A section from the journey

Foreign Kings, Indian Ways

Across these centuries, one quiet pattern repeats. Greeks, Shakas, and Kushans came as conquerors from far away. But the land did not simply bend to them. It changed them. They worshipped Indian gods, gave gifts to Indian shrines, took Indian names and titles, and raised their children in Indian ways. A foreign king, in a generation or two, became an Indian king. This is how this land has always met the newcomer: by drawing him in.

We have met three waves of newcomers now: the Greeks, the Shakas, the Kushans, each coming down through the high passes of the northwest to rule. Before we move on, let us draw out the single thread that ties them all together. It is one of the gentlest and strongest patterns in our whole story.

Here it is. They came as foreigners and conquerors. But they did not stay foreign. Within a lifetime or two, the strangers had become part of the land they ruled. The newcomer became the neighbor; the conqueror became a king much like any other.

Let me show you, with one beautiful example. Long ago a Greek named came as an envoy from an Indo-Greek king to an Indian court. And there he did a remarkable thing. He raised a tall stone pillar in honor of the god Vishnu, and had carved on it that he was a worshipper of that god. A Greek, calling himself a devotee of an Indian god, in his own words, in stone. That pillar still stands.

And it was not only the Greeks. The Shaka and Kushan kings did the same, in their own ways. Their coins show Indian gods: Shiva with his bull, and the Buddha, standing calm. They gave gifts to temples and to Buddhist monasteries alike. They took up Indian names for themselves and their children.

They took Indian titles of kingship too, the grand old words: "great king," "king of kings." They learned to rule the way Indian kings ruled, to honor the holy men, to support the rites. Step by step, the foreign court became an Indian court. The children of conquerors grew up as children of this land.

Think on what this means. The land did not slam its doors against the newcomer. Nor did it vanish before him, giving up its own ways. It did the harder, deeper thing. It opened, and welcomed, and slowly made the stranger its own. The river took in the new stream, and flowed on, wider than before.

This is not weakness, though it may look soft at first. It is a quiet strength: the strength of a way of life sure enough of itself that it need not fear the stranger, but can share with him, and grow. Remember this pattern. We will meet it again and again, through every age still to come.

It can take more strength to welcome and include than to wall off and refuse. When have you seen a person, or a community, made larger and richer by opening its arms to someone from outside?