[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Polity, law and society](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity) › [Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.jayaswal-1924) › c55 # Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c55: Chapter XXXIX: Conclusion Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c55 - **Language:** English ### Chapter XXXIX: Conclusion ### [c55.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.jayaswal-1924.c55.2) § 371. This is a brief survey, in fact too brief a survey, of a polity which had a free career of at least thirty centuries of history¹—a career longer than that of all the polities known to history. Babylon might have lived a few centuries longer, but unfortunately Babylon is no more. Against this we have India still existing, and in this respect China—another civil polity—is her only parallel. ### [c55.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.jayaswal-1924.c55.3) ¹ Coins have been found which Sir Alexander Cunningham, the most competent critic on Hindu numismatics, has placed about 1000 BC. The Purāṇas and Khāravela's inscription (JBORS, III, pp. 436-7) indicate the date of the Mahā-Bhārata to have been \*c.\* 1425 BC. Megasthenes, 310 B.C., found the Hindus counting 154 kings from the earliest times to Chandragupta. ### [c55.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.jayaswal-1924.c55.4) § 372. The test of a polity is its capacity to live and develop, and its contribution to the culture and happiness of humanity. Hindu polity judged by this test will come out very successfully. ### [c55.5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.jayaswal-1924.c55.5) § 373. The constitutional progress made by the Hindu has probably not been equalled, much less surpassed by any polity of antiquity. The great privilege of the Hindu at the same time is that he is not yet a fossil ; he is still living with a determination which a great historian (Duncker) has characterised as a tenacity which bends but does not break. The Golden Age of his polity lies not in the Past but in the Future. His modern history begins with the 17th century when Vaishṇavism preached the equality of all men, when the Śūdra, the helot of the ancient Hindu, preached shoulder to shoulder with the Brahmin (who welcomed and encouraged it), when the God of the Hindu was for the first time worshipped with hymns composed by a Muhammadan², when Rāmadāsa declared that man is free and he cannot be subjected by force¹, and when the Brahmin accepted the leadership of the S'ūdra in attempting to found a State. ### [c55.6](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.jayaswal-1924.c55.6) ² Rasa-khan's \*Savaiyās\* have been chanted since then at the evening service in Vaishṇava temples. Compare with this the view of Ghalib who would bury the Hindu at Kābā and cremate the Muhammadan at Benares. ### [c55.7](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.jayaswal-1924.c55.7) ¹ १ नरदेह हा स्वाधीन । सहसा न व्हे पराधीन ॥ \*Dāsa-bodha\*, I. 10. 25. ### [c55.8](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.jayaswal-1924.c55.8) § 374. The Reformation of the Hindu has come. But a force which is greater still is also coming. This is the pagan thought, the European man-hood. What a coincidence that the race which evolved the greatest constitutional principles in antiquity should be placed to-day in contact with the greatest constitutional polity of modern times. The contact is electrifying : it can either kill or rejuvenate the Race.² Probabilities, however, are, as the historian thought,³ for the latter, and a Hindu would naturally hope for the latter. ### [c55.9](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.jayaswal-1924.c55.9) ² There is much unthinking and unreasonable mortification at times witnessed at the thought of being "conquered." But conquest is only a mode of receiving new thoughts and new life. What great modern community was not conquered ? The primitive state of England would have continued much longer but for the advent of the Danes and the Normans. Germany and Italy would have remained a European Rajputana or a Kathiawad but for the French and Austrian domination. India would have become another Siam, Ceylon or Korea but for the Muhammadan incoming. ### [c55.10](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.jayaswal-1924.c55.10) ³ "With this (tenacity) they (the Hindus) have retained a costly possession, that "inclination towards the highest intellectual attainments which runs through their whole "history. This treasure is still vigorous in the hearts of the best Indians, and appears "the more certainly to promise a brighter future."—Duncker, \*History of Antiquity\*, (1852-57) IV. ch. 10. ### [c55.11](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.jayaswal-1924.c55.11) § 375. Constitutional or social advancement is not a monopoly of any particular race. I am not a believer in the cheap wisdom which preaches that political greatness is inherent in some peoples. It is a superstition which is as baseless as the Spanish superstition of the Blue Blood. There is no such thing as Blue Blood in political and constitutional evolution. Political and constitutional progress is a creation of circumstances and human forces. And even if such Blue Blood be a reality it is certainly present in the veins of the Hindu. ## Linked texts (2) - [Mahābhārata](https://indike.org/pramana/in.lit.mahabharata.vyasa) — Vyāsa, Sanskrit - [Dāsabodha](https://indike.org/pramana/in.vernacular.marathi.adhyatma.dasabodha) — Samartha Rāmdās 1654, Marathi --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.jayaswal-1924.c55](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.jayaswal-1924.c55) · Pramāṇa