4 ASIA AND EUROPE January 8, 1931 EVERYTHING #changes continually, I said in my last letter. What is history, indeed, but a record of change ? And if there had been very few changes in the past, there would have been little of history to write. The history we learn in school or college is usually not up to much. I do not know very much about others, but about myself I know that I learnt very little in school. I learnt a little—very little—of the history of India, and a little of the history of England. And even the history of India that I learnt was largely wrong or distorted and written by people who looked down upon our country. Of the history of other countries I had the vaguest knowledge. It was only after I left college that I read some real history. Fortunately, my visits to prison have given me a chance of improving my knowledge. I have written to you in some of my earlier letters about the ancient civilization of India, about the Dravidians and the coming of the Aryans. I have not written much about the days before the Aryans, because I do not know much about them. But it will interest you to know that within the last few years the remains of a very ancient civilization have been discovered in India. These are in the north-west of India round about a place called Mohen-jo Daro. People have dug out these remains of perhaps 6000 years ago and have even discovered mummies, similar to those of old Egypt. Imagine ! all this was thousands of years ago, long before the Aryans came. Europe must then have been a wilderness. To-day Europe is strong and powerful, and its people consider themselves the most civilized and cultured in the world. They look down upon Asia and her peoples, and come and grab everything they can get from the countries of Asia. How times have changed ! Let us have a good look at Europe and Asia. Open an atlas and see little Europe sticking on to the great Asiatic Continent. It seems to be just a little extension of it. When you read history you will find that for long periods and stretches of time 10 Asia had been dominant. Her people went in wave after wave and conquered Europe. They ravaged Europe and they civilized Europe. Aryans, Scythians, Huns, Arabs, Mongols, Turks— they all came from somewhere in Asia and spread out over Asia and Europe. Asia seemed to produce them in great numbers like locusts. Indeed, Europe was for long like a colony of Asia, and many people of modern Europe are descended from these invaders from Asia. Asia sprawls right across the map like a big, lumbering giant. Europe is small. But, of course, this does not mean that Asia is great because of her size or that Europe is not worthy of much attention. Size is the poorest test of a man's or a country's greatness. We know well that Europe, though the smallest of continents, is to-day great. We know also that many of her countries have had brilliant periods of history. They have produced great men of science who have, by their discoveries and inventions, advanced human civilization tremendously and made life easier for millions of men and women. They have had great writers and thinkers, and artists and musicians and men of action. It would be foolish not to recognize the greatness of Europe. But it would be equally foolish to forget the greatness of Asia. We are apt to be taken in a little by the glitter of Europe and forget the past. Let us remember that it is Asia that has produced great leaders of thought who have influenced the world perhaps more than any one or anything elsewhere—the great founders of the principal religions. Hinduism, the oldest of the great religions existing to-day, is of course the product of India. So also is its great sister-religion Buddhism, which now spreads all over China and Japan and Burma and Tibet and Ceylon. The religion of the Jews and Christianity are also Asiatic religions, as their origin was in Palestine on the west coast of Asia. Zoroastrianism, the religion of the Parsis, began in Persia, and you know that Mohammed, the prophet of Islam, was born in Mecca in Arabia. Krishna, Buddha, Zoroaster, Christ, Mohammed, and Confucius and Lao-Tse, the great philosophers of China— you could fill pages with the names of the great thinkers of Asia. You could also fill pages with the names of the great men of action of Asia. And in many other ways I could show you how great and vital was this old continent of ours in the days gone by. How times have changed ! But they are changing again even before our eyes. History usually works slowly through the centuries, though sometimes there are periods of rush and burst-ups. To-day, however, it is moving fast in Asia, and the old continent is waking up after her long slumber. The eyes of the world are upon her, for everyone knows that Asia is going to play a great part in the future. http://historydepartmentphilos.weebly.com/uploads/2/6/6/1/26612531/jawaharlal_nehru_glimpses_of_world