THE RELIGIOUS 
 QUEST OF INDIA 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 J. N. FARQUHAR, M.A. 
 
 LITERARY SECRETARY, NATIONAL COUNCIL OF YOUNG MEN'S 
 CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS, INDIA AND CEYLON 
 
 AND 
 
 H. D. GRISWOLD, M.A., PH.D.
 
 VOLUMES IN PREPARATION 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS LITERA- 
 TURE OF INDIA. 
 
 THE RELIGION OF THE 
 RIG VEDA. 
 
 THE VEDANTA 
 
 HINDU ETHICS 
 
 BUDDHISM 
 
 JAINISM 
 
 ISLAM IN INDIA 
 
 By J. N. FARQUHAR, M.A. 
 
 By H. D. GRISWOLD, M.A., 
 PH.D. 
 
 By A. G. HOGG, M.A., Chris- 
 tian College, Madras. 
 
 By JOHN MCKENZIE, M.A., 
 Wilson College, Bombay. 
 
 By K. J. SAUNDERS, M.A., 
 Literary Secretary, National 
 Council of Y.M.C.A., India 
 and Ceylon. 
 
 By Mrs. SINCLAIR STEVENSON, 
 M.A., D.Sc., Rajkot, Kath- 
 iawar. 
 
 By H. A. WALTER, M.A., 
 Literary Secretary, National 
 Council of Y.M.C.A., India 
 and Ceylon.
 
 EDITORIAL PREFACE 
 
 THE writers of this series of volumes on the variant forms 
 of religious life in India are governed in their work by two 
 impelling motives. 
 
 I. They endeavour to work in the sincere and sympathetic 
 spirit of science. They desire to understand the perplexingly 
 involved developments of thought and life in India and dis- 
 passionately to estimate their value. They recognize the 
 futility of any such attempt to understand and evaluate, 
 unless it is grounded in a thorough historical study of the 
 phenomena investigated. In recognizing this fact they do no 
 more than share what is common ground among all modern 
 students of religion of any repute. But they also believe that 
 it is necessary to set the practical side of each system in living 
 relation to the beliefs and the literature, and that, in this 
 regard, the close and direct contact which they have each had 
 with Indian religious life ought to prove a source of valuable 
 light. For, until a clear understanding has been gained of the 
 practical influence exerted by the habits of worship, by the 
 practice of the ascetic, devotional or occult discipline, by the 
 social organization and by the family system, the real impact 
 of the faith upon the life of the individual and the community 
 cannot be estimated ; and, without the advantage of extended 
 personal intercourse, a trustworthy account of the religious 
 experience of a community can scarcely be achieved by even 
 the most careful student. 
 
 II. They seek to set each form of Indian religion by the side 
 of Christianity in such a way that the relationship may stand 
 out clear. Jesus Christ has become to them the light of all 
 their seeing, and they believe Him destined to be the light of 
 
 a 2
 
 IV 
 
 the world. They are persuaded that sooner or later the age- 
 long quest of the Indian spirit for religious truth and power 
 will find in Him at once its goal and a new starting-point, and 
 they will be content if the preparation of this series contri- 
 butes in the smallest degree to hasten this consummation. 
 If there be readers to whom this motive is unwelcome, they 
 may be reminded that no man approaches the study of a 
 religion without religious convictions, either positive or nega- 
 tive : for both reader and writer, therefore, it is better that 
 these should be explicitly stated at the outset. Moreover, 
 even a complete lack of sympathy with the motive here 
 acknowledged need not diminish a reader's interest in follow- 
 ing an honest and careful attempt to bring the religions of 
 India into comparison with the religion which to-day is their 
 only possible rival, and to which they largely owe their pre- 
 sent noticeable and significant revival. 
 
 It is possible that to some minds there may seem to be 
 a measure of incompatibility between these two motives. 
 The writers, however, feel otherwise. For them the second 
 motive reinforces the first : for they have found that he who 
 would lead others into a new faith must first of all understand 
 the faith that is theirs already, understand it, moreover, 
 sympathetically, with a mind quick to note not its weaknesses 
 alone but that in it which has enabled it to survive and has 
 given it its power over the hearts of those who profess it. 
 
 The duty of the editors of the series is limited to seeing that 
 the volumes are in general harmony with the principles here 
 described. Each writer is alone responsible for the opinions 
 expressed in his volume, whether in regard to Indian religions 
 or to Christianity.
 
 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 BY 
 
 NICOL MACNICOL, M.A., D.Lrrr. 
 
 HUMPHREY MILFORD 
 
 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 LONDON EDINBURGH GLASGOW NEW YORK 
 
 TORONTO MELBOURNE BOMBAY 
 
 1915
 
 PREFACE 
 
 THE greater part of this book was submitted as a thesis for 
 the degree of Doctor of Letters of the University of Glasgow. 
 As it is now published it has been considerably enlarged, 
 several chapters having been added. In its preparation I 
 have not had the advantage of consulting Sir Ramkrishna 
 Gopal Bhandarkar's detailed treatment of most of the subject 
 in his Vaisnavism, Saivism and Minor Religions Systems, 
 which appeared a year ago. By that time the manuscript was 
 already complete, and it was only possible to make use of this 
 work in one or two footnotes. That is the more to be regretted as 
 this is a subject on which no one can speak with such authority 
 and such knowledge as this venerable scholar, who is himself 
 an adherent of the school of bhakti. No one who knows 
 'Dr. Bhandarkar', as his friends still prefer to call him, could 
 treat with anything but deep respect a religious movement of 
 which at its highest he may be said to be the representative. 
 
 I desire to acknowledge with much gratitude the assistance 
 given in the preparation of this volume by Mr. J. N. Farquhar, 
 one of the editors of the series to which it belongs. Were it 
 not for the guidance that his wide knowledge of all aspects of 
 Indian religion has afforded, the defects of this book would be 
 still greater than they are. He has also by the pains he has 
 taken in the correction of the proofs done much to bridge the 
 wide interval that lies in this case between the author and 
 the printer. 
 
 N. M. 
 
 POONA, INDIA. 
 
 October, 1914. 
 
 2004648
 
 TO MARGARET
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 INTRODUCTION pp. 1-5 
 
 i 
 
 PART I. HISTORY 
 
 CHAPTER I. THE THEISM OF THE RIG VEDA 
 
 Sense in which this religion can be described as Theism. Its con- 
 ceptions necessarily those of a primitive age. Difficulty of determining 
 the chronology of the Hymns and the causes and course of the develop- 
 ment of their religious ideas. Varuna. His Hebraic character and 
 moral greatness. A religion of nature passing into a religion of spirit. 
 Varuna and the rita. The fall of Varuna and the victory of Pantheism 
 over Theism. Hindrances to Theism in the Indian spirit. Contrast with 
 Greece. Signs of the pantheistic tendency in Vedic polytheism. 
 Henotheism. ' Polytheistic Pantheism.' The influence of philosophy. 
 The way of abstraction ending in Agnosticism .... pp. 7-24 
 
 CHAPTER II. THEISTIC ELEMENTS IN THE POPULAR 
 RELIGION IN THE PERIOD OF THE BRAHMANAS 
 AND THE UPAN ISADS 
 
 The change from the Vedic to the Brahmanic period. The difficulty 
 of rinding anything that can be called theistic here. The fetichism and 
 demonolatry of the Atharvan. Its relation to the higher religion of the 
 Rig Veda. The Brahmanas aristocratic and priestly in character. The 
 rise of Visnu and his relation to devotional religion. The connexion of 
 sun gods and vegetation gods with such religion. Visnu and the hope of 
 immortality. Visnu as a deliverer of mankind from distress. The origin 
 and universality of the feeling of bhakti, Vasudeva and Krisna. Con- 
 jectures as to the origin of Krisna worship. The identification of 
 Vasudeva-Krisna with Visnu by means of avatdras . . . pp. 25-41 
 
 CHAPTER III. THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS 
 
 The Upanisads largely antagonistic to the sacerdotalism of the 
 Brahmanas, but not necessarily anti-Brahmanical. Nor are they necessarily
 
 xii CONTENTS 
 
 opposed to the Bhagavata religion. The monistic tendency of Indian 
 religious thought. The conflicting religious currents of this period. In 
 those Upanisads where the speculative interest is less than the practical 
 one of deliverance, theistic ideas are to be found more clearly expressed. 
 The earlier Upanisads. Tests of the Theism of the Upanisads. (i) Is 
 the world real ? The doctrine of mayd unknown to the Upanisads. The 
 universe is a reality produced and sustained by Brahman. But reality 
 is reached by a process of abstraction. (2) Is the means to attaining 
 Brahman an unethical knowledge ? Excessive intellectualism opposed 
 to Theism. Tendency of the Upanisads in this direction, but knowledge 
 often includes ethical elements. (3) Does union with Brahman mean 
 absorption ? Statements of seers not to be interpreted too literally. Not 
 Pantheism but Mysticism pp. 42-61 
 
 CHAPTER IV. THEISM WITHIN BUDDHISM 
 
 Theistic elements to be found even within Jainism and Buddhism. 
 In Jainism they are few and feeble. The search for deliverance. Visnuite 
 elements in Buddhism. Its practical and non-metaphysical character. 
 Its ethical character. Its asceticism a discipline. In those respects it is 
 theistic and makes room for faith. The place of Buddha in Buddhism. 
 Buddhism as a phase of Hinduism. Its doctrine of the ' mean ' and of 
 grace pp. 62-74 
 
 CHAPTER V. THE THEISM OF THE BHAGAVADGITA 
 
 The unique position of the Gita in Indian Theism. The question of 
 its date and growth. It is comprehensive in its character. Two theistic 
 streams unite in it. Its teaching not systematic. The immanent God 
 brought into relation with men. The relation of a personal God to 
 karma. The doctrine of grace. Works that do not fetter. The doctrines 
 of grace and faith also in the Awakening of Faith in the Mahay ana. 
 The teaching of both books springs from a common need . pp. 75-85 
 
 CHAPTER VI. THEISM DURING THE MAHABHARATA 
 
 PERIOD 
 
 The 'jungle of the Mahabharata*. The rival gods of the Epic. The 
 forces opposed to Theism. Its association with Visnu. The avatara 
 idea. Methods of linking up the gods. The doctrine of the grace of 
 God. Yoga. Its alliance with bhaktl. The easy compromises of the 
 Mahabharata not sufficient pp. 86-95
 
 CONTENTS xiii 
 
 CHAPTER VII. THE THEISM OF THE VEDANTA SUTRAS 
 AND OF RAMANUJA 
 
 What the Sutras are. Their obscurity. Sankara's exposition of 
 them. Ramanuja. His predecessors. Yamunacarya. Characteristics 
 of Ramanuja's Vaisnavism. His theology based on the Vedanta. 
 Brahman as the 'embodied' soul. His doctrines of God and man leave 
 room for Theism. His teaching in regard to karma and the persistence 
 of personality after release. The Creator and karma. His incarnations 
 and manifestations. The Tengalai and Vadagalai schools . pp. 96-111 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS 
 
 Madhva. The influence of his teaching. Ramananda. Tulsl Das. 
 The Indian Theistic reformation. Its limitations and its weakness. The 
 'name'. The Maratha saints: Jimnesvar, Namdev, Tukaram. Character 
 of this movement. Vallabhacarya. Nimbarka. The influence of the 
 Vallabha sect. The Sahajia cult in Bengal. Caitanya. The emotionalism 
 of his sect. Mlra Bai pp. 112-34 
 
 CHAPTER IX. KABIR AND NANAK 
 
 The new element in Indian religion. Kabir. The character of his 
 teaching. Its opposition to Hinduism and its monotheism. The need of 
 mediation. His doctrine of sabda and its meaning. His doctrine of the 
 gtiru. Kabir as the chief guru. Rites of initiation and communion. 
 Nanak and the Sikhs. His life. Hindu and Muhammadan elements in 
 his teaching. The transcendence and unknowableness of God. The 
 mediation of the guru and the name. The guru as God. The Granth 
 Saheb. Guru Govind. Nanak as a reformer. The Udasls and Nirmalas. 
 The AkalTs. Other Sikh sects. Dadu and the Dadu Panthls. The 
 Baba Lalls. The Caran DasTs. The Sivanarayams . pp. 135-59 
 
 CHAPTER X. S'lVA BHAKTI 
 
 The repulsive character of Siva. The origin of the god. The 
 Svetasvatara Upanisad. Saivism associated with bhakti. Saivism in 
 the Mahabharata. Saivism in South India. The Saiva Siddhdnta. 
 Its sources. The Agamas. Its doctrines. The grace of Siva. The 
 aivite saints and poets. Manikka-vasagar. The unknowable has drawn 
 near. ' The black-throated one.' The influence of the Gita. The 
 Sivavakyar. The Vlra Saivite or Lingayat movement. Its failure. 
 
 pp. 160-79
 
 xiv CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER XI. THE 3AKTA SECT 
 
 A parallel growth in Saivism to erotic Vaisnavism. Its relation to 
 aboriginal ideas and worships. The worship of female deities. This 
 type of worship within Buddhism. Its relation to the cult of the Un- 
 manifested. Its relation also to deep-seated human instincts and 
 passions. Poison as the antidote for poison. Its relation to Yoga and 
 Sahkhya. Sexual ideas predominate throughout . . pp. 180-89 
 
 PART II. THEOLOGY 
 
 The later, more reflective period to be dealt with. The change from 
 Vedic to more specifically Hindu religion. The mystical speculation of 
 the Upanisads. Its abstract and intellectual character. Is God here 
 immanent or transcendent ? Ambiguous answer of the mystical writers 
 of the Upanisads. Impersonal character of much of India's spiritual 
 history. The doctrine of avatdras. The ethics of the Bhagavadgttd. 
 Its theology. The ambiguity of its teaching. Its final goal. The 
 meaning of bhakti and Bhagavat. Ramanuja's theology. Bhakti and 
 prapatti. Madhva's Dvaita system. The Suddhadvaita system of 
 Vallabhacarya. The Ramanandls and the Nimbarka sect. The oandllya 
 and Narada Sutras. 
 
 The Saiva Siddhanta. Its conception of a purpose of deliverance as 
 governing the relation of God and the universe. Its theological breadth. 
 The popular movements not theological. Bhakti in the later poets 
 becoming moralized. Its ability to overcome the power of transmigration 
 and of caste pp. 190-219 
 
 PART III. CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 
 
 Christianity as the standard of comparison. Parallelisms between 
 
 1 Indian Theisms and Christianity. The karma and transmigration theory 
 
 as the differentia of Indian thought pp. 220-25 
 
 I. The place of God alongside of karma. The effect of this doctrine 
 on Theism. Similar problem in the relation of Christianity to the laws 
 of nature. The attempt of the Saiva Siddhanta to solve the problem. 
 
 pp. 225-9 
 
 II. The relation of the free ethical activity of Theism to the legalism of 
 the karma doctrine. The way of escape in the Gitd from the bondage of 
 karma. The karma bondage and the bondage of law as described by
 
 CONTENTS xv 
 
 St. Paul. God as a centre of negation. The imperfectly ethical 
 character of the karma doctrine. It cannot enter into the full kingdom 
 of Theism. Freedom as the note of a fully ethical Theism . pp. 229-36 
 
 III. The question of the deliverance of the fettered soul. Deliverance 
 from the world as the end rather than union with God. Righteousness 
 as normative in Christian Theism. Absence of a moral ideal in Indian 
 Theism. Law not taken up into the divine personality. Legal penalty 
 and the chastisement of a Father. The domination of the karma- 
 transmigration doctrine. The emancipated soul as God . pp. 237-42 
 
 IV. The excessive intellectualism of Indian religion. The way of 
 abstraction. Its aristocratic character. Indian religious thought not 
 ethical but ontological. The ethical path to God. Indian passivity. 
 Christian Theism a ' gospel of salvation by joy "... pp. 242-7 
 
 V. 7^<? reaction from intellectualism to excessive emotionalism. Theism 
 enlists the emotions on the side of righteousness. Many bhakti religions 
 strong in their appeal to the heart. Danger of uncontrolled emotionalism. 
 The emotion in Indian Theisms creating its own object. A religion of 
 feeling needs an ideal realized in a person. That is supplied in Christianity 
 by Jesus Christ. How He differs from Krisna and Rama. The tales of 
 divine grace and their authenticity. Grace and holiness to be reconciled 
 in God. How this is done in the Cross of Christ. The service of God 
 as service of man ........ pp. 247-60 
 
 VI. Other aspects of the Indian Theisms. The longing for communion 
 with God. The Eternal must be manifested in time. The easy tolerance 
 of Indian Theism. Its failure in relation to polytheism, idolatry, and 
 caste. The fundamental difference between them and Christianity lies 
 in its possession of Christ. Summary . pp. 260-67 
 
 APPENDIXES 
 
 A. Historical Table pp. 268-9 
 
 B. Ekanath (sixteenth century) on Bhakti .... pp. 270-1 
 
 C. The Alleged Indebtedness of Indian Theism to Christianity pp. 272-9 
 
 D. The Manbhau Sect pp. 280-1 
 
 E. Bibliography pp. 282-4 
 
 INDEX pp. 285-92
 
 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 
 
 S. B. E. Sacred Books of the East. 
 J. R.A.S. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. 
 E. R. E. Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics. 
 R. V. Rig Veda. 
 A, V. Atharva Veda. 
 Sat. Brah. Satapatha Brahmana. 
 Taitt. Sam. Taittirlya Samhita. 
 Ait. Aran. Aitareya Aranyaka. 
 Brihad. Up. Brihadaranyaka Upanisad. 
 Chand. Up. Chandogya Upanisad. 
 Suet. Up. Svetasvatara Upanisad. 
 Mund. Up. Mundaka Upanisad. 
 Mbh. Mahabharata. 
 Bhag. Bhagavadgita. 
 Ved. Sut. Vedanta Siltras, 
 Hopkins, R. I. Hopkins, Religions of India. 
 Earth, R. I. Earth, Religions of India. 
 Ind. Ant. or I. A. Indian Antiquary. 
 
 Poussin, Opinions. Poussin, Bouddhisme, Opinions sur FHistoire de 
 la Dogmatique. 
 
 Suzuki. Suzuki, Awakening of Faith in the Mahay ana. 
 
 D. C. Sen. D. C. Sen, History of Bengali Language and Literature. 
 
 Westcott. Westcott, Kablr and the Kablr Panth. 
 
 Macauliffe. Macauliffe, The Sikh Religion. 
 
 Trumpp. Trumpp, The Adi Granth,
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 INDIA has always been recognized as so determinedly pan- 
 theistic in its religious thought that ' Indian Theism' will seem 
 to many an unnatural collocation of words. There are some, 
 no doubt, who will maintain that whatever can be so described 
 is really foreign to the Indian spirit and must be credited to 
 Christian or Muhammadan influences. Were this the case the 
 study of the course of the theistic development in India would 
 lose much of its interest and value. A closer acquaintance 
 with the facts will show, however, that Indian religion has had 
 a far wider range of expression than is here suggested. The 
 spirit of no people certainly not that of the Indian races can 
 be summed up in a single formula. Theism, no doubt, assumes 
 various aspects in various environments and as it passes 
 through various minds. For that reason it will be found in 
 India always to bear certain characteristic marks that deter- 
 mine it as Indian. But while that is the case it can hardly be 
 denied that what can be definitely described as theistic is both 
 ancient in the land and indigenous to the soil. It might 
 indeed be maintained, were this the appropriate place to do so, 
 that the common heart and conscience of mankind everywhere 
 has in it the promise and potency of such a religious attitude. 
 Without controversy, there are certain profound needs and 
 longings of the heart which a faith in a personal God would 
 seem alone to satisfy, while we are conscious at the same time 
 of the fact that the demand of reason in us is steadily 
 advancing simultaneously towards a conviction of the ground 
 of the universe as one. We shall accordingly find at all 
 periods of the Indian religious development certain elements 
 in it which, far off as they often are from what we understand 
 
 B
 
 2 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 by the Theism of Western theologians and philosophers, yet 
 can justly claim to share with them that designation. 
 
 Those cults and systems, often embryonic, often fragmen- 
 tary, appear sometimes as efforts of revolt from the cere- 
 monialism or the intellectualism of the official religion. In 
 such cases they have their roots in popular piety ; and generally, 
 when the wave of religious emotion has spent itself, they sink 
 back to assume their place among a multitude of scarcely 
 distinguishable sects. The fact that Indian Theism so often 
 has this source renders the task of its historian particularly 
 difficult. Piety seldom expresses itself in the literature and 
 the language of the learned and in early India practically the 
 only literature that has survived is that which makes use of the 
 learned language and piety often attracts so little attention 
 as to obtain no permanent recognition. It most often 
 establishes itself in the hearts of the common people ; and it 
 may not infrequently be deepest where it is most inarticulate. 
 In India especially, so barren in historical records, it is 
 difficult to be sure of the character of some of those ancient 
 movements of religious emotion or to estimate their influence. 
 With the more intellectual Theism which has formulated itself 
 in the systems of the philosophers it is easier to deal, though 
 here too the setting of the ideas there expressed, the extent to 
 which they lived in men's hearts and controlled their lives, 
 remains obscure. As a matter of fact Theism, whether it 
 springs from a root of simple piety or has reached self- 
 consciousness in a formulated theology, always bears so close 
 a relation to the lives of those who profess it that its value can 
 only be rightly estimated by the help of its historical context 
 It is essentially a personal and experimental religion, and for 
 that reason the obscurity of India's past renders the task of 
 any one who seeks to trace the course of Indian Theism and to 
 appreciate its influence a peculiarly difficult one. Even the 
 main highway of the Indian religious development often loses 
 itself in the wilderness. How much harder, therefore, it must 
 be to endeavour to follow the innumerable bypaths, the jungle
 
 INTRODUCTION 3 
 
 tracks, of theistic devotion, now swallowed up in the dense 
 undergrowth of polytheism, now lost in the pantheistic desert. 
 We may be able to find in the obscure beginnings of a cult, 
 now hopelessly idolatrous, in the suggestion of some ceremonial, 
 or in a fragment of ancient song, traces of the claims that the 
 heart once made to know God in a personal communion, 
 demands of a living conscience in the face of formalism and 
 insincerity. These will form the chief materials out of which 
 the popular theistic faith will have to be reconstructed. The 
 task of piecing together from a shadowy past such hints of 
 what we are seeking is no easy one and gives room for much 
 difference of opinion. It should not, however, be unprofitable, 
 nor without its suggestions for a fuller comprehension of what 
 Theism implies, to follow its wayward course as far as we are 
 able to discern it and to note its reactions in the peculiar 
 Indian environment. 
 
 It may indeed be questioned how far the name Theism is 
 appropriate to describe some of the worships and some of the 
 speculations which will come within our purview. It is true, as we 
 shall find, that few, if any, of the popular cults are free from the 
 taint of polytheism and idolatry. It is true also that in India 
 especially it is difficult to demarcate the boundaries of Theism 
 and Pantheism, to say that here one ends and the other begins. 
 The unity of God and the reality of moral relations, the pos- 
 sibility of a fellowship between the Deity and his worshippers 
 which never passes into unconscious absorption, man's freedom 
 and his immortality, these we may believe to be essential to 
 Theism and to follow inevitably from it. But at the same 
 time we may have implicit Theisms, efforts of the spirit in its 
 direction, which have not reached and may never reach full 
 self-consciousness and yet to which the name need not be 
 refused. We cannot decide by any a priori rule what should 
 be admitted to our survey and what excluded from it. It will 
 be possible for us, however, after the whole field, with what- 
 ever it has to present to us whether we have to pronounce it 
 good or bad, the product of the crude emotions of the half- 
 
 B 3
 
 4 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 civilized or of a super-refined intellectual subtlety has been 
 surveyed, to judge of the value of India's efforts after a theistic 
 faith in the light of such a fully articulated Theism as 
 Christianity. Many of these efforts have proved, as we shall 
 find, abortive. Something in the Indian atmosphere or in the 
 Indian spirit seems again and again to thwart them. Why 
 this is so we shall have to endeavour to explain ; and it will be 
 best explained by a comparison of the Indian theistic develop- 
 ment in its waywardness and in its results with the fully 
 ethical Theism of the Christian religion. Christianity provides 
 the standard against which the products of Indian reflection 
 and devotion can most suitably be measured. 
 
 The one limitation that it seems advisable to place upon our 
 study is that it be confined as far as possible to phases of 
 theistic religion which are genuinely Indian. Here again it 
 will often be difficult to determine what to include and what 
 to exclude. It is impossible to disentangle the foreign 
 elements from those that are purely indigenous in many of 
 the movements of Indian religious life. When Muhamma- 
 danism invaded the country, and still more when Christianity 
 appeared at a later date, supported by all the authority and 
 prestige of Western civilization, the Indian spirit, however 
 deeply rooted in its own soil, and however tenacious of 
 its own peculiar characteristics, could not but be greatly 
 influenced. And such influence tended naturally to strengthen 
 the movement towards a definitely monotheistic Theism 
 and to weaken whatever elements in it were peculiarly 
 Indian. The more the religion has been thus de-Indianized, 
 the more our interest in it diminishes ; for it is with Indian 
 Theism that we are here concerned. We shall accordingly 
 exclude entirely from our study the theistic movements of the 
 nineteenth century. Our purpose is to learn how far theistic 
 worships have actually emerged in the past from the specifically 
 Indian spirit and in what forms they have so emerged. We 
 wish to know whether that spirit has any contribution to make 
 to the interpretation of theistic religion, and especially what
 
 INTRODUCTION 5 
 
 points of contact it may have found in its past with the 
 Christian religion, and whether means may be discovered for 
 a fuller reconciliation between it and that supreme theistic 
 faith. First in our treatment of the subject will come an 
 account, mainly historical, of the successive efforts in the 
 direction of Theism which mark the whole course of the 
 development of Indian religion from the Vedic to the Muham- 
 madan period. This historical narrative will be followed by 
 some account of the theology which, whether articulated into 
 a system or only partially conscious of itself, lay behind the 
 cultus and the experience. The record of the theistic facts will 
 thus be succeeded by a survey of the theistic idea, the account 
 of the manifold aspects of theistic life and faith by a presenta- 
 tion of the thought which was implicit in it and which 
 endeavoured to explain it. Finally an attempt will be made 
 to frame an appreciation of the value of this religious move- 
 ment and its results by means of a comparison of it with the 
 normative ethical Theism of Christianity.
 
 PART I. HISTORY 
 
 THE THEISM OF THE RIG VEDA 
 
 WHEN one speaks of the Theism of the Rig Veda, it need 
 hardly be explained that one uses the word with less than the 
 full-orbed meaning that it bears for us to-day. There has 
 been much controversy among scholars as to whether these 
 poems are expressions of the religious consciousness of a 
 primitive people, nai've utterances of the fears and hopes and 
 fancies of the natural man, or whether they represent an 
 advanced stage of civilization and embody the matured results 
 of long reflection on the meaning of the world. But which- 
 ever of those views one inclines to, or whatever other con- 
 ception one may form of the stage of culture of the Aryans of 
 the Vedic age, it is obvious that the religion of which those 
 hymns are the utterance cannot be described as strictly 
 theistic or monotheistic in the sense in which to-day we 
 understand those words. No single word, indeed, can repre- 
 sent the whole field of religious conjecture that finds ex- 
 pression within the limits of that collection. Theism we 
 generally understand to connote at least three things : first, 
 belief in God as a spiritual Being ; second, the faith that His 
 power is sufficient to secure that at the last the good will 
 conquer ; and third, a conception of the nexus that binds 
 together God and His worshippers as mainly moral. But all 
 this one does not expect to discover fully articulate in that 
 early age. When one looks for Theism within the many-hued 
 complexity of the dreams and fancies of those ancient poets 
 it is not with the idea of finding more than an approximation,
 
 8 THE THEISM OF THE RIG VEDA 
 
 in this direction and in that, to what the term has come to 
 signify to the developed thought of modern times. 
 
 That the conceptions of a later day are necessarily higher 
 than those of a primeval people need not be maintained ; but 
 they are likely to be more fully elaborated and more conscious 
 of their implications. Religion has been defined in many and 
 conflicting fashions, but one description of it embodies what 
 is certainly a feature that is practically universal in all the 
 various modes of its expression. It has been described as 
 'the highest form of man's consciousness of himself in his 
 relation to all other things and beings.' If that be so, then 
 when man views himself as one of a narrow kinship, when 
 the tie of blood is the one bond of union in his society, it is 
 impossible that he should reach the full theistic faith in a God 
 who is the one guide and guardian of the whole race of men. 
 The more limited his view of the social unity of which he is 
 a member, the narrower will be his thought of God. The 
 less we comprehend our own personality in the richness of its 
 moral meaning, the less possible is it for us to climb from it 
 to a right conjecture of the supreme Personality of which ours 
 is but a pale reflection. Certainly knowing more of the world 
 in which we live and of the race to which we belong than our 
 Aryan ancestors, realizing as they could not the fibres and 
 filaments that bind all races and all peoples in one wide human 
 brotherhood, we by consequence know what we are better 
 than they could, and therefore should have an ampler thought 
 of God. In these and other ways it is a necessity of nature 
 that any theistic conceptions that may have dawned upon the 
 authors of those Hymns should be narrower and less fully 
 moralized than those of the Theism of a later and a more 
 fully instructed age. We should not look in the Vedic 
 Hymns for that which it is in no wise possible we should find 
 there, nor should we therefore blame them for its absence. 
 Of religion, certainly it is true whether or not it be true as 
 well, as William James maintains, of philosophy that ' it is 
 more a matter of passionate vision than of logic ', and it is
 
 THE THEISM OF THE RIG VEDA 9 
 
 the vision of an unsophisticated age, the intuitions of seers to 
 whom nature and the unseen world were alike near and vivid, 
 that one looks for and finds in those ancient poems. Glimpses 
 we can discern in them of a God rising out of nature and 
 transcending it, sudden vistas, opening to them and perhaps 
 as quickly closing, of a moral purpose and a moral order. 
 Among the changing shapes of their conceptions we can 
 discern here and there emerging the dim but imposing outlines 
 of a full-orbed Theism. On one side, indeed, their thought 
 seems to sink to the level of fetichism and the grossest super- 
 stition ; on the other it loses itself in the arid wastes of 
 pantheistic speculation. But midway between those opposite 
 extremes can be traced forms of theistic devotion such as 
 have never been altogether absent from that day to this from 
 the religious reflection of India. If we piece together into 
 one pattern these fragments of many-hued intuition we may 
 be able to realize how near they approach to the theistic con- 
 ceptions of to-day. 
 
 Among the many difficulties that face one in seeking to 
 formulate the probable course of development of the Vedic 
 theology a chief one is due to the absence of any reliable 
 chronological data by means of which the order of the Hymns 
 can be determined. It is happily unnecessary for our purpose 
 to consider the vexed question of the date of their production. 
 What is of importance for us is to conjecture which Hymns 
 in the collection represent earlier ideas and which later and 
 more fully developed ones. The Hymns of the Rig Veda 
 range, it may be supposed, over a period of seven hundred 
 or a thousand years of changing religious emotion and 
 reflection. During that period the thoughts of men certainly 
 did not stand still. But where can we find the key to the 
 process of their movement and their growth? The Hymns 
 stand for us against no background of experience and en- 
 vironment that we can do more than guess. Behind them 
 there must have lain many things of which we can catch at 
 most only now and then a glimpse fetichism, ancestor-
 
 io THE THEISM OF THE RIG VEDA 
 
 worship, the dread of evil spirits, magical rites, philosophies, 
 priesthoods, sacrifices. There were the periods when ritual 
 prevailed ; there was the outgrowth of philosophical specu- 
 lation ; there was the age of faith, of a keen, personal devotion, 
 of love and longing for the face of God. Some parts of the 
 cultus that prevailed within this period must have grown to 
 great power and then decayed and died ; we can see new 
 deities coming above the horizon to supplant the old ; ancient 
 names take to themselves other and perhaps higher meanings. 
 All those changes, corresponding to the ever changing and 
 moving mind of man, we are left only to conjecture. Why 
 Varuna for a time was great until he seems to fill up all the 
 universe of the Vedic poet's thought, and why he passed 
 speedily to be only the shadow of a mighty name; what the 
 gods brought with them into India and what the new country 
 and its indigenous conceptions contributed to their develop- 
 ment ; when the priest ruled and when the philosopher, and 
 what gods each worshipped and with what rites to these 
 and many other questions we obtain no answer and can only 
 grope after their solution with much uncertainty and debate. 
 In consequence, the disentanglement of any one mode of 
 thought, such as we conceive to be tending towards Theism, 
 and the attempt to trace its development, can only be of the 
 most tentative and doubtful character. Our main guides, 
 apart from the contents of the Hymns themselves, must be 
 the analogy of the course of evolution of other religions on the 
 one hand, and the subsequent history of Indian thought on 
 the other. 
 
 When one surveys the Vedic pantheon, seeking that in it 
 which seems most akin to the theistic conceptions of a later 
 age, there is one imposing figure that at once attracts our 
 attention. Above all the other gods towers in moral grandeur 
 the form of Varuna. And here at the same time is one among 
 that throng of deities of whom we can claim that his worship 
 dates from the very earliest Vedic period. The evidence 
 seems too strong to be rejected that identifies this god of the
 
 THE THEISM OF THE RIG VEDA n 
 
 wide firmament and the open sky, of day and night over 
 which he and Mitra share dominion, with Ahura-Mazda or 
 Ormazd, the supreme god of Zoroastrianism. 1 So completely 
 does Varuna dominate the scene when the Vedic worshipper 
 turns his face towards him that it has been maintained that 
 we have in him traces still surviving of a very ancient and 
 pre- Vedic monotheism. It is not possible in view of the 
 evidence of the Hymns themselves and in view of the analogy 
 of other peoples to maintain this thesis, but it is possible to 
 trace in the conception of this deity a movement of the minds 
 of those ancient worshippers towards a Theism of a wonder- 
 fully lofty character. As we discern his figure, he seems to be 
 in the act of passing beyond physical limitations to take his 
 place as a moral lord over the consciences of men. But just 
 when this is about to be accomplished his strength seems to 
 pass from him. A god who, as has been said, in the period 
 of his greatness stands by the side of even the loftiest of the 
 Hellenic or Teutonic pantheon, ' like a Jewish prophet by the 
 side of a priest of Dagon,' 2 falls from his high ethical eminence 
 to be a mere ruler of the storms and tides. That this should 
 have come to pass seems to us strange and unaccountable, 
 and we can only guess the forces that dethroned him. What- 
 ever these may have been, we can realize that that dethrone- 
 ment was an event in the spiritual history of India that was at 
 once a symptom and a determinant of the long, succeeding 
 process of its development. The ' Hebraic flavour ' that was 
 in Varuna was then definitely declared to be foreign to the 
 Indian spirit, and since that day its indications have been 
 rare. 
 
 Certainly there is much in the prayers and hymns to 
 
 1 How far this view is strengthened by the discovery by Winckler at 
 Boghaz-keui in Asia Minor of an inscription of the fourteenth century 
 B. c. in which Varuna is named, is as yet doubtful. It may be ' merely 
 a direct reference to Indian deities without having any immediate refer- 
 ence to" Iran ' (A. V. Williams Jackson in E. R. E. IV. 620). On the 
 whole, however, it strengthens the case for the identification of Ahura- 
 Mazda, that '.'god of the Aryans ' with Varuna. 
 
 2 Bloomfield's Religion of the Veda, p. 232.
 
 12 THE THEISM OF THE RIG VEDA 
 
 Varuna that brings back to one who knows it the lofty lan- 
 guage of Hebrew seers and psalmists. He covereth himself 
 with light as with a garment. 1 He stretcheth out the heavens 
 like a curtain ; he bears up the pillars of the earth. 2 ' Wise 
 and mighty are the works of him who stemmed asunder the 
 wide firmaments. He lifted on high the bright and glorious 
 heaven ; he stretched out apart the starry sky and the 
 earth.' 3 He hath opened a path for the sun ; he knoweth 
 the track of the birds through the air and of the ships across 
 the seas, and there is nothing hid from his sight. 4 The desig- 
 nation Asura is applied especially to him, just as in the Avesta 
 Ahura is the name of the supreme god ; and other attributes 
 of universal sovereignty are appropriated to him with an 
 emphasis that sets him apart in this regard from all the other 
 members of the Vedic pantheon. He is the great lord of the 
 laws of nature, the upholder and controller of their order and 
 their movement. He sitteth on his throne in the highest 
 heaven 5 and beholds the children of men ; his thousand spies 
 go forth to the world's end and bring report of men's doings. 6 
 For with all those other tokens of pre-eminence he is 
 especially a moral sovereign, and in his presence more than in 
 that of any other Vedic god a sense of guilt awakens in his 
 servants' hearts. His eyes behold and see the righteous and 
 the wicked. ' The great guardian among the gods sees as if 
 from anear. ... If two sit together and scheme, king Varuna 
 is there as the third and knows it. ... Whoso should flee 
 beyond the heavens far away would yet not be free from king 
 Varuna. From the sky his spies come hither : with a 
 thousand eyes they do watch over the earth. All this king 
 Varuna does behold what is between the two firmaments, 
 what beyond. Numbered of him are the winkings of men's 
 eyes.' 7 
 
 1 R. V. VIII. 41. 10. " A. V. VIII. 42. i. 
 
 3 R. V. VII. 86.1. 4 /?. V.I. 25. 
 
 5 R. V. V. 67. i, 2. R. V. VII. 61. 3. 
 
 7 A. V. IV. 16. The fact that this is a hymn included in the Athatva 
 Veda Samhitd does not prove that the portion quoted above, which bears
 
 THE THEISM OF THE RIG VEDA 13 
 
 In another hymn there is a still more vivid testimony 
 to the moral greatness of this god, as the searcher of his 
 servants' hearts, the father of their spirits. Here the psalmist 
 believes himself to have been, on account of some sin that he 
 has committed, forsaken of his god. He sadly calls to mind 
 the former days of their communion, the time when gliding 
 over the waters with the lord of the waters he received the 
 sacred call to be a risi. In those days of fellowship there was 
 on land and sea a light that now was absent. ' What hath 
 become', he asks, 'of those our ancient friendships when 
 without enmity we walked together ? ... If he thy true ally 
 hath sinned against thee, still, Varuna, he is the friend thou 
 lovedst.' l 
 
 Here we have what seems to be the closest approximation 
 that we can find in all the ancient worships of India to a real 
 ethical Theism. It appears as if a religion of nature were 
 discovered in the very process of passing beyond those limits 
 to become a religion of spirit. When it has been realized that 
 even the heaven of heavens cannot contain God, it is natural 
 and inevitable to turn inward and to seek Him in the move- 
 ments of the heart and the monitions of the conscience. This 
 transition seems in the act of being accomplished in the 
 thoughts of the poets who worship and celebrate the greatness 
 of Varuna. Fear is passing into reverence, wonder into love. 
 The upholder of the natural order becomes to them by an 
 instinctive logic the upholder of the order of righteousness and 
 truth. ' Far from us, far away drive thou destruction. Put 
 from us e'en the sin we have committed. Whither by day 
 depart the constellations that shine at night, set high in heaven 
 above us? Varuna's holy laws remain unweakened, and 
 through the night the moon moves on in splendour.' 2 Is not 
 
 all the evidence of antiquity, is late. ' One may surmise ', says von Roth, 
 ' in this case as well as in the case of many other parts of this Veda, 
 that fragments of older hymns have been utilized to deck out charms for 
 sorcery.' (Quoted in S. B. E. XLII, p. 389.) 
 
 1 R. V. VII. 88. 5,6. 
 
 2 R. V. I. 24. 9, 10.
 
 14 THE THEISM OF THE RIG VEDA 
 
 the intuition of this ancient psalmist groping after the thought 
 of Wordsworth's invocation to Duty ? 
 
 Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong ; 
 
 And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong. 
 
 Varuna's ordinances are fixed and sure so that even the im- 
 mortal gods cannot oppose them. He places his fetters upon 
 the sinner ; his is the power to bind and the power also to 
 release and he forgives sins even unto the second generation. 1 
 'There is in fact', says Professor Macdonell, 2 'no hymn to 
 Varuna (and the Adityas) in which the prayer for forgiveness 
 does not occur, as in the hymns to other deities the prayer for 
 worldly goods.' It is this ethical aspect of Varuna's character 
 more even than his attainment of a position closely approxi- 
 mating to monotheism that stamps his cultus as definitely 
 theistic. The worship of a deity whose exaltation, though it 
 be to less than sole sovereignty, is recognized as a moral pre- 
 eminence is, we conjecture, of a higher type than a mere 
 unethical monotheism, laying greater stress on the divine 
 solitude than on the divine character. Perhaps the most 
 significant fact of all in regard to this Vedic deity is the 
 connexion of the doctrine of rita or the moral order with his 
 name and his authority. In this again we have a close 
 correspondence between Varuna and the ' wise lord ' of the 
 Avesta, both being designated as the ' spring of the rita or 
 righteousness'. In the Vedic system it is Varuna beyond all 
 others who keeps beneath his guardianship the cosmic and the 
 moral order. 
 
 Howe'er we who thy people are, 
 O Varuna, thou shining god, 
 Thy rita injure day by day, 
 Yet give us over nor to death, 
 Nor to the blow of angry foe. 3 
 
 1 R. V. I. 24. 25 ; VII. 84. 86. 
 
 2 Macdonell's Vedic Mythology, p. 27. 
 
 3 R. V. I. 25. I, 2 (Hopkins's translation).
 
 THE THEISM OF THE RIG VEDA 15 
 
 ' Varuna', says Professor Bloomfield, 1 'is the real trustee of 
 the rita. When god Agni struggles towards the rita he is 
 said in a remarkable passage to become for the time being 
 god Varuna.' 
 
 How it came about that this god was deposed from his 
 high eminence and the victorious progress in India of an 
 ethical Theism brought to a sudden close one has not the 
 materials even to conjecture. In the last book of the Rig Veda 
 there is no hymn to Varuna, for by that time monotheism had 
 definitely given place in the development of Indian religion 
 to pantheism, and there is no longer room for this stern and 
 righteous god. We obtain glimpses in several hymns of the 
 struggle by which this is accomplished and Indra takes his 
 place. He seems still to be recognized in some of his former 
 greatness but it is as ' magni nominis umbra ', and his place in 
 worship is usurped by a god nearer to the comprehension of 
 the common man and appealing more to his crude instincts. If 
 one were to venture to compare this stage in the progress of 
 Vedic religion with that of the ancient Hebrews one might find 
 a parallel between the forsaking of Varuna for Indra and the 
 tendency of the people in Israel, against which their prophets 
 were ever warning them, to forsake Jehovah for Baal. One 
 can see how, in abandoning what we may call the main 
 highway of Theism for a devious path, they were advancing 
 towards scepticism, and as a result, in the case of the higher 
 minds who could not rest satisfied in so grossly anthropomor- 
 phic a deity as Indra, towards the replacement of faith in 
 a living God by theosophic speculations that could dispense 
 with him altogether. It may well be that when we hear the 
 poet say ' I bid farewell to the great God, the Father . . . 
 I leave the Father, for my choice is Indra ' , 2 we are present at 
 one of the great turning-points in India's spiritual history. 
 Whether this be the case or not, certainly one may be 
 permitted to reflect on the strange difference that emerged in 
 
 1 Bloomfield's Religion of the Veda, p. 128. 
 2 /?.F.X. 124. 3,4-
 
 16 THE THEISM OF THE RIG VEDA 
 
 the religious conceptions of the two Aryan peoples after they 
 had separated and descended, the one to the plains of Iran the 
 other to those of India. The one becomes ethical, optimistic, 
 distinctly unphilosophical ; the other monistic, pessimistic, 
 persistently speculative. Why should theistic conceptions, 
 after they had entered India, no longer have had the power 
 over one family of that stock that they had had before, and that 
 they continued to have over another ? Can we attribute it in 
 part to the closer national unity, reflecting itself in a more unify- 
 ing thought of God, that may have been possible in the high 
 trans- Himalayan plains but that may have disappeared as the 
 invaders scattered over the wide and fertile land of Hindostan? 
 Or was there in the very configuration of their new home with 
 its monotonous expanses and its distant horizons, or perhaps 
 in the nature of the people that they conquered there, some- 
 thing that supplied the new impulse and gave their thoughts 
 the new direction ? We cannot tell. Certainly from this time 
 onward the pantheistic leaven is never altogether absent from 
 the religious mood of India, and no other occupies in all her 
 later history the moral eminence that in that early dawn 
 Varuna had held. 
 
 When we turn aside from this great figure, that so domi- 
 nates, as it appears, the earliest Vedic period, to mark the 
 trend of the religious development apart from him, certain 
 characteristics of the whole movement of thought, as the 
 Hymns reveal it, may be noted, hindering a definitely theistic 
 advance and rendering sporadic tendencies in that direction 
 comparatively ineffective. One of these, and perhaps the most 
 important of all in determining the ultimate result from the 
 travail of the thought of those ancient seers, is an inability to 
 be entirely whole-hearted in their anthropomorphism. What 
 Professor Bloomfield calls ' arrested personification ' l is, as he 
 says, ' the very genius ' of the religion of the Rig Veda. We 
 realize this when we contrast its gods with those of Greece. 
 To the artistic and thoroughly human and earthly imagination 
 1 Religion of the Veda, p. 85.
 
 THE THEISM OF THE RIG VEDA 17 
 
 of the Greek it was an easy matter to envisage in the most 
 familiar forms their conceptions of their gods. The gods 
 walked with them and fought with them and joined in their 
 follies and their sins. The essentially worldly Hellenic spirit 
 was not revolted by those associations ; neither their instinct 
 of awe nor their religious or moral sense was sufficiently 
 strongly developed to resent this. Their vivid imaginations 
 demanded definiteness of outline and symmetry of form. 
 The mind of India is at the opposite pole from this, and ' in 
 the very first words she utters we find her aspiring after the 
 vague and the mysterious '. There is no demand here for 
 definiteness of outline, none of the Greek desire for symmetry. 
 The wild forces of nature persist in bursting through the 
 bounds of their partial personification. Even Indra, who is 
 more fully humanized than most, ' crashes down from heaven 
 in thunder ' and ' is born of waters and cloud ' ; while Savitri in 
 his golden chariot is still the glowing Sun shining in 'the 
 dark-blue sky'. In no case is the process of anthropomor- 
 phization anything like complete. What an artistic imagina- 
 tion accomplished in the case of the Greeks, a strong moral 
 sense accomplished in a higher fashion for the Hebrews. It 
 would be foolish to apportion praise or blame among the 
 peoples for the process of the development of their religious 
 or other ideas, when we cannot estimate the value of the forces 
 that determined such processes, but we can see how in one 
 instance a keen moral sense, in another a vivid imagination, 
 and in a third a more purely intellectual cast of mind deter- 
 mined largely the result. In the case of Varuna the marked 
 moralization of the conception of the god helps to an ex- 
 ceptional degree towards a more complete realization of his 
 personality. We may not be able to accept Oldenberg's 
 suggestion that this god was borrowed from the Semites, 
 while admitting a closer resemblance in his case than in that 
 of other Vedic deities to the Semitic method of anthropomor- 
 phization. 1 This method is often censured and the tendency 
 
 1 It is at least interesting to note that, if there was indeed any debt on 
 
 C
 
 i8 THE THEISM OF THE RIG VEDA 
 
 rightly condemned to attribute too many human character- 
 istics to God. But without dogmatism one may suggest that, 
 even in conjecturing so high a matter as the divine nature, 
 truth may be reached by this method if it is carried onward 
 from lower forms of thought to higher. Greek religion may 
 have stopped short too soon, satisfied with an artistic product, 
 but the Hebrew seers with their strong ethical instincts were 
 able to pass beyond a physical to a psychical anthropo- 
 morphism and to reach by that road a region in which the 
 word need retain no suggestion of reproach. Reason and love, 
 because they are found in man, are not therefore limited to 
 man ; and an anthropomorphism realized in those terms has 
 reached the highest form of theistic belief. 
 
 Such, however, is not the mode of development which we 
 find in the religious conceptions of the Rig Veda. There is 
 neither the Greek desire for order which resulted in the 
 formation of the pantheon of Olympus, nor the recognition of 
 a definite moral system which must in time discover itself as 
 irreconcilable with a multiplicity of gods. The place of 
 Varuna is usurped by nature powers, unmoral and with un- 
 defined jurisdictions, melting from time to time into each 
 other, and, because unethical, more controllable to its ends by 
 the rising power of the speculative intellect. Rita in the same 
 manner is replaced by the vaguer outlines of an idea into 
 which the gods in all their popular crudeness can be absorbed 
 and anon discharged again at will to take up once more their 
 functions. A moral unity, even a political unity such as that 
 of the Greeks, imports a principle of order into the divided 
 house of polytheism, and in such a case the process of in- 
 creasing definition and of system can be clearly traced. But 
 the end towards which the evolution of the Vedic deities 
 
 the part of Varuna or Ahura Mazda to the Semites, that debt was repaid 
 later. M. Cumont points out that ' without doubt ' at the period of the 
 Achaemenides a ' rapprochement ' took place between the Semitic 
 Baalsamin and ' the Persian Ahura Mazda, the ancient deity of the vault 
 of heaven but now become the supreme physical and moral power'. 
 (Cumont, Les Religions orientates dans le Paganisme romain, p. 154.)
 
 THE THEISM OF THE RIG VEDA 19 
 
 already pointed was ' a Pantheism which was an acosmism ', 
 ' a gulf in which all difference was lost '. There is a much 
 more energetic opposition between a god who is simply an 
 embodied force of nature and man's moral sense than there is 
 between such a being and his merely intellectual conceptions ; 
 and the reaction of the one upon the other is much more 
 active in the former case than in the latter. For that reason 
 we find that in India a continuous and deepening process of 
 reflection leaves the Vedic deities largely unaffected. Only 
 certain hints and suggestions indicate the conspiracy that 
 all the time is proceeding against their rude energy and 
 their authority. 
 
 It is not our part here to enumerate those signs of that 
 pantheistic activity of thought which, perhaps from the very 
 earliest times, was at work, undermining the Vedic polytheism. 
 There are ' secret names ', mysteries in theology that are not 
 to be uttered ; there is the increasing significance of the sacri- 
 fice, until its power displaces that of the god to whom it is 
 offered ; there is the growing prominence of the Sun in its 
 aspect as Savitri, the quickener of life, ' the soul of the uni- 
 verse'. These are sign-posts on the way to the Pantheism 
 which was to discover itself fully to a later age. It is in 
 other directions that we must look for the working of the 
 more properly theistic instinct. We find it in a significant 
 characteristic of the theology of the Hymns, which Max 
 Miiller has called henotheism or kathenotheism, i. e. ' the 
 belief in individual gods alternately regarded as the highest.' 
 This certainly is due in a considerable measure to a natural 
 human impulse to unify differences. In each particular case 
 it is not easy to determine whether as a matter of fact the 
 unity is monistic or monotheistic. If speculation is its main 
 motive, then it is likely to be a unity of the former kind that 
 is sought, if a spirit of devotion, then the latter. It is not 
 possible for us to distinguish how far the latter spirit prevails 
 over the former, and how far therefore in any particular case this 
 henotheistic tendency is moving towards pure Theism rather 
 
 C 2
 
 20 THE THEISM OF THE RIG VEDA 
 
 than towards Pantheism. Beside the influence of speculation, 
 eviscerating and emasculating the strong gods of a simpler 
 faith, there is ritualism and mere indifference rendering service 
 of the gods perfunctory and the discrimination of one from 
 another careless and inaccurate. This too, no doubt, is one of 
 the causes of that melting of one god into another which 
 henotheism connotes. It is sometimes, as Professor Bloom - 
 field affirms, 1 simply ' polytheism grown cold in service and 
 unnice in its distinctions, leading to an opportunist mono- 
 theism in which every god takes hold of the sceptre and none 
 keeps it '. With all these reservations, however, one cannot 
 doubt that in certain cases what is called henotheism is due 
 not merely to such blurring of outline as speculation or 
 indifference produces, but rather to the worshipper's vivid 
 realization of the presence and the personality of one par- 
 ticular deity to whom he bows his heart. It is not so much 
 that he loves others less but that he loves this one more. 
 The road of devout adoration is the true road to Theism; and 
 worship and self-surrender, the more intense the emotion they 
 express, tend the more to lift their object beyond all limita- 
 tions and make it for the time at least the one and only real. 
 Mr. Dilger 2 has admirably illustrated this attitude by the 
 saying of Luther that the dearest of all his children to him 
 was the one that happened to be at that moment on his 
 knee. We see it in all periods of the history of Hinduism 
 and of other religions as well. When the Maratha poet of 
 a later age extols Vithoba, or when at an early stage of the 
 religion of Israel Jehovah is exalted, the worshipper is not 
 by any means fully aware of the implications of his implicit 
 Theism and does not in set terms deny the existence of other 
 gods. But for him this one before whom he bows fills up 
 his whole horizon. That there are approximations at least 
 in the Rig Veda to this type of unconscious Theism one 
 cannot doubt. 
 
 1 Religion of the Veda, p. 199. 
 
 2 Salvation in Hinduism and Christianity, p. 80.
 
 THE THEISM OF THE RIG VEDA 21 
 
 Of the henotheism that is farthest removed from Theism 
 what Hopkins l prefers to call ' polytheistic pantheism ' an 
 example is the designation of Aditi as ' all the gods and 
 men ', 2 while the ceremonial activity of the priests is expressly 
 indicated, in tacit contrast with the speculations of the philo- 
 sophers, as ' making into many the (sun) bird that is but one ', 
 and as 'calling the one by many names, Agni, Yama, Mata- 
 risvan'. 3 It would seem as if one group of gods proved 
 malleable material in the hands of the philosophers, being 
 easily beaten out thin into their speculations, while another 
 group proved more stubborn and retained more successfully 
 their individuality. Of the former are Surya and Savitri and 
 Agni, the altar fire ; of the latter Varuna in especial, and also 
 Mitra, Indra, Visnu. It is not necessary to speak further of 
 Varuna, but, if it be the case that he is identical with Ahura- 
 Mazda, he is not the only member of the Vedic pantheon that 
 retains to a later age his theistic eminence. Indra continued 
 to be. par excellence the popular god of the conquering Aryans 
 and remained an object of worship even to Puranic days. 
 Mitra also, though in the Vedic poems he is Varuna's shadow, 
 almost merged in the greater name, was destined at a far 
 later date to gather into his person the strongest forces of 
 paganism in a conflict with Christianity all the fiercer because 
 of the close affinity in certain respects of the theistic systems 
 that were there brought face to face. Visnu like Mitra has 
 not in the Vedic age the same high place that was later to be 
 his, when his name came more than any other in India to 
 represent the conception of a personal god in the face of 
 the opposing pantheistic tendencies. What it may have 
 been that gave certain members of the pantheon a more 
 stubborn personality than others we cannot now perceive, but 
 in the dominance claimed now for one and again for another, 
 and further in the combination of them into pairs that seem 
 sometimes to have only one personality between them, we 
 
 1 Religions of India, p. 149. 2 R. V. 1.89. 
 
 8 R. V. I. 164.
 
 22 THE THEISM OF THE RIG VEDA 
 
 see inchoate efforts to turn the chaos of polytheism into 
 a cosmos. No definite hierarchy of gods is evolved such as 
 was evolved by the orderly and artistic genius of the Greeks. 
 The why of these things we can only half perceive, and 
 ultimate causes are beyond our ken. Perhaps the most we 
 can say is, with Earth, 1 that ' India is radically pantheistic 
 and that from its cradle onward '. However this may be, the 
 pale power of thought ultimately triumphed over the claims 
 of heart and conscience, and the abstractions of Upanisad 
 philosophers took the place of the fervour and the glow of 
 Vedic psalmists. 
 
 That some movement of this kind was inevitable and was 
 due to the very necessities of thought itself has of course to 
 be admitted. The naive beliefs of natural religion, the blended 
 fancies and fears and deeper intuitions that at first form the 
 unregulated expression of the religious life have to be, by the 
 help of the reason, elucidated and evolved. But that this 
 evolution must end in the substitution for a living and 
 personal God of a bloodless abstraction does not follow. 
 Philosophy is not the enemy but the interpreter of life, and 
 therefore it is not the enemy of worship and devotion. It may 
 be maintained that we see in India a one-sided and so a false 
 philosophical development; and the reason of that one-sidedness 
 may be traced in the fact that speculation was apparently 
 largely the work of the priests, who at that stage of religious 
 culture were very probably in India,as they have so often proved 
 themselves everywhere, the worst enemies of the religious life 
 and the least responsive to its movements. In the correspond- 
 ing Greek philosophical and religious development such men 
 as Xenophanes and Heraclitus, who sought a principle of 
 unity beneath differences, correspond to the unnamed specu- 
 lative thinkers of India. But India seems to have lacked 
 a Socrates to remind her that neither breath nor fire nor kama 
 (desire) is a principle sufficient to explain a universe which 
 contains not only things and thoughts but moral ends and 
 1 Religions of India, p. 8.
 
 THE THEISM OF THE RIG VEDA 33 
 
 purposes and hopes. The priest-philosophers following the 
 path of negation and seeking that which by its very abstract- 
 ness might embrace or underlie all things, suggest Agni, at 
 once a mysterious creative force, to satisfy the needs of 
 speculation, and the flame of the sacrifice, to justify the main- 
 tenance of the ritual. Or they devise Brihaspati, precursor of 
 a still more abstract Brahman, a god closely linked with Agni 
 as embodying the prayer of the priest and at the same time 
 a quasi-spiritual essence into which reflection may labour to 
 dissolve the universe. To the last there seems to persist the 
 struggle of life to vindicate its claims against a negative 
 metaphysic, though by this time the struggle has lost much 
 of its early vigour. Tvastri is not much more than a shadow 
 or a makeshift when he appears in the role of creator. Finally 
 we seem to see the belief in a personal God, as it retreats 
 before the forces of Pantheism, disappearing in the worship of 
 Prajapati in the direction of agnosticism. The great hymn to 
 this deity, which may be said to close the period that the Rig 
 Veda covers, has been described by Max Miiller as addressed 
 to ' The Unknown God ', and later the interrogative ka 'who?' 
 was adopted as his name. We have here one of the final 
 efforts of the theistic instinct to mould cosmological speculation 
 into the form of a being to be worshipped. But the stuff is 
 too stubborn for the religious consciousness ; it cannot mould 
 it near enough to the heart's desire. When it travels by this 
 road, the via negativa, Theism can only end in agnosticism. 
 It needs another guide than the logical understanding and 
 another path to tread than the way of abstraction. 
 
 One cannot pause and look back over the course of the 
 development of the Vedic Theology, as we have attempted to 
 trace it, without feeling how insecure and tentative must be 
 one's conjecture in such a field of inquiry. The Hymns in all 
 their movement and their colour and with their varying outlook, 
 that occupies every attitude from naive nature-worship to the 
 completes! scepticism, stand for us to-day in no environment
 
 24 THE THEISM OF THE RIG VEDA 
 
 that helps us to arrange tHem in their sequence or to read with 
 any assurance the thoughts that stirred their unknown authors. 
 We can only guess from the development elsewhere of the 
 human mind at the course that here it followed from the 
 scarcely discerned morning twilight through the splendour of 
 the gods of the sky and the wide spaces until the evening of 
 reflection casts its shadow over all. The march of this 
 development seems for a time to move towards a living 
 personal Lord in whose fellowship his worshippers shall find 
 the cleansing of their hearts. But across this path of promise 
 there falls the shadow of a too arid intellectualism, and its 
 progress is stayed and diverted to another end. The great 
 figure of Varuna, however, remains, far off and isolated as it 
 is on the bank and shoal of time, testifying to the theistic 
 capacity of the Indo-Aryan race.
 
 II 
 
 THEISTIC ELEMENTS IN THE POPULAR RELI- 
 GION IN THE PERIOD OF THE BRAHMANAS 
 AND THE UPANISADS 
 
 WHEN we pass from the Rig Veda and the religion of which 
 it is the expression, we seem to have entered upon a new 
 region and to breathe a new atmosphere. The change indeed 
 from the surroundings that helped to inspire the Hymns to 
 those in which the Brahmanas may be supposed to have taken 
 shape well represents the difference we are conscious of 
 between the spirit of the earlier worship and the later. Instead 
 of the bracing air of the mountain passes we have the heavy, 
 torpid climate of the plains. A single rapid river of thought 
 and aspiration, flowing keen and wholesome through the hills, 
 gives place to many sluggish streams finding their diverse 
 ways across the level, sometimes losing themselves wholly in 
 the sands. One must beware indeed of attaching exaggerated 
 importance to the influence of climate on the thoughts of men. 
 There is melancholy and worldliness and sloth of spirit among 
 mountaineers as well as among dwellers in the plains. Changes 
 of temperature and of environment go but a little way to 
 explain the secrets that are locked fast within the human 
 personality. But certainly the contrast is vivid between the 
 rapid, glittering stream of early Vedic thought and the mean- 
 dering, wayward course, so difficult to trace in its continuity, 
 that is followed across the plains of India by the religious 
 fears and hopes of the people of a later age. The change and 
 the greater complexity and obscurity of the religious facts 
 which accompany it make it still more difficult to estimate 
 the strength and the character of theistic belief during this
 
 26 THEISTIC ELEMENTS IN THE PERIOD OF 
 
 period. It can indeed only be called theistic belief on the 
 ground that it is on the way towards what may prove a genuine 
 Theism. But there is still a very long road to travel to that 
 goal, and much polytheism and idolatry and gross superstition 
 to be sloughed ere that name can be claimed for it. What we 
 are looking for is the promise and potency of such a result in 
 the midst of the prevailing Pantheism, broken lights, however 
 dim, in the deep and general darkness. 
 
 In the earlier literature we could not be mistaken in 
 discerning among the aspirations to which the Hymns give 
 utterance some that are to a more or less degree theistic in 
 their tendency. Now, however, our task becomes harder, as 
 our materials become more obscure. We may indeed be con- 
 fident that no period in Indian religious history was without 
 some elements at least of what we mean by Theism. But 
 these may be mingled with much that seems little enough 
 compatible with them. It has always, we must remember, 
 been found possible everywhere to hold together at one period 
 thoughts which later reflection discovers to be contradictory, 
 and it is generally alleged of Indian thinking that it has 
 peculiar capacity in this respect. There are, however, two 
 things, one or other of which must be present in any religion 
 if it is at all theistic, and which in their combination exhibit 
 what is at least on the way towards a real ethical Theism. 
 There is, on the one hand, the realization in some measure that 
 true worship must be inward, issuing from the heart and 
 affecting the conduct ; while, on the other hand, there is the 
 elevation of the deity to something approaching to sole 
 authority. The ethical monotheism which results from the 
 union in a single religion of both those conceptions will 
 seldom, indeed, be found in anything like completeness in the 
 history of Indian thought, but even when that is far from 
 being realized, one or other of its constituent elements may be 
 present in greater or less degree. In proportion, for example, 
 as a religion approximates to Pantheism, it generally as we 
 shall find in the case of the religion of the Upanisads tends to
 
 THE BRAHMANAS AND UPANISADS 37 
 
 empty itself of its ethical content and for that reason, while it 
 may remain theistic, to fall short of being a real ethical Theism. 
 On the other hand one finds in India, as one finds also in 
 Israel, faiths that are decidedly spiritual in character, while at 
 the same time they recognize the existence of other gods than 
 that of their own particular worship. Sincere devotion has 
 generally in it, we may claim, some theistic element, for it 
 Comes from the heart and moves the will, and it also in the 
 measure of its intensity takes account only of the one god 
 invoked and ignores all others. It is by means of such 
 criteria as these that we must test the various expressions of 
 their wayward religious instincts that we can trace through 
 the dim centuries that succeed the period which the Hymns of 
 the Rig Veda serve so brilliantly to illuminate. 
 
 When we turn aside from the Rig to the Atharvan in which 
 indeed we can find but little that has any bearing on our 
 theme great as is the change from the clear, wholesome air 
 we have hitherto been breathing to its mephitic vapours, we 
 must not too hastily assume that we have passed to a later 
 and a more sophisticated age. The two collections cannot be 
 held to represent successive stages of a continuous religious 
 development. It is unquestionably true that the hymns of the 
 Atharva Veda date as a literary collection from a period con- 
 siderably later than those of the Rig ; but there can be little 
 doubt that the fetichism and demonology with which the 
 Atharvan is mainly occupied is earlier in its origin than the 
 other more elevated worship, that it ran parallel to it and that 
 it outlived it. 
 
 One must, no doubt, use much caution in applying a parallel 
 from the religious history of one race to that of another, but 
 the course of religious development in Greece may well have 
 had elements of similarity to that which we find in India. 
 We know now that there were theologians and there were 
 worshippers in Greece before Homer, and that his poems do 
 not give a complete or adequate picture of the religion of the 
 whole of the Greek people. There were Pelasgian and non-
 
 38 THEISTIC ELEMENTS IN THE PERIOD OF 
 
 Hellenic elements in their worship of which we catch few 
 glimpses in his poems, and there was what is called Chthonic 
 ritual and reverence paid to heroes of the earth and of the 
 under-world, as well as the worship paid to the Olympians. 
 So it certainly was also in India. How far the worship of 
 Vedic or Homeric sky-gods can be distinguished as aristocratic 
 from a more popular fetichism or demonolatry, or how far, on 
 the other hand, it is the worship of a higher Aryan people, and 
 how far, accordingly, a racial distinction can be made between 
 its followers and those who worshipped other gods, it is not 
 possible to determine with any certainty. As a matter of 
 fact we cannot classify religious instincts in any such way. 
 To describe the fears and superstitions that the Atharvan 
 discloses as confined to the lower classes and to suppose that 
 they did not equally disturb the higher strata of society is to 
 show ignorance of human nature. And we have no reason 
 either to suppose that any single race was ever altogether free 
 from the dread of dark powers or was ever without those who 
 betook themselves to such devices for deliverance from them 
 as we find in the Atharva Veda. It is the interaction of so 
 many religious influences, varied as the varieties of human 
 nature and human need, and further complicated by the inter- 
 mixture of alien races, that makes it difficult to trace with any 
 confidence the course of Indian religious development during 
 this period. Documents there are, but their dates are un- 
 certain, and how far they really correspond to the facts of 
 popular belief and practice, or how far they do little more than 
 present us with an ideal system fashioned by the priests, that 
 effectually conceals the real movements of religious life behind 
 it, it is hardly possible to determine. Amid all the uncertainties 
 and obscurities into which we plunge when we leave the col- 
 lections of the Hymns behind us, we most gladly welcome any 
 guidance that may be furnished us by the study of compara- 
 tive religion, insecure and highly subjective as its suggestions 
 often must be. 
 The first great body of literary material that presents itself
 
 THE BRAHMANAS AND UPANISADS 29 
 
 as we leave the various collections of Vedic Hymns behind us 
 is the Brahmanas, in regard to which, in the form in which they 
 have come to us, there can be no doubt of their aristocratic 
 character. They are aristocratic, because they are so com- 
 pletely the work of the priesthood, and a priesthood that 
 seems altogether de-spiritualized and absorbed only in its 
 gains. Naturally, therefore, their thoughts are mainly of the 
 rich and of the powerful, and but seldom of the common 
 people. In consequence the traces of real theistic aspiration 
 which these books disclose are few and faint. Everywhere 
 there is the priest and the altar and the sacrifice, the priest 
 measuring with painful detail the great altar's height and 
 breadth, but giving no hint of the desires that filled the 
 hearts of the worshippers. As it is expressed in their priestly 
 language, the bricks of the altar that alone are worthy to 
 be consecrated with special prayers are the nobles ; for the 
 common people, who do no more than ' fill the spaces ' between 
 brick and brick, there is only a common prayer. 1 All the 
 same we know that each one of all that undistinguished mul- 
 titude had a heart and a need of God that must have sought 
 a satisfaction elsewhere than from this proud and exclusive 
 hierarchy. The priesthood and the sacrificial system must 
 have rested on some basis of faith, else it would not have long 
 endured. We can dimly trace throughout the Brahmanas 
 indications that behind the screen of formalism and of cere- 
 monial there was at work a two-fold process of religious 
 growth, the fruits of which were to declare themselves at a later 
 period. On the one hand there was the beginning of the 
 more intellectual development from which sprang the Upani- 
 sads ; on the other there are hints of the presence of that 
 devout spirit, which, more emotional and popular than reflective, 
 expressed itself mainly in poetry and legend, and of which 
 some account is furnished at a later date in certain sections of 
 the Mahdbhdrata. It is the second of these two processes of 
 development which it falls to us at present to endeavour to 
 1 Sat. Brah. VI. I. 2. 25.
 
 30 THEISTIC ELEMENTS IN THE PERIOD OF 
 
 trace in so far as it can be separated from the other and not 
 necessarily hostile movement. 
 
 Apparently even at this early period the name of Visnu had 
 begun to be associated with theistic devotion, as opposed to 
 cults more pantheistic and appealing less directly to the heart. 
 It is no easy matter to discern through the obscurity of that 
 early age the causes which set this deity apart for this par- 
 ticular role and elevated him to the place of eminence which 
 he comes to occupy. Some hints there are, however, of the 
 progress that he was apparently making all this time, behind 
 the screen of Brahmanic ritual, to the position he has held so 
 long as the supreme god of those in India whose hearts are 
 filled with bhakti or ' loving faith '. The legendary account 
 of the process by which this result was achieved is given in the 
 Brahmanas in the form of a story of the performance ofasattra 
 or great sacrifice by the gods and of the way in which, in con- 
 nexion with it, Visnu obtained pre-eminence among them all. 
 Apart from this tale, which gives no clue to the real reasons 
 why he and not any other was so singled out, there appear 
 from these books to have been certain associations with the 
 name of Visnu which may be of some significance in this con- 
 nexion. Abstract investigation as to the primal cause of 
 things cannot be said to be a spring of religious devotion, and 
 we do not find such speculations gathering round this name ; 
 but, on the other hand, the sacrifice may well be the utterance 
 of a deep desire for fellowship with God. When, therefore, we 
 find that in the Brahmanas Visnu is said to be the sacrifice, 
 we can guess that he is already on his way to his place as the 
 god of the worship of men's hearts. Again, it is noticeable 
 that, when any error is committed in the sacrificial ritual, it is 
 Visnu who is to be invoked, as though already he was 
 recognized in his aspect of grace as a saviour. Perhaps also 
 we may discern associations with that power to touch the 
 heart, that a religion of devotion demands, gathering about his 
 name in the legend that represents him as the means by which, 
 when all the other gods were helpless, the earth was redeemed
 
 THE BRAHMANAS AND UPANISADS 31 
 
 from the power of the Asuras, now no longer gods but demons. 
 Remarkable, too, and suggestive of ideas which we can hardly 
 conceive as already dawning on men's minds, is the fact that 
 it is Visnu, the dwarf, that accomplishes this deliverance, as 
 though out of weakness issued strength and safety. Sir R. G. 
 Bhandarkar points further to the important part that this one 
 of the gods plays in the ritual of domestic life, a ritual that we 
 may be confident has come down from a very ancient period. 
 This is seen, for example, in the important place that Visnu 
 holds in the marriage ceremonial. Always, however, from 
 early Vcdic times that which more than any other thing the 
 name of this god suggests is the legend of the three mighty 
 steps with which he traversed earth, the atmosphere, and the 
 highest heaven. In this third region, in the bright realm of 
 light ' where even birds dare not fly ', he dwells l inscrutable. 
 Sir R. G. Bhandarkar is of opinion that the obscurity sur- 
 rounding that third step helped especially to give him an 
 association of mystery such as is necessary for a God that is 
 to be acknowledged as sole and supreme. Probably also its 
 association with the world of the dead who journeyed by the 
 way of the gods to that region of blessedness may have 
 connected Visnu, as every god who is to obtain a power 
 over human hearts must be connected, with the hopes and 
 fears of an immortal life. 2 
 
 Certainly a study of comparative religion seems to indicate 
 that to sun-gods and to that class no one doubts that Visnu 
 belonged are attributed to a greater extent than to any 
 other deities those qualities which attract the personal de- 
 votion of their worshippers, and that they pre-eminently have 
 everywhere become centres of hope and comfort in a world of 
 shadows. Max Muller in one of his speculations as to the 
 origins of religion speaks of certain animals as possessing 
 ' a theogonic capacity '. We may with more confidence affirm 
 
 1 R. V. I. 155. 5. 
 
 2 The Fathers even appear, according to one interpreter, to be described 
 in a passage of the Rig Veda as 'the descendants' of Visnu (R. V. X. 15. 
 3-18, Hopkins's translation, R. /., p. 144).
 
 32 THEISTIC ELEMENTS IN THE PERIOD OF 
 
 that certain gods possess in a greater degree than others 
 this capacity, in the sense that they are able to become in 
 an eminent degree media of the hope of eternal life that it 
 is possible for them to be recognized as gods of love and of 
 consolation in a way which does not seem to be possible for 
 others. Comparative religion distinguishes two classes of 
 gods as endowed in this respect with the power to kindle 
 hope and inspire devotion. There are, on the one hand, gods 
 of spring and vegetation deities, whose mythology and the 
 facts in nature to which it corresponds suggest death and 
 resurrection. Of this class were Dionysus and Demeter in 
 Greece, Attis in Phrygia, and probably also Krisna in India. 
 The other class of gods possessing this capacity are, as has 
 been indicated, sun-gods and light-gods, such as to some 
 extent at least the Egyptian Osiris, 1 the Persian Mithra, and 
 the Indian Visnu. It may even be that the name of Jehovah, 
 the God of Israel, later recognized in all His moral majesty 
 as ' God of truth and without iniquity ', as ' the Sun of right- 
 eousness with healing in His wings', would also be found, 
 if we were able to trace its history all the way to its dim 
 origin, to have been at first the name of a solar deity. 2 So also 
 Bhagavan, whose name is so constantly employed in later days 
 by adherents of the school of bhakti to describe the supreme 
 god of their devotion, traces his descent from the ancient 
 sun-god Bhaga, one of the Adityas. It may seem strange 
 that the claim should be made on behalf of Buddha that he 
 has any affinity with solar deities or that the religion that he 
 preached is akin to the theistic worships that gather round 
 such names as those of Visnu and of Bhagavan. But as 
 a matter of fact both these statements are well grounded. 
 
 1 It would appear that this god combined in his person elements of both 
 a solar deity and a corn spirit. 
 
 2 He has been identified by some scholars with the sun-god Shamash, 
 while the ' Babylonists ' ' emphasize the astral or lunar character of the 
 Jahveh of early (or of pre-Mosaic) Israel' {Cambridge Biblical Essays, 
 p. 86. Cf. also p. 51). See also Jastrow's Religious Belief in Babylonia 
 and Assyria, pp. 72 f.
 
