1 ac PREFACE.
2 the snowy ranges of the stupendous Himsa Here the holy
3 singers composed their Vedic hymns, the great littary memorial of
4 their settlement in the country. The Brahmins, the 4j puts and the
5 Bannias, who form the sacerdotal, military and mercanile classes of
6 the Hindus, are, alike, the descendants of the fairer race,the Aryans
7 of Bactria. The lower and servile dark-skinned classes .represent
8 the people*they subdued. a
9 The ea conquerors of the Panj4b were, in their turs, sub-
10 dued by the Scythians, or Tartars, of Turkistan, whose hordes, hav-
11 ing overrun parts of Asia, found their way into the regions ofthe
12 Indus. The Scythic, or Northern, form of Buddhism competed with
13 theearlier Buddhism of Asoka, famous for his rock and cave edict’.
14 The Scythian influence in the Panjéb is a historical fact. Alexan-
15 der made the Panjab the classic ground of his conquest, and it was
16 in the Panjéb, too, that, in after times, the armies of Islam, after
17 overrunning Asia, Africa and Southern Europe, as far as distant
18 Spain and Gaul, obtained their first footing on Indian soil. For
19 upwards of two centuries did the Hindu masters of the coun-
20 try baffle the power of the Mahomedan invaders. Mahmid
21 sacked and destroyed the Hindu fanes, broke up their idols, and sub-
22 jected the land to every conceivable form of misery and degradation,
23 carrying away thousands of the inhabitants into hopeless slavery.
24 The hordes of the great mercenary Tartar leader, Changez Khan,
25 under his brother, inflicted on the Panjab all the horrors which had
26 been experienced in Hungary, Russia, and Germany, and even on
27 the shores of the Baltic, Tamerlane, the world-renowned con-
28 queror, who left to his descendants twenty-seven crowns, and made
29 Samarkand the mistress of Asia, enriching her with the spoil of a
30 thousand cities, made the Panjib the scene of his military adven-
31 tures. The knightly Baber, the hardy N&dir, and the Abdali, Ah-
32 mad Shah, each in his turn, used the Panjéb as the base of warlike
33 operations for conquests beyond its classic rivers. In short, from
34 the time of Alexander to the invasion of Shah Zaman, of unlucky
35 peed ne eae ie a bulwark to India against all the invasions
36 rom the North an est.
37 The Panjab is the home of Sikhism, the religion founded by
38 Nanak, who, instead of detailing and sub-dividing divinity, loftily
39 invoked the deity as the one and indivisible God, and appealed alike
40 the meudlak and the pandit. Here Arjun met his famous martyr-
41 aaa ae here Govind, consummating the dispensation of NaAnak,
42 = 1, declaring his priestly mission to be fulfilled, and the Guruship
43 o rest in the general body of the KAdlsd. Here did the Sikh con-
44 ence: rise under their respective warlike leaders, resulting in
45 genet ekemnte ore ofthe BAC Ree
46 iy ke SUD ower of the Panjib. Ranjit Singh, o
47 in Suseeli ai theo Spperet on the sens aud tnt th
48 sh monarchy in the Panjab; but his descendants
49 Sri Satguru J agjit Singh Ji eLibrary NamdhariElibrary@ gmail.com