Of all the nations of the world, India is a nation that stands on the strongest foundation. Though there arose from time to time tremendous challenges and upheavals, there were men in India who faced these challenges with peace and patience and kept the grand mansion of India safe and sound.
The monarchs who ruled over India fall into three categories: the supporters, the denigrators and the middlings. The supporters who favoured Indian culture, contributed substantially to her beauty and glory; the denigrators made tremendous efforts to destroy Indian culture and found themselves defeated in their endeavours and the middlings who adopted an attitude of complacence and indifference disappeared in the womb of time. These three categories of men existed then; they exist now; they will exist in the future as well.
But thanks to the patience and forbearance of its people, India made tryst with history, met the challenges of time and emerged grand and victorious. The nations which appeared to have been built on unshakable foundations have come crumbling down in front of our very eyes. Such is the fate of the nations who prided on their physical and mental prowess. But India, on the other hand, though not endowed with the money and might of such nations, resisted the ravages of times and vicissitudes of history. Indian culture even today stands as an ideal to be emulated by other nations. The foreigners who investigated into the cause for India’s untarnished culture found no answer. It is India’s adherence to dharma and the dharmic life, which they led, made India’s culture an eternal culture. (SSB 1993, pp. 104-105)
