tribe, his advice was found very necessary in the -conduct of the common affairs of the tribe. His blessing was essential for the success of all enterprises. His consent was the final authority for all actions. He had a right to be taken care of and revered by the whole nation. Kings and leaders of men went to consult him and win his approval. Such a Sannyasin was the Brahman, the father, philosopher, friend and guide of all.
Whether in the forest or in the GuruZ_Ila, he was always surrounded by young Brahmacharins who vied with one another in serving him more .devotedly than even his kith and kin. They had gathered round him attracted by his piety and learning. They went through the daily sacrifices, prayers and study along with the teacher. The Vedic hymns were learned directly from the mouth of the Guru with their correct intonation. The duties and qualities of the Ashramas were inculcated into the minds of the students again and again. This subject in fact was comprehensive; it was a complete preparation for citizenship and included even training in the use of arms. The daily routine—the sacrifices, cooking, tending the cattle, attending to the cultivation, besides personal attentions, kept the teacher and the Guru always busy. Some brought fuel and water, some gathered flowers, some milked the cows, others cleaned the surroundings and prepared for the sacrifice, chit-chatting and running about, full of joy and enthusiasm and boisterous energy, restrained by respect for the Guru whose presence was everywhere felt. After the mid-day meal the teacher and the pupils gathered tinder the shade of an ancient tree; stories of the heroes and gods were told; hymns were sung; duels were fought; proficiency was tested. Sometimes visitors came with presents for the Guru and the Chelas and they were gladly entertained. The day’s Work over, grass was spread on the floor, and the teacher and students once again sat together singing hymns and telling stories until eyes began to close in the self-forgetfulness of contentment—God’s reward for a day well spent. Days and months and years passed, Guru and disciples living together until the youthful aspirants felt that they belonged more to the Gurukula than to the family of their parents; and in_ after life they prided themselves on being members of their Guru’s Gotra. “These students lived with their teachers, served them in a menial capacity during the time of their studentship and then, after twelve years or longer made suitable presents and returned to their homes and longing relatives.”
Thus the four Ashramas denoted the four stages of life through which every Aryan had to pass in the pursuit of Kama, Artha and Dharma in this ‘world and Moksha in the other. The four Varnas were the corresponding social groups in society–young men in the Brahmachari period were the Sudras; Gryhasthas who were responsible for all the activities of peaceful civic life were the Viasyas; warriors of the Vanaprastha stage formed the group of Kshatriyas, and the wise men of age and learning who had retired from life to the seclusion of the Ashram or the Gurukula as Sannyasins composed the group of Brahmans. The caste system of the Hindus has nothing in common with the ancient Varna and Ashrama. Caste originated, quite in a different way, developed entirely on other lines, served completely another purpose, but the priests who helped its growth have tacked it on to .the ancient names and ideals to justify it in the eyes of the people and cover up its inherent wickedness.
We have even now uncivilised wild tribes living in some of the mountains and forests of India. Four
*Page 249, History of Civilisation in Ancient India, Vol. J, B.C. Dutt.
thousand years ago their number must have been very large, almost as many as the civilised people themselves. The dark-skinned barbarians whom the Aryas found in the Punjab and called Dasyus were such tribes.
In the beginning, the Aryas probably thought that the whole country was inhabited by none but the Dasyus. It was not so. As they advanced into the plains of the Gangetic valley they came into contact with highly civilised communities. Later historians have called them Dravidians, but there are-also those who maintain that they were an earlier group of Aryan immigrants who had come to India many centuries before, first by sea to the south and then from there spread gradually all over the country-developing a high order of culture, arts, sciences, philosophy and religion. “The Aryas came from an archaic middle Asian civilisation, the cradle of the-Aryas whence came successively the immigrants who, made the Mediterranean civilisation, colonised Persia and Mesopotamia and sent the forefathers of the Latin, Slav and Teuton Nations to people-Europe. Later they came down to India, penetrated first to the South—the Aryan Dravidians,—and later-settled in the North.”*
They were anyhow, at the time of the Punjab, Aryas, the dominant and the most numerous inhabitants and had lived in the country for many centuries. They had a right to be called Indians. We do not want to emphasise any doubtful racial distinctions which recent European investigators claim have discovered. So we shall distinguish them by the term Indians..
