âns of Bijapur and Golkonda. The last king, Venkatapati II, was thus himself an exile in
some small fragment of the former kingdom.

Sikhism, from Pâli   (Sanskrit  ), "follower," was a new religion, founded in the days
of the Sult.ânate of Delhi, that attempted to reconcile and replace Hinduism and Islâm. Although
there are some 18 million Sikhs today, this never made much of a dent in the numbers of Hindus
or Moslems, and long earned the Sikhs little but hostility from both. After the Fifth Gurû
("Teacher") was executed by the Moghuls, the Sixth rejected Moghul authority and was forced to
flee to the mountains. When the Ninth Gurû was later again executed by the Moghuls, the Tenth,
Gobind Râi, took things a step further by transforming the community into an army, the Khâlsâ,
"Pure."

›" -›

1 Nânak 1469-1539

2 An.gad 1539-1552

3 Amar Dâs 1552-1574

4 Râm Dâs Sod.hi 1574-1581

5 Arjun Mal 1581-1606

6 Hargobind 1606-1644

7 Har Râi 1644-1661

c





8 Hari Krishen 1661-1664 Every Sikh became a  
, "Lion." The succession of
Gurûs was then ended.
9 Tegh Bahâdur 1664-1675
At first this transformation did not seem to improve things
10 Gobind Râi Singh 1675-1708 much. Gobind Singh and his temporal successor, Bandâ
Singh Bahâdur, both died violent deaths, and the
Λ$&&› community fragmented. But with the decline of Moghul
power, opportunity knocked. The Khâlsâ was soon again
Bandâ Singh Bahâdur 1708-1716
unified and installed in Lahore, under Ranjît Singh, who
Λ)›

)(›%$› became Mahârâjâ of the Punjab. Henceforth the Sikhs,
although never more than a minority, were the greatest
Ranjît Singh 1780-1839 military power in northern India. The death of Ranjît,
however, led to a chaotic succession and conflict among
Kharak Singh 1839-1840 his heirs. Two sharp wars with the British led to the
annexation of the Punjab, after which Sikh warlike
Nao Nehal Singh 1840
ambitions could be directed through membership in the
British Indian Army, where the Sikhs stood out with their
Chand Kaur 1840-1841 characteristic turbans and beards.

Sher Singh 1841-1843 In modern India a movement began for Sikh independence
from India, with the Indian Punjab becoming 

.
1843-1849,
Duleep Singh Led by Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindrânwale, this led to a
d. 1893
catastrophic showdown in 1984 when the Golden Temple
# › › p ›   $+› in Armitsar, the fortified center of the Sikh Faith, was

› › p ›    &+› stormed by the Indian Army, and Bhindrânwale killed.


,›( ›ÿ › &› When Prime Minister Indria Gandhi was assassinated later
the same year by Sikh bodyguards, few doubted that this
was an act of revenge. Sikh nationalism continues to trouble India.

›
0!" ›¦0
¦!›

" ›0›

1498-1500,
1500-1501
ÿ( in Transoxania

1526-1530

1530-1540,
  -

1555-1556

?( › 1556-1605

o
. 1605-1627
c





Dâwar Bakhsh 1627-1628

› o
› › 1628-1657,

Î ' d. 1666

?' 
 .(›20 . › 1658-1707

Shâh 'Âlam I Bahâdur 1707-1712

Jahândâr Mu'izz adDîn 1712-1713

Farrukh-siyar 1713-1719

Shams adDîn
1719
Râfi' adDarajât

Shâh Jahân II
1719
Râfi' adDawla

Nîkû-siyar
1719
Muh.ammad

Muh.ammad Shâh
1719-1748
Nâs.ir adDîn


›››( › ››%&›

Ah.mad Bahâdur Shâh

1748-1754
I

'Azîz adDîn 'Âlamgîr II 1754-1759

Shâh Jahân III 1759

1759-1788,
Shâh 'Âlam II
1788-1806

c
 › › ÿ
›  
› › ¦›
›



› %$+› 0 
› )›

?
›  ››%%›

Bîdâr-bakht 1788

Mu'în adDîn Akbar II 1806-1837

0›   › 
› ( › ÿ 
›

 %+› ¦
› 
›
 
›   +›
› ›  &+› 


› ›
m›
› $›
c





Sirâj adDîn 1837-1858, 


, , is Persian (

in Arabic)
Bahâdur Shâh II d.1862 for "Mongol" -- although the Moghuls were rather
more Turkish than Mongol. An alternative
" › 
 › 0
›  %  +› pronunciation in Persian is 

, which, with a
ÿ ››  &%› different final vowel, would give a Hindi-Urdu
pronunciation of 0
 -- written in Urdu,
in Hindi -- which now tends to be used by historians. However, Persian was the Court
language of the Moghuls themselves. "Mughal" would be strange to them, as Hindi-Urdu, or
Hindustani, was simply the language that ended up adopted as the language of their army -- as it
remained the language of command in the British Indian Army. It has gone on, of course, to be
the principal language of India, although it is used as a first language mainly in the North.

