Taxila between Alexander and the Indian sage Dandamis
who, according to the Greek chronicler, " though old and
naked, was the only antagonist in whom he (Alexander),
the conqueror of many nations, had met his match/' The
reader would do well to ponder over the Inner meaning
of that episode, symbolizing as it does the reply of the
East to the challenge of the armed might that was hurled
at its head 300 years before the Christian Era :
" The East bowed low before the blast
In patient deep disdain;
She let the legions thunder past
And plunged in thought again."
Today the same challenge is being repeated in an
even more accentuated form and once more people's
thoughts are beginning to revert to that weapon and
source of inexhaustible power which is India's peculiar
heritage from the past and promises to be her special
contribution to the world's future progress. Humanity is
in the grip of the atomic nightmare. What is the nature
of this power which Gandhiji had set out to discover and
present to the world ? How can it be developed in the
Individual and in the mass ? What is the type of organiza-
tion needed for it ? How does it differ from the other type
of organization based on violence ? How is a non-violent
attitude to be related to the world around us which not
only does not swear by unadulterated ahimsa but actually
believes and practises largely its opposite ? These and
other equally vital questions confronting a votary of
ahimsa will be found posed and answered in these pages
In Gaiidhiji's own words
But whilst ahimsa on an individual scale is independ-
ent of one's environment and can be practised anywhere
and everywhere, a non-violent order calls for a particular
type of socio-economic milieu. What will the mind and
face of a society based on nion-violence be like ? A
few glimpses of this world order in miniature based on
ahimsa will be found in the two articles on Taxila. It is
an enchanting world — that once existed in actuality —
a world of Arcadian simplicity, individual freedom and