328 F. S. Growse —The Etymology of Local Names in N. India. [No. 4, 
Moreover, Hindu conservatism, though it doubtless exists, is developed 
in a very different way from the principle known by the same name in 
Europe. Least of all is it shewn in any regard for ancient buildings, whe¬ 
ther temples or homesteads. Though Christianity is a modern faith as 
compared with Hinduism, and though the history of English civilization 
begins only from a time when the brightest period of Indian history had 
already closed, the material evidences of either fact are found in inverse 
order in the two countries. There is not a single English county which 
does not contain a longer and more venerable series of secular and ecclesias¬ 
tical edifices than can be supplied by an Indian district, or it might even be 
said by an entire Presidency. Thus the temple of Gobind Deva at Brinda- 
ban, which is popularly known in the neighbourhood as 1 the old temple’ 
<par excellence , dates only from the reign of Akbar, the contemporary of 
Elizabeth, and is therefore far more modern than any single village church 
in the whole of England, barring those that have been built since the revi¬ 
val by the present generation. The same also with MSS. The Hindus 
had a voluminous literature while the English were still unable to write ; 
but at the present day in India a MS. 200 years old is more of a rarity 
than one five times that age in England. This complete disappearance 
from the surface of all material records of antiquity is no doubt attributable 
in great measure to the operation of the two most destructive forces in the 
known world, viz. white ants and invaders, but the Hindus themselves 
are not altogether free from blame in the matter. As if from a remi¬ 
niscence of their nomadic origin, with all their modern superstitious dislike, 
to a move far from home is combined an inveterate tendency to slip away 
gradually from the old landmarks. The movement is not necessitated by 
growth of population, which as in London for instance can no longer be 
contained within the original city bounds, but is a result of the Oriental 
idiosyncrasy that makes every man desire not, in accordance with European 
ideas, to found a family or restore an old ancestral residence, but rather to 
leave some building exclusively commemorative of himself, and to touch 
nothing that his predecessors have commenced lest they should have all the 
credit of it with posterity. The history of England, whiqh runs all in one 
cycle from the time of its first civilization, affords no ground for comparison ; 
but in mediaeval Italy the course of events was somewhat parallel, and, as in 
India, a second empire was built up on the ruins of a former one of equal 
or greater grandeur and extent. In it we find the modern cities retaining 
under some slight dialectical disguises the very same names as of old and 
occupying the same ground : in India on the other hand, there is scarcely an 
historic site, which is not now a desolation. Again, to pass from political 
to merely local disturbances : when London was rebuilt after the Great Fire, 
its streets in spite of all Wren’s remonstrances were laid out exactly as be- 