 THE BRAHMANAS AND UPANISADS 33 
 
 M. Senart has fully demonstrated that there are elements of 
 the Buddha legend that prove its partial derivation from 
 solar cults. Such are for example the marks on his body 
 and the story of his conflict with Mara, a conflict that is in 
 many respects reminiscent of ancient myths that describe the 
 struggle between light and darkness. Such characteristics as 
 these are found associated with theistic worships, and especially 
 with that of Visnu, and it will be found when we come to con- 
 sider Buddhism in more detail that, in spite of its avowed 
 atheism, in many respects it has a strong affinity with Theism. 
 It is easy indeed to perceive how the daily re-birth of light 
 out of darkness would present itself to men shadowed by fear 
 and death as a very parable of hope, and how the source of 
 that illumination would itself be viewed as a place of refuge in 
 abiding light beyond the shadows of the earth. There can 
 be little doubt though, when the doctrine of transmigration 
 obtained, as it did at a later date, its amazing power over the 
 Indian mind, the fact was somewhat obscured that the 
 secret of Visnu's early eminence and of the grasp he has laid 
 upon the heart of India consisted mainly in the hope that he 
 brought to a world weary of death of an immortal life beyond 
 the grave. The fear of death and of repeated death is one 
 of the most marked characteristics of the Brahmanas. The 
 knowledge of the mystery that ' spring comes into life again 
 out of the winter ' a mystery which only the sun-gods and 
 the vegetation-gods control brings with it the reward of 
 victory over this enemy. 1 The sun is the gate of the path 
 leading to the gods 2 and the third step of Visnu signifies the 
 goal of the heavenly world, the ' safe refuge ' whither the 
 worshipper hopes to pass from the lower regions of repeated 
 death. 3 As a later thinker expresses it, ' He who has under- 
 standing for his charioteer, and who holds the reins of the 
 mind he reaches the end of his journey, and that is the 
 highest place of Visnu.' 4 
 
 1 Sat. Brah. I. 5. 3. 14. 2 Mbh. XIII. 1082. 
 
 3 Sat. Brah. I. 9. 3. 10. 4 Katha Up. I. 3. 9. 
 
 D
 
 34 THEISTIC ELEMENTS IN THE PERIOD OF 
 
 While all these circumstances may well have helped to give 
 to Visnu the place of eminence to which he attained, there is 
 also the significant fact that he was connected from the 
 earliest Vedic times with a work of deliverance for mankind 
 in distress. 1 It is not the majesty or the exaltation of a god 
 that gives him power to control the hearts of men ; it is 
 rather his condescension. It is perhaps because he differed in 
 this respect from Varuna that it was to Visnu that the power 
 was finally transferred which Varuna lost. The grace of 
 Varuna to the sinner is only a vague affirmation, a hope, 
 a conjecture ; while Visnu, according to the legend, had once 
 by a definite work of deliverance, manifested his willingness, 
 as well as his power, to help men in their extremity. If it be 
 characteristic of Theism that it binds together the temporal 
 and the eternal and that it binds them in an ethical relation- 
 ship, then we may not be wrong in detecting in this ancient 
 and enduring legend one reason for the association of this 
 god with theistic aspiration. Other gods who had entered 
 less energetically or less graciously into personal relations 
 with men could be more easily made use of as media for 
 a religion which was a mere view of the world, as labels for 
 a speculative system. Similarly the early philosophers of 
 Greece passed by the Olympians and called to the aid of 
 their speculations the vaguer potencies of a more primitive 
 religion. Visnu was too highly personalized a deity to be 
 altogether adaptable to the uses of Indian metaphysicians. 
 This god of a semi-historical redemption was more naturally 
 fitted to be the centre round which could gather the worship 
 of the simple and the devout. This, combined with the fact 
 that he was a sun-god with a sun-god's association of light 
 and life and blessedness, may well be what raised him to the 
 position that through all later time he holds as the deity 
 par excellence of Indian Theism. Similarly Prometheus is 
 nowadays believed to have been originally a sun-god one 
 among several of the Greek Adityas but he, too, is more 
 A\ V. VI. 49. 13.
 
 THE BRAHMANAS AND UPANISADS 35 
 
 than that. The place he holds in Greek religion and Greek 
 poetry was due to the legend that he brought fire to men and 
 saved them, even as Visnu did, from the Asuras, who in this 
 case were the cruel and vindictive gods themselves. The 
 two thoughts then of life and of salvation seem to unite in 
 Visnu and may well account for the fact that this solar 
 deity and not Savitri or Surya or Pusan attained the place 
 which he pre-eminently holds as the centre of Indian theistic 
 devotion. 
 
 But while even in the main stream of orthodoxy as repre- 
 sented by the Brahmanas there were influences moving in the 
 direction of an ethical monotheism and gathering round the 
 name of Visnu, elsewhere others as well of a similar character 
 were at work some of them perhaps rival influences and 
 reckoned as heretical. In this connexion, however, one fact 
 must be borne in mind. It is not necessary to suppose that 
 bhakti or devotion, which is specially associated with theistic 
 faith, always followed an independent line of development of 
 its own, or that it arose entirely apart from the Vedas and the 
 Upanisads or from other religious movements that may have 
 made their appearance at this time. We need not suppose 
 that it was isolated from its religious surroundings or that it 
 moved in a separate region of ideas. It may and as a matter 
 of fact we find that it continually does, wherever there is 
 strong religious feeling make its appearance in almost any 
 religious environment. Some environments are, no doubt, 
 more favourable to it than others, but there are few that in 
 the grasp of its strong inward fervour cannot be transformed 
 to its purpose. It may be seen struggling to break the bonds 
 that Pantheism is seeking continually throughout the history 
 of Indian thought to lay upon the human spirit ; it may even 
 be found at times blossoming from the dark places of the 
 worship of demonic powers. Is it not round the repellent 
 form of Siva that so much of the fervid devotion of the Tamil 
 saints has gathered ? What a writer on Greek religion has 
 remarked in a similar connexion of this lower, gloomy worship 
 
 D a
 
 36 THEISTIC ELEMENTS IN THE PERIOD OF 
 
 in contrast with the higher, hopeful worship of such gods as 
 Apollo in Greece or Visnu in India applies equally here. 
 'Olympian ritual may seem,' this writer says, 'as compared 
 with Chthonic, to be more advanced, more humane, but though 
 rites of " riddance " x have a harsh and barbarous sound, we 
 cannot forget that this " riddance " half physical though it is 
 has in it the germs of a higher thing, the notion of spiritual 
 purification.' 2 It is impossible to say on what unfruitful stem 
 the spirit of devotion may have blossomed. We know that 
 Buddhism did not prove inimical to it, and there are even 
 Jain hymns that give beautiful expression to the response of 
 human love to the divine compassion. 3 It is, however, the 
 opinion of Sir R. G. Bhandarkar and no one else can speak 
 on such a subject with the authority that he possesses that 
 the main stream of the Theism of this period is to be found 
 in the Bhagavata or Pancaratra system which ' did not owe 
 its origin to the Vedas or Upanisads '. 4 This, according to 
 the Narayanlya section of the Mahabharata> is 'an inde- 
 pendent religion possessed by the Satvatas', and using 
 Vasudeva as the characteristic name of the supreme deity. 
 In the view of Sir R. G. Bhandarkar this religion was of 
 Ksatriya origin, the Brahmans having apparently been ex- 
 celled at this period in intellectual activity by the warrior and 
 ruling class. In this connexion he points to the prominence 
 of princes as religious teachers in certain of the Upanisads 
 though others see in this no more than an evidence of the 
 politic Brahman's recognition of the prince as the fountain of 
 rewards and to the fact that both Buddha and Mahavlra 
 were Ksatriyas. It may be, he suggests, that ' a Ksatriya of 
 the name of Vasudeva, belonging to the Yadava, Vrisni, or 
 Satvata race, founded a theistic system ' ; or it is possible that 
 he was a famous prince of the Satvata race and on his death 
 
 i. e. of magical purifications such as we find in all these dark 
 worships. 
 
 2 J. E. Harrison, The Religion of Ancient Greece, p. 46. 
 
 3 e. g. The Bhupala Stotra (L. D. Barnett's Heart of India, p. 45). 
 
 4 Search for Sanskrit Manuscripts, 1887, p. 72.
 
 37 
 
 was deified and worshipped by his clan. Sir R. G. Bhan- 
 darkar finds a further indication of the existence of this 
 Bhagavata sect at this period in the growth of a sense of 
 aversion to the bloody sacrifices of the past and the per- 
 mission to substitute a pistayajna, a ' barley ewe '. In his 
 view ahimsd was a doctrine of their sect before the appearance 
 of Buddhism. We have later in the Mahdbhdrata l an indi- 
 cation that this new doctrine was recognized as opposed to 
 the pure teaching of the Vedas, but the fact that it was able 
 to influence the powerful hierarchy and obtain recognition for 
 its views even in the Brahmanas seems to suggest that it may 
 not have belonged to an altogether isolated religious stratum 
 and that it is not at all likely to have been anti-Brahmanical 
 or to have lacked among its numbers as has been the case 
 in almost every movement of religious reform in India 
 Brahman as well as Ksatriya teachers. 
 
 Along with Vasudeva, and presently identified with him, 
 appears Krisna, the central figure of the whole Vaisnavite 
 pantheon. Here again, in seeking to determine the origin of 
 this god, there is full scope for the play of conjecture. Was 
 he a hero who rose step by step to the high rank of divinity, 
 or was he a monotheistic reformer, as Vasudeva may have 
 been a theistic Buddha before Buddha's day, who later, like 
 the Buddha also, was himself deified by his disciples? Some 
 scholars, influenced, some may perhaps think, by too easy 
 analogies from other fields of primitive religious belief, find 
 in Krisna a development from one of those early vegetation 
 deities that seem to have been so widely worshipped and to 
 have obtained so strong a hold of men's devotion in all 
 countries of the world. Such were Adonis, the Egyptian 
 Osiris and Dionysus. The evidence that is adduced to con- 
 nect Krisna with the renewal of the life of vegetation in the 
 spring need not be detailed here. It is sufficient to mention 
 his connexion with cattle as Govinda, the vegetation spirit 
 being usually supposed to incarnate itself in such animals, 
 1 MM. XII. 269. 9.
 
 38 THEISTIC ELEMENTS IN THE PERIOD OF 
 
 his near relationship with Balarama, who is admittedly a god 
 of harvest, his name Damodara, the god ' with a cord round 
 his belly ', a description which is supposed to be derived from 
 the wheat-sheaf, and, most significant of all, the evidence of 
 the Mahabhasya that he appeared in what was evidently 
 a ' vegetation masque ', contending with Kamsa for the pos- 
 session of the sun. 
 
 One may venture to suggest that there is no necessary 
 contradiction between these views. Krisna may have been 
 a deified hero or a sage or religious reformer whose name was 
 transferred to the deity of the monotheistic sect of which he 
 was the founder. 1 At the same time, the analogy of the 
 history of other religious cults permits us to conjecture that 
 into that new or revived monotheistic religion much may 
 have passed which was a heritage from earlier and more 
 primitive beliefs and which seems to us to assort ill with 
 what in it is spiritual. We know that this was the case with 
 many of the mediaeval forms of popular Christianity, and that 
 indications of it are still to be found in the beliefs of not 
 a few who profess themselves Christians. An alloy of 
 Paganism was carried over into the spiritual faith of Christ 
 by many of the new converts and became so amalgamated 
 with it that, were it not for the record of the Founder's 
 teaching, it would be hard to isolate the one element from 
 the other. Similarly we may well believe that the original 
 ground-work of Krisnaism as of many other religious move- 
 ments that have showed themselves capable like it of having 
 higher thoughts grafted upon them was a vegetation cult, 
 which later, by the influence, perhaps, of a reformer Krisna, 
 was purified and spiritualized. If it be the case that the 
 religion of Vasudeva was at first distinct from that of Krisna, 
 the two streams presently united to form one, and the two 
 names became synonyms for the one god that their adherents 
 worshipped, Krisna-Vasudeva. There seems no reason at all 
 
 1 Cf. Jacobi, E. R. E. II, p. 81 1 2 : ' In Krisna, a Rajput hero has coalesced 
 with a shepherd-god (Govinda) into a new deity.'
 
 THE BRAHMANAS AND UPANISADS 39 
 
 why one should refuse to believe that as there were Buddha 
 and Mahavlra somewhat later, so there may have been two 
 religious reformers of whom we know no more than the 
 names, and who presently were identified with the deity of 
 their worship. Certainly there seems to have been at this 
 period much religious activity and freedom of intellectual 
 speculation. Further it is of interest to note as strengthening 
 the probability of the appearance in India of such religious 
 reformers, that probably about the same period, that is in the 
 sixth or seventh century B. c., there arose in the neigh- 
 bouring country of Iran the great spiritual teacher and 
 reformer Zarathustra. 
 
 Presently at what period we cannot determine with any 
 certainty those two sectarian cults which had by this time, 
 we may suppose, been united into one, formed a new com- 
 bination and acquired additional authority and prestige by 
 the identification of Krisna-Vasudeva with the Vedic deity 
 Visnu. The deification of Krisna-Vasudeva may quite possibly 
 date from a period anterior to the time of Buddha. There is 
 no evidence of his identification with Visnu until the second 
 century B. C., when indications in the Mahabhasya of Patanjali 
 point at least to a close connexion between them. 1 Perhaps 
 we may conjecture that even by the time of Buddha or soon 
 thereafter the different theistic streams were tending towards 
 each other. The implications of Indian thought have always 
 been slow to declare themselves in definite action and concrete 
 definition. It may have even taken centuries before a 
 systematic method by which those kindred gods, along with 
 others such as Parasurama and Rama, could be linked up 
 together. The idea of avataras, when it was devised for that 
 purpose, was by no means alien to the character of Visnu, 
 who from Vedic times was recognized as a god of grace and 
 
 1 See Ind. Ant. III. 16 and J.R.A.S., 1908, p. 172. 'Between the 
 period of the Bhagavadgita and that of the Amtgita the identity of 
 Vasudeva-Krisna with Visnu had become an established fact.' Bhan- 
 darkar's Vaisna-vism, p. 34.
 
 40 THEISTIC ELEMENTS IN THE PERIOD OF 
 
 one who had saved the world. The idea of avataras or 
 descents for some purpose of deliverance was entirely in 
 harmony with the conception of this deity as being in the 
 words of an inscription of a later date, ' entirely devoted to 
 the welfare of the universe.' * In this way the Vaisnavite 
 faith comes formally to embody in its creed one of the central 
 thoughts of Theism. Heaven and earth are brought together 
 in agreement with what is from the first the implicit aim of 
 such a religion, and the distant Vedic sky-god is related in 
 purposes of grace and of help with man in his distress. This, 
 it may be maintained, is the central conception of every cult 
 that follows the path of bhakti or ' loving faith ', and indeed of 
 any religion that really expresses and seeks to satisfy the 
 longings of the human heart. It is possible, indeed, to find 
 traces of the influence of this thought in many even of the 
 most primitive forms of religious belief. Students of com- 
 parative religion may even hazard the conjecture that in the 
 worship of the sun-god Visnu we have the adoration of a sky- 
 father, and in that of the fertility-god Krisna, if indeed that 
 was its primitive form, adoration of some remote and nameless 
 earth-mother, while on that view their harmony and co- 
 operation would be that which is essential to fruitfulness in 
 crops and beasts and men. But whether these analogies are 
 anything more than far-fetched fancies and certainly one 
 must pronounce them exceedingly problematical it does not 
 follow that those primitive ideas may not have been spirit- 
 ualized to something far worthier than they at first suggested. 
 The fact that the child is 'the father of the man, as Dr. E. 
 Caird has said somewhere in a similar connexion, does not 
 mean that he has not out-grown his childishness. The union 
 of earth and heaven, the coming together in loving fellowship, 
 in devotion and in service of God and man is certainly the 
 heart of all religion that can claim any real right to that 
 designation, and about the name of Visnu as well as of Krisna- 
 Vasudeva and his other avataras, there have gathered more 
 1 J.R,A.S., 1907, p. 973.
 
 THE BRAHMANAS AND UPANISADS 41 
 
 than round any other divine names in India these comforting 
 and uplifting thoughts. It is for that reason that those head 
 waters of religious belief can rightly be claimed, with all the 
 imperfections and inadequacies that must have continued to 
 mingle with them after their emergence from the doubtful 
 places of their origin, and no one who reads the legends of 
 Krisna in the Mahabharata can doubt that these were many 
 -^-to be reckoned among the main sources whence has 
 flowed through the centuries until to-day the stream of 
 Indian Theism.
 
 Ill 
 
 THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS 
 
 IN what has been said of the growth, as far as it may be 
 conjectured throughout the period of the Brahmanas, of Theism 
 and specially of the Bhagavata religion in its different forms 
 as worship of Visnu, of Vasudeva, and of Krisna, no account 
 has been taken of a body of literature which is of a significance 
 scarcely less than that of the Rig Veda itself in the long 
 history of Hinduism. It is to this group of treatises, the 
 Upanisads, that the name Vedanta has been given, and though 
 the word may only signify that with them the Vedas come to 
 a conclusion, to many it certainly is the case that, in accord- 
 ance with the other interpretation of the word, the literature 
 of the Veda finds in them its crown and final goal. Their 
 dates are as doubtful as those of all the other documents of 
 this period, but we may accept as certain this much at least, 
 that the greater number of the earliest prose group date from 
 before the period of Buddhism, and that they represent a 
 religious movement arising independently of the Brahmanas 
 and largely antagonistic to their sacerdotalism. This antago- 
 nism is expressed sometimes with an irony that is worthy of 
 Erasmus, as when a procession of dogs is described, marching 
 like priests, each holding the tail of the dog in front and 
 crying, ' 6m, let us eat ! 6m, let us drink ! ' 1 But because 
 the Upanisads represent a natural revolt from futile and un- 
 intelligent formalism, it does not follow that they were anti- 
 Brahmanical. The period and the region in which they arise 
 were evidently signalized by a remarkable activity and freedom 
 of thought. Certainly one cannot but be struck by the fact 
 
 1 Chand. Up. I. 12. 4-5.
 
 THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS 43 
 
 that so often in the Upanisads non-Brahmans are said to have 
 possession of higher truth than those have attained to who 
 were supposed to be the special guardians of spiritual know- 
 ledge, so that not infrequently Brahmans have to sit at their 
 feet and learn of them. It is, however, after all nothing sur- 
 prising that this should be the case. Conservatism is usually 
 the note of an established hierarchy which is more likely to 
 lose than gain by activity of speculation. To expect the 
 Brahmans of the priesthood to be foremost in a movement 
 which was iconoclastic in its character is to expect what is 
 contrary to nature, but the deduction from that need not be 
 that the movement was anti-Brahmanical. There is no sign 
 of such an attitude in the Upanisads themselves, which, if they 
 have been revised to exclude such indications, might just as 
 well have excluded all indications, in connexion with this 
 religious renaissance, of Brahman inferiority. We need as 
 little suppose that the Upanisad thought was hostile to, and 
 outside of, Brahmanism as we suppose, because Keshub 
 Chunder Sen was a Vaisya, that that is the case in regard to 
 the Brahmo-Samaj. What we are rather to remark is the 
 freedom of thought which seems to have prevailed at this 
 time and of which we have many indications. As a result of 
 it a bewildering number of conjectures were hazarded as to 
 the solution of the problem of the universe, and that not only 
 by Brahmans but by Ksatriyas, and even by women. 
 
 On the other hand, it is equally unnecessary for us to suppose 
 that there was any antagonism between the Bhagavata religion 
 and much of the speculation of the Upanisads, or even that 
 they affected entirely different strata of the population. No 
 doubt the Upanisad thought was confined to a limited circle, 
 and to a large extent at least, as the Upanisads themselves 
 indicate, was pursued in secret, while the worship of personal 
 gods was much more widely spread. But there is no neces- 
 sary opposition between much of the speculation of those 
 books and the devotion of the Bhagavatas. We may, indeed, 
 conjecture that in all probability some of these unnamed
 
 44 THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS 
 
 thinkers were themselves in their religious life worshippers of 
 Visnu and of other gods, such as Krisna-Vasudeva, around 
 whom the popular devotion had gathered. The colder atmo- 
 sphere of the Upanisads is after all the almost inevitable 
 atmosphere of reflection, and some at least of the attempts 
 of thoughtful men, that are furnished in these books, to con- 
 strue their religion in terms of reason are in no necessary 
 antagonism to that f passionate Theism ' of a later period which 
 is described by Sir R. G. Bhandarkar as the characteristic 
 note of the bhakti worshipper. Though we cannot suppose 
 that there was as yet anything that can be described as 
 monotheism within even the circle of those who called them- 
 selves Bhagavatas, yet we may well believe that there was 
 that which was on the way there, and that some of those who 
 uttered the private longings of their hearts before the feet of 
 these gods may have been the same who sought in the Upani- 
 sad speculations an intellectual solution for the mystery of the 
 being of God and the nature of things. No doubt the philo- 
 sopher is not often at the same time the saint, but there is no 
 reason why they should not both arise within the same circles 
 of thought. No doubt also when the thinkers of the Upanisads 
 pass over the boundary of metaphysics into the realm of 
 religion and point out the way of deliverance and of union 
 with the Ultimate as it appears to them, their teaching seems 
 often far enough away from the method of deliverance by 
 'loving faith'. If the Ultimate is construed as an idea or an 
 energy, then certainly the way to the goal will share in the 
 coldness and the moral emptiness of the goal itself. In the 
 case of some, however, we may be sure that their speculations 
 appeared to themselves at least to leave still something worthy 
 and satisfying in that to which their aspirations were directed 
 and to make it possible for them to seek it with a moral 
 ardour. If there seems little enough fuel in these treatises 
 with which to kindle in any one a ' passionate Theism ', yet the 
 difference between the more intellectual religion here set forth 
 and the emotional fervour of the worshipper of Vasudeva,
 
 THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS 45 
 
 may often be only a difference of degree, and not the funda- 
 mental antagonism which is implied if the teaching of the 
 Upanisads is set down without discrimination as simply 
 Pantheism. Practically all the religious thought of India, we 
 must remember, is pantheistic in the sense that the immanence 
 of God in the universe became early for it an axiom. The 
 whole drift of its reflection is in that direction and continually 
 it overflows, as it were, into pantheistic monism. As in the 
 religious thought of the West the temptation, we may say, is 
 to rest content with a crude deism, so in the East there is 
 always a tendency in the direction of monistic idealism. This 
 must not be forgotten when we are endeavouring to interpret 
 the meaning of the speculations of the Upanisads, while at 
 the same time we must recognize that in the earlier stages 
 especially of these speculations there are halting- places short 
 of that goal. Sometimes, probably, the logical consequences 
 of his conjecture are not fully present to the thinker, and 
 there is all the while in it a latent antagonism to Theism of 
 which he is largely unaware. On the other hand, there were 
 no doubt always those who, like the author of the Bhagavad- 
 gitd, conscious of the practical ineffectiveness of a cold intel- 
 lectualism, sought to bring its results more into harmony with 
 those beliefs which move and control the heart. 
 
 It is, indeed, somewhat futile to attempt to discriminate 
 among the various currents of religious tendency which, with 
 much audacity of thought and much freedom of expression, 
 were at that period troubling the deep waters of the Indian 
 spirit in the Ganges plain. It may well have been that in 
 that atmosphere, heavy with the burden of its heat, and 
 morbid with its weariness, men's minds might spend them- 
 selves in over-subtlety of speculation, and esteem no attain- 
 ment more to be desired than final escape from the bondage 
 of an existence that had in it nothing that deserved to be 
 desired. In that environment many fantastic forms of thought 
 and of religious practice flourished with an unhealthy luxuri- 
 ance. There were, no doubt, at this time, and we cannot tell
 
 46 THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS 
 
 from how ancient a period, those who, by concentration, by 
 tapas, or the heat that their own inward nature generated, 
 sought to realize their aspirations. A close relationship may 
 be traced between the ascetic practices of those Yogis, by 
 means of which they believed themselves able to bring the 
 powers of nature under their control, and the magic and super- 
 stition of which an early glimpse is afforded us in iheAt/iarva 
 Veda. These ascetics seem far enough removed from the 
 theosophist who seeks by knowledge to attain the same goal 
 of escape from this world of change and sorrow. And yet 
 here again it may well be that in the peculiar psychology of 
 the Yogi and the crude speculation of the magic-monger we 
 have one of the sources of a section of the speculation of the 
 Upanisads. The Atharvan knows already something of the 
 importance of the ' breaths ', the vital forces. 1 It may be that 
 that stratum of Upanisad theosophy which passes most easily 
 into monistic Pantheism, that which travels to the Ultimate 
 by the continual refinement of the physical, seeking the 
 1 subtle essence ' of all things, and which is therefore least 
 ethical, derives in great measure from this disreputable source. 
 The claims that are made in certain passages in behalf of 
 knowledge seem closely akin to the superstitious belief in the 
 power of a mantra or magic formula. ' He who knows ' some- 
 thing 'becomes' that thing. The ascent to Brahman by the 
 ladder of progressive tapas is a material progress to an un- 
 ethical end, but at the same time it is possible to combine 
 with this unmoral discipline faith (sraddha), an inward emotion 
 that leads the heart by a way less barren and unsatisfying. 2 
 
 The bewildering variety of speculations that are accumulated 
 in this literature may indeed be classified roughly under two 
 heads. Many appear to be mainly physical and metaphysical. 
 The problem here is, What is the substrate of the universe ? 
 What is the Ultimate ? What is that BraJiman in which all 
 things inhere? The question of union with that Ultimate and 
 
 1 A. V. XV. 15 ; Hopkins, R.I., p. 153. 
 
 2 Chcmd. Up. V. 10. I.
 
 THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS 47 
 
 of emancipation holds a secondary place. Those who are 
 occupied with these thoughts are primarily philosophers. The 
 practical interests of life and of deliverance from its bondage 
 in union with God remain for them in the background. But 
 there are others whose interest is rather in the problem of life, 
 and of the way of escape from its shadows to that which is 
 alone true and alone abiding. For this latter group the ques- 
 tion of questions is, How can a man attain to that condition 
 which is beyond reach of change which is bliss in that abode 
 where there is ' no sorrow and no snow ' ? l For the former, 
 the problem is a more impersonal one, and one less engaged 
 with human fears and human fate, In the Sdndilya Vidya, 
 for example, the discourse seems to move in a region purely 
 metaphysical and abstract, and when, at its conclusion, for the 
 first time a personal note is struck 'When I shall have 
 departed hence, I shall obtain that Atman ' it impresses one 
 as quite perfunctory. On the other hand, the discussion in 
 the Katha Upanisad is vitally engaged with the problem of 
 human loss and human destiny, while when Yajnavalkya dis- 
 closes his deepest conviction to his beloved Maitreyi the 
 atmosphere in which the two discourse together is vivid with 
 reality and quick with living interest. The thought of the 
 goal to which he seems to point may fill us, as it filled her, 
 with ' utter bewilderment ', but there is no question but that 
 he is setting before her no abstract doctrine, but a message 
 with an entirely practical bearing upon life and full of ethical 
 content. It is in the latter group of speculations rather than 
 the former that we shall expect to find the stream of Theism 
 flow most richly. For the thinker may forget for a time the 
 religious implicates of his thought, while he moves in the 
 region of speculation, or seeks to dissolve into its ultimate 
 elements the spirit of man or the life of the universe, but when 
 he turns his eye again upon the spectacle of human struggle 
 and reflects upon the problem of human fate, his thought 
 assumes another and a more vital hue. The region of Theism, 
 1 Brihad. Up. V. 10. I.
 
 48 THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS 
 
 we may claim, is the region of life, and every movement is 
 antagonistic to it whether it be engaged with the asceticism 
 of the Yogi or with the speculation of the pure metaphysician 
 which turns its back upon the facts and upon the claims 
 of life. 
 
 In seeking to make clear to ourselves the course of develop- 
 ment of the religious teaching of the Upanisads and to decide 
 how far it is in harmony with an ethical Theism, one is 
 confronted at the outset by the difficulty of arranging the 
 documents in their historical sequence. The most that we 
 can do is to arrange them in certain groups and judge of the 
 development of their thought by the help of so much of order 
 as that affords us in their chaos. Perhaps we may further 
 suggest as probable that of them all the Aitareya Aranyaka 
 is oldest while the Brihaddranyaka comes next to it in age. 
 The probability that the Aitareya Aranyaka is of great 
 antiquity appears to follow from the fact that it is so closely 
 associated with the Brahmana and gives an allegorical account 
 of the Uktha. The whole character of its reflection, too, 
 gives evidence of its antiquity. An examination then of the 
 Upanisads contained in it and of the Brihaddranyaka and 
 especially of its Yajnavalkya sections, which certainly belong 
 to a very early period in the development of the Upanisad 
 doctrine and carry much authority, will help to determine at 
 least whether, as Sankaracarya maintained and as Professor 
 Deussen too holds to-day, the original and normative teaching 
 of the Vedanta was an idealistic monism, or whether it was 
 something more in harmony with a theistic interpretation of 
 the universe. 
 
 Here we have to remind ourselves once more that, as in the 
 popular religion, so in these tentative constructions of a theory 
 of the universe a full-orbed Theism is not likely to discover 
 itself. What we may expect to find is that the views here and 
 there propounded bear, some of them one, and others of them 
 another, and yet another, of the characteristics of an ethical 
 Theism. None of them is likely to possess them all. What
 
 THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS 49 
 
 Ruskin says of the difficulty of pronouncing whether certain 
 buildings are truly Gothic in their architecture or not illus- 
 trates appositely the question we are considering. He points 
 out that all he can reason upon is ' a greater or less degree of 
 Gothicness in each building ', for, as he goes on to say, ' pointed 
 arches do not constitute Gothic, nor vaulted roofs, nor flying 
 buttresses, nor grotesque sculptures ; but all or some of these 
 things, and many other things with them, when they come 
 together so as to have life '. The case before us here is 
 exactly similar. We shall find in all probability a greater or 
 less degree of Theism in the various speculations of this litera- 
 ture ; and it is when this characteristic and the other ' come 
 together so as to have life' so as to present what may be 
 a living ethical religion that we can pronounce with confi- 
 dence that this is truly theistic thought. What, then, are those 
 characteristics of Upanisad doctrine which we can pronounce 
 theistic, even as pointed arches and vaulted roofs are Gothic ? 
 And what are those elements, on the other hand, the presence 
 of which seems to negate Theism and to show that the 
 direction of the speculation in which they are found was away 
 from it and hostile to it ? 
 
 There are three main lines of inquiry which it will be 
 necessary to pursue in order to answer these questions in 
 regard to the teaching of the Upanisads. Whether or not 
 that teaching is theistic will depend upon the conclusion to 
 which those lines of inquiry lead us. In the first place we 
 must ask, Were the Upanisads rightly interpreted by Sankara 
 as inculcating as their highest truth the illusoriness of the 
 world and of the individual spirit, and the sole reality of an 
 undifferentiated Brahmanl Is Mayavada doctrine the true 
 Vedanta? On such a view Theism is of course impossible. 
 Further we have to ask, How is Brahman attained ? In the 
 measure in which the ' knowledge ' which is prescribed as the 
 means by which this goal is reached is purely intellectual, in 
 that measure it is antagonistic to an ethical and theistic 
 religion. The knowledge of and fellowship with a person 
 
 E
 
 50 THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS 
 
 which Theism sets before it as its aim and end must be the 
 expression of other elements in the worshipper's personality 
 than his intellect alone. The less there is of ethical content 
 in it, the more it approaches a metaphysical process and 
 recedes from the region of faith and devotion. And in the 
 third place the question must be asked, whether the union 
 with Brahman which is sought is an absorption in which all 
 difference is lost, or whether some element of awareness, such 
 as Theism postulates, is supposed to remain to the emanci- 
 pated soul? The spheres of these different inquiries do 
 indeed overlap and cannot be demarcated strictly the one 
 from the other, but each of them indicates a point at which 
 Theism differentiates itself from what can quite definitely be 
 designated Pantheism or Monism, and each of them therefore 
 demands separate inquiry. As pointed arches and vaulted 
 roofs and flying buttresses 'coming together so as to have 
 life ' constitute decisive Gothicness in a building, so we may 
 call that thought theistic without hesitation or reserve which 
 accepts the world and the individual soul as real alongside 
 of Brahman, which recognizes a moral enlightenment as 
 necessary to union with Brahman, and which demands a con- 
 tinuance of self-consciousness for the spirit that has passed 
 into that final fellowship. 
 
 It may almost be accepted as demonstrated without further 
 necessity of discussion that the doctrine of mdya is unknown 
 to the Upanisads. Of those twelve that are considered oldest 
 and most authoritative the word only occurs in one, the Svet- 
 asvatara, an Upanisad of the second period, and then only once. 
 Even there, where prakriti is said to be may a and the great 
 Lord the Mdyin, the word need mean no more than that he 
 is the artificer and the world the product of his miraculous 
 power. Only Sankara's strained and unnatural effort to make 
 the Upanisads consistent with each other and with his inter- 
 pretation of them by postulating a higher and a lower level 
 of truth can explain away the repeated representation of the 
 world as a real creation. If the Upanisads in the Aitareya
 
 THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS 51 
 
 Aranyaka are the oldest, then this and not * idealistic monism ' 
 is the earliest view of the relation of the world and the Supreme 
 Self. ' Verily in the beginning all this was Self, one only ; there 
 was nothing else blinking whatsoever. He thought, " Shall 
 I send forth worlds ? " He sent forth these worlds. . . . He 
 thought, " There are the worlds ; shall I send forth guardians 
 of the worlds ? " He then formed the ptwusa, taking him forth 
 from the water.' 1 So far this account except for the word 
 ' sent forth ' is indistinguishable from that of ordinary Occi- 
 dental Theism. Its distinctive note is struck later when it is 
 said, ' When born, He (the Supreme Self) looked through all 
 things in order to see whether anything wished to proclaim 
 here another (Self). He saw this person only as the widely 
 spread Brahman. " I saw it," thus he said.' 2 From this 
 passage it is plain that to this early thinker it already was an 
 axiom that all was Brahman ' one only without a second/ 
 as a later Upanisad puts it but nowhere is it suggested 
 either that the worlds ' sent forth ' from him or the puriisas he 
 formed were other than real. A closely similar passage is to be 
 found in the Chandogya? where the old doctrine, to be found 
 in the earlier literature, of creation out of nothing is explicitly 
 rejected, as it is implicitly in the Aitareya, and the eternity of 
 being is affirmed. Creation is the revelation of 'names and 
 forms ', 4 that is the communication of separate existence and 
 individuality within the original, unmodified unity. There is 
 no question of the reality of these modes of Brahman. Their 
 reality in fact consists in their entire pervasion by Brahman 
 which ' entered thither to the very tips of the finger-nails, as 
 a razor might be fitted in a razor-case or a fire in a fire- 
 place'. 5 In these and other passages the ' individualization of 
 the Infinite' is due to his 'thought' or 'vision' 'Shall 
 I send forth worlds?' 'May I be many, may I grow forth.' 6 
 
 1 Ait. Aran. II. 4. I. s Ibid. II. 4. 3. 10. 
 
 3 Chand. Up. VI. 2. i ff. 
 
 4 Chand. Up. VI. 3. 2. Also Brihad. Up. I. 4. 7. 
 
 5 Brihad. Up. I. 4. 7. 
 
 6 Ait. Aran. II. 4. I, 2 ; Chand. Up. VI. 2. 3. 
 
 E 2
 
 52 THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS 
 
 There is no hint that this is a deceptive thought or that this 
 creation, this plurality, is unreal. To deduce from these and 
 similar passages a doctrine of mayd because of the strong 
 affirmation of the original unity is to interpret them with 
 a pedantic literalness which is foreign to the whole spirit of 
 the speculation. 
 
 As a matter of fact a survey of the whole of the speculation 
 of the earlier Upanisads justifies us in affirming the reality of 
 the universe as due to the fact that it is Brahman ' sent forth ' 
 and fashioned into diverse forms distinguished by ' name and 
 form '. Everything depends on how much is meant by ' name 
 and form ', and it may well be that to some of the thinkers 
 this implies a more real and permanent existence than to 
 others. In the case of man, as we shall see, the losing of 
 ' name and form ' seems to signify in the view of some of the 
 Upanisads at least, something approaching to complete absorp- 
 tion, 1 but certainly that does not appear to be true of all. In 
 general, one may affirm that in the Upanisads the central 
 thought is that ' all these creatures ', as Uddalaka Aruni says 
 to his son Svetaketu, ' have their root in the true, they dwell 
 in the true, they rest in the true '. 2 Even when he uses the 
 formula which is accounted the very charter of idealistic 
 monism ' Thou, O Svetaketu, art it ' ' tat tvam asi ' 3 it is 
 probable that no more was meant than that the inner reality 
 of man's life is Brahman that in it which is true and abiding. 
 Sometimes, no doubt, this thought is mainly presented as a 
 metaphysical or physical explanation of the universe, and this 
 seems to be in the background even of these words of Aruni, 
 for he speaks of this Self as the ' subtle essence '. 4 As a 
 matter of fact the spiritual and physical spheres are not yet 
 demarcated in these speculations, and we must not look for 
 systematization and consistency in what is as yet with all its 
 subtlety only the childhood of Indian thought. This strong 
 assertion of the essential and inner identity of the universe 
 
 1 Mund. Up. III. 2. 8 ; Pros. Up. VI. 5. 2 Chand. Up. VI. 8. 6. 
 
 5 Ibid. VI. 8. 7. Ibid. VI. 8. 7.
 
 THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS 53 
 
 and the Atman is really in its ethical aspect nowise different 
 from the great message of Yajnavalkya to Maitreyl : ' Verily 
 the worlds are not dear that you may love the worlds, but 
 that you may love the Atman, therefore the worlds are dear.' 
 So long as the permanence and the freedom of the individual 
 soul are recognized, this strong affirmation of the divine im- 
 manence in all things is not necessarily antagonistic to Theism. 
 How far this doctrine tends to become anti-theistic will appear 
 when we consider whether in the Upanisads the souls of the 
 emancipated are absorbed and indistinguishably lost in the 
 Universal Self. Meantime we can conclude that while the 
 direction of Upanisad thought is towards an abstract and empty 
 Brahman, out of which a universe in which are real distinc- 
 tions and a real plurality can with difficulty be conceived to 
 emerge, yet its whole emphasis meantime is upon the reality 
 of that universe as in the last analysis produced and sustained 
 by Brahman. Its error, which produces in the end the doc- 
 trine of mdya, lies just in the fact that it is by a process of 
 analysis and of continual abstraction that the ultimate reality 
 is reached. The thought now is that there is such an ultimate 
 reality, and that it constitutes the reality of all things. Later 
 it might appear to follow as a consequence that all things 
 were empty and unreal. In the Upanisads, however, that 
 consideration has not yet emerged with any distinctness. 
 The quest for the ultimate truth has reached for them its goal 
 in Brahman, and in it all things are real. 1 
 
 So far it seems possible to rule out of the teaching of the 
 Upanisads the Mayavada doctrine, and to claim at least that 
 that fatal obstacle to a theistic interpretation of their message 
 has not yet presented itself. The question we have now to 
 ask is whether the 'knowledge' with which Brahman is so 
 often identified, and which for that reason is so often prescribed 
 as the chief means by which the goal of Brahman is reached, 
 is compatible with any conception of it which leaves room for 
 
 1 Brahman (masc.) is found in Sahkhayana Aran. III. 5, and brahma- 
 loka, which almost postulates a personal Brahman (A. Berriedale Keith).
 
 54 THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS 
 
 a real Theism. It is fairly obvious that in any religion exces- 
 sive intellectualism is opposed to a warmly ethical Theism. 
 It leads both in the teaching of the Upanisads and of Aristotle 
 to the view that the highest life is one of contemplative activity 
 in the presence of a God who is at best a pure self-contempla- 
 tive intelligence. The more the Upanisads tend to limit the 
 nature of Brahman to prajna (intelligence), and the method 
 of attaining that goal to processes predominatingly intellectual, 
 the farther they recede from Theism or from any view of the 
 religious life which is likely to be ethically valuable. Now it 
 can hardly be disputed that there is a tendency throughout 
 the Upanisads in that direction and away from Theism. The 
 quest for unity, which underlies alike the speculations of the 
 philosopher and the aspirations of the religious man, naturally 
 at first as we see in the case of Aristotle and of the Neo- 
 platonists no less than of the unknown authors of these 
 works endeavours to reach its goal by the method of ex- 
 cluding all difference. It seemed to some of these thinkers 
 at least that in the exercise of the intelligence alone was man 
 able to emancipate himself from individual conditions and 
 from the contingency of things, and to rise into intimate 
 communion with the divine which, just because it is divine, 
 must be, as they considered, pure undifferenced being. 
 
 Now it is obvious, as has been said, that the tendency of 
 such a view of things, by divorcing contemplation as the 
 highest state of spiritual attainment from action, and God or 
 Brahman as the highest Being from all participation in phe- 
 nomenal existence, must necessarily be away from anything 
 like a true ethical Theism. It can hardly be denied that a 
 considerable portion of the teaching of the Upanisads is in 
 that direction, and that Sankara's doctrine is the fine flower 
 that blossoms from this root. But at the same time, on the 
 one hand, it does not appear that the logical consequences of 
 this tendency were present to the majority of the thinkers of 
 the Upanisads any more than they were to Aristotle or to 
 Plotinus, or that they were aware that their view of ultimate
 
 THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS 55 
 
 Being and of man's relation to it must prove fatal to a real 
 religious life. Nor, on the other hand, was their method of 
 abstraction and of pure intellectualism the method of con- 
 ceiving of Brahman and of reaching union with him which 
 presented itself by any means to all of these risis. It may 
 further be claimed in this connexion that the Upanisad doctrine 
 which is earliest in date was less predominatingly intellectual 
 than that which grew up later, and that it was quite in harmony 
 with a theistic interpretation of the world. In the oldest of 
 the three Upanisads of the Aitareya the nature of the Atmau 
 is not conceived of as purely prajna (intelligence). Man is 'he 
 who looks before and after and pines for what is not ', and in 
 these characteristics, which differentiate him from the other 
 animals, consists his greatness. 1 He is ' the sea, rising beyond 
 the whole world. If he should reach that (heavenly) world, 
 he would wish to go beyond '. 2 Here man's greatness and his 
 divinity are rightly perceived to rest in his full and manifold 
 nature and the infinite reaches of his soul. It is not suggested 
 that he must unlade the rich cargo of his spirit, that he may 
 come into fellowship with God. In the second Upanisad in 
 this Aranyaka, while a further step is taken, and it is definitely 
 stated that the Self is knowledge, and that knowledge is 
 Brahman? that knowledge is vitally connected with all life 
 and action, and is that by which we will and breathe, love and 
 desire. It is not yet suggested that these practical interests 
 are alien to Brahman, or unworthy of him who seeks his 
 fellowship. It is only in the third and latest Upanisad of this 
 Aranyaka that a later agnostic doctrine makes its appearance, 
 and it is declared that the knowing Self cannot be known. 4 
 
 So also in the Brihaddranyaka and the Chandogya the pro- 
 cess by which Brahman is realized and reached is not purely 
 intellectual, and not therefore irreconcilable with a theistic 
 conception of his nature. It is largely a moral process of self- 
 purification and self-control, of meditation and insight. No 
 doubt intellectual perception has a chief place among the 
 
 MI. 3. 2. MI. 3. 3f. MI. 6. i. 5. MIL 2. 4. 19.
 
 56 THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS 
 
 means by which the goal of the spirit is reached. It has to 
 be admitted that the Upanisads are, as philosophy has a 
 tendency often to be, aristocratic works placing intellectual 
 culture first as a means to man's highest attainment, while 
 a really practical Theism with its appeal to the whole man 
 is generally democratic. But while it is affirmed in the 
 Brihaddranyaka that he that knows attains, it is only when 
 with his knowledge he has ' become quiet, subdued, satisfied, 
 patient and collected ' that he ' sees self in Atman and sees 
 all as Atman '. l More important than the possession of learning 
 (pdndityd) is the attainment of the spirit of the child (bdlya) 
 and of the spirit of the sage (Manna)?' Even in the Sdndilya 
 Vidyd it is man as 3i<J*re, which Max Miiller translates ' a 
 creature of will', who obtains the Atman? Similarly else- 
 where in the Chdndogya the way to Brahman and to satisfac- 
 tion is largely a moral progress, by which the seeker ' shakes 
 off all evil as a horse shakes his hairs, and as the moon frees 
 herself from the mouth of Rahu'. 4 It is not necessary to 
 refer to passages in other Upanisads, about whose Theism 
 there is no controversy, to show that the method of attaining 
 to l\\z Atman according to their teaching is not that of making 
 the human spirit a desert save for the pale wind-flowers of the 
 intellect. No one questions that in the Katha and the Mun- 
 daka, for example, we find set forth a moral discipline as the 
 means by which the soul is to be prepared for the self-com- 
 munication of an Atman who ' chooses ' it. 5 What is here 
 maintained is that from the first to many of the risis of the 
 Upanisads 'knowledge', as in the Hebrew use of the word, 
 though not to the same extent, is an ethical as well as an 
 intellectual activity. They lay, indeed, perhaps excessive 
 stress on the intellectual element in the means of man's 
 deliverance, in the guidance that his reason gives him in 
 travelling along the path ' narrow as a razor's edge ' to the 
 
 1 Brihad. Up. IV. 4. 23. 
 
 2 Ibid. III. 5. I. Cf. S.B.E., vol. XV, p. 130, note, and Deussen, 
 Phil, of Upanisads, p. 58. 3 Chand. Up. III. 14. i. 
 
 4 Ibid. VIII, 13. i. 6 Katha Up. 1. 2. 23, 24 ; Mund. #.111.2.3,4.
 
 THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS 57 
 
 high goal from whence there shall be no return to lower levels, 
 even as did also Plato and Philo. No doubt this element is 
 largely determinative of the whole process, and affects in a 
 vital manner the series of speculations which make up the 
 Vedanta, overlaying and obscuring the purely religious idea 
 which was to be found in all probability at that very period 
 more vividly expressed in the devotional cults in which later 
 the word bhakti came to be commonly employed. But, while 
 that has to be admitted, it remains that to many the knowledge 
 which Brahman was conceived to be was not a cold and 
 colourless atmosphere stirred by no breath of moral life, nor 
 was the way there a purely intellectual process. In less 
 measure no doubt than to the Hebrew prophets and to 
 St. John, yet in some real measure, the word had an ethical 
 content which made it the means to a genuine religious fellow- 
 ship with a God still recognized as able to enter into personal 
 relations with men. There was room for the exercise of 
 moral discipline, and for the experience, in the presence of one 
 who was not only knowledge but bliss, of a truly spiritual 
 peace. The reflections of these seers may not have been often 
 productive of a passionate Theism, but they were not, in spite 
 of their emphasis on knowledge, necessarily anti-theistic. 
 
 We now pass to the third question and that which is most 
 important of all in determining whether or not the thought of 
 the Upanisads is such as to make Theism impossible. This 
 question is whether the union with Brahman which is always 
 the goal of effort is an absorption in which all difference is 
 lost or whether the emancipated soul still retains self-conscious- 
 ness. It is certainly the case that there are many passages in 
 which the identification of the individual self and the universal 
 Self is affirmed with an absoluteness that seems to justify the 
 conclusion of Thibaut that the one is ' completely merged and 
 indistinguishably lost ' in the other. 1 But here again we must 
 bear in mind that the language of these seers is not that of 
 precise definition. Just because they are seers, as much as 
 1 S. B. E. XXXIV, p. cxxi.
 
 58 THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS 
 
 they are thinkers, their statements should not be treated 
 with a too pedantic literalness. If we take, for example, one 
 of the most striking passages in which Yajnavalkya expounds 
 the state of final liberation, we shall perhaps realize that this 
 is the case. ' Now as a man,' he says, ' when embraced by 
 a beloved wife, knows nothing that is without, nothing that is 
 within, thus this person, when embraced by the intelligent 
 (prajna) Self, knows nothing that is without, nothing that is 
 within. It is indeed in his (true) form, in which his wishes are 
 fulfilled, in which the Self (only) is his wish, in which no wish 
 is left free from any sorrow.' l It appears to be the case that 
 the simile made use of here, and common to all mystical 
 doctrines of union, really expresses what is meant in most ot 
 the passages that describe in language almost of ecstasy the 
 supreme goal of human longing. ' As a man, when embraced 
 by a beloved wife, knows nothing that is without, nothing that 
 is within ' this symbol of union is the hall-mark of mysticism 
 in every country and in every age. The state imagined is one 
 that may also be compared to the condition in deep sleep or 
 to the mingling of rivers in the sea or salt melted in the water, 
 but it is a state which defies definite determination; for it 
 aims, if we may so express it, at the loss of individuality or 
 what the Upanisads would call ' name and form ' but the 
 preservation at the same time in some subtle sense of conscious 
 personality. ' When it is said ', the writer goes on in a passage 
 from the Brihaddranyaka quoted above, ' that there he does not 
 see, yet he is seeing, though he does not see. For sight is 
 inseparable from the seer, because it cannot perish. But there 
 is then no second, nothing else different from him that he could 
 see.' 2 And so on with the other senses. In the words of 
 Dr. Sukhtankar, 3 ' there is no actual empirical consciousness, 
 but this is not because the souls cease to be conscious sub- 
 jects '. How near the seer, Yajnavalkya, who is supposed 
 to be the founder of the doctrine of complete absorption, 
 
 1 Brihad. Up. IV. 3. 21. 2 Ibid. IV. 3. 23. 
 
 3 Sukhtankar's Teachings of Vedanta according to Ramanuja, p. 12, n.
 
 THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS 59 
 
 approached to that view, while at the same time claiming to 
 preserve for the emancipated soul continued existence and 
 continued consciousness, is indicated in two passages by 
 Maitreyl's expression of dismay and his response to it. On 
 both occasions she, supposing that he had pointed her to the 
 gulf of complete annihilation, cries, ' Sir, thou hast landed me 
 in utter bewilderment,' and his reassuring response in the one 
 case is ' Verily, beloved, that Self is indestructible and of an 
 imperishable nature ', and in the other, according at least to 
 Dr. Sukhtankar's interpretation, ' Consciousness is possible in 
 this state.' l 
 
 The fact is that the title of Pantheism so often applied to 
 this whole body of speculations is a misnomer. Dr. E. Caird, 
 in his luminous exposition of the closely parallel speculation 
 of Plotinus, has distinguished the body of ideas to which it 
 appears to me the reflection of the Upanisads belongs as 
 mysticism from what is properly to be denominated Pantheism. 
 Pantheism loses God in the world ; this doctrine separates 
 God or Brahman altogether from the world. ' The Atman is 
 to the Indian', says Oldenberg, 'certainly the sole actuality, 
 light diffusing ; but there is a remainder left in things which 
 He is not.' 2 There is no remainder in the view of Pantheism. 
 The thesis of the Upanisads is that the Atman is the only 
 valuable, and we must not cease from mental and from moral 
 toil until we reach it hard as it is to reach. According to 
 Pantheism one can never get away from God, for all is He 
 and He is all ; according to this type of mysticism, the problem 
 always supremely urgent for it is the one thing that matters 
 and always in a strict application of its principles impossible, 
 is how to get to God. Emptying his life of every finite interest, 
 the mystic seeks to climb to a divine unity, so rarefied and 
 so remote, that it cannot be characterized and therefore cannot 
 be known. He would lose even his consciousness of self, for 
 
 1 Brihad. Up. IV. 5; II. 4. 13; cf. Jacpbi in E.R.E. II, p. Soi 2 , 'It 
 may be doubted whether absolute identity is meant.' 
 * Oldenberg's Buddha (English transl.), p. 39.
 
 60 THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS 
 
 so only it seems to him that he can know God ; and yet he 
 dare not lose it, for then he knows he would himself be lost. 
 Thus this view embodies a continual struggle to express what 
 is inexpressible and to reach what is unattainable. The later 
 doctrine of Sankara may perhaps be named Pantheism 
 strange as its Pantheism is for it says that Brahman is all, 
 because all but Brahman is false. But the teaching of the 
 Upanisads, though it seems akin to Pantheism in that it holds 
 that Brahman, the real, is immanent in all things, yet differs 
 from Pantheism in that that real is only reached and known 
 by emptying all things of that which seems to give them being 
 and strength. Pantheism rejoices in the world and in all the 
 things of the world ; for are they not God ? This mysticism 
 is continually purging the world of its dross to reach that 
 ultimate and subtle essence which is Brahman. Properly 
 speaking Brahman is conceived of rather as transcendent than 
 as immanent ; for if all things are real in it, that reality is some- 
 thing ever beyond and elusive. Again and again, it is said, 
 ' That Atman is a bank, a boundary, so that these worlds may 
 not be confounded.' ... ' Therefore when that bank has 
 been crossed, night becomes day indeed, for the world of 
 Brahman is lighted up once for all.' 1 But to reach that 
 further bank, how difficult it is ! To accomplish this and 
 enter into the light of that day has been the task that has 
 absorbed the labour of the mystic's spirit in every age. But 
 who can climb where the ladder of the human consciousness 
 cannot reach ? Who can abide in an atmosphere so rare that 
 human spirits cannot breathe in it and live ? ' That Self is to 
 be described by " Neti, Neti",' says Yajnavalkya to Maitreyl. 
 ' It is in truth unspeakable,' says Plotinus, ' for if you say any- 
 thing of it you make it a particular thing.' Even St. Augustine 
 repeats with approval the saying that we must not even call 
 God ineffable, since this is to make an assertion about Him, 
 and He is above every name that is named; and again 
 
 1 Chand. Up. VIII. 4. 1.2; cf. Brihad. Up. IV. 4. 22 ; Matt. Up. 
 VII. 7.
 
 THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS 61 
 
 c sciendo ignoratur et nesciendo cognoscitur '. l ' The double 
 aspect of God as the one in whom all is lost and yet the one 
 in whom all is found seems to be expressible only by asserting 
 the failure of all expression.' 2 If the Christian Mystics, who 
 never doubted their own Theism, shared with the risis of the 
 Vedanta these speculations and these hopes, setting their 
 whole heart's desire on a fellowship which at the same time 
 they placed beyond all properly conscious attainment, surely 
 we need not doubt that those older thinkers may have 
 cherished, and certainly in some cases did cherish, the same 
 theistic faith. It is these religious longings mingling with 
 their speculations, and giving their writings, as they gave the 
 writings of Plotinus, a ' troubled intensity ' in which, more 
 than in any positive results they reach, consist their value and 
 their fascination. 
 
 1 ' Our knowledge hides Him from us : by our ignorance He is known.' 
 Inge's Christian Mysticism, p. in ; E. Caird's Evolution of Religion, I, 
 p. 1-41. 
 
 2 E. Caird, Evolution of Theol. in the Greek Philosophers, II, 307.
 
 IV 
 THEISM WITHIN BUDDHISM 
 
 WHILE the main course of religious speculation and re- 
 flection in India in the pre-Christian centuries lies through the 
 Upanisads and the perplexing manifold of their conjectures, 
 and while there can be little doubt that during that period, as 
 always, the popular faith in all the variety of its expressions, 
 sometimes sincerely devout, sometimes simply superstition, 
 continued to persist, the religious situation is far from being 
 completely presented so long as we neglect those great move- 
 ments of revolt of which Jainism and Buddhism are the most 
 important. It may seem strange that one should have to 
 follow the tracks of Indian Theism even across the borders of 
 systems such as these. Widely as they differ from each other, 
 they are both at one in denying a personal Supreme Spirit. 
 And yet a closer examination reveals the fact that genuine 
 elements of the theistic tradition were present especially in 
 Buddhism from its very inception, and that with the develop- 
 ment of the religion these discovered themselves more and 
 more fully. It is natural indeed that this should be the case ; 
 for those new religions did not, any more than other religions 
 elsewhere, spring full-grown from the brains of their founders, 
 nor are they out of organic relation to the speculation and the 
 devotion that precede them, as though they were, to use the 
 metaphor of the Sanskrit schoolmen ' flowers in the sky ' or 
 'horns on a hare'. Both Jainism and Buddhism are after all 
 phases of the long Hindu development, absorbing elements 
 from its complexity and responding to certain demands of the 
 spirit it expresses. In consequence we may expect to find 
 within them in greater or less degree the devout aspirations,
 
 THEISM WITHIN BUDDHISM 63 
 
 the religious inwardness, the recognition of the claims of purity 
 of life which are among the characteristics of the Theism 
 which these new religions expressly repudiate. 
 
 It is not necessary that Jainism should long detain us. 
 Perhaps for the reason that within it the theistic elements 
 of which we are in search are few and feeble, its significance 
 in the Indian religious development is not great, and the extent 
 of.'its influence has not been wide. Two characteristics, how- 
 ever, which it shares with Buddhism may well have passed 
 into it from the popular worship of the period. These are its 
 opposition to the system of caste l that was even then laying 
 its grasp upon the community, and which the Brahmanic 
 intellectualism fostered and, along with this, the missionary 
 spirit which it inspired in its adherents. Its opposition to 
 caste may indeed have been little more than an opposition to 
 Brahman exclusiveness ; and certainly the caste spirit soon 
 reasserted its power within the religion ; but for a while the 
 logic of the heart prevailed. The way of salvation that 
 Mahavlra preached may also have been a difficult one which 
 could be followed only by those who were willing to practise 
 the cruellest asceticism, yet the fact remains that, as dis- 
 tinguished from the aristocratic Brahman way of knowledge, 
 it was open to all to tread. The Jainas have long since 
 forsaken the message that Mahavlra gave to them in this 
 matter at least, and perhaps this fact accounts to some extent 
 for the failure of the movement he initiated to grow to any- 
 thing greater in India than Jainism is to-day. Certainly in its 
 original democratic character and in its universalism, we have 
 two notes of Theism which the sect of Mahavlra may have 
 learned from such worships as that of Vasudeva-Krisna, and 
 which at least testify to a certain religious vitality within its 
 borders. The closely allied sect of Ajlvikas are said 2 to have 
 
 1 The most advanced position taken up by early Buddhism is that 
 presented in the Assalayana Sutta, 'the drift of which is to show the 
 indifference of caste.' 
 
 2 Kern, Geschtedenis, I, p. 14.
 
 64 THEISM WITHIN BUDDHISM 
 
 been worshippers of Narayana, and if so would seem to have 
 been recruited from the adherents of the popular Visnu 
 worship, even as the Buddhists were from the Jatilas who 
 were worshippers of fire. 1 The religious earnestness that 
 expressed itself in these various reforming movements must 
 frequently have had its source among the devout adherents 
 of those theistic cults. 2 
 
 There must indeed have been much religious earnestness 
 and much questioning at the time when these new ways of 
 deliverance were sought and found. In the sixth century 
 before Christ the Magadha or middle district of Northern 
 India seems to have been the scene of much religious activity. 
 The doctrine of transmigration had by this time laid its heavy 
 burden upon the hearts of the people, with the result that the 
 passionate quest of all awakened spirits, whether they were 
 mendicants or kings, was for immortality, for deliverance from 
 that bondage which was life itself. The orthodox the 
 majority with little clear consciousness of an ultimate goal 
 pursued it along the ' road of works ', the way of rite and of 
 oblation, established and guarded by the Brahmanic hierarchy. 
 The intellectuals, not able to remain content with this, sought 
 the same goal along the 'road of knowledge ', reaching it at 
 last by the intuition that perceives the spirit within to be 
 one with the spirit that is ultimate and alone. The devout 
 worshipped in loving faith the god of their devotion, believing 
 that his grace would save them in the midst of a world of 
 samsara. But the most earnest among all these, whatever 
 their doctrine or their worship, ' their hair grown white and 
 having seen their son's son' would take the staff of the 
 mendicant and go forth as seekers, Sramanas, Yogis, Munis, 
 Yatis labouring to reach by self-torture or by mental 
 exercises, the goal of deliverance so passionately desired. 
 
 1 Poussin, Opinions, pp. 223, 224. 
 
 2 For evidence that even Jainism, in spite of its denial of a Supreme 
 Spirit, could find room within itself for such devotion to a personal 
 Redeemer as is so often found in theistic faiths, see the Bhupala Stotra, 
 translated by L. D. Barnett in his Heart of India, p. 45.
 
 THEISM WITHIN BUDDHISM 65 
 
 Two young men, afterwards among the most distinguished of 
 the disciples of Sakyamuni, bound themselves by a promise 
 that the first to win the prize of immortality would tell his 
 friend. ' Everywhere were to be met those who claimed, 
 " I am a biiddha ; I possess enlightenment, the true way of 
 salvation ", blind leaders of the blind.' 1 
 
 When Gautama Sakyamuni made this same claim, he did so 
 as' one who had found a way in many respects indeed new and 
 untried, but into which at the same time elements are certain 
 to have entered of the older religious experience and the older 
 discipline. ' The Buddhist tradition ', says M. Senart, 2 ' cer- 
 tainly moves in a Krisnaite atmosphere. . . . More or less 
 altered and distorted, a certain Visnuite inheritance survives, 
 carried down by Buddhist currents.' That this is the case 
 there is abundant evidence to prove. The marks, for example, 
 on the new-born child designating him as the future Buddha 
 and the title mahapurusa frequently given to him connect his 
 story unmistakably with pre-Buddhistic solar legends, and in 
 particular with Narayana, the deity of the Bhagavatas, as he 
 was of the Ajlvikas, and himself identified with the sun-god 
 Visnu. MM. Senart and Poussin 3 are of opinion that there 
 was an intimate relation between the new way of deliverance 
 and the old theistic cults, and affirm with confidence that 
 devout worshippers of Narayana, as well as other Visnuite 
 sectaries, had much to do in the making of the Buddhist 
 doctrine even from its inception. The evidence of this is not 
 merely in the numerous indications of the survival within 
 Buddhism of fragments of the solar worships to which the 
 converts to the new faith had formerly belonged. It is im- 
 possible to break altogether the entail of human thought. 
 The early history of Christianity, we know, tells of similar 
 legacies from paganism, of Greek heroes baptized into saints, 
 of Greek philosophy imposing its categories upon the teaching 
 
 1 Poussin's Opinions, p. 63. 
 
 2 Senart's Origines boiiddhiques, p. 24. 
 
 3 Opinions, pp. 241-8. 
 
 F
 
 66 THEISM WITHIN BUDDHISM 
 
 of the Church. So within Buddhism we not only find the old 
 gods transformed and the old legends re-written, but along 
 with these things a strong element of religious faith, which had 
 been before associated with such worships as that of Narayana 
 and of Visnu and which now appears attaching itself to the 
 figure of the new teacher and greatly modifying his doctrine. 
 It may seem strange at first that it should be possible for the 
 devotion which characterized these theistic cults to persist at 
 all in the atmosphere which Buddhism created, but a closer 
 acquaintance with the personality of Gautama himself, as the 
 records represent him, and with the spirit of simplicity and 
 earnestness which characterized his message reveals a deep 
 affinity beneath the superficial contrast. It is the case, as has 
 been acutely observed, that to Hindus in all periods of their 
 religious history the primary concern is with the problem of 
 deliverance, while the question of what God is or whether 
 there is a God at all is secondary. In this respect they differ 
 radically from at least Semitic and Christian peoples, whose 
 whole religious history is governed and controlled by their 
 thought of God and their dream of what He may be. To the 
 Indian, religion is always a method of emancipation, ' a way ', 
 and it is of little consequence if that method be found and 
 that way be followed whether the gods be many or be one 
 or none. To the Indian theist, indeed, this is less a matter of 
 indifference, as his way of deliverance needs the grace and help 
 of a divine being, but what precisely the status of that Being 
 is, whether his place is unique and supreme, or whether he is 
 merely a mahdpurusa, a great human friend somehow able to 
 bestow the spiritual strength man needs, does not require to be 
 clearly apprehended. With all the metaphysical acuteness of 
 the Indian and his deeply planted speculative instincts it 
 remains the case that, from first to last, man is for him the 
 measure of all things. The object to which are bent all his 
 mental efforts is the discovery of a way for man's escape. 
 
 That this practical aim was a chief characteristic of 
 Buddhism from the beginning of its history no one can
 
 THEISM WITHIN BUDDHISM 67 
 
 doubt. It is essentially a 'humanism' not a metaphysic or 
 a theology, but a ( vehicle ' for man's salvation, a ' path ' for 
 man's feet to walk in. It was all the more emphatically this 
 because it presented itself to its founder as a ' middle way ', 
 avoiding not only the extreme of bloody ritual and cruel 
 asceticism, but also that of unfruitful metaphysics. Each of 
 these, no less than the new doctrine, was a mdrga, a way of 
 deliverance for the sufferer, but the jndnamdrga, by main- 
 taining the redemptive efficacy of knowledge, had lost its way 
 among the mazes of over-subtle speculation. In contrast with 
 those who occupied themselves with such barren problems, 
 Buddha is a physician of the sick soul. Others, it seemed to 
 him, had busied themselves with all sorts of unessential ques- 
 tions as to the patient's circumstances, and meantime the poor 
 sufferer had died. ' I have not elucidated ', says the Blessed 
 One, ' that the world is eternal or that the world is not eternal, 
 that it is finite or that it is infinite. . . . And why have I not 
 elucidated this ? Because this profits not nor has to do with 
 .the fundamentals of religion. . . . Misery have I elucidated 
 the origin of misery, the cessation of misery have I eluci- 
 dated . . . because this does profit.' l This pragmatic 
 agnosticism which is so characteristic of Buddhism is not 
 something peculiar to this system alone. Even Yajfiavalkya 
 in the midst of his most daring speculations seems at times to 
 have the sense that knowledge may be pursued with too great 
 an ardour. He warns GargI that if her questions search too 
 deep she may endanger her head. 2 Buddha builds his whole 
 system upon such opportunism, avoiding especially any such 
 definition of Nirvana as would imply either survival on the 
 one hand or annihilation on the other, and refusing to his 
 disciples any metaphysical revelation. Confucius in China 
 appears to have followed a similar course and to have 
 declined ' to say the dead were conscious, lest rash sons should 
 waste their substance in sacrifice', 'or to assert that they 
 
 1 Majjhima-Nikdya in Warren's Buddhism in Translations, p. 122. 
 
 2 Brihad. Up. III. 6. 
 
 F 2
 
 68 THEISM WITHIN BUDDHISM 
 
 were unconscious, lest careless sons should not sacrifice 
 at all'. 1 
 
 But such pragmatism or positivism in the Buddhist system 
 does not necessarily prove theistic influences to be at work 
 within its borders. That deduction can only be made if we 
 are justified in maintaining that Buddha limited his horizon 
 and rejected metaphysics in order to give more room to ethics. 
 This is certainly the case, and it is here that the fundamental 
 affinity of Buddhism with ethical Theism first betrays itself. 
 It calls its adherents back to the moral law and to its claim. 
 The distinctive character both of the Buddhist asceticism and 
 of the Buddhist doctrine of karma lies in the fact that in 
 contrast with the doctrines that preceded and that surrounded 
 them they have been largely moralized. The central fact of 
 Gautama's Enlightenment is his perception of the defect in this 
 respect of the old order of things. What justification by faith 
 was to Luther that the perception of bodhi was in Buddha's 
 own spiritual life and in the religious reformation that he 
 initiated. This bodhi, in contrast with the goal sought by 
 means of tapas and of sacrifice and of knowledge, is something 
 primarily ethical and to be reached by ' moral conduct, medi- 
 tation, and insight '. The asceticism that Buddha rejected, 
 appeared to him to bear along with it all that was useless, 
 ' even as punting pole and steering pole may bring along 
 a water-snake '. 2 
 
 There seems indeed to be little doubt that the whole body 
 of ideas and of practices that gather round the word tapas, 
 and also probably the theory of transmigration itself, had their 
 roots among the worships of dark and evil forces and among 
 the machinery for obtaining magical powers which were 
 probably largely, though by no means exclusively, aboriginal 
 in origin, and which throughout the whole history of Hinduism 
 have proved least tractable to the influence of an ethical 
 religion. The influence of this ancient tradition is still felt 
 
 1 Parker's Studies'in Chinese Religion. 
 
 2 E.R.E. II, p. 70*; Samyutta Nikdya, I. 103.
 
 THEISM WITHIN BUDDHISM 69 
 
 within Buddhism, but while it claims for its saints the 
 miraculous prerogatives that were sought by Yoga practices, 
 it remains true that, theoretically, moral perfection is alone 
 important, for it alone leads to salvation. Its asceticism is 
 a discipline, a ' placing of the bit in the colt's mouth ', having 
 for its aim in their relation to the things of this world the 
 attainment of liberty 'just as a bird with his wings, O King, 
 whithersoever he may fly, carries his wings with him as he 
 flies.' 1 With all the deductions that one has to make on 
 account of the contradictions and corruptions of its doctrine, it 
 remains true that the place that Buddha holds in it and which 
 is due, we may say, almost entirely to his moral authority, 
 vindicates our claim for it that it is a system essentially ethical. 
 In bringing back the thoughts of men from ritual to conduct, 
 from the brutalities of a self-torture that has no moral aim to 
 the regulation and the restraint of passion, from the doctrine 
 of a mechanical and fatal karma to one which could discern in 
 it some justice and could hope for deliverance, Buddha was 
 serving the interests and obeying the instincts of a true ethical 
 Theism. The old doctrine of transmigration must have 
 proved itself the implacable enemy of any such spiritual life 
 as Theism at least recognizes. By moralizing it and finding 
 a place within it for repentance (samvegd) Buddha did some- 
 thing to reconcile this opposition. 2 Further, he secures 
 recognition for one of the chief aspects of the divine by 
 disclosing to his followers in the law of karma a justice 
 absolutely infallible and supreme. Amara refused to do 
 wrong not only because she could not keep wrong-doing 
 secret from the gods or from herself, but because ' even could 
 she have remained ignorant of it herself, yet she could not 
 have kept it secret from (the law of the result which follows 
 on) unrighteousness '. 3 On this account alone, in the view of 
 
 1 Rhys Davids's Dialogues of the Buddha, p. 81 ; Digha, I. 71. 
 
 2 Cf. the repentance of the robber Ahimsaka or Angulimala in the 
 Ahgulimala Sutta of the Majjhima. 
 
 3 Milinda, p. 207 ; S. B. E. XXXV, p. 295 ; Rhys Davids in a note 
 says that these words ' look very like a personification of karma '.
 
 7 o THEISM WITHIN BUDDHISM 
 
 M. Poussin, 1 it is a slander to charge Buddhism with being an 
 atheistic system. By recalling men to the virtue and the 
 power of goodness and setting before them in his own person 
 a human guide whose supremacy rested upon his moral 
 achievement, Buddha at once brings back to religion the 
 possibility of faith. Sraddka, faith, which is identified with 
 bhakti? is ' the root of the correct view ' 3 ; it purifies the soul, 
 and weakens or destroys evil passions ; it enables us to cross 
 in safety the river of life and to reach on the other bank 
 Nirvana. Buddha has made this faith possible to men because, 
 while they were hesitating in ignorance and fear on the brink 
 of the stream, he has come and, leading the way, enables 
 them by faith likewise to leap, ' as it were by a bound into 
 higher things '. 4 
 
 Here we have surely, though struck with a certain hesita- 
 tion, those essential notes which in their harmony make up 
 almost the entire diapason of Theism. Buddhism calls its 
 followers back to purity of conduct ; it sets before them 
 a moral ideal which is at once awful as law and humanly near 
 and gracious as the Master, Buddha ; it is universal in its 
 appeal to man. These characteristics have but to be made 
 more articulate and to be knit together closer into one for this 
 atheistic doctrine to be recognized as the vindicator, in an age 
 when God was being lost, of a truly ethical religion. During 
 its long and complex history it has presented at one time and 
 another various and often strongly antagonistic phases, and 
 indeed the materials of these antagonisms are within it from 
 the very beginning. Its animism and superstition developed to 
 the hideous extravagances of Tantric demonology ; its monas- 
 ticism opened more and more a gulf between it and the people 
 and exchanged the old apostolic fervour for egoistic com- 
 
 1 Poussin's Opinions, p. 70. 2 Ibid., p. 135. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 134; Sumangalavtldsim, I, p. 231 ; Majjhima, II, p. 176. 
 
 4 Milinda, p. 36 ; S.B.E. XXXV, p. 56. Rhys Davids has a note on 
 this passage that ' although the Buddhist faith and the Christian faith are 
 in things contradictory, the two conditions of heart are strikingly similar 
 both in origin and in consequence '.
 
 THEISM WITHIN BUDDHISM 71 
 
 placencyand futile dialectic. But alongside of these movements, 
 bearing it farther and farther away from Theism, there is a con- 
 tinuous process by which within the Mahayana development 
 the elements that we have claimed as theistic in their affinities 
 are emphasized and exaggerated. When he died, Buddha had 
 said that the Law would take his place, but soon he was 
 recognized as himself the Law personified. From the begin- 
 ning there was rendered to Buddha what can only be described 
 as worship, though it was not at first a bhakti, a devotion. 
 No place is found in the early ' Vehicle ' for grace or for 
 prayer in any sense that religion can recognize. But Buddha 
 places himself in a relation to his monks such as is bound to 
 develop into a full-orbed worship with a service of love, when 
 he says to them, ' Whosoever would wait upon me, he should 
 wait upon the sick.' l It is no surprise to find springing from 
 these roots a doctrine of grace, a view of Buddha closely 
 approaching to that of avatdras or descents, and a conception 
 of the message of the Master as a gospel to be preached to 
 all men, whose salvation is something worthier for the saint 
 to win than any nirvana of egoistic contemplation. 
 
 The birth of Buddha, as M. Senart has pointed out, 2 was in 
 reality not a birth but an avatdra, and it was by his own will 
 that he chose to limit himself within the ordinary bounds of 
 human life. 3 It is nothing surprising to find that by the 
 beginning of the Christian era the personality of Sakyamuni 
 had been completely elevated to deity. In the ' Lotus of the 
 True Law' Buddha is not merely (leva: he is devdtideva. 
 Even in earlier times a docetic heresy had arisen alleging his 
 descent into the womb of his mother Maya to be merely an 
 illusion and his manifestation to the world to be that not of 
 his real self but of a phantom. 4 At the same time, however, 
 we have evidence that the current of Theism flowing through 
 Buddhism is not strong enough to restrain the polytheistic 
 
 1 Mahavagga, VIII. 26. 2 Ltgende, p. 270. 
 
 3 Poussin's Opinions, p. 237. 
 
 4 E. R. E. II, p. 743 ' ; Saddharmapundarlka (S. . E. XXI, p. 301 n.).
 
 72 THEISM WITHIN BUDDHISM 
 
 instincts of the common Indian worshipper. As a consequence 
 Sakyamuni soon occupied no more than a position of primus 
 inter pares, while Amitabha sits on the right hand or on the 
 left of Buddha in paradise and Avalokita saves the faithful by 
 his irresistible grace, like a cat bearing her young to safety 
 in her mouth. Here the reappearance of the old sectarian 
 Theisms is manifest, for both of these great Bodhisattvas are 
 described as possessing solar characteristics, while the latter, 
 according to Poussin ' is the Visnu of the Buddhist ', exercising 
 his grace in a manner that is described in the very metaphor 
 adopted by one of the Vaisnavite schools of the later day. 1 
 
 We have in fact to recognize that Buddhism is best under- 
 stood as a portion of the great amorphous whole of Hinduism, 
 if we use that ambiguous word to describe the entire course of 
 the long evolution of the Indian religious spirit. When it 
 passed beyond the borders of India, other influences entered 
 powerfully into its working Tibetan, Chinese, Japanese but 
 its history till well on into the Christian era is the history of 
 a phase of Hinduism that includes within it all the character- 
 istic moods of the Hindu soul. As a consequence it contains, 
 as we have seen, along with much else that seems difficult 
 enough to reconcile with it, an undeniable theistic element, 
 even distinct traces of the old mythology and superstitions in 
 which the popular Theism has its roots. That this theistic 
 strain persists within a professedly atheistic system, until it 
 loses itself corrupted and degraded in polytheism and super- 
 stition, is due to certain characteristics of Buddhism present 
 in it almost from the first. It was, to begin with, a religion 
 of the spirit, recalling the worshipper from the barrenness of 
 Gnosis and of ritual to piety and good conduct, and setting 
 before them in Sakyamuni a being supernatural and infinitely 
 gracious, whom the heart could trust and could adore. The 
 person of the Buddha at once gives the opportunity to faith, 
 while his teaching makes clear what Yajnavalkya had only 
 groped after that self-denial is the beginning of wisdom. To 
 1 See p. no, infra.
 
