The Ancient and Medieval Architecture of India: A Study of Indo-Aryan Civilisation c22.10

c22.10

The whole synthesis of Indian life and thought from the time of Asoka down to the present day is thus written down in its craft traditions, forming a priceless record of a great civilisation to which the whole world is deeply indebted. No civilisation, ancient or modern, has produced a higher culture, no other has succeeded better in making religion the philosophy of life, and on the whole probably no other has contributed so much to human knowledge. All Indo-Aryan religion, deceptive and often degraded though it may be in ritualistic practice, is founded upon the greatest of all scientific truths—the reality of divine revelation or inspiration. That was the great secret of the Rishis which they so jealously guarded for posterity, seeking for humanity’s sake to find the way by which the pure in heart may come to drink at the divine well of knowledge the elixir of immortality—the all-pervading truth which must be the mainspring of every right human action. It was therefore that the yogi who believed himself to be in contact with that divine source was regarded as a man of God, and his cell a fit place for worship. And if the yogi often deceived both himself and others, and if human credulity often ascribed to the truly inspired powers equal to the Highest, the divine truth shines none the less brightly behind the clouds of man’s follies and weaknesses.