The crown of Hinduism

M

=

THE

CROWN OF HINDUISM

BY

J. N. FARQUHAR, M.A.

LITERARY SECRETARY, NATIONAL COUNCIL OF YOUNG MEN'S
CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS, INDIA AND CEYLON

HUMPHREY MILFORD

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

LONDON EDINBURGH GLASGOW NEW YORK

TORONTO MELBOURNE AND BOMBAY

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

A PRIMER OF HINDUISM

Second Edition, revised and enlarged. Crown 8vo.
Illustrated, as. 6d. net.

121348

MAR 2 7 1986

PREFACE

THIS book is an attempt to discover and state as
clearly as possible what relation subsists between
Hinduism and Christianity. It is not meant to be an
exhaustive account of Hinduism, though it deals with
most of its prominent features. There are other
aspects of the religion which might have been in
cluded. Among these the chief is sacrifice and the
priest, a subject not less interesting and fruitful than
those dealt with in the volume. The reason for its
omission is this, that there are large parts of the
subject which have not been investigated by scholars,
and it was impossible for me to undertake that serious
piece of exploration myself. Yet, despite this and
other omissions, the book probably contains sufficient
material to enable readers to decide whether its main
thesis is justifiable.

The book was begun in the hope that all that had
to be said could be built on foundations already laid
by the great scholars ; but that proved impossible,
and it became necessary for me to undertake several

4 PREFACE

pieces of original investigation myself. It was not
my wish to do so ; but it was inevitable. The truth
is that a large number of scholarly studies of very
high quality have been conducted within the realm of
Hinduism during the last century, but comparatively
few of them have viewed Hinduism as a practical
religion ; and it has been necessary, for the sake of
the subject, to regard the religion from that point of
view throughout this volume.

The foot-notes indicate with some degree of accuracy
my indebtedness to books, but there is no way in
which I can show how much I owe to scores of
friends, Hindu, Brahma, and Christian, in every part
of India, who have given me unlimited help both in
conversation and by correspondence. To all such
friends I wish to express here my most sincere
gratitude. I owe very special thanks to the Rev. C. F.
Andrews of Delhi, who read the whole work in manu
script with extreme care and made many suggestions
of great value. I am also indebted to the Rev. D.
Emlyn Evans of Mirzapore, who has done me the
great kindness of reading the proofs.

OXFORD,

Jufy, *9*3-

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

PAGE
I. The new era of world-wide communication and its results on

religion .......... 1 1

II. The question of the relative value of religions ... 14

A. Little dealt with in the Science of Religion . . 14

B. The problem has become urgent for Christianity . I 5

III. Christianity and other religions from the Christian stand

point 26

IV. The relation of Christianity to Hinduism as viewed in this

volume 33

CHAPTER I
THE INDO-ARYAN FAITH

I. The religion of the undivided Aryans 66

II. The religion of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Aryan stock . 66

III. The religion of the Indo- Aryans as seen in the Rigveda . 68

IV. The religion of the Rigveda in relation to the Arya Samaj and

to Christianity ......... 75

CHAPTER II

THE HINDU FAMILY

I. The patriarchal family 78

II. The patriarchal family of the Hindus 82

III. The modern movement for the reform of the Hindu family . 104

IV. The new principles required for the family are supplied by

Christ 116

V. Christ's principles form the natural crown of the Hindu

family . . . . . . . . . . .131

6 CONTENTS

CHAPTER III
THE ETERNAL MORAL ORDER

PAGE

I. Rise of the doctrine of karma and rebirth . . . .134
II. Influence of the doctrine on the beliefs and practices of

Hinduism 138

III. Decay of the doctrine under Western influence . . . 148

CHAPTER IV
THE DIVINE SOCIAL ORDER

I. Early society . . . . . . . . . 153

II. Various forms of social advance ...... 155

III. Rise of the Hindu social order 157

IV. Outline of the caste system 163

V. Good results of the system ....... 167

VI. Modern anti-caste movements ...... 168

VII. The religious basis of caste has faded out of the minds of

educated men . . . . . . . . 17?

VIII. Parallel movements in other lands ...... 187

IX. Christ supplies the religious basis necessary for modern

society. . . . . . . . . . .191

X. Hindu social ideals find completion in Christ. . . . 203

CHAPTER V

THE ESSENTIALS OF HINDUISM

I. Outline of the system 211

II. Leading characteristics of the system 214

III. The obligatory elements of the system ..... 216

CHAPTER VI
THE SUMMIT OF INDIAN THOUGHT

I. Rise of the Vedanta philosophy 219

II. Its noble qualities ......... 225

III. Significance of the doctrine that the Atman is actionless . 228.

IV. Relation of the philosophy to the popular religion . . . 232
V. Rise of the other schools 235

VI. Later history of the Vedanta 241

VII. Sankaracharya ......... 243

CONTENTS 7

CHAPTER VII
THE YELLOW ROBE

PAGE

I. Austerities in the Rigvedic age 247

II. Early asceticism : the Hermits 249

III. World-renunciation: the Monks 253

IV. Modern asceticism ......... 264

V. Etherealization ascribed to ascetics ...... 268

VI. Miraculous powers ascribed to ascetics ..... 270

VII. Hindu ascetics are inactive, while the modern man demands

active service . . . . . . • • .272

VIII. Christ stirs men to service ....... 276

IX. Christ's method of creating servants of humanity completes

the Hindu ascetic discipline 281

CHAPTER VIII
THE WORK OF MEN'S HANDS

I. Hindu gods in early literature ..... / . 297

II. Genesis of image-worship ....... 300

III. Sketch of the history of Hindu images ..... 303

IV. Hindu images parallel to those of other lands . . . 305

V. The cult of Hindu temples 312

VI. Hindu beliefs about the images of the gods .... 317

VII. The history behind Hindu idolatry 327

VIII. Hindu idolatry criticized by Hindus 332

IX. Hindu idolatry defended by Hindus . . 334

X. The religious needs which inspire Hindu idolatry . . . 339
XI. Christ, the image of God, satisfies these aspirations and needs

in spiritual ways ......... 343

CHAPTER IX
THE GREAT SECTS

I. Early history of the Vishnuite and Sivaite sects and Buddhism 351
II. The theology of the Vedanta introduced into the sects and

into Buddhism ......... 364

III. Later history of the sects 377

IV. Influence of the doctrine of Incarnation ..... 388
V. Results of the introduction of the theology of the Vedfmla

into the sects 390

VI. Master-forces in the development of the theology of the sects 392

8 CONTENTS

CHAPTER X
GOD WITH Us

PAGE
I. The Christian conception of God ...... 408

II. The Christian doctrine of man ...... 419

III. The mythical incarnations of Hinduism and the historical

Christ 421

IV. Christ fulfils the Indian ideal of the incarnate One . . 429

CHAPTER XI
THE RELIGIOUS ORGANISM

I. The difference between a religion and a philosophic theory . 445

II. The Hindu religious organism and its superstitious practices 446

III. The Hindu system in relation to the philosophies . . .452

IV. Neo-Hindus and the system 454

V. Christ the Crown of Hinduism 457

INDEX 459

ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE NOTES

A.

Andrews

Apastamba

Akvalayana

B.

Baudhayana

B) ah/nanism and Hinduism

Deussen
Divine Wisdom

E. R. E.
Gautama
Glover

Great Epic
Griffith

Growse

Heart of India
Holy Lives

lyengar's Outlines

J, K. M.
I. S. R.
J. R. A. S.
Kaegi

Macdonell
Madhva

Manu

Modern Jainism

Aranyaka.

Andrews, The Renaissance in India,
Apastamba Dharmasfitra.
Asvalayana Grihyasutra.
Brahmana.

Baudhayana Dharmasutra.
Monier- Williams, Brahmanism and Hindu
ism.

Deussen, The Philosophy of the Upanishads.
Govindficharya, Divine Wisdom of the

Drdvida Saints.

Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics.
Gautama Dharmasutra.
Glover, The Conflict of Religions in the

Early Roman Empire.
Hopkins, The Great Epic of India.
Griffith, The Ramayana of Vdlmlki in

English Verse.

Growse, The Ramayana of Tulsi Das.
Barnett, The Heart of India.
Govindficharya, The Holy Lives of the

Ashvars.
Brinivasa lyengar, Outlines of Indian

Philosophy.

International Review of Missions.
Indian Social Reformer.
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.
The Rigveda by Adolf Kaegi.
Macdonell, Sanskrit Literature.
Padmanabha Char, The Life and Teaching

of Sri Madhvacharyar.
Manava Dharmasastra. Biihler, S. B. E.,

XXV.

Mrs. Sinclair Stevenson, Notes on Modern
Jainism.

io ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE NOTES

Oman Oman, The Mystics, Ascetics, and Saints of

India.

Pdraskara Pdraskara Grihyasiitra.

Phillips Phillips, The Outcastes" Hope.

Pope Pope, The Tiruva^agani.

Rdmakrishna Max Miiller, Rdmakrishna, His Life and

Sayings.

Rdmdnuja Govindacharya, Life of Rdmdnuja.

Ranade Ranade, Rise of the Maratha Power.

Ranade, Essays Ranade, Religious and Social Reform, A

Collection of Essays and Speeches.

Religious Sects M urdoch, The Religious Sects of the Hindus.

Sai-va Siddhdnta Nallasvami Piljai, Studies in Saiva Sid-

dhdnta.

S. B. E. Sacred Books of the East.

Siva Bhakti Murdoch, Siva Bhakti.

Six Systems Max Miiller, Six Systems of Hindu Philo

sophy.
Sri Sahkarachdrya Sri Sahkardchdrya, His Life and Times,

by Krishnasamy Aiyar and Sitanath

Tattvabhushan.
Suzuki Suzuki, Asvaghoshc? s Awakening of Faith

in the Mahdydna.

T. Tantra.

Trevelyan Trevelyan, Hindii Family Law.

U. Upanishad.

Vasishtha Dharmasiltra of Vasishtha.

Vivekananda Speeches and Writings of Swdml Vivek-

dnanda.

Warren Warren, Buddhism in Translations.

Westcott \Vestcott, Kabir and the Kabir Panth.

INTRODUCTION

I. WE have entered upon a new era. All parts of the
world have at last been brought into communication with one
another. We read news of every land at our breakfast tables.
The nations have become one city: we buy each other's
goods ; we read each other's books ; we think each other's
thoughts. The unity of the human race has become effective
for the first time in human history. From now it will be
possible to talk of full human intercourse : in the past all has
been but racial and partial. Only now do we begin to hear
the music of humanity.

This new condition of things has been brought about partly
by extended exploration, still more by the progressive improve
ment of our means of communication, but, most of all, through
the extension of good government over large parts of the
earth's area and the effective policing of the waters of the
ocean. Without peace on land and sea, our knowledge of
the earth's surface and our means of communication would
be comparatively valueless. Peace on earth brings goodwill
amongst men.

Every one can already see large results arising from this
world-wide intercourse. All the civilized peoples are learning
from each other. There is a rapid process of assimilation
going on, in industry, business methods, education, science,
art, literature, morals, and religion, in part most peacefully,
but here and there with a good deal of strife and friction.

What the final outcome will be, no man can yet say ; but
one does not risk much in prophesying that the results are
certain to be very great, since the rate of human progress is
likely to be indefinitely accelerated under the new conditions.

12 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

The evolution of our human life has entered upon a new
stage, and incalculable benefits are likely to arise. Only now
have human knowledge and skill a chance of doing their best.
Only now have the greatest forces an opportunity to act.
Much of our past history may be put down under the head of
the removal of hindrances to progress. From now onwards
a man's work, when it is really valuable, will tell all over the
world ; while in past ages the best work has often been
restricted in its influences for a long time to a small group of
peoples or to a single nation. We are very rapidly approaching
the moment when every piece of new knowledge will be
absorbed by every nation as soon as it is acquired, and when
the experience of any one nation, whether in industry, in art,
in morality, or in religion, will be at once appreciated, caught
up, and used the world over.

Here we restrict ourselves to the results produced on
religion by the arrival of the new period. All the religions
of the world that are of any importance have already been
brought into effective contact the one with the other, and, in
consequence, have begun to display to the utmost the
treasures they severally possess. Each is driven by the
instinct of self-preservation to seek to win other men to its
fold.

Another most important fact in the situation is the rise of
the Science of Religion. The scientific consciousness which
recognizes the unity of the religious life of man, the evolution
hypothesis through which the most varied and seemingly
most contradictory phenomena are ranged in intelligible order
within the bounds of that unity, and the eager passion to
know how the early tribes of men thought about God and
sought to approach Him, provided the intellectual conditions
required ; while the necessary material, viz. information about
the religions of the world, became available through the
unveiling of the ancient languages of India, Persia, Babylonia,
Assyria, and Egypt, and through the opening of communica
tions with all the inhabited lands. Our knowledge is still far

INTRODUCTION 13

from complete ; and there are many lines of reflection which
have as yet been scarcely thought of; yet the science has
reached great proportions, and the results already attained are
of inestimable value for thought.

The first outcome of this great accumulation of fresh religious
material has been a feeling of deep surprise at the riches of
the heritage of some of the great religions, especially in
philosophy and in art. Hence an immense interest has been
created in them, not only among students of religion as such,
but among the cultured public in general. The growth of this
interest these last ten years has been very remarkable. It is
reflected in the publication of a large number of popular books
on various aspects of Eastern religions. This deepened
interest has given birth to a new feeling of brotherliness in
religion, a sympathy with men of other faiths, which is most
precious and fraught with future good. There is a keen desire
for interchange of thought, for increased knowledge, for
scientific consideration, and as keen a distaste for controversy.
There is a deepened consciousness of the sacredness and
intimacy of religion. Certain common elements in the chief
religions have been welcomed with enthusiasm. The mere
realization that such things exist has produced much sympathy.
There is an inclination to regard the great religions as a group
of noble peers, worthy of the utmost mutual respect, and
a hope that it may be possible for sincere religious men of
every race and faith to unite and work together.

Yet it must be confessed that, apart from those who have
set themselves to the laborious study of the religions of the
world, the new movement is still marked by curiosity rather
than by knowledge, and that it is romantic and dilettante
rather than scientific or religious. Those who are carried
along by the new current and are most ready to talk
enthusiastically about religious philosophy, literature, and art
are often the very people who arc most impatient of the real
heart of all true religion. Men and women who have lost
hold of their own religion, and miss the warm glow of faith in

i4 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

their lives, are caught by a fancy for some curious or attrac
tive element in another faith ; and, without waiting to con
sider what its practical worth may be, snatch at it and sing
its praise. There is thus a good deal that is foolish and
unreal in the movement.

Yet these things are on the surface. The new attitude is
a prophecy of much better things to come. As knowledge
increases and study becomes deeper, many of those who are
now triflers will come to realize the dominant place which
religion holds in national life, its primacy as the creative power
in morality, society, and the family, and the vast results
which the centuries work out in the life of a people from
a single religious principle. They will begin to see what
serious religion is in the life of an individual, and the incal
culable value of the truly religious man to his people.

II. The progress of the Science of Religion has brought
great gains to several departments of scientific inquiry,
especially to theology. Among the more notable services
rendered by the science are its proof that every race of man is
religious, its convincing demonstration that religion is one of
the practical activities of man as man, and that it has a great
deal to do with the building of human society, the creation
of institutions, and the laying of the foundations of morality.
It has transformed all studies of individual religions by
showing the importance of worship and explaining the purpose
of ritual. It has made the function of belief and the position
of literature in religion far clearer than before. It has shown
us how frequently parallel beliefs and practices have been
developed in different nations quite independently, and has
thus made us chary of declaring that there has been borrowing,
unless there be unmistakable evidence. The anthropological
side of the study has thrown a flood of light on the earlier
forms of religion, making much comprehensible which was
obscure before, and has enabled us to detect many a survival
from early times in the religions of civilized peoples.

A. But there is one aspect of the religious problem which has

INTRODUCTION 15

been scarcely touched by the science as yet, namely, the rela
tive value of the different religions. Only when we have
a calculus for determining the practical value of each religion
shall we be able to set them in their true relationship to one
another. To the present writer at least it seems that students
of the science have as yet scarcely thought of this as one of
its tasks. There are, it is true, many observations scattered up
and down the books which have a bearing on this question.
The very classification of religions as tribal, national, and
universal, as natural or ethical, as ritualistic or spiritual, and
the recognition that the low religions appear to be in many
respects a parody of the higher faiths — these all suggest
practical judgements. Here and there, also, a writer strikes
a clear note, definitely declaring one religion to be of far
greater value than others, or pointing out the practical
difference between two faiths ; yet even he usually writes in
such a way as to show that he regards this part of the subject
as outside the legitimate work of the science and belonging to
the domain of personal opinion. No author is at his ease in
giving expression to his convictions : the Christian expresses
himself either dogmatically or tentatively, while the anti-
Christian is apt to assume a defiant tone. There is seldom
the quiet, assured attitude of science ; and one meets no
attempt to treat the subject in large, orderly, sober fashion.

Yet, after all, is not this the one living issue involved in the
study of the science ? How does the science impinge on life,
if it has no answer to the practical question ?

B. Meantime the need of a clear statement of the practical
relationship of Christianity to the other great religions has
become urgent.

i. The need is seriously felt from the inside.

(a) The coming of the Science of Religion and the universal
interest in non-Christian systems have made it most necessary,
for both the clergy and the people, that the real relationship
of Christianity to other religions should be thought out and
clearly expressed. The altered courses of most Theological

16 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

Colleges prove that attempts are already being made to meet
this need in the education of preachers ; but for the man in
the pew comparatively little has yet been done.

(b] The missionary movement is steadily growing in strength,
influence, and self-consciousness. Its large importance is now
clearly perceived and frankly acknowledged by Governments
and by scientific men.1 The work is everywhere making pro
gress. The latest census results in India are in complete accord
with the growth of the Church elsewhere. Christians conse
quently want to understand more clearly the aim and the work
of the movement. The World Missionary Conference held in
Edinburgh in 1910 is the most prominent expression of this
desire. But, meanwhile, a method of considerable significance
and promise has arisen within the churches. Courses of
Mission Study, which deal in scientific fashion with non-
Christian religions and with the aims and activities of Missions,
are written annually, and are studied by groups of young
people in Mission Study Circles.

(c] Missionaries feel far more keenly than ever before the
need of stating clearly how their work and their faith stand
related to the systems they are face to face with ; and they
are in great perplexity as to how to put things. In many
fields there is a divergence of opinion as to the attitude which
the Christian ought to adopt to the non-Christian religions.
In India there is a party, small or large, who distinctly dis
approve of the attitude adopted towards Hinduism by the
Commission of the Edinburgh Conference which dealt with
the Missionary Message. See Dr. Cairns's masterly summary
in the fourth volume of the Report of the Conference.

(d] For the sake of the young churches now growing up in
the various Mission fields a sane estimate of the old religions
in relation to Christianity is most necessary. The churches
will inevitably be influenced by the faiths which form part
of their environment. It is therefore of extreme importance
that the leaders should understand the forces which are round

1 7. R. M., July, 1912, pp. 526-528.

INTRODUCTION 17

about them, in order that they may set themselves to resist
the evil and may be ready to welcome all that is good.

2. On the other hand, Christians are compelled to seek an
understanding of the relation of their religion to other faiths in
order to meet objections from the outside. The world-changes
to which we have made reference have necessarily led to great
changes in religious thought and belief. It was inevitable
that Christianity should be deeply affected. Each of its
fundamental ideas has reference to all men. Whoever holds
the religion with conviction and intelligence necessarily looks
forward to its becoming the cherished possession of every
human being. Missionary work is the most vital activity of the
faith. The Church must expand, or perish of unbelief. Hence
new thought about the religious life of the world necessarily
reacts with immeasurable force upon Christianity. Every
universal principle stands in similar hazard. The new period
has thus quite naturally brought with it new forms of opposi
tion and criticism.

There is a far deeper cleavage of opinion upon the missionary
question in Europe and America than there was twenty years
ago. While the central party in each church which supports
Missions is more convinced and more active than ever ; and
more money and men are available than at any earlier period ;
the dull, dead indifference of former years has now formed
a conscious centre and expresses itself in demands for the
restriction of missionary effort. Formerly one frequently
heard the work of Missions depreciated, jeered at, and the
results put dcwn at nil. That is in the main a thing of the
past. Only where extreme ignorance prevails is such an
attitude possible. But there are now many who frankly say
that Missions are unnecessary, and some who demand that
there shall be no more attempts to win converts, at least from
the great religions. The opposition of educated non-Christians
to Missions has probably become accentuated in recent years.
It certainly has become much more articulate, and much more
definite in its condemnation of missionaries. There is a loud

18 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

demand, at least in certain countries, that Missions should
desist from making converts.

Now this attitude to Christianity, whether at home or on
the Mission field, clearly implies a certain estimate of the
position of Christianity with reference to other religions.
When a man says that it is wrong to seek to persuade
a Hindu, a Buddhist, or a Muhammadan to become a Christian,
he must have some idea in his mind which limits the rights of
the Christian faith in relation to those religions.

From this point of view, then, it is of the utmost consequence
that Christians should realize and state frankly the relation
of their religion to others. If we cannot justify Missions to
the minds of thinking men, we must confess defeat ; and it is
clear we cannot justify them in present circumstances without
a clear exposition of the relation of Christianity to the
religions of the world.

But, in order that our exposition may keep in close touch
with facts, it will be well to realize first of all what the
theories are which are put forward as reasons why the Christian
Church should not seek to make converts. We begin with
two which arc so manifestly unsatisfactory as to be scarcely
worthy of consideration ; yet, since they influence public
opinion, it will be well to take a look at them.

(a) There are, first of all, those who urge that the differences
between religions are superficial and of no consequence, that,
when you look down into the depths of reality, you find that
all men really believe the same things. This would reduce all
religions to a dead level, and would make the attempt to
think out the relationship between any pair of faiths altogether
useless. There are comparatively few people who would
subscribe to this bald statement ; yet it is sometimes urged.
In one of her recent books Mrs. Besant states first the funda
mental principles of Theosophy, and then proceeds :

Its secondary teachings are those which are the common teachings
of all religions, living or dead : the Unity of God; the triplicity of His
nature ; the descent of Spirit into matter, and hence the hierarchies

INTRODUCTION 19

of intelligences, whereof humanity is one ; the growth of humanity by
the unfoldment of consciousness and the evolution of bodies, i.e.
reincarnation ; the progress of this growth under inviolable law, the
law of causality, i.e. karma ; the environment to this growth, the three
worlds, physical, astral, and mental, or earth, the intermediate world,
and heaven; the existence of divine Teachers, superhuman men.1

Here we are told that all religions, living or dead, teach this
long list of doctrines. What do anthropologists think of the
claim that savage religions contain this great catalogue of
ideas ? What do Christians think of the assertion that
Christianity teaches reincarnation ? What do Muhammadans
think of the assertion that Islam teaches that God's nature
is triple ? Clearly thinking men can only express their utter
amazement that such baseless statements could ever be
seriously made.

(b) The second group are both more reasonable and more
numerous. They are quite ready to admit that religions
differ very deeply in their doctrines, and also in their modes
of worship, but they argue that, since religion is a practical
thing, these differences do not matter. Even in the lowest
religions each man knows that he ought to do his duty both
by God and man. All religions seek the same God, con
sciously or unconsciously. Hence it is quite unnecessary to
change any one's religion. Frequently the thought is added
that each man's religion is the best thing for him. This
idea was expressed by a Hindu ascetic named Ramakrishna
Paramaharhsa :

Every man should follow his own religion. A Christian should
follow Christianity, a Mohammedan should follow Mohammedanism,
and so on. For the Hindus the ancient path, the path of the Aryan
Rishis, is the best.2

Clearly this statement has only to be looked at to be rejected.

1 The Riddle of Life, pp. 1-2.

2 Ramakrishna, 177. It is most interesting to realize that this was the
attitude of Celsus, the second-century opponent of Christianity. ' Over
and over Celsus maintains the duty of "living by the ancestral usages ",
" each people worshipping its own traditional deities." '—Glover, 254.

B 2

20 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

Such a line of argument would justify the foulest religions on
earth, systems which inculcate cannibalism, human sacrifice,
promiscuity, incest, and every other abomination and cruelty.

(c) But serious people do not seriously believe that all
religions are the same, or that it is wrong to try to make
a cannibal a Christian. The truth is that these two statements
are merely blundering attempts to put into universal form the
instinctive feeling, present nowadays in thousands of minds,
that the great religions of the world, Muhammadanism,
Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Zoroastrianism,
are so noble, and produce such good results, that it is a shame
to attack them and disturb those who profess them.

This is the foundation on which Theosophy has built itself.
The theory is that all the great religions are reconciled in its
ample bosom, that there is no longer any need for controversy
or for propaganda, but that each faith may live its own life
in love and harmony with its neighbours. Many people all
over the world have been greatly attracted by this statement,
and also by the summons of the Theosophical Society to join
in forming a brotherhood of men. The teaching of the
Society has been welcomed by many who were without
definite religious belief of their own ; and in India, Burma,
and Ceylon multitudes have acclaimed it as the means that
is destined to re-establish the ancient religions.

But, though the programme of love and unity is a most
attractive one, and though the summons to brotherhood and
human service is something which every Christian must
rejoice to hear, yet Theosophy itself is no safe refuge for the
present distress. So far from providing a means of recon
ciling the great religions, Theosophy creates another religious
system. It is simply a new doctrine with a crude mytho
logy. Mrs. Besant, who is President of the Theosophical
Society, in her Theosophy* in Jack's series, ' The People's
Books,' puts forward as the central doctrine of the system
the statement,

1 P- 14-

INTRODUCTION 21

that the community of religious teachings, ethics, stories, symbols,
ceremonies, and even the traces of these among savages, arose from
the derivation of all religions from a common centre, from a Brother
hood of Divine Men, which sent out one of its members into the world
from time to time to found a new religion, containing the same essential
verities as its predecessors, but varying in form with the needs of the
time, and with the capacities of the people to whom the Messenger
was sent.

Christianity teaches that the Father sent the Son to be the
Saviour of the world ; Muhammadanism teaches that Allah
sent Muhammad as the final Prophet; Hinduism has its
avataras, but they are no brotherhood of men, but are each
an incarnation of the supreme Vishnu ; while Mahayana
Buddhism also has its incarnations, but they come from the
Supreme likewise. It is quite easy to say that Christ,
Muhammad, Krishna, Gautama, and the rest are all members
of the brotherhood, and that that reconciles the religions.
The reconciliation is effected by cutting the heart out of each,
and substituting this new mythology. The truth is that, so
far as their central theological ideas are concerned, Hinduism,
Buddhism, Judaism, Muhammadanism, and Christianity stand
much nearer to each other than they do to this new dogma.
Certainly no sincere Christian, Jew, or Muhammadan can
accept a system which detaches religion from God. It
stands nearer Hinduism than any other faith ; yet many
Hindus already protest loudly against the identification of
their religion with the system ; and as time goes on its true
nature will become clear to many who now trust in it. The
great success of the propaganda in India is almost exclusively
due to its defence of caste and idols. What sort of ' recon
ciliation ', then, docs it offer to Christians and Muhammadans ?
(d] But the vast majority of those who have come under
the sway of the new thought are not at all inclined to adopt
the fanciful theories of Theosophy. They have no reasoned
statement of their position ready to give to the inquirer, yet
both their feelings and their convictions on the question are
deep and serious. They fall into two distinct groups.

22 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

i. The first group consists of people in Christian lands,
many of them genuinely Christian people, others men and
women whose faith has been partly shaken, but all impressed
with the importance of the faiths of the East and the obliga
tion lying upon us to treat them honourably. They show
an immense interest in these religions. They are hungering
for information, eager to listen to a competent teacher, some
times ready to struggle through hard books. Even if they
know but little, they are keen and enthusiastic. They are all
inclined to say : These great religions are all so good, they
contain so much that is noble, and they train so many good
men, that it seems a shame to disturb them in any way.
Ought we not rather to be thankful for them and to seek to
learn from them ? — These ideas have come to them from
a variety of sources.

European administrators, judges, army officers, educa
tionalists, and business men come into close personal contact
with educated Hindus, Buddhists, and Muhammadans, and
find a large number of them men of high moral character,
of keen intellect, and of real religious feeling. They frequently
appear to be as good men as Christians of the same condition
of life are. It is perfectly clear that they get a great deal ot
help from their religions. They have large joy and deep
confidence in them. The question therefore naturally arises,
Why should they be teased into becoming Christians ?

A few Europeans also come into contact with the quiet
population of the villages of Eastern lands and learn to
admire their industry, patience, endurance, and chanty.
These people live a quiet settled life. They are happy in
their own way, and there are many beautiful points in their
intercourse with one another and in their religion. Quaint
touches of spirituality and religious insight flash out in their
conversation now and then.1 Their ideas and their practice

1 Two Hindu women fell out in the street. One became very violent.
The other turned to her and said solemnly, ' Hush, you will hurt the
Brahman in you.' For the Brahman see Chap. VI.

INTRODUCTION 23

seem to fit very well into their circumstances. On the whole
they do very well with their religions. Why should they
be disturbed ? On the other hand, some of those who have
become Christians in those lands seem to have lost their good
old manners and to have become a travesty of European
civilization. Is it worth while doing so much to produce this
result ?

The practical man is usually quite satisfied with Asiatic
lands as they are. These people make good material for
governing, and for drilling as soldiers. Business amongst
them pays the business man. Things on the whole go very
well. From this point of view there does not seem to be any
need for a great change. Hence many an Indian civilian,
doctor, army officer, and business man tells his friends when
he is on furlough that he knows the people of India and he
sees no reason why they should become Christians at all.

The revival of Hinduism and the swift rise of the National
Movement have made the Indian express himself very forcibly
both in speech and in literature. There can be no question
that educated India has deeply influenced the opinion of
Europe and America these last few years.

The publication of large numbers of translations of sacred
texts from the East and of innumerable articles and books
expounding the great religions, the loud protests of a few
European scholars who, having laid aside Christianity, are
favourably disposed towards Eastern religions, the Parliament
of Religions in Chicago, and the visits of Hindu and Buddhist
teachers to Britain and to America, have all helped to produce
a much higher appreciation of these religions and a deep
sympathy with those who profess them.

General considerations have also come in to strengthen
this mass of kindly feeling. People are inclined to reason as
follows : We do not really know the other world : why should
we dogmatize about it ? Let us live good lives ourselves and
leave others to do the same. Why should we raise religious
strife ?

24 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

Racial and national questions have also their influence.
Race is deep and national differences go far. As rulers, we
find it necessary to tolerate much, to make large allowances
for race : may not the religions of these strange peoples be
related to their racial qualities ? Here we come very close to
Ramakrishna's idea. The adaptation of these Eastern systems
to the peoples and their civilizations is certainly insisted on
by many; and the idea is buttressed by the recollection
of the fierce character of religious passion when once roused,
and by the belief that it is altogether impossible to separate
these people from their religions.

There are large elements in these Eastern faiths which
attract a certain type of mind. The doctrine of transmigra
tion is most interesting and suggestive. Mystic pantheism
draws many more. The great toleration of these religions
seems to many minds a most admirable feature. Since they
only ask to be left alone, since they are quite willing to
tolerate Christianity, why should we not accept the policy ?

But, while all this mass of honest thinking and noble
feeling is present in the movement, it would be foolish to
ignore the fact that in many minds there lies also the idea
that religion is not a matter of such importance as to justify
the machinery of Missions and the disturbance they cause.
This fruit of religious indifference and rank ignorance ought
to be clearly distinguished from other factors by all those
who are interested either in practical religion or in the
advance of religious science.

ii. The second group consists almost entirely of non-
Christians who have had a Western education. They admire
Western thought, science, and social life, and there are but
few of them that have not adopted Western habits in some
degree. Many of them regularly use English in talking of
the things of the mind and the spirit. They usually know
something about Christianity. But they are men who have
felt in their own lives and in their own community the power
of their own religion. They have been created by it. The

INTRODUCTION 25

soul-windows through which they look out upon the world
have been made by it. The past lives in them. Every
aspect of their religion, its thought, its philosophy, its cult,
its home-life, even what seems absurd to the outsider, is
sacred to them. They see the glint of the spiritual world
on every part of it. They are quite content with it. Like
Plutarch they say,

The ancient faith of our fathers suffices.1
Jesus knew them and described them :

And no man having drunk old wine desireth new : for he saith, The
old is good.2

Others, more conscious of the danger, go a step further and
say, ' Our religion is as good as Christianity. We do not set
up our religion to be the only religion for mankind, but we do
maintain that it is pure, spiritual, stimulating, and satisfying.
It pleases us more than any other religion ever could. There
fore we believe it to be as good as yours.' Thus Hindus,
Muhammadans, and Buddhists arc not only up in arms in
defence of their religions, but urge that the missionary in
seeking to bring men into Christianity is actually doing
wrong. A few extremists would like to see the missionary
sent home bag and baggage ; but the majority of educated
men protest that the educating, civilizing, uplifting work of
Missions is far too precious to be dispensed with. Their one
objection to Missions is the baptism of converts, the planting
of the Christian Church. That, they contend, is not only
unnecessary, but is an act of unjust aggression upon the
existing religions.

In face, then, of this large body of serious and moderate
opinion, it is clear that the Christian must either transform his
missionary methods or else justify what he is doing in the face
of all the world. This he can do only by setting out clearly
how he believes Christianity is related to other religions.

1 Glover, 89. 2 Luke 5, 39.

26 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

There is all the more reason for so doing, because here we
have to deal, not with a single reasoned opinion, but with
a very large mass of powerful and noble feeling, shot through
and through with many lines of thought, clear and inchoate,
strong and weak.

III. The position which the thoughtful, modern Christian
takes up towards other religions may be expressed under the
following four heads.

A. There is a certain underlying unity in all religions as
there is in the manifestations of every other human function.
The human heart and mind arc the same everywhere. Hence
there is something which links the lowest religion to the
highest. There are gleams of light, suggestions of truth,
in the most degraded faith. There is an identity which
persists throughout the myriad forms which religion takes.

Further, each religion has been of value to the men who
have professed it. Every religion has given its followers at
least the idea of duty and of the community, and usually also
the idea of God and of worship. There has never been a
religion that did not uplift men, that did not bring them
nearer God.

Yet even that does not express the whole truth. The
religion of a savage is the very highest thing he knows, how
ever gross it may be. In its activities his soul reaches its
highest exercise. Hence we must recognize that, through
his gross religion, the savage can reach God —

That the savage hands and helpless,
Groping blindly in the darkness,
Touch God's right hand in that darkness
And are lifted up and strengthened.

As the writer once heard a good man say in a public
meeting, ' Religion must be a very simple thing in God's
eyes ; otherwise the simple folk of the world would have no
chance at all ! ' We must believe that it is possible for every
human being, no matter what his circumstances may be, to
find his way to God, if he truly use all the light he has.

INTRODUCTION 27

Otherwise, the relation of Father and child does not exist in
his case. So the very foundation of Christianity demands
this acknowledgement. Our belief in Christ leads to the
same truth ; for we hold Him to be

the light which lighteth every man ; !
and we believe that even in savage minds God

left not himself without witness ; 2
and that the very lowest men

show the pith of the law written in their hearts.3

Thus through the grossest religion there is a path to God.

Christianity frankly acknowledges that a man may be
acceptable to God in any religion. This is stated in the
clearest possible language by Peter:

Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons : but in
every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accept
able to him.4

The ladder from earth to heaven is there for the lowest savage
as well as for Jacob and the modern man.

B. The condition under which a man reaches God is utter
sincerity, the turning of his whole soul toward the light, the
frank acceptance of truth into his heart, straightforward
obedience to the very highest he knows. It is this pose of
the soul that opens it to heavenly influences, that makes it
possible for our Father to enter into personal fellowship with
His child. Without this attitude, there can be no true
religion anywhere. Beyond this no man can go, however
narrow or however wide his knowledge, experience, and
opportunities may be. This law then applies to men in
every religion.

Take the case of a savage who has been living a faithful
life, in accordance with his light, in a coarse cannibalistic
religion. He hears Muhammadanism preached, feels the

1 John 1, 9. 2 Acts 14, 17. s Romans 2, 15.

* Acts 10, 34, 35. Cf. also Paul's words, Rom. 10, 12.

28 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

reasonableness of monotheism, the pressure of the doctrine
of judgement on his conscience, the high moral value of the
ethics of Islam. But, for various reasons, he continues his
old life and the practice of cannibalism. What is the in
evitable result ? The religion through which he formerly
received help is no longer of any use to him. He has seen
truth and has refused to obey it. He is no longer a religious
man.

So, when a polytheist, coming in contact with Christianity,
realizes the folly of idolatry, and feels that the cross and the
love of Christ are just what he needs for the transformation
of his sin-stained soul and life ; if he fail to confess Christ
publicly ; if he shrink back from acting upon this revelation
of religious truth in his inner life ; if he continue to bow down
to idols; his old faith, however valuable it may have been to
him formerly, can never be for him a door into fellowship
with God again ; for he has turned his back upon the highest,
and has made the great refusal.

C. Christians acknowledge fully the great and good work
that has been done by each of the great religions. We gladly
recognize that, in them, many saints have been trained,
thousands of homes have been purified and uplifted, and
multitudes of men and women have found God. We rejoice
in the true and fruitful religious experience of these good
men. We also recognize that in each of these religions men
and women are still being trained in goodness and lifted
nearer God. These are the facts on which people in Europe
and America and educated non-Christians insist, when they
demand that missionaries shall cease to make converts to
Christianity. We acknowledge them and thank God for them.

We go still farther : we gladly confess that these great and
good results prove the presence of truth in each of these
systems :

By their fruits ye shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns,
or figs of thistles ? l

1 Matt. 7, 16.

INTRODUCTION 29

When, however, certain of our friends go one step farther
and say, ' Thus, all these religions are true,' we call a halt, and
ask them to state more definitely what they mean. Do they
mean to say that each is true in part, or that each is wholly
true? that each contains a considerable amount of truth, or
that each is the very truth of God ? Clearly it can be only
the former ; for these great religions contradict each other
very seriously on many points. Thus we agree with our
friends completely, when they say, 'All these religions are
good and helpful because each contains much truth.'

D. It is now necessary to take a look at the points on
which the great religions contradict each other; and, in order
to make our exposition as clear as possible, we shall restrict
ourselves to the great quaternion, Hinduism, Buddhism,
Christianity, Muhammadanism. These will provide quite
sufficient material and illustration. Hinduism teaches that
every soul is born and dies many times ; Christianity says,

It is appointed unto man once to die, and after this cometh
judgement.1

Buddhism agrees with Hinduism on this point, but con
demns Hindu literature, priests, and sacrifice, and sets forth
the Buddha as the omniscient and infallible teacher for all
men. Christianity teaches that God is the Father of men,
that His Son became incarnate to reveal the Father and to
die for the sins of the world, that He is the ideal for all men,
and that His moral and spiritual teaching is necessary for all
men. Muhammadanism, agreeing with Christianity that men
are born and die once, denies all the affirmations of Christianity,
and proclaims Muhammad as the last and greatest Prophet
and the Koran as the eternal utterance of God. These
oppositions and contradictions are as abrupt and definite as
they can well be, and there are many more, quite as clear-cut
and irreconcilable. The differences between the great religions
are by no means small.

1 Heb. 9, 27.

30 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

Let us now place beside these facts the contention that the
great religions are all so noble and so great that we ought not
to make odious distinctions among them, but should recognize
them as a band of brothers. Clearly this contention can be
maintained only on the ground that the differences between
the religions are negligible. They may be regarded as
negligible from different points of view. The atheist and
the agnostic, acknowledging the value of the moral teaching
of the various systems, put aside the differences between them
as so much mythology. Many a humble man says, ' I believe
my own religion is true ; but I recognize that a Hindu or
a Muhammadan feels in the same way ; and so I think it best
not to meddle with questions which I cannot settle, when
there is so much good in each system ; ' some few plead for
peace on the ground that the inner spirit of all the great
religions is the same ; while many a modern student is
inclined to say, ' I cannot see into the other world : I do
not know the truth on the great subjects of the nature
and character of God, the coming of men to birth, and their
destiny after death. Why should we dogmatize ? Let each
religion do all the good it can. We shall study all and
sympathize with all.' The point of view varies ; but, what
ever the point of view may be, the demand that we should
recognize these religions as equals and should not seek to
make converts rests upon the idea that the differences are
negligible.

Now there is only one point here which the Christian
challenges. He acknowledges to the full, as we have already
seen, that the great religions are of extreme value as compared
with lower faiths, that each contains a great deal of truth, and
that each produces precious results : thus far we are all agreed.
The Christian simply goes one step beyond the others. He
says these differences which so many people regard as negli
gible are of large importance.

Things are not as they were fifty years ago. The nations
of the world are much nearer each other than they were ;

INTRODUCTION 31

immense masses of information about all the peoples and all
the religions have been gathered together ; and the Science
of Religion has escaped from the period of stumbling experi
ment and come into an assured kingdom. Meantime, the
Christian Church has been in closer relations with each of the
great religions than ever before, has studied their literatures
and their practice, and by daily companionship with their
educated men has entered into their thought and spiritual
experience. In this matter Christians occupy a position of
supreme advantage. No other body of men and women have
had the priceless opportunities which Mission work among
educated Buddhists, Confucianists, Hindus, Jains, Muham-
madans, and Zoroastrians has brought them. It is on the basis of
these accumulated stores of knowledge and of all this practical
religious intercourse with non-Christian nations and individuals
that the Christian dares to say that the differences which sever
the great religions are by no means negligible, but are of
extreme importance. He believes, as a result of his study
and his experiences, that the matters in which Christianity
differs from the other faiths are of supreme practical value
and significance for the life of man. Every thinking man sees
clearly the superiority of the great religions over the lowest
faiths. The Christian sees as distinctly the superiority of
Christianity to the rest of the great religions ; and he believes
the evidence can be set forth with overwhelming force.

The savage gets on, one way or another, with his savage
religion ; and, as we have seen, it really helps him, does him
good. But now, let Muhammadan civilization reach his
village. He and his gradually pick up the elements of
a higher culture; and, as the years go by, their thoughts are
widened. Will his ancient savage faith still suffice ? Will it
now be able to do him good, to stimulate him to the best he
is capable of? Clearly, it cannot ; for it belongs to the lower
stage of knowledge and thought which he has left behind.
He must get a higher faith or live an atrophied religious life.
This principle holds good universally. A religion is of value

32 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

to a people only so long as it is the very highest the people
know. Nor is the reason hard to see. Religion is the
creative, organizing, stimulating, kindling power in human
life : how can it lead men on, if it is not in advance of them ?
When most of the leading ideas of a religion have become
incredible to its people, they may continue to observe its
ancient practices, but clearly it cannot exercise the old
influence over their minds and hearts. The harvest which
was reaped from the faith when it was alive will not spring up
from it now that it is dead.1

The whole world has entered upon a new stage of existence,
the stage of universalism. We are now compelled to think
in terms of the human race. Nations whose horizon until
recently was bounded by their frontiers now find themselves
talking of all the continents. It is not merely that we are
interested in world-politics. Moral questions have become
interracial and international: the treatment of Indians in
South Africa is a case in point. All the civilizations are now
clashing ; all the religions have met face to face. The
villagers of Bengal, of Shantung, of the Tokaido have been
transformed into citizens of the world. Hence the proportions
and the relations of things have changed. New ideas forcibly
take possession of whole populations, and change the face of
things in a day.

These things are of the utmost significance to the Christian.
He believes that, in the light of the new circumstances of the
nations, the practical differences between Christianity and the
other great religions now stand out in startling vividness. The
new age, with its world-wide relations and world-wide thought,
subjects every business method, every moral rule, and every
religious belief to a terrific strain and test. Customs and laws
which for centuries have proved equal to the ordinary demands
of a people's life are now creaking, crashing, and falling to

1 An educated Jain said to a friend of the writer the other day, ' My
religion is just a dummy religion.'

INTRODUCTION 33

pieces like the spars of an old ship caught in a cyclone. The
needs of the new time, so far as we can see, can be met only
by Christianity. Not in arrogance, not in partisanship, do we
say this, but with wide open eyes and with full consciousness
of the stupendous character of the claim we make.

In this volume an attempt is made to substantiate in some
degree this tremendous claim in the case of Hinduism. The
phenomena of religion are so varied, and require to be stated
with so much precision and care, that a single study is much
more likely to be useful than a scamper over the whole vast
field would be. The rest of this Introduction will state the
way in which the relations between Christianity and Hinduism
present themselves to the writer, and the method which will
be followed in bringing the two religions into comparison in
the chapters of the book.

IV. We shall keep in closest touch with facts and also find
an excellent starting-point for the development of our position,
if we begin with an objection which is frequently urged against
Christian Missions in India to-day. Educated Hindus regard
the missionary propaganda as an unjustifiable attack on the
national genius and spirit. Christianity is objected to not as
being untrue, but as being destructive and denationalizing.
The following quotation from a Hindu writer puts the charge
quite forcibly :

The missionary is the representative of a society, a polity, a social
system, a religion and a code of morality which are totally different
from our own. He comes as a belligerent and attacks our time-
honoured customs and institutions, our sacred literature and traditions,
our historical memories and associations. ... He wishes to destroy
our society, history, and civilization. . . .

He is the arch-enemy who appears in many guises, the great foe of
whatever bears the name of Hindu, the ever-watchful, ever-active,
irreconcilable Destroyer of the work of the Rishis and Maha Rishis, of
that marvel of moral, intellectual, and civic achievement which is known
as Hindu civilization. Let us labour under no delusions on this point.
You may forget your own name ; you may forget your mother. But do
not for a moment forget the great, all-important fact that the missionary
C

34 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

is the most dreadful adversary you have to meet . . . the greatest enemy
of dharma and Hindu national life in the present age.1

There is no mistaking the meaning of these sentences. They
are clear and to the point. We believe also that the words
will create sympathy in every heart. The modern mind
makes a deep response to the national spirit.

It is quite true that the destruction to which the writer
refers is going on. Serious havoc is being wrought in the
ancient structure of Hinduism. It is also true that Christianity
is one of the forces that are disintegrating the religion ; but
it is only one of several ; and the destruction would go on
almost as rapidly as ever, even if every missionary were
deported from India to-morrow.

The missionary's power of destruction is subject to a very
effective automatic check, and his will to destroy is limited
by the very nature of the aim he has in view. Many people
imagine that the missionary's addresses are a tissue of
exposures and condemnations. Nothing could be farther
from the truth. Destruction is of no service to the Christian
cause. Total loss of faith does not make a Hindu a Christian.
A Christian is made only by personal submission to Christ
and spiritual union with Him. Hence Christian addresses
must be filled with spiritual wisdom and power if they are to
do any good. I have listened to hundreds of addresses
delivered to educated Hindus, Muhammadans, and Buddhists
by men of different nationalities and churches ; and I believe
at least eighty-five per cent, of all the matter has been pure
Christian teaching, uttered without reference to any other
religion. About ten per cent, of the addresses, I should think,
have been comparative studies, dealing with some aspect of
Christianity and Hinduism, or some other faith. Even this
small number of mixed addresses would not have been given,
were it not that non-Christian audiences are very eager to
hear such comparisons. Missionaries would have larger

1 Prof. Har Dayal. The passage is quoted by Coomaraswamy, Essays
in National Idealism, \ 56.

INTRODUCTION 35

audiences if they were willing to deal more with the religions,
but they prefer to give Christian teaching to smaller numbers.
In all the hundreds of meetings I have attended, I have
scarcely ever heard a disrespectful sentence used with regard
to any non-Christian faith. Even if a missionary were unwise
enough to wish to attack Hinduism with hard words, he
would not dare to do it ; for no educated audience would
stand it. In Mission schools and colleges the teaching is
almost purely Christian. One hears only an occasional refer
ence to Hinduism.

The case is somewhat different with missionary literature.
A much larger proportion of books deal with Hinduism and the
other religions. And here the writer readily confesses that the
missionary record is not clean. Down to some ten or twelve
years ago a considerable number of Christian books published
in India contained harsh judgements, denunciatory language,
and, here and there, statements that were seriously inaccurate.
But that is now almost altogether a thing of the past. The
men who write to-day have a far more competent knowledge
of the religions they deal with, and the publishing societies
will have nothing to do with harsh language and denunciation.
But the main point to be noticed is this, that such wrongdoing
brings its own penalty and corrective with it. Hindus simply
will not read such material, and they mark the man who is
guilty and will have nothing to do with him.

Thus the direct destructive power of the missionary is very
strictly limited. But Christian teaching by itself introduces
new ideas into the Hindu mind ; and, in so far as these are
wider, deeper, more ethical, more spiritual than the ideas of
Hinduism, they do undoubtedly weaken Hindu faith. But
here once more there is the double safeguard : the Hindu
need not listen unless he choose to do so ; and the new teach
ing can find entrance only if it be very distinctly superior to
the old.

The forces that are in the main destructive of Hinduism
stand out quite clear. Everything Western brings with it an
C 2,

36 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

atmosphere which is most inimical to the old faith. Modern
education tells with incalculable force on every student's
mind. English literature, modern science, modern inventions,
European business methods and the principles of Government
action in India, are all disintegrating agents of great efficiency.
But there is another force which must not be forgotten : no
one delivers such direct or such deadly attacks on Hinduism
as the educated Hindu does. The following are extracts from
an article by the very writer whose condemnation of the
missionary as the arch-enemy of India we have just read : 1

Metaphysics has been the curse of India. It has blighted her
history and compassed her ruin. It has converted her great men into
miserable quibblers, and led them into useless channels of inquiry and
effort. It has been the dangerous will-o'-the-wisp of Indian intellect
during many centuries. It has elevated sophistry to the rank of an
art, and substituted vain fancies for knowledge. It has condemned
India's intellect to run in the same old groove for hundreds of years.
It has blinded her seers and led them to mistake phantoms for realities.
. . . Arrogant, pretentious, verbose and purblind, it has taken its
cackling for an oracle and its fantastic word-towers for solid piles of
thought-masonry. . . .

While so much transcendental nonsense is being perpetrated, famines
are desolating the land, pestilence and malaria hang like a pall on town
and country, and there is not a single decent representative institution,
technical institute, laboratory or library in the whole country. Science,
economics, and politics are anathema to the enlightened men of India.
They love only the eternal verities and the deep secrets of theosophy
or brahmavidya ! My friends, while you are going into ecstasy over
the intolerable twaddle of many of your Shastras and quoting Schopen
hauer and Max Miiller in their praise, the world is stealing a march on
you by scientific research, economic reforms, and political progress.
While you are explaining to your people the ineffable joys of trance or
' samadhi ', another trance is already upon them — the trance of starva
tion and the deadly pest. The Upanishads claim to expound ' that, by
knowing which everything is known '. This mediaeval quest for ' the
absolute ' is the basis of all the spurious metaphysics of India. The
treatises are full of absurd conceits, quaint fancies, and chaotic specula-

1 Prof. Har Dayal in the Modern Review, July, 1912. Another article
by the same writer containing similar statements with regard to other
aspects of the religion appeared in the same magazine in November, 1912.

INTRODUCTION 37

tions. And we have not learned that they are worthless. We keep
moving in the old rut ; we edit and re-edit the old books instead of
translating the classics of European social thought. What would
Europe be if Frederic Harrison, Brieux, Bebel, Anatole France, Herve,
Haeckel, Giddings, and Marshall should employ their time in composing
treatises on Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas, and discussing the
merits of the laws of the Pentateuch and the poetry of Beowulf ? Indian
pundits and graduates seem to suffer from a kind of mania for what is
effete and antiquated. Thus an institution, established by progressive
men, aims at leading our youths through Sanskrit grammar to the Vedas
via the Six Darshanas ! What a false move in the quest for wisdom !
It is as if a caravan should travel across the desert to the shores of the
Dead Sea in search of fresh water ! Young men of India, look not for
wisdom in the musty parchments of your metaphysical treatises. There
is nothing but an endless round of verbal jugglery there. Read
Rousseau and Voltaire, Plato and Aristotle, Haeckel and Spencer,
Marx and Tolstoi, Ruskin and Comte, and other European thinkers, if
you wish to understand life and its problems. . . .

India has hundreds of really sincere and aspiring young men and
women, who are free from all taint of greed and worldliness, but they
are altogether useless for any purpose that one may appreciate. They
have established monasteries in remote nooks in the mountains in order
to realize the Brahman. Instead of bearing the heat and burden of the
day along with their fellow men, they aim at reaching a superior stage
of illumination by practising all sorts of mysterious postures and other
funny devices of a crude mysticism. . . .

' Samadhi ' or trance is regarded as the acme of spiritual progress !
How strange it is that a capacity for swooning away should be con
sidered the mark of wisdom ! It is very easy to lose consciousness if
one has strong emotions and a feeble intellect. That is why ladies
faint so often on the slightest provocation. But in India samadhi is
the eighth stage of yoga, which only ' paramahansas ' can reach. These
be thy gods, O Israel ! To look upon an abnormal psychological con
dition produced by artificial means as the sign of enlightenment was
a folly reserved for Indian philosophers.

This type of writing is by no means uncommon to-day in
Indian journalism. The* following appeared as a leading
article in the columns of the Bengalee^ the leading Hindu
paper in Calcutta, the editor of which is Mr. Surendranath
Bannerjea, the noted nationalist :

1 Reproduced in the Statesman of September 28, 1911.

38 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

We have referred in our previous issues to the fact that Hindu India
is at present divided into camps— the camp of the orthodox who hold
that salvation lies in every Hindu conforming rigidly and scrupulously
to the rules and observances of social life handed down from the past,
and that of the unorthodox, men who under the inspiration of Western
culture and Western ideals have been dreaming of building up a new
India by transplanting into their country the spirit of the social,
industrial, and political institutions of Europe. It requires little reason
ing to convince oneself that the extreme conservatism of the orthodox
section of the Hindu community which finds itself fulfilled in an
unswerving adherence to existing institutions and looks upon the least
modification of, or innovation upon, them as a profanity and a desecra
tion, is necessarily the negation of progress. It is born of the conviction
that every practice and every custom at present current in Hindu
society has had a divine origin, and that it is consequently no less
a sacrilege to depart therefrom than it would be to deny the inspiration
of the Vedas.

But it is clear that the community committed to such a creed is
doomed to stagnate, and must eventually go under in the modern
struggle for existence into which all the nations of the world have been
forced by the annihilation of time and space through steam and
electricity. Not a people in the world but is revising and readjusting
its institutions, its traditional ideas and ideals to the new conditions,
to the stern circumstance that the nation that aspires to occupy a place
on the stage of progress has now for its competitors not only its
neighbours but all the peoples of the world. What chance has India
to keep abreast, or even to be within a measurable distance, of the sister
nations in progressive advancement, with her sworn allegiance to
a pattern of society which was suited to the conditions of a thousand
years ago ?

Let us take a few instances. We have worshipped the Goddess of
' Sakti ' (i.e. energy) for centuries ; how is it that through those very
centuries we have remained so weak and helpless as a nation ? We are
the devout worshippers of ' Sarasvat! ' (the goddess of learning) ; and
at the same time have received a scant share of her blessings. The
priests who are the monopolists of the religious rites and ministrations
are for the most part as innocent of Vedic knowledge at the present
day as the ' Sudra ' was in the days when the gates of knowledge were
shut against him by the iron rules of castes. We offer our devotions to
' Lakshmi ' (the goddess of wealth) every recurrent year ; and we
remain none the less a nation of paupers.

The orthodox Hindu makes a fetish of certain rules of hygiene
formulated by his ancestors in the dim past; he regards it as sin, for

INTRODUCTION 39

instance, to take his meals without bathing, or to remain in unwashed
clothes for more than a day ; but, with all his religious devotion to the
traditional rules of cleanliness, he betrays a strange indifference to the
principles of sanitation evolved by modern science, though plague and
cholera and all the other diseases that are generated in filth are
decimating thousands of his fellow men year after year. One has only
to be in a Hindu's house for a day to discover his ignorance of
elementary sanitary principles in contrast with his particular conformity
to the few rules of sanitation enjoined upon him by tradition, One
would go grievously wrong in persuading oneself that the Hindu is
apathetic to the rules of sanitation and the other life-saving injunctions
of modern science, because he had transcended, by virtue of a strenuous
spiritual discipline, the human craving for life. He loves life no less
dearly than the passionate worldlings of the material West, as he calls
Europeans.

