The Discovery of India

by Jawaharlal Nehru

T.E. Lawrence says that ‘the common base of all semitic creeds, winners or losers, was the ever present idea of world-worthlessness.’ And this often led to an alternation of self-indulgence and self-denial.

Indulge in right action with all your strength and energy, it said, but keep above it, and do not worry much about the results of such action. Thus it taught detachment in life and action, not abstention from them.

The central idea of old Indian civilization, or Indo-Aryan culture, was that of dharma, which was something much more than religion or creed; it was a conception of obligations, of the discharge of one’s duties to oneself and to others.

The Upanishads are instinct with a spirit of inquiry, of mental adventure, of a passion for finding out the truth about things. The search for this truth is, of course, not by the objective methods of modern science, yet there is an element of the scientific method in the approach. No dogma is allowed to come in the way.

There are many ambiguities in the Upanishads and different interpretations have been made. But that is a matter for the philosopher or scholar. The general tendency is towards monism and the whole approach is evidently intended to lessen the differences that must have existed then, leading to fierce debate. It is the way of synthesis.

There is a question in the Upanishads to which a very curious and yet significant answer is given. ‘The question is: “What is this universe? From what does it arise? Into what does it go?” And the answer is: “In freedom it rises, in freedom it rests, and into freedom it melts away.’”

We take for granted so many things today because we are used to them although they are curious and unreasonable enough. But what we are not used to at all is much more difficult to appreciate or understand.

A creative minority is always small in numbers but, if it is in tune with the majority, and is always trying to pull the latter up and make it advance, so that the gap between the two is lessened, a stable and progressive culture results. Without that creative minority a civilization must inevitably decay.

If an ancient Indian of the time of the Upanishad, of the Buddha, or the later classical age were to be set down in modern India … he would see his race clinging to forms and shells and rags of the past and missing nine-tenths of its nobler meaning … he would be amazed by the extent of the mental poverty, the immobility, the static repetition, the cessation of science, the long sterility of art, the comparative feebleness of the creative intuition.

The period in India after the Mahabharata war, with its seemingly chaotic mental atmosphere, reminds one of the post-Hellenic period of Greece. There was a vulgarization of ideals and then a groping for new philosophies. Politically and economically similar internal changes might have been taking place, such as the weakening of the tribal republic and city state and the tendency to centralize state power.

Indian mythology is not confined to the epics; it goes back to the Vedic period and appears in many forms and garbs in Sanskrit literature. The poets and the dramatists take full advantage of it and build their stories and lovely fancies round it.

Facts and fiction are so interwoven together as to be inseparable, and this amalgam becomes an imagined history, which may not tell us exactly what happened but does tell us something that is equally important—what people believed had taken place, what they thought their heroic ancestors were capable of, and what ideals inspired them.

Great as the Ramayana is as an epic poem, and loved by the people, it is really the Mahabharata that is one of the outstanding books of the world. It is a colossal work, an encyclopaedia of tradition and legend, and political and social institutions of ancient India.

Yet dharma itself is relative and depends on the times and the conditions prevailing, apart from some basic principles, such as adherence to truth, non-violence, etc. These principles endure and do not change, but otherwise dharma, that amalgam of duties and responsibilities, changes with the changing age.

The message of the Gita is not sectarian or addressed to any particular school of thought. It is universal in its approach for everyone, Brahmin or outcaste: ‘All paths lead to Me,’ it says.

Nevertheless, the old Indians, unlike other ancient nations, had vast conceptions of time and space. They thought in a big way. Even their mythology deals with ages of hundreds of millions of years. To them the vast periods of modern geology or the astronomical distances of the stars would not have come as a surprise.

Both Jainism and Buddhism were breakaways from the Vedic religion and its offshoots, though in a sense they had grown out of it. They deny the authority of the Vedas and, most fundamental of all matters, they deny or say nothing about the existence of a first cause.

Buddha did not attack caste directly, yet in his own order he did not recognize it, and there is no doubt that his whole attitude and activity weakened the caste system.

