^{page 707 note 1} The Early History of India, Oxford, 1904, 1914 (2nd ed.)Google Scholar; the Oxford History of India, Oxford, 1919.Google Scholar

^{page 708 note 1} The finds of Sir Marc Aurel Stein in Khotan, and those of Marshall in Taxila, are almost the only exceptions; and here only documents of political life and secular art have been excavated. Of course, there are many copper-plate grants and inscriptions on stone; but, though they are the most important source of our knowledge of Hindu history, their contents are very meagre, never to be compared with similar monuments from Ancient Greece or Rome. Finally, the character of the Dharma- and Arthaśāstras is too scientific to show the real changes and types in Hindu public life, in spite of their enormous value as theoretic systematizations of the ideal of their time.

^{page 708 note 2} Yuan Chwang, who visited India in the seventh century, tells us that there had been detailed annals in every town. And all the chronicles since the eleventh century cite older sources, of which the earliest belong to the eighth century. But none of these early annals have come down to us, and the documents of the Gupta times were unknown even to the historians of the eleventh century. See my article “Die Stellung der indischen Chroniken im Rahmen der indischen Geschichte” (Zeitschrift für Buddhismus, vi, pp. 139–59, 1924).Google Scholar

^{page 708 note 3} Therefore, only in those countries of Hindu civilization which belong to the Central Asiatic region of arid plains and deserts (Eastern and Western Turkestan, Eastern Persia, Sistan, or Panjāb), as Khotan and Taxila, ephemeral monuments have survived.

^{page 708 note 4} It is almost the same case with the documents of the Mediterranean cultures. During the Middle Ages there have been preserved only the early Christian scriptures and those heathen authors who had become classics or were very popular, as the historians Cornelius Nepos, Livius, etc., whereas the learned works of Varro, etc., have been lost. Of course, the conditions for the preservation of monuments have been far better in Europe than in India, and, nevertheless, our knowledge of the institutions of life in the Hellenistic kingdoms and the Roman Empire has been very incomplete until the discovery of the enormous numbers of papyri in the dry soil of Egypt.

^{page 709 note 1} Compare the works of Vierkandt, Spengler, Bücher, etc.

^{page 709 note 2} There have been some scholars who have already proceeded in this way of investigation: Foucher, A., “The Six-Tusked Elephant” (Beginnings of Buddhist Art, London, 1917, p. 185 ff.)Google Scholar; and SirArnold, Thomas W., “Indian Painting and Muhammadan Culture” (Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, lxx, p. 617 ff., 1922).Google Scholar

^{page 710 note 1} None of the Śilpaśāstras are very old, in every case not earlier than the eleventh century. And on the other hand, Indian miniature painting of the Mughal and Rājput type has never been guided by religious precepts. Only the Tibetan and late Nepalese, Bengali-Buddhist, Singhalese, and early Jain pictures show a distinct hieratic character.

^{page 711 note 1} Goloubev, V., Peintures Bouddhiques aux Indes, Paris, 1914Google Scholar; Griffiths, J., The Paintings of the Buddhist Cave-temples at Ajantā, London, 1896–1897Google Scholar; Herringham, C. J., Ajantā Frescoes, Oxford, 1915.Google Scholar

^{page 712 note 1} Burgess, J., Notes on the Bauddha rock temples at Ajantā, and on the Paintings of the Bāgh Caves, Bombay, 1879Google Scholar; Haldar, A. K., “The Paintings of the Bāgh Caves” (Rūpam, viii, 1921).Google Scholar

^{page 712 note 2} Annual Report of the Archæological Survey, Ceylon, 1905Google Scholar; Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, xv, p. 117 (1897–1898).Google Scholar

^{page 712 note 3} Foucher, A., Étude sur l'iconographie Bouddhique de l'Inde d'après des monuments nouveaux, Paris, 1900Google Scholar; Vredenburg, E., “The Continuity of Pictorial Tradition in the Art of India” (Rūpam, i).Google Scholar

^{page 712 note 4} Nahar, P. Ch. and Ghosh, K. Ch., An Epitome of Jainism, Calcutta, 1917, p. 706Google Scholar; Hüttemann, W., “Miniaturen zum Jinacaritra” (Baessler-Archiv., 1914, pp. 47–77)Google Scholar; Coomaraswamy, , Catalogue of the Indian Section of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, vol. iv, “Jain Manuscripts,” 1924.Google Scholar

^{page 712 note 5} For our purposes see especially Coomaraswamy, , Rajput Painting, London, 1916.Google Scholar

^{page 712 note 6} Goetz, , “Studien zur Rājputen-Malerei II” (Ostasiatische Zeitschrift, Neue Folge, i, pp. 119–30, 1924).Google Scholar

^{page 713 note 1} Smith, V., Oxford History of India, Oxford, 1918, pp. 163–4, 172.Google Scholar

^{page 713 note 2} For an analysis of the “decadence” compare von Sydow, Eckart, Die Kultur der Dekadenz, Dresden, 1922.Google Scholar There are, of course, some variations according to time and country, but the essential facts are everywhere almost the same.

