India

Essays and Addresses

Vol. IV

ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES

Vol. IV

INDIA

By

ANNIE BESANT

London :

The Theosophical Publishing Society

i6i New Bond Street, W.

Madras : The Theosophist Office

1913

Publishers' Preface

TN addition to the large number of volumes
which stand in the name of Annie Besant
in the catalogue of the British Museum, there
is a great quantity of literature, for which
she is responsible, that has appeared in more
fugitive form as articles, pamphlets and pub-
lished lectures, issued not only in Great
Britain but in America, India and Australia.
Much of this work is of great interest, but
is quite out of reach of the general reader,
as it is no longer in print, and inquiries for
many such items have frequently to be
answered in the negative. Under these cir-
cumstances the T.P.S. decided to issue an
edition of Mrs Besant's collected writings
under the title Essays and Addresses. It
was originally intended to arrange the matter
in chronological order, commencing with the
writer's first introduction to Theosophy as
reviewer of Mme. Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine^
but several considerations determined the
abandonment of this plan in favour of the
scheme now adopted, which is the classi-
fication of subject-matter independent of

vi India

chronological order. The Publishers feel
sure that this arrangement will especially
commend itself to students who desire to
know what the Author has written on
various important aspects of Theosophy in
its several ramifications, and for all purposes
of study and reference the plan chosen should
more effectively serve. The dates and
sources of articles are given in nearly all
cases, and they are printed without any re-
vision beyond the correction of obvious
typographical errors.

The importance and interest of such a
collection of essays, both as supplementing
treatment of many of the topics in larger
works and as affording expression of the
Author's views on many subjects not other-
wise dealt with, will be obvious, and it only
remains to express the Publishers' hope that
the convenience and moderate cost of the
series may ensure its thorough circulation
among the wide range of Mrs Besant's
readers.

T.P.S.

London, May 191 3.

Contents

PAGE

India's Mission among Nations .

I

The Aryan Type ....

4

India, her Past and her Future .

9

Eastern Castes and Western Classes .

• 43

East and West ....

• 74

The Means of India's Regeneration .

. 84

The Place of Pohtics in the Life oj

f a

Nation

. 123

Anniversary Address

• 159

Theosophy and Imperialism

. 170

England and India ....

. 208

The Indian Nation ....

. 236

India's Awakening ....

. 250

Religion and Patriotism in India

. 287

The Education of Hindu Youth

• 304

The Education of Indian Girls .

. 318

India's Mission among
Nations

An Article contributed to " The National Educator "

Pj^VERY person, every race, every nation,
has its own particular keynote which it
brings to the general chord of life and of
humanity. Life is not a monotone but a
many-stringed harmony, and to this harmony
is contributed a distinctive note by each people
that becomes a marked nationality. Thus
Rome struck the note of civic greatness,
devotion to the State as the ideal of the
citizen, conquest for the glory of the State
as the national duty ; Greece struck the note
of intellectual greatness, enriching the art
and the literature of the world with price-
less treasures, and impressing even on her
conquerors the stamp of her intellectual
royalty. And India, rising high above them
both, struck the note of spiritual greatness,
of pure devotion to a spiritual ideal, of
worship that asked only to become what it
adored, of the gathering of spiritual know-
ledge. The three nations may stand as

2 India

types of humanity physical, humanity
psychical, humanity spiritual, and while the
two that represented the transitory body and
the transitory mind have perished, leaving
only their history, the one that represented
and represents the immortal spirit remains ;
for, as Shri Krishna says, the spirit is " unborn,
constant, eternal and ancient, nor does it perish
in the perishing body." India's body may
perish as a body politic, but her eternal spirit
remains, the spirit that has made Aryavarta
the cradle of religions, and her scriptures the
fountain-head of all the scriptures of later
faiths.

This spirituality of India has, then, been
her contribution to the world's progress, and
it has manifested itself in the dual aspect of
wisdom and of devotion, Jnana and Bhakti.
Thus she has wedded philosophy and religion
and shown them both as aspects of spirituality,
the noblest religion enshrined in the sublimest
philosophy. Not without significance is it
that in the great temple at Madura, the
worshipper must stop and pay homage to
Genesha ere he can pass onward to the shrine
of Shiva, for Mahadeva, the great God, must
be offered wisdom as well as love by His
devotee, if the devotee would pass into the
innermost recess and pay his homage to the

Indians Mission among Nations 3

lotus-feet of Maha-yogi, the source of wisdom
as of love.

And it is the perpetual affirmation of spirit-
uality as the highest good that is India's
mission to the world. As her past glory
resulted from her spiritual knowledge and
devotion, so must her future be based on the
revival and reproclamation of the same. Her
genius is for religion and not for politics, and
her most gifted children are needed as spiritual
teachers, not as competing candidates in the
political arena. Let lesser nations and lesser
men fight for conquest, for place and for
power ; these gimcracks are toys for children,
and the children should be left to quarrel over
them. India is the one country in the world
in which it is still easy to be religious, in
which the atmosphere of the land and the
psychic currents are not yet wholly penetrated
with materiality. If religion perish here, it
will perish everywhere, and in India's hand
is laid the sacred charge of keeping alight the
torch of spirit amid the fogs and storms of in-
creasing materialism. If that torch drops from
her hands, its flame will be trampled out by the
feet of hurrying multitudes, eager for worldly
good, and India, bereft of spirituality, will have
no future, but will pass on into the darkness,
as Greece and Rome have passed.

The Aryan Type

An Article contributed to the " Arya
Bala Bodhini;' 1895

Free from desire, his thoughts controlled by the Self,
having abandoned all attachment, performing action by
the body alone, he doth not commit s'm.—Bhagavad GUd,
iv. 21.

Place thy Manas on Me, be My devotee, sacrifice to
Me, prostrate thyself before Me, thou shalt come even to
Me. I pledge thee My troth ; thou art dear to Me.—
Bhagavad Gitd^ xviii. 65.

(CHARACTER lies at the root of outward
conduct as well as at the root of inner
aspirations, and the nations of the world
have each their characters, the groundwork
of the national type. These types, taken
together, form the Humanity of the age,
and constitute its various elements, and in
judging the outer social form of any people,
it is necessary to understand it as being an ex-
pression of national character, slowly moulded
from within. Changes may be made which
are consonant with the national character,
and such grafts will grow and will affect the
parent stock to some extent, but grafts of
too alien a type will only perish.

The primary Aryan type was of a distinctly

The Aryan Type 5

marked character, and the feeble remnants
that remain of that glorious type bear witness
even yet to something of its beauty and its
grace. It was a type pre-eminendy spiritual,
and the social polity that was its natural
expression was moulded to give effect to
spiritual ideas and to subordinate the lower
nature to the higher, so that the nation
might be a school of Souls, and the growth
and the development of the Soul might be
on every hand aided and encouraged. From
this past it has resulted in the present that
India, even in her present low state, despite
the loss of spiritual life and the almost
extinction of spiritual fire, yet remains the
one country in the world where to put the
Soul first, high above all material interests,
is not regarded as a madness ; the one
country where spirituality still hovers in the
very atmosphere, and where external sur-
roundings help the Soul to rise instead of
fettering it to earth.

But apart from its lofty; spirituality, there
is another aspect of the Aryan life which at
the present time is of pressing importance.
The Aryan type was one of unbending
rectitude, of high morality, and those who
would fain see Aryan spirituality again lift its
head in the future, will do well to turn their

6 India

A

attention now to Aryan virtues, and to try
and revive these in the life of the house-
holder.

Out of the spirituality grew reverence to
parents, teachers, and elders. Reverence to
the Gods translated itself in the family and
social life into reverence for the parents who
gave and nourished the physical life ; for the
teacher who gave and nourished the inner
life — the second birth ; for the aged, whose
ripe wisdom served as guide and who handed
on the ancient traditions. The boy was
trained to be reverent, and ill-prognostic is it
for the future when Indian youths lose the
noble reverence of their ancestors and copy
the flippant and silly uppishness of Western
lads.

From reverence sprang courtesy, respect-
ing others and self-respecting ; the gracious
courtesy which has stamped itself on the
bearing of all classes, and even yet serves
as a pattern of the manners that "are not
idle," and that make the wheels of life
run smoothly. Then came hospitality, the
guest to be honoured as a god, hospitality
free-handed and generous-minded, a duty
ungrudgingly done. And its sister, charity,
so that none might starve while others had
enough ; not yielded as a legal dole, but

The Aryan Type 7

given gladly, for the householder was the
steward of the nation and none of the nation's
children must go unfed. Reverence, cour-
tesy, hospitality, charity, these were the
social virtues of the Aryan householder that
rendered him so gracious a type.

But these would not have availed to build
the Aryan character, lovely as they are, had
there not been laid as a foundation the bed-
rock of Truth. Never might Aryan utter
a lie ; never might Aryan lips be stained
with falsehood. Rigid fidelity to the pledged
word, undeviating accuracy, these were
taught by sacred precept, by lofty example,
and this supreme virtue of Truth — without
which all else must wither and perish — so
wrought itself into the life of the nation that
even now some Indian methods remind us
of a time when an Aryan's word was his
bond. Alas ! that it cannot so be said to-day
of Aryavarta's degenerate sons, and that in
some parts of India untruthfulness seems
likely to become as characteristic as truthful-
ness once was. Would that every Aryan
boy would make a vow in his heart to keep
truth unstained, for he would by keeping
truth do more to serve the nation than if he
shone out as a brilliant light in the scholastic,
legal, or political worlds.

V

8 India

Courage walks hand in hand with truth,
and fearlessness was a distinguishing char-
acteristic of the Aryan type. Fearlessness,
which has tenderness for its other aspect, for
only those who hurt none need fear none.
Pain inflicted is a prophecy of future pain
to be endured, for the Great Law swings
unerringly, and to every act of wrong brings
its meed of pain. Therefore is harmlessness
the highest Dharma, and therefore read we
of " the fearless Brahman."

If India is again to hold up her head
among nations, India's younger children must
begin to lay the foundation in their own
lives of the Aryan type of character. The
virtues that I have mentioned were its most
pronounced attributes, and the revival of
these among the Aryan youth would presage
the rebuilding of the nation. " Character
makes destiny," and Indian destiny depends
on Indian character. Here is work for the
young whose hearts burn with love for the
motherland, for on the altar of pure morality
alone can fall the fire from Heaven which
changes the fuel of aspiration into spiritual
flame.

India, her Past and
her Future

A Lecture delivered on hoard the " KaUar-i-Hind^'* in
the Indian Ocean^ Monday ^ 6th November 1893,
and published in ^^ Lucifer^'' 1894

'M'EVER, I think, since I began to lecture
many years ago, have I felt, in standing
on a platform, more of difficulty than I feel
to-night — difficulty, because I doubt how
far I can win your interest, and, still more,
I doubt how far I can win your sympathy.
For India, as you look at it and as I look
at it, has a very distinctly dual aspect. Your
India and mine are probably very divergent.
You know her as she is to-day after eight cen-
turies of conquest and degradation. You know
her, many of you, by taking part in the foreign
government iDy which she is subjugated, and
therefore you are very largely shut out from
the real thought and the real life of the people.
Whereas to me she is in very truth the Holy
Land, the land whose great philosophy has
been the source of all the philosophies of the
Western world, the land whose great religion

10 India

has been the origin of all religions, the mother
of spirituality, the cradle of civilisation.
When I think of India, I think of her in
the greatness of her past, not in the degrada-
tion of her present. For to-day but few of
y her children know anything of her great
philosophy. To the mass of her people her
mighty religion is veiled, becoming to the
ignorant many a superstition, to the culti-
vated few but a poetical allegory. No longer
the very life of the people, it is a form rather
than a spirit. And so India fallen is the
India of the present, while the India to which
I would win your thoughts to-night is India
unfallen, India as she was in her past, as she
shall be in her future — mother once more in
days to come, as in the days behind us, of art
and of knowledge, mother of spiritual life and
of true religion. That is the India I know ;
that is the India which has given to us the
literature that I am going to say something
of to-night ; the India whose polity was built
by King-Initiates, whose religion was moulded
by divine men ; the India which even so late
as five thousand years ago felt her fields
trodden by the feet of Shri Krishna, which
even twenty-four centuries ago heard her
cities echoing with the sublime morality of
the Buddha ; the India which later, when her

India, her Past and her Future "

great wars were over, had her poets who in
the MahdhMrata and the Rdmdyana gave
epic poetry to the world greater than that of
Greece ; dramatists who in later times still
left treasures of beauty that the learned in
the West are just beginning to appreciate.
That is the India of which I have to speak —
the India which, as I said, is to me the Holy
Land. For those who, though born for this
life in a Western land and clad in a Western
body, can yet look back to earlier incarnations
in which they drank the milk of spiritual
wisdom from the breast of their true mother
— they must feel ever the magic of her im-
memorial past, must dwell ever under the
spell of her deathless fascination ; for they
are bound to India by all the sacred memories
of their past ; and with her, too, are bound
up all the radiant hopes of their future,
a future which they know they will share
with her who is their true mother in the
soul-life.

Though that may seem to many of you an
extravagant view of India, still, to some who
by no means share my faith in her philosophy
and in her religion there has been a great
fascination in Indian thought. Take the
testimony of Max Mailer given not long ago
in one of his lectures in Glasgow or Edinburgh

12 India

(I forget which), in which he said that India
with her civilisation was unique, as was her
literature, in the history of the world, and the
uniqueness lay in this — I am only roughly
quoting what he said — that there once, and
only once, you had a whole nation bent on
the search for spiritual truth ; that there from
one end of the land to the other the people
sought and honoured spiritual wisdom ; so
that the man who made any great discovery
in truth had the highest title to honour, and
kings would leave their thrones to visit the
mud hut of some ascetic, because he had
found out some truth about the soul, and
was wilHng to teach it to whoever should
come as a worthy pupil. Even there you
see how something of what I have called the
deathless fascination of India has been felt.
Even Western orientalists also admit the
uniqueness of her power and the uniqueness
of her position in the world.

The India to which this thought really
applies is the region which lies between the
Himalayas and the Vindhya Mountains, and
between the eastern and western oceans. I
give these as the limits laid down by Manu
as those of the true Aryavarta, the land of
the Aryas, or Aryans. That, then, the north
and the north-west, is what we may call the

India, her Past and her Future I3

religious and heroic India. There was settled
the great race called the Aryan or the noble.
If you want their type you may find it almost
pure, in fact quite pure in a few cases, in some
of the great Brahman families of India, the
noblest physical, mental and spiritual type
which the earth has produced. This race,
settled in that land, had for its teachers men
who in past ages had finished their spiritual
evolution, and who came to the infant race
as its instructors in civilisation, came as the
inspirers of its earliest literature, as the builders
of its religion, and so moulded this people
dwelling in the great plain of the Ganges, in
this ever sacred land. From them came the
mighty literature of which only a few frag-
ments remain to-day ; for the Vedas of that
time and the Upanishads of that time are not
the Vedas and the Upanishads that we have
to-day. Noble as these are, they are but the
fragments of the ancient literature, fragments
left for the Indian people when they were
entering on their dark age as being as much
of spiritual truth as they were able to under-
stand, while the others were withdrawn, to be
kept for better times, for a more spiritual race.
And then there were built up in this north
and north-western part of what we now call
India, a polity, a religion, a social life, a

14 India

general national condition of which the results
were that unique civilisation of which Max
Mailer spoke. Its uniqueness consisted in
the fact that it was all framed for a spiritual
purpose, planned to assist spiritual evolution.
The state was framed to a spiritual end ; the
family was built on a spiritual basis, the whole
daily life was moulded to conduce to spiritual
progress. So that even to-day it is easy in
India to be religious at least on the outside,
and the Hindu has ready to his hand the
forms in which spiritual life may show itself ;
once more to quote Max Mailer, he eats re-
ligion, drinks religion, sleeps religion, and
breathes religion — a statement which is per-
fectly true, as you may see for yourselves, if you
once get hold of the meaning of his religious
ceremonies and mark the way in which those
ceremonies are woven into his daily life.

The polity was the polity of caste — not of
caste as you have it to-day in endless sub-
divisions, but of the four great castes into
which, after all, if you think of it, all human
forms of life must throw themselves. There
were first the Brahmans, the spiritual caste,
the teachers of the young, the teachers of the
people in the spiritual life, the students, the
priests, the literary class — the class, that is,
that includes the great intellectual professions

India, her Past and her Future i5

as well as the spiritual order, and consists of
those who are naturally, by their intellectual
and spiritual qualities, fitted to be the guides
and teachers of the people. Then after them
the Kshattriyas, the warrior caste, the royal
and ruler class, the class that administered
justice, that saw to the administration of the
state, that defended it from internal disturb-
ance as well as against foreign aggression.
Then the Vaishyas, the merchant caste, that
included all the commercial and trading classes
and the agriculturists. And lastly, the Shudras,
or the serving caste. Those four castes are
those which were originally instituted, and
those which still remain, though masked by
the innumerable sub-castes. They have
given stability to Indian life ; they have
preserved her civilisation despite all kinds
of conquest and of degradation. And if
India has not disappeared as Assyria, as Egypt,
as Chaldaea have disappeared — all of them
with civilisations younger than her own — it
is largely because of the stability given to her
national existence by this system founded on
natural divisions and with the stability of all
natural things. And, mind you, the Indian
standpoint from which caste is seen is very
different from the standpoint that you may
take in the West. Looking at this life as

i6 India

the one life which a man has, it may seem to
you hard that he should be born into a caste
in which he remains all his life with but rare
exceptions. But where people know that
they are incarnated time after time, that the
soul has to be trained in every department of
life, then it seems helpful as well as natural
that these four castes should exist, as the
four great schools of the evolving soul, and
that the Brahman caste, pure in its blood,
developing the most delicate organism, the
subtlest brain, the most perfect mental mechan-
ism, should be inhabited by the most advanced
souls. And so in gradation with the other
castes in the land.

The social life was similarly organised,
always for a spiritual end. Take the institu-
tion of marriage as you find it in the early
Indian books and amongst the early Aryan
people. You find there side by side husband
and wife, united in all the greatest things of
life : the man the priest of his household,
the wife the priestess without whom the daily
sacrifices could not be performed, and there-
fore without whom the duties of the house-
hold could not be carried on ; for the sacred
household fire was only kindled by bride and
bridegroom, and without this there was no
"household." Husband and wife not only

India, her Past and her Future 17

married in life, but through death to the
world beyond. According to Manu :

Let mutual fidelity continue until

death ; this may be considered as the

summary of the highest law for husband

and wife ;
for

The husband receives his wife from

the gods [he does not wed her] according

to his own will.^
In such households grew up the heroic
women who stand out for all time from
Sanskrit literature — women great not only in
the home but also in spiritual knowledge ;
such as Maitreyi, who " was fond of discussing
the nature of Brahma." ^ Again, in an assembly
of Brahmansyou may read how Gargi,awoman,
got up and put questions to Yajnavalkya
which that learned teacher answered with full
care and respect.^ What Hindt^ can there
be who does not feel his heart swell with
pride when he thinks of those women, or of
women like Sit^, S^vitri and Sakundala ? And
what Hindis does not feel his heart shrink
with pain when he contrasts those heroic
figures with the women of to-day, sweet and

1 Manu, ix. loi and 95.

2 Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad, v. iv. i.
2 Ibid., III. vi. and viii.

2

i8 India

pure and devoted as they are by the million,
but still half-children, encaged in the prison
of the Zenana and the still worse prison of
the ignorance in which they dwell ? Then
take not only this its polity and its social life,
but also its religious ceremonies ; every act
of life a religious service ; the very food that
was cooked, cooked ever as an offering to the
Gods, and only secondarily as food for man ; ^
hence very largely, let me say in passing, the
abstemiousness of the Hindti nation, all the
life of which was to be founded on a spiritual
ideal, and not on that of material luxury.

Then, five thousand years ago, came the
beginning of the end, the opening of the
Kali Yuga, the dark age, the time at which
Shr! Krishna appeared, the last of the great
incarnations of Vishnu. Then coming on
from that time downwards you have the time
I alluded to of the great poets, those who
wrote the Mahdhhdrata and the Rdmdyana^
and so on. Then you have the coming of
the Buddha and the founding of exoteric
Buddhism, the teaching of a reHgion which,
while it has a metaphysical and philosophical
side, is, looked at in its exoteric aspect, to a
very great extent materialistic, and in which,
as a matter of fact, it was hoped to preserve
1 Bhagavad GUd^ in. 12, 13.

India, her Past and her Future 19

at least morality, through the Kali Yuga, if
spirituality could scarcely be kept alive. So
down these ages of the descending cycle
lower and lower the people sank, until at last
the spiritual life has well-nigh disappeared.
The Brahman caste, no longer the custodians
of knowledge for the teaching of the people,
became its jailers rather than its stewards,
using it for their own glory and not for the
feeding of the people with spiritual food.
Then century after century down to the
Christian era, with still some exquisite poets, ^
and still downwards after it, becoming more
and more silent, until the twelfth, when the
Mohammedan invasion swept over the land
that had forfeited her birthright, and stifled,
as it were, the last breathings of her past.
Since then India has had no history. Since
then India has been sleeping. Since then she
has taken on many and many of the customs
of her conquerors, and lately the veneer of a ^
Western and materialistic civilisation has done
even more harm to her people than much of
the Mohammedan conquest did, for it has
touched what was left of the inner as well as
the outer life. Sleeping she is, and sleeping
she will remain, until she turns back to that
which inspired the literature of her past, to
the philosophy and the religion of her greater

20 India

days. Those only have in them the hope of
her future, as they have in them the essence
of her past. That is the hope for India that
still burns hidden in some few faithful hearts,
that the hope of the reawakening of India for
which some still work and pray.

Turning to what India has given to the
world, we find that the literature that was
left as I have described at the beginning of
the Kali Yuga, is the literature that contains
the ideas on which was based all the great,
non-materialistic philosophy of Greece ; on
these ideas Plato — and Emerson said that all
the greatest thinkers of the world since his
time were Plato's men — founded all his
teaching ; these, after giving philosophy to
the West through Greece, were revived once
more, in their Pythagorean form especially,
in the Middle Ages, by Giordano Bruno,
who sounded the note which awoke Europe
from its fifteen centuries of slumber and
made modern life and modern science a
possibility. Then onward from the time of
Bruno to our own day you find them con-
stantly reappearing, until in the nineteenth
century, in men like Schopenhauer, some of
the thoughts of the Upanishads are distinctly
formulated — Schopenhauer, who found in
these works his noblest inspiration, and who

India, her Past and her Future 21

brought into the life of German philosophy
the ever-young philosophy of the East.

And it is to this that I now propose to
turn. With this rough sketch of the fashion
in which India was built, in which India lived,
in which India fell, I come to the literature
which is still her claim to the world's con-
sideration, literature written in the most
perfect of languages and enshrining the
sublimest of thoughts.

First the Veda, a word which simply means
knowledge, a word which covers that which
to us to-day is the most ancient literature of
India, threefold in its divisions however
looked at ; it is threefold as Rik, Yajur and
Sama, but it is from another standpoint that
I desire to put it to you. The Veda, thus
looked at, consists first of what are called
Mantra or songs, hymns to the Gods, hymns
used in religious ceremonies, hymns which
are known by heart to the Brahmans as
officiating priests, and used whether in the
domestic or the public ceremonies in which
the Gods are worshipped. Then secondly
the Brihmanas, which contain the ceremonies
and rites of the religion, not so interesting
save to those who under the symbolism can
reach the hidden truths. And, most im-
portant to us, thirdly, the Upanishads — the

22 India

esoteric knowledge of the East in so far as
that inner teaching was committed to writing
at all — which have raised so much enthusiasm
in the Western world because of their deep
philosophy ; books that must always be books
for the few, which can never become popular
amongst the many, until the race is far more
evolved than it is at present. The existence
of these Upanishads — of which, as you may
read in one of them, it is said that Brdhma
"is concealed in the Upanishads that are
concealed in the Vedas"^ — made necessary
that Indian institution of the Guru, which is
so little understood, and which has become,
alas ! so much of a form instead of a reality.
The Guru, in the old sense of the word, was
the spiritual teacher who knew the inner
meaning of the scriptures, that which was
never committed to writing at all, which was
simply given face to face, mouth to mouth,
as it was called, handed down from Guru to
Chela or disciple, the disciple in his turn
becoming a Guru and handing on to other
disciples the sacred truth that he had been
taught. The Guru still exists in modern
India, but simply as an ordinary religious
teacher, to whom the lad is sent for so many
years of his life to learn the Vedas and the
1 Shvetdshvatara, v. 6.

India, her Past and her Future 23

Upanishads. They have lost the esoteric
teaching so far as the majority of them are
concerned ; a few, indeed, preserve it still,
but they are " hard to find."

This division of exoteric and esoteric has
had a great deal of criticism thrown upon it
in the West. It is said that truth should be
sown broadcast, and that there ought not to
be anything which is kept back. But is not
that, after all, folly ? As a dry matter of fact,
you cannot give to a person that which he
cannot take, which he is unable to understand
or to assimilate. It has been the great fault
of the popular religion of the West that it has
divorced itself so much from philosophy and
from science ; and the result is that educated
people are slipping away from it just because
it does not dominate their intellect as well as
satisfy their heart. It is all very well to say
that a religion should be such that the poorest
of the people can grasp it. But that which is
truth for the uneducated ploughman is not
truth for the educated philosopher. And it
is well that we should understand that the
old division is wise enough, that it is well to
have a philosophy of religion as well as an
ethic of religion that a child is able to grasp.
The ethical religion will be the guide of the
many ; the philosophical will be the priceless

24 India

treasure of the few ; but the philosophy will
be the heart of the religion, and will make it
impregnable against all intellectual assaults.
This, then, is the part played by the Upani-
shads in the religious history of India. The
sacred books like the Puranas are for the
multitude, and are often full of stories of
exquisite moral beauty, useful as exemplifying
heroic virtues and for training the people to
admire a high standard of morality. But the
philosophy is that of the Upanishads, and it
is there that we must seek for the great value
of India to the world. The Guru was not
only to fully teach the philosophy ; it was
also his duty to show the student how he
might attain to the knowledge of the Supreme
by the use of certain means. This was Yoga
— which means union, — the method whereby
the esoteric truth was rendered practically
useful and developed the spiritual nature.
It was not sufficient to appeal to the intellect ;
it was not sufficient that the mind should be
instructed. It was necessary also to develop
the soul and spirit in man, and Yoga was the
means whereby these were to be developed.
That was the work of the Guru — to teach the
student how he might develop his inner nature,
how the spiritual nature might become active
and dominate both the physical and the intel-

India, her Past and her Future 25

lectual. There was the Yoga of action, that
which men in the world might follow, doing
all action with a religious motive, and without
attachment to its results, so gradually becom-
ing fit for the higher Yoga of meditation and
contemplation. Of these you may read, if
you will, the details in the Bhagavad Gitd^
where Shri Krishna instructed his disciple
Arjuna, and through him many another in
the generations that follow.

The basis of the philosophy of the Upani-
shads is the One, unnameable, incommensur-
able, incomprehensible. That which lies at the
root of all existence, and without which exist-
ence could not be. That is the nameless ;
Parabrahman it is called, that is, simply,
beyond Brahman, Brahman being the name
by which in much of this literature the
supreme God in manifestation is known. But
behind all manifested Gods, behind the God
that is the maker of the universe, behind the
supreme God that reveals himself to the spirit
of man, there is this boundless, infinite, eternal,
unnameable One, the permanence of which
must be posited to explain the transient, but
which, being unmanifested, we,the manifested,

1 See chaps, iii., v., vi. more especially, but the
dialogue constantly returns to these two forms of
Yoga.

26 India

the corporeal, are unable to understand or to
reach. Then from That emanated the cause
of all, that which in its second outward stage
is the A0709 of the Greek philosophy, and
which you find as the " Word " in the
fourth Christian Gospel, "the Word" that
" was with God and was God " ; in the Hindt^i
philosophy this is Brahman, from whom all
worlds proceed ; not directly, but through
many emanating intelligences. So that this
world of ours in its definite creation is made
by a lower God than Brahman, i.e. by Brahmd,
male and female, the source of living things.
Brahma, the creator of the universe,
the preserver of the world, was first
produced among the Gods.^
But it is the supreme, the father of spirits,
that is the true goal of man, that is the object
that he is to seek. It is the " Science of
Brahman " that in all the Upanishads is held
up as that after which man is to pursue.
We are told that :

He is the invisible, unseizable being,
without origin, without distinction, with-
out eye or ear, without hand or foot, the
eternal, pervading, omnipresent, subtle,
inexhaustible being, whom the sages
behold as the source of the elements.
^ Mundaka^ i. i.

India, her Past and her Future 27

As the spider casts out and draws in [its
web], as on the earth the annual herbs
are produced, as from living man the
hairs of the head and body spring forth,
so is produced the universe from the in-
destructible [Brahman].^
However many the Gods in name, they
are all one in their essence, all one because
they are all but forces and names, forms and
entities in whom the One is manifested. Thus
it is said that they who spoke the word :

Sacrifice to this, hence sacrifice to the
one or the other God is not proper.
His is verily this creation ; for he verily
is all the Gods, call him Indra, Mittra,
Varuna, and Agni.
And another passage :

He who is Brahman, who is Indra

and Prajapati, is all these Gods.^

Brahman, the supreme God, as I said, is

put forward as man's aim. Man is told to

seek after this God, to endeavour to become

one with him.

Manifest, near, dwelling verily in the
cave is the great goal ; on him is
founded all that moves, breathes, and
closes the eyes. . . . This is true, this

1 Mundaka^, i. 6, 7.

2 Brihad Aranyaka^ i. iv.

28 India

is immortal, this, O gentle one, know as
[the aim] to be pierced. Seizing as his
bow the great weapon of the Upanishad,
put the arrow sharpened by devotion
. . . know, O beloved, that indestruct-
ible as the aim. The sacred word is
called the bow, the soul the arrow, and
Brahman its aim ; he shall be pierced
by him whose attention does not swerve.
Then he will be of the same nature with
him, as the arrow [becomes one with
the target when it has pierced it].^
But that great God, the supreme, how shall
he be attained ? He can be attained by man
because the essence of man is one with his
own. Says another Upanishad :

As from a blazing fire in thousand
ways similar sparks proceed, so, O be-
loved, are produced living souls of
various kinds from the indestructible
[Br^hman].^
They are the one Brahman, the one essence.
That which is the central fire can be found
again by its sparks, and the spirit that dwells
in man in the ether of the heart, as it is called,
in the cave of the heart, that spirit being itself
one with Brahman may be found by man in

^ Mundaka, n. ii. 1-4.
2 m'd., II. i. I.

India, her Past and her Future 29

whom it dwells. And so the supreme may be
attained. The Upanishads weary themselves
with efforts to describe how this God may
be sought after, how he may be recognised,
how he may be found.

Whoever knows him ... [" the
blessed God " it is said] who, concealed
in all beings, is the Lord of the universe
. . . cuts the bonds of death. . . . That
God whose work is the universe, that
supreme soul, who is always dwelling in
the hearts of beings, is revealed by the
heart, discernment and mind. Those
who know him become immortal. . . .
For him whose name is infinite glory
there is no likeness. Not in the sight
abides his form, none beholds him by
the eye. Those who know him dwelling
in the heart, by the heart and mind,
become immortal.^
So again, earlier in the same Upanishad,
we learn that :

The ruler [the supreme soul] up-
holds this universe, but the soul which
is not the ruler is enchained by the con-
dition of an enjoyer ; when it knows
God it is liberated from all bonds. They
are all-wise the one and ignorant the
1 Shveidshvatara^ iv. 15, 17, 19, 20.

30 India

other, both unborn ; omnipotent the one,

without power the other. . . . When a

person knows this Brahman . . . [then

he becomes liberated].^

In prayer this was constantly made the

very centre of the prayer ; thus in a prayer

to the supreme soul come the words, " That

same soul am I." So the student is told

constantly, " Thou art That," " Thou art

Brahman," thou art one with the supreme.

And so, wherever we read, this, the One, is

that which is to be sought for, and in that

it is in man's heart he is able to discover it

— to discover it by meditation, by effort, by

the conquering of desire. We are further

told that this One is

The life of life . . . this great unborn
soul is the same which abides as the
intelligent soul in all living creatures.
. . . Unseen he sees, unheard he hears,
unminded he minds, unknown he knows.
There is none that sees but he ; there is
none that hears but he ; there is none
that minds but he ; there is none that
knows but he ; he is thy soul, the inner
ruler, immortal. Whatever is different
from Him is perishable.^

1 Shvetashvatara, i. 8, 9.

2 Brihad Aranyaka^ iv. iv. 18, 22, and in. vii, 23.

India, her Past and her Future 3^

But they never sought to prove the exist-
ence of the supreme soul. That which " can-
not be proved " ^ was one of its names. For
this supreme soul was not to be found by
argument, not by intellectual discussion, not
by any effort of the mind. Its " only proof,"
it is said, " is the belief in the soul," ^ for only
the soul could know its own kindred ; and
the belief in man's soul is the one proof of
the reality of God. Is not that true in every
faith ? Is not that the inner witness that you
find in every scripture, no matter what the
scripture may be ? Not by ratiocination
can Deity be discovered. Man knows him
only through the soul because the soul is one
with him.

Embodied the soul lives, and so the body
was called " the divine town of Brahman," ^
that in which he dwelt ; and the heart, the
"ether of the heart," was the supreme centre,
the "cave." So we may read of the embodied
soul, the soul " embodied in the town of nine
gates," * the body with its nine openings, is that
which gains experience, and that which, taking
on the body, learns by that body the nature
of itself and of its God. Thus it was that
might be known the God that was without

1 Brihad Aranyaka^ iv. iv. 20, 2 MdndMya^ 7.

^ Mundaka^ 11. ii. 7. ^ Shvetdshvatara^ ill. 18.

32 India

commencement, known in the soul by the
soul ; thus he could be sought after by the
corporeal being, as the cause of existence and
non-existence, man within himself finding the
divine. But only in one way. By conquest
of the lower nature, by conquest of the senses,
and also by conquest of the mind. For the
mind is only a lower manifestation, and he
who would know the innermost must go
beyond the mind as well as beyond the senses.
And so in the Katha Upanishad vft may read :
The soul which is subtler than the
subtle, greater than what is great, is
seated in the cavity of the living being.
He who is free from desire and without
grief, beholds by the tranquillity of the
senses that majesty of the soul. . . .
The soul cannot be gained by know-
ledge, not by understanding, not by
manifold science. It can be obtained
by the soul by which it is desired. His
soul reveals its own truth.^
Conquest, then, of the senses, conquest of
the mind, conquest of every desire, so that
the man might live free in the body, and,
free, might know the truth. The highest
state of the soul was that of Brahman. When
the senses were subdued, when the mind was
1 Katha, ii. 20, 23.

India, her Past and her Future 33

conquered, when the very soul itself was
tranquil, then the fourth state of the soul,
that of spirit, was reached, and the man be-
came one with God.^ This to the Hindii was
immortality. He did not look upon it as
immortality to pass out of the body through
the gate of death, returning again to earth to
live another life. He only regarded immor-
tality as won when the wheel of births and
deaths had ceased to turn ; and then he passed
into the condition of the supreme spirit. Im-
mortality gained in this fashion could only
be won by those who went beyond the sense
of separateness, who had conquered all idea
that they were different from this supreme
soul ; then they were no longer born, then
they no longer came back to earth.

Thus knowing him, a person over-
comes death ; there is no other way for
obtaining liberation.^
In the heart all whose bonds are broken in
this life, in that heart only immortality is
obtained.^ For according to this teaching
reincarnation was the fashion in which the
soul gained its knowledge, living from life to
life. And so, again, we may read the passage :

1 MdndHkya, 7.

2 Shvetdshvatara^ iii. 8.

3 Katha, vi. 15.

34 India

As a goldsmith, taking a piece of gold,
forms another shape which is more new
and agreeable, so throwing off this body
and obtaining knowledge, the soul forms
a shape which is more new and agreeable.
. . . This soul . . . becomes as are its
works and conduct. He whose works
are good becomes good ; he whose works
are evil becomes evil. By holy works
one becomes holy, by evil works evil.
Likewise others [say] this Purusha has
the nature of desire. As his desire so
is his resolve, as is his resolve so is his
work, as his work so is his reward. . . .
Having arrived at the last effect of the
work which he here performs, he comes
from this world again to this world in
consequence of [his] work.^
Thus he comes from life to life :

In this wheel of Brahman, which is
the support as well as the end of all
beings, which is infinite, roams about
the pilgrim soul, when it fancies itself
and the ruler different. ... As by the
use of food and drink the body grows,
so the individual soul by volition, touch,
sight and delusion assumes successively
forms in accordance with its action in
^ Brihad Aranyaka^ iv. iv. 4-6.

India, her Past and her Future 35

the various places. The individual soul
assumes by its qualities manifold gross
or subtle forms. . . . He proceeds
from birth to birth by his actions.^
As desire draws it back to earth, only by
the killing out of desires can it become free :
The wise who, free from desires, adore
the man, will not be born again. Who-
ever fancying forms desires, is by his
desires born here and there.^

When all the desires cease which were
cherished in his heart, then the mortal
becomes immortal, then he obtains here
Brahman.^

Whoever knows the God who is with-
out commencement, without end, . . .
becomes liberated from all bonds. Those
who know the God . . . relinquish their
bodies.*
For man, as is taught in another Upanishad,
becomes what he reflects :

Man is a creature of reflection ; what-
ever he reflects upon in this life, he be-
comes the same hereafter.
" Therefore," it finishes up practically :
"Therefore, should he reflect on Brahman."

^ Shvetdshvatara^ i. 6, and v. ii, 12, and 7.
2 Mundaka, ni. ii. i, 2. ^ Katha, vi. 14.

* Shvetdshvatara^ v. 13, 14.

36 India

Since we change into the likeness of our
thought, since we fashion our future by our
present desires, we should reflect on the
highest, we should think the greatest, and
then we shall become what we reflect. To
know Brahman is to be free. This is the
" Secret of Death." Some of you may have
read Sir Edwin Arnold's translation of one of
the most exquisite of the Upanishads under
this title, " The Secret of Death." A man
is offering all that he has to the Gods. His
son, looking at the sacrifice, thinks that the
all of the father is but poor and inadequate,
and he offers himself in order that the sacrifice
may be made complete, and the father gives
him to Death. Going to the house of Death
he there meets Yama, the king, the lord of
Death, and Yama, because he, a Brahman
youth, had remained unwelcomed in his house
three days and nights, gives him three boons
that he may choose. He chooses for the first
that his father may meet him with mind and
affection at peace when he is free again from
death. That is granted. He chooses as his
second the secret of the heavenly fire. That
is granted. Then he asks as a third boon,
" Does the soul live after death, or does it
perish ? " "Ask me anything but that," pleads
Death ; and he offers him all enjoyments, the

India, her Past and her Future 37

wealth and position of a king, spirits from
heaven to be his servants, sons and grandsons
who shall live hundreds of years, and every-
thing else the heart of man could desire. But
the lad will have none of them, for they are
all under the power of death. The sons will
die, wealth will fade away, life will perish ;
nothing but this knowledge about the soul
will he have for his third boon. At last
Death, overcome by his persistency, obliged
to keep his word and to give that to which
he is pledged, tells the secret of death, that
which is the following of the spiritual life, that
which is this true goal of man which I have
mentioned. He tells him to know the em-
bodied soul

As the rider, the body as the car, know
intellect as the charioteer, and mind again
as the reins. They say the senses are the
horses, and their objects are the roads.
. . . Whoever is unwise, with reins
never applied, has the senses unsubdued,
like wicked horses of the charioteer. But
whosoever is wise, with the mind always
applied, has the senses subdued like good
horses of the charioteer. . . . The man
whose charioteer is wise, the reins of
whose mind are well applied, obtains the
goal of the road, the highest place of

3^ India

Vishnu. Higher indeed than the senses
are their objects, higher than their objects
is the mind [Manas], intellect [Buddhi]
higher than the mind, higher than
intellect the great soul [Atma Mahan].
Higher than the great one the unmani-
fested [Avyaktam], higher than the
unmanifested is Purusha, higher than
Purusha is That ; this the limit, the
highest road. Being the hidden nature
of all beings, it is not manifested ; but it
is beheld by the attentive, subtle intellect
of men of subtle sight. Let the wise sub-
due his speech by mind, subdue his mind
by that nature which is knowledge, subdue
his knowledge in the great soul, subdue
this also in the placid soul. . . . Whoever
has understood [the nature] of Brahman
escapes from the mouth of Death.^
That was the final secret of Death.
Out of all this, then, it was that the civilisa-
tion of India grew ; out of that sublime teach-
ing the greatness of her past was evolved. It
was when her people thus believed that India
was great ; it was that which not only made
their civilisation and moulded their polity,
but that also which brought back the soul
time after time to the same land, evolving
1 Katha, i. iii. 3-6, 9-13, 15.

