THE BOOK WAS DRENCHED 166044 BlllllllllllllllllllllllllimillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllilllllllllllllllllllllllHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIllllllllllllllllllllllliiiiiiiiii; Greater India Society Bulletin No, 1. GREATER INDIA By KALIDAS NAG, M. * D. UTT. (PARIS) November 1926 niMtiiiiitinii GREATER INDIA A STUDY L\ INDIAN INTERNATIONALISM ATTITUDE TOWARDS HlSTORY India enjoys the precarious privilege of possessing no systematic history well defined by Time and Space. She has passed, like every other country, through all the phases of historical evolution sociological and religious, intellectual and political ; yet with a peculiar obstinacy India has hitherto refused to develop a hierarchy of orthodox historians arid a consistent tradition of national history. No doubt she has acknowledged from very ancient times the value of chronicles (Itihasa-Purana) as an intellectual discipline, yet such compositions have remained, down to the appearance of the Muhammadan historians, as subsidiary to her proverbially rich contributions to Religion and Ethics. To Western scholars, trained in methods of precision applied to the intensive study of national histories, the apparent apathy towards the preservation of what they call "national glories" seems not only to be a little discon- certing but even derogatory to the prestige of the Indians as an intellectual people. Diagnosis of this peculiar malady led to the development of diverse theories : lack of political cohesion and comprehension of national solidarity, oriental fatalism and obsession of hereafterism all seemed to have combined to weaken the Hindu faculty of precision and thereby sap the foundation of historical science in India. The present degradation of India was considered to be the cumulative effect of these national perversities and well- wishers of India, both outside and inside, * have sought to cure it by reconstructing her history on a national basis. Without discounting the value of possessing a systematic national history or disputing India's poverty in that depart- ment of literature, one may still plead that the judgment 2 GREATER INDIA passed on the Indian people from that stand point is neverthe- less superficial and unjust A people that could evolve at least forty centuries ago, the earliest collection of human lyrics in the form of the Vedic Hymns, may be credited with a certain amount of creative imagination. A people that could present to the world about 2,500 years ago a scientific treatise on grammar like that of Panini may aspire to a certain amount of analytical power and capacity for system-building. A people that could perpetuate through millenniums, the traditions of its religious, social and intellec- tual life not through writing but by a phenomenal memory, may claim to possess some sort of instinct for precision and preservation. So it still remains a problem why such ^ people did not develop a tradition of national history in the special sense of our days. This is a paradox which has not been explained by condescending theorists of the historical school. It may not be an improbable hypothesis that the Hindus somehow felt history, with its interminable details of wars and treaties, of triumphs and dissolutions, as a poor por- traiture of the real national life and a very unsatisfactory and imperfect reflection of its creative activities. They bold- ly challenged the validity of the world of phenomena and tried to discover the world of permanence immutable beyond all phenomena. Revulsion from things transient and temporal produced almost an obsession of the Absolute and the Eternal. Thus India neglected History and developed Philosophy ; or rather, she considered the quest of the spirit for the Eternal Verity as the real history of Humanity. cf* Nag : The Humanisation of History, Modern Eeview, Feb. 1923). Thus whilst her next door neighbour China was (quietly) laying the foundation of early science and inventions ; while Babylonia was developing the earliest astronomy and legal code;, while Egypt was composing her "Book of the Dead" and was trying to triumph over Death by her titanic architecture, India was quietly scaling thf supernal heights of Human Philosophy the Himalayas of Thought and was filling the world with the reverberations of profound questions about Existence and Non-existence, GREATER INDIA 3 Death and Immortality fundamental problems of human life through the Vedic Hymns : There was not the Non-existent nor the Existent then, There was not the air nor the heaven which is beyond, What did it contain ? Where ? In whose protection? Waft there water, unfathomable, profound ? There was not Death nor Immortality then, There was not the beaccn of Night nor of Day, That one breathed, windless, by its own power Other than Tliat there was not anything: beyond. Rigveda IV. i, 112, Descending from the heights of primitive speculation when India was confronted with the problems of complex life, irf and through the expansion of her Society, she sub- ordinated Economics to her science of Equity and |Juris- prudence and Politics to her science of Ethics. Thus she developed her Dharma-sastra and Raja-dharma with Dharma, the Eternal as the mainstay of her secular history. This obsession of the Eternal in her temporal life has its counterpart in the obsession of the Universal in her national history and that of the Formless in her msthetio discipline, ] crea- ting mystic forms and symbolic art-languages. So Hindu apathy towards History is the effect of a malady thai is deeper than v the diagnosis of our modern historians. It is a triple complex which some future psycho-analyst may analyse to satisfy our curiosity ! Meanwhile I beg leave to trace the influence of the Universal on the history of India, to indicate the landmarks of Internationalism fn her national evolution and to point out, by suggestions and implications if possible, the specific contributions of India to the develop- ment of International History. In an ag< wherein international hatred threatens unfortunately to be the order of the day, such a study may not be without profit, not simply for the transvaluation of historical values but for ascertaining the warning-gesture of the profound Past to our muddling Present. GREATER INDIA T. RETROSPECT ACROSS THE FIRST MILLENNIUM : (CIRCA 1400-500 B.C.) EXPLOSION OF THE "SPLENDID ISOLATION^ THEORY. The first fiction and unfortunately the most tenacious fiction of Indian History is the glaringly unhistorical hypo- thesis that India grew up in "splendid isolation." For the fabrication of this fiction we have to be thankful as much to the narrow outlook of late Hindu orthodoxy as to the erroneous picture of primitive Indian society drawn by the early school of occidental philologists. ^While acknowledging fully the value of the works of these scholars in the t decip- herment of the ancient texts, we cannot forget that the outlook of these new types of Pun flits were generally limited by those very texts which engrossed their attention. Thus frequently too much emphasis was laid on particular aspects of Indian life as suggested by some special terms or words, and too little regard paid to the general historical evolution. Words are valuable as landmarks in the progress of society, but for that very reason they are but static symbol* of the ever-changing and over-expanding life. So the picture of caste-ridden India, cut off from the rest of the world by the external barriers of the Ocean and the Himalayas, as well as by the internal prohibitions of a morbid, all- excluding cult of purity, India ever chanting Vedic hymns or celebrating 1 occult sacrifices, weaving transcendental philosophies or absurd reactionary principles of life, this fancy picture of India fades away as soon as we view it from the vantage ground of History. VEDIC (JOBS IN WESTERN ASIA Truth is not only stranger but thousand times stronger than fiction. The chance stroke of the spade of an archaeologist makes short work of heaps of scholarly theories. So the dis- covery of the inscription of Boghaz Keui in 1907 by the German archaeologist Hugo Winckler led to the explosion of the "Isolation" theory and expanded to an unexpected extent GREATER INDIA 5 the horizon of Indian history. Here, for the first time, we read the startling fact that in far off Cappadocia, in the fourteenth century B. C., two belligerent tribes, the Hittites and the Mitannis, invoking the Vedic Gods, Mitra, Varuna and Indra, while concluding a treaty ; moreover, the special twin-gods, Nasatyas were invoked to bless the new marriage- alliance concluded between the two royal families. ( Cf. |Dn Sten Konow : The Aryan Gods of the Mitanni People, Modern Review, Deo. l2l pp 683-684) INDIA'S SYMBOLIC ROLE: THE PEACE-MAKKR OF ANCIENT HISTORY Thus, by a curious coincidence, this first concrete docu- ment in the history of Indian internationalism, represents the Indian gods as the peace-makers and harmonisers of conflicting interests ; and as such, we consider the Boghaz Keui inscription, not only as a landmark in Asiatic history but also as a symbol of India's role in the development of internationalism through peace and spirtual unity. This is, as we shall try to show, quite different from the economic internationalism of exploitation (e. g., Phoenician) or the imperialistic internationalism oi: compulsion (e.g., Assyrian and Roman). We cannot forget that when the Indian gods appear for the first time in their symbolic role of Peace-makers in Cappadocia, Egypt is proudly proclaiming her world-con- quests through the famous Victory Ode of Thutmosis III, cataloguing with sublime egotism the vanquished nations and countries. Further westwards, we hear about the same time (1500 B . C.), the Achivans thundering on the ramparts of the Aegian capital Knossos (Crete), the collapse of the Minoan hegemony in the Mediterranean and the peaceful penetration of the crafty Phamicians connecting the East and the West with a subtle tie of economic exploitation. The Achaean ascendency, already weakened by the fateful Trojan war (1200 B.C.) as well as the Phoenician commercial empire began to give way before the onrush of the virile Dorians who, with iron weapons, inaugurated the Iron Age in Europe (1000 B.C.), vanquishing their predecessors of the Bronze Age; while