4
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
LIBRARY
WILLIAM H. DONNER
COLLECTION
purchased from
a gift by
THE DONNER CANADIAN
FOUNDATION
THE RELIGIOUS
QUEST OF INDIA
EDITED BY
J. N. FARQUHAR, M.A.
LITERARY SECRETARY, NATIONAL COUNCIL OF YOUNG MEN'S
CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS, INDIA AND CEYLON
AND
H. D. GRISWOLD, MA., Ph.D.
SECRETARY OF THE COUNCIL OF THE AMERICAN PRESBYTERIAN
MISSIONS IN INDIA
fa
RIGATE1
VOLUMES IN PREPARATION
THE RELIGIOUS LITERA-
TURE OF INDIA.
THE RELIGION OF THE
RIG VEDA.
THE VEDANTA .
HINDU ETHICS
BUDDHISM
JAINISM
ISLAM IN INDIA
By J. N. Farquhar, M.A.
By H. D. Griswold, M.A.,
Ph.D.
By A. G. Hogg, M.A., Chris-
tian College, Madras.
By John McKenzie, M.A.,
Wilson College, Bombay.
By K. J. Saunders, M.A.,
Literary Secretary, National
Council of Y.M.C.A., India
and Ceylon.
By Mrs. Sinclair Stevenson,
M.A., D.Sc, Rajkot, Kath-
iawar.
By H. A. Walter, M.A.,
Literary Secretary, National
Council of Y.M.C.A., India
and Ceylon.
EDITORIAL PREFACE
The writers of this series of volumes on the variant forms
of religious life in India are governed in their work by two
impelling motives.
I. They endeavour to work in the sincere and sympathetic
spirit of science. They desire to understand the perplexingly
involved developments of thought and life in India and dis-
passionately to estimate their value. They recognize the
futility of any such attempt to understand and evaluate,
unless it is grounded in a thorough historical study of the
phenomena investigated. In recognizing this fact they do no
more than share what is common ground among all modern
students of religion of any repute. But they also believe that
it is necessary to set the practical side of each system in living
relation to the beliefs and the literature, and that, in this
regard, the close and direct contact which they have each had
with Indian religious life ought to prove a source of valuable
light. For, until a clear understanding has been gained of the
practical influence exerted by the habits of worship, by the
practice of the ascetic, devotional or occult discipline, by the
social organization and by the family system, the real impact
of the faith upon the life of the individual and the community
cannot be estimated ; and, without the advantage of extended
personal intercourse, a trustworthy account of the religious
experience of a community can scarcely be achieved by even
the most careful student.
II. They seek to set each form of Indian religion by the side
of Christianity in such a way that the relationship may stand
out clear. Jesus Christ has become to them the light of all
their seeing, and they believe Him destined to be the light of
a 2
iv EDITORIAL PREFACE
the world. They are persuaded that sooner or later the age-
long quest of the Indian spirit for religious truth and power
will find in Him at once its goal and a new starting-point, and
they will be content if the preparation of this series contri-
butes in the smallest degree to hasten this consummation.
If there be readers to whom this motive is unwelcome, they
may be reminded that no man approaches the study of a
religion without religious convictions, either positive or nega-
tive : for both reader and writer, therefore, it is better that
these should be explicitly stated at the outset. Moreover,
even a complete lack of sympathy with the motive here
acknowledged need not diminish a reader's interest in follow-
ing an honest and careful attempt to bring the religions of
India into comparison with the religion which to-day is their
only possible rival, and to which they largely owe their pre-
sent noticeable and significant revival.
It is possible that to some minds there may seem to be
a measure of incompatibility between these two motives.
The writers, however, feel otherwise. For them the second
motive reinforces the first : for they have found that he who
would lead others into a new faith must first of all understand
the faith that is theirs already, — understand it, moreover,
sympathetically, with a mind quick to note not its weaknesses
alone but that in it which has enabled it to survive and has
given it its power over the hearts of those who profess it.
The duty of the editors of the series is limited to seeing that
the volumes are in general harmony with the principles here
described. Each writer is alone responsible for the opinions
expressed in his volume, whether in regard to Indian religions
or to Christianity.
THE RELIGIOUS QUEST OF INDIA
INDIAN THEISM
FROM THE VEDIC
TO THE MUHAMMADAN PERIOD
BY
NICOL MACNICOL, M.A., D.Litt.
HUMPHREY MILFORD
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON EDINBURGH GLASGOW NEW YORK
TORONTO MELBOURNE BOMBAY
I9J5
L
hi
PREFACE
The greater part of this book was submitted as a thesis for
the degree of Doctor of Letters of the University of Glasgow.
As it is now published it has been considerably enlarged,
several chapters having been added. In its preparation I
have not had the advantage of consulting Sir Ramkrishna
Gopal Bhandarkar's detailed treatment of most of the subject
in his Vaisttavism, Saivism and Minor Religions Systems,
which appeared a year ago. By that time the manuscript was
already complete, and it was only possible to make use of this
work in one or two footnotes. That is the more to be regretted as
this is a subject on which no one can speak with such authority
and such knowledge as this venerable scholar, who is himself
an adherent of the school of bJiakti. No one who knows
'Dr. Bhandarkar', as his friends still prefer to call him, could
treat with anything but deep respect a religious movement of
which at its highest he may be said to be the representative.
I desire to acknowledge with much gratitude the assistance
given in the preparation of this volume by Mr. J. N. Farquhar,
one of the editors of the scries to which it belongs. Were it
not for the guidance that his wide knowledge of all aspects of
Indian religion has afforded, the defects of this book would be
still greater than they are. He has also by the pains he has
taken in the correction of the proofs done much to bridge the
wide interval that lies in this case between the author and
the printer.
N. M.
Poona, India.
October, 1914.
TO MARGARET
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION pp. 1-5
PART I. HISTORY
CHAPTER I. THE THEISM OF THE RIG VEDA
Sense in which this religion can be described as Theism. Its con-
ceptions necessarily those of a primitive age. Difficulty of determining
the chronology of the Hymns and the causes and course of the develop-
ment of their religious ideas. Varuna. His Hebraic character and
moral greatness. A religion of nature passing into a religion of spirit.
Varuna and the rita. The fall of Varuna and the victory of Pantheism
over Theism. Hindrances to Theism in the Indian spirit. Contrast with
Greece. Signs of the pantheistic tendency in Vedic polytheism.
Henotheism. ' Polytheistic Pantheism.' The influence of philosophy.
The way of abstraction ending in Agnosticism .... pp. 7-24
CHAPTER II. THEISTIC ELEMENTS IN THE POPULAR
RELIGION IN THE PERIOD OF THE BRAHMANAS
AND THE UPANISADS
The change from the Vedic to the Brahmanic period. The difficulty
of finding anything that can be called theistic here. The fetichism and
demonolatry of the Atharvan. Its relation to the higher religion of the
Rig Veda. The Brahmanas aristocratic and priestly in character. The
rise of Visnu and his relation to devotional religion. The connexion of
sun gods and vegetation gods with such religion. Visnu and the hope of
immortality. Visnu as a deliverer of mankind from distress. The origin
and universality of the feeling of bhakti. Vasudeva and Krisna. Con-
jectures as to the origin of Krisna worship. The identification of
Vasudeva-Krisna with Visnu by means of avatar as . . . pp. 25 41
CHAPTER III. THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS
The Upanisads largely antagonistic to the sacerdotalism of the
Brahmanas, but not necessarily anti-Brahmanical. Nor are they necessarily
xii CONTENTS
opposed to the Bhagavata religion. The monistic tendency of Indian
religious thought. The conflicting religious currents of this period. In
those Upanisads where the speculative interest is less than the practical
one of deliverance, theistic ideas are to be found more clearly expressed.
The earlier Upanisads. Tests of the Theism of the Upanisads. (i) Is
the world real ? The doctrine of mdyd unknown to the Upanisads. The
universe is a reality produced and sustained by Brahman. But reality
is reached by a process of abstraction. (2) Is the means to attaining
Brahman an unethical knowledge ? Excessive intellectualism opposed
to Theism. Tendency of the Upanisads in this direction, but knowledge
often includes ethical elements. (3) Does union with Brahman mean
absorption ? Statements of seers not to be interpreted too literally. Not
Pantheism but Mysticism pp. 42-61
CHAPTER IV. THEISM WITHIN BUDDHISM
Theistic elements to be found even within Jainism and Buddhism.
In Jainism they are few and feeble. The search for deliverance. Visnuite
elements in Buddhism. Its practical and non-metaphysical character.
Its ethical character. Its asceticism a discipline. In those respects it is
theistic and makes room for faith. The place of Buddha in Buddhism.
Buddhism as a phase of Hinduism. Its doctrine of the 'mean' and of
grace pp. 62-74
CHAPTER V. THE THEISM OF THE BHAGAVADGITA
The unique position of the Gita in Indian Theism. The question of
its date and growth. It is comprehensive in its character. Two theistic
streams unite in it. Its teaching not systematic. The immanent God
brought into relation with men. The relation of a personal God to
karma. The doctrine of grace. Works that do not fetter. The doctrines
of grace and faith also in the Awakening of Faith in the Mahay ana.
The teaching of both books springs from a common need . pp. 75-85
CHAPTER VI. THEISM DURING THE MAHABHARATA
PERIOD
The 'jungle of the Mahdbharata'. The rival gods of the Epic. The
forces opposed to Theism. Its association with Visnu. The avatdra
idea. Methods of linking up the gods. The doctrine of the grace of
God. Yoga. Its alliance with bhakt:. The easy compromises of the
Mahdbharata not sufficient ....... pp. 86-95
CONTENTS xiii
CHAPTER VII. THE THEISM OF THE VEDANTA SVTRAS
AND OF RAMANUJA
What the Sutras are. Their obscurity. Sankara's exposition of
them. Ramanuja. His predecessors. Yamunacarya. Characteristics
of Ramanuja's Vaisnavism. His theology based on the Vedanta.
Brahman as the 'embodied' soul. His doctrines of God and man leave
room for Theism. His teaching in regard to karma and the persistence
of personality after release. The Creator and karma. His incarnations
and manifestations. The Terigalai and Vadagalai schools . pp. 96-1 1 1
CHAPTER VIII. LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS
Madhva. The influence of his teaching. Ramananda. Tulsl Das.
The Indian Theistic reformation. Its limitations and its weakness. The
'name'. The Maratha saints : Jhanesvar, Namdev, Tukaram. Character
of this movement. Vallabhacarya. Nimbarka. The influence of the
Vallabha sect. The Sahajia cult in Bengal. Caitanya. The emotionalism
of his sect. Mlra BaT ....... pp. 112-34
CHAPTER IX. KABIR- AND NANAK
The new element in Indian religion. Kablr. The character of his
teaching. Its opposition to Hinduism and its monotheism. The need of
mediation. His doctrine of sabda and its meaning. His doctrine of the
guru. Kablr as the chief guru. Rites of initiation and communion.
Nanak and the Sikhs. His life. Hindu and Muhammadan elements in
his teaching. The transcendence and unknowableness of God. The
mediation of the guru and the name. The guru as God. The Granth
Saheb. Guru Govind. Nanak as a reformer. The UdasTs and Nirmalas.
The Akalls. Other Sikh sects. Dadii and the Dadu PanthTs. The
Baba Lalls. The Caran DasTs. The Sivanarayanls . pp. 135-59
CHAPTER X. SIVA BHAKTI
The repulsive character of Siva. The origin of the god. The
Svetasvatara Uftanisad. Saivism associated with bhakti. Saivism in
the Mahabharata. Saivism in South India. The Saiva Siddhanta.
Its sources. The Agamas. Its doctrines. The grace of Siva. The
Saivite saints and poets. Manikka-vasagar. The unknowable has drawn
near. ' The black-throated one.' The influence of the Gitd. The
Sivavakyar. The Vira Saivite or Lihgayat movement. Its failure.
pp. 160-79
xiv CONTENTS
CHAPTER XI. THE ^AKTA SECT
A parallel growth in Saivism to erotic Vaisnavism. Its relation to
aboriginal ideas and worships. The worship of female deities. This
type of worship within Buddhism. Its relation to the cult of the Un-
manifested. Its relation also to deep-seated human instincts and
passions. Poison as the antidote for poison. Its relation to Yoga and
Sankhya. Sexual ideas predominate throughout . . pp. 180-89
PART II. THEOLOGY
The later, more reflective period to be dealt with. The change from
Vedic to more specifically Hindu religion. The mystical speculation of
the Upanisads. Its abstract and intellectual character. Is God here
immanent or transcendent ? Ambiguous answer of the mystical writers
of the Upanisads. Impersonal character of much of India's spiritual
history. The doctrine of avatdras. The ethics of the Bhagavadgitd.
Its theology. The ambiguity of its teaching. Its final goal. The
meaning of bhakti and Bhagavat. Ramanuja's theology. Bhakti and
prapatti. Madhva's Dvaita system. The Suddhadvaita system of
Vallabhacarya. The RamanandTs and the Nimbarka sect. The Sandllya
and Narada Sutras.
The Saiva Siddhanta. Its conception of a purpose of deliverance as
governing the relation of God and the universe. Its theological breadth.
The popular movements not theological. Bhakti in the later poets
becoming moralized. Its ability to overcome the power of transmigration
and of caste pp. 190-219
PART III. CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION
Christianity as the standard of comparison. Parallelisms between
Indian Theisms and Christianity. The karma and transmigration theory
as the differentia of Indian thought . . . . pp. 220-25
I. The place of God alongside of karma. The effect of this doctrine
on Theism. Similar problem in the relation of Christianity to the laws
of nature. The attempt of the Saiva Siddhanta to solve the problem.
pp. 225-9
II. The relation of the free ethical activity of Theism to the legalism of
the karma doctrine. The way of escape in the Gild from the bondage of
karma. The karma bondage and the bondage of law as described by
CONTENTS xv
St. Paul. God as a centre of negation. The imperfectly ethical
character of the karma doctrine. It cannot enter into the full kingdom
of Theism. Freedom as the note of a fully ethical Theism . pp. 229-36
III. The question of the deliverance of the fettered soul. Deliverance
from the world as the end rather than union with God. Righteousness
as normative in Christian Theism. Absence of a moral ideal in Indian
Theism. Law not taken up into the divine personality. Legal penalty
and the chastisement of a Father. The domination of the karma-
transmigration doctrine. The emancipated soul as God . pp. 237-42
IV. The excessive intellectualism of Indian religion. The way of
abstraction. Its aristocratic character. Indian religious thought not
ethical but ontological. The ethical path to God. Indian passivity.
Christian Theism a ' gospel of salvation by joy ' . . . pp. 242-7
V. The reaction from intellectualism to excessive emotionalism. Theism
enlists the emotions on the side of righteousness. Many bhakti religions
strong in their appeal to the heart. Danger of uncontrolled emotionalism.
The emotion in Indian Theisms creating its own object. A religion of
feeling needs an ideal realized in a person. That is supplied in Christianity
by Jesus Christ. How He differs from Krisna and Rama. The tales of
divine grace and their authenticity. Grace and holiness to be reconciled
in God. How this is done in the Cross of Christ. The service of God
as service of man pp. 247-60
VI. Other aspects of the Indian Theisms. The longing for communion
with God. The Eternal must be manifested in time. The easy tolerance
of Indian Theism. Its failure in relation to polytheism, idolatry, and
caste. The fundamental difference between them and Christianity lies
in its possession of Christ. Summary .... pp. 260-67
APPENDIXES
A. Historical Table pp. 268-9
B. Ekanath (sixteenth century) on Bhakti .... pp. 270-1
C. The Alleged Indebtedness of Indian Theism to Christianity pp. 272-9
D. The Manbhau Sect pp. 280-1
E. Bibliography pp. 2^2-4
INDEX pp. 285-92
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
S. B. E. Sacred Books of the East.
J. R.A. S. Joitrnal of the Royal Asiatic Society.
E. R. E. Encyclopaedia of Religion arid Ethics.
R. V. Rig Veda.
A. V. Atharva Veda.
t t
Sat. Brah. Satapatha Brahmana.
Taitt. Sam. Taittiriya Satnhita.
Ait. Aran. Aitareya Aranyaka.
Brihad. Up. Brihadaranyaka Upanisad.
Chand. Up. Chandogya Upanisad.
r t _ f
Svet. Up. Svetasvatara Upanisad.
Mund. Up. Mundaka Upanisad.
Mbh. Mahabharata.
Bhag. Bhagavadglta.
Ved. Silt. Vedanta Sfetras,
Hopkins, R. I. Hopkins, Religions of India.
Barth, R. I. Barth, Religions of India.
Ind. Ant. or /. A. Indian Antiquary.
Poussin, Opinions. Poussin, Bouddhisme, Opinions sur VHistoi?'e de
la Dogmatiqiie.
Suzuki. Suzuki, Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana.
D. C. Sen. D. C. Sen, History of Bengali Language and Literature.
Westcott. Westcott, Kabir and the Kablr Panth.
Macauliffe. Macauliffe, The Sikh Religion.
Trumpp. Trumpp, The Adi Granth.
INTRODUCTION
India has always been recognized as so determinedly pan-
theistic in its religious thought that ' Indian Theism' will seem
to many an unnatural collocation of words. There are some,
no doubt, who will maintain that whatever can be so described
is really foreign to the Indian spirit and must be credited to
Christian or Muhammadan influences. Were this the case the
study of the course of the theistic development in India would
lose much of its interest and value. A closer acquaintance
with the facts will show, however, that Indian religion has had
a far wider range of expression than is here suggested. The
spirit of no people — certainly not that of the Indian races — can
be summed up in a single formula. Theism, no doubt, assumes
various aspects in various environments and as it passes
through various minds. For that reason it will be found in
India always to bear certain characteristic marks that deter-
mine it as Indian. But while that is the case it can hardly be
denied that what can be definitely described as theistic is both
ancient in the land and indigenous to the soil. It might
indeed be maintained, were this the appropriate place to do so,
that the common heart and conscience of mankind everywhere
has in it the promise and potency of such a religious attitude.
Without controversy, there are certain profound needs and
longings of the heart which a faith in a personal God would
seem alone to satisfy, while we are conscious at the same time
of the fact that the demand of reason in us is steadily
advancing simultaneously towards a conviction of the ground
of the universe as one. We shall accordingly find at all
periods of the Indian religious development certain elements
in it which, far off as they often are from what we understand
B
2 INDIAN THEISM
by the Theism of Western theologians and philosophers, yet
can justly claim to share with them that designation.
Those cults and systems, often embryonic, often fragmen-
tary, appear sometimes as efforts of revolt from the cere-
monialism or the intellectualism of the official religion. In
such cases they have their roots in popular piety ; and generally,
when the wave of religious emotion has spent itself, they sink
back to assume their place among a multitude of scarcely
distinguishable sects. The fact that Indian Theism so often
has this source renders the task of its historian particularly
difficult. Piety seldom expresses itself in the literature and
the language of the learned — and in early India practically the
only literature that has survived is that which makes use of the
learned language — and piety often attracts so little attention
as to obtain no permanent recognition. It most often
establishes itself in the hearts of the common people ; and it
may not infrequently be deepest where it is most inarticulate.
In India especially, so barren in historical records, it is
difficult to be sure of the character of some of those ancient
movements of religious emotion or to estimate their influence.
With the more intellectual Theism which has formulated itself
in the systems of the philosophers it is easier to deal, though
here too the setting of the ideas there expressed, the extent to
which they lived in men's hearts and controlled their lives,
remains obscure. As a matter of fact Theism, whether it
springs from a root of simple piety or has reached self-
consciousness in a formulated theology, always bears so close
a relation to the lives of those who profess it that its value can
only be rightly estimated by the help of its historical context.
It is essentially a personal and experimental religion, and for
that reason the obscurity of India's past renders the task of
any one who seeks to trace the course of Indian Theism and to
appreciate its influence a peculiarly difficult one. Even the
main highway of the Indian religious development often loses
itself in the wilderness. How much harder, therefore, it must
be to endeavour to follow the innumerable bypaths, the jungle
INTRODUCTION 3
tracks, of theistic devotion, now swallowed up in the dense
undergrowth of polytheism, now lost in the pantheistic desert.
We may be able to find in the obscure beginnings of a cult,
now hopelessly idolatrous, in the suggestion of some ceremonial,
or in a fragment of ancient song, traces of the claims that the
heart once made to know God in a personal communion,
demands of a living conscience in the face of formalism and
insincerity. These will form the chief materials out of which
the popular theistic faith will have to be reconstructed. The
task of piecing together from a shadowy past such hints of
what we are seeking is no easy one and gives room for much
difference of opinion. It should not, however, be unprofitable,
nor without its suggestions for a fuller comprehension of what
Theism implies, to follow its wayward course as far as we are
able to discern it and to note its reactions in the peculiar
Indian environment.
It may indeed be questioned how far the name Theism is
appropriate to describe some of the worships and some of the
speculations which will come within our purview. It is true, as we
shall find, that few, if any, of the popular cults are free from the
taint of polytheism and idolatry. It is true also that in India
especially it is difficult to demarcate the boundaries of Theism
and Pantheism, to say that here one ends and the other begins.
The unity of God and the reality of moral relations, the pos-
sibility of a fellowship between the Deity and his worshippers
which never passes into unconscious absorption, man's freedom
and his immortality, these we may believe to be essential to
Theism and to follow inevitably from it. But at the same
time we may have implicit Theisms, efforts of the spirit in its
direction, which have not reached and may never reach full
self-consciousness and yet to which the name need not be
refused. We cannot decide by any a priori rule what should
be admitted to our survey and what excluded from it. It will
be possible for us, however, after the whole field, with what-
ever it has to present to us — whether we have to pronounce it
good or bad, the product of the crude emotions of the half-
B 2
4 INDIAN THEISM
civilized or of a super-refined intellectual subtlety — has been
surveyed, to judge of the value of India's efforts after a theistic
faith in the light of such a fully articulated Theism as
Christianity. Many of these efforts have proved, as we shall
find, abortive. Something in the Indian atmosphere or in the
Indian spirit seems again and again to thwart them. Why
this is so we shall have to endeavour to explain ; and it will be
best explained by a comparison of the Indian theistic develop-
ment in its waywardness and in its results with the fully
ethical Theism of the Christian religion. Christianity provides
the standard against which the products of Indian reflection
and devotion can most suitably be measured.
The one limitation that it seems advisable to place upon our
study is that it be confined as far as possible to phases of
theistic religion which are genuinely Indian. Here again it
will often be difficult to determine what to include and what
to exclude. It is impossible to disentangle the foreign
elements from those that are purely indigenous in many of
the movements of Indian religious life. When Muhamma-
danism invaded the country, and still more when Christianity
appeared at a later date, supported by all the authority and
prestige of Western civilization, the Indian spirit, however
deeply rooted in its own soil, and however tenacious of
its own peculiar characteristics, could not but be greatly
influenced. And such influence tended naturally to strengthen
the movement towards a definitely monotheistic Theism
and to weaken whatever elements in it were peculiarly
Indian. The more the religion has been thus de-Indianized,
the more our interest in it diminishes ; for it is with Indian
Theism that we are here concerned. We shall accordingly
exclude entirely from our study the theistic movements of the
nineteenth century. Our purpose is to learn how far theistic
worships have actually emerged in the past from the specifically
Indian spirit and in what forms they have so emerged. We
wish to know whether that spirit has any contribution to make
to the interpretation of theistic religion, and especially what
INTRODUCTION 5
points of contact it may have found in its past with the
Christian religion, and whether means may be discovered for
a fuller reconciliation between it and that supreme theistic
faith. First in our treatment of the subject will come an
account, mainly historical, of the successive efforts in the
direction of Theism which mark the whole course of the
development of Indian religion from the Vedic to the Muham-
madan period. This historical narrative will be followed by
some account of the theology which, whether articulated into
a system or only partially conscious of itself, lay behind the
cultus and the experience. The record of the theistic facts will
thus be succeeded by a survey of the theistic idea, the account
of the manifold aspects of theistic life and faith by a presenta-
tion of the thought which was implicit in it and which
endeavoured to explain it. Finally an attempt will be made
to frame an appreciation of the value of this religious move-
ment and its results by means of a comparison of it with the
normative ethical Theism of Christianity.
PART I. HISTORY
THE THEISM OF THE RIG VEDA
When one speaks of the Theism of the Rig Veda, it need
hardly be explained that one uses the word with less than the
full-orbed meaning that it bears for us to-day. There has
been much controversy among scholars as to whether these
poems are expressions of the religious consciousness of a
primitive people, naive utterances of the fears and hopes and
fancies of the natural man, or whether they represent an
advanced stage of civilization and embody the matured results
of long reflection on the meaning of the world. But which-
ever of those views one inclines to, or whatever other con-
ception one may form of the stage of culture of the Aryans of
the Vedic age, it is obvious that the religion of which those
hymns are the utterance cannot be described as strictly
theistic or monotheistic in the sense in which to-day we
understand those words. No single word, indeed, can repre-
sent the whole field of religious conjecture that finds ex-
pression within the limits of that collection. Theism we
generally understand to connote at least three things : first,
belief in God as a spiritual Being; second, the faith that His
power is sufficient to secure that at the last the good will
conquer ; and third, a conception of the nexus that binds
together God and His worshippers as mainly moral. But all
this one does not expect to discover fully articulate in that
early age. When one looks for Theism within the many-hued
complexity of the dreams and fancies of those ancient poets
it is not with the idea of finding more than an approximation,
8 THE THEISM OF THE RIG VEDA
in this direction and in that, to what the term has come to
signify to the developed thought of modern times.
That the conceptions of a later day are necessarily higher
than those of a primeval people need not be maintained ; but
they are likely to be more fully elaborated and more conscious
of their implications. Religion has been defined in many and
conflicting fashions, but one description of it embodies what
is certainly a feature that is practically universal in all the
various modes of its expression. It has been described as
' the highest form of man's consciousness of himself in his
relation to all other things and beings.' If that be so, then
when man views himself as one of a narrow kinship, when
the tie of blood is the one bond of union in his society, it is
impossible that he should reach the full theistic faith in a God
who is the one guide and guardian of the whole race of men.
The more limited his view of the social unity of which he is
a member, the narrower will be his thought of God. The
less we comprehend our own personality in the richness of its
moral meaning, the less possible is it for us to climb from it
to a right conjecture of the supreme Personality of which ours
is but a pale reflection. Certainly knowing more of the world
in which we live and of the race to which we belong than our
Aryan ancestors, realizing as they could not the fibres and
filaments that bind all races and all peoples in one wide human
brotherhood, we by consequence know what we are better
than they could, and therefore should have an ampler thought
of God. In these and other ways it is a necessity of nature
that any theistic conceptions that may have dawned upon the
authors of those Hymns should be narrower and less fully
moralized than those of the Theism of a later and a more
fully instructed age. We should not look in the Vedic
Hymns for that which it is in no wise possible we should find
there, nor should we therefore blame them for its absence.
Of religion, certainly it is true — whether or not it be true as
well, as William James maintains, of philosophy — that ' it is
more a matter of passionate vision than of logic ', and it is
THE THEISM OF THE RIG VEDA 9
the vision of an unsophisticated age, the intuitions of seers to
whom nature and the unseen world were alike near and vivid,
that one looks for and finds in those ancient poems. Glimpses
we can discern in them of a God rising out of nature and
transcending it, sudden vistas, opening to them and perhaps
as quickly closing, of a moral purpose and a moral order.
Among the changing shapes of their conceptions we can
discern here and there emerging the dim but imposing outlines
of a full-orbed Theism. On one side, indeed, their thought
seems to sink to the level of fetichism and the grossest super-
stition ; on_ the other it loses itself in the arid wastes of
pantheistic speculation. But midway between those opposite
extremes can be traced forms of theistic devotion such as
have never been altogether absent from that day to this from
the religious reflection of India. If we piece together into
one pattern these fragments of many-hued intuition we may
be able to realize how near they approach to the theistic con-
ceptions of to-day.
Among the many difficulties that face one in seeking to
formulate the probable course of development of the Vedic
theology a chief one is due to the absence of any reliable
chronological data by means of which the order of the Hymns
can be determined. It is happily unnecessary for our purpose
to consider the vexed question of the date of their production.
What is of importance for us is to conjecture which Hymns
in the collection represent earlier ideas and which later and
more fully developed ones. The Hymns of the Rig Veda
range, it may be supposed, over a period of seven hundred
or a thousand years of changing religious emotion and
reflection. During that period the thoughts of men certainly
did not stand still. But where can we find the key to the
process of their movement and their growth ? The Hymns
stand for us against no background of experience and en-
vironment that we can do more than guess. Behind them
there must have lain many things of which we can catch at
most only now and then a glimpse — fetichism, ancestor-
io THE THEISM OF THE RIG VEDA
worship, the dread of evil spirits, magical rites, philosophies,
priesthoods, sacrifices. There were the periods when ritual
prevailed ; there was the outgrowth of philosophical specu-
lation ; there was the age of faith, of a keen, personal devotion,
of love and longing for the face of God. Some parts of the
cultus that prevailed within this period must have grown to
great power and then decayed and died ; we can see new
deities coming above the horizon to supplant the old ; ancient
names take to themselves other and perhaps higher meanings.
All those changes, corresponding to the ever changing and
moving mind of man, we are left only to conjecture. Why
Varuna for a time was great until he seems to fill up all the
universe of the Vedic poet's thought, and why he passed
speedily to be only the shadow of a mighty name; what the
gods brought with them into India and what the new country
and its indigenous conceptions contributed to their develop-
ment; when the priest ruled and when the philosopher, and
what gods each worshipped and with what rites — to these
and many other questions we obtain no answer and can only
grope after their solution with much uncertainty and debate.
In consequence, the disentanglement of any one mode of
thought, such as we conceive to be tending towards Theism,
and the attempt to trace its development, can only be of the
most tentative and doubtful character. Our main guides,
apart from the contents of the Hymns themselves, must be
the analogy of the course of evolution of other religions on the
one hand, and the subsequent history of Indian thought on
the other.
When one surveys the Vedic pantheon, seeking that in it
which seems most akin to the theistic conceptions of a later
age, there is one imposing figure that at once attracts our
attention. Above all the other gods towers in moral grandeur
the form of Varuna. And here at the same time is one among
that throng of deities of whom we can claim that his worship
dates from the very earliest Vedic period. The evidence
seems too strong to be rejected that identifies this god of the
THE THEISM OF THE RIG VEDA n
wide firmament and the open sky, of day and night over
which he and Mitra share dominion, with Ahura-Mazda or
Ormazd, the supreme god of Zoroastrianism.1 So completely
does Varuna dominate the scene when the Vedic worshipper
turns his face towards him that it has been maintained that
we have in him traces still surviving of a very ancient and
pre- Vedic monotheism. It is not possible in view of the
evidence of the Hymns themselves and in view of the analogy
of other peoples to maintain this thesis, but it is possible to
trace in the conception of this deity a movement of the minds
of those ancient worshippers towards a Theism of a wonder-
fully lofty character. As we discern his figure, he seems to be
in the act of passing beyond physical limitations to take his
place as a moral lord over the consciences of men. But just
when this is about to be accomplished his strength seems to
pass from him. A god who, as has been said, in the period
of his greatness stands by the side of even the loftiest of the
Hellenic or Teutonic pantheon, ' like a Jewish prophet by the
side of a priest of Dagon,' 2 falls from his high ethical eminence
to_bc a mere ruler of the storms and tides. That this should
have come to pass seems to us strange and unaccountable,
and we can only guess the forces that dethroned him. What-
ever these may have been, we can realize that that dethrone-
ment was an event in the spiritual history of India that was at
once a symptom and a determinant of the long, succeeding
process of its development. The ' Hebraic flavour ' that was
in Varuna was then definitely declared to be foreign to the
Indian spirit, and since that day its indications have been
rare.
Certainly there is much in the prayers and hymns to
1 How far this view is strengthened by the discovery by Winckler at
Boghaz-keui in Asia Minor of an inscription of the fourteenth century
B. c. in which Varuna is named, is as yet doubtful. It may be ' merely
a direct reference to Indian deities without having any immediate refer-
ence to" Iran' (A. V. Williams Jackson in E. R. E. IV. 620). On the
whole, however, it strengthens the case for the identification of Ahura-
Mazda, that 'god of the Aryans ' with Varuna.
2 Bloomfield's Religion of the Veda, p. 232.
[2 THE THEISM OF THE RIG VEDA
Varuna that brings back to one who knows it the lofty lan-
guage of Hebrew seers and psalmists. He covereth himself
with light as with a garment.1 He stretcheth out the heavens
like a curtain ; he bears up the pillars of the earth.2 • Wise
and mighty are the works of him who stemmed asunder the
wide firmaments. He lifted on high the bright and glorious
heaven ; he stretched out apart the starry sky and the
earth.' 3 He hath opened a path for the sun ; he knoweth
the track of the birds through the air and of the ships across
the seas, and there is nothing hid from his sight.4 The desig-
nation Asura is applied especially to him, just as in the Avesta
Ahura is the name of the supreme god ; and other attributes
of universal sovereignty are appropriated to him with an
emphasis that sets him apart in this regard from all the other
members of the Vedic pantheon. He is the great lord of the
laws of nature, the upholder and controller of their order and
their movement. He sitteth on his throne in the highest
heaven 5 and beholds the children of men ; his thousand spies
go forth to the world's end and bring report of men's doings.6
For with all those other tokens of pre-eminence he is
especially a moral sovereign, and in his presence more than in
that of any other Vedic god a sense of guilt awakens in his
servants' hearts. His eyes behold and see the righteous and
the wicked. ' The great guardian among the gods sees as if
from anear. ... If two sit together and scheme, king Varuna
is there as the third and knows it. . . . Whoso should flee
beyond the heavens far away would yet not be free from king
Varuna. From the sky his spies come hither : with a
thousand eyes they do watch over the earth. All this king
Varuna does behold — what is between the two firmaments,
what beyond. Numbered of him are the winkings of men's
eyes.' '
1 R. V. VIII. 41. 10. - R. V. VIII. 42. 1.
3 R. V. VII. 86.1. 4 R. V. I.25.
5 R. V. V. 67. 1, 2. 6 R. V. VII. 61. 3.
7 A. V. IV. 16. The fact that this is a hymn included in the Atkatva
Veda Samhita does not prove that the portion quoted above, which bears
THE THEISM OF THE RIG VEDA 13
In another hymn there is a still more vivid testimony
to the moral greatness of this god, as the searcher of his
servants' hearts, the father of their spirits. Here the psalmist
believes himself to have been, on account of some sin that he
has committed, forsaken of his god. He sadly calls to mind
the former days of their communion, the time when gliding
over the waters with the lord of the waters he received the
sacred call to be a risi. In those days of fellowship there was
on land and sea a light that now was absent. ' What hath
become', he asks, 'of those our ancient friendships when
without enmity we walked together? ... If he thy true ally
hath sinned against thee, still, Varuna, he is the friend thou
lovedst.' x
Here we have what seems to be the closest approximation
that we can find in all the ancient worships of India to a real
ethical Theism. It appears as if a religion of nature were
discovered in the very process of passing beyond those limits
to become a religion of spirit. When it has been realized that
even the heaven of heavens cannot contain God, it is natural
and inevitable to turn inward and to seek Him in the move-
ments of the heart and the monitions of the conscience. This
transition seems in the act of being accomplished in the
thoughts of the poets who worship and celebrate the greatness
of Varuna. Fear is passing into reverence, wonder into love.
The upholder of the natural order becomes to them by an
instinctive logic the upholder of the order of righteousness and
truth. ' Far from us, far away drive thou destruction. Put
from us e'en the sin we have committed. Whither by day
depart the constellations that shine at night, set high in heaven
above us? Varuna's holy laws remain unweakened, and
through the night the moon moves on in splendour.' 2 Is not
all the evidence of antiquity, is late. ' One may surmise ', says von Roth,
' in this case as well as in the case of many other parts of this Veda,
that fragments of older hymns have been utilized to deck out charms for
sorcery.' (Quoted in S. B. E. XLII, p. 389.)
1 A'. V. VII. 88. 5, 6.
2 R. V. I. 24. 9, 10.
14 THE THEISM OF THE RIG VEDA
the intuition of this ancient psalmist groping after the thought
of Wordsworth's invocation to Duty ?
Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong ;
And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong.
Varuna's ordinances are fixed and sure so that even the im-
mortal gods cannot oppose them. He places his fetters upon
the sinner ; his is the power to bind and the power also to
release and he forgives sins even unto the second generation.1
'There is in fact', says Professor Macdonell,2 'no hymn to
Varuna (and the Adityas) in which the prayer for forgiveness
does not occur, as in the hymns to other deities the prayer for
worldly goods.' It is this ethical aspect of Varuna's character
more even than his attainment of a position closely approxi-
mating to monotheism that stamps his cultus as definitely
theistic. The worship of a deity whose exaltation, though it
be to less than sole sovereignty, is recognized as a moral pre-
eminence is, we conjecture, of a higher type than a mere
unethical monotheism, laying greater stress on the divine
solitude than on the divine character. Perhaps the most
significant fact of all in regard to this Vedic deity is the
connexion of the doctrine of rita or the moral order with his
name and his authority. In this again we have a close
correspondence between Varuna and the ' wise lord ' of the
Avesta, both being designated as the 'spring of the rita or
righteousness'. In the Vedic system it is Varuna beyond all
others who keeps beneath his guardianship the cosmic and the
moral order.
Howe'er we who thy people are,
O Varuna, thou shining god,
Thy rita injure day by day,
Yet give us over nor to death,
Nor to the blow of angry foe.3
1 R. V. I. 24. 25 ; VII. 84.86.
2 MacdonelPs Vedic Mythology, p. 27.
3 R. V. I. 25. 1, 2 (Hopkins's translation).
THE THEISM OE THE RIG VEDA 15
'Varuna', says Professor Bloomfield,1 'is the real trustee of
the vita. When god Agni struggles towards the vita he is
said in a remarkable passage to become for the time being
god Varuna.'
How it came about that this god was deposed from his
high eminence and the victorious progress in India of an
ethical Theism brought to a sudden close one has not the
materials even to conjecture. In the last book of the Rig Veda
there is no hymn to Varuna, for by that time monotheism had
definitely given place in the development of Indian religion
to pantheism, and there is no longer room for this stern and
righteous god. We obtain glimpses in several hymns of the
struggle by which this is accomplished and Indra takes his
place. He seems still to be recognized in some of his former
greatness but it is as c magni nominis umbra ', and his place in
worship is usurped by a god nearer to the comprehension of
the common man and appealing more to his crude instincts. If
one were to venture to compare this stage in the progress of
Vedic religion with that of the ancient Hebrews one might find
a parallel between the forsaking of Varuna for Indra and the
tendency of the people in Israel, against which their prophets
were ever warning them, to forsake Jehovah for Baal. One
can see how, in abandoning what we may call the main
highway of Theism for a devious path, they were advancing
towards scepticism, and as a result, in the case of the higher
minds who could not rest satisfied in so grossly anthropomor-
phic a deity as Indra, towards the replacement of faith in
a living God by theosophic speculations that could dispense
with him altogether. It may well be that when we hear the
poet say ' I bid farewell to the great God, the Father . . .
I leave the Father, for my choice is Indra ',2 we are present at
one of the great turning-points in India's spiritual history.
Whether this be the case or not, certainly one may be
permitted to reflect on the strange difference that emerged in
1 Bloomfield's Religion of the Veda, p. 128.
2 R. V. X. 124. 3, 4-
16 THE THEISM OF THE RIG VEDA
the religious conceptions of the two Aryan peoples after they
had separated and descended, the one to the plains of Iran the
other to those of India. The one becomes ethical, optimistic,
distinctly unphilosophical ; the other monistic, pessimistic,
persistently speculative. Why should theistic conceptions,
after they had entered India, no longer have had the power
over one family of that stock that they had had before, and that
they continued to have over another ? Can we attribute it in
part to the closer national unity, reflecting itself in a more unify-
ing thought of God, that may have been possible in the high
trans- Himalayan plains but that may have disappeared as the
invaders scattered over the wide and fertile land of Hindostan ?
Or was there in the very configuration of their new home with
its monotonous expanses and its distant horizons, or perhaps
in the nature of the people that they conquered there, some-
thing that supplied the new impulse and gave their thoughts
the new direction ? We cannot tell. Certainly from this time
onward the pantheistic leaven is never altogether absent from
the religious mood of India, and no other occupies in all her
later history the moral eminence that in that early dawn
Varuna had held.
When we turn aside from this great figure, that so domi-
nates, as it appears, the earliest Vedic period, to mark the
trend of the religious development apart from him, certain
characteristics of the whole movement of thought, as the
Hymns reveal it, may be noted, hindering a definitely theistic
advance and rendering sporadic tendencies in that direction
comparatively ineffective. One of these, and perhaps the most
important of all in determining the ultimate result from the
travail of the thought of those ancient seers, is an inability to
be entirely whole-hearted in their anthropomorphism. What
Professor Bloomfield calls ' arrested personification ' x is, as he
says, ' the very genius ' of the religion of the Rig Veda. We
realize this when we contrast its gods with those of Greece.
To the artistic and thoroughly human and earthly imagination
1 Religion of the Veda, p. 85.
THE THEISM OF THE RIG VEDA 17
of the Greek it was an easy matter to envisage in the most
familiar forms their conceptions of their gods. The gods
walked with them and fought with them and joined in their
follies and their sins. The essentially worldly Hellenic spirit
was not revolted by those associations ; neither their instinct
of awe nor their religious or moral sense was sufficiently
strongly developed to resent this. Their vivid imaginations
demanded definiteness of outline and symmetry of form.
The mind of India is at the opposite pole from this, and 'in
the very first words she utters we find her aspiring after the
vague and the mvsterious '. There is no demand here for
definiteness of outline, none of the Greek desire for symmetry.
The wild forces of nature persist in bursting through the
bounds of their partial personification. Even Indra, who is
more fully humanized than most, ' crashes down from heaven
in thunder ' and ' is born of waters and cloud ' ; while Savitri in
his golden chariot is still the glowing Sun shining in ' the
dark-blue sky '. In no case is the process of anthropomor-
phization anything like complete. What an artistic imagina-
tion accomplished in the case of the Greeks, a strong moral
sense accomplished in a higher fashion for the Hebrews. It
would be foolish to apportion praise or blame among the
peoples for the process of the development of their religious
or other ideas, when we cannot estimate the value of the forces
that determined such processes, but we can see how in one
instance a keen moral sense, in another a vivid imagination,
and in a third a more purely intellectual cast of mind deter-
mined largely the result. In the case of Varuna the marked
moralization of the conception of the god helps to an ex-
ceptional degree towards a more complete realization of his
personality. We may not be able to accept Oldenberg's
suggestion that this god was borrowed from the Semites,
while admitting a closer resemblance in his case than in that
of other Vedic deities to the Semitic method of anthropomor-
phization.1 This method is often censured and the tendency
1 It is at least interesting to note that, if there was indeed any debt on
C
1 8 THE THEISM OF THE RIG VEDA
rightly condemned to attribute too many human character-
istics to God. But without dogmatism one may suggest that,
even in conjecturing so high a matter as the divine nature,
truth may be reached by this method if it is carried onward
from lower forms of thought to higher. Greek religion may
have stopped short too soon, satisfied with an artistic product,
but the Hebrew seers with their strong ethical instincts were
able to pass beyond a physical to a psychical anthropo-
morphism and to reach by that road a region in which the
word need retain no suggestion of reproach. Reason and love,
because they are found in man, are not therefore limited to
man ; and an anthropomorphism realized in those terms has
reached the highest form of theistic belief.
Such, however, is not the mode of development which we
find in the religious conceptions of the Rig Veda. There is
neither the Greek desire for order which resulted in the
formation of the pantheon of Olympus, nor the recognition of
a definite moral system which must in time discover itself as
irreconcilable with a multiplicity of gods. The place of
Varuna is usurped by nature powers, unmoral and with un-
defined jurisdictions, melting from time to time into each
other, and, because unethical, more controllable to its ends by
the rising power of the speculative intellect. Rita in the same
manner is replaced by the vaguer outlines of an idea into
which the gods in all their popular crudeness can be absorbed
and anon discharged again at will to take up once more their
functions. A moral unity, even a political unity such as that
of the Greeks, imports a principle of order into the divided
house of polytheism, and in such a case the process of in-
creasing definition and of system can be clearly traced. But
the end towards which the evolution of the Vedic deities
the part of Varuna or Ahura Mazda to the Semites, that debt was repaid
later. M. Cumont points out that 'without doubt' at the period of the
Achaemenides a ' rapprochement ' took place between the Semitic
Baalsamin and ' the Persian Ahura Mazda, the ancient deity of the vault
of heaven but now become the supreme physical and moral power'.
(Cumont, Les Religions orientates dans le Pagatiisme roviain, p. 154.)
THE THEISM OF THE RIG VEDA 19
already pointed was ' a Pantheism which was an acosmism ',
'a gulf in which all difference was lost'. There is a much
more energetic opposition between a god who is simply an
embodied force of nature and man's moral sense than there is
between such a being and his merely intellectual conceptions ;
and the reaction of the one upon the other is much more
active in the former case than in the latter. For that reason
we find that in India a continuous and deepening process of
reflection leaves the Vedic deities largely unaffected. Only
certain hints and suggestions indicate the conspiracy that
all the time is proceeding against their rude energy and
their authority.
It is not our part here to enumerate those signs of that
pantheistic activity of thought which, perhaps from the very
earliest times, was at work, undermining the Vedic polytheism.
There are ' secret names ', mysteries in theology that are not
to be uttered ; there is the increasing significance of the sacri-
fice, until its power displaces that of the god to whom it is
offered ; there is the growing prominence of the Sun in its
aspect as Savitri, the quickener of life, 'the soul of the uni-
verse'. These are sign-posts on the way to the Pantheism
which was to discover itself fully to a later age. It is in
other directions that we must look for the working of the
more properly theistic instinct. We find it in a significant
characteristic of the theology of the Hymns, which Max
Miiller has called henotheism or kathenotheism, i.e. 'the
belief in individual gods alternately regarded as the highest.'
This certainly is due in a considerable measure to a natural
human impulse to unify differences. In each particular case
it is not easy to determine whether as a matter of fact the
unity is monistic or monotheistic. If speculation is its main
motive, then it is likely to be a unity of the former kind that
is sought, if a spirit of devotion, then the latter. It is not
possible for us to distinguish how far the latter spirit prevails
over the former, and how far therefore in any particular case this
henotheistic tendency is moving towards pure Theism rather
C 2
20 THE THEISM OE THE RIG VEDA
than towards Pantheism. Beside the influence of speculation,
eviscerating and emasculating the strong gods of a simpler
faith, there is ritualism and mere indifference rendering service
of the gods perfunctory and the discrimination of one from
another careless and inaccurate. This too, no doubt, is one of
the causes of that melting of one god into another which
henotheism connotes. It is sometimes, as Professor Bloom-
field affirms,1 simply ' polytheism grown cold in service and
unnice in its distinctions, leading to an opportunist mono-
theism in which every god takes hold of the sceptre and none
keeps it '. With all these reservations, however, one cannot
doubt that in certain cases what is called henotheism is due
not merely to such blurring of outline as speculation or
indifference produces, but rather to the worshipper's vivid
realization of the presence and the personality of one par-
ticular deity to whom he bows his heart. It is not so much
that he loves others less but that he loves this one more.
The road of devout adoration is the true road to Theism; and
worship and self-surrender, the more intense the emotion they
express, tend the more to lift their object beyond all limita-
tions and make it for the time at least the one and only real.
Mr. Dilger2 has admirably illustrated this attitude by the
saying of Luther that the dearest of all his children to him
was the one that happened to be at that moment on his
knee. We see it in all periods of the history of Hinduism
and of other religions as well. When the Maratha poet of
a later age extols Vithoba, or when at an early stage of the
religion of Israel Jehovah is exalted, the worshipper is not
by any means fully aware of the implications of his implicit
Theism and does not in set terms deny the existence of other
gods. But for him this one before whom he bows fills up
his whole horizon. That there are approximations at least
in the Rig Veda to this type of unconscious Theism one
cannot doubt.
1 Religion of the Veda, p. 199.
2 Salvation in Hinduism and Christianity, p. 80.
THE THEISM OF THE RIG VEDA 21
Of the henotheism that is farthest removed from Theism —
what Hopkins 1 prefers to call ' polytheistic pantheism ' — an
example is the designation of Aditi as ' all the gods and
men ',2 while the ceremonial activity of the priests is expressly
indicated, in tacit contrast with the speculations of the philo-
sophers, as ' making into many the (sun) bird that is but one ',
and as 'calling the one by many names, Agni, Yama, Mata-
risvan '.3 It would seem as if one group of gods proved
malleable material in the hands of the philosophers, being
easily beaten out thin into their speculations, while another
group proved more stubborn and retained more successfully
their individuality. Of the former are Surya and Savitri and
Agni, the altar fire; of the latter Varuna in especial, and also
Mitra, Indra, Visnu. It is not necessary to speak further of
Varuna, but, if it be the case that he is identical with Ahura-
Mazda, he is not the only member of the Vedic pantheon that
retains to a later age his theistic eminence. Indra continued
to be par excellence the popular god of the conquering Aryans
and remained an object of worship even to Puranic days.
Mitra also, though in the Vedic poems he is Varuna's shadow,
almost merged in the greater name, was destined at a far
later date to gather into his person the strongest forces of
paganism in a conflict with Christianity all the fiercer because
of the close affinity in certain respects of the theistic systems
that were there brought face to face. Visnu like Mitra has
not in the Vedic age the same high place that was later to be
his, when his name came more than any other in India to
represent the conception of a personal god in the face of
the opposing pantheistic tendencies. What it may have
been that gave certain members of the pantheon a more
stubborn personality than others we cannot now perceive, but
in the dominance claimed now for one and again for another,
and further in the combination of them into pairs that seem
sometimes to have only one personality between them, we
1 Religions of India, p. 149. 2 R. V. 1. 89.
3 R. V. I. 164.
22 THE THEISM OF THE RIG VEDA
see inchoate efforts to turn the chaos of polytheism into
a cosmos. No definite hierarchy of gods is evolved such as
was evolved by the orderly and artistic genius of the Greeks.
The why of these things we can only half perceive, and
ultimate causes are beyond our ken. Perhaps the most we
can say is, with Barth,1 that ' India is radically pantheistic
and that from its cradle onward '. However this may be, the
pale power of thought ultimately triumphed over the claims
of heart and conscience, and the abstractions of Upanisad
philosophers took the place of the fervour and the glow of
Vedic psalmists.
That some movement of this kind was inevitable and was
clue to the very necessities of thought itself has of course to
be admitted. The naive beliefs of natural religion, the blended
fancies and fears and deeper intuitions that at first form the
unregulated expression of the religious life have to be, by the
help of the reason, elucidated and evolved. But that this
evolution must end in the substitution for a living and
personal God of a bloodless abstraction does not follow.
Philosophy is not the enemy but the interpreter of life, and
therefore it is not the enemy of worship and devotion. It may
be maintained that we see in India a one-sided and so a false
philosophical development; and the reason of that one-sidedness
may be traced in the fact that speculation was apparently
largely the work of the priests, who at that stage of religious
culture were very probably in India,as they have so often proved
themselves everywhere, the worst enemies of the religious life
and the least responsive to its movements. In the correspond-
ing Greek philosophical and religious development such men
as Xenophanes and Heraclitus, who sought a principle of
unity beneath differences, correspond to the unnamed specu-
lative thinkers of India. But India seems to have lacked
a Socrates to remind her that neither breath nor fire nor kdma
(desire) is a principle sufficient to explain a universe which
contains not only things and thoughts but moral ends and
1 Religions of India, p. 8.
THE THEISM OF THE RIG VEDA 23
purposes and hopes. The priest-philosophers following the
path of negation and seeking that which by its very abstract-
ness might embrace or underlie all things, suggest Agni, at
once a mysterious creative force, to satisfy the needs of
speculation, and the flame of the sacrifice, to justify the main-
tenance of the ritual. Or they devise Brihaspati, precursor of
a still more abstract Brahman, a god closely linked with Agni
as embodying the prayer of the priest and at the same time
a quasi-spiritual essence into which reflection may labour to
dissolve the universe. To the last there seems to persist the
struggle of life to vindicate its claims against a negative
metaphysic, though by this time the struggle has lost much
of its early vigour. Tvastri is not much more than a shadow
or a makeshift when he appears in the role of creator. Finally
we seem to see the belief in a personal God, as it retreats
before the forces of Pantheism, disappearing in the worship of
Prajapati in the direction of agnosticism. The great hymn to
this deity, which may be said to close the period that the Rig
Veda covers, has been described by Max M tiller as addressed
to ' The Unknown God', and later the interrogative ka 'who?'
was adopted as his name. We have here one of the final
efforts of the theistic instinct to mould cosmological speculation
into the form of a being to be worshipped. But the stuff is
too stubborn for the religious consciousness ; it cannot mould
it near enough to the heart's desire. When it travels by this
road, the via negativa, Theism can only end in agnosticism.
It needs another guide than the logical understanding and
another path to tread than the way of abstraction.
One cannot pause and look back over the course of the
development of the Vedic Theology, as we have attempted to
trace it, without feeling how insecure and tentative must be
one's conjecture in such a field of inquiry. The Hymns in all
their movement and their colour and with their varying outlook,
that occupies every attitude from naive nature-worship to the
completest scepticism, stand for us to-day in no environment
24 THE THEISM OF THE RIG VEDA
that helps us to arrange them in their sequence or to read with
any assurance the thoughts that stirred their unknown authors.
We can only guess from the development elsewhere of the
human mind at the course that here it followed from the
scarcely discerned morning twilight through the splendour of
the gods of the sky and the wide spaces until the evening of
reflection casts its shadow over all. The march of this
development seems for a time to move towards a living
personal Lord in whose fellowship his worshippers shall find
the cleansing of their hearts. But across this path of promise
there falls the shadow of a too arid intellectualism, and its
progress is stayed and diverted to another end. The great
figure of Varuna, however, remains, far off and isolated as it
is on the bank and shoal of time, testifying to the theistic
capacity of the Indo-Aryan race.
II
THEISTIC ELEMENTS IN THE POPULAR RELI-
GION IN THE PERIOD OF THE BRAHMANAS
AND THE UPANISADS
WHEN we pass from the Rig Veda and the religion of which
it is the expression, we seem to have entered upon a new
region and to breathe a new atmosphere. The change indeed
from the surroundings that helped to inspire the Hymns to
those in which the Brahmanas may be supposed to have taken
shape well represents the difference we are conscious of
between the spirit of the earlier worship and the later. Instead
of the bracing air of the mountain passes we have the heavy,
torpid climate of the plains. A single rapid river of thought
and aspiration, flowing keen and wholesome through the hills,
gives place to many sluggish streams finding their diverse
ways across the level, sometimes losing themselves wholly in
the sands. One must beware indeed of attaching exaggerated
importance to the influence of climate on the thoughts of men.
There is melancholy and worldliness and sloth of spirit among
mountaineers as well as among dwellers in the plains. Changes
of temperature and of environment go but a little way to
explain the secrets that are locked fast within the human
personality. But certainly the contrast is vivid between the
rapid, glittering stream of early Vedic thought and the mean-
dering, wayward course, so difficult to trace in its continuity,
that is followed across the plains of India by the religious
fears and hopes of the people of a later age. The change and
the greater complexity and obscurity of the religious facts
which accompany it make it still more difficult to estimate
the strength and the character of theistic belief during this
26 THEISTIC ELEMENTS IN THE PERIOD OF
period. It can indeed only be called theistic belief on the
ground that it is on the way towards what may prove a genuine
Theism. But there is still a very long road to travel to that
goal, and much polytheism and idolatry and gross superstition
to be sloughed ere that name can be claimed for it. What we
are looking for is the promise and potency of such a result in
the midst of the prevailing Pantheism, broken lights, however
dim, in the deep and general darkness.
In the earlier literature we could not be mistaken in
discerning among the aspirations to which the Hymns give
utterance some that are to a more or less degree theistic in
their tendency. Now, however, our task becomes harder, as
our materials become more obscure. We may indeed be con-
fident that no period in Indian religious history was without
some elements at least of what we mean by Theism. But
these may be mingled with much that seems little enough
compatible with them. It has always, we must remember,
been found possible everywhere to hold together at one period
thoughts which later reflection discovers to be contradictory,
and it is generally alleged of Indian thinking that it has
peculiar capacity in this respect. There are, however, two
things, one or other of which must be present in any religion
if it is at all theistic, and which in their combination exhibit
what is at least on the way towards a real ethical Theism.
There is, on the one hand, the realization in some measure that
true worship must be inward, issuing from the heart and
affecting the conduct ; while, on the other hand, there is the
elevation of the deity to something approaching to sole
authority. The ethical monotheism which results from the
union in a single religion of both those conceptions will
seldom, indeed, be found in anything like completeness in the
history of Indian thought, but even when that is far from
being realized, one or other of its constituent elements may be
present in greater or less degree. In proportion, for example,
as a religion approximates to Pantheism, it generally — as we
shall find in the case of the religion of the Upanisads — tends to
THE BRAHMANAS AND UPANISADS 27
empty itself of its ethical content and for that reason, while it
may remain theistic, to fall short of being a real ethical Theism.
On the other hand one finds in India, as one finds also in
Israel, faiths that are decidedly spiritual in character, while at
the same time they recognize the existence of other gods than
that of their own particular worship. Sincere devotion has
generally in it, we may claim, some theistic element, for it
comes from the heart and moves the will, and it also in the
measure of its intensity takes account only of the one god
invoked and ignores all others. It is by means of such
criteria as these that we must test the various expressions of
their wayward religious instincts that we can trace through
the dim centuries that succeed the period which the Hymns of
the Rig Veda serve so brilliantly to illuminate.
When we turn aside from the Rig to the AtJiarvan — in which
indeed we can find but little that has any bearing on our
theme — great as is the change from the clear, wholesome air
we have hitherto been breathing to its mephitic vapours, we
must not too hastily assume that we have passed to a later
and a more sophisticated age. The two collections cannot be
held to represent successive stages of a continuous religious
development. It is unquestionably true that the hymns of the
Atharva Veda date as a literary collection from a period con-
siderably later than those of the Rig ; but there can be little
doubt that the fetichism and demonology with which the
Atharvan is mainly occupied is earlier in its origin than the
other more elevated worship, that it ran parallel to it and that
it outlived it.
One must, no doubt, use much caution in applying a parallel
from the religious history of one race to that of another, but
the course of religious development in Greece may well have
had elements of similarity to that which we find in India.
We know now that there were theologians and there were
worshippers in Greece before Homer, and that his poems do
not give a complete or adequate picture of the religion of the
whole of the Greek people. There were Pelasgian and non-
28 THEISTIC ELEMENTS IN THE PERIOD OF
Hellenic elements in their worship of which we catch few
glimpses in his poems, and there was what is called Chthonic
ritual and reverence paid to heroes of the earth and of the
under-world, as well as the worship paid to the Olympians.
So it certainly was also in India. How far the worship of
Vedic or Homeric sky-gods can be distinguished as aristocratic
from a more popular fetichism or demonolatry, or how far, on
the other hand, it is the worship of a higher Aryan people, and
how far, accordingly, a racial distinction can be made between
its followers and those who worshipped other gods, it is not
possible to determine with any certainty. As a matter of
fact we cannot classify religious instincts in any such way.
To describe the fears and superstitions that the Arfiarvan
discloses as confined to the lower classes and to suppose that
they did not equally disturb the higher strata of society is to
show ignorance of human nature. And we have no reason
either to suppose that any single race was ever altogether free
from the dread of dark powers or was ever without those who
betook themselves to such devices for deliverance from them
as we find in the Atharva Veda. It is the interaction of so
many religious influences, varied as the varieties of human
nature and human need, and further complicated by the inter-
mixture of alien races, that makes it difficult to trace with any
confidence the course of Indian religious development during
this period. Documents there are, but their dates are un-
certain, and how far they really correspond to the facts of
popular belief and practice, or how far they do little more than
present us with an ideal system fashioned by the priests, that
effectually conceals the real movements of religious life behind
it, it is hardly possible to determine. Amid all the uncertainties
and obscurities into which we plunge when we leave the col-
lections of the Hymns behind us, we most gladly welcome any
guidance that may be furnished us by the study of compara-
tive religion, insecure and highly subjective as its suggestions
often must be.
The first great body of literary material that presents itself
THE BRAHMANAS AND UPANISADS 29
as we leave the various collections of Vedic Hymns behind us
is the Brahmanas, in regard to which, in the form in which they
have come to us, there can be no doubt of their aristocratic
character. They are aristocratic, because they are so com-
pletely the work of the priesthood, and a priesthood that
seems altogether de-spiritualized and absorbed only in its
gains. Naturally, therefore, their thoughts are mainly of the
rich and of the powerful, and but seldom of the common
people. In consequence the traces of real theistic aspiration
which these books disclose are few and faint. Everywhere
there is the priest and the altar and the sacrifice, the priest
measuring with painful detail the great altar's height and
breadth, but giving no hint of the desires that filled the
hearts of the worshippers. As it is expressed in their priestly
language, the bricks of the altar that alone are worthy to
be consecrated with special prayers are the nobles ; for the
common people, who do no more than ' fill the spaces ' between
brick and brick, there is only a common prayer.1 All the
same we know that each one of all that undistinguished mul-
titude had a heart and a need of God that must have sought
a satisfaction elsewhere than from this proud and exclusive
hierarchy. The priesthood and the sacrificial system must
have rested on some basis of faith, else it would not have long
endured. We can dimly trace throughout the Brahmanas
indications that behind the screen of formalism and of cere-
monial there was at work a two-fold process of religious
growth, the fruits of which were to declare themselves at a later
period. On the one hand there was the beginning of the
more intellectual development from which sprang the Upani-
sads ; on the other there are hints of the presence of that
devout spirit, which, more emotional and popular than reflective,
expressed itself mainly in poetry and legend, and of which
some account is furnished at a later date in certain sections of
the MahabJiarata. It is the second of these two processes of
development which it falls to us at present to endeavour to
1 &at. Brah. VI. 1. 2. 25.
30 THEISTIC ELEMENTS IN THE PERIOD OF
trace in so far as it can be separated from the other and not
necessarily hostile movement.
Apparently even at this early period the name of Visnu had
begun to be associated with theistic devotion, as opposed to
cults more pantheistic and appealing less directly to the heart.
It is no easy matter to discern through the obscurity of that
early age the causes which set this deity apart for this par-
ticular role and elevated him to the place of eminence which
he comes to occupy. Some hints there are, however, of the
progress that he was apparently making all this time, behind
the screen of Brahmanic ritual, to the position he has held so
long as the supreme god of those in India whose hearts are
filled with bhakti or ' loving faith '. The legendary account
of the process by which this result was achieved is given in the
Brahmanas in the form of a story of the performance ofasattra
or great sacrifice by the gods and of the way in which, in con-
nexion with it, Visnu obtained pre-eminence among them all.
Apart from this tale, which gives no clue to the real reasons
why he and not any other was so singled out, there appear
from these books to have been certain associations with the
name of Visnu which may be of some significance in this con-
nexion. Abstract investigation as to the primal cause of
things cannot be said to be a spring of religious devotion, and
we do not find such speculations gathering round this name ;
but, on the other hand, the sacrifice may well be the utterance
of a deep desire for fellowship with God. When, therefore, we
find that in the Brahmanas Visnu is said to be the sacrifice,
we can guess that he is already on his way to his place as the
god of the worship of men's hearts. Again, it is noticeable
that, when any error is committed in the sacrificial ritual, it is
Visnu who is to be invoked, as though already he was
recognized in his aspect of grace as a saviour. Perhaps also
we may discern associations with that power to touch the
heart, that a religion of devotion demands, gathering about his
name in the legend that represents him as the means by which,
when all the other gods were helpless, the earth was redeemed
THE BRAHMANAS AND UPANISADS 31
from the power of the Asuras, now no longer gods but demons.
Remarkable, too, and suggestive of ideas which we can hardly
conceive as already dawning on men's minds, is the fact that
it is Visnu, the dwarf, that accomplishes this deliverance, as
though out of weakness issued strength and safety. Sir R. G.
Bhandarkar points further to the important part that this one
of the gods plays in the ritual of domestic life, a ritual that we
may be confident has come down from a very ancient period.
This is seen, for example, in the important place that Visnu
holds in the marriage ceremonial. Always, however, from
early Vcdic times that which more than any other thing the
name of this god suggests is the legend of the three mighty
steps with which he traversed earth, the atmosphere, and the
highest heaven. In this third region, in the bright realm of
light 'where even birds dare not fly', he dwells1 inscrutable.
Sir R. G. Bhandarkar is of opinion that the obscurity sur-
rounding that third step helped especially to give him an
association of mystery such as is necessary for a God that is
to be acknowledged as sole and supreme. Probably also its
association with the world of the dead who journeyed by the
way of the gods to that region of blessedness may have
connected Visnu, as every god who is to obtain a power
over human hearts must be connected, with the hopes and
fears of an immortal life.2
Certainly a study of comparative religion seems to indicate
that to sun-gods — and to that class no one doubts that Visnu
belonged— are attributed to a greater extent than to any
other deities those qualities which attract the personal de-
votion of their worshippers, and that they pre-eminently have
everywhere become centres of hope and comfort in a world of
shadows. Max Miiller in one of his speculations as to the
origins of religion speaks of certain animals as possessing
' a theogonic capacity '. We may with more confidence affirm
1 R. V. I. 155. 5.
2 The Fathers even appear, according to one interpreter, to be described
in a passage of the Rig Veda as 'the descendants' of Visnu (R. V. X. 15.
3-18, Hopkins's translation, R. I., p. 144).
32 THEISTIC ELEMENTS IN THE PERIOD OF
that certain gods possess in a greater degree than others
this capacity, in the sense that they are able to become in
an eminent degree media of the hope of eternal life — that it
is possible for them to be recognized as gods of love and of
consolation in a way which does not seem to be possible for
others. Comparative religion distinguishes two classes of
gods as endowed in this respect with the power to kindle
hope and inspire devotion. There are, on the one hand, gods
of spring and vegetation deities, whose mythology and the
facts in nature to which it corresponds suggest death and
resurrection. Of this class were Dionysus and Demeter in
Greece, Attis in Phrygia, and probably also Krisna in India.
The other class of gods possessing this capacity are, as has
been indicated, sun-gods and light-gods, such as — to some
extent at least — the Egyptian Osiris,1 the Persian Mithra, and
the Indian Visnu. It may even be that the name of Jehovah,
the God of Israel, later recognized in all His moral majesty
as ' God of truth and without iniquity', as 'the Sun of right-
eousness with healing in His wings', would also be found,
if we were able to trace its history all the way to its dim
origin, to have been at first the name of a solar deity.2 So also
Bhagavan, whose name is so constantly employed in later days
by adherents of the school of bJiakti to describe the supreme
god of their devotion, traces his descent from the ancient
sun-god Bhaga, one of the Adityas. It may seem strange
that the claim should be made on behalf of Buddha that he
has any affinity with solar deities or that the religion that he
preached is akin to the theistic worships that gather round
such names as those of Visnu and of Bhagavan. But as
a matter of fact both these statements are well grounded.
1 It would appear that this god combined in his person elements of both
a solar deity and a corn spirit.
2 He has been identified by some scholars with the sun-god Shamash,
while the ' Babylonists ' ' emphasize the astral or lunar character of the
Jahveh of early (or of pre-Mosaic) Israel' {Cambridge Biblical Essays,
p. 86. Cf. also p. 51). See also Jastrow's Religious Belief in Babylonia
and Assyria, pp. 72 f.
