■I tihvavy of €:he trheolo^ical ^tminavy PRINCETON . NEW JERSEY V// VVV" PRESENTED BY Prof. Edwin H. Kellogg HINDUISM AND ITS RELATIONS TO CHRISTIANITY BY REV. JOHN ROBSON, M.A. FORMERLY OF AJMER. EDINBURGH : WILLIAM OLIPHANT & CO. GLASGOW : DAVID ROBERTSON. LONDON : HAMILTON, ADAMS & CO. 1874 [A II rights > e served. ] MUIR AND PATERSON, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH. TO THE OF THE FREE CHURCH MISSION, BOMBAY, WHO, DUrJXG FORTY-FIVE YEARS, WHILE SEEKING FAITHFULLY TO COMMEND TO THE HINDUS THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY, HAS SHOWN HIMSELF A DILIGENT AND APPRECIATIVE STUDENT OF THEIR LITERATURE AND RELIGION, ^fjts Boolt is Dctiicatcli AS A MARK OF AFFECTION AND ESTEEM. PREFACE. rriHIS book is offered to those who take an interest in India, and especially in Indian missions, as an attempt to enable them better to understand the religion of the great majority of the people of that land. I have found prevalent in this country ideas of Hinduism very different from those which a twelve years' practical study of it in constant contact with its followers has led me to form. Generally, among friends of missions, there is an undue deprecia- tion of Hinduism, — an ionorinix or an ioiiorance of the amount of truth and vitality still to be found in it ; whilst, amoug those indifferent or hostile to missions, there is an equal ignoring or ignorance of the false- hood which vitiates that truth and poisons that vitality. ISTot only does Hinduism contain a subtle philosophy, express high moral truths and enjoin many social virtues; it even in one guise or other embodies many of the leading religious truths which Christianity teaches. But that there is in it an vi Preface. ineradicable vice which neutralizes all that is good, which has paralyzed and must paralyze all those efforts at reform within Hinduism that more en- lightened Hindus have made and are now making, and which leaves Christianity the only hope for India — is what I have endeavoured to show. The present religion of India can be better under- stood with some knowledge of those faiths which preceded it. I have therefore prefixed a short sketcli of the earlier religions of India, for which I have availed myself of the results of the investigations of others, principally JMax JMiiller's Early Sanskrit Literature, and Science of Religion ; Professor H. H. Wilson's Translation of the Pdg Veda; Dr. John Wilson's India Three Thousand Years Ago ; liassen's Indische Altcrthumskunde ; and that thesaurus of Indian literature, Sanskrit Texts, by Dr. John Muir, to whose hints and assistance I am otherwise indebted. The remainder of the book is mainly the result of my own observations and study of the sacred litera- ture now most current among the Hindus. But, being unable to procure in this country many of the books I wished, I have been obliged to depend greatly on memory, and to leave out many ^^articular references which I could have desired to give. Preface vii Since tliis volume was sent to the press I have read the third volume of Talboys Wheeler's History of India} I was glad to find that many of my positions were confirmed by his investigations, though, as was perhaps inevitable in a field so vast and still so uncertain, many of our conclusions are quite different, I have been able, in the latter chapters on Hinduism and in the Appendix, to in- troduce some notes from his work where it bears on the question in hand. A discussion has lately appeared in the pages of the Fortniglithj Revieio between ]\Ir. Lyall and Max [Miiller on the missionary character and vitality of the Brahmanical religion. It has evidently in a great measure sprung from a misconception of the meaning: of the latter in his lecture on Missions in Westminster Abbey, and might not have been raised ^ This tliircl volume, publislied by Triibner and Co., is complete in itself, and — wliile not presenting the same complete chronicle of events which other histories do — presents a far more interesting and vivid picture of what is characteristic and permanent in India, of the inner life and social condition of the people, of all that it is im- portant for us to know about them, than any other history with which I am acquainted. The first and second volumes, dealing rather with Indian histories, do for Sanskrit literature what the ' Greek and Latin Classics for English Readers ' have done for Greek and Latin literature, and enable the English reader pleasantly and profitably to become acquainted with the voluminous historical poems of the Hindus. viii Preface. had Mr. Lyall seen the Lecture in its published form instead of the report in the Times. This, how- ever, is hardly to be regretted, as it has led to the appearance of Mr. Lyall's vivid account of Brah- manical propagandism, which will, I believe, be vouched for as true in its main features ^ by those who have had to do with Brahmanism, where it has been less affected by European enlightenment. It is perhaps unfortunate that the term Brahmanism should be used, for in its strict sense it means merely the religion of the Brahmans, and is utterly non- expansive. It can be professed only by them, and no one can be a Brahman who is not born one. But if we take that system which places the Brahmans at the head, but includes also the religion of the 2 Mr, Lyall seems to me to speak somewhat unguardedly as to the miraculous agency employed by the Brahmans. They pretend to have the power to bring the god into the image by the use of charms, but I never met or heard of a Brahman who pretended to have the power of working miracles, as we understand them, or who ax>plied to any one who pretended to have it any other name than Pcikhand — cheat. In the earlier years of the Rajputana Mission, several persons pretended to be inspired by the goddess Mata, and to have the power of working miracles, but they were all ignorant and illiterate members of low castes. Dr. Valentine, then medical missionary at Beawr, on one occasion gave one of them, when he pretended to be inspired, some liquor ammonicB to smell, which so stunned and confounded him, that he confessed himself a cheat. Since then the miracle-mongers have kept out of reach of the padre's medicine-bottle. Preface. ix Eajputs, the religion of the Baniyas, and of every caste that may come within its pale, and which may more appropriately be termed Hinduism, then it is expansive, though it is proselytizing rather than missionary ; and it proselytizes by absorbing tribes, not by converting individuals. But Hinduism has still great vitality. Max Miiller, after describing in his Lecture the most popular gods of the Hindu pantheon, adds : ' But ask any Hindu who can read and write and think, whether these are the gods he believes in, and he will smile at your credulity.' And in his article he says, ' I ask ]\Ir. Lyall, is this true or is it not ? ' If he will allow me to answer this question, I would say that perhaps a definition of the word 'think' might remove misconception, but, in so far as I understand his words, and in so far as my experience goes, I would say ' it is not true.' I have met Hindus who could read and write and think, and who soberly, firmly, and acutely maintained their faith in Vishnu and Siva, and even in the efficacy of worshipping their images. And if he has any difficulty in conceiv- ing how it should be so, I would relate a rencontre, to which. I was witness, between a Christian Brahman, who had visited this country, and an American. X Preface. * I am very miicli surprised/ said tlie American, ' that any of a race so intelligent as yours should he idolaters.' * I am very much surprised/ replied the Brahman, ' that any of a race so intelligent as yours should he idolaters. I came to England hy Eome, and I saw English and Americans kissing the toe of Jupiter, said to he St. Peter, and worshipping images just as much as the Hindus do.' I do not write this hecause I take any despairing view of the future of Christianity in India, hut because, as JMr. Lyall puts it, ' those who go to war there must, for many a long day, take Brahmanism into their strategic account.' In writing this hook I had the hope and prospect of returning to hear my part personally in this great war. Though I have been obliged meanwhile to relinquish this hope, neither my interest in the work of evangelizing India, nor my confidence in its ultimate triumph, is at all abated ; and if this book should succeed at all in strengthening these sentiments in Christians in this country,. I shall consider myself amply rewarded for any labour I may have expended on it. Langside, Glasgow, Scptemhcr 1874. CONTENTS. INTEODUCTION. Conflicting Elements in Hinduism, Macaulay's Oj)inion of Hinduism, . Ballantyne's Opinion of Hinduism, Cliaracteristics of Hindu Philosophy, Practical Application of Hindu Philosophy, Materials for a History of Hinduism, PAGE 3 4 5 6 6 7 PAET I. EARLIER RELIGIONS OF INDIA. CHAP. I. — Earliest Vedic Religion, Earliest Record of Religion in India — the Rig Veda, India Three Thousand Years Ago — the Aryas, , the Aborigines, Aryan Religion — Primitive Monotheism, Modes of expressing God — by His attributes, by His works, . Aryan Gods — Dyaus, the Sky, Aditi, Varuna, Deterioration of Religious Ideas, Indra, the Rain god. Other gods, . Each god supreme, The Unknown God, Early "Worship — Sacriiice, Ideas of a Future Life, Religion of the Aborigines, 11 11 12 13 14 15 16 16 17 18 22 23 24 24 25 27 28 28 xu Contents, CHAP. II. — Brahmanism, Changes among the Aryas, Origin of Caste — the Suclras, . The Sudras at the time of Rama, Subjection of the Sudras, Caste among the Aryas — Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, Caste Legislation, Religious Ideas — the Brahmans, Brahman Priests, .... The Brahmanas, Development of Polytheism, Brahma, Brahmanical and Levitical Sacrifices, Levitical Sacrifice, ty^iical, Brahmanical Sacrifice, sacramental. Difficulties of this Idea, Brahman Sages — the Upanishads, Pantheism, Origin of Metempsychosis and Asceticism, Eftect of Philosophy on Religion, Other Sources of Religious Ideas, . Struggle between Brahmans and Kshat- riyas, Rama's Expedition to Ceylon, The Panda vs and Krishna, Aboriginal "Worship, Extent of Brahmanism, CHAP. III.— Buddhism, . Buddha's Life — His Birth, Married Life, Change caused by seeing Old Age, Disease, Death and a Recluse, . He renounces Royalty, Studies with the Brahmans, Retires to the Forests, He discovers the Way of Deliverance, And communicates it to others — subsequent life, Connection between his Life and Relii^ion, PAGE 30 30 30 32 33 Contents. Xlll Buddha's System — Transmigration, Atheism, ..... Nirvana, ..... Better Elements of his System, "Way of Deliverance — Asceticism, Religion for the Laity — Morality, Abolition of Caste, Tenderness to the Brute Creation, AVorship of Relics, Causes of the Spread of Buddhism — Character of its Founder, .... Buddhism a Religion of Humanity, Persuasion the sole Instrument of its Spread, Influence of his Example — Legend of Purna, Effects of Buddhism, .... Defects of Buddhism — Atheism, False Views of Duty and Human Life, Absence of Revelation, Absence of Power, Fall of Buddhism, .... The Jains — the Representatives of Buddhism, Founders of Jainism — Pars^vanath and Mahavirn, Jain Doctrine, .... Origin of the Sect, . . ■ . PAGE 64 65 66 ^^ 67 68 69 70 70 71 73 74 75 76 77 77 78 79 81 81 82 83 85 PAET II. HINDUISM. Introduction — Rise of Hinduism, .... 89 Difficulties of the Subject, . . . .90 Two Features of Hinduism — Philosophy and Religion, 91 CHAP. I. — Hindu Philosophy, .... 92 Cause of the Intellectual Revival, . . . 92 The chief end of Man — Liberation, . . , 93 Fundamental Principles, ex ?ii7a7o ?n7a7yi^, . . 94 The Supreme Spirit the only existent Being, . 94 The Supreme Spirit Unconditioned, . . . 95 The Vedantic and Christian Trinity, . . 96 XIV Contents. Man's Sj)irit and Matter, Maya or Delusion, Analogy of Dreamland and Monomania, Nature of the Illusion, Difficulties to be Explained, Metempsychosis proved by Reminiscence and Moral Necessity, Vicarious Atonement, Deeds, Bonds of the Spirit, Analogy of Vapour, The Eighty-four, Difficulties to be Explained — Origin of Illusion, The Law of Transmigration — the Unseen, "Way of Liberation, Knowledge, Hindu Philosophy and Buddhism, Causes of the Triumph of Hinduism, Hindu Philosophy and Christianity, Popular Hindu Philosophy — Transmigration, Deeds are Bonds, . Man's Spirit part of the Supreme, Failure of the Philosophical Solution, PAGE 97 98 99 100 101 102 102 103 104 105 107 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 114 115 117 CHAP. 11. — Pantheism and Caste, Meaning of Caste, .... Occupations, .... Family System, .... Pantheistic Explanations of Caste, Punishment for Caste-breaking, Lower castes recognized, . . , Consequences — Sub-divisions of the Brahmanical caste Disappearance of the intermediate castes, Power of caste, .... Vitality of caste, .... Native testimony with regard to caste, Effect of caste on the English, Caste a means of propagandism. The Worship of the Cow the Sacrament of Caste, The common bond of Hinduism, 119 119 120 121 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 131 132 133 134 134 Contents, XV Origin of cow worsliip, Legend of Prithu, Manu's laws, .... Growth Df cow worship, . CHAP. III.— Pantheism and Polytheism, Place of idol worship in Hinduism, Apparent contradictions. The gods means of mediate Liberation, Pantheistic basis of worship, . Facilities offered thereby for propagandism, . Main divisions of Hinduism — Vishnu and SivaWorshij Principle of these divisions — faith and merit. Limitations of the distinction, Religious Eecords- -the Puranas, CHAP. IV.— Vishnu Worship, . Vishnuism starts from God's Supremacy, Abstract Conception of Vishnu, His Avatars analogous to man's transmigrations. Fish, Tortoise, and Boar Avatars, Man-lion and Dwarf Avatars, Sixth Avatar historical. Seventh, Rama Chandra, Eighth Incarnation as Krishna, . Krishna's youth, Brahmanical adaptation of the story, Brahmanical inventions, and explanations, Justification of Sin, . Images of Krishna, Ninth Avatar — Buddha, . Fresh Incarnations of Krishna, Tenth Incarnation — the English, Forms of "Worship, .... Invocation, .... Story of Valmiki, Image Worship, .... Three explanations of Image Worship, PAGE 136 136 137 138 140 140 141 142 143 144 145 145 147 148 149 149 150 151 151 152 155 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 163 163 164 164 167 167 168 169 170 XVI Contents. Charms, Disappearance of Sacrifice, Vislinu Worship, Worship of his images, The Bombay Maharajas, . Vice a fruit of Hinduism, Vaishnava Reformers — Ramanuja, Ramananda and Tulsidas, Other Reformers, CHAP, v.— Siva Worship, Principles of Siva Worship, Rudra, .... Popular conception of Siva, Representations of him, Saiva Legends, Other worship connected with his, The Recluses the mainstay of his religion, Common ideas of Asceticism, Drying up of the blood, Practices of modern Ascetics, Their degraded character, Saiva Propagandism, . Siva's wives and servants, Pushkar — explanation of tirths, Primitive worship of Pushkar, Saiva manipulation of the legends, Object of the Brahmans to assimilate, Parihar Minas, IMoral influence of the Brahmans, The Bhils of the Aravalis, Saiva Worship, Secret sects, .... PAGE 171 173 175 175 177 179 180 181 182 183 183 184 185 186 187 188 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 203 204 CHAP. VI. — Reconciliation of the Sects- Hinduism, Original enmity of the Sects, . Sectarian Controversies, Reconciliation of the Sects, -Review of 206 206 207 208 Contents. xvii The Trimurti Analogy with the Christian Trinity, Date of the Pantheistic Reconciliation, Summary, .... Eeview of the "Work of Hinduism, Hindu tolerance. Blind faith of Hinduism, Effects of Hinduism, PAGF. 209 211 212 213 214 216 217 PART III. HINDUISM AND MAHOMMEDANISM. Hinduism and Mahommedauism, . . . 223 Eise of Mahommedauism — its Principles, . . 223 Way of Salvation, . . . .224 Morality, ...... 225 Spread of Mahommedauism, . . . ' . 226 Spread of Mahommedanism in India, . . 227 Cause of the Resistance of India, . . 228 Mahommedan Conquest of India, . . 229 Akbar's Policy, ..... 230 Aurangzeb's Policy — fall of Mahommedanism, . 231 Effect of Mahommedanism on Hinduism very small, . 234 Deteriorating effects, .... 236 Effect of Hinduism on Mahommedanism, . . 237 Present position of the two faiths — triumph of Hinduism, 238 Mahommedan Revival, .... 239 PART lY. HINDUISM AND CHRISTIANITY. Introduction — Contest between the two Faiths begun, 243 Conditions of the Contest, .... 244 CHAP. I. — Affinities and Antagonisms of Christianity AND Hinduism, ..... 245 Elements of Natural Religion in both Systems, . 245 True grounds of comparison, their teaching about sin, 246 h XVIU Contents. PAGE Distinction between Hindu and Christian principles, . 247 Salvation — Hindu and Christian conceptions, . 248 Way of Salvation, ..... 250 Vicarious Atonement, Christian doctrine, . 251 Objections to the Christian doctrine, . 252 Hindu doctrine. Transmigration, . . 253 Moral failure of this doctrine, . . 254 The Incarnation — the Christian solution, . 255 Sin, non-trust of God, . . . 256 Distinction between Divine and human law, 257 Christian remedy for sin, trust in God^ . 258 This removes not the metaphysical, . . 259 but the ethical difficulty, . . . 260 Hindu doctrine of the Incarnation, . . 260 Striving to be like God, Christian conception, . 262 Hindu counterpart, .... 264 Difficulties occasioned by these resemblances, . 266 Antagonism of Christian and Hindu Anthropologj', . 267 Caste productive of Antipathy, Terrorism, . 268 and Isolation, . . 269 Points seemingly favourable to Hinduism, . . 270 Degraded condition of many Christians, . . 270 High character of many Hindus, . . .272 CHAP. II. — Religious Reform in India, . . 275 What change will reform Hinduism, . . . 275 Holiness destructive of Hinduism, . . . 276 Hindu Reformers, . . . . .277 Brahma Samaj, ..... 278 The Progressive Brahmists, . . . 279 Defects of their system, . . .280 The Adi Samaj, ..... 282 Their relapse into Orthodox Hinduism, . 283 Christianity the only reformation of Hinduism, . 286 Other causes of decay in Hinduism, . . . 287 Dangers of mere Secular Education, . . . 289 CHAP. III. — Attitude OF Christianity WITH regard to Hinduism, ..... 291 Intolerance and Confidence, . . ... 291 Contents, xix PAGE Christian Tolerance and Intolerance, *. . 291 Intolerance necessary to the success of Christianity, 292 Popular Hindu toleration of Christianity, . 295 Duty of the Church, . . . .296 Confidence in the success of the means employed for pro- pagation, . . . . .297 Attitude of Government, .... 298 Government interference favourable to Hinduism, 299 Difficulties in employment of the means, . . 300 Christianity not ascetic, . . . 300 Christians excluded from Social Intercourse, . 302 Christianity opposed to Hindu Patriotism, . 302 Lives of Europeans in India, . . , 303 Christian Sects, .... 304 Christianity a persecuted Religion, . . 305 Establishment of a Native Christian Church in India, 306 Character of the Native Church, . . . 307 Christianity not a Foreign Faith, . . . 309 Characteristics of Indian Christianity, . . 310 Encouragement to prosecute Mission Work, . . 312 Hinduism opposed to Human Nature, . . 313 The History of Hinduism a Search for Christ, . 315 APPENDIX. A. — Buddha's System, . B. — Schools of Hindu Philosophy, C. — Hindu Logic, D. — Mahommedan Doctrine of Sin, E. — Natural Religion in Hindu Literature, ERRATA. Page 13, line 21, for glimpses read glimpse. ,,101, ,, 3, ,, equipose ,, equipoise. 137, ,, 23, ,, evidenly ,, evidently. ,, dU_/, ,, O, ,, , ,, „ 81, Note 5, delete (50). 319' 322 324 325 326 * History seems to teach that the lohole human race required a gradual education before, in the fulness of time, it could be ad- mitted to the truths of Christianity. All the fallacies of human reason had to be exhausted before the light of a higher truth could meet vnth ready acceptance. The ancient religions of the world were but the milk of nature, which was in due time to be succeeded by the bread of life. After the primeval physiolatry, which was common to all the members of the Aryan family, had, in the hands of a wily priesthood, been changed into an empty idolatry, the Indian alone, of all the Aryan nations, produced a new form of religion, which has well been called subjective, as opposed to the more objective wor- ship of nature. That religion, tlie religion of Buddha, has spread far beyond the limits of the Aryan world, and, to our limited vision, it may seem to have retarded the advent of Christianity among a large portion of the human race. But in the sight of Him with whom a thousand years are but as one day, that religion, like all the ancient religions of the world, may have but served to prepare the ivay of Christ, by helping through its very errors to strengthen and to deepen the ineradicable yearning of the human heart after the truth of God.' — Max Muller, Ancient Sanskrit Literature. INTRODUCTION. -♦♦- A N Englishman, entering for the first time -^^ a native town in India, will probably not proceed far without having his attention di^awn to an open shrine, containing a rudely carved stone, worshipped with rites as sense- less as their object is shapeless. Let him ask one of the worshippers a ' reason of the faith that is in him,' and he will as probably be taken aback with a subtle reply, revealing a system of thought entirely distinct from his, depending on other bases and proceed- ing by other methods, and the fallacy of which he cannot at the moment seize. Fur- ther experience will show him that the reply he has received is a stock reply, the fruit of the thinking of the nation rather than of the individual ; but the first impression produced will be one of bewilderment, perplexing his reason, and throwing him back on his in- stincts for evidence of the truth. Introduction. A similar bewilderment, I fancy, must be produced on many when they read accounts of the religion of the Hindus by persons who have had op]Dortunities of observing it from different points of view. Some speak of it as the grossest of superstitions ; others, as the deepest and subtlest of speculations. Macau - Macaiiiay's lay who had to do with the Hindus as a opinion of *^ Hinduism, legislator, Can hardly find words strong enough to denounce their faith. ^ In no part of the world,' he says, ^las a religion ever existed more unfavourable to the moral and intellectual health of our race. The Brahmanical mythology is so absurd that it necessarily debases every mind which re- ceives it as truth. And with this absurd mythology is bound up an absurd system of physics, an absurd geography, an absurd astronomy. Nor is this form of Paganism more favourable to art than to religion. Through the whole of the Hindu Pantheon you will look in vain for anything resembling those beautiful and majestic forms which stood in the shrines of ancient Greece. All is hideous and grotesque and ignoble. As Intro dice tion. this superstition is of all superstitions the most irrational and of all superstitions the most inelegant^ so is it of all superstitions the most immoral. Emblems of vice are objects of public worship. Acts of vice are acts of public worship. The courtesans are as much a part of the establishment of the temple, as much ministers of the god as the priests. Crimes against life, crimes against property, are not only permitted but enjoined by this odious theology. But for our inter- ference human victims would still be offered to the Ganges, and the widow would still be laid on the pile by the corpse of her husband, and be burned alive by her own children.' ^ Compare this testimony with that of an- Baiian- ■fyjip g other, who had to deal with the Hindus as a opiuion. scholar and a philosopher, and who declares Hindu philosophy to be 'a calm, clear, collected exposition of principles, which Ger- many constantly and England occasionally gropes after, without ever grasping them with any such grasp as that with which India ^ Speech on the Gates of Somnauth. Inirodicction. has taken hold on them.' 2 This is the language not of an opponent of Christianity but of an advocate, taken from a book de- signed to lead Hindu pundits to a careful study of its truths. It is moreover on the Character- wholc a fair statement of the case. Hindu istics of , . . IIP Hindu phi- philosophers live m a world of thoug^ht such losophy. ■'■■'■ ^ ^ " as Europeans can form little idea of. The practical and real questions that are ever present to the mind of the German^ and still more of the Englishman, leading them to tread with doubt and hesitation, if not with humility, never trouble the Hindu meta- physician at all. He moves in the region of pure thought, unimpeded by the contradic- tions which retard the course of his Western brethren, on to the goal of a transcendental abstraction from which the most daring of them would shrink. Practical But man is not all thought ; he has an ot Hindu outward life which he must lead, actual rela- philosophy. , . n ^ n^ tions which he must fulfil, yearnings and aspirations of the soul which he must satisfy. The real value of a system is found when it ^ BallantyDe's Bible for the Pundits. Iiitrod^ution, comes to deal practically with these questions, and the practical result of Hindu philosophy in dealing with them is that hideous picture which Macaulay has drawn, not one trait of which is too dark, but of which he saw only the outer form without notinsf the subtle soul of Pantheism that pervades it, justifying its grossest excesses and wildest extravagances. It is this union of a subtle Pantheistic philo- sophy with a gross popular idolatry that con- stitutes modern Hinduism, and makes it the most redoubtable foe with which Christianity has to contend in India if not in the world. Looking at this system as it now exists, History of examininof" the books that are current amonof the people, conversing with them and debat- ing with their teachers, we can form some idea of the bases of thought on which it now rests and of the hold which it has on the Hindu mind. But the question irresistibly occurs. How did men come to believe in such a system ? Can there possibly be any kin- ship between it and the faith which we profess ? Are there common principles in our nature to which both alike appeal ? Hin- 8 Introduction. duism as it now is was not always the re- ligion of India, and indeed in its present form it is of comparatively modern date. Just as in looking at the rocks of the Jura or the red sandstone of Cromarty, and studying the fossils imbedded therein, we feel sure that we are looking on the vestiges of a former world ; so in studying modern Hinduism, we feel that we have the fossilized remains of former faiths, gathered into new combinations and welded together by a new power. But as to the real history of the changes that have taken place, we are still comparatively in the dark. The student of Hinduism has indeed more to guide him than the student of Geology, but after all that has been done much is still uncertain, much is left to con- jecture. Yet the main features of the past religious history of India have been determined with sufficient accuracy for practical purj)oses, and modern Hinduism can be best understood by looking first of all at those religions which preceded it. I will, therefore, begin by giving a short sketch of the earlier religions of India. PART I. EARLIER RELIGIONS OF INDIA. CHAPTER I. EARLIEST VEDIC RELIGION. THE earliest records we have of the Hindu Earliest records of reHofion, as of the Hindu race, are certain religion in ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ India. old hymns now known in their collected form as the Kig Veda. Of these the oldest are certainly not later than twelve hundred years before Christ, or more than three thousand years from the present date. They are im- portant not only for the light which they cast on the early history of India, but also for that which they cast on the early history of mankind, and especially of that family to which English and Hindus alike belong, called from the word used in these hymns the Aryan race. The language in which they are written supplied the key to the relationship of the various languages spoken from Caithness to Cape Comorin, showing that they were origi- nally one^ and the peoples that speak them 1 2 Earlier Religions of India. originally one tribe — that the Hindus are our brethren not merely as being members of the same human race^ but as members of the same family of that race — that our common forefathers at one time dwelt to- gether in the highlands of Central Asia ; but the progenitors of the Hindus, after seeing their brethren go in successive emigrations westward to overrun and occupy Europe, by some unknown impulse turned south towards the sunny plains of India. India three ^.t tlic time theso livmus were written the thousand "^ S A^^as ^^y^^ 1^^^ advanced only as far as the Pun- jab and the banks of the Indus. They had but recently emigrated from a colder clime, for they reckoned their age by the number of their winters ; and they still retained the fair complexion of their northern source. Their chief wealth seems to have consisted in flocks and herds, but they also practised agriculture largely. They had made con- siderable progress in the arts ; they had built cities, and they traded in ships. Be- sides husbandmen and herdsmen, priests, warriors and merchants existed among them, Earliest Vedic Religion. 