in Asia the Assyrians played the same role as that of 6 GREATER INDIA the Dorians, pulverising the decadent nations with superior military organisation and efficiency. ARYO-NON-ARYAN COMPROMISE What was happening in India in that epoch of transition from, the pre-classical to the classical period of Western history with its interlude of the Epic Age, we have no definite political records to ascertain. But we have ia- valuahle literary documents to attest the rapid development of Indian life and thought. From the Rigveda (the earliest literary monument, if not of humanity, at least of the Indo- European people) to the earliest Brahmanas (1000 *B. C.), Indian life had traversed quite a long path of sociogical evolution. The Vedic Aryans were confronted with the same problem, presented to the Egyptians and the Assyriaus, theAchjBans and the Dorians, of an autochthonous people barring tho way of a more virile expanding power. And herein lies the originality of the Indian Aryans, that they solved the problem in the only lasting manner possible by recognising the title of theirrivals to exist, not merely as enemies bat as collaborators iii the building of a civilisation which we may call to-day as much Aryan as non-Aryan (Indo-Mesopotarnian or Dravidian as we like. Cf. my note on the "Aryo-Draridian Compromise, "Modern Review, January, 1922 pp 31-33). The Vedic literature being essentially sacerdotal, records but poorly this march of India along the path of historical synthesis. Yet we got glimpses of the complexity of tho picture here and there, the background is already polychrome; the crowding of the canvas is already Epic. " From the very beginning we notice the white Aryans engaged in tussle with the dark aborigines. Surely, the social and political problems thus raised were not removed by the simple utterance of Vedic Mantras. There were occasional conflicts and out- bursts of cruelties. The path was often red with "blocd and iron." The atmosphere was often dark with horror and the Vedic poets seemed to have given vent to their feeling of suspense and agony daring those awful nights, in their GREATER INDIA 7 semi-symbolical hymn to Ushas, the goddess of Dawn to be born in the womb of primeval Darkness : "Arise ! tho hroatli, the life asam h*s reiehoil us ! Darkness has gone away and Light is corning. She leaves a path for the sun to travel, We have arrived where men prolong existence !" Rigveda V. i. 113. TNDIAV PRINCIPLE OK "LIVK-AND-LET-LIVE'' Yes, the aim of the Indian Aryans was to prolong existence not to extinguish it. And long before tho formulation of the doctrine of Ahimsa (non-injury) by Mahavira and the iinddha, India demonstrated her profound respect for life by realising that in hor early history. The Aryo-Dravidian synthesis will ever ivwaia as the first and the foremost glory in her career of international amalgamation. Two nations, quite different iri race, language and culture were fused to give birth to \\ virile sUck of people and to lay the foundations of a great civilisation. FDEALS OF a WORLD-CONQUEST" IN THK Erics Needles^ to bay that this sviv- achieved through many conflicts ami catastrophies which prepared the way for the Indian Epic Age with its formulation of th: principles of world power and world-empire (though the geography ui thaf tfMld was singularly different from our own ). Hence iu tLo later Vedic literatuio as well as in tlte Bmhmanas, \vo K'tid frequently of Ramrajyas (vast empires) and Sarva- hhmtmax (great fci^porors). From that doctrine it is an easy u>id iHirmal transition to the concepts of Digmjaya (conquest <-t \\orld-qtiartors) and that of Roja-chdkrarartin (super- Mivcreign of tho diplomatic circle). That naturally brought iu iis train, wars on an epic scale, and martial ballads canie to be composed by contemporary bards and minstrels. And just as Homers and pseudo-Homers appeared several centuries after the Trojan war to give epic form to the floating legends and ballads, so the actual great epics of India, the Pamayana and the Mahabharata were composed by our Valraikis and 8 GREATER INDIA Vyasas, many centuries after the traditional wars between Rama and Havana or between the Pandavas and the Kauravas. WAR AS A SOCIOLOGICAL EXPERIMENT ITS LESSONS So, whilst the Vedic age was a period of tribal warfare and unconscious fusion of tribes and races, the Epic age was a period of strife between more extensively organised kingdoms and empires, striving after suzerain power. In this epoch the old principle of amalgamation underwent its hardiest test. In both the Epics, we read a great deal about war, but in none of them we miss the lessons of war as they were imprinted on the heart of the ancient Hmdus ; the ultimate victory is always on the side of the righteous and even then, victory in a game like war is too much like defeat ! That shows clearly that oven in the process of testing the principle of concord and amalgamation, in the very act of experimenting with a new method of discord and dissolution, Indian mind was wide awake and open to conviction. Hence the poet of the Ramayatia makes tho victor Rama stand humbly by the side of his dying enemy to have his parting advice. Hence also, in the Mahabharata, we find the triumphant Yudhisthira sitting at the feet of the dying hero Bhisma, to listen to tiie Canto of Peace as the only fitting conclusion to an War Epic. Thus, con- tronting the actualities of war as a sociological experiment, its terrible consequences and tragic legacies, Indian mind pronounced its verdict on war through the formulation of new doctrines later on embodied in systematic treaties like the Santiparvan and the Bhagavad Gita. This sanity and this self-knowledge are really admirable. India tried the path of "blood and iron" and shuddered back in horror and dis- gust. No doubt one school of thought continued to refine the philosophy of mutual suspicion and of the inevitability of war as a means of aggrandisement, and thus gave rise to the science of Sadgunya (sextuple methods of Diplo- macy) culminating in the atomistic politics of the mandala of the Arthasastra of Kautilya which dominated the political THEATER INDIA 9 thoughts of India in her periods of disintegration (Nag : Les Theories Diplomatiques de 1'Inde Ancienne et 1'Arthasastra, pp. 115). Another school attempted to explain away the war philosophically, by transforming local war into an allegory of cosmic war, thus giving rise to the grand philosophical poem of the Bhagavad Qita. While a third school candidly preached Peace to bo the only true sublimation of War and thus gave us the famous Santiparvan (the Canto of Peace). EMERGENCE OF TIIF PRINCIPLES OP UNIVERSAL TOLERANCE AND AMITY The soul of India seemed to have been undergoing a travail for New Birth. The atmosphere was surcharged with a new agony and a terrific gloom which reminded us very much of the age of the Vedic groping in the dark. Suffocating under that atmosphere of narrow egotism and shocking carnage, one section of the Indian mind sought and found liberation in the serene region of emancipated individualism (the gravitation of tho Hindu mind) and cried out through the deathless voices of the sages of the TIpanishads, the message of this fresh Revelation : "Listen to me, ye children of immortality...! have come to know the Great Person, like the Sun, beyond the darkness !" This solemn call was sent to the whole universe (Visva), for it was the result of the realisation of Him who is the All-feeling one (Sarvanubhuh). And this new aspiration did not remain a mere ecstatic dream but soon became flesh in an actual Purusha, a historical personality, the Buddha, whom India created out of the depth of her universal Charity. Truth that was burning in the heart of India became incarnate. Dispelling with the radiance of Divine Amity, the dark smokes arising out of the bloody altars of sacrifice, both sacerdotal and political, Buddha proclaimed the sublime paradox that to gain all one must give all, to avoid suffering one must eradicate the all-devouring Ego, the root of all suffering, and that real illumination is in the quenching of the flames of passion (Nirvana). 10 DEBATER INDIA TlIK AUK OF THE BUDDHA AND THE SOUL OF ASIA Political history of Humanity is full of absurd gaps, stupid silences and illogical lacuna*. That is why we cannot explain satisfactorily the real significance of such grand historical revelations. But the history of human thought expresses itself by suggestions probably too subtle for our chronological apparatus. The unerring universalism of the Upanishadas, the divine cosmopolitanism of the Buddha, surely proceeded from some super-historical, if not historical need of Humanity* That is why, towards the end of our First millen- nium (circa 1400- 500 B. C.), we find the Buddha dedicating him- self to Humanity ; Mahavira, the founder of Jainism, preaching Ahimxa (non-injury) as the noblest principle of religion ; that in dark days of the Chow dynasty of China, Lao-tse and Confucius (500-478 B. C.) evolving respectively their grand systems : the Tao-kiao (School of the Way) and Ju-kiao (School of the Knowers), emphasizing the same principles of life non-interference, suppression of ego, and purification of heart. Ho also in the land of the Iranian cousins of the Indians, the reformation of faith had been started a little earlier by Zoroaster ; and now we are startled to read for the first time in an im- perial autobiography on stone in the famous Behistun and Nakshi Rustam inscriptions of Darius the great (550-485 B.C.) :- "Days Darius the King* : for this reason Ahuramazda bore me aid, and the other gods which are, because I was not an enemy, fwas not a deceiver, I was iiot a despot r ' The last words of the Emperor of Asia were equally significant for the age : "0 man, what (are) the commands of Ahuramazda, may he make them revealed to tliee do not err, do not leave the right path, do notisin " II. RETROSPECT ACROSS THE SECOND MILLENNIUM (CIRCA 500 B.C. 500 A.D.) India, the pioneer in practical Internationalism. "....rastam ma avarada ma starava "might ( path ) relinquished not, do not sin these are the last words of GREATER INDIA 11 tbe greatest figure in world politics towards the end of our millennium. They signalised a new departure in the history of the epoch we are going to survey. The Persian empire under