Pretensions to universal rule, which figure in Indian mythology, in Persian imperial tradition, and
in the titles of earlier Indian rulers, are reflected in many of the actual names of Moghul
emperors. "Akbar" in Arabic is "Greatest." "Jahângir" in Persian means to "seize" (
) the
"world" (). "Shâh Jahân" is also Persian for "World King." "'Âlamgir" and "Shah 'Âlam"
both simply substitute the Arabic word for "world," $
, for the Persian word. As the Moghul
state decays in the 18th century, of course, these names and pretentions become increasingly
farcical.

Almost from the first, Moghul policy was to tolerate and win the cooperation of Hindus,
especially the warriors of Rajasthan. With ?( this approached a policy of positive toleration
and religious syncretism, which earned Akbar the disfavor of Moslem clerics but, like Ashoka,
the esteem of modern liberal opinion. Akbar even toyed with the idea of a universal syncretistic
religion, to be called the c ?

, the "Religion of God." This was rather like what the Sikhs
has originally been trying to do. But while Hinduism was always open to various kinds of
syncretism, Islâm certainly was not.

Even the most basic elements of Moghul policy, however, were reversed by the fanatical
?' 
 .( (or ? 
 (), who briefly brought the Empire to its greatest extent but whose
measures against Hindus and Sikhs (the execution of the ninth Sikh Gurû) fatally weakened the
state. Non-Moslems no longer had any reason to support the Moghuls, and in short order the
Empire was only a shell of its former strength and vigor, with the Persians sacking Delhi itself
(1739), under the Emperor, Muh.ammad Shâh, who had done somewhat well at maintaining
things.

Henceforth, the shell of Moghul authority would stand just until a new conquering power would
appear. After a surge of French influence under their brilliant governor Joseph Dupleix (d.1763),
that turned out to be the British, who, however, only gradually conceived the notion of actually
replacing nominal Moghul authority with an explicit British Dominion in India. Although the last
Moghul was deposed in 1858, the full process was not complete until Queen Victoria was
proclaimed Empress of Indian in 1876. The British Râj would then last exactly 71 more years --
testimony to the rapidity of modern events after the 332 years of the Moghuls. How durable the
British heritage will be is a good question. The form of government in India, which has in
general remained democratic, is far more British than that of other former British possessions.
c





And English, with its own distinctive Indian accent and vocabulary, remains the only official
language of the country that does not provoke communal conflict.

The maps of Moghul India

begin to feature European
colonial possessions. Portugal
is first, and for a good while
they have the scene to
themselves. Goa is the center
of the operation, which then
would extend all the way to
China and Japan. › # 
›
3 (d.1552) entered Japan
and learned Japanese, and his
reportedly incorrupt body is
now still enshrined at Goa.
Although nearly lost among the
billion people of India, a fair
number of Catholics survive
from Portuguese missionary
activity, often with Portuguese names, like D'Souza. Famous Portuguese missionaries in China,
like Matteo Ricci (d.1610), also passed through Goa. The Kingdom of Kandy in Ceylon came to
be in a rebellion against the Portuguese (1590) and then would survive in the mountains all
through the Dutch tenure on the island, until the British took over (1815).

Until this point the maps of Imperial domains in India are based on Stanley Wolpert's ? !
 

  [Oxford University Press, 1989]. Now, however, they are largely based on the
 ?  ?


 
  
, Volume I [1974, Hermann Kinder, Werner Hilgemann,
Ernest A. Menze, and Harald and Ruth Bukor] and Volume II [1978], and the  

?




 
 [Barnes & Noble, 1972].

A century after Akbar, as the

Moghul Empire totters a
moment before falling, things
are getting a bit crowded, with
Britain, the Dutch, the French,
and even the Danes piling on.
One of the earliest British
toeholds was Bombay, which
was actually a gift from
Portugal in the dowry of
Catherine of Braganza when
she married Charles II of
England in 1664. In 1701, it
c





looks like the Dutch have the strongest hold, but as the 18th century progressed, and the Moghul
domain crumbled, France and Britain would become the principal rivals for hegemony.
c





The genealogy of the

Moghuls is entirely
from  ! 
 
c
, by Clifford
Edmund Bosworth
[Edinburgh University
Press, 1996]. Some
brief reigns given by
Bosworth, which are
so ephemeral as not to
figure in most lists of
the Moghuls, including
the table above, are
marked as "disputed."
Otherwise, the title,
 , "Emperor,"
and an imperial crown
are given. The most
memorable monument
of the Moghuls is the
 
, "Crown
Palace." Shâh Jahân
built this mausoleum
in tribute to his
favorite wife, Mumtâz-
i-Mahal, "Select of the
Palace" (in Persian,
this would be
pronounced Momtâz-
e-Mahal -- 
 is
Arabic [root ] and
can mean
"distinguished,"
"exquisite," "select,"
"excellent," etc.), the
mother of Aurangzeb.
He lies there now with
her, but his reign did
not end well. He
became ill and his sons
then fell out among
themselves, until
Aurangzeb, the last of
the Great Moghuls,
gained control -- and
imprisoned Shâh Jahân
c





for the rest of his life. One might say that Aurangzeb ruled with such force that the Empire
shattered in his hands. For a good while, as the realm broke up, the Throne was passed between
brothers and cousins. Some stability was achieved when it no longer made much difference. The
last, aging Moghul, Bahâdur Shâh II, threw his lot with the Mutineers and was deposed by the
British.

