I wonder over the phenomenon that is India; not only
the stretch of square miles, but the living, throbbing entity created by the will
and imagination of millions through many centuries. This Bharatavarsha, or
Aryavarta, was born when Vasishtha and Vishvamitra sang on the banks of the
holy Sarasvati, when Parashurama led the Aryans to the banks of the Narmada,
when Agastya and Lopamudra crossed the Vindhyas and the seas and when Bharata held
sway and gave his name to this land. It was already in sturdy existence at the
dawn of what is called, in the narrow sense, the "Historic Period".
During this dawn, placed between the seventh and tenth
century before Christ, waves of intense activity passed over many of those
lands in which man had emerged from the Bronze Age. Confucius taught in China;
Zoroaster gave a new creed to Iran; the Jews in Babylonian captivity developed
their faith and toughness; Greece emerged as the pioneer of European culture; and
Rome was founded.
At this time a highly complex civilisation and a noble
culture had been flourishing in India for centuries. Empires had been founded:
literature and philosophy had come into being: life had been well lived and deeply
pondered over. A well-knit social system, "Varnashramadharma", had
been evolved through racial and cultural adjustments; India was not young. She
had emerged into a "full panopalied" manhood. She had reached the
highest culture accessible to man. Pataliputra was forging an empire.
Thought, expression and social adjustment were fast
developing to produce, within a century or two, of Manu's laws, Buddha's
thought, Panini's grammar, Bhasa's drama and Kautilya's political technique.
And above all, Sri Krishna had already lived and taught and had left the most
vital of legacies in the Bhagavta Gita: not the Gita as we know it, but the
original form in which it was planned. All the forces working to create this
living entity of Aryavarta were denoted by the comprehensive term
"Dharma": a term which was represented by con-centric circles of
beliefs, traditions, practices and duties, conceived as each owing its
resilience to the impelling force of its inner circle. Twenty-seven hundred
years have rolled by. The Egypt of the Pharaohs, the Greece of Pericles, the
Iran of Darius and the Rome of the Caesars are all dead; their life and culture
mere materials for scholarly research. But India has stood the shocks of time.
Manu, Buddha, Panini, Bhasa and Kautilya are still living influences operating
on life; Kashi’s
temples, Kailash’s prominence, and Chidambaram’s lingas are as important
today as two thousand years ago. Sri Krishna's exhortation to Arjuna still
inspires the thought, hope and conduct of millions. In this sense India is unique.
Conquerors have come, seen and conquered and brute force has time and again
overwhelmed her. But in spite of this she has lived a life of unbroken
continuity throughout the historic period on the lines she planned before it
came into being. Bending, she is yet unbroken. Long enduring, she still
triumphs. Empires have grown and withered; India retains the vigor of an
undying life.
