Indian Philosophy v1.c7.s2.44

v1.c7.s2.44

Reverence for the past is another national trait. There is a certain doggedness of temperament, a stubborn loyalty to lose nothing in the long march of the ages. When confronted with new cultures or sudden extensions of knowledge, the Indian does not yield to the temptations of the hour, but holds fast to his traditional faith, importing as much as possible of the new into the old. This conservative liberalism is the secret of the success of Indian culture and civilisation. Of the great civilisations of the world, hoary with age, only the Indian still survives. The magnificence of the Egyptian civilisation can be learnt only from the reports of the archæologists and the readings of the hieroglyphics; the Babylonian Empire, with its marvels of scientific, irrigation and engineering skill, is to-day nothing more than a heap of ruins; the great Roman culture, with its political institutions and ideals of law and equality, is, to a large extent, a thing of the past. The Indian civilisation, which even at the lowest estimate is 4,000 years old, still survives in its essential features. Her civilisation, dating back to the period of the Vedas, is young and old at the same time. She has been renewing her youth whenever the course of history demanded it. When a change occurs, it is not consciously felt to be a change. It is achieved, and all the time it professes to be only a new name for an old way of thinking. In the Ṛgveda we shall see how the religious consciousness of the Aryan invaders takes note of the conceptions of the people of the soil. In the Atharva Veda we find that the vaguer cosmic deities are added to the gods of the sky and sun, fire and wind worshipped by the Aryan peoples from the Ganges to the Hellespont. The Upaniṣads are regarded as a revival or