The Hindu father blesses his son's wife with the invocation ' May
she be like Sabitri '. But was there room in ancient Hindu life for the
Philistinism which actuates the modern Hindu father to huckster and
chaffer over the price of his son with the unfortunate person in search
of a bridegroom for his daughter? It is evident even to the casual
observer that extreme orthodoxy is without a soul to save it from the
destructive influences that impend over it from all sides.

The orthodox Hindu clings, in the name of religion and morality, to
dead forms and mummied institutions from which the informing spirit
has long departed. Is not the practice of worshipping God at prescribed
intervals of the day and the year, in a language which the worshipper in
many cases does not understand, as mechanical as the automatic
working of a machine ? Is there the least trace of life in a system of
rites which demands the punctilious performing of a number of cere
monials on the sole ground that these have been performed through the
preceding centuries ? Ask the Hindu why he wastes his substance and
gets into debt over the celebration of his daughter's marriage ; his
honest answer will always be ' because his forefathers have done so '.
Inquire of the bridegroom what he has understood of the sacrament
he has gone through, what he has understood of the Mantras (Vedic
texts) he has uttered at the dictation often of an ignorant and mispro
nouncing priest ; he will tell you he has not understood much or perhaps
anything at all. But to his mind that is of no moment, for has he not
fulfilled his duty by conforming to the directions laid down in the
Shastras (Hindu laws) ? But surely, in the days when Hinduism was
living, the Hindu who said his prayers to his God did so in full
consciousness of what he was saying ; the young bridegroom uttered
the sacred Mantras in full cognizance of their purpose and purport.

40 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

We will not multiply instances. But this much is clear, that when
a people's religion and rites have sunk into soulless formulae they can
exercise no corrective or controlling influence over, they must cease to
be in intimate relationship with its daily thought and life. And so it is
in our country. The champion of orthodoxy, conforming as he does to
the fossilized forms of a religious and moral code which have long
ceased to embody the living spirit, is most un-Hindu in the family
affairs of his life.

We may also quote a few paragraphs from an article which
appeared in the Madras Christian College Magazine in April,
1912, from the pen of a Hindu, Mr. V. Kunhikannan :

Probably few nations in the world, ancient or modern, have been
more superstitious, more credulous, more gullible than the Hindus.
It is a most significant and noteworthy fact that even at this distance of
time, even in this budding twentieth century, in an age of triumphant
intellectual and scientific advance unparalleled in the history of the
human race, many things which have been burnt to ashes under the
all-embracing fire of modern science and modern thought, are still
piously retained by the vast majority of the Hindus.

Whosoever has eyes to see and uses them cannot deny that a
marvellous religious revival has actually set in among the Hindus
within the last few years. . . .

But, however pleasant it may be to contemplate this aspect of the
revival, no one can shut his eyes to the all too visible recrudescence of
ancient superstitions which has accompanied the more truly religious
revival. It is most deplorable that, with the luxuriant growth of the
corn, much weed has also sprung up to hinder the ripening of the true
grain.

It is very painful, but nevertheless true, that the Theosophical Society
is largely, if not mainly, responsible for this state of affairs at the
present time. It is not a little amusing to find learned Theosophists
defending and popularizing even the worst superstitions of the Hindus
and trying to find an occult meaning for every tradition, rite, and
ceremony which we have outgrown by the evolution of the intellect and
the increasing knowledge of Nature and her laws. No doubt Theosophy
has contributed not a little to the present religious revival of the Hindus.
But if it has done much that is good and noble, it has also done harm
through attempting in these modern days to make us believe that all
the stories of the Puranas are historical facts ; that behind every physical
phenomenon a God is at work ; that idolatry and the worship of the
many gods is right ; that when a man dies the bodies of his nearest

INTRODUCTION 41

relations are literally polluted ; that there is an occult use and purpose
in the meaningless ritual and ceremonies of the Hindus, and so on.
It is absolutely useless and futile to teach such things in this age in
which reason and intellect predominate. . . . Every critical observer
sees that modern thought has almost completely undermined the
peculiar Hindu ideas and customs. The framework of that mighty
system of religious and social organization has well-nigh broken down,
and it needs no prophet to say that at no distant date a complete re
arrangement of things will be the result. . . .

It is quite surprising to find even to-day Hindus who abhor the idea
of foreign travel on the strength of the supposed injunctions of the
Shastras against it. The practice of excommunicating transgressors of
this rule is still prevalent among the higher castes. Upon a superstition
so glaring comment is needless.

Again, I have often noted with pitying interest how even educated
Hindus stand up in reverential awe and bow down with clasped hands
before the lamp lighted at dusk and shown upon the verandah in every
Hindu home. They are bowing to the fire-god, it appears ! It is intel
ligible that in times of primitive ignorance men should have personified
the forces of nature and worshipped them as gods, being wonderstruck at
the mysteries of Nature. They saw the glorious sun and thought it was
a god and began to worship the same. But what is to be thought of
the modern Hindu who follows suit, in spite of the advancement of
knowledge of Nature and her secrets ?

Again, it is a sorry spectacle to witness Hindus still worshipping the
village gods and goddesses in the most hideous and superstitious manner.
In my own place there is a ' kavu ' (temple) where thousands of fowls
and sheep are every year butchered for the propitiation of the supposed
god and goddess. The sacred temple is literally transformed into
a slaughter-house. Can any man conceive a more horrible and
degrading way of worshipping the Supreme Father of the universe ?

Another superstition is the belief that our sins will be washed away
by bathing in the water of the Ganges and other sacred rivers and by
visiting sacred (?) cities like Benares. For this purpose millions of
Hindus spend all their hard-earned money in visiting such places and
bathing in the waters of such rivers, thinking that thus their sins will
be forgiven. Could any idea be more primitive ? If we can commit
sins and wash them away by bathing in the waters of certain rivers,
how easy have things become ! Such ideas are most dangerous to
man's moral evolution. They encourage the commission of sin by
holding out the hope of cleansing through the holy water of the Ganges.

Once more, Hindus waste a lot of money by performing the she-
shakriyas (after-death ceremonies of the dead, such as the pinnam,

42 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

shraddha, &c.). We have absolutely no evidence to show that the dead
derive any benefit at all from such ceremonies, and, if the doctrine of
karma be true, it is clear that a man's suffering after death will be
exactly according to the evil deeds done by himself in his mundane
existence, and he will have to pay the debt to the last farthing. How
then can shraddha afford him any benefit ? It is as yet unexplained
how certain rites performed here in the physical world can affect those
who are supposed to be in some other spheres which are anything but
physical. Unless and until a clear explanation is forthcoming, no
rational man has any right to perform acts the use of which is entirely
unknown to him.

Another startling superstition is that small-pox and cholera are due to
the visitation of certain goddesses. The goddess is angry, for some
reason or other, and hence the outbreak of the epidemic. Although
Western science has opened our eyes to the real cause and prevention
of these fell diseases, yet the vast majority of Hindus piously retain the
old belief to their eternal shame and degradation. Again, if any
disease occurs in a house an astrologer is consulted before the physician
is called in.

Every one will realize what a potent destructive influence
such writing as this by Hindus must exercise on the young
Hindu mind. What missionary would ever dare, or wish, to
write in such a strain ?

Perhaps most readers will now agree that, whether mission
aries are to be condemned as the arch-enemies of India or not,
a far more important matter has come in sight, namely this that,
whoever may be to blame, Hinduism is being disintegrated.
This is the great fact which has to be realized. The ancient
religion of India is breaking up. The following chapters
will give abundant proof of this fact. Each of its great old
religious ideas is fading out of the minds -of her educated
men. They are steadily decaying, and there arc but few
signs of fresh integration.

It is also clear that the cause of the break-up of the old
faith is the coming of the new era. The thought of the West
creates a new climate which is fatal to Hinduism. The air is
too rarified. Its fundamental principles shrivel up in the new
atmosphere. Those who have entered the world of Western

INTRODUCTION 43

culture simply cannot hold them. Many proofs of this will
appear as we proceed. The third article quoted above states
the fact very clearly in two sentences : l

Every critical observer sees that modern thought has almost com
pletely undermined the peculiar Hindu ideas and customs. The
framework of that mighty system of religious and social organization has
well-nigh broken down.

Thus Christianity, so far from being an intruder at this
time, is most seriously required to sow the seeds of spiritual
religion and healthy moral life. Thoughtful Indian leaders
frankly recognize that the ethical and religious influence
of missions is of extreme value in this time of trial ; and
every one who has been in close touch with the educated
classes realizes that they need moral help most seriously.
But we may go farther. If ' the framework of that mighty
system of religious and social organization has well-nigh
broken down ', is it not high time to bring to the mind and
heart of India a new system, fit to stand the strain and stress
of the age, and equal to the task of stimulating the Hindu
people to the noblest spiritual activity ? This supreme need
will steadily become more apparent as the decay of Hinduism
proceeds.

It will now be well worth our while to return to the
charge, that Christianity is a destroying and denationalizing
force, and try to see what is behind it.

A. The first point to be realized is that this is an indict
ment which has been laid against the religion at many points
in its history from the very beginning. At a meeting of
the Jewish Council, the case of Christ was discussed, and the
talk was,

What do we? for this man doeth many signs. If we let him thus
alone, all men will believe on him : and the Romans will come and take
away both our place and our nation.2

1 See p. 41. 2 John 11, 47, 48.

44 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

But the high priest said,

Ye know nothing at all, nor do ye take account that it is expedient for
you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation
perish not.1

In consequence they handed Him over to the Romans and
had Him crucified. When Paul and Silas preached in the
Roman colony of Philippi in Macedonia, they were brought
before the city magistrates, and what their accusers said was,

These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city, and set
forth customs which it is not lawful for us to receive or to observe, being
Romans.2

The authorities of the Roman Empire considered the religion
so inimical to the customs and laws that regulated civilized
society that they made the very profession of Christianity
a crime ; in the eye of the Roman law Christians stood on
a level with robbers ; and from time to time during the first
three centuries fierce persecutions broke out in which count
less thousands of men and women suffered death for their
faith.

History has repeated itself in modern times. In the six
teenth century Christianity was introduced into Japan, and
a considerable section of the people became Christian ; but
in the seventeenth century the Government became afraid
that the movement might prove disloyal, and in consequence
they forbade the profession of the religion, and stamped it
out in such a fierce persecution as has seldom been witnessed.3
It was a similar idea that led to twenty-six years of persecu
tion in Madagascar. Finally, the Boxer rising in China,
only thirteen years ago, in which thousands of Chinese
Christians laid down their lives for Christ, sprang from the
idea that it was a foreign and denationalizing faith.

It is thus clear that there is some feature of the religion
which inevitably excites suspicion in this way. It is not

1 John 11, 49, 50. 2 Acts 16, 20, 21.

3 See below, p. 291.

INTRODUCTION 45

at all strange that Hindus should think and speak as
they do.

B. But let us look at the subsequent history.

1. Is there any thinking man to-day who believes the
Jews acted wisely in getting Christ crucified ? No ; all men
now acknowledge that the teaching and the life of Jesus were
the healthiest and holiest influences of the time ; and that,
so far from being a danger to nationality, He was the only
wise friend the nation had. If the Jews had accepted Him,
they would have retained the nationality which within forty
years they flung away in war with Rome. So far from
destroying the Jewish religion, Jesus has made the God of
Abraham, the Scriptures of Israel, and the history of Israel
the heritage of the whole human family.

2. Turn to the Roman Empire. What has the course of
history shown ? It is now plain that in the early Christian
centuries the ancient religions were dying, inevitably passing
away. The Roman emperors, conscious of the danger, sought
to prop them and revive them ; and they believed that in
Caesar-worship a new living centre had been found for the
old faiths ; but it was all in vain. Christianity, so far from
being a dangerous foe, was precisely the friend the great
Empire needed. Constantine realized the truth and acted on
it. Not only the safety of the old Empire, but the life and
health of Europe, nay the promise and possibility of the
whole modern world, were aboard that frail bark which the
emperors sought so industriously to wreck.

3. It is also most significant that it is in Europe and
America, where civilization has felt the influence of Christ
most deeply, that the modern self-governing peoples have
appeared. Autonomous nationality, the ideal towards which
the Muhammadan powers and the ancient peoples of Asia
are now straining, is the product of a Christian atmosphere.

4. Commodore Perry appeared in Yedo Bay in 1853 ;
in 1854 the Japanese Government signed the treaty which
opened Japan to the world; and in 1858 missionaries entered

46 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

the country. But the profession of Christianity was still
interdicted. In 1868 a fresh edict was placed on the public
edict-boards, which ran :

The evil sect called Christian is strictly prohibited. Suspicious
persons should be reported to the proper officers, and rewards will be
given.1

The representatives of the foreign powers protested against
the edict, but the Government persisted until 1872, when
the edicts were removed, Christians in prison were released,
and those in exile were allowed to return home. Thus it is
only forty-one years since Japan gave up the persecution of
Christians.

Yet on February 25, 1912, the Japanese Government
held a Conference in Tokyo with the express purpose of
strengthening the moral forces at work in the country ; and
to that Conference not only Buddhists and Shintoists, but
Christians were invited. There were present, by Government
invitation, thirteen Shintoists, fifty-one Buddhists, and seven
Christians.2

Clearly the Japanese Government had learnt a lesson in
the course of these forty years.

5. The Boxer rising, in which many missionaries and
many thousands of Christians were murdered as enemies of
the national life, took place in 1900. Yet Sun Yat Sen, the
leader of the Revolution which made China a Republic, is
a Christian ; many of the most prominent nationalist leaders
are Christians ; Yuan Shi Kai, the President of the Republic,
is a personal friend of missionaries, and had a missionary's
daughter to educate his children ; and on the i;th of April last
the Chinese Government requested that prayer should be
offered for China in all Christian churches throughout the
Empire.

6. Even in India to-day we believe the real character of
the religion is steadily become clearer. It is quite true that

1 Murray's Japan (Story of the Nations Series), 379.

2 J.R.M., July, 1912, 552.

INTRODUCTION 47

the infinitesimal Christian communities, mere pin-heads amid
the vast masses of the Hindu and Muhammadan population,
have, in the past, felt it necessary to keep very much to them
selves, in order to preserve in purity the precious truth
committed to them ; but the iron necessity of that hour is
now passing away ; and Christian men and women will hence
forward take a rapidly increasing share in the national life.

Even now the signs are clearly visible to every one who
has eyes. Is Christian work among the Outcastes de
nationalizing? Let the Brahma, the Arya, and the Hindu
answer, who imitate the missionary to the limit of their power.
Are Christians denationalized when they sit on the bench as
Magistrates, or serve as members of District Boards or
Municipalities? How would women's hospitals in India be
staffed apart from Indian Christian girls ? How many Hindu
schools for girls employ Christian women as teachers ? Do
educated Hindus become denationalized when they become
Christians ? Was there a truer Nationalist in India, from
Kashmir to Cape Comorin, than Kali Charan Banurji ? He
was a prominent member of the Indian National Congress
from its inception to his death ; he was elected by the
graduates to represent Calcutta University on the Council
of the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal ; and he was a personal
friend of every prominent Indian of whatever creed.1 Or is
Christian education denationalizing? We venture to think
that the following vignette from the pen of a Hindu 2 will
become classical :

Though cut off from the parent community by religion and by
prejudice and intolerance, the Indian Christian woman has been the
evangelist of education to hundreds and thousands of Hindu homes.
Simple, neat, and kindly, she has won her way to the recesses of
orthodoxy, overcoming a strength and bitterness of prejudice of which
few outsiders can have an adequate conception. As these sentences are

1 See his life by B. R. Barber, published by the C. L. S. I.

2 From /. S. R. The passage was quoted in the Christian Patriot of
March 28, 1903.

4<S THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

being written, there rises before the mind's eye the picture of scores of
tidy, gentle girls, trudging hot and dusty streets barefooted, under
a scorching sun, to carry the light of knowledge to homes where they
will not be admitted beyond the ante-chamber, and where they cannot
get a glass of water without humiliation, yet never complaining, ever
patient. To these brave and devoted women wherever they are,
friends of female education all over the country will heartily wish
' God-speed '.

It thus seems to be clear that the suspicion that Christianity
is a destructive and denationalizing force, despite its strength
and persistence, is, at least, in large measure, a mistake.

C. Can we then specify what clement in Christianity it is
that leads men in every land to think that it is destructive
and denationalizing ?

Jesus comes to each individual, saying,

Follow me.
He then explains what is implied in this invitation :

If any one wish to come after me, let him renounce himself, and take
up his cross, and follow me.1

This most serious act, in which a man renounces himself and
accepts Christ as the Lord of his life, necessarily involves the
giving up of the worldly life, and also the renunciation of any
other religion he may have been living by. If he is a
follower of one of the great old national faiths, this demand
usually seems to him a most unreasonable thing. A national
religion has a mass of national ideas, customs, and forms of
life associated with it. Religion and patriotism are in it
intertwined. In most of the ancient nations, the man who did
not recognize the national gods was regarded as a bad citizen.
That was one of the counts in the indictment against Socrates.
Thus to men trained in such a faith Christ inevitably appears
to be an enemy not only of the national religion but also of
the national life.

Christianity thus seems bad enough in its relation to the

1 Mark 8, 34.

INTRODUCTION 49

individual at the very outset. But things assume a far worse
aspect when a number of men leave the national religion and
become Christians. It then seems that the very existence of
the national religion is threatened. Christianity is a new,
unheard-of sort of monster in which nationality seems to be
swallowed up. Another portent usually appears at the same
time. As Christian thought and teaching spread, many of
the doctrines and practices of the old faith begin to look
unreal and paltry. Hence the popular cry arises, ' Let us get
rid of this intruder. We do not need it. We did very well
without it.'

The Christian idea, that the individual should renounce his
old national religion, is not an excrescence, but belongs to
the very heart of Christ's system. The truth He teaches is
for all men ; and we cannot get the benefit of it except by
complete submission to Him and faithful obedience to His
laws. That His call, ' Follow me,' should lead to the
surrender of the old religion on the part of the individual,
and in the end to the death of the old religion, is in full
accordance with the leading principles of His teaching.

Christ demands a serious change from every one who seeks
to follow Him : ' Repent of your sins ; lay aside your old life ;
deny yourself; surrender yourself to Me ; and die to all your
old passions and desires.' It is only through death that
Christ promises life to us. The great statement,

If any man wish to come after me, let him renounce, himself, and
take up his cross, and follow me,1

is immediately followed by the explanatory sentence,

For whosoever would save his life shall lose it ; and whosoever shall
lose his life for my sake and the gospel's shall save it.2

This is Christ's constant attitude to the individual : eternal
life springs up through the death of the old self.

The same principle applies to each of the national religions
as well. Each is prevented by its national character and

1 Mark 8, 34. 2 Mark 8, 35.

D

50 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

organization from working out its own noblest thoughts prac
tically and making them available for other nations. Each
must therefore die before it can bear fruit in all the world and
find its highest aspirations truly fulfilled. Just before the
death of Christ a group of Greeks came to speak to Him in
Jerusalem. It is a matter of the utmost interest and significance
that, when the representatives of Greek religion, philosophy,
and art stood before Him, it was this great lesson of life
through death that He sought to teach them. His words
were :

The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and
die, it abideth by itself alone ; but if it die, it beareth much fruit. He
that loveth his life loseth it ; and he that hateth his life in this world
shall keep it unto life eternal.1

This law, which was about to be fulfilled in Himself, He
pressed home upon the Greeks as necessary for them also ;
nor need we doubt that He saw clearly that the system under
which the Greek people were living would have to die before
it could become of the highest service to the whole world.

This principle received its highest illustration in Christ
Himself. He gained His victory through death. His own
resurrection and the birth of the Christian Church were both
fruits of His death on the cross. It was Calvary that created
Christianity. The living principle of the faith was expressed
once for all in the self-devotion and death of our Lord. Like
the grain of wheat He fell into the earth and died, in order to
bear much fruit.

Thus, when Jesus says, ' Follow me,' He means to say
' Follow me in the surrender of everything ; follow me, if need
be, even to the cross '. This dying to all that impedes the
work of God in the soul includes for the Hindu a dying to
Hinduism, which is no easy or pleasant duty.

In the philosophy and theistic theology of Hinduism there

1 John 12, 23-25.

INTRODUCTION 51

are many precious truths enshrined ; but, as we shall see, the
ancient Hindu system, within which they appeared, effectually
prevents them from leavening the people. This hard, unyield
ing system must fall into the ground and die, before the
aspirations and the dreams of Hindu thinkers and ascetics
can be set free to grow in health and strength so as to bear
fruit in the lives of Hindu villagers. Hinduism must die in
order to live. It must die into Christianity.

D. How then does death issue in life ?

By His life, death, and teaching Jesus founded a new
religion. He thus takes His place, in one sense, beside other
founders of religions. Yet the way in which He did it separates
Him from all others. We shall understand best if we com
pare Him with the great Buddhist leader. Gautama cut
himself adrift completely from Hinduism and denounced the
Vedic sacrifices, the Vedas, and all the works of the Brahmans.
He made a clean sweep and a new beginning. Jesus, on the
other hand, acknowledged that the faith of Israel was from
God, yet declared that He had been sent to transform it into
a new religion. This was possible, because He knew that
God's method of revelation is not the presentation, once for
all, of a complete system of truth expressed in a book from
all eternity, but a gradual and historical process. The simple
beginnings of the faith of Israel are laid before us in the Book
of Genesis ; they grow before our eyes in the narratives of the
other books of Moses ; and they find still richer development
in the Prophets and the Psalms. But even in them God's will
is not completely revealed. Hence, to Jesus, the religion of
Israel was given by God, but not given in permanency. It
was God's instrument for the training of Israel. He came to
crown it by transforming it into the religion for all men, and
to crown its knowledge of God by revealing Him as the Father
of men.

The contrast between Christ and Buddha in this relation
comes out most clearly when we compare the Buddhist books
with the Bible. There is no hymn from the Rigveda, no
D 2

52 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

meditation from the Aranyakas, no glowing passage from the
Upanishads in the Pali Tripitaka ; while the whole of the
Jewish Scriptures reappear in the Bible as the Old Testament.
Thus the principle of living growth, of progress and develop
ment, is set before us in visible form in the Christian Scrip
tures. The Old Testament is the bud ; the New Testament
is the flower.

But, though the whole of the Jewish Scriptures are contained
in the Christian Bible, they are not used by the Christian
as they were used by the Jew. The whole of the Old
Testament is retained, but it is read through Christ. For
the Jew the whole is binding ; for the Christian it is binding
only in so far as it is in consonance with the Spirit of
Christ. The Christian does not obey the Laws of Moses,
though these are all contained in his sacred book. He does
not offer animal sacrifice, nor abstain from the unclean
foods of the law, nor circumcise his male children. The
institutions of the old law were necessary for the childhood
of the world. They are pictures, symbols, prophecies, but
the reality is Christ. To the man who knows Christ these
external rites are unnecessary. Yet the whole of the Old
Testament is of very great value for the religious life ; and
a very large part of it is filled with the highest moral and
spiritual truth, and is accepted as such by the Christian, as it
was accepted by Christ.

Christ regarded the Old Testament as pointing forward to
Himself. Here is a most instructive scene, His first sermon
in the synagogue of His own city Nazareth :

And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up : and he
entered, as his custom was, into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and
stood up to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the
prophet Isaiah. And he opened the book, and found the place where
it was written :

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

Because he anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor :

He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives,

INTRODUCTION 53

And recovering of sight to the blind,

To set at liberty them that are bruised,

To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.

And he closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat
down : and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fastened on him.
And he began to say unto them, To-day hath this scripture been
fulfilled in your ears.1

In His coming, teaching, life, death, resurrection, person, the
whole of the old religion is summed up, and makes a new
beginning, no longer merely for Israel, but for the world. He
is the Messiah of the prophets ; He brings in the Kingdom of
Heaven promised by them ; and His teaching sums up the
Law and the Prophets. In Him all the old lines meet, and
again stretch out to all the world. He sums up His whole
relationship to Israel in the words :
I am come not to destroy, but to fulfil.2

The religions of Greece and Rome could not be the starting-
point for the religion of the world, like the religion of Israel.
Yet in them also much broken spiritual light was visible ; and
every type, symbol, and shadow found itself reproduced in
spiritual reality in Christ. He did not destroy the old
civilization, philosophy, literature, and art. Everything of
value that the old world contained has been preserved and
has flowered once more in Christianity. Our modern educa
tion, thought, science, and art rest on the ancient foundations.
It is most significant that Greek philosophers at first regarded
the crucified Jew with unspeakable disdain, but later realized
that Greek philosophy was but a preparation for his teaching.
Clement of Alexandria writes :

Philosophy tutored the Greeks for Christ as the Law did the
Hebrews.3

Thus it will be with India. Missionaries do not 'wish
to destroy' Hindu 'society, history, and civilization', as
Prof. Har Dayal imagines they do.4 The Muslim came, smash-

1 Luke 4, 16-21. 2 Matt. 5, 17.

3 StromateiSi i. 28. 4 See p. 33, above.

54 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

ing temple and image, killing priest and scholar, confiscating
temple and monastic lands. Christ comes, not to steal, and
kill, and destroy, but to give life and to give it abundantly.1
Under the spell of His influence modern India has already
awaked to new and wondrous life. Here is the testimony of
one who is not a Christian, Sir Narayan Chandavarkar, Vice-
Chancellor of the University of Bombay and a Justice of the
Bombay High Court :

The ideas that lie at the heart of the Gospel of Christ are slowly but
surely permeating every part of Hindu society and modifying every
phase of Hindu thought.2

Christ is already breathing life into the Hindu people. He
does not come to destroy. To Him all that is great and good
is dear, the noble art of India, the power and spirituality of its
best literature, the beauty and simplicity of Hindu village
life, the love and tenderness of the Hindu home, the devotion
and endurance of the ascetic schools. Paul gave perfect
expression to the Christian spirit in this regard :

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are
honourable, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure,
whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report ;
if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.3

True, Christ passes everything through His refiner's fire, in
order that the dross, which Hindus know so well, may pass
away ; but the gold will then shine all the brighter. What He
cannot endure is that fine art and high literature and lofty
philosophy should be used to enslave the poor of the people
to superstition. All must be purged for their sakes. Hindus,
like His own people, imagine Him a destroyer; but, when the
period of pain and strife has passed, they too will see that He
is not the Destroyer but the Restorer of the national heritage,
and that all the gleams of light that make Hindu faith and

1 John 10, 10.

2 From an address delivered in the Y. M. C. A., Bombay, on June 14
1910.

3 Phil. 4, 8.

INTRODUCTION 55

worship so fascinating to the student find in Him their
explanation and consummation. It is one of the chief aims of
this volume to show that Christianity is the Crown of Hinduism.

E. The Churches of the West and the missionaries they
send must obey this spiritual law of seeking life through
death.

i. In relation to those they seek to win to Christ. The
missionary's life must be a daily death to self in every aspect
of his behaviour, if he is to exercise his full influence for
Christ. No words are sufficient to tell how meek and lowly
in heart the winner of souls must be, what humility of speech,
what quietness of manner, what superlative self-effacement are
necessary, in order that the light of Christ may shine through
him into Hindu eyes. The peculiar circumstances of India
give three aspects of this duty special prominence.

There is, first, race feeling. The fact that India is under
Britain complicates matters for the Christian rather seriously.
The missionary is presumably quite incapable of the extreme
insolence not infrequently shown to Indians by individual
Europeans, when the swaggering British private, the shop
assistant, the mill mechanic, the army officer, and, occasion
ally, even the Indian civilian, display their common lack of
breeding and of the imperial instinct. Yet there is extreme
danger even for the missionary. He comes to the Indian
because he believes him to be his brother ; but the glories of
his race and of its imperial position still live in his thought ;
and the simple fact that, for the present, a much larger per
centage of effective men are found among Europeans than
among Indians, is apt to assume exaggerated importance
when one comes to practical work ; so that the brotherhood
which Christ teaches us tends to become qualified by other
considerations. The danger is that these ideas will colour
his behaviour, and that the Indian will be only too conscious
that he is regarded as an inferior creature. We must there
fore be most careful to treat every man with the supreme
courtesy which Christ would show him, lest we cause one of

56 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

these little ones to stumble. It is also right and wise to seek
the closest social relations possible. Christ's example is here
decisive. The extreme difficulties which Indian society
presents should only stir the Christian to greater wisdom
and inventiveness. In this as in other things love can see
ways at first invisible. The missionary must also check the
tendency, so noticeable in certain Indians, to become sub
servient to the European. Our noble King-Emperor has
shown the right spirit: a Punjabi was about to prostrate
himself at his feet, but the king caught him ere he fell. The
Christian must refuse to allow the Oriental to do otherwise
than play the man.

The sensitive Indian spirit is often repelled by our too self-
conscious culture, by our society manner or university tone.
For culture itself the Indian has unlimited respect ; but the
man who makes a shibboleth of the trifles of behaviour and
the lady with a society sniff grate on his very soul, and make
him shrink into his innermost reserve. There is surely no
excuse for the man who follows Christ and studies St. Paul if
he fail in this matter.

The rule for the behaviour of the monk, Buddhist as well
as Hindu, which is dealt with below,1 has given the Hindu
a high ideal of how the religious teacher should live and act
towards others. He readily grasps the point that Christ does
not bid His followers live as monks ; yet he expects them to
show the meek, patient, unworldly temper demanded of the
monk — no anger, no fuss, no overbearing words. Our Western
temper, eager to act. impatient of laziness, crookedness, scamped
work, and fecklessness, is apt to rise in indignation in practical
relations with Indians. The Hindu may not behave better
himself, but he holds that the missionary has not behaved
rightly ; and Christ agrees with him.

2. The same law must rule our conduct in relation to
Hinduism. There is so much that is immoral and cruel in
the laws and practices of the religion that the first impulse
1 p. 256 f.

INTRODUCTION 57

of the healthy Christian is to denounce these things in the
frankest possible terms, as they are denounced by Hindus in
the articles quoted above;1 and it must be confessed that, at
first sight, it seems as if such denunciation were fully justified
from the practical standpoint of the welfare of the people of
India. But there is a further fact which the practical missionary
usually fails altogether to notice. No matter how gross,
superstitious, cruel, or immoral a law or practice may be,
there is always a glint of higher light upon it. This is shown
at length in our last chapter. Even if it be a jewel in a swine's
snout, it is there, and it is the secret of the reverence in which
the rite or custom is held by the Hindu. Hence it is neither
just nor wise to denounce the practice without reference to
that which touches the sensitive Hindu spirit. Indeed the
full scientific truth is not told unless both elements are
recognized and the way in which the spiritual gleam comes
to fall on the vicious act is set forth. Thus in dealing with
every detail of Hinduism the utmost self-restraint is required.
There must be a dying to self in this matter also. The writer
here wishes to make public confession that during the first
years of his life in India unguarded expressions fell from him
in teaching, in public addresses, and in literature, of which he
is now heartily ashamed.

Many a Hindu who is in the main friendly towards the
practical work of missions and also towards the spread of the
teaching of Christ in India complains that missionary literature
very frequently judges Hinduism by the worst parts of Hindu
practice, and sets forth, in contrast, the highest ideals of
Christianity. It must be confessed that there is some truth
in this serious charge ; and the writer of this volume wishes
to disassociate himself altogether from such writing. Christian
criticism is unchristian unless it be impregnably just and truly
Christlike in tone. Unsleeping watchfulness requires to be
exercised in this regard. Strenuous efforts have been made

1 See pp. 36-42.

58 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

in the following chapters to be scrupulously fair, and to
interpret Hindu teaching with as much imaginative sympathy
as a Christian would wish a Hindu to bestow on the religion
of Christ. Special care has been taken not to violate the
great canon, that a religion must not be judged by the
conduct of those who refuse to obey it. The crimes and
immoralities of a country can be attributed to its religion
only in so far as it commands or condones them. As the
sexual vice of Europe exists in defiance of Christ, so, much
that is deplorable in Hindu life arises in flat disobedience to
the precepts of Hinduism. Hence the only sane rule is to judge
a religion by its principles, its laws, and its institutions, and
not by the excesses of certain groups of the population.

3. There must be the same readiness to die to self in rela
tion to certain aspects of our own Christianity. When we say
that Christianity is the Crown of Hinduism, we do not mean
Christianity as it is lived in any nation, nor Christianity as it
is defined and elaborated in detail in the creed, preaching,
ritual, liturgy, and discipline of any single church, but
Christianity as it springs living and creative from Christ Him
self. Christ is the head of the whole Church, not of any one
denomination. Christ is human, not Western. Far less is He
English, Scottish, American, or German.

Only in this way can we be true to Christ. For He set
forth no detailed laws for the Church, for the moral life, or for
the State. While Hinduism, Muhammadanism, and other
religions have laid down detailed rules for human conduct in
the matter of the family and other institutions, Christ
deliberately refused to do so. In all these things He taught
merely the spiritual principles which are necessary for our
human life and left us to apply them in detail ourselves. The
contrast between the Old and New Testaments in this regard
is so striking as to leave no room for doubt. The Law of
Moses differs very seriously in many ways from the Law of
Manu ; yet both bring every aspect of human life under
religious law ; both mix up religious, political, moral, and

INTRODUCTION 59

sanitary regulations in a way that is most disconcerting to
a modern mind ; and both contain numerous rules for man's
guidance in social matters. Thus, in their general form, the
Hindu Law and the Jewish Law stand on a par. But there
is no law in the New Testament. Jesus left no detailed social
and religious regulations for His followers. Instead of a multi
tude of commands and prohibitions, He left them His own
principles and the divine freedom of sons of God. In this
way He gained two most valuable ends.

First of all, His system is truly universal, applicable to all
races of men, to all countries, and to all times ; while every
detailed system of laws, however wisely drawn up, necessarily
becomes obsolete as civilization advances. Hindus are now
beginning to discover that this is true with regard to all the
social institutions of their religion, and they are casting about
for wise means of reform. It is the same thing that is wrong
with Muslim institutions ; but very few Muslims have as yet
realized the fact. They do not yet see that it is impossible to
secure a healthy society and nation by applying the institutions
of the Arabia of the seventh century to modern life. Such
difficulties cannot arise where Christianity is understood ; for
Christ gave us principles which can be applied in innumerable
forms to the detailed needs of men in all circumstances.

Secondly, the method of Christ gives each people freedom,
allows them to build up the fabric of their social life according
to their national genius. The systems remain Christian, so
long as they are guided in every detail by the spiritual
principles of Jesus. But that is not all. The complement to
the freedom of the Church is the constant presence and
activity of the Holy Spirit :

He will guide you into all truth.1

The Church, in freedom, faithfully seeking and following the
guidance of the Spirit of Christ in applying the universal

1 John 16, 13.

60 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

truths taughtL-hy— Jesus to the details of life, thought, and
worship, finds her way into health and righteousness.

The sheer originality of the method of Jesus in these
matters is unparalleled. No other teacher approaches Him.
Students will note how consistently He maintained this atti
tude : in all circumstances He remains the universal religious
teacher; He refuses to become a mere legislator. In full
conformity with this position, He also refused to act as judge.
In the case of the man who asked Him to adjudicate in the
matter of the family property between himself and his brother,
He said,

Who made me a judge or a divider over you ? l

and in the painful case of the woman brought before Him for
adultery He so acted that her accusers, accused by their own
consciences, slunk away ; and the woman found in Jesus not
a judge to condemn her, but the Saviour of both her body and
her soul.2

The New Testament itself presents us with a practical
example of the out-working of these principles which may be
of service to us. The original disciples of Christ were all
Jews; but soon the Good News was told to Gentiles and
many responded. The first impulse of the Christian leaders
was to make these converts into Jews and to impose the whole
Jewish law upon them. But some protested ; and finally the
whole Church was led, in part by Peter, but in the main by
Paul, to see that Christ Himself was all-sufficient for them
without the law.3 Hence the perfect freedom we have in
Christ.

What was sufficient for the infant churches of Syria, Asia
Minor, Greece, and Italy will assuredly prove sufficient for
India, China, and Japan. We need not impose on them our
elaborate theologies, our detailed canon law, or the particulars
of our ritual, or the forms of our society. It is a hard

1 Luke 12, 13, 14. 2 John 8, l-n.

3 Acts 15, 1-31.

INTRODUCTION 61

task to distinguish in full wisdom the vital spirit from the
phenomenal dress ; but the will to die to all that is only our
own will enable us to hear the voice of the Spirit of Jesus and
to recognize what is merely racial, national, sectional, local, or
temporary in our conception of Christ and His gospel. It is
far easier to work this out in practice than in theory. Indeed
it has been already done in many a community. Then, the
more progress Christians make in co-operation, federation, and
union, in conscious loyalty to Christ's principle of freedom,1
on the one hand, and to His dying prayer for unity,2 on the
other, the more easy will it be to make this difficult yet
altogether necessary distinction. Hence, in seeking to trans
fuse the life of Christ into the Hindu people, Christians must
be constantly on their guard, laying aside all that is merely
Western or temporary, and offering only the Bread of Life
Himself.

F. We would invite the Hindu also to distinguish and dis
cern. People sometimes write and speak as if it were the
policy of missionaries to impose imperiously the whole of
their own religious, civil, and social life unchanged upon the
people of India. Such a policy would be downright tyranny,
and if successful would be seriously subversive of national
life. But such a thing is neither possible nor desirable. Serious
Christians, above all, do not dream of doing such violence to
the spirit of man. We are very fully conscious of the imper
fections of the Christianity of England and of every other
country of the West. We do not imagine that we or any
other group of men have 'attained'; but we do hold most
seriously that in Christ we have something which the nations
need. The education and the science of England or of
Germany are not perfect ; yet India, China, and Japan are
adopting Western education and Western science as fast as
they possibly can. The Government of Britain is by no
means perfect, yet every awakened nation of the East, Muslim,
Hindu, Buddhist, or Confucian, is panting after British freedom.
1 Matt. 17, 24-26. 2 John 17, 20-23.

62 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

Spiritual religion can be absorbed without loss of nationality,
as truly as these other activities of the human mind. If the
intellectual life of the West is necessary for the welfare of the
East, much more are the principles of Christ necessary for
the healing of the nations.

There can be no such thing as a national acceptance of
Christ. He cannot be received by men en masse. Each soul
must turn in its bare individual personality to find union with
Him. The only cry possible is:

Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee.

Hence, no existing nation is anything like fully Christian.
A certain percentage of the population surrender to Him ;
others yield only a partial allegiance, and some even consciously
oppose Him. The moral and spiritual standard which Christ
lays upon the human soul is so high and so exacting that the
worldly man rebels, and many seek to belong to Him and yet
to escape the more serious aspects of His Lordship. Hence no
Christian country fully represents Christ. His power must
not be measured by any land. We make fullest confession of
all the evils visible in the life of Christian countries in the
West. Hindus often write and speak of these things, but they
are far more painfully present to the Christian mind. Yet
these things do not prove that Christ has failed.

The example of Israel is sufficient to prove that a nation
may possess truth of the highest value to all the world, and
yet a large part of the people may fail to use it in their lives.
The Old Testament is the record of the supreme religious
revelation of the ancient world, yet the disobedience of the
bulk of the people is the most constant feature of their history.
On the other hand, the core of the nation was true to Jahveh ;
and in them, above all, but also in the whole people, the
wonderful work of God is manifest. So in the West. Despite
our pitiable failure, there is abundance in our life to show the
supremacy of Christ. The West surpasses all the world in

INTRODUCTION 63

practical philanthropy, in eager endeavours to serve men, in
the uprightness and purity of its government, and in general
efficiency. This last quality which the East longs so vehe
mently to possess is largely the result of two Christian forces,
the position of woman in the family and society, and the
general purity of public administration ; both of which spring
from the depth and clearness of Christ's ethic. The mere fact
that all the nations of the East now wish to copy the West is
proof of the mighty dynamic at work there. But the
thoughtful man will test Christ not by the Western world as
a whole but by its Christian core, and there he will recognize
the constant presence of a high and great type of character,
distinguished chiefly by heroic service of mankind and by the
full reconciliation of the highest culture the world knows with
full faith in Christ.

But there is another point to be noticed. However faithful
any single country might be to Christ, it could not interpret
Him fully. He is human ; and the riches that are in Him
can be set forth only by the united efforts of the whole human
family. There are many elements in His life and teaching
which are acknowledged by the Church, yet have never been
fully worked out in thought or in life :

We are but broken lights of Thee.

But a new age is dawning. We see Jesus already crowned
with many crowns ; but we do not yet see all things put under
Him. But in this new age on which we have entered His
Kingdom will continue to extend rapidly, until

All kings shall fall down before him :
All nations shall serve him.1

Then much that is now but promise will find concrete exposi
tion and embodiment, and the glory and universality of our
Lord will be placed beyond cavil. How much will be possible,
when the whole world acknowledges, even with meagre intelli-

1 Ps. 72, ii.

64 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

gence, the Lordship of Christ? How many reforms will
inevitably come? How much uplifting of the fallen, whether
individuals or peoples ? How many forms of change will then
come within the range of possibility ?

Then will the wonderful religious genius of India reveal its
power anew in its interpretation of Christ. Aspects of His
example and of His message which are latent in the West
will in India find free and full expression. May not Christ's
attitude to poverty find glorious illumination, His deep sense
of the meaning and the sacredness of society be exhibited to
the world by a people set free from Caste indeed, yet reaping
its fruits as never before, and the prayer and communion with
His Father to which Jesus so often gave His nights be turned
to priceless account by the descendants of the rishis and
yogis ? Aspects of Christ which the hard practical West has
failed to utilize will prove fruitful beyond our dreams in the
Christian experience of the richly dowered Hindu race.

Hence, in this volume, in setting forth Christianity as
the Crown of Hinduism, we shall restrict ourselves to Christ
Himself, drawing our evidence only from His own life and
teaching, and from those parts of the Old Testament which
He accepted without alteration. If we use a sentence here and
there from the Apostles, we do so only to further illustrate
the meaning of Christ.

It has been rather difficult to decide in what order the
various aspects of Hinduism ought to be reviewed ; for each
has influenced the others in turn. But, since karma is the one
principle which has leavened every part of the religion, it
necessarily had to be dealt with early. On the other hand,
it is clear that the chief religious ideas behind the Hindu
family took form before the rise of the karma theory ; and,
in the main, they have continued to act as if there were no
such doctrine. Hence the family is taken first and karma
next. There is one other fragment of the religion which has

INTRODUCTION 65

come very little under the influence of karma, namely the life
of the vanaprastha ; but, as that is bound by so many ties
to the life of the sannydsi, it seemed better to take them
together and simply to point out the historical circumstances
in which the rule arose.1 The reasons for the order of the
other chapters lie on the surface.

1 See below, pp. 249-253.

CHAPTER I

THE INDO-ARYAN FAITH

I. IN the darkling cave of prehistoric time we are beginning
to make out faintly the outlines of the religion by which the
parent Aryan people lived before they spread abroad and
gave birth to many nations. Their original divinities were
a vast number of petty spirits, each supposed to have only
a single function ; but they learned rather later to revere
a number of the greater phenomena of nature. They
worshipped these heavenly powers by means of sacrifice and
prayer and with the aid of priests. They also laid great
stress on the worship of their ancestors ; and this ritual formed
the foundation on which all the institutions of the Aryan
family were built.1

II. One of the great swarms that hived off from the central
body found its way into the lands to the south of the Oxus,
and gradually took possession of the country to the west,
east, and south. This people may be designated Indo-Iranian
at this stage ; for, in the course of their slow expansion, they
gradually became divided in two, the eastern half entering
India and creating its civilization, the western populating
Iran, and giving birth to Zoroastrianism and the ancient
Persian Empire. By inference from the Vedas, on the one
hand, and from the Avesta and other Zoroastrian documents,
on the other, we are able to realize in outline what the religion
of this prehistoric people was like.

Clearly considerable advance had been made in conceiving
the heavenly gods ; for there is now quite a group of persona-

1 Art. ' Aryan Religion ', E, R. E.

THE INDO-ARYAN FAITH 67

lized divinities with definite names and lofty functions. It
seems clear that the following at least were fully recognized :
Varuna, Mitra, Aryaman, Bhaga, and Indra, and along with
them Yama and Soma. Theology had made a good deal of
progress ; for the gods are thought of as spiritual beings, and
the natural phenomena from which they originally sprang are
now but the medium of their manifestation.

The sacrifice, meanwhile, had been greatly elaborated. A
ritual had been established, and hymns as well as prayers
accompanied the stated acts. The home of the gods being
now believed to be in heaven, it was the common practice to
send the sacrifice to them on the flames and smoke of the
altar fire. The drink of the gods ofTered in sacrifice was the
juice of a plant called soina in Sanskrit, liaonia in Zend, the
language of the Avesta. A special ritual for the offering
of this divine drink had appeared and the drink itself had
undergone apotheosis. Soma was already a god. The priests,
too, had far fuller functions than before and were called by
special names.

The belief about the dead had also made considerable
progress. Burning had almost universally taken the place of
burying, probably from a wish to release the soul as com
pletely as possible from the body and to bear it away on the
flame of the pyre to the heavenly regions. When men die,
they are believed to go to heaven, where they join the
company of glorified ancestors and enjoy immortality with
the gods. They are invited to the sacrifice in the same way
as the gods. They are believed to be very powerful.

But the most interesting fact about Indo-Iranian days is
that there was a movement which, had it not been checked,
might have culminated in an ethical theism ; and it is clear
that ideas of considerable worth were pressed forward in the
reformation. The god who held the supreme place was
Varuna. Scholars now agree that Asura Varuna of the
Rigvcda is Ahura Mazda of the Avesta. Varuna is called kha
ritasya in the Rigveda, while Ahura Mazda is called asJiahe
E 2

68 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

khao in the Avesta. These are merely dialectic forms of the
same phrase, signifying ' source of divine law '. This noble
conception of supreme law, Sanskrit rita, Zend as/ia, covers
the unchanging order of nature as well as the moral law.
It is clear, however, that the reform had not been carried
through when the moment of unconscious separation arrived.1

III. If our knowledge of the primaeval Aryans, and even of
the Indo-Iranians, is a matter of rather hazy inference, the life
which the Indo-Aryans lived in the morning of history stands
out before us in the Rigveda clearly defined and rosily
beautiful, like the snows of the Himalayas in the sparkle
of dawn. Since the Rik became known to Europe, innu
merable scholars have made it the centre of their researches ;
so that the religion represented in it is now well understood,
and its beliefs and its practices have been carefully analysed
and brought into relationship with similar phenomena else
where.2

Their home was at first the Western Panjab and certain
districts of Afghanistan beyond the Indus, but they gradually
spread eastward, subduing or displacing the aboriginal tribes,
and thus steadily adding to the territory under them. They
were a simple people, organized in tribes, each ruled by its
own chieftain. They lived in villages, getting their livelihood
by cattle-feeding and tillage, and therefore were dependent
upon sunshine and soil, rain and river, for their wealth. Yet
they were as well used to the sword as the plough, and were
always ready to fight the dark barbarians around them or to
dispute a piece of territory with a neighbouring Aryan tribe.
They knew but few of the arts ; they had no writing and no
coinage. They ate beef and drank intoxicating drink.

The father, as in the early Aryan age, had the ancestral
rites in his hands, and, in consequence, had all the authority of
the family in his power. Marriage was universal, and parents
prayed for sons to take over the rites from the father. Girl

1 Most of the details are from Bloomfield's Religion of the Veda.

2 Kaegi gives a good summary of what is known.

THE INDO-ARYAN FAITH 69

children were sometimes exposed as in earlier days. But
although the patriarchal system placed great power in the
hands of the father, it had not yet developed its evil tendencies.
Women had a great deal of liberty. Young men and maidens
formed acquaintances at festal and other gatherings, and
marriages were usually arranged according to their wishes.
There was no child-marriage and no life of seclusion behind
the purdah. A widow was not expected to burn herself on
her husband's pyre, and there was no rule forbidding her to
remarry. Polygamy was known, but was little practised.

There was no caste, although the three classes— warriors,
priests, farmers — which at a later date became the three twice-
born castes, can already be traced among them.

Strangely enough, not one scrap of anything material that
can be with certainty ascribed to this age has ever been found.
Even pottery seems to fail, probably because of the semi-
migratory life they were still living. Had it not been for
their religion, we should be absolutely without direct evidence
about this most interesting and gifted people. But, thanks
to that, there remains to us to-day the most stately and most
significant memorial that exists of any early people.

The Rigveda is a work of surpassing interest. While in
the strict sense it is not true to say that the religion and the
civilization which gave birth to the hymns are primitive, it is
true that no other people has bequeathed to us a body of lofty
literature representing such an early stage in the development
of civilization. Clearly the people who created the Rik were
a race of remarkable gifts. The high qualities which produced
these hymns are as conspicuously revealed to us in the
character of their language. While ancient Sanskrit is one of
the great group of Aryan languages, all of which show many
common features, yet it is the only member of the family
which has preserved its words in such form as to make their
origin quite plain to the philologist. The linguistic conscious
ness of the people who developed Sanskrit must have been
delicate and analytic far above the average. The religious

70 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

conquest of the whole Indian Peninsula by the Brahman race,
and the remarkable qualities of the philosophy and the
literature which they produced, are sufficient titles to a very
high place in the aristocracy of humanity.

The heavenly gods whose rise we noted in the Aryan
period have now reached the summit of their glory, and have
cither eclipsed all others or drawn them into the shining circle
of the Celestials. The Indo-Aryan gods are all dci'as. What
gives them their unrivalled splendour and interest is the fact
that they are still identified with the most glorious natural
phenomena, the all-encompassing Sky, the flashing Sun, the
Thundercloud, gigantic, omnipotent, the Dawn divinely
beautiful, the roaring Storm ; so that no such thing as temple
or image is ever dreamt of; yet they are so far personalized
that they not only receive sacrifice and listen to prayer and
hymn, but have their own high home of unapproachable
light beyond sun and stars, where they live in immortal joy.

The greatest of all the gods, Indra, the Thunderer, whose
primal function is to bring rain to the parched fields, goes out
armed with thunderbolts, flanked by wild winds, Alanits, and
smites A/ii, the demon Restraincr, who would keep the living
waters from the dying land. The fighting Thunderer naturally
became War-god and Leader to the forward-marching, con
quering Aryans. Whence the transition to Sustaincr, Creator,
and omnipotent Lord was not difficult. Agni, Fire, the high
priest of gods and men, holds the second place. Along with
him comes Soma, originally the intoxicating juice of a plant,
drink divine for both men and gods, now a great god, to
whom sacrifice and song are offered. Sfirya, Vis/inn, Savitar,
PusJian, are different forms of the Sun ; Us/ias is the Dawn ;
and the Asvins, sons of the Mare, arc the Dioskouroi, swift
light-bearers of the morning sky. They had added functions
as Healers and Helpers in distress. Ritdra, the Roarer, is
a storm god ; Vdyn, the wind ; Dyaits Heaven and Prithim
the Earth ; but these two ancient divinities have fallen far
into the background. Yaina is honoured as a god, but is

THE INDO-ARYAN FAITH 71

described as the first man, and as having discovered the path
by which the righteous dead go to heaven to join the company
of their ancestors and the gods.

But by far the most interesting group are the Adityas, the
seven sons of the great mother Aditi, Eternity. The seven
names arc not all given. We hear only of Varnna, Mitra,
Aryaman, and Bhaga. These are the highest of all the gods.
Varnna and Mitra especially are conceived as powers behind
the other gods, rulers who have marked out the path for other
gods to tread. The origin of this group of divinities is still
wrapped in obscurity.

The figure of Varuna is by far the noblest in the Rigveda.
He was the centre of the theistic movement of the Indo-
Iranian age, as we have already seen.1 In the Rik he
represents all the loftiest thoughts connected with the
Adityas. He stands out in a lonely grandeur which, to us, has
in it something of solemn sadness ; for the group of noble
conceptions with which he is connected is the one segment of
Rigvedic theology which is not carried forward and used in
the great culmination of Indian thought which characterizes
the next age.

His name suggests that he was originally ' the encompassing
heaven ', but he scarcely appears in the hymns in that
character at all. He is the Creator and Sustainer of all
things, the omniscient Ruler who watches the whole universe
with all-seeing, unsleeping eyes, the compassionate Protector
and Helper, the Holy One, from whom Law and Right (rita)
proceed, who blesses the righteous, sternly punishes the
sinner, pardons the penitent, and confers immortality on the
faithful dead. Serious sickness and sudden danger seem to
have been usually interpreted as the outcome of Varuna's
anger over a breach of his laws. There arc quite a number
of hymns in which the singer prays to him for pardon and
release from punishment. The petition usually runs, ' Whether

1 See above, p. 67.

72 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

we have sinned consciously or unconsciously.' or ' Whichever
of thy laws, known or unknown, we have broken '. There is
more ethical feeling in the hymns addressed to Varuna than
in any other group. He is the only god of the Rik who is
consistently holy.

But this gracious, righteous, omniscient Lord is already
fading into the background in the Rigveda. Indra, the bold
warrior, stands out as the national god. For him the greatest
sacrifices are held ; for him the singer makes his hymn. To
Varuna no great hymn occurs among the latest hymns of the
Rigveda. The lofty ethical god has passed out of sight.
Henceforth he is only a minor divinity, the god of the waters.
Along with Varuna there also disappeared the splendid con
ception of rita, divine law. The magnificent ethical promise
of this early idea was never fulfilled. India lost it, along with
Varuna, the fount of righteousness, and never clearly rose out
of the common ancient point of view, that the gods are above
morality.

Though the Aryans of the time of the Rik were polytheists,
yet they were far enough advanced in thought and religious
feeling to be frequently led by their higher instincts to ideas
and expressions which are scarcely consistent with a belief in
many gods. We have already seen that Indra is revered as
the Creator, the Sustainer, the omnipotent Lord, and that
Varuna also receives all these epithets and is recognized as
the source of Law besides. The worshipper is frequently
carried forward, in the fervour of his feeling for the god who
is the object of his adoration at the moment, to think of him
as supreme, as the only possible object of adoration. The
right way to interpret these facts is to say that the only really
rational form of religion is the worship of one God, sole and
supreme ; that early men very seldom, if ever, reached the
full perception of that truth ; but that the more open they
were in mind, and the more reverent and moral they were in
life, the more were they unconsciously drawn towards belief
in one God only. The Rik is polytheistic, but contains

THE INDO-ARYAN FAITH 73

numerous phrases which show in what direction the minds of
the worshippers were tending.

The worship of the Rigveda is summed up in the sacrifice.
The priests, the householder and his family gathered in the
open air where preparations had been made. The altars were
shallow trenches cut according to rule and filled with sacri
ficial grass. Close by were the three sacred fires, and the
sacrificial posts to which the victims were tied. The priests
pressed the soma, and set it out in cups. They killed the
animals, poured offerings of butter, milk, and grain on the
fires, and laid out food on the grass-covered altars. All the
while they recited, chanted, or muttered portions of the
hymns, inviting the gods to the sacrifice and asking for their
favour and help. The extremest care was taken that no slip
should occur either in the ritual or the liturgy.

The worship is distinctly ignoble. It is frankly a method
of bargaining with the gods and persuading them to give the
sacrificer and the priest the large material and earthly boons
which they desire. The beauty and dignity of the hymns are
means towards this end. There is little real religious feeling
manifested in the whole elaborate cult.

