A history of the Sikhs, from the origin of the nation to the battles of the Sutlej.

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HISTORY OF THE SIKHS

CHAP. IX

1845-6. her government surpasses the experience of the East, and
emulates the magnificent prototype of Rome. But the
Hindus made the country wholly their own, and from sea to
sea, from the snowy mountains almost to the fabled bridge
of Rama, the language of the peasant is still that of the
twice-born races; the speech of the wild foresters and
mountaineers of the centre and south has been permanently tinged by the old predominance of the Kshattriyas,
and the hopes and fears and daily habits of myriads of men
still vividly represent the genial myths and deep philosophy
of the Brahmans, which more than two thousand years ago
arrested the attention of the Greeks. The Muhammadans
entered the country to destroy, but they remained to colonize, and swarms of the victorious races long continued to
pour themselves over its rich plains, modifying the language
and ideas of the vanquished, and becoming themselves
altered by the contact, until, in the time of Akbar, the
' Islam' of India was a national system, and until, in the
present day, the Hindu and Muhammadan do not practically
differ more from one another than did the Brahmans and
Kshattriyas and Veisyas of the time of Manu and Alexander.
They are different races with different religious systems, but
harmonizing together in social life, and mutually understanding and respecting and taking a part in each other's
modes and ways and doings. They are thus silently but
surely removing one another's differences and peculiarities,
so that a new element results from the common destruction,
to become developed into a faith or a fact in future ages.
The rise to power of contemned Siudra tribes, in the persons
of Marathas, Gurkhas, and Sikhs, has brought about a
further mixture of the rural population and of the lower
orders in towns and cities, and has thus given another blow
to the reverence for antiquity. The religious creed of the
people seems to be even more indeterminate than their
spoken dialects, and neither the religion of the Arabian
prophet, nor the theology of the Vedas and Purans, is to be
found pure except among professed Mullas and educated
Brahmans, or among the rich and great of either persuasion.
Over this seething and fusing mass, the power of England
has been extended and her spirit sits brooding. Her pre