The Personality of India: Pre- and Proto-historic Foundation of India and Pakistan c10.25

c10.25

Accepting this fundamental concept of areas of attraction, relative isolation and isolation, the whole pattern of development of material culture in India may be defined as one of the horizontal expansion of the higher cultures, leading to a displacement, contraction, and isolation of the lower cultures, in different parts of the country, at different periods, and at different cultural levels. The divergence in the country is due to the difference in the cultural *milieu* of the first large scale agricultural communities in the different regions. Naturally, this cultural development, in space and time, was controlled by the geographic features of the individual regions and the relative effectiveness of the barriers—physical and human. The interaction has given rise to a very interesting pattern which can be seen in the fundamental unity of Indian culture with its associated variety. Following Ratzel and Vidal de la Blanche, we can describe these smaller nuclear zones as '*Provincial States*' within a '*National State*'. The former may be defined as "complicated economic units opening on to the same routes, converging on the same river, Fig. 3. Note the relation between the optimal rainfall and areas cleared for large scale agriculture communities.