But what is civilization ? Civilization is the expression of the mind of man. Civilization is the account of what man has made of matter. If matter is the creation of the Lord, then civilization is the miniature secondary creation of man. At its best it is the perfect triumph of the soul of man over matter and man alike. Wherever and to the extent to which man has succeeded in moulding matter to the delight of his soul, civilization begins. And it triumphs when he has tapped all the sources of Supreme Delight satisfying the spiritual aspirations of his being towards strength and beauty and love, realising Life in all its fulness and richness. The story of the civilization of a nation is the story of its thoughts, its actions and its achievements. Literature and art tell us of its thoughts; history and social institutions of its actions and achievements. In none of these can man remain isolated. The primitive ‘dungi’ (canoe) of the Andamanese can truly claim to have influenced the up-to-date dreadnoughts of America. The latest adventure of fashion amongst the fair sex in Paris is but the lineal descendant of the bunch of leaves stuck in the girdle-string which constitutes the perfection of the toilet of a ‘Patua’ girl. And yet a ‘dungi’ remains a dungi and a dreadnought, a dreadnought; they are too much more unlike each other than like to be identified as one and the same. Even so, although the Hindus have lent much and borrowed much like any other people, yet their civilization is too characteristic to be mistaken for any other cultural unit. And secondly, however striking their mutual differences be, they are too much more like each other than unlike, to be denied the right of being recognized as a cultural unit amongst other such units in the world owning a common history,a common literature and a common civilization. Paradoxical as it may sound to those who have fallen victims to the interested or ignorant cry that has secured the ear of the present world that the Hindus have no history, it nevertheless remains true that Hindus are about the only people who have succeeded in preserving their history—riding through earthquakes, bridging over deluges. It begins with their Vedas which are the first extant chapter of the story of our race. The first cradle songs that every Hindu girl listens to are the songs of Sita, the good. Some of us worship Rama as an incarnation, some admire him as a hero and a warrior, and all love him as the most illustrious representative monarch of our race. Maruti and Bheemsen, are the never failing source of strength and physical perfection to the Hindu youth; Savitri and Damayanti, the never failing ideals of constancy and chastity of the Hindu maid. The love that Radha made to the Divine Cow-herd in Gokul finds its echo wherever a Hindu lover kisses his beloved. The giant struggle of the Kurus, the set duels of Arjun and Kama, of Bheem and Dusshasan that took place on the field of Kurukshetra thousands of years ago, are rehearsed in all their thrill from cottage to cottage and from palace to palace. Abhimanyu could not have been dearer to Arjun than he is to us. From Ceylon to Kashmir, Hindusthan daily sheds tears as lovingly and as bitterly as his father did at the mention of the fall of that lotus-eyed youth. What more shall we say ? The story of Ramayan and Mahabharat alone would bring us together and weld us into a race even if we be scattered to all the four winds like a handful of sand. I read the life of a Mazzini and I explain, ‘How patriotic they are!’ I read the life of a Madhavacharya and exclaim, ‘How patriotic we are !’ The fall of prithwiraj is bewailed in Bengal: the martyred sons of Govindsing, in Maharashtra. An Aryasamajist historian in the extreme north feels that Harihar and Bukka of the extreme south fought for him, and a Santanaist historian in the extreme south feels that Guru Tejbahadur died for him. We had kings in common. We had kingdoms in common. We had stability in common. We had triumphs in common and disasters in common. The names of Mokavasayya and Pisal +++(Suryaji Pisal who defected to mogols)+++, Jayachand and Kalapahad+++(←both ahistoric)+++ make us all feel as sinners do. The names of Ashok, Bhaskaracharya, Panini and Kapila leave us all electrified with a sense of personal elevation. But what about the internecine wars amongst Hindus? We answer, what about the Wars of Roses amongst the English? What of the internecine struggle, of state against state, sect against sect, class against class, each invoking foreign help against his own countrymen, in Italy, in Germany, in France, in America? Are they still a people, a nation and do they possess a common history ? If they do, the Hindus do. If the Hindus do not possess a common history, then none in the world does. As our history tells the story of the action of our race, so does our literature taken in its fullest sense tell the story of the thought of our race. Thought, they say, is inseparable from our common tongue, Sanskrit. Verily it is our mother-tongue—the tongue in which the mothers of our race spoke and which has given birth to all our present tongues. Our gods spoke in Sanskrit, our sages thought in Sanskrit, our poets wrote in Sanskrit. All that is best in us —the best thoughts, the best ideas, the best lines—seeks instinctively to clothe itself in Sanskrit. To millions- it is still the language of their gods; to others it is the language of their ancestors; to all it is the language par excellence; a common inheritance, a common treasure, that enriches all the family of our sister languages. Gujarati and Gurumukhi, Sindhi and Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu, Maharastra and Malyalam, Bengali and Singali constitute the vital nerve-thread that runs through us all vivifying and toning our feelings and aspirations into a harmonious whole. It is not a language alone; to many Hindus, it is a Mantra, to all it is a music. The Vedas do not constitute an authority for all Jains. But the Vedas as the most ancient work and the history of their race belong to Jains as much as to any of us. Adipuran was not written by a Sanatani, yet the Adipuran is the common inheritance of the Sanatanis and the Jains. The Basavapurana is the Bible of the Lingayats; but it belongs to Lingayat and non- Lingayat Hindus alike, as one of the foremost and historical Kanarese work extant. Vichitranatak of Guru Govind is as truly the property of a Hindu in Bengal as the Chaitanyacharitramrit is of a Sikh. Kalidas and Bhavbhuti, Charak and Sushrut, Aryabhatt and Varahamihita, Bhasa and Ashvaghosha, Jayadev and Jagannath wrote for us all, appeal to us all, are the cherished possession of us all. Let the work of Kamba, the Tamil poet and say, a copy of Hafiz be kept before a Hindu in Bengal and if he be asked ‘Which of these belongs to you?’ He would instinctively say, ‘Kamba is mine!’ Let a copy of the work of Ravindranath and that of Shakespeare be kept before a Hindu in Maharashtra, he would claim ‘Ravindra ! Ravindra is mine.’ The works of art and architecture are also a common inheritance of our race, whether they be representative of Vaidik or Avaidik school of thought. For all the labourers who wrought them, the masters who guided them, the tax-papers who financed them and the kings who organised them, whether Vaidik or Avaidik belonged to the great race that inhabits and owns this land from Sindhu to Sindhu—the Hindu race. Those who are Sanatanis today have contributed and laboured for the Buddhistic monuments of art and architecture then, while those who were Buddhistic then have contributed to and laboured for the monuments, of the Sanatani art and architecture now.