India, her Past and her Future 39

time after time in the same race. That was
the strength of their Brahmans while the
Brahmans were the teachers of her people ;
that was the spiritual food which made her the
mother of nations, which made her the cradle
of the religions of the world.

This lost, came her degradation. The
language of the Gods became a dead language
known only to the few. This literature
passed out of the life of her people, and they
grew downwards towards the lower philosophy
and the lower faith they hold. And when we
look to her future it is in the inspiration of
the past that we must seek it. For when her
Brahmans once more take their place as the
guides and the teachers of the people ; when
they no longer keep this knowledge for self,
but spread it abroad everywhere ; when once
more in every Indian household are heard the
teachings of the Vedas and the Upanishads ;
when once more in every Indian household is
understood the true meaning of the hymns
and of the worship of the supreme in the
hands of the father and the mother of the
household — then India will begin to wake
from the sleep of centuries, and once more to
hold up her head amongst the nations of the
world. Her civilisation — and this is signifi-
cant— has lasted. None other has lasted old

40 India

as hers is old. She is the most ancient of all
the Aryan peoples, the mother of all the sub-
races of the Aryan nations. She was old when
ancient Egypt was young ; very old when
Assyria and Chaldaea were born. They have
passed away and have left no traces save in
their pottery and in their ruins. But India
is still a people despite the divisions that
degrade her, despite the quarrels that deny
the brotherhood of her sons ; and she remains
with the possibility of a nation because of her
past, and because even in her present the
ancient form remains. Those ceremonies that
to you seem often so childish, those super-
stitions that to you may seem so degrading,
have still in them the possibility of the revival
of spiritual life. They are still the form into
which the spirit may again be poured. If her
vessels were broken, then the water of life
would be spilt in the pouring : the vessels are
there, polluted and defiled as they are ; they
can be cleansed, and the water of spiritual life
can still be held in them, ay, and shall be
held in them in the days to come.

In the hearts of a few amongst her people,
a few amongst her Brahmans, this hope is
softly thrilling at the present hour. They
are but few, very, very few, known within a
very small circle. Their hope is of the future

India, her Past and her Future 4^^

and not of to-day. They take part in no
political controversies ; they take part in
none of the competitions for place and for
money ; they care not for Western titles,
they care not for Western privilege nor
Western honours ; their heart is in the past
and in the future, and they are living for
that future to-day. Amongst the young
men of India here and there they find a
pupil whose heart they fire with the same
flame of love and of longing that burns
within their own. For India's future lies
not in political ambition ; India's future lies
not in political greatness ; India's future is
as a spiritual nation, as the teacher of the
world in spiritual truth. Even to-day she
stands as a witness against materialism, even
to-day amongst the thousands of her yogis —
superstitious, degraded and polluted as too
many of them are — even still they seek that
which is not of the senses, still they seek that
which is not of worldly gain. However much
you may think them fanatical, you must, at
least, admit that they have an aim beyond the
aim of the body. And even in their degrada-
tion they stand against that worse degradation
which would blot out man's spirit and man's
soul, would degrade him to the animal to
which he is only allied in his form.

42 India

And so, looking forward and hoping, we
see her awaking from the sleep of centuries,
taking up again her ancient faith, taking up
again her ancient religion, her ancient phil-
osophy, her ancient literature ; taking up
again her place as evolver of the inner man,
as teacher of the possibilities of the human
soul, as leader of the way towards union with
the higher nature, and, therefore, towards
the higher and grander race that in days to
come shall tread upon our earth. For the
future is not with the things of the body ; it
is with the things of the soul. The body
perishes, but the soul is immortal. Civilisa-
tions rise and fall, but the spirit of man
endureth for ever. Like that from which it
springs, it is indivisible and immortal, unborn
and undying, taking body after body as a
garment and throwing them aside when they
are worn out and done with. That is the
mission of India to the world, that teaching
is the claim of India to the love and to the
homage of mankind. And the day shall
surely come when sleeping India shall awake
and rise again amongst the people, and rise,
not to lead them along the road of material
domination, but along the road of spiritual
triumph to union at last with the supreme
goal.

Eastern Castes and
Western Classes

A Lecture delivered in 1 895

T AM to speak to you this afternoon on
class distinctions whether in the East or
in the West. I am going to try to show you
that these distinctions exist and have existed
from time immemorial, and are based upon
natural divisions ; and 1 am going to com-
pare them as I find them in the East and in
the West, as I find them in the past and in
the present, because 1 hold that one of the
duties of men is to learn experience from
past errors, and to choose in the present and
the future by the light of the experience that
lies behind ; so that in dealing with the sub-
ject which both in the East and in the West
is raising much discussion and much bitter
and antagonistic feeling, I want to take the
Caste system on the one side, the Class
system upon the other side ; to look at both
these systems in the past, to look at both
these systems in the present, so that thus
judging we may decide on our future, and
43

44 India

see what modifications are necessary, what
principles are to guide us, in order to improve
our national condition and to raise and
strengthen our national life.

First of all I suggest to you that there are
certain natural divisions that you find in
every nation, no matter what may be the
social system, the form of government, the
religion, or the political constitution, of the
people. There are four great natural divi-
sions alike all over the world, without which
no society can exist, without which no national
life can be carried on ; divisions that come to
the surface in every nation, although in one
nation the arrangement may be recognised and
in another arrangement in name may be dis-
regarded. These natural divisions are : first
of all a large number of people employed in
production in order that men's bodies may
be kept alive, in order that food, clothing and
shelter and other physical necessaries of men
may be supplied. There is a great division
of the producing class, a class on which the
welfare, the industry, the comfort, the whole
national prosperity must ultimately rest.
After this great division of the productive
caste or class, whichever you like, there is
the distributing class, the class that gathers
in from the producers all that they produce

Eastern Castes and Western Classes 45

in order to scatter it through the community,
in order to make it accessible to everyone ;
so that wherever man is, he may be able to
reach that which is necessary for the support
of the body, that he may have brought within
his reach that which is produced far-oiF but
which he needs for his own maintenance : a
vast distributing community, that is the
second great national division. After the
producing and distributing divisions, you
have another great natural division, which is
the guardian division of the nation. It in-
cludes the soldiers and the sailors that pre-
serve the people from foreign attack. It
includes all who administer the law, the
police who act as the guardians of internal
order, the barristers, the judges, the rulers,
the kings, the great class that organises the
nation and under whose protection the
functions of the producer and of the distri-
butor are carried on in peace and in safety,
without foreign aggression and without
domestic turmoil. These are the inevitable
and natural divisions. If the man who pro-
duces is also to distribute, then his production
will be badly done ; for, while he is carrying
about his goods to sell them, his fields will
remain untilled, his cattle will remain un-
tended, and all the work in which he ought

4^ India

to be engaged will be neglected, while he is
looking after the distribution that ought to
be done by somebody else. And if there is
no organising and defending class, then the
producer and the distributor will alike both
have to be half warriors, half policemen, doing
everything badly and doing nothing well.
And the sign of a civilised community is
that these functions are distinguished, that
different men take up different functions,
and each is carried on for the welfare of the
whole. When you have these great divisions
of producer, of distributor, of defender and
ruler, there is still one department of human
activity that remains unfilled, vital for the
progress of the nation, vital for the growth
of the people : and that is the function of the
teacher, teacher of Science, teacher of Phil-
osophy, teacher of Religion. Unless there
be a teaching class, the whole nation lacks
one element in its growth, and you have
rather a community of animals without minds
than of men whose minds are the highest
part of their nature, and need training, and
education, and development, and guidance,
that men may be men and not brutes, that
the Soul may live as well as the body if main-
tained and fed.

Such are the four great natural divisions.

Eastern Castes and Western Classes 47

These functions are needed in every nation.
These functions must be discharged in every
society. The question is not : " Shall there
be the functions .? " but " Shall they be
organised on a definite plan?" so that a
nation shall be orderly and not anarchical,
shall be contented and not continually at
struggle and at strife. For just as in the
human body you must have different organs
in order that life may go on, as you need
the brain to think, as you need the lungs to
breathe, as you need the stomach to digest,
as you need the hands and the feet to walk,
and as the human body would be helpless
and constantly in turmoil if the feet and the
hands demanded to act as the brain, and if
the brain were occasionally used as a method
of locomotion, and sometimes the stomach
thought that it would do the breathing, and
occasionally the lungs took up the function
of digestion ; so it is that in every civilised
and ordered society these functions should
be discharged by definite organs, so that you
may get rid of strife and struggle and tur-
moil, and have a society which is a living
organism and not a heap of unrelated frag-
ments, continually at strife and coveting each
the work of another fragment which it does
not discharge.

48 India

The next thing to realise, in order that we
may at our leisure think out the subject more
fully than in a lecture I can deal with it, is
that Humanity is a Brotherhood as the
human body is a brotherhood. But brother-
hood does not mean identity, and brotherhood
does not imply a flat dead level of absolute
similarity and so-called equality. That is
where the blunder so much comes in, and
the confusion of thought. The wise are not
equal to the ignorant. The ignorant are not
equal to the wise. Those who belong, say,
to some undeveloped type of man, like the
Veddahs of Ceylon, are not equal to the
highly developed races that you find in this
land, that you find in the West as the leaders
of civilisation. There is a difference between
the different members of the human family
as there is a difference between the baby in
the cradle, the father in the world, the grand-
father, wise with the experience of long years
in life, and therefore the adviser and the
helper of the younger. A family does not
-mean that the baby takes on himself the
function of advising, and that the grandfather
goes and lies down in the baby's cradle and
is told what he ought to do. Brotherhood
means that everyone holds his power for the
common good, uses his faculties for the

Eastern Castes and Western Classes 49

common service. If he Is strong, he is
strong not to injure and bully the younger
members of the family, but to defend them,
guard them and so to serve the whole. It is
the duty of the elder brother to take care
that the weaker is not injured, that the
weaker is guarded, that if the weaker wants,
the wants of the weaker shall be taken care
of before the wants of the stronger ; and
the father and the mother and the elders
would rather starve themselves to feed the
little ones than let the little ones starve while
the elders have plenty ; for brotherhood
means common union for the common good,
and the greater the strength the greater the
duty, the greater the power the greater the
responsibility to discharge. There is only
one other preliminary point before we have
the materials for our study, and that is re-
incarnation. If men's lives were but the one
that is between one cradle and one grave ; if
men's lives were bounded by the womb of
one mother at the one end and by one
funeral pile at the other ; if all men's lives
were within these two limits, and one came
into the world a new-born soul, and passed
out of the world never again to return to it,
then this human life would become unintel-
ligible, and no social order, with justice as its

4

50 India

basis, could exist. But men have many
experiences in many lives, many births under
many circumstances, and you might as well
say in dealing with one life that it is unjust
to send a child to school, and then later let it
pass from the school to the college, and not
at once take it from the cradle to the Senate
House, as say that it is unjust for the un-
developed Soul to be trained, guarded and
taught by the more highly developed ; for
the child-Souls are not ready for the harder
work of the world, and the very fact that
reincarnation is a reality is a clue to social
order, and to the building of a real social
state.

Coming now to the question at first of Caste,
I am going to take Caste in the past in the East,
Class in the past in the West ; then Caste in the
present in the East and Class in the present in
the West. You see the line of thought along
which I am going to lead you ? First I shall
take Caste and Class in the past so that we may
see what they were meant for, and then 1 shall
take Caste and Class in the present, so that
we may judge if they are doing their duty and
are carrying out the objects for which they
were designed. And I shall probably say
things to you that will raise in your minds
objection, both on the one side and on the

Eastern Castes and Western Classes 5^

other. In dealing with the ancient Caste
system, of which I am a supporter, I shall
jar on the feelings of some amongst you who
look only at the outer surface of the moment,
and do not realise the principle underneath ;
and in speaking of Caste in the present I
shall be likely to jar on the feelings of some
amongst you, who, because they know the
right principle, close their eyes to many of
the mistakes that in the present are connected
with it. Reform is needed, but reform on
the ancient lines ; changes are wanted for
adaptation to new circumstances, but changes
well-considered, and not simply careless strik-
ing at everything, and not defending a thing
merely because it is attacked. Now as to
Caste in the past, I spoke so fully last year
that I will only very shortly say now as much
as is necessary for my subject. What is the
theory underlying Caste in the India of old
ages, which is the eternal justification of the
system in the eyes of thinking and religious
men ? First of all. Soul reincarnates, and
when it comes into experience of human life
it comes without knowledge, it comes with-
out experience, and it comes without train-
ing ; at first the burdens on it must be very
light and the demands made upon it must
be exceedingly small in their force and in

52 India

their compelling power. Therefore in the
ancient system the foundation idea of the
lowest caste of the four orders — the Sh^ldra
caste — was the idea of Souls not yet trained,
not yet experienced, coming into the world
to learn the early lessons in school, as it were,
and therefore with the duties a child has,
of obedience, of subordination, of service,
and of training, and these lessons are as the
lessons in a school, that the child-Soul may be
taught and gather the experience needed for
later life. And just as when you took a
Brahman boy and sent him to a Guru he
had to perform services for the Guru, light-
ing his fire, tending his cattle, as part of his
training, so in the great life of the nation, and
the long life of the individual Souls, this was
the first class, the beginning of the training,
the first lowest grade in the school, where
little was asked for : hardly any restriction
on food, they might almost take what they
liked ; there was no restriction on travel,
they might go wherever they liked. The
training must not be too hard for the young
Soul, and put on it all the restrictions and
difficulties that, when it was strong, it would
be ready to endure. And so the life was a
free life. They might do well-nigh anything
in the way of occupation. They might eat,

Eastern Castes and Western Classes 53

drink and travel almost as they would. The
restrictions were very light, and the difficulties
were very small. It was as it were an infant
in a school, where you do not make discipline
too severe, for the young ones are not yet
habituated to restraint and control.

When in many lives a Soul had been thus
trained, when in many lives it had gathered
these early lessons, it passed on to the next
caste in its birth, and was born in the caste
of Vaishyas. There it had a heavier duty
laid on it and greater restrictions. For a
Vaishya was a twice-born man, and on him
came the heavy responsibility of wealth, hand
in hand with severer restrictions put upon
him. Do not forget that in the old days it
was the duty of the Vaishya to hear and study
the Vedas. He wore the threefold thread,
as a sign of belonging to a twice-born caste.
In this birth the Vaishya was to keep the
stores of wealth for the nation, wealth not for
himself but for the whole community ; he was
to gather wealth, to be a faithful steward in
the national household, so that learning might
be supported, so that the nation might be
wealthy, and so that everywhere there might
be an organisation of labour, plenty of agri-
cultural supervision, plenty of commerce,
plenty of trade, and plenty of everything

54 India

that was necessary for that material side of
the national life. On him was the duty of
maintaining the Temples, of feeding the
starving, of upholding the learned, of build-
ing Choultries for travellers, of opening
places of rest and food for pilgrims, so that
there might be no starvation, no misery, no
wretchedness in the well-ordered household
of the Aryan mother. That was the Vaishya's
duty, a duty that needs badly to be discharged
to-day in modern India.

After many lives of that the Soul was born
in the third division, that of ordering the
nation, of defending it, of guarding it, of
helping it, of keeping peace within, and of
protecting it against invasion from without.
Heavy was the demand on the Kshattriya in
old days. Life was dear to him as to others,
wife and children loved by him as by others,
but to him came the voice of Dharma : " You
hold your life for the national service, for the
national welfare. If there is danger, it must
not strike the Shtidra, it must not strike the
Vaishya, it must not strike the Brahman. Go
out for their defence, and give your life as
sacrifice for the people who look to you as
rulers and protectors." Because the soul was
growing stronger it was ready for the sacrifice,
and because the soul was growing stronger it

Eastern Castes and Western Classes 55

was ready for the service ; the clinging to life
which marks the ordinary man must have no
place in the heart of the Kshattriya, for he
lived for the nation's welfare, and so poured
out his blood like water rather than that the
people should be struck.

Then there came the fourth division, that
of the teacher, that which we know as the
Brahman ; hedged about with hard restric-
tions, cut away from the enjoyment of life ;
bidden to have no worldly wealth, for wealth
belonged to the Vaishya ; bidden to have no
right to struggle for liberty, for that belonged
to the Kshattriya ; bidden not to eat and
drink and travel about as he liked, for those
were the privileges of the Shtidra ; but he
had the hard life of self-denial, which cut
him off from the enjoyment and luxuries of
life and marked him to be kept pure in his
magnetism, guarding his magnetism for the
welfare of the people, not for selfish pride
and conceit, not for personal arrogance or for
personal domination, but in order that the
Gods might have a mouth to speak through to
the people, and that the lips of the Brahman
might be the lips that should teach the law.

Such was the basis of the Caste system.
Such was the idea of the ancient order. I
shall show you when I have dealt with Class

56 India

in the West, how confusion has arisen, and
how out of confusion discontent and the
sense of injustice, which you may find in
many a heart to-day.

In Class in the West, looking at the past,
there was a similar order. They had there
the king and the nobles by hereditary right
— by birth-right — and the ruling class, which
here would be the caste of Kshattriyas,
was the class of men who were the fighters
and judges and rulers, whose sons succeeded
their fathers, and ruled, fought and made
laws by hereditary right. These were the
great nobles of England in the past : the king
first, then the dukes and the barons and the
earls, and so on. All these men were of a
hereditary class, just the same as the caste,
and exactly the same in its idea : a class of
men marked out by birth for particular
duties, which were the defensive, the ruHng,
and the organising duties, that we have seen
as one natural division from which no nation
may escape. Then there was the class, the
great middle class as it was called, that dealt
with commerce, with trade, with the super-
vision of agriculture and so on, the mighty
class that you read about in the Enghsh
History, that grew up slowly under the
shadow of the warlike nobility, and massing

£astern Castes and Western Classes 57

themselves in the towns of England gradually
formed " guilds," as they were called, for
all purposes of trade, close bodies for each
trade. And then below them, the mass of
the cultivating and producing people, tied to
the soil, with duties of what were called
"feudal tenure," bound to discharge these
duties in exchange for protection, ever bound
so strictly to the soil that even to-day in
England if a man is starving, the first question
that is asked is " What parish does he belong
to ? " That means, " Where was he born ? "
" Which is the place that is responsible for
his maintenance ? " If a man who was born
in the North of England comes down to
London, and is found starving there, even
now they send him back to the place where
he was born and which is responsible for his
maintenance, for his birth marks the place
whence his maintenance should come. That
comes down from the old days, the Law of
Settlement, as it is called. But there is this
difference in the fourth caste — the teaching
caste. In England the Church was in
alliance with the State, the Church was co-
extensive with the State ; the Church made
arrangement with the State, as being the
religious side of the people. The difference
between the East and the West has been this

5^ India

in religious matters : that in the East religion
permeates every part of human life, whereas
in the West it has always been more outside
the common or " profane " life ; so that it
makes a compact, as it were, with the outer
life, and you have the Church and the State
in strict alliance, instead of religion permeat-
ing all, and the whole basis being built on
the fabric of a national faith.

Mind you, in the old days these classes
were real. To-day they are shams. There
was no duke that did not lead ; there was no
baron that did not take his men into the
battle-field, when there was foreign or
domestic war. They discharged the duties
of their order. And so with the other classes.
Therefore there was national prosperity.
There was national wealth. And though life
was in many ways rough, yet it was a life
that in architecture gave the grandest build-
ings, that in literature, ere it wholly dis-
appeared, gave the mightiest writers, and
where the masses of the people also had
plenty of food, plenty of clothing and of
shelter. There was no such starvation known
in England then as England knows to-day,
in the later disorder that has come upon
her people. England was called " Merry
England " ; who would call her so to-day ?

Eastern Castes and Western Classes 59

I come to the present. Now let me take
in the present first the Class — the order is the
reverse of what I have taken in the case of
the past. In England we have still the Classes.
We have our Royal family. We have our
noble families, and nobility goes by right of
birth and nothing else. They rule by right
of birth. They make laws by right of birth.
They take titles by right of birth. The
eldest son of a duke becomes duke when his
father dies ; the eldest son of an earl becomes
earl when his father dies, and the moment
that he gets his title, if of age, he goes into
the House of Lords and makes laws for the
people. The whole of the Empire is ruled
by that House, in conjunction with the Crown
and with the Commons, and it is filled not by
knowledge, not by wisdom, not by age, not
by capacity, but entirely by right of birth, no
matter what the character or the qualifications
of the man may be. Nowadays that Class
is a sham, a sham because it does not do the
duty which in the old days was joined to the
name. It is a sham, because the duke, whose
title means leader, does not think of going out
to the battle-field when there is danger, but
asks other people to go and fight for him
while he remains quite safely at home ; and
so also with the rest of our " great nobility."

6o India

The names do not carry with them work, and
therefore there is discontent, and therefore
there is complaint, and there is agitation, and
a cry is going through the land, "Abohsh
the House of Lords." Why ? Because it is
a sham and it is a farce ; because the men
who take the name of leaders do not lead, and
because instead of duty they take privilege,
and use their rank for personal ends instead
of for public service. But there is another
way to-day of getting rank, and that is gold.
If you have plenty of money, lacs upon lacs
of money, if you are so rich that when people
look at you they do not see you and your
mental qualities, but only a big gold veil that
dazzles them, so that they cannot see through
it and understand what lies behind ; you may
be very ignorant, you may be very foolish,
you may know nothing about politics, you
may never have done anything for the national
welfare, but if at the bank you have got a
big balance, and have done some party services,
then you are a golden idol, and everyone
will bow down and do you homage, and then
you can get a title. It is a great thing to
have a title for which you have done nothing.
It is grand to call yourself a lord, not by your
inner worth, but by gold. If a man has got
plenty of money, he pays so much in contested

Eastern Castes and Western Classes 6i

elections, and thus serves the Government of
the day by getting men they want into the
House of Commons. He buys votes practi-
cally, although a deliberate purchase of votes
is illegal. Then you are a patriot, and not
in any fashion dishonest or immoral ; and when
you have done this many a time, and when
you have time after time wasted thousands
upon thousands of pounds in this way, then
you deserve well of your party, that man has
done great service to Government, and there-
fore must be made a hereditary legislator, and
must be rewarded for spending his money by
giving him the right to make laws for the
Empire and to sit in the Council of the
Nobles. In America and in Australia they
have not even this little covering of "honour"
to hide the nakedness of money worship.
Money is the one title to social honour and to
social power, and you may have a man as they
had in America lately, a man who counted
his money by millions upon millions of dollars,
and who had gained his money by spreading
reports about railways and making them value-
less— wrecking, as they call it — and then buy-
ing up the property after it had become
nearly worthless in the market, and then
running it up again when he got it into his
hands, and getting large sums for that for

62 India

which he had given very little. You hear of
the Stock Exchange and of gambling on it.
The great secret is this : " Get news before
your neighbours. Do not tell them the news
that you have. If that news makes any stock
you possess worthless, sell it to your neigh-
bour before the news becomes public, before
he knows that it is worthless, and then his
pocket will be emptied while yours will re-
main full." When you have done that for
a long time you become rich, and then every-
body looks up to you as a successful man in
the Western world, and you are held up as a
model to your race. You know I was on the
School Board of London. 1 used to see the
books given to children as prizes. There
would be stories of what are called " Self-
made Men," and these men were those who
started with sixpence in their pockets, and
came as little boys with sixpence to some
town, and then they were very industrious,
and very thrifty, and very careful, and not
always too particular about matters of con-
science, until at last they got richer and
richer, and had a million of money at the
bank, and built one or two churches, and a
statue was put up to them in the market-place
when they died ; then they are held up to
children as models of successful men, men

Eastern Castes and Western Classes 63

who made money too often by the unmaking
of their fellow-men. What is the result ?
The result is discontent, struggle, masses of
the working population discontented and
threatening revolution. Masses of the work-
ing population saying : " Why should these
men, who are by no means more moral than
we, no more learned than we, no wiser than
we, why should they be so wealthy while we
are so miserable and poor ? " Men do not
really think much in their hearts of money,
however much they may bow down to it and
do it social homage ; no man thinks himself
really below another, merely because the other
is richer than he ; and where wealth is the
title to honour, there is struggle, discontent
and threat, for wisdom may be honoured
without jealousy, but the honouring of wealth
means social strife, and ever-growing dis-
content among great masses of the people.

I come to the East, the East of to-day.
Take the Caste system as you find it here
to-day. How have the changes come about .?
It is clear, and we all know it, however de-
voted our belief in the Hindi^ faith may be,
that the four castes of the old time are not
really amongst us to-day. If we test them
by the test of the Shastras, if we test them
by the test of the Law-giver, we shall find

64 India

that they are shams to a very large extent, as
much a sham and a farce in the East as the
titles of the nobility are a sham and a farce
in the West. How has that come about ?
It has come about by the Caste forgetting its
Dharma, its nature and its duty. By a slow
change in hundreds and thousands of years,
the duties of the Caste have been forgotten.
The Brahman has sought for power and
wealth. The Kshattriya has sought to do
the teaching work of the Brahman. The
Vaishya has forgotten his duty, and has
wanted to take up the work of the Kshattriya,
and the Shiidra has claimed to take the duties
of the twice-born. No caste is content to do
its own duty, but everyone claims to do the
duties of everybody else. For hundreds
and thousands of years this has been going
on, and I say to you, my brothers — and I
have the right to speak to you plainly face to
face, for I defend you in the West and there
speak in defence of you where I find you
attacked — I have a right to say to you face
to face that the beginning of this degradation
lies on the caste that ought to be the noblest,
that ought to be the highest, that ought to be
the purest, and the degradation began when
first the Brahman coveted wealth, and desired
physical authority, when he took the wealth

Eastern Castes and Western Classes 65

that belonged to the Vaishya, the rule that
belonged to the Kshattriya, and was dissatis-
fied with his spiritual knowledge, and was
discontented with his spiritual authority. For
just as a man might turn aside from his wife
and take another woman to his home, so has
the Brahman deserted the bride of spiritual
knowledge which was his, and has taken to
wife the wealth and the jewels and the glories
of earth ; and because of that spiritual adul-
tery, a confusion of castes has arisen, and
with that confusion what Arjuna prophesied
— degradation of the nation and the gradual
lowering of the whole of the national life.
Side by side with that spiritual degradation,
there is the maintenance of an outer rigidity,
which gives privilege without discharge of
duty. Why should the Brahman claim his
right as a Brahman, merely because he has
been strict in his outer observances, and take
the privileges given him in the days when he
was the teacher of the people, when he
neglects the teaching and has lost- the know-
ledge ? The outer form without the inner
reality has worked evil ; it has led to conceit,
arrogance and the inclination to look down
on those who are not Brahmans, so that there
is bitterness in the hearts of the people ; a
failure in Brahman duty while clinging to

5

66 India

Brahman privilege has made jealousy, anger,
discontent and disharmony, where otherwise
there might have been, and should have been,
peace, love, and progress that is orderly. For
mind you, when confusion arises, when the
Brahman deserts spiritual wisdom for the
strife of parties, when he deserts spiritual
wisdom for a contest for wealth, the Dharma
of the Brahman is broken, and reincarnation
largely fails of its effect ; for the Brahman is
the Soul, not only the body ; the Brihman
is in the life, not only in the birth ; and if the
duties are not fulfilled, what shall the Brahman
Soul do, when it is coming back, and seeking
reincarnation in a family where it shall find
the Brahman conditions, in order to grow
and develop and become a model of spiritual
life to men ? Suppose a Brahman Soul — I
mean a highly developed, a spiritual Soul
— is seeking incarnation, and comes to India
and searches for a Brahman's family, and finds
the Brahmans ignorant of Sanskrit, of the
Vedas and of the real meaning of the Shdstras,
and finds with them the outer appearance and
not the inner reality ; and suppose that it
finds the inner reality in some other caste or
even in some other race ? Suppose in a
Shildra family it finds men and women who
are pious, religious, who are careful to do

Eastern Castes and Western Classes 67

their duty well, and who lead noble, pure and
useful lives ; it may well be that the Brahman
Soul takes on the outer degradation of the
body, preferring the degradation of the physi-
cal to the degradation of the spiritual. For
what is a real Brdhman ? A Brahman Soul
or Brahman body ? One without the other ?
There is where the difficulty comes in. No
man is fully a Brahman unless the Brahman
Soul has a Brahman body, and unless the
Brahman body has in it the Brahman Soul.
Do you think that I am saying what I cannot
bring proof of ? What said the great Law-
giver when he was dealing with the Brahman
caste ? He told you that sacred learning
came and gave herself to the Brihman, his
treasure to be guarded from pollution and
disgrace ; and then Manu, the great teacher,
goes on and says : " As an elephant of wood,
as an antelope of leather, so is a Brahman
that is without learning." All three have
only an empty name, viz. : — An elephant of
wood, an antelope of leather, and a Brahman
without learning — spiritual learning. He
must know the Vedas so that he can teach
them, understand them so that he can instruct.
A Brahman by birth who cannot do the
Brahman duty is like the wooden elephant
and like the leather antelope, very pretty to

68 India

look at but utterly useless for all purposes of
life. Suppose you get a Shudra Soul in a
Brahman body. How shall we recognise it ?
We shall know it by the marks that appear.
We shall know it by its low desires and petty
ambitions. We shall see a Vaishya Soul in
a Brahman body when the supposed Brahman
wants plenty of gold, when he wants to be-
come wealthy, when he wants big houses and
costly furniture. He may wear his thread
as much as he will, but the Vaishya Soul is
there. By the Law he is no Brahman, and
has no place in the Brahman caste. So if
you find in the body of a Shiidra a soul that
is pure, true and noble, but lacking in patience,
I say to you that it is no wonder if that Shiidra,
cut off from the privileges of the Brahman
but knowing his own life purer than the lives
of many Brahmans around him, says : " This
caste is a folly, this caste is an absurdity,
this caste is a thing to get rid of. It is not
justified by the life, and injustice is done to
me. I will do my best and tear it down to
get rid of the farce."

I believe in the reality of Brahmanhood.
I who know that there is a Brahman caste in
reality, which is a living and working power
in human life to-day, tell you that just because
I honour the real Brahman, do I look with

Eastern Castes and Western Classes 69

sorrow and shame on many a nominal
Brahman that 1 see around me ; for, so says
the Law, that those that cannot teach are not
Brahmans. The child that knows is older
than the grey-headed man that knows not,
and if I meet a grey-headed Brahman and
find that he is ignorant of sacred learning,
and can teach me far less than I already know,
do you wonder if I say that if India is to be
helped, this farce must be turned into a
reality, and some few at least must lead the
Brahman life, in order to make it possible
that the caste may be kept alive for happier
times, to serve as the vessels into which
spiritual life may hereafter be poured ?

There is one other point about Caste. In
the old days, it was not rigid as it is rigid
now. In the old days a man could pass from
one caste to another, if he showed the
qualities of the higher. If a Brahman was
born as a Sh^^dra from a piece of bad Karma,
if he worked through it and showed the
Brahman quality, then he was passed on to
the Brahman order, which was a reality and
not merely a question of the body and of the
form ; so that in the Scriptures you find
cases even of the outcaste, of men who had
no known father and no kind of family to
which they could appeal ; you find the great

70 India

Teachers of the past taking such a boy, if he
showed the Brahman qualities, and judging,
not by the outer body but by the inner Soul,
and then passing the body through the
necessary ceremonies that gave the magnetic
purity and the physical conditions. Then
there was no discontent, no feeling of injustice,
and no feeling of being kept in a place which
was below that to which the Soul had a claim.
Always there was the open door, and the
Soul could pass through it, carrying with it
the garment of the body, thus making the
body subservient to the real life. But mind
you, in these questions of food and other
things, there is a real natural truth. The
magnetism of food is important. That which
you take into your body helps to make the
instrument in which your Soul has to work,
and there are different qualities of food
suited to the different functions that men
have to discharge in life. All these questions
of eating or not eating together are questions
of real importance based on reality. Only
in this modern community, they are often
based on shams instead of on reality, for
magnetic purity is a question largely of the
Soul, and no man is pure magnetically who
speaks untruth, or loves untruth, or does
evil in his daily life. I would rather take

Eastern Castes and Western Classes 71

food with a man who in his body belongs to
a low caste but in his mind is pure, than I
would sit down and take food from the hands
of one who is nominally pure and whom 1
know to be stained with ambition, and to be
soiled with lack of truth and honour in daily
life. All this has to be considered. You
see the line of thought ; namely, not to
abolish, but to make real ; not to get rid of,
but to reform ; so that as in the old days
there may be bodies fitted for the incarnation
of the higher Souls, parents leading the life of
Br^hmans, not only in the food and the outer
observances of the caste.

Thus I speak, for I hope — having come
to make my home in this holy land — to try
to show you, to whom I belong by faith
and by duty, as time goes on, the lines of
practical reform which are needed if our
India is to be saved. Discuss the thought
amongst yourselves. I have placed before
you mere outlines and principles, but I hope,
in concert with some of your most religious
and pious men, to take counsel and to mark
out ways which will make this thing a reaHty,
and give it that spiritual life for the lack of
which we are faUing, and for the lack of
which the world itself is crying out. I know
the old countries. I have lived there. I

72 India

know how they are suffering, and the causes
that have led them to their present state.
I know the misery, the poverty, and the
degradation. I know the wretchedness and
the struggle. I went there to learn it, and I
have learned lesson by lesson. For what ?
I went there and was born there to learn —
in order that by experience gathered by my
brain that I am using now I might learn
what civilisation might teach. I learnt what
misery and struggle are in Western lands,
that I might gather together the knowledge
1 could in a form available for use, and then
come back to my own race and people, and
give them a warning that, alas ! they would
not listen to, if it did not come through a
tongue and from a brain trained in the midst
of a civilisation that it denounces and in the
midst of the miseries that it knows. For
they cannot blind me with the glitter of their
civilisation, and they cannot dazzle my eyes
with the glory of their outer appearance.
I have been underneath, to the slums and
misery ; I know its folly ; 1 have lived in it.
I know its wealth. I know its luxury, and
everything for which you are yearning and
which is dazzling the younger amongst you
to-day. I come back to you and say that
this thing is a sham, and that it is a delusion.

Eastern Castes and Western Classes 73

it means degradation and not rising ; it
means spiritual death and not life. Let us
take a warning by these lessons ; let us learn
from their experience to avoid their blunders,
and let us join hand in hand, not men of one
caste but men of all the four orders which
were once appointed. Then let learned men
come together to take common counsel for
the common good, and little by little, step by
step, bringing back the spirit into Indian life
and into Indian religion, giving honour where
it is due, honouring the Brahman if he be
pure and communicates his spiritual wisdom
and is able to teach ; honouring Caste not in
its name only but in its reality, not the outer
show but the inner life. Thus in the
centuries that lie in front of us, shall be
undone the evil work that has been done, and
the nation shall be raised as a whole. That
is the work that lies before us. That is the
work in which I ask you to take me as your
helper ; for the life which came from India
is given back to India for service, and 1
sacrifice it to the helping of our race.

East and West

An Article in the ^^ Theosophical Review ^^^
vol. xxiv.^ 1 90 1

T^HERE appears to be going on in the
minds of many English Theosophists
a good deal of consideration of Eastern and
Western ideals. Andasmuchof the discussion
appears to circle round my own views, or
supposed views, it may perhaps be as well
that 1 should state those views clearly. This
is not done with the idea of imposing them
on any, but merely with a view to clarify one
part of the discussion.

Certain fundamental principles appear to
me to govern all sound opinions on national
ideals, and it may be well to begin with a
statement of these.

1. No past condition of a nation can be
reproduced, for a nation cannot re-tread the
path along which it has evolved. Principles
can be re-established, but the application
of them must be adapted to the new
environment.

2. A national ideal to be useful must be
in harmony with the national character, and

74

East and West 75

must grow out of the national past. It must
be a native of the soil, not an exotic.

3. Every nation has its own line of evolu-
tion, and any attempt to make it follow the
line of evolution of another nation would be
disastrous, could it be successful ; but — as a
matter of fact — any such attempt is fore-
doomed to failure, because it clashes with
the world-plan. The world exists for the
evolution of the Soul, and for this evolution
varieties of experience are necessary. Races,
sub-races, families, nations, like the two sexes,
subserve evolution by their differences, and
offer the variety of soil and culture which
brings out the varied capacities of the Soul.
If they were reduced to a dull uniformity,
their value as classes in the school wherein
the Soul is educated would be lost, and the
Soul would have one quality over-developed
and another undeveloped.

It is a necessary deduction from these
principles that any writer or speaker who is
trying to shape the public opinion of any
nation, should saturate himself with the past
of that nation, distinguish clearly between
root-principles and passing manifestations of
them, identify himself in thought and feeling
with that nation, and hold up before it the
ideal which will appeal to all that is best in

76 India

the national feeling, and vivify and strengthen
all that is noblest in the national intelligence.
He should seek to supply defects, to lop off
excrescences, to moderate exuberances, but
should always work within definite limits,
not seeking to change its particular type, but
to evolve that type to its highest possible
expression. It follows, one may venture to
remark, that when people of another nation
read utterances addressed to a particular
people, and not to mankind at large, it is
reasonable to remember the special object of
the utterances, and not to take them as though
they were addressed to themselves.

For instance, we read in the September
number of the Review of an "assumption,
common among our members, that our
Western ideal of civilisation has to be re-
modelled upon the more or less historical
ideal which Mrs. Besant has woven for us
out of the stories of the Mahdhhdratay If
there be any such assumption, it seems to
me to be founded on a fundamental miscon-
ception of the use of a " historical ideal."
Such an ideal should be woven out of the
principles on which a given nation had been
successfully evolving, and is intended for
that particular nation and not for others.
Moreover, it is not intended, in weaving

East and West 77

such an ideal, that the exact conditions of
the past should be reproduced — see Principle
I — even in the nation to which the ideal is
held up ; but that the nation, recognising the
principles which underlay a period of great-
ness, and the neglect of which accompanied
its decay, may revive those principles, and
give them such new expression as the circum-
stances of the time demand.

Let us take as an example the question of
Caste in India. It was an external recognition
in a social order of the existence of four
fundamental social types, great stages of
evolution, through which Souls pass in their
development. The Manu of the Fifth Race
based his social organisation of the eldest sub-
race on a recognition of these stages. He
guided the Souls highly evolved in knowledge
and dispassion to take birth as teachers and
priests, those highly evolved in power as kings
and warriors, others as merchants and traders,
the least evolved as artisans, labourers and
servants. He marked out for each type its
Dharma, or law of growth, by following which
it might reach perfection. This organisation
brought about a period of great splendour
and prosperity in India.

As less evolved Souls were born into this
order, for their training and evolution, their

78 India

imperfectly developed qualities could not
sustain the admirable model instituted by the
great Lawgiver, and so the castes degenerated,
and their respective Dharmas were less com-
pletely followed. Further, there sprang up
within them innumerable artificial sub-
divisions, growing out of the spirit of separ-
ateness and exclusiveness, and Caste gradually
came to be regarded as a mark of social dis-
tinction, showing the consideration to be
accorded to the members by society, instead
of as a marking out of the nature of the
service to be rendered by the members to
society. Thus out of the base marriage of
Caste to Separateness, instead of the true
wedlock of Caste with Service, there sprang
a huge and monstrous progeny of social evils,
which preyed, and are still preying, on the
life of India.

Now those who seek to build for India the
foundations of a happy future may well wish
to disentangle the principle of the fourfold
order from the rubbish which overlies it in
modern times, so that the nation may have
the benefit of a national tradition, deep-rooted
in its nature, and may thereby evolve in sober
and orderly fashion, and avoid the social con-
flicts which threaten Western civilisation. But
this does not mean that they dream of graft-

East and West 79

ingon Western civilisation an unsuitable exotic
Eastern graft, or think that an institution suited
to the genius of a particular Eastern nation
should be thrust on Western peoples to whose
genius it is unsuitable.

