 In ancient times, many Buddhist pilgrims from China made the long and arduous journey to India to visit holy places. Among them were Xuanzang in the 7th century AD. Like Fahien of the 4th century AD and others, Xuanzang wrote enthusiastic accounts of his travels in India. These are written from a religious pilgrim's point of view. Nevertheless, they provide much information about ancient India. The parlors ruled in eastern India from the 8th to the 12th centuries. This period saw the greatest heights in the development of Buddhist logic. Many vast universities flourished and spread their influence to the other countries of Asia. The inscriptions show that many kings of the Pala dynasty followed the path of the Buddha. They also show that several others of the same dynasty followed other faiths. Best of all, the same kings are clearly seen to be equally generous to Hindus and Buddhists. In the spiritual climate which continued from ancient times, we see that in the early medieval period there were no boundaries between faiths. The same person is most often described as a devotee of different deities depending upon the occasion. Examples of this are numberless. Such religious divisions are a later construct by scholars who have tried to understand Indian history from a vastly different perspective. Akbar was the greatest king of the Turko-Mongol Mughal dynasty that invaded India and ruled from the year 1526 onwards. Some of his closest confidants, ministers and advisors were Hindu. The artists of Akbar's court remain famous till today. Seventeen such painters received special titles of preeminence from the king. Of them, thirteen were Hindus. In the late 16th century, Akbar created a universal faith, Dine-ilahi. Hindus, Jainas, Parsis and Christians were invited to a special house of worship. Here the beliefs of all faiths were freely discussed. Across the whole of India, the medieval period saw the happy blend of the ideas and practices of bhakti and Sufism. This truly continued the ancient cosmopolitan traditions of India. There were poets and saints in all parts of the country whose path of compassion was followed by persons of all faiths. As in ancient times, art, poetry and music were found to be means for the transportation of the self, a means to elevate ourselves, to take us far from the cares and confusions of the material world to a place of peace and oneness with the divine. In fact, the word Hindu did not exist in the Indian languages. It was used by the people to the northwest of India to mean those living beyond the river Indus. Today's Hindu religion was in fact created under colonial rule as late as in the 19th century. India's is an ancient spiritual culture with the most compassionate view of the whole of creation, a vision which values the air we breathe and every plant and insect in creation. Surely there's a great deal for us to learn from this ancient culture of love for all that there is.