DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9541#0026
4
HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE.
one against the other, as elsewhere, but living now as they have done
for thousands of years, each content with his own lot, and prepared to
follow, without repining, in the footsteps of his forefathers.
It cannot, of course, be for one moment contended that India ever
reached the intellectual supremacy of Greece, or the moral greatness
of Home; but, though on a lower step of the ladder, her arts are
more original and more varied, and her forms of civilisation present
an ever-changing variety, such as are nowhere else to be found.
What, however, really renders India so interesting as an object of
study is that it is now a living entity. Greece and Home are dead and
have passed away, and we are living so completely in the midst of
modern Europe, that we cannot get outside to contemplate it as a
whole. But India is a complete cosmos in itself; bounded on the
north by the Himalayas, on the south by the sea, on the east by
impenetrable jungle, and only on the west having one door of com-
munication, across the Indus, open to the other world. Across that
stream, nation after nation have poured their myriads into her coveted
domain, but no reflex waves ever mixed her people with those beyond
her boundaries.
In consequence of all this, every problem of anthropology or
ethnography can be studied here more easily than anywhere else ; every
art has its living representative, and often of the most pleasing form ;
every science has its illustration, and many on a scale not easily
matched elsewhere. But, notwithstanding all this, in nine cases out
of ten, India and Indian matters fail to interest, because they are to
most people new and unfamiliar. The rudiments have not been
mastered when young, and, when grown up, few men have the leisure
or the inclination to set to work to learn the forms of a new world,
demanding both care and study ; and till this is attained, it can hardly
be hoped that the arts and the architecture of India will interest a
European reader to the same extent as those styles treated of in the
previous volumes of this work.
Notwithstanding these drawbacks, it may still be possible to present
the subject of Indian architecture in such a form as to lie interesting,
even if not attractive. To do this, however, the narrative form must
be followed as far as is compatible with such a subject. All technical
and unfamiliar names must be avoided wherever it is possible to do so,
and the whole accompanied with a sufficient number of illustrations to
enable its forms to be mastered without difficulty. Even if this is
attended to, no one volume can tell the whole of so varied and so
complex a history. Without preliminary or subsecpaent study it can
hardly be expected that so new and so vast a subject can be grasped ;
but one volume may contain a complete outline of the whole, and enable
any one who wishes for more information to know where to look for it,
or how to appreciate it when found.
HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE.
one against the other, as elsewhere, but living now as they have done
for thousands of years, each content with his own lot, and prepared to
follow, without repining, in the footsteps of his forefathers.
It cannot, of course, be for one moment contended that India ever
reached the intellectual supremacy of Greece, or the moral greatness
of Home; but, though on a lower step of the ladder, her arts are
more original and more varied, and her forms of civilisation present
an ever-changing variety, such as are nowhere else to be found.
What, however, really renders India so interesting as an object of
study is that it is now a living entity. Greece and Home are dead and
have passed away, and we are living so completely in the midst of
modern Europe, that we cannot get outside to contemplate it as a
whole. But India is a complete cosmos in itself; bounded on the
north by the Himalayas, on the south by the sea, on the east by
impenetrable jungle, and only on the west having one door of com-
munication, across the Indus, open to the other world. Across that
stream, nation after nation have poured their myriads into her coveted
domain, but no reflex waves ever mixed her people with those beyond
her boundaries.
In consequence of all this, every problem of anthropology or
ethnography can be studied here more easily than anywhere else ; every
art has its living representative, and often of the most pleasing form ;
every science has its illustration, and many on a scale not easily
matched elsewhere. But, notwithstanding all this, in nine cases out
of ten, India and Indian matters fail to interest, because they are to
most people new and unfamiliar. The rudiments have not been
mastered when young, and, when grown up, few men have the leisure
or the inclination to set to work to learn the forms of a new world,
demanding both care and study ; and till this is attained, it can hardly
be hoped that the arts and the architecture of India will interest a
European reader to the same extent as those styles treated of in the
previous volumes of this work.
Notwithstanding these drawbacks, it may still be possible to present
the subject of Indian architecture in such a form as to lie interesting,
even if not attractive. To do this, however, the narrative form must
be followed as far as is compatible with such a subject. All technical
and unfamiliar names must be avoided wherever it is possible to do so,
and the whole accompanied with a sufficient number of illustrations to
enable its forms to be mastered without difficulty. Even if this is
attended to, no one volume can tell the whole of so varied and so
complex a history. Without preliminary or subsecpaent study it can
hardly be expected that so new and so vast a subject can be grasped ;
but one volume may contain a complete outline of the whole, and enable
any one who wishes for more information to know where to look for it,
or how to appreciate it when found.