The rapid growth of an unlimited reading public in India, while it encourages indigenous talent, also provides an ample circle of readers and buyers of good work by European or American authors, who no longer address merely a small Anglo- Indian coterie, but enjoy the privilege of addressing an ever- increasing public among three hundred millions of people in every corner of the Indian Empire. That development imposes new duties upon authors of histories. The old books intended only for the eye of European readers are no longer adequate to meet the requirements of the new public. Elphinstone and his followers were content to draw their material chiefly from the works of Muhammadan chroniclers, while the story of Hindu India was buried in darkness which seemed to be impenetrable. Without in any way disparaging the excellent performances of the older European historians, we must acknowledge that their methods are now out of date, and that their treatment of the long Indian story no longer satisfies the appetites of thousands of students. The history of ancient and mediwal India prior to the sixteenth or seventeenth century is usually distasteful to the European reader, who will not trouble to master the pronuncia- tion of outlandish names or to explore the development of a peculiar civilisation rarely influenced by the Greek, Roman, and Hebrew ideas which lie at the base of European culture. -Vincent A. Smith
Posted on: Sat, 19 Apr 2014 07:55:54 +0000
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