As Dr. Wells puts it very admirably, the
duty of the Westerner is to find out for him- ^
self into which of the four ways of life he has
been born, and then try to walk in it. He
may learn from the East that there are four
distinct ways, and he may further learn the
existence of Dharma, the law of growth on
each of these ways. These general lessons he
may truly learn and be the better for them,
much clarifying by these his views of life.
But that does not mean that he is to trans-
plant Caste into the West. Caste is only one
temporary manifestation of a root-principle in
nature, and the man of the West is concerned
with the root-principle,and not with one special
and temporary manifestation thereof.

Another misconception that clouds many
utterances in the West on Eastern, or rather
on Indian, ideals is that the Dharma of the
Brahmana — the priest and teacher — is taken
as that of the Indian generally, and the dis-
passion of the true Brahmana is regarded as
a general characteristic of the nation. But
this is by no means the case.

8o India

Misled by this idea, Dr. Wells remarks that
" the native regiment is a far more important
aid to the regeneration of India than any
number of Hindil colleges." It is true that
the great caste of Kshattriyas was broken in
pieces at Kurukshetra ; but it is also true that
India has ever had, and still has, within her
borders, much of the best fighting material in
the world. Her warrior races still hold their
own side by side with the best troops the West
can bring into the field, and their admirable
courage, discipline and self-control have been
lately praised by the Indian Secretary and by
the General commanding in China. If the
Indian regiment could regenerate India, she
need never have degenerated. It is the lack of
a national ideal and of a wide patriotism that
has caused Indian degeneration ; her regiments
have fought for their provinces, not for their
country.

I have seen the statement that " we con-
quered India by the sword and hold her by
the sword." To make this true, two words
— " of Indians " — must in each case follow the
word " sword." India was conquered by her
own sons siding with Britain against local
hereditary enemies. State against State, and
British astuteness used Indians to subdue
Indians, and by playing off local jealousies

East and West 8i

against each other she conquered each State
in turn. And so in the Mutiny. British rule
was saved by great Indian chiefs, and it is
they who still safeguard it, preferring English
rule to that of their rivals. This does not
derogate from British courage, but, however
brave, a score of men cannot conquer hundreds.

It may be, however, that even " Hindii
colleges " are not useless in the manufacture
of manly fibre. The other day I watched
our college football team as it met a team
of British soldiers, and though the lads were
utterly overmatched in weight and skill, they
fought to the end with vigour and undi-
minished " pluck " and are eager to meet the
same team again. English public schools
have a good deal to do with the formation
of English character, and similar training
here may not be useless.

To return to the main thesis of this article.
We do not want Westerners to adopt Eastern
ideals, but merely to learn from them any-
thing they have of use, and weave that, in
suitable form, into their own type. And so
we want Indians not to adopt Western ideals,
but to learn similarly whatever is useful in
them and weave it into their own type. Our
idea is not to make the Englishman a fifth-
rate Indian, or the Indian a fifth-rate English-

6

82 India

man, but that each should maintain his own
essential type, enriched, but not transformed,
by what each may learn from each.

Souls that have had several successive Indian
incarnations and are now embodied in the
West will inevitably be drawn to the forms
of Indian teachings, and find in them the
spiritual expression most suited to their own
idiosyncrasies. But this should not lead them
to force on other Westerners, who have not
shared their Indian experiences, the forms of
Truth most congenial to themselves. But
here, in India^ the reverence shown to Hindu-
ism by one of the " conquering race " is an
important factor in leading Hindtis to recog-
nise the value of their own philosophy and
religion ; just as the recognition by Schopen-
hauer of the value of the Upanishads did more
to turn the mind of young India to those
priceless documents than the asseverations of
a dozen Pandits. Example goes further than
precept here as everywhere else, and in the
great work of rebuilding a nation no useful
factor can be cast aside.

The work of Indian revival, however, would
be hindered, not helped, by slavish copying
of her ideals in the West, or by any foolish
attempt to transplant them into a foreign soil.
And what is yet more important, the use of

East and West 83

East and West, as differing schools of evolu-
tion for the Soul, would be seriously diminished
if they became too much alike, and no far-
seeing person could wish to bring about such
a catastrophe. But it is surely possible for
the Theosophist, at least, to be wide-hearted
and tolerant, and to value sufficiently his own
Western birthplace, if Westerner he be, with-
out decrying the East.

The Means of India's
Regeneration

A Lecture delivered in 1895

T^HIS afternoon, my Brothers, 1 will try to
lay before you that which many people
would say is the most practical of the subjects
on which I have been speaking during the
last week. " The means of India's regenera-
tion " naturally suggests the idea of a pro-
posal of some definite kind, a proposal on
certain lines which may be adopted, which
may reach the national mind, encourage
national aspirations, and which may enable
this ancient people again to hold their place
among the nations of the world. I am going
to try to suggest to you this afternoon certain
definite lines, which are not only completely
in harmony with the ancient thought of India,
but are wholly inspired by the ideals which
I have been striving to place before you during
the last week. While, in fact, the existence
of this ideal in the heart of the people is
necessary in order to make them possible,
they are yet, to some extent, the lines of
84

The Means of Indians Regeneration 85

action which may be taken by all those who
work upon the physical plane, and may thus
afford an outlet for their energies in dealing
with the facts around them. In order that
reforms may be in any sense successful, it is
necessary that the ideal of which I have been
speaking so much may both be true and be
accepted throughout the length and breadth
of the country ; that the people should regard
it as desirable. In order that the actions of
Indians may be properly guided and may be
inspired to activity, not only does it need to
be taught as an ideal from the platform, to be
taught as an ideal through the press, but also
that those who accept it should act up to it
in their daily lives ; that they should make
it the subject of deliberation and collective
thought, for that thought is after all the greatest
force. The body is mutable, it changes, but
a man's thoughts are potent, and his actions
are moulded by the thoughts with which they
come into contact, so that every person by
thinking of that which he desires to accom-
plish, has really laboured for its accomplish-
ment even more actively than those who are
engaged in the outer work ; for in everyreform
which is brought about, this agency of thought
is above all things most necessary. By think-
ing definitely of what we desire to accomplish.

86 India

we touch as it were the very springs of action,
and improvement must inevitably result.
Those who are neither speakers nor writers,
those who are not much able to influence
their fellowmen by any personal argument,
by any personal attempt, they may still bring
their thoughts to bear on India by a sustained
and deliberate eflFort, by wishes for India's re-
generation, and then these thoughts joining
together upon the thought-plane shall in due
time come out into action on the external plane,
and every person who takes up action shall
be strengthened and inspired and made more
and more likely to succeed by those thoughts
which are behind him and around him and
which thus find expression upon the outward
plane of deed.

Realising, then, that the ideal which I have
put before you is a spiritual one, that above
all, the spiritual greatness of India is the
first point to be considered, everything else
flowing from that, let us see by what means
that may be called " practical " we can direct
the stream of Indian energy into certain
definite channels — channels every one of
which shall be directed to a single point, and
in which we may set pouring together the
various streams that are to work national
regeneration. Now those of you who look

The Means of India's Regeneration 87

at the Indian Society of to-day must see as
a result of their observations that there is a
continually increasing pressure put upon two
especially of the ways in which educated men
must gain their livelihood. The profession of
the law and that of the civil service are be-
coming more and more overcrowded. These
are the only two avenues of livelihood for
which young men are educated, where they
show the higher intellectual faculties. So
that you will find the ablest men, the men of
action, the men of intellect, in these profes-
sions, and the most promising boys, who are
the men of intellect of the future, are being
continually passed either into the civil service
under the government, or into the profession
of law, — these being the two which are the
best paid of all the professions, the profes-
sions in which intelligence and will are most
likely to bring the largest natural results.
Now it is idle to quarrel with the tendency
of an ordinary man to seek to employ his
energies in the way that brings him what he
regards as the best return ; you may honour
the self-sacrifice as noble, that gives itself to
an ideal which brings no reward in the form
of wealth, but you still must needs reckon
with the mere man of the world who seeks
the things of the world. So that the question

88 India

arises, how are these energies to be directed,
especially if regard is to be had to the
common good, so that the various capacities
of able men may co-operate towards the
general advancement, having in view the
object proposed — the helping of India — and
also the due employment of individuals in a
remunerative way. If you realise that these
two means of livelihood are becoming over-
crowded, then will come the question : " Is
it possible to find some other means of
using the national capacity, which at one and
the same time shall not only offer an opening
for those who desire to be really useful to
the country, but shall also afford support to
men whose gifts are not so high, but who
are willing to devote themselves to forms of
professional employment which will give them
a reasonable and fair return for their labours,
and enable them to keep themselves and their
families in a respectable position in society?"
Now clearly there is one form of employ-
ment available in India if we could really
form a public opinion strongly In favour of
it ; a form of employment which along one
line would give work of the most vital im-
portance to be done by some of the most
spiritually-minded and intellectual men in
the country, and which in its several branches

The Means of Indians Regeneration 89

would offer a reasonable means of livelihood
not only to these but also to men of average
intellectual capacity, and would at the same
time stimulate certain of the trades of the
country as it spreads, and so would actually
benefit those different classes of the com-
munity, and benefit them ever more as it
spreads more widely and more deeply. Now
this special scheme is that which will include
every branch of activity concerned with the
spreading of Sanskrit learning, in all the
many directions which are possible, not only
by helping the learned men employed as
advanced teachers and writers, but which also
would help large numbers of subordinate
teachers, and would link the Indian peoples
more closely into one.

Of course the first part of this scheme
would necessarily be an attempt to found, in
one centre after another in the country,
Sanskrit colleges where the teaching of
Sanskrit would be in the hands of learned
men essentially of the Pandit type, as opposed
rather for the moment to that of the ordinary
professors — I mean the men who look upon
Sanskrit as a sacred study and who bring to
it real enthusiasm and real devotion, as well
as the idea of teaching it as a profession.
Now it is true that a few such colleges do

90 India

already exist in this country, but they ought
to be very largely increased in number ; that
increase could be easily brought about if a
public opinion could be formed, sufficiently
strong, which made a knowledge of Sanskrit
a real necessity, so that no man would be re-
garded as an educated man unless a know-
ledge of the Sanskrit tongue formed part of
his education. Those who deal at all with
the question of education will be aware that
all those who regard it thoughtfully, as a
training of the powers of man — not as a mere
cramming with facts — take up certain types
of study as necessary for the cultivation of
the higher intellectual faculties. It is not the
question of training a young man so that he
should learn just exactly those things, and no
others, that he can turn into opportunities for
wealth-gathering in after life ; the object of
education is to turn out a man whose faculties
shall have been trained carefully in various
directions, so that he shall have acquired
delicacy of thought, the power of sustained
attention, the habit of mental culture, which
makes all the difference between an educated
and an uneducated man, and which is absol-
utely necessary for the advancement of the
race if intellectual advancement is to form a
basis for future Spiritual development.

The Melons of India's Regeneration 9^

Now glance for a moment at the West, and
see the changes that are going on there. For
hundreds of years in the West the cultivation
of the classics, Greek and Latin, was regarded
as absolutely necessary for what was called the
education of a gentleman, and men who were
ignorant of the classics were regarded as un-
educated ; I do not mean they had to be
scholars of the comparatively small class who
gave the whole of their time to literary pur-
suits— I am speaking of the men who had
no pretensions at all to stand before the world
as scholars, i,e, as Pandits^ of the ordinary
nobles and middle-class gentry, as they were
called ; the whole of these as a matter of
course were trained in the knowledge of
Greek and Latin, and no man could take
any high position in the country unless he
possessed these essentials of a gentleman's
education — a fair knowledge of the classics.
For such a knowledge was always expected in
ordinary discussions among men, and this
training of the intellect gave a certain definite
strength and refinement of thought, and what
was called culture implied always a knowledge
of these languages and of the great literature
found in them ; and only by such cultivation
men could be trained to rigour and delicacy
of thought, and refinement and polish of

92 India

expression, and therefore it was a part of
every gentleman's education, and was not
confined to the literary class alone. Now in
England, under the stress of the struggle for
existence, these languages are every day more
and more falling out of general education,
and you will find amongst the thoughtful
people of the country the complaint that these
young men who are now being " educated "
are by no means such cultured or educated
men as were always found in past generations ;
that they pick up a mere smattering of
knowledge, just enough to enable them to
pass their examinations, and which they forget
as soon as the examination is over. So that
society becomes more and more frivolous
and less and less thoughtful, and you get
numbers of people with only average mental
capacity who have little chance of ever im-
proving it to the very best advantage because
of the loss of this higher mental culture.

Now the same is true of India, only with
this difference, that whereas in European
countries they have used Latin and Greek as
the instruments of culture, you have your
own ancient language which lies at the root
of your vernaculars, a knowledge of which
opens out to you the grandest literature the
world has yet produced. A knowledge of

The Means of Indians Regeneration 93

that literature should be incumbent upon
every man who claims to be educated, on
every man who hopes to hold intelligent con-
verse with his fellows ; it is needed not only
by Pandits^ not only by teachers, not only by
writers, but by every man who claims to have
intelligence at all^ who wishes it to be exer-
cised for the sake of possessing intellectual
knowledge, and not merely for the fact that
knowledge may be sold for so much money.
For mind you, this is a question of vital
importance in the development of the race.
Unless you develop the mental faculties, you
cannot rise amongst the nations of the world.
If your mental faculties are only directed to
subjects which enable you to keep yourselves
alive, then you strike at the very root of the
development of your nation, and you must
sink lower and lower amongst the peoples of
the world. For the average intelligence is
what you have to regard from the standpoint
of the nation. And in order that men may
be competent to meet the needs of this country
it is requisite that they should have a know-
ledge of Sanskrit in order to encourage the
opening out of its literature, and for spreading
the knowledge of what was thought by the
ancient men of this country among the people
at large ; so that the people shall look back to

94 India

the past, and gain from that past knowledge
and experience. And by the pride which
grows up in the human heart in feeling itself
linked with a mighty past, all that is sym-
pathetic in the past shall become capable of
working in a future and impress on that
future something of the spiritual greatness
which that past has shown. Now it is clear
that if it should be demanded in India that
young men, taking them as a class, should be
trained in this knowledge of Sanskrit, you
would immediately have a demand for teachers
far above anything which at present obtains,
and you would increase, by thousands upon
thousands, the number of those who desire
to learn in order that they may follow teach-
ing as a profession and thus would increase
your teaching class enormously, to meet the
demands of the multiplying numbers of pupils.
And so you will train up large numbers of
men who will not only find their means of
livelihood at once, but also their pleasure, in
teaching, knowing that by their teaching they
were strengthening the national spirit, and
pointing the way to the union between all
cultured intelligences over the whole surface
of the land. For be sure that a common
language is something more than a mere
convenience ; it is a tie which binds heart to

The Means of India's Regeneration 95

heart, mind to mind. You have the choice
of two languages which might, either of them,
form the common language of India. The
vernaculars are different ; men of one pro-
vince cannot hold converse with men of
another because of this difference of lan-
guage which keeps them apart, more or less
as strangers to each other. What is happen-
ing ? At the present time the common
language amongst the educated classes is a
foreign tongue. The common language of
the educated Bengali and the educated Madrasi
is English, and this is really becoming the
common tongue of India ; the men of the
different provinces converse in this language
and use it for inter-communication, all being
separated by their different vernaculars. But
would it not tend far more to national feeHng
if you had as your common language the
mother of these vernaculars ? Would it not
tend to more national feeling if intelligent
men should naturally and readily converse in
the language of the ancient books, and find
themselves on one common ground, as it
were, of a common mother tongue ? You
should not undervalue the effect of the
communications which make men feel the tie
of a common kindred, which make men feel
as brothers instead of men of different races.

9^ India

You should use the language now common
to the Pandits of all the different Indian
races — Sanskrit ; you should use it as a bond
to bind the different races into one, so that
nations conscious of a common descent should
feel a desire for common work, for common
co-operation at the present time. Nor is
that all. The Pandit at the present time is
educating his son not to follow his own pro-
fession, but to follow that of the law or the
civil service ; he does not bring up his son
to his own profession, knowing that that may
mean for him starvation. But as this de-
mand for a knowledge of Sanskrit increases,
as I have said, larger and larger will become
the number of those desiring teaching ; and
then Pandit after Pandit may educate his son
to acquire the deeper knowledge which is
necessary for the teacher, knowing that from
it will come a reasonable source of livelihood,
a definite and certain profession by which he
may live in the land.

Nor again is that all. The colleges which
will be founded should have two great
characteristics. First, they should be en-
dowed for the support of the teachers
attached to the colleges ; that is, the teachers
should not have to depend for their support
upon the payments made by the pupils. For

The Means of Indians Regeneration 97

it is an honourable and ancient rule of Sans-
krit teaching that the pupils should be taught
without fees. Any innovation on this ought
to be resisted if you wish to keep up the
revived ancient feelings ; you should not
introduce the modern method of fees, which
is being protested against even in the West.
The teaching to students must be free. In-
struction should not be withheld because the
boy is unable to pay a fee for being taught,
and if some pay and some do not you intro-
duce a vulgar money distinction between the
pupils. Every son of India who desires to
know the ancient tongue should find teaching
open to him without the necessity for pay-
ment, as it was in the ancient days ; and not
only so, but there ought to be provision made
for the maintenance of the students, so that
they may be able to pursue their studies
without any anxiety, and may be able to
learn in order to be fitted to teach afterwards
what they have learnt. The colleges should
further not only be thus endowed sufficiently
for the maintenance of Pandits and pupils, but
also sufficient endowment should be made
for providing an income for those who,
being endowed with special ability to serve
the nation in this department, should be
rendered able to employ their talents to

7

qS India

build up a modern Sanskrit literature, not
wholly unworthy of the literature of the
past ; that is, that there should be founda-
tions which should support learned P<^;^^zVj who
would thus be enabled to give the whole of
their time, of their talents, of their thoughts,
not only to comment upon the ancient books
but also to write original works which would
be more and more in demand as the know-
ledge of Sanskrit spreads. So that you
would have a class of writers, composed of
some of the most brilliant brains amongst
you, men who feel themselves able to in-
fluence their fellows with their pens, men
who would find a way open to them to revive
the past glories of the mother-land, without
being subjected to starvation, or obliged to
make sacrifices which only come from the
noblest, and therefore only from the few.
So that in this way you would be building
up a foundation for teachers, a foundation
for pupils, a foundation for writers, and as
the pupils grew into men, a general demand
would arise for a wider circulation of the
ancient literature, and thus would also be
benefited the trades concerned with the print-
ing, binding, and selling of books. This
demand for Sanskrit literature would grow
enormously, for it would be prized by the

The Means of Indians Regeneration 99

cultivated classes that would be evolved by
this system of education. So that not only
those who will be educated would benefit,
but you will also have a vast increase of
activity which would give employment to
great numbers of people in the production of
books ; and in this way you would find, as
in the West, great classes of labourers and of
distributors who are wanted along these lines
of activity, and who would supply the demands
of the cultivated classes which will have been
brought into very active existence by the
method above sketched.

But of course the question naturally arises :
" How is this to be brought about from
the pecuniary point of view ? " The chief
appeals should certainly be made to the
wealthy rajahs of the country, who have
vast sums of money under their control, and
who may well be appealed to to spend some
of it at least in introducing and helping on
the scheme. There are some men with
enormous accumulations of wealth ; there
are others with wealth which they waste to a
very considerable extent, but who may be
stimulated, from a sense of national duty, to
give money to found such colleges, which
would rise as their permanent memorials, for
the well-being of the Indian people. Surely

100 India

this would be a more glorious employment
for their funds than in mere show or in
the raising of useless kinds of memorials ; if
a man wants to perpetuate his name, if he
has a desire that his name should go down
to posterity, how should such a man do more
wisely than by founding a great educational
endowment, which shall go on century after
century as a source of help to the nation ?
Far more glorious would be such a memorial
than the empty memorial of a statue or a
monument merely left behind, without any
thought of duty to the nation in the future
and without any thought of the welfare of
the Indian people. Nor is that all. If you
can form a public opinion of that kind, if you
can induce some of the wealthy princes to
aid in such a national movement, I have little
doubt that you would obtain support from
and the movement would be helped by the
supreme Government ; and I have still less
doubt that such a movement, if it were really
supported by public opinion, and had the
weight of the educated Indian community
behind it, would receive at least the respectful
consideration of the Government that rules
the nation, so that some help might come
from that Government as a tribute to a
national movement which ought to be en-

The Means of India's Regeneration loi

couraged by the English Government which
is ruling over the land. For if you take the
Government as a whole, it has a desire to do
justice and it has a desire to meet the wishes
of the people over whom it rules ; and such
a movement as this, a really national move-
ment, could not and would not be neglected.
And this would also bring you the support
of those ambitious wealthy Indians, who will
help nothing that is not looked on with
favourable eyes by the rulers of the day.

There is just another point 1 wish to put to
you about Sanskrit. At the present time some
of the greatest treasures of Sanskrit learningare
going to England for translation, to be trans-
lated by Englishmen, by Orientalists who take
an interest in these works, but who have no
belief in their deeper meanings, who do not
share in the religious faith which inspired them,
who do not share the philosophic views which
they embody, who have no sympathy with
the national traditions, and therefore who will
never give the spirit of the originals, however
accurately, however grammatically they may
translate them. I myself, with my limited
experience, know of more than one priceless
untranslated work which has been taken over
to England to pass into the hands of English
Orientalists for translation. Why ? Because

102 India

no one could be found here to do it. One
work has been thus taken over lately to
England to be translated and issued at a cost
of ;£8oo, and this after a fruitless search of
many months for a translator here. I ask
you whether it would not be better that
members of the Hindvl religion should trans-
late these Hindti religious books themselves ;
whether you think it creditable that they should
be sent to the West for translation by men
who do not share your beliefs and have no
sympathy whatsoever with your religion ? Is
it likely that translations of this kind can be
true to the spirit of the originals ? Is it likely
that the delicate points, the shades of thought
will ever be truly caught ? Is it likely that
with the aid of a grammar and dictionary, a
mere comparison of book with book, that the
meanings of deep religious books will be faith-
fully rendered, that there will be understand-
ing of the subtle distinctions in belief, only
to be found in the hearts of men who are at
one with the religion itself, and are contained
in the true meaning of these books ? There-
fore you want to build up a class in India,
educated in Sanskrit and also in English, who
will be able not only to give the spirit of the
original Sanskrit, from their knowledge of the
very delicate shades of thought of the Hind^

The Means of India's Regeneration 103

religion, but who, also possessing a sound
knowledge of English, will be able to give
the most accurate equivalents of the terms
and not simply give the dictionary EngHsh
meanings which now disfigure the translations.
So that you need to have men who shall at
once be masters of the Sanskrit and masters
of the English tongue to translate the treasures
of this ancient literature, which are now being
continually sent for translation to the Western
world. But mind you, this desire to know
the treasures of the Eastern thought is begin-
ning to grow in the West ; this desire to know
the philosophy of India, to understand its
subtleties, to realise something of its com-
plexities of thought, is a growing demand at
the present time, and you have many priceless
works which need to be translated in order
to elicit the meaning of the books which are
already in an English form. A book, for in-
stance, like the Bhagavad GM has a very wide
circulation in its English dress. Would it not
be then well to circulate some of the comment-
aries, as for instance that of Sri Sankaracharya.?
Would it not then be well to have an English
translation of it published, so that the thoughts
of the great Hindil teacher may be made
known, which should throw some light upon
its contents }

104 India

And further, in this way you raise your
nation. In this way again, in time, India
will rule the world ; when this is done, India
will be able to challenge the judgment of the
educated world, and with one voice it will
pronounce for the supremacy of her literature,
as everyone has done who has acquainted
himself with it ; for there is no dissentient
voice amongst Sanskrit - knowing Western
people ; they all are of one mind as regards
the value of Sanskrit literature, however
much and variously they may disagree about
special books ; there is but one opinion
as to its profundity and grandeur ; and this
opinion is spreading in the West, that all
things spiritual come from the East. Do
you suppose that when this is more widely
recognised, it will not react here, that the
regard and respect and admiration of the West
paid to your splendid literature will not avail
to raise you as a people in the eyes of the
world, by the homage of intelligent men
gathered from every nation ?

Supposing, then, that this Sanskrit revival
takes place, and there are signs of it already,
then you must remember that you need to
do something for the younger boys who are
entering the gates of learning, to prepare
them for this higher education. Now the

The Means of India's Regeneration 105

great thing to do with boys in primary schools
is to inspire them with enthusiasm for the
motherland, by choosing carefully the kind
of books which are placed in their hands for
study. First of all, you ought to encourage
a study of the vernaculars that are based on
the Sanskrit, and should preserve their type ;
for in the case of the Northern Hindtas, their
languages are derived entirely from the Sans-
krit. But what is happening to-day to these
vernaculars ? More and more there is a change
working ; you have a vernacular, Hindi, which
ought to be Hindu, becoming full of foreign
terms, to the diminution of words taken from
the Sanskrit. So that it is becoming less and
less a Hindta language, and more and more a
foreign tongue, associated with meanings and
words drawn from Arabic and Persian sources.
More and more the vernacular which is based
upon the Sanskrit is being pushed aside and
forgotten by the people, thus denationalising
them still further and separating them from
their most cherished and ancient traditions.

Now in regard to this question of books
and teaching. The teaching in every school
to which Hind\i boys are sent for purposes
of study ought to be based upon the Sastras,
so training the boys in the knowledge which
is to guide their path in life. They should

lo6 India

be taught the ways of Aryan morality ; they
should be taught the stern and rigid sense of
duty, which should pervade all their character ;
they should be taught the meanings which are
expressed in symbolism, so that whenever they
are challenged in the world, they may be able
to justify their own faith intellectually, by
explaining it ; morally, by showing purity,
uprightness and blamelessness of life ; and
spiritually, by living openly a life which aspires
to the life hereafter : thus becoming Hindtis
in the truest and fullest sense of the word.

Then with regard to secular learning. I
saw the other day, in looking over some books
in a school, that they were English school-
books, and as I was turning over the pages
I found that though the books would have
been suitable for boys in an English school,
they were remarkably inadequate for the boys
of an Indian one. For the information on
geography, productions, natural objects, etc.,
which was given about India was absolutely
out of all proportion in comparison with the
information given about European nations.
Now if you take a primary book in an English
school you will find that it deals mainly with
England : its history, geography, products,
industries, trades, and so on. But here the
boys are taught much about England, and

The Means of Indians Regeneration 107

very little are they taught about their own
country. The book gives a Hindil boy details
of English towns — now what is the use of
that knowledge to him ? And he is left with-
out any knowledge of the detailed history and
geography and products and industries of his
own country, where the whole of his life is to
be spent, and to which his thoughts should
ever be turned. The foundation of an intel-
ligent knowledge of his own country should
primarily be laid in every boy's mind, and the
knowledge of other lands later, when that
about his own has been mastered. Press
upon the educational department the use of
books relating more to India and the peoples
of India, which shall give their history at
greater length and the history of other nations
more briefly. The history and geography of
India should be soundly taught, and the
acquiring of a wider knowledge may be left
to those who have the time and inclination to
pass on to higher schools. It is but just that
the poor Indian boys should learn the history
of their own land, rather than that of lands
with which they will have nothing to do in
the course of their lives. I have seen a boy
give quickly the name of the capital of
Switzerland, and hunt confusedly in the South
of India for Kashmir. What sort of a national

io8 India

education is that ? Try to change it and
make a public opinion which will call for
this change as regards the work of primary
education.

Thus, passing on, now rouse the boys to
enthusiasm and pride by the history of Ancient
India ; tell them of that. Tell them how
India was really great, cultured, full of piety ;
tell them all the wonderful tales which are
to be found in the ancient literature, tales
enforcing the noblest morality ; so that they
may grow up thinking of India with pride
and devotion, and longing to do their share
in serving the nation, because the nation is
worthy of all sacrifice and service. Enthusiasm
in the young is easily aroused ; teach them what
will fire their hearts ; for the young are touched
and moved easily by noble ideals, and if you
give them anything to touch their hearts, if
you give them anything to move their en-
thusiasm, if you familiarise them with the
past history of their own country, if you wake
their devotion to their national faith, the time
will come when they will turn away from the
West to the motherland. And these boys,
grown into men, shall be bound with every
bond that can link the Indian to his home,
and from such men will come the salvation
of India.

The Means of Indians Regeneration 109

Pass from this ideal of education, which
might breathe through India the breath of a
new life, to another line of work, which is one
of serious importance to a caste on the re-
generation of which depends much of the hope
of India's regeneration. It would be well to
establish throughout the country organisations
such as those which are actually at work in the
Punjab, for helping and training the sons of
Brahmans in sacred learning and in the
intelligent discharge of religious rites. The
organisations are called, " Brahman Sabhas,"
and the objects are stated to be: — "To
encourage the Brahmans to learn ' Sanskrit,'
' Dasd Karma Vidhi^ * Sanskara Vidhi^ and to
endeavour to ameliorate the condition of the
Brahmanical religion." Every member is
bound to learn Sanskrit, to regularly perform
the daily rites of " Nitya Karma^' and the
ceremony of the investiture with the sacred
thread, strictly in accordance with the Sdslras
at the proper age, with the proper rites. Each
Sabha should have a school attached to it for
teaching Sanskrit, the daily rites, and ^^ Sanskara
paddhati " to the sons of Brahmans ; a com-
mittee of Pandits should examine the school
annually, and grant certificates to the students
who pass. Only those Brahmans should be
permitted to officiate at religious ceremonies

no India

who hold these certificates, and none others.
Other important rules run :

Each Brahman shall be bound to
teach Sanskrit to his children.

The Brahmans acting as priests shall
be bound to perform the required cere-
monies strictly according to the Sastras
and with sincere devotion, even if the
Tajman be poor and unable to spend
much money.

If the Tajman be a Brahman, and does
not desire to have the religious cere-
monies performed with a sincere faith,
the priest shall decline to officiate, and
on his refusal no other Brahman shall
officiate for him.

Students from the city, or outside,

who are poor and have no means of

support, shall be fed and taught by the

Institution.

Such Sabhas would do very useful work

by encouraging well-instructed priests, and

also by putting an end to the exactions of

disputing priests, especially at places of

pilgrimage, where many scandalous things

occur from time to time from the sheer

greed of gain. Information about the Sabhas

may be obtained from Rai B. K. Laheri,

Ludhiana, Punjab.

The Means of India's Regeneration m

Useful also are the Sabhas for Hind^i boys
and students, started by Col. Olcott, Presi-
dent of the Theosophical Society, and now
multiplying rapidly through the country.
They are designed to give Hindi^ boys the
strength that comes through association,
throughout the period of school and college
life, a period so dangerous to their religious
faith under present conditions. The boys
bind themselves to speak the truth, live
chastely, and perform their religious duties
according to the Sdstras. The Sabhas are
united into a Hind^ Boys' Association,
founded at the end of 1894, which issues a
boys' journal monthly. Information about
this can be obtained from the Secretary of
the Theosophical Society, Benares.

Those who, like myself, desire the main-
tenance of the Caste system, in its ancient
fourfold order, would do well to consider
the advisability of getting rid of some of
those restrictions which are indefensible on
any ground of reason or religion, and which
interpose rigid barriers between members of
the same caste, preventing intermarriage and
so on. Sri Sankaracharya, the successor of
the great Teacher of that name and the
present head of the Sringeri Matha, has
already declared himself in favour of marriages

112 India

between members of the same great caste
who are separated only by the artificial walls
of subdivisions. Such a reform would greatly
strengthen the Caste system against its assail-
ants, and it therefore deserves thoughtful
consideration.

The next point is the building up of the
entire Indian nation, by the encouragement
of national feeling, by maintaining the tradi-
tional dress, ways of living, and so on, by
promoting Indian arts and manufactures, by
giving preference to Indian products over
foreign. Now this is a point which really
goes to the very root of Indian revival. Do
not undervalue the importance of sentiment,
and do not try to do away with everything
which differentiates India from other lands ;
rather strive to maintain the immemorial
customs and follow the immemorial traditions,
instead of trying to look as little Hindi^s as
possible, as many of you are incHned to do.
It is true, of course, that these are outside
matters, but they have a very real effect on
the generation and maintenance of national
feeling. Take clothing and habits of life.
There is no question that the Indian dress is
the most suitable for the climate ; it is healthy,
it is beautiful ; why then give it up ? I
know it cannot be worn while a man is

The Means of Indians Regeneration 113

engaged In certain vocations, and that he is
compelled to wear English clothes while
working in offices where the dress of Western
nations is compulsory. Now that is a thing
which you cannot help ; but what you can
help is the not carrying on of these foreign
clothes into private life : the Westernising of
dress in the home as well as in the law-courts,
in the home as well as in the office. This is
not only folly, but a mistake as well. If
Englishmen out here were wise they would
adopt the Indian dress, instead of which we
have Indians adopting the English dress at a
possible risk to health. The Western man
has to face a severer climate, and to bear a
severer cold. In the Indian dress it would
be utterly impossible to live in England, for
men would simply die of the cold. But here,
the wearing of English dress is simply absurd.
There is nothing whatsoever to be said in
favour of it, for it is absolutely ugly. If
Englishmen would go back two hundred years
and use the dress then worn, there would then
at least be an artistic defence, for the dress
then worn was beautiful, as compared with
the peculiarly hideous clothing now worn, and
which seems so much to attract the average
young Indian mind. Now the matter is not
simply a matter of sentiment ; it is really a

8

114 India

matter of health, of convenience, and of
economy ; for the Indian dress is suited to
the Indian climate, not only because it is
light, but also because its material can go
through water daily, and so is far more
suitable to a hot country than the cloth coat
and trousers which are worn unwashed over
and over again. Considered as a mere
question of hygiene in a hot climate, clothes
which come into daily contact with water are
eminently desirable. There is no reason, no
common sense, which should make the Indian
lay it aside, when the experience of thousands
of years has shown it to be the best kind
of dress for India. But it is not only that.
The inner feehng and outer expression often
go together, and he who Westernises his
outside attire is very likely to grow Western
inside as well, and therefore instead of
strengthening he really tends to weaken
his mother-land. Then again the question
of economy comes in. Clothing which
fifty years ago cost very little is now a
serious drain upon the purse. Then, dress
was simple, dignified without being costly,
save among the wealthy and the ruHng
classes. Ordinarily it was a simple dress,
which did not make any marked distinction
between the rich and the poor in the same

The Means of Indians Regeneration ii5

caste, and was suited to the wants of the
people. Suppose a man was learned but
poor, he was not looked down upon for his
simple dress, but in his pure white clothing
he could make his way into every wealthy
house in the land. Dress was not then, as it
is to-day, a question of social appreciation ;
and the increase in expenditure upon it means
a heavy addition to the already large burden
on many families, in the ever -increasing
struggle and competition brought into
Eastern life by the adoption of Western
methods. Again to the ordinary Hindia this
Westernising process means a far greater
demand upon him in other matters than that
of clothing ; for not only does it mean a
change of dress, but it also means an increase
in the number of meals, a change in their
character, increase of wants in furniture, and
so on, until, if you work it out, you will find
that it means a greatly increased cost of
living.

See the benefits I told you of yesterday,
of simplicity of life. I did not mean asceti-
cism by that. I did not mean to say that
men of the world should lead the life of
asceticism. I did not mean to say that men
should live as Yogis in jungles or under trees,
but I did mean that they should lead a

ii6 India

national, a simple, life with all the noble
characteristics of the ancient times ; that
their houses should have the old simplicity
and not be crowded over with a multiplicity
of things of foreign manufacture.

And this leads me to the next point ;
namely, that it is the bounden duty of every
patriotic Indian to encourage Indian art,
Indian manufactures and Indian labour ; and
not to go across the seas to bring here end-
less manufactured articles, but to give work
to his own people. Let all encourage Indian
manufactures and arts, and use Indian-made
goods in India. Indian art has gained a
name all over the world because of its beauty
and artistic finish, and why should men who
have such art on their own soil, why should
they go and buy the shoddy productions of
Birmingham and Manchester ? why should
they cast aside the labour of their own
countrymen ? why should they purchase
foreign goods instead of home-made, and
encourage bad art instead of good ? There
is really no excuse for leaving Indian national
art to perish, for this is an important thing
in a nation's well-being, and especially the
encouragement of all those forms of art which
depend upon the delicacy of the human
faculty, refine the people at large and increase

The Means of India's Regeneration 117

the material progress of the nation. Why,
if you take some of the foreign manufactured
goods and compare them with the Indian,
what do you see ? You find that in the
Indian the colours are most delicately gradu-
ated and blended, giving an exquisite softness
of shading to the Indian carpet, and this is
the result of generations of physical training
in the sense of colour ; while in the carpet
of foreign manufacture it is harsh and crude,
and there is no need to print upon it " manu-
factured in Germany," for you have only to
look at its colouring to know it is not Indian.
You are therefore injuring your own beauti-
ful national art by using inferior goods of
foreign make, and extinguishing Indian trade
by continuing to encourage foreign goods,
to the impoverishment of India and to the
throwing of Indians out of employment.
Look also at the large prices the people in
England are ready to pay for Indian art
objects. I urge you, therefore, to support
your own labourers, thus strengthening your
manufactures and arts, and laying a sound
material foundation for national wealth. The
strengthening and developing of these Indian
industries is the work to which Vaishyas should
devote themselves, for that is the work es-
sentially belonging to their caste, on which of

ii8 India

old the material welfare of the nation hung.
You would also have coming to you constant
demands from foreigners who purchase Indian
goods because of their beauty. And we must
press upon wealthy men that instead of send-
ing to England to buy costly furniture, they
should spend their money at home in en-
couraging the arts which are around them in
their mother-land, so that a pubhc opinion
may be formed which would cry " shame "
upon a prince or rajah who filled his palace
with foreign articles instead of having them
produced in his own country, so that his
wealth should add to the comfort and happi-
ness of the people and strengthen the national
prosperity. These would awaken a sense of
nationality, filtering down from the higher to
the lower, regenerating the nation, and strik-
ing its roots deep down into the physical
lives of the people, uniting all India, binding
all India together closer and closer and closer,
till her oneness is realised, till Indians
recognise in themselves a people. See in the
Rdmdyana how all the arts and handicrafts
flourished, and how prosperity and happiness
abounded among the people on every side,
for the masses need physical comfort ; they
are not developed to the point of finding
wealth in thought. These ideas should appeal

The Means of India's Regeneration 119

to your reason and claim your judgment, for
they are practical lines of working out a
material regeneration, and deal with those
concerns which the people at large can under-
stand. The growing poverty of India is a
matter you must reckon with, for you are
already feeling the pressure of the struggle
for existence, and that pressure must increase
if you continue to feed its causes.

But remember that these physical means
of regeneration cannot succeed unless they
flow down as the lowest manifestations of the
spiritual ideal that 1 have been setting before
you, for they all have as aim the unifying of
India, and that unifying must be founded on
and permeated by a spiritual life, recognised
as the supreme good, as the highest goal.
Everything else is to subserve that, no
matter how much material prosperity and
wealth are needed for the encouragement of
weak and undeveloped souls.

There is one other matter on which I must
touch — the unification of religions, which can
be done nowhere if it be impossible here.
The glory of ancient Hind{lism was its all-
embracing character, its holding up of the
perfect ideal, and yet its generous inclusion
of all shades of thought. Under that wide
tolerance, philosophies and religious sects

120 India

grew up and lived in amity side by side, and
all phases of thought are found represented
in the different Indian schools and the numer-
ous Indian sects. This gives to Hinduism a
unique position among the religions of the
world. Therefore an effort should be made
to draw into amicable relationship the religious
bodies that went out from Hinduism, and have
become oblivious of, or hostile to, the root
whence they sprang. The Zoroastrians — the
modern Parsis — have a noble and philo-
sophical religion, holding the essential truths
of all spiritual religion. This religion has
become sadly materialised, and its adherents,
in too many cases, have no idea of the deep
meaning that underlies the ceremonies they
so ignorantly perform. Alas ! this material-
ising process has affected the masses in all
religions ; the more reason that the funda-
mental unity should be proclaimed by those
who see spiritual truths, and that the daughters
who have married into other families should
not utterly forget their mother's home, but
should recognise their descent and let love
replace hatred.