The worship of ancestors, now known as ' the fathers ',
stands out in great clearness in the hymns. Burial has not
altogether passed out of use, but cremation is the regular
method of disposal of the dead. The hymn sung at the
funeral bids the soul go without fear and follow Yama, who
has found the path to the home of the righteous ' fathers ' in
heaven, where he will enjoy a blessed immortality, in the
company of those of his loved ones who have gone before him.
Then a funeral feast is held ; and annually afterwards it is
repeated. ' Then with Yama and Agni all the " fathers " who
are known and who are not known arc summoned to the
funeral feast, to the food on the sacrificial straw and to the
prized soma.' The ' fathers ' have their home in heaven, but
they move freely through the wide spaces of the air, bringing
blessings to their posterity and helping them in all trouble.

74 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

They arc righteous, and eagerly distinguish between those
who do right and those who do wrong. It is most noteworthy
that in those days men were believed to die but once, and
thereafter to enjoy immortality. No thought at all resembling
transmigration occurs in the hymns.

Indeed rebirth was too gloomy a thought for those days of
sunshine. The whole outlook of the people was bright. The
world was no illusion to them, and life was good : they prayed
that they might live a hundred years ; and they looked forward
to meeting their loved ones and enjoying unending happiness
with them in heaven. It is also rather remarkable that there
is no sign of asceticism among them. Austerity, tapas, occurs
in some of the later hymns ; but there is no ascetic idea con
nected with it. It is simply a method, parallel with sacrifice,
of getting what one wishes.

There is another element in the Rik which must not be
neglected. The beginnings of religious philosophy appear in
some of the later hymns. There is no system taught. Rather
is the material in the form of hard questions and mystic
suggestions. But already one of the characteristic ideas of
Hindu philosophy finds expression, the One behind the
many gods, he who is the unseen source and supporter of all
that is.

It seems to be clear, however, that the Rigveda docs not
give us a complete picture of the religious life of the time.
Except in the matter of ancestor-worship, the domestic and
the private observances are scarcely represented in the hymns.
Simple domestic rites there must have been which developed
later into the sacraments described in the legal literature.
We have also the evidence of the Atharvaveda to prove that
the people were accustomed to use magic rites and spells to
save themselves from dangers and enemies of many kinds, and
to bring evil upon th'ose whom they hated. Such practices
date from the early Aryan period and have survived in India
until our own day. The Atharvan was compiled at a later
date than the Rik, but many of its hymns and incantations

THE INDO-ARYAN FAITH 75

belong to the same period as the sacrificial hymns ; so that its
evidence is of undeniable value.

The priests were already very powerful. The greatest
of all was the Chief's chaplain, the pitroJiita ; but all were
revered for their sacred knowledge and skill, and for the
power they wielded over the gods. Already they were
divided by function into three groups, the hotris or reciters,
the -iidgdtris or chanters, the adJivaryus or sacrificers. There
were six priestly families of great celebrity and capacity, each
of which treasured a group of hymns which had been produced
by its members, and which were believed to be of priceless
worth for their influence over the gods. Towards the end
of the period we find evidence of the existence of schools in
which young priests were trained. The education was neces
sarily oral, and the one subject of study was the hymns used
at the sacrifices. It seems likely that it was in the six great
families that these schools first arose, and that the head of one
of them succeeded in learning the hymns belonging to the
other five, and was thus able to teach six distinct sets of
hymns to his pupils. In this way we account for the bringing
together of the six groups of hymns, each attributed to one of
the great families, which now form Books II and VII of the
Rigvcda, and which are recognized by all scholars as being
the nucleus of the whole. At later dates other groups were
added, until the contents of the ten books as we have them
were gathered into a single collection.

IV. The religion of the Rigveda is held by no Hindu now.
It was transformed, in the course of the subjugation of India,
into a very different religion. How this great change came
to take place, and what the forces were which produced it,
will appear in the following chapters.

Hindus often speak in high praise of the religion of the
Rigveda ; and there is abundance of justification for their so
doing. Perhaps they scarcely realize, however, that this early
faith stands much nearer to Christianity than it does to
Hinduism. A transition from the religion of the Rik to

76 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

Christianity would be much simpler and more natural than
a transition to Hinduism. How easy it is to step from a
simple, external, sacrificial polytheism, such as we are dealing
with here, to Christianity, is proved by numerous examples.
Those who have leaned on animal sacrifice turn with deep
religious joy to the perfect moral sacrifice of the death of
Christ, once the thirst for a spiritual faith has made itself felt.
We have seen how for a time men prayed to Varuna, the
righteous and omnipotent Lord, the source of rita, i.e. Law
both natural and moral, who punished the guilty and forgave
the penitent. This beautiful but short-lived faith finds full
justification for itself in the Heavenly Father, whose nature is
love and holiness, whose will is expressed in the regularity
and impartiality of nature as well as in the moral law, who
gave up His only Son to death, that we might have forgive
ness. Further, Christ's doctrine, that those who know the
Heavenly Father on earth will spend eternity in close personal
fellowship with Him in heaven, is the direct spiritual culmina
tion of the Vedic faith in one life and one death, followed by
an immortality of happiness ; while transmigration and karma
is an altogether alien conception. Finally, think of the
bright, hopeful outlook, the joyful acceptance of the world as
good, and the healthy social and family freedom which the
Indo-Aryans enjoyed — no caste, no child-marriage, no child-
widows, no enforced widowhood, no satl and no zenana. How
near all this is to the spirit of Christianity !

The members of the Arya Samaj revere the Rik and the
other three Vedas as the only true Revelation, on the ground
that they are c God's knowledge ' ( Veda is the Sanskrit word
for knowledge). They contend that, being God's knowledge,
the four Vedas contain all the truths of religion, and also all
natural science. The truths of religion which they find there
are the doctrines taught by the Samaj, notably, that there is
one personal God and no other, that transmigration and karma
are the laws that govern human life, and that forgiveness of
offences is for ever impossible. They deny the existence of

THE INDO-ARYAN FAITH 77

polytheism in the Vedas and stoutly maintain that they teach
monotheism and transmigration. They as confidently affirm
that every truth already discovered by Western science occurs,
at least in germ, in the fourfold canon. These arc most
astounding contentions ; for the Sdman, Yajtts, and Atharvan
exhibit the same polytheism, and the same doctrine of life and
death, that we have found in our study of the Rigveda ; and
there is no more natural science in them than there is in the
Homeric poems.

The maintenance of a living connexion with the past is not
merely a healthy, but a necessary, element of modern religion;
so that it was a sound instinct which led the founder of the
Arya Samaj to seek to link his faith to the Vedas ; but to
attempt to establish a connexion by means of assertions
which scholarship is compelled to repudiate, is to build upon
a quicksand. The position of the Arya Samaj is absolutely
indefensible.

How then can a modern religion be related to an early
faith? We need not pretend that our thoughts and know
ledge are the same as those of the naive minds of primitive
ages. We are bound to acknowledge frankly the vast
differences which sever the old from the new. But if the
beliefs we now hold are the true spiritual successors of the
simple ideas found in the primitive religion, then we may well
claim that to us has descended the heritage of the early faith.
In this sense, then, the religion of Christ is the spiritual crown
of the religion of the Rigveda.

CHAPTER II

THE HINDU FAMILY.

I. ALMOST all primitive peoples hold that the human soul
is distinct from the body and separable from it. Along with
this there usually goes the belief that the soul survives death
and lives a new life apart from the body, either in close
proximity to its old haunts, or in some other place. But
early man, not having been able to reach the idea of spirit as
distinct from material substance, conceives the soul as a
material thing, and believes that after death it is dependent
for its continued existence on food and drink precisely like
a living man. In consequence of this, nearly all primitive
races have been accustomed to provide food and drink for the
departed souls of members of their own families. The food
is laid out as for a feast, and the souls of the dead are invited
to come and eat and be nourished thereby. These ideas are
the origin of all feasts for the dead. The observances have
taken many forms in different times and places. Some
people feed the dead daily ; others monthly, or annually ;
and there are many modes of preparing the food for them.
We must note carefully that this practice, which is all but
universal among the simpler peoples, is a service of souls
and not a worship. The dead are dependent on the family
for their nourishment. The belief usually is that, if they do
not receive this attention, they become wandering and
harmful ghosts.

But these beliefs have passed among many peoples into
a more developed stage, where the dead are conceived as
being powerful beings, controlling the welfare of the family.

THE HINDU FAMILY 79

When this idea arises, the old service of the dead becomes
a worship. The family pays them great reverence, not
merely because they are relatives, but in order to secure their
loving care over the family. Ancestor-worship, though not
so common as ancestor-service, is yet a very widely prevalent
cult. It has been found in many parts of the world and in
many forms, but appears most distinctly in the various
peoples of the Mongolian race and the nations that form the
great Aryan group. Seemingly, ancestor-worship had been
developed by the original Aryan race before it split up into
many groups ; for traces of it are found among every Aryan
people. The general features of the worship arc the same
in all branches of the race, but the details vary considerably.
The dead are everywhere distinguished from the gods ; and
yet they are conceived as their companions ; and their worship
is very similar to the worship of the gods. They are believed
to possess great power and to bring blessing to their righteous
descendants.

Now consider the way in which this worship modified the
organization of the family. The father was the family priest,
and controlled the worship of the ancestors of the family
in all details. He alone knew the peculiar ritual which was
traditional in his family, and which had to be maintained
unchanged, if the favour of the dead was to be retained.
He alone had the power of passing on the rites to his son.
As the high priest of the ancestral rites, he was the acknow
ledged head of the family. The reverence and the power
which his priestly position brought him made him supreme in
the home. In this way the patriarchal family took shape. In
earlier times there was a looser organization, or the mother
might be the head of the family ; but with the establishment
of ancestor-worship the father became supreme. He had
full power over his wife and his young children, and in most
nations his grown-up sons also were completely under his
authority. The property of the family was altogether in his
hands. This is the source of the patria potcstas of Rome,

8o THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

and of the prominent place held by the father in Greece,
Persia, India, and among Teutonic and Slavonic peoples as
well. This type of family is called patriarchal because the
father has so much power.

There can be no doubt that the family reached its strong
position in ancient society through the power vested in the
father, and that the worship of ancestors, through its influence
on the family, produced moral results of very great value.
The sacred rites, binding together the living and the dead,
led the members of the family to think more of their unity.
They became conscious of the family as an organism, part of
which had already passed into the other world and part
of which was not yet born. They thought of it as a living,
constantly growing unity, and the thought filled them with
deep reverence and pride. To act worthily of the family, to
bring no disgrace upon one's ancestors, to do everything
to build up and strengthen the heritage of the family, became
a motive of superlative strength. Since ancestors were con
ceived as displeased, or even injured, by an act that injured
the family, the motives for right behaviour were greatly
strengthened. Marriage became more sacred than it had
ever been thought of before ; for the welfare of all the
members depended upon the family being kept pure. The
chastity of the mother thus became a matter of the greatest
possible importance. The position of the father drew great
reverence to him, and both son and father were thereby led to
think, feel, and act more worthily towards each other. From
ancestor-worship also arose the sacredness of the hearth.
For, since the ancestral protectors were honoured at the
hearth, the wedding ceremony and other domestic rites were
celebrated there too. All the holiest and most touching
scenes in the life of the family were connected with it. It
was the focus of the joys and sorrows of the home.

The importance of carrying on the rites was so great that
it was conceived to be the duty of every man to marry, in
order that he might have a son to follow him in his

THE HINDU FAMILY 81

priestly work. Marriage, therefore, became universal wherever
ancestor-worship prevailed. As only a son could take over
the rites from a dying man, the birth of a boy was most
ardently desired ; and if marriage failed to provide a son,
it was a man's duty to have recourse to adoption. In all the
ancient Aryan nations, the adopted son held completely the
position of a real son.

Only those who were allowed to share in the family worship
and to taste the food offered to the ancestors were recognized
as belonging to the family. If, for any reason, a man was
interdicted from the feast in honour of the dead, he was
counted an outcast. Only those who shared in the worship
of the ancestors of the family could share in the division
of property on the death of the head of the house.

It is thus clear that ancestor-worship, through its creation
of the patriarchal family, has done civilization a very large
service. That stage in the evolution of the family produced
changes of extreme value.

We must acknowledge, however, on the other hand, that
the system has two inherent weaknesses, which in certain
parts of the world have led to serious results. Races have
varied greatly in the completeness with which they have
developed the patriarchal family. In some places it remained
rudimentary ; in others it was developed to its utmost impli
cations, (i) Wherever the father's power grew so large that
all his male descendants of whatever age were completely
under his authority, there, necessarily, the family bulked
large in the minds of men and the individual became weak.
(2) Another result of the father's power has been the deprecia
tion of the value and the capacity of women. As we have
already seen, the patriarchal family naturally created a desire
for sons. Man was exalted and woman was regarded as very
inferior. When a daughter was born, she received a very
poor welcome. She brought no strength to the family : at
best she would by marriage pass out of her father's family
into another. Consequently, female infanticide was found

F

82 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

everywhere in the ancient world alongside of the patriarchal
family. The wife also tended to have no rights as against
the husband ; but the variation in different races on this
matter was very great.1

II. We may now leave the general question and turn to
the ancestors of the Hindus.

A. Amongst the Indo-Aryans in the Panjab, as we find
from the Rigvedat the blessed dead were spoken of as the
'fathers' (pilris). They were believed to move through the
earth's atmosphere, bringing gifts to those who sacrificed
to them, rewarding the good, punishing the evil. Their
descendants honoured them at the funeral feast : they were
invited to come and eat the food laid out on the sacrificial
straw, and to drink the soma prepared for them. Thus,
ancestor-worship was fully organized amongst the Indo-
Aryans, as amongst the other Aryan peoples ; and the family
was patriarchal in its organization. The system, however,
was not yet far developed. The state of affairs was very
similar to what we find in early Greece. Female children
were exposed, but women still held a good position.

When the Brahmans succeeded in winning for themselves
an authoritative religious position, and when the conquest
of North India was begun in real earnest, the whole religion
of the Aryan people began to change. The worship became
much more elaborate, and stringent rules were laid down for
every detail of every sacrifice. This applies to the worship of
\.\\& pitris as well as the worship of the gods. The SatapatJia
Brahmana contains a chapter2 which ordains that the pious
man shall worship the pitris every month, and gives detailed
rules for the observance. Here for the first time we meet
with the pinda, the word used throughout the history of
Hinduism for the cake or ball of rice offered to ancestors. It
is well worthy of remark that in this passage there occurs
several times the phrase, ' The Fathers have passed away

1 Art. 'Ancestor- worship ', E. 7\. E.t and Bosanquet, The Family.

2 II. vi. i.

THE HINDU FAMILY 83

once for all': transmigration has not appeared as yet.
Another noteworthy matter is this, that the help of a Brahman
is already required for this monthly worship of the Fathers.
Even at this early date the priestly caste had begun to usurp
the father's rights in the religion of the family. A Brahman's
help is required to-day in all the srdddha ceremonies, i.e. the
worship of ancestors. A similar but later account occurs in
the Gobhila GriJiya Sutra.1 In both these books the old idea
that the ' fathers ' come and eat the sacrificial food remains
unchanged. The blessed dead are conceived as requiring
ordinary food and drink and as dependent upon their
descendants for it.

A little later, as we find from the Upanishads, the theory
of transmigration arose among the ancient Hindus. This
is a totally new conception of man's destiny after death ; for
thc belief is that a man is born and dies many times. It is
therefore impossible for a man after death to join permanently
the ranks of the blessed dead, as the conception is in the
earlier literature. Even if after death he goes to heaven, his
stay there is necessarily limited ; for he must return to earth
to be born again. Thus the new idea was quite inconsistent
with the basis of the worship of the pitris. Yet the practice
went on without a break, and with little change.

The worship has continued among Hindus down to the
present day. There has been little essential alteration in the
ceremonial, but one very important change has arisen in
the conception. Originally there was no idea of the spiritu
ality of the soul. Since that conception laid hold of the Hindu
mind, a new theory about the use of the pinda has been
formed. The idea is that each soul at death carries with
it into the other world a subtle body, but that a gross body is
also required, which can be got only through the pindas
offered by the surviving relatives. When a Hindu dies, his
body is burned. At the burning, and during the next nine
days, funeral rites are performed for him, his son taking
1 IV. iv.
F 2

84 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

a prominent place in the ceremonial. The essential point
in the ritual of each of these days is the offering of a pinda,
that is. a ball of kneaded flour, with water, milk, rice, honey, £c.,
to the spirit of the dead man. The belief is that the spirit
remains a preta (i.e. a wandering ghost), unless it receives
this food. But the soul that receives the pinda daily during
these ten days gradually develops for itself a gross body. It is
thus transformed into a pitri, and is received into the company
of glorified ancestors in heaven. On the eleventh day after
the man's death the first sraddha (literally ' act of faith ') is
held, and this has to be repeated monthly during the first
year, and once a year afterwards. Although the ceremony
is carried out primarily for one person, yet a large group of
other ancestors are also benefited by this and by all other
sraddha ceremonies. The food offered to the pitris is again
in the form of a pinda. Libations of water, called tarpana,
also are poured out for the refreshment of the pitris at these
services. The person holding the service has to invite to it
all his relatives, on both his father's and his mother's side, for
three generations upward and three generations downward.
These relatives are called his sapindas as sharing the pinda-
ceremony with him. This group of people is of considerable
importance in family matters. The offering of water to the
' fathers ' is also a part of the stated daily prayers.

According to Hindu thought the sraddha ceremonies arc
not merely acts of loving remembrance, but are absolutely
necessary for the welfare of those who have gone to the other
world. The offering of the pinda at the 'funeral ceremony is
needed to transform the soul of the departed into a blessed
spirit ; and all sraddhas thereafter performed are required to
enable him to retain his position in heaven. Then, in turn,
the welfare of the family is dependent on the welfare of the
ancestors. If the ancestors fall from heaven to hell, the
whole family will be destroyed. Here is a couplet from
the Gtfa,1 than which there is no better authority :
1 i. 42.

THE HINDU FAMILY 85

Confounding of caste brings to hell alike the stock's slayers and the
stock ; for their Fathers fall when the offerings of the cake and water to
them fail.1

What an influence such a belief as this was bound to exercise !
To the ancient Greek or Roman burial was an absolute
necessity : the ghost of the unburied man flitted about in
utter misery until some pious soul flung a handful of dust on
the uncovered body. To the Hindu, the offering of the ball
of rice and of the water is similarly of the last importance.
To omit the rite is not merely to show disrespect to the dead,
but to deprive him of the peace and blessedness of heaven ;
and then, in turn, the man who is guilty of the neglect is
doomed to hell, and his family to utter destruction.

B. It is from ancestor-worship that the chief principles of
the Hindu family have arisen.

i. The first of these is that every man must marry and
beget a son. If he fails to do this, he fails in his duty to his
ancestors." Their welfare in the other world depends upon
his having a son to take over from himself the srdddha
ceremonies. No poem is so much read in Hindu homes as
the MahdbJidrata. One of the earliest stories in that great
repository tells how the ascetic Jaratkaru wandered about,
refusing to marry, until one day he came upon his ancestors
suspended head downwards over a hole by a rope which was
being gnawed by mice. He asked the reason and was told it
was because he had no son. In consequence, he went off at
once to look for a wife. Thus, to the Hindu, marriage is a
religious duty, not merely a comfort or a convenience. On
the other hand, the birth of a son brings great blessings to
his parents.11

We had better notice here a very healthy rule which arose

1 ISarnett's translation is usually quoted, as here.

2 The debt which a man owes to his ancestors is an idea that occurs
very frequently in Hindu literature. The debt is paid by begetting a son.
Vasisht ha, xi. 48 ; xvii. I ; Baudkdyana, II. vi. ir, 33 ; Manu, ix. 106.

3 Asva/ayana, G. S., I.vi. 1-4; Apastamba, II. ix. 24, 3; Baudhayana,
II. ix. 16, 10.

86 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

among the three highest castes probably in the seventh
century B.C. Away in that early time it became customary
to send every Brahman, Kshatriya, and Vaisya l boy to
a Brahmanical school to receive a religious education. He
underwent the ceremony of initiation (doubtless a primaeval
puberty ceremony), received the sacred thread and immediately
went to school, where he spent several strenuous years. Every
student had to live a chaste life during his education. When
that was ended, he returned home, and a ceremony, the
home-coming (samavartana), was performed. Then the
young man could marry, but not till then. Most young men
would be twenty to twenty-four years of age. Clearly the
leaders in those days were deeply impressed with the necessity
of preparing a man carefully by a religious education for his
duties in life. Thus the young men of the three highest
castes, at this time, had the priceless ideal of a chaste ado
lescence held before them, and doubtless many lived up to
the rule.

But this rule of universal education for the males of the
Aryan castes fell, at a later date, into disuse, and multitudes
of Brahman, Kshatriya, and Vaisya youths did not go to
school at all. Yet the ancient ceremonial was kept up.
About the age of puberty, or earlier, each boy underwent
initiation and received the sacred thread. Then, since he did
not go to school, there was nothing in the way of marriage.
Hence arose the evil custom, which has long been prevalent
in Bengal and elsewhere,2 to marry mere boys. The com
petition for eligible husbands is so keen that the parents of
sons are usually approached early, and there is great tempta
tion to hurry on the match. Hence, boys may be found in
High Schools to-day who are not only husbands but fathers.
The influence of the Social Reform Movement is very valuable
in this matter.

1 See below, p. 163.

~ See Ranade, pp. 315, 316, for examples of boys married at eight, nine,
or ten in the family of the Peshwas.

THE HINDU FAMILY 87

2. The second principle is that a man must not many
a woman who is a sapinda.^ This rule corresponds to our
law of prohibited degrees. The other rules which guide
a man in selecting a wife are that he must marry ivithin
his caste, but outside his own clan subdivision of the caste.2

3. The third principle is that the authority of the husband
in the family is absolute.

First, he has full authority over his wife. One of the most
touching passages in Kalidasa's Sakuntala is the scene3 in
which King Dushyanta her husband, failing to remember
her, refuses to acknowledge her as his wife, and her own
friends who have pled her cause so eagerly leave her standing
disowned and dishonoured before the king with the words,

Sakuntala is by law thy wife, whether thou desert or acknowledge
her ; and the dominion of a husband is absolute.

Sakuntala wishes to return with her friends, but one turns to
her and says angrily,

O wife, who seest the faults of thy lord, dost thou desire independence : '
and another asks her,

If thou art what the king proclaims thee, what right hast thou to
complain ? But if thou knowest the purity of thine own soul, it will
become thee to wait as a handmaid in the mansion of thy lord.

Since, then, the husband's authority is absolute, it is the wife's
duty to be absolutely obedient to her husband :

Him to whom her father may give her, she shall obey as long as
he lives.5

He is her sole authority. Tiruvalluvar, the Tamil poet,
says of a good woman,

Bowing not before the gods but before her husband/1
Whatever his character may be, her duty is to be utterly
loyal to him and to worship him as her divinity :

1 See p. 84 above. This rule varies in its practical meaning in different
parts of India. See Trevelyan, 34-37.

2 Trevelyan, 32-34. 3 Act v.

4 See below, p. 90. 5 Manu, v. 151. " Heart of India, 105.

88 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

Though destitute of virtue, or seeking pleasure elsewhere, or devoid
of good qualities, yet a husband must be constantly worshipped as
a god by a faithful wife.1

Slta says,

My husband is a god to me.2

If a wife obeys her husband, she will be exalted in heaven.3
If disobedient, the law says she may be chastised :

A wife . . . who has committed faults may be beaten with a rope or
a split bamboo.4

This law would not be upheld in an Indian law-court to-day,
but it still influences opinion. If she persists in opposition,
she may be superseded :

A barren wife may be superseded in the eighth year, she whose
children all die in the tenth, she who bears only daughters in the
eleventh, but she who is quarrelsome without delay.5

Secondly, as father, his authority is absolute over his son
as long as he lives. Whatever he orders the son is bound to
do, even if it be the greatest possible crime. This is a very
serious matter in the case of the criminal tribes, which are
found all over India. When they are Hindus, the son of
a thief or a coiner is guilty of sin, if he refuses to obey his
father and join him in his criminal occupation. Here is what
Rama, the ideal son, says on this point :

I have no power to slight or break

Commandments which my father spake. . . .

Once Kandu, mighty saint, who made

His dwelling in the forest shade,

A cow — and duty's claims he knew —

Obedient to his father, slew. . . .

So Jamadagni's son obeyed

His sire, when in the wood he laid

His hand upon his axe, and smote

Through Renuka his mother's throat.

1 Mami, \. 154. 2 Griffith, II. xxix. 3 Afanit, v. 155.

4 Manu, viii. 299. B Manu, ix. 81.

THE HINDU FAMILY 89

The deeds of these and more beside,
Peers of the Gods, my steps shall guide,
And resolute will I fulfil
My father's word, my father's will.1

Nearly all the remaining features of the Hindu family
have arisen directly from the supreme position of the father,
and the consequent depreciation of woman. As the Hindu
family developed in the early centuries, its inner character
manifested itself in institutions.

4. One of the earliest results was the establishment of the
joint family. In this system a man's son brings his bride into
the paternal mansion, and the daughter is taken by her
husband to his father's house. Thus all the male descendants
of the householder down to the third or even the fourth
generation, if he happen to survive so long, and also the
unmarried girls, live in the one house with him under his
complete control. The landed property of the family and
the income of any wage-earning members there may be are
in the house-father's hand and are used by him for the needs
of the whole family. Every member of the family owes com
plete obedience to the head of the family in all things. Thus,
no matter how old a man may be, he is still a minor, if his
father, grandfather, or great-grandfather is alive, and must
obey him implicitly. Without his consent, he cannot marry
nor undertake anything of importance. Here we have the
patriarchal family in its most expanded form. Sometimes
as many as seventy or eighty persons will be found under
one roof, all of them lineal descendants of the patriarch, or
wives or widows of such descendants. No wonder that the
family consciousness is greatly developed among Hindus,
and that the interests of the family bulk large in every Hindu
mind.

Several fine results spring from this particular type of
organization. The selfish individualistic motive gets little
room to grow; for each contributes to the welfare of all the
1 Griffith, II. xxi.

QO THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

others ; and if one son is peculiarly successful, his income
brings extra comfort to the whole family. Every member of
the family, no matter how useless or weak, is well taken care
of. Each feels responsible for all the others. It is the family
that counts, not the individual. Every woman in the house
is the mother of all the children, and cousins feel as nearly
related as if they were brothers. On the other hand, no one
gets the opportunity of developing a self-reliant character of
his own, except the head of the household.

This aspect of Hindu family life has begun to break down
under the influence of Western thought and life, and very
large changes are sure to come. In the childhood of the
world a man could afford to live as a member of a family ;
but in modern times the individual counts for more and
more.

But the most important results of the full development
of patriarchal authority show themselves in the depreciation
and complete subjection of women. While the family reached
its strong position in ancient India through the power vested
in the father, yet his supreme position made it impossible for
the wife to receive adequate recognition. Nowhere else in all
the world have things gone so far as they have in India. As
we have already seen, the patriarchal family everywhere tends
to exalt man and to depreciate woman. The full unfolding
of the inner nature of that system in India reduced women
to complete subjection, and led to the growth of a set of
customs which have no parallel in the world elsewhere.

5. Hindu lawgivers unanimously declare that a woman
is always in subjection, to her father, to her husband, or to her
son ; she can never have any independence :

Let her be in subjection to her father in her childhood, to her husband
in her youth, to her sons when her husband is dead ; let a woman never
enjoy independence.1

1 Mann, v. 148. Cf. ix. 2-3 ; Vasishtha, v. 1-2 ; Baudhayana, II. ii. 3,
44-45 ; Gautama, xviii. I.

THE HINDU FAMILY 91

There is a line in the Rdmayana which gives beautiful expres
sion to the Hindu idea of wifely loyalty :

As the shadow to the substance, to her lord is faithful wife.1
Yet how vividly it expresses also her hopeless inferiority.
The idea is, not that the married relation places a woman in
subjection to her husband, but that woman is essentially an
inferior being. This is no mere popular prejudice, but a
doctrine of Hinduism. In the Bhagavadgita* we read that
a woman is born such because of sin in a former life ; and in
the Garuda Pnrana we read :

Owing to my bad deeds in former lives I got a woman's body, which
is a source of great misery.3

This belief in the essential inferiority of woman led to the
Buddhist conviction that no woman can attain nirvana until she
be reborn as a man.

We shall take the other developments as far as possible in
historical order, beginning with two which come from very
early times.

6. Away in the far-back ages, before the Aryan people
had split up, the establishment of the patriarchal family led
to the universal desire for sons and to the custom of exposing
a large proportion of the female children born. This custom,
which, as we know, persisted throughout classic times in
Europe until the influence of Christ put it down, seems to
have been brought by the Indo-Aryans into India with them ;
and the practice continued in certain sections of the people
unchecked until 1830, when the British Government began
a long-continued crusade for its extinction. So ingrained
was the habit in many Indian castes and tribes that the
determination of the British Government to put it down was
in many places baffled for years ; and the best authorities
are doubtful whether it does not persist in certain quarters
to some extent even to-day.

7. Polygamy is another of the universal concomitants of

1 R. C. Dutt's Rclmdyana, I. vi. 10. 2 ix. 32.

3 Garitda Purana Saroddhara, ii. 41.

92 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

the patriarchal family, inevitably arising from the idea that
a man is of far greater value and importance than a woman.
This custom also was brought by the ancestors of the Hindus
into India with them. It was known, but little practised, in
the age of the Rigveda. Yet, throughout Hindu history down
to our own day, it has been recognized that kings and men of
wealth or of social position have a right to marry several
wives, and that no man is restricted to one. The number of
a king's wives has always been a measure of his wealth and
power. In the Law of Manu a Brahman is allowed four wives,
a Kshatriya three, a Vaisya two.1 Most of the Hindu gods
are polygamous. Vishnu and Brahma, for example, have
three consorts each.

In modern times, however, monogamy has become the rule
for ordinary Hindus of all castes. The Kulin Brahmans of
Bengal, who until quite recently used to marry scores of
women, were a lonely and ghastly exception. Down to some
fifty years ago, however, the rule of monogamy was tempered
by concubinism for all those who desired it and could afford
it ; 2 and, though public opinion is now seriously opposed to
it, in certain parts of the country it seems to be still practised.
Many princes are still polygamists.

Further, although monogamy is the usual practice, Hindu
society holds firmly to the idea that the right to marry
a second wife remains. Every Hindu marriage is in posse
polygamous.15 A Hindu marries in order that he may have
a son. Hence, if his wife bears him no son, it is his duty to
marry another in order to obtain a son. While these lines
are being written, the newspapers announce that the daughter
of the Gaekwar of Baroda is to become the second wife of the
Maharaja Scindia, because his first wife has not borne him an

1 iii. 13 ; also Baudhayana, I. viii. 16, 1-4 ; Paraskara, \. 4, 8-1 1. For
these castes see below, p. 163.

2 E. R. E. V. 739. Cf. p. 395, below.

3 Trevelyan, 29. Hence it is unsafe for an European woman to marry
a Hindu.

THE HINDU FAMILY 93

heir.1 Frequently the wife herself begs the husband to take
a second wife. Yet many a Hindu is too loyal and too deeply
attached to his wife to do so. Finally, if a man finds his wife
stubborn and troublesome, Hindu law gives him the right to
marry another, as we have seen above.2

8. But though in the times of the Rigveda infanticide and
polygamy were both known, yet the patriarchal family was
not far developed. Women had a great deal of liberty and
a great deal of power ; and the family was on the whole
healthy. But at a later date the family began to change.
Two innovations come from the times of the Brfihmanas. The
first of these is the rise of the joint family, which we have
already discussed. The other is the appearance of the rule
that a man must not eat with his wife. This rule occurs in
the Satapatha Brahmana? is repeated in all the law-books,
and is in full force in every Hindu household to-day. The
emergence of this extraordinary rule at this early date, the
seventh or eighth century B. C., shows that already the power
of the father was growing, and that woman was being rele
gated to a far lower place than that which she held in the
times of the Rigveda.

9. Nor do we have to travel far to find further evidence
of this tendency. As we saw above,4 it became the rule, at
a very early date, that every boy of the three twice-born
castes should receive an education in one of the Brahmanical
schools. But girls were not admitted to the schools ; the
Vedas were forbidden to women as strictly as to Sfidras.5
No provision was made for female education ; and women
were excluded from the noble culture which their fathers,
brothers, husbands, and sons received.6 A further result was

1 The engagement has since been broken off. 2 p. 88.

3 X. v. 2, 9 ; I. ix. 2, 12 ; Gautama, ix. 32 ; Vasishtha, xii. 31 ; Maim,
iv. 43. * p. 86. 5 Manu, ix. 18. For Sudras, see p. 163.

c Want of school education does not necessarily make a man or
a woman uneducated. In the ancient world very few children went to
school, yet there were considerable numbers of cultured people, both men
and women. There was very little school education in Homeric Greece ;

94 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

that, with the exception of the marriage ceremony, every
domestic sacrament was performed without mantras (i.e.
Vedic texts) in the case of girls,1 and a woman could perform
no sacrifice without her husband.2

10. About the same time it became recognized as a Hindu
religious law that a girl ought to be married before she reaches
the age of puberty." Here we get some light on the question
of education ; marriage in the case of girls took the place of
Initiation, the religious ceremony which began a boy's educa
tion : the Law of Manu puts this quite clearly.4 It seems
certain that pre-puberty marriage was already recognized as
the ideal in the sixth century B.C., for it is found in the earliest
existing law-book, the DJiarmasutra of Gautama, which is placed
by scholars before 500 B.C., and in all later treatises on law ;

yet the heroes were men of judgement and taste. Akbar is a modern
example. So, throughout the history of Hinduism, there have been
illiterate men, and here and there also women, who have shown great
capacity and considerable culture. Yet it remains true that for many
centuries, Hindu women, whether of the upper or of the lower classes,
have been uneducated, except in so far as their religion has given them
wider interests. The facts which told against them most of all were child-
marriage, their ignorance of Sanskrit — the language of science and culture
— and finally the zenana : what race of women could break through such
barriers ?

In the earlier periods of the history \ve occasionally meet educated
women. Many of these cases occurred in communities where the
Brahmanic law was not yet rigorously enforced, and the others are mostly
cases of individual women in peculiar circumstances.

Though the study of the Vedas and of the Sacred Law is absolutely
forbidden to women, they are not without literature. The Rainayana and
the Mahdbhdrata in the original and in many vernacular adaptations are
theirs, the Puranas also, and the whole range of vernacular literature,
many parts of which are exceedingly rich.

Women have at various times taken a place in Indian literature.
Some hymns of the Rigi'eda were composed by women ; we meet them as
interlocutors in the Upanishads ; there is a volume of Psalms, the
Therigathcl, which is the work of Buddhist nuns ; and a Rajput princess,
named Mlrabal, was a gifted poetess and religious leader.

1 Asvalayana, i. 15, lo; Manu, ii. 67.

2 Gautama, xviii. I ; Apastamba, II. vi. 15, 17; Mann, iv. 205-206;
v. 155 ; ix. 18 ; xi. 36.

3 Gautama, xviii. 21-23; Vasishtha, xvii. 69-70 ; Bintdhayana, IV. i.
11-12. Also Manu, ix. 4, 88, and all the later books.

4 ii. 67.

THE HINDU FAMILY 95

but it was not generally practised among Hindus until several
centuries later. For a long time it continued to be the Indian
custom to marry a girl at the age of sixteen. This stands out
quite clear in the literature, Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain, of
the fifth, fourth, and third centuries. It was the steady
pressure of the Brahmanical law that introduced the change.
By the beginning of our era at latest the change was complete.
We may note here also that many Hindu princesses of the
early centuries were allowed to choose their own husbands ;
the custom is known as svayamvara, self-choice.

But the matter does not end there ; for parents (especially
when the caste-group within which marriage is possible is
narrow), fearing they may fail to secure a bridegroom at the
right moment, marry their daughter when a suitable bride
groom is available, no matter how young the girl may be.
This is how the practice of marrying little children or even
infants arose. The child does not go to her husband's home
until she is eleven or twelve ; yet the marriage is absolutely
binding. Hence, through the death of husbands in the inter
vening years, there are multitudes of Hindu widows who have
never been wives.

We can only guess at the causes that led to the establish
ment of child-marriage ; yet all inquirers are agreed that it is
one of the clearest proofs possible that the Hindu woman was
already in complete subjection. But though no one knows
precisely what it was that led the Hindus to formulate this"
law, yet, in the earliest documents in which it occurs, a clear,
comprehensible, religious reason is already suggested for the
practice. The law appears in the DJiannasutra of Gautama
and in nearly all the later law-books. In each one we are told
that the father who does not see that his daughter is married
before the menses appear commits sin ; ! and in most of the
books the sin is said to be equivalent to abortion.2 Clearly

1 See the passages referred to above, p. 94, n. 3.

2 Hand/lay an a, IV. i. 12 ; Vasishtha, xvii. 71, and also Brihashpati>
Pardsara, Satatapa, lyasd, A/rt, Yajnaimlkya, Ildrlta, Samvarfa,
Angirfi) Vishnu, Yama.

96 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

the ancient Hindu believed that to fail to give a girl at puberty
the chance of bearing a child was, so to speak, to prevent the
birth which ought to come, and therefore was as sinful as
destroying an embryo. This belief, in its sensitiveness to the
claims of life, recalls the law of ahimsd, which arose about the
same time, viz. that an ascetic must not kill animals, nor even
break off a living twig.1 Another rule, which rests on the
same basis, runs that the husband who does not approach his
wife after her monthly sickness commits sin.2 Thus what
makes child-marriage obligatory to the Hindu is the belief
that to fail to give a girl at puberty the chance of becoming
a mother is sinful.

ii. The next downward step was the prohibition of widow-
remarriage. Already by 500 B.C. only the childless widow
was allowed to remarry/'5 but the law is first laid down for all
widows in the great law-book of Manu.4 As this code took
several centuries to grow, it is impossible to fix the exact date
of any law contained in it ; yet we shall not be far wrong if
we conclude that this regulation, that no widow may remarry,
was already in force at the opening of the Christian era. Even
a virgin child-widow is condemned to perpetual widowhood.
Yet the very law which forbids the widow to take another
husband expressly bids the widower remarry.

The origin of widow-celibacy is to be found in the Hindu
idea of marriage. A Hindu woman marries, not merely ' for
better for worse ', but for this world and the next. There is
marriage in heaven 5 amongst both gods and men, according to
Hindu belief. The following words of Slta in the Ramayana6
will make the matter plain :

Still close, my lord, to thy dear side
My spirit will be purified :

1 See below, pp. 250, 256.

2 Baudhdyana, IV. i. 17-19 ; Mani(, ix. 4.

3 Gautama, xviii. 4-17; Vasisht/ift, xvii. 55-68, 74.

4 v. 155-160. 6 See below, p. 297 f.
11 Griffith, II. xxix ; cf. Mctnu, \. 153-156.

THE HINDU FAMILY 97

Love from all sin my soul will free ; l
My husband is a god to me.2
So, love, with thee shall I have bliss
And share the life that follows this.
I heard a Brahman, dear to fame.
This ancient scripture text proclaim :
' The woman who on earth below
Her parents on a man bestow,
And lawfully their hands unite
With water and each holy rite,
She in this world shall be his wife,
His also in the after life.'

This belief gave point to wifely loyalty and faithfulness ;
for unless a wife proved a good woman and faithful to her
lord, she could not expect to rejoin him in heaven.3

There is, then, another fact to be noticed. A girl is born
a member of her father's family and belongs to him ; but at
marriage the father gives her to her husband and she becomes
incorporated into his family.4 Then, if her husband dies, she
cannot again be grafted into her father's family:5 it is im
possible to play fast and loose with religious ties. Her closest
relationship is with her husband, who is in the other world.
So that, to the Hindu, she no longer quite belongs to ordinary
society, but is in a way outside it, like the sannyasl.6

Since Hindus thought in this way, we are not astonished to
hear that at an early date it became customary that the widow
who was a mother should not remarry. Then, later, the rule
was extended to childless widows, and even to virgin widows
who had never lived with a husband. A Hindu woman's
virtue came to be summed up in life-long loyalty to the man
to whom her father had given her, whether he was alive or
dead.7 If she was left a widow, it was her duty to set her
whole heart on her coming reunion with her lord in heaven.8

1 This is the sin which led to her birth as a woman. See above, p. 91.

2 See above, p. 88. s Afanu, v. 161.

4 Apastamba, II. x. 27, 3 ; Mahtininuma, T^x. I ; Ranade, Essays, 34.

5 Trevelyan, 62, 63. 6 See below, p. 254.

7 Manu,v. 156. 8 Mamt, v. 158, 160, 161, 165, 166; ix. 29.

G

9H THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

Consequently, the noble Hindu woman, trained in these
convictions from her babyhood, cannot bear the idea of a
second marriage. To take another partner would be to be
untrue to everything which she holds most noble and most
sacred. The hard discipline and the long sorrow of widow
hood arc infinitely preferable to that.

This idea could never arise with regard to a Hindu husband,
and that for two reasons. He was, at least potentially, a
polygamist : the duty of loyalty to one woman could not
emerge in his case. Then, if his deceased wife was his only
wife, he had to marry again, in order to have his wife with
him at the sacrifices.1

12. The next act in the tragic history of the Hindu woman
is the introduction of the custom of sail or widow-burning.
This notorious custom is not an ancient thing in Hinduism.
Many savage tribes have the idea that a man will require in
the other world all that he has enjoyed in this. So his horse
and his wife are slain on his tomb, and his weapons are buried
with him. The Indo-Aryans had given up this inhuman
custom ; for there is the clearest proof that it was not in use
in the times of the Rigveda, nor for many centuries later.
How it was revived, we do not know ; probably through imita
tion of some of the aboriginal tribes. The rise of the practice
among a civilized people like the Hindus would be altogether
incomprehensible but for the peculiar constitution of the
Hindu family. We find the first beginnings of the classical
Hindu custom in the later portions of the Ramayana and the
Maliabharata? It came into vogue gradually, and the history
is not known. Kalidasa's Birth of the War-god* shows that
it was already well known by A.D. 400 ; and it receives legal
recognition in the Vishniismritit It is praised in the Garnda
Parana? but is condemned in the Mahanirvana Tantra? It
was but a permissive statute : the widow was allowed to

1 Manu, v. 167-169. 2 Great Epic, Si.

3 Canto iv. 4 xxv. 14.

5 Garuda Puranci Saroddlulra,*, 35-55. c x. 79.

THE HINDU FAMILY 99

mount her husband's pyre, if she chose to do so. Yet the
records prove that there were unwilling victims. Ram Mohan
Rai saw his own brother's widow burnt to death despite
her attempt to escape.

Akbar, the Mughal emperor, prohibited it, but failed to
put it down. By the beginning of the nineteenth century the
evil had reached colossal proportions ; so that Bentinck's act
of abolition required considerable courage and firmness.1 It
was in Bengal that the largest number of cases occurred,
yet the practice was well known all over India. At certain
courts at least, a great holocaust of women took place on
the death of the king.2

The rise of such a custom seems at first sight inexplicable,
almost incredible, but it is quite comprehensible when the
Hindu ideal of wifely loyalty and the belief in the joyous
heavenly reunion are taken into account. A woman who has
been happily married and is deeply attached to her husband
suddenly loses him. Overwhelmed with grief, she does not
want to live. The hard asceticism and lonely misery of
widowhood make the outlook all the darker. On the other
hand, she has only to endure the pyre, and she will imme
diately have a rapturous reunion with her lord in heaven.3
Even in these days, eighty years after Bentinck's orders, satl
is not unknown. Quite recently, near Calcutta, a bereaved
wife, in the exaltation ot her anguish, determinedly burned
herself in her own room at the very time when the body of
her husband was being consumed on the pyre. When such
a case occurs, the Hindu community thrills with sympathy
and reverence. The old religious ideas have by no means
lost all their force.

There is much here which we Westerns can understand.
How many a wife, and husband too, who has lost a beloved
partner, could never dream of a second union !

1 Imperial Gazetteer, ii. 498.

2 Imperial Gazetteer, ii. 94; cf. also Ranade, 317 ; Havell, Benares,
in. 3 Manu, v. 165, 1 66.

G 2

ioo THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

And what to her shall be the end?

And what to me remains of good ?

To her, perpetual maidenhood,
And unto me no second friend.

With the love and self-devotion of the sail we can deeply
sympathize. How many broken-hearted widows and widowers
have prayed for easeful death !

But what we can scarcely understand is how these tragic
glooms and awful ordeals could be imposed as laws upon
weak women, while men went their own way in comfort and
freedom, and above all how the dark sorrows of widowhood
could be laid on smiling infants and little toddling mites,
equally innocent of love, marriage, and death.

13. Long before the practice of widow-sacrifice arose, it was
regarded as a fitting thing that a widow should live a mildly
ascetic life, enduring hardships and subsisting on a vegetarian
diet.1 When sail became common, the ascetic life became
compulsory for those who did not mount the pyre. The
original idea seems to have been that, with the death of her
husband, the widow passed out of society, like the monk ;
and therefore it seemed right that she should practise his
asceticism.

To-day every widow is condemned to perpetual mourning
and austerity. In Bengal the rule is that a widow has to lay
aside all her ornaments, wear a sari without a border, subsist
on a vegetarian diet, eat only one solid meal per day, and twice
a month pass a whole day of twenty-four hours without eating
and drinking ; and this rule is applied even to girl-widows.2
A woman's hair is her glory, the last piece of beauty she cares
to part with. In large sections of India the barber shaves
away the widow's glossy tresses and leaves her a tonsured
nun.3 It seems likely that a high religious purpose was once
present in this ascetic life ; but if so, the spirit of it has not
been preserved. Were the widow a sort of stay-at-home nun,

1 Manu, v. 156-158. 2 A child-widow is allowed a light supper.

8 I.S. A'., Dec. 19, 1909, p. 185 ; Feb. 20, 1910, p. 296.

THE HINDU FAMILY 101

voluntarily renouncing the world, devoting herself to a life of
prayer and meditation, one could understand the ideal ; but,
oh the pity of it ! the widowed children of India are compelled
to live a severely ascetic life, and are usually given a heavy
share of the household drudgery as well. Finally, the
doctrine of transmigration and karma is used to make the
poor girl responsible for her husband's death : if she had
not sinned grievously in a previous life, he would not have
died. How strange that this religious inference is not used
with similar effect in the case of the husband who loses his
wife ! The widow is driven away from scenes of happiness
and rejoicing as a guilty thing likely to bring ill-luck. ' Her
hard lot, her life-long misery and degradation, her endless
fasts and privations,' are the words used by a Hindu to
describe the widow's experience.1 It is a relief to the heart
to realize that, though the life of penance and drudgery is
everywhere the rule, widows are not treated with equal
harshness in all parts of India. It is not that Hindus are
hard-hearted: it is the beliefs and the laws that are at
fault.

14. The last downward step, fatefully possible because of
all that had gone before it, was the acceptance of the custom
of secluding the women of the upper castes in the women's
apartments and cutting them off from all participation in
public life. Surely a fitting climax to their seclusion from
the noble education of ancient India ! The custom arose
among Hindus during the Muhammadan period, perhaps
partly in imitation of their masters, but partly also in self-
defence. The practice does not affect in the same degree
those provinces that came little under Muhammadan influence,
and the women of the lower classes usually lead a very free
life. On the other hand, the zenana system, like strict caste
rules, child-marriage, enforced widowhood, and other charac
teristics of high-caste life, is copied, as a patent of nobility,
by the lower castes so far as their means will allow.
1 In /. S. A\ Feb. 13, 1910, p. 283.

T02 THK CROWN OF HINDUISM

C. Yet, despite the crushing weight of patriarchal authority
and all its pitiable results, the Hindu home hides some very
beautiful things. The faithfulness, devotion, and love of the
wife and mother, the humility and willing ministry of the
broken-hearted widow, the obedience and affection of the sons
and daughters, even when grown up, the subdued joy and
shady retirement of the zenana, the sacramental note present
always and everywhere — these are things of real worth and
beauty, exquisite as a bed of scented violets in an English
forest-glade. There are Hindu mothers belonging to all
castes whose place and power in the home show that human
nature is often too strong for human law. They are treated
with supreme respect by both husband and children, and
live lives of great influence and usefulness. Yet they are
but exceptions, and their position is altogether insecure.
Further, high-caste women are to be met here and there
who, though illiterate, are cultured, thoughtful, and capable.
They know by heart large parts of the religious literature.
Their practical and religious training has made them women
of character and capacity. Their husbands rely on their
judgement, and they wield great influence in their homes. The
Hindu family has produced these rich fruits amidst ignorance,
oppression, injustice. What may we not look for from this
thrice-noble race of women, when they receive their rightful
freedom, education, and position?

Then depreciation and subjugation are not the whole truth
about Hindu women. According to Hindu law, the wife may
accept and hold property of her own which even her husband
cannot touch.1 Social reformers complain that the law is
frequently rendered nugatory : many a wife can be brought
to surrender her property by the threat of a second wife.-'
Yet the law exists, and is frequently taken advantage of.

D. These regulations for the family are very widely

1 A fan it, viii. 28-29 > 'x- IO4» I3I> 192-198. For a modern statement of
the rights of a Hindu wife see I. S. R., Dec. 5, 1909, p. 162.
a /. S. R., Sept. 10, 1911, pp. 16 ff.

THE HINDU FAMILY 103

followed by Hindus throughout the country ; but they are by
no means universal. While the laws of the Dharmastitras
and Dharmasastras arc very generally revered and obeyed,
there is a far greater law than any of them, the law of
custom —

Let him walk in that path of holy men which his father and his
grandfathers followed ; while he walks in that he will not suffer
harm ; — l

which overrides every other law. If a Hindu can prove that
a custom has been faithfully observed in his family or caste
for generations, then it is right and obligatory for him, no
matter how immoral, anti-social, or revolting it may be.
Hence the marriage laws of many castes do not conform to
Hindu rule. The younger sons of the Nambutlri Brahmans
of Travancore practise polyandry ; among certain South
Indian castes the marriage of a man with his niece is per
mitted ; some castes practise divorce ; in others it is con
sidered right to marry a daughter to an idol, a flower, a sword,
or some other material object and to allow her to lead there
after the life of a prostitute;2 while in many temples there
are devaddsls, servants of the god, dedicated by their relatives,
who do take part from time to time in the services, but
whose real occupation is immorality.3

E. There are several points in the Hindu family that are
inconsistent with the doctrine of transmigration and karma.
The basis of the worship of the ' fathers ' is the two ideas,
that they have won immortality in heaven, and that the
offerings enable them to retain their place there. But trans
migration teaches that they must return to earth to be born
again ; and, according to the karma doctrine, nothing that
any survivor on earth can do can alter their destiny by one
hair's breadth : that is settled by their own karma and that
alone ; so that there is a double inconsistency. The law

1 Mann, iv. 178. 2 See Lord Morlcy's Dispatch of March 3, 1911.

3 See below, p. 313.

104 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

that a widow must remain faithful to her dead husband, and
look forward to a happy union with him in heaven, clearly
arose before the appearance of the doctrine of transmigration,
and is scarcely consistent with it ; for it is quite possible that
the husband's karma may cause him to be reborn before his
widow dies.

On the other hand, the karma hypothesis is used, as we
have seen, to make the widow responsible for her husband's
death. It also provides a justification for the belief in the
inferiority of women : the theory is that they sinned
seriously in a former life, and that their evil karma makes
them women.

III. The Hindu family stood four-square for over two
thousand years ; for, although changes took place after the
Christian era, in its main lines the structure was complete by
500 u. c. During all these long centuries its institutions
scarcely underwent a criticism. Nay, they spread outside the
Hindu community and affected both Muslims and Christians.
But about 1800 A. D. Christian criticism began to make itself
heard, especially in the writings of the Serampore missionaries.
Here, as in every other department of Western influence,
Ram Mohan Rai, the founder of the Brahma Samaj, was the
first Hindu to respond and to turn to practical action. He
wrote against polygamy, and his share in the agitation which
led Lord William Bentinck to put down sail in 1829 was not
inconsiderable. Debendranath Tagore, the next leader of the
Brahma Samaj, rebelled against the polytheistic and idolatrous
character of the sacraments (samskdras] of the Hindu family,
and prepared a purified manual for the use of Brahma families,
but did not recognize that he was acting under the influence
of Christ. Keshab Chandra Sen saw far more clearly
whence the light was coming and confessed it. His con
demnation of child-marriage and other abuses led not only
to real reform among those who followed him, but took
shape in a Marriage Act passed by Lord Lawrence's Govern
ment in 1872. One of Keshab's contemporaries was Isvara

THE HINDU FAMILY 105

Chandra Vidyasagara, a Calcutta pandit of great learning,
who, realizing that in the earliest ages Hindu widows were
free to marry, and also seeing clearly the grave evils which
the prohibition leads to in modern life, spoke and wrote in
favour of restoring the old freedom with so much power that
Government agreed and passed the necessary Act in 1865.
Mr. Justice Ranade, one of the leaders of the Prarthana
Samaj, founded in Bombay in 1867, is the next outstanding
leader in family reform. To him we owe the organization of
the social reform movement, which every year holds one
national and several local conferences. Its organ, the Indian
Social Reformer, exercises a most healthy influence. The
only other name we need mention is Rao Bahadur Vlresalingam
Pantulu, whose influence for good both in social reform and
in literature has been very great, especially in the Telugu
country where he has his home. It is worthy of notice that
the members of the Arya Samaj condemn child-marriage and
permit widow remarriage. But the most significant fact of
all is this, that the Theosophical Society, the Ramakrishna
Mission, and the caste and sect conferences, although they
defend the whole of Hinduism, yet advocate certain measures
of reform, especially the postponement of the age of marriage
and the education of girls.

It is also most noticeable that the progress of the national
movement greatly strengthens the forces making for social
reform. The loud demand of the Congress for progress, for
economic change, for men and women of character to make
the country great, helps the young student to realize that his
sisters should be educated, that they should not be married
until they have had an effective education, and that his
widowed aunt should either be allowed to become a happy
mother, or be trained to be a teacher, a nurse, or a doctor, in
order to help in the uplifting of the girls and women of the
country. Even the Hindu revival helps the cause of social
reform. The Hindu school, the class for the study of the
Gita, the Central Hindu College Magazine and other revival

io6 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

literature, are all useful in making men think, in letting in
the light, and so preparing the way for reform.

There are two fields of social reform in India, caste and
the family. The latter has until now bulked most largely,
and there the best results have been achieved. Apart from
minor issues, there are four reforms which are demanded.
These are the raising of the age of marriage for girls, educa
tion for girls, widow remarriage, and the suppression of poly
gamy. Opinion varies a good deal among the educated on
these topics; yet all, or nearly all, recognize the need of the
first two, the raising of the age of marriage and the provision
of education for girls. On the subject of the remarriage of
widows there are still many opinions ; and, while most
recognize that monogamy is the true ideal, a good many pleas
are still heard in favour of a second marriage when the first
proves childless. It is most significant that all the outstanding
political leaders have declared most emphatically that, for the
regeneration of India, the three reforms — female education,
the raising of the age of marriage, and freedom for widows to
remarry — are absolutely necessary. It is at first sight rather
remarkable that one hardly ever hears a word raised against
the pagan ceremonial of the funeral and the sruddha cere
monies; but, when one looks more closely, the reason is
plain, as we shall see.

A. The criticism directed against the Hindu family by
Indian reformers is simply Christian criticism :

i. They point out that child-marriage robs the little wife
of her adolescence and her chance of an education ; that she
has no girlhood, but passes at once from her childish years
into the great strain of married life and premature child-
bearing, whence come only too often an enfeebled physique,
an impaired mind, and an early death ; that the physique of
the children suffers and in consequence the physique of the
whole race ; and that female education can make no serious
progress until the age of marriage is altered. It is also stated
that the moral results of plunging a little girl into all that

THE HINDU FAMILY 107

married life means are very serious ; that her character never
gets an opportunity of gathering strength and settling ; and
that, in consequence, hysteria and unbalanced feeling arc
painfully common among Hindu women.