Darius the Great, touching India on the one side and Greece on the other, marked the apogee of the history of antiquity and the connecting watershed of the streams of the Ancient and the Modern history. It awakened the lyre of the first tragedian of Hel'as, ^Eschylus fighting in the field of Marathon (490 B, 0.) and composing his drama, "The Persians. " It evoked also the genius of Herodotus, the father of European history. Pursuing the age-old method of pulverisation, Persia battered at the decaying fabrics of ancient empires of Egypt and Mesopotamia and they tumbled down like houses of cards. So the Achemenian art under Darius represented in traditional style the throne of the world-emperor carried by long rows of vanquished soverigns. At the same time the traditional political legacy of the dream of world-empire hypnotised Greece, the first rival of Persia in Europe. From Greece the chronic infection contaminated Rome. Greece chocked the military advance of Persia but had neither the political sagacity nor the spiritual insight to arrest the disintegrating politics of antiquity, represented in its last phase by the Persian imperialism. The Peloponnesian war destroyed miserably the noble prospect of consolidation opened by the Confederacy of Delos. Hellas, and with her Europe, preferred the fateful path of empire-building. Athens, Sparta, Thebes/ all attempted by turn, till at last Alexander of Macedou succeeded in traversing the same path of conquest from Greece to India. What appears as a splendid turning of the table on Persia is really an ephemeral imitation of the Persian emperors ; and Persian influence on Alexander is acknowledged by all, for it was highly resented by his hellenic compatriots. World-empire may be a new ideal with the Occident but it is a dangerously old institution of antiquity. In spite of the unmistakable warning of ancient history as to the in- evitable self-disintegration of such gigantic edifices resting on the precarious foundation of forw, Greece under Alexander 12 GREATER INDIA and Borne under her republican proto-caesars and imperial caesars, attempted the dangerous experiment, met with the usual tragic disaster and, even in the very failure, left the fateful legacy of empire-building to "alPof their "Barbarian" successors who are struggling down to 'this day, with varying degrees of success and permanency, with the same impossible, antiquated experiment of antiquity of building a world' empire a machinery of gain for a feiv at the sacrifice of the many, based on the quick-sand of selfishness and pro- pelled by the inhuman energy of brute force. With phenomenal originality, nay with divine inspiration, India under Asoka the Great (273-242 B. C.) suddenly developed an ideal of Empire of Peace and Progress for all* Within 250 years of the appearance of the great Buddha, India produced another historic personality. Dharmasoka not only contradicted with an unparalleled historical sagacity, the entire politics of antiquity up to his age, but also, like n Spiritual Columbus, discovered a new world of constructive politics which unfortunately, remains as yet only an aspira- tion and a dream for humanity. Behind him stretches the dead ruin of ancient empires; before him unfolds the tableau of lamentable duplication of the same selfish politics in our modern history; and in the centre lies the spiritual oasis of Asokan imperialism. It shines as a beacon light in the path of the political evolution of humanity, explaining the in- evitable decay of old empires and putting to shame the retrospective * laughter of the cynical imperialists of our modern :ige. Thus the empire of Asoka, with its new philosophy of conquest by Eighteousness (Dharma-vijaya) and its now foundation of universal Well-being (Kalyana), stands as the central climacteric of human history at once a fateful warning and a divine inspiration for Humanity. Starting his career as an orthodox emperor engaged in the conquest of a territory (Kalinga) to the east of India, en- tailing the death of millions, Asoka had his first conversion as the result of that tragic contact with the actualities of politics. In a moment he discovered his mistake ; and not stopping there, like a truly great soul, admitted his mistake INDIA 13 with tt sincerity uud penitence rarely paralleled by any . other character of history. His edict of Kalinga is the noblest monument of his magnanimity; he made his repentance a perpetual lesson to posterity by carving on the rocks of the ravaged Kalinga an account of his Imperial blunder. Through that awful suffering he arrived at that noblest of political revelations that "true conquest consists in the conquest of men's hearts by the law of Dharma.'' From that conversion and that revelation issued twenty years (261-242 B. C.) of humanitarian activities touching the frontiers of the Hellenic world on the one hand and of the Mongolian world on the other, building the first great wuwwa-y of Love awl Illumination between the Orient and the Occident, the first code of progressive imperialism and the first basis of con- structive internationalism. The great truth of Universalism which flashed as a revelation upon the Souls of the Rishi* of the Upanisbad?, which appeared as an incarnation in the personality of the first World-man, Kuddha, translated itself into the Cosmopolites of this first practical internationalist of history Dharmasoka Piyadasi, the well-wisher of all, proclaimipg with divine simplicity, "Sava munisa me paja^ whole humanity is my children an ocho of his master Buddha's saying. India is generally known, represented and accepted as physically isolated and psychologically exclusive, and in a way that is true. But how could such an India evolve such cosmic personalities, remains still a paradox of history. Between the Boghas Keui inscription and the Behistun inscription for nearly thousand years, the history of India's relations with the external world is full of tantalising guesses and absurd gaps. Latest researches, however, seem to discover "specific evidence for supposition that by 15th century B. C., tribes of Aryan stock held influence over the wide area ex- tending from Northern Asia Minor and North-western Baby- lonia to Media." 1 Coming nearer home we find that there was a period of intimate historical contact between Dr. P. Giles, "The Aryans," Cambridge History of India (1922). 14 HRJSATEB INDIA India and Iran, postulated and proved by philologists analysing the Rigveda and the Avesta. So Indo-Iranian period is a definite chapter of Asiatic history. Yet concrete historical facts are so few ! The invasion of India * by the Assyrian Queen Seiniramis is only a legend though Arrian (Oh. 5) records that some Indian tribes were subjects of the Assyrian sovereigns. The simultaneous occurrence of the legend of the great Deluge in the Babylonian record and in the Satapatha Brahmana (circa 1000 B. C.) ' is probably more definite as an evidence of contact of India with the Mesopotamia!! culture. Some astronomical notions and the use of iron are said to have been derived from Babylonia. - The occurrence ot Indian apes and peacocks in the Old Testement is admitted by sooie and disputed by others. ;J But Rawlinson and Kennedy (J. R. A. S., 1898) demonstrate that there arc evidences of very early commercial relations between Southern India and the Western regions. The Semitic races were great pioneers in connecting isolated countries through commercial relations, one of the earliest motives of human amalgamation. Another groat service rendered to humanity by the Semitic races was the diffusion of alphabet, at first probably for commercial facilities but later on converted into one of the greatest machineries for the propagation of Humanism. India is said to have derived her first alphabet from Semitic sources about the same time as Greece did (800 B. C.). And even if we do not accept the possibility of the march /; Nag : Indian Iconography, Modern Review, January, 1922). Thus India, through various political vicissitudes, through victory or defeat, was ever transforming the weapons of brute force into instruments of human progress art and literature, philosophy and religion. Her north-western frobtier lands re- mained ever as a veritable laboratory of Cultural Chemistry. India has demonstrated so far, that the political nomenclatures like the Victor or the Vanquished are misnomers. The real thing that counts and lasts for ever is human creation, in and through human amalgamation. BARBARIAN INVASIONS AND THE PROBLEM OF THE "OPEN DOOR" Bat now came the period when this principle of amical international assimilation was put to the severest test. During the first half of this millennium (500 B. C. downwards) India had to encounter two nations that had a civilisation of their IS OREATER INDIA ownPersia and Greece. Fusion with them was comparative ly an easy problem. But throughout the second half of this millennium (down to 500 A. I).) India was confronted with the problem of meeting the real Barbarians from Central Asia, surging down the Himalayas, and threatening to sub- merge civilisation in a deluge of savagery ! Was India to make no distinction between the civilised and the non-civi- lised ? Was she to follow still her policy of "open door" ? With supreme faith in her principle of international 'nnihji India answered in the affirmative. Yes, she nm^t allow every species of humanity to participate in her life and to test her principle. A law is either universal or nothing. Thus India remained faithful to her spiritual tradi- tion whatever might have been the fluctuations of her political destiny. INSTINCTS OF CONSERVATION \NI> ASSLAITLVHON So when the barbarian HaLis began their trial oi India's faith, India accepted them, as she did accept and assimilate, the other branches of the barbarous races the Kushans and the Huns. No doubt the instinct of conservation manifested itself in the stricter social legislation. The simpler social laws of the early law-books, the Dharma-sutras, were am- plified, sometimes showing inordinate rigidity (not always however ensuring or enforcing practice). Thus the great codes of Mann and Yajnavalkya, of Vishnu and Narada were all compiled " in a systematic fashion by 500 A. I)., and through them the Hindu mind betrayed its pre-oceupation with the "untouchable Mleccha problem/' But actual history always defies tho codification of social Legislators as well as the admonition of religious Censors. Sacerdotal blo- ckade or imperial barricade were futile against subtle sociological fusion. Thus the Four Orders of Society the Chatnrvarnas, in spite of their being very ancient and quite orthodox as contended by Oldenburg (Z.D.M.G., Vol. 51), remained generally and especially in this period, in a state of fluidity, and Senart had good reasons to assert that the Cast? System was largely a social fiction (Emile Senart, GREATER INDIA 11) "Les Castes dans llnde : les Faits et la Systeme," 1896). Hence we find frequently, glaring exceptions and anomalies, e.g.