 THEISM WITHIN BUDDHISM 73 
 
 love oneself truly it is necessary that one love not oneself 
 at all. 1 It may be, as M. Poussin suggests, that the Great 
 Vehicle ' in giving a large place to devotion, to bhakti, in the 
 discipline of salvation ', ' opened the breaches to Tantrism ', 2 
 but that should not hide from us the fact that, however grossly 
 it was corrupted, in that circle of Buddhist ideas a genuine 
 theistic message must be recognized. Had Buddhism at the 
 same time been able to maintain the balance and spiritual 
 sanity which characterized it in its earlier stages, it might have 
 avoided so lamentable a conclusion. The title of ' teachers of 
 the mean ', which the Buddhists claimed, was fitly borne by them 
 so long as they emphasized, in full agreement with the demands 
 of ethical religion, the need of the occupation of the whole 
 man with spiritual things. Not prajnd (intelligence) alone, as 
 the Upanisad teachers were apt to suggest, is to be exercised, 
 but it in due accord with other mental powers, with sraddhd 
 (faith), with mrya (effort), with samadhi (contemplation) and 
 with smriti (mindfulness). 3 As the exaggeration of the place 
 of knowledge in the Brahmanic speculation of the time was 
 peculiarly fatal to a religious life in any sense of the word that 
 Theism is aware of, so the recovery for religion of the whole 
 inner man in the harmonious exercise of his spiritual faculties 
 means at least the recovery for the worshippers of the possi- 
 bility of theistic religion. And further we cannot but recognize 
 a like tendency in the emphasis that Buddhism lays always 
 upon its message of deliverance, which penetrates with its 
 savour the whole system ' even as is the great sea by the 
 savour of salt '. The influence of this thought had much to 
 do, no doubt, with the development of the doctrine, until along 
 with a theory of descents or avataras on the part of the 
 Bodhisattva in later Buddhism goes, as its motive, a sense 
 that the Bodhisattva's duty requires him even to renounce 
 Nirvana, that he may not only deliver himself but deliver 
 
 1 Bodhicaryavatara, VIII. 173; Poussin's Opinions, p. 299. 
 
 2 Poussin's Opinions, p. 412. 
 
 s See Visuddhi Magga, Chap. IV.
 
 74 THEISM WITHIN BUDDHISM 
 
 suffering men. 1 We see them ' rushing into Avlchi (hell) like 
 swans into a lotus pool ' in order to save creatures. They 
 tal$e upon themselves 'the whole burden of the suffering of 
 all creatures ', ' in order to bear it in the regions of hell '. This 
 doctrine of compassion and of grace belongs to the very 
 essence of the most advanced theistic religion, and it is in it 
 that we find the peculiar vitality of Mahayana which enabled 
 it to prevail over the colder Hlnayana. The Bodhisat belongs 
 to a far higher moral and spiritual region of ideas than the 
 self-complacent Arahat, who is the ideal saint of the more 
 orthodox system. The same ardent spirit is seen in the 
 missionary zeal of the Mahayana saints, in Purna the Apostle 
 to the Sronaparantakas a spirit far enough removed from 
 the apathy of the canonical literature. In all these respects 
 Buddhism proves itself truly heir to the theistic inheritance 
 in Indian religion, though one must recognize that in its later 
 phases, turned prodigal, it squanders its precious heritage in 
 the wildest and most fantastic excesses. 
 
 1 Asvaghosa's Awakening of Faith teaches that Buddha has three 
 bodies ' the eternal substance of the Truth revealed by him', which is 
 his true body, as well as ' the Buddha in enjoyment (sambhoga) ', and 
 ' the Buddha incarnate or in kenosis (mrtnana), as, for example, t^akya- 
 muni '. ' In order to attain the ideal of enlightenment it is necessary for 
 us to believe in any of these three aspects of Buddha's personality, and 
 to be saved by his grace (parigraha, lit. "grasping").' Anesaki in 
 E.R.E. II, p. 160'.
 
 V 
 THE THEISM OF THE BHAGAVADGITA 
 
 IN all the course of our investigation hitherto we have had 
 to be content to piece together from one religious setting and 
 another fragments of Theism, approximations to its concep- 
 tions of God, often found in strangely incongruous relations. 
 We have, to change the metaphor, been forcing our way 
 through an obscure jungle of mythology and superstition and 
 speculation, cheered now and again by glimpses of the sky 
 above us and by shafts of sunlight breaking in upon the 
 gloom. With the Bhagavadgitd we pass into a new region 
 and into a clearer atmosphere. From the time when the great 
 figure of Varuna was lost in the twilight of the Vedic gods no 
 deity appears above the Indian horizon so worthy of worship, 
 so morally exalted, as the ' Blessed One ' of whom this song is 
 sung. In it we have, perhaps, the nearest approach that it 
 was possible for India unaided to make to ethical monotheism. 
 We may not be able to maintain that we have here the loftiest 
 of all the expressions of the Indian spirit. Some of the 
 splendid speculations of the Upanisads transcend it in one 
 direction ; the unworldly counsels of the Buddha in another. 
 But in its intellectual seriousness, its ethical nobility, and its 
 religious fervour, the Bhagavadgitd presents to us a combina- 
 tion that is unique in Indian religion, and that explains the 
 remarkable influence the poem still exercises over many types 
 of the Indian mind. It is one of the three authoritative 
 scriptures upon which each of the Vedantic systems of 
 philosophy Advaita, Visistadvaita, Dvaita, and Suddhad- 
 vaita claims to be based. That it is capable of being 
 interpreted by each one of these diverse schools in a sense in
 
 76 THEISM OF THE BHAGAVADGITA 
 
 agreement with its own conceptions is nothing unusual in an 
 Indian scripture. What is more remarkable as well as more 
 significant for our present study is that it has at the same 
 time, more than any other book, supplied nourishment for 
 devout souls in India through the long period since first it 
 was conceived until to-day. Not only do the philosophers 
 base their systems upon it, but the poets expound it in the 
 people's language, and even the Saivites of the South draw 
 much of their inspiration from this Vaisnavite scripture. 
 
 Much controversy has gathered about the poem among 
 modern scholars, even as among its commentators and inter- 
 preters at an earlier period. The question of its date, the 
 question whether it has come to us in the form in which it 
 was first written, or whether an original poem was later 
 worked over and adapted to suit the views of another school 
 of thought these are questions upon which the students of 
 this work are sharply divided. As to its date, it is sufficient 
 for our purpose to recognize what will scarcely be denied 
 from any authoritative quarter, that the Glta is post-Bud- 
 dhistic, and that at least a considerable part of it is pre- 
 Christian. It has been maintained that traces of the influence 
 of the Christian scriptures may be detected in the poem, but 
 this is extremely problematical, and in any case would not 
 conflict with the view that in its main outlines it was composed 
 perhaps two centuries before the Christian era. On the 
 further question of the process that has gone to the making 
 of the book in its present form opinion is sharply divided. 
 Whether it is a Visnuite remodelling of a Pantheistic poem 
 (Holtzmann), or a Krisnaite version of an older Visnuite poem, 
 which in turn was ' a late Upanisad ' (Hopkins), or a text-book 
 of the Bhagavatas revised in a Vedantic sense by the Brah- 
 mans (Garbe), or a late product of the degeneration of the 
 monistic thought of the Upanisads representing the period of 
 transition from Theism to realistic atheism (Deussen), can 
 hardly, in the presence of such a conflict of opinions, be 
 definitely determined. Leaving aside, however, the question
 
 THEISM OF THE BHAGAVADGITA 77 
 
 as to the process by which the Glta reached its present form, 
 there are certain facts in regard to it as now in our hands 
 which may be affirmed with some confidence. 
 
 No doubt all or most of the Upanisads have undergone 
 more or less revision and interpolation, and combine ideas 
 that are not always easy to reconcile with one another. To 
 maintain that the Bhagavadglta is rightly to be described, as 
 its commentators describe it, as an Upanisad, is not to deny 
 that it, too, though it has more unity than most of its kind, 
 may contain interpolations emphasizing the view of one 
 school or another, or that it aims at comprehensiveness, and 
 that its purpose consciously or unconsciously was irenical. 
 In these respects it is not unique among the Upanisads. The 
 Svetdsvatara, for example, is, as Barth has pointed out, ' a 
 sort of Sivaite Bhagavadglta! 1 Its policy of comprehension 
 also is entirely in agreement with the whole Hindu tradition. 
 We know, for example, how in later phases of Mahayana 
 Buddhism there are to be found those who occupy a middle 
 place between the simple adherents of the faith of devotion 
 and the pure rationalists. ' Like the former they attach great 
 importance to worship (bhakti) and to grace ; like the latter 
 they maintain the necessity of acquiring the divine knowledge 
 and of practising meditation.' 2 In the Glta we find that in 
 similar fashion two streams have united. The more reflective 
 and metaphysical religion of the older Upanisads has taken 
 into itself the warmer and more living personal devotion that 
 was widely prevalent among all classes of the people. That 
 this was done with a deliberate, theological intent, the result 
 of a pact between Brahmans and non-Brahmans as against 
 the common Buddhist enemy, one need not suppose. Such 
 artifices of the theologian or the ecclesiastic are not commonly 
 effective in controlling the tides of religious life, nor are 
 they likely to have produced a work so vital and so vitaliz- 
 ing as the Bhagavadglta has shown itself to be. Rather we 
 may believe that among those who breathed the speculative 
 1 R. /., p. 207 n. 2 Poussin's Opinions, p. 289.
 
 ;8 THEISM OF THE BHAGAVADGITA 
 
 atmosphere of the Upanisads were not a few who all the time 
 rendered to one god or another the worship of their own 
 private hearts. It was almost inevitable that the time would 
 come when both the phases of their thought and life would 
 be brought into relation, and Brahman, on whom ' the universe 
 is woven like pearls upon a thread', 1 would be identified with 
 that One near to men's need and to men's help who ' is born 
 from age to age, to protect the good, to destroy the evil-doers, 
 and to establish the Law '. 2 The fusion of the two conceptions 
 may sometimes be incomplete, but it is the fact of their union 
 in this poem, of its combination of a theory of the universe, 
 which was the product of the best thought of India with the 
 sentiment of devotion to a personal God and Saviour, that 
 gives the Gita the unique place it so long has held in the 
 religious life of India. 
 
 It was, perhaps, almost inevitable that if there was a strain 
 of Theism in the Upanisads it should presently coalesce with 
 the most spiritual elements in the popular theistic faith. It was 
 natural enough at the same time that this union should not 
 be quite perfectly accomplished, and that a certain incongruity 
 between philosophy and faith, between the anaemic Brahman 
 and a Krisna who had but lately emerged from violent deeds 
 and doubtful company, should discover itself. While it may 
 very well be that the poem has been revised in the interests 
 of one school or another, there is, after all, little in its incon- 
 sistency that requires for its explanation more than the coming 
 together in the religion of the time of two theistic streams, 
 the one reflective, the other predominatingly emotional, but 
 both having their sources among the same hopes and longings 
 of the heart. The inconsistencies and incongruities that seem 
 plain to us were not so obvious to the more concrete reflection 
 of that earlier age. We must remember that for all the 
 subtlety of the thought of the Upanisads a haze hangs over 
 it all. They partake of that indefiniteness which is inevitable 
 in early thinking, seeing that it has not as yet clearly defined 
 1 Bhag.M\\. .7. ' Ibid. IV. 8.
 
 THEISM OF THE BHAGAVADGITA 79 
 
 its own terms, nor is as yet fully aware of the significance of 
 its own problems. And further, while the Gltd is unquestion- 
 ably first and last a theistic poem, its Theism, like all the 
 Theism of India throughout its history, looms forth from 
 a mist of Pantheism, with many a pantheistic doctrine still 
 clinging to its skirts. The consequence is a certain obscurity 
 in its message, an obscurity which, perhaps, has assisted its 
 popularity among a people always more attracted by what 
 presents opportunities for the exercise of subtlety in interpre- 
 tation than by utterances that give no uncertain sound and 
 that by their authority constrain the conscience. 
 
 It would be a mistake to attempt to present in a completely 
 systematic form the teaching of this poem. It represents 
 a stage midway between the ' guesses at truth ' of the earlier 
 Upanisads and the fully articulated system of Sankara and 
 the other scholastics. In it we perceive the confluence of 
 various streams of philosophic tendency, not yet definitely 
 determined as irreconcilable. The Gitd can scarcely be 
 described as a deliberate attempt to bring about a synthesis 
 of these doctrines for the reason that they have not yet come 
 to clear self-consciousness and their antagonism is not yet 
 declared. But at the same time the fact that those various 
 views, however fluid they as yet are, have been brought 
 together into one in this poem, gives its doctrine with all its 
 vagueness a more complete and systematic character than is 
 possessed by any of the Upanisads. The central theological 
 conception of the poem is one which, save for the use of such 
 names for the Supreme Being or the Absolute as Visnu or 
 Vasudeva might be found in the Kdthaka or the Svetasvatara 
 Upanisad. He is the all at once the one ' seated at the 
 heart of everything', 1 ' ruling and controlling from within ' as 
 well as, on a lower plane, the actual substance of the universe. 
 Thus, in one aspect, God is presented as the Brahman of the 
 older speculation, the antarydmin, the immanent Being by 
 whose life all things live and move. In the other its teaching 
 
 1 XV. 15.
 
 8o THEISM OF THE BHAGAVADGITA 
 
 has affinities with the subsequently developed Sankhya system, 
 which, however, in this earlier, nebulous form is by no means 
 atheistic. Perhaps the word Sahkhya is used as yet only in 
 the sense of ' philosophy of religion '. l It unfortunately has 
 proved not infrequently to be the case in the history of 
 thought, that philosophy has attempted to dispense with God, 
 and it is not surprising to find the Sankhya, as it develops, 
 adopting this attitude. No hint, however, of this later 
 development is to be found in the Gita. On the relation of 
 matter and spirit the poem seems indeed at times to waver 
 between competing views, as yet scarcely formulated ; but 
 always its religious pre-supposition, however it may be philo- 
 sophically interpreted, is that spirit is supreme. The universe 
 is strung together upon God, as pearls upon a thread. 2 But 
 while so far the message of the Gttd does not materially differ 
 from what we may claim to be the prevailing view of the 
 relation of God to the universe that the Upanisads teach, it 
 advances beyond them in a direction that is peculiarly signifi- 
 cant. The influence upon the poem of the popular theistic 
 faith is not seen merely in the appropriation of the name of 
 Vasudeva. It betrays itself, especially in the development of 
 the Upanisad doctrine, so as to bring the immanent God 
 upon whom the universe depends into personal relation with 
 men, and so as to emphasize his grace on the one side and 
 men's need of faith that they may come to him on the 
 other. 
 
 No doubt the religious power of the Bhagavadgltd and its 
 continuous influence over men's hearts in India to this day is 
 to be explained mainly by the fact that, while it rests upon 
 the Upanisads and accepts their teaching of a God who is the 
 life and the indwelling glory of the universe, at the same time 
 it passes beyond that cold conclusion to reveal him at the 
 same time as a Saviour, near to men's need, and responding in 
 his grace to the cry of their faith. Krisna, the charioteer of 
 Arjuna, and the spokesman of the poem, is the remote One, so 
 1 Hopkins, /?. /., p. 391. 2 VII. 7.
 
 THEISM OF THE BHAGAVADGITA 81 
 
 ' very hard to find ' but now come near and manifesting himself. 
 At the call of human need he ' is born from age to age '- 1 To 
 those who are ever devout and worship him with love he gives 
 the attainment of the knowledge by which they come to him. 2 
 He serves men according as they approach him ; 3 and the 
 best of all ways by which he is approached is that of love and 
 ' undivided devotion ' (bhaktt)^ In passages such as these the 
 Gltd reaches its highest religious expression and discovers the 
 source of its great power over the Indian heart. It cannot 
 indeed be maintained that it is always consistent in this view 
 of the supremacy of faith and devotion. Sometimes the 
 intellectual tradition reasserts itself, and to the * man of know- 
 ledge ' is given the highest place. 5 But on the whole this is 
 not the case. The poem is throughout suffused with a glow 
 of emotion which, united with the ancient and profound con- 
 ception of the divine immanence in all things, has enabled it 
 to appeal with power during so many centuries at once to 
 the heart and to the reason of India. 
 
 In the Bhagavadglta, as in every attempt in India to reach 
 a genuinely theistic system, the problem inevitably arises of 
 the reconciliation of a doctrine of a personal God with what 
 seems to have come to be recognized in India as the axiom of 
 karma. We have seen already that under Buddhist influences 
 this system was to some extent moralized and its mechanical 
 inexorableness modified. Similar influences are at work in 
 the Gltd. The influence of the thought of the last hour in 
 determining destiny is recognized even as it is in Buddhism. 6 
 The doctrines of grace and of reprobation, the exercise by the 
 Supreme Lord of his mdyd in order to save men 7 or to 
 bewilder and destroy them, 8 are really means by which the 
 antinomy of the free moral activity of God and the fatal power 
 of the ' deed ' is sought to be reconciled. Along with the 
 
 1 IV. 8. 2 X. 10. 3 IV. ii. 
 
 4 VIII. 22; VII. 17. 5 VII. i6ff. 
 
 6 Gtta, VIII. 5 ; cf. Majjhima, I, p. 26 ; Poussin's Opinions, p. 69. 
 
 7 IV. 6. 8 VII. 15, 25. 
 
 G
 
 82 THEISM OF THE BHAGAVADGITA 
 
 gracious condescension of God, electing to salvation and 
 coming Himself to save, goes naturally the response of human 
 faith and love. Hopkins believes the doctrine of grace on the 
 part of God to be older than that of bhakti issuing from the 
 heart of the worshipper. 1 But while it may well be that he is 
 right in tracing the former back to Vedic times, the comple- 
 mentary conception of man as resting in love and trust upon 
 a God who manifests His grace may also be, and we can 
 hardly believe not to have been, quite as old. It is indeed the 
 strange and stubborn doctrine of transmigration in conjunction 
 with that of the power of karma that continually acts through- 
 out all the religious history of India as an influence quenching 
 the natural human instinct that trusts in God's goodness and 
 expects His grace. 
 
 We find in another place in the Mahabharata, as well as in 
 the Glta episode, this doctrine of special grace discussed, and 
 there it appears in a setting which shows how the karma 
 doctrine was provoking serious conflicts of opinion. In this 
 passage, which is believed to belong to an old stratum of 
 the Epic, the justice of divine election and reprobation is 
 challenged. In the spirit of the book of Job, God is accused 
 and the question raised of His relation, equally with men, to 
 the law of karma. The answer that is suggested there is the 
 same as that which is set forth with much elaboration in the 
 Bhagavadglta. The freedom of God in relation to the bondage 
 of the ' deed ' is secured by the great ethical conception that 
 work done with no desire for reward brings no entanglement. 
 Works do not fetter the soul, if they have no selfish aim ; nor 
 do God's works therefore fetter Him. ' There is no virtue ', 
 as is said in connexion with the similar discussion elsewhere 
 in the Epic to which we have just referred, ' in trying to milk 
 virtue.' 2 In this respect also there is a close affinity between 
 Buddhism and the teaching of the Glta. Self-emptying is, 
 no doubt, only half-way towards love, but it is at least half- 
 way, and the ardent spirit of the Vaisnavite worship was able 
 1 Hopkins, /?./., p. 429. 2 Ibid., p. 386.
 
 THEISM OF THE BHAGAVADGITA 83 
 
 sometimes at least to read a positive content into the negation 
 and so to turn philosophy into a real religion and a life of 
 asceticism into what might be a life of noble service. In this 
 way, ' Brahman who is the deed of sacrifice ' * and who is there- 
 fore at least above the bondage of the world of samsara, is 
 transformed to the more attractive semblance of Krisna, ' the 
 sacrifice, . . . the refuge, the friend ' 2 who gives himself to men 
 for their salvation. 
 
 We have said that in the Gitd is to be found one of the very 
 loftiest utterances of the Hindu religious spirit. What above 
 all other things characterizes Hinduism in its most adequate 
 expressions throughout the whole course of its long history is 
 its exaltation of the spirit and its contempt for the things of 
 sense. It is not the old, cast-off clothes that matter, but ' the 
 unborn, everlasting, unchangeable, and primaeval, that is not 
 killed when the body is killed'. 3 That note rings clear and 
 resonant through the poem as through the Upanisads that 
 precede it. But the inspiring vision of triumphant Spirit in 
 most cases loses all its power by reason of the dark back- 
 ground of karma and samsara or transmigration against which 
 to Indian thought it always stands. In such a setting its 
 splendour pales and fades. It seems as if the intractable 
 materialism of the transmigration theory as well as of the 
 karma doctrine in its cruder forms was always frustrating of 
 its proper fruitfulness the deep spiritual intuitions of the 
 Hindu. It is possible for him, however, to burst even those 
 bonds asunder and to give expression with some freedom and 
 adequacy as in the Gltd and also in some of the utterances 
 of later Buddhism to his religious instincts, when to the 
 thought of the divine Soul of all things, beside whom nothing 
 else is at all or in the case of Buddhism, to the thought of 
 the divine Law he unites that of the grace of a transcendent 
 Lord who saves, and that at the same time of the faith of 
 man's unconquerable heart that lifts him up to God. As in 
 this poem, so also in the Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana, 
 1 IV. 24. * IX. 16, 18. 3 II. 20. 
 
 G 2
 
 84 THEISM OF THE BHAGAVADGITA 
 
 a high level of practical religion is reached, just because those 
 doctrines of grace and faith modify the karma doctrine and 
 render it tractable and tolerable. Without them the old 
 Buddhism and the old Vedanta scheme of deliverance were 
 only beautiful dreams that could visit none but monks in their 
 monastery or ascetics in the desert. In this Mahayana scrip- 
 ture we find Asvaghosa engaged in many of the same tasks 
 as occupy the author of the Bhagavadgltd. He endeavours 
 to give a philosophic basis to the popular polytheisms that 
 threatened to overwhelm the older Buddhism and yet at the 
 same time to conserve the spirit of the ancient teaching. To 
 him as to the Hindu thinker a way must needs be found by 
 which the law of karma and the law of faith can be related 
 and reconciled. By means of ' reverential feelings towards 
 the Triple Treasure (triratnd) ', ' through the protection of the 
 majestic power of the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, one's 
 karma hindrances (karmdvarand) will get purified and one's 
 root of merit firmly established '.* ' Gradually entering the 
 samddhi of suchness, he will finally vanquish all prejudices 
 (klesa or dsrava\ be strengthened in faith (sraddka), and 
 immediately attain to the state of never-returning (avaivarti- 
 katvd)! 2 There is not only faith here but grace, the grace 
 that protects and helps and the grace also that descends. For 
 the Bodhisattva ' descends from the palace in the Tusita 
 heaven (to this world) and enters into the human womb '. 3 
 Bkutatathatd, which is translated 'suchness' by Suzuki, is the 
 highest reality, so that 'the samddhi of suchness' in the 
 passage quoted above is the attainment of such a reality. 
 The practical aspect of this doctrine corresponds to the Gltd 
 doctrine of non-attachment to action. 4 So closely alike are 
 those two scriptures, the one arising in a Hindu and the other 
 in a Buddhist environment, in their conception of the way of 
 deliverance from the bonds that both religions believed to 
 bind men in so grievous a bondage. The task of deliverance 
 
 1 Suzuki, p. 1 1 8. 2 Ibid., p. 135. 
 
 8 Ibid., pp. ugf. 4 Ibid., p. 94 note.
 
 THEISM OF THE BHAGAVADGITA 85 
 
 needed a personal saviour; it needed faith in one who was 
 an embodiment of infinite love (karuna) and infinite wisdom 
 (jndna). ' I lift them speedily ', says Krisna of the Gtta, 
 expressing the same thought, ' from the ocean of deadly 
 samsdra, as their mind is set on me.' x He whose mind is set 
 on Krisna comes to him. He who 'with concentration of 
 thought ' thinks of Amitabha Buddha passes to a region where 
 he- always ' sees Buddha '. 2 
 
 These are among the basal ideas of Theism, and it is no 
 surprise to find them expressed in two scriptures that have 
 been described as the New Testaments of Hinduism and of 
 Buddhism. 3 That fact goes far to explain the remarkable 
 influence that those two works have exercised over the hearts 
 of men, the one in India, and the other, now that Buddhism 
 is an outcast from the country of its birth, in the lands of its 
 adoption in the further east. It was no chance coincidence 
 that, about the time when the foundations of Christian Theism 
 were being laid by life and word in Galilee and in Judea, the 
 very thoughts there in Christ incarnated were beginning in 
 imperfect fashion to be conceived within the minds, and to 
 lay their grasp upon the hearts, of Hindu and of Buddhist 
 seers. 
 
 1 Bhagavadgitd, XII. 7. 
 
 2 The word may here be either singular or plural. 
 
 3 Compare also what Poussin says of other parallelisms : ' The rela- 
 tion between Brahman and transfigured Krisna is not unlike the relation 
 between dharmakdya and sambhoga. And again the third body of 
 Buddha . . . has something in common with the human and " unnatural " 
 form of Krisna.' J. R. A. S., 1906, p. 961.
 
 VI 
 
 THEISM DURING THE MAHABHARATA PERIOD 
 
 WITH the appearance of the Bhagavadglta, Indian Theism 
 has advanced to a new level of significance, and occupies 
 a position of authority not hitherto attained. For while still, 
 as a genuine Theism must, keeping its hold upon the people's 
 hearts and demanding their devotion, it at the same time 
 attempts to vindicate itself as a speculative system ; it endea- 
 vours to relate the worship of the simple to the wisdom of the 
 philosopher. The popular devotion to Bhagavat, for long, in 
 all probability, a pious tradition among earnest souls, now 
 obtained a new sanction and a new importance. The genius 
 of the unknown author of this poem, or perhaps we should 
 rather say, the religious and philosophic power present in the 
 syncretistic movement of which this poem is the expression, 
 lifts it out of the category, to which it properly belongs, of 
 sectarian literature. In the Mahdbharata, into which it has 
 been inserted as an episode, it really forms one of many docu- 
 ments exalting Visnu-Krisna and his worship that are placed 
 in this great encyclopaedia of early Hinduism, side by side 
 with similar documents exalting Siva and his cult. We have 
 now definitely passed beyond the anonymous speculations 
 and intuitions of the Upanisads to the rivalries of the Hindu 
 sects. For one fortunate moment reflection and the spirit of 
 devotion unite in the Glta in harmonious union. The coldness 
 of the Upanisads is warmed by the glow of a pious ardour, 
 while the exuberance of popular fancy is restrained from 
 mythological excesses. At times, indeed, in the poem this 
 equilibrium is lost, and we have now the pedantry of the 
 scholastic, and again, fantastic nightmares of the popular
 
 THEISM DURING MAHABHARATA PERIOD 87 
 
 imagination. In sectarianism, outside of this exceptional 
 expression of it, there is little to restrain the exuberance of 
 the mythopoeic faculty. It is only in the case of exceptional 
 individuals like the Buddha and the unknown author of the 
 Glta that spiritual fervour will be combined with imaginative 
 austerity, and the native hue of devotion not sicklied over by 
 the pale cast of thought. For the most part, as we see them 
 in-' the 'jungle of the Mahdbhdrata ', the sectarian religions are 
 all overgrown with the rank vegetation of popular mythology 
 among which the simplicities of Theism are hard indeed to 
 trace. 
 
 How far the one or the other of the two great rival deities 
 and the one or the other of the powerful sects that gather round 
 them predominated during the period of the Mahdbhdrata, or 
 may be said to predominate in the poem itself, can hardly be 
 definitely decided. The Epic, in the opinion of Hopkins, 
 who has given so much study to this treasure-house of Indian 
 religious lore, stretches its unwieldy bulk over a period of at 
 least eight centuries, extending perhaps from the fifth century 
 before Christ to the fifth century after Christ. Throughout 
 the whole of that period these rival sects no doubt exercised 
 an influence that was greater over some classes than over 
 others, and in some areas than in others. Anything more 
 definite than that as regards their relations and their relative 
 importance can scarcely be conjectured with any certainty. 
 
 There is, indeed, a third god, Brahma, who has certain 
 claims to that pre-eminence which is more actively demanded 
 on behalf of the other two deities who, along with him, were 
 at a later period grouped into a trinity. But his adherents 
 were not, it would appear, so numerous or so aggressive on 
 his behalf as were those of Visnu and of Siva. No doubt, as 
 the fully personalized Brahman of the Upanisad philosophy, 
 he had a prestige among a certain class that the others did 
 not have. But that was of little value compared with the 
 popular ardour which characterized the worship of the other 
 gods. The high place once accorded to Brahma was little
 
 88 THEISM DURING THE 
 
 more by that time than a tradition a survival. Later, when 
 the attempt is made to adjust their quarrels for supremacy by 
 means of a hierarchy of gods, he has his place assigned to 
 him as one of the first three, but in reality he never disputes 
 for a moment the first place with his two great rivals, nor 
 does he seem to have done so at this earlier period. We may 
 go so far as to say that Indian religion was at this time divided 
 into two camps, each with its own religious characteristics, 
 and each claiming for its favourite deity the first or even the 
 sole place in the godhead. 
 
 The impartiality with which the Epic divides its favours 
 between the two popular deities, applying to each alternately 
 identical epithets of supremacy, is only explicable on the 
 supposition that each sect was able to secure the insertion 
 of documents corresponding to those of its rival. Evidently 
 they possessed almost equal authority and prestige, so that 
 equality of recognition could be accorded them. Both Visnu 
 and Siva are devadeva, par excellence, while only once or 
 twice is such a title given to any other god ; both are devd- 
 dhideva. That in the course of the development of the 
 religious consciousness, such a struggle for the first place 
 between rival modes of representing and approaching God 
 should take place in India as in other countries, was inevitable 
 perhaps, but there are certain characteristics of the thought 
 of India that differentiate the process, as we discover it there, 
 from what is to be found elsewhere. It was only later, for 
 example, as has been already indicated, that the attempt, 
 which appears in a fully developed form among the Greeks 
 and Romans with their strong sense of order and government, 
 was made to adjust the claims of rival deities by federating 
 them. The instinct of the Indian spirit with its decided 
 pantheistic bias is rather to amalgamate and blend its gods 
 to encourage one as the ' All-god ' to swallow the others. 
 Neither Visnu, Siva, nor Brahma has a personality so clearly 
 outlined, or lineaments so distinct that it is impossible for 
 one to dissolve into the other. At one time it is said, ' I am
 
 MAHABHARATA PERIOD 89 
 
 Visnu, I am Brahma, I am Siva ' ; l and, again, a hymn is 
 addressed ' to Siva having the form of Visnu, to Visnu having 
 the form of Siva '. 2 All the gods are minor manifestations of 
 one or other in turn. We find here in active operation the 
 struggle which in one fashion or another is present throughout 
 the whole of the Indian religious development, and differen- 
 tiates it from every other similar development of which we 
 have any record. It is a struggle between what we may call 
 the natural Theism of the devout spirit on the one hand, with 
 its demand for a personalized worship, and certain physical or 
 metaphysical presuppositions on the other, which, whether 
 we suppose them to be indelible characteristics of Indian 
 mentality, or doctrines which have come to be accepted there 
 as axioms, seem always to control the Indian point of view. 
 The belief in transmigration in combination with an incurable 
 instinct to seek a monistic solution of the universe, contends 
 with the demand of the devout heart for a God with whom it 
 can have fellowship. The result almost always is either that 
 this devout desire is quenched in hopelessness by the thought 
 of the endless revolutions of the inevitable wheel of birth, or 
 that, alternatively, the object of worship being submerged in 
 the ocean of the All, the fervour of personal affection becomes 
 impossible. This conflict can be discerned in process among 
 the doubtful shadows of the Mahdbharata jungle. 
 
 The struggle throughout the Epic, as throughout the whole 
 of Indian religious history, inclines now to one side and now 
 to another, but on the whole those forces are strongest that 
 are arrayed in opposition to that spirit of devotion which seeks 
 a personal object for its worship. This is shown by the 
 importance of Yoga practices in the Epic, and by the recourse 
 so often had to mantras, and what is no better than magic. 
 The paralysing effect upon religion of the karma doctrine is 
 seen in these relapses into superstition and in the indications 
 of the appearance of a spirit of scepticism. It is no surprise 
 to find the conclusion ' Time and fate and what will be this 
 1 Mbh. III. 189. 5 f. * Mbh. III. 39. 76.
 
 90 THEISM DURING THE 
 
 is the only Lord.' * In these respects the Mahdbhdrata is an 
 accurate reflection, no doubt, of Hinduism as it existed in all 
 its variety, and with all its contradictions throughout, perhaps, 
 five hundred years. Some of its best characteristics, as well 
 as some of its worst, are to be found in the types of worship 
 that connect themselves with the names of Visnu and of Siva. 
 As between those two great sects there is a difference which 
 gives to the one rather than to the other a bias towards 
 Theism. The Visnuite cult, by the association of its god 
 with Krisna as Visnu's incarnation, is able to emphasize the 
 personal characteristics of the object of its worship, and so to 
 resist more successfully the prevailing Pantheism. ' It is with 
 the philosopher's Visnu ', says Hopkins, ' that Krisna is identi- 
 fied.' Philosophy had done much, no doubt, for the old 
 Vedic sun-god, purifying and dignifying his figure, setting it 
 far apart from his bloody counterpart, Siva, so manifestly 
 begotten of demonic fears. Philosophy had done much for 
 Visnu, and it was all the easier for that reason for the worship 
 of the devout to attach itself to him, all the more so as attri- 
 butes of help and condescension had been his from the earliest 
 times. But his figure needed to be humanized and brought 
 near to men, and that was accomplished when the popular 
 Krisna was linked up with him as his avatara, his ' descent ' or 
 incarnation. Throughout the Mahdbhdrata we recognize that 
 the strength and energy of the Vaisnavite sect is due to the 
 name and fame of Krisna, while his prestige and his authority 
 are furnished by the ancient Vedic deity. The combination 
 is a peculiarly strong one, and has secured for this sect a 
 powerful and continuous theistic tradition throughout the 
 whole of the subsequent course of the Hindu development. 
 
 It is true that the relation of Krisna arid Visnu is not yet 
 in the Epic clearly defined. The avatara idea, in one crude 
 form or another, was an old one, but its application to the 
 purpose of reconciling the discordant claims of rival gods was 
 
 1 Mbh. III. 273. 6 ; Hopkins, R. /., p. 386. M. N. Dutt (III. 272. 6) 
 interprets the passage differently.
 
 MAHABHARATA PERIOD 91 
 
 new. The Indian mind has always found it easy to identify 
 the remoter gods with one another. Varuna, Soma, Indra, 
 Aryaman no one had any very vital interest in those old 
 deities as independent personalities. It was no difficult 
 matter to dissolve them into one another. But this was not 
 the case with the gods of the popular worship. Krisna and 
 Rama and even Siva, as the people knew and worshipped 
 him, and before the philosophers had begun to take him in 
 hand were too definite in their characteristics, and too near 
 to the unreflective multitude to be so manipulated. Simple 
 devotion could be content to worship Krisna as supreme or 
 it might be Siva and ignore the rest. Love or, more likely, 
 in the case of the latter, fear could behold its object so close 
 at hand and so exalted that all others become remote and 
 shadowy. But, presently, when the mood of spiritual exalta- 
 tion had passed, the sky filled again with a crowd of competing 
 deities. A simple plan in such a difficulty, and one that 
 always has commended itself to many, was to glorify one's 
 own god and to decry his rivals to reduce them in more or 
 less express terms to the rank of demi-gods or even demons. 
 So when Krisna is exalted, it is said of him that ' Brahma was 
 born from his lotus-navel, and Siva sprang from his angry 
 forehead > . 1 It may even be that some super-sectarian among 
 them relegates the whole company of the common gods, 
 Visnu himself along with the rest, to the second rank in the 
 presence of an anonymous Supreme before whom the gods 
 themselves bow down. ' The sages say to Visnu, " All men 
 worship thee ; to whom dost thou offer worship ? " And he 
 says, " To the Eternal Spirit ".' 2 Or, again, the peculiar 
 characteristics of the Indian mind assert themselves in the 
 resolute endeavour to digest even these stubborn personalities, 
 and dissolve them into one another, and to identify Krisna 
 himself with his terrible rival. 3 Or, yet again, the universe is 
 
 1 Mbh. III. 12. 37 f. ; Hopkins, R. /., p. 411. 
 
 2 Mbh, XII. 335. 26 ff. ; Hopkins, R. /., p. 413. 
 
 3 Mbh. III. 12. 21, 43.
 
 92 THEISM DURING THE 
 
 divided into spheres of influence, and Brahma the creator, 
 Krisna the protector, and Siva the destroyer ' are the three 
 appearances or conditions (avastha) of the Father-god '. l But 
 no method of linking up the gods is so satisfying at once to 
 the philosopher and to the devout worshipper as is that 
 of avatdras, by means of which the rivalries of the popular 
 Theisms were reconciled, while in the persons of Krisna and 
 Rama and the others that followed them, ' Visnuism found its 
 true divinities '. 2 We have not yet reached the fully reflective 
 period of Indian religion. The philosophers of the Upanisad 
 age were not system builders. They are to Sankara and 
 Ramanuja as Xenophanes and Anaxagoras are to Aristotle 
 and Plotinus. But, as in the Upanisads, so in the Mahdbhdrata 
 and in the Puranas, materials for the systems to come, tentative 
 theologizings are to be found, and the fruitful idea embodied 
 in the theory of avatdras was never lost sight of. The idea 
 of ' descents ', bringing a remote God near to man, is in full 
 agreement with those mystical conceptions of the divine that 
 had become associated with the name of Visnu. At the same 
 time, the abstractions of the older mysticism were, by the help 
 of the human figures of Krisna and the rest, rendered concrete 
 and vivid and powerful, so as to be able to attract the heart 
 of the common man, whether devout, or superstitious, or 
 sensual, or all three at once. In the Mahdbhdrata period the 
 philosophical and theological possibilities of the avatdra idea 
 have not yet become explicit. It has not yet passed decisively 
 beyond the stage of mythology. Bu,t at last a means has 
 been found by the help of which a new stream of faith and 
 passion, fed from sources where the sensual and the spiritual 
 mingle undistinguished, could be poured into the old river- 
 bed, now wellnigh dry, of philosophic Visnuism. 
 
 A natural accompaniment of the doctrine of avatdras, 
 bringing as it does a remote god near to men in gracious 
 condescension, is the belief, not altogether new, but by this 
 
 1 Hopkins, R. /., p. 412 ; Mbh. III. 271 (272). 47. 
 8 Earth, /?./., p. 172.
 
 MAHABHARATA PERIOD 93 
 
 doctrine made more credible and real, of the grace of God in 
 man's salvation. The theistic Upanisads had spoken, as we have 
 seen, of the Self as manifesting itself of its own (or his own) 
 good pleasure. ' He whom the Self chooses, that one obtains 
 it.' l The same thought is vitally related to the view of Krisna 
 in his relations with men that finds its expression in the 
 Bhagavadgttd? while the idea is at least latent in much that 
 is included within the Buddhist system. The doctrine in one 
 form or another of the grace that manifests itself, that con- 
 descends to human weakness, that has pity and saves, is, no 
 doubt, an ancient one, as old as the immemorial convictions 
 that God is good and that man is weak and ignorant and 
 sinful. In the Mahdbhdrata the way of salvation is especially 
 to be attained by means of the divine grace, but that is not, as 
 in the Upanisads, the grace of the anonymous Self, but the 
 grace of Krisna who is human and near. ' That man to whom 
 he gives his grace (prasddd) can behold him.' 3 Not the 
 knowledge of the atheist or of the pantheist but the personal 
 help of a personal saviour is the means of man's deliverance. 
 
 Throughout the whole of the Mahdbhdrata, and, no doubt, 
 throughout the whole period across which it stretches, one 
 finds an almost inextricable confusion of speculations and 
 counter-speculations, sectarian dogmas, mythology and 
 mystic interpretations of mythology. The power of thought 
 and the activity of a grossly superstitious fancy, combined 
 with the pantheistic instinct for unity, are continuously at 
 work with results that baffle and bewilder. We have seen 
 how, in the case of the Bhagavadgltd y Theism and Pantheism 
 alternate in their expression in the poem so as to make it 
 a matter of considerable difficulty to determine what doctrine 
 is really intended to be taught. So throughout the entire 
 Epic the Theism that had been strengthened within the circle 
 of Visnu worship by the reinforcement of the name of Krisna 
 and the popular devotion that attached to him, appears again 
 
 1 Katha Up. II. 23. 2 XI. 53. 
 
 3 Mbh. XII. 337. 20.
 
 94 THEISM DURING THE 
 
 and again to be almost overwhelmed by the tide of that 
 philosophic Pantheism which was associated with the name 
 of the older Vedic deity. A non-pantheistic element in the 
 poem and one distinct as far as one thing can be said to be 
 distinct from another in the Indian religious atmosphere 
 from the devout Krisna cult, is that which is associated with the 
 name Yoga. This was, to begin with, a system closely related 
 to the practices of magic, which, by means of certain exercises, 
 sought to obtain for the adept, supernatural powers. With the 
 lapse of time the aim it set before itself and the methods it 
 employed were refined to something less primitive and crude. 
 Following the example practically universal in India, it came 
 to recognize deliverance from repeated birth as the one object 
 whose attainment was worth seeking. Its method likewise 
 was modified till it became mainly one of concentration and 
 of ecstasy. It was thoroughly practical in its purpose and had 
 no speculative interests. Just as the philosopher might in his 
 own religious life be a Bhagavadbhakta, ' a devout worshipper 
 of the Lord ', so he might also quite possibly follow the 
 practices of the Yoga and use them as auxiliaries for the 
 attainment of his goal. But in general the Yoga implied 
 a belief in a personal God though his role might seem a 
 somewhat superfluous one and stood in sharp contrast in 
 that respect with the atheistic system of the Sankhya. It 
 implied such a belief just because it was a practical scheme 
 of deliverance, while the other was a theory of things. ' There 
 is no knowledge like the Sankhya no power like the Yoga,' l 
 says one of the reconcilers who are so common in the later 
 Epic. The statement indicates how the complementary 
 character of the two systems could render their amalgamation 
 possible. There was far less difficulty in forming an alliance 
 between deistic Yoga and theistic bhakti. The aim of Yoga, 
 is, no doubt, different from that of a doctrine inspired by 
 personal devotion and aspiring to personal fellowship with 
 God. It seeks to withdraw the soul into its eternal isolation 
 1 Mbh. XII. 317. 2 ; Hopkins, Great Epic, p. 102.
 
 MAHABHARATA PERIOD 95 
 
 (kevalatva\ so that it may be ' released from birth and death, 
 ill and weal '/ or even so that it may there ' shine glorious 
 like a king'. 2 But if it was possible to combine this with 
 a doctrine of absorption into unconditioned Brahman^ it was 
 certainly no less possible and more in accordance with the 
 whole Yoga tradition to seek an alliance rather with the 
 Krisna sect. There were certain respects in which the two 
 were sharply antagonistic to each other. Especially the idea 
 at the root of Yoga, as of so much else in the Indian view of 
 life, the idea of relation as implying bondage, of the profitable 
 way as necessarily a via negativa, of the best life as a life of 
 asceticism, was deeply and inevitably opposed to the doctrine 
 of loving faith in a personal God. The one breaks bonds 
 where the other knits them. The one seeks a goal of separa- 
 tion, the other a goal of union. The latter worships a God 
 whose hand is upon the world as Creator and upon man's 
 heart as Saviour. To the former it must always be a problem 
 to conceive of a God as related and so bound to the world 
 that he has created and to man who seeks deliverance. 3 The 
 shallow speculations of the twelfth book of the Mahabhdrata 
 are not sufficient to secure the reconciliation of philosophy 
 and devotion. A deeper synthesis was required to unite 
 them and to give the popular Theism a more secure position. 
 The avatdra doctrine had helped greatly to establish the 
 respectability of its connexions, but the danger remained lest 
 it should be speedily absorbed by the prevailing Pantheism. 
 To avoid that danger a method was required more serious 
 and less shallow than the easy compromises of the later 
 Mahabhdrata. 
 
 1 Hopkins, Great Epic, p. no. 
 
 2 Mbh.Vll.ji. 17; Hopkins, Great Epic, p. 185. 
 
 3 Cf. Mbh. XII. 341. 99, ' The Lord created pravritti as a picturesque 
 effect ' (Hopkins, Great Epic, p. 103).
 
 VII 
 
 THE THEISM OF THE VEDANTA SUTRAS 
 AND OF RAMANUJA 
 
 THE Mahdbhdrata may be taken as representative of the 
 religious life of the greater part of northern India, not only up 
 to the end of the fourth century of the Christian era, by which 
 time the poem may be reckoned to have assumed its final 
 form, but for many centuries thereafter. Buddhism is, indeed, 
 ignored by it, though there are many traces of its influence ; 
 and to complete the picture of Indian religion through this 
 long, dim period, one has to conceive of it also in all its variety 
 of aspects, rising to power and, later, falling into decay. 
 Popular cults of devotion, such as the Mahdbhdrata reveals 
 cults tracing their descent from the Bhagavatas and the 
 Pancaratras and adoring Krisna and Rama and other human 
 gods, maintained their power still over the hearts of many of 
 the people. Even within Buddhism the flame of Theism 
 burned on unextinguished. Attempts, too, such as the later 
 books of the Mahdbhdrata contain, to fashion a metaphysical 
 framework for the popular Theisms, continued, no doubt, to be 
 made. Pioneers of the system-makers to come endeavoured 
 with more or less success to steer their philosophic course 
 between the Scylla of Sankhya atheism and the Charybdis 
 of Brahmaism. 
 
 Of all the theological and philosophical works, however, 
 produced in this long period, by far the most authoritative 
 was that which contained the Veddnta or Brahma Sutras. 
 At some time early in the Christian era, which cannot be 
 more particularly determined, this work was elaborated, 
 exhibiting the new spirit of scholasticism which was taking
 
 THEISM OF THE VEDANTA SUTRAS 97 
 
 the place of the free and more living speculation of the 
 Upanisads. The formulation of Sutras in different depart- 
 ments of religious practice and speculation was significant of 
 the stage that had now been reached in the Hindu develop- 
 ment. Their appearance marks the conclusion of the literature 
 of revelation. Sruti is now at an end no voice of divine 
 inspiration can any longer be heard. It remains to codify the 
 truths received, and this is the aim and purpose of the Sutras. 
 The Veddnta Sutras, which, if we accept the tradition, belong 
 to a later period than the Bhagavadgitd^ sum up Vedic 
 speculation or what is called Uttara Mimdmsd. The jndna 
 kdnda or theory of the universe, which is here set forth with 
 a conciseness that renders it scarcely intelligible, was revealed 
 in the Upanisads ; and, if indeed these scriptures are faithfully 
 reproduced and systematized in this scholastic treatise, it will 
 be theistic or non-theistic according as the orthodox tradition 
 interpreted the originals in the one sense or the other. The 
 Sutras, accordingly, ought to be decisive as to whether the 
 Vedanta is or is not a theistic system. Unfortunately, how- 
 ever, if the question is debatable in regard to the Upanisads 
 themselves, the Sutras give little help in coming to a decision. 
 The ' almost algebraic mode of expression ', 2 to which in their 
 zeal for compression the authors of this class of literature 
 attained, renders it impossible to decide with certainty what 
 view they set forth, and leaves at least as much scope for the 
 commentator and the controversialist as the original Sruti 
 itself. For a long period, accordingly, we have to choose, in 
 forming an opinion of the Indian religious development, 
 between the complex of a multitude of worships which such 
 a poem as the Mahdbhdrata presents to us, and the ambiguity 
 and obscurity of the philosophers and theologians. Through 
 the shadows we can dimly see Hinduism organizing itself 
 with a view to overcoming or absorbing its rivals, Buddhism 
 
 1 IV. ii. 21 of the Veddnta Sutras is supposed by the commentators to 
 refer to the Gitct. 
 
 2 Macdonell's Sanskrit Literature, p. 35. 
 
 H
 
 98 THEISM OF THE VEDANTA SUTRAS 
 
 and Jainism, and succeeding in its aim ; we can see Muham- 
 madanism descending upon the land and bringing confusion 
 and ferment. The whole period has aspects of similarity in 
 the history of Hinduism to the ' dark ages ' of Mediaevalism 
 in the history of the Christian Church, and what Thomas 
 Aquinas and the great schoolmen were in the one develop- 
 ment Sankara and Ramanuja were in the other. 
 
 When we come to these names we find ourselves for the 
 first time in Southern India, and realize that through those 
 ambiguous centuries Hinduism was engaged in absorbing new 
 peoples and steadily extending her sway. As Buddhism and 
 Jainism arose outside the ' holy land ' of Aryan orthodoxy, so 
 those two personalities, whose appearance marks a new era in 
 Indian religious reflection, belong to a new land where thought 
 can be active and untrammelled. Whether Sarikara contributed 
 ideas of his own to his presentation of the old teaching, or 
 whether he was merely a brilliant interpreter, it is not easy 
 now to determine, but at all events this man of the South, who 
 was not even, it is alleged, a pure Brahman, possessed an 
 intellectual power and an audacity of speculation such as are 
 likeliest to be found not where the springs of life and 
 thought are beginning to fail, but where they are welling up, 
 vigorous and new. But it is not with Sankara that this 
 investigation has to do. If his account of the meaning of the 
 Sutras is accepted, then their doctrine must be acknowledged 
 to be completely anti-theistic, and, presumably, the Vedanta 
 also that they claim to summarize. Theism can find no place 
 in a system of such absolute and unflinching monism as this 
 is, which makes self-consciousness an illusion, and to the sole 
 existent Being denies all attributes whatever. If a place is 
 found on a lower plane for Isvara as the creation of the 
 empiric mind and useful for practical purposes, all the time 
 he is recognized by the wise man as unreal. Theism, of course, 
 cannot recognize this pinchbeck deity. Such a device is far 
 more fraudulent than the pragmatism which we found exer- 
 cising so great an influence over Buddhist thought. Buddha
 
 AND OF RAMANUJA 99 
 
 said, ' Problems which are of no avail to salvation I do not 
 solve.' He did not say, ' Believe for practical ends what all 
 the time is metaphysically false.' To refuse to face ultimate 
 problems, and to limit one's stock of ideas to working hypo- 
 theses or ' necessary knowledge ', may not be a heroic course 
 to follow, but it is essentially different from the deliberate 
 acceptance, for the satisfaction of the understanding and the 
 heart, of a view of the world which the reason all the time 
 declares to be untrue. Sankara's apard vidyd opens the door, 
 as it was intended no doubt to do, not only to theistic religion 
 but to every form of superstition and idolatry. It is perhaps 
 a corollary of Pantheism to recognize and accept things as 
 they are to the empiric consciousness, and, therefore, ' the 
 god of things as they are'. An ethical Theism cannot build 
 on such phenomenal foundations. 
 
 The system of Ramanuja is, on the other hand, a serious 
 Theism, nowhere as Sankara's to the plain man seems to 
 be 'stanchioned with a lie'. Though the founder of this 
 school, which has exercised so notable an influence in the 
 development of Vaisnavite religion, lived three centuries after 
 Sankara, there is evidence that his views rested upon an old 
 and influential tradition. He was not the first to attempt to 
 formulate in systematic form the doctrines of the Bhagavata 
 or Pancaratra faith. In the Mahdbhdrata the four-fold 
 manifestation of the Supreme Being one of its distinctive 
 tenets is mentioned, while a similar reference in the Veddnta 
 Sutras indicates that the theology of this ancient system, 
 whether approved by the Sutrakara or not and this is a 
 matter of controversy was recognized and treated with 
 respect in the highest quarters. 1 If any reliance is to be 
 placed upon the South Indian tradition in this matter, it 
 would appear that Vaisnavism had a continuous history there 
 almost from the beginning of the Christian era. There is 
 said to have been a succession of twelve Vaisnavite saints, 
 called Alvars, and a similar series of Acaryas, of whom six 
 1 S. B. E. XXXIV, p. xxiii. 
 H 2
 
 ioo THEISM OF THE VEDANTA SUTRAS 
 
 are named as preceding Ramanuja. One of these is Yamu- 
 nacarya, who is said to have been Ramanuja's immediate 
 predecessor in this apostolic succession of Vaisnavism. Several 
 of his works have survived. One of them, the Siddhi-traya, 
 is said to have for its object the demonstration of the real 
 existence of the individual soul and the refutation of the 
 doctrine of avidyd, while another, the Agamaprdmanya, 
 attacks the view that the Sutras condemn the Bhagavata 
 teaching, and maintains the orthodoxy of that teaching. 1 
 Another work of a different character attributed to this 
 spiritual ancestor of Ramanuja is the Stotra Ratna, a brief 
 devotional poem, dedicated to Visnu. Its spirit of earnest 
 piety may be taken as indicative of the real religious value of 
 this Vaisnavism of the South. The emotion of which Rama- 
 nuja was to furnish the intellectual expression, utters itself 
 with unmistakable earnestness in such a cry as this : 
 
 The vessel of a thousand sins, and plunged 
 
 Deep in the heart of life's outrageous sea, 
 I seek in Thee the refuge of despair ; 
 
 In mercy only, Hari, make me Thine. . . . 
 But for Thee I am masterless ; save me 
 
 There's none to earn Thy mercy. Since our fate 
 Weaveth this bond between us, Master mine, 
 
 O guard it well and cast it not away. . . . 
 Lord Madhava, whatever mine may be, 
 
 Whatever I, is all and wholly Thine. 
 What offering can I bring, whose wakened soul 
 
 Seeth all Being bond to Thee for aye ? 2 
 
 There is little doubt that when Ramanuja arose in the 
 eleventh or twelfth century, 3 Vaisnavism had had a long 
 
 1 See The Vaisnavite Reformers of India, by T. Rajagopala Chariar. 
 The author in his sketch of Yamunacarya quotes from the Siddhi-traya, 
 which, he says, is frequently quoted by Ramanuja, this passage : ' The 
 individual soul is a separate entity in each body which is by nature 
 eternal, subtle, and blissful. It is distinct from the body, the senses, the 
 vital air, and the intellect, and is self-contained ' (the word he translates 
 ' self-contained' is svataK). He also quotes a passage controverting the 
 advaita explanation of ' ekam evadvitiyam\ pp. 37, 35. 
 
 2 L. D. Barnett's translation in Heart of India, p. 42. 
 
 3 The date of his death is usually given as 1137, and he is alleged to 
 have lived for 1 20 years.
 
 AND OF RAMANUJA 101 
 
 history, and had established for itself a strong position in 
 South India, though it is there that the worship of ^Siva has 
 always had its chief stronghold. He was born at Sriperum- 
 budur, near Madras, and appears to have resided and taught 
 chiefly at Srirangam. near Trichinopoly, where he is said to 
 have written his commentary on the Veddnta Sutras, the Sri 
 Bhdsya. Certain characteristics of the religious practice as 
 distinguished from the theory of the Vaisnavism of which 
 he is the most distinguished representative deserve to be 
 noted, especially as they are such as we have already seen 
 to accompany a genuine Theism. For one thing it seems to 
 have appealed to the common people, and to have won them 
 largely to its worship. This was, of course, natural in a 
 religion which emphasized devotion rendered to a personal 
 God, and thereby, in a measure at least, opposed itself to the 
 more aristocratic and exclusive 'way of knowledge'. If the 
 followers of Ramariuja, like so many other of the Vaisnavite 
 cults, found the power of caste too great for them to over- 
 come, they, nevertheless, opened the way of salvation to the 
 lower classes no less than to the higher. The same democratic 
 spirit, which, indeed, must accompany every message which 
 is in any real sense evangelic and theistic, is shown in the 
 adoption of the practice of using the Tamil works of the 
 Alvars in connexion with the service of their temples. There 
 is also a story related of Ramanuja, which may well have 
 a true tradition behind it, and is significant of the implications 
 of the Vaisnavite religion. It is said that a famous guru of 
 the time conveyed to Ramanuja under the customary pledge 
 of secrecy his esoteric doctrine. Having learned it, however, 
 Ramanuja, believing it to be a message of salvation which all 
 should learn, promptly broke his promise, and proceeded to 
 proclaim it to all about him. 1 Another characteristic of this 
 Vaisnavism which marks it off from most other sects in India 
 is its religious exclusiveness. The Indian pantheistic mind 
 has always been too ready to extend an easy tolerance to 
 1 Sri Ramanuja, by S. Krisnaswami Ayengar, p. 17.
 
 102 THEISM OF THE VEDANTA SUTRAS 
 
 every form of faith, and to believe that every god is but one 
 form or another of the nameless One. It was certainly 
 possible for the Advaita doctrine to encourage, though it 
 might despise, all varieties of superstition as portions harm- 
 less, perhaps, or even useful, portions of the cosmic illusion. 
 But this course was not open to Ramanuja and those who 
 held with him to faith in a real personal deity. There is 
 a movement towards monotheism, such as India seldom 
 betrays, in the refusal on the part of those who follow Rama- 
 nuja, to recognize the worship of any other gods than those 
 of the Vaisnavite pantheon. The absence from the religion 
 of India of the intolerance, and what we may almost call the 
 monotheistic arrogance, of the Hebrew prophets, is due more 
 than anything else to the pantheistic root of so much of the 
 thought of India and its consequent half-heartedness in 
 affirming the divine unity. Ramanuja, perhaps, more than 
 any one since the Vedic Varuna was worshipped, seems to 
 have been possessed of this peculiarly Semitic conviction. 
 
 Not only does Ramanuja belong to an ancient and strongly 
 defined religious tradition which shows itself in its practical 
 aspects to be decisively theistic, but his theology purports to 
 be a faithful presentation of the old Vedantic teaching, and 
 to have the authority of the ancient interpreters behind it. 
 All the schools of Vedanta philosophy Advaita, Visistadvaita, 
 and Dvaita claim to derive their teaching from three great 
 sources the prasthdna tray a of the Upanisads, the Bhaga- 
 vadgitd, and the Vedanta Sutras. In that consists their 
 authority. No commentary was written by Ramanuja, as 
 by Sankara, upon the Upanisads, which have the first place 
 among the three in age and in importance, and, indeed, are 
 alone properly described as Vedanta. But Ramanuja's &rl 
 Bhdsya, in expounding the Sutras, professes to follow the 
 ' ancient teachers ', the purvacaryas, who may be supposed 
 to have handed on the pure tradition of Vedantic teaching. 
 There is sufficient evidence at least to prove that a theistic 
 interpretation of the Sutras, and, therefore, of the Upanisads>
 
 AND OF RAMANUJA 103 
 
 was no innovation, but had great names in the past among its 
 adherents. The designation, Sdririka Mtmdmsd, as well as 
 Brahma Mtmdmsd, is given to this systematic account of the 
 doctrines of the Vedanta, which is contained in the Veddnta 
 Sutras, and it has been suggested that that name itself con- 
 tains an indication that Ramanuja rightly represents these 
 doctrines as theistic. The name signifies an ' inquiry con- 
 cerning the embodied soul '. Here Brahma and Sdririka are 
 used as if they were synonyms, the reason being, according to 
 Ramanuja, that the world and individual souls form the body 
 of Brahma, who, therefore, is the ' embodied soul ' par excel- 
 lence. This, as we shall see, is one of the central doctrines 
 of Ramanuja's philosophy of Theism, and as such might well 
 give its designation to it. 1 
 
 Certainly at first ' the embodied soul ' seems a strange 
 name by which to call the supreme Being, and especially 
 strange when it is the name given to the Brahman of the 
 Upanisads, seeing that the chief end of Vedantic teaching is 
 to obtain deliverance from the body, and so to attain to 
 Brahman. When we understand, however, what this central 
 doctrine of Ramanuja's teaching really signifies, it will be seen 
 that it is quite in agreement with the emphasis that the 
 Upanisads place upon the immanence of Brahman in the 
 universe and in man. Brahman is the Sdririka, because he 
 is the ' manifested soul ' ' the entire complex of intelligent 
 and non-intelligent beings' constitutes his body or form, or 
 sakti, or vibhuti (manifestation of power). ' The highest 
 Brahman is essentially free from all imperfection whatsoever, 
 comprises within itself all auspicious qualities, and finds its 
 pastime in originating, preserving, re-absorbing, pervading, 
 and ruling the universe.' 2 ' Brahman alone is the material, 
 as well as the operative, cause of the universe.' 3 It has no 
 
 1 Sukhtankar's Teachings of Vedanta according to Ramanuja, p. 8 ; 
 cf. S.B. E. XLVIII, p. 230. 
 
 2 S.B. E. XLVIII, p. 88 ; Commentary on Ved. Sut. I. i. i. 
 
 3 Commentary on Ved. Sut. I. iv. 23.
 
 104 THEISM OF THE VEDANTA SUTRAS 
 
 existence apart from him. In the beginning, in the Vedanta 
 phrase, there was ' one only without a second '. Ramanuja, 
 thus, is a monist no less than Sankara, but his monism 
 is Visistadvaita, one that recognized attributes of God as real, 
 that 'cognises Brahman as carrying plurality within itself 
 (? himself), and the world which is the manifestation of his 
 power as something real'. 1 All creatures have their source 
 in Brahman, their home in Brahman, their support in Brah- 
 man \ they exist only as ' modes ' (prakard) of Brahman. 
 The objection that on this view Brahman being ' embodied ' 
 suffers, is met by the reply that ' it is not generally true that 
 embodiedness proves dependence on karma ', and it is karma, 
 and not ' embodiedness ', that brings suffering as its conse- 
 quence. Further, Brahman is free from all dependence on 
 karma, 'his nature- being fundamentally antagonistic to all 
 evil.' 2 Again, it is to be noticed that this immanence of 
 Brahman in souls does not deprive them of freedom. The 
 individual is able to will his actions, but the power that 
 carries out his purpose is Brahman. ' The inwardly ruling, 
 highest Self promotes action in so far as it (? he) regards in 
 the case of any action the volitional effort made by the indi- 
 vidual soul, and then aids that effort by granting its (his) 
 favour or permission (anumati).'* Dr. Sukhtankar quotes 
 the following passage as summing up Ramanuja's view of 
 the relation of the soul to God : ' The soul is created by 
 Brahman, is controlled by it (? him), is its body, is subservient 
 to it, is supported by it, is reduced to the subtle condition by 
 it (viz. in the dissolution state of the world), is a worshipper 
 of it, and depends on its grace for its welfare.' 4 
 
 It will be seen that Ramanuja by his doctrines of God and 
 of man secures, as far as the limits imposed by certain Indian 
 presuppositions which he shares permit, the possibility of 
 a theistic faith. The universal Soul is he who alone possesses 
 
 1 Bhasya on Ved. Sut. I. i. i ; S. B. E. XLVIII, p. 89. 
 
 2 S. B. E. XLVIII, pp. 239, 240. 3 Op. cit., p. 557. 
 * Sukhtankar, op. cit., pp. 49, 50.
 
 AND OF RAMANUJA 105 
 
 unconditioned personality, having ' the mastery over all worlds 
 and wishes, and capability of realizing his own purposes '- 1 
 Individual souls, on the other hand, so long as they are bound 
 to the wheel of re-birth, are of limited personality they have 
 apurusartha, which Dr. Sukhtankar translates by ' want of the 
 powers of a person '. 2 Full self-realization (satyakamatva) is 
 accordingly declared to be one of the qualities that form part 
 of the experience of the released soul. 3 The method by which 
 this experience is attained and the character of that experience 
 are matters only second to his doctrines of God and man as 
 indicating the value of Ramanuja's Theism. There are two 
 rocks in especial on which in this connexion an Indian 
 theologian is in danger of being wrecked. The one is repre- 
 sented by the doctrine of karma, the other by the question of 
 the persistence of conscious personality after release. Rama- 
 nuja endeavours to avoid both those dangers. He does so in 
 the former case, as the theist must, by emphasizing the 
 supremacy of the ' Highest Person ' over the karma of men. 
 ' It is he only the all-knowing, all-powerful, supremely 
 generous one who, being pleased by sacrifices, gifts, offerings, 
 and the like, as well as by pious meditation, is in a position to 
 bestow the different forms of enjoyment in this and the 
 heavenly world, and release which consists in attaining to 
 a nature like his own. For action which is non-intelligent and 
 transitory is incapable of bringing about a result connected 
 with a future time.' 4 The attribute 'supremely generous 
 One ', applied in this passage to the Supreme Person, is specially 
 significant, as it points to another aspect of the freedom which 
 Ramanuja claims for him in relation to the acts of men. He 
 interferes to ' check the tendency on the part of individual 
 beings to transgress his laws', 5 and further, 'wishing to do 
 a favour to those who are resolved on acting so as fully to 
 please the Highest Person, he engenders in their minds a 
 
 1 Bhasya on Ved. Sut. I. i. 21. 2 Sukhtankar, op. cit., p. 21. 
 
 3 Bhdsya on Ved. Silt. III. iii. 40. 4 Ibid. III. ii. 37. 
 
 5 Ibid. II. ii. 3.
 
 106 THEISM OF THE VEDANTA SUTRAS 
 
 tendency towards highly virtuous actions such as are means to 
 attain to him.' 1 Similarly it is maintained that he hardens the 
 heart of the wicked his action throughout being without 
 cruelty or partiality. That Ramanuja feels the bonds of the 
 imperfectly moralized karma doctrine a constraint upon his 
 Theism is evident. He scarcely ventures as far as the more 
 strongly ethical Buddhist teachers in casting off its yoke. 
 Certainly, however, throughout his whole teaching he places 
 much more emphasis than is common within Hinduism on the 
 autonomy of man in determining his fate, on the ability of 
 moral personality to transcend the merely natural laws of the 
 universe, and on the supremacy over it all, as the supreme moral 
 personality, of him ' whose name is the highest Brahman '. 2 
 
 It follows from this view of man's nature and of God's that 
 the teaching of Ramanuja is unambiguous also in claiming 
 permanence of conscious life for the soul that, being set free, 
 abides with the highest Brahman. This summit is attained 
 by two means, the one, bhakti, which is ' steady remembrance ' 
 mediated by love, 3 and the other vidyd or meditation ' which 
 cannot be accomplished without the devotee having previously 
 broken with evil conduct '. 4 By these means by ' praise, 
 worship, and meditation ' 5 the soul reaches the ' abode of 
 Brahman' and there 'abides within, i.e. is conscious of the 
 highest Brahman'? 'As moreover the released soul has freed 
 itself from the bondage of karman, has its powers of know- 
 ledge fully developed, and has all its being in the supremely 
 blissful intuition of the highest Brahman, it evidently cannot 
 desire anything nor enter on any other form of activity, and 
 the idea of its returning into the samsara, therefore, is altogether 
 excluded. Nor indeed need we fear that the Supreme Lord, 
 once having taken to himself the devotee whom he greatly 
 loves, will turn him back into the samsara' 7 
 
 It has seemed desirable to set forth with some fullness 
 the main doctrines of Ramanuja's system, especially in those 
 
 1 II. iii. 41. 2 IV. iv. 22. 3 I. i. i. IV. i. 13. 
 
 6 III. ii. 40. 6 IV. iv. 19. 7 IV. iv. 22.
 
 AND OF RAMANUJA 107 
 
 aspects which make clear the character of its Theism, because 
 he certainly presents to us the highest intellectual altitude 
 reached in all its varied history by Indian Theism, and because, 
 further, his influence in strengthening that aspect of Indian 
 religion through the centuries that followed was so remarkable. 
 Devotion was now, as it had not hitherto been, definitely 
 linked with reflection, and the combination gave it a new 
 dignity. The weight of authority had up to this time been 
 largely anti-theistic. It was the heart of the plain man, not 
 the reason of the philosopher, that demanded a personal God 
 to worship. The theistic expansion which we can trace in the 
 succeeding centuries throughout the whole Indian continent 
 was undoubtedly due in large measure to the new prestige 
 that the school of Ramanuja brought to the religion of bhakti 
 by linking it to the ancient tradition of Vedantic teaching. 
 At the same time we can perceive how what had come to be the 
 presuppositions of all Indian thought constrain and hamper 
 even so convinced a theist and so ethical a thinker as Rama- 
 nuja appears to have been. We have seen how he seeks to 
 overcome the stubborn resistance that a formal doctrine of 
 karma must always present to any attempt to reach a con- 
 sistently theistic explanation of the universe. What he calls 
 prarabdka karma proves too strong for even the grace of the 
 Supreme Person to abrogate. It must be worked out to its 
 conclusion. One way by which the binding influence of the 
 ' deed ' could be evaded, as already the Bhagavadgltd had 
 taught, was to perform it with no desire for reward with 
 a heart not knit to it. This is oftener, perhaps, expressed by 
 Ramanuja as a heart that seeks in doing the act to propitiate 
 the Supreme Person. A later teacher of his school, Pillai 
 Lokacarya, puts it thus : ' Motivelessness of all act arises 
 from its being done as divine service ; and is hence bereft of 
 all binding character, such as entails phenomenal existence 
 for the soul that does it.' * Such a view is perhaps satisfactory 
 enough as regards the creature, but how of the Creator ? How 
 1 J.R.A.S., 1910, p. 585.
 
 io8 THEISM OF THE VEDANTA SUTRAS 
 
 is it that he is not bound by karma? This was a problem 
 that, as we have seen, 1 had already presented itself to sceptical 
 spirits in the Mahdbhdrata, and neither Sankara nor Rama- 
 nuja nor the Sutrakara himself could fail to face it. Their 
 solution is the same, though Sankara treats the problem per- 
 functorily as only a matter that concerns that lower plain of 
 knowledge which is indeed no knowledge but delusion. He 
 hints, indeed, at something better when he suggests that the 
 work of the Creator ' may proceed from his own nature 
 (svabhdva}, like breathing in a man '. 2 It is necessary, however, 
 in view of the karma doctrine, that this and indeed every act 
 of the Lord should be motiveless, and this they can only 
 construe as signifying that his work of creation is ' mere sport ', 
 as when a king plays a game of balls. 3 He cannot put his 
 heart into the work, for then it would bind him even as it 
 binds man. There is an ambiguity in the whole relation of 
 the Supreme Person to this power that to the Indian vision 
 has so great a grip upon the universe. It is beginningless. 
 It controls ' all the activities of the soul, from thinking to 
 winking of an eye '. 4 According even to the Gitd the Lord 
 neither creates one's karma nor its fruits ; ' it is its own nature 
 that moves'. 6 Ramanuja endeavours to set the Supreme 
 Person above this law, but his supremacy over it seems even 
 here to have its limits, and their relations are never fully 
 adjusted on an ethical basis. The divine authority is never 
 sufficiently vindicated as against this ancient rival that still 
 retains about him so many signs of his dark and savage origin. 
 The place accorded to the theistic God seems just to fall short 
 of that from which he could rule men's hearts with an un- 
 challengeable authority. 
 
 1 See p. 82 above. 
 
 2 Closely similar seems to have been the view put forth in the Kdrika 
 of Gaudapada, an earlier work than Sankara's. It states ' that the world 
 is not an illusion or a development in any sense but the very nature or 
 essence (svabhdva) of Brahma', just 'as the rays which are all the same 
 (i. e. light) are not different from the sun '. MacdonelFs Sanskrit Litera- 
 ture, p. 242. , s II. i. 34. 
 
 4 Quoted from Sri Bhasya by Sukhtankar, p. 47. 5 Bhag. V. 14.
 
 AND OF RAMANUJA 109 
 
 It is the moral and emotional warmth that pervades all his 
 doctrine that gives to the system of Ramanuja much of its 
 power and of its distinction. That it should have still a near 
 relation with mythology and with the idolatry of the multitude 
 is not surprising. In harmony with the emphasis he lays upon 
 the grace of God is the doctrine of incarnations which he 
 adopts into his system. But here, as elsewhere, it is not easy 
 to disentangle a moral conception of a God, whose nature is to 
 reveal himself and to draw near to men, from a metaphysical 
 doctrine inspired by pantheistic and mystical presuppositions 
 which supposes God in his essential nature to be so remote 
 and so exalted that mediating principles must intervene 
 between him and a crude material world of men and things. 
 Thus Sri or Laksmi, 1 the wife of Visnu, typifies, according to 
 Ramanuja, the activity of the Supreme Spirit in the region of 
 the finite, and has been claimed by modern members of this 
 School as corresponding to Jesus Christ. After he had created 
 the universe ' from Brahma down to stocks and stones ', he 
 ' withdrew into his own nature '. ' But ', Ramanuja goes on, 
 ' as he is a great ocean of boundless grace, kindness, love, and 
 generosity, he assumed various similar forms without putting 
 away his own essential godlike nature, and time after time 
 incarnated himself in the several worlds, granting to his 
 worshippers rewards according to their desires, namely re- 
 ligion, riches, earthly love, and salvation, and descending, not 
 only with the purpose of relieving the burden of earth, but 
 also to be accessible to men even such as we are.' 2 Further, 
 
 1 Later opinion in this School was divided on this subject. ' The Vadaga- 
 lais look upon Sri as a form or phase of the Supreme assumed mainly 
 for spreading the truth, and equally with him infinite and uncreate. The 
 Tehgalais, on the other hand, give her an independent personality. She 
 is looked upon as the mediator between God and man and while from 
 one point of view she is created by the Supreme, from another point of 
 view she is one with him.' G. A. Grierson iny. R. A. S., 1910, pp. 566, 
 567. But according to A. Govindacharya Swamin &rl is not ' a former 
 phase of the Supreme', but 'a distinct personality'. J. R. A. S., 1912, 
 p. 715. 
 
 2 Barnett's translation in Heart of India, p. 41.
 
 no THEISM OF THE VEDANTA SUTRAS 
 
 according to this School, God has not only a para form, 
 a transcendent essence, but vyuha forms, or manifestations 
 fitted to ' perform severally the functions, in the material or 
 manifested kosmos, of the making, the keeping, and the 
 breaking of the fabric of worlds, countless. These derived 
 godships take the names Pradyumna, Aniruddha, Sankarsana, 
 and so forth.' l 
 
 In this and in all his teaching Ramanuja was true to the 
 long tradition to which he belongs in making the grace of 
 God and the ' loving faith ' of the worshipper central to his 
 doctrine. But soon these very tenets became a cause of 
 schism in his following. The relation of the divine grace to 
 man's free will has been, elsewhere than in South India, a cause 
 of theological strife, and the ' Teiigalai ' and 'Vadagalai' schools 
 have their parallel in the Calvinists and Arminians of the 
 Christian Church. The former, otherwise called the adherents 
 of the Marjara-nyaya or Cat doctrine, maintained that God by 
 his grace bears to the goal a passive worshipper, even as the cat 
 her kitten. The latter claimed that man must be co-operant 
 with God, clinging to him as the young of the monkey do to 
 their mother. Theirs is the Markata-nyaya the Monkey 
 doctrine. This schism is said to have shown itself a century 
 after the time of Ramanuja, the leader of the latter and more 
 orthodox section being Vedanta Desika, and that of the former 
 being Pillai Lokacarya. The innovating section set prapatti 
 or self-sacrificing faith, as a means of deliverance from samsara 
 and of access to God, above mere bhakti. Along with this 
 went increased emphasis on the openness of the path of 
 approach to God for all men. ' This path of prapatti is 
 accessible to all irrespective of caste, colour, or creed.' 2 This 
 sect further attaches much importance to Acaryabhimana or 
 ' resort to a mediator ', ' who submits to personal suffering in 
 order to redeem the fallen '. ' The Mediator, then, is the ready 
 means, under the grace of which souls may take refuge and 
 
 1 The Arthapancaka of Lokacarya : J. R. A. S., 1910, p. 576. 
 
 2 J.R.A.S., 1910, p. 584.
 
 Ill 
 
 shape their conduct entirely at his sole bidding.' * The Vacana 
 Bhusana, one of Pillai Lokacarya's works, which ' is held in 
 extraordinary veneration by the followers of this school ', is 
 said to have as its chief features, ' the doctrine of surrender to 
 one's Acarya or Guru, advocated by this writer as a sufficient 
 means of salvation, the emphasis given to the doctrine of grace 
 by the assertion that even the sins of men are agreeable to 
 God, and the somewhat unceremonious rejection of caste 
 superiority as a ground for respect among men otherwise 
 equally venerable as lovers of God '. 2 While the Tengalai 
 school which maintained at once all of those advanced and 
 somewhat startling doctrines was limited mainly to South 
 India, we shall find that in different parts of the country 
 Vaisnavite sects arose from time to time holding one or another 
 of those views. A failure to maintain the balance of a sane 
 Theism and a tendency to fantastic exaggeration in certain 
 directions characterize almost all the developments of Vais- 
 navite doctrine, and seem to indicate a weakness somewhere. 
 Even the well-knit fabric of Ramanuja's system did not 
 prevent his followers from wild and dangerous aberrations. 
 