THE BRAHMANAS AND UPANISADS 33
M. Senart has fully demonstrated that there are elements of
the Buddha legend that prove its partial derivation from
solar cults. Such are for example the marks on his body
and the story of his conflict with Mara, a conflict that is in
many respects reminiscent of ancient myths that describe the
struggle between light and darkness. Such characteristics as
these are found associated with theistic worships, and especially
with that of Visnu, and it will be found when we come to con-
sider Buddhism in more detail that, in spite of its avowed
atheism, in many respects it has a strong affinity with Theism.
It is easy indeed to perceive how the daily re-birth of light
out of darkness would present itself to men shadowed by fear
and death as a very parable of hope, and how the source of
that illumination would itself be viewed as a place of refuge in
abiding light beyond the shadows of the earth. There can
be little doubt — though, when the doctrine of transmigration
obtained, as it did at a later date, its amazing power over the
Indian mind, the fact was somewhat obscured — that the
secret of Visnu's early eminence and of the grasp he has laid
upon the heart of India consisted mainly in the hope that he
brought to a world weary of death of an immortal life beyond
the grave. The fear of death and of repeated death is one
of the most marked characteristics of the Brahmanas. The
knowledge of the mystery that ' spring comes into life again
out of the winter ' — a mystery which only the sun-gods and
the vegetation-gods control — brings with it the reward of
victory over this enemy.1 The sun is the gate of the path
leading to the gods2 and the third step of Visnu signifies the
goal of the heavenly world, the ' safe refuge ' whither the
worshipper hopes to pass from the lower regions of repeated
death.3 As a later thinker expresses it, ' He who has under-
standing for his charioteer, and who holds the reins of the
mind — he reaches the end of his journey, and that is the
highest place of Visnu.'
i
1 Sat. Brah. I. 5. 3. 14. 2 Mbh. XIII. 1082.
3 Sat. Brah. I. 9. 3. 10. 4 Katha Up. I. 3. 9.
D
34 THEISTIC ELEMENTS IN THE PERIOD OF
While all these circumstances may well have helped to give
to Visnu the place of eminence to which he attained, there is
also the significant fact that he was connected from the
earliest Vedic times with a work of deliverance for mankind
in distress.1 It is not the majesty or the exaltation of a god
that gives him power to control the hearts of men ; it is
rather his condescension. It is perhaps because he differed in
this respect from Varuna that it was to Visnu that the power
was finally transferred which Varuna lost. The grace of
Varuna to the sinner is only a vague affirmation, a hope,
a conjecture ; while Visnu, according to the legend, had once
by a definite work of deliverance, manifested his willingness,
as well as his power, to help men in their extremity. If it be
characteristic of Theism that it binds together the temporal
and the eternal and that it binds them in an ethical relation-
ship, then we may not be wrong in detecting in this ancient
and enduring legend one reason for the association of this
god with theistic aspiration. Other gods who had entered
less energetically or less graciously into personal relations
with men could be more easily made use of as media for
a religion which was a mere view of the world, as labels for
a speculative system. Similarly the early philosophers of
Greece passed by the Olympians and called to the aid of
their speculations the vaguer potencies of a more primitive
religion. Visnu was too highly personalized a deity to be
altogether adaptable to the uses of Indian metaphysicians.
This god of a semi-historical redemption was more naturally
fitted to be the centre round which could gather the worship
of the simple and the devout. This, combined with the fact
that he was a sun-god with a sun-god's association of light
and life and blessedness, may well be what raised him to the
position that through all later time he holds as the deity
par excellence of Indian Theism. Similarly Prometheus is
nowadays believed to have been originally a sun-god — one
among several of the Greek Adityas — but he, too, is more
' /?, V. VI. 49- 13.
THE BRAHMANAS AND UPANISADS 35
than that. The place he holds in Greek religion and Greek
poetry was due to the legend that he brought fire to men and
saved them, even as Visnu did, from the A suras, who in this
case were the cruel and vindictive gods themselves. The
two thoughts then of life and of salvation seem to unite in
Visnu and may well account for the fact that this solar
deity and not Savitri or Surya or Pusan attained the place
which he pre-eminently holds as the centre of Indian theistic
devotion.
But while even in the main stream of orthodoxy as repre-
sented by the Brahmanas there were influences moving in the
direction of an ethical monotheism and gathering round the
name of Visnu, elsewhere others as well of a similar character
were at work — some of them perhaps rival influences and
reckoned as heretical. In this connexion, however, one fact
must be borne in mind. It is not necessary to suppose that
bhakti or devotion, which is specially associated with theistic
faith, always followed an independent line of development of
its own, or that it arose entirely apart from the Vedas and the
Upanisads or from other religious movements that may have
made their appearance at this time. We need not suppose
that it was isolated from its religious surroundings or that it
moved in a separate region of ideas. It may — and as a matter
of fact we find that it continually does, wherever there is
strong religious feeling — make its appearance in almost any
religious environment. Some environments are, no doubt,
more favourable to it than others, but there are few that in
the grasp of its strong inward fervour cannot be transformed
to its purpose. It may be seen struggling to break the bonds
that Pantheism is seeking continually throughout the history
of Indian thought to lay upon the human spirit ; it may even
be found at times blossoming from the dark places of the
worship of demonic powers. Is it not round the repellent
form of Siva that so much of the fervid devotion of the Tamil
saints has gathered ? What a writer on Greek religion has
remarked in a similar connexion of this lower, gloomy worship
D 2
$6 THEISTIC ELEMENTS IN THE PERIOD OF
in contrast with the higher, hopeful worship of such gods as
Apollo in Greece or Visnu in India applies equally here.
' Olympian ritual may seem,' this writer says, ' as compared
with Chthonic, to be more advanced, more humane, but though
rites of " riddance " 1 have a harsh and barbarous sound, we
cannot forget that this " riddance " — half physical though it is
— has in it the germs of a higher thing, the notion of spiritual
purification.' 2 It is impossible to say on what unfruitful stem
the spirit of devotion may have blossomed. We know that
Buddhism did not prove inimical to it, and there are even
Jain hymns that give beautiful expression to the response of
human love to the divine compassion.3 It is, however, the
opinion of Sir R. G. Bhandarkar — and no one else can speak
on such a subject with the authority that he possesses — that
the main stream of the Theism of this period is to be found
in the Bhagavata or Paficaratra system which ' did not owe
its origin to the Vedas or Upanisads '.4 This, according to
the Narayanlya section of the Mahabharata, is ' an inde-
pendent religion possessed by the Satvatas', and using
Vasudeva as the characteristic name of the supreme deity.
In the view of Sir R. G. Bhandarkar this religion was of
Ksatriya origin, the Brahmans having apparently been ex-
celled at this period in intellectual activity by the warrior and
ruling class. In this connexion he points to the prominence
of princes as religious teachers in certain of the Upanisads —
though others see in this no more than an evidence of the
politic Brahman's recognition of the prince as the fountain of
rewards — and to the fact that both Buddha and Mahavlra
were Ksatriyas. It may be, he suggests, that ' a Ksatriya of
the name of Vasudeva, belonging to the Yadava, Vrisni, or
Satvata race, founded a theistic system ' ; or it is possible that
he was a famous prince of the Satvata race and on his death
i. e. of magical purifications such as we find in all these dark
worships.
2 J. E. Harrison, The Religion of Ancient Greece, p. 46.
3 e. g. The Bhupala Stotra (L. D. Barnett's Heart of India, p. 45).
4 Search for Sanskrit Manuscripts, 1887, p. 72.
THE BRAHMANAS AND UPANISADS ^
was deified and worshipped by his clan. Sir R. G. Bhan-
darkar finds a further indication of the existence of this
Bhagavata sect at this period in the growth of a sense of
aversion to the bloody sacrifices of the past and the per-
mission to substitute a pistayajiia, a ' barley ewe '. In his
view aJiimsa was a doctrine of their sect before the appearance
of Buddhism. We have later in the Mahabharatax an indi-
cation that this new doctrine was recognized as opposed to
the pure teaching of the Vedas, but the fact that it was able
to influence the powerful hierarchy and obtain recognition for
its views even in the Brahmanas seems to suggest that it may
not have belonged to an altogether isolated religious stratum
and that it is not at all likely to have been anti-Brahmanical
or to have lacked among its numbers — as has been the case
in almost every movement of religious reform in India —
Brahman as well as Ksatriya teachers.
Along with Vasudeva, and presently identified with him,
appears Krisna, the central figure of the whole Vaisnavite
pantheon. Here again, in seeking to determine the origin of
this god, there is full scope for the play of conjecture. Was
he a hero who rose step by step to the high rank of divinity,
or was he a monotheistic reformer, as Vasudeva may have
been — a theistic Buddha before Buddha's day, who later, like
the Buddha also, was himself deified by his disciples? Some
scholars, influenced, some may perhaps think, by too easy
analogies from other fields of primitive religious belief, find
in Krisna a development from one of those early vegetation
deities that seem to have been so widely worshipped and to
have obtained so strong a hold of men's devotion in all
countries of the world. Such were Adonis, the Egyptian
Osiris and Dionysus. The evidence that is adduced to con-
nect Krisna with the renewal of the life of vegetation in the
spring need not be detailed here. It is sufficient to mention
his connexion with cattle as Govinda, the vegetation spirit
being usually supposed to incarnate itself in such animals,
1 Mbh. XII. 269. 9.
38 THEISTIC ELEMENTS IN THE PERIOD OF
his near relationship with Balarama, who is admittedly a god
of harvest, his name Damodara, the god ' with a cord round
his belly ', a description which is supposed to be derived from
the wheat-sheaf, and, most significant of all, the evidence of
the Mahabhasya that he appeared in what was evidently
a ' vegetation masque ', contending with Kamsa for the pos-
session of the sun.
One may venture to suggest that there is no necessary
contradiction between these views. Krisna may have been
a deified hero or a sage or religious reformer whose name was
transferred to the deity of the monotheistic sect of which he
was the founder.1 At the same time, the analogy of the
history of other religious cults permits us to conjecture that
into that new or revived monotheistic religion much may
have passed which was a heritage from earlier and more
primitive beliefs and which seems to us to assort ill with
what in it is spiritual. We know that this was the case with
many of the mediaeval forms of popular Christianity, and that
indications of it are still to be found in the beliefs of not
a few who profess themselves Christians. An alloy of
Paganism was carried over into the spiritual faith of Christ
by many of the new converts and became so amalgamated
with it that, were it not for the record of the Founder's
teaching, it would be hard to isolate the one element from
the other. Similarly we may well believe that the original
ground-work of Krisnaism — as of many other religious move-
ments that_have showed themselves capable like it of having
higher thoughts grafted upon them — was a vegetation cult,
which later, by the influence, perhaps, of a reformer Krisna,
was purified and spiritualized. If it be the case that the
religion of Vasudeva was at first distinct from that of Krisna,
the two streams presently united to form one, and the two
names became synonyms for the one god that their adherents
worshipped, Krisna-Vasudeva. There seems no reason at all
1 Cf. Jacobi, E. R. E. II, p. 8n2 : 'In Krisna, a Rajput hero has coalesced
with a shepherd-god (Govinda) into a new deity.'
THE BRAHMANAS AND UPANISADS 39
why one should refuse to believe that as there were Buddha
and Mahavira somewhat later, so there may have been two
religious reformers of whom we know no more than the
names, and who presently were identified with the deity of
their worship. Certainly there seems to have been at this
period much religious activity and freedom of intellectual
speculation. Further it is of interest to note as strengthening
the probability of the appearance in India of such religious
reformers, that probably about the same period, that is in the
sixth or seventh century B. c., there arose in the neigh-
bouring country of Iran the great spiritual teacher and
reformer Zarathustra.
Presently — at what period we cannot determine with any
certainty — those two sectarian cults which had by this time,
we may suppose, been united into one, formed a new com-
bination and acquired additional authority and prestige by
the identification of Krisna-Vasudeva with the Vedic deity
Visnu. The deification of Krisna-Vasudeva may quite possibly
date from a period anterior to the time of Buddha. There is
no evidence of his identification with Visnu until the second
century B. c, when indications in the Ma/iabhdsya of Patanjali
point at least to a close connexion between them.1 Perhaps
we may conjecture that even by the time of Buddha or soon
thereafter the different theistic streams were tending towards
each other. The implications of Indian thought have always
been slow to declare themselves in definite action and concrete
definition. It may have even taken centuries before a
systematic method by which those kindred gods, along with
others such as Parasurama and Rama, could be linked up
together. The idea of avatdras, when it was devised for that
purpose, was by no means alien to the character of Visnu,
who from Vedic times was recognized as a god of grace and
1 See Ind. Ant. III. 16 and J.R. A.S., 1908, p. 172. 'Between the
period of the Bhagavadgita and that of the Anuglta the identity of
Vasudeva-Krisna with Visnu had become an established fact.' — Bhan-
darkar's Vaimavism, p. 34.
40 THEISTIC ELEMENTS IN THE PERIOD OF
one who had saved the world. The idea of avatdras or
descents for some purpose of deliverance was entirely in
harmony with the conception of this deity as being — in the
words of an inscription of a later date, ' entirely devoted to
the welfare of the universe.'1 In this way the Vaisnavite
faith comes formally to embody in its creed one of the central
thoughts of Theism. Heaven and earth are brought together
in agreement with what is from the first the implicit aim of
such a religion, and the distant Vedic sky-god is related in
purposes of grace and of help with man in his distress. This,
it may be maintained, is the central conception of every cult
that follows the path of bhakti or ' loving faith ', and indeed of
any religion that really expresses and seeks to satisfy the
longings of the human heart. It is possible, indeed, to find
traces of the influence of this thought in many even of the
most primitive forms of religious belief. Students of com-
parative religion may even hazard the conjecture that in the
worship of the sun-god Visnu we have the adoration of a sky-
father, and in that of the fertility-god Krisna, if indeed that
was its primitive form, adoration of some remote and nameless
earth-mother, while on that view their harmony and co-
operation would be that which is essential to fruitfulness in
crops and beasts and men. But whether these analogies are
anything more than far-fetched fancies— and certainly one
must pronounce them exceedingly problematical— it does not
follow that those primitive ideas may not have been spirit-
ualized to something far worthier than they at first suggested.
The fact that the child is the father of the man, as Dr. E.
Caird has said somewhere in a similar connexion, does not
mean that he has not out-grown his childishness. The union
of earth and heaven, the coming together in loving fellowship,
in devotion and in service of God and man is certainly the
heart of all religion that can claim any real right to that
designation, and about the name of Visnu as well as of Krisna-
Vasudeva and his other avataras, there have gathered more
1 J.R.A.S., 1907, p. 973.
THE BRAHMANAS AND UPANISADS 41
than round any other divine names in India these comforting
and uplifting thoughts. It is for that reason that those head
waters of religious belief can rightly be claimed, with all the
imperfections and inadequacies that must have continued to
mingle with them after their emergence from the doubtful
places of their origin, — and no one who reads the legends of
Krisna in the Mahabharata can doubt that these were many
— to be reckoned among the main sources whence has
flowed through the centuries until to-day the stream of
Tndian Theism.
Ill
THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS
In what has been said of the growth, as far as it may be
conjectured throughout the period of the Brahmanas, of Theism
and specially of the Bhagavata religion in its different forms
as worship of Visnu, of Vasudeva, and of Krisna, no account
has been taken of a body of literature which is of a significance
scarcely less than that of the Rig Veda itself in the long
history of Hinduism. It is to this group of treatises, the
Upanisads, that the name Vedanta has been given, and though
the word may only signify that with them the Vedas come to
a conclusion, to many it certainly is the case that, in accord-
ance with the other interpretation of the word, the literature
of the Veda finds in them its crown and final goal. Their
dates are as doubtful as those of all the other documents of
this period, but we may accept as certain this much at least,
that the greater number of the earliest prose group date from
before the period of Buddhism, and that they represent a
religious movement arising independently of the Brahmanas
and largely antagonistic to their sacerdotalism. This antago-
nism is expressed sometimes with an irony that is worthy of
Erasmus, as when a procession of dogs is described, marching
like priests, each holding the tail of the dog in front and
crying, ' 6m, let us eat ! 6m, let us drink ! ' x But because
the Upanisads represent a natural revolt from futile and un-
intelligent formalism, it does not follow that they were anti-
Brahmanical. The period and the region in which they arise
were evidently signalized by a remarkable activity and freedom
of thought. Certainly one cannot but be struck by the fact
1 Chand. Up. I. 12. 4-5.
THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS 43
that so often in the Upanisads non-Brahmans are said to have
possession of higher truth than those have attained to who
were supposed to be the special guardians of spiritual know-
ledge, so that not infrequently Brahmans have to sit at their
feet and learn of them. It is, however, after all nothing sur-
prising that this should be the case. Conservatism is usually
the note of an established hierarchy which is more likely to
lose than gain by activity of speculation. To expect the
Brahmans of the priesthood to be foremost in a movement
which was iconoclastic in its character is to expect what is
contrary to nature, but the deduction from that need not be
that the movement was anti-Brahmanical. There is no sign
of such an attitude in the Upanisads themselves, which, if they
have been revised to exclude such indications, might just as
well have excluded all indications, in connexion with this
religious renaissance, of Brahman inferiority. We need as
little suppose that the Upanisad thought was hostile to, and
outside of, Brahmanism as we suppose, because Keshub
Chunder Sen was a Vaisya, that that is the case in regard to
the Brahmo-Samaj. What we are rather to remark is the
freedom of thought which seems to have prevailed at this
time and of which we have many indications. As a result ol
it a bewildering number of conjectures were hazarded as to
the solution of the problem of the universe, and that not only
by Brahmans but by Ksatriyas, and even by women.
On the other hand, it is equally unnecessary for us to suppose
that there was any antagonism between the Bhagavata religion
and much of the speculation of the Upanisads, or even that
they affected entirely different strata of the population. No
doubt the Upanisad thought was confined to a limited circle,
and to a large extent at least, as the Upanisads themselves
indicate, was pursued in secret, while the worship of personal
gods was much more widely spread. But there is no neces-
sary opposition between much of the speculation of those
books and the devotion of the Bhagavatas. We may, indeed,
conjecture that in all probability some of these unnamed
44 THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS
thinkers were themselves in their religious life worshippers of
Visnu and of other gods, sucri as Krisna-Vasudeva, around
whom the popular devotion had gathered. The colder atmo-
sphere of the Upanisads is after all the almost inevitable
atmosphere of reflection, and some at least of the attempts
of thoughtful men, that are furnished in these books, to con-
strue their religion in terms of reason are in no necessary-
antagonism to that ' passionate Theism ' of a later period which
is described by Sir R. G. Bhandarkar as the characteristic
note of the bhakti worshipper. Though we cannot suppose
that there was as yet anything that can be described as
monotheism within even the circle of those who called them-
selves Bhagavatas, yet we may well believe that there was
that which was on the way there, and that some of those who
uttered the private longings of their hearts before the feet of
these gods may have been the same who sought in the Upani-
sad speculations an intellectual solution for the mystery of the
being of God and the nature of things. No doubt the philo-
sopher is not often at the same time the saint, but there is no
reason why they should not both arise within the same circles
of thought. No doubt also when the thinkers of the Upanisads
pass over the boundary of metaphysics into the realm of
religion and point out the way of deliverance and of union
with the Ultimate as it appears to them, their teaching seems
often far enough away from the method of deliverance by
'loving faith'. If the Ultimate is construed as an idea or an
energy, then certainly the way to the goal will share in the
coldness and the moral emptiness of the goal itself. In the
case of some, however, we may be sure that their speculations
appeared to themselves at least to leave still something worthy
and satisfying in that to which their aspirations were directed
and to make it possible for them to seek it with a moral
ardour. If there seems little enough fuel in these treatises
with which to kindle in any one a ' passionate Theism ', yet the
difference between the more intellectual religion here set forth
and the emotional fervour of the worshipper of Vasudeva,
THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS 45
may often be only a difference of degree, and not the funda-
mental antagonism which is implied if the teaching of the
Upanisads is set down without discrimination as simply
Pantheism. Practically all the religious thought of India, we
must remember, is pantheistic in the sense that the immanence
of God in the universe became early for it an axiom. The
whole drift of its reflection is in that direction and continually
it overflows, as it were, into pantheistic monism. As in the
religious thought of the West the temptation, we may say, is
to rest content with a crude deism, so in the F^ast there is
always a tendency in the direction of monistic idealism. This
must not be forgotten when we are endeavouring to interpret
the meaning of the speculations of the Upanisads, while at
the same time we must recognize that in the earlier stages
especially of these speculations there are halting- places short
of that goal. Sometimes, probably, the logical consequences
of his conjecture are not fully present to the thinker, and
there is all the while in it a latent antagonism to Theism of
which he is largely unaware. On the other hand, there were
no doubt always those who, like the author of the BJiagavad-
glta, conscious of the practical ineffectiveness of a cold intel-
lectualism, sought to bring its results more into harmony with
those beliefs which move and control the heart.
It is, indeed, somewhat futile to attempt to discriminate
among the various currents of religious tendency which, with
much audacity of thought and much freedom of expression,
were at that period troubling the deep waters of the Indian
spirit in the Ganges plain. It may well have been that in
that atmosphere, heavy with the burden of its heat, and
morbid with its weariness, men's minds might spend them-
selves in over-subtlety of speculation, and esteem no attain-
ment more to be desired than final escape from the bondage
of an existence that had in it nothing that deserved to be
desired. In that environment many fantastic forms of thought
and of religious practice flourished with an unhealthy luxuri-
ance. There were, no doubt, at this time, and we cannot tell
46 THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS
from how ancient a period, those who, by concentration, by
tapas ^ or the heat that their own inward nature generated,
sought to realize their aspirations. A close relationship may
be traced between the ascetic practices of those Yogis, by
means of which they believed themselves able to bring the
powers of nature under their control, and the magic and super-
stition of which an early glimpse is afforded us in the A tharva
Veda. These ascetics seem far enough removed from the
theosophist who seeks by knowledge to attain the same goal
of escape from this world of change and sorrow. And yet
here again it may well be that in the peculiar psychology of
the Yogi and the crude speculation of the magic-monger we
have one of the sources of a section of the speculation of the
Upanisads. The Atharvan knows already something of the
importance of the ' breaths ', the vital forces.1 It may be that
that stratum of Upanisad theosophy which passes most easily
into monistic Pantheism, — that which travels to the Ultimate
by the continual refinement of the physical, seeking the
1 subtle essence ' of all things, and which is therefore least
ethical, — derives in great measure from this disreputable source.
The claims that are made in certain passages in behalf of
knowledge seem closely akin to the superstitious belief in the
power of a mantra or magic formula. * He who knows ' some-
thing 'becomes' that thing. The ascent to Brahman by the
ladder of progressive tapas is a material progress to an un-
ethical end, but at the same time it is possible to combine
with this unmoral discipline faith {sraddha), an inward emotion
that leads the heart by a way less barren and unsatisfying.2
The bewildering variety of speculations that are accumulated
in this literature may indeed be classified roughly under two
heads. Many appear to be mainly physical and metaphysical.
The problem here is, What is the substrate of the universe ?
What is the Ultimate? What is that Brahman in which all
things inhere? The question of union with that Ultimate and
1 A. V. XV. 15 ; Hopkins, R.I., p. 153.
2 Chand. Up. V. 10. 1.
THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS 47
of emancipation holds a secondary place. Those who are
occupied with these thoughts are primarily philosophers. The
practical interests of life and of deliverance from its bondage
in union with God remain for them in the background. But
there are others whose interest is rather in the problem of life,
and of the way of escape from its shadows to that which is
alone true and alone abiding. For this latter group the ques-
tion of questions is, How can a man attain to that condition
which is beyond reach of change — which is bliss in that abode
where there is ' no sorrow and no snow ' ? * For the former,
the problem is a more impersonal one, and one less engaged
with human fears and human fate. In the Sandilya Vidya,
for example, the discourse seems to move in a region purely
metaphysical and abstract, and when, at its conclusion, for the
first time a personal note is struck — 'When I shall have
departed hence, I shall obtain that Atman ' — it impresses one
as quite perfunctory. On the other hand, the discussion in
the Katha Upanisad is vitally engaged with the problem of
human loss and human destiny, while when Yajnavalkya dis-
closes his deepest conviction to his beloved Maitreyl the
atmosphere in which the two discourse together is vivid with
reality and quick with living interest. The thought of the
goal to which he seems to point may fill us, as it filled her,
with ' utter bewilderment ', but there is no question but that
he is setting before her no abstract doctrine, but a message
with an entirely practical bearing upon life and full of ethical
content. It is in the latter group of speculations rather than
the former that we shall expect to find the stream of Theism
flow most richly. For the thinker may forget for a time the
religious implicates of his thought, while he moves in the
region of speculation, or seeks to dissolve into its ultimate
elements the spirit of man or the life of the universe, but when
he turns his eye again upon the spectacle of human struggle
and reflects upon the problem of human fate, his thought
assumes another and a more vital hue. The region of Theism,
1 Brihad. Up. V. io. I.
48 THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS
we may claim, is the region of life, and every movement is
antagonistic to it— whether it be engaged with the asceticism
of the Yogi or with the speculation of the pure metaphysician
— which turns its back upon the facts and upon the claims
of life.
In seeking to make clear to ourselves the course of develop-
ment of the religious teaching of the Upanisads and to decide
how far it is in harmony with an ethical Theism, one is
confronted at the outset by the difficulty of arranging the
documents in their historical sequence. The most that we
can do is to arrange them in certain groups and judge of the
development of their thought by the help of so much of order
as that affords us in their chaos. Perhaps we may further
suggest as probable that of them all the Aitareya Aranyaka
is oldest while the Brihaddranyaka comes next to it in age.
The probability that the Aitareya Aranyaka is of great
antiquity appears to follow from the fact that it is so closely
associated with the Brahmana and gives an allegorical account
of the Uktha. The whole character of its reflection, too,
gives evidence of its antiquity. An examination then of the
Upanisads contained in it and of the Brihaddranyaka and
especially of its Yajnavalkya sections, which certainly belong
to a very early period in the development of the Upanisad
doctrine and carry much authority, will help to determine at
least whether, as Sankaracarya maintained and as Professor
Deussen too holds to-day, the original and normative teaching
of the Vedanta was an idealistic monism, or whether it was
something more in harmony with a theistic interpretation of
the universe.
Here we have to remind ourselves once more that, as in the
popular religion, so in these tentative constructions of a theory
of the universe a full-orbed Theism is not likely to discover
itself. What we may expect to find is that the views here and
there propounded bear, some of them one, and others of them
another, and yet another, of the characteristics of an ethical
Theism. None of them is likely to possess them all. What
THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS 49
Ruskin says of the difficulty of pronouncing whether certain
buildings are truly Gothic in their architecture or not illus-
trates appositely the question we are considering. He points
out that all he can reason upon is ' a greater or less degree of
Gothicness in each building', for, as he goes on to say, ' pointed
arches do not constitute Gothic, nor vaulted roofs, nor flying
buttresses, nor grotesque sculptures ; but all or some of these
things, and many other things with them, when they come
together so as to have life '. The case before us here is
exactly similar. We shall find in all probability a greater or
less degree of Theism in the various speculations of this litera-
ture ; and it is when this characteristic and the other ' come
together so as to have life' — so as to present what may be
a living ethical religion — that we can pronounce with confi-
dence that this is truly theistic thought. What, then, are those
characteristics of Upanisad doctrine which we can pronounce
theistic, even as pointed arches and vaulted roofs are Gothic ?
And what are those elements, on the other hand, the presence
of which seems to negate Theism and to show that the
direction of the speculation in which they are found was away
from it and hostile to it ?
There are three main lines of inquiry which it will be
necessary to pursue in order to answer these questions in
regard to the teaching of the Upanisads. Whether or not
that teaching is theistic will depend upon the conclusion to
which those lines of inquiry lead us. In the first place we
must ask, Were the Upanisads rightly interpreted by Saiikara
as inculcating as their highest truth the illusoriness of the
world and of the individual spirit, and the sole reality of an
undifferentiated Brahman ? Is Mayavada doctrine the true
Vedanta? On such a view Theism is of course impossible.
Further we have to ask, How is Brahman attained ? In the
measure in which the ' knowledge ' which is prescribed as the
means by which this goal is reached is purely intellectual, in
that measure it is antagonistic to an ethical and theistic
religion. The knowledge of and fellowship with a person
E
5o THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS
which Theism sets before it as its aim and end must be the
expression of other elements in the worshipper's personality
than his intellect alone. The less there is of ethical content
in it, the more it approaches a metaphysical process and
recedes from the region of faith and devotion. And in the
third place the question must be asked, whether the union
with Brahman which is sought is an absorption in which all
difference is lost, or whether some element of awareness, such
as Theism postulates, is supposed to remain to the emanci-
pated soul? The spheres of these different inquiries do
indeed overlap and cannot be demarcated strictly the one
from the other, but each of them indicates a point at which
Theism differentiates itself from what can quite definitely be
designated Pantheism or Monism, and each of them therefore
demands separate inquiry. As pointed arches and vaulted
roofs and flying buttresses ' coming together so as to have
life ' constitute decisive Gothicness in a building, so we may
call that thought theistic without hesitation or reserve which
accepts the world and the individual soul as real alongside
of Brahman, which recognizes a moral enlightenment as
necessary to union with Brahman, and which demands a con-
tinuance of self-consciousness for the spirit that has passed
into that final fellowship.
It may almost be accepted as demonstrated without further
necessity of discussion that the doctrine of maya is unknown
to the Upanisads. Of those twelve that are considered oldest
and most authoritative the word only occurs in one, the Svet-
dsvafara, an Upanisad of the second period, and then only once.
Even there, where prakriti is said to be maya and the great
Lord the Mayin, the word need mean no more than that he
is the artificer and the world the product of his miraculous
power. Only Sahkara's strained and unnatural effort to make
the Upanisads consistent with each other and with his inter-
pretation of them by postulating a higher and a lower level
of truth can explain away the repeated representation of the
world as a real creation. If the Upanisads in the Aitareya
THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS 51
Aranyaka are the oldest, then this and not * idealistic monism'
is the earliest view of the relation of the world and the Supreme
Self. ' Verily in the beginning all this was Self, one only ; there
was nothing else blinking whatsoever. He thought, " Shall
I send forth worlds?" He sent forth these worlds. . . . He
thought, " There are the worlds ; shall I send forth guardians
of the worlds ? " He then formed the purusay taking him forth
from the water.'1 So far this account except for the word
'sent forth' is indistinguishable from that of ordinary Occi-
dental Theism. Its distinctive note is struck later when it is
said, ' When born, He (the Supreme Self) looked through all
things in order to see whether anything wished to proclaim
here another (Self). He saw this person only as the widely
spread Brahman. " I saw it," thus he said.' 2 From this
passage it is plain that to this early thinker it already was an
axiom that all was Brahman — ' one only without a second,'
as a later Upanisad puts it — but nowhere is it suggested
either that the worlds ' sent forth ' from him or the purusas he
formed were other than real. A closely similar passage is to be
found in the Chandogya? where the old doctrine, to be found
in the earlier literature, of creation out of nothing is explicitly
rejected, as it is implicitly in the Aitareya, and the eternity of
being is affirmed. Creation is the revelation of ' names and
forms ',4 that is the communication of separate existence and
individuality within the original, unmodified unity. There is
no question of the reality of these modes of Brahman. Their
reality in fact consists in their entire pervasion by Brahman
which ' entered thither to the very tips of the finger-nails, as
a razor might be fitted in a razor-case or a fire in a fire-
place'.5 In these and other passages the 'individualization of
the Infinite' is due to his 'thought' or 'vision' — 'Shall
I send forth worlds? ' ' May I be many, may I grow forth.' 6
1 Ait. Aran. II. 4. I. 2 Ibid. II. 4. 3. 10.
3 CM fid. Up. VI. 2.1 ff.
4 Chand. Up. VI. 3. 2. Also Brihad. Up. I. 4. 7.
5 Brihad. Up. I. 4. 7.
6 Ait. Aran. II. 4. 1, 2 ; Chand. Up. VI. 2. 3.
E 2
52 THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS
There is no hint that this is a deceptive thought or that this
creation, this plurality, is unreal. To deduce from these and
similar passages a doctrine of maya because of the strong
affirmation of the original unity is to interpret them with
a pedantic literalness which is foreign to the whole spirit of
the speculation.
As a matter of fact a survey of the whole of the speculation
of the earlier Upanisads justifies us in affirming the reality of
the universe as due to the fact that it is Brahman 'sent forth'
and fashioned into diverse forms distinguished by ' name and
form '. Everything depends on how much is meant by ' name
and form ', and it may well be that to some of the thinkers
this implies a more real and permanent existence than to
others. In the case of man, as we shall see, the losing of
' name and form ' seems to signify in the view of some of the
Upanisads at least, something approaching to complete absorp-
tion,1 but certainly that does not appear to be true of all. In
general, one may affirm that in the Upanisads the central
thought is that ' all these creatures ', as Uddalaka Aruni says
to his son Svetaketu, ' have their root in the true, they dwell
in the true, they rest in the true'.2 Even when he uses the
formula which is accounted the very charter of idealistic
monism— ' Thou, O Svetaketu, art it' — ' tat tvam asi'z — it is
probable that no more was meant than that the inner reality
of man's life is Brahman — that in it which is true and abiding.
Sometimes, no doubt, this thought is mainly presented as a
metaphysical or physical explanation of the universe, and this
seems to be in the background even of these words of Aruni,
for he speaks of this Self as the 'subtle essence'.4 As a
matter of fact the spiritual and physical spheres are not yet
demarcated in these speculations, and we must not look for
systematization and consistency in what is as yet with all its
subtlety only the childhood of Indian thought. This strong
assertion of the essential and inner identity of the universe
1 Mund. Up. III. 2. 8 ; Pros. Up. VI. 5. 2 Chand. Up. VI. 8. 6.
3 Ibid. VI. 8. 7. * Ibid. VI. 8. 7.
THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS 55
and the Atman is really in its ethical aspect nowise different
from the great message of Yajnavalkya to Maitreyi : ' Verily
the worlds are not dear that you may love the worlds, but
that you may love the Atman, therefore the worlds are dear.'
So long as the permanence and the freedom of the individual
soul are recognized, this strong affirmation of the divine im-
manence in all things is not necessarily antagonistic to Theism.
How far this doctrine tends to become anti-theistic will appear
when we consider whether in the Upanisads the souls of the
emancipated are absorbed and indistinguishably lost in the
Universal Self. Meantime we can conclude that while the
direction of Upanisad thought is towards an abstract and empty
Brahman, out of which a universe in which are real distinc-
tions and a real plurality can with difficulty be conceived to
emerge, yet its whole emphasis meantime is upon the reality
of that universe as in the last analysis produced and sustained
by Brahman. Its error, which produces in the end the doc-
trine of may a, lies just in the fact that it is by a process of
analysis and of continual abstraction that the ultimate reality
is reached. The thought now is that there is such an ultimate
reality, and that it constitutes the reality of all things. Later
it might appear to follow as a consequence that all things
were empty and unreal. In the Upanisads, however, that
consideration has not yet emerged with any distinctness.
The quest for the ultimate truth has reached for them its goal
in Brahman, and in it all things are real.1
So far it seems possible to rule out of the teaching of the
Upanisads the Mayavada doctrine, and to claim at least that
that fatal obstacle to a theistic interpretation of their message
has not yet presented itself. The question we have now to
ask is whether the 'knowledge' with which Brahman is so
often identified, and which for that reason is so often prescribed
as the chief means by which the goal of Brahman is reached,
is compatible with any conception of it which leaves room for
1 Brahman (masc.) is found in Sahkhdyana Aran. III. 5, and brahma-
loka, which almost postulates a personal Brahman (A. Berriedale Keith).
54 THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS
a real Theism. It is fairly obvious that in any religion exces-
sive intellectualism is opposed to a warmly ethical Theism.
It leads both in the teaching of the Upanisads and of Aristotle
to the view that the highest life is one of contemplative activity
in the presence of a God who is at best a pure self-contempla-
tive intelligence. The more the Upanisads tend to limit the
nature of Brahman to prajiia (intelligence), and the method
of attaining that goal to processes predominatingly intellectual,
the farther they recede from Theism or from any view of the
religious life which is likely to be ethically valuable. Now it
can hardly be disputed that there is a tendency throughout
the Upanisads in that direction and away from Theism. The
quest for unity, which underlies alike the speculations of the
philosopher and the aspirations of the religious man, naturally
at first — as we see in the case of Aristotle and of the Neo-
platonists no less than of the unknown authors of these
works — endeavours to reach its goal by the method of ex-
cluding all difference. It seemed to some of these thinkers
at least that in the exercise of the intelligence alone was man
able to emancipate himself from individual conditions and
from the contingency of things, and to rise into intimate
communion with the divine which, just because it is divine,
must be, as they considered, pure undifferenced being.
Now it is obvious, as has been said, that the tendency of
such a view of things, by divorcing contemplation as the
highest state of spiritual attainment from action, and God or
Brahman as the highest Being from all participation in phe-
nomenal existence, must necessarily be away from anything
like a true ethical Theism. It can hardly be denied that a
considerable portion of the teaching of the Upanisads is in
that direction, and that Sahkara's doctrine is the fine flower
that blossoms from this root. But at the same time, on the
one hand, it does not appear that the logical consequences of
this tendency were present to the majority of the thinkers of
the Upanisads any more than they were to Aristotle or to
Plotinus, or that they were aware that their view of ultimate
THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS 55
Being and of man's relation to it must prove fatal to a real
religious life. Nor, on the other hand, was their method of
abstraction and of pure intellectualism the method of con-
ceiving of Brahman and of reaching union with him which
presented itself by any means to all of these risis. It may
further be claimed in this connexion that the Upanisad doctrine
which is earliest in date was less predominatingly intellectual
than that which grew up later, and that it was quite in harmony
with a theistic interpretation of the world. In the oldest of
the three Upanisads of the Aitareya the nature of the Attnati
is not conceived of as purely prajna (intelligence). Man is ' he
who looks before and after and pines for what is not ', and in
these characteristics, which differentiate him from the other
animals, consists his greatness.1 He is ' the sea, rising beyond
the whole world. If he should reach that (heavenly) world,
he wrould wish to go beyond '.2 Here man's greatness and his
divinity are rightly perceived to rest in his full and manifold
nature and the infinite reaches of his soul. It is not suggested
that he must unlade the rich cargo of his spirit, that he may
come into fellowship with God. In the second Upanisad in
this Aranyaka, while a further step is taken, and it is definitely
stated that the Self is knowledge, and that knowledge is
Brahman? that knowledge is vitally connected with all life
and action, and is that by which we will and breathe, love and
desire. It is not yet suggested that these practical interests
are alien to Brahman, or unworthy of him who seeks his
fellowship. It is only in the third and latest Upanisad of this
Aranyaka that a later agnostic doctrine makes its appearance,
and it is declared that the knowing Self cannot be known.4
So also in the Brihadaranyaka and the Chandogya the pro-
cess by which Brahman is realized and reached is not purely
intellectual, and not therefore irreconcilable with a theistic
conception of his nature. It is largely a moral process of self-
purification and self-control, of meditation and insight. No
doubt intellectual perception has a chief place among the
MI. 3. 2. MI. 3. 3f. 3 II. 6. 1. 5. Mil. 2. 4. 19.
56 THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS
means by which the goal of the spirit is reached. It has to
be admitted that the Upanisads are, as philosophy has a
tendency often to be, aristocratic works placing intellectual
culture first as a means to man's highest attainment, while
a really practical Theism with its appeal to the whole man
is generally democratic. But while it is affirmed in the
Brihadaranyaka that he that knows attains, it is only when
with his knowledge he has ' become quiet, subdued, satisfied,
patient and collected ' that he ' sees self in Atman and sees
all as A tma.1i '.l More important than the possession of learning
(pandityd) is the attainment of the spirit of the child [balyd)
and of the spirit of the sage {Manna).2 Even in the Sandilya
Vidyd it is man as «nrj*i«4, which Max Muller translates 'a
creature of will', who obtains the Atman? Similarly else-
where in the Chandogya the way to Brahman and to satisfac-
tion is largely a moral progress, by which the seeker ' shakes
off all evil as a horse shakes his hairs, and as the moon frees
herself from the mouth of Rahu '.4 It is not necessary to
refer to passages in other Upanisads, about whose Theism
there is no controversy, to show that the method of attaining
to the A tin an according to their teaching is not that of making
the human spirit a desert save for the pale wind-flowers of the
intellect. No one questions that in the Katha and the Mnn-
dafca, for example, we find set forth a moral discipline as the
means by which the soul is to be prepared for the self-com-
munication of an Atman who 'chooses' it.5 What is here
maintained is that from the first to many of the risis of the
Upanisads 'knowledge', as in the Hebrew use of the word,
though not to the same extent, is an ethical as well as an
intellectual activity. They lay, indeed, perhaps excessive
stress on the intellectual element in the means of man's
deliverance, in the guidance that his reason gives him in
travelling along the path ' narrow as a razor's edge ' to the
1 Brihad. Up. IV. 4. 23.
2 Ibid. III. 5. 1. Cf. S.B.E., vol. XV, p. 130, note, and Deussen,
Phil, of Upanisads, p. 58. 3 Chdnd. Up. III. 14. 1.
4 Ibid. VIII. 13. 1. 6 Katha Up. 1.2. 23, 24; Mund. Up. III. 2.3, 4.
THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS 57
high goal from whence there shall be no return to lower levels,
even as did also Plato and Philo. No doubt this element is
largely determinative of the whole process, and affects in a
vital manner the series of speculations which make up the
Vedanta, overlaying and obscuring the purely religious idea
which was to be found in all probability at that very period
more vividly expressed in the devotional cults in which later
the word bliakti came to be commonly employed. But, while
that has to be admitted, it remains that to many the knowledge
which Brahman was conceived to be was not a cold and
colourless atmosphere stirred by no breath of moral life, nor
was the way there a purely intellectual process. In less
measure no doubt than to the Hebrew prophets and to
St. John, yet in some real measure, the word had an ethical
content which made it the means to a genuine religious fellow-
ship with a God still recognized as able to enter into personal
relations with men. There was room for the exercise of
moral discipline, and for the experience, in the presence of one
who was not only knowledge but bliss, of a truly spiritual
peace. The reflections of these seers may not have been often
productive of a passionate Theism, but they were not, in spite
of their emphasis on knowledge, necessarily anti-theistic.
We now pass to the third question and that which is most
important of all in determining whether or not the thought of
the Upanisads is such as to make Theism impossible. This
question is whether the union with Brahman which is always
the goal of effort is an absorption in which all difference is
lost or whether the emancipated soul still retains self-conscious-
ness. It is certainly the case that there are many passages in
which the identification of the individual self and the universal
Self is affirmed with an absoluteness that seems to justify the
conclusion of Thibaut that the one is ' completely merged and
indistinguishably lost ' in the other.1 But here again we must
bear in mind that the language of these seers is not that of
precise definition. Just because they are seers, as much as
1 S. B. E. XXXIV, p. cxxi.
58 THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS
they are thinkers, their statements should not be treated
with a too pedantic literalness. If we take, for example, one
of the most striking passages in which Yajnavalkya expounds
the state of final liberation, we shall perhaps realize that this
is the case. ' Now as a man,' he says, ' when embraced by
a beloved wife, knows nothing that is without, nothing that is
within, thus this person, when embraced by the intelligent
{prajna) Self, knows nothing that is without, nothing that is
within. It is indeed in his (true) form, in which his wishes are
fulfilled, in which the Self (only) is his wish, in which no wish
is left — free from any sorrow.' l It appears to be the case that
the simile made use of here, and common to all mystical
doctrines of union, really expresses what is meant in most ot
the passages that describe in language almost of ecstasy the
supreme goal of human longing. ' As a man, when embraced
by a beloved wife, knows nothing that is without, nothing that
is within ' — this symbol of union is the hall-mark of mysticism
in every country and in every age. The state imagined is one
that may also be compared to the condition in deep sleep or
to the mingling of rivers in the sea or salt melted in the water,
but it is a state which defies definite determination ; for it
aims, if we may so express it, at the loss of individuality or
what the Upanisads would call ' name and form ' but the
preservation at the same time in some subtle sense of conscious
personality. ' When it is said ', the writer goes on in a passage
from the BriJiaddratiyaka quoted above, ' that there he does not
see, yet he is seeing, though he does not see. For sight is
inseparable from the seer, because it cannot perish. But there
is then no second, nothing -else different from him that he could
see.'2 And so on with the other senses. In the words of
Dr. Sukhtankar,3 ' there is no actual empirical consciousness,
but this is not because the souls cease to be conscious sub-
jects'. How near the seer, Yajnavalkya, who is supposed
to be the founder of the doctrine of complete absorption,
\ Brihad. Up. IV. 3. 21. 2 Ibid. IV. 3. 23.
Sukhtankar's Teachings of Vedanta according to Rdmdnuja, p. 12, n.
3
THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS 59
approached to that view, while at the same time claiming to
preserve for the emancipated soul continued existence and
continued consciousness, is indicated in two passages by
Maitreyl's expression of dismay and his response to it. On
both occasions she, supposing that he had pointed her to the
gulf of complete annihilation, cries, ' Sir, thou hast landed me
in utter bewilderment,' and his reassuring response in the one
case is ' Verily, beloved, that Self is indestructible and of an
imperishable nature ', and in the other, according at least to
Dr. Sukhtankar's interpretation, ' Consciousness is possible in
this state.' x
The fact is that the title of Pantheism so often applied to
this whole body of speculations is a misnomer. Dr. E. Caird,
in his luminous exposition of the closely parallel speculation
of Plotinus, has distinguished the body of ideas to which it
appears to me the reflection of the Upanisads belongs as
mysticism from what is properly to be denominated Pantheism.
Pantheism loses God in the world ; this doctrine separates
God or Brahman altogether from the world. 'The Atman is
to the Indian', says Oldenberg, 'certainly the sole actuality,
light diffusing; but there is a remainder left in things which
He is not.' 2 There is no remainder in the view of Pantheism.
The thesis of the Upanisads is that the Atman is the only
valuable, and we must not cease from mental and from moral
toil until we reach it — hard as it is to reach. According to
Pantheism one can never get away from God, for all is He
and He is all ; according to this type of mysticism, the problem
always supremely urgent — for it is the one thing that matters —
and always in a strict application of its principles impossible,
is how to get to God. Emptying his life of every finite interest,
the mystic seeks to climb to a divine unity, so rarefied and
so remote, that it cannot be characterized and therefore cannot
be known. He would lose even his consciousness of self, for
1 Brihad. Up. IV. 5; II. 4- 13; cf. Jacobi in E.R.E. II, p. Soi2, 'It
may be doubted whether absolute identity is meant.'
2 Oldenberg's Buddha (English transl.), p. 39.
60 THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS
so only it seems to him that he can know God ; and yet he
dare not lose it, for then he knows he would himself be lost.
Thus this view embodies a continual struggle to express what
is inexpressible and to reach what is unattainable. The later
doctrine of Sahkara may perhaps be named Pantheism —
strange as its Pantheism is — for it says that Brahman is all,
because all but Brahman is false. But the teaching- of the
Upanisads, though it seems akin to Pantheism in that it holds
that Brahman, the real, is immanent in all things, yet differs
from Pantheism in that that real is only reached and known
by emptying all things of that which seems to give them being
and strength. Pantheism rejoices in the world and in all the
things of the world ; for are they not God ? This mysticism
is continually purging the world of its dross to reach that
ultimate and subtle essence which is Brahman. Properly
speaking Brahman is conceived of rather as transcendent than
as immanent ; for if all things are real in it, that reality is some-
thing ever beyond and elusive. Again and again, it is said,
' That Atman is a bank, a boundary, so that these worlds may
not be confounded.' ... ' Therefore when that bank has
been crossed, night becomes day indeed, for the world of
Brahman is lighted up once for all.' x But to reach that
further bank, how difficult it is ! To accomplish this and
enter into the light of that day has been the task that has
absorbed the labour of the mystic's spirit in every age. But
who can climb where the ladder of the human consciousness
cannot reach ? Who can abide in an atmosphere so rare that
human spirits cannot breathe in it and live ? ' That Self is to
be described by " Neti, Neti",' says Yajnavalkya to Maitreyl.
' It is in truth unspeakable,' says Plotinus, \ for if you say any-
thing of it you make it a particular thing.' Even St. Augustine
repeats with approval the saying that we must not even call
God ineffable, since this is to make an assertion about Him,
and He is above every name that is named ; and again
1 Chand. Up. VIII. 4. 1. 2 ; cf. Brihad. Up. IV. 4. 22 ; Matt. Up.
VII. 7.
THE THEISM OF THE UPANISADS 61
'sciendo ignoratur et nesciendo cognoscitur '.* 'The double
aspect of God as the one in whom all is lost and yet the one
in whom all is found seems to be expressible only by asserting
the failure of all expression.' 2 If the Christian Mystics, who
never doubted their own Theism, shared with the risis of the
Vedanta these speculations and these hopes, setting their
whole heart's desire on a fellowship which at the same time
they placed beyond all properly conscious attainment, surely
we need not doubt that those older thinkers may have
cherished, and certainly in some cases did cherish, the same
theistic faith. It is these religious longings — mingling with
their speculations, and giving their writings, as they gave the
writings of Plotinus, a ' troubled intensity ' — in which, more
than in any positive results they reach, consist their value and
their fascination.
1 ' Our knowledge hides Him from us : by our ignorance He is known.'
Inge's Christian Mysticism, p. ill ; E. Caird's Evolution of Religion, I,
p. 141.
2 E. Caird, Evolution of Theol. in the Greek Philosophers, II, 307.
IV
THEISM WITHIN BUDDHISM
While the main course of religious speculation and re-
flection in India in the pre-Christian centuries lies through the
Upanisads and the perplexing manifold of their conjectures,
and while there can be little doubt that during that period, as
always, the popular faith in all the variety of its expressions,
sometimes sincerely devout, sometimes simply superstition,
continued to persist, the religious situation is far from being
completely presented so long as we neglect those great move-
ments of revolt of which Jainism and Buddhism are the most
important. It may seem strange that one should have to
follow the tracks of Indian Theism even across the borders of
systems such as these. Widely as they differ from each other,
they are both at one in denying a personal Supreme Spirit.
And yet a closer examination reveals the fact that genuine
elements of the theistic tradition were present especially in
Buddhism from its very inception, and that with the develop-
ment of the religion these discovered themselves more and
more fully. It is natural indeed that this should be the case ;
for those new religions did not, any more than other religions
elsewhere, spring full-grown from the brains of their founders,
nor are they out of organic relation to the speculation and the
devotion that precede them, as though they were, to use the
metaphor of the Sanskrit schoolmen ' flowers in the sky ' or
'horns on a hare'. Both Jainism and Buddhism are after all
phases of the long Hindu development, absorbing elements
from its complexity and responding to certain demands of the
spirit it expresses. In consequence we may expect to find
within them in greater or less degree the devout aspirations,
THEISM WITHIN BUDDHISM 63
the religious inwardness, the recognition of the claims of purity
of life which are among the characteristics of the Theism
which these new religions expressly repudiate.
It is not necessary that Jainism should long detain us.
Perhaps for the reason that within it the theistic elements
of which we are in search are few and feeble, its significance
in the Indian religious development is not great, and the extent
of its influence has not been wide. Two characteristics, how-
ever, which it shares with Buddhism may well have passed
into it from the popular worship of the period. These are its
opposition to the system of caste 1 that was even then laying
its grasp upon the community, and which the Brahmanic
intellectualism fostered and, along with this, the missionary
spirit which it inspired in its adherents. Its opposition to
caste may indeed have been little more than an opposition to
Brahman exclusiveness ; and certainly the caste spirit soon
reasserted its power within the religion ; but for a while the
logic of the heart prevailed. The way of salvation that
Mahavira preached may also have been a difficult one which
could be followed only by those who were willing to practise
the cruellest asceticism, yet the fact remains that, as dis-
tinguished from the aristocratic Brahman way of knowledge,
it was open to all to tread. The Jainas have long since
forsaken the message that Mahavira gave to them in this
matter at least, and perhaps this fact accounts to some extent
for the failure of the movement he initiated to grow to any-
thing greater in India than Jainism is to-day. Certainly in its
original democratic character and in its universalism, we have
two notes of Theism which the sect of Mahavira may have
learned from such worships as that of Vasudeva-Krisna, and
which at least testify to a certain religious vitality within its
borders. The closely allied sect of Ajlvikas are said 2 to have
1 The most advanced position taken up by early Buddhism is that
presented in the Assaldyana Suite, ' the drift of which is to show the
indifference of caste.'
2 Kern, Geschiedenis, I, p. 14.
64 THEISM WITHIN BUDDHISM
been worshippers of Narayana, and if so would seem to have
been recruited from the adherents of the popular Visnu
worship, even as the Buddhists were from the Jatilas who
were worshippers of fire.1 The religious earnestness that
expressed itself in these various reforming movements must
frequently have had its source among the devout adherents
of those theistic cults.2
There must indeed have been much religious earnestness
and much questioning at the time when these new ways of
deliverance were sought and found. In the sixth century
before Christ the Magadha or middle district of Northern
India seems to have been the scene of much religious activity.
The doctrine of transmigration had by this time laid its heavy
burden upon the hearts of the people, with the result that the
passionate quest of all awakened spirits, whether they were
mendicants or kings, was for immortality, for deliverance from
that bondage which was life itself. The orthodox — the
majority with little clear consciousness of an ultimate goal —
pursued it along the ' road of works ', the way of rite and of
oblation, established and guarded by the Brahmanic hierarchy.
The intellectuals, not able to remain content with this, sought
the same goal along the ' road of knowledge ', reaching it at
last by the intuition that perceives the spirit within to be
one with the spirit that is ultimate and alone. The devout
worshipped in loving faith the god of their devotion, believing
that his grace would save them in the midst of a world of
savisara. But the most earnest among all these, whatever
their doctrine or their worship, * their hair grown white and
having- seen their son's son' — would take the staff of the
mendicant and go forth as seekers, Sramanas, Yogis, Munis,
Yalis — labouring to reach by self-torture or by mental
exercises, the goal of deliverance so passionately desired.
1 Poussin, Opinions, pp. 223, 224.
2 For evidence that even Jainism, in spite of its denial of a Supreme
Spirit, could find room within itself for such devotion to a personal
Redeemer as is so often found in theistic faiths, see the Bhufiala Stotra,
translated by L. D. Barnett in his Heart of India, p. 45.
THEISM WITHIN BUDDHISM 65
Two young men, afterwards among the most distinguished of
the disciples of Sakyamuni, bound themselves by a promise
that the first to win the prize of immortality would tell his
friend. 'Everywhere were to be met those who claimed,
" I am a buddha ; I possess enlightenment, the true way of
salvation", blind leaders of the blind.'1
When Gautama Sakyamuni made this same claim, he did so
as one who had found a way in many respects indeed new and
untried, but into which at the same time elements are certain
to have entered of the older religious experience and the older
discipline. ' The Buddhist tradition ', says M. Senart,2 ' cer-
tainly moves in a Krisnaite atmosphere. . . . More or less
altered and distorted, a certain Visnuite inheritance survives,
carried down by Buddhist currents.' That this is the case
there is abundant evidence to prove. The marks, for example,
on the new-born child designating him as the future Buddha
and the title mahapurusa frequently given to him connect his
story unmistakably with pre-Buddhistic solar legends, and in
particular with Narayana, the deity of the Bhagavatas, as he
was of the Ajivikas, and himself identified with the sun-god
Visnu. MM. Senart and Poussin3 are of opinion that there
was an intimate relation between the new way of deliverance
and the old theistic cults, and affirm with confidence that
devout worshippers of Narayana, as well as other Visnuite
sectaries, had much to do in the making of the Buddhist
doctrine even from its inception. The evidence of this is not
merely in the numerous indications of the survival within
Buddhism of fragments of the solar worships to which the
converts to the new faith had formerly belonged. It is im-
possible to break altogether the entail of human thought.
The early history of Christianity, we know, tells of similar
legacies from paganism, of Greek heroes baptized into saints,
of Greek philosophy imposing its categories upon the teaching
1 Poussin's Opinions, p. 63.
2 Senart's Origines bonddhiqiies, p. 24.
3 Opinions, pp. 241-8.
66 THEISM WITHIN BUDDHISM
of the Church. So within Buddhism we not only find the old
gods transformed and the old legends re-written, but along
with these things a strong element of religious faith, which had
been before associated with such worships as that of Narayana
and of Visnu and which now appears attaching itself to the
figure of the new teacher and greatly modifying his doctrine.
It may seem strange at first that it should be possible for the
devotion which characterized these theistic cults to persist at
all in the atmosphere which Buddhism created, but a closer
acquaintance with the personality of Gautama himself, as the
records represent him, and with the spirit of simplicity and
earnestness which characterized his message reveals a deep
affinity beneath the superficial contrast. It is the case, as has
been acutely observed, that to Hindus in all periods of their
religious history the primary concern is with the problem of
deliverance, while the question of what God is or whether
there is a God at all is secondary. In this respect they differ
radically from at least Semitic and Christian peoples, whose
whole religious history is governed and controlled by their
thought of God and their dream of what He may be. To the
Indian, religion is always a method of emancipation, 'a way',
and it is of little consequence — if that method be found and
that way be followed — whether the gods be many or be one
or none. To the Indian theist, indeed, this is less a matter of
indifference, as his way of deliverance needs the grace and help
of a divine being, but what precisely the status of that Being
is, whether his place is unique and supreme, or whether he is
merely a mahdpurusa, a great human friend somehow able to
bestow the spiritual strength man needs, does not require to be
clearly apprehended. With all the metaphysical acuteness of
the Indian and his deeply planted speculative instincts it
remains the case that, from first to last, man is for him the
measure of all things. The object to which are bent all his
mental efforts is the discovery of a way for man's escape.
That this practical aim was a chief characteristic of
Buddhism from the beginning of its history no one can
THEISM WITHIN BUDDHISM 67
doubt. It is essentially a 'humanism' — not a metaphysic or
a theology, but a ( vehicle ' for man's salvation, a ' path ' for
man's feet to walk in. It was all the more emphatically this
because it presented itself to its founder as a ' middle way ',
avoiding not only the extreme of bloody ritual and cruel
asceticism, but also that of unfruitful metaphysics. Each of
these, no less than the new doctrine, was a mdrga, a way of
deliverance for the sufferer, but the jndnamarga, by main-
taining the redemptive efficacy of knowledge, had lost its way
among the mazes of over-subtle speculation. In contrast with
those who occupied themselves with such barren problems,
Buddha is a physician of the sick soul. Others, it seemed to
him, had busied themselves with all sorts of unessential ques-
tions as to the patient's circumstances, and meantime the poor
sufferer had died. ' I have not elucidated ', says the Blessed
One, ' that the world is eternal or that the world is not eternal,
that it is finite or that it is infinite. . . . And why have I not
elucidated this ? Because this profits not nor has to do with
the fundamentals of religion. . . . Misery have I elucidated —
the origin of misery, the cessation of misery have I eluci-
dated . . . because this does profit.' 1 This pragmatic
agnosticism which is so characteristic of Buddhism is not
something peculiar to this system alone. Even Yajnavalkya
in the midst of his most daring speculations seems at times to
have the sense that knowledge may be pursued with too great
an ardour. He warns GargI that if her questions search too
deep she may endanger her head.2 Buddha builds his whole
system upon such opportunism, avoiding especially any such
definition of Nirvana as would imply either survival on the
one hand or annihilation on the other, and refusing to his
disciples any metaphysical revelation. Confucius in China
appears to have followed a similar course and to have
declined ' to say the dead were conscious, lest rash sons should
waste their substance in sacrifice', 'or to assert that they
1 Majjhima-Nikaya in Warren's Buddhism in Translations, p. 122.
2 Brihad. Up.Ul.6.
F 2
68 THEISM WITHIN BUDDHISM
were unconscious, lest careless sons should not sacrifice
at all'.1
But such pragmatism or positivism in the Buddhist system
does not necessarily prove theistic influences to be at work
within its borders. That deduction can only be made if we
are justified in maintaining that Buddha limited his horizon
and rejected metaphysics in order to give more room to ethics.
This is certainly the case, and it is here that the fundamental
affinity of Buddhism with ethical Theism first betrays itself.
It calls its adherents back to the moral law and to its claim.
The distinctive character both of the Buddhist asceticism and
of the Buddhist doctrine of karma lies in the fact that in
contrast with the doctrines that preceded and that surrounded
them they have been largely moralized. The central fact of
Gautama's Enlightenment is his perception of the defect in this
respect of the old order of things. What justification by faith
was to Luther that the perception of bod hi was in Buddha's
own spiritual life and in the religious reformation that he
initiated. This bodhi, in contrast with the goal sought by
means of tapas and of sacrifice and of knowledge, is something
primarily ethical and to be reached by ' moral conduct, medi-
tation, and insight '. The asceticism that Buddha rejected,
appeared to him to bear along with it all that was useless,
' even as punting pole and steering pole may bring along
a water-snake '.2
There seems indeed to be little doubt that the whole body
of ideas and of practices that gather round the word tapas,
and also probably the theory of transmigration itself, had their
roots among the worships of dark and evil forces and among
the machinery for obtaining magical powers which were
probably largely, though by no means exclusively, aboriginal
in origin, and which throughout the whole history of Hinduism
have proved least tractable to the influence of an ethical
religion. The influence of this ancient tradition is still felt
1 Parker's Stndies"in Chinese Religion.
2 E.R.E. II, p.f7o2; Samyutta Nikdya, I. 103.
THEISM WITHIN BUDDHISM 69
within Buddhism, but while it claims for its saints the
miraculous prerogatives that were sought by Yoga practices,
it remains true that, theoretically, moral perfection is alone
important, for it alone leads to salvation. Its asceticism is
a discipline, a ' placing of the bit in the colt's mouth ', having
for its aim in their relation to the things of this world the
attainment of liberty — 'just as a bird with his wings, O King,
whithersoever he may fly, carries his wings with him as he
flies.' * With all the deductions that one has to make on
account of the contradictions and corruptions of its doctrine, it
remains true that the place that Buddha holds in it and which
is due, we may say, almost entirely to his moral authority,
vindicates our claim for it that it is a system essentially ethical.
In bringing back the thoughts of men from ritual to conduct,
from the brutalities of a self-torture that has no moral aim to
the regulation and the restraint of passion, from the doctrine
of a mechanical and fatal karma to one which could discern in
it some justice and could hope for deliverance, Buddha was
serving the interests and obeying the instincts of a true ethical
Theism. The old doctrine of transmigration must have
proved itself the implacable enemy of any such spiritual life
as Theism at least recognizes. By moralizing it and finding
a place within it for repentance [samvcgd) Buddha did some-
thing to reconcile this opposition.- Further, he secures
recognition for one of the chief aspects of the divine by
disclosing to his followers in the law of karma a justice
absolutely infallible and supreme. Amara refused to do
wrong not only because she could not keep wrong-doing
secret from the gods or from herself, but because ' even could
she have remained ignorant of it herself, yet she could not
have kept it secret from (the law of the result which follows
on) unrighteousness '.3 On this account alone, in the view of
1 Rhys Davids's Dialogues of the Buddha, p. 8 1 ; Digha, I. 71.
2 Cf. the repentance of the robber Ahimsaka or Angulimala in the
Ahgulimala Sutta of the Majjhima.
3 Milinda, p. 207 ; S. B. E. XXXV, p. 295 ; Rhys Davids in a note
says that these words ' look very like a personification of karma '.
70 THEISM WITHIN BUDDHISM
M. Poussin,1 it is a slander to charge Buddhism with being an
atheistic system. By recalling men to the virtue and the
power of goodness and setting before them in his own person
a human guide whose supremacy rested upon his moral
achievement, Buddha at once brings back to religion the
possibility of faith. Sraddkd, faith, which is identified with
bhakti^ is ' the root of the correct view ' 3 ; it purifies the soul,
and weakens or destroys evil passions ; it enables us to cross
in safety the river of life and to reach on the other bank
Nirvana. Buddha has made this faith possible to men because,
while they were hesitating in ignorance and fear on the brink
of the stream, he has come and, leading the way, enables
them by faith likewise to leap, ' as it were by a bound into
higher things '.4
Here we have surely, though struck with a certain hesita-
tion, those essential notes which in their harmony make up
almost the entire diapason of Theism. Buddhism calls its
followers back to purity of conduct ; it sets before them
a moral ideal which is at once awful as law and humanly near
and gracious as the Master, Buddha ; it is universal in its
appeal to man. These characteristics have but to be made
more articulate and to be knit together closer into one for this
atheistic doctrine to be recognized as the vindicator, in an age
when God was being lost, of a truly ethical religion. During
its long and complex history it has presented at one time and
another various and often strongly antagonistic phases, and
indeed the materials of these antagonisms are within it from
the very beginning. Its animism and superstition developed to
the hideous extravagances of Tantric demonology ; its monas-
ticism opened more and more a gulf between it and the people
and exchanged the old apostolic fervour for egoistic com-
1 Poussin's Opinions, p. 70. 2 Ibid., p. 135.
3 Ibid., p. 134; Sumahgalavilasini, I, p. 231 ; Majjhima, II, p. 176.
4 Milinda, p. 36 ; S. B. E. XXXV, p. 56. Rhys Davids has a note on
this passage that 'although the Buddhist faith and the Christian faith are
in things contradictory, the two conditions of heart are strikingly similar
both in origin and in consequence '.
THEISM WITHIN BUDDHISM 71
placency and futile dialectic. But alongside of these movements,
bearing it farther and farther away from Theism, there is a con-
tinuous process by which within the Mahayana development
the elements that we have claimed as theistic in their affinities
are emphasized and exaggerated. When he died, Buddha had
said that the Law would take his place, but soon he was
recognized as himself the Law personified. From the begin-
ning there was rendered to Buddha what can only be described
as worship, though it was not at first a bhakti, a devotion.
No place is found in the early ' Vehicle ' for grace or for
prayer in any sense that religion can recognize. But Buddha
places himself in a relation to his monks such as is bound to
develop into a full-orbed worship with a service of love, when
he says to them, ' Whosoever would wait upon me, he should
wait upon the sick.' l It is no surprise to find springing from
these roots a doctrine of grace, a view of Buddha closely
approaching to that of avataras or descents, and a conception
of the message of the Master as a gospel to be preached to
all men. whose salvation is something worthier for the saint
to win than any nirvana of egoistic contemplation.
The birth of Buddha, as M. Senart has pointed out,2 was in
reality not a birth but an avatara, and it was by his own will
that he chose to limit himself within the ordinary bounds of
human life.3 It is nothing surprising to find that by the
beginning of the Christian era the personality of Sakyamuni
had been completely elevated to deity. In the ' Lotus of the
True Law ' Buddha is not merely deva : he is devatideva.
