Factors in Indian History (Sir Allacli Krishnaswami Aiyar Endowment Lectures)

Subject: General Law

Updated:

1 ( f ) ? •m

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1 ( f ) ? •m \ % N. -7^77^ y v / . . . . . . ■'y*ntlP>r Mk i4 ' — / / *. ’ . . . ;•. ]E* j? <b j : a. e © l am grateful to the Andhra University and its esteemed Vice-Chancellor, Sir C. R f.ddy, for their inviting me to deliver the Alladi K rishnaswami Aiyar lectures for this year- This has given me opportunity to bring together m y thoughts on India’s history and culture. I have laid more stress on the early formative period partly because I am more .acquainted with this period, but more for the reason that, in my opinion, it has most to contribute to the shaping not only of our own future but of that of the world. I have too much respect for those who heard these lectures and others who may chance to read them to expect that they will sub scribe to all my statements without argument. I cannot also believe that I have succeeded in avoiding all mistakes of fact, much less errors of judgement and emphasis. Historical judgements have no final court of appeal, and if the statement o f my views formed after much study and reflection helps others to clear up some questions f o r themselves and even start looking into them, I can ask for no more.

FACTORS IN INDIAN HISTORY

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' G0^>\ . ! - % vsC—%&>;/ - i x^h- . ■' v./„. FACTORS IN INDIAN HISTORY The hiistory of Indian culture begins at least five thousand years ago, and possibly much earlier. It is the story of the rise and fortunes of - a distinctive outlook and mode of life developed in this vast land of Bhiiratavarsa that witnesses to-day the birth-pangs of a new era of free dom and high endeavour. And we are naturally apt to magnify the difficulties and dangers in our path, and at times even lose faith in ourselves, To make a broad survey of our past, achievement, and to recall the salient features of the problems faced and solved by our ancestors, and the factors, human and other, that' have played a part in governing the trends of our history, might help us to view the present in a proper perspective and prepare with intelligence and courage for a future even more splendid than the past. Not only her pepper and ginger and ivory, but her iron and steel products and her cotton and silk fabrics were eagerly demanded in many foreign lands from the beginning of recorded history almost to the end of the seventeenth century A. Yet the average school and college histories of India give little idea of the scope and importance of India’s achievement in the different departments of human life ; by their undue stress on dynastic details and on wars, intrigues and strife, they have brought neither edification nor enjoyment to the student, who therefore goes to the study of the history of his own country with much less enthusiasm than to that of some other countries like England, Greece or Rome.

hopes that when they are completed they would present a cogent and

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® . <SL hopes that when they are completed they would present a cogent and authentic picture of the entire course of the nation’s life reviewed from different angles and render the study of India’s history much more interesting and fruitful to the general reader. It will be my aim in these lectures to dwell on some of the main factors that have shaped the course of our history and to indicate points of view which have not been so far stressed as much as they deserve in any constructive view of our past. I will seek to interpret the data from the standpoint of our present needs and future plans and will offer no apology for the attempt to Jink up politics with history. History as such is indeed a scientific discipline in which the student should be ready to go wherever his evidence leads him ; but the conclusions of history will be viewed and understood by each generation according to its own lights. The land we live in, our habitat, is the first and most enduring of the factors that have shaped our history. We apply the name India now not only to the wide continent stretching southward from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin, but also ‘to the vast entourage of mountainous plateaux and lofty ranges which remain an everlasting wall between it and the rest of Asia, and across which through all historic ages its land approaches have been found’.1 India then seems to be shut off effectively from the rest of the world by mountain and sea.

ana unity to her history. Let me observe by the way that by stability I

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Let me observe by the way that by stability I do not mean stagnation; when I read in a recent book that the society described in the MakabMrata is not essentially different from what holds its sway in India to-day’,3 I realise the danger of emphasising the stability of our social structure without making it clear at the same time that it has a varied and interesting history of its own for those who can read it. By stability of Indian culture I mean the persistence of its distinctive identity through all its changes, the continuity of life and growth, not the stolidity of inanimate existence. The North-west of India, the land of the Indus which gives its name to the whole sub-continent, and what lies immediately to the west and north of it, is the key to India proper and to much of her history. Bounded by the great Himalayan range in the north, it is continuous on the south with Hindustan^ the vast plain which forms the main part of Northern India. 0. the Indus valley had developed a vigorous urban civilization which maintained a live trade with Mesopotamia, and the Indian seals, beads and pots found in several Mesopotamian cities ‘afford conclusive proof of international trade linking the Tigris with the Indus 1200 miles away. K, M, Panikkar: A Survey of Indian History, p, 2.

