The Ancient and Medieval Architecture of India: A Study of Indo-Aryan Civilisation c7.8

c7.8

The village in ancient India represented a highly organised social community, far removed from the decadent modern type. The Aryan, jealous of his tribal honour and proud of his social privileges, was, as the name implies, a born aristocrat; but his ideal of government was essentially democratic. Only the urgent necessity of national or racial preservation reconciled him to the life of great towns and a centralised form of government. The philosophy of the Vedas proclaimed the highest ideal of self-government, and Aryan philosophy was not an abstract speculative theory, but a practical formula of life. The teaching of Buddha, though it disputed the divine authority which the orthodox attributed to the Vedas, only gave to this formula a different interpretation and a wider application. It was a protest against sacrificial rites and the debasing practice of physical self-torture, through which certain Brahmanical sects sought to acquire spiritual wisdom and to inculcate habits of self-control; but it was in no way opposed to the esoteric teaching of Aryan philosophy. On the contrary, it laid the foundations of the latter on a wider footing and opened its doors to the whole world, instead of reserving it as the exclusive property of the Aryan race.