Glimpses of World History

by Jawaharlal Nehru

  So China succumbed at last to the nomad tribes. But even in the process of doing so it civilized them, and so did not suffer from them as other parts of Asia and Europe did.

  The Sungs in the north and in the south were not politically as powerful as their predecessors, the Tangs. But they carried on the artistic tradition of the great days of the Tangs, and indeed improved upon it. South China under the Southern Sungs excelled in art and poetry, and beautiful paintings were made, especially of scenes from Nature, for the Sung artists loved Nature. Porcelain also appears, made beautiful by the touch of the artist’s fingers. This was to become more and more beautiful and wonderful until 200 years under the Ming monarchs, marvellously fine procelain was produced. A vase of the Ming period in China is even today a thing of rare delight.

  55

  The Shogun Rules in Japan

  June 6, 1932

  From China it is easy to cross the Yellow Sea and visit Japan, and now that we are so near to it we might as well do so. Do you remember our last visit? We saw the rise of great families fighting for mastery, and a central government coming more and more into evidence. The emperor from being the chief of a big and powerful clan became the head of the central government. Nara, the capital, was established as a symbol of central authority. And then the capital was changed to Kyoto. Chinese methods of government were copied and much was taken from or via China—art, religion, politics. Even the name of the country—Dai Nippon—came from China.

  We saw also a powerful family—the Fujiwara family—seizing all the power and treating the emperors as puppets. For 200 years they ruled until the emperors got desperate and abdicated and entered monasteries. But in spite of becoming a monk the ex-emperor interfered a great deal in the affairs of government by advising the reigning emperor who was his son. By this method the emperors managed to get round the Fujiwara family to some extent. It was rather a complicated way of doing things, but anyhow it succeeded in reducing the power of the Fujiwaras. The real power lay with the emperors, who abdicated one after the other and became monks. They are called, therefore, the Cloistered Emperors.

  Meanwhile, however, other changes took place and a new class of large landholders who were also military men arose. The Fujiwaras had created these landholders and asked them to collect taxes for the government. They were called “Daimyos”, which means “great names”. It is curious to compare this with the rise of a similar class in our province just before the British came. In Oudh, especially, the king who was a weakling appointed tax-collectors. These people kept little armies of their own to help them to collect forcibly, and of course they kept most of the collections for themselves. These tax-collectors in some cases developed into the big taluqdars.

  The Daimyos became very powerful with their retainers and little armies, and fought each other and ignored the Central Government at Kyoto. The two chief Daimyo families were the Taira and the Minamoto. They helped the Emperor in suppressing the Fujiwaras in 1156 AC. But then they attacked each other. The Tairas won, and, perhaps to make sure that the rival family would not trouble them in future, they killed them. They killed all the leading Minamotos except four children, one of these being a twelve-year-old boy, Yoritomo. The Taira family, in spite of their attempts, had not been thorough enough. This boy Yoritomo, who was spared as of no great consequence, grew up a bitter enemy of the Taira family, full of the desire for vengeance. He succeeded. He drove them out of the capital, and then smashed them up at a naval battle.

  Yoritomo now became all powerful, and the Emperor gave him the high-sounding title of Sei-i-tai-Shogun, which means the Barbarian-subduing-great-general. This was in 1192 AC. The title was hereditary, and with it went full power to govern. The Shogun was the real ruler. In this way began the Shogunate in Japan. It was to last a very long time, nearly 700 years, almost to recent times, when modern Japan was to rise out of her feudal shell.

  But this does not mean that Yoritomo’s descendants ruled as Shoguns for 700 years. There were several changes in the families out of which Shoguns came. There was civil war repeatedly, but the system of the Shogun being the real ruler, and governing in the name of an emperor, who had little or no power, continued for this long period. Often it so happened that even the Shogun became a mere figurehead and a number of officials held the power.

  Yoritomo was afraid of living in the luxury of the capital, Kyoto, as he felt that soft living would weaken him and his colleagues. So he established his military capital at Kamakura, and this first Shogunate is called therefore the Kamakura Shogunate. It lasted till 1333 AC, that is, for nearly 150 years. Japan had peace during most of this period. After the many years of civil war the peace was very welcome and there was an era of prosperity. The condition of Japan during this period was certainly much better, and the government was more efficient, than that of any country of contemporary Europe. Japan was an apt pupil of China, although there was a vast difference in the two outlooks. China, as I have said, was an essentially peaceful and quiet country. Japan, on the other hand, was an aggressive military country. In China a soldier was looked down upon and the trade of fighting was not considered very honourable; in Japan the topmost men were soldiers, and the ideal was that of a Daimyo or fighting knight.

  So Japan took much from China, but took it in its own way and adapted and moulded everything to suit its racial genius. Intimate contacts with China continued, and so did trade, chiefly on Chinese ships. There was a sudden stop to this towards the end of the thirteenth century, for the Mongols had come to China and Korea. The Mongols even attempted to conquer Japan, but they were repulsed. Thus the Mongols, who changed the face of Asia and shook Europe, had no marked effect on Japan. Japan carried on in her old way, cut off even more than before from external influences.

