纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 068湿婆与雪山女神像（8）（在线收听）

It was Hinduism's generous capacity to embrace all aspects of life, not least sexuality, that enthused and beguiled the man who collected our sculpture - Charles Stuart, an officer in the East India Company, who so vigorously embraced the values and virtues of Hinduism that he was nicknamed by his shocked compatriots "Hindoo Stuart". Stuart admired almost every aspect of Indian life. He studied Indian languages and religions, and he even urged English women to wear what he called "sensible and sensual" Indian saris. The memsahibs declined.

As part of his study of Indian cultures, Stuart put together a huge collection of sculpture - our relief was part of it - designed to include "examples of each deity as a kind of visual encyclopaedia of religions and customs". His collection was displayed to the public at his home in Calcutta. It was one of the first serious attempts to present Indian culture in a systematic way to a European audience. Far from finding Hinduism disconcerting, Stuart saw in it an admirable framework for living, that was at least the moral equal of Christianity, and in 1808 he published his views in a pamphlet, 'Vindication of the Hindoos':

"Wherever I look around me, in the vast ocean of Hindu mythology, I discover Piety... Morality... and as far as I can rely on my judgement, it appears the most complete and ample system of Moral Allegory the world has ever produced."

印度教包容性，包容生命万象，正是这种包容深深感染了搜集雕像的查尔斯·斯图亚特。作为东印度公司的一名小职员，他对印度教的价值与优点抱有的狂热使同事们大为惊讶，他也因此获得了“印度人斯图亚特”的绰号。斯图亚特欣赏印度生活中的一切，他研究印度的语言与宗教，甚至呼吁英国妇女穿“理性而又性感”的印度纱丽。这自然被太太小姐们拒绝了。

作为其印度文化研究的一部分，斯图亚特搜集了大量雕像，本节文物便是其中之一。他想集齐印度众神，使收藏成为一部宗教与文化的百科全书。这些藏品在他位于加尔各答的家里公开展出，是严肃而系统地向欧洲人展示印度文化的初次尝试。他并不觉得印度教有何令人困惑不安的内容，而是发现其中有值得赞叹、足以与基督教媲美的架构。一八八年，他将自己的观点写成一本小册子出版，名为《印度人的辩护书》：

在印度神话的辽阔大海中，无论何时环顾四下，我都能看到虔诚…道德……我坚信，它是世界上最完整、最丰富的道德寓言体系。