becoming mote and more evident with the progress of research that the

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f®| §L 4 Ks u becoming mote and more evident with the progress of research that the cultures of -India, Iran and China met and mingled for many centuries in the states of Central Asia among which lay the routes followed by numerous pilgrims from China who generation after generation made it a point to visit the holy land of Buddhism to gain inspiration and gather the sacred books. In the north-east there are indeed some routes connecting India with Upper Burma and Arakan, but the heavy rainfall of this region concentrated in a third of the year washes away the tracks and promotes a dense growth of forest which tends to close the routes altogether in a short time. Still they Wete availed of to a limited extent by the Hindu colonists who went to Indo-China.in the early centuries of the Christian era as well as by traders who moved occasionally in either direction. The short rule of a Tibetan dynasty in North Bengal in the tenth century, the incoming of the Ahoms three centuries later into Assam, and an unsuccess ful Burmese invasion of Assam in 1816 are indications that these old routes never went altogether out of use6. And we know that under the stress of the Japanese occupation of Burma large mnmbers of Indians braved the in clemencies of these unfrequented routes to make their escape into India. Erom the earliest times the sea has served more as a highway than as a barrier, and as Yule said, ‘the more we learn the further goes back the history of Eastern Navigation." Though the Indian Ocean is not a closed basin like the Mediterranean, the prevalence of currents and periodical winds has always maintained a maritime system of exchanges in which India by virtue of her central position played the dominant role.

and oversea,s trade. The Pallava Nandivarman III held sway over the

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The Pallava Nandivarman III held sway over the western part of the Malay peninsula and the Cola emperors waged successful naval war with the Sumatran empire of grivijaya when it sought to throw obstacles in the way of their intercourse with China. They also controlled Ceylon and the Maldives for a long period. W hen the full import of facts like these is realised and a comprehensive view is taken of India’s relations with her neighbours in the early periods of her history, it becomes evident that it is easy to exaggerate her isolation and attribute an undue importance to the * barriers ’ of sea and mountain that cut her off from the rest of the world. Her geography imposed a certain undeniable unity on the whole land, but by no means sealed her off from fertilising contacts with her neighbours. The stupendous mountain system of the Himalayas, bounded on the north-west by the great bend of the Indus and on the north-east by. that of the Brahmaputra, separates Northern India from Tibet and dominates the southern plain, its physical features and its climate. But ‘ none of them is passable except for trade purposes; none of them at present contributes anything material to the commercial prosperity of India.’ 8, ((up, Qaz. i, p.

I I I « <§L

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■g°5x v '. ’ - --- -<V\ * . ‘ y'-sy I I I « <§L The fertile basin of the Ganga, is indeed the heart of India. Here rose ‘ the chief kingdoms of the plains, the most ancient cities, the earliest centres of civilization, of industry, and of wealth’ in historical times. Here was the home of Indian civilization which set the standard of mores for the rest of the country. Thus one of the earliest authors on Dharma, Baudhayana says: 9 Prdg-adarSandt pratyak-kdlakavandt dahsinena Himavaniam udak-Pdriydtram etad Aryavartam tasmin ya dcdrassa pramdnam. i. e. Bast of the disappearance (of the river Sarasvati), west of the Kalaka forest, south of the Himavan and north of Pariyiitra— this (land) is Aryavarta; what is practised there is the standard (for the rest of the country). Manu is much more elaborate on this point and it would be worth our while to give our attention to him and his expositors.

i l l I V&T

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i l l I V&T >s^^¥.vx^y'' :. ‘ •■ ■ . i pratyageva Prayayuc-ca-MadhyadeSali prakirtitah fj a-samudrat-tu vai purvad-a-samudral-tu pat&cimat / taydr-evmtaram giryoh Arydvartam vidurbudhab // krsnasarastu aarati mrgo yatra svabhdvatah j sa jneyo yajriiyo del 6 Bilecchade&as-tvatah par ah // etcm dvijatayo de&dn samirayercm prayatnatah / i. e. ‘The plain of the Kurus, the (country of the) Matsyas, Panciilas, and gurasenakas, these - (form), indeed, the country of the Brahmarsis (Brahmanical sages, which ranks) immediately after Brahmavarta. ‘ From a Brahmana born in that country, let all men on earth learn their several usages. ‘ That (country) which (lies) between the Himavat and the Vinrlhya (mountains) to the east of Vinasana (the place where the river Sarasvati disappears) and to the West of Prayfiga (Allahabad) is called Madhyadesa (the central region). ‘ But the tract between those two mountains (just mentioned) which (extends) as far as the eastern and the western oceans, the wise call Aryavarta (the country of the Aryans).* * That land where the black antelope naturally roams, one must know to be fit for the performance of scrifices; (the tract) beyond that (is) the country of the Mlecchas (barbarians). ‘ Let twice-born men make an effort to live in these lands.’ Here we find Manu detailing a rather nice gradation of regions according to their cultural purity and importance. Panjab in cultural eminence, he ranks Brahmarside^a, the Jumna-Ganga doab from round about Delhi, the plain of the Kurus, to Mathura, the capital of the ancient gurasenakas and makes the Brahmana born in that region an authority on proper social usages. Subject to a reservation due to our ignorance of the exact location of Kalakavana of Baudhiiyana, we may be justified in assuming that his Aryavarta roughly corresponds to the Madhyadesa of Manu, the term Aryavarta being employed by Manu in a much more extended sense, nearly coinciding in significance with the modern term Hindustan. In these different terms for the cultural divisions of N. India we have clear evidence of the varying degrees of the Aryanisation of the different parts of the country and of the recognition of these differences by the tradition of the country. This tradition influenced the motives and actions of men through many centuries, and throughout the whole of India.

