The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c15.155

v1.c15.155

The drama of Indian history, then, is one in which many peoples of very diverse origin have played their parts. In all ages the fertility and the riches of certain regions, above all the plain of the Ganges, have attracted invaders from the outside world; while over-population and the desiccation of the land have given an impulse to the movements of peoples from the adjacent regions of Asia. Thus both the attracting and the expulsive forces which determine migrations have acted in the same direction. It is true indeed that the civilisations which have been developed in India have reacted, and that Indian religions, Indian literature, and Indian art have spread out of India and produced a deep and far-reaching influence on the countries of Further Asia; but the migrations and the conquests which provided the human energy with which these civilisations were created have invariably come into India from the outside. And the peninsular character of the sub-continent has retained invaders within its borders, with the result that racial conditions have tended to become ever more and more complex. The outcome of the struggle for existence between so many peoples possessing different traditions and different ideals is to be seen in the almost infinite variety of degrees of culture which exists at the present day. Some types of civilisation have been progressive; others have remained stationary. So that we now find, at one extreme of the social scale, communities whose members are contributing to the advancement of the literature, science, and art of the twentieth century, and, at the other extreme, tribes still governed by their primitive constitutions, still using the implements and weapons, and still retaining the religious ideas and customs of their remote ancestors in the Stone Age.