Glimpses of World History

by Jawaharlal Nehru

  We have talked of the growth of civilization and culture, and we have seen the beginnings of this when people settled down to live in villages and towns. The greater quantity of food that they got gave them more leisure and they could thus think of other matters than hunting and eating. With the growth of thought developed the arts and crafts and culture generally. As the population increased, people had to live closer to each other. They were continually meeting each other and having business with each other. If people have to live together they must be considerate to each other. They must avoid doing anything which might hurt their companions or neighbours, otherwise no social life is possible. Take a family, for instance. A family is a tiny bit of society which will live happily if its members have consideration for each other. This is not very difficult as a rule in a family, as there is a bond of affection between its members. Even so it sometimes happens that we forget to be considerate and show that we are not very cultured and civilized after all. In the case of a larger group than the family, it is exactly the same—whether we take our neighbours, or the people of our city, or our countrymen, or the people of other countries even. So the growth of population resulted in more social life and more restraint and consideration for others. Culture and civilization are difficult to define, and I shall not try to define them. But among the many things that culture includes are certainly restraint over oneself and consideration for others. If a person has not got this self-restraint and has no consideration for others, one can certainly say that he is uncultured.

  14

  The Sixth Century before Christ, and Religion

  January 20, 1931

  Let us march on the long road of history. We have reached a big milestone, 2500 years ago, or, to put it a little differently, about 600 years before Christ. Do not think this is an accurate date. I am merely giving you a rough period of time. About this time we find a number of great men, great thinkers, founders of religions, in different countries, from China and India to Persia and Greece. They did not live at exactly the same time. But they were near enough to each other in point of time to make this period of the sixth century before Christ a period of great interest. There must have been a wave of thought going through the world, a wave of discontent with existing conditions and of hope and aspiration for something better. For remember that the great founders of religions were always seeking something better and trying to change their people and improve them and lessen their misery. They were always revolutionaries who were not afraid of attacking existing evils. Where old tradition had gone wrong or where it prevented future growth, they attacked it and removed it without fear. And, above all, they set an example of noble living which for vast numbers of people, generation after generation, became an ideal and an inspiration.

  In India, in that sixth century before Christ, we had the Buddha and Mahavira; in China, Confucius and Lao-Tse; in Persia, Zarathushtra or Zoroaster;1 in the Greek island of Samos, Pythagoras. You may have heard these names before, though perhaps in different connections. The average school boy or girl thinks of Pythagoras as a busybody who proved a theorem in geometry, which he or she, unhappy person, has to learn now! This theorem deals with the squares on the sides of a right-angled triangle and is to be found in Euclid or any other geometry. But, apart from his discoveries in geometry, Pythagoras is supposed to have been a great thinker. We do not know much about him and indeed some people doubt if he ever existed!

  Zoroaster of Persia is said to have been the founder of Zoroastrianism; but I am not sure if it is quite correct to call him the founder. It is better perhaps to say that he gave a new direction and a new form to the old thought and religion of Persia. For a long time past this religion has hardly existed in Persia. The Parsis, who long ago came to India from Persia, brought it with them, and they have practised it ever since.

  In China, there were two great men, Confucius and Lao-Tse, during this period. A more correct way of writing Confucius is Kong Fu-Tse. Neither of these men was a founder of a religion in the ordinary sense of the word. They laid down systems of morals and social behaviour, what one should do and what one should not do. But after their deaths numerous temples were built to their memory in China, and their books were as much respected by the Chinese as the Vedas by the Hindus or the Bible by the Christians. And one of the results of the Confucian teaching has been to make the Chinese people the most courteous and perfect-mannered and cultured in the world.

  In India there were Mahavira and the Buddha. Mahavira started the Jain religion as it exists today. His real name was Vardhainana, Mahavira being the title of greatness given to him. Jains live largely in western India and in Kathiawad, and today they are often included among the Hindus. They have beautiful temples in Kathiawad and in Mount Abu in Rajputana. They are very great believers in ahimsa or non-violence, and are wholly against doing anything which might cause injury to any living being. In this connection, it might interest you to know that Pythagoras was a strict vegetarian and insisted on all his pupils and chelas being vegetarians.