1 3 but merely as professions, and not in any sense like the castes of modern India. Neither had they any particular rules about food : they even ate the flesh of the cow and praised it as the best of food. We can indeed trace among them scarcely any cor- respondence with the habits and customs of the Hindus as we now know them. But besides these Aryas there were also the The Abori- •^ ^ gines. Dasyus, of whom we learn little, but that they were dark in complexion, and constantly at war with the Aryas ; they had also built cities and made some progress in civiliza- tion. Who they were I do not mean now to discuss. The word means natives ^ or nations. They were the inhabitants of India when tlie Aryas entered it, and bore to them much the same relation as the Gentiles did to the Jews or the Barbarians to the Greeks. It is well, however, to bear distinctly in mhid that the first glimpses we get of India three thousand years ago reveals the ancestors of the present Brahmans, Bajputs and high ^ H. H. Wilson, Mg Veda, vol. i. p. xlii. ; Rev. Dr. Wilson, India Tliree Thousand Years ago, p. 19. 14 Earlier Religions of India. castes of India, living — a fair-complexioned race — in the north-west corner of the Penin- sula, whither they had descended from the cool heights of the Himalayas, and all the rest of the Peninsula occupied by a darker and more savage race, the ancestors probably of the hill tribes and low castes, called by the Aryan conquerors then, as they are called by the English conquerors now, Dasyus — natives. Religious Qu returning to the religious beliefs ex- pressed in these hymns we get glimpses, or rather remains, of a pure primitive faith, but in the very earliest already draped in error, which in the later ones becomes grosser and more complete. It is possible that originally Primitive the various tribes of the Aryan race, ere they Monothe- ^ , '^ ism. separated from each other, worshipped the one true God. But the proof for this is anterior to literature, and is derived entirely from philology.^ By the time the earhest Sanskrit hymns were written, we find physiolatry, or nature -worship, obscuring Monotheism. The * Compare (leva in Sanskrit with the Latin deus and Greek tlieos. Earliest Vedic Religion. 1 5 Aryas seem to have sought to realize the presence of God by naming Him after some of the noblest of His visible works. The hymns of the Yedas are addressed to various deities, whose names also express some of the j)henomena of nature, or may be traced to them. But while this is the case, there is also evidence in the language that the worshipj)er originally looked ^ from nature up to nature's God/ and sought to worship the Creator by the name of His works. It was a fine sentiment which led the ^T^ ^^^^^^ of express- Hebrew priests of old to omit the name of"^°^°^- Jehovah in public worship, and substitute for it Hhe incommunicable' or some such expression ; for human language can never give a name to the Supreme. All that we have been able to do has been to take By His . attributes, some attribute, and ascribe to it the other attributes of Deity. This will be found to be the case with nearly all the names which we employ, whether God — the good, Jehovah — the existent, the Eternal, the Lord, the Almighty, or the Supreme. All these are names which our moral consciousness testi- r6 Earlier Religions of India. fies to us must be applicable to God ; each, describes only a part of His nature, but we think of it as comprehending the whole. This difficulty, which we have got over by taking an attribute for the possessor of that attribute, the old Aryas got over by taking and by His the work for the Maker — creation or part of works. ' c* r^ m creation for the Creator. These are the two currents of religious thought, originally little apart, which seem to have divided mankind when left to their own efforts to feel after and express God — the one looking at Him as concealed in the sanctuary of the human heart, the other as concealed behind the veil of nature. The former tendency was most clearly exemplified among the Jews, the latter among the Greeks and the Aryas of India. Dyaus, the The visiblc obioct which most naturally sky. ♦^ ^ -^ calls out man's thoughts to a being above him is the sky or heaven, which in all languages is used also to designate the abode of the Supreme. But the Aryas went a step further and designated God from His abode. This seems to have been done Earliest Vedic Religio7i. 17 before the various branches broke off from one another, before the Greeks went towards Greece or the Latins towards Italy ; for the Greek Zeus, the Latin ?/^ipiter, possibly our word divine, are explained by the Sanskrit root diju, forming the noun dyaus, genitive divas. This is the name of one of the gods, possibly originally one of the names of the one God, but in Sanskrit it retains also its primitive meaning, which it has lost in all the other languages, namely, ^ the sky or heaven.' By the time the earliest hymns were composed, he was conceived of as a dis- tinct god, and the husband of Prithivi, the earth — heaven and earth being spoken of in them as the parents of all things. Bevond the visible heaven the mind tries Aditi. to imagine what may be, and the idea of the Infinite arises. This name Aditi is again identified with the Deity, and as all things are contained within it, it is personified as a goddess and the mother of all beings : of gods and men. In the Yeda indeed its signification as an appellative has been lost, and it is used only as the name of a goddess, B 1 8 Earlier Religions of India. but in some of the addresses to her we can trace the influence of the original meaning, identifying her with everything, and thus sowinof the seeds of Pantheism in the Indian '■ mind. ' Aditi is the sky (dyaus) ; Aditi is the air ; Aditi is the mother, and father, and son ; Aditi is the collective gods ; Aditi is the five persons ;^ Aditi is whatever has been born ; Aditi is whatever is to be born/ Varuna. The idea of the Infinite is calculated to produce in man a feeliug of insignificance and consequent humility and fear ; and we accordingly find Aditi addressed for forgive- ness of sins. But there is one aspect of nature which more powerfully and immedi- ately evokes such feelings, and that is the appearance of the nightly heavens. The 8th Psalm is perhaps the most devout and sublime expression of these sentiments which is to be found anywhere ; but to them the Yedas owe some of their finest poetry, and the highest conception of God which is to be found in the first stage of Yedic re- 3 Probably the same as tbe modern 'j^anclia'^at, a court of five arbitrators. Earliest Vedic Religion. 19 ligion. The original name of this aspect of the heavens seems to have been Varuna.^ By the time the Vedic hymns were written the meaning of the word as an appearance of nature had been entirely lost. It never occurs in them as a name of the sky^ only as the name of a god ; but in the hymns ad- dressed to him we can trace the sentiment still ruling, which the gaze on the nightly heavens is calculated to rouse in the soul. The thousand stars have become in them the thousand eyes of the god, searching out all that passes on earth, from which even darkness cannot hide. The feelings of awe, sinfulness, and contrition remain in them, and make them liker the Hebrew Psalms than anything else in profane poetry. Here is one that irresistibly recalls the 139th Psalm. I give it in Dr. Muir's spirited metrical translation, which will brinsf the resemblance more vividly before English readers : — ^ The same as the Greek ouranos; from a root meaning to cover. In the Vedas Varuna, as the god of night, is associated with Mitra, the god of the day. In hiter Hindu mythology he is the regent of the waters. 20 Earlier Religions of India. ' The mighty Lord on high our deeds, as if at hand, espies : The Gods know all men do, though men would fain their deeds disguise. Whoever stands, whoever moves, or steals from place to place. Or hides him in his secret cell — the Gods his movements trace. Wherever two together plot and deem they are alone, King Varuna is there, a third, and all their schemes are known. The earth is his, to him belong those vast and boundless skies ; Both seas^ within him rest, and yet in that small pool He lies. Whoever far beyond the skies should think his way to wing. He would not there elude the grasp of Varuna, the King.'*^ In the following hymn we find the senti- ment of guilt and the need of mercy more strongly expressed : — ' 1. Let me not yet, Varuna, enter the house of clay ; have mercy, Almighty, have mercy ! '2. If I go along trembling, like a cloud driven by the wind, have mercy, Almighty, have mercy ! ' 3. Through want of strength, thou strong and bright God, have I gone to the wrong shore; have mercy, Almighty, have mercy ! s The waters above the firmament, and the waters under the firmament. See Gen, i. 7. ^ Atharva V. iv. 16, Sanshit Texts, v. p. 64. Eaidiest Vedic Religion. 2 1 ' 4. Tliirst came upon the worshipper, though he stood in the midst of the waters ; have mercy, Almighty, have mercy ! ' 5. Whenever we men, Varuna, commit an offence before the heavenly host ; whenever we break thy law through forgetfulnessj have mercy, Almiglity, have mercy.''' The language of this hymn scarcely grates on the Christian sense^ and if by Varuna we understand Him who dwells in heaven, little fault can be found with its theology. The same or-od is elsewhere addressed as ^ Lord of All, of heaven and earth.' In the following verse, addressed also to him, we find the sentiment of the Psalmist, ' My soul thirsteth for" Thee/ expressed by an external pastoral image : — 'Yearning for him, the far-seeing, my thoughts move onward as kine move to their pastures.' ^ In the following prayer for forgiveness we find the germ of the tendency, now universal in India, to attribute sin to fate, contrastino' strongly with the feeling of responsibility and guilt expressed in the Hebrew Psalms : — 7 R. V. vii. 89. Trans. Max Midler's Ancient Sanskrit Literature. 8 R. V. vii. 86. Ihid. 2 2 Earlie7^ Religions of India, * Absolve us from the sins of our fathers and from those which we committed with our own bodies. ' It was not our own doing, Varuna, it was necessity, an intoxicating draught, passion, dice, thoughtlessness. The old is near to mislead the young : even sleep brings unrighteousness.' ^ Deteriora- I havG dwelt at some length on this for the tion of reli- ^ ^ ^ gious ideas. iUustratioii it affords of the relation of man to rehgion. If, as some maintain, his powers gradually developed and his ideas of God gradually rose, we should expect to find the oldest ideas of God in any literature the most degraded and obscure, and subsequent ones more gradually approaching the truth. In- stead of this we find in the oldest hymns of India, with all their faults, the higliest ideas of God, follow^ed by constant deterioration. And the source of this deterioration is evident. It is the tendency to express God by His Avorks. While the Hebrews, following the evidence of their moral consciousness, pre- served the idea of the spirituality of God, till the hope of their nation — the ' Word made flesh '• — presented to the world what it had vainly been feeling after, the Aryas, folio w- 9 R. V. vii. 86. Earliest Vedic Religion. 23 ing their observation of God's works^ soon clothed their idea of Him with a material garb, which gravitated ever more rapidly to its earthly centre. They lost sight of the Creator and worshipped the creature, whether the phenomena of nature or the heroes of their nation. It is only in the very earliest hymns that we get a glimpse of the soul of nature-worship. In the later ones it is the mere body. It is noticed that the pheno- mena are distinct ; hence the gods whom they represent are distinct also. After the Aryas had entered the plains, worship of '^ ^ ^ / Indra, the and seen how by the blessing of the rain ^ain god. they were changed from dry sandy wastes to verdant pastures, that aspect of nature came to be of more importance to them, and was symbolized as Indra, whose worship super- seded that of Varuna. He is the favourite god of the Yedas, though a later conception than those already named. He had from the begfinningf a more material character than the others ; his birth is spoken of and in general the progress of anthropomorphism is visible. This is not to be wondered at. Even to 24 Emdier Religions of India. persons less under the influence of natural phenomena than the Vedic bards^ the ap- proach of the monsoon sweeping over the plains, the piled clouds moving up in sharp distinction against the clear blue sky, with the liofhtninof flashinof beneath and the thunder rolling, readily suggests the idea of a king leading: his hosts to battle. other gods. After ludra, Agni, the god of fire, mani- fested in the firmament as the sun, in the air as lightning, and on the altar as fire, was most revered, and he was especially the god of sacrifice. So too Vayu, the wind, Surya, the sun, and other objects of nature, were ad- dressed as gods ; and as conceptions of the Deity became more gross, a census of the gods, numbering thirty-three, was taken. Each god There is, however, even in this early stas^e siipreme. . . a marked difference between Indian and Greek mythology. In the latter the places and relations of the various gods are dis- tinctly arranged; in the former the sentiment of there being one sujDreme God, who alone should be worshipped, seems to have remained, and made the worshippers of each god exalt Earliest Vedic Religion. 25 him as such. In each liymn the god who is addressed is often spoken of as though he alone existed, and as though the writer were not conscious of any other. Sometimes he is expressly identified with others. ^ Whatever we offer in repeated and plentiful oblations to any other deity is assuredly offered to thee (Agni).'i<^ But, again^ several gods are occasionally addressed in one hymn ; and by degrees, as the conceptions become grosser, jealousies and quarrels take place among them. Tliis is characteristic of the Hindu religion in the present day. Vishnu, Shiva, Ganpati, and other gods, are worshipped, but each is addressed by his worshippers as the supreme God. But alongside of this there was also a The un- struggling after a retention of the conception God. of the one true God. While a daily de- teriorating polytheism satisfied the majority, some more thoughtful minds recoiled from it, and, unable to find satisfaction elsewhere, looked to the unknown God. The following hymn is perhaps the most striking expression ^° R. V. i. 2, 3, 6. 26 Earlier Religions of India. of this yearning of the mind to be found in any literature : — ' Then there was neither Aught nor ISTought, no air nor sky beyond. What covered all % Where rested all ] In watery gulf jDrofound % Kor death was then, nor deathlessness, nor change of night and day, That One breathed calmly, self-sustained j nought else beyond It lay. Gloom hid in gloom existed first — one sea, eluding view. That One, a void in chaos wrapt, by inward fervour grew. Within It first arose desire, the primal germ of mind. Which Nothincf with Existence links, as sacres searching find. The kindling ray that shot across the dark and drear abyss. Was it beneath ? or high aloft % What bard can answer this % There fecundating powers were found, and mighty forces strove, — A self-supporting mass beneath and energy above. Who knows, who ever told from whence this vast creation rose? No gods had then been born — who then can e'er the truth disclose? Whence sprang this world, and whether framed by hand divine or no, — Its Lord in heaven alone can tell, if even he can show.' ^^ " R. V. X. 129. Trans, by Dr. Muir in Sanskrit Texts, vol. v. Earliest Vedic Religion. 27 Turning from the gods to the worship paid ^fi^jL^ac- them, the following passage may be taken: — ^■^^^®- *We deprecate thy wrath with prostrations, with sacrifice and with ohlations; averter of misfortune, wise and illustrious, be present amongst us, and mitigate the evils we have committed. ' Varuna, loose for me the upper, the middle, the lower band (of sin); so, son of Aditi, shall we, through faultless- ness in thy worship, become freed from sin.' ^^ These verses show the kind of worship paid and its purpose. The object of the wor- shipper was to be freed from sin and to avert the wrath of God consequent thereon. For this purpose hymns were chanted, prostra- tions performed, and flowers and clarified butter offered in oblation ; but the chief means to this end was the sacrifice, which was of four kinds — the goat, the cow, the Kinds of Sticriticcs horse, and man. This last is the most re- volting feature in early Aryan worship, but it is one which we find in almost all ancient relii2fions. The sacrifice of the horse seems to have been considered the most important, and is one rite which links the Aryas with northern tribes. As to how sacrifice delivered " Wilson's Rig Veda, p. 64. 28 Earlier Religions of India. the sacrificer from sin we find no attempt at explanation till a later period ; and I there- Future life, fore defer further consideration of it. Of a future life the Aryas seem at first to have had no idea. Immortality seems afterwards to have been looked on as a gift that might be granted by the gods^ but not an inherent property of man's nature. The good and virtuous man might attain to it, while annihilation awaited the sinner. ^^ Future blessings they did not desire. The boons they asked of their gods were temporal gifts, abundance of cattle, increase of children, life to a good old age, freedom from pain, triumph- ing over their enemies. They seem, from their hymns, to have been a vigorous, hearty race, enjoying life, and living and acting only for the present. Religion In all tliis WO find but little resemblance to of the abo- . rigines. modom Hmduism. But we must remember that this was the creed of the inhabitants of only a small corner of Hindustan. From the Sutlej to Cape Comorin were spread the Dasyus, tribes and nations of an alien race '3 See Miiir's Sanskrit Texts, vol. v. pp. 284, ff. Earliest Vcdic Religion. 29 and alien religion, of which the Vedas take no account, but which has probably helped to mould Hinduism as much as the purer faith of the Aryas. Of the primitive religion of these tribes we have now no literary remains, the Tamil and Telugu literature having grown up since these nations were Brahmanized. But, judging from ruined monuments and from tradition, from the elements which we see conserved in Hinduism and from the present state of many aboriginal tribes, we may conclude that fetichism and devil-wor- ship prevailed among the ruder tribes, and ^ tree and serpent ' and phallic worship among the more advanced. The whole of India was thus before the Aryas, a vast field for con- quest and colonization, and for civilizing with their hio^her social and relio^ious culture. How they fulfilled this mission we shall shortly see. CHAPTER II. BRAHMANISM. Changes T ET US HOW pass OYGr a period of six among the I ■ ■'■ ^ ■■■ Aryas. XJ hundred years to the time preceding the first great religious movement in India, which shook not only it, but all Asia to its utmost extremities. The Aryas have pushed forward their conquests as far as the Nerbudda, and have even effected settle- ments beyond it. Changes have come alike over their social system and their religion : Caste rules with its iron sway ; a degraded polytheism and a rigid sacerdotalism have been developed from the original faith. Origin of The orimn of caste must be looked for in caste. '^ the relation of the Aryas to the conquered nations. Of these the most important was TheSudras. tlio Sudras — possibly the Hudrahoi of Hero- dotus. As in Europe, from numbers of the Sclavonic race being reduced to servitude, Brahmamsm. 3 1 the name esclave or slave came to be applied to all bondmen, so in India the name Sudra came to be applied to all the conquered tribes. We know what a difference exists in any society between master and bondmen, espe- cially when the latter are of a different race or of a different colour ; and colour is the first meaning of the Hindi word for caste/ It is not so long since Ave have seen in a kindred state how low and deofraded the condition of a subject race may become, even when modified by the presence of the Christian religion. We have seen how the words of the Bible may be twisted into supporting iniquities utterly opposed to its spirit ; and we may imagine how vast the distinction between the rulers and the ruled would be- come, when a plastic religion lent itself to be moulded in the hands of the former to con- firm their claims. The position assigned to the slaves bv the laws of the Southern States of America, was noble compared with that, assigned to the Sudras by the old code of Manu. No Southern planter ever dreamt ' Varan. Position of the Sudras at the time of Rama. 3 2 E curlier Religions of India. of refusing to allow the negroes to be bap- tized ; but in India, while the lordly Aryas were the twice-horn, the Sudras were only the once-horn. They could assume no sacred thread, the symbol of the second birth, ad- mitting them to the privileges and hopes of religion, and they were menaced with death if they dared to engage in any of the acts of worship allowed to their superiors. The following story from the Ramayana, one of the two old epic poems of India, will show the sentiment with which any attempts of the Sudras to rise into the religious sphere were then regarded. When Rama was reigning happily in Ayodhya, the modern Oude, a Brahman came into his court one day and complained that the kingdom w^as under a curse owing to his heedless rule, adducing as a proof that his son just five years old had died. Kama, unable to gainsay this evidence, proceeded, sword in hand, to search his kingdom to discover the cause. By the side of a lake j he saw a man engaged in intense devotion, \jwlio, when interrogated, confessed himself B7^aJunan2sm. 33 to be a Sudra. For a servile man thus to seek admission to heaven was an iniquity quite sufficient to account for the calamity which had befallen the kingdom. Rama by one stroke of his sword severed his head from his body, whereupon, it is added, the gods expressed their delight by showering down flowers, and the son of the Brahman was restored to life. In accordance with such sentiments, the Subjection privileges of the twice-born were guarded Sudras. by jealous legislation. If a twice-born man, for instance, abused one of the same caste^ he was to be punished by a small fine ; if a once-born man spoke disrespectfully of the caste of one of the twice-born, an iron style ten fing^ers lono^ was to be thrust red hot into his mouth. But this tvranny of race could not exist ^''^f"^ ^^ ^ '^ caste without reacting on the twice-born them- ^JJ°°| *'^^ selves. We know in America what a gaj) existed between the slave-owners and the poor whites, and so too class distinctions sprang up among the Aryas, though on quite different principles, and with much more 34 Earlier Religions of India. inexorable rules. The language of the old hymns had become obsolete, and was known only to a class of men who had made it their business to study it, and who thus held the key to all religious service. These were the Braiimaus. Worshipping or praying ones, the Brahmans, who had come to be looked on as demi- gods, the highest of castes, safe in unap- proachable sanctity. It was the greatest of all crimes to put them to death, and, therefore, of whatever crime they might be guilty, the utmost the king could do was to banish them from his kingdom. The Kshatriyas. warriors naturally imitated their religious teachers, and claimed privileges which the priests, who depended on them for protec- tion, readily granted. They formed the second caste, with a position but little in- ferior to the Brahmans, while under fchem vaisyas. the merchants and agriculturists formed the third caste. These were the three castes 'of the twice-born, w^hile the whole of the Sudras, or once -born, were slumped together as the fourth caste. Caste legis- Tlic followiuo" is the accouut griven in a lation. ^ * Brahmanism. 