criptions
betrays an origin external to India. Its introduction _may_ be very
early; nevertheless its epoch must be investigated with a full
recognition of the comparatively modern date of even the earliest
alphabets of Persia, and the parts westward; early as compared with such
a date as 1400, B.C., the accredited epoch of the Vedas; an epoch,
perhaps, a thousand years too early.

Nevertheless, the existence of an alphabet, an architecture, a coinage,
and an algebra at a period which no scepticism puts much later than 250,
B.C., is so undoubted, that they may pass as ethnological facts, _i.e._,
facts sufficiently true to be not merely admitted with what is called an
_otiose_ belief, but to be classed with the most unexceptionable _data_
of history, and to be used as effects from which we may argue
backwards--_more ethnologico_--to their antecedent causes; the
appreciation of these requiring a philosophy and an induction of its
own.

We cannot detract from the antiquity of Indian civilization without
impugning its indigenous origin, nor doubt this without stirring the
question as to the countries from which it was introduced. These have
been Persia, Assyria, Egypt, and Greece; the introduction being direct
or indirect as the case might be.

In this way are contrasted the views of the general ethnologist, with
those of the special orientalist, in respect to the great and difficult
question of Indian antiquity. Yet, how far does the scepticism of the
former affect our views concerning the descent of the Hindus, the
Mahrattas, the Bengali, and those other populations, to the languages
whereof they applied? Not much. Whichever way we decide, the population
may still be Tamulian; only, in case we make the language Sanskritic, it
is Tamulian in the same way as the Cornish are Welsh; _i.e._, Tamulian
with a change of tongue.

The doubts, too, as to the antiquity of the Sanskrit literature unsettle
but little. They merely make the introduction of certain foreign
elements some centuries later.

Whatever may be the oldest of the great Hindu creeds, that of the
_Sikhs_ is the newest. Its founder, Nanuk, in the fifteenth century, was
a contemplative enthusiast; his successor, Govind, a zealous man of
action; himself succeeded by similar _gurus_, or priests, who
eventually, by means of fanaticism, organization, and union with the
state raised the power of the _Khalsa_ to the formidable height from
which it has so lately falle