One aspect of Hindu family life much commented on by
reformers is a result of the combined action of child-marriage
and widow-celibacy.1 When middle-aged or old men remarry,
they are compelled to take mere children as their wives.
Hence all over the country, men of forty, fifty, sixty, or even
seventy years are married to little girls of twelve, or even
of more tender years ; for no one pretends that Hindu society
obeys the law of 1891 which forbids cohabitation before
twelve.

It is also pointed out that, if no Hindu girl were married
until she were, say, fourteen, there would be far fewer widows
in Hindu society, and the whole class of virgin widows would
be eliminated.

2. The education of girls is advocated by Hindu reformers
partly as a right which ought not to be withheld, but mainly
on the ground that it is absolutely essential if the family is to
become healthy and the race is to reach real efficiency. The
value of educated mothers is very clearly realized, and the
most piteous waste arising from the present system is con
stantly set forth in the press. Women teachers both for
schools and zenanas are wanted in large numbers ; nurses
and lady doctors are in great request, and cultured women to
lead the ordinary Hindu woman to a higher life. The educated
Hindu wants to marry an educated girl, but is seldom able to
realize his wish.

3. The same pair of reasons are put forward in favour of
giving the Hindu widow the right to remarry if she wish to
do so. Reformers plead that it is wrong to refuse to give the
widow the liberty which without question is conceded to the
widower, and to compel her to live a life of severe asceticism

1 See /. S. A\, June 19, 1910, p. 501.

io8 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

and drudgery. The plea is made with increased emphasis in
the case of virgin widows. But most Hindus lay stress on the
expediency rather than on the justice of the reform. They
set forth the very serious moral dangers to which the widow,
and above all the young widow, is exposed ; and they point
out that, if widows were allowed to marry, widowers could
readily find suitable partners.

4. Polygamy is not so often discussed in public, yet all
the more thoughtful men feel very strongly about it. The
chief conviction behind the agitation is the deep indignity and
humiliation which polygamy brings to the first wife ; but the
moral results on the husband are also emphasized. On the
other hand, so few Hindus have more than one wife that at
first sight polygamy seems a small matter in comparison with
other abuses. But another aspect of the question has recently
been brought into public notice, namely the unlimited power
which this right of polygamy puts into the hands of unscrupu
lous men and the very serious suffering many women undergo
in consequence. Child-marriage usually secures the complete
subjection of the wife to her husband. The little girl is
brought into her father-in-law's home ; and, being but a child,
naturally and necessarily comes under the domination of her
husband, who is at least several years older than herself. In
domestic matters she is subject to her mother-in-law. The
Hindu points out that by this means the wife is trained to
complete obedience and perfect submission. But if a wife,
despite this rigorous training, shows any signs of independence
of spirit, the threat of a second marriage is at once used, and
the poor child is cowed. The same threat may enable an
unscrupulous husband to use his wife's private property.

B. The whole social reform movement is a most healthy
influence in modern India. The changes it is producing on
the Hindu mind and conscience are very precious. Yet, if its
progress is to be measured by actual results in family life, it
must be acknowledged to be very slow. The stalwarts con
stantly speak of the appalling contrast between the speeches

THE HINDU FAMILY 109

and the actions of many of the leading reformers. How many
leaders from Keshab down to the Gaekwar of Baroda have
been pilloried in the press as ' backsliders ' ! But, though the
actions of these men do stand out in painful contrast with
their public protestations, yet the slowness of the advance of
social reform cannot, in justice, be laid at their door : they
are a symptom rather than the cause. Indeed it seems clear
that social reformers have not at all realized what the mighty
power is which thwarts their efforts.

The usual explanation given of the slow progress of social
reform in the Hindu community, namely that it has to con
tend against all the forces of conservatism and stagnation,
does not go to the root of the matter. There is an infinite
difference between a reform which is in fullest consonance
with the clear teaching of the religion of a people, and a
reform which is diametrically opposed to the spirit, the law,
the institutions, and the traditions of the national faith. The
temperance movement, for example, is a comparatively easy
crusade among Hindus. But the life of women is an altogether
different matter. For more than two thousand years the Hindu
people have been taught that a girl does not require an educa
tion, but that it is sinful not to marry her before puberty; and
that a man may remarry as often as he is widowed, but that
a widow who even thinks of remarrying is unfaithful to her
husband and will suffer after death for her conduct. It is
these deep religious ideas that retard the progress of social
reform. The educated man is personally ready for reform,
but his women-folk and all his relatives and caste-friends
who have not had a modern education are still dominated by
the old religious beliefs. This is the gigantic barrier that
stands in the way of the re-creation of the Hindu family.

We may well ask whether in such circumstances the reforms
ought to be seriously pressed. Should the women of a house
hold be driven to consent to that which they do not think
right, merely because the head of the house has become so
emancipated by his education as to be ready to lay aside the

no THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

religious scruples which still sway their simple hearts ? Will
not the true man's sympathy be with the women ? Is it
manly, is it honourable to drive them to act in flat dis
obedience to their consciences ? If we are seeking to uplift
the Hindu woman, shall we begin by doing violence to her
religious convictions ? May not the postponement of a
wedding for a few years or the remarriage of a widow be too
dearly bought at such a price? Does it not seem as if
there were something wrong with the method of the social
reformer ?

One Hindu thinker has come very near a true appreciation
of the present state of affairs. The following is a quotation
from a paper read by Mr. V. Srlnivasa Rao, of Berhamporc,
before the Ganjam Hindu Reform Association : 1

Our present-day social practices are no doubt the natural outcome of
certain religious beliefs. Unless such beliefs are shaken, the present
social practices cannot be permanently shaken. If an attempt is made,
as has till now been made, to shake the present-day social customs,
without previously or simultaneously attempting to shake their founda
tions deep-rooted in religious beliefs, the result cannot be otherwise
than what it is at present, viz. a creation of many halting and half
hearted ' sympathizers ' of social reform, who accept one reform and
oppose another, evidently being oblivious to the fact that the same root
principles underlie all the reforms and are opposed to the principles
that gave rise to the existing social customs. What are the principles
that gave rise to the present-day social practices which are sought to be
reformed ? They may be many, but chief of them seem to be three, as
shown below. The principles are so deep-rooted that they took the
form of regular and essential institutions :

i. Undue reverence to Shastras, which regards the Shastras to be
supernatural, God-revealed, unchangeable, and the violation of
their dictates, however violent to the conscience and reason, to be
sinful ; and which believes that the present-day social customs
are based on them as interpreted by the old priestly class and
tradition, however one may now try to prove that the Shastras do
not advocate such customs. This belief is responsible for the
prohibition against widow marriages, post-puberty marriages, &c.
The father of a young virgin widow feels for his daughter's misery

1 Reported in /. S. /?., Sept. 8, 1912, p. 16.

THE HINDU FAMILY in

as much as anybody else, but he feels unable to go against the
custom which he believes to be based on the dictates of the God-
given Shastras.

ii. Ideas of caste system, which introduce and perpetuate invidious
distinctions of privilege and status based upon mere accident of
birth, and accentuate the spirit of pride and arrogance and of
looking down upon some fellow beings with contempt, and which
circumscribe the mental horizon in all respects. This idea of
caste is responsible for the existing social practices of prohibition
against foreign travel, inter-dining, inter-marriage, elevation of
the lower classes, &c.

iii. Ideas of idol-worship, which harbour false conceptions of God,

viz. that God is not One ; that He has got all the idiosyncrasies of

human beings ; that He, like a tyrant king, enjoying all the sensual

pleasures, demands bribes of vegetable or animal food in order to

keep the devotee in good position ; that there are different material

heavens and hells for various kinds of souls, presided over by

different gods and goddesses ; that these should be propitiated by

offerings made through a certain class of people on earth. Thus,

by not presenting higher and spiritual ideals, the idolatry fetters

the emancipation of the soul and narrows its horizon. A great

thinker has once said, ' Show me your gods and I will show your

men,' thereby meaning that our conceptions of God have much to

do with our conduct in life. This is responsible for the low and

barren state of the mental plane which is proof against the

reception of all healthy and progressive ideas of social reform.

Whatever the apologists of the three old beliefs, who, having received

liberal education, are anxious to reconcile them with the new beliefs

which they imbibed by such education, may say — as, for instance, that

all the Shastras are not taken to be supernatural, that the caste

system is based on the good and scientific principle of ' personal

magnetism ', and that Idolatry is only keeping in view a concrete thing

for concentration in worshipping the One True Spiritual God— the

stern and incontrovertible fact remains there that all the Shastras, even

the Puranas, are believed to have been written by god-inspired sages

who are themselves supernatural, and whose dictates, established as the

existing social customs, cannot be deliberately trampled upon without

committing sin ; that the caste system is not at present based on

' personal magnetism ', but by mere accident of birth ; and that the

idolater does believe that some of the idols are the actual incarnations

of God, called Archavataras,1 and not mere symbols ; that there is not

1 See below, p. 320.

ii2 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

one God but many, quite independent of each other, one at Tirupati,
the other at Chidambaram, and so on ; l that one should be worshipped
on a certain day with certain leaves ; that the marriage and consumma
tion ceremonies of one God should be celebrated on a particular day,
and those of the other on another day, and so on.

Thus it is evident that the above three principles or popular beliefs of
undue reverence for Shastras, caste system, and idolatry, as explained
above, are strongly deep-rooted in the minds of the generality of
Hindus, and are offering much obstruction to the implanting of liberal
social reforms in the soil of the Hindu social economy, by stunting the
mental expansion of their votaries, and thus making them impervious.
If any one has outgrown, at least intellectually, these three beliefs, he
alone is able to understand the righteousness and necessity of the
several reforms proposed. There is a truth in the statement that only
education can effect social reform, thereby meaning not that the
education will directly introduce reforms, but that education will
shake the above foundations of the existing social practices, and thus
indirectly help the educated to grasp the reforms. However vigorously
the seeds of social reform are tried to be sown on the soil of the Hindu
social polity, it must be remembered that as long as the stones of the
current popular religious beliefs are allowed to remain in the soil, so long
will the effect be nil. The soil of the mental plane of the individuals
must be cleared of noxious weeds and elevated with fertilizing substance,
before we may expect to reap any harvest of social reforms. Such
clearing and elevation can be effected by the processes of destruction
and construction respectively ; destruction meaning the shaking and
removal of the rocky subsoil of the above three popular beliefs from
their mental soil, and the construction meaning the substitution of the
fertilizing soil of new, healthy, and progressive principles in their stead,
without which the harvest will be equally if not more disastrous. It is
true that education has so far been able to do the process of destruction
and shake the old beliefs, but it has not yet equally been able to do the
process of construction of offering substitutes which alone can give
stability and permanence to social reforms when introduced. It was
this want of constructive attempt on a sufficiently large scale that is
responsible for the charge often made that some of the reformers are
' irresponsible, irreligious, dare-devil vagabonds ' who, having lost all
faith in the old principles, and having no substitutes for the same, have
altogether abandoned all ideas of religion.

This is very incisive reasoning. Indeed, if carried one step
farther, it would lay bare the whole truth.
1 See below, pp. 324-6.

THE HINDU FAMILY 113

But the ordinary Hindu reformer has not realized what has
taken place in his own mind. He has not noticed that, along
with all other educated men and women, he has ceased to
believe the doctrines which lie at the basis of the Hindu
family. As we have seen, it is these beliefs that stand in the
way of reform. The whole of the common people and all
Hindu women, except the few who have come seriously under
Western influence, are still swayed by these ideas. Educated
men show that they are no longer bound by them by their
advocacy of the reforms. If we look at each in turn, it will
become abundantly clear that the foundation ideas of the
Hindu family have already lost their hold over the mind ot
the educated Hindu.

First, the belief which forms the foundation stone of the
whole structure, that, unless the pinda be regularly offered in
the memorial services and the water in the daily prayers, the
' fathers ' will fall from heaven and the whole family be
destroyed, is no longer held by educated men. If you talk
to them about the srdddha ceremonies, they will at once
confess that they hold no such belief, that they do not
consider that idea essential, but regard these ceremonies
merely as a way of expressing their very deep respect for the
dead. Thus, while it is quite true that the observance of
these ceremonies continues among educated men, the beliefs
which created the observances have already disappeared.

Secondly, the belief in woman's essential inferiority to man
is rapidly passing away. The proof that this is so lies here
that educated men now repudiate or explain away the practices
which are the manifestation of the belief in the Hindu family.
No educated man now defends infanticide ; no one defends
satl. The feeling is the same with regard to polygamy, as
we have just seen ; or, if a voice is now and then tentatively
raised in favour of marrying a second wife when the first
proves childless, there is no conviction in the tone. Con
cubinage, which in India used to be as common and as much
recognized as in ancient Greece, is now universally condemned.

ir

ii4 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

The agitation in favour of the education of girls is a further
proof. Men are also steadily coming nearer a recognition of
woman's right to freedom. The zenana is not praised as it
used to be. In this matter the attitude of the Hindu woman
herself is of considerable importance. The progress made
during the last ten years has been very remarkable. Finally,
even those who oppose the reforms do not do so on the basis
of the essential inferiority of women.

Thirdly, the belief, which underlies child-marriage, that it
is sinful not to marry a girl before puberty, is dead among
educated men and women. Very few educated men are now
to be found who would defend child-marriage at all, although
the vast majority, under the pressure of their women-folk and
friends, still practise it. Yet, even if a minority among the
educated defend the practice, no one now holds the belief
which is the only foundation of the practice.

Fourthly, the distinctive Hindu conviction, that it is right
for the widower but wrong for the widow to remarry, is also
dead in educated circles. Men differ very seriously in their
judgement as to what ought to be done. Some say that
virgin widows should be allowed to marry if they wish to do
so. Others demand that all widows should be given the
option. Others, who hold that the ascetic life of the Hindu
widow embodies a noble ideal and who arc reluctant to give
it up, urge various reasons for retaining it, especially the
undoubted fact that the best Hindu women who have not
come under Western influence have an intense dislike of the
idea of a second union. A few have suggested that the true
ideal is that neither widow nor widower should remarry.
The significant fact, however, is this, that no one now holds
that God's law allows remarriage in the case of widowers
but not in the case of widows.

It would be quite possible to carry this farther, but it is
unnecessary. There is abundant proof that the religious
basis of the Hindu family is decaying among educated men.
Nor can there be any doubt that it is the coming of the new

THE HINDU FAMILY 115

era that has produced the decay. Through all earlier revolu
tions, whether political or religious, these beliefs have persisted.
Buddhism did not perceptibly modify them. Except in the
case of Akbar, Muslim influence, so far from waking the
Indian mind in these matters, seems to have stiffened Hindu
family usage all round. There is not the slightest evidence
that any of the great Hindu thinkers of the past doubted
these things. An occasional outburst from an atheist or from
a free-lance l only makes the unbroken faith of the generations
all the more impressive. But the forces of the new time
have created an atmosphere in India in which these beliefs
cannot live. Every one who enters the atmosphere loses the
power to hold them.

From this point of view we can fully understand the position
of the reform movement. The whole situation becomes clear
when we realize that the reformers are no longer bound by
the religious ideas which still hold the uneducated, and thus
are ready for action, the very suggestion of which at once
raises serious opposition on the part of those who arc still
held by them. We can also see that the contention of the
more intelligent of the opposition party, that the acceptance
of the reforms would be disloyalty to Hinduism, and would
prove dangerous to the religion, is at least in large measure
justifiable.

A most serious situation is thus disclosed. There is first
the fact that the reformers and the orthodox mass stand face to
face, and that it is not a social but a religious difference that
divides them. But the tragic element lies here that the
changes which the reformers demand are absolutely indis
pensable for the regeneration of India ; and yet they cannot
be carried out without abandoning the religious foundation of
the Hindu family. The reformers have not realized what they
were doing. It is probably the very word 'reform' that has
misled them. They have all along imagined they were recalling
the original form of the Hindu family, while, as a matter of
1 Heart of India, loo, 112.
II 2

n6 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

fact, what they have been seeking to reach is an altogether
new structure. They are right in stating that the reforms
are absolutely essential : their opponents are right in saying
that these new proposals are alien and hostile to the Hindu
family.

Thus the only satisfactory solution of the difficulty is the
disappearance of the old beliefs. Every true patriot must wish
to see them pass away ; for, until they pass away, the reforms
cannot be heartily welcomed by the people. Mr. Srinivasa
Rao comes very near the truth here.1

But we may go farther and recognize that disbelief of these
things is bound to spread. No one can now stay the progress
of Western education in India. It is not Britain that imposes
it on the Indian spirit. The example of Japan and of China
in this regard is final and conclusive. India must have
Western education ; and wherever that goes, belief in the
potency of the pinda, in the essential inferiority of women,
in the duty of marrying a girl before puberty and in the
sinfulness of widow-remarriage, melts away like snow under
a rise of temperature. The only questions are, how soon,
and under what agency, the change will take place.

IV. But a much more serious consideration has now to be
faced. If the old beliefs are decaying and are certain to pass
away, what is to be put in their place? The chief lesson
taught by our study of the Hindu family is this, that every
element in it rests on a religious basis. The same thing will
be found true of every other form of family organization
on the face of the earth. All are religious. Innumerable
forms of organization were tried by our ancestors ; and
we have amongst us to-day only those that have suc
ceeded in surviving. It is surely a truth of vast significance
that every single surviving form is religious from top to
bottom. Thus the thoughtful man will not attempt to
rebuild the family of any nation without a foundation of
religion.

1 Supra, p. 112.

THE HINDU FAMILY 117

But have not the reform party been attempting to do so,
consciously or unconsciously? They have steadily worked
in opposition to Hindu family beliefs, but have proposed no
new group of ideas to take their place. In many Hindu
families the difficulty is seriously felt to-day. The emanci
pated son rebels against his father's authority. The daughter-
in-law, having got a little education, believes she has rights
of freedom and refuses to obey her mother-in-law. That is
the new spirit uncontrolled by religion. The new wine of
liberty needs new bottles to contain it.

The founder of the Arya Samaj consciously attempted to
rebuild the family on a religious foundation ; but he used only
materials provided by the Vedas, so that the attempt was
foredoomed to failure. Already his own followers are making
haste to repudiate one of his institutions, viz. niyoga, a form
of temporary marriage which in his system is permissible for
widows and widowers, and even for others.

What is needed is a strong, simple, religious doctrine which
even the child and the illiterate woman can understand,
a doctrine which will make the needed reforms inevitable,
once it is understood and believed, and yet will at the same
time place men, women, and children in the family under
such clear religious obligations that individual liberty shall be
restrained and the unity and purity of the family secured.
Unity, purity, discipline, peace were secured in the far-away
times for the Hindu family by the religious beliefs which are
now crumbling to dust. Something of equal power but suited
to modern times must be found now, else the modern Hindu
family can never rise in beauty and power.

Mr. Justice Ranade had some inkling of this truth many
years ago and gave expression to it :

Our deliberate conviction, however, has grown upon us with every
effort, that it is only a religious revival that can furnish sufficient moral
strength to work out the complex social problems which demand our
attention. Mere considerations of expediency or economical calculations
of gains and losses can never move a community to undertake and

n8 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

carry through social reforms, especially with a community like ours, so
spell-bound by custom and authority. Our people feel, and feel
earnestly, that some of our social customs are fraught with evil, but as
this evil is of a temporal character, they think it does not justify a
breach of commands divine, for such breach involves a higher penalty.
The truth is that orthodox society has lost its power of life ; it can
initiate no reform, nor sympathize with it. Only a religious revival,
a revival not of forms, but of sincere earnestness, which constitutes true
religion, can effect the desired end.1

Others 2 have said something similar more recently ; but there
has been no clear perception of the crucial fact that what is
required is a group of fresh religious beliefs fit to form the
foundation of the new family life desired by the reformers.

We have already noticed that the whole reform movement
arises from the Western atmosphere now influencing India so
deeply. It lays hold with strength only on those who have
had a Western education. But we come nearer the real
source when we note that these powerful ideas came in the first
instance directly to Ram Mohan Rai and the other Brahma
leaders from Christian sources. We do not, however, reach
the full truth until we recognize that every principle that
controls the movement springs from Christ Himself; but, as
that will become apparent at once to every one who will give
careful attention to the work of the reformers, we need say no
more about it. Since, then, Christ has inspired the movement
so completely,3 we shall do well to ask whether He does not
also supply the ideas needed to provide the religious founda
tion for the new structure which we see taking shape before
our eyes. What does He say about the basis of the family?
In seeking to reach the answer to this question, we must
begin with the fundamental principles of Christ, in accordance
with what is brought out in the Introduction.4

1 Quoted in I. S. A'., Sept. 8, 1912, p. 16.

2 e.g. Mr. Justice Sadasiva Iyer in /. S. A\, June 2, 1912, and Mr. V.
Srmivasa Rao in /. S. /?., Sept. 8 and 22, 1912.

8 See Ranade's Essays, 23 ; Sastri's History oj t]ie Braluno Samaj, i.
297.
4 pp. 58-61.

THE HINDU FAMILY 119

It may be well, at the very outset, to say a word about
a point frequently raised in Indian journals. When Christian
teaching is offered as the solution of the problem of the
Hindu family, Hindus are accustomed to object that the
sexual immorality and the divorce of the West are as bad as
anything found in India. We would ask our readers to
recognize, on the one hand, that, in addition to all the in
justice and weakness produced by its unhealthy family system,
India suffers quite as much from sexual vice as Europe does,
and, on the other, that such facts, even if they were more
serious than they are, would not prove that the teaching of
Christ on family questions does not form the final basis of
healthy family life for all men. The ignorance of multitudes
of people in the slums of European cities is no proof that
Western education is unnecessary or unhealthy ; and the
millions of people who in many parts of the world live
unsanitary lives do not constitute a disproof of the value
of hygiene. Like Hinduism, Christianity must be judged by
its principles, not by the vicious lives of those who refuse
to obey it.

We turn, then, to the teaching of Christ.

A. The central message of Christianity is the Fatherhood
of God. The word father has been applied to the divine
Being in almost every land, but with great variety of meaning
and feeling. In primitive religions it is quite common in the
sense of physical parent. The savage believes that his clan is
descended from his god. In much higher faiths, where a
spiritual conception of God already obtains, He is called
Father, as being the Creator, the Sustainer, and the loving
Benefactor of His creatures. The word in that case is used
metaphorically, just as it is when a king is called the father
of his people. Such a use of the word ' father ' implies nothing
as to what man's nature is.

But Christ's conception of the divine Fatherhood is some
thing quite different. To Him the Fatherhood is a personal
relation between the supreme Spirit and every human being.

120 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

Three distinct yet closely related elements are contained in it.
First, God created man in His own image ; so that the spirit
of man is a finite copy of the infinite Spirit. Man's spiritual
nature, though finite and weak, is built on the same lines
as the nature of God Himself. That which makes a man
a man is likeness to God. Secondly, God made man like
Himself, so that he might be fit for the immediate, personal,
spiritual intercourse of a son with his Heavenly Father.
The essence of humanity is thus spiritual kinship to God.
Thirdly, having created man in His own image with a view
to sonship, God loves every human being with the tender
love of a father. Thus, God's relation to every individual
human soul is truly that of Father, and nothing can ever
break that bond or change the Father's heart. Every man,
woman, and child has the peerless dignity of a child of the
Supreme.

Since, then, man's nature and origin are such, we can see
that every human being is of priceless value, both to himself
and to God. Jesus said.

For what shall a man be profited, if he shall gain the whole world,
and forfeit his soul ? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul ? l

Our kinship to God also fills us with infinite potentialities.
Wrapped up in every human soul there arc possibilities of
moral and spiritual growth beyond our calculation. Christ's
command is :

Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.2

Man's responsibilities arc as great as his value and his
dignity. Each of us will have to stand before the divine
judgement-seat and give an account of his life. Jesus says,

For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his
angels ; and then shall he render unto every man according to his
deeds.3

1 Matt. 16, 26. - Matt. 5, 48. a Matt. 16, 27.

TIIK HINDU FAMILY 121

i. From these quotations it will be clear that to Jesus
the implications of the Fatherhood are so great that, in the
light of that truth, all matters of sex, physique, birth, position,
wealth, education, civilization, dwindle to nothing, and every
human being is seen to be to God a child of priceless worth.
Women are different from men, mentally as well as physically,
yet they are as precious, as divine, as noble as men are, and
as fully responsible to God. Woman's relationship to her
Heavenly Father, and her mode of access to His heart, are the
same as man's.

Only from this point of view can we understand the way
in which Jesus spoke of women and dealt with them. They
hold quite as high a place in His thought and in the Kingdom
of God as men do. A woman who does God's will is Christ's
sister, just as a faithful man is His brother :

P'or whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and
sister, and mother.'

The Jews had not fully grasped the truth of woman's spiritual
dignity, and she never received among them the same place
as man. The disciples were astonished to find Jesus talking
at Jacob's well with a woman;2 and He had to defend
Mary for sitting at His feet hearing His word.3 It was His
deep consciousness that a woman's spiritual dignity is as
great as a man's that roused Him to indignation against the
injustice of Jewish divorce.4

It was because Jesus received women as children of God,
infinitely dear to the Father, that they crowded round Him,
listening to His words, and turning away from the evil of
their past lives. Therefore did the poor unfortunate stand
behind Him, weeping in an agony of repentance,5 and Mary
poured the costly spikenard on His head,'5 and the Syro-
Phoenician mother had courage to plead for her daughter,7

1 Mark 3, 35. - John 4, 27. 3 Luke 10, 38-42.

4 Mark 10, 1-12. n Luke 7, 36-50. 6 Matt. 26, 6, 7-

7 Matt. 15, 21-28.

THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

er women ministered to Him,1 stood
ere the first to see the empty tomb3
lessage.4

gh estimate of woman monogamy is
re possible. Woman, being as noble
Lire as man, enters on marriage as
on equal terms. Her husband is
is wholly his. So. when Christ deals

Have ve r-o: read. :hai

Clearly, there cannot be three or four in this unity. Mani
festly, then, in the doctrine that woman is a child of God as
truly as rr_aa. an immovable religious foundation is laid for
monogamy. The loose ideas which leave a Hindu free to
scarry a second, or even a third, wife while his first wife lives
are altogether inconsistent with the Fatherhood of God".
Polvcarsv places woman on an altogether different plane

an will

: - y

has the

. - : :: -:. - :-.: : .'--'-'/ " -'•'• - • - "-.'•' -" -"-
isidering the right age for marriage, as much care most be
en to considerations of the welfare of the wife as of the
sband. The realization of the true dignity of woman
kes the Hindu role, that a husband must not eat with his
e, seem very unworthy; and, if woman ts as noble a
ature as man, why should she be shut up in a zenana, if a man

Lake*. 1-5. * Luke 23. 49 : Mark 1-x 40. ' Mark 16, i.

4 Maik 16,6, 7. * Man. 1», 4-6-

THE HINDU FAMILY 123

is allowed his liberty? The principle of spiritual equality
also demands that there shall be something like equality
between a wife and her husband in age. in education, in
culture, so that they may be fit companions for each other,
that they may join harmoniously in bearing the strain of
family life and may be equally ready to influence the children
for good. This lofty principle thus raises a wife to her
true place beside her husband, and releases the incalculable
riches which lie hid in the heart, the will, and the intellect of
woman, but can never be used so long as she is crushed
down and refused the liberty which is her birthright.

2. The truth that every human being is a child of God,
beloved and priceless, is as fruitful with regard to children.
How very deeply Jesus felt the preciousness of a little child
comes out clearly in the following words :

Whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth
me : but whoso shall cause one of these little ones which believe on me
to stumble, it is profitable for him that a great milhtone should be hanged
about his neck, and that he should be sunk in the depth of the sea.1

But to this pricelessness of the child Jesus adds another
thought, that in their innocence and humility children are
patterns to us of those who win the kingdom of heaven.
These are the spiritual truths which lie behind the heart-
moving scene :

And they brought unto him little children, that he should touch them :
and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, he was moved
with indignation, and said unto them. Suffer the little children to come
unto me ; forbid them not : for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily
I say unto you. Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as
a little child, he shall in no wise enter therein. And he took them in
his arms, and blessed them, laying his hands upon them.2

Was it any wonder that the children loved Him? — He rode
into Jerusalem, meek and lowly, upon an ass. cleansed the
Temple of its profaning buyers and sellers ; and there, in His

1 Matt. 18, 5. 6. * Mark 10, 13-16.

124 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

Father's house, while He healed the blind and the lame, the
little ones stood round Him singing,

Hosanna to the Son of David.1

Thus, if we accept the divine Fatherhood, it is impossible
to make an invidious distinction between boys and girls. Both
must receive the very best training their parents can give
them, secular, moral, and religious, in order that they may
grow up to be worthy sons and daughters of God. The most
serious responsibility lies on the father and the mother to
train their children in the knowledge and the love of God,
their Father.

The doctrine of the divine Fatherhood makes human
fatherhood doubly sacred and worthy of honour. A true
son cannot but love and venerate his father and mother all
his life ; and if at any time, whether through sorrow, sickness,
or poverty, they require to be helped, it will be his greatest
joy to come to their aid. Christ laid great emphasis on this
duty and privilege.2

Necessarily, Christ's principle leads to the duty of complete
obedience to parents on the part of children. He quoted
with weighty emphasis the law.

Honour thy father and thy mother.3

But, when children grow up and become men and women,
then wise parents will no longer lay commands upon their
sons and daughters, nor expect implicit obedience from them ;
for the grown-up child bears the same relation to God that
his father does, and is as responsible to God for his actions.
In almost every instance, it is true, the son would have no
hesitation in obeying his father ; but it is the father's duty to
seek to develop his son's independence rather than to attempt
to keep him in a state of pupilage ; so that he ought not to
exact obedience. There is then a further possibility which
must not be lost sight of: the father may order the son to do

1 Matt. 21, 15. 2 Mark 7,9-13. •" Matt. 15, 4.

THE HINDU FAMILY 12. 5

something morally wrong, or may forbid him to do something
which the son believes he ought to do. There is the case
of the criminal tribes referred to above.1 Christ, by both
example and precept, taught that in these circumstances it is
the son's duty to disobey. When His own mother sought to
restrain Him from His work, He gently refused to be driven
from His life-task:

And when his friends heard it, they went out to lay hold on him : for
they said, He is beside himself. . . . And there come his mother and his
brethren; and, standing without, they sent unto him, calling him. And
a multitude was sitting about him ; and they say unto him, Behold, thy
mother and thy brethren without seek for thee. And he answereth them,
and saith, Who is my mother and my brethren ? And looking round
on them which sat round about him, he saith, Behold, my mother and
my brethren ! For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my
brother, and sister, and mother.2

A young man, whom Christ had urged to follow Him,
stated, seemingly, that his father was opposed to his doing so,
but that he would certainly obey after his father's death.
Jesus told him that it was his duty to obey at once :

And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me
first to go and bury my father. But he said unto him, Leave the dead
to bury their own dead ; but go thou and publish abroad the kingdom
of God.'

B. Jesus taught very distinctly that the children of God are
free. The clearest piece of teaching occurs with reference to
the payment of a religious tax :

And when they were come to Capernaum, they that received the
half-shekel came to Peter, and said, Doth not your master pay the
half-shekel ? He saith, Yea. And when he came into the house, Jesus
spake first to him, saying, What thinkest thou, Simon ? the kings of the
earth, from whom do they receive toll or tribute ? from their sons, or
from strangers ? And when he said, From strangers, Jesus said unto
him, Therefore the sons are free.4

p. 88. 2 Mark 3,21, 31-35. :t Luke 9, 59, 60.

4 Matt. 17, 24-26.

126 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

But the principle holds good throughout. The only ultimate
authority in the life of children of God is their Heavenly
Father. No one has any right to bind them. Men and
women must therefore be left free to marry or to abstain from
marriage, as they think best. It is clear that most people
are better married ; but some are better unmarried. The
Christian principle does not command a widow to marry
a second time ; far from it ; but it does leave her free to
consider her own duty in the light of God's truth in this
matter. No man has any right to forbid her to marry, if she
wishes to do so. The children of God must be left free.

C. Jesus teaches us that marriage is a divine institution in
which a man and a woman are united to each other more
closely than they are to their own parents. We quote once
more His words :

He who created them from the beginning made them male and
female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave his father and
mother, and shall cleave to his wife ; and the twain shall become one
flesh.1

His conduct fully corresponds with His words. Invited
to a wedding, He graced the occasion with His presence,
and shared in its joy.2 At another time He vindicated
most forcibly the sacredness of the marriage bond ; 3 and
immediately thereafter took little children in His arms and
blessed them, at the request of their mothers.4

i. Thus, to Christ, marriage is a most sacred thing, devised
by God for our human help. Married life is in itself a per
fectly pure relationship. The fact that it is necessary for the
continuance of the human family ought to be sufficient to
convince us that it is in accordance with God's will. It is
the abuse of the sexual relationship which has filled the minds
of multitudes of good men with suspicions of married life.
Men and women have abused marriage to such an extent
that multitudes have come to look upon it as merely a means

1 Matt. 19, 4, 5. 2 John 2, i-n. 3 Mark 10, 2-12.

« Mark 10, 13-16.

Till; HINDU FAMILY 127

for the gratification of passion. When so regarded, marriage
is certainly degrading, irreligious, altogether unfit for the
spiritual man. But when husband and wife enter upon it
in the right spirit, and live together in prayerfulness and love
of God, marriage is holy, and the family becomes a fountain
of the purest joys and the most spiritual training for parents
as well as for children.

2. Since marriage has these high ends in view, clearly
a man and a woman ought not to marry, unless they are truly
suited for each other, physically, mentally, and spiritually.
Personal fitness is the one test which ought to be used in the
selection of a woman for one's wife, or of a man for one's
husband. But under that head how many things come !
For the same reason child-marriage ought not to be tolerated.
A child is not prepared for married life at all : body, mind,
and heart are still immature, unready for the high tasks of
marriage. On the other hand, no age can be fixed on as the
right age of marriage for all. Some ripen much earlier than
others ; some need its help much earlier than others ; some had
better not marry at all. In thinking of these questions we
ought not to neglect the guidance afforded by the experience
of the human race, and of all that science teaches us as to the
development of the human body and the time when men and
women may most prudently mate.

3. This high conviction that marriage is a divine institution
necessarily leads to that law which Christ expresses so clearly,
that marriage should be dissolved only by death. Christ's
words are :

What God hath joined let not man sunder.1

Here, as elsewhere, He tells us our religious duty, but does
not give us detailed legislation. No definite law of divorce
can be drawn from the teaching of Jesus. What He does
is to teach every husband and every wife to be absolutely
faithful until parted by death.

1 Matt. 19, 6.

128 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

4. The same principle gives us the Christian point of view,
that there must be no sexual indulgence of any kind outside
marriage. Every sexual act outside the marriage bond is
a sin against our high dignity as children of God, and is
a deadly enemy to the spiritual life.1 Complete chastity is
demanded of every unmarried person, precisely as complete
truthfulness and justice are demanded. The rule proves its
own rectitude by its splendid simplicity. Here we have no
meritorious vow of chastity undertaken for a limited period,
but an absolute law which knows no exception.

Modern inquiries have shown how natural and how healthy
complete chastity is for the young. No young man or young
woman, if properly trained, ought to find any serious difficulty
in maintaining perfect chastity. There is no physiological
reason for uncleanness. Nature and health both woo the
young to purity. It is not natural but perverted instincts
that lead us astray. We may go farther. Both biology and
psychology prove the very great importance of the period of
adolescence in our lives. The growth of the aesthetic faculty,
the natural expansion of the emotions, the healthy advance
of the intellect, and the spontaneous ripening of religious
aspiration and feeling, all depend in a very large degree upon
a healthy youth. The most precious fruits of this golden
time cannot be gathered, unless chastity be preserved. The
nobler aspects of manhood and womanhood arise largely as
the result of the restraining of the sexual and emotional
nature in the years immediately after puberty.2 This is one
of the great laws which the ancient Hindus were ignorant of.
If they had known it, they would have never laid down the
law that a girl ought to be married before puberty.

D. Marriage is a thing of this life only. There is no
marriage in heaven. Christ's words are :

Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. For

1 Matt. 15, 19, 20.

2 See Stanley Hall's Adolescence.

THE HINDU FAMILY 129

in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but
are as angels in heaven.1

Most religions have failed to conceive heaven in a truly
spiritual way. They have thought of it, as the Red Indians
did, as a repetition of this life, only with the sorrows of earth
eliminated, and the company of the gods added. Such is the
picture of heaven in the Rigvcda ; and such the idea remains
throughout Hindu and Buddhist literature. In most countries
a man is believed to rejoin his wife in heaven, it being
impossible to imagine heaven as like this earth without the
inclusion of marriage. The gods themselves marry and beget
children.2 In some religions, as for example Islam, sexual
enjoyment is made one of the chief attractions of heaven. It
is surely unnecessary to point out at this date that all such
ideas of heaven make it impossible for any thinking man to
believe in such a thing. The life of heaven is spiritual, or
there is no such life at all. Christ made no such mistake.
He knew too well how different the spiritual world is from
this natural world ; so He told men frankly that there is no
marriage in heaven.

Since this is so, the reason given for not allowing Hindu
widows to marry falls to the ground. Whether a man or
a woman ought to marry a second time or not, must be settled
in accordance with personal character and circumstances. In
many cases a second marriage is best. In others perpetual
widowhood is the only right thing to look forward to. The
Hindu wife refuses to think of a second marriage, in order that
she may have her own place beside her lord in heaven. The
realization of the deep difference between this earth and the
spiritual world makes such an idea incongruous. We shall
know and love each other in heaven, but the old physical
relationships will no longer obtain. Like all the best things
of earth, married love will be raised to something better in
heaven.

1 Matt. 22, 29, 30. 2 See below, pp. 297-298.

130 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

E. Every one will realize what a strong religious foundation
for family life this is which Christ lays down. The chief
stone is the Fatherhood of God, which gives us the great
truths of the priceless value and peerless dignity of every
human soul, the spiritual equality of man and woman, and the
essential freedom of every child of God. The second stone
is this, that marriage is in accordance with the will of our
Father, and therefore a sacred thing, a perfectly pure relation
ship, the only relationship in which sexual relations are moral,
a bond dissoluble only by death. The third foundation stone
is the truth that marriage is a thing of this world only, that
there is no marriage in the spiritual world.

It will also be plain how perfectly these principles of Christ
arc fitted to form the religious foundation of the family which
the Hindu reformers are seeking to build. The Fatherhood
of God takes the place of the old-world belief that the
' fathers ' guard the family, and creates the religion of the
family ; the spiritual equality of man and woman as children
of the Father is precisely the law wanted to justify the four
reforms, viz. a later marriage age for girls, education for girls,
the possibility of remarriage for widows, and full monogamy
for all ; and the inviolable sacredness of the marriage union,
which arises from its origin in God, gives family life that
religious sanctity without which it cannot hold the heart and
bind the conscience.

If these powerful truths were taught to the Hindu people,
they would form such a basis of reliable conviction in their
minds that it would soon become possible to begin introducing
the much-desired reforms in a gradual way. There would
then be no wounding of consciences and no serious dislocation
of society. While women and girls would gradually be given
greater freedom, independence, and knowledge, these new and
somewhat dangerous gifts would be preceded, accompanied,
and surrounded by the powerful religious truths of their
personal relation and complete responsibility to their heavenly
Father for every privilege, and their most weighty obligations

THE HINDU FAMILY 131

to father, mother, sister, brother, husband, child, and every
other relative.

The policy at present pursued by the party of reform is
fraught with most serious danger on two sides. That policy
is, Introduce the reforms as rapidly as possible, but let Hindu
teaching and practice go on unchanged. On the one hand,
then, children and young people are to grow up under the
influence of the funeral and sraddha ceremonies, the family
sacraments, the various observances of home and temple
worship, the ancient mythology and the teaching of gurus,
priests, and the women of the family. It will be necessary to
explain the ceremonies to them ; so that in their most
impressionable years their minds will be filled with belief in
the value of the pinda to the souls of their dead relatives,
while the gods mentioned in the ritual of the sacraments will
necessarily seem to them to have power over family life.
They will be taught that all women are of sinful birth, i.e.
that they are born as women because of sin in a former life,
that parents are guilty of serious sin, unless they marry their
daughters before puberty, and that a widow has an impure
heart and sinful desires if she ever dream of a second marriage.
Are these healthy influences for young people living in a
reformed family ?

On the other hand, they will be placed in the enjoyment of
new liberties and in relationships not contemplated in the
Hindu system ; and yet no fresh religion-is obligations will
have been created in their minds to prevent liberty from
becoming licence, and to guide them in the unfamiliar circum
stances of their new life. How many unsympathetic sons and
revolted daughters-in-law will this policy necessarily breed,
how many foolish actions and how many uncontrolled minds !
Who can believe that such a policy is healthy ?

V. But the most wonderful thing remains yet to be noted.
The leaven of Christ, entering into the moral and intellectual
life of India, has made the old beliefs on which the family is
founded altogether incredible, and has roused the leaders of

I 2

132 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

the Hindu people to an earnest campaign for the evolution of
a new and stronger family ; so that at first sight Christ seems
to be antagonistic to Hindu thought and Hindu institutions.
Yet, when we examine the master-lines of the family which
He bids us build, we find, to our astonishment, that in it all
the noblest ideals of the Hindu family reappear, but in com
pleted form, while all that is unworthy and unhealthy has
passed away. Christ thus crowns the Hindu family with
a structure which is new, yet is in no sense alien, but is the
natural consummation of the older and less perfect system.
The following points are of the utmost interest :

(a) The sacred character which invests every aspect of
Hindu family life is deepened by Christ ; for He taught, not
only that marriage and the family are institutions framed by
the hand of God, but that God is the Father of all men, so
that every human family is a miniature reflex of the family
of God, and every home is meant to be a picture and a fore
taste of heaven. Jesus revealed the heart of our Father
towards the family when He took the little children in His
arms and blessed them.

(b) Monogamy, which has always been the law for Hindu
women, is the Christian law for men as well as women.

(c} The high ideal of loyalty and chastity which is set
before the Hindu wife is demanded in Christianity of the
husband as well as the wife.

(d) The lofty dignity of the Hindu husband and father is
confirmed by Christ, but is conferred upon the wife and
mother as well.

(c) Christ bids us treasure both sons and daughters as
Hindu parents have been accustomed to treasure sons.

(/) In ancient India, education, religious and general, was
the right of every boy of the twice-born castes: in Christianity,
it is the right of every boy and every girl of whatever race or
social position.

(g) The chastity which was so wisely demanded of the
Hindu adolescent while a student is laid upon all adolescents

THE HINDU FAMILY 133

without exception by Christian principle. The Christian law
is that every unmarried person must observe complete
chastity ; and that, taken along with the Christian rule that
only adults must marry, lays chastity upon every adolescent.
Thus the present weakness and unhealthiness of the Hindu
family find their one remedy in the principles of Christ. The
divine truths concerning man and woman which He revealed
arc needed to raise its best customs to their height, to
universalize its highest laws, and to correct its glaring abuses.
Christ will transfigure the Hindu family to glory.

CHAPTER III

THE ETERNAL MORAL ORDER

WE have seen what the religious system of the Aryans
was when they entered India. Centuries later, when they
were engaged in the imperial work of bringing all the peoples
of North India under their political and intellectual domina
tion, the great doctrine of karma and rebirth took shape. On
the surface it appears to be essentially a doctrine of life and
death; but we shall not be able to understand it unless we sec
that it is at bottom a theory of morality. The time was
a period of serious reflection. It gave birth to the reasoned
doctrine of the existence of the one unknowable God behind
all the gods as well as the belief in transmigration.

I. We can see only in part what the origin of the doctrine
was. The outer elements of the situation are not very clear.
WTc can see that the time was the period of Aryan expansion
over North India ; and it seems certain that it was in the
great intellectual activity provoked by the intercourse of the
living Aryan mind with the many varied peoples of North
India that the great theory was formed ; but the few scraps
of evidence which the literature affords us are not nearly
sufficient to show how the conceptions were built up nor
whence the various elements came. In the Brahmanas we
meet several fresh ideas on questions of eschatology. The old
firm faith in a happy immortality spent with the gods and the
1 fathers ' has begun to give place to chilling fears about its
being possible to die over and over again in the other world ;
and hell has become a more serious reality ; but there is no
hint of rebirth in this world, and there is no doctrine of karma.

THE ETERNAL MORAL ORDER 135

It is certain that, among the many animistic tribes the invaders
met on the broad plains of the North, there must, have been
some who held the common primitive belief that the souls of
men may become incarnate in animals. There were probably
totemistic clans who believed that at death a man became,
like his totem, a tiger, an ox. a frog, or a snake. Whether the
transmigration idea came from this source or not, it is
impossible to say. But, even if the idea that human souls
might undergo animal births came from the aborigines, that
is but one element in the complex doctrine. That which gave
the belief its power over the intellect, and also its value for the
moral life, was the connexion of this fairy-tale idea with
the powerful ethical conception of retribution ; and we may
be certain that that was the work of the Aryan mind. This
seems to follow from the fact, which stands out clear in the
literature where the doctrine first appears (viz. the earliest
Upanishads), that it was among the cultured Aryans that the
doctrine was first believed and taught. Educated men accepted
it first ; and it was then brought to the common people by the
Biahmans in the course of centuries of instruction. Even
apart from this piece of evidence, one would be inclined to
suspect that the idea of transmigration was borrowed from
some primitive source, but that the conception of karma was
thought out by the Aryans; for, while transmigration has
been believed in many lands, the Hindu doctrine of karma is
unique.1

The inner elements that went to the creation of the belief
may be partly made out, but even they are far from clear.
The fundamental thought clearly is the common human
conviction that the heart of the world is just, that our lives
are subject to moral law, and that both good and evil actions
will receive a perfectly just recompense. The form which
this conviction takes in the doctrine is that all the good
and all the evil actions done in one life will be recompensed
with an equivalent amount of happiness or misery in a later

1 See Berricdale Keith's convincing paper, J. P. A, S.f 1909, p. 569.

T3<5 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

life ; but how the Indo-Aryans reached this particular
combination of ideas, we do not know. It is easy to con
jecture that the original form of the belief was that each man
receives in this life the exactly measured recompense of his
good and bad deeds in happiness and misery. There are
a few incidents in the literature which would fit well into the
conjecture. For example, when Dasaratha is compelled to
drive his beloved son Rama into exile, he recalls in his misery
that, while out hunting as a young man, he rashly shot an
arrow and thereby killed a young lad, the only son of hermit
parents ; and he concludes that the loss of his own son is the
punishment for that rash act.1 Here we have a sinful act
punished in the same life in which it was done. This theory,
that a man's health and fortune in this life are the recompense
of his deeds, has been held by many other early peoples,
notably by early Israel. But facts arc too stubborn for such
a theory : clearly it is not true. The stage in Israel's history
when the old belief became incredible comes vividly before us in
the Book of Job. We may conjecture that at the time when the
transmigration theory came to the notice of the Indo-Aryans.
they had by experience found the theory of material recom
pense in this life untenable, and that they seized on the idea
of transmigration as a means of solving the problem. But
all this is but conjecture. We know only that in the
BriJiadaranyaka and CJiJiandogya Upanisliads a few of the
more advanced men teach, as a new and precious truth,
the doctrine that as a man sows in this life he will reap in
another.

From these passages it seems clear that the doctrine was
first thought out and stated with reference to the future, and
that it was some little time before reflection led to the further
thought, that a man's present circumstances and experience
are the recompense of his behaviour in past lives. Then this
train of thought, carried farther both backward and forward,

THE ETERNAL MORAL ORDER 137

would inevitably lead to the conclusion that the series of lives
can have neither beginning nor end.

A definition of terms may be useful at this point :
The doctrine of transmigration is that souls are emanations
of the divine spirit, sparks from the central fire, drops from
the ocean of divinity ; that each soul is incarnated in a body
times without number ; that the same soul may be in one life
a god, in another a man, in a third an animal, or even a plant,
and that the series of births and deaths goes on in a never-
cncling cycle, the soul finding no rest nor relief from suffering,
unless it finds some means of release from the necessity of
rebirth and returns to the divine source whence it came.

The word karma means literally action, but in the doctrine
means the inevitable working out of action in new life. The
idea is that a man's body, character, capacities, and tempera
ment, his birth, wealth, and station, and the whole of his
experience in life, whether of happiness or of sorrow, together
form the just recompense for his deeds, good and bad, done
in earlier existences. Every act necessarily works itself out
in retribution in another birth. The expiation works itself
out not only in the man's passive experience (bhoktritvam]
but in his actions also (kartritvani}. Then these new actions
form new kanna, which must necessarily be expiated in
another existence ; so that, as fast as the clock of retribution
runs down, it winds itself up again, as Dcussen remarks. The
soul is also affected by its own acts. Every good action
ennobles it in some degree and helps to loosen the grip of the
sense-world, while every bad action degrades it and gives the
world a greater hold ; so that the man who persists in right
action makes steady progress towards perfection, while con
tinued vice plunges the soul in corruption ever deeper. No
man reaches complete soul-health until he has spent many
lives in strenuous well-doing.1

1 The concept of inaction is not dealt with here : it arose only when
men began seriously to seek immediate emancipation. It is dealt with
below, p. 138.

iQ.S THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

In ancient times, as now, the transmigration theory was
held in high honour because of the explanation which it gives
of the appalling differences in human life. Is a man bom
blind, or deaf, or deformed ? It is the result of karma. Docs
a man rise to imperial power and boundless riches ? It is the
result of karma. Every variation in natural capacity, in
physical strength, in hereditary character, in social position,
in wealth, in good fortune, is put down as the scrupulously
measured requital of previous deeds. We thus get a seem
ingly satisfactory explanation of the extreme differences in
the lot of men. Is God partial, that He should make one
man a philosopher, a king, or a millionaire, another an idiot,
a monster, or a sickly weakling ? This thought more than
any other accounts for the popularity of the doctrine.

To the Western man the theory is more noteworthy because
of the wide sweep of its moral conceptions, the belief that
every happening in the world is the outcome of some ethical
act, and the idea that the perfecting of a soul is the work
of many myriads of years and of uncounted lives. So hard
a thing does the upward struggle seem to Hindu thought.
Certainly the doctrine does not belittle the place of morals
in human life, nor the difficulty of overcoming the world.

When reflection had made some progress, men began to
regard these many lives as most undesirable, and to long
for emancipation from the necessity of rebirth. When this
unexpected change occurred, men began to deplore their
own good deeds, because they led to rebirth as surely as their
evil deeds ; so, that which originally was the highest possible
reward became hated.

II. To the careful student the most interesting aspect of
this doctrine is the altogether immeasurable influence it has
exercised on both the beliefs and the practices of Hinduism.
It is not only the theory of the life of the soul, and the stand
ing rule for the elucidation of every calamity, but is the
explanation of all the phenomena of the natural world, the
justification ot the caste system, and the reason why men

THE ETERNAL MORAL ORDER 139

obey the laws of caste, the family and religion. Above all,
it was the source of the pessimism of India ; and that, in
turn, created the whole philosophic movement. We shall
probably understand its bearing on the religion best if we
consider it in connexion with the world, souls, and God.

A. TJie ivorld is the realm of karma. The unending pro
cession of unnumbered souls constantly passing through
birth and death as plants, animals, men, demons or gods, is
held to be not only the explanation of human sorrow, joy,
and character, but of all that happens in the material world.
Everything that is visible is the outworking of the action of
the whole vast assembly of invisible souls. Karma is the law
of the phenomenal world. Several results necessarily arise :

1. As every occurrence in the world is the effect of fore
going action, and as every action is followed by its retributive
expression, it is clear that the process can have had no
beginning and will have no end. Sainsara, as the process
is called, is eternal. Hence the world is eternal, a constant
concomitant of God. Human life, it is believed, with all its
sorrow and sin, will go on for ever. Other elements of the
system fit well into this idea. As karma is the moral system,
it is necessarily conceived as eternal. As in each life a man's
character and condition are the outcome of previous action,
while his actions will inevitably lead to new life, the process
can have had no beginning and will have no end. The soul
is thus eternal, as eternal as God.

2. The world, though eternal, is completely dominated by
karma. It is thus in every aspect transitory, and ever filled
with birth and death, sorrow and suffering. Every soul in
the universe is in bonds, chained by karma to birth and death,
to pleasure and pain.

3. The process of retribution is so exhausting and the
action of souls so disturbing that the world steadily de
generates. The age of full virtue (krita ynga) inevitably
passes into the age of three-fourths of good (tretd yugci), that
into the half-and-half time (dvapara ynga}, and that into the

1 40 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

age when only one-fourth of good survives (kaliyuga). Thus,
decline is the only possibility in worldly affairs. Progress is
for ever impossible. We are now in the last evil age, hasten
ing on to hopeless depravity.

4. The Hindu belief in the periodic dissolution and
re-formation of the world is a reflection of the doctrine of the
transmigration of the soul. The idea is that the whole
phenomenal universe, after having degenerated through the
four ages, passes into a formless, invisible, elemental state ;
souls leave their bodies ; and elemental matter and souls
repose in peace until the moment comes for a new manifesta
tion. Then matter begins once more to evolve ; inorganic
things, plants, animals, men, demons, and gods come into
being ; the process of transmigration begins precisely where
it left off; the castes are re-formed ; the rishis see the Vcdas ;
and the world comes to be as it was before. The period
between formation and dissolution is called a kalpa, the period
of repose a pralaya. Thus, the Hindu conception of the
course of the world is an endless series of alternating periods
of activity and rest. These changes result in neither progress
nor decline ; for the world is always the same at the begin
ning of each period of activity. Self-repetition is thus the
characteristic of the process and not evolution. The one end
of the whole process is retribution : there is no world-purpose
to be worked out.

5. We turn next to caste. The Hindu believes that his
caste is determined by his past life. Each man is born into
that caste for which his former actions have prepared him.1
If his former lives have been exceedingly good, so that he
has become a truly spiritual soul, he is born a Brahman.2 If
he is a step lower in spirituality, he is born a Kshatriya,2 and
so on. It is this that distinguishes the Hindu social order
from every similar system that has existed in the world :
a man's position in the social scale is held to be a clear index
of the state of his soul.

1 Chluindogya U., v. 10, 7. 2 See p. 163.

THE ETERNAL MORAL ORDER 141

Thus, each Hindu is believed to bring with him into the
world a certain accumulated store of spirituality which is the
sole reason for his having been born into the caste to which
he belongs. His caste-standing in future lives will then
depend upon his behaviour during his present life. The caste
into which he has been born is believed to form the one
situation in which his soul can make true progress. Hence,
he cannot form good karma unless he live as a loyal
member of his caste, keeping all the traditional rules with
complete faithfulness and fulfilling all his other obligations
as a good Hindu.1 These are in the main his family duties
and his duties to the gods. A fuller account of all that is
binding on Hindus will be given in Chapter V.2 Here it is
of importance simply to note that the doctrine of rebirth and
karma reinforced the old religious sanctions of these duties by
teaching that neglect of any duty ordained in Scripture would
ripen to calamity and misery afterwards.

6. As all of joy or sorrow that happens to a man is the
outcome of his karma, every calamity is .set down as the
direct result of some evil action in a former life. Thus when,
through the machinations of Kaikeyl, Rama, the eldest son
of Dasaratha, king of Ayodhya, is driven into exile, he thinks
of his mother Kausalya's grief and says :

Sure in some antenatal time
Were children by Kausalya's crime
Torn from their mother's arms away ;
And hence she mourns this evil day.3

In ordinary Hindu society, when a man dies, his widow is
told that, if she had not sinned in a former life, he would not
have died. Nay. the dogma goes farther still : the calamity
of being born a woman is the punishment of sin.4

The same doctrine of calamity is used to explain the
degraded and downtrodden position of the Outcaste tribes:5
a man who lives a foul life, according to all Hindu authorities,

1 Gita, xviii. 45. t pp. 217-218. 3 Griffith, II. liii.

4 See above, p. 91. 5 See p. 162.

142 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

is born a dog, a hog, or a Chandala,1 i.e. an Outcaste. The
birth of other men as foreigners is explained on the same
lines.- Consequently, Hindu compassion was not drawn out
towards these wretched people living in their midst. They
were the criminals of the universe undergoing a life-term of
punishment. Who would waste pity on them ? One might
as well pity the soul that is born a worm or a beetle !