35 book of subsequent legislation to account for tliis division : — * That the human race might be multiplied, he (Brahma) caused the Brahman', the Kshatriya, the Yaisya, and the Sudra to proceed from his mouth, his arm, his thigh, and his foot.' 2 This is made the basis of legislation^ — * A once-born man who insults the twice-born with gross invectives ought to have his tongue slit; for he sprang from the lowest part of Brahma.' ^ Each caste had its distinctive duties — the Brahmans to teach and to sacrifice ; the Kshatriyas, or warriors, to rule and de- fend the people ; the Vaisyas, or merchants, to trade and to tend cattle ; the Sudras to serve the other three. The distinctions be- tween them were sought to be maintained by strict laws about food and intercourse, and by restrictions upon intermarriage. It will be seen from this account that the Brahmans. Brahmans were at the head of the social system, and that it was their knowledge of the old hvmns which was the foundation of their superiority. This knowledge had different effects, as it always will have on = Inst, of Manu, i. 31. 3 jj. yiii. 270. Priests. 36 Earlier Religio7is of India. different minds. Some used it as a means of impressing their superiority on the more ignorant. Others were led into deeper speculation as to the meaning of what they learned. Hence arose the two classes^ Brahman priests and Brahman sages, i J'he former developed an elaborate cere- • monial of sacrifice, that tended to surround them with religious awe. The ancient hymns were gathered into the collection known as the Big Veda, and two other Vedas were compiled by selections from it — one called the Yajur Veda, the liturgy of a lower order of priests, to whom was intrusted the material part of the sacrifice ; and the other, called the Sama Veda, the hymn book of a higher order of priests, who sang in chorus at certain points during its performance. The Sanskrit word for these hymns is Mantra, which in Hindi and in Modern Sanskrit means a charm. Some of these charms consist of parts of the hymns of the Big Veda, which the Brah- mans now use Avithout having the slightest idea of their meaning or of whence they Brahmanis^n. 3 7 are derived. A fourth Veda, called the Atharva, was afterwards added, more as a collection of charms than to aid in sacrifice/ It would be tedious to enter into all the ^'^^ ^^^''^' mauas. details of ceremonial which were at this time instituted, and which were all calcu- lated to surround the Brahmans with a halo of sanctity and power. Attached to each of the Vedas a new literature sprang up, called the Brahmanas, professing to be a sort of rubric for the use of the Vedas during the sacrifice ; but in reality contain- ing many additional commands or stories. They may be considered the priestly litera- ture of the age, and they show in a strikino^ manner the bliohtingf effect which their assumed power and priestly formalism had on the minds of the Brahmans them- selves. ^ No one would have supposed that at so early a period and in so primi- tive a state of society, there could have ■♦ Many of the hymns in the Atharva Veda are probablj^ as old as any in the Rig Veda ; but they are collected for an entirely different purpose, for imprecation, and not sacrifice. The beautiful hymn quoted p. 20 is found in the Atharva, but it is there degraded into an introduction to an imj)recation. — See Prof. Roth^ in Muir's Saiukrit Texts, vol. v. p. 64. 38 Earlm" Religions of India. risen up a literature which for pedantry and downright absurdity can hardly be matched anywhere. ... It is most impor- tant to the historian that he should know how soon the fresh and healthy growth of a nation can be blighted by priestcraft and superstition. It is most important that we should know that nations are liable to these epidemics in their youth as well as in their dotage. These works deserve to be studied as the physician studies the twaddle of idiots and the raving of madmen. They Avill disclose to a thoughtful eye the ruins of faded grandeur, the memories of noble aspirations. But let us only try to trans- late these works into our own language, and we shall feel astonished that human language and human thought should ever have been used for such purposes.'^ Develop- On tumiug to the ideas of God ex- poiy theism, hibitcd in these and other records, we see one result of the first error of expre ssing the Deity by His works — a great develop- ment of polytheism. The original meaning s Max Miiller, Ancient Sanskrit Literature, p. 380. BraJimanism. 39 of the names of the gods of the Vedas had with the change of language been lost, and the phenomena were now looked on as persons. Some had dropped out of worship, and others had assumed a foremost place. Indra was still one of the principal gods, but Vishnu, a very inferior god in the Vedas, was coming to dispute his supre- macy. An entirely new god, Brahma, had Brahma. appeared. The origin of the conception of this god cannot now be determined, but the name seems to have originated with the Brahmans, and they as his worshippers seem to have been called after him. Brahman means prayer or sacred rite, and Brahma, he of prayer. It was possibly a name given originally to whatever god was honoured in sacrifice, and we find him identified with other gods. The root however means also increase, and we find Brahmk more definitely conceived of as the Creator. Some of the myths with regard to him are merely gross conceptions of the process of creation. He is sometimes represented as producing the universe from an ^gg^ and sometimes by 40 Earlier Religions of India. separating himself into male and female. He was specially the god of the Brahma- nical caste, but he never came to be popular with the other castes. As old gods assumed new places, or new ones were created, fresh myths, grown constantly more sensuous, gathered around them. ^l\\ul^' -^^ ^'^ already be seen that at this period sacrifices sacrifice was the great centre of religion. It was as priests of sacrifice that the Brahmans obtained their power, and in connection with sacrifice that the sacred hymns were sung. The word itself, yajna or yaga^ preserves the sacred significance attached to the act in primitive worship ; and some of its prin- cipal features corresponded closely with those which gave significance to sacrifice under the Levitical law. I give these as they are epitomized by Mr. Hay in the Indian Evangelical Review. ^ ' The memory of the sacredness of the yajua or yaga, from yaja to worship, has been preserved and handed down to us in the liagno and liagio of the Greeks ; and probably also in the sacer of the Latins ( = sak with the formative affix er), ?/, h, and s being exchangeable according to well-ascertained laws of etymology.' — Rev. John Hay, in hid. Ev. Eev., Jan. 1874. Bi^ahmanism. 4 1 *a. It was su bstitu t ionary. ''The sacrificer ransomed himself by it." ^ " The sacrificer is the animal." ^ " The animal is as it were ransoming the man."^ ' I). The yajna was the means of liberatio n from sin and death. " Those who sacrifice remove their sin."^^ " Them all" — i.e. the thousand lethal ropes of death — "by the power of sacrifice we sacrifice away."^^ " He who sacrifices l)ropitiates the gods."^^ ' c. It secured, heayfin. " What is offered by fire is an oflferincc relatinoj to heaven." ^^ " Let him who desires heaven sacrifice." " Sacrifice is the ship that ferrieth over." 1* ' d. The yajna was offered byj'^iii^ " -^J faith the fire of sacrifice is kindled; by faith the offering is ofiered."^^ " By faith and trutli together they gain the heaven world." ' ^*^ These passages, similar to many more that Difference • 11 11 iiT^i between might be quoted, show that the iirahmans at- them. tached to their sacrifices a significance not very different from that which we now attach to the old Levitical sacrifices. Still more start- ling is the point of difference between the two. The latter was typical, the former sacramentaL The utter impossibility that Hhe blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins/ is a truth that must be felt by every one who realizes 7 Ait. Br. ii. 3. s Tait. Br. ii. 8, 2. ' 9 Tait. Sam. vi. 1, 11, 6. '° Ait. Br. v. 25. " Tait. Br. xi. 2, 2, 5. ' ^^ S. P. Br. i. 9, 1, 3. ^3 Ait. Br. i. 16. ^^ Ait. Br. i. 13. ^s R. V. X. 151, 1 ; Tait. Br. ii. 8, 8, 6. ^s Ait. Br. vii. 10. 42 Ea7die7^ Religions of India. what sin is. MakiiiQf an animal the in- voluntary substitute for man to atone for his Sfuilt is shockinof to man's idea of God's holi- ness and justice. It is only the fact of a primitive divine institution that can account for this universal mode of man's expressing his desire for peace with God, and only the supposition of its being symbolical that can account for its institution. But what did it Leviticai svmbolize ? The Hebrews felt more than sacnnces "^ typical. ^j^y others its utter inadequacy, and at the same time more than any others persisted in a simple observance of it, as it had been instituted, without attempting any explana- tion of its hidden meaninof. ' For Thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it : Thou delightest not in burnt- ofFerincj. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit ; A broken and a contrite heart, Lord, Thou wilt not despise.' ^"^ Thus the Psalmist expresses the convic- tions of his conscience as to the inadequacy of mere sacrifice ; but again, in the conviction that it had been divinely a]3pointed, he adds — ^^ Psa. li. 16, 17. Brakmanism. 43 ' Then slialt Thou be pleased with the sacrifice of right- eousness, AYith burnt-offerings and whole burnt-offerings ; Then shall they offer bullocks upon Thine altar.' ^^ The same antagonism may be observed constantly througliout the Psahns and the prophets — conscience struggling against faith ; man's sense of what is right and of what is due to God protesting against an ordinance 1 of God which it cannot understand. But with the Jews faith prevailed ; they accepted the institution simply, without trying to put into it anything of their own ; and by de- grees the idea of the Antitype was developed. Isaiah in vision saw One who, like the sacrificial lamb, was to bear the sins of His people. At length, in the death of Christ on Calvary, the whole course of Jewish sacrifice was fulfilled, and since then it has ceased. Then it was shown that divine power_ alone can bear^man's^^ins, that sacrifice is effectual only when Deity is present in it. But well-nigrh a thousand years before the Biahmani- ^ *^ cal sacri- cominof of Christ, the Brahmans of India had fices sacra- •^ ^ mental. felt; and in their own way expressed, this ^8 Psa. li. 19. \ 44 Earlier Religio7is of India. _ . . # truth. Conscious seemingly that the animal sacrificed could not of itself bear the sin that it was to atone for, or accomplish the work that by its offering was to be accomplished, they boldly declared that God Himself was in the animal sacrificed, and that thus it was efficacious. In this respect Brahmanical sacrifice was sacramental rather than typical ; it resembled the sacrifice of the host in the Koman Catholic Church rather than the Levitical sacrifice. The Creator, under the name of Prajapati, is said thus to be offered in sacrifice, and how this is possible is explained with a subtlety that a Jesuit apologist might envy. ' Prajapati is this sacrifice. Prajapati is both of these two things, uttered and unuttered, finite and infinite. What the priest does with the Yajus text, with that he con- secrates the form of Prajapati which is uttered and finite. And what he does silently with that he consecrates the form of Prajapati which is unuttered and infinite.' ^^ But it is more frequently Vishnu that is thus sj)oken of. He is said to have become incarnate in the animal slain — to have be- come incarnate in order to be sacrificed, and ^5 Muir's Sanskrit Texts, vol. v. p. 393. Brahmanism, 4 5 by his sacrifice to have become the greatest of the gods. 'Then the gods said, " Whoever among us, through toil, austerity, faith, sacrifice and oblation, first comprehends the issue of the sacrifice, let him be the most eminent of us ; this shall be common to us all." To this they consented, saying, " Be it so." Yishnu first attained the proposed object. He became the most eminent of the gods. . . . He who is this Yishnu is sacrifice ; he who is this sacrifice is Vishnu.' 20 This idea has never been entirely forgotten, and even in the latest of the Puranas, the Bhagavata, sacrifice is given as one of twenty- two incarnations of Vishnu. Amid all the puerilities and absurdities of the texts re- lating to this subject, the truth sought after must not be lost sight of But this only increased the original dif- S'tTiSTv^'^^ ficulty, and by seeking a premature fulfilment of sacrifice hastened its rejection by India altogether. If it was difficult to believe that an animal could bear man's sin, it was much more difificult to believe that it could be God. We know the repugnance of some earnest, philosophic minds to accej^t the idea =° For this and similar texts see Muir's Sanskrit Texts, vol. iv. pp. 121-129. lew. 4-6 Emptier Religions of India. that Christ was God, even though they exhaust the powers of human language in praise of His Godlike character. So too the idea that God was sacrificed as an animal could not but provoke a reaction and alienate the best thought of the country. It was an idea that could consist only with a blind and 1 tyrannical sacerdotalism, which it helped to exalt, but which it must also help to destroy. Brahmau Wo find, accordingly^ alongside of this sages. . , . . , . r itualistic dev elopment a rationa listic de^ Yelopment, the records of which, called the Upani- UjDanishads, may be looked on as the litera- ture of the Brahman sages, as the Brah- manas are that of the priests. They are the only parts of the Yedas now extensively read in India. They come at the end of the Vedas, and are therefore called Vedant — r — (Veda end) ; whence the name of the most influential school of modern Hindu philo- sophy, which professes to be founded on them. It would be hard to say what philo- sophical opinion might not be supported on their authority, for the most contradictory statements find a place in them, yet the Brahmmiis7n. 47 tendency is on the whole towards pantheism. Pantheism. We have seen that the orio^inal er ror of expressing God by His \V Qrks developed, on the one hand, into erecting each of the natural phenomena into distinct gods, and thus led to polytheism. In the Upanishads, on the other hand, we see the same error developing into confounding God with His works and His works Avith God. In the earlier hymns of the Vedas, too, when poly- .tlieism had made some way, the worshippers of each individual god souglit to exalt it to the position of the one God, by identifying it with other gods, and even with creation. What was at first merely figurative was afterwards viewed as real, what was at first mysticism was afterwards considered perfect philosophy. We find accordingly, in the latter parts of the Vedas, attempts to explain on a rational basis all the poetical figures of the former parts. In one place it is stated that Self or Spirit alone existed, and he thought let me create the worlds, and he created these worlds. Again delusion is called the great principle, and this world the 48 Earlier Religions of India. effect of delusion on the Spirit, while else- where delusion is called one of the powers of Spirit. In a word, we find much pantheistic thought but no pantheistic philosophy. The elements existed, but they had not been systematized. Origin of Qno rcsult of this process of thought was metemiDsy- ^ _ \ ^ chosis. modifying the belief in a future state into the doct rine of the_ transmi gration of souls. This doctrine, which makes a man in a future birth atone for the errors of this, stri kes at ( t he ro(y LQ f the original idea of sacrifice ; but as it is only in modern Hinduism that we find it fully developed, I defer the considera- tion of it, merely noting that at this time it. first appeared on the horizon of Hindu thought and religion. One consequence Asceticism, wliicli it had was the growth of asceticism and the practice of austerities. When happi- ness in a future state was made to depend on a man's exertions in his present state, it naturally led him to seek to be free from those attachments which might lead him into incurring guilt, and this led again to giving up the plain duties of life for meditation and Brahmaiiism. 49 penance. These came at last to be exalted by some as superior to everythinc^ else. Self-denial was sublimated into self-torture, and became the most generally accepted symbol of sanctity. These two currents of thought — pantheism Effect of philosophy and polytheism, philosophy and sacerdotalism on religion. — could not, in such a country as India, co- exist without interpenetrating one another. The demon of heresy had not yet appeared, the sages and ascetics professed to be devout worshippers of the gods, and the priests adapted their religion to the ideas of the philosophers with a consistent logic such as could be witnessed in no country but India. It was natural enough that they should take advantaofe of the doctrine of transmigration by prescribing ceremonies and purifications to attain beatitude in a future state of existence. It was natural enousfh, too, that they should not be behindhand in the practice of those austerities, which gave them an odour of sanctity with the people and of ridicule with the sceptics. But what shall we say of their declaring austerities to D other sources of religious ideas. 50 Earlier Religions of India. be the source of the power of the gods thera- selves ^^ — the origin of their very divinity, of their calHng even the sacrifice of Vishnu an act of penance performed to gain power ? When rehgion had reached this point it had evidently run to seed and was smitten with decay. Thus, by the disintegration and reintegra- tion of ideas, we see that many of the elements of modern Hinduism had already been developed out of the primitive faith of the Vedas. But other elements were im- struggie ported from other sources. While the Brah- Brahmans maus had bccu drivellinsf and speculatinsf, anclKslia- , . triyas. the Ksliatriyas, the warrior caste, had been fighting and conquering. In one conflict, indeed, they seem to have been worsted. They did not at once yield to the Brahmans the superiority which they desired without a ' bloody struggle. The details of it are alto- gether lost to us, and the results epitomized with an exaggeration which subsequent events prove to have been altogether false. But this much is known, that a great war- ""^ Sanskrit Texts, vol. iv. p. 181 ; vol v. p. 15. Brahmaiiism. 5 1 rior, called Parasu Kama — possibly himself a Brahman — espoused the cause of the Brah- mans, and fought against the Kshatriyas with such success that, in later myths, he is said three times to have extirpated them from the earth. At all events, after this the Brahmans were left undisturbed in their religious and social superiority — the coun- sellors, the priests, the gods of the warriors and kings, while these were carving out the history of their people. Two OTeat events belonof to this period. Rama's ex- , ,. . peditionto The first is the expedition of Rama Chandra Ceyion. from Oudh to Ceylon to recover his wife Sita, who had been carried off by the king of that island. On the way he had to encounter many of the savage or semi-civilized tribes south of the Nerbudda, and with many of them he formed alliances. He triumphed at last over Ravana, king of Ceylon, and re- turned with his wife to Oudh. This was th( first great expedition of the Aryas to th( south, and it is imprinted indelibly on th( Hindu mind. It became the theme of sonir — a mass of tradition and exaggeration 5 2 Earlier Religions of India. gathered round it, and in after-ages it be- came the subject of an epic poem, the Rama- yana, which, though full of absurdities and overlaid with Brahmanical conceits, yet con- tains some of the purest and noblest thoughts to be found in profane poetry. Legend of \ Tlic socoud great fact was the struggle for the Pan- \ . . .iavsand 'supremacv between two rival Kshatriya Krishna. r J J vraces, the Pandavs and the Kauravs. After a bloody war the former triumphed, with the assistance of Krishna, a celebrated Indian prince and hero, and their rivals were de- stroyed. This has produced an even greater impress on the mind of India than the former. Three-fourths of the Hindus are ignorant of all that has happened since. The rise and fall of Buddhism, the rise and fall of Mahommedanism, even the progress of the English by whom they are now ruled, are for them blank pages of history ; but the adventures of the Pandav brothers, two thousand five hundred years ago — their mis- foitunes, their patience, their sufferings, their ultimate triumph, and the valour of their great ally Krishna, are present realities for B7^ahmanis7n. • 53 them, and still, as they are yearly recited at their festivals, melt them into tears, move them into laughter, or excite them to triumph with all the intensity of personal interest. The poem in which their deeds arejHero-wor- preserved, the Mahabharat, has been so en-\ crusted with later additions of the Brahmans, didactic pieces, extraneous traditions, and episodes, that it is now almost impossible to say what the original poem was. But we may safely conclude that, at the time of which we are speaking, the exploits of these warriors were sung and heard with an in- terest not inferior to that which they now excite ; and thus the foundation was being laid of hero-worship, which afterwards came to exercise such an important influence on Hinduism. And there was yet another element which, Aboriginal */ ^ worship. though altogether latent in so far as extant literature is concerned, we must believe existed with an extent and power which subsequent revolutions fully showed. All that we have been considering, in so far as religion, pliilosophy, and history are con- 54 Earlier Religions of India. cerned, relates only to the twice-born. The once-born Sudras were out of the pale alto- gether, and considered unfit for any religious exercise or worship. Yet we cannot but suppose that they sought God after their own fashion — that they had a religion, a worship of their own, which their lords might ignore, but which was afterwards to throw its yoke over their own heads. We may sup- pose that most of the Sudras, the majority of the population of India, worshipped their own fetishes and deities, trees and serpents, stones and idols. Already they were begin- ning to exercise some effect on the upper castes, for we find the worship of images noticed in Manu. .Summary. Such, thcu, was the stato of society before Buddhism appeared in India. An inexor- able caste system consigned the bulk of the people to a grinding slavery and hopeless perdition, while it exalted the priesthood to the level of the gods, and left the warriors to fight and rule, and the merchants to trade and get gain — both to indulge in luxury and sensuality to the extent of their power. A Brahmanism. 5 5 Extent i)f debasing sacerdotalism had been impregnated with a scei^tical philosophy, which needed only to be dissociated from it to ensure its overthrow. It must not be supposed that this represented the society of the whole of India at that time. It represents only the Bniu- Brahmanical conception of society : what the Brahmans had made it where their power was established, and what they wished to make it throusfhout India. But their power was fully established only in a few parts — in others it was less so, and in others not at all. The Sudras in some parts might be able to assert their equality even with the Brahmans, and for whole nations these latter would be but foreign priests. The two op- posite extremes of consolidated Brahmanism and undisturbed aboriginal worship existed, and between the two every shade of opinion existed in a seethinof, unsettled state — a fertile soil for a new and strong religion to take root in. Buddha's birth. CHAPTEK III. BUDDHISM. "OUDDHA, or Gotama, to whom Bud- -■-^ dhism owes its rise, was born about six hundred years before our era/ in the city of Kapila Yastu, the capital of a kingdom at the foot of the Himalayas, of which his father was king. The family or clan to which he belonged was the Sakya, one of the divisions of the Kshatriya or warrior caste. His mother, Maya, died seven days after he was born, an event the knowledge of which in after-life is said to have produced a great effect on him. He early showed a predilec- tion for meditation and seclusion, which pro- bably led the astrologers to predict that he would one day leave his kingdom and become an anchorite. His father, to prevent this, ^ Buddha died at the age of 80. The date of his death is usually fixed at 543 B.C. ; but Max Miiller has advanced strong reasons for fixing it at 477 B.C. Buddhism. 