{"id":3244,"date":"2013-07-13T01:46:55","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:46:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3244"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:46:55","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:46:55","slug":"03-is-india-civilised-vol-the-foundations-of-indian-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/02-other-editions\/the-foundations-of-indian-culture\/03-is-india-civilised-vol-the-foundations-of-indian-culture","title":{"rendered":"-03_Is India Civilised.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\n
\nIS INDIA CIVILISED ?<\/b> <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nCHAPTER II<\/b> <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nTHIS<\/font> question of Indian
\ncivilisation, once it has raised this greater issue, shifts from its narrow
\nmeaning and disappears into a much larger problem. Does the future of humanity
\nlie in a culture founded solely upon reason and science ? Is the progress of
\nhuman life the effort of a mind, a continuous collective mind constituted by an
\never changing sum of transient individuals, that has emerged from the darkness
\nof the inconscient material universe and is stumbling about in it in search of
\nsome clear light and some sure support amid its difficulties and problems ? And
\ndoes civilisation consist in man’s endeavour to find that light and support in a
\nrationalised knowledge and a rationalised way of life ? An ordered knowledge of
\nthe powers, forces, possibilities of physical Nature and of the psychology of
\nman as a mental and physical being is then the only true science. An ordered use
\nof that knowledge for a progressive social efficiency and well-being, which will
\nmake his brief existence more efficient, more tolerable, more comfortable,
\nhappier, better appointed, more luxuriously enriched with the pleasures of the
\nmind, life and body, is the only true art of life. All our philosophy, all our
\nreligion,\u2014supposing religion has not been outgrown and rejected,\u2014all our
\nscience, thought, art, social structure, law and institution must found itself
\nupon this idea of existence and must serve this one aim and endeavour. This is
\nthe formula which European civilisation has accepted and is still labouring to
\nbring into some kind of realisation. It is the formula of an intelligently
\nmechanised civilisation supporting a rational and utilitarian culture, <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-16 <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nOr is not the truth of our being rather that of a
\nSoul embodied in Nature which is seeking to know itself, to find itself, to
\nenlarge its consciousness, to arrive at a greater way of existence, to progress
\nin the spirit and grow into the full light of self-knowledge and some divine
\ninner perfection ? Are not religion, philosophy, science, thought, art, society,
\nall life even means only of this growth, instruments of the spirit to be used
\nfor its service and with this spiritual aim as their dominant or at least their
\nultimate preoccupation ? That is the idea of life and being,\u2014the knowledge of
\nit, as she claims,\u2014 for which India stood till yesterday and still strives to
\nstand with all that is most persistent and powerful in her nature. It is the
\nformula of a spiritualised civilisation striving through the perfection but also
\nthrough an exceeding of mind, life and body towards a high soul-culture. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nWhether the future hope of the race lies in a
\nrational and an intelligently mechanised or in a spiritual, intuitive and
\nreligious civilisation and culture,\u2014that, then, is the important issue. When the
\nrationalist critic denies that India is or ever has been civilised, when he
\ndeclares the Upanishads, the Vedanta, Buddhism, Hinduism, ancient Indian art and
\npoetry a mass of barbarism, the vain production of a persistently barbaric mind,
\nwhat he means is simply that civilisation is synonymous and identical with the
\ncult and practice of the materialistic reason and that anything which falls
\nbelow or goes above that standard does not deserve the name. A too metaphysical
\nphilosophy, a too religious religion,\u2014if not indeed all philosophy and all
\nreligion,\u2014any too idealistic and all mystic thought and art and every kind of
\noccult knowledge, all that refines and probes beyond the limited purview of the
\nreason dealing with the physical universe and seems therefore to it bizarre,
\nover-subtle, excessive, unintelligible, all that responds to the sense of the
\nInfinite, all that is obsessed with the idea of the Eternal, and a society which
\nis too much governed by ideas born of these things and not solely by <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-17<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nintellectual clarity and the pursuit of a material
\ndevelopment and efficiency, are not the products of civilisation, but the
\noffspring of a crudely subtle barbarism. But this thesis obviously proves too
\nmuch; most of the great past of humanity would fall under its condemnation. Even
\nancient Greek culture would not escape it; much of the thought and art of modem
\nEuropean civilisation itself would in that case have to be damned as at least
\nsemibarbarous. Evidently, we cannot without falling into exaggeration and
\nabsurdity narrow the sense of the word and impoverish the significance of the
\npast strivings of the race. Indian civilisation in the past has been and must be
\nrecognised as the fruit of a great culture, quite as much as the Graeco-Roman,
\nthe Christian, the Islamic <\/b> or the later Renaissance civilisation of
\nEurope. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nBut the essential question remains open; the
\ndispute is only narrowed to its central issue. A more moderate and perspicacious
\nrationalistic critic would admit the past value of India’s achievements. He
\nwould not condemn Buddhism and Vedanta and all Indian art and philosophy and
\nsocial ideas as barbarous, but he would still contend that not there lies any
\nfuture good for the human race. The true line of advance lies through European
\nmodernism, the mighty works of Science and the great modern adventure of
\nhumanity, its effort well founded not upon speculation and imagination but on
\nascertained and tangible scientific truth, its laboriously increased riches of
\nsure and firmly tested scientific organisation. An Indian mind faithful to its
\nideals would contend on the contrary that while reason and science and all other
\nauxiliaries have their place in the human effort, the real truth goes beyond
\nthem. The secret of our ultimate perfection is to be discovered deeper within us
\nand things and Nature; it is to be sought centrally in spiritual self-knowledge
\nand perfection and in the founding of life on that self-knowledge. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nWhen the issue is so stated, we can at once see
\nthat the gulf between East and West, India and Europe is much less <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-18<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nprofound and unbridgeable now than it was thirty or
\nforty years ago. The basic difference still remains; the life of the West is
\nstill chiefly governed by the rationalistic idea and a materialistic
\npreoccupation. But at the summits of thought and steadily penetrating more and
\nmore downward through art and poetry and music and general literature an immense
\nchange is in progress. A reaching towards deeper things, an increasing return of
\nseekings which had been banished, an urge towards higher experience yet
\nunrealised, an admission of ideas long foreign to the Western mentality can be
\nseen everywhere. Aiding this process and aided by it there has been a certain
\ninfiltration of Indian and Eastern thought and influence; even here and there we
\nfind some growing recognition of the high value or the superior greatness of the
\nancient spiritual ideal. This infiltration began at a very early stage of the
\nnear contact between the farther Orient and Europe of which the English
\noccupation of India was the most direct occasion. But at first it was a slight
\nand superficial touch, at most an intellectual influence on a few superior
\nminds. An academic interest or an attracted turn of scholars and thinkers
\ntowards Vedanta, Sankhya, Buddhism, admiration for the subtlety and largeness of
\nIndian philosophic idealism, the stamp left by the Upanishads and the Gita on
\ngreat intellects like Schopenhauer and Emerson and on a few lesser thinkers,
\nthis was the first narrow inlet of the floods. The impression did not go very
\nfar at the best and the little effect it might have produced was counteracted
\nand even effaced for a time by the great flood of scientific materialism which
\nsubmerged the whole life-view of later nineteenth century Europe. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nBut now other movements have arisen and laid hold
\non thought and life with a triumphant success. Philosophy and thought have taken
\na sharp curve away from rationalistic materialism and its confident absolutisms.
