sm. The peasant and the philosopher reverence the
same deity, perform the same rite; they do not mean the same thing,
but they do not quarrel on this account. Nevertheless, it is certainly
remarkable that this inorganic medley of ideas and worships should
have resisted for so many ages the invasion and influence of the
coherent faiths that have won ascendancy, complete or dominant, on
either side of India, the west and the east; it has thrown off
Buddhism, it has withstood the triumphant advance of Islam, it has as
yet been little affected by Christianity. Probably the political
history of India may account in some degree for its religious
disorganisation. I may propound the theory that no religion has
obtained supremacy, or at any rate definite establishment, in any
great country except with the active co-operation, by force or favour,
of the rulers, whether by conquest, as in Western Asia, or by
patronage and protection, as in China. The direct influence and
recognition of the State has been an indispensable instrument of
religious consolidation. But until the nineteenth century the whole of
India, from the mountains to the sea, had never been united under one
stable government; the country was for ages parcelled out into
separate principalities, incessantly contending for territory. And
even the Moghul empire, which was always at war upon its frontiers,
never acquired universal dominion. The Moghul emperors, except
Aurungzeb, were by no means bigoted Mohammedans; and their obvious
interest was to abstain from meddling with Hinduism. Yet the irruption
of Islam into India seems rather to have stimulated religious activity
among the Hindus, for during the Mohammedan period various spiritual
teachers arose, new sects were formed, and theological controversies
divided the intellectual classes. To these movements the Mohammedan
governments must have been for a long time indifferent; and among the
new sects the principle of mutual toleration was universal. Towards
the close of the Moghul empire, however, Hinduism, provoked by the
bigotry of the Emperor Aurungzeb, became a serious element of
political disturbance. Attempts to suppress forcibly the followers of
Nanak Guru, and the execution of one spiritual leader of the Sikhs,
turned the Sikhs from inoffensive quietists into fanatical warriors;
and by the eighteenth century they were in open revolt against the
empire. They were, I think, the most formidable embodiment of mili