 P- 
 
 1 The Arthapancaka of Lokacarya : J. R. A. S., 1910, p. 587. 
 
 2 The Vaisnavite Reformers of India, by T. Rajagopala Chariar,
 
 VIII 
 LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS 
 
 RAMANUJA'S is, perhaps, the greatest name in the whole 
 history of the Vaisnavite development. He completed the 
 work for Indian Theism that was begun by the unknown 
 author of the Bhagavadgltd t setting the corner-stone upon the 
 structure, and establishing it in a position of strength such as 
 it had not previously possessed in the midst of the ebb and 
 flow of the religious thought and feeling of India. For that 
 reason his name becomes a new prasthdna for Vaisnavism 
 throughout the country a source whence flowed, north and 
 west and east across the land, rivers of really vital and ethically 
 ennobling religion. By means of what claimed to be a reasoned 
 demonstration of its antiquity, and of its intimate relation 
 with the most ancient and authoritative scriptures, he accom- 
 plished for Indian Theism a work similar to that which the 
 Greek Fathers did for Christianity in its Hellenic environ- 
 ment. 
 
 There was, indeed, another philosophical construction of 
 Vaisnavite doctrine, to which, though much more limited in 
 its influence, reference must be made before we indicate the 
 course of some of the streams of piety and devotion of which 
 those theologies that arose during this period form the water- 
 shed. This is the Dvaita system of Madhva or Anandatlrtha, 
 who arose near the western seaboard of South India in the 
 thirteenth century, about three generations after Ramanuja. 1 
 
 1 According to one tradition he died in 1197. Sir R. G. Bhandarkar 
 inclines to the view that that may rather have been the time of his birth 
 and that he 'lived in the first three-quarters of the thirteenth century'. 
 ( Vaisnavism, p. 59.)
 
 LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS 113 
 
 His system is mainly a vigorous protest against that of 
 Sankara, who is considered an incarnation of a demon sent 
 to deceive mankind. His dualism is unqualified, the world 
 being declared to be real and God to be the efficient cause 
 only of a universe the substance of which is eternal. The 
 individual soul is also real, and the only way of salvation is 
 by means of bhakti, which procures deliverance from the 
 bondage of samsara and a life of bliss and perfection in the 
 presence of God. God, or Narayana, however, cannot be 
 approached directly, but through a mediator, who is Vayu. 
 Responding to the faith of the worshipper, there is the grace 
 of God. ' Both knowledge and wisdom and the moksa which 
 a man of wisdom is fit to obtain are all the gift of the Lord.' 1 
 While in this matter agreeing with the teaching of other 
 Vaisnavite theologians, Madhva goes farther than most. He 
 holds that, as it is the divine grace that sets men free, so it is 
 the divine will that has cast them into bondage. Souls, 
 according to him, are of three classes. ' Some are pre- 
 ordained by their inherent aptitude to obtain mukti, others 
 are destined for eternal hell, while a third class must keep 
 revolving under the wheels of samsara from eternity to 
 eternity, now enjoying, and now suffering, in endless alternation 
 (nityasamsarin).' 2 It will be seen how much emphasis in this 
 doctrine is laid upon what, in the language of Christian 
 theology, might be called the sovereignty of God, the relation 
 of the soul to him, while mediated by bhakti, being that of 
 complete dependence, a relation as of a servant to his master. 
 
 The influence of the teaching of Madhva, while not widely 
 extended, has in certain respects been excellent. The standard 
 of morality of those who profess his doctrine is said to be 
 high, and the founder set himself in opposition to the sacrifice 
 of animals, appointing again the ancient substitute of a * barley 
 ewe '. In some other respects, however, his influence and 
 
 1 Mr. Subharao's Translation of Madhvacarya's Gttd, Introduction. 
 
 2 Life and Teaching of Sri Madhva, by C. M. Padmanabha Char, 
 P- 337- 
 
 I
 
 ii 4 LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS 
 
 that of Ramanuja have been less commendable. Whether or 
 not by Ramanuja himself, certainly by his immediate suc- 
 cessors, idolatry was sanctioned and this is true to a still 
 greater extent of Madhva. Further, although Ramanuja's 
 teaching recognized the religious rights of all classes of the 
 people, yet throughout its history in the South it betrays no 
 tendency to promote any doctrine of equality. This also is 
 true to a still greater extent of the other school. While one 
 section of the Madhavas is democratic enough to c regard 
 Kanarese and vernacular works with peculiar sanctity ', their 
 founder ' riveted the bonds of caste, and laid down very rigid 
 rules for varnas and dsramas'. 1 Both systems the Sri 
 Vaisnava of Ramanuja and the Sad Vaisnava of Madhva 
 betray, as has been already noted in regard to the former, 
 a strain of intolerance somewhat unusual in Indian religion, 
 but while in the case of the former this shows itself in the 
 prohibition of the worship of any god but those of the Visnu 
 cult, in the case of the latter the main vehemence of its attack 
 is directed against the rival system of Sankara, while to Siva 
 and his worship some recognition is accorded. It will be 
 seen that there is much that is common to both those teachers, 
 but the Indian mind seems too powerfully attracted towards 
 monistic interpretations of the universe for the dualistic 
 system of Madhva to obtain any large following. It may 
 be, as Swami Vivekananda, himself a Bengali, affirms, that 
 Caitanya of Bengal was a follower of Madhva, but if that is 
 the case, his influence was more productive in North India 
 than in the land of his birth. It is, in any case, to the North 
 that we have now to turn in order to describe, as can only be 
 done in the most general outline, those movements of theistic 
 devotion that draw much of their strength from the theological 
 reconstructions of those Vaisnavite teachers of the South. 
 
 Of these the chief, certainly in the extent of its influence, 
 probably also in its religious elevation, is that which is 
 associated with the name of Ramananda. According to the 
 1 Op. cit., pp. 257 and 271.
 
 LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS 115 
 
 tradition that has come down in regard to him, he was the 
 fifth in the ' apostolic succession ' from Ramanuja, and lived 
 about the end of the fourteenth and the beginning of the 
 fifteenth centuries. 1 He found, it is said, the caste prejudices 
 of his sect intolerable, and, leaving the South, travelled to 
 Benares, where he gathered round himself a following, and 
 gained a great name as a saint and teacher. To him Rama, 
 who had long been recognized alongside of Krisna as an incar- 
 nation of Visnu, became the great means of the manifestation 
 of the divine. From Ramananda's math in Benares, powerful 
 religious influences seem to have gone forth, borne in the 
 speech of the common people to every rank and race. As 
 was to be expected in view of the cause of his flight from the 
 South, he recognized no difference of caste among his followers, 
 and admitted to the highest places of his order even the 
 humblest. His motto was, ' Let no one ask a man's caste or 
 sect ; whoever adores God, he is God's own/ ' He had 
 twelve apostles . . . and these included, besides Brahmans, 
 a Musalman weaver, a leather worker (one of the very lowest 
 castes), a Rajput, a Jat, and a barber. Nay, one of them was 
 a woman.' 2 Of the Musalman weaver and the influence that 
 flowed from Ramananda by that channel, receiving in its 
 course powerful theistic reinforcement from Muhammadanism, 
 a recent invader, which was steadily advancing further into 
 the country and establishing itself more firmly, we shall speak 
 in the succeeding chapter. Ramananda does not appear to 
 have come under this new influence, and there is another 
 stream of theistic devotion that acknowledges him as its 
 source, which appears to be much more purely Hindu in its 
 character. 
 
 The first great name that we come to in this succession is 
 
 1 According to one list there were twenty-one teachers between 
 Ramanuja and Ramananda and six between Ramananda and Tulsl Das, 
 LA, XXII (1893), p. 266. Sir R. G. Bhandarkar inclines to date his 
 birth in 1299 or 1300, and to place three generations between him and 
 Ramanuja. 
 
 2 Grierson in/. R. A. S., April 1907, p. 319. 
 
 I 2
 
 n6 LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS 
 
 that of Tulsl Das, who, though he founded no sect, exercised, 
 and still exercises, a wide and gracious influence over the 
 whole of Northern India. He was born in 1532, and died in 
 1 623, bequeathing to his countrymen as his chief work a Hindi 
 version of the Rdmdyana, said to have been written in 15 74- 
 In this Rdmacarit- Manas, ' the lake of the deeds of Rama,' 
 he has gathered round the name of Rama, and made familiar 
 to every peasant, the doctrines of bhdkti and of the love and 
 grace of God. ' Except, O Raghu-rai,' he says, ' by the 
 water of faith and love, the interior stain can never be effaced. 
 He is all-wise, he the philosopher, the scholar, the thoroughly 
 accomplished, the irrefutable doctor, the truly judicious, and 
 the possessor of every auspicious attribute, who is devoted to 
 your lotus feet.' l The whole controversy between the pan- 
 theist and the theist in India is summed up, and the secret of 
 the persistence of the doctrine of bhakti betrayed, in a passage 
 towards the close of the poem where Bhusundi requests the 
 seer Lomas to teach him how to worship the incarnate God. 
 'The great saint, being himself a philosopher, devoted to the 
 mystery of the transcendental . . . began a sermon on Brahm, 
 the unbegotten, the indivisible, the immaterial, the sovereign 
 of the heart unchangeable, un wishful, nameless, formless . . . 
 identical with yourself, you and he being as absolutely one as 
 a wave and its water ; so the Vedas declare. . . . But the 
 worship of the impersonal laid no hold of my heart. Again 
 I cried, " Tell me, holy father, how to worship the Incarnate. 
 Devotion to Rama, O wisest of sages, is like the element of 
 water and my soul which is, as it were, a fish how can it 
 exist without it?" ' 2 
 
 ' The worship of the impersonal laid no hold of my heart ' 
 in these words we have the secret of the great spiritual 
 awakening, which, from the fourteenth to the seventeenth 
 century, spread from one province to another of north and 
 
 1 The Ramayana of Tulsl Das, Bk. VII. Doha 49 (Growse's trans- 
 lation). 
 
 2 Op. cit., VII. Doha 107.
 
 LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS 117 
 
 west and eastern India. That may be described as the period 
 of the Indian theistic reformation, and, however uncertain we 
 may be as to what all the sources of its inspiration were, 
 it had certain characteristics that mark it as approximating 
 much more closely to a genuine Theism than at any previous 
 time in India. One of the marks of this movement is its 
 sense of the relation of religion to the conduct of life. It 
 gave a far higher place than did the speculation of the philo- 
 sophers to moral qualities both in the gods and in their 
 worship, though its morality is still the crude morality of 
 a barbaric age. Another characteristic of it is that to a land 
 that to most appeared, no doubt, peopled largely by Ravana's 
 demon hosts, it brought a message of a God of grace. It also 
 sought to place above jndna and karma the worship of the 
 devout and loving heart. But these characteristics, so truly 
 those of a genuine theistic religion, while we recognize them 
 as present in potency and promise, were still mingled with 
 much that gives the religion as we study it even in the ' Lake 
 of Rama's Deeds ', a strange and savage character. That poem 
 appears, indeed, like a blend of the Arabian Nights ; a philo- 
 sophical tractate and a book of devotion. We cannot, for 
 example, call that monotheism which still freely acknowledges 
 a host of gods and demi-gods, though these are placed upon 
 a lower level than the Supreme Lord, ' the Unutterable,' of 
 whom they are parts. ' Knowing that the whole universe, 
 whether animate or inanimate, is pervaded by the spirit of 
 Rama, I reverence with clasped hands the lotus feet of all 
 gods, giants, men, serpents, birds, ghosts, departed ancestors, 
 Gandharvas, Kinnaras, demons of the night ; I pray ye all be 
 gracious to me.' 1 The incarnation of Rama is again and 
 again presented as an act of gracious condescension, ' to 
 redeem his people.' 2 But there are other motives less ethical 
 and more pagan that are alleged as well. 3 One object, too, 
 
 1 Tulsl Das's Ramayana, I. Doha 8-n (Growse). 
 
 2 Op. cit., I. Chhand i (Growse, i, p. 36). 
 
 3 Op. cit. (Growse, i, pp. 81, 86).
 
 u8 LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS 
 
 that he is said to have come to earth to accomplish is 'to 
 reinstate the gods V Rama himself at Ramesvaram makes 
 a linga, and worships it, saying, ' There is none other so 
 dear to me as Siva. No man, though he call himself a votary 
 of mine, if he offend Siva, can ever dream of really finding 
 me. If he desire to serve me out of opposition to Siva, his 
 doom is hell. To all who serve me unselfishly and without 
 guile, Siva will grant the boon of faith.' 2 Slta especially has 
 her place beside Rama as ' primal energy, queen of beauty, 
 mother of the world '. 3 
 
 We see, again, how far the Theism of Tulsi Das falls short 
 of a fully spiritual religion in the power that still remains 
 within it of the old and deeply rooted caste distinctions. The 
 Brahman is not yet deposed from his place of privilege. It 
 is especially for the sake of Brahmans, cows, and gods that 
 Rama has taken human form, 4 for the Brahman is ' the very 
 root of the tree of piety, . . . the destroyer of sin '. 5 'A Brah- 
 man must be honoured, though devoid of every virtue and 
 merit, but a Sudra never, though distinguished for all virtue 
 and learning.' 6 The reverence for the guru that has a 
 prominent place in all the spiritual teaching of this later 
 period resolves itself here differing in this respect from what 
 we shall find to be the case among the followers of Kablr 
 into reverence for the Brahman. ' The guru can save from 
 the Brahman's anger, but if the guru himself be wroth, there 
 is none in the world that can save. . . . My soul is disturbed 
 by one fear ; the curse of the Brahman is something most 
 terrible.' 7 Thus it appears that along with what is in many 
 respects a noble reverence for one exalted personal Supreme, 
 who is full of love and pity for his worshippers, there goes 
 much that mars the picture. This Theism has not yet in it 
 
 1 Tulsi Das's Ramayana, I. Chhand 2 (Growse, i, p. 72). 
 
 2 Op. cit., VI. Doha 2-3. 
 
 3 Op. cit., I. Doha 152 (Growse, i, p. 84). 
 
 4 Op. cit., I. Doha 204 (Growse, i, p. no). 
 
 5 Op. cit., III. Invocation. 
 
 6 Op. cit., III. Doha 28 (Growse, iii, p. 29). 
 
 7 Op. cit., I. Doha 169 (Growse, i, p. 93).
 
 LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS 119 
 
 the strength to reject either polytheism or pantheism, or the 
 social conditions that accompany them. All it has attained 
 to is a place beside them which sometimes, in hours of 
 exaltation, seems a place above them. 
 
 This theological attitude is implied in the petition of 
 Bhusundi to the seer Lomas, which we have quoted above. 
 It is a somewhat wistful sense of need that creates this 
 Theism, not yet the assurance of a deep conviction. So it is 
 declared of a great sage who has followed the path of devotion 
 that 'he was not absorbed into the divinity for this reason 
 that he had already received the mysterious gift of faith 
 (bhakti) '. We have here a doctrine of accommodation rather 
 than an affirmation of the final truth, and as such it has not 
 power to purge Hinduism of its ancient pagan inheritance. At 
 the same time man is said to be 'in God's hands', His who 
 is at once ' inaccessible and accessible ', who, in spite of all 
 those rival ' principalities and powers ', is conceived to be in 
 some real sense God over all. ' Brahma, Visnu, and Siva, the 
 sun, the moon, the guardians of the spheres ; Delusion, Life, 
 Fate, and this Iron Age ; the sovereigns of hell, the sovereigns 
 of earth, and all the powers that be ; magic and sorcery, and 
 every spell in the Vedas and the Tantras, ... all are obedient 
 to Rama's commands.' x 
 
 In Tulsi Das, also, we find the doctrine of the power of the 
 divine name set forth with the same emphasis which it obtains 
 in the teaching of Kabir and Nanak. ' Place the name of 
 Rama as a jewelled lamp at the door of your lips and there 
 will be light, as you will, both inside and out.' 2 Just as we 
 find that the guru ultimately takes a higher place than the 
 God whom he mediates, so it is also with the name. ' The 
 virtue of the name is infinite, and in my judgement is greater 
 than Rama himself.' 3 An explanation of the power of the 
 name is actually supplied in the poem. 'A name may be 
 
 1 Tulsi Das's Rdmayana, II. Doha 244 (Growse, ii, p. 135). 
 
 2 Op. cit., I. Doha 25 (Growse, i, p. 17). 
 
 3 Op. cit., I. Doha 27 (Growse, i, p. 19).
 
 120 LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS 
 
 regarded as equivalent to what is named, the connexion being 
 such as subsists between a master and a servant. Both name 
 and form are the shadows of the Lord, who, rightly under- 
 stood, is unspeakable and uncreated. . . . See now the form 
 is of less importance than the name, for without the name you 
 cannot come to a knowledge of the form, but meditate on the 
 name without seeing the form, and your soul is filled with 
 devotion. The name acts as an interpreter between the 
 material and immaterial forms of the deity, and is a guide 
 and interpreter to both.' l 
 
 The teaching of Tulsl Das is widely spread throughout 
 Upper India, where his Rdmacarit-Manas has been described 
 as 'the one Bible of a hundred millions of people'. It is 
 much the same in those general characteristics which we have 
 sketched above with the teaching of the Maratha saints, whose 
 work of religious reformation and awakening was scarcely less 
 influential. We find here a long and remarkable series of 
 poet seers who, from a date earlier than that of Ramananda 
 down to the seventeenth century, handed on from one to 
 another the lamp of an inward and a fervent faith. The first 
 great name in this line of prophets is that of Jnanesvar, a 
 Brahman of Alandi, near Poona. There is no question that 
 his influence on the thought of his countrymen was very 
 great, greater in the opinion of the late Mr. Justice Ranade, 
 who speaks with authority of the seers of the Maratha country, 
 being indeed of the same prophetic race himself greater than 
 that of any other Maratha saint except Tukaram. As is 
 natural, perhaps, in a Brahman though one who, with his 
 brothers and sisters, was for a while outcasted, because born 
 of a father who had embraced the life of a sannyasi, and sub- 
 sequently returned to the duties of a householder Jnanesvar 
 is more of a thinker, and that in India almost necessarily 
 means more of a pantheistic thinker than others of this 
 brotherhood of saints. At the same time, legends that have 
 come down in regard to him show that he was an opponent 
 1 Tulsl Das's Rdmayana, I. Doha 24 (Growse, i, p. 17).
 
 LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS iai 
 
 of the formalism and the priestly and ascetic pretensions of 
 his time. One of these tells how he caused a buffalo to recite 
 Vedic mantras, while, in another instance, he put the miracu- 
 lous yoga powers of Cangdev, who came to him riding on 
 a tiger and using a snake as a whip, to shame by making a 
 wall act in similar fashion as his horse. His great work is 
 called Jnanesvarl, and consists of an elaborate paraphrase in 
 MarathT verse of the Bhagavadgitd. It was completed in 
 1290, and ten years later its author died. 
 
 The very fact that Jnanesvar's great work is in the people's 
 language indicates that, Brahman and philosopher as he was, 
 his inclination was towards a message that would reach the 
 people's heart, and on the whole a study of his poem confirms 
 this view. He recognizes that though there are other high 
 and hard ways, the way of bhakti is the best for men. By the 
 way of yoga they get nothing more ; ' only more toil and 
 pain.' It is ' like fighting continually with death '. ' By 
 bhakti one obtains the Manifested ; by yoga the Unmanifested. 
 There are these two ways by which to reach thee, and the 
 Manifested and Unmanifested are the door-lintels to be 
 crossed.' * The ' grace of the guru ' is invoked as one of the 
 great means of attainment. ' Thou art a mother to the 
 seeker ; wisdom springs up in thy footsteps.' 
 
 What Rama was to Tulsi Das, that Vithoba of Pandharpur, 
 a village on the river Bhlma, was to the Maratha singers. 
 Another name of Vithoba is Vitthal, which is said to be a cor- 
 ruption of Visnu, and the legend represents him as Krisna, 
 turning back again from Radha to his wedded wife Rukminl. 
 Though it is true that the name of this god appears nowhere 
 in the Jndnesvari, a series of short poems called ab hangs, 
 which are attributed to Jfianesvar, are full of the praises of 
 Vithoba, and the tradition links his name with that of this 
 deity, around whom so much of the bhakti of the Maratha 
 country has gathered. In the case of Namdev and Tukaram, 
 there is no question of the closeness of this association. The 
 
 1 XII. 23.
 
 122 LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS 
 
 former, who was a younger contemporary of Jnanesvar, and 
 who is included by Nanak among the Vaisnava saints whom 
 he recognizes as the progenitors of his doctrine, is said to 
 have been born in the year 1270. He was a tailor by caste, 
 but all the same is said to have been the friend and associate 
 of the Brahman Jnanesvar. His abhangs, of which tradition 
 tells that he produced a prodigious number, are occupied with 
 the praises of the god of Pandharpur, where he spent the 
 latter years of his life, and where he attained samadhi, and 
 passed from among men. A story that is handed down in 
 regard to him illustrates the character that was attributed to 
 this god, and helps to explain the intense devotion that he 
 inspired in his bhaktas (devotees). Namdev was at first, 
 according to the tale, a robber, but the lamentations of an 
 unhappy widow, whose husband had been murdered by the 
 band to which Namdev belonged, pierced his heart with a 
 sense of his sin, and drove him, as he said, to ' make a friend 
 of repentance '. He betook himself first to a Saivite temple, 
 but found no mercy and no hope in the grim god. In his 
 remorse he thrust a knife into his head as he cried out for 
 mercy before the idol, and when the blood spurted from his 
 wound and defiled the god, the people of the village cast him 
 forth in anger. Then in the hour of his extremity, the story 
 goes, a vision bade him go to Pandharpur for, he was told, 
 ' its patron god Vitthal will purge thee of thy sins and thou 
 shalt not only obtain salvation, but renown as one of the 
 god's saints.' It is such a god that his heart cries for, ' even 
 as a child ', as he says, ' for the mother whom it has missed '. 
 
 The messages of Namdev and of the later Tukaram are so 
 closely similar that Tukaram was said to be an avatdra of the 
 earlier poet. He was born in 1608, in the village of Dehu, 
 about thirty miles from Poona. He was a Sudra shopkeeper, 
 but belonged to a family that for seven generations had given 
 themselves to the bhakti of Vithoba. 1 His abhangs have sunk 
 
 1 There is a story in one of his abhangs that he was instructed in bhakti 
 by three ' Caitanyas '. This may possibly indicate that he was influenced 
 by that sect.
 
 LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS 123 
 
 into the hearts of the Maratha people of every class, and are 
 familiar on their lips to an extent that makes his influence 
 supreme above that of all the other seers of this evangelical 
 succession. What drew both him and Namdev to this god 
 was his association, however it may have arisen, with senti- 
 ments and hopes that won the heart. They would both say, 
 as Namdev says, ' I am wearied with inquiry ; and so I throw 
 myself on thy mercy '. ' I do not want salvation nor know- 
 ledge of Brahman} he says again, referring, of course, to the 
 moksa of the ' way of knowledge '. ' My senses, when I seek 
 to crush them, plead piteously and promise to cling to thee 
 everywhere.' The songs of both of these poets, and, indeed, 
 the whole of the religious utterance of this religious revival, 
 are attuned to this cry of the heart which has in it the true 
 note of bhakti and of faith, though sometimes near to faint, in 
 the love of God : 
 
 Thee, Lord of pity, I beseech, 
 
 Come speedily and set me free. 
 (Yea, when he hears my piteous speech, 
 
 All eager should Narayan be.) 
 Lo, in the empty world apart, 
 
 I hearken, waiting thy footfall. 
 Vitthal, thou father, mother art ! 
 
 Thou must not loiter at my call. 
 Thou, thou alone art left to me, 
 
 All else, when weighed, is vanity. 
 Now, Tuka pleads, thy gift of grace complete ; 
 Now let mine eyes behold thine equal feet. 
 
 There are the same cross-currents of Pantheism and of 
 Theism in these poets' unsystematic utterances as we find 
 nearly everywhere in Indian religion. It may be, of course, 
 that we have a development in their experience from the 
 traditional Brahman doctrine to something more inward and 
 personal, or it may be that their voluminous works have been 
 interpolated. But it is quite as probable that these represent 
 various moods, now more reflective, now more ardently 
 devotional. We need not look in them for an articulated
 
 124 LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS 
 
 system, but at the most for ' winds of doctrine '. Their bhakti 
 is too exclusively rooted in the feeling life to continue long in 
 one stay or to have much clearness of outline. They are 
 still far from having purged themselves of polytheism or even 
 of idolatry. There is a legend of Namdev's guru, which is 
 related also, mutatis mutandis, of Nanak at Mecca. When 
 Namdev went to seek his guru's grace he was shocked to find 
 him lying with his feet upon the linga (phallus) of Siva. 
 When he pointed out the impropriety the guru asked him, 
 ' Where is the place where God is not ? ' and to Namdev's 
 amazement he saw that wherever the holy man turned his 
 feet there always was a linga. Such a lesson as that is full 
 of profound reflection, but it does not put an end to idolatry. 
 The god whom Tukaram worshipped was always the idol 
 Vithoba, standing on its 'brick' at Pandharl. These saints 
 did not all even worship the same god. While Vithoba's is 
 the name that leads all the rest, another of them, Ramdas, 
 worshipped Rama, and Krisna, Siva, Dattatreya, and Ganpati 
 served as the symbol and channel of the divine to various 
 members of the succession of reformers. Mr. Justice Ranade 
 has described them as the Protestants of Maharastra, but 
 there was little of the Protestant exclusiveness and urgency 
 of conviction in their message. They often denounce, it is 
 true, the old aboriginal deities. 
 
 'A stone with sendur 1 painted o'er,' says Tukaram, 
 ' Brats and women bow before.' 
 
 They were fully aware of the vanity of much of the ritual 
 
 religion. 
 
 They bathe in many a holy river, 
 But still their hearts are dry as ever. 
 
 And their deepest desire is expressed in the words : 
 
 Find, O find, some means or other 
 To bring God and man together. 
 
 Such sayings as these of Tukaram's are familiar to every 
 peasant, and cannot but have an influence in bearing witness 
 
 1 Red lead.
 
 LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS 125 
 
 to the spiritual character of true religion. Their success in 
 overcoming the prejudices of caste was, however, very partial 
 and temporary. Of one of the saints called Cokhamela, an 
 outcast Mahar. a pathetic and significant story is related. 
 When remonstrated with for having dared to enter the temple 
 at Pandharpur he replied that he had not gone there of his 
 own accord, but had been borne in against his will by the god 
 himself. He defended himself further in these words: 'What 
 availeth birth in high caste, what avail rites or learning, if 
 there is no devotion or faith ? Though a man be of low caste, 
 yet if he is faithful in heart and loves God, and regards all 
 creatures as though they were like himself, and makes no 
 distinction between his own and other people's children, and 
 speaks the truth, his caste is pure, and God is pleased with 
 him. Never ask a man's caste when he has in his heart faith 
 in God and love of men. God wants in his children love and 
 devotion, and he does not care for caste.' l 
 
 Tukaram is believed to have been translated to heaven in 
 the year 1649, and his death may be taken as marking the 
 close of this remarkable movement which centres so largely 
 about Vithoba and Pandharpur. Certainly the worship that 
 centres round this god has some of the marks of true spiritual 
 devotion. What is most significant in regard to it is its 
 association with music and with song. Its history through 
 six centuries, as far as it is known to us, is a history of the 
 poets who sang the praises of Vithoba, and who worshipped 
 at his shrine. Some of the saints who were associated more 
 or less closely with this god, were women, ' a few were 
 Muhammadan converts to Hinduism, nearly half of them were 
 Brahmans, while there were representatives in the other half 
 from among all the other castes, Marathas, kunbis (farmers), 
 tailors, gardeners, potters, goldsmiths, repentant prostitutes, 
 and slave-girls, even the outcaste Mahars '. 2 The most striking 
 features of the worship are connected with the great fairs, to 
 
 1 Ranade's Rise of the Mardtha Power, pp. 153 f. 
 
 2 Ranade, op. cit, p. 146.
 
 ia6 LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS 
 
 which year by year people flock by the hundred thousand 
 from every district of the Maratha country. What gives these 
 pilgrimages to Pandharpur their unique character is the 
 custom in accordance with which the living who throng there 
 bring with them the spirits of the famous devotees of the 
 god of ancient days. In fifteen different palanquins those 
 saints come, each from the place in which he 'took samddki' 
 or passed to the blessedness of union with God, and each 
 accompanied by a great concourse of fellowworshippers. 
 Nearly every one of these saints is at the same time a poet. 
 It seems as if these worshippers were under some constraint 
 to sing. As many as a hundred different companies of singing 
 and playing men escort the palanquins, chanting the praises 
 of the saints in their own or some other poet's verses. What 
 the religious movement to which they belonged accomplished 
 is described thus by Mr. Ranade : ' It gave us a literature of 
 considerable value in the vernacular language of the country. 
 It modified the strictness of the old spirit of caste exclusive- 
 ness. It raised the Sudra classes to a position of spiritual 
 power and social importance almost equal to that of the 
 Brahmans. It gave sanctity to the family relations, and raised 
 the status of woman. It made the nation more humane, at 
 the same time more prone to hold together by mutual tolera- 
 tion. It suggested, and partly carried out, a plan of reconcilia- 
 tion with the Muhammadans. It subordinated the importance 
 of rites and ceremonies, and of pilgrimages and fasts, and of 
 learning and contemplation, to the higher excellence of 
 worship by means of love and faith. It checked the excesses 
 of polytheism. It tended in all these ways to raise the nation 
 generally to a higher level of capacity, both of thought and 
 action.' l 
 
 Not only to the North and to the West, but to every 
 
 province of India, the wave of this remarkable religious 
 
 revival carried its influence and stirred the stagnant waters. 
 
 Perhaps nowhere was its influence so genuinely for good as in 
 
 1 Ranade, Rise of the Maratha Power, pp. 171 f.
 
 LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS 127 
 
 the case of the worship that gathered about Vithoba and 
 Rama. It would be peculiarly interesting if in the case of 
 Vithoba we could accept the view in regard to his shrine at 
 Pandharpur that holds it to have been originally a Buddhist 
 shrine, and believe that it was the personality of that saint 
 that has had a purifying and ennobling influence upon the 
 cult. The devotion rendered here to Krisna and his wedded 
 wife RukminI is rendered more often in other parts of India 
 to Krisna and Radha. In such cases it was sometimes, no 
 doubt, more fervent than that which we have been describing ; 
 it certainly was often more sensuous and in most cases it 
 speedily became corrupt and gross. One sect which illus- 
 trates more perhaps than any other the serious dangers that 
 were inherent in these movements when certain features of the 
 cult were allowed to become prominent, is that of the Valla- 
 bhacarls. Its founder was Vallabhacarya, who was born about 
 1478 in Telingana. He is classed as belonging to the Rudra 
 Sampraddya and was connected with an earlier teacher called 
 VisnusvamI, who was perhaps its founder. The system of 
 doctrine which he taught, called Suddhadvaita that is 
 thoroughgoing advaita, without mdyd was probably in itself 
 harmless, but the evil consequences that declared themselves 
 among his followers are to be attributed to the place given in 
 his sect to the worship of Krisna in association with the gopls 
 and with Radha. He preached his doctrine in the very land 
 of Krisna about Mathura, but the chief centre of his influence 
 is in Gujarat. Nimbarka, the titular founder of the sect of 
 Nimavats or the Sanakadi-sampradaya (that is, the school 
 of which Sanaka was the founder), who is said to belong to the 
 twelfth century, while he taught a doctrine that in other 
 respects is closely akin to that of Ramanuja, had also 
 established in the same district a Radha-Krisna sect, and was 
 a precursor of Vallabha. The effect of a religion that set 
 before itself as the object of its adoration the sensual Krisna of 
 the Bhdgavata Purdna and the Gltd Govinda, could scarcely 
 fail, one would have thought, to prove evil. That the worship
 
 128 LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS 
 
 of Krisna as a matter of fact was not always so, but sometimes 
 has obtained the service of pure and earnest hearts, remains 
 a constant marvel. It may be that sometimes he is as in 
 the Bhagavadgita little more than a human name, bringing 
 God near; or, as in the case perhaps of the Vitthal of 
 Tukaram, that some less unworthy personality, associated 
 somehow with this particular Krisna worship, overshadows and 
 conceals the grosser aspects of the god. In the case of the 
 Vallabhas, a further source of evil, besides that which came 
 from the unsavoury tales that the name of their god suggested, 
 was in the dangerous honour that among so many Vaisnavas 
 among the Tengalais of the South, for example, and among 
 the Kabir-Panthis of the North is rendered to the dcdrya or 
 guru. The danger of this doctrine and the sensual depths to 
 which the sect had by that time fallen were demonstrated 
 when, in 1862, in the High Court of Bombay, their Maharajas 
 or religious teachers were found even to claim and to receive 
 from ardent devotees the jus primae noctis. 
 
 The followers of this sect as they are found at Mathura are 
 thus described by Growse : ' They are the Epicureans of the 
 East, and are not ashamed to avow their belief that the ideal 
 life consists rather in social enjoyment than in solitude and 
 mortification. Such a creed is naturally destructive of all 
 self-restraint, even in matters where indulgence is by common 
 consent held criminal ; and the profligacy to which it has 
 given rise is so notorious that the Maharaja of Jaipur was 
 moved to expel from his capital the ancient image of Gokul 
 Candrama, for which the sect entertained special veneration, 
 and has further conceived such a prejudice against Vaisnavas 
 in general, that all his subjects are compelled, before they 
 appear in his presence, to mark their foreheads with the three 
 horizontal lines that indicate a votary of Siva.' J 
 
 Such carnivals of sensual religion as this and others which 
 fall to be mentioned, were not allowed to exercise their sway 
 without earnest protests on the part of those who realized that 
 1 Quoted in E. R. E. II, p. 345.
 
 LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS 129 
 
 the conscience has its claims in religion no less than the heart. 
 We are told, for example, of a Gujarat! poet Akho who began 
 by being an enthusiastic follower of Vallabha, but was soon 
 disillusioned and ' in bitterness of soul compared his guru to 
 an old bullock yoked to a cart he could not draw, a useless 
 expense to his owner, and to a stone in the embrace of 
 a drowning man which sinks where it is expected to save'. 
 There were few provinces of India that had not such 
 Protestants and Puritans. What a student of the GujaratI 
 poet saints says of them is certainly true in large measure of 
 those of the Maratha country as well. ' They ', he says men 
 of all kinds and of all castes, ' are what the prophets were in 
 old Israel. They have made a stand against the pretensions 
 of the priests and have advocated a living spiritual religion 
 instead of the lifeless formal religion of outward ceremony.' l 
 
 When we turn to Bengal and to Caitanya we find a 
 religious movement of a character scarcely less restrained 
 similarly associated with the worship of Radha-Krisna. 
 Caitanya was almost contemporaneous with Vallabhacarya, 
 but like him he had precursors. There was first the Sahajia 
 cult of which Candidas in the fourteenth century was an 
 exponent. In this cult ' salvation was sought by a process of 
 rituals in which young and beautiful women were required to 
 be loved and worshipped '. 2 That was followed by the 
 Paraklya Rasa or ' the romantic worship of a woman other 
 than one's own wife '. 3 This, otherwise called Madhura Rasa, 
 is viewed as a symbol of the longing of the soul for God as 
 represented by Radha's passion for Krisna. The dangers of 
 such doctrines are obvious enough. Candidas himself says 
 that ' in a million it would be difficult to find one ' who could 
 overcome them. 4 As we read many of the expressions of this 
 type of devotion, we realize that those who professed it did 
 not distinguish the sensuous from the spiritual. The whole 
 atmosphere of sensuousness in which they move, the kisses 
 
 1 H. R. Scott, Gujarati Poetry. 2 D. C. Sen, p. 38. 
 
 3 Op. cit., p. 116. * Op. cit., p. 45. 
 
 K
 
 130 LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS 
 
 and embraces, the assignations and seductions, give strength 
 to their passion, but certainly do not give it purity. 'Virtue 
 and vice', says Candidas, and it is not surprising that he 
 should say it, ' are alike to me. I know them not, but know 
 thy feet alone.' This Sahajia cult seems to have been 
 widely spread throughout Bengal, but though undoubtedly it 
 is one of the progenitors of the Caitanya sect and closely akin 
 to it in its teaching, it is only fair to the founder of that sect 
 to say that he was much stricter in his view of the relation of 
 his ascetic followers with women. 
 
 It is said to be to Mahayana Buddhism, which, as we have 
 seen, gives a large place to devotion, that the inclination of 
 Bengal towards Vaisnavism is mainly due. 1 It has even been 
 maintained that many who outwardly professed that faith and 
 spread the Caitanya cult in their hearts were followers of this 
 doctrine. It had become greatly corrupted by the influence 
 within it of what were probably aboriginal worships, and had 
 assumed a form which has been designated Vajrayana and 
 later what is called Tantric Buddhism. The grossness of 
 these forms of the religion and their worship of the sakti or 
 female energy give them a close affinity with such a cult as 
 that of the Sahajias, and it may well have been the case that 
 their influence assisted the spread of some of the more sensuous 
 Vaisnavisms. However that may be, we may at least accept 
 the suggestion that the soil of Bengal was prepared to receive 
 such a message as Caitanya's by the emphasis that Maha- 
 yanism, only then disappearing from the country, placed upon 
 devotion as well as upon reverence for \hegurtt and the power 
 of the name. It may, perhaps, rather be claimed that all of 
 these have their root in the instinct that craves for personal 
 fellowship with a God who is felt to be remote but whom his 
 worshippers desire to bring, by one means or another, near to 
 their understanding and their hearts. No doubt it was 
 especially the brotherhood of Vaisnavism that attracted the 
 members of the disappearing Buddhist faith. It is believed at 
 1 Modern Buddhism and its followers in Orissa, p. 39.
 
 LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS 131 
 
 all events that the scattered Mahayanists ' merged in the great 
 community of the Vaisnavas'. These elements were favour- 
 able to the Vaisnava revival which Caitanya was to inaugurate, 
 and on the other hand there were the horrors of Tantrism and 
 of many another gross superstition, making the need of such 
 a revival evident to every true-hearted seeker after God. It 
 was amid such surroundings that Caitanya was born at 
 Minapur in Navadwlpa in i486. 1 His original name was 
 Visvambhara Misra or Nimai, as he was commonly called. 
 He is believed by some, as has already been indicated, to have 
 been a follower of Madhva. There is also evidence that the 
 influence of Vallabhacarya may have reached as far as 
 Navadwlpa, seeing that Caitanya is said to have married his 
 daughter. He is said also to have met when a lad and 
 conquered Kesava Kasmlrl, a famous Sanskrit scholar who 
 visited the town of his birth. But it is not necessary to go 
 beyond the Vaisnavite inheritance of Bengal itself to find the 
 sources of his teaching. We are told that in his last days he 
 would spend whole nights singing the songs of Candidas and 
 Vidyapati, and we may be sure that they were the inspirations 
 as well of his earlier years. It was when he was on pilgrimage 
 to the temple of Visnu at Gaya that he fell into the first of 
 those trances which his intense emotion in the presence 
 of Krisna seems frequently to have brought upon him. In 
 1509 he became a sannydsl and took the name of Krisna 
 Caitanya. In 1534 he disappeared and was believed to have 
 been translated to heaven. 
 
 Caitanya's life seems to have been a continuous frenzy of 
 devotion to Krisna. ' His life ', says one Bengali admirer, ' was 
 a course of thanksgiving, tears, hymns, and praises offered to 
 God.' 2 So fervent was his rapture, and so intense his desire 
 to be to Krisna as Radha was to her divine lover that we can 
 believe that he was sometimes heard to murmur, ' I am He.' 
 
 1 This is the date given by D. C. Sen in his Bengali Langiiage and 
 Literature. 
 
 2 D. C. Sen, p. 441. 
 
 K a
 
 132 LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS 
 
 It is not surprising, therefore, that even in his lifetime he was 
 considered an incarnation of the deity. Singing and dancing 
 were employed to express the ecstatic emotion which the 
 sense of the god's presence awakened in him, and sometimes 
 it is said that in his rapture he would lose all consciousness of 
 outward things. As is natural in the case of so emotional 
 a worship, one of the special characteristics of his sect though 
 it, no doubt, accompanied in more or less degree every cult of 
 devotion is the influence in it of the kirtan or worship by 
 means of music and singing. This mode of worship is also 
 believed by some to be an inheritance from Buddhism. 1 This 
 is how a modern Bengali writer, an ardent follower of ' Lord 
 Gauranga ', as Caitanya, being elevated to the rank of an 
 incarnation, is now designated, describes this part of the 
 worship of the sect : ' In the course of the kirtan the members 
 often exhibited many external signs of deep emotion. They 
 would become senseless or roll on the ground, embrace one 
 another, laugh and cry alternately, and sometimes, as with 
 one voice, make the sky resound with the ejaculation of " Had 
 bol, Han ". They felt themselves immersed, as it were, in 
 a sea of divine bhakti. They felt as if they were with Krisna 
 and Krisna with them. Every one present was, in spite of 
 himself, carried away by the torrent of religious excitement/ 2 
 Such hysterical devotion, which set before itself as its highest 
 attainment mddhurya or love such as Radha felt for Krisna 
 could hardly fail to have disastrous effects. There are three 
 respects, however, in which such Vaisnavism as that of Cai- 
 tanya made protest, for a time at least, against the traditional 
 religion. It broke through the restrictions of caste, admitting 
 to its ranks even Sudras and Muhammadans. They still 
 sing of Caitanya in Bengal, ' Come see the god-man who does 
 not believe in caste.' 3 This Vaisnavism likewise permitted 
 in its lower ranks the re-marriage of widows, and further, as in 
 the case of other similar movements, it opposed much of the 
 
 1 D. C. Sen, p. 571. 2 S. K. Ghose's Lord Gauranga, pp. 109 f. 
 
 s Op. cit., p. 462.
 
 LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS 133 
 
 formal ritual of the Sastras, and denied the sanctity of shrines. 1 
 These things, however, had their effect for but a little while, 
 and were more than counterbalanced by the gross evils to 
 which the cult's unbridled emotionalism opened wide the door. 
 Presently, says D. C. Sen, ' fallen women and pariahs swelled 
 its ranks, and the result was that the allegory of Radha. and 
 Krisna was made an excuse for the practice of many immorali- 
 ties/ 2 It was sought to prove that a Muhammadan leader of 
 the sect was really a Brahman. ' Many of the Caitanya sects ', 
 says Mr. T. Rajagopala Chariar, ' adopted the reprehensible 
 practices of the Tantrics or Saktas, and hence fell into those 
 very sins which moved the moral wrath of Caitanya, and 
 prompted his attempts at reform.' 3 
 
 Closely akin to both the Vallabhas and the Caitanyas is 
 the sect of which Mira Bal, the Queen of Udaipur, was the 
 founder in the fifteenth century. 'She gave proof of her 
 devotion to Krisna by renouncing for love of him her kingdom 
 and her husband. 4 At last, according to the legend, she cast 
 herself before his image, and besought him to take her wholly 
 to himself. Thereupon ' the god descended from his pedestal 
 and gave her an embrace which extricated the spark of life. 
 " Welcome, Mira," said the lover of Radha, and her soul was 
 absorbed into his '. 5 She is the authoress of a poem in praise 
 of Krisna, which is a sequel to the Gltd Govinda. There is 
 
 1 S. K. Ghose's Lord Gauranga, p. 579. 2 Op. cit., p. 606. 
 
 3 The Vaisnavite Reformers of India, p. 149. 
 
 4 ' In a thousand sweet and homely songs the broken heart of Mlra Bal 
 sung itself out, and the love which the Rana had claimed in vain, was 
 poured upon the divine and invisible ideal of her soul, and her songs live 
 to this day after 400 years. Pious women in Gujarat sing them in the 
 presence of the same ideal and feel they are nearer heaven than earth 
 when Mlra's music is on their tongues. Young women sing them at 
 home and in public choruses, for Mlra's ideal is held to be an ideal for 
 all women, and the heart of Mira was as pure and innocent and sweet 
 and God-loving as the heart of woman should be.' G. M. Tripathi, 
 quoted by H. R. Scott in his lecture on Gujarati Poetry. Mr. Scott goes 
 on, ' This is not the impression perhaps that Mira Bai's Padas would 
 make on our minds, but it is an indication of how the people of Gujarat 
 can idealize these old songs.' 
 
 5 Tod's Rajasthan, ii, p. 722.
 
 i 3 4 LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS 
 
 a legend of her which illustrates the character of the madhurya 
 the love as of a woman to her lover which is the distinctive 
 feature of those Krisna sects which we have been describing. 
 It is said that when Mira Bai had left all for Krisna, she 
 journeyed to Brindaban to visit a bhakta of the Caitanya sect, 1 
 but he refused to see her on the ground that he could not 
 look upon the face of a woman. When she heard his message 
 Mira Bai replied, ' Is he then a male? If so he has no access 
 to Brindaban. Males cannot enter there, and if the goddess 
 of Brindaban comes to know of his presence she will turn him 
 out. For does not the great Goswami know that there is but 
 one male in existence, namely my beloved Kanai Lai (Krisna), 
 and that all besides are females ? ' 2 
 
 With those examples of the perilous places in which Vais- 
 navite devotion has sometimes found itself in its strange and 
 chequered history as we have sought to trace it, we shall bring 
 our investigation of the specifically Vaisnavite Theisms to 
 a close. There have been later quickenings of this inex- 
 tinguishable spirit in the land, but these, though tracing their 
 descent from those ancient sources of spiritual life, and claiming 
 with some justice the title of ' Bhagavata Dharma ', or of the 
 Arya or the Brahmo faith, owe so much, whether consciously 
 or not, to influences that have invaded the land from without 
 in modern times, that they can scarcely be called pure types 
 of Indian Theism. There are, however, some parallel streams 
 of theistic inspiration, which, while not necessarily uninfluenced 
 by Vaisnavism, have their head-waters elsewhere, and to these 
 we shall now briefly turn. 
 
 1 This, however, is chronologically impossible, if Kumbha's (Mira Bal's 
 husband) date is correctly given as 1438-83. This date is not only 
 irreconcilable with the incident here related but also with the account 
 in Tod's Rajaslhan. 
 
 2 Shishir Kumar Ghose's Lord Gauranga, p. xl.
 
 IX 
 
 KABIR AND NANAK 
 
 FROM Ramananda, the South Indian follower of Ramanuja, 
 who found his native land of the South too narrow for him, 
 and set up his math on the banks of the Ganges, there went 
 forth a remarkable theistic influence that flowed in various 
 streams through all the provinces of India. As typical of 
 two of those currents of religious life which claim him as their 
 source we may name Tulsl Das, of whom we have already * 
 spoken, on the one hand, and Kablr on the other. There are 
 no names in the history of Indian Theism that are more 
 worthy of honour than are these, and there are none that are 
 even now more honoured, or whose words are more widely 
 known and familiar to the common people. The two names 
 convey indeed a different suggestion ; the one, that of Tulsl 
 Das, connoting a teaching that is more purely Hindu in its 
 descent and in its mode of thought and of expression ; the 
 other, that of Kablr, while also deeply dyed of Hinduism, yet 
 influenced at the same time to a powerful extent by the new 
 religious attitude that had by this time entered India with 
 the Muhammadan invaders. A distinct character is given to 
 the Theisms into which the new element enters, which differ- 
 entiates them from those that are purely indigenous in the 
 sources of their inspiration. The languor of the Hindu atmo- 
 sphere is replaced by a new stringency, a new vigour, even it 
 it is only in its negations, and a more decidedly ethical out- 
 look. It is evident again and again, as we read the sayings 
 of this group of saints, that new blood has flowed into a 
 Hinduism of which robustness had never been the note, and 
 which had been growing more and more anaemic. There are
 
 136 KABIR AND NANAK 
 
 even occasional gleams in these pages of Arab fierceness and 
 fanaticism. It was these elements in it, combining with Durga- 
 worship and the darker side of Hinduism, that produced the 
 Akalls and Guru Govind Singh. Some of these characteristics 
 are already present in the teaching of Kablr. There is a 
 virility in his views and their expression which is new and 
 refreshing. His own immediate followers, the Kablr Panthis, 
 number from eight to nine thousand, and are scattered over 
 a wide area of North and Central India. His influence is not, 
 however, confined within these limits, but is to be traced in 
 a considerable number of sects, of which the largest and most 
 notable is that of the Sikhs, founded by Kabir's most famous 
 follower, Nanak. Other religious teachers in whom the 
 influence of Kablr can be distinctly traced are Dadu of 
 Ahmedabad, founder of the Dadu Panthis, Jagjivan Das of 
 Oude, founder of the Satnamls, Baba Lai of Malwa, Bribhan, 
 founder of the Sadhus, Siva Narayan of Ghazipur, and Caran 
 Das of Alwar. 
 
 Whether or not all these religious teachers were directly 
 indebted to Kablr, in the modes of their thought they bear 
 a kinship to him, and they have all to acknowledge in him 
 a priority in time in respect of the common indebtedness 
 which they, whether explicitly or not, confess to Hindu 
 influences on the one hand, and to Muhammadan influences 
 on the other. In the case of Kablr the combination in his 
 teaching of these two elements is strikingly illustrated by his 
 personal history. He was born early in the fifteenth century, 
 and was a Julaha or Muhammadan weaver. Part of his life 
 was probably spent in Benares, where he was associated with 
 the Ramanandis. Whether he was actually himself a disciple 
 of Ramananda, and one of his twelve apostles, as legend 
 affirms, is uncertain. There is no reason, indeed, why this 
 may not have been so during that period of religious exulta- 
 tion, 1 and parallel instances may be cited in the case of 
 Haridas, the Muhammadan disciple of Caitanya, 2 and Shaik 
 
 1 Grierson mJ.R.A.S., Jan. 1908, p. 248. 2 D. C. Sen, p. 509.
 
 KABIR AND NANAK 137 
 
 Mohammad among the Maratha saints of Pandharpur. 1 Kablr 
 is believed to have come under Sufi influences, which are said 
 to have been present in the district through which he travelled 
 seeking light at various shrines. 2 He died probably in the 
 year 1518 3 at Maghar in the district of Gorakhpur. A dispute 
 is said to have arisen over his body, the Muhammadans 
 desiring to bury it and the Hindus to burn it, but when the 
 cloth beneath which it lay was lifted, there was found, according 
 to the legend, only a heap of flowers. 4 
 
 The account of Kablr that is given by Nabhaji in the Bhakta 
 Mala is as follows : ' Kablr refused to acknowledge caste dis- 
 tinctions or to recognize the authority of the six schools of 
 Hindu philosophy, nor did he set any store by the four 
 divisions of life (Asramas) prescribed by Brahmans. He held 
 that religion without bhakti was no religion at all, and that 
 asceticism, fasting, and almsgiving had no value if unaccom- 
 panied by worship (bhajan, hymn-singing). By means of 
 Ramainls, Sabdas, and Sakhls he imparted religious instruc- 
 tions to Hindus and Muhammadans alike. He had no prefer- 
 ence for either religion, but gave teaching that was appreciated 
 by the followers of both. He spoke out his mind fearlessly, 
 and never made it his object merely to please his hearers.' 5 
 That this is on the whole a fair account of Kabir's teaching, one 
 who examines the writings that have come down to us bearing 
 his name will agree. It is true that in his case, as in that of 
 every Indian sage who has attained a place of honour and 
 authority, much has been attributed to him which probably 
 is far enough from agreement with what he actually taught. 
 That is evident from the contradictions in which his alleged 
 writings abound. The term Muwahid or a believer in one 
 God which is given to him in the Dabistan, confirms the view 
 that his essential doctrine was theistic and not pantheistic. 6 
 
 1 Ranade's Rise of the Maratha Power, p. 155. 
 
 2 Btjak, Ramazm, 30 (Premchand's translation). 
 
 3 Westcott, p. 3, note 6. 
 
 4 This story is also told of Nanak's death, MacaulifFe, pp. 190, 191. 
 
 5 Westcott, p. 30. 6 Westcott, op. cit., p. 38.
 
 138 KABIR AND NANAK 
 
 It was inevitable that when the Moslem monotheism had any 
 influence at all, that influence should be strongly opposed to 
 the toleration of polytheism and idolatry, which has always 
 been so fatal a characteristic of Pantheism even among its 
 enlightened exponents in India. On the other hand, the 
 evils of caste, idolatry, and polytheism, the spirituality of true 
 worship, and the divine personality, were the subjects upon 
 which contact with Islam was sure, in the case of thoughtful 
 Hindus, to stimulate reflection. At the same time Hinduism 
 had a contribution to make which was of real value. The 
 effect of the contact of the two religions should have been, as 
 Mr. Justice Ranade claims it was, to make the Muhammadans 
 less bigoted and the Hindus more puritanic and single-minded 
 in their devotion. Mr. Ranade notes the difference in this 
 respect between North India and the South, where there was 
 no such fusion of Hindu and Moslem thought, but where ' the 
 Hindu sectarian spirit intensified class pride and idolatrous 
 observances '. 1 
 
 There is every likelihood, as we have noted, that the teaching 
 of Kablr as time went on has been made to assume a form 
 more and more fully Hindu. We are probably right in con- 
 cluding that in his Bljak whatever is most outspoken in its 
 criticism of Hindu customs and ideas is most certainly genuine. 
 Here are a few examples of such sayings from his Bijak and 
 from the Granth. 'The Vedas and Puranas are a looking- 
 glass to the blind.' ' Brahma died. With Siva who lived in 
 Benares all the immortals died.' ' With one book the Brahmans 
 established the worship of Brahma. With another they taught 
 the cow-herd to be the supreme spirit. With one they taught 
 the worship of Mahadeva, and with another the worship of 
 evil spirits.' 2 ' The beads are of wood, the gods of stone, and 
 the Jumna of water. Rama and Krisna are dead. The four 
 Vedas are fictitious stories.' ' If by worshipping stones one 
 can find God, I will worship a mountain. Better than these 
 
 1 Ranade's Essays on Religious and Social Reform, p. 245. 
 
 2 The above passages are from the Bljak.
 
 KABIR AND NANAK 139 
 
 stones (idols) are the stones of the flour-mill with which men 
 grind their corn.' Again we have the same voice speaking 
 in condemnation of caste. ' Whose art thou, the Brahman ? 
 Whose am I, the Sudra? Whose blood am I? Whose milk 
 art thou ? ' l 
 
 As we have already indicated, we may conclude that Kabir 
 was a monotheist. The Rama or Hari whom he worships is 
 riot a god of mythological story. These gods are dead, he 
 says. God was not born in Dasarath's family, nor was DevakI 
 his mother. 2 God is greater than these inventions of men, 
 greater than the thoughts of Him of Hindu or Muhammadan. 
 ' Kabir is on the road to God, and is marching on to his end 
 forsaking all partial views.' 3 ' Hari, Brahma, and Siva are the 
 three headmen, and each has his own village.' 4 Kabir turns 
 away from these local conceptions of God's being to Rama, 
 ' who is obtained for the price of the heart '. 5 ' God whom you 
 seek is near you. He is always near to his devotees, and far 
 from those who do not worship him.' 6 He is found by him 
 who seeks him by the moral path and by quiet meditation. 
 ' Unless you have a forgiving spirit you will not see God.' 7 
 ' Thou shouldst ride on thy own reflection ; thou shouldst put 
 thy foot into the stirrup of tranquillity of mind. Kabir says, 
 Those are good riders who keep aloof from the Veda and 
 Qur'an.' 8 
 
 It is natural that one who has turned away from the popular 
 mythology and polytheism of the Hindu world about him, and 
 who finds before him for his worship on the one hand the 
 vague Paramatma of the philosopher, and on the other the 
 remote Allah of Islam, should be conscious, in spite of his 
 spirit of devotion, of his little knowledge of the God to whom 
 he seeks so earnestly to draw near. It is not surprising to 
 find in Kabir and in the school of thought that he inaugurates, 
 
 1 Westcott, op. cit., pp. 58, 61. 2 Btjak, Ramatni, 29. 
 
 3 Btjak in Westcott, op. cit., p. 57. 4 Op. cit, p. 56. 
 
 5 Op. cit., p. 50. 6 Op. cit., p. 51. 
 
 7 Op. cit., p. 53. 8 Op. cit., p. 67.
 
 i4o KABIR AND NANAK 
 
 a frequent expression of the divine unknowableness and of 
 the need of mediation in order that God may be brought 
 within the reach of man. The ten avataras are dead. The 
 popular means by which it has been sought to bring God near 
 to man have proved a snare and a deceit. How then can we 
 know 'Him whose name is unutterable'? 'Whose nature 
 Brahma even did not know, and Siva, Sanak, and others were 
 unsuccessful in their attempts to know him. Kablr cries out, 
 " O man, how will you know his attributes ? " ' l ' Kablr says, 
 To whom shall I explain ; the whole world is blind. The 
 true one is beyond reach ; falsehood binds all.' 2 Thus it comes 
 that we have in the teaching of Kablr and of the other members 
 of his school of thought the doctrine of &abda and the doctrine 
 of the Guru. The former of these is somewhat difficult for us 
 to understand in the na'i've significance that it no doubt had for 
 Kablr and his followers. We have seen that he rejected the 
 book-learning of the Hindus. Veda and Qur'an alike suggested 
 to him the deceitfulness of the learned. He was, like Muham- 
 mad, an unlettered man, and his teaching was probably 
 communicated orally to his followers. In the Btjak he is 
 represented as declaring, ' I neither touched ink nor paper, nor 
 did I take a pen into my hand, to the sages of all four ages 
 Kablr declared his word by mouth.' 3 Sabda is thus the 
 mysterious utterance of speech that conveys knowledge of the 
 unknown and makes wise unto salvation. But it is no doubt 
 especially associated with the name of God the ' Satndm ', 
 which is recognized in later developments of the doctrine as 
 so powerful. In the Granth it is said, * As the stars at dawn 
 pass away, so the world passes away ; these two letters (Ram) 
 do not pass away. Them Kabir has seized.' 4 ' Kablr says, 
 I am a lover of the word which has shown me the unseen 
 (God).' 5 This is a far simpler thing on Kablr's lips than the 
 Sabda pramana of the schools of philosophy. He was no 
 philosopher, but speech was obviously a mediation of the un- 
 
 1 Bijak, Premchand's translation, p. 29. 2 Ibid., p. 43. 
 
 3 Westcott, p. 175. 4 Ibid., p. 68. 5 Ibid., p. 69.
 
 KABIR AND NANAK 141 
 
 known, and as such, when that unknown was God, mystic and 
 wonderful. It is not logos or reason, but rather the testimony 
 of him who knows, however he may have come to know and 
 that remains obscure or again it is the name of God, which 
 is itself the unutterable uttered, the hidden manifested. It 
 seems to be the constraining power of such testimony to 
 change the heart that is referred to in such a passage as this : 
 < By the power of the word the sin of the world is destroyed. 
 The word makes kings forsake their kingdoms.' x By it doubt 
 is destroyed and darkness : it opens the gateway of light. 
 
 And again in the Bijak, ' Those who construct a raft in the 
 name of Rama can cross over the ocean of the love of this 
 world.' 2 So in later teaching of the Panth, the word is one 
 of the three boats in which souls can safely cross the ocean of 
 life. 3 God is the letterless One ; but he has taken form, as it 
 were, in a name, not a name written but a name uttered, ' the 
 word of the true One '. 
 
 So in a later book of the Panth, the Amar Mill, it is said, 
 ' The unutterable name alone is true, the name that pervades 
 all hearts. When the voice of the word was sounded, the 
 indestructible One took form.' 4 How far this doctrine may 
 have been influenced by the teaching in the Gospel of St. John 
 of the divine Logos or Word, ' the light that lighteth every one 
 coming into the world ', it is not possible to discuss here. In 
 any case the thought in Kabir's mind, however dimly appre- 
 hended by himself, and however nal've in its expression, is 
 fundamentally akin to that of the Gospel, and is far nearer to 
 it, because more simply religious, than the logos doctrines of 
 Heraclitus or of Philo. Kabir's is an attempt by means of this 
 idea to bring near to men's hearts and minds the remote and 
 dimly apprehended God. The Hindu incarnations are rejected, 
 but the idea of incarnation, of accommodation of the divine 
 to human comprehension, is too deeply rooted in man's sense 
 of his weakness and his need and in his hope of the divine 
 
 1 Westcott, p. 68. 2 Premchand's Bijak) p. 8. 
 
 3 Westcott, p. 149. 4 Op. cit., p. 149.
 
 142 KABIR AND NANAK 
 
 mercy to be rejected. In this form of the doctrine of the 
 Sabda it reappears purged of its unworthy mythological 
 associations. The books of the pandits only brought be- 
 wilderment to the single-hearted seeker. ' Remove doubt, 
 put aside the paper.' l The word that comes more immedi- 
 ately from the heart and that speaks to the heart is to take 
 its place. 
 
 It is the same instinct that creates the doctrine of the guru, 
 a doctrine that we find also in South Indian teaching, and 
 which is so prominent and influential with all the members of 
 the school that derives from Kablr. ' From heaven and hell ', 
 says Kablr, ' I am freed by the favour of the true Guru? 
 ' Death by which the whole world is frightened, that death is 
 lighted up by the word of the Guru' 2 ' The true Guru is a 
 great money-changer, testing the good and the evil ; rescuing 
 from the world the good, he takes it under his own protection.' 3 
 It is obvious at once how such teaching as this was necessary 
 in the case of one who turned away from the book-learning of 
 the pandits and the literary tradition, and whose followers 
 were simple, ignorant people. They had need of an oral 
 teacher ; and, when God was conceived of as a Spiritual 
 Being, and one remote and hard to find, the importance of 
 the mediation and instruction of a wise spiritual director will 
 at once be evident. Kablr was himself, as was natural, the 
 chief Guru of his followers ; and it is not surprising to find 
 him, in consequence, elevated by them presently to the rank 
 of the Creator of the Universe, who is in all and in whom all 
 is contained. ' I am the Sadhul he is made to say, ' and all 
 Sadhus dwell in me.' 4 While it is easy to see the dangers of 
 such a doctrine, dangers which proved themselves real in the 
 case of the Kablr Panthis as in that of other sects where the 
 Guru or the Acarya was given a similar place, yet at the same 
 time we can recognize here also a testimony to the need of 
 
 1 Cranth in Westcott, p. 67. 2 Ibid., pp. 71, 72. 
 
 3 Sakhl attributed to Kablr, Westcott, p. 89. 
 * Westcott, p. 146.
 
 KABIR AND NANAK 143 
 
 a mediator, if the One God, the Supreme, is to be brought 
 ' down to the level of our common lives, down to the beating 
 of our common hearts '. 
 
 Other elements that are prominent in the rituals of the 
 Kablr Panth emphasize still further its theistic character and 
 its kinship with older theistic cults in India and elsewhere 
 throughout the world. These are its rites of initiation and 
 communion. Some of these, such as the drinking of the 
 Caran mitra? the water in which the sandals of Kablr, or the 
 feet of Kablr's representative on earth, have been washed, are 
 due to the high place of reverence that is accorded to the 
 spiritual teacher. The ceremony of initiation and that of 
 communion, which is called Jot Prasdd, are similar to those 
 which are to be found, in grosser or more spiritual form, in 
 nearly every religion which seeks to attain fellowship with 
 a personal God. Both in the rites of initiation and in the 
 communion feast betel-leaves are eaten, upon which have 
 been written the secret name of God. This ' is said to repre- 
 sent the body of Kablr'. 2 The eating of the God, whether 
 he be represented by an animal that is slain or by dough 
 images or, as here, by his name alone written upon a leaf 
 has always been considered one way of assimilating his spirit. 
 Like the Eleusinian initiate the Kablr Panthls could say, ' I 
 have fasted, I have drunk the sacred draught.' But, though 
 in every case such communion ritual has as its end the appro- 
 priation of the mana or vital power of the god or of the god's 
 representative, in the case of the Kablr Panthls that mana is 
 realized as something widely removed from the physical 
 energy that the savage seeks when he drinks the blood of the 
 sacred bull. 3 The initiates are exhorted to live holy lives. 
 
 1 This is Hindi for the Sanskrit caranamrita. 
 
 2 Westcott, p. 121. 
 
 3 ' The bull was the chief of magic or sacred animals in Greece, chief 
 because of his enormous strength, his rage, in fine his mana, as anthro- 
 pologists call it, that fine primitive word which comprises force, vitality, 
 prestige, holiness, and power of magic, and which may belong equally to 
 a lion, a chief, a medicine-man, or a battle-axe ' (Murray's Four Stages 
 of Greek Religion, p. 33). 'Mana is the magic condition : it is the latent
 
 144 KABIR AND NANAK 
 
 The food presented to them, which is chiefly coco-nut and 
 the consecrated betel-leaf ' is regarded as Kablr's special gift, 
 and it is said that all who receive it worthily will obtain 
 eternal life '- 1 
 
 Such a sacramental meal as we have here was no doubt 
 common to many of the bhakti cults. In them as in it, what- 
 ever may have been the case originally, the flesh and the 
 blood of animals have long since been replaced by a meal of 
 vegetable products and of water. The Mahaprasdda, as a 
 means of fellowship with God, has its roots in a deep human 
 instinct, however strange and savage its expression may have 
 often been. That there are close parallels in the Kablr PanthI 
 rituals with practices that have been followed in the Christian 
 Church in connexion with the sacrament of the Lord's Supper 
 is unquestionably true. There is, for example, ' the com- 
 munion in both kinds', which is exceptional in such sacra- 
 mental rituals ; there is the ' reservation ' of a portion of the 
 food specially for the use of the sick ; there is a feast following 
 upon the rite similar to the early Christian love-feast. 2 These 
 things, however, though striking, are not without their non- 
 Christian parallels, and leave the question of indebtedness to 
 Christian teaching, which, of course, is quite a possibility, a 
 matter upon which we cannot dogmatize. 
 
 When one passes from Kablr to Nanak one is not conscious 
 of any change of atmosphere. The main ideas of the two 
 teachers are the same, and both teach principles of inwardness 
 and devotion, and commend the way of quietism and of medi- 
 tation. They are alike in betraying evident traces of both 
 Hindu and Muhammadan influence, and at the same time 
 they agree in standing apart from these two faiths, criticizing 
 them in the forms in which they see them, and seeking to 
 reconcile them. Both teachers might have said, as Nanak 
 said,' I am neither Hindu nor Muhammadan, but a worshipper 
 
 power in a person, a thing, even in a word. He who can evoke this 
 energy and make it subserve his ends is a man of talent ' (S. Reinach, 
 Orpheus, Eng. trans., p. 157). 
 1 Westcott, p. 132. 2 Grierson in/. R. A. S. t April 1907, p. 326.
 
 KABIR AND NANAK 145 
 
 of the Nirakara, of the Formless.' The prominence given to 
 Kablr in Nanak's Adi Granth is evidence enough of the 
 influence that the earlier teacher had upon him. He is said, 
 also, to have come into personal contact with him when he 
 was a young man of twenty-seven years of age. 
 
 Nanak was born in the village of Talvvandi, in the district 
 of Lahore, in the year 1469. The Lodi dynasty was at that 
 time ruling in Delhi. His father was a village accountant, 
 and a cultivator, a Hindu and a Ksatriya by caste. His 
 followers named him Guru Nanak, and they were his disciples 
 or Sisya, hence called in the dialect of the country Sikhs. 
 They now number between two and three millions, and since 
 the days of Guru Govind, the tenth in succession from Nanak, 
 they have been famous far more for their warlike qualities 
 than for the quietism and devout spirit of their founder. How 
 this has come about need not here be discussed. No doubt 
 there had entered into Nanak's teaching, along with the milder 
 Hindu doctrine, that which was fitted to arouse the fiercer 
 elements in the nature of its followers. It is sufficient to 
 point out how complete a change has passed over the sect 
 with the lapse of years, and to note that apparently there was 
 not, in the teaching of Nanak, a power sufficient to restrain 
 within the bounds of his doctrines of inwardness and devotion, 
 the natural fierceness of his people's nature, but, on the 
 contrary, that which seemed to stimulate them to violence 
 and fanaticism. Just as the Krisnaite sects fell so often into 
 unrestrained self-indulgence and moral corruption, so this 
 community gave way with an equal abandonment to the 
 temptations of the natural man in them. The besetting sin of 
 those who followed those Krisnaite teachers the Caitanyas and 
 Vallabhas was sensualism ; the besetting sin of the Jats 
 and other Punjabis who followed Guru Nanak was ferocity 
 and bigotry. In each case it is evident that the faith they 
 followed had that in it which could stimulate and excite, but 
 not that which could restrain and control, the natural passions 
 of the human heart. 
 
 L
 
 146 KABIR AND NANAK 
 
 In Nanak's own teaching we find much the same ideas as 
 Kabir had taught, but carried further, and organized more 
 fully into a system. It is true that neither Kabir nor Nanak 
 is a systematic thinker. Neither troubles much with the 
 metaphysical bases of his doctrine. An element of weakness 
 in them both is the absence of a fully considered theology. 
 They are eclectic teachers, guided rather by impulse and by 
 intuition than by reflection. The evidence of the influence of 
 Hindu teaching is still greater in Nanak than in Kabir. It is 
 said, indeed, that he had a Muhammadan teacher, just as the 
 Muhammadan Kabir had a Hindu one ; and, further, that in 
 his later days, he made the pilgrimage to Mecca. All the 
 same the influence of Hindu Pantheism is strongly marked in 
 his Grant/i, and he acknowledges his debt to a succession of 
 Vaisnavite saints, among whom are Ramananda and the 
 Maratha Namdev, by including many of their writings in that 
 book. 
 
 The legendary story of the Guru's life bears a strange 
 resemblance to those of other Indian sages. In the case of 
 almost every one of them it is accounted a sign of his divine 
 calling that he cannot give his thoughts to any secular occupa- 
 tion. When Nanak's father had sought in vain to persuade 
 him to follow one profession after another that of a farmer, 
 a shopkeeper, a horse-dealer his friends concluded that he 
 was suffering from some mental disease. But Nanak diagnosed 
 his own sickness as due to ' the pain of separation from God, 
 the pang of hunger for contemplation of Him '- 1 What most 
 of all made them conclude that he was mad was his declara- 
 tion ' There is no Hindu and no Muhammadan.' Presently 
 he was permitted to follow his own desires and then began 
 as in the case of many of these saints and seekers his years 
 of wandering. One story that is told of him is claimed also, 
 mutatis mutandis, for his predecessor the Maratha poet 
 Namdev, and has already been related. In the version that 
 is associated with Nanak the scene of the story is laid at 
 1 Macauliffe, I, p. 27.
 
 KABIR AND NANAK 147 
 
 Mecca, and it is the Ka'bah which moved as he moved, proving 
 that the house of God was everywhere. In this story, which 
 has probably been adapted from the earlier legend of the 
 Vaisnavite saint, we have a symbolic representation of Nanak's 
 attitude to the two religions which he sought to combine and 
 to transcend in the higher unity of his message. There is 
 little likelihood that he actually accomplished the Haj ; but 
 as he is said to have worn on one of his journeys ' a strange 
 motley of Hindu and Muhammadan religious habiliments', 1 
 so in his doctrine Hindu Pantheism enfolded Muhammadan 
 monotheism, subduing it indeed, but not entirely assimilating 
 it to itself. There was a refractory element in it which was 
 to show its stubborn characteristics in later developments of 
 the sect. He died in 1538 at Khartarpur in the Punjab. 
 