> Mleccha kings or laymen, our Usabhadatas and Rudra- daraans posing as the Pillars of Orthodoxy ! This has been conclusively proved with reference to concrete epigraphic documents by Prof. D. R. Bhandarkar in his paper, "The Foreign Elements in Hindu Population" (Indian Antiquary, 1011). SALVATION TIIKOI'I.II FAITH: THK BH\KTI MAK.V AM> THK MAILYVAVV The sudden invasion and the continuous infiltration of these savage foreigners into India, produced at first an ethnic confusion (ranmMtttkftni) and cultural distur- bance which threatened to be cataclysmic. It is the phenomenal adaptability or vitality of Hinduism that enabled India to sustain that shock. It produced no doubt at first a laxity in her lofty discipline by the inevitable enfranchisement of diverse religious and social norms. But in another way that apparent lowering of her standard led to a grand enrichment of her cultural life and an uii paralleled denwcratisation of her mltnre. India had already developed the discipline of Faith (Bliaktiniarga), through the Bhagavala sects of Vaishnavism (2nd century B. C.),for the foreign converts. (Vide. Sir R. 0. Bhandarkar, VaishnaciMn Kairism etc.) The Bhagavad Oita offered, through its philosophical muse, salvation through one God : 'Leaving everything else aside. Betake thyself to my unique protection." And about the same time that the divine piophot of Judaea was putting to shame the whole decadent culture of the Greco-Roman world by his profound expiation for Humani- ty, India also was transcending her "little path 11 (Hina-yana) of individual salvation arid inaugurating her career along the "grand path" (Maha-yana) through her divine solicitude for the All-Being (Sarva-sattva). Her great poet-philosopher Asvaghosha, who composed a magnificent poem on the life of Buddha the first inculcator of universal amity (mailri), also 20 r. HEATER INDIA developed the philosophy of the All-Being as the ultimate goal of individual discipline, in his "Awakening otTPri.i]i(Sraddhotpada Sastra) which may be accepted as a landmark in the i history of Indian internationalism. Moreover, it was composed by a philosopher who himself was carried away as a part of a tribute imposed on his native city by the barbarian con- queror Kanishka. PAN-ASIATIC EXPANSION Thus, from the beginning of the Christian era, India started playing her role of internationalism not only through her lofty academic philosophy ov through the vigorous propagation of a royal personality, but as a whole people following mysteriously a divine impulse, an ecstatic inspiration to sacrifice the Ego for the All. This grand mo\einent of spiritural conquest, this noble dynamic of cultural im- perialism a legacy of Asoka soon won for India the inalienable empire over tho vast continent, right across Tibet and China to Gorca and Japan on the one hand and across Burma and Indo-China to Java and Indonesia on the other. The history of this phenomenal progression has yet to be written. It is full of profound lessons for students of internationalism. We can only suggest here a few lines of approach. It was a period of rare give-and-take in human history between Buddhism and Mazdaism, Taoism and Con- fucianism Manichtwsm and Christianity. It is through years of international collaboration that we may hope to re- construct this long-forgotton history and to trace the specific contributions of .India in this grand Passion-Play of Humanity. Scholars like Richard Oarbe and Vincent Smith agree with regard to tho theory that Buddhism influenced the early development of Christianity* which in its turn coloured some of the later Hindu doctrines and creeds. "Although (Asoka's) missionary effort did not succeed in planting Buddhist Churches in foreign countries (excepting Syria) its effects may be traced," says Mr. V. Smith, "obscure- * c, f. also Kennedy, ."Buddhist Gnosticism" (J. R. A.S., 1902). GREATER INDIA 21 ly botli on the history of Gnostic and Manichoean sects of Christianity." So the great Egyptologist Flinders Petrie remarks after having discovered portraits of Indian men and women at Memphis : "These are the first remains of Indians known on the Mediterranean. Hitherto there have been no material evidence for that connection which is stated to have existed both by embassies from Egypt and Syria to India and by the great Buddhist missions sent by Asoka as far west as Greece and Gyrene. We seem now to have touched the Indian Colony in ;l Memphis and we may hope for more light on that connection, which seems to h.'ivn been so momentous for western thought ! n * FROM GANDIIAKA KHOTA.V AXD CBNTKAL ASIA TO CHL\A. But the most important result of [the formulation of the new doctrine of the Grand Vehicle (Maha-yana) was not so much on the Western Countries as on the Eastern Asiatic world. Arrian, writing about this epoch, notes in his Indika that "a sense of justice prevented any Indian king from attempting conquest beyond the limits of India. 1 ' While remaining true to this tradition with regard to political expansion, Mahayana India set about a spiritual conquest that remains to this day a marvel of history. Shaking oft' the narrow individualism of tho old Theramda school, India elaborated (in Gandhara, that crucible of her cultural ex- periments) the doctrine of Sarmxlimda, asserting that every- thing external as well as internal is real. Tho classical works of this new school of philosophy, the Vibhasa and the Maha-Vibhasa were composed by Katyayani-putra one of the masters of Asvaghosha.f The Vaibhasika sect of the Sarvaslivadim were strong in the border-lands of the North- western India, in Kashmir, in Gandhara and through Udyana, Kashgar, Khotan and Persia it entered China. In fact, there are strong traditions about the persistent attempt of China to * "Man,'' Vol. VIII (1906). t Dr. Takakusu, u Sarvastivadins,' : Stein, Geographical Journal, May and Aug. 1910 uJ GREATER INDIA reach India, In 217 B. C. in the reign of Kmperor Tsin Shih Huaung-ti, 18 Buddhist monks are said to have been brought to the Chinese capital It is a fact well established that the Chinese Colombus in this respect was Chang Kien who succeeded for the first time to penetrate through the barbarian zones of the Hiueng-nu to the West of China, and to bring definite information about Ta-hia (Bactria) and Shen-tu (Sindhu-Hindu ) by his intrepid adventures between 128-115 B. C. (cf. Nag : Les Theories Diplomatiques de Tlnde Ancieone et 1'Arthasastra, Paris). About the beginning of the Christian era Yue-chi ambas- sadors to the Chinese Court are said to have brought some Buddhist Scriptures, proving thereby that Buddhism had already spread over a part uj Central Asia. Lastly, in 67 A. D. under Emperer Ming-ti we hoar about the official introduc- tion of Buddhism into China, not only with Buddhist scriptures but statues and also two Indian monks, Kasyapa Matanga and Dharmaraksa, the former translating the hrst Chinese Buddhist text : u The 42 sayings of Buddha." In the then capital Loyang, the famous Pai-ma temple was built in the Honan province and many Taoist and Confucian nobles were said to have boon converted to Buddhism by 71 A. I) AS\V;IIOMI\ \NJ) N\.AH.HN\ This period coincides with the groat Kushau empire in India, which witnessed su-:!i u grand development in religion art and literatiuo (hat this foreign Mleccha Dynasty under- went a sort of canonisation. Its greatest King Kanishka appeared as a second Asoka. So the principles of the Great Vehicle suggested by Asvaghosha was given a tremen- dous impetus by Us second great philosopher-scientist Nagarjuna living about this age of illumination with its centre in the court of Emperor Kauishka who was also a great patron of the Gnoco-Buddhist art of Gandhara which came gradually to be a sort of international art-language for the whole of Central Asia. So Taxila became a great centre of scientific and artistic activities with Charaka as the master of the GREATER INDIA 23 medical school, Katyayani-putra its great philosopher, and Asvaghosha as its poet and musician. EXPANSION BY SEA : CHAMPA, CAMBOJ, SUMATRA, JAVA But the expansion was not only along the land routes. In this marvellous century Hippalus discovered the Trade- winds, the "monsoons" (79 A.D.) and thereby facilitated sea voyage. "Periplus ot the Erythraean Sea," an invaluable journal of some nameless navigator of this age, saved for us by chance, proves the magnitude of the international trade in that epoch extending from Africa via India and the Malay Peninsula to far off China. Bold Indian mariners were starting to found their culture-colonies in Champa and Cambodge in Indo-China, and iu the Malay Archipelago as far as Java. For Ptolemy in his Geography (L,nd century A. D.) already calls the Island of Java by its Indian name Jabadiu. So Professor Pelliot in his researches into the history of Pu-nan (ancient Cambodia) finds traces of Indian culture there, already in the 3rd century A.D. and also notices the frequent mention of big ships crossing the seas. (Vide Le Fou-nan . Bulletin. Ecole F. Ex. 0., Vol. III.) Indian legends stories and art traditions were already penetrating the Far East by these Sea Routes, as Indian relunous and philosophical texts vere entering by the Land Routes ; and in course of a few years we find China using both the routes in her grand cultural commence with India. So, on the one hand, the material wealth of India was rapidly developing an active; commerce between India and the Western World through the Roman Empire, and on the other hand, the invaluable spiritual treasures of India were inducing her far stabler relations with the Eastern World. So Bakaria (port of Kottayam, Travancore) and Bharukaccha (Broach), Vidisa and Vaisali, Tamraparni and Tamralipti, were big centres in this grand inter- national circulation, so well reflected in the wonderful anthologies of popular tales and legends : the Jatakas, the Avadanas and the Katha literature of India. 