Chanakya’s Arthashastra deals with a vast variety of subjects and covers almost every aspect of the theory and practice of government. It discusses the duties of the king, of his ministers and councillors, of council meetings, of departments of government, of diplomacy, of war and peace.

‘If by the absolute is meant something out of relation to all known things, its existence cannot be established by any known reasoning. How can we know that anything unrelated to other things exists at all? The whole universe, as we know it, is a system of relations: we know nothing that is, or can be, unrelated.’

The rational ethical doctrine had become overlaid with so much verbiage, so much ceremonial, canon law, so much, in spite of the Buddha, metaphysical doctrine and even magic. Despite Buddha’s warning, they had deified him, and his huge images, in the temples and elsewhere, looked down upon me and I wondered what he would have thought.

Amidst the tens of thousands of names of monarchs that crowd the columns of history, their majesties and graciousnesses and serenities and royal highnesses and the like, the name of Ashoka shines, and shines almost alone, a star. From the Volga to Japan his name is still honoured. China, Tibet, and even India, though it has left his doctrine, preserve the tradition of his greatness. More living men cherish his memory today than have ever heard the names of Constantine or Charlemagne.

The foreign elements which had been absorbed were accepted, but all new-comers met with a vigorous resistance, and an attempt was made to build up a homogenous state based on old Brahminic ideals. But the old self-assurance was going and these ideals began to develop a rigidity which was foreign to their nature. India seemed to draw into her shell, both physically and mentally.

But Buddhism was essentially international, a world religion, and as it developed and spread it became increasingly so. Thus it was natural for the old Brahminic faith to become the symbol again and again of nationalist revivals.

The repeated invasions of North India did not affect the South directly. Indirectly they led to many people from the north migrating to the south and these included builders and craftsmen and artisans. The south thus became a centre of the old artistic traditions while the north was more affected by new currents which the invaders brought with them. This process was accelerated in later centuries and the south became the stronghold of Hindu orthodoxy.

There are myriad ideas that float about like flotsam and jetsam on the surface of India, and many of them are mutually antagonistic. It is easy to pick out any group of them to justify a particular thesis; equally easy to choose another group to demolish

There is perhaps a certain conflict always between the idea of progress and that of security and stability. The two do not fit in, the former wants change, the latter a safe unchanging haven and a continuation of things as they are.

It is interesting to note that while Indian philosophy is highly individualistic and deals almost entirely with the individual’s growth to some kind of inner perfection, the Indian social structure was communal and paid attention to groups only. The individual was allowed perfect freedom to think and believe what he liked, but he had to conform strictly to social and communal usage.

The racial origins of some of our people can be traced back with a certain definiteness, of others it is not possible to do so. But whatever the origin might have been, all of them have become distinctively Indian, participating jointly with others in India’s culture and looking back on her past traditions as their own.

The Vedic religion had much in common with Zoroastrianism, and Vedic Sanskrit and the old Pahlavi, the language of the Avesta, closely resemble each other. Classical Sanskrit and Persian developed separately but many of their root-words were common, as some are common to all the Aryan languages.

Old Greece, for all its brilliance, had a short life; it did not survive except in its splendid achievements, its influence on succeeding cultures, and the memory of that short bright day of abundant life. Perhaps because it was too much engrossed in the present, it became the past.

India, it is said, is religious, philosophical, speculative, metaphysical, unconcerned with this world, and lost in dreams of the beyond and the hereafter. So we are told, and perhaps those who tell us so would like India to remain plunged in thought and entangled in speculation, so that they might possess this world and the fullness thereof, unhindered by these thinkers, and take their joy of it.

The human mind appears to have a passion for finding out some kind of unity in life, in nature and the universe. That desire, whether it is justified or not, must fulfil some essential need of the mind. The old philosophers were ever seeking this, and even modern scientists are impelled by this urge. All our schemes and planning, our ideas of education and social and political organization, have at their back the search for unity and harmony.

Poetical fluency is not rare; intellectual grasp is not very uncommon: but the combination of the two has not been found perhaps more than a dozen times since the world began.