5 7 urged him to marry, and demanded for him the hand of a beautiful princess. The prince yielded to his father's solicitations, and, ac- cording to Kshatriya custom, conquered in combats of various kinds the other competi- tors for the hand of the princess, ere he married her. Some years of his life passed in the mar- Married ried state, and it is not improbable that he, during them, yielded to the seductions and luxury which characterize Eastern courts, and with which tradition represents him to have been surrounded, though it also repre- sents him as uncontaminated by them. It is more natural to suppose that he did yield to the temptations with which he was beset, but, doing so against the natural bent of his mind, a feeling of nausea and disgust was fomented, which ultimately exploded and drove him to burst asunder all restraints, and give himself up to the opposite extreme of asceticism. The occasion of this chanoj-e change caused by in his life, and in the whole religious history seeing age, of the East, was the following : — One day, when he was driving as usual to his pleasure- 5 8 Earlier Religions of India. garden^ he saw a man covered with wrinkles, scarcely able to speak from feebleness, walk- ing tremblingly along, leaning on his staff. He asked the driver who that man was. The charioteer replied that he was a man suffering from old age, and the consequent decay of all his powers. ^ Is that a con- dition to which he and his family alone are liable, or all mankind ? ' asked the prince. ^ He is no exception,' replied the charioteer; ^ all must fall into age and decrepitude.' * Then drive my chariot home again,' said the prince ; ^ what have I to do with plea- sure who am the future abode of ao-e and Disease, docay!' On another day he met a loath- some leper, and learned from his charioteer that all men were liable to disease. On a Death, third occasion he saw a dead body, and learned that death is the end of all men. All happiness in his life of luxury had fled, and he set himself to ponder how he might escape the woes of which he had been and a witucss. As ho was driving out on a fourth occasion he saw a recluse, and learned from his charioteer that he was a man who had Buddhism. 59 renounced this world's wealth and pleasure, lived on alms, and spent his time in medita- tion. This suggested to the prince how he miofht attain his end : he did not return at once to his home, but drove on to the garden with his mind at ease and settled, and then returned to the palace. That same night his wife had given birth He re- nouiices to her first-born son. He went to take a loyaity. farewell look of her and of the babe lying in her breast; but, fearful lest his resolution might fail, he tore himself away, and calling on his groom to saddle his horse, and taking him as his only companion, he left the palace and rode all night through the forest. When morning dawned he gave his horse and best robes to the groom, and sent him back with a message to his father and wife not to follow and seek him, ^for,' said he, ^ I will not return till I can bring them tidings of deliverance.' Then he assumed the garb of a mendicant, and set out on his quest to find a way of deliverance from age, disease and death. « Brahmanism does not seem to have been 6o Earlier Religions of India, wSthe doniinant at Kapila Vastu, and Gotama's laimaus. £j,g^ religious impulses were independent of it. He had settled in his mind the main object of all religion before he came in con- tact with the teaching of the Brahmans, and thus brought to it a mind free to observe and to criticize. But they were the holders of the holy mysteries, and to them he turned first for instruction. Some of their teaching evidently affected him, but he soon saw that they were blind leaders of the blind. Their ideas of transmigration and works he could assent to, but he saw that the gods whom they worshipped were no gods, that a power obtained by austerity was but the same \ power as man could gain, and did not entitle Ithem to adoration. Sacrifice he saw to be a hollow sham, and as causing pain and death to an animate being it was abominable to him. Tiie end of religion, he had decided, was mercy, and was valueless if it could not assuage or remove human misery. Retires to Dissatisficd with their teaching", he retired, the forests. , o' ^ with ^YQ Brahmans who accompanied him, to the forests, to seek how he might gain BiLddhisin. 6 1 this great end. This led to his getting the name of Sakya Muni (the Sakya sage or rechise), by which he is most generally known in India. In his retreat he beheld those same great objects of nature by which the early Aryas had named their gods^ and which they had come to deify ; but their faith had now run its course, had been tried and found wanting. He looked on them all only as things which must pass away and perish, and they became for him the greatest symbols of dissolution. He saw that the wild beasts of the forest paid no more respect to him, a king's son, than to the meanest outcast, and he was thus led to see the utter vanity of all caste distinctions. He turned to his own thoughts to see what they could teach him, and continued six years to afflict himself with fastinof, but he found no solu- tion of his difficulty, and all his strength was wasting away. He resolved at last to change his plan and take more food. This seemed to his Brahman followers relapsing into worldliness ; they returned to Benares, and left him alone to solve the problem of 62 Earlier Religions of India. humanity. He was nearly on the point of giving up the search, but again he took with him food enough to support him for forty- nine days, took up his position beneath a mimosa tree, and gave himself up to severe meditation. He had, while there alone, to endure a frightful mental struggle. Tempta- tions came thick upon him ; demons, accord- ing to the after legend, assailed him, and he had to maintain sore conflicts with them. But at length he was triumphant, and he saw what he had been searching for. The iTvemict' ^^^"^ verities that constituted the way of deliverance rose clearly before him.^ He had now obtained for himself the desired knowledge, and had he been as other sages he might have been satisfied with this, and his name and influence been lost to the East. But the mind of Buddha was intensely human; sympathy with the sufferings of man was what prompted him to undergo all the hardships he had undergone, and he felt that his knowledge would be valueless if it did not benefit his fellows. He had to pass ^ See Appendix A, Buddha's System. He dis- covers the BuddJiism. 63 through another conflict before he could make up his mind to this ; but at last he triumphed, and was prepared to bring de- liverance to the Avorld. He sought out the and com- niunicates five Brahmans who had originally accom- ^t to others. panied him, and told them the truths he had discovered. He sought out his Brahman preceptors, but found to his grief that many of them had died without the knowledge of final deliverance ; so he turned to teach those that remained. His doctrines spread with rapidity ; kings even became his followers. He returned to Kapila Vastu, and taught his doctrines to his father, wife, and all his family ; and they too became his disciples. Yet he never swerved from the manner of life he had chosen ; he continued a recluse, without a single worldly possession, refusing even to ask for food, but taking with con- tentment w^hatever was given him. So he went about from city to city and village to village, till he was eighty years of age, when one day, having partaken of some unwhole- some food that had been given him, and having w^alked a long distance after, he was life and re- ligion. 64 Earlier Religions of India. seized Avith dysentery, and died, or, as the Buddhists say, entered Nirvana. Connection J j^^^^ myen these details of Buddha's between Ins -^ -^ "" ^ Ufe, for, without knowing them, it is im- possible to appreciate his religion or under- stand the rapid success which it had. It is not exclusively the offspring of his own intuitions, nor is it a mere modification of Brahmanical theology. It is rather the re- sult of a review of that system by an in- dependent mind of pure moral tone, deep, human sympathies and fearless logic. He had formed his conception of man's needs before he resorted to the Brahmans, and when he found their teaching unsatisfying, he fled to the woods, and for six years the lessons he had heard from them matured in the soil of his intense feeling and experience ; and the result was Buddhism. The key-stone of this system, as conceived in the mind of its founder, was the trans- migration of souls. This was really the only point of contact between it and Brahmanism. He accepted this doctrine as the only solu- tion of the miseries and inequalities of this Transmi- gration. Buddhism. 65 life. Present joy was the reward of good deeds in a previous birth, present sorrow the punishment of previous sin ; while present virtue and vice would be requited in future births. A man's future state thus depended on his own works ; therefore, he deduced, it did not depend on any divine will. We have seen that already in Brahmanism the gods were by some considered to have attained their divinity by religious austerities. This view Buddha accepted in a modified ^^'}^ "^ -L gods. sense ; but he drew from it the conclusion that they were in no sense better than men. They were the inhabitants of the heavens, as the devils were of the hells, fish of the waters, men and animals of the earth. They had gained their high position by good deeds, but they were liable to decay, and miofht aofain become mortals or beasts. Their high state was one to be compara- tively desired, but to worship such beings was an absurdity. In the same wav he could conceive no Supreme Being influenced by worship ; that would have been to suppose him liable to motives, desire, and consequent E 66 Earlie7^ Religions of India. Atheism, decaj. Thus he, with terrible logic, excluded God from his system, not absolutely denying His existence, but ignoring it, and construct- ing a religion independent of Him. But could he have constructed anything better out of the system which the Brahmans gave him ? Nirvana. He tlius lookcd ou a univcrse without God — this world, with a series of hells beneath for the punishment of the wicked, and of heavens above for the reward of the good, to which spirits were sunk or raised by their own acts, but in no one of which could they permanently continue. Decay would seize them, and quit it they must, to enter on a similar course of birth and decay in another state. To be quit' of all this was the end to which men should ultimately look ; but to be quit of this was to be quit of existence. Final quiescence and final annihilation are thus equally the meaning of Nirvana, the Buddhist summum honiim. Better eie- Up to this poiut wc scc Brahmauism system. workiug its owu dcstruction^ leading a logical mind to utter nihilism. Buddha BtiddJiisvi. 67 had thus cut himself off from God ; but in the rest of his system we see the better part of his nature, his moral purity, and strong human sympathy gradually asserting itself, and leading to a system of benevolence and philanthropy so thorough, as to seem to show that the loss of one pole of religious thought — God — had developed with all the greater intensity and even excess the attraction of the other pole of religion — man, or rather living creatures. In pointing out the way to Nirvana he way ut .le- i'ir»i pr> liveraiice. could not shake himself altogether free from his false conception of it. Considering pain to be caused by affections and desires, he taught that it could be removed only by the removal of affection and desire. Neofa- tion of God led thus directly to negation of humanity. Having deprived man of the object of his desires, of an eternal God to satisfy them fully and eternally, he could cure the longing only by destroying it. But, in the method to lead to this annihila- tion of desire, we see his better nature coming out. The best way he indeed taught Asceticism. 68 Earlier Religions of India. to be, becoming a recluse and practising meditation, which might conduct the mind to a quietude nearly approaching Nirvana. But the Buddhist recluses had none of the repulsiveness of the Brahman recluses, and they were not freed from duties of bene- Reiigion volenco. Bccoming recluses, however, was for tlit^ laity. not a religion adapted for all men. He therefore taught the laity to seek rather to secure a happy condition in their next birth, entrance to heaven, or a state on earth which would allow of their becoming recluses, and give them a hope of entering Nirvana. Morality. It is horo that the immense superiority of his system to that of the Brahmans appears. They taught that this end was to be attained by austerity and penance, or by sacrifice and other religious ceremonies, which had become empty forms. Buddha having rejected God, could not accept worship as a means ; he therefore adopted works, but he taught that these works were not penance, but fulfilling the moral law — which he taught both nega- tively and positively, — practising charity and benevolence towards all animated beings ; Buddhism. 69 honesty, chastity, truthfuhiess, and temper- ance. It is the glory of Buddhism that it has asserted this law as the great laAv of religion. Another excellence which it owes to Bud- Abolition of caste. dha's strong benevolence is, that it abolishes the distinction of caste. This might seem to be a natural consequence of the Brahmani • cal doctrine of metempsychosis ; for if the spirit of a Brahman may be a Sudra in next birth and a Chandala in the subsequent one, why should there be any difference between these castes at all ? We shall see, however, in treating of Hinduism, that this doctrine may be made to teach the very opposite, and if this reasoning were carried out, it would show that there is no difference between man and the animals. It Avas probably the strong common sense and intense human sympatliy of Buddha that made him reject the doctrine of caste, and receive all men as brethren. No doubt the psychological argument — the transmigration of souls — might have some influence with him, and it was this probably that led him to lay so much stress on the 70 Earlier Religions of India. t^oTheXu? ^^ty ^f preserving animal life, which has in creation, guhsequent developments of his religion come to overshadow even duty to man. Thus this 'humanitarianism, which is the chief glory of Buddhism, being disjoined from worshij) of God, has been betra^^ed into an excess which tends even to lower man. Worship But man cannot live without some object of worship. Even the author of Positivism in France found this, and tried to invent a worship having as its object woman in her threefold relation of mother, wife and daughter. So, too, the greater author of a greater system more than two thousand years ago found that he needed an object of wor- ship. One of his dearest friends having been killed by some of his enemies, he pre- served some reHcs of him with a care and de- votion amounting to worship, and thus the worship of relics was introduced into Bud- dhism. The central object of worship in Buddhist tenijoles is a tomb in which relics are supposed to be. BiSurm Such was the system which Buddha ex- cause-s. pouudcd, and which soon began to spread Buddhism. 71 throughout India with a rapidity that even its intrinsic suj)eriority to its rival, Brahmanism, can scarcely account for. It did indeed appeal to a law which was confirmed by the law in the hearts of all men, and it set before the multitude of its adherents an end which they could easily understand — a future happy birth as a reward of good conduct and obedience to the law. But we cannot doubt character that the character of its founder contri- founder. buted greatly to its spread. Mistaken he may have been, and the desertion of his wife and child was certainly reprehensible, but we must recollect that he had been forced into these relationships against his natural inclina- tions and conscientious desire, and he felt impelled by an inward call which he could not resist. Havino^ once set out on his career as a religious inquirer and teacher, he showed himself earnest, self-denying, self-sacrificing. He is the one example of a human teacher w^ho in his life was more than his religion. Whatever he mitrht call on his followers to do, lie had done more. None of them could renounce more than lie had renounced, *]2 Earlier Religions of India. * none of them could endure greater hard- ships and privations than he had endured. The spectacle of him renouncing all that man most prizes ; going into the desert, and agonizing there for six years ; and at last, alone and deserted, without even a ray of hope in a God to cheer him, withstanding all the temptations that came on him, work- ing out his conception of man's deliverance ; then hastening, in overflowing sympathy, to communicate it to all who would hear him ; and, when he had attracted thousands of followers, still continuing the poorest of the poor, — is one of the grandest pictures of self- denial and service which the world has pro- duced, and was a constant testimony before all men to the sincerity of his convictions, the depth of his sympathy. Let us try to imagine what must have been the effect of this example on the downtrodden Sudras and low castes, who had been trained to believe that they were beyond the pale of religion, that they merited death if they sought to hear the sacred books read, or to perform any of the religious acts of the twice- Buddhism. 73 born — to be told that there was no difference between them and their lords — to find them- selves welcomed to instruction in the mys- teries of religion, no difference being made between the lowest and the highest if there was but a sincere desire for the truth — to learn that there was but one way of deliver- ance for the high caste and the out-caste, for the Brahman and the Sudra. They saw all that he had endured to do them this good, and they could say, though in an altogether earthly sense, ^ though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor/ What must the effects of this have been on all those among the higher castes who had any noble or generous feelings left ? When we remember all this we may cease to wonder at the effect which his life and teaching had. Buddhism not only rose above caste ; it Buddhism rose above nationality. It was the first re- iuimauity^ ligion of humanity. The germs of Chris- tianity were indeed contained in Judaism. Long before this time the Jews had sung in the Temple service, — 74 Earlier Religions of India. ' God be merciful unto us and bless us, and cause His face to shine upon us ; ' That Thy way may be known upon earth, Thy saving health amons^ all nations.' But it was not till six hundred years after Buddha that this seed fructified, and He in whom Judaism was fulfilled gave the com- mand, ^ Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature.' Buddha was the first to teach a reliction which miofht be common to all men, and to seek to awaken in man's heart the idea of a brotherhood as Persuasion broad as the human race. In spreading his his sole in- , . i i i i strument. doctrmcs he had but one instrument — per- suasion. Subsequent legends do represent him as performing miracles, but this was a power which he himself disclaimed. When urged by a king to perform miracles so as to confound his enemies, he replied, 'The law which I teach my disciples is not — Go before the Brahmans, and by the help of supernatural power perform miracles greater than men can perform. The law I give them is this — Be silent about your good deeds, and confess your sins.' He likewise repudiated all force or constraint in sj)reading Buddhism. 75 his doctrine. Even when the most powerful kings had become his disciples, and were ready to put their armies at his disposal, he refused all means but persuasion and teaching ; and in this respect Buddhists have obeyed the teaching of their master better than Christians have obeyed the teaching of theirs/^ His own example, however, inspired ^^^^^^' many to become missionaries of his religion with a devotedness Hke his own. The follow- ing legend may serve as an illustration : — • A rich merchant of the name of Purna had become a Legend of Pll Till, convert to Buddha's teaching, and, renouncing all his wealth, resolved to fix his abode among a neighbouring savaixe tribe, whom he wished to convert to the law. Buddha at first tried to discourage him. ' The men of Sronaparanta, whither thou wilt go,' he said to him, ' are violent, cruel, furious and insolent. When they utter wicked, gross and insolent words to thy face, when they grow angry with thee and abuse thee, what wilt thou think % ' ' This is what I will think ;' replied Parna, ' these men are certainly good and kind, who do not strike me either with their hands or with stones.' ' But if they strike thee with their hands and with stones, what wilt thou think of them ?' 3 Admirers of Buddhism claim that it has never been spread by force. But it is difficult to distinguish between King Asoka's edicts to abolish sacrifice and establishing religion by force. 76 Earlier Religions of India. * I will think that they are good and kind, as they do not strike me mtli sticks or with the sword.' ' But if they strike thee with sticks or with the sword, what wilt thou think of them ? ' ' I will think them good and kind, as they do not take my life.' *Eut if they take thy life, what wilt thou think of them?' ' I will think the men of Sronaparanta good and kind, to deliver me with so little pain from this body full of vileness.' ' It is well,' replied Buddha, ' w^ith such perfect patience thou canst live among the Sronaparantas. Go then, Purna, delivered thyself, deliver others ; thyself arrived on the other shore, bring others there ; thyself consoled, do thou console ; thyself arrived at JN^irvana, teach others the way.' Purna, thus encouraged, went to dwell among that tribe, and by his gentleness and resignation won them from their savage customs to the law.* Whether this story be true or not, its very conception shows a standard of mis- sionary courage and devotedness that, with all its exaggerations, accounts for the rapid spread of Buddhism through India. Effects of The permanent effects of Buddha's life Buddhism. and teaching on India have been very great. He has imbued all Hindus, from the highest "* For this, as for most of the incidents here given, I am indebted to St. Hillaire's Bouddha et sa Religion. Bttddhism. "jj to the lowest, with a te nderness for anim al life. Even the Kajput who delights to hunt and slay the boar looks on the kill- ing of a fly as a sin. We shall see when we come to consider modern Hinduism the great influence which Buddha has exercised on it. But Buddhism has also defects and Defects. weaknesses which proved fatal to it in the land of its birth, and which must ultimately prove fatal to it throughout the world. These defects may all be summed up in Atheism one w^ord — Atheism. The absence of God prevents a true conception of duty and of human life. The idea of all that we receive false views being talents intrusted to us by our Maker, and for the use of which we are accountable to Him, is impossible in Buddhism. The words of King Arthur, — ' This life I guard as God's high gift from, scathe and wrong/ could never have been uttered by a Bud- dhist king. Duty as duty and right as right are ignored. They cannot be referred to the will of a righteous Father, but only to their effects in producing an end in itself 78 Earlier Religions of India. andofiiu- falsG. TliG coTiception of human life, too, man life. , r^ ^ ' is erroneous. Without God it cannot be looked on as a discipline, but merely as a state of existence, in which as few seeds of future existence as possible should be sown. Loss of life is rather a blessing than a sorrow, and that not because it is the gain- ing of life eternal, but because it is a step towards final extinction. Absence of Buddlia also, bv his atheism, shut him- revelation. ^ ^j self out from the possibility of having any divine revelation ; he based his authority only on knowledge, and that knowledge intuitional. He indeed claimed to have arrived at perfect knowledge, and those who became his disciples were required to acknowledge this, but it was an authority which other men could claim to have in an equal degree with him. His religion contrasts in this way most markedly with that of Moses. The Hebrew lawgiver, on the broad basis of a divine revelation and authority, promulgated a religion which offered, in the first instance, only an earthly rest and earthly rewards, and the truth of Buddhism, 79 which every one could test by its fruits. The Indian lawgiver, on the narrow basis of his own intuition and deductions, which every one could test by his own, sought to establish a system of rewards and jDunish- ments passing through thousands of millions of ages and thousands of worlds, the evi- dence of which was beyond the reach of all. But a more important defect consequent Absence of power con- on atheism is the absence of all power , sequent on " atheism. Buddhism is a moral system, but it is not a moral power. It offered India a perfect morality without God, but it failed to make India moral, or to secure any hold on it. It offered nothing to satisfy the religious sense in man. Its appeal was to knowledge, not to faith. This want was indeed felt by Buddha's immediate successors, and a canon of sacred literature was compiled by them; legends attributing to him superhuman power gathered round the story of his life. He was represented as the last of twenty- four Buddhas, successive appearances of the same being on earth to teach mankind the way of deliverance. Huge images of him 8o Earlier Religions of India. are erected in his temples which quite dwarf all the idols of Hinduism. A system of sacerdotalism and caste was grafted on the simple rules prescribed in his teaching, Tvhich makes Buddhism in those lands where it prevails as different from wliat it originally was, as the Vatican is from the ujDper chamber in Jerusalem ; but no- thinof has ever been able to fill the orio^inal void, or to ofier to man's instinct aught to take the place of God, whom it orginally set aside. Buddhism, within a couple of centuries, is said to have spread over all India, but I question whether one idol the less was worshipped in consequence. Even now, in Ceylon, where it is suj)posed to have had undisputed sway for twenty centuries, it fails to satisfy the religious wants of the people. ' In Ceylon the people look to Buddhism for deliverance as to the future world. By its instrumentality they sup- pose that they can gain merit ; but for jDre- sent assistance, when the burden of affliction is heavy upon them, their resort is to the demon priest, with his incantations and Bitddhism. 