But the belief went still farther. Since the sufferings of
these people were the justly measured requital of their past
sins, no power on earth could save them from any part of
their misery. Their karma was working itself out and would
inevitably do so. Thus, Hindus not only shared the common
conviction of the ancient world, that degraded tribes were
like animals and could not be civilized. Their highest moral
doctrine taught them that it was useless to attempt to help
them in the slightest ; for nothing could prevent their karma
from bringing upon them their full tale of misery. Here is
a very illuminating incident:

Let me record another instance — It occurred at Madras during one
of my visits there. One morning, as I was engaged in my studies in
my lodgings, news was brought me that a remarkable Hindu widow
had come with a peculiar mission to the house of a friend of mine.
I went to the place to meet her. When there I found a young woman,
a widow and an ascetic, majestically seated like a devotee and singing
a Tamil song. They told me it was a psalm in praise of her deity. As
she was singing with her hand on her little stringed instrument, big
tear-drops were trickling down her cheeks. The psalm over, I began
conversation with her through an interpreter. Her whole history was
this— she belonged to a respectable middle-class family ; after her
widowhood she took the vow of attaching herself as a maid-servant to
the Temple of Tirupati. She was still attached to that temple, and on
that occasion had come to Madras to collect funds to give a new set
of jewellery to her god. My mind at that time was being seriously
exercised by the case of a number of famine orphans whom I had met in
the streets. I opened to her the proposal of starting a shelter and an
orphanage for these children, and asked her if she could be a mother
to them. My proposal fell flat upon her mind. She did not look upon

1 Chhdndogya Upanishad, v. 10, 7. 2 See p. 164.

THE ETERNAL MORAL ORDER 143

it as a religious act. As far as I remember, she observed, ' What have
I to do with these children who have lost caste by taking food at the
hands of all castes ? they are suffering the consequences of their acts in
a previous state of existence ; who can help them ? That is no business
of mine.' l

It is most necessary to observe that, not in connexion with
the Outcaste only, but in every other relationship, the theory
of karma, through representing every weakness, defect, and
calamity as punishment and as inevitable, checked seriously
the natural flow of common human kindliness and put grave
obstacles in the way of the rise of philanthropy. Beneficence
could only act in spite of the law of karma.2

7. Since the world is the realm of karma and the gods are
under its sway as fully as man, and since Brahman :j is in no
way connected with karma, the system is not under the control
of any divine being, but is self-acting.

B. Souk. All souls are eternal, as we have seen.4 Whether
they be in gods, demons, men, animals, or plants, souls are
under karma in consequence of their former deeds, good and
bad ; but there is this distinction between them and the
phenomenal world, that for souls escape from karma is
possible. In order to gain emancipation it is necessary for
the soul to toil onward and upward through many lives. No
forgiveness of the slightest fault is possible. Everything must

1 Sastri, Mission of the Braluno Soinaj^ 56-57.

2 It is most instructive to note the teaching of the modern Hindu on this
important point. In the Manual of Religion and Ethics published in
connexion with the Central Hindu College, Benares, the difficulty is
acknowledged, and the answer is made that, if 1 see a man in need of
help, I ought to do all I can for him, even though 1 know my efforts are
useless ; for, if I make the attempt, I shall form good karma for myself,
while if 1 abstain, I shall form evil karma. Clearly there is a serious
confusion of moral ideas involved in such an utterance. If it is useless to
help the degraded man, how can any one believe that to make a vain effort
to help him can form good karma, if the world be wise and moral at core ?
The truth is that the idea that helping the needy is a good action comes
from an akarmic atmosphere. Further, if my action brings my brother
no real help, philanthropy is deprived of its only justification. It is no
longer philanthropy but self-love which is the motive of what 1 do.

3 See below, pp. 219-222. 4 p. 139, above.

144 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

be expiated. It is only by living good lives that any progress
can be achieved. Then, when through much good karma the
soul is born as a man in a good Hindu family, if he is willing
to renounce the world altogether and to live a life of inaction
as a monk, he may achieve emancipation.

Transmigration cuts clean athwart the old faith in a happy
immortality spent in heaven in the company of the ' fathers ',
Yama, and the gods. When reflection was turned to the
point, the belief arose that souls spent the interval between
two lives in heaven or in hell according to desert. So heaven
and hell became places of temporary sojourn.

C. Brahman.1 The unknowable One, the Source of the
universe, is conceived as absolutely free from karma and
rebirth. He is constantly spoken of as unborn and as free.
The contrast between him and the world in this matter is
frequently emphasized. Hence, since all actions, whether
good or bad, necessarily create karma, he is conceived as
altogether inactive. Had he been thought of as engaging in
any kind of action, he would inevitably have come under the
dominion of karma. So he is said to be without any desire
or purpose that could stir him to action. He is altogether at
peace, altogether indifferent, altogether passionless. This
great thought, that Brahman is actionless, has produced very
deep results upon Hindu theology. It cut Brahman away
from morality and from every form of worship ; it made it
impossible to conceive him as a purposeful Creator ; and it
strengthened the tendency to think of him as impersonal.
We deal with those points at greater length below.2

These paragraphs show what a commanding position the
doctrine of karma holds in Hinduism. There is no aspect
of the life of the people that has not felt its influence. It
is karma that has given Hinduism its peculiar flavour.

It will now be plain that this doctrine is essentially a moral
theory. Rebirth is its most noticeable and most picturesque

1 See below, pp. 219-222. - See pp. 228-232 ; 244-246; 392-407.

THE ETERNAL MORAL ORDER 145

feature ; but the real heart of the whole is the conviction that
every action works itself out in retribution. This retribution
has two aspects. The more prominent of these is the pleasure
or pain which the man experiences as the fruit of his action.
But besides that, according to the doctrine, every act produces
its result upon the man himself, either helping him onward to
perfection or degrading him. Then, since the Hindu is taught
that, if he is to make good karma, he must fulfil every detail
of the laws of his family, caste, and religion, as these are
laid down in the Dharmasastras,1 the doctrine includes within
itself a moral standard as well as a theory of retribution
and of soul-progress. The doctrine of karma and trans
migration thus forms the basis of the Hindu doctrine of
morality.

D. We have now to notice that which has proved in history
to be one of the most important aspects of the influence of
the doctrine, namely its tendency towards pessimism. We
must beware lest we exaggerate this tendency, for every
observer must realize that the Indian outlook on life is far
from being consistently pessimistic. Yet there can be no
doubt that a shadow of considerable extent does fall upon
Hindu thought. Some have sought the source of this gloom
in race, others in climate. What the ultimate cause may have
been, no one knows ; but there can be no doubt what the
proximate cause was : the shadow was cast by the doctrine
of transmigration and karma. We shall see in a future chapter
that this was the stimulus that roused the Hindu mind to its
greatest effort, the effort which produced the philosophies of
India.

We may approach the Hindu tendency to pessimism from
several distinct conceptions. Each of these we shall find was
formed under the influence of karma. It seemed a sad thing
to be eternally chained to that which is transitory and full of
suffering. Since all the world is under the dominion of karma,

1 Gitd, xvi. 24.
K

J46 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

men could not but regard everything phenomenal as leading
to rebirth, and therefore as evil. The fact, too, that there was
no means of escaping from the retribution due for any single
act, nor any way in which a man might rise above his destined
karma, proved very galling. Then the fact that it was not
controlled by any divine being but acted automatically would
also chill the human heart. Men felt they were caught in the
teeth of a machine which was unerringly moral but as rigidly
godless. Is it any wonder that the doctrine cast a shadow on
the Hindu spirit, that men began to feel shut up in prison
and weighted with clanking chains ?

We are, therefore, not surprised to find that the con
ception had little more than taken form when men began to
seek a way of escape. The very earliest statements of the
doctrine of transmigration occur in the Upanishads, the litera
ture of release. So soon as thinking Hindus realized how
heavy their chains were, they began to inquire how the human
spirit could find emancipation. This effort to win release can
be traced in several distinct stages.

i. There is first the philosophical period, when the method
by which all men sought release was knowledge and monastic
renunciation, vidyd and sannyasa^ Each leader declared he
had found the one right way to emancipation, the necessary
knowledge and the effective discipline. Philosophy was thus
rather a practical science than anything else ; though, dealing
as it did with the constitution of the universe, it rose in certain
systems to metaphysical theories of great interest. The
thought on which all worked was this, that if men could break
the ties which bound their souls to the phenomenal world,
they would escape from the sway of karma and hence from
the necessity of rebirth. In each system the theory showed
how escape was possible, and those things which the theory
declared had to be given up were renounced in the ascetic
life prescribed. Whatever else was demanded, action had to

1 See below, pp. 253 ff.

THE ETERNAL MORAL ORDER 147

be given up ; otherwise the man would continue to create
new chains for himself by making new karma. At this stage
in the history the monk alone could win release.

2. In all the later stages release is offered to the layman.
The life of monastic renunciation is recognized as helpful and
meritorious, but it is unnecessary ; emancipation may be won
in the lay life. The earliest theory of release for the layman
probably appeared shortly after the Christian era. The
theory is seemingly a reflection of the Buddhist doctrine,
that desire binds a man, and that when desire is destroyed
the bonds of karma are broken. The Hindu form of the
theory is that release can be won without ascetic renunciation,
if a man will do all the duties prescribed for him in the Hindu
system without motive, without desire for reward.1

3. Very soon this theory took a slightly different form
under the influence of a theistic theology. Here faith begins
to believe that the Supreme conceived as personal can release
one from the bonds of karma in certain cases. The thought
is expressed in two ways. The first is that, if a man does all
his duties in the spirit of renunciation to Vishnu, i.e. renouncing
in devotion to God all desire of reward for them, then these
actions will produce no karma and will have no power to
bind him. The other form of expression is : If a man will
serve God with devotion, God will release him from all sins.

4. In the Sivaite sect matters did not proceed quite so far
along these lines. But in the Sivaite theology of South India
we find the belief clearly stated that Siva chooses carefully
such embodiments for souls as shall lead them most rapidly
towards the spirituality that is necessary for release. Here
again theistic thought is on the way to transform the closed
system of transmigration and karma.

These four distinct developments all took place among
those who held the transmigration theory most seriously and
most intelligently. We have now to notice that, although the

1 For a fuller statement of this movement see below, p. 365.
K 2

148 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

doctrine early found acceptance among Hindus of all grades,
and still holds almost universal sway in the community, yet in
most circles its full implications have never been known nor
acted on. The average Hindu accepts the doctrine as an
explanation of caste, of the inequalities of the lot of men, and
of striking calamities, but he has never realized that, when
rightly understood, it deprives the gods of all power to bless
or to curse him. He has continued to worship his gods as
his ancestors did before the doctrine of transmigration arose,
offering them gifts and sacrifices and praying to them, in
order to obtain health, wealth, and children, forgiveness of sin,
deliverance from calamity, and all else that the average man
wants. On the other hand, the hermit, vanaprastha, con
tinued the severe austerities which had become usual in the
hermitages before transmigration arose, and expected by
means of them to win supernatural powers and other gifts
altogether outside the closed circle of his karma. These
large deductions from the sway of karma in two distinct
provinces of the religious life have softened the influence of
the doctrine very greatly for the masses.

III. This sketch of the efforts of the Hindu spirit to escape
from the sway of karma shows how hard it has been for
Hindus throughout the centuries to accept the doctrine in its
entirety. The human spirit could not but beat its wings
against the bars of such an iron cage. But in our days things
have gone much farther. Educated Hindus still think the
doctrine a brilliant speculative solution of the problem of the
inequalities of human experience, and they glory in it as one
of the greatest principles ever thought out by the human
mind ; but fresh ideas and aspirations have laid hold of them
with extraordinary power, so that their thoughts and activi
ties are turned in altogether new directions ; and the institu
tions and practices to which karma and transmigration gave
form are being more and more neglected or transformed.
The doctrine in its practical application to Hindu life is
rapidly dying out.

THE ETERNAL MORAL ORDER 149

The life of educated India to-day is dominated by the
future, by the vision of the brilliant, happy India that is to
rise as a result of the united toil and self-sacrifice of her sons.
The people are to be rejuvenated, to become intelligent,
capable, wise, and good ; the resources of the country are to
be used ; political freedom is to be achieved ; education will
stir the mind of India to such universal activity and such
successful work as it has never done before ; and India,
possessing a wise, cultured, religious people, will take its place
among the strongest, most honoured, and most progressive
peoples of the earth. Thus, there seems to be a good deal of
deflexion from the ancient ideal which bids each man live .is
his father and grandfather lived, and maintain the ancient
polity unchanged in all its parts ; and also from the ancient
belief that the course of the four ages is a continuous process
of deterioration. How is the new national life to be worked
out, if we are now well on in the Kali Yuga ? Clearly the
Western idea, that human life is capable of indefinite progress,
has laid hold of the Hindu mind with great force.

The political side of the national movement is responsible
for much progress. Politicians have begun to realize that
until the inhabitants of India are much more homogeneous
than they are now political liberty is impossible. This is the
conviction that has led all our most prominent Indian political
nationalists, even Surendranath Bannerjea himself, to say that
no serious political progress is possible until the people have
full social freedom. The meaning of this dictum is that the
caste system must be given up before the people can secure
political freedom. Take along with this recent movement the
long-continued agitation on the part of the Social Reform
leaders in favour of the abolition of caste distinctions. Who
will measure the significance of such an attitude on the part of
Hindus? As we have just seen, the transmigration theory
runs that men are drafted into castes according to their karma.
Whoever sincerely believes this will inevitably uphold the
caste system to the utmost. To what limbo of forget fulness,

ir0 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

then, do our politicians and reformers now propose to banish
the doctrine?

Comparatively few educated men have yet reached the
position held by the leading politicians and reformers, that the
caste system should be given up ; but many are ready for
relaxation of the rules with regard to marriage between sub-
castes, and most take large liberties in the matter of food.
These changes in ordinary practice and the demands of the
whole body of reformers, even when taken together, do not
prove that caste is on the verge of passing away ; but they
do show most conclusively that the old beliefs, that a man's
caste springs from his karma, and that the keeping of every
caste rule is necessary to secure good karma, are passing
away.

Nor is that all. Representation on the councils of the
Empire is allotted to Hindus and Muhammedans largely in
accordance with the census returns. Hence the question
whether the fifty millions of the Outcastes are to be reckoned
as Hindus or not is a large State question. In the past Hindus
have usually refused to acknowledge them as Hindus at all,
on the ground that neither their worship nor their culture is
worthy of the name ; but the new circumstances have led to
a new policy. Hindu leaders now speak of them as brothers,
and invite them to take their place in the work of the regene
ration of India. Some have even proposed to bring them
into the religious community. Every one will rejoice that
more humane language is being used about them, even if
practice is as yet little altered. But one question obtrudes
itself: Where has the karma theory gone? How can the
unclean, untouchable Outcaste be the Brahman's brother ?

Christian missions have done brilliant work among the Out-
castes. Thousands have been won from dirt, degradation,
low morals, and superstition to cleanliness, civilization, educa
tion, and a Christian life. When missionaries began the work,
Hindus scoffed, suggesting they might as well waste their
energies over the monkeys of the forest. But the impossible

THE ETERNAL MORAL ORDER 151

has been accomplished ; the degraded have been uplifted to
decency and spiritual religion ; and the ancient belief, founded
on the law of karma, that such men cannot be reclaimed, has
been proved false. In consequence, members of the Brahma,
Prarthana, and Arya Samajes have begun to follow mission
aries in the attempt to uplift these people. Even Hindus have
been found here and there to set their hand to the work.
Could stronger evidence of the collapse of the karma doctrine
be given ?

All Indians are now summoned to join in earnest self-
sacrificing toil for the uplifting of India. There is no longer
the old fear of action. Unselfish work and eager philanthropy
are commended to the utmost. The educationalist, the econo
mist, the capitalist who starts a large industrial business, the
scientist who introduces a new manufacture or a new industry
into India, are everywhere praised. The spirit of the trans
migration theory, which leads the reflective man to abstain
from good as much as from bad action, or to perform actions
without desire for results, has been left far behind. The
ancient pessimism is felt no more ; for men's hearts are now
set on India's future, and they constantly see golden visions.

We have already seen how great the changes arc which are
being introduced into the Hindu family, especially with regard
to the position of women. The old idea of the inferiority of
women is rapidly passing away. Here, too, the old conception
of karma is yielding ; for the transmigration theory is that
women are born women because of sin in a former life.

There is, thus, abundant evidence to show that the doctrine
of transmigration and karma is dying out, even if most Hindus
do not realize what is going on. The new thought from the
West is stirring the educated class and rousing them to action ;
and, in consequence, the old transmigration ideas are every
where being ousted from their places.

Can we see the reason why this powerful ethical system,
which in the beginning gave every part of Hinduism its
characteristic colouring, and which has dominated Indian

152 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

thought in every century, is now crumbling to decay ? We
shall realize in later chapters, as we deal with the various
aspects of the religion, what the proximate cause of decay is
in each case ; but we can already see the main defect in the
system, which makes it altogether unfit to bear the pressure
of a new type of thought dominated by a far more vital moral
faith. The fundamental weakness of the Indian moral theory
is that it stands apart from God. All the old gods are subject
to karma, and hence no one of them can be the Lord of the
moral order ; while Brahman is conceived as the direct anti
thesis of karma, as free from all bonds, separate from all
action; so that he cannot be the ruler of the Hindu moral
system. Hence two most serious consequences at once
appear. The moral order of Hinduism, having no divine
personality at its centre, is a mechanical, automatic system ;
and the supreme God of the religion is non-moral. This fatal
divorce is the cause of much of the weakness which is showing
itself in decay of the religion to-day.

One cannot but look back with keen regret to the figure of
Varuna in the Rigveda. He is conceived as an altogether
righteous god, and as being the source of rita, that is, of all
moral and natural law. Here is one who is truly Lord of the
moral order. From that most profound conception a noble
theistic moral order might have been developed. But, alas !
from causes which we do not understand, the righteous Varuna
was displaced by the mighty warrior Indra and sank down to
the position of the god of the waters. Hence, there was no
god left in the Hindu pantheon fit to become Lord of the
moral order of the universe.

CHAPTER IV
THE DIVINE SOCIAL ORDER

I. Primitive men in ancient times were usually organized in
clans or tribes of varying size ; and the same is true of savage
peoples to-day. There were many forms of social life, but in
the type of organization which was most common the members
of each tribe usually believed themselves to be of one blood,
called themselves brothers, and looked back to some mythical
being, human or divine, as their ancestor. Every other tribe
was believed to be of distinct origin. Most primitive peoples
have believed the different communities of men to be as distinct
from each other as species of animals. Indeed the members of
each group are inclined to regard themselves as men, and the
members of every other group as something less than human.
Even advanced peoples have usually regarded themselves as
essentially different from others. The Greeks thought of them
selves as freemen by nature while all other races were made
for slavery. Hence, it never occurred to primitive men that
the various tribes could be united and live together.

The struggle for life was exceedingly hard. Perpetual
hostility was regarded as the only possible condition of affairs
between tribes. Hence, the members of the tribe had to be
faithful to each other, if the tribe was to survive. There were
so many enemies outside that those inside were compelled to
draw very near together. To fight for each other and to
avenge each other was the only way to safety. Blood-revenge
was the first of duties.

There was thus in the circumstances very little intercourse

154 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

with men of other groups ; and, indeed, tribal customs seemed
to be formed with the very idea of keeping each tribe in
isolation. Men of different groups seldom hunted together,
and barter was seriously restricted. Even temporary alliances
for help in war were not often formed. Men of different
tribes seldom took a meal together. To eat together was
regarded as a thing possible only for those of the same blood.
Indeed a common meal somehow actually had the effect of
mingling the blood ; so that, while it was right and natural for
brothers, it was dangerous in the case of others. Marriage also
was usually restricted within certain limits of blood, and, in
many tribes, was the subject of the most stringent regulations.
On the other hand, there were many tribes which allowed
marriage by capture, while some permitted no other form of
marriage. In such cases the woman was supposed to be
absorbed into the tribe of her husband. There were scarcely
any moral relationships with men of other tribes : why should
a man have any regard for his enemies ?

Amid innumerable differences there is one characteristic
which is universally present in primitive society : the social
organization of every tribe has a religious basis, and each
people regards its own society as sacred.

Apart from its religious foundation, there are three points
which are peculiarly noticeable with regard to tribal society.
First, each group is exceedingly narrow, and there is no
thought of widening society, far less any conception of the
unity of mankind. Secondly, social life at this stage is subject
to innumerable restraints. People imagine early men to be
in all things free ; scientific research has shown that the truth
is exactly the opposite : the primitive man is everywhere in
chains. He is bound to go through a large number of recur
rent ceremonies ; many kinds of food are absolutely forbidden ;
his choice in marriage is narrowed by many rules ; to look at
certain people at certain special times, or to taste their food,
is believed to bring death: to look at a newly born child, or
its mother, is forbidden ; to touch a dead body is pollution ;

THE DIVINE SOCIAL ORDER 155

to touch certain common objects is believed to be most
dangerous. Early society is thus barred and restricted at
every turn. Thirdly, there is little that is moral in the social
conceptions of these tribesmen. While the innumerable pro
hibitions of their social life are the source from which later
morality was born, there are few of these regulations that are
themselves moral in the modern sense ; and there is scarcely
a trace of any moral relations between tribes. Thus very
small groups, innumerable restraints, and rudimentary morality,
are the leading characteristics of early society.

II. With the progress of civilization this particularist tribal
organization has usually been transcended in various ways.

The introduction of agriculture leads to a settled life and
a growing desire for peace. Thus, unconsciously, the old
hostility dies down between tribes settled near each other, and
various forms of intercourse spring up without interfering with
the ancient tribal organization. This prepares the way for
new forms of social life and the creation of a larger unity.

Military conquerors by destroying, separating, transplanting,
enslaving, have frequently broken up the old tribal organiza
tion and laid the foundations of a larger political and social
life. The great kings of Babylon, Egypt, Assyria, and China
produced vast changes by their conquests. In these cases we
see many distinct groups welded together by military pressure
into a single nation.

Greece shows us higher forms of life and a new basis of
unity. The various Greek states, while retaining each its old
exclusive social laws, were so conscious of the rich deep
culture which distinguished Hellenes from other races, that
they formed numerous federations, which helped them in their
struggles with outsiders, and yet left each city-state free to
follow its own genius in religion, politics, art, and social life.
To this is largely due the vital individuality and fruitfulncss
of Sparta, Athens, Miletus, Thebes, Corinth, and other cities.

But these loose federations were not strong enough to resist
military pressure, as the Greeks discovered to their cost when

156 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

brought face to face with Philip of Macedon. It was the
Romans who produced the one form of organization which,
while allowing all the old groups, great and small, to retain
their own peculiar religious and social observances and exclu-
siveness, yet drew from them sufficient strength to render
them full protection within the mighty Empire and so gave
the germs of culture the opportunity of sprouting and bearing
fruit. The principle of the Empire was toleration of all racial
and tribal idiosyncracies, whether religious or social, so long
as they did not endanger the common peace and the common
safety ; and the Romans themselves were as exclusive in social
life as any other group, until the decay of the old stock com
pelled them to draw in outsiders for the maintenance of the
Empire.

This stage in the growth of human society shows a great
advance upon the earlier stage. Men now live in far larger
societies ; the hostility between individual tribes has been
very largely overcome. The progress made along this line is
very remarkable and of very great value. Yet it is well
worthy of remark that even in the highest of these organiza
tions, namely the Greek federations and the Roman Empire,
the ancient idea, that different groups of men are of distinct
origin and must live separate lives, survives as strong as ever.
Each group believes itself to be a holy people of pure blood,
regards its religion as its own exclusive possession, and holds
that marriage and social intercourse are sacred and must be
kept inviolate : the touch of outsiders is pollution. The spirit
extends even to other spheres. Amongst the Greeks and
early Romans political privileges were still restricted to the
blood of the sacred race; and even the chief privileges of
business were denied to aliens. All this is true, in spite of the
larger federation under which men lived. The sacred character
of each form of society, while of incalculable value, obstructs
rather seriously every movement and tendency towards
progress.

Considerable advance is also visible in the matter of liberty.

THE DIVINE SOCIAL ORDER 157

The Greek and the Roman, while still restricted by old
prejudices in matters of religion, marriage, social intercourse,
and such like, and still bound by many a rule which we should
consider irrational, had much more freedom than primitive
people have.

Thirdly, ethical ideas have made very large progress. They
now have a far wider scope within the racial group, and have
begun to influence men very deeply outside their own particular
clan. Yet even so, the Greek or Roman of ancient times, if
driven out of his clan, felt that he was a ruined man, practically
expelled from human life.

In the case of each of these ancient peoples, Babylonian,
Egyptian, Chinese, Greek, Roman and what not, there was
a deeply rooted conviction that the social organization of the
people had been created by the gods, and was therefore sacred
and to be reverently and faithfully maintained. The persecu
tion of Christians by the Roman Government arose from the
belief that Christianity was essentially hostile to the constitu
tion of ancient society. To resist this new society-wrecking
force was held to be a high religious duty.

III. The Avesta and the Rigveda, when read side by side,
enable us to form a picture of the common life lived by the
ancestors of the Persians and the Indo-Aryans while they were
still a single people. They, like so many other ancient races,
were roughly divided into three classes, nobles, priests, and
common people. By the time when the hymns of the Rigveda
were being composed these distinctions had become if possible
deeper, but the divisions were even then but classes.

During the latter part of the period of the Rigveda the
priests made notable advances. The hymns themselves are
very clear proof of their intellectual progress ; ritual and
sacrifice were becoming more and more elaborate ; and schools
had been established for the training of young priests. In
such circumstances the priesthood naturally tended to become
hereditary. The sacerdotal skill and knowledge which a man
had acquired were too precious to be handed on to any one

158 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

other than a son. Here we have one of several forces which
combined to produce caste.

Meanwhile the process of fighting and conquering the
aborigines was producing its inevitable results. The differences
between the tall, white Aryans, with their advancing civilization
and noble religion, and the short, black aborigines, with their
coarse habits and degrading superstitions, were so great that
cultured Aryans could not fail to shrink from close contact
with them : intermarriage was unthinkable, and even social
intercourse was impossible. The colour line was very notice
able and became the basis of all future distinctions : varna,
colour, is one of two Sanskrit words used to indicate distinc
tions of caste. We see the elements of a similar situation
before our eyes to-day in the attitude of the average European
to Indians, or still better in the complete social separation of
negroes from whites in the southern half of the United States.
There is always this tendency when, along with a marked
difference in culture between two races, there is a sharp
' colour ' distinction as well. Thus, as the conquest of North
India proceeded, and the various aboriginal peoples came under
Brahman authority, there was only one method of organiza
tion possible, namely, to make the distinction between pure
Aryans and aborigines absolute, and to allow the old tribal
differences among the latter to remain. This, then, the upper
class of the Aryan invaders did ; but it is perfectly clear that
the rank and file of the Aryan invaders must have intermarried
freely with the aborigines: the ethnology of modern India
makes that perfectly evident.

Before the canon of the Rigveda was finally closed, a hymn
found its way into the collection which declares that the
Brahman, the Rajanya, the Vaisya, and the Sudra had each
a separate origin in God. The Brahmans, the Rajanyas or
Kshatriyas, and the Vaisyas are the three old classes, the
priests, the nobles, and the people; and the Sudras are
conquered aborigines. These four are now declared to be
absolutely distinct races, each a separate creation. The passage
speaks of Purusha as the great sacrifice, and goes on :

THE DIVINE SOCIAL ORDER 159

The Brahman was his mouth ; the Rajanya was made from his arms ;
the being called Vaisya, he was his thighs ; the Sudra sprang from his
feet. Rigveiia, X. xc. 12.

This is not caste yet, but it shows that men's minds were
tending in the direction of caste, and that the three classes
were becoming more distinctly shut off from each other and
from the aborigines. We have here the basis of caste, the
religious sanction for it rather than the thing itself. Events
clearly were moving in the direction of the formation of a rigid
social system. Doubtless intermarriages were still common ;
but the flowing tide ran towards caste organization.

The ancient belief in the separate origin of distinct groups
of men, and in the necessity of an exclusive life for the
preservation of purity both of race and culture, was the actual
source of the conception ; the verse quoted above gave the
necessary religious sanction ; the splendid rise of the Brahmans
and the Kshatriyas through their swiftly-growing culture and
immense capacity created the political and social situation ;
while the absolute banning of the aborigines in marriage and
social intercourse, coupled with their reception into the
enlarged Aryan community, which was now taking shape,
provided an example of a group, completely isolated socially,
while included in the wider union, which could not but react
on the classes within the Aryan people itself.

But all this would give us only such endogamous religious
groups as were found among a number of ancient peoples,
while Hindu caste is a perfectly unique form of social organi
zation. What made the difference was the doctrine of rebirth
and karma, as we saw above.1 According to this theory each
man is born into that caste for which his former actions have
prepared him. If he is far advanced in spirituality, he is born
a Brahman ; if he is a step lower, he is born a Kshatriya ; and
so on. Thus in Hinduism a man's caste is held to be an
infallible index of the state of his soul. It was this reasoned

1 P. 140.

160 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

conviction that laid hold of the Hindu mind and made the
observance of all caste rules a matter of conscience and
also of deep personal interest. Only by living as a faithful
member of his caste could a man retain the spirituality his
soul had won. To marry a woman of low caste, to eat with
a man of low caste, or to touch an Outcaste, was to con
tract gross spiritual pollution, the result of which would be
not merely some social slight, or even excommunication
from his caste-fellows, but frightful punishment in hell, and
then all the misery of an animal or Outcaste existence in
his next life. Men sincerely believed that the occupation
assigned to the caste was the best discipline for the soul of
the man born in the caste :

According as each man devotes himself to his proper work does he
obtain consummation. . . . Better one's own caste-duty ill done than
another's caste-duty well done.1

By the close of the sixth century B.C., as we may see from
the Dharmasutra of Gautama, the caste system had arisen in
all its essentials. The supremacy and the religious authority
of the priests form the basis of all the legislation of the Hindu
people as stated in this law-book. The three highest castes
stand quite apart from all others as the holy people for whom
the Brahman may sacrifice and whom he may teach. The
religious education which each Brahman, Kshatriya, and
Vaisya boy receives is held to be a birth into a spiritual
life ; so that these castes are called * twice-born '. They
alone wear the sacred thread. The position and the duties
of Sudras are clearly defined ; and even references to unclean
Outcastes and mlecchas occur.

But though the system appears full-grown in Gautama
and other early law-books, it is perfectly clear from the rest
of the literature— Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain— that the laws
were far from being fully observed in actual life. The
authority and the supremacy of the Brahmans were by no

1 Gitti) xviii. 45, 47.

THE DIVINE SOCIAL ORDER 161

means universally acknowledged ; for the Kshatriyas still
contended with them in many parts of the country for the
first place ; marriages between people of different castes were
still common ; and progress towards the faithful observance
of caste regulations was a slow process. The prodigious
religious ferment of the seventh and following centuries B. c.
must have endangered the Brahman position very seriously ;
for all the philosophic and ascetic movements were, at the
outset at least, more or less hostile not only to Brahmanic
sacrifices and ritual but also to the exclusive pretensions
and demands of the Brahmans. Yet the process went on.
The stars in their courses fought in favour of Brahmanism ;
the Hindu people steadily came more completely under
Brahmanic rules and regulations : the social life of North
India gradually settled in a fixed shape.

Yet it was several centuries before caste law assumed the
rigid form which it has to-day. The Christian era may be
taken as a mean date. The process, in the circumstances,
was a most natural one. It was not the work of a master
organizer, but the slowly evolved product of the inner mind
of the people. We may speak of the religio-social empire of
Hinduism, but we must carefully realize that it was created
by no emperor and that at no time has it had a centralized
organization. The Brahmans have had much to do with the
working out of the system ; but there is no hierarchy uniting
all Brahmans.

Each of the three highest castes recognized in the verse
in the Rigveda gradually expanded into a group of castes.
Two processes contributed to this result, differentiation and
foisting. Groups of Brahmans, Kshatriyas, or Vaisyas, through
migrations or through gradual changes in culture, education,
custom, and wealth, got differentiated into sub-castes which
did not intermarry ; and groups of people belonging to lower
castes or even to other races were foisted into these castes
and obtained recognition. The aborigines were not all made
into one caste and named Sudras: they entered the fold as

L

162 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

separate groups, each of which gradually developed into a
caste.

It is also clear that large masses of aborigines were shut
out from the Hindu community as being too unclean for
intercourse. Some of these have lived in secluded places and
have retained their ancient religion and social life ; while
others have lived near Hindus, and in imitation of them
have become organized in caste-fashion. These are the Out-
castes, the Untouchables, the Depressed Classes of to-day.
We must, however, note that, according to all Hindu authori
ties, some at least of these Outcaste groups arose from mixed
unions among caste Hindus.

These people form one of the largest problems of modern
India. Though they have lived beside Hindus for more than
two thousand years, so that they have absorbed the spirit of
caste and certain rudimentary religious ideas from Hinduism;
yet they have been treated with such inhumanity that they
remain to this day in the most piteous poverty, dirt, degrada
tion, and superstition. They are not allowed to live in the
same village with Hindus. They must not approach a high-
caste man ; for their very shadow pollutes. In South India
they must not come within thirty yards of a Brahman ; and
they are usually denied the use of public wells, roads, bridges,
and ferries. They are not allowed to enter Hindu temples.
Their religion is in the main an attempt to pacify demons
and evil spirits. They number some fifty millions.

There is no country in the world that is without its sub
merged class : under every known civilization there is at
least a remnant who fall behind, who fail to grip the necessary
conditions of the times, who tend to become human wreckage.
But where outside India is there a polity devised with the
determinate purpose of creating a huge submerged class, of
crushing one-sixth of the whole people down in dirt and
inhuman degradation ?

Throughout all the centuries since the caste system reached
its full form changes have occurred. Groups of low-caste

THE DIVINE SOCIAL ORDER 163

men have occasionally been able to secure recognition as
belonging to higher castes. During the early centuries of
our era many foreign tribes entered Hinduism and became
organized as castes. Their kings were called Kshatriyas,
while the commons received lower recognition. Even now
the process of caste formation has not ceased ; and the modi
fication of caste rules is still possible in any of the castes.
Most scholars believe that Muhammadan influence stiffened
caste practice. Yet, in the main, the system itself has
remained unchanged for two thousand years.

IV. The many castes of modern Hinduism are thus sup
posed to fall into four, or, if we include the Outcastes, into
five groups as under :

Name. Caste occupation.

The three twice-born castes,
A. Brahmans : priests supposed to be of pure

Ayran blood, and called
15. Kshatriyas: rulers and warriors 1 twice-born on account of

their education. They alone
C. Vaisyas : business men and farmers ^ the sacred

^ y , (Aborigines admitted to the

I). Sudras : servants

(Hindu community.

, f Unclean aborigines and
E. Panchamas (i. e. fifth-class men), called

J progeny of mixed mar-
also Outcastes, Untouchables, &c. I Jj

We must note carefully, however, that, though this is the
scheme of the caste system, it is very difficult to fit all the
modern facts into it. In North India the three twice-born
castes stand out quite distinct, but instead of two well-defined
groups, Sudras and Panchamas, what we find is an immense
collection of castes, the order of whose precedence it would be
very difficult to settle, and which it would be rather hard to
divide into Sudras and Outcastes. The spirit of caste, i.e.
the tendency to subdivide into closed groups, has worked so
powerfully that it has broken through the ancient organization.
In the South, on the other hand, there are very few Kshatriyas
L 2

164 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

and Vaisyas, so that the bulk of the population falls into
three clearly distinguished groups, Brahmans, Sudras, and
Pafichamas.

The following are the essential elements of caste :

A. The whole system rests on the belief that mankind is
not a unity but consists of a large number of species each of
distinct origin, and that each man is born into that species or
sub-species for which his karma fits him. If he is very far
advanced, in virtue and spirituality, he is born a Brahman ; if
less advanced, he is born a Kshatriya ; and so on.

B. Since Brfihmans are born such because of their superiority
in spirituality, to them all religious authority has been given
by the gods. They alone, in virtue of their lofty spiritual
nature, the result of virtuous action in many previous births,
are fit for the highest spiritual functions, viz. giving religious
teaching, deciding points of law, sacrificing and performing
ceremonies.

C. There are an indefinite number of distinct species of
men, but the three Aryan castes are far above all others.
After them cornc the Sudras, who are the descendants of those
aborigines who were admitted into the Hindu fold ; and then
the unclean aborigines and the mixed castes. The last have
arisen, according to Hindu theory, through intermarriage
between the castes or through the commission of some sin.
Foreigners are unclean and are called mlecchas.

D. Men vary in value according to caste, and therefore must
be dealt with in all matters in accordance therewith. Thus :

(1) In education, the Brahman alone has the right to teach ; and since
only the three twice-born castes are spiritual men, they alone are
allowed to hear the sacred literature (srutt) and to receive the
training of the Brahmanical schools. All women are excluded.

(2) Consequently, the ministrations of the Brahmans, the regular sacra

ments with the sacred texts prescribed for them, the Vedic sacrifices
and the daily devotions (sandhya) are restricted to the three castes.

(3) Men and women of the four castes are admitted to Hindu temples,

but no others, except by special favour.

(4) If one man injures another, the heinousness of the sin depends upon

THE DIVINE SOCIAL ORDER 165

the caste of the sufferer: the higher the caste the greater the sin.
Hindu law also directs that fines and punishments shall be imposed
according to caste: the higher the caste of the criminal the lighter
the punishment.

(5) Outcastes must keep at a distance from caste people, lest they
should pollute by touch or shadow, the distance being roughly pro
portionate to caste status. They are not allowed to live in the
same village with high-caste Hindus nor to enter Hindu temples.

E. Each member of a caste is bound to preserve his purity
to the utmost. Pollution is dangerous not only to himself but
to all the members of his family, dead, living, and unborn, and
in less degree to other members of his caste.1 Purity is pre
served by the faithful performance of the domestic sacraments,
the sraddha ceremonies, and Vedic sacrifices, and the daily
devotions prescribed, and by the avoidance of any breach of
caste rules in the matter of marriage, food, social intercourse,
or occupation. Only if a man faithfully obeys all these rules
does he make good karma for himself and so secure a good
birth in his next life. The chief of these rules are :

(1) No man may marry outside his own caste. Usually there are also

a number of rules restricting a man's choice of a wife to certain
subdivisions of the caste. In many parts of India sectarian
differences are so acute that intermarriage and interdining are
prohibited. This creates further subdivision of castes.

(2) Certain kinds of food are recognised as legitimate, while others are

absolutely proscribed. There are stringent rules as to the caste of
those who may cook for the members of the caste.

(3) No man may eat with a man of lower caste than himself. There

are also strict rules as to the castes from whose hands one may
receive water.

(4) There is in each caste one occupation which is regarded as fully
legitimate. Among the lower orders the rule is usually very

1 Confounding of caste brings to hell alike the stock's slayers and the
stock ; for their fathers fall when the offerings of the cake and the water
to them fail.

By this guilt of the destroyers of a stock, which makes castes to be
confounded, the everlasting Laws of race and Laws of stock are
overthrown.

For men the Laws of whose stock are overthrown a dwelling is ordained
in hell.— Gitd, i. 42-44.

i66 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

stringent, but among the higher castes there is a wider choice.
Even amongst the highest, however, there are definite limits to
liberty ; and the Glta says it is better to keep to the caste
occupation and do bad work than to adopt another and do good
work.1
(5) No Hindu may cross the ocean.

All these regulations, except the marriage law, arc at present
undergoing considerable modification among certain groups of
educated men, especially in the large cities. Among the
educated the fifth is now inoperative in Calcutta, and is
gradually becoming so elsewhere. For the mass of the
people they remain as before.

F. If a man break one of the rules of his caste, some
authoritative priest pronounces sentence on him, or a meeting
of the members of his caste belonging to the neighbourhood
is called, and his case is dealt with. If he is outcasted, he is
driven from his home, is disinherited, and can never marry in
his caste, nor eat with his relatives or any member of the
caste. These liabilities will rest on his children and his
descendants for ever.

It is to be most carefully noted that excommunication is
imposed only on account of a breach of caste law, and does
not stand in any relation to morality. A man may be guilty
of gross immoralities and yet may be in good standing in his
caste and his family ; while a man of the noblest character
who breaks a caste law, however absurd or inhuman it may
be, will be outcasted. In Mysore, where Christian baptism
still deprives a man of his property, there were two brothers.
One was a man of high character, but he had become a
Christian ; the other was an orthodox Hindu, but was in
prison undergoing a sentence for some crime. The Christian
was disinherited, and the criminal got his property. This is in
strict accordance with Hindu principle. The law-books con
tain many fine moral precepts, but they do not touch caste
organization.

1 See above, p. 160.

THE DIVINE SOCIAL ORDER 167

V. We may now try to estimate the work which caste has
done for India.

1. The caste system was a great advance on the simple
social arrangements the Aryans had when they entered India ;
for by it they were enabled to organize the great empire they
had won, to live a peaceful and progressive life in close
association with the aboriginal inhabitants, and to impart to
these backward peoples some measure at least of their own
higher civilization. There is no need of many words to show
that it was an advance for the aborigines so far as they were
admitted to the system : the Sudras are to-day the middle-
class people of the country. Thus to both partners the new
arrangements were solidly beneficial. Let us, therefore, not
criticize the conquerors, because they did not introduce into
the Hindu religious empire ideas which did not become
operative in the world until many centuries later. Caste
was the best possible solution of the problem open to them.
The old groups were retained in all their insularity and ex-
clusiveness, but they were brought into some sort of relation
ship the one to the other and to the three classes of the Aryan
people. The Hindu method of segregation did not lead to
the wholesale destruction of aboriginals such as has occurred
in many lands. Rules gradually grew up for regulating the
intercourse of the groups with one another. Caste was thu.s
really a very great conception, the greatest possible at that
time. While in the circumstances of these modern days it
more and more proves itself an anti-social system, it was
social, and not the reverse, when it was instituted. The whole
population was unified in some degree : common religious
ideas and practices were taught them and took possession of
them ; and the aborigines necessarily admired and copied
in varying degrees the social usages of the upper castes.
Hindu society was on the whole healthy until caste became
rigid somewhere about the Christian era.

2. Along with the institutions of the Hindu family, caste
has preserved the Hindu race and its civilization. Apart from

j68 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

this powerful protection, Hindu culture would have been over
whelmed by the terrific political storms of the centuries, and
the race could have survived only in fragments. But, thanks
to caste and the Hindu family, they have survived, and with
them many other groups also have been preserved ; for,
embedded in the curious conglomerate of the Hindu social
fabric, many a caste of strange ethnology and culture may be
seen, clearly descendants of some invading force, who, flinging
themselves violently on India and gaining a foothold there,
were finally absorbed by the people they came to attack, and
owe to their absorption their position to-day. Indeed, so
powerful has the attraction been that the Hindu people
have drawn into their federation all invaders, except mono-
theists.

3. Caste did for many centuries in India the work which
was done in Europe by the mediaeval trade-guilds. The system
springs from different ideas, yet worked on much the same
lines. It preserved learning by isolating the Brahman caste
and throwing on them the exclusive duty and privilege of
teaching. It preserved manual skill and knowledge of the
arts and industries by compelling boys to follow the profession
of their father. A permanent division of labour was also
secured. By means of caste-guilds wages and prices were
maintained at a moderate standard.1

4. Caste has also served to some extent the purpose of a
poor law in India ; for the well-to-do members of a caste
fulfil, in some degree at least, the duty of providing for those
members who have fallen into indigence.

VI. Caste retains to this day a powerful hold on the Hindu
mind. To the average man, whether Brahman, Sudra, or Out-
caste, caste life is not only society and respectability, race
purity and religion, but comfort, personal safety, and culture.
In caste a man believes he has behind him a pure ancestry to
which the lineage of the kings of England is but of yesterday.

1 Banerjea, A Study of Indian Economics, 37, 38.

THE DIVINE SOCIAL ORDER 169

Even the Pariah,1 who to the Sudra (not to speak of the
Brahman) is so low and unclean as to be untouchable, is in his
own eyes a man of high birth and good ancestry, because
there are so many groups lower still. To go out of caste is
to degrade oneself to the level of coarse, ill-bred men. It is
to go out of civilization.

Yet, in spite of all that caste has done, and in spite
of its giant grip on the Indian spirit, educated Hindu society
shows a number of anti-caste tendencies of very great
importance.

As we have already seen, the early Buddhists and the other
unorthodox schools of the same time withstood the pre
tensions of the Brahmans; but there is no indication in the
Pali Tripitaka that Buddha or his followers condemned caste
as such. The system had not then become rigid and harmful ;
so that it would have been strange if they had assailed it.
Further, they held the doctrine of transmigration, which
naturally expresses itself socially in caste. Nor was any idea
incompatible with caste planted in the Indian mind by
Buddhism. The same is true of Islam. Men simply did not
feel that there was anything wrong in it. From the eleventh
or twelfth century of our era, it is true, an occasional voice is
raised against the system. In the writings of Kapilar, a
Tamil, and of Vemana, a Tclugu,2 we find the system sub
jected to very acute criticism. Basava, in founding his sect,
the Vlra-Saivas or Lingayats, appointed non-Brahmans as
priests and forbade his followers to recognize caste ; and the
same is true of the Kablrpanthls and the Sikhs; but the
poison has crept back into each of these three bodies. Yet
these were but sporadic protests. Never until now has
there been any sign that the Indian mind was dissatisfied
with the system. The facts we have now to deal with arc
therefore of great significance.

1 The Pariahs are one of the large Outcaste castes of South India.
The word is often inaccurately used as a synonym for Outcaste.

2 Heart of India, 94, 100, no, 112.

i7o THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

A. Educated men everywhere tend to seek certain forms of
social freedom which are contrary to the rules of caste. This
tendency, which is clearly a natural outcome of Western
education, seldom touches marriage : the average educated
Hindu keeps the matrimonial rules of caste with great care.
It is in matters of food, social intercourse, occupation, and
travel that freedom is desired.

1. The Hindu enjoys European food and wants to be free
to use it from time to time. The average man keeps the
rules of diet at home, but grants himself more or less liberty
elsewhere. Many are so completely emancipated as to be
quite ready to eat any European food, even beef, and to take
Western liquor also ; but most take only little liberties ; and
here and there one meets a man who is rigidly strict with his
food.

2. The educated man wants to be free in the matter of
social intercourse. Western education has been such a levelling
influence that it is but natural a Hindu should want to dine
with men of lower castes who sat on the same bench at College
with him. When this feeling has grown a little stronger, he
feels inclined to dine with Brahmas, Indian Christians, and
Muhammadans. The great societies, religious, educational,
social, and political, which sway educated men so powerfully,
strengthen this tendency very greatly. If men work together
for the highest ends, why should they not eat together ?
The student meets his European professor at a social
gathering and finds it the most natural thing possible to take
a cup of tea with him. When he goes out into the world, he
enjoys dining with a few European friends at one of the
Indo-European clubs which are now springing up. Wherever
there are close relations, the desire for true social intercourse
necessarily follows.

3. The educated man feels free to adopt any occupation.
The sacredness of the cow and the feeling against the slaughter
of animals have made Hindus look down very seriously upon
all professions connected with hides. Yet one may find

THE DIVINE SOCIAL ORDER 171

Brahmans dealing in leather, and many other anomalous
facts. Almost anything is condoned to-day if it is believed to
help forward the regeneration of India.

4. Until a few years ago a student who went to Europe or
America to study had to undergo flrayascitta (a ceremony of
atonement) on his return to India or else suffer excommunica
tion. In consequence there grew up in Calcutta a small
community of highly educated men who had lost their standing
in Hinduism for the sake of education. Most of them joined
the Brahma Samaj. But nowadays a Calcutta student of any
caste is at once received back into Hindu society on his return.
The law against crossing the ocean is not used against
him. This procedure is spreading slowly among the educated
classes in other parts of India also. Students, when in
Europe, America, or Japan, do not attempt to keep caste
rules about diet and interdining. This, too, is now condoned
without a word.

These facts are most interesting and significant, but it
would be very easy to exaggerate their importance. So long
as the laws of marriage are rigorously enforced, the basis of
caste remains. These changes in diet, in social intercourse,
in occupation, and in travel are of considerable value to the
community; but they rather prove that caste is a very
clastic institution than that it is shaken to its depths.

B. The Social Reform movement is of great importance.
While reformers have given their chief attention to family
questions, caste in its various aspects has also been one of
the subjects of their thought and agitation. It was from the
side of religion that the movement started, but hygienic,
moral, economic, and national considerations now play a large
part in their literature.

i. Comparatively little has been written or said on the
matter of food, but a few men have advocated the introduction
of more nourishing diet, especially among certain races. Swfiml
Vivckananda thought Indians required to use less vegetables
and more flesh, in order to develop both physique and

173 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

character. He himself, though he was such a stanch Hindu,
ate beef. Dr. S. C. Mullick, a medical man of considerable
reputation in Calcutta, is of opinion that the physique of the
Bengali race suffers rather seriously because so little flesh is
eaten.

2. Social reformers have done precious service in the
way of advocating and practising interdining. The pages of
the organ of the movement, the Indian Social Reformer, are
often used for this good end. At their own annual con
ferences dinners are held at which Hindus of all castes, and
now and then Indians of other religions, sit down together.
So, after the Conference of the Aryan Brotherhood held in
Bombay in November, 1912, a great company of Hindus of
many castes dined together.

3. The Reform movement presses very seriously the
wisdom of removing the barriers which at present prevent
marriages between people of different sub-castes. The ideal
aimed at is that all Brahmans should be free to intermarry,
that there should be no marriage barriers among Kshatriyas,
or among Vaisyas, or among Sudras. This in itself would be
a very large reform ; for there are innumerable subdivisions
and restrictions within each of the great castes. But the
difficulties in the way are very great. The Kshatriyas of
North India have now an annual conference at which they
discuss matters relating to the welfare of the caste ; and other
castes and sections of castes have similar gatherings. At
these meetings the great advantages that would arise from
such a reform are often set forth in a presidential oration ;
but very little has yet been done.

4. It is only the leading reformers who propose what is
called intercaste marriages among Hindus, i. c. that all barriers
should be removed, so that a Brahman might marry a Vaisya
or a Sudra. This seems to most men a very far-away ideal,
an almost impossible reform.

C. The third set of influences worthy of our study arc those

Till: DIVINE SOCIAL ORDER 173

that centre in the Outcastes. During the past thirty-five
years myriads of these downtrodden people have passed into
the Christian Church ; and wherever Missions have been able
to give them sufficient attention brilliant results have been
won.1 A distinguished Brahman official writes of the work as
follows in the Travancore Census Report of 1901 :

But for these missionaries, these humble orders of Hindu society will
for ever remain unraised. Their material condition, I dare say, will
have improved with the increased wages, improved labour market, better
laws, and more generous treatment from an enlightened Government
like ours ; but to the Christian missionaries belongs the credit of having
gone to their humble homes, and awakened them to a sense of a better
earthly existence. This action of the missionary was not a mere
improvement upon ancient history, a kind of polishing and refining of
an existing model, but an entirely original idea, conceived and carried
out with commendable zeal, and oftentimes in the teeth of opposition
and persecution. I do not refer to the emancipation of the slave, or
the amelioration of the labourer's condition ; for these always existed
more or less in our past humane governments. But the heroism of
raising the low from the slough of degradation and debasement was an
element of civilization unknown to ancient India.2

Two points with regard to this aspect of Mission work require
notice here.

Christianity and education produce marvellous results among
these people, especially in the second generation. Many boys
and girls prove quite bright students, and a small percentage
proceed to the university and take degrees. In all the dis
tricts where these mass movements have taken place, you may
find Mission schools in which the teachers are of Outcaste
descent, while in every class a number of Brahman boys study
under them. The whole theory of caste is here proved by
ocular demonstration to be radically false. The Hindu
doctrine is that the unclean Outcastes cannot be raised :
Christianity does raise them.

The great success which Christianity has met with in dealing

1 See Phillips. The Outcaste? Hope. 2 Phillips, 81.

174 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

with the Outcastes has attracted wide attention in India.1
Some have been stirred to deep sympathy ; others have been
roused to fury ; but all have realized the great significance of
the movement. In consequence the Arya Samaj and the
Brahma Samaj have started Missions of their own to try to
win the Outcastes; while a number of advanced Hindus, chiefly
under the influence of members of the Prarthana Samaj in
Western India, have organized what is called the Depressed
Classes Mission. This last body aims chiefly at education and
encouragement. The Nationalist leaders call loudly for the
education of the Outcastes and the betterment of the conditions
of their life. One of these men remarked :

After all, when it comes to practice, Christianity alone is effecting
what we Nationalists are crying out for — namely the elevation of the
masses.2

D. The main social result which has arisen from the activity
of the political leaders is also well worthy of our attention.
For twenty-five years the Congress leaders have been toiling
to bring their ideal of representative government nearer. The
experience they have gained in this very uphill struggle has,
at last, convinced them that the divisions of caste are the most
formidable of all the obstacles in their way. One after the
other they have come to this conclusion. Surendranath
Bannerjca, the greatest popular leader in Bengal, caused
extreme excitement only last year by publicly declaring
that complete social freedom was indispensable for the
attainment of political liberty.

E. It will perhaps be well to give a few quotations from
notable men on the general question of the influence of caste.
The first is a sentence from a leading article in the Mahratta?
which is by no means one of the most advanced papers :

No one now says or even thinks that the old water-tight compart
ments of caste should be perpetuated in future, even on the ground

1 See The Depressed Classes, a booklet containing twenty-three essays
by people of many faiths, published by Natesan, Madras.

2 Phillips, 28. 3 November 7, 1909.

THE DIVINE SOCIAL ORDER 175

that the caste system was a convenient method of securing division of
labour in practice.

The others are from a more advanced position. The following1
comes from the Times report of an address delivered before
the Indian section of the Royal Society of Arts by the
Honourable Sir K. G. Gupta, a member of the India Council :

The caste system had served useful purposes in the past, but it had
not now a single redeeming feature. If the Hindu was again to lift his
head and take part in the great work of nation-building, he must revert
to the original Aryan type and demolish the barriers dividing the
community.

Mr. Shridhar Ketkar, in his work on Caste,1 says,

The result is disunion of the people, the worst type the world has
ever seen.

The next is from Lala Lajpat Rai, the Punjabi leader :

Caste ... is a disgrace to our humanity, our sense of justice, and our
feeling of social affinity ... a standing blot on our social organization.