The gravest, indeed the fatal,

0 ›10 ›

  ¦
 ›
blow to the Moghul imperium

 
›Î
› was the disaffection of warlike

Hindu people like the Rajputs
Sivaji I the Great 1674-1680 and the Marathis. The
Marathans were already in
Shambhuji I 1680-1689 revolt under Sivaji I the Great,
and Aurangzeb was only able
Rajaram I 1689-1700
to put them down with
›
›

›( ››0›%› difficulty. Shambhuji I was
tortured and killed in 1689.
Tara Bai regent, After furious resistance and
1700-1708 battles, Aurangzeb could claim
victory; but after his death and

 
›Î
›
'›0
 › the release from captivity of
Shahu I, Marathan power
Balaji Vishvanath 1713-1720 recovered quickly and a large
Shahu I 1708-1749 Baji Rao I 1720-1740 part of central India was lost to
the Moghuls forever. Although
Balaji Baji Rao 1740-1761 the Marathan domain is often
called an "Empire," we also
Madhava Rao Ballal 1761-1772 see it called merely a
"Confederacy." This may
› ( › ?
› indicate some difficulties in
(› ›


› %$› holding the domain together,


›››%%› which ultimately rendered it
Ramaraja II 1749-1777
Narayan Rao 1772-1773 less powerful than its extent
might indicate. We also get the
Raghunath Rao 1773-1774 curious circumstance that
Shahu I began to leave the
Madhava Rao Narayan 1774-1796 responsibilities of government
to his minister, Balaji
Chimnaji Appa 1796 Vishvanath. The line of
Shahu II 1777-1808
ministers, the Peshwas, come
Baji Rao II 1796-1818 to exercise the rule of the
Pratap Singh 1808-1839 Marathan domain, which is
sometimes then said to simply
Shahji Raja 1839-1848 be the realm "of the Peshwas."
In three wars between 1776
c





and 1818, the British defeated the Marathans and annexed a good part of their territory.

''(› › ›


››? ›

Èulf'iqar 'Ali Khan c.1690-1703

Da'ud Khan 1703-1710

Muhammad Sa'adat-Allah Khan I 1710-1732

Dost 'Ali Khan 1732-1740

Safdar 'Ali Khan 1740-1742

Sa'adat-Allah Khan II 1742-1744

Anwar ud-Din Muhammad 1744-1749

› ( › › # 
› %+› › ( › › # 
› *›

›%&›

Chanda Sahib 1749-1752


›( ››# 
›
 ›
,›%&+››( ››

ÿ › 
 ›,›%›

Wala Jah Muhammad 'Ali 1749-1795


›*›

 ›( ››ÿ ›

c





'Umdut ul-Umara 1795-1801

With the Marathans astride 'Azim ud-Dawlah 1801-1819
the sub-continent in 1756, we
are just past the moment of 'Azim Jah 1819-1825
the maximum influence of
the French, who had greatly ?

,››ÿ ›
› ›
extended their possessons and
influence under o
›# 
4›
, (d.1763). Dupleix engineered French candidates into
the offices of Nawwâb of the Carnatic, the coast around the French city of Pondichéry (and
threatening to the British city of Madras), and of  of Hyderabad. When Dupleix
defeated the Nawwâb Anwar ud-Din's army of 8000-10,000 men with only 450 French troops in
1744, this opened the eyes of Europeans to the relative weakness of Indian military strength and,
subsequently, the ease with which the politics of Indian states could be maniplated or dominated.

Both the Nawwâb Anwar ud-Din of the Carnatic and the  Nâs.ir Jang of Hyderabad
were killed in battle with the French allied to pretenders to their positions. French forces were
sent with Muz.affar Jang to support his government in Hyderabad. However, in 1752 their
candidate for the Carnatic, Chanda Sahib, was defeated in battle, surrendered, and then was
executed by the British candidate, Muhammad 'Ali, who would then rule under British protection
for many years.

By 1756, Dupleix had been recalled (in 1754), and his policies repudiated. His job, after all, was
to make money, not to make war on the English or take over Indian states. He had done this with
some justification during the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748) but his aggressive
actions had continued after the Peace. This was a problem, and, indeed, the adventure in
Hyderabad never did make any money for the French.

In retrospect, Dupleix's recall looks ill considered, as the Seven Years War (1756-1763) was
about to begin; the local French forces  
 need to make war on the English; and France
would need as strong a position as possible to do that. She wasn't going to have it, and the British
would be just as victorious in the war in India as in the Americas. But that is in hindsight. Back
in France in 1754, it would not have been appreciated that Dupleix had created a whole new
dynamic in Indian history. Formerly, Moghul authority continued to external appearances and
Europeans approached local officials deferentially with nothing but trade privileges in mind.
Now, with some exceptions and setbacks, the European traders could make and unmake local
authorities at will. This was at first discovered and exploited by the French, but the British would
prove far better and more successful at the game.