\nOn the one hand, as a first consequence of the seeking for a larger thought and
\nvision of the universe, Indian Monism has taken a subtle but <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-19<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\npowerful hold on many minds, though often in
\nstrange disguises. On the other hand new philosophies have been born, not indeed
\ndirectly spiritual, vitalistic rather and pragmatic, but yet by their greater
\nsubjectivity already nearer to Indian ways of thinking. The old limits of
\nscientific interest have begun to break down; various forms of psychical
\nresearch and novel departures in psychology and even an interest in psychism and
\noccultism, have come into increasing vogue and fasten more and more their hold
\nin spite of the anathemas of orthodox religion and orthodox science. Theosophy
\nwith its comprehensive combinations of old and new beliefs and its appeal to
\nancient spiritual and psychic systems, has everywhere exercised an influence far
\nbeyond the circle of its professed adherents. Opposed for a long time with
\nobloquy and ridicule, it has done much to spread the belief in Karma,
\nreincarnation, other planes of existence, the evolution of the embodied soul
\nthrough intellect and psyche to spirit, ideas which once accepted must change
\nthe whole attitude towards life. Even Science itself is constantly arriving at
\nconclusions which only repeat upon the physical plane and in its language truths
\nwhich ancient India had already affirmed from the standpoint of spiritual
\nknowledge in the tongue of the Veda and Vedanta. Every one of these advances
\nleads directly or in its intrinsic meaning towards a nearer approach between the
\nmind of East and West and to that extent to a likelihood of a better
\nunderstanding of Indian thought and ideals. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nIn some directions the change of attitude has gone
\nremark ably far and seems to<\/b> be constantly increasing. A Christian
\nmissionary quoted by Sir John Woodroffe is "amazed to find the extent to which
\nHindu Pantheism has begun to permeate the religious conceptions of Germany, of
\nAmerica, even of England" and he considers its cumulative effect an imminent
\n"danger" to the next generation. Another writer cited by him goes so far as to
\nattribute all the highest philosophical thought <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-20<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nof Europe to the previous thinking of the Brahmins
\nand affirms even that all modem solutions of intellectual problems will be found
\nanticipated in the East. A distinguished French psychologist recently told an
\nIndian visitor that India had already laid down all the large lines and main
\ntruths, the broad schema, of a genuine psychology and all that Europe can now do
\nis to fill them in with exact details and scientific verifications. These
\nutterances are the extreme indications of a growing change of which the drift is
\nunmistakable. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nNor is it only in philosophy and the higher
\nthinking that this turn is visible. European art has moved in certain directions
\nfar away from its old moorings; it is developing a new eye and opening in its
\nown manner to motives which until now were held in honour only in the East.
\nEastern art and decoration have begun to be widely appreciated and have
\nexercised a strong if subtle influence. Poetry has for some time commenced to
\nspeak uncertainly a new language,\u2014note that the worldwide fame of Tagore would
\nhave been un thinkable thirty years ago,\u2014and one often finds the verse even of
\nordinary writers teeming with thoughts and expressions which could formerly have
\nfound few parallels outside Indian, Buddhistic and Sufi poets. And there are
\nsome first preliminary signs of a similar phenomenon in general literature. More
\nand more the seekers of new truth are finding their spiritual home in India or
\nowe to her much of their inspiration or at least acknowledge her light and
\nundergo her influence. If this turn continues to accentuate its drive, and there
\nis little chance of a reversion, the spiritual and intellectual gulf between
\nEast and West if not filled up, will at least be bridged and the defence of
\nIndian culture and ideals will stand in a stronger position. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nBut then, it maybe said, if there is this certainty
\nof an approximative understanding, what is the need of an aggressive defence of
\nIndian culture or of any defence at all ? Indeed, what is the need for the
\ncontinuance of any distinctive Indian <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-21<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\ncivilisation in the future ? East and West will
\nmeet from two opposite sides and merge in each other and found in the life of a
\nunified humanity a common world-culture. All previous or existing forms,
\nsystems, variations will fuse in this new amalgam and find their fulfilment. But
\nthe problem is not so easy, not so harmoniously simple. For, even if we could
\nassume that in a united world-culture there would be no spiritual need and no
\nvital utility for strong distinctive variations, we are still very far from any
\nsuch oneness. The subjective and spiritual turn of the more advanced modern
\nthought is still confined to a minority and has only very superficially coloured
\nthe general intelligence of Europe. Moreover, it is a movement of the thought
\nonly, the great life-motives of European civilisation stand as yet where they
\nwere. There is a greater pressure of certain idealistic elements in the pro
\nposed reshaping of human relations, but they have not shaken off or even
\nloosened the yoke of the immediate materialistic past. It is precisely at this
\ncritical moment and in these conditions that the whole human world, India
\nincluded, is about to be forced into the stress and travail of a swift
\ntransformation. The danger is that the pressure of dominant European ideas and
\nmotives, the temptations of the political needs of the hour, the velocity of
\nrapid inevitable change will leave no time for the growth of sound thought and
\nspiritual reflection and may strain to bursting-point the old Indian cultural
\nand social system, and shatter this ancient civilisation before India has had
\ntime to readjust her mental stand and outlook or<\/b> to reject, remould or
\nreplace the forms that can no longer meet her environmental national
\nnecessities, create new characteristic powers and figures and find a firm basis
\nfor a swift evolution in the sense of her own spirit and ideals. In that event a
\nrationalised and Westernised India, a brown ape of Europe, might emerge from the
\nchaos, keeping some elements only of her ancient thought to modify, but no
\nlonger to shape and govern her total existence. Like other countries she would <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-22<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nhave passed into the mould of occidental modernism,
\nancient India would have perished. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nCertain minds would see in this contingency no
\ndisaster, but rather a most desirable turn and a happy event. It would mean, in
\ntheir view, that India had given up her spiritual separation and undergone the
\nmuch needed intellectual and moral change that would at least entitle her to
\nenter into the comity of modern peoples. And since in the new world-comity there
\nwould enter an increasing spiritual and subjective element and much perhaps of
\nIndia’s own religious and philosophical thought would be appropriated by its
\nculture, the disappearance of her antique spirit and personal self-expression
\nneed be no absolute loss. Ancient India would have passed like ancient Greece,
\nleaving its contribution to a new and more largely progressive life of the race.