24 GREATER INDIA COMMON PEOPLE AS CIVILISING AGENCIES By the side of this marvellous development of inter- nationalism through free economic relations and spiritual exchange, the rise and fall of self-centered governments and nationalistic empires seem to be quite second rate in importance. The profoundest changes in the life-history of nations are often effected silently by agencies distinctly non-political. So we watch the simultaneous collapse of the Kushan Empire in India and the Han empire in China (circa 225 A. D.); we observe the rise of the Sassanian empire in Persia (226 A.D.), the establishment of the Gupta empire in India (300 A.D.) and the dawnfall of the Western .Roman Empire as the result of the Barbarian invasions (487 A. DA But through all these rises and falls of empires, continues the silent fertilising current of International Commerce economic as well as spiritual' leading to a phenomenal quickening of human thought and sympathy. Thus through all these periods of political trials and vicissitudes, India went on quietly with her work of internationalism ; and ubout the same time that the Hans were to open another chapter of savage onslaught on her bosom, India was sending her sons Kumarajiva and (jriinavarman to China to preach Buddhism, while Chinese pilgrims like Fa-hien, Chih- mong and Fa-moug were coming to India to drink at the fountain-head of spiritual wisdom. All the barriers of. geography and ethnography have been swept away by the inundation of international amity. India realises herself in a new way by transcending her narrow national limits. That is probably why the greatest poet of this epoch (5th century A. D.) Kalidasa, the brightest of the "Nine gems" of geniuses adorning the court of Vikramaditya, gives deathless expression to this profound longing of India for the world beyond the Himalayas, through his immortal poem of the "Cloud Messenger" (Megha-duta) addressed to the Beloved in the Great Beyondalmost symbolical of this cosmic passion of India in this golden age of Indian inter- nationalism. GREATER INDIA 25 III. RETROSPECT ACROSS THE THIRD MILLENNIUM (CIRCA 500-1500 A.D.) INDIA, THE HEART OP ASIATIC HUMANISM The cry of the hero of Kalidasa's "Cloud Messenger" for his Beloved beyond thn barriers of the Himalayas, was a veritable cry of India at that ago, for the Great Beyond the Greater India. Out of the sheer fulness of her heart, India had already twice before, under Asoka and Kanishka, plunged into the vast world outside her narrow geographical limits. Bach time India transcended hei national boundaries, she had developed a civilisation as permanently national^ in the best sense, as international in its beneficial operation. Now, for the third time we witness the overflow of Indian Humanism fertilising the whole of Asia, at the same time, developing an indigenous culture unparalleled in her history. The mere names of Kalidasa and Varuhamihira, Gunavarman and Vasubandlm, Aryabhatta and Brahmagupta, arc sufficient to mark this epoch as an apogee of Indian culture. Our political historians try to explain this grand development by referring to this or that emperor of this or that dynasty. The Guptas or the Vardhanas of India, the Wei or the Tang dynasty of China are supposed to have worked the whole miracle. But thanks to the indisputable evidences recovered, as the result of tho international crusades of archeology in Central Asia, we know that this wonderful transformation was effected by factors far from being political ; its progression was mostly along 4ho peaceful silk-roads from China and manuscript-roadx from India rather than along the path of aggressive imperialism. The Russian archaeological missions under Klementz and KazololV, French missions under Dutreuil do Rhins and Taut Pclliot, English missions under Dr Iloernle and Sir Aurel Stein, German missions under Grunwedel and von Le Coq and Japanese missions under Count Otani and Tachibana, have brought to to light a treasure of archaeological and artistic finds, masses of inscriptions and manuscripts which, when thoroughly analysed and digested, would revolutionise our conception about the migration of early culture in Eurasia, now viewed generally from the false perspective of isolated national L'b GREATER INDIA histories of the different countries. With gratitude to the researches of those savants I beg to present a rough sketch of this grand movement of cultural exchange between nations and nations. INDIA \\n CFIFNA Down to tho period of the missionary activities of Kuma- rajiva (344-413 A.D.), Buddhism and Indian culture penetrated China mainly through the Central Asian routes. Most of tho early Si no-Buddhist texts coining down from the Loyang School, were from the pen of the Yuch-chi, Parthian or Sogdian converts to Buddhism, v/orking in collaboration with the Chinese Buddhists. In Mahayana texts like the ChctHdragarbha and the Suryagarbha sutras as well as in Mahamaynri texts, wo iind a curious admixture of Indian, Khotanese, Iranian and Chinese spirit. Linguistic test also demonstrates that most of these translations were not done directly from Indian classical languages like Sanskrit and Pali but from popular dialects (Prakrits) of the various parts of India. FA-HTEX, A PILGRIM FROM CHINA With the appearance of Fa-hien (399-414 A. D.) one of the earliest of the Chinese Buddhist pilgrims to India, the great period of dirwl Sino-Indian collaboration was opened. Classical Buddhist texts like Dhamma-pada and Alilinda-panho came to be translated or adapted directly from Indian originals. Fa-hien studied in Pataliputra (Patna) under the great savant Eevati, master of Buddhaghosha who soon carried the torch of Truth to Ceylon. Since then the history of India and Ceylon are so intimately connected that we shall not attempt here a separate treatment of Indian influences on Ceylon. India in this age was the veritable land of illumination and attracted countless ardent spirits like Fa-hien who took tremendous risk in those days to cross the Taklamakan (Gobi) desert, Khotan and the Pamir ranges to reach the land of his heart's desire. GREATER INDIA 27 Visiting the great intellectual centres of Taxila and Purusha- pura (Peshawar), studying for three years at Pataliputra and two years at Tamralipti, Fa-Men returned to China, having stopped for some time in the Indian colonies of Ceylon and Java on his way. KAMARAJIVA, A MISSIONARY FROM KUCHA Kuinarajiva* (344-413), a monk from an Indian family domiciled in Karashahr (Kucha), was brought to China as a captive by a Chinese general. This Buddhist captive repaid his captors by working for more than ten years in China, attracting by his phenomenal talent the best Chinese brains of that ago. The most veteran men of letters collaborated with Kumarajiva in his work. No wonder that the translations from his pen are recognised to-day as classics of Chinese literature and his version of the "Lotus of the Good La\v" (fiatfdharma-piimlarika) still stands as the most valued text of the Chinese-Buddhist scriptures. By sheer genius and devotion Kumarajiva succeeded in reuniting temporarily the Northern (Turco- 31ungolian) and the Southern (Indigenous) schools of CFynese Buddhism which had by that time made a tremendous progress amongst the mass of the people. BUDDHABHADRA, FOUNDER OF THE DllYAN\ SCHOOL IX ClHXA About the same period another Buddhist missionary, Buddha-bhadra, arrived in China by the sea route (Shantung), and by his purity of life, great discipline and meditation influenced profoundly the southern Chinese people, poetic and transcendental in spirit!* Here Buddha-bhadra found a field of work congenial to him ; and by fusing Buddhist meditativeness with Chinese quietism, he laid the foundation of the Shan-no (Dhyana) school of Chinese philosophy and poetry, callaborating with the group of monks, poets and philosophers of the monastery of Mount Lu Shan associated with the name of the great Hui-yuau (416 A.D.). * Cf. Sylvain Levi : Journal Asiatiuue, 1913. 28 GREATER INDIA PRINCE GUNAVAKMAN, THE PAINTER MISSIONARY FROM KASUMIK Simultaneously with Kuruarajiva and Buddha-bhadra appears the noble figure of the Prince-monk Gnnavarman * who refused his throne of Kashmir, prompted by his zeal for the mission work. He visited Ceylon in 400 A.D. and then crossed over to the island of Java where he found the first Buddhist monastery converting the King and the Queen-mother. Then he appeared in Canton (424 A. D.) and in Nanking, propagation his faith as much by his won- derful religious paintings as by his learned translations. He founded two ciharas in Nanking, introduced the strictr Vinaya system of ordination after the Indian School, and organised the first congregation of Chinese nuns. After his death in China (431 A.D.) we read of the arrival of two batches of nuns from Ceylon under Tissara (?) organising the Chinese nunneries after Sinhalese model. So during this epoch the relation between India and China through Ceylon and Java by the sea route was quite intimate ; and Dr. Takakusu opines (J.B.A.S., 1806) that the great Indian missionary Buddhaghosha also visited China from his base of work in Ceylon. No wonder that China acknowledges her gratitude by translating (472 A.D, from an Indian original now lost) and cherishing the "Lives of Twenty-three Indian Patriarchs", comprising the careers of great Buddhist saints like Kasyapamatauga, Asvaghosha,^Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu and others. But while a few such names have been fortunately preserved, hundreds are lost. And we are as much thankful to those nameless and unknown workers of humanity as to the group of the more fortunate known. The precious researches of Edouard Chavannes and Sylvain Levi have recovered for us from oblivion many such grand yet long forgotten personalities : Chih-mong and Fa-mong (contemporary of Fa-hien, 400 A.D.) from China, and Sanghasena and Guna-vriddhi from India (492 A.D.). Of. E. Chavannes, "Gunavarman," T'oung Pao, vol. v. GREATER INDIA 29 BODIIIDHAKMA, THE SILENT MISSIONARY In tho sixth century