History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v5.c74.s1.1.2

v5.c74.s1.1.2

The priestly class at holy places should remember that in the coming generations they are likely to find their occupation gone, unless they improve themselves, unless they try to be less ignorant and indolent than they are at present and really serve as honest business agents or Travellers' Guides The number of people visiting holy places in the belief of accumulating merit is sure to become less and less, as modern secular education spreads. But it would be a calamity for the moral and spiritual greatness of India if pilgrimages to holy mountains and rivers came to be stopped altogether. I would very strongly recommend to all men, however highly educated, the undertaking of pilgrimages to certain hallowed spots. Our country has recently secured independence and it now rests entirely with us to make or mar the character of the teeming millions of this our land. All things that tend to create in Indians the deep feeling that amidst diversities of physical features, food, dress and habits, all of them are one people, that there is no part or district of this vast land which cannot claim to have made some substantial contribution in religious and philosophical thought, in abiding literature, in works of art and in holy places, that the destinies of the Indians of one part of Bhārata are bound up with the destinies of all others.