''(››ÿ
›%%$›

Murshid Qulî Khân 'Alâ'

1704-1725
adDawla

Shujâ' Khân Shujâ' adDawla 1725-1739

c





Sarfarâz Khân 'Alâ' adDawla 1739-1740 Originally the Moghul governors of Bengal, the
decline of Moghul power resulted in effective
'Alîwirdî Khân Hâshim independence for the Nawwâbs. The clash with
1740-1756 British power, however, spelled the end of
adDawla
independence and the beginning of British India.
Mîrzâ Mah.mûd Sirâj Clive became the effective founder of the British
1756-1757
adDawla Empire in India, and the Battle of Plassey, 1757,
where Clive defeated and dethroned the Nawwâb
› *›  
› ( › ( ›
› of Bengal, Sirâj adDawla, was one of the supreme
ÿ››
 ›%%› moments of British Imperial history.
Mîr Ja'far Muh.ammad Khân 1757-1760
In 1765, Clive obtained from the Moghul Emperor
Hâshim adDawla 1763-1765
Shâh 'Âlam II, who was a fugitive in British care, a
Mîr Qâsim 'Alî 1760-1763 grant of the c  , or revenue responsiblity for
the province of Bengal. This made the British East
Najm ud-Dawlah 1765-1766 India Company, as the Diwan of Bengal, part of
the consitutional order of the Moghul Empire, and
Saif ud-Dawlah 1766-1770 it is often considered the beginning of British Rule,

ÿ › ¦›
›


› › the "Râj," , in India. However, Clive had no
%$  ›

 › ›
+› intention of replacing the Nawwâbs, and the
''(›

››


 › Company intended to leave local officials in place
to collect the actual revenues of Bengal. This was
Governor,
consistent with Clive's previous policy of
1755-
Robert Clive supporting local rule, when he installed Mîr Qâsim
1760,
as Nawwâb in 1760. Mîr Qâsim was a competent
1764-1767
ruler, but, after Clive left, he was essentially
Henry Vansittart 1760-1764 doubled-crossed by the enemies of both himself
and Clive, manueuvered into a war, and then
# ›?
0  ›p ›%$$%$&› driven from Bengal. The incompetent Mîr Ja'far
was restored, evidently with the intention of
Henry Verelst 1767-1769 employing him only as a puppet. Clive, on his
return, could not undo this  , but he did try to
John Cartier 1769-1772 retain the Nawwâb as a real factor in the
governance of Bengal, with the East India
Company as c .

The Nawwâb at least remained so  until 1880, when Mansur Ali Khan, the last Nawwâb
of Bengal, was deposed. His son, however, Hassan Ali Mirza Khan Bahadur, succeeded with the
title Nawwâb of Murshidabad. The titular line of Nawwâbs actually continued until 1969, when
the main line died out and the succession was left in dispute.

Bengal became one of the three "Presidencies" through which direct British rule in India was
effected (with different arrangements for the Princely States, which remained nominally under
local rule). The others were Bombay and Madras. However, Bengal was also the seat of general
British authority; and when the Governor of Bengal became the actual Governor-General of
c





India, his seat continued to be in Calcutta. The capital of India was not moved to Delhi until
rather late in British rule, in 1912. New Delhi became the capital in 1931.

The British conquest of India was the first that progressed  rather than   the Ganges.
Previous invasions had all come from Central Asia over the Hindu Kush and the Khyber Pass.
This had happened so often, beginning with the Arya in the 2nd millennium BC, that is rather
difficult to say just how many such invasions were there. The British, however, like all the
European powers, had come by sea. Where the Persians or the Afghans, most recently, would
head straight for Delhi, the British were coming up all the way from Calcutta. They wouldn't get
to Delhi until 1803.

The situation in India in 1780

was with the British poised for
conquest. At that point, wars
had already been fought with
Mysore and with the
Marathans. More would come.
The Punjab, in the distance,
would be a project for some
years later. Meanwhile, The
French would shortly be down
to four cities, which they would
surrender to the newly
independent India in 1947. The
Portuguese, from their former
hegemony, were reduced to
three possessions, which they
would retain until forcibly
taken by India in 1961. The two Danish cities were sold to Britain in 1845. The British were
unwilling to pay for the Danish Nicobar Islands, but then, after the Danes had left in 1837, they
complained about piracy there. The Danes returned 1845-1848. After Denmark renounced
sovereignty in 1868, the British occupied the islands.

ÿ › "
 ›

"
 ››
›

Governor-General
Warren Hastings
1772-1785

# › ?
0 › p › %%$% +›


›?
0  ›p ›% % ›

John MacPherson 1785-1786

c





1786-1793
Lord Cornwallis
& 1805

m ›?
0  ›p ›% &%&›

Sir John Shore 1793-1798

Lord Mornington 1798-1805

# › ?
0  › p › %& 5%&&+›


›?
0 ›p ›  ›

Sir G. Barlow 1805-1807

Lord Minto 1807-1813

Lord Moira
1813-1823
(Lord Hastings)

" › p ›   $+› m › ?


0 ›p › %  ›

Lord Amherst 1823-1828

# › ÿ › p ›   $+› 0›

  › 
›( ›ÿ 
› %›

Lord Bentinick 1828-1835

¦
› 
›
 
›   +› ›

›  &+›
 › › 0› ¦
  ›
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› ›

Lord Metcalfe 1835-1836

Lord Auckland 1836-1842




› › m› 
›  $+›

# ›?
›p › & ›

Earl of Ellenborough 1842-1844

Lord Hardinge 1844-1848

# ››p ›  $›

Earl of Dalhousie 1848-1856


› › p ›    &+›

)(›



,›  &+› 
› ÿ › p ›
c





The next step in the evolution of British

 +›!›

,› $›
government in India occurred in 1772, when
1856-1858 Warren Hastings, as the first British Governor
General of India, moved to take over in all its
Lord Canning Viceroy, details the functions of the c  , the revenue
1858-1862 collection, of Bengal. At the same time, the British
also informally took over the ! 
, the criminal
" › 
 › 0
›  %  +› and police administration of Bengal, including the

'
››  &%› courts, leaving the Nawwâb with no remaining

public duties. He was, however, left unmolested
with his pension at the capital of Murshidabad. The ! 
was not


 assumed by the
Company until 1793.