| ( f ) | ' * <SL

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| ( f ) | ' * <SL ■ ^ t i ^ n i l e r s of the Deccan and South India, to trace, their descent, from the, Puranic dynasties of the North claiming to be of the line of the Sun, the Moon or Agm (Biro). To it also we must ascribe the claim of several rulers that their ancestors took part in the great Mahabbarata wav, a claim made on behalf of the three crowned monarchs of the South, the Pandya, Gera, and Cola almost from the beginning of the Christian era. The tendency to import Brahmans from the banks of the Ganga for the conduct of worship in temples, and for running adamas and Tapovanas can be traced in the inscriptions of South India till relatively recent times. Sivaji and his successors looked to the learned men of Benares for guidance on doubtful points of politic-, and sociology. W e may note that Medhatithi, the earliest extant commentator on Manu, points out that Madhyadesa got its name not because it was the centre of the earth but owing to its being neither too high nor too low in the cultural scale— Natyutkpsto natinikrsta ityato MadhyadUo natu prthivi- madhya - bhavatvaf.'" Again the same learned writer explains the name of the extended Aryavarta of Maim in a manner that is of great interest to us. He says: ary Ft vartante tatra ptmali punarudbhavantij akramya-kramyFipi na dram tatra. mlecchah sthatdro bhavanti; i. e.

( f ( S ) j ) c (a t

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( f ( S ) j ) c (a t \ wP*a-ny \ j ' ^ k^^JL_ji \%>— / / . ■ _ , ' es this verse at consi datable length is seen obviously interpret ing its implications in the light of subsequent history. He points out that even countries called ‘ barbarian ’ may under conditions become fit for the performance of sacrifices if a virtuous king conquers that land and creates the social milieu appropriate for the purpose, just as even Brahmavarta might conceivably become mleccha-desa if occupied by mlecchas for any length of time; in other words a country is mlrccha or ary a according to circumstances.1* W ho can deny that Medhatithi had before his mind the incidents that marked the foreign inroads into India on the one hand, and on the other the expansion of Indian culture in the colonies establish ed beyond the seas ? The Vindhyas divide the Deccan from North India, again not in a way that cut off intercourse between the two regions. Agastya is now generally recognised as the personification of the expansive force of Indo- Aryan culture, and the legends which credit him with the subjugation of the Vindhyas and the drinking up of the waters of the ocean are rightly interpreted as allegories closely related with the spread of that culture first across the whole continent of India and then to the colonies beyond the seas. On the mainland the sage gets a home in'the extreme south of the peninsula in the Podiya kills. It is a mistake to treat the history of ancient and mediaeval India, as is often done, as if it concerned only the North, and the South did not matter.

i l l <SL

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i l l <SL the Guptas in the North and the Kadambas in the South, the northern expeditions of the Calukyas of Badami and Havsa’s attempt, though not successful, to extend his rule south of the Viudhyas, the repeated Rastrakuta invasions of North India, are constant reminders through the centuries that the interaction between the North and the South was a constant and important factor in the historical and cultural development of India. In later times the story of Turkish and Mughal rule in Delhi and that of the Marathas enforce the same lesson till the unification of India under a centralized modern government by the British gave a stable political expression to the basic cultural unity of the land which had been attained almost at the dawn of history. Malava and Orissa, and the Bahmani kingdom and its succession states always bore two faces, as it were, one turned to the North and the other to the South. Likewise it is easy to exaggerate the separation of the western half of Deccan from the eastern, and of both from South India across the line of the Tanga* bhadra and the Krishna or rather Penniir. Any attempt to trace even in outline the history of any of these regions would be doomed to failure un less it took account at every step of contemporary events in the other tracts. The study of our past is still only in its initial stages, and it was perhaps inevitable that we should begin with accounts of individual dynasties m order to secure a dependable chronological framework; but the time has come to shift the emphasis from the study of dynasties in separate monographs, to that of inter-relations among them and the movement 8f politics and culture in the country as a whole.

in the north, and Kanyakumari and Ramesvaram in the south

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in the north, and Kanyakumari and Ramesvaram in the south count among the holiest centres of H induism and this is not an accident. We have only to name other places in the interior like Ujjain, Kuru- ksetra, Mathura and Brindavan, Kali and Gaya, Ayodhya and Maya in the north, and Pandharpur, Draksarama, grllailam, Tirupati, Kane? and grirangam in the south for any one to realise that for long ages India has meant for every Indian nothing less than the entire length and breadth of this vast country. No wonder, the most comprehensive political manual of the country, the Arthasastra includes the whole of this area in its concept of the Oakravartiksetrain. 16 The.cjjjcoate of India has often been held to account for much of her history. To writers of this way of thinking the history of India is no more than a monotonous repetition of foreign invasions and conquests generally from the North-West until the Europeans came by sea to reverse the line of conquest in modern times. The climate of India, it is said, .is unfavourable to exertion and enervating in its effects.

says G. L. Dickinson, “ ‘reflect an attitude to life similar to that of the

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Dickinson, “ ‘reflect an attitude to life similar to that of the Western Aryans; but this essentially active, positive, optimistic view gradually clouds over. The cause, perhaps, is the influence of climate, of a nature too strong for man. Indian society became impregnated with the sense of nothingness of life in time. And life being insignificant, history, of course, was so too. It is uot an accident, it is a consequence of their attitude to life, that there are no Hindu historians. You 'try to wake up.' It is a merit of Dickinson that he is not dogmatic in his statement; he just suggests the influence of climate, refers to his own personal experi ence of it, but then glozes over it with but ‘whatever the cause.’ He has no doubt, however, on the Indian attitude to life, and asserts that the absence of Hindu historians is a natural consequence of it.

