Page:Letters from Abroad.pdf/133

 124

Every Indian ought to be proud of this fact, that, inspite of immense disadvantages, India still has been able to produce greatness of personality in her children, such as we find in Ram Mohan Roy. Mahatmaji has quoted the instances of Nanak, Kabir, and other saints of Medieval India. They were great, because in their life and teaching they made organic the union of the Hindu and Muhammadan cultures—-and such realisation of the spiritual unity through all differences of appearance is truly Indian.

In the modern age, Ram Mohan Roy had that comprehensiveness of mind to be able to realise the fundamental unity of spirit in the Hindu, Muhammadan and Christian cultures. Therefore he represented India in the fulness of truth, and this truth is based, not upon rejection, but on perfect comprehension. Ram Mohan Roy could be perfectly natural in his acceptance of the West, only because his edivuz:on had been perfectly eastern-he had the full inheritance of the Indian wisdom. He was never a school boy of the West, and therefore he had the dignity to be the friend of the West. If he is not understood by Modern India, this only shows that the pure light of her own truth has been obscured for the moment by the storm clouds of passion.

It has been a perpetual sunshine of kindness for me all through my travels in this country. While