Hastings thus inaugurates 

direct Birtish rule over India, even if it is still really only the
East India Company, and even if the fiction of Moghul sovereignty is retained for a while.
British rule is often called "›)," from the Sanskrit and Hindi-Urdu word for "King." This is
written in Urdu and in Hindi. There is no reason not to call the regime of the Moghuls
or Guptas "the Raj" also, but the term seems to be restricted to the British dominion.

The very odd thing about this period is the ambiguity about just who owned British possessions
in India and who the real sovereign authority was. The British constitutional authority in Bengal
under Hastings was still based on authorizations from the Moghul Emperors. Some fiction of
Moghul sovereignty was maintained at least until 1827 -- although the Moghul Emperor himself
had been living under British rule since 1803. In 1813, when the charter of the East India
Company was renewed, the British Parliament did formally assert the sovereignty of the British
Crown over the Company's territories in India. This unilateral declaration, although recognized
after 1815 by other European powers, was less obviously asserted in India itself. Lord Hastings
did not meet with the Emperor Akbar II in 1814 because the Emperor expected to receive the
Governor-General as a vassal rather than an equal. It would then be in Akbar's reign that most of
the remaining signs of Moghul sovereignty would be stripped away. The Moghul court language,
Persian, was replaced by English in 1828. Originally British Indian coins simply said "East India
Company." In 1835, the face of the King of England (William IV) began appearing on East India
Company coins. The ambiguities were not all settled until 1858, when the Last Moghul, Bahâdur
Shâh II, was deposed (he had sided with the Mutineers), the East India Company was abolished,
and the Governor-General became the Viceroy, the sovereign agent for Queen Victoria.
Nevertheless, another ambiguity continued, which is what   of entity India was, simply a
"Crown Colony" or something else? This was cleared up in 1876, when Victoria was proclaimed
Empress of India, meaning that India itself was an Empire, as it was presumed to be under the
Moghuls. Thus, the slow process was completed by which the British Sovereign replaced the
Moghul.

The slow progress of claims to sovereignty may indicate the ambivalent nature of the British
presence in India. They really were there just to make some money; and the very idea that the
British would  in India like Ashoka or Akbar was something that was both foreign and
repugnant to a great deal of British public opinion. The Whigs and their successors, the Liberals,
c





were never happy about British "imperialism." In this era an interesting example of the
controversy was the impeachment (1787) and prosecution (1788-1795) of Warren Hastings, the
first formal
Governor-
General of
India, after
his return
home. This
was led by
Edmund
Burke and
other Whig
leaders,
charging that
Hastings had
been a corrupt
tyrant
exploiting and
victimizing
the people of
India. While
many would
now think of
the whole
British sojourn in India as of that nature, and there is no doubt that in the 1770's and '80's there
was a bit of a Wild West feel to many who wanted to make their fortune in the country, Hastings
himself actually seems to have been relatively conscientious and benevolent. The fury of Burke's
attacks and the extraordinary length of the trial may have helped generate positive sympathy for
Hastings -- the cartoon shows him literally attacked by, from left to right, Burke, Lord North, and
another Whig leader, Charles James Fox. He was acquited. The whole business, however,
exposes such uncertainties as can never have troubled the likes of Mahmud of Ghazna or Bâbur
the Great Moghul.

Two remarkable undertakings in this period were the suppression of Suttee and of Thugee.
Suttee was the burning of widows on the pyres of their husbands. This was supposed to be
voluntary, as an act of devotion, as Sita did for her husband Rama in the Epic ‘ (though
a correspondent has denied this), but it mainly became an act of murder, by which the husband's
family could rid themselves of an unwanted daughter-in-law (now I hear the claim that it was
only done to protect widows from rape by British soldiers -- though the murder of daughters-in-
law and widows is not unheard of in recent India). The Thugs were devotees of the goddess Kali,
who murdered and then robbed in her name (the practice of Thugee). Since the Thugs were a
secret society, exposing and arresting them was a more difficult and protracted process. That
these practices were worthy of suppression provides an interesting subject for arguments about
cultural relativism. At the time they did raise fears that the British intended to replace native
religion with Christianity, which helped provoke the Great Mutiny.
c





Oudh was a Moghul province that drifted into

''(› *› Î
› › !›
independence. The growth of British influence after 1764
1?'›% $›
led to a treaty in 1801 that required "sound government."
Sa'âdat Khân British judgment that there wasn't such government
1722-1739 became the pretext for deposing the king and imposing
Burhân alMulk
direct British rule in 1856. This and other resentments
Abû Mans.ûr Khân over British rule in India helped spark the " ›0