8 1 sacrifices."^ We cannot suppose that in its rapid sj)read over India it was anything more satisfying. It was accepted by the people as a protest against priestly preten- sions and caste tyranny, but when the test of reliofion — the hour of trial and affliction — came upon them, they still resorted to the idols and fetishes which they had been wont to worship. A system thus defective and one-sided is smitten with decay ; it has foes in its own stronghold, with which an enemy has only to unite in order to accom- plish its overthrow. This was what took place with Buddhism Fail of ■^ ^ ^ Buddh sm. in India. In two or three centuries it was triumphant throughout the peninsula, while Brahmanism was confined to the small kinof- dom of Kanauj on the Ganges.^ But a struDfoie then begfan, which continued till the twelfth century, and resulted in the com- plete expulsion of Buddhism and the estab- lishment of Hinduism throughout India. The only relic of Buddhism which now jain?. s Hardy, Legends and Theories of the Buddhists, L. (50\ ^ Marshman's History of India, vol. i. j). 11. ^2 Earlier Religions of India. Founders of Jainism, Pars- wanath. Mahavira. remains there is the sect of the Jains, whose faith is in many respects different, but has evidently sprung from that of Buddha/ The original founder of the sect was Parswa, or Parswanath, as he was afterwards called. He was the son of King Aswasena, and of one of the noblest royal families in India. He became an ascetic when he was thirty years old, and died about the age of a hundred, on Sikhar, a mountain in Southern Behar. Two hundred and fifty years after him, according to Jain chronology, Maha- vira was born of the same stem. He be- came an ascetic at the age of twenty-eight, and died when he was about seventy-two. The chief difference between him and Par- 7 The Jains indeed maintain that they are older than the Buddhists, and that their founder Mahavira was the teacher of Buddha, They fix his death about 570 B.C., or about thirty years before the usually accepted date of the death of Buddha. Some European scholars, such as Colebrooke and Stevenson, are inclined to agree witli this, while others, such as Ben fey, make the origin of this sect to have been about the tenth century after Christ ; but this again is obviously too late, as we have evidence of a distinction between Buddhists and Jains as early as the fifth century. Lassen (Indische Alterthumskunde, iv. 763), while inclined to fix the date about the first or second century, allows that we must wait further light on the subject before it can be decided. Buddhism. "^^^^ swanath was, that while the latter always wore one garment, Mahavira carried his mortification of the body further, and dis- pensed Avith every sort of covering. Hence the two divisions of the Jains have sprung up, the Swetambras, clothed in wliite, and the Digambras, clothed in space. The latter, however, while still the stricter sect, do not carry out their principles with regard to dress. These two are said to be the last of the J^i^^ (doc- trine. twenty-four Jinas or Tirthankaras,^ who Twenty- '^ ^ ^ ^ four sages. constitute the chief object of Jain- wor- ship. The preceding twenty-two are evidently fictions, but in the first of them, Rikhab Deva, we have some trace of real historic tradition. Like the Buddhists, the Jains are atheists. They believe in the eternity Atheism. of the universe both of matter and of mind, — the latter including the elements of human souls — which has been undergoing a series of revolutions produced by the inherent powers 8 Jiiia means conqueror, one who luis triumplied over the passions. This was also a name of Buddha. Tiithankara means the ' author of a tirth^ or place of pilgrimage, visiting which confers salvation. But ' the Jain tirili is a moral tirili.^ 84 Earlier Religions of India. of nature ^vithout the intervention of any eternal Deity, no such being, according to them, existing independent of the world. Certain of the world's elements may be sublimated into gods, who inhabit the vari- ous heavens that exist, but they are inferior to the Tirthankaras, and must again enter the various hells, or become animals and men as they hai^e been before, till they finally triumph over matter, and can exist Final i)iis-. free from its trammels. This has by medi- tation been attained by the twenty-four Tirthankaras, and through their merit by several thousand disciples who were on earth when they attained beatitude. This is the only way in which, according to the Jain religion, -final beatitude can be attained, and they themselves acknowledge that the way of salvation is thus limited to very few. In their cosmical system they are nearer the Hindus, while they agree with the Buddhists in their moral code,^ and in the 9 This consists in enjoining five duties and forbidding five sins. The duties are — 1st, Mercy to all animated beings ; 2nd, almsgiving ; 3rd, venerating the sages while living and Bitddhism, 85 the sect. extreme respect which they pay to animal and even insect life. They have even in some cities erected and endowed hospitals for diseased animals. There is little doubt that this religion WvXm of resulted from the influence of Buddhist and Brahmanical teaching on the minds of those who founded it^ though I cannot see that there is any reason for supposing that it is the result of a compromise. In the earlier Jain books the Brahmans are spoken of with great contempt and bitterness. In the Kalpa Sutra, the history of Mahavira, that Tirthankara is represented as having been conceived in the womb of a Brahman woman ; whereupon Indra, the chief of the gods, is represented as reflecting, ^ Surely such a thing as this has never happened in past, happens not in present, nor will happen in future times, that an Arliat, a Chakravarbi, a Baladeva, or a Vasudeva. should, be born in a low caste family, a servile family, a degraded worsliippiiig their images when deceased ; 4th, confession of faults ; 5th, religious fasting. The sins are — 1st, Killing ; 2nd, lying ; 3rd, stealing ; 4th, adultery ; 5th, worldly-mindedness. 86 Eaidier Religions of India, family, a poor family, a mean family, a beg- gar's family, or a Brahman's family.' He is accordingly represented as sending a mes- senofer to remove him to the womb of a woman of the royal caste. Now, however, the Brahman s seem to have regained their authority among the Jains. Some of the Swetambras are even glad to have them as priests in their temples. At one time Jain ism had spread extensively through India, but its adherents are now numeri- cally small, though still commanding a great part of the Avealth of the country. They now exercise no influence on Hinduism, and indeed practically have come in faith and practice to differ little from it. By a recent decision of the Bombay High Court it has been ruled that the laws of the orthodox Hiudus are binding on the Jains. PART II. HINDUISM. HINDUISM. BUDDHISM seems to have culminated Kise of Hindui in India about the beginning of our era. Two hundred years before that time it assumed a character decidedly hostile to Brahmanism. At first, though utterly opposed in principle to its claims, it seems to have existed along- side of it on a basis of mutual toleration. But the decrees of King Asoka, a convert to Buddhism and paramount sovereign of India, showed an intention to make the new faith universal in India, to the destruction of the older one. This stirred up the Brahmans to do more earnest battle for their religion, quickened their intellectual life, and made them more pliable in adapting their system to the religious ideas of the various tribes and castes with whom they came in contact. This Brahmanical revival continued to struggle w^ith Buddhism, and by the twelfth century 90 Hinduism. of our era had extirpated it from India. It is, to it that modern Hinduism owes its charac- ter ; and it is, therefore, of more practical interest, and more deserving the study of those who wish to know the religious condi- tion of the miUions of our fellow- subjects whom it has influenced, than any form of religious thought that preceded it. ?/ tiiTsvib- ^^Q brief survey we have taken of the ear- ject. YiQY religions of India, w^hile leaving many questions still unanswered, will yet prepare us for better understanding that complex and subtle system with which Christianity has now to contend. I will not touch on the political movements which aided it, or the warriors and kings who established it by force of arms, but will rather seek to indicate those principles and methods, still in operation, by which it triumphed over its great foe, and attached to itself, or is still attaching to itself, the various races of India. I must now ask the English reader to follow me into a somewhat abstruse and difficult field ; to enter a region and me- thod of thought most likely quite foreign to him, but which it is necessary to master to Hinduism. 9 1 some extent in order to understand Hindu idolatry. To try to explain this on the basis of English ideas, is about as hopeful as try- ing to explain Indian jugglery on the basis of English regimental drill. I can only pro- mise to endeavour to make the subject as clear as it is capable of being made to per- sons accustomed to entirely other modes of thouo^ht. There are two distinct features in theTwofea- . . , tnres of Brahmamcal revival which must be under- Hinduism. stood in order to grasp the present character of Hinduism, — the intellectual revival amono- the Brahmans, producing Hindu philosophy, and the application of that philosophy to the popular superstitions, producing the Hindu religion. CHAPTEE I. HINDU PHILOSOPHY. Cause of the TpHE first step ill tlie establishment of revival. J- modem Hinduism was the revival of intellectual activity among the Brahmans. Appeal to the authority of the Vedas was now of no use to them. Their Buddhist ad- versaries required them to prove all things. They therefore strove to combat them with their own weapons, and in succession rose the . six schools of Hindu j)hilosophy.^ These all started w^ith the professed acknowledgment ' of the Vedas as the rule of faith, but except one (which, strangely enough, while ignoring God, made the eternity of the Word its fun- damental principle), they all practically ignore the Vedas, and found their systems on the deductions of pure reason. The Vedas are now, for the majority of the Hindus, only the ^ See Appendix B, Schools of Hindu Philosophy. Hindit Philosophy. 93 shadow of a name ; so that in this respect Buddhism has practically remained victor, while it again, by accepting a sacred canon of its own, may be said to have been vanquished by Brahmanism, — a fact which its opponents have not been slow to point out. I do not propose to give any account of these various systems, or of the dialectics by which they are supported, but will seek to exhibit their effect in mouldinof Hindu thouofht to the form ' in which we actually find it. To understand aiiy philosophy or religion The chief aright, we must know what it teaches to be the highest good. Ask a Hindu what is the chief end of man's existence ? and he will answer. Liberation.^ This is the answer which will be given alike by the peasant and the philosopher of any one of the schools. Ask him what he means by Liberation ? and he will say that it is ' to cut short the eighty- four.' ^ Here we are already in a sphere of thought and expression quite foreign to the European, and requiring explanation. The Hindus, then, believe man's spirit to Liberation. ^ Mukti. 2 Cliaurassi Katna. 94 Hinduism. be a part of the Divine Spirit, an emanation from it wliicli must return to it again. Mean- while it is in bondaofe from its union with the body or with matter, and the great aim of man should be to free his spirit from this union, so that it may again be at liberty to join the Supreme. Or as the Hindus say : Man and God are one ; but man, owing to io-norance and delusion, cannot now recosrnise this identity; his chief aim should, therefore, be liberation from this ignorance and delusion, so as to recognise his oneness with God. Such is the briefest possible statement of what is meant by liberation, but I must dwell on it more in detail. Fuuda- The fundamental principle of Hindu pliilo- principies, sopliy is, that out of notliiug nothing can be ex nihilo , . ^ nihiifit. made ; hence whatever now exists must be accounted for by what has previously existed, and therefore our spirits must have existed before. Another principle now almost univer- sally adopted is that of the great Unity ; ^ that Only one tlicro is ouly 0110 really existent Being, who is existent r i j.- j. 1 x" xi O Being. irom overlastiiig to everlasting — the bupreme ^ Ekamevadwitiyam, one only, witliout a second. HindiL PJiilosophy. 95 Lord/ or Supreme Spirit.^ He alone is, every- tLiiig else is not. Our spirits must, therefore, be part of Him. Such is the argument of the Vedantic, the most influential school of mo- dern Hindu philosophy. Now the question comes, Who or what is The S'lpreme this Supreme Spirit? It has often been ob- Spmt jected to the Vedantic Deity, that it is a mere ^ioned. abstraction and negation, and tliat therefore the system is atheistic as much as Buddhism. This is founded on the word always used in characterizing the Supreme, which in popular language means void of qualities. But the word means primarily without bonds or un- fettered, and this is rather the sense in which it is used in Hindu philosophy. Man's spirit is fettered by union with the body, but not so the Supreme Spirit. He is free. The word which in modern European philosophy corre- sponds most nearly with it is Unconditioned. Those who are not familiar Avith philosophical expressions may form some idea of what that means, by trying to conceive the existence of ^ God before anything was created. Tliis is ^ Panimesliwara. ^ Paramdtman. 96 Hiiididsm. the point which. Ballantyne maintains Brali- manical philosophers have grasped with a far clearer and firmer hold than Enoflish or even German thinkers, — the distinction between the Unconditioned ^ and the Conditioned.^ Now what do the former declare Uncon- ditioned Spirit to be ? They say that it is Being, Thought, and Joy.^ ^c Trinity. ^ ^, trained alike by the testimony of our own consciousness and by the teaching of the Bible to believe in the personality of God, and to think of Him as distinct from our- selves, have difficulty in conceiving an imper- sonal God, and in perceiving the full bearing of the above definition. But let us try to introduce into it the idea of personality and consequent relationship, and chiefly the rela- tionship of the Creator to the creature, im- parting what He Himself has ; and we have : the imparter of Being — the Creator ; the imparter of Thought — the Word ; the im- Anaiogy partor of Joy — the Comforter. Here, then, we have in the Vedantic Trinity a certain -with the Christian Trinity. 7 Nirofim. ^ Sao^im. ^ Sat, Chit, Anand, Sachchiclananda. Hindu PJiilosophy. 97 analogy to tlie Christian Trinity. How this may have arisen we cannot now determine. We cannot say what interchanges of thought may have taken place in the earlier ages of the world. Long before this idea of the Supreme Spirit had been formulated by Hindu philosophy, the germs of the idea of a Trinity had been introduced into Grecian philosophy, and may have been carried into India in the intercourse which the Greeks kept up with it in the second and third centuries before our era. There Avas also constant communication between Egypt and India at the time when the Judoeo- Grecian school of philosophy flour- ished at Alexandria, ere the Vedanta school rose in India. But I refrain from entering on the field of investigation thus opened up, merely noting the fact, however it may be accounted for and whatever may be its value, that such is the Hindu idea of the Supreme Spirit, and that on this prime question of theology the distinction between Christianity and Hinduism is as to the personality of God. But in maintaining that the human spirit Man's spirit is part of the Divine Spirit^ the Hindu is met G 98 Hinduism. by those facts which for the EngUshman at once decide the question^ and against which the whole of Hindu philosophy is a vain struggle, — the facts of consciousness. We are not conscious that we are parts of the Supreme Spirit ; we are conscious of limitation and im- perfection contradictory of our idea of God. These facts the Hindus too acknowledge ; but 'so much the worse for the facts;' they are Maya, or the cffccts of Mdvci, And what is Maya ? delusion. ^ «^ This it is very difficult to explain. It means 1 properly illusion or delusion. It is an attempt to explain the consciousness of man and the existence of an external world, in accordance with the sole existence of God and the prin- cij)le, — nothing from nothing. They say that the visible universe is a projection of the spirit, as the shadow is the projection of I the pillar, or the figure on the screen the projection of the picture in the magic lantern. Thev attribute to it two effects, — enveloping the soul, which gives rise to the conceit of personality, and projecting the appearance of a world, which the individual imagines to be external to himself Spirit Hindu Philosophy. 99 thus invested or deluded is what the universe consists of. This abstract speculation will be better Analogy or understood by means of a simile which the land. Hindus often employ. They say that the world is just like a dream. We fall asleep ; Ave imaofine thinofs to be about us which are only the creations of the brain, but which have for us all the value of realities ; we wake up and find that they are all a delusion. So shall we one day wake up and find that all the external universe, which we now imagine to be about us, has been but the play of our spirit, and has vanished ' like the baseless fabric of a vision.' A pundit, who had some acquaintance with Analogy -riTiT 1 ir»n' from mono- Jinglish literature, quoted to me the lollowmg mania. incident, which I had previously read, as a proof of the truth of the Hindu theory : — ^ A man was once labouring under the influence of a mania that he was so enormously swollen that he could not pass through an ordinary door. Some of his friends tried to persuade him that he was quite able to do so, but he listened to them very much as if they had TOO Hmdiiism. been trying to persuade him to go through the key-hole. At last they thought the best way to convince him he was wrong was to pull him through, and this they did, notwithstand- ing his struggles and screams. When he had been got through in this way, he fell down in an agony, as if he had been bruised all over, and died from the effects on his mind.' The door evidently did not appear the same to him as to his friends ; but what right have we to explain it by his madness ? The Hindus maintain that it is all delusion, and the prac- tical effect on the unfortunate madman showed that his delusion was real enough for him. Nature of Meauwliile spirit is under the influence of this Maya or illusion, and it is there- fore subject to conditions or qualities. ^^ As to what these conditions are, they fall back for explanation on an earlier philo- sophy, — the Sankhya, which accounted for the creation of the world bv an eternal Prakriti, which modern European philosophers would probably translate by cosmic vapour. It in fact means matter, but the Yedantists have " Gun. the illu- sion. Hindu Philosophy. loi discovered it to be really a delusion, though practically a reality. It is supposed to con- sist of an equipose of three conditions or qualities, — intelligence, passion, and darkness or indifference.^^ "Where intelligence prevails, we have such beings as men ; where passion or foulness prevails, such beings as the lower animals ; and where darkness or indifference prevails, such beings as trees and stones. The Spirit or Self,^^ imprisoned in all these, is the same with the Supreme Spirit, and the final end of it is to be freed from all, and identified with its parent source. After this liberation, man must consciously strive. Thus the Hin- dus, groping after the same truth as that expressed by Paul, ' The whole creation groan- eth and travaileth in pain together until now,' have chang^ed it into, ' The whole Creator groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now, waiting for the liberation, to wit, redemp- tion from the body.' It might seem at first that at the time of Difficulties death, Avhen the spirit quits the body, it will piaiiied. be free to join the Supreme. But call it by " Sat, Kaj, Tamas. " Atman. T02 Hinditism. what names they chose, ilkision or eternal matter, the same problems of the world — joy and sorrow unequally meted, vice prosperous and virtue oppressed — faced the Brahmanical philosophers which faced Buddha, and for them they could give no better solution than Metempsy- he, — the trausmiofration of the soul. They proved by indeed argue for this partly on the same reminis- ^ x e/ cence, grouuds that Plato does, namely, that all knowledge is reminiscence, and that what we call instinct in a child, leading it, for instance, to take its mother's milk, is but a recollection of what it has learned in a previous existence. and moral But tlic great argument is the moral one, necessity. ,^ , i i • i i i • that we are moral and responsible beings. AYe commit deeds which merit reward or punishment ; happiness and misery in this life are not proportioned to the good and evil deeds of each individual. We see babes, who have done neither good nor evil in this life, born some to plenty and some to poverty ; some surrounded with every temptation to sin, and with an inherent proclivity towards evil, others surrounded with ever}^ influence for good, and with a natural leaning to virtue Hindic Philosophy. 103 and uprightness. Hence they conclude that there must be another life, in which present inequalities are redressed, and a past life, by which present inequalities have been caused. The idea of vicarious atonement has in vicarious . atouement. one lorm or another lound a place m nearly all systems of religion, certainly in all earlier systems. The instinctive feeling of man, that sin j)laces him in opposition to God and must be punished, found refuge first of all in sacrifice, in which, as we have seen, the principle of vicarious atonement had a place. But this left many of the mysteries of Providence unexplained ; how, for in- stance, sufferings that could aj)parently not be traced to any cause were to be accounted for, how sacrifice might be attained by some and not by others. This the Hindus ac- count for by saying that men are now reap- ing the fruit of what they themselves have done, in a previous life, though from the effects of maya they are ignorant of it. They thus try to reconcile the jDrinciple of natural justice — that every one should suffer for his own deeds — with the principle of I04 Hmdtnsm. vicarious atonement^ which seems mans in- stinctive refuge from the mysterious ine- qualities and consciousness of sin in the present hfe. We suffer for what we our- selves have done^ but the deeds for which we suffer are deeds which we are not con- scious of having done. We are not recom- pensed for what we are doing now, but we shall be recompensed in a future birth. This brings us to the second bond of the spirit, according to Hindu philosophy, that which binds it within its first bond, the chain which prevents its escaping the prison- house of illusion — Deeds/^ Deeds A puudit witli whom I had once occasion the spirit, to discuss the subject used the following illustration : ^ We are bound to our exis- tence,' he said, ^ by two chains, the one a golden chain and the other an iron chain. The golden chain is virtue and the iron chain is vice. We perform virtuous actions, and we must exist in order to receive their reward ; we perform vicious actions, and we must exist in order to receive their punishment. *3 Karma. Hindu Philosophy. 105 The golden chain is pleasanter than the iron one, but both are fetters, and from both should we seek to free our spirit.' This comparison is a good illustration both of the principles and of the spirit of Hinduism. All action, whether good or bad, binds us, and there is an aim to be sought beyond happiness. If a man of low rank discharges his duty aright, he may in his next birth be a king. If a king rules well, and especially uses his power in the promotion of religion, he may in his next state be born in heaven, and spend thousands of ages there. That miofht be a state to be desired if there were any certainty of its permanence, but in it he may at any moment commit a slip, or he may unconsciously, in a previous birth, have been guilty of a sin still unexpiated, w^iich will require his being born again in the form of a demon, an animal, or one of the lower castes. There is no security of rest till the spirit is delivered from the idea of its own personality. The Hindus try to explain this to them- Analogy of selves by another simile, and with them a ' ' io6 Hindtdsni. simile has all the force of an arofument.^* They say : Spirit is one as water is one ; but some water may be drawn up from the ocean in the form of vapour ; then it may become a cloud ; then fall on the earth in the form of rain ; be absorbed by some plant and become its sap^ be exhaled from it again to be absorbed in another, and so on, chang- ing from form to form, till at last it may fall into some river and find its way to the ocean. In this figure the ocean will represent the Supreme, Free Spirit, and the other con- ditions of water, spirit in connection with matter or illusion. . When any portion of the Supreme Spirit is as it were exhaled and comes under the power of illusion, it must pass through men and animals, through gods and devils, through trees and rivers, and even stones, — always when it quits one body, being forced by the deeds which it may have committed in that, or in some previous body, to enter another, in order to receive their recompense. So it must con- tinue its devious path, ignorant of whence ^'^ See Appendix C, Hindu Logic. Hindit Philosophy. 107 it has come and whitlier it is going, till tlio full tale of appointed birtlis, said to be eio'bty-four lakhs, or eighty-four hundred Tiie eigiity- . , . -■ -, four. thousand, is completed. Then its good and _,.