ON INDIA AND HER HERITAGE
The Indian subcontinent offers us one of the longest narratives of continuous history. There are few other instances where a story starts from such dim yet sturdy roots and evolves uninterrupted into the modem scene with the most ancient throbs still serving as a life giving force to an entire civilization. This uniquely tropical land has witnessed every triumph an tribulation of mankind. India has had more than her share of political struggles and wars and battles, but she has also nurtured much poetry and philosophy, art, music and science.
The inhabitants of the subcontinent are a variety of complex peoples. They range from simple tribes that still guard their pristine ways to an array of sophisticated groups that speak a variety of highly developed languages and contribute as much to international debates as to modern science. Indians of the twentieth century, notwithstanding their caste consciousness and obsession for racial purity, are the product of healthy mixtures that have resulted from waves upon waves of invading immigrants to the country. Thus the Indian people include descendents from ancient Greeks and Mongols, Portuguese and Persians, Afghans and ancient Aryans also.
The subject matter of Indian heritage is enormously vast. It is a rich chapter in the history of humanity, splendid in expressions and impressive in scope. Its achievements include profound insights and illuminating thoughts that transcend cosmic categories, unparalleled imagination and fantastic flights of fancy, fundamental breakthroughs in mathematical thought and the development of ethical criteria that range from the purely pragmatic to the impractically idealistic. The limitless cultural richness of the Indian subcontinent may be seen in art and music and science, in philosophy, poetry and even pornography, in grammar and in gourmandize, in stories both sinful and sacred.
An acquaintance with aspects of India’s heritage gives one cultural enrichment, intellectual excitement, and spiritual vision also. To people of Indian heritage beyond the shores of India it should be especially fulfilling to get to know these, if only because all this is part of an ancient family album, filled with images and memories that it would be tragic to lose altogether.
In the culture wars of the modern world, when one seeks to protect and preserve the treasures of one’s culture against inroads from alien sources, one also tends sometimes to defend the indefensible, condone the inexcusable, and attribute everything that is negative to foreign intrusions. This may be soothing at best, but it is misguided in motivation, for it is only when a civilization looks critically at itself that it grows to even greater heights. Or also there can only uncreative celebration of the past and stagnation in the present.
So we recognize that, as elsewhere in human history, there have been atrocities, absurdities, and injustices perpetrated within the framework of Hindu society and culture. The motivation for our look into India’s rich heritage is to be informed and enriched by whatever is interesting and meaningful in that limitless treasure-chest of culture and history.
Spurts of Thought 