The Ancient and Medieval Architecture of India: A Study of Indo-Aryan Civilisation c6.23

c6.23

The study of Indo-Aryan civilisation throws much needed light upon another vital question—Indian religion. Christianity will not suffer by a sympathetic attitude towards Indian religious convictions. Can the Christian teacher who regards his duty otherwise be said to be fulfilling his Master's mission in the Vineyard where Christ Himself laboured? It is a fatal misconception to consider Aryan India as idolatrous or polytheistic. No religion has been more careful to discriminate between the Symbol and the Reality behind it than that which has been taught by Indo-Aryan teachers; and if its principles have not been fully understood by the masses of the people, can it be said that Christianity has been more successful in this respect in its own special field? But that the teachings of Aryan India have been far more successful than is generally supposed is proved by a remarkable paragraph in the Indian Census Report for 1901, one of those flashes of insight which occasionally appear in Anglo-Indian records. The Census Commissioner had asked the Superintendents to make special inquiries into the actual beliefs of the ordinary man, his standards of right and wrong, and his ideas of a Supreme Deity. The result is summarised in the words of Mr. Burn, I.C.S., one of the Superintendents, as follows :