Radha Kumud Mukhopadhyay

“ And it is a commonplace of history that one of the main streams of this great migration of the pioneers of the world's civilization entered India through her north-western mountain passes to build up her spiritual character, even as the Indus and the Ganges have broken through the Himalayas to create her physical character. For centuries these Indo-Aryans pushed on their work of colonizing India amid struggles and conflicts with the original inhabitants of the country, and developed a civilization that is reflected in the literature they have created. ”

“ Then, also, the two great civilizing forces of the world that next arose did not fail to touch India and contribute to her making, viz. the Islamic culture and civilization, and the European, which, following in the wake of foreign invasions and commerce, has continued to influence Indian thought and life to this day. India, therefore, is a favoured country where all the diversities of human culture have met to build up an extraordinarily rich and synthetic culture. Thus intercourse is as much a characteristic of the history of India as isolation. ”

“ In truth, the whole of India, in spite of assertions to the contrary made by some geographers, is easily perceived to be a single country endowed with a sharply defined individuality, and beneath her truly manifold and bewildering variety there is a fundamental geographical unity, a complete territorial synthesis. ”

“ Above all comprehension and beyond all human insight is that mysterious impulse which gave birth to the momentous movement of Aryan migration and expansion, so big with consequences, and by far the most important event in the world's history. ”

“ The great and almost impregnable barriers on the north are pierced by mountain-passes which have been throughout used as the pathways of commerce and communication with the external world. Towards the south the ocean from its very nature proved a far more effective and fatal barrier to the cultivation of foreign relations, till the rapid development of national shipping triumphed over that obstacle and converted the ocean itself into a great highway of international intercourse and commerce. ”

“ It will thus be seen that instead of the rigid isolation apparently decreed to her by nature, we find a remarkably active intercourse with foreign countries established by the efforts of man, and a conquest achieved over the natural environment. ”

“ She cultivated trade relations not only with the countries of Asia, but also with the whole of the then known world, including the countries under the dominion of the Roman Empire, and both the East and the West became the theatre of Indian commercial activity and gave scope to her naval energy and throbbing international life. ”