Page:Calcutta Review (1925) Vol. 16.djvu/392

376 Indo-Aryan culture and social-polities coupled with a Prakrit language made the people feel as kindred to each other. Above this, the hammer of centralized imperial rule of the Mauryas and the Guptas melted down all dialectical differences and provincial peculiarities, and India expressed herself as one. Thus in the past on account of community of character and language there was an Indian nation in the scientific as well as in the juristic sense. Again, in modern India such an evolution was being started under the quasi-national rule of the Timurids, but the evolution was cut short as soon as it gave emphasis to the difference of religion! Present-day India is again, on the threshhold of a new evolution. But the natural course of the Indian history is being hampered by adverse conditions engendered by foreign domination. Therefore the problem to-day is more difficult. To-day India has a community of fate, she is entering the course of a common historic-cultural evolution. The common historical fate will develop a common character. Thus, India as a whole, inspite of her multifarious diversities, through the wheel of a common fate, is going to be welded together as one. The national character is the precipitate of a certain historic-cultural development; and this character which differentiates a man of one nationality from another will be evolved in a national India. The nation appears in the national character, in the nationality of the individual. But the nationality of individual is nothing else than a part of his whole being shaped through the history of the society. Of course in this matter in present-day India divergencies do occur, viz., the history of the Mohammedan society stamps its member and differentiates him from a Hindu who is determined likewise. For this reason, the future Indian society must rise above denominational limitations, and stamp all its members with common national characteristics.

Thus the common historical fate hammers all people into a common character and at the same time builds the