Even in earlier times a docetic heresy had arisen alleging his
descent into the womb of his mother Maya to be merely an
illusion and his manifestation to the world to be that not of
his real self but of a phantom.4 At the same time, however,
we have evidence that the current of Theism flowing through
Buddhism is not strong enough to restrain the polytheistic
1 Mahdvagga, VIII. 26. 2 Legende, p. 270.
3 Poussin's Opinions, p. 237.
4 E. R. E. II, p. 7431 ; Saddharmapwidarika (S. B. E. XXI, p. 301 n.).
72 THEISM WITHIN BUDDHISM
instincts of the common Indian worshipper. As a consequence
Sakyamuni soon occupied no more than a position of primus
inter pares, while Amitabha sits on the right hand or on the
left of Buddha in paradise and Avalokita saves the faithful by
his irresistible grace, like a cat bearing her young to safety
in her mouth. Here the reappearance of the old sectarian
Theisms is manifest, for both of these great Bodhisattvas are
described as possessing solar characteristics, while the latter,
according to Poussin ' is the Visnu of the Buddhist ', exercising
his grace in a manner that is described in the very metaphor
adopted by one of the Vaisnavite schools of the later day.1
We have in fact to recognize that Buddhism is best under-
stood as a portion of the great amorphous whole of Hinduism,
if we use that ambiguous word to describe the entire course of
the long evolution of the Indian religious spirit. When it
passed beyond the borders of India, other influences entered
powerfully into its working— Tibetan, Chinese, Japanese — but
its history till well on into the Christian era is the history of
a phase of Hinduism that includes within it all the character-
istic moods of the Hindu soul. As a consequence it contains,
as we have seen, along with much else that seems difficult
enough to reconcile with it, an undeniable theistic element,
even distinct traces of the old mythology and superstitions in
which the popular Theism has its roots. That this theistic
strain persists within a professedly atheistic system, until it
loses itself — corrupted and degraded— in polytheism and super-
stition, is due to certain characteristics of Buddhism present
in it almost from the first. It was, to begin with, a religion
of the spirit, recalling the worshipper from the barrenness of
Gnosis and of ritual to piety and good conduct, and setting
before them in Sakyamuni a being supernatural and infinitely
gracious, whom the heart could trust and could adore. The
person of the Buddha at once gives the opportunity to faith,
while his teaching makes clear what Yajnavalkya had only
groped after— that self-denial is the beginning of wisdom. To
1 See p. no, infra.
THEISM WITHIN BUDDHISM 73
love oneself truly it is necessary that one love not oneself
at all.1 It may be, as M. Poussin suggests, that the Great
Vehicle ' in giving a large place to devotion, to bhakti, in the
discipline of salvation ', ' opened the breaches to Tantrism ',2
but that should not hide from us the fact that, however grossly
it was corrupted, in that circle of Buddhist ideas a genuine
theistic message must be recognized. Had Buddhism at the
same time been able to maintain the balance and spiritual
sanity which characterized it in its earlier stages, it might have
avoided so lamentable a conclusion. The title of ' teachers of
the mean', which the Buddhists claimed, was fitly borne by them
so long as they emphasized, in full agreement with the demands
of ethical religion, the need of the occupation of the whole
man with spiritual things. Not prajhd (intelligence) alone, as
the Upanisad teachers were apt to suggest, is to be exercised,
but it in due accord with other mental powers, with sraddhd
(faith), with vlrya (effort), with samadhi (contemplation) and
with smriti (mindfulness).3 As the exaggeration of the place
of knowledge in the Brahmanic speculation of the time was
peculiarly fatal to a religious life in any sense of the word that
Theism is aware of, so the recovery for religion of the whole
inner man in the harmonious exercise of his spiritual faculties
means at least the recovery for the worshippers of the possi-
bility of theistic religion. And further we cannot but recognize
a like tendency in the emphasis that Buddhism lays always
upon its message of deliverance, which penetrates with its
savour the whole system ' even as is the great sea by the
savour of salt '. The influence of this thought had much to
do, no doubt, with the development of the doctrine, until along
with a theory of descents or avatdras on the part of the
Bodhisattva in later Buddhism goes, as its motive, a sense
that the Bodhisattva's duty requires him even to renounce
Nirvana, that he may not only deliver himself but deliver
1 BodJiicaryavatara, VIII. 173; Poussin's Opinions, p. 299.
2 Poussin's Opinions, p. 412.
3 See Visuddhi Magga, Chap. IV.
74 THEISM WITHIN BUDDHISM
suffering men.1 We see them ' rushing into Avlchi (hell) like
swans into a lotus pool' in order to save creatures. They
take upon themselves ' the whole burden of the suffering of
all creatures ', ' in order to bear it in the regions of hell '. This
doctrine of compassion and of grace belongs to the very-
essence of the most advanced theistic religion, and it is in it
that we find the peculiar vitality of Mahayana which enabled
it to prevail over the colder Hlnayana. The Bodhisat belongs
to a far higher moral and spiritual region of ideas than the
self-complacent Arahat, who is the ideal saint of the more
orthodox system. The same ardent spirit is seen in the
missionary zeal of the Mahayana saints, in Purna the Apostle
to the Sronaparantakas— a spirit far enough removed from
the apathy of the canonical literature. In all these respects
Buddhism proves itself truly heir to the theistic inheritance
in Indian religion, though one must recognize that in its later
phases, turned prodigal, it squanders its precious heritage in
the wildest and most fantastic excesses.
1 Asvaghosa's Awakening of Faith teaches that Buddha has three
bodies—' the' eternal substance of the Truth revealed by him', which is
his true body, as well as ' the Buddha in enjoyment {sambhoga)^, and
' the Buddha incarnate or in kenosis (nir/nana), as, for example, bakya-
muni '. ' In order to attain the ideal of enlightenment it is necessary for
us to believe in any of these three aspects of Buddha's personality, and
to be saved by his grace (parigraha, lit. "grasping").' Anesaki in
E.R.E. II, p. 1601.
V
THE THEISM OF THE BHAGAVADGITA
In all the course of our investigation hitherto we have had
to be content to piece together from one religious setting and
another fragments of Theism, — approximations to its concep-
tions of God, often found in strangely incongruous relations.
We have, to change the metaphor, been forcing our way
through an obscure jungle of mythology and superstition and
speculation, cheered now and again by glimpses of the sky
above us and by shafts of sunlight breaking in upon the
gloom. With the Bhagavadglta we pass into a new region
and into a clearer atmosphere. From the time when the great
figure of Varuna was lost in the twilight of the Vedic gods no
deity appears above the Indian horizon so worthy of worship,
so morally exalted, as the ' Blessed One ' of whom this song is
sung. In it we have, perhaps, the nearest approach that it
was possible for India unaided to make to ethical monotheism.
We may not be able to maintain that we have here the loftiest
of all the expressions of the Indian spirit. Some of the
splendid speculations of the Upanisads transcend it in one
direction ; the unworldly counsels of the Buddha in another.
But in its intellectual seriousness, its ethical nobility, and its
religious fervour, the Bhagavadglta presents to us a combina-
tion that is unique in Indian religion, and that explains the
remarkable influence the poem still exercises over many types
of the Indian mind. It is one of the three authoritative
scriptures upon which each of the Vedantic systems of
philosophy — Advaita, Visistadvaita, Dvaita, and Suddhad-
vaita — claims to be based. That it is capable of being
interpreted by each one of these diverse schools in a sense in
76 THEISM OF THE BHAGAVADGITA
agreement with its own conceptions is nothing unusual in an
Indian scripture. What is more remarkable as well as more
significant for our present study is that it has at the same
time, more than any other book, supplied nourishment for
devout souls in India through the long period since first it
was conceived until to-day. Not only do the philosophers
base their systems upon it, but the poets expound it in the
people's language, and even the Saivites of the South draw
much of their inspiration from this Vaisnavite scripture.
Much controversy has gathered about the poem among
modern scholars, even as among its commentators and inter-
preters at an earlier period. The question of its date, the
question whether it has come to us in the form in which it
was first written, or whether an original poem was later
worked over and adapted to suit the views of another school
of thought — these are questions upon which the students of
this work are sharply divided. As to its date, it is sufficient
for our purpose to recognize what will scarcely be denied
from any authoritative quarter, that the Glta is post-Bud-
dhistic, and that at least a considerable part of it is pre-
Christian. It has been maintained that traces of the influence
of the Christian scriptures may be detected in the poem, but
this is extremely problematical, and in any case would not
conflict with the view that in its main outlines it was composed
perhaps two centuries before the Christian era. On the
further question of the process that has gone to the making
of the book in its present form opinion is sharply divided.
Whether it is a Visnuite remodelling of a Pantheistic poem
(Holtzmann), or a Krisnaite version of an older Visnuite poem,
which in turn was ' a late Upanisad ' (Hopkins), or a text-book
of the Bhagavatas revised in a Vedantic sense by the Brah-
mans (Garbe), or a late product of the degeneration of the
monistic thought of the Upanisads representing the period of
transition from Theism to realistic atheism (Deussen), can
hardly, in the presence of such a conflict of opinions, be
definitely determined. Leaving aside, however, the question
THEISM OF THE BHAGAVADGlTA 77
as to the process by which the Glta reached its present form,
there are certain facts in regard to it as now in our hands
which may be affirmed with some confidence.
No doubt all or most of the Upanisads have undergone
more or less revision and interpolation, and combine ideas
that are not always easy to reconcile with one another. To
maintain that the Bhagavadglta is rightly to be described, as
its commentators describe it, as an Upanisad, is not to deny
that it, too, though it has more unity than most of its kind,
may contain interpolations emphasizing the view of one
school or another, or that it aims at comprehensiveness, and
that its purpose consciously or unconsciously was irenical.
In these respects it is not unique among the Upanisads. The
Svetasvatara, for example, is, as Barth has pointed out, ' a
sort of Sivaite Bhagavadglta! x Its policy of comprehension
also is entirely in agreement with the whole Hindu tradition.
We know, for example, how in later phases of Mahayana
Buddhism there are to be found those who occupy a middle
place between the simple adherents of the faith of devotion
and the pure rationalists. ' Like the former they attach great
importance to worship (bhakti) and to grace ; like the latter
they maintain the necessity of acquiring the divine knowledge
and of practising meditation.' 2 In the Glta we find that in
similar fashion two streams have united. The more reflective
and metaphysical religion of the older Upanisads has taken
into itself the warmer and more living personal devotion that
was widely prevalent among all classes of the people. That
this was done with a deliberate, theological intent, the result
of a pact between Brahmans and non-Brahmans as against
the common Buddhist enemy, one need not suppose. Such
artifices of the theologian or the ecclesiastic are not commonly
effective in controlling the tides of religious life, nor are
they likely to have produced a work so vital and so vitaliz-
ing as the Bhagavadglta has shown itself to be. Rather we
may believe that among those who breathed the speculative
1 R. /., p. 207 n. 2 Poussin's Opinions, p. 289.
78 THEISM OF THE BHAGAVADGITA
atmosphere of the Upanisads were not a few who all the time
rendered to one god or another the worship of their own
private hearts. It was almost inevitable that the time would
come when both the phases of their thought and life would
be brought into relation, and Brakman,on whom ' the universe
is woven like pearls upon a thread',1 would be identified with
that One near to men's need and to men's help who ' is born
from age to age, to protect the good, to destroy the evil-doers,
and to establish the Law \2 The fusion of the two conceptions
may sometimes be incomplete, but it is the fact of their union
in this poem, of its combination of a theory of the universe,
which was the product of the best thought of India with the
sentiment of devotion to a personal God and Saviour, that
gives the Gltd the unique place it so long has held in the
religious life of India.
It was, perhaps, almost inevitable that if there was a strain
of Theism in the Upanisads it should presently coalesce with
the most spiritual elements in the popular theistic faith. It was
natural enough at the same time that this union should not
be quite perfectly accomplished, and that a certain incongruity
between philosophy and faith, between the anaemic Brahman
and a Krisna who had but lately emerged from violent deeds
and doubtful company, should discover itself. While it may
very well be that the poem has been revised in the interests
of one school or another, there is, after all, little in its incon-
sistency that requires for its explanation more than the coming
together in the religion of the time of two theistic streams,
the one reflective, the other predominatingly emotional, but
both having their sources among the same hopes and longings
of the heart. The inconsistencies and incongruities that seem
plain to us wrere not so obvious to the more concrete reflection
of that earlier age. We must remember that for all the
subtlety of the thought of the Upanisads a haze hangs over
it all. They partake of that indefiniteness which is inevitable
in early thinking, seeing that it has not as yet clearly defined
1 Bhag. VII. 7. 2 Ibid. IV. 8.
THEISM OF THE BHAGAVADGITA 79
its own terms, nor is as yet fully aware of the significance of
its own problems. And further, while the Gita is unquestion-
ably first and last a theistic poem, its Theism, like all the
Theism of India throughout its history, looms forth from
a mist of Pantheism, with many a pantheistic doctrine still
clinging to its skirts. The consequence is a certain obscurity
in its message, an obscurity which, perhaps, has assisted its
popularity among a people always more attracted by what
presents opportunities for the exercise of subtlety in interpre-
tation than by utterances that give no uncertain sound and
that by their authority constrain the conscience.
It would be a mistake to attempt to present in a completely
systematic form the teaching of this poem. It represents
a stage midway between the ' guesses at truth ' of the earlier
Upanisads and the fully articulated system of Sahkara and
the other scholastics. In it we perceive the confluence of
various streams of philosophic tendency, not yet definitely
determined as irreconcilable. The Gltd can scarcely be
described as a deliberate attempt to bring about a synthesis
of these doctrines for the reason that they have not yet come
to clear self-consciousness and their antagonism is not yet
declared. But at the same time the fact that those various
views, however fluid they as yet are, have been brought
together into one in this poem, gives its doctrine with all its
vagueness a more complete and systematic character than is
possessed by any of the Upanisads. The central theological
conception of the poem is one which, save for the use of such
names for the Supreme Being or the Absolute as Visnu or
Vasudeva might be found in the Kathaka or the Svetasvatara
Upanisad. He is the all — at once the one ' seated at the
heart of everything',1 ' ruling and controlling from within ' as
well as, on a lower plane, the actual substance of the universe.
Thus, in one aspect, God is presented as the Brahman of the
older speculation, the antaryamin, the immanent Being by
whose life all things live and move. In the other its teaching
1 XV. 15.
80 THEISM OF THE BHAGAVADGITA
has affinities with the subsequently developed Sankhya system,
which, however, in this earlier, nebulous form is by no means
atheistic. Perhaps the word Sankhya is used as yet only in
the sense of ' philosophy of religion '} It unfortunately has
proved not infrequently to be the case in the history of
thought, that philosophy has attempted to dispense with God,
and it is not surprising to find the Sankhya, as it develops,
adopting this attitude. No hint, however, of this later
development is to be found in the Gita. On the relation of
matter and spirit the poem seems indeed at times to waver
between competing views, as yet scarcely formulated ; but
always its religious pre-supposition, however it may be philo-
sophically interpreted, is that spirit is supreme. The universe
is strung together upon God, as pearls upon a thread.2 But
while so far the message of the Gita does not materially differ
from what we may claim to be the prevailing view of the
relation of God to the universe that the Upanisads teach, it
advances beyond them in a direction that is peculiarly signifi-
cant. The influence upon the poem of the popular theistic
faith is not seen merely in the appropriation of the name of
Vasudeva. It betrays itself, especially in the development of
the Upanisad doctrine, so as to bring the immanent God
upon whom the universe depends into personal relation with
men, and so as to emphasize his grace on the one side and
men's need of faith that they may come to him on the
other.
No doubt the religious power of the Bhagavadgita and its
continuous influence over men's hearts in India to this day is
to be explained mainly by the fact that, while it rests upon
the Upanisads and accepts their teaching of a God who is the
life and the indwelling glory of the universe, at the same time
it passes beyond that cold conclusion to reveal him at the
same time as a Saviour, near to men's need, and responding in
his grace to the cry of their faith. Krisna, the charioteer of
Arjuna, and the spokesman of the poem, is the remote One, so
1 Hopkins, R. I., p. 391. 2 VII. 7.
THEISM OF THE BHAGAVADGlTA 8i
' very hard to find ' but now come near and manifesting himself.
At the call of human need he ' is born from age to age \a To
those who are ever devout and worship him with love he gives
the attainment of the knowledge by which they come to him.2
He serves men according as they approach him ; 3 and the
best of all ways by which he is approached is that of love and
' undivided devotion ' {bhakti).^ In passages such as these the
Glta reaches its highest religious expression and discovers the
source of its great power over the Indian heart. It cannot
indeed be maintained that it is always consistent in this view
of the supremacy of faith and devotion. Sometimes the
intellectual tradition reasserts itself, and to the 'man of know-
ledge ' is given the highest place.5 But on the whole this is
not the case. The poem is throughout suffused with a glow
of emotion which, united with the ancient and profound con-
ception of the divine immanence in all things, has enabled it
to appeal with power during so many centuries at once to
the heart and to the reason of India.
In the B/iagavadgitd, as in every attempt in India to reach
a genuinely theistic system, the problem inevitably arises of
the reconciliation of a doctrine of a personal God with what
seems to have come to be recognized in India as the axiom of
karma. We have seen already that under Buddhist influences
this system was to some extent moralized and its mechanical
inexorableness modified. Similar influences are at work in
the Glta. The influence of the thought of the last hour in
determining destiny is recognized even as it is in Buddhism.6
The doctrines of grace and of reprobation, the exercise by the
Supreme Lord of his maya in order to save men 7 or to
bewilder and destroy them,8 are really means by which the
antinomy of the free moral activity of God and the fatal power
of the 'deed' is sought to be reconciled. Along with the
1 IV. 8. 2 X. 10. 3 IV. ii.
4 VIII. 22; VII. 17. 5 VII. 16 fif.
6 Gitd, VIII. 5 ; cf. Majjhima, I, p. 26; Poussin's Opinions, p. 69.
7 IV. 6. 8 VII. 15,25.
G
82 THEISM OF THE BHAGAVADGITA
gracious condescension of God, electing to salvation and
coming Himself to save, goes naturally the response of human
faith and love. Hopkins believes the doctrine of grace on the
part of God to be older than that of bJiakti issuing from the
heart of the worshipper.1 But while it may well be that he is
right in tracing the former back to Vedic times, the comple-
mentary conception of man as resting in love and trust upon
a God who manifests His grace may also be, and we can
hardly believe not to have been, quite as old. It is indeed the
strange and stubborn doctrine of transmigration in conjunction
with that of the power of karma that continually acts through-
out all the religious history of India as an influence quenching
the natural human instinct that trusts in God's goodness and
expects His grace.
We find in another place in the Mahabliarata, as well as in
the Gltd episode, this doctrine of special grace discussed, and
there it appears in a setting which shows how the karma
doctrine was provoking serious conflicts of opinion. In this
passage, which is believed to belong to an old stratum of
the Epic, the justice of divine election and reprobation is
challenged. In the spirit of the book of Job, God is accused
and the question raised of His relation, equally with men, to
the law of karma. The answer that is suggested there is the
same as that which is set forth with much elaboration in the
Bhagavadgltd. The freedom of God in relation to the bondage
of the ' deed ' is secured by the great ethical conception that
work done with no desire for reward brings no entanglement.
Works do not fetter the soul, if they have no selfish aim ; nor
do God's works therefore fetter Him. ' There is no virtue ',
as is said in connexion with the similar discussion elsewhere
in the Epic to which we have just referred, ' in trying to milk
virtue.' 2 In this respect also there is a close affinity between
Buddhism and the teaching of the Gltd. Self-emptying is,
no doubt, only half-way towards love, but it is at least half-
way, and the ardent spirit of the Vaisnavite worship was able
1 Hopkins, R. I., p. 429. 2 Ibid., p. 386.
THEISM OF THE BHAGAVADGITA 83
sometimes at least to read a positive content into the negation
and so to turn philosophy into a real religion and a life of
asceticism into what might be a life of noble service. In this
way, ' Brahman who is the deed of sacrifice ' l and who is there-
fore at least above the bondage of the world of samsara, is
transformed to the more attractive semblance of Krisna, ' the
sacrifice, . . . the refuge, the friend ' 2 who gives himself to men
for their salvation.
We have said that in the Gita is to be found one of the very
loftiest utterances of the Hindu religious spirit. What above
all other things characterizes Hinduism in its most adequate
expressions throughout the whole course of its long history is
its exaltation of the spirit and its contempt for the things of
sense. It is not the old, cast-off clothes that matter, but ' the
unborn, everlasting, unchangeable, and primaeval, that is not
killed when the body is killed'.3 That note rings clear and
resonant through the poem as through the Upanisads that
precede it. But the inspiring vision of triumphant Spirit in
most cases loses all its power by reason of the dark back-
ground of karma and samsara or transmigration against which
to Indian thought it always stands. In such a setting its
splendour pales and fades. It seems as if the intractable
materialism of the transmigration theory as well as of the
karma doctrine in its cruder forms was always frustrating of
its proper fruitfulness the deep spiritual intuitions of the
Hindu. It is possible for him, however, to burst even those
bonds asunder and to give expression with some freedom and
adequacy — as in the Gita and also in some of the utterances
of later Buddhism — to his religious instincts, when to the
thought of the divine Soul of all things, beside whom nothing
else is at all — or in the case of Buddhism, to the thought of
the divine Law — he unites that of the grace of a transcendent
Lord who saves, and that at the same time of the faith of
man's unconquerable heart that lifts him up to God. As in
this poem, so also in the Awakening of Faith in the MaJiayana,
1 IV. 24. 2 IX. 16, 18. 3 II. 20.
G 2
84 THEISM OF THE BHAGAVADGITA
a high level of practical religion is reached, just because those
doctrines of grace and faith modify the karma doctrine and
render it tractable and tolerable. Without them the old
Buddhism and the old Vedanta scheme of deliverance were
only beautiful dreams that could visit none but monks in their
monastery or ascetics in the desert. In this Mahayana scrip-
ture we find Asvaghosa engaged in many of the same tasks
as occupy the author of the Bhagavadglta. He endeavours
to give a philosophic basis to the popular polytheisms that
threatened to overwhelm the older Buddhism and yet at the
same time to conserve the spirit of the ancient teaching. To
him as to the Hindu thinker a way must needs be found by
which the law of karma and the law of faith can be related
and reconciled. By means of ' reverential feelings towards
the Triple Treasure (iriratna) ', ' through the protection of the
majestic power of the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, one's
karma hindrances {karmavarana) will get purified and one's
root of merit firmly established '.* ' Gradually entering the
samadhi of suchness, he will finally vanquish all prejudices
(klesa or dsrava), be strengthened in faith (sraddka), and
immediately attain to the state of never-returning (avaivarti-
katva).' 2 There is not only faith here but grace, the grace
that protects and helps and the grace also that descends. For
the Bodhisattva ' descends from the palace in the Tusita
heaven (to this world) and enters into the human womb \3
Bhutatathata, which is translated 'suchness' by Suzuki, is the
highest reality, so that ' the samadhi of suchness ' in the
passage quoted above is the attainment of such a reality.
The practical aspect of this doctrine corresponds to the Gita
doctrine of non-attachment to action.4 So closely alike are
those two scriptures, the one arising in a Hindu and the other
in a Buddhist environment, in their conception of the way of
deliverance from the bonds that both religions believed to
bind men in so grievous a bondage. The task of deliverance
1 Suzuki, p. 118. 2 Ibid., p. 135.
3 Ibid., pp. ii9f. 4 Ibid., p. 94 note.
THEISM OF THE BHAGAVADGITA 85
needed a personal saviour ; it needed faith in one who was
an embodiment of infinite love (karund) and infinite wisdom
(jndna). ' I lift them speedily ', says Krisna of the Gitd,
expressing the same thought. ' from the ocean of deadly
samsdra, as their mind is set on me.' l He whose mind is set
on Krisna comes to him. He who 'with concentration of
thought ' thinks of Amitabha Buddha passes to a region where
he always ' sees Buddha \2
These are among the basal ideas of Theism, and it is no
surprise to find them expressed in two scriptures that have
been described as the New Testaments of Hinduism and of
Buddhism.3 That fact goes far to explain the remarkable
influence that those two works have exercised over the hearts
of men, the one in India, and the other, now that Buddhism
is an outcast from the country of its birth, in the lands of its
adoption in the further east. It was no chance coincidence
that, about the time when the foundations of Christian Theism
were being laid by life and word in Galilee and in Judea, the
very thoughts there in Christ incarnated were beginning in
imperfect fashion to be conceived within the minds, and to
lay their grasp upon the hearts, of Hindu and of Buddhist
seers.
1 Bhagavadgita, XII. 7.
2 The word may here be either singular or plural.
3 Compare also what Poussin says of other parallelisms : — ' The rela-
tion between Brahman and transfigured Krisna is not unlike the relation
between dharmakaya and sambhoga. And again the third body of
Buddha . . . has something in common with the human and " unnatural "
form of Krisna.' /. R. A. S., 1906, p. 961.
VI
THEISM DURING THE MAHABHARATA PERIOD
With the appearance of the Bhagavadgita, Indian Theism
has advanced to a new level of significance, and occupies
a position of authority not hitherto attained. For while still,
as a genuine Theism must, keeping its hold upon the people's
hearts and demanding their devotion, it at the same time
attempts to vindicate itself as a speculative system ; it endea-
vours to relate the worship of the simple to the wisdom of the
philosopher. The popular devotion to Bhagavat, for long, in
all probability, a pious tradition among earnest souls, now
obtained a new sanction and a new importance. The genius
of the unknown author of this poem, or perhaps we should
rather say, the religious and philosophic power present in the
syncretistic movement of which this poem is the expression,
lifts it out of the category, to which it properly belongs, of
sectarian literature. In the Mahabharata, into which it has
been inserted as an episode, it really forms one of many docu-
ments exalting Visnu-Krisna and his worship that are placed
in this great encyclopaedia of early Hinduism, side by side
with similar documents exalting Siva and his cult. We have
now definitely passed beyond the anonymous speculations
and intuitions of the Upanisads to the rivalries of the Hindu
sects. For one fortunate moment reflection and the spirit of
devotion unite in the Gita in harmonious union. The coldness
of the Upanisads is warmed by the glow of a pious ardour,
while the exuberance of popular fancy is restrained from
mythological excesses. At times, indeed, in the poem this
equilibrium is lost, and we have now the pedantry of the
scholastic, and again, fantastic nightmares of the popular
THEISM DURING MAHABHARATA PERIOD 87
imagination. In sectarianism, outside of this exceptional
expression of it, there is little to restrain the exuberance of
the mythopoeic faculty. It is only in the case of exceptional
individuals like the Buddha and the unknown author of the
Glta that spiritual fervour will be combined with imaginative
austerity, and the native hue of devotion not sicklied over by
the pale cast of thought. For the most part, as we see them
in the 'jungle of the Mahabharata ', the sectarian religions are
all overgrown with the rank vegetation of popular mythology
among which the simplicities of Theism are hard indeed to
trace.
How far the one or the other of the two great rival deities
and the one or the other of the powerful sects that gather round
them predominated during the period of the Mahabharata, or
may be said to predominate in the poem itself, can hardly be
definitely decided. The Epic, in the opinion of Hopkins,
who has given so much study to this treasure-house of Indian
religious lore, stretches its unwieldy bulk over a period of at
least eight centuries, extending perhaps from the fifth century
before Christ to the fifth century after Christ. Throughout
the whole of that period these rival sects no doubt exercised
an influence that was greater over some classes than over
others, and in some areas than in others. Anything more
definite than that as regards their relations and their relative
importance can scarcely be conjectured with any certainty.
There is, indeed, a third god, Brahma, who has certain
claims to that pre-eminence which is more actively demanded
on behalf of the other two deities who, along with him, were
at a later period grouped into a trinity. But his adherents
were not, it would appear, so numerous or so aggressive on
his behalf as were those of Visnu and of Siva. No doubt, as
the fully personalized Brahman of the Upanisad philosophy,
he had a prestige among a certain class that the others did
not have. But that was of little value compared with the
popular ardour which characterized the worship of the other
gods. The high place once accorded to Brahma was little
88 THEISM DURING THE
more by that time than a tradition — a survival. Later, when
the attempt is made to adjust their quarrels for supremacy by
means of a hierarchy of gods, he has his place assigned to
him as one of the first three, but in reality he never disputes
for a moment the first place with his two great rivals, nor
does he seem to have done so at this earlier period. We may
go so far as to say that Indian religion was at this time divided
into two camps, each with its own religious characteristics,
and each claiming for its favourite deity the first or even the
sole place in the godhead.
The impartiality with which the Epic divides its favours
between the two popular deities, applying to each alternately
identical epithets of supremacy, is only explicable on the
supposition that each sect was able to secure the insertion
of documents corresponding to those of its rival. Evidently
they possessed almost equal authority and prestige, so that
equality of recognition could be accorded them. Both Visnu
and Siva are devadeva, par excellence, while only once or
twice is such a title given to any other god ; both are deva-
dhideva. That in the course of the development of the
religious consciousness, such a struggle for the first place
between rival modes of representing and approaching God
should take place in India as in other countries, was inevitable
perhaps, but there are certain characteristics of the thought
of India that differentiate the process, as we discover it there,
from what is to be found elsewhere. It was only later, for
example, as has been already indicated, that the attempt,
which appears in a fully developed form among the Greeks
and Romans with their strong sense of order and government,
was made to adjust the claims of rival deities by federating
them. The instinct of the Indian spirit with its decided
pantheistic bias is rather to amalgamate and blend its gods —
to encourage one as the ' All-god ' to swallow the others.
Neither Visnu, Siva, nor Brahma has a personality so clearly
outlined, or lineaments so distinct that it is impossible for
one to dissolve into the other. At one time it is said, ' I am
MAHABHARATA PERIOD 89
Visnu, I am Brahma, I am Siva ' ; l and, again, a hymn is
addressed ' to Siva having the form of Visnu, to Visnu having
the form of Siva'.2 All the gods are minor manifestations of
one or other in turn. We find here in active operation the
struggle which in one fashion or another is present throughout
the whole of the Indian religious development, and differen-
tiates it from every other similar development of which we
have any record. It is a struggle between what we may call
the natural Theism of the devout spirit on the one hand, with
its demand for a personalized worship, and certain physical or
metaphysical presuppositions on the other, which, whether
we suppose them to be indelible characteristics of Indian
mentality, or doctrines which have come to be accepted there
as axioms, seem always to control the Indian point of view.
The belief in transmigration in combination with an incurable
instinct to seek a monistic solution of the universe, contends
with the demand of the devout heart for a God with whom it
can have fellowship. The result almost always is either that
this devout desire is quenched in hopelessness by the thought
of the endless revolutions of the inevitable wheel of birth, or
that, alternatively, the object of worship being submerged in
the ocean of the All, the fervour of personal affection becomes
impossible. This conflict can be discerned in process among
the doubtful shadows of the Mahabharata jungle.
The struggle throughout the Epic, as throughout the whole
of Indian religious history, inclines now to one side and now
to another, but on the whole those forces are strongest that
are arrayed in opposition to that spirit of devotion which seeks
a personal object for its worship. This is shown by the
importance of Yoga practices in the Epic, and by the recourse
so often had to mantras, and what is no better than magic.
The paralysing effect upon religion of the karma doctrine is
seen in these relapses into superstition and in the indications
of the appearance of a spirit of scepticism. It is no surprise
to find the conclusion — ' Time and fate and what will be — this
1 Mbh. III. 189. 5 f. ■ Mbju in. 39. 76.
9o THEISM DURING THE
is the only Lord.' x In these respects the Mahabharata is an
accurate reflection, no doubt, of Hinduism as it existed in all
its variety, and with all its contradictions throughout, perhaps,
five hundred years. Some of its best characteristics, as well
as some of its worst, are to be found in the types of worship
that connect themselves with the names of Visnu and of Siva.
As between those two great sects there is a difference which
gives to the one rather than to the other a bias towards
Theism. The Visnuite cult, by the association of its god
with Krisna as Visnu's incarnation, is able to emphasize the
personal characteristics of the object of its worship, and so to
resist more successfully the prevailing Pantheism. ' It is with
the philosopher's Visnu ', says Hopkins, ' that Krisna is identi-
fied.' Philosophy had done much, no doubt, for the old
Vedic sun-god, purifying and dignifying his figure, setting it
far apart from his bloody counterpart, Siva, so manifestly
begotten of demonic fears. Philosophy had done much for
Visnu, and it was all the easier for that reason for the worship
of the devout to attach itself to him, all the more so as attri-
butes of help and condescension had been his from the earliest
times. But his figure needed to be humanized and brought
near to men, and that was accomplished when the popular
Krisna was linked up with him as his avatdra, his ' descent ' or
incarnation. Throughout the Mahabharata we recognize that
the strength and energy of the Vaisnavite sect is due to the
name and fame of Krisna, while his prestige and his authority
are furnished by the ancient Vedic deity. The combination
is a peculiarly strong one, and has secured for this sect a
powerful and continuous theistic tradition throughout the
whole of the subsequent course of the Hindu development.
It is true that the relation of Krisna and Visnu is not yet
in the Epic clearly defined. The avatdra idea, in one crude
form or another, was an old one, but its application to the
purpose of reconciling the discordant claims of rival gods was
1 AIM. III. 273. 6 ; Hopkins, R. I., p. 386. M. N. Dutt (III. 272. 6)
interprets the passage differently.
MAHABHARATA PERIOD 91
new. The Indian mind has always found it easy to identify
the remoter gods with one another. Varuna, Soma, Indra,
Aryaman — no one had any very vital interest in those old
deities as independent personalities. It was no difficult
matter to dissolve them into one another. But this was not
the case with the gods of the popular worship. Krisna and
Rama — and even Siva, as the people knew and worshipped
him, and before the philosophers had begun to take him in
hand — were too definite in their characteristics, and too near
to the unrefiective multitude to be so manipulated. Simple
devotion could be content to worship Krisna as supreme — or
it might be Siva — and ignore the rest. Love — or, more likely,
in the case of the latter, fear — could behold its object so close
at hand and so exalted that all others become remote and
shadowy. But, presently, when the mood of spiritual exalta-
tion had passed, the sky filled again with a crowd of competing
deities. A simple plan in such a difficulty, and one that
always has commended itself to many, was to glorify one's
own god and to decry his rivals — to reduce them in more or
less express terms to the rank of demi-gods or even demons.
So when Krisna is exalted, it is said of him that ' Brahma was
... ,
born from his lotus-navel, and Siva sprang from his angry
forehead '} It may even be that some super-sectarian among
them relegates the whole company of the common gods,
Visnu himself along with the rest, to the second rank in the
presence of an anonymous Supreme before whom the gods
themselves bow down. 'The sages say to Visnu, " All men
worship thee; to whom dost thou offer worship?" And he
says, " To the Eternal Spirit ".' 2 Or, again, the peculiar
characteristics of the Indian mind assert themselves in the
resolute endeavour to digest even these stubborn personalities,
and dissolve them into one another, and to identify Krisna
himself with his terrible rival.3 Or, yet again, the universe is
1 Mbh. III. 12. 37 f. ; Hopkins, R. /., p. 411.
2 Mbh. XII. 335. 26 ff. ; Hopkins, R. I., p. 413.
3 Mbh. III. 12. 21, 43.
92 THEISM DURING THE
divided into spheres of influence, and Brahma the creator,
Krisna the protector, and Siva the destroyer ' are the three
appearances or conditions (avastha) of the Father-god \x But
no method of linking up the gods is so satisfying at once to
the philosopher and to the devout worshipper as is that
of avatdras, by means of which the rivalries of the popular
Theisms were reconciled, while in the persons of Krisna and
Rama and the others that followed them, 'Visnuism found its
true divinities \2 We have not yet reached the fully reflective
period of Indian religion. The philosophers of the Upanisad
age were not system builders. They are to Sankara and
Ramanuja as Xenophanes and Anaxagoras are to Aristotle
and Plotinus. But, as in the Upanisads, so in the Mahabkarata
and in the Puranas, materials for the systems to come, tentative
theologizings are to be found, and the fruitful idea embodied
in the theory of avatdras was never lost sight of. The idea
of ' descents ', bringing a remote God near to man, is in full
agreement with those mystical conceptions of the divine that
had become associated with the name of Visnu. At the same
time, the abstractions of the older mysticism were, by the help
of the human figures of Krisna and the rest, rendered concrete
and vivid and powerful, so as to be able to attract the heart
of the common man, whether devout, or superstitious, or
sensual, or all three at once. In the Mahabkarata period the
philosophical and theological possibilities of the avatdra idea
have not yet become explicit. It has not yet passed decisively
beyond the stage of mythology. But at last a means has
been found by the help of which a new stream of faith and
passion, fed from sources where the sensual and the spiritual
mingle undistinguished, could be poured into the old river-
bed, now wellnigh dry, of philosophic Visnuism.
A natural accompaniment of the doctrine of avataras,
bringing as it does a remote god near to men in gracious
condescension, is the belief, not altogether new, but by this
1 Hopkins, R. I., p. 412 ; Mbh. III. 271 (272). 47.
2 Barth, R. /., p. 172.
MAHABHARATA PERIOD 93
doctrine made more credible and real, of the grace of God in
man's salvation. The theistic Upanisads had spoken, as we have
seen, of the Self as manifesting itself of its own (or his own)
good pleasure. ' He whom the Self chooses, that one obtains
it.' 1 The same thought is vitally related to the view of Krisna
in his relations with men that finds its expression in the
Bhagavadgita? while the idea is at least latent in much that
is included within the Buddhist system. The doctrine in one
form or another of the grace that manifests itself, that con-
descends to human weakness, that has pity and saves, is, no
doubt, an ancient one, as old as the immemorial convictions
that God is good and that man is weak and ignorant and
sinful. In the Mahabharata the way of salvation is especially
to be attained by means of the divine grace, but that is not, as
in the Upanisads, the grace of the anonymous Self, but the
grace of Krisna who is human and near. ' That man to whom
he gives his grace (prasdda) can behold him.' 3 Not the
knowledge of the atheist or of the pantheist but the personal
help of a personal saviour is the means of man's deliverance.
Throughout the whole of the Mahabharata, and, no doubt,
throughout the whole period across which it stretches, one
finds an almost inextricable confusion of speculations and
counter-speculations, sectarian dogmas, mythology and
mystic interpretations of mythology. The power of thought
and the activity of a grossly superstitious fancy, combined
with the pantheistic instinct for unity, are continuously at
work with results that baffle and bewilder. We have seen
how, in the case of the Bhagavadglta, Theism and Pantheism
alternate in their expression in the poem so as to make it
a matter of considerable difficulty to determine what doctrine
is really intended to be taught. So throughout the entire
Epic the Theism that had been strengthened within the circle
of Visnu worship by the reinforcement of the name of Krisna
and the popular devotion that attached to him, appears again
1 Katha Up. II. 23. 2 XI. 53.
3 Mbh. XII. 337. 20.
94 THEISM DURING THE
and again to be almost overwhelmed by the tide of that
philosophic Pantheism which was associated with the name
of the older Vedic deity. A non-pantheistic element in the
poem and one distinct — as far as one thing can be said to be
distinct from another in the Indian religious atmosphere —
from the devout Krisna cult, is that which is associated with the
name Yoga. This was, to begin with, a system closely related
to the practices of magic, which, by means of certain exercises,
sought to obtain for the adept, supernatural powers. With the
lapse of time the aim it set before itself and the methods it
employed were refined to something less primitive and crude.
Following the example practically universal in India, it came
to recognize deliverance from repeated birth as the one object
whose attainment was worth seeking. Its method likewise
was modified till it became mainly one of concentration and
of ecstasy. It was thoroughly practical in its purpose and had
no speculative interests. Just as the philosopher might in his
own religious life be a Bhagavadbhakta, * a devout worshipper
of the Lord ', so he might also quite possibly follow the
practices of the Yoga and use them as auxiliaries for the
attainment of his goal. But in general the Yoga implied
a belief in a personal God — though his role might seem a
somewhat superfluous one — and stood in sharp contrast in
that respect with the atheistic system of the Saiikhya. It
implied such a belief just because it was a practical scheme
of deliverance, while the other was a theory of things. 'There
is no knowledge like the Saiikhya — no power like the Yoga,' x
says one of the reconcilers who are so common in the later
Epic. The statement indicates how the complementary
character of the two systems could render their amalgamation
possible. There was far less difficulty in forming an alliance
between deistic Yoga and theistic bhakti. The aim of Yoga,
is, no doubt, different from that of a doctrine inspired by
personal devotion and aspiring to personal fellowship with
God. It seeks to withdraw the soul into its eternal isolation
1 Mbh. XII. 317. 2 ; Hopkins, Great Epic, p. 102.
MAHABHARATA PERIOD 95
(kevalatva), so that it may be ' released from birth and death,
ill and weal \1 or even so that it may there ' shine glorious
like a king \2 But if it was possible to combine this with
a doctrine of absorption into unconditioned Brahman^ it was
certainly no less possible and more in accordance with the
whole Yoga tradition to seek an alliance rather with the
Krisna sect. There were certain respects in which the two
were sharply antagonistic to each other. Especially the idea
at the root of Yoga, as of so much else in the Indian view of
life, the idea of relation as implying bondage, of the profitable
way as necessarily a via ncgativa, of the best life as a life of
asceticism, was deeply and inevitably opposed to the doctrine
of loving faith in a personal God. The one breaks bonds
where the other knits them. The one seeks a goal of separa-
tion, the other a goal of union. The latter worships a God
whose hand is upon the world as Creator and upon man's
heart as Saviour. To the former it must always be a problem
to conceive of a God as related and so bound to the world
that he has created and to man who seeks deliverance.3 The
shallow speculations of the twelfth book of the Mahabharata
are not sufficient to secure the reconciliation of philosophy
and devotion. A deeper synthesis was required to unite
them and to give the popular Theism a more secure position.
The avatar a doctrine had helped greatly to establish the
respectability of its connexions, but the danger remained lest
it should be speedily absorbed by the prevailing Pantheism.
To avoid that danger a method was required more serious
and less shallow than the easy compromises of the later
Mahabharata.
1 Hopkins, Great Epic, p. no.
2 Mbh. VII. J l. 17; Hopkins, Great Epic, p. 185.
3 Cf. Mbh. XII. 341. 99, ' The Lord created pravritti as a picturesque
effect ' (Hopkins, Great Epic, p. 103).
VII
THE THEISM OF THE VEDANTA SUTRAS
AND OF RAMANUJA
The Mahabharata may be taken as representative of the
religious life of the greater part of northern India, not only up
to the end of the fourth century of the Christian era, by which
time the poem may be reckoned to have assumed its final
form, but for many centuries thereafter. Buddhism is, indeed,
ignored by it, though there are many traces of its influence ;
and to complete the picture of Indian religion through this
long, dim period, one has to conceive of it also in all its variety
of aspects, rising to power and, later, falling into decay.
Popular cults of devotion, such as the Mahabharata reveals —
cults tracing their descent from the Bhagavatas and the
Paiicaratras and adoring Krisna and Rama and other human
gods, maintained their power still over the hearts of many of
the people. Even within Buddhism the flame of Theism
burned on unextinguished. Attempts, too, such as the later
books of the Mahabharata contain, to fashion a metaphysical
framework for the popular Theisms, continued, no doubt, to be
made. Pioneers of the system-makers to come endeavoured
with more or less success to steer their philosophic course
between the Scylla of Sankhya atheism and the Charybdis
of Brahmaism.
Of all the theological and philosophical works, however,
produced in this long period, by far the most authoritative
was that which contained the Vedanta or Brahma Sutras.
At some time early in the Christian era, which cannot be
more particularly determined, this work was elaborated,
exhibiting the new spirit of scholasticism which was taking
THEISM OF THE VEDANTA SUTRAS 97
the place of the free and more living speculation of the
Upanisads. The formulation of Sutras in different depart-
ments of religious practice and speculation was significant of
the stage that had now been reached in the Hindu develop-
ment. Their appearance marks the conclusion of the literature
of revelation. Sruti is now at an end — no voice of divine
inspiration can any longer be heard. It remains to codify the
truths received, and this is the aim and purpose of the Sutras.
The Vedanta Sutras, which, if we accept the tradition, belong
to a later period than the Bhagavadgtta,1 sum up Vedic
speculation or what is called Uttara Mimamsa. The jnana
kanda or theory of the universe, which is here set forth with
a conciseness that renders it scarcely intelligible, was revealed
in the Upanisads ; and, if indeed these scriptures are faithfully
reproduced and systematized in this scholastic treatise, it will
be theistic or non-theistic according as the orthodox tradition
interpreted the originals in the one sense or the other. The
Sutras, accordingly, ought to be decisive as to whether the
Vedanta is or is not a theistic system. Unfortunately, how-
ever, if the question is debatable in regard to the Upanisads
themselves, the Sutras give little help in coming to a decision.
The ' almost algebraic mode of expression ',2 to which in their
zeal for compression the authors of this class of literature
attained, renders it impossible to decide with certainty what
view they set forth, and leaves at least as much scope for the
commentator and the controversialist as the original Sruti
itself. For a long period, accordingly, we have to choose, in
forming an opinion of the Indian religious development,
between the complex of a multitude of worships which such
a poem as the Mahabharata presents to us, and the ambiguity
and obscurity of the philosophers and theologians. Through
the shadows we can dimly see Hinduism organizing itself
with a view to overcoming or absorbing its rivals, Buddhism
1 IV. ii. 21 of the Vedanta Sutras is supposed by the commentators to
refer to the Glta.
2 Macdonell's Sanskrit Literature, p. 35.
H
98 THEISM OF THE VEDANTA SUTRAS
and Jainism, and succeeding in its aim ; we can see Muham-
madanism descending upon the land and bringing confusion
and ferment. The whole period has aspects of similarity in
the history of Hinduism to the ' dark ages ' of Mediaevalism
in the history of the Christian Church, and what Thomas
Aquinas and the great schoolmen were in the one develop-
ment Sahkara and Ramanuja were in the other.
When we come to these names we find ourselves for the
first time in Southern India, and realize that through those
ambiguous centuries Hinduism was engaged in absorbing new
peoples and steadily extending her sway. As Buddhism and
Jainism arose outside the ' holy land ' of Aryan orthodoxy, so
those two personalities, whose appearance marks a new era in
Indian religious reflection, belong to a new land where thought
can be active and untrammelled. Whether Sahkara contributed
ideas of his own to his presentation of the old teaching, or
whether he was merely a brilliant interpreter, it is not easy
now to determine, but at all events this man of the South, who
was not even, it is alleged, a pure Brahman, possessed an
intellectual power and an audacity of speculation such as are
likeliest to be found — not where the springs of life and
thought are beginning to fail, but where they are welling up,
vigorous and new. But it is not with Sahkara that this
investigation has to do. If his account of the meaning of the
Sutras is accepted, then their doctrine must be acknowledged
to be completely anti-theistic, and, presumably, the Vedanta
also that they claim to summarize. Theism can find no place
in a system of such absolute and unflinching monism as this
is, which makes self-consciousness an illusion, and to the sole
existent Being denies all attributes whatever. If a place is
found on a lower plane for Isvara as the creation of the
empiric mind and useful for practical purposes, all the time
he is recognized by the wise man as unreal. Theism, of course,
cannot recognize this pinchbeck deity. Such a device is far
more fraudulent than the pragmatism which we found exer-
cising so great an influence over Buddhist thought. Buddha
AND OF RAMANUJA 99
said, ' Problems which are of no avail to salvation I do not
solve.' He did not say, ' Believe for practical ends what all
the time is metaphysically false.' To refuse to face ultimate
problems, and to limit one's stock of ideas to working hypo-
theses or 'necessary knowledge ', may not be a heroic course
to follow, but it is essentially different from the deliberate
acceptance, for the satisfaction of the understanding and the
heart, of a view of the world which the reason all the time
declares to be untrue. Sankara's apara vidya opens the door,
as it was intended no doubt to do, not only to theistic religion
but to every form of superstition and idolatry. It is perhaps
a corollary of Pantheism to recognize and accept things as
they are to the empiric consciousness, and, therefore, ' the
god of things as they are'. An ethical Theism cannot build
on such phenomenal foundations.
The system of Ramanuja is, on the other hand, a serious
Theism, nowhere — as Sankara's to the plain man seems to
be — ' stanchioned with a lie '. Though the founder of this
school, which has exercised so notable an influence in the
development of Vaisnavite religion, lived three centuries after
Saiikara, there is evidence that his views rested upon an old
and influential tradition. He was not the first to attempt to
formulate in systematic form the doctrines of the Bhagavata
or Pancaratra faith. In the Mahabharata the four-fold
manifestation of the Supreme Being— one of its distinctive
tenets — is mentioned, while a similar reference in the Vedanta
Sutras indicates that the theology of this ancient system,
whether approved by the Sutrakara or not — and this is a
matter of controversy — was recognized and treated with
respect in the highest quarters.1 If any reliance is to be
placed upon the South Indian tradition in this matter, it
would appear that Vaisnavism had a continuous history there
almost from the beginning of the Christian era. There is
said to have been a succession of twelve Vaisnavite saints,
called Alvars, and a similar series of Acaryas, of whom six
1 S. B. E. XXXIV, p. xxiii.
H 2
ioo THEISM OF THE VEDANTA SUTRAS
are named as preceding Ramanuja. One of these is Yamu-
nacarya, who is said to have been Ramanuja's immediate
predecessor in this apostolic succession of Vaisnavism. Several
of his works have survived. One of them, the Siddhi-traya,
is said to have for its object the demonstration of the real
existence of the individual soul and the refutation of the
doctrine of avidya, while another, the Agamapramanya,
attacks the view that the Sutras condemn the Bhagavata
teaching, and maintains the orthodoxy of that teaching.1
Another work of a different character attributed to this
spiritual ancestor of Ramanuja is the Stotra Ratna, a brief
devotional poem, dedicated to Visnu. Its spirit of earnest
piety may be taken as indicative of the real religious value of
this Vaisnavism of the South. The emotion of which Rama-
nuja was to furnish the intellectual expression, utters itself
with unmistakable earnestness in such a cry as this : —
The vessel of a thousand sins, and plunged
Deep in the heart of life's outrageous sea,
I seek in Thee the refuge of despair ;
In mercy only, Hari, make me Thine. . . .
Rut for Thee I am masterless ; save me
There 's none to earn Thy mercy. Since our fate
Weaveth this bond between us, Master mine,
O guard it well and cast it not away. . . .
Lord Madhava, whatever mine may be,
Whatever I, is all and wholly Thine.
What offering can I bring, whose wakened soul
Seeth all Being bond to Thee for aye ? 2
There is little doubt that when Ramanuja arose in the
eleventh or twelfth century,3 Vaisnavism had had a long
1 See The Vaisnavite Reformers of India, by T. Rajagopala Chariar.
The author in his sketch of Yamunacarya quotes from the Siddhi-traya,
which, he says, is frequently quoted by Ramanuja, this passage : — ' The
individual soul is a separate entity in each body which is by nature
eternal, subtle, and blissful. It is distinct from the body, the senses, the
vital air, and the intellect, and is self-contained ' (the word he translates
' self-contained ' is svatah). He also quotes a passage controverting the
advaita explanation of l ekam evddvitzyam', pp. 37, 35.
2 L. D. Barnett's translation in Heart of India, p. 42.
3 The date of his death is usually given as 1137, and he is alleged to
have lived for 120 years.
AND OF RAMANUJA ioi
history, and had established for itself a strong position in
South India, though it is there that the worship of Siva has
always had its chief stronghold. He was born at Sriperum-
budur, near Madras, and appears to have resided and taught
chiefly at Srfrangam. near Trichinopoly, where he is said to
have written his commentary on the Vedanta Sutras, the Sri
BJiasya. Certain characteristics of the religious practice — as
distinguished from the theory — of the Vaisnavism of which
he is the most distinguished representative deserve to be
noted, especially as they are such as we have already seen
to accompany a genuine Theism. For one thing it seems to
have appealed to the common people, and to have won them
largely to its worship. This was, of course, natural in a
religion which emphasized devotion rendered to a personal
God, and thereby, in a measure at least, opposed itself to the
more aristocratic and exclusive ' way of knowledge '. If the
followers of Ramanuja, like so many other of the Vaisnavite
cults, found the power of caste too great for them to over-
come, they, nevertheless, opened the way of salvation to the
lower classes no less than to the higher. The same democratic
spirit, which, indeed, must accompany every message which
is in any real sense evangelic and theistic, is shown in the
adoption of the practice of using the Tamil works of the
Alvars in connexion with the service of their temples. There
is also a story related of Ramanuja, which may well have
a true tradition behind it, and is significant of the implications
of the Vaisnavite religion. It is said that a famous guru of
the time conveyed to Ramanuja under the customary pledge
of secrecy his esoteric doctrine. Having learned it, however,
Ramanuja, believing it to be a message of salvation which all
should learn, promptly broke his promise, and proceeded to
proclaim it to all about him.1 Another characteristic of this
Vaisnavism which marks it off from most other sects in India
is its religious exclusiveness. The Indian pantheistic mind
has always been too ready to extend an easy tolerance to
r
1 Sri Ramanuja, by S. Krisnaswami Ayengar, p. 17.
102 THEISM OF THE VEDA NT A SUTRAS
every form of faith, and to believe that every god is but one
form or another of the nameless One. It was certainly
possible for the Advaita doctrine to encourage, though it
might despise, all varieties of superstition as portions — harm-
less, perhaps, or even useful, portions — of the cosmic illusion.
But this course was not open to Ramanuja and those who
held with him to faith in a real personal deity. There is
a movement towards monotheism, such as India seldom
betrays, in the refusal on the part of those who follow Rama-
nuja, to recognize the worship of any other gods than those
of the Vaisnavite pantheon. The absence from the religion
of India of the intolerance, and what we may almost call the
monotheistic arrogance, of the Hebrew prophets, is due more
than anything else to the pantheistic root of so much of the
thought of India and its consequent half-heartedness in
affirming the divine unity. Ramanuja, perhaps, more than
any one since the Vedic Varuna was worshipped, seems to
have been possessed of this peculiarly Semitic conviction.
Not only does Ramanuja belong to an ancient and strongly
defined religious tradition which shows itself in its practical
aspects to be decisively theistic, but his theology purports to
be a faithful presentation of the old Vedantic teaching, and
to have the authority of the ancient interpreters behind it.
All the schools of Vedanta philosophy — Advaita, Visistadvaita,
and Dvaita — claim to derive their teaching from three great
sources —the prasthana tray a of the Upanisads, the Bhaga-
vadglta, and the Vedanta Sutras. In that consists their
authority. No commentary was written by Ramanuja, as
by Sankara, upon the (Jpanzsads, which have the first place
among the three in age and in importance, and, indeed, are
alone properly described as Vedanta. But Ramanuja's Sri
Bhasya, in expounding the Sutras, professes to follow the
' ancient teachers ', the purvacaryas, who may be supposed
to have handed on the pure tradition of Vedantic teaching.
There is sufficient evidence at least to prove that a theistic
interpretation of the Sutras, and, therefore, of the Upanisads,
AND OF RAMANUJA 103
was no innovation," but had great names in the past among its
adherents. The designation, Saririka Mimdmsd, as well as
Brahma Mlmamsa, is given to this systematic account of the
doctrines of the Vedanta, which is contained in the Vedanta
Sutras, and it has been suggested that that name itself con-
tains an indication that Ramanuja rightly represents these
doctrines as theistic. The name signifies an ' inquiry con-
cerning the embodied soul '. Here Brahma and Saririka are
used as if they were synonyms, the reason being, according to
Ramanuja, that the world and individual souls form the body
of Brahma, who, therefore, is the ' embodied soul ' par excel-
lence. This, as we shall see, is one of the central doctrines
of Ramanuja's philosophy of Theism, and as such might well
give its designation to it.1
Certainly at first ' the embodied soul ' seems a strange
name by which to call the supreme Being, and especially
strange when it is the name given to the Brahman of the
Upanisads, seeing that the chief end of Vedantic teaching is
to obtain deliverance from the body, and so to attain to
Brahman. When we understand, however, what this central
doctrine of Ramanuja's teaching really signifies, it will be seen
that it is quite in agreement with the emphasis that the
Upanisads place upon the immanence of Brahman in the
universe and in man. Brahman is the Saririka, because he
is the ' manifested soul ' — ' the entire complex of intelligent
and non-intelligent beings' constitutes his body or form, or
saktiy or vibhuti (manifestation of power). ' The highest
Brahman is essentially free from all imperfection whatsoever,
comprises within itself all auspicious qualities, and finds its
pastime in originating, preserving, re-absorbing, pervading,
and ruling the universe.' 2 ' Brahman alone is the material,
as well as the operative, cause of the universe.' 3 It has no
1 Sukhtankar's Teachings of Vedanta according to Ramanuja, p. 8 ;
cf. S.B.E.XLVIU, p. 230.
2 S. B. E. XLVIII, p. 88 ; Commentary on Ved. Silt. I. i. I.
3 Commentary on Ved. Sut. I. iv. 23.
104 THEISM OF THE VEDANTA SUTRAS
existence apart from him. In the beginning, in the Vedanta
phrase, there was ' one only without a second \ Ramanuja,
thus, is a monist no less than Sankara, but his monism
is Visistadvaita, one that recognized attributes of God as real,
that ' cognises Brahman as carrying plurality within itself
(? himself), and the world which is the manifestation of his
power as something real'.1 All creatures have their source
in Brahman, their home in Brahman, their support in Brah-
man ; they exist only as ' modes ' {prakara) of Brahman.
The objection that on this view Brahman being ' embodied '
suffers, is met by the reply that { it is not generally true that
embodiedness proves dependence on karma \ and it is karma,
and not ' embodiedness ', that brings suffering as its conse-
quence. Further, Brahman is free from all dependence on
karma, 'his nature being fundamentally antagonistic to all
evil.'2 Again, it is to be noticed that this immanence of
Brahman in souls does not deprive them of freedom. The
individual is able to will his actions, but the power that
carries out his purpose is Brahman. ' The inwardly ruling,
highest Self promotes action in so far as it (? he) regards in
the case of any action the volitional effort made by the indi-
vidual soul, and then aids that effort by granting its (his)
favour or permission (anumati).'z Dr. Sukhtankar quotes
the following passage as summing up Ramanuja's view of
the relation of the soul to God: 'The soul is created by
Brahman, is controlled by it (? him), is its body, is subservient
to it, is supported by it, is reduced to the subtle condition by
it (viz. in the dissolution state of the world), is a worshipper
of it, and depends on its grace for its welfare.' 4
It will be seen that Ramanuja by his doctrines of God and
of man secures, as far as the limits imposed by certain Indian
presuppositions which he shares permit, the possibility of
a theistic faith. The universal Soul is he who alone possesses
1 Bhasya on Ved. Sut. I. i. i ; S. B. E. XLVIII, p. 89.
2 S.B.E. XLVIII, pp. 239, 240. 3 0p dt> p
Sukhtankar, op. cit., pp. 49, 50.
AND OF RAMANUJA 105
unconditioned personality, having ' the mastery over all worlds
and wishes, and capability of realizing his own purposes \l
Individual souls, on the other hand, so long as they are bound
to the wheel of re-birth, are of limited personality — they have
apuriisartJia, which Dr. Sukhtankar translates by ' want of the
powers of a person \2 Full self-realization (satyakamatva) is
accordingly declared to be one of the qualities that form part
of the experience of the released soul.3 The method by which
this experience is attained and the character of that experience
are matters only second to his doctrines of God and man as
indicating the value of Ramanuja's Theism. There are two
rocks in especial on which in this connexion an Indian
theologian is in danger of being wrecked. The one is repre-
sented by the doctrine of karma, the other by the question of
the persistence of conscious personality after release. Rama-
nuja endeavours to avoid both those dangers. He does so in
the former case, as the theist must, by emphasizing the
supremacy of the ' Highest Person ' over the karma of men.
' It is he only — the all-knowing, all-powerful, supremely
generous one — who, being pleased by sacrifices, gifts, offerings,
and the like, as well as by pious meditation, is in a position to
bestow the different forms of enjoyment in this and the
heavenly world, and release which consists in attaining to
a nature like his own. For action which is non-intelligent and
transitory is incapable of bringing about a result connected
with a future time.'4 The attribute 'supremely generous
One ', applied in this passage to the Supreme Person, is specially
significant, as it points to another aspect of the freedom which
Ramanuja claims for him in relation to the acts of men. He
interferes to ' check the tendency on the part of individual
beings to transgress his laws ',5 and further, ' wishing to do
a favour to those who are resolved on acting so as fully to
please the Highest Person, he engenders in their minds a
1 Bhasya on Ved. Silt. I. i. 21. 2 Sukhtankar, op. cit, p. 21.
3 Bhasya on Ved. Silt. III. iii. 40. 4 Ibid. III. ii. 37.
5 Ibid. II. ii. 3.
106 THEISM OF THE VEDANTA SUTRAS
tendency towards highly virtuous actions such as are means to
attain to him.' x Similarly it is maintained that he hardens the
heart of the wicked — his action throughout being without
cruelty or partiality. That Ramanuja feels the bonds of the
imperfectly moralized karma doctrine a constraint upon his
Theism is evident. He scarcely ventures as far as the more
strongly ethical Buddhist teachers in casting off its yoke.
Certainly, however, throughout his whole teaching he places
much more emphasis than is common within Hinduism on the
autonomy of man in determining his fate, on the ability of
moral personality to transcend the merely natural laws of the
universe, and on the supremacy over it all, as the supreme moral
personality, of him 'whose name is the highest Brahman'?
It follows from this view of man's nature and of God's that
the teaching of Ramanuja is unambiguous also in claiming
permanence of conscious life for the soul that, being set free,
abides with the highest Brahman. This summit is attained
by two means, the one, bhakti, which is ' steady remembrance '
mediated by love,3 and the other vidya or meditation ' which
cannot be accomplished without the devotee having previously
broken with evil conduct '.4 By these means — by ' praise,
worship, and meditation ' 5 — the soul reaches the ' abode of
Brahman' and there 'abides within, i.e. is conscious of the
highest Brahman '.G ' As moreover the released soul has freed
itself from the bondage of karman, has its powers of know-
ledge fully developed, and has all its being in the supremely
blissful intuition of the highest Brahman, it evidently cannot
desire anything nor enter on any other form of activity, and
the idea of its returning into the sanisara, therefore, is altogether
excluded. Nor indeed need we fear that the Supreme Lord,
once having taken to himself the devotee whom he greatly
loves, will turn him back into the sanisara.' 7
It has seemed desirable to set forth with some fullness
the main doctrines of Ramanuja's system, especially in those
1 U. iii. 41. 2 IV. iv. 22. * I. i. I. 4 IV. i. 13.
6 III. ii. 40. 6 IV. iv. 19. 7 IV. iv. 22.
AND OF RAMANUJA 107
aspects which make clear the character of its Theism, because
he certainly presents to us the highest intellectual altitude
reached in all its varied history by Indian Theism, and because,
further, his influence in strengthening that aspect of Indian
religion through the centuries that followed was so remarkable.
Devotion was now, as it had not hitherto been, definitely
linked with reflection, and the combination gave it a new
dignity. The weight of authority had up to this time been
largely anti-theistic. It was the heart of the plain man, not
the reason of the philosopher, that demanded a personal God
to worship. The theistic expansion which we can trace in the
succeeding centuries throughout the whole Indian continent
was undoubtedly due in large measure to the new prestige
that the school of Ramanuja brought to the religion of bJiakti
by linking it to the ancient tradition of Vedantic teaching.
At the same time we can perceive how what had come to be the
presuppositions of all Indian thought constrain and hamper
even so convinced a theist and so ethical a thinker as Rama-
nuja appears to have been. We have seen how he seeks to
overcome the stubborn resistance that a formal doctrine of
karma must always present to any attempt to reach a con-
sistently theistic explanation of the universe. What he calls
prarabdha karma proves. too strong for even the grace of the
Supreme Person to abrogate. It must be worked out to its
conclusion. One way by which the binding influence of the
' deed ' could be evaded, as already the Bhagavadglta had
taught, was to perform it with no desire for reward — with
a heart not knit to it. This is oftener, perhaps, expressed by
Ramanuja as a heart that seeks in doing the act to propitiate
the Supreme Person. A later teacher of his school, Pillai
Lokacarya, puts it thus : ' Motivelessness of all act arises
from its being done as divine service ; and is hence bereft of
all binding character, such as entails phenomenal existence
for the soul that does it.' 1 Such a view is perhaps satisfactory
enough as regards the creature, but how of the Creator ? How
1 J.R.A.S., 1 910, p. 585.
108 THEISM OF THE VEDANTA SUTRAS
is it that he is not bound by karma} This was a problem
that, as we have seen,1 had already presented itself to sceptical
spirits in the MaJiabJiarata, and neither Sankara nor Rama-
nuja nor the Sutrakara himself could fail to face it. Their
solution is the same, though Sankara treats the problem per-
functorily as only a matter that concerns that lower plain of
knowledge which is indeed no knowledge but delusion. He
hints, indeed, at something better when he suggests that the
work of the Creator ' may proceed from his own nature
(svabhava), like breathing in a man \2 It is necessary, however,
in view of the karma doctrine, that this and indeed every act
of the Lord should be motiveless, and this they can only
construe as signifying that his work of creation is ' mere sport ',
as when a king plays a game of balls.3 He cannot put his
heart into the work, for then it would bind him even as it
binds man. There is an ambiguity in the whole relation of
the Supreme Person to this power that to the Indian vision
has so great a grip upon the universe. It is beginningless.
It controls ' all the activities of the soul, from thinking to
winking of an eye'.4 According even to the Gita the Lord
neither creates one's karma nor its fruits ; ' it is its own nature
that moves \5 Ramanuja endeavours to set the Supreme
Person above this law, but his supremacy over it seems even
here to have its limits, and their relations are never fully
adjusted on an ethical basis. The divine authority is never
sufficiently vindicated as against this ancient rival that still
retains about him so many signs of his dark and savage origin.
The place accorded to the theistic God seems just to fall short
of that from which he could rule men's hearts with an un-
challengeable authority.
1 See p. 82 above.
2 Closely similar seems to have been the view put forth in the Karika
of Gaudapada, an earlier work than Sankara's. It states ' that the world
is not an illusion or a development in any sense but the very nature or
essence {svabhava) of Brahma ', just ' as the rays which are all the same
(i. e. light) are not different from the sun '. Macdonell's Sanskrit Litera-
ture, p. 242. , s II. i. 34.
4 Quoted from Sri Bhasya by Sukhtankar, p. 47. 5 Bhag. V. 14.
AND OF RAMANUJA 109
It is the moral and emotional warmth that pervades all his
doctrine that gives to the system of Ramanuja much of its
power and of its distinction. That it should have still a near
relation with mythology and with the idolatry of the multitude
is not surprising. In harmony with the emphasis he lays upon
the grace of God is the doctrine of incarnations which he
adopts into his system. But here, as elsewhere, it is not easy
to disentangle a moral conception of a God, whose nature is to
reveal himself and to draw near to men, from a metaphysical
doctrine — inspired by pantheistic and mystical presuppositions
— which supposes God in his essential nature to be so remote
and so exalted that mediating principles must intervene
between him and a crude material world of men and things.
Thus Sri or Laksmi,1 the wife of Visnu, typifies, according to
Ramanuja, the activity of the Supreme Spirit in the region of
the finite, and has been claimed by modern members of this
School as corresponding to Jesus Christ. After he had created
the universe ' from Brahma down to stocks and stones ', he
' withdrew into his own nature '. ' But ', Ramanuja goes on,
' as he is a great ocean of boundless grace, kindness, love, and
generosity, he assumed various similar forms without putting
away his own essential godlike nature, and time after time
incarnated himself in the several worlds, granting to his
worshippers rewards according to their desires, namely re-
ligion, riches, earthly love, and salvation, and descending, not
only with the purpose of relieving the burden of earth, but
also to be accessible to men even such as we are.' 2 Further,
1 Later opinion in this School was divided on this subject. ' The Vadaga-
lais look upon Sri as a form or phase of the Supreme assumed mainly
for spreading the truth, and equally with him infinite and uncreate. The
Tehgalais, on the other hand, give her an independent personality. She
is looked upon as the mediator between God and man and while from
one point of view she is created by the Supreme, from another point of
view she is one with him.' G. A. Grierson in/. /?. A. S., 1910, pp. 566,
567. But according to A. Govindacharya Svvamin Sri is not ' a former
phase of the Supreme', but 'a distinct personality'. J. R. A. S., 1912,
p. 715.
