The Dawn and Dawn Society’s Magazine October 1910

At last when a permanent port was established at Pfughli by the Portuguese with the permission of the Emperor the merchants both Indian and foreign left Saptagram and with the growth of the European settlements on the river this once magnificent emporium of Bengal gradually dwil3dled down to an insignificant group of huts which may now be seen in the neighbourhood of the modern town of Hughli. [...] But if a consideration of the mere extent of time covered by each of our accepted divisions of Indian History shows in such a glaring light the entire lack of proportion and perspective that characterists our comonly prevalent notions of that history an examination of the inner contents of these divisions of the number and importance of the broad movements that stirred the life of the people [...] Then we have the growth of the sublime epic cycles of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata which later on were d.zstined to serve as the vehicle through which was to be conveyed the message of the Indian Ideal the message of the heroic and the godly in all the relations of life to prince and peasent alike through all the ages and over distant lands. [...] This phase of Buddhism began its glorious career during the reign of Kanishka the Scythian Emperor of Northern and Nortwestern fndia reaching its culmination in the age of the Gupta Emperors of Northern India and (later on) of Harshavardhana of Kanauj an age of which Nalanda in the East and Ajanta in the West were perhaps the chief landmarks. [...] The names of -C:hanakya the celebrated lawgiver and politician who flourished at the court of Asoka's grandfather and of Patanjali the celebrated grammatical authority and founder of the Yoga school of philosophy are only two among many names that witness to the intense social and intellectual activity of the Brahmans of that age.