Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 3, Anatomy-Astronomy

ASIA.
Asia.
of Delhi and a small tract of adjacent territory. The last
imperial army that ever appeared in the field was defeated
by the Rohillas in 1749; and during this period the whole
country was one scene of commotion, all the viceroys and
petty feudatories of the Delhi sovereigns,—the various moun¬
tain tribes, such as the Rajpoots, who ruled in Ajmere,—
the Sikhs, who had become formidable, and had established
themselves in Lahore,—and the Jats, a tribe also in the
north of India,—contending in arms for independence. No¬
thing remains of Mogul greatness but the name, which was,
and still is, used as the symbol of sovereignty, and the sanc¬
tion of all political and civil rights.
The decline of the Mogul empire paved the way for the
rise of the Mahratta power, which had already become for¬
midable in India under its founder Sevajee. At his death
in 1680 he had acquired considerable dominion on the
western coast of India. The confusion and anarchy that
followed the death of Aurungzebe greatly facilitated the
Mahratta conquests; and in 1740 this growing empire, which
was divided between two chiefs, the one residing at Poonah
in the west, and the other at Nagpoor in the east, occupied
the whole tract from the western sea to Orissa, and from
Agra to the Carnatic.1 4 lie Mahrattas, thus daily gather¬
ing strength, and the Mahometans, were now the two great
rival powers in Hindustan. The contest between them was
brought to an issue in the memorable battle of Paniput in
1761, when the Mahratta host of 200,000 men was entirely
overthrown, with the loss of the greater part of their army,
and their best generals; and from that fatal day their power
began to decline.
Rise of the The rise of the British power forms an important era in
747
British
power.
Different
Asiatic
races.
the history of India. The unwarlike inhabitants of Hin¬
dustan, successively subdued by the Greek, the Mahometan,
and the Tartar armies, were now destined even more surely
to fall under the science and discipline of Europe. The
French maintained their ground in India only for the short
period of 12 years, from 1749 to 1761. The British, who
engaged about the same time in the wars and politics of
India, were more successful. The battle of Plassy, in 1757,
fought with Surajah Dowlah, nabob of Bengal, gave them
a firm footing in the country. The war which followed ter¬
minated in their favour; and in 1765 they acquired the right
of collecting the revenues of Bengal, which was in fact equi¬
valent to the sovereignty of the country. The jealousies of
the native powers, excited by the encroachments of the
Europeans, gave rise to new contests. But victory was still
the result of each new struggle; and all the wars undertaken
against the British only tended to consolidate and enlarge
their empire. The British dominions in India may now be
said to extend, with little interruption, from the banks of the
Indus to the frontiers of Burmah, and from Cape Comorin
to the Himalaya. Our actual possessions in that country
may be roughly estimated to comprise an area of 750,000
square miles, with a population of 100 millions. See Hin¬
dustan.
Amid those revolutions, of which we have attempted to
give a brief sketch, it is not surprising that some of the most
ancient empires of Asia should have entirely disappeared ;
that populous cities should have fallen into decay and ruin;
and that extensive countries, once the seats of wealth, com¬
merce, and science, should now lie desolate. The Babylo-
nians and Assyrians have been long blotted out of the page
of history; and no traces of them remain in the population
of the world. The kingdom of the Jews has also been
ovei thrown ; but this ancient race are still wanderers on the
face of the earth, and are found in most parts of Asia.
I here are other five principal races, who, it is remarked by
oir W. Jones, have in different ages divided among them¬
selves as a kind of inheritance, and who still occupy, the vast
continent of Asia, with the many islands depending on it.
Ihese are the Hindus, the Chinese, the Tartars, the Arabs,
and the Persians. The origin of those different races is a
curious subject of inquiry, and must be sought for in the re¬
motest antiquity, and from the doubtful analogies supplied
by i eligion, manners, and language. Sir W. Jones, who has
so well illustrated many obscure points of ancient history,
is of opinion that Persia was the original seat of mankind,
from which, as from a common centre, they have gradually
spread over the earth. According to his learned hypothesis,
deduced from ancient works and an examination of the pri¬
mitive languages, a flourishing empire was established in
Persia or Iran, in the earliest dawn of history; and the po¬
pulation consisted of the three distinct races of Hindus,
Arabs, and I artars. About the era of Mahomet, it appears
that, besides the language in common use, the learned had
a language of their own, which had the name of the Pah-
lavi; and there was the still more ancient and abstruse lan¬
guage of the Zend, in which some sacred books were writ¬
ten, only known to a sect of priests and philosophers. The
Pahlavi he clearly proves to be of Chaldaic origin, and the
Zend, from an imperfect vocabulary which he procured, to
be a dialect of the Sanscrit, the ancient and learned tongue
of the Brahmins in India. Having thus ascertained the
analogy between the language of the ancient Persians and
that of the Arabs and the Hindus, he concludes that they
must have originally been the same nation; and that, as
Persia could not be peopled from the east by the Hindus,
whose religion forbids them to emigrate, nor by the Arabs
fiom the west, as we have not the slightest tradition of any
such emigration, both Arabs and Hindus must have come
from Persia, since we may still trace in this country the re¬
mains of their respective tongues, all of which appear to
have been derived from one common and more ancient root.
I he people of Tibet are descended from the Hindus,
and, according to the hypothesis of Sir W. Jones, who, on
all those subjects unites solid reasoning with the most pro¬
found learning, have engrafted the doctrines of Buddha on
their ancient religion. Their language, though it has been
coi rupted by an intercourse with the Chinese, still bears the
traces of a Sanscrit origin. The Afghans or Patans, who
occupy Afghanistan between Persia and Hindustan, are said
to have sprung originally from the Jews; but their language,
which is evidently of the Indo-European root, does not war¬
rant this tradition. The Japanese and the Chinese are evi¬
dently derived from a common stock, their literature, re¬
ligion, and manners being the same. The Burmese are
considered by some ethnologists to belong to the Hindu
race, though others give them a Tartar origin.
Hie I artars or I atars, under which appellation we in¬
clude the hordes of shepherds who range over the vast plains
of Asia, under the names of Scythians, Huns, Mongols, and
Kalmucs, differ entirely from the Hindus and Arabs in fea¬
tures, complexion, and form, as well as in manners and lan¬
guage, and appear evidently to be a distinct race. Their
language, which is the Turci or the Turki, of which the
modern Turkish is a dialect, might, according to Sir W.
Jones, be easily traced to a different root from the others.
Phis ancient I artarian language he mentions, on grounds
which it would not be easy to disprove, was current in Per¬
sia at a very early age; and hence he concludes that the
I artars formed part of the ancient population of Persia, and,
along with the other two races, issued from that country to
occupy the deserts of Asia. The Chinese, according to the
same learned author, whose opinion is founded on the San¬
scrit institutes of Menu, were originally a military tribe of
the Hindus, who, abandoning the ordinances of the Brahmin
Asia.
1 Major Kennel, Introduction, Ixxxv.