\nBut the absorption of the Graeco-Roman culture by the later European world, even
\nthough many of its elements still survive in a larger and more complex
\ncivilisation, was yet attended with serious diminutions. There was a deplorable
\nloss of its high and clear intellectual order, a still more calamitous perdition
\nof the ancient cult of beauty, and even now after so many centuries there has
\nbeen no true recovery of the lost spirit. A much greater diminution of the
\nworld’s riches would result from the disappearance of a distinctive Indian
\ncivilisation; because the difference between its standpoint and that of European
\nmodernism is deeper, its spirit unique and the rich mass and diversity of its
\nthousand lines of inner experience a heritage that still India alone can
\npreserve in its intricate truth and dynamic order. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe tendency of the normal Western mind is to live
\nfrom below upward and from out inward. A strong foundation is taken in the vital
\nand material nature and higher powers are invoked and admitted only to modify
\nand partially uplift the natural terrestrial life. The inner existence is formed
\nand governed by the external powers. India’s constant aim <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-23<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nhas been on the contrary to find a basis of living
\nin the higher spiritual truth and to live from the inner spirit outwards, to
\nexceed the present way of mind, life and body, to command and dictate to
\nexternal Nature. As the old Vedic seers put it, "Their divine foundation was
\nabove even while they stood below, let its rays be settled deep within us,"
\nnīcīnāh sthur upari budhna esām, asme antar nihitāh ketavah syuh.<\/i> Now that
\ndifference is no unimportant subtletly but of a great and penetrating practical
\nconsequence. And we can see how Europe would deal with any spiritual influence,
\nby her treatment of Christianity and its inner rule which she never really
\naccepted as the law of her life. It was admitted but only as an ideal and
\nemotional influence and used only to chasten and give some spiritual colouring
\nto the vital vigour of the Teuton and the intellectual clarity and sensuous
\nrefinement of the Latins. Any new spiritual development she might accept would
\nbe taken in the same way and used to a like limited and superficial purpose, if
\nan insistent living culture were not there in the world to challenge this lesser
\nideal and insist on the true life of the spirit. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nIt may well be that both tendencies, the mental and
\nthe vital and physical stress of Europe and the spiritual and psychic impulse of
\nIndia, are needed for the completeness of the human movement. But if the
\nspiritual ideal points the final way to a triumphant harmony of manifested life,
\nthen it is all-important for India not to lose hold of the truth, not to give up
\nthe highest she knows and barter it away for a perhaps more readily practicable
\nbut still lower ideal alien to her true and constant nature. It is important too
\nfor humanity that a great collective effort to realise this highest
\nideal\u2014however imperfect it may have been, into whatever confusion and
\ndegeneration it may temporarily have fallen,\u2014should not cease, but continue.
\nAlways it can recover its force and enlarge its expression; for the spirit is
\nnot bound to temporal forms but ever-new, immortal and infinite. A new creation
\nof the old Indian svadharma,<\/i> not a transmutation <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-24<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nto<\/b> some law of the Western nature, is our best
\nway to serve and increase the sum of human progress. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThere arises the necessity of a defence and a
\nstrong, even an aggressive defence; for only an aggressive defence can be
\neffective in the conditions of the modern struggle. But here we find ourselves
\nbrought up against an opposite turn of mind and its stark obstructive temper.
\nFor there are plenty of Indians now who are for a stubbornly static defence, and
\nwhatever aggressiveness they put into it consists in a rather vulgar and
\nunthinking cultural Chauvinism which holds that whatever we have is good for us
\nbecause it is Indian or even that whatever is in India is best, because it is
\nthe creation of the Rishis. As if all the later clumsy and chaotic developments
\nwere laid down by those much misused, much misapplied and often very much forged
\nfounders of our culture. But the question is whether a static defence is of any
\neffective value. I hold that it is of no value, because it is inconsistent with
\nthe truth of things and doomed to failure. It amounts to. an attempt to sit
\nstubbornly still while the Shakti of the world is rapidly moving on her way, and
\nnot only the Shakti of the world but the Shakti in India also. It is a
\ndetermination to live only on our past cultural capital, to eke it out, small as
\nit has grown in our wasteful and incompetent hands, to the last anna : but to
\nlive on our capital without using it for fresh gains is to end in bankruptcy and
\npauperism. The past has to be used and spent as mobile and current capital for
\nsome larger profit, acquisition and development of the future : but to gain we
\nmust release, we must part with some thing in order to grow and live more
\nrichly,\u2014that is the universal law of existence. Otherwise the life within us
\nwill stagnate and perish in its immobile torpor. Thus to shrink from enlargement
\nand change is too a false confession of impotence. It is to hold that India’s
\ncreative capacity in religion and in philosophy came to an end with Shankara,
\nRamanuja, Madhwa and Chaitanya and in social construction <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-25<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nwith Raghunandan and Vidyaranya. It is to rest in
\nart and poetry either in a blank and uncreative void or in a vain and lifeless
\nrepetition of beautiful but spent forms and motives. It is to cling to social
\nforms that are crumbling and will continue  to crumble in spite of our
\nefforts and risk to be crushed in their collapse. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe objection to any large change\u2014for a large and
\nbold change is needed and no peddling will serve our purpose \u2014can be given a
\nplausible turn only if we rest it on the contention that the forms of a culture
\nare the right rhythm of its spirit and in breaking the rhythm we may expel the
\nspirit and dissipate the harmony for ever. Yes, but though the Spirit is eternal
\nin its essence and in the fundamental principles of its harmony immutable, the
\nactual rhythm of its self-expression in form is ever mutable. Immutable in its
\nbeing and in the powers of its being but richly mutable in life, that is the
\nvery nature of the Spirit’s manifested existence. And we have to see too whether
\nthe actual rhythm of the moment is still a harmony or whether it has not become
\nin the hands of an inferior and ignorant orchestra a discord and no longer
\nexpresses rightly or sufficiently the ancient spirit. To recognise defect in the
\nform is not to deny the inherent spirit; it is rather the condition for moving
\non ward to a greater future amplitude, a more perfect realisation, a happier
\noutflow of the Truth we harbour. Whether we shall actually find a greater
\nexpression than the past gave us, depends on our own selves, on our capacity of
\nresponse to the eternal Power and Wisdom and the illumination of the Shakti
\nwithin us and on our skill in works, the skill that comes by unity with the
\neternal Spirit we are in the measure of our light labouring to express, yogah
\nkarmasu kausalam.<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThis from the standpoint of Indian culture, and
\nthat must be always for us the first consideration and the intrinsic standpoint.
