A History of Architecture in all Countries, Volumes 1 and 2, 3rd ed.: From the Earliest Times to the Present DayFergusson, James
History
A History of Architecture in all Countries, Volumes 1 and 2, 3rd ed.: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day
Fergusson, James
Architecture -- History
In Europe they found the country cleared of Turanians by the earlier
Celts; and mingling their blood with these more nearly allied races,
they have raised themselves to a position half way between the two.
Where they found the country unoccupied they have remained so pure that,
as their number multiplies, they may perhaps regain something of the
position they had temporarily abandoned, and something of that science
which, it may be fancied, mankind only knew in their primeval seats.
RELIGION.
What then was the creed of the primitive Aryans? So far as we can now
see, it was the belief in one great ineffable God,—so great that no
human intellect could measure His greatness,—so wonderful that no human
language could express His qualities,—pervading everything that was
made,—ruling all created things,—a spirit, around, beyond the universe,
and within every individual particle of it. A creed so ethereal could
not long remain the faith of the multitude, and we early find fire,—the
most ethereal of the elements,—looked to as an emblem of the Deity. The
heavens too received a name, and became an entity:—so did our mother
earth. To these succeeded the sun, the stars, the elements,—but never
among the pure Aryans as gods, or as influencing the destiny of man, but
as manifestations of His power, and reverenced because they were visible
manifestations of a Being too abstract for an ordinary mind to grasp.
Below this the Aryans never seem to have sunk.
With a faith so elevated of course no temple could be wanted; no human
ceremonial could be supposed capable of doing honour to a Deity so
conceived; nor any sacrifice acceptable to Him to whom all things
belonged. With the Aryans worship was a purely domestic institution;
prayer the solitary act of each individual man, standing alone in the
presence of an omniscient Deity. All that was required was that man
should acknowledge the greatness of God, and his own comparative
insignificance; should express his absolute trust and faith in the
beneficence and justice of his God, and a hope that he might be enabled
to live so pure, and so free from sin, as to deserve such happiness as
this world can afford, and be enabled to do as much good to others as it
is vouchsafed to man to perform.
A few insignificant formulæ served to mark the modes in which these
subjects should recur. The recitation of a time-honoured hymn refreshed
the attention of the worshipper, and the reading of a few sacred texts
recalled the duties it was expected he should perform. With these simple
ceremonies the worship of the Aryans seems to have begun and ended.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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