INDIAN NATIONALITY. ll'

seemingly irreconcilable, but in reality each one cunningly
designed towards a common end ; so, too, when tliese-
parts are set together and attuned, will India tell of the
earth from which she sprang, the waters that gave her
drink, and the Shapers that have shaped her being; nor
will she be then the idle singer of an empty day, but the
giver of hope to all, when hope will most avail, and most
be needed.

I have spoken so far only of Hindus and Hindu
culture; and if so it is because Hindus form the main
part of the population of India, and Hindu culture the
main part of Indian culture : but the quotation just made
from Arabian literature leads on to the consideration of the
great part which Muhammadans, and Persi-Arabian
culture have played in the historic evolution of India, as
we know it to-day. It would hardly be possible to think
of an India in which no Great Moghul had ruled, no Taj
been built, or to which Persian art and literature were
wholly foreign. Few great Indian rulers have displayed
the genius for statesmanship which Akbar had, a greater*
religious toleration than he. On the very morrow of con-
quest he was able to dispose of what is now called the
Hindu- Muhammadan difficulty very much more success-
fully than it is now met in Bengal ; for he knew that
there could be no real diversity of interest between Hindu
and Muhammadan, and treated them with an impartiality
which we suspect to be greater than that experienced in
Bengal to-day. It was not his interest to divide and rule-
Like most Eastern rulers (who can never be foreigners in
the same way that a Western ruler necessarily must be) ho
identified himself with his kingdom, and had no interests
that clashed with its interests. This has, until modern
times, been always a characteristic of un invader's or- usur-