\nBut there is also the standpoint of the pressure of the Time Spirit upon us. For
\nthis too is the action of the <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-26<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nuniversal Shakti and cannot be ignored, held at
\narm’s length or forbidden entrance. Here too the policy of new creation imposes
\nitself as the true and only effective way. Even if to stand still and stiff
\nwithin our well-defended gates were desirable, it is no longer possible. We can
\nno longer take our single station apart in humanity, isolated like a solitary
\nisland in the desert ocean, neither going forth nor allowing to enter in;\u2014if
\nindeed we ever did it. For good or for ill the world is with us; the flood of
\nmodern ideas and forces are pouring in and will take no denial. There are two
\nways of meeting them, either to offer a forlorn and hopeless resistance or to
\nseize and subjugate them. If we offer only an inert or stub born passive
\nresistance, they will still come in on us, break down our defences where they
\nare weakest, sap them where they are stiffer, and where they can do neither,
\nsteal in un known or ill-apprehended by underground mind and tunnel. Entering
\nunassimilated they will act as disruptive forces, and it will be only partly by
\noutward attack but much more by an inward explosion that this ancient Indian
\ncivilisation will? be shattered to pieces. Ominous sparks are already beginning
\nto run about which nobody knows how to extinguish, and if we could extinguish
\nthem, we should be no better off, for we should yet have to deal with the source
\nfrom which they are starting. Even the most rigid defenders of the present in
\nthe name of the past show in their every word how strongly they have been
\naffected by new ways of thinking. Many if not most are calling passionately,
\ncalling inevitably for innovations in certain fields, changes European in spirit
\nand method which once admitted without some radical assimilation and
\nIndianisation, will end by breaking up the whole social structure they think
\nthey are defending. That arises from confusion of thought and an incapacity of
\npower. Because we are unable to think and create in certain fields, we are
\nobliged to borrow without assimilation or with only an illusory pretence of
\nassimilation. Because we cannot see the <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-27<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nwhole sense of what we are doing from a high inner
\nand commanding point of vision, we are busy bringing together disparates without
\nany saving reconciliation. A slow combustion and swift explosion are likely to
\nbe the end of our efforts. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nAggressive defence implies a new creation from this
\ninner and commanding vision and while it demands a bringing of what we have to a
\nmore expressive force of form, it must allow also an effective assimilation of
\nwhatever is useful to our new life and can be made harmonious with our spirit.
\nBattle, shock and struggle themselves are no vain destruction; they are a
\nviolent cover for Time’s great interchanges. Even the most successful victor
\nreceives much from the vanquished and if sometimes he appropriates it, as often
\nit takes him prisoner. The Western attack is not confined to a breaking down of
\nthe forms of Eastern culture; there is at the same time a large, subtle and
\nsilent appropriation of much that is valuable in the East for the enrichment of
\nOccidental culture. Therefore to bring forward the glories of our past and
\nscatter on Europe and America as much of its treasures as they will receive,
\nwill not save us. That liberality will enrich and strengthen our cultural
\nassailants, but for us it will only serve to give a self-confidence which will
\nbe useless and even misleading if it is not made a force of will for a greater
\ncreation. What we have to do is to front the attack with new and more powerful
\nformations which will not only throw it back, but even, where that is possible
\nand helpful to the race, carry the war into the assailant’s country. At the same
\ntime we must take by a strong creative assimilation whatever answers to our own
\nneeds and responds to the Indian spirit. In certain directions, as yet all too
\nfew, we have begun both these movements. In others we have simply created an
\nunintelligent mixture or else have taken and are still taking over rash, crude
\nand undigested borrowings, Imitation, a rough and haphazard borrowing of the
\nassailant’s <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-28<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nengines and methods may be temporarily useful, but
\nby itself it is only another way of submitting to conquest. A stark
\nappropriation is not sufficient; successful assimilation to the Indian spirit is
\nthe needed movement. The problem is one of great immediate difficulty and
\nstupendous in its proportions and we have not yet approached it with wisdom and
\ninsight. All the more pressing is the need to awaken to the situation and meet
\nit with original thinking and a conscious action wise and powerful in insight
\nand sure in process. A mastering and helpful assimilation of new stuff into an
\neternal body has always been in the past a peculiar power .of the genius of
\nIndia. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-29<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nCHAPTER III<\/font><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nBut<\/font> there is yet another point of view from which the challenge
\nput in front of us ceases to be an issue crudely and provokingly
\nphrased in a conflict of cultures. Instead it presents itself
\nas a problem with a deep significance, it becomes a thought-provoking suggestion that affects not only ours but all
\ncivilisations still in existence. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nWe can reply on the cultural issue from the view-point
\nof the past and the valuation of different cultures as acquired
\ncontributions to the growth of the human race, that Indian 
\ncivilisation has been the form and expression of a culture as
\ngreat as any of the historic civilisations of mankind, great in
\nreligion, great in philosophy, great in science, great in thought
\nof many kinds, great in literature, art and poetry, great in
\nthe organisation of society and politics, great in craft and
\ntrade and commerce. There have been dark spots, positive
\nimperfections, heavy shortcomings; what civilisation has
\nbeen perfect, which has not had its deep stains and cruel
\nabysses ? There have been considerable lacunae, many blind
\nalleys, much uncultured or ill-cultured ground, what civilisation has been without its unfilled parts, its negative aspects ?
\nBut our ancient civilisation can survive the severest comparisons of either ancient or mediaeval times. More high-reaching, subtle, many-sided, curious and profound than the
\nGreek, more noble and humane than the Roman, more large
\nand spiritual than the old Egyptian, more vast and original
\nthan any other Asiatic civilisation, more intellectual than
\nthe European prior <\/b> to the eighteenth century, possessing all <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage\u201330<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nthat these had and more, it was the most powerful, self-possessed, stimulating and wide in influence of all past human cultures. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nAnd if we look from the vow-point of the present and the fruitful workings of the progressive Time-Spirit, we can
\nsay that even here in spite of our downfall all is not on the
\ndebit side. Many of the forms of our civilisation have become
\ninapt and effete and others stand in need of radical change
\nand renovation. But that ca\\i be said equally well of European
\nculture; for all its recently acquired progressiveness and
\nhabit of more rapid self-adaptation, large parts of it are already
\nrotten and out of date. In spite of all drawbacks and in spite
\nof downfall the spirit of Indian culture, its central ideas, its
\nbest ideals have still their message for humanity and not for
\nIndia alone. And we in India hold that they are capable of
\ndeveloping out of themselves by contact with new need and
\nidea as good and better solutions of the problems before us
\nthan those which are offered to us secondhand from Western
\nsources. But besides the comparisons of the past and the
\nneeds of the present there is too a view-point of the ideal
\nfuture. There are the farther goals towards which humanity
\nis moving, and the present is only a crude aspiration towards
\nthem and the immediate future we now see in hope and strive
\nto bring about in form, only its crude preparatory stage.