  We come now to Gautama, the Buddha. He was, as you no doubt know, a Kshattriya, a prince of a royal house, and Siddhartha was his name. His mother was Queen Maya—“joyously reverenced by all, even as the young moon, strong and calm of purpose as the earth, pure of heart as the lotus was Maya, the great Lady,” says the old chronicle. His parents brought him up in comfort and luxury, and tried to keep him away from all sight of suffering or misery. But this was not possible, and tradition says that he did see poverty and suffering and death, and that he was greatly affected by them. There was no peace for him then in his palace, and all the luxury with which he was surrounded, and even his beautiful young wife whom he loved, could not keep his mind away from suffering humanity. And the thought grew in him and the desire to find a remedy for these evils, till he could bear it no longer; and, in the silence of the night, he left his palace and his dear ones, and marched out alone into the wide world to find answers to the questions which troubled him. Long and weary was his search for these answers. At last, many years later, it is said that sitting under a peepal tree in Gaya, enlightenment came to him, and he became the Buddha, the “Enlightened”. And the tree under which he had sat came to be known as the Bodhi tree, the Tree of Enlightenment. In the Deer Park at Sarnath, called Isipatana then, under the shadow of ancient Kashi, Buddha began his teaching. He pointed out the “path of good living”. He condemned the sacrifices of all manner of things to the gods, and said we must sacrifice, instead, our anger and hatred and envy and wrong-thinking.

  When Buddha was born the old Vedic religion prevailed in India. But already it had changed and fallen from its high estate. The Brahman priests had introduced all manner of rites and pujas and superstition, for the more there is of puja the more do the priests flourish. Caste was becoming stricter, and the common people were frightened by omens and spells and witchcraft and quackery. The priests got the people under their control by these methods and challenged the power of the Kshattriya rulers. There was thus rivalry between the Kshattriyas and the Brahmans. Buddha came as a great popular reformer, and he attacked this priestly tyranny and all the evils which had crept into the old Vedic religion. He laid stress on people living a good life and performing good deeds, and not performing pujas and the like. He organized the Buddhist Sangha, an association of monks and nuns, who followed his teaching.

  Buddhism, as a religion, did not spread much in India for some time. Later, we shall see how it spread and how again, in India, it almost ceased to exist as a separate religion. While it triumphed in distant countries from Ceylon to China, in India, the land of its birth, Buddhism was absorbed back into Brahminism or Hinduism. But it exercised a great influence on Brahminism, and rid it of some at least of its superstition and ritual.

  Buddhism today is the religion of the greatest number of people in the world. Other religions which have the largest number of followers are Christianity, Islam and Hinduism. There are, besides, the religions of the Hebrews,
of the Sikhs, of the Parsis, and others. Religions and their founders have played a great part in the history of the world, and we cannot ignore them in any survey of history. But I find some difficulty in writing about them. There can be no doubt that the founders of the great religions have been among the greatest and noblest men that the world has produced. But their disciples and the people who have come after them have often been far from great or good. Often in history we see that religion, which was meant to raise us and make us better and nobler, has made people behave like beasts. Instead of bringing enlightenment to them, it has often tried to keep them in the dark; instead of broadening their minds, it has frequently made them narrow-minded and intolerant of others. In the name of religion many great and fine deeds have been performed. In the name of religion also thousands and millions have been killed, and every possible crime has been committed.

  What, then, is one to do with religion? For some people religion means the other world: heaven, paradise or whatever it may be called. In the hope of going to heaven they are religious or do certain things. This reminds me of the child who behaves in the hope of being rewarded with a jam puff or jalebi! If the child is always thinking of the jam puff or the jalebi, you would not say that it had been properly trained, would you? Much less would you approve of boys and girls who did everything for the sake of jam puffs and the like. What, then, shall we say of grownup persons who think and act in this way? For, after all, there is no essential difference between the jam puff and the idea of paradise. We are all more or less selfish. But we try to train up our children so that they may become as unselfish as possible. At any rate, our ideals should be wholly unselfish, so that we may try to live up to them.

  We all desire to achieve, to see the result of our actions. That is natural. But what do we aim at? Are we concerned with ourselves only or with the larger good—the good of society, of our country, or of humanity? After all, this larger good will include us also. Some days ago I think I gave you a Sanskrit verse in one of my letters. This stated that the individual should be sacrificed for the family, the family for the community, and the community for the country. I shall give you the translation of another verse from Sanskrit. This is from the Bhagavata. It runs thus: “I desire not the supreme state of bliss with its eight perfections, nor the cessation of re-birth. May I take up the sorrow of all creatures who suffer and enter into them so that they may be made free from grief.”

  One religious man says this, and another says that. And, often enough, each one of them considers the other a fool or a knave. Who is right? As they talk of things which cannot be seen or proved, it is difficult to settle the argument. But it seems rather presumptuous of both of them to talk with certainty of such matters and to break each other’s heads over them. Most of us are narrow-minded and not very wise. Can we presume to imagine that we know the whole truth and to force this down the throat of our neighbour? It may be we are right. It may be that our neighbour is also right. If you see a flower on a tree, you do not call it the tree. If another person sees the leaf only, and yet another the trunk, each has seen part of the tree only. How foolish it would be for each one of them to say that the tree was the flower only or the leaf or the trunk, and to fight over this!

  I am afraid the next world does not interest me. My mind is full of what I should do in this world, and if I see my way clearly here, I am content. If my duty here is clear to me, I do not trouble myself about any other world.