 In his teaching we find the same elements as in that of 
 Kablr, but set forth at greater length and with perhaps less 
 simplicity and epigrammatic force. In the Japjl, which is 
 supposed to give an epitome of the doctrine of the sect, and 
 which every Sikh is expected to know by heart, we have less 
 criticism of Hinduism than we find in Kablr. The attitude 
 rather is that the gods of Hinduism bear testimony to the 
 Formless One, and he transcends them all. His rejection of 
 Hinduism does not involve a positive rejection of its practices. 
 They are of an inferior order to that which he proclaims : 
 they are not sufficient for salvation. He who performs them 
 may obtain ' some little honour ' as it were ' a grain of 
 sesamum seed '. 2 But the true way is the way of inward 
 purity. ' If I please Him, that is my place of pilgrimage to 
 bathe in ; if I please Him not, what ablutions shall I make? ' 3 
 The Hindu doctrines of re-birth and of mdyd are accepted by 
 him, and as in the case of all those who come within the 
 region of their powerful influence, do much to give his 
 teaching its peculiar mould. At the same time the Muham- 
 madan elements in his thought react upon these doctrines in 
 
 1 Macauliffe, I, p. 58. 2 Japjt, XXI, Macauliffe, I, p. 206. 
 
 3 J a Pfii VI, Macauliffe, I, p. 199. 
 
 L 2,
 
 148 KABIR AND NANAK 
 
 a way that is strange to Hinduism and scarcely reconcilable 
 with it. Thus he says, ' God made maya by His power ; 
 seated He beheld His work with delight.' l So again in regard 
 to transmigration : ' Re-birth and deliverance depend on Thy 
 will . . . God Himself knoweth to whom He may give, and He 
 Himself giveth : very few acknowledge this.' 2 ' The Creator 
 who made the world hath decreed transmigration.' 3 As is 
 natural in one who has come under the influence of the 
 austere absolutism of Muhammadan theology, the will of God 
 is placed by him for the most part above the automatic 
 operation of karma. If the translation of the following 
 passage is correctly given by Mr. Macauliffe, we have in it 
 a strange and imperfectly accomplished combination of 
 Musalman and Hindu teaching in this connexion : 
 
 The recording angels take with them a record of man's acts. 
 It is he himself soweth and he himself reapeth. 
 Nanak, man suffereth transmigration by God's order. 4 
 
 'God's order' and 'the pre-ordained will of the Commander' 
 have a large place in this teaching, however they are to be 
 reconciled with a doctrine of karma. ' By Thy power are 
 honour and dishonour.' 5 
 
 To Muhammadan influence we must ascribe the clear 
 affirmation of the divine unity. ' There is but one God, 
 whose name is true, the Creator.' He is always 'the omni- 
 potent Creator ', 6 but at the same time, in words that recall the 
 Bhagavadgitd, He is described as He ' who hath strung the 
 whole world on His string'. 7 Again in another passage of 
 thejagfl, which seems in contradiction with what is elsewhere 
 affirmed, we find it stated that 'One may a in union with God' 
 gave birth, among others, to the Creator. 7 It is not sur- 
 prising in one who is so little of a constructive theologian and 
 
 1 Asa-ki-war, Pauri, I, Macauliffe, I, p. 219. 
 
 2 J^PJi, XXV, Macauliffe, I, p. 209. 
 
 3 Asa-ki-war, Sloki, VIII, Macauliffe, I, p. 229. 
 * J a PJi) XX, Macauliffe, I, p. 206. 
 
 5 Asa-ki-war, Sloki, III, Macauliffe, I, p. 221. 
 
 6 Japji, XXX, Macauliffe, I, p. 213. 
 
 7 J<*Pfit XXX, Macauliffe, I, p. 213.
 
 KABIR AND NANAK 149 
 
 who can make so little claim to speculative power, that echoes 
 of Hindu and Muhammadan teaching are to be found through- 
 out his writings with little serious attempt to fuse them into 
 a consistent system. Thus the influence of the Upanisads is 
 unmistakable in such a line as this : ' By one word Thou didst 
 effect the expansion of the world ; ' 1 while a well-known 
 passage from the Katha Upanisad may have suggested this : 
 ' Divine knowledge is not sought in mere words ; to speak con- 
 cerning it were hard as iron. By God's grace man obtaineth 
 it ; skill and order are useless therefore.' 2 
 
 This last passage reminds us of an aspect of Nanak's 
 teaching, which we found also in that of Kablr his sense of 
 the transcendence and essential unknowableness of God. 
 This is a thought which, as we saw in the case of the earlier 
 teacher, may well have been impressed upon him, both from 
 the side of the Hindu doctrine of the Atman, and from that 
 of the high monotheism of the Qur'an. ' Men have grown 
 weary at last', he declares, 'of searching for God's limits.' 3 
 God is to him pre-eminently the Nirakara, the Formless One ; 
 He is ' inaccessible, inapprehensible '. 4 Thejafijl opens with an 
 impressive affirmation of His unknowableness. ' By thinking 
 I cannot obtain a conception of Him, even though I think 
 hundreds of thousands of times. Even though I be silent and 
 keep my attention firmly fixed on Him, I cannot preserve 
 silence. The hunger of the hungry for God subsideth not 
 though they obtain the load of the worlds. If a man should 
 have thousands and hundreds of thousands of devices, even 
 one would not assist him in obtaining God.' 5 Perhaps just 
 because of this sense of the hopelessness of obtaining the 
 Formless One, Nanak, while he denounces Hindu idolatry, is 
 much more tolerant than Kablr of Hindu polytheism. In his 
 time no doubt the theistic sects who ' worshipped according to 
 
 ii XVI, Macauliffe, I, p. 203. 
 Asa-ki-war, Sloki, IV, Macauliffe, I, p. 223. 
 
 3 Japjf, XXIII, Macauliffe, I, p. 207. 
 
 4 Macauliffe, I, p. 330. 
 
 5 J a PJ l , I> Macauliffe, I, p. 196.
 
 150 KABIR AND NANAK 
 
 the instruction of Narad ' might be described, as he is said 
 to describe them in one hymn, as ' ignorant fools ' who take 
 stones and worship them. 1 At the same time the whole 
 Hindu pantheon is recognized as holding a place beneath the 
 Nirdkdra and as bearing testimony to Him. 2 ' The Guru of 
 the gurus is one ; the garbs many.' 3 Here as in the case 
 of Kablr, it is the Guru who is the true mediator between 
 man and the distant deity. ' Search not for the true One afar 
 off/ it is said, ' he is in every heart and is known by the Guru's 
 instruction.' 4 Along with the mediation of the Guru goes a 
 belief, such as we saw in Kablr also, in the efficacy of the divine 
 name which the Guru communicates to the disciple. The name 
 is the mysterious concrete embodiment, as it were, of the deity, 
 and the power of the Guru lies in that he can convey it to the 
 seeker. And he only can convey it. The Guru and the 
 name are inseparably linked. ' Without the true Guru none 
 hath found God,' 5 for ' without the true Guru the Name is not 
 obtained '. ' The invisible One is shown in (his) true palace 
 by the Guru'" 1 'If the intellect is defiled with sins: it is 
 washed in the dye of the Name.' 8 These passages which no 
 doubt derive from an early belief in the mysterious power 
 of the magician and his spell 9 could be multiplied almost 
 endlessly. Along with it sometimes goes an incongruous 
 contribution from the fatalistic teaching of Islam. It is 
 perhaps rather in the teachings of the later Gurus than in that 
 of Nanak himself that we find this doctrine, that it is only the 
 elect who are saved by the name of Hari and that it is to 
 them alone that the name is conveyed. 
 
 1 Macauliffe, I, p. 326. 2 Japji, V, IX, XXVI, XXVII. 
 
 3 Trumpp, p. 321. 4 Macauliffe, I, p. 328. 
 
 6 J a P& Macauliffe, I, p. 226. e Japjt, Macauliffe, I, p. 335. 
 
 7 Growse, p. 329. 8 Japji, XX, Trumpp, p. 7. 
 
 9 ' To the magician knowledge is power ; the impulse which drives him 
 is still the desire to extend the influence of his mana ... to its utmost 
 bounds. To form a representation of the structure of nature is to have con- 
 trol over it. To classify things is to name them, and the name of a thing 
 or of a group of things, is its soul ; to know their names is to have power over 
 their souls.' Cornford's From Religion to Philosophy, p. 141.
 
 KABIR AND NANAK 151 
 
 The Guru in consequence has a place that can hardly 
 remain long lower than that of deity. The Hindu gods are 
 identified with him, and he is even identified with the Supreme 
 Hari. ' This Guru of Gurus is but one, though he hath 
 various forms.' l ' The Gurndev is the Lord, the Supreme 
 Lord. . . . The Gurndev Hari, says Nanak, I worship.' 2 But 
 whoever is conceived to be the mysterious Guru of Nanak, to 
 all after him the Guru par excellence is Nanak himself and 
 'God hath put himself into the true Guru' ? ' In the perfect 
 Guru (God) has become complete.' 4 No doubt Nanak, though 
 he often speaks of himself with humility, believed himself to 
 be an incarnation of the Supreme God. Certainly this is the 
 teaching of his successors in regard to him. ' To make the true 
 Guru one's friend,' and serve one's Guru in all lowliness, is the 
 way of wisdom. ' I am a sacrifice to my Guru a hundred 
 times a day.' 5 The avataras of Hindu legend have here been 
 definitely replaced by the true Guru, and devotion to him is 
 the vital centre of the religion. Along with that goes like 
 the reverence for Sabda in Kablr what developed presently 
 into worship of the Granth Sahib, the book that preserved the 
 wisdom of the great Guru and of other teachers worthy to be 
 set beside him. 
 
 This is how Mr. Macauliffe describes the attitude of the 
 Sikhs to this book. 6 ' The Granth Sahib is to them the 
 embodiment of their Gurus > who are regarded as only one 
 
 1 The Sohila, Macauliffe, I, p. 258. 2 Trumpp, p. 377. 
 
 3 Asa-ki-war, Macauliffe, I, p. 226. 4 Growse, p. 64. 
 
 6 Asa-ki-war, Sloki, I, Macauliffe, I, p. 218. 
 
 6 The present attitude to the Granth is indicated by the following 
 account of the worship given to it in the Golden Temple at Amritsar : 
 ' Among the Sikhs themselves the shrine and its precincts are known as 
 the Durbar Sahib or " Sacred Audience", and the title owes its origin to 
 the fact that the Granth or Sacred Book, is looked upon as a living 
 Person, who daily in this shrine receives his subjects in solemn audience. 
 The book is brought every morning with considerable pomp from the 
 Akalbiinga across the causeway to the shrine and returns at night with 
 similar ceremony. It is installed in the shrine below a canopy, and 
 a granthi sits behind it all day, waving a cattri, or yak's tail, over it 
 as a servant does over the head of an Indian Prince.' E. R. E. I, 
 P- 399 2 -
 
 152 KABIR AND NANAK 
 
 person, the light of the first Guru's soul having been trans- 
 mitted to each of his successors in turn. The line of the 
 Gurus closed with the tenth, Guru Govind Singh. He ordered 
 that the Granth should be to his Sikhs as the living Gurus. 
 Accordingly the Granth Sahib is kept in silken coverlets, and 
 when it is removed from place to place, is taken on a small 
 couch by Sikhs of good repute.' 1 The fifth Guru, Guru 
 Arjun (1563-1606), compiled the most important part of this 
 Scripture, the Adi Granth or 'Original Book', which he com- 
 pleted in 1604.^ In this he included the hymns of the first 
 five Gurus and of other recognized saints such as Ramananda, 
 Namdev, and Kablr. His Granth is to be distinguished from 
 that of Guru Govind Singh, the tenth and the last of the 
 Gurus. With him Sikhism had its euthanasia as ' a religion 
 of spirituality and benevolence '. 3 Of the transformation of 
 the sect into a brotherhood of Puritan warriors, organized 
 rather for battle than for worship, it is not necessary to say 
 much. Those who accepted Guru Govind's rite of Pahul, or 
 baptism of the sword, were called Khalsa a word derived 
 from Arabic, Khalis, pure and were to be like their Guru, 
 Singhs or lions. The office of Guru was now invested in the 
 whole brotherhood, among whom there was to be no longer 
 any caste distinctions. ' The Khalsa is the Guru and the 
 Guru is the Khalsa! 4 
 
 In spite of the claim of Mr. Macauliffe that ' it would be 
 difficult to point to a religion of greater originality ' 5 than 
 that of Guru Nanak, it can scarcely be disputed that it is 
 largely an incompletely fused amalgam of ideas and senti- 
 ments, contributed alike by Hinduism and Muhammadanism. 
 In the worship of the Guru on the one hand and the Granth 
 on the other we seem to see the double influence that of the 
 personal faith of Muhammad and that of the impersonal 
 
 1 Macauliffe, I, p. xvi. 2 Ibid., II, p. 64. 
 
 8 H. H. Wilson, Essays and Lectures Chiefly on the Religion of the 
 Hindus ; II, p. 129. 
 4 Macauliffe, I, p. 96. 6 Ibid., p. Iv.
 
 KABIR AND NANAK 153 
 
 Vedanta. We have a similar contradiction in the presentation 
 as the goal of blessedness of absorption in the divine, and yet 
 at the same time of a paradise called Sack Khand. Those 
 who are not able to attain to either of these rewards will be 
 re-born on earth. The influence of Muhammadanism, in 
 contrast with the non-moral Vedanta, is no doubt seen in the 
 strongly ethical note which is distinctive of this religion, and 
 has obtained for its followers the reputation of Puritans. Such 
 a passage as this is typical of many in the Granth, and 
 reminds us of similar passages among the sayings of Kabir : 
 ' Make contentment and modesty thine earrings, self-respect 
 thy wallet, meditation the ashes to seal upon thy body ; make 
 association with men thine Ai Panth, 1 and the conquest of thy 
 heart the conquest of the world.' 2 It is a great thing to have 
 declared, ' There is no devotion without virtue.' 3 No doubt 
 the Gurus message represents a noble effort at reformation in 
 a time when reformation was supremely needed. Here is how 
 one of his biographers, who lived at the end of the sixteenth 
 and the beginning of the seventeenth century, describes the 
 polytheism and idolatry of Nanak's time : ' Some worshipped 
 the sun or moon, others propitiated the earth, sky, wind, water, 
 or fire, and others again the God of death, while the devotion 
 of many was addressed to cemeteries and cremation grounds.' 
 Similarly Guru Govind is said to have called his Khalsas 
 to forsake the worship of 'idols, cemeteries, or cremation 
 grounds'. 4 Revolt from a repulsive Saivism was evidently 
 one of the elements that went to the making of this austere 
 and inward faith. Their opposition to caste, mild in the time 
 of the earlier Gurus, but thorough in the case of Guru Govind, 
 and the stern prohibition of female infanticide, show it to have 
 been also a genuine movement of social and moral reform. 
 
 Of the sects that have sprung up within Sikhism, the two 
 whose aim was to preserve in its present form the religious 
 character of Guru Nanak's reformation, are those of the Udasis 
 
 1 A sect otjogts. 2 Japji, XXVIII, Macauliffe, I, p. 212. 
 
 3 J a PJ l i XXI, Macauliffe, I, p. 206. 4 Macauliffe, I, p. 181.
 
 i.54 KABIR AND NANAK 
 
 and of the Nirmalas. The former, as the name ' indifferent to 
 the world ' suggests, was a sect formed apparently as a protest 
 against the first indications of the secularization of the aims of 
 the sect. Nanak nominated as his successor Guru Angad, 
 but the Udasls attached themselves to Nanak's son, Sri Cand, 
 who seems to have lived as a naked ascetic. Their sacred 
 book is the Adi Granth alone. Dehra, where they have a 
 gurudwdra or temple, is the seat of a strong body of this sect. 
 The name of the Nirmalas indicates a similar emphasis upon 
 purity and unworldliness. The Udasls wear white robes and 
 the Nirmalas red, or yellow the colour worn by the ordinary 
 Hindu ascetic. In modern times, 'except in the mode of 
 performing public worship and in the profession of benevolent 
 sentiments for all mankind, there is little difference between a 
 Nirmala Sikh and an orthodox Hindu of the Vaisnava sect'. 1 
 The Akalls, on the other hand, claiming as they do to have 
 been founded by Guru Govind himself, represent the militant 
 ambitions of the Sikhs in their extreme form. The name 
 Akal was one of the names of God frequently made use of by 
 the tenth Guru. When the fierce passions of the Sikhs were 
 aroused in behalf of their faith, the leadership of the Khalsa 
 largely passed into the hands of these zealots of whom Ranjit 
 Singh himself stood in awe. They claimed the right of 
 summoning the Gurumata, 'the Council of the Guru', a 
 national council which was invested with authority to guide 
 the brotherhood. The Akalls refused to accept any innova- 
 tions in the customs of the sect, and for that reason they 
 continued to wear blue clothes and carry some article made 
 of steel upon their persons. Now ' their influence has to a 
 large extent passed away, and some of them have degenerated 
 into mere buffoons'. 2 Of a similar sect of fanatics called 
 Kukas, founded originally by an UdasI of Rawalpindi, we 
 learn that, having rebelled against the British Government and 
 been suppressed, they ' have subsided into a disreputable sect 
 
 1 Wilson's Essays on the Religion of the Hindus, II, p. 142, 
 
 2 E. R. E., s.v. Akalls, I, p. 269*.
 
 KABIR AND NANAK 155 
 
 whose communistic and debauched habits have brought upon 
 them the general reprobation of the Sikh Community '.* 
 
 There are other sects of the Sikhs which are regarded as 
 heretical. There is that, for example, of the Minas, followers 
 of an elder son of Guru Ram Das, whom he passed over in 
 favour of his younger son Arjun, and that of the Handalis, 
 who denied the authority of Nanak and set up that of Handal, 
 a Jat convert to Sikhism, in its stead. ' They are now known 
 as Niranjanie, or followers of the bright God (Niranjan).' 2 Of 
 the Suthre or ' pure ones ', it is sufficient to say that ' they are 
 notorious for their drunkenness and debauchery, so that they 
 have become a byword in the Punjab ', 3 and equally in 
 Bengal, 4 while the Divane Sadh or ' mad saints ', who are 
 mainly Jats and tanners, agree with the Udasis in recognizing 
 only the Adi Granth. There is more interest and profit in 
 tracing the history of other sects which have sprung up all 
 over the country, and which, while less directly related to the 
 Sikhs than these, apparently owe much of their inspiration to 
 Kablr and Nanak. Four of these out of many that have 
 sprung up, exercised for a while an influence for righteousness, 
 and then become impotent or degenerate, may be briefly 
 referred to here. 
 
 Of these one of the earliest is that of the Dadupanthis or 
 followers of Dadu (1544-1603), a Brahman, who, though a 
 native of Ahmedabad, exercised his main influence and left 
 his largest following in Rajputana. Like Kablr, by whose 
 teaching, as also by that of Nanak, he was evidently greatly 
 influenced, Dadu claimed Ramananda as his teacher. His 
 teaching is contained in the Bam, a poetic work, which, as in 
 the case of the Granth, is worshipped in modern times by his 
 followers. Of these some are ' soldier monks ' and others 
 mendicants and ascetics. It will be seen that the development 
 of this sect has been in some ways closely parallel with that 
 
 1 Sir Lepel Griffin's Ranjit Singh, p. 62. 
 
 2 Macauliffe, I, p. Ixxxiii. 3 Trumpp, p. cxvii. 
 4 E.R.E. II, p. 496.
 
 156 KABIR AND NANAK 
 
 of the Sikhs. Like Kabir, Dadu represents a popular revolt 
 against the learning and the pride of learning of the orthodox 
 Hindus. ' What avails it to collect a heap of books. . . . Wear 
 not away your lives by studying the Vedas.' He seems to 
 have gone further than his predecessor in rejecting the doctrine 
 of transmigration, 'holding that all possible re-births happen 
 in man's one life on earth.' l God is for him the Creator : ' by 
 one word He created all.' He seems to have had more right 
 than either Kabir or Nanak to declare. ' I am not a Hindu 
 nor a Muhammadan. I belong to none of the six schools of 
 philosophy. I love the merciful God.' There is on the one 
 hand in his writings a strange sense of the demands of con- 
 science, and on the other a warmer glow of devotion and of 
 desire for God's fellowship than we find in Kabir and Nanak. 
 In this respect he seems nearer to the Vaisnavite saints, while 
 he has definitely cast aside much in Hinduism that hampered 
 Theism and has accepted much that gives it a more fully ethical 
 note. ' The wife separated from her husband calls day and 
 night and is sad. I call my God, my God, vehemently thirsting.' 
 ' When will He come ? When will He come ? My beloved, 
 when will He reveal himself? ' ' I am bound by many fetters. 
 My soul is helpless. I cannot deliver myself. My beloved 
 alone can.' ' From the beginning to the end of my life I have 
 done no good ; ignorance, the love of the world, false pleasure, 
 and forgetfulness have held me.' ' My soul is sorely afflicted 
 because I have forgotten Thee, O God.' 2 There is a close 
 kinship between this saint and the Hebrew psalmists. 
 
 The Baba Lalis, who come next in order of time, are said 
 to have been founded early in the seventeenth century by 
 Baba Lai, who was a Khattri born in Malwa in Rajputana. 
 He settled near Sirhind in the Punjab, and there founded his 
 sect. The chief historical interest of his teaching consists in 
 the fact that it attracted Dara Shukoh, the eldest and favourite 
 
 1 E. K. E., s. v. Dadu, IV, p. 38s 2 . 
 
 2 Most of the quotations and the information in regard to Dadu and 
 the Dadupanthls is from the article by Mr. Traill in E. A'. E. IV. 385 f.
 
 KABIR AND NANAK 157 
 
 son of the Emperor Shah Jahan. Baba Lai appears to have 
 taught a doctrine more deeply dyed of Hinduism than that of 
 Dadu. 'The soul is a particle of the Supreme Soul, just as 
 water contained in a flask is a part of the water of, say, the 
 river Ganges. 1 On the other hand the Supreme God, who is 
 named Rama, is directly worshipped with love and adoration. 
 There are no incarnations in this system. ' The feelings of 
 a personal disciple ', he said, ' have not been, and cannot be, 
 described, as it is said : " A person asked me what are the 
 sensations of a lover ? I replied : When you are a lover you 
 will know." ' The sect is said now to be extinct. 1 
 
 The Caran Basis were founded by Caran Das (1703-82), 
 a Baniya, born at Dahara in Alwar. The adherents of this 
 sect who number apparently only a few thousands are to be 
 found mainly in the Punjab and the United Provinces. A 
 name by which the doctrine is sometimes called, Sabda- 
 mdrga, indicates its close relationship with that of Kablr in 
 whose teaching Sabda has so prominent a part. At the same 
 time 'so similar are the doctrines taught by Caran Das to 
 those of Nanak . . . that there are actually Sikhs who at the 
 present day call themselves Caran Dasls'. 2 Devotion to the 
 Guru and meditation on the name are the two chief means of 
 salvation. Salvation is continued personal existence in fellow- 
 ship with God after release from transmigration. Here, as 
 elsewhere in the sects of this class, the Gurtt is elevated to a 
 position of superhuman power and sanctity. So much is this 
 so that while ' the believer must know the Guru and Hari to be 
 one ', ' the Guru is mightier than Hari himself, for he protects 
 the sinner from His wrath'. 3 God is worshipped under the 
 names of Hari and Rama, and also, though apparently not by 
 the founder, ' under the dual form of Radha and Krisna '. The 
 
 1 For quotations and references see E.R.E., s. v. Baba Ldlis, II, 
 p. 308. 
 
 2 E. R. E., s. v. Caran Ddsts, III, p. 366 note. 
 
 3 Ibid. The same thing is said by South Indian Vaisnavites of the 
 worship of Ramanuja as better than the worship of Visnu, for ' while 
 Visnu can both save and damn, Ramanuja only saves '.
 
 158 KABIR AND NANAK 
 
 stress laid upon moral conduct is indicated by the ten pro- 
 hibitions of the sect. Its members are ' not to lie, not to 
 revile, not to speak harshly, not to discourse idly, not to 
 steal, not to commit adultery, not to offer violence to any 
 created thing, not to imagine evil, not to cherish hatred, and 
 not to indulge in conceit or pride '.* Their scriptures, besides 
 the poems of Caran Das himself, include the Bhagavadgltd 
 and the Bhagavata Purana. The founder of the sect forbade 
 idolatry, but as in other instances this position has not been 
 maintained in later days. ' They now even have images in 
 their temples, respect Brahmans and, like other pious Hindus, 
 fast on the eleventh day of each lunar fortnight.' 2 
 
 There remain the Siva Narayanis, a sect founded early in the 
 eighteenth century by Siva Narayan, a Rajput from Ghazipur 
 in the United Provinces. Like the Sikhs they worship the 
 Formless One, reject idolatry and reverence their original 
 Guru, whom they regard as an incarnation. The sacred book 
 of the sect is called Sabda Sant or Guru Granth. ' It contains 
 moral precepts and declares that salvation is to be obtained 
 only by unswerving faith in God, control over the passions, 
 and implicit obedience to the teaching of the Guru.' z The 
 Kablr Panth was originally in the teaching of Kablr himself, 
 and largely is still, a protest against caste exclusiveness, but 
 its adherents now are unwilling to admit members of the 
 lowest castes, such as Mehtars, Doms, and Dhobis. These, 
 they consider, should join such a sect as that of the Siva 
 Narayanis. 4 ' All castes are admitted, but most of the disciples 
 come from the lower grades of society, such as the Tatwa, 
 Camar, and Dosadh castes. . . . The ordinary caste restric- 
 tions are observed ' except in the case of the ascetic members 
 of the sect. 5 
 
 When we review this group of sects, and consider their 
 
 1 Wilson's Essays on the Religion of the Hindus, I, p. 1 79. 
 
 2 E. R. E., s. v. Caran Dasls, III, p. 368'. 
 
 3 Gait, Census Report, 1901, I, p. 185. 
 
 4 Westcott, p. 1 08, note 20. 
 
 5 Gait, Census Report, 1901, I, p. 185.
 
 KABIR AND NANAK 159 
 
 history, we find that in spite of the infusion into them of 
 Muhammadan elements, which seem to make them less vague 
 in their professions of faith, and more virile in adherence to 
 them than were the followers of most of the earlier Vaisnavite 
 cults, there is, nevertheless, the same failure to maintain a 
 high moral and religious standard, the same tendency presently 
 to succumb to temptations that were present in the atmosphere 
 they breathed, and in their own imperfect natures. If they 
 do not fall always into such sensual sins as so often betrayed 
 the adherents of erotic Vaisnavism, they fall into others hardly 
 less gross, such as drunkenness and sloth and indulgence in 
 drugs. One kind of idolatry is discarded only to be replaced 
 presently by the worship of a man or of a book. Caste is 
 denounced, but only soon to make its appearance again within 
 the bounds of the sect or to be replaced by an exclusiveness 
 towards those without that is no less evil.
 
 X 
 
 SIVA BHAKTI 
 
 OF all the deities of the Hindu pantheon, Siva seems the 
 one least likely to attract a theistic devotion. A large portion 
 of the materials that have gone to his making has its source 
 in the darkest fears and superstitions of the savage. The fact 
 that even about this ghoulish god, more devil than deity, who 
 battens upon corpses, and smears himself with ashes from the 
 burning-ground, has gathered a gracious affection that has 
 been able to remould an object so repulsive nearer to its heart's 
 desire, is in itself a remarkable testimony to the strength in the 
 Indian peoples of the theistic instinct. That Visnu and Krisna 
 have attracted to themselves a spiritual worship, and that 
 they have been the means of awakening such a worship in 
 those who gather to their temples, does not seem so surprising. 
 There is comparatively little to repel in them. They were 
 bright gods, gods of light and life and hope, deliverers, if not 
 yet fully moralized, yet capable of moralization. But the 
 human spirit has surely seldom found material harder to sub- 
 due to its purpose of devotion than was Siva. It is one of 
 the most amazing facts in Indian religion a religion full of 
 strangeness that out of the dry ground of Saivism has sprung 
 a root that has borne the blossom of the devotion of the South 
 Indian Saivite saints. Though Theism in India has in the 
 end proved so ineffectual, though adverse influences in soil 
 and spiritual climate have rendered it on the whole an abor- 
 tive growth, yet, with the evidence of its transforming power 
 that these poet saints afford us, we cannot question its depth 
 and its reality within the Indian spirit, nor refuse to hope 
 for it, under more favourable circumstances, results greater 
 and more enduring.
 
 SIVA BHAKTI 161 
 
 There can be no question that Siva is in the main not 
 Aryan but aboriginal. That name is nowhere a proper name 
 in the Rig or the Atharva Veda, but is applied as an epithet, 
 ' the auspicious ' to Rudra, the nearest of kin to him among 
 the Vedic deities. From this god of the storm Siva inherited 
 many characteristics which helped to exalt the malignant 
 demon to something less unworthy of an Aryan's worship. 1 
 The adoption of this euphemistic name is itself an indication 
 of an attempt to civilize a deity always terrible, but not always 
 worthy of reverence. His aboriginal name may have been 
 Bhairava, ' the fearful ', or some similar designation. Siva, as 
 a matter of fact, like most of the Indian gods, is a very com- 
 posite product, but one which more than most is made up of 
 widely diverse, and even irreconcilable elements. It need not, 
 indeed, surprise us greatly to find that pantheistic speculation 
 was able to make use of this deity even more, perhaps, than 
 of Visnu as the symbol of the ultimate Brahman. Moral 
 attributes, or the lack of them, in its god, mattered neither 
 more nor less to a doctrine in which the god was after all 
 only a label and a superfluity. Siva by his very force and 
 fury was fitted, not inaptly, to represent that power in the 
 universe which causelessly destroys and causelessly creates. 
 When the conflict arose in South India between Buddhists 
 and Jains, on the one hand, and the adherents of Siva, on the 
 other, the arguments against the existence of this god that 
 the unbelievers urged were much the same as those which, 
 when we consider the character attributed to him, appear to 
 us to-day so powerful. The Jains and Buddhists represent 
 the claims of the moral sense, and they ask, ' How can this 
 demon be the life of the soul of all?' 2 But these arguments 
 made little impression on the Saivite philosophers. Their 
 doctrine, as we find it in the polemic carried on in the South 
 
 1 With the development of the Rudra-Siva god-idea compare the 
 development of Enlil in Babylonian religion. Jastrow's Religious Belief 
 in Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 68 ff. 
 
 2 Pope's Timvasagani) p. 177. 
 
 M
 
 i6a SIVA BHAKTI 
 
 against those opposing systems, was a philosophy closely 
 approximating to the Advaita Vedanta, and in consequence 
 those objections carried little weight which were based upon the 
 character of a deity that was to them secondary and, indeed, 
 superfluous. After all, Siva was like enough to the wild 
 moods and unmoral activities of nature. It may quite pos- 
 sibly be the case that Sankaracarya belonged, as is alleged, 
 to this sect. To the schools of the philosophers Siva was as 
 good a name for an otiose deity, as good a label for the 
 deceiving world processes as any other. 
 
 It is far more surprising to find the name of Siva, even in 
 the period of the Upanisads, associated with other and more 
 ethical streams of tendency. We have already seen how 
 theistic currents that we discover moving with scanty and 
 uncertain flow through the speculations and intuitions of 
 these books precipitate themselves at last in richer volume 
 into the religion of the Bhagavadglta. There these doctrines 
 gather about the names of Visnu and of Krisna. A similar place 
 to that of the Gttd in Vaisnavism is held in Saivism by the 
 Svetdsvatara Upanisad. In this Upanisad, along with much 
 that, just as in the Gltd, seems irreconcilable with an ethical 
 Theism, there are certain elements which indicate that the 
 influences at work in that direction in Vaisnavism were not 
 absent from the doctrine and the worship of the rival cult. 
 If we find in this Upanisad the names mdyd and mdyin they 
 have not yet their Advaita significance. 1 Always in Saivism, 
 even more than in Vaisnavism, there is implied a sense of the 
 world's unreality in comparison with the reality of spirit, a 
 feeling which is, indeed, universal in Indian thought while at 
 the same time to a still greater degree there is implied a sense 
 of the divine transcendence. Already, indeed, in the Rig Veda, 
 Rudra is the ' great Asura of heaven ', 2 and, as such, he is the 
 ' possessor of occult power ' (mdyd). z In the Svetdsvatara he 
 has definitely assigned to him the rdle, which, in later times, 
 
 1 Svet. Up. IV. 9. 2 R. V. II. I. 6. 
 
 3 Macdonell's Vedic Mythology, p. 156.
 
 SIVA BHAKTI 163 
 
 was generally associated with the name of Siva, of the deity 
 of agnosticism. ' No one has grasped him above or across, or 
 in the middle. There is no image of him whose name is 
 Great Glory.' l This, as well as other things in this Upanisad, 
 reminds us of the attitude of Buddhism. As in the case of 
 Buddhism the state of deliverance, ' when the light has risen ; , 
 is a state alike ' beyond existence and non-existence '. 2 At 
 the same time the theistic note is distinctly struck in the 
 designation of the all-pervading Atman as not only Siva, but 
 Bhagavat, 3 and in the emphasis that is placed, on the one hand, 
 upon his perception by the heart as well as by the mind, 4 and, 
 on the other, upon man's need, if he would perceive him, of 
 the grace of the Creator. 5 But especially significant is the 
 explicit declaration in the final verse of this Upanisad that, 
 in order that the truths there enunciated may ' shine forth 
 indeed ', they must be told ' to a high-minded man who feels 
 the highest devotion (bhakti) for God and for his guru as for 
 God '. 6 Here for the first time in connexion with Saivism the 
 claims of bhakti and implicitly the claims of theistic religion 
 are authoritatively affirmed. However indistinguishable in 
 its phraseology the teaching of this Upanisad may seem at 
 times to be from that of those that present a pure Advaita 
 doctrine, this affirmation definitely demonstrates that its face 
 is turned to another direction. We may not have here the 
 fully articulated bhakti of the later theologians, but we have 
 enough to indicate that the supreme spirit is for it a personal 
 Being who wins the worship of the heart. 7 This Upanisad, it 
 is true, like the Gltd, speaks with a double tongue, and its 
 philosophy is really at variance with its religion ; but, with 
 whatever inconsistency, the glow of the heart which it demands 
 of the disciple, and which it prescribes as necessary for his 
 attainment of immortality, proclaims it as a theistic scripture. 
 In the Mahdbhdrata there is little to indicate the place 
 
 1 Svet. Up. IV. 19. 2 Ibid., IV. 18. 3 Ibid., III. n. 
 
 4 Ibid., III. 13 ; IV. 20. 5 Ibid., III. 20. fi Ibid., VI. 23. 
 
 7 S. . E. XV, p. xxxiv. 
 
 M 2
 
 1 64 SIVA BHAKTI 
 
 that Siva was to obtain in the worship of South Indian saints 
 of a later day. We find his name extolled by the sectary in 
 opposition to that of Visnu ; we find him claimed as the 
 manifestation of the All-god, in echo of a like claim made by 
 the adherents of the rival deity. But there is little that is of 
 religious value or interest in such conflicts of the sects. These 
 things are the doings of the priest or of the philosopher, and 
 may have little enough of faith behind them. Two passages 
 of the Epic may, however, be referred to as indicating the 
 character of Siva-worship in its more inward aspect, apart 
 from its more philosophic doctrines on the one hand, and its 
 orgiastic ritual on the other. In one passage Siva, in agree- 
 ment with the view suggested already in the Svetdsvatara^ 
 and referred to above, is described as the inconceivable one, 
 who is ' beyond the comprehension of all gods '. l The fact 
 that this agnostic attitude has persisted down to modern times 
 among the worshippers of Siva is indicated by the existence 
 of those Saivite sects that are called Alakhnamis or Alakhgirs, 
 as those who ' call upon the name of the Unseeable '. 2 Such 
 a conception would at once help to exalt the god, and at the 
 same time would hinder the development of his worship into 
 a truly ethical Theism. It would be easier to associate so 
 vague a deity with the Advaita doctrine, as indeed Siva 
 frequently was associated, than with a worship which requires 
 love and obedience. To love God and to trust Him it is 
 necessary that one in some measure at least should know 
 Him. Further on, in the same passage of the Mahabharata, 
 which designates Siva as the Unknowable his ' form ' is said 
 to be the linga? Perhaps the adoption of this symbol, which 
 may be much more ancient than this passage, for a god of 
 whom ' there is no image ' 4 may have been due to an attempt 
 to express the inexpressible. Repulsive as the phallic emblem 
 may appear to us, and as it no doubt was in its religious 
 
 1 Mbh. VII. 202: 79, 71. 
 
 2 See E. R. E. I, p. 276, s. v. Alakhnamis. , 
 
 3 Mbh. VII. 202 : 94, 97. 4 Svet. Up. IV. 19.
 
 SIVA BHAKTI 165 
 
 origin, it is possible that we have it here made use of as the 
 medium of a protest which we see later repeating itself in 
 the case of the Lingayats against idolatry. 1 But the half 
 may prove the enemy of the whole. The symbol was unworthy 
 enough at best, and was too easily adopted as a mere fetish 
 by the ignorant. 
 
 But it was in South India that Saivism entered most fully 
 into its own, and it is there that it has disclosed itself at its 
 best, and also, perhaps, at its worst. That this should be the 
 case is not surprising, if Saivism is the most largely aboriginal 
 of the Indian cults, since a larger aboriginal element has 
 survived in the South than in any other part of India. The 
 old Dravidian worship, which was probably for the most part 
 offered to demonic powers, was never here completely over- 
 thrown. The Aryan victor was, indeed, ultimately vanquished 
 and his bright gods driven from the field by those old deities 
 or demons of the underworld. When Brahmanic influences 
 began to make themselves felt in this part of India it was 
 with the name of Rudra-Siva that this demonolatry could 
 most easily be assimilated. If the conjecture that the Heracles 
 of Megasthenes was, not Krisna, as has been generally supposed, 
 but Siva, be well-founded, then it would appear that already 
 in the fourth century B.C. this religion was established through- 
 out South India. It is possible that we have in the same 
 connexion an indication that the Pandyan dynasty was origin- 
 ally Saivite, as certainly the Chola dynasty was at a later 
 date. In the third century B.C. Buddhism was also intro- 
 duced by Buddhist missionaries, while Jainism appears early 
 in the Christian era already widely spread throughout the 
 South, and later numbered the Pandya kings among its 
 adherents. By the seventh century A.D., when Hiuen Tsang 
 travelled in India, Buddhism was rapidly disappearing, while 
 Saivism, and especially Jainism, were the popular faiths in 
 
 1 Compare the worship of Ashur in Assyrian religion under the form of 
 a winged disk and the advance that this implied towards a more spiritual 
 religion. Jastrow's Religious Belief in Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 51, 52.
 
 i66 SIVA BHAKTI 
 
 this region. In the struggle for predominance between these 
 rivals, which continued for several centuries, the victory rested 
 with Saivism. It was, in fact, a conflict between the religious 
 and the non-religious spirit, and, however able and erudite the 
 Jain champions might be, the strength of religion in the Hindu 
 heart was too great for them. Whether ft was Vaisnavism, 
 now also established among the South Indian cults, or Saivism 
 that championed the cause of faith, the worldly wisdom of the 
 Jain was sure to be ultimately worsted. This was made the 
 more certain in the case of Saivism by two reinforcements 
 that came to it, and strengthened it in different and comple- 
 mentary ways. These were, on the one hand, the formulation 
 of its doctrines in the system of the Saiva Siddhanta, and, on 
 the other, a great revival of devotion within its borders due to 
 a remarkable group of saints and apostles. 
 
 At times of controversy, especially, it is a great strength to 
 any faith to have the support of an articulated system. It is 
 then able, in opposition to its rivals, to appeal to reason. A 
 philosophy or a formulated theology brings along with it to 
 any religion an immense enhancement of prestige. Its emer- 
 gence generally implies besides that the cult in question, which 
 may have begun as a movement in the hearts of the common 
 people, perhaps as an effort of revolt from the established 
 Church, has now won a place among the more cautious and 
 the more reflective. Saivism, indeed, as the existence of the 
 Svetdsvatara reminds us, had long ago found an entrance 
 among the thinkers. But that was in more northern regions. 
 In South India it had to begin anew from the beginning 
 purifying itself as best it might from gross superstition, building 
 itself up to better things upon the foundation of a sincere 
 devotion. When it was able to appropriate to itself a doctrinal 
 system it obtained it, in the opinion of some scholars, from 
 Saivite thinkers whose home was in the far north of India. 
 Just as, later, Ramananda was to bear from the South a torch 
 of devotion that was to spread its heat and light far and wide 
 throughout the North, so it may be that at this earlier period
 
 SIVA BHAKTI 167 
 
 by a gift from the north to the south this debt was by antici- 
 pation repaid. It was a different gift one of the intellect, 
 whereas the other was of the heart but its effect was similar, 
 for it helped to secure for theistic religion the victory in the 
 struggle with Jainism. 
 
 If this view is well founded it was from Kashmir that South 
 Indian Theism received this reinforcement. The links in 
 the connexion of the Saivite theology of that far northern 
 province with the religion that was struggling for its life in the 
 south it is impossible now to discover. The founder of the 
 Kashmir school of Saivism, which, in all probability, owed 
 much to the Svetdsvatara, is said to have been Vasugupta. 
 Between the ninth and the eleventh centuries of the Christian 
 era various teachers of Saivite doctrine arose, representing, no 
 doubt, different shades of approximation to the orthodox 
 Advaita. Of these one of the most famous is Abhinavagupta, 
 who flourished at the end of the tenth and the beginning of 
 the eleventh centuries, and whose teaching is said to be ' in all 
 essentials identical with the orthodox Siddhantam of the 
 Dravidian South '- 1 In the opinion of Dr. L. D. Barnett 
 those theological ideas of the north ' following the natural 
 geographical route, filtered down southwards ' till they reached 
 Kanara where, thus reinforced, the old Saivite religion rose in 
 revolt against the dominant Jainism, and in the middle of the 
 twelfth century brought its supremacy to an end. This is 
 supposed to have taken place in the time of Basava, minister 
 about 1160-70 to the Kalachuri king, Bijjala of Kalyanpura. 
 The effect of this revolt was the establishment in Kanara of 
 the Lirigayat faith, but the influence of the Kashmir doctrine 
 did not end here. The new energy that it awakened in 
 Saivism in Kanara spread still further south, and produced 
 in the Tamil country that Saiva Siddhanta, which is claimed 
 by Dr. Pope, even as Vaisnavism is claimed by other 
 students, ' as the most elaborate, influential, and undoubtedly 
 
 1 L. D. Barnett in Le Museon, X, p. 272.
 
 168 SIVA BHAKTI 
 
 the most intrinsically valuable of all the religions of 
 India.' : 
 
 We need not suppose, even if this very doubtful debt 
 were proved, that this religious philosophy was altogether 
 borrowed from those northern theologians. There are said to 
 have been twenty-eight Agamas, which contained the principles 
 of Saivism ; 2 and, if this tradition is at all reliable, the inference 
 is that, however the Saiva Siddhanta may have been reinforced 
 from the north, it had already arisen independently in the 
 south, and had for some generations been engaging the minds 
 of Dravidian thinkers. Of these Agamas, which are said by 
 Manikka-vasagar, who lived in the tenth or eleventh century, 
 to have been caused to appear by the grace of Siva, little or 
 nothing is known. The systematic account of the Saiva 
 Siddhanta, which Meykander gives in his Siva-n ana-bod ham? 
 composed about the beginning of the thirteenth century, is, 
 however, a paraphrase of ' a dozen Sanskrit stanzas alleged to 
 form part of the Rauragama't From these documents, as 
 well as from the works of Arunandi and Umapati, who belong 
 to the fourteenth century, and from the commentary on the 
 Brahma Sutras, by Srikantha, who is said to have been. Sri 
 Sankaracarya's 'senior and contemporary', 5 we can judge of 
 the theistic character of this doctrine, and how far it was able 
 to free itself from the Advaita influences so strong in the 
 north. 
 
 Whether in Kashmir, or in the Tamil south, the Saiva 
 system centres round a trinity of names, Pati, the Lord, /.?#, 
 the flock, and pdsa, the bond. These names carry us back to 
 the ancient sources of the religion, reminding us that Rudra 
 in the Vedic Hymns is pasupati, and reminding us also of 
 
 1 Pope's Tiruv&sagam % p. Ixxiv. 
 
 2 We need not, however, accept the tradition that the total number of 
 verses in them was 20, ico, oio, 193, 884, ooo, as Nija-guna-siva-yogin 
 is said to,allege. The Search after God (Brahma Mtmdmsa), p. 10. 
 
 3 Or Siva-jndna-bodha, 
 
 4 L. D. Barnett in Le Museon, X, p. 272. 
 
 5 The Search after God (Brahma Mimdmsd), p. 24. This is a translation 
 of part of a commentary on Nilkantha's Bhasya on the Veddnta Sutras.
 
 SIVA BHAKTI 169 
 
 what is of better promise for an ethical Theism, that in the 
 same poems Varuna, as the moral Governor, is said to lay 
 fetters (pasa) upon the sinner. Siva is the Lord, 'exalted 
 above the Abyss ' that is, above all that partakes of mdyd 
 and yet ' abiding in all that moves and all that moves not '- 1 
 ' That souls may reach his state, his Sakti gathers them in. 
 Our Lord is, nevertheless, one and indivisible.' 2 The Supreme 
 Divinity manifests himself and operates in the universe 
 through his energy, which is to Siva as light is to the sun. 
 Thus, as so often in other systems, it is sought by a doctrine 
 of emanation to bridge the gulf between the infinite and the 
 finite. The ' flock ' consists of innumerable souls, who are 
 under the bondage of a three-fold fetter anavam or darkness, 
 maya, which to the southern Saivite, at least, is generally not 
 illusion but matter, ' the material of all embodiment ', 3 and 
 karma. ' As an earthen vessel has the potter as its first 
 cause, the clay as its material cause, and as its instrumental 
 cause the potter's staff and wheel, so the universe has maya 
 for its material cause, the sakti of Siva for its instrumental 
 cause, and the Lord Siva himself as its first cause.' 4 This 
 Siva is the ' sole Redeemer of souls '/' According to the 
 teaching of Abhinavagupta there are three classes of those 
 who have obtained deliverance, the para muktas, who are 
 ' assimilated to the supreme Siva ', the apara muktas, united 
 to him in his manifested phase, and ihejlvan muktas, who are 
 still in the body. 6 ' Redemption (moksa) ', says this teacher, 
 ' is the revelation of the powers of Self when the bond of 
 ignorance is burst.' ' There is nothing distinct from the 
 redeemed to which he should offer praise or oblation.' ' He 
 worships with the pure substance of reflection on the Self the 
 blessed deity who is the supreme reality.' 7 In its formulation 
 in the South more emphasis seems to have been laid upon the 
 
 1 Abhinavagupta's Paramarthasara, translated by L. D. Barnett in 
 /. R.A.S., July 1910. 
 
 2 Umapati in Pope's Tiruvasagam, p. Ixxvii. 
 
 3 Pope's Ndladiyar, chap. xi. 4 Pope's Tintvasagam, p. Ixvi. 
 5 The Search after God (Brahma Afimamsa), p. 4. 
 
 a Le Mustfon, X, p. 276. ' /. R. A. S., July 1910.
 
 170 SIVA BHAKTI 
 
 fact that in the state of emancipation there is ' conscious, full 
 enjoyment of Siva's presence ' l than in the northern doctrine. 
 1 In supreme felicity ', says Umapati, ' thou shalt be one with 
 the Lord.' But, he goes on, ' the soul is not merged in the 
 Supreme, for if they become one, both disappear ; if they 
 remain two there is no fruition ; therefore there is union and 
 non-union.' 2 
 
 The difference between the doctrine of the Kashmir thinkers 
 and that of the Saivite philosophers of the south seems to be 
 similar to that which we find to separate the colder thought 
 of the Upanisads from later theistic speculation. This differ- 
 ence is due in both cases, no doubt, to the atmosphere in 
 which the philosophy took shape. In the midst of the fervour 
 of devotion of the southern saints the speculations of the 
 thinkers found a new warmth and colour. More emphasis 
 was laid on the personality of the Supreme Deity and on the 
 conscious bliss of those who attain to deliverance. This is 
 especially seen in the large place that is given in the southern 
 religion, and in its theology to the thought of the grace of 
 Siva. ' In the Siddhanta', says Dr. Pope, ' very great stress 
 is laid upon the idea that all embodiment, while it is painful 
 and to be got rid of as soon as possible, is yet a gracious 
 appointment of Siva, wrought out through sakti for the salva- 
 tion of the human soul, through the destruction of deeds, 
 which are the root of all evil to mankind.' 3 In this system, 
 as, we have seen, he is elsewhere also, Siva is the Unknowable, 
 ' whom the heavenly ones see not '. 4 But he manifests himself 
 in his gracious, emancipating sakti. Only by the grace of the 
 great Guru does the soul see and seeing, ' hide itself in the 
 mystic light of wisdom '. ' The fainting soul will resort to 
 the shadow of Grace of its own accord.' 5 ' To those who 
 draw not nigh, he gives no boon ; to those who draw nigh, all 
 good ; the great Sankara knows no dislike.' G This doctrine 
 
 1 Pope's Tiruvasagam, p. xliv. 2 Op. cit., p. Ivii. 
 
 3 Op. cit., p. 254. 4 Umapati in op. cit., p. Ixxix. 
 
 5 Op. cit., liii. 6 Op. cit., p. Ixxix.
 
 SIVA BHAKTI 171 
 
 of grace supplies the chief incentive to devotion in this system, 
 and corresponding to it is the response of bhakti on the part 
 of the worshipping soul. We have seen that in the Svetd- 
 svatara Upanisad the attitude of bhakti is prescribed as neces- 
 sary to a right understanding of its teaching, and still more is 
 this recognized as necessary in this later system. ' The soul 
 gives sight to the eyes ; he who gives sight to the soul is Siva ; 
 therefore one should worship in supreme love him who does 
 kindness to the soul.' l 
 
 But the doctrine of the Saiva Siddhanta alone could hardly 
 have obtained for southern Saivism so complete a victory over 
 Buddhism and Jainism. Alongside of this intellectual reinforce- 
 ment there sprang up about this time a remarkable spirit of 
 devotion which, through the great saints and poets of this 
 period, gave to Saivisrn, one cannot doubt, more than anything 
 else did, the strength by which it prevailed over its cold and 
 sterile rivals. ' No cult in the world ', says Dr. Barnett, ' has 
 produced a richer devotional literature or one more instinct 
 with brilliance of imagination, fervour of feeling, and grace of 
 expression.' 2 The exact period of this efflorescence of the 
 South Indian religious spirit is extremely doubtful. It cannot 
 be determined within more definite limits than the seventh to 
 the eleventh centuries. This was a time, not only of Saivite, 
 but of Vaisnavite revival. The sixty-three Saiva saints of 
 tradition had as contemporaries, it is probable, some of the 
 Vaisnavite Alvars, and that, apparently, without any keen 
 antagonism being aroused between them. That antagonism 
 came later when their common enemy, the Jain, had been 
 overcome. The greatest of the poet-saints who have exercised 
 so enduring an influence upon this South Indian faith is 
 Manikka-vasagar, whose Tiruvasagam or ' Sacred Utterances ' 
 is full of the most intense religious feeling. Here we have 
 the doctrines of the Saiva Siddhanta fused into passionate 
 experience in the heart of a worshipper of Siva. Their author 
 
 1 Meykandar in Barnett's Heart of India, p. 80. 
 
 2 Heart of India, p. 82.
 
 172 SIVA BHAKTI 
 
 is said to have been prime minister to a Pandyan king, and 
 probably flourished in the tenth or eleventh century of the 
 Christian era, though Dr. Pope seems sometimes inclined to 
 place him as early as the seventh or eighth century. He 
 went, the story goes, like Saul, to seek, not his father's asses, 
 but horses for the king, but, like Saul, he found instead a 
 kingdom, though in his case a kingdom of the spirit. Siva 
 himself, surrounded by a great company of his saints, revealed 
 himself to him in the form of a venerable guru, and his 
 errand was forgotten, and the world renounced. ' He has 
 gone from the Council, and put on the shroud,' and he journeys 
 in pilgrimage from town to town, worshipping at every shrine, 
 and composing songs in celebration of the various seats of 
 Siva worship and their god. ' The success of Manikka-vasagar 
 in reviving Saivism,' says Dr. Pope, 1 'which seems to have 
 been then almost extinct, was immediate, and we may say 
 permanent. . . . From his time dates the foundation of that 
 vast multitude of Saiva shrines which constitute a peculiar 
 feature of the Tamil country.' 
 
 In the legend of Manikka-vasagar' s conversion, the divine 
 Guru, it is said, held in his hand a book which proves to be 
 the Siva-ndna-bddham of Meykandar. As a matter of fact, 
 this manual of the Saiva Siddhanta did not come into existence 
 for at least two centuries after the time of the Saivite saint 
 and poet. The period of inspiration precedes the period of 
 reflection ; the experience of the saint furnishes the material 
 for the doctrinal system of the theologian. Already in his 
 poems we find expressed in the language of the heart those 
 views of the relation of the soul to God and to the world that 
 the schoolmen formulated later into a religious philosophy. 
 For Manikka-vasagar, as for so many saints, the central point 
 in his religious life to which he continually returns for a 
 renewal of his inspiration is his conversion. It is a continually 
 recurring theme for praise throughout his hymns, a constantly 
 recurring source of encouragement when he falls into despair. 
 
 1 Pope's Tiruvasagam, p. xxxiii.
 
 SIVA BHAKTI 173 
 
 Throughout his poems there is such an accent of humility and 
 adoration, such a sense of his unworthiness and of the divine 
 grace, as seems to bring him very near indeed to the spirit of 
 the Christian saints. No doubt there are, at the same time, 
 deep differences, which the common ardour of expression 
 hides. How far the sense of his unworthiness springs solely 
 from a moral root, how far the greatness of his god is a purely 
 moral supremacy, how far the sense of the divine presence is 
 spiritual or largely sensuous these questions need not here 
 be considered, nor can their answers, whatever they may be, 
 detract greatly from the deep affinity of saints, apparently so 
 alien from each other in many respects. Again and again we 
 find Manikka-vasagar giving utterance to such experiences as 
 are common to all devout souls who have sought God sincerely 
 and have in some measure found Him. 
 
 ' These gods are gods indeed,' ' These others are the gods,' men 
 
 wrangling say ; and thus 
 False gods they talk about and rant and rave upon this earthly 
 
 stage. And I 
 No piety could boast : that earthly bonds might cease to cling, to 
 
 him I clung. 
 To him, the god of all true gods, go thou, and breathe his praise, 
 
 O humming-bee. 1 
 
 Dr. Pope, in his translation of the Tiruvasagam, by the 
 headings he places to paragraphs of the poem indicates how 
 close he finds the affinity to be between these utterances of 
 a sincere devotion, and those of the Christian religious experi- 
 ence. ' Longing for grace alone ', ' Without thy presence I 
 pine ', ' Deadness of soul ', ' God all in all ', ' I am thine, save 
 me ', ' His love demands my all ' these are a few taken at 
 random, and they are sufficient by themselves to indicate that 
 with all the strange mythology that weaves its fantastic forms 
 across the poems, and that perplexes and repels a Western 
 reader, we have here the essential note of a deeply devout 
 and a truly ethical Theism. 
 
 1 Pope's Tiruvasagam, pp. 143, 144.
 
 174 SIVA BHAKTI 
 
 We have seen that a note of Saivism has always been the 
 unknowableness of God. The Vaisnavite followers of the 
 bhakti mdrga often affirm this no less strongly, but like Tulsi 
 Das they argue that, just because God is beyond the reach of 
 thought and act and speech, the one way of salvation for men 
 is in the worship of such an incarnation of the Supreme Deity 
 as Rama. Similarly, though Saivism has had no place for 
 such incarnations as we find within the rival system, Manikka- 
 vasagar is never weary of claiming that Siva has come near 
 to him in his grace as the guru and revealed himself. 
 
 Mai (Visnu), Ayan, all the gods and sciences divine 
 
 His essence cannot pierce. This Being rare drew near to me ; 
 
 In love he thrilled my soul. J 
 
 Again, 
 
 The ' Mount ' (Siva) that Mai knew not and Ayan saw not we can 
 know. 2 
 
 There is no limit to the ecstasy with which he describes the 
 effect of this revelation of grace. 
 
 Sire, as in union strict, thou mad'st me thine ; on me didst look, 
 
 didst draw me near ; 
 And when it seemed I ne'er could be with thee made one when 
 
 naught of thine was mine^ 
 
 And naught of mine was thine me to thy feet thy love 
 In mystic union joined, Lord of the heavenly land. 'Tis height of 
 
 blessedness. 8 
 
 It is hardly necessary to multiply illustrations of the fervent 
 spirit of this worshipper of Siva. It is a constant marvel to 
 note how the heat of his devotion is able to transmute to its 
 purposes of adoration even the repellent aspects of the god. 
 His descriptions of him seem at times to touch the very brink 
 of all we hate. This is he who ' wears the chaplet of skulls ' ; 
 he is the ' maniac ' ; 
 
 A dancing snake his jewel, tiger-skin his robe, 
 A form with ashes smeared he wears. 4 
 
 A favourite epithet is * the black-throated one '. But this 
 
 1 Pope's Tirtw&sagam. p. 157. 2 Op. cit., p. 106. 
 
 3 Op. cit., p. 72. 4 Op. cit., p. 195.
 
 SIVA BHAKTI 175 
 
 epithet, as a matter of fact, strange as it seems to us, is what 
 especially suggests to his devotee the grace of Siva, and it 
 constantly recurs in his poems as a motive to praise and 
 worship. What to the Vaisnavite are the ' three steps ' of 
 Visnu, that to the Saivite is the story of how this god drank 
 the hdlahdla poison and so made his throat for ever black. 
 In both cases the story has been laid hold of by the instinct 
 of the devout heart as a symbol of the divine grace that saves. 
 In order that he might deliver the gods, when a stream of 
 black and deadly poison flowed forth at the churning of the 
 Sea of Milk, Siva of his own will drank it up and gave to them 
 instead the ambrosia that followed. Thus the Saivite worships 
 with gratitude and adoration a god who has suffered for others, 
 and the black throat is for him a constant reminder of his 
 grace. 
 
 Thou mad'st me thine ; didst fiery poison eat, pitying poor souls, 
 That I might thine ambrosia taste. I, meanest one. 1 
 
 By the help of such a thought as that the South Indian 
 worshipper has been able to transform the strange appearance 
 of this pre-Aryan divinity, so demoniacal in many of his 
 aspects, into a gracious being whom his heart can love. It is 
 at least a testimony to the amazing power of the religious 
 passion surging up within these southern saints, a passion im- 
 possible to content with less in God than the grace that 
 condescends and suffers, with less than a love correspondent to 
 the love that moves itself. When ' the Brahman ' represented 
 to this seeker that ' the way of penance is supreme ', or when 
 the ' haughty Vedant creed unreal came ', he turned away 
 unsatisfied. Then, he says, * Lest I should go astray he laid 
 his hand on me'. 2 This testimony to a real spiritual ex- 
 perience, a real movement of the divine love to meet the 
 human, is expressed again and again throughout these lyrics 
 with a manifest sincerity. The Maw of trusting love' 3 finds 
 its fulfilment and 'his love that fails not day by day still 
 
 1 Pope's Tiruvasagam, p. 195. 2 Op. cit., p. 34. 
 
 3 Op. cit., p. 33.
 
 176 SIVA BHAKTI 
 
 burgeons forth'. 1 Certainly these poems, with all that is 
 strange and repellent in the symbols that are employed in 
 them to represent the deity, seem to echo a theistic experience 
 as genuine as it is intense. 
 
 The victory of Saivism over both Buddhism and Jainism 
 is thus mainly to be attributed to two converging lines of 
 reinforcement, one intellectual, coming, perhaps, ultimately 
 from the Kashmir Saivite philosophers, the other indigenous, 
 issuing from the sense of their own religious needs. Another 
 influence in the same direction which the Saivite shared with 
 the Vaisnavite is that of the Bhagavadglta. ' The influence of 
 the Glta ', says Dr. Pope, ' upon South India as a doctrinal 
 manual and as a great and inspiring poem has been and is in- 
 calculably great.' 2 He finds traces of this influence in every 
 part of Manikka-vasagar's poems. We even find in one of the 
 philosophical books of Saivism a quotation from the Gltd so 
 linked on to one from a Saivite scripture that the teaching of 
 the former as to the Paramatman Vaisnavite as it in reality 
 is is directly associated with the name of Siva. 3 Thus the 
 Gitd, even in this alien environment, vindicates itself as the 
 greatest and most influential of all Indian theistic scriptures. 
 
 Manikka-vasagar was an orthodox Saivite and represents 
 at its highest the Saivite bhakti of Southern India. There 
 were others, however, who, outside the dominant Church, 
 cherished and proclaimed an inward and monotheistic faith. 
 In the Siva-vakyam, a collection of ' Siva speeches ' by various 
 poets, there are some remarkable expressions of such a religious 
 experience. In one of these the poet turns away from idols 
 and from temples to another shrine, ' the mind within his 
 breast '. ' And thus,' he says, ' where'er I go, I ever worship 
 God.' 4 Another example may be quoted of this devotion 
 that revolts from ritual tradition and orthodoxy and finds its 
 way by its own fervour to the feet of God. 
 
 1 Pope's Tiru-v&sagam, p. 35. 2 Op. cit., p. Ixvi, note, 
 
 3 Appaya's commentary in The Search after God, pp. 49, 50.] 
 
 4 L. D. Barnett's Heart of India, p. 92.
 
 SIVA BHAKTI 177 
 
 When thou didst make me thou didst know my all: 
 But I knew not of thee. 'Twas not till light 
 , From thee brought understanding of thy ways 
 That I could know. But now where'er I sit, 
 Or walk, or stand, thou art for ever near. 
 Can I forget thee? Thou art mine, and I 
 Am only thine. E'en with these eyes I see, 
 And with my heart perceive, that thou art come 
 To me as lightning from the lowering sky. 
 If thy poor heart but choose the better part, 
 And in this path doth worship only God, 
 His heart will stoop to thine, will take it up 
 And make it his. One heart shall serve for both. 1 
 
 As one reads these stanzas, as has been remarked by Dr. Barnett, 
 ' one is tempted to wonder whether " Siva-vakyar " was not 
 a worshipper at the local Christian church '. 
 
 Along with these more spiritual movements there occurred 
 in the northern district of Kanara a religious revolt, less pure 
 probably in the motives that inspired it, certainly less worthy 
 in its results. Mention has already been made of Basava, 
 minister of King Bijjala of Kalyana, who was the leader in 
 a Saivite revival which did much to overthrow the power of 
 Jainism, hitherto dominant in that region. He flourished in 
 the latter part of the twelfth century. Associated with him in 
 this religious reformation there seems to have been another 
 Brahman called Ramayya who, in an inscription dated about 
 laoo, is called ' Ekantada Ramayya', 'because he was an 
 ardent and devoted worshipper of Siva '. 2 ' Basava was the 
 Luther, Ramayya the Erasmus' of the new cult. It is not 
 easy to form any certain estimate of the religious character of 
 this Vira Saivite or Lingayat movement, as it was called. 
 It was, no doubt, in its inception something worthier than it 
 appears to-day. Its followers now form only another among 
 the many Hindu castes, with little to distinguish them from 
 the rest except their strong opposition to Brahman privilege. 
 
 1 Barnett's Heart of India, p. 92. 
 
 2 Thurston and Rangachari's Castes and Tribes of South India, s. v. 
 Lingayet. 
 
 N
 
 178 SIVA BHAKTI 
 
 They also permit widow-remarriage and are opposed to child- 
 marriage. Lingayats acknowledge Siva alone and place upon 
 the linga, his symbol, a faith that in the case of the most of 
 the modern adherents of the sect leaves little room for 
 spiritual worship. One can see, however, in their rejection 
 of the efficacy of sacrifices, penances, pilgrimages, and fasts, 
 indications that in its origin this may have been a movement 
 towards a purer and more inward faith. If it is the case that 
 the Vira Saivites were a 'peaceful race of Hindu Puritans', 
 they probably in the spirituality of their worship and its 
 ethical character represented to begin with at least a theistic 
 religion, such as was the Siva bhakti of the further south, but 
 less emotional and devout. It was as such, no doubt, that 
 this sect contended with and overcame the dominant Jainism. 
 At the same time it was the more likely to become corrupt 
 and to fall to the common level of Hindu formalism and 
 superstition because of its lack of the fervour of bhakti which 
 gave such warmth and energy to the faith of Manikka-vasagar. 
 To the Lingayat salvation seems to have' meant absorption 
 into, or attainment of an impersonal union with, the deity. 
 In this respect this movement seems to have been even from 
 the beginning non-theistic, and a theist may discover in that 
 fact the secret of its religious barrenness in contrast with the 
 Saivism of the Tamil land, as well as the explanation of the 
 rapidity and completeness with which it appears to have fallen 
 into decay. 
 
 In this sect and to a less extent in the religion of the 
 Saivite saints of the Tamil land we find those spiritual and 
 ethical instincts which are generally associated with Theism 
 engaged in a conflict with anti-theistic influences everywhere 
 powerful in India and always in the end victorious. Of these 
 one is that tendency to formalism and superstition, which 
 everywhere, as soon as the first fervour of a movement of 
 religious revival has begun to fail, bears down to earth again 
 the human spirit, and which seems to press upon the religious 
 life of India especially with a weight heavy as frost and deep,
 
 SIVA BHAKTI 179 
 
 we may say, even as death. Another antagonist is the 
 influence, peculiar to India, of a philosophy invincibly hostile 
 to personal religion and to moral ardour, and extraordinarily 
 tenacious of its grasp upon the Indian spirit. It is evident 
 that the Lingayat reform movement made little headway 
 against these adverse forces and soon succumbed to them. 
 The tides of Vedantism and of superstition soon reduced this 
 region too to the normal level of Indian religious life, and only 
 a point of rock projecting here and there above the waste 
 of waters its spirit of antagonism to Brahman claims, for 
 example remains to mark the place where once there was 
 a real insurgence of the conscience and the heart. Its work 
 was done when it helped in the overthrow of Buddhism and of 
 Jainism. The devotion of the Tamil saints has had a more 
 abiding influence, for the reason that its roots went deeper 
 into the heart, and that, as a result, it found expression in 
 poetry which continues to bear its witness to later generations 
 and to find a response in other hearts. But here too the 
 subtle Vedanta doctrine in the end prevails. The fervour of 
 devotion is able for an ardent moment to preserve the equili- 
 brium of being and non-being in mukti, of absorption and bliss. 
 It can rejoice in ' the way which is neither single nor two-fold '} 
 But when the emotion passes, the logic of the understanding 
 makes its claims. Then, as regards its goal at least, the 
 doctrine of the Saiva Siddhanta becomes indistinguishable 
 from that of the Vedanta. The grace of Siva remains and 
 the Great Lord is still a personal deity, but the individual self 
 attains deliverance by being absorbed into the Supreme and 
 Selfless One. ' Where the soul stood before, Siva stands there 
 in all his glory, the soul's individuality being destroyed.' 2 
 Thus here as everywhere in India the 'haughty Vedant 
 creed ' 3 seems in the end to triumph and the Theism that was 
 once so ardent pales to an ineffectual spectre. 
 
 1 Si-van Seyal, translated by Clayton in Madras Christian College 
 Magazine, vol. xvii, p. 308. 
 
 2 Tirummthiar (Commentary) in Siddhanta Deepika, vol. VIII, p. 190. 
 
 3 Pope's Tiruvasagaw, p. 33. 
 
 N a
 
 XI 
 
 THE SAKTA SECT 
 
 WE have already seen that in the most erotic types of 
 Vaisnavism the relation of the worshipper to the god is 
 represented as that of a mistress to her lover. The wor- 
 shippers are to be Radhas to the sole male Krisna. Similar in 
 its use of the sexual emotions for religious ends is the Sakti 
 worship which may be described as a parallel morbid growth 
 on the side of Saivism to the mddhurya of erotic Vaisnavism. 
 The intrusion of such emotions within the sphere of religion is 
 no uncommon phenomenon, but nowhere, perhaps, has it been 
 carried to such an extreme or systematized with such elabora- 
 tion as in India and in the literature of the Tantras. 
 
 The worship of the earth as a mother, and the grouping 
 into pairs of gods viewed specially in the aspect of Creators, 
 or the combination within the person of one such deity of the 
 functions of both the sexes, are religious phenomena that 
 were, no doubt, very widely spread in early times and that 
 suggest themselves naturally enough to primitive thought. 
 The combination Dyavaprithivi, for example, is one which can 
 be paralleled in many religious contexts besides that of India. 
 It is of interest to note that in a Brahmana of the Yajur Veda 
 Prajapati is androgynous, 1 while a dual form of Siva and his 
 consort called Ardhanarlsvara 2 belongs to the same circle of 
 ideas. Such sexual dualisms, however, and the view of things 
 which suggests them, do not appear to have been prominent in 
 the more aristocratic Aryan tradition. No more than the Olym- 
 pian deities of Greece do the Vedic sky gods seem to suggest 
 
 1 Earth, R. /., p. 200. 
 
 2 D. C. Sen, p. 231. Cf. Earth, R. /., p. 200, note.
 
 THE SAKTA SECT 181 
 
 to their worshippers the grosser aspects of these relationships. 
 As in the case of Greece, so also here, we must suppose the 
 invasion of that lordlier culture by aboriginal races ' with their 
 polygamy and polyandry, their agricultural rites, their sex 
 emblems and fertility goddesses V When we turn from the 
 Vedic gods to such a deity as the wife of Siva, presenting 
 herself in many forms and under many names, it scarcely 
 needs the testimony of the Harivamsa to assure us that she 
 was really a deity worshipped by the savage tribes of ' Sabaras, 
 Barbaras, and Pulindas'. 2 To such peoples the simplicities 
 of life, birth especially and death, bulk larger and press more 
 urgently upon them than more complex problems, and the 
 god who is greatest in their eyes is he or she who represents 
 and controls these very real facts. Such a deity or such a 
 group of deities is represented under the various aspects and 
 titles which have been combined in India into one goddess 
 who is par excellence MahadevI, the great goddess. Reflection 
 when it first arises and expresses itself under the forms of the 
 imagination is able to adopt such a deity and make use in 
 that context of the mythological conception that the original 
 creative principle is female. At the same time the fact that 
 the earth is not only the ' common mother ', 
 
 Whose womb immeasurable and infinite breast 
 Teems and feeds all, 
 
 but also the receiver of the bodies of the dead, made possible 
 the union in her person of many aspects both of graciousness 
 and of terror. There can be little doubt that Devi or Durga 
 is a combination of many deities, as her husband probably is 
 also. The many non-Sanskrit names which she bears such 
 as, for example, Vasuli and ThakuranI indicate some of the 
 'earth mothers' whose worship she has absorbed. She 
 represents undoubtedly a syncretistic combination of various 
 aspects of the secret of life and of reproduction. The worship 
 of the male and female powers in a joint sovereignty usually 
 
 1 Murray's Four Stages of Greek Religion, p. 78. 
 
 2 E.R.E., V, p. 1 18, article Durga,
 
 1 82 THE SAKTA SECT 
 
 gives place presently to a recognition of the female principle 
 as the more ultimate. Just as this deity is the ' mother ', 
 Ambika, so she is Kumar!, the maiden. She corresponds both 
 to the Greek earth-goddess, who is ' Kourotrophos ', ' rearer of 
 the young', and to Kore, the earth maiden, represented 
 crudely in one image as covered with innumerable breasts. 1 
 At the same time she is ParvatI, the mountain goddess, she 
 ' who delights in spirituous liquor, flesh, and sacrificial victims', 2 
 dwelling in sepulchres, 3 true spouse of Siva. 
 
 The place that the worship of this goddess has in ordinary 
 polytheistic Hinduism does not concern us here. What 
 interests us is to see how this deep-seated and primitive faith 
 in the mother-principle, as the ultimate secret of the universe, 
 again and again asserts itself in alien surroundings with 
 a strength that raises this female deity to a place approaching 
 that of sole god. Buddhism would seem to be little likely to 
 harbour such a worship ; and yet, just as these goddesses made 
 their way among the higher deities of the Aryan pantheon, so 
 they found a place also within this atheistic system. It is 
 indeed maintained by some that it was by the way of Buddhism 
 that the Tantric doctrine in its later form, as Sakti-worship, 
 was able to climb upwards from its lowly origin and obtain 
 recognition within the pale of Brahmanism. 4 It need not 
 surprise us that this type of worship should have been able to 
 assert itself among the Tibetan and Nepalese Buddhists. 
 The austere Hmayana system had already given place in these 
 regions to a theistic Mahayana which was more able to satisfy 
 religious longings. There was not at the same time in that 
 form of the religion strength to resist the invasion of instincts 
 scarcely less deep but far less worthy. From being a worship 
 followed by aborigines and outcastes Tantrism passed by the 
 help of Buddhist prestige to take its place, in the twelfth or 
 thirteenth century, among the higher classes. We are told that 
 
 1 Murray's Four Stages of Greek Religion, p. 78. 
 
 2 Mbh. IV. 6. s Mbh. VI. 23. 
 
 4 Mahamahopadhyaya Haraprasad Sastri in Modern Buddhism, p. 27.
 
 THE SAKTA SECT 183 
 
 ' even now the Tantric deities prefer to be worshipped by the 
 lower classes (rather) than by Brahmans. In many localities 
 Durga is worshipped first by the untouchable classes and then 
 by Brahmans. Brahmans have to wait in some villages till the 
 pujd has commenced at some Hadi's house in the neighbour- 
 hood. The Jayadratha Ydmdla says the Devi likes to be 
 worshipped by oil-pressers '- 1 So also in the worship of 
 Sitala Devi and in the Dharma-worship both of them cults 
 that, as they are found in Bengal, include many Buddhist and 
 Tantric elements the priests are called ' Dom Pandits ', an 
 evident indication of their outcaste origin. 2 
 
 Whether or not it was the patronage of Buddhism that 
 secured for a worship of origin so humble admission within 
 higher circles, it is at all events the case that Tantrism with its 
 regiment of female deities was early a luxuriant growth among 
 the Mahayana Buddhists of Nepal and Tibet and the adjoining 
 provinces of India. It is believed that in Udyana (the modern 
 Suwat) it had its birth, but it may well have sprung up in 
 more than one environment. We see it already full blown in 
 what is called Vajrayana, a form of Mahayana doctrine which 
 'conceives the existence of Niratma Devi at the top of the 
 formless (arupd) heaven ', in whose embrace ' the mind bent on 
 bodhi' 'enjoys something like the pleasures of the senses'. 3 
 This word, Vajra, thunderbolt or diamond, which at the same 
 time signifies the phallus, ' sums up in itself all the cosmic 
 mysteries and ritual observances of Buddhist Sivaism '. 4 
 ' Vajrasattva ... is the supreme Buddha, who manifests the 
 primordial reality, at once creative and immanent.' 5 
 
 It is evident that Buddhism had developed many aspects 
 that invited the appearance within it of this morbid growth. 
 Dharma was sometimes worshipped as a female divinity. 
 She was Adimata and Buddhamata, the mother of all the 
 Tathagatas. Again we find Tantric Buddhism pursuing the 
 
 1 Modern Buddhism, p. 12. 2 D. C. Sen, p. 31. 
 
 3 Mahamahopadhyaya Haraprasad Sastri in Modern Buddhism, p. 6. 
 
 4 Poussin, Opinions, p. 379. B Ibid., p. 379.
 
 184 THE SAKTA SECT 
 
 Pravritti mdrga and aiming at ' the realization of the unity 
 of the Adi-Buddha and the Adi-Prajna (Purusa and Prakriti) 
 through the love and enjoyment of the world '- 1 Just as the 
 wife of Siva bears among her thousand names that of Matangi, 
 of Candalika, and others equally suggestive of the impure and 
 despised castes, so within the Tantric Buddhism of Nepal we 
 find female deities bearing these and similar names, virgins 
 (kuniart), mothers and 'terrible sisters'. 2 These are the 
 Taras, wives of the Bodhisattvas, who correspond to the 
 Sakti of Hinduism, just as alongside of them Avalokita and 
 Vajrapani assume titles of Siva, the Lokesvara or the ' black- 
 throated one '. 
 