And so with Buddhism. This also is a
daughter of Hindtiism, but at present the
estrangement is too sharp, and has been caused
very largely by misunderstandings. In the

The Means of Indians Regeneration 121

Buddhism of Tibet and China the ancient
traditions have been preserved, and the
Hindd gods and goddesses are worshipped
under other names— sometimes even under
the same names. Mantras are used, Japa is
performed, many religious rites are the same.
And in the great philosophical system, but
little known, which is expounded in the Abhi-
dhamma (I am told), there is found the meta-
physics and the spiritual profundity so deficient
in popular Buddhism. Nor is it lacking on
the esoteric, the occult, side ; in the definite
training of the Soul in Yoga. And the Siddhis
are acquired by the Buddhist ascetic as by
the Hindta. No division exists in that inner
region. Why should it not be recognised
that the Hindt^ social system, which is the
chief point of diflFerence, while invaluable
as a type to the world, and to be main-
tained and cherished by all true Hindiis, is
not suitable to many other nations, and that
religious intolerance is no part of Hindilism ^
A true Hindti nation in its fourfold order
would be the Brahman of Humanity, the
spiritual Teacher, the channel of Divine Life
to the world. But other castes as well as the
Brahman are necessary in a nation, and other
social forms as well as the Hind\i are necessary
in the world. If India could be regenerated,

122 India

if India could be purified, if India could be
re-spiritualised, then the nation as a whole,
with her spiritual faculties, her intellectual
powers, her ideally perfect social organisation,
would stand forth in the eyes of the world
as the priest-people of Humanity, standing
before the Gods in her collective capacity,
fitted to be their mouthpiece to the world.
That is the destiny to which India was
appointed when she was peopled by the first
men of the Fifth Race, and her religion and
her social system were founded by the Rishis
that she might serve as the model for that
Race. Shall she ever again so serve ? Shall
she ever again rise from her present degrada-
tion, and fulfil the sublime charge laid in
her hands ? Who may pierce the darkness
of the future ? Who may read the scroll of
destiny ? This alone is sure, that no other
future may be for her ; that it is either this
or death ; and that it lies wholly with her
children to give back to Humanity the India
which may be the Saviour of Spirituality to
the world.

The Place of Politics in
the Life of a Nation

A Lecture delivered in 1895

T AM to try to speak to you this evening
on Politics, its place, its possibilities :
what can by politics be done, and also what
cannot be done by it. Now I am going
to try and sketch for you the work of the
politician, the limit of politics and also its
utility. I am going to try and show you
how in this world changes are made, how in
this world great reforms may come to be,
how in this world there are laws which con-
dition the reforms, there are laws which
govern every possibility that lies in front of
a nation ; and in these days of confusion and
unrest — days in which every man desires to
do the work of another, days in which all
duties are confused and you have a general
attempt by each to do everything and so to do
nothing well — in these days of confusion of
duties and ignorance of powers, it may be
well that in such a vast assemblage as this,
gathered from every part of the mother-land
123

124 India

to speak her needs in the ears of the world,
and to explain her wants so that all may
understand ; it may be well in such an
assemblage that a voice should be heard that
deals with principles more than with details,
and tries to suggest the lines along which a
nation may travel, and not only the various
steps which, in the travelling, that nation
may take. And so, I am going to suggest
to you to-night, that in politics as in every-
thing else, in the choice of political methods
as in every other choice, a man needs sound
thought to make right action ; that unless
there is a basis of philosophy for conduct, the
conduct will be erratic and unsatisfactory.
For I want, if I can, to show you this evening
that the politician has his great and important
place in the life of a nation ; but that he does
not stand alone, and that others also are
necessary in order that national life and
national work may be wisely carried on. I
do this because I know time is wasted unless
the principle of action is understood, and that
if men live from hand to mouth in politics,
just as if they live from hand to mouth in
other spheres of activity, they may often for
a momentary gain incur a seriou's danger,
and judging by the things of the moment only
may lose the very object that they really desire

Place of Politics in the Life of a Nation 125

to obtain. I am going therefore to try and
show the principle underlying human action,
the sequence of events in national as in
individual life, the law in nature which cannot
be violated.

In order that we may understand each
other clearly let me begin by saying exactly
what I mean by politics, what I include under
political action, and therefore the place that
political action, it seems to me, must fill in
national life. I mean by " politics " every
form of activity which is carried on in a
particular geographical district, under a
government of any kind that rules over that
district, no matter what that government
may be called — imperial or local, municipal
or parliamentary. The point is : there is a
certain geographical area governed by a
particular body, and that body lays down
rules of action which in the last resort have
force to fall back upon to compel obedience.
So that the characteristic of political action is
that it has a particular geographical district
in which it is carried on, a body that carries
it on, and that lays down certain enactments
for everyone who lives in the district, and
then those enactments depend for their com-
pulsory power not on argument, not on
reasoning, not on voluntary action, not on

126 India

choice, but they rest ultimately on the basis
of force, and obedience to them is compelled
and not voluntary.

Now that is at least a very straightforward
declaration as to what I mean to include in
political action. If the Parliament of Great
Britain passes a law, that law has sway over
the district for which it is passed, and in the
ultimate resort force will be used to compel
obedience. If a despotic monarch rules over
a state, everyone in the state may be com-
pelled to obey his behests. I distinguish
political action from voluntary action by the
element of force that enters into the constitu-
tion of the former, and the fact that if you
want to escape from the scope of the action
you must leave the geographical district over
which the political government has authority.

Having made, then, that definition for
politics and political action, I pass to the next
point in my argument : the constitution of
society and the two great opposed ideas on
which society may be built. Society may be
built, and has been built for many a thousand
years, in different parts of the world, on the
idea that each man is part of a great organic
whole, a society, and has certain duties that he
is bound to discharge. Men in society have
certain functions ; men in society have certain

Place of Politics in the Life of a Nation 127

duties ; and many of the old fabrics of society
especially are ordered by this idea of inherent
duty based on the nature of a thing, on what
is expressed by the word Dharma. It means
the duty which each man has to perform, by
virtue of his inborn nature. Each man has
his own place, each man has his own duty in
society ; the gathering together of all the
vast varieties of men makes a society, and
its welfare depends on the orderly discharge
of duty, the perfect fulfilment of the function
of each. Then there has arisen the idea, the
idea that at the close of the last century swept
all before it in the West, and on which was
builded another type of society entirely differ-
ing in its fundamental thought. It was the
notion of the rights of man. You find that
in the great American Revolution there was
a cry, the cry of those who threw off the
English authority, the cry of the rights of
man, that was emblazoned on their banners ;
that was the cry underneath which they
marched to war, and when the United States
of America were founded, they were founded
on the declaration of the rights of man, the
right of liberty, the right of equality, the
right of fraternity, and so on until the idea
of rights became the fundamental conception
of the nation, and the whole of that vast

128 India

republic to-day is built on this thought of
the inherent rights of man. And then from
America across the Atlantic the same idea
swept into France, and in France gave birth
to the Great Revolution, which changed the
political state of the people ; this was in the
same way inspired by the notion of the rights
of man. And so in England you find all
through the present century that this cry of
the rights of man has been the battle-cry of
democracy, and out of this idea of the rights
of man democracy has gradually arisen, and
the leading nations of the West founded
themselves on this notion of human rights.
But lately, during the last few years, in the
Western world there has come about from
the teaching of Western science rather a
revival of the olden idea that society should
be based on duty more than on right, on the
discharge of function more than on the self-
assertion of the individual. For to take men
as individuals, to disregard their functions to
each other, to be careless about the duty that
each owes to his brother, to study man as
though he were alone instead of being part
of a great human family — this is as though
you were to take a heap of marbles on a table,
and, taking up one marble, deduce from the
condition of the marble that which you then

Place of Politics in the Life of a Nation 129

would apply to the heap to build it into a
single whole. That idea of an isolated in-
dividual, who having rights of his own has
a claim to assert them against everyone, and
who is only bounded by the equal rights of
everybody else, is an ideal of combat, an
ideal of struggle of man against man, and of
life against life ; and no more can you gain
an idea of a real society by taking a man
separately, as though he were a marble and
society a heap of marbles with no cohesion
in them, you can no more do it and under-
stand society, than you can tear from the
living body one of its organs, and, studying
the organ by itself, try to understand the
working of the whole. For to understand
the human body you must study it in life,
in the functions, in the working of every
part, in every single organ doing a particular
work, not for its own gain but for the common
good ; and the nobler ideal that is spreading
amongst men is that we live not to assert
our rights but to do our duties, and so to
make one mighty unity where each shall
discharge his functions for the common
good of all.

Now India is in this remarkable position,
that from her own past she brings down the
ideal of a system that is essentially founded

9

130 India

upon duty ; but by the changes through
which she has passed through many a century,
passed long years ago, dating backwards and
backwards and backwards to the earliest
conquests that swept over her borders, India
is to-day a strange compound of conflicting
theories, of conflicting ideas, is a strange
compound of an ancient nation ruled politi-
cally by a modern people. And the two ideas
are here face to face. Both of them have many
to support them. One, the old idea of duty,
which would make the progress of the future
pass always along the lines familiar in the
past ; and the other, urged by those who
would take, as it were, the Western system
completely, transport democracy from America
and Great Britain into Indian soil, use the
democratic methods, claim the democratic
rights, employ here all the democratic organi-
sation ; not quite sure whether the soil will
suit what is here an exotic, but forced by the
necessities of the position to use some of the
methods which are familiar in the hands of
their rulers. For in a country like this where
the masses of the people are of diff^erent lan-
guages, of difl^erent faiths, and diff^erent tradi-
tions from those who rule them, it is part of
the necessity of the case that some amongst the
people themselves should translate the popular

Place of Politics in the Life of a Nation 131

grievances and speak out the popular desires.
It is necessary in order that justice may be
done, it is necessary in order that a wise policy
may be followed, that those who have the
power should also be instructed in the know-
ledge of the wants of the people ; and none
can do that save those who belong to the
people, who know the national desires and
understand the methods along which those
desires may be met. Therefore while, for my
own part, I stand for the ideal of ancient
India, and look on that as a thousandfold
loftier than the mushroom civilisations that
have grown up in later days, none the less
am I bound to admit that we must deal with
the country as we have it, and that where you
are pushed into Western methods you must
adapt your own methods somewhat, so as to
meet the new conditions, so as to deal with
the new ways of thought.

And now having made these as it were pre-
liminary outlines, let me take the great division
of functions which will underlie everything
that I have to say. There are three great
ways of influencing human life and human
conduct : the first and the greatest of all is
the work of the thinker, who by himself alone,
face to face with the problems of life, uses all
the powers that he has, and looking out into

132

India

air which is unbeclouded by the dust raised
in the strifes of parties, deals with principle
instead of detail, deals with essence instead of
form, the thinker, he who gives out to the
world some mighty thought. The world is
not yet ready for it ; the world is not yet
able to understand or to accomplish it ; for
these are men born so great, they are men
born so much above their fellows, that as
though they sat on a mountain peak while
other men are in the valleys, they see far over
the country over which the average eye is un-
able to gaze. From the peak of great intellect,
and still more of great spiritual insight, the
Sage, the thinker, this mighty child of man,
sees some supreme truth and proclaims it in
the ears of the world. These are the great
ones of our race, these are they who mould
the future ; these are they whose thoughts
the lesser men accomplish by bringing down
into action that which these mighty ones have
thought. And from that realm of thought
comes down everything that works in human
society. Thought is the creative power,
thought is the evolving and the moulding
and the controlling force. As the great
thinkers think, the world acts generations
afterwards. Action is but for a day, thought
is everlasting in its generating energy ; and

Place of Politics in the Life of a Nation i33

therefore the greatest among the sons of
men, Nature's most imperial children, are the
thinkers ; they are the ruling sovereigns of
the world, they endure as long as human
intelligence endures, mightier than all other
monarchs, greater than all other conquerors,
for their rule is bounded by no nationality,
and knows nothing of geographical limitations.
Then from the sphere of thought there
comes down a great idea into the sphere of
discussion ; no longer only in the mind of
the thinker, no longer only in the Ashram of
the Sage, but taught by lesser men to crowds
of the people, till the thought of the thinker
becomes popular amongst the minds of men.
It passes from the stage of thought into the
stage of discussion ; it passes from the brain
of the thinker to the lips of the teacher ; and
the teacher going out amongst his fellow-men
and gathering masses of the people together
uses all his power of brain, all his imaginative
ability, all his skill of golden tongue and deft-
ness of oratorical presentment, to popularise
among these masses of the people that thought
which was born in the brain of the thinker,
and which by his work must become known
to the minds of men. Thus the teacher going
abroad popularises the great idea, until it
begins to influence the minds of average men.

134 India

So that you have first the thinker and then
the teacher — standing as types of the two great
stages of thought and discussion that have to
be realised before an action is performed.
Then comes the third stage — action. The
thought which men have now gathered from
the lips of the teacher is to be brought into
the common life of men, to make it better
than it was before. The principle is to be
applied to practice. The great thought is to
become bread for the hungry, and drink for
the thirsty, and shelter for the homeless, and
defence for the oppressed. There is the work
of the politician, there is the work of the actor.
He applies to practice that which the thinker
has thought, which the teacher has uttered,
and he brings it down into the practical life
of man, and makes the common lot happier
and better by applying to the ordinary daily
life the great thoughts and the teachings that
have gone before. So that you will realise
that these three stages of thought necessitate
three types of men that carry them out.
Among them the greatest of all is he who
thinks. The second is he that teaches, and
then comes the actor that applies the thought
to life. Let me take an illustration which
will show you clearly what I mean, and which
in this country will rouse no kind of antagon-

Place of Politics in the Life of a Nation I35

ism of thought. There is a theory of life
familiar in the West, known as Socialism.
Many hundreds of years ago this idea of
human brotherhood and of the assertion of
the duties of man was taught by great thinkers,
such as Plato, in the West, and they were
regarded as dreamers, they were spoken of as
Utopians, because the thought was too great
for their generation, and their conception too
mighty for the people to whom it first was
told. Then came a stage when many took
it up ; hundreds and hundreds of years, nay,
thousands of years afterwards ; and then from
lip to lip, from platform to platform, from pen
to pen, there spread the teaching of human
brotherhood and the duty of man to man,
until at last it so touched the popular mind,
until at last it so touched the popular consci-
ence, that it found its way into the English
Parliament, and even Sir William Harcourt —
you may not know his name, but if you did
you would know that he never stands up for
impossible ideals that have not caught the
popular fancy — Sir William Harcourt used
a strange expression : " We are all socialists
now." It did not mean much. It only
meant that the principle of action which it
was politic to adopt was that which aimed at
the good of all and not at the advantage of a

136 India

class. Nothing more than that he meant by
his careless phrase, but it marked the stage
of action. This succession of stages will show
you what I mean. First the thinker ; then
the many popularisers ; and then the accept-
ance of the idea by the politician as a rule of
political action.

Realising then that, let us also realise that
all three are necessary. There should be no
quarrel between the politician and the teacher,
no quarrel between the politician and the
thinker, no hostility decrying the one or the
other, and wrangling as to the importance of
the functions and the duties of each. Each
is necessary to the other. Each is wanted
by the other. The thinker is like the head,
and without the head the body could not act ;
the politician is like the hands, and without the
hands you could not have action though the
brain should plan. Therefore they should be
friends and not enemies, they should help
each other and not be hostile in their work.
To the thinker the great ideal which is to
mould the future of the nation ; to the
teacher the setting forth of the ideal, that
men*s minds may be guided by it and their
thoughts be shaped ; to the poHtician the
putting into action, into legislation, the great
ideal thus conceived and taught — that is

Place of Politics in the Life of a Nation I37

the coherent progress in a nation where each
duty is usefully and thoroughly discharged.
But there should be no confusion between
the functions. The thinker weakens his
power if he mixes himself up with the strifes
of political parties and with the details of
political work. The thinker must remain
in the serene atmosphere of thought, un-
influenced by the lower motives which needs
must play on the men in the ordinary life of
the world. Otherwise he will lose the clear-
ness of his vision ; otherwise the atmosphere,
dimmed with passion and with the fogs of
human parties, will no longer be translucent,
so that his eyes may see the essence of truth.
Not in the dust of crowds, not in the dust
made by the whirling wheels of chariot, of
carriage and of cart, not there would you
seek for clearness of vision. When you
want to see far, far over the land, you go apart
to a quiet mountain where the air is clear,
where there is silence and not conflict ; and
the thinker must be on the mountain of
serenity, otherwise his thought will not be
clear for the helping of man. Nor should
the teacher be a politician ; for the teacher is
to put the ideal before the eyes of men. No
ideal can at once be put into complete practice,
no ideal can be carried uninjured through the

138 India

struggles of a legislative assembly ; for there
the principle has to be whittled away, has
to be subjected to compromise, has to be
narrowed down, in order that it may get
through the readings that a bill must pass
through in Parliament, and so catch from all
sides the votes without which it cannot
possibly succeed. In politics you have
thousands of men, every man thinking
differently, and a majority must be gathered
by compromise. Suppose every one of you
had to vote on a proposition laid before you
by one person ; how he would reckon the
votes, how carefully he would have to con-
sider them, how he would go about to one
here and one there, and say " Will you vote
for me ? " and one would answer : " Well,
I agree with this much of your bill, but 1
don't agree with that other point ; can't you
drop the point that raises the discord, and
carry the other part of the measure for which
we are all ready to vote ? " Compromise is
a necessary part of political action, and you
cannot avoid it. You must, when you are
dealing with conflicting interests and the
many minds of men, get something that the
majority will agree upon ; whether it be the
best ideally or not, it is the best practicable
thing. That is what the politician must

Place of Politics in the Life of a Nation 139

consider and ought to consider. For his
work is to make the outer world better, and
to deal with the things which are ready for
action. Therefore every statesman must
necessarily compromise, and statesmanship
is skilful compromise ; he must work step
by step towards the ideal that he desires to
attain. Therefore I say the teacher should
never be a politician. Let him set up the
ideal which politicians are to work towards ;
let him stand aloof, holding up the picture
which is to attract the hearts of men. That
ideal will be a long way off ; there will be a
rough road between the place where the
people are standing and the place where the
ideal is upheld ; that road has to be trodden ;
there may be a river which has to be bridged ;
there may be a bog that has to be crossed ;
there may be a precipice that you have to
avoid ; there may be a wall over which you
must climb. That is the work of the politician
— to make the ideal ultimately realisable by
going towards it. Step by step he must work
in the right direction, and the ideal must be
held up steadily, in order that the final direction
may not be lost in the necessarily devious walk-
ing. Therefore is it that I, as Theosophist
and teacher of principles, never mix in political
detail nor take any share in these strifes of

MO India

warring parties ; therefore the Theosophical
Society to which I belong stands not as
politician but as holder-up of ideals for every
nation, for every party, for every man and
every woman, no matter what the political
systems or the political parties to which they
may severally belong. Let me suppose for
a moment that one man — to now use English
names of parties — is a Radical, another man
a Tory, a third man a Liberal, a fourth man
a Socialist. Every one of these men may
desire human progress, human happiness,
increase of human prosperity, and growth
of human power. They have a common
ideal ; they have separate ways of reaching
it. In the Theosophical Society we hold up
the ideal that they are to aim at, and leave
each man to choose his own road and his own
method of realising it, welcoming each man
equally, whatever his party badge. As a
politician he must choose his party, but as a
Theosophist he only desires the supreme
ideal, and then works towards that object by
the best efforts of his brain.

And now let me go a step still further.
Some of you are politicians. How are you
going to choose your lines of advance ? Has
it ever struck you that the current of thought
in a nation is that which is seen in the hopes.

Place of Politics in the Life of a Nation 141

the aspirations, the longings of the young ?
Not in the middle-aged men plunged in the
work of life, not in the old men whose work
is nearly over, but in the young ones of the
nation, there is marked the line of national
growth, and the ideals that touch them are
the ideals that the future of the nation will
embody. Therefore the far-seeing politician
should watch what it is that moves most the
young ones of his nation. Mind, they are
often foolish, they are often headlong, they
are often injudicious, they are full of pas-
sionate enthusiasm. Nevermind. The world
will tone down their enthusiasm fast enough,
and they will not keep their headlong ways.
Well if out of the enthusiasm of youth they
keep something of noble hopes alive for
middle age, and if out of the unselfish devo-
tion of youth something remains to check the
selfishness of the man of the world who has
grown hard by contact with his fellow-men.
Therefore I say, watch the young, for what
moves them is a movement of the future,
and if you want to legislate on lines that will
last, see what is most touching the hearts of
the young ones ; for there is the future life
of the people, there is what it will desire.

Now for a moment to come to more detail.
There are some points that politicians have a

14^ India

right to deal with, have a duty to deal with
— the outer life of the nation. Politicians
have the duty of dealing with, for instance,
taxation, with the amount of taxation neces-
sary, with the incidence of taxation on different
classes of the people, the way in which taxes
shall be gathered, and the manner in which
the taxes shall be applied. For the whole of
that is political work, and the man who would
be a politician must study that dry side of
politics, if he would be of use to his country.
Then he should also deal with questions of
the tenure of land, the conditions under which
the land of the nation shall be held, the con-
ditions under which it shall be cultivated, the
amount of rent that it shall pay, the amount
of burden of the State that shall fall upon it ;
he should deal with all questions of mortgage
and usury, what the law will enforce and
what the law will not enforce, so that the
weaker may not be oppressed and the poorer
cultivators and the miserable may not be in
the grip of the money-lender and unable to
rescue themselves from his Jiold. He should
deal with the prevention of tyranny, with the
conditions of labour, with the conditions of
child employment, with the conditions of
child education, so that here the strong
conscience of the nation may guard its weaker

Place of Politics in the Life of a Nation I43

children, and may prevent any unfairness,
may prevent any ill-usage of the young. He
should deal also with the weaker classes, pro-
tecting those who are starving against undue
pressure from those who would employ them,
using their necessities as a measure of their
payment, and careless of human happiness
provided wealth be successfully wrung from
them. He should deal also with what the
law enforces as to contracts, what contracts
the law will make binding on the citizens of
the State, what contracts it will decline to
enforce ; he should deal with the subordina-
tion of each to the common good, not allow-
ing one man in the exercise of individual
liberty to become a danger to his neighbours
or a nuisance in the community. He should
deal with the defence of the country from
external attack ; he should deal with the ad-
ministration of internal order, so that harm-
less men may live in peace and security under
the aegis of the political government. He
should control all methods of communication,
internal communication, and if the people are
taxed in order that these may be made, in
order that railways may be completed and
land may be surveyed for the laying down of
the iron roads, then those railways should be
made for the good of the people and for the

144 India

benefit of the whole community, and should
be planned out to serve the nation for the
general use of the whole. It should not
possibly be that within the limits of a nation,
where there are railways supported out of the
moneys paid by the people, there should be
vast stores of rice in one part of the country
and thousands of starving people in another,
and no communication to bring the two to-
gether so that the starving may be fed. These
are the questions which the politician must
deal with. These are the questions which
the politician is bound to consider ; and
he fails in his duty unless he takes these in
hand and represents what should be done
about them to the Government of the country,
so that prosperity may increase. To put the
case in a nutshell : these duties of the politician
are what were in olden days the duties of the
Kshattriya, the great caste in the old days
that had all these political duties in hand.
That was the great body in the olden time
that had this charge in the State, and was
bound to administer it for the common good.
But your politician will fail in everything
that he attempts, your politician will break
down in every effort he makes, unless he has
thought behind him, which renders permanent
the changes that his action brings about. It

Place of Politics in the Life of a Nation 145

is no use to make a law and then find the
law inoperative, it is no use to make a change
and find the old conditions returning under
a new name, and that your work is wasted
because the thought of the thinker is not
behind it. Again let me take an illustration.
In England we have a thing we call sweating.
Sweating means that if I, a woman, am starv-
ing, and if I go and try with a needle to earn
enough to get bread and shelter and clothing,
that as I am very hungry, I ask very little for
my labour, and the pressure of my hunger
is made the measure of my payment and not
the value of the work I do. In the London
that I know so well, there are hundreds and
thousands of women working for their bread,
and working for eighteen hours out of the
twenty-four, to earn enough merely to keep
themselves alive, constantly hungry, con-
stantly suffering, never knowing what it is to
have enough to eat, and out of their incessant
labour just managing to keep body and soul
together ; and then what they have made,
when driven by starvation, is taken by the
sweater, and is sold in the shops mostly at a
low price, that even then brings a large profit,
while those who made it are nearly dying of
starvation. Oh ! you may say, the sweater
is a scoundrel. Are you so sure that the

10

146 India

fault is his ? The real fault is in the heart
of men and women who are tolerably com-
fortably off, who have money enough and to
spare, and who want to buy things more
cheaply than they can be fairly sold at, and
demand things at a price that cannot give a
living wage. The blame is not with the
sweater ; he is the instrument that carries
out the desire of ladies and gentlemen who
are comfortably off, but who like to get a
little more than they give and to get a little
the better of their neighbours. So long as
their desire exists, and as long as you and I
and others want to take advantage of our
brother's needs, so long may politicians enact
laws against sweating every day of their lives,
but sweating will continue in society, because
men desire to gain and care not for brotherly
love. And thus it is that we find the politician
limited. He may make a good law, but if
the people are bad the good law is useless.
He may make an improvement in outside
shape, but if the people are unworthy of it
the old evils return despite the new shape he
has made. Therefore is it that you need the
teacher ; therefore is it that you need the
thinker ; and only where they are at work in
a nation, making noble ideals that purify the
heart, only there will the politician be sue-

Place of Politics in the Life of a Nation i47

cessful and the progress of the nation be
secured.

And now for a moment let me speak to
you on this question of ideal. This question
will decide the future of India, and either
lead her to her death or to her rising again
amid the nations of the world. You are
claiming political power, you are claiming
political advance, and political representation.
To what end are you going to use it, what
purpose have you before your minds as to
the national ideal that you desire to accom-
plish, the ideal that no politics can make but
can only work for ? It is the ideal that
makes the politics and not the politics
the ideal. Let us then see — for hereon
depends the life of the nation ; here comes
in the question whether we shall live or die,
whether we shall survive or perish, whether
the history of India is here to have an ending
or a revival till she is as glorious as in the
olden days. How shall you learn ? By
studying, by looking at the world around you
and then using your best intelligence and
judging what you see. The great nation
that is spreading over the world and that has
its home in Great Britain, that great English
people, has two children in the world, both
growing into mighty nations. One of her

148 India

children is America, making the United
States. Another of her children, the younger
one, is Australasia, Australia and New
Zealand, where a vast nation is building.
The thought of England influences you
more than the thought of any other people ;
the thought of the Anglo-Saxon race is the
thought that goes throughout the length and
breadth of our land, that fascinates our young
men with its science, that fascinates the
ambitious with politics, that fascinates all the
men who love pleasure with the delights of
its luxurious civilisation, and that stamps
itself upon you in your clothes, in your
thoughts, in your houses, in your methods of
living, in your horses, carriages and every-
thing. Go back a hundred years and
compare India then with India now, and you
will see what I mean when I say that the
English thought is dominating the nation
and is impressing itself on all the habits of
the people. If that be so — and that is un-
questionably so — if that be so, you had
better study it where it has long been ruling,
and judge for yourselves whether the ideal is
the best ideal for you to take when you are
trying to build a new national life, and start
in a definite national direction. England,
the oldest of the three countries that I have

Place of Politics in the Life of a Nation I49

named, great in her science, great in the
power of her sword, a small nation geographi-
cally, one of the greatest nations in her ruling
power, that nation within the limits of her
own borders stands amongst the nations
of the world remarkable for this — the
extremes of wealth and poverty that divide
her people. London is the metropolis of the
British Empire, London is the centre where
all her glory is gathered, where her wealth is
seen at its greatest, where her magnificence is
best to be estimated. Your young men go
and see the glitter of her wealth, they see the
luxuriance of her civilisation. In London,
the metropolis of the Empire, is gathered up
as it were the ideal of the British nation, and
just as you find the luxury which goes
beyond anything else that the world is able
to show, you see also a poverty so horrible
that no other land can show its match. 1
know it. Why ^ Because my duty has lain
there, because I have served on bodies that
had to deal with the poverty of the people
and the misery of this massed population ;
because in the School Board of London my
own district was one of the poorest in
London, that terrible East End of which
you may sometimes have heard, but of which
you have heard too little so long as you

i5o India

are dazzled with the glitter of Western
civilisation : starving children, starving men,
starving women, thousands upon thousands
of them, day by day face to face with
enormous wealth, so that the contrast is so
bitter that every now and then you hear
whisper of riot, whisper of revolution,
whisper of thrown bombs and charging
police ; so that in the very centre of her
home there is danger, because of the wealth
and the poverty that stand face to face
against each other. Leave Great Britain and
go to America : what there do you find ?
You find that there rank is given by wealth ;
the man who yesterday was a worker on a
railway, by clever speculation, by ingenious
playing and gambling on the Stock Exchange,
by getting news before his neighbours and
using it, so that when the loss is coming he
may transfer the depreciated stock to his
neighbour's pocket and save himself from
the danger. Study America, where the
penniless workman of this year may be the
millionaire of twenty years hence ; America
^ where wealth is the title to honour and
wealth is the road to power. Not learning,
not wisdom, not refinement, not courtesy,
not careful thought, not self-sacrifice for
human good, but money ; where one man

Place of Politics in the Life of a Nation 151

has so much wealth that, unable to spend it,
he makes a golden cradle for his baby while
other men starve in the streets for want of
food. What must be the inevitable result ?
America is now well-nigh in the throes of
civil war, of a labour war, the most cruel and
the most brutal of conflicts. You hear of
thousands of men marching across the States,
and crying out for work or for bread, and
for some change in the condition of society.
For to make money the title to honour is
the most vulgar of all civilisations, the most
petty of all ideals, the most degrading object
a man can put before his fellow-men.

And then if you go to Australasia what
there do you find ? I have just come back
from it. I find material wealth abundant. I
find comfort, rough indeed but plentiful, and
I find they are seeking everywhere for wealth
and pleasure. Everywhere gambling, every-
where racing, everywhere irreverence; and
they are developing a peculiar type of
young man, that is a special growth of the
Colonies, that they call the Larrikin — having
invented a name for him — a youth who
grows up without religion, without reverence
for age, without sense of responsibility, who
lives only for pleasure, for drink and for
gambling, and these are growing up by

152 India

thousands in the midst of that young civilisa-
tion. Why are all these nations in difficulty ?
Why are they in conflict ? Why, when you
go to Great Britain, to America, or to
Australia, do you find these signs which are
evil signs, that are not the signs of growth
but of decay ? It is because they have
chosen a material ideal of wealth, honour,
rank, power, all the things that men struggle
for against each other, and about which each
man in gaining must disappoint his fellow-
men. There is wealth indeed, but they
scramble for the wealth ; there is luxury,
but they are always multiplying their wants.

There are two great ideals one over against
the other, either of which a nation may choose.
One of these is material wealth and increase
of physical wants, and the gratification of
those wants ever more and more ; and the
other is the knowledge of the intellect, is the
wealth of wisdom, is the growth of art, is the
cultivation of beauty, is the realising of man's
higher nature. Art, science, and intellect
become the handmaids of the Spirit, so that
the ideal is spiritual and not material, endur-
ing and not transitory.

Which shall India choose ? There is the
point to which I have been leading. There
is the point to which the whole of my thought

Place of Politics in the Life of a Nation I53

has been directed. On the one side material
advancement, on the other side spiritual
growth ; India between them, looking long-
ingly towards the material wealth and the
material luxury, but held back by an instinct
that comes from the Spirit within her, that
that is not the road to perfection, that that is
not worthy of India's choice. And I will tell
you why : As long as your ideal is material
it is limited, and therefore conflict must arise.
As long as your ideal is material it is re-
peatedly gratified, and then ever new gratifica-
tions are craved for, more and more ; there
is multiplication of wants and multiplication
of satisfactions. What is the result ? If I
had here on this table a heap of gold, if I said,
" I will give this gold to you," you know
what would happen — the scrambling and the
rush and the conflict, and one man climbing
over the other, and the strong pushing the
weaker aside, a rush and a fight and a miser-
able struggle. Why ? Because the gold is
limited, and if a man does not get to the front
before it is all gone, he will be left without
a coin, and his neighbours in front will have
gained it all. But if I have spiritual wisdom
to give and stand here for the giving, there
is no need to fight, there is no need to quarrel,
there is no need to be anxious to get in front

154 India

lest it should all be gone ; for while the
material wastes in the using, the spiritual
grows in the giving, and every man who
finds a new truth and gives it to the world,
makes everyone who hears him the richer
for the hearing and yet remains himself richer
than he was before. For if I bring you some
great truth, I know it all the better when I
have shared it with you ; 1 have not lost it
because I have spoken it ; it has become
more real to me than it was before I spoke.
I the giver and you the takers are all the
richer for the common sharing ; and that is
the glory of the intellect and the Spirit, that
the more their treasures are shared the more
they grow, and the more widely they are
spread the more complete is the satisfaction.
The desires of the intellect, the desires of the
heart, the desires of the Spirit, these are in-
creased as they are fed and they remain ever
as a source of joy and not of conflict. So
that if you choose the material ideal you
choose strife, struggle, poverty, dissatisfaction,
unrest and final death ; whereas if you choose
the spiritual you choose a peace that is ever
growing, power that is ever increasing,
strength that knows no diminution, and
immortality of life. Which do you choose ?
Once there was a day when in India wealth

Place of Politics in the Life of a Nation i55

was not the greatest thing, when in India
rank was not the greatest thing, when the
king was not so great as the spiritual teacher,
and the half-naked Sage was more honoured
than the wealthiest of the princes. That was
the day that made India what she is in the
eyes of the world ; for all the world is read-
ing Indian books, and studying Indian liter-
ature, and discussing Indian philosophy ; and
though the West has conquered your bodies,
your thoughts are conquering its mind. That
is a mightier triumph, a greater conquest
than any sword can give ; and to-day again
you have your choice, either to choose the
greatest and the lasting, or to choose the
impermanent, the transitory. And so I
appeal to you : you have brains amongst you,
subtle, keen and strong ; you have intellect
amongst you, mighty and great both in
thought and in power of expression ; you
have oratory amongst you as splendid as
that which any nation can boast, tongues as
golden in the beauty of linked syllables as
any tongues that the world has heard, that
the past has known. Are they all for the
transitory, and are there none for the perma-
nent ? Are they all for the wealth of the
body, and none for the helping of the mind ?
Are all the brightest brains to go into law.

156 India

into civil service, into politics, and leave only
the second- and third-rate to deal with the
mighty questions that move the minds of
men in every time and every nation. I claim
for India — not the India of material wealth,
but the India who was the mother of spiritual
knowledge — I claim for her some of the
brains of her greatest children, some of the
noblest intellects, some of the purest lives,
some of the most skilful tongues, some of
the grandest thinkers. They are all attracted
by the glitter of gold, attracted by ambition,
by desire to excel, attracted by the toys that
are worthy of children. But I, who love
India as my own, for she is mine, India with
whom all my hopes of the future and my
memories of the past are bound up, this
India that is so great and yet so little, so
mighty and yet so poor — I claim from the
children that come from the womb of India
that there shall be some worthy of the past,
that there shall be some worthy of their
mother, that there shall be some who shall
give her what she asks, thought, philosophy,
literature, science, the great things that she
loves, and not merely the struggles of parties
and the questions that divide politicians.
Some of the better brains should do this
work, some of the abler tongues should

Place of Politics in the Life of a Nation i57

preach it. I have told you the place for the
politician, but some place is needed for the
teacher and some for the thinker. I plead
to the young among you, who have not yet
chosen their path in life, whose hearts are
still soft and whose hopes are still pure.
Turn aside from the struggles of the bar,
turn aside from the examinations of the
colleges, turn aside from the hopes of civil
service, and the employment that is paid for
with gold ; give yourselves to the mother-
land, give yourselves to her help, give your-
selves to her redemption ; let politics be
followed by some, not by all ; but let not the
other be forgotten, since it is the more im-
portant thing. For politics will perish, but
thought remains. If you had only a political
past, no one in the West would care for you
to-day. Will you not give to the future
what the past has given to you ? Will you
not hand on to the generations to come some
addition to the treasures that the generations
of the past have bequeathed to you ? There
are so many nations that are political, so
many nations that are wealthy, so many
nations that in the Western sense are great.
There is only one nation the world knows Z,
that may still choose the Spirit instead of the
body, and spiritual knowledge rather than

158 India

material gain — only one nation amongst all
the nations of the world, only one people
amongst all the peoples of the globe. That
nation is India, that people the Indian people ;
and if you, the last hope of the spiritual life
of man, if you give everything to matter,
then in your apostasy the world is betrayed,
and in your spiritual death humanity shall
find its grave.