  There is a story in the old official annals of Japan of how the cotton-plant first came to the country. It is said that some Indians who were shipwrecked near the coast of Japan brought the cotton seeds in 799 AC.

  The tea-plant came later. It was first introduced early in the ninth century, but it had no success then. In 1191 a Buddhist monk brought seeds of the tea-plant from China, and very soon tea became popular. This drinking of tea created a demand for fine pottery. Late in the thirteenth century a Japanese potter went to China to study the art of making porcelain. He spent six years there. On his return he started making fine Japanese porcelain. Tea-drinking is now a fine art in Japan and there is an elaborate ceremonial about it. When you go to Japan you must drink it the right way, or you will be considered a bit of a barbarian.

  56

  The Quest of Man

  June 10, 1932

  Four days ago I wrote to you from Bareilly Gaol. That very evening I was told to gather up my belongings and to march out of the prison— not to be discharged, but to be transferred to another prison. So I bade good-bye to my companions of the barrack, where I had lived for just four months, and I had a last look at the great twenty-four-foot wall under whose sheltering care I had sat for so long, and I marched out to see the outside world again for a while. There were two of us being transferred. They would not take us to Bareilly station lest people might see us, for we have become purdahnashins,1 and may not be seen! Fifty miles out they drove us by car to a little station in the wilderness. I felt thankful for this drive. It was delightful to feel the cool night air and to see the phantom trees and men and animals rush by in the semi-darkness, after many months of seclusion.

  We were brought to Dehra Dun. Early in the morning we were again taken out of our train, before we had reached the end of our journey, and taken by car, lest prying eyes should see us.

  And so here I sit in the little gaol of Dehra Dun, and it is better here than at Bareilly. It is not quite so hot, and the temperature does not rise to 112 degrees, as it did in Bareilly. And the walls surrounding us are lower and the trees that overlook them are greener. In the distance I can even see, over our wall, the top of a palm tree, and the sight delights me and makes me think o
f Ceylon and Malabar. Beyond the trees there lie the mountains, not many miles away, and, perched up on top of them, sits Mussoorie. I cannot see the mountains, for the trees hide them, but it is good to be near them and to imagine at night the lights of Mussoorie twinkling in the far distance.

  Four years ago—or is it three?—I began writing these series of letters to you when you were at Mussoorie. What a lot has happened during these three or four years, and how you have grown! With fits and starts and after long gaps I have continued these letters, mostly from prison. But the more I write the less I like what I write; and a fear comes upon me that these letters may not interest you much, and may even become a burden for you. Why, then, should I continue to write them?

  I should have liked to place vivid images of the past before you, one after another, to make you sense how this world of ours has changed, step by step, and developed and progressed, and sometimes apparently gone back; to make you see something of the old civilizations and how they have risen like the tide and then subsided; to make you realize how the river of history has run on from age to age, continuously, interminably, with its eddies and whirlpools and backwaters, and still rushes on to an unknown sea. I should have liked to take you on man’s trail and follow it up from the early beginnings, when he was hardly a man, to today, when he prides himself so much, rather vainly and foolishly, on his great civilization. We did begin that way, you will remember, in the Mussoorie days, when we talked of the discovery of fire and of agriculture, and the settling down in towns, and the division of labour. But the farther we have advanced, the more we have got mixed up with empires and the like, and often we have lost sight of that trail. We have just skimmed over the surface of history. I have placed the skeleton of old happenings before you and I have wished that I had the power to cover it with flesh and blood, to make it living and vital for you.

  But I am afraid I have not got that power, and you must rely upon your imagination to work the miracle. Why, then, should I write, when you can read about past history in many good books? Yet, through my doubts I have continued writing, and I suppose I shall still continue. I remember the promise I made to you, and I shall try to fulfil it. But more even than this is the joy that the thought of you gives me when I sit down to write and imagine that you are by me and we are talking to each other.

  Of man’s trail I have written above, since he emerged stumbling and slouching from the jungle. It has been a long trail of many thousands of years. And yet how short a time it is if you compare it to the earth’s story and the ages and aeons of time before man came! But for us man is naturally more interesting than all the great animals that existed before him; he is interesting because he brought a new thing with him which the others do not seem to have had. This was mind—curiosity—the desire to find out and learn. So from the earliest days began man’s quest. Observe a little baby, how it looks at the new and wonderful world about it; how it begins to recognize things and people; how it learns. Look at a little girl; if she is a healthy and wide-awake person she will ask so many questions about so many things. Even so, in the morning of history when man was young and the world was new and wonderful, and rather fearsome to him, he must have looked and stared all around him, and asked questions. Who was he to ask except himself? There was no one else to answer. But he had a wonderful little thing—a mind— and with the help of this, slowly and painfully, he went on storing his experiences and learning from them. So from the earliest times until today man’s quest has gone on, and he has found out many things, but many still remain, and as he advances on his trail, he discovers vast new tracts stretching out before him, which show to him how far he is still from the end of his quest—if there is such an end.

