Ancient Indian historical tradition traces the beginning of all things to God, the Universal Being. This Original Centre becomes a Creative Principle known as Brahma (in the masculine gender), from which inexhaustible Source emanated the first four Kumaras, the eternal divines known as Sanaka, Sanandana, Sanatana and Sanatkumara. They are said to have refused to obey the order of Brahma, when he asked them to help him in creation, telling him that they are not interested in such work, as they would like to be established in the Supreme Reality. This evoked the anger of Brahma with the intention to curse them, but his wrath could not be directed against them because of their divine power. But anger risen has to be expressed in some way as it cannot be withdrawn, which burst out through the forehead of Brahma as the wrathful Rudra, known also as Siva. Siva, however, though apparently born of Brahma, was not in any way subsidiary to Brahma, but equally great, if not greater, as stories in the Puranas would make out amply.

Subsequently, Brahma thought of continuing the work of creation and projected ten subsidiary creative powers or progenitors of future history, known as Marichi, Atri, Angiras, Pulastya, Pulaha, Kratu, Bhrigu, Vasishtha, Daksha and Narada. These names correspond also to the great Rishis or Sages, endowed with cosmic capacity. From Brahma arose also the First Manu, the father of humanity. This created 'Inclusive Person' is separated into the first male and the first female, called in the language of the Puranas, as Manu and Satarupa. The Srimad Bhagavat says that this couple had two sons and three daughters, whose internal relationship as well as relationship with the first progeny of Brahma mentioned above became the cause of the further diversification of the creative forces. The Ninth Book of the Bhagavata states that there is also another secondary form of creation, as we may say, arising from the Sun, on the one hand, with whom begins the Solar Dynasty, and the Moon, on the other hand, who is the source of the Lunar Dynasty, which twin line is said to reach up to the latest personages in recorded history. F. Pargitor, a western scholar who has made a special study of pre-historic Indian tradition, has taken pains to write an illuminating book on this ancient sacred genealogy.

Indian tradition holds a cyclic vision of history, as do also certain philosophers of history in the West. A particular packet of the Time Process is divided into the four Ages, known as Yugas - Krita, Treta, Dvapara, and Kali, in their descending order of spiritual experience, knowledge, power and virtue. The worst of the Ages is Kali, in which we are living today, and it is supposed to have commenced in the year 3101 B.C., the year when Krishna is said to have left this earth. The duration of the Kali Age is 4,32,000 years, the duration of the Dvapara is twice this number, the duration of the Treta is thrice and the duration of Krita is four times. The four Ages run for 43,20,000 years. When this Four-Age cycle takes place one thousand times, it is one day of Brahma, the Creator. So long also is his night. Brahma lives for one hundred years with days and nights of this length. At the close of the Age of Brahma, lasting one hundred cosmic years, the universe, with Brahma, is dissolved and is absorbed into the Supreme Being. After a hundred year long night following this day, equal to the life-time of Brahma, there is a new creation taking place in the same way as it happened earlier (Yatha-purvam-akalpayat). This is said to be the play of God (Lokavat tu lila-kaivalyam).

An astounding doctrine of the process of history is what is promulgated by the German philosopher, Hegel, whose objective is to interpret everything metaphysically, in the end. The Absolute is the Supreme Idea, or Reason, which is universal and self-contained, and exists by itself. Since the Idea has a content, without which the Idea would be a featureless abstraction, it becomes necessary for the Idea to behold itself as Nature, as if it becomes its own content. But Nature is an 'otherness' which cannot be in harmony with the absoluteness of the Idea, since anything that has an 'other' before it cannot be the Absolute. To complete the consciousness of the Idea as the Absolute, Nature has to return to its Source. When Nature unites itself with the Idea, the content of consciousness becomes consciousness itself, now, in its completed state, known not as Idea but Spirit.