Anniversary Address

Reprinted from " The Theosophist,'" February 1900

BROTHERS, — Before entering on the
lines of thought along which I shall ask
you for a brief space of time to follow me
to-night, 1 feel moved at first to one or two
words of sympathy for the speakers who have
preceded me, and also for myself in the way
that the first speaker suggested as to the
wrong they have sustained at the hands of
our Chairman. It is very hard to sit still to
hear one gentleman complimented for his
keenness in science and another for splendour
of devotion and self-sacrifice and so on, from
one to another, until the climax was reached
when our President said of myself that my
voice was to follow his and that he would
therefore stand aside. I would like to say
on my own behalf, and that of my fellow-
speakers, that it may be well for the elders to
remember that their place among men and in
men's hearts can never be taken away by any
nor occupied by the younger in the move-
ment whose duty has led them to take a lead-
ing part ; and I would say to the President-
159

i6o Ind

la

Founder that twenty-four years of loyal
service weigh more heavily in the scale of
love and justice, than any words, however
eloquent and mighty, spoken by the younger
members. His silent deeds are far more
valuable than eloquent words. Coming again
amongst you from Western lands, it seems
to me that some words on the movement
may fitly open what I have to say to-night.
There are two points of interest during last
year's work in Europe in connection with this
movement which merit attention and arouse
feelings of gladness and gratitude. It has
been shown that from the East have been
drawn the many doctrines of the later and
younger religions, and no Christian can now
attack the religion of the East without weaken-
ing the claims of his own faith to the atten-
tion and to the listening ears of men. A
change is coming over the public mind in the
West, and they find that some of the leaders
of Christian thought declare in plain and clear
words that the ancient religions of the world
are to be regarded with respect, and not to
be spoken of with mockery, with hatred,
with bitter opposition, and that all religions
have the same goal, the same aim at the end
of the road they travel. That was one of the
changes that was clearly seen ; one in which

Anniversary Address i6i

the Theosophical Society has led the way.
Another is the strange and significant fact
that the last Oriental Congress — the Con-
gress in which Oriental thought is studied,
Oriental religions represented, Oriental
literature exalted. Oriental views of life dis-
cussed— that that Oriental Congress was
this year held in Rome ; Rome, that has
been the great capital of the Christian world ;
Rome, where but a brief time ago no voice
might be heard save in submission to a single
Church ; Rome, that for many centuries was
known as the opponent of every form of
religious thought except her own : Rome
opened her arms to the Oriental Congress,
and the thought of the East found currency
under the very shadow of the Church of the
Vicar of Christ. One result of that Congress
might perhaps interest you in a fashion yet
more personal. It happened that at one of
the meetings a well-known Theosophist spoke,
tracing back to Eastern thought and to India,
as the cradle of religions, many of those
mystic Secret Societies which carried on the
torch of knowledge through the darkness of
the Middle Ages. So much interest was
roused by what was said, so much interest was
shown by ItaHan professors of literature and
science in the line of thought thus opened

i62 India

out, that, asking to hear more of the teaching,
asking to learn something more of this ancient
Eastern wisdom, they are now welcoming in
their midst one of your own countrymen,
a young Brahman, — Jagadisha Chandra
Chatterji, and he is now in Rome, addressing
lectures to the professors there on Eastern
thought, spreading ideas of the Vedanta
among those who are most learned in the
society of Rome. These two points, it seems
to me, mark out the progress which has been
made in the penetration of Western minds
by Eastern thought. When we come over to
the mother-land of that thought, what should
we expect to find ? As your thought spreads
in Europe and the sublimity of the ancient
teaching becomes more and more known ; as
in the centres of Western intelligence and
Western learning the names of the Rishis of
antiquity become household words, and men
repeat their sayings as crystallising the noblest
human thought ; as this is happening, the
eyes of the West are turning more and more
to the India of to-day, and they are asking,
" What will be given us by those men who
boast themselves the descendants of the
Rishis ? Shall we find in India a nobler
religion ? Shall we find in India a loftier
spirituality ^ Shall we find in India a purer

Anniversary Address 163

ethic and a greater morality ? Is modern
India worthy of ancient India, and are the
men in whose physical veins runs the blood
of the Rishis fit representatives of those
mighty beings ? Do they show the Rishis'
thought, the Rishis' devotion, the Rishis'
spirituality, the Rishis' superiority to the
transient joys of the earth ? " What answer
does modern India give to the question that
is now coming from the West with ever-
increasing force ? What answer in life, in
literature, in religion, is to be sent back to the
questioners in Western lands ? Are they, when
they come here with their minds full of noble
ideas learnt out of ancient books, are they to be
greeted with a copy of their own civilisation
and a second-hand repetition of the words,
of the thoughts and of the manners, with
which they have been wearied in the West ?
If so, they will return disillusioned from this
ancient country and declare that, while it may
be great to be the physical descendants of the
Rishis, it would be greater to be the sons of
their mind, of their thought, of their life,
their devotion and their spirituality, and set
the old example to the world instead of
merely copying the phases of modern civil-
isation. So that as your literature wins the
attention of the Western world, it becomes

164 India

very necessary that you should show out the
virtues of the ancient world, and that they
be seen to flourish in the modern soil ; that
Indian learning, Indian purity, Indian ethics
shall be justified by the present as well as
glorified in the past. For there is a danger,
my brothers, that the modern Indian may
shelter himself under the name of the Rishis,
that he may do nothing to justify his ancestry,
and go to sleep, as it were, lulled by the
music of antiquity, and care not to reproduce
that music in his own narrower and smaller
life. If that sad fate is to be avoided, it is
chiefly to the younger that we must turn.
Men who are living in the world with the
heavy cares of family upon them, with all the
burden of modern life pressing them down ;
forced by the bitter conflict of modern com-
petition, whether they will or not, into the
current of modern ways and modern ideas of
life, those men do well if in their hearts they
keep alive the flame of life, keep but the
faith in the ancient religion, even if by force
of circumstances they are unable to reproduce
in themselves that which made the country
mighty in the past. But is it not possible
that out of the children, the boys, the youths,
we may build a future not wholly unworthy
to name itself the son of the past, the heir

Anniversary Address 165

of Indian antiquity ? May it not be that,
taking the young and plastic minds, we may
fill them with such love of Indian thought,
such knowledge of the Indian past, such
realisation of the greatness of the HindCl
faith, such a devotion to the ideals of HindA
life, that they may be permeated in every fibre
with love of their country, with a knowledge
of their past to be worked out in the future
that lies before them ? Can we not make
them proud to be Indians of to-day, glad to
be sons of a mighty mother whose children
in the past made the world wonder ? Why
should they not be born again amongst us ?
And it is because in the young there is most
hope, because the future of a nation is in the
young and not in the old — it is for that that
we who work for your rising in the scale of
nations have initiated the educational move-
ment of which the college at Benares is but
the first fine seed. Give us your boys while
they are young and while they are plastic.
Let us teach them Hind^l ideals, let us teach
them Indian history, Indian literature and
Indian customs, in fact all that makes a real
nation, and then the boundaries that separate
may disappear and we may have one mighty
people stretching from Tuticorin in the south
to the HimMayas on the north. This belief

i66 India

in India's future is the very groundwork on
which we are basing our activity, and I
could not but feel at once glad and touched
when, from one South Indian district — South
Canara — there came a gift of money largely
contributed by Hindti ladies, who knew that
religion would be aided by the movement
that is going on in Benares. They have sent
us the money with the request that in some
way their names as lovers and helpers might
be commemorated in Kasi itself, and one of
the rooms that is now building will have
in it a tablet " Built by friends in South
Canara," so that for all time to come the love
of the South may be commemorated in that
fashion, and it may be seen that North and
South are joining in the religious education

of India's sons India can never again

be great, save as she is religious ; India can
never again be great, save as she gains the
spirituality that she has lost. If she can win
that back, then behind it will come all other
things, intellectual power, and material wealth,
and all the lower things that enter into the
growth of national life. But one charge has
she received from the Highest ; one duty
that, undischarged, weighs her down to the
ground but, that discharged, will lift her
again a light and beacon in the eyes of men,

Anniversary Address 167

and that is to be the safeguard, above all
things, of religion and truth, and to wed
spiritual philosophy to the devotion of a
noble religion. If that great work is taken
up and carried out, everything else will
follow in its train ; if it is sought after, all
other things that are good will come to you
as its inevitable successors. Your mother
India is appealing day by day and year by
year. Often I think that, during these years
of the Kaliyuga, she has gone away into some
far-off region to wait there until her children
call her back ; for how shall she, mother and
Guru of the world, from whose past have
grown the world's philosophies, the world's
religions, the world's sublimest teachings —
how shall she come and dwell in a land that
forgets religion and philosophy, and plays
with the toys of children instead of realising
the aims of men ? She often bows in worship
to the Great Ones who watch, far off on the
Himalayan peaks, all the pitfalls in the way
of the child they love. I seem to think that
India, our mother, is standing there in the
midst of this circle of the Rishis, waiting for
the time when she can descend again and
illuminate the child she loves. And what
shall bring her ? What brings the mother
hastening homeward ? The thought that

i68 India

her children are crying for her in her absence.
What brings her quickly to the room where
the babe is lying ? The wailing of the babe
that seeks food from the mother's breast.
The mother who loves the child cannot stay
away, if the child desires her presence. But
sometimes the child in carelessness, needing
nothing for the moment, will run away to
play with its playmates in the street, forgetful
of mother, forgetful of home, and forgetful of
all that the mother means to do. But presently
the child will grow hungry, presently the child
will grow tired, presently the child will be
thirsty and weary, and then he will remember
the mother and turn back his steps with the
cry of " Mother " on his lips. And the mother
knows it all the time and says, in the words
of an Indian poet that come to my mind,
" Babe, though you may go away from me in
the hours of play, hunger and thirst will soon
bring you back again to my arms." Some-
times I think that India, the mother, is only
waiting patiently, contentedly enough in the
wisdom of her mother's love, seeing her
children playing in the streets with the toys
and follies of the little child ; waiting till
hunger for spiritual knowledge and thirst for
spiritual teachings shall send the children
clamouring home with the cry for mother on

Anniversary Address 169

their lips. I hear in my dreams that cry
rising from the Indian land ; I see in my
dreams child after child weary of the play in
the street, and thinking of turning homeward
where the mother's arms are waiting. Look-
ing upwards, 1 see on her face a smile, the
smile of mother's love waiting to welcome
her truants home again. I know that soon
there will rise from the whole of India the
one mighty cry, " O India our mother ;
mother and Guru of the world, come back
amongst us once again ! Come home ! "

Theosophy and Imperialism

A Lecture delivered in 1902

rpRIENDS : In the midst of the tumult of
national pageantry, in the midst of the
intoxication of a peace made after a long and
wearying war,^ there seems to be some danger
lest the people, carried away too much by
passion, moved too much by the thought of
the triumph of the moment, should lose sight
of the deeper truths, of the deeper realities,
that must underlie all permanent national
greatness. And it seemed to me that perhaps
it might be well in such a moment to try to
lead the question out of the strife of warring
parties, out of the struggle of contending
personalities, and look at the doctrine of
Empire in the light of a world theory, of a
view of life which takes human evolution as
a whole and regards it from a high and im-
partial standpoint ; that we might do well to
raise ourselves above the immediate questions
of the moment, and see whether we understand
clearly the direction in which we desire to go,
whether we realise the conditions of permanent

^ The war in South Africa had just been concluded.
170

Theosophy and Imperialism 17'

national greatness, whether we see that it
resides not in the force that conquers but in
the justice that protects, and that no Empire
can be great unless that Empire be founded on
brotherhood, on righteousness and on truth.
I want to say at the very outset that in
joining together the two names Theosophy
and Imperialism I desire to convey the idea
that I shall try to put the question of Imperial-
ism before you in what, to some of us, seems
the real and spiritual light. The facts on
which my theory will be based are those
which are accepted by the ever-increasing
number of thoughtful people who take the
name of Theosophist, but the deductions that
I draw from the facts are my own, and ought
not to be held to commit others to their
acceptance ; none save myself is responsible
for that which I here put forward. While
we should all be agreed upon the facts, there
may well be differences in the deductions that
are drawn from those facts, and the deductions,
as I say, are my own. I am going to try to
put the matter before you as I see it, looking
at the wide course of events, leaving you to
judge whether that view be true or false,
whether it will conduce to national greatness,
or whether it should lie outside the national
thought.

172 India

Now, looking at the course of the evolu-
tion of the races of the world in the light of
Theosophy, we see certain facts that stand
strongly and clearly out : we see that the
evolution of races, like the evolution of
persons, passes through various cycles of
growth, maturity and decay, and that you
must look at the life of races as you look at
the life of persons ; that the story of a life
born into the world, growing and developing,
reaching its maturity, wielding power, and
then slowly decaying, passing away, giving
place to another, is true of the races of man-
kind, and that the study of the races in the
past may guide us in our forecast as to the
rtle of a race in the present. And we notice,
as we look backward, that each great division
of the human race, each strongly marked type
of racial character, has its own growth and
development, its time of widespread Empire,
and then again its time of slow and gradual
decay. We see that one race after another
has come to the front, has conquered, has
ruled, has built up a great world Empire,
and then gradually again has passed away.
And studying those facts of the past, we see
that they go hand in hand with great religious
movements, with great spiritual impulses, and
that wherever you find a new departure in

Theosophy and Imperialism 173

spiritual matters there you find it succeeded
by a new departure in rule and in civilising
power.

We look back into the dim past and we
find the rising up of a great Eastern religion,
the religion that still rules in India, and we
find the growth and the spread of that religion
moulding slowly a mighty race into imperial
magnificence, so that the rulers of that con-
tinent spread their sway far and wide over
surrounding nations. Then we find a new
impetus given to religious thought, and the
great prophet Zarathustra comes out from
the cradle of the Aryan race in midmost Asia,
and preaches his view of life and conduct ;
under the shadow of that teaching, under the
moulding influence of that mighty prophet,
the Iranian civilisation develops, and the
Persian Empire rises. Coming further west-
ward we see how the same thing had previ-
ously taken place in Egypt, and how the
Egyptian faith shaped and moulded Egyptian
civilisation and gave in the Pharaoh the priest-
monarch of the Empire, which again by
war-like conquest spread its influence over
neighbouring lands. And again, we notice
the same thing in later days, when the great
republic of Rome was founded, when its
armies conquered on every side, and later its

174 India

Empire arose. And through the last few
hundred years, since the Christian era, we see
the great Christian impulse given to the
spiritual life of the world, and under that
influence there has arisen a new type of
civilisation, but not yet a world-wide Empire.
It seems as though attempts had been made
but had not succeeded. Most marked of all
these was the rising of the Spanish people,
which at one time bade fair to extend its
Empire to the limits of a world-wide Power.
But inasmuch as Spain in her conquests did
not regard mercy and duty, inasmuch as when
she made a race subject to her sceptre she
ruled that race for her own gain and not for
the good of the people that she conquered,
inasmuch as she enslaved the conquered races
and made them toil for Spanish wealth, made
them labour for Spanish profit, made them
struggle and die for the exaltation of Spain,
and cared nothing for their own good nor for
their own raising ; therefore on the dawning
Empire of Spain, the first of the European
nations that had manifestly offered to her the
great gift, the great trust of a world-wide
Empire, across that dawning Empire was
written by the finger of Providence, " Tried
and found wanting in the trial." Therefore,
the Empire that had dawned perished ere it

Theosophy and Imperialism i75

reached its meridian, and Spain has sunk
lower and lower because she had proved un-
worthy to bear the heavy burden of the
Empire that was within her grasp.

Time went on, and again an effort was to
be made to see whether in the midst of the
European civilisation a people could be found
ripe to bear the burden of Empire, and ready
to sway a world-wide power for the benefit of
the nations that it ruled, for the education of
the conquered peoples, and Britain finds her-
self to-day at what we may call the crisis of
a national choice. Britain has conquered as
Spain once conquered ; Britain has been
spreading her power further than Spain had
dreamt. Over her head to-day there hovers
the imperial circlet of a world-wide Empire.
Will Britain be mighty enough for the task
which is laid before her ? Will she succeed
in moulding a world-wide Empire which shall
be not an enslaver of the world, but a helper,
a teacher, an upholder, a guide unto a nobler
civilisation, and will she realise that the burden
of Empire, while on one side it is a burden
of glory, is on the other side a burden of
responsibihty, a mighty trust, an imperial
duty, which God may offer to a nation of the
world, but which He will not allow that nation
to hold unless the trust be worthily discharged,

176 India

unless the responsibilities be nobly and right-
eously borne ?

That, it seems to me, is the question that
lies before us to-day. In all parts of the
world the British power is growing and ex-
panding, the British tongue is spreading.
Now it is to us Theosophists significant and
interesting that the bulk of the Souls to
whom this offer is made have twice before
builded an Empire and have carried its
burden ; for the majority of the Souls that
made the Egyptian Empire lived again upon
earth in the Roman Republic and Empire,
and have been and are being born into the
Anglo-Saxon, and indeed into the whole
Teutonic race. Men who wrought in the
Rome on the Tiber are working now in the
Rome on the Thames, and are again Empire-
building. We have old Empire-builders
among our generals and our statesmen, and
even outside their ranks. Such Souls are
born into nations to whom the Divine Ruler
holds out the diadem of Empire, and their
strong hands and piercing eyes are British
hands and eyes to-day.

But ere we reckon up the component parts
of the coming Empire, let us voice a greeting
and a hope for a growing people who should
be with us, who share with us a common

Theosophy and Imperialism 1^7

ancestry, a common history. They may have
an Empire of their own in the far future, but
they might join with us in the nearer, the
dawning, day of toil. Over the Atlantic there
is a mighty nation sprung from the British
race, that should bear part of this burden of
Empire, but is unhappily separated from us
by the blunders committed more than a
century and a quarter ago ; is it not possible,
even yet, that it should at least form part of
aworld-wide Federation of all British-speaking
peoples, even if it refuse to be within the
circle of the Empire, as it would have been
had it not been for the mistakes made by
Britain towards the close of the eighteenth
century ^ For here is a people to whom
Britain needs to draw nearer and nearer, closer
and closer, so that although one Crown at
present does not bind them together, the
blood tie and the tie of the common past may
draw them into straiter union, and that if
the world Empire should come the American
State may form a real part of it, even if
technically outside it, not aliens, but brothers,
in bearing that heavy burden of rule.

In America there is also a greatly-growing
people sprung from Britain's loins, shaping
the destinies of the strong Canadian State,
happily an integral part of Britain beyond

12

173 India

the seas. In Canada a nation is evolving to
form one of the pillars in the edifice of the
world Empire, with a vast extent of territory
with ever-multiplying sons, as apt in agri-
culture as they are apt in war, as industrious
in the wheat-field as they are gallant in the
battle-field, uniting the solidity of the farmer
with the dash of the warrior. There is the
granary of the Empire, the food-supplier of
the future ; and imperial insight would draw
Canada nearer to the mother-land by the
swiftest steamers that modern skill can build,
and aid by subsidies an ocean line as profit-
able in peace as it would be invaluable in
war. Every tie that sympathy can inspire
and that statesmanship can plan should bind
Britain and Canada together, ties of com-
munity in interests, in commerce, in public
work, as well as the tie of loyalty to a common
Imperial Crown.

Growing up in the southern Pacific we see
another child of Britain, the young and stal-
wart Australian Federation, and the fair island
of New Zealand. There Britain sees another
Britain growing into lusty youth, having
avoided the blunders which rent the American
colonies from her side, and their eyes that
have never seen the mother-land yet fondly
look to her as " Home."

Theosophy and Imperialism I79

It is not in connection with these parts of
the Empire that the imperial instinct of the
British peoples in the British Isles and in
Greater Britain will be tested. These are all
in process of natural and healthy growth,
component parts of the Empire, its limbs
and organs. Two countries are there by
which Britain will be tested, two lands by
which her genius for Empire will be decided
— one is South Africa, where a devastating
war has closed ; the other is India, her vast
dependency, where she rules three hundred
millions of human beings.

In South Africa we have seen the wrath,
the ambition, the sins of men, turned to world-
purposes and lofty ends by the Ruler who
guides the destinies of nations. Common
sacrifices, common losses, common triumphs,
have made Britain and Greater Britain one.
Strenuous struggles, hard-fought battles,
prolonged wrestHngs, have taught Briton and
Boer to respect each other, have wiped out
past memories that made for misunderstand-
ings, and thus have paved the way to an en-
during peace. But can the victor show the
patience, the strength, the insight, to turn
the foe into a friend, to satisfy all legitimate
demands, to wait for cordial loyalty till bitter
memories die a slow and natural death ? Can

i8o India

he make one nation of the jarring elements,
and blend victor and vanquished into citizens ?
And can he, at the same time, hold under
strong and firm control the savage tribes that
dwell among and around the European-African
nation, and enforce discipline without ferocity,
labour without cruelty, order without oppres-
sion ? Here truly will the genius for Empire
be tested ; here will the decision of the future
be partly made.

We turn eastwards, and see the vast depend-
ency of India, where the final decision of the
future rests ; ere we study it, let us note and
remember the changed conditions which sur-
round this dawning Empire when compared
with the Empires of the past.

In the old days, the weight and the re-
sponsibility of Empire lay on the head of the
Empire, the ruling Monarch, and on the
Council that immediately surrounded him.
The Empire was great as the Emperor was
great ; the Empire was well ruled as the
Emperor was worthy of his task ; but in
modern days the world Empire which is now
dawning upon us, this new world Empire
which may be mightier than any Empire of
the past has been, this Empire for the first
time in the history of humanity depends less
on the central figure that wears the Crown

Theotophy and Imperialism i8z

than it does on the vast masses of its people ;
for the power has largely passed into the
hands of the nations, and with them will
chiefly lie the decision of the policy and of
the work of the Empire. That being so, and
that it is so is of course beyond discussion,
the question comes at once before us : Are
these people worthy of Empire, have they the
power, the self-denial, the consciousness of
duty which alone can make them worthy of
imperial rule spreading around the world ?
Do they want to be an imperial nation because
of the pride and the glory, the glitter and the
show of the pageantry of Empire, or do they
want to be an imperial nation that the world
may be the better because they rule, because
they are worthy to bear the burden, are able
to grasp the questions submitted, and to direct
the policy of an Empire ?

Now, so far as the people as a whole have
gone to-day they have not, I submit to you,
shown that keen interest in the duties of
imperial power that they have shown in the
narrower question as to whether their own
land, this corner of the Empire, be or be not
victorious and prosperous. There is far
more interest among the masses of the people
to-day in the question of a casual victory or
a casual defeat, than there is in the adminis-

i82 India

tration of this mighty Empire and the
knowledge that is needed for ruHng it well,
for guiding it aright. I return to India, for
here we can study our problem. How much
do you know of your Indian Empire ? How
much do you understand of the questions
which are questions of life and death to
300,000,000 of people whom you despotically
rule } How much do you know about the
causes of the famines which for the last five
years have devastated that magnificent depend-
ency, and have broken the hearts of those
who are striving to remedy when remedy
comes too late ? It is not the part of an
imperial people to allow famine to come time
after time, and then simply try to remedy it.
It is well to try to remedy when the famine
is there, but the duty of an imperial race is
to understand the causes, the reasons of these
recurring famines, and then to try to bring a
remedy that shall prevent instead of a remedy
that saves millions of miserable skeletons
from going absolutely down into the dust of
death. Want of rain ? Yes ! Congestion
of population ? Yes ! But these are small
parts of the cause, and deaUng with these
will not remedy the trouble.

Now if you did not boast yourselves a
self-governing people no appeal on a matter

Theosophy and Imperialism 183

of this sort would lie with you. But I ask

you whether you have a right to rule
300,000.000 of people in name, and not
understand the alphabet of Indian questions,
even very largely in your Imperial Parlia-
ment ? For what do we see ? That when
an Indian debate is held there, great stretches
of green cloth take the place of legislators,
and only a few people interest themselves in
the questions which are vital for the future
of the Empire.

Now the blunders that are being made in
India — and I submit this to you for your
thought — are chiefly due to the fact that you
have not yet developed that imperial insight
which rules a nation on lines suited to the
nation that is ruled, instead of on lines suited
to the nation that is governing. You are
dealing in India with a civiHsation far older
than your own, and a civilisation suitable to
the national genius ; you have to live among
traditions inwoven in the hearts and lives
of the people, traditions which it is folly to
ignore, which it is madness to outrage and
insult. In dealing with a highly civilised
nation you must learn to rule according to
its traditions, not according to yours, to
adapt yourselves to the conditions evolved
through ages and not impose on it conditions

184 India

alien to its ideas though agreeable to your
own. Methods of land holding, methods of
taxation, economic systems, which are suitable
for Great Britain, do not suit that vast Asiatic
nation whose traditions, whose customs, whose
habits, are utterly different from your own.

Nor is India regarded as a part of the
Empire, but as a land of exile. Men do not
go out to make their home there, to love and
sympathise with the people among whom
they live ; they go out to make money,
longing for the time they will return "home''
to spend it. India is not ruled for the
prospering of the people, but rather for the
profit of her conquerors, and her sons are
treated as a conquered race. Over seventeen
millions sterling a year are taken from her as
" Home Charges " to be spent in England,
while English officials in India draw abnormally
high salaries. The ranks of her Civil Service
are filled by competitive examination, and the
examination does not concern itself with good
breeding, courtesy, power to rule men. The
successful product of a cramming tutor is
not necessarily fit to be entrusted with
despotic authority, away from all the public
opinion for which he cares, and more harm
is done by arrogance and harshness than is
counterbalanced by devotion to duty. There

Theosophy and Imperialism 185

is little effort to understand an ancient,
conservative and aristocratic people, and the
real virtues of the Englishman, his con-
scientiousness, his diligence, his wish to do
justice, are masked by a repellent demeanour ^'
and a chilly superciliousness of bearing. Nor
is there anything in this huge bureaucracy to
arouse the instinct of loyalty so deep-seated
in the Indian breast. The crowd of officials
veils the Crown, and the Monarch is hidden "^
behind a mass of clerks. The Viceroy with
his five years' term, appointed in England
for political reasons, appears more as the
head clerk of a great system of clerks than
as a symbol of an Emperor, and he cannot
rouse the personal loyalty which in India
means power. Far better would it be to
place on the Indian vice-throne a Prince of
the Royal House, a living representative of
the Imperial Crown, surround him with all
that is wisest and best in India, and let him
rule as well as reign. And England had
done wisely had she sent her heir-apparent
to be crowned at Delhi, as proxy for the
Emperor, amid all her feudatory princes and
the glitter of Oriental state. Sentiment is a
great factor in Empire everywhere, and most
of all in the East.

And now about the famines. London

i86 India

went wild with admiration over the magnifi-
cent Indian soldiers, the splendour of their
stature and bearing, their strength, dignity
and warrior-port. But there is danger of
the deterioration of the race whence these
splendid warriors have sprung, of the con-
tinually recurring famines sapping the vitality
of the races which bear such sons. These
men were chiefly from Rijput^na, from the
Punjab, and these provinces have been
struggling with famine these five years.

What causes the famines ? Partly the
financial drain of the " Home Charges " and
the huge bureaucracy. Partly the destruction
of the manufactures of India for the profit
of Lancashire, the compulsory revelation of
trade secrets, and the forcing on India of
English methods of production. Partly the
destruction of the communal system of land-
tenure, the imposing of the English system
of landlordism, of rigid rents and taxes levied
in money in lieu of the flexible indigenous
system of proportionate rents and taxes paid
in kind ; partly the network of railways
facilitating the buying up of crops and
sweeping them away for export.

The old custom met the irregularities of
the rainfall by a system of granaries, wherein
the State stored in good seasons the grain

Theosophy and Imperialism 187

that would be needed in bad ; the fat seasons
balanced the lean ; when the peasant's store
gave out the prince's store was ready.
Moreover, the peasant himself stored his
grain, and kept a year's stock in hand, where
now he is tempted to sell for export, and
faces starvation when the rains fail. Even
this year, while famine threatened, Indian
wheat was thrown into foreign markets.
And in all parts of India, especially in the
feudatory States, pressure is put on the
rulers to desert the wise old custom of pre-
paring for years of dearth in years of plenty,
and to offer up their subjects to the English
fetish of Free Trade. The prince who adopts
Western methods unsuited to his State is
praised as " enlightened," while the prince
who follows customs approved by millennia
of use is censured as retrograde. In some
States this pressure is resisted by able Indian
ministers, but for how long, if the English
pressure continues, will they be able to hold
their own ? That is a point that, if you
are an imperial people, you should study,
should make up your minds upon, should
understand, for it means the life of millions
of your fellow-subjects. And these questions
of Indian food and Indian manufacture, if
they are to be rightly solved, will have to be

i88 India

solved in accordance with the tradition of the
people, and not in deference to modern ideas
as to the way in which trade is best carried
on among these Western populations.

There, then, is a difficult, dry, uninteresting
subject. But you have no right to be rulers
unless you take these questions into account ;
you have no right to throw all the responsi-
bility on a handful of men, and then, as is
continually done, fetter even the discretion
of the men on the spot by the traditions of
your India Office here. You should take
into counsel some of the leading Indian
thinkers who know their country, men of
proved and splendid ability as administrators,
and should follow their advice in the questions
that touch their own people. What is the
use of cheering Indian soldiers in the street :
What is the use of praising^ the imperial
pageantry that you see when the prince
reviews those troops ? what is the use of
boasting of the greatness of the Empire, if
you are not considering the families of the
men who are left behind in India, and if you
are not trying to make that land what it
ought to be, your strongest bulwark, instead
of what it is to a very large extent, a danger
and a menace to the Empire ?

Let us consider the lack of sympathy of

Theosophy and Imperialism i8g

which 1 spoke, and which so hides the ster-
ling qualities of the English. I will take a
small case from the mouth of an English
resident, Colonel Barr, in the Deccan, a
man who shows the sympathy and good
feeling that he urges on his fellow-officials.
He wrote an article lately in an Indian
magazine in which he pointed out some of
the ways in which anger and bad feeling were
made between the races. And I take the
illustration because it is one which is signifi-
cant. You will probably rather sympathise
for the moment with the English official than
with the Indians he addressed. A man, very
likely a good and a brave officer, was sent to
a State in Rajputana ; he found famine had
scourged the land, and he naturally desired
to bring some remedy and to increase the
wealth of the population. What was the
advice that he gave in open durbar ? Believ-
ing that he was giving good advice, he, as
everyone familiar with India knows, gave
advice that would anger to his heart every
man who listened to him : he told them that
they ought to try and improve their cattle
trade. Now, to many of you that may mean
nothing ; it did not mean much to him.
But, as Colonel Barr pointed out, to those
Hindiis to whom he spoke the slaying of a

190 India

bull or a cow is an utterly inhuman crime ;
the result of that advice was a revolt of feel-
ing against the Englishman, which hardly any
subsequent trying to do justice would wipe
out of the hearts of those people. It may
seem to you a little thing, because you are
accustomed to the slaying of cattle ; but to
the Hindti these animals are sacred ; they
look on them as the creatures who make
their prosperity, who plough their fields,
who draw their carts, who give milk for
their children ; they love them and honour
them, and in most Indian States until lately
cow-killing has been punished with the death
penalty. Think, then, what it means when
the exponent of the imperial rule advises
them to increase their cattle trade ! It is an
insult to them, and that goes deeper than an
injustice ; it outrages their religious feelings,
and that is your greatest peril in India. Not
to reverence the religion of another man, to
look on what is dearer to him than life with
scorn and with contempt, to ignore his
religious prejudices and to trample on his
religious beliefs — that was the thing that
made the Mutiny of the last century, and is
the only thing, I verily believe, that could
make another mutiny in India. The Indians
do not desire to be disloyal, they do not de-

Theosophy and Imperialism 19^

sire any other rule — they would rather be
under the Imperial Crown of England than
under any other Government that could be
made, — but if you touch religion, you touch
what to them matters more than life or limb.
And if your rulers could learn sympathy with
their religious feelings, they would bind India
more closely to the Empire than in any other
way. Take another instance of lack of
sympathy, and of a constant wound kept
open that should be closed. There is a
monument erected in Cawnpur over the well
into which some English women and children
were thrown during the Mutiny — a cruel
massacre truly, but not more terrible than
some deeds wrought by British troops during
that madness on both sides. When in Cawn-
pur, I passed the entrance into the enclosure
wherein the monument is, and I saw posted
up the notice : " No native may enter."
Now is it wise thus to perpetuate an evil
and a bitter memory ? If some Indians slew
the English, others risked and lost life in the
saving of them ; Indian princes saved India
to British rule ; Indian soldiers fought and
died for England ; Indian servants risked all
to save their masters, to save English women
and children ; and I have heard an Indian
remark that if a monument is to perpetuate

192 India

the madness of a few, England might well
also raise a monument to commemorate the
loyalty of the many, and inscribe it with the
names of Indians who died that English
power and English people might live.

Nor should Britain forget that where she
prevents a subject nation from doing for
itself, the duty lies the more heavily on her
that that nation shall not suffer by her rule.
The very fact that we have there a despotism
makes the burden of duty greater. Canada,
Australia, New Zealand — these can take care
of themselves, and because they are strong,
self-governing communities, it is well known
that care must be taken to consult their
feelings, care must be taken to safeguard
their interests. But there is not the same
power of articulate expression in India, and
just because articulate expression is wanting
is the burden on you the heavier to do fully
your duty to the land. We must take this
feeling of duty as the foundation of the
Empire, and not the gaining of wealth, of
power, of the extension of its borders. We
want to weave the sense of duty into the
English heart, if truly the Empire is to grow
and to succeed ; not by successful war, but
by justice and good government in peace
will the Empire's future be secured. And

Theosophy and Imperialism 193

though war be sometimes necessary, as I
well know it is, in the moulding of Empires,
it should be a thing to grieve over and not
to rejoice over, it should be a thing which
should be looked on as the exception as far
as possible, and righteousness of rule as the
only justification of Empire.

Take as an example Egypt, and you will
see more of what 1 mean. There I think
England may fairly say that she has governed
the country for the people of the country
and not for her own profit and her own gain ;
she has made the people happier, she has in-
creased the productiveness of the soil, she has
not gained, but has rather borne burden and
difficulty there. And it is that which should
be our model in the future, rather than some
of our actions in other lands.

For when we come to study to its roots
this great question of Empire we find that
every really great ruler in the past has been
the ruler who made himself a constant
sacrifice to his duty, and who thought more
of the duty of protection than he did of the
enjoyment of power. The danger to this
dawning Empire will never lie in defeat in
war ; the danger to the Empire will come if
the weak are not rightly protected, and if
justice and righteousness do not mark the

13

194 India

extension of British rule. Very, very clearly
was that seen some five thousand years ago
in India, when one of her rulers was being
warned of his duty by a great teacher of
religion, and the words are so significant and
so eternally true, although in a fashion
startling in the way of putting the thing, that
I will read them to you as being the condi-
tion of righteous Empire.

" The Creator created power for the sake
of protecting weakness ; do not therefore
come into hostile contact with the weak ; take
care that the eyes of the weak do not burn
thee with thy kinsmen. In a race scorched
by the eyes of the weak no children take
birth, such eyes burn the race to its very
roots. Weakness is more powerful than the
greatest power, for the power that is scorched
by weakness becomes totally exterminated.
If a person who has been humiliated or struck
fail while shrieking for assistance to obtain
a protector, divine chastisement overtakes the
King and brings about his destruction. Do
not, O King, in the enjoyment of power, take
wealth from those that are weak. Take care
that the eyes of the weak do not burn thee
like a blazing fire. The tears shed by weep-
ing men afflicted by tyranny slay the children
and the animals of those that oppressed them.

Theosophy and Imperialism ^95

When a weak person fails to find a rescuer,
the great rod of divine chastisement falls."

There is the very essence which each of us
must understand and take to heart if the
British Empire is to grow and be a blessing
to the world. Power exists not for what it
can take, but for what it can give ; power
exists not for what it can grasp, but for what
it can protect. And an Empire is only great
when under the shelter of the Empire the
weak and the defenceless find their safety and
security, when the ruler rules to help and not
to tyrannise, when the Empire is based on
protection and not on force. There is no
danger to this dawning Empire, in the nations
around it to whom your eyes are turned so
much. Russia is strong, she cannot injure
you ; Germany is strong, she cannot injure
you ; but the weak of your own populations,
if you neglect them, they will undermine
your power, for those who have no earthly
protector have the protection of the Maker
of Kings, of the Giver of Empires. That,
then, is the root idea which should underlie
a true Imperialism. It is a trust far more
than a glory ; it is a responsibility far more
than a joy.

A truly imperial people in these days must
be a people who put the duty of human

196 India

brotherhood in the forefront of their policy,
and who learn that it is a law for nations as
well as for individuals that they must do to
others as they desire that others should do
to them. As they take up the sceptre of
Empire they should see where it is wanted
for guidance, for help, for protection, and
the duty of an Empire must vary with the
people whom it rules, and with the civilisation
that it conquers. You should not treat an
ancient Empire and civilisation like India as
you would treat savage people and barbarian
nations. You have gradually to educate, to
train, to elevate, otherwise the Empire will
not be truly strong. I saw once in a London
paper that " when all is said, we took India
by the sword and we must hold her by the
sword." That is not the imperial spirit, but
the spirit of the tyrant expressing itself
through the press. It is not true, either, that
we conquered India by the sword and hold
her by the sword. We conquered her by the
swords of her own children, who thought we
would rule her better than her own princes
had done ; we hold her to-day by those same
swords, just as in the Indian Mutiny it was
Indian princes that saved the Empire to
England. She could not have done it alone
and unassisted. And that is still the truth,

Theosophy and Imperialism 197

and will become more and more the truth,
just in proportion as you welcome them as
fellow-servants and as brothers, and not as a
subject nation, as a conquered people. The
genius of Empire is to make every nation
that you conquer feel that you bring them
into the Imperial Family, and that they and
you from that time forward are brothers, and
not conquered and conquerors. We lost
America simply because we denied brother-
hood, and tried to win by threat what we
could not win by justice. That great lesson
was given to the British nation when the
British Empire began to dawn, and it will
be well if we learn that lesson now, and do
not lose other parts of our Empire.

I believe, thoroughly believe, that at the
present time to this British nation the possi-
bility of a world Empire is offered. I believe
that in the cycle of evolution, and the growth
of peoples, the time has come in the vast
world-history where this power of serving
the world is offered to the British nation —
that I believe to be true. And I believe it
because I am a Theosophist, and have studied
history in the light of occultism. How vast
a destiny for Britain, how magnificent a
possibility for the world, if this nation can
rise to the greatness of such a destiny, if this

\>^

igS India

nation can be heroic enough to hold and
guide and uplift. For it would mean nothing
less than a world-peace, amid which a mighty-
civilisation might grow up greater than the
past has seen. It would mean to the world
a federation so strong of peace-loving nations,
that they would be able to impose peace upon
the world because none should be strong
enough to break it. And the need of the
world is for such a world-wide peace, so that
the problems may be dealt with which are
threatening the present civilisation, and the
nations may have time to look at home instead
of always keeping anxious eyes abroad.

There are questions to be decided by the
great race to which you belong, questions of
social life, questions of the getting rid of the
terrible poverty that oppresses masses of the
people, economic questions pressing for
solution, which need to be decided by the
calm wisdom of the wisest, and not to be
put aside for the struggle of contending
nationalities, nor be answered by the madness
of revolutionary fury. We need an Empire
of peace, of justice, within which a new
civilisation may gradually grow up, a civilisa-
tion which should be peace not war, co-
operation not competition, education not
cramming, comfort not pauperism.

Theosophy and Imperialism 199

The type of religion that precedes the
founding of a new civilisation presages the
nature of that civilisation. Theosophy teaches
us to see that great religious movements
have heralded great Empires, but that each
religion, being separative, has heralded an
Empire that has held its own against the
world instead of leading a united world to
progress. And it shows us that as we have
now no new religion, but a religious move-
ment that asserts the common basis of all
religions, the spiritual unity of man, so we
shall have a peace civilisation in which all
nations shall find a place. Religious peace
will precede international peace ; the stilling
of the rivalries of religions will precede the
stilling of the rivalries of nations. This
essential service to the coming Empire,
theosophy, and only theosophy, can render.
For it alone quarrels with no religion, asserts
the value and the truth of each, seeks no
converts, makes no proselytes. This Empire
must be composed of peoples of many faiths,
and these faiths must be reverenced and pro-
tected, not assailed. The missionary spirit
is ever a menace to the Empire, stirring up
religious animosities and setting one people
against another. It must be replaced by the
theosophical spirit, if the Empire is to be

200 Indi&

cemented together, and religion is to cease to
be a disruptive force. For an Empire like
the British theosophy is a necessity, even
more than it is a necessity for separate peoples.
And it alone can prevent the Empire from
being a menace to religions other than the
Christian. Thus the spread of theosophy
throughout the world heralds the shaping of
a world Empire whose watchword shall be
Brotherhood, Righteousness and Service.
That Empire shall be the cradle of a more
spiritual race, of a race inspired by Wisdom
and by Love.

Does the claim seem too great for a move-
ment so small, too grandiose for beginnings
so feeble ? Yet the promise of the golden
corn is in the hidden grains below the earthy
clods, and every religious movement at the
beginning has been as the " little leaven,"
scarce visible yet destined to permeate and
change the whole. No contempt poured on
the theosophical movement is as bitter, as
disdainful, as the proud Roman citizen poured
on the despised Christianity of his time, yet
his Rome perished and Christianity has
grown into a world-wide faith. Now it is
Theosophy which is the Stone rejected by
the builders, and it shall in turn become the
" head of the corner." For the wise Master-

Theosophy and Imperialism 201

Builders see not greatness and smallness as
they are seen by the eyes of men ; they judge
by the strength of the indwelling life, and not
by the outer magnificence of the form.

We have read of Empires in the past
where the sense of public duty moved all
who took share of rule, from the King down
to the lowest hand that wielded power, and
the one object of one of those mighty
civilisations of the past was to make the
people happy, for that, it was written, is the
duty of kings. Governments exist for the
sake of the people and not for the sake of
governments. Governments exist not that
some men may be highly placed and highly
paid, but that the masses of the people, more
ignorant than they, may be guided to a
better happiness than unguided they could
reach. Governments only exist so that
nations may live in peace and in prosperity,
and the test of the goodness of the govern-
ment lies in the happiness of the people.
And what is needed for this is not that we
should look only at external methods of
ruling, but that each one in our own
individual life should make duty and not
pleasure the rule of life, the discharge of
duty and not the gaining of enjoyment that
which is the impelling motive of conduct.

202 India

In forgetfulness of this lies the great danger
of Britain. Before the late war she was
growing too luxurious, she was growing too
pleasure -loving. If she is to be truly
imperial, she must think of duty, of industry,
of diligence in the discharge of duty, in every
rank of life ; and the ideal of life must cease
to be to earn money, anyhow, and then to
live in luxurious idleness. Idleness is only
justifiable as it is the holiday which prepares
for better exercise of duty ; and duty,
diligence and industry must be the watch-
word of everyone among us. From the
King on his throne to the poorest labourer
in the street, the ideal should be an ideal of
duty and of service, and not of gaining the
means to live idly and luxuriously. And
the fault that that ideal has spread amongst
the people which makes them constantly
desire, if they can, to reach idleness, that
which spreads among the people the habit of
drink and the spirit of gambling, is the
example of luxurious living which has been
set them in high places, and the sight of that
grasping of pleasure instead of discharging of
duty, which is the mark of a people who are
decaying and not of an Empire that is form-
ing. If, then, those signs that a few years ago
were marked, of growing luxury, of growing

Theosophy and Imperialism 203

idleness, of growing desire for personal
pleasure and physical enjoyment, if those are
not changed by the setting of a noble example
by the educated and the thoughtful of a life
that should be more dignified, more self-
controlled, more devoted to national ends
and less eager after personal gain, unless that
is done throughout the nation as a whole,
but chiefly among those classes that because
they have so much more have the heavier
duty of setting example upon them, unless
that is done the dream of Empire will vanish,
and the opportunity offered to Britain will
pass on to some other nation.

