Copper in Ancient India c12.28

c12.28

to strike roots deep in European soil. Development of industry follows scientific research as day follows the night, and within a century or two Europe gradually became the centre of advanced industrial activities, working being conducted on improved scientific methods. In India, however, the reverse reaction was in progress. The time from which Europe got a new lease of intellectual activity in all branches of human understanding, marks the period when India reached the nadir of her intellectual decadence. Industries began gradually to be relegated to the least advanced communities as being unworthy of the higher castes with the inevitable result that old methods continued in a moribund condition without any improvement which is possible only when they are conducted by intellectual people. In the meantime the European nations gradually obtained political ascendency over India and brought with them the industrial products of their own country, manufactured economically on scientific principles, which gradually supplanted the indigenous products of India. The same story is true of the Indian iron industry and would be equally true in the case of copper also. Science and enterprise would inevitably conquer markets, and it is no wonder that foreign copper and iron now completely dominate the Indian market and the indigenous methods of manufacturing these articles are now in the keeping of certain illiterate and least advanced classes of the community living in mountain fastnesses.