Theism in Medieval India

- This volume is an attempt to present to the English render a general view of the phases of Theism in Medieval India. The term is understood in its widest aspect, for even the philosophic pantheism of the Vedanta admitted a relative reality to the Theistic interpretation of the world and man. The labours of the great Sanskrit scholars of the last century were largely devoted to the varied products embraced under lie comprehensive term Veda, and the later aspects of the higher religions of Hinduism after the formulation of its great schools of philosophy received less attention. But the learning and industry of the last thirty years in England, on the Continent, and among distinguished Indian scholars, have rendered a large amount of material accessible to the modern student unequipped with knowledge of the vernacular languages or with first-hand familiarity with modern conditions.The close of the reign of Akbar, the contemporary of Queen Elizabeth, sees the failure of his attempt to establish an Imperial Monotheism which should transcend both Islam and the ancient native faiths, while it finds Hinduism provided with its greatest religious poem, the Ramayana of Tulsi Das, and the community of the Sikhs passing into a small but vigorous church-nation.