Shall it be so ? Shall it be that this great
offer of being the greatest Servant of Humanity
that the world has known should slip from
your fingers becauseyou are not strong enough
to grasp it, and because you are still so childish
that you care only for the glitter of rule and
not for the doing of service ? On the answer
to that question depends the future of Imperi-
alism here. If it be an Imperialism of greed
of power, of the desire to take more and more
land away from other nations, of thinking
more of growing big than of growing worthy,
and of grasping more instead of ruling well,
then I do not believe the Divine Justice will
give the next World Empire to such a nation.

204 India

or assign to those who show themselves as
children the man's burden of rule and of
heavy responsibility. But if, as I hope and
pray, this great people arises to a sense of
their power and responsibilities, if they take
the striking lesson given them within the last
few days, when the central figure of the whole
pageantry and glitter of Empire was struck
down, and the people were reminded how
near a Crown might be to Death, if they take
that lesson, and if, as we see hinted in the
papers, the coronation that is to follow will
have the religious side more emphasised and
the show side less emphasised, if when
England's greatest gather again in West-
minster Abbey, as may God grant, to crown
the King, if then they think more of the duty
that lies upon the Monarch than the greatness
of his station, if they see in the Imperial
Crown a sign of divine power for the helping
of the peoples and not for the mere glorifica-
tion of the wearer, if they realise that this
world Empire is a mighty and a serious
thing, not a thing of flags and illuminations
but a thing of human duty and responsibility,
if, as of old, the night before the coronation
is not spent in feasting but in fasting, not in
shouting and in hurrahing, but in hoping and
in praying, then the check which has come in

Theosophy and Imperialism 205

the nation's way in the very moment of its
highest joy may be a check that will make the
Empire far more possible than it was before.
It is a good thing that through the length and
breadth of the nation one feeling should make
its way ; it is a good thing that the nation
should think of its wider self rather than of
narrow individual aims ; it is a good thing
that the hearts of the people should be stirred
to interest in wider uses and should be ready
to rejoice over the greatness of a people and
not only over individual gain. But what we
have to do, the duty that it seems to me lies
upon us, is to try to check in the people
everything that merely sees the joy of the
power and does not see the weight of the
responsibility. And I urge on you who are
parts of this Empire-making people, you who
have influence in the future and have a share
in the guiding of the State, I ask you whether
in public speech and in private conversation
it may not be well in the years that lie before
us to strike continually this note of public
duty, to make patriotism less a pride and love
in the size of the Empire, than a pride and
love in the Empire's usefulness, in her service-
ableness, in her helpfulness to the world. Do
not let the Eastern peoples think, as they
think too often, that England cares for nothing

2o6 India

but trade, and that she uses her mighty military
power for the mere opening up of new markets
which she desires for the enrichment of her
home. Let them know that Britain is too
great to desire to steal from those who do not
wish to give ; let them hear her voice as one
that speaks for justice to the weak, and see
her hands outstretched to defend. All over
the world there are nations thatwould welcome
the protectorate of England if they knew that
it meant for them protection against tyranny,
against oppression and against wrong ; but
in order that it may be so, they must see that
in the Empire you have you are doing justice
and loving mercy, and that you do not try to
use your power to trample on the helpless
and the weak.

That, then, it seems to me, friends, is the
duty that lies in front. Let us have an
Imperialism, but let it be one of righteous-
ness, of justice, of love and of truth. Let it
not be a matter of pride, save the pride of
doing duty well and wielding great power
nobly. Let your ambition be to be known
as the helper of the weak, the protector of the
helpless, the one who is ready to stand between
the feeble and those who desire to oppress.
Let that be your pride, that you hold a shield
high, under which the nations of the world

Theosophy and Imperialism 207

may gather, sure of protection, sure of help,
sure of justice, sure of sympathy. Train your
boys, your girls, those who are to be the
makers, the upholders, the inspirers of the
Empire in the future, train them to a sense
of responsibility, train them to frugal living,
to control over their passions and emotions,
to rule over their bodies and their minds, to
hatred of all that is mean, that is cruel, that
is oppressive, that is unfair. Make them
what they should be, honourable citizens of
a mighty Empire. Then the Imperialism of
the future shall be a blessing and not a curse,
a light to the Empire and to the world that
I hope it will serve ; an Imperialism under
which the younger nations shall grow up, an
Imperialism under which the subject peoples
shall be as proud of the British Islands as
those who are born upon their soil ; an Im-
perialism in which, as was once written, the
King shall regard every man as his son and
guard and love him as his own ; an Imperi-
alism which shall be the first of the Empires
of the world to exist for the good of all those
whom it rules, world-wide because world-
loved, and powerful because the Throne is
based on the Brotherhood that nothing can
destroy.

England and India

An Address delivered at South Place Chapel^ Finsbury^
^th October 1 902

TpHE relations between conquering nations
and subject peoples form a question
of the present day which may well tax the
thought of the most thoughtful, as well as
stir the feelings of the most sensitive. How
these relations should be carried on, how
both conquering nation and subject people
may profit by the links that arise between
them — on the answer to that problem depends
much of the future progress of the world, and
I have thought that with the traditions that
are associated with the name of South Place
I might well take up before you this morning
the relations which exist between one of the
greatest of conquering nations and the greatest
of subject peoples, and see how far it is
possible to lay down certain lines of thought
which may possibly be of help to you in your
own thinking, which may possibly suggest to
you ideas which, perchance, otherwise might
not have come in your way.

Now, every two nations that come into
208

England and India 209

touch the one with the other should, it is
very clear, each have something to learn,
each have something to teach, and this is
perhaps pre-eminently the case where two
such nations as India and England are con-
cerned. Where England has to do with
savage peoples her path is comparatively
simple ; where she has to do with a nation
far older than her own civilisation, a nation
with fixed and most ancient traditions, a
nation that was enjoying a high state of
civilisation long ere the seed of Western
civilisation was sown — where she has to do
with such a people, the relations must needs
be complicated and difficult, difficult for both
sides to understand, difficult for both sides
to make fruitful of good rather than of evil.
And I know of no greater service that can
be rendered, either in this land or in that,
than the service of those who try to under-
stand the question and to draw the nations
closer together by wisdom, instead of driving
them further apart by ignorance and by
prejudice.

Now it seems to me that with regard to
India, the subject may fall quite naturally
under three heads ; first, the head of religion ;
then, of education ; and then, of political
relations, under which latter I include the

14

210 India

a social conditions of the people. Let me try,
then, under these three headings to suggest
to you certain ideas as to English relations
with India which may possibly hereafter
bear fruit in your minds, if they be worthy
to do so.

I said, that when two nations come together
each has something to teach and something
to learn, and that is true. So far as religion
is concerned, I think India has more to teach
than she has to learn. So far as education
is concerned much has to be done on both
sides, but on the whole, in most respects,

^ England has more to teach there than to
learn. With regard to political conditions,
there both nations have much to learn in
mutual understanding and in adaptation to
this old civilisation of India of methods of
thought, of rule, of social conditions utterly
alien from her own conditions, so that changes,
if it be wise to introduce them, must be
brought about with the greatest care, the
greatest delicacy, after the longest and most
careful consideration.

I. Let us take, then, first the question of
religion^ on which I submit to you that India
has more to teach than she has to learn ; and
I say that for this reason, that almost every-
thing which can be learned from Christianity

England and India 2ii

exists also in the Eastern faiths, and you have
with regard to this to remember in India that
you are dealing with a people of various faiths
and many schools of thought, some of them
exceedingly ancient, deeply philosophic, as
well as highly spiritual. Now, 70 per cent.
of the population of India are Hindt^s, belong
to one great religion, which includes under
that name an immense variety of philosophic
schools and sects. For when we speak of
Hindilism, we are not speaking of what you
might call a simple religion such as is modern
Christianity, though even there you have
divisions enough, but of a religion which has
always encouraged to the fullest extent the
freedom of the intellect, and which recognises
nothing as heresy which the intellect of man
can grasp, which the thought of man can
formulate. You have under that general ^y
name the greatest diversity of thought, and
always Hindt!iism has encouraged that diversity,
has not endeavoured to check it. Hindt^ism
is very, very strict in its social polity, it is
marvellously wide in its theological, its
ethical, its philosophical thought. It in-
cludes even on one side the Charvaka system,
the most complete atheism, as it would here
be called ; while it includes on the other,
forms of the most popular religious thinking

212 India

that It is possible to conceive. The intellect,
then, has ever been free under the sceptre of
the religion which embraces 70 per cent, of
the great Indian population.

The majority of the remaining 30 per cent,
are followers of the great Prophet of Arabia,
Muhammad, and amongst them to-day there
are great signs of awakening of thought,
there are great signs of revival of deeper
philosophical belief. While the majority of
them still are, I was almost going to say,
plunged in religious bigotry, from Western
and from Eastern standpoints, rather repeat-
ing a creed than understanding a philosophy,
there is none the less at the present day a
very considerable awakening and a hope that
the great faith of Islam may stand higher in
the eyes of the world by knowledge and by
power than it has done for many a hundred
years in the past. Then, in addition to this
— the Hindu with its 70 per cent., the faith
of Islam, which counts some 50,000,000 of
the population — you have Christianity, im-
ported, of course, from the West, not touch-
ing the higher classes of the Hind^ls at all,
but having a considerable following, especially
in the South, among the most ignorant,
among the most superstitious people : you
have the Parsi community, a thoughtful,

England and India 213

learned and wealthy community, though a
very small one, only numbering, I think,
some 80,000 people ; you have the Jain
community, also very wealthy, and having
among it a certain number of very learned
men, a community whose rites go back to the
very early days of Hindvl thought and Hindt!!l
civilisation ; and you have in addition to this
the warrior nation of the Sikhs, bound
together by their devotion to their great
Prophet, and forming to-day a most im-
portant part of the fighting strength of the
English Empire in India. Buddhism has
scarcely any power in India proper. It rules,
of course, in Burma, and it rules in Ceylon,
both, of course, forming part of the Indian
Empire, but in India proper it is practically
non-existent.

In this way, then, you have a country,
including Burma and Ceylon, in which you
have clearly marked out some seven different
faiths, and you have a ruling nation. Christian
in its theory, and entirely unsectarian so far
as its rule over the people is concerned ; but
inevitably under the shadow of that con-
quering nation there grows up an immense
missionary propaganda in India, which is
strong, not by its learning, not by the in-
fluence of its missionaries, but simply from

214 India

the fact that they belong to the conquering,
to the ruling people, and so have behind
them, in the mind of the great mass of the
people, the weight which comes by the
authority of the English Empire, as you
may say, backing that particular form of
faith. Now it is this condition that you
want to understand, if you would deal fairly
with the religious question in India. The
most utter impartiality is the rule of the
Government, but it is that simple impartiality
which may be said to take up the position
that all religions are equally indifferent.
This is not the kind of spirit that is wanted
in a country where religion is the strongest
force in life. You need a sympathetic im-
partiahty, not an impartiality of indifference ;
and it is that in which so far the Government
has naturally very largely failed. You want
in India at the present time a definite re-
cognition of the fact that the religions that
are there, and that rule the hearts of the
great mass of the people and the minds of
the most thoughtful and learned of the nation
— that these religions are worthy of the
highest respect, and not of mere toleration.
You have to realise that the missionary efforts
there do an infinity of harm and very little
good ; that they set religion against religion

England and India 215

and faith against faith ; whereas what you
want in India is the brotherhood of rehgions,
and the respect of men of every faith for the
faiths which are not theirs. You need there
the teaching and the spirit of Theosophy,
which sees every reHgion as the partial ^
expression of one great truth. The more
aggressive one faith shows itself to be, the
more it is stirring up religious antagonisms
and religious hatreds. Danger to the Empire
lies in the aggressive policy of Christianity,
whereby large numbers of men, ignorant of the
religions that they attack, treat them with con-
tempt, with scorn, with insult — thatisoneof the
dangers that you have to consider in India, when
you remember that in the minds of the people
England stands behind the missionary. The
Christian missionary converts very, very rarely, ^
in the most exceptional of cases, any man who
is educated, any man who is trained in his
own faith, any man of what are called the
higher and thoughtful castes. It makes its
converts among the great mass of the most
ignorant of the population ; it makes them
chiefly in times of famine and of distress ; it
makes them more largely for social reasons "^
than for reasons which are religious in their
nature. By the folly of the Hindils them-
selves vast masses of the Indians have been

2i6 India

left without religious teachings altogether,
have been regarded with contempt, have been
looked upon with arrogance. It is among
these classes that the Christian missionaries
find their converts. Once such a man is
converted to Christianity, he, who before
was not allowed to cross the threshold of a
Hindil, is admissible as a Christian into the
house, because Christianity is the religion of
the conquering nation ; and you can very
well recognise how strong a converting power
that has on the ignorant, on the degraded,
on the socially oppressed. It is not necessary
for me to say much on that here, although
here nothing much can be done in this matter.
It is rather in India that one tries to meet
that question, pointing out to the educated
and religious how great a danger to their
own faith, as well as how great a wrong to
humanity, it is to neglect vast portions of
the population and so to drive them as it
were to find refuge in an alien creed, which
at least treats them with decency, if it cannot
do much for them in ethical training.

This religious question in India is one
that you need to understand, for Eastern
teaching is everywhere more and more spread-
ing in the West. I could not help being
amused the other day by a remark of a dis-

England and India 217

consolate missionary coming back to America,
and declaring that while he was striving to
convert people from Hindtiiism, he found on
his return that large numbers of the educated
were tainted with the philosophy that in
India he was trying to destroy. That is
perfectly true. Hindt^ thought is making its
way here in general very much more rapidly
than Christianity is making its way in India ;
and it is touching the flower of the population
here, whereas Christianity is only touching
the poorest and most ignorant in India. That
is why I said that India had much more to
teach than to learn in matters of religion ;
she has plenty in her own faith which can
train and cultivate the masses of her people,
but that must be done by Hindti missionaries
and not by Christian missionaries. It would
be the wisdom of England to look upon all
these religions as methods of training, of
guiding, of helping the people, and to recog-
nise that the work of the Christian in India
is among his own population, is among his
own countrymen, is among the Christian
communities, and that he should look on his
faith as a sister faith among many, and not as
unique, to which people of other religions
are to be converted. The greatest, perhaps
the only serious danger to English rule in

2x8 India

India lies in the religious question, in the
bad feelings stirred up by the missionaries,
in the difficulties that are caused by their
lack of understanding of the people. Theo-
sophy has done much to counteract this
danger, and has been striving in India to
stimulate the peoples of the various faiths to
take up these religious questions for them-
selves, and by their energy in the teaching
of their own religion to cause the spread of
religious knowledge which may make each
faith strong within its own borders.

II. Pass from the religious question to
the educational^ and here a great danger lies
immediately in front, a danger which arises
largely out of that want of sympathy
and that want of understanding which is
the chief fault of the English people as a
conquering nation, as a ruler in their rela-
tions with subject peoples. They try to
be just, they try to do their duty, they are
industrious, they are hard-working, endeav-
ouring to do the work which is put into their
hands. Their weak point lies in the fact
that they are very unsympathetic, that they
cannot put themselves into the place of others,
and that they have a tendency to think they
are so immensely superior to others that
whatever is good for them is good for every-

Engl&nd and India ^^9

body else ; they fail to understand the tradi-
tions and the customs which must exist in
an ancient people, a people of high and
complicated civilisation, and this lack of
sympathy has a very great bearing on the
question of education. Practically, Indian
education, on the higher line, was started by
the wisdom of Lord Macaulay. He began
the work of Indian education, and he began
it wisely and well. It has been carried on
year after year by a long succession of
Viceroys, who for the most part have done
well with regard to the educational question ;
but while they have done well, it is perfectly
true that there are great and serious faults
in the Indian system, faults which need to
be corrected and which neutralise much of
the value of the education that is given.
I have not time to go very fully into
these faults ; it must suffice to say that
memory has been cultivated to the exclusion
of the reasoning faculty, and that even when
science has been taught it has been taught by
the text-book, and not in the laboratory, it
has been taught by memory, and not by
experiment. In addition to that there has
been a crushing number of examinations,
forcing the whole life of the boy as well as
of the man, and keeping up a continual strain

220

India

which has exhausted the pupil ere he has left
the University. It has been forgotten that
the Indian student is naturally studious and
not playful enough, that his inclination is to
work a great deal too hard, that what was
wanted was the stimulation to play more than
the stimulation to study, that the physical
training of the boys was more necessary to
be seen to than the intellectual training. The
physical training was left out of sight, and
though carefully looked after in ancient India,
it was now neglected. As these differences
were overlooked, everything was done to
force the intellectual side in an unwise way,
by cramming rather than by organic develop-
ment of study, and as the University degrees
were made the only passport to Government
employment and to the professions at large,
it became a wild desire on the part of the
Indian parent to force his boys on as rapidly
as possible with little regard to the kind of
education that was given. These faults have
been seen by the present Viceroy, and eager
to mend the faults he sent out a University
Commission, which has just made its report.
Now the first fault of that Commission was
that it only had two representatives of India
on it, and the rest Englishmen, and the
EngHsh members of that Commission were

England and India 221

not all acquainted with the nature of the
problems of Indian education. They have
issued their Report. The Indian judge, who
was the Hindt!i member of that Commission,
has issued a minority report against many of
the recommendations made by the majority
consisting of the English members and one
Mussulman. The very fact that you get a
report divided in that racial way ought at
once to make our rulers pause, and when
you find that many of the recommendations
of the majority report are disapproved by
the representative of 70 per cent, of the
population that you are going to teach, it
seems as though it might be wise if the
Government here would look into the matter
a little carefully before it gives its decision.
For it is the view of the Indian people, now
being expressed in every way possible, that
the report of the Commission strikes a heavy
blow at Indian education, that the whole of
the great work of the past will be destroyed,
and that the education of the future will be
placed beyond the reach of large numbers of
the people.

To begin with, the education is now made
more costly, and by that one word you have
its condemnation for India. The fees are
everywhere to be raised, so that University

222

India

education will be practically beyond the reach
of those who need it most. It is said that
many go to the University who are not fit
for it ; but the remedy for that is to improve
the teaching in your Universities, and not
to increase the cost of the education ; for by
high fees you will not exclude the idle and
the unworthy rich, but you will exclude great
masses of the worthy and industrious poor ;
and when you remember that it is the Indian
tradition that learning and poverty go together,
that the man who is learned has no need of
wealth, that you find the highest caste the
poorest caste although the most learned — if
you could realise that and put yourself in
their place, you would understand the agita-
tion which at present is convulsing the most
thoughtful people in India, when they see
that the Government is going to exclude
their sons, the flower of the intellectual
population, from all share in education by
the high fees which it is going to impose.
It is said by the Commission, that scholar-
ships may serve for the poorer classes, but
you cannot give scholarships to thousands
of that vast population. You can give
scholarships to a boy here and there, but you
cannot give them to the great mass ; the
greatest danger is the discontent of the

England and India 223

thoughtful, and that is the discontent which
is being stirred up at the present time. The
truth is, that Lord Curzon, able as he is, has
only five years in which to rule, and he is
eager to mark his Viceroyalty by some great
scheme of change. But if England be not
careful it will be marked by the saddest
monument that ever Viceroy has left behind
him, the destruction of the education of a
great people, and the shutting out of vast
masses of the intellectual from education
whereby they might rise to be your helpers
in the ruHng of their country, but shut out
from which they become an element of danger.
That is not a thing which it is well to have
said by a subject nation of the type of the
Indian nation. It is said among the thoughtful
people now that this is intended to destroy
education, in order that Indians may not
have their fair share in the government of
their own land. That is the thought which
is spreading, that is the motive which they
believe lies behind the policy of Lord Curzon.
They think he desires to stop education, in
order that the Indians may not rise to the
higher posts in their own country, and that
is a most dangerous idea to spread through
the most intellectual, through the most
thoughtful classes. I have had letter after

224 India

letter pleading with me to do something here
to prevent this report from receiving the
sanction of the Government, but how difficult
it is to do that where the people who give
the decision are ignorant themselves, and
where they naturally rely on their own agents
rather than on what any casual speaker may
say.

In the attempt started by the Theosophical
Society in India, and carried on by large
numbers of the Hindiis themselves, to build
up a large Hindti College, we are trying to
do the very opposite of some of the things
that are being suggested to the Government,
and are already doing some of the things
they want done. We have put down the fees
to the lowest possible point ; we are training
the lads in the laboratory ; we give them less
and less instruction in which memory only
is cultivated, and in which the reasoning
faculties are thrown entirely on one side.
We are teaching them to play games ; we
are training strong and healthy bodies, and
are endeavouring to prevent the great nervous
strain involved in study. But if this Com-
mission Report be adopted much of our
work will be destroyed, and the results which
we are trying to bring about, and have
brought about to some extent, will be utterly

England and India 225

wasted, will be impossible to carry on ; for
the boy that we want to reach, the intelligent,
the eager, those who are longing to learn but
whose parents are poor, they will be shut
utterly out of education, for unless we adopt
the Government rate of fees, the Govern-
ment may close the college and not permit it
to carry on its work. That is the kind of
difficulty that has to be dealt with in these
educational measures. If you would let
Indians guide their own education, if you
would give them all that is best in the West,
when it is suitable, but not insist that all that
is good in England is necessarily good there ;
if you would try to see things from their
own standpoint, if you did not insist on
highly paid Englishmen as instructors, instead
of educated Indians, you would work at less
expense and with more efficiency.

But what is there to be done, when the
Government here has the last word and
knows nothing about the conditions ; and
when the data on which the decisions are
made are sent from India by those who are
apart from Indian sympathy, data on which
the Indians are not consulted, although it is
their children whose future is in jeopardy.
What is really needed is to make education
cheap, widespread, scientific, literary and

15

226 India

technical ; to change the policy which draws
the intelligent Indians only into Government
service, and to get them to take up the other
lines of work which afFect the economic future
of their country ; to educate them in arts and
manufactures ; not to leave the direction of
industry to people who are of the ruling
nation, but to draft into industrial undertak-
ings large numbers of the educated classes —
that is the kind of education that is wanted,
and the kind of education that England does
not give to India, and will not let India give
to herself.

III. Pass from that to the third point I
spoke of — this question touching on politics^ in-
cluding the social and economic conditions of
India. It must have struck you, those who
have studied the past, that it is very strange
that this country — which, when the East India
Company went there in the i8th century,
was one of the richest countries of the world
— has now become a country to go a-begging
to the world for the mere food to keep its
vast population from dying of starvation by
millions. The mere fact that there has been
such a change in the wealth of the country
should surely make those who are responsible
for its rule look more closely into the economic
conditions, should surely suggest that there

England and India 227

is something fundamentally wrong when you
have these recurring famines. Six years of
famine, practically, India has lately passed
through. It is not due to changes of climate ;
these have always been there — seasons of
drought, seasons of too much rain, seasons of
good weather. These are not surely the
direct result of English rule ! They existed
long before England came ; they are likely to
exist long after we have all passed away.
Why is it that these famines recur time after
time ? Why is it that such myriads of people
are thus doomed to starvation ? Now I have
not a word to say as to the efforts that are
made by the English when the famine is there
save words of praise. The English officials
worked themselves half to death when the
people were dying. But that is not the time
when the work is most needed. It is pre-
vention that we want, rather than cure ; and
the nation that can only deal with famine by
relief-works and by charity is not a nation
that in the eyes of the world can justify its
authority in India. There must be causes
that underlie these famines. It is the duty
of the ruling nation to understand these causes,
or else to allow the wisest among the Indian
population to take these questions into their
own hands and act as the Council of the

228 India

English rulers. Sometimes it is said that the
famine is owing to the increase in the popu-
lation. That is not true. What is called the
peace of Britain is not a blessing, if it be the
cause of famine. It is easier to the great
mass of the people to have wars that kill off
some of them quickly, than to have recurring
famines that starve them to death after months
of agony. The British peace is not a blessing,
if it be punctuated by famines in which millions
die by starvation. Peace is not a blessing if
it kills more people than war, and that is what
the peace of England is doing in India, and
it is killing them after terrible sufferings,
instead of by sword and by fire. It is the
cause of these famines that we need to under-
stand. It is a remarkable fact that where the
Indian princes have been left uninterfered
with the famines have not been so serious.
Everywhere, where a nation lives by agri-
culture and has to prepare itself for a bad
season, it is usual to find out a way of dealing
with the natural difficulties suitable to its own
spirit. Now that was done in India, and done
in a very simple way, although a way that is
dead against the modern " political economy."
The way was a simple way in the days of
ancient Egypt. We have all read of how,
when Joseph was the wise minister there, he

England and India 229

provided for the years of famine in the years
of plenty. That one sentence expresses the
Indian way of dealing with famines. When
there was plenty, large quantities of the food
were stored, and rent and taxes were taken in
food ; these varied with the food raised by
the people, and therefore they never pressed
heavily on the people. When there was
much raised the rent and taxes were higher ;
when the harvest was bad the king went with-
out his share. But in the years when he got
a very large share he stored it in granaries.
In addition to that, after the people were fed
(and the feeding of the people was the first
charge), the people themselves stored the
year's corn, so that if they had a bad year
they could fall back on their own corn. In
this way the peasant could make head against
one bad season, and if there were more than
one bad season the prince came to his aid, by
throwing his corn on the market at a price
which the people could afford to pay. Now
that method of dealing with the famine pro-
blem still goes on in some States, such as
Kashmir, because they will not permit their
grain to be exported. But the greatest pres-
sure is continually being put on the Maharajah
of Kashmir to force him to export his rice. He
has been able to hold his own so far, but the

230 India

resistance of English pressure is a terribly-
difficult thing for an Indian prince, and to
resist it continually is not possible. Now I
know how alien to English thought that
method of dealing with the products of a
country is ; but it is far better to carry that
on and save the people from famine, than to
insist that the people shall sell their corn in
years of plenty and starve in years of scarcity.
The people want to store their corn when
they have it, to keep it against the bad seasons,
instead of having to import it from abroad in
time of famine. And yet, in this very year
when famine was threatened, I saw not long
ago in a newspaper a telegram advising the
recurrence of famine in one part of India, and
in the same paper that contained that telegram
I saw a statement that the first shiploads of
Indian wheat had left Bombay. That may
be modern political economy, but it is pure
idiocy ! India if wisely governed may be a
paradise, but we have just read that with five
fools you can turn a paradise into a hell ; and
to impose English political economy on India
is folly, well-intentioned folly, but folly none
the less.

Another great cause of these famines is the
way in which the land is now held. In the
old days there was a common interest in the

England and India 231

land between princes and people. Now the
nobles, the old class of zemindars, have been
turned into landlords, and that is a very
different thing from the old way of holding
land. Then you have insisted on giving to
the peasant the right to sell his land, the very
last thing that he wants to do, the thing which
takes away from him the certainty of food for
himself and his children. No peasant in the
old days had the right to sell his land, but
only to cultivate it. If he needed to borrow
at any time he borrowed on the crop. Now,
in order to free the people from debt, they
are given the right to sell their mortgaged
holdings, and this means the throwing out of
an agricultural people on the roads, making
them landless, and the holding of the land by
money-lenders. That revolution in the land
system of India is one of the causes of the
recurring famines, the second perhaps of the
great causes. The natural result of it is that
you put now power into the hands of the
money-lender, and you take away from the
peasant the shield that always protected him.
The railway system, too, useful as it is, has
done an immense amount of harm. It has
cleared away the food ; it has sent the man
with money into the country districts to buy
up the produce which he sends abroad, giving

232 India

the peasant the rupees that he cannot eat
instead of the rice and corn that he can eat.

Even when I first went to India you could
hardly see a peasant woman without silver
bangles on her arms and legs. Now large
numbers of peasant women wear none ; these
have been sold during these last years of
famine, and to sell these is the last sign of
poverty for the Indian peasantry. It is no
good giving them money in exchange for
their food. They do not know how to deal
with it. They are urged to buy English
goods of Manchester manufacture which wear
out in a few months, instead of the Indian-
made articles which last for many years. You
must remember that the Indian peasant washes
his clothes every day of his life, and so they
need to be of great durability.

Another difficulty is the way in which you
have destroyed the manufactures of India —
destroyed them partly by flooding the market
with cheap, showy, adulterated goods which
have attracted the ignorant people, inducing
them to buy what is largely worthless. All
the finer manufactures of India are practically
destroyed, whereas the makers used to grow
rich by selling these to her wealthy men and
to foreign countries. Now both the fine and
coarse goods are beaten out of the country

England and India 233

by the cheap Manchester goods, and the dear
fashionable fabrics ; even if this had been
done fairly it would not be so bad, but the
Indian merchants were forced to give up
their trade secrets to the agents of English
industries. You guard your trade secrets
jealously from rivals, but you have forced
the Indians to give up theirs, in order that
English manufacturers might have the benefit
of that knowledge. In this way old trades
have been gradually killed out, while the arts
of India are very rapidly perishing. The
arts of India depended on the social condi-
tion of the country. The artist in India was
not a man who lived by competition. As
far as he was concerned he did not trade at
all. He was always kept as part of the great
household of a noble ; his board, his lodging,
his clothing, were all secured to him, and he
worked at his leisure and carried out his
artistic ideas without difficulty and without
struggle. All that class is being killed out
in the stress of Western competition, and it is
not as though something else were put in its
place ; the thing itself is destroyed, the whole
market is destroyed. Now the pressure is
falling on the artisan, and he is utterly unable
to guard himself against it, and is falling back
into the already well-filled agricultural ranks.

^

234

India

These are some of the questions that you
have to consider and to understand. You
have to understand the question of Indian
taxation ; you have to understand the ques-
tion of taking away from India seventeen
millions a year to meet " Home," i.e. English,
charges. You have to consider the expense
of your Government in India, the exorbitant
salaries that are paid to English officials.
You have to realise the financial side of the
problem as well as those that I have dealt
with.

Friends, I have only been able to touch
the fringe of a great subject. I have hoped,
by packing together a number of these facts,
to stir you into study rather than to convince
you. For if I had tried to move your
feelings I would have done little. I have
preferred to point out the difficulties that
have to be dealt with, so that you may study
them, so that you may investigate them, so
that you may form your own opinions upon
them. I do not believe it is possible to do
everything at once, but I do think it might
be possible to form a band of English experts,
who should make these questions their
specialty, and who should have weight with
the Government over here which deals with
India, so that they could advise with wisdom,

England and India 235

so that they could point out the most useful
path by which improvement could be made.
To govern a great country like India by a
Parliament over here is practically impossible.
It is too clumsy an instrument for the ruling
of such a people. But if you could build up
in India a great Council composed of the
wisest and most thoughtful of her own
people ; if you could take the advice of her
best administrators in Indian States, her own
sons ; if such a Council of all that is wisest
and noblest in India were gathered round the
Viceroy, who should hold his post not as the
reward for political service here, but because
he knows and understands India ; if you
would leave him there for a greater space of
time and not make him work in a break-neck
hurry to get something done ; then there
would be a brighter hope on the Indian
horizon. This can only be done by under-
standing Indian feelings and not by ignoring
them, by trying to sympathise with Indian
customs and not by despising them. Along
these lines lies the salvation of India and of
Indians alike, and it is this which I recommend
to your most thoughtful consideration.

The Indian Nation

An Address delivered to the Central Hindu College
Boarders Debating Cluh^ 1 905

AT the Anniversary Meeting of the C.H.C.
Boarders' Debating Club, papers were
read on "The National Bond of Union
among Hindus," and the meeting was closed
by Mrs Besant, who, after congratulating the
club on the progress made during the year,
said :

Debating clubs among boys are very
useful, not only as affording pleasant meetings
and interesting discussions, but also as serving
for training grounds for developing the
knowledge and the qualities that are needed
in public life. The discipline of mind and
manners in such a club prepares the young
debater for future service to his country,
and accustoms him to the conditions under
which much of the public work is carried on.
The rules which guide business meetings
everywhere should be strictly followed in a
debating club, and should be regarded as
aids to useful and expeditious discharge of
business, and not as burdensome restrictions.
236

The Indiaa Nation 237

To speak briefly, effectively, and to the
point, to listen to an opponent's speech with
patience and to reply with courtesy, are
lessons learned in the club. Looking
forward for a few years, you will see your-
selves called on to help in administrative
work in municipal and district boards, and
other public bodies. There you will utilise
the training you are now passing through,
and a man who knows what he wants to say,
who can put his views clearly and briefly,
who can argue with courtesy, and who abides
by the rules of discussion, is one who becomes,
on all such bodies, a man of weight and
usefulness. You should place before you
such active partaking in public life as an
honourable and legitimate object of ambition,
for the happiness, prosperity and health of
the community depend far more on good
local administration than on big so-called
political measures. The true patriot can do
far more for India in these local bodies, than
he can in the field of " big politics," and this
work is political in the old good sense of the
term ; it is the politics of the community,
and has far more bearing on the happiness of
the community than the international relations
discussed by statesmen. A people can prosper
under a very bad government and suffer

238 India

under a very good one, if in the first case
the local administration is effective and in the
second it is inefficient. Moreover, if a man
wants to take a share in the chatter of Parlia-
ments and the babel of party politics, he will
be more useful and less mischievous if
thoroughly well trained in local administra-
tion. Mr. Chamberlain was a councillor and
a Mayor of Birmingham before he became
a Cabinet Minister ; and Englishmen gain
their knowledge of public business and their
power of self-government by serving as
honorary magistrates and local councillors, by
working on vestries, on municipalities, on
boards of all kinds. Here is a line of public
activity for you as patriots, in which your
love of country can find legitimate and useful
vent, in which you can devote your best
energies to the public good.

Moreover in this, and in other college and
school business, you have to learn both
liberty and responsibility ; you elect officers,
you make rules, you carry on your business.
Now the sense of liberty is strong among
you, and that is well. The sense of
responsibility is weak, and that is not so
well. The exercise of liberty and the feeling
of responsibility must grow side by side, if
your little community is to be prosperous

The Indian Nation 239

and well-organised. You must learn to use
your best thought in giving your votes, to
be moved by principles not by passions. Free
men who act recklessly and without a sense
of responsibility destroy nations, they do not
build them. You must learn tolerance, and
understand that truth is many-sided, and is
never all with one man or one party. A man
is fortunate if he sees one aspect of truth, and
doubly fortunate if, through his opponents,
he can catch glimpses of other aspects. In
your debates and in your studies, when you
read of other religions and other customs,
never condemn hastily, or denounce views
you do not share. Quick condemnation of
all that is not ours, of views with which we
disagree, of ideas that do not attract us,
is the sign of a narrow mind and of an
uncultivated intelligence. Bigotry is always
ignorant, and the wise boy, who will become
the wise man, tries to understand and to see
the truth in ideas with which he does not
agree.

We have listened to two thoughtful papers
on the bonds which should unite Hindus.
The writer of one speaks of Hindis as part
of a nation ; the other considers more the
bonds which unite Hindils as a community
within the nation. Let us consider both.

240 India

A Common Religion must ever be the
strongest bond of union among the Hindus
as a community, and, in order to make
Hindilism a strong bond and not a dis-
integrating force, we must lay stress on what
is ancient and universal and ignore what is
modern and local. The Sanatana Dharma
Series will aid Hindiiism as a unifying force,
for it contains all that Hindus universally
accept and leaves out sectarian beliefs. Every
boy educated on these lines will be a link of
union in the Hindii community, helping to
hold it together, and as these teachings spread
through the schools and colleges strong bonds
of union will be forged.

A Common Language is a bond of union,
and Sanskrit and English serve as common
languages between Hindus of north and
south, of east and west. The Hindus of
the north and south chant the Mantras in
Sanskrit, and discuss business and public
questions in English. Therefore Sanskrit
should be taught in every English Depart-
ment, and English in every Pathshala.

Among the various vernaculars that are
spoken in the different parts of India, there
is one that stands out strongly from the rest,
as that which is most widely known. It is
Hindi. A man who knows Hindi can travel

The Indian Nation 241

over India, and find everywhere Hindi-
speaking people. In the north it is the
vernacular of a large part of the population,
and a large additional part, who do not speak
Hindi, speak languages so closely allied to it
that Hindi is acquired without difficulty.
Urdu is but Persianised Hindi ; Panjabi and
Gurumukhi are dialects of Hindi ; Gujerati
and Marathi are again dialects of Hindi ;
Bengali is a softer and more melodious and
poetical Hindi. It is true that when we
travel south we come to language derived
from a Dravidian source and not from
Sanskrit, and here a real difficulty arises.
But the south of India cannot afibrd to
be cut off from the north, and the know-
ledge of Sanskrit in the south will make
easy of acquirement its derivative Hindi,
whereas Tamil and Telugu can never become
universal in India. The learning of Hindi
is a sacrifice that southern India might well
make to the unification of the Indian nation.
Then Sanskrit will bind Hindiis together in
religion, English in imperial and official
concerns, and Hindi in social and family life.
A Common Literature is another bond of
union, and this all Hindus have in the
Shruti, the Smriti, the Puranas, the Itihasa,
the Philosophies and their commentaries, and

16

242 India

the Drama. This vast and splendid literature
is the common heritage of all Hindus, of all
sects, of all schools, and it forms one of the
strongest bonds of union in the Hindu
community.

A common Religion, a common Language,
a common Literature, such are the bonds of
union among Hindus as Hindtis.

And now what of Hindus as part of a
people, what of the Indian nation ?

The Indian nation of the future must
combine into one coherent and organised
body men of various faiths and men of
various races, who in the past have been
bitter enemies, and have striven against each
other for many generations. Hindus and
Mussulmans, Parsis and Christians, to say
nothing of such well-marked inter-Hindu
creeds as Jains and Sikhs, have to be welded
into a nation, and this not by mergence of
all the varying beliefs into one, which is
impossible, but by the theosophical recogni-
tion of the spiritual unity of all religions,
and the broad-minded tolerance and mutual
respect which grow out of this recognition.
The warring races have to be welded into a
nation by turning the memories of strife into
memories of common pride.

A common Religion is not possible for

The Indian Nation 243

India, but a recognition of a common basis
for all religions, and the growth of a liberal,
tolerant spirit in religious matters, are
possible. It is this liberal tolerant spirit
which makes nationality possible in Western
countries ; Christianity is divided into many
more sects than is Hindilism, in addition to
the deep lines of cleavage which divide
Catholics from Protestants. But these do
not interfere with patriotism. In England,
France and Germany large numbers of men
are unbelievers, but they are none the less
good patriots. The bitter religious anta-
gonisms of Italy have not prevented the
building of united Italy. Nor need religious
differences in India check the building of an
Indian nation, if men of all creeds will sink
their religious hatreds, and recognise that the
God they all worship is the God of humanity,
and not a tribal or national deity.

But while a common Religion is impossible,
common Languages and a common Literature
are possible. For the Muhammadan, Arabic
will take the place of Sanskrit, but English is
as necessary to him as to the Hindu, and
Hindi is his Urdu, stripped of Persian
derivatives and written in a different script.
In literature he can as heartily enjoy Hindu
masterpieces as the Hindu can delight in

244 India

those born of Islam. Both belong to the Indian
nation, and form its common literature.

Geography has a determining influence on
nationality, for true nations cannot co-exist
on the same soil. A nation must have its
national territory, and we cannot have a
Hindu nation, a Mussulman nation, in India ;
we must have one Indian nation from the
Himalayas to Cape Comorin, from Bengal to
Kathiawar. Now such a nation has never
yet existed, and "India" always has been,
and still is, a mere geographical expression.
Old India was divided into many States, large
and small, and though occasionally, in ancient
days, an emperor would be recognised and
all the kings became his feudatories, such an
emperor ruled by force of his own great
personality, and no one Empire endured, and
passed from ruler to ruler for generations.
Hence India is yet to be made a living reality,
an organised entity, and you, the students of
to-day with tens of thousands of your like
throughout the land, you are to be the
builders of India, and from your hands she
will emerge — a nation. Let us look around,
and take lessons in nation-building, and then
you will see that turning Indian communities
and races into a nation is by no means an
impossible thing.