III ., <SL

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III ., <SL parture by the founder of the Mauryan empire. Again, in the epoch that followed the end of that empire, the North-West of India may be said to have entered the Western and Central Asian state system for some centuries as it did once before under the Achaemenids, as Pakistan is seek ing to do in our own day. The rule of the Bactrian Greeks, and the gakas, Pahlavas and Kusauas and even the Parthian kings becomes more intelligible when viewed from this standpoint, and there is much evidence at hand to show that in this epoch of sustained foreign contacts India gave at least as much as she took in the realms of culture and commerce. To represent the period as one of repeated and unmeaning foreign inroads altogether.misses its significance. Again it is often forgotten that India was the only country in the East which beat back Islam in the first onset* of its fury which carried everything before it from the Gibraltar to the Indus, The Pralibaras and Oahikyas threw the Arab invaders out of their territories and confined them to Sind. And when nearly three centuries later the onset was renewed from another quarter and by even more determined votaries of this ‘religion of peace’ which counts war on the Kafir (Jahad) their most sacred duty, it took them not less than two centuries of hard struggle to secure a sufficient hold for them to set about organizing a kingdom; Eajputana was never completely subdued, and Vija.yanagar kept Islam out of the South; and the Muslim states even in North India had to dilute the Islamic polity very considerably and enter into many compromises with their subjects even to gain the appearance of peace and order iu them.

® .. <SL

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® .. <SL philosophy of the advaita Vedanta, and the Buddhist doctrine of Nirvana, It cannot be too strongly emphasised that Nirvana is not nothingness or void, but exactly like the moksa of all other schools, of Hinduism, a state of eternal bliss. Here, for instance, is Asvaghosa on the subject saying that passion, the thirst for possession and enjoyment, is the root cause of troubles and dissatisfactions, and that their control leading to their cessation results in the dawn of eternal happiness. 18 tajjanmano naikavidhasya saumya trsnddayo hetava ityavetya / tdms-chindhi duhkhdd-yadi nirmumuksd kdryaksayah karanasamksaydddhi // dnhkhaksayo hetupariksaydoca bantam Uvarn sdksikuru§va dharmam f trsndvirdgam layanam nirodham sanatanam trdnam ahdryam-dryam// yasmin na jatir na jard namrtyuh na vyddhayo ndpriyasamprayogah / necchdvipanna - priyaviprayogah ksamam padam naisthikam accyutam tat // Gan there be a greater travesty than to represent this ideal of the ces sation of misery (duhkhaksaya), of eternal release (sanatanam trdnam), o f unabated perfection (padam naisthikam acyutam) as a philosophy of des- pair? And notice also this— the path is recommended for one who elects to reach the goal—duhkhdd yadi nirmumuksd, i. e. one who has drunk life to the lees and realized the vanity of human wishes at the end of a full life. No, Buddhism is ‘not a stately flight of steps that leads nowhere’, but a joyous, pragmatic view of life resulting in thousands of vihdras and great schools of architecture, sculpture and painting. About advaita vcddnta we must insist that the doctrine of mdyd as stated by gankara does not affirm that the phenomenal world is unreal, much less that it is an illusion, but only that it is an inexplicable mystery (anirvaeantya) 'especially when considered in its relation to Reality; the world is false or unreal (mithya) not to us who are engaged in its affairs, and are concerned actively to promote the progress of society, but to those fewest of the few who have chosen to tread the path to realisation of Truth and have attained the goal.

| I | » <SL

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/s«-V—<V\ | I | » <SL well-doing for the good of fellowmen, And yet, a Roman Catholic priest who ought to have known better has seriously advanced the proposition that to the followers of the advaita vedcinta there was no difference bet ween truth and falsehood, and that they made no bones about forging documents to bolster up a myth that redounded to their profit, I shall quote the words of the writer to leave you in no lurking doubt about the matter : ‘ Such religious ascetics and recluses’, this writer assures us,, 11 ‘ psychologically are the persons often inclined to fabricate such fables. Their knowledge of what they call absolute reality, acquired only by their practice of asceticism, inclines them to place all other things, whether existing or not existing, whether true of false, on the same level of relative reality. Hence the fabrication of a story which one might derive a profit from - provided no harm should result from the concoction to a third per son - is always attractive to such religious recluses. Hence it may be con cluded that the asestics of the ^ringeri math fabricated the story of Vidyaranya as the founder of the city and empire of .Vijayanagara, in the beginning of the X V I century’. This pitiful stuff, the ignorance of which is matched only by its malice, passes for research ! The philosophy of advaita is in fact the highest peak in tbe philosophical thought of India as competent judges have not failed to re cognise.

