to become a sign of a community's corporate existence, other religious communities in India have felt a similar compulsion to assert their political strength, namely Sikhs, Jains, and Christians. There is, in this context, but a hair's breadth to distinguish between communalism, sectarianism, and casteism, since all three, though different in composition, assert their identity through the mere appearance of religious ideology (Lannoy, 1974, p. 245; 246-7).
Thus religion, with the Hindu religion in its most generalized cultural form predominant, emerges as the decisive element in all areas of Indian history and contemporary society. "Hindu culture patterns," Lannoy says, "have influenced virtually every minority group, including the Christians, Muslims, and Parsis. Further, no matter what group is the subject of study, all share in common the conditions of co-existence" (Lannoy, 1974, p. xviii).
Hinduism is highly complex, replete with a number of religious sects. Its most distinguishing doctrinal feature, however, appears to be its ahistorical nature and its followers' preoccupation with the otherworld rather than with historical reality. Dietary practices, in accordance with the religion, are simple, yet in some realms of the senses the practices may be described as lush; profuse erotic art on and within massive Hindu temples is emblematic of this seeming contradiction of sensibility that suffuses Indian culture. It is this kind of contradiction, which can evidently only meet in an environment that does not seem to rely on logic in the western sense, that is at the heart of the religion: "Hindu . . . in its great period, rested on those intimate experiences of the living organism and mysteries of the life-process that derive from the inward awareness gained through yogic experiences" (Zimmer, pp. 150-2).
India's consistent, sometimes fearless, ascetic-orgiastic exploration of the non-rational realms of consci...