Influences on Hindu Civilisation Buddhist and Muslim (An Old and Rare Book)

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IN history of civilisation it is usually taken for granted that influences are exerted by the superior culture on the inferior one and in a country like India having recurrent instances of incursions made from outside, the culture of the foreign invaders are often considered one up than the native heritage. But even a cursory study would easily reveal that no such qualitative gradation is ever possible between the emitter and the receptor in impact studies, nor do influences emarate inevitably from alien cultures alone but may proceed as well from the endogenous Little Tradition which had at some period or other drifted away from the mainstream of the Great Tradition. The essays collated here expose these two facets of the interaction problem.

The first of the two essays examines the Buddhist impact on Hindu civilisation between the 8th and 11th centuries, the second essay covers the Muslim impact ranging from 12th to 17th centuries. While the first impact is an example of orthogenetic changes by differentiation of the Little Tradition with the Great Tradition, the second vivifies heterogenetic changes brought about by the contact of two exogenous Great Traditions.

Having been tutored in the colonial schools of the British for nearly two centuries we have accepted almost without a faint shadow of doubt that the advent of the British was a redeeming factor for the natives of India irrespective of their religion creed or faith.