THE PAST OF HINDUISM.*
Mn. HAVELL 11,3 a conviction that English historians have misinterpreted the whole spirit of Indian history. He does not quarrel w:th their findings of fact ; he would have them adopt a more sympathetic and less critical attitude towards Indian art, literature, and institutions. As he says in his Introduction, he holds that, whether unintentional or not, no greater spiritual injury can be done to a people than to teach them to undervalue or despise the achievements' of their forefathers. To over. value them can hardly be a mistake." In short, if it be a mistake, Mr. Novell is genially prepared to make and defend it, with his accustomed ingenuity and energy. History written in this spirit may be inaccurate in detail, but will probably have (in this case it has) merits of its own. Mr. Havell is not dull. He is generous with pregnant guesses and suggestions. You rosy not agree with all his opinions ; you can hardly read them without a profitable reconsideration of your own.
It is perhaps a slight lapse from good taste in a book which p.ye claim to permanent value that, at a time when Teutonic scholarship is discredited by Teutonic insolence and barbarity, Mr. Havell should assert of his predecessors (Macaulay somewhat surprisingly included) that they have been " inspired by German thoroughness and German lark of psychological insight." By that hard-worked word " psychology " Mr. Haven probably means only " imaginative sympathy." Sympathy and imagina. Lion the historian of an alien life and culture insist needs dis- play. He must make his puppets move so as to wake his reader's comprehending sympathy in turn. His manifest risk is that, for all his efforts to identify himself with them, he may make them act in such a fashion as would amaze and amuse their historical originals. At worst, however, he will place a lively scene before us, and for this relief much may be pardoned him.
Mr. Haven's thesis is a courageous expansion of a theme on which he has often dwelt in his interesting expositions of Indian art. He has this justification, that in spite of foreign invasions and administration, in spite of internal reforms, of which the most famous is that associated with the name of Gautama Buddha, Hindu religion and Hindu ideals in life, religion, art, literature have vigorously and imperturbably survived down to our own day. Mr. Havel would call them Indo.Aryan rather than Hindu, since it is his clue to insist on the fact that their origin, in spite of all subsequent modifications, is in the old Nature religion imported, with the parent-speech of the Indo- Aryan languages, by the small bands of Aryan settlers who produced (and are still producing) so astonishingly lasting an effect on Indian thought. It is probable (though Mr. Havell would no doubt deny this) that this influence is chiefly lin- guistic, by supplying lacking means of self-expression, and varies with each of the many daughter-languages of Sanskrit and Prakrit. Mr. Novell, we gather, in spite of his long and affeet!onate familiarity with Indian art, is not an Indian linguist. The Indian authors he cites are either Mohammedans translated by Elliot, or modern Bengalis, such as Professor Sarkar and Mr. Dinesh Chandra Sen, who have written in English. If be were more of a linguist, he might, we suppose, have been more con- scious of the differences between the various nations of India. As it is, he sees an Indo-Aryan unity pervading all manifestations of Indian life, and finally finds in the eclectic ideas of Akbar a notable example of the old Indo-Aryan tradition.
It was an attempt worth making, and Mr. Havell is, of course, not wholly unsuccessful. The Hindu tradition is, in truth, singularly tenacious of life. It is an outcome of climate and environment not less than of heredity. It has affected numerous men of our race, among them men who have made a muck more profound. study of Indian life and thought than Mr. Havel' claims for himself. The late Sir Alfred Lyall was so im- pressed with the fascination of Hindu philosophy and doctrine that we have known a distinguished French Indianist to declare that no Hindu born could give a better, wiser, or more sympa- thetic account of what the Indian mind is. Hinduism survives miraculously, and perhaps Mr. Novell is justified in asserting
• The Halsey of Aram Rule in India, from the Earliest Tana to the Death of darer. By E. IL Ha-e& London : Marron. Llna. natJ
that we are not sufficiently awake to the romantic interest of a survival into our midst of the old-world legend of a shining city of immortal gods, moved by like passions to ourselves, and capable of descending to share our existence visibly from time to time. Mr. Havell is certainly justified in saying (and, if he likes, lamenting) that the Christian paradise of angels and saints is a remoter and more intangible affair altogether.
Hinduism survives, and with it the old Indo.Aryan village organization, which Mr. Havel!, like other contemporeries, warmly approves. It has its merits. But it could easily be argued, if it were worth while, that even the blameless Indian village has its drawbacks, since its very success and survival stay have given the average Indian a parochial imagination in matters of administration, and so made him the easy victim of foreign invaders. There are other survivals as well, not so easily de- fended. There is the recurring danger (Mr. Haven's authority, Professor Benoy Kumar Sarkar, dwells on it) of relapses into animistic Tantrism, such as has followed on theistic reforms of morals again and again. There is the constant peril of too facile generalizations, common to all historians, about India as a whole.
When all is said, Mr. Haven's tale of Indian history is told with a pleasant zest and vigour, bred of the writer's love of the land for whose art he has done admirable service. We may not agree with all his conclusions ; we shall certainly not be bored by his presentation of them. His artistic sympathy brings out the romantic aspect of Indian history with admirable effect.
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