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Hindu Superiority

"AN TO ATTEMPT DETERMINE THE POSITION OF THE HINDU RACE IN THE 
SCALE OF NATIONS"

                                                                                                                                                           BY BILAS §ARDA, B.A., F.R.S.L., 

Part Two

 Hindu Armies - Awakening

 

 

 

Compiler: Kalki Kalyani 

Editor: Akash_Vani 

Date Published: Sunday 21st November 2021

 

 

Intro

British journalist Meredith Townsend in a contemporary review article discussing the significant military potential of India under a Prussian-style conscription model. Townsend’s analysis highlights the immense manpower of India, suggesting such a force could have global implications. Similar discussions regarding the scale of British Empire resources appeared in various late 19th-century newspapers.

 

 

Notable Figures From This Article:

 

Sir Ian Standish Monteith Hamilton  (British Army officer) 1853 - 1947  

 

Mr. Meredith Townsend 1831–1911

was a British journalist and author, known for editing the Spectator and writing Asia and Europe (1901), who often commented on British rule in India.

 

Mountstuart Elphinstone (1779–1859) was a pivotal Scottish administrator, diplomat, and historian in British India.

 

Colonel James Tod (1782–1835) was a British East India Company officer, political agent, and renowned Indologist who spent 24 years in India (1799–1823).

 

Chapter: X— FOREIGN RELATIONS

"In the theatre of the world The people are actors all. 
One doth the sovereign monarch play ; And him the rest obey." 

— Calderon. 

When such brilliant national character combines with' such happy social 
organization of the people as to excite the admiration of all who study it, one 
can easily conceive what noble achievements of peace and war the ancient Hindus 
must have accomplished. 

 

It is true, "peace hath her victories no less renowned than war " ; 

still a peculiar halo of glory attaches to military achievements.

The achievements of the Hindus in philosophy, poetry, sciences and arts prove 
their peaceful victories. 

 

But their military achievements were equally great, as
will appear from their mastery of the science of war. 

 

Their civilizing missions 
covered the globe, and Hindu civilization still flows like an under-current in 
the countless social institutions of the world. 

In the Aiteriya Brahman, Emperor
Sudas is stated to have completely conquered the whole world, with its different
countries. 

 

That the Hindus were quite capable of accomplishing this feat, is 
clear from the remarkable article that appeared in the Contemporary Review from 
the pen of Mr. Townsend. He says: 

"If the Prussian conscription were applied
in India, we should, without counting reserves or land 'wehr or any force not 
summoned in time of 
peace, have two-and-a-half millions of soldiers actually in barracks, with 
800,000 recruits coming up every year — a force with which not only Asia but the
world might be subdued." 

 

 

General Sir Ian Hamilton, in his Scrap book on the 
first part of the Russo-Japanese War, says:  

"Why there is material in the 
North of India and in Nepaul sufficient and fit, under good leadership, to shake
the artificial society of Europe to its foundations." 

"The territorial strength 
of India in ancient and even in medieval times, was greater than it has ever 
been during the last thousand years. Pururawa is said to have possessed 13 
islands of the ocean. See Mahabharata Adiparva, 3143, Trisdasa Samudra Ya 
dwipa Asnan Pururawah, etc."

 

 

"That the Hindus were a great naval power in ancient times is clear from the fact that one of the ancestors of Rama was '• 
Sagara, emphatically called the Sea-king, whose sixty thousand sons were so many
mariners." 

A liny, indeed, states that " some consider the four Satrapies of
Gedeosia, Arachosia, Aria and Paropamisus to belong to India." 

 

"This would include," 

says Mr. Elphinstone, 

"about two thirds of Persia Strabo 
mentions a large part of Persia to have been abandoned to the Hindus by the 
Macedonians."

 

 

 Colonel Tod says: 

"The annals of the Yadus of Jaisalmer state 
that long anterior to Yicrama, they held dominion from Ghazni to Samarkand, that
they established themselves in those regions after the Mahabharata, 

and were again impelled on the rise of Islamism 
within the Indus." 

He adds: 

 "A multiplicity of scattered facts and 
geographical distinctions fully warrants our assent to the general truth of 
these records, which prove that the Yadu race had dominion in Central Asia."

 

 

He also says : 

"One thing is now proved that princes of the Hindu faith ruled over
all these regions in the first ages of Islamism, and made frequent attempts for 
centuries after to reconquer them."

 

"Of these, Baber gives us a most striking 
instance in his description of Gazni, or, as he writes, Ghazni, when he relates 
how when the Rai of Hind besieged Subakhtagin in Ghazni, Subakhtagin ordered 
flesh of kine to be thrown into the fountain, which made the Hindus retire." 

The celebrated Balabhi was reduced by the same stratagem. 

"Bappa, the ancestor 
of the Kanas of Mewar, abandoned Central India after establishing his line in 
Chitor, and retired to Khorasan. All this proves that Hinduism prevailed in 
those distant regions, and that the intercourse was unrestricted between Central
Asia and India." 

 

 

"The Bhatti Chronicle calls the Langas in one page Pathan 
and in another Rajput, which are perfectly reconcileable, and by no means 
indicative that the Pathan or Afghan of that early period or even in the time of
Rai Sehra was Mohamedan. 

The title of Rai is a sufficient proof that they were 
even then Hindus." Colonel Tod adds : " that they were even then Hindus." 

Colonel Tod adds : "Khan is by no means indicative of the Mohamedan faith. "

 

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Quotes & extracts for this article can be found here.

- Book source: 

"Hindu Superiority (Classic Reprint): An Attempt to Determine the Position of the Hindu Race in the Scale of Nations" (reprint) – 24 Aug. 2018

by Har Bilas Sarda (Author)

Originally published: 1867

Print length ‏ : ‎ 490 pages

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1397748796
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1397748799

Available on: Amazon

Available online: Archive.org

 

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