 That is evidence sufficient of the manner in which Buddhism 
 from the tenth century onwards was permeated with Tantric 
 ideas, so that Acyutananda in the sixteenth century could 
 say, ' I tell you, take refuge in Buddha, in mother Adi Sakti 
 or the primordial energy (i. e. Dharma) '. 3 It is not difficult to 
 understand how into the central shrine of Buddhism, left 
 ' empty, swept and garnished ', there should enter and possess 
 it this power, crude and gross enough, but at the same time 
 very real and potent. It was the same with Sivaism. The 
 great God Himself had come to represent the Unknown, the 
 Impersonal, the Inert. He had come to be recognized as 
 the deity of philosophy, the nirgima, the unknowable. This 
 goddess Kali, Candl, or Sakti, or whatever her name might 
 be is the creator of the world seen and near, a personal 
 divinity upon whom faith can rest. Similarly Candl is 
 Mahamaya of the Vedanta, a merciful goddess, who can 
 ' assuage the pain of troubled hearts ', more real and dear than 
 the remote Unmanifested. It is the same story as we found 
 writ so large upon the history of the Vaisnavite cults : ' The 
 worship of the Unmanifested laid no hold on my heart.' It 
 may seem strange that this deity should lay any other grasp 
 than that of horror and repulsion upon any heart. Who 
 
 1 Modern Buddhism, p. 8. 2 Poussin, Opinions, p. 386. 
 
 8 Sunya Samhita, Modern Buddhism, p. 127.
 
 THE SAKTA SECT 185 
 
 would expect that when men turned away from Siva, ' lying ', 
 as the Puranas represent him, ' like a corpse ', it would be to 
 turn from him to the figure of Sakti or Kali, represented in the 
 same connexion as dancing upon that corpse ' in destructive 
 ecstacy ' ? But we have by this time ceased to marvel at any 
 transformation that the desiring heart can accomplish. It is 
 well to remember, too, that there was a domestic and genial 
 side to the character of Siva and his consort, Uma, and upon 
 that the popular heart in Bengal at least laid hold. Perhaps 
 that helps to explain the claim that one reason for the spread 
 of Sakti worship was ' its great tenderness ', which made it 
 ' religiously extremely attractive '.* 
 
 Under such influences as these with Buddhism on the one 
 hand bequeathing to it its waning prestige, and on the other 
 strengthened in its appeal by the natural reaction from the 
 Sunya Vdda, the ' way of nothingness ' Sakti-worship spread 
 steadily in Eastern India. It was undoubtedly also helped 
 at the same time by the fact that, as its whole history and the 
 names of the goddess it adores suggest, it answers to many 
 fears and passions that are deep in the human soul and seem 
 to be part of the secret of the universe. In the union within 
 it of the forces of lust and death seemed to lie the key to the 
 1 inmost, ancient mysteries '. These mystic suggestions, in com- 
 bination with the gross and savage instincts which this worship 
 pretended to sanctify, gave the Sakti sect its widespread and 
 sinister influence. Human sacrifices have generally been 
 recognized as peculiarly acceptable in the worship of this 
 goddess, and in the Mdlatl Mddhava of Bhavabhuti such 
 a sacrifice of a chaste virgin to Camunda is described. But it 
 is another kind of sacrifice that is more often demanded in 
 this worship in which lust lies so hard by hate. In the 
 Sahajiyd cult, which owed its origin to the Vamacarl 
 Buddhists, 2 and is celebrated by the Bengali poets, Kanu 
 Bhatta in the tenth century, and Candidas in the fourteenth, 
 we have this aspect of Tantrism frankly presented. ' The 
 1 D. C. Sen, p. 251. 2 Ibid., p. 38.
 
 i86 THE SAKTA SECT 
 
 woman', says Candidas, ' will sacrifice herself entirely to love. . . . 
 She must plunge herself headlong in the sea of abuse, but at 
 the same time scrupulously avoid touching the forbidden 
 stream.' 1 ' Hear me, friends,' he says again, ' how salvation 
 may be attained through love for a woman. . . . He that 
 pervades the universe, unseen by all, is approachable only by 
 him who knows the secret of pure love.' 2 The prescription 
 for this way of salvation is thus described in one of the 
 Tantras : ' A dancing girl, a girl of the Kapali caste, a prostitute, 
 a washerwoman, a barber's daughter, a Brahman girl, a Sudra 
 girl, a milkmaid, a girl of the Malakar caste these nine are 
 recognized as the legitimate subjects for Tantric practices. 
 Those that are most clever among these should be held as 
 pre-eminently fit ; maidens endowed with beauty, good luck, 
 youth, and amiable disposition are to be worshipped with care, 
 and a man's salvation is attained thereby.' 3 
 
 * Tantrism rests on the principle that of all the illusions 
 and everything is illusion the illusion called woman is the 
 most sublime, the most necessary to salvation.' ' No infamy, 
 not excluding incest, is omitted from the worship of woman 
 (strl puja), the supreme divinity.' As the dyer effaces stains 
 on a garment by means of his dye, so the thought can be 
 purified by impurity and desire can cast desire out.* 
 
 This Tantric religion as its own books declare, and as its 
 character certainly indicates is a religion for the Kali Yuga. 
 Its theory is that man is accepted as a creature of passions, 
 and that by the very means of these he is to ' cross the region 
 of darkness'. Those things that have most of all caused 
 man's ruin the five Makdras, as they are called madya, wine ; 
 mamsa, flesh ; matsya^ fish ; mudra, mystic gesticulations ; 5 
 and maithuna, sexual indulgence are to be made the very 
 
 1 D. C. Sen, p. 40. 2 Ibid., p. 44. 
 
 3 Ibid, p. 42, quoted from the Gupta Sudana Tantra. 
 
 4 Poussin's Opinions, pp. 403, 405, 406. 
 
 5 Mudra is also explained as parched grain, and as the young woman 
 associated with the ritual and previously initiated and consecrated. 
 (Poussin's Opinions, p. 403, note.)
 
 THE SAKTA SECT 187 
 
 means of his salvation. ' Siva desires to employ those very 
 poisons in order to eradicate the poison in the human system. 
 Poison is the antidote of poison. . . . The physician, however, 
 must be an experienced one. If there be a mistake as to the 
 application, the patient is like to die. Siva has said that the 
 way of kuldcdra, is as difficult as it is to walk on the edge of 
 a sword or to hold a wild tiger.' * Limitations have to be 
 prescribed in this dangerous remedy ' when the Kali Yuga is 
 in full strength '. The ' three sweets ' should be used instead 
 of wine, and the maithuna should be with svlya sakti. ' He 
 who worships the great Adya Kali with the five makdras, and 
 repeats her four hundred names, becomes suffused with the 
 presence of the Devi, and for him there remains nothing in 
 the three worlds that is beyond his powers.' 2 
 
 These last words suggest how close is the relation of 
 this strange cultus to the Yoga with its desire for magic 
 powers. It has been said of the Yoga that ' two currents of 
 thought meet in it. One is Sankhyan rationalism ; the other 
 is barbarous superstition '. That description applies equally 
 to the Sdkta system. Its metaphysics is the metaphysics of 
 the Sdnkhya, but it is the Sdnkhya linked to a mythology 
 that has its roots in the darkest fears and the grossest passions 
 of the human soul. The combination seems a strange one, 
 but the fact that the thought of the Sdnkhya is still to a con- 
 siderable extent primitive thought, and that its forms are as 
 yet largely governed by imagination, makes such a combina- 
 tion possible. It has been maintained that all the goddesses 
 of mythology were abstract nouns. That is certainly far 
 from being the case, but perhaps it may be accepted as true 
 that female deities are more capable than others of being 
 identified with ideas, when early speculation is struggling to 
 find some medium of expression. And, further, the Sdnkhya 
 has no ethical content such as would make it incongruous 
 
 3 The commentator Jaganmohana Tarkalamkara, quoted by Avalon, 
 p. cxvi. 
 2 Mahdnirvana Tantra, VIII (Avalon).
 
 i88 THE SAKTA SECT 
 
 with the grossest conceptions of popular superstition. On the 
 contrary, there is much in its purely unmoral and intellectual 
 categories that leaves room within it for magic and sorcery 
 and a belief in demonic powers. It is easy to see that the 
 Prakriti and the Purusa of the Sdnkhya and its doctrine of 
 the creation of the world by the exercise upon slumbering 
 Prakriti of a ' magnetic influence ' are capable enough of being 
 directly identified with such deities and such conceptions as 
 those of the Sakti cult. ' This universe,' says Siva, in the 
 Mahanirvana Tantra, addressing Devi, ' from the great prin- 
 ciple of mahat (mahat-tatva, intelligence) down to the gross 
 elements, has been created by thee, since Brahman, cause of 
 all causes, is but the instrumental cause. . . . Thou, the 
 supreme Yogini, dost, moved by his mere desire, create, pro- 
 tect and destroy this world.' ! What is called ' Great Brahma ' 
 in the Bhagavadgita? mula-prakriti, the womb into which the 
 seed is cast from which the universe is born, is Sakti. From 
 the dual principles of Siva and Sakti is evolved the universe, 
 which is ruled by Mahesvara and Mahesvari. 3 But, as a 
 matter of fact, this is not a reign of equals, for at the dissolu- 
 tion of the universe, while Siva, as Kala, devours all, his 
 consort devours Mahakala himself, and is, therefore, 'the 
 supreme, primordial Kalika '. 4 ' Because thou devourest Kala, 
 thou art Kali, the original form of all things, and because thou 
 art the origin of, and devourest, all things, thou art called the 
 Adya Kali. Resuming after dissolution thine own form, 
 dark and formless, thou alone remainest as one, ineffable and 
 inconceivable.' 5 Again, Siva says, 'Listen to the reasons 
 why thou (Sri Devi) shouldst be worshipped, and how thereby 
 the individual becomes united with the Brahman. Thou art 
 the only Para Prakriti of the Supreme Soul, Brahman^ and 
 
 1 Mahanirvana Tantra, IV (Avalon, p. 49), ' Under the influence of 
 the gaze of Purusa Prakriti commences the world-dance', Avalon, 
 loc. cit., foot-note. 
 
 2 XIV. 3. 3 Avalon, p. xxvi. 
 
 4 Mahanirvana Tantra^ IV (Avalon, p. 49). 
 
 5 Op. cit., IV '(Avalon, p. 50).
 
 THE SAKTA SECT 189 
 
 from thee has sprung the whole universe, O Siva, its mother. . . . 
 Thou art the birthplace of even us (Brahma, Visnu, and Siva) ; 
 thou knowest the whole world, yet none know thee.' 
 
 The process of manifestation is one in which throughout, in 
 agreement with the whole bias of Sakti conceptions, sexual 
 ideas predominate. ' The dual principles of Siva and Sakti . . . 
 pervade the whole universe, and are present in man in the 
 Svayambhu-linga of the mulddhdra and the Devi Kundalinl, 
 who, in the serpent form, encircles it.' * There are Bindu, 
 Bija, and Ndda at various stages in the evolution, these being 
 explained as Siva, Sakti, and their relation to each other. 
 Each manifestation has its Sakti, 'without which it avails 
 nothing'. 2 Throughout its symbolism and pseudo-philoso- 
 phizings there lies at the basis of the whole system, if it can 
 be called a system, the conception of the sexual relationship 
 as the ultimate explanation of the universe. There are male 
 and female forms of all the manifestations of the Para-brahman, 
 but the female aspect is the more fundamental, and ' there is 
 no neuter form of God '. 3 
 
 1 Avalon, p. xxvi. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. xxiv, 'not Brahma, Visnu, Rudra create, maintain, or 
 destroy ; but Brahml, Vaisnavl, Rudrani. Their husbands are but as 
 dead bodies.' Kubjikd Tantra, chap, i, quoted in Avalon, note to 
 p. xxiv. 
 
 3 Saktdnanda-tarahgini, chap, iii (Avalon, p. xxviii).
 
 PART II 
 THE THEOLOGY 
 
 A REVIEW of the whole course of the theistic development 
 in India, as we have sought to trace it, leaves us baffled and 
 perplexed by its waywardness. We have spoken of it as 
 a development for lack of a better word, but if by that is 
 meant the ordered unfolding of an idea through successive 
 stages of advance towards its complete disclosure, then we 
 have found nothing here that can be so described. There is 
 continuity throughout, no doubt, but it is the loosely articu- 
 lated continuity furnished by the history of varied peoples, 
 commingling, interacting, but never fused by any single 
 powerful influence into one vital and coherent whole. We 
 have not a near enough view of them, nor material sufficiently 
 complete from their history and their literature to enable us 
 to follow all the winding course of their spiritual development, 
 and to understand why it took now this direction and now 
 that. It is only at a late period that the religion of devotion 
 becomes fully articulate as a theology, and the process by 
 which it reached that systematic form is so obscure that one 
 may sometimes doubt whether it was a continuous process at 
 all. Its continuity in the earlier period seems little more than 
 the continuity of a series of devout spirits who sought God in 
 the way that their hearts dictated. There is room enough in 
 such circumstances for waywardness and diversity. The 
 development, however, becomes more stable when the religion 
 has thought itself out in a theology, and has thus become 
 conscious of its bases and its aims. While it is, therefore, of 
 value and interest to examine, as far as may be, the theological 
 conceptions that are implicit in the whole of the Indian
 
 THE THEOLOGY igi 
 
 theistic evolution, it is the theological philosophy of the 
 Upanisad period, and to a still greater extent the later and 
 more deliberate theologisings of Ramanuja and the other 
 schoolmen that disclose the principles that have throughout 
 consciously or unconsciously controlled the process. What 
 was latent always in the intuitions of the bhakta comes to full 
 self-consciousness in the systems of the theologians and philo- 
 sophers. We shall, accordingly, dwell mainly upon the ages 
 of reflection and their products in theistic philosophy and 
 theology. 
 
 The earliest age is mainly of interest as showing us what, 
 we imagine, might have been. The Vedic period is Aryan, 
 but it is scarcely Indian. Whilst we find in it the roots of 
 much that grows to maturity through the centuries that 
 follow, it lacks at the same time certain elements which we 
 may describe as distinctively Hindu, and which give the whole 
 succeeding development its colour and direction. The Theism, 
 therefore, of the Rig Veda is not properly Indian Theism. 
 There are elements in it which may possibly be Semitic. 
 There are other elements which betray their kinship with the 
 Aryan mind of Western peoples. But what we may call the 
 Hindu note sounds but seldom in those early Hymns. We 
 seem, it is true, to see those early worshippers more clearly 
 and to understand them better than many who at later periods 
 appear upon the scene of history. The Aryan invaders 
 descending upon India through the north-western passes, and 
 taking possession of the new land, a virile people, looking up 
 to the sky above them and calling upon the gods by many 
 names they are not unlike others who have gone forth with 
 their flocks and herds, conquering and to conquer. But there 
 is not much at first at least that is specifically Indian in this 
 old Vedic faith, and there is no apparent reason why the 
 worship of those gods of the upper air should not presently 
 pass with the growth of moral enlightenment and of the sense 
 of reason and of order into an ethical monotheism. Why it 
 was not so we simply cannot tell. We may say that there is
 
 192 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 in the Indian blood a deep and ineradicable instinct for 
 Pantheism. But to say so is only to describe the problem in 
 other words not to solve it. There are psychical secrets 
 that we must be content to leave as secrets. Why the principle 
 of the rita, of the moral order in the universe, failed of fruitful- 
 ness and withered ; why Varuna, for a while so awful in his 
 moral majesty, fell to the rank of the Tritons and the nymphs, 
 we cannot tell. We can only dimly perceive that as a matter 
 of fact the Indian turned to follow other and more phantasmal 
 forms than love and righteousness, that instead of seeking an 
 ideal of unity such as might have been suggested to him by 
 the analogy of a well-knit community and a harmonious state, 
 he began his long and barren quest for a unity vaguer, less 
 substantial, that might satisfy his intellect if it ignored the 
 longings of his heart. 
 
 The most we can say is that the normal process by which, 
 among other Aryan peoples, 'the heavenly ones' developed 
 into distinct and many-sided personalities, was thwarted by 
 influences that seem to have been present in the Indian 
 climate and to have sprung from the Indian soil. Just as 
 a meteorite, as soon as it passes within the atmosphere of the 
 earth melts into fire and gas, so the moral personalities that 
 had been forming about the Aryan sky-gods with their promise 
 and potency of Theism, seem with the descent of their 
 worshippers into the plains of India to suffer a not dissimilar 
 transformation. In the ordinary course of development we 
 should have expected the order of nature, if that is what rita 
 first signified, as well as its guardian, Varuna, to have taken 
 more and more to itself an ethical connotation as indeed we 
 see it doing for a while until this great god became the 
 Jehovah of a spiritual religion. We should have expected, as 
 the invaders found a settled home and established a stable 
 government, that that god and the other higher gods would 
 have taken over the control and guidance of the state from 
 the old family and tribal guardians, the spirits of the ancestors 
 and the gods of the underworld. But neither the climate
 
 THE THEOLOGY 193 
 
 nor the configuration of the widespread plains of India lent 
 themselves to this development. 
 
 Winds blow and waters roll 
 
 Strength to the brave and power and deity. 
 
 But not when the winds are the stagnant airs of a tropical 
 land, or when the waters exhale the poison of malaria. 
 Disorder and death reigned without, and the only refuge 
 seemed to be within. There was not the well compacted 
 structure of the state, with all its lessons, its 
 
 piety and fear, . . . 
 Domestic awe, night-rest and neighbourhood, 
 
 leading men's hearts by a natural ascent from earth to heaven. 
 
 There was instead anarchy and disease, making the world 
 hateful and God shadowy and dim. Hence, perhaps, the 
 desire to escape that so dominates Indian religious thought, 
 and to escape to a region of ideas as different as could be 
 conceived from that which they knew and loathed. The 
 failure of the conquering Aryans to establish fixed order and 
 government in their new possessions ; their inability, whether 
 through racial pride or lack of spiritual vigour, thoroughly to 
 assimilate and transmute the religious elements contributed 
 by the peoples among whom they dwelt ; perhaps, also, the 
 depressing and enervating influence of a tropical and too fertile 
 land these things may go some way to explain the Pantheism 
 and pessimism, the moral weakness and intellectual subtlety, 
 that distinguish so much of the Indian spirit the courage, 
 begotten of dislike and despair, with which it renounces the 
 world, and, at the same time, the cowardice with which it 
 often turns its back on God. 
 
 Those questions which are specially characteristic of the 
 Indian religious development only begin to appear with the 
 close of the Vedic period. As these discover themselves in 
 connexion with our inquiry they show us a conflict continually 
 in process between what we may call the natural human instinct 
 for Theism and certain tendencies which we cannot account 
 for more particularly than by describing them as peculiar to 
 
 O
 
 i 9 4 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 the Indian mind. The sincere devotion of the Theistic 
 worshipper, when it emerges from its obscurity, is seen to be 
 threatened, not only by formalism and by the power of the 
 priest a universal danger but also by Pantheism and a 
 morbid intellectualism. Perhaps we may not be far wrong in 
 suggesting that it is to the influence of that devout spirit that 
 the fact is due that the revolt from the sacerdotalism of the 
 BrShmanas results not in a rationalism that ignores or denies 
 God, but in a mysticism that seeks to reach him, remote as 
 he appears to it to be, by an insight which, if too intellectual, 
 is at least inward, and to that extent spiritual. In Greece, 
 perhaps because the devout spirit was feebler and more rare, 
 religion and philosophy early fell apart, and were often in open 
 antagonism to each other. In India, on the other hand, even 
 such an atheistic system as the Sarikhya presently felt it 
 necessary to attach to itself a God. The Hindu speculative 
 systems have been compared to the scholastic philosophies of 
 the Middle Ages because they were almost always philosophies 
 within a theology. Those that the Upanisads present to us 
 are not properly described as rationalistic, but as mystical 
 speculations. It is not the discursive reason that governs 
 them but intuitive insight. They seek God, not at the end of 
 a syllogism, but at the conclusion of a process, which can only, 
 however, be described as negatively ethical. When the too 
 opaque moral integuments are stripped off, God is intellectually 
 apprehended or surmised by the Upanisad seekers a Being 
 so rarefied and so transparent that he must, as they conceive, 
 be the final and absolute One. 
 
 It is characteristic of mysticism, and it is characteristic of 
 Upanisad speculation that its whole vision is set towards 
 God, and yet it always fails to see him its long pilgrimage 
 is to his feet, and yet it cannot overtake him. With every 
 advance towards him it removes him further off; even while it 
 strains its eyes most tensely it refines his form into something 
 harder to perceive. The ' guesses at truth ', as Max Miiller 
 called them, that the Upanisads present to us seem un-
 
 THE THEOLOGY 195 
 
 questionably to have their root in real religious instincts, and 
 therefore in the feeling life, but feeling appeared to those seers 
 to have too much of the element of plurality in it, and there- 
 fore in the quest for unity it must be eliminated, and to have 
 too much of the world about it, and therefore in the quest for 
 God it must be reckoned as of inferior worth. Nevertheless, 
 there probably was a real continuity between the fervent 
 devotion that bowed before Vasudeva and other gods of the 
 simple worshipper and the super-refined mysticism of these 
 seers. No one doubts that Jacob Boehme's religion was 
 rooted deep in love and devotion to a personal God, and yet 
 considerable portions of such a dialogue as that upon the 
 Super-sensual Life in his Way to Christ might almost have 
 been transcribed from the Upanisads. 'When thou canst 
 throw thyself into That where no creature dwelleth ', says the 
 Master to his disciple, ' then thou nearest what God speaketh 
 . . . When thy soul is winged up and above that which is 
 temporal, the outward senses and the imagination being locked 
 up by holy abstraction, then the eternal hearing, seeing, and 
 speaking are revealed in thee.' To mystics everywhere it 
 seems to be only, as Boehme says, ' by stopping the wheel 
 of the imagination and the senses ' that He who is above and 
 beyond imagination and senses and all that is created can be 
 known. An intellectual unity seems to be the most all- 
 inclusive that man can imagine, and an intellectually-conceived 
 Being to be the one least partaking of the temporal, and so 
 nearest to the nature of that which is above time and thought 
 and being itself. 
 
 Perhaps it is these characteristics that are most distinctive 
 of the Theism of the Upanisads. It is intellectual and aristo- 
 cratic, while the popular devotion on the other hand was 
 emotional and democratic. In spite of this difference, how- 
 ever, they are both Theisms. They are scarcely farther apart 
 indeed than were Eckhart and Tauler within the Christian 
 Church in the Middle Ages, and in both cases the diverse 
 types are united not only by their theistic belief but by the 
 
 o 2
 
 196 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 mystical texture of their minds. It has been said that Eckhart 
 dwelt specially on the being of God, and Tauler and the 
 ' Friends of God ', on the other hand, on the will of God, and 
 a somewhat parallel distinction might be made between the 
 Upanisad teachers and the saints of the bhakti schools. A 
 comparison of the two is apt to cast upon the more speculative 
 doctrine an appearance of Pantheism, just as Eckhart seems 
 often to be open to a similar charge. But however closely it 
 may verge at times upon Pantheism, the name of Mysticism 
 more truly describes it as presenting ' that attitude of mind 
 in which all other relations are swallowed up in the relation 
 of the soul to God V To the more speculative mind that 
 relation is one of contemplation of the being of God ; to simple 
 souls it appeals as a relation of loving communion. There is 
 a wide difference between these two types, but at the same 
 time a fundamental agreement. The aim in each case is to 
 obtain immediate unity with God, though the means used may 
 differ. In the Upanisads what engrosses the seeker is the way 
 by which men stripping off veil after veil may attain to the 
 contemplation of the subtle essence', 'the True', 'the Self'. 2 
 The high intellectual road that leads to this goal can be 
 traversed only by the few, only by those with leisure for 
 thought and capacity for thought. What they are seeking is 
 not the satisfaction of a practical need but, we may almost say, 
 the gratification of an intellectual curiosity. At the same 
 time, as those writers constantly claim, the seeker becomes 
 what he contemplates. A student of Mysticism in other fields 
 has pointed out that, as the mystic follows the method of 
 contemplation, he ' has more and more the impression of 
 being that which he knows and of knowing that which he is '. 3 
 The desire of this type of mysticism is to discover ' the 
 mystery of the Impenetrable Source ', rather than to obtain 
 
 1 E. Caird's Evolution of Theology in 'Jthe Greek Philosophers, II, 
 p. 210. 
 
 2 Chandog. Up. VI. 13. 
 
 8 Delacroix, Etudes sur le Mysticisme, p. 370, quoted in Underbill's 
 Mysticism, p. 395.
 
 THE THEOLOGY 197 
 
 a personal deliverance, and in discovering it they possess it, 
 even if it is only a fleeting possession. 
 
 A question which naturally arises when one seeks to 
 extract a theology from the speculations of the Upanisads is 
 whether God is viewed by them as immanent or as transcen- 
 dent whether he is linked to a remote and alien world by 
 such a method of self-communication as that of emanations or 
 whether God dwells in the world, and man has but to learn to 
 see him. It is a further evidence of the mystical character of 
 these writings that they give to this question an ambiguous 
 answer. How God has related himself to the world seems to 
 concern them less than how man may discover God. The 
 thought of grace as an attribute of the ultimate Self does not 
 occupy their attention to any great extent, for they are not 
 thinking so much of how that Self descends among men, but 
 of how man's mind may climb thither. Nor is that climbing 
 a process of moral so much as of mental toil. We find in 
 them what Plotinus describes as ' the flight of the lonely soul 
 to the lonely One '. It was Gnosticism, or perhaps Christi- 
 anity, that provoked Plotinus to attempt the complementary 
 demonstration of the way in which the Absolute One is 
 manifested in lower forms of being and comes into the life of 
 man. The unmethodical thinkers of the Upanisads do not 
 appear to have felt the urgency of explaining this problem. 
 The doctrine of maya was made full use of by Sankaracarya 
 to resolve this difficulty when it presented itself to him, and 
 the later theistic theologians called in the aid of the theory of 
 emanations for the same purpose, but as yet the demand for 
 an explanation of plurality and evil does not seem to have 
 awakened in those Upanisad thinkers. The experience of 
 inward need and of helplessness, on the other hand, drove the 
 popular Theisms to seek in their theory of incarnations and in 
 their doctrine of grace an explanation of how and why a God 
 who in the nature of things would appear to have no relation 
 with a world of evil and ignorance may yet draw near to it 
 and deliver it. The doctrines of divine grace and of the
 
 198 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 divine self-manifestation are the discovery of the heart rather 
 than of the intellect ; they are the products of a sense of moral 
 need or rather, perhaps, we may more truly say, revelations 
 granted to it rather than the postulates of pure reason. The 
 engagement of the reason with these questions, its explanation 
 of the divine entanglement with the human and the imperfect, 
 comes later. The demands of the reason do not make them- 
 selves heard so early, nor are they so urgent, as those of the 
 heart. 
 
 In these earlier speculations we obtain no more than hints 
 of the existence of this problem of the relation of God and the 
 world. There is, for example, the characteristically imagina- 
 tive presentation of the downward growth of the universe from 
 its root in the True 
 
 With its roots on high, its shoots downwards, 
 
 Stands that eternal fig-tree. 1 
 
 The doctrine of emanation that seems to be suggested here, as 
 well as in the similar passage in the Svetdsvatara, which speaks 
 of the One as sending down the branches of its plurality from 
 above, 2 views the Absolute One as transcendent over the 
 universe and withdrawn from it. On the other hand many 
 passages in the Upanisads speak of Brahman in the language 
 of immanence as dwelling within the universe ' up to the 
 finger tips '. To find these two contradictory views side by 
 side in these documents is in itself an indication of the mystical 
 character of their thinking. To the mystics at all times the 
 supreme Reality has presented itself now in one aspect and 
 now in the other. They are seldom sufficiently systematic in 
 their thought to realize the contradiction ; and some of the 
 greatest of them have been content to alternate between the 
 two views in the language they employ. 3 This is so because 
 God is one apart from whose life nothing at all exists, while at 
 the same time the rarefied unity of his being removes him to 
 a sphere of transcendent separation from all that is other than 
 
 1 Katha Up. 6. I. 2 Svet. Up. 3. 9. 
 
 3 Underhill's Mysticism, p. 121.
 
 THE THEOLOGY 199 
 
 himself. Therefore he is at once the remote One, and he who 
 is of all others the most nigh. ' Though never stirring it is 
 swifter than thought. . . . Though standing still it overtakes 
 the others who are running ... It stirs and stirs not; it is 
 far and likewise near. It is inside of all this, and it is outside 
 of all this '. l Such teaching may be reconcilable with Theism, 
 and indeed may have in it the very stuff of a religion which 
 may well be both passionate and personal, but it does not 
 obey the laws of the understanding, nor does it satisfy the 
 systematic theologian. We can see how when Sankaracarya 
 came to the Upanisads, that he might formulate from them 
 a theory of the universe, it was only by the help of such 
 a tour de force as the may a doctrine provides that he could 
 ever solve their logical antinomies and build them up into a 
 consistent system. 
 
 The popular Theisms are too exclusively emotional, the 
 aristocratic Mysticisms are too exclusively intellectual. The 
 two seem never to be quite successfully combined throughout 
 the Indian religious development. For their combination into 
 a powerful and enduring Theism perhaps there was necessary 
 a great religious personality to knit them together by his life 
 and by his teaching. So much in the spiritual history of 
 India is anonymous and impersonal. Buddha, for whatever 
 reason, rejected the task, and yet, strangely enough, he went 
 farther than any one to accomplish it. He rejected God, and 
 yet his doctrine develops by the very influence of his 
 personality into the nearest in certain aspects that India has 
 produced to an ethical Theism. But Indian religion is every- 
 where feeble in its emphasis upon the personal, and therefore 
 upon what is most ethical and most vital. It finds the ground 
 of the universe in an ultimate Intelligence rather than in a 
 supreme Will. Even when, with later Vaisnavism, God is 
 a God of grace, who condescends to men and incarnates him- 
 self for their salvation, the doctrine seems to hesitate between 
 the conception of a gracious Will that of his own good 
 
 1 Isa Up. 4-5-
 
 200 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 pleasure thus comes near in love, and a distant Mind- 
 Aristotle's 'unmoved Mover' whose emanations and mani- 
 festations are darkenings of his pure nature, accommodations 
 to this lower region of his transcendent Being, necessary if 
 man is ever to come to knowledge of a God so far removed. 
 ' When God seeth his servants in sorrow ', says the Bhagavad- 
 bhakta, ' he tarrieth not, but himself cometh as an incarnate 
 deity to save them.' 1 But the Vyuhas, and perhaps also the 
 Vibhavas, of Ramanuja are more the postulates of metaphysics 
 than of ethics. 
 
 The place that the doctrine of avataras holds in Indian 
 religion suggests a consideration which deeply affects the 
 character of its theology. No doubt every religion, however 
 high its spiritual rank, has in it elements of nature worship. 
 But in the case of Hinduism these elements do not merely 
 cling to its skirts ; they are of its very flesh and bones. It 
 grows out of them, and is still carefully governed by them. 
 The religion is like the form of some of its own gods, half 
 human, half bestial. It has not had time yet, or the human, 
 ethical elements in the Indian spirit have not proved powerful 
 enough, to transform it fully. We see this clearly in the case 
 of the avataras of the Indian theistic sects. These have, no 
 doubt, their root in the worship of theriomorphic deities. The 
 first suggestion of what bears the appearance of incarnation 
 is such a statement as we find in the Satapatha Brahmana 
 that ' having assumed the form of a tortoise Prajapati created 
 offspring', or again that in the form of a boar he raised the 
 earth from the bottom of the ocean. 2 If we mean by incarna- 
 tion the assumption by God for a moral end of some lowly 
 guise that brings him near to men to help them and that 
 is what is meant in the case of a truly ethical Theism then 
 these are not incarnations. Their natural origin is scarcely 
 concealed. Just as the elephant-god becomes semi-humanized 
 into the god Ganesa with the head of an elephant and the 
 
 1 The Bhaktakalpadruma, quoted by Dr. Grierson in./. R. A. S.
 
 THE THEOLOGY aoi 
 
 body of a man, so here we see the tortoise and the boar, 
 ancient objects of worship, undergoing transition by another 
 method to a higher and more respectable rank of deities. It 
 was a natural step to suggest next that the lower forms were 
 assumed by the god in gracious condescension to human 
 need. Thus all the animal avatdras of Visnu, the fish, the 
 man-lion, represent old theriomorphic deities that bear upon 
 them all the marks of their origin among wild nature cults. 
 It need not surprise us therefore to find that Krisna in the 
 Gltd is said ' to come to bodied birth ' for purposes that are 
 not upon the highest ethical level when we remember this pit 
 from which the incarnation doctrine has been digged. Not in 
 this respect alone, the Indian Theisms bear evident marks 
 upon them of a grossly natural origin that they have been 
 able as yet only very imperfectly to slough. Students of the 
 religion of the ancient Jews find the explanation of the process 
 by which it was gradually purified from the impurities of 
 Semitic nature-worship in the fact of a divine revelation to 
 that people. Nothing less could have brought that result 
 about. It is not surprising that this end was never accom- 
 plished in the case of a god like Krisna, still so intimately 
 associated with sensual enjoyment, or warlike prowess, or in 
 the case of a god like Siva, worshipped even by the devout 
 poet-sages of the South as ' the maniac ' and ' the blue- 
 throated one '. Many of the avatars are reminders of the 
 early career of gods to whom a gross past still clings too close. 
 It is of course, however, in the Bhagavadgitd with its fully 
 formulated avatdra doctrine that the most resolute attempt is 
 made to persuade the two streams of tendency, the intellectual 
 and the emotional, to flow together in a single channel. Its 
 success in legitimizing the popular Vaisnavite doctrine by 
 linking it up with the Theosophy of the thinkers gives it, 
 apart from other considerations, a place of special importance 
 in the theology of Indian Theism. It is true that it is not 
 a systematic treatise, any more than are the Epistles of St. Paul, 
 but like them it is a canonical scripture out of which later
 
 202 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 systems were constructed. It has a closer relation to the 
 unmethodical speculations of the Upanisads that lie behind 
 it than to the elaborated systems of later scholasticism. The 
 inconsistencies of its teaching are obvious, but the direction 
 in which a solution for them may be sought is indicated, and 
 there loom before us the outlines of a Theism that is 
 characteristically Indian in its presuppositions and that has 
 purged itself sufficiently of superstition to be acceptable to 
 thoughtful men. 
 
 The setting in which we have this poem in the Mahabhdrata 
 suggests that it is primarily an ethical rather than a theological 
 treatise. Just as the Upanisads in the Aitareya Aranyaka are 
 an attempt to explain the significance of a sacrificial ceremony, 
 and as the Katha Upanisad is occupied with the problem of 
 the life after death, so the Gitd has its origin, according to the 
 Mahabhdrata story, in a moral problem that perplexed Arjuna. 
 Accordingly, if we are to interpret it from that point of view, 
 we shall seek the central element of its teaching in its doctrine 
 of the Karma Yoga or Rule of Works. This represents an 
 immense ethical advance upon the formalism of the ritual 
 scriptures, while at the same time it escapes the tendency 
 apparent in the Upanisads towards an intellectualism which 
 forsook the performance of practical duties for the more 
 exalted way of meditation upon abstract truth. We can 
 scarcely be mistaken in explaining the poem as a product of 
 the reflection of such a thinker as those whose meditations 
 are included in the Upanisads, seeking to interpret in the 
 terms of his thought the motives that he saw at work among 
 the adherents of the bhakti cults. To do a thing for love, 
 like even the simplest devotee was, he saw, a far higher thing 
 than to do it for reward and a far more possible thing for 
 most than to follow the lonely path of knowledge. 1 ' Do 
 thine appointed work,' he enjoins, ' for work is more excellent 
 than worklessness. . . . This world is fettered by work, save 
 in the work that is for the sake of the sacrifice. For the sake 
 
 1 VII. 19.
 
 THE THEOLOGY 203 
 
 of it do thou perform work, O son of KuntI, freed from all 
 attachment.' l This doctrine of a service that does not 
 enchain the doer but leaves him free and points him forward 
 to final emancipation 2 betrays by its emphasis upon the 
 motive in the heart and by the parallel interpretation it 
 places upon the sacrifice (for ' Visnu is the sacrifice ') 3 its 
 indebtedness to the school of loving faith. But here as 
 elsewhere the poet speaks with a double tongue. Sometimes 
 he is drawn away to a view of work so pallid and anaemic 
 that it can be described as the ' consummation of workless- 
 ness'. 4 At another time his emphasis upon devotion still 
 retains the glow of affection of the simple-hearted. ' Whatever 
 be thy work, thine eating, thy sacrifice, thy gift, thy mortifica- 
 tion, make all of them an offering to me. Thus shalt thou be 
 released from the bond of works . . . and shalt come to me. 
 . . . Even though he should be a doer of exceeding evil that 
 worships me with undivided devotion, he shall be deemed 
 good ; for he is of right purpose.' 5 There is no disability of 
 class or sex among those who travel by this road. 6 Yet at 
 the same time while such a one is ' dear to the Lord ' 7 that 
 Lord is ' indifferent to all born beings ', 8 and yet again he is 
 ' the friend of all born beings '. 9 Thus this irenicon labours 
 after the reconciliation of irreconcilable moods of the spirit, 
 giving with one hand and withdrawing again with the other, 
 now proclaiming its author an adherent of an ethical Theism, 
 and again, in the interest of an abstract intellectualism, 
 
 1 111.8,9. 2 V. 2. 
 
 3 Taitt. Sam. I. 7, 4. What such a sentence as this means it is by no 
 means easy to be certain. It at least indicates a close connexion between 
 this god and the Work, par excellence, which does not fetter but set free. 
 There is another saying which may also have significance in the emergence 
 of this doctrine of work that does not bring with it the curse of ' world- 
 wandering '. In the Maitrayani Samhita it is said, ' The rita, the truth 
 is the sacrifice' (I. 10, n). Reflection on the meaning of the sacrifice 
 may have pointed the way to the self-sacrificing, or at least unselfish, 
 service which the Gtta enjoins. 
 
 4 XVIII. 49. 5 IX. 27-30. 6 IX. 32. 
 7 XII. 17. 8 IX. 29. V. 29.
 
 204 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 emptying his doctrine of all its power to lay hold of and 
 control the heart. 
 
 This is seen especially when we turn to the theology of the 
 poem. Here this antinomy between its thought of God as 
 a Being lifted above the world, and that which knows him to 
 be one who loves is discovered in other regions as well. He 
 is both the Absolute who by the method of emanations 
 relates himself to a remote universe, and at the same time 
 one who dwells in all things as their life. There is one 
 Unmanifested behind another, receding into remoteness, and 
 there is the Manifested, the ' Supreme Person ', ' wherein born 
 beings abide, wherewith this whole universe is filled '.* The 
 theory of emanations, the method of safeguarding the 
 supremacy of the Absolute by graduating his relations with 
 the universe, is the favourite method of Mysticism, and was 
 no doubt an inheritance from older modes of thought. The 
 Vyuhas or manifestations of the Vasudevik school had already 
 been called in to aid in this reconciliation, and some of the 
 Brahman teaching of the Upanisads is not essentially irre- 
 concilable with them. In his doctrine of works, however, 
 this thinker had a new clue to the interpretation of the rela- 
 tion of the world to God and one which left room for a personal 
 Creator. He moulds and remoulds the world ; he sustains 
 and controls it ; but his works fetter him not, for he abides 
 indifferent and unattached. 2 Of this Rule which is the Yoga 
 par excellence, he is the Lord, ' Yogesvara '. But this lordship 
 of the Yoga has two aspects according as his unattachment 
 to his works is interpreted as indifference or as unselfishness 
 and love. From the latter and more ethical view proceeds all 
 that is most theistic and most truly religious in the theology 
 of this poem. From it comes naturally the doctrine of the 
 divine grace that saves and that bears the worshipper to final 
 peace, 3 and equally the doctrine of the divine incarnation. 4 
 It is here that from the point of view of the student of Theism 
 the poem reaches its summit. The metaphysical strain in the 
 J VIII. 20, 22. * IX. 7-9. 3 XVIII. 62. 4 IV. 6-8.
 
 THE THEOLOGY 205 
 
 poet's thought leads him elsewhere. His ethical insight bears 
 him unfalteringly to this result. 
 
 All Theism, and not less that of the Bhagavadglta than 
 the rest, pines and dwindles in an atmosphere of impersonal 
 intellectualism. From the point of view of Theism the failure 
 of the religion here presented lies in its vacillation between 
 two views of the nature of the highest good, that to which it 
 is a state of contemplation and that which regards it as a 
 state of self-sacrificing activity. That entanglement with 
 samsdra is evil, Indian thought is fully convinced, but wherein 
 the evil root of that samsdra consists it has not quite certainly 
 determined. It hesitates between the view that the fetter 
 that binds man to it is a selfish desire for reward, and the 
 view that it is something that so belongs to the very fibre of 
 earthly life that every movement of the mind and heart must 
 be cast forth and stilled. Whether the pens of different 
 writers wrote these diverse surmises of the truth or whether 
 they are the work of one man in various moods we cannot 
 determine with any assurance. There is no reason at all 
 events to suppose that they could not have been held together 
 within one complex personality, especially in that of one who 
 had inherited both the teaching of the Upanisad seers and the 
 traditions of the schools of bhakti. As we have already re- 
 marked in regard to the Upanisads, there is no greater contra- 
 diction here than we find in the case of the kindred teacher 
 Eckhart. For him, too, God is both 'a non-God, a non- 
 spirit, a non-person ', and a Person, both Brahman and Vasu- 
 deva, both the Godhead and God. For him evil is at one 
 time self-will, and at another the very ' creatureliness ' of the 
 creature. He too seeks to reconcile the ways of knowledge 
 and of action, though he reverses the relation in which the 
 Gitd places them, 1 declaring that ' what a man has taken in 
 by contemplation, that he pours out in love '. 2 
 
 The soul is ' a portion ' of the Lord, 3 an ' uncreated spark ' 
 of the divine, as kindred mystics of another age would call it. 
 1 XVIII. 55. 2 Inge's Mysticism, p. 160. s XV. 7.
 
 206 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 Matter is not unreal in itself, but unreal as apprehended by 
 those who have not, by making the Lord their refuge, passed 
 beyond the power of his Yoga Maya. 1 - Thus, while the world 
 is real and has only to be seen in the light that he supplies, 2 
 the experiences of sense are not so, and have no effect upon 
 the unchanging, indestructible soul, whose final goal is union 
 with Vasudeva himself. The expression ' shall come to me ' 
 that is so often used throughout the poem to designate man's 
 supreme destiny of bliss cannot be supposed to suggest a 
 condition of unconsciousness, though as a matter of fact the 
 word nirvana is used to describe it. 3 It is with this poet once 
 more, as with Eckhart, who exhorts men to ' throw them- 
 selves upon the heart of God, there to rest for ever, hidden 
 from all creatures '. 4 So long as both can think of the place 
 of blessedness as a divine heart, of the goal as a fellowship, the 
 thought that beckons them on is that of a union of the human 
 soul with the divine in love and the consciousness of peace. 
 
 Thus in the Bhagavadgita appear the outlines of a theistic 
 system which aims at uniting speculation and religion, the 
 philosophizings of the Upanisads and the ardours of the bhakti 
 worshippers. It was at the same time an attempt to reconcile 
 the claims of the contemplative and the active life. In this 
 work for the first time full recognition is accorded to bhakti 
 as possessing an honourable estate within the region of ideas. 
 From its use here as well as throughout the Mahdbhdrata we 
 are able to estimate in some measure the character of the 
 religious emotion which the word connotes. From what 
 Hopkins calls ' a typical epic passage illustrating the use of 
 bhakti ' 5 we learn that it is used to describe the devout senti- 
 ment of a worshipper ' who knows no other god in heaven ', 6 
 as well as the corresponding response on the part of the deity 
 so honoured. This latter is also described as the grace 
 (prasdda] of the god. 7 The term is further applied to the 
 
 1 VII. 14. 2 VII. 25. s V. 24. * Inge's Mysticism, p. 160. 
 
 5 Hopkins mJ.R.A.S., July, 1911, pp. 72 ff. 
 
 6 Mbh. III. 303 ; 3, 4. 7 Mbh. III. 31, 42.
 
 THE THEOLOGY 207 
 
 devotion of a wife to her husband and of a loyal people to 
 their king. In the view of Hopkins its use in the Epic indi- 
 cates a preponderance of emotional over intellectual elements 
 in the feeling which it conveys. ' Bhakti leans to love very 
 perceptibly, even to erotic passion, but it expresses affection 
 of a pure sort as well as that of a sensual nature ; which latter 
 aspect, however, is to be found and cannot be ignored. In 
 fact the danger of bhakti, become too ardent and lapsing into 
 mystic eroticism, is apparent in the mediaeval expression of 
 this emotion. It is not intellectual, yet the play of meaning 
 between faith and love (perhaps trust) is generally present '. 1 
 This devotion is shown to various gods, to whom also the 
 corresponding name of Bhagavat is applied. That name, 
 according to Hopkins, may best be rendered Blessed 'he 
 who is blessed with the possession of all good qualities and, 
 by implication, makes blessed his bkaktas, those who have 
 made him theirs and are devoted to him '. 2 From all this we 
 see how well fitted were these words to gather round them 
 a ' passionate Theism ' and to describe the movements of 
 affection that according to them unite together God and man. 
 We have at the same time hints of the danger that, lacking 
 some restraining influence, might betray its ardours, as it 
 so often has in its history in India, into grossness and 
 extravagance. 
 
 Out of those experiences and intuitions, so varied and dis- 
 sonant, and echoing back through so many centuries of 
 India's religious history, Ramanuja and the other scholastic 
 philosophers who came after him built up their various 
 systems. To them we pass at once without tarrying over the 
 enigmatic Vedanta Sutras which they claim to expound. Of 
 the Bhakti- Yoga Ramanuja affirms that it is ' the burthen of all 
 the Vedanta teaching '. 3 His theology is the consistent and 
 detailed demonstration of the principles involved in the Theism 
 which had been gradually through so long a time growing to 
 
 1 Hopkins, op. cit. 2 Hopkins, op. cit. 
 
 8 Ramanuja's Bhagavadglta> trans, by Govindacarya, p. 10.
 
 ao8 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 consciousness of itself. Bhagavat is the Creator in the sense 
 that from him issues forth at the dawning of a kalpa, and into 
 him by his will at its close is absorbed again the entire 
 universe. Before thus coming forth f the fourfold sum of 
 being ' ' lies powerless in the folds of his alluring and guna- 
 sated nature (prakriti) '. l Ramanuja quotes with approval 
 a passage from the Mahdbhdrata which says that all this 
 universe composed of movable and immovable (things) is 
 verily for Krisna's sake, and explains these last words as 
 indicating that the universe is his accessory or accident (sefa). 
 He has independent reality ; it has reality only in him. 2 He 
 is not implicated in creation, for he regards it unconcerned as 
 a ' passive neutral ', 3 the cause of the diverse fates of creatures 
 being the deeds that they have done. ' The term mdyd never 
 signifies what is false ', 4 though it signifies a view of things that 
 leads men astray. Those who follow the path of devotion 
 escape beyond 'this guna-i\d\ mdyd'. Elsewhere mdyd is 
 rendered by Ramanuja in the Gltd as the will of the Lord, by 
 which he chooses, in distinction from creatures whom their 
 karma compels, to be born among men. 5 
 
 He who is not only the Soul of the world but the Soul of 
 individual souls, ' ruling by his will ', 6 can of his own free 
 choice bestow illumination and strength upon those who seek 
 him, and ' strong delusion that they should believe a lie ' upon 
 those who turn away from him. 7 He is other than the bound 
 and freed souls, and may be compared in his relation to them 
 to a king ruling his subjects. 8 Obedience to him procures by 
 his grace ' supreme peace or cessation of all karma bonds '. 9 
 The released souls attain to the character of the Supreme Self, 
 but not his essential character ; they obtain ' sameness of 
 nature with him ', but not identity. 10 The love of the jndm, 
 
 1 Ramanuja's Gita, IX. 8 ; Govindacarya, p. 294. 
 
 2 Op. cit., IV. 4 jjp. 136. 3 Op. cit., IX. 9; p. 294. 
 4 Op. cit., VII. 13 ; p. 240. 5 Op. cit., IV. 6 ; p. 138. 
 6 Op. cit., XV. 15; p. 474. 7 Op. cit., XVI. 19. 
 
 8 Op. cit., XV. 17. 9 Op. cit., XVIII. 62 ; p. 561. 
 
 10 Srl-Bhasya I. i.
 
 THE THEOLOGY 209 
 
 the 'single-loving one' (eka-bhaktik}, 1 for his Lord is un- 
 fathomable and wins a return of love. Krisna in the Gltd is 
 represented by his commentator as saying in this connexion 
 in words that were echoed centuries later by a fellow mystic 
 of the West, ' In the same manner as my servant cannot live 
 without me his highest goal I cannot live without him. 
 Verily, therefore, is he my very self (atma).' 2 
 
 In his commentary on the Gita, more than in his Sri-Bhasya, 
 one realizes how truly Ramanuja belongs to the succession of 
 the Bhagavadbhaktas. There is the note of experimental 
 religion in his praise of the way of devotion. He does not 
 find the old word sufficient to express all that is in the heart 
 of the worshipper who resorts to Krisna as his refuge. He 
 describes it by another word which whether original to him 
 or not was used by some of his followers to denote an 
 attitude of still more complete surrender to the will of the 
 Lord. Prapatti or resignation is used once or twice by 
 Ramanuja in his exposition of the Gitd? and this with dcdryd- 
 bhimdna or love for the teacher became the highest means 
 of religious attainment in a later development of the bhakti 
 system. This more extreme doctrine casts the whole task of 
 salvation upon God and upon his spontaneous and unmotived 
 grace, and holds that his mercy feels the pain of others as his 
 own. The more orthodox doctrine held to the view of the 
 divine grace as responding to men's supplication and endeavour. 
 ' I bow before Mukunda's grace,' says Vedanta Des*ika, one of 
 the chief exponents of this teaching, ' which flows freely even 
 unto the ignorant a grace which springs of its own accord 
 but acts on a cause.' 4 The former or more innovating sect, 
 the Tengalais, ignored caste distinctions among their adherents 
 and renounced all dharmas, while the Vadagalais, like Rama- 
 nuja himself, followed a more conservative course. Perhaps 
 one sees signs in the former of the danger of a spirit of 
 
 1 Ramanuja's Gita, VII. 17. 2 Op. cit., VII. 18. 
 
 3 Ramanuja's Preface to Gita VII and Commentary on VII. 14. 
 
 4 Vedanta Desika, by M. K. Tatacharya, p. 26. 
 
 P
 
 210 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 devotion that has no standard of righteousness by which to 
 measure the demands that its indebtedness lays upon it, and 
 in the latter the opposite peril of a speedy return to formalism 
 and tradition. 
 
 We pass now to the Dvaita system of Madhva with its 
 emphatic discrimination between the Supreme Soul, finite 
 souls and matter. All things, according to Ramanuja, have 
 their basis in the One, and, while not unreal, depend upon 
 him as his manifestations. His view is that of ' qualified 
 monism ' ; that of Madhva is frankly dualistic. The Lord 
 Hari alone is the absolute Agent and Ruler, and while ' the 
 souls are completely under his control ' they are ' absolutely 
 different entities '. l When the soul is called a ' portion ' of the 
 Lord, all that is meant is that it ' bears some reduced simili- 
 tude to the Lord '. 2 All the names of gods in the Veda are 
 but various names of Visnu. Madhva is not a polytheist, 
 according to one of his exponents, for Visnu is the only 
 independent being, and he is ' at the top of the series ', ' beyond 
 men and devas'? He is the efficient cause of the universe but 
 not its material cause, since it is different from him. Laksml, 
 the wife of Visnu, is the presiding deity of prakriti. 'She is 
 the receptacle of the Lord's will to conjoin soul with body and 
 carry on the work of creation.' 4 
 
 Madhva, like other Indian theists, taught that the goal of 
 deliverance can only be attained by the divine grace. Along 
 with this, however, went in his case a doctrine of salvation 
 through Vayu, the son of Visnu, which is special to his system. 
 On the other hand he divides souls into three classes according 
 to their nature and destiny which apparently not even the 
 grace of the Lord can overcome. The sdtvika soul wins 
 heaven inevitably, the rdjasa soul revolves for ever in 
 samsdra, while that in which tamas predominates goes to hell. 
 
 1 Madhva on Gtta II. 24 (S. Subba Rau). , 2 Op. cit., XV. 7. 
 
 3 C. M. Padmanabha Char's Life and Teachings of Sri Madhvacharyar, 
 
 P- 35- 
 
 4 Op. cit., p. 305.
 
 THE THEOLOGY 211 
 
 According to other interpreters the worst doom of the wicked 
 in the view of the Gltd is rebirth as fierce beasts ' such incar- 
 nate existences as are opposed to affinity for Krisna' 1 and 
 punishment in a hell from which there is escape when the 
 strength of evil karma has been exhausted. But Madhva's 
 doctrine is more severe. In his view ' they go to the hell of 
 eternal damnation after having been for a while in the cycle of 
 sainsdra '. 2 
 
 The Suddhadvaita system of Vallabhacarya is more impor- 
 tant in its practice than in its theory. According to his 
 doctrine of ' pure monism ' the plane of samsara is unreal, 
 being created by the Lord's power of avidyd, but the cosmos 
 which is evolved from him is real. 3 The Lord who is worshipped 
 as Krisna and especially under the form Bal Gopal, as the 
 child Krisna is represented as one who rejoices more in the 
 joy of his followers than in ascetic discipline. A spirit of 
 devotion, rising to ecstasy, is the means of supreme deliver- 
 ance, while knowledge attains no further than release from 
 samsara. The Epicureanism of Vallabhacarya's teaching 
 marks a new departure among the systems that claim to rest 
 upon the authority of the Vedanta. There is a sinister 
 significance in this admission to the ranks of orthodoxy of 
 a view of life which, however much it had hitherto been 
 accepted in practice, yet had concealed itself beneath a pro- 
 fession of renunciation. In this sect and in that of Caitanya 
 the object of devotion is an erotic deity who is served by an 
 erotic love. Radha is the model of the true worshipper in 
 those bJiakti cults, and it is the part of the devotee to seek to 
 assume the attitude of a woman towards the sole male Being, 
 Krisna. From such a conception of the relation of the 
 worshipper and the worshipped, as well as from the sainar- 
 pana or self-devotion which Vallabhacarya required, and 
 which involved the surrender of body, soul, and possessions 
 
 1 Ramanuja's Gita, XVI. 20. 2 Madhva's Gita, XVI. 19. 
 
 3 L. D. Barnett's Bhagavadglta, p. 56. 
 
 P 2
 
 212 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 to the guru, it was inevitable, in the sensuous atmosphere of 
 Krisnaism, that gross abuses should result. 
 
 By this time the philosophical and theological powers of 
 India appear to be largely exhausted. The sects that now 
 appear have no new ideas to contribute. They are dis- 
 tinguished by their religious spirit or their moral attitude 
 rather than by the doctrine they profess. In the case of the 
 Ramanandls, indeed, there is this departure from the teaching 
 of Ramanuja, whom they claim to follow, that they assert 
 that God in his essential being is nirguna and unknowable, 
 but that the only way of salvation is by the worship of his 
 sagwia incarnations. ' There is no difference ', says Tulsl 
 Das, ' between the material (sagund) and the immaterial 
 (agund) ; so declare saints and sages, the Veda and the 
 Puranas. The formless, invisible and uncreated Immaterial 
 (nirguna) out of love for the faithful (bhaktas), becomes 
 materialized (saguna). How can this be ? In the same way 
 as water is crystallized into ice. ... In Rama who is the 
 Supreme Being and the sun of the world, the night of delusion 
 can have no part whatever. . . . Delusion affects Rama in the 
 same way as smoke or a cloud or dust affects the brightness 
 of the heavens.' * Similarly of the Nimbarka sect it is said 
 that they affirm that ' the one infinite and invisible God, who 
 is the only real existence is the only proper object of man's 
 devout contemplation. But as the incomprehensible is 
 utterly beyond the range of human faculties, he is partially 
 manifested for our behoof in the book of Creation, in which 
 natural objects are the letters of the universal alphabet and 
 express the sentiments of the divine Author '. 2 Radha and 
 Krisna symbolize the mysteries of the divine love, and as 
 symbols it does not matter whether they were real personages 
 or not. 3 Other adherents of bhakti seem to have kept their 
 religion and their philosophy apart and to have found no 
 
 1 Tulsl Das's Rdmdyana, I. Doha 122, 123 (Growse, I, p. 69). 
 
 2 Growse's Maihura, p. 181. 3 Ibid.
 
 THE THEOLOGY 213 
 
 difficulty in accepting an advaita theory while following for 
 their heart's satisfaction the practice of devotion. 
 
 There is nothing new or valuable in the so-called Sdridilya 
 or Ndrada Sutras, late attempts in the manner of the Sutras 
 of Badarayana to demonstrate the greatness of the way of 
 emancipation by devotion. It does not seem to be clear 
 whether the philosophical doctrine of the Sdndilya Sutras is 
 advaita or visistddvaita : the work is in either case an exalta- 
 tion of the way of devotion or ' attachment to the Lord ' l as 
 higher than knowledge or works. The Ndrada Sutras are 
 distinctly dualistic and warmer in their sentiment. They 
 distinguish their doctrine from Sandilya's thus : ' Sandilya 
 says bhakti is the unbroken feeling of the Universal Self in 
 one's own self. But Narada says it is surrendering all actions 
 to God and feeling the greatest misery in forgetting God.' 2 
 But whether the followers of bhakti were whole-hearted 
 Theists or whether they combined Theism with Agnosticism 
 or with a monistic philosophy, the chief difference between 
 one form of the religion and another appears now generally 
 to depend upon whether it is inspired by the figure of Rama 
 or of Krisna, or whether it is an effort, as in the case of SwamI 
 Narayan, to return to a more spiritual worship and a cleaner 
 life. 
 
 To complete our conspectus of the theology of Indian 
 Theism it remains for us to consider the system of Saiva 
 Siddhdnta in the South a system which, perhaps, from the 
 theistic point of view is the most valuable of all that have 
 sprung up upon the Indian soil. The three categories under 
 which the teaching of the Siddhdnta is grouped are, as we 
 have already learned, those of Pati (the Lord), pasti (the 
 flock), and pdsa (the bond). These are all eternal, but not all 
 equally real. The Lord who is Siva is supreme and without 
 parts (niskala} and even nirguna in the sense that he is free 
 from the three gunas of matter but for the purpose of his 
 manifestation he assumes a sakala nature and he operates in 
 
 1 Sandilya's Sfttras, I. 2 Narada's Sutras (Sturdy), 1 8 and 19.
 
 214 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 the universe through his sakti or energy. The instrument of 
 creation is Brahma, himself his first creation. In such ways 
 as these, in agreement with the ancient theory of emanations, 
 the gulf is bridged between the finite and the infinite, and he 
 who is pure spirit is shown as mingling with the impure world 
 like a ray of light that quickens and illuminates. 1 The flock 
 of souls is eternally existent likewise, but without energies 
 or faculties, ' like birds sleeping in the night in the branches 
 of some mighty tree, hardly to be distinguished from the tree 
 itself, save that they live '. 2 There hangs over them a burden 
 of old, eternal deeds whose fruit they must consume ere they 
 can enter the final, blissful union with the Supreme. The 
 Lord allots them their embodiment for which at the beginning 
 of each aeon these alienated souls wait, crouching in the 
 darkness. The only way to this end is the consuming of the 
 deeds and hence the Lord with what is indeed a gracious 
 purpose sends forth the energy of his ' delusion ', evolving 
 from maya the phenomenal universe and clothing the souls 
 with bodies. Thus there is pdsa y the bond, hindering that 
 release which is union with Siva. 
 
 Perhaps nowhere in Indian theology have theistic ideas 
 found fuller or nobler expression than in this attempt to 
 conceive of an eternal purpose of redemption governing the 
 whole relation of the Supreme Lord to the universe. No- 
 where, perhaps, has Indian Theism come nearer than here to 
 overcoming the stubborn opposition that the karma doctrine 
 presents to its fundamental conceptions of the supremacy and 
 the gracious character of God. He sends forth the soul on 
 his secular pilgrimage with a gracious purpose for his deliver- 
 ance when the due time comes, and he interposes with the 
 energy of his grace and burns up new deeds. There are four 
 paths of this pilgrimage that in which the soul serves God 
 as a servant his master, that in which he serves him as a son 
 his father, that in which he serves him as a friend his friend, 
 and, highest of all, that in which he serves him as a wife her 
 1 Pope's Timvasagam, p. Ixxxii. 2 Op. cit., p. 1 8.
 
 THE THEOLOGY 215 
 
 husband. So the soul makes its slow progress along the path 
 to freedom and to a full illumination, guided and upheld by 
 the ' Brahma-Sakti, the sleeping lady V It is as ' when one 
 lights a lamp and awaits the dawning of the day'. 2 'To 
 those who have thus exhausted all karma by the grace of the 
 visible guru (there is) no longing after sense pleasure, no birth 
 or death, no bondage, sorrow or delusion.' 3 The final goal is 
 reached when the three-fold malam, dnava malam (the 
 original evil), karma malam, and mdya malam (matter) is 
 neutralized, 4 and the soul enters upon eternal union with 
 Siva a relation which is 'not one, nor two, but non-dual, 
 advaita. 5 ' The negative prefix in the word advaita does not 
 negate the existence of two substances, but only a quality 
 of the existence, i.e. the existence entirely independent or 
 detached from each other '. Thus, as the gracious work of 
 Siva proceeds and souls pass after their long pilgrimage into 
 union with him, there is the hope that a time will come when 
 all shall have obtained release, and Siva shall be all in all. 7 
 
 The breadth and dignity of this doctrine and its deep sense 
 of the gracious character of God give it a place apart from 
 other systems of Theism that have arisen in India. It may 
 not have overcome the tremendous obstacles that the philo- 
 sophical presuppositions, of which the Indian mind seems to 
 find it impossible to rid itself, place in its way. The Saiva 
 Siddhanta has not succeeded in explaining the origin of evil ; 
 its attempt, which is similar to that of Plotinus, to explain 
 the world of suffering souls as 'a result of the transeunt 
 activity of the One, as an effect of its overpowering energy, 
 which yet has no connexion with its inner nature ', 8 is philo- 
 
 1 Tiruvunthiar in Siddhanta Deepika, VIII, p. 187. 
 
 '* Umapathi in Pope's Tiruvasagam, p. Ixxxvi. 
 
 3 Tiruvunthiar, op. cit., p. 1 88. 
 
 4 Rev. H. W. Schomerus in the Gospel Witness, V, p. 178. 
 
 5 Tiruvunthiar, op. cit., p. 190. 
 
 G An exposition of Saiva Siddhanta reported by Rev. H. W. Schomerus 
 in the Gospel Witness, V, p. 179. 
 
 7 Pope's Tiruvasagam, p. 1 8. 
 
 8 Caird's Evohition of Theology in the Greek Philosophers, II, p. 344.
 
 2i6 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 sophically unsatisfying. But it has grasped and set forth in 
 far broader outline than elsewhere in Indian thought the basal 
 conception of Theism that God is a moral being, governed 
 from first to last by a purpose of compassion. If its doctrine 
 of grace has not been fully moralized, and if it is confused by 
 association with physical ideas of energy and with mythological 
 ideas of Brahma Sakti similar to those which were associated 
 with the Laksmi of other systems, yet it strove to overcome 
 these limitations with a measure of success that gives it per- 
 haps the highest place among Indian theistic constructions. 
 When we consider especially the religious materials with 
 which it had to work, and the intellectual anarchy amid which 
 it arose, we cannot but admire profoundly the theological 
 breadth of view of its thinkers and the fervour and sincerity 
 of its saints. 
 
 We have sketched briefly some of the main features of 
 the chief theological systems that have been built up in 
 India about the devotional experience of bhakti. The 
 theology of the more popular movements that sprang up later 
 all over the land, and were less concerned with doctrinal 
 statement than with a direct appeal to the heart and to the 
 life need only be dealt with in respect of some of its subsidiary 
 developments. In the main they agree with what the Sri- 
 sampradaya of Ramanuja teaches, but they seldom define the 
 boundaries that separate them from the Maya-vada Vedanta, 
 and are for the most part content to commend the bhakti 
 mdrga as a good and safe and satisfying way for common 
 men to walk in. 'The knowledge of the Supreme', says 
 Tulsi Das, ' is of two kinds, like fire which is either internal 
 or visible ; each is in itself incomprehensible, but is compre- 
 hended by means of the name, and therefore I say that the 
 name is greater than either Brahma or Rama.' l Here ' the 
 name ' is only one aspect of the mediation of ' the Unutterable ', 
 who apart from such mediation is so hard for the heart to 
 find. ' Though the unchangeable Lord is in our very soul, the 
 
 1 Tulsi Das's Rdmdyana, I. Doha 26 (Growse, I, p. 18).
 
 THE THEOLOGY 217 
 
 whole creation is in slavery and wretchedness till he is revealed 
 in definite shape, and is energized by the name.' l This prag- 
 matic view is put more plainly in another passage of the 
 same poem where Rama himself expounds the doctrine of 
 faith to his brother Laksman. ' After piety, asceticism, and 
 after ascetic meditation, knowledge, and knowledge, as the 
 Vedas declare, is the giver of salvation. But that at which 
 I melt most quickly, brother, is faith which is the blessing of 
 my votaries ; it stands by itself without another support, and 
 is above all knowledge, whether spiritual or profane. Faith, 
 brother, is an incomparable source of happiness, and only to 
 be acquired by the favour of a saint.' 2 It is ' the easy path 
 by which men may find me'. So in the Sat'sat, which is 
 attributed to Tulsl Das, it is said and this and no conviction 
 of its absolute truth is the reason with them all for the pre- 
 ference of the way of bhakti ' The way of knowledge to a 
 nirguna Brahman is full of countless difficulties.' 3 But in 
 contemplation of this excellent way all rival paths are for- 
 gotten. The nine kinds of bhakti^ if only they were made 
 use of at their fullest meaning, are largely inward and ethical. 
 They include, besides devotion to the lotus feet of the guru 
 and the singing of the praise of Rama, prayer, ' in every action 
 a loving and persevering piety ', contentment with what one 
 has, and 'a guileless simplicity towards all and a hearty 
 confidence in Rama without either exultation or dejection '. 4 
 
 Faith, in at least the Christian sense of the word, is at once 
 an affirmation of truth and a surrender to the truth affirmed. 
 In the case of the bhakti of the Indian saints it almost entirely 
 occupies the latter attitude. The affirmation of truth is a 
 secondary concern. We have seen that in the Mahabhdrata 
 bhakti is often applied to the loyal but perhaps undiscrimi- 
 nating love of a wife to her husband. It is the same at its 
 very highest to Tukaram likewise. He speaks also again and 
 
 1 Tulsl Das's Ramayana, I. Doha 26 (Growse, I, p. 18). 
 
 2 Tulsl Das's Ramayana, III. Doha 13 (Growse, III, p. 14). 
 
 3 Translation by Dr. Grierson in /. A. XXII, p. 229. * 
 
 4 Tulsl Das's Ramayana, III. Doha, 29, 30 (Growse, III, p. 30).
 
 ai8 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 again with much devotional fervour of the Motherhood of God. 
 His heart, and Namdev's, cries, to use the language of the 
 latter poet, ' like the child separated from its mother whom it 
 has missed '. At the same time these teachers for whom 
 bhakti was a practical guide to life could not fail to be aware 
 of the danger of a religion that was subjective and self-centred 
 and too exclusively emotional. No doubt it was a sense of 
 this danger that caused the appearance of the ' cat ' and 
 ' monkey ' schools in regard to the operation of the divine 
 grace. The North India sects seemed to have belonged 
 mainly to the latter group, and maintain the efficacy and the 
 necessity of disinterested works. 'With Tukaram,for example, 
 bhakti meant service of Vitthal, but such service was as yet 
 imperfectly ethicized. It meant ' singing his' name, reciting 
 his praises, spreading his glory by precept and example '.* It 
 had a considerable moral connotation according to the more 
 modern exposition of the Bhakta-kalpadruma (1866), but even 
 there we find placed side by side, abstaining from falsehood, 
 theft, adultery, and not eating very indigestible food, and not 
 going by night upon a mountain. One work, which is indeed 
 a note of a truly ethical religion, is the preaching of the 
 gospel to the world, or ' the call to one's fellow men to sing, 
 the name and save themselves '. * If a man be skilled in words 
 and learned let him compose histories of the Holy One. . . . 
 Often hath it been said to such an One, " Cleanse thy voice 
 and thy heart by telling of the glory of the Holy One '', and 
 this one will give answer, " Sir, I am busy describing the 
 doctrine of the identity of the universe with the deity ". . . . 
 If a man turn not his family and his household towards the 
 gospel of grace and teach not the knowledge that holdeth 
 thereunto, then the sin, lasting his life long, lieth upon the 
 heads of his parents who trained him not up to teach and 
 showed him not its necessity.' 2 
 
 1 Professor Patwardhan's Tukarani's Doctrine of Bhakti, Indian 
 Interpreter, vol. VII, p. 27. 
 
 2 Bhakta-kalpadruma, translated by Dr. Grierson, in J. R. A. S., 
 April, 1908, pp. 357, 360.
 
 THE THEOLOGY 219 
 
 Finally, we see that the power of fervent bhakti is able at 
 its highest even to attempt two things which in India seem to 
 connote the impossible to annul the terrors of transmigration, 
 that law that looms so terrible above every religious experience 
 and aspiration of the Indian saints, and to break the adaman- 
 tine chains of caste. To indicate its relation to the former, 
 we shall quote a passage from the Safsal, a work which, 
 whether actually by Tulsl Das or not, may be taken as em- 
 bodying the teaching of his school. ' Karma is, as it were, 
 the wings of the bird-like soul, wings by the support of which 
 the soul continually makes progress. . . . Wherever the soul 
 may go, if it do karma with a selfish object (i.e. to obtain 
 salvation) it must remain dependent upon karma alone ; but 
 if it does karma with no selfish object, that is, merely in order 
 to please the Lord, that karma is no longer a fetter ; it gives 
 faith and salvation ; nay, it is an agent of both.' 1 So also we 
 are assured that for Tukaram ' the infinite round of reincarna- 
 tion itself loses all its terrors before the prospect of the con- 
 tinuance of the privilege of association with God in bhakti. 
 If Tuka could keep on serving his Lord, if he could practise 
 bhakti, as he finally came to conceive it, he would not mind, 
 yea, he would even pray for, a return again and again to this 
 world.' 2 Towards caste the ideal attitude of the bhakta is 
 that of Rama in Tulsl Das's poem : ' I recognize no kinsman- 
 ship save that of faith ; neither lineage, family, religion, rank, 
 wealth, power, connexions, virtue, nor ability. A man with- 
 out faith is of no more account than a cloud without water.' 3 
 But the bhakti ardour that aspires to that high level of 
 brotherhood can only reach it and lay aside its natural arro- 
 gance for a little while at the god's festival and within his 
 temple courts. What stable theology and what enduring 
 social order could be built upon what after all is only f a 
 feeling fond and fugitive ' ? 
 
 1 Translation by Dr. Grierson in I. A. XXII, p. 229. 
 
 2 Professor Patwardhan in Indian Interpreter (vol. VII, April, 1912), 
 p. 28. 
 
 3 Tulsl Das's Kdmayana, III. Doha 29 (Growse, III, p. 30).
 
 PART III 
 
 CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 
 
 ANY attempt to estimate the value of Indian Theism whose 
 long and chequered history we have sought to trace, and 
 whose theology we have reviewed, necessarily implies a stan- 
 dard by which it can be measured. We must have some 
 conception of what Theism ought to be, if we are to determine 
 the excellences and the defects of those constructions of it 
 that have been built up by the Indian mind and heart. It is 
 true that it must at least have room within itself for the three 
 great postulates of God, freedom and immortality. But these 
 words admit of a wide variety of definition. To estimate the 
 value of the doctrines that have appeared in India we must 
 have a clear conception of the implications of Theism ; we 
 must be able to discriminate between what in any system is 
 definitely theistic in character and what is antagonistic to 
 theistic belief and aspiration. We must, in a word, have some 
 criterion by which the claims of the doctrines we are examining 
 can be tested. To attempt to appreciate the worth of any 
 system by reference to an abstract speculative ideal is a 
 peculiarly unfruitful enterprise. We have learned enough from 
 the modern doctrines of Evolution and the modern philosophy 
 of Pragmatism to realize the importance of keeping ourselves 
 in relation with the facts of things as they are. Religion even 
 at its very highest is still something relating to men, and only 
 of worth as it speaks to their hearts. Therefore Indian as well 
 as other systems of Theism are best estimated by comparison 
 with other doctrines that have awakened elsewhere in response 
 to similar needs in other hearts. And especially the theistic 
 conjectures of Indian saints and mystics can most usefully be
 
 CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 231 
 
 evaluated by comparison with what we may describe as the 
 standard Theism of Christianity. If accordingly we make use 
 of the main conceptions of the Christian religion as our stan- 
 dard of comparison, we may be able without dogmatism to 
 arrive at some secure estimate of what is most precious and 
 what is least so, from the point of Theism, in the Indian 
 religious development. 
 
 There is, of course, a real continuity between them and the 
 Christian faith a continuity which springs from the common 
 fears and aspirations among which they move and in which 
 they have their roots. No suggestion of censure nor any 
 attitude of dogmatism is implied in such a comparison as is 
 here proposed. Our task is that of the historian. As we 
 listen to the poignant cries that echo through the temple of 
 mankind we may compare and contrast them ; we may esti- 
 mate their religious value ; we do not condemn. We do not 
 say that to understand all is to forgive all, for to forgive is 
 not the province of the investigator, nor indeed of any fellow 
 member of the same human race that uttered itself in these 
 hopes and fears. But to understand not all, for that is im- 
 possible, but some of the long travail of the human heart in 
 its search for God, and especially to understand something of 
 the travail of the Indian spirit as we can discern it through 
 the dust and haze of centuries, is to have every instinct of easy 
 criticism changed to sympathy and deep respect. We watch 
 with reverence the age-long striving to draw near to God, to 
 find assurance in His fellowship. But where He has been 
 found most fully and men's hearts have been most fully 
 satisfied that we recognize as the central shrine there is 
 the place of His richest revelation. Without censure and 
 without dogmatism we have to endeavour to understand why 
 He is present here rather than there, why He is found by the 
 saint that seeks Him along one road, while He is only a dying 
 echo of His own cry, a shadow of His own desire, to one who 
 seeks Him by another. 
 
 Approaching the Indian Theisms then in this spirit of
 
 223 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 respect, and taking with us the principles of Christian Theism 
 for purposes not of judgement but of comparison, we are im- 
 pressed at once by the number of these points of contact and 
 comparison. In the early days of the history of Christianity, 
 when the religion of Mithra was its most powerful and active 
 rival, the surface likeness between the two religions was such 
 that some of the Christian Fathers were ready to suggest that 
 Mithraism was a diabolical travesty of their religion, devised 
 by the arch-deceiver to lead men astray. It is not in that 
 spirit that we note the parallelisms between the Indian Theisms 
 and the Christian faith. We recognize in them testimony to 
 the universal needs and the universal religious aspirations of 
 the race of man. For that reason they share with Christianity 
 the character of being personal religions, religions in which 
 the relation of the worshipper to the god is a personal relation. 
 For that reason also they at least have some of the marks of 
 universal religions. They are the religions of those who are 
 seeking present help in this life and some hope for another. 
 Measuring them by their ideals, and not by their failures and 
 their scandals, these Theisms represent an advance on the old 
 tribal polytheisms, a genuine and earnest endeavour to slough 
 formalism and naturalism, and mount to a higher spiritual 
 region. Just because of the common humanity from which 
 they spring, and because of the reality of their effort to reach 
 a spiritual fellowship with God, these Theisms, for at least 
 some sincere moments in their history, reveal in one form or 
 another their affinity with a religion which, whatever the truth 
 of its ultimate claims, surely speaks deeply to the heart of 
 man and opens abundantly to him the heart of God. There 
 is nothing strange, then, in the many parallelisms both in 
 thought and in ritual which disclose themselves. The belief, 
 for example, in incarnations or mediations by one means or 
 another between the far-off God and man, in the grace of God, 
 and in the value of faith, are only such as the logic of the 
 heart in the great moments when she probes herself might 
 well demand and discover. Sacramental feasts, baptisms,
 
 CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 223 
 
 initiations, 'mysteries', are natural media and symbols by 
 which the unseen is made real and brought near. There are 
 these and other impressive elements of resemblance between 
 the Indian theisms and Christianity as there no doubt are as 
 well in the case of other ethnic Theisms. To estimate the 
 true value of these likenesses they must be examined at closer 
 quarters. There are at the same time not less obvious and 
 striking differences. Especially there is what we may describe 
 as the differentia of practically the whole of the thought of 
 India, with the exception of that of the earliest Vedic period, 
 the doctrine of karma as that is linked with the belief in trans- 
 migration. We seem never even in the most theistic periods 
 of Indian theistic aspiration to escape from this conception 
 which, as Dr. Grierson has said ' hangs like a pall ' * over all the 
 bJiakti teaching even of the North India saints. Whatever 
 the root from which this belief has sprung, whether or not we 
 are to conceive it as an inheritance from ancient animism which 
 a later reflection has sought to reinterpret and rationalize 
 there is no doubt that it is now ' greater than all herbs ' in 
 India and overspreads and shadows all the land. The power 
 of the deed is so complete and for the most part, we must add, 
 so unmoral that it obviously leaves little room in the universe 
 for a God, such as Theism postulates, to breathe in, and no 
 territory over which He can rule. The dominion of karma is 
 universal. ' As a man acts, as he conducts himself, so will he 
 be born.'' 2 There is no place for repentance in the Hindu 
 doctrine of karma, though in Buddhism room has been found 
 for this ethical emotion (samvega). This is not the moral law 
 that ' whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap '. Were 
 it so there would be no antagonism between it and faith in 
 a God whose will is righteousness. But right action binds 
 a man no less securely to the wheel of rebirth than does 
 wrong. ' How shall there be in this samsara (this cycle of 
 rebirths) ', says one scripture, ' any uncaused action ? ' Every 
 
 1 /. R.A.S., April, 1908, p. 341. 
 
