An Outline of the Religious Literature of India c3.7

c3.7

Careful students are well aware that, if the religious history of India is to be understood, each of the leading sects of the three religions must be described by itself. Yet, if each is dealt with in isolation, where will the general movement make itself felt, and how shall we perceive the rise of changes common to all the sects? Clearly the unity of the history in all its length and breadth must be regarded as broken and diversified, on the one hand, by numerous religious communities which, so to speak, lie parallel to each other, and, on the other, by successive waves of change each of which has swept over all the communities in existence at the time of its appearance, and has modified each in some degree. How, then, were these two forms of variation to be exhibited in a continuous narrative? I have attempted to divide the milleniums covered by the growth of the literature into periods corresponding as nearly as possible to the great waves of change in belief and practice, and within each period to group the books, as far as possible, according to the religion, the sect, and the sub-sect to which they severally belong.