  As you grow up, you will meet all kinds of people: religious people, anti-religious people, and people who do not care either way. There are big churches and religious organizations possessing great wealth and power, sometimes using them for good purposes, sometimes for bad. You will meet very fine and noble people who are religious, and knaves and scoundrels who, under the cloak of religion, rob and defraud others. And you will have to think about these matters and decide for yourself. One can learn much from others, but everything worthwhile one has to find out or experience oneself. There are some questions which each person has to answer for himself or herself.

  Do not be in a hurry to decide. Before you can decide anything big or vital you will have to train yourself and educate yourself to do so. It is right that people should think for themselves and decide for themselves, but they must have the ability to decide. You would not ask a new-born babe to decide anything! And there are many people who, though grown in years, are almost like new-born babes so far as their minds are concerned.

  I have written a longer letter than usual today, and you may find it dull. But I wanted to have my little say on this subject. If you do not understand anything now it does not matter. You will understand soon enough.

  15

  Persia and Greece

  January 21, 1931

  Your letter came today, and it was good to know that Mummie and you were getting on well. But I wish Dadu would get rid of his fever and his troubles. He has worked so hard all his life, and even now he can have no peace and no rest.

  So you have read many books from the library and want me to suggest more. But you do not tell me what you have read. It is a good habit to read books, but I rather suspect those who read too many books quickly. I suspect them of not reading them properly at all, of just skimming through them, and forgetting them the day after. If a book is worth reading it is worth reading with some care and thoroughness. But, then, there are such vast numbers of books which are not worth reading at all, and it is no easy matter to pick and choose good books. You may tell me that if you choose books from our library, they should be good books, or else why should we have got them? Well, well, read on, and I shall give you such help as I can from Naini Prison. Often I think of the speed with which you are growing in mind and body. How I should like to be with you! Perhaps you may outgrow these very letters that I am writing to you by the time they reach you. I suppose that Chand1 will be old enough to read them then, so that anyhow there will be some one to appreciate them.

  Let us go back to old Greece and Persia and consider for a while their wars with each other. In one of our letters we discussed the Greek City-States and the great empire of Persia under a ruler called by the Greeks Darius. This empire of Darius was a great one not only in extent but also in organization. It extended from Asia Minor to the Indus, and Egypt was part of it, and so also were some Greek cities of Asia Minor. Right across this vast empire ran good roads along which went regularly the imperial post. Darius, for some reason or other, decided to conquer the Greek City-States, and during these wars some very famous battles of history took place.

  The accounts that we have of these wars were written by a Greek historian named Herodotus, who lived very soon after the events he recorded. He was, of course, partial to the Greeks, but his account is very interesting, and I shall, in the course of these letters, give you some quotations from his history.

  The first Persian attack on Greece failed because the Persian army suffered greatly during its march from disease and lack of food. It did not even reach Greece, but had to go back. Then came the second attack in 490 BC. The Persian army avoided the land route this time and came by sea, and landed at a place called Marathon, near Athens. The Athenians were greatly alarmed, for the fame of the Persian Empire was great. In their fear, the Athenians tried to make up with their old enemies the Spartans and appealed to them for help against the common enemy. But even before the Spartans could arrive, the Athenians succeeded in defeating the Persian army. This was at the famous battle of Marathon, which took place in 490 BC.

  It seems curious that a small Greek City-State could have defeated the army of a great empire. But this is not so strange as it might appear. The Greeks were fighting near their home and for their home whilst the Persian army was far from its homelands. It was a mixed army of soldiers from all parts of the Persian Empire. They fought because they were paid for it; they were not interested very much in the conquest of Greece. The Athenians, on the other hand, fought for their freedom. They preferred to die rathe
r than lose their freedom, and those who are prepared to die for any cause are seldom defeated.

  So Darius was defeated at Marathon. He died in Persia later, and was succeeded by Xerxes. Xerxes also had the ambition to conquer Greece, and he fitted out an expedition for this purpose. And here I shall take you to the fascinating story as told by Herodotus. Artabanus was the uncle of Xerxes. He thought there was danger to the Persian army in going to Greece, and he tried to induce his nephew Xerxes not to war against Greece. Herodotus tells us that Xerxes answered him as follows:

  There is reason in what you say, but you ought not to see danger everywhere or to reckon every risk. If whatever comes up you are going to weigh everything alike, you will never do anything. It is better to be always an optimist and to suffer half the amount of evil, than always to be full of gloomy anticipations and never suffer anything at all. If you attack every proposal made without showing us the right course to follow, you will come to grief as much as those whom you oppose. The scales are evenly balanced. How can a human being know certainly which way they will incline? He cannot. But success generally attends those who wish to act; and it does not attend those who are timid and balance everything. You see the great power which Persia has attained. If my predecessors on the throne had held your views, or without holding them had had counsellors like you, you would never have seen our kingdom become so great. It is by taking risks that they made us what we are. Great things are achieved through great dangers.