 2 Brihad. Up. IV. iv. 5.
 
 224 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 moment of man's life is the direct result of some act that he 
 has done ; his life is an endless chain of close-linked deeds, all 
 made of the same stuff, and all, whether good or evil, it would 
 seem, inevitable and unbreakable. ' As among a thousand 
 cows ', says the Mahabhdrata, ' a calf will find its mother, so 
 the deed previously done will find and follow its doer.' With 
 a certainty no less sure than that of death itself this ' shadow ' 
 (adrista, the unseen) through all time ' sits and waits ' for man. 
 This doctrine seems to have discovered the secret of perpetual 
 motion ; for the working out of karma is always producing new 
 karma to be worked out farther and, in the words of Deussen, 
 the clock of retribution in the very act of running down winds 
 itself up again. 1 As this law has no limit in its apparent 
 duration for samsara had no beginning and we can perceive 
 no end to it so it has no limit in the extent of its application. 
 It controls every ' action ', whether god's or man's. It governs 
 the operations of nature ; by it the universe is destroyed and 
 again renewed. 
 
 It is of the first importance that we should consider what is 
 the influence upon the theistic aspirations of the people of 
 this country of this extraordinarily powerful and pervading 
 doctrine, and how it affects them by giving them a certain 
 direction, and presenting to them certain specific problems. 
 Of Christianity we can say three things with certainty, that it 
 brings men into fellowship with a personal God, that it is 
 through and through ethical in its purpose, and that it is 
 always a religion of grace. The presence, on the other hand, 
 in Indian religion of the karma doctrine comes in the way of 
 each of these theistic aims. It confronts Theism in its effort 
 to unfold its meaning with the difficulty, for example, of 
 finding a place for a personal God in the midst of this iron 
 framework which so grips the universe. It presents it 
 further with the problem of explaining the relation of a free 
 ethical personality, such as Theism postulates, to its rigid 
 legalism. It also opposed its goal of a negative release to the 
 1 Deussen, Das System des Vedanta, p. 381.
 
 CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 325 
 
 theistic hope of a blessed fellowship with God. Before con- 
 sidering the points of contact in faith and ritual between 
 Indian and Christian Theism it will be necessary to examine 
 the influence that this karma doctrine has exercised in setting 
 them apart. 
 
 I 
 
 It is obvious that it is not easy to find any place for God 
 that is worthy of Him within such a mechanical system of 
 requital as that of karma. For Indian Theism God is either 
 one who has to yield to it, or one to whom it has to yield, 
 and in either case the deity emerges maimed. He is generally, 
 as M. Poussin has observed, ' either an Oriental despot, arbi- 
 trarily imputing sin or virtue, and assigning hell or heaven to 
 his creatures ', or ' only an Organizer of the world, keeping an 
 account of the actions (karma} of creatures, in order to ensure 
 their due recompense and after each period of chaos, recon- 
 structing the universe in order to set each creature in the 
 place that befits it '- 1 The Indian Theist, for whom the 
 karma doctrine was an axiom, found himself in a sore 
 dilemma. If God had His hand upon the world at all, if 
 He was engaged in its concerns, then He was no God, but 
 a fettered soul, needing to be freed from samsara as much as 
 man himself. If, on the other hand, he was conceived as free, 
 then it was a condition of his freedom that he have no con- 
 nexion with the world and no influence upon it. It is the 
 logic of this argument that made atheists of the Buddhist and 
 the Samkhyan and the Jain. The Jain addresses petitions to 
 the Jina, but what reality can there be in a worship that is 
 rendered to one who is removed from the world and all its 
 concerns, and unable, therefore, to respond? The subjective 
 exercise of self-purifying will not long persist in the face of 
 such a doctrine. Nor, on the other hand, can theistic faith 
 rest permanently in the idea of a God out of relation to its 
 conception of the order of the universe, or able arbitrarily to 
 
 1 E.R.E. II. i83 2 . 
 Q
 
 426 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 set aside its laws. The fervour of devotion may make us deaf 
 for a time to the claims of reason, but it can only be for a time. 
 When the tide of the emotion ebbs, problems are revealed to 
 reflection as having only been submerged, not solved. The 
 result is an emotional Theism of hope, alternating with the 
 intellectual acceptance of a doctrine that is very near to 
 despair. Such seem to have been the real character of many 
 of the popular bhakti worships. Their adherents were either 
 simple men who did not attempt to correlate their ideas and 
 for whom the instinct of worship was enough, or they were 
 people who deliberately divided the house of their thought 
 between the intellect and the heart, and had for each room 
 a different and appropriate demeanour. In either case the 
 Theism that results is a precarious product, and of little 
 permanent religious value. For those who desired seriously 
 to organize their thought into a unity there seemed no alter- 
 native between abandoning Theism altogether and ignoring 
 this stubborn doctrine so apparently irreconcilable with faith 
 in the supremacy over the world of a moral personality. 
 Never, we may say, in the whole course of the Indian theistic 
 development is this antinomy fully resolved. Never is the 
 attempt resolutely made to re-think the karma doctrine so as 
 to personalize it, and give it a content more fully ethical and 
 so more reconcilable with Theism. 
 
 We see the same problem emerging within Christianity, 
 and the same peril to Theism presenting itself there, when, as 
 is the case especially in recent years, the conception of the 
 uniformity of natural law has become an obsession so com- 
 plete as either to thrust out God altogether from the universe 
 of the knowable or to bind Him a captive in chains. There 
 is no room for real theistic hopes to breathe in such an 
 atmosphere. Prayer is futile, and where there is not the faith 
 that enables men to pray there is no God with whom there 
 can be fellowship. The spiritual world must be fully recog- 
 nized as higher than, and as enveloping, the natural world, 
 and God be over all, blessed for ever. There are two kinds
 
 CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 327 
 
 of legalism that may bring the spirit into bondage, and the 
 karma doctrine partakes of the nature of them both. Of its 
 moral legalism we shall speak presently. Its natural legalism 
 with which we are now dealing is no less fatal to a free and 
 a courageous spiritual religion. The power of Theism can 
 only be revealed where these bonds are broken and where the 
 idea is revealed of a God whose will, which is supreme, is love 
 and righteousness. ' There is a Kingdom ', says a Christian 
 writer, 'into which none enter but children, in which the 
 children play with infinite forces, where the child's little finger 
 becomes stronger than the giant world ; a wide Kingdom, 
 where the world exists only by sufferance ; to which the 
 world's laws are for ever subjected ; in which the world lies 
 like a foolish, wilful dream in the solid truth of the day.' l It 
 is the claim of the Christian interpreter of the meaning of the 
 world that history reveals the operation of supernatural powers 
 which transcend and annul the lower laws of nature. It is 
 his claim that in the lives of nations that have been called to 
 great tasks of civilization, and that respond to the call, the 
 ordinary laws of declension and decay are arrested and a 
 ' rejuvenescence ', ' a new era of vision and power ', comes to 
 them which can only be explained as the replenishing of their 
 life from the Source of life. 2 So also it is found to be the case 
 in the individual life, where the spiritual fact of conversion, 
 the experience of the renewal and illumination of the soul 
 testifies to the operation of a paramount divine activity to 
 whose higher control ' the world's laws are for ever subjected '. 
 In such a region the laws that are called karma lie, like the 
 kindred laws of nature, ' like a foolish wilful dream '. They 
 are ' maya' in the midst of that higher reality of permanence 
 and power. In such a region as that man's faith finds God, 
 and, finding Him, ' cries like a Captain for eternity ', but not 
 elsewhere. 
 
 The most courageous attempt to transcend this bondage is 
 
 1 Fleming Stevenson's Praying and Working^. 317. 
 
 2 See W. P. Paterson's Rule of Faith, p. no.
 
 228 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 that of the Saiva Siddhanta system, a system which for that 
 reason we may pronounce the noblest among Indian Theisms. 
 It passes beyond the view that God is merely the One who 
 presides indifferently over the embodiment of souls and even 
 beyond the more theistic doctrine that ' the whole universe 
 must be for ever inert, unintelligent and lifeless without the 
 operations of Pati and his manifested energy'. 1 It is true 
 that the attribution to God of movements of grace towards 
 the imprisoned soul is in itself an indication in the various 
 theistic doctrines of a revolt from the grim law of retribution, 
 but it is in the Saiva Siddhanta alone that we find this concep- 
 tion of God's gracious energy realized in some measure as 
 a higher law, transcending and taking up into itself the lower. 
 It comprehends within the sweep of its doctrine of grace the 
 whole of the world-process, teaching that the purpose of the 
 Lord from first to last is gracious, and that the end in view 
 throughout, is the soul's emancipation, and his entrance into 
 blissful union with his Lord. Thus, though the constraint of 
 the karma doctrine still lies heavy on the Deliverer and the 
 way by which he must travel to the goal is long, though he 
 can only order things so that ' deeds eternal and inexorable 
 may be consumed ', 2 and it is only at a certain point in the 
 long history that he can put forth his gracious energy of 
 enlightenment though in these ways the gracious will of 
 Siva is limited and hindered, yet it is an immense advance 
 towards an ethical Theism that a gracious moral purpose in 
 a measure supersedes and controls the lower law of recom- 
 pense. Thus here a higher moral order makes its appearance, 
 labouring to transcend the legal and retributive order of which 
 the karma doctrine is the most extreme example. Greek 
 theology was able to moralize the idea of fate and to combine 
 Nemesis and Zeus in the one thought of a moral Governor. 
 But this strange Indian conception was far more intractable 
 and far harder to take up into a doctrine of moral ends. The 
 
 1 Pope's Tiruvasagam, p. Ixxxiv. 
 
 2 Op. cit., p. Ixxxii.
 
 CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 239 
 
 law of karma proved too stubbornly natural, too deeply rooted 
 in a non-moral world-view to be transmutable by the Indian 
 spirit, which is not at any time ethically energetic. The god 
 of its Theism never triumphs completely over this rival, and 
 has to be content with a divided empire. 
 
 II 
 
 This brings us to the second problem which we have 
 indicated as suggested by the endeavour of the theistic 
 instinct to assert itself in India alongside of the karma 
 doctrine that is the problem of the relation of a free ethical 
 activity, such as Theism postulates, to a rigid legalism. For 
 Theism to be possible man must be recognized as a self- 
 determining agent, whose character is not eternally fixed, but 
 for whom the future may be a land of hope and promise. 
 He must be one who can, God helping him, burst the bonds 
 of habit, and enter into the experience of a moral victory that 
 is really his, and the God whom he knows must be One who 
 can bring him into such an experience. There must be 
 windows in his sky through which the light of divine forgive- 
 ness can stream into his penitent heart. The black clouds 
 that legalism breeds the clouds of sin and retribution must 
 not be doomed to hang for ever as an unbroken pall over 
 his life. 
 
 In this connexion we have to note another suggestion, 
 besides that to which we have already referred of the operation 
 of the divine grace, by means of which a lightening of the 
 darkness of karma legalism is made possible, and a way of 
 escape discovered from the grasp of its retribution. In the 
 Glta especially, the view is elaborated that no fetters of 
 samsdra bind the man who has no desire for the fruit of his 
 action, and who lives his life ' devoid of attachment '. Just as 
 in the Saiva Siddhanta we have the idea of a higher moral 
 purpose in the divine mind seeking to overcome the rigid 
 process of legalism, so here we have the idea of a higher
 
 230 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 moral means making its appearance within the process itself, 
 so as, not to cut its bonds, for that is still impossible, but to 
 avoid forming new ones. In both cases a nobler ethical order 
 is correcting the less noble legal one. In the one case it is 
 the teleological criterion that gives the new idea its authority 
 over the old ; in the other, what is significant is the moral 
 superiority of the new attitude of non-attachment to action. 
 Both views implicitly condemn the karma law as imperfectly 
 ethicized. In the first case that law is condemned because it 
 implies that life has no moral purpose; it is a road that leads 
 nowhere. In the other, it is condemned because it is not 
 based upon the fundamental distinction between good and evil. 
 The fetter which binds is action, good no less than bad. Not 
 evil desire, but desire itself is the enemy. Thus in both cases 
 what is recognized as defective in the karma theory is its 
 incomplete moralization. In both cases, however, the attempt 
 to accomplish this is inadequate. The attempt to get rid of 
 motive altogether is predestined to failure. It was no doubt 
 the karma doctrine itself that set the Indian spirit seeking 
 a solution of its problem in this impossible direction. For in 
 making motive itself the fetter, instead of evil motive, it turned 
 its back upon the ethical goal and suggested the endeavour to 
 escape from the region of the ethical altogether instead of 
 suggesting that its ethics should be deepened. The philo- 
 sopher, no less than the workman, who ' tries to do better 
 than well, doth but confound his skill with covetousness '. 
 The endeavour to g~et rid of desire is an endeavour to pass 
 beyond the good, and ends in confounding the conscience with 
 covetousness. For there is nothing in the world or out of it, 
 we may be sure, that is better than a good will. 
 
 When the karma doctrine is called a system of legalism, 
 what is meant is that it is a system in which the whole 
 emphasis is placed upon the isolated acts that make up a 
 man's life, so as to make them in their separation and com- 
 plexity dominant over man's destiny. Such legalism inevitably 
 and invariably crushes out hope from the soul. It was the
 
 CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 231 
 
 same with the very different legalism of the Jews, and it was 
 mainly for that reason that St. Paul condemned it and turned 
 from it with enthusiasm to the message of life and hope that 
 he found in Christ. The array of deeds, whether, as in the 
 case of the Hindu, of evil deeds of the past that he cannot 
 escape from or, in the case of the Pharisee, of good deeds in 
 the future that he can never accomplish, strikes fear and 
 despair into his soul. 'All who depend on works of law are 
 under a curse ', said St. Paul. The attitude of the Hindu to 
 karma is different from that of St. Paul, the Christian apostle, 
 but the resulting situation in which he finds himself is closely 
 similar. The school of bhakti mitigates the hopelessness of 
 the situation only to the extent of embodying the law in the 
 person of a lawgiver, while still the idea of law remains. But 
 there is no real change in the religion from its essential legalism 
 though a personal God is postulated. He is a God in regard 
 to whom this scheme of rewards and punishments still holds, 
 either as the expression of His will or as a rival and indepen- 
 dent power ruling side by side with Him. It is true on the 
 whole of every Indian type of religion, as has been already 
 indicated, that its most obvious and commanding feature is 
 this karma aspect of life and destiny. It is true in conse- 
 quence of every type of Indian religion however this may 
 occasionally be for a time concealed by emotional ardours 
 that it is essentially legalist, occupied with laws not principles, 
 with natural sequences rather than spiritual results. ' A force 
 that draws from itself more than it contains,' says Bergson, 
 ' that gives more than it has, is precisely what is called a 
 spiritual force.' A God who is the source of spiritual power, 
 from whom flow streams of recreating spiritual energy, a God, 
 not of law or karma, but in a far higher sense, of righteous- 
 ness that is the God that dwells at the centre and the summit 
 of Christian Theism. 
 
 Thus the karma doctrine in its aspect as a moral legalism 
 is no less opposed to a high spiritual conception of God than 
 in its aspect as a natural legalism. Whatever hinders the
 
 233 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 freedom of man's spiritual development at the same time 
 cramps his thought of God. A single illustration will help to 
 show how Indian Theism, because of its bondage to the karma 
 idea, has been unable to rise to a high conception of the divine 
 character. It is supplied by an account that a Brahman 
 convert to Christianity has given of what he was taught in 
 his home. To his parents God was a personal God. ' They had 
 nothing of the philosophic, advaitic, or pantheistic doctrine.' 
 ' My mother ', he says, ' repeatedly brought home to my soul, 
 by means of illustrations drawn from human life, that one 
 fundamental principle underlies all God's dealings and ordering 
 of the experiences and fortunes of man, namely, the one prin- 
 ciple that whatsoever a man soweth, he reapeth. The mills 
 of God grind slowly and surely. The result of this was that 
 it became a habit in me to refer every sorrowful experience 
 which fell to my lot, to some past "wrongdoing", which bore 
 fruit in this sorrowful experience. As I grew from childhood 
 to boyhood the personal God in whom I believed became a 
 holy God, a God who just because he must rule and judge 
 righteously will not forgive our sins, but demand the full 
 penalty even to the last pie. My father was a pleader, and 
 the principle according to which the courts of justice dealt 
 with the culprits confirmed these thoughts.' He goes on to 
 tell how as he grew older an increasingly acute hunger filled 
 his soul for the help of God in the perils of life. ' This acute 
 hunger arose in my soul when I was about eighteen years old, 
 and I could see no way of its satisfaction. If God is to be true 
 to His principle, as I conceived it in my boyhood, by letting 
 nothing in heaven or earth (not even Himself) stand in the 
 way of or prevent our sinful past bearing the fruit of bringing 
 misery and penalty in the present and future, how can I at 
 the same time expect Him to help me through whatsoever 
 may happen in the present and future ? ' * In this conception 
 of Him God is conceived of as in bondage to His own laws 
 that, as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews would 
 1 Indian Interpreter t ^\\, pp. 161, 162.
 
 CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 233 
 
 describe them, are those ' of a carnal commandment ', that is to 
 say, temporary in their character and imperfectly spiritualized. 
 God, in this view of Him, is one who imposes restraints, a centre 
 of negation. He is not a source of spiritual force, of creative 
 and renewing power. Herein lies a fundamental difference 
 between the Christian religion with its message of hope, 
 because it releases transforming spiritual energies, and every 
 static, negative, legal, system such as are all those in which 
 the karma doctrine rules which inevitably produces in its 
 adherents the attitude of the slave. Their only issue is spiritual 
 bondage, despair. The systems that are linked with the karma 
 doctrine are blinded by their occupation with laws to the fact 
 of higher spiritual and ethical principles. They cannot see the 
 wood for the trees. ' In religion ', says Jowett, ' we should take 
 care of the great things, and the trifles of life will take care of 
 themselves. Christianity is not an art acquired by long prac- 
 tice ; it does not carve and polish human nature with a graving 
 tool ; it makes the whole man ; first pouring out his soul before 
 God, and then casting him in a mould.' A true spiritualism 
 implies, as Professor William James points out, the affirmation 
 of an eternal moral order and the letting loose of hope. 
 
 The importance of these facts in relation to the theistic 
 development in India is due to the intimate relation between 
 Theism and ethics. Theism can only come to full fruition 
 when it is ethical throughout. Every unethical element in it 
 cramps it. And nothing has cramped Indian Theism more 
 than the imperfectly ethical character of the karma doctrine. 
 The aim of Christianity is to produce a Kingdom of God, that 
 is, a brotherhood of good men in fellowship with a good God. 
 The aim of any religion in which the law of karma is central 
 is the allotment of rewards and punishments, and its operation 
 is so mechanical that to administer this justice no judge is 
 needed. The one is judicial and deals with mechanical laws ; 
 the other is moral and deals with moral forces. ' The moral 
 legislation of God ' in the Christian view ' is, under all circum- 
 stances, the means towards the moral commonwealth, the
 
 234 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 Kingdom of God. The attribute of God as Founder and 
 Ruler of His Kingdom is therefore absolutely superior to His 
 attribute as Lawgiver.' l It is of the very essence of any bhakti 
 doctrine, as it is of Christianity, to recognize the uplifting and 
 redeeming power of love, but such is the grip of karma legalism 
 upon the Indian soul that it never is able to admit this truth 
 unreservedly. In the loving devotion of the Lord that binds 
 no fetters, and in His love to man which is free from all self- 
 seeking, as well as in the Buddha's 'compassion for all creatures', 
 we have the germ of the higher morality which a religion of 
 redemption recognizes and obeys. But the hostile elements 
 have never been completely assimilated. It is only the heat 
 of an emotional ardour that can transcend the rigour of this 
 law of requital ; and Indian Theism is not able long to main- 
 tain such ardour. When the tide of feeling ebbs, the grim 
 rocks of retribution disclose themselves once more, and the 
 victim feels himself a helpless victim in the grasp of an inevi- 
 table law. Many an Indian seeker must have echoed in 
 reference to this karma bondage the cry of St. Paul, ' O 
 wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body 
 of death ? ' 
 
 Love and penitence and those other spiritual fountains in 
 the soul that are able to give it ' each instant a fresh endow- 
 ment', from which 'the new is ever upspringing ', do not come 
 to their own within the boundaries of Indian thought. That 
 this is so is due unquestionably to the influence of the law of 
 karma. Its resolution of human life into a series of acts 
 mechanically related, its self-centred individualism, keeps it 
 at what we must describe as a low level. It cannot in conse- 
 quence enter into the full kingdom of Theism. There is not 
 scope in it for the rich operation of God's redeeming grace. 
 That grace is conceived of in Indian Theism mainly as able 
 at the most to help a soul here and there to escape the coils 
 of samsdra. Only in the Saiva Siddhanta, which may or may 
 
 1 Ritschl's Justification and Reconciliation (Eng. tr.), pp. 91 f., quoted 
 in Harbour's Philosophical Study of Christian Ethics, p. 286.
 
 CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 337 
 
 not have gained a hint from Christian teaching, does the 
 thought dawn upon them of a gracious divine purpose of re- 
 demption. Even there that is a purpose which this imperious 
 law controls and thwarts. Further, we note that this karma 
 doctrine does not permit in correspondence to the love and 
 grace of God the summons to love and help between man and 
 man, 'the bearing of one another's burdens', which is the 
 higher ethical law described in the Christian religion as ' the 
 law of Christ '. A religion which has the karma doctrine at 
 its centre has no room for such free redemptive activity. But 
 Theism, as we see it, for example, in Christian Theism, finds 
 in such activities of love the very life of its spirit. Its con- 
 ception of God and of the spiritual nexus between man and 
 God implies the possibility of forgiveness and sanctification on 
 the part of God, the inflow of spiritual power, the contagion 
 of spiritual help ; it implies the possibility of new beginnings 
 in the moral life ; it implies that man should give himself to 
 save his brother, and that God especially must needs come in 
 all the moral sakti the energy of His grace for man's 
 redemption. 
 
 The note thus of a fully ethical Theism, such as Christianity 
 is, is always freedom, freedom in the service of the highest 
 moral ends. The only hindrance in the way of the accomplish- 
 ment of the divine purpose of grace in the view of Christianity 
 is due to the -completeness with which this is true of it. Man's 
 moral freedom may thwart that purpose ; nothing else can. 
 To limit man's freedom for the sake of the divine transcen- 
 dence is not to exalt God, for the greatness of the grace of 
 God and the splendour of the Kingdom towards which His 
 grace is working depend upon the freeness of the surrender to 
 Him of those He saves and over whom He reigns. God must 
 be limited by nothing save what proceeds from His own moral 
 nature and which in limiting exalts Him. That is the only 
 limit which Christianity recognizes as placed upon the sove- 
 reignty of God. He must rule over a freely surrendered 
 people ; His supremacy is solely and securely moral. We
 
 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 must agree with Tennyson when he is reported as maintaining 
 that free-will while ' apparently an act of self-limitation by 
 the Infinite' is yet ' a revelation by Himself and of Himself'. 1 
 But the limitation which the law of karma places upon God is 
 of another kind. Its limitation of Him is a limitation to a 
 lower sphere than the highest. He is prevented from winning 
 men to the free love of goodness by the exercise of His mercy 
 and His grace. His grace cannot reach them, and they cannot 
 respond to it. The free act of penitence and surrender which 
 brings the divine deliverance, according to the Christian 
 teaching, is not unregulated, nor is it unmotived or unattached 
 to fruit. But it is freedom for the service of the good. Its 
 fruit is holiness which no selfishness can desire. Indian 
 thought often conceives of the order of samsara as a region of 
 unreality and the god of that world as, to a higher view, 
 equally unreal. Of course such a provisional Theism, such 
 a Theism of fairyland or of a world of dreams, has no meaning 
 or value. To Christianity on the other hand the order of 
 nature is real indeed, but lies, if men but knew it, in the grasp 
 of a higher order of spirit which can mould it to its will. The 
 only hindrance to the revelation of that order and its establish- 
 ment is the absence of the faith to claim it on the part of man. 
 God's purpose of grace is thus hindered, not by a judicial 
 scheme, such as the karma system is, but solely by the moral 
 freedom of the human will. Whatever hinders the co-operation 
 of the grace of God and the penitent heart of man belongs to 
 a lower order, and in proving a hindrance to the emergence of 
 a higher ethical law, the law of karma, while itself in its 
 recognition of the penalty of wrong representing a great moral 
 advance, makes it impossible for the Theisms over which it 
 exercises its influence to conceive altogether worthily of God. 
 
 1 Quoted in Ward's Realm of Ends : Pluralism and Theism, p. 316.
 
 CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 237 
 
 III 
 
 There remains another aspect of the karma doctrine which 
 is hostile to Theism. The fact that it has involved India, 
 beyond all other problems, with the question of the deliver- 
 ance of the fettered soul has done much to thwart the full 
 development of its theistic instincts. The individual self and 
 its fortunes form to it the first reality, with the result that 
 India's spiritualism almost turns back to empiricism. Perhaps 
 we have here the secret of the worldliness of a people who, 
 above all other peoples, have contemned the world. The 
 seers of India have seldom been wholly possessed, as so many 
 of the saints of other lands have been, by the endeavour after 
 God. They cannot escape from themselves sufficiently to 
 give themselves up whole-heartedly to Him. They give them- 
 selves up whole-heartedly instead to the endeavour, never 
 accomplished, to escape from themselves. The goal of Theism 
 is union with God. It is more concerned with that attainment 
 and with the blessed fellowship that it promises than with the 
 escape from penalty. Its aim is not merely to make men no 
 longer slaves, but to make them sons of God. In the theistic 
 systems of India God is apt to be looked upon as an accident, 
 while this system of karma is, for the individual, the substance 
 of reality. Perhaps this is why India has always presented 
 to us so strange a paradox a people intensely religious, and 
 yet so half-hearted in their religion. Their whole heart is in 
 the escape, but it is not in the gaining of the goal of a divine 
 fellowship. It is the menacing fact of existence, as they con- 
 ceive it to lie in the grip of this law, that so lays hold of them 
 as to lift them out of engagement with worldly things and 
 to engross them with questions of deliverance. But the 
 half is the enemy of the whole. We see that the lesson that 
 they have learned so perfectly of the world's evil, the desire 
 to escape from it that has so entered into their souls, only
 
 338 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 bears them half of the way towards the goal, and seems to 
 make further advance impossible. 
 
 The fundamental difference between the Christian and the 
 Hindu Theisms, from which the differences we have been 
 noting issue, consists in the fact that righteousness which is 
 inseparable from God is normative in the Christian view of 
 man's salvation as it is not in the other. The aim of the 
 Christian gospel is the making of men righteous, and this 
 ethical purpose determines it throughout. The aim of Indian 
 Theism, as of all Indian religion, is deliverance from samsdra, 
 which need only be secondarily a process of righteousness. 
 God manifests Himself in the Christian revelation 'not as the 
 pitier and pardoner of man in his sin, but as redeemer and 
 saviour of man from his sin V One can scarcely exagerate 
 the depth to which this difference reaches down. ' By the 
 works of the law shall no flesh be justified', says St. Paul. 
 His end and aim which is righteousness he sees, cannot be 
 reached by the way of the endeavour to do duties. He finds, 
 he believes, in Christ another way, which is still as before 
 a way to the great goal of righteousness. The Indian thinkers 
 saw equally that their aim could not be attained by the doing 
 of works but as their aim was different, the new path that 
 they sought was different likewise. They would say, ' By 
 works, by the fulfilment of karma shall no. man be delivered 
 from samsara '. The Christian goal is a positive and ethical 
 attainment, righteousness ; the Indian goal is negative and 
 unethical, escape from the bondage of existence. 
 
 Another way of expressing this difference which so deeply 
 divides the Christian and the Hindu Theisms is to say that 
 Christian Theism has a moral ideal before it, while Hindu 
 religion has not. A paramount aim of religion in the Christian 
 view is to summon men to a life of holiness, which is also a life 
 of fellowship with God, and to do so by setting the high 
 pattern of such a life before them. The nearest that the 
 
 1 Du Bose's Gospel according to St. Paul, p. 102.
 
 CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 339 
 
 Indian Theisms come to such an ethical presentation of the 
 goal of life is in the Gita, and it cannot be denied that 
 the content of its ideal is altogether meagre and uninspiring. 
 The one moral postulate of value that it presents is contained 
 in the formula that works are to be done with no desire for 
 fruit. Noble as that rule is, so far as it goes, it certainly goes 
 only a little way. It is purely negative : it has no positive 
 content of moral beauty and charm to attract the heart. 
 A figure of such meagre outline cannot be described as 
 a moral ideal nor can the religion that enshrines it be 
 described as in any full sense an ethical religion. 
 
 It has been claimed for all the religions by which the karma 
 doctrine is accepted that they are more ethical than Christianity 
 and more in agreement with the facts of life when they pro- 
 claim the inevitable sequence of punishment upon wrong- 
 doing. It is true, indeed, that the conception of God as one 
 who punishes the evil-doer, and whose law is absolutely 
 impartial and sure is a high and worthy one. The objection 
 to it is just that it is never, to the Indian Theist, fully identi- 
 fied with the will and mind of God, and that it is not fully 
 assimilated into the divine personality. Our claim is that, 
 if that were done, the fact would be realized that the religion 
 that centres about a personal God who is Himself righteous- 
 ness and love is upon a higher ethical level than the hard 
 retributive system of karma. ' Legalists ', says Royce, ' do 
 not succeed in reducing the laws they teach to any rational 
 unity.' When law is taken up into the personality of the 
 divine Father, and is controlled by His will of love for ends of 
 righteousness, we have reached the final summit of ethical 
 religion. 
 
 And, further, it is only to a superficial understanding that 
 the karma law appears more in agreement with the facts of 
 life than is a gospel of immediate and full forgiveness by 
 a God of love and righteousness. It is true that upon him 
 who has had the experience of such forgiveness penalties of 
 his wrong-doing, may, and generally do, continue still to fall in
 
 240 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 bodily suffering, in social contempt, in his own remorse and 
 regret. But to him now these penalties are altogether different 
 from that which, without the faith of God's forgiveness, they 
 would have seemed. They are not ' the wages of sin ' ; they 
 are not the cold wrath of an outraged lawgiver or of a broken 
 law. They are the chastisement of divine wisdom and good- 
 ness, manifestations of the divine grace and tenderness, not 
 the expressions of a penal code, but the revelations of a 
 Father's heart. ' God dealeth with you as with sons, for 
 what son is he whom the father chasteneth not ? ' * There is 
 in the penitent's experience between his sufferings and those 
 of one who does not see behind them the love of a forgiving 
 God all the difference that there is between hell and heaven. 
 ' How diverse are these straits from those of hell ' ; how 
 diverse is this chastisement from that of a cold law of karma. 
 
 Thus it appears that Indian Theism was inevitably thwarted 
 in its development by the karma doctrine, which, whatever 
 its origin, has its root deep in natural religion, and is irrecon- 
 cilable with the free working of redemptive love. The whole 
 Indian development is, as a matter of fact, so dominated by 
 it that its religion is never much more than an adjunct of that 
 overwhelming view of life and its destiny. There is a striking 
 comparison made use of in another connexion by the late 
 Professor William James which serves admirably to describe 
 the course of Indian religious history. Adopting it we may 
 say that the karma-tra.nsmigra.tlon doctrine lies in the midst 
 of the efforts of the Indian soul to formulate a theory of the 
 universe ' like a corridor in a hotel. Innumerable chambers 
 open out of it. In one you may find a man writing an athe- 
 istic volume ; in the next some one on his knees praying for 
 faith and strength.' In another ' a system of idealistic meta- 
 physics is being excogitated. . . . They all own the corridor 
 and all must pass through it if they want a practicable way 
 ot getting into one of their respective rooms.' Whatever the 
 1 Hebrews xii. 7.
 
 CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 241 
 
 type of religion we find at any time predominant in the Indian 
 development, it never threatens the supremacy of this deep- 
 rooted view of human life and its meaning. They are always 
 subsidiary to it and take their colour from it. There is a 
 somewhat cynical proverb among the Marathas, and, no doubt, 
 among other Indian peoples as well, which may be applied to 
 this doctrine in its relation to other views, such as that of 
 Theism, which seek to find a place beside it. ' If the rope 
 of the God above gets broken ', they say, ' the gods below will 
 bellow.' The efforts of the gods of Theism so long as the 
 god of karma rules above them are poor, futile things, and all 
 they can do is to ' bellow ' in helpless agreement with what 
 the higher power ordains. Such a law of necessity could not 
 be re-interpreted as a moral law of freedom, and the supreme 
 power in the universe could not but be conceived, so long as 
 this law was acknowledged, as a fate and not as a gracious 
 Father. The highest person in this system is not a God who 
 can be worshipped and who redeems ; it is the emancipated 
 soul himself. Just as in the kindred Orphic doctrine the goal to 
 which all endeavour strives is nothing less than the soul's own 
 divinity, so in fact it is here also. The end almost inevitably 
 sought by one who is so engrossed in stripping off the chains 
 of selfhood is, however that end may be concealed, the very 
 apotheosis of the self. This attitude, as has been pointed out 
 by a student of Mysticism, is that of those chiefly ' by whom 
 Reality is apprehended as a state or a place rather than a 
 person : and who have adopted, in describing the earlier 
 stages of their journey to God, such symbols as those of 
 rebirth or transmigration'. 1 Everything is hostile in such 
 an atmosphere to the production of a satisfying Theism. The 
 god who is the spectator of those processes of samsara is 
 a remote deity whose relation to the world, as in the case of 
 Plotinus no less than of Ramanuja, is accidental and inexplic- 
 able ; or he is one of several minor beings who, as Proclus 
 describes them, 'appear changing often from one form to 
 1 Underbill's Mysticism, p. 501. 
 R
 
 243 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 another', shadowy and impersonal. The only personality 
 that matters is that of the fettered soul, and to him his 
 personal existence is the very bond he seeks to break. If 
 personal life is thought of as itself a burden, how can it be 
 predicated worthily of God ? Not unless the bondage of this 
 self-centred doctrine were cast off, and unless full scope were 
 possible for the gracious moral purposes of God as He wins 
 men to His fellowship, could Theism come to its own in India. 
 The way of its true development is by the increasing enrich- 
 ment of the individual soul as its spiritual nature is more and 
 more discovered in relationship of love with others, and in 
 fellowship with God. The more it forgets itself in love, the 
 more it discovers God. But in a world fettered by samsdra 
 there is no room for God at all. 
 
 IV 
 
 But there are other aspects of Indian Theology, besides the 
 aspect that is given to it by this ancient belief, which have 
 proved hostile to the development of Theism to its full 
 fruition. One of these is its excessive intellectualism. It is 
 true, as we have seen in our study of the various bhakti 
 worships, that some of these seem far enough from such 
 a danger. Not infrequently the vice of these cults has been, 
 not that they have obeyed reason too exclusively, but that 
 they have cast off all its restraints. The opposite extreme 
 from intellectualism of an unbridled emotionalism is to be 
 found characterizing not a few of the theistic worships that 
 have arisen in India. But perhaps this was due in part to 
 revolt from the exaltation of knowledge to an opposite 
 extreme, and had as one of its causes the very bias towards 
 an arid intellectualism which is so characteristic of India. 
 Certainly it is the case that Indian thought has almost always 
 in its quest for final truth taken it for granted that whatever was 
 not of pure intellect was gross and unworthy of the Highest. The 
 way to God is a way to an atmosphere ever growing rarer, to
 
 CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 243 
 
 a region that only pure knowledge can attain. It is a way of 
 continual abstraction until that One is reached which is so 
 abstract as to be universal. Such a method is hostile to 
 Theism, for Theism implies fellowship, and there is no fellow- 
 ship between the knower and his knowledge. 
 
 One result of intellectualism in religion is that its range is 
 limited to a select company of those who can appreciate it. 
 It is aristocratic in its character. But we affirm that a true 
 Theism is essentially democratic. It postulates a personal 
 God who desires to have men's fellowship. It postulates 
 a universal element in man which is the means of such a 
 fellowship. Christianity claims uncompromisingly that the 
 highest is not beyond the most degraded of men. Indian 
 Theism with its inability to rid itself completely, save in rare 
 instances, of the distinctions of caste is for the most part aris- 
 tocratic because it is intellectual. It requires an effort for the 
 Bhagavadgltd to admit that the way to deliverance is open 
 even to Sudras and to women. While Ramanuja and other 
 exponents of the theology of bhakti have sought to open the 
 gate wider than this bias of the Indian spirit naturally would 
 permit, they have not been wholly successful. Ramanuja 
 defines bhakti as 'only a particular kind of knowledge of 
 which one is infinitely fond and which leads to the extinction 
 of all other interests and desires V In Ramanuja's system, and 
 in the Gttd, we may say that, while ethical and spiritual ideas 
 have been imported into this conception of the knowledge 
 that brings release, the intellectual element is still predominant 
 and determinative. Their religion still, like the religion of 
 the Upanisads, while it is a Theism, is a Gnosticism, a specu- 
 lation, making its primary appeal to the logical understanding. 
 It is something that, unlike Christianity, is rather revealed to 
 the wise and prudent than to babes. 
 
 In so far as Indian religious thought is governed by this 
 intellectual and aristocratic bias, the development from it of 
 
 1 Ved. Samg., p. 146 ; quoted by Sukhtankar, p. 71. 
 R 2
 
 344 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 a fully ethical Theism cannot but be hampered. Just as the 
 Greeks ' never ceased to look upon knowledge as the essence 
 of the life of the spirit V so also did and do the Hindus. Most 
 of their thinkers would agree with Plutarch that by means of 
 philosophic thought alone ' a faint hint ' of a share in the life 
 of God can be obtained by the souls of men ; in no other way 
 can it be obtained at all. The broad moral path, the path that 
 is open to every man of good will, however humble, is the only 
 path by which Theism can advance from strength to strength. 
 Where the aim is a fellowship of persons, the means to its 
 accomplishment must be those in which not the intellect alone 
 but the whole inner life is employed. That is the same as to 
 say that a full-grown Theism, such as Christianity is, should 
 be fundamentally ethical. The aim of Hindu thought on the 
 other hand is primarily ontological ; what inspires it is not so 
 much the longing for more love or righteousness as the longing 
 for more of the essential and the eternal. It prefers the pale 
 and spectral as something higher and more enduring than the 
 morally concrete. The Hindu view, like the Greek, apprehends 
 the world under the contrast of the spiritual and the material, 
 the Christian view under that of moral good and evil. ' In the 
 former evil has its root in matter, in the latter in voluntary 
 guilt.' 2 The words mayd and avidya are too deeply engrained 
 in an intellectual view of God and of man's relation to Him for 
 the theistic instincts of India to be able ever completely to 
 transform them. Whether the fully developed doctrine of 
 Sankara can claim to be the true Vedanta may be doubtful, 
 but by their incurable ontological aim the Upanisads certainly 
 pointed in the direction of such a solution. The result is that 
 the ideal set before itself even by the Glta is that of detach- 
 ment from the world rather than that of the transformation of 
 the world by the power of good. Nothing in the Indian 
 view of the universe has proved more fatal to the development 
 of a serious Theism than this. The doctrine of karma is an 
 
 1 Eucken's Problem of Hitman Life (Eng. trans.), p. 99. 
 
 2 Eucken. op. cit., p. 195.
 
 CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 245 
 
 enemy thwarting it, as it were, from without, a view of man's 
 life which, whatever its origin and however completely accepted 
 by India, yet is not part of the Indian spirit, but has been 
 imposed upon it by influences that are beyond our sight. The 
 intellectualism and unethical character of Hindu thought is, on 
 the contrary, an enemy of Theism from within. This charac- 
 teristic seems to be of the very fibre of the Indian nature, 
 giving it a bias towards metaphysics, towards pantheism in 
 religion, towards asceticism in life. For we cannot but agree 
 in large measure with Schleiermacher that whether a man 
 represents the Infinite Being as personal or impersonal depends 
 on whether his tendency is towards a voluntaristic or an 
 intellectual view of things. 'Acosmism, the doctrine that 
 there is no world ', as Professor Ward has pointed out, ' has 
 been the usual outcome of so-called pure thought.' 1 
 
 The idea of a personal God is certainly a postulate of prac- 
 tical reason, whatever else it is besides. In the measure in 
 which our thought is moralized God becomes more real and 
 draws more near to us. ' Conviction here can only come by 
 living, not by merely thinking.' 2 ' If any man willeth to do 
 God's will ', says Jesus, ' he shall know of the teaching, whether 
 it be of God.' 3 
 
 O only source of all our light and life, 
 Whom as our truth, our strength, we see and feel, 
 But whom the hours of mortal, moral strife 
 Alone aright reveal. 
 
 The sense that this is so seems at times to be dawning upon 
 the spirit of the Indian theist. He can express it negatively 
 and declare that ' not by the Vedas, nor by understanding, 
 nor by much learning can the Self be gained '. 4 He recognizes 
 the need of the child-spirit (bdlyd) for the attainment of true 
 vidyd. 5 But his attitude is still, as the intellectualist's is , 
 
 1 Ward, Realm of Ends, p. 423. 8 Op. cit., p. 423. 
 
 3 John vii. 17. 4 Kdth. Up. I. 2, 23. 
 
 5 Bri. Up. III. 5, and Ramanuja^ Sukhtankar, p. 74.
 
 246 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 passive, not active; his religion is a matter 'of eyes, not 
 wings '. Truth is for him an ' inert, static relation '. He has 
 not perceived that for the knowledge of God there is necessary 
 the will doing His will, that His revelation is most of all made 
 known to men in ' hours of mortal, moral strife '. 
 
 The prevailing passivity of the Indian ideal of life is a 
 consequence of its intellectual and unethical character. Indian 
 mysticism for this reason is guilty of what students of this 
 subject consider par excellence the mystic vice, the ' deceitful 
 repose' of quietism. ' This tranquillity ', says one great Western 
 mystic, ' is forgetfulness of God, one's self and one's neighbour.' 
 ' The true condition of quiet, according to the great mystics 
 ... is the free and constantly renewed self-giving and self- 
 emptying of a burning love.' ' The whole moral and spiritual 
 creature expands and rests, yes, but this very rest is produced 
 by action, unperceived because so fleet, so near, so all-fulfilling.' * 
 It has been pointed out as a virtue of the karma concept that 
 it excludes ' salvation by works '. 2 The whole Indian view of 
 life is, indeed, hostile to the attribution of spiritual worth to 
 action that has its root in selfishness. Thus far its tendency is 
 ethically sound. There is a deep root of truth in it, but the 
 plant that springs from that root has been stunted and rendered 
 unfruitful by the thin atmosphere of intellectualism in which it 
 grows. Indian thought has not perceived the distinction that 
 Christian mystics make between action and activity, between 
 'the deep and vital movement of the whole self too deeply 
 absorbed for self-consciousness' and ' its fussy surface energies '. 3 
 It was right to set itself against the wearying and futile activi- 
 ties of selfish ' attachment to fruit '. But just because it had no 
 rich and constraining thought of a personal God winning 
 the heart of man unto Himself, it failed to rise to the con- 
 ception of a karma by which we ' work out our own salvation ', 
 resting in the appropriated strength of One who is ' working in 
 
 1 See Underbill's Mysticism, pp. 385, 386. 
 
 2 Hogg's Karma and Redemption. 
 5 Underbill's Mysticism, p. 388.
 
 CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 247 
 
 us to will and to do of His good pleasure '- 1 The effect of such 
 striving, which is none the less the soul's own because informed 
 and upheld by the energy of God, is a ' joy unsevered from 
 tranquillity', the very opposite of the despair that is the 
 inevitable accompaniment of a listless contemplation. The 
 intellectualism of the Indian spirit and its resultant pessimism 
 are perhaps the most deeply hostile of all forces in the land to 
 the development of such an ethical Theism as Christianity is, 
 a religion of hope, a ' gospel of salvation by joy '. It is only 
 when the constraints of reason are cast altogether to the winds 
 that Theism lays any powerful grasp upon the life of India, 
 and when that is the case the revolt from intellectualism is 
 only too complete. 
 
 V 
 
 The failure of the erotic Theism that gathers about the 
 name especially of Krisna is certainly not due to its excessive 
 intellectualism. The more thoughtful worship, on the other 
 hand, which is associated with Rama is a more deliberate 
 rejection of reason as agnostic, and so for religious purposes 
 unsatisfying in favour of what may be less exalted, but at 
 least l lays hold of the heart'. 2 In both instances the resultant 
 religion is predominantly emotional, and for that reason 
 genuinely personal and theistic. It is indeed of the essence 
 of Theism and of bhakti that it should appeal to the heart of 
 man and move his will. There must be a fellowship in personal 
 life, in love and trust, if Theism is to come to its fruition. 
 That must in all its fullness be admitted. But while this is so, 
 and while it is in the ' loving faith ' of the worshipper at the 
 ' lotus feet ' of Krisna and other personal gods of whom the 
 heart of the Indian worshipper has laid hold that the stream 
 of Indian Theism runs most full and strong, yet here there is 
 a danger against which these cults have failed to guard them- 
 selves. There is far greater hope indeed of the blossoming of 
 
 1 Philippians ii. 13. 2 Tulsl Das's Rdmayana.
 
 248 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 
 
 a genuinely theistic faith in the atmosphere of the fervent 
 devotion of the bhakti cults than in the chill air of Upanisad 
 speculation. But the whole history of human love warns us 
 how hard it is to preserve it secure from sensuous passion. 
 Feeling, in comparison with the sluggish reason, is a powerful 
 moral dynamic, and as such it must have a great place in an 
 ethical Theism, but on that very account its rule is encom- 
 passed by grave perils against which it is necessary to guard. 
 'Religion', in the words of Professor Howison, f is emotion 
 touched with morality, and at that wondrous touch not merely 
 ennobled but raised from the dead uplifted from the grave of 
 sense into the life eternal of reason.' l The question of supreme 
 importance for every such emotional religion is what touch is 
 thus to ennoble it, what creative moral power is thus to raise 
 it from the grave of sense and give it steadfastness and 
 strength. 
 
 The most crucial test of any religion is concerned with its 
 ethical character. Is it, or is it not, an instrument for pro- 
 ducing righteousness ? In the last resort the supreme religion 
 is that which bears fruit most richly in conduct and in life. 
 It is that which demands and makes possible the highest 
 standard of goodness. In it the various motives that impel 
 and induce to holiness will be so adjusted and so strengthened 
 as to produce in him over whom the religion has control the 
 maximum of effect. In seeking this end theistic faiths unani- 
 mously recognize the importance of the enlistment of the 
 emotions and affections on the side of righteousness. The 
 very fact that a religion is a Theism, with a personal God at 
 its centre, appears to involve this recognition. To be a person 
 is to be a source from which moral activity radiates, and to 
 which such activity is directed. To be a person implies loving 
 and being loved. If this be so, then a Theism is bound to be 
 whatever else it is as well an emotional religion. The very 
 name bhakti implies that this is true of all these Indian Theisms 
 in which this sentiment has a place. They are religions in 
 1 Howison, The Conception of God, p. 113.
 
 CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 249 
 
 which ' loving faith ' issues from the heart of the worshipper 
 towards the object of his worship. And almost necessarily 
 there is to be found corresponding to this devout emotion on 
 the part of the bhakta a conception of divine grace flowing 
 downwards from the divine heart. Devotion on man's part 
 and grace on God's are two complementary aspects of theistic 
 religion viewed upon the side of emotion. They are means to 
 the production of a moral elevation in the worshipper, and 
 may be considered from that point of view apart altogether 
 from the further question whether the emotions that they 
 awaken are grounded upon reality or not. 
 
 It is true, as has been seen, that large tracts of Indian Theism 
 are 'sicklied o'er' with intellectualism. A type of religion 
 which views ' knowledge ' as the highest means to the attain- 
 ment of its purpose is to be found strongly established among 
 the theistic doctrines of India, and of the effect of such a mood 
 upon the religion in which it is present we shall have to treat 
 later. Alternating, however, with these intellectual Theisms 
 there are to be found in India, as a review of the history has 
 disclosed, cults in which feeling is central. Of these it has to 
 be fully recognized that they are true to the spirit of theistic 
 religion in magnifying its appeal to the human heart. Without 
 that appeal and without elements in it that can win and con- 
 strain the affections there can be no religion in any sense in 
 which Theism can understand that word. To claim that where 
 God is there must be faith on the part of His worshipper, to 
 emphasize the inward and experimental aspects of religion, to 
 endeavour to capture the passion of the heart for God these 
 tasks are involved in the nature of Theism, and to these it 
 summons its adherents whenever the religion they profess is 
 a vital force within them. Caitanya's ecstasy certainly, in so 
 far as it implied an intimate entrance into the sense of the 
 divine fellowship, was of the very stuff of theistic religion, and 
 to that extent is a testimony to the reality and power of 
 Caitanya's faith. The klrtans of the Krisna-worshipper, the 
 hymns of adoration of the Saivite saint these, as evidence of
 
 350 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 an experience of joy and peace, fitly support the claims of the 
 cults which inspire them to obtain a place among theistic 
 religions. Immediacy is a characteristic of Theism, and it 
 expresses itself in these outbursts of emotion with a genuine- 
 ness that there is no disputing. 
 
 But, while this is so, we have to remember that this 
 emotional energy, in the highest order of Theism, must be 
 a means to an ethical end. The whole strange history of the 
 emotional bhakti cults is a testimony to the perils that beset 
 religious passion, when it is awakened, but is not controlled. 
 It is a testimony to the fact that such emotion while the best 
 of servants is the most dangerous of masters. What ' the 
 gods approve ' is certainly not merely ' the tumult of the 
 soul '. Everything, in judging of the religion in which 
 the winds of emotion have been let loose, depends upon the 
 power that governs them and the directions in which, under 
 that government, they bear the human spirit. Feeling can 
 fill the sails of the spirit in its course, but it cannot map out 
 that course and guide the spirit to its goal. It supplies 
 energy, not insight. A religion which looks to the emotions 
 it awakens in its followers to supply the reason for their own 
 existence has no guarantee that its course may not be directed 
 to hell as likely as to heaven. If the God of their worship is 
 largely a reflex of the religious feelings of the worshippers 
 then that religion is necessarily doomed to barrenness and 
 futility. It will be a force as fugitive as the emotions upon 
 which it builds. It is not surprising, therefore, to find for 
 how brief a period most of the emotional cults of India have 
 endured. 
 
 Of course, there is none of the Indian Theisms, however 
 emotional in its character, which has not in it already some 
 nucleus of ideas around which the emotions gather. There 
 is always an historical or quasi-historical datum, represented 
 by a personal name Krisna or Siva which furnishes to a greater 
 or less extent the stimulus of feeling. But in the riot of 
 emotions that gather round that centre the boundaries of the
 
 CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 251 
 
 subjective and the objective are soon obliterated. Krisna to 
 Caitanya, Siva to Manikka-vasagar is as much the creature 
 of his rapture as its creator. Where this is the case there is, 
 we repeat, no guarantee as to the kind whether evil or good 
 of the conduct and character which the emotion will produce. 
 The original impulse may have been given by the idea which 
 the God as an historical or mythical person embodies, but 
 presently we perceive that feeling has set off on a path of its 
 own making to a strange and, it may be, a sinister goal. 
 There is no steadfastness of direction and no guarantee of 
 persistence in a religion directed to what has been called ' an 
 emotionally irradiated mental void '. It is destined inevitably 
 to futility and to waywardness. The idea that the emotion 
 can actually create the objective reality towards which it is 
 supposed to be directed is indicated, for example, in the 
 popular proverb, 'Where faith (bhdvd) is, there God is'. If 
 this were true, then the heart could fashion its God after its 
 own desire, and would worship the object of its own longings, 
 mingled more largely of evil than of good. Hence the 
 sensuousness of so many of the undisciplined worships that we 
 have reviewed. If it is the strength of the passion and not 
 its purity that gives it worth, then why should not Radha 
 stand by the side of Krisna as the object of men's worship, and 
 why not even other nearer and more appreciable objects of 
 their love such as the washerwoman of the Bengali poet 
 Candidas ? 
 
 We have already referred to the fact that no concrete and 
 complete moral ideal rises before the adherents of the Indian 
 theistic systems. They contain, it is true, some notable 
 ethical suggestions ; they present valuable rules of conduct ; 
 but nowhere is there to be found a fully fashioned ideal of 
 goodness. When we consider these systems further in their 
 aspects as religions of feeling we find the same lack, but here 
 it is something more than a moral ideal that is required, and 
 that is not presented to the worshipper. What is needed 
 at the centre of a religion of feeling is an ideal realized in
 
 252 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 a person, presented in a life that wins the heart. We have 
 seen that bhakti in many of the usages of the word implies 
 a relation of loyalty such as that between a king and his 
 subjects, or between a wife and her husband. Loyalty is 
 certainly, as Professor Royce has shown, ' a principle fit to 
 be made the basis of an universal moral code V The spirit 
 of true loyalty is of its very essence a complete synthesis of 
 the moral and of the religious interests.' 2 So far the bhakti 
 doctrines are on the high road towards a fully ethical religion. 
 If they do not travel far on that road, and in some cases soon 
 desert it for devious by-paths, the reason is that the ultimate 
 value of such a religion depends altogether in the object of 
 this loyalty. Surely it is obviously untrue to claim, as 
 Andrew Lang has done, in reference to the history of Scotland 
 and the religion of its people 
 
 It little skills what faith men vaunt, 
 
 If -loyal men they be, 
 To Christ's ain Kirk and Covenant, 
 
 Or the king across the sea. 
 
 It is true, that in the case of any cause, even if it be a bad 
 cause, or of any love, even if it be the love of one who is 
 unworthy, when that cause and that affection awaken loyalty, 
 the religious spirit, the free self-surrender that they evoke, are 
 infinitely precious. This self-surrender is richly present in 
 the Indian Theisms, in those that are more sensuous no less 
 than in those that are spiritual. They have in them deep 
 wells of feeling which to that extent may rightly be called 
 religious. Of that there is no doubt. But at the same time 
 the quality of the religion must be judged of by the object 
 which inspires the self-surrender and the love, for, according 
 as it is, so shall be the resulting character of the worshipper. 
 There is honour and loyalty among thieves, but it is not the 
 same order of honour as that which there is among saints. 
 It certainly mattered infinitely to Scotland that the loyalty 
 
 1 Royce's Sources of Religious Insight, p. 203. 2 Op. cit., p. 206.
 
 CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 253 
 
 of her clans passed from being devotion to a cattle-lifting 
 chief to become devotion to Christ and all the noble causes 
 that His name implies. We are inevitably moulded by that 
 to which our hearts go forth in love and adoration. 
 
 The great mystics of the West have found in Jesus Christ 
 this creative and controlling force, the means by which what 
 is apt to be ' a blind and egoistic rapture ' is transformed into 
 a ' fruitful and self-forgetting love '.* By His life, as the 
 realization of the moral ideal, His followers' lives are guided 
 and controlled, for not only does the love of Christ constrain 
 His lovers, but His example guides them, and His message 
 governs them. Christ is at once the inspiration of the 
 Christian's faith and the normative influence that controls his 
 life. His personal example of transcendent purity and the 
 summons to self-sacrifice for others which His whole life pro- 
 claims form for His followers a two-fold safeguard against an 
 enfeebling emotionalism on the one hand, and against incon- 
 stant impulse on the other. It seems to the Christian that 
 in Christ Jesus the ideas of law and of freedom are reconciled. 
 He presents a moral ideal that cannot be transcended, and at 
 the same time the deep motives of love and gratitude that 
 His life and message call into play within the Christian's heart 
 make the endeavour to attain that ideal a glad and willing 
 labour. The personal motive, ' for my sake ', engages the 
 whole energy of the heart of him who has been laid hold of 
 by the love of Christ, while the clear outlines of His high 
 example preserve him from vague and ill-directed effort. 
 The whole strength of the emotions is turned towards the 
 love of this great Lover while at the same time the wayward- 
 ness of passion is restrained. There must be a human face 
 looking forth from the dark Abyss of the Unconditioned, else 
 there can be no worship, and no fellowship of love : and that 
 face must be that of one who is the ' first and only fair ', the 
 very embodiment of our supreme ideal, else men shall follow 
 the devices of their own hearts. The presentation of the goal 
 1 Underbill's Mysticism, p. 125.
 
 254 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 of man's salvation as ' being with Christ ' had the necessary 
 consequence of separating it from all self-gratification. 
 Largely as emotion enters into the Christian motive, it is 
 always preserved from that selfishness which in emotional 
 religions like the bhakti faiths is apt to look forward to the 
 end as only the attainment of peace, 1 by the character of the 
 life of Him who awakens the emotion. Fellowship with 
 Christ can never be interpreted as implying a ' moral holiday '. 
 It is identification with the highest good, fellowship with the 
 God whose will is sacrifice and service. It is the historical 
 Person at its centre that preserves Christianity from the perils 
 of a selfish emotion. For that reason the greatest contem- 
 platives of the West Suso and Teresa, for example found 
 ' that deliberate meditation upon the humanity of Christ . . . 
 was a necessity if they were to retain a healthy and well- 
 balanced inner life'. 2 
 
 The concrete realization of the moral ideal in the life of 
 Jesus is, it surely may be claimed without dispute, a far nobler 
 one, and one far worthier to be at the centre of an ethical 
 system than that which is presented in the lives of Krisna and 
 of Rama. That is His place by right ; they can only be fitted 
 for it by the manipulation of their legends by their worshippers 
 for ethical ends. They are hampered by the gross supersti- 
 tions out of which they have grown, and from which the 
 moral sense of their adherents is striving with imperfect 
 success to refine them. It may be said of them, as M. Cumont 
 has said of Mithraism, that they are involved in a ' question- 
 able alliance' with orgiastic cults, and 'are obliged to drag 
 behind them all the weight of a chimerical and hateful past '. 
 Behind the figure of Krisna, however allegorized or interpreted, 
 there leers or, as in chapter xi of the Gita, lowers the pagan 
 figure of a gross nature deity. Christianity is not thus 
 
 1 ' Tukaram's end was individual, the peace and solace and beatific 
 rest of his own restless soul.' (Professor Patvvardhan in Indian Inter- 
 preter, vii, p. 29.) 
 
 2 Underbill's Mysticism, p. 144.
 
 CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 255 
 
 burdened. Christ, we may say, using the words not in their 
 theological, but in their ethical meaning, is a descent from 
 above, not a growth from beneath. He does not need to be 
 refined by man's ethical sense. On the contrary, it is He 
 that refines and enlightens it. It may, however, be main- 
 tained that no such manifested personal life is needed at the 
 centre of the highest type of theistic worship, that no such 
 realized moral ideal is demanded at the Heart of an ethical 
 religion. The testimony to human nature and to human need 
 that the whole record of Indian Theism bears is opposed to 
 that claim. Krisnaism and Ramaism and Siva Bhakti, and 
 every religion that has made an effective appeal by means of 
 the grace and condescension of God, every religion which bids 
 men love because God first loved them, must necessarily have 
 at its centre a tale of divine love, saving, condescending, sacri- 
 ficing. They all agree with Christianity to this extent at 
 least that they seek for a vision that, in the words of Aristotle, 
 will ' move them as the object of their love '. But presently 
 they will want to be sure that their vision is real. Men, as 
 their intelligence advances, become unable to remain content 
 with a tale that they are not certain is true. It must be 
 an historical manifestation of the divine life. Men cannot be 
 content with a legend which, however fair, is unbelievable ; 
 they cannot be content with Visnu's three steps or Siva's blue 
 throat, with Krisna or with Rama. If truth is ' embodied in 
 a tale ' that it may enter man's heart and win it, it must be 
 a true tale that will stand every scrutiny of history as well as 
 fulfil every demand of practical reason. It has been pointed 
 out again and again that one reason why Christianity 
 triumphed over so pure and so deeply philosophic a doctrine 
 as Neoplatonism was just because it possessed Jesus Christ. 
 So also the great weakness of Mithraism, we are told, in its 
 conflict with Christianity lay in this, that ' in place of a divine 
 life instinct with human sympathy, it had only to offer the 
 symbolism of a cosmic legend V ' Nothing ', says Martineau, 
 1 Dill's Roman Society from Nero to Aure/tus, p. 622.
 
 256 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 ' is so sickly, so paralytic, as " Moral Ideals " that are nothing 
 else. . . . They cannot will or act or love ; and their whole 
 power is in abeyance till they present themselves in a living, 
 personal being, who secures the righteousness of the universe 
 and seeks the sanctification of each heart.' l 
 
 Perhaps the most influential of all those elements that 
 enable both the Indian Theisms and Christian Theism to 
 make a great emotional appeal is the teaching which they 
 contain in regard to the grace of God. Almost all of them 
 present some picture of the divine magnanimity and conde- 
 scension in relation to man's sin and need which touches the 
 heart, and constrains to loving service and obedience. The 
 attractiveness of the presentation of the Bal Krisna or even of 
 the god sporting with the shepherdesses lay in its suggestion 
 of his condescension to men in thus coming to their side and 
 sharing their joys. So with the much more noble idea of the 
 black-throated Siva, as expressed by Manikka-vasagar : 
 
 Thou mad'st me 
 
 Thine : didst fiery poison eat, pitying poor souls, 
 That I might thine ambrosia taste I, meanest one. 
 
 These are thoughts of God's grace that cannot but, once they 
 are believed, have an influence in creating in the heart a 
 response of love and of surrender. 
 
 But here, again, it is inevitable that a question shall 
 presently arise in the mind of any thoughtful worshipper as 
 to the authenticity of these tales of the divine graciousness. 
 Myth has its place in the early stages of a religion as the form 
 in which ideas naturally present themselves to the mind of 
 the childhood of the race. And when the myth is seen later 
 to be a myth the idea it embodies may still, of course, be 
 retained as true. The husk may be cast away, and the 
 kernel truth of the grace of God may still remain. But as 
 a matter of fact in the creation of a deep and true emotion it 
 is just the concrete and not the abstract that appeals. Ideas, 
 
 1 Selections from the Literature of Theism (Caldecott and Mackintosh), 
 p. 401.
 
 CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 257 
 
 however noble, are not sufficient to stir and govern the heart. 
 It is the vivid fact of Siva's throat blue with poison that he 
 drank for men, it is the thought of the actual groves of 
 Vrindavana through which Krisna went in gracious com- 
 pany with men and women it is these actual and concrete 
 things that make real the grace of the god, so that they move 
 the springs of emotion and constrain the affections of men and 
 women. If these things as facts of the past disappear, the 
 ideas at the same time lose their moving and compelling 
 power. There is not in ideas alone the vital and vitalizing 
 energy which there is in the same ideas when exhibited as 
 personal centres of loving activity, as divinely operative on 
 the human level, furnishing an impulse that bears men onwards 
 and upwards to God. Christian Theism claims to possess in 
 Jesus Christ such a personal centre and source of power, and 
 that by every historical test His story is proved to be authentic 
 and true. He bore our sins and carried our sorrows : in all 
 our afflictions He was afflicted. By His partnership in our 
 humanity, by the love of His lowly life, and of His sufferings 
 and death, He draws the hearts of men unto Himself. He is 
 the manifested grace of God ; and this grace is not only a 
 beautiful and winning idea, but a fact of history that to every 
 test proves itself true. 
 
 When we go on further to ask what the purpose and effect 
 of the divine grace in Indian and Christian Theism actually 
 is, we find here also a significant difference. The difference 
 lies in this that the Indian Theisms, as has been already 
 pointed out, are imperfectly ethicized, and do not keep always 
 before them a lofty moral ideal or aim primarily at ethical 
 results. In every Theism of a high order the problem must 
 emerge of reconciling its ethical interests, which are para- 
 mount, with a conception of God's gracious character which 
 will be worthy of a God who is love. These two principles, 
 which are superficially inconsistent, have to be reconciled so 
 that neither the moral interests of man nor the character of 
 God shall suffer. It does not appear that this reconciliation 
 
 S
 
 258 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 is effected satisfactorily in the Indian Theisms. Ethical 
 interests are sacrificed. We see this at its extreme in the 
 claim that a single utterance of the name of the god can save 
 from the most heinous sins. The only way in which a doc- 
 trine of the divine grace or a tale of the divine condescension 
 in coming down to save can be reconciled with the demands 
 of a religion which is primarily ethical is that the divine 
 deliverer must be Himself the ideal of holiness, and this 
 method of salvation all compact of righteousness. He will, 
 in all His acts of grace, seek first the salvation of man, in the 
 sense not merely of release from bondage or punishment, but 
 in the sense of the winning of his heart for holiness. But this 
 is not what is kept ever in view in the Hindu Theisms. The 
 God of grace is not equally manifested as a God of righteous- 
 ness. His relation to the rule of karma is not such that the 
 rival claims of the two principles here suggested are reconciled. 
 The grace of God cuts across the rule of karma in a manner 
 that makes its operation no more than an occasional, and not 
 fully explained, exception. We are not shown a view of God 
 as a God of grace which transcends morally, and takes up into 
 itself, with no sacrifice of moral ends, the operation of the God 
 of karma. 
 
 The Christian religion is fundamentally a religion of grace, 
 and God, as manifested in Christ, is supremely a God of grace 
 and of forgiveness. The love and death of Christ form God's 
 special manifestation of Himself in this aspect, and constrain 
 the hearts of men with an unequalled power to the grateful 
 service of Him of whom they can say ' He loved me and gave 
 Himself for me '. And the love and death of Christ are not only 
 invincibly constraining to the heart, but they are also through 
 and through ethical in their meaning and purpose. What 
 theory one may propound of the meaning of that death, and 
 of the way in which it makes possible the forgiveness of sins, 
 is comparatively immaterial. What is material is that there 
 the evil of sin is exhibited in all its hatefulness, and that the 
 divine grace can only be apprehended where sin is abhorred
 
 CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 359 
 
 and rejected. Sin is not forgiven or deliverance granted as 
 a mere indulgence. The way to the possibility of forgiveness 
 in a God of righteousness is a way of divine sorrow and pain, 
 a way than which none could witness more worthily to the 
 claims of the moral law than does the way of the Cross. The 
 penitent casting himself in faith and gratitude upon such a 
 Saviour is compelled by all the energies of his nature heart and 
 will and reason to choose and followgoodness. Thus the claims 
 at once of grace and righteousness are here reconciled, and 
 the process of redemption is through and through fashioned 
 from stuff of the conscience. But grace is more than this 
 divine condescension revealed in the Cross of Christ. It is 
 further a supernatural gift of spiritual power. With this gift 
 God follows His child reinforcing his will, strengthening his 
 desires after good, 'besetting him behind and before' in life's 
 temptations, bringing to him continual comfort and help. 
 
 Jesus Christ in His person and in His life fulfils those 
 cravings which gathered about the names of Krisna and of 
 Rama, and which laboured to idealize these not altogether 
 ideal figures. His message of the Kingdom of God, a trans- 
 formed world-order, eternally ready on the part of God, but 
 requiring for its realization among men the appeal on their 
 part of faith, is at once a great summons to man to trust Him 
 and a great call to man to put into practice now the laws of 
 social service and of love which are the laws of this spiritual 
 Kingdom. ' Mysticism, whether in the great religions of the 
 East or in Christendom, offers to redeem man from the world ; 
 but, as Kaftan has well said, it is the distinctive feature of the 
 original Christian gospel that, while redeeming man from the 
 world, it does so only in order to bind him to a more unre- 
 served service of God in the world.' * Christ's revelation shows 
 to us a divine Father who is solely hindered in the establish- 
 ment of His kingdom of love and righteousness by the unbelief 
 and selfishness of men. His own life by its complete surrender 
 to the divine will, by its service of men to the uttermost point 
 1 Hogg's Christ's Message of the Kingdom, p. 119. 
 S 2
 
 260 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 of love and sacrifice that thereby He might redeem them and 
 open their hearts to faith and the response of love, is in itself 
 the supreme example of what the Kingdom He proclaims is 
 and shall be. Love to God, whom Christ exhibits in all His 
 graciousness as the loving and the holy Father, and love to 
 our neighbour, or, as He defines the word, to every one who 
 needs our help upon these two poles this religion turns. It 
 is at once intensely individual, and yet at the same time 
 universal in its scope. It makes its appeal direct to the heart 
 and to all the powers of its affections, and yet it makes no 
 selfish appeal such as the emotional cults that have sprung up 
 elsewhere in answer to human craving are so often apt to 
 make. The ' supreme peace ', the ' everlasting region V to 
 which Krisna brings his worshippers is no Kingdom of God, 
 no realm of the service of love in righteousness, but a self- 
 regarding state of personal purification and endowment. It is 
 not, as the Kingdom of Heaven is, a kingdom of moral ends, 
 in which all private and selfish interests are for ever abolished. 
 When it suggests, as so often Indian visions of the emancipated 
 state suggest, that our centre of selfhood shall vanish into 
 God's it dissolves in cloudland, for the only eternal city of 
 God is that where ' His servants shall serve Him', 2 built up 
 as it must be upon the solely abiding foundations of duty and 
 of responsibility. 
 
 VI 
 
 There are other aspects of these Indian experiments in 
 religion which indicate at once the demands to which Theism 
 is a response and the inadequacy of the means by which the 
 attempt is made to satisfy these demands. There is, for 
 example, the longing for communion with God, a longing 
 which expresses itself in every religion which maintains its 
 faith in a personal God. The sacramental feasts and ' mys- 
 teries ' that have a place in so many non-Christian cults, as 
 
 1 Gfta, 1 8. 62. 2 Revelation xxii. 3.
 
 CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 261 
 
 they have within Christianity itself, testify to this imperious 
 desire, and to the longing likewise for escape from the tyranny 
 of the world of sense to a world of spirit. These have not so 
 prominent a place in the Indian theistic cults as they have 
 had in the Oriental ' mystery religions ' which exercised so 
 great an influence at the beginning of the Christian era, but 
 they are found in such a sect as that of the Kablr Panthls. 
 The same instinct expresses itself powerfully in another 
 fashion in some of the Kri'sna cults. In these the worshipper 
 seeks in other ways to assimilate himself to the deity of his 
 devotion. The devotee, in taking the appearance of a woman 
 that he may be the Radha of Krisna's love, is bearing testi- 
 mony in a manner that is crude and unspiritual enough to the 
 need of the heart for the divine fellowship. He is saying 
 with Augustine, ' Thou hast made us for thyself, and our 
 hearts are restless till they rest in thee'. But it needs no 
 argument to demonstrate that the transports of Caitanya 
 could hardly lift him to a high spiritual region or bring him 
 into fellowship with a God of holy love. These cults have 
 their roots too deep in the gross and sensual life, and there 
 is no power in Krisna, or even in Rama, to purify and exalt 
 them. The suggestions amongst which they move are more 
 likely to rouse the feelings than to chasten them. They 
 proclaim a need, but they have no power to satisfy it. 
 
 The Christian sacraments are symbols so simple, so free 
 from grossness, that their spiritual meaning and purpose 
 shine through them undistorted. They are, indeed, an 
 acknowledgement that man still belongs to the realm of time 
 and sense, that he has not yet put off from him his earthly 
 dress, but that he belongs at the same time in a deeper and 
 fuller sense to the realm of the spiritual and the eternal. By 
 these sacraments purity of heart and love are declared to be 
 the means of fellowship with God. The character of this love 
 is determined by the whole tone and spirit of the Christian 
 gospel. The cross of Christ, His giving of His life a ransom 
 for many, His identification of Himself with sinful men, His
 
 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 endurance of all the brunt of their unreasoning hate, the 
 testimony borne by Him through it all to love and holiness 
 these things make the emotion which the sacrament of the 
 Lord's Supper symbolizes as pure, as spiritual, as free from 
 grossness, as anything within the heart of man can be. In 
 the fact that the death of Christ is the centre of Christianity 
 we have the guarantee that this Theism is as high and as 
 uplifting, that the bonds by which it binds men are as ethi- 
 cally enduring, as it is possible for the human mind and heart 
 to conceive. As far as that event is in moral and spiritual 
 significance and in its power to constrain the heart above the 
 legends of Krisna, of Rama, and of Siva, by so much the 
 Christian religion is raised above them in the hierarchy of 
 Theisms, and is able to claim a greater authority over men's 
 lives and to exercise a greater power to satisfy their desires. 
 
 If Theism is the final and absolute form of religion, we must 
 have the assurance that God and man can be fully reconciled 
 and made one in a fellowship which is love and peace. For 
 that assurance it seems necessary that the eternal should be 
 manifested in time, overcoming the hostility of sin and this 
 earthly order, and exhibiting this reconciliation. Such a 
 demonstration in history and such an experience in his own 
 life can alone liberate man for new beginnings and create in 
 him new powers. The idea that God may be willing to 
 accomplish this end is not enough if it remain only an idea ; 
 the symbol of Siva's blue throat cannot suffice. Inevitably, 
 if there be no historical core to this conviction it will fail to 
 hold men permanently or to strengthen them for action. It 
 would leave religion, as it has so largely been in India, no 
 more than a view of the world. Hope and unwearying activity 
 can be built up only on a sure foundation of work accomplished 
 in the midst of time by the very God of grace Himself. ' God 
 so loved the world ' that He gave in time His Son : that 
 manifestation of the divine heart brings God near to man in 
 grace and man to God in ' loving faith '. For that reason the 
 Theism which has this accredited fact at its centre, and in
 
 CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 263 
 
 which the fact renews itself as a present experience of 
 divine power in the hearts of men, is assured of a place of 
 primacy among all the faiths that seek to bring together 
 God and man, and to establish the Kingdom of heaven which 
 is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. The 
 resurrection of Christ Jesus from the dead, by its demonstra- 
 tion of the supremacy of spiritual things over the tyrannous 
 powers of nature that seem to hold man always in their grasp, 
 gives the assurance that by the same means others too may 
 overcome. 'Through death and resurrection He created in 
 His disciples, and is still creating in other^, the kind of faith 
 that opens to them the Kingdom, and makes available to 
 them that absolute forgiveness and that free redemption from 
 punishment, from sin, and from every kind of bondage . . . 
 which are the privileges of the Kingdom.' l 
 
 A result of the historical character of the Christian religion 
 and of its strong conviction of moral distinctions is that the 
 easy tolerance that is so characteristic of so many of the 
 Indian cults is not possible to it. It has been said of Neopla- 
 tonism that it ' lacked the power of exclusiveness, and of that 
 lack it died'. 2 These Indian cults had the same lack and for 
 the same reason. The intellect cannot be as stringent as the 
 conscience, its convictions are not life or death to it as are the 
 other's. And further, an idea, a truth that is only a symbol, 
 has not the same fixity and determination as that which rests 
 upon an historical basis. Such a religion as Christianity is 
 necessarily exclusive. It points to what, it is sure, is the 
 highest good. It reveals One, who, it is sure, is the one 
 true God. 
 