\nThere is an unrealised standard of the ideas which to the
\nmind of the moment are figments of Utopia, but may become
\nto a more developed humanity the commonplaces of their
\ndaily environment, the familiar things of the present which
\nthey have to overpass. How stands Indian civilisation with
\nregard to this yet unrealised future of the race ? Are its master
\nideas and dominant powers guiding lights or helping forces
\ntowards it or do they end in themselves with no vistas on the
\nevolutionary potentialities of the earth’s coming ages ? <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe very idea of progress is an illusion to some
\nminds; for they imagine that the race moves constantly in a circle, <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage\u201331<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nOr even their view is that greatness more often than not is
\nto be found in the past and that the line of our movement
\nis a curve of deterioration, a downward lapse. But that is an
\nillusion created when we look too much upon the highlights
\nof the past and forget its shadows or concentrate too much
\non the dark spaces of the present and ignore its powers of
\nlight and its aspects of happier promise. It is created too by
\na mistaken deduction from the phenomenon of an uneven
\nprogress. For Nature effects her evolution through a rhythm
\nof advance and relapse, day and night, waking and sleep; there is, a temporary pushing of certain results at the expense
\nof others not less desirable for perfection and to a superficial
\neye there may seem to be a relapse even in our advance.
\nProgress admittedly does not march on securely in a straight
\nline like a man sure of his familiar way or an army covering
\nan unimpeded terrain or well-mapped unoccupied spaces.
\nHuman progress is very much an adventure through the unknown, an unknown full of surprises and baffling obstacles; it stumbles often, it misses its way at many points, it cedes
\nhere in order to gain there, it retraces its steps frequently in
\norder to get more widely forward. The present does not
\nalways compare favourably with the past, even when it is
\nmore advanced in the mass, it may still be inferior in certain
\ndirections important to our inner or our outer welfare. But
\nearth does move forward after all, epur si muove.<\/i> Even in
\nfailure there is a preparation for success : our nights carry in
\nthem the secret of a greater dawn. This is a frequent experience
\nin our individual progress, but the human collectivity also
\nmoves in much the same manner. The question is whither
\nare we marching or what are the true routes and harbours
\n<\/b>of
\n<\/b>our voyage. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nWestern civilisation is proud of its successful modernism.
\nBut there is much that it has lost in the eagerness of its gains
\nand much which men of old strove towards that it has not
\neven attempted to accomplish. There is much too that it has<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage\u201332 <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nwilfully flung aside in impatience or scorn to its own great
\nloss, to the injury of its life, to the imperfection of its culture.
\nAn ancient Greek of the time of Pericles or the philosophers
\nsuddenly transported in time to this century would be astonished by the immense gains of the intellect and the expansion
\nof the mind, the modern many-sidedness of the reason and
\ninexhaustible habit of inquiry, the power of endless generalisation and precise detail. He would admire without reserve the
\nmiraculous growth of science and its giant discoveries, the
\nabundant power, richness and minuteness of its instrumentation, the wonder-working force of its inventive genius. He
\nwould be overcome and stupefied rather than surprised and
\ncharmed by the enormous stir and pulsation of modem life.
\nBut at the same time he would draw back repelled from its
\nunashamed mass of ugliness and vulgarity, its unchastened
\nexternal utilitarianism, its vitalistic riot and the morbid exaggeration and unsoundness of many of its growths. He would
\nsee in it much ill-disguised evidence of the uneliminated
\nsurvival of the triumphant barbarian. If he recognised it\u00bb
\nintellectuality and the scrupulous application of thought and
\nscientific reason to the machinery of life, he would miss in it
\nhis own later attempt at the clear and noble application of the
\nideal reason to the inner life of the mind and the soul. He
\nwould find that in this civilisation beauty had become an
\nexotic and the shining ideal mind in some fields a debased and
\nexploited slave and in others a neglected stranger. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nAs for the great spiritual seekers of the past, they would
\nexperience in all this huge activity of the intellect and the life
\nthe sense of an aching void. A feeling of its illusion and unreality because that which is greatest in man and raises him
\nbeyond himself had been neglected, would oppress them at
\nevery step. The discovery of the laws of physical Nature would
\nnot compensate in their eyes for the comparative decline\u2014
\nfor a long time it was the almost absolute cessation\u2014of a greater seeking and finding, the discovery of the freedom of the spirit.  <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage\u201333  <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nBut an unbiassed view will prefer to regard this age of
\ncivilisation as an evolutionary stage, an imperfect but important turn of the human advance. It is then possible to see that
\ngreat gains have been made which are of the utmost value to
\nan ultimate perfection, even if they have been made at a great
\nprice. There is not only a greater generalisation of knowledge
\nand the more thorough use of intellectual power and activity
\nin multiple fields. There is not only the advance of Science
\nand its application to the conquest of our environment, an
\nimmense apparatus of means, vast utilisations, endless minute
\nconveniences, an irresistible machinery, a tireless exploitation
\nof forces. There is too a certain development of powerful if
\nnot highpitched ideals and there is an attempt, however external and therefore imperfect, to bring them to bear upon
\nthe working of human society as a whole. Much has been
\ndiminished or lost, but it can be recovered, eventually, if not
\nwith ease. Once restored to its true movement, the inner life
\nof man will find that it has gained in materials, in power of  plasticity, in a new kind of depth and wideness. And we
\nshall have acquired a salutary habit of many-sided thoroughness
\nand a sincere endeavour to shape the outer collective life into
\nan adequate image of our highest ideals. Temporary diminutions will not count before the greater inner expansion that is
\nlikely to succeed this age of external turmoil and outward looking endeavour. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nIf on the other hand an ancient Indian of the time of the
\nUpanishads, the Buddhist period or the later classical age
\nwere to be set down in modern India and note that larger part
\nof its life which belongs to the age of decline, he would experience a much more depressing sensation, the sense of a national, a cultural debacle, a fall from the highest summits to
\ndiscouragingly low levels. He might well ask himself what
\nthis degenerate posterity had done with the mighty civilisation
\nof the past. He would wonder how with so much to inspire,
\nto elevate, to spur them to yet greater accomplishment and <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage\u201334<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nself-exceeding, they could have lapsed into this impotent
\nand inert confusion and, instead of developing the high motives
\nof Indian culture to yet deeper and wider issues, allowed them
\nto overload themselves with ugly accretions, to rust, to rot,
\nalmost to perish. He would see his race clinging to forms and
\nshells and rags of the past and missing nine-tenths of its nobler
\nvalues. He would compare the spiritual light and energy of
\nthe heroic ages of the Upanishads and the philosophies with
\nthe later inertia or small and broken fragmentarily derivative
\nactivity of our philosophic thought. After the intellectual
\ncuriosity, the scientific development, the creative literary and
\nartistic greatness, the noble fecundity of the classical age he
\nwould be amazed by the extent of a later degeneracy, its mental
\npoverty, immobility, static repetition, the comparative feebleness of the creative intuition; the long sterility of art, the cessation of science. He would deplore a prone descent to ignorance, a failing of the old powerful will and tapasyā,<\/i> almost
\na volitional impotence. In place of the simpler and more spiritually rational order of old times he would find a bewildering
\nchaotic disorganised organisation of things without centre
\nand without any large harmonising idea. He would find not a
\ntrue social order but a half arrested, half hastening putrescence.
