3 Review(s)

First published in 1891 and delivered as the Rede Lecture in the same year, this book by Sir Alfred Lyall looks at the development of Natural Religion, or religion which humanity employs in order to explain natural phenomena, using India as a case study. Lyall draws upon time spent in the British Civil Service in India for his observations on Indian religious behavior, and attempts to explain how reactions to natural stimuli came to grow into the more coherent and complex belief system of Hinduism. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the history of religion or Indian religious expression.