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FRAGMENTS OF A PRISONER'S DIARY
period of greatness would not find such a considerable part of the population abandoning the natural life of a social being to adopt the morbid monastic profession. Had the people enjoyed worldly happiness when their rulers were basking in the sun of grandeur and glory, they would not rush madly after an illusion, leaving the reality behind. Havell writes : Every great temple which was built, meant the dedication of public and private funds for the maintenance of priests, temple servants, Brahman students and their gurus, Sadhus and Sanyasis. And it was the period from the seventh century to the time of Mahmud of Ghazni, which was the most prolific in religious building,-a time when Hindu monarchs vied with each other in the magnificence and number of their temples, when sacred hills were converted into cities of the gods, and when hundreds and thousands of skilled artisans were diverted from ordinary industrial pursuits to the pious labour of elaborating the embellishment of the temple service in stone, bronze, precious metal and costly fabrics." (The Aryan Rule of India)
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It was not an easy task to preserve the holy appearance of an abnormal institution embracing an ever-increasing multitude of social derelicts, actuated by motives far from being genuinely spiritual. It was however, accomplished through the destruction of the freedom of mind by fomenting the virtue of credulity and encouraging the
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