s, of physiology and of psychology converge and
meet. And here will assemble those who would seek oneness amidst the
manifold. Here it is that the genius of India should find its true
blossoming.

The thrill in matter, the throb of life, the pulse of growth, the
impulse coursing through the nerve and the resulting sensations, how
diverse are these and yet how unified! How strange it is that the tremor
of excitation in nervous matter should not merely be transmitted but
transmuted and reflected like the image on a mirror, from a different
plane of life, in sensation and in affection, in thought and in emotion.
Of these which is more real, the material body or the image which is
independent of it? Which of these is undecaying, and which of these is
beyond the reach of death?

It was a woman in the Vedic times, who when asked to take her choice of
the wealth that would be hers for the asking, inquired whether that
would win for her deathlessness. What would she do with it, if it did
not raise her above death? This has always been the cry of the soul of
India, not for addition of material bondage, but to work out through
struggle her self-chosen destiny and win immortality. Many a nation had
risen in the past and won the empire of the world. A few buried
fragments are all that remain as memorials of the great dynasties that
wielded the temporal power. There is, however, another element which
find its incarnation in matter, yet transcends its transmutation and
apparent destruction: that is the burning flame born of thought which
has been handed down through fleeting generations.

Not in matter, but in thought, not in possessions or even in attainments
but in ideals, are to be found the seed of immortality. Not through
material acquisition but in generous diffusion of ideas and ideals can
the true empire of humanity be established. Thus to Asoka to whom
belonged this vast empire, bounded by the inviolate seas, after he had
tried to ransom the world by giving away to the utmost, there came a
time when he had nothing more to give, except one half of an _Amlaki_
fruit. This was his last possession and anguished cry was that since he
had nothing more to give, let the half of the _Amlaki_ be accepted as
his final gift.

Asoka's emblem of the _Amlaki_ will be seen on the cornices of the
Institute, and towering above all is the symbol of the thunderbolt. It
was the Rishi Dadhichi, the pure and blameless, who offered his life
th