I f „ *SL

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I f „ *SL his disposal allowed him to do so. The normal Hindu attitude td history, however, was different. It was not one of indifference born of a disgust with life ir, time, but a desire to view human affairs against the universal background of nature and of divinity. There is a Greek tradition that an Indian sage who visited Socrates asked the Greek philosopher what he was engaged on; the reply was that be was interesting himself in the study of men and their ways; the Indian thereupon asked him what he knew of the ways of the gods, and when Socrates confessed his ignorance on that subject, the Indian just smiled and said that men could not be understood without a correct knowledge of gods and super-men. Now that story may or may not be true ; but it gives a correct account of the Indian attitude to human events, and goes far to explain the scope and content of the numerous purdnas, upa-purdnas, and sthalapurdnas • all conceived as narratives of universal evolution meant for the education and edification of the populace. D. have a natural and insuperable difficulty in sharing or approving tbeir view of the matter, but our ancestors were far from being indifferent to the pro gress of the world they inhabited.

Jagadi&a Virinciltu pile hat a haith

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Jagadi&a Virinciltu pile hat a haith Kaho srsti taci, rakha kona kahdm Sasi vo ravi pnrava pabcima lorn iuma soya raho sirasindhu mahdm aruuttaradacohinaraoohanako itd Sahaji haith, uta Sagaham The sting of the conceit is in its tail; the poet roundly affirms the parity of Shahji with Shah Jahan. But no one was misled by the conventions of our ‘ literary histories’ if we may so call them, and there is no lack of downright statements of facts in the voluminous epigraphy and literatures of our country of which the close study for historical purposes is still only in its initial stages. True it is that the strongly traditional character of our culture, of its literature and its arts had led to greater emphasis on the achievement of tasks than on the persons or the epochs connected with it, and very often we are treated to details which we should gladly exchange for some others on which no light is forthcoming. Valmiki and Vy.a-sa are but shadowy names, and even Kalidasa is very largely so; while we can see and admire the glory of the Kailas at Ellora or the superb excellence of the paintings at Ajanta and Bagh, we do not know anything of the names and lives of the painters, architects and sculptors who created these wonders. But this is true in some measure of all climes and ages, and for a parallel we may go to the great cathedrals of mediaeval Europe. Only a little study and reflection are required to show that people in India did not in any way differ fundamentally in their attitude to life and its opportunities from other nations of the world.

imI . . 18 Csi

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18 Csi repudiate the suggestion that to the Indian his life was ‘a nightmare' an experience not worth remembering or recording. Dicksinsbn’s rhetori cal contrast between Indians and others in their outlook on life and history is superficial and overdrawn. Our quarrel is not with Dickinson's reaction to the climate of India, natural to any visitor of his type; it is with those books on India, which he must have read before he penned his essay and which produced on his mind impressions which he has so tersely summed up. [ II. So far we have discussed the role of India’s geography and her climate as factors in the shaping of her history. We shall now turn for a moment from the theatre to the actors. A good, deal has already been said by implication about them, because (firstly our interest in the physical features of India lay primarily in the manner in1 which her people reacted to them in the course of generations and centuries; and secondly, while we may speak of each factor in its turn for convenience of discourse, they all acted together in close mutual connection and it would be impossible to deal with any one of them without bringing in some at least of the others: I have two other preliminary observations to make before entering upon this part of our subject.

. ^ s iila v ily all evidence pointing to other conclusions. I wish to make it

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■G°ix m . <§l . ^ s iila v ily all evidence pointing to other conclusions. I wish to make it clear that [ do not count myself among this class and that in my view the capacity i;o borrow and assimilate features from other cultures, or even to recognise a superior culture and adopt it willingly are signs not of weakness but of strength. I believe that this happened quite often in the past as it is happening to-day. Of the earliest inhabitants of India it is not yet possible to speak with any certain or detailed knowledge. Even the astonishing discovery of the Indus valley civilization has raised more questions than it has answered. Individual scholars have * proved ‘ to their own satisfaction that the makers of this culture were Aryans who spoke Sanskrit or Dravidians who spoke Tamil.

More recent excavations at Harappa necessitate a modification of our

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20 More recent excavations at Harappa necessitate a modification of our estimate of the un warlike character of the Indus valley culture. But the real crux is that while there is much evidence pointing to a catastrophe that overwhelmed this culture, we have as yet no proof that the Aryans were the real authors of its destruction. The contribution of the Indus valley culture as such, ‘to the sum of Indian civilization which is alive and vital to this day’ is again not so certain as is often represented. Much has been made of a single ‘roughly carved seal’ in which, after much vacillation and with some reservations, Marshall proposes to recognise the prototype of giva. 81 But clearer and closer parallels to giva and Parvati, and to the nature of the organisation} ritual, and worship in Hindu temples as well as their structure can bo found in the Sumerian and early Babylonian cultures and in that of ancient E gypt.88 If we consider these far-flung resem blances together, the question arises if we are not dealing with survivals from a very early and widespread prehistoric culture which come before us only with the modifications they had undergone under the stress of the geography and history of each locality. With regard to the cult of the mother goddess, the phallic cult and the tree and animal edits prevalent in the Indus valley and their persistence in historical Hinduism, Marshall’s explanations appear much more decisive and con vincing.