The Indian Nation 245

There are three European nations that may
help us — the British, the German, the Italian,
and the German most of all. Look at Great
Britain. Her people are Kelts, Saxons,
Danes, Normans, and their ancestors warred
and slaughtered each other for long centuries.
Scotland and England were hereditary foes,
and a deep river of blood divided them more
than the river Tweed. They were united
under one Crown just three hundred years
ago, after sixteen hundred years of warfare,
yet to-day Englishmen are as proud of Bruce
and of Wallace as are Scotsmen, and Scotsmen
are as proud of Chaucer and Shakspere as are
Englishmen, and both are equally lovers of
Britain. Ireland is not yet fused into the
nation, for the grass is green over Emmet's
grave for only a century, and race and religion
still divide. There the nation still is build-
ing, is not yet built.

Italy has swiftly grown into a nation,
largely because of the magic of the great
name of Rome and her old-world rule ; she
has become a nation during the lifetime of
many of us, and one of the memories of my
childhood is the heroic figure of Garibaldi
amid the surging cheering crowds of London
folk.

Germany has been made into a nation

246 Ii\di&

before our very eyes, and is full of stirring
national life and intense patriotic feeling, and
Germany is specially instructive for us,
because there we see two religions, one in
name but bitterly antagonistic in fact, facing
each other, the Roman Catholic and the
Lutheran, separated by memories of axe and
fire, of cruelties more terrible than, and as
recent as, the memories of hatred between
Hindus and Mussulmans here. Yet now
both Lutheran and Roman Catholic are
brother-citizens of the Empire, and are
Germans above all. The German nation is
a fact, and it was born before our eyes.

How did Italy, how did Germany, become
nations .? By sentiment. That may strike
you as strange, and yet not strange if you
remember that Thought is the one creative
power. There was no Italy. There was no
Germany. But poets sang of the Fatherland,
authors wrote of the Fatherland, and at last
they sang the nation into birth, they sang
the Dream into the Fact.

How shall the Indian nation be born ?
By sentiment also. A feeling is beginning
to pervade her races that India is the mother-
land, and the Indian nation is already a
Dream, an Ideal. She exists already in the
World of Ideas ; she will pass, she is passing,

The Indian Nation 247

into the World of Discussion ; and thence
she will be born into the World of Facts.
This is the Law. This is the Path. First,
the Idea, then the Popularisation, then the.
Fact.

How shall we smooth the path for her
coming feet ? We must make the history
of India a common history, looking on all
her great men as a common glory, on all her
heroes as a common heritage. Hindiis must
learn to be proud of Akbar, Mussulmans of
Shivaji. The history must lose its bitterness,
as of foe against foe, and become the story of
the common mother-land in the making, all
parties contributing to the enrichment, and
sharing in the results. The sense of having
been conquered in a battle must pass, and
the battle be regarded merely as an event
that went to the shaping of the nation.
Courage, vigour, strength, virility, these are
the sweet fruit of war, grievous and terrible
in the sowing ; and these remain alike to
conquerors and conquered, when once the
sense of personal triumph has faded out of
the one, and that of personal loss out of the
other. Ours the task so to teach history as
to show the use of the struggles to India,
as to eradicate proud and injured feelings.
Thus shall separateness and hatred pass, and

248 India

patriotism and love grow up. As boys
struggle hard in a match, one side against
the other, and afterwards forget the struggle
and the bruises received, and use the strength
and skill thus obtained in the team which
represents the whole college, so must Indians
forget the antagonisms of the war-games of
the past, and let the wounds be only honour-
able scars, while they use their strength and
skill for the nation.

It may be said : But if this be so, why not
educate together the boys of different faiths,
why have a Hindu College at Benares, a
Muslim College at Aligarh ? Because such
separate education is the best for building a
religious and moral character, and such
characters, once moulded, will live together
in peace and mutual respect in manhood.
During the plastic years of boyhood it is best
to mould and shape the character after its
own type, to make the Mussulman boy a good
Mussulman, the Hindil boy a good HindA.
When they are firm in their respective
religions they can mix together as men, and
gain, not lose, by the contact. Only they
must be taught a broad and liberal tolerance,
as well as an enlightened love for their own
religion, so that each may remain Hindil or
Mussulman, but both be Indians. Just as

The Indian Nation 249

stones are shaped and fitted, and then built
into their respective places in an edifice, so
must these boys be shaped and fitted by their
several religions to be built into the Indian
nation.

Let us then hold up as an Ideal the Indian
mother-land, the Indian nation ; let us
popularise the Idea, till the heart of each
province throb in unison ; then let her
descend into the world of Facts ; let the
Indian nation be born.

India's Awakening

A Lecture delivered in 1 9 1 0

"DROTHERS : For many long years past
I have urged on you, and on those like
you in all parts of India, the necessity of a
spiritual awakening before the awakening of
a material prosperity becomes possible. You
know that during many years past, since the
Theosophical Society was established on these
shores, the importance of religion, the neces-
sity of spiritual knowledge, has been con-
stantly insisted upon, has been constantly
urged ; and in doing this, those who brought
the renewal of the message were only treading
in the footsteps of their far-off predecessors,
who have ever declared that from the Spirit
come forth all things that exist, and that
without the life of the Spirit not even animal,
vegetable or mineral life were possible. That
profound truth in the ancient philosophy of
India is the only foundation for progress of
every kind. One Spirit, and one only ; one
Life, and none other ; every form from the
one living Essence, every being rooted in the
everlasting One.

250

India's Awakening 251

In the past, I have sometimes traced for
you the steps of India's descent ; how from
the time of her great spirituality, when the
life of the Spirit was seen as the sun in the
heavens, how from that time downwards,
with the decay of spirituality, went also the
decay of all desirable things. And I remember
how often I have pressed upon you how first
there came the lessening of the spiritual life,
then the decay of the original side of intel-
lectual thought, of the creative intelligence,
and only when those had gone far down into
the twilight, came the slow decay of material
prosperity. You may remember that I have
put it to you that the awakening, the reviving,
of Indian life must follow the order in which
the descent had gone. First of all, the
reviving of true spirituality, of true religion,
of the vital understanding of the profoundest
truths of all existence ; then, after that has
made its way to an appreciable extent, then
must come the training, the culture, the
guidance of the intelligence, so that a wisely
planned and wisely guided education might
train the future workers of the land. I
remember saying to you that when the
spiritual life has again become potent, when
the educational life has again become per-
vasive, then only can material prosperity

252 India

safely return. To men with the knowledge
of the One, with the unselfishness which
grows out of the realisation of the common
life, to their hands only can be safely entrusted
the material guidance of the people. It is
along that line that Indian progress has gone
for many a year past. First, the great revival
of religion. It began with the revival of
Buddhism in the island of Ceylon, where,
as you may remember, education swiftly
followed after the re-awakened faith. Then
came the great revival of Hinduism, that has
spread from one end of the land to the other
from the Himalayas to Tuticorin, and every-
where is recognised as a fact. Then followed
the recognition that in a rightly directed
education lay the only way of training for the
mother-land citizens who would be worthy of
her past and therefore capable of building her
future ; out of that will arise all the varied
activities of a full and rich national life, and
we shall see the nation, which India never
yet has been, but which ladia shall be in the
days that are dawning.

Now the change to the material awakening
has come somewhat more swiftly than most
of us expected. I should say it has come a
little too soon, were it not that I beheve that
over the destinies of nations there are hands

India's Awakening 253

so wise and so loving that guide, that nothing
can really come either too soon or too late.
But, to our eyes, looking with purblind
vision, we should sometimes be almost
inclined to say that events are travelling in
India a little more rapidly than is well. For
we need for the wise guiding of a material
movement, men trained from boyhood in
religion and in true wisdom, so that the brain
may be balanced and calm, the hands strong
and steady, for the moment you touch the
popular mind and the popular heart you
awaken forces that are apt to go beyond the
control of wisdom, and it needs a nucleus of
wise and steady thinkers in order that a
popular movement may find its way aright.

Let us, then, at this moment of immense
importance to India's future, consider what
ought to be the line most wisely to be
followed in the great rush which is coming
upon us. I pause a moment on the sentence
just uttered, of the hands that guide, and the
wisdom and the love which shape a nation's
destinies. It is no new thought to you, who
have grown up in the atmosphere in which
the celestial and the physical worlds are
mingling — it is no new thought to you that
the Devas, the Shining Ones, mingle in the
affairs of men. Nor should it be a new

254 India

thought to you — although to many it may
now seem strange — that every nation also
has its own Devas who guide its affairs, who
shape its present and its future.

Let me then remind you that in the vast
unseen hierarchy who mingle in human
affairs, there are Devas of many grades, as
well as the great Rishis who are the planners
and regulators of events. First of all, there
is the plan of the Lord himself of Ishvara,
the Ruler of the system, who sketches, in
the dawn of the creative days, the plan of
evolution along which His universe shall go.
Out of the innumerable conceivabilities in
the mind of the Supreme, some are chosen
by the Ishvara, who builds a system, as the
material for His system, and woven into the
plan for His unfolding. No pen, save that
of His finger, writes that wondrous drama,
which slowly is unfolded in the history of the
evolving universe, written so that none may
change, written so that none may amend,
written by a wisdom inconceivable to us, and
by a love of which the deepest love of the
human heart is but the faintest and most
shadowy reflection.

Then the working out of that plan is given
into the hands of those whom we may call
His ministers, the great Ones who come into

Indians Awakening 255

the system, from systems long gone by, to
co-operate with Him in the shaping of a new
humanity ; into their hands His plan is given,
and theirs the brains of wisdom and the
hands of strength that bring that plan into
the details that we call history. They plan
out the working and give to every nation the
acting of a part in that great plan ; to the
Deva who rules the nation, and who has
under his control a hierarchy of lesser Devas,
that part is given to be worked out in the
history of the people. Now the plan is for
all humanity, and not for one nation only,
and each nation, in turn, has its part to play ;
each nation in turn is cast either for the
moment's weal or the moment's woe ; and
those only can read aright the history of
humanity who know the powers that work
behind the veil ; for you cannot manage a
household unless you know the will of the
householder, and before you can realise the
wisdom of household guidance, you must
know the wants of the children and of the
other members of the house. So in the
history of peoples you cannot judge by the
Statesmen, the Generals, the Admirals, and
the Monarchs, who all work out the various
tasks that are given them to do. You must
look behind them to those who guide, to the

256 India

great Householder, the supreme Grihastha of
the system. When we come to India, we
know that all this is true of India and of
India's Deva-King, who stands high above
the nation and works out, millennium after
millennium, the parts which are given to him
for his nation to play in the world's history ;
these parts have outlined the nation's story
through all the difficulties, the dangers, the
humiliations of the past. On that I may
not dwell long now. For the moment I
leave them untouched, to turn to that which
immediately concerns us. Now to the present
and its working.

First of all, in order that India might again
take her place amongst the nations of the
world, mightier even than in the past — a
glorious past — there came the spiritual mes-
sengers, the messengers who were to revive
the varied religions of the land. That has
been done to a great extent as regards
Hindtiism and Buddhism. But you must
remember that the other religions must also
have, and to some extent have had, each in
its own place, the advantage of the same
spiritual and enlivening influence. Look at
the community called Zoroastrian, and see
how it has of late years become spiritualising
in its tendencies instead of materialising as

India's Awakening ^57

in the past. The great faith of Islam is the
one which only shows in a very limited
measure the enlivening influence of the new
spiritual impulse, yet there also the same
working is beginning, and there also there
are signs of the spreading of the same influ-
ence, so that Islam also shall take her place,
spiritually alive and spiritually potent, to
bear her part in the re-shaping of India as
she is to be. That work is not finished, in
fact never will be finished, rather ever con-
tinuing, but all the first great steps are taken
and success in that is assured.

Passing to education, there an immense
amount has been done, and far more has yet
to be done, as I shall put it to you in a few
moments. We have only begun the very
A B C of the educational reform which is
necessary in order to make India what she
should be. Now, when a nation does not
move sufficiently swiftly along the path of
progress, when she does not rouse herself
enough to the voice that appeals, that warns,
and that counsels, then the Deva of the
nation takes other means in hand, in order to
awaken his people and make them see along
what lines their path should be trodden.
And these other means used by the Deva are
goads. They are like the whip that touches

17

258 India

the horse when he is too lazy, and what you
look on as national misfortunes, as things
that you even cry out against with insistence
and with passion, these are very often, rightly
seen, the goads which make a nation move a
little faster towards the goal on which the
Deva's eyes are fixed. This is especially true
just now, and will serve my purpose well as
an illustration with regard to education.
Education is a matter that belongs to the
nation when rightly understood. Fathers
and guardians are the people who ought to
fashion the national education. How long
have I been urging upon you to take this
matter of education into your own hands, and
not leave it for others to guide and plan.
How long, in my travels up and down
through the country, have I urged upon you
the importance of this question of national
education. I remember how about three
years ago when I spoke in Bombay, I urged
on every man and on every woman, mother
and father, that on them lay the heavy re-
sponsibility of the education and the training
of the child. I remember how there I urged
upon you that your own interests, if nothing
else, should stir you to the guidance of your
children's education ; for you do not want to
continue to overcrowd, as you are doing, the

India's Awakening 259

ranks of the so-called learned professions and
the ranks of the Government service. Those
are not things which make nations great,
however necessary they may be, and however
necessary they are, for the mechanism and ad-
ministration of the nation. The things that
make a nation great, from the material
standpoint, are not the learned professions
and Government service, but scientific agri-
culture, well-devised manufactures, thought-
fully planned arts and crafts, and the in-
numerable forms of workmanship that go to
the building up of national wealth. But
along the lines on which education has been
going on, this has been left on one side, and,
mind you, the blame for that does not lie on
the Government ; it lies on the people. It
is useless and idle to blame Government,
when you are the people who can do it, if
you have the heart, the will, and the persever-
ance. Out of your pocket comes every rupee
that the Government spends on education.
Out of your pocket come the far too few
rupees that build the colleges and schools,
save the missionary establishments. If in-
stead of sending your boys to Government
colleges and missionary schools, you built
your own schools, and had your own teachers,
you might guide education exactly as you

2^ India

would. It is not that there is not money
enough in the country. I know it is said
that India is poor ; so she is in a sense poor,
that is as regards the masses of her people.
But not too poor to build colleges and
schools for your children, while you are able
to maintain, as you are doing, large crowds
of men as mendicants, in the full strength of
vigorous life, who are innocent of all sacred
learning, innocent of the light, who have
nothing of the Sannyasi but the cloth that
covers them, and who are yet fed and sheltered
by the crore. India is not poor so long as
your Chetties and Banias can give lakhs upon
lakhs of rupees for the restoration of ancient
temples and the gilding of their pinnacles.
You do not need to increase your charities,
that is not wanted ; but oh ! if you would
only turn them into channels that fertilise
instead of channels that corrupt, India would
have wealth enough to educate her sons and
daughters, and to make possible a new life in
the future.

I do not speak against the restoration of
temples. That is well. It is well that man
should worship, rightly, nobly and rationally.
I do not speak against the restoration of
temples, but I do speak against the mere
restoration that leaves the priesthood ignorant

India's Awakening ^^^

and profligate. I do speak against the
restoration of a temple where no school lives
under its shadow, and where children are not
taught by those whose duty it is to teach —
less gilding on the pinnacles of temples, and
more gilding of learning in the hearts of boys
and girls. And if you still keep your temples
in order, but spend some of the money that
is wasted on vast crowds of idle mendicants
on the education of your children, how
rapidly would India rise in the scale of
nations, and how quickly she would claim
her right place among the peoples of the
world.

And that is your work. Last year in
speaking on " Theosophy in Relation to
Politics," I urged upon you the formation of
Educational Boards in every district of India.
Now Government has nothing to do with
that. You do not need to ask for Govern-
ment permission or authority. You have
only to gather a few of your cleverest men
and princes together and make them into an
Educational Board, for a definitely outlined
area. What is wanted is not Government
help. It is your work. What is wanted is
self-devotion, energy, initiative, the willing-
ness to go through years of drudgery ; for
only in that way can true education be built

262 Indilk

up. This has not yet been acted on. The
idea, when spoken about anywhere, causes a
good deal of cheering, but only in a few
places has there been any real earnest work,
even in starting an Indian school. Hence a
goad was needed, and it has been applied.
An Education Commission goes all round
the country. The Education Commission
presents its report, and the representative of
the vast majority of those whose children have
to be educated under the new law presents
a minority report — a minority of one. Now
certainly, if you weigh heads instead of count-
ing them, that minority might outweigh many,
for that one was Mr Justice Gurudas Bannerji.
He knew very well what sort of education
was wanted by the people, but he was only
one, and the English majority shaped the
Education Bill, and passed the Act. When
it was passed, a number of very wise protests
were made — thoughtful, well-considered, and
rational ; but why only protests ? Why were
not the protests followed by the formation
of Boards, which should do that which the
protestors wished ? The protest was wisely
made. Such protests are necessary, but they
should be followed by action, for thought
that is not followed by action acts like a
gangrene in the human mind. Better remain

India's Awakening 263

silent, better not even think, if you are not
prepared to act ; better not think, unless you
are prepared to put your activity into action,
for in the higher spheres, as you know,
thought produces action ; down here, thought
and especially talk, without action, does not
get a nation very far along the line of
progress. So all the energy flows out in the
talk, and nothing is done. The national
Deva thought something more in the way of
pressure was wanted, and the Education Act
became law. And very well it did. You do
not approve of it, nor do I ; but still it was
wanted, because nothing else would stir the
people into action. That was why I said
that where a people would not move by
exhortation and advice, some goad was used
in order to stir them into activity. Now that
you find education has become dearer, that
to educate the boys strains to breaking the
narrow incomes of the fathers ; now that you
see Higher Education is being more and
more blocked to the class that needs it most
— a class hereditarily learned, but always
poor and now largely shut out from the
costly education of the day ; now that the
education question has come in this form :
"You must take this costly education or
nothing" — you must begin to say : "No, it

264 India

shall not be nothing. It shall be something,
created by my own hands and out of my own
money and brains." But in order that the
goad may serve its purpose well, it is
necessary that there should be hot and bitter
feelings in the hearts of many of the people
affected. It is that which makes the steam
that drives the engine. It is that which
presently makes the piston to go backwards
and forwards and the wheels to turn. It is
that which gives force, though it also causes
an immense amount of excitement and foolish
talk. These things are necessary, in order
to generate the forces which make the engine
of the nation move. So that, the Education
Act is, as I regard it, a goad to make us
struggle against it, as we are obliged to
struggle at Benares, in keeping our fees low.
I am glad it has passed, because it has — I
hope it has — given the impulse which will
make men take the education of their
children into their own hands.

But now, how ? By beginning at the right
end and not at the wrong. First by making
your Educational Boards all over the country ;
next by creating colleges and universities,
and most of all by making such a public
opinion, especially among the Indian princes,
the great merchants, and employers of labour.

India's Awakening ^5

as shall induce them to recognise the degrees
given by the Indian universities as valid
credentials for those who are seeking employ-
ment. Until you have done that, you have
done nothing. It is no good even making a
university, unless you have made a body of
people who are prepared to take its graduates
when they have taken their degrees, and thus
open to them means of livelihood. It is no
good beginning with boys. You must begin
with men.

Now I will tell you why I object to boys
being thrown into political conflicts. They
may ruin their whole lives in a sudden surge
of excitement, and in their manhood bitterly
reproach those who took advantage of their
inexperience. While education is under the
control of Government, and the fate of every
boy is in the hands of the officials of his town,
it is cruel to fling the lads against them. A
boy dismissed from school or college, and
refused a leaving certificate, has his education
ruined and his future livelihood destroyed.
When people unaccustomed to political action
suddenly plunge into it, they are apt to think
after they act instead of before. Here lies
one of the dangers in India's Awakening, and
that is why I said, I fear it has come too soon.
Those who are trained in politics, as in my

266 India

past life I have been — for I have taken a large
part in the political struggles of the people in
England, and I worked there in difficult times
side by side with my old friend, Mr. Charles
Bradlaugh — make it, as we made it, one of
the rules of political life never to tell another
man to go where there was risk, where we
did not go in front ; never to tell a procession
to go where there was danger, unless we
walked in front, so that we should be the
first people on whom blows fell. It was the
glory of Charles Bradlaugh, when he lay on
his death-bed, that despite his struggles and
difficulties, there was not one home that had
been made desolate by him, not one man who
had gone to jail for the work that he had
asked him to do. The front is the place of
the leader ; it is the place of the man, and
not the place of the boy.

There is another reason why it is bad to
send boys to the front. There can be no
wise poHtics without thought beforehand.
People who shout first and think afterwards
make a mob, they do not make a political
party ; and that is the thing that the boy
does. How much do you think a boy of
this height (pointing to a boy about four
feet) knows about the good or the evil of the
Partition of Bengal ? He shouts out and

India's Awakening 267

protests. It is bad training for the future.
In the College, students should discuss
political questions, social questions and
economic questions. They should debate
them, discuss them, and talk them over in
every possible way. We train them to do
that in the Central Hindi! College. But we
do not allow them to protest against the
Government. And the reason is a very
simple one. When they have discussed these
questions beforehand, when they have talked
them over, then, when they have gone out
into the world, they will be ready to form
rational opinions. But if, before they study
and understand the questions of the day,
they shout their approval or disapproval out
of empty heads, they make a great deal of
noise, but noise of no value, like bladders
which, when beaten, make a noise, but collapse
if you prick them with a pin. I do not want
India to work along those lines. Train your
boys to think first and then to form opinions,
not to call out first and then wonder what
they have been shouting for. That is bad
moral training. It puts boys on wrong lines,
and it takes away that profound sense of
responsibility which ought to be at the heart
of everyone who mingles in political life.
For, remember what playing at politics means.

268 India

Remember that it means playing with pro-
perty ; it means playing with liberty ; it
means playing with the lives of men.
Leaders in the political arena have to re-
member all that, when they take the responsi-
bility of calling men to action. When you
have a man like Mr. Gokhale, who has
trained himself by years upon years of study
and of self-denial, by his self-sacrificing work
in the Fergusson College, for twenty years on
Rs. 75 a month and a retiring pension of
Rs. 25 a month — when you have a man
trained in that way, and who studies every
subject to the very bottom before he speaks
about it, then you have a man who may be
trusted and of whom a nation may well be
proud, a worthy leader in the political arena.
In the matter of education, why not begin
to act ? You know you send your boys still
by thousands and thousands to missionary
schools, and it is a disgrace — not to the
missionaries, for they are doing work which
they honestly think to be to the glory of
God and for the good of all men ; they believe
that their religion is much better than yours,
and I am bound to say that they love it
better, because they work for it much harder,
as a rule. You ought to remember that
your religion is the oldest of all living re-

India's Awakening 269

ligions, and the most perfect in its range and
in its details. Surely, it is not for you to
take the children, whose bodies you have
given, and, robbing them of their birthright,
put them into other hands and mould them
in an anti-Indian fashion. The missionaries
do not make many Christians. Here and
there they do, as in Trichinopoly, but, as a
rule, they do not make many converts. But
I tell you what they do. They dig up the
roots of devotion and religion in the plastic
soil of the boy's heart. They wither them with
ridicule, they trample them down with sarcasm,
and when the boy grows up, he grows up an
unbeliever in all religion, a bad Hindu and
not a Christian — a kind of hybrid, who is of
no use to his country. When you despiritu-
alise an Indian, you denationalise him. Why
does that go on ? Because you do not care.
It sounds hard to say so, but it is true. If
you cared, it would not last for another month.
What does it want to bring about the change }
A few men in every town to band themselves
together into an Educational Committee ; a
few rich merchants to be visited and asked
to subscribe so much per month for some
years, and then the putting up of a building
for a school, and the sending of the boys.
There is one difficulty in your way — the

270 India

recognition of the school by the Government,
and that is a serious difficulty as things are ;
for unless the school is recognised, the pupils
of the school are not permitted to go on into
the University. Still, if you would work
well and steadily and perseveringly, you
would, 1 think, be able to win recognition
in the long-run, and, if not, to do without
it. I have in my mind what happened in
Trichinopoly two or three years ago, when
I got a few people together who said that
they would collect monthly subscriptions in
the town to have a college of their own.
The Roman Catholics have a college, and
some other missionary body has a college,
but the Hindus and the Mussulmans have
no college of their own. Did they succeed ?
Not a bit of it. 1 myself drew up a proposal
for the Madras University. The University
took it into consideration. But where were
the funds ? The people of Trichinopoly did
not care enough to keep their children from
the missionary schools and colleges, to
supply the small sum, comparatively, that is
wanted to make a college there, where the
Hindvl and Mussulman boys might learn apart
from Christian influence. Not long ago in
another southern town there was a college
for sale, and for sale without money. It is

India's Awakening 271

not often that you can buy anything without
money. The Government wanted to get rid
of it, but the Government asked for a body
of Hindu gentlemen who would pledge them-
selves to conduct the college. But they could
not get them. The college went a-begging
and still is in Government hands.

These are the things which you have to
take seriously, especially now that the people
are awakening. For things are going on
swiftly, and unless you bestir yourselves to
make your educational mechanism, the tide
of enthusiasm will flow into channels that
will be harmful instead of useful. Do not
call your boys out from the present schools
until you have others in which to receive
them. When you can say to your son,
" My boy, walk across the road to that school,
which is our own,'* then by all means do it.
Then you can do without missionary schools.
Otherwise you will find yourselves in endless
trouble. What you should do in Madras,
and do at once, is to begin the formation of
a great organisation of leading, wealthy,
influential people, who will give employment
to your boys, if so be, when the pinch comes,
and Government refuses to recognise your
colleges or universities. I believe in Indian
universities for Indians, where Indian degrees

272 India

shall be given in Arts and Science, and in
industries that are useful for the national
unfolding.

I see they are now going to teach French
and German, Latin and Greek. Very useful,
no doubt. So many of you will want to go
to France, and talk French in Paris. So
many of you will want to go to Germany,
and enter into trade concerns there. Latin
and Greek you may want to read, in order
to understand mediaeval Christian writers, I
suppose, for your spiritual training. Unless
this absurdity is the idea, it is difficult to see
why they should be preferred to Sanskrit
and Arabic, for Sanskrit is as good and
as intellectual a training as either of these
two languages — Greek being but a child of
Sanskrit — and Arabic is the language in
which the Middle-Age learning of Islam is
embodied. Our Mussulman brothers are not
at present wise enough to vindicate Islamic
learning by translating the treasures of that
knowledge, which from Bagdad spread into
Europe. Arabic and Sanskrit, these are the
two classical languages for India, not Latin
and Greek. Instead of French and German,
you should teach English and one vernacular,
one common language which would serve
everywhere as a means of communication

Indians Awakening ^73

between educated and uneducated alike.
You ought to make Hindi a second language
throughout the land. I have heard it said that
Tamil has a literature which is magnificent,
and this must certainly not be left to die.
But in addition to the boy's own vernacular,
he should always learn Hindi, for that is the
most widely spread vernacular of the country,
and one can go from one end of the land to
the other and talk in Hindi to all, save the
most illiterate people in every part of it. If
you had Sanskrit or Arabic, according to
the religion of the boy, Hindi as a common
tongue, a thorough knowledge of his own
vernacular, and then the necessary English
for all dealings with foreign countries, and in
Government and Court matters, you would
have an education, so far as languages are
concerned, that would make a boy ready for
the future, and enable him to take up his
work in the world as soon as he goes into it.
The most important thing, which I have
often urged, is technical education, and above
all thorough education in agriculture. Un-
fortunately you have got only one general
business here, namely, agriculture. At least
it might be made very much better than it
is at present, so that famines, which are a
recurring horror in the land, might be

i8

274

India

prevented. Famines are preventable things,
and things that ought to be prevented. But
they can only be prevented by a wiser system
of agriculture on the one hand, and by the
building up of manufacturing industries
throughout the land on the other.

But, mind you, the manufactures that you
want are the manufactures of this country.
Here arts and crafts are fast dying. Your
weaving craft is dying out of existence,
because its products are not bought. That
brings me to the next point, for education
here slips into economics. Why is it that
the weavers of cloths, the potters, the metal
workers, and the makers of beautiful objects
of all kinds, the weavers of shawls in
Kashmir, and of muslins, silks, in other
parts of the land, why are they slowly dis-
appearing ? These people, who, by heredity,
are fitted for the work, are swelling the ranks
of the agricultural labourers, starving the
land and overcrowding the fields. Why
this ? Because for many many years you
have been wearing foreign goods in prefer-
ence to home-made ones. It should not have
wanted the Partition of Bengal to teach you
to produce at home what you need. When
you think of it, the Svadeshi movement has
nothing to do with that. Whether Bengal

India*! Awakening 275

has one Lieutenant-Governor, or two, may
be a point of serious importance to the
population over whom they rule. But the
Partition of Bengal was not wanted to make
the Svadeshi movement. The Svadeshi
movement was not born after the Partition.
It has been going on for years and up and
down the country, but the difficulty was that
only a few people were in favour of it, and
the great mass of the people were totally
indifferent. One thing, of course, was that
the foreign-made goods were cheaper, but
also less durable. Assuming that they are
cheaper, how stupid that they should be so 1
You grow cotton, you send the cotton to
Lancashire, Lancashire spins and weaves it
into cloths and sends them out here, and
sells them cheaper than you can spin and
weave your own cotton ! There is some-
thing very badly managed in this, to say the
least of it. If a thing can be sold more
cheaply after paying all the freight to Lanca-
shire and back, after paying high wages in
England instead of small wages to Indian
handloom weavers, it is certainly by some
queer kind of upside-down management. I
am not forgetting, of course, the unfair
duties levied on Indian mills for the benefit of
Lancashire, and other difficulties that occur

2^6 India

to your minds. But they do not practically
touch your village weaving industry at all.
You should have gone on supporting the
Indian weaver, working in his own village,
and giving you lasting and well-made cloths.
If that had been done, the village weavers
would have remained prosperous, and that
prosperity would have re-acted on the
agriculturists, and so with everything else.
Fashion has been more powerful than
patriotism. Now, thanks to the Partition
of Bengal, poor patriotism has a chance.
But the present enthusiasm for Svadeshi
goods will only be a flare like the blaze of
twigs, easily lighted and quickly dying out,
unless a principle underlies the movement
and not a passing political irritation. No
durable things are built on violent passion.
Nature grows her plants in silence and in
darkness, and only when they have become
strong do they put their heads above the
ground.

Now I am glad of all this excitement, for,
as I said before, it generates steam. It has
made the Svadeshi movement a far more
living movement than it was. So I am very
glad of it. I am glad to see all the froth and
the bubble and the fuss. Some of them are
very foolish, I admit, but still it means life

India's Awakening ^77

instead of stagnation. What all good men
should set their faces against is any attempt
to put forcible pressure on people to do what
others think that they ought to do. Wear
Svadeshi clothes, as I have been urging you
to do for years, but if your neighbour chooses
to wear an English coat, argue with him, tell
him it is unpatriotic, but do not tear it off
his back. That sort of violence has ruined
some good movements in England, and it is
always wrong. None has the right to force
other people to tread his own path against
their will. Every man has a right to choose,
to follow, his own judgment. Convince him
by argument and reasoning. Tell him that
his conduct is unpatriotic, wrong and irra-
tional ; tell him he is making other countries
rich while he starves his own. But do not
carry on a mad crusade against everything
English, especially with the help of the boys.
Appeal to a man's brains. Surely there is
argument enough : without home manu-
factures, there is no prosperity ; without
home manufactures, there are recurring
famines ; without home manufactures, there
are overcrowded unproductive professions
and undermanned industrial pursuits.

Every one of you can quietly, in his own
town, go against the craze for foreign goods,

278 India

and help forward Indian manufactures. It is
so easy to do. Sometimes there is a little
more trouble, I admit ; sometimes I have had
to wait patiently for four or five days, or even
weeks, before I could get an Indian-made
thing, when I could have got a foreign-made
one in a moment ; but if you cannot be
patient for the sake of building up the in-
dustrial prosperity of your country, what a
poor thing your patriotism must be. Help
this movement in every way that you can,
save by ways that are wrong ; for remember
that the Devas are behind all national policies,
and therefore that the wrong way is always
the long way, and useless.

Utilise the enthusiasm of the moment by
turning it into wisely planned channels.
Band yourselves together, for co-operation
strengthens and helps enthusiasm. Use the
crafts and products of this country in prefer-
ence to others. But be a little patient. If
you find that Government, which has been
favourable to this movement, is now frown-
ing on it in one part of the country, remember
that, after all, that is quite natural under the
conditions that have arisen. Governments
are not perfect, any more than the governed.
After all. Governments are only men, just as
you are, with the same faults and the same

India's Awakening 279

short-sightedness. Therefore the Govern-
ment should learn to be patient with the
governed, and the governed with the Govern-
ment. Now in the past, Government has
been favourable to the Svadeshi movement,
and it will be so again. Naturally, for Gov-
ernment does not want famines in the land ;
it does not want the people to be poor, for,
apart from all questions of humanity, if they
are poor they cannot pay much in the way
of taxes. It is to the advantage of Govern-
ment that you should be rich ; therefore it
will help the movement again, when things
are quieter ; just now, it has been made into
a political battle-cry, but that will pass.
Politics are constantly changing, one burning
question to-day and another to-morrow. Go
on quietly and steadily without any fuss,
building up your Indian manufactures, educat-
ing your sons. You think brains are wanted
for pleading ; much more brains are wanted
for carrying on large agricultural and in-
dustrial concerns. We want the brightest
brains for the building up of Indian industries
at the present time. If an Indian prince
wants to have an electrical plant installed in
his capital, he has to go to Europe to find an
engineer who will set up for him his electrical
machinery. That must be so, until you

28o India

educate your boys on the right lines.
Educate them on all the lines of the learning
wanted to make a nation great. Get rid of
the stupid idea that it is good, from the
standpoint of class, to be a starving pleader,
and bad to be a flourishing merchant. It is
a mistake. A nation that goes that way goes
down. It is a man's business to make his
livelihood respectable, and respectability grows
not out of the nature of the livelihood but
out of the man. A man of high character,
of noble ideal, of pure life, can make any
calling respectable, and do not forget that a
calling which helps national prosperity is
more respectable than a calling which does
not. That is a lesson that has to be learned
in modern India.

Many resent the changes which are coming
about, but although many of them be not
along the lines of the ancient civilisation, yet
it must be remembered that the spirit of this
time, as much as that of any other, is the
Divine spirit. In whatever form it clothes
itself, it is in the work of humanity to-day,
as it was in the work of humanity in the past,
to help humanity onwards, or to make it step
forward in the right way. But it is not the
right way now to tread only in the footprints
of the past, simply to re-introduce what has

Indians Awakening aSi

been. Your duty is to be inspired by the
same spirit that made the pa^t great, and in
that spirit to shape the form suitable for the
India of to-morrow.

Why should you be afraid to tread a new
path } What is the creator of every form
save the spirit ? Why then be afraid to go
on with the life, and to leave dead forms
behind .? And the strange thing is that often
men cling most passionately to the forms
which do not really belong to the life, but
which are only excrescences which have
happened to grow up round the living forms,
as barnacles grow on a ship's bottom, and can
be knocked off without harming the ship.
There is one rule that helps us in distinguish-
ing customs that are only barnacles from the
vessel that carries the life. That is to be
preserved which is ancient, according to the
Shastras, and universal. But that which is
local, partial, modern, not according to the
Shastras, these are the things which may
indeed have been useful at the time of their
formulation, but are now the useless and
even mischievous barnacles on the ship.
Trust to life, to the living spirit. We were
not there to guide the life, when it made the
glorious past. Life can be trusted, for it is
divinely guided, and all we have to do is to

282 India

co-operate with it. That is the idea you
must have above all things. Life is some-
thing greater than yourselves ; you are only
one tiny part of life, and the life makes its
own forms. Study its tendencies and work
with them, but it is life that builds, not men.
Then you co-operate in the building of the
forms, and if a form does not succeed it will
be broken ; and you should be glad in the
breaking of the useless form as you should
be glad in the form that means success.
Failure often means winning, and it needs
dozens, nay hundreds, of attempts before the
perfect masterpiece shines out in full. Trust
life ; that is the great lesson for these days
of change, for change is coming, change from
every side. Those changes that are good
will endure, and you must be very patient
while they are in the making. But full of
hope and full of courage.

All men die. You may say : Is that en-
couraging .'' Surely yes, for when a man dies,
his blunders, which are of the form, all die
with him, but the things in him that are part
of the life never die, although the form be
broken.

There is a new form to be built here, a
form which has never yet been built, and that
is India herself as one nation. As one nation.

India*s Awakening 283

she exists in the world of spirit ; as one nation,
she exists in the world of mind. As one
nation, she has never yet existed on the
physical plane, but the day of her birth is
near. Many States and Kings have been,
many Mahdrdj^s, Rajds, and sometimes one
Raja, great beyond his fellows, has held a
wide imperial sway. But never yet has there
been one India from north to south, from
east to west. But she is coming. That
one India, when she comes, will have her
head crowned with the Himalayas, and her
feet will be bathed in the waters that wash
the shores of Tuticorin ; she will stretch out
her right hand to Burma and Assam, and her
left hand to Kathiawar and Beluchistan. That
India has to be born. How ? First, by believ-
ing in her with a strenuous faith, for faith is
a mighty power ; and then by thinking of her
and aspiring after her as an ideal. For what
a man thinks becomes actual in practice. And
never yet was a nation born that did not begin
in the spirit, pass to the heart and the mind,
and then take an outer form in the world of
men. That India, the sound of her feet is
on the mountains, and soon the rising eastern
sun shall glow upon her forehead. Already
she is born in the mind of men.

But let your thought for unity be potent

284 India

and resolute ; learn to drop sectarian divisions ;
learn to drop provincial divisions and animosi-
ties ; leave off saying : " I am a Madrasi ; I
am a Punjabi ; I am a Bengali ; I am an up-
country man " ; leave all that behind and teach
your boys and girls to say " I am an Indian."
Out of the mouths of the children thus speak-
ing shall be born the India of to-morrow.
Many religions will grow within her ; not only
her own parent religion, but others too will
be woven into her being. Hindi! and Mussul-
man must join hands, for both are Indians.
Hindis, Mussulmans, Parsis, Christians, must
join hands, for all are Indians. In the India of
the future, all men of every faith must join.
If India is to be the spiritual light of the
future, in her must be focussed the light that
comes from every faith, until in the prism of
India they are all united into the one light
which shall flood with sunlight the world, and
all lights shall blend in the Divine Wisdom.
That is our work. My Brothers, I am now
talking to you, but this thing will not be
made by talking. It is made by living. I
would not dare to speak to you and offer you
counsel, if I did not strive to live that which
I advise. Day by day, week by week, month
by month, I strive to shape my life on the
noble models which may serve the land, and

Indift's Awakening 285

in serving India will serve Humanity ; for
greater than any land is Humanity, and greater
than any one people is the race of whom all
people are but branches ; and if we have such
hopes of future India, it is because we believe
that her coming will be a new light to the
world. There was an old people in the
ancient days, and not very ancient either, that
was conquered, and apparently cast away.
One person of that race cried out : " If the
fall of them be the riches of the world . . .
what shall the receiving of them be but as
life from the dead ? " If India's humiliation
has, in a very real sense, been the riches of the
world — for this has been the means of spread-
ing India's thoughts in the most widely-spoken
tongue of the world, to the north and south,
east and west, all round the habitable globe
— what shall it be for humanity when India
herself in her new glory is born into the
world ? India, from whose lips, in this land
of the Rishis, came the religion that uplifts
and spiritualises, the philosophy that illumines,
and the science that trains ; India, from whose
mind, throughout the world of mind, came
those great systems of thought which are now
recognised as the noblest products of the
human intellect ; India, whose feet once
passed through many States, and made every

286 India

one of them fertile, prosperous, and wealthy ;
India, who was perfect in spirit and mind ;
when that India is born into the full vision
of the eyes of men, perfect in body, is it too
much to say that her coming will be as life
from the dead ? That is the glorious goal,
for which we work ; that is the splendid hope,
that cheers our labour ; that is the sublime
aspiration, that rises perpetually to the ears
of the Devas. For Indians coming means the
spiritualising of humanity ; India's thinking
means the lifting of thought on to a higher
level ; India's prosperity shall be the justifi-
cation of religion, the justification of philo-
sophy, as part of the life of a nation ; and
the world shall be redeemed from materialismi
because India is awake.