The Sanskrit writers say very little about them the priests who composed the sacred books of the Hindus were very obstinate in their practice of willfully disguising the true character and greatness of
Page 7, India–a Nation (Foreword), by Annie Beasant
the people whom they conquered by describing them as Rakshasas (demons) and Vanaras (monkeys) and in other eccentric ways, with a view to praising the Aryan conquerors as divine beings and condemning the Indians as fit only to be slaughtered in battle. The Ramayana is a typical example of the unscrupulous methods employed by those chroniclers. The story is certainly based upon substantial historical material but it has been deliberately mixed up with so much of fiction, poetry, distortion and misrepresentation, that a discriminating Hindu would even be ashamed to own it as a book of religion in spite of its eternal appeal to the heart of man. Fortunately a good deal of the light of truth is forcing itself out through the cloud of poetic vilifications, and we can get a very good impression of the magnificence, greatness, and high moral level of the Indians and their civilisation, of which the last great representative was perhaps the mighty Ravana.
The description of Ravana’s capital Lanka with its forts, palaces, watch-towers, towering buildings, abounding in wealth and luxury, and the council of ministers and generals discussing the pros and -cons of war-, with a courage of conviction and breadth of views that a modern legislature might well envy, and of the actual war in which divine Rama and the allies were all but crushed and were saved only by the mysterious power of a medicine, of the superhuman feats ascribed to Ravana and his great son Indrajit,—these and a host of other events disclose a civilisation more highly evolved than that -of the Aryan combatants of the Mahabharata. The ‘remarkable sense of justice and propriety and chivalry attained by that eminent Indian King may be seen in the treatment of the captive “Sita” in Lanka, where that lovely princess with forlorn hopes of deliverance lives obdurate and defiant without a :single hair of hers being harmed, and receiving all the honour and attention her royalty demanded. By the side of this noble picture, let us place the other one of the disgusting meanness and revolting beastliness of the treatment of another captive princess Draupadi by an Aryan King in the assembly of Aryan princes and nobles and in the presence of her royal husbands;–imploring but dignified Draupadi is dragged to the assembly by rough hands, with but one loin cloth to hide her nakedness, and even- that one is nearly snatched away, and the proud princess is forcibly dragged down on his naked knees by King Duryodhana—an Aryan king indeed! To the discerning reader who can see through the clever falsification of priests who have degraded a great Indian king to the level of a demon and even the Indian allies of the Aryan conqueror to the position of monkeys, the Ramayana is more a glorification of Ravana than of Rama.
There is another account of an Indian king who lived before Rama according to tradition. He -was Maha Bali during whose reign the subjects enjoyed such perfect peace, justice, liberty and prosperity, that it is said the Devas became jealous of the great ruler’s reputation. The truth was that Bali’s fame, power and wealth and the devotion of his subjects were growing so rapidly that he was on the way to become the leading sovereign of India. The Aryas got jealous and the Brahman priests some-how managed to make the king surrender his authority into their hands. The memory of Bali’s reign as the golden era of their country is still preserved by the people of Malabar in their annual national festival “Onam” lasting for four or more days, when the rich and the poor, the young and the old, join in the universal rejoicings and festivities, and from every home are heard joyous songs about Bali and the beating of the ancient bow-drum. The stories of Ravana and Bali are quite sufficient for our purpose though there are many others quite as reliable as these which testify to the greatness of the Indians of those days.
It is also noteworthy that some of the most famous of ancient Rishis such as Vyasa, Vaisishta and Valmiki were of Indian descent. Sri Rama, Sri Krishna and the Pandavas were also probably Indians, at any rate undoubtedly of mixed origin, as they were dark in complexion unlike the white Aryan, and all of them were leaders of strong opposition to. Brahmanism as we shall see hereafter, These, and other circumstances which we shall have occasion to refer to in the following pages, leave no room for doubt that the early Aryas came to an India of. a glorious and, hoary civilization, though probably less virile than that of the younger Aryas. As Mr. Havell says, “But many modern writers of Oriental history proclaim as the latest discovery of science that the early. Aryan invaders of India, who won the undying veneration of the people as mighty seers and leaders that they borrowed their finer culture from the Dravidians and other civilized races they conquered.”’*