1739-1754
S.afdâr Jang of British Sepoy (i.e. Indian) troups in 1857-1858 --
"sepoy" is the Ango-Indian rendering of   in Persian,
H.aydar Shujâ' which simply meant "soldier." Oudh was a center of the
1754-1775
adDawla rebellion. The British were besieged in
'

  and

'. The siege of Cawnpore ended in a massacre of
Âs.af adDawla 1775-1797
the whole British garrison, women and children included -
1797-1798, - to which the British retaliated with their own massacre
Wazîr 'Alî later. The siege of Lucknow ended better. One relief force
d. 1817
simply joined the besieged, then another rescued the

›( ›ÿ › garrison but abandoned the city. Finally the city was
retaken in 1858. This all led to a transformation of British
Sa'âdat 'Alî Khân 1798-1814 rule in India, with the ¦›
›


being
disbanded and the Royal Government taking responsibility
H.aydar I Ghâzî 1814-1827; for the country.
adDîn King, 1819

H.aydar II Convicted Mutineers were often "blown from the guns,"

1827-1837 i.e. strapped to the mouth of a cannon that was then fired,
Sulaymân Jâh
tearing the body of the condemned apart. I long thought
Muh.ammad 'Alî that this appalling practice was invented on the spot out of
1837-1842 a spirit of savage, Imperial(ist) vengeance on the part of
Mu'în adDîn
the British. However, such a form of execution had always
Amjad 'Alî been used in the British Indian Army, and it was actually
1842-1847
Thurayyâ Jâh inherited from the Moghuls. This reveals another
ambivalence about British rule in India. On the one hand,
1847-1856; the British were themselves appalled by many traditional
Wâjid 'Alî
d. 1887 practices in the country, where Moghul courts often

› ( › ÿ › !› inflicted the death penalty, for instance, in the form of


,› › ÿ ›
›  $+› impalement. One English officer asked, "How much
" ›
 ›0
› %  › longer are we to be outraged by the sight of writhing
humanity on stakes?" [Sir Penderel Moon,  

1857, during  
  c   
  , Duckworth, Indiana
Barjîs Qadïr University Press, 1989, pp.155-156]. On the other hand, it
the Mutiny
would be some time before it was believed proper simply
ÿ ››  &%› to impose European sensibilities on the country and
reform the government and judiciary on 18th century
Enlightenment or 19th century Liberal principles. Thus, even when the East India Company
began to take over the courts of Bengal, Islamic law continued for some time to be applied, as
under the Moghuls. Although the imposition of British values offends cultural relativism and
now seems a salient and offensive characteristic of British rule in India, most objections to the
c





Raj even now tend to revolve around features of the regime inherited from the Moghuls. The
very idea of foreign conquest and rule being wrong, for instance, by which the whole British
presence in India can be condemned, is itself a supremely Liberal judgment, unrelated to any
value from traditional India. Nothing would have been so traditional as for Queen Victoria to
have proclaimed herself, not the Empress, but the  
 -- certainly apt for a ruler who
possessed a realm upon which the Sun Never Set. Thus, it is shocking to think of Mutineers
being "blown from the guns," but who are we to ethnocentrically criticize traditional Indian
practices? % 

Hyderabad, originally most of the Deccan plateau, was

  › ›   (›
another Moghul province (under a  ) that drifted
1  (›%& ›
into independence. Despite the collapse of Moghul power,
becoming surrounded by the British, and becoming allies Chin Qïlïch Khân
of the British against states like Mysore, the Niz.âms still 1720-1748
Niz.âm alMulk
listed the Moghul Emperors on their coins all the way until
the end of the line in 1858. British sovereignty was not Nâs.ir Jang 1748-1750
acknowledged until 1926. Although Hyderabad was
relatively improverished compared to the surrounding   '
›( ››# 
›
 ›
British territories, the last Niz.âm eventually accumulated 
,››
›(›%›
enough wealth to be considered the richest man in the
Muz.affar Jang 1751-1752
world -- he was called that by   magazine in 1937. His
throne did not outlive British rule by long. When India 
› ( › › # 
›
was partitioned, the Moslem Niz.âm toyed with 
 ›
,›
independence, going with Pakistan, or some kind of loose
relationship with India. Since Hyaderabad was landlocked S.alâbat Jang 1752-1762
and surrounded by India, and was overwhelmingly Hindu,
the new Dominion of India, ironically with King George 
› ( › › # 
›
VI of England still as official Head of State, already 
 ›
,›
fighting with Pakistan over Kashmir, soon invaded and
Niz.âm 'Alî Khân 1762-1803
attached Hyderabad to India by force. The Niz.âm himself,
however, lived out a respected and active life in India. Sikandar Jâh 1803-1829
Oudh and Hyderabad are distinguished by color on the Farkhanda 'Alî Khân
1829-1857
map below. A striking microcosm of the effect of British Nâs.ir adDawla
rule was the difference between the economic
development of Hyderabad and that of the adjacent coast, Mîr Mah.bûb 'Ali I
1857-1869
under direct British rule. Although these encompassed the Afd.al adDawla
same Telugu speaking Hindu people and were included in
the same state of Andhra Pradesh on independence, the Mîr Mah.bûb 'Ali II 1869-1911
greater economic development of the British area resulted Mîr 'Uthmân 'Alî
in complaints from Hyderabadis that they were being 1911-1948,
Khân
taken over, exploited, etc. by migrants from the coast. The d.1967
Bahâdur Fath. Jang
result was political moves to create preferential policies
for the natives of Hyderabad. That the "exploited" colonial ?

