including that country's art. The tenets of the victorious faith not only encouraged the destruction of the Hindu temples, but regarded iconoclasm as a sacred duty. As in another instance, the order went forth to "destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire" (Deut. vii.). To correctly understand the situation in India at this period, it must be realized that the religion of the country was a Pantheism, and that the sacred edifices of the Hindus rioted in sculptured representations of the deities and their attributes, the thousand and one gods of the national creed, in all their various forms and incarnations. Natural and living creations were introduced into all ornamentation, in wood, stone, or metal, and "graven images" were the chief feature of every temple and shrine. The old religion of the Aryans was based on a worship of Nature in its most sublime aspects, and the influence of this reverence for the supreme forces is evident in their sacred art wherever it was applied. The country of Hindustan was rich in build-
