THE

ASIATIC JOURNAL
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v-

13rttt&fj gjnaia antr it* Drynrticnnrs :

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VOL. XXIII.
JANUARY TO JUNE, 1827.

LONDON :

PRINTED FOR PARBURY, ALLEN, & CO.

BOOKSELLERS TO THE HONOURABLE EAST-INDIA COMPANY,

LEADENHALL STREET.

1827.
1JW7J- ( 353 )

THE EARLY HJSXQRY AFTT,HE MAHRATTA COUNTRY*

The obscurity in which. time involves the history of past ages, is perhaps
in no portion of India greater than we find it in the country now distinguished
by the name of the Deccan. The curiosity of knowing who went before us,
the pleasure of associating the transactions of remote ages with the countries
we inhabit, and with the mountains or plains whose picturesque appearand :
or whose fertility we daily contemplate, lead often to researches which, if
they yield no greater benefit to mankind, tend at least to improve the mind^,
by enlarging the ideas. ..... ., i .. .. , h- iIVlll.ai|ll
<s.ji
Though it is granted that we may find treasures in the scientific works, it.
has not yet been admitted that we could discover any important lessons :of
Government from the study of the History of our Hindoo or Mahomedan
predecessors ; in fact, we find a melancholy blank in the details of the internal
administration of those rulers. Foreign wars and internal seditions seem to
be the most plentiful ingredients of the works of the historians of India.
Sometimes the birth and death of a saint, and occasionally a wise or a bold;
saying, relieve the details of battles, enmities, and treacheries. The character
of a general or an emperor is also occasionally sketched with impartiality; but
most frequently the portraits are too flattering or too hideous ; and to these
sketches wc have almost entirely to trust for our information of the practical
internal government of Asia.
It is fair to believe that the Deccan, or that tract of country lying to the,
south of the Vindaya range of mountains, ranked upwards of three thousand
years ago as a civilized nation ; but as no exact notions can be gained from the
writings and traditions of the Hindoos in regard to the state of society in
remote ages, any speculations on them have little to recommend them beyond
their ingenuity. I am, however, of the same opinion as those who conceive
that the aborigines of India were Coolies, living in an uncivilized state ap
proaching to barbarism, when Rama, the King of Oude, set himself to reduce
the whole country to his power, and to civilize its inhabitants. Rawan, the
King of Ceylon, and his brethren the kings of the countries south of the,
Vindaya range of mountains, were probably great Cooly Naicks, who with
their subjects subsisted on their flocks, and on the produce of fields poorly
cultivated. , ...
Rawan, however, must have been his time, for it appears he
a great man in
is believed to have assigned this part of the country as an inheritance to his;
pipers. If this be true, they probably were its rulers when Seeta Rama's
qneen, on their arrival at Punchowtee, on the opposite bank of the Godaverj
at Nassick, took a fancy to have the skin of an antelope which she saw
grazing in the fields made into a cholee or covering for her neck. The dire
consequences which ensued from her husband setting off over the country to
killthe antelope are well known ; but we cannot but admire the politeness and
conjugal affection of the times, and of so great a king as Rama, in endea
vouring to satisfy his wife's odd longing. Rama is said to have conquered the
countries all round him, and probably the first introduction of the Hindoo
laws and faith to the southward of the Nerbudda was made by hira. He,prOf
bably had a fellow-feeling for the Coolies, as Walmeek, the prophetic writer
of the Ramayan, was, before he changed his predatory habits and became a
-, ' *'< ; 'Rishe,
:
By H. D. Robertson, Esq., from the Selection of Paperi from the Records at the East-India
House, 1826," vol. iv. p. 400.
354 The Early History of the Muhratta Country. [Mfiicn,
Rjshej *'ii<Horious highway robberi I have not discovered, however, that
there was any spiritual Cooley, or any learned Hindoo, who, marrying: himself
to a. Cooley maiden, produced a second Veyas in the Deccan ; hntj itiaa:
probable that the same means which were deviled to instruaMbe liindostnn
robbers were practised here ; and that in the course of time civilization began
to gain ground, and the country to become well-peopled and rich.
The religion introduced was no doubt the religion of the Vedas, a pure
deism, which inculcates the equality of souls in the estimation of the Deity,
and that the sun is the emblem of his Majesty. In the course of time there
arose schismatics, who contended for the doctrines of immaterialism, the
existence of nothing but the bouI, and the determination of creation (though
they admitted there was a God) by chance.
These sectaries probably carried every thing before them, and maintained
their superiority for a long period. From the confusion and discomfiture of
the believers in the orthodox doctrines of what we may in these days call
Hindooism, the original faith was probably greatly adulterated, and in many
places totally suppressed, and the knowledge of it lost; but those sparks
which remained alive burst forth with all the destructiveness of religious zeal
when a fit opportunity offered, and at length the Hindoos triumphed over their
adversaries the Baudhists, and re-established worship, differing from their
original faith in many particulars, and perhaps in none more than in the in
troduction of the worship of images. It is probable, however, that till about
A.D. 30, they retained the practice of shedding the blood of the cow on
their marriage ceremonies, of eating flesh (not beef) on their shrouds, and of
a brother sleeping with his brother's wife, if she produced no children from
her intercourse with her husband.* The Hindoo zealots who triumphed over
their adversaries, no doubt used every argument they could think of to prove
the existence and duration of matter, and in the heat of doing so probably
gave birth to many of those foolish ceremonies and ablutions which evince
their belief, not only in the existence of matter, but in the possibility of
defiling the soul through impure material contact. From the same cause
particular places became sanctified ; a residence at some, and a sight of others,
were declared sufficient to cleanse away sins, or to enable the devotee to
reach even to Heaven; and thus the original Hindoo faith became, in the
eagerness of its votaries to subvert the Immaterialists, a religion of the utmost
absurdity, in which matter was mixed up with mind in all shapes and situations.
To this zeal for marking distinctly their difference of opinion, is also probably
to be attributed of Metempsychosis and the doctrine of Gnan
the invention
(perfect knowledge or omniscience), by which it is believed that none who are
not so sufficiently holy in this life as to attain the last gradationary class of
Asberums, and by performing strictly the duties of a Sunyeassee, to acquire
omniscience, can arrive in Mookht, but that they will continue to be re-
embodied successively until the consummation supervenes.
After the conquest over the Baudhists, the literati were probably engaged
in giying a finishing shape and consistence to their tenets, and in writing
books to prove the reverse of the doctrine of their opponents. They stated)
in their books that the divine essence could assume any form, and accordingly
it was made to do so. The sun and moon also were made to be the proge
nitors