 The impotence of Indian Theism can be measured by its 
 failure to solve three problems that have faced it throughout 
 all its history. It could not purge even its own temple courts 
 of polytheism, nor yet of idolatry. It could slacken only for 
 a little, it could not break, the bonds of caste. There can be 
 
 1 Hogg, Christ's Message of the Kingdom, p. 184. 
 
 2 Harnack, Hibbert Journal, x. p. 8 1.
 
 264 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 no confidence in the world as a cosmos, and as the seat of 
 a divine government, when Rama shares the supremacy with 
 Siva, or even hardly wins it in a conflict of physical force 
 with the demon Ravana. And so long as an idol has its 
 place in the theistic temple and what temple in India is 
 without one? the worship cannot but be only imperfectly 
 inward and spiritual, and must be far from fully moralized. 
 The worship of Krisna is incurably idolatrous, and not the 
 most violent transports of emotion transform it from the crude 
 nature-worship of an image of a fair but altogether carnal 
 youth. The ' god-vision ' of Caitanya was a vision of the 
 sensuous, with little enough in it of the spiritual. For that 
 reason, in spite of pantheistic conceptions, it was seldom that 
 the brotherly love that bhakti and every Theism must create 
 operated far beyond the temple walls or at other times than 
 on the festival day of the god. Then, and in these precincts, 
 but seldom elsewhere, or at other times, the Brahman and the 
 Sudra were reconciled. In this we have, probably, one of the 
 causes of the double life that so many live in India, one at 
 home and another in public. We have to say of such an 
 ineffectual religion, as was said of Namdev in his earlier 
 days by a wise potter, that it is kaccha, it is half-baked like 
 Namdev, it has not yet found \\sguru. It has the main out- 
 line, the framework which the cravings of the human heart 
 provide, of a true Theism, but it lacks its content ; it lacks 
 that which surely cannot come from beneath, but must be 
 poured into it from above. The grace of God, the need 
 of a mediator, the power of devotion and of faith these 
 furnish, even as they are found in these wayward cults, an 
 authentic map of Theism, its genuine form and contour. 
 Could any word have a truer ring of theistic comprehension 
 than this of Tukaram's, which is not his thought alone among 
 the Indian seers, and which might well be St. Augustine's : 
 'Had I not been a sinner, how could there have been a 
 Saviour? So my name is the source, and hence, O Sea of 
 mercy, comes Thy purifying power. Iron is the glory of the
 
 CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 265 
 
 parlsa (loadstone), else had it been but an ordinary stone.' * 
 It binds the sinner and the Saviour with true evangelical 
 daring in a fellowship of the mutual dependence of love and 
 help. And yet lacking a content of authentic revelation, how 
 these forms presently become misshapen and distorted. With 
 scarcely an exception, these Theisms, fair dreams of man's 
 unguided hopes, have fallen from their high places to depths 
 as deep as Tophet. 
 
 The fundamental difference between them and the Christian 
 Theism lies in the fact that it possesses as its content Jesus 
 Christ. The sole reason why it is possible for it to be at once 
 a religion through and through of grace and yet altogether 
 ethical is that it has at its centre this figure, Jesus Christ. 
 Caitanya might, perhaps, say with St. Paul, ' I live by faith ', 
 but the fundamental distinction between him and St. Paul 
 lies in the fact that the Christian apostle could go on to say 
 ' the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself 
 for me'. The guru, even the 'name' strange and mystic 
 intermediary are claimed by Indian Theisms as means to 
 bring near a far-off God. But how often was the guru as 
 ignorant as his disciple, and only exalted above him by his 
 priestly pride ; and how frail a boat is an empty name to bear 
 a man across the sea of samsara to his God. But when the 
 guru is One who, indeed, if His claim be true, is come from 
 God, and speaketh the words of God, and when the name is 
 all His character of grace and of compassion, then it well 
 may be that these shall bear those who lay hold of them by 
 faith to the place of the presence of the living and the holy 
 God. 
 
 A Theism which makes its appeal to the heart of man as 
 well as to his intellect, which sets before itself as its aim 
 
 1 Fraser and Marathe's Tukaratn, i. p. 76. The same thought is 
 found in the Granth (Trumpp, p. civ), and in more extreme and 
 objectionable form in some South Indian sects.
 
 266 INDIAN THEISM 
 
 throughout the establishment of the reign of God, and which 
 bases its appeal upon a great historical act of self-sacrifice by 
 God for man's redemption, and assures the accomplishment of 
 its aim by reason of a great historical victory of life over death, 
 of the order of spirit over the order of nature a Theism also 
 which claims that these things are verified in the experience 
 of men as not only events of the past, but present activities of 
 the divine life in human hearts such a Theism can, indeed, 
 accomplish what men's hearts have yearned for always, and 
 certainly no less in India than in other lands. The Indian 
 bhakti systems express these yearnings, but they lack elements 
 that are necessary for their permanent satisfaction. What 
 some of these elements are we have tried to indicate. Indian 
 Theism is oftenest a cold discourse of reason that forgets that 
 the heart has claims, and that the will requires a governor if 
 it is not to be left to waywardness and to disaster. Or, again, 
 Indian Theism is a carnival of emotion, its worshipper no 
 longer a ship lying helpless on a painted ocean of the intel- 
 lect, but driven headlong by what are only too apt to be blasts 
 from hell. Or, again, the law of karma thwarts the processes 
 of Theism in the Indian psychological climate, preventing the 
 free ethical operation of the divine grace and the divine for- 
 giveness. It is a sub-moral order, which has no room in it 
 for the ministry of penitence, and which shuts out the possi- 
 bility, in response to penitence, of the divine forgiveness. It 
 is indeed true, as the facts of the world declare, that there is 
 a surd, a factor that may prove insoluble even to divine power 
 and grace, in the life of man, but that is not due to anything 
 in the order of nature or in the will of God. It proceeds 
 from the free will of man. Not a law of karma, but that 
 moral freedom, which is the very manhood of man, hinders 
 the^ consummation of God. Thus within Christian Theism 
 there is room for all God's divine majesty and transcendence 
 as there is not where karma reigns. His only limitation is 
 self-limitation. The greater the freedom and capacity of His 
 creatures, the greater He who rules them all and saves them.
 
 CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 267 
 
 ' This Being rare has drawn near ' l to us, as Indian bhakti 
 dreamed and hoped He would, in the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 And the faith of which He is the centre confirms the intuitions, 
 and crowns the longings of the long centuries of Indian 
 Theistic aspiration. 
 
 1 Pope's Tiruv as again, p. 157.
 
 APPENDIX A 
 
 B.C. 
 2OOO 
 
 6OO 
 
 INDIAN RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 
 
 Earliest Vedic Hymns. Circa 1500-1000. 
 Period of the Vedic Samhitas. Circa iooo-8co. 
 Period of the Brahmanas. Circa 800-500. 
 The earliest Upanisads. Circa 600. 
 
 Mahavlra. 599-527. 
 
 Gautama Buddha. 563-483. 
 
 Period of the Sutras. Circa 500-200 B. C. 
 
 Period of the Ramayana. Circa 400-200 B. C. 
 Period of the Mahabharata. 'Circa 400 B. .-400 A. D. 
 Later Upanisads. Circa 400-200 B. c. 
 
 The Bhagavadglta. Circa 100 B. C.-ioo A. D. 
 
 A. D. 
 
 500 Period of the Puranas. Circa 400-800. 
 Sahkaracarya. 788-850. 
 
 Manikka-vasagar. X-XI cent. 
 
 1000 
 
 Ramanuja. Died 1137. 
 
 Nimbarka. XII cent. 
 
 Madhva. XIII cent. 
 
 Ramananda. XIII-XIV cent. Pillai Lokacarya. XIII cent. 
 
 Vedanta Desika. XIII-XIV cent. 
 
 Jnane^var. XIJI cent. 
 
 Namdev. XIII-XIV cent. 
 
 Vallabhacarya. XV-XVI cent, Kablr. Died 1518. 
 
 Caitanya. 1485-1533. Nanak. 1469-1538. 
 
 Dadu. 1544-1603. Tulsl Das. 1532-1623. 
 
 Tukaram. 1608-49.
 
 HISTORICAL TABLE 
 
 INDIAN SECULAR HISTORY. 
 
 Aryans advancing into India. 
 
 THE WORLD OUTSIDE INDIA. 
 
 Isaiah the Prophet. 737-700. 
 Zoroaster. 660-583. 
 
 Panini. Circa 400-300. 
 Alexander the Great in India. 
 
 327-325- 
 
 Candragupta, founder of the Maurya 
 Dynasty. 321-297. 
 
 Megasthenes at the Court of Can- 
 dragupta. 302. 
 
 Asoka. 269-227. 
 
 Patanjali. Circa 150. 
 
 Confucius. 551-478. 
 
 Cyrus, king of Persia. 522-486. 
 
 Death of Socrates. 399. 
 Plato. 427-347. 
 
 Aristotle. 384-322. 
 
 Virgil. 73-19. 
 
 Julius Caesar. 100-44. 
 
 Kalidasa. Circa 400. 
 
 Hiouen Tsang in India. 629-646. 
 
 Invasion of India by Muhamma- 
 
 dans. 998. 
 Capture of Somnath by Mahmud 
 
 of Ghazni. 1025. 
 
 Invasion of Taimur. 1398. 
 
 Akbar. 1556-1605. 
 Aurangzeb. 1658-1707. 
 
 Augustus. 30 B. C.-I4 A. D. 
 Crucifixion of Jesus. 29. 
 Conversion of Paul. 30. 
 The New Testament. Circa 
 
 47-110. 
 
 Marcus Aurelius. 161-180. 
 Constantine. 306-337. 
 Muhammad. 570-632. 
 
 The Crusades. 1096. 
 Wyckliflfe. 1324-84. 
 Luther. 1483-1546. 
 Queen Elizabeth. 1558-1603.
 
 APPENDIX B 
 
 EKANATH (SIXTEENTH CENTURY) ON BHAKTI 
 
 The superiority of Bhakti to Yoga. 
 
 Though one restrains the senses, yet are they not restrained. Though 
 one renounces sensual desires, yet are they not renounced. Again and 
 again they return to torment one. For that reason the flame of Hari 
 bhakti was lit by the Veda. 
 
 There is no need to suppress the senses ; desire of sensual pleasure 
 ceases of itself. So mighty is the power that lies in Hari bhakti. Know 
 this assuredly, O first among kings. 
 
 The senses that Yogis suppress bhaktas devote to the worship of 
 Bhagavat. The things of sense that Yogis forsake bhaktas offer to 
 Bhagavat. Yogis forsake the things of sense, and forsaking them, they 
 suffer in the flesh ; the followers of bhakti offer them to Bhagavat, and 
 hence they become for ever emancipated. 
 
 Wife, child, house, self, offer them to Bhagavat. That is the perfect 
 Bhagavat Dharma. In this above all else does worship consist. 
 
 The superiority of bhakti to jnana, 
 
 Though he has no knowledge of the Vedas, still by one so ignorant 
 may the real Self be apprehended. The condition of Brahman may be 
 easily attained and possessed. To that end did God send forth the light 
 of Hari bhakti. 
 
 Know, O king, that this is what belongs to Bhagavat. Especially is 
 its token bhakti. Worshipping Bhagavat by faith the man who has no 
 knowledge is delivered. 
 
 Women, Sudras and all others place them on board this ship and 
 they all together and easily can be borne by the power of faith and 
 worship to the other bank. To cross thither without swimming, to gain 
 possession without painful effort, to obtain Brahman by an easy means, 
 for this end Narayan sent forth the light of bhakti, 
 
 The special quality of the Bhagavat Dharma is that the simple-hearted 
 are borne safe across the ocean of the world. Brahman is attained by 
 an easy means. This meaning is expressed clearly in the sloka. 
 
 What bhakti is, 
 He who puts his trust in the worship of Bhagavat, rules and restrictions
 
 APPENDIX B 271 
 
 become his slaves. When he renders the ritual service of his heart the 
 World-Spirit is made glad. The marks of a saint are his power of 
 devotion, how he tramples on the works of his dharma, how he sweeps 
 clean the place of varndsrama, how he makes a bonfire of karma. 
 
 He who knows not Sruti or Smriti but worships by faith the way of 
 Bhagavat, him never for a moment does the burden of rules and 
 restrictions obstruct. Those who, lacking the two eyes, Sruti, Smriti, 
 are blind, even they, fleeing by the might of faith to the worship of Hari, 
 by reason of their full heart's love meet with no stumbling-block. Those 
 who follow thus the Bhagavat Dharma action (karma) cannot hinder. 
 He whose will is a law to action (karma], that Purusottama is obtained 
 by the worship of faith. Those who render service according to the 
 Bhagavat Dharma, to them the duty of their own dharma becomes as 
 a bondslave. It cannot stand in their presence. How then can it 
 ever hinder them ? 
 
 Whatever is done with purpose of reward or what is done without, 
 what the Vedas, what custom, what our own nature prescribes, offer 
 them, one and all, to Bhagavat. Behold, that is the Bhagavat Dharma. 
 
 He whom the duty of his dharma cannot hinder, hear, O king, his 
 secret. Purusottama has been manifested in his heart by means of the 
 knowledge of the illimitable Self. 
 
 Whenever the eye sees the visible, then (the bhaktd) sees there God 
 Himself. Thus by the means of worship he offers up his vision, namely, 
 the objects that he sees. 
 
 In like manner when he hears with his ear, it is an offering to Brahman. 
 Without deliberate intent, know this, spontaneously and naturally 
 Bhagavat is worshipped. 
 
 He who brings together scent and the thing that has scent, he becomes 
 (to the bhakta} the very sense of smell by reason of love. 
 
 When the sweets of taste are tasted, then its flavour is God Himself. 
 He abides in the delight of taste and (the bhakta} perceives that the 
 enjoyment of taste is an offering to Brahman. 
 
 When by our body we touch, then in the body the unembodied Self is 
 manifested. Whatever (the bhakta) touches and whatever he enjoys, 
 lo, it is an offering to Brahman. 
 
 Wherever he (the bhaktd) sets his foot, that path is God. Then in 
 every step he takes, lo, his worship is an offering to Brahman.
 
 APPENDIX C 
 
 THE ALLEGED INDEBTEDNESS OF INDIAN THEISM 
 TO CHRISTIANITY 
 
 THERE are many points of resemblance between the theistic cults of 
 India and Christianity which suggest the possibility of indebtedness, but 
 these fall for the most part into one or other of two classes, those on the 
 one hand that may be described as resemblances in idea and in the ritual 
 which embodies ideas, and those on the other which depend upon likeness 
 in the stories or legends that are associated with the divine figures in the 
 various religions. The similarity in the former case is much more 
 important than in the latter ; but at the same time agreement between 
 religions in respect of ideas and aspirations which often reach deep down 
 into universal instincts and needs of the human heart need not, one 
 recognizes, by any means necessarily imply borrowing on either side. 
 In the case of the other class of resemblances, borrowing is more easily 
 detected, perhaps, but it appears to be a matter of minor significance 
 whether borrowing in such matters has actually taken place. These 
 gather chiefly about the story of the child Krisna and such a legend as 
 that of the visit to the ' White Island ' described in the Mahabharata. 
 
 The first thing to be done in considering the problems here involved 
 is to see what communications there were in the early centuries between 
 India and those lands to the west and north of India where Christianity 
 was an established religion. There seem to have been three main routes 
 of communication, (l) from Egypt and Alexandria, (2) from the Persian 
 Gulf, and (3) from lands lying north of India in Central Asia. 
 
 (1) The intercourse between India and Alexandria was considerable, 
 apparently, until early in the third century, when a massacre by the 
 emperor Caracalla of the Alexandrians, among whom there was a small 
 colony of Hindu traders, brought this to an end. A large number of 
 coins of Roman emperors up to Caracalla have been found in South 
 India, but few coins of emperors subsequent to him. As this intercourse 
 with Alexandria was mainly in matters of trade, and as the Indians 
 concerned in it were mainly of the less thoughtful classes of Dravidians, 
 there is not likely to have been much, if any, interchange of religious 
 ideas. 
 
 (2) The second route of communication is that between the Persian 
 Gulf and the west coast of India. Christian and Jewish communities
 
 APPENDIX C 273 
 
 were settled in this part of India, it appears, from the second century 
 onward. Pantaenus journeyed to India in the second century and found 
 there some Christians who used a Hebrew or Aramaic version of the 
 Gospel of St. Matthew. In the sixth century when Cosmas Indico- 
 pleustes visited India, he found there a Christian Church said to have 
 been founded in the second century. It had a Persian bishop. 
 
 (3) Another important d'rection from which it is not improbable that 
 Christian thought may have entered India is that of the north-west 
 frontier, by which so many invasions of India have taken place throughout 
 the centuries. Just north of Afghanistan and corresponding to Afghan 
 Turkestan lay a land which early in the Christian era was the home of 
 many persecuted Christian sects. Successive expeditions of explorers in 
 recent years have discovered further east in Chinese Turkestan, and 
 especially in the oasis of Turfan, a large number of Christian documents, 
 including much of the literature of the Manichaean sect. These are 
 texts believed to have been written 'at some time before the tenth 
 century for the use of a large Manichaean community '.* It is evident 
 that there were important centres in this region from which Christian 
 ideas must have been conveyed occasionally across the mountains to 
 India. One of the bishops, indeed, who attended the great Council of 
 Nicaea in A. D. 325 is designated 'Bishop of the Church of Persia and 
 great India', which is understood to mean the India of the Indus valley 
 and perhaps some distance beyond it. It is accepted as eminently 
 probable now that there is a substance of truth in the legend of St. Thomas 
 which tells of his coming to India to the kingdom of Gondoferus or 
 Gondophares, who ruled over Parthia and the western Punjab in the first 
 century. Whether or not there is any substance in the further tradition 
 that he was buried in Mylapore near Madras, and this is much less 
 probable, it is, to say the least, quite possible that he actually preached 
 the Gospel in North West India. 
 
 These seem to be the main channels by which Christian ideas may 
 have reached India in the early centuries. In later times, of course, from 
 the seventh century onward, there were other Christian influences coming 
 from various directions into the country. 
 
 We have now to consider whether there is any reliable evidence of the 
 Christian influence which may have come to India by these, or, possibly, 
 by other, channels having made any mark upon Indian theistic religion. 
 Let us look in the first place at the legends which may be said to bear 
 tokens of such influence. These are especially those that gather round 
 the figure of the child Krisna. Here is Sir R. G. Bhandarkar's account 
 of what he supposes to have possibly happened in this connexion : 
 
 1 F. Lcgge inJ.R.A.S., Jan. 1913, p. 79. 
 T
 
 274 APPENDIX C 
 
 ' About the first century of the Christian era, the boy-god of a wandering 
 tribe of cow-herds of the name of Abhlras came to be identified with 
 Vasudeva. In the course of their wanderings eastward from Syria or 
 Asia Minor they brought with them, probably, traditions of the birth of 
 Christ in a stable, the massacre of the innocents, &c., and the name 
 Christ itself. The name became recognized as Krisna, as this word is 
 often pronounced by some Indians as Kristo or Kusto. And thus the 
 traditional legends brought by the Abhlras became engrafted on the story 
 of Vasudeva Krisna of India.' l That is an opinion that is shared by 
 many scholars, and certainly there seems to be much to support it. No 
 one can help being struck by numerous points of resemblance between 
 the story of the child Krisna and that of the child Christ, though these 
 are resemblances merely in outward detail and not at all in the spirit and 
 atmosphere of the stories. The elements that are supposed to show 
 Christian influence in the legend of Krisna are such as the honour paid 
 to his mother DevakI, the birth in a stable, the massacre of children by 
 Kamsa, the representation in Indian pictures of the mother suckling the 
 child like a Madonna lactans. When one investigates, however, these 
 incidents, one finds that the hypothesis of indebtedness has to be accepted 
 with caution and a distinction made between some of the parallels and 
 others. 
 
 We find, for example, that the enmity between the wicked Kamsa and 
 his nephew Krisna is referred to as familiar in Patanjali's Mahdbhdsya 
 (second century B. c.), and it is fair to conclude that the legend of the 
 attempt of Kamsa to kill Krisna in his childhood, as well as that of his 
 murder of the other children of Vasudeva, as being the cause of that 
 enmity, was also extant at that period. It has also been claimed that 
 there is an earlier Indian representation of the suckling mother than any 
 Christian picture known of the Madonna lactans. The association of 
 Krisna with his mother DevakI is, of course, as old as the Chandogya 
 Upanisad. There are other considerations, which a comparison with 
 similar worships to that of Kr'sna in other countries suggests, that 
 strengthen the view that the cowherd god of the Abhlras, even though 
 worshipped as a child, need owe nothing to Christian story. Their deity, 
 associated as he was with cattle, was probably originally a deity of the 
 spring and the renewed life of nature, like Dionysus. It is accordingly 
 interesting to note that Dionysus seems to have been worshipped as 
 a child under the title Dionysus Liknites, a name taken 'from the cradle 
 in which they put children to sleep'. The Maenads are Dionysus's 
 nurses, and we see them paralleled, perhaps, in the Gopls. Other 
 similarities in the stories lead us to conclude that some of the aspects 
 
 1 Indian Antiquary, Jan. 1912, p. 15. Cf. also his Vaimavism, pp. 37*".
 
 APPENDIX C 275 
 
 of the Krisna story that give it a resemblance to the story of the child 
 Christ, which is purely superficial and disappears on investigation, really 
 spring from its character as a nature worship deifying the return of 
 spring after the winter, and embodying in the person of the youthful 
 Krisna the joy of that resurrection. 
 
 At the same time there seems good ground for believing that about the 
 middle of the seventh century Nestorian missions (which are believed to 
 have entered India from the north in the year 639) may have brought 
 stories of the child Christ as well as pictures and ritual observances 
 which affected the story of Krisna as related in the Puranas, and the 
 worship of Krisna especially in relation to the celebration of his birth 
 festival. To this belongs the birth in a cow-house among cattle, the 
 ' massacre of the innocents ', the story that his foster-father Nanda was 
 travelling at the time to Mathura to pay tax or tribute (kard) to Kamsa, 
 and other details to be found in the various Puranas and in the Jaimini 
 Bharata (a work of date earlier than the beginning of the thirteenth 
 century). 
 
 Another legend, in addition to this of the child Krisna, which we have 
 to examine in our search for possible indebtedness, is that of the travellers 
 to the Svetadvlpa, as related in Mbh. XII. This is a country 'to the 
 north of mount Meru and on the shore of the Sea of Milk'. That seems 
 to point to a land in Central Asia, if the directions mean anything, and 
 Professor Garbe has persuaded himself that the sea in question is Lake 
 Balchash, which lies near one of the most important trade routes of 
 Central India and has a Kirghis name which means ' white ocean '. Of 
 the inhabitants of this land it is said that they have 'complexions as 
 white as the rays of the moon and are devoted to Narayana '. 'The 
 inhabitants of Svetadvlpa believe in and adore only one God', who is. 
 invisible. The highly imaginative character of the description of the 
 land and the people, as well as some indications in the narrative that it 
 is not to be taken literally, has convinced some scholars, such as Earth, 
 Hopkins, and Bhandarkar, that the story is a mere flight of fancy and 
 that the Svetadvlpa is the heaven of Narayana. If it has any basis at all 
 in fact, it is most probable that it refers to some Christian settlement to 
 the north of India. 
 
 When we come to consider the possibility of indebtedness to Christianity 
 in idea and in the ritual that symbolizes idea, we are working in quite 
 a different medium. The evidence that has been considered above is 
 concerned entirely with detail of fact. Here the discussion, as has been 
 said, 'belongs more to the region of feeling than to that of absolute 
 proof'. 1 No one need suppose that the ideas that bhakti connotes are 
 
 1 E.R.E., V. 22 1 . 
 
 T 2
 
 276 APPENDIX C 
 
 a foreign importation into India. It has been shown that the word in its 
 religious application is pre-Christian, 1 and that is what one would expect, 
 for the attitude of soul that it implies, however it might have been over- 
 shadowed in India by Vedantic speculation, is in agreement with human 
 needs and longings. At the same time the feeling of ' loving faith ' may 
 well have been deepened and illuminated by Christian teaching when 
 later that may have begun to influence the religious thought of India. 
 Whether that was so and how far is a difficult question to answer. 
 
 The Bhagavadglta is the earliest scripture in which Christian influence 
 is possible, and that only if we date it, at least in one of its revisions, 
 later than the beginning of the Christian era. Many parallels have been 
 traced between its language and that of the New Testament, especially 
 of the Gospel of St. John. A careful examination of these, however, 
 shows the resemblances to be in many cases purely verbal and unreal, 
 while others can be paralleled from Upanisads which are certainly pre- 
 Christian. For example, when it is said (vii. 6), ' The source of the whole 
 universe and its dissolution am I ', and (x. 39) ' the seed of all born beings 
 am I ; there is naught that can be in existence, moving or unmoving 
 without me', Krisna's relation to the world is really represented as 
 entirely different from that which is claimed for the Word in the verse 
 ' All things were made by him ; and without him was not anything made 
 that was made' (John i. 3). 'What is there that one would call other 
 (than me)?' asks the creating A tman in the Aitareya Upanisad. Again, 
 when Krisna says ' Of creations I am the beginning and the end and 
 likewise the midst ; ... of letters I am the syllable A ; ... I am death 
 that ravishes all and the source of all things to be ' (x. 32-4), the likeness 
 to the words in Revelation, ' I am the first and the last and the living 
 one . . . and I have the keys of death ... I am the Alpha and the Omega ' 
 (Rev. i. 17, 18, 8) is purely superficial. The difference is realized when 
 it is remembered that the letter A is inherent in all the letters of the 
 Sanskrit alphabet. Krisna's identification of himself with everything in 
 the universe is in full agreement with the claims for Brahman in the 
 Upanisads, and that among the lists of those things that he is there 
 should be found some of the names, such as the truth, the light, the way, 
 which are applied to Christ, and especially to Christ in His aspect as the 
 eternal Word, is not surprising and cannot be said to prove indebtedness. 
 The case for influence by Christian teaching on the Glta is stronger in 
 reference to such a passage as ' Those who are devoted to me in love are 
 in me and I in them' (ix. 29), where there certainly seems to be much 
 more of the spirit of the Christian gospel than can be traced in any 
 earlier scripture. It is possible, however, to maintain that, as the loving 
 
 1 See Garbe, Indien und das Christenthum, pp. 251 f.
 
 APPENDIX C 277 
 
 faith of bhakti awoke spontaneously in Indian hearts, so the strengthening 
 and deepening of the relation of love and devotion which such a passage 
 indicates may have taken place through the working of the divine Spirit 
 apart from the Christian revelation. The question of indebtedness in the 
 case of the Bhagavadgitd cannot accordingly be answered in one way or 
 the other with any confidence. 
 
 We are treading, as Professor Garbe remarks, on solid ground when 
 we pass to consider the question of the influence of Christian teaching on 
 the ideas of later Vaisnavite and Saivite theism. That such influence 
 was considerable and increasing from about the eighth century onwards 
 seems highly probable, but to determine its extent and to point out just 
 where it is present in particular is by no means easy. We shall only 
 attempt to note a few points in some of the theistic schools where 
 Christian influence seems to be fairly certain. 
 
 It seems highly probable, when we consider the region in which the 
 revival of bhakti in the time of Ramanuja took place, and its nearness to 
 the Nestorian Christians of South India, that he had some acquaintance 
 with Christian truth. In the opinion of Grierson and Garbe his 'con- 
 version ' from the school of Sankara to the Bhagavata religion was due 
 to Christian influence. 1 This, however, can only be a conjecture. The 
 religious exclusiveness, so different from the easy tolerance that usually 
 characterizes Indian religion, which we find in Ramanuja and Madhva 
 (see pp. 101 f., 1 14 above), may betray the influence of Christian teaching. 
 Sir R. G. Bhandarkar finds in the doctrine of surrender to the guru ' a 
 striking resemblance to the Christian doctrine of Christ suffering or, in the 
 words of our author, going through the processes necessary for redemption, 
 the believer doing nothing but putting complete faith in his saviour'. 2 
 This view is also held by Dr. Grierson, but we agree with Professor Garbe 
 that the influence of the guru is thoroughly Indian and ancient, though 
 it is possible that the relation of the Christian to Christ may have done 
 something to deepen the conception. Sir R. G. Bhandarkar is probably 
 on surer ground when he suggests that ' some of the finer points in the 
 theory of prapatti may be traced to the influence of Christianity '. 3 This 
 is in agreement with our view that the whole intensification of the spirit 
 of bhakti, of which the doctrine of prapatti is an instance, may be due to 
 Christian sentiment making itself felt in the South. Again, it is the view 
 of Dr. Grierson and of Professor Garbe that the sacramental meal or 
 mahaprasada, as it is found here, ' shows points of agreement with the 
 Christian Eucharist which cannot be mere matters of chance '.* Certainly 
 
 1 Garbe's Indien und das Christenthwn, p. 273. 
 
 2 Bhandarkar's Vaisnavism, p. 57. 
 
 3 Bhandarkar, op. cit., p. 57. 
 
 4 E.R.E.,\\. p. 550. 
 
 T3
 
 278 APPENDIX C 
 
 this appears to be the case in regard to this ceremony as observed among 
 the Kablr Panthls. 1 
 
 In the case of Madhva the following points of varying importance have 
 been indicated as betraying evidence of his having come under Christian 
 influences: (i) his doctrine of eternal punishment (see p. 113 above) 
 which may have been suggested by mediaeval Christian teaching in 
 regard to the future life ; (2) the doctrine of salvation through a mediator, 
 Vayu, son of Visnu, an idea which is to be found in embryo in the 
 teaching of Ramanuja (see p. 109 above) ; (3) stories told in Madhva's 
 life which resemble incidents in the Gospels, such as his visiting temples 
 when a boy, his spending forty-eight days in fasting and prayer before 
 beginning to teach, his miraculous feeding of a multitude, and the 
 description in his life of Madhvas as ' fishing for souls '. 2 
 
 It is claimed that Christian influences are traceable in all the popular 
 cults of the Indian mediaeval period, in Ramananda, who had twelve 
 disciples, and Tulsl Das in the north, in the Maratha poets in the west, 
 and in Siva bhakti in the south. In regard to the last, that there has 
 been such influence is the opinion both of Dr. Pope and of Mr. R. W. 
 Frazer, who are well acquainted with the literature. The latter says, 
 ' Throughout Tamil literature from the eighth to ninth century there are 
 to be found ideas and sometimes totally unexpected forms of expression 
 suggestive of some Christian influences on the poetry of the period.' 3 
 
 In regard to Marathi poetry there are many passages and phrases that 
 could be quoted which are closely parallel to Christian thought and 
 language. In Jnanesvar it is said, for example, that Krisna makes 
 those devoted to him ' fit for the kingdom of heaven (Vaikuntha) '. That 
 is a striking phrase which certainly has a decidedly Christian sound. 
 Again, Namdev has this remarkable passage in one of his poems : 
 'When a man breaketh with his family and all his friends, then the 
 Carpenter of his own accord cometh to him.' An examination of this 
 passage, however, shows that the coincidence in language is probably 
 accidental. Similar exhortations to be found in Tukaram, as well as 
 much besides in the whole spirit and language of his Abhangs, make it 
 decidedly probable that he at least had somehow or other come under 
 the influence, either directly or indirectly, of Christian thought. This is 
 the view of Mr. J. Nelson Fraser who, in collaboration with Mr. K. B. 
 Marathe, has translated his poems into English and who has supplied 
 some passages in support of his contention. Thus Tukaram says, 
 ' Whatever keeps you from God, be it your father or mother, give it up ' 
 
 1 See Westcott, pp. 1278. 
 
 2 C. M. Padmanabhachar's Madhva, p. 266 t. 
 8 E.R.E., V. p. 22 2 .
 
 APPENDIX C 279 
 
 (Eraser and Marathe, I. p. 171). 'Blessed in the world are the com- 
 passionate; their true home is Vaikuntha' (op. cit., I. p. 233). Compare 
 Matt. v. 7 ' Blessed are the merciful '. ' Mercy, forgiveness, and peace, 
 where these are, there is the dwelling-place of God' (op. cit., I. p. 231). 
 ' To each has been shown a path according to his capacity ; he will learn 
 to know it as he follows it' (op. cit., I, p. 27). Compare John vii. 17, 
 ' If any man willeth to do his will he shall know of the teaching '. 
 ' I will cast my burden on thee, O Panduranga ' (op. cit., I, p. 29). ' I am 
 a man of low degree, feeble in brain, miserable in aspect ; other defects 
 of mine too he knows ; yet Vitthal has accepted me, knowing what my 
 purpose is ' (op. cit, I. p. 29). These passages, so Christian in sentiment 
 as well as in language, could be multiplied. Mr. Eraser further draws 
 attention to the frequent denunciations of pride in Tukaram's writings, as 
 the cause of spiritual blindness, in close agreement with Christian 
 teaching. Certainly either Tukaram was actually in contact with 
 Christian teaching, which is by no means improbable, or he was 
 a remarkable instance of a mens naturaltter Christiana. Dr. Grierson 
 has adduced much evidence to show that Christian influences were at 
 work among the north Indian saints of the Bhaktamala, and there is 
 little reason to doubt that similar influences were present among the 
 Maratha saints of further south.
 
 APPENDIX D 
 
 THE MANBHAO SECT 
 
 THIS sect may be taken as an example of many minor sects, largely 
 theistic in character, to which it has been impossible to refer. The name 
 is said to be a corruption of Mahanubhava, i. e. ' high-minded '. Another 
 title given to members of the sect is Mahatmd. They are found in the 
 Deccan and the Berars, and are said also to have maths or religious 
 houses in the Punjab and even in Afghanistan. At the census of 1901 
 they numbered 22,716. They seem to have arisen in the thirteenth 
 century, when the Bhagavata faith was reviving in the Maratha country, 
 and when Jnanesvar was writing his Marathi commentary on the 
 Bhagavadgita. Their founder is said to have been Sri Cakradhar 
 a Karhada Brahman. 
 
 They worship Krisna and Dattatreya, the latter as an incarnation of 
 the supreme deity. ' They do not worship idols, and have no faith in 
 the sruti or purdmc religion of the Hindus. They neither worship other 
 gods, nor stay, or even drink water, in other temples.' At most of their 
 temples they have ' quadrangular or circular white-washed terraces which 
 they worship in the name of God '. Their chief religious scripture is the 
 Ltlacarita, which is written in Marathi. It is said to teach the doctrines 
 of the Bhagavadgita, which they reverence. They follow Isvarabhakti, 
 They admit all classes of Hindus, except outcastes, to their sect, and 
 within it no caste distinctions are recognized. ' A Brahman of the lower 
 class can become a mahanta (i. e. principal guru) by merit and can 
 initiate a Brahman.' There are four main divisions, of which two are the 
 vairagt, or strictly celibate class, and the gharbhart, who wear the dress 
 of the order and live in maths, but are allowed to marry. The vairdgls 
 practise celibacy, and the men celibates and women celibates remain 
 apart from each other, the latter under a female mahanta of their own. 
 ' Women and men never hold a joint service.' 
 
 One of their principles is nitya atan, or constant wandering, though 
 they have maths at certain places. The sannyasts robe which they wear 
 is of a dark colour, being dyed with lamp-black. They go from village to 
 Tillage in companies of from fifty to one hundred persons, maintaining 
 themselves by begging. They practise ahimsa (non-killing) with much 
 strictness, not even cutting grass or plucking leaves or fruit, and using
 
 APPENDIX D 281 
 
 water for bathing or drinking very sparingly. There are various grades 
 and divisions of the initiates. Their religious books are kept secret, and 
 for that reason are written in a secret script. Perhaps because of this 
 secrecy they seem to have aroused much suspicion, and are severely 
 criticized by such Marathl poets as Ekanath and Tukaram. They were 
 apparently persecuted in the time of the Maratha Pesvas, and are 
 described in a public notification of the time as a thoroughly disreputable 
 sect. They appear to have been especially disliked by the Vdrkaris, 
 or worshippers of Vithoba. This may have been due not only to the 
 secrecy which they practised, but also to their religious exclusiveness, an 
 attitude unusual in Hinduism, but occasionally found in theistic sects in 
 India, e. g. among the Madhvas and the followers of Ramanuja. Though 
 they are Vaisnavas, ' the worshippers at the shrines of Pandharpur, 
 Gangapur, and Dwarka will not allow them to worship at their shrines. 
 The sect appears to have been regarded as heterodox.' 
 
 There are respects in which the practices of this sect recall practices 
 within some of the early Christian sects, such as the Manichaeans. It 
 may be possible on a closer investigation to decide whether Christian 
 influences have been present here. 
 
 NOTE. On the subject of the Manbhaus see Monograph No. 131 of 
 the Ethnographical Survey of Bombay, and a paper by Mr. K. A. Padhye 
 in the Transactions of the Anthropological Society of Bombay (Vol. x).
 
 APPENDIX E 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 THE whole subject of the theistic cults in India has been treated in 
 considerable detail in Sir R. G. Bhandarkar's Vaisnamsm, Sai-vism, and 
 Minor Religious Systems in the Encyclopaedia of Indo- Aryan Research 
 (Strassburg). In his article on the Bhakti-Mdrga in the Encyclopaedia 
 of Religion and Ethics, Sir G. A. Grierson has also traversed the greater 
 part of the ground. He has not, however, dealt with Siva Bhakti, for 
 which see Dravidians (South India) in the same work. Many valuable 
 articles on the various theistic sects are to be found in this Encyclopaedia. 
 
 For the theistic tendencies of the religion during the periods of the 
 Vedas, the Brahmanas, and the Upanisads, the standard works of 
 Macdonell ( Vedic Mythology], Bloomfield (Religion of the Veda), Hopkins 
 (Religions of India), and Earth (Religions of India) should be consulted. 
 In the two last named much information in reference to later theistic 
 aspects of Hinduism will also be found. On later phases of Indian 
 Theism some of the more important books, chiefly those obtainable in 
 English, are given below. 
 The Theism of the BhagavadgUd. 
 
 R. Garbe's Bhagavadglta (Leipzig) and his Indien und das Christen- 
 
 thum. (Tubingen : J. C. B. Mohr.) 
 Theism within Buddhism. 
 
 Poussin's Bouddhisme : Opinions sur FHistoire de la Dogmatique. 
 (Paris : Beauchesne.) 
 
 Senart's Origines bouddhiques. (Paris : Leroux.) 
 Rdmanuja. 
 
 Life of Rdmanuja. By A. Govindacharya. (Madras: Murthy.) 
 
 Veddnta Sutras, with Ramanuja's Commentary. S. B. E., vol. xlviii. 
 
 Introduction (by Thibaut) to S.B. E., vol. xxxiv. 
 
 Bhagavadgitd, with Ramanuja's Commentary, translated by A. Govin- 
 dacharya. (Madras : Vaijayanti Press.) 
 
 The Teachings of Vedanta according to Rdmanuja. By V. A. 
 Sukhtankar. (Wien : Holzhausen.) 
 
 Yatindra Mata Dipikd, translated by A. Govindacharya. (Madras : 
 Meykandan Press.)
 
 APPENDIX E 283 
 
 Madhva. 
 
 The Life and Teachings of Sri Madhvdchdryar. By C. M. Padmanabha 
 
 Char. (Madras.) 
 The Bhagavadgltd, with Madhvacharya's Commentary, translated by 
 
 Subba Rau. (Madras.) 
 
 Tulsi Das. 
 
 The Rdmdyana of Tulst Das, translated from the Hindi by F. S. 
 
 Growse. 2 vols. (Allahabad : Government Press.) 
 For other works see Grierson in Indian Antiquary, vol. xxii, p. 225. 
 
 Mardtha Saints. 
 
 The Poems of Tukdrdm, translated by Fraser and Marat he. 2 vols. 
 (vol. iii in the Press). (Madras : Christian Literature Society.) 
 
 See also Ranade's Rise of the Mardtha Power, chap, viii (Bombay : 
 Punalekar), and articles in the Indian Interpreter (Madras : Christian 
 Literature Society) in July, 1914, on Jnanesvar, in April, 1913, on 
 Namdev, and in April, 1912, on Tukaram. Also in January, 1913, 
 on the Maratha poets. 
 
 Caitanya and the Bengali Saints, 
 
 Lord Gauranga. By S. K. Ghose. (Calcutta : Patrika Office.) 
 History of Bengali Language and Literature. By D. C. Sen. (Cal- 
 cutta : The University.) 
 
 Caitanya! s Pilgrimages and Teachings, translated from the Bengali by 
 Jadunath Sarkar. (Calcutta : Sarkar. London : Luzac.) 
 
 Kablr. 
 
 Kablr and the Kablr Panth. By G. H. Westcott. (Cawnpore : 
 
 Mission Press.) 
 Kablr' s Bijak, translated by Prem Chand. (Calcutta : Baptist Mission 
 
 Press.) 
 
 Ndnak and the Sikhs. 
 
 The Adi Granth, translated by E. Trumpp. (London : Allen & Co.) 
 The Sikh Religion : a translation of the Granth with lives of the Gurus. 
 By M. A. Macauliffe. 6 vols. (Oxford : Clarendon Press.) 
 
 Siva Bhakti. 
 
 The Tiruvdsagam of Mdnikka Vdsagar. By G. U. Pope. Intro- 
 duction, text, translation. (Oxford : Clarendon Press.) 
 Der Saiva Siddhdnta. Von H. W. Schomerus. (Leipzig: Hinrichs.) 
 
 The Sdkta Sect. 
 
 Tantra of the Great Liberation (Mahdnirvdna Tantrd). A translation 
 from the Sanskrit with introduction and commentary. By Arthur 
 Avalon. (London : Luzac.)
 
 284 APPENDIX E 
 
 Hymns to the Goddess. By Arthur and Ellen Avalon. (London: 
 Luzac.) 
 
 Principles of Tantra (Tantratattva). Part I. Edited with an Intro- 
 duction and Commentary by Arthur Avalon. (London : Luzac.) 
 
 Other works on these and other aspects of Indian Theism are referred 
 to in the text. 
 
 On the question of the influence of Christianity on Indian Theism, the 
 most recent and complete treatment of the subject is Richard Garbe's 
 Indien und das Christenthum, where references will be found to all the 
 literature of the subject. An estimate of the significance of the ideas of 
 Bhakti in comparison with those of Christianity, as well as some account 
 of the history of Bhakti, will be found in J. L. Johnston's Some 
 Alternatives to Jesus Christ (London : Longmans, Green & Co.).
 
 INDEX 
 
 Abhang, 122. 
 
 Abhinavagupta, 167, 169. 
 
 Abstraction, way of, 243, 244. 
 
 Acarya, 99, 128, 142. 
 
 Acarya.bhima.na, nof., 209. 
 
 Acyutananda, 184. 
 
 Adi Buddha, 184. 
 
 Adi Granth, 145, 152, 154, 155. 
 
 Adimata. 183. 
 
 Adi Prajria, 184. 
 
 Adi Sakti, 184. 
 
 Aditi, 21. 
 
 Adityas, 14, 32. 
 
 Adonis, 37. 
 
 Adrista, 224. 
 
 Advaita, 75, 102, 127, 162, 163, 
 
 164, 167, 168, 213, 215. 
 Adya Kali, 187, 1 8.8. 
 Agamapramanya, 100. 
 Agamas, 1 68. 
 Agni, 15, 21, 23. 
 Agnosticism, 23. 
 Ahimsa, 37. 
 Ahmedabad, 136, 155. 
 Ai Panth,_i53. 
 
 Aitareya Aranyaka, 48, 51, 55, 202. 
 Ajlvikas, 63, 65. 
 Akalls, 136, 154. 
 Akho, 129. 
 Alakhglrs, 164. 
 Alakhnamis, 164. 
 Alandi, 120. 
 Allah, 139. 
 Alvars, 99, 171. 
 AJwar, 136, 157. 
 Amara, 69. 
 Amar Mul, 141. 
 Ambika, 182. 
 Amitabha, 72, 85. 
 Anandatlrtha, 112. 
 Anavam, 169. 
 Anava malam, 215. 
 Aniruddha, no. 
 
 Antaryamm, 79. 
 
 Anthropomorphism, 16, 1 8. 
 
 Apara muktas, 169. 
 
 Apara vidya, 99. 
 
 Apurusartha, 105. 
 
 Arahat, 74. 
 
 Ardhanarlsvara, 1 80. 
 
 Aristotle, 255. 
 
 Arjun, 155. 
 
 Arminius, no. 
 
 Arunandi, 168. 
 
 Asramas, 114, 137. 
 
 Asuras, 31, 35, 162. 
 
 Atharva Veda, 27 f., 46. 
 
 Atman, 55, 50, 149, 163. 
 
 Attis, 32. 
 
 Augustine, St., 60, 264. 
 
 Avalokita, 72, 184. 
 
 Avatara, 39f., 71, 73, 90, 92, 95, 
 
 140, 151, 200 f. 
 Avici, 74. 
 
 Avidya, loo, 211, 244. 
 Awakening of Faith in the Maha- 
 
 yana, 83 ff. 
 
 Baba Lai, 136, I56f. 
 
 Baba Lalls, I56f. 
 
 Badarayana, 213. 
 
 Balarama, 38. 
 
 Bal Gopal, 211. 
 
 Bal Krisna, 256. 
 
 Balya/ 56, 245. 
 
 Ban!, 155. 
 
 Barbaras, 181. 
 
 Barley ewe, 37, 113. 
 
 Barnett, L. D., 167, 177. 
 
 Basava, 167, 177. 
 
 Bergson, 231. 
 
 Bhaga, 32. 
 
 Bhagavadbhakta, 200, 209. 
 
 Bhagavadglta, 45, 86, 93, 97, 107, 
 112, 121, 128, 148, 158, 162, 176, 
 188, 239, 243, 244, 254 ; Theism
 
 286 
 
 INDEX 
 
 of the, Part I, chap, v, 75 ff. ; ! 
 its importance in Indian Theism, 
 75 ; its date and composition, 
 76 ; two streams united in it, ; 
 77 f., 201 ; not systematic, 79, i 
 201; karma in, 8 1 ff., 202 ff., 
 229 f. ; an irenicon, 203 f. ; Rama- 
 nuja's commentary on, 209. 
 
 Bhagavan, 32, 86, 163, 208. 
 
 Bhagavata Purana, 127, 158. 
 
 Bhagavata Religion, 36, 37, 42, 
 43 f-, 65, 96, ioo, 134. 
 
 Bhairava, 161. 
 
 Bhajan, 137. 
 
 Bhakta-kalpadruma, 218. 
 
 Bhakta Mala, 137. 
 
 Bhakti, 30, 32, 35 f., 40, 43, 57, 70, 
 71, 73, 81, 82, 94, 106, 107, 1 10, 
 113, 116, 121, 122, 132, 137, 144, 
 163, 171, 174, 176, 178, 202, 207, 
 
 209, 211, 213, 2l6, 217 f., 226, 
 231, 234, 242, 243, 248, 250, 252, 
 
 254, 264, 266, 267 ; meaning of 
 the word, 206 f. 
 
 Bhava, 251. 
 
 Bhavabhuti, 185. 
 
 Bhusundi, 116. 
 
 Bhutatathata, 84. 
 
 Bija, 189. 
 
 Bijak, 138, 146. 141. 
 
 Bijjala, 167, 177. 
 
 Bindu, 189. 
 
 Bodhi, 68, 183. 
 
 Bodhisattva, 72, 73 f., 184. 
 
 Boehme, Jacob, 195. 
 
 Brahma, 87 f., 91 f., 119, 138, 214. 
 
 Brahma Mlmamsa, 103. 
 
 Brahman, 23, 49 f., 52 ff., 60, 78, 
 79, 83, 87, 95, 103, 104, 123, 161, 
 188, 198, 204, 205; union with, 
 57 ff. 
 
 Brahmanas, 25, 194; contrast of 
 their religion with that of Vedic 
 Hymns, 25 ; aristocratic and 
 sacerdotal, 29; Theistic ele- 
 ments in the period of the, 
 Part I, chap, ii, 25 ff. 
 
 Brahma Sakti, 215, 216. 
 
 Brahma Sutras, 168. 
 
 Bribhan, 136. 
 
 Brihadaranyaka Upanisad, 48, 55f., 
 58, 59- 
 
 Brihaspati, 23. 
 
 Brindaban, 134. 
 
 Buddha, 32, 39, 67, 69, 70,71,72, 
 75.85,87, 98 f., 199. 
 
 Buddhamata, 183. 
 
 Buddhism, 161, 163, 165, 171, 176, 
 185, 223, 225 ; Theism within 
 Buddhism, Part I, chap, iv, 62 ff. ; 
 a humanism, 67 ; its strongly 
 ethical character, 68 f. ; not really 
 atheistic, 70 ; notes of Theism in, 
 70 f. ; Mahayana, 71, 77, 182 ff. 
 
 Caitanya, 114, 129 ff., 136, 145, 211, 
 249, 251, 264. 
 
 Calvinists, no. 
 
 Camar, 158. 
 
 Camunda, 185. 
 
 Candalika, 184. 
 
 Candl, 184. 
 
 Candidas, I29f., 131, 185 f., 251. 
 
 Cangdev, 121. 
 
 Caran Das, 136, I57f. 
 
 Caran Basis, 157. 
 
 Caran mitra, 143. 
 
 Caste, 243, 263 ; in Jainism and 
 Buddhism, 63. 
 
 Chandogya Upanisad, 51, 55 f. 
 
 Christianityas the standard Theism, 
 221 ; resemblances between 
 Christianity and Indian Theism, 
 1 10, 141, 144, 222 f., Appendix C. 
 
 Climate and Indian religion, 45, 
 
 I92f. 
 
 Cokhamela, 125. 
 Cola dynasty, 165. 
 Communion, 143, 144, 260 ff. 
 Confucius, 67. 
 Contemplation, 196, 205. 
 Creator, the, and karma, 108. 
 Criterion of Theism, need of a, 
 
 220. 
 Criticism and Appreciation, Part 
 
 III, 220 ff. 
 Cumont, l8., 254. 
 
 Dabistan, 137. 
 Dadu, 136, 15 5 f. 
 Dadu Panthls, 136, 155. 
 Dahara, 157. 
 Damodar, 38. 
 Dara Shukoh, 156. 
 Dasarath, 139. 
 Dattatreya, 124.
 
 INDEX 
 
 287 
 
 Dehra, 154. 
 
 Dehu, 122. 
 
 Deliverance from re-birth, ways of, 
 64 ; the chief problem in Indian 
 religion, 66, 237 f. ; in Buddhism, 
 73f-,8 5 . 
 
 Demeter, 32. 
 
 DevakT, 139. 
 
 Devi, 1 8 1, 183, 187, 188. 
 
 Devi KundalinI, 189. 
 
 Dharma, 184, 209. 
 
 Dhobls, 158. 
 
 Dionysus, 32, 37. 
 
 Divane Sadh, 155. 
 
 Dom Pandits, 183. 
 
 Doms, 158. 
 
 Dosadh, 158. 
 
 Dravidian worship, 165. 
 
 Durga, 136, 181, 183. 
 
 Dvaita, 75, 102, 112, 210. 
 
 Dyavaprithivl, 1 80. 
 
 Eckhart, 195*"., 206. 
 
 Eka-bhaktih, 209. 
 
 Ekanath on bhakti, Appendix B, 
 
 270 f. 
 
 Ekantada Ramayya, 177. 
 Eleusinian initiate, 143. 
 Emanation, 198, 204, 214. 
 Emotional religion, 249 fif. 
 Epicureanism of Vallabhacarya, 
 
 211. 
 
 Erotic Theism, 247 ff. 
 
 Faith and bhakti, 217. 
 
 Forgiveness, 239 f. 
 
 Freedom as a note of Theism, 
 
 235 f- 
 ' Friends of God,' 196. 
 
 Ganesa, 200. 
 
 Ganpati, 124. 
 
 GargT, 67. 
 
 Gauranga^Lord, 132. 
 
 Gautama Sakyamuni, 65, 66. 
 
 Gaya, 131. 
 
 Ghazipur, 136, 158. 
 
 Glta Govind, 127, 133. 
 
 Gnosticism, 197, 243. 
 
 Gods, Vedic, not fully personified, 
 
 17; imperfectly moralized, l8f. 
 Gokul Candrama, 128. 
 Gorakhpur, 137. 
 
 Govind, 37. 
 
 Grace, 197 f, 199*-. 2O 4, 234 f., 249, 
 
 257 ff. ; in Buddhism, 71, 74, 84; 
 
 in Bhagavadglta, 80 ff. ; in Maha- 
 
 bharata, 93; and freewill, no; 
 
 in Madhva's system, 113, 210; 
 
 of Siva, I7of., 175, 214 . 
 Granth, 138. 140, 152. 
 Granth Sahib, 151 f. 
 Greek and Indian religion, 17, 18, 
 
 22, 27 f., 34,36. 
 Growse, 128. 
 GujaratI poets, 129. 
 Guru, 118, 119, 121, 128, 129, 140, 
 
 142, 1 50 ft, 157, 163, 170, 172, 
 
 174, 214, 265. 
 Guru Angad, 154. 
 Guru Arjun, 152. 
 Gurudev, 151. 
 Gurudwara, 154. 
 Guru Govind Singh, 136, 145, 152, 
 
 153- 
 
 Guru Granth, 158. 
 Gurumata, 154. 
 Guru Ram Das, 155. 
 
 Halahala, 175. 
 Handal, Handalis, 155. 
 Hari, 132, 151, 157, 210. 
 Haridas, 136. 
 Harivamsa, 181. 
 Henotheism, igf. 
 Heracles, 165. 
 
 Historical element in Theism, 
 Hiuen Tsang, 165. 
 Howison, Professor, 248. 
 
 Immanence of God, 197. 
 Incarnation, 141, 197, 204, 222. 
 Individualism of the karma doc- 
 
 trine, 237ff. 
 Indra, 15, 21, 91. 
 Initiation, 143. 
 Intellectualism in Upanisads, 54 f.; 
 
 influence of, 194, 242 ff. 
 
 Jagjlvan Das, 136. 
 I Jainism, 161, 165 f, 167, 171, 176, 
 177, 225; Theism within, 62 f.; 
 caste in, 63 ; missionary spirit 
 of, 63. 
 
 James, William, 233, 240. 
 , JapjT, 147, 148.
 
 288 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Jats, 145, 155- 
 
 Jatilas, 64. 
 
 Jayadratha Yamala, 183. 
 
 Jehovah, 20, 32. 
 
 Jewish and Indian religion, iif., 
 
 27. 
 
 Jivan muktas, 169. 
 Jriana, 97, 117. 
 Jnanesvar, I2of. 
 Jnanesvar!, 121. 
 JnanT, 208. 
 Jot Prasad, 143. 
 
 Ka'bah, 147. 
 
 Kablr, 118, 119, 135 ff., 146, 152, 
 153, 155. 156, 157, 158; Kablr 
 and Nanak, Part I, chap, ix, 
 
 Kablr Panth, 141, 143, 158. 
 
 Kablr Panthls, 128, 136, 142, 143, 
 144. 
 
 Kala, 1 88. 
 
 Kalacuri king, 167. 
 
 Kali, 184, 1 88. 
 
 Kalika, 188. 
 
 Kali Yuga, 186, 187. 
 
 Kalpa, 208. 
 
 Kalyanpura, 167, 177. 
 
 Kamsa, 38. 
 
 Kanai Lai, 134. 
 
 Kanara, 167, 177. 
 
 Kanu Bhatta, 185. 
 
 Karma, 68, 69, 8iff., 89, 104, 105, 
 106, 107 f., 117, 148, 169, 202, 
 208, 211, 214, 219, 223, 258, 266; 
 karma doctrine and Theism, 
 224 f. ; its relation to God, 225 ff., 
 232 ; its relation to moral free- 
 dom, 229 ff. ; individualistic in its 
 character, 237 ff. 
 
 Karma malam, 215. 
 
 KasmTr, 167, 168, 170, 176. 
 
 Katha Upanisad, 47, 56, 79, 93, 
 149, 202. 
 
 Kesava Kasmin, 131. 
 
 Khalis, 152. 
 
 Khalsa, 152, 153, 154. 
 
 Khartarpur, 147. 
 
 Kingdom of God, 233 f., 259 f., 263. 
 
 Klrtan, 132, 149. 
 
 Knowledge, 57, 249. 
 
 Kore, 182. 
 
 Krisna, 32, 37 ff., 40, 41, 78, 80, 83, 
 
 85, 86, gof., 96, 115, 121, 124, 
 127, 128, 129, 131, 132, 133, 134, 
 138, 157, 160, 162, 165, 180, 201, 
 
 208, 209, 211, 212, 213, 247, 250, 
 254, 255, 259, 261, 262; origin 
 of the cult, 37 f. 
 
 Krisnaite sects, 145. 
 
 Ksa'triyas as religious founders, 36. 
 
 Kukas, I54f. 
 
 Kulacara, 187. 
 
 Kumarl, 182, 184. 
 
 Laksman, 217. 
 
 LaksmT, 109, 210, 216. 
 
 Lang, Andrew, 252. 
 
 Law, natural, and Theism, 226. 
 
 Legalism of karma doctrine, 230 f. ; 
 
 moral and natural, 227. 
 Linga, 118, 124, 164, 178. 
 Lingayats, 165, 167, 177 ff. 
 Lodi dynasty, 145. 
 Logos, 141. 
 Lokesvara, 184. 
 Lomas, 116. 
 Love feast, 144. 
 Loyalty, bhakti as, 252. 
 
 Macauliffe, M. A., 148, 151, 152. 
 
 Madhura Rasa, 129. 
 
 Madhurya, 132, 134, 180. 
 
 Madhva, H2ff., 131, 2iof. 
 
 Madya, 186. 
 
 Maghar, 137. 
 
 Mahabharata, 29, 36, 37, 82, 96, 
 108, 163 f., 202, 206, 217, 224; 
 Theism during the Mahabharata 
 period, Part I, chap, vi, 86 ff. ; 
 period of the, 87 ; Visnu and 
 Siva in, 88 f.; its compromises, 
 
 95- 
 
 Mahadevi, 181. 
 Mahamaya. 184. 
 Mahanirvana Tantra, 1 88. 
 Mahaprasada, 144. 
 Mahar, 125. 
 Maharastra, 124. 
 Mahat (mahat-tatva), 188. 
 Mahavira, 39, 63. 
 Mahayana, 71, 73, 77, 84 
 
 182. 
 
 Mahesvara, 188. 
 Mahesvarl, 188. 
 Maithuna, 1 86, 187.
 
 INDEX 
 
 289 
 
 Maitreyi, 47, 53, 59, 60. 
 
 Makaras, 186, 187. 
 
 Malam, 215. 
 
 Malati Madhava, 185. 
 
 Malwa, 136, 156. 
 
 Mamsa, 1 86. 
 
 Mana, 143. 
 
 Manikka-vasagar, 171 ff., 178, 251, 
 
 256. 
 
 Mantra, 89, 121. 
 Mara, 33. 
 
 Maratha saints, I2off. 
 Marjara-nyaya, no. 
 Markata-nyaya, no. 
 Martineau, 255. 
 Matangl, 184. 
 Matarisvan, 21. 
 Mathura, 127, 128. 
 Matsya, 186. 
 Mauna, 56. 
 Maya, 127, 147, 148, 162, 169, 197, 
 
 199, 208, 214, 244. 
 Maya malam, 215. 
 Maya, mother of Buddha, 71. 
 Mayavada doctrine, 49 ff., 216. 
 Mean, teachers of the, in Buddhism, 
 
 73- 
 
 Mecca, 147. 
 
 Mediator, no, 113, 140, 142. 
 Megasthenes, 165. 
 Mehtars, 158. 
 Meykander, 168. 
 Minapur, 131. 
 Minas, 155. 
 Mlra BaT, I33f. 
 
 Missionary spirit of Jainism, 63. 
 Mithraism, 222, 254, 255. 
 Mitra, 21. 
 
 Moksa, 113, 123, 169. 
 Monism, 50. 
 Monotheism, 20. 
 Moral ideal in Christian Theism, 
 
 238 f. 
 
 Motherhood of God, 218. 
 Motive as the fetter, 230. 
 Mudra, 186. 
 Muhammadan influence, 135 f., 138, 
 
 146, 147 f., 152 f. 
 Mukti, 113, 179. 
 Mukunda, 209. 
 Muladhara, 189. 
 Mula-prakriti, 188. 
 Mundaka Upanisad, 56. 
 
 Muwahid, 137. 
 
 Mysticism, 241, 246, 253, 259 ; in 
 Upanisads, 59 ff., 194 ff. 
 
 NabhajT, 137. 
 
 Nada, 189. 
 
 Namdev, 121 f., 124, 146, 152, 218, 
 
 264. 
 
 ' Name and form,' 52, 58. 
 Name, power of the, H9f., I4of., 
 
 143, ISO. 157, 216,265. 
 Nanak, 124, 136, I44ff., 156, 157; 
 
 Kabir and, Part I, chap, ix, 
 
 135 ff. 
 
 Narad, 150. 
 Narada Sutras, 213. 
 Narayana, 64, 65, 113. 
 Navadwlpa, 131. 
 Nemesis, 228. 
 Neo-platonism, 255. 
 Nimai, 131. 
 Nimavats, 127. 
 Nimbarka, 127, 212. 
 Nirakara, 145, 150. 
 Niranjanie, 155. 
 Niratma Devi, 183. 
 Nirguna, 184, 212, 213, 217. 
 Nirmalas, 154. 
 Nirvana, 67, 70, 73. 
 Niskal'a, 213. 
 Nitya samsann, 113. 
 
 Olympians, 1 80. 
 
 Order and government, lack of, in 
 
 India, 193. 
 Orphism, 241. 
 Osiris, 32, 37. 
 Oude, 136. 
 
 Pahul, 152. 
 
 Pancaratra system, 36, 96. 
 
 Pandharpur, 121, 122, 125 f., 137. 
 
 Pandits, 142. 
 
 Panditya, 56. 
 
 Pandyan dynasty, 165, 172. 
 
 Pantheism, 22, 26, 50, 94, 123, 146, 
 192, 194, 196; in Rig Veda, 19, 
 23; polytheistic, 21 ; in Upani- 
 sads, 59 f . ; in Bhagavadglta, 79. 
 
 Pantheistic tendency of Indian 
 thought, 45. 
 
 Para form of God, 109. 
 
 Para- brahman, 189.
 
 290 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Parakiya Rasa, 129. 
 
 Parallelisms between Christianity 
 and Indian Theism, 222, Ap- 
 pendix D. 
 
 Paramatma, 139, 176. 
 
 Para muktas, 169. 
 
 Para prakriti, 188. 
 
 Parasurama, 39. 
 
 ParvatI, 182. 
 
 Pasa, i68f, 213. 
 
 Passivity of Indian ideal, 246. 
 
 Pasu, i68f, 213. 
 
 Pasupati, 168. 
 
 Pati, 168, 213, 228. 
 
 Paul, St., and Jewish legalism, 231. 
 
 Personal ideal in Theism, 251 ff. 
 
 Pessimism, 247. 
 
 Pillai Lokacarya, 107, no, in. 
 
 Pistayajna, 37. 
 
 Plotinus, 60, 197, 215, 241. 
 
 Poona, 1 20, 122. 
 
 Pope, Dr., 172, 176. 
 
 Poussin, 225. 
 
 Pradyumna, no. 
 
 Prajapati, 23, 110, 180, 200. 
 
 PrajM, 54 f., 73. 
 
 Prakara, 104. 
 
 Prakriti, 208, 210. 
 
 Prapatti, no, 209. 
 
 Prarabdha karma, 107. 
 
 Prasada, 93, 206. 
 
 Prasthana traya, 102, 112. 
 
 Pravritti Marga, 184. 
 
 Proclus, 241. 
 
 Pulindas, 181. 
 
 Purna, 74. 
 
 Purvacarya, 102. 
 
 Quietism, 246. 
 Our'an, 139, 140, 149. 
 
 Radha, 121, 127, 129, 131, 132, 133, 
 
 157, 180, 211, 212, 251. 
 Rajasa soul, 210. 
 Rajputana, 155, 156. 
 Rama, 39, 92, 115, 116, 117, 118, 
 
 119, 121, 124, 127, 138, 140, 157, 
 
 174, 212, 213, 217, 219, 247, 254. 
 
 255, 259, 261, 262, 264. 
 Ramacarit-Manas, 116, 120. 
 RamainT, 137. 
 Ramananda, 114!., 135, 136, 146, 
 
 152, 155, 166. 
 
 ; Ramanandls, 212. 
 
 Ramanuja, 92, 98, 112, 191, 200, 
 210, 216, 241, 243 ; Theism of 
 Vedanta Sutras and of R., Part 
 I, chap, vii, 96 ff. ; his influence, 
 107, 114; his predecessors, 100 ; 
 his period, I oof. ; characteristics 
 of his Vaisnavism, 101 f. ; the 
 Supreme Person in his teaching, 
 105 f. ; the released soul in his 
 teaching, 105; his theology, 
 207 ff. ; moral warmth of his 
 doctrine, 109. 
 i Ramayana, 116. 
 
 Ramayya, 177. 
 
 Ramdas, 124. 
 
 Ranade, Mr. Justice, 120, 124, 126, 
 
 138- 
 
 Ranjit Singh, 154. 
 Rauragama, 168. 
 Ravana, 117. 
 Righteousness in Christian Theism, 
 
 238 f. 
 Rig Veda, 162, 191 ; Theism of the, 
 
 Part I, chap, i, 7ff. ; how far its 
 
 religion is theistic, 8 ; date, 9 ; 
 
 obscurity of its environment, gf.,. 
 
 23 f. 
 
 Rita, 14, 18, 192. 
 ' Rudra, 162, 165, 168. 
 Rudra Sampradaya, 127. 
 RukminT, 121, 127. 
 Ruskin, 49. 
 
 Sabaras, 181. 
 
 Sabda, 137, 140 ff, 151, 157. 
 
 Sabda Marga, 157. 
 
 Sabda Sant, 158. 
 i Sach khand, 153. 
 | Sacramental meal, 144, 222, 260 ff. 
 
 Sacrifice, 19, 29, 30. 
 
 Sadhu, 136, 142. 
 
 Sad Vaisnava, 114. 
 
 Saguna, 212. 
 
 Sahajia cult, I29f, 185. 
 
 Saiva Siddhanta, i66ff, 170, 171, 
 172, 179, 213 ff, 228, 229, 234 f. 
 
 Sakala, 213. 
 
 Sakhl, 137. 
 
 Saktas, 133. 
 
 Sakta Sect, the, Part I, chap, xi, 
 
 , iSoff 
 
 Sakti, 130, 169, 170, i84ff, 214, 235.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Sakyatnuni, 65, 71, 72. 
 Samadhi, 73, 84, 122, 126. 
 Samarpana, 211. 
 Samsara, 83, no, 113, 205, 210, 
 
 211, 223, 224, 225, 229, 236, 238, 
 
 242, 265. 
 
 Samvega, 69, 223. 
 Sanaka, 127. 
 
 Sanakadi-sainpradaya, 127. 
 Sandilya Sutras, 213. 
 Sandilya Vidya, 47, 56. 
 Sankara, 49 f., 54, 79, 92, 98 f., 102, 
 
 104, ic8, 113, 162, 168, 197, 199. 
 Sankarsana, 1 10. 
 Sankhya, 94, 187 f., 194, 225; in 
 
 Bhagavadglta, 80. 
 SannyasI, 120, 131. 
 Sarlrika Mlmamsa, 103. 
 Satapatha Brahmana, 29, 33, 200. 
 Satnam, Satnamls, 136, 140. 
 Sat'sai, 217, 219. 
 Sattra, 30. 
 1 atvika soul, 210. 
 Satyakamatva, 105. 
 Savitri, 19, 21. 
 Secret names, 19. 
 Semitic influence, 17, 191. 
 Shah Jehan, 156. 
 Shaik Mohammad, 136. 
 Siddhi-traya, ico. 
 Sikhs, 136, 145, 152, 154, 155, 156, 
 
 157. 
 
 Singh, 152. 
 
 Sirhind, 156. 
 
 Sisya, 145. 
 
 Sltala Devi, 183. 
 
 Siva, 86 ff., 119, 128, i6off., 201, 
 215, 250, 251, 255, 256, 262, 264 ; 
 not Aryan but aboriginal, 161 ; 
 the deity of agnosticism, 163, 
 164, 170, 184 ; in the Maha- 
 bharata, 164; his grace, I7of., 
 
 ,175. 228. 
 
 Siva Bhakti, Part I, chap, x, l6off. 
 
 Siva-nana-bodham, 168, 172. 
 
 Siva Narayan, 136, 158. 
 
 Siva-vakyam, 176. 
 
 Smriti (mindfulness), 73. 
 
 Sraddha, 46, 70, 73, 84. 
 
 Sramanas, 64. 
 
 Sri, 109. 
 
 Sri Bhasya, 101, 102, 209. 
 
 Sri Cand, 154. 
 
 Srlkantha, 168. 
 
 Srl-sampradaya, 216. 
 
 Sri Vaisnava. 
 
 Sronaparantakas, 74. 
 
 Stotra Ratna, ico. 
 
 Strl puja, 1 86. 
 
 Suddhadvaita, 75, 127, 211. 
 
 Sufi, 137. 
 
 Sukhtankar, Dr., 58, 104, 105. 
 
 Sunya Vada, 185. 
 
 Surya, 21. 
 
 Suso, 254. 
 
 Suthre, 155. 
 
 Sutrakara, 108. 
 
 Sutras, 97 f, loo, 102. 
 
 Svabhava, 108. 
 
 Svayambhu linga, 189. 
 
 Svetaketu, 52. 
 
 Svetasvatara Upanisad, 50, 77, 79, 
 
 162,^164, 166, 171, 198. 
 Svlya Sakti, 187. 
 Swaml Narayan, 213. 
 
 Tahvandi, 145. 
 
 Tain as, 210. 
 
 Tantra, 119, 180. 
 
 Tantrism, 70, 73, 130, 131, 133, 
 1 82 ff. 
 
 Tapas, 46, 68. 
 
 Taras, 184. 
 
 Tathagathas, 183. 
 
 Tatwa, 158. 
 
 Tauler, 159^ 
 
 Telingana, 127. 
 
 Tengalai, no, in, 128, 209 f. 
 
 Teresa, 254. 
 
 Thakuranl, 181. 
 
 Theism, Indian, indigenous to In- 
 dia, I ; its root in piety, 2, 20, 
 27 ; obscurity of its history, 2 f. ; 
 and Pantheism, 3, 16 ; and foreign 
 influences, 4 ; Theism of the Rig 
 Veda, Part I, chap, i, 7ff..; ele- 
 ments in a real Theism, 26 ; 
 early failure of, 192 ; Theism of 
 the Upanisads, Part I, chap, iii, 
 42 ff. ; Theism within Buddhism, 
 Part I, chap, iv, 62 ff. ; Theism 
 within Jainism, 62 f. ; Theism of 
 the Bhagavadglta, Part I, chap, v, 
 75 ff. ; Theism during the Maha- 
 bharata period, Part I, chap, vi, 
 86 ff.; Theism of the Yedanta
 
 292 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Sutras and of Ramanuja, Part I, 
 
 chap, vii, 96 fif. ; Theism and 
 
 ethics, 233. 
 Theistic elements in the period of 
 
 the Brahmanas and Upanisads, 
 
 Part I, chap, ii, 25 fif. 
 Theology, the, of Indian Theism, 
 
 Part II, 190 fif. 
 
 Theriomorphic deities, 200 f. 
 Thibaut, 57. 
 
 Tiruvasagam, 171, I72ff. 
 Transmigration, 223. 
 Tukaram, 120, 121, 122 ff.. 217 ff, 
 
 264. 
 Tulsl Das, ii6fif., 121, 135, 174, 
 
 212, 216 f, 219. 
 Tvastri, 23. 
 
 Udasls, I53_f., 155. 
 
 Uddalaka Aruni, 52. 
 
 Udyana, 183. 
 
 Uma, 185. 
 
 Umapati, 168, 170. 
 
 Unity, quest for, 195. 
 
 Unknowableness of God, 140, 149. 
 
 Upanisads, 75, 77, 78, 79, 80, 86, 
 93, 97, 102, 103, 149, 162, 170, 
 191, 194 ff., 248; Theism of the, 
 Part I, chap, iii, 42 ff. ; not neces- 
 sarily anti-Brahmanical, 43 ; 
 order of, 48 ; mystical character 
 of, 196. 
 
 Uttara Mimamsa, 97. 
 
 Vacana Bhusana, in. 
 
 Vadagalai, no, 209 f. 
 
 Vaisnavite cults, later, Part I, 
 
 chap, viii, 112 ff. 
 Vajra, 183. 
 Vajrapani, 184. 
 Vajrasattva, 183. 
 Vajrayana, 130, 183. 
 Vallabhacarya, 127 f., 211. 
 Vallabhas, 145. 
 Vamacarl Buddhists, 185. 
 Varnas, 114. 
 Varuna, loff., 17, 18, 21, 24, 75, 
 
 91, 102, 169, 192 ; and Ahura 
 
 Mazda, II, 18; Hebraic flavour 
 in, 1 1 f. ; his ethical character, 
 14; decline of his worship, 15. 
 
 Vasudeva, 36, 38, 39, 79, 80, 195, 
 205 f. 
 
 Vasugupta, 167. 
 
 Vasuli, 181. 
 
 Vayti, 113, 210. 
 
 Vedanta, 42, 48, 153, 175, 179, 184. 
 
 Vedanta Desika, no, 209. 
 
 Vedanta Sutras, 101, 207 ; and 
 Ramanuja, Theism of, Part I, 
 chap, vii, 96 ff. 
 
 Vegetation deities, 32, 38. 
 
 Vibhavas, 200. 
 
 Vidya, 106, 205. 
 
 Vidyapati, 131. 
 
 Vlra Saivite, I77f. 
 
 Virya, 73. 
 
 Visistadvaita, 75, 102, 104, 213. 
 
 Visnu, 21, 72, 86 fif., 114, 115, 117, 
 121, 131, 160, 162, 164, 174, 201, 
 255 ; in the Brahmanas, 30 ff., 
 3 2 > 39, 40 ; as a sun-god, 33 ; as 
 a deliverer, 34 f. 
 
 Visnuite elements in Buddhism, 65. 
 
 VisnusvamI, 127. 
 
 Visvambhara Misra, 131. 
 
 Vithoba, 20, 121, 124, 125. 
 
 Vitthal, 121, 218. 
 
 Vivekananda, 1 14. 
 
 Vrindavana, 257. 
 
 Vyuha, 109, 200, 204. 
 
 Yajnavalkya, 47, 48, 53, 58, 60, 67, 
 
 72. 
 
 Yajur Veda, 180. 
 Yama, 21. 
 Yamunacarya, loo. 
 Yati, 64. 
 
 Yoga, 89, 94 f., 121, 187, 204. 
 Yoga Maya, 206. 
 Yogesvara, 204. 
 Yogi, 46, 64. 
 
 Zarathustra, 39. 
 Zeus, 228. 
 
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