2 Barnett's translation in Heart of India, p. 41.
no THEISM OF THE VEDANTA SUTRAS
according to this School, God has not only a para form,
a transcendent essence, but vyuha forms, or manifestations
fitted to ' perform severally the functions, in the material or
manifested kosmos, of the making, the keeping, and the
breaking of the fabric of worlds, countless. These derived
godships take the names Pradyumna, Aniruddha, Sankarsana,
and so forth.' l
In this and in all his teaching Ramanuja was true to the
long tradition to which he belongs in making the grace of
God and the ' loving faith ' of the worshipper central to his
doctrine. But soon these very tenets became a cause of
schism in his following. The relation of the divine grace to
man's free will has been, elsewhere than in South India, a cause
of theological strife, and the ' Teiigalai ' and 'Vadagalai' schools
have their parallel in the Calvinists and Arminians of the
Christian Church. The former, otherwise called the adherents
of the Marjara-nyaya or Cat doctrine, maintained that God by
his grace bears to the goal a passive worshipper, even as the cat
her kitten. The latter claimed that man must be co-operant
with God, clinging to him as the young of the monkey do to
their mother. Theirs is the Markata-nyaya — the Monkey
doctrine. This schism is said to have shown itself a century
after the time of Ramanuja, the leader of the latter and more
orthodox section being Vedanta Desika,and that of the former
being Pillai Lokacarya. The innovating section set prapatti
or self-sacrificing faith, as a means of deliverance from samsara
and of access to God, above mere bJiakti. Along with this
went increased emphasis on the openness of the path of
approach to God for all men. ' This path of prapatti is
accessible to all irrespective of caste, colour, or creed.' 2 This
sect further attaches much importance to Acaryabhimana or
'resort to a mediator', 'who submits to personal suffering in
order to redeem the fallen '. ' The Mediator, then, is the ready
means, under the grace of which souls may take refuge and
1 The Arthapancaka of Lokacarya : J. R. A. S., 1910, p. 576.
*J.R.A.S., 1910, p. 584.
AND OF RAMANUJA hi
shape their conduct entirely at his sole bidding.' 1 The Vacana
Bhusana, one of Pillai Lokacarya's works, which ' is held in
extraordinary veneration by the followers of this school ', is
said to have as its chief features, ' the doctrine of surrender to
one's Acarya or Guru, advocated by this writer as a sufficient
means of salvation, the emphasis given to the doctrine of grace
by the assertion that even the sins of men are agreeable to
God, and the somewhat unceremonious rejection of caste
superiority as a ground for respect among men otherwise
equally venerable as lovers of God'.2 While the Teiigalai
school which maintained at once all of those advanced and
somewhat startling doctrines was limited mainly to South
India, we shall find that in different parts of the country
Vaisnavite sects arose from time to time holding one or another
of those views. A failure to maintain the balance of a sane
Theism and a tendency to fantastic exaggeration in certain
directions characterize almost all the developments of Vais-
navite doctrine, and seem to indicate a weakness somewhere.
Even the well-knit fabric of Ramanuja's system did not
prevent his followers from wild and dangerous aberrations.
3 The Arthapancaka of Lokacarya : J. R. A. S., 1 910, p. 587.
2 The Vaisnavite Reformers of India, by T. Rajagopala Chariar,
p. 131.
VIII
LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS
Raman UJA's is, perhaps, the greatest name in the whole
history of the Vaisnavite development. He completed the
work for Indian Theism that was begun by the unknown
author of the Bhagavadgitd, setting the corner-stone upon the
structure, and establishing it in a position of strength such as
it had not previously possessed in the midst of the ebb and
flow of the religious thought and feeling of India. For that
reason his name becomes a new prasthana for Vaisnavism
throughout the country — a source whence flowed, north and
west and east across the land, rivers of really vital and ethically
ennobling religion. By means of what claimed to be a reasoned
demonstration of its antiquity, and of its intimate relation
with the most ancient and authoritative scriptures, he accom-
plished for Indian Theism a work similar to that which the
Greek Fathers did for Christianity in its Hellenic environ-
ment.
There was, indeed, another philosophical construction of
Vaisnavite doctrine, to which, though much more limited in
its influence, reference must be made before we indicate the
course of some of the streams of piety and devotion of which
those theologies that arose during this period form the water-
shed. This is the Dvaita system of Madhva or Anandatlrtha,
who arose near the western seaboard of South India in the
thirteenth century, about three generations after Ramanuja.1
1 According to one tradition he died in 1 197. Sir R. G. Bhandarkar
inclines to the view that that may rather have been the time of his birth
and that he 'lived in the first three-quarters of the thirteenth century'.
( Vaisnavism, p. 59.)
LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS 113
His system is mainly a vigorous protest against that of
Saiikara, who is considered an incarnation of a demon sent
to deceive mankind. His dualism is unqualified, the world
being declared to be real and God to be the efficient cause
only of a universe the substance of which is eternal. The
individual soul is also real, and the only way of salvation is
by means of bhakti, which procures deliverance from the
bondage of samsara and a life of bliss and perfection in the
presence of God. God, or Narayana, however, cannot be
approached directly, but through a mediator, who is Vayu.
Responding to the faith of the worshipper, there is the grace
of God. ' Both knowledge and wisdom and the moksa which
a man of wisdom is fit to obtain are all the gift of the Lord.' *
While in this matter agreeing with the teaching of other
Vaisnavite theologians, Madhva goes farther than most. He
holds that, as it is the divine grace that sets men free, so it is
the divine will that has cast them into bondage. Souls,
according to him, are of three classes. ' Some are pre-
ordained by their inherent aptitude to obtain mukti, others
are destined for eternal hell, while a third class must keep
revolving under the wheels of samsara from eternity to
eternity, now enjoying, and now suffering, in endless alternation
(nit} 'asams ariii) .' 2 It will be seen how much emphasis in this
doctrine is laid upon what, in the language of Christian
theology, might be called the sovereignty of God, the relation
of the soul to him, while mediated by bhakti, being that of
complete dependence, a relation as of a servant to his master.
The influence of the teaching of Madhva, while not widely
extended, has in certain respects been excellent. The standard
of morality of those who profess his doctrine is said to be
high, and the founder set himself in opposition to the sacrifice
of animals, appointing again the ancient substitute of a ' barley
ewe '. In some other respects, however, his influence and
1 Mr. Subharao's Translation of Madhvacarya's Gltd, Introduction.
2 Life and Teaching of Sri Madhva, by C. M. Padmanabha Char,
P- 337-
I
ii4 LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS
that of Ramanuja have been less commendable. Whether or
not by Ramanuja himself, certainly by his immediate suc-
cessors, idolatry was sanctioned— and this is true to a still
greater extent of Madhva. Further, although Ramanuja's
teaching recognized the religious rights of all classes of the
people, yet throughout its history in the South it betrays no
tendency to promote any doctrine of equality. This also is
true to a still greater extent of the other school. While one
section of the Madhavas is democratic enough to ' regard
Kanarese and vernacular works with peculiar sanctity ', their
founder ' riveted the bonds of caste, and laid down very rigid
rules for varnas and asramas'.1 Both systems — the Sri
Vaisnava of Ramanuja and the Sad Vaisnava of Madhva —
betray, as has been already noted in regard to the former,
a strain of intolerance somewhat unusual in Indian religion,
but while in the case of the former this shows itself in the
prohibition of the worship of any god but those of the Visnu
cult, in the case of the latter the main vehemence of its attack
is directed against the rival system of Sankara, while to Siva
and his worship some recognition is accorded. It will be
seen that there is much that is common to both those teachers,
but the Indian mind seems too powerfully attracted towards
monistic interpretations of the universe for the dualistic
system of Madhva to obtain any large following. It may
be, as Swami Vivekananda, himself a Bengali, affirms, that
Caitanya of Bengal was a follower of Madhva, but if that is
the case, his influence was more productive in North India
than in the land of his birth. It is, in any case, to the North
that we have now to turn in order to describe, as can only be
done in the most general outline, those movements of theistic
devotion that draw much of their strength from the theological
reconstructions of those Vaisnavite teachers of the South.
Of these the chief, certainly in the extent of its influence,
probably also in its religious elevation, is that which is
associated with the name of Ramananda. According to the
1 Op. cit., pp. 257 and 271.
LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS 115
tradition that has come down in regard to him, he was the
fifth in the ' apostolic succession ' from Ramanuja, and lived
about the end of the fourteenth and the beginning of the
fifteenth centuries.1 He found, it is said, the caste prejudices
of his sect intolerable, and, leaving the South, travelled to
Benares, where he gathered round himself a following, and
gained a great name as a saint and teacher. To him Rama,
who had long been recognized alongside of Krisna as an incar-
nation of Visnu, became the great means of the manifestation
of the divine. From Ramananda's math in Benares, powerful
religious influences seem to have gone forth, borne in the
speech of the common people to every rank and race. As
was to be expected in view of the cause of his flight from the
South, he recognized no difference of caste among his followers,
and admitted to the highest places of his order even the
humblest. His motto was, ' Let no one ask a man's caste or
sect ; whoever adores God, he is God's own.' ' He had
twelve apostles . . . and these included, besides Brahmans,
a Musalman weaver, a leather worker (one of the very lowest
castes), a Rajput, a Jat, and a barber. Nay, one of them was
a woman.' 2 Of the Musalman weaver and the influence that
flowed from Ramananda by that channel, receiving in its
course powerful theistic reinforcement from Muhammadanism,
a recent invader, which was steadily advancing further into
the country and establishing itself more firmly, we shall speak
in the succeeding chapter. Ramananda does not appear to
have come under this new influence, and there is another
stream of theistic devotion that acknowledges him as its
source, which appears to be much more purely Hindu in its
character.
The first great name that we come to in this succession is
1 According to one list there were twenty-one teachers between
Ramanuja and Ramananda and six between Ramananda and Tulsl Das,
LA. XXII (1893), p. 266. Sir R. G. Bhandarkar inclines to date his
birth in 1299 or 1300, and to place three generations between him and
Ramanuja.
2 Grierson in J.R.A. S., April 1907, p. 319.
I 2
u6 LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS
that of Tulsi Das, who, though he founded no sect, exercised,
and still exercises, a wide and gracious influence over the
whole of Northern India. He was born in 1532, and died in
1623, bequeathing to his countrymen as his chief work a Hindi
version of the Ramayana, said to have been written in 15 74-
In this Ramacarit- Manas, ' the lake of the deeds of Rama,'
he has gathered round the name of Rama, and made familiar
to every peasant, the doctrines of bhakti and of the love and
grace of God. ' Except, O Raghu-rai,' he says, ' by the
water of faith and love, the interior stain can never be effaced.
He is all-wise, he the philosopher, the scholar, the thoroughly
accomplished, the irrefutable doctor, the truly judicious, and
the possessor of every auspicious attribute, who is devoted to
your lotus feet.' x The whole controversy between the pan-
theist and the theist in India is summed up, and the secret of
the persistence of the doctrine of bJiakii betrayed, in a passage
towards the close of the poem where Bhusundi requests the
seer Lomas to teach him how to worship the incarnate God.
'The great saint, being himself a philosopher, devoted to the
mystery of the transcendental . . . began a sermon on Brahm,
the unbegotten, the indivisible, the immaterial, the sovereign
of the heart unchangeable, unwishful, nameless, formless . . .
identical with yourself, you and he being as absolutely one as
a wave and its water ; so the Vedas declare. . . . But the
worship of the impersonal laid no hold of my heart. Again
I cried, " Tell me, holy father, how to worship the Incarnate.
Devotion to Rama, O wisest of sages, is like the element of
water and my soul — which is, as it were, a fish — how can it
exist without it?'"2
' The worship of the impersonal laid no hold of my heart '
— in these words we have the secret of the great spiritual
awakening, which, from the fourteenth to the seventeenth
century, spread from one province to another of north and
1 The Ramayana of Tulsi Das, Bk. VII. Doha 49 (Growse's trans-
lation).
2 Op. cit., VII. Doha 107.
LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS 117
west and eastern India. That may be described as the period
of the Indian theistic reformation, and, however uncertain we
may be as to what all the sources of its inspiration were,
it had certain characteristics that mark it as approximating
much more closely to a genuine Theism than at any previous
time in India. One of the marks of this movement is its
sense of the relation of religion to the conduct of life. It
gave a far higher place than did the speculation of the philo-
sophers to moral qualities both in the gods and in their
worship, though its morality is still the crude morality of
a barbaric age. Another characteristic of it is that to a land
that to most appeared, no doubt, peopled largely by Ravana's
demon hosts, it brought a message of a God of grace. It also
sought to place above jnana and karma the worship of the
devout and loving heart. But these characteristics, so truly
those of a genuine theistic religion, while we recognize them
as present in potency and promise, were still mingled with
much that gives the religion as we study it even in the ' Lake
of Rama's Deeds ', a strange and savage character. That poem
appears, indeed, like a blend of the Arabian Nights, a philo-
sophical tractate and a book of devotion. We cannot, for
example, call that monotheism which still freely acknowledges
a host of gods and demi-gods, though these are placed upon
a lower level than the Supreme Lord, * the Unutterable,' of
whom they are parts. ' Knowing that the whole universe,
whether animate or inanimate, is pervaded by the spirit of
Rama, I reverence with clasped hands the lotus feet of all —
gods, giants, men, serpents, birds, ghosts, departed ancestors,
Gandharvas, Kinnaras, demons of the night ; I pray ye all be
gracious to me.' 1 The incarnation of Rama is again and
again presented as an act of gracious condescension, ' to
redeem his people.' 2 But there are other motives less ethical
and more pagan that are alleged as well.3 One object, too,
1 Tulsl Das's Ramayana, I. Doha 8- 1 1 (Grovvse).
2 Op. cit., I. Chhand 2 (Growse, i, p. 36).
3 Op. cit. (Growse, i, pp. 81, 86).
it8 LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS
that he is said to have come to earth to accomplish is ' to
reinstate the gods '-1 Rama himself at Ramesvaram makes
a linga, and worships it, saying, ' There is none other so
dear to me as Siva. No man, though he call himself a votary
of mine, if he offend Siva, can ever dream of really finding
me. If he desire to serve me out of opposition to Siva, his
doom is hell. To all who serve me unselfishly and without
guile, Siva will grant the boon of faith.' 2 Slta especially has
her place beside Rama as ' primal energy, queen of beauty,
mother of the world '.3
We see, again, how far the Theism of Tulsl Das falls short
of a fully spiritual religion in the power that still remains
within it of the old and deeply rooted caste distinctions. The
Brahman is not yet deposed from his place of privilege. It
is especially for the sake of Brahmans, cows, and gods that
Rama has taken human form,4 for the Brahman is ' the very
root of the tree of piety, . . . the destroyer of sin '.5 'A Brah-
man must be honoured, though devoid of every virtue and
merit, but a Sudra never, though distinguished for all virtue
and learning.' 6 The reverence for the guru that has a
prominent place in all the spiritual teaching of this later
period resolves itself here — differing in this respect from what
we shall find to be the case among the followers of Kablr —
into reverence for the Brahman. ' The guru can save from
the Brahman's anger, but if the guru himself be wroth, there
is none in the world that can save. . . . My soul is disturbed
by one fear ; the curse of the Brahman is something most
terrible.' 7 Thus it appears that along with what is in many
respects a noble reverence for one exalted personal Supreme,
who is full of love and pity for his worshippers, there goes
much that mars the picture. This Theism has not yet in it
1 Tulsl Das's Ramdyana, I. Chhand 2 (Growse, i, p. 72).
2 Op. cit., VI. Doha 2-3.
3 Op. cit., I. Doha 152 (Growse, i, p. 84).
4 Op. cit., I. Doha 204 (Growse, i, p. no).
5 Op. cit., III. Invocation.
6 Op. cit., III. Doha 28 (Growse, iii, p. 29).
7 Op. cit., I. Doha 169 (Growse, i, p. 93).
LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS 119
the strength to reject either polytheism or pantheism, or the
social conditions that accompany them. All it has attained
to is a place beside them which sometimes, in hours of
exaltation, seems a place above them.
This theological attitude is implied in the petition of
Bhusundi to the seer Lomas, which we have quoted above.
It is a somewhat wistful sense of need that creates this
Theism, not yet the assurance of a deep conviction. So it is
declared of a great sage who has followed the path of devotion
that ' he was not absorbed into the divinity for this reason
that he had already received the mysterious gift of faith
{bliakti) '. We have here a doctrine of accommodation rather
than an affirmation of the final truth, and as such it has not
power to purge Hinduism of its ancient pagan inheritance. At
the same time man is said to be 'in God's hands', His who
is at once ' inaccessible and accessible ', who, in spite of all
those rival ' principalities and powers ', is conceived to be in
some real sense God over all. ' Brahma, Visnu, and Siva, the
sun, the moon, the guardians of the spheres ; Delusion, Life,
Fate, and this Iron Age ; the sovereigns of hell, the sovereigns
of earth, and all the powers that be ; magic and sorcery, and
every spell in the Vedas and the Tantras, ... all are obedient
to Rama's commands.' x
In Tulsi Das, also, we find the doctrine of the power of the
divine name set forth with the same emphasis which it obtains
in the teaching of Kablr and Nanak. ' Place the name of
Rama as a jewelled lamp at the door of your lips and there
will be light, as you will, both inside and out.' 2 Just as we
find that the guru ultimately takes a higher place than the
God whom he mediates, so it is also with the name. ' The
virtue of the name is infinite, and in my judgement is greater
than Rama himself.' 3 An explanation of the power of the
name is actually supplied in the poem. ' A name may be
1 Tulsi Das's Ramayana, II. Doha 244 (Growse, ii, p. 135).
2 Op. cit., I. Doha 25 (Growse, i, p. 17).
s Op. cit., I. Doha 27 (Growse, i, p. 19).
120 LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS
regarded as equivalent to what is named, the connexion being
such as subsists between a master and a servant. Both name
and form are the shadows of the Lord, who, rightly under-
stood, is unspeakable and uncreated. . . . See now the form
is of less importance than the name, for without the name you
cannot come to a knowledge of the form, but meditate on the
name without seeing the form, and your soul is filled with
devotion. The name acts as an interpreter between the
material and immaterial forms of the deity, and is a guide
and interpreter to both.' l
The teaching of Tulsl Das is widely spread throughout
Upper India, where his Ramacarit-Manas has been described
as 'the one Bible of a hundred millions of people'. It is
much the same in those general characteristics which we have
sketched above with the teaching of the Maratha saints, whose
work of religious reformation and awakening was scarcely less
influential. We find here a long and remarkable series of
poet seers who, from a date earlier than that of Ramananda
down to the seventeenth century, handed on from one to
another the lamp of an inward and a fervent faith. The first
great name in this line of prophets is that of Jnanesvar, a
Brahman of Alandi, near Poona. There is no question that
his influence on the thought of his countrymen was very
great, greater in the opinion of the late Mr. Justice Ranade,
who speaks with authority of the seers of the Maratha country,
being indeed of the same prophetic race himself— greater than
that of any other Maratha saint except Tukaram. As is
natural, perhaps, in a Brahman — though one who, with his
brothers and sisters, was for a while outcasted, because born
of a father who had embraced the life of a sannyasi, and sub-
sequently returned to the duties of a householder — Jnanesvar
is more of a thinker, and that in India almost necessarily
means more of a pantheistic thinker than others of this
brotherhood of saints. At the same time, legends that have
come down in regard to him show that he was an opponent
1 Tulsl Das's Rdmayana, I. Doha 24 (Growse, i, p. 17).
LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS 121
of the formalism and the priestly and ascetic pretensions of
his time. One of these tells how he caused a buffalo to recite
Vedic mantras, while, in another instance, he put the miracu-
lous yoga powers of Cangdev, who came to him riding on
a tiger and using a snake as a whip, to shame by making a
wall act in similar fashion as his horse. His great work is
called Jnanesvarl, and consists of an elaborate paraphrase in
Marathi verse of the Bhagavadgita. It was completed in
1290, and ten years later its author died.
The very fact that Jnanesvar's great work is in the people's
language indicates that, Brahman and philosopher as he was,
his inclination was towards a message that would reach the
people's heart, and on the whole a study of his poem confirms
this view. He recognizes that though there are other high
and hard ways, the way of bhakti is the best for men. By the
way of yoga they get nothing more ; ' only more toil and
pain.' It is ' like fighting continually with death '. ' By
bhakti one obtains the Manifested ; by yoga the Unmanifested.
There are these two ways by which to reach thee, and the
Manifested and Unmanifested are the door-lintels to be
crossed.' x The ' grace of the guru' is invoked as one of the
great means of attainment. ' Thou art a mother to the
seeker ; wisdom springs up in thy footsteps.'
What Rama was to Tulsl Das, that Vithoba of Pandharpur,
a village on the river Bhima, was to the Maratha singers.
Another name of Vithoba is Vitthal, which is said to be a cor-
ruption of Visnu, and the legend represents him as Krisna,
turning back again from Radha to his wedded wife Rukminl.
Though it is true that the name of this god appears nowhere
in the Jilanesvarl, a series of short poems called abhangs,
which are attributed to Jnanesvar, are full of the praises of
Vithoba, and the tradition links his name with that of this
deity, around whom so much of the bhakti of the Maratha
country has gathered. In the case of Namdev and Tukaram,
there is no question of the closeness of this association. The
1 XII. 23.
122 LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS
former, who was a younger contemporary of Jnanesvar, and
who is included by Nanak among the Vaisnava saints whom
he recognizes as the progenitors of his doctrine, is said to
have been born in the year 1270. He was a tailor by caste,
but all the same is said to have been the friend and associate
of the Brahman Jnanesvar. His abhahgs, of which tradition
tells that he produced a prodigious number, are occupied with
the praises of the god of Pandharpur, where he spent the
latter years of his life, and where he attained samadhi, and
passed from among men. A story that is handed down in
regard to him illustrates the character that was attributed to
this god, and helps to explain the intense devotion that he
inspired in his bhaktas (devotees). Namdev was at first,
according to the tale, a robber, but the lamentations of an
unhappy widow, whose husband had been murdered by the
band to which Namdev belonged, pierced his heart with a
sense of his sin, and drove him, as he said, to ' make a friend
of repentance '. He betook himself first to a Saivite temple,
but found no mercy and no hope in the grim god. In his
remorse he thrust a knife into his head as he cried out for
mercy before the idol, and when the blood spurted from his
wound and defiled the god, the people of the village cast him
forth in anger. Then in the hour of his extremity, the story
goes, a vision bade him go to Pandharpur for, he was told,
' its patron god Vitthal will purge thee of thy sins and thou
shalt not only obtain salvation, but renown as one of the
god's saints.' It is such a god that his heart cries for, ' even
as a child ', as he says, ' for the mother whom it has missed '.
The messages of Namdev and of the later Tukaram are so
closely similar that Tukaram was said to be an avatar a of the
earlier poet. He was born in 1608, in the village of Dehu,
about thirty miles from Poona. He was a Sudra shopkeeper,
but belonged to a family that for seven generations had given
themselves to the bhakti of Vithoba.1 His abhahgs have sunk
1 There is a story in one of his abhahgs that he was instructed in bhakti
by three ' Caitanyas '. This may possibly indicate that he was influenced
by that sect.
LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS 123
into the hearts of the Maratha people of every class, and are
familiar on their lips to an extent that makes his influence
supreme above that of all the other seers of this evangelical
succession. What drew both him and Namdev to this god
was his association, however it may have arisen, with senti-
ments and hopes that won the heart. They would both say,
as Namdev says, ' I am wearied with inquiry ; and so I throw
myself on thy mercy '. ' I do not want salvation nor know-
ledge of Brahman} he says again, referring, of course, to the
moksa of the ' way of knowledge '. ' My senses, when I seek
to crush them, plead piteously and promise to cling to thee
everywhere.' The songs of both of these poets, and, indeed,
the whole of the religious utterance of this religious revival,
are attuned to this cry of the heart which has in it the true
note of bhakti and of faith, though sometimes near to faint, in
the love of God : —
Thee, Lord of pity, I beseech,
Come speedily and set me free.
(Yea, when he hears my piteous speech,
All eager should Narayan be.)
Lo, in the empty world apart,
I hearken, waiting thy footfall.
Vitthal, thou father, mother art !
Thou must not loiter at my call.
Thou, thou alone art left to me,
All else, when weighed, is vanity.
Now, Tuka pleads, thy gift of grace complete ;
Now let mine eyes behold thine equal feet.
There are the same cross-currents of Pantheism and of
Theism in these poets' unsystematic utterances as we find
nearly everywhere in Indian religion. It may be, of course,
that we have a development in their experience from the
traditional Brahman doctrine to something more inward and
personal, or it may be that their voluminous works have been
interpolated. But it is quite as probable that these represent
various moods, now more reflective, now more ardently
devotional. We need not look in them for an articulated
124 LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS
system, but at the most for : winds of doctrine '. Their bhakti
is too exclusively rooted in the feeling life to continue long in
one stay or to have much clearness of outline. They are
still far from having purged themselves of polytheism or even
of idolatry. There is a legend of Namdev's guru, which is
related also, mutatis mutandis, of Nanak at Mecca. When
Namdev went to seek his gunts grace he was shocked to find
him lying with his feet upon the ling a (phallus) of Siva.
When he pointed out the impropriety the guru asked him,
' Where is the place where God is' not ? ' and to Namdev's
amazement he saw that wherever the holy man turned his
feet there always was a ling a. Such a lesson as that is full
of profound reflection, but it does not put an end to idolatry.
The god whom Tukaram worshipped was always the idol
Vithoba, standing on its 'brick' at Pandhari. These saints
did not all even worship the same god. While Vithoba's is
the name that leads all the rest, another of them, Ramdas,
worshipped Rama, and Krisna, Siva, Dattatreya, and Ganpati
served as the symbol and channel of the divine to various
members of the succession of reformers. Mr. Justice Ranade
has described them as the Protestants of Maharastra, but
there was little of the Protestant exclusiveness and urgency
of conviction in their message. They often denounce, it is
true, the old aboriginal deities.
' A stone with sendur 1 painted o'er,' says Tukaram,
' Brats and women bow before.'
They were fully aware of the vanity of much of the ritual
religion.
They bathe in many a holy river,
But still their hearts are dry as ever.
And their deepest desire is expressed in the words :
Find, O find, some means or other
To bring God and man together.
Such sayings as these of Tukaram's are familiar to every
peasant, and cannot but have an influence in bearing witness
1 Red lead.
LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS 125
to the spiritual character of true religion. Their success in
overcoming the prejudices of caste was, however, very partial
and temporary. Of one of the saints called Cokhamela, an
outcast Mahar. a pathetic and significant story is related.
When remonstrated with for having dared to enter the temple
at Pandharpur he replied that he had not gone there of his
own accord, but had been borne in against his will by the god
himself. He defended himself further in these words : ' What
availeth birth in high caste, what avail rites or learning, if
there is no devotion or faith ? Though a man be of low caste,
yet if he is faithful in heart and loves God, and regards all
creatures as though they were like himself, and makes no
distinction between his own and other people's children, and
speaks the truth, his caste is pure, and God is pleased with
him. Never ask a man's caste when he has in his heart faith
in God and love of men. God wants in his children love and
devotion, and he does not care for caste.' 1
Tukaram is believed to have been translated to heaven in
the year 1649, and his death may be taken as marking the
close of this remarkable movement which centres so largely
about Vithoba and Pandharpur. Certainly the worship that
centres round this god has some of the marks of true spiritual
devotion. What is most significant in regard to it is its
association with music and with song. Its history through
six centuries, as far as it is known to us, is a history of the
poets who sang the praises of Vithoba, and who worshipped
at his shrine. Some of the saints who were associated more
or less closely with this god, were women, ' a few were
Muhammadan converts to Hinduism, nearly half of them were
Brahmans, while there were representatives in the other half
from among all the other castes, Marathas, kunbis (farmers),
tailors, gardeners, potters, goldsmiths, repentant prostitutes,
and slave-girls, even the outcaste Mahars \2 The most striking
features of the worship are connected with the great fairs, to
1 Ranade's Rise of the Maratha Power, pp. 153 f.
2 Ranade, op. cit., p. 146.
136 LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS
which year by year people flock by the hundred thousand
from every district of the Maratha country. What gives these
pilgrimages to Pandharpur their unique character is the
custom in accordance with which the living who throng there
bring with them the spirits of the famous devotees of the
god of ancient days. In fifteen different palanquins those
saints come, each from the place in which he 'took samadhV
or passed to the blessedness of union with God, and each
accompanied by a great concourse of fellowworshippers.
Nearly every one of these saints is at the same time a poet.
It seems as if these worshippers were under some constraint
to sing. As many as a hundred different companies of singing
and playing men escort the palanquins, chanting the praises
of the saints in their own or some other poet's verses. What
the religious movement to which they belonged accomplished
is described thus by Mr. Ranade : ' It gave us a literature of
considerable value in the vernacular language of the country.
It modified the strictness of the old spirit of caste exclusive-
ness. It raised the Sudra classes to a position of spiritual
power and social importance almost equal to that of the
Brahmans. It gave sanctity to the family relations, and raised
the status of woman. It made the nation more humane, at
the same time more prone to hold together by mutual tolera-
tion. It suggested, and partly carried out, a plan of reconcilia-
tion with the Muhammadans. It subordinated the importance
of rites and ceremonies, and of pilgrimages and fasts, and of
learning and contemplation, to the higher excellence of
worship by means of love and faith. It checked the excesses
of polytheism. It tended in all these ways to raise the nation
generally to a higher level of capacity, both of thought and
action.' x
Not only to the North and to the West, but to every
province of India, the wave of this remarkable religious
revival carried its influence and stirred the stagnant waters.
Perhaps nowhere was its influence so genuinely for good as in
1 Ranade, Rise of the Maratha Power, pp. 171 f.
LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS 127
the case of the worship that gathered about Vithoba and
Rama. It would be peculiarly interesting if in the case of
Vithoba we could accept the view in regard to his shrine at
Pandharpur that holds it to have been originally a Buddhist
shrine, and believe that it was the personality of that saint
that has had a purifying and ennobling influence upon the
cult. The devotion rendered here to Krisna and his wedded
wife Rukmini is rendered more often in other parts of India
to Krisna and Radha. In such cases it was sometimes, no
doubt, more fervent than that which we have been describing ;
it certainly was often more sensuous and in most cases it
speedily became corrupt and gross. One sect which illus-
trates more perhaps than any other the serious dangers that
were inherent in these movements when certain features of the
cult were allowed to become prominent, is that of the Valla-
bhacarls. Its founder was Vallabhacarya, who was born about
147 (S in Telingana. He is classed as belonging to the Rudra
Sampraddya and was connected with an earlier teacher called
Visnusvami, who was perhaps its founder. The system of
doctrine which he taught, called Suddhadvaita — that is
thoroughgoing advaita, without may a — was probably in itself
harmless, but the evil consequences that declared themselves
among his followers are to be attributed to the place given in
his sect to the worship of Krisna in association with the gopis
and with Radha. He preached his doctrine in the very land
of Krisna about Mathura, but the chief centre of his influence
is in Gujarat. Nimbarka, the titular founder of the sect of
Nimavats or the Sanakddi-sainpraddya (that is, the school
of which Sanaka was the founder), who is said to belong to the
twelfth century, while he taught a doctrine that in other
respects is closely akin to that of Ramanuja, had also
established in the same district a Radha-Krisna sect, and was
a precursor of Vallabha. The effect of a religion that set
before itself as the object of its adoration the sensual Krisna of
the Bhdgavata Purdna and the Gitd Govinda, could scarcely
fail, one would have thought, to prove evil. That the worship
128 LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS
of Krisna as a matter of fact was not always so, but sometimes
has obtained the service of pure and earnest hearts, remains
a constant marvel. It may be that sometimes he is — as in
the Bhagavadglta — little more than a human name, bringing
God near ; or, as in the case perhaps of the Vitthal of
Tukaram, that some less unworthy personality, associated
somehow with this particular Krisna worship, overshadows and
conceals the grosser aspects of the god. In the case of the
Vallabhas, a further source of evil, besides that which came
from the unsavoury tales that the name of their god suggested,
was in the dangerous honour that among so many Vaisnavas
— among the Tengalais of the South, for example, and among
the Kablr-Panthls of the North — is rendered to the acarya or
guru. The danger of this doctrine and the sensual depths to
which the sect had by that time fallen were demonstrated
when, in 1863, in the High Court of Bombay, their Maharajas
or religious teachers were found even to claim and to receive
from ardent devotees the jus primae noctis.
The followers of this sect as they are found at Mathura are
thus described by Growse : ' They are the Epicureans of the
East, and are not ashamed to avow their belief that the ideal
life consists rather in social enjoyment than in solitude and
mortification. Such a creed is naturally destructive of all
self-restraint, even in matters where indulgence is by common
consent held criminal ; and the profligacy to which it has
given rise is so notorious that the Maharaja of Jaipur was
moved to expel from his capital the ancient image of Gokul
Candrama, for which the sect entertained special veneration,
and has further conceived such a prejudice against Vaisnavas
in general, that all his subjects are compelled, before they
appear in his presence, to mark their foreheads with the three
horizontal lines that indicate a votary of Siva.' x
Such carnivals of sensual religion as this and others which
fall to be mentioned, were not allowed to exercise their sway
without earnest protests on the part of those who realized that
1 Quoted in E. R. E. II, p. 345.
LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS 129
the conscience has its claims in religion no less than the heart.
We are told, for example, of a Gujarat! poet Akho who began
by being an enthusiastic follower of Vallabha, but was soon
disillusioned and 'in bitterness of soul compared his guru to
an old bullock yoked to a cart he could not draw, a useless
expense to his owner, and to a stone in the embrace of
a drowning man which sinks where it is expected to save '.
There were few provinces of India that had not such
Protestants and Puritans. What a student of the Gujarat!
poet saints says of them is certainly true in large measure of
those of the Maratha country as well. ' They ', he says — men
of all kinds and of all castes, ' are what the prophets were in
old Israel. They have made a stand against the pretensions
of the priests and have advocated a living spiritual religion
instead of the lifeless formal religion of outward ceremony.' x
When we turn to Bengal and to Caitanya we find a
religious movement of a character scarcely less restrained
similarly associated with the worship of Radha-Krisna.
Caitanya was almost contemporaneous with Vallabhacarya,
but like him he had precursors. There was first the Sahajia
cult of which Cand!das in the fourteenth century was an
exponent. In this cult 'salvation was sought by a process of
rituals in which young and beautiful women were required to
be loved and worshipped '.2 That was followed by the
Paraklya Rasa or ' the romantic worship of a woman other
than one's own wife '.3 This, otherwise called Madhura Rasa,
is viewed as a symbol of the longing of the soul for God as
represented by Radha's passion for Krisna. The dangers of
such doctrines are obvious enough. Candidas himself says
that ' in a million it would be difficult to find one' who could
overcome them.4 As we read many of the expressions of this
type of devotion, we realize that those who professed it did
not distinguish the sensuous from the spiritual. The whole
atmosphere of sensuousness in which they move, the kisses
1 H. R. Scott, Gujarat i Poetry. 2 D. C. Sen, p. 38.
3 Op. cit., p. 116. 4 Op. cit., p. 45.
K
130 LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS
and embraces, the assignations and seductions, give strength
to their passion, but certainly do not give it purity. ' Virtue
and vice ', says Candidas, and it is not surprising that he
should say it, ' are alike to me. I know them not, but know
thy feet alone.' This Sahajia cult seems to have been
widely spread throughout Bengal, but though undoubtedly it
is one of the progenitors of the Caitanya sect and closely akin
to it in its teaching, it is only fair to the founder of that sect
to say that he was much stricter in his view of the relation of
his ascetic followers with women.
It is said to be to Mahayana Buddhism, which, as we have
seen, gives a large place to devotion, that the inclination of
Bengal towards Vaisnavism is mainly due.1 It has even been
maintained that many who outwardly professed that faith and
spread the Caitanya cult in their hearts were followers of this
doctrine. It had become greatly corrupted by the influence
within it of what were probably aboriginal worships, and had
assumed a form which has been designated Vajrayana and
later what is called Tantric Buddhism. The grossness of
these forms of the religion and their worship of the sakti or
female energy give them a close affinity with such a cult as
that of the Sahajias, and it may well have been the case that
their influence assisted the spread of some of the more sensuous
Vaisnavisms. However that may be, we may at least accept
the suggestion that the soil of Bengal was prepared to receive
such a message as Caitanya's by the emphasis that Maha-
yanism, only then disappearing from the country, placed upon
devotion as well as upon reverence for the guru and the power
of the name. It may, perhaps, rather be claimed that all of
these have their root in the instinct that craves for personal
fellowship with a God who is felt to be remote but whom his
worshippers desire to bring, by one means or another, near to
their understanding and their hearts. No doubt it was
especially the brotherhood of Vaisnavism that attracted the
members of the disappearing Buddhist faith. It is believed at
1 Modem Buddhism and its followers in Orissa, p. 39.
LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS 131
all events that the scattered Mahayanists ' merged in the great
community of the Vaisnavas '. These elements were favour-
able to the Vaisnava revival which Caitanya was to inaugurate,
and on the other hand there were the horrors of Tantrism and
of many another gross superstition, making the need of such
a revival evident to every true-hearted seeker after God. It
was amid such surroundings that Caitanya was born at
Minapur in Navadwipa in i486.1 His original name was
Visvambhara Misra or Nimai, as he was commonly called.
He is believed by some, as has already been indicated, to have
been a follower of Madhva. There is also evidence that the
influence of Vallabhacarya may have reached as far as
Navadwipa, seeing that Caitanya is said to have married his
daughter. He is said also to have met when a lad and
conquered Kesava Kasmlrl, a famous Sanskrit scholar who
visited the town of his birth. But it is not necessary to go
beyond the Vaisnavite inheritance of Bengal itself to find the
sources of his teaching. We are told that in his last days he
would spend whole nights singing the songs of Candidas and
Vidyapati, and we may be sure that they were the inspirations
as well of his earlier years. It was when he was on pilgrimage
to the temple of Visnu at Gaya that he fell into the first of
those trances which his intense emotion in the presence
of Krisna seems frequently to have brought upon him. In
1509 he became a sannyasi and took the name of Krisna
Caitanya. In 1534 he disappeared and was believed to have
been translated to heaven.
Caitanya's life seems to have been a continuous frenzy of
devotion to Krisna. ' His life ', says one Bengali admirer, ' was
a course of thanksgiving, tears, hymns, and praises offered to
God.' 2 So fervent was his rapture, and so intense his desire
to be to Krisna as Radha was to her divine lover that we can
• • •
believe that he was sometimes heard to murmur, ' I am He.'
1 This is the date given by D. C. Sen in his Bengali Language and
Literature.
2 D. C. Sen, p. 441.
K 2
132 LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS
It is not surprising, therefore, that even in his lifetime he was
considered an incarnation of the deity. Singing and dancing
were employed to express the ecstatic emotion which the
sense of the god's presence awakened in him, and sometimes
it is said that in his rapture he would lose all consciousness of
outward things. As is natural in the case of so emotional
a worship, one of the special characteristics of his sect — though
it, no doubt, accompanied in more or less degree every cult of
devotion — is the influence in it of the kirtan or worship by
means of music and singing. This mode of worship is also
believed by some to be an inheritance from Buddhism.1 This
is how a modern Bengali writer, an ardent follower of ' Lord
Gaurahga ', as Caitanya, being elevated to the rank of an
incarnation, is now designated, describes this part of the
worship of the sect : ' In the course of the kirtan the members
often exhibited many external signs of deep emotion. They
would become senseless or roll on the ground, embrace one
another, laugh and cry alternately, and sometimes, as with
one voice, make the sky resound with the ejaculation of " Hari
bol, Hari". They felt themselves immersed, as it were, in
a sea of divine bhakti. They felt as if they were with Krisna
and Krisna with them. Every one present was, in spite of
himself, carried away by the torrent of religious excitement.' 2
Such hysterical devotion, which set before itself as its highest
attainment madhurya or love such as Radha felt for Krisna
could hardly fail to have disastrous effects. There are three
respects, however, in which such Vaisnavism as that of Cai-
tanya made protest, for a time at least, against the traditional
religion. It broke through the restrictions of caste, admitting
to its ranks even Sudras and Muhammadans. They still
sing of Caitanya in Bengal, ' Come see the god-man who does
not believe in caste.' 3 This Vaisnavism likewise permitted
in its lower ranks the re-marriage of widows, and further, as in
the case of other similar movements, it opposed much of the
1 D. C. Sen, p. 571. 2 S. K. Ghose's Lord Cauranga, pp. 109 f.
3 Op. cit., p. 462.
LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS 133
formal ritual of the Sastras, and denied the sanctity of shrines.1
These things, however, had their effect for but a little while,
and were more than counterbalanced by the gross evils to
which the cult's unbridled emotionalism opened wide the door.
Presently, says D. C. Sen, ' fallen women and pariahs swelled
its ranks, and the result was that the allegory of Radha and
Krisna was made an excuse for the practice of many immorali-
ties.' 2 It was sought to prove that a Muhammadan leader of
the sect was really a Brahman. ' Many of the Caitanya sects',
says Mr. T. Rajagopala Chariar, 'adopted the reprehensible
practices of the Tantrics or Saktas, and hence fell into those
very sins which moved the moral wrath of Caitanya, and
prompted his attempts at reform.' 3
Closely akin to both the Vallabhas and the Caitanyas is
the sect of which Mlra Bal, the Queen of Udaipur, was the
founder in the fifteenth century. She gave proof of her
devotion to Krisna by renouncing for love of him her kingdom
and her husband.4 At last, according to the legend, she cast
herself before his image, and besought him to take her wholly
to himself. Thereupon ' the god descended from his pedestal
and gave her an embrace which extricated the spark of life.
" Welcome, Mlra," said the lover of Radha, and her soul was
absorbed into his'.5 She is the authoress of a poem in praise
of Krisna, which is a sequel to the Gltd Govinda. There is
1 S. K. Ghose's Lord Gaurattga, p. 579. 2 Op. cit., p. 606.
3 The Vaisnavite Reformers of India, p. 149.
4 ' In a thousand sweet and homely songs the broken heart of Mlra Bal
sung itself out, and the love which the Rana had claimed in vain, was
poured upon the divine and invisible ideal of her soul, and her songs live
to this day after 400 years. Pious women in Gujarat sing them in the
presence of the same ideal and feel they are nearer heaven than earth
when Mlra s music is on their tongues. Young women sing them at
home and in public choruses, for Mlra's ideal is held to be an ideal for
all women, and the heart of Mlra was as pure and innocent and sweet
and God-loving as the heart of woman should be.' G. M. Tripathi,
quoted by H. R. Scott in his lecture on Gujarati Poetry._ Mr. Scott goes
on, ' This is not the impression perhaps that Mlra Bal's Padas would
make on our minds, but it is an indication of how the people of Gujarat
can idealize these old songs.'
5 Tod's Rajasthan, ii, p. 722.
i34 LATER VAISNAVITE CULTS
a legend of her which illustrates the character of the madhnrya
— the love as of a woman to her lover — which is the distinctive
feature of those Krisna sects which we have been describing.
It is said that when Mlra Bal had left all for Krisna, she
journeyed to Brindaban to visit a bhakta of the Caitanya sect,1
but he refused to see her on the ground that he could not
look upon the face of a woman. When she heard his message
Mlra Bal replied, ' Is he then a male? If so he has no access
to Brindaban. Males cannot enter there, and if the goddess
of Brindaban comes to know of his presence she will turn him
out. For does not the great Goswami know that there is but
one male in existence, namely my beloved Kanai Lai (Krisna),
and that all besides are females ? ' 2
With those examples of the perilous places in which Vais-
navite devotion has sometimes found itself in its strange and
chequered history as we have sought to trace it, we shall bring
our investigation of the specifically Vaisnavite Theisms to
a close. There have been later quickenings of this inex-
tinguishable spirit in the land, but these, though tracing their
descent from those ancient sources of spiritual life, and claiming
with some justice the title of ' Bhagavata Dharma ', or of the
Arya or the Brahmo faith, owe so much, whether consciously
or not, to influences that have invaded the land from without
in modern times, that they can scarcely be called pure types
of Indian Theism. There are, however, some parallel streams
of theistic inspiration, which, while not necessarily uninfluenced
by Vaisnavism, have their head-waters elsewhere, and to these
we shall now briefly turn.
1 This, however, is chronologically impossible, if Kumbha's (Mlra BaTs
husband) date is correctly given as 1438-83. This date is not only
irreconcilable with the incident here related but also with the account
in Tod's Rajaslhan.
2 Shishir Kumar Ghose's Lord Gatiranga, p. xl.
IX
KABIR AND NANAK
From Ramananda, the South Indian follower of Ramanuja,
who found his native land of the South too narrow for him,
and set up his math on the banks of the Ganges, there went
forth a remarkable theistic influence that flowed in various
streams through all the provinces of India. As typical of
two of those currents of religious life which claim him as their
source we may name Tulsi Das, of whom we have already
spoken, on the one hand, and KabTr on the other. There are
no names in the history of Indian Theism that are more
worthy of honour than are these, and there are none that are
even now more honoured, or whose words are more widely
known and familiar to the common people. The two names
convey indeed a different suggestion ; the one, that of Tulsi
Das, connoting a teaching that is more purely Hindu in its
descent and in its mode of thought and of expression ; the
other, that of KabTr, while also deeply dyed of Hinduism, yet
influenced at the same time to a powerful extent by the new
religious attitude that had by this time entered India with
the Muhammadan invaders. A distinct character is given to
the Theisms into which the new element enters, which differ-
entiates them from those that are purely indigenous in the
sources of their inspiration. The languor of the Hindu atmo-
sphere is replaced by a new stringency, a new vigour, even it
it is only in its negations, and a more decidedly ethical out-
look. It is evident again and again, as we read the sayings
of this group of saints, that new blood has flowed into a
Hinduism of which robustness had never been the note, and
which had been growing more and more anaemic. There are
136 KABIR AND NANAK
even occasional gleams in these pages of Arab fierceness and
fanaticism. It was these elements in it, combining with Durga-
worship and the darker side of Hinduism, that produced the
Akalls and Guru Govind Singh. Some of these characteristics
are already present in the teaching of Kabir. There is a
virility in his views and their expression which is new and
refreshing. His own immediate followers, the Kabir Panthls,
number from eight to nine thousand, and are scattered over
a wide area of North and Central India. His influence is not,
however, confined within these limits, but is to be traced in
a considerable number of sects, of which the largest and most
notable is that of the Sikhs, founded by Kablr's most famous
follower, Nanak. Other religious teachers in whom the
influence of Kabir can be distinctly traced are Dadu of
Ahmedabad, founder of the Dadu Panthls, Jagjivan Das of
Oude, founder of the Satnamls, Baba Lai of Malwa, Bribhan,
founder of the Sadhus, Siva Narayan of Ghazipur, and Caran
Das of Alwar.
Whether or not all these religious teachers were directly
indebted to Kabir, in the modes of their thought they bear
a kinship to him, and they have all to acknowledge in him
a priority in time in respect of the common indebtedness
which they, whether explicitly or not, confess to Hindu
influences on the one hand, and to Muhammadan influences
on the other. In the case of Kabir the combination in his
teaching of these two elements is strikingly illustrated by his
personal history. He was born early in the fifteenth century,
and was a Julaha or Muhammadan weaver. Part of his life
was probably spent in Benares, where he was associated with
the Ramanandls. Whether he was actually himself a disciple
of Ramananda, and one of his twelve apostles, as legend
affirms, is uncertain. There is no reason, indeed, why this
may not have been so during that period of religious exulta-
tion,1 and parallel instances may be cited in the case of
Haridas, the Muhammadan disciple of Caitanya,2 and Shaik
1 Grierson mJ.R.A.S., Jan. 1908, p. 248. 2 D. C. Sen, p. 509.
KABIR AND NANAK 137
Mohammad among the Maratha saints of Pandharpur.1 Kahil-
is believed to have come under Sufi influences, which are said
to have been present in the district through which he travelled
seeking light at various shrines.2 He died probably in the
year 151 8 3 at Maghar in the district of Gorakhpur. A dispute
is said to have arisen over his body, the Muhammadans
desiring to bury it and the Hindus to burn it, but when the
cloth beneath which it lay was lifted, there was found, according
to the legend, only a heap of flowers.4
The account of Kablr that is given by Nabhajl in the BJiakta
Mala is as follows : ' Kablr refused to acknowledge caste dis-
tinctions or to recognize the authority of the six schools of
Hindu philosophy, nor did he set any store by the four
divisions of life [Asramas) prescribed by Brahmans. He held
that religion without bliakti was no religion at all, and that
asceticism, fasting, and almsgiving had no value if unaccom-
panied by worship (bhajau, hymn-singing). By means of
Ramainls, Sabdas, and Sakhls he imparted religious instruc-
tions to Hindus and Muhammadans alike. He had no prefer-
ence for either religion, but gave teaching that was appreciated
by the followers of both. He spoke out his mind fearlessly,
and never made it his object merely to please his hearers.' d
That this is on the whole a fair account of Kablr's teaching, one
who examines the writings that have come down to us bearing
his name will agree. It is true that in his case, as in that of
every Indian sage who has attained a place of honour and
authority, much has been attributed to him which probably
is far enough from agreement with what he actually taught.
That is evident from the contradictions in which his alleged
writings abound. The term Muwahid or a believer in one
God which is given to him in the Dabistan, confirms the view
that his essential doctrine was theistic and not pantheistic.0
1 Ranade's Rise of ike Maratha Power, p. 155.
2 Bijak, Ramaitu, 30 (Premchand's translation).
3 Westcott, p. 3, note 6.
4 This story is also told of Nanak's death, Macauliffe, pp. 190, 191.
5 Westcott, p. 30. 6 Westcott, op. cit., p. 38.
138 KABIR AND NANAK
It was inevitable that when the Moslem monotheism had any
influence at all, that influence should be strongly opposed to
the toleration of polytheism and idolatry, which has always
been so fatal a characteristic of Pantheism even among its
enlightened exponents in India. On the other hand, the
evils of caste, idolatry, and polytheism, the spirituality of true
worship, and the divine personality, were the subjects upon
which contact with Islam was sure, in the case of thoughtful
Hindus, to stimulate reflection. At the same time Hinduism
had a contribution to make which was of real value. The
effect of the contact of the two religions should have been, as
Mr. Justice Ranade claims it was, to make the Muhammadans
less bigoted and the Hindus more puritanic and single-minded
in their devotion. Mr. Ranade notes the difference in this
respect between North India and the South, where there was
no such fusion of Hindu and Moslem thought, but where ' the
Hindu sectarian spirit intensified class pride and idolatrous
observances '-1
There is every likelihood, as we have noted, that the teaching
of Kablr as time went on has been made to assume a form
more and more fully Hindu. We are probably right in con-
cluding that in his Bljak whatever is most outspoken in its
criticism of Hindu customs and ideas is most certainly genuine.
Here are a few examples of such sayings from his Bijak and
from the Granth. 'The Vedas and Puranas are a looking-
glass to the blind.' ' Brahma died. With Siva who lived in
Benares all the immortals died.' ' With one book the Brahmans
established the worship of Brahma. With another they taught
the cow-herd to be the supreme spirit. With one they taught
the worship of Mahadeva, and with another the worship of
evil spirits.' 2 ' The beads are of wood, the gods of stone, and
the Jumna of water. Rama and Krisna are dead. The four
Vedas are fictitious stories.' ' If by worshipping stones one
can find God, I will worship a mountain. Better than these
1 Ranade's Essays on Religious and Social Reform, p. 245.
2 The above passages are from the Bijak.
KABIR AND NANAK 139
stones (idols) are the stones of the flour-mill with which men
grind their corn.' Again we have the same voice speaking
in condemnation of caste. ' Whose art thou, the Brahman ?
Whose am I, the Sudra? Whose blood am I ? Whose milk
art thou ? ' x
As we have already indicated, we may conclude that Kabir
was a monotheist. The Rama or Hari whom he worships is
not a god of mythological story. These gods are dead, he
says. God was not born in Dasarath's family, nor was DevakI
his mother.2 God is greater than these inventions of men,
greater than the thoughts of Him of Hindu or Muhammadan.
• Kabir is on the road to God, and is marching on to his end
forsaking all partial views.' 3 ' Hari, Brahma, and Siva are the
three headmen, and each has his own village.' 4 Kabir turns
away from these local conceptions of God's being to Rama,
' who is obtained for the price of the heart '.5 ' God whom you
seek is near you. He is always near to his devotees, and far
from those who do not worship him.' 6 He is found by him
who seeks him by the moral path and by quiet meditation.
' Unless you have a forgiving spirit you will not see God.' 7
' Thou shouldst ride on thy own reflection ; thou shouldst put
thy foot into the stirrup of tranquillity of mind. Kabir says,
Those are good riders who keep aloof from the Veda and
Qur'an.' 8
It is natural that one who has turned away from the popular
mythology and polytheism of the Hindu world about him, and
who finds before him for his worship on the one hand the
vague Paramatma of the philosopher, and on the other the
remote Allah of Islam, should be conscious, in spite of his
spirit of devotion, of his little knowledge of the God to whom
he seeks so earnestly to draw near. It is not surprising to
find in Kabir and in the school of thought that he inaugurates,
1 Westcott, op. cit., pp. 58, 61. 2 Bfjak, Ramaini, 29.
3 Bijak in Westcott, op. cit., p. 57. 4 Op. cit., p. 56.
5 Op. cit, p. 50. 6 Op. cit., p. 51.
Op. cit., p. 53. 8 Op. cit., p. 67.
7
140 KABIR AND NANAK
a frequent expression of the divine unknowableness and of
the need of mediation in order that God may be brought
within the reach of man. The ten avataras are dead. The
popular means by which it has been sought to bring God near
to man have proved a snare and a deceit. How then can we
know 'Him whose name is unutterable'? 'Whose nature
Brahma even did not know, and Siva, Sanak, and others were
unsuccessful in their attempts to know him. Kabir cries out,
" O man, how will you know his attributes ? " ' * ' Kabir says,
To whom shall I explain ; the whole world is blind. The
true one is beyond reach ; falsehood binds all.' 2 Thus it comes
that we have in the teaching of Kabir and of the other members
of his school of thought the doctrine of Sabda and the doctrine
of the Guru. The former of these is somewhat difficult for us
to understand in the naive significance that it no doubt had for
Kabir and his followers. We have seen that he rejected the
book-learning of the Hindus. Veda and Our'an alike suggested
to him the deceitfulness of the learned. He was, like Muham-
mad, an unlettered man, and his teaching was probably
communicated orally to his followers. In the Bijak he is
represented as declaring, ' I neither touched ink nor paper, nor
did I take a pen into my hand, to the sages of all four ages
Kabir declared his word by mouth.' 3 Sabda is thus the
mysterious utterance of speech that conveys knowledge of the
unknown and makes wise unto salvation. But it is no doubt
especially associated with the name of God — the ' Satnam ',
which is recognized in later developments of the doctrine as
so powerful. In the Granth it is said, ' As the stars at dawn
pass away, so the world passes away ; these two letters (Ram)
do not pass away. Them Kabir has seized.' 4 ' Kabir says,
I am a lover of the word which has shown me the unseen
(God).'5 This is a far simpler thing on Kablr's lips than the
Sabda pramana of the schools of philosophy. He was no
philosopher, but speech was obviously a mediation of the un-
1 Bijak, Premchand's translation, p. 29. 2 Ibid., p. 43.
3 Westcott, p. 175. 4 Ibid., p. 68. 5 Ibid., p. 69.
KABIR AND NANAK 141
known, and as such, when that unknown was God, mystic and
wonderful. It is not logos or reason, but rather the testimony
of him who knows, however he may have come to know — and
that remains obscure — or again it is the name of God, which
is itself the unutterable uttered, the hidden manifested. It
seems to be the constraining power of such testimony to
change the heart that is referred to in such a passage as this :
' By the power of the word the sin of the world is destroyed.
The word makes kings forsake their kingdoms.' x By it doubt
is destroyed and darkness : it opens the gateway of light.
And again in the Bljak, ' Those who construct a raft in the
name of Rama can cross over the ocean of the love of this
world.'2 So in later teaching of the Panth, the word is one
of the three boats in which souls can safely cross the ocean of
life.3 God is the letterless One ; but he has taken form, as it
were, in a name, not a name written but a name uttered, ' the
word of the true One '.
So in a later book of the Panth, the Amar Mill, it is said,
' The unutterable name alone is true, the name that pervades
all hearts. When the voice of the word was sounded, the
indestructible One took form.' 4 How far this doctrine may
have been influenced by the teaching in the Gospel of St. John
of the divine Logos or Word, 'the light that lighteth every one
coming into the world ', it is not possible to discuss here. In
any case the thought in Kablr's mind, however dimly appre-
hended by himself, and however naive in its expression, is
fundamentally akin to that of the Gospel, and is far nearer to
it, because more simply religious, than the logos doctrines of
Heraclitus or of Philo. Kablr's is an attempt by means of this
idea to bring- near to men's hearts and minds the remote and
dimly apprehended God. The Hindu incarnations are rejected,
but the idea of incarnation, of accommodation of the divine
to human comprehension, is too deeply rooted in man's sense
of his weakness and his need and in his hope of the divine
1 Westcott, p. 68. 2 Premchand's Btjak, p. 8.
3 Westcott, p. 149. 4 Op.cit., p. 149.
142 KABIR AND NANAK
mercy to be rejected. In this form of the doctrine of the
Sabda it reappears purged of its unworthy mythological
associations. The books of the pandits only brought be-
wilderment to the single-hearted seeker. ' Remove doubt,
put aside the paper.' x The word that comes more immedi-
ately from the heart and that speaks to the heart is to take
its place.
It is the same instinct that creates the doctrine of the guru>
a doctrine that we find also in South Indian teaching, and
which is so prominent and influential with all the members of
the school that derives from Kablr. ' From heaven and hell ',
says Kablr, ' I am freed by the favour of the true Guru.'
' Death by which the whole world is frightened, that death is
lighted up by the word of the Guru.'' 2 ' The true Guru is a
great money-changer, testing the good and the evil ; rescuing
from the world the good, he takes it under his own protection.' 3
It is obvious at once how such teaching as this was necessary
in the case of one who turned away from the book-learning of
the pandits and the literary tradition, and whose followers
were simple, ignorant people. They had need of an oral
teacher ; and, when God was conceived of as a Spiritual
Being, and one remote and hard to find, the importance of
the mediation and instruction of a wise spiritual director will
at once be evident. Kablr was himself, as was natural, the
chief Guru of his followers ; and it is not surprising to find
him, in consequence, elevated by them presently to the rank
of the Creator of the Universe, who is in all and in whom all
is contained. ' I am the Sad/in,' he is made to say, ' and all
Sadhus dwell in me.' 4 While it is easy to see the dangers of
such a doctrine, dangers which proved themselves real in the
case of the Kablr Panthls as in that of other sects where the
Guru or the Acarya was given a similar place, yet at the same
time we can recognize here also a testimony to the need of
1 Granth in Westcott, p. 67. 2 Ibid., pp. 71, 72.
3 Sakhi attributed to Kablr, Westcott, p. 89.
4 Westcott, p. 146.
KABIR AND NANAK 143
a mediator, if the One God, the Supreme, is to be brought
' down to the level of our common lives, down to the beating
of our common hearts '.
Other elements that are prominent in the rituals of the
Kablr Panth emphasize still further its theistic character and
its kinship with older theistic cults in India and elsewhere
throughout the world. These are its rites of initiation and
communion. Some of these, such as the drinking of the
Car an mitra} the water in which the sandals of Kablr, or the
feet of Kablr's representative on earth, have been washed, are
due to the high place of reverence that is accorded to the
spiritual teacher. The ceremony of initiation and that of
communion, which is called Jot Prasad, are similar to those
which are to be found, in grosser or more spiritual form, in
nearly every religion which seeks to attain fellowship with
a personal God. Both in the rites of initiation and in the
communion feast betel-leaves are eaten, upon which have
been written the secret name of God. This ' is said to repre-
sent the body of Kablr'.2 The eating of the God, whether
he be represented by an animal that is slain or by dough
images or, as here, by his name alone written upon a leaf —
has always been considered one way of assimilating his spirit.
Like the Eleusinian initiate the Kablr Panthls could say, ' I
have fasted, I have drunk the sacred draught' But, though
in every case such communion ritual has as its end the appro-
priation of the mana or vital power of the god or of the god's
representative, in the case of the Kablr Panthls that mana is
realized as something widely removed from the physical
energy that the savage seeks when he drinks the blood of the
sacred bull.3 The initiates are exhorted to live holy lives.
1 This is Hindi for the Sanskrit caraiiamrita.
2 Westcott, p. 121.
3 ' The bull was the chief of magic or sacred animals in Greece, chief
because of his enormous strength, his rage, in fine his mana, as anthro-
pologists call it, that fine primitive word which comprises force, vitality,
prestige, holiness, and power of magic, and which may belong equally to
a lion, a chief, a medicine-man, or a battle-axe' (Murray's Four Stages
of Greek Religion, p. 11). ' Mana is the magic condition : it is the latent
144 KABIR AND NANAK
The food presented to them, which is chiefly coco-nut and
the consecrated betel-leaf ' is regarded as Kabir's special gift,
and it is said that all who receive it worthily will obtain
eternal life \1
Such a sacramental meal as we have here was no doubt
common to many of the bJiakti cults. In them as in it, what-
ever may have been the case originally, the flesh and the
blood of animals have long since been replaced by a meal of
vegetable products and of water. The Mahaprasada, as a
means of fellowship with God, has its roots in a deep human
instinct, however strange and savage its expression may have
often been. That there are close parallels in the Kablr PanthI
rituals with practices that have been followed in the Christian
Church in connexion with the sacrament of the Lord's Supper
is unquestionably true. There is, for example, ■ the com-
munion in both kinds ', which is exceptional in such sacra-
mental rituals ; there is the ' reservation ' of a portion of the
food specially for the use of the sick ; there is a feast following
upon the rite similar to the early Christian love-feast.2 These
things, however, though striking, are not without their non-
Christian parallels, and leave the question of indebtedness to
Christian teaching, which, of course, is quite a possibility, a
matter upon which we cannot dogmatize.
When one passes from Kablr to Nanak one is not conscious
of any change of atmosphere. The main ideas of the two
teachers are the same, and both teach principles of inwardness
and devotion, and commend the way of quietism and of medi-
tation. They are alike in betraying evident traces of both
Hindu and Muhammadan influence, and at the same time
they agree in standing apart from these two faiths, criticizing
them in the forms in which they see them, and seeking to
reconcile them. Both teachers might have said, as Nanak
said,' I am neither Hindu nor Muhammadan, but a worshipper
power in a person, a thing, even in a word. He who can evoke this
energy and make it subserve his ends is a man of talent ' (S. Reinach,
Orpheus, Eng. trans., p. 157).
1 Westcott, p. 132. 2 Grierson 'vaJ.R. A. S., April 1907, p. 326.
KABIR AND NANAK 145
of the Nirakara, of the Formless.' The prominence given to
Kablr in Nanak's Adi Grantli is evidence enough of the
influence that the earlier teacher had upon him. He is said,
also, to have come into personal contact with him when he
was a young man of twenty-seven years of age.
Nanak was born in the village of Talwandi, in the district
of Lahore, in the year 1469. The Lodi dynasty was at that
time ruling in Delhi. His father was a village accountant,
and a cultivator, a Hindu and a Ksatriya by caste. His
followers named him Guru Nanak, and they were his disciples
or Sisya, hence called in the dialect of the country Sikhs.
They now number between two and three millions, and since
the days of Guru Govind, the tenth in succession from Nanak,
they have been famous far more for their warlike qualities
than for the quietism and devout spirit of their founder. How
this has come about need not here be discussed. No doubt
there had entered into Nanak's teaching, along with the milder
Hindu doctrine, that which was fitted to arouse the fiercer
elements in the nature of its followers. It is sufficient to
point out how complete a change has passed over the sect
with the lapse of years, and to note that apparently there was
not, in the teaching of Nanak, a power sufficient to restrain
within the bounds of his doctrines of inwardness and devotion,
the natural fierceness of his people's nature, but, on the
contrary, that which seemed to stimulate them to violence
and fanaticism. Just as the Krisnaite sects fell so often into
unrestrained self-indulgence and moral corruption, so this
community gave way with an equal abandonment to the
temptations of the natural man in them. The besetting sin of
those who followed those Krisnaite teachers — the Caitanyas and
Vallabhas — was sensualism ; the besetting sin of the Jats
and other Punjabis who followed Guru Nanak was ferocity
and bigotry. In each case it is evident that the faith they
followed had that in it which could stimulate and excite, but
not that which could restrain and control, the natural passions
of the human heart.
L
i46 KABIR AND NANAK
In Nanak's own teaching we find much the same ideas as
Kabir had taught, but carried further, and organized more
fully into a system. It is true that neither Kabir nor Nanak
is a systematic thinker. Neither troubles much with the
metaphysical bases of his doctrine. An element of weakness
in them both is the absence of a fully considered theology.
They are eclectic teachers, guided rather by impulse and by
intuition than by reflection. The evidence of the influence of
Hindu teaching is still greater in Nanak than in Kabir. It is
said, indeed, that he had a Muhammadan teacher, just as the
Muhammadan Kabir had a Hindu one ; and, further, that in
his later days, he made the pilgrimage to Mecca. All the
same the influence of Hindu Pantheism is strongly marked in
his Granth, and he acknowledges his debt to a succession of
Vaisnavite saints, among whom are Ramananda and the
Maratha Namdev, by including many of their writings in that
book.
The legendary story of the Guru's life bears a strange
resemblance to those of other Indian sages. In the case of
almost every one of them it is accounted a sign of his divine
calling that he cannot give his thoughts to any secular occupa-
tion. When Nanak's father had sought in vain to persuade
him to follow one profession after another— that of a farmer,
a shopkeeper, a horse-dealer — his friends concluded that he
was suffering from some mental disease. But Nanak diagnosed
his own sickness as due to ' the pain of separation from God,
the pang of hunger for contemplation of Him '.1 What most
of all made them conclude that he was mad was his declara-
tion— ' There is no Hindu and no Muhammadan.' Presently
he was permitted to follow his own desires and then began —
as in the case of many of these saints and seekers — his years
of wandering. One story that is told of him is claimed also,
mutatis mutandis, for his predecessor the Maratha poet
Namdev, and has already been related. In the version that
is associated with Nanak the scene of the story is laid at
1 Macauliffe, I, p. 27.
KABIR AND NANAK 147
Mecca, and it is the Ka'bah which moved as he moved, proving
that the house of God was everywhere. In this story, which
has probably been adapted from the earlier legend of the
Vaisnavite saint, we have a symbolic representation of Nanak's
attitude to the two religions which he sought to combine and
to transcend in the higher unity of his message. There is
little likelihood that he actually accomplished the Haj ; but
as he is said to have worn on one of his journeys ' a strange
motley of Hindu and Muhammadan religious habiliments',1
so in his doctrine Hindu Pantheism enfolded Muhammadan
monotheism, subduing it indeed, but not entirely assimilating
it to itself. There was a refractory element in it which was
to show its stubborn characteristics in later developments of
the sect. He died in 1538 at Khartarpur in the Punjab.
In his teaching we find the same elements as in that of
Kablr, but set forth at greater length and with perhaps less
simplicity and epigrammatic force. In the Japjl, which is
supposed to give an epitome of the doctrine of the sect, and
which every Sikh is expected to know by heart, we have less
criticism of Hinduism than we find in Kablr. The attitude
rather is that the gods of Hinduism bear testimony to the
Formless One, and he transcends them all. His rejection of
Hinduism does not involve a positive rejection of its practices.
