The ancient and medieval architecture of India: a study of Indo-Aryan civilisation

THE

MANDAPAM

39

epics, the

Ramayana and

the

Mahabharata

;

to take

part in

musical

festivals,and

tolistento

thetalesof

the

V\\\2.gtkathak,

or

story-teller.

It was here,

also, that

by listening

to

the

learned

disputations between

the pandits

of the

village,

or of

wandering

asceticsversed

in the

spiritual lore

of the

Aryan

sages,

thattheIndian

peasant,

illiterateon<ly

in the

narrowest

technical sense,

acquired that

familiarity

with abstruse

philo-

Fig.13.

—

ConstructionoftheDomesofaTempleMandapam:(a)withconcentricrings,

(ti)withslabslaiddiagonally.

sophical speculations which sometimes astonishes

the Euro-

peanwhotriesto

penetrate beneath thesurfaceof

Indian life.

All thisfinetraditionalculture

isbeingentirelysweptawayin

British Indiaandin "progressive"

native states by systems

of education devised in the

offices of Anglo-Indian

cities, as

far

removedfrom

real Indian life

as Manchester

and Birming-

ham, which destroy

the spirituality of

Indian life, turn the

villagecraftsmenintocityclerks,

anduproot the

wholefounda-

tion of Indian civilisation,

based

upon a far

more perfect