Introductory - Global Sikh Studies

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pride in the achievements of the Indo-Aryan culture. Alberuni noted
that ‘the Hindus believe that there is no country but theirs, no nation
like theirs, no kings like theirs, no religions like theirs, no science like
theirs’. 3 ‘Their caste system, they believed, had originated from the
body of Brahma himself and some of their scriptures were revealed
texts. They were enabled to maintain undisturbed this self-esteem of
theirs by their isolation from other people.’ 4
Pride in the Aryan culture came to be shared also by the pre-
Aryan population; partly because it retained some important elements
of their own previous culture, and partly because they, perhaps, never
had a group-consciousness of their cultural distinctiveness. There are
records of the armed resistance they put up against the Aryans, but
there is not much evidence of their having offered any resistance to
their absorption in the Aryan culture, though they were, as shown by
the presence of their forts, at a higher level of civilization than the
Aryan pastorals. Similarly, the Huns, the Sakas and the other nomads,
who later overran parts of the country and who were at a comparatively
low level of culture, presented no problem to being assimilated in the
social and cultural system of the land. Thus, the Aryan culture, though
the Aryan in name only, became the one common factor in giving
some sort of a vague feeling of oneness to the otherwise hetrogenous
mixture of races, castes, tribes, cults and beliefs. How deep and
widespread this sentiment was it is difficult to judge. It could, probably,
not have been very deep with those sections of the population which
were not fairly treated by the social system. Nor could it be very
widespread, because the Brahmins had been at pains to exclude as
large a section of the people as possible from any real contact with
scriptural source of their culture. This is evidenced by the later large
scale voluntary defections to Islam. Any way, if there was at all any
sentiment, above sectional interests and loyalties, shared by the people
at large, it was pride in the Aryan culture.
Besides other contributory factors in the continuous synthesis
of the Neo-Aryan culture and its ever-changing pattern, one element,
which is fairly constant, is an extraordinary reverence for an allegiance
to the past. This sentiment was perhaps an out come of the sweet