we witness a phenomenal development in sea-communication between India and China via Malay Archipelago. Tho iirst notable case of sea voyage from India was that of Bodhidharma who came to south China in 520 A.D, and worked in the same field as Buddhabhadra, amongst the mystic population of China. Bodhidharma is said to have remained silent for the first nine years I Yet ho exerted a profound influence on the Chinese mind and "opened a powerful stream of meditative naturalism in China and Japan." PAUAMAJRTIIA, FOUNDER OF THE YoaAr.ii.vn A SCHOOL IN CHINA The second case of sea voyage was that of tho Indian savant Paramaribo, tho famous biographer of the Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu (420-500 A.D.). Having arrived in China in 540 A.D., Paramartha was cordially invited to Nanking in 548 A.D.. He was not only the translator of tho works of Asanga and Vasubandhu, the pillars of the realistic, school of Buddhist Idealism, but was also tho first propagator of the Yoyachara school of thought before Hiuen-Tsang. THE GOLDEN A<;K OF SINO-!NDJAN COLLABORATION With the unification of the North and tho South under the auspices of the Tang Dynasty (l) 17-910' A. D.) re- covering control over Central Asia, there opened the most glorious period of Asiatic Art and Philosophy through the vigorous collaboration of India and China. The invaluable records left by the two great Chinese pilgrims Hiuon-Tsang (629-645 A. 1).) and It-sing (700 A, D.), bear testimony to the fact that India had come to be the very heart of Asiatic Humanism. That explains partly tho jealous attacks on the Buddhist organisations in China from contemporary Taoist and Confucian rivals. Yet it must be admitted that through every phase of this evolution, India had been shaping vigorously the whole fabric of Chinese thought 30 GREATER INDIA and aesthetics. On the one hand, the Indian spirit was so marvellously naturalised in China that the Sino-Indian texts, even to-day, "form an intergral part of the Chinese language and literature." On the other hand the recent discoveries of Grunwedel and von Le Coq in Central Asia and of Sir Aurel Stein and Paul Pelliot in, the wonderful grottos of Touen Houang, prove the phenomenal fusion of Hellenic and Iranian, Christian and Manichaean streams of thought and culture under the grand transforming agency of Buddhism. "Anything that came from India brought with it a high prestige." Indian models of Buddhist art were closely followed ; Indian imagery and symbolism, Indian ideals of form were taken over by Chinese masters and therefore their Buddhist pictures show a striking contrast to their socular drawings and paintings. Tho Touen Ilouang pictures show the wonderful fusion of Sino-Tndian styles and the T'ang masters of Touen Houang wore closely followed by the early Japanese masters. Thus the chance discovery* of this desert grotto with its polyglot library and wonderful art treasures, has contributed so much to our knowledge of the history of international intercourse. Touen Ilouang, situated on the great highway stretching across Asia from China to the Mediterranean where it inter- sected the main routes from Mongolia in the north and Tibet and India in the south naturally shows the relics of the historical fesion of the Orient and the Occident, and that is why the Chinese Buddhist paintings of the Tang period are considered, by experts like Raphaeal Potrucci and Laurence Binyon, to inaugurate "one of the greatest periods of creative art in world history." INDIA AND KOKKA From China, Buddhism naturally entered Korea. As early as 374 AD. two monks A-tao and Shun-tao, both foreigners, were invited from North China to the capital of Koryo ( modem Pien-yang ). In 384 A. D. certain * Cf. Sir Aurel Stein: Ruins of Desert Cathay" and Serindia ; also Paul Pelliot : Touen Houang. GREATER INDIA 31 Matananda (a curious Indian name) was welcomed by the court of the Paikchai (middle Korea) and was backed by a fresh batch of Indian and Chinese missionaries. Towards the middle of the 5th century Buddhist propaganda advanced to the south and an ascetic called the "Black Foreigner" preached the doctrine of the Tri-ratna (triple gem), after having been famous by curing with his wonderful science a princess of the Silla kingdom which recognised Buddhism officially in 528, Between 540-576 A. 1)., we read about a king and a queen <>f Kcroa taking to the robes of monks and nuns. In 551 A.D. a sort of Buddhist Patriarchate was created with a Korean priest ^s tho archbishop of the realm, and Buddhism continued to shine with incomparable radiance down to the 10th century when Korea was under the Koryo dynasty (91S A. D.). So Korea still remains a rich and virgin field of Buddhist archaeology largely unexplored. We may hope that some day tho friendly collaboration of Chinese, Korean and Japanese scholars would unfold to the world the complete history of Korean Buddhism. INDIA .VXD JAPAX* The small country of Korea had the unique privilege of presenting to Japan one of its greatest civilising agencies continental Buddhism. Chinese learning had penetrated Japan as early as the 5th c^ptury A. D.; but it was Korea that made the tirst official presentation in 538 A. D. of a gilt statue of Buddha, some beautiful banners and sacred texts to the Japanese court, as a sign of homage and friendship. The accompanying message from Korea was also noble, declaring that "Buddha dharma the most excellent of all laws which brings immeasurable benefit to its believers . . .had been accepted in all lands laying between India and Korea." * Of. Dr. Anesaki : "Buddhist Mission" in the Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics; also Dr. Takakusu : "What Japan owes to India" in the Young fast, Vols. II. VI. 32 OREATEft INDIA The opposition of the conservative party only accentuated the zeal of progressive Japan and with the fall of the anti-Buddhist party in 587 A.D., Prince Umayado or Shotoku (593-622 A.D.) the Constantine of Japan, made Buddhism the state religion of Japan. He invited Korean monks to teach the sciences like astronomy and medicine to his people and sent Japanese students to China to study Buddhism. With the influx of Buddhist monks and savants came artists, artisans and physician-philanthropists as the rear guard of religion. And here, as everywhere, Buddhism built its influence on the solid foundation of tho philanthropic and aesthetic instincts of tho believers. Thus there grew up asylums, hospitals, dispensaries as well as tho great treasures of Art: painting, sculpture and architecture, wherever the new Faith wont We hear of Chinese missionary Kan-jin. (754-703. A.D.) organising medical missions and founding botanical gardens. So the Indian missionary Bodhisena, a Brahmin of Bhamdwaja c/ofra, came to Japan in 736 A. 1) with his Cham (from the Hindu colony of Champa) and Chinese followers, many of whom were artists and musicians ; and Bodhisena worked as the Buddhist Bishop of Japan till his his death in 760 A.D., always known as the "Brahmin Bishop". These missionaries not only introduced but developed many useful arts, knowing full well that art is a great handmaid to religion. Indian lyre (pitta) and other musical instruments as*" well as bas-reliefs in the Graeco-Buddhist style are preserved in the Imperial treasury of Japan dating from the 8th century A.D. With profound respect for individual development, these Buddhist workers never imposed anything by force ; so that everywhere their advent was followed by a phenomenal growth of native arts and crafts. Thus the medical and the artistic missionaries played almost as great a part as saints and learned scholars in the propagation of the Indian faith. During the whole of the 8th century, the famous Kara Period (708-794 A.D.), the movement of Peace and Illumination spread from the capital city to the provinces where many GREATER INDIA 33 people now began to endow religious and philanthropic institutions and these humanitarian works soon "converted the whole of Japan into Buddhadom." Japanese sculpture and painting began to awaken to its career of world famous creation, while the constant contact with China brought from time to time different schools of Buddhistic thought. The mystic Mantra sect, introduced into China in the 8th century by Subhakarasimha and Amoghavajra, entered Japan in the 9th century and even some of the esoteric sects liko the Dharma- lakshana, organised by Asanga, while losing hold on India and China, were preserved in the Japanese school of Buddhist philosophy. Far from imposing a foreign system to the detri- ment of ttie independent development of Hie indigenous peoples, Buddhism liberated the dormant springs of individual creative activities. So within two centuries of the official introduction of Buddhism, we iiud the Japanese people de- veloping cults, sects, schools of philosophy and art-traditions of their own. The brightest stars of Japan in the 9th century like Saicho and Kobo were pioneers of real Japanese Buddhism independent of continental influences : Saicho (767-822 A.D.) founded the famous sect callod Tcjidai-sltu, preaching u Buddha the historical revealer of Truth as the full enlightenment, and the realisation of such Buddhahood in one's own consciousness as the supreme object of all mysteries, virtues and wisdom." Another sect called the Shingon-sku was founded by Kobo or Kukai (774-835 A.D.). He preached : "the Universe is Buddha externalised and that the Buddl\a within us may be called forth by the practice of the mystery in heart, in conduct and in speech." The Tended and Shingon sects exerted powerful influence amongst the refined and cultured aristocracy of Japan. But the stoic military class and the superstitious mass also were evolving their own suitable systems out of Buddhism. Since the beginning of the 12th century, internal troubles and disasters of Japan slowly developed a pessimism which wanted less philosophical and more emotional from of religion to satisfy the people. So Horen (1133-1212 A.D.) appeared denouncing all philosophy as effete and all mysteries as 34 HftEATER INDIA useless. He preached the doctrine of Snkkavati, the Japanese Jodo or "The Western Paradise" according to which any creature, ignorant or wise, high or low, could be saved by simple faith in the boundless grace of Amitabha. Side by side, we