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* * “For our purpose the great value of the os of ; these Indian examples ‘is that it widens so immensely our basis for architectural criticism. It is only by be- coming familiar with forms 4o iutterly dissimilar from those we have -hitherto been conversant with that we 368 PAURANIK PERIOD. [BOOK v perceive how narrow is the purview that is content with one form .or one passing fashion. By rising to this wider range, we shall perceive that architecture is as many-sided as human nature itself, and learn how few feelings and how few aspirations of the human heart and brain there are that cannot be expressed by its means.” Fergusson, p. 403. Thesé thoughtful and philosophical observations on architecture naturally suggest ‘some reflections to the student of history. 1Why is it that the architecture of India displays what Dr. Fergusson calls a lack of “ pure intellect 2” Why is it again that the same architecture displays such “a” joyous ‘exuberance of fancy and “pure feeling ””—such an uncontrollable desire to represent on religious edifices the teeming millions of living crea- ' tures with all their humble feelings and hopes and fears, their every-day occupation, their wars and triumphs, their toit and their sorrows, and even their sins ? The first question is easily answered. There was no lack of “pure intellect ” in the land of Kapila and Arya- bhatta, but there was a disinclination, unfortunately, among the upper classes to apply themselves to voca- tions requiring manual exertion. There is no doubt this was in the first. instance owing to the enervating climate. of :a tropical country ; and all who could avoid physical exertion and foil, and had recourse to contem- piation and intellectual-pursuits. And when the caste- -system was once formed, this disinclination to physical CHAP. VIIL] HINDU & JAINA ARCHITECTURE, &C. 369 exertion became a part of the social rules for the upper castes. It was impossiblé that the thinking popula- tion, the Kshatriyas and the Brahmans, should apply themselves to carving and sculpture, and intellect of the higher, order was thus divorced for ever from these fine arts. The artisan classes possessed that wonderful skill in decorative art which characterizes the Hin- dus in all branches of industry, and they acquired that facility in workmanship which the experience of centuries teaches. No labour was.too gigantic for them to attempt ; no design was. too minute or elaborate for them to accomplish. But nevertheless to the very close of the Hindu period they remained artisans, ‘genera- tions of skilled workers and nothing more. The wonder- ful edifices with which they have covered India. under the bidding of the priest or the king are remarkable, more for the gigantic labour and the minute and endless elaboration which they display than for any lofty in. tellectual conception, any design of a creative mind. And among the thousands-of graceful, pleasing, and na- tural figures and‘ faces.of men and women, which simple observation of nature. taught the artisans to copy in. stone in every temple and.porch, we shall in vain seek for that high order of intellectual conception which marks. the marbles of Greece and Rome. A Pheedias and a Michael Angelo were impossible in India. _ For a reply to the second: enquiry, we must seek for deeper causes. Not only in the temples of Greece, but R. CD. A, L—IIL 24 \ | 370 PAURANIK PERIOD. [BOOK Vv. in the churches of medizval and modern Europe, reli- gious designs and subjects have been thought appropri- ate for religious edifices. Painted windows representing scénes from the life of Christ and other holy subjects beautify the churches of Protestant nations, and marble images of the Virgin and the Child, of saints and of holy persons, decorate and fill Catholic cathedrals. In India the countless temples of gods are sculptured, not only with the images of gods and goddesses, but with a representation of the whole universe, animate and in- animate ; of men.and women in their daily occupations, their wars, triumphs, and processions ; of aerial and ima- ginary beings, Gandharvas and Apsaras and dancing girls; of horses, snakes, birds, elephants and lions ; of trees and creepers of various kinds; of all that the sculptor could think of and his art could depict. To the Hindu the problem suggests its own solution. “The idea of religion in Europe is connected with the glory of God and the teachings of Christ, with sermons in churches and the keeping of the sabbath. To the Hindu his whole life in all its minute acts is a part of _ his religion. Not only moral precepts, but the rules of social and domestie life, of eating and drinking and be- haviour to fellow-men and fellow-creatures, are a part of his religion. It is his religion which teaches the warrior to fight, the learned man to prosecute his studies