The Ancient and Medieval Architecture of India: A Study of Indo-Aryan Civilisation c15.27

c15.27

The great thinkers of India, who anticipated Western endeavours to establish religion upon a scientific basis, taught their master-builders to express in concrete architectural terms the theoretical principles of the cosmic forces, as the different schools of philosophy conceived them to be. Indo-Aryan builders were pure scientists—philosophers in brick and stone. Yet the fine intuition of the artist-craftsman clothed the science of natural religion with a grace and splendour of its own; and thus Indian art grew, like a tree or flower, conscious of its own beauty and rejoicing in it always—receiving it in wondering adoration as a gift from heaven, but never struggling to attain to it by the pedantic and coquettish arts of the Renaissance.