watch the marvellous transformation of the primitive Shintoism under Buddhist influences, when men like Chika-fusa (1330 A. D.) developed a new syncretism representing all popular animistic gods of Shintoism as the arataras of Buddha. Lastly, the stoical samurai military class found its firm support in the philosophy of the Zen (Dhyana) sect introduced into Japan in 1250 A. D,, by some disciples of the old Shan-no (Dhayana) sect of China, organised by Indian missionaries like Buddha-bhadra and Bodhi-dharma. Thus while India herself, on accout of her pre-occupation with narrow domestic problems forgot all about her far-off cultural colonies of Korea and Japan, the devoted philosophers and master artists of Japan were worshipping the ineffable personali- ty of Btuldha-Amitabha and covering temple after temple with the marvellous figure of the Indian saint, Pindola Bharad- ivaja. INDIA AND TIBET Tibet was rather late in emerging from its state of savage isolation. It is significant that the very first king who brought Tibet up to Asiatic importance, was in close contact with India and China: King Srong-btsan- Gampo (630-698 A.D.) married an Indian (Nepalese) princess as well as a Chinese one ; the former introduced the Hindu-Buddhist cult of Tara along with other occult practices, while the latter brought Chinese Buddhism and priests. Not stopping there, Gampo sent his able minister Thummi Sambhota to India where lie studied and gradually evolved out of Devanagari script, the present Tibetan alphabet. The next KingKhri-Srong-de-blsan (740-786 A.D.) invited learned scholars from India and with their noble collaboration, the Tibetans soon managed; to fi^ve a scripture -and literature of their GREATEK IKDIA 35 own. The names of Indian savants like Padmasambhava and his disciple Pagur Vairochana are ever memorable in Tibetan history. Translations and adaptations of Indian texts continued vigorously down to the appearance of the great personality of Dipamkara Srijnana or Aiisa (1038 AJD.) from Bengal, who effected a veritable reformation in the religious history of Tibet. Naturally primitive and gross by temperament the Tibetans did not develop any independent system of their own as was done by the Chinese or the Japanese. Most of their standard compilations like the Kandjour (book of revelation words o Buddha) and the Tandjour (book of tradition) stand to-day as curious collections of religion and magic, science and poetry. No doubt they translated from time to time, classical works of Indian literature like the famous lexicon of Amarakosha and the Meghaduta "Cloud Messenger" of Kalidasa, the grammar of Cliaudragomin and the treatise on painting and iconography like the "Chitralakshana" ; yet we cannot help noticing that the Tibetans showed almost a morbid preference for the mystical and magical texts of later debased Buddhism : the Vajra-yana, the Kalachakra-yana, etc., which went to the formation of Lamaism. Here we find the alchemist-philosopher Nagarjtina tacitly preferred to the Buddha himself. So the savage pre-Buddhistic Shamanism of the Bon cult, the crude magic and devil-charming rituals common to the mountainous tribes, came to be iryxed up with Indian Buddhism. Still it effected a miracle by % gradually transforming the mentality of the people. Mr. Waddel who lived amongst the Tibetans for a long time and who is one of the leading authorities on Tibetan history, writes : "The current of Buddhism which runs through its tangled Paganism has brought to the Tibetan most of the little civilisation which he possess and has raised him correspondingly in the scale of humanity, lifting him above a life of semi-barbarism, by setting before him higher hopes and aims, by giving milder meanings to his demonist mythology, by discountenancing sacrifice of animal lives and by inculcating universal charity and tenderness to all living things." 36 GREATER INDIA INDIA ASD THE TUBCO-MONUOLIAN PEOPLES With the conquest of China and Central Asia by the Mongol chief Chengiz Khan (died 1227 A.D.) and his successor Kubilai Khan (1260 A.D.), Tibetan Buddhism was established as a sort of theocracy by Lama Phagspa, the Tibetan ally of Kubilai. Through the intermediary of Tibet, the arts and crafts of India and Nepal (especially Bronze casting) reached the courts of the Buddhist Mongolian emperors of China and were always prized as works of rare craftsmanship and great value. Phagspa* (Tibetan for Arya) died in 1280 A.D. and was succeeded by Lama Dharraapala in the office of the Imperial Chaplain of the Mongol emperors of China, The noble activities of these Buddhist workers, in this epoch, connected the Tibetans, the Mongols, the Tnnguse and the Ouigur Turks (in the frontiers of Siberia) and other Samoycd races, in one bond of spiritual union.t !M)I\ AM) Sorru-EASTJEflv ASIA The whole of the eastern Asiatic world may be linguistically divided into three main sections : (i) Kor co- Japanese (n) Sino-Tibetan and (Hi) Malay-Polynesian. We have, so far, traced the influence of Indian humanism on the nations of the iirst two groups. Now, passing on to the third group, wo remember the border land of Burma. From Burma we march through Siam, Cambodia (in fact the whole of tkeTranx-Gangfilic peninsula) to the Malay Arehipelagr*\\vith Sumatra, Java, Madura, Bali, Lombok, Borneo and other islands) till at last we are in the heart of Indonesia. The whole history of this vast area was enveloped in deep obscurity till very recent times. Thanks to the researches of the French and tho Dtflch scholars who are pioneers in this branch of investigation, we have how a> fairly clear view of the history of South-eastern Asia. /With every fresh archaeological discovery or philological analysis, we are more and more convinced of the fact, that down to quite late- * Prof. Paul Pelliot : Lectures on Lamaisrn in College de France (1922-23). t Huth (G) : "Geschichte des Buddhismus in der Mongolei (1893). GREATER INDIA 37 periods (13th-14th centuries) when Islam penetrated this area, the greatest formative influence on the life and history of tho peoples of south-eastern Asia was that of India, backed by China in certain parts. EPOCHS OF HINDU COLONISATION The archaeological finds in this part of the world are of a comparatively late period. So the scholars of the last generation were rather sceptic with regard to the possibility of early penetration of Indian influence. But we should consider that long before a king feels inclined to get a grandijoquent panegyric of his career inscribed on a rock or a copper-plate, that long bofore a community is capable of rearing a great architectural monument, a people discovers another people quite normally, propelled by the spirit of adventure, economic or spiritual. So it is not prima facie improbable that Indian missionaries reached south- eastern Asia by the sea route, about the same period that they had been penetrating the Far- Western and the Par-Eastern regions by the land route. The very fact that Ptolemy (2nd century A,D.) names many of the places in his Geography of this region in an Indian way up to Java, proves that the Indians were already in the field. The earliest inscriptions of Champa (Indo-China) bearing evidences of Indian (simultaneously Brahmanic and Buddhistic) influence, go as $ar back as the 3rd century A.D. Prof. Paul Pelliot, one of the greatest living authorities on the history of this area, believes that apart from the great Central Asian route, there were tivo other old roads of communication for the Eastern Asiatic peoples : one was the land-route from India via Assam and Burma to China and another was the sea-route via Indo-Chinese coasts. And Pelliot discovers in Chinese documents that India appears in the history of Funan (ancient Cambodia) as early as 3rd century A.D. Thus, although the materials are as yet scanty, we may state that in course of 'their first movement of expansion about the begining of the Christian era, the Indians 38 GREATER INDIA left unmistakable traces of their influence on Pegu, Burma and Champa, Cambodge, Sumatra and Java, though the despatching of Asokan missionaries to Burma may be a later fabrication. The second icarc of cultural colonisation was in the 5th century A.D. a period of great internal prosperity and intellectual maturity in the history of India. During this century not only Champa and Cambodge were thoroughly hinduised, but fresh Hindu colonies appear in the Malay Peninsula, in ancient Siam, in Laos, in Borneo, Sumatra and Java. This is the epoch when Aryabhatta (b. 479 A.D.) and Varahamihira (505-587 A.D.) were assimilating the Hellenic sciences, when Gunavarman (dying in Nanking (431 A.D.) was converting Java to Buddhism, when the famous frescoes of Ajanta were recording in their exquisite language the fusion of Aryo-Dravidian and Indo-Persian culture. In this grand epoch of Hindu renais- sance, there was no exclusive caste prohibitions and no in- tolerant sectarianism. Hence wo find Brahmanism and Buddhism, in fact all sects and denominations, flourishing peacefully in these cultural colonies of India in South-eastern Asia. The history of the movement of Hindu syncretism and cultural synthesis in this region of Magna India, has yet to be written. BURMA AND CEYLON Burma is linguistically related to Tibet but it came in touch with Indian civilisation much earlier. The introduction of Buddhism by Asokan missionaries (3rd century B. C.) may or may not be true ; but it is strongly urged by native tradition that Buddhaghosha established the Hinayaua Buddhism in Burma from Ceylon about 450 A. D. Meanwhile sinologists have discovered in the Chinese Tai Annals, sufficient evidences to assert that even Buddhaghosha, the champion of the Ceylonese Hinayana was not the first in this field. He had his predecessors in the missionaries of the Mahayana and of the Brahmanical systems in Burma. This is corroborated by the GREATER IMDIA 30 interesting collection of Pyu inscriptions (5th century A. D.) which bear traces of borrowing from Sanskrit vocabulary through the medium of living dialects (Prakrits) of Eastern India and not through the canonical language Pali. So there is every possibility of early contact with Sanskrit Mahayana through Eastern Bengal and Assam. From that period down to the present day, Burma, like Ceylon, remains in 'religion and culture, essentially