— evil deeds may be fully atoned for by its joys and sorrows, the sj)irit may regain its origin, be emancipated from matter, and free to rejoin the Supreme./ But the Hindus have also a vague hope that they may not need to endure all this ; that they may find a clue out of this interminable labyrinth of births ; that they may find a direct passage as it were to the Supreme, and be freed from the necessity of being again born either for joy or for sorrow. This is what they mean when they say that ^ Liberation is to cut short the eighty-four.' Thus far the Hindu system has developed Difficulties. itself with a certain logic. But two testing questions naturally occur here — What led any portion of spirit to come under the power of illusion ? and, According to what law do these transmigrations take place ? To the first of these questions the Hin- origin of dus give some such answer as this : The 1 08 Hi7tduis7n. Supreme Spirit was one, and he thought, ' I will become many.' There is here a certain recognition of supreme will, but if asked again what led him to wish to become many, they are silent, and allow that there is some- thing there for which they cannot account. The law of The sccoud Qucstion, — What is the principle transmigra- ^ ^ ^ ■'-■'■ tion. which requires certain deeds to be followed by certain births ? what is the power that binds spirit by the bond of deeds to ignor- ance and illusion ?• — is a question which Hindu philosophy has felt the need of facing, but for which it has only one answer The — the Unseen.-^^ Here too, when it has with Unseen. ' its terrible logic worked out its system to the ^5 Adrishta. Even God is powerless in presence of Adrishta, according to this pliilosophy. ' God being dependent creates tliis world of inequalities. If you ask on what is He dependent ? we reply. He is dependent on Merit and Demerit. That there I should be an unequal creation of the merit and demerit of the souls created is no fault of God. God is to be looked upon as the rain. As the rain is the common cause of the production of the rice and wheat, but of their specific distinctions as rice and wheat the causes are the varying powers of their respec- tive seeds ; so is God the common cause in the production of men, gods and others, but of the distinctions between gods, men and others, the causes are the varying works inherent in the varying souls.' — Sankaracharya, quoted in Bannerjea's Hindu Philosophij. Hindu Philosophy. 109 crushing of all moral principle and all human instinct, it must confess itself baffled. When it has climbed to its most exalted height, from which it can look down on good and evil as inferior accidents, even here it is con- strained, like the early Vedic poets, to erect an altar ^ To the unknown God/ ^^ And how is liberation to be obtained ? Way of How are these eighty-four hundred thousand V^ births to be cut short ? It might seem that as there was a power beyond their ken, which ultimately ordered all, it would be wiser for the philosophers to confess their own inability to discover what it had or- dained as the final mode of escape. But the Brahmans have here a better foundation to go on than the Buddhists — they profess to believe in a revelation, however inconsis- tently, and however little their method may be found in the books which they receive as inspired. But the answer w^hich Hindu philosophy gives is practically the same as that given by Buddhism. Liberation is not to be attained by virtuous life or by works of any kind. Bad works require to be punished 1 1 o Hinduism. and good ones to be rewarded. We must seek a higher end — dehverance from pain and pleasure alike — and look for it by nobler means, by being free from works altogether. ledgZ" Knowledge ^^ is the instrument^ meditation ^^ the means, by which our spirit is to be freed. To avoid all contact with the world, to avoid distraction, to avoid works, and to meditate on the identity of the internal with the ex- ternal spirit till their oneness be realised, is the ^way of salvation' prescribed by the higher Hinduism. The following are the words of one of their principal authori- ties : ^^ — ' The recluse, pondering the teacher's words, '^ Thou art the Supreme Being," and receiving the text of the Vedas, ^' I am God," having thus in three several ways — by the teacher's precept, by tlie Word of God, by his own contemplation — persuaded himself ^' I am God," obtains liberation.' This is the Hindu philosophical answer to the question, ^ What must I do to be saved?' It is called the ^ w^ay of knowledge,' ^^ and is said ^6 Gyan. ^7 Dliyan. ^8 Sankaracharya. — Bannerjea's Hindu Philosophy. ^9 Gyan Marg — Knowledge way. Hindu PJiilosophy. 1 1 1 to be the highest and only infallible way ; the other ways, at which we shall have to look, being supposed to conduce to it. Such is a brief outline — little more, in ^^Jj^^^ j^ fact, than an indication — of Hindu philo- Xl^?'^" sophy, yet sufficiently full to enable us to understand how it has affected Hindu society and Hindu religion. It will be seen that, in many of its aspects^ it differs but little from Buddhism. It may indeed be called a pan- theistic protest against it. It is an attempt to supply the void which the absence of all idea of God occasioned in the rival system. It thus supplies a solution of man's problem more agreeable to human nature than Bud- dhism does. It is pleasanter to think of the inner / as eternally existent, coming from the Supreme Spirit and destined to return to It again, than to think of it as destined to ultimate annihilation. It also supplies after a fashion a basis for worship, as we shall see by and by, and thus helps to fulfil a craving of man's soul. But it shows how nearly pantheism and atheism, the ^all god' and the ^ no god,' meet. The immortality of I r 2 Htndtcism. Hinduism differs but little from the annihila- tion of Buddhism, for it is an annihilation of that individuality and self-consciousness apart from which man can hardly conceive of his own existence. Yet it enables the Brah- mans to charge the Buddhists with atheism, and to call their own system theistic as opposed to it. In other respects — especially the doctrine of transmio^ration of souls, the way of knowledge, the employment of medi- tation — it is liker a rival than an antagonist. Causes of Had the Brahmans, in carrying out their principles, been as consistent as the Bud- dhists, it is probable that they too would have perished from Hindustan, as at one time seemed not unlikely. So long as they confined themselves to abstract teaching, the Brahmanical power made no progress. At last they united it with the popular superstitions, and rallied the various tribes of India around them, though to this day there are some which have escaped their influence, and which they are now seeking to attach to themselves. It will be seen that the system which I HindiL Philosophy. 1 1 3 have tried to describe is not very far removed Hindu philosophy from many European pantheistic systems, au■ «^ reformers both philosophic and popular. Ramanuja. Forcmost among these was Ramanuja, who lived early in the twelfth century, to whose influence subsequent reformers owe most of their impulse. He held the theistic doc- trine of the personality of God and of His distinction from the universe and from the human soul. He attacked the pantheism of the Vedanta with a dialectic power and high moral tone such as few controversialists have reached. He denounced as blas- phemous the doctrine of God's being active only when conditioned by Maya, or ignorance, and maintained that all the conditions of ^^ Puslit Marg. Vishmc Wo7^sJiip. i8r sovereignty and activity were eternally God's. But he did not get quite clear of all pan- theistic ideas. He maintained that at the final liberation souls were absorbed in God, but not unified with Him. He looked on the union as a mechanical mixture, while the Vedantists would consider it rather a chemical mixture. As milk thougfh mino-led with water does not become water, so neither do human souls, though absorbed in the Supreme by virtue of meditation, obtain identity with Him. One of his successors, Kamananda, modi- Rama- fied this, and maintained that the Supreme Spirit might be both unconditioned and con- ditioned, becoming the latter out of love to his worshippers. The concrete form which this speculation assumed was that God, out of love to man, became incarnate ; and the most popular WTiter of his school, Tulsidas, Tuisidas. author of a version of the Kamayana in the vulgar dialect, exjDresses this in language that a Christian might almost use. The followers of Kamananda, called Ramanandis or RamiX- wats^ worship Yishnu in the incarnation of 1 8 2 Hinduism. other reformers. Rama Chandra. Their philosophical reform was accompanied by a practical reform, which sought, among other things, loosen- ing the distinctions of caste and spreading sacred knowledge in the vernacular instead of the obsolete Sanskrit. As they fell from their first zeal other reforming sects sprang from them, some of them emulating in their self-denial the severest of the Saiva sects. But the Nemesis of their origin seems to have followed them all. Starting from the worship of a sensual god, they all sunk to his level. After a pro- test against religious corruption, which en- dured for little more than the life of their founder, their worship sank to a grossness emulating that against which they first pro- tested. The latest, and in some respects the most earnest Vaishnava attempt at reform — the Ram Sneh sect, which admits other castes as well as Brahmans to be ministers of reli- gion, and discards all idol - worship — has sunk as low as the lowest, and confounds the practice of uncleanness with the service of God. CHAPTER V. SIVA WORSHIP. TURNING to the worship of Siva, the Principles ■^ _ of Siva other great god of the Hindus, w^e find worship. the opposite pole of pantheistic thought at work. Vishnu worship starts from the idea of God condescending to man, Siva worship from the idea of man raising himself to be God. Vishnuism, considering that God per- vades everything, has recognised Him espe- cially in the heroes of the nation; Sivaism, considering our souls to be part of God, teaches us to seek to realise that union by subduing the body and mortifying the flesh. We have seen that the idea of the power of austerity entered early into Indian religion, and was by some considered the source of the power of the gods^ even before the rise of Buddhism ; but it was after the rise of that * See ante, p. 50. 1 84 Hinduis7it. system that this stream of thought gained power in India, and it was possibly in seek- ing to combat Buddhism with its own wea- pons that the Brahmans were led to exalt the worship of Siva. Eudra, \^ jg difficult to Say how he came to take the place he has done in the Hindu pantheon. The meaning of his name is ' Gracious.' The word does not occur in the Vedas as the name of a god^ but it occurs as an epithet of Hudra, with whom Siva was afterwards identified. This was the name of the god of the storm^ and it explains a number of the attributes of Siva. The storm^ rushing down from the mountains, led to the mountain being considered his abode ; the constant muttering of the thunder, which the echoes appear to make incessant for hours, might suggest his constant invocations on the moun- tain top ; the irresistible power with which the lightning strikes those on whom it falls might originate the glance from his eye that consumed those who excited his wrath ; the destructive fury of the storm, overthrowing houses, tearing up trees, raising the torrents Siva Worship. 185 to sweep away their banks, explain his attri- butes as the god of destruction ; the aspect of the phxin after the storm has swept over it — the plough turning up the soft earth, formerly a hardened cake — a tinge of ver- dure clothing w^hat was formerly a barren waste — is sufficient to account for his being called also the god of fertility and reproduc- tion ; whilst the effect of the storm in purify- ing and clearing the atmosphere, and bracing up the frame, may account for the medical power attributed to him. Such is the Vedic s^od with whom Siva is Popular ^ conception now identified ; and so we may account for °^' ^^^■^• some of the attributes now attached to the latter. But this is a more recent identifica- tion, and it is probable that, as he is now generally conceived of in India, he was ori- ginally the god of some of the aboriginal tribes.^ The myths about his first forcing Brahma and Yishnu to acknowledge his power — too coarse to be repeated here — 2 i Two deities were especially worshipped by the Brahman priests, and appear to have been the types of two different races — the Aryans and the Turanians. These were Vishnu and Siva.' — Wheeler's Hut. of India, vol. iii. p. 07. i86 Hinduism, him. point to the reluctant acknowledgment of his claims bj older sects. There is little human interest in the leo^ends reofardinof him — no- thing, as in the case of Vishnu, to intertwine him with the history of India. The popular idea with regard to him is that he was a mendicant who gained and maintains his power by austerities, meditation, and invoca- tlt'onfof ^^^^- I^^ ^^i^ statues he is represented with his hand open, as if begging for alms : he is said to have gone about begging, riding on a bull, which is consequently now considered his sacred animal. Stories of drunkenness, licentiousness and. ferocious cruelty are attri- buted to him ; but his vice differs from that of Krishna's very much as a half idiotic boor's might differ from that of a prince. The conception of a man becoming god through godlike, because most perfectly human, con- duct, has no place in Sivaism. The men- dicant becomes a terrible god by becoming as un-human as possible, and all the representa- tions of Siva carry out this idea. He is repre- sented as having a third eye in his forehead, with a glance from which he strikes dead Siva Worship. 187 those who offend him ; his rosary is composed of human skulls, in which he is said to de- light, and his necklace is of the same ; while serpents mingle with his hair and wreathe round his neck. He is said thus to be sitting on Kailas, an unseen mountain of the Hima- layas, still engaged in meditation, turning his rosary and engaged in invocation, thereby continually increasing his power. This power is not connected with any moral or even in- tellectual greatness, or any power of will. It seems to be very little under his own Saiva ^ ^ _ legends. control. One unfortunate god is said once to have disturbed him at his invocations ; his anger was aroused, and a glance from his eye reduced him to ashes. When reproached for what he had done, he granted him to be born aofain as Krishna. So too in a drunken fit he is said once to have struck off the head of his son Ganesha, and when reproached by his wife for so doing, he replaced it with an elephant's head. One name by which he is known among the common people is the simple or half-witted lord.^ Their idea seems 3 Bhola Nath. 1 88 Hinduism, to be that this snuplicity makes it easier to cajole, and at the same time more dangerous to disturb him. other wor- jJq ig g3^i(j ^q \^q married to a ofoddess snip con- c> nected with named Parvati, which means daughter of the mountain. The linga or symbol by which he is now generally worshipped is considered by some to have been adopted from some of the aboriginal tribes, and incor- porated with his worship before it was re- cognized by the Aryan castes. But the main feature in his religion is, that he symbolizes the results that may be attained by austerities and invocation. The very absence of inherent greatness or power in the character of the god tends to exalt the principle which he represents. duse? Ii^ conformity with this, the worship paid stay^?^" "to him starts from the idea of getting power hisrelmon. !• n ••! ±*x* i t over mm by smiilar austerities and medi- tation. It is therefore called the way of works* or the way of hardships.''^ Accord- ingly it is the ascetics and devotees who form the main strength of the Saiva sects. '^ Karma ]\Iarga. s Kaslit Marga. Siva Worship. 189 Some of these include men of real learning and power, who discard all the gross tradi- tions with regard to their god, look on him as the representative of the Supreme Spirit, and endeavour by study and learning to acquire such knowledge as shall enable them to realize their unity with him. Sankaracharya, perhaps the greatest master of the Yedanta philosophy, belonged to the Saivas ; its most strenuous and able sup- porters at present are to be found among • them, especially in the sect called the Dandis, among whom alone, as far as I have observed, are iconoclasts and zealous reformers on a purely Hindu basis to be found. These adopt in its highest sense the Saiva principle of man raising himself to unity with the divine. But in general it is a mere mortification of Common , . ideas of the flesh, a mere unhumanizmo: of the man themean- that is looked to as the means of attaining asceticism. power. A story is told of one who for a thousand years continued standing on the tip of his left toe, during the first hundred years of which period he lived on fruits, the iQO Hindidsrn. second hundred on withered leaves, the third hundred on water ^ and the remaining seven hundred on air. At the end of this period Mahadeva, or Siva, appeared to him, and granted him what boons he desired. Drying up There is a local tradition at Pushkar, near of the . ^ blood. Ajmer, to the effect, that on the occasion of a great gathering of gods and Brahmans at the place, some of the latter went to pay their respects to a celebrated recluse of the name of Mankan. One of them had some coarse grass in his hand, with which he accidentally cut the recluse's finger, when instead of blood a green fluid came out. Seeing the effect which his devotions had had, he began to dance with joy and pride, till Siva, to humble him, went and opened his own finger before him, when a stream of white ashes came out. Mankan, seeing proof of a devotion so much more powerful than his own, became silent, and worshipped him. Then, after asking and obtaining the promise of certain blessings for those who should visit his hermitage on certain days, ^Mankan became absorbed in Siva.' Siva Worship. 191 This story points to an idea held by others Practices of •^ ■*■ modem as well as Hindu recluses, that the source of ^-s^etics. corruption is especially in the blood, and that if it can be dried up the passions will be sub- dued. Among the present ascetics, however, we find little more than a mere symbolism of ancient ideas. They do generally succeed in making themselves appear very unhuman, as unlike men as men can be, though whether it be a. sublimation or degradation of their na- ture depends on the point of view from which they are looked at. The body is covered with ashes, to signify the drying up of the blood, the scorching up of the passions. It is some- times further mortified by self-inflicted tor- tures. One arm is held out straight till it is stiffened, and cannot ag^ain be bent. The hand is clenched and the nails allowed to grow through the flesh. Occasionally a vow of silence for a period of twelve years is taken. Some live alone in the woods or in caves, but more frequently they wander about from one shrine of Siva's to another. Some classes of these recluses — and there are as many kinds as there are of monks and friars — are more 192 Hinduism. exclusive as to the castes which they admit into their fraternity. But in general men of any caste may join one or other of the various Their de- ]^inds of mendicauts, and a short conversation character, ss^^}^ ^uy of them will rovcal the utterly sor- did; selfish soul that exists beneath these outer disguises and self-inflicted tortures^ sym- bolizinof the mortification of the flesh and its lusts. ^ Whose god is their belly' may be said of most of these holy men, and is said of them by the Hindus generally. Many pro- verbs and rhymes are current among the common people satirizing these jogis, as they are called, for their sordid or cowardly mo- tives in becoming recluses, and for their gluttony and rapacity since they assumed their profession. But with all that they fear them, dread their curse, supply them with what they want, and even worship them. They often ask them to obtain favours for them from Siva, believing that in some way their austerities have brought him under obliofation to them. These constitute the mainstay of the Saiva Siva WorsJiip. 193 sect.^ They are the principal worshippers of p;™ S. the god, but they have also a large lay fol- lowiiiQf amonof various tribes and castes, whose objects of worship they have identified or connected with Siva. The Vaishnavas, we have seen, represented the deified heroes of India as successive incarnations of their god, thus utilizinof the doctrine of transmicrration. The Saivas, on the other hand, rather took up the primitive objects of worship of the various tribes, and represented them as beinof either manifestations or servants of Siva. Their system consequently does not present the same unity as that of their rivals ; there are no broad lines by which to mark their workings and we have to pick up and put together numbers of disjointed legends in every district of India, to learn how they propagated their faith. In some cases, indeed, ^7^^''' their course of action is plain enough. A god or goddess may have more than one name. Thus Devi, who was worshipped by the Rajputs, Mata, a goddess of some of the ^ In saying this I refer especially to Nortliern India, to whicli alone my personal observation has extended. N 194 Hinduism. hill tribes, Durga and Kali, Bengal divini- ties, were all identified with Parvati, the wife of Siva. These were all more or less sanguin- ary deities, and had thus an affinity with the servants, gavago, un-human nature of Siva. Again, the favourite deities of many agricultural castes were Bhairon and Khetrpal. These were allowed to remain and be worshipped as of old, but they were represented as atten- dants on Siva. The Hindus often say, that if any one wishes to get a hearing of the magis- trate, he must tip his servants ; and so the farmers think that the best way to secure Siva's protection for their fields is by paying and priests, attention to his subordinates. Another point to be noticed is, that the priests in many of the temples of these deities are not Brahman s, but members of other castes, the former not seeming to have cared to disturb the usual arrangements for worship among those whom they sought to proselytize, if they only acknowledged their supremacy. Instances ^^^ i^ i^ ^^J whcn we begin to examine gandSm. into tlic liistory of each old shrine that we find with what marvellous ingenuity the &' Siva Worship, 195 Brahmans have made themselves ^ all thinofs to all men.' Of this I will give one or two examples, that have come under my own observation in India. About six miles distant from Ajmer is a Pushkar. lake of the name of Pushkar, with a town of '^^^^^'^' the same name on its banks, considered one of the most holy places in India. As a god may be present in a stone or image, so he may be present in any locality — in a grove, a stream or lake. There are some streams, such as the Ganges, and some lakes, such as Push- kar, which are supposed to be the abodes of powerful deities, who are bound to grant for- giveness of sins to all who may worship them by bathing in their waters. These localities are called by the people tirths, or places of pilgrimage, but by the initiated this name is applied only to the deity who gives sanctity to the place. The lake and town of Pushkar are there throughout the year, but the tirtli is there for only five days at the beginning of winter. The explanation of this given in the sacred books is : tliat such multitudes were ob- taining salvation by his means, that the gods 196 Hindttism. complained that heaven was becoming too crowded, and remonstrated with Brahma, who thereupon removed Pushkar to the sky except for these five days. On other occasions he can be drawn into the waters by the use of certain charms. The probable explanation seems to be, that from time immemorial a fair has been held at that time, as being the most convenient time of the year, and the Brahmans afterwards tried to give it a reli- gious reason. Primitive In the traditions and rites connected with worship of Pushkar. this lake, we can see different stages of reli- gious thought and worship fossilized, as in the successive strata of a fissure of the earth we find traces of successive developments of life. We see first of all the aboriginal inha- bitants with their tree and serpent worship. Then came the Gujars, a pastoral tribe, who worshipped a goddess, Gaitri, and who seem to have been the first, as they are still the most devout, believers in the efficacy of Push- kar. Then came the Brahmans, at a time "^ when Brahma was still their god, and they had not yet found it politic to adopt either Siva Worship. 197 Vishnu or Siva. They performed a great sacrifice at the time of the fair, which they represented as being a sacrifice performed by Brahma. To symbolize the adherence of the Gujars to their faith^ they invented a legend to the effect that Brahma, in the absence of his wife, Savitri, had been obliged to espouse Gaitri, in order to accomplish the sacrifice. They likewise accounted for the serpent wor- ship by representing a Brahman as having been, by the curse of another, changed into a serpent, and having been solaced by Brahma with the assurance that divine honours would be paid him. Pushkar is now the only place in India where the worship of Brahma occu- pies a conspicuous jDlace. Lastly came the Saivas. They found the saiva mani- pulation of legends of Brahma too strongly rooted to the legends. be ignored or displaced, so they recast the story, representing Brahma as asking per- mission of their god to perform the sacrifice, and frequently admitting his supremacy during its course. They also identified Siva with some of the most popular objects of worship in Pushkar and the neighbourhood. iqS Hhidiiism. One tradition has been already referred to.' The cell of a holy man called Atmat, or the wanderer, had been an object of superstitious reverence. He was introduced into the leg-end as a servant of Siva, absorbed into him durino- the sacrifice. The name of Atamteshwar, or Lord of Atmat, Avas given to Siva, and a handsome Saiva temple erected over the hermit's cell. Again, at a j^lace not far from Pushkar, there is a rock called Ajogand/ with a mark on it, said to be that of a goat which, on a certain day of the fair, the people had been accustomed to visit and worship. The Saivas laid hold of this, and represented the goat, whose print was on the rock, as a form into which Siva had transformed himself in order to kill a demon. They also represented him as promising to leave his Himalayan home for one day in the year, and to be pre- sent then in that rock — the day of course being that consecrated by popular usage.