Number of words: 1,045 Buddhism spread gradually in India. Although in origin a Kshatriya movement, and representing a conflict between the ruling class and the priests, its ethical and democratic aspect, and more especially its fight against priest-craft and ritualism, appealed to the people. It developed as a popular reform movement, attracting even some Brahmin … Read more

Number of words: 281 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. Probably caste was very fluid in his day and for some centuries later. It is obvious that a caste-ridden community … Read more

Number of words: 127 One rather extraordinary development emerges from the Jataka accounts. This is the establishment of special settlements or villages of people belonging to particular crafts. Thus there was a carpenters’ village, consisting, it is said, of 1,000 families; a smiths’ village, and so on. These specialized villages were usually situated near a … Read more

Number of words: 220 In the Mahabharata a very definite attempt has been made to emphasize the fundamental unity of India, or Bharatvarsha as it was called, from Bharat, the legendary founder of the race. An earlier name was Aryavarta, the land of the Aryas, but this was confined to Northern India up to the … Read more

Number of words: 559 Vikram has long been considered a national hero, a beau ideal of a prince. He is remembered as a ruler who pushed out foreign invaders. But his fame rests on the literary and cultural brilliance of his court, where he collected some of the most famous writers, artists, and musicians—the ‘nine … Read more

Number of words: 324 Unlike the Greeks, and unlike the Chinese and the Arabs, Indians in the past were not historians. This was very unfortunate and it has made it difficult for us now to fix dates or make up an accurate chronology. Events run into each other, overlap and produce an enormous confusion. Only … Read more

Number of words: 472 In India, as in China, learning and eruditions have always stood high in public esteem, for learning was supposed to imply both superior knowledge and virtue. Before the learned man the ruler and the warrior have always bowed. The old Indian theory was that those who were concerned with the exercise … Read more

Number of words: 571 The coming of the Aryans into India raised new problems racial and political. The conquered race, the Dravidians, had a long background of civilization behind them, but there is little doubt that the Aryans considered themselves vastly superior and a wide gulf separated the two races. Then there were also the … Read more

Number of words: 405 As a man grows to maturity he is not entirely engrossed in, or satisfied with, the external objective world. He seeks also some inner meaning, some psychological and physical satisfactions. So also with peoples and civilizations as they mature and grow adult. Every civilization and ?very people exhibit these parallel streams … Read more

Number of words: 630 The word ‘Hindu’ does not occur at all in our ancient literature. The first reference to it in an Indian book is, I am told, in a Tantrik work of the eighth century A.C., where ‘Hindu’ means a people and not the followers of a particular religion. But it is clear … Read more