I am inclined to look on the Jains, if not as more

moderate reformers, at least a preservl
tenets of the original II
ancient times, more nearly than any other Hindoo reformers, the real
faith.
182/.] Tlie Early History of ll* Mahralla Country. 355
nitdrs of a long race of kings. The sun was, in consideration of its natural
effects, incorporated with Vishnoo, the preserving power. The moon, on the
same principle perhaps, was identified with Mahadeo or Seeva ; the destructive
energy and bountiful Alma Mater corresponded with Brimha, the Creator.
A great reformer appeared about the commencement of the Christian era,
who abolished the fourth stage of perfection in this life, on the principle that
as wickedness would be paramount in this youg, no one could ever expect
to become so much devoted to abstruse contemplation as to acquire Gnan,
and subsequently immortality. He also abolished sacrifices to the sun and
fire; but he rescinded these reforms (probably he was obliged to do so, from
opposition), from the conviction
that, if
they were made, the Hindoo religion
would have speedily been annihilated.
The King of Oojein probably held under his sway the countries south of the
Nerbudda, until Salivahan established himself in independence, and fixed the
northern boundary of his kingdom along the line of that river.
There appears to be no reason to believe that, from the beginning of the
Christian era to the present time, the Hindoo religion has ever been much
encroached on. Many sects and schismatics have appeared, and the Maho-
medans and Portuguese tried hard to convert its followers and suppress the
religion : but it kept its ground, and perhaps did so the better from those
occasional oppositions which could not eradicate it.
But
as we must infer from the booty which the Patan kings of Delhi ac
quired in Dowlutabad,* and which their rebellious servants who established the
kingdom of Koolberga found in Beeganuggur and Telenganny, that the coun
century by Hindoo Rajas were in a highly flourish
tries ruled in the thirteenth
ing condition ; we may perhaps be justified in concluding, that if there ever
was a great change in the habits or laws of the mass of the people, it was last
ing, and that its effects soon became obliterated by the revival of former
usages.
There are authenticated traces of the existence of Lingayets in considerable
numbers in this part of the country. The people of that tract of our new
territories which lies from the top of the Syaderee range inland from twenty to
twenty-five miles, and which is in different places of the range termed Mora
and Mawul, were cultivators and herdsmen by turns. The people of this tract
appear to have resisted (if may I
so use the term) any attempts to civilize
them, and to have preserved under the Mahommedan kings of Deccan a bar
barous independence. They were partly cultivators, in the same way as we
now see in some of the divisions of that tract a single community of cowherds
quite distinct from the inhabitants of villages, who have a gowra as their chief,
to lead them to the pasture grounds, and to their labours as agriculturalists.
I find the head-men of such communities in these districts were chiefly Linga
yets, and that to every valley, or to every two or three vallies, there was a
chief, who probably settled in the gross for the revenues of his districts, as
there is mention made of one Beyapa Jungaum, of Pown Mawul, having lost
hk inheritance and power for not remitting his revenue to the Nizam's Govern
ment with due precisian.
There In a tradition that Deoghur, or Dowlatabad, was built In 1203 A.D., by adhungur, or herds
man* who acquiring, by some unusual good fortune, vast wealth, was named by his brother shepherds
Rajah Ram, and soon after assumed the rank of a Rajah. Hemar Punt is said to have brought Peesack-
leep, the present Mocchavacta, from Lunka, in 1253 A.D. s Hemar Punt became the minister of a
Rajah Ram of Deoghur. Peesackleep means the writing of raschas, or demons, probably from its
being the writing of Rawan's countrymen.