\nIn place of the great adaptable civilisation which assimilated
\nwith power and was able to return tenfold for what it received,
\nhe would meet a helplessness that bore passively or only with
\na few ineffectual galvanic reactions the forces of the outside
\nworld and the stress of adverse circumstance. At one time he
\nwould see that there had been even a loss of faith and self-confidence so considerable as to tempt the intellectuals of the
\nnation to scrap the ancient spirit and ideals for an alien and
\nimported culture. He would note indeed the beginning of a
\nchange, but might perhaps doubt how deep it had gone or whether it was powerful enough to save, forceful enough to up-heave the whole nation from its cherished torpor and weakness,
\nenlightened enough to guide a new and robust creative activity <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\npage\u201335<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\ntowards the building of new significant forms for the ancient
\nspirit. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nHere too a better understanding points to hope rather
\nthan to the flat despondency suggested by a too hasty surface
\nglance. This last age of Indian history is an example of the
\nconstant local succession of night even to the most long and
\nbrilliant day in the evolution of the race. But it was a night
\nfilled at first with many and brilliant constellations and even
\nat its thickest and worst it was the darkness of Kalidasa’s
\nviceya-tārakā prabhātakalpeva sarvarī,<\/i> "night preparing for
\ndawn, with a few just decipherable stars." Even in the decline
\nall was not lost; there were needed developments, there were
\nspiritual and other gains of the greatest importance for the
\nfuture. And in the worst period of decline and failure the spirit
\nwas not dead in India, but only torpid, concealed and shackled; now emerging in answer to a pressure of constant awakening
\nshocks for a strong self-liberation it finds that its sleep was a
\npreparation of new potentialities behind the veil of that slumber. if the high spiritualised mind and stupendous force of spiritual
\nwill, tapasyā,<\/i> that characterised ancient India were less in
\nevidence, there were new gains of spiritual emotion and sensitiveness to
\nspiritual impulse on the lower planes of consciousness, that had been lacking before. Architecture, literature,
\npainting, sculpture lost the grandeur, power, nobility of old,
\nbut evoked other powers and motives full of delicacy, vividness
\nand grace. There was a descent from the heights to the lower
\nlevels, but a descent that gathered riches on its way and was
\nneeded for the fullness of spiritual discovery and experience.
\nThe decline of our past culture may even be regarded as a
\nneeded waning and dying of old forms to make way not only
\nfor a new, but, if we will that it should be so, a greater and
\nmore perfect creation. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nFor after all it is the will in the being that
\ngives to circumstances their value, and often an unexpected value; the
\nhue of apparent actuality is a misleading indicator. If the will <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage\u201336<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nin a race or civilisation is towards death, if it clings to the
\nlassitude of decay and the laissez-faire of the moribund or even
\nin strength insists blindly upon the propensities that lead to
\ndestruction or if it cherishes only the powers of dead Time
\nand puts away from it the powers of the future, if it prefers
\nlife that was to life that will be, nothing, not even abundant
\nstrength and resources and intelligence, not even many calls
\nto live and constantly offered opportunities will save it from
\nan inevitable disintegration or collapse. But if there comes
\nto it a strong faith in itself and a robust will to live, if it is open
\nto the things that shall come, willing to seize on the future
\nand what it offers and strong to compel it where it seems adverse, it can draw
\nfrom adversity and defeat a force of invincible victory and rise from apparent helplessness and
\ndecay in a mighty flame of renovation to the light of a more
\nsplendid life. This is what Indian civilisation is now re-arising to do as it has always done in the eternal strength of
\nits spirit. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe greatness of the ideals of the past is a promise
\nof
\ngreater ideals for the future. A continual expansion of what
\nstood behind past endeavour and capacity is the one abiding
\njustification of a living culture. But it follows that civilisation
\nand barbarism are words of a quite relative significance. For
\nfrom the view of the evolutionary future European and Indian
\ncivilisations at their best have only been half achievements,
\ninfant dawns pointing to the mature sunlight that is to come.
\nNeither Europe nor India nor any race, country or continent
\nof mankind has ever been fully civilised from this point of view; none has grasped the whole secret of a true and perfect human
\nliving, none has applied with an entire insight or a perfectly
\nvigilant sincerity even the little they were able to achieve.
\nIf we define civilisation as a harmony of spirit, mind and body,
\nwhere has that harmony been entire or altogether real ? Where
\nhave there not been glaring deficiencies and painful discords ?
\nWhere has the whole secret of the harmony been altogether <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\npage\u201337<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\ngrasped in all its parts or the complete music of life evolved
\ninto the triumphant ease of a satisfying, durable and steadily
\nmounting concord ? Not only are there everywhere positive,
\nugly, even "hideous" blots on the life of man, but much that
\nwe now accept with equanimity, much in which we take pride,
\nmay well be regarded by a future humanity as barbarism or
\nat least as semi-barbarous and immature. The achievements
\nthat we regard as ideal, will be condemned as a self-satisfied
\nimperfection blind to its own errors, the ideas that we vaunt
\nas enlightenment will appear as a demi-light or a darkness.
\nNot only will many forms of our life that claim to be ancient
\nor even eternal, as if that could be said of any form of things,
\nfail and disappear; the subjective shapes given to our best
\nprinciples and ideals will perhaps claim from the future
\nat best an understanding indulgence. There is little that will
\nnot have to undergo expansion and mutation, change perhaps
\nbeyond recognition or accept to be modified in a new synthesis.
\nIn the end the coming ages may look on Europe and Asia
\nof today much as we look on savage tribes or primitive peoples.
\nAnd this view from the future if we can get it, is undoubtedly
\nthe most illuminating and dynamic standpoint from which
\nwe can judge our present, but it does not invalidate our comparative appreciation of past and extant cultures. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nFor this past and present are creating the greater steps of
\nthat future and much of it will survive even in that which supplants it. There is behind our imperfect cultural figures a
\npermanent spirit to which we must cling and which will remain
\npermanent even hereafter; there are certain fundamental
\nmotives or essential idea-forces which cannot be thrown aside,
\nbecause they are part of the vital principle of our being and of
\nthe aim of Nature in us, our svadharma.<\/i> But these motives,
\nthese idea-forces are, whether for nation or for humanity
\nas a whole, few and simple in their essence, and capable of an
\napplication always varying and progressive. The rest belongs
\nto the less internal layers of our being and must undergo <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage\u201338<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nthe changing pressure and satisfy the forward-moving demands
\nof the Time-Spirit. There is this permanent spirit in things
\nand there is this persistent svadharma<\/i> or law of our nature,
\nbut there is too a less binding system of laws of successive
\nformulation,\u2014rhythms of the spirit, forms, turns, habits of the
\nnature, and these endure the mutations of the ages, yugadharma.
