________________ The Heritage of Vaisali 53 basis of heritage and experience, if embers cannot be kindled to flame, the ashes will smother us.-So I make no apology for telling you about some of my ideas on the "Reconstruction of this region in the old Vaisalian way." All reconstruction must start with the best materials of the heritage and along tbe lines indicated by the special genius of the earlier generations. You will notice, from all that has been spoken to you and written for you, that the genius of ancient Vaisali was manifested in the social, economic, political, cultural and religious spheres, in certain characteristic ways (1) In the 'social sphere, Vaisali, from the Vedic and Epic days, stood for breaking down the barriers of race and class or caste, by intermarriages, and by throwing open and interchange of the vocations. Thus martial Ksatriya princes freely became Vaidika Brahmana priestpoets, or Vaisyas tilling the soil and tending the flocks; Brahmana families like those of the Paulastya and Angirasa groups, and Ksatriya and Vaisya families belonging to the Iksvaku and Turvasa groups, frequently intermarried; and racial groups like the Manvas, Ailas, Yaksas, Raksas, or Rksas (the originals of the Liccha's) and various other subHimalayan peoples, got mixed up. This mobility and the fusion of the classes was further and systematically developed with the growth of Jainism and Buddhism in this region. Now, if you would act and build once again in the Vaisalian way, why not break the barriers that have again risen between man and man, and thus build up a classless society and a secular state ? These are not new-fangled notions imported from alien civilizations, they are true "Svaras" of the same old Indian Ragi" which we would love to play again. (2) In the economic' sphere, the characteristic activities of the Vaisalians were three,-(a) Farming, (b) Inland cross-country trade and communications, (c) Overseas navigation, commerce and colonisation, and ship-building. The valleys of the Gandaki and Bagmati, from the Himalayas to the Ganga, have, for more than two millennia since the Vedic days, been tilled by Videhan and Vaisalian princes and nobles personally, along with their farmer subjects and tenants, on an equal socio-economic level; this was a land of prosperous 'gahapatis' or gentlemen-farmers, who were the backbone of the state. In the traditional Vaisalian way, let then the peasant-proprietor and gentleman-farmer, the Vaisya 'Ksetrapati' and the 'Gahapati', be restored, after the dis-establishment of the medieval growths of Zamindari, absentee and capitalist
