ABSTRACT
In this chapter, Murty discusses Amaury de Riencourt's The Soul of India. He argues that it is difficult to accept Riencourt's interpretation of Indian history, namely that India passed through more than 2,000 years ago all the stages of history that Europe has passed through in the last century and the present century. Murty also contests Riencourt's various comments on Indian mentality, viz. that it's indifferent to history and that it focused on space forgetting time, its regional geographical environment being the cause of it. Rieincourt claims, falsely, Murty argues, that polytheism is the “instinctive religion” of India. Riencourt further says that because of its social plurality and political diversity, Indians have split personalities and “non-unified egos” within the same individual. His interpretation of Indian history is “contradictory and arbitrary.” Murty shows that Riencourt's contentions like “India is a historic, atavistic and politically amoral country,” and that “India has no unifying principle in its ethos, its people have non-unified egos,” are false. Murty reasons that all the claims that Riencourt makes are also true of European history. Murty proves his case with illustrations from European history.
