On April 28, in the afternoon at 3 PM, Rabindranath addressed 5 to 10 thousands people, most of them being students, from the dais 5ft high made by the King of China, named Temple of Earth. This was published in Talks of China [1924] - 6th lecture - titled To Scholars at the Temple of the Earth, Peking.
Here Rabindranath declared himself as a representative of Asia and urged emphatically, Once Asia liberated the people of the whole earth from its uncivilized state. Then came over a Dark Age, but nobody knows how it came. When the knocking of the door was started, we were not ready to welcome incoming Europe.They came not to exchange any wealth or property, they came to snatch away our wealth. We too could not face them as their match and approached them as a beggar at their doors.We are to get ourselves free from these weaknesses. Some persons think that we should imitate West, but he is not of the same opinion.Because it is not easy for the east to follow the temperament of the west.
" The West is becoming demoralized through being the exploiter, through tasting of the fruits of exploitation - Physical power is not the strongest in the end. That power destroys itself . Machine guns and bomb dropping aeroplanes crush living men under them, and the west is sinking to its dust." We should not participate this competition of selfishness, or barbarism.
When Rabindranath was delivering his lecture a group of young men was seen to distribute pamphlets among the audience. The same thing also happened in Nanking. On 24th April, Elmhirst wrote to Rathindranath, " There was an organised opposition at Nanking which produced pamphlets criticising Gurudev's attitude on pacifism, to militarism, industrialism and and the spiritual life."