and contemplation, the artisan to ply his trade, and all men to regulate their conduct towards each other. The very CHAP, VIIL] HINDU & JAINA ARCHITECTURE, &C, 371 conception of Brahman in the Upanishads, and in all later religous writings is the all-embracing universe ; all is an emanation from Him ; all returnsto Him. The very sig- nification of the word Dharma in the ancient Dharma SAstras is not religion in the modern sense of the word, but the totality of human duties and of human life in| all its occupations, pursuits, and daily actions, Dharma} regulates studies, occupations, and trades. Dharma re- gulates eatirig and drinking and the enjoyments of life. Dharma lays down civil and criminal law and the rules. of inheritance. Dharma rules men and the animal and vegetable kingdoms below, and saints and gods above. So comprehensive is this term that it denotes even the qualities of inanimate objects ; it is the Dharma of the fire to burn, of trees to grow, of water to seek the lowest level. And though the modern Hindu is far removed in ideas from his ancestors, yet even to this day the whole life of an orthodox and religious Hindu is controlled by rules and sanctions which he calls his Dharma, rules regulating every act and every-word in. political, social, and domestic life. The distinction between the sacred and the secular is foreign to the spirit of Hinduism. Every rule of conduct is a part of Dharma. Such being the absorbing notion of religion among the Hindus, they endeavoured to represent this idea in their architecture and sculpture. Nothing was excluded from the sacred precincts of temples, not even the humblest occupation of the daily labourer, not even 372 -PAURANIK PERIOD. [BOOK v. _ sorrows, sufferings, and sins. The universe has ema- nated from the deities to whom the architects dedica- ted their temples, and, as far as their humble skill and untiring industry permitted, they sought to represent the universe on those temples. The proud and the ’ lowly, the rational and the irrational, the animate and the inanimate, yea the whole world with its joys and sorrows, are comprehended in the notion of Hindu. religion ; and the Hindu sought to realize that all-em- : bracing notion, and to depict the universe on the im- _ perishable monuments of his industry and his faith ! CHAPTER IX. ASTRONOMY AND MATHEMATICS. _ COLEBROOKE was the first European writer who thoroughly enquired into the subject of Hindu Astronomy and Mathematics; and no more careful or impartial writer has written sinceon the subject, though it has been re- peatedly discussed by later scholars. We make no apology? therefore in quoting some remarks which Colebrooke recorded over seventy years ago on Hindu Algebra. “The Hindus had certainly made distinguished pro- gress in the science so early as the century immediately . following that in which the Grecians taught the rudi- ments of it. The Hindus had thebenefit of a good arithmetical notation; the Greeks the disadvantage of a bad one. Nearly allied as algebra is to arithmetic, the invention of the algebraic calculus was more easy and natural where arithmetic was best handled. No . such marked identity of the Hindu and Diephantine systems is observed, as to demonstrate communication. They are sufficiently distinct to justify the presump- tion that both might be invented independently of each other. . “If, however, it be insisted that a hint or suggestion, the seed of their knowledge, may have reached the 374 PAURANIK PERIOD. [BOOK V. Hindu mathematicians immediately from the Greeks of Alexandria, or mediately through those of Bactria, it must, at the same time, be confessed, that a slender germ grew and fructified rapidly, and soon attained an approved state of maturity in Indian soil.” * Equally worthy. of our consideration are the same author’s remarks on Hindu Astronomy. ‘“ The Hindus had undoubtedly made some progress at an early period in the astronomy cultivated by them for the regulation of time. Their calendar, both civil and religious, was governed chiefly, not exclusively, by the moon and sun; and the motions of these luminaries were carefully observed by them : and with such success that their determination of the moon’s synodical revolu- tion, which was what they were principally concerned with, is a much more correct one than the Greeks ever achieved. They had a division of the ecliptic into twenty-seven or twenty-eight parts, + suggested evident- ly by the moon’s period in days ; and seemingly their own: it was certainly borrowed by the Arabians. Being led to the observation of the fixed stars, they obtained.a knowledge ‘of the position of the most remarkable; and noticed for religious purposes, and from supersti- tious notions the heliacal rising with other phenomena of a few. The adoration of the sun, of the planets, * Algebra &t., from the Sanscrit. London 1847. P. xxii.