Mechanical causation is the work of Nature but Spirit returns to itself in spiritual evolution which takes place through the process of Subjective Spirit, Objective Spirit and Absolute Spirit. The Subjective Spirit passes through the stages of the psychological modifications to which we have made reference in our earlier essay. The Spirit, when it overcomes the limitation of pure subjectivity, as the individualised Spirit, it becomes Objective Spirit manifesting itself as social law, governmental procedure and world history. The history of the world is a manifestation of the Absolute Spirit endeavouring to recognise itself in more and more adequate forms, the ups and downs in the historical process being the reactions set up by the Absolute to the limitations, fortes and foibles of human nature and all things finite. War is the wrath of the Spirit calling up the reprisal necessary for the education and further evolution of finite natures unable to embody in themselves the universality of the Absolute. History finally moves to God in a cosmic sweep compelling natural man, by transcending himself, to become a diviner man capable of embodying in himself a larger dimension of the Supreme reason. Everything tends finally to the Absolute, all history in every form of its best and worst, pleasant and unpleasant contours.

The Absolute Spirit, says Hegel, gradually reveals itself in Art, Religion and Philosophy. Art is the sensuous representation of the Absolute in different forms of beauty. Religion is the Absolute appearing as a universal 'other', a supreme object of worship and adoration, a transcendent power evoking love and admiration and every form of religious fervour. Philosophy, to Hegel, is the Absolute knowing itself, not as an 'other' to itself, but as it is in itself, above Art and Religion, contemplating itself in itself, Reason returning to Reason, God merging Himself in Himself, the Absolute remaining as what it is.

The philosophy of dialectical materialism taught by Karl Marx is said to be Hegel standing upside down. While Marx accepts the dialectical process leading to the Absolute as taught by Hegel, he converts it into a dialectics of materialism leading to an absolute of economic forces. Marx maintains that, originally, in the beginnings of mankind, there was a sort of primitive communism among people when they lived a collective life with a common property, in which they participated by mutual sharing. Later on, there appeared a system of ownership of property with an introduction of the slave system and private ownership with its evils, as Marx says, of the stronger suppressing the weaker, the minority exploiting the majority. The next stage is the military feudal system controlling serfs and the feudal nobles having absolute ownership over the surplus of production. This leads to the well-known capitalist system of production and distribution having absolute sway over the means of production as well as over the working class. Factories create industrial capitalism, often denying the bare minimum of requirement of the working classes. This stage leads to the next one of control of production by the working classes, which is the first stage of communism, initially landing in the dictatorship of the proletariat. But the aim of communism is much more, namely, the abolition of the ruling classes and the creation of a 'classless society'. This is the vision of human history as Marx would present it. Critics of Marx have held that there cannot be a classless society unless the people constituting such a society are very gods come from heaven. It appears that in this last word of Marx he is jumping over his own skin and unconsciously finding himself in a universal classlessness, which is not very far from the principles of Hegel's doctrine, when properly understood in its profundity.

The latest researches in the philosophy and process of history are to be found in the twelve-volume work of Arnold Toynbee, designated as 'A Study of History.' Toynbee thinks that the chief danger to man is man himself, and he cannot be free from this source of fear unless he regenerates himself into characters that are truly human. History has to be studied as an entire process of values engendered in the consciousness of man and not as fractions of the political histories of nations or countries. The failures of nations and the fall of empires are due to the diminishing and virtual absence of creative power in the administration, the absence of a religious consciousness as the guiding principle in administration and, worst of all, the deification of the State as if it is a final reality in itself. Examples are the events one can read in Greek and Roman history. We may find them also present in the histories of earlier kingdoms, Babylonian, Assyrian and Egyptian. Edward Gibbon, in his classic study of the later days of Roman history, traces its decline and fall to the very same evils which Toynbee points out in his study. The need, then, for a human survival, is the need for a revival of true religious awareness for the continuance of civilisation, the working out of a constitutional cooperative system of a possible world government, and generating workable compromises of the economic system providing means for personal enterprise together with contributing towards a socialistic pattern of equity and justice. Lastly, the need is for the secular structure to base itself on a strong religious foundation, religion meaning a perpetual consciousness of the universal values in life, ranging beyond all parochial and empirical considerations.