They are of an inferior order to that which he proclaims :
they are not sufficient for salvation. He who performs them
may obtain ' some little honour ' — as it were ' a grain of
sesamum seed'.2 But the true way is the way of inward
purity. ' If I please Him, that is my place of pilgrimage to
bathe in ; if I please Him not, what ablutions shall I make? ' 3
The Hindu doctrines of re-birth and of maya are accepted by
him, and as in the case of all those who come within the
region of their powerful influence, do much to give his
teaching its peculiar mould. At the same time the Muham-
madan elements in his thought react upon these doctrines in
1 Macauliffe, I, p. 58. 2 Japjl, XXI, Macauliffe, I, p. 206.
3 JaPJh VI, Macauliffe, I, p. 199.
L 2
148 KABIR AND NANAK
a way that is strange to Hinduism and scarcely reconcilable
with it. Thus he says, ' God made maya by His power ;
seated He beheld His work with delight.' 1 So again in regard
to transmigration : ' Re-birth and deliverance depend on Thy
will . . . God Himself knoweth to whom He may give, and He
Himself giveth : very few acknowledge this.'2 'The Creator
who made the world hath decreed transmigration.' 3 As is
natural in one who has come under the influence of the
austere absolutism of Muhammadan theology, the will of God
is placed by him for the most part above the automatic
operation of karma. If the translation of the following
passage is correctly given by Mr. Macauliffe, we have in it
a strange and imperfectly accomplished combination of
Musalman and Hindu teaching in this connexion : —
The recording angels take with them a record of man's acts.
It is he himself soweth and he himself reapeth.
Nanak, man suffereth transmigration by God's order. 4
'God's order' and 'the pre-ordained will of the Commander'
have a large place in this teaching, however they are to be
reconciled with a doctrine of karma. ' By Thy power are
honour and dishonour.' 5
To Muhammadan influence we must ascribe the clear
affirmation of the divine unity. ' There is but one God,
whose name is true, the Creator.' He is always ' the omni-
potent Creator ',6 but at the same time, in words that recall the
BJiagavadgita, He is described as He ' who hath strung the
whole world on His string'.7 Again in another passage of
ihcjapjl, which seems in contradiction with what is elsewhere
affirmed, we find it stated that 'One maya in union with God'
gave birth, among others, to the Creator.7 It is not sur-
prising in one who is so little of a constructive theologian and
1 Asa-ki-war, Pauri, I, Macauliffe, I, p. 219.
2 JaPJh XXV, Macauliffe, I, p. 209.
8 Asa-ki-war, Sloki, VIII, Macauliffe, I, p. 229.
4 Japfit XX, Macauliffe, I, p. 206.
5 Asa-ki-war, Sloki, III, Macauliffe, I, p. 221.
° JaPJh XXX, Macauliffe, I, p. 213.
7 JaPJh XXX, Macauliffe, I, p. 213.-
KABIR AND NANAK 149
who can make so little claim to speculative power, that echoes
of Hindu and Muhammadan teaching are to be found through-
out his writings with little serious attempt to fuse them into
a consistent system. Thus the influence of the Upanisads is
unmistakable in such a line as this : ' By one word Thou didst
effect the expansion of the world ; ' 1 while a well-known
passage from the KatJia Upanisad may have suggested this :
' Divine knowledge is not sought in mere words ; to speak con-
cerning it were hard as iron. By God's grace man obtaineth
it ; skill and order are useless therefore.' 2
This last passage reminds us of an aspect of Nanak's
teaching, which we found also in that of Kablr — his sense of
the transcendence and essential unknowableness of God.
This is a thought which, as we saw in the case of the earlier
teacher, may well have been impressed upon him, both from
the side of the Hindu doctrine of the Atman, and from that
of the high monotheism of the Qur'an. ' Men have grown
weary at last', he declares, 'of searching for God's limits.'3
God is to him pre-eminently the Nirakara, the Formless One ;
He is ' inaccessible, inapprehensible '.4 The Japjl opens with an
impressive affirmation of His unknowableness. ' By thinking
I cannot obtain a conception of Him, even though I think
hundreds of thousands of times. Even though I be silent and
keep my attention firmly fixed on Him, I cannot preserve
silence. The hunger of the hungry for God subsideth not
though they obtain the load of the worlds. If a man should
have thousands and hundreds of thousands of devices, even
one would not assist him in obtaining God.'5 Perhaps just
because of this sense of the hopelessness of obtaining the
Formless One, Nanak, while he denounces Hindu idolatry, is
much more tolerant than Kablr of Hindu polytheism. In his
time no doubt the theistic sects who ' worshipped according to
1 JaPJh XVI, Macauliffe, I, p. 203.
2 Asa-ki-war, Sloki, IV, Macauliffe, I, p. 223.
3 JaPJii XXIII, Macauliffe, I, p. 207.
4 Macauliffe, I, p. 330.
5 JaPJh Ij Macauliffe, I, p. 196.
150 KABIR AND NANAK
the instruction of Narad ' might be described, as he is said
to describe them in one hymn, as ' ignorant fools ' who take
stones and worship them.1 At the same time the whole
Hindu pantheon is recognized as holding a place beneath the
Nirakara and as bearing testimony to Him.2 ' The Guru of
the gurus is one ; the garbs many.' 3 Here as in the case
of Kablr, it is the Guru who is the true mediator between
man and the distant deity. ' Search not for the true One afar
off/ it is said, ' he is in every heart and is known by the Guru's
instruction.' 4 Along with the mediation of the Guru goes a
belief, such as we saw in Kablr also, in the efficacy of the divine
name which the Guru communicates to the disciple. The name
is the mysterious concrete embodiment, as it were, of the deity,
and the power of the Guru lies in that he can convey it to the
seeker. And he only can convey it. The Guru and the
name are inseparably linked. ' Without the true Guru none
hath found God,' 5 for ' without the true Guru the Name is not
obtained '.G ' The invisible One is shown in (his) true palace
by the Guru!" 'If the intellect is defiled with sins: it is
washed in the dye of the Name.' 8 These passages which no
doubt derive from an early belief in the mysterious power
of the magician and his spell 9 could be multiplied almost
endlessly. Along with it sometimes goes an incongruous
contribution from the fatalistic teaching of Islam. It is
perhaps rather in the teachings of the later Gurus than in that
of Nanak himself that we find this doctrine, that it is only the
elect who are saved by the name of Hari and that it is to
them alone that the name is conveyed.
1 Macauliffe, I, p. 326. 2 Japji, V, IX, XXVI, XXVII.
3 Trumpp, p. 321. 4 Macauliffe, I, p. 328.
5 JaPJJi Macauliffe, I, p. 226. n Jafiji, Macauliffe, I, p. 335.
7 Growse, p. 329. 8 Jafiji, XX, Trumpp, p. 7.
9 'To the magician knowledge is power; the impulse which drives him
is still the desire to extend the influence of his mana ... to its utmost
bounds. To form a representation of the structure of nature is to have con-
trol over it. To classify things is to name them, and the name of a thing
or of a group of things, is its soul ; to know their names is to have power over
their souls.' Cornford's From Religion to Philosophy, p. 141.
KABIR AND NANAK 151
The Guru in consequence has a place that can hardly
remain long lower than that of deity. The Hindu gods are
identified with him, and he is even identified with the Supreme
Hari. ' This Guru of Gurus is but one, though he hath
various forms.' x ' The Gurudev is the Lord, the Supreme
Lord. . . . The Gurudev Hari, says Nanak, I worship.'2 But
whoever is conceived to be the mysterious Guru of Nanak, to
all after him the Guru par excellence is Nanak himself and
' God hath put himself into the true Guru'? ' In the perfect
Guru (God) has become complete.' 4 No doubt Nanak, though
he often speaks of himself with humility, believed himself to
be an incarnation of the Supreme God. Certainly this is the
teaching of his successors in regard to him. ' To make the true
Guru one's friend,' and serve one's Guru in all lowliness, is the
way of wisdom. ' I am a sacrifice to my Guru a hundred
times a day.'5 The avatar as of Hindu legend have here been
definitely replaced by the true Guru, and devotion to him is
the vital centre of the religion. Along with that goes — like
the reverence for Sabda in Kablr — what developed presently
into worship of the Granth Sahib, the book that preserved the
wisdom of the great Guru and of other teachers worthy to be
set beside him.
This is how Mr. Macauliffe describes the attitude of the
Sikhs to this book.6 ' The Granth Sahib is to them the
embodiment of their Gurus, who are regarded as only one
1 The Sohila, Macauliffe, I, p. 258. 2 Trumpp, p. 377.
3 Asa-ki-war, Macauliffe, I, p. 226. 4 Growse, p. 64.
5 Asa-ki-war, Sloki, I, Macauliffe, I, p. 218.
fi The present attitude to the Granth is indicated by the following
account of the worship given to it in the Golden Temple at Amritsar :
' Among the Sikhs themselves the shrine and its precincts are known as
the Durbar Sahib or " Sacred Audience", and the title owes its origin to
the fact that the Granth or Sacred Book, is looked upon as a living
Person, who daily in this shrine receives his subjects in solemn audience.
The book is brought every morning with considerable pomp from the
Akalbunga across the causeway to the shrine and returns at night with
similar ceremony. It is installed in the shrine below a canopy, and
a grant hi sits behind it all day, waving a canri, or yak's tail, over it
as a servant does over the head of an Indian Prince.' E. R. E. I,
P- 3992-
i5» KABIR AND NANAK
person, the light of the first Guru's soul having been trans-
mitted to each of his successors in turn. The line of the
Gurus closed with the tenth, Guru Govind Singh. He ordered
that the Granth should be to his Sikhs as the living Gurus.
Accordingly" the Granth Sahib is kept in silken coverlets, and
when it is removed from place to place, is taken on a small
couch by Sikhs of good repute.' Y The fifth Guru, Guru
Arjun (1563-1606), compiled the most important part of this
Scripture, the Adi Granth or 'Original Book', which he com-
pleted in 1604.- In this he included the hymns of the first
five Gurus and of other recognized saints such as Ramananda,
Namdev, and Kabir. His Granth is to be distinguished from
that of Guru Govind Singh, the tenth and the last of the
Gurus. With him Sikhism had its euthanasia as ' a religion
of spirituality and benevolence'.3 Of the transformation of
the sect into a brotherhood of Puritan warriors, organized
rather for battle than for worship, it is not necessary to say
much. Those who accepted Guru Govind's rite of Pahul, or
baptism of the sword, were called Khalsd — a word derived
from Arabic, Khalis, pure — and were to be like their Guru,
Singhs or lions. The office of Guru was now invested in the
whole brotherhood, among whom there was to be no longer
any caste distinctions. ' The Khalsa is the Guru and the
Guru is the Khalsa! 4
In spite of the claim of Mr. Macauliffe that ' it would be
difficult to point to a religion of greater originality ' 5 than
that of Guru Nanak, it can scarcely be disputed that it is
largely an incompletely fused amalgam of ideas and senti-
ments, contributed alike by Hinduism and Muhammadanism.
In the worship of the Guru on the one hand and the Granth
on the other we seem to see the double influence — that of the
personal faith of Muhammad and that of the impersonal
1 Macauliffe, I, p. xvi. 2 Ibid., II, p. 64.
3 H. H. Wilson, Essays and Lectures Chiefly on the Religion of the
Hindus, II, p. 129.
4 Macauliffe, I, p. 96. 5 Ibid., p. lv.
KABIR AND NANAK 153
Vedanta. We have a similar contradiction in the presentation
as the goal of blessedness of absorption in the divine, and yet
at the same time of a paradise called Sack Khand. Those
who are not able to attain to either of these rewards will be
re-born on earth. The influence of Muhammadanism, in
contrast with the non-moral Vedanta, is no doubt seen in the
strongly ethical note which is distinctive of this religion, and
has obtained for its followers the reputation of Puritans. Such
a passage as this is typical of many in the Granih, and
reminds us of similar passages among the sayings of Kabir :
1 Make contentment and modesty thine earrings, self-respect
thy wallet, meditation the ashes to seal upon thy body ; make
association with men thine Ai Panth,1 and the conquest of thy
heart the conquest of the world.'2 It is a great thing to have
declared, 'There is no devotion without virtue.'3 No doubt
the Guru's message represents a noble effort at reformation in
a time when reformation was supremely needed. Here is how
one of his biographers, who lived at the end of the sixteenth
and the beginning of the seventeenth century, describes the
polytheism and idolatry of Nanak's time : ' Some worshipped
the sun or moon, others propitiated the earth, sky, wind, water,
or fire, and others again the God of death, while the devotion
of many was addressed to cemeteries and cremation grounds.'
Similarly Guru Govind is said to have called his Khalsas
to forsake the worship of 'idols, cemeteries, or cremation
grounds'.4 Revolt from a repulsive Saivism was evidently
one of the elements that went to the making of this austere
and inward faith. Their opposition to caste, mild in the time
of the earlier G?trus, but thorough in the case of Guru Govind,
and the stern prohibition of female infanticide, show it to have
been also a genuine movement of social and moral reform.
Of the sects that have sprung up within Sikhism, the two
whose aim was to preserve in its present form the religious
character of Guru Nanak's reformation, are those of the Udasls
1 A sect oijogis. 2 Japji, XXVI 1 1, Macauliffe, I, p. 212.
3 JaPJl> XXI> Macauliffe, I, p. 206. * Macauliffe, I, p. 181.
i.54 KABIR AND NANAK
and of the Nirmalas. The former, as the name « indifferent to
the world ' suggests, was a sect formed apparently as a protest
against the first indications of the secularization of the aims of
the sect. Nanak nominated as his successor Guru Angad,
but the Udasls attached themselves to Nanak's son, Sri Cand,
who seems tohave lived as a naked ascetic. Their sacred
book is the Adi Granth alone. Dehra, where they have a
gurudtvara or temple, is the seat of a strong body of this sect.
The name of the Nirmalas indicates a similar emphasis upon
purity and unworldliness. The Udasls wear white robes and
the Nirmalas red, or yellow — the colour worn by the ordinary
Hindu ascetic. In modern times, 'except in the mode of
performing public worship and in the profession of benevolent
sentiments for all mankind, there is little difference between a
Nirmala Sikh and an orthodox Hindu of the Vaisnava sect '-1
The Akalls, on the other hand, claiming as they do to have
been founded by Guru Govind himself, represent the militant
ambitions of the Sikhs in their extreme form. The name
Akal was one of the names of God frequently made use of by
the tenth Guru. When the fierce passions of the Sikhs were
aroused in behalf of their faith, the leadership of the Khalsa
largely passed into the hands of these zealots of whom Ranjit
Singh himself stood in awe. They claimed the right of
summoning the Gurumata, 'the Council of the Guru', a
national council which was invested with authority to guide
the brotherhood. The Akalls refused to accept any innova-
tions in the customs of the sect, and for that reason they
continued to wear blue clothes and carry some article made
of steel upon their persons. Now ' their influence has to a
large extent passed away, and some of them have degenerated
into mere buffoons'.2 Of a similar sect of fanatics called
Kukas, founded originally by an UdasI of Rawalpindi, we
learn that, having rebelled against the British Government and
been suppressed, they 'have subsided into a disreputable sect
1 Wilson's Essays on the Religion of the Hindus, II, p. 142.
2 E. R. E., s. v. Akalls, I, p. 2691.
KABIR AND NANAK 155
whose communistic and debauched habits have brought upon
them the general reprobation of the Sikh Community \1
There are other sects of the Sikhs which are regarded as
heretical. There is that, for example, of the Minas, followers
of an elder son of Guru Ram Das, whom he passed over in
favour of his younger son Arjun, and that of the Handalis,
who denied the authority of Nanak and set up that of Handal,
a Jat convert to Sikhism, in its stead. ' They are now known
as Niranjanie, or followers of the bright God (Niranjan).' 2 Of
the Suthre or ' pure ones ', it is sufficient to say that ' they are
notorious for their drunkenness and debauchery, so that they
have become a byword in the Punjab ',3 and equally in
Bengal,4 while the Divane Sadh or ' mad saints ', who are
mainly Jats and tanners, agree with the UdasTs in recognizing
only the Adi Granth. There is more interest and profit in
tracing the history of other sects which have sprung up all
over the country, and which, while less directly related to the
Sikhs than these, apparently owe much of their inspiration to
Kablr and Nanak. Four of these out of many that have
sprung up, exercised for a while an influence for righteousness,
and then become impotent or degenerate, may be briefly
referred to here.
Of these one of the earliest is that of the Dadupanthis or
followers of Dadu (1544-1603), a Brahman, who, though a
native of Ahmedabad, exercised his main influence and left
his largest following in Rajputana. Like Kablr, by whose
teaching, as also by that of Nanak, he was evidently greatly
influenced, Dadu claimed Ramananda as his teacher. His
teaching is contained in the Banl, a poetic work, which, as in
the case of the Granth, is worshipped in modern times by his
followers. Of these some are ' soldier monks ' and others
mendicants and ascetics. It will be seen that the development
of this sect has been in some ways closely parallel with that
1 Sir Lepel Griffin's Ranjit Singh, p. 62.
2 Macauliffe, I, p. lxxxiii. 3 Trumpp, p. cxvii.
4 E.R.E. II, p. 496.
156 KABIR AND NANAK
of the Sikhs. Like Kabir, Dadu represents a popular revolt
against the learning and the pride of learning of the orthodox
Hindus. ' What avails it to collect a heap of books. . . . Wear
not away your lives by studying the Vedas.' He seems to
have gone further than his predecessor in rejecting the doctrine
of transmigration, 'holding that all possible re-births happen
in man's one life on earth.' l God is for him the Creator : ' by
one word He created all.' He seems to have had more right
than either Kabir or Nanak to declare. ' I am not a Hindu
nor a Muhammadan. I belong to none of the six schools of
philosophy. I love the merciful God.' There is on the one
hand in his writings a strange sense of the demands of con-
science, and on the other a warmer glow of devotion and of
desire for God's fellowship than we find in Kabir and Nanak.
In this respect he seems nearer to the Vaisnavite saints, while
he has definitely cast aside much in Hinduism that hampered
Theism and has accepted much that gives it a more fully ethical
note. ' The wife separated from her husband calls day and
night and is sad. I call my God, my God, vehemently thirsting.'
' When will He come? When will He come? My beloved,
when will He reveal himself? ' ' I am bound by many fetters.
My soul is helpless. I cannot deliver myself. My beloved
alone can.' ' From the beginning to the end of my life I have
done no good ; ignorance, the love of the world, false pleasure,
and forgetfulness have held me.' ' My soul is sorely afflicted
because I have forgotten Thee, O God.' 2 There is a close
kinship between this saint and the Hebrew psalmists.
The Baba Lalls, who come next in order of time, are said
to have been founded early in the seventeenth century by
Baba Lai, who was a Khattrl born in Malwa in Rajputana.
He settled near Sirhind in the Punjab, and there founded his
sect. The chief historical interest of his teaching consists in
the fact that it attracted Dara Shukoh, the eldest and favourite
1 E. R. E., s. v. Dadu, IV, p. 38s2.
2 Most of the quotations and the information in regard to Dadu and
the Dadupanthls is from the article by Mr. Traill in E. R. E. IV. 385 f.
KABlR AND NANAK 157
son of the Emperor Shah Jahan. Baba Lai appears to have
taught a doctrine more deeply dyed of Hinduism than that of
Dadu. 'The soul is a particle of the Supreme Soul, just as
water contained in a flask is a part of the water of, say, the
river Ganges.1 On the other hand the Supreme God, who is
named Rama, is directly worshipped with love and adoration.
There are no incarnations in this system. ' The feelings of
a personal disciple ', he said, ' have not been, and cannot be,
described, as it is said : " A person asked me what are the
sensations of a lover? I replied : When you are a lover you
will know." The sect is said now to be extinct.1
The Caran Dasis were founded by Caran Das (1703-82),
a Baniya, born at Dahara in Alvvar. The adherents of this
sect who number apparently only a few thousands are to be
found mainly in the Punjab and the United Provinces. A
name by which the doctrine is sometimes called, Sabda-
marga, indicates its close relationship with that of Kabir in
whose teaching Sabda has so prominent a part. At the same
time ' so similar are the doctrines taught by Caran Das to
those of Nanak . . . that there are actually Sikhs who at the
present day call themselves Caran Dasis \2 Devotion to the
Guru and meditation on the name are the two chief means of
salvation. Salvation is continued personal existence in fellow-
ship with God after release from transmigration. Here, as
elsewhere in the sects of this class, the Guru is elevated to a
position of superhuman power and sanctity. So much is this
so that while ' the believer must know the Guru and Hari to be
one ', ' the Guru is mightier than Hari himself, for he protects
the sinner from His wrath'.3 God is worshipped under the
names of Hari and Rama, and also, though apparently not by
the founder, ' under the dual form of Radha and Krisna '. The
1 For quotations and references see E.R.E., s. v. Baba LalTs, II,
p. 308.
2 E. R. E., s. v. Caran Dasis, III, p. 366 note.
3 Ibid. The same thing is said by South Indian Vaisnavites of the
worship of Ramanuja as better than the worship of Visnu, for ' while
Visnu can both save and damn, Ramanuja only saves '.
158 KABIR AND NANAK
stress laid upon moral conduct is indicated by the ten pro-
hibitions of the sect. Its members are 'not to lie, not to
revile, not to speak harshly, not to discourse idly, not to
steal, not to commit adultery, not to offer violence to any
created thing, not to imagine evil, not to cherish hatred, and
not to indulge in conceit or pride '.* Their scriptures, besides
the poems of Caran Das himself, include the Bhagavadgita
and the Bhagavata Purana. The founder of the sect forbade
idolatry, but as in other instances this position has not been
maintained in later days. ' They now even have images in
their temples, respect Brahmans and, like other pious Hindus,
fast on the eleventh day of each lunar fortnight.' 2
There remain the Siva Narayanls, a sect founded early in the
eighteenth century by Siva Narayan, a Rajput from Ghazipur
in the United Provinces. Like the Sikhs they worship the
Formless One, reject idolatry and reverence their original
Guru, whom they regard as an incarnation. The sacred book
of the sect is called Sabda Sant or Guru Granth. ' It contains
moral precepts and declares that salvation is to be obtained
only by unswerving faith in God, control over the passions,
and implicit obedience to the teaching of the Guru.'3 The
Kablr Panth was originally in the teaching of Kablr himself,
and largely is still, a protest against caste exclusiveness, but
its adherents now are unwilling to admit members of the
lowest castes, such as Mehtars, Doms, and Dhobis. These,
they consider, should join such a sect as that of the Siva
Narayanls.4 ' All castes are admitted, but most of the disciples
come from the lower grades of society, such as the Tatwa,
Camar, and Dosadh castes. . . . The ordinary caste restric-
tions are observed ' except in the case of the ascetic members
of the sect.5
When we review this group of sects, and consider their
1 Wilson's Essays o?i the Religion of the Hindus, I, p. 1 79.
2 E. R. E., s. v. Caran Dasis, III, p. 368'.
3 Gait, Census Report, 1901, I, p. 185.
4 Westcott, p. 108, note 20.
5 Gait, Census Report, 1901, I, p. 185.
KABIR AND NANAK 159
history, we find that in spite of the infusion into them of
Muhammadan elements, which seem to make them less vague
in their professions of faith, and more virile in adherence to
them than were the followers of most of the earlier Vaisnavite
cults, there is, nevertheless, the same failure to maintain a
high moral and religious standard, the same tendency presently
to succumb to temptations that were present in the atmosphere
they breathed, and in their own imperfect natures. If they
do not fall always into such sensual sins as so often betrayed
the adherents of erotic Vaisnavism, they fall into others hardly
less gross, such as drunkenness and sloth and indulgence in
drugs. One kind of idolatry is discarded only to be replaced
presently by the worship of a man or of a book. Caste is
denounced, but only soon to make its appearance again within
the bounds of the sect or to be replaced by an exclusiveness
towards those without that is no less evil.
X
SIVA BHAKTI
Of all the deities of the Hindu pantheon, Siva seems the
one least likely to attract a theistic devotion. A large portion
of the materials that have gone to his making has its source
in the darkest fears and superstitions of the savage. The fact
that even about this ghoulish god, more devil than deity, who
battens upon corpses, and smears himself with ashes from the
burning-ground, has gathered a gracious affection that has
been able to remould an object so repulsive nearer to its heart's
desire, is in itself a remarkable testimony to the strength in the
Indian peoples of the theistic instinct. That Visnu and Krisna
have attracted to themselves a spiritual worship, and that
they have been the means of awakening such a worship in
those who gather to their temples, does not seem so surprising.
There is comparatively little to repel in them. They were
bright gods, gods of light and life and hope, deliverers, if not
yet fully moralized, yet capable of moralization. But the
human spirit has surely seldom found material harder to sub-
due to its purpose of devotion than was Siva. It is one of
the most amazing facts in Indian religion — a religion full of
strangeness — that out of the dry ground of Saivism has sprung
a root that has borne the blossom of the devotion of the South
Indian Saivite saints. Though Theism in India has in the
end proved so ineffectual, though adverse influences in soil
and spiritual climate have rendered it on the whole an abor-
tive growth, yet, with the evidence of its transforming power
that these poet saints afford us, we cannot question its depth
and its reality within the Indian spirit, nor refuse to hope
for it, under more favourable circumstances, results greater
and more enduring.
SIVA BHAKTI 161
There can be no question that Siva is in the main not
Aryan but aboriginal. That name is nowhere a proper name
in the Rig- or the At/iarva Veda, but is applied as an epithet,
' the auspicious '— to Rudra. the nearest of kin to him among
the Vedic deities. From this god of the storm Siva inherited
many characteristics which helped to exalt the malignant
demon to something less unworthy of an Aryan's worship.1
The adoption of this euphemistic name is itself an indication
of an attempt to civilize a deity always terrible, but not always
worthy of reverence. His aboriginal name may have been
Bhairava, ' the fearful ', or some similar designation. Siva, as
a matter of fact, like most of the Indian gods, is a very com-
posite product, but one which more than most is made up of
widely diverse, and even irreconcilable elements. It need not,
indeed, surprise us greatly to find that pantheistic speculation
was able to make use of this deity even more, perhaps, than
of Visnu as the symbol of the ultimate Brahman. Moral
attributes, or the lack of them, in its god, mattered neither
more nor less to a doctrine in which the god was after all
only a label and a superfluity. Siva by his very force and
fury was fitted, not inaptly, to represent that power in the
universe which causelessly destroys and causelessly creates.
When the conflict arose in South India between Buddhists
and Jains, on the one hand, and the adherents of Siva, on the
other, the arguments against the existence of this god that
the unbelievers urged were much the same as those which,
when we consider the character attributed to him, appear to
us to-day so powerful. The Jains and Buddhists represent
the claims of the moral sense, and they ask, ' How can this
demon be the life of the soul of all ? ' 2 But these arguments
made little impression on the Saivite philosophers. Their
doctrine, as we find it in the polemic carried on in the South
1 With the development of the Rudra-Siva god-idea compare the
development of Enlil in Babylonian religion. Jastrovv's Religions Belief
in Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 68 ff.
2 Pope's Tiruvdsagam,Tp. 177.
M
16a SIVA BHAKTI
against those opposing systems, was a philosophy closely
approximating to the Advaita Vedanta, and in consequence
those objections carried little weight which were based upon the
character of a deity that was to them secondary and, indeed,
superfluous. After all, Siva was like enough to the wild
moods and unmoral activities of nature. It may quite pos-
sibly be the case that Sahkaracarya belonged, as is alleged,
to this sect. To the schools of the philosophers Siva was as
good a name for an otiose deity, as good a label for the
deceiving world processes as any other.
It is far more surprising to find the name of Siva, even in
the period of the Upanisads, associated with other and more
ethical streams of tendency. We have already seen how
theistic currents that we discover moving with scanty and
uncertain flow through the speculations and intuitions of
these books precipitate themselves at last in richer volume
into the religion of the Bhagavadgita. There these doctrines
gather about the names of Visnu and of Krisna. A similar place
to that of the Gita in Vaisnavism is held in Saivism by the
Svetasvatara Upanisad. In this Upanisad, along with much
that, just as in the Gita, seems irreconcilable with an ethical
Theism, there are certain elements which indicate that the
influences at work in that direction in Vaisnavism were not
absent from the doctrine and the worship of the rival cult.
If we find in this Upanisad the names maya and mayin they
have not yet their Advaita significance.1 Always in Saivism,
even more than in Vaisnavism, there is implied a sense of the
world's unreality in comparison with the reality of spirit, a
feeling which is, indeed, universal in Indian thought — while at
the same time to a still greater degree there is implied a sense
of the divine transcendence. Already, indeed, in the Rig Veda,
Rudra is the ' great Asura of heaven ',2 and, as such, he is the
' possessor of occult power ' (mdya).z In the Svetasvatara he
has definitely assigned to him the role, which, in later times,
1 £vet. Up. IV. 9. 2 R. V. II. 1. 6.
3 Macdonell's Vedic Mythology,^. 156.
SIVA BHAKTI 163
was generally associated with the name of Siva, of the deity
of agnosticism. ' No one has grasped him above or across, or
in the middle. There is no image of him whose name is
Great Glory.'1 This, as well as other things in this Upanisad,
reminds us of the attitude of Buddhism. As in the case of
Buddhism the state of deliverance, ' when the light has risen ',
is a state alike ' beyond existence and non-existence \2 At
the same time the theistic note is distinctly struck in the
designation of the all-pervading Atman as not only Siva, but
Bhagavat,3 and in the emphasis that is placed, on the one hand,
upon his perception by the heart as well as by the mind,4 and,
on the other, upon man's need, if he would perceive him, of
the grace of the Creator.5 But especially significant is the
explicit declaration in the final verse of this Upanisad that,
in order that the truths there enunciated may f^hine forth
indeed ', they must be told ' to a high-minded man who feels
the highest devotion (bkakti) for God and for his guru as for
God '.c Here for the first time in connexion with Saivism the
claims of bhakti — and implicitly the claims of theistic religion
— are authoritatively affirmed. However indistinguishable in
its phraseology the teaching of this Upanisad may seem at
times to be from that of those that present a pure Advaita
doctrine, this affirmation definitely demonstrates that its face
is turned to another direction. We may not have here the
fully articulated bhakti of the later theologians, but we have
enough to indicate that the supreme spirit is for it a personal
Being who wins the worship of the heart.7 This Upanisad, it
is true, like the Gitd, speaks with a double tongue, and its
philosophy is really at variance with its religion ; but, with
whatever inconsistency, the glow of the heart which it demands
of the disciple, and which it prescribes as necessary for his
attainment of immortality, proclaims it as a theistic scripture.
In the Mahabharata there is little to indicate the place
1 Svet. Up. IV. 19. 2 Ibid., IV. 18. 3 Ibid., III. 11.
4 Ibid., III. 13 ; IV. 20. 5 Ibid., III. 20. fi Ibid., VI. 23.
7 S. B. E. XV, p. xxxiv.
M 2
1 64 SIVA BHAKTI
that Siva was to obtain in the worship of South Indian saints
of a later day. We find his name extolled by the sectary in
opposition to that of Visnu ; we find him claimed as the
manifestation of the All-god, in echo of a like claim made by
the adherents of the rival deity. But there is little that is of
religious value or interest in such conflicts of the sects. These
things are the doings of the priest or of the philosopher, and
may have little enough of faith behind them. Two passages
of the Epic may, however, be referred to as indicating the
character of Siva-worship in its more inward aspect, apart
from its more philosophic doctrines on the one hand, and its
orgiastic ritual on the other. In one passage Siva, in agree-
ment with the view suggested already in the Svetdsvatara,
and referred to above, is described as the inconceivable one,
who is ' beyond the comprehension of all gods ,.1 The fact
that this agnostic attitude has persisted down to modern times
among the worshippers of Siva is indicated by the existence
of those Saivite sects that are called Alakhnamis or Alakhgirs,
as those who ' call upon the name of the Unseeable \2 Such
a conception would at once help to exalt the god, and at the
same time would hinder the development of his worship into
a truly ethical Theism. It would be easier to associate so
vague a deity with the Advaita doctrine, as indeed Siva
frequently was associated, than with a worship which requires
love and obedience. To love God and to trust Him it is
necessary that one in some measure at least should know
Him. Further on, in the same passage of the MaliabJiarata,
which designates Siva as the Unknowable his ' form ' is said
to be the lihga? Perhaps the adoption of this symbol, which
may be much more ancient than this passage, for a god of
whom ' there is no image ' 4 may have been due to an attempt
to express the inexpressible. Repulsive as the phallic emblem
may appear to us, and as it no doubt was in its religious
1 Mbh. VII. 202: 79, 71.
2 See E. R. E. I, p. 276, s. v. Alakhnamis. ,
3 Mbh. VII. 202 : 94, 97. * Svet. Up. IV. 19.
SIVA BHAKTI 165
origin, it is possible that wc have it here made use of as the
medium of a protest — which we see later repeating itself in
the case of the Liiigayats — against idolatry.1 But the half
may prove the enemy of the whole. The symbol was unworthy
enough at best, and was too easily adopted as a mere fetish
by the ignorant.
But it was in South India that Saivism entered most fully
into its own, and it is there that it has disclosed itself at its
best, and also, perhaps, at its worst. That this should be the
case is not surprising, if Saivism is the most largely aboriginal
of the Indian cults, since a larger aboriginal element has
survived in the South than in any other part of India. The
old Dravidian worship, which was probably for the most part
offered to demonic powers, was never here completely over-
thrown. The Aryan victor was, indeed, ultimately vanquished
and his bright gods driven from the field by those old deities
or demons of the underworld. When Brahmanic influences
began to make themselves felt in this part of India it was
with the name of Rudra-Siva that this demonolatry could
most easily be assimilated. If the conjecture that the Heracles
of Megasthenes was, not Krisna, as has been generally supposed,
but Siva, be well-founded, then it would appear that already
in the fourth century B.C. this religion was established through-
out South India. It is possible that we have in the same
connexion an indication that the Pandyan dynasty was origin-
ally Saivite, as certainly the Chola dynasty was at a later
date. In the third century B.C. Buddhism was also intro-
duced by Buddhist missionaries, while Jainism appears early
in the Christian era already widely spread throughout the
South, and later numbered the Pandya kings among its
adherents. By the seventh century a.d., when Hiuen Tsang
travelled in India, Buddhism was rapidly disappearing, while
Saivism, and especially Jainism, were the popular faiths in
1 Compare the worship of Ashur in Assyrian religion under the form of
a winged disk and the advance that this implied towards a more spiritual
religion. Jastrow's Religious Belief in Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 51, 52.
1 66 SIVA BHAKTI
this region. In the struggle for predominance between these
rivals, which continued for several centuries, the victory rested
with Saivism. It was, in fact, a conflict between the religious
and the non-religious spirit, and, however able and erudite the
Jain champions might be, the strength of religion in the Hindu
heart was too great for them. Whether it was Vaisnavism,
now also established among the South Indian cults, or Saivism
that championed the cause of faith, the worldly wisdom of the
Jain was sure to be ultimately worsted. This was made the
more certain in the case of Saivism by two reinforcements
that came to it, and strengthened it in different and comple-
mentary ways. These were, on the one hand, the formulation
of its doctrines in the system of the Saiva Siddhanta, and, on
the other, a great revival of devotion within its borders due to
a remarkable group of saints and apostles.
At times of controversy, especially, it is a great strength to
any faith to have the support of an articulated system. It is
then able, in opposition to its rivals, to appeal to reason. A
philosophy or a formulated theology brings along with it to
any religion an immense enhancement of prestige. Its emer-
gence generally implies besides that the cult in question, which
may have begun as a movement in the hearts of the common
people, perhaps as an effort of revolt from the established
Church, has now won a place among the more cautious and
the more reflective. Saivism, indeed, as the existence of the
Svetasvatara reminds us, had long ago found an entrance
among the thinkers. But that was in more northern regions.
In South India it had to begin anew from the beginning —
purifying itself as best it might from gross superstition, building
itself up to better things upon the foundation of a sincere
devotion. When it was able to appropriate to itself a doctrinal
system it obtained it, in the opinion of some scholars, from
Saivite thinkers whose home was in the far north of India.
Just as, later, Ramananda was to bear from the South a torch
of devotion that was to spread its heat and light far and wide
throughout the North, so it may be that at this earlier period
SIVA BHAKTI 167
by a gift from the north to the south this debt was by antici-
pation repaid. It was a different gift — one of the intellect,
whereas the other was of the heart — but its effect was similar,
for it helped to secure for theistic religion the victory in the
struggle with Jainism.
If this view is well founded it was from Kashmir that South
Indian Theism received this reinforcement. The links in
the connexion of the Saivite theology of that far northern
province with the religion that was struggling for its life in the
south it is impossible now to discover. The founder of the
Kashmir school of Saivism, which, in all probability, owed
much to the Svetasvatara, is said to have been Vasugupta.
Between the ninth and the eleventh centuries of the Christian
era various teachers of Saivite doctrine arose, representing, no
doubt, different shades of approximation to the orthodox
Advaita. Of these one of the most famous is Abhinavagupta,
who flourished at the end of the tenth and the beginning of
the eleventh centuries, and whose teaching is said to be ' in all
essentials identical with the orthodox Siddhantam of the
Dravidian South '.* In the opinion of Dr. L. D. Barnett
those theological ideas of the north ' following the natural
geographical route, filtered down southwards ' till they reached
Kanara where, thus reinforced, the old Saivite religion rose in
revolt against the dominant Jainism, and in the middle of the
twelfth century brought its supremacy to an end. This is
supposed to have taken place in the time of Basava, minister
about 1160-70 to the Kalachuri king, Bijjala of Kalyanpura.
The effect of this revolt was the establishment in Kanara of
the Lirigayat faith, but the influence of the Kashmir doctrine
did not end here. The new energy that it awakened in
Saivism in Kanara spread still further south, and produced
in the Tamil country that Saiva Siddhanta, which is claimed
by Dr. Pope, even as Vaisnavism is claimed by other
students, ! as the most elaborate, influential, and undoubtedly
1 L. D. Barnett in Le Muse'on, X, p. 272.
i68 SIVA BHAKTI
the most intrinsically valuable of all the religions of
India.' l
We need not suppose, even if this very doubtful debt
were proved, that this religious philosophy was altogether
borrowed from those northern theologians. There are said to
have been twenty-eight Agamas, which contained the principles
of Saivism ; 2 and, if this tradition is at all reliable, the inference
is that, however the Saiva Siddhanta may have been reinforced
from the north, it had already arisen independently in the
south, and had for some generations been engaging the minds
of Dravidian thinkers. Of these Agamas, which are said by
Manikka-vasagar, who lived in the tenth or eleventh century,
to have been caused to appear by the grace of Siva, little or
nothing is known. The systematic account of the Saiva
Siddhanta, which Meykander gives in his Siva-nana-bodham?
composed about the beginning of the thirteenth century, is,
however, a paraphrase of ' a dozen Sanskrit stanzas alleged to
form part of the Raw- again a'} From these documents, as
well as from the works of Arunandi and Umapati, who belong
to the fourteenth century, and from the commentary on the
Brahma Sutras, by Srlkantha, who is said to have been Sri
Sarikaracarya's 'senior and contemporary',5 we can judge of
the theistic character of this doctrine, and how far it was able
to free itself from the Advaita influences so strong in the
north.
Whether in Kashmir, or in the Tamil south, the Saiva
system centres round a trinity of names, Pari, the Lord, pasu,
the flock, and pasa, the bond. These names carry us back to
the ancient sources of the religion, reminding us that Rudra
in the Vedic Hymns is pasupati, and reminding us also of
1 Pope's Tiruvasagam, p. Ixxiv.
1 We need not, however, accept the tradition that the total number of
verses in them was 20, ico, 010, 193, 884, 000, as Nija-guna-siva-yogin
is said to, allege. The Search after God {Brahma Mlmamsa), p. 10.
8 Or Siva-jnana-bodha.
4 L. D. Barnett in Le Museon, X, p. 272.
5 The Search after God {Brahma Mlmamsa), p. 24. This is a translation
of part of a commentary on Nilkantha's Bhasya on the Vedatita Sutras.
SIVA BHAKTI 169
what is of better promise for an ethical Theism, that in the
same poems Varuna, as the moral Governor, is said to lay
fetters (pdsa) upon the sinner. Siva is the Lord, 'exalted
above the Abyss ' — that is, above all that partakes of maya —
and yet ' abiding in all that moves and all that moves not '-1
' That souls may reach his state, his Sakti gathers them in.
Our Lord is, nevertheless, one and indivisible.' 2 The Supreme
Divinity manifests himself and operates in the universe
through his energy, which is to Siva as light is to the sun.
Thus, as so often in other systems, it is sought by a doctrine
of emanation to bridge the gulf between the infinite and the
finite. The ' flock ' consists of innumerable souls, who are
under the bondage of a three-fold fetter — anavam or darkness,
maya, which to the southern Saivite, at least, is generally not
illusion but matter, ' the material of all embodiment ',3 and
karma. ' As an earthen vessel has the potter as its first
cause, the clay as its material cause, and as its instrumental
cause the potter's staff and wheel, so the universe has maya
for its material cause, the sakti of Siva for its instrumental
cause, and the Lord Siva himself as its first cause.' 4 This
Siva is the ' sole Redeemer of souls '."' According to the
teaching of Abhinavagupta there are three classes of those
who have obtained deliverance, the para muktas, who are
r
' assimilated to the supreme Siva ', the apara muktas, united
to him in his manifested phase, and the jivan muktas, who are
still in the body.6 ' Redemption (moksa) ', says this teacher,
' is the revelation of the powers of Self when the bond of
ignorance is burst.' ' There is nothing distinct from the
redeemed to which he should offer praise or oblation.' ' He
worships with the pure substance of reflection on the Self the
blessed deity who is the supreme reality.' 7 In its formulation
in the South more emphasis seems to have been laid upon the
1 Abhinavagupta's Paramarthasdra, translated by L. D. Barnett in
/. R.A.S., July 1910.
2 Umapati in Pope's Tiriivasagam, p. Ixxvii.
3 Pope's Naladiyar, chap. xi. 4 Pope's Tiriivasagam, p. lxvi.
5 The Search after God (Brahma Mimamsa), p. 4.
0 Le Musion, X, p. 276. 7 /. R. A. S., July 1910.
170 SIVA BHAKTI
fact that in the state of emancipation there is ' conscious, full
enjoyment of Siva's presence'1 than in the northern doctrine.
1 In supreme felicity ', says Umapati, ' thou shalt be one with
the Lord.' But, he goes on, ' the soul is not merged in the
Supreme, for if they become one, both disappear ; if they
remain two there is no fruition ; therefore there is union and
non-union.' 2
The difference between the doctrine of the Kashmir thinkers
and that of the Saivite philosophers of the south seems to be
similar to that which we find to separate the colder thought
of the Upanisads from later theistic speculation. This differ-
ence is due in both cases, no doubt, to the atmosphere in
which the philosophy took shape. In the midst of the fervour
of devotion of the southern saints the speculations of the
thinkers found a new warmth and colour. More emphasis
was laid on the personality of the Supreme Deity and on the
conscious bliss of those who attain to deliverance. This is
especially seen in the large place that is given in the southern
religion, and in its theology to the thought of the grace of
Siva. ' In the Siddhanta ', says Dr. Pope, ' very great stress
is laid upon the idea that all embodiment, while it is painful
and to be got rid of as soon as possible, is yet a gracious
appointment of Siva, wrought out through sakti for the salva-
tion of the human soul, through the destruction of deeds,
which are the root of all evil to mankind.' 3 In this system,
as, we have seen, he is elsewhere also, Siva is the Unknowable,
'whom the heavenly ones see not'.4 But he manifests himself
in his gracious, emancipating sakti. Only by the grace of the
great Guru does the soul see and seeing, ' hide itself in the
mystic light of wisdom '. ' The fainting soul will resort to
the shadow of Grace of its own accord.' 5 ' To those who
draw not nigh, he gives no boon ; to those who draw nigh, all
good ; the great Sahkara knows no dislike.' 6 This doctrine
1 Pope's Tirnvasagam, p. xliv. 2 Op. cit., p. Ivii.
3 Op. cit., p. 254. ' 4 Umapati in op. cit., p. lxxix.
5 Op. cit., liii. 8 Op. cit., p. lxxix.
SIVA BHAKTI 171
of grace supplies the chief incentive to devotion in this system,
and corresponding to it is the response of bhakti on the part
of the worshipping soul. We have seen that in the Svetd-
svatara Upanisad the attitude of bhakti is prescribed as neces-
sary to a right understanding of its teaching, and still more is
this recognized as necessary in this later system. ' The soul
gives sight to the eyes ; he who gives sight to the soul is Siva ;
therefore one should worship in supreme love him who does
kindness to the soul.' x
But the doctrine of the Saiva Siddhanta alone could hardly
have obtained for southern Saivism so complete a victory over
Buddhism and Jainism. Alongside of this intellectual reinforce-
ment there sprang up about this time a remarkable spirit of
devotion which, through the great saints and poets of this
period, gave to Saivism, one cannot doubt, more than anything
else did, the strength by which it prevailed over its cold and
sterile rivals. ' No cult in the world ', says Dr. Barnett, ' has
produced a richer devotional literature or one more instinct
with brilliance of imagination, fervour of feeling, and grace of
expression.' 2 The exact period of this efflorescence of the
South Indian religious spirit is extremely doubtful. It cannot
be determined within more definite limits than the seventh to
the eleventh centuries. This was a time, not only of Saivite,
but of Vaisnavite revival. The sixty-three Saiva saints of
tradition had as contemporaries, it is probable, some of the
Vaisnavite Alvars, and that, apparently, without any keen
antagonism being aroused between them. That antagonism
came later when their common enemy, the Jain, had been
overcome. The greatest of the poet-saints who have exercised
so enduring an influence upon this South Indian faith is
Manikka-vasagar, whose Tiruvasagam or ' Sacred Utterances '
is full of the most intense religious feeling. Here we have
the doctrines of the Saiva Siddhanta fused into passionate
experience in the heart of a worshipper of Siva. Their author
1 Meykandar in Barnett's Heart of India, p. 80.
2 Heart of India, p. 82.
172 SIVA BHAKTI
is said to have been prime minister to a Pandyan king, and
probably flourished in the tenth or eleventh century of the
Christian era, though Dr. Pope seems sometimes inclined to
place him as early as the seventh or eighth century. He
went, the story goes, like Saul, to seek, not his father's asses,
but horses for the king, but, like Saul, he found instead a
kingdom, though in his case a kingdom of the spirit. Siva
himself, surrounded by a great company of his saints, revealed
himself to him in the form of a venerable guru, and his
errand was forgotten, and the world renounced. ' He has
gone from the Council, and put on the shroud,' and he journeys
in pilgrimage from town to town, worshipping at every shrine,
and composing songs in celebration of the various seats of
Siva worship and their god. ' The success of Manikka-vasagar
in reviving Saivism,' says Dr. Pope,1 'which seems to have
been then almost extinct, was immediate, and we may say
permanent. . . . From his time dates the foundation of that
vast multitude of Saiva shrines which constitute a peculiar
feature of the Tamil country.'
In the legend of Manikka-vasagar's conversion, the divine
Guru, it is said, held in his hand a book which proves to be
the Siva-nana-bodham of Meykandar. As a matter of fact,
this manual of the Saiva Siddhanta did not come into existence
for at least two centuries after the time of the Saivite saint
and poet. The period of inspiration precedes the period of
reflection ; the experience of the saint furnishes the material
for the doctrinal system of the theologian. Already in his
poems we find expressed in the language of the heart those
views of the relation of the soul to God and to the world that
the schoolmen formulated later into a religious philosophy.
For Manikka-vasagar, as for so many saints, the central point
in his religious life to which he continually returns for a
renewal of his inspiration is his conversion. It is a continually
recurring theme for praise throughout his hymns, a constantly
recurring source of encouragement when he falls into despair.
1 Pope's Tiruvasagam, p. xxxiii.
SIVA RHAKTI 173
Throughout his poems there is such an accent of humility and
adoration, such a sense of his unworthiness and of the divine
grace, as seems to bring him very near indeed to the spirit of
the Christian saints. No doubt there are, at the same time,
deep differences, which the common ardour of expression
hides. How far the sense of his unworthiness springs solely
from a moral root, how far the greatness of his god is a purely
moral supremacy, how far the sense of the divine presence is
spiritual or largely sensuous — these questions need not here
be considered, nor can their answers, whatever they may be,
detract greatly from the deep affinity of saints, apparently so
alien from each other in many respects. Again and again we
find Manikka-vasagar giving utterance to such experiences as
are common to all devout souls who have sought God sincerely
and have in some measure found Him.
' These gods are gods indeed,' — ' These others are the gods,' men
wrangling say ; and thus
False gods they talk about and rant and rave upon this earthly
stage. And I
No piety could boast : that earthly bonds might cease to cling, to
him I clung.
To him, the god of all true gods, go thou, and breathe his praise,
O humming-bee.1
Dr. Pope, in his translation of the Tirnvasagam, by the
headings he places to paragraphs of the poem indicates how
close he finds the affinity to be between these utterances of
a sincere devotion, and those of the Christian religious experi-
ence. ' Longing for grace alone ', ' Without thy presence I
pine ', ' Deadness of soul ', ' God all in all ', ' I am thine, save
me ', ' His love demands my all ' — these are a few taken at
random, and they are sufficient by themselves to indicate that
with all the strange mythology that weaves its fantastic forms
across the poems, and that perplexes and repels a Western
reader, we have here the essential note of a deeply devout
and a truly ethical Theism.
1 Pope's Tiruvasagam, pp. 143, 144.
174 SIVA BHAKTI
We have seen that a note of Saivism has always been the
unknowableness of God. The Vaisnavite followers of the
bhakti marga often affirm this no less strongly, but like Tulsl
Das they argue that, just because God is beyond the reach of
thought and act and speech, the one way of salvation for men
is in the worship of such an incarnation of the Supreme Deity
as Rama. Similarly, though Saivism has had no place for
such incarnations as we find within the rival system, Manikka-
vasagar is never weary of claiming that Siva has come near
to him in his grace as the guru and revealed himself.
Mai (Visnu), Ayan, all the gods and sciences divine
His essence cannot pierce. This Being rare drew near to me ;
In love he thrilled my soul.J
Again,
The ' Mount ' (Siva) that Mai knew not and Ayan saw not— we can
know.2
There is no limit to the ecstasy with which he describes the
effect of this revelation of grace.
Sire, as in union strict, thou mad'st me thine ; on me didst look,
didst draw me near ;
And when it seemed I ne'er could be with thee made one— when
naught of thine was mine —
And naught of mine was thine— me to thy feet thy love
In mystic union joined, Lord of the heavenly land.— 'Tis height of
blessedness.3
It is hardly necessary to multiply illustrations of the fervent
spirit of this worshipper of Siva. It is a constant marvel to
note how the heat of his devotion is able to transmute to its
purposes of adoration even the repellent aspects of the god.
His descriptions of him seem at times to touch the very brink
of all we hate. This is he who ' wears the chaplet of skulls ';
he is the ' maniac ' ;
A dancing snake his jewel, tiger-skin his robe,
A form with ashes smeared he wears.4
A favourite epithet is 'the black-throated one'. But this
1 Pope's Tiruvasagam, p. 157. 2 Op. cit., p. 106.
3 Op. cit., p. 72. * Op. cit., p. 195.
SIVA BHAKTI 175
epithet, as a matter of fact, strange as it seems to us, is what
especially suggests to his devotee the grace of Siva, and it
constantly recurs in his poems as a motive to praise and
worship. What to the Vaisnavite are the ' three steps ' of
Visnu, that to the Saivite is the story of how this god drank
the Jialahala poison and so made his throat for ever black.
In both cases the story has been laid hold of by the instinct
of the devout heart as a symbol of the divine grace that saves.
In order that he might deliver the gods, when a stream of
black and deadly poison flowed forth at the churning of the
Sea of Milk, Siva of his own will drank it up and gave to them
instead the ambrosia that followed. Thus the Saivite worships
with gratitude and adoration a god who has suffered for others,
and the black throat is for him a constant reminder of his
grace.
Thou mad'st me thine ; didst fiery poison eat, pitying poor souls,
That I might thine ambrosia taste. — I, meanest one.1
By the help of such a thought as that the South Indian
worshipper has been able to transform the strange appearance
of this pre-Aryan divinity, so demoniacal in many of his
aspects, into a gracious being whom his heart can love. It is
at least a testimony to the amazing power of the religious
passion surging up within these southern saints, a passion im-
possible to content with less in God than the grace that
condescends and suffers, with less than a love correspondent to
the love that moves itself. When ' the Brahman ' represented
to this seeker that ' the way of penance is supreme ', or when
the ' haughty Vedant creed unreal came ', he turned away
unsatisfied. Then, he says, ' Lest I should go astray he laid
his hand on me'.2 This testimony to a real spiritual ex-
perience, a real movement of the divine love to meet the
human, is expressed again and again throughout these lyrics
with a manifest sincerity. The 'law of trusting love'3 finds
its fulfilment and 'his love that fails not day by day still
1 Pope's Tiruvasagam , p. 195. 2 Op. cit., p. 34.
3 Op. cit., p. 33.
176 SIVA BHAKTI
burgeons forth \1 Certainly these poems, with all that is
strange and repellent in the symbols that are employed in
them to represent the deity, seem to echo a theistic experience
as genuine as it is intense.
The victory of Saivism over both Buddhism and Jainism
is thus mainly to be attributed to two converging lines of
reinforcement, one intellectual, coming, perhaps, ultimately
from the Kashmir Saivite philosophers, the other indigenous,
issuing from the sense of their own religious needs. Another
influence in the same direction which the Saivite shared with
the Vaisnavite is that of the BJiagavadglta. ' The influence of
the Glta\ says Dr. Pope, 'upon South India as a doctrinal
manual and as a great and inspiring poem has been and is in-
calculably great.' 2 He finds traces of this influence in every
part of Manikka-vasagar's poems. We even find in one of the
philosophical books of Saivism a quotation from the Gita so
linked on to one from a Saivite scripture that the teaching of
the former as to the Paramatman — Vaisnavite as it in reality
mm. f
is — is directly associated with the name of Siva.3 Thus the
Gltd, even in this alien environment, vindicates itself as the
greatest and most influential of all Indian theistic scriptures.
Manikka-vasagar was an orthodox Saivite and represents
at its highest the Saivite bliakti of Southern India. There
were others, however, who, outside the dominant Church,
cherished and proclaimed an inward and monotheistic faith.
In the Siva-vdkyam, a collection of ' Siva speeches ' by various
poets, there are some remarkable expressions of such a religious
experience. In one of these the poet turns away from idols
and from temples to another shrine, ' the mind within his
breast'. 'And thus,' he says, 'where'er I go, I ever worship
God.'4 Another example may be quoted of this devotion
that revolts from ritual tradition and orthodoxy and finds its
way by its own fervour to the feet of God.
1 Pope's Tiruvdsagam, p. 35. 2 Op. cit, p. Ixvi, note,
3 Appaya's commentary in The Search after God, pp. 49, 50.
4 L. D. Barnett's Heart of India, p. 92.
SIVA BHAKTI 177
When thou didst make me thou didst know my all :
But I knew not of thee. 'Twas not till light
From thee brought understanding of thy ways
That I could know. But now where'er I sit,
Or walk, or stand, thou art for ever near.
Can I forget thee ? Thou art mine, and I
Am only thine. E'en with these eyes I see,
And with my heart perceive, that thou art come
To me as lightning from the lowering sky.
If thy poor heart but choose the better part,
And in this path doth worship only God,
His heart will stoop to thine, will take it up
And make it his. One heart shall serve for both.1
As one reads these stanzas, as has been remarked by Dr. Barnett,
' one is tempted to wonder whether " Siva-vakyar " was not
a worshipper at the local Christian church '.
Along with these more spiritual movements there occurred
in the northern district of Kanara a religious revolt, less pure
probably in the motives that inspired it, certainly less worthy
in its results. Mention has already been made of Basava,
minister of King Bijjala of Kalyana, who was the leader in
a Saivite revival which did much to overthrow the power of
Jainism, hitherto dominant in that region. He flourished in
the latter part of the twelfth century. Associated with him in
this religious reformation there seems to have been another
Brahman called Ramayya who, in an inscription dated about
1200, is called ' Ekantada Ramayya', 'because he was an
ardent and devoted worshipper of Siva V2 ' Basava was the
Luther, Ramayya the Erasmus ' of the new cult. It is not
easy to form any certain estimate of the religious character of
this Vira Saivite or Liiigayat movement, as it was called.
It was, no doubt, in its inception something worthier than it
appears to-day. Its followers now form only another among
the many Hindu castes, with little to distinguish them from
the rest except their strong opposition to Brahman privilege.
1 Barnett's Heart of India, p. 92.
2 Thurston and Rangachari's Castes and Tribes of South India, s. v.
Lingayet.
N
178 SIVA BHAKTI
They also permit widow-remarriage and are opposed to child-
marriage. Lingayats acknowledge Siva alone and place upon
the linga, his symbol, a faith that in the case of the most of
the modern adherents of the sect leaves little room for
spiritual worship. One can see, however, in their rejection
of the efficacy of sacrifices, penances, pilgrimages, and fasts,
indications that in its origin this may have been a movement
towards a purer and more inward faith. If it is the case that
the Vlra Saivites were a 'peaceful race of Hindu Puritans',
they probably in the spirituality of their worship and its
ethical character represented — to begin with at least — a theistic
religion, such as was the Siva bhakti of the further south, but
less emotional and devout. It was as such, no doubt, that
this sect contended with and overcame the dominant Jainism.
At the same time it was the more likely to become corrupt
and to fall to the common level of Hindu formalism and
superstition because of its lack of the fervour of bJiakti which
gave such warmth and energy to the faith of Manikka-vasagar.
To the Lingayat salvation seems to have meant absorption
into, or attainment of an impersonal union with, the deity.
In this respect this movement seems to have been even from
the beginning non-theistic, and a theist may discover in that
fact the secret of its religious barrenness in contrast with the
Saivism of the Tamil land, as well as the explanation of the
rapidity and completeness with which it appears to have fallen
into decay.
In this sect and to a less extent in the religion of the
Saivite saints of the Tamil land we find those spiritual and
ethical instincts which are generally associated with Theism
engaged in a conflict with anti-theistic influences everywhere
powerful in India and always in the end victorious. Of these
one is that tendency to formalism and superstition, which
everywhere, as soon as the first fervour of a movement of
religious revival has begun to fail, bears down to earth again
the human spirit, and which seems to press upon the religious
life of India especially with a weight heavy as frost and deep,
SIVA BHAKTI 179
we may say, even as death. Another antagonist is the
influence, peculiar to India, of a philosophy invincibly hostile
to personal religion and to moral ardour, and extraordinarily
tenacious of its grasp upon the Indian spirit. It is evident
that the Lirigayat reform movement made little headway
against these adverse forces and soon succumbed to them.
The tides of Vedantism and of superstition soon reduced this
region too to the normal level of Indian religious life, and only
a point of rock projecting here and there above the waste
of waters — its spirit of antagonism to Brahman claims, for
example — remains to mark the place where once there was
a real insurgence of the conscience and the heart. Its work
was done when it helped in the overthrow of Buddhism and of
Jainism. The devotion of the Tamil saints has had a more
abiding influence, for the reason that its roots went deeper
into the heart, and that, as a result, it found expression in
poetry which continues to bear its witness to later generations
and to find a response in other hearts. But here too the
subtle Vedanta doctrine in the end prevails. The fervour of
devotion is able for an ardent moment to preserve the equili-
brium of being and non-being in mukti, of absorption and bliss.
It can rejoice in ' the way which is neither single nor two-fold \]
But when the emotion passes, the logic of the understanding
makes its claims. Then, as regards its goal at least, the
doctrine of the Saiva Siddhanta becomes indistinguishable
from that of the Vedanta. The grace of Siva remains and
the Great Lord is still a personal deity, but the individual self
attains deliverance by being absorbed into the Supreme and
Selfless One. ' Where the soul stood before, Siva stands there
in all his glory, the soul's individuality being destroyed.' 2
Thus here as everywhere in India the ' haughty Vedant
creed ' 3 seems in the end to triumph and the Theism that was
once so ardent pales to an ineffectual spectre.
1 Sivan Seyal, translated by Clayton in Madras Christian College
Magazine, vol. xvii, p. 308.
2 Tiruvunthiar (Commentary) in Siddhanta Deepika, vol. VIII, p. 190.
Pope's Tirtivasagatn, p. 33.
N 2
XI
THE SAKTA SECT
We have already seen that in the most erotic types of
Vaisnavism the relation of the worshipper to the god is
represented as that of a mistress to her lover. The wor-
shippers are to be Radhas to the sole male Krisna. Similar in
its use of the sexual emotions for religious ends is the Sakti
worship which may be described as a parallel morbid growth
on the side of Saivism to the madhnrya of erotic Vaisnavism.
The intrusion of such emotions within the sphere of religion is
no uncommon phenomenon, but nowhere, perhaps, has it been
carried to such an extreme or systematized with such elabora-
tion as in India and in the literature of the Tantras.
The worship of the earth as a mother, and the grouping
into pairs of gods viewed specially in the aspect of Creators,
or the combination within the person of one such deity of the
functions of both the sexes, are religious phenomena that
were, no doubt, very widely spread in early times and that
suggest themselves naturally enough to primitive thought.
The combination Dyavaprithivl, for example, is one which can
be paralleled in many religious contexts besides that of India.
It is of interest to note that in a Brahmana of the Yajur Veda
Prajapati is androgynous,1 while a dual form of Siva and his
consort called Ardhanarlsvara 2 belongs to the same circle of
ideas. Such sexual dualisms, however, and the view of things
which suggests them, do not appear to have been prominent in
the more aristocratic Aryan tradition. No more than the Olym-
pian deities of Greece do the Vedic sky gods seem to suggest
1 Barth, R. L, p. 200.
2 D. C. Sen, p. 231. Cf. Barth, R. I., p. 200, note.
THE SAKTA SECT 181
to their worshippers the grosser aspects of these relationships.
As in the case of Greece, so also here, we must suppose the
invasion of that lordlier culture by aboriginal races ' with their
polygamy and polyandry, their agricultural rites, their sex
emblems and fertility goddesses '.* When we turn from the
Vedic gods to such a deity as the wife of Siva, presenting
herself in many forms and under many names, it scarcely
needs the testimony of the Harivamsa to assure us that she
was really a deity worshipped by the savage tribes of ' Sabaras,
Barbaras, and Pulindas'.2 To such peoples the simplicities
of life, birth especially and death, bulk larger and press more
urgently upon them than more complex problems, and the
god who is greatest in their eyes is he or she who represents
and controls these very real facts. Such a deity or such a
group of deities is represented under the various aspects and
titles which have been combined in India into one goddess
who is par excellence MahadevI, the great goddess. Reflection
when it first arises and expresses itself under the forms of the
imagination is able to adopt such a deity and make use in
that context of the mythological conception that the original
creative principle is female. At the same time the fact that
the earth is not only the ' common mother ',
Whose womb immeasurable and infinite breast
Teems and feeds all,
but also the receiver of the bodies of the dead, made possible
the union in her person of many aspects both of graciousness
and of terror. There can be little doubt that Devi or Durga
is a combination of many deities, as her husband probably is
also. The many non-Sanskrit names which she bears — such
as, for example, Vasuli and ThakuranI — indicate some of the
' earth mothers ' whose worship she has absorbed. She
represents undoubtedly a syncretistic combination of various
aspects of the secret of life and of reproduction. The worship
of the male and female powers in a joint sovereignty usually
1 Murray's Four Stages of Greek Religion, p. 78.
2 E.R.E., V, p. 118, article Durga. '
J 82 THE SAKTA SECT
gives place presently to a recognition of the female principle
as the more ultimate. Just as this deity is the ' mother ',
Ambika, so she is Kumarl, the maiden. She corresponds both
to the Greek earth-goddess, who is ' Kourotrophos ', ' rearer of
the young', and to Kore, the earth maiden, represented
crudely in one image as covered with innumerable breasts.1
At the same time she is Parvati, the mountain goddess, she
'who delights in spirituous liquor, flesh, and sacrificial victims',2
dwelling in sepulchres,3 true spouse of Siva.
The place that the worship of this goddess has in ordinary
polytheistic Hinduism does not concern us here. What
interests us is to see how this deep-seated and primitive faith
in the mother-principle, as the ultimate secret of the universe,
again and again asserts itself in alien surroundings with
a strength that raises this female deity to a place approaching
that of sole god. Buddhism would seem to be little likely to
harbour such a worship ; and yet, just as these goddesses made
their way among the higher deities of the Aryan pantheon, so
they found a place also within this atheistic system. It is
indeed maintained by some that it was by the way of Buddhism
that the Tantric doctrine in its later form, as Sakti-worship,
was able to climb upwards from its lowly origin and obtain
recognition within the pale of Brahmanism.4 It need not
surprise us that this type of worship should have been able to
assert itself among the Tibetan and Nepalese Buddhists.
The austere Hlnayana system had already given place in these
regions to a theistic Mahayana which was more able to satisfy
religious longings. There was not at the same time in that
form of the religion strength to resist the invasion of instincts
scarcely less deep but far less worthy. From being a worship
followed by aborigines and outcastes Tantrism passed by the
help of Buddhist prestige to take its place, in the twelfth or
thirteenth century, among the higher classes. We are told that
1 Murray's Four Stages of Greek Religion, p. j8.
2 Mbh. IV. 6. 3 Mbh. VI. 23.
4 Mahamahopadhyaya Haraprasad Sastri in Modern Buddhism, p. 27.
THE SAKTA SECT 183
' even now the Tantric deities prefer to be worshipped by the
lower classes (rather) than by Brahmans. In many localities
Durga is worshipped first by the untouchable classes and then
by Brahmans. Brahmans have to wait in some villages till the
puja has commenced at some Hadi's house in the neighbour-
hood. The Jayadratha Yamala says the Devi likes to be
worshipped by oil-pressers '-1 So also in the worship of
Sitala Devi and in the Dharma-worship — both of them cults
that, as they are found in Bengal, include many Buddhist and
Tantric elements — the priests are called ' Dom Pandits', an
evident indication of their outcaste origin.2
Whether or not it was the patronage of Buddhism that
secured for a worship of origin so humble admission within
higher circles, it is at all events the case that Tantrism with its
regiment of female deities was early a luxuriant growth among
the Mahayana Buddhists of Nepal and Tibet and the adjoining
provinces of India. It is believed that in Udyana (the modern
Suwat) it had its birth, but it may well have sprung up in
more than one environment. We see it already full blown in
what is called Vajrayana, a form of Mahayana doctrine which
' conceives the existence of Niratma Devi at the top of the
formless (arupa) heaven ', in whose embrace ' the mind bent on
bodhV 'enjoys something like the pleasures of the senses'.3
This word, Vajra, thunderbolt or diamond, which at the same
time signifies the phallus, ' sums up in itself all the cosmic
mysteries and ritual observances of Buddhist Sivaism '.4
1 Vajrasattva ... is the supreme Buddha, who manifests the
primordial reality, at once creative and immanent.'5
It is evident that Buddhism had developed many aspects
that invited the appearance within it of this morbid growth.
Dharma was sometimes worshipped as a female divinity.
She was Adimata and Buddhamata, the mother of all the
Tathagatas. Again we find Tantric Buddhism pursuing the
1 Modern Buddhism, p. 12. 2 D. C. Sen, p. 31.
3 Mahamahopadhyaya Haraprasad Sastri in Modern Buddhism, p. 6.
4 Poussin, Opinions, p. 379. fi Ibid., p. 379.
1 84 THE SAKTA SECT
Pravritti marga and aiming at ' the realization of the unity
of the Adi-Buddha and the Adi-Prajria (Purusa and Prakriti)
through the love and enjoyment of the world'.1 Just as the
wife of Siva bears among her thousand names that of Matahgi,
of Candalika, and others equally suggestive of the impure and
despised castes, so within the Tantric Buddhism of Nepal we
find female deities bearing these and similar names, virgins
(hunari), mothers and 'terrible sisters'.2 These are the
Taras, wives of the Bodhisattvas, who correspond to the
Sakti of Hinduism, just as alongside of them Avalokita and
Vajrapani assume titles of Siva, the Lokesvara or the ' black-
throated one '.
