THE HARMONY OF VIRTUE

V. 1. Kalidasa215Gujarat and Sindh show the same practical temper by their successin trade and commerce, but the former has preserved moreof the old western materialism and sensuousness than its neighbours.Finally the Maharattas, perhaps the strongest and sanestrace in India today, present a very peculiar and interesting type;they are south-western and blend two very different characters;fundamentally a material and practical race, — they are, for instance,extremely deficient in the romantic and poetical side ofhuman temperament — a race of soldiers and politicians, theyhave yet caught from the Dravidians a deep scholastic and philosophicaltinge which, along with a basic earnestness and capacityfor high things, has kept them true to Hinduism, gives acertain distinction to their otherwise matter-of-fact nature andpromises much for their future development.But the Malavas were a far greater, more versatile andculturable race than any which now represent the west; theyhad an aesthetic catholicity, a many-sided curiosity and receptivenesswhich enabled them to appreciate learning, highmoral ideals and intellectual daring and ardour and assimilatethem as far as was consistent with their own root-temperament.Nevertheless that root-temperament remainedmaterial and sensuous. When therefore the country falling fromits old pure moral ideality and heroic intellectualism, weakenedin fibre and sank towards hedonism and materialism, thecentre of its culture and national life began to drift westward.Transferred by Agnimitra in the second century to Vidisha ofthe Dasharnas close to the Malavas, it finally found its trueequilibrium in the beautiful and aesthetic city of Ujjayini whichthe artistic and sensuous genius of the Malavas had preparedto be a fit and noble capital of Hindu art, poetry and greatnessthroughout its most versatile and luxurious age. Thatposition Ujjayini enjoyed until the nation began to crumbleunder the shock of new ideas and new forces and the centreof gravity shifted southwards to Devagiri of the Jadhavas andfinally to Dravidian Vijayanagara, the last considerable seatof independent Hindu culture and national greatness. Theconsolidation of the Malavas under Vikramaditya took placein 56 B.C. and from that moment dates the age of Malava