পারস্য-যাত্রী
barriers of language and distance her neighbouring continents carried on a commerce of the spirit, rich in the wealth of realization, of wisdom garnered from many fields of effort and achievement.
Centuries of oblivion have intervened, the dust of time has covered up relics of India’s kinship with Iran. But the memory of that ancient union still runs in our blood, and in this great age of Asia’s Awakening we are once more discovering our affinities, we are rescuing from the debris of vanished ages the undying memorials of our cooperation.
You have come to us with that message of Asia’s awakening. Once more we are to light our lamps which ages ago Iran and India placed together on the altar of Asia’s common culture. The hymns we then sang in languages closely allied will yet again reverberate under Asia’s sky; we shall unite our hearts and our minds in quest of the inmost truths of our soul.
We of Asia are profoundly grateful to your great Monarch who with his indomitable personality and farreaching creative vision has ushered in a new age in Persia and inspired the neighbouring countries with a spirit of self-reliance and hope. We take this occasion to offer him our deep appreciation of his gracious friendliness in having invited me to his kingdom and given me a taste of Persia’s magnanimous hospitality, and in thus lending your services to our Visva-bharati in Santiniketan. No more wonderful manner of expressing his cordial fellowship could be chosen than thus sending to us one of the noblest emissaries of Persia’s culture.
Great is our joy today that we welcome you, our friend from Iran, to this Asrama of Santiniketan, where we have taken up the task of revealing the deepest mind of Asia. May our collaboration bind Persia and India close together
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