The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c14.s6.5

c14.s6.5

The absurdity would be evident if one were to treat the whole course of Western literature as nothing but Hellenic and Roman paganism, Oriental Christianity, Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, Pilgrim Fathers, Oxford Movement, Unitarianism, Christian Science and so forth in succession. Students of world literature who are obsessed by the influence of religious ideas on human achievements would read in the *Aeneid* only a *Purāṇa* of Latin mythology, in the *Divine Comedy* only an encyclopædia of mediaeval Christianity, and in the *Paradise Lost* just a Bible of the Puritans. Or, where in modern literature and art they find the treatment of subjects from Hellenic mythology they would be inclined to interpret it as "Back to Paganism!"