Folk Origins of Indian Art

“Ever since the Christian West first beheld her distant and then legendary world, India has confronted it with a bewildering enigma and an inexhaustible source of marvel and fascination. Her cultural gestalt, in its ideational ramifications and phenomenal expressions, has defined and largely preserved India as a land of wonder, of mystery that has deepened even as it seemed to unfold. The intellectual intolerance and doctrinal preconceptions of traders, missionaries, administrators, and curiosity seekers exacerbated their traditional and religiously fostered ignorance of the non-Christian world to further confound the apparent contradictions. For here was unmistakable evidence of an ancient and highly developed civilization, yet its beliefs and customs, its conceptual and creedal perspectives, seemed not merely alien to and incompatible with their own, but inconceivable within the European's frame of reference. Indeed, so bizarre and preposterous did they seem that for a long time only a few individuals considered their comprehension worth a serious effort. Their attempts, however tentative, haphazard, inadequate, and defective in analysis or conclusion, provided the initial impetus to a slowly intensifying endeavor toward a more balanced and valid appreciation of the phenomenon that is the culture of India.[…]”