^ BiSuians ^^ ^^il^ ^^ sccu that the whole object of to assimi- , o , ^ . late. ^ See page 190. s Tlie leaping goat. 9 There are Vaislmava traditions also connected with Pushkar, but these are evidently njore modern, and refer to historical events. Siva Worship., 199 the Brahmans Avas to assimilate^ not in any way to eradicate, ancient religious usages. They seem to have been as compliant with regard to the moral practices of those whom they thus proselytized. In the ^ Lay of Pushkar/ the Gujars are represented as being^ most loose livinof men, but their ad- mission as such seems to be looked on rather as an evidence of the catholicity of the Brahmanical religion. As they were then so they are now, after centuries of Brahmanical supremacy. To the south-east of Ajmer is a district Parihar inhabited by a tribe called the Parihar Minas. An incident in the history of one of their progenitors, according to their pre- sent tradition, has led them to look on the boar as a sacred animal, though this may be a relic of boar worship. When the Maliom- medans came to India, the Minas seem to have confounded their looking on the boar as an unclean animal with their own reg^ard for it as a sacred animal, and to have been induced in some degree to conform to their faith. Their old idol, however, they still 200 Hmdutsm. worsliipj)ed, but gave it the Mahommedan name of Father Adam.-^^ Subsequently the Saiva Brahmans got hold of them. They did not try to persuade them to give up the worship of Father Adam or of the boar, but simply to allow that Father Adam was a name of Siva, and to worship the cow as well as the boar. Temples were erected in their principal villages, and stones placed in them bearing representations of Siva as Father Adam, of a cow and a boar, and inscriptions to the effect : that the Mahom- medans respected the boar and the Hindus the cow, but the true followers of Father Adam respected both ; and if they should neglect the worship of any one of the three, the worship of the other two would not benefit them. There are several Saiva temples in the district in which I heard the Brahmans invoke Mahadeva,^^ and the Minas Father Adam. Moral in- fluence of Here, too, the Brahmanical influence has Brahmans. n •• iii i n n i been pernicious to the customs oi the people. It was an old custom of the Parihars to kill ^° Adam baba. " A name of Siva. Siva Worship. 201 their female infants, the object being, as they said, to avoid the expense of their marriage. But some, who had been more deeply in- structed in priestly lore, assured me that when Father Adam's worship was introduced, one of the Minas, who had been most zealous in promoting it, obtained from the god a promise that his sons should be as numerous as the hairs on his body ; and, as the divine blessing is generally bestowed through means, he further obtained divine permission for the Parihars to kill their daughters, that so the mothers, being relieved from their nursing, might be sooner able to bear sons. Thus, instead of trying to eradicate a cruel and bad custom, the Brahmans gave it a divine sanc- tion. When English officers some forty years ago visited this district, and tried to put down female infanticide, the strongest objec- tion they met with was the command of Father Adam. This propagandism is still active in India. The bmis. In 1868 an attempt was made to Brahmanize the Bhils of the Aravalis. They agreed to obey the Brahmans, to reverence the cow, to 202 Hindtdsm. refrain from eating its fleshy and to refuse to eat and drink with their neighbours the Mairs, with whom they had formerly mingled socially. They were thus erected into a Hindu caste, and their idols were received into the Hindu pantheon. In 1869 the famine began ; they were without food, and v\^ere glad to eat the carcases of their cattle, which were dying. They thus forfeited their new dignity, and apostatized from their new faith. But plenty has now returned, and the attempts to proselytize them are being renewed. These are specimens of how the Saivas have gone to work ; and if the traditions throughout India about Siva and his subor- dinates were examined, they would probably be found to be skilful adaptations of older objects of worship. 12 ^= ' In reviewing tlie state of India during the period which has here heen distinguished as the Brahmanical revival, it is impossible to overlook the ecclesiastical organization of the Brahinans, by which the varied populntions of India have been brought under their influence and authority. In every village and every imj^ortant family a Brahman priest is generally established as a preceptor or Purohita. Again, every sect or district is under the jurisdiction of a Guru, or spiritual head, Siva Worship. 203 In nearly all these cases the old form of ^' worship was still maintained. It is almost "^''^' exclusively among the Saiva sects that the sacrifices of blood, to which I have referred, are offered. But this is accounted for by saying that the god delights in drinking blood and wearing skulls ; thus his worship was accommodated to the demon worship of many of the aboriginal tribes. It is more who maintains its orthodoxy in matters of caste and religion. The Purohita is supported by the viUage or family where he has taken iij) his permanent abode. The Guru is generally engaged in extensive ecclesiastical visitations, during which he levies contributions for the support of himself and his own im- mediate disciples, and confirms the younger Hindus who have attained a suitable age. The missionary operations of the Brahmans are indeed worthy of special study. They have been carried on from time immemorial ; and the process is still going on amongst hill tribes and other remote populations. A Brahman makes his appearance in a so-called aboriginal village, and establishes his influence by an affectation of superior sanc- tity, aided by t^ie fame of his spells, incantations, mystic rites, and astrological predictions. He declares the village idol to be a form of one or other of the go-eat gods or goddesses of the Brah- manical pantheon ; and he professes to teach the true forms of worship. , He divides the villagers into castes and introduces caste laws. In this manner the populations of India have been brought under the spiritual domination of the Brohmans, and the caste system has been introduced into secluded regions in which it was previously unknown.' — Wheeler's Kist. of India, vol. iii. pp. 401,402. Foniis of aiva wor- 204 Hinduism. generally, however, his spouse, under her dif- ferent names, who is thus honoured. As Mata or Devi she is still worshipped by the sacrifice of goats and buffaloes ; as Kali she was formerly worshipped by children being offered to her. As worshippers of her the Thugs were included in the Hindu system ; her command and example were cited to make Sati a religious act. It is chiefly through the worship of these goddesses, and such subordinate gods as Bhairon and Khetrpal, that Siva worship maintains its hold of the populace. His own temples are deserted throughout the year, except on the occasion of festivals, and then they' are thronged chiefly by wandering devotees. Secret Qj^g Qf ^^q worst developments of Sivaism sects. J- is the rise of secret, or as they call themselves left-handed,^^ sects. These are sects that meet in private, when all rules of caste are for the time set aside, and all eat and drink together ; when they meet again in public, caste rules resume their sway. There is reason to believe that in some cases this is only a way of *3 Bahm. Margis. Siva Worship. 205 getting relief from the tyranny of caste ; but in many, if not in the majority, of these sects rules of morality share the same fate as the rules of caste.^* This is especially the case with those called the Saktas, or the wor- shippers of Sakti, the female principle. Some of their holy books, called the Tantras, true to the jDrinciple of Saiva worship, teach a religion of works, but the works they inculcate are violating the laws of sobriety, decency, and truth. The religion of works and hardship leads to as low an abyss as the religion of devotion and ease. ^•^ ' In the Siva cult novices were exposed to every possible allurement and expected to remain unmoved. In the Kali cult nudity was worshipped in Bacchanalian orgies which cannot be described.'—Wheeler. CHAPTEE YI. RECONCILIATION OF THE SECTS. REVIEW OF HINDUISM. Original enmity of ^PHE worship of Vishnu and the worship the sects. _L Qf Q[y^^ then, symbolize originally two opposite, almost antagonistic tendencies of religious thought, — the former regarding Deity as becoming man, with all his imper- fections, and requiring to be served as we serve the mighty of our race, — the latter re- garding man as by his own exertions free- ing himself from all human weaknesses and feelings, and raising himself to the power of the Deity. This antagonism of princij)les produced a frequent hostility be- tween the rival sects, such as can hardly be explained by the external accidents of their systems. There seems little doubt that Vishnu worship was the older among the Aryan castes at all events. We find in it the Reco7iciliation of the Sects. 207 continuity of old Bralinianism better pre- served, and it has altogether a milder character. This mildness is apparent even in its opposition to Buddhism, and, as shown in the story of the ninth incarnation, it was more ready to amalgamate than to oppose. Sivaism, on the other hand, attacked Bud- dhism with the vigour of a newer faith and of a nearer relationship. It animated the kings who fought against Buddhism ; it was the faith of the fire races of the Bajputs, whose arms finally made Brahmanism triumphant. But the Sivas seem originally to have been opposed to the Yaishnavas as much as to the Buddhists. In the older books of the two sects we find the rival gods denounced, Vishnu banning Siva, and Siva banning Vishnu, each excluding his rival's w^orshippers from salvation, and consigning them to hell. The more popular arguments as to the ^q^^J'^v^ superiority of the two gods did not indeed ^^®^' turn so much on the deeper questions of their faith as on some traditional incidents. Thus Krishna may have paid his devotions at some shrine of Siva's, or some shrine 2o8 Hindtcism. afterwards identified with his worship. At all events the Saivas preserve the tradition of Krishna's worshipping Siva, and argue that the latter must therefore be the greater god. The Vaishnavas retort, by telling how Siva was unable to protect a certain wor- shi23per of his from Krishna's anger^ and how Siva, on the evening after his marriage with Parvati, entertained his bride with an ac- count of Vishnu's incarnation as Kama, and worshipped him as the greatest of gods. These and similar legends are bandied about in this theological warfare. Eeconciiia- ^ut by dogrecs this controversy toned tion of the i it i i i. xi sects. down, though what the causes were we can only surmise. It may have been the neces- sity of union for triumph over their common enemies the Buddhists ; or it may have been the influence of the Vedanta philosophy. At all events we find the principles of this philo- sophy used to effect a reconciliation : Siva and Vishnu are both one, works are acts of devotion, and acts of devotion are works. Both gods were the same, adapted under different forms to receive different kinds of Tlie tri- inurti. Rcconciliatmi of the Sects. 209 worship according to different temperaments of men. For popular purposes the union was symboHzed by the heads of both gods, with that of Brahma added, being carved out of the same stone. This constitutes the trimurti — threefold image — the popular trinity of the Hindus. For the pundits this symbolizes the rivals united in the universal Brahm, — the way of devotion and the way of works united in the way of knowledge. More popularly Brahma is called the creator, Vishnu the preserver, Siva^ the destroyer ; they are also spoken of as past, present, and future. Brahma is thus in both cases made a thing of the past, and his worship has almost entirely disappeared from India. As a matter of fact the wor- shippers of Vishnu look on him as creator, and destroyer as well as preserver, and so do the worshippers of Siva look on him. The main fact typified w^as a reconciliation of these two sects. There has often been an analooy drawn ^"^^fZ^ c>J Avitli the Christian ^ In tins form they receive also the names of Hara, Hari, trinity. Har. 2IO Hhiduism. between this Hindu and the Christian trinity, but all that can be said of the former is, that it may have been suggested by the latter. There is a chapter in the history of Hinduism that requires yet to be in- vestigated, and that is the influence of early Christianity upon it. We know that in the first ages of the Church the gospel was preached in India, and that it was not without results the existence of the Malabar Christians sufficiently proves. This tells of a movement, of a struggle of some kind, of which all other traces have passed away, but of which the trace may yet be discovered in the effect it produced on Hindu thought. I doubt, however, whether to this Christian teaching we can trace the Hindu conception of the trimurti, not because it is unlikely, but because it comes too late for us to sup- pose the connection probable. The first in- dication we find of any attempt to set up the trimurti was in Bijaynagar in the begin- ning of the fifteenth century,^ — before the Portuguese had explored the East, and long ^ Lassen, hid, Alt. vol. iv. reconcilia- tion. Reconciliation of the Sects. 2 1 1 after the influence of earlier Christianity must have ceased to affect India. The trimurti was possibly an attempt to ^^\^, °f I^^ ■t^ «/ -I- pantheistic give greater popular unity to the Hindu faith under the pressure of Mahommedan attack, but the metaphysical basis, on which the union of the sects was attempted, shaped itself under the pressure of the struggle with Buddhism, and received its final form in the early part of the thirteenth century, just when the struofale with Mahommedanism was beginning. It was then that Bopadeva wrote the Bhao^avat Purana, which has had more influence on modern Hinduism than any other book. It was written in Sanskrit, but parts of it, especially those relating to the history of Krishna, are translated into most of the modern dialects of India. In it we find the pantheistic doctrine fully developed. Krishna, its hero, is even represented as worshipping Siva, and acknowledging that they were both the same, while Siva acknow- ledges the power of Krishna as superior to his own. It is in it that the various leo^ends of Vishnu have received their final form, and 2 1 2 Hinduism. been explained and justified on those pan- theistic bases which are now accepted generally throughout India. , Summaiy. Sucli IS a brief outline of Hinduism and of the various currents of thought and of super- stition, which seem to have contributed to its formation. I have not given anything like a full account of it, nor have I even hinted at the existence of many of the gods that enjoy a fair degree of popularity. I have merely described the main features of the system. The reader may fill up the sketch with almost anything he pleases, from monotheism to snail worship, from self-denying bene- ficence to rapine and murder, and if he only acknowledge the sanctity of the cow and the superiority of the Brahmans, it will be strangj-e if Hinduism cannot find a niche for it. Vishnu and Siva are the two great rivers leading into the ocean of liberation — the Ganges and Indus of religion — and their subordinate deities may be looked on as their tributaries ; but there may be as many Review of Hinduism. 2 1 3 smaller streams and rills leadinsf to the same o end as men choose to nnaofine. o Review of We may now review the work that Hin- ^j^^ ^^.^^.j^ ^^ duism has done for India. The Brahmanical ^^^^'^^^^^^• revival attacked and conquered Buddhism by laying hold on man's felt need of a superior power, and of all the means of access to it which he had imagined, and adapting them to its own end. We have seen that it took the gods as they were, with all their imperfections and sins, and sought to establish their identity with that universal spirit, or with parts of that universal spirit, which it conceives of as the one existence. Pantheism logically re- quires that good should be correlated with evil, and Indian pantheism avowedly does so. Human passion naturally leads man to ima- gine a superior being tainted with the same vices as himself. When the two meet they confirm one another. Pantheism justifies the sinful idol, and the latter nails j)antheism down to the practical application of its own principles. Hence in all the Hindu con- ceptions of the Deity holiness is not an essential ; evil may also j^roceed from Him, 2 14 Hinduism. and in the popular idols all that is needful is power of a certain kind and to a certain ex- tent. That granted, they may be either angels or devils, patterns of virtue or monsters of vice — the Deity can include both. This is a vice from which Hinduism has never been able to free itself. It has escaped in some instances, as we have seen in the case of Kamanuja and Hamananda, from absolute pantheism. But even Tulsidas, the most popular disciple of the latter and exponent of his system, says, ' I salute everything good, and I salute every- thing evil.' Hindu The Hindus often complain of the bigotry and intolerance of Christianity, and contrast with it the charity and tolerance of Hin- duism. And truly it would be difficult to get a wider charity, a broader tolerance, than is expressed in the above line. But this very breadth deprives it of all power for good, — makes the good powerless to prevent or repress the evil. This is the fatal defect of Hinduism. It does not exclude good, but it refuses to acknowledge its exclusive claim. There are in Hindu books passages of un- Review of Hindinsm. 215 surpassed beauty and purity even, and which one might almost think expressive of the loftiest theistic worship. Yet these passages can influence but little those who read them w^hen they exist alongside of others as vile as these are noble. Nay more, they positively hinder the spread of a pure religion. When the teaching of Christ, for instance, is pre- sented to the Hindus, they acknowledge its purity, and they recognize many of His moral ]3recepts as very like what they have been accustomed to be taught. But tliey have also been accustomed to hear them along with other teaching as different from them as night from day, or in connection with the worship of beinofs Avhose whole lives contradicted them. Of how this may be I have already given one example.^ Thus, for what hold morality may have on their minds they are indebted to the conscience which God has given them — not in any way to their religion. In it morality is non-essential ; and as Buddhism — looked on as a popular system — may be de- scribed as ^morality without God,' so Hin- 3 See ante, p. 162. 2 1 6 Hinduism. duism may be described as ^ God without morality/ Blind faitii Corresponding with this is the principle of duism. the human mind to which Hinduism appeals. We have seen that Hindu philosophy imitates Buddhism in making knowledge the great instrument of salvation. But in the popular religion blind faith takes the place of know- ledge, and the only function ascribed to the latter is to discover how the object of wor- ship, whatever that may be, is one Avith the Supreme. With the majority, however, even this is not necessary. ^ Faith is the great thing' is an axiom that comes naturally to the mouth of a Hindu whenever matters of reli- gion are discussed. Faith in the object of your faith, whatever that may be, is considered the sure way of salvation. No matter how morally bad, no matter how utterly contemp- tible that in which you believe, have faith in it, and you will gain your end. Trust your idol, trust your penances, trust your works, and all will be well. This is a doctrine taught by others besides Hindus, but in the mouth of these latter it has some reason, for it Review of Hinduism. 217 is consistent with their view of the relation of man to God. They do not ignore knowledge altogether, but they give it quite a sub- sidiary place. From this point of view, as Buddhism may be described as a system of ' knowledge without faith/ so Hinduism may be described as a system of ' faith without knowledge/ Thus • has Hinduism spread throughout Effects of Hinduism. India, not as a reformation, but as a conserva- tion. It has taken advantaofe of all existinof superstitions, however gross, immoral and criminal, and supplying all with a philoso- phical basis, has crystallized each into a hardness, and given to the whole a solidarity which makes it now doubly difficult to attack any one of them. It has recognized and vin- dicated the distinctions of class and tribe, freezinof all too-ether instead of fusing* all toofether : makinof different classes of the same village live together with fewer common sympathies and interests than the French and Germans, making patriotism as we understand it an unknown thing, nationality an impossi- bility for the Hindus till Hinduism be swept 2 1 8 Hiizdznsm. from India. The only thing to be said for it is, that it has conserved some good as well as evil. The law of caste is more bindinof than the law of conscience, and where the original custom of a caste has been good, it has been preserved. Many who would not refuse to commit an evil because it is forbidden b}^ God, would refuse because it was forbidden by their caste. Thus the restraints of caste have checked the s|)read of many vices through some classes of society, have enabled them to look on a vice indulged in by others and excuse them for it as being tolerated by their caste, without feeling tempted to indulge in it them- selves. This has given a certain stamina to the Hindus which we do not find in other idola- ters. But the same thinof that thus checks change for evil forbids also change for good. Change is the one point on which Hinduism is intolerant. Let any one ask a Hindu who has been dilatino^ on the intolerance of Chris- tianity and the tolerance of Hinduism, to tolerate one of his caste-fellows practically carrying out his change of belief by change of conduct — acknowledging the one true God Review of Hinduism. 219 by giving up the worship of his caste gods, acknowledging the brotherhood of man by mino'hnor and eatinof with those of other castes, and he will find that he has roused an intoler- ance as fierce and unbending as that of the Spanish Inquisition. Hinduism is essentially a quiescent religion, but it was not to be left undisturbed in its hold in India, and we now proceed to its struggles with other faiths. PART III. HINDUISM AND MAHOMMEDANISM. HINDUISM AND MAHOM- MEDANISM. npHE first hostile faith ^Yith which Hindu- -■- ism had to contend after its triumph over Buddhism was Mahommedanism, and the story of this contest is one of the most remarkable and instructive chapters in the history of religion. The struggle was long and arduous, but the main features may be easily apprehended, and as the chief object of our study is rather the relations of Hinduism to Christianity, I will be brief. Mahommedanism took its rise with the P,^^^ ^^ Maliom- preaching of Mahommed in Arabia in the "ledanisiu. beginning of the sixth century. It was a its prin- strong monotheism, and its brief creed was, ^ There is no God but God, and Mahommed is the prophet of God.' Its founder was acquainted with the Jewish and Christian Scriptures^ and acknowledged them as in- 2 24 Hinduism and MaJiommedanism. spired, but he maintained the superior authority of the Koran, which he was com- missioned to impart to the world. He allowed that Moses and the prophets and Jesus were all prophets sent by God, but he was the last and greatest, and superseded them all. He had in his travels while a young man had occasion to observe the various sects of Christians and the offensive prominence and almost material interpreta- tion that was given to the doctrine of the Trinity, and he denounced that doctrine as an abomination. He likewise denounced not only all image worship, but the making of images for any purpose, as a sin, though he was obliged to give way to the old Arab superstition of worshipping the Kabah at Wayof sal- Mecca. ^ Salvatiou he taug-ht was to be vation. ^ ^ obtained by works, by holding the true faith, by repeating the above creed, by praying ^ This is simply a black stone — possibly an aerolite — that is in the Mosque at Mecca. A learned Maulvi seriously main- tained to me that its worshij^ was not a breach of the second Commandment, on the ground that it was not the likeness of anything in the heaven above, on the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth. The same might be said of nearly all the Hindu idols. Hind7usm and Mahommcdanism. 225 five times daily, by performing daily ablu- tions^ by fasting in the month Ramzan from sunrise to sunset daily, by giving a fortieth of one's goods in charity, by making the pilgrimage to Mecca, and, above all, by dying in war for the propagation of the faith. The morality he inculcated was loose, but it Morality. was an improvement on that of the Arabs among whom he lived. He forbade the use of wine, but he sanctioned polygamy and concubinage. The sinfulness of sin is indeed no part of his system ; repentance, as ex- plained by him, does not imply hatred or renouncement of sin, and this defect becomes more glaring in the teaching of his followers. In Mahommedan theology knowledge takes precedence of holiness, and what we call the fall of man rather raised him in the scale of being, by giving him knowledge.