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

INTRODUCTION

Once upon a time a

Botanist, very learned

but with rather

defective eyesight, went

travelling in far-distant

lands. And

he came

toagreat primevalforestwith lordly

trees, towhose

branches many

kinds of creepers and

curious plants were

clinging. Wishingto knowwhatkind of

treesthesewere,

he

began to gather the leaves and flowers

of the creepers

and

parasiteswhich had intertwined themselves

with thebranches,

withoutnoticingthat theywere not

the real growth

ofthose

great foresttrees. And hebroughtthemhomeand

driedthem

carefully, gavethemlongLatin names,andsent

themtoother

men of science as leaves and flowers of the very rare

and

curious treeswhichhehad found. So hebecamefamous

as a

greatdiscoverer.

But soon afterwards another

traveller,

not learned but

loving the beauty of the forest,went the same wayand saw

the same lordly

trees. And at first he too thought he had

never seensuch trees

before

;

but, looking atthem closerand

pulling the creepers and undergrowth aside, he sawthatthe

treeswere really

of the same species as thosewhich grew in

his native land—such

as the oak, chestnut, the elm and ash

tree—

only in a tropical climate they

grew larger and more

luxuriantly.

The Botanist, when he heard of this, smiled

scornfullyandsaid:

"

That

fellowknowsnothingabouttrees.

DidI notexamine

everybranch andgive

thetreestheirproper

names? Ofcourse,the

leaves and flowers I tookwere

ofthe

creepersaiid

parasites

;

but

thetreesthemselvesare rottenand

^4s

xxi