- xw wrote:
....
对于西方的意识而言，很不幸的是基督教
没有能晚一点出现。如果基督教出现得更晚的话，就能在佛教与伊斯兰教
中间达成一项综合。不幸的是基督教出现太早，没有能成为前两者之间的
调合者，而事实上成为两者之间的转型过渡者！基督教成为两者之间的中
途点，基于其内部逻辑性，还有地理与历史的因素，命定要朝着伊斯兰教
的方向发展；
这一段话蛮费解的。若没有基督教，也未必就会有现在形式上的伊斯兰教。若是基督教后出现便可达到伊斯兰和佛教的综合，那也不妨再出现一次。若说伊斯兰把原本可能贯通欧洲印度的比较文明的世界打乱，我怎么觉罪魁在基督教呢？犹太教的practice并不排除pagan。若没有基督教的成为国教，印欧的大同岂不更容易？否则若只是伊斯兰不出现，就可能是基督教征服印度，对了还有拜火教。我是不是在抬杠？
想看看xw上的这一段的context，去读了下最后两章，怎么觉着Levi Strauss对伊斯兰文明蛮有偏见的呀？还是我在断章取义？比如说建筑Taxila一章这一段关于红堡的：
Red Fort is less a monument than a palace, combining vestiges of the Renaissance (such as mosaics in pietra dura) with incipient Louis XV, a style which in this instance seems to have sprung from Mogul influences. In spite of the richness of the materials and the decorative refinement, I remained unsatisfied. There was nothing architectural in the whole thing, to correct the impression that it was only a palace: it was rather like a collection of tents, eracted in a hard material in a garden which itself was no more than an idealized encampment. All the decorative ideas seemed to be derived from the textile arts: there are marble baldaquins resembling the folds of a curtain, and jali which are really (and not metaphorically) 'lacework in stone'. The marble canopy over the imperial throne was a recplica of a collapsible wooden one with draperies; it was no more than an integral part of the audience-chamber than the original would have been. Even Humayun's tomb, archaic though it is, produced in the visitor the uneasy feeling that some essential element was lacking. The whole edifice created an impressive mass, every detail was exquisite, but it was impossible to discover any organic link between the parts and the whole.
最后一章在xw引文后又回到architecture：
In the light of this, I can achieve a better understanding of the ambiguous nature of Mogul art. The emotion it arouses is not in the least architectural: it relates to poetry and music. But surely it was for the reasons just mentioned that Moslem art was to remain phantasmagorical. The Taj Mahal has been described as 'a marble dream'. This guidebook expression conceals an extremely profound truth. The Moguls dreamed their art; they literally crated dream-palaces; they did not build, but transcribed. It follows that their monuments are disturbing both because of their lyrical quality and because of an appearance of insubstantiality, as if they were castles made of cards or shells. They are not palaces solidly anchored to the ground, but rather scale-models trying in vain to reach the status of existence through the preciousness and hardness of their materials.
没去过印度，见过的人怎么说？见过别处的伊斯兰建筑，这里说的致命缺点正是我看到的优点啊。怎么回事？同样的话难道不可以拿来说教堂，还有欧洲中世纪的城堡么？
书里还特别强调了有没有偶像崇拜的区别，因为基督教印度教都有因而更近。可是基督教为偶像崇拜一直是彼此攻击甚至教廷分裂，即使现在教堂里的耶稣圣母的像也不承认是偶像崇拜的。哎，还有好多，说不过来。
娴敓