That is evidence sufficient of the manner in which Buddhism
from the tenth century onwards was permeated with Tantric
ideas, so that Acyutananda in the sixteenth century could
say, ' I tell you, take refuge in Buddha, in mother Adi Sakti
or the primordial energy (i.e. Dharma) '.3 It is not difficult to
understand how into the central shrine of Buddhism, left
' empty, swept and garnished ', there should enter and possess
it this power, crude and gross enough, but at the same time
very real and potent. It was the same with Sivaism. The
great God Himself had come to represent the Unknown, the
Impersonal, the Inert. He had come to be recognized as
the deity of philosophy, the nirguna, the unknowable. This
goddess — Kali, Candl, or Sakti, or whatever her name might
be — is the creator of the world seen and near, a personal
divinity upon whom faith can rest. Similarly Candl is
Mahamaya of the Vedanta, a merciful goddess, who can
' assuage the pain of troubled hearts ', more real and dear than
the remote Unmanifested. It is the same story as we found
writ so large upon the history of the Vaisnavite cults : ' The
worship of the Unmanifested laid no hold on my heart.' It
may seem strange that this deity should lay any other grasp
than that of horror and repulsion upon any heart. Who
1 Modern Buddhism, p. 8. 2 Poussin, Opinions, p. 386.
3 Sunya Samhita, Modern Buddhism, p. 127.
THE SAKTA SECT 185
would expect that when men turned away from Siva, 'lying',
as the Puranas represent him, 'like a corpse', it would be to
turn from him to the figure of Sakti or Kali, represented in the
same connexion as dancing upon that corpse ' in destructive
ecstacy ' ? But we have by this time ceased to marvel at any
transformation that the desiring heart can accomplish. It is
well to remember, too, that there was a domestic and genial
side to the character of Siva and his consort, Uma, and upon
that the popular heart in Bengal at least laid hold. Perhaps
that helps to explain the claim that one reason for the spread
of Sakti worship was ' its great tenderness ', which made it
' religiously extremely attractive '-1
Under such influences as these — with Buddhism on the one
hand bequeathing to it its waning prestige, and on the other
strengthened in its appeal by the natural reaction from the
Sunya Vdda, the ' way of nothingness ' — Sakti-worship spread
steadily in Eastern India. It was undoubtedly also helped
at the same time by the fact that, as its whole history and the
names of the goddess it adores suggest, it answers to many
fears and passions that are deep in the human soul and seem
to be part of the secret of the universe. In the union within
it of the forces of lust and death seemed to lie the key to the
' inmost, ancient mysteries '. These mystic suggestions, in com-
bination with the gross and savage instincts which this worship
pretended to sanctify, gave the Sakti sect its widespread and
sinister influence. Human sacrifices have generally been
recognized as peculiarly acceptable in the worship of this
goddess, and in the Malatl Madhava of Bhavabhuti such
a sacrifice of a chaste virgin to Camunda is described. But it
is another kind of sacrifice that is more often demanded in
this worship in which lust lies so hard by hate. In the
Sahajiya cult, which owed its origin to the Vamacarl
Buddhists,2 and is celebrated by the Bengali poets, Kanu
Bhatta in the tenth century, and Candidas in the fourteenth,
we have this aspect of Tantrism frankly presented. ' The
1 D. C. Sen, p. 251. 2 Ibid., p. 38.
t86 THE SAKTA SECT
woman', says Candidas, ' will sacrifice herself entirely to love. . . .
She must plunge herself headlong in the sea of abuse, but at
the same time scrupulously avoid touching the forbidden
stream.'1 'Hear me, friends,' he says again, 'how salvation
may be attained through love for a woman. . . . He that
pervades the universe, unseen by all, is approachable only by
him who knows the secret of pure love.' 2 The prescription
for this way of salvation is thus described in one of the
Tantras : ' A dancing girl, a girl of the Kapali caste, a prostitute,
a washerwoman, a barber's daughter, a Brahman girl, a Sudra
girl, a milkmaid, a girl of the Malakar caste — these nine are
recognized as the legitimate subjects for Tantric practices.
Those that are most clever among these should be held as
pre-eminently fit ; maidens endowed with beauty, good luck,
youth, and amiable disposition are to be worshipped with care,
and a man's salvation is attained thereby.' 3
' Tantrism rests on the principle that of all the illusions —
and everything is illusion — the illusion called woman is the
most sublime, the most necessary to salvation.' 'No infamy,
not excluding incest, is omitted from the worship of woman
(strl pujd), the supreme divinity.' As the dyer effaces stains
on a garment by means of his dye, so the thought can be
purified by impurity and desire can cast desire out.4
This Tantric religion — as its own books declare, and as its
character certainly indicates — is a religion for the Kali Yuga.
Its theory is that man is accepted as a creature of passions,
and that by the very means of these he is to ' cross the region
of darkness'. Those things that have most of all caused
man's ruin — the five Makdras, as they are called — madya, wine ;
mamsa, flesh ; matsya, fish ; mudra, mystic gesticulations ; 5
and maithuna, sexual indulgence — are to be made the very
1 D. C. Sen, p. 40. 2 Ibid., p. 44.
3 Ibid, p. 42, quoted from the Gupta Sudana Tantra.
4 Poussin's Opinions, pp. 403, 405, 406.
5 Mudra is also explained as parched grain, and as the young woman
associated with the ritual and previously initiated and consecrated.
(Poussin's Opinions, p. 403, note.)
THE SAKTA SECT 187
means of his salvation. ' Siva desires to employ those very
poisons in order to eradicate the poison in the human system.
Poison is the antidote of poison. . . . The physician, however,
must be an experienced one. If there be a mistake as to the
application, the patient is like to die. Siva has said that the
way of kuldcdra, is as difficult as it is to walk on the edge of
a sword or to hold a wild tiger.' ! Limitations have to be
prescribed in this dangerous remedy ' when the Kali Yuga is
in full strength '. The ' three sweets ' should be used instead
of wine, and the maithuna should be with svlya sakti. ' He
who worships the great Adya Kali with the five makdras, and
repeats her four hundred names, becomes suffused with the
presence of the Devi, and for him there remains nothing in
the three worlds that is beyond his powers.' 2
These last words suggest how close is the relation of
this strange cultus to the Yoga with its desire for magic
powers. It has been said of the Yoga that ' two currents of
thought meet in it. One is Sahkhyan rationalism ; the other
is barbarous superstition '. That description applies equally
to the Sdkta system. Its metaphysics is the metaphysics of
the Sdhkhya, but it is the Sdhkhya linked to a mythology
that has its roots in the darkest fears and the grossest passions
of the human soul. The combination seems a strange one,
but the fact that the thought of the Sdnkhya is still to a con-
siderable extent primitive thought, and that its forms are as
yet largely governed by imagination, makes such a combina-
tion possible. It has been maintained that all the goddesses
of mythology were abstract nouns. That is certainly far
from being the case, but perhaps it may be accepted as true
that female deities are more capable than others of being
identified with ideas, when early speculation is struggling to
find some medium of expression. And, further, the Sdhkhya
has no ethical content such as would make it incongruous
"fc>*
1 The commentator Jaganmohana Tarkalamkara, quoted by Avalon,
p. cxvi.
2 Mahanirvana Tantra, VIII (Avalon).
188 THE SAKTA SECT
with the grossest conceptions of popular superstition. On the
contrary, there is much in its purely unmoral and intellectual
categories that leaves room within it for magic and sorcery
and a belief in demonic powers. It is easy to see that the
Prakriti and the Puriisa of the Sahkhya and its doctrine of
the creation of the world by the exercise upon slumbering
Prakriti of a ' magnetic influence ' are capable enough of being
directly identified with such deities and such conceptions as
those of the Sakti cult. ' This universe,' says Siva, in the
Mahanirvana Tantra, addressing Devi, ' from the great prin-
ciple of mahat (mahat-tatva, intelligence) down to the gross
elements, has been created by thee, since Brahman, cause of
all causes, is but the instrumental cause. . . . Thou, the
supreme YoginI, dost, moved by his mere desire, create, pro-
tect and destroy this world.5 ' What is called ' Great Brahma '
in the Bhagavadglta? mula-prakriti, the womb into which the
seed is cast from which the universe is born, is Sakti. From
the dual principles of Siva and Sakti is evolved the universe,
which is ruled by Mahesvara and Mahesvari.3 But, as a
matter of fact, this is not a reign of equals, for at the dissolu-
tion of the universe, while Siva, as Kala, devours all, his
consort devours Mahakala himself, and is, therefore, 'the
supreme, primordial Kalika '.4 ' Because thou devourest Kala,
thou art Kali, the original form of all things, and because thou
art the origin of, and devourest, all things, thou art called the
Adya Kali. Resuming after dissolution thine own form,
dark and formless, thou alone remainest as one, ineffable and
inconceivable.'5 Again, Siva says, 'Listen to the reasons
why thou (Sri Devi) shouldst be worshipped, and how thereby
the individual becomes united with the Brahman. Thou art
the only Para Prakriti of the Supreme Soul, Brahman, and
1 Mahanirvana Tantra, IV (Avalon, p. 49), ' Under the influence of
the gaze of Purusa Prakriti commences the world-dance', Avalon,
loc. cit., foot-note.
2 XIV. 3. s Avalon, p. xxvi.
4 Mahanirvana Tantra, IV (Avalon, p. 49).
5 Op. cit., IV '(Avalon, p. 50).
THE SAKTA SECT 189
from thee has sprung the whole universe, O Siva, its mother. . . .
Thou art the birthplace of even us (Brahma, Visnu, and Siva) ;
thou knowest the whole world, yet none know thee.'
The process of manifestation is one in which throughout, in
agreement with the whole bias of Sakti conceptions, sexual
ideas predominate. ' The dual principles of Siva and Sakti . . .
pervade the whole universe, and are present in man in the
SvayambJiu-lihga of the muladhara and the Devi KundalinI,
who, in the serpent form, encircles it.' 1 There are Bindu,
Blja, and Nada at various stages in the evolution, these being
explained as Siva, Sakti, and their relation to each other.
Each manifestation has its Sakti, ' without which it avails
nothing '.2 Throughout its symbolism and pseudo-philoso-
phizings there lies at the basis of the whole system, if it can
be called a system, the conception of the sexual relationship
as the ultimate explanation of the universe. There are male
and female forms of all the manifestations of the Para-brahman,
but the female aspect is the more fundamental, and ' there is
no neuter form of God '.3
1 Avalon, p. xxvi.
2 Ibid., p. xxiv, 'not Brahma, Visnu, Rudra create, maintain, or
destroy ; but BrahmT, Vaisnavl, RudranT. Their husbands are but as
dead bodies.' Ktibjika Tantra, chap, i, quoted in Avalon, note to
p. xxiv.
3 Saktananda-tarahgini, chap, iii (Avalon, p. xxviii).
PART II
THE THEOLOGY
A review of the whole course of the theistic development
in India, as we have sought to trace it, leaves us baffled and
perplexed by its waywardness. We have spoken of it as
a development for lack of a better word, but if by that is
meant the ordered unfolding of an idea through successive
stages of advance towards its complete disclosure, then we
have found nothing here that can be so described. There is
continuity throughout, no doubt, but it is the loosely articu-
lated continuity furnished by the history of varied peoples,
commingling, interacting, but never fused by any single
powerful influence into one vital and coherent whole. We
have not a near enough view of them, nor material sufficiently
complete from their history and their literature to enable us
to follow all the winding course of their spiritual development,
and to understand why it took now this direction and now
that. It is only at a late period that the religion of devotion
becomes fully articulate as a theology, and the process by
which it reached that systematic form is so obscure that one
may sometimes doubt whether it was a continuous process at
all. Its continuity in the earlier period seems little more than
the continuity of a series of devout spirits who sought God in
the way that their hearts dictated. There is room enough in
such circumstances for waywardness and diversity. The
development, however, becomes more stable when the religion
has thought itself out in a theology, and has thus become
conscious of its bases and its aims. While it is, therefore, of
value and interest to examine, as far as maybe, the theological
conceptions that are implicit in the whole of the Indian
THE THEOLOGY t9j
theistic evolution, it is the theological philosophy of the
Upanisad period, and to a still greater extent the later and
more deliberate theologisings of Ramanuja and the other
schoolmen that disclose the principles that have throughout
consciously or unconsciously controlled the process. What
was latent always in the intuitions of the bhakta comes to full
self-consciousness in the systems of the theologians and philo-
sophers. We shall, accordingly, dwell mainly upon the ages
of reflection and their products in theistic philosophy and
theology.
The earliest age is mainly of interest as showing us what,
we imagine, might have been. The Vedic period is Aryan,
but it is scarcely Indian. Whilst we find in it the roots of
much that grows to maturity through the centuries that
follow, it lacks at the same time certain elements which we
may describe as distinctively Hindu, and which give the whole
succeeding development its colour and direction. The Theism,
therefore, of the Rig Veda is not properly Indian Theism.
There are elements in it which may possibly be Semitic.
There are other elements which betray their kinship with the
Aryan mind of Western peoples. But what we may call the
Hindu note sounds but seldom in those early Hymns. We
seem, it is true, to see those early worshippers more clearly
and to understand them better than many who at later periods
appear upon the scene of history. The Aryan invaders
descending upon India through the north-western passes, and
taking possession of the new land, a virile people, looking up
to the sky above them and calling upon the gods by many
names — they are not unlike others who have gone forth with
their flocks and herds, conquering and to conquer. But there
is not much at first at least that is specifically Indian in this
old Vedic faith, and there is no apparent reason why the
worship of those gods of the upper air should not presently
pass with the growth of moral enlightenment and of the sense
of reason and of order into an ethical monotheism. Why it
was not so we simply cannot tell. We may say that there is
192 INDIAN THEISM
in the Indian blood a deep and ineradicable instinct for
Pantheism. But to say so is only to describe the problem in
other words — not to solve it. There are psychical secrets
that we must be content to leave as secrets. Why the principle
of the rita, of the moral order in the universe, failed of fruitful-
ness and withered ; why Varuna, for a while so awful in his
moral majesty, fell to the rank of the Tritons and the nymphs,
we cannot tell. We can only dimly perceive that as a matter
of fact the Indian turned to follow other and more phantasmal
forms than love and righteousness, that instead of seeking an
ideal of unity such as might have been suggested to him by
the analogy of a well-knit community and a harmonious state,
he began his long and barren quest for a unity vaguer, less
substantial, that might satisfy his intellect if it ignored the
longings of his heart.
The most we can say is that the normal process by which,
among other Aryan peoples, ' the heavenly ones ' developed
into distinct and many-sided personalities, was thwarted by
influences that seem to have been present in the Indian
climate and to have sprung from the Indian soil. Just as
a meteorite, as soon as it passes within the atmosphere of the
earth melts into fire and gas, so the moral personalities that
had been forming about the Aryan sky-gods with their promise
and potency of Theism, seem with the descent of their
worshippers into the plains of India to suffer a not dissimilar
transformation. In the ordinary course of development we
should have expected the order of nature, if that is what rita
first signified, as well as its guardian, Varuna, to have taken
more and more to itself an ethical connotation — as indeed we
see it doing for a while — until this great god became the
Jehovah of a spiritual religion. We should have expected, as
the invaders found a settled home and established a stable
government, that that god and the other higher gods would
have taken over the control and guidance of the state from
the old family and tribal guardians, the spirits of the ancestors
and the gods of the underworld. But neither the climate
THE THEOLOGY 193
nor the configuration of the widespread plains of India lent
themselves to this development.
Winds blow and waters roll
Strength to the brave and power and deity.
But not when the winds are the stagnant airs of a tropical
land, or when the waters exhale the poison of malaria.
Disorder and death reigned without, and the only refuge
seemed to be within. There was not the well compacted
structure of the state, with all its lessons, its
piety and fear, . . .
Domestic awe, night-rest and neighbourhood,
leading men's hearts by a natural ascent from earth to heaven.
There was instead anarchy and disease, making the world
hateful and God shadowy and dim. Hence, perhaps, the
desire to escape that so dominates Indian religious thought,
and to escape to a region of ideas as different as could be
conceived from that which they knew and loathed. The
failure of the conquering Aryans to establish fixed order and
government in their new possessions ; their inability, whether
through racial pride or lack of spiritual vigour, thoroughly to
assimilate and transmute the religious elements contributed
by the peoples among whom they dwelt ; perhaps, also, the
depressing and enervating influence of a tropical and too fertile
land — these things may go some way to explain the Pantheism
and pessimism, the moral weakness and intellectual subtlety,
that distinguish so much of the Indian spirit — the courage,
begotten of dislike and despair, with which it renounces the
world, and, at the same time, the cowardice with which it
often turns its back on God.
Those questions which are specially characteristic of the
Indian religious development only begin to appear with the
close of the Vedic period. As these discover themselves in
connexion with our inquiry they show us a conflict continually
in process between what we may call the natural human instinct
for Theism and certain tendencies which we cannot account
for more particularly than by describing them as peculiar to
O
194 INDIAN THEISM
the Indian mind. The sincere devotion ot the Theistic
worshipper, when it emerges from its obscurity, is seen to be
threatened, not only by formalism and by the power of the
priest — a universal danger — but also by Pantheism and a
morbid intellectualism. Perhaps we may not be far wrong in
suggesting that it is to the influence of that devout spirit that
the fact is due that the revolt from the sacerdotalism of the
Brahmanas results not in a rationalism that ignores or denies
God, but in a mysticism that seeks to reach him, remote as
he appears to it to be, by an insight which, if too intellectual,
is at least inward, and to that extent spiritual. In Greece,
perhaps because the devout spirit was feebler and more rare,
religion and philosophy early fell apart, and were often in open
antagonism to each other. In India, on the other hand, even
such an atheistic system as the Sankhya presently felt it
necessary to attach to itself a God. The Hindu speculative
systems have been compared to the scholastic philosophies of
the Middle Ages because they were almost always philosophies
within a theology. Those that the Upanisads present to us
are not properly described as rationalistic, but as mystical
speculations. It is not the discursive reason that governs
them but intuitive insight. They seek God, not at the end of
a syllogism, but at the conclusion of a process, which can only,
however, be described as negatively ethical. When the too
opaque moral integuments are stripped off, God is intellectually
apprehended or surmised by the Upanisad seekers — a Being
so rarefied and so transparent that he must, as they conceive,
be the final and absolute One.
It is characteristic of mysticism, and it is characteristic of
Upanisad speculation that its whole vision is set towards
God, and yet it always fails to see him — its long pilgrimage
is to his feet, and yet it cannot overtake him. With every
advance towards him it removes him further off ; even while it
strains its eyes most tensely it refines his form into something
harder to perceive. The ' guesses at truth ', as Max Miiller
called them, that the Upanisads present to us seem un-
THE THEOLOGY 195
questionably to have their root in real religious instincts, and
therefore in the feeling life, but feeling appeared to those seers
to have too much of the element of plurality in it, and there-
fore in the quest for unity it must be eliminated, and to have
too much of the world about it, and therefore in the quest for
God it must be reckoned as of inferior worth. Nevertheless,
there probably was a real continuity between the fervent
devotion that bowed before Vasudeva and other gods of the
simple worshipper and the super-refined mysticism of these
seers. No one doubts that Jacob Boehme's religion was
rooted deep in love and devotion to a personal God, and yet
considerable portions of such a dialogue as that upon the
Super-sensual Life in his Way to Christ might almost have
been transcribed from the Upanisads. ' When thou canst
throw thyself into That where no creature dwelleth ', says the
Master to his disciple, ' then thou hearest what God speaketh
. . . When thy soul is winged up and above that which is
temporal, the outward senses and the imagination being locked
up by holy abstraction, then the eternal hearing, seeing, and
speaking are revealed in thee.' To mystics everywhere it
seems to be only, as Boehme says, ' by stopping the wheel
of the imagination and the senses ' that He who is above and
beyond imagination and senses and all that is created can be
known. An intellectual unity seems to be the most all-
inclusive that man can imagine, and an intellectually-conceived
Being to be the one least partaking of the temporal, and so
nearest to the nature of that which is above time and thought
and being itself.
Perhaps it is these characteristics that are most distinctive
of the Theism of the Upanisads. It is intellectual and aristo-
cratic, while the popular devotion on the other hand was
emotional and democratic. In spite of this difference, how-
ever, they are both Theisms. They are scarcely farther apart
indeed than were Eckhart and Tauler within the Christian
Church in the Middle Ages, and in both cases the diverse
types are united not only by their theistic belief but by the
o 2
196 INDIAN THEISM
mystical texture of their minds. It has been said that Eckhart
dwelt specially on the being of God, and Tauler and the
' Friends of God ', on the other hand, on the will of God, and
a somewhat parallel distinction might be made between the
Upanisad teachers and the saints of the bJiakti schools. A
comparison of the two is apt to cast upon the more speculative
doctrine an appearance of Pantheism, just as Eckhart seems
often to be open to a similar charge. But however closely it
may verge at times upon Pantheism, the name of Mysticism
more truly describes it as presenting ' that attitude of mind
in which all other relations are swallowed up in the relation
of the soul to God \x To the more speculative mind that
relation is one of contemplation of the being of God ; to simple
souls it appeals as a relation of loving communion. There is
a wide difference between these two types, but at the same
time a fundamental agreement. The aim in each case is to
obtain immediate unity with God, though the means used may
differ. In the Upanisads what engrosses the seeker is the way
by which men stripping off veil after veil may attain to the
contemplation of ' the subtle essence', ' the True ', ' the Self'.2
The high intellectual road that leads to this goal can be
traversed only by the few, only by those with leisure for
thought and capacity for thought. What they are seeking is
not the satisfaction of a practical need but, we may almost say,
the gratification of an intellectual curiosity. At the same
time, as those writers constantly claim, the seeker becomes
what he contemplates. A student of Mysticism in other fields
has pointed out that, as the mystic follows the method of
contemplation, he ' has more and more the impression of
being that which he knows and of knowing that which he is '.3
The desire of this type of mysticism is to discover ' the
mystery of the Impenetrable Source', rather than to obtain
1 E. Caird's Evolution of Theology i?i the Greek Philosophers, II,
p. 210.
2 Chan dog. Up. VI. 13.
3 Delacroix, Etudes sur le Mysticisme, p. 370, quoted in Underbill's
Mysticism, p. 395.
THE THEOLOGY 197
a personal deliverance, and in discovering it they possess it,
even if it is only a fleeting possession.
A question which naturally arises when one seeks to
extract a theology from the speculations of the Upanisad* is
whether God is viewed by them as immanent or as transcen-
dent— whether he is linked to a remote and alien world by
such a method of self-communication as that of emanations or
whether God dwells in the world, and man has but to learn to
see him. It is a further evidence of the mystical character of
these writings that they give to this question an ambiguous
answer. How God has related himself to the world seems to
concern them less than how man may discover God. The
thought of grace as an attribute of the ultimate Self does not
occupy their attention to any great extent, for they are not
thinking so much of how that Self descends among men, but
of how man's mind may climb thither. Nor is that climbing
a process of moral so much as of mental toil. We find in
them what Plotinus describes as ' the flight of the lonely soul
to the lonely One '. It was Gnosticism, or perhaps Christi-
anity, that provoked Plotinus to attempt the complementary
demonstration of the way in which the Absolute One is
manifested in lower forms of being and comes into the life of
man. The unmethodical thinkers of the Upanisads do not
appear to have felt the urgency of explaining this problem.
The doctrine of tnaya was made full use of by Sahkaracarya
to resolve this difficulty when it presented itself to him, and
the later theistic theologians called in the aid of the theory of
emanations for the same purpose, but as yet the demand for
an explanation of plurality and evil does not seem to have
awakened in those Upanisad thinkers. The experience of
inward need and of helplessness, on the other hand, drove the
popular Theisms to seek in their theory of incarnations and in
their doctrine of grace an explanation of how and why a God
who in the nature of things would appear to have no relation
with a world of evil and ignorance may yet draw near to it
and deliver it. The doctrines of divine grace and of the
iq8 INDIAN THEISM
divine self-manifestation are the discovery of the heart rather
than of the intellect ; they are the products of a sense of moral
need — or rather, perhaps, we may more truly say, revelations
granted to it — rather than the postulates of pure reason. The
engagement of the reason with these questions, its explanation
of the divine entanglement with the human and the imperfect,
comes later. The demands of the reason do not make them-
selves heard so early, nor are they so urgent, as those of the
heart.
In these earlier speculations we obtain no more than hints
of the existence of this problem of the relation of God and the
world. There is, for example, the characteristically imagina-
tive presentation of the downward growth of the universe from
its root in the True —
With its roots on high, its shoots downwards,
Stands that eternal fig-tree.1
The doctrine of emanation that seems to be suggested here, as
well as in the similar passage in the Svetdsvatara, which speaks
of the One as sending down the branches of its plurality from
above,2 views the Absolute One as transcendent over the
universe and withdrawn from it. On the other hand many
passages in the Upanisads speak of Brahman in the language
of immanence as dwelling within the universe ' up to the
finger tips '. To find these two contradictory views side by
side in these documents is in itself an indication of the mystical
character of their thinking. To the mystics at all times the
supreme Reality has presented itself now in one aspect and
now in the other. They are seldom sufficiently systematic in
their thought to realize the contradiction ; and some of the
greatest of them have been content to alternate between the
two views in the language they employ.3 This is so because
God is one apart from whose life nothing at all exists, while at
the same time the rarefied unity of his being removes him to
a sphere of transcendent separation from all that is other than
1 Katha Up. 6. i. 2 Svet. Up. 3. 9.
3 Underbill's Mysticism, p. 121.
THE THEOLOGY 199
himself. Therefore he is at once the remote One, and he who
is of all others the most nigh. ' Though never stirring it is
swifter than thought. . . . Though standing still it overtakes
the others who are running ... It stirs and stirs not ; it is
far and likewise near. It is inside of all this, and it is outside
of all this '.' Such teaching may be reconcilable with Theism,
and indeed may have in it the very stuff of a religion which
may well be both passionate and personal, but it does not
obey the laws of the understanding, nor does it satisfy the
systematic theologian. We can see how when Sarikaracarya
came to the Upanisads, that he might formulate from them
a theory of the universe, it was only by the help of such
a tour de force as the may a doctrine provides that he could
ever solve their logical antinomies and build them up into a
consistent system.
The popular Theisms are too exclusively emotional, the
aristocratic Mysticisms are too exclusively intellectual. The
two seem never to be quite successfully combined throughout
the Indian religious development. For their combination into
a powerful and enduring Theism perhaps there was necessary
a great religious personality to knit them together by his life
and by his teaching. So much in the spiritual history of
India is anonymous and impersonal. Buddha, for whatever
reason, rejected the task, and yet, strangely enough, he went
farther than any one to accomplish it. He rejected God, and
yet his doctrine develops by the very influence of his
personality into the nearest in certain aspects that India has
produced to an ethical Theism. But Indian religion is every-
where feeble in its emphasis upon the personal, and therefore
upon what is most ethical and most vital. It finds the ground
of the universe in an ultimate Intelligence rather than in a
supreme Will. Even when, with later Vaisnavism, God is
a God of grace, who condescends to men and incarnates him-
self for their salvation, the doctrine seems to hesitate between
the conception of a gracious Will that of his own good
1 Isa Up. 4-5.
200 INDIAN THEISM
pleasure thus comes near in love, and a distant Mind —
Aristotle's ' unmoved Mover ' — whose emanations and mani-
festations are darkenings of his pure nature, accommodations
to this lower region of his transcendent Being, necessary if
man is ever to come to knowledge of a God so far removed.
' When God seeth his servants in sorrow ', says the BJiagavad-
bJiakta, ' he tarrieth not, but himself cometh as an incarnate
deity to save them.' * But the Vyuhas, and perhaps also the
Vibhavas, of Ramanuja are more the postulates of metaphysics
than of ethics.
The place that the doctrine of avataras holds in Indian
religion suggests a consideration which deeply affects the
character of its theology. No doubt every religion, however
high its spiritual rank, has in it elements of nature worship.
But in the case of Hinduism these elements do not merely
cling to its skirts ; they are of its very flesh and bones. It
grows out of them, and is still carefully governed by them.
The religion is like the form of some of its own gods, half
human, half bestial. It has not had time yet, or the human,
ethical elements in the Indian spirit have not proved powerful
enough, to transform it fully. We see this clearly in the case
of the avataras of the Indian theistic sects. These have, no
doubt, their root in the worship of theriomorphic deities. The
first suggestion of what bears the appearance of incarnation
is such a statement as we find in the SatapatJia Brahmana
that ' having assumed the form of a tortoise Prajapati created
offspring', or again that in the form of a boar he raised the
earth from the bottom of the ocean.2 If we mean by incarna-
tion the assumption by God for a moral end of some lowly
guise that brings him near to men to help them — and that
is what is meant in the case of a truly ethical Theism — then
these are not incarnations. Their natural origin is scarcely
concealed. Just as the elephant-god becomes semi-humanized
into the god Ganesa with the head of an elephant and the
1 The Bhaktakalpadruma, quoted by Dr. Grierson in_/. R. A. S.
2 E.R.E. II. Si i2.
THE THEOLOGY 201
body of a man, so here we see the tortoise and the boar,
ancient objects of worship, undergoing transition by another
method to a higher and more respectable rank of deities. It
was a natural step to suggest next that the lower forms were
assumed by the god in gracious condescension to human
need. Thus all the animal avataras of Visnu, the fish, the
man-lion, represent old theriomorphic deities that bear upon
them all the marks of their origin among wild nature cults.
It need not surprise us therefore to find that Krisna in the
Gita is said 'to come to bodied birth' for purposes that are
not upon the highest ethical level when we remember this pit
from which the incarnation doctrine has been digged. Not in
this respect alone, the Indian Theisms bear evident marks
upon them of a grossly natural origin that they have been
able as yet only very imperfectly to slough. Students of the
religion of the ancient Jews find the explanation of the process
by which it was gradually purified from the impurities of
Semitic nature-worship in the fact of a divine revelation to
that people. Nothing less could have brought that result
about. It is not surprising that this end was never accom-
plished in the case of a god like Krisna, still so intimately
associated with sensual enjoyment, or warlike prowess, or in
the case of a god like Siva, worshipped even by the devout
poet-sages of the South as * the maniac ' and ' the blue-
throated one '. Many of the avatars are reminders of the
early career of gods to whom a gross past still clings too close.
It is of course, however, in the BJiagavadglta with its fully
formulated avatara doctrine that the most resolute attempt is
made to persuade the two streams of tendency, the intellectual
and the emotional, to flow together in a single channel. Its
success in legitimizing the popular Vaisnavite doctrine by
linking it up with the Theosophy of the thinkers gives it,
apart from other considerations, a place of special importance
in the theology of Indian Theism. It is true that it is not
a systematic treatise, any more than are the Epistles of St. Paul,
but like them it is a canonical scripture out of which later
202 INDIAN THEISM
systems were constructed. It has a closer relation to the
unmethodical speculations of the Upanisads that lie behind
it than to the elaborated systems of later scholasticism. The
inconsistencies of its teaching are obvious, but the direction
in which a solution for them may be sought is indicated, and
there loom before us the outlines of a Theism that is
characteristically Indian in its presuppositions and that has
purged itself sufficiently of superstition to be acceptable to
thoughtful men.
The setting in which we have this poem in the Mahabharata
suggests that it is primarily an ethical rather than a theological
treatise. Just as the Upanisads in the Aitareya Aranyaka are
an attempt to explain the significance of a sacrificial ceremony,
and as the Katha Upanisad is occupied with the problem of
the life after death, so the Gita has its origin, according to the
Mahabharata story, in a moral problem that perplexed Arjuna.
Accordingly, if we are to interpret it from that point of view,
we shall seek the central element of its teaching in its doctrine
of the Karma Yoga or Rule of Works. This represents an
immense ethical advance upon the formalism of the ritual
scriptures, while at the same time it escapes the tendency
apparent in the Upanisads towards an intellectualism which
forsook the performance of practical duties for the more
exalted way of meditation upon abstract truth. We can
scarcely be mistaken in explaining the poem as a product of
the reflection of such a thinker as those whose meditations
are included in the Upanisads, seeking to interpret in the
terms of his thought the motives that he saw at work among
the adherents of the bhakti cults. To do a thing for love,
like even the simplest devotee was, he saw, a far higher thing
than to do it for reward and a far more possible thing for
most than to follow the lonely path of knowledge.1 ' Do
thine appointed work,' he enjoins, ' for work is more excellent
than worklessness. . . . This world is fettered by work, save
in the work that is for the sake of the sacrifice. For the sake
1 VII. 19.
THE THEOLOGY 203
of it do thou perform work, O son of KuntI, freed from all
attachment.' 1 This doctrine of a service that does not
enchain the doer but leaves him free and points him forward
to final emancipation 2 betrays by its emphasis upon the
motive in the heart and by the parallel interpretation it
places upon the sacrifice (for ' Visnu is the sacrifice ') 3 its
indebtedness to the school of loving faith. But here as
elsewhere the poet speaks with a double tongue. Sometimes
he is drawn away to a view of work so pallid and anaemic
that it can be described as the ' consummation of workless-
ness \4 At another time his emphasis upon devotion still
retains the glow of affection of the simple-hearted. ' Whatever
be thy work, thine eating, thy sacrifice, thy gift, thy mortifica-
tion, make all of them an offering to me. Thus shalt thou be
released from the bond of works . . . and shalt come to me.
. . . Even though he should be a doer of exceeding evil that
worships me with undivided devotion, he shall be deemed
good ; for he is of right purpose.' 5 There is no disability of
class or sex among those who travel by this road.0 Yet at
the same time while such a one is 'dear to the Lord'7 that
Lord is 'indifferent to all born beings',8 and yet again he is
' the friend of all born beings '.° Thus this irenicon labours
after the reconciliation of irreconcilable moods of the spirit,
giving with one hand and withdrawing again with the other,
now proclaiming its author an adherent of an ethical Theism,
and again, in the interest of an abstract intellectualism,
1 III. 8, 9. 2 V. 2.
3 Taitt. Sam. I. 7, 4. What such a sentence as this means it is by no
means easy to be certain. It at least indicates a close connexion between
this god and the Work, par excellence, which does not fetter but set free.
There is another saying which may also have significance in the emergence
of this doctrine of work that does not bring with it the curse of 'world-
wandering'. In the Maitrayanl Samhita it is said, 'The rita, the truth
is the sacrifice' (I. 10, 11). Reflection on the meaning of the sacrifice
may have pointed the way to the self-sacrificing, or at least unselfish,
service which the Gita enjoins.
4 XVIII. 49. 5 IX. 27-30. 6 IX. 32.
7 XII. 17. 8 IX. 29. 9 V. 29.
204 INDIAN THEISM
emptying his doctrine of all its power to lay hold of and
control the heart.
This is seen especially when we turn to the theology of the
poem. Here this antinomy between its thought of God as
a Being lifted above the world, and that which knows him to
be one who loves is discovered in other regions as well. He
is both the Absolute who by the method of emanations
relates himself to a remote universe, and at the same time
one who dwells in all things as their life. There is one
Unmanifested behind another, receding into remoteness, and
there is the Manifested, the ' Supreme Person ', ' wherein born
beings abide, wherewith this whole universe is filled ,.1 The
theory of emanations, the method of safeguarding the
supremacy of the Absolute by graduating his relations with
the universe, is the favourite method of Mysticism, and was
no doubt an inheritance from older modes of thought. The
Vyuhas or manifestations of the Vasudevik school had already
been called in to aid in this reconciliation, and some of the
Brahman teaching of the Upanisads is not essentially irre-
concilable with them. In his doctrine of works, however,
this thinker had a new clue to the interpretation of the rela-
tion of the world to God and one which left room for a personal
Creator. He moulds and remoulds the world ; he sustains
and controls it ; but his works fetter him not, for he abides
indifferent and unattached.2 Of this Rule which is the Yoga
par excellence, he is the Lord, ' Yogesvara '. But this lordship
of the Yoga has two aspects according as his unattachment
to his works is interpreted as indifference or as unselfishness
and love. From the latter and more ethical view proceeds all
that is most theistic and most truly religious in the theology
of this poem. From it comes naturally the doctrine of the
divine grace that saves and that bears the worshipper to final
peace,3 and equally the doctrine of the divine incarnation.4
It is here that from the point of view of the student of Theism
the poem reaches its summit. The metaphysical strain in the
1 VIII. 20, 22. 2 IX. 7-9. 3 XVIII. 62. 4 IV. 6-8.
THE THEOLOGY 205
poet's thought leads him elsewhere. His ethical insight bears
him unfalteringly to this result.
All Theism, and not less that of the Bhagavadgita than
the rest, pines and dwindles in an atmosphere of impersonal
intellectualism. From the point of view of Theism the failure
of the religion here presented lies in its vacillation between
two views of the nature of the highest good, that to which it
is a state of contemplation and that which regards it as a
state of self-sacrificing activity. That entanglement with
samsara is evil, Indian thought is fully convinced, but wherein
the evil root of that sainsara consists it has not quite certainly
determined. It hesitates between the view that the fetter
that binds man to it is a selfish desire for reward, and the
view that it is something that so belongs to the very fibre of
earthly life that every movement of the mind and heart must
be cast forth and stilled. Whether the pens of different
writers wrote these diverse surmises of the truth or whether
they are the work of one man in various moods we cannot
determine with any assurance. There is no reason at all
events to suppose that they could not have been held together
within one complex personality, especially in that of one who
had inherited both the teaching of the Upanisad seers and the
traditions of the schools of bJiakti. As we have already re-
marked in regard to the Upanisads, there is no greater contra-
diction here than we find in the case of the kindred teacher
Eckhart. For him, too, God is both ' a non-God, a non-
spirit, a non-person ', and a Person, both BraJunan and Vasu-
deva, both the Godhead and God. For him evil is at one
time self-will, and at another the very ' creatureliness ' of the
creature. He too seeks to reconcile the ways of knowledge
and of action, though he reverses the relation in which the
Glta places them,1 declaring that ' what a man has taken in
by contemplation, that he pours out in love \2
The soul is ' a portion ' of the Lord,3 an ' uncreated spark '
of the divine, as kindred mystics of another age would call it.
1 XVIII. 55. 2 Inge's Mysticism, p. 160. 3 XV. 7.
2o6 INDIAN THEISM
Matter is not unreal in itself, but unreal as apprehended by
those who have not, by making the Lord their refuge, passed
beyond the power of his Yoga Maya} Thus, while the world
is real and has only to be seen in the light that he supplies,2
the experiences of sense are not so, and have no effect upon
the unchanging, indestructible soul, whose final goal is union
with Vasudeva himself. The expression 'shall come to me'
that is so often used throughout the poem to designate man's
supreme destiny of bliss cannot be supposed to suggest a
condition of unconsciousness, though as a matter of fact the
word nirvana is used to describe it.3 It is with this poet once
more, as with Eckhart, who exhorts men to ' throw them-
selves upon the heart of God, there to rest for ever, hidden
from all creatures \4 So long as both can think of the place
of blessedness as a divine heart, of the goal as a fellowship, the
thought that beckons them on is that of a union of the human
soul with the divine in love and the consciousness of peace.
Thus in the Bhagavadgltd appear the outlines of a theistic
system which aims at uniting speculation and religion, the
philosophizings of the Upanisads and the ardours of the bliakti
worshippers. It was at the same time an attempt to reconcile
the claims of the contemplative and the active life. In this
work for the first time full recognition is accorded to bliakti
as possessing an honourable estate within the region of ideas.
From its use here as well as throughout the Mahdbhdrata we
are able to estimate in some measure the character of the
religious emotion which the word connotes. From what
Hopkins calls ' a typical epic passage illustrating the use of
bhakti ' 5 we learn that it is used to describe the devout senti-
ment of a worshipper ' who knows no other god in heaven ',6
as well as the corresponding response on the part of the deity
so honoured. This latter is also described as the grace
(prasdda) of the god.7 The term is further applied to the
1 VII. 14. - VII. 25. 3 V. 24. 4 Inge's Mysticism, p. 160.
5 Hopkins vciJ.R.A.S., July, 191 1, pp. 72 IF.
G Mbh. III. 303 ; 3, 4. 7 Mbh. III. 31, 42.
THE THEOLOGY 207
devotion of a wife to her husband and of a loyal people to
their king. In the view of Hopkins its use in the Epic indi-
cates a preponderance of emotional over intellectual elements
in the feeling which it conveys. ' BJiakti leans to love very
perceptibly, even to erotic passion, but it expresses affection
of a pure sort as well as that of a sensual nature ; which latter
aspect, however, is to be found and cannot be ignored. In
fact the danger of bJiakti, become too ardent and lapsing into
mystic eroticism, is apparent in the mediaeval expression of
this emotion. It is not intellectual, yet the play of meaning
between faith and love (perhaps trust) is generally present V
This devotion is shown to various gods, to whom also the
corresponding name of Bhagavat is applied. That name,
according to Hopkins, may best be rendered Blessed — ' he
who is blessed with the possession of all good qualities and,
by implication, makes blessed his bhaktas, those who have
made him theirs and are devoted to him '.'-' From all this we
see how well fitted were these words to gather round them
a ' passionate Theism ' and to describe the movements of
affection that according to them unite together God and man.
We have at the same time hints of the danger that, lacking
some restraining influence, might betray its ardours, as it
so often has in its history in India, into grossness and
extravagance.
Out of those experiences and intuitions, so varied and dis-
sonant, and echoing back through so many centuries of
India's religious history, Ramanuja and the other scholastic
philosophers who came after him built up their various
systems. To them we pass at once without tarrying over the
enigmatic Vedanta Sutras which they claim to expound. Of
the BJiakti- Yoga Ramanuja affirms that it is ' the burthen of all
the Vedanta teaching'.3 His theology is the consistent and
detailed demonstration of the principles involved in the Theism
which had been gradually through so long a time growing to
1 Hopkins, op. cit. 2 Hopkins, op. cit.
3 Ramanuja's Bhagavadgitd, trans, by Govindacarya, p. 10.
208 INDIAN THEISM
consciousness of itself. Bhagavat is the Creator in the sense
that from him issues forth at the dawning of a kalpa, and into
him by his will at its close is absorbed again the entire
universe. Before thus coming forth ' the fourfold sum of
being ' ' lies powerless in the folds of his alluring and guna-
sated nature (prakriti) \l Ramanuja quotes with approval
a passage from the Mahabharata which says that all this
universe composed of movable and immovable (things) is
verily for Krisna's sake, and explains these last words as
indicating that the universe is his accessory or accident (scsa).
He has independent reality; it has reality only in him.2 He
is not implicated in creation, for he regards it unconcerned as
a ' passive neutral ',3 the cause of the diverse fates of creatures
being the deeds that they have done. ' The term maya never
signifies what is false',4 though it signifies a view of things that
leads men astray. Those who follow the path of devotion
escape beyond 'this g2ina-i\x\\ maya . Elsewhere maya is
rendered by Ramanuja in the Gita as the will of the Lord, by
which he chooses, in distinction from creatures whom their
karma compels, to be born among men.5
He who is not only the Soul of the world but the Soul of
individual souls, ' ruling by his will ',6 can of his own free
choice bestow illumination and strength upon those who seek
him, and ' strong delusion that they should believe a lie ' upon
those who turn away from him.7 He is other than the bound
and freed souls, and may be compared in his relation to them
to a king ruling his subjects.8 Obedience to him procures by
his grace ' supreme peace or cessation of all karma bonds '.9
The released souls attain to the character of the Supreme Self,
but not his essential character ; they obtain ' sameness of
nature with him ', but not identity.10 The love of the jnanl,
1 Ramanuja's Gltd, IX. 8 ; Govindacarya, p. 294.
2 Op. cit., IV. 4 ; p. 136. 3 Op. cit., IX. 9 ; p. 294.
4 Op. cit., VII. 13 ; p. 240. 5 Op. cit., IV. 6; p. 138.
6 Op. cit., XV. 15 ; p. 474. 7 Op. cit., XVI. 19.
8 Op. cit., XV. 17. 9 Op. cit., XVIII. 62 ; p. 561.
10 Sri-Bhasya I. 1.
THE THEOLOGY 209
the 'single-loving one' (eka-bhaktih),1 for his Lord is un-
fathomable and wins a return of love. Krisna in the Glta is
represented by his commentator as saying in this connexion
in words that were echoed centuries later by a fellow mystic
of the West, ' In the same manner as my servant cannot live
without me — his highest goal — I cannot live without him.
Verily, therefore, is he my very self (atma).' 2
In his commentary on the Glta, more than in his Srl-Bhasya,
one realizes how truly Ramanuja belongs to the succession of
the BhagavadbJiaktas. There is the note of experimental
religion in his praise of the way of devotion. He does not
find the old word sufficient to express all that is in the heart
of the worshipper who resorts to Krisna as his refuge. He
describes it by another word which — whether original to him
or not — was used by some of his followers to denote an
attitude of still more complete surrender to the will of the
Lord. Prapatti or resignation is used once or twice by
Ramanuja in his exposition of the Glta3 and this with acarya-
bhimana or love for the teacher became the highest means
of religious attainment in a later development of the bJiakti
system. This more extreme doctrine casts the whole task of
salvation upon God and upon his spontaneous and unmotived
grace, and holds that his mercy feels the pain of others as his
own. The more orthodox doctrine held to the view of the
divine grace as responding to men's supplication and endeavour.
' I bow before Mukunda's grace,' says Vedanta Desika, one of
the chief exponents of this teaching, ' which flows freely even
unto the ignorant — a grace which springs of its own accord
but acts on a cause.' 4 The former or more innovating sect,
the Tehgalais, ignored caste distinctions among their adherents
and renounced all dharmas\ while the Vadagalais, like Rama-
nuja himself, followed a more conservative course. Perhaps
one sees signs in the former of the danger of a spirit of
1 Ramanuja's Gita, VII. 17. 2 Op. cit., VII. 18.
3 Ramanuja's Preface to Glta VII and Commentary on VII. 14.
4 Vedanta Desika, by M. K. Tatacharya, p. 26.
P
210 INDIAN THEISM
devotion that has no standard of righteousness by which to
measure the demands that its indebtedness lays upon it, and
in the latter the opposite peril of a speedy return to formalism
and tradition.
We pass now to the Dvaita system of Madhva with its
emphatic discrimination between the Supreme Soul, finite
souls and matter. All things, according to Ramanuja, have
their basis in the One, and, while not unreal, depend upon
him as his manifestations. His view is that of 'qualified
monism ' ; that of Madhva is frankly dualistic. The Lord
Hari alone is the absolute Agent and Ruler, and while ' the
souls are completely under his control ' they are ' absolutely
different entities '} When the soul is called a ' portion ' of the
Lord, all that is meant is that it ' bears some reduced simili-
tude to the Lord '.2 All the names of gods in the Veda are
but various names of Visnu. Madhva is not a polytheist,
according to one of his exponents, for Visnu is the only
independent being, and he is ' at the top of the series ', ' beyond
men and devas\z He is the efficient cause of the universe but
not its material cause, since it is different from him. LaksmI,
the wife of Visnu, is the presiding deity of prakriti. 'She is
the receptacle of the Lord's will to conjoin soul with body and
carry on the work of creation.' 4
Madhva, like other Indian theists, taught that the goal of
deliverance can only be attained by the divine grace. Along
with this, however, went in his case a doctrine of salvation
through Vayu, the son of Visnu, which is special to his system.
On the other hand he divides souls into three classes according
to their nature and destiny which apparently not even the
grace of the Lord can overcome. The satvika soul wins
heaven inevitably, the rajasa soul revolves for ever in
samsara, while that in which tamas predominates goes to hell.
1 Madhva on Gita II. 24 (S. Subba Rau). ,2 Op. cit., XV. 7.
3 C. M. Padmanabha Char's Life and Teachings of Sri Madhvacharyar,
P- 35°-
4 Op. cit., p. 305.
THE THEOLOGY 211
According to other interpreters the worst doom of the wicked
in the view of the Gltd is rebirth as fierce beasts — ' such incar-
nate existences as are opposed to affinity for Krisna'1 — and
punishment in a hell from which there is escape when the
strength of evil karma has been exhausted. But Madhva's
doctrine is more severe. In his view ' they go to the hell of
eternal damnation after having been for a while in the cycle of
samsara '.2
The Suddhadvaita system of Vallabhacarya is more impor-
tant in its practice than in its theory. According to his
doctrine of ' pure monism ' the plane of samsara is unreal,
being created by the Lord's power of avidya, but the cosmos
which is evolved from him is real.3 The Lord who is worshipped
as Krisna — and especially under the form Bal Gopal, as the
child Krisna — is represented as one who rejoices more in the
joy of his followers than in ascetic discipline. A spirit of
devotion, rising to ecstasy, is the means of supreme deliver-
ance, while knowledge attains no further than release from
samsara. The Epicureanism of Vallabhacarya's teaching
marks a new departure among the systems that claim to rest
upon the authority of the Vedanta. There is a sinister
significance in this admission to the ranks of orthodoxy of
a view of life which, however much it had hitherto been
accepted in practice, yet had concealed itself beneath a pro-
fession of renunciation. In this sect and in that of Caitanya
the object of devotion is an erotic deity who is served by an
erotic love. Radha is the model of the true worshipper in
those bhakti cults, and it is the part of the devotee to seek to
assume the attitude of a woman towards the sole male Being,
Krisna. From such a conception of the relation of the
worshipper and the worshipped, as well as from the samar-
pana or self-devotion which Vallabhacarya required, and
which involved the surrender of body, soul, and possessions
1 Ramanuja's Gita, XVI. 20. 2 Madhva's Gita, XVI. 19.
;1 L. D. Barnett's Bhagavadgitd, p. 56.
P 2
212 INDIAN THEISM
to the gtirtiy it was inevitable, in the sensuous atmosphere of
Krisnaism, that gross abuses should result.
By this time the philosophical and theological powers of
India appear to be largely exhausted. The sects that now
appear have no new ideas to contribute. They are dis-
tinguished by their religious spirit or their moral attitude
rather than by the doctrine they profess. In the case of the
Ramanandls, indeed, there is this departure from the teaching
of Ramanuja, whom they claim to follow, that they assert
that God in his essential being is nirguna and unknowable,
but that the only way of salvation is by the worship of his
saguna incarnations. ' There is no difference ', says Tulsi
Das, ' between the material (saguna) and the immaterial
(aguna) ; so declare saints and sages, the Veda and the
Puranas. The formless, invisible and uncreated Immaterial
(nirguna) out of love for the faithful (bhaktas), becomes
materialized (saguna). How can this be? In the same way
as water is crystallized into ice. ... In Rama who is the
Supreme Being and the sun of the world, the night of delusion
can have no part whatever. . . . Delusion affects Rama in the
same way as smoke or a cloud or dust affects the brightness
of the heavens.' 1 Similarly of the Nimbarka sect it is said
that they affirm that ' the one infinite and invisible God, who
is the only real existence is the only proper object of man's
devout contemplation. But as the incomprehensible is
utterly beyond the range of human faculties, he is partially
manifested for our behoof in the book of Creation, in which
natural objects are the letters of the universal alphabet and
express the sentiments of the divine Author '.- Radha and
Krisna symbolize the mysteries of the divine love, and as
symbols it does not matter whether they were real personages
or not.3 Other adherents of bliakti seem to have kept their
religion and their philosophy apart and to have found no
1 Tulsi Das's Ramayana, I. Doha 122, 123 (Growse, I, p. 69).
2 Growse's Mathura, p. 18 1. 3 Ibid.
THE THEOLOGY 213
difficulty in accepting an advaita theory while following for
their heart's satisfaction the practice of devotion.
There is nothing new or valuable in the so-called Sandilya
or Narada Sutras, late attempts in the manner of the Sutras
of Badarayana to demonstrate the greatness of the way of
emancipation by devotion. It does not seem to be clear
whether the philosophical doctrine of the Sandilya Sutras is
advaita or visistadvaita : the work is in either case an exalta-
tion of the way of devotion or ' attachment to the Lord ' l as
higher than knowledge or works. The Narada Sutras are
distinctly dualistic and warmer in their sentiment. They
distinguish their doctrine from Sandilya's thus : — ' Sandilya
says bhakti is the unbroken feeling of the Universal Self in
one's own self. But Narada says it is surrendering all actions
to God and feeling the greatest misery in forgetting God.' 2
But whether the followers of bhakti were whole-hearted
Theists or whether they combined Theism with Agnosticism
or with a monistic philosophy, the chief difference between
one form of the religion and another appears now generally
to depend upon whether it is inspired by the figure of Rama
or of Krisna, or whether it is an effort, as in the case of Swam!
Narayan, to return to a more spiritual worship and a cleaner
life. '
To complete our conspectus of the theology of Indian
Theism it remains for us to consider the system of Saiva
Siddkanta in the South — a system which, perhaps, from the
theistic point of view is the most valuable of all that have
sprung up upon the Indian soil. The three categories under
which the teaching of the Siddkanta is grouped are, as we
have already learned, those of Pati (the Lord), pasu (the
flock), and pdsa (the bond). These are all eternal, but not all
equally real. The Lord who is Siva is supreme and without
parts (niskala) and even nirguna in the sense that he is free
from the three gunas of matter — but for the purpose of his
manifestation he assumes a sakala nature and he operates in
1 Sandilya's Sutras, I. 2 Narada's Sutras (Sturdy), 18 and 19.
214 INDIAN THEISM
the universe through his sakti or energy. The instrument of
creation is Brahma, himself his first creation. In such ways
as these, in agreement with the ancient theory of emanations,
the gulf is bridged between the finite and the infinite, and he
who is pure spirit is shown as mingling with the impure world
like a ray of light that quickens and illuminates.1 The flock
of souls is eternally existent likewise, but without energies
or faculties, ' like birds sleeping in the night in the branches
of some mighty tree, hardly to be distinguished from the tree
itself, save that they live'.2 There hangs over them a burden
of old, eternal deeds whose fruit they must consume ere they
can enter the final, blissful union with the Supreme. The
Lord allots them their embodiment for which at the beginning
of each aeon these alienated souls wait, crouching in the
darkness. The only way to this end is the consuming of the
deeds and hence the Lord with what is indeed a gracious
purpose sends forth the energy of his ' delusion ', evolving
from maya the phenomenal universe and clothing the souls
with bodies. Thus there is pdsa, the bond, hindering that
release which is union with Siva.
Perhaps nowhere in Indian theology have theistic ideas
found fuller or nobler expression than in this attempt to
conceive of an eternal purpose of redemption governing the
whole relation of the Supreme Lord to the universe. No-
where, perhaps, has Indian Theism come nearer than here to
overcoming the stubborn opposition that the karma doctrine
presents to its fundamental conceptions of the supremacy and
the gracious character of God. He sends forth the soul on
his secular pilgrimage with a gracious purpose for his deliver-
ance when the due time comes, and he interposes with the
energy of his grace and burns up new deeds. There are four
paths of this pilgrimage — that in which the soul serves God
as a servant his master, that in which he serves him as a son
his father, that in which he serves him as a friend his friend,
and, highest of all, that in which he serves him as a wife her
1 Pope's Tiruvasagam, p. Ixxxii. 2 Op. cit, p. 1 8.
THE THEOLOGY 215
husband. So the soul makes its slow progress along the path
to freedom and to a full illumination, guided and upheld by
the ' Brahma-Sakti, the sleeping lady V It is as ' when one
lights a lamp and awaits the dawning of the day'.2 'To
those who have thus exhausted all karma by the grace of the
visible guru (there is) no longing after sense pleasure, no birth
or death, no bondage, sorrow or delusion.' 3 The final goal is
reached when the three-fold malam, — anava tnalam (the
original evil), karma malam, and may a malam (matter) — is
neutralized,4 and the soul enters upon eternal union with
Siva — a relation which is ' not one, nor two, but non-dual,
advazta.5 ' The negative prefix in the word advaita does not
negate the existence of two substances, but only a quality
of the existence, i.e. the existence entirely independent or
detached from each other'.0 Thus, as the gracious work of
Siva proceeds and souls pass after their long pilgrimage into
union with him, there is the hope that a time will come when
all shall have obtained release, and Siva shall be all in all.7
The breadth and dignity of this doctrine and its deep sense
of the gracious character of God give it a place apart from
other systems of Theism that have arisen in India. It may
not have overcome the tremendous obstacles that the philo-
sophical presuppositions, of which the Indian mind seems to
find it impossible to rid itself, place in its way. The Saiva
Siddhanta has not succeeded in explaining the origin of evil ;
its attempt, which is similar to that of Plotinus, to explain
the world of suffering souls as 'a result of the transeunt
activity of the One, as an effect of its overpowering energy,
which yet has no connexion with its inner nature ',8 is philo-
1 Tiruvunthiar in Siddhanta Deepika, VIII, p. 187.
- Umapathi in Pope's Tiruvasagam, p. lxxxvi.
3 Tiruvunthiar, op. cit., p. 188.
4 Rev. H. W. Schomerus in the Gospel Witness, V ', p. 178.
5 Tiruvunthiar, op. cit., p. 190.
6 An exposition of Saiva Siddhanta reported by Rev. H. W. Schomerus
in the Gospel Witness, V, p. 1 79.
7 Pope's Tiruvasagam, p. 18.
8 Caird's Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philosophers, II, p. 344-
2i 6 INDIAN THEISM
sophically unsatisfying. But it has grasped and set forth in
far broader outline than elsewhere in Indian thought the basal
conception of Theism that God is a moral being, governed
from first to last by a purpose of compassion. If its doctrine
of grace has not been fully moralized, and if it is confused by
association with physical ideas of energy and with mythological
ideas of Brahma Sakti similar to those which were associated
with the LaksmI of other systems, yet it strove to overcome
these limitations with a measure of success that gives it per-
haps the highest place among Indian theistic constructions.
When we consider especially the religious materials with
which it had to work, and the intellectual anarchy amid which
it arose, we cannot but admire profoundly the theological
breadth of view of its thinkers and the fervour and sincerity
of its saints.
We have sketched briefly some of the main features of
the chief theological systems that have been built up in
India about the devotional experience of bhakti. The
theology of the more popular movements that sprang up later
all over the land, and were less concerned with doctrinal
statement than with a direct appeal to the heart and to the
life need only be dealt with in respect of some of its subsidiary
developments. In the main they agree with what the Sri-
sampradaya of Ramanuja teaches, but they seldom define the
boundaries that separate them from the Maya-vada Vedanta,
and are for the most part content to commend the bhakti
marga as a good and safe and satisfying way for common
men to walk in. ' The knowledge of the Supreme ', says
Tulsl Das, ' is of two kinds, like fire which is either internal
or visible ; each is in itself incomprehensible, but is compre-
hended by means of the name, and therefore I say that the
name is greater than either Brahma or Rama.' 1 Here ' the
name ' is only one aspect of the mediation of ' the Unutterable ',
who apart from such mediation is so hard for the heart to
find. ' Though the unchangeable Lord is in our very soul, the
1 Tulsl Das's Ramayana, I. Doha 26 (Growse, I, p. 18).
THE THEOLOGY 217
whole creation is in slavery and wretchedness till he is revealed
in definite shape, and is energized by the name.' 1 This prag-
matic view is put more plainly in another passage of the
same poem where Rama himself expounds the doctrine of
faith to his brother Laksman. ' After piety, asceticism, and
after ascetic meditation, knowledge, and knowledge, as the
Vedas declare, is the giver of salvation. But that at which
I melt most quickly, brother, is faith which is the blessing of
my votaries ; it stands by itself without another support, and
is above all knowledge, whether spiritual or profane. Faith,
brother, is an incomparable source of happiness, and only to
be acquired by the favour of a saint.' 2 It is ' the easy path
by which men may find me'. So in the Sat'sat, which is
attributed to Tulsl Das, it is said — and this and no conviction
of its absolute truth is the reason with them all for the pre-
ference of the way of bhakti — ' The way of knowledge to a
nirguna Brahman is full of countless difficulties.' 3 But in
contemplation of this excellent way all rival paths are for-
gotten. The nine kinds of bliakti, if only they were made
use of at their fullest meaning, are largely inward and ethical.
They include, besides devotion to the lotus feet of the guru
and the singing of the praise of Rama, prayer, ' in every action
a loving and persevering piety ', contentment with what one
has, and ' a guileless simplicity towards all and a hearty
confidence in Rama without either exultation or dejection '.4
Faith, in at least the Christian sense of the word, is at once
an affirmation of truth and a surrender to the truth affirmed.
In the case of the bhakti of the Indian saints it almost entirely
occupies the latter attitude. The affirmation of truth is a
secondary concern. We have seen that in the Mahabharata
bhakti is often applied to the loyal but perhaps undiscrimi-
nating love of a wife to her husband. It is the same at its
very highest to Tukaram likewise. He speaks also again and
1 Tulsl Das's Ramayana, I. Doha 26 (Growse, I, p. 18).
2 Tulsl Das's Ramayana, III. Doha 13 (Growse, III, p. 14).
3 Translation by Dr. Grierson in /. A. XXII, p. 229.
* Tulsi Das's Ramayana, III. Doha, 29, 30 (Growse, III, p. 30).
ai8 INDIAN THEISM
again with much devotional fervour of the Motherhood of God.
His heart, and Namdev's, cries, to use the language of the
latter poet, ' like the child separated from its mother whom it
has missed'. At the same time these teachers for whom
bliakii was a practical guide to life could not fail to be aware
of the danger of a religion that was subjective and self-centred
and too exclusively emotional. No doubt it was a sense of
this danger that caused the appearance of the ' cat ' and
' monkey ' schools in regard to the operation of the divine
grace. The North India sects seemed to have belonged
mainly to the latter group, and maintain the efficacy and the
necessity of disinterested works. With Tukaram, for example,
bhakti meant service of Vitthal, but such service was as yet
imperfectly ethicized. It meant ' singing his name, reciting
his praises, spreading his glory by precept and example '.1 It
had a considerable moral connotation according to the more
modern exposition of the Bhakta-kalpadruma (1866), but even
there we find placed side by side, abstaining from falsehood,
theft, adultery, and not eating very indigestible food, and not
going by night upon a mountain. One work, which is indeed
a note of a truly ethical religion, is the preaching of the
gospel to the world, or ' the call to one's fellow men to sing
the name and save themselves '. ' If a man be skilled in words
and learned let him compose histories of the Holy One. . . .
Often hath it been said to such an One, " Cleanse thy voice
and thy heart by telling of the glory of the Holy One'', and
this one will give answer, " Sir, I am busy describing the
doctrine of the identity of the universe with the deity ". . . .
If a man turn not his family and his household towards the
gospel of grace and teach not the knowledge that holdeth
thereunto, then the sin, lasting his life long, lieth upon the
heads of his parents who trained him not up to teach and
showed him not its necessity.' 2
1 Professor Patwardhan's Tukdram's Doctrine of Bhakti, Indian
Interpreter, vol. VII, p. 27.
2 Bhakta-kalpadruma, translated by Dr. Grierson, in J. R. A. S.,
April, 1908, pp. 357, 360.
THE THEOLOGY 219
Finally, we see that the power of fervent bJiakti is able at
its highest even to attempt two things which in India seem to
connote the impossible — to annul the terrors of transmigration,
that law that looms so terrible above every religious experience
and aspiration of the Indian saints, and to break the adaman-
tine chains of caste. To indicate its relation to the former,
we shall quote a passage from the Safsal, a work which,
whether actually by Tulsi Das or not, may be taken as em-
bodying the teaching of his school. ' Karma is, as it were,
the wings of the bird-like soul, wings by the support of which
the soul continually makes progress. . . . Wherever the soul
may go, if it do karma with a selfish object (i.e. to obtain
salvation) it must remain dependent upon karma alone ; but
if it does karma with no selfish object, that is, merely in order
to please the Lord, that karma is no longer a fetter ; it gives
faith and salvation ; nay, it is an agent of both.' l So also we
are assured that for Tukaram ' the infinite round of reincarna-
tion itself loses all its terrors before the prospect of the con-
tinuance of the privilege of association with God in bhakti.
If Tuka could keep on serving his Lord, if he could practise
bhakti, as he finally came to conceive it, he would not mind,
yea, he would even pray for, a return again and again to this
world.' 2 Towards caste the ideal attitude of the bhakta is
that of Rama in Tulsi Das's poem : ' I recognize no kinsman-
ship save that of faith ; neither lineage, family, religion, rank,
wealth, power, connexions, virtue, nor ability. A man with-
out faith is of no more account than a cloud without water.' 3
But the bhakti ardour that aspires to that high level of
brotherhood can only reach it and lay aside its natural arro-
gance for a little while at the god's festival and within his
temple courts. What stable theology and what enduring
social order could be built upon what after all is only 'a
feeling fond and fugitive'?
1 Translation by Dr. Grierson in LA. XXII, p. 229.
2 Professor Patwardhan in Itidian Interpreter (vol. VII, April, 1912),
p. 28.
3 Tulsi Das's Ramayana, III. Doha 29 (Growse, III, p. 30).
PART III
CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION
Any attempt to estimate the value of Indian Theism whose
long and chequered history we have sought to trace, and
whose theology we have reviewed, necessarily implies a stan-
dard by which it can be measured. We must have some
conception of what Theism ought to be, if we are to determine
the excellences and the defects of those constructions of it
that have been built up by the Indian mind and heart. It is
true that it must at least have room within itself for the three
great postulates of God, freedom and immortality. But these
words admit of a wide variety of definition. To estimate the
value of the doctrines that have appeared in India we must
have a clear conception of the implications of Theism ; we
must be able to discriminate between what in any system is
definitely theistic in character and what is antagonistic to
theistic belief and aspiration. We must, in a word, have some
criterion by which the claims of the doctrines we are examining
can be tested. To attempt to appreciate the worth of any
system by reference to an abstract speculative ideal is a
peculiarly unfruitful enterprise. We have learned enough from
the modern doctrines of Evolution and the modern philosophy
of Pragmatism to realize the importance of keeping ourselves
in relation with the facts of things as they are. Religion even
at its very highest is still something relating to men, and only
of worth as it speaks to their hearts. Therefore Indian as well
as other systems of Theism are best estimated by comparison
with other doctrines that have awakened elsewhere in response
to similar needs in other hearts. And especially the theistic
conjectures of Indian saints and mystics can most usefully be
CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 221
evaluated by comparison with what we may describe as the
standard Theism of Christianity. If accordingly we make use
of the main conceptions of the Christian religion as our stan-
dard of comparison, we may be able without dogmatism to
arrive at some secure estimate of what is most precious and
what is least so, from the point of Theism, in the Indian
religious development.
There is, of course, a real continuity between them and the
Christian faith — a continuity which springs from the common
fears and aspirations among which they move and in which
they have their roots. No suggestion of censure nor any
attitude of dogmatism is implied in such a comparison as is
here proposed. Our task is that of the historian. As we
listen to the poignant cries that echo through the temple of
mankind we may compare and contrast them ; we may esti-
mate their religious value ; we do not condemn. We do not
say that to understand all is to forgive all, for to forgive is
not the province of the investigator, nor indeed of any fellow
member of the same human race that uttered itself in these
hopes and fears. But to understand — not all, for that is im-
possible, but some of the long travail of the human heart in
its search for God, and especially to understand something of
the travail of the Indian spirit as we can discern it through
the dust and haze of centuries, is to have every instinct of easy
criticism changed to sympathy and deep respect. We watch
with reverence the age-long striving to draw near to God, to
find assurance in His fellowship. But where He has been
found most fully and men's hearts have been most fully
satisfied — that we recognize as the central shrine — there is
the place of His richest revelation. Without censure and
without dogmatism we have to endeavour to understand why
He is present here rather than there, why He is found by the
saint that seeks Him along one road, while He is only a dying
echo of His own cry, a shadow of His own desire, to one who
seeks Him by another.
