THE RENAISSANCE IN INDIA
mean the moulding of the whole type of the national being to suit the limited dog- mas, forms, tenets of a particular religion, as was often enough attempted by the oldsocieties, au idea which still persists in many minds by the power of old mental habit and association ; clearly such an attempt would be impossible, even if it were desirable, in a country full of the most diverse religious opinions and har-bouring too three such distinct general forms as Hinduism, Islam and Christian-ity, to say nothing of the numerous spe-cial forms to which each of these has given birth. Spirituality is much wider than any particular religion, and in the larger ideas of it that are now coming on us even the greatest religion becomes no more than a broad sect or branch of the one universal religion, by which we shall un- derstand in the future man’s seeking for the eternal, the divine, the greater self, the source of unity and his attempt to arrive at some equation, some increasing
71
