Introduction.
great phases of religious faith have succeeded one another in India in historical times. The first was that of the immigrating Aryans—an elemental fire-worship, as far removed from superstition or idolatry as any human faith well can be. We know it only from the Vedas, and from its analogy with the fire-worship of the ancient Persians; for no stranger visited India during its prevalence who has left us an account of what he saw, and no monument or material records remain by which it could be judged. We have every reason, however, to suppose that it continued pure and undefiled till the period when it was superseded by Buddhism, some three centuries before our era.
We have only slight means of guessing what the religion of the aboriginal Indians may have been in early times, but it seems clear that Buddhism was little else than a raising up of the aboriginal casteless Hindoos to a temporary supremacy over the aristocratic Aryans. When Buddhism broke down in India, of which we have symptoms as early as the sixth century a. d., it was succeeded in some parts of Western India by the religion of Jaina; a form of faith that may have existed in obscurity contemporaneously with the other, but only came to light on its extinction.
What really replaced it, however, was the modern Brahmanical worship of Siva and Vishnu. This was apparently the religion of some of the original inhabitants of the country with whom the effete remnant of the old Brahmanical Aryans allied themselves, in order to overthrow the Buddhists. In this they succeeded; but this most unholy alliance has given birth to one of the most monstrous superstitions the world now knows, but which generally prevails at the present day over the whole peninsula of India.
So far as we know, the Aryans built no permanent buildings in India. Their pure religion required no stately ceremonies, and consequently no temples. The climate is so temperate, that palatial structures were only necessary for the display of passing pageantry; and it also happens that where races of men are not in the habit of building temples or tombs, their residences are more remarkable for temporary convenience than they are for permanent magnificence.
Architectural magnificence was, on the contrary, a necessity
14
