"The Unchanging East"- This picturesque figure of speech has been directly responsible for a vast amount of misconception and has inspired false theories innumerable. Applied to India the fallacy is not only mischievous but absurd. From time immemorial the great, all-absorbing peninsula has been subjected to wave after wave of foreign invasion.
Each newcomer introduced fresh customs, laws, arts, sciences and religious conceptions, in a word the many varying and vivid influences of an unfamiliar civilization. These India assimilated and made her own, much in the same way as she frequently assimilated her conquerors themselves, a process whereby she gained very much more than ever they succeeded in despoiling her of. |
