CHAPTER I
THE PANJAB AND THE PANJABIS
A penple is composed of individuals, and individuals are aggregate of hopes and fears.The stronger and acuter their fears and hopes, the finer and more virile is their literature, which voices the best in them in their own colours and rhythms and patterns, a little heightened and accentuated and made more complex. No nation can rise in literature much above its own actual level in life.
The people that now occupies the Panjab was formed by the fusion of the natives and of several superimposed races.
The full and reat history of the Panjab and the Panjabis is yet to be written. What extremes! mest in its climate and physica} configaration,—tbe beautiful valley of Kashmir, the dense vegetable growth of the Bar, the arid areas of Multan and Bahawalpur, the huge plains and wide and tong snow-fed rivers in the centre and the narrow ravines on the west. These extremea of surface and atmosphere have preserved all the regional and, the consequent, social and linguistio differences and prevented the whole of what wo know now as the Panjab (inclusive of Delhi, the Hill States and the Frontier Province) from welding into one political and philological unit. The glory-crowded reign of the Sikh Lion of the Panjab, Maharaja Ranjit Singh, was too brief for any real achievement of common coalescence. Thus, the Province has always been an aggregate of tribal territories or smal! faotious principalities. With so many neighbouring, jealous units of power there could be little peace and co-operation. On top of that the first foreiga blows always fell on the heads of the poor Panjabis, whose whole time and attention were ocoupied either in defending their homes and hearths against the internal and external foes or in tilling the land, fighting the soil for material sufficiency, The sword and the lance, and the plough and the Persian wheel have alternated as tho weapons of menand the handmill aod the spinning-whool,of women, And, it was not a physical ecramble alone, to keep their freedom and possessions ; it was, also, a mental, moral, and spiritual struggle, But oould they costend against powerful hordes for Jong and successfully ? They could not and did not, Continuous assimilation of each new influence, constant absorbing of more and more blood waa the only course of safety for existence, Thus social toleration and admixture, oultivation of a sort of impassive religion, an agglomerate and compnsite Janguage bascd in Sanskrit ever adding to itself from foreign stock, a heroic attitude towards life and love have ever marked Panjabi oniture, mainly ethical in nature. The fighting man can only afford « simple creod, compsed of essentials, preaching frieudship and forbearance and forgiveness, fear of god, Jove of labour and unceremonious worship of loval, very human heroes and saints. Contemplation, all-absorbing jealous spiritual devotion, engagement in fine arts,—Painting, Architecture, Sculpture,-—do not lie his way. Instead of huge things, deop things, rich things, he conceras himself with things amall and passing and simple. Not so much building and creation as conservation and makeshift are his traite, mental and physical.
But all this, pertaining to the conposite Panjabi character, is conjectural or, at least, bared on our observation of the present only. How hugely intriguing would it be to know in nome detail about this land, where the Vedic Mantras first surged in the breasts of the Rishis, the Brahmanaic ceremonial elaboration was first achieved and the first conceptions of transosnden- talism were developed, Further, here at Katas, Yudhishthir met the divine bird, who queried him about Dharma; at Murree, the Pandavas perished in snow; at Lahore and Qasur, the sons of Rama
1 Extremes of heat or cold appoar to discourage the accumulation of wealth essential to afford time for reflection and discovery.....In Japan, as elsewhere, the influence of external nature left a permanent impression on civilization. —J. I. Bryan in The Civilisation of Japan.
