INDIA AS THE CENTRE AND REPOSITORY OF THE WORLD'S CULTURE.

    R. K. M. writes to the Dawn on the above subject as follows: It has been well said that all the greatest movements in the world which have influenced the history of mankind have not failed to touch India and contribute to the development and richness of her extraordinarily varied culture and civilization. Above all comprehension and beyond all human insight is that mysterious impulse which gave birth to the momentous movement of Aryan immigration and expansion, so big with consequences and by far the most important event in the world's history. And it is a common place of history how one of the main streams of this great immigration of the pioneers of the world's passes to build up her spiritual character, even as the Indus and the Ganges have broken through the Himalayas to create her physical character. For centuries these Indian Aryans pushed on their work of colonizing India amid struggles and conflicts with the original inhabitant of the country and developed a civilization that is reflected in the literature they have created. Then rose Buddhism, the first of the religions of the world, a product of the Indian soil which extended its influence beyond its limits over all countries lying east and north of India – from the steppes of the Mongols and the mountainous wildernesses of Tibet through Japan and far into the Indian Archipelago. For centuries India stood out us the heart of the old world, molding and dominating its thought and life. Meanwhile there continued to beat upon Indian shores successive waves of foreign influence – such as the Iranian influence flowing from "the first veritable empire of the ancient orient," the empire of the Archimedes which under Darius included within itself "the whole of Sindh and a considerable portion of the Punjab east of the Indus" forming his twentieth Satrapy and yielding the enormous tribute of fully a million sterling, an influence that left some marks upon Indian Art and architecture and the methods of Government and administration; such for instance, also the Hellenic influence beginning from Alexander's invasion and exercised by a succession of Greek rulers of the Punjab and neighbouring regions but "which touched only the fringe of Indian civilization", and lastly the Greco-Roman influence during the time of the Kushan or Indo Scythian kings. Then the two great civilizing forces of the world that rose next did not also fail to touch India and contribute to her making viz, the Islamic culture and civilization and the European which following in the wake of foreign invasions and commerce have continued to influence Indian thought and life to this day. India, therefore, is the favored country where all diversions of human culture have met to build up an extraordinarily rich and synthetic culture and India's problem is the problem of the human race.