The editor of the Indian Social Reformer speaks of caste as
' the great monster we have to kill ', and declares it to be
' utterly opposed to the modern idea of good citizenship '.
But, instead of multiplying quotations, it will probably be
more helpful if we read the words of Mr. Rabindra Nath
Tagore, the author of Gitanjali, who is by far the greatest
literary force at present in Bengal, and whose serious spirit
and balanced character give his opinions very great weight :

This immutable and all-pervading system of caste has no doubt
imposed a mechanical uniformity upon the people, but it has, at the
same time, kept their different sections inflexibly and unalterably
separate, with the consequent loss of all power of adaptation and read
justment to new conditions and forces. The regeneration of the Indian
people, to my mind, directly and perhaps solely depends upon tJie
removal of this condition of caste. When I realise the hypnotic hold
which this gigantic system of cold-blooded repression has taken on
the minds of our people, whose social body it has so completely
entwined in its endless coils that the free expression of manhood, even

1 Vol. II. p. 133.

176 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

under the direst necessity, has become almost an impossibility, the
only remedy that suggests itself to me is to educate them out of their
trance. . . . Now has come the time when India must begin to build,
and dead arrangement must gradually give way to living construction,
organized growth. ... If to break up the feudal system and the
tyrannical conventionalism of the mediaeval Church, which had
outraged the healthier instincts of humanity, Europe needed the
thought-impulse of the Renaissance and the fierce struggle of the
Reformation, do we not need in a greater degree an overwhelming
influx of higher social ideas before a place can be found for true
political thinking? Must we not have that greater vision of humanity
which will impel us to shake off the fetters that shackle our individual
life before we begin to dream of national freedom ? '

These new movements of the Indian spirit are full of
interest and suggest many questions. Yet it would be most
unwise to jump to the conclusion that these yearnings and
strivings are proof that the citadel of caste is about to fall.
No one who has been in touch with the Hindu people, and
who has realized the vitality, the pervasiveness, the grip of the
system will be likely to minimize it or to imagine that it will
be lightly overthrown. Caste has been not merely a vast
organized system built upon the rock of religious belief, but
a bodiless spirit, an overpowering contagion, which has over
taken and poisoned every Hindu sect that has tried to escape
from it. and which has infected, at least in some degree, every
community in India, numbing with its venom great groups of
Muhammadans, little circles of Jews, and even certain Christian
churches.

It is also necessary to realize clearly that the immediate
outlook in the matter of caste reform is not very hopeful.
Social reformers are more sure of their position and wield
greater influence than ever before ; the political movement
has now become an ally in some sense of the reform move
ment ; and the slight changes visible in practice among
educated men are all in favour of freedom. But during the

1 The writer owes this quotation to Andrews, 184 ; but it appeared
originally in the Modern Review.

THE DIVINE SOCIAL ORDER 177

past twenty-five years the revival of Hinduism has made
enormous strides ; and, as strength and confidence have grown,
the leaders have plucked up courage to defend more and more
of the ancient system. Between 1850 and 1890 very few
educated men publicly defended caste or idolatry. The Arya
Samaj, the most vehemently anti-Christian body in India, was
founded in 1(875 by Dayfinanda Sarasvati: he denounced both
caste and idolatry. But since then things have rather gone
the other way. Ramakrishna Paramaharhsa and his disciple
Vivekananda defended everything that is Hindu ; the Theo-
sophical Society, under Mrs. Besant's leadership, has taken
the same line of policy; to-day every important sect and
section of Hinduism has its own defence organization; and by
arguments of the most amazing character, and principles and
analogies drawn from everything in heaven and on earth, the
Hindu undertakes to prove that caste is the most reasonable
form of society possible, and that Hindu idols are channels of
the purest spirituality. These movements certainly do not
promise well for caste reform.

VII. But, while we must acknowledge that the agitation in
favour of reform has as yet made very little impression on the
mighty fortress of caste, and that the present policy of the leaders
of the Hindu revival is a grave menace to the whole movement,
there is one fact in the situation which has hitherto been very
little noticed, and yet is of far more vital importance than all
that the Social Reform movement and the Hindu revival taken
together have been able to accomplish. The fact we refer to
is this, that the religions basis of caste has faded out of the
minds of educated Hindus. Articles and speeches which deal
with the question, whether they plead for reform or seek to
show the wisdom and the reasonableness of the ancient system,
invariably take no notice of the mighty beliefs on which the
organization rests. The leaders of the revival point out how
much caste has done for the division of labour, for the preser
vation of skill and learning, and for the physique and the
purity of the higher castes, and they frequently make the

M

178 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

reckless assertion that there is as much caste in European as
in Hindu society ; but there is no attempt made to justify
caste from the point of view of the old religious beliefs.
Social reformers do not find it necessary to argue against the
old doctrines. Who believes nowadays that the Brahman is
so much more spiritual than other men that all religious
authority, teaching, and ritual ought to be in his hands?
Who now holds that it is sinful to allow a Siidra or a foreigner
to hear the Veda ? Who now subscribes to the doctrine of
the Gltd that it is better for the Brahman to be a bad priest
than a good doctor or business man ? : Who now believes
that the Outcaste is a man whose former lives have been so
foul that physical contact with him brings spiritual pollution
to a high-caste Hindu ? The truth is that the atmosphere of
the new age makes the old ideas which lie at the basis of
caste incredible. Let us consider them briefly, and the truth
of this will become apparent.

A. The foundation of caste is the belief that the four castes
had each a distinct origin in God. All serious scholars agree
that in the society represented in the Rigveda there was
no caste. The ninetieth hymn of the tenth book,2 which is
one of the latest hymns in the whole collection, shows that
by the end of the period there was a desire for something like
caste; but even then the four castes were still but classes.
Throughout the whole of the period of the Rigveda there
was free intermarriage between the various classes ; and
there was nothing to prevent a warrior from becoming a priest
or a priest a warrior. Thus the whole Rigveda is evidence
that the four castes are not races created separately by God.
It is impossible to believe that even the Brahmans are a
race distinct from every other Indian race : even if certain
Brahman families have kept themselves pure from mixture
since 500 B.C., when caste began to be strictly observed in
certain quarters, or even since 700 B.C., what about the

1 Supra,\>. 1 60. 2 Supra, ^. 159.

THE DIVINE SOCIAL ORDER 179

uncounted centuries before then? No one who studies the
history of India sincerely can have the slightest doubt that the
account given above of the origin of caste is the truth, and
that the Hindu theory of special creations is merely a myth
formed in order to give greater dignity and meaning to
already existing divisions.

The study of ethnology and anthropology has convinced all
scientific inquirers that there is no such thing as men of pure
race anywhere. There has been immeasurable mixture in all
races and in all parts of the world. Men of science are also
in complete agreement on this, that the human family is
a unity, that there are no species amongst men. Men are
divided from the animals, which are their kindred, by an
exceedingly deep distinction ; but amongst men there is no
serious difference at all. The race is one.

It is thus perfectly clear that a modern man cannot believe
that the four great castes are distinct species, having each had
a separate origin in God. The physical side of the theory of
caste purity is altogether untenable.

B. But the Hindu holds that caste distinctions have another
basis than physical heredity. He declares that each soul is
drafted into that caste for which his spiritual progress has
prepared him. A man is born a Brahman because his soul
is far advanced on the way to holiness. The Sudra is born
such because he is far behind the Brahman, but far in advance
of the soul that is born a Pariah or a mleccha. There can be
no doubt that it is this idea which throughout the centuries
has justified caste to the noblest minds of India. Transmi
gration is the Hindu doctrine of man. The belief that men
rise through many spiritual stages to perfection is to the
Hindu the deepest of all facts about the human spirit. Caste
is thus the natural social expression of transmigration.

This claim, that the four castes are the divinely appointed

expression of the progress of souls in spiritual things and,

therefore, an infallible index of the religious value of the

members of the castes, was criticized very effectively several

M 3

i Ho THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

centuries ago by a group of Hindu thinkers in South India.
Here is a quotation from the Tamil poet Kapilar:

In the various lands of the Ottiyas, Mlechchhas, Hunas, Singalese,
the slender-waisted Jonakas, Yavanas, and Chinese there are no
Brahmans ; but ye have set up in this land a fourfold caste-division as
if it were an order distinguished in primal nature. By conduct are
distinguished high and low degrees. The bull and the buffalo are unlike
of kind ; have male and female of these two classes ever been seen to
unite one with another and breed offspring ? . . . Who can see any
unlikeness of form between men such as there is between bull and
buffalo ? In our life, our limbs, our body, hue, and understanding no
difference is revealed. A Pulai-man of the south-land who should go
to the north and unflaggingly study will be a Brahman ; a Brahman of
the north-land who should come to the south and be warped in his
ways will be a Pulai-man. Vasistha, born of a lowly mistress to
Brahma, like a red water-lily springing up in mire ; Sakti, born of
a Chandfila woman to Vasishtha ; Parasara, born to Sakti of a Pulai-
woman ; Vyasa, born of a fisher-girl to Parasara,— all these by study of
the Vedas rose to high estate and are famous as holy men. I, Kapilar,
with them that were born with me, who are the lineal offspring born to
the austere and saintly Bhagavan by the good Pulai-lady Adi of the
great town of Karuvur,— we are in number three males and four females ;
and hearken to the brief tale of our nurture. Uppai grew up as
a dweller in a Vannar household at Uttukadu town. Uruvai was reared
in the home of Sanars, in the toddy-drawers' village at Kaviri-
pumbattinam. Auvai was reared in the home of Panars, in the village
belonging to the viol-players. Valli grew up on the fair mountain-side
where the lordly Kuravars gather their teeming crops. Valluvar was
nurtured among the pariahs of pleasant Mailapur in the Tondai-
mandalam. Adhikaman was reared with a chieftain of Vanji, where
blossom the tree-groves and bees swarm. I grew up nurtured by
Brahmans in Arur, the land of gushing streams.1

This is very penetrating reasoning even as it stands ; but
when we add to it the religious experience of the human race
it becomes overwhelming. Confucius, Christ, Muhammad were
mlecchas: whence came their moral and spiritual capacity and
power, if the karma doctrine be true ?

But the real character of the theory becomes plain only
when we set Hindu caste historically in its true place in the
1 Heart of India, ico-io2.

THE DIVINE SOCIAL ORDKR 181

development of society in India and in the world. Caste is
but one of many forms of social organization which the
peoples of India have produced ; and although from about
500 B.C. until to-day it has been the dominant form, it did
not exist in the preceding milleniums, and is now clearly
decaying. In the world-setting it is but one of many
attempts — the most brilliant of all, doubtless — yet but one
of many attempts made by oligarchies, whether religious or
political, to eternalize their own position. To believe that
this particular social scheme of all the hundreds which earth
has produced is the one divine creation, and that its external
relationships reveal with infallible truth the spiritual condition
of souls, is altogether impossible for the modern mind.
Kapilar's criticism has interested many a reader and raised
many a smile, but it never endangered the Brahman position.
The arrival of Western thought, however, is a very different
matter. The uplifting of the Outcaste by Christianity is in
itself sufficient to overturn the theory.

Thus the doctrine of the spiritual basis of caste-life will not
bear one moment's serious consideration any more than the
theory of the distinct origin of the great castes in God.

C. It is a remarkable fact that nearly all the national
religions of the world distinguished between clean and unclean
food, and drew up lists of articles of diet permitted and pro
hibited. It was a serious religious duty to observe these
regulations. Every violation was sinful, polluting the man
religiously and rendering him unfit for his usual religious
duties and social privileges.

It seems clear that such regulations arose largely in revul
sion from the food used by neighbouring peoples. To the
ordinary man there are always certain articles in the diet of
any race other than his own which seem unclean and horrible,
while he regards his own food as pure, healthy, and attractive
in every way. Like all the other restrictions of early life, the
food law was imposed to protect culture and religion by
absolutely excluding what seemed impious,polluting, revolting.

j«2 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

Nor can there be any doubt that in the case of the Aryan
people in India, surrounded as they were by innumerable
tribes of barbarian aborigines, some such regulation was
absolutely necessary. A glimpse at the food and the table
customs of some of the Outcastes to-day will convince any
one that the ancient leaders were quite right when they
condemned the diet and forbade social intercourse with the
ancestors of these people. Carelessness in these matters
would have not only had a most deleterious influence on the
culture of the Aryans, but would have probably produced
loathsome and devastating disease among them. Prohibition
was necessary in self-defence.

But if a prohibition had to be made, there was only one
way possible in those days : it had to be religious. To all
early races there is something mysterious in the eating of food
through its connexion with life ; and therefore it is a religious
matter and under religious rule. Thus, everything that was
felt to be injurious was necessarily regarded as religiously
unclean. To eat such was a sin.

It was only gradually that men came to form the idea of
healthy as opposed to unhealthy food ; and, even when they
had begun to use the idea, they still continued to avoid the
use of what was regarded as unclean, since that was to them
a serious religious duty.

In modern times, however, the distinction between the laws
of health, on the one hand, and the laws of morality and of
spiritual religion, on the other, has, under the teaching of
Jesus, become perfectly clear; and there is no reason why
any one should confuse them. While in certain climates and
for certain constitutions fish may be a healthier food than
fowl or meat, or an exclusively vegetarian diet than a diet
of both vegetable and animal food, yet no food, whether rice,
wheat, barley, or oats, fish, fowl, beef, or mutton, is either pure
or impure from the point of view of morality or of spiritual
religion. Food acts on the bodily tissues, and it is to be
judged solely by its physiological results. It is my duty to

THE DIVINE SOCIAL ORDER 183

keep my body healthy, and I do wrong if I neglect that
duty ; but I shall never do so by restricting myself to any
particular list of foods as religiously clean, but solely by
considering individual articles of diet in relation to the needs
and the condition of my body. No food is unclean. Material
things have no religious index. Religious pollution is a state
of the soul, not of the stomach.

Thus the old Hindu rules of food are as much an anach
ronism to-day as charms for the cure of disease or the belief
in witches. No modern man should countenance such regula
tions. They hamper the Hindu community in many ways
^md prevent its growth.

D. The rule that a Hindu must not eat with a man of lower
caste than his own springs from the same causes as the rule
against eating certain foods, and, like it, has overlived its time.
It is literally a superstition ; that is, a rule or belief which was
natural and rational to men in an earlier stage of culture,
but has survived into a time when there is no further justifica
tion for it. As we have already seen, most primitive peoples
think it impossible to eat with men of other tribes. Besides
this general reason for exclusivtness, it was probably necessary
in early days in India, for reasons of health and culture, to
prohibit all social intercourse with the aborigines. Any such
prohibition in those days necessarily took the form of a
religious law. Even if there were only a few customs that
were regarded as dangerous and polluting, it was necessary to
prohibit intercourse absolutely with the tribes who practised
them, because all such customs were religiously binding.

But the inevitable result of the prohibition of all social
intercourse with people of certain tribes is that men come to
believe that those people are religiously impure and that it is
a sin to eat with them ; and this result we see before us
in India to-day.

But modern men look at these things with other eyes.
Science has taught us to be much more careful with regard to
right diet, wise cooking, and absolute cleanliness in food than

184 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

any ancient people possibly could be ; but we have also
learned that all such matters are questions of health, not
of religion. It may be dangerous for me to dine with a man
of a certain tribe, but the danger lies not in the man himself,
nor in the fact that he belongs to that tribe, but in the food he
offers me, in the unsanitary vessels in which it is cooked, or in
the unclean dish, leaf, table, or floor on which it is served.
The uncleanness of his food does not make him religiously
impure. He may be a good man, though his food is bad.
Men of the most degraded races may be civilized and taught
to be cleanly in their habits and to use healthy food. Social
intercourse then becomes quite possible with them. The*
uncleanness does not inhere in the race.

Thus the caste law against interdining is a survival from
primitive times altogether irrational to-day.

E. We need scarcely say a word to prove that the old caste
rule as to occupation is altogether indefensible. Through the
action of this ancient law India has lost the services of a very
large proportion of all the men of genius born in her families.
In the higher castes there is a good deal of liberty, but else
where there is little or none. P^xcept in the very occasional
case when a boy's genius happened to run along the lines of
his father's profession, every man of original gift has been
forcibly deprived of the opportunity of exercising it. His
spirit has been imprisoned, squeezed into the groove of the
traditional occupation — like a Calcutta huckster, huddled up
with his wares between two houses, his chink scarcely two
feet wide by three feet high. How many thousands of gifted
boys, born up and down the centuries in the lower castes
and among the Outcastes, have been prevented, by the
wasteful tyranny of caste, from serving India ! Surely the
uttermost stretch of human ingenuity would fail to create
a system more fatal to initiative and originality, more calcu
lated to turn men into listless, machine-like imitators, than
this perpetual succession to the ancestral tread-mill. People
complain that the ordinary Indian is unfit for anything

THE DIVINE SOCIAL ORDER 185

but routine work. It is scarcely surprising. He has been at
a single job for two thousand years.

The religious idea behind the occupation rule is that a man
must do that work for which the precise stage of progress
which his soul has reached fits him.1 A low-caste man, being
unspiritual, cannot perform the duty of a priest. A Brahman,
being by birth spiritual, cannot follow the occupation of
a Sudra or a Pailchama without loss of spirituality and the
formation of bad karma. Manual labour degrades the spiritual
man. This religious belief is no longer held by educated men.
Indeed, the higher castes have never kept the occupation
law. They have allowed themselves a great deal of liberty.
Should not similar liberty be now proclaimed to the others ?
Behind the wonderful economic progress made by Japan
during the last forty years there stands this freedom, neces
sarily granted when social equality was introduced. Surely,
for the sake of India, educated men will not rest until the
poorest and the most ignorant of the people have been told
that religion does not demand that they shall allow their God-
given capacities to run to waste. Let us go at least as far
as Napoleon went, and proclaim ' les carrieres ouvertes aux
talents '.

There is another aspect of the occupation rule which must
not be forgotten. In nearly every part of India there are
criminal tribes, many of them Hindus. The Thags, whose
profession was the strangling and robbery of wealthy travellers,
were devout Hindus, and dedicated a percentage of all their
plunder to Kali. According to the rules of caste, it is the
duty of boys to follow the occupation of their fathers.
According to the rules of the family, the son sins if, when his
father bids him follow the old occupation, he refuses.'- How
are these tribes to be reformed without a contravention of
these Hindu principles ?

Thus each of the leading conceptions of caste turns out

1 See especially the Gi/d, xviii. 41-48, and supra, p. 160.

2 See p. 88.

186 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

to be an old-world idea which will not bear examination
in modern daylight. The reason why educated men all over
India are uneasily turning towards modification, reform, or
abolition of the system is now apparent ; and we can see with
perfect clearness why it is that Hindu leaders do not urge the
validity of these beliefs to-day. The religious ideas which
created caste have faded out of the minds of the educated class.

It is this decay of the religious ideas behind caste that
is the explanation of the otherwise incomprehensible fact, that
Hindus have been found to declare that caste is a purely
social and non-religious system. The modern educated man
is so conscious that it is not a matter of religion to himself,
but a mere social convention, that a few have actually been
able to persuade themselves that it is essentially such.

We are now able to verify the statement made above about
the transcendent importance of the decay of faith in the
religious basis of the system. Caste spread throughout India
and became an atmosphere which no one could escape, because
of the power of these far-reaching religious ideas. No mind
was beyond their dominance. No society could fail to yield
to their influence. But a new and mightier force has now
begun to act in India, a set of fresh ideas of overwhelming
might ; and whoever breathes this new air is unable to hold
the old convictions. Nor is there any power on earth that
can destroy this new atmosphere, or keep it from spreading
through the Hindu community. It is affecting Hindu society
at present most vitally at the top and at the bottom. The
educated, at the top of the cone, hold by caste organization,
but have lost the power to believe in its governing conceptions.
The Outcastes, at the bottom, are quickly learning that the
system, which for two thousand years has consigned them to
dirt and the devil, instead of being the highest religious truth,
is utterly false; and they are rapidly escaping from their
hideous position. Meanwhile, the ordinary Hindu is listening
more and more to what the missionary has to say on the
subject of the dignity of man ; and Western civilization,

THE DIVINE SOCIAL ORDER 187

government, and education are steadily pressing the lesson
home. One of the most sympathetic of observers remarks

British rule and modern ideas are gradually breaking down the old
social system and modifying the religious life of the Hindu.1

The religious basis of caste is clearly dying. But before
we attempt to form a judgement as to what is likely to be
the outcome of this decay and the changes we have been
trying to understand, there are other facts to be taken into
consideration.

VIII. These uncertain, uneasy, yet insuppressible strugglings
of the Indian spirit towards social freedom are but part of
a general uprising visible in many quarters of the world to-day.
This widespread social unrest has three main aspects, distinct
enough to be discussed separately, yet closely connected the
one with the other.

The movement seeks first of all human equality. There is
an impatience manifested with regard to the old race barriers,
a distinct wish to see them broken down, in certain aspects of
life at least. It appears in politics in India and in Egypt.
The whole Congress movement in India and all the criticism
of the British Government by the Egyptian press have for
their sole justification the assertion of the political equality
of the Indian and the European, or of the Egyptian and
the Englishman. From the point of view of Hindu or of
Muhammadan thought the agitation has no right to exist at
all ; but Western education has filled thinking men in these
countries with the ambition to enjoy the political privileges
which Western nations have won for themselves. A similar
phenomenon, only taking a different shape because of the
different circumstances, has led to unprecedented changes in
Turkey, China, and Japan, and in a less degree in Persia and
Siam. In all these countries the movement is a democratic
one ; and, there being no foreign government to attack.

1 H a veil, Benai ~es, 115-116.

i88 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

political equality is demanded for all citizens of whatever race,
religion, or social status.

The same spirit appears in another sphere in Turkey and
Egypt in the eager agitation that all the different sections of
the people may be equal before the law. Men demand that
in the elections, in the Parliament and other assemblies, in the
law-courts, in the schools and universities, and in the army, all
classes of the people shall be considered equal. The British
Government in India has been enforcing this principle for well
over a century. On every occasion when the principle has
been applied to a new sphere by the Government, loud outcries
have been raised against it by the conservative section of the
population ; but nowadays there is no thinking man in India
who would raise his voice against the equality which all classes
of the people enjoy in the law-courts, in schools and colleges,
in Government service, on trains and trams and such like. In
certain parts of the country Government has not yet ventured
to apply the principle in all its fullness to the Outcastes. But
in Bombay advanced opinion has begun to beg the Government
to apply the principle in their case in schools. The attempt
made by Europeans to treat Indians in South Africa as an
inferior caste has raised vehement protests in India, protests
which are absolutely justified from the Western standpoint,
but very strange indeed when raised by men who defend and
practise the caste system.

Lastly, the desire for equality shows itself in the matter of
social intercourse. The finest example yet given is that of
Japan. Forty years ago all the old caste distinctions were
abolished, and the people became socially one. Much of the solid
progress which the country has achieved since then is traceable
to that remarkable revolution. Within the pale of Hinduism it
is only the Social Reform party that call for equality between
the castes; but, with a blind yet healthy inconsistency, the
high-caste Hindu who will not eat with his low-caste brother
Hindu demands, in some degree, social recognition from
Europeans. This, too, is to be welcomed. In every Oriental

THE DIVINE SOCIAL ORDER 189

land the educated man wishes to dine with the cultured
European.

The second direction in which this movement tends is
towards complete social freedom. In Egypt and Turkey
educated Muhammadans are now demanding much more
freedom in diet and other matters than their ancient laws and
customs allow. Many wish to give up the East ; multitudes
of women wish to lay aside the veil ; and the most advanced
men are eager to have their women appear in public and even
take part in social or political events. Far away in China the
same spirit is working on other elements of daily life. The
cruel system of foot-binding has been an almost universal
custom throughout China for many generations. To-day,
wherever the spirit of the West has gone, there is a passionate
agitation for freedom in this matter. The desire for social
freedom has perhaps made more progress in India than in any
other Eastern country outside Japan ; for Western influence
has had a long and powerful reign here. We have seen above
how many changes are arising in caste practice, and all towards
freedom ; and Chapter II showed how much is happening in
family matters. The practice of interdining is spreading
steadily. The writer had one day the pleasure of travelling
in a second-class compartment in Western India along with
a party of three business men, a Jew, a Parsee, and a Hindu.
Towards evening, the Jew called his servant and got him to
lay out the evening meal. All ate together, and at their
invitation the writer joined the party. They were intelligent
men. Each acknowledged that he was acting in direct
infringement of the laws of his religion. No scene could
have been more typical of our time or more prophetic of the
future.

In the third place, modern social agitation seeks complete
social justice. The Hindu condemns as unjust the attempt to
treat Indians in South Africa as pestilent aliens, and holds
that indentured labour, whether in Assam or in the West
Indies, is immoral. The extreme rudeness of certain Europeans

i9o THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

to Indians on railways and elsewhere is rightly condemned as
an offence against social morality. The same spirit is working
in the West. The progressive organization of the working
classes of Europe and America, the menacing strikes of the
last few years, and the rise of militant socialism, all spring
from a conviction on the part of the artisans and labourers
that they are not receiving social justice. Much of the military
activity of the British Empire consists of the police work
of compelling semi-savage tribes on our frontiers to adopt
a higher moral code in their relations with their neighbours.
One of the reasons why Japan was forced open by Commodore
Perry sixty years ago was this, that the Japanese were
accustomed to murder foreign sailors shipwrecked on their
coast. All over the world the establishment of fair and just
relations between men is being more and more demanded.

Thus, social evolution is working in these lands towards
a form of society in which new principles must rule. The
equality of men must be recognized ; all non-moral restrictions
upon social life must be removed ; and our social relations
must be regulated by strict justice.

There can be no doubt that all these symptoms of social
unrest, appearing in so many far-sundered lands, spring from
a single cause, viz. the spread of Western ideas. The
influences which are creating the upheaval in India are active
wherever the modern spirit has gone. They will inevitably
find wider extension and win still greater victories, unless
some stronger force is ready to counteract them. But of that
there is no sign. Everywhere the methods and the principles
of modern life are winning their way with increasing momentum.
Many Hindus believe that there is still sufficient resisting
power left in caste to carry them through the present distress.
If the situation consisted merely in the struggle of one national
method of social life against another, there would be con
siderable reason for hoping that caste would be victorious ;
but, when we realize that the very men who uphold caste do
not believe the religious principles on which it rests, and when

THE DIVINE SOCIAL ORDER 191

we perceive that, whether in Turkey or Egypt, Persia or
China, Japan or India, the modern atmosphere renders the old
beliefs utterly incredible, then the ultimate result seems
scarcely doubtful.

IX. If, then, the religious basis of caste is fading out of
men's minds, we are driven to ask what is to take its place.
It is clear that a strong, lasting, social order can be built only
on a religious foundation. The whole marvellous history of
Hinduism bears this upon its forehead. Apart from the
religious character of caste, the Indo-Aryans could never
have gathered the races of India into a great religious empire
nor could the people have held together through all the
storms and changes of three thousand years. The study of
religions is steadily revealing the same truth in other spheres.
For the purpose of creating a living social order, a living religion
is needed. It alone provides moral conceptions of strength and
reach sufficient to lay hold of man's conscience and intellect
and to compel him to live in society in accordance with them.
No lasting society has ever yet been formed on a secular
basis. Above all things, nothing but religion will ever provide
a force of strength and binding power sufficient to control the
turbulent primary passions which in every race and country
produce narrow social cliques and vehemently oppose every
movement towards equality, freedom, and justice.

The truth of this great principle of social growth stands out
more clearly so soon as we realize that each social organism
corresponds in character to the leading conceptions of the
religion that gave it birth. Caste is the natural outcome of
the doctrine of karma and transmigration. The disappearance
of all race differences in Islam is the necessary result of the
conception of the infinite exaltation of Allah and of the
littleness and weakness of man. The dogma, that believers
are the objects of Allah's high favour and unbelievers of His
utter displeasure, expresses itself socially in the enslavement
of unbelievers captured in war ; and the polygamy, free divorce,
and concubinism of Muhammadan lands are easily intelligible

192 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

in view of the Muslim doctrine that women are far inferior to
men. The same stringent logical connexion between belief
and social organization is visible in all religions.

Where, then, shall we find a religion whose governing con
ceptions, when they take organized form in society, will
incarnate the great principles of the essential equality of all
men, the rectitude and high value of complete social freedom,
and the obligation of moralizing all social relations, which, we
have found, characterize the social agitations of India, Turkey,
China, and the other lands at present?

It is a very remarkable fact that these three social principles
spring directly from the central doctrine of Christianity ; so
that, the more seriously Christianity is held, the more fully
must society incarnate these ideals.

But a consideration may be urged at this point that would
render any appeal to Christ worthless ; so we had better deal
with it at once. Hindus frequently argue that there is as much
caste in England as in India, and therefore that Christianity
is no cure for Hindu social evils. Our analysis has shown
that the doctrine, that each man is born in that caste for
which his past lives have fitted him, gives caste the strongest
possible religious sanction and renders Hindu social organiza
tion altogether unique. Thus to call the social life of England
caste is simply to talk nonsense. On the other hand, every
Christian acknowledges with shame and distress that, despite
the teaching and example of Christ, in certain sections of
Western society there are men and women who show a very
large amount of the class and race feeling which lie behind
caste, and who practise an exclusiveness that is most offensive
and unchristian. But the crucial point is that they are guilty
of all this in defiance of their religion, while Hinduism com
mands the exclusive life which Hindus now recognize to be so
antisocial. Thus, as in the chapter on the family, we must
again point out that Christianity, like Hinduism, must not be
judged by those who refuse to obey it. What we have to
inquire is whether Christ taught the principles which under-

THE DIVINE SOCIAL ORDER 193

lie healthy social life. We therefore turn now to His
teaching.

A. We have already seen that the central thought in the
mind of Jesus is the Fatherhood of God, and that in that
great doctrine there is contained also Christ's anthropology,
the conviction that man, in his spiritual nature, is a finite child
made in the image of his infinite Father, and is therefore
priceless in worth and deeply loved by God. Since, then, all
men have one common origin, Christ can recognize no such
thing as caste divisions among them. Being a child of God,
every human being has a patent of nobility. There is no such
thing as a low- caste man. All are of one caste ; for they
belong to the family of the ever-blessed Father. Since God
is our Father, all men are necessarily brothers. If the Father
hood is real, the brotherhood is real also. If the very essence
of humanity be kinship to God, then men are essentially
brothers. All differences are trivial ; this is the only thing
that matters. That which makes me a man makes every man
my brother.

1. Jesus taught this rich truth and the deep obligations it
brings in the most moving way. In His great picture of the
day of judgement1 all the nations are gathered before Him,
and He separates them into two companies, placing on His
right those who have served their fellow men, and on His left
those who have failed in the great duty. In this wonderful
passage He brings home to us the worth of the most despised
men by speaking of them as ' the least of these my brethren '.

2. Holding that all men are children of the Father, Jesus
necessarily held that they ought all to be taught about the
Father. His message is to be proclaimed to all men :

Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to the whole creation.2
He could have no doctrine of a special revelation, reserved for
a few, as sruti is restricted to the three twice-born castes : 3

1 Matt. 25, 31-46, quoted below, p. 286. 2 Mark 16, 15.

3 Above, p. 164.

194 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

No one lighteth a lamp and covereth it with a vessel or putteth it
under a bed, but placeth it upon a lamp-stand, that they who come in
may see the light.1

What I tell you in the darkness, speak ye in the light : and what ye
hear in the ear, proclaim upon the housetops.2

3. Again, since all men are children of God, there can be
no men who are essentially impure and unfit for intercourse.
The Jew classed all non-Jews together as Gentiles, and declared
them sinners and unclean. No Jew would eat with them.
The same rule applied to the Samaritans. There was also
a considerable section of the Jewish people in the lime of
Jesus who did not pretend to keep the Jewish religious law
strictly. In consequence, the leaders declared them to be
sinners, and forbade orthodox Jews to eat with them. Finally,
leprosy was believed to be a disease inflicted by God as a
punishment for sin. Hence the Jews not only adopted the
wise precaution of avoiding close intercourse with the leper for
fear of contagion, but drove him out of society and pronounced
him religiously unclean, and therefore untouchable.

Jesus taught, on the contrary, that there are no walls of
division between the races of mankind. On one occasion, in
answer to a teacher of the Jewish law, he gave as a com
pendium of duty the twin precepts, ' Love God supremely,'
' Love your neighbour as yourself.' The teacher at once
asked, 'Who is my neighbour ?' and Jesus replied with the
following story :

A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho ; and he
fell among robbers, which both stripped him and beat him, and
departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance a certain priest was
going down that way : and when he saw him, he passed by on the other
side. And in like manner a Levite also, when he came to the place,
and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan,
as he journeyed, came where he was : and when he saw him, he was
moved with compassion, and came to him, and bound up his wounds,
pouring on them oil and wine ; and he set him on his own beast, and
brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the morrow he

1 Luke 8, 16. 2 Matt. 10, 27.

THE DIVINE SOCIAL ORDER 195

took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said, Take care of
him ; and whatsoever thou spendest more, I, when I come back again,
will repay thee. Which of these three, thinkest thou, proved neighbour
unto him that fell among the robbers ? And he said, He that shewed
mercy on him. And Jesus said unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.1

Thus Jesus teaches, in full accordance with the truth of the
Fatherhood of God, that the man who needs your help is your
neighbour, no matter what race he may belong to.

But Jesus felt that these superstitious rules could not be
broken down by mere words, but only by revolutionary practice.
Hence He habitually ate with the ' sinners ' whom no Jew
would have anything to do with, to the great scandal of the
leaders and the orthodox :

And it came to pass, as he sat at meat in the house, behold, many
publicans and sinners came and sat down with Jesus and his disciples.
And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why
eateth your Master with the publicans and sinners ? 2

Now all the publicans and sinners were drawing near unto him for to
hear him. And both the Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying,
This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.3

And he entered and was passing through Jericho. And behold,
a man called by name Zacchaeus ; and he was a chief publican, and he
was rich. And he sought to see Jesus who he was ; and could not
for the crowd, because he was little of stature. And he ran on
before, and climbed up into a sycomore tree to see him : for he was to
pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up,
and said unto him, Zacchaeus, make haste, and come down ; for
to-day I must abide at thy house. And he made haste, and came
down, and received him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all
murmured, saying, He is gone in to lodge with a man that is a sinner.4

His practice in this matter was so well known that His enemies
used it to make biting sarcasms about Him :

A glutton and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners.5

The answers of Christ to their reproaches are full of instruction.
On one occasion He said,

1 Luke 10, 30-37. See below, vii. 45. 2 Matt. 9, 10-11.

3 Luke 15, 1-2. 4 Luke 19, 1-7. 5 Matt. 11, 19.

N 2

196 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

They that are whole have no need of a physician, but they that are
sick. But go ye and learn what this meaneth, ' I desire mercy, and
not sacrifice ' : for I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.1

On another, He gave utterance to the parables of the Lost
Sheep, the Lost Piece of Money, and the Prodigal Son.2 The
great principles expressed in these replies are (a) that these
people are very dear to God ; (b) that they are at present ' lost ',
' sick ', far away from their Father ; (c) that it is possible to save
them ; (d) that, in order to save them, it is necessary to seek
their society. These rich religious truths, which have proved
so mightily living and effective in many lands since the time
of Christ, and are now proving of transcendent value to the
Outcastes of India, provide an immovable ethical foundation
for treating the most degraded peoples of the earth as human
brothers. So soon as a man is grasped by these truths, it
becomes impossible for him to believe in the Hindu laws
against interdining. Christ dining with publicans and sinners
has once for all rendered these customs irrational, obsolete in
the modern world. He sets the Hindu free in the matter of
eating with men of other castes, religions, and races.

4. But Christ's principles do not merely make it possible for
us to eat with men of any race : they make it a duty for the
religious man. Brotherly social intercourse is one means
whereby our brothers may be raised. He who knows and
enjoys in his own life the love of the Heavenly Father, cannot
but wish to use this means to save His lost sheep.

5- There is another incident in the life of Jesus which is full
of significance for India :

So he cometh to a city of Samaria, called Sychar, near to the parcel of
ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph : and Jacob's well was there.
Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus by the well.
It was about the sixth hour. There cometh a woman of Samaria to
draw water : Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. For his disciples
were gone away into the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman
therefore saith unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink

1 Matt. 9, 12-13. * Luke 15, 4-32.

THE DIVINE SOCIAL ORDER 197

of me, which am a Samaritan woman ? (For Jews have no dealings
with Samaritans.) Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest
the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink ; thou
wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living
water.1

Thus, as Jesus was ready to eat with any child of His Father,
He was ready to take water from any human hand. The love
of the Heavenly Father will open Hindu eyes to the truth
that no man is unclean, that water, that great gift of the
Father, is not polluted by coming from the hand of the
humblest of His children, but comes none the less filled with
His love and blessing.

6. But the most moving of all incidents in this connexion is
Christ's meeting with the ' Outcaste ', 'Unclean', 'Untouchable'
leper :

And there cometh to him a leper, beseeching him, and kneeling down
to him, and saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.
And being moved with compassion, he stretched forth his hand, and
touched him, and saith unto him, I will ; be thou made clean. And
straightway the leprosy departed from him, nnd he was made clean.2

Jesus usually healed with a word, and He felt as we do the
repulsiveness of leprosy ; but He knew that the leper had
been excommunicated, that he had to call out ' Unclean ' as
he walked along the road, and that no kindly human hand
had been laid on his shoulder for years ; so He not only
cleansed but touched him. The problem of the Untouchables
of India was solved that day. What sort of men would
Christians be, if, having such a Master, they did not go to
seek the Outcaste ?

The Fatherhood of God as taught by Jesus thus forms pre
cisely the religious foundation that is wanted for the social
law of the equality of all men. No man can hold the Father
hood as taught by Jesus and believe that men are of different
species. If all men are not recognized as social equals, then
the brotherhood of men, even if it be nominally accepted, is

1 John 4, 5-10. Mark 1, 40-42.

I9« THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

not made the essence of humanity, but is pushed aside by some
other consideration.

Hindus recognize that man is related to God, and they are
learning to speak of the brotherhood of men ; but, according
to all Hindu teaching, man is related to God in precisely the
same way as every other form of life, whether vegetable or
animal, is ; so that to the Hindu it is not the divine relation
ship that is significant, but the stage of progress which the
soul, whether in plant, animal, or man, has reached. That is
of infinite importance, and in the case of man is registered in
caste ; and a man's place in caste is not only the reward of
past achievement but also the starting-point of all his future
progress in the things of the spirit. Thus the inevitable social
outcome of Hindu theology is caste ; just as the inevitable
social outcome of the teaching of Christ is equality.

It is of the utmost importance to recognize frankly that, if
we consider men from the point of view of physique, mental
capacity, education, efficiency, culture, attainments, character,
they are very far from equal. So long as we take any one or
all of these things as the essentials of humanity, to speak of
equality is sheer nonsense. There are two articles side by side
in the Hindustan Review for August, 1912, in which equality
is ridiculed ; and rightly so, from the standpoint of the writers
It is only on the basis of the serious faith that each man is
a child of God, spiritual, priceless, dearly beloved, that one
can look the whole world in the face and say with reason and
conviction, All men are equal. That is the sole justification
possible of the political equality of European and Indian, of
the uplifting of the Outcaste, of social equality, of democracy.

B. One of Christ's leading thoughts about those who have
recognized the Fatherhood of God is their freedom. Perhaps
the most vivid piece of teaching is found in the passage quoted
above,1 in which the idea is that the sons of God are free from
the Temple tax. But their freedom has many forms. The

1 P. 125.

THE DIVINE SOCIAL ORDER 199

most noteworthy proof of the stress which Jesus laid on the
principle is the fact, which we have already dealt with,1 that
He laid down no detailed law for His followers, but left them
to form systems of conduct for themselves, bidding them only
remain loyal to the spiritual principles which He taught.

1. We have already seen that the universality of the doctrine
of the Fatherhood of God necessarily sets the Christian free in
all his intercourse with men, and that Christ has taught us by
His example also that we may eat with any one, receive water
from any one, and touch any human being. We next notice
that He has also given us freedom in the matter of food :

And he called to him the multitude again, and said unto them, Hear
me all of you, and understand: there is nothing from without the man,
that going into him can defile him : but the things which proceed out
of the man are those that defile the man. And when he was entered
into the house from the multitude, his disciples asked of him the parable.
And he saith unto them, Are ye so without understanding also ?
Perceive ye not, that whatsoever from without goeth into the man, it
cannot defile him ; because it goeth not into his heart, but into his
belly, and goeth out into the draught ? This he said, making all meats
clean. And he said, That which proceedeth out of the man, that
defileth the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, evil
thoughts proceed, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, covetings,
wickednesses, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, railing, pride, foolish
ness : all these evil things proceed from within, and defile the man.2

There is thus no food that is unclean in itself.

2. In the matter of occupation also, we have freedom. Since
the human race is the family of God, every piece of work that
is necessary for our welfare is worth doing and bears no stigma.
The toil of the artisan, the ploughman, the cooly, the shop
keeper, aye the scavenger, is worthy of all honour. This
ennobling truth Jesus taught by His example ; for He toiled
for some eighteen years as a carpenter. Thus only in Christ
are our Brahmans justified who sell hides, or make soap, or
struggle to start some other industry to-day. Christ has
taught us the nobility of the service of humanity.

1 P. 58. 2 Mark 7, 14-23.

200 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

In the teaching and life of Jesus, then, we have the religions
foundation for a society characterized by freedom.

Does it not seem as if in all these acts and words He must
have been thinking of India?

C. But these two principles— equality and freedom — stand
ing by themselves would create social chaos. They generate
life and health only when they are fully controlled by the
righteous will of the Heavenly Father. They must be com
pletely moralized. But here again the central conception
suffices : since we are brothers, we must act as true brothers
in all things. In Christ's moralization of our social relations
two distinct ideas rule.

i. First, in all our relations with our fellow men we must be
just. Our Father in heaven can be satisfied with nothing less
than equal justice between man and man, whatever their race,
creed, or social position may be, the very reverse of the Hindu
law, that each man must be dealt with according to caste.1
It prohibits everything in the nature of aggression or unfair
ness. Brotherhood makes lies, slander, oppression, theft,
adultery, murder impossible : a true man can do a brother
no wrong. Christ's loftiest indignation is roused by men
who profess to lead a religious life and yet are guilty of
unrighteousness in their social relations. To Him they are
hypocrites of the coarsest fibre :

And Peter said, Lord, speakest thou this parable unto us, or even
unto all ? And the Lord said, Who then is the faithful and wise
steward, whom his lord shall set over his household, to give them their
portion of food in due season ? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord
when he cometh shall find so doing. Of a truth I say unto you, that
he will set him over all that he hath. But if that servant shall say in
his heart, My lord delayeth his coming ; and shall begin to beat the
menservants and the maidservants, and to eat and drink, and to be
drunken; the lord of that servant shall come in a day when he
expecteth not, and in an hour when he knoweth not, and shall cut him
asunder, and appoint his portion with the unfaithful.2

Peware of the scribes, which desire to walk in long robes, and love
1 Supra, p. 164. 2 Luke 12, 41-46.

THE DIVINE SOCIAL ORDER 201

salutations in the marketplaces, and chief seats in the synagogues, and
chief places at feasts ; which devour widows' houses, and for a pretence
make long prayers : these shall receive greater condemnation.1

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for ye tithe mint
and anise and cummin, and have left undone the weightier matters of
the law, judgement, and mercy and faith : but these ye ought to have
done, and not to have left the other undone. Ye blind guides, which
strain out the gnat, and swallow the camel.2

Christ's teaching that men are brothers and must deal with
each other in strict justice is the only possible dynamic of
reform in the modern world. To that we owe the pro
hibition of the slave-trade, the abolition of slavery, the cleansing
of prisons, the amelioration of the conditions of labour, the
temperance movement, the acknowledgement that Britain
is responsible for the welfare and the progress of the people
of India. Hence has Britain put down corruption among her
Indian civilians and enforced equality in the law-courts.
Hence also the abolition of satl and of cruel religious rites,
and the prohibition of gross obscenity. As we have already
seen, it is from the spirit of Christ that the whole reform
movement in India has arisen.

Without this universal ethical postulate, that equal justice
shall be done between man and man, whatever their race,
religion, wealth, or position, healthy modern life is utterly
impossible ; and, so long as the caste system stands, such
equality is altogether unattainable.

2. Secondly, to a brother I owe, not only strict justice, but all
the help that he needs and that I can give. Service according
to need is Christ's second moral principle for the social life.
If every human being is of priceless value to my Father, as
priceless as I am myself, then I must do all in my power
to uplift those around me from suffering and degradation.
Philanthropy is not an extra, to be taken up or laid aside
according to whim, but a duty of the utmost obligation.

1 Luke 20, 46-47.

2 Matt. 23, 23-24.

202 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

This principle is dealt with below,1 so that we need not spend
time over it now.

Christ thus provides the necessary religious foundations for
a society characterized by equality, freedom, and strict justice.
Social evolution all over the world is steadily tending in the
direction of these Christian ideals,2 and the needs of modern
men will inevitably increase the rate of the movement.
Universal intercourse necessarily demands a universal society,
complete social liberty, and a social morality of depth and
strength sufficient to bear the unparalleled strain of the new
state of affairs. Nothing but a conception of human brother
hood which contains within itself these liberties and obligations
is equal to the creative task. Thus Christian society is the
evolutionary goal of all living forms of society and of all the
social unrest and agitation of our day.

But there is another important observation to make. These
three outstanding features of the modern social movement —
the demands for complete social equality, for full social
freedom, and for real justice in our social relationships — are
simply the culmination of what we found to be the charac
teristics of all social progress in the ancient world, viz. a
wider society, greater freedom and fuller moralization.3
Society, made as wide as the race, would give the social
equality which the modern man wants ; and the removal of the
last barrier to freedom and the bringing of every social
relationship under moral categories would secure the complete
liberty and the social justice which all now desiderate. The
evolution of society will thus reach its highest possible form
under the guidance of Christian principles.

In so far, then, as India shows to-day social phenomena
analogous to those found in Egypt, Turkey, Persia, China,
and Japan, it is clear that the goal in view is a society
inspired by the truths of the Fatherhood of God and the
brotherhood of men. Only a society built on these heavenly

1 P. 285 ff. 2 Supra, pp. 187-190.

' Supra, pp. 1 56-7.

THE DIVINE SOCIAL ORDER 203

principles can meet the needs of modern India. Only by
such breadth of law can the Indian nation come into being.

X. But there is a further question which we may well
raise, whether the specific ideals to which the caste system
has given such emphatic expression are likely to be lost in
the vast social upheaval on the verge of which we stand,
or will find clear re-expression in the new world-society ;
whether aspects of social life which were neglected even in
Greece and Rome, but have been seriously insisted on in
India, will blossom and bear fruit in the new society or are
doomed to extinction. Hindu convictions on the subject of
caste may be summed up under four heads :

A. The working principle of the caste system is the de
pendence of duty and privilege on birth, in fact naissance oblige,
if we may remould the fine old watchword. The Brahman
alone may undertake priestly duties. Only the twice-born
may hear the words of revelation and press on to release.
Only the four groups of castes are fit for ordinary intercourse :
all others are unclean.

But there have been many notable strainings of the Hindu
spirit towards wider things.

The Gita opened the doors of spiritual religion to women
and to Sudras;1 and the bhakti sects opened them to Out-
castes.2 But, while it was acknowledged that women, Sudras,
and even Outcastes were spiritual enough to win emancipation,
nay, to become teachers of spiritual things and to be wor
shipped as saviours, yet the doors were shut in their faces
for everything else.3 The Outcaste is still untouchable,
a thing of horror to the Brahman. Experience has shown
that they can grasp spiritual things; but their birth re
mains ; and over that impassable barrier no true Hindu dare
step.

The Vlra Saiva sect was founded in opposition to Brahman
privilege and caste distinctions ; when the Sikhs became

1 See below, p. 371. ' See below, pp. 387, 399.

3 See below, pp. 399-400.

204 THE CROWN OP" HINDUISM

a military order, they gave up caste; and the founder of the
Arya Samaj condemned caste with unsparing voice; yet all
these bodies arc in chains to-day, fast bound by that which
they originally repudiated.

Some far-sighted Hindus have started the Depressed Classes
Mission, and many would like to give help, but they are
restrained by the suspicion, which is in truth well founded,
that all such work undermines Hinduism.

The caste belief is that a Brahman who eats with a Sudra,
an Outcaste, or a Mleccha suffers serious spiritual pollution.
But the modern educated Hindu knows from experience that
he is helped instead of injured by dining with the right type
of Sudra, Outcaste, Christian, Parsee, or Muhammadan.

Caste belief as taught in the Gita runs that it is better for
a Brahman to do bad work as a priest than to do excellent
work as a doctor, a manufacturer, an engineer, or a business
man : T while the modern Hindu sees plainly that India is
dying from the work of its bad priests and being reju
venated by its Brahman manufacturers and its Outcaste
educationalists.

Many a Hindu to-day sees that the restrictions of caste
are very bad for Hindu society ; but, still dominated by the
religious belief that it is wrong to neglect the ancient laws
founded on birth, he chooses to suffer loss in this world rather
than risk a frightful punishment in the next.2

How is Hinduism to be set free from this haunting influence,
which, despite the highest yearnings of her thinkers and
leaders, steals over every community within the fold and
binds it in chains, which paralyses the educated man in spite
of both conscience and experience, which keeps the simple-
minded Hindu from doing what he sees to be for the good of
his people ?

Christ is the Liberator ; for by means of the truth about
human birth he will set the Hindu free from caste. He does

1 See above, p. 160. 2 See what Ranade says, above, pp. 117-8.

THE DIVINE SOCIAL ORDER 205

not degrade the Brahman to the level of the Outcaste, but
reveals the high truth that the savage, the cannibal, and the
Outcaste are all Brahmans and more. Every human unit has
the supreme dignity and capacity of a child of the Most High.
When this ennobling truth breaks in upon the sensitive Hindu
spirit there will be no more terror and paralysis of soul at
the thought of intercourse with others.1 It will then become
clear that there is no reason why people of different castes
should not marry, provided they are really well matched in
other respects ; for they are all of the highest birth. Hindus
will then gladly dine with Outcastes, as Jesus did. They
will rejoice to recognize in every man a Brahman ; for, as
children of God, we are all fit for the priestly work of offering
spiritual sacrifices.

Thus, under Christ, birth is still the key to life ; the high
rule, naissance oblige^ remains : the health of society and the
progress of mankind depend upon our living up to our lofty
duties and privileges as children of God.

B. The Hindu is profoundly impressed with the sacredness
of the social order. Our study has made it abundantly clear
to us that every element of caste has a religious basis and
bears a religious significance. This is the secret of the in
vincible pervasive power it has shown throughout India, and
also of its unparalleled grip on the Hindu spirit. Hence, to
the Hindu, every rule and custom of caste is inviolably sacred.
Indeed, nothing is more remarkable in this remarkable
religion than the lofty conception the people have of the
divine social order and the boundless reverence with which
they regard it. As the thoughtful Hindu contemplates the
stately social edifice, planned by divine wisdom from all
eternity and linked adown the centuries by unerring righteous
ness with the spiritual progress of millions of transmigrating
souls, he cannot but believe that its scrupulous preservation

1 /. 6'. A'., April 20, 1913, p. 397, shows how even educated and pro
gressive Hindus who believe in equality shrink from intercourse with
Outcastes.

206 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

from wrong is the highest of all duties. By virtue of their
place in the social order and of their faithful performance of
all the details of the traditional law of the order, the Hindu
people regard themselves as holy and as vowed to the faithful
upbuilding of the divine society to which they belong. The
maintenance of the divine society is called dharma, the Hindu
ideal of social order and righteousness.

Since, to the Hindu, caste is a divine institution which he
is bound to revere and maintain, he regards the Christian
missionary as a coarse, irreverent, social iconoclast, laying
impious hands on that which he can neither appreciate nor
understand, and as altogether incapable himself of building
anything in place of the thrice-noble edifice which he seeks
to pull down. To Hindus Christian society seems at first
utter chaos — race confusion in conspiracy with wild licence.
Such thoughts are quite natural when men do not understand.
This chapter, however, will have made it clear that the social
order is as truly divine to the Christian as it is to the Hindu.
Every detail of it is a reflex from the Fatherhood of God.
Every social duty is transfigured in the light of His love for
man. The sacramental note is everywhere ; for in doing the
humblest duty to my brother I touch my Father's hand.

Nay, the truth is that society is more sacred to the
Christian than to the Hindu. It is possible for the Hindu
householder to cast aside all the duties and obligations of the
family and society. By becoming a sannyasl he rises to
a plane of life where social obligations no longer hold.1 Within
the bounds of human life there is a sphere in which the divine
society does not exist. No such idea is possible to the
Christian. The married man can never, while he lives, lay
aside his duty to his wife. The father never ceases to be
responsible for his children. Nothing on earth or in heaven can
ever absolve me from my common duty to my brother men.
The closer I cling to Christ, the more seriously do my social

1 See below, pp. 262-3.

THE DIVINE SOCIAL ORDER 207

duties rise upon my heart and conscience ; for His example
and His teaching equally stir us to a faithful social life. The
deeper my faith is that God is my Father, the more conscious
I am that the human race is His family, and that He is
toiling and suffering to create the Kingdom of Heaven on
earth. Thus, the Hindu consciousness of the sacredness
of society will find a higher and wider sphere under Christ
than in caste.

C. Hindu social life aims above all things at the preservation
of solidarity and of purity.

The Hindu is most sensitively conscious of the need of
a settled, well-balanced, self-sufficient community, and he
believes it cannot be maintained apart from caste. How
could men get work, prices and wages be regulated, skill and
learning be preserved from generation to generation ? The
poor must be helped, the sinful restrained, enemies kept at
a distance. How, without caste, would true mutual responsi
bility be maintained ? Thus, on the faithful performance of
all that the ancient rules enjoin depend the health and
stability of the whole community.

In Christ we have not the narrow caste-group within which
solidarity is comparatively easy to achieve, but we have the
wider society which modern India needs, and ethical teaching
of the greatest depth and power to make solidarity real.
Towards the working out of the new national solidarity every
patriotic Hindu now strains. But how is it to be accomplished?
Only through Christ's conceptions of brotherhood, social
justice, and social service. The bringing in of the Outcastes,
the gathering in of the wild tribes, and the building, out of all
the races of India, of a united and holy nation is a task that
may well stir the noblest heart. Can Hindus stand by and
see the alien missionary achieve this glorious enterprise ?
From the unexampled variety of Indian race and life, in the
new rich conditions of the twentieth century, and with
Christ's thought of the Kingdom as guide and plan, what
manner of work may Indians not accomplish ? Here is

208 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

a sphere in which Christ gives an ideal of solidarity far beyond
the dreams of caste.

To the Hindu, caste is the stronghold of purity, manners,
culture, and of the whole religious heritage of the race. The
high-caste man thinks of himself as one of a small number
of pure-blooded, cultured, religious men amidst such vast
numbers of unclean, vulgar, vicious people that the light is
in grave danger of extinction. Aeneas-like, he bears through
seething crowds of foes his ancestral heritage, bound by every
duty to pass it on intact to those who follow him. Only in
caste can he preserve from wrong the sacred trust of his
fathers, that deposit of custom, practice, and law which regu
lates his religion, morals, and habits. It is this heritage which
has made him what he is. In every act he does and every
thought he thinks he is conscious of its influence. Each caste
has its own distinct tradition. Amongst Brahmans to this day
the standard of cleanliness, speech, and behaviour is far higher
than in other castes. It is impossible to simulate the Brahman.
A hundred trifles would betray the pretender. Fueling runs
still deeper with regard to the rites of religion, the great
doctrines of the faith, and the Vedanta. How can these
survive if caste be tampered with ? To allow these to be
shared by low-born, ignorant men would be to court not only
contamination but destruction.

Christ is as eager for purity, manners, culture, and spiritual
religion as the holiest Hindu ever was ; but He has another
method for their preservation. The whole of the old world
believed that truth and wisdom were so precious that they
ought to be restricted to the few. But Christ holds that the
only way to preserve truth is to spread it broadcast, that the
only way to secure the triumph of wisdom and righteousness
is to speak them out to all men and to trust to their own
vitality for their survival. So with culture and manners. To
tolerate multitudes of ignorant and vulgar men is to prepare
an avalanche to overwhelm culture. The wider culture and
good breeding are spread, the more secure they are. Hence
Christ's words:

THE DIVINE SOCIAL ORDER 209

What I tell you in the darkness, speak ye in the light : and what ye
hear in the ear, proclaim upon the housetops.1

Will not Hindus make it their ideal to bring the gentle
manners, the cleanliness, and the pleasing speech of the
Brahman to the humblest Indian ? Would such a consumma
tion be dishonouring to the Hindu community? So with all
truth. Every Indian, since he is a man, is heir to all the spiritual
truth which the human race holds. We only bring him into
his own estate when we tell him of his heavenly Father.
Can we think of a more ennobling piece of work than the
task of teaching every Indian the highest religious truth?
The new social life in Christ is the real stronghold of culture
and truth.