Approaching the Indian Theisms then in this spirit of
223 INDIAN THEISM
respect, and taking with us the principles of Christian Theism
for purposes not of judgement but of comparison, we are im-
pressed at once by the number of these points of contact and
comparison. In the early days of the history of Christianity,
when the religion of Mithra was its most powerful and active
rival, the surface likeness between the two religions was such
that some of the Christian Fathers were ready to suggest that
Mithraism was a diabolical travesty of their religion, devised
by the arch-deceiver to lead men astray. It is not in that
spirit that we note the parallelisms between the Indian Theisms
and the Christian faith. We recognize in them testimony to
the universal needs and the universal religious aspirations of
the race of man. For that reason they share with Christianity
the character of being personal religions, religions in which
the relation of the worshipper to the god is a personal relation.
For that reason also they at least have some of the marks of
universal religions. They are the religions of those who are
seeking present help in this life and some hope for another.
Measuring them by their ideals, and not by their failures and
their scandals, these Theisms represent an advance on the old
tribal polytheisms, a genuine and earnest endeavour to slough
formalism and naturalism, and mount to a higher spiritual
region. Just because of the common humanity from which
they spring, and because of the reality of their effort to reach
a spiritual fellowship with God, these Theisms, for at least
some sincere moments in their history, reveal in one form or
another their affinity with a religion which, whatever the truth
of its ultimate claims, surely speaks deeply to the heart of
man and opens abundantly to him the heart of God. There
is nothing strange, then, in the many parallelisms both in
thought and in ritual which disclose themselves. The belief,
for example, in incarnations or mediations by one means or
another between the far-off God and man, in the grace of God,
and in the value of faith, are only such as the logic of the
heart in the great moments when she probes herself might
well demand and discover. Sacramental feasts, baptisms,
CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 223
initiations, 'mysteries', are natural media and symbols by
which the unseen is made real and brought near. There are
these and other impressive elements of resemblance between
the Indian theisms and Christianity as there nd doubt are as
well in the case of other ethnic Theisms. To estimate the
true value of these likenesses they must be examined at closer
quarters. There are at the same time not less obvious and
striking differences. Especially there is what we may describe
as the differentia of practically the whole of the thought of
India, with the exception of that of the earliest Vedic period,
the doctrine of karma as that is linked with the belief in trans-
migration. We seem never even in the most theistic periods
of Indian theistic aspiration to escape from this conception —
which, as Dr. Grierson has said ' hangs like a pall ' l over all the
bhakti teaching even of the North India saints. Whatever
the root from which this belief has sprung, whether or not we
are to conceive it as an inheritance from ancient animism which
a later reflection has sought to reinterpret and rationalize — ■
there is no doubt that it is now ' greater than all herbs ' in
India and overspreads and shadows all the land. The power
of the deed is so complete and for the most part, we must add,
so unmoral that it obviously leaves little room in the universe
for a God, such as Theism postulates, to breathe in, and no
territory over which He can rule. The dominion of karma is
universal. ' As a man acts, as he conducts himself, so will he
be born/2 There is no place for repentance in the Hindu
doctrine of karma, though in Buddhism room has been found
for this ethical emotion (samvega). This is not the moral law
that ' whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap '. Were
it so there would be no antagonism between it and faith in
a God whose will is righteousness. But right action binds
a man no less securely to the wheel of rebirth than does
wrong. ' How shall there be in this samsdra (this cycle of
rebirths) ', says one scripture, ' any uncaused action ? ' Every
1 J. R.A. S\, April, 1908, p. 341.
2 Brihad. Up. IV. iv. 5.
224 INDIAN THEISM
moment of man's life is the direct result of some act that he
has done ; his life is an endless chain of close-linked deeds, all
made of the same stuff, and all, whether good or evil, it would
seem, inevitable and unbreakable. ' As among a thousand
cows ', says the Mahabharata, ' a calf will find its mother, so
the deed previously done will find and follow its doer.' With
a certainty no less sure than that of death itself this ' shadow '
(adrista, the unseen) through all time ' sits and waits ' for man.
This doctrine seems to have discovered the secret of perpetual
motion ; for the working out of karma is always producing new
karma to be worked out farther and, in the words of Deussen,
the clock of retribution in the very act of running down winds
itself up again.1 As this law has no limit in its apparent
duration — for samsara had no beginning and we can perceive
no end to it — so it has no limit in the extent of its application.
It controls every ' action ', whether god's or man's. It governs
the operations of nature ; by it the universe is destroyed and
again renewed.
It is of the first importance that we should consider what is
the influence upon the theistic aspirations of the people of
this country of this extraordinarily powerful and pervading
doctrine, and how it affects them by giving them a certain
direction, and presenting to them certain specific problems.
Of Christianity we can say three things with certainty, that it
brings men into fellowship with a personal God, that it is
through and through ethical in its purpose, and that it is
always a religion of grace. The presence, on the other hand,
in Indian religion of the karma doctrine comes in the way of
each of these theistic aims. It confronts Theism in its effort
to unfold its meaning with the difficulty, for example, of
finding a place for a personal God in the midst of this iron
framework which so grips the universe. It presents it
further with the problem of explaining the relation of a free
ethical personality, such as Theism postulates, to its rigid
legalism. It also opposed its goal of a negative release to the
1 Deussen, Das System des Vedanta, p. 381.
CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 325
theistlc hope of a blessed fellowship with God. Before con-
sidering the points of contact in faith and ritual between
Indian and Christian Theism it will be necessary to examine
the influence that this karma doctrine has exercised in setting
them apart.
I
It is obvious that it is not easy to find any place for God
that is worthy of Him within such a mechanical system of
requital as that of karma. For Indian Theism God is either
one who has to yield to it, or one to whom it has to yield,
and in either case the deity emerges maimed. He is generally,
as M. Poussin has observed, ' either an Oriental despot, arbi-
trarily imputing sin or virtue, and assigning hell or heaven to
his creatures ', or ' only an Organizer of the world, keeping an
account of the actions {karma) of creatures, in order to ensure
their due recompense and after each period of chaos, recon-
structing the universe in order to set each creature in the
place that befits it V The Indian Theist, for whom the
karma doctrine was an axiom, found himself in a sore
dilemma. If God had His hand upon the world at all, if
He was engaged in its concerns, then He was no God, but
a fettered soul, needing to be freed from samsdra as much as
man himself. If, on the other hand, he was conceived as free,
then it was a condition of his freedom that he have no con-
nexion with the world and no influence upon it. It is the
logic of this argument that made atheists of the Buddhist and
the Samkhyan and the Jain. The Jain addresses petitions to
the Jina, but what reality can there be in a worship that is
rendered to one who is removed from the world and all its
concerns, and unable, therefore, to respond ? The subjective
exercise of self-purifying will not long persist in the face of
such a doctrine. Nor, on the other hand, can theistic faith
rest permanently in the idea of a God out of relation to its
conception of the order of the universe, or able arbitrarily to
1 E.R.E. II. 1832.
Q
226 INDIAN THEISM
set aside its laws. The fervour of devotion may make us deaf
for a time to the claims of reason, but it can only be for a time.
When the tide of the emotion ebbs, problems are revealed to
reflection as having only been submerged, not solved. The
result is an emotional Theism of hope, alternating with the
intellectual acceptance of a doctrine that is very near to
despair. Such seem to have been the real character of many
of the popular bhakti worships. Their adherents were either
simple men who did not attempt to correlate their ideas and
for whom the instinct of worship was enough, or they were
people who deliberately divided the house of their thought
between the intellect and the heart, and had for each room
a different and appropriate demeanour. In either case the
Theism that results is a precarious product, and of little
permanent religious value. For those who desired seriously
to organize their thought into a unity there seemed no alter-
native between abandoning Theism altogether and ignoring
this stubborn doctrine so apparently irreconcilable with faith
in the supremacy over the world of a moral personality.
Never, we may say, in the whole course of the Indian theistic
development is this antinomy fully resolved. Never is the
attempt resolutely made to re-think the karma doctrine so as
to personalize it, and give it a content more fully ethical and
so more reconcilable with Theism.
We see the same problem emerging within Christianity,
and the same peril to Theism presenting itself there, when, as
is the case especially in recent years, the conception of the
uniformity of natural law has become an obsession so com-
plete as either to thrust out God altogether from the universe
of the knowable or to bind Him a captive in chains. There
is no room for real theistic hopes to breathe in such an
atmosphere. Prayer is futile, and where there is not the faith
that enables men to pray there is no God with whom there
can be fellowship. The spiritual world must be fully recog-
nized as higher than, and as enveloping, the natural world,
and God be over all, blessed for ever. There are two kinds
CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 227
of legalism that may bring the spirit into bondage, and the
karma doctrine partakes of the nature of them both. Of its
moral legalism we shall speak presently. Its natural legalism
with which we are now dealing is no less fatal to a free and
a courageous spiritual religion. The power of Theism can
only be revealed where these bonds are broken and where the
idea is revealed of a God whose will, which is supreme, is love
and righteousness. ' There is a Kingdom ', says a Christian
writer, ' into which none enter but children, in which the
children play with infinite forces, where the child's little finger
becomes stronger than the giant world ; a wide Kingdom,
where the world exists only by sufferance ; to which the
world's laws are for ever subjected ; in which the world lies
like a foolish, wilful dream in the solid truth of the day.'1 It
is the claim of the Christian interpreter of the meaning of the
world that history reveals the operation of supernatural powers
which transcend and annul the lower laws of nature. It is
his claim that in the lives of nations that have been called to
great tasks of civilization, and that respond to the call, the
ordinary laws of declension and decay are arrested and a
■ rejuvenescence ', ' a new era of vision and power ', comes to
them which can only be explained as the replenishing of their
life from the Source of life.2 So also it is found to be the case
in the individual life, where the spiritual fact of conversion,
the experience of the renewal and illumination of the soul
testifies to the operation of a paramount divine activity to
whose higher control ' the world's laws are for ever subjected '.
In such a region the laws that are called karma lie, like the
kindred laws of nature, ' like a foolish wilful dream '. They
are 'maya' in the midst of that higher reality of permanence
and power. In such a region as that man's faith finds God,
and, finding Him, ' cries like a Captain for eternity ', but not
elsewhere.
The most courageous attempt to transcend this bondage is
1 Fleming Stevenson's Praying and Working, p. 317.
2 See W. P. Paterson's Rule of Faith, p. 110.
Q 2
228 INDIAN THEISM
that of the Saiva Siddhanta system, a system which for that
reason we may pronounce the noblest among Indian Theisms.
It passes beyond the view that God is merely the One who
presides indifferently over the embodiment of souls and even
beyond the more theistic doctrine that ' the whole universe
must be for ever inert, unintelligent and lifeless without the
operations of Pati and his manifested energy'.1 It is true
that the attribution to God of movements of grace towards
the imprisoned soul is in itself an indication in the various
theistic doctrines of a revolt from the grim law of retribution,
but it is in the Saiva Siddhanta alone that we find this concep-
tion of God's gracious energy realized in some measure as
a higher law, transcending and taking up into itself the lower.
It comprehends within the sweep of its doctrine of grace the
whole of the world-process, teaching that the purpose of the
Lord from first to last is gracious, and that the end in view
throughout, is the soul's emancipation, and his entrance into
blissful union with his Lord. Thus, though the constraint of
the karma doctrine still lies heavy on the Deliverer and the
way by which he must travel to the goal is long, though he
can only order things so that ' deeds eternal and inexorable
maybe consumed',2 and it is only at a certain point in the
long history that he can put forth his gracious energy of
enlightenment — though in these ways the gracious will of
Siva is limited and hindered, yet it is an immense advance
towards an ethical Theism that a gracious moral purpose in
a measure' supersedes and controls the lower law of recom-
pense. Thus here a higher moral order makes its appearance,
labouring to transcend the legal and retributive order of which
the karma doctrine is the most extreme example. Greek
theology was able to moralize the idea of fate and to combine
Nemesis and Zeus in the one thought of a moral Governor.
But this strange Indian conception was far more intractable
and far harder to take up into a doctrine of moral ends. The
1 Pope's Tiruvasagam, p. lxxxiv.
2 Op. cit., p. lxxxii.
CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 229
law of karma proved too stubbornly natural, too deeply rooted
in a non-moral world-view to be transmutable by the Indian
spirit, which is not at any time ethically energetic. The god
of its Theism never triumphs completely over this rival, and
has to be content with a divided empire.
II
This brings us to the second problem which we have
indicated as suggested by the endeavour of the theistic
instinct to assert itself in India alongside of the karma
doctrine that is the problem of the relation of a free ethical
activity, such as Theism postulates, to a rigid legalism. For
Theism to be possible man must be recognized as a self-
determining agent, whose character is not eternally fixed, but
for whom the future may be a land of hope and promise.
He must be one who can, God helping him, burst the bonds
of habit, and enter into the experience of a moral victory that
is really his, and the God whom he knows must be One who
can bring him into such an experience. There must be
windows in his sky through which the light of divine forgive-
ness can stream into his penitent heart. The black clouds
that legalism breeds — the clouds of sin and retribution — must
not be doomed to hang for ever as an unbroken pall over
his life.
In this connexion we have to note another suggestion,
besides that to which we have already referred of the operation
of the divine grace, by means of which a lightening of the
darkness of karma legalism is made possible, and a way of
escape discovered from the grasp of its retribution. In the
Gita especially, the view is elaborated that no fetters of
samsara bind the man who has no desire for the fruit of his
action, and who lives his life ' devoid of attachment '. Just as
in the Saiva Siddhanta we have the idea of a higher moral
purpose in the divine mind seeking to overcome the rigid
process of legalism, so here we have the idea of a higher
230 INDIAN THEISM
moral means making its appearance within the process itself,
so as, not to cut its bonds, for that is still impossible, but to
avoid forming new ones. In both cases a nobler ethical order
is correcting the less noble legal one. In the one case it is
the teleological criterion that gives the new idea its authority-
over the old ; in the other, what is significant is the moral
superiority of the new attitude of non-attachment to action.
Both views implicitly condemn the karma law as imperfectly
ethicized. In the first case that law is condemned because it
implies that life has no moral purpose; it is a road that leads
nowhere. In the other, it is condemned because it is not
based upon the fundamental distinction between good and evil.
The fetter which binds is action, good no less than bad. Not
evil desire, but desire itself is the enemy. Thus in both cases
what is recognized as defective in the karma theory is its
incomplete moralization. In both cases, however, the attempt
to accomplish this is inadequate. The attempt to get rid of
motive altogether is predestined to failure. It was no doubt
the karma doctrine itself that set the Indian spirit seeking
a solution of its problem in this impossible direction. For in
making motive itself the fetter, instead of evil motive, it turned
its back upon the ethical goal and suggested the endeavour to
escape from the region of the ethical altogether instead of
suggesting that its ethics should be deepened. The philo-
sopher, no less than the workman, who ' tries to do better
than well, doth but confound his skill with covetousness '.
The endeavour to get rid of desire is an endeavour to pass
beyond the good, and ends in confounding the conscience with
covetousness. For there is nothing in the world or out of it,
we may be sure, that is better than a good will.
When the karma doctrine is called a system of legalism,
what is meant is that it is a system in which the whole
emphasis is placed upon the isolated acts that make up a
man's life, so as to make them in their separation and com-
plexity dominant over man's destiny. Such legalism inevitably
and invariably crushes out hope from the soul. It was the
CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 231
same with the very different legalism of the Jews, and it was
mainly for that reason that St. Paul condemned it and turned
from it with enthusiasm to the message of life and hope that
he found in Christ. The array of deeds, whether, as in the
case of the Hindu, of evil deeds of the past that he cannot
escape from or, in the case of the Pharisee, of good deeds in
the future that he can never accomplish, strikes fear and
despair into his soul. 'All who depend on works of law are
under a curse ', said St. Paul. The attitude of the Hindu to
karma is different from that of St. Paul, the Christian apostle,
but the resulting situation in which he finds himself is closely
similar. The school of bJiakti mitigates the hopelessness of
the situation only to the extent of embodying the law in the
person of a lawgiver, while still the idea of law remains. But
there is no real change in the religion from its essential legalism
though a personal God is postulated. He is a God in regard
to whom this scheme of rewards and punishments still holds,
either as the expression of His will or as a rival and indepen-
dent power ruling side by side with Him. It is true on the
whole of every Indian type of religion, as has been already
indicated, that its most obvious and commanding feature is
this karma aspect of life and destiny. It is true in conse-
quence of every type of Indian religion — however this may
occasionally be for a time concealed by emotional ardours —
that it is essentially legalist, occupied with laws not principles,
with natural sequences rather than spiritual results. ' A force
that draws from itself more than it contains,' says Bergson,
' that gives more than it has, is precisely what is called a
spiritual force.' A God who is the source of spiritual power,
from whom flow streams of recreating spiritual energy, a God,
not of law or karma, but in a far higher sense, of righteous-
ness— that is the God that dwells at the centre and the summit
of Christian Theism.
Thus the karma doctrine in its aspect as a moral legalism
is no less opposed to a high spiritual conception of God than
in its aspect as a natural legalism. Whatever hinders the
232 INDIAN THEISM
freedom of man's spiritual development at the same time
cramps his thought of God. A single illustration will help to
show how Indian Theism, because of its bondage to the karma
idea, has been unable to rise to a high conception of the divine
character. It is supplied by an account that a Brahman
convert to Christianity has given of what he was taught in
his home. To his parents God was a personal God. ' They had
nothing of the philosophic, advaitic, or pantheistic doctrine.'
' My mother ', he says, ' repeatedly brought home to my soul,
by means of illustrations drawn from human life, that one
fundamental principle underlies all God's dealings and ordering
of the experiences and fortunes of man, namely, the one prin-
ciple that whatsoever a man soweth, he reapeth. The mills
of God grind slowly and surely. The result of this was that
it became a habit in me to refer every sorrowful experience
which fell to my lot, to some past "wrongdoing", which bore
fruit in this sorrowful experience. As I grew from childhood
to boyhood the personal God in whom I believed became a
holy God, a God who just because he must rule and judge
righteously will not forgive our sins, but demand the full
penalty even to the last pie. My father was a pleader, and
the principle according to which the courts of justice dealt
with the culprits confirmed these thoughts.' He goes on to
tell how as he grew older an increasingly acute hunger filled
his soul for the help of God in the perils of life. ' This acute
hunger arose in my soul when I was about eighteen years old,
and I could see no way of its satisfaction. If God is to be true
to His principle, as I conceived it in my boyhood, by letting
nothing in heaven or earth (not even Himself) stand in the
way of or prevent our sinful past bearing the fruit of bringing
misery and penalty in the present and future, how can I at
the same time expect Him to help me through whatsoever
may happen in the present and future 7'1 In this conception
of Him God is conceived of as in bondage to His own laws
that, as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews would
1 Indian Interpreter, VII, pp. 161, 162.
CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 233
describe them, are those ' of a carnal commandment ', that is to
say, temporary in their character and imperfectly spiritualized.
God, in this view of Him, is one who imposes restraints, a centre
of negation. He is not a source of spiritual force, of creative
and renewing power. Herein lies a fundamental difference
between the Christian religion with its message of hope,
because it releases transforming spiritual energies, and every
static, negative, legal, system — such as are all those in which
the karma doctrine rules — which inevitably produces in its
adherents the attitude of the slave. Their only issue is spiritual
bondage, despair. The systems that are linked with the karma
doctrine are blinded by their occupation with laws to the fact
of higher spiritual and ethical principles. They cannot see the
wood for the trees. ' In religion ', says Jowett, ' we should take
care of the great things, and the trifles of life will take care of
themselves. Christianity is not an art acquired by long prac-
tice ; it does not carve and polish human nature with a graving
tool ; it makes the whole man ; first pouring out his soul before
God, and then casting him in a mould.' A true spiritualism
implies, as Professor William James points out, the affirmation
of an eternal moral order and the letting loose of hope.
The importance of these facts in relation to the theistic
development in India is due to the intimate relation between
Theism and ethics. Theism can only come to full fruition
when it is ethical throughout. Every unethical element in it
cramps it. And nothing has cramped Indian Theism more
than the imperfectly ethical character of the karma doctrine.
The aim of Christianity is to produce a Kingdom of God, that
is, a brotherhood of good men in fellowship with a good God.
The aim of any religion in which the law of karma is central
is the allotment of rewards and punishments, and its operation
is so mechanical that to administer this justice no judge is
needed. The one is judicial and deals with mechanical laws ;
the other is moral and deals with moral forces. ' The moral
legislation of God ' in the Christian view ' is, under all circum-
stances, the means towards the moral commonwealth, the
234 INDIAN THEISM
Kingdom of God. The attribute of God as Founder and
Ruler of His Kingdom is therefore absolutely superior to His
attribute as Lawgiver.' * It is of the very essence of any bhakti
doctrine, as it is of Christianity, to recognize the uplifting and
redeeming power of love, but such is the grip of karma legalism
upon the Indian soul that it never is able to admit this truth
unreservedly. In the loving devotion of the Lord that binds
no fetters, and in His love to man which is free from all self-
seeking, as well as in the Buddha's 'compassion for all creatures',
we have the germ of the higher morality which a religion of
redemption recognizes and obeys. But the hostile elements
have never been completely assimilated. It is only the heat
of an emotional ardour that can transcend the rigour of this
law of requital ; and Indian Theism is not able long to main-
tain such ardour. When the tide of feeling ebbs, the grim
rocks of retribution disclose themselves once more, and the
victim feels himself a helpless victim in the grasp of an inevi-
table law. Many an Indian seeker must have echoed in
reference to this karma bondage the cry of St. Paul, ! O
wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body
of death ? '
Love and penitence and those other spiritual fountains in
the soul that are able to give it ' each instant a fresh endow-
ment ', from which ' the new is ever upspringing ', do not come
to their own within the boundaries of Indian thought. That
this is so is due unquestionably to the influence of the law of
karma. Its resolution of human life into a series of acts
mechanically related, its self-centred individualism, keeps it
at what we must describe as a low level. It cannot in conse-
quence enter into the full kingdom of Theism. There is not
scope in it for the rich operation of God's redeeming grace.
That grace is conceived of in Indian Theism mainly as able
at the most to help a soul here and there to escape the coils
of samsara. Only in the Saiva Siddhanta, which may or may
1 Ritschl's Jicstification and Reconciliation (Eng. tr.), pp. 91 f., quoted
in Barbour's Philosophical Study of Christian Ethics, p. 286.
CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 235
not have gained a hint from Christian teaching, does the
thought dawn upon them of a gracious divine purpose of re-
demption. Even there that is a purpose which this imperious
law controls and thwarts. Further, we note that this karma
doctrine does not permit in correspondence to the love and
grace of God the summons to love and help between man and
man, ' the bearing of one another's burdens ', which is the
higher ethical law described in the Christian religion as ' the
law of Christ '. A religion which has the karma doctrine at
its centre has no room for such free redemptive activity. But
Theism, as we see it, for example, in Christian Theism, finds
in such activities of love the very life of its spirit. Its con-
ception of God and of the spiritual nexus between man and
God implies the possibility of forgiveness and sanctification on
the part of God, the inflow of spiritual power, the contagion
of spiritual help ; it implies the possibility of new beginnings
in the moral life ; it implies that man should give himself to
save his brother, and that God especially must needs come in
all the moral sakti—the energy — of His grace for man's
redemption.
The note thus of a fully ethical Theism, such as Christianity
is, is always freedom, freedom in the service of the highest
moral ends. The only hindrance in the way of the accomplish-
ment of the divine purpose of grace in the view of Christianity
is due to the completeness with which this is true of it. Man's
moral freedom may thwart that purpose ; nothing else can.
To limit man's freedom for the sake of the divine transcen-
dence is not to exalt God, for the greatness of the grace of
God and the splendour of the Kingdom towards which His
grace is working depend upon the freeness of the surrender to
Him of those He saves and over whom He reigns. God must
be limited by nothing save what proceeds from His own moral
nature and which in limiting exalts Him. That is the only
limit which Christianity recognizes as placed upon the sove-
reignty of God. He must rule over a freely surrendered
people ; His supremacy is solely and securely moral. We
22,6 INDIAN THEISM
must agree with Tennyson when he is reported as maintaining
that free-will while ' apparently an act of self-limitation by
the Infinite' is yet ' a revelation by Himself and of Himself'.1
But the limitation which the law of karma places upon God is
of another kind. Its limitation of Him is a limitation to a
lower sphere than the highest. He is prevented from winning
men to the free love of goodness by the exercise of His mercy
and His grace. His grace cannot reach them, and they cannot
respond to it. The free act of penitence and surrender which
brings the divine deliverance, according to the Christian
teaching, is not unregulated, nor is it unmotived or unattached
to fruit. But it is freedom for the service of the good. Its
fruit is holiness which no selfishness can desire. Indian
thought often conceives of the order of sainsdra as a region of
unreality and the god of that world as, to a higher view,
equally unreal. Of course such a provisional Theism, such
a Theism of fairyland or of a world of dreams, has no meaning
or value. To Christianity on the other hand the order of
nature is real indeed, but lies, if men but knew it, in the grasp
of a higher order of spirit which can mould it to its will. The
only hindrance to the revelation of that order and its establish-
ment is the absence of the faith to claim it on the part of man.
God's purpose of grace is thus hindered, not by a judicial
scheme, such as the karma system is, but solely by the moral
freedom of the human will. Whatever hinders the co-operation
of the grace of God and the penitent heart of man belongs to
a lower order, and in proving a hindrance to the emergence of
a higher ethical law, the law of karma, while itself in its
recognition of the penalty of wrong representing a great moral
advance, makes it impossible for the Theisms over which it
exercises its influence to conceive altogether worthily of God.
1 Quoted in Ward's Realm of Ends : Pluralism and Theism, p. 316.
CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 237
III
There remains another aspect of the karma doctrine which
is hostile to Theism. The fact that it has involved India,
beyond all other problems, with the question of the deliver-
ance of the fettered soul has done much to thwart the full
development of its theistic instincts. The individual self and
its fortunes form to it the first reality, with the result that
India's spiritualism almost turns back to empiricism. Perhaps
we have here the secret of the worldliness of a people who,
above all other peoples, have contemned the world. The
seers of India have seldom been wholly possessed, as so many
of the saints of other lands have been, by the endeavour after
God. They cannot escape from themselves sufficiently to
give themselves up whole-heartedly to Him. They give them-
selves up whole-heartedly instead to the endeavour, never
accomplished, to escape from themselves. The goal of Theism
is union with God. It is more concerned with that attainment
and with the blessed fellowship that it promises than with the
escape from penalty. Its aim is not merely to make men no
longer slaves, but to make them sons of God. In the theistic
systems of India God is apt to be looked upon as an accident,
while this system of karma is, for the individual, the substance
of reality. Perhaps this is why India has always presented
to us so strange a paradox — a people intensely religious, and
yet so half-hearted in their religion. Their whole heart is in
the escape, but it is not in the gaining of the goal of a divine
fellowship. It is the menacing fact of existence, as they con-
ceive it to lie in the grip of this law, that so lays hold of them
as to lift them out of engagement with worldly things and
to engross them with questions of deliverance. But the
half is the enemy of the whole. We see that the lesson that
they have learned so perfectly of the world's evil, the desire
to escape from it that has so entered into their souls, only
338 INDIAN THEISM
bears them half of the way towards the goal, and seems to
make further advance impossible.
The fundamental difference between the Christian and the
Hindu Theisms, from which the differences we have been
noting issue, consists in the fact that righteousness which is
inseparable from God is normative in the Christian view of
man's salvation as it is not in the other. The aim of the
Christian gospel is the making of men righteous, and this
ethical purpose determines it throughout. The aim of Indian
Theism, as of all Indian religion, is deliverance from samsdra,
which need only be secondarily a process of righteousness.
God manifests Himself in the Christian revelation 'not as the
pitier and pardoner of man in his sin, but as redeemer and
saviour of man from his sin '.* One can scarcely exagerate
the depth to which this difference reaches down. ■ By the
works of the law shall no flesh be justified ', says St. Paul.
His end and aim — which is righteousness — he sees, cannot be
reached by the way of the endeavour to do duties. He finds,
he believes, in Christ another way, which is still as before
a way to the great goal of righteousness. The Indian thinkers
saw equally that their aim could not be attained by the doing
of works — but as their aim was different, the new path that
they sought was different likewise. They would say, ' By
works, by the fulfilment of karma shall no man be delivered
from samsdra '. The Christian goal is a positive and ethical
attainment, righteousness ; the Indian goal is negative and
unethical, escape from the bondage of existence.
Another way of expressing this difference which so deeply
divides the Christian and the Hindu Theisms is to say that
Christian Theism has a moral ideal before it, while Hindu
religion has not. A paramount aim of religion in the Christian
view is to summon men to a life of holiness, which is also a life
of fellowship with God, and to do so by setting the high
pattern of such a life before them. The nearest that the
1 Du Bose's Gospel according to St. Paul, p. 102.
CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 239
Indian Theisms come to such an ethical presentation of the
goal of life is in the Gita, and it cannot be denied that
the content of its ideal is altogether meagre and uninspiring.
The one moral postulate of value that it presents is contained
in the formula that works are to be done with no desire for
fruit. Noble as that rule is, so far as it goes, it certainly goes
only a little way. It is purely negative : it has no positive
content of moral beauty and charm to attract the heart.
A figure of such meagre outline cannot be described as
a moral ideal — nor can the religion that enshrines it be
described as in any full sense an ethical religion.
It has been claimed for all the religions by which the karma
doctrine is accepted that they are more ethical than Christianity
and more in agreement with the facts of life when they pro-
claim the inevitable sequence of punishment upon wrong-
doing. It is true, indeed, that the conception of God as one
who punishes the evil-doer, and whose law is absolutely
impartial and sure is a high and worthy one. The objection
to it is just that it is never, to the Indian Theist, fully identi-
fied with the will and mind of God, and that it is not fully
assimilated into the divine personality. Our claim is that,
if that were done, the fact would be realized that the religion
that centres about a personal God who is Himself righteous-
ness and love is upon a higher ethical level than the hard
retributive system of karma. ' Legalists ', says Royce, ' do
not succeed in reducing the laws they teach to any rational
unity.' When law is taken up into the personality of the
divine Father, and is controlled by His will of love for ends of
righteousness, we have reached the final summit of ethical
religion.
And, further, it is only to a superficial understanding that
the karma law appears more in agreement with the facts of
life than is a gospel of immediate and full forgiveness by
a God of love and righteousness. It is true that upon him
who has had the experience of such forgiveness penalties of
his wrong-doing, may, and generally do. continue still to fall in
240 INDIAN THEISM
bodily suffering, in social contempt, in his own remorse and
regret. But to him now these penalties are altogether different
from that which, without the faith of God's forgiveness, they
would have seemed. They are not ' the wages of sin ' ; they
are not the cold wrath of an outraged lawgiver or of a broken
law. They are the chastisement of divine wisdom and good-
ness, manifestations of the divine grace and tenderness, not
the expressions of a penal code, but the revelations of a
Father's heart. ' God dealeth with you as with sons, for
what son is he whom the father chasteneth not ? ' * There is
in the penitent's experience between his sufferings and those
of one who does not see behind them the love of a forgiving
God all the difference that there is between hell and heaven.
' How diverse are these straits from those of hell ' ; how
diverse is this chastisement from that of a cold law of karma.
Thus it appears that Indian Theism was inevitably thwarted
in its development by the karma doctrine, which, whatever
its origin, has its root deep in natural religion, and is irrecon-
cilable with the free working of redemptive love. The whole
Indian development is, as a matter of fact, so dominated by
it that its religion is never much more than an adjunct of that
overwhelming view of life and its destiny. There is a striking
comparison made use of in another connexion by the late
Professor William James which serves admirably to describe
the course of Indian religious history. Adopting it we may
say that the ^arw^-transmigration doctrine lies in the midst
of the efforts of the Indian soul to formulate a theory of the
universe ' like a corridor in a hotel. Innumerable chambers
open out of it. In one you may find a man writing an athe-
istic volume ; in the next some one on his knees praying for
faith and strength.' In another 'a system of idealistic meta-
physics is being excogitated. . . . They all own the corridor
and all must pass through it if they want a practicable way
ol getting into one of their respective rooms.' Whatever the
1 Hebrews xii. 7.
CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 241
type of religion we find at any time predominant in the Indian
development, it never threatens the supremacy of this deep-
rooted view of human life and its meaning. They are always
subsidiary to it and take their colour from it. There is a
somewhat cynical proverb among the Marathas. and, no doubt,
among other Indian peoples as well, which may be applied to
this doctrine in its relation to other views, such as that of
Theism, which seek to find a place beside it. ' If the rope
of the God above gets broken ', they say, ' the gods below will
bellow.' The efforts of the gods of Theism so long as the
god of karma rules above them are poor, futile things, and all
they can do is to ' bellow ' in helpless agreement with what
the higher power ordains. Such a law of necessity could not
be re-interpreted as a moral law of freedom, and the supreme
power in the universe could not but be conceived, so long as
this law was acknowledged, as a fate and not as a gracious
Father. The highest person in this system is not a God who
can be worshipped and who redeems ; it is the emancipated
soul himself. Just as in the kindred Orphic doctrine the goal to
which all endeavour strives is nothing less than the soul's own
divinity, so in fact it is here also. The end almost inevitably
sought by one who is so engrossed in stripping off the chains
of selfhood is, however that end may be concealed, the very
apotheosis of the self. This attitude, as has been pointed out
by a student of Mysticism, is that of those chiefly ' by whom
Reality is apprehended as a state or a place rather than a
person : and who have adopted, in describing the earlier
stages of their journey to God, such symbols as those of
rebirth or transmigration '.* Everything is hostile in such
an atmosphere to the production of a satisfying Theism. The
god who is the spectator of those processes of samsara is
a remote deity whose relation to the world, as in the case of
Plotinus no less than of Ramanuja, is accidental and inexplic-
able ; or he is one of several minor beings who, as Proclus
describes them, ' appear changing often from one form to
1 Underbill's Mysticism, p. 501.
R
242 INDIAN THEISM
another', shadowy and impersonal. The only personality
that matters is that of the fettered soul, and to him his
personal existence is the very bond he seeks to break. If
personal life is thought of as itself a burden, how can it be
predicated worthily of God? Not unless the bondage of this
self-centred doctrine were cast off, and unless full scope were
possible for the gracious moral purposes of God as He wins
men to His fellowship, could Theism come to its own in India.
The way of its true development is by the increasing enrich-
ment of the individual soul as its spiritual nature is more and
more discovered in relationship of love with others, and in
fellowship with God. The more it forgets itself in love, the
more it discovers God. But in a world fettered by samsara
there is no room for God at all.
IV
But there are other aspects of Indian Theology, besides the
aspect that is given to it by this ancient belief, which have
proved hostile to the development of Theism to its full
fruition. One of these is its excessive intellectualism. It is
true, as we have seen in our study of the various bJiakti
worships, that some of these seem far enough from such
a danger. Not infrequently the vice of these cults has been,
not that they have obeyed reason too exclusively, but that
they have cast off all its restraints. The opposite extreme
from intellectualism of an unbridled emotionalism is to be
found characterizing not a few of the theistic worships that
have arisen in India. But perhaps this was due in part to
revolt from the exaltation of knowledge to an opposite
extreme, and had as one of its causes the very bias towards
an arid intellectualism which is so characteristic of India.
Certainly it is the case that Indian thought has almost always
in its quest for final truth taken it for granted that whatever was
not of pure intellect was gross and unworthy of the Highest. The
way to God is a way to an atmosphere ever growing rarer, to
CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 243
a region that only pure knowledge can attain. It is a way of
continual abstraction until that One is reached which is so
abstract as to be universal. Such a method is hostile to
Theism, for Theism implies fellowship, and there is no fellow-
ship between the knower and his knowledge.
One result of intellectualism in religion is that its range is
limited to a select company of those who can appreciate it.
It is aristocratic in its character. But we affirm that a true
Theism is essentially democratic. It postulates a personal
God who desires to have men's fellowship. It postulates
a universal element in man which is the means of such a
fellowship. Christianity claims uncompromisingly that the
highest is not beyond the most degraded of men. . Indian
Theism with its inability to rid itself completely, save in rare
instances, of the distinctions of caste is for the most part aris-
tocratic because it is intellectual. It requires an effort for the
Bhagavadglta to admit that the way to deliverance is open
even to Sudras and to women. While Ramanuja and other
exponents of the theology of bJiakti have sought to open the
gate wider than this bias of the Indian spirit naturally would
permit, they have not been wholly successful. Ramanuja
defines bJiakti as ' only a particular kind of knowledge of
which one is infinitely fond and which leads to the extinction
of all other interests and desires '.* In Ramanuja's system, and
in the Glta, we may say that, while ethical and spiritual ideas
have been imported into this conception of the knowledge
that brings release, the intellectual element is still predominant
and determinative. Their religion still, like the religion of
the Upanisads, while it is a Theism, is a Gnosticism, a specu-
lation, making its primary appeal to the logical understanding.
It is something that, unlike Christianity, is rather revealed to
the wise and prudent than to babes.
In so far as Indian religious thought is governed by this
intellectual and aristocratic bias, the development from it of
1 Vcd. Samg., p. 146 ; quoted by Sukhtankar, p. 71.
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244 INDIAN THEISM
a fully ethical Theism cannot but be hampered. Just as the
Greeks ' never ceased to look upon knowledge as the essence
of the life of the spirit ',x so also did and do the Hindus. Most
of their thinkers would agree with Plutarch that by means of
philosophic thought alone ' a faint hint' of a share in the life
of God can be obtained by the souls of men ; in no other way
can it be obtained at all. The broad moral path, the path that
is open to every man of good will, however humble, is the only
path by which Theism can advance from strength to strength.
Where the aim is a fellowship of persons, the means to its
accomplishment must be those in which not the intellect alone
but the whole inner life is employed. That is the same as to
say that a full-grown Theism, such as Christianity is, should
be fundamentally ethical. The aim of Hindu thought on the
other hand is primarily ontological ; what inspires it is not so
much the longing for more love or righteousness as the longing
for more of the essential and the eternal. It prefers the pale
and spectral as something higher and more enduring than the
morally concrete. The Hindu view, like the Greek, apprehends
the world under the contrast of the spiritual and the material,
the Christian view under that of moral good and evil. ' In the
former evil has its root in matter, in the latter in voluntary
guilt.'2 The words maya and avidyd are too deeply engrained
in an intellectual view of God and of man's relation to Him for
the theistic instincts of India to be able ever completely to
transform them. Whether the fully developed doctrine of
Sankara can claim to be the true Vedanta may be doubtful,
but by their incurable ontological aim the Upanisads certainly
pointed in the direction of such a solution. The result is that
the ideal set before itself even by the Gltd is that of detach-
ment from the world rather than that of the transformation of
the world by the power of good. Nothing in the Indian
view of the universe has proved more fatal to the development
of a serious Theism than this. The doctrine of karma is an
1 Eucken's Problem of Human Life (Eng. trans.), p. 99.
2 Eucken, op. cit., p. 195.
CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 245
enemy thwarting it, as it were, from without, a view of man's
life which, whatever its origin and however completely accepted
by India, yet is not part of the Indian spirit, but has been
imposed upon it by influences that are beyond our sight. The
intellectualism and unethical character of Hindu thought is, on
the contrary, an enemy of Theism from within. This charac-
teristic seems to be of the very fibre of the Indian nature,
giving it a bias towards metaphysics, towards pantheism in
religion, towards asceticism in life. For we cannot but agree
in large measure with Schleiermacher that whether a man
represents the Infinite Being as personal or impersonal depends
on whether his tendency is towards a voluntaristic or an
intellectual view of things. 'Acosmism, the doctrine that
there is no world ', as Professor Ward has pointed out, ' has
been the usual outcome of so-called pure thought.' x
The idea of a personal God is certainly a postulate of prac-
tical reason, whatever else it is besides. In the measure in
which our thought is moralized God becomes more real and
draws more near to us. ' Conviction here can only come by
living, not by merely thinking.' 2 ' If any man willeth to do
God's will ', says Jesus, ' he shall know of the teaching, whether
it be of God.' 3
O only source of all our light and life,
Whom as our truth, our strength, we see and feel,
But whom the hours of mortal, moral strife
Alone aright reveal.
The sense that this is so seems at times to be dawning upon
the spirit of the Indian theist. He can express it negatively
and declare that ' not by the Vedas, nor by understanding,
nor by much learning can the Self be gained \4 He recognizes
the need of the child-spirit {balya) for the attainment of true
vidya.5 But his attitude is still, as the intellectualist's is ,
1 Ward, Realm of Ends, p. 423. 2 Op. cit., p. 423.
3 John vii. 17. 4 Kath. Up. I. 2, 23.
5 Bri. Up. III. 5, and Ramanuja, Sukhtankar, p. 74.
246 INDIAN THEISM
passive, not active; his religion is a matter 'of eyes, not
wings '. Truth is for him an ' inert, static relation '. He has
not perceived that for the knowledge of God there is necessary
the will doing His will, that His revelation is most of all made
known to men in ' hours of mortal, moral strife '.
The prevailing passivity of the Indian ideal of life is a
consequence of its intellectual and unethical character. Indian
mysticism for this reason is guilty of what students of this
subject consider par excellence the mystic vice, the ' deceitful
repose' of quietism. ' This tranquillity ', says one great Western
mystic, ' is forgetfulness of God, one's self and one's neighbour.'
' The true condition of quiet, according to the great mystics
... is the free and constantly renewed self-giving and self-
emptying of a burning love.' ' The whole moral and spiritual
creature expands and rests, yes, but this very rest is produced
by action, unperceived because so fleet, so near, so all-fulfilling.' x
It has been pointed out as a virtue of the karma concept that
it excludes ' salvation by works'.2 The whole Indian view of
life is, indeed, hostile to the attribution of spiritual worth to
action that has its root in selfishness. Thus far its tendency is
ethically sound. There is a deep root of truth in it, but the
plant that springs from that root has been stunted and rendered
unfruitful by the thin atmosphere of intellectualism in which it
grows. Indian thought has not perceived the distinction that
Christian mystics make between action and activity, between
' the deep and vital movement of the whole self too deeply
absorbed for self-consciousness' and ' its fussy surface energies '.3
It was right to set itself against the wearying and futile activi-
ties of selfish ' attachment to fruit '. But just because it had no
rich and constraining thought of a personal God winning
the heart of man unto Himself, it failed to rise to the con-
ception of a karma by which we ' work out our own salvation ',
resting in the appropriated strength of One who is ' working in
1 See Underbill's Mysticism, pp. 385, 386.
2 Hogg's Karma and Redemption.
3 Underbill's Mysticism, p. 388.
CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 247
us to will and to do of His good pleasure '.* The effect of such
striving, which is none the less the soul's own because informed
and upheld by the energy of God, is a ' joy unsevered from
tranquillity ', the very opposite of the despair that is the
inevitable accompaniment of a listless contemplation. The
intellectualism of the Indian spirit and its resultant pessimism
are perhaps the most deeply hostile of all forces in the land to
the development of such an ethical Theism as Christianity is,
a religion of hope, a 'gospel of salvation by joy'. It is only
when the constraints of reason are cast altogether to the winds
that Theism lays any powerful grasp upon the life of India,
and when that is the case the revolt from intellectualism is
only too complete.
V
The failure of the erotic Theism that gathers about the
name especially of Krisna is certainly not due to its excessive
intellectualism. The more thoughtful worship, on the other
hand, which is associated with Rama is a more deliberate
rejection of reason as agnostic, and so for religious purposes
unsatisfying in favour of what may be less exalted, but at
least ' lays hold of the heart '.2 In both instances the resultant
religion is predominantly emotional, and for that reason
genuinely personal and theistic. It is indeed of the essence
of Theism and of bhakti that it should appeal to the heart of
man and move his will. There must be a fellowship in personal
life, in love and trust, if Theism is to come to its fruition.
That must in all its fullness be admitted. But while this is so,
and while it is in the ' loving faith ' of the worshipper at the
1 lotus feet ' of Krisna and other personal gods of whom the
heart of the Indian worshipper has laid hold that the stream
of Indian Theism runs most full and strong, yet here there is
a danger against which these cults have failed to guard them-
selves. There is far greater hope indeed of the blossoming of
1 Philippians ii. 13. 2 Tulsl Das's Ramayana.
248 INDIAN THEISM
a genuinely theistic faith in the atmosphere of the fervent
devotion of the bhakti cults than in the chill air of Upanisad
speculation. But the whole history of human love warns us
how hard it is to preserve it secure from sensuous passion.
Feeling, in comparison with the sluggish reason, is a powerful
moral dynamic, and as such it must have a great place in an
ethical Theism, but on that very account its rule is encom-
passed by grave perils against which it is necessary to guard.
'Religion', in the words of Professor Howison, 'is emotion
touched with morality, and at that wondrous touch not merely
ennobled but raised from the dead — uplifted from the grave of
sense into the life eternal of reason.' x The question of supreme
importance for every such emotional religion is what touch is
thus to ennoble it, what creative moral power is thus to raise
it from the grave of sense and give it steadfastness and
strength.
The most crucial test of any religion is concerned with its
ethical character. Is it, or is it not, an instrument for pro-
ducing righteousness? In the last resort the supreme religion
is that which bears fruit most richly in conduct and in life.
It is that which demands and makes possible the highest
standard of goodness. In it the various motives that impel
and induce to holiness will be so adjusted and so strengthened
as to produce in him over whom the religion has control the
maximum of effect. In seeking this end theistic faiths unani-
mously recognize the importance of the enlistment of the
emotions and affections on the side of righteousness. The
very fact that a religion is a Theism, with a personal God at
its centre, appears to involve this recognition. To be a person
is to be a source from which moral activity radiates, and to
which such activity is directed. To be a person implies loving
and being loved. If this be so, then a Theism is bound to be —
whatever else it is as well — an emotional religion. The very
name bhakti implies that this is true of all these Indian Theisms
in which this sentiment has a place. They are religions in
1 Howison, The Conception of God, p. 113.
CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 249
which ' loving faith ' issues from the heart of the worshipper
towards the object of his worship. And almost necessarily
there is to be found corresponding to this devout emotion on
the part of the bhakta a conception of divine grace flowing
downwards from the divine heart. Devotion on man's part
and grace on God's are two complementary aspects of theistic
religion viewed upon the side of emotion. They are means to
the production of a moral elevation in the worshipper, and
may be considered from that point of view apart altogether
from the further question whether the emotions that they
awaken are grounded upon reality or not.
It is true, as has been seen, that large tracts of Indian Theism
are 'sicklied o'er' with intellectualism. A type of religion
which views ' knowledge ' as the highest means to the attain-
ment of its purpose is to be found strongly established among
the theistic doctrines of India, and of the effect of such a mood
upon the religion in which it is present we shall have to treat
later. Alternating, however, with these intellectual Theisms
there are to be found in India, as a review of the history has
disclosed, cults in which feeling is central. Of these it has to
be fully recognized that they are true to the spirit of theistic
religion in magnifying its appeal to the human heart. Without
that appeal and without elements in it that can win and con-
strain the affections there can be no religion in any sense in
which Theism can understand that word. To claim that where
God is there must be faith on the part of His worshipper, to
emphasize the inward and experimental aspects of religion, to
endeavour to capture the passion of the heart for God — these
tasks are involved in the nature of Theism, and to these it
summons its adherents whenever the religion they profess is
a vital force within them. Caitanya's ecstasy certainly, in so
far as it implied an intimate entrance into the sense of the
divine fellowship, was of the very stuff of theistic religion, and
to that extent is a testimony to the reality and power of
Caitanya's faith. The klrtans of the Krisna-worshipper, the
hymns of adoration of the Saivite saint — these, as evidence of
25o INDIAN THEISM
an experience of joy and peace, fitly support the claims of the
cults which inspire them to obtain a place among theistic
religions. Immediacy is a characteristic of Theism, and it
expresses itself in these outbursts of emotion with a genuine-
ness that there is no disputing.
But, while this is so, we have to remember that this
emotional energy, in the highest order of Theism, must be
a means to an ethical end. The whole strange history of the
emotional bhakti cults is a testimony to the perils that beset
religious passion, when it is awakened, but is not controlled.
It is a testimony to the fact that such emotion while the best
of servants is the most dangerous of masters. What ' the
gods approve ' is certainly not merely ' the tumult of the
soul '. Everything, in judging of the religion in which
the winds of emotion have been let loose, depends upon the
power that governs them and the directions in which, under
that government, they bear the human spirit. Feeling can
fill the sails of the spirit in its course, but it cannot map out
that course and guide the spirit to its goal. It supplies
energy, not insight. A religion which looks to the emotions
it awakens in its followers to supply the reason for their own
existence has no guarantee that its course may not be directed
to hell as likely as to heaven. If the God of their worship is
largely a reflex of the religious feelings of the worshippers
then that religion is necessarily doomed to barrenness and
futility. It will be a force as fugitive as the emotions upon
which it builds. It is not surprising, therefore, to find for
how brief a period most of the emotional cults of India have
endured.
Of course, there is none of the Indian Theisms, however
emotional in its character, which has not in it already some
nucleus of ideas around which the emotions gather. There
is always an historical or quasi-historical datum, represented
by a personal name Krisna or Siva which furnishes to a greater
or less extent the stimulus of feeling. But in the riot of
emotions that gather round that centre the boundaries of the
CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 251
subjective and the objective are soon obliterated. Krisna to
Caitanya, Siva to Manikka-vasagar is as much the creature
of his rapture as its creator. Where this is the case there is,
we repeat, no guarantee as to the kind — whether evil or good —
of the conduct and character which the emotion will produce.
The original impulse may have been given by the idea which
the God as an historical or mythical person embodies, but
presently we perceive that feeling has set off on a path of its
own making to a strange and, it may be, a sinister goal.
There is no steadfastness of direction and no guarantee of
persistence in a religion directed to what has been called ' an
emotionally irradiated mental void '. It is destined inevitably
to futility and to waywardness. The idea that the emotion
can actually create the objective reality towards which it is
supposed to be directed is indicated, for example, in the
popular proverb, 'Where faith (bhava) is, there God is'. If
this were true, then the heart could fashion its God after its
own desire, and would worship the object of its own longings,
mingled more largely of evil than of good. Hence the
sensuousness of so many of the undisciplined worships that we
have reviewed. If it is the strength of the passion and not
its purity that gives it worth, then why should not Radha
stand by the side of Krisna as the object of men's worship, and
why not even other nearer and more appreciable objects of
their love such as the washerwoman of the Bengali poet
Candidas ?
We have already referred to the fact that no concrete and
complete moral ideal rises before the adherents of the Indian
theistic systems. They contain, it is true, some notable
ethical suggestions ; they present valuable rules of conduct ;
but nowhere is there to be found a fully fashioned ideal of
goodness. When we consider these systems further in their
aspects as religions of feeling we find the same lack, but here
it is something more than a moral ideal that is required, and
that is not presented to the worshipper. What is needed
at the centre of a religion of feeling is an ideal realized in
252 INDIAN THEISM
a person, presented in a life that wins the heart. We have
seen that bhakti in many of the usages of the word implies
a relation of loyalty such as that between a king and his
subjects, or between a wife and her husband. Loyalty is
certainly, as Professor Royce has shown, 'a principle fit to
be made the basis of an universal moral code '} The spirit
of true loyalty is of its very essence a complete synthesis of
the moral and of the religious interests.' 2 So far the bhakti
doctrines are on the high road towards a fully ethical religion.
If they do not travel far on that road, and in some cases soon
desert it for devious by-paths, the reason is that the ultimate
value of such a religion depends altogether in the object of
this loyalty. Surely it is obviously untrue to claim, as
Andrew Lang has done, in reference to the history of Scotland
and the religion of its people —
It little skills what faith men vaunt,
If loyal men they be,
To Christ's ain Kirk and Covenant,
Or the king across the sea.
It is true, that in the case of any cause, even if it be a bad
cause, or of any love, even if it be the love of one who is
unworthy, when that cause and that affection awaken loyalty,
the religious spirit, the free self-surrender that they evoke, are
infinitely precious. This self-surrender is richly present in
the Indian Theisms, in those that are more sensuous no less
than in those that are spiritual. They have in them deep
wells of feeling which to that extent may rightly be called
religious. Of that there is no doubt. But at the same time
the quality of the religion must be judged of by the object
which inspires the self-surrender and the love, for, according
as it is, so shall be the resulting character of the worshipper.
There is honour and loyalty among thieves, but it is not the
same order of honour as that which there is among saints.
It certainly mattered infinitely to Scotland that the loyalty
1 Royce's Sources of Religious Insight, p. 203. 2 Op. cit., p. 206.
CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 253
of her clans passed from being devotion to a cattle-lifting
chief to become devotion to Christ and all the noble causes
that His name implies. We are inevitably moulded by that
to which our hearts go forth in love and adoration.
The great mystics of the West have found in Jesus Christ
this creative and controlling force, the means by which what
is apt to be ' a blind and egoistic rapture ' is transformed into
a ' fruitful and self-forgetting love \1 By His life, as the
realization of the moral ideal, His followers' lives are guided
and controlled, for not only does the love of Christ constrain
His lovers, but His example guides them, and His message
governs them. Christ is at once the inspiration of the
Christian's faith and the normative influence that controls his
life. His personal example of transcendent purity and the
summons to self-sacrifice for others which His whole life pro-
claims form for His followers a two-fold safeguard against an
enfeebling emotionalism on the one hand, and against incon-
stant impulse on the other. It seems to the Christian that
in Christ Jesus the ideas of law and of freedom are reconciled.
He presents a moral ideal that cannot be transcended, and at
the same time the deep motives of love and gratitude that
His life and message call into play within the Christian's heart
make the endeavour to attain that ideal a glad and willing
labour. The personal motive, 'for my sake', engages the
whole energy of the heart of him who has been laid hold of
by the love of Christ, while the clear outlines of His high
example preserve him from vague and ill-directed effort.
The whole strength of the emotions is turned towards the
love of this great Lover while at the same time the wayward-
ness of passion is restrained. There must be a human face
looking forth from the dark Abyss of the Unconditioned, else
there can be no worship, and no fellowship of love : and that
face must be that of one who is the ' first and only fair ', the
very embodiment of our supreme ideal, else men shall follow
the devices of their own hearts. The presentation of the goal
1 Underbill's Mysticism, p. 125.
254 INDIAN THEISM
of man's salvation as ' being with Christ ' had the necessary
consequence of separating it from all self-gratification.
Largely as emotion enters into the Christian motive, it is
always preserved from that selfishness which in emotional
religions like the bhakti faiths is apt to look forward to the
end as only the attainment of peace,1 by the character of the
life of Him who awakens the emotion. Fellowship with
Christ can never be interpreted as implying a ' moral holiday '.
It is identification with the highest good, fellowship with the
God whose will is sacrifice and service. It is the historical
Person at its centre that preserves Christianity from the perils
of a selfish emotion. For that reason the greatest contem-
platives of the West — Suso and Teresa, for example — found
' that deliberate meditation upon the humanity of Christ . . .
was a necessity if they were to retain a healthy and well-
balanced inner life'.2
The concrete realization of the moral ideal in the life of
Jesus is, it surely may be claimed without dispute, a far nobler
one, and one far worthier to be at the centre of an ethical
system than that which is presented in the lives of Krisna and
of Rama. That is His place by right ; they can only be fitted
for it by the manipulation of their legends by their worshippers
for ethical ends. They are hampered by the gross supersti-
tions out of which they have grown, and from which the
moral sense of their adherents is striving with imperfect
success to refine them. It may be said of them, as M. Cumont
has said of Mithraism, that they are involved in a ' question-
able alliance' with orgiastic cults, and 'are obliged to drag
behind them all the weight of a chimerical and hateful past '.
Behind the figure of Krisna, however allegorized or interpreted,
there leers or, as in chapter xi of the Glta, lowers the pagan
figure of a gross nature deity. Christianity is not thus
1 ' Tukaram's end was individual, the peace and solace and beatific
rest of his own restless soul.' (Professor Patwardhan in Indian Inter-
preter, vii, p. 29.)
2 Underbill's Mysticism, p. 144.
CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 255
burdened. Christ, we may say, using the words not in their
theological, but in their ethical meaning, is a descent from
above, not a growth from beneath. He does not need to be
refined by man's ethical sense. On the contrary, it is He
that refines and enlightens it. It may, however, be main-
tained that no such manifested personal life is needed at the
centre of the highest type of theistic worship, that no such
realized moral ideal is demanded at the heart of an ethical
religion. The testimony to human nature and to human need
that the whole record of Indian Theism bears is opposed to
that claim. Krisnaism and Ramaism and Siva Bhakti, and
every religion that has made an effective appeal by means of
the grace and condescension of God, every religion which bids
men love because God first loved them, must necessarily have
at its centre a tale of divine love, saving, condescending, sacri-
ficing. They all agree with Christianity to this extent at
least that they seek for a vision that, in the words of Aristotle,
will ' move them as the object of their love '. But presently
they will want to be sure that their vision is real. Men, as
their intelligence advances, become unable to remain content
with a tale that they are not certain is true. It must be
an historical manifestation of the divine life. Men cannot be
content with a legend which, however fair, is unbelievable ;
they cannot be content with Visnu's three steps or Siva's blue
throat, with Krisna or with Rama. If truth is ' embodied in
a tale' that it may enter man's heart and win it, it must be
a true tale that will stand every scrutiny of history as well as
fulfil every demand of practical reason. It has been pointed
out again and again that one reason why Christianity
triumphed over so pure and so deeply philosophic a doctrine
as Neoplatonism was just because it possessed Jesus Christ.
So also the great weakness of Mithraism, we are told, in its
conflict with Christianity lay in this, that ' in place of a divine
life instinct with human sympathy, it had only to offer the
symbolism of a cosmic legend'.1 ' Nothing', says Martineau,
1 Dill's Roman Society from Nero to Aurelius, p. 622.
256 INDIAN THEISM
' is so sickly, so paralytic, as " Moral Ideals " that are nothing
else. . . . They cannot will or act or love ; and their whole
power is in abeyance till they present themselves in a living,
personal being, who secures the righteousness of the universe
and seeks the sanctification of each heart.' *
Perhaps the most influential of all those elements that
enable both the Indian Theisms and Christian Theism to
make a great emotional appeal is the teaching which they
contain in regard to the grace of God. Almost all of them
present some picture of the divine magnanimity and conde-
scension in relation to man's sin and need which touches the
heart, and constrains to loving service and obedience. The
attractiveness of the presentation of the Bal Krisna or even of
the god sporting with the shepherdesses lay in its suggestion
of his condescension to men in thus coming to their side and
sharing their joys. So with the much more noble idea of the
black-throated Siva, as expressed by Manikka-vasagar :
Thou mad'st me
Thine : didst fiery poison eat, pitying poor souls,
That I might thine ambrosia taste— I, meanest one.
These are thoughts of God's grace that cannot but, once they
are believed, have an influence in creating in the heart a
response of love and of surrender.
But here, again, it is inevitable that a question shall
presently arise in the mind of any thoughtful worshipper as
to the authenticity of these tales of the divine graciousness.
Myth has its place in the early stages of a religion as the form
in which ideas naturally present themselves to the mind of
the childhood of the race. And when the myth is seen later
to be a myth the idea it embodies may still, of course, be
retained as true. The husk may be cast away, and the
kernel truth of the grace of God may still remain. But as
a matter of fact in the creation of a deep and true emotion it
is just the concrete and not the abstract that appeals. Ideas,
1 Selections from the Literature of Theism (Caldecott and Mackintosh),
p. 401.
CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 257
however noble, are not sufficient to stir and govern the heart.
It is the vivid fact of Siva's throat blue with poison that he
drank for men, it is the thought of the actual groves of
Vrindavana through which Krisna went in gracious com-
pany with men and women — it is these actual and concrete
things that make real the grace of the god, so that they move
the springs of emotion and constrain the affections of men and
women. If these things as facts of the past disappear, the
ideas at the same time lose their moving and compelling
power. There is not in ideas alone the vital and vitalizing
energy which there is in the same ideas when exhibited as
personal centres of loving activity, as divinely operative on
the human level, furnishing an impulse that bears men onwards
and upwards to God. Christian Theism claims to possess in
Jesus Christ such a personal centre and source of power, and
that by every historical test His story is proved to be authentic
and true. He bore our sins and carried our sorrows : in all
our afflictions He was afflicted. By His partnership in our
humanity, by the love of His lowly life, and of His sufferings
and death, He draws the hearts of men unto Himself. He is
the manifested grace of God ; and this grace is not only a
beautiful and winning idea, but a fact of history that to every
test proves itself true.
When we go on further to ask what the purpose and effect
of the divine grace in Indian and Christian Theism actually
is, we find here also a significant difference. The difference
lies in this that the Indian Theisms, as has been already
pointed out, are imperfectly ethicized, and do not keep always
before them a lofty moral ideal or aim primarily at ethical
results. In every Theism of a high order the problem must
emerge of reconciling its ethical interests, which are para-
mount, with a conception of God's gracious character which
will be worthy of a God who is love. These two principles,
which are superficially inconsistent, have to be reconciled so
that neither the moral interests of man nor the character of
God shall suffer. It does not appear that this reconciliation
S
258 INDIAN THEISM
is effected satisfactorily in the Indian Theisms. Ethical
interests are sacrificed. We see this at its extreme in the
claim that a single utterance of the name of the god can save
from the most heinous sins. The only way in which a doc-
trine of the divine grace or a tale of the divine condescension
in coming down to save can be reconciled with the demands
of a religion which is primarily ethical is that the divine
deliverer must be Himself the ideal of holiness, and this
method of salvation all compact of righteousness. He will,
in all His acts of grace, seek first the salvation of man, in the
sense not merely of release from bondage or punishment, but
in the sense of the winning of his heart for holiness. But this
is not what is kept ever in view in the Hindu Theisms. The
God of grace is not equally manifested as a God of righteous-
ness. His relation to the rule of karma is not such that the
rival claims of the two principles here suggested are reconciled.
The grace of God cuts across the rule of karma in a manner
that makes its operation no more than an occasional, and not
fully explained, exception. We are not shown a view of God
as a God of grace which transcends morally, and takes up into
itself, with no sacrifice of moral ends, the operation of the God
of karma.
The Christian religion is fundamentally a religion of grace,
and God, as manifested in Christ, is supremely a God of grace
and of forgiveness. The love and death of Christ form God's
special manifestation of Himself in this aspect, and constrain
the hearts of men with an unequalled power to the grateful
service of Him of whom they can say ' He loved me and gave
Himself for me '. And the love and death of Christ are not only
invincibly constraining to the heart, but they are also through
and through ethical in their meaning and purpose. What
theory one may propound of the meaning of that death, and
of the way in which it makes possible the forgiveness of sins,
is comparatively immaterial. What is material is that there
the evil of sin is exhibited in all its hatefulness, and that the
divine grace can only be apprehended where sin is abhorred
CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 259
and rejected. Sin is not forgiven or deliverance granted as
a mere indulgence. The way to the possibility of forgiveness
in a God of righteousness is a way of divine sorrow and pain,
a way than which none could witness more worthily to the
claims of the moral law than does the way of the Cross. The
penitent casting himself in faith and gratitude upon such a
Saviour is compelled by all the energies of his nature — heart and
will and reason — to choose and follow goodness. Thus the claims
at once of grace and righteousness are here reconciled, and
the process of redemption is through and through fashioned
from stuff of the conscience. But grace is more than this
divine condescension revealed in the Cross of Christ. It is
further a supernatural gift of spiritual power. With this gift
God follows His child reinforcing his will, strengthening his
desires after good, ' besetting him behind and before ' in life's
temptations, bringing to him continual comfort and help.
Jesus Christ in His person and in His life fulfils those
cravings which gathered about the names of Krisna and of
Rama, and which laboured to idealize these not altogether
ideal figures. His message of the Kingdom of God, a trans-
formed world-order, eternally ready on the part of God, but
requiring for its realization among men the appeal on their
part of faith, is at once a great summons to man to trust Him
and a great call to man to put into practice now the laws of
social service and of love which are the laws of this spiritual
Kingdom. ' Mysticism, whether in the great religions of the
East or in Christendom, offers to redeem man from the world ;
but, as Kaftan has well said, it is the distinctive feature of the
original Christian gospel that, while redeeming man from the
world, it does so only in order to bind him to a more unre-
served service of God in the world.' x Christ's revelation shows
to us a divine Father who is solely hindered in the establish-
ment of His kingdom of love and righteousness by the unbelief
and selfishness of men. His own life by its complete surrender
to the divine will, by its service of men to the uttermost point
1 Hogg's Christ's Message of the Kingdom, p. 119.
S 3
36o INDIAN THEISM
of love and sacrifice that thereby He might redeem them and
open their hearts to faith and the response of love, is in itself
the supreme example of what the Kingdom He proclaims is
and shall be. Love to God, whom Christ exhibits in all His
graciousness as the loving and the holy Father, and love to
our neighbour, or, as He defines the word, to every one who
needs our help — upon these two poles this religion turns. It
is at once intensely individual, and yet at the same time
universal in its scope. It makes its appeal direct to the heart
and to all the powers of its affections, and yet it makes no
selfish appeal such as the emotional cults that have sprung up
elsewhere in answer to human craving are so often apt to
make. The ' supreme peace ', the ' everlasting region ',* to
which Krisna brings his worshippers is no Kingdom of God,
no realm of the service of love in righteousness, but a self-
regarding state of personal purification and endowment. It is
not, as the Kingdom of Heaven is, a kingdom of moral ends,
in which all private and selfish interests are for ever abolished.
When it suggests, as so often Indian visions of the emancipated
state suggest, that our centre of selfhood shall vanish into
God's it dissolves in cloudland, for the only eternal city of
God is that where 'His servants shall serve Him',2 built up
as it must be upon the solely abiding foundations of duty and
of responsibility.
VI
There are other aspects of these Indian experiments in
religion which indicate at once the demands to which Theism
is a response and the inadequacy of the means by which the
attempt is made to satisfy these demands. There is, for
example, the longing for communion with God, a longing
which expresses itself in every religion which maintains its
faith in a personal God. The sacramental feasts and ' mys-
teries ' that have a place in so many non-Christian cults, as
1 Gitd, 18.62. 2 Revelation xxii. 3.
CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 261
they have within Christianity itself, testify to this imperious
desire, and to the longing likewise for escape from the tyranny
of the world of sense to a world of spirit. These have not so
prominent a place in the Indian theistic cults as they have
had in the Oriental ' mystery religions ' which exercised so
great an influence at the beginning of the Christian era, but
they are found in such a sect as that of the Kablr Panthls.
The same instinct expresses itself powerfully in another
fashion in some of the Krisna cults. In these the worshipper
seeks in other ways to assimilate himself to the deity of his
devotion. The devotee, in taking the appearance of a woman
that he may be the Radha of Krisna's love, is bearing testi-
mony in a manner that is crude and unspiritual enough to the
need of the heart for the divine fellowship. He is saying
with Augustine, 'Thou hast made us for thyself, and our
hearts are restless till they rest in thee'. But it needs no
argument to demonstrate that the transports of Caitanya
could hardly lift him to a high spiritual region or bring him
into fellowship with a God of holy love. These cults have
their roots too deep in the gross and sensual life, and there
is no power in Krisna, or even in Rama, to purify and exalt
them. The suggestions amongst which they move are more
likely to rouse the feelings than to chasten them. They
proclaim a need, but they have no power to satisfy it.
The Christian sacraments are symbols so simple, so free
from grossness, that their spiritual meaning and purpose
shine through them undistorted. They are, indeed, an
acknowledgement that man still belongs to the realm of time
and sense, that he has not yet put off from him his earthly
dress, but that he belongs at the same time in a deeper and
fuller sense to the realm of the spiritual and the eternal. By
these sacraments purity of heart and love are declared to be
the means of fellowship with God. The character of this love
is determined by the whole tone and spirit of the Christian
gospel. The cross of Christ, His giving of His life a ransom
for many, His identification of Himself with sinful men, His
262 INDIAN THEISM
endurance of all the brunt of their unreasoning hate, the
testimony borne by Him through it all to love and holiness —
these things make the emotion which the sacrament of the
Lord's Supper symbolizes as pure, as spiritual, as free from
grossness, as anything within the heart of man can be. In
the fact that the death of Christ is the centre of Christianity
we have the guarantee that this Theism is as high and as
uplifting, that the bonds by which it binds men are as ethi-
cally enduring, as it is possible for the human mind and heart
to conceive. As far as that event is in moral and spiritual
significance and in its power to constrain the heart above the
legends of Krisna, of Rama, and of Siva, by so much the
Christian religion is raised above them in the hierarchy of
Theisms, and is able to claim a greater authority over men's
lives and to exercise a greater power to satisfy their desires.