^{page 714 note 1} I have restricted my citations to this work, as it is one of the few works of Sanskrit literature whose date we know quite accurately and where we need not fear that too much may be only copied from earlier models; but the characteristics described may be found also in the works of Kalidasa and the other poets of these times. May I repeat it, that from the historical point of view the term “decadence” does not mean a period of decay, but a time of hypercivilization of the greatest splendour.

^{page 715 note 1} Tāranātha describes the history of this time in Bengal: “Lalitadhandra was the last king of the Chandra Dynasty. There was no ruler, although many Kshatriyas of the Chandra-clan have lived since his death. In the five Eastern countries, Bhangala, Odiviśa, and the other ones, every Kshatriya, chief, Brahman, and chief-merchant was king in his own house, but there was no king to govern the country.” Transl. Schiefner, Petersburg, 1869, p. 197.

^{page 715 note 2} In Buddhism as well as in Hinduism, Tantrism was then at its height.

^{page 715 note 3} See Bilhana's complaints on the rudeness of the Rājpūts of the famous kingdom of Anhilvād (Vikramānkadevacarita, ed. Bühler, , Bombay, 1875, pp. 14, 19Google Scholar). Kalhana's Chronicle of Kashmīr, too, is full of bitter remarks about the neglect of literature by the kings.

^{page 716 note 1} Ashtasāhasrikāprajñāparamitā-Sūtra und Vajracedika-Sūtra.

^{page 716 note 2} Compare the early Rāgmālā manuscripts from Rājasthān of the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century, or the Pahārī miniatures from Jammū, belonging to the seventeenth century. Coomaraswamy, , Rajput Painting, Oxford, 1924Google Scholar; India Office, London, Johnson Album, xliii; British Museum, 1922–12–14–05 to 1922–12–14–07 (Bihār, seventeenth century), 1923–7–01–013, 1923–2–13–04, 1923–7–16–015; State Library, Berlin, libr. pict. A 11, Ethnographical Museum, Munich, 13–92–7, 13–92–13, 13–92–6 (Münchener Jahrbuch der Bildenden Kunst, xiii, p. 61 ff., 1923). In the later miniatures as well as in the Mughal paintings there are to be found quite the same characteristics, but here they are mixed up with other elements, originating in the new development of the Mughal times, or imported from Persia or Europe.

^{page 716 note 3} This characteristic attitude is to be found also in Italian pictures of the trecento and quatrocento.

^{page 717 note 1} There is also a great resemblance in the fashions of the Rājpūt dresses to the early Italian ones, as depicted by Giotto or Pietro da Rimini and others.

^{page 717 note 2} Coomaraswamy, , Rajput Painting, i, 63Google Scholar; “Brajanātha Bandyop¯dhyāya, Hammīr Rāsā, or a History of Hamīr prince of Rānthāmbōr” (Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 48, c. 186, 1879); Nayacandra Sūrī, Hammīrakāvya, ed. by Kirtone, N. J., Bombay, 1879.Google Scholar

^{page 717 note 3} Th. Pavie, “La Légende de Padmani, reine de Tchitor, d'après les textes hindis et hindouis” (Journal Asiatique, 5me série, tome vii, pp. 5 ff., 89 ff., 315 ff., 1856); Grierson, G. A. and Dvivedi, M. S., The Padumāvatī of Malik Muhammad Jaisī, Calcutta, 1911.Google Scholar But there exists a great number of similar romances and historical accounts, for example the defence of Chitōr by Jaimal against the Mughal Emperor Akbar in 1567, or in modern times the conquest of Bali in Indonesia by the Dutch in 1906.

^{page 717 note 4} Pictures of such Jauhar ceremonies: Akbar-Nāmah, South Kensington, No. 69; Bābur-Nāmah, British Museum, MS. Or. 3714, fol. 468b.

^{page 717 note 5} Sen, Dinesh Chandra, History of Bengali Language and Literature, Calcutta, 1911.Google Scholar

^{page 718 note 1} In later times Kālī-Durgā lost most of her terrible aspect and become the sweet mother of the Universe. But in earlier times her character shows the typical features of all Mother-goddesses, the many-sided aspect of woman's nature: good and bad, placed above and below man: the mother and the mistress, the virgin and the harlot: Isis the mother and goddess of the netherworld, Hathor the virgin, the goddess of prostitution and of war; Ishtar the mother, the goddess of war and of harlots, the chained woman in Hades; Kybele, the Great Mother, and the goddesses of Eleusis, Demeter and Kore, the virgin and wife of the Lord of Darkness. Thus Kālī-Durgā, too, is the Kumārī and the mother (Śiva's wife Pārvati-Umā), is the mistress of death and war, and the mistress of unchaste rites. This in her original character as goddess of the jungle tribes of the olden times, her association with Śiva and the speculations of Hindu philosophy are the next stages to her final aspect as the benignant mother of the Universe.

^{page 718 note 2} Wilson, H. H., Religious Sects of the Hindus (Works I, p. 254 ff.).Google Scholar

^{page 719 note 1} So in the teachings of Chaitanya.