|I | ........ <SL

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‘ G°‘Sx |I | ........ <SL culture with its own traditions and legends. The _chief phonetic inno vations in Indo-Aryan and some tales like those of Matsyagandhii and the nagl of later Indian literature are now seen to be due more to Kol-Munda influences than those of Dravidian origin. On the other hand Dravidian languages have survived in much greater strength than Munda, and are spoken by about a fifth of the Indian population. These languages again are the vehicles of an old civilization and the extant literature of at least one language in the group, Tamil, carries us back to the early centuries of the Christian era. While Indo-Aryan practically displaced all other languages in Northern India and in Maharastra, in eastern Deccan and the farther South, Dravidian languages survived in their full strength, though profoundly influenced by their contact with Indo-Aryan. In fact it is the present position of these languages that accounts for the prima fa d e assumption of modern scholarship that the most important pre- Aryan element which influenced Aryan in India was the Dravidian.

k m 22 <s l

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k m 22 <s l and Indo*Aryan and this was by no means an 'one-way traffic— that we shall be in a position to form a correct idea of the nature and content of pre-Aryan Dravidian culture. Another factor to be taken into account before authentic conclusions can emerge is the probability of Dravidian, like Sanskrit, having been influenced by the Munda languages, which are at least as old as Dravidian in India, if not older. Till these studies are completed, the scientific student will receive with caution the pictures often painted of the glories of Dravidian civilization, because he can never forgot that early Tamil literature on which such pictures are based reflect conditions that prevailed long after the Aryanization of the whole of India. i he advent of the Aryan-speaking peoples was thus a great and indelible land-mark in the rise and growth of Indian cul ture as we know it, and the hymns of the Kigveda and Athacva- veda are its earliest documents. The cultural unity o f India is a deli berate creation of those peoples who, though not possessed of an advanced material culture like the peoples of the Aegean basin and the great river valleys of Africa and Asia, had tamed the horse and evolv ed a masterful idiom wonderful alike in its beauty»and flexibility' _ 'two things which secured for them an easy domination wherever they went— Greece, Italy, Iran or India. Aryan India is therefore a living historic reality that in its elastic strength has survived many a storm, and bids iaii, once again, after some four thousand years from its inception, to essay, under the inspiration of a new born freedom, even greater tasks . of cultmal synthesis than of yore. It is the most notable achievement of the ancient Indo-Aryan leaders to have faced the problems of the conflict of cultures which confronted them with unexampled courage and under standing, and to have built up a society tolerant of wide diversities of all sorts, a fundamentally pluralist organisation of harmoniously co-operating groups owning a common allegiance to certain broad general principles that commanded more or less universal acceptance.

lop-sided revolutionary slogans evolved in the heat of the ‘dialectic con

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® n < S L 23 fpfwU®P®lSf1£iftW #li!i|i' .,' *|* #} ®My * v ' * W- w M y. ‘ ; * 5:M. , jBigr lop-sided revolutionary slogans evolved in the heat of the ‘dialectic con flicts of the Western world -which have a fascination for some amongst us who glibly set themselves up as leaders of action to the detriment of out- social economy. This is not an occasion when I can deal at any length with the principles of Hindu sociology, but I must say a few words on the role of varna or caste in our history. The tendency to the formation of classes was present in all Aryan societies, and it is well known that the Iranian polity presents a division of classes, four in number, comparable in some respects with the four varnas of India. But nowhere outside India did these classes grow into t h e ‘caste system’ as we know it here. The stress on colour which the name varna implies doubtless formed a major factor in the evolution. But while the extermination of the original inhabitants has been the method of simplifying social problems of con quest in other climes and places, the Indo-Aryan exhibited a rate spirit, of toleration and respect for the life and freedom of those who were not of his way of thinking, when he set about the creation of an integrated so ciety in which everybody would have his place and find scope for pursuing his ends in his own way.

' r,:,' . ;;.

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24 i^ J L j division into classes, becomes evident from a perusal of the discourses on castVand its origin and nature in the ^antiparva of the Mahabharata, and by the well known declaration in the Gita that the varna of a person depends on bis character and deeds. The defects of the caste system especially in its later developments are on the surface. It can be plausibly said that in it ‘early colour prejudice is rationalized into a divinely appoint ed social order" Or ‘it has broken up the unity of Indian life. It has prevented the growth of democracy. Among the higher castes it has engendered snobbishness and pride. Among the lower castes it has indu ced a spirit of inferiority and servility.

shadow of death and thoughts of the other world. Their material wants

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..................................................... .............................................................................. ' S ' |I| <SL shadow of death and thoughts of the other world. Their material wants were few, and they met them singing at their toil, and working with patience and taste. They were essentially peaceful in their nature, and the reliefs on the stupas and walls of temples as well as the paintings at Ajanta and elsewhere depict far more the themes of religion and peaceful human scenes than those of war and strife. The individual may not have expanded in this culture as he did in Greece for instance, but in the elaboration of pluralistic group life and its traditions, intelligence and morality played a part which explains the admiration of the rest of the world for that venerable wis dom, that knowledge ‘old as the world For human unification which could, as much as the mastery of nature, be the proper work of civiliza tion, India did much. In the art of coinage and in the science of astronomy Indians gained very much by their association with the Greeks, and trade with the Roman empire by land and sea and Greco-Roman influences in the art of Gandhara and Amaravati became important factors while they lasted. D. produced any great alterations in the make up of the population of India, the general content of their culture., or the lines of its development.