If Theism is the final and absolute form of religion, we must
have the assurance that God and man can be fully reconciled
and made one in a fellowship which is love and peace. For
that assurance it seems necessary that the eternal should be
manifested in time, overcoming the hostility of sin and this
earthly order, and exhibiting this reconciliation. Such a
demonstration in history and such an experience in his own
life can alone liberate man for new beginnings and create in
him new powers. The idea that God may be willing to
accomplish this end is not enough if it remain only an idea ;
the symbol of Siva's blue throat cannot suffice. Inevitably,
if there be no historical core to this conviction it will fail to
hold men permanently or to strengthen them for action. It
would leave religion, as it has so largely been in India, no
more than a view of the world. Hope and unwearying activity
can be built up only on a sure foundation of work accomplished
in the midst of time by the very God of grace Himself. ' God
so loved the world ' that He gave — in time — His Son : that
manifestation of the divine heart brings God near to man in
grace and man to God in ' loving faith '. For that reason the
Theism which has this accredited fact at its centre, and in
CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 263
which the fact renews itself as a present experience of
divine power in the hearts of men, is assured of a place of
primacy among all the faiths that seek to bring together
God and man, and to establish the Kingdom of heaven which
is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. The
resurrection of Christ Jesus from the dead, by its demonstra-
tion of the supremacy of spiritual things over the tyrannous
powers of nature that seem to hold man always in their grasp,
gives the assurance that by the same means others too may
overcome. ' Through death and resurrection He created in
His disciples, and is still creating in others, the kind of faith
that opens to them the Kingdom, and makes available to
them that absolute forgiveness and that free redemption from
punishment, from sin, and from every kind of bondage . . .
which are the privileges of the Kingdom.' l
A result of the historical character of the Christian religion
and of its strong conviction of moral distinctions is that the
easy tolerance that is so characteristic of so many of the
Indian cults is not possible to it. It has been said of Neopla-
tonism that it ' lacked the power of exclusiveness, and of that
lack it died'.2 These Indian cults had the same lack and for
the same reason. The intellect cannot be as stringent as the
conscience, its convictions are not life or death to it as are the
other's. And further, an idea, a truth that is only a symbol,
has not the same fixity and determination as that which rests
upon an historical basis. Such a religion as Christianity is
necessarily exclusive. It points to what, it is sure, is the
highest good. It reveals One, who, it is sure, is the one
true God.
The impotence of Indian Theism can be measured by its
failure to solve three problems that have faced it throughout
all its history. It could not purge even its own temple courts
of polytheism, nor yet of idolatry. It could slacken only for
a little, it could not break, the bonds of caste. There can be
1 Hogg, Christ's Message of the Kingdom, p. 1S4.
2 Harnack, Hibbert Journal, x. p. 81.
264 INDIAN THEISM
no confidence in the world as a cosmos, and as the seat of
a divine government, when Rama shares the supremacy with
Siva, or even hardly wins it in a conflict of physical force
with the demon Ravana. And so long as an idol has its
place in the theistic temple — and what temple in India is
without one? — the worship cannot but be only imperfectly
inward and spiritual, and must be far from fully moralized.
The worship of Krisna is incurably idolatrous, and not the
most violent transports of emotion transform it from the crude
nature-worship of an image of a fair but altogether carnal
youth. The ' god-vision ' of Caitanya was a vision of the
sensuous, with little enough in it of the spiritual. For that
reason, in spite of pantheistic conceptions, it was seldom that
the brotherly love that bhakti and every Theism must create
operated far beyond the temple walls or at other times than
on the festival day of the god. Then, and in these precincts,
but seldom elsewhere, or at other times, the Brahman and the
Sudra were reconciled. In this we have, probably, one of the
causes of the double life that so many live in India, one at
home and another in public. We have to say of such an
ineffectual religion, as was said of Namdev in his earlier
days by a wise potter, that it is kacchd, it is half-baked — like
Namdev, it has not yet found its gtiru. It has the main out-
line, the framework which the cravings of the human heart
provide, of a true Theism, but it lacks its content ; it lacks
that which surely cannot come from beneath, but must be
poured into it from above. The grace of God, the need
of a mediator, the power of devotion and of faith — these
furnish, even as they are found in these wayward cults, an
authentic map of Theism, its genuine form and contour.
Could any word have a truer ring of theistic comprehension
than this of Tukaram's, which is not his thought alone among
the Indian seers, and which might well be St. Augustine's :
' Had I not been a sinner, how could there have been a
Saviour? So my name is the source, and hence, O Sea of
mercy, comes Thy purifying power. Iron is the glory of the
CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 265
parlsa (loadstone), else had it been but an ordinary stone.' T
It binds the sinner and the Saviour with true evangelical
daring in a fellowship of the mutual dependence of love and
help. And yet lacking a content of authentic revelation, how
these forms presently become misshapen and distorted. With
scarcely an exception, these Theisms, fair dreams of man's
unguided hopes, have fallen from their high places to depths
as deep as Tophet.
The fundamental difference between them and the Christian
Theism lies in the fact that it possesses as its content Jesus
Christ. The sole reason why it is possible for it to be at once
a religion through and through of grace and yet altogether
ethical is that it has at its centre this figure, Jesus Christ.
Caitanya might, perhaps, say with St. Paul, ' I live by faith ',
but the fundamental distinction between him and St. Paul
lies in the fact that the Christian apostle could go on to say —
' the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself
for me '. The guru, even the ' name ' — strange and mystic
intermediary — are claimed by Indian Theisms as means to
bring near a far-off God. But how often was the guru as
ignorant as his disciple, and only exalted above him by his
priestly pride ; and how frail a boat is an empty name to bear
a man across the sea of samsdra to his God. But when the
guru is One who, indeed, if His claim be true, is come from
God, and speaketh the words of God, and when the name is
all His character of grace and of compassion, then it well
may be that these shall bear those who lay hold of them by
faith to the place of the presence of the living and the holy
God.
A Theism which makes its appeal to the heart of man as
well as to his intellect, which sets before itself as its aim
1 Fraser and Marathe's Tukaram, i. p. 76. The same thought is
found in the Granth (Trumpp, p. civ), and in more extreme and
objectionable form in some South Indian sects.
266 INDIAN THEISM
throughout the establishment of the reign of God, and which
bases its appeal upon a great historical act of self-sacrifice by
God for man's redemption, and assures the accomplishment of
its aim by reason of a great historical victory of life over death,
of the order of spirit over the order of nature — a Theism also
which claims that these things are verified in the experience
of men as not only events of the past, but present activities of
the divine life in human hearts — such a Theism can, indeed,
accomplish what men's hearts have yearned for always, and
certainly no less in India than in other lands. The Indian
bhakti systems express these yearnings, but they lack elements
that are necessary for their permanent satisfaction. What
some of these elements are we have tried to indicate. Indian
Theism is oftenest a cold discourse of reason that forgets that
the heart has claims, and that the will requires a governor if
it is not to be left to waywardness and to disaster. Or, again,
Indian Theism is a carnival of emotion, its worshipper no
longer a ship lying helpless on a painted ocean of the intel-
lect, but driven headlong by what are only too apt to be blasts
from hell. Or, again, the law of karma thwarts the processes
of Theism in the Indian psychological climate, preventing the
free ethical operation of the divine grace and the divine for-
giveness. It is a sub-moral order, which has no room in it
for the ministry of penitence, and which shuts out the possi-
bility, in response to penitence, of the divine forgiveness. It
is indeed true, as the facts of the world declare, that there is
a surd, a factor that may prove insoluble even to divine power
and grace, in the life of man, but that is not due to anything
in the order of nature or in the will of God. It proceeds
from the free will of man. Not a law of karma, but that
moral freedom, which is the very manhood of man, hinders
the consummation of God. Thus within Christian Theism
there is room for all God's divine majesty and transcendence
as there is not where karma reigns. His only limitation is
self-limitation. The greater the freedom and capacity of His
creatures, the greater He who rules them all and saves them.
CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION 267
' This Being rare has drawn near ' l to us, as Indian bJiakti
dreamed and hoped He would, in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And the faith of which He is the centre confirms the intuitions,
and crowns the longings of the long centuries of Indian
Theistic aspiration.
1 Pope's Tiruvasagam, p. 157.
APPENDIX A
b.c. Indian Religious History.
2000 Earliest Vedic Hymns. Circa 1 500-1000.
Period of the Vedic Samhitas. Circa iooo-8co.
Period of the Brahmanas. Circa 800-500.
600 The earliest Upanisads. Circa 600.
Mahavlra. 599-527.
Gautama Buddha. 563-483.
Period of the Sutras. Circa 500-200 B. c.
Period of the Ramayana. Circa 400-200 B. C.
Period of the Mahabharata. Circa 400 B. C.-400 A. D.
Later Upanisads. Circa 400-200 B. c.
A. D.
rco
1000
The Bhagavadglta. Circa 100 B. C.-loo A. D.
Period of the Puranas. Circa 400-800.
&ahkaracarya. 788-850.
Manikka-vasagar. X-XI cent.
Ramanuja. Died 1 137.
Nimbarka. XII cent.
Madhva. XIII cent.
Ramananda. XIII-XIV cent. Pillai Lokacarya. XIII cent.
Vedanta Desika. XIII-XIV cent.
Jnanesvar. XIII cent.
Namdev. XIII-XIV cent.
Vallabhacarya. XV-XVI cent. KabTr. Died 1518.
Caitanya. 1485-1533. Nanak. 1469-1538.
DadQ. 1 544-1603. Tulsi Das. 1 532-1623.
Tukaram. 1608-49.
HISTORICAL TABLE
Indian Secular History.
Aryans advancing into India.
The World Outside India.
Isaiah the Prophet. 737-700.
Zoroaster. 660-583.
Confucius. 551-478.
Cyrus, king of Persia. 522-486.
Panini. Circa 400-300.
Alexander the Great in India.
Death of Socrates. 399.
Pla.to. 427-347.
327-325-
Candragupta, founder of the Maurya
Dynasty. 321-297.
Megasthenes at the Court of Can-
dragupta. 302.
Asoka. 269-227.
Patanjali. Circa 150.
Aristotle. 384-322.
Virgil. 73-19.
Julius Caesar. 100-44.
Kalidasa. Circa 400.
Hiouen Tsang in India. 629-646.
Invasion of India by Muhamma-
dans. 998.
Capture of Somnath by Mahmud
of Ghazni. 1025.
Invasion of Taimiir. 1398.
Akbar. 1 556-1605.
Aurangzeb. 165S-1707.
Augustus. 30 B. C.-14 A. D.
Crucifixion of Jesus. 29.
Conversion of Paul. 30.
The New Testament. Circa
47-no.
Marcus Aurelius. 161-180.
Constantine. 306-337.
Muhammad. 570-632.
The Crusades. 1096.
Wyckliffe. 1324-84.
Luther. 1483-1546.
Queen Elizabeth. 1 558-1603.
APPENDIX B
EKANATH (SIXTEENTH CENTURY) ON BHAKTI
The stiperiority of Bhakti to Yoga.
Though one restrains the senses, yet are they not restrained. Though
one renounces sensual desires, yet are they not renounced. Again and
again they return to torment one. For that reason the flame of Hari
bhakti was lit by the Veda.
There is no need to suppress the senses ; desire of sensual pleasure
ceases of itself. So mighty is the power that lies in Hari bhakti. Know
this assuredly, O first among kings.
The senses that Yogis suppress bhaktas devote to the worship of
Bhagavat. The things of sense that Yogis forsake bhaktas offer to
Bhagavat. Yogis forsake the things of sense, and forsaking them, they
suffer in the flesh ; the followers of bhakti offer them to Bhagavat, and
hence they become for ever emancipated.
Wife, child, house, self, offer them to Bhagavat. That is the perfect
Bhagavat Dharma. In this above all else does worship consist.
The supe7iority of bhakti to jnana.
Though he has no knowledge of the Vedas, still by one so ignorant
may the real Self be apprehended. The condition of Brahman may be
easily attained and possessed. To that end did God send forth the light
of Hari bhakti.
Know, O king, that this is what belongs to Bhagavat. Especially is
its token bhakti. Worshipping Bhagavat by faith the man who has no
knowledge is delivered.
Women, Sudras and all others— place them on board this ship and
they all together and easily can be borne by the power of faith and
worship to the other bank. To cross thither without swimming, to gain
possession without painful effort, to obtain Brahman by an easy means,
for this end Na.ra.yan sent forth the light of bhakti.
The special quality of the Bhagavat Dharma is that the simple-hearted
are borne safe across the ocean of the world. Brahman is attained by
an easy means. This meaning is expressed clearly in the s/oka.
What bhakti is.
He who puts his trust in the worship of Bhagavat, rules and restrictions
APPENDIX B 271
become his slaves. When he renders the ritual service of his heart the
World-Spirit is made glad. The marks of a saint are his power of
devotion, how he tramples on the works of his dharma, how he sweeps
clean the place of vaniasrama, how he makes a bonfire of karma.
He who knows not Sruti or Smriti but worships by faith the way of
Bhagavat, him never for a moment does the burden of rules and
restrictions obstruct. Those who, lacking the two eyes, SVuti, Smriti,
are blind, even they, fleeing by the might of faith to the worship of Hari,
by reason of their full heart's love meet with no stumbling-block. Those
who follow thus the Bhagavat Dharma action (karma) cannot hinder.
He whose will is a law to action (karma), that Purusottama is obtained
by the worship of faith. Those who render service according to the
Bhagavat Dharma, to them the duty of their own dharma becomes as
a bondslave. It cannot stand in their presence. How then can it
ever hinder them ?
Whatever is done with purpose of reward or what is done without,
what the Vedas, what custom, what our own nature prescribes, offer
them, one and all, to Bhagavat. Behold, that is the Bhagavat Dharma.
He whom the duty of his dharma cannot hinder, hear, O king, his
secret. Purusottama has been manifested in his heart by means of the
knowledge of the illimitable Self.
Whenever the eye sees the visible, then (the bhaktd) sees there God
Himself. Thus by the means of worship he offers up his vision, namely,
the objects that he sees.
Tn like manner when he hears with his ear, it is an offering to Brahman.
Without deliberate intent, know this, spontaneously and naturally
Bhagavat is worshipped.
He who brings together scent and the thing that has scent, he becomes
(to the bhaktd) the very sense of smell by reason of love.
When the sweets of taste are tasted, then its flavour is God Himself.
He abides in the delight of taste and (the bhaktd) perceives that the
enjoyment of taste is an offering to Brahman.
When by our body we touch, then in the body the unembodied Self is
manifested. Whatever (the bhaktd) touches and whatever he enjoys,
lo, it is an offering to Brahman.
Wherever he (the bhaktd) sets his foot, that path is God. Then in
every step he takes, lo, his worship is an offering to Brahman.
APPENDIX C
THE ALLEGED INDEBTEDNESS OF INDIAN THEISM
TO CHRISTIANITY
There are many points of resemblance between the theistic cults of
India and Christianity which suggest the possibility of indebtedness, but
these fall for the most part into one or other of two classes, — those on the
one hand that may be described as resemblances in idea and in the ritual
which embodies ideas, and those on the other which depend upon likeness
in the stories or legends that are associated with the divine figures in the
various religions. The similarity in the former case is much more
important than in the latter ; but at the same time agreement between
religions in respect of ideas and aspirations which often reach deep down
into universal instincts and needs of the human heart need not, one
recognizes, by any means necessarily imply borrowing on either side.
In the case of the other class of resemblances, borrowing is more easily
detected, perhaps, but it appears to be a matter of minor significance
whether borrowing in such matters has actually taken place. These
gather chiefly about the story of the child Krisna and such a legend as
that of the visit to the ' White Island ' described in the Mahabhdrata.
The first thing to be done in considering the problems here involved
is to see what communications there were in the early centuries between
India and those lands to the west and north of India where Christianity
was an established religion. There seem to have been three main routes
of communication, (i) from Egypt and Alexandria, (2) from the Persian
Gulf, and (3) from lands lying north of India in Central Asia.
(1) The intercourse between India and Alexandria was considerable,
apparently, until early in the third century, when a massacre by the
emperor Caracalla of the Alexandrians, among whom there was a small
colony of Hindu traders, brought this to an end. A large number of
coins of Roman emperors up to Caracalla have been found in South
India, but few coins of emperors subsequent to him. As this intercourse
with Alexandria was mainly in matters of trade, and as the Indians
concerned in it were mainly of the less thoughtful classes of Dravidians,
there is not likely to have been much, if any, interchange of religious
ideas.
(2) The second route of communication is that between the Persian
Gulf and the west coast of India. Christian and Jewish communities
APPENDIX C 273
were settled in this part of India, it appears, from the second century
onward. Pantaenus journeyed to India in the second century and found
there some Christians who used a Hebrew or Aramaic version of the
Gospel of St. Matthew. In the sixth century when Cosmas Indico-
pleustes visited India, he found there a Christian Church said to have
been founded in the second century. It had a Persian bishop.
(3) Another important direction from which it is not improbable that
Christian thought may have entered India is that of the north-west
frontier, by which so many invasions of India have taken place throughout
the centuries. Just north of Afghanistan and corresponding to Afghan
Turkestan lay a land which early in the Christian era was the home of
many persecuted Christian sects. Successive expeditions of explorers in
recent years have discovered further east in Chinese Turkestan, and
especially in the oasis of Turfan, a large number of Christian documents,
including much of the literature of the Manichaean sect. These are
texts believed to have been written ' at some time before the tenth
century for the use of a large Manichaean community'.1 It is evident
that there were important centres in this region from which Christian
ideas must have been conveyed occasionally across the mountains to
India. One of the bishops, indeed, who attended the great Council of
Nicaea in A. D. 325 is designated 'Bishop of the Church of Persia and
great India', which is understood to mean the India of the Indus valley
and perhaps some distance beyond it. It is accepted as eminently
probable now that there is a substance of truth in the legend of St. Thomas
which tells of his coming to India to the kingdom of Gondoferus or
Gondophares, who ruled over Parthia and the western Punjab in the first
century. Whether or not there is any substance in the further tradition
that he was buried in Mylapore near Madras, — and this is much less
probable, — it is, to say the least, quite possible that he actually preached
the Gospel in North West India.
These seem to be the main channels by which Christian ideas may
have reached India in the early centuries. In later times, of course, from
the seventh century onward, there were other Christian influences coming
from various directions into the country.
We have now to consider whether there is any reliable evidence of the
Christian influence which may have come to India by these, or, possibly,
by other, channels having made any mark upon Indian theistic religion.
Let us look in the first place at the legends which may be said to bear
tokens of such influence. These are especially those that gather round
the figure of the child Krisna. Here is Sir R. G. Bhandarkar's account
of what he supposes to have possibly happened in this connexion :
1 F. Legge in/. A\ A. S., Jan. 1913, p. 79.
T
274 APPENDIX C
' About the first century of the Christian era, the boy-god of a wandering
tribe of cow-herds of the name of Abhlras came to be identified with
Vasudeva. In the course of their wanderings eastward from Syria or
Asia Minor they brought with them, probably, traditions of the birth of
Christ in a stable, the massacre of the innocents, &c, and the name
Christ itself. The name became recognized as Krisna, as this word is
often pronounced by some Indians as Kristo or Kusto. And thus the
traditional legends brought by the Abhlras became engrafted on the story
of Vasudeva Krisna of India.' l That is an opinion that is shared by
many scholars, and certainly there seems to be much to support it. No
one can help being struck by numerous points of resemblance between
the story of the child Krisna and that of the child Christ, though these
are resemblances merely in outward detail and not at all in the spirit and
atmosphere of the stories. The elements that are supposed to show
Christian influence in the legend of Krisna are such as the honour paid
to his mother Devakl, the birth in a stable, the massacre of children by
Kamsa, the representation in Indian pictures of the mother suckling the
child like a Madonna lactans. When one investigates, however, these
incidents, one finds that the hypothesis of indebtedness has to be accepted
with caution and a distinction made between some of the parallels and
others.
We find, for example, that the enmity between the wicked Kamsa and
his nephew Krisna is referred to as familiar in Patahjali's Mahabhasya
(second century B. c), and it is fair to conclude that the legend of the
attempt of Kamsa to kill Krisna in his childhood, as well as that of his
murder of the other children of Vasudeva, as being the cause of that
enmity, was also extant at that period. It has also been claimed that
there is an earlier Indian representation of the suckling mother than any
Christian picture known of the Madonna lactans. The association of
Krisna with his mother Devakl is, of course, as old as the Chandogya
Upanisad. There are other considerations, which a comparison with
similar worships to that of Krisna in other countries suggests, that
strengthen the view that the cowherd god of the Abhlras, even though
worshipped as a child, need owe nothing to Christian story. Their deity,
associated as he was with cattle, was probably originally a deity of the
spring and the renewed life of nature, like Dionysus. It is accordingly
interesting to note that Dionysus seems to have been worshipped as
a child under the title Dionysus Liknites, a name taken 'from the cradle
in which they put children to sleep'. The Maenads are Dionysus's
nurses, and we see them paralleled, perhaps, in the GopTs. Other
similarities in the stories lead us to conclude that some of the aspects
1 Indian Antiquary, Jan. 1912, p. 15. Cf. also his Vaimavism, pp. 3]f.
APPENDIX C 27;,
of the Krisna story that give it a resemblance to the story of the child
Christ, which is purely superficial and disappears on investigation, really
spring from its character as a nature worship deifying the return of
spring after the winter, and embodying in the person of the youthful
Krisna the joy of that resurrection.
At the same time there seems good ground for believing that about the
middle of the seventh century Nestorian missions (which are believed to
have entered India from the north in the year 639) may have brought
stories, of the child Christ as well as pictures and ritual observances
which affected the story of Krisna as related in the Puranas, and the
worship of Krisna especially in relation to the celebration of his birth
festival. To this belongs the birth in a cow-house among cattle, the
'massacre of the innocents', the story that his foster-father Nanda was
travelling at the time to Mathura to pay tax or tribute {kara) to Kamsa,
and other details to be found in the various Puranas and in the Jaimini
Bharata (a work of date earlier than the beginning of the thirteenth
century).
Another legend, in addition to this of the child Krisna, which we have
to examine in our search for possible indebtedness, is that of the travellers
to the Svetadvlpa, as related in Mbh. XII. This is a country 'to the
north of mount Meru and on the shore of the Sea of Milk'. That seems
to point to a land in Central Asia, if the directions mean anything, and
Professor Garbe has persuaded himself that the sea in question is Lake
Balchash, which lies near one of the most important trade routes of
Central India and has a Kirghis name which means 'white ocean'. Of
the inhabitants of this land it is said that they have ' complexions as
white as the rays of the moon and are devoted to Narayana'. 'The
inhabitants of Svetadvlpa believe in and adore only one God', who is
invisible. The highly imaginative character of the description of the
land and the people, as well as some indications in the narrative that it
is not to be taken literally, has convinced some scholars, such as Barth,
Hopkins, and Bhandarkar, that the story is a mere flight of fancy and
that the Svetadvlpa is the heaven of Narayana. If it has any basis at all
in fact, it is most probable that it refers to some Christian settlement to
the north of India.
When we come to consider the possibility of indebtedness to Christianity
in idea and in the ritual that symbolizes idea, we are working in quite
a different medium. The evidence that has been considered above is
concerned entirely with detail of fact. Here the discussion, as has been
said, 'belongs more to the region of feeling than to that of absolute
proof'.1 No one need suppose that the ideas that bhakti connotes are
1 E.R.E., V. 221.
•1' :
276 APPENDIX C
a foreign importation into India. It has been shown that the word in its
religious application is pre-Christian,1 and that is what one would expect,
for the attitude of soul that it implies, however it might have been over-
shadowed in India by Vedantic speculation, is in agreement with human
needs and longings. At the same time the feeling of ' loving faith ' may
well have been deepened and illuminated by Christian teaching when
later that may have begun to influence the religious thought of India.
Whether that was so and how far is a difficult question to answer.
The Bhagavadgltd is the earliest scripture in which Christian influence
is possible, and that only if we date it, at least in one of its revisions,
later than the beginning of the Christian era. Many parallels have been
traced between its language and that of the New Testament, especially
of the Gospel of St. John. A careful examination of these, however,
shows the resemblances to be in many cases purely verbal and unreal,
while others can be paralleled from Upanisads which are certainly pre-
Christian. For example, when it is said (vii. 6), ' The source of the whole
universe and its dissolution am I ', and (x. 39) ' the seed of all born beings
am I ; there is naught that can be in existence, moving or unmoving
without me ', Krisna's relation to the world is really represented as
entirely different from that which is claimed for the Word in the verse
'All things were made by him ; and without him was not anything made
that was made' (John i. 3). 'What is there that one would call other
(than me) ?' asks the creating Atman in the Aitareya Upatiisad. Again,
when Krisna says ' Of creations I am the beginning and the end and
likewise the midst ; ... of letters I am the syllable A ; . . . I am death
that ravishes all and the source of all things to be' (x. 32-4), the likeness
to the words in Revelation, ' I am the first and the last and the living
one . . . and I have the keys of death ... I am the Alpha and the Omega '
(Rev. i. 17, 18, 8) is purely superficial. The difference is realized when
it is remembered that the letter A is inherent in all the letters of the
Sanskrit alphabet. Krisna's identification of himself with everything in
the universe is in full agreement with the claims for Brahman in the
Upanisads, and that among the lists of those things that he is there
should be found some of the names, such as the truth, the light, the way,
which are applied to Christ, and especially to Christ in His aspect as the
eternal Word, is not surprising and cannot be said to prove indebtedness.
The case for influence by Christian teaching on the Gita is stronger in
reference to such a passage as ' Those who are devoted to me in love are
in me and I in them ' (ix. 29), where there certainly seems to be much
more of the spirit of the Christian gospel than can be traced in any
earlier scripture. It is possible, however, to maintain that, as the loving
1 See Garbe, Indien und das Christenthu/11, pp. 251 f.
APPENDIX C 277
faith of bhakti awoke spontaneously in Indian hearts, so the strengthening
and deepening of the relation of love and devotion which such a passage
indicates may have taken place through the working of the divine Spirit
apart from the Christian revelation. The question of indebtedness in the
case of the Bhagavadglta cannot accordingly be answered in one way or
the other with any confidence.
We are treading, as Professor Garbe remarks, on solid ground when
we pass to consider the question of the influence of Christian teaching on
the ideas of later Vaisnavite and Saivite theism. That such influence
was considerable and increasing from about the eighth century onwards
seems highly probable, but to determine its extent and to point out just
where it is present in particular is by no means easy. We shall only
attempt to note a few points in some of the theistic schools where
Christian influence seems to be fairly certain.
It seems highly probable, when we consider the region in which the
revival of bhakti in the time of Ramanuja took place, and its nearness to
the Nestorian Christians of South India, that he had some acquaintance
with Christian truth. In the opinion of Grierson and Garbe his "con-
version ' from the school of Sahkara to the Bhagavata religion was clue
to Christian influence.1 This, however, can only be a conjecture. The
religious exclusiveness, — so different from the easy tolerance that usually
characterizes Indian religion, — which we find in Ramanuja and Madhva
(see pp. 101 f., 1 14 above), may betray the influence of Christian teaching.
Sir R. G. Bhandarkar finds in the doctrine of surrender to the guru ' a
striking resemblance to the Christian doctrine of Christ suffering or, in the
words of our author, going through the processes necessary for redemption,
the believer doing nothing but putting complete faith in his saviour'.2
This view is also held by Dr. Grierson, but we agree with Professor Garbe
that the influence of the guru is thoroughly Indian and ancient, though
it is possible that the relation of the Christian to Christ may have done
something to deepen the conception. Sir R. G. Bhandarkar is probably
on surer ground when he suggests that ' some of the finer points in the
theory of ftrapatti may be traced to the influence of Christianity \?' This
is in agreement with our view that the whole intensification of the spirit
of bhakti, of which the doctrine of prapatti is an instance, may be due to
Christian sentiment making itself felt in the South. Again, it is the view
of Dr. Grierson and of Professor Garbe that the sacramental meal or
mahaprasada, as it is found here, ' shows points of agreement with the
Christian Eucharist which cannot be mere matters of chance '.* Certainly
1 Garbe's Indien mid das Christentkum, p. 273.
2 Bhandarkar's Vaisnavism, p. 57.
3 Bhandarkar, op. cit., p. 57.
4 E.R.E., II. p. 550.
T3
278 APPENDIX C
this appears to be the case in regard to this ceremony as observed among
the Kablr Panthis.1
In the case of Madhva the following points of varying importance have
been indicated as betraying evidence of his having come under Christian
influences: (i) his doctrine of eternal punishment (see p. 113 above)
which may have been suggested by mediaeval Christian teaching in
regard to the future life ; (2) the doctrine of salvation through a mediator,
Vayu, son of Visnu, an idea which is to be found in embryo in the
teaching of Ramanuja (see p. 109 above) ; (3) stories told in Madhva's
life which resemble incidents in the Gospels, such as his visiting temples
when a boy, his spending forty-eight days in fasting and prayer before
beginning to teach, his miraculous feeding of a multitude, and the
description in his life of Madhvas as ' fishing for souls '.2
It is claimed that Christian influences are traceable in all the popular
cults of the Indian mediaeval period, in Ramananda, who had twelve
disciples, and Tulsl Das in the north, in the Maratha poets in the west,
and in Siva bliakti in the south. In regard to the last, that there has
been such influence is the opinion both of Dr. Pope and of Mr. R. W.
Frazer, who are well acquainted with the literature. The latter says,
' Throughout Tamil literature from the eighth to ninth century there are
to be found ideas and sometimes totally unexpected forms of expression
suggestive of some Christian influences on the poetry of the period.' 3
In regard to MarathI poetry there are many passages and phrases that
could be quoted which are closely parallel to Christian thought and
language. In Jhanesvar it is said, for example, that Krisna makes
those devoted to him ' fit for the kingdom of heaven (Vaikuntha) '. That
is a striking phrase which certainly has a decidedly Christian sound.
Again, Namdev has this remarkable passage in one of his poems :
'When a man breaketh with his family and all his friends, then the
Carpenter of his own accord cometh to him.' An examination of this
passage, however, shows that the coincidence in language is probably
accidental. Similar exhortations to be found in Tukaram, as well as
much besides in the whole spirit and language of his Abhahs;s, make it
decidedly probable that he at least had somehow or other come under
the influence, either directly or indirectly, of Christian thought. This is
the view of Mr. J. Nelson Fraser who, in collaboration with Mr. K. B.
Marathe, has translated his poems into English and who has supplied
some passages in support of his contention. Thus Tukaram says,
' Whatever keeps you from God, be it your father or mother, give it up '
1 See Westcott, pp. 127 ff.
2 C. M. Padmanabhachar's Mad/iz'a, p. 266 t.
3 E.K.E., V. p. 2 22.
APPENDIX C 279
(Fraser and Marathe, I. p. 171). ' Blessed in the world are the com-
passionate; their true home is Vaikuntha' (op. cit., I. p. 233). Compare
Matt. v. 7 — ' Blessed are the merciful '. ' Mercy, forgiveness, and peace, —
where these are, there is the dwelling-place of God' (op. cit., I. p. 231).
' To each has been shown a path according to his capacity ; he will learn
to know it as he follows it' (op. cit., I, p. 27). Compare John vii. 17,
'If any man willeth to do his will he shall know of the teaching'.
' I will cast my burden on thee, O Panduranga ' (op. cit., I, p. 29). ' I am
a man of low degree, feeble in brain, miserable in aspect ; other defects
of mine too he knows ; yet Vitthal has accepted me, knowing what my
purpose is ' (op. cit, I. p. 29). These passages, so Christian in sentiment
as well as in language, could be multiplied. Mr. Fraser further draws
attention to the frequent denunciations of pride in Tukaram's writings, as
the cause of spiritual blindness, in close agreement with Christian
teaching. Certainly either Tukaram was actually in contact with
Christian teaching, which is by no means improbable, or he was
a remarkable instance of a mens naturaliter Christiana. Dr. Grierson
has adduced much evidence to show that Christian influences were at
work among the north Indian saints of the fihaktamala, and there is
little reason to doubt that similar influences were present among the
Maratha saints of further south.
APPENDIX D
THE MANBHAO SECT
This sect may be taken as an example of many minor sects, largely
theistic in character, to which it has been impossible to refer. The name
is said to be a corruption of Mahanubhava, i. e. ' high-minded '. Another
title given to members of the sect is Mahatma. They are found in the
Deccan and the Berars, and are said also to have maths or religious
houses in the Punjab and even in Afghanistan. At the census of 1901
they numbered 22,716. They seem to have arisen in the thirteenth
century, when the Bhagavata faith was reviving in the Maratha country,
and when Jrianesvar was writing his MarathI commentary on the
Bhagavadglta. Their founder is said to have been Sri Cakradhar
a Karhada Brahman.
They worship Krisna and Dattatreya, the latter as an incarnation of
the supreme deity. ' They do not worship idols, and have no faith in
the sruti or pur -attic religion of the Hindus. They neither worship other
gods, nor stay, or even drink water, in other temples.' At most of their
temples they have 'quadrangular or circular white-washed terraces which
they worship in the name of God '. Their chief religious scripture is the
Lllacarita, which is written in MarathI. It is said to teach the doctrines
of the Bhagavadglta, which they reverence. They follow Isvarabhakti.
They admit all classes of Hindus, except outcastes, to their sect, and
within it no caste distinctions are recognized. ' A Brahman of the lower
class can become a mahanta (i. e. principal guru) by merit and can
initiate a Brahman.' There are four main divisions, of which two are the
vairagi, or strictly celibate class, and the gharbhdri, who wear the dress
of the order and live in maths, but are allowed to marry. The vairagis
practise celibacy, and the men celibates and women celibates remain
apart from each other, the latter under a female mahanta of their own.
' Women and men never hold a joint service.'
One of their principles is nitya atari, or constant wandering, though
they have maths at certain places. The sannyasVs robe which they wear
is of a dark colour, being dyed with lamp-black. They go from village to
village in companies of from fifty to one hundred persons, maintaining
themselves by begging. They practise ahimsa (non-killing) with much
strictness, not even cutting grass or plucking leaves or fruit, and using
APPENDIX D 281
water for bathing or drinking very sparingly. There are various grades
and divisions of the initiates. Their religious books are kept secret, and
for that reason are written in a secret script. Perhaps because of this
secrecy they seem to have aroused much suspicion, and are severely
criticized by such Marathi poets as Ekanath and Tukaram. They were
apparently persecuted in the time of the Maratha Pesvas, and are
described in a public notification of the time as a thoroughly disreputable
sect. They appear to have been especially disliked by the Vdrkaris,
or worshippers of Vithoba. This may have been due not only to the
secrecy which they practised, but also to their religious exclusiveness, an
attitude unusual in Hinduism, but occasionally found in theistic sects in
India, e. g. among the Madhvas and the followers of Ramanuja. Though
they are Vaisnavas, ' the worshippers at the shrines of Pandharpur,
Gangapur, and Dwarka will not allow them to worship at their shrines.
The sect appears to have been regarded as heterodox.'
There are respects in which the practices of this sect recall practices
within some of the early Christian sects, such as the Manichaeans. It
may be possible on a closer investigation to decide whether Christian
influences have been present here.
Note. — On the subject of the Manbhaus see Monograph No. 131 of
the Ethnographical Survey of Bombay, and a paper by Mr. K. A. Padhye
in the Transactions of the Anthropological Society of Bombay (Vol. x).
APPENDIX E
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The whole subject of the theistic cults in India has been treated in
considerable detail in Sir R. G. Bhandarkar's Vaisnavism, Saivism, and
Minor Religious Systems in the E?uyclopaedia of Indo- Aryan Research
(Strassburg). In his article on the Bhakti-Mdrga in the Encyclopaedia
of Religion and Ethics, Sir G. A. Grierson has also traversed the greater
part of the ground. He has not, however, dealt with Siva Bhakti, for
which see Dravidians {South India) in the same work. Many valuable
articles on the various theistic sects are to be found in this Encyclopaedia.
For the theistic tendencies of the religion during the periods of the
Vedas, the Brahmanas, and the Upanisads, the standard works of
Macdonell ( Vedic Mythology), Bloomfield {Religion of the Veda), Hopkins
{Religions of India), and Barth {Religions of India) should be consulted.
In the two last named much information in reference to later theistic
aspects of Hinduism will also be found. On later phases of Indian
Theism some of the more important books, chiefly those obtainable in
English, are given below.
The Theism of the Bhagavadgita.
R. Garbe's Bhagavadgita (Leipzig) and his Indien und das Christen-
thum. (Tubingen : J. C. B. Mohr.)
Theism within Buddhism.
Poussin's Bouddhisme : Opinions sur VHistoire de la Dogmatique.
(Paris : Beauchesne.)
Senart's Origines bouddhiques. (Paris : Leroux.)
Rdmanuja.
Life of Rdmanuja. By A. Govindacharya. (Madras: Murthy.)
Vedanta Siitras, with Ramanuja's Commentary. S. B. E., vol. xlviii.
Introduction (by Thibaut) to S. B. E., vol. xxxiv.
Bhagavadgita, with Ramanuja's Commentary, translated by A. Govin-
dacharya. (Madras : Vaijayanti Press.)
The Teachings of Vedanta according to Rdmanuja. By V. A.
Sukhtankar. (Wien : Holzhausen.)
Yatindra Mata Dipika, translated by A. Govindacharya. (Madras :
Meykandan Press.)
APPENDIX E 283
Madhva.
The Life and Teachings of Sri Madhvacharyar. By C. M. Padmanabha
Char. (Madras.)
The Bhagavadgita, with Madhvacharya's Commentary, translated by
Subba Rau. (Madras.)
Tuls 1 Das.
The Rdmdyana of Tirisl Das, translated from the Hindi by F. S.
Grovvse. 2 vols. (Allahabad: Government Press.)
For other works see Grierson in Indian Antiquary, vol. xxii, p. 225.
Maratha Saints.
The Poems of Tukaram, translated by Fraser and Mara the. 2 vols,
(vol. iii in the Press). (Madras: Christian Literature Society.)
See also Ranade's Rise of the Maratha Power, chap, viii (Bombay:
Punalekar), and articles in the Indian Interpreter (Madras : Christian
Literature Society) in July, 1914, on Jhanesvar, in April, 1913, on
Namdev, and in April, 191 2, on Tukaram. Also in January, 191 3,
on the Maratha poets.
Caitanya and the Bengali Saints.
Lord Gauranga. By S. K. Ghose. (Calcutta : Patrika Office.)
History of Bengali Language and Literature. By D. C. Sen. (Cal-
cutta : The University.)
Caitanya 's Pilgrimages and Teachings, translated from the Bengali by
Jadunath Sarkar. (Calcutta : Sarkar. London : Luzac.)
Kablr.
Kablr and the Kablr Panth. By G. H. Westcott. (Cawnpore :
Mission Press.)
Kablr' 's Bljak, translated by Prem Chand. (Calcutta : Baptist Mission
Press.)
Nanak and the Sikhs.
The Adi Granth, translated by E. Truinpp. (London : Allen & Co.)
The Sikh Religion : a translation of the Granth with lives of the Gurus.
By M. A. Macauliffe. 6 vols. (Oxford : Clarendon Press.)
Siva Bhakti.
The Tiruvdsagam of Mdnikka Vasagar. By G. U. Pope. Intro-
duction, text, translation. (Oxford : Clarendon Press.)
Der Saiva Siddhdnta. Von H. W. Schomerus. (Leipzig: Hinrichs.j
The Sdkta Sect.
Tantra of the Great Liberation {Mahdnirvdna Tantra). A translation
from the Sanskrit with introduction and commentary. By Arthur
Avalon. (London : Luzac.)
284 APPENDIX E
Hymns to the Goddess. By Arthur and Ellen Avalon. (London :
Luzac.)
Principles of Tantra (Tantratattva). Part I. Edited with an Intro-
duction and Commentary by Arthur Avalon. (London : Luzac.)
Other works on these and other aspects of Indian Theism are referred
to in the text.
On the question of the influence of Christianity on Indian Theism, the
most recent and complete treatment of the subject is Richard Garbe's
Indien und das Christenthum, where references will be found to all the
literature of the subject. An estimate of the significance of the ideas of
Bhakti in comparison with those of Christianity, as well as some account
of the history of Bhakti, will be found in J. L. Johnston's Some
Alternatives to Jesus Christ (London : Longmans, Green & Co.).
INDEX
Abhahg, 122.
Abhinavagupta, 167, 169.
Abstraction, way of, 243, 244.
Acarya, 99, 128, 142.
Acaryabhimana, iiof., 209.
Acyutananda, 184.
Adi Buddha, 184.
Adi Granth, 145, 152, r54, 155.
Adimata, 183.
Adi P raj ha, 184.
Adi Sakti, 184.
Aditi, 21.
Adityas, 14, 32.
Adonis, 37.
Adrista, 224.
Advaita, 75, 102, 127, 162, 163,
164, 167, 168, 213, 215.
Adya Kali, 187, 188.
Agamapramanya, 100.
Agamas, 168.
Agni, 15, 21, 23.
Agnosticism, 23.
Ahirasa, 37.
Ahmedabad, 136, 155.
Ai Panth,_i53.
Aitareya Aranyaka, 48, 51, 55, 202.
Ajlvikas, 63, 65.
Akalls, 136, 154.
Akho, 129.
Alakhglrs, 164.
Alakhnamls, 164.
Alandi, 120.
Allah, 139.
Alvars, 99, 171.
Aiwar, 136, 157.
Amara, 69.
Amar Mul, 141.
Ambika, 182.
Amitabha, 72, 85.
Anandatirtha, 112.
Anavam, 169.
Anava malam, 215.
Aniruddha, no.
Antaryamln, 79.
Anthropomorphism, 16, iS.
Apara muktas, 169.
Apara vidya, 99.
Apurusartha, 105.
Arahat, 74.
Ardhanilrlsvara, 180.
Aristotle, 255.
Arjun, 155.
Arminius, no.
Arunandi, 168.
Asramas, 1 14, 137.
Asuras, 31, 35, 162.
Atharva \Teda, 27 f., 46.
Atman, 55, 50, 149, 163.
Attis, 32.
Augustine, St., 60, 264.
Avalokita, 72, 184.
Avatara, 391"., 71, 73, 90, 92, 95,
I40, I5I, 2COf.
Avici. 74.
Avidya, 100, 211, 244.
Awakening of Faith in the Maha-
yana, 83 it.
Baba Lai, 136, 1561".
Baba Lalls, I56f.
Badarayana, 213.
Balarama, 38.
Bal Gopal, 211.
Bal Krisna, 256.
Balya,*56, 245.
Bani, 155.
Barbaras, 1S1.
Barley ewe, 37, 1 13.
Barnett, L. D., 167, 177.
Basava, 167, 177.
Bergson, 231.
Bhaga, 32.
Bhagavadbhakta, 200, 209.
Bhagavadglta, 45, 86, 93, 97, 107,
112, 121, 128, 148, 158, 162, 176,
188, 239, 243, 244, 254 ; Theism
>,X6
INDEX
of the, Part I, chap, v, 75 ff. ;
its importance in Indian Theism,
75 ; its date and composition,
76 ; two streams united in it,
77 f., 201 ; not systematic, 79,
201; karma in, 81 ff., 202 ff.,
229 f. ; an irenicon, 203 f. ; Rama-
nuja's commentary on, 209.
Bhagavan, 32, 86, 163, 208.
Bhagavata Purana, 127, 158.
Bhagavata Religion, 36, 37, 42,
43 f., 65, 96, 100, 134.
Bhairava, 161.
Bhajan, 137.
Bhakta-kalpadruma, 218.
Bhakta Mala, 137.
Bhakti, 30, 32, 35 f., 40, 43, 57, 70,
71, 73, 81, 82, 94, 106, 107, 1 10,
113, 116, 121, 122, 132, 137, 144,
163, 171, 174, 176, 178, 202, 207,
209, 211, 213, 216, 217 f., 226,
231, 234, 242, 243, 248, 250, 252,
254, 264, 266, 267 ; meaning of
the word, 206 f.
Bhava, 251.
Bhavabhuti, 185.
Bhusundi, 116.
Bhutatathata, 84.
Blja, 189.
Bljak, 138, 140, 141.
Bijjala, 167, 177.
Bindu, 189.
Bodhi, 68, 183.
Bodhisattva, 72, 73 f., 184.
Boehme, Jacob, 195.
Brahma, 87f„ 91 f., 119, 138, 214.
Brahma Mlmamsa, 103.
Brahman, 23, 49 f., 52 ff., 60, 78,
79, 83, 87, 95, 103, 104, 123, 161,
188, 198, 204, 205; union with,
57 ff.
Brahmanas, 25, 194; contrast of
their religion with that of Vedic
Hymns, 25 ; aristocratic and
sacerdotal, 29 ; Theistic ele-
ments in the period of the,
Part I, chap, ii, 25 ff.
Brahma Sakti, 215, 216.
Brahma Sutras, 168.
Bribhan, 136.
Brihadaranyaka Upanisad, 48, 55 f.,
58,59-
Brihaspati, 23.
Brindaban, 134.
Buddha, 32, 39, 67, 69, 7°,7i, 72,
75,85, 87, 98 f., 199.
Buddhamata, 183.
Buddhism, 161, 163, 165, 171, 176,
185, 223, 225 ; Theism within
Buddhism, Part I, chap, iv, 62 ff. ;
a humanism, 67 ; its strongly
ethical character, 68 f. ; not really
atheistic, 70; notesof Theism in,
70 f. ; Mahayana, 71, 77, 182 ff.
Caitanya, 114, 129 ff., 136, 145, 211,
249,25 1, 264. '
Calvinists, 1 10.
Camar, 158.
Camunda, 185.
Candalika, 184.
Candl, 184.
Candidas, I29f., 131, 185 f., 251.
Cangdev, 121.
Caran Das, 136, 157 f.
Caran Dasls, 157.
Caran mitra, 143.
Caste, 243, 263 ; in Jainism and
Buddhism, 63.
Chandogya Upanisad, 51, 55 f.
Christianity as the standard Theism,
221 ; resemblances between
Christianity and Indian Theism,
1 10, 141, 144, 222 f., Appendix C.
Climate and Indian religion, 45,
I92f.
Cokhamela, 125.
Cola dynasty, 165.
Communion, 143, 144, 260 ff.
Confucius, 67.
Contemplation, 196, 205.
Creator, the, and karma, 108.
Criterion of Theism, need of a,
220.
Criticism and Appreciation, Part
111, 220 ff.
Cumont, 18 n., 254.
Dabistan, 137.
Dadu, 136, 155 f.
Dadu Panthls, 136, 155.
Dahara, 157.
Damodar, 38.
Dara. Shukoh, 156.
Dasarath, 139.
Dattatreya, 124.
INDEX
287
Dehra, 154.
Dehu, 122.
Deliverance from re-birth, ways of,
64 ; the chief problem in Indian
religion, 66, 237 f. ; in Buddhism,
73 U 85.
Demeter, 32.
DevakT, 139.
Devi, 1S1, 183, 187, 18S.
Devi KundalinT, 189.
Dharma, 184, 209.
Dhobls, 158.
Dionysus, 32, 37.
Divane Sadh, 155.
Dom Pandits, 183.
Doms, 158.
Dosadh, 158.
Dravidian worship, 165.
Durga, 136, 181, 183.
Dvaita, 75, 102, 112, 210.
Dyavaprithivl, 180.
Eckhart, 1 95 f., 206.
Eka-bhaktih, 209.
Ekanath on bhakti, Appendix B,
2 7of.
Ekantada Ramayya, 177.
Eleusinian initiate, 143.
Emanation, 198, 204, 214.
Emotional religion, 249 ff.
Epicureanism of Vallabhacarya,
211.
Erotic Theism, 247 ff.
Faith and bhakti, 217.
Forgiveness, 239 f.
Freedom as a note of Theism,
235 f-
'Friends of God,' 196.
Ganesa, 200.
Ganpati, 124.
GargI, 67.
Gaurahga^Lord, 132.
Gautama Sakyamuni, 65, 66.
Gaya, 131.
Ghazipur, 136, 158.
Glta Govind, 127, 133.
Gnosticism, 197, 243.
Gods, Vedic, not tully personified,
17: imperfectly moralized, 18 f.
Gokul Candrama, 1 28.
Gorakhpur, 137.
Govind, 37.
Grace, i97f, 199 f., 204, 234 f., 249,
257 ff. ; in Buddhism, 71, 74. 84 ;
in Bhagavadgita, 80 ff. ; in Maha-
bharata, 93; and freewill, 110;
in Madhva's system, 113, 210:
of Siva, i7of., 175, 214 .
Granth, 138. 140, 152.
Granth Sfdhb, 151 f.
Greek and Indian religion, 17, 18,
22, 27 f., 34, 36.
Growse, 128.
Gujara.tr poets, 129.
Guru, 118, 119, 121, 128, 129, 140,
142, i5off, 157, 163, 170, 172,
174, 214, 265.
Guru Angad, 1 54.
Guru Arjun, 152.
Gurudev, 151.
Gurudwara, 154.
Guru Govind Singh, 136, 145, 152,
153-
Guru Granth, 158.
Gurumata, 154.
Guru Ram Das, 155.
Halahala, 175.
Handal, Handalis, 155.
Hari, 132, 151, 157, 210.
Haridas, 136.
Harivamsa, 1 81.
Henotheism, 19 f.
Heracles, 165.
Historical element in Theism, 2 57f.
Hiuen Tsang, 165.
Hovvison, Professor, 248.
Immanence of God, 197.
Incarnation, 141, 197, 204, 222.
Individualism of the karma doc-
trine, 237 ff.
Indra, 15, 21, 91.
Initiation, 143.
Intellectualism in Upanisads, 54 f. :
influence of, 194, 242 ff.
Jagjivan Das, 136.
Jainism, 161, 165 f, 167, 171, 176,
177, 225; Theism within, 62f. :
caste in, 63 ; missionary spirit
of, 63.
James. William, 233, 240.
JapjT, 147, 148.
288
INDEX
Jats, 145, 155.
Jatilas, 64.
Jayadratha Yamala, 183.
Jehovah, 20, 32.
Jewish and Indian religion, nf.,
27.
Jivan muktas, 169.
Jhana, 97, 117.
Jnanesvar, l2of.
Jnanesvari, 121.
JnanI, 208.
Jot Prasad, 143.
Ka'bah, 147.
Kablr, 118, 119, 135 ft", !46, 152,
153, I55> 156, 157, 158; Kablr
and Nanak, Part I, chap, ix,
I35ff.
Kablr Panth, 141, 143, 158.
Kablr Panthls, 128, 136, 142, 143,
144.
Kala, 188.
Kalacuri king, 167.
Kali, 184, 188.
Kalika, 188.
Kali Yuga, 186, 187.
Kalpa, 208.
Kalyanpura, 167, 177.
Kamsa, 38.
Kanai Lai, 134.
Kanara, 167, 177.
Kanu Bhatta, 185.
Karma, 68, 69, 81 ft*., 89, 104, 105,
106, 107 f., 117, 148, 169, 202,
208, 211, 214, 219, 223, 258, 266;
karma doctrine and Theism,
224 f. ; its relation to God, 225 ft.,
232 ; its relation to moral free-
dom, 229 ft". ; individualistic in its
character, 237 ft".
Karma malam, 215.
KasmTr, 1 67, 168, 1 70, 176.
Katha Upanisad, 47, 56, 79, 93,
149, 202.
Kesava Kasmirl, 131.
Khalis, 152.
Khalsa, 152, 153, 154.
Khartarpur, 147.
Kingdom of God, 233 f., 259 f., 263.
Klrtan, 132, 149.
Knowledge, 57, 249.
Kore, 182.
Krisna, 32, 37 ft., 40, 41, 78, 80, 83,
85, 86, 9of., 96, 115, 121, 124,
127, 128, 129, 131, 132, 133, 134,
138, 157, 160, 162, 165, 180, 201,
208, 209, 211, 212, 213, 247, 250,
254, 255, 259, 261, 262; origin
of the cult, 37 f.
Krisnaite sects, 145.
Ksatriyas as religious founders, 36.
Kukas, 154 f.
Kulacara, 187.
Kumarl, 182, 184.
Laksman, 217.
Laksml, 109, 210, 216.
Lang, Andrew, 252.
Law, natural, and Theism, 226.
Legalism of karma doctrine, 230 f. ;
moral and natural, 227.
Lihga, 118, 124, 164, 178.
Lihgayats, 165, 167, 177 ft".
Lodi dynasty, 145.
Logos, 141.
Lokesvara, 184.
Lomas, 116.
Love feast, 144.
Loyalty, bhakti as, 252.
Macauliffe, M. A., 148, 151, 152.
Madhura Rasa, 129.
Madhurya, 132, 134, 180.
Madhva, 1 12 ft"., 131, 210 f.
Madya, 186.
Maghar, 137.
Mahabharata, 29, 36, 37, S2, 96,
108, 163 f., 202, 206, 217, 224;
Theism during the .Mahabharata
period, Part I, chap, vi, 86 ft. ;
period of the, 87 ; Visnu and
Siva in, 88 f. ; its compromises,
95-
Mahadevi, 181.
Maha.ma.ya. 184.
Mahanirvana Tantra, 188.
Mahaprasada, 144.
Mahar, 125.
Maharastra, 124.
Mahat (mahat-tatva), 1S8.
Mahavlra, 39, 63.
Mahayana, 71, 73, 77, 84, i3of.,
182.
Mahesvara, 188.
Mahesvari, 188.
Maithuna, 186, 187.
INDEX
289
Maitreyl, 47, 53, 59, 60.
Makaras, 1S6, 187.
Ma lam, 215.
MalatI Madhava, 185.
Malwa, 136, 156.
Mamsa, 186.
Mana, 143.
Manikka-vasagar, 171 ff . , 178, 251.
256.
Mantra, 89, 1 21.
Mara, 33.
Maratha saints, 120 fT.
Marjara-nyaya, no.
Markata-nyaya, no.
Martineau, 255.
MatangI, 184.
Matarisvan, 21.
Mathura, 127, 128.
Matsya, 1S6.
Mauna, 56.
Maya, 127, 147, 148, 162, 169, 197,
199, 208, 214, 244.
Maya malam, 215.
Maya, mother of Buddha, 71.
Mayavada doctrine, 49 ff., 216.
Mean, teachers of the, in Buddhism,
73-
Mecca, 147.
Mediator, no, 113, 140, 142.
Megasthenes, 165.
Mehtars, 158.
Meykander, 16S.
Minapur, 131.
Minas, 155.
Mlra BaT, 133 f.
Missionary spirit of Jainism, 63.
Mithraism, 222, 254, 255.
Mitra, 21.
Moksa, 113, 123, 169.
Monism, 50.
Monotheism, 20.
Moral ideal in Christian Theism,
238 f.
Motherhood of God, 218.
Motive as the fetter, 230.
Mudra, 186.
Muhammadan influence, 135^, 138,
146, 147 f., 152 f.
Mukti, 113, 179.
Mukunda, 209.
Muladhara, 189.
Mula-prakriti, 188.
Mundaka Upanisad, 56.
Muwahid, 137.
Mysticism, 241, 246, 253, 259; in
Upanisads, 59 ff., 194 ft.
Nabhajl, 137.
Nada, 189.
Nfimdev, 121 f., 124, 146, 152, 218,
264.
• Name and form,' 52, 58.
Name, power of the, 1 1 9 f., 140 f.,
143, I5°> IS7, 216, 265.
Nanak, 124, 136, 144 ff., 156, 157;
Kabir and, Part I, chap, ix,
135 ff.
Narad, 150.
Narada Sutras, 213.
Narayana, 64, 65, 113.
Navadwlpa, 131.
Nemesis, 228.
Neo-platonism, 255.
Nimai, 131.
Nimavats, 127.
Nimbarka, 1 27, 212.
Nirakara, 145, 150.
Niranjanie, 155.
Niratma. Devi, 1S3.
Nirguna, 184, 212, 213, 217.
Nirmalas, 154.
Nirvana, 67, 70, 73.
Niskala, 213.
Nitya samsarin, 113.
Olympians, 180.
Order and government, lack of, in
India, 193.
Orphism, 241.
Osiris, 32, 37.
Oude, 136.
Fahul, 152.
Pahcaratra system, 36, 96.
Pandharpur, 121, 122, 125 f., 137.
Pandits, 142.
Panditya, 56.
Pandyan dynasty, 165, 1 72.
Pantheism, 22, 26, 50, 94, 123, 146,
192, 194, 196; in Rig Veda, 19,
23; polytheistic, 21 ; in Upani-
sads, 59 f. ; in Bhagavadglta, 79.
Pantheistic tendency of Indian
thought, 45.
Para form of God, 109.
Para-brahman, 189.
290
INDEX
Paraklya Rasa, 129.
Parallelisms between Christianity
and Indian Theism, 222, Ap-
pendix D.
Paramatma, 139, 176.
Para muktas, 169.
Para prakriti, 188.
Parasurama, 39.
ParvatI, 182.
Pasa, 168 f., 213.
Passivity of Indian ideal, 246.
Pasu, 168 f., 213.
Pasupati, 168.
Pati, 168, 213, 228.
Paul, St., and Jewish legalism, 231.
Personal ideal in Theism, 251 ff.
Pessimism, 247.
Pillai Lokacarya, 107, no, in.
Pistayajna, 37.
Plotinus, 60, 197, 215, 241.
Poona, 120, 122.
Pope, Dr., 172, 176.
Poussin, 225.
Pradyumna, 1 10.
Prajapati, 23, no, 180, 200.
Prajha, 54 f., 73.
Prakara, 104.
Prakriti, 208, 210.
Prapatti, no, 209.
Prarabdha karma, 107.
Prasada, 93, 206.
Prasthana traya, 102, 112.
Pravritti Marga, 184.
Proclus, 241.
Pulindas, 181.
Purna, 74.
Purvacarya, 102.
Quietism, 246.
Qur'an, 139, 140, 149.
Radha, 121, 127, 129, 131, 132, 133,
157, 180, 211, 212, 251.
Rajasa soul, 210.
Rajputana, 155, 156.
Rama, 39, 92, 115, 116, 117, 118,
119, 121, 124, 127, 138, 140, 157,
174, 212, 213, 217, 219, 247, 254,
255> 259> 26i, 262, 264.
Ramacarit-Manas, 116, 120.
RamainI, 137.
Ramananda, 1 1 4 f . , 135, 136, 146,
152, 155, 166.
Ramanandls, 212.
Ramanuja, 92, 98, 112, 191, 200,
210, 216, 241, 243 ; Theism of
Vedanta Sutras and of R., Part
I, chap, vii, 96 ff".; his influence,
107, 114; his predecessors, 100;
his period, 100 f. ; characteristics
of his Vaisnavism, 101 f. ; the
Supreme Person in his teaching,
105 f. ; the released soul in his
teaching, 105 ; his theology,
207 ff. ; moral warmth of his
doctrine, 109.
Ramayana, 116.
Ramayya, 177.
Ramdas, 124.
Ranade, Mr. Justice, 120, 124, 126,,
138.
Ranjit Singh, 154.
Rauragama, 168.
Ravana, 117.
Righteousness in Christian Theism,
238 f.
Rig Veda, 162, 191 ; Theism of the,
Part I, chap, i, 7 ff. ; how far its
religion is theistic, 8 ; date, 9 ;
obscurity of its environment, 9f.,
23 f.
Rita, 14, 18, 192.
Rudra, 162, 165, 168.
Rudra Sampradaya, 127.
RukminT, 121, 127.
Ruskin, 49.
Sabaras, 18 1.
Sabda, 137, Hoff., 151, 157.
Sabda Marga, 157.
Sabda Sant, 158.
Sach khand, 153.
Sacramental meal, 144, 222, 260 ff.
Sacrifice, 19, 29, 30.
Sadhu, 136, 142.
Sad Vaisnava, 114.
Saguna, 212.
Sahajia cult, I29f., 185.
Saiva Siddhanta, 166 ff., 170, 171,
172, 179, 213 ff., 228, 229, 234 f.
Sakala, 213.
Sakhl, 137.
Saktas, 133.
Sakta Sect, the, Part I, chap, xi,
f 180 ff.
Sakti, 130, 169, 170, 184 ff., 214, 235.
INDEX
291
Sakyamuni, 65, 71, 72.
Samadhi, j^, 84, 122, 126.
Samarpana, 211.
Samsara, 83, no, 113, 205, 210,
211, 223, 224, 225, 229, 236, 238,
242, 265.
Samvega, 69, 223.
Sanaka, 127.
Sanakadi-sampradaya, 1 27.
Sandilya Sutras, 213.
Sandilya Vidya, 47, 56.
Sarikara, 49 f., 54, 79, 92, 98 f., 102,
104, ic8, 113, 162, 16S, 197, 199.
Sankarsana, 1 10.
Sankhya, 94, 187 f., 194, 225; in
Bhagavadglta, 80.
SannyasI, 120, 131.
Sarlrika Mlmamsa, 103.
Satapatha Brahmana, 29, 33, 200.
Satnam, Satnamls, 136, 140.
Sat'sai, 217, 219.
Sattra, 30.
Satvika soul, 210.
Satyakamatva, 105.
Savitri, 19, 21.
Secret names, 19.
Semitic influence, 17, 191.
Shah Jehan, 156.
Shaik Mohammad, 136.
Siddhi-traya, 100.
Sikhs, 136, 145, 152, 154, 155, 156,
157.
Singh, 152.
Sirhind, 156.
Sisya, 145.
Sitala Devi, 183.
Siva, 86 ff., 119, 128, 1 60 ff. , 201,
215, 250, 251, 255, 256, 262, 264;
not Aryan but aboriginal, 161 ;
the deity of agnosticism, 163,
164, 170, 184 ; in the Maha-
bharata, 164; his grace, l7of.,
175, 228.
Siva Bhakti, Part I, chap, x, 160 ff.
Siva-nana-bodham, 168, 172.
Siva Narayan, 136, 158.
Siva-vakyam, 176.
Smriti (mindfulness), 73.
Sraddha, 46, 70, 73, 84.
Sramanas, 64.
Sri, 109.
Sri Bhasya, 101, 102, 209.
Sri Cand, 154.
Srlkantha, 168.
Srl-sanipradaya, 216.
Sri Vaisnava.
Sronaparantakas, 74.
Stotra Ratna, ico.
Stri puja, 186.
Suddhadvaita, 75, 127, 211.
Sufi, 137.
Sukhtankar, Dr., 58, 104, 105.
Sunya Vada, 185.
Surya, 21.
Suso, 254.
Suthre, 155.
Sutrakara, 108.
Sutras, 97 {., 100, 102.
Svabhava, 108.
Svayambhu linga, 189.
Svetaketu, 52.
Svetasvatara Upanisad, 50, 77, 79,
162, ^164, 166, 171, 198.
Svlya. Sakti, 187.
SwamI Narayan, 213.
Tahvandi, 145.
Tarn as, 210.
Tantra, 119, 180.
Tantrism, 70, j^ l3°> J3l> 133>
182 ff.
Tapas, 46, 68.
Taras, 184.
Tathagathas, 183.
Tatwa, 158.
Tauler, 1 59 f.
Telingana, 127.
Tengalai, no, in, 1 28, 209 f.
Teresa, 254.
ThakuranI, 1 Si.
Theism, Indian, indigenous to In-
dia, 1 ; its root in piety, 2, 20.
27 ; obscurity of its history, 2 f. :
and Pantheism, 3,16; and foreign
influences, 4; Theism of the Rig
Veda, Part I, chap, i, 7 ff. ; ele-
ments in a real Theism, 26 :
early failure of, 192 ; Theism of
the Upanisads, Part I, chap, iii,
42 ff. ; Theism within Buddhism,
Part I, chap, iv, 62 ff. ; Theism
within Jainism, 62 f. ; Theism of
the Bhagavadglta, Part I, chap, v,
75 ff. ; Theism during the Maha-
bharata period, Part I, chap, vi,
86 ff; Theism of the Vedanta
392
INDEX
Sutras and of Ramanuja, Part I,
chap, vii, 96 ff. ; Theism and
ethics, 233.
Theistic elements in the period of
the Brahmanas and Upanisads,
Part I, chap, ii, 25 ff.
Theology, the, of Indian Theism,
Part II, 190 ff.
Theriomorphic deities, 200 f.
Thibaut, 57.
Tiruvasagam, 171, 172 ff.
Transmigration, 223.
Tukaram, 120, 121, 122 ff.. 2I7ff,
264.
Tulsl Das, 116 ff., 121, 135, 174,
212, 2i6f., 219.
Tvastri, 23.
Udasls, 1 5 3^f. , 155.
Uddalaka Aruni, 52.
Udyana, 183.
Uma, 185.
Umapati, 168, 170.
Unity, quest for, 195.
Unknovvableness of God, 140, 149.
Upanisads, 75, 77, 78, 79, 80, 86,
93, 97, 102, 103, 149, 162, 170,
191, 194 ff-, 248; Theism of the,
Part I, chap, iii, 42 ff. ; not neces-
sarily anti-Brahmanical, 43 ;
order of, 48 ; mystical character
of, 196.
Uttara Mlmamsa, 97.
Vacana Bhusana, ill.
Vadagalai, no, 209 f.
Vaisnavite cults, later, Part I,
chap, viii, 112 ff.
Vajra, 1 83.
Vajrapani, 184.
Vajrasattva, 183.
Vajrayana, 130, 183.
Vallabhacarya, 127 f., 211.
Vallabhas, 145.
Vamacarl Buddhists, 185.
Varnas, 114.
Varuna, ioff., 17, 18, 21, 24, 75,
91, 102, 169, 192 ; and Ahura
Mazda, 11, 18; Hebraic flavour
in, 1 if.; his ethical character,
14; decline of his worship, 15.
Vasudeva, 36, 38, 39, 79, 80, 195,
205 f.
Vasugupta, 167.
Vasuli, 181.
Vayu, 113, 210.
Vedanta, 42, 48, 153, 175, 179, 1 84.
Vedanta Desika, no, 209.
Vedanta Sutras, 101, 207; and
Ramanuja, Theism of, Part I,
chap, vii, 96 ff.
Vegetation deities, 32, 38.
Vibhavas, 200.
Vidya, 106, 205.
Vidyapati, 131.
Vlra Saivite, 177 f.
Vlrya, 73.
Visistadvaita, 75, 102, 104, 213.
Visriu, 21, 72, 86 ff., 114, 115, 117,
121, 131, 160, 162, 164, 174, 201,
255 ; in the Brahmanas, 30 ff.,
32, 39, 40 ; as a sun-god, 33 ; as
a deliverer, 34 f.
Visnuite elements in Buddhism, 65.
VisnusvamT, 127.
Visvambhara Misra, 131.
Vithoba, 20, 121, 124, 125.
Vitthal, 121, 218.
Vivekananda, 1 14.
Vrindavana, 257.
Vyuha, 109, 200, 204.
Yajhavalkya, 47, 48, 53> 58> 60, 67,
72.
Yajur Veda, 180.
Yama, 21.
Yamunacarya, 100.
Yati, 64.
Yoga, 89, 94 f., 121, 187, 204.
Yoga Maya, 206.
Yogesvara, 204.
Yogi, 46, 64.
Zarathustra, 39.
Zeus, 228.
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Indian theism
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