, and
the social and religious supremacy of Hinduism has never been seriously
assailed. Nowhere has Hindu architecture taken such majestic shape, the
massive pylons of Madura and Tanjore recalling the imperishable grandeur
of the noblest Egyptian temples on the Nile. Southern India is in fact a
land of stately shrines which dominate the whole country just as our own
great cathedrals dominated England in the Middle Ages. Yet in Southern
India, Hinduism has not assumed the aggressive character which it has
developed in other regions. Perhaps it feels too secure of the
unchallenged supremacy which it has enjoyed through the ages as a social
and religious force without ever aspiring to direct political
ascendancy. Perhaps the admixture of Dravidian blood has imparted to it
a more serene tolerance. Perhaps it appreciates more fully the relief
from the turmoils strife, and bloodshed which was brought to Southern
India by the advent of British rule. Compare the legend of a pre-British
"golden age" propagated by Tilak and his disciples in the Deccan and in
Bengal with the remarkable picture of the condition of Southern India at
the time when the British power first appeared on the scene which was
drawn by a Madras Brahman, the late Mr. Srinivasaraghava Iyangar:--

Southern India had been devastated by wars, famines,
and bands of plunderers; the cultivating classes were ground
down by oppressive taxation, by the illegal exactions of the
officers of Government, of the renters employed to collect
the Government dues, and of the sowkars without whose
assistance the ryots could not subsist and carry on their
calling, and who kept them in a state little removed from
perpetual bondage; trade was hampered by insecurity of
property, defective communications, and onerous transit
duties; the vast majority of the population suffered extreme
hardships when there was even a partial failure of crops in
small tracts, owing to the great difficulty and cost of obtaining
supplies of grain from more favoured regions; the peasantry
and even possessors of considerable landed property, when not
holding office under Government themselves, were cowering
before the pettiest Government officer and submitting to
tortures and degrading personal ill-treatment inflicted on the
slightest pretext; persons who had chanced to acquire
wealth, if they belonged to the lower classes, dared not openly
use