D. In Christ even the more detailed ideals of caste find
fulfilment. The Brahman is the man of prayer and sacrifice,
the man who has direct access to God : in Christ Jesus this is
every man's birthright. Every man and every woman is fit
to be a priest of God, to offer spiritual sacrifice, to have
unceasing, personal intercourse with the heavenly Father. The
Sudra was bid serve the three castes : Christ, who came not
to be served but to be a servant,2 shows us that the true man
is a servant of his fellow men. The Sudra ideal, as well as
the Brahman ideal, is universalized in Him.

The Hindu holds that even the men who are by birth
spiritually fit for the highest privileges, viz. the Brahman, the
Kshatriya, and the Vaisya, cannot enter upon these privileges
until they have passed through a second birth. Originally,
this sacred birth consisted in a long course of religious training
and discipline ; and an infinitesimal minority still take the
course ; but for the vast majority it has shrunk to the
ceremony of initiation.3 That which was originally so great
has become an empty bubble shaming its high name.

But turn to Christ. Here the second birth is conversion,
a revolution within the soul, a spiritual transformation of the

1 Matt. 10, 27. 2 Matt. 20, 28. s See above, pp. 86 and 163.

210 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

man. Only he who undergoes the overturning change of
repentance, forgiveness and union with Christ, enters upon the
privileges of the kingdom of heaven. But the change is open
to every one. Any child of God may yield to the influences
of the Holy Spirit, repent of his past life, surrender to Christ,
and through Him enter by the portal of the second birth into
the new life. That which in Hinduism has become a formal
ceremony is in Christ a spiritual reality.

CHAPTER V

THE ESSENTIALS OF HINDUISM

I. WHEN the invading Aryans entered India they merely
sought lands on which to settle and live. For a considerable
length of time they were content with small things. But
gradually there arose among them the imperial instinct, and
as a result they became masters, politically and religiously,
of the whole of North India, and, at a later elate, of the
South also.

In the course of their gradual conquest of the North the
simple religion of the Rigveda was transformed into Hinduism.
The thought and culture of the invaders were spontaneously
advancing ; the impact of the innumerable tribes of aborigines
with their varied religions and modes of life necessarily
brought them much fresh material and vital quickening ; while
their new imperial position demanded a practical system
applicable to their subjects as well as to themselves. In these
circumstances a new set of beliefs arose and a new social and
religious organization took form. Hinduism, the religion of
India, was born. Innumerable changes have taken place
since then ; but they have all been within the lines of the
original plan ; they have all been branches of the primeval
tree.

Our study of the life of the early Indo-Aryans left us
with several ideas clearly defined before our minds. Their
religion was a polytheistic worship of the powers of nature by
means of prayer, hymn, and sacrifice, but without temples or
images. We also found a few traces of a more spiritual faith
O 3

212 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

and of philosophic speculation. The worship of ancestors
held a large place in their minds and in their social organiza
tion. To this simple people the world was real and life was
good. Men prayed to live a hundred years. Asceticism was
unknown. The family was still in a healthy condition. There
was no caste. There was no doctrine of transmigration. Man
lived and died once, and after death was led by Yama to
heaven, where he enjoyed an immortality of bliss with the
' fathers ' and the gods. From this simple system was
developed the elaborate theology and highly organized com
munity of Hinduism.

It was the doctrine of karma and rebirth that gave
character and form to the new system. While on the surface
it is but a theory of birth and death, it is essentially the
Hindu moral theory ; and, as we have already seen, it enters
as an element into every part of the religion.

There was another doctrine which proved of importance in
the creation of the new thought, but it did not exercise such
an influence as the transmigration theory did. The idea is
that there exists one supreme divine Being, eternal and
unknowable, who is manifested in all the gods and all the
religions of men. He is spiritual and real ; he is in nature
and in man ; he is the cause of all things, the Veda and caste
included ; in a sense, he is all things ; and yet he is free from
karma, which controls all things. Since he stands apart from
karma, he is actionless. Being unknowable, he cannot be
worshipped ; but, since he is manifested in all the gods, the
worship of any god is quite legitimate. The Brahmans thus
developed a simple philosophy of religion which they used to
explain matters to themselves and to all eager inquirers, as
they proceeded with their work of bringing the peoples of
India under their influence. They must have met with many
forms of religion, some of them very strange indeed, as they
extended their sway over the land ; yet every form of belief
and every cult could be brought under this simple formula.
It is this idea of the one God behind all the gods which the

THE ESSENTIALS OF HINDUISM 213

Hindu villager uses to-day when any one asks him why he
acknowledges many gods.

But the more clearly they envisaged the Supreme as real,
the more worthless the world became to them. Thus, ever
since these ideas took form, the Hindu has held that all
worldly things are vain, valueless, empty, as compared with
God. The doctrine that all material things are illusion is
a much later development, and is not a necessary part of
essential Hinduism ; but the worthlessness of the world is one
of the central ideas of the religion.

But while in comparison with God the world was seen to
be paltry, in the light of the doctrine of karma and rebirth,
it was held to be eternal, coeval with God. It was a transitory,
phenomenal system, completely controlled by karma, yet
without beginning and without end. The course of the world's
history is a continuous process of degeneration from the
Golden down to the Iron age. Progress is impossible. But
when things reach their worst, the whole world passes into
invisibility and lies in peace and silence for countless ages; and,
when it is re-manifested, things are once more at their best.

All souls, whether living as gods, demons, men, animals, or
plants, are afloat on the stream of transmigration (sai'nsara).
Their life is at once retribution for the past and opportunity
for the future. But, though a man may rise by persistent
good conduct, by sacrifice and austerity, to the highest
position among men or even to the station of a god, release
from the ever-whirling wheel of birth and death is not to
be won by an ordinary life, but only by stepping out of
the common course of existence into the life of world-
renunciation.

The gods may be worshipped, in accordance with the old
cult, by means of sacrifice, prayer, and hymn, conducted in
the open air, or by means of temple and image; but, whether
the old or the new method is followed, only a Brahman is
allowed to officiate as priest ; and the Vedas must be acknow
ledged as the one Revelation. It must be noticed, however,

214 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

that the old cult is open only to the three twice-born castes,
and no woman can sacrifice without her husband ; while all
Hindu temples are open to the four castes and to women as
well as men.1

Caste is the Hindu form of social organization. No man
can be a Hindu who is not in caste ; and if a group of
outsiders is admitted into the community, they must organize
themselves as a caste.

In the times of the Rigveda there were schools for young
priests. These grew in importance with the growth of the
ritual and of the power of the priests. More and more
literature had to be mastered by the priestly student. Only
the Brahman could teach, and only men of the three highest
castes were admitted to the schools. All women were
excluded. During this period of reconstruction it became
the custom to send every boy of the Brahman, Kshatriya, and
Vaisya castes to school to receive the sacred education. Each
boy underwent initiation before beginning his course. Nowa
days very few indeed receive the old education.

This radical system was held by the Brahmans and taught
by them, in whole or in part, according to circumstances, as
they pursued their work of subjugating the races of India to
their authority. The ignorant were taught only as much as
was necessary to enable them to take their place in the great
organization ; but, when thinking men asked questions, an
answer was ready for them. This system of thought and life
will not be found in this cut-and-dried form, separated from
all else, in any Hindu manual ; yet it lies behind every form
of Indian religion and philosophy which appears on the stage
of history throughout the centuries. In Buddhism, Jainism,
the Sankhya philosophy and the great sects, one or other
element has been somewhat modified ; yet the forms of
these systems would scarcely be comprehensible to us, did we
not know the great ancestor from which they sprang.

II. The leading constituents of this system will be found to
1 See above, p. 164.

THE ESSENTIALS OF HINDUISM 215

fit very well together. If we hold that the invisible God
behind all things takes no part in the activity of the
phenomenal universe, then we can readily believe that the
whole world is destitute of worth and substance. Again,
if the world is so distinctly a vain show, it is not unnatural
to think that souls, once caught in its meshes, may live
beclouded and dazzled for ages, finding no way back to the
divine Source, until their blind eyes are opened to see through
the shows of Time to the one Reality. In these circumstances
caste appears at once reasonable and right, as marking
stages of the soul's progress towards enlightenment. The
advance of the soul is of so much moment that the social
system may well be made stern and unyielding, in order to
conserve gains as they are made ; and the spiritual advance
ment which is believed to lie behind the birth of every
Brahman is quite a reasonable basis for the religious authority
which is demanded for him. Similarly, the conception that
the Veda is the eternal utterance of the divine Mind, revealed
anew in divers portions to the Rishis at the opening of every
world-era, is a reasonable ground for the practical authority
claimed for it.

Perhaps the most noticeable thing about the system is the
way in which it fits practically into the circumstances of
the time. It is, first of all, the old system to which the
people were accustomed ; for it is the religion of the Rigveda ;
yet it is so transformed as to satisfy the intellect of the most
advanced Aryans of the day. It is, on the other hand,
a philosophy of religion, which enables the grossest of the
pagan cults of the aborigines to be included in the same
imperial system with the highest speculations of philosophy
and with the elaborate sacrificial performances of the
Brahmans. Had there been no caste to bind the people
together, the speculative religious ideas would have been
ineffectual ; while, without the doctrine of transmigration,
caste would have had no intellectual or moral justification
and could have never laid hold of the popular conscience.

2i6 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

The strength and greatness of the whole group of ideas
will be at once apparent. The thought of the worthlessncss
of the world in contrast with the glory and spirituality of
Brahman is one that lays hold of the intellect and has many
interests for philosophy. The emptiness of the world is
a powerful moral conception, and has been one of the chief
sources of all the forms of spiritual religions which India has
exhibited during the centuries. Every religion has found it
necessary to persuade man to seek emancipation from the
power of the sense-world. Hinduism has no need to search
for reasons to support this teaching : it springs inevitably
from the Hindu conception of things. Then, on the other
hand, if the system deprives the world of all claim to final
reality, the doctrine of transmigration and karma expresses
in the most powerful way possible its actuality and its grip
over the human spirit. The unbending, remorseless law of
karma has a cosmic grandeur and a kind of scientific com
pleteness about it which at first sight are very captivating.
Given these conceptions, the elaborate organization and the
strict rules of caste appeal to the thinking mind as an orderly
and reasonable system.

Here, then, we have the Hindu world-theory in all its
permanent essentials : God real, the world worthless ; the one
God unknowable, the other gods not to be despised ; the
Brahmans with their Vedas the sole religious authority; caste
a divine institution, serving as the chief instrument of reward
and punishment ; man doomed to repeated birth and death,
because all action leads to rebirth ; world-flight the only
noble course for the awakened man and the one hope of
escape from the entanglements of sense and transmigration.

III. We have been accustomed to think of Hinduism as an
unchanging system, the home of all the conservatisms. Now,
it is very true that the Hindu seeks to live in most things
precisely as his ancestors lived centuries ago ; yet conserva
tism and stagnation are not the. whole story. In Hinduism
there are certain large freedoms. To the European these

THE ESSENTIALS OF HINDUISM 217

liberties are at first sight worthless: the Hindu seems to be
free where he ought to be bound and bound where he ought
to be free. Yet, rightly or wrongly, there are these freedoms ;
and, in order to understand Hinduism and its working, it is
most necessary to realize what parts of Hindu life are free
and what parts are under stern regulation. In this chapter
we isolate the things which are regarded by the Hindu as
eternal, and therefore as allowing of no liberty.

The ordinances to which a Hindu must conform fall into
three groups : the family, caste, and religion.

A. An orthodox Hindu must have been born in a Hindu
family, must have undergone all the necessary ceremonies
as a child and young man, and must continue to live as
a member of his family, obeying all the regulations and
fulfilling all the duties of a householder. These duties include
the family rites mentioned in our second chapter, viz. the
sacraments, the worship of ancestors, the worship of the
family gods, and the observance of the annual feasts and
seasons of worship. If he is a twice-born Hindu, he ought
also to observe daily, morning and evening, the prescribed
ablutions, prayers and offerings.

B. An orthodox Hindu must have been born in a Hindu
caste, must have undergone initiation if he is a Brahman,
Kshatriya, or Vaisya, or some other equivalent ceremony
if he belongs to a lower caste ; and he must continue to
observe all the rules and regulations which are traditional
in his own caste, as was set forth in Chapter IV.

C. An orthodox Hindu must worship the gods either in
the old Vedic fashion or in the temples. He must acknow
ledge the Vedas as the one revelation, and he must employ
Brahmans for all priestly duties, whether in his home or
elsewhere. No one but a Brahman can sacrifice, conduct
religious ceremonies, act as a religious teacher, or proclaim
the law.

All this, then, is obligatory. on the Hindu. In these matters
he is bound. The observance of these laws and customs is

2i 8 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

called dJianna, i.e. right conduct. Dharma is explained and
discussed in detail in the books known as Dfiantiasastras, the
greatest of which is the Manava DJiarmasdstra or code of
Manu. Here is what is laid down on this point by the
highest authorities. We quote the Glta first :

Therefore, realizing the sastra to be the standard for determining
right and wrong, thou should'st do here the works specified in the
ordinances of the sastra^

Then Sankara :

The knowledge of one action being right and another wrong is based
on scripture only.2

The liberties of the Hindu are outside the circle of dharma.
A man may remain an orthodox Hindu without believing in
any god or any theology, and without knowing or reading
any sacred book. He may be a Christian, a Muhammadan,
an agnostic, or an atheist in his convictions. No question is
raised so long as he conforms to usage.

1 xvi. 24. " S.B.E., xxxviii. 131.

CHAPTER VI

THE SUMMIT OF INDIAN THOUGHT

IF a cultured Hindu were asked to select the loftiest aspect
of his religion, there can be little doubt that he would name
the Vedanta philosophy. To that, therefore, this chapter will
be given. In order to understand it, we shall have to trace its
history in outline.

I. There are a number of philosophic hymns in the
Rigveda and also in the AtJiarvavcda^ and some of the ideas
suggested in them reappear in later philosophy ; but, for the
purpose we have in view here, it will suffice if we begin our
survey with the conceptions expressed in the Brahmanas.
Amid the innumerable speculations and guesses scattered
through these priestly works two are worthy of all attention.

The first conception is Brahman, which by derivation is
connected with the idea of sacred utterances, whether hymn
or prayer, but which in the Brahmanas is thought of as the
one source of the visible universe. Brahman was called the
source of all things, the Creator and the Ruler of the universe.

The other concept is Atman, which means self. At first the
word was used in various senses ; but gradually it came to
stand more distinctly for the conscious thinking power, whether
in man or in the universe. There was no sharp distinction
between the self in man and the Self of the universe. The
idea seems to have been that of an all-pervading conscious
ness, which appears in each man as a speck of light, the
thought-power within him, while remaining the Self of the
universe. This concept, like Brahman, the reality of the

220 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

universe, was used to explain the world. The Atman was
spoken of as the Creator and the Controller of the world.

There were thus the two outstanding conceptions, Brahman
and the Atman, each of which had been declared the source of
all things. BraKman, however, had been reached objectively,
by considering the world as a system of nature subject to
religious influences, while it was the inner psychical world
which had given birth to the conception of the universal
Atman.

Next came the moment when some thinker combined them,
saying, c Brahman is the Atman.' The source of all things
thus came to be definitely recognized as intelligent, psychical.
The Brahman-Atman was regarded as the secret of the
universe, and as present in every man. The identification of
the two would greatly stimulate thought ; and the conscious
ness, unity, universality, and divine character of Brahman-
Atman would gradually rise in men's minds and receive
clearer definition.

The Atman was further defined in contrast with the gods.
These early thinkers watched the religious life around them
and saw that each god was conceived as eager to receive the
homage and the sacrifices of men, and in order to receive them
was ready to give men gifts in return. Each god was thus an
individual spirit, having his own selfish interests, and was
subject to motives similar to those that rule men. Hence the
Atman was conceived as free from desire, and, therefore, not
liable to be tempted by the sacrifices of men. He was desire-
less, actionless, at peace.

There is no doubt that these thinkers had lighted on a most
difficult problem. Turn to the religions of Egypt, Babylonia,
Greece, or Rome, and you will find that the above description
is true of their gods. They listen to praise and prayer, and
are responsive to human need, but they quarrel about the
things of earth, intrigue to get the support of men, and show
the vilest passions. This is true even of the mighty Zeus of
Greek poetry, who is conceived as the Supreme and so named.

THE SUMMIT OF INDIAN THOUGHT 221

The formation of this developed conception of the spiritual
Reality behind the world necessarily modified thought in
other directions. The world began to appear changeful and
ordinary in the light of the thought of the spiritual, invisible,
unchangeable Atman. The gods also took a subordinate
position when contrasted with this omnipresent, omnipotent,
omniscient Divinity. Necessarily, a desire arose to attain
union with the Atman ; and there are certain passages in the
Brahmanas which teach that men may rise to him by know
ledge and find immortality and release from desire and action.1
Once or twice we receive intimations of the coming of the
great doctrine of the identity of the human soul and Brahman ; 2
but as yet the idea is not seriously taken up.

Up to this point Indian thought contained innumerable
speculations, some of them barren, others full of promise.
But we must draw a broad line between these early flashes of
speculative genius and the rise of the earliest Indian philo
sophy. It was the coming of a new element into Hindu
belief and thought that finally led to the production of some
thing like a speculative system. It was the rise of the doctrine
of transmigration and karma that proved the occasion at
least, if not the cause, of that splendid excitement of the
Indian mind which created Hindu philosophy. This fact
must never be lost sight of in our study of the evolution of
Hindu thought. Clearly, belief in transmigration and karma
was taken very seriously by the men of those days. The
soul, as they conceived it, was a prisoner fast bound in the
system of rebirth, inevitably performing actions which would
in turn bind it as fast in another life.

The doctrine of karma fitted in very well with the concep
tion of Brahman-Atman also. He had been conceived as
unborn, immortal, ever free, and also as desireless and action-
less. Hence, when the theory of karma and rebirth appeared,

1 Taittiriya £., iii. 12. 9, 8 ; Satapatha B., x. 5. 4, 15 ; x. 6. 3 ; Deussen,
343- ,

2 Satapatha B.} x. 6. 3, 2.

222 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

he was the only being in the universe that was not under the
sway of karma. Being desireless and actionless, karma could
not lay hold of him. Had he been conceived as acting, he
would necessarily have been thought of as bound by karma
and liable to birth.

From this time, then, forward we recognize three strands of
thought in the idea of the Supreme. As Brahman, he is most
closely connected with the material world ; as the Atman, he
is intelligent, self-conscious spirit ; as free from desire and
karma, he is actionless.

As a result of the appearance of the doctrine of rebirth and
karma we also note a deepening of the contrast between the
Atman and the world. The whole universe is subject to
karma, but the Atman is free. The world is full of sorrow
and everywhere in bonds : no spirit is exempt ; every man
and every animal is suffering or enjoying the inevitable requital
of former deeds. Plants also are regarded as under trans
migration. The whole creation is held in the hard grip of
this remorseless force. Even the gods are recognized as
being temporary beings, enjoying for a time in heaven the
glorious reward of noble conduct in other lives, but destined
each in turn to rebirth and possibly to a return to a far lowlier
condition. They belong to the phenomenal universe as truly
as man and the animals. Men could not fail to realize much
more clearly than before the pitiful contrast between the
world, on the one hand, with its pain and sorrow, its trouble
and strife, its petty gods and sacrifices, its transmigration and
karma, and the Atman, on the other, in all its spirituality,
power, and freedom. The Atman was altogether free from
the world. It had no share in its action, no relation to its
religion or its morality, was undisturbed by its sorrow, un
chained by its karma.

Thus thoughtful men began to feel most keenly their
position in the world, subject to karma and rebirth, to suffer
ing and repeated death. They were filled with a great loathing
for these repeated births and deaths. It seemed to them a

THE SUMMIT OF INDIAN THOUGHT 223

miserable thing to be whirled round for ever on this wheel of
existence. They longed for something imperishable.1 They
could not acquiesce in continuous reincarnation. Was there
no possibility of finding release from this galling necessity ?
Philosophy sprang into existence in response to that urgent
question.

It was with the Atman that the process began. At first
the Atman or Self seems to have been thought of as a sort of
conscious essence diffused throughout the universe, present in
all things, only showing itself most distinctly in man's conscious
life, the human self. But as thinkers brooded over these ideas,
the truth about spirit as such became clearer to their minds.
They thought of the Self as pervading all things and
appearing everywhere, yet beyond both space and time, and
in, above, and beneath all things, yet truly one. In this
way it became impossible to think of the Self as a subtle
physical essence diffused throughout the universe : that idea
was too materialistic and mathematical. Nor could they think
of the Self as appearing in part in each man ; for that was to
divide the unity of the divine Spirit. Yet they found within
themselves the basis of all their thought about the Self. In
their own souls they found the unity, the intelligence, the un
limited thought which they predicated of the Divine. Hence
some one was bold enough to say, ' The self in man is not
merely the divine Self showing itself at one point ; the human
self is the divine Self, the divine Self whole and complete.'
' I am Brahman.' It was but a natural inference from fore
going thought, yet it was the boldest, the greatest venture ever
made by the Indian mind.

Now, note carefully the inevitable result. When this
mighty thought came home to a man as true, when he
realized that he was the eternal Brahman, he felt instantly
transported from his old worldly life to the changeless freedom
of Brahman. Being the eternal Atman, he was not bound by

1 Asvaghosha, Buddhacharita, v. 26.

224 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

transmigration and karma. In his new knowledge he stood
emancipated for ever. Brahman is altogether free : I am
Brahman ; therefore I am free.

By this experience the man was completely transformed.
He had hitherto regarded himself as an individual living being
in the multitudinous kingdom of nature, not so very different
from the animals, dependent altogether on the things of time
and of the senses, hopelessly entangled in karma and rebirth.
He now realizes that that is all a dream ; that he is a spiritual
being to whom all nature is but an empty show ; l an immortal
being to whom fear, sorrow, and death are meaningless ; 2 an
eternal being for whom the changes of time are less than
nothing ; 3 a self-sufficing spirit, requiring nothing and there
fore desiring nothing ; a universal being to whom individuality
is but a speck ; a free spirit, far beyond the reach of the fetters
of karma, whether of past or of future actions. The experience
has brought him such a joyous elevation of spirit that he can
never fall to the old levels again. He knows himself the
eternal God, present in all the universe, the sum and substance
of all reality. He stands immortal, fearless, desireless, beyond
the reach of pain, or sorrow, or doubt, his experience all ended,
his soul filled with the blessedness of a great peace.

The necessary result of this condition of mind was that the
man at once gave up all his connexion with the world. He
did not belong to the fleeting world, but to the world of
Brahman. What had the eternal Brahman to do with
worship, children, comfort, pleasure, business, property, or
government? Brahman had nothing to do with action, 'that
evil thing.'4 Now that the man had realized his own true
being, he could never return to his old life of vanity, folly, and
sorrow. For Brahman alone is peace: 'all else is full of
sorrow.' 5 ' What shall we do with offspring, we who have

1 Kathaka £/., iv. 2 ; Mandukya Karika, i. 16.

2 Brihaddranyaka U., iv. 4, 15 ; Chhdndogya £/., vii. 26, 2.

3 Kaivalya U., 19. 4 Taittirlya B., III. xii. 9, 8. Deussen, 343, 361.
5 Brihaddranyaka £/., iii. 4, 2.

THE SUMMIT OF INDIAN THOUGHT 225

this Self and this world ? ' l ' Those worlds are in truth
joyless.'2 'Sunless are those worlds, covered with blinding
darkness.' 3 How could the man who, through his enlighten
ment, ' overcomes hunger, and thirst, sorrow, passion, old age
and death,' 4 return to the life that is filled full of all these
evils ?

So the result of the transforming experience was that the
man abandoned home, marriage, family, property, business,
caste, his sacred thread, the worship of the gods, the worship
of ancestors, and wandered about homeless, seeking solitude,
sleeping at the foot of a tree or in a cave, and getting his food
by begging. He was therefore called a Renouncer, sati/iyasl,
a Wanderer, parivrajaka, a Beggar, bhikshu. The word
sanuyasl, Renouncer, is the most significant. The idea is
that the man surrenders the world. They gave up all amuse
ments, laid aside all jewellery and ornaments, shaved their
heads, and wore only a minimum of clothing, or even went
stark naked. Each carried a rod and a bowl in which he
received the food he begged. It is most remarkable that
these men not only gave up everything that makes life com
fortable and attractive, but gave up caste also, thus stepping
outside Hindu society altogether.5 The thoroughness of the
process is explainable only by reference to the conception of
Brahman, who, conceived as the Absolute, was believed to be
altogether untouched by any of the activities of phenomenal
existence.

II. The deep sincerity and seriousness of the movement
stand out perfectly plain in the extraordinary features of the
life which we have just described. No thinking man can
forbear to admire with the utmost heartiness the boldness of
the thought and the supreme strenuousness of the discipline
to which these men submitted themselves. We do not wonder

1 Brihaddranyaka (/., iv. 4, 22. 2 Ib., iv. 4, II.
3 I&d U., 3. 4 Brihaddranyaka, U., iii. 5, I,

5 For further details see below, pp. 254, 262-263.
P

226 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

that they made a tremendous impression upon the people of
their time and gained influence by their life.

All scholars recognize at once the great insight revealed
and the essential truth attained in the conceptions of Brahman
as the spiritual Self of the universe and of the identity of
Brahman and the individual self. These ideas form the
fountain-head of all the greatest thinking that has been done
in India.

The conception of the Atman is clearly and vividly spiritual.
While conceived as immanent in all things and transcending
all things, as truly omnipresent and universal, yet the Self
is described as invisible, impalpable, timeless, spaceless, a
perfect unity. Consciousness and omniscience are the very
nature and being of the Self; and the perfect unity of the
eternal mind is beyond the reach of sorrow, change, or death.
So far as it is positive, the conception of the infinite Spirit is
true and rational.

The doctrine of the identity of man with God suggests
a great many valuable thoughts. No modern thinker is
likely to accept the dogma as it stands; but all will agree
that it comes so near to being the right expression of a group
of priceless truths that it is no wonder that early India hailed
it as a revelation. Every one will recognize how close the
relationship is between the doctrine and the following ideas :
man's dignity and spiritual grandeur ; the immensity of his
intellectual faculty ; the boundlessness of his desires ; his
passion for immortality ; his nearness, likeness, and kinship to
God ; the immediacy of the intercourse which he may have
with God ; God's actual presence in every human heart and
conscience ; and lastly, the spontaneous desire of the soul for
union with God. The doctrine is thus of very great value as
a testimony to the divine side of human nature.

But we may go one step farther. These men had not
merely thought out a conception of God and of man. Their
new belief touched them in the depths of their spiritual nature,
and overflowed in religious experience. The exalted language

THE SUMMIT OF INDIAN THOUGHT 227

of the best passages l of the earliest literature is sufficient to
attest the reality of their intercourse with God. In these
passages several distinct elements of their experience are fre
quently described, which further strengthen our inference.

(a) The Atman has become inexpressibly dear to them :

Were a man to offer this earth surrounded by water and filled with
wealth, yet is this more than that, more than that.2

He who sees, perceives and understands this loves the Self, delights
in the Self, revels in the Self, rejoices in the Self.3

This, which is nearer to us than anything, this Self, is dearer than
a son, dearer than wealth, dearer than all else.4

(b) The world has lost all its power over them :

Wishing for that world only, mendicants leave their homes. Knowing
this, the people of old did not wish for offspring. ' What shall we do
with offspring,' they said, ' we who have this Self and this world ? ' And
they, having risen above the desire for sons, wealth and new worlds,
wander about as mendicants.8

They're simpletons who follow outward pleasures !
They fall into the snare of widespread Death.
But wise men, understanding immortality,
Seek not th' Unchangeable 'mid things that change.6

He who beholds that Loftiest and Deepest,
For him the fetters of the heart break asunder.7

What can he desire who has all ? 8

(c) In their conscious knowledge of God they feel they have
reached immortality:

On whom the fivefold host of living beings,
Together with space depend,
Him know I as my soul,
Immortal the Immortal.9

1 Chhdndogya U., vii. n ; viii. 4 ; Brihadaranyaka U., i. 4, 8 ; ii. 4, 5 ;
iv. 4, ,12-25 ! Kdthaka U., v. 9-15 ; vi. 2-3, 9, 14-15.

2 Sdnkhdyana A., xiii.

3 Chhdndogya £/., vii. 25,2. 4 Brihadaranyaka U., i. 4,8.
5 Ib., iv. 4, 22. K Kdthaka £/., iv. 2.

7 Mundaka U., ii. 2, 8. s Mdndftkya Kdrikd, i. 16.

0 Brihadaranyaka U.,\\. 4, 17.

P 2

228 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

All this existing universe

Moves in the Life from which it sprang.

A mighty terror 'tis, a thunderbolt upraised !

The men who know It, they become immortal.1

When man forgoes all those desires
That lie within his heart,
The mortal then becomes immortal,
And here and now gains Brahman.*

III. The relation of the Atman to the universe is of so much
importance that we must attempt to make the connecting
ideas as clear as possible. The human soul was held to be
identical with God, as we have seen. We have now to realize
that the world also was in a way identified with God. The
great phrase in which this idea was expressed is Ekam eva
aditiyam, ' One there is, without a second.' Frequently the
world is simply said to be God. This idea comes, clearly,
from the original conception of Brahman as the invisible
source and support of all that is. In the earliest literature
the phrases are still fluid and living, not carefully defined.
Hence thinkers developed the idea in different directions.
One would construe the one Existence as physical, absolutely
identifying Brahman with the universe, losing the spiritual in
the material. Another would strain towards an idealistic
interpretation, making the spiritual Brahman the sole existence
and almost depriving the physical world of reality. A third
would think the monistic thought fully satisfied if he spoke
of the world as a product of Brahman and everywhere inter
penetrated by him. This last comes nearest the original idea;
and, in whatever direction thinkers may have leaned, they
never forgot that God was all-pervading.

But, as we have seen, the Atman, being completely free
from desire, was actionless. Thus God pervades the universe
in every part, but he does not act upon it. The idea is rather
difficult to hold, but it must be grasped if we are to understand
the system. God is immanent in the universe, all-pervasive,

1 Kdthaka U., vi. 2. 2 Kathaka U., vi. 14.

THE SUMMIT OF INDIAN THOUGHT 229

yet he does not act. To conceive the Atman as acting would
be to subject him to karma and therefore to birth, sorrow, and
death. Hence these thinkers declared that he was altogether
untouched by what happens in the world. Here is one of the
passages where this conviction is vigorously expressed :

He, however, the Atman, is not so, not so (neti, nefi}. He is incom
prehensible, for he is not comprehended ; indestructible, for he is not
destroyed ; unaffected, for nothing affects him ; he is not fettered, he is
not disturbed, he suffers no harm.1

Sankara constantly emphasizes the actionlessness of Brahman.2
From this absolute severance of the all-pervading Atman from
the work and experience of the world several results of the
utmost importance followed.

A. The first result of declaring Brahman to be apart from
all action is that he is conceived as being above morality. He
is quite apart from the petty distinctions of right and wrong.
Moral rules belong to human life, not to the transcendent life
of the Source of the universe. Brahman is declared to be
reality, consciousness, bliss, but he is never said to be righteous
ness. He is fully recognized as the intelligence behind the
universe, but he is never spoken of as having a character, or
as being the source and centre of the moral order. Indeed, we
are carefully taught that, as the Absolute, he is separate from
all action, whether good or bad, just as he is above time and
change :

The Self is a bank, a boundary, so that these worlds may not be
confounded. Day and night do not pass that bank, nor old age, death
and grief; neither good nor evil deeds.3

Distinct from right, distinct from wrong,
Distinct from causes and effects,
Distinct from past and future too, —
What seems to thee like that, declare.4

1 Brihaddranyaka U., iv. 2, 4; Deussen, 147.

2 S.I3.E., xxxiv. 33, 62 ; xxxviii. 355.

s Chhandogya U., viii. 4, I ; S.J3.£., i. 130.

4 KdtJiaka U., ii. 14. Cf. Brihadaranyaka U., iv. 4, 5.

230 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

Hence emancipation is not conceived as being dependent
on morality in any way. It arises altogether from know
ledge. Realization of one's unity with Brahman is itself
release from rebirth and from the world. This clear and
comprehensible doctrine is taught without any ambiguity in
the early literature and is expounded and defended by the
greatest authorities.1 Brahman not being conceived as the
source of morality, the method whereby a man realizes his
identity with Brahman is not a moral process. Only enlighten
ment could give the end aimed at, namely complete emancipa
tion from transmigration and karma.

Even when a man has found emancipation, he does not
necessarily become moral. Even if he be guilty of vicious
actions, his actions do not stain him. Indeed, for the man
who has realized his identity with Brahman, all moral dis
tinctions have lost their meaning. Morality is only one
element of the phenomenal life, and the difference between
right and wrong disappears like all other differences in the
blaze of the light of the Absolute. Morality belongs to the
unreal world, which the released man sloughs off in com
pleteness on finding release. It belongs to the sphere of
' change ' and ' becoming ' with which he has nothing more to
do. Hence the life of the monk was originally under no
moral law :

Then (i. e. when he has realized his identity with the Atman) he is

unaffected by good, unaffected by evil.2

He is not exalted by good works, he is not degraded by evil works.3

He who has found it is no longer sullied by any evil deed.1

As water does not cling to a lotus leaf, so no evil deed clings to one

who knows it-8

He does not distress himself with the thought, 'What good have I

left undone, what evil done ? ' 6

1 For Sankara, see S.B.E., xxxiv. 29, 63, &c. ; for Ramanuja, S.B.E.,
xlviii. 9, &c.

2 Brihadaranyaka [/., iv. 3, 22. 3 Ib., iv. 4, 22.
4 Ib'., iv. 4, 23. 5 Chhandogya £/., iv. 14, 3.

e Taittinya [/., ii. 9.

THE SUMMIT OF INDIAN THOUGHT 231

As the water-bird is not defiled by moving in the water, so a
liberated yogi is not polluted by merit or by demerit.1

Evil adheres not to an enlightened man any more than water clings
to a leaf; but much sin sticks to the unenlightened man, just as lac to
wood.2

Abandoning truth and falsehood, pleasure and pain, the Vedas, this
world and the next, he shall seek the Atman.3

And no sin can touch them, though they behave and conduct them
selves in any way that pleases them.4

Even the Gitd contains this doctrine :

He who neither loveth nor hateth, nor grieveth, nor desireth, re
nouncing good and evil, full of devotion, he is dear to me.5

Thus, in the earliest days, the search for the Atman
was not conditioned by morality. But soon many men who
did not know Brahman but were eager to come to a realization
of their identity with him became monks. Thus the monastic
life came to be thought of as a discipline leading to knowledge
of Brahman. Consequently, three forms of discipline from
the life of the hermit (which we deal with in our next chapter)0
were adopted. First, the practice of austerities, tapas, was
accepted by many monks as a means of complete conquest
over their own souls. The systematic exercises for the regula
tion of breathing and the control of the intellectual processes
called yoga were also adopted by many sannyasls. Lastly,
the law of a/iwisd, harmlessness, was imposed on all, that is,
the law against killing any animal or breaking a twig from
any living plant. The conception of Brahman as unaffected
by any passion gave the rule for their conduct to outsiders,
viz. Indifference : 7 love and hate, gratitude and resentment,
envy and pride are to be all crushed. Hence, also, complete
chastity, truthfulness and honesty were demanded. As time
went on, the moral side of monastic life produced a beautiful
ideal of the passive virtues.

1 ATahdbharata, xii. 247, 17. 2 Ib.,xii. 299, 7.

3 Apastamba,\\. 9, 21, 13. 4 Mahanirvana T., viii. 268.

5 xii. 17. 6 p. 249 f. 7 Gila, v. 19; ix. 29.

2.32 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

B. The second result of depriving Brahman of action was
that men tended to conceive him as impersonal. He was self-
conscious thought, but not will. Hence it did not seem
natural to credit him with personality. The earliest texts
are by no means consistent in this matter, for many passages
are distinctly theistic in tone ; l but there can be no doubt
that the farther reflection went the stronger became the drift
towards an impersonal Supreme.

C. The third result was this, that Brahman was necessarily
conceived as not communicating with man. One of the great
statements which they made about him is that he is ' beyond
the reach of thought and voice'. This phrase is repeated
thousands of times in the later literature. Hence, though
Brahman pervades the whole universe, and is close by us all
the time, it is quite impossible to worship him, or even to
utter prayer to him. He can neither hear prayer nor receive
worship. We have already seen that sannyasis gave up
ordinary Hindu worship. We now see that Brahman could
not be worshipped. The monk worshipped no one. His
time was spent in realizing his identity with Brahman.

D. The fourth result was that he could not be thought of
as creating the universe. Such an act would have involved
him in karma. In the earliest literature phrases may be found
which come very near representing him as Creator, but the
more careful thinkers avoid such statements ; and the farther
down the stream we go the more clearly do we find the point
realized.

These four points will come up again later.2

IV. The relation of these thinkers to popular Hinduism
must also be made clear. We have already seen that they
gave up completely the worship of the Hindu gods. We
must now note that in the earliest texts we find these gods,
the priests who worship them, their sacrifices, their liturgy,
and the books in which these are enshrined all spoken of

1 Deussen, 175 ff. ; see also p. 352, below.

2 See below, pp. 244-246, 392-407.

THE SUMMIT OF INDIAN THOUGHT 233

most contemptuously,1 as worthless to the man who knows
Brahman. They seem to have shaken themselves free from
popular religion as completely as from ordinary society.
The Vedas and the Vedic School were now useless. What
need had they to sacrifice to the gods? They no longer
desired those things which Hindus expected to receive from
the gods in return for their sacrifices.

But, although it is perfectly plain that they stood apart in
supreme contempt from the whole Hindu system at first,
yet they raised no protest against either the religion, or the
life, or the literature. They were simply altogether indifferent
to it. Another thing which strikes one as very strange is
this, that they did not declare all the old gods fictions of the
imagination. We should be inclined to think that any mind
virile enough to think its way through so many obstacles to
the splendid conception of the one God, spiritual, absolute,
supreme, would have had vigour and sense enough to see
that the whole mythology of Hinduism was a web of baseless
imaginations. But that was not so. All the philosophers up
and down the centuries, even the founder of Buddhism
himself, believed in the existence of all the Hindu gods.
They regarded themselves as superior to these gods, and
neither worshipped nor honoured them any longer ; but there
was not in their thought sufficient real insight to expel the
vast noxious growth of the pantheon and the mythology from
their beliefs. The gods are transmigrating souls, just like
men, only through their conduct in past lives they have
risen to the position of divine beings. When their merit is
consumed, they will be born again, and may possibly be in
very low positions. It is of the utmost consequence that we
should remember this in all our study of Indian philosophy ;
for without it the course of the history is unintelligible.

The discussions which created this system of philosophy
did not take place in the Brahmanic schools, but in the streets,

1 See below, pp. 260-261.

234 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

in the forest and at sacrifices ; and men of any caste, and
women also, took part in them. It was at first a most
democratic movement. Yet, though the movement was
powerful enough to send many men out into the forests as
monks, it might soon have withered and have produced no
very permanent result.

But in this matter the genius of the Brahman showed
its masterly power once more. Though the new thought
was so revolutionary as to drive men away from ordinary
Hindu worship and to make them despise the Veda, yet
the Brahmans saw how it could be tamed. They in
troduced it into their schools and taught it as the last
and highest subject of the course. Students studied the
sacrificial system first, and then the philosophy. They
called it the Vedanta, i.e. Veda + end, the final aim of
the Veda. Gradually the oral instruction, in which the
philosophy was taught, took definite shape and was handed
down from teacher to pupil in fixed language, each school
having its own sacred deposit. Thus were formed those
wonderful treatises which we know as the Upanishads. To
this period belong only the Brihaddranydka^ CJihaudogya,
Taittirlya, Aitareya, KausJiltaki, and Kena Upanishads.
They are in simple discursive prose, and show clearly the
process of transition from the old sacrificial teaching of the
Brahmanas to philosophy. We must remember that only boys
of the three highest castes were admitted to the Brahmanical
schools, that no girl was admitted, and that only Brahmans
were allowed to teach. Hence, from this time onward, the
Vedanta was taught only to men of the three highest castes,
and only Brahmans were allowed to teach it.

Note how it was possible to introduce the new philosophy
into the schools. It could not have happened if the new
thought had led the monks to a serious protest against the
whole practice of Hinduism as dishonouring to God ; but as
their attitude to the gods was a good-humoured if superior
contempt, there was no inseparable barrier between them and

THE SUMMIT OF INDIAN THOUGHT 235,

the old religion ; and thus the philosophy could be drawn
into the schools and shut up under the stern caste rules of the
Brahmans.

V. We now pass on to the second period of the history of
Indian philosophy. The chronology here becomes a little
clearer. We may date this period as beginning about 550 B.C. or
soon after. The chief mark of the new period is this, that there
are now many competing systems of philosophy. The almost
complete monopoly enjoyed at first by the thinkers of the
Upanishads has passed away. Everywhere one meets a
philosopher with a system of his own and with his following
of monks. It would be impossible, even if it were advisable,
to give anything like a complete catalogue of the extraordinary
variety of belief professed in North India at this time. Three
things, however, are well worth notice. The first of these is
this, that the one aim of all the systems is to win release from
transmigration. Each is a philosophy of emancipation. The
second point is this, that all these philosophers practised the
monastic life, giving up the world and wandering about in
beggary. Though their theories of the world varied very
greatly, they all agreed that in the ordinary life of man it was
impossible, or next to impossible, to win release. The third
point is the most interesting of all. Of the many varied
schools of thought then existing only three found their way
to fame and survived, and these three have one great charac
teristic in common : they all deny the existence of Brahman,
the Absolute. It is surely a matter of the very deepest
interest that this, the foundation of a philosophy so striking
and so profound, should have already been so seriously
discredited that the greatest of the new thinkers of the time
should have turned away from it altogether. But the reason
is not far to seek. The Brahman of the Upanishads is so
exceedingly abstract and tenuous that for the ordinary man it
is very hard to grasp the conception and feel its utility. This
clearly had become evident to many ; so that the acutest
thinkers of the period actually formed their systems without

236 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

using God. It is of the utmost importance to realize that,
though these system-builders denied the existence of a supreme
Spirit, they, like the rest, continued to believe in the existence
of the Hindu gods.

The three schools which have survived are the Jains, the
Sankhyas, and the Buddhists. The three seem to form a sort
of progressive series, when taken in the order in which we
have named them ; and tradition suggests that this is also the
order of their appearance.

Jainism in its ideas of the world stands very near essential
Hinduism. The world and souls and the gods are all real.
It does not accept the doctrine of the supreme Atman. In
this matter we may either regard it as representing the old
unconscious thought of the people before the emergence of
the belief in Brahman, or as maintaining a sceptical attitude
to that philosophic conception. The former is probably the
best way to look at the matter ; for early Jainism is more
closely connected with animism than with philosophy. There
is very little speculation in it. Indeed, we shall understand
the system best if we think of it as merely a specialization
and intensification of the old hermit1 discipline under the
influence of an extreme reverence for life and of a dogmatic
belief that not only men, animals, and plants, but the smallest
particles of earth, fire, water, and wind are endowed with
living souls. Consequently, a very large part of the Jain
monk's attention was directed to using the extremest care
not to injure any living thing.2 So eager were the Jains to
part with the world to the uttermost that many of their monks
wore not a scrap of clothing. Twelve years of most severe
asceticism were necessary for emancipation. After that, if
a monk did not wish to live longer, he was recommended
to starve himself to death.

The Sankhya system also holds that the world and souls
and the gods are real, but a large sceptical element comes in ;

1 See below, pp. 249-253. 2 See below, p. 258.

THE SUMMIT OF INDIAN THOUGHT 237

for Sankhyas say that the soul is not the organ of the
intellectual or volitional life of man.

Philosophically, the system is a dualism. It denies the
existence of the Supreme, and teaches the existence of prakriti,
an eternal fundamental substance from which all phenomenal
nature arises, and of innumerable individual souls, existing as
gods, demons, men, animals, and plants. Every soul is an
eternal self-conscious spirit, but without desire, or object, or
power to act. It is light, but no more than light. The soul
is eternally free, but, through its association with matter, the
man believes himself to be bound. Every man who will
accept the Sankhya philosophy and lead a life of world-
renunciation as a sannyasl will in time awake to the know
ledge of the true relation between the soul and matter, and
will thus reach emancipation. His soul will be set free from
matter, and thereafter will live for ever in that isolation
(kaivalyd) which is its native right and joy.

It is most striking that the individual soul is conceived
in this system precisely as Brahman is conceived in the
Upanishads. Intelligence, self-consciousness, freedom from
desire, from action, from karma, and from suffering, and
isolation from phenomenal existence, are the marks of spirit
and the spiritual life to early Indian thinkers.

The Sankhya has not had any great influence as a religious
system. But the character of its principles compelled those
who held it to think out the way in which the things of
the universe come into existence and also the relation of
the soul to matter. The metaphysical and psychological
doctrines which they reached in this process were found to be
acceptable in the main to Indian thinkers, and they were
therefore adopted at a later date, with or without modification,
by all the schools. It would take far too long to expound
these ideas fully, but it is important that we should grasp the
two most salient features of this part of the system.

We take first the process whereby the things of nature
come to be. During a pralaya, or period between the dis-

238 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

solution and the reappearance of the world, matter is in its
quiescent, invisible, impalpable state : it is prakriti. When
the moment for a new creation comes, there is evolved from
this primordial stuff a subtle cosmic substance called buddhi
(intelligence). From buddJii is evolved a second subtle cosmic
substance called ahamkdra (egoism). From ahamkdra are
evolved five subtle cosmic elements, earth, air, water, fire,
ether. Finally, from these five subtle elements are evolved
the actual constituents of matter, earth, air, water, fire, ether.
This series of emanations from beginning to end is material.

Next comes the psychological problem. The two subtle
cosmic substances, ^^///(intelligence) and ahamkdra (egoism),
reappear in the individual. Here ahamkdra evolves another
subtle substance called manas (mind), and with it the five
senses, each corresponding to one of the constituents of matter,
and with them the five organs of action. Once more the
whole series of emanations is purely physical. Now, the
significant point to be grasped is that the whole of our inner
life, intellectual and volitional, is held by Saiikhyas to be
conducted by these physical substances. Man has no real
personal life : the belief that we think and will is a pure
hallucination. All that happens within us is the work of
these physical powers. The senses, straining outward, obtain
impressions of physical things, because they correspond
to them. The manas receives these impressions from the
senses and conveys them to ahamkdra and buddhi. This
latter power discriminates the impressions of the senses and
acts upon them. Thus all our inner life is physical and there
is no personal activity in it.

What, then, does the soul do? The self-conscious soul,
enmeshed in the body, sheds the light of its self-consciousness
upon these inner organs ; and the man, confusing this self-
conscious light with the automatic physical work of the inner
organs, forms the foolish fancy, ' I personally do all this,'
stamps each sense-impression as it passes through ahamkdra
as ' mine ', and calls the discrimination and determination of

THE SUMMIT OF INDIAN THOUGHT 239

the buddhi 'mine' also. The soul has thus nothing to do
with intellectual or moral life : that is all carried on outside
the soul. The process may be graphically represented thus :

PRAKRITI

(Cosmic)

buddh

ahaiiikara

^ (Individual)
buddhi Z

i.
aharhkara

(Subtle)

(gross)
ether — > ether :
air — >air :
fire — >fire :
water— -> water:
earth — > earth :

(senses) (organs of action)

hearing : speech

touch : grasp

sight : gait

taste : evacuation

smell : procreation.

Gautama, the Buddha, like the Jain and the Sahkhya
leaders, denied the existence of the Supreme ; but he went
still further. The Sankhyas had deprived the soul of all real
share in life. Buddha took the next step: he denied the
existence of the soul altogether.

In contrast with Jainism, Buddhism recommended a mild
asceticism, but condemned self-torture, and sought emancipa
tion by knowledge and right living. Hence the Buddhist monk
pressed on beyond the Hindu monk in the matter of morality,
and Buddhist ethics exercised a precious influence later on in
Hinduism. The knowledge which Buddha taught was summed
up in three propositions, known as ' the three characteristics of
being', namely,

All its constituents are transitory ;

All its constituents are misery ;

All its constituents are lacking in an ego.
This last proposition is the most important. If nothing has
an ego, then the world has no God, man has no soul, and all

240 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

things are phenomenal. Man consists of five groups of pheno
menal elements. Desire is the power that leads to the forma
tion and the preservation of the individual. Buddha's method
of life l leads to the elimination of desire, and hence to the
dissolution of the individual. This insistence on desire pro
duced large results later on.

The Buddhist word for emancipation is nirvana, the etymo
logical meaning of which is extinction, i. e. of a light. It is
used in two senses. A man who lives faithfully as a Buddhist
monk will experience the nirvana of lust, hatred, and igno
rance. At death he will pass into final nirvana : he will not
be born again. No one knows whether Buddha believed final
nirvana to be annihilation or not. He refused to discuss that
question. But what is absolutely clear is that the character
istics of final nirvana are identical with the negative character
istics of the philosophic Brahman and of the individual soul
in the Sarikhya system, viz. isolation from phenomenal life,
from desire and from action, freedom from transmigration and
karma, from pain and from suffering. Nirvana in Jainism is
conceived in precisely the same way.

The Sarikhya, Buddhist, and Jain systems had one point
in common with the Vedanta : the monks of all four systems
practised no worship. The three had also one point of order
in common which distinguished them from the Vedanta :
only men of the three twice-born classes could study the
Upanishads and the system of the Vedanta; while the
monastic orders of the other three systems were open to all
men. Buddhists and Jains had each an order of nuns also.
The Sarikhyas remained in Hinduism, while the other two
philosophies went out and finally became distinct religions.
The reason for this breach did not lie in their doctrines.
These could have easily been accommodated within Hinduism.
The reason is that they would not submit to being included
in the Brahmanic schools and brought under the authority of

1 See below, pp. 258-259.

THE SUMMIT OF INDIAN THOUGHT 241

Brahmans, while the Sfuikhyas agreed. Hence the Sarikhya
system is to this day acknowledged to be one of the ortho
dox philosophic systems of the country. Their denial of the
existence of God did not stand in the way at all. From this
point, then, Buddhism and Jainism drop out of Hinduism,
though they continue to influence the religion of the country
very seriously for more than fifteen hundred years.

VI. We know very little about what happened in the school
of the Vedanta during the five centuries preceding our era.
Doubtless an unending succession of twice-born students
learned the Upanishads from the lips of their gurus ; and at
some time during those centuries the first attempt to system
atize the doctrines of the Vedanta in a set of sutras occurred.
These are aphorisms of the briefest and most pregnant
description, requiring a commentary to make their meaning
clear. But of all this we have no record. The one thing that
stands out in full certainty is that towards the Christian era
the school rose to extraordinary influence among thinking
men ; for, as we shall see, its leading doctrines won their way
in whole or in part into all the leading sects.

But, though we cannot trace the history of the school during
those centuries, a little of its literature has survived. The best
part of it is the little group of verse Upanishads, the Kdthaka,
Isd, Svctasvatara, Mundaka and Malianarayana. The pithy
aphoristic character of these poems shows that they were
written to be committed to memory. In the main they teach
what was taught in the earliest Upanishads, but there are also
several new points to notice. There is first the appearance,
especially in the Kathaka^ of a number of Sankhya ideas
and phrases, which show that the two schools were drawing
nearer to one another. Along with these are a number of
references to Yoga methods ; but, as yoga exercises were
probably introduced among the monks at a very early period,
these need occasion no surprise. The most noteworthy fact,
however, is that a new theistic strain of thought makes its
appearance in these poems, especially in the first three. It is

Q

242 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

very slight in the Katliaka, more marked in the Isd, but very
prominent indeed in the Svetasvatara. Clearly there was
a group of men in the school of the Vedanta who believed
that Brahman was personal. In the Svetasvatara he is
identified with the ancient Vedic god Rudra. The grace of
God is here spoken of in connexion with Brahman, and the
bJiakti, or loving faith of the devotee of a personal god, is once
referred to.

After the Christian era we get a little more light on the
history of the Vedanta. By this time the six orthodox schools
of philosophy1 were all in existence, and each was taught
by means of a sutra-manual elucidated with a commentary.
From time to time a new set of Sutras, or an amended
edition of an old set, might force its way to the front and
become the recognized manual of a school. In other cases
a sutra-work might remain the standard work for centuries.
That is what happened in the school of the Vedanta. For
many centuries Badarayana's Vedanta-sutras have stood
supreme. At quite an early date it was recognized as inspired ;
and ever since has been a part of the canon of the Vedanta.
No one knows when it was written. Various dates from the
Christian era down to the fourth century have been suggested
for it. The tendency at present is towards an early date. It
is quite clear that it is founded on earlier manuals.

The theistic tendencies of the verse Upanishads culminate
in the Bhagavadgltd, a remarkable poem which occurs as an
episode in the Mahdbhdrata, and which is one of the funda
mental scriptures of the Vishnuite sect. Scholars are not all
agreed as to how the Gltd came to be what it is, but probably
all would acknowledge that, in its present form at least,
it is post-Christian. We deal with it at greater length in
Chapter IX. Here we merely want to realize its relationship
to the school of the Vedanta. The following is the Prasthdna-
traya or triple canon of the school :

1 These fall into three pairs, the Karma Mlmdihsd and the Vedanta^
the Sdhkhya and the Yoga, the Vaiseshika and the Nydya.

THE SUMMIT OF INDIAN THOUGHT 243

(a) The Upanishads.

(b) The Bhagavadglta.

(c) The Veddnta-sutras.

I low a sectarian work such as the Glta is ever came to occupy
this position is a most difficult question. It teaches that
Brahman is personal, that he is identical with Vishnu, and that
he became incarnate in Krishna. This is all very strange
in the school which sprang from the teaching of the Bri-
hadaranyaka and Chhandogya Upanishads and which ac
cepts Badarayana's Veddnta-sutras as an inspired expression
of its teaching. Badarayana's work does not acknowledge
the doctrine of incarnations and is in no sense sectarian.
Some scholars suppose there was a long-continued struggle
between the Vishnuite Church and the Vedanta school and
that the Gltd marks a stage of compromise in that war. To
the present writer it seems more likely that from the very
beginning there were Vedantists who tended to think of
Brahman as personal, that they leaned on the theistic expres
sions of the earliest Upanishads for support, that the theistic
elements of the verse Upanishads are evidence of their presence
in the school, and that the Gitd marks rather the moment
when the leaders of the Vishnuite sect, feeling the need of the
support of the Vedanta, joined forces with the theists within
the school. The discussion in Chapter IX will make this
theory much more comprehensible.1

VII. Were this a work on the philosophy of the Vedanta, it
would be necessary to discuss the work of Satikara at con
siderable length ; but, as our purpose is to understand Hindu
ism as a religion, we need only draw out the significant points
in his historical position. He is said to have been born in
South India in the year 788 A. D., and scholars believe he lived

1 The question is often asked whether the Glta or the Veddnta-sutras
is the earlier work. The truth probably is that each work is the result of
growth and progressive editing, and that they were thus parallel rather than
successive in origin. If this is so, we can believe that the Vedanta-sutras
refer to the Gita, as all early commentators say, and that the Glta
refers to the Vedanta-sutras in the phrase Brahina-sutra-padais, xiii, 4.

Q ^

244 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

until about 850 A. D. He was a sannyasl of the school of the
Vedanta; and his fame rests on his commentaries on the
Upanishads, the Bhagavadgita and the Vedanta-sutras, his
greatest work being his bhashya on the Veddnta-sutras.