• ( f ) ! 1ST

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1ST 26 like Milinda (Menander) began to take a lively interest m the ‘ perennial philosophy’ of India. There is reason to believe that the Huns came in somewhat larger numbers and that some of the Eajput families of mediaeval India were indeed of Huna origin, though this has been denied; but after a short period of stormy violence, they too were assimilated completely with the people of the land which they had started by harassing. W e have noted that Islam met with no success in India at the beginning of the eighth century when it was succeeding everywhere else, and India enjoyed immunity from the intrusion of foreigners for three centuries and more. D. therefore Indo-Aryan culture found free scope for development and self-expression, and the external influences that played upon it only added new strands to its pattern without breaking its unity or lowering its vital ity. During the time when darkness brooded over the Western world, India lived an intense political, intellectual, religious and artistic life, and built for herself a position of cultural primacy to which China, the other great land of civilization and culture in that age, rendered voluntary homage. It was the age when Buddhism brought India and China together and created a vast current of humanism which spread from Tufan to Java and from Ceylon to the furthest isles of the Japanese archipelago.

f ( S )1 27 ( at

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f ( S )1 27 ( at \4 >/ ^/ k^/ JL.-A — ISmith India; these efforts resulted in the formation of the independent sultanate of the Bahmani kingdom (1347) about a decade after the resist ance of the Hindu South, to Islam had found its focus in Vijayanagar (1336). The Mughal conquest of the North in the sixteenth century and of the south in the seventeenth, was a relatively easier task. Beyond doubt large numbers entered India during these long centuries from the Islamic countries of Western and Central Asia and even beyond, for war, government, trade, literature aijji the arts; but many also went back and there is no certain means of determining the proportion of foreigners to local converts in the Muslim population of India. But as even the foreign ers who settled in the country could not maintain their exclusiveness long and had willy hilly to mingle with the local Muslims, it would not be wrong to assume that in a general way there remains nothing except their religious faith to distinguish the Muslim population of India from their fellow countrymen. But that difference proved to be a very potent factor in India's history. For the first time India came face to face with a Credal reli gion the fervour of whose exclusive faith had nothing in common with the broad tolerance of her original religions which in general tolerated almost everything except intolerance.

III - <SL

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III - <SL was cast together was both unnatural and inhuman. They sought to create opportunities for meetings between Hindus and Muslims on more and more friendly and equal terms with results that declared themselves in the movements of religious reform and reconstruction both in Hinduism and Indian Islam, and in the fresh creative efforts that marked every sphere of the nation’s life, its language and literature, its architecture and its painting, its music and dance. As a consequence of these adjustments, Indian Islam developed characteristics of its own reflected in Indo-Persian literature beginning with Amir Khusru and in the numerous monuments which form part of the heritage of India, though they have no place in the main stream of Persian Islamic culture. W ith rave breadth of outlook and statesmanlike vision, Akbar made a deliberate and well directed attempt to promote national solidarity by cultural eclecticism, political policy, and administrative action. He even built a temple in Kashmir and in the inscription on its walls in which he gave a warning to bigots, we seem to catch the echoes of Asoka’s famous Twelfth Eock Edict on Religious toleration. Akbar declared, ‘lie who from insincere motives destroys this temple, should first destory his own place of worship; for, if we follow the dictates of the heart, we must bear up with all men; but if we look to the external; we find everything proper to be destroyed’. a" Bat he was much in advance of his times though his aim evoked the admiration of Sivaji who wrote in 1680 to Aurangzeb; ‘ Akbar adopted the admirable policy of perfect harmony in relation to all the various sects.

Afcr-- A \ f

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Afcr-- A \ f ® ■ <SL ~ corrupted him badly and his political record here contains little that is commendable. Writing soon after the Sepoy war of 1887 an English historian of British India summed up his impression of Indian Muslims and British policy towards them in the following terms: ‘ It is not probable that attempts to conciliate the Mohammadan population or soldiery will again be made ; all such efforts would fail - Mohaminadans cannot be conciliated : the surrender of the country to their control would alone satisfy them. The conciliation of a bigoted sect, whose most cherished religious principle is ascendancy, is bad policy; concession adds to their strength - they attribute it to weakness or an act of homage to their rights, and are proportionately emboldened’.3' Though we now see that the writer’s forecast of policy was wrong, the course of Indo-Muslim poli tics in our time at once shaping the career of Mr. Jinnah and being shaped by it, goes a long way to confirm the soundness of this estimate "in other respects. From this point of view the failure to avert the partition of India and the carving out of a separate Pakistan is perhaps not an unmixd evil. It gives the more exterme followers of the Prophet who cannot brook the society of others the separate ‘ national home ’ which has been the goal of their ambitions during the last eight years or so; while other Muslims, and they are not few, who are more modern and tolerant in their outlook and can see that religion is everyman’s private affair, and that groups of different persuasions can carry on a common social and political life together, will have no difficulty in continuing to make India their home.

H I 30 §L

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' GoS>\ : : : 1■ , ' H I 30 §L N4»»»:.»g*^ i, e. The Hindu says I am superior, the Mtisalman 1; of one greengram there are two halves, which is more? D on’t quar rel over who is superior and who is not. One is a devotee of Bam, the other of Bahim, Din Darwish says they are two streams mingling in one river. There is only one lord of all, the Hindu and Muslim are one.85 III. The coming of the European nations meant for a long time little more than the opening of new channels of trade, and never involved any considerable change in the composition of the population of India.