a part of India. CHAMPA CAMHODOK SUM AND LAOS The Indian colonies of Champa and Cambodge are, like Ceylon, too important to bo treated summarily; special studies would be devoted to them. 1 Siam was also formally converted during the later period of Hindu expansion. Buddhism was introduced into Siam from Cambodia and like Cambodia it remained faithful to the Ceylonese or the southern Pali Buddhism. A splendid Buddha image, a rare specimen of Ceylon bronze-casting, has been discovered amongt the ruins of Champa. Mon. Cabaton, an authority on the history of these peoples affirm that until the advent of the Portuguese navigators (16th century), Siam was' completely within the cultural influence of India : "It received its first civilisation from the Brahmins of India and then" from the merchants from the Malabar and the Coromandel (coast) ; and along with Cambodia and Laos, S:m remained permeated with Indian civilisation until the east coast of Indo-China (Annam) accepted Chinese civilisation. There are still extant, noteworthy archaeological witnesses of this primtive hinduisation of Siam in the monuments of its former capitals, Savanklialok, Sukhokai and Lopburl The former and present religions of Siam (i. e., Brahmanism and Buddhism) its secred language, its civil institutions, its writing, its arts, and its literature, came from India. In the 13th century the Thai alphabet, the prototype of the present alphabet was inven- ted by the help Ql. Brahmin gurus on the model of the Indian writing already in use in the country. All this civilisation has been preserved and diffused up to the present day by the monks who are, as a rule, the educators of the people " 40 GREATER INDIA FROM THE INDIAN TO THE PACIFIC OCEAN Leaving aside the as yet obscure problem of pre- Aryan, even pre-Dravidian contact of India with the Mon-khmer and the Malay-Polynesian world, we may still safely say that there were very early maritime communications between the peoples across the Indian Ocean, connecting the African Archipelago including Madagascar with the Malay Archipelago. The island of Ceylon or Taprobane was a sort of a halting stage in his grand oceanic traffic. The very frequent confusion between Indian Malay and African place-names made by classical travellers and geographers is highly significant. It is now beyond doubt that audacious Indian mariners reached Mada- gascar, Ceylon as well as Sumatra, Java and Borneo in early times. Fa-hien and Qunavarman (400 A D.) followed only the traditional maritime routes of Indian Oceanic migration. The Malay Peninsula served both as a great causeicay for the migrations from the Asiatic continent and as a rendezvous for merchants and peoples from widely separated countries. In Sumatra the Malayan races were moulded by Indian in- fluences into a comparatively civilised condition before they crossed over to the Peninsula. The oldest foreign loan-words in Malay are Sanskrit, including words for religious, moral and intellectual ideas, with iorne astronomical, mathematical and botanical terms, a court vocabulary and a large nurnV^' of everyday words. In their pantheon the greater gods are Hindu while the lesser gods are Malay. Their cosmology is also Hindu. Only in one branch, in their arts, both industrial and ornamental, some of the Indonesian peoples, while deriving the ideas and inspiration from India (China did not play a great part here before the Tang period, 6th century A,D.), could preserve their distinct individuality. Both in the evolution of the architectural and of the decorative motifs, the Javanese and the Khmer peoples will always occupy a big place in the general history of Asiatic art. GREATER INDIA 41 THE EMPIRP: OF SRI-VIJAYA IN SUMATRA So it is not at all surprising to note that the famous Chinese-Buddhist pilgrim It-Sing twice visited in 671 and 698 A. D. Sumatra (then known as the kingdom of Sri-Vijaya\* studying and translating Indian texts. More than 1,000 monk-savants s f udied there all the subjects that were taught in Indian centres of learning. In fact this daughter university of Sumatra had already become so import- ant that Dharmapala, the celebrated Mahayana professor of the great Nalanda University before the visit of Hiuen-Tsang, went to Suvarna-dvipa (Sumatra) in his old age, most probably as a veteran Director of Indian Studies. Between the age of It-Sing (700 A. D.) and that of the Mahayana Buddhist king Adityavarman of Middle Sumatra 13oO A. D. we have as yet very few records. In the 14th century, Sumatra, under king Aditya-varman was still erecting the statue or Jina Amoghapa$a,& Tantric incarnation of Avalokite- swara in the temple of Padang Chandi, with an inscription in barbarous Sanskrit. But already the north of Sumatra had been converted to Islamism which soon overwhelmed the whole of the island. JAVA MADURA BALI LOMBOK AND BORNEO Java was from very early times noticed in Indian literature. Ramayana describes Java (and probaly also Sumatra, known as the Suvanta-dvipa), as rich in gold mines. Fa-hien found it necessary to pay a visit to this island in the early 5th century. Like Sumatra, Java was the stronghold of the Buddhist sect of the Mula-Sarvastivadins. Their scriptures being in Sanskrit was much valued locally, but those texts frequently checked the spontaneous development of Javanese- Buddhist art which remained a little too faithful and rigidly documentary as was noticed by Mon. Foucher in his monograph on the Buddhist temple of Boro-Budur. In the ^th century, Mahayana Buddhism gained a tinn footing in J^va. In 778 A. D. a king of the Sailendra Dynasty of the Sri-Vijaya Kingdom of Sumatra, commemorates the erection of a statue and a temple of Arya Tara, sakti of Avalokiteswara by an inscription in Sanskrit language and in a north Indian script, not in Kawi or old Javanese. Dr. H. Kern, the great Dutch savant, expressed his opinion to the effect that the Tantric- Maliayanists came to Java from Western Bengal. The temple of Arya Tara is now in ruins known as Chandi Kalasan. The splendid monuments of architecture, which appear in Java about the 9th century, bear the impress of Mahayana Buddhism. But the later Javanese art as well as the Javanese literature and inscriptions are largely Hindu Saiva. That * "Coedes : Le Royaume de Sri Vijaya, B. E. F, Ex. 0. 1917. 42 GREATER INDIA seems to show that a great bulk of the people in the Hindu colonies like Champa, Java and especially in the island of Bali were allowed to practise and profess other cults of Hinduism even when the ruling houses were officially adopting Buddhism. Down to the middle ages, the relation between official Buddhism and non-official popular Hinduism, was marked by perfect tolerance and friendliness which produced a wonderful fusion of religious thought and art-styles. In the 9th century we witness the third grand leave of cultural colonisation mainly from South India. The kingdom of Sri-Vijaya (Sumatra) suddenly becomes a great civilising agency extending its influence over Java as well as a part of South India and its name appears in an inscription of Devapala recently discovered in Nalanda. Impregnated with the spiritual and aesthetic ideals of India, Java now created the wonderful temple of Boro-Budur, a marvel of oriental architecture. Buddhism was a favourite religion with the Javanese sovereigns from king Sree Isanavijaya Dharmot- tungadeva (950 A.D.) to Tribhuvanottunga Devi, the queen ruling over the whole of Java U350 A.D.) iNDO-CniNA AND INDONESIA SPIRITUALLY CONNECTED Other forms of Brahmanical religion, especially Saivism were tolerated and widely practised by a large part of the population of Java, Madura, Bali, and Lombok. That is why probably during the 10th, llth and 12th centuries when the Indonesian art reached its apogee, we find in Java, the great Prambanam and Panataram temples consecrated to Brahmanical deities like Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, Durga, etc., as well as brilliant stone pictures ( bas-reliefs) of the Ramayana and the Krishnayna. So we find in Cambodia, the famous Mon- Khmer monuments, the Saiva temple of Angkor Thorn (9th century) and the Vaishnava temple of Bapuon, as well as the marvellous monument of Angkor- Vat (completed 1150 A.D.) dedicated to Vishnu, by the Cambodian king Parama Vishnuloka. "These monuments," remarks Mon. Cabaton, "give evidence to this day of cultural and artistic gifts so incompatible with the intellectual apathy of the Khmers, that some scholars are inclined to think that the grandeur of the empire was due to a Hindu colony which governed the country (Champa-Cambodge) from the 8tb to the 14th century." However, the Sino-Tibetan invasions of the Annamites and the Siamese during the 12th and 13th centuries led to a gradual decadence, and the downfall of the great Hindu colonies of Champa and Cambodge was complete when Islam swept over the whole area like a hurricane. GREATER INDIA 43 MALAY-POLYNESIAN WORLD Leaving aside the question of the reciprocal influence of the Hindu and the Islamic history, we shall note summarily the main features of India's role in the history of South- EasternAsia. Unlike the thoroughly pacific cultural penetration of India in Serindia, China and Japan, her expansion over South-eastern Asia was not unaccompanied by occasional political conquests or military occupations. However, what India brought as her real contributions to these regions, were not the conquering armies or dynasties long forgotten, but a veritable fertilising influence in the domain of intellect- ual and artistic creation. That is why a veteran philologist like Dr. Skeat found after an elaborate analysis that the oldest loan-words in this linguistic group are 'words for religions, moral and intellectual ideas coming from India'. So in the highly interesting monograph on the "Indonesians", Mr. Kruijt notices how the name for God in most of the languages of this Malay-Polynesian world, is derived from the Indian vrordDevata: "In Siau the highest god is called Duata which is also found among the Macassars and Buginese as Dewata, among the Dayaks of Borneo as Jabata Jata, among the Mongondouians as Duata, and among the people of the Philippine islands as Divata, Davata, Diuata" So the Sanskrit word Bhattara is found in more or less changed forms, in many Indonesian languages in the sense of God, e.