"This is indeed India! the land of dreams and romance, of fabulous wealth and fabulous poverty, of splendor and rags, of palaces and hovels, of famine and pestilence, of genii and giants and Aladdin lamps, of tigers and elephants, the cobra and the jungle, the country of a hundred nations and a hundred tongues, of a thousand religions and two million gods, cradle of the human race, birthplace of human speech, mother of history, grandmother of legend, great-grandmother of tradition, whose yesterdays bear date with the mouldering antiquities of the rest of the nations — the one sole country under the sun that is endowed with an imperishable interest for alien prince and alien peasant, for lettered and ignorant, wise and fool, rich and poor, bond and free, the one land that all men desire to see, and having seen once, by even a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for the shows of all the rest of the globe combined. Even now, after the lapse of a year, the delirium of those days in Bombay has not left me, and I hope never will."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
India
59 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by India →
Related Quotes
"India of the ages is not dead nor has She spoken her last creative word; She lives and has still something to do for …"
"For what is a nation? What is our mother-country? It is not a piece of earth, nor a figure of speech, nor a fiction o…"
"India is the guru of the nations, the physician of the human soul in its profounder maladies; she is destined once mo…"
"The 'nation idea' India never had. By that I mean the political idea of the nation. It is a modern growth. But we had…"
"India is the only country which has known God and if anyone wants to know God he must know India."
"She who bears plants endowed with many varied powers, may Prithivī for us spread wide and favour us. In whom the sea,…"
"[Hindustan] is a wonderful country. Compared with our countries it is a different world; its mountains, rivers, jungl…"
"The age in which true history appeared in India was one of great intellectual and spiritual ferment. Mystics and soph…"
"In the tract of land known as Bhārata-varṣa, as in Ilāvṛta-varṣa, there are many mountains and rivers. ... The inhabi…"
"It is not that India was never an independent country. The point is that she once lost the independence she had. Will…"