Excerpt from The Ancient and Medieval Architecture of India: A Study of Indo-Aryan Civilisation All but the last three chapters of this book were written before the fateful days of August which saw Great Britain once more engaged in fighting for the liberties of Europe against a hateful military despotism. The splendid demonstration of Indian loyalty which the war has called forth should not blind the British nation to the fact that the work of building up our Empire in the East, so far from being finished, will inevitably grow more difficult year by year and demand more watchful care from British statesmen. It will certainly be impossible for Great Britain to continue to refuse India privileges which our ally, Russia, is willing to grant to her Asiatic subjects; and the problem of reconciling Indian aspirations with the vital interests of the Empire can only be solved satisfactorily by avoiding the dangers into which we have drifted with regard to the government of Ireland. The root of the Irish difficulties has lain in ignorance of Irish sentiment and Irish history. Similar causes will sooner or later produce similar effects on a far larger scale in India. It is therefore that I believe myself to be fulfilling a patriotic duty in endeavouring to remove the misconceptions of Indian civilisation which have so largely governed anglo-indian policy. It is good to remind ourselves how history is repeating itself - that our Indian comrades-in-arms are of the same stock as those who fifteen hundred years ago were fighting on Indian soil the same battles for liberty and for Aryan civilisation against those who, like the modern Huns, knew no right but might, as we are fighting together in Europe to-day. It is good for us to know that Indian civilisation is a branch of the same tree which we are proud to call our own. And this very feeling of comradeship makes it imperative for us to try to under stand the political and social ideals which India herself has cherished for so many centuries, rather than impose upon her those which we, from our Western experience, judge to be best for her. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.