Man learns by suffering, he learns how to face life, but he learns also that the ultimate mystery remains and he cannot find an answer to his questions or solve the riddle of good and evil.

Sanskrit is a language amazingly rich, efflorescent, full of luxuriant growth of all kinds, and yet precise and strictly keeping within the framework of grammar which Panini laid down two thousand six hundred years ago. It spread out, added to its richness, became fuller and more ornate, but always it stuck to its original roots.

A language is something infinitely greater than grammar and philology. It is the poetic testament of the genius of a race and a culture, and the living embodiment of the thoughts and fancies that have moulded them.

Translations, I suppose, from the Indian classics will continue to appear, and scholars will see to it that the Sanskrit words and names are properly spelt and have all the necessary diacritical marks, and that there are plenty of notes and explanations and comparisons. There will be everything, in fact, literally and conscientiously rendered, only the living spirit will be missing. What was a thing of life and joy, so lovely and musical and full of imaginative daring, will become old and flat and stale, with neither youth nor beauty, but with only the dust of the scholar’s study and the smell of midnight oil.

The age which gave birth to the Buddha had been one of tremendous mental ferment and philosophic inquiry in India. And not in India only for that was the age of Lao-tze and Confucius, of Zoroaster and Pythagoras. In India it gave rise to materialism as well as to the Bhagavad Gita, to Buddhism and Jainism, and to many others currents of thought which were subsequently to consolidate themselves in the various systems of Indian philosophy. There were different strata of thought, one leading to another, and sometimes overlapping each other.

This absolute is often referred to in Buddhist philosophy as Shunyata or nothingness (Shunya is the word for the zero mark) yet it is something very different from our conception of vacancy or nothingness.10 In our world of experience we have to call it nothingness for there is no other word for it, but in terms of metaphysical reality it means something transcendent and immanent in all things.

Four definite schools of philosophy developed in Buddhism, two of these belonged to the Hinayana branch, and two to the Mahayana. All these Buddhist systems of philosophy have their origin in the Upanishads, but they do not accept the authority of the Vedas.

So in our lives and in our human relations we have to conform to ethics and live the good life. To that life and to this phenomenal world we can and should apply reason and knowledge and experience. The infinite, or whatever it may be called, lies somewhere in the beyond and to it therefore these cannot be applied.

There is nothing in Buddha’s teachings that cannot be reconciled with the wide-flung range of Hindu thought. But when Brahmin supremacy was attacked it was a different matter.

The caste system in the time of the Buddha was flexible and had not developed the rigidity of later periods. More importance was attached to capacity, character, and occupation, than to birth.

Brahminism made of Buddha an avatar, a God. So did Buddhism. The Mahayana doctrine spread rapidly but it lost in quality and distinctiveness what it gained in extent.

Though one thought leads to another, each usually related to life’s changing texture, and a logical movement of the human mind is sometimes discernible; yet thoughts overlap and the new and the old run side by side, irreconcilable and often contradicting each other. Even an individual’s mind is a bundle of contradictions and it is difficult to reconcile his actions one with another.

It is astonishing to find in countries industrially advanced, where every person automatically uses or takes advantage of the latest modern discovery or device, beliefs and set ideas which reason denies and intelligence cannot accept.

We cling still to the ways of dogmatic religion, adhere to outworn practices and beliefs, and yet talk and presume to live in terms of the scientific method. Perhaps science has been too narrow in its approach to life and has ignored many vital aspects of it, and hence it could not provide a suitable basis for a new unity and harmony.

Metaphysical theories and speculations deal not with the ever-changing stuff of life but with the permanent reality behind it, if such exists. Hence they have a certain permanence which is not affected by external changes. But, inevitably, they are the products of the environment in which they grow and of the state of development of the human minds that conceived them.

In Samkhya thus there is neither a personal God nor an impersonal one, neither monotheism nor monism. Its approach was atheistic and it undermined the foundations of a supernatural religion. There is no creation of the universe by a god, but rather a constant evolution, the product of interaction between spirit, or rather spirits, and matter, though that matter itself is of the nature of energy. This evolution is a continuous process.