South and Central Asia
South and Central AsiaIndia, Sri Lanka, Tibet
India thinks in images. Symbol and metaphor have been available to Indian thought in an intimacy unparalleled in any other advanced civilization. Unlike Greece, its mythology was never devalued by philosophers nor were the great legends transformed into allegories by poets. Hindu myth has remained archaic, the collective heritage of a religious community which even today continues to refashion and reshape what is the most complex living culture in the world. Just as the traditional Indian system of social organization, caste, has grown over the past three and a half millennia through incorporation, not abolishing the customs of newly assimilated peoples but assigning them to a low place in the hierarchy, so Indian mythology rejected few beliefs, but included them in its own developing form, even if they seemed incompatible at first sight. Thus Sri Ramakrishna could say of his devotions towards...
[The entire page is 3190 words long]
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