Religion and Patriotism
in India

A Contribution to the ^^ Hindustan Review^'' June 1907

'^OW that the spirit of nationality is most
happilyspreadingthroughout the Indian
mother-land, the words are often heard, "We
can never have an Indian nation, so long as
different religions dominate her peoples."
Patriotic and public-spirited men ask, almost
despairingly : " How can we weld together
the Hindis and the Muhammadans, the
Parsis and the Christians, into a nation ? " So
strongly is this difficulty felt among Indian
patriots, that a thoughtful and forceful party
are striving to weaken the hold of religion
at least on the educated classes, so that the
divisions may be more easily overstepped,
the gulf more readily spanned. Many who
have been educated along the lines of the
so-called English education — though I have
often pointed out that English education in
its native land is permeated with religion —
have become thoroughly secularised, and
regard those who work for the revival of
287

288 India

religion as enemies of Indian nationality,
however well-intentioned such workers
may be.

Religion, thrust out of school and college,
is largely thrust out of life. Ignored as an
essential part of education during the years
wherein the heart is most ductile and the
brain is most plastic, it is unable, in later
years, to assert its power over the maturer
brain and harder heart of middle-age. The
Western philosophical lines of the last half of
the nineteenth century, repudiated by the
most recent thought of the twentieth, are
being still followed in Indian educational
institutions, and materialise the naturally
idealistic Indian brain. The young Indian,
Hindil and Mussulman, naturally finds him-
self out of touch with the religion of his
fathers — as explained by pandits and moulvis
who have kept the ceremonial and lost the
inner knowledge — and, as naturally, seeks to
get rid of religious differences by ignoring
religion. " Let us forget that we are Hindiis,
Mussulmans, Parsis, Jains, Sikhs ; let us only
remember that we are Indians, and put
religion on one side." There is much that
is true and noble in this cry, and religious
differences must be put on one side in the
service of the common mother-land ; but in

Religion and Patriotism in India 289

trying to shape and mould a nation, the
lessons of history should not be cast aside.
Men cannot be dealt with as we deal with
clay, and nation-building has to deal with
men ; clay may be shaped by the artist's deft
fingers according to his fancies, and will take
the forms he imposes ; but men are living
intelligences, with passions, emotions, im-
perious cravings, and the mere closet-politician
finds his human clay re-acting with violence
against his ideas, and smashing into a thousand
pieces the unsuitable mould into which he has
forced it. Let those who think that religion
can be put out of public life by their order
look around them now, if they will not look
backward over the past, and they will see
that religion, in the most progressive nations
of the present, is a force which politicians
must recognise, and with which statesmen
must reckon. As well might an engineer
ignore the steam generated within his engine,
and close the safety-valve, as statesmen ignore
the religious force which is generated within
human nature, and which — if not allowed to
act as propulsive energy — wrecks nations as
it forces its way out.

Look across to France, a country which
stands in the forefront of civilisation, pre-
eminently the country of ideas, and you see

19

290 India

France — democratic France, republican France
— on the verge of a civil war on a purely
religious question. Paris is struggling
against Rome ; Rome is anathematising
Paris. Ministries fall over religious ques-
tions. Moderate men despair, because of
the passions generated by the extremists
alike on the side of Catholicism and anti-
Catholicism. Royal France, in the name
of religion, persecuted free-thinkers : Re-
publican France, in the name of Free
Thought, is persecuting Catholics. Years
ago Charles Bradlaugh, who was a real free-
thinker, broke with his French republican
friends when they began to persecute the
French monastic orders. To him Free
Thought was a principle, not a set of anti-
religious dogmas, and he abhorred the en-
forcement of any thought by penalty instead
of by argument. He resented atheistic
persecution of Christians as much as he
resented Christian persecution of atheists.
It is true that in the history of France,
Christianity has cruelly persecuted some of
its own sectaries ; it is true that massacres
and edicts of exile have begotten hatred of
Christianity in the minds of French secularists ;
but here, as everywhere, the great word of
the Buddha is true : " Hatred ceaseth not

Religion and Patriotism in India 291

by hatred at any time : hatred ceaseth by
love." The outcome of the persecution of
Christianity in France can only be a new crop
of persecution of anti-Christianity in the
future, and so on and on, until one side,
when in power, has the splendid strength to
say : " I have power to persecute, but I
forgive." Then only will cease the civil
strife, and France be set free to move on
peaceful lines. But, looking at France, can
anyone say that religion may be ignored in
civil and political life ? Ere that may be,
human nature must be entirely changed, and
statesmen must deal with human nature as
it is. Till you can kill the religious feeling
in man, you cannot safely ignore religion in
national life.

Look at England. England is rent in
twain over the question of religious educa-
tion. A Ministry, elected by a large popular
majority, is threatened with defeat. It is on
the verge of a great constitutional struggle ;
the very basis of the constitution is menaced ;
the House of Lords is imperilled. And all
this because Churchmen want to teach a cer-
tain form of dogmatic Christianity, and Non-
conformists a more liberal form. Englishmen
are fairly sober in their political life ; yet after
generations of political training, the nation

292 India

goes mad over a religious question, and
threatens to wreck its long-tried constitution.
And if this be so, can it be seriously con-
tended that in India, where, for thousands of
years, religion has entered into every family
and social event of life, religion can be ignored ?
If there is to be an Indian nation. Patriotism
and Religion must join hands in India, and
help and strengthen each other. To strive
to thrust Religion aside is but wasted labour.
In the sequel I shall try to show a better way.
But before dealing with that way, we may
learn from history another lesson. Strong
religious feelings of different kinds do not
prevent the building of a nation. We speak
of the religious antagonism between Hindt^s
and Muhammadans, and references are made
to persecutions, unfair taxes, etc., going back
to the Mughal Empire. But if we look
across to Europe at the same time, we see
similar persecutions going on, in England,
in France, in Germany. Religionists were
murdering each other in Europe as eagerly
as in India. In England, under " bloody
Queen Mary" — the history was written by
Protestants — Roman Catholics burned Pro-
testants ; under her sister, " glorious Queen
Bess," Protestants pressed Roman Catholics
to death by daily increasing the weight of

Religion and Patriotism in India 293

stones which crushed them. Not much to
choose between them in point of bloodshed !
In Ireland, the penal laws against Roman
Catholics — far more cruel than any Muham-
madan laws against Hindis — lasted into the
second quarter of the nineteenth century.
But none of these things have prevented the
growth of England into a nation ; Roman
Catholics and Protestants now live side by
side under equal laws, and when any peril
menaces the mother-land, none says " I am
Roman Catholic " ; none says " I am Pro-
testant " ; but a common cry rings out : " I
am English." In Germany, Rome and
Luther struggled for the mastery, and blood
was poured out like water ; yet, within our
own lifetime, Germany has become a nation,
and the German Fatherland is dear alike to
Catholic and Lutheran.

Roman Catholics and Protestants are as
antagonistic as Hindi^s and Muhammadans ;
year after year, in the north of Ireland, they
break each other's heads in the streets of
Derry, as here there are riots between Hindiis
and Mussulmans. Why should riots here
interfere with nationality more than riots
there, and why should not a nation grow
into unity with diverse creeds in India, as
nations have grown into it with diverse creeds

294 India

in Europe ? The day will come when, in a
national crisis, Hindil, Mussulman and Parsi
will forget their religious differences, and will
remember only that they are Indians, children
of one mother-land.

Butthe final answeras to all these differences
of religions, the answer which will close the
gulf, is that men of all faiths have far more
in common than they have in separation.
They are really all of one Religion, though its
truths may be labelled in different tongues.
Religion is the uprising of the human spirit
to its source, the seeking of the Universal
by the Particular Self, the effort of the part
to unite with the whole. Religion belongs
to the spiritual world. Religions are the
intellectual formulations of this truth and
of the methods of reaching it ; the intellect
formulates a spiritual truth into a mental
concept, and thereby narrows it. The many-
faced spiritual truth is defined by the intellect
as to each of its faces, and each religion has
its own formulations. One in nature, one in
essence, the human emanations of the Divine
seek re-union. That seeking is Religion.
Many the names by which God has been
called, many in the dead religions of the past,
many in the living religions of the present ;
every name represents a special conception of

Religion and Patriotism in India 295

God, but the Universal Self includes and
blends them all. When the Muhammadan
says Allah, he means God as revealed in Al
Quran ; when the Hebrew says Jehovah, he
means God as revealed in the Old Testament ;
when the Christian says Father, Son and
Holy Ghost, he means God as revealed in
the New Testament : when the Hindu says
Ishvara, he means God as revealed in the
Upanishads. But who may name the One,
save as the Self, the Life of all that is ? As
religions know themselves but as branches
of one tree, they will cease to divide their
adherents from one another, and all religions
will be sects in one Religion, as many tribes
make a single nation.

In the past. Religion and Patriotism have
been the two aspects of one thing — loyalty
to the State. A tribe has had a religion, and
faithfulness to the tribe and faithfulness to
its religion were one and the same thing.
Each tribe had its own God, and the patriot
served the tribal God ; the apostate from the
religion was the traitor to the tribe. In the
Hebrew Bible this comes out strongly, and
the wars of the Jews against the Canaanites
and the Philistines are wars of Jehovah
against the Gods of Canaan and Philistia.
A Hebrew who " went after strange Gods "

296 India

was a traitor to his nation. In imperial
Rome there was the Temple called the
Pantheon, where were enshrined the national
Deities of the subject peoples, and all good
Romans, with a true imperial instinct,
reverenced the Gods of all the nations in
the Empire.

How good would it be that history would
repeat itself, and that in imperial London,
centre of an empire mightier than that of
Rome, should rise a group of buildings, the
temples of the Hindt^i and the Buddhist, the
fire-temple of the Parsi, the Church of the
Christian, the mosque of the Muslim — all
religious branches of one Religion, and all
national patriotism blending into one imperial
patriotism.

As tribes united into a nation, the tribal
Deities formed the court of the national God.
The Ruler of the State was the Priest of the
God, and still Patriotism and Religion were
the two aspects of loyalty to the State.
Traitor and apostate were still convertible
terms. Thus the world lived during hundreds
and thousands of years, and only during the
last centuries have Patriotism and Religion
been divided, by the claim of one religion —
first the Christian, then the Muhammadan —
to be world-embracing. Disregarding all

Religion and Patriotism in India 297

national boundaries, these religions built walls
which were not conterminous with the limits
of the nations, and violently wrenched apart
the twin-sisters who had dwelt so long in
peace within each national area. With this
claim of uniqueness and universality has
arisen the fierce spirit of bigotry and fanati-
cism, until the Indian Muhammadan feels
more akin to his brother Muslim of Turkey
than to his Indian-born brother who is a
Hind^l, and the Indian Christian feels more
patriotism for Christian England than for
Hind^ and Muhammadan India. This is
the real difficulty ; we have a Pan-Isldm, and
a Pan-Christendom, dragging Indians away
from India, and making the centre of their
life extra-national. Thus are religions made
agents for national disruption, and religious
exclusiveness destroys love of country. It
is the exclusiveness that is the enemy, and
not Religion. Therefore must the warring
religions learn their unity, and when they
feel themselves to be one, they will strengthen,
not weaken. Patriotism.

This lesson will be learned in India first,
and through India in the world, because here
alone are all the great religions found living
side by side. They must be reconciled, in
one of two ways. An attempt may be made

298 Indiit

to deaden religious feeling, to get rid of
warmth, energy, devotion, to slay the love of
the Hindu for Hinduism, of the Mussulman
for Islam, of the Parsi for Zoroastrianism, of
the Christian for Christianity ; were this
possible — but it is not possible — we should
have a nation of corpses, not of living men ;
Religion is the life of the nation as it is the
life of the man. Without it, as history
shows, there is no first-class literature, art,
or high morality. Mr Gokhale truly said
that no great thing is done save by renun-
ciation, and the spring of renunciation is
Religion. The second way is to see in each
religion a branch of a single tree ; to act on
the saying of Shrl Krshna : " On whatever
road a man approaches me, on that road do
I welcome him, for all roads are mine " ; of
Muhammad the Prophet : " We make no
differences between prophets " ; of the Sufis :
" The ways to God are as many as the breaths
of the children of men."

When all men see that true Religion is
knowledge of God and love of man, and that
all religions are but methods of realising this
in practice, then, as in England Roman
Catholics, Anglicans, Methodists, Baptists,
Congregationalists and half a hundred others,
all call themselves Christians, so in India

Religion and Patriotism in India 2^

shall Hindiis, Buddhists, Muhammadans,
Parsis, Christians, Jains, Sikhs, all call them-
selves branches of the one Religion, the
Universal Religion of Wisdom — knowledge
and love blended together.

As easily as Roman Catholics and Baptists
in England meet and work together on a
common poHtical platform, may Hindiis and
Muhammadans meet and work here on a
common political platform. Both want good
Government, both want to take part in the
Government of their common country, both
want increasing national prosperity. What
matters it that one worships in a temple and
the other in a mosque, if both are Indians
and serving a single nation ?

As there is one God with many names,
there is one India with many sub-races and
families. Why should Bangla Hindu and
Bangla Muhammadan behave as though their
interests were opposed, when they both are
born of one India, are sons of one mother-
land ^ There is no religion which can be
cast out of the nation's household. We may
think of Christianity as the religion of the
white races, and hence foreign. But in the
south-west of India there are Christian
towns and villages dating from the second or
third century of the Christian era, and thus

300 India

have an Indian life of over 1600 years.
They cannot be ostracised, or treated as step-
children in the house of the Mother. And
indeed, a nation is the richer, not the poorer,
by varieties of thought, and not one jewel
should be grudged its place in the necklet
that adorns the Mother, whose most ancient
possession is the jewel of the religion of the
Universal Self. As many peoples must
blend here into One Nation, so many religions
must blend into the One Religion.

Religion is essential to patriotism because
nothing else destroys the separative tendency
in men, and prevents the disintegration of
bodies of workers by continual subdivisions.
Religion alone teaches man to feel his unity
with his fellows, and leads him to sacrifice
the smaller to the larger Self. Unless the
isolation brought about by antagonistic self-
interests can be destroyed by religion, nation-
ality will ever remain a dream. It is religion
which has ever bound individuals into a
tribe, and tribes into a nation. With the
revival of religion in India has come the
spread of a sense of brotherhood, of unity,
of nationality. With the growth of religion,
nationality has grown. With this more and
more will come the spirit of self-sacrifice, the
spirit that sacrifices itself as a part to the

Religion and Patriotism in India 301

whole, the only spirit that can make a nation.
Love of family grows into love of village ;
love of village into love of district ; love of
district into love of province ; love of pro-
vince into love of nation. Ay, and love of
nation shall grow into love of Humanity, and
all religions blend one day in a Universal
Religion. But as the various religions are
still needed, and the next step is to see them as
branches of One Religion, so various nations
are still needed, and the next step is to see
them as branches of Humanity, so that we
may love all and hate none. At our stage of
evolution, patriotism, love of one nation is a
necessity, for each nation has to develop its
own characteristics, in order that Humanity
may show forth a many-sided perfection.
The man who is not a patriot, unless he be a
great Rishi or Sage, will be no true lover of
Humanity. The man who has not evolved
the smaller loves cannot really feel the larger.
The indifferent husband and father is not the
material out of which the good citizen is
made ; it is the man who is the good house-
holder who is also the good citizen. The
man who neglects the sanitary arrangements
of his own house will not attend to those of
the Municipality ; and how shall the man
who neglects the lighting, and draining, and

302 India

paving, of his own town, be trusted with the
affairs of the province ; and how shall he
who cares nothing for the welfare of his
province, be trusted with the affairs of the
nation ? How shall he who fails in the
small, succeed in the great ? The good
father expands into the good citizen ; the
good citizen into the good provincial leader ;
the good provincial leader into the good
national leader, and these, perchance in future
lives, to the leaders of Humanity. The great
lovers of Humanity love it with a passion
such as that with which a mother loves her
first-born son. Never, then, let a man fear
that love to his mother-land will prevent
him from loving Humanity. It is the
road thereto ; the heart expands as it is
exercised.

Ungrudging love of the mother-land is,
then, the thing needed. Vande Mataram ;
worship the Mother. But let it be remem-
bered that while patriotism is the flower,
service is the fruit, and patriotism must
grow into service.

As men of every faith unite in social, civil
and political work, they will bring the spirit
of religion into all, and work with love and
knowledge. Then shall India show the
world that a nation may embrace all varieties

Religion and Patriotism in India 303

of thought, and only be the richer for the
variety, and from India shall spread that
spirit of knowledge and love which shall
blend all nations into one Brotherhood of
Humanity, and merge all religions in the
Wisdom.

The Education of
Hindu Youth

Reprinted from ''■The Theosophist'' of March 1897

'VTO more important question can occupy
'*' the attention of a nation than that of

the education of the youth of both sexes,
for as the immediate future Hes in the hands
of those who are now children, the direction
of the national development depends on the
training given to these embryo men and
women. If they be brought up materialisti-
cally, without any care being bestowed on
their spiritual and moral culture, the nation
as a whole must become materialistic, for the
nation of to-morrow is in the schools and
homes of to-day.

What is the education necessary to give
us spiritual, intellectual, moral, wisely pro-
gressive Hindil men and women ; to form
teachers, statesmen, merchants, producers,
fathers, mothers, worthy to make part of
a great Indian nation ? Such is the question
we must answer. Let us take separately
the school education of boys and girls,, re-
304

The Education of Hindu Youth 305

membering, however, that their joint educa-
tion in the home, from the cradle onwards,
should come from the example and the hps
of fathers and mothers, themselves full of
spirituality and forming a spiritual atmo-
sphere which shall permeate the dawning
mind. No after-training can compensate
for the lack of religion in the home, the
saturation of children's minds and hearts
with pure religion, and with the exquisite
stories with which Indian literature abounds
— tales of heroism, devotion, self-sacrifice,
compassion, love, reverence. A child should
not be able to remember a time when he was
not familiar with the melodious names of
Indian saints and heroes, both men and
women. But we are concerned with the
education given in the schools, and first
with that of the boys.

Boys of the upper classes must, under the
circumstances of the day, receive an English
education. Without this, they cannot gain
a livelihood, and it is idle to kick against
facts we cannot change. We can take the
English education, then, for granted. But
a reform in the books they study is necessary,
and efforts should be made to substitute a
detailed knowledge of Indian history and
geography for the excessive amount of foreign

20

3o6 India

history and geography now learned. A sound
and broad knowledge of universal history
widens the mind and is necessary for culture,
but every man should know in fuller detail
the history of his own nation, as such know-
ledge not only conduces to patriotism but
also enables a sound judgment to be formed
as to the suitability of proposed changes to the
national genius. Again, no book should be
admitted to the school curriculum that treats
the Hindti religion and gods with the con-
tempt born of ignorance. Hindtl fathers
have permitted their sons to be taught
English from a book which states that " Sri
Krishna was a profligate and a libertine."
Such a sentence is an outrage, and poisons
the minds of the boys reading it. The books
used should be classical English works, read
as literature, or elementary books of a purely
secular character, or, still better, prepared by
Hindiis thoroughly conversant with English
and imbued with reverence for religion.
Stories from the Mahdbhdrata and the Ramd-
yana^ well translated, should form reading
books both in English and in the vernacular.
In science teaching, vigilance must be exerted
to shut out any of the demoralising ways in
which some branches of science are taught in
Europe : no experiments on living animals

The Education of Hindu Youth 307

should be permitted ; they brutalise the
heart and generally mislead the intellect.
Reverence for life, compassion and tender-
ness to all sentient creatures, should be in-
culcated in the school by precept and example.

Moral education should form part of the
curriculum. Daily, in every class, a brief
portion of some sacred book should be read
and explained, and its moral lessons enforced
by illustrations ; their bearing on individual,
family, social and national life should be
shown, and the evil results of their opposed
vices should be expounded. Occasion should
be taken, with the elder youths, to explain
the scientific basis — the basis in nature — on
which moral precepts are founded, and to
point out the wisdom of Hindis religious
practices. They will thus acquire an in-
telligent appreciation of the value of religion
and morality.

Sanskrit should be a compulsory subject
in every school, as Latin is in European
schools. It is the mother of many Indian
vernaculars and of Pali ; all the greatest
treasures of Indian literature are enshrined
in it, and a knowledge of it should be a
necessary part of the education of every
Indian gentleman. Such a knowledge would
also serve as a national bond, for a common

3o8 India

language is one of the strongest elements in
nationality. It is grotesque that English
should be made the common language of
educated Indians, instead of their own rich,
flexible and musical Sanskrit. But it must
be taught in the modern way, so that a com-
petent knowledge of it, sufficient for reading
and conversation, may be acquired in the
short time available for learning it. The
fashion in which it was taught in more
leisurely ages is not suitable to the needs of
the time, and even if it be still used for the
training of specialists, it can never be adopted
as part of the curriculum in modern educa-
tion. To insist on only teaching it in the
old way is to doom Sanskrit to extinction
as a living language universally known by
educated Indians.

It is, further, exceedingly important that
English should be introduced into the Sans-
krit schools in which Pandits are trained. For
the growing gulf between the English-edu-
cated Indians, who know no Sanskrit, and
the Pandits^ who know no English, is a
danger alike to religious and to national life.
These two classes understand each other and
sympathise with each other less and less, and
the legitimate influence which religious men
should wield over worldly men is an ever-

The Education of Hindu Youth 3^9

diminishing factor in the national life of
India. These classes must be drawn nearer
together, and this object will largely be gained
by all educated men knowing Sanskrit, and
all Pandits — the Sanskrit specialists — know-
ing English, and being a little more in touch
with Western thought. A course of Western
philosophy should form part of the Pandifs
education, and it would make him all the
better able to appreciate and defend the un-
rivalled philosophic systems in his own litera-
ture. Indian thought has influenced the
thought of the world, and the effects of this
influence should be known and appreciated
by those who are its natural custodians. Men,
to influence the world, must be in touch with
it, and the Pandits are, with each generation,!
becoming less in touch with it, and more and,
more isolated from their educated country-j
men. '

The difficulty of making Sanskrit part of
the necessary education of every gentleman
is much overrated. Every Muhammadan
gentleman knows Arabic, and can read the
Koran ; why should the Hindi! be more
backward in reading the Vedas ? To be
ignorant of the language in which all his
religious ceremonies are performed is to be
doomed to irreligion or to unintelligent re-

310 India

ligion, and such ignorance should be regarded
as disgraceful to a man claiming to be
educated.

The spread of Sanskrit knowledge would
increase the printing and publishing of
Sanskrit works, and open up honourable
occupation as Sanskrit teachers to large
numbers of Pandits — if they would consent
to teach in a modern way — and thus many
collateral benefits would accrue to India by
this addition to the regular school curriculum.

Hindii boarding-houses should be estab-
lished wherever there are school and college
students who come from a distance, and
these should be conducted on religious lines ;
the boys bemg taught to observe their
religious duties and living in the atmo-
sphere of a religious Hindil home. Here
again Muhammadans are ahead of us in their
care for the religious training of the young,
for such Muhammadan boarding-houses are
found near colleges attended by Muhammadan
students, whereas Hindii boys are ruthlessly
exposed to purely secular or even proselytis-
ing influences at the very time when they are
most impressible. Are there no wealthy
Hindus who care enough for their faith and
their country to help in this protection and
training of the young ?

The Education of Hind^ Youth 3"

Let us turn to the education of girls ; the
future wives and mothers of Hindils, those
on whom the welfare of the family, and
therefore largely the welfare of the nation,
depends. Until the last two or three genera-
tions the education of Hindt!i girls was by
no means neglected. They were trained in
religious knowledge, and were familiar with
the great Indian epics and with much of the
Puranas, to say nothing of the vernacular
religious literature. They would learn by
heart thousands of lines of these, and would
also have stored in their memory many
stotras. Hence their children were cradled
in an atmosphere full of devotion, fed on
sacred songs and stories. Further, they were
thoroughly trained in household economy,
in the management of the house and the
knowledge of the duties of dependents and
servants. They were skilled in medicine,
and were the family doctors, and many were
highly skilled in artistic needle-work and in
music. Their education was directed to
make them fitted to discharge their functions
in life, to render them competent to fulfil the
weighty duties belonging to them in Indian
family life. " This old-fashioned education "
has now almost disappeared, and the present
generation are for the most part singularly

312 India

incompetent and helpless, too often trivial
and childish, unable to train their sons and
daughters in the noble simplicity and dignity
of true HindiCi life.

To remedy this admitted deterioration,
attempts are being made to introduce " female
education," but unhappily the kind of educa-
tion mostly essayed, being founded on the
needs of Western life, is mischievous rather
than beneficial to Indian womanhood. To
introduce a system suited to one country
into a country where the social conditions
are entirely different is to act blindly and
foolishly, without any consideration of the
objects education is intended to subserve.
Education should fit the person educated for
the functions he or she is to discharge in
later life ; if it fails to do this, it may be
book-learning but it is not education.

Now the higher education of women in
England and America is mainly directed to
fitting women to compete with men as bread-
winners in the various professions and govern-
ment employments. Very large numbers of
women of gentle birth are compelled, by the
present condition of English and American
society, to go out into the world to earn their
own living. Owing to many causes — among
them, the tendency of young Englishmen to

The Education of Hindu Youth 313

go abroad as colonists and settlers ; the preval-
ence of widow-marriage, so that one woman
may have two or three husbands in succes-
sion ; the greater mortality among males —
there is a large surplus of unmarried women.
When a man marries, he leaves the family
home, and makes a new home for his wife
and himself ; hence, when the parents die,
the unmarried daughters are then homeless
in the world, and have to go out to earn a
living. Under these circumstances, having
to compete with highly educated men, they
require an education similar in kind to that
hitherto restricted to men ; otherwise they
would compete at a hopeless disadvantage
and would receive very poor salaries. Women
are now educated at high schools and colleges
on the same lines as men, and compete with
them in examinations, as they do later in
working life. They become doctors, profes-
sors, clerks, and in America they also practise
at the bar and are ordained as ministers of
religion.

Needless to say that in India there is no
prospect of such a complete revolution in
social life as would break up the family
system, drive the women out into the world
to earn their bread, make them competitors
with men in every walk of life. The province

314 India

of women in India is still the home ; such a
thing as an unmarried girl is scarcely known,
and the joint-family system offers a secure
shelter to every girl and woman of the family.
Their life is a family life ; of what avail, then,
to waste the years during which they should
be educated to play their part well in the
family, in giving them an education suited
for Western social life but entirely unsuited
to their own ? The school-life of the girl in
India must necessarily be brief, and it is
therefore the more important that she should
spend that brief time to the best possible
advantage. Of what possible value can it be
to her to know all about the Wars of the
Roses and the dates of great EngHsh battles ?
How much is she the better for learning
Latin ? Of what value to her is it to pass
the Matriculation Examination ? Why should
ordinary Indian girls have a detailed know-
ledge of English geography, while ordinary
English girls are never taught details of
Indian geography — for the very sufficient
reason that it would not be of any use to
them. The Indian girl should learn to read
and write her vernacular, and the books used
should for the most part be translations from
the most attractive Sanskrit books, the great
epics and dramas of her country. The course

The Education of Hind^ Youth 3i5

of reading mapped out should give her an
elementary acquaintance with the Indian
literature, history and geography serving as
a basis for future study. It might also, in
the higher classes, include the broad outlines
of universal history and geography, and of
the greatest literary masterpieces of foreign
nations. She should be given a sound know-
ledge of arithmetic so continually needed by
the manager of a household. She should be
taught thoroughly the " science of common
life," the value of food-stuffs, the necessary
constituents of a healthy diet, the laws of
health for the body and the house ; she
should be thoroughly instructed in medicinal
botany, the preparation and use of herbs,
the treatment of all simple forms of disease
and of simple surgical cases, and of accidents
of various kinds. In the higher classes,
Sanskrit should be taught, so that the vast
stores of the noble literature of India should
be opened to her daughters. A knowledge of
music, including playing on the vin^ and
singing, is most desirable, as well as a thorough
acquaintance with such needle-work as is
wanted in the home ; the teaching of artistic
needle-work is also useful as forming a
pleasant recreation. At present, in some
schools, the hideous " samplers," long since

3i6 India

discarded in English school-teaching, with
their crude colours and impossible animals,
are being produced. The exquisite Indian
embroidery should, of course, take the place
of these, with its delicately shaded gradations
of colour and its graceful forms. These
train the eye and the taste which are de-
moralised by the other kind of work. But
above all else must the Indian girl be trained
in the devotion and piety to which her
nature so readily responds. Not only should
she read, but she should learn by heart,
stories and poems from the best Indian litera-
ture, stotras and sacred verses. No girl
should leave school without becoming familiar
with the Bhagavad Gitd and knowing much,
if not all of it, by heart. All the great hero-
ines of Indian story should be made familiar
to her, with their inspiring example and
elevating influence. The Indian ideal of
womanhood should be made living to her in
these heroic figures, and she should be taught
to regard them as her exemplars in her own
life. With heart thus trained and memory
thus stored, she will be fit to be " the
Lakshmi of the house," and the hearts of
husband and children will safely trust in her.
Girls thus educated will make the Indian
home what it ought to be — the centre of

The Education of Hindti Youth 317

spirituality, the strength of the national
religious life. Among them, we may hope
to see revived the glories of the past, the
tenderness and fidelity of Sita and Savitri,
the intellectual grandeur of Gargi, the all-
sacrificing spirituality of Maitreye.

If the Indian youth could be educated on
these or similar lines, India's future among
the nations would be secured, a future not
unworthy of her past — spiritually, morally,
intellectually and materially great.

The Education of Indian
Girls

A Pamphlet issued in 1904

o

|NE of the first things done by Countess
Wachtmeister and myself, when we came
to India in 1893, was to concern ourselves
with the question of the education of girls. But
many thoughtful Indians begged us to wait
until we had secured the confidence of the
Hindd community, so that no suspicion
could arise with regard to our objects. The
unhappy perversion of an Indian lady had
shaken the confidence of the Hindt!^ public
with respect to girls' education, and they
feared Christian proselytising under the garb
of interest in education. The advice seemed
sound, and we accepted it.

Ten years have passed since then, and we
may truly say that the confidence of the
Hindti public in the purity of our aims and
the straightforwardness of our actions has
been won. The appeals to me to take up
the education of girls have been many and
urgent, and unqualified approval of the scheme
318

The Education of Indian Girls 3i9

I have submitted in writing and speech has
been expressed. It seems time, therefore, to
give this scheme a wider pubhcity, and, if
it be acceptable, as it seems to be, to a large
number of Hindi^s, then to let it serve as
the basis of a national movement for the
education of girls. It is already being
followed in a few small girls' schools, carried
on by Lodges of the Theosophical Society,
and may henceforth take a fuller shape.

The national movement for girls' education
must be on national lines : it must accept the
general Hindii conceptions of woman's place
in the national life, not the dwarfed modern
view but the ancient ideal. It must see in
the woman the mother and the wife, or, as
in some cases, the learned and pious ascetic,
the Brahmavadini of older days. It cannot
see in her the rival and competitor of man
in all forms of outside and public employ-
ment, as woman, under different economic
conditions, is coming to be, more and more,
in the West. The West must work out in
its own way the artificial problem which has
been created there as to the relation of the
sexes. The East has not to face that problem,
and the lines of Western female education are
not suitable for the education of Eastern
girls. There may be exceptional cases, and

320 India

when parents wish their daughters to follow
the same course of education as their sons,
they can readily secure for them that which
they desire. But the national movement for
the education of girls must be one which
meets the national needs, and India needs
nobly trained wives and mothers, wise and
tender rulers of the household, educated
teachers of the young, helpful counsellors
of their husbands, skilled nurses of the sick,
rather than girl graduates, educated for the
learned professions.

Let us, then, put down in order the
essentials of the education which is desirable
for Indian girls.

I. Religious and moral education. Every
girl must be taught the fundamental doctrines
of her religion, in a clear, simple and rational
method. The Sanatana Dharma Series I.
and II., in the vernaculars, will suit Hindt^
girls as well as Hindil boys, and girls
thoroughly grounded in these will be able
to study the Advanced Text Book after leav-
ing school, as they are not likely to remain
there to an age fit for such study. The
Mahdbhdrata and the Rdrndyana^ in the
vernaculars, should be largely drawn on
for moral instruction, as well as Manusmriti ;
and Tulsi Das' Rdmdyana should be read

The Education of Indian Girls 3^1

by all Hindi-knowing girls. To this should
be added the teaching of hymns in the
vernacular and stotras in Sanskrit, as well
as the committal to memory of many
beautiful passages from the Bhagavad Gitciy
the Hamsa Gitciy the Anugitd^ and other suitable
works. They should be taught to worship,
and simple plain explanations of the worship
followed should be given, and, while the
devotion so natural to an Indian woman
should be cultured, an intelligent under-
standing should be added to it, and a pure
and enlightened faith, their natural heritage,
should be encouraged in them. Where
any girl shows capacity for deeper thought,
philosophical studies and explanations should
not be withheld from her, so that opportunity
may be afforded for the re-appearance of
the type of which Maitrey^ and Gargi and
the women singers of the Vedas were shining
examples. Girls belonging to the Islamic
and Zoroastrian faiths should be similarly
instructed, the books of their respective
religions taking the place of the Hindii
works named above. There is an abundant
wealth of beautiful devotional verse in
Persian, to culture and elevate the mind of the
Muslim girl, to whom also should be opened
the stores of Arabic learning. The Zoroas-

21

322 India

trian has also ample sacred treasures for the
instruction of his girls, and can utilise selec-
tions from the Avesta, Pahlavi and Persian.
I do not know if there is much available
vernacular literature in these faiths in
Southern India, but in Northern India
Urdu literature for the girls of Islam is not
lacking.

2. Literary Education. A sound literary
knowledge of the vernacular should be given,
both in reading and writing. Vernacular
literature, in Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Marathi,
Gujeriti, Telugu, and Tamil, is sufficiently
rich in original works and translations to
give full scope for study, and to offer a store
of enjoyment for the leisure hours of later
life. A colloquial knowledge of some ver-
nacular other than her own would be useful
to a girl, if time would allow of the learning.
A classical language, Sanskrit or Arabic or
Persian, according to the girl's religion,
should be learned sufficiently to read with
pleasure the noble literature contained there-
in, and the quick Indian girl will readily
master sufficient of one of these tongues to
prove a never-failing delight to her in her
womanhood, and to listen with intelligent
pleasure to the reading of her husband as he
enjoys the masterpieces of the great writers.

The Education of Indian Girls 323

Indian history and Indian geography should
be thoroughly taught, and reading-books
should be provided consisting of stories of
all the sweetest and strongest women in
Indian story, so that the girls may feel
inspired by these noblest types of womanhood
as compelling ideals, and may have before
them these glorious proofs of the heights to
which Indian women have climbed. The
very narrowness of their present lives, their
triviality and frivolity, render the more
necessary the presentation to them of a broad
and splendid type as a model for their up-
lifting, and their minds will be thus widened
and their ideas enlarged, at the same time
that they will be led along lines purely
national and in consonance with immemorial
ideals. If the Westernising, in a bad sense,
of Indian men be undesirable, still more
undesirable is such Westernising of Indian
women ; the world cannot afford to lose the
pure, lofty, tender and yet strong type of
Indian womanhood. It is desirable, also,
seeing how much English thought is domi-
nating the minds of the men, and how many
sympathetic Englishwomen seek to know
their Indian sisters, that the girls should
learn English, and have thus opened to them
the world of thought outside India ; in later

324 India

life they may make many a pleasant excursion
into that world in the company of their
husbands, and the larger horizons will interest
without injuring.

3. Scientific Education. Nothing is more
necessary to the Indian wife and mother,
ruler often of a household that is a little
village, than a knowledge of sanitary laws,
of the value of foodstuffs, of nursing the
sick, of simple medicines, of " first aid " in
accidents, of cookery of the more delicate
kind, of household management, and the
keeping of accounts. The hygiene of the
household should be thoroughly taught, the
value of fresh air, sunlight, and scrupulous
cleanliness ; these were, indeed, thoroughly
understood and practised by the elder genera-
tion, and must still, if learned in the school-
room, find their field of practice in the home ;
but the latest generation seems to be in all
this far behind its grandmothers. Essential
again is a knowledge of the value of food-
stuffs, and of their effects on the body in
the building of muscular, nervous and fatty
tissues, of their stimulative or nutrient
qualities. Some knowledge of simple medi-
cines is needed by every mother, that she
may not be incessantly calling in a doctor ;
she should also be able to deal with accidental

The Education of Indian Girls 325

injuries, completely with slight ones, and
sufficiently with serious ones to prevent loss
of life while awaiting the surgeon's coming ;
simple nursing every girl should learn, and
the importance of accuracy in observing
directions, keeping fixed hours for food and
medicine, etc. Sufficient arithmetic should
be learned for all household purposes, for
quick and accurate calculation of quantities
and prices, and the keeping of accounts. A
knowledge of cookery has always been part
of the education of the Indian housewife, and
this should still have its place in education,
or there will be little comfort in the house
for husband and children. The Indian cook
— like cooks in other countries — does his
work all the better if the house-mother is
able to supervise and correct.

4. Artistic Education. Instruction in some
art should form part of education for a girl,
so that leisure in later life may be pleasantly
and adequately filled, instead of being wasted
in gossip and frivolity. South India is lead-
ing the way in musical education, and the
prejudice against it is disappearing. The
singing of stotras, to an accompaniment on
the vina, or other instrument, is a refining
and delightful art in which the girls take the
greatest pleasure, and one which enables them

326 India

to add greatly to the charm of home. Draw-
ing and painting are arts in which some find
delight, and their deft fingers readily learn
exquisite artistic embroidery and needle-work
of all kinds. Needless to say that all should
learn sewing, darning and the cutting out of
such made garments as are used in their
district. In all of these, the natural taste of
the pupil should be the guide to the selection
of the art, though almost all, probably, will
take part in singing.

5. Physical Education. The training and
strengthening of the bodies of the future
mothers must not be left out of sight,
and, to this end, physical exercises of a
suitable kind should form part of the school
curriculum. In Southern India, the girls are
very fond of exercises in which they move
to the sound of their own songs, performing
often complicated exercises, in some of which
patterns are woven and unwoven in coloured
threads attached to a centre high overhead,
the ends of the threads being held by the
girls, whose evolutions make and unmake
the pattern. Other exercises somewhat re-
semble the well-known " Swedish exercises,"
and all these are good, and there are games
which give exercise of a pleasant and active
kind. These conduce to the health of the

The Education of Indian Girls 327

young bodies, and give grace of movement,
removing all awkwardness. Nothing is
prettier than to see a group of girls moving
gracefully to the sound of their own young
voices, in and out, in mazy evolutions, with
clapping of soft palms or clash of light play-
ing-sticks. The lack of physical exercise
leads to many chronic ailments in woman-
hood and to premature old age.

Such is an outline of the education which
would, it seems to me, prove adequate to the
needs of the young daughters of India, and
would train them up into useful and cultured
women, heads of happy households, " lights
of the home.''

There will always be some exceptional girls
who need for the due evolution of their
faculties a more profound and a wider educa-
tion, and these must be helped to what they
need as individuals, each on her own line.
Such girls may be born into India in order
to restore to her the learned women of the
past, and to place again in her diadem the
long-lost pearl of lofty female intelligence. It
is not for any to thwart them in their upward
climbing, or to place unnecessary obstacles in
their path.

Of this we may be sure, that Indian great-
ness will not return until Indian womanhood

328 India

obtains a larger, a freer, and a fuller life, for
largely in the hands of Indian women must
lie the redemption of India. The wife
inspires or retards the husband ; the mother
makes or mars the child. The power of
woman to uplift or debase man is practically
unlimited, and man and woman must walk
forward hand in hand to the raising of India,
else will she never be raised at all. The
battle for the religious and moral education
of boys is won, although the victory has still
to be made effective all over India. The
battle for the education of girls is just begin-
ning, and may Ishvara bless those who are
the vanguard, and all beneficent Powers
enlighten their minds and make strong their
hearts.

PRINTED BY NEILL AND CO., LTD., EDINBURGH.

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