,
› ( ›
area is more economically developed than the area left to  

››
›& ›
traditional rule is something that should not be surprising,
c





but it is if all one has done is read Leninist economics [see Thomas Sowell, 
 


 
? 
 

  
, "Andhra Pradesh," pp.65-69, William Morrow & Co., 1990].
Hyderabad is an important case to demonstrate that economic development can vary with history
even where race, language, culture, and religion are otherwise identical.

The map shows the growth of

British India from 1805 to the
time of the Mutiny in 1858. At
first, direct British rule already
extends from Bengal all the
way up the Ganges to Delhi
(where a fiction of Moghul
sovereignty persists) and down
the East coast to Ceylon. By
1858, extensive areas have
been added, notably the Punjab
and into Burma. Oudh is also a
recent acquisition,
distinguished for its importance
in the Mutiny. The yellow
areas contain Princely States
that are British dependents by
treaty. Most would remain so until the end of British rule, a reluctance for further annexations
having overcome the British after the Mutiny. However, on the eve of Indian Independence, the
Princes would be rather bluntly informed that their territories were indeed going to be annexed,
either to India or Pakistan. Their existence had become an anachronism. Such government was
all that existed in the 18th century, but the British, by leaving them in place, had inadvertently
managed to preserve them as living fossils into a very different age. Some people began to think
that the British kept them in place just to make fun of them. Fossils or not, their actions were not
always without contemporary consequences. The choice of the Hindu ruler of the majority
Muslim Kashmir to go with India led to wars, tensions, and terrorism that persist until today.

ÿ m ›
  › *› "
 ›
¦0
¦!›
"
 ››
›
!#›  ?›

Lord Elgin 1862-1863

Lord Lawrence 1863-1869

Victoria Queen,
1858-1901  › p › '›
ÿ
› $ $›

Lord May 1869-1872

c





1872-1876 In explicitly assuming the

Lord Northbrook
sovereignty of India, Queen
Lord Lytton 1876-1880 Victoria assured her new Subjects
that their religions would be

› ?
› p › respected. The British had been
 %  › shaken, however, and units of the
Indian Army, for instance, were
Lord Rippon 1880-1884 never again trusted with artillery.
Empress, Lord Dufferin 1884-1888
1876-1901 The list of British Viceroys was
Lord Landsdowne 1888-1894 originally compiled from 

  
  c   

m ›ÿ ›p › ›  , Sir Penderel Moon
[Duckworth, Indiana University
Lord Elgin 1894-1899 Press, 1989].  › 
 was
actually Jewish, probably the
Lord Curzon 1899-1905 highest ranking Jew in the history
of the British Empire, where the
Edward (VII) 1901-1910 Viceroy of India, always raised to
Lord Minto 1905-1910 the Peerage for his office, held the
highest Office of State next to the
Lord Hardinge 1910-1916 Throne itself.


› ›   ›
When India became independent in

›
1947, it legally became a British
› › &›
 

, which means that the
›'››&›
King of England was still the
Lord Chelmsford 1916-1921 formal Head of State.  ›
George (V) 1910-1936 0
(
, the last Viceroy,
m ›?
›p ›&&› was asked by o' ›  ,
the new Prime Minister, to stay on
Lord Reading 1921-1926 as Governor-General of the
Dominion. There was then only
Lord Irwin
1926-1931 one Indian Governor-General
(Lord Halifax) before the country was declared a
Lord Willingdon 1931-1936 Republic in 1950. The first
Governor-General of Pakistan,
which similarly became a Dominion, was the Moslem nationalist leader, 0 › ?›
o

. Jinnah died of cancer in 1948, and there were several Pakistani Governors-General
before the country became a Republic in 1956.

What the British heritage in India tends to stand for is something democratic, unifying, fair, and
evenhanded -- a plus for India and a tribute to the British. One accusation against British
evenhandedness was what seemed their preference for Muslims, which may have led to
unnecessary haste in deciding to partition the country. However, it has always been the policy of
every imperial power to use the services of minorities who dislike or fear the prospect of
c





government by the majority communities. When minorities are subsequently oppressed,

expelled, or massacred afterways, the majority community tends to justify the matter as
retribution for cooperation with the occupiers. However, if the minorities had been oppressed

 the arrival of the imperial power, this rationalization rings a little hollow.

In India, Islam   with the imperial power of Ghazna, the Ghurids, and the Moghuls, and
Muslims had  lived under a Hindu majority government. For reasons both rational and
irrational, the movement arose to avoid this. Whether or not the British, who certainly included
Islamophiles like Sir Richard Burton, favored Muslims (though others, like Colonel James Tod,
admired the warlike Hindu Rajputs, cf. ?
?


‘
, 1829, 1832), we are
now familiar enough with the cultural dynamic of Islâm to see that very little favor indeed, if
any, was necessary to produce the nationalism of Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Even if the British had
granted independence to India in 1919 or 1930, before Jinnah's movement began, it is not
difficult to see a certainty of the emergence of something much like it, whose consequence
would have been civil war rather than quick Partition -- however terrible things often were
during the Partition, with many indicidents of mutual massacre, though sometimes these were
stopped by the remarkable influence of Gandhi. The partition that Muslims favored in India as
the minority, of course, they rejected as the solution for Palestine, where they were the majority.