^ God is thus ultimately made the author of sin in man, and this vice taints and weakens the whole system. Its great merit and its great power is its strong assertion of the Unity of God. 2 See Appendix D. P 2 26 Hinduism and Mahommedanism. Mahom-^ At first its progress was slow, and it was medanism. ^^^ ^-jj Maliommed adopted the sword as a means of conversion, till the charms of military enthusiasm and political ascendancy were added to those of poetry and eloquence, that his religion became a jDower. Then it spread with lightning speed. The Arabs, brought by their religion for the first time into the community of nations, and stirred up by their religious enthusiasm to be invincible soldiers, were everywhere victorious. After victory their propaganda was simple enough — to the ' people of the book/ the Christians and Jews, they gave the choice — become Mahommedans or pay tribute ; to idolaters — become Mahommedans or die. A political ascendancy thus accompanied Mahommedan- ism wherever it spread, which proved an irresistible argument for all those whose faith was otherwise weak ; and when they had once joined the profession of Hhe faith- ful,' the charms of war and conquest trans- formed them into zealous propagandists of the new faith. Mahommedanism is a reli- gion of the sw^ord, and has spread almost exclusively by its means. Hinduism and Mahomnicdanism. 227 Shortly after the death of Mahommed the ^f^^-'^'^ o^" 'J M an 0111- Arabs made some nicm^sions into India, but ",f Jq^^/^"^ it was not till the beo^inninof of the eisfhth century that they made any serious attempt on it. In the year 705 a.d. Walid conquered Sind, and in subsequent years his armies advanced as far as the Ganofes. His p-eneral Kasim conquered Gujerat, and attacked Chitor, the capital of Mewar. But here the progress of the victorious Moslem was stayed. They were defeated and driven out of India by Bappa, the founder of the race of kings who to this day sit on the Mewar throne. It was not for a hundred years thereafter that they again attempted its subjugation, and then again they were encountered by the Baja of the same kingdom^ at the liead of the chivalry of India, who flocked to his banner, and, after being defeated twenty-four times, were once more fairly driven out of the land. For a hundred and fifty years again the Mahommedans desisted from serious at- tempts, but, in the beginning of the eleventh century, the celebrated Mahmiid of Ghazni invaded India twelve times, and was every- 2 28 Hinduism a7id Mahommedanism. where victorious, compelling the native princes to submit or driving them from their thrones. He left traces of his victorious progress in the idols he broke and the temples he plundered. But his career was like that of the hurricane, passing through the land but not remainino" in it. Within fifteen years after his death the Hindus had risen under Yisala Deva, king of Ajmer, and driven his successors beyond the Sutledge ; and for a hundred and fifty years longer India remained the Avya vartta, the land of the pure Aryas. It was not till the end of the twelfth century that the victories of Mahommed Ghori established Mahommedan supremacy in India. Cause of 'Thus whilo the Mahommedan power had anceof ' Spread with unmatched rapidity over Syria Maiiom-^ and Persia, along the north of Africa, and into Spain, it for six hundred years failed to overcome the compact resistance offered by India. But the cause of this is not far to seek. In the lands where it first spread, Christianity had sapped the old faiths, and had in its turn been so much contaminated medanism. Hindicism and Mahonimedanism. 229 by tliem that its pristine vigour had decayed. It inspired its followers neither with the tenacity of an ancient faith nor with the enthusiasm of a new one, so that they suc- cumbed easily to the fresh vigour of Islam. In India, on the other hand, Hinduism had just triumphed under the great Brahmani- cal revival. After having, as we have seen, been nearly quenched by Buddhism, it had in its turn risen up and extirpated it from the Peninsula. The Hindus were thus attached to their faith with all the strength which pride in its antiquity and enthusiasm on account of its fresh triumjohs could inspire, and when a head arose to combine the various states, to give unity to their strength and direction to their valour, they proved too strong even for the fanaticism of Islam. But jealousies and rivalries among the Hindu princes, fanned by caste feelings and onS! teaching, produced destructive internecine wars, which left them a prey at last to the Mahommedan invaders. At the end of the twelfth century they had conquered all North India, and their military supremacy was MalioTU- uiedaii 230 Hinduism and Mahonimedanism. established. The Mahommedans had tri- umphed, but Mahommedanism did not. Their first zeal had so far abated, that they admitted idolaters too to the payment of tribute, and this the Hindus were content to pay where they could not throw off the yoke of the oppressor. Many Hindu kings maintained their independence, and made war against the invaders with varying success, till at last the genius of Akbar established the Mahom- medan dominion on a secure basis. ,.^^ Akbar's Tliis basis, however, consisted in deprivingf policy. ' ' X o Mahommedanism of its political privileges. He abolished the tax on infidels, which Hin- dus who would not profess Mahommedanism . had to pay ; and thus made all his subjects equal in the eye of the law, no difference being allowed on account of their relimous creed. He also united himself by marriage with some of the noblest royal houses of India, and thus attached them to his throne. He had no very firm religious creed himself, and set himself with the indifference of a philosopher and the zeal of a politician to assimilate the religious beliefs of his subjects. While indif- Hindicism and Mahoinmedanism. 231 ferent to the special claims of Mahommed, he fostered the lower forms of liis religion, and especially the worship of saints^ — a corruption that had long been gaining ground in Islam. The tombs of saints all over the country were sought out, mosques erected over them, and leo^ends with reg^ard to them invented or ofar- nished up. This policy was so far successful that the Hindus did begin to worship many of their saints, and unite w^th the Mahommedans in paying them reverence on their great fes- tivals. The political result too was obtained in so far as the stability of his own throne was concerned, both creeds uniting to support it, but the effect on Mahommedanism itself was disastrous. Mahommedanism, as a quiescent non-proselytizing religion, could only become corrupt and rotten. The effect of all this policy on the mass of Mahommedans was to deprive their relisrious sentiment of that intolerance which constituted its strenofth. Its moral power was gone when it ceased to be in- tolerant. Yet this policy preserved the Mosful em- Policy of i- 'J ^ o Aurang- pire in its integrity for upwards of a hundred ^'^^* years, till the principle and policy of intoler- 232 Hinduism and Mahonimedanism. ance revived in Aurangzeb. He reimposed the poll-tax on infidels, and thereby again branded all his Hindu subjects with inferiority on account of their religious beliefs. This alienated them, and ultimately drove them into rebellion. He decreed the destruction of idols; and the j)rince of Mewar offered 'the heads of one hundred thousand Kajputs ' for the defence of one of the most popular of these idols, thus making it the symbol of Hindu nationality. The rebellion often seemed crushed, but it maintained itself with the vital- ity which only a struggle for religion could inspire, and imparted in turn a vitality to that religion which only exertion, sacrifice and suf- fering could beget. The Hindus were driven to emulate the intolerance of their opponents, — shaving the Kazis, destroying the mosques, throwing the Korans into wells, and forbid- ding the call to prayer wherever they had power. This gave room for the Mahratta power to rise in the south, — a Hindu power, though based on plunder ; and when Aurang- zeb, the ablest of the Moguls, died, he saw the empire breaking up on every side. In Hindtnsm and MaJiommedanisni. 233 about thirty years it received its death-blow from another Mahommedan power, the Per- sians under Nadir Shah. Thereafter the Hindu states either assumed their old inde- pendence or established new dominions; while the Mahommedan emperor, still their nominal head, became more and more a mere puppet in their hands. Now the last traces of that empire have j)assed away : the last represen- tative of Mahommedan supremacy ended his days a convict in a penal settlement. Of the native princes now in alliance with the British Government, only one or two of any impor- tance are Mahommedans : of the 220 millions who inhabit India, about fifty millions belong to that religion. Of these, about twenty millions in Bengal are the descendants of the lowest class of Hindus, who adopted this faith to gain a higher social standing, and the rest are descendants of the old Patthan and Mogul conquerors. But they are nearly all now in a low social position as compared with the Hindus ; they are more backward in takinof advantao^e of the educationaP and 3 Of twenty-one millions of Mahommedans in Bengal, only twenty-eight thousand attend Government schools. 234 Hinduism and Mahommedanism. other benefits which the British offer, and are sinking lower morally and socially. That is the external history of Mahommedanism in India. Effect of ^^Xurningf to the internal history, the first on Hiu-"^^ inquiry is as to the effect which it has had on duism. Hinduism itself, what modification it has pro- d uced on the faith of the Hinrhi s : and the answer i s, almost none. _ It seems a strange conclusion to come to that a powerful religion like Mahommedanism should have been for six centuries in India, and produced no effect on the belief of the majority of its population. Yet such is undoubtedly the fact. The chief instrument of Mahommedan conversion is the sword : this may produce an outer acquies- cence, it may even ultimately force multitudes to adopt alike the profession and faith of Mahommedanism, but it cannot produce any modification in a hostile faith, least of all could it do so in India. //While war and con- quest and violence were raging about it, Hin- duism was steadily developing itself. * The East bow'd low before the blast, In patient deep disdain ; Hindinsm aiid MaJionnnedaiiism. 235 She let the legions thunder past, And plunged in thought again.' The only difference we can now trace is that the theory and system of Bopa Deva/ which before the Mahommedan conquest was accepted only by the Brahmans, has now per- vaded nearly every caste of Hindus. Take any of the points of difference between Mahomme- danism and Hinduism, and it will be found that in these Hinduism is stronger and more intolerant than it was before its rival appeared in India. Image worship is as general and as devoutly believed in, and caste as tyrannical as before the Mussulman conquerors set their foot in India, while the pantheistic principles on which they are justified are much more extensively diffused. The doctrine of a Supreme God above and beyond Vishnu, Siva, and the other deities, which some have looked upon as the effect of Mahommedan influence, is a result ratlier of Hindu philo- sophy. It was developed before the Mahom- medan s entered India, and even the theistic "• See anU^ p. 211. 236 Hindtiism and Mahommedanism. protest against pantheism was anterior to their conquest.^ S^^effects!' -^^ some of the sects which were developed from the last named movement we no doubt do see the influence of the foreign faith, — most notably in the Kavir Pantis ; but the ad- herents of these sects are comparatively few in number, and they have themselves re- lapsed generally into pantheistic idolatry, from which they could never entirely disen- tangle themselves. The general effect of Mahommedanism on Hinduism has been rather of a deteriorating character. The greater licentiousness of its followers has led to the greater degradation of women among the Hindus. They have not now the same freedom and respect given to them, which the older books of India show they once had, and this change the Hindus attribute to the license of their Mahommedan conquerors. s Raman uja lived certainly not later than tlie beginning of the twelfth century, while the Mahommedan conquest took place at the end of it. If we place Bopa Deva in the thirteenth cen- tury, as Lassen does, we have the remarkal)le fact of panthe- istic idolatry developing and strengthening itself in the face of victorious monotheists. Hind^iism and MaJio^nmedanisin. 237 An indirect effect of this has been the in- crease of these secret sects, which are the greatest stain on modern Hinduism. ^-— ^- - // The bad influence which Hinduism has Effect of r ^ ^ ^ Hinduism experienced from Mahommedanism is no- o" Mahom- -L medauism. thing, however, compared with tlie deteri- orating: influence of Hinduism on Mahom- medanism. It has now desfenerated in most of its adherents in India to be little more than a caste of Hinduism^. They have their caste rules, as strong and as binding as their Hindu brethren. Their priests repeat the verses of the Koran as the Brahmans repeat the hymns of the Vedas, with just as little idea of their meaning. Their worship of Allah — the one God — is a mere form ; their real worship is paid to the saints : oflerings are brought to their tombs, or gifts given to the priests who officiate in the mosques erected in their honour. Their religion is indeed known in India as saint-worship,*^ while that of the Hindus is image-worship,^ and this for the majority of both creeds is the practical difference. Even in this however they are ^ Pir parasti. ' ^ But parasti. 238 Hinduism and Mahojn7nedanism. not exclusive ; the Hindus join cordially in the festivals in honour of some of the greater Mahommedan saints^ and in some places the Mahommedans join in those in honour of Hindu idols. The latter do differ from the former in that they occasionally still attempt to proselytize^ but for the old power of the sword they now use the enticements of marriage. If a Hindu should become enamoured of a Mussulman girl, that is made the means of decoying him away from his former caste and joining her co-religionists, and he gains his wife at the expense of be- coming a Mahommedan, — a change of name and of companions without any change of life, faith, or worship. Present Thcsc two rcligious have thus settled Triumph of dowu bcsidc ouo auothor on terms of mutual Hinduism. charity and toleration. This does not imply any great^hang e or deterioration in Hindu- ism, for its princij)les admit every belief as truth, every religion as a way of salvation. All that it requires is acknowledgment of the same principle from other religions^ and abstinence from efforts at winninof or forcinof Hinduism and Alahommedanism. 239 from it its own adherents. This is the position which Hinduism has practically forced Mahommedanism to assume in India. But such a position is ruinous for the latter religion. When it has lost the power and principle of expansion it must wither and die . What does it avail it that its votaries repeat the formula ' There is no God but God/ when they have no means to force that truth on others ? The Hindus too acknowledge that there is one Supreme Lord, and their idol- worship they believe bears the same relation to their worship of Him as the saint- worship of the Mussulmans does to their w^orship of Allah. Mahommedanism is thus now utterly weak and powerless beside Hinduism, and the longer it accepts this position the weaker must its power become over its own disciples. A Mahommedan revival has indeed been Mahom- going on for some time, but not sufficiently revival. long to enable us to predict its ultimate results. It is mostly a political movement. It does not protest against saint- worship nor aR'ainst caste exclusiveness. It is rather a 240 Hindtiism and Mahommedanism, protest against European enlightenment and civilization. It is directed more against the supremacy of the hated infidel than against the idolatry of the Hindus or the corruptions of the followers of the Prophet themselves. Its object is to inspire the great mass of the Mussulmans with that bigotry and exclusive- ness which Persian and Arabic literature has cherished in the educated few, and to prepare the way for another holy war. But the opportunity of Mahommedanism becom- ing the religion of India has passed. Hindu- ism has vanquished it by the sheer force of inertia. PART IV. HINDUISM AND CHRISTIANITY. er than during the first, though it is on a laro-er number. The increase in the number of foreign mis- sionaries during that period is only nine, while the increase of native ministers is 128. With regard to the character of the Foreign Missionaries, 1851 339 1861 479 1871 488 A ttiticde of Christianity. 307 dred and forty per cent, in twenty years. The very existence of sucli a body dimin- ishes, and as it increases in numbers and influence will completely remove, many of the adventitious difficulties with which Christianity has hitherto had to contend in India. Social persecution will lose much of its terror when it is shared by a community large enough to protect its own interests. If caste does forbid the comminoflinof of Hindu Christians with those who still remain in the religion of their fathers, they are yet much nearer them than are the English, mingle more with them, understand them better, and have a better opportunity of com- mendinof Christianity to them. The native ^ ~ 'J Character Christians of India have no doubt many J^aWve defects, yet they are by their lives better ^^^^'^^^• Native Churcli the only test wliicli statistics can supply is the proportion of commiuiicants. These numbered In 1851 14,661, or 16 per cent, of the total number. „ 1861 24,976, „ 18 „ 1871 52,816, „ 28 The amount raised by Native Christians in 1871 Avas £8473. Since then two new missions have been established by them. — Reiwrt of Allahabad Conference. 3oS Hinduism and Christianity. exponents of Christianity than the majority of the Eno-Hsh in India. Their faults and vices are the faults and vices of their countrymen, and these Christianity does not eradicate in a day. Thus it may well happen that a Hindu, even after he has professed faith in Christ, and proved his sincerity by passing through the terrible ordeal which such a profession involves, will be found inferior in reliability, truthfulness and manliness to an Englishman who makes no such profes- sion, but who has from his infancy, by precept, example and the influence of public opinion, been trained in these virtues. But his faith will ultimately produce a marked change in his character, and raise that of the whole community. Already the Indian Church has produced many noble instances of the power of Christianity, and has been adorned by preachers and scholars, who show what the Hindu in- tellect may accomplish when it is dis- ciplined by Christianity. Some of their works on the religion of their country may claim a place alongside of the best pro- Attihtde of Christianity, 309 ductions of European writers on the same subject.* Another advantage that is gained by the ^^'^l^^^ ^^^^ formation of a church, led by such men, is ^ J^i^^^^ that it removes the charge of Christianity being a foreign faith. Christianity is no more an Enoflish reHg^ion than it is an Indian rehofion, but it has hitherto come be- fore the Hindu as such, and only when a powerful native church has been developed will it cease to appear in that form. There can be no doubt that Christianity will assume in India — must indeed assume if it is to be universally triumphant — an Indian form. If the religion of Christ is a world's religion, it must be capable of assuming the form best suited for each nation of the world. It is absurd to suppose that a race which has shown so strong an individuality, especially so "* Among these, there are two works on Hindu Philosophy available to English readers — both by converted Brahnians. One — Dialogues on Hindu Philosoyhy, by the Rev. K. M. Bannerjea (Triibner & Co.) — is written by the author himself in English that will bear comparison Avith that of the best English writers. The other — Refutation of Hindu Philosophy, by Nehemiah Nilkanth — was written in Hindi, and has had the honour of being translated by Dr. Fitz-Edward Hall. 3 1 o Hindiiisin and Christianity. strong a religious individuality, as the Hindus^ can^ in adopting Christianity, follow closely the European models. To suppose so would be tacitly to allow that Christianity was a European, not a cosmopolitan religion. The countrymen of Buddha and Kapila, of Sankara and Kamanuja, may be trusted in following Christ to follow Him directly, and not merely as interpreted by their European teachers — to say to the latter we will follow you only in so far as you are followers of Christ. That they are already beginning to do so, that they are beginning to take an independent and distinct position, is one of the best proofs that can be given that Chris- tianity may be the religion of India, and the Christian Church a rallying centre of Hindu patriotism. charac- I^ uothiug is the distinctive character of Indian^ ^ Indian Christianity makinof itself more felt tianity. than in its utter impatience of all sectarianism and sectarian formulae. European mission- aries in India, as I have said, regret these, and endeavour to kee|) them in the back- ground as much as possible. But trained up Attitude of Clu^istianity. 3 1 1 as they are in them, closely connected with powerful ecclesiastical organizations at home, whose history and position make their sym- bols indispensable, they have not been able to abandon them. But to Hindu Christians they are an abomination, a source of weak- ness and reproach in the presence of a powerful foe. Both in Culcutta and Bom- bay, setting aside the distinctive articles of the churches represented there, they are band- inof themselves tosf ether in Catholic associa- tions, and they are showing their purpose and life by establishing undenominational missions among their heathen fellow-country- men. This is the most hopeful outcome of Indian missions yet. These associations will be the germs of the future Church of India, and wdll give to it its distinctive character. That it can be creedless is impossible, but its creed will be a definition of Christianity against the foes it has actually to fight, asfainst Hinduism and Mahommedanism, not against European speculations and errors that have been slain centuries ago. In such a result the Churches of Great Britain and 312 Hmduism and Clu^istianity. America should rejoice. There is abundance of work for them yet, and there will be for many years to come a need for them to have their missionary societies carried on under • their distinctive organizations. But if their object be to introduce to India, not a dis- tinctive form of worship, or system of church government, but Christianity, they will rejoice to see a church developing there which will take the work out of their hands, and by aiding which they may best promote the great end which they have in view. Encourage- Lookiuof forward to this, there is a call to all nieuts to c> ^ K!l^,?o^*^ Christians of Great Britain and America to ?nndia.^ do morc for India than they have done. Five hundred missionaries, even backed as they are by two hundred native agents, are scarcely . adequate to produce an impression on up- wards of two hundred millions of people. Had they been obliged in despair to abandon the enterprise of converting that nation to Christ, it would have been a result not to be wondered at. Instead of this, what do we find, — a native church already numbering A ttititde of Chrisliaftiiy. 3 1 3 upwards of two hundred thousand, only one to a thousand Hindus mdeed, but doubling itself in fifteen years, — a rate of progress which, if continued, would make India Christian within two centuries, — less time than it took to make it Buddhist ; — and that church is showing a vitality which proves that it will continue to exist even if it be cut off from the support of Christian nations ; that it will be triumphant if these do their duty by it. If ever there was a time when the churches of Great Britain were en- couraged by past experience and present prospects to strain every nerve to win India for Christ, the present is that time. Difficulties and hindrances, though still great and many, are surely disappearing. Those principles of human nature wdiich Hinduism has ignored are surely asserting their sway to its overthrow, and the past religious history of India points to Christ as its only jDossible completion. These principles are consciousness and Hinduism -»■ ^ opposed to conscience. The former bears witness to our Jj^tur^ own personality, the latter to the paramount 314 Hindicism and Christianity. claims of what is good. Man does not re- member ever having been born before, and refuses to accept a responsibility for what he cannot remember having done. The pundits do indeed speak of the delusion which maya has throAvn over man's spirit, but this is only a flimsy shield to protect their theory from the constantly recurring attacks of man's own consciousness. It can be effective only so long as he chooses to accept the dictum of others on a point on which his own ex- perience is quite as much entitled to credit. In like manner, however philosophy may teach superiority or indifference to good and evil as the summit of human attainment, — however priests may exhibit monsters defiled by every sin as mediums to the winning of final bliss, the conscience which the true God has implanted in man bears testimony to His displeasure against sin, and His delight in holiness. These two great principles still do exist in the Hindus, — antidotes to the subtle pantheistic poison which has for ages been circulating through their national life. These are the auxiliaries to which we have resort A ttitude of Christianity. 3 1 5 in pressing on tliem the religion of Jesus. In recallinir tliem to their manhood we are calUng them to Christianity. The past religious history of the Hindus, Theiustory too, points to Christ as its only possible com-