India [antikvár]

.Il ¦ 'L'iii'iJi'tti.'g^^^^ii NTRODUCTION ¦ 15 The Allure of India Travellers have been captivated since early times by India's awesome diversity of peoples, cultures and landscapes India has always welcomed and inlrigued the traveller. In 1897, Mark Twain described it as "the land of dreams and romance, of fabulous wealth and fabulous poverty, of splendour and rags, of palaces and hovels, of famine and pestilence, of genies and giants and Aladdin lamps, of tigers and elephants, the cobra and the jungle, the country of a hundred nations and a hundred tongues, of a thousand religions and two million gods "Today's visitors, from the moment they step off the plane, are assaulted by contradictions no less vivid and paradoxes no less puzzling than they ever were. There is evidence, from earliest historical times, of great movements of peoples across the subcontinent, sometimes replacing existing populations, sometimes integrating with them. The Indo-Aryans themselves came in massive sweeps through the lofty passes in the northwest, bringing with them the rudiments of the Hindu faith, later to be developed on Indian soil into one of the most philosophically subtle and complex of all religions. While it is in only recent years that Hinduism is again having a major influence outside the Indian subcontinent, Buddhism, which grew out of Hinduism, is a major world religion. But India has also received the gifts of Islam, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, and, on a very small scale but very significantly, Judaism. India has been the proverbial sponge, and not only in matters religious. With various races and religions came a variety of ethnic types, their art, architecture, culture, languages, customs, literature, style of music and dance, administrative structures, systems of thought, science, technology and medicine. Few of these have entirely lost their identity, all have had their influence, and many have found a permanent place in India's intricate mosaic. While it is this variety and complexity that makes India attractive for the traveller, it is also the source of many of India's difficulties, past and contemporary. It is just this heterogeneity that makes it one of the most difficult of countries to govern. And that difficulty will not diminish as India's population approaches one billion. But, despite its problems, India retains its allure for visitors eager to understand rather than judge on first acquaintance. Everyone's perception is different. The English journalist James Cameron, one of India's greatest advocates, summed up the subcontinent's appeal when he wrote: "I like the evening in India, the one magic moment when the sun balances on the rim of the world, and the hush descends, and 10,000 civil servants drift homeward on a river of bicycles, brooding on the Lord Krishna and the cost of living." ? f 1 i'-il'/.l.^'f Preceding Pages: Himalayan landscape; camel fair at Pushkar, Rajasthan; Dilwara Temple, Mount Abu; Gujarati folk dance. Left: a welcoming Rajasthani.