\n<\/i>The race must obey this double principle of persistence and
\nmutation or bear the penalty of a decay and deterioration
\nthat may taint even its living centre, <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nCertainly we must repel with vigour every disintegrating
\nor injurious attack; but it is much more important to form our
\nown true and independent view of our own past achievement,
\npresent position and future possibilities,\u2014what we were, what
\nwe are and what we may be. In our past we must distinguish
\nall that was great, essential, elevating, vitalising, illuminating,
\nvictorious, effective. And in that again we must distinguish
\nwhat was close to the permanent, essential spirit and the persistent law of our cultural being and separate from it what
\nwas temporary and transiently formulative. For all that was
\ngreat in the past cannot be preserved as it was or repeated for
\never; there are new needs, there are other vistas before us. But
\nwe have to distinguish too what was deficient, ill-grasped, imperfectly formulated or only suited to the limiting needs of the
\nage or unfavourable circumstances. For it is quite idle to
\npretend that all in the past, even at its greatest, was entirely
\nadmirable and in its kind the highest consummate achievement
\nof the human mind and spirit. Afterwards we have to make a
\ncomparison of this past with our present and to understand the
\ncauses of our decline and seek the remedy of our shortcomings
\nand ailments. Our sense of the greatness of our past must not
\nbe made a fatally hypnotising lure to inertia; it should be rather
\nan inspiration to renewed and greater achievement. But in
\nour criticism of the present we must not be one-sided or
\ncondemn with a foolish impartiality all that we are or have done.
\nNeither flattering or glossing over our downfall nor fouling <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage\u201339<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nour nest to win the applause of the stranger, we have to note
\nour actual weakness and its roots, but to fix too our eyes with a
\nstill firmer attention on our elements of strength, our abiding
\npotentialities, our dynamic impulses of self-renewal. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nA second comparison has to be made between the West
\nand India. In the past of Europe and the past of India we can
\nobserve with an unbiassed mind the successes of the West, the
\ngifts it brought to humanity, but also its larger gaps, striking
\ndeficiencies, terrible and even "hideous" vices and failures.
\nOn the other balance we have to cast ancient and mediaeval
\nIndia’s, achievements and failures. Here we shall find that
\nthere is little for which we need lower our heads before Europe
\nand much in which we rise well and sometimes immeasurably
\nabove her. But we have to scrutinise next the present of the
\nWest in its strong success, vitality, conquering insolence.
\nWhat has been great in it we shall allow, but take deep note
\ntoo of its defects, stumblings and dangers. And with this dangerous greatness we must compare the present of India, her
\ndownfall and its causes, her velleities of revival;, her elements
\nthat still make for superiority now and in the future. Let us
\nsee and take account of all that we must inevitably receive from
\nthe West and consider how we can assimilate it to our own spirit
\nand ideals. But let us see too what founts of native power there
\nare in ourselves from which we can draw deeper, more vital
\nand fresher streams of the power of life than from anything
\nthe West can offer. For that will help us more than Occidental
\nforms and motives, because it will be more natural to us,
\nmore stimulating to our idiosyncrasy of nature, more packed
\nwith creative suggestions, more easily taken up and completely followed in power of practice. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nBut far more helpful than any of these necessary comparisons will be the forward look from our past and present towards our own and not any foreign ideal of the future. For
\nit is our evolutionary push towards the future that will give
\nto our past and present their true value and significance.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage\u201340 <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nIndia’s nature, her mission, the work that she has to do, her
\npart in the earth’s destiny, the peculiar power for which she
\nstands is written there in her past history and is the secret
\npurpose behind her present sufferings and ordeals. A reshaping of the forms of our spirit will have to take place; but it is the spirit itself behind past forms that we have to
\ndisengage and preserve and to give to it new and powerful
\nthought-significances, culture values, a new instrumentation,
\ngreater figures. And so long as we recognise these essential
\nthings and are faithful to their spirit, it will not hurt us to
\nmake even the most drastic mental or physical adaptations
\nand the most extreme cultural and social changes. But these
\nchanges themselves must be cast in the spirit and mould of
\nIndia and not in any other, not in the spirit of America or
\nEurope, not in the mould of Japan or Russia. We must
\nrecognise the great gulf between what we are and what we
\nmay and ought to strive to be. But this we must do not in
\nany spirit of discouragement or denial of ourselves and the ,
\ntruth of our spirit, but in order to measure the advance We
\nhave to make. For we have to find its true lines and to find
\nin ourselves the aspiration and inspiration, the fire and the
\nforce to conceive them and to execute. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nAn original truth-seeking thought is needed if we are to
\ntake this stand and make this movement, a strong and courageous intuition, an unfailing spiritual and intellectual rectitude. The courage to defend our culture against ignorant
\nOccidental criticism and to maintain it against the gigantic
\nmodem pressure comes first, but with it there must be the
\ncourage to admit not from any European standpoint but from
\nour own outlook the errors of our culture. Apart from all
\nphenomena of decline or deterioration we should recognise
\nwithout any sophistical denial those things in our creeds of
\nlife and social institutions which are in themselves mistaken
\nand some of them indefensible, things weakening to our
\nnational life, degrading to our civilisation, dishonouring to <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage\u201341<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nour culture. A flagrant example can be found in the treatment
\nof our outcastes. There are those who would excuse it as
\nan unavoidable error in the circumstances of the past; there
\nare others who contend that it was the best possible solution
\nthen available. There are still others who would justify it
\nand, with whatever modifications, prolong it as necessary to
\nour social synthesis. The excuse was there, but it is no justification for continuance. The contention is highly disputable.
\nA solution which condemns by segregation one-sixth of the
\nnation to permanent ignominy, continued filth, uncleanliness
\nof the inner and outer life and a brutal animal existence instead of lifting them out of it is no solution but rather an
\nacceptance of weakness and a constant wound to the social
\nbody and to its collective spiritual, intellectual, moral and
\nmaterial welfare. A social synthesis which can only live by
\nmaking a permanent rule of the degradation of our fellowmen
\nand countrymen stands condemned and foredoomed to decay
\nand disturbance. The evil effects may be kept under for a
\nlong time and work only by the subtler unobserved action of
\nthe law of Karma; but once the light of Truth is let in on
\nthese dark spots, to perpetuate them is to maintain a seed of
\ndisruption and ruin our chances of eventual survival. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nAgain, we have to look on our cultural ideas and our social
\nforms and see where they have lost their ancient spirit or
\nreal significance. Many of them are now a fiction and no
\nlonger in accordance with the ideas they assume or with the
\nfacts of life. Others even if good in themselves or else beneficent in their own time, are no longer sufficient for our growth.
\nAll these must either be transformed or discarded and truer
\nideas and better formulations must be found in their place.
