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Introduction
In the foregoing pages a very brief account has
been given of the essentials of a religion which, though it is the oldest in the world, is
as vigorous today as any other religion. An attempt has been made to show that Hinduism is
neither fatalism nor pessimism, neither asceticism nor quietism, neither agnosticism nor
pantheism, neither illusionism nor mere polytheism, as some of its hasty critics in
foreign countries have represented it to be. It is a synthesis of all types of religious
experience from the lowest to the highest. It is a whole and complete view of life.
That is why it has stood all these thousands of years and
survived the attacks of the followers of the other great religions of the world. It
has survived the Buddhist schism of ancient times, the Muslim opposition of mediaeval
times and the Christian propaganda of modern times. And today in the twentieth century,
the age of Gandhi and Tagore, it is again in one of its periods of Renaissance.
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