\W^iy a l j

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(!(W )r M ( c i \W^iy a l j _x<?»i-gj$ffib.ftsed the integrity of the Company’s servants by raising their allowances in a manner calculated to render the Indian civil service the costliest, though efficient, service saddled on one of the poorest countries of the world. The events of 1857 and improved facilities of communication between England and India completed the process of social separation that high salaries had begun, and fear and suspicion began to dominate the mutual relations of Englishmen and Indians in India. The attitude of Englishmen to Indian culture also changed perceptibly. Warren Hastings and Sir William Jones, Colebrooke and Wilson had respect for the learning and culture of the people over whom their country was gaining rule, and they were at great pains to understand their law, their philosophy, their religion, and their literature. But soon thd attitude changed to one of neglect, if not contempt, and the meretricious glitter of Macaulay’s rhetoric rationalized and confirmed the change ; ever since it became the fashion for the average British official in India to carry himself as if his hard lot was cast in the midst of a barbarous people with whom he could have nothing in common. On the other side Indians were struck by the power and efficiency of the West, and felt for a time that the salvation of India lay in their burning their old clothes and putting an all-Western garb.

(SB - 3^ % L

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(SB - 3^ % L An aJlxecl aspect of the renascence of Indian culture is the rise ot a modern literature in all the Indian languages, a movement in which Bengali gave the lead. And the system of education introduced after 1836 when English became the official language of British India was another. Its introduction was due not merely to the ‘ vigorous cer tainty’ of Macaulay's famous minute which routed t h e ‘Orientals’ who were his foes in the famous debate on Arabic and Sanskrit, versus Eng lish, bnt a proper response to the demands of Indians themselves who ‘ were clamouring to be taught English, and given modern Western know ledge’. And the system has not been ‘the sweeping failure’ that it is often stated to be. Thanks to it, many Indians have achieved a perfect mas tery of the intricacies of English, and have learnt to ‘express themselves with a nervous and sensitive exactness and beauty which have made them free citizens of the kingdom of English thought and expression ....... and not strangers inhabiting it on sufferance and temporary licence’. 36 W hat is more important, it has given ns a new bond of unity that serves the same purpose as Sanskrit in ancient times, and Persian under Mughal rule.

1 1 1 *> <SL

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1 1 1 *> <SL X 5 jTo©3W from external danger, and of a settled uniform administration which bound the whole country into a political unity ware fully appreciated, and criticisms of the administrative policy of government even from Congress ware prefaced by asseverations of good will and loyalty to the rulers. All the same irritation was slowly mounting up at the enormous privileges arro- gated by the English rulers to themselves and at the systematic sacrifice of Indian econom ic interests to those of the ruling country. The stormy and successful protest of the Englishmen in India against the libert bill gave proof, that like their predecessors, the Mughal grandees, they were loath to think of Indians as men like themselves. Eaeial antagonism was accentuated by many incidents, great, and small, until in 1919 the fright ful shootings of General Dyer at Amritsar exasperated the whole nation and rendered the long continuance of English rule in India on any terms an impossibility. The destruction of Indian handicrafts at first by the protection of English industry against imports of manufactures from India, and later by competition from the machine-made goods of England that were guaranteed a free e n t r y i q. t o- India under an ostentatious policy of free trade, and the increasing pressure on land due to the decadence of industry and increase of population leading to the fragmentation of the already uneconomic hold ings added to the poverty and misery of the people. The constuction of irrigation works and railways averted famines and improved communi cations, but unduly high rates of interest were guaranteed at the cost of the Indian tax payer for much of the English capital invested in these works, and the railway rates manipulated iu a manner calculated to favour export of raw materials from India to England and the movement of manufactured goods in the opposite direction.

111 ** *SL

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/ss#*- ' G°i^X 111 ** *SL Britain’s Indian policy not uniformly effective- That is the reason why from the days of the incipient Indian legislatures of the nineteenth century to the second world war which begat the ‘ Cripps proposals as we may .call them for short, the expression ‘ too late and too little’ is writ large on every instalment of political reform in India, Bui it is one the glories of England that the idea of trusteeship in relation to India found its advocates in England in successive generations, and that in the midst of many hesitations and setbacks, the end of a tree India was steadily kept in view, and Indian, independence came at last, to be declared by an Act of the British Parliament about a year ago. It ill behoves us to detract from the meed of praise rightly due to Britain, and argue that she withdrew from India because the end of the war left her too crippled in men and resources to be able to hold India and that any other colonial power in a similar situation would have acted likewise. We have only to look round and see what is happening in Indonesia and Indo-Ohma to recognise the superior political wisdom of the makers of British policy to wards India, Burma and Ceylon. One wishes that were all the story. The English opponents of India’s march to freedom generally succeeded in frustrating in practice the working of principles accepted by men at the top. Their weapons were political intrigue and administrative obstruction.

Yet when all deductions are made, there still remains much that

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n 35 <SL Yet when all deductions are made, there still remains much that is good and o£ enduring benefit to India in the work of England, Now that we are free to shape our destiny as we may, let us forget the evil and cherish the good, and like our ancestors of antiquity derive fresh strength for our national life by integrating into it whatever is good, useful and liberal in the great political and scientific tradition of England. . xi 1 I < '"V