The Soul of India: A Constructive Study of Indian Thoughs & Ideals

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You have read something of our past history and achievements and have been profoundly impressed with the grandeur of our ancient civilisation. Indeed, it is a commonplace of present day European thought, to speak in high terms of our past. The first deal largely with ancient India. They are written by European Orientalists. Max Muller and Monier Williams, Macdonald and Rhys Davis and others in our day; Sir William Jones, Horace Hayman Wilson, and Muir and others in the early eighteenth century, have given to the English-speaking world the result of their lifelong studies in ancient Sanskrit literature or Indo-Aryan civilisation.

We are the fruits of a hybrid education that has produced a kind of intellectual and spiritual atavism in us. This education has, on the one hand, "divorced our mind and spirit from the deeper realities of the life and thought of our own country, without, on the other hand, placing us in any living and real relations even with the life and thought of Europe. The ancient Aryan social economy was based upon this varnasrama, or caste-and-order scheme. This caste-and-order law sums up the whole soul and spirit of ancient Hindu culture. The fundamental difference between European nationalism and Indian nationalism lies on the excessive emphasis of the one on territorial and of the other on cultural unity.

They are immortals, but not equal to the Supreme, who rules them as much as He rules mankind. Though much purer than humans, these gods have the same passions and are as much subject to anger and jealousy and other spiritual deficiencies as men and women.

Bipin Chandra Pal (7 November 1858- 20 May 1932) was an Indian nationalist, writer, orator, social reformer and Indian independence movement freedom fighter. He was one third of the "Lal Bal Pal" trio.

Bipin Chandra Pal was born on 7 November 1858 to a wealthy Bengali Kayastha family in the village of Pail in Habiganj, then part of the Bengal Presidency's Sylhet District.

He studied and taught at the Church Mission Society College (now the St. Paul's Cathedral Mission College), an affiliated college of the University of Calcutta. He also studied comparative theology for a year (1899-1900) at New Manchester College, Oxford in England but did not finish the course.

Pal is known as the Father of Revolutionary Thoughts in India. Pal became a major leader of the Indian National Congress. At the Madras session of Indian National Congress held in 1887, Bipin Chandra Pal made a strong plea for repeal of the Arms Act which was discriminatory in nature. Along with Lala Lajpat Rai and Bal Gangadhar Tilak he belonged to the Lal- Bal-Pal trio that was associated with revolutionary activity.

As a journalist, Pal worked for Bengal Public Opinion, The Tribune and New India, where he propagated his brand of nationalism. He wrote several articles warning India of the changes happening in China and other geopolitical situations. In one of his writings, describing where the future danger for India would come from, Pal wrote under the title "Our Real Danger".

BABU BIPIN CHANDRA PAL needs no introduction to his fellow- countrymen in India. But we feel as if a few words of introduction might be welcome by the foreign readers for whom the present volume is specially intended. And the publishers can do no better to meet this need, than reproduce here a very appreciative Character Sketch of Mr. Pal by Mr. W. T. Stead that appeared in the last October number of his Review of Reviews. This Sketch will give the European reader some idea of the Author, who, as the Modern Review, the premier English Monthly of India, once said, "has, of all Indian politicians a most thorough grasp of Indian sociology and civilisation."

After spending three years in this country in a condition of almost enforced exile Mr. Bipin Chandra Pal has returned to India. He sailed for Bombay on the 20th of last month. Mr. Pal, who, formerly editor of New India, was one of the leaders of the Indian National movement, was also closely connected with the attempt to foster the national spirit by boycotting foreign goods. His patriotism, although much appreciated by his fellow-countrymen, was not regarded in the same light by the Government, and Mr. Pal, like many a better man, had to spend a certain period of his novitiate in goal. Shortly after his release he left India and came to this country, where he has been pretty constantly in evidence as a speaker on Indian topics, particularly those connected with Hindu philosophy.

A PERSONAL TRIBUTE. I have had the pleasure of Mr. Chandra Pal's acquaintance since his arrival in this country, and I feel sincere regret at his departure. None of the Indian Nationalists who have come to this country of late years have left quite such a good impression upon my mind, for Mr. Pal, while never abating in the least the fervour of his Nationalist aspirations, has a width of outlook and a well-balanced impartial judgment which is rare to find in any man, let alone in a Nationalist who has suffered imprisonment for his cause. I have heard Mr. Pal lecture, and I have met him frequently at my own house, where he has ever been an honoured and a welcome guest. Now he has left England there is no one who can exactly fill his place.

**Contents and Sample Pages**