The Ancient and Medieval Architecture of India: A Study of Indo-Aryan Civilisation c7.13

c7.13

Asoka's religious propaganda was no violent disturbance of the established customs and beliefs of his subjects: it was a policy of peaceful penetration in strict accordance with the spirit of Aryan philosophy, which proclaimed Truth to be a temple open on all sides to devout worshippers, who might choose the approach most accessible to them. Whatever Buddhism might have been as a school of philosophic speculation, Indian art of Asoka's time shows that as a popular religion it was a synthesis of contemporary Hinduism, as complete for the age to which it belonged as medieval Hinduism was for its own time. But as religion has always been essentially a part of Indian daily life, we must begin an account of the great religious architecture of India by trying to reconstruct, out of the meagre architectural records of the third century B.C., the practical planning and building of a typical Indian village. This can be done to some extent by making use of the clues given in the Hindu Silpa-sâstras, and in the sculptured representations of Indian buildings on the monuments of Asoka’s time, and by comparing them with descriptions in Pâli records which Professor Rhys Davids has collected.¹