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The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c7.s1: Greater India Comprised in the Geography of Hindu Culture

The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c7.s1

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English

Greater India Comprised in the Geography of Hindu Culture

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The contributions of the Hindu mind to political, economic and other sociological and indeed the most diverse sciences are to be found not only within the geographical boundaries of India as known today but in regions far beyond these limits.

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In a sense the geography of creative India is as wide as Asia itself. It is the result of *l'aptitude colonisatrice, la faculté pour l'homme de sortir de ses frontières pour aller séjourner*, the colonizing aptitude, the capacity of man to move out of his frontiers in order to live abroad, as Emile Lasbax would say.¹ This indeed constitutes the celebrated *Aitareya Brāhmaṇa* (VII, 15) cult of *charaiveti* (march on). The cultural expansion of India outside the Indian frontiers both by land and sea, i.e., the establishment of "Greater India"² was accomplished by two processes of "social metabolism." First, there was the intellectual conquest of non-Indian regions by Indian *vidyās* and *kalās*, arts and sciences, involving the Indianization or Hinduizing of the most diverse races of men from one end of Asia to the other. In the second place, non-Indian races (the Barbars, Greeks, Scythians, Parthians, Yuechis, Huns, Turks, Tartars and others) with or without affinity to the races indigenous to India were during certain periods politically the masters of certain Indian regions and races.³ The political boundaries of Indian states were therefore often to be found in extra-Indian territories (Afghanistan, Central Asia, Tibet). In the first instance, the establishment of Greater India implied nothing but the infiltration of Hindu ideas, ideals, institutions and *mores* among politically sovereign races, tribes or nations. And in the second instance, we have but Indian illustrations of "captive Greece capturing Rome"; for the foreign races, although politically ruling, became more or less assimilated to the Indian modes of life and thought and served but to promote the Greater India movement of the Hindu cultural agencies.

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¹ *La Cité Humaine* (Paris 1927), Vol. II, pp. 219-220.

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² The concept of Greater India as a factor in world-culture was developed at length in the study circles of the Dawn Society, Calcutta, established by Satis Chandra Mukerjee in 1902, and is a special feature of the following works: R. K. Mookerji: *History of Indian Shipping* (London 1911), which is based to a certain extent on the author's articles published in the *Dawn Society's Magazine* (Calcutta, 1906-9). B. K. Sarkar: *Chinese Religion Through Hindu Eyes* (Shanghai 1916), based on personal investigations in China, "The Influence of India in Modern Western Civilization" (*Journal of Race Development*, Clark University, U.S.A. July 1918), *The Futurism of Young Asia* (Berlin 1922), chapter on "International India", *The A. B. C. of Chinese Civilization* (Calcutta 1923, in Bengali). Subsequent publications are noted below:—P. C. Bagchi: *India and China* (Calcutta, 1927), a pamphlet, R. C. Majumdar: *Ancient Indian Colonies in the Far East*, Vol. I. *Champa* (Lahore 1927), and "Indo-Javanese Literature" (*Indian Culture*, Calcutta, July 1934); B. R. Chatterjee: *India and Java* (Calcutta, second edition 1933; P. N. Bose: *Indian Colony of Siam* (Lahore 1929); H. B. Sarkar: *Indian Influences on the Literature of Java and Bali* (Calcutta 1934). The *Journal of the Greater India Society* (Calcutta), est, 1934, is likewise to be consulted. See also L. Finot: "Hindu Kingdoms in Indo-China" in the *Indian Historical Quarterly* (Calcutta), December 1925; Sylvain Lévi: *L'Inde et le Monde* (Paris 1927); G. Tucci: *Indo-Tibetica* (Rome) Vol. I. (1932), Vol. II. (1933); Tucci and Ghersi: *Cronaca della Missione Scientifica Tucci nel Tibet Occidentale* (Rome 1934). B. K. Sarkar's English summary of these Italian works is to be seen in the *Indian Historical Quarterly* (Calcutta), June 1934 and 1935. For Central Asia see M. A. Stein: *Ancient Khotan* (London 1907), *Ruins of Desert Cathay* (London 1912) and for Moslem Asia see Sachau: *Alberuni's India* (London 1910).

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³ D. R. Bhandarkar: "Foreign Elements in the Hindu Population" in the *Indian Antiquary* 1910; E. J. Rapson: *Ancient India* (Cambridge 1914) and chapters XXII-XXIII of *The Cambridge History of India* (1922); B. K. Sarkar: *Chinese Religion Through Hindu Eyes* (Shanghai 1916); chapters on the "Tartarisation of Aryanized Dravidians" and "Caste System and Military History"; J. Marshall: *A Guide to Taxila* (1921); E. Meyer: "*Blüte und Niedergang des Hellenismus* (Leipzig 1925): S. Lévi: "Pre-Aryen et Pre-Dravidien" (*Journal Asiatique*, Paris 1923), Eng. transl. by P. C. Bagchi (Calcutta 1929); N. R. Ray: "Some Additional Notes on Foreign Elements in the Hindu Population" in the *Indian Historical Quarterly*, December 1928; A. B. Keith: *A History of Sanskrit Literature* (London 1928); R. P. Chanda: "The Indus Valley in the Vedic Period" *Memoir of the Archæological Survey of India*, No. 27); R. Grousset: *Historie de l'Extrême-Orient* (Paris 1929); H. C. Ray: *Dynastic History of Northern India* (Calcutta 1932), Vol. I., pp. 274, 309, 311, 569 (Tibet in the Ganges Valley); S. K. Chakravarti: "The Persian and Greek Coins and their Imitations in Ancient India" in the *Indian Historical Quarterly* (Calcutta, March 1934); B. N. Dutt: "Races of India" (*Journal of the Department of Letters*, Calcutta University, 1935).

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A fact of special importance bearing on the state-systems, in India as in Europe, cannot be over-looked in the present context. We have to remember that *Kleinstaaterei* or the system of territorially and demographically petty states is an eternal fact of history both in the East and the West.⁴ While thinking of treatises like *Śukranīti* it would not be proper to orient oneself exclusively to the milieu of vast Empires and Kingdoms. The rôle of lesser states in the making of political institutions, political theories, and political treatises is not to be belittled.

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⁴ For the place of small states in history see Bury: *History of the Later Roman Empire* (London 1889), Freeman: *Historical Geography of Europe* (London 1903) and the volumes of *Cambridge Mediaeval History*.

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