On the map we see the final

form of British India, with
Burma thrown in for good
measure. The special North
West Frontier Province and the
imposition of direct British rule
along the southern border of
Afghanistan both bespeak
increasing British concern
about the advance of the
Russians in Central Asia. The
espionage and diplomatic
maneuvering associated with
Russian actions and intentions
were often called the "Great
Game." In retrospect, not much
seems to have come of it all;
but at the time, Russia, actually
with the largest economy in the world, seemed more powerful and aggressive than it looks now.
We forget that Russia was at the time conquering Central Asia, and the British remembered well
the hard fight of the Crimean War (1853-1856). The principle consequence of the Russian
approach was British intervention in Afghanistan, either to attach the kingdom to the Empire, or
at least preserve it as a buffer state. The First Afghan War (1839-1842) was a famous
catastrophy, with, after intitial successes, the entire British force wiped out in retreat from Kabul.
The Second Afghan War (1878-1881) at least accomplished the task of rendering Afghanistan
under British protection as a buffer against the Russians, just as the Russians actually were
c





arriving in the mountains to the north. The most famous casualty of this war is the fictional John
H. Watson, M.D., whose wound and small income led to him to find a roommate in the person of
one Sherlock Holmes. The rest is, after a fashion, history. The practical end of the Great Game
may have come in 1905, when the Wakhan salient was attached to Afghanistan to separate India
from Russia. It still gives Afghanistan a small border with China. The Third Afghan War (1919),
led to full formal Afghan independence in 1921. The Russians eventually arrived after all in
1979 but in the end probably wished that they had not bothered, with the Soviet Union itself
collapsing shortly after the Russian occupation ended in 1989. Now, however, after Afghanistan
began harboring Islamist terrorists, an American and NATO military presence (2001) has mainly
succeeded in chasing the radicals and their allies into the mountains within the Pakistani border.
This region, shown as annexed by the British in 1890 and 1893, is a primitive tribal area that was
never very much under British control. The Pakistanis have not done markedly better with the
place, which is still protected by the fearsome terrain, the resolute anarchy of the inhabitants, and
now by the political problem of Islamist and pro-terrorist sentiment within Pakistan itself, which
makes a sustained crackdown unpopular. V 
 & 


ÿ m ›
¦0
¦!›   ›*›"
 "
 ››
›
*›Î "›

Edward
1936
(VIII) Lord Linlithgow 1936-1943

Emperor,
Lord Wavell 1943-1947
1936-1947
1947

Governor- Governor-
Lord General General
Mountbatten Mohammad Ali
of India, of
Jinnah
1947- Pakistan,
George (VI) King; 1948 1947-1948
India
1947- Governor-
1950, General Governor-
Chakravarti,
Pakistan of India, General
Rajagopalachari Khwaja
1947-1952 1948- of
1950 Nazimuddin
Pakistan,

› ( › 1948-1951
›
(›&›

Queen, Ghulam Governor-

Elizabeth (II)
Pakistan, Mohammad General
c





1952-1956 of
Pakistan,
1951-1955

Governor-
General
Iskander Mirza of
Pakistan,
1955-1956


› ( ›

›
(›&$›

Although many Indians

preserve an ideological or
nationalistic animus towards
the British (which they may or
may not have, for instance,
towards the Moghuls),
believing that the British
exploited India and inhibited its
development -- for instance I
find an equestrian statue of
Edward VII in Toronto that had
been relocated from an
apparently unwelcoming Delhi
(shouldn't the Tâj Mahal be
deported to Bâbur's Farghâna?)
-- there is the striking
circumstance that, while on
independence in 1947 the Indian economy was twice the size of that of China, that advantage
was lost by 1990, and the Chinese economy by 2003 was more than twice the size of India's.
Thus, it seems to be that the British  
 Indian development more than otherwise and that
the socialist and autarkic policies instituted by Nehru, and later his daughter Indira Gandhi, have
done more damage than can ever be blamed on the British (unless it be on the influence of
British socialists). Fortunately, these policies began to be reversed in the 1990's and great
improvement has occurred, as discussed elsewhere. Today, an American calling a customer
service number for an American company may well find themselves speaking to somebody in
India. Some resent this, but it is really rather marvelous and would seem to bespeak a handsome
kinship between two different subjects of the former British Imperium. Americans are otherwise
familiar with the entrepreneurial talent of Indian immigrants to the United States, where they are
disproportionately successful in a number of areas of business, including hotels and motels, of all
things. In 1982 I was personally bewildered when my car broke down in Artesia, New Mexico,
to find a motel run by people from India. The industry of Indians is beyond doubt, all they
needed was the sympathy and cooperation of their own government.
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Index of Princely States &

Protectorates of British India

The Calendar in India

British Coinage of India, 1835-1947

The Caste System and the Stages of

Life in Hinduism

Prime Ministers of India

Prime Ministers of Pakistan

The Sun Never Set on the British

Empire

World War II in Burma

The Kings of England, Scotland, &

Ireland

British Coins before the Florin, Compared to French Coins of the ? ‘'


The Bank of England

Sangoku Index

History of Philosophy, Indian Philosophy

History of Philosophy, Buddhist Philosophy

Philosophy of History

Home Page


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The Bara ('Big') Imambara at Lucknow, constructed in the Mughal style


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