Why it should be kept esoteric, one can only guess; I think if it were known, the cycles and patterns of human history would cease to be so abstruse and hidden from us: we should know too much for our present moral or spiritual status. As usual, our own _savants_ are avid to dwarf all dates, and bring everything within the scope of a few thousand years; as for the native authorities, they simply try confusions with us; if you should trust them too literally, or some of them, events such as the Moslem conquest will not take place for a few centuries yet. They do not choose that their ancient history should be known; so all things are in a hopeless muddle. One thing to remember is this: it is a continent, like Europe; not a country, like France. The population is even more heterogeneous than that of Europe. Only one sovereign, Aurangzeb --at least for many thousands of years--was ever even nominally master of the whole of it. There are two main divisions, widely different: Hindustan or Aryavarta, north of the Vindhya Mountains and the River Nerbudda; and Dakshinapatha or the Deccan, the peninsular part to the south. The former is the land of the Aryans; the people of the latter are mainly non-Aryan--a race called the Dravidians whom, apparently, the Aryans conquered in Hindustan, and assimilated; but whom in the Deccan, though they have influenced them largely, and in part molded their religion, they never quite conquered or supplanted. Well; never is a long day; dear knows what may have happened in the long ages of pre-history.