\nThe new turn we must give them will not always be a return
\nupon their old significance. The new dynamic truths we
\nhave to discover need not be parked within the limited truth
\nof a past ideal. On our past and present ideals we have to
\nturn the searchlight of the spirit and see whether they have <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage\u201342<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nnot to be surpassed or enlarged or brought into consonance
\nwith new wider ideals. All we do or create must be consistent with the abiding spirit of India, but framed to fit into
\na greater harmonised rhythm and plastic to the call of a more
\nluminous future. If faith in ourselves and fidelity to the
\nspirit of our culture are the first requisites of a continued and
\nvigorous life, a recognition of greater possibilities is a condition not less indispensable. There cannot be a healthy and
\nvictorious survival if we make of the past a fetish instead of an
\ninspiring impulse. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe spirit and ideals of our civilisation need no defence,
\nfor in their best parts and in their essence they were of eternal
\nvalue. India’s internal and individual seeking of them was
\nearnest, powerful, effective. But the application in the collective life of society was subjected to serious reserves. Never
\nsufficiently bold and thoroughgoing, it became more and more
\nlimited and halting when the life-force declined in her peoples.
\nThis defect, this gulf between ideal and collective practice,
\nhas pursued all human living and was not peculiar to India,
\nbut the dissonance became especially marked with the lapse of
\ntime and it put at last on our society a growing stamp of
\nweakness and failure. There was a large effort in the beginning at some kind of synthesis between the inner ideal and
\nthe outer life; but a static regulation of society was its latter
\nend. An underlying principle of spiritual idealism, an elusive
\nunity and fixed helpful forms of mutuality remained always
\nthere, but also an increasing element of strict bondage and
\nminute division and fissiparous complexity in the social mass.
\nThe great Vedantic ideals of freedom, unity and the godhead
\nin man were left to the inner spiritual effort of individuals.
\nThe power of expansion and assimilation diminished and
\nwhen powerful and aggressive forces broke in from outside,
\nIslam, Europe, the later Hindu society was content with an
\nimprisoned and static self-preservation, a mere permission to
\nlive. The form of living became more and more narrow and <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage\u201343<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nit endured a continually restricted assertion of its ancient
\nspirit. Duration, survival was achieved, but not in the end
\na really secure and vital duration, not a great, robust and
\nvictorious survival. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nAnd now survival itself has become impossible without
\nexpansion. If we are to live at all, we must resume India’s
\ngreat interrupted endeavour, we must take up boldly and
\nexecute thoroughly in the individual and in the society, in
\nthe spiritual and in the mundane life, in philosophy and
\nreligion;, in art and literature, in thought, in political and
\neconomic and social formulation the full and unlimited sense
\nof her highest spirit and knowledge. And if we do that,
\nwe shall find that the best of what comes to us draped in
\nOccidental forms, is already implied in our own ancient wisdom and has there a greater spirit behind it, a profounder
\ntruth and self-knowledge and the capacity of a will to nobler
\nand more ideal formations. Only we need to work out
\nthoroughly in life what we have always known in the spirit.
\nThere and nowhere else lies the secret of the needed harmony
\nbetween the essential meaning of our past culture and the
\nenvironmental requirements of our future. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThat view opens out a prospect beyond the battle of
\ncultures which is the immediate dangerous aspect of the
\nmeeting of East and West. The Spirit in man has one aim
\nbefore it in all mankind; but different continents or peoples
\napproach it from different sides, with different formulations
\nand in a different spirit. Not recognising the underlying
\nunity of the ultimate divine motive, they give battle to each
\nother and claim that theirs alone is the way for mankind.
\nThe one real and perfect civilisation is the one in which they
\nhappen to be born, all the rest must perish or go under. But
\nthe real and perfect civilisation yet waits to be discovered; for the life of mankind is still nine-tenths of barbarism to
\none-tenth of culture. The European mind gives the first
\nplace to the principle of growth by struggle, it is by struggle <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage\u201344<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nthat it arrives at some kind of concert. But this concert is
\nitself hardly more than an organisation for growth by competition, aggression and further battle. It is a peace that is
\nconstantly breaking, even within itself, into a fresh strife of
\nprinciples, ideas, interests, races, classes. It is an organisation
\nprecarious at its base and in its centre because it is founded
\non half-truths that deteriorate into whole falsehoods; but it
\nis still or has been till now vigorous in constant achievement
\nand able to grow powerfully and to devour and assimilate.
\nIndian culture proceeded on the principle of a concert that
\nstrove to find its base in a unity and reached out again towards
\nsome greater oneness. Its aim was a lasting organisation that
\nwould minimise or even eliminate the principle of struggle.
\nBut it ended by achieving peace and stable arrangement through
\nexclusion, fragmentation and immobility of status; it drew
\na magic circle of safety and shut itself up in it for good. In
\nthe end it lost its force of aggression, weakened its power of
\nassimilation and decayed within its barriers. A static and
\nlimited concert, not always enlarging itself, not plastic becomes
\nin our human state of imperfection a prison or a sleeping-chamber. Concert cannot be anything but imperfect and
\nprovisional in its form and can only preserve its vitality and
\nfulfil its ultimate aim if it constantly adapts, expands, progresses. Its lesser unities must widen towards a broader and
\nmore comprehensive and above all a more real and spiritual
\noneness. In the larger statement of our culture and civilisation
\nthat we have now to achieve, a greater outward expression of
\nspiritual and psychological oneness, but with a diversity which
\nthe mechanical method of Europe does not tolerate, will
\nsurely be one leading motive. A concert, a unity with the
\nrest of mankind, in which we shall maintain our spiritual and
\nour outer independence will be another line of our endeavour.
\nBut what now appears as a struggle may well be the first
\nnecessary step, before we can formulate that unity of mankind
\nwhich the West sees only in idea, but cannot achieve because <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage\u201345<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nit does not possess its spirit. Therefore Europe labours to
\nestablish unity by accommodation of conflicting interests and
\nthe force of mechanical institutions; but so attempted, it will
\neither not be founded at all or will be founded on sand.
\nMeanwhile she wishes to blot out every other culture, as if
\nhers were the only truth or all the truth of life and there were
\nno such thing as truth of the spirit. India, the ancient possessor of the truth of the spirit, must resist that arrogant claim
\nand aggression and affirm her own deeper truths in spite of
\nheavy odds and against all comers. For in its preservation
\nlies the only hope that mankind instead of marching to a new
\ncataclysm and primitive beginning with a constant repetition of
\nthe old blind cycles will at last emerge into the light and
\naccomplish the drive forward which will bring the terrestrial
\nevolution to its next step of ascent in the progressive manifestation of the Spirit,
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage\u201346<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

IS INDIA CIVILISED ?   CHAPTER II   THIS question of Indian civilisation, once it has raised this greater issue, shifts from its narrow meaning…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-foundations-of-indian-culture","wpcat-66-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3244\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}