At the end of the twelfth century the Second Stage of India's career began. Central Asian hordes flung themselves on her, to burn, to loot, to rape. Indians, who only knew the wars waged according to the laws of Dharma, were staggered by the scorching violence of the totalitarian campaigns which now were forced on them. But they did not yield, even when they were failed by force of arms. They mobilised defensive resistance in other spheres of life and the force of the barbarous onslaught was therefore broken up.
Alien rule was segregated into the narrowest limits. Inviolable defences - psychological, spiritual and social and religious - were raised against surrender. The history of the Age of Resistance from 1300 to 1526 A.D. gives an emphatic lie to the suggestion that India was decadent. Her culture was alive, vigorous. Where expansion was impossible, preservation was achieved. The Central Asian upheaval, which, under the banner of Islam, over-ran three continents during this Age, was a volcanic catastrophe which destroyed cultures and nations indiscriminately. But India survived, saved by the vitality of her culture.
By 1600 A.D. she had segregated, guarded off, absorbed, or diluted, all alien influences. She had energized. life under the inspiration of the Bhakti movement and a literary and aesthetic Renaissance. Her social and psychological defences had proved impregnable.
Gita and Modern Life: Bharat, Early Ancient India
Alien rule was segregated into the narrowest limits. Inviolable defences - psychological, spiritual and social and religious - were raised against surrender. The history of the Age of Resistance from 1300 to 1526 A.D. gives an emphatic lie to the suggestion that India was decadent. Her culture was alive, vigorous. Where expansion was impossible, preservation was achieved. The Central Asian upheaval, which, under the banner of Islam, over-ran three continents during this Age, was a volcanic catastrophe which destroyed cultures and nations indiscriminately. But India survived, saved by the vitality of her culture.
By 1600 A.D. she had segregated, guarded off, absorbed, or diluted, all alien influences. She had energized. life under the inspiration of the Bhakti movement and a literary and aesthetic Renaissance. Her social and psychological defences had proved impregnable.
Gita and Modern Life: Bharat, Early Ancient India