  What has been this quest of man, and whither does he journey? For thousands of years men have tried to answer these questions. Religion and philosophy and science have all considered them, and given many answers. I shall not trouble you with these answers, for the sufficient reason that I do not know most of them. But, in the main, religion has attempted to give a complete and dogmatic answer, and has often cared little for the mind, but has sought to enforce obedience to its decisions in various ways. Science gives a doubting and hesitating reply, for it is of the nature of science not to dogmatize, but to experiment and reason and rely on the mind of man. I need hardly tell you that my preferences are all for science and the methods of science.

  We may not be able to answer these questions about man’s quest with any assurance, but we can see that the quest itself has taken two lines. Man has looked outside himself as well as inside; he has tried to understand Nature, and he has also tried to understand himself. The quest is really one and the same, for man is part of Nature. “Know thyself”, said the old philosophers of India and Greece; and the Upanishads contain the record of the ceaseless and rather wonderful strivings after this knowledge by the old Aryan Indians. The other knowledge of Nature has been the special province of science, and our modern world is witness to the great progress made therein. Science, indeed, is spreading out its wings even farther now, and taking charge of both lines of this quest and co-ordinating them. It is looking up with confidence to the most distant stars, and it tells us also of the wonderful little things in continuous motion—the electrons and protons—of which all matter consists.

  The mind of man has carried man a long way in his voyage of discovery. As he has learnt to understand Nature more he has utilized it and harnessed it to his own advantage, and thus he has won more power. But unhappily he has not always known how to use this new power, and he has often misused it. Science itself has been used by him chiefly to supply him with terrible weapons to kill his brother and destroy the very civilization that he has built up with so much labour.

  57

  The End of the First Millennium after Christ

  June 11, 1932

  It may be worthwhile for us to stop a little at the stage we have reached in our journey and have a look around. How far have we got? Where are we now? And what does the world look like? Let us then take seats on Aladdin’s Magic Carpet and pay brief visits to various parts of the world of that day.

  We have travelled through the first millennium or 1000 years of the Christian era. In some countries we have gone on a little ahead, and in some we are a little behind this stage.

  Asia and Europe about AD 1000

  In Asia, we see China under the Sung dynasty. The great Tang dynasty is over, and the Sungs have to face both domestic trouble and foreign attack from the northern barbarians, the Khitans. For 150 years they hold on, but then they are weak enough to ask for the help of another barbarian tribe, the Golden Tartars or Kins. The Kins come and stay, and the poor Sungs have to shrink away to the south, where, as the Southern Sungs, they carry on for another 150 years. Meanwhile beautiful arts, painting and porcelain-making flourish.

  In Korea, after a period of division and conflict, a united independent kingdom was established in 935 AC and this lasted for a long time— about 450 years. Korea takes much of her civilization and art and methods of government from China. Religion and also something of art go to her, as well as to Japan, from India, through China. Japan, situated far to the east, almost like a sentinel of Asia, carries on her existence, more or less cut off from the rest of the world. The Fujiwara family is supreme, and the emperor, who has recently become something more than a clan chief, is kept in the shade. Later comes the Shogun.

  In Malaysia the Indian colonies flourish. Angkor the Magnificent is the capital of Cambodia, and this State is at the height of its power and development. In Sumatra, Sri Vijaya is the capital of a great Buddhist Empire which controls all the eastern islands and carries on an extensive trade between them. In Eastern Java there is an independent Hindu State which is soon to grow and, competing with Sri Vijaya for trade and the wealth that trade brings, is to wage bitter war with it, as the modern European nations do for trade, and is ultimately to conquer and destroy it.

  In India, north and south are cut
off from each other more than they have been for some time. In the north, Mahmud of Ghazni sweeps down again and again and destroys and plunders. He carries away vast wealth and attaches the Punjab to his kingdom. In the south, we find the Chola Empire expanding and gaining in power under Rajaraja and his son Rajendra. They dominate the south of India, and their navies sweep the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal. They carry out aggressive expeditions of conquest to Ceylon, South Burma and Bengal.

  In Central and western Asia we see the remnants of the Abbaside Empire of Baghdad. Baghdad still flourishes, and indeed is increasing in power under a new set of rulers, the Seljuq Turks. But the old Empire has split up into many kingdoms. Islam has ceased to be one empire and has become merely the religion of many countries and peoples. Out of the wreck of the Abbaside Empire has arisen the kingdom of Ghazni, which Mahmud has ruled and from which he has swooped down on India. But though the Empire of Baghdad has broken up, Baghdad itself continues to be a great city, attracting artists and learned men from distant places. Many great and famous cities also flourish in Central Asia at this time—Bokhara, Samarqand, Balkh and others. And extensive trade is carried on between them and great caravans carry merchandise from one to the other.