INDIA . PAST AND PRESENT.
Six new books relating to India have just appeared and each, if space permitted, would deserve to be noticed at length. Here we can but indicate the characteristics of these fresh contributions to an inexhaustible subject. The Lay of Atha, partly translated in a spirited ballad metre by the Late Mr. William Waterfield and admirably edited by Sir George Grierson (Milford, 7s. 6d. net), is a Rajput epic which has been handed down from the twelfth century by generations of illiterate minstrels, whose modem repre- sentatives still recite it. The poem had never been reduced to writing until some sixty years ago, when Sir Charles Elliott employed three or four minstrels to pool the versions that they knew by heart. Other versions have since been printed. The Iliad and Odyssey, the Chanson de Roland, the Nibel- ungenlied, the Song of Beowulf and other national epics probably originated, like the Lay of Atha, in verse narratives transmitted by oral tradition until they were written down and edited, and the Indian example is noteworthy as showing that long poems can be handed down through centuries. The accretions gathered in the course of time are as obvious as the inconsistencies ; this twelfth-century epic in its present form has mention of sappers and miners, cannon, rockets and pistols, and yet its antiquity is indisputable.—Professor Ghoshal of Calcutta has written a History of Hindu Political Theories (Milford, 1 ls. 6d. net.), which is commendably fresh and stimulating. The author is familiar with Western political thought as well as with the teaching of the Sanskrit classics, and his comparisons between the two—especially as regards kingship—are of special interest. He casts doubt on the attempt of some Indian politicians to find the modem doctrine of popular sovereignty or Rousseau's Social. Contract in the old Hindu literature. He does not fear to criticize some of the Vedic commentators, who drew as sharp a division between
politics and morals as Machiavelli himself. - -
The beginnings of our Indian Empire are best studied in Mr. Foster's fascinating selections from the records of the East Indian Company, of which he has already edited sixteen volumes in two series. To these he has just added another, numbered as Volume XI. of The English Factories in India (Clarendon Press, 18s. net), and covering in some four hundred pages the four years 1661-64. He works on so large a scale that he is able, fortunately, to quote at length many interesting letters from the Company's agents, giving the details which show what- these hardy adventurers had to endure. The sack of Surat by the famous Mahratta chief, Sivaji, and the English occupation of Bombay, much against the will of the Portuguese residents, arc the main episodes of the volume. In Surat the little English colony defended itself stoutly e,nd beat off the raiders with kiss, but the Mogul governor and the townsfolk were like sheep and let themselves be plundered of their gold and silver and jewels which were " heaped up in two great heaps " before Sivaji's tent.— Part of Mr. Foster'is ground is worked over by Professor Shafaat Ahmad Khan hi his instructive essay on Anglo- Portuguese Negotiations relating to Bombay, 1660-1677, reprinted with additions from the Journal of Indian History (H. Milford, 10s. 6d. net). The author, who prints in full some of the documents quoted by Mr. Foster, shows how the Portuguese at Goa, who disliked the cession of Bombay as a wedding present to Charles II., made things as unpleasant as possible for the English traders. The author tends to over-estimate the power of decadent Portugal ; : the English Government were reluctant to quarrel with her, lest she should collapse and fall again under Spanish control. It is a wild exaggeration to say that " poor Charles II." was " tricked at every turn of the diplomatic wheel by the subtle Portuguese."
One aspect of our beneficent rule is well described in a little book on Irrigation in India by Mr. D. G. Harris (Milford, 3s. net), whose expert knowledge enables him to explain clearly the immense services rendered by British engineers to the Indian peasantry. The cultivators over 100,000 square miles of country, who used to be in constant dread of drought and famine, are assured of well-watered crops, and the area will be increased by half when projects now under way are completed. The crops in a single year, 1920-21, were worth double the whole capital expended by the Government on irrigation. The Indian Public Works Department attracts little notice and is rarely praised, but its achievements are among the most remarkable in our history.—Turning from the materialist to the spiritual side of British activities in the East, we must heartily commend a pamphlet entitled India through New Eyes, by Mr. David Walters (Livingstone Press, 6d.), who accompanied the London Missionary Society's deputation to India last winter and who gives very frankly his view of the present state of the missions and of the lines on which they should work in the future. " In view of the rise of the Nationalist spirit in India," he says, " it is important that Christianity should present as little as possible of Western forms." He is all for encouraging the native Christians to become ministers and teachers ; the British missionary should, he thinks, confine himself to supervision and encouragement, and should not let himself be overwhelmed by details of administration. The mission schools, he thinks, must be few but should be highly efficient, to act as a leaven and to set a standard. He commends the remarkable village school founded at Moga in the Punjab by the American missionary, Mr. McKee, whose aim is to educate the young peasant without detaching him from his village. Mr. Walters sees in social service the true means of breaking down the barriers of religion and caste, and he urges the Indian Christians to lose no oppor- tunity of joining with Moslems and Hindus in works of charity. Mr. Walters has the root of the matter in him, and his broadminded and liberal programme deserves
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