The Discovery of India

by Jawaharlal Nehru

Buddha had the courage to attack popular religion, superstition, ceremonial, and priestcraft, and all the vested interests that clung to them. He condemned also the metaphysical and theological outlook, miracles, revelations, and dealings with the supernatural. His appeal was to logic, reason, and experience; his emphasis was on ethics, and his method was one of psychological analysis, a psychology without a soul. His whole approach comes like the breath of the fresh wind from the mountains after the stale air of metaphysical speculation.

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It is obvious that a caste-ridden community could not indulge in foreign trade or other foreign adventures, and yet for fifteen hundred years or more after Buddha, trade was developing between India and neighbouring countries, and Indian colonies flourished. Foreign elements continued to stream into India from the north-west and were absorbed. It is interesting to observe this process of absorption which worked at both ends. New castes were formed at the bottom of the scale, and any successful invading element became transformed soon into Kshatriyas or the ruling class.

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Many of the Rajput Kshatriya clans date back to the Shaka or Scythian invasions which began about the second century BC or from the later invasion of the White Huns.

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Yagnavalkya, is reported to have said: ‘It is not our religion, still less the colour of our skin, that produces virtue; virtue must be practised. Therefore, let no one do to others that he would not have done to himself.’

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Oxus river in Central Asia formed a link in an important chain along which Indian goods were carried to Europe by way of the Caspian and the Black Sea. This route was popular in the third century BC. Central Asia then was rich and fertile, More than a thousand years later it began to dry up. The Arthashastra mentions that the king’s stud had ‘Arabian steeds’!

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Buddhism spread rapidly in India from Kashmir to Ceylon. It penetrated into Nepal and later reached Tibet and China and Mongolia. In India, one of the consequences of this was the growth of vegetarianism and abstention from alcoholic drinks. Till then both Brahmins and Kshatriyas often ate meat and took wine.

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