Nationalist/ pro-hindu-cultural sentiment and awareness of the mlechCha (including muslim) invasion and threat is evident in many places.
Extant of old AryAvarta
- The notion of a fluid but temorally clear definition of the land of Arya-s (../AryAvarta) is apparent from the dharmashAstra-s. More in the ethnic-shifts/Arya-consolidation/ page.
- baudhAyana lists sea voyage among patanIya-s. manu says that a brAhmaNa who has crossed the seas is not worthy of being invited to a shrAddha.
- See references in bodhAyana dharma sUtra.
Other descriptions
- As SR Goel says here: “This vast land which Islam has dismembered in due course into the separate states of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Hindustan, and Bangladesh had been a single indivisible whole since times immemorial. Bharatavarsha had been termed by the ancients as the cradle of varNãshrama-dharma, witness to the wheel of the caturyugas, and the kShetra for chakravãrtya, spiritual as well as political. This historical memory and cultural tradition was alive as late as the imperial Guptas. Kalidasa had clothed it in immortal poetry in his far-famed RaghuvaMsa.”
- Pilgrimage routes: “Everyone knows about the dvādaśa jyotirliṅga-s for the śaiva-s, the divyadeśa-s of the śrī vaiṣṇavas or the śaktipīṭha-s of the śākta-s, covering the whole of bhārata or even what we call, akhaṇḍabhārata.” [GA]
- The work of story-tellers:
- “It is no coincidence that the mahābhārata is framed as janamejaya listening to vaiśampāyana at the sarpa-killing sattra or that the uttarakāṇḍa states how vālmīki has the sons of rāma go around the city singing the rāmāyaṇa on the occasion of the aśvamedha held by rāma or that ugraśrava sauti recites purāṇa-s to the sages at the sattra held by śaunaka. Indeed, when one traces the origin of this, one realizes the roots of a formalized public discourse lie in the hoary pāriplava rite of the aśvamedha where various branches of knowledge are recited to different groups, with the itihāsa-s and purāṇa-s being narrated to fishermen and bird-catchers.” [GA]
- The cultural unity of India is apparent in Indian and foreign literary works, epigraphs which describe various regions and customs of India (take Kalidasa’s Raghuvamsha or the Mahabharata as prominent examples). This was apparent to Indians across time. Examples:
- Govindrao Kale to Nana Fadnis 2nd July 1792 [TW16]
- bhAskarAchArya-makhIndra’s note.
- To add to this, there was a clear (though not static) notion of what constituted the “Āryāvarta” or the land of the cultured people. All this points to a sense of pan-Indic cultural unity. Please see “Nationalism: Its Theory and Principles in India” by Parmanand Parashar for further details and references.
- Ability to clearly identify brAhmaNa-s fittest in the function of conserving pristine Arya vaidika ideals.