He was a man of great learning and of high philosophic
ability. He worked out the Vedanta philosophy so as to
make it a more self-consistent system than it ever was before.
Necessarily, in the process certain points became elaborated
which give form and character to his interpretation. Of these
the most important are the emphatic declaration that Brahman
is impersonal, the equally express declaration that the world
is not only worthless as compared with Brahman but is in
very truth illusion, mdyd, and the positing of an illusory
personal god, the lower Brahman, Brahma, as the ruler of
the world of maya and the object of theistic worship.

For our purpose the points that are most significant are
those we discussed above * in seeking to understand what is
meant by the doctrine that Brahman is actionless.

A. Since Brahman is actionless, he is non-moral.2 We saw
how clearly this is recognized in the early literature. We
saw also that, according to the Vedanta, nothing but know
ledge can obtain emancipation, and nothing else is needed.
Morality is without significance in this matter. This point is
dealt with by Sankara at the beginning of his great com
mentary, and is most clearly set forth.

B. Since Brahman was conceived as actionless, the early
thinkers tended towards an impersonal theology. Sankara's
systematic thinking led him to the definite result that Brahman
is impersonal. Here theistic thinkers differed seriously from
him, as we shall see. But Sankara in the severe consistency
of his thought made the human spirit impersonal also. In the
full Vedantic account of man as given by him the soul is
encased in several physical sheaths, and in these physical

1 See above, pp. 228-232.

2 In Sankara he is ever pure, but he has no character, and no moral act
is attributed to him.

THE SUMMIT OF INDIAN THOUGHT 245

sheaths are all the personal and moral faculties. Thus Sarikara
frankly makes the divine-human spirit impersonal and unmoral.
This doctrine of sheaths is clearly derived, primarily, from the
well-known passage in the anandavalli of the Taittirlya Upani-
shad ; but it seems to have arisen under the influence of the
Sankhya doctrine set forth above,1 as the following diagram
suggests :

Sheathjot

Sheath of
Sheath of

VEDANTA

SANKHYA

mind, Dianas = manas

discernment, vijnana = buddhi
bliss, dnandii, aJuwikara = ahathkara.

C. Since Brahman is cut off from all communication with
man, he cannot be worshipped. The early sannyasls, in con
sequence, worshipped no one. But in Sankara we have some-

1 pp. 237-239.

246 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

thing very different. The early thinkers acknowledged the
existence of all the gods ; but they disdained to worship these
temporary, transmigrating beings. Sahkara, on the other
hand, worshipped them and taught their worship. He says
they do not eat the sacrifices, but he acknowledges that they
enjoy them, and he explains how a god can be present at a
number of different places at the same moment to receive and
enjoy the sacrifices. Further, he recognized the use of idols,
and is himself represented by idols and worshipped as a
divinity in many temples to-day.

D. Since Brahman is actionless, he cannot be conceived as the
Creator. This thought is very explicit in Sankara. Brahman
is the source of the world, but there is no action involved in
its production. All that Brahman does is mere sport, llld}
and thus involves no karma.

The full significance of the development of the Vedanta
philosophy will be considered when we have before us the
history of the sects which worship Vishnu and Siva.

1 See below, IX. 403-407.

CHAPTER VII

THE YKLLOW ROBE

I. IT is most necessary at the outset to distinguish between
the practice of austerity and asceticism. Austerity is the
endurance of pain in order to gain pleasure, power, or some
other material end. Asceticism, on the other hand, is the
endurance of pain or the giving-up of comforts in order to
gain moral or spiritual ends. Austerity is secular, materialistic ;
asceticism is moral and religious.1

Among most primitive peoples we find the practice of various
forms of abstinence and self-torture, which may be summed up
under the word austerities. At certain significant periods in
the life of both men and women these have to be undergone
as tests of endurance and forms of discipline. In the case of
drought or famine or any other serious trouble, attempts are
made by means of self-denial or self-inflicted pain to persuade
the gods to remove the calamity. All these practices rest on
the idea that pains bring gains, and that it is worth while
enduring a certain amount of suffering to obtain a greater
boon. Sometimes the belief takes the definite form that the
gods delight in seeing men under pain, or that by suffering
demons may be circumvented, or that ' pain is the root of
merit '.2

We find phenomena of the same general character, but
much more developed, among the Indo-Aryans, towards the
end of the period of the Rigveda, and onwards into the time

1 See art. Austerities in E. R. E.

2 Asvaghosha, Buddhacharita, vii.'iS.

346 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

thing- very different. The early thinkers acknowledged the
existence of all the gods ; but they disdained to worship these
temporary, transmigrating beings. Sankara, on the other
hand, worshipped them and taught their worship. He says
they do not eat the sacrifices, but he acknowledges that they
enjoy them, and he explains how a god can be present at a
number of different places at the same moment to receive and
enjoy the sacrifices. Further, he recognized the use of idols,
and is himself represented by idols and worshipped as a
divinity in many temples to-day.

D. Since Brahman is actionless, he cannot be conceived as the
Creator. This thought is very explicit in Sankara. Brahman
is the source of the world, but there is no action involved in
its production. All that Brahman does is mere sport, Ilia?
and thus involves no karma.

The full significance of the development of the Vedanta
philosophy will be considered when we have before us the
history of the sects which worship Vishnu and Siva.

1 Sec below, IX. 403-407.

CHAPTER VII

TIIK YKLLOW ROBE

I. IT is most necessary at the outset to distinguish between
the practice of austerity and asceticism. Austerity is the
endurance of pain in order to gain pleasure, power, or some
other material end. Asceticism, on the other hand, is the
endurance of pain or the giving-up of comforts in order to
gain moral or spiritual ends. Austerity is secular, materialistic ;
asceticism is moral and religious.1

Among most primitive peoples we find the practice of various
forms of abstinence and self-torture, which may be summed up
under the word austerities. At certain significant periods in
the life of both men and women these have to be undergone
as tests of endurance and forms of discipline. In the case of
drought or famine or any other serious trouble, attempts are
made by means of self-denial or self-inflicted pain to persuade
the gods to remove the calamity. All these practices rest on
the idea that pains bring gains, and that it is worth while
enduring a certain amount of suffering to obtain a greater
boon. Sometimes the belief takes the definite form that the
gods delight in seeing men under pain, or that by suffering
demons may be circumvented, or that ' pain is the root of
merit '.2

We find phenomena of the same general character, but
much more developed, among the Indo-Aryans, towards the
end of the period of the Rigveda, and onwards into the time

1 See art. Austerities in E. R. E.

2 Asvaghosha, Buddhacharita, vii.'iS.

248 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

of the Brahmanas. The word for austerities is tapas. It is
conceived as a mighty power. The Creator underwent tapas
before He created the world.1 Truth and Right are born of
tapas?- In the great hymn of Creation in the Rigveda the one
Reality is born from tapas? Manyu, the personification of
Wrath, is a mighty warrior through tapas.^ The 'fathers',
pitris, practised tapas, when they were on the earth ;5 so also
the seven Rishis.0 The purpose they had in view was the
winning of bliss.7 Through their tapas they became invincible ;
they won heaven.8 Through tapas the worlds can be conquered.0
The sacrificers speak of themselves as practising tapas,10 and
the austerity of the students of the Brahmanical schools is
alluded to in another hymn.11 There is no mention of men
living a life of austerity as such, unless scholars be right in
thinking that the Muni of the following verses is a man who
has won his extraordinary powers by tapas. As several
features of the practice of later days appear in the lines, it is
probable that the conjecture is right :

The Munis, girdled with the wind, wear dirty robes of saffron hue.
They, following the wind's swift course, go where the gods have gone
before.

The Muni, made associate in the holy work of every god,
Looking upon all varied forms, flies through the region of the air.12

Here we have the yellow robe, which through all the centuries
has been the commonest symbol of the austere life in India,
and also the miraculous power which enables the devotee to
fly through the air and to mingle with the gods.

The ends aimed at, then, by these practices at this time
were invincibility, warlike prowess, miraculous powers, heaven.

1 Satapatha B., XI. v. 8, I.

2 Rigveda, x. 190 ; Atharvaveda, xv. i, 3.

3 Rigveda, x. 129, 3.

4 Rigveda, x. 83, 2-3 ; Atharvaveda, iv. 32, 2-3.

5 Rigveda, x. 154, 254. ° Rigveda, x. 109, 4.
7 Atharvaveda, xix. 41. 8 Rigveda, x. 154, 2.

!) Brihadaranyaka U., vi. 2, 16. !'J Atharvaveda, iv. u, 6.

11 Atharvaveda, xi. 5. 12 Rigveda, x. 136, 2, 4.

THE YELLOW ROBE 249

Those who practised tapas did so with a view to personal
gain. It was not yet asceticism, but austerity.

II. The second stage is very similar to the first. Here, too,
the main aim seems to be materialistic, the endurance of bodily
torture, or abstinence from what is pleasant, in order to win
magic powers and such like. But ascetic motives now begin
to mingle with the old ideas so distinctly, that we are justified
in distinguishing this period from the preceding. We have
here reached a real asceticism.

The men who show these characteristics lived in the forest
and built themselves huts of wood or leaves in some pleasant
spot near a stream.1 The order seems to have come into
existence in the period of the Brahmanas, perhaps about
700 B. C. They were called vdnaprasthas, forest-dwellers.
We shall call them hermits. The name for a collection of
their huts is dsrania. This word means literally, ' a place for
self-mortification ', but in ordinary usage the idea of a residence
came to the front. It is therefore translated 'hermitage'.
They wore coats of bark or skin,2 dressed their hair in
matted braids,3 and lived largely on woodland fare. But
they kept stores of grain and were allowed a fire to cook
their food, if they wished it.

But they did no work of any kind. Their life had but one
interest: they gave their undivided time and attention to
religious exercises. They kept up the traditional worship of
the gods by prayer, hymn, and sacrifice with great care,4
although unable to perform the greater sacrifices. They
subjected themselves to rather severe discipline. Three points
must be noted.

They practised various methods of austerity, tapas ; enduring
extreme cold and heat, strange food, most painful postures,
and such like. They believed that by subjecting themselves

1 Rainayana, II. Ivi.

2 Gautama, iii. 34 ; Vasishtha, ix. I ; Bandhayana, iii. 3, 19 ; Apa-
stamba ii. 9, 22, I ; Ramayana, II. xxxvii.

3 Gautama, iii. 34 ; Vasts/itha, ix. I ; Rainayanu, II. lii.

4 Rdmayana, III. i.

25o THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

to torture they could acquire miraculous powers, for example,
the power of flying through the air, of rendering themselves
invisible, or of making the gods do whatever they liked.
Self-torture was also believed to purify the man's moral nature
and to bring him near the gods.

Amongst these men there also gradually grew up a series
of physical and intellectual exercises, meant to train the
body and the mind. They began in bodily postures and
breathing exercises which were intended to subdue the senses
and quiet the body, and passed on to intellectual exercises
intended to control the attention, to still the mind, and to lead
up to ecstatic trances. This discipline was regarded as a
bringing of both body and mind under the yoke, and was
finally called yoga, i. e. ' yoking '-1

The idea that life is sacred was very strong in hermitages,
so that it became the rule that a hermit must not kill any
animal.2 At first there seems to have been no rule restricting
the hermit to vegetarian diet. In several law-books he is
allowed to eat the flesh of animals if killed by other animals 3
or given him by a householder. The idea was that the man
who wanted to live the holy life must avoid taking life. This
law was called harmlessness, aliiihsa. Hence in the Raina-
yana one of the most beautiful features of the hermitage is the
countless thousands of birds and beasts that live there in
perfect peace,4

But, although these hermits gave up the life of the city and
the quest of gain, they did not cut themselves adrift from
society. As we have already seen, they continued the sacrifi
cial worship. The worship of ancestors5 was also retained,
and distinctions of caste were not lost sight of. The hermit
was allowed to have his wife with him in the forest, if he so
desired ; and children were frequently born in the hermitages.
When Rama was sent into banishment, Situ decided to go

1 Deussen, 384 fif. '2 Baudhayana, iii. 19; Rlanu, vi. 8.

3 Baudhayana, iii. 6; Gautama, iii. 31. 4 III. i.

5 Vasishtha, ix. 12 ; Rainayana, II. ciii.

THE YELLOW ROBE 251

with him ; and they became hermits, wearing coats of bark,
living in a forest-hut, and eating woodland Hire. Similarly,
when the five Pandavas went into exile, DraupadI accompanied
them, and shared their hermit-life in the Kamyaka forest. In
the case, however, of warrior-hermits such as they were the
rule against killing animals was not enforced. They hunted
the deer of the forest. Many hermits, on the other hand,
lived in celibacy, and even gave up the use of a hut. As time
went on, the rule tended to become stricter.1

It is not possible to form an exhaustive catalogue of the
practices of these austere ascetics. No man will ever be able
to tell the self-inflicted horrors which the forests and mountains
of India have witnessed. Fasting carried to the point of
extreme emaciation is one of the commonest methods. Silence
frequently continued for very long periods is another. Among
the more usual forms are the endurance of frightful heat or
excessive cold ; the use of unnatural food ; the tolerance of
unspeakable dirt ; the maintenance of a fixed position for
weeks, while unimaginable vermin creep over the body and
feed upon it ; and painful postures maintained for many
months or even years, until the limbs become useless.2

Men believed that by self-torture almost anything could be
accomplished. They thought that by torture they could get
whatever they longed for, whether wealth, strength, valour,
kingship, high position, children, or good fortune. The best
illustration of this is perhaps the case of Visvamitra, who,
though a Kshatriya by birth, is said to have attained Brahman-
hood after thousands of years of superhuman austerities. But
magical powers seem to have been more desired than anything
else. Men sought power over their enemies, over their friends,
over nature, over the three worlds, even over the gods. They
sought freedom from mortal wounds," power to fly through
the air, power to procure whatever they wanted. The curse

1 Baudhayana, iii. 3. 9-14; Kamayana^ III. vi.

2 Ramayana, I. Ixiii, Ixiv ; III. vi. 3 Ib. III. iii.

252 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

of a hermit was a thing of utmost dread, as may be seen in
the plot of the famous Indian drama, Sa&untata.1 His prayer
was equally powerful. The gods and demigods came down at
Bharadvaja's request, and prepared a heavenly banquet for
Rama, Slta, and their train.a The Vindhyas bowed their
wooded tops that Agastya might pass,3 and Jahnu drank up
the Ganges at one draught.4 Through their austerities many
hermits are believed to have lived for centuries or even
millenniums, and to have lived without food.5 Hermits might
even become gods through long-continued austerities. The
gods were often afraid that they would be dethroned by some
persistent hermit with his unbounded austerities ; 6 and the
way in which they usually sought to meet the danger was to
send down a heavenly nymph to draw the ascetic away from
his self-torture.7

A special form of teaching, called dranyaka, i. e. belonging
to the forest, seems to have been given to young men who
were about to enter upon the hermit life. The essential
element in this forest teaching was an attempt to spiritualize
the sacrifice by means of allegory. This instruction would
then form the basis of the hermit's meditation in the forest.

The formation of this hermit practice seems to antedate the
appearance of the doctrine of transmigration. In none of the
elements of the discipline is the influence of karma visible.
Even as early as the Chhandogya Upanishad* this life is
mentioned as a distinct religious vocation alongside the life of
the student and the life of the householder. In Gautama's
Dharmasutra? which dates from about 500 B. C., detailed
regulations are laid down for the hermit life; and we find
numerous descriptions of these anchorites and their hermitages
in the earliest parts of the Rdmdyana and of the Mahdbharata.

What was it that led to the formation of this peculiar

1 Cf. also Ramayana, I. xlviii. - Ib., II. xci. 3 Ib., III. xi.

4 Ib., I. xliv.

5 Mandakarni lived ten thousand years on air. Ramayana, III. xi.
The Sampraksalas lived on light. Ib., III. vi. c Ib., III. xi.

7 See below, p. 298. 8 II. xxiii. 2. 9 III. 26-35.

THE YELLOW ROBE 253

discipline? Probably in casting about for a mode of life less
luxurious and more holy than the ordinary life of cities in
North India then, it occurred to them that the simple life led
by the far-away ancestors of the race, while they lived in the
forest and had learnt neither to till the soil nor weave gar
ments, would be pleasing to the gods and likely to lead to
holiness. This would account for the forest life, the hut of
leaves, the tangled hair, the coat of bark or skin, and the
simple woodland fare. In the earliest surviving set of rules
for the life of the hermit it is laid down that he must not enter
a village, nor step on ploughed land.1 This regulation also
fits in well with the idea that this form of asceticism was
a reversion to primitive life, like the case of the Rechabites
in the Old Testament and other instances elsewhere. In one
of the Dharmasutras 2 the value of the hermit life is put down
to its being like the life of birds and beasts.

III. As we have seen above/' the new doctrine of trans
migration and karma broke in upon the old life and the old
thought with elemental force, transforming many things,
altering relationships and upsetting the balance of the old
theology. The more reflective men, stirred to the very depths
by their loathing for the repeated births and deaths and the
never-ending sorrow of ordinary existence, were eagerly
looking for a means of release.

A. Many suggestions were made ; but it was the doctrine
of Brahman and of man's identity with God that laid hold
of the best men with most force. Realizing the freedom,
the spirituality,, and the peace of Brahman in contrast with
the sorrow and bondage of the world, and believing the
startling doctrine of their own identity with Brahman, they
felt it impossible to live the ordinary life of men any longer.
Emancipated from the fruits of action by their new know
ledge, they could not again subject themselves to the enchain
ing life of action. They must live a life more worthy oi

1 Gautama, iii. 32-33. Cf. Manu, vi. 16.

2 Baudhciyana, III. iii. 21, 22. 5 See pp. 134, 138, 221.

254 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

Brahman. They no longer desired wealth, position, success,
children, pleasure. Human life and all earthly things were
not only empty and worthless but evil powers, clouding the
soul with ignorance, and entangling it more and more in the
net of birth and death. The whole world of phenomena was
inherently antagonistic to the spiritual life. They therefore
decided to divest themselves of every element of the common
life of man.1 They renounced the worship of the gods, the
worship of their ancestors, caste, home, the use of fire,2
marriage, family, money, property, amusements, work of every
kind, and ordinary food and dress, and lived a wandering life,
getting their food by begging. Their aim was to lay aside
everything that belonged to the sphere of karma, i. e. the
whole world. Thus the word saimydsa, which may be trans
lated 'renunciation', 'world-surrender', was used to designate
their practice as a whole. They were therefore called sann-
yasis, Renouncers. Since they wandered about and begged
their bread, they were called parivrajakas, Wanderers, bhikshus,
Beggars. All this is true of each of the great schools of the
time, of Buddhists and Jains as well as of Hindus. We shall
use the word ' Monk ' as the best word for covering all schools
and all disciplines.

Thus, when a man decided to adopt this life, he gave up his
work, turned away from the worship of the gods, abandoned
his property, parents, wife, children, home, and, with them, the
worship of his ancestors, shaved his head and laid aside his
sacred thread,3 his clothes and ornaments. He then put on
either a yellow robe, like the Munis of the Rigveda> or a mere
rag round his loins, or went stark naked. He carried a staff
(danda) and a beggar's bowl, and daily begged the food he
needed. He spent his time largely in silent meditation,

1 See above, pp. 224-225.

2 Hence the sannyasl is buried, not burnt.

3 At a later date it became customary to perform the funeral service
over the man who was becoming a sannyasl, to indicate that he was
altogether cut off from society. Mahdniruana 7"., viii. 239.

THE YELLOW ROBE 255

seeking solitude, avoiding villages, except when the hour for
begging his food came round. He slept in a cave or at the
root of a tree.

Many of the monks, in their anxiety to win release, adopted,
in addition to all their renunciations, the old forms of self-
mortification, tapas,1 in the belief that by these potent self-
inflicted tortures they would the sooner conquer the stubborn
sensual tendencies of the body and the dense ignorance of the
soul, which were the chief hindrances to true knowledge and
final release. It is most curious that these practices, which
were originally resorted to in order to secure material blessings,
should now be used to crush out the desire for these things.

The monk usually also adopted the bodily and mental
exercises which had been formed in the hermitages for the
progressive restraint of body and mind, and were called yoga,
which means ' yoking ', ' means of restraint '.2 The physical
side of yoga was in two parts. The yogi practised postures
and breathing exercises. He learned to sit absolutely motion
less in certain postures which were believed to be favourable
to peace of mind and to meditation, thus learning to restrain
and control his limbs and his senses. Breathing exercises
were believed to purify the man and to enable him to control
his inward organs. But both postures and breathing exercises
were merely the physical preliminaries and foundations of the
intellectual exercises. These began in simple meditation on
symbolic words or on religious ideas ; but they culminated in
an attempt to exclude the phenomenal world from the mind
altogether,'the idea being that in this way the human spirit
would come nearer the Divine. The concentration of the
whole intellectual faculty on a single point to the exclusion of
all phenomena, the merging of one's consciousness of plurality
in an ecstatic vision of unity, was conceived to be the best
way of approaching God. To think nothingness was believed
to be the path which led to the apprehension of the Absolute.

1 See above, pp. 248-249. - See above, p. 250.

256 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

At quite an early date the law of ahimsa,1 which had grown
up in the hermitages, was imposed on the monk, forbidding
him to kill an animal ; 2 or even to break a living twig from
a tree or to destroy seeds.3 All action would produce karma,
but the act of taking life would produce very bad karma
indeed.

As we saw above,4 the monk was at first subjected to no
moral rules. Morality being no mark of Brahman, it was not
demanded of the man who was identical with Brahman. But
as the monk begged his food from householders day by day,
and had frequent intercourse with other monks and the general
public, a simple code of conduct became necessary. Here too
the conception of Brahman gave the main principle, namely,
Indifference:* as Brahman lived in perfect peace, untroubled by
love, hatred, desire, envy, gratitude, ambition, or resentment,
the monk was taught to conquer and crush out all his passions.
He must neither love nor hate any one, must show neither
gratitude for favours nor resentment at cruelty. He must be
indifferent to all men, feeling neither attachment for the good
nor repulsion for the evil :

The learned look with indifference alike upon a wise and courteous
Brahman, a cow, an elephant, a god, or an Outcaste.6

This rule was quite in keeping with the monastic ideal of com
plete control over both body and mind. Unless a man's mind
was at peace with itself, with others, and with the outside
world, it was impossible to induce that motionlessness of the
body and that stillness of the soul which were sought so
eagerly. Hence the monk was bid to be gentle in speech and
behaviour to all, never resenting an injury nor answering
insult with hard words, but ever preserving a peaceful and
humble demeanour.7 The perfect detachment of Brahman
also necessitated complete chastity on the part of the monk.

1 See above, p. 250. 2 Baudhayana, ii. 10, 18, 2 ; Vasishtha, x. 3.

3 Gautama, iii. 20; 23. 4 See p. 230. 5 See p. 231.

6 Gi/a, v. 1 8 ; cf. v. 19 ; ix. 29.

7 Vasishtha, x. 29-30 ; Deussen, 72, 382.

THEjYELLOW ROBE 257

There thus grew up a code of behaviour, expressed in five
vows, which every novice had to take : (i) ahiihsa, (2) truthful
ness, (3) no stealing, (4) chastity, (/}) liberality.1 Gradually
the value of character for the development of the monk made
itself more distinctly felt ; and so, here and there, in the verse
Upanishads and later literature, moral conditions for the
attainment of Brahman appear :

Who has not ceased from wickedness,
Who is not tranquil and concentrated,
Whose heart is not at peace,
Cannot attain him even by knowledge.2

B. As time went on, the number of schools that sought to
win emancipation became exceedingly numerous. The variety
of philosophic conception of God, man, and the world taught
at the beginning of the fifth century B. C. in northern India
from Taxila to Rajagriha is perfectly wonderful. In an old
Buddhist book sixty-two cistinct heresies are briefly character
ized.3 They differed in their monastic rules to some extent
also. Most of these schools soon passed out of existence, and
so need not detain us ; but a number of those that existed then
have had a very great history, and their beginnings are full of
instruction for us.

Each was a sort of spiritual brotherhood ; for the monks of
each school were closely bound together in a religious order.
Its disciplinary rules were never divulged ;4 and its meetings
were held in secret. Some schools had orders of nuns as well
as of monks.

The school of Mahavlra, which is to-day Jainism,5 holds a
most interesting position among the orders of the sixth century
before Christ. The school has no doctrine of God at all, and
must therefore be classed as atheistic. Indeed, their main
ideas are animistic : not only men, animals, and plants, but also
the smallest particles of earth, fire, water, and wind are held

1 Baudhayana, ii. 10, 18, 2. 2 Kathaka £/., ii. 24.

3 See Rhys Davids, American Lectures, 31 ff.

4 S. B. E., xxxv. 264-266. 5 See above, p. 236.

R

26o THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

the Christian era, the life of the monk was added as a fourth
asrama. At the end of his days the Brahman was to give up
even the hermit life and become a wandering mendicant.1

We have already seen how the widow came under ascetic
discipline.2

D. There are certain large controlling ideas which were
common to all the ancient ascetic schools, whether Hindu,
Buddhist, or Jain. The fundamental convictions which underlie
the whole movement, namely, that the true life of the soul is
actionless, and that the ordinary life of man exercises a very
evil influence upon religion and spirituality, have been already
noticed. But besides these foundations, so to speak, part
of the superstructure in each case was common to all the
schools.

1. One of the curiosities of the thought of the period is
this, that, although the Sankhyas, as well as the Buddhists
and the Jains, absolutely denied the existence of the Supreme,
they continued, along with the Vedantists and all other
thinkers, to acknowledge the existence of the personal gods
and all the heavenly host of Hinduism. It is most curious to
find these divine and semi-divine beings reappearing in Bud
dhist and Jain teaching, and bringing with them large pieces
of the old mythology.

2. But, although the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain monks
took all the gods, demi-gods, angels, and other orders of the
Hindu pantheon for real beings, they gave them a very humble
place; and they held the whole sacrificial system by which
they were worshipped in profound contempt.0 In consequence,
they also regarded the whole of the ritualistic literature of the
Brahmans as absolutely worthless. No proof need be given
of this with regard to Buddhists and Jains ; for they rejected
the Brahmanical literature absolutely. But the same con
tempt is found clearly expressed in the sayings of those who
held the Atman philosophy :

1 E. R. E., art. Asrama. 2 Above, pp. 100-101.

3 Deussen, 61-62.

THE YELLOW ROBE 261

So then, after that the Brahman has rejected learning {pdnditvam
nirvidya], he abides in childhood.1

Very soon, however, the Brahmans effected a reconciliation
with the philosophers by the introduction of their system into
the Vedic schools ; so that in some of the later Upanishads
sacrifices are recognized as of real value. For example, in the
Maitrayanlya we are told that the fire-laying for the ancestors
is a sacrifice to Brahman ; a and later works are still more
definite. Finally, the Upanishads took their place as part of
that very Brahmanical literature which the early thinkers had
completely rejected.

3. The ascetic thought of India, Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain,
held the human body in serious contempt and even loathing,
as the following quotations show :

In this evil-smelling, substantial body, shuffled together out of bones,
skin, sinews, marrow, flesh, seed, blood, mucus, tears, eye-gum, dung,
urine, gall, and phlegm, how can we enjoy pleasure ? 3

This monstrous wound hath outlets nine ;
A damp, wet skin doth clothe it o'er ;
At every point this unclean thing
Exudeth nasty, stinking smells.4

4. All schools also agree that the senses and the intellectual
faculties must be severely restrained. In one of the earliest
Upanishads the monk is urged to ' bring all his organs to rest
in the Atmari',5 and the demand is constantly repeated later.
All schools of thought refer the intellectual, emotional, and
active life, not to the soul, but to certain subtle physical
organs, called itianas^ mind, aJiaihkara, egoism, buddhiy under
standing, by the Sankhyas.6 Monks were urged to reduce these
organs to passivity. Here is a stanza from the Katliaka
Upanishad :

firihaddranyaka £/., 3. 5. I ; Deussen, 58.
Deussen, 64.

Quoted in Deussen, 284, from Maitrdyana U., i. 3.
Warren, 423. 5 Chhandogya U., viii. 15.

See p. 239.

262 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

When the five tools of knowledge
Stand, with the Manas, absolutely still,
And the understanding makes no move,
Then that is called the highest state.1

The following is from a Buddhist sutta :

Perceiving this, O priests, the learned and noble disciple conceives
an aversion for contact, conceives an aversion for sensation, conceives
an aversion for perception, conceives an aversion for the predispositions,
conceives an aversion for consciousness. And in conceiving this aver
sion he becomes divested of passion ; and by the absence of passion he
becomes free ; and when he is free he becomes aware that he is free ;
and he knows that rebirth is exhausted, that he has lived the holy life,
that he has done what it behoved him to do, and that he is no more for
this world.2

This whole process was believed by all schools to culminate
in the highest form of meditation and contemplation called
sauiadJii, wherein

subject and object, the soul and God, are so completely blended into
one that the consciousness of the separate subject altogether disappears,
and there succeeds that \vhich is described as nirati/iakatvain, i.e.
selflessness.3

5. There is one point in the practice of sannyasls of all
schools which shows very clearly how completely they had
broken with the Brahmanical system. When a man decided
to become a monk, he repudiated his father and mother, his
wife and his children, and declared they had no further claim
upon him. He simply left them, adopted the houseless life,
and allowed them to get their living as they might. There
were many heartrending scenes in consequence. The case
of the Buddha is well known. Another famous case is that
of Raja Gopi Chandra. The pathetic but fruitless appeal
made to him before his departure by his beautiful young
queen has found a place in Bengali literature.4 The idea was
that the monk, through his abandonment of ordinary society,

1 Kathaka £/., vi. 10 ; cf. iii. 13 ; Svetasvatara U., ii. 9.

2 Warren, 152. 3 Deussen, 392.

1 Dinesh Ch. Sen, Bengali Language and Literature, 58 ff.

THE YELLOW ROBE 363

was cut away completely from it, had risen to a higher sphere,
and could not in any sense be held responsible for those still
living in the system which he had repudiated. To this day
the old ideas remain unchanged : if a man wishes to become
a sannyasi, he may simply leave his wife without making
any provision for her. The wife may go to her husband
and beg him to return ; but she has no claim upon him,
and he feels no obligation, nay, rather perhaps resents her
interference.1

6. It has often been asserted that early Buddhist and
Hindu monks were vegetarians. This seems to be a mistake.
In those early days people did not condemn the eating of
flesh: it was the killing of the animal that was wrong. The
Buddha transgressed no Buddhist law when he ate the
pork which gave him dysentery and killed him. The idea
at the basis of ahirhsa is that all life is sacred, and that
no holy man can take life. Hence the monk, whether Hindu,
Buddhist, or Jain, was forbidden to kill any animal, or to
take the life of a twig by breaking it from the stem, or
even to crush a living seed. The reaping of a field of wheat
or rice would have been quite as heinous a sin as killing
a deer or an ox. This is one of the reasons why it was
a rule for monks of all orders to beg their food : they could
never do any of the cruel work of killing plants or animals,
but received their food already cooked from the hands of
householders. The taking of life was not so serious for the
householder, as he did not profess to be a saint. The same
explanation is required with regard to the hot water which
was the only drink of the Jain monk. Cold water has so
many lives in it that he must not drink it on any account ;
but if a householder kills all the animalculae by boiling the
water, he may then use it.

The rule of ahirhsa was binding only on the hermit and the
monk ; but it was recognized in Buddhism that the layman

1 Oman mentions a case, ^8.

264 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

could win merit by doing all in his power to save animal life.
Hence Asoka, the Buddhist emperor of the third century B. c.,
used his imperial position for this purpose, issuing several
edicts to restrict the slaughter of animals in various ways.1 As
animal sacrifice was still one of the most prominent features of
Hinduism, these laws must have been unpopular in Brahman
circles. It is noteworthy that it is only animal life that Asoka
legislates for. From this time forward we hear far less of the
law against destroying vegetable life.

It was only when the original reverence for all life, vegetable
as well as animal, began to fall into the background and the
idea of the merit of saving animal life became prominent that
the conception arose that the monk ought to restrict himself
to a vegetarian diet. How this idea passed from the monk to
the layman we shall see in a later chapter.2

IV. When we turn to our own times we find that the hermits
have disappeared, and also all the ancient orders of monks
except the Jains. Modern Jains are divided into three sects :
Digambaras, Svetambaras, and Sthanakavasls. Each sect
has its own order of monks, and the two latter have nuns
also.

Saiikara, at once great Vedantist and great champion of
Hinduism against the Buddhists, reorganized the ascetic orders
in his day. Among the changes introduced by him was the
adoption of the use of monasteries from Buddhism. The
modern word is uiatJia. The leading monasteries which he
founded became centres of sacred learning which were of
inestimable service in the long-continued struggle with the
rival faith. Four of these monasteries are still in existence,
the head of each bearing during his term of office the master's
name, Sahkaracharya.

Ramanuja, the great Vishnuite leader of the twelfth century,
is said to have founded a very large number of monasteries ;
and their use has passed into all the modern bhakti 3 sects.

1 Vincent Smith's Asoka, 56-57. " See pp. 381-382.

3 See pp. 380, 386.

THE YELLOW ROBE 265

Each religious leader — Madhva, Ramananda, Kablr, Gorakh-
nath, Nanak, Dadu, Vallabha, Chaitanya — not only gathered
the laity round him but formed his own order of ascetics.

Of all these orders two are much nearer the ancient
sannyasl in practice than the others, viz. those that have held
by Sankara's rules, and those that follow Ramanuja. In the
life of these strict sannyasls there arc four stages. Each is
called a Kutlchara sannyasl to begin with. In the later stages
of their progress they arc called successively Bahftdaka,
Hamsa, Paramahamsa^

Sankara's immediate followers were called dandls, because
they carried the danda,2 or rod, which the original sannyasl
usually carried. Since they were divided into ten groups,
each ruled by one of Sankara's disciples, they were called
dasndmts, ten-name sannyasls. Four only of these ten groups
retain their original purity, the names being TlrtJia, Asrania,
Sarasvatl, and Bharatl. These still refuse to receive as
members any others than Hindus of the three twice-born
castes ; and, as Kshatriyas and Vaisyas are so few, they are
practically restricted to Brahmans. These men are usually
called Ekadandls, i.e. single-rod men, to distinguish them
from the followers of Ramanuja. They carry a rod with
a little red pocket attached, like a flag, to its upper part.
The sacred thread which the man discarded when he became
a sannyasl is contained in the pocket.

Ramanuja's followers are called Tridandis, three-rod men,
because instead of the single danda they carry three rods
fastened together. Another difference between them and the
Ekadandls is that they retain their caste and the sacred
thread.3 The triple rod also has a little red flag, but it con
tains the cloth for straining water, which the man carries as
a sannyasl. Only Brahmans are admitted to this order.

Like all other modern ascetics these strict sannyasls worship
some god or gods belonging to the Hindu pantheon. That is

1 Deussen, 379. 2 See p. 254.

3 Ramanuja, 70, 72, 113.

266 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

a point in which they arc like the hermit and unlike the
ancient sannyasT. All modern ascetics are sectarian. Eka-
dandls are Sivaite, while Tridandls are Vishnuite. Both these
orders contain a considerable number of learned men.

The remaining six groups of Dasnamis are open to Hindus
of all castes, and in many other points they have departed
from the ancient discipline. In fact, they are on the same
level as the other modern ascetic orders. We shall call all
these ordinary ascetics sddhns to distinguish them from strict
sannyasls of the Ekadandl and Tridandl orders.

The practice of the sadhu is a hybrid, a combination of the
life of the ancient hermit and the ancient sannyasl. In
general, the discipline is of the latter type, but the rules have
been relaxed in several particulars. Many of the orders
admit men of any caste.1 Discipline is rather lax in most
cases. All the orders are sectarian, practise sectarian wor
ship, and read sectarian literature. Sadhus believe that
the pilgrimage is a valuable religious exercise. They
spend their time in long leisurely journeys to the great
places of pilgrimage, visiting all the fairs and festivals on
the way, and halting now and then at a monastery or, it
may be, all alone at some pleasant spot. The sadhu has
a few more belongings than the ancient monk had. The
rosary was first used in the worship of Siva, but it is now
found in the service of all the gods, the sects varying in the
material and in the number of the beads. The old staff and
bowl are almost universal. The pipe has been added, and
hemp and other drugs are often smoked. The yellow robe is
still common, but nakedness, a scanty loin-cloth, or an outfit
of rags are almost as frequently encountered.

The sadhu usually wears a sect-mark on his forehead and
frequently carries some sect-symbol. If he recognizes Siva,
he will carry a trident or wear a miniature lingaz; and in his
hut will be found a human skull, a tiger skin, or a damaru

1 MaMnirvana T., viii. 224. 2 See below, p. 310.

THE YELLOW ROBE 267

drum. He will probably have his whole body smeared with
white ashes. This is in imitation of Siva, the Destroyer,
who is fond of the burning-ghat, and is believed to smear
himself in this way.1 When he settles in a place, he will set
up a lingo, for worship. If he recognizes Vishnu, he may
possess a discus, a sdlagrama stone, a conch shell 2 or a titlsl
plant. Wherever he settles, he will set up an image of Rama,
or Krishna, or whatever form of Vishnu he adores.

The old rule that a monk may not adorn himself is relaxed
in many orders, and the result is often very picturesque. The
hair is dressed in some most unusual fashion or is allowed to
grow wild and matted. The body is marked, or the dress is
arranged, so as to recall the god whom the sadhu worships.
Showy badges are worn indicating the places of pilgrimage he
has visited.

A number of new forms of tapas are found among sadhus.
One frequently sees the bed of spikes, meant to represent
Bhishma's arrowy bed described in the MaJidbJidrata, Shoes
filled with spikes are not uncommon. Now and then an
ascetic will hang head downwards from a tree above a smoky
fire, or wear an enormous weight of chains, or use mechanical
means to keep down his passions, or measure his length along
the road for hundreds of miles. Most of the old forms of
austerity are also in use. Yoga practice is still common,
but the mental exercises are usually sectarian.

Asceticism has greatly deteriorated in modern times. There
is no serious thought-movement in it ; a large proportion
of sadhus are ignorant men ; many are grossly immoral ;
some of the orders are coarse and indecent ; and Hindus
acknowledge that there are but few sincere and earnest men
amongst them. Yet here and there one meets a man of
character and learning.3

There are certain other phenomena connected with asceti
cism which are well worth our notice.

1 Pope, 159. 2 Sec pp. 314, 362, 392.

3 For modern sadhus see Oman.

268 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

V. It was universally believed in ancient India that, if
a hermit lived a life of purity and austerity, or if a monk
achieved release and lived the life of world-abandonment
faithfully, his body would gradually become spiritualized, so
that it would be very different in appearance from the bodies
of ordinary men. Not only would all signs of passion dis
appear from the features and frame; the anatomy and the
material elements of the body would actually change until,
refined and etherealized, it became a fit expression of the
exalted spirit within. The muscular system would become
less prominent ; the trunk would become smooth and delicately
shaped ; the man would glow with beauty and supernatural
light ; and the physical nature of the frame would be so trans
formed as to be no longer subject to gravitation and other
ordinary restrictions.

The earliest references to these results of asceticism occur
in the original Rdnidyana of Valmlki. We read of a hermitage
where

Dwelt many an old and reverent sire

Bright as the sun or Lord of Fire,

All with each earthly sense subdued

A pure and saintly multitude.1

Of Sarabhanga we are told that his

lustre vied
With gods, by penance purified;2

Agastya is said to be

Through fierce devotion bright as flame ; 3
and Bharadvaja is described as

Calm saint, whose vows had well been wrought,
Whose fervent rites keen sight had bought.4

We do not meet with the idea in the earliest Upanishads, but
in the Svetasvatara

THE YELLOW ROBE 269

Activity, health, freedom from desire,
A fair countenance, beauty of voice,
A pleasant odour,1

are stated to be among the first results of yoga. The Yoga-
sutra^ docs not mention beauty and spiritualization as a result
of yoga, but makes much of cthercalization.

Buddhism followed Hinduism in this matter. Of a monk
who has attained wisdom it is said in the Pali books, ' Placid,
brother, are all your organs of sense ; clear and bright is the
colour of your skin.'3 Gautama is said to have radiated
a golden sheen,4 and his body is spoken of as being like the
trunk of a lion,5 that is, smooth, lithe, slender-waistcd. In the
later Questions of King Milinda we are told of Buddha that
'he was golden in colour with a skin like gold, and there
spread around him a glorious halo of a fathom's length'.6

Of Mahavlra, the Jina, it is said, that he was ' refulgent like
the sun, pure like excellent gold ', that ' like a well-kindled
fire he shone in his splendour'.7 He was very beautiful.8
His body emitted an exquisite perfume.

When, at a later date, Buddhists began to use images, this
belief produced some of their noblest qualities. The images
of the Buddha owe their suggestion of deep spirituality partly
to the meditative pose of the body and the calm of the features,
but largely also to a peculiar treatment of the trunk whereby
everything speaking of activity, effort, and sense pleasure is
excluded, and ' an extreme simplicity of form and contour '
gives a powerful impression of religious exaltation and balanced
peace. The Buddhist sculptor actually succeeded in creating
a style which gives expression in stone to a lofty spirituality.
The same type of religious art is found also in Jainism and
Hinduism. Indeed, all the best image-sculpture of India owes
its power to this mighty mode of artistic speech. Thus the

1 ii. 13. Deussen, 395. Cf. Maitrayana U., i. 2.

- Book III. 3 Warren, 88. * Warren, 71, 73.

r' Griinwedel, Buddhist Art in India, 161.

6 .S. />'. E., xxxv. 1 16. 7 S. L'. £., xxii. 261.

8 S.H.E., xx.ii. 256, 258.

270 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

loftiest Indian conception of divinity, whether among Hindus,
Jains, or Buddhists, is an idealization of the wandering ascetic.
This aspect of Indian art is most convincingly expounded by
Mr. K. B. Havell in his Indian Sculpture and Painting ; and
the dignity and beauty of the finest examples of Indian plastic
art are brought out with surpassing strength in the plates in
the same volume.

The shining radiance of the ascetic's body referred to above
reappears in the halo which in Buddhist sculpture so often
encircles the head or even the whole body of the Buddha.
This, too, was copied on occasion by Jain and Hindu artists.
The golden hue of Buddha's body has found further expression
in the custom of gilding Buddhist images prevalent in all
Buddhist lands.1

VI. We have seen that the Muni in the Rigveda flies through
the air and that the hermit of a later date acquires magic
powers and wins all his desires, even to the dethronement of
the gods, by means of his austerities. It is a most curious
fact that these miraculous results of the endurance of pain
were finally attributed to the houseless monks, who were
believed to have emptied themselves of all desires, and who
despised heaven and all the gods. In all the schools these
powers are regarded as a natural outcome of sainthood,2
although they are often closely associated with the practice
of yoga, especially with its more advanced forms.

In the earliest Upanishads they do not occur, but, when
we reach the Svctasvatara? we read

He knows nothing further of sickness, old age, or suffering,
Who gains a body out of the fire of yoga ;

the Maitrayana 4 has a similar passage ; and, later, the
Amritabindu* declares that the yogi after three months
attains to knowledge, after four to the vision of the gods,

1 J^R.A.S., 1911, p. 715.

2 Apastamba, ii. 9, 23, 7-8.

" ii. 12. Deussen, 395. Cf. vi. 13. 4 vi. 28.

h 28 ff. Deussen, 395.

THE YELLOW ROBE 271

after five to their strength, and after six to their absolute
nature.

In the Yogasutra of Patanjali, which dates from the middle
of the second century B. C., these powers are described, classi
fied, and explained as arising from yoga exercises.

What Gautama, the Buddha, may have believed on this
subject we do not know ; but in the books of the Pali canon
he and his followers are credited with the most extraordinary
powers. Perhaps the following paragraph will give most
succinctly the early Buddhist belief:

If a Bhikkhu should desire, Brethren, to exercise one by one each of
the different Iddhis, being one to become multiform, being' multiform to
become one; to become visible, or to become invisible; to go without
being stopped to the further side of a wall, or a fence, or a mountain, as
if through air ; to penetrate up and down through solid ground, as if
through water ; to walk on the water without dividing it, as if on solid
ground ; to travel cross-legged through the sky, like the birds on wing ;
to touch and feel with the hand even the sun and the moon, mighty and
powerful though they be ; and to reach in the body even up to the
heaven of Brahma ; let him then fulfil all righteousness, let him be
devoted to that quietude of heart which springs from within, let him not
drive back the ecstacy of contemplation, let him look through things,
let him be much alone ! *

All this is continued in Buddhist Mahaydna literature and
exaggerated beyond all bounds.

A cursory glance through the life of Mahavlra in the Kalpa
Sutra of the Jains will show that they attributed the same
powers to their Jinas, Kevalins, and holy men of other degrees.
Of Mahavlra it is said, ' like the firmament he wanted no
support ; like the wind he knew no obstacles.' -

These beliefs were accepted by Sankara :! and Rfimanuja,4
and can be traced in all the bhakti 5 sects of the last thousand

1 Akankheya Sutta, 14 ; S. B. £., xi. 214 ff.

2 S. B. £., xxii. 260.

3 S. B. E., xxxiv. 200, where we are told a yogi may assume many forms.

4 S.B.E., xlviii. 331. Cf. Kdmdnuja, 182, where the philosopher is
said to have become a thousand-headed serpent, and to have argued
with the Jains with each head. B See below, p. 386.

273 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

years. Many of the old marvels are repeated, and new
stories, often grotesque in form, appear. Madhvacharya, for
example, was able at any time to eat a meal fit for an ox.1
Chaitanya is credited with the same power.2

In the last few centuries hypnotism, mesmerism, jugglery,
spiritualism, and quackery in general have been used by yogis
to win the reputation of supernatural power. The production
of a state of coma or trance was carefully practised, until
adepts could actually allow themselves to be buried for a
lengthened period and come out from their entombment alive.
Until recently, yogis now and then pretended to possess the
power of levitation and such-like. We need scarcely say that
they were more indebted to fraud than to miracle. Madame
Blavatsky's escapade settled the general question for all
thinking men.

This belief, that the saint possesses supernatural power,
is the source of one of the most notable elements of the
Buddhist cult, namely, relic-worship. The power is a sort of
holy contagion which inheres in the saint's body and in every
thing he has used.

The same reasoning lies behind a practice which is found in
all the Hindu sects. When a disciple meets his religious
teacher, guru? he prostrates himself before him, and takes
some of the dust from his guru's feet and places it on his head.
In many of the sects it is considered a high spiritual privilege
to be allowed to drink the water in which the guru has washed
his feet. Holiness is held to be physically communicable.

VII. When the monastic movement first appeared in India,
it was the greatest intellectual and religious force of the time.
It laid hold of all the noblest minds and ruled them ; and for
many centuries thereafter the highest spiritual life of the
country found for itself in its discipline a sufficient, a satisfying
expression. Nor need we wonder. Surely no one can study
this great old history without being struck with the splendid

1 Madhva, 36, 97, 124, 176, 177.

- S. K. Ghose, Lord Ganranga> vol. ii. s See below, p. 402.

THE YELLOW ROBE 273

height and dignity of the aims of the movement and the
seriousness of the men who took part in it. Only high ideals
most earnestly pursued could have produced the lofty litera
ture of monasticism, the Upanishads and the Buddhist Suttas.
But if the principles were high and noble, they were applied
with a fearlessness, a devotion, a courage, and a constancy to
which there are very few parallels. As long as the world lasts,
men will look back with wonder upon the ascetics of India.
Their quiet surrender of every earthly privilege and pleasure,
and their strong endurance of many forms of suffering will be
an inspiration to all generations of thinking Indians. For
nearly three thousand years the ascetics of India have stood
forth, a speaking testimony to the supremacy of the spiritual.
Whether men were willing to learn the truth or not, no one
could shut his eyes to the object-lesson held up before India.
The very fact of the existence of the order of sannyasls set
material splendour and worldly pleasures in their proper place
of complete subordination to the spiritual. Further, the life
of the sannyasl has dignified poverty in India. Amidst its
rising prosperity may India never lose the conviction, which
has been worked into the common mind of the country, that
a poor man is worthy of as much honour as a rich man.

Yet the whole monastic movement of modern India is
already in full decay. Sadhus stand nearer the popular faith
than the ancient orders did, but they cannot be said to wield
great influence. Comparatively few men of culture and
intellectual power enter the orders ; and, while here and there
men of real spirituality and beautiful character are found among
them, and now and then a man of education and distinction
becomes a sannyasl, Hindus are forward to confess that most
of the ascetics of .to-day are of little worth. The man who
is too lazy to work finds the holy life a paradise. The yellow
robe is only too often used to hide the criminal. There is no
living thought-movement among them. Most of them are
ignorant men. Many use the Gltd, the Hindi work, Vichdra-
sagara, or some other philosophical manual ; but more are

374 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

content with the mantra 1 and the symbols of their order. As
the deeper ideas of the movement have gradually been lost
sight of, the spirit of pagan polytheism has re-asserted itself;
and the ascetic life is more and more conceived as a sort of
meritorious discipline which makes the man religiously holy,
but has no connexion with morality. The following is from
Pandit S. N. Sastri's recent work, TJie Mission of the Brahnw
Samaj : 2

Even the ordinary householder looks upon the sannyasi or mendicant
as an ideal of perfection. The conviction is so ingrained in the Hindu
mind, that let a man but wear the mendicant's garb and profess
contempt for the world, he is at once installed as a spiritual guide and
worshipped as such. And the beauty of the thing lies here, that this
guruism will continue undisturbed in spite of many secret and open
irregularities in such a guide's life. I have seen with my own eyes
a man in a mendicant's dress drinking wine in a public street, singing
indecent songs and taking indecent liberties with a woman, yet all the
time worshipped and helped with pecuniary contributions by a number
of common people as their guru or spiritual preceptor.

The sadhu is outside the modern movement altogether, a
boulder left in our fertile valley by a moving glacier which has
long ago spent itself. He is altogether out of touch and
sympathy with the large questions and mighty activities which
are agitating India to-day: Education, Social Reform, Religious
Reform, Politics, Economic Progress. He knows nothing of
them, or is opposed to them, like the temple Brahmans all
over the land. He is quite unfit to lay his hand on any of the
interests of our time. The men who really lead India to-day
are in law, medicine, education, government service, journalism,
business. The ideas which interest these men, the ideas which
are creating the new India, are not the fundamental ideas of
Hindu asceticism, and thus the sadhu knows nothing about
them.

Here is a quotation from a Hindu paper which will show
how the educated Hindu regards the modern sadhu :

1 See below, pp. 392, 449. 2 pp. 58 and 59.

THE YELLOW ROBE 275

In this utilitarian age, the general tendency is to utilize everybody
and everything. It is a noble ideal, the pursuit of which certainly
deserves appreciation and encouragement. In India the Sadhus or
professional ascetics, who live upon mendicancy, form a pretty numerous
band, and though a few of them may be men of genuine piety and
spirituality, it goes without saying that the majority of them are little
better than beggars and vagabonds. Well, it has occurred to
Mr. Tahl Ram Gangaram that instead of allowing thousands of able-
bodied men to grow up and die in mendicancy, an effort should be
made to give them some kind of education so as to make them useful
members of society. Being unmarried and utterly free from all cares
and anxieties, they may, for instance, be usefully employed as itinerant
preachers of religion and morality or as medical missionaries whose
services will be available whenever and wherever there may be a serious
outbreak of epidemics.1

The following sentences are from a brief report of a speech
delivered by Mrs. Besant in Benares, and shows the attitude
of the Theosophical Society to modern ascetics :

They did not want thousands of idle beggars in the garb of Sann-
yasls, but a large number of Brahmacharls who would sacrifice five or six
years of their life and wander from village to village educating every
child, sacrificing themselves for people instead of going to jungles or
caves, seeking liberation for themselves.2

Compare also what Prof. Har Dyal says in the passage quoted
above in the Introduction/' These quotations are quite
sufficient to show that Hindu asceticism is dying, and that the
modern sadhu is altogether out of touch with the modern
movement.

These sentences also enable us to see what is wrong with
asceticism and what is wanted in its place : the sadhu is
inactive ', while self-sacrificing service is what India needs
to-day. The difficulty could not be more explicitly stated
than in these brief quotations.

It is of the utmost importance to notice that the sadhu in
being inactive is absolutely true to the movement which has

1 The Bengalee, Oct. 13, 1904.

2 Cut from The Statesman. 3 p. 36 f.

S 2

276 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

created him. Here is what the great German scholar, Deussen,
who calls himself a Vedantist, says on the point:

Eternal philosophical truth has seldom found more decisive and
striking expression than in the doctrine of the emancipating knowledge
of the Atman. And yet this knowledge may be compared to that icy-
cold breath which checks every development and benumbs all life. He
who knows himself as the Atman is, it is true, for ever beyond the reach
of all desire, and therefore beyond the possibility of immoral conduct,
but at the same time he is deprived of every incitement to action or
initiation of any kind ; he is lifted out of the whole circle of illusory
individual existence, his body is no longer his, his works no longer his,
everything which he may henceforth do or leave undone belongs to the
sphere of the great illusion which he has penetrated, and is therefore
of no account. . . . When the knowledge of the Atman has been
gained, every action, and therefore every moral action also, has been
deprived of meaning.1

Thus the reason why the educated Hindu criticizes the ascetic
is that his own mind is filled with new ideas, while the
ascetic is still true to the principles of Hinduism. The spirit
of the West has come in and revolutionized the mind and the
environment of the educated man. In consequence, the more
faithful the ascetic is to the ancient ideal, the more hopeless
and useless he appears to the modern man.

Thus the ancient asceticism is doomed. Nothing can save
it. The modern spirit demands something else, and the
educated Hindu is the man through whom the new spirit is
being disseminated in India.

VIII. But the acknowledgement of this fact leaves us face
to face with a gigantic problem. Hinduism has produced for
quite two thousand five hundred years an unending procession
of men and women ready to devote themselves, body and soul,
to the highest ; but, when they are produced, they are com
paratively useless ; for the mighty religion which inspires them
to enter the ascetic life sets before them as their ideal the life
of the actionless Brahman. But what India needs to-day is
a great army of self-sacrificing men, ready to toil for the

'p. 361-

THE YELLOW ROBE 277

uplifting of the poor and the downtrodden,1 and for the advance
ment of education, agriculture, industry, art, morality, religion.
What is needed is the man inspired to living service, not
the yogi rapt in oblivious meditation. The Hon. Mr. Gokhale
remarked in one of his speeches : 2

Full-time workers renouncing everything for the sake of the country
are what are urgently needed in India.

Thus the problem is, How are Hindus to be inspired to
unselfish service? Clearly, it cannot be by any form of
Hindu philosophy ; for that leads to inaction. Nor can
there be any doubt that such inspiration can come only
from religion. Where can we find a motive sufficient for the
purpose?

Whatever Hindus may think of Christianity, every one
acknowledges that it stirs men and women to unselfish service.
It can and does produce men and women who toil for others.
That Christ has been a ministering angel to India, no honest
son of India will deny. Who will ever be able to measure
the amount of service done to India by Christians along
the following lines? — education for boys, primary, secondary,
university, and industrial ; education for girls in school, college,
and zenana ; orphanages, widows' homes, education for the
blind ; medical relief by means of doctors (both men and
women), nurses, dispensaries, hospitals ; leper asylums ; rescue
homes for fallen women; famine relief; and, last of all, the
uplifting of the depressed classes.

Most thoughtful Hindus are ready to acknowledge the very
great service missions have done to India. Here is a general
testimony from a Hindu paper, called out by the fact that
$30,000 had been sent from America ' in the name of Christ ' to
the starving people of India:

The Christian religion is truly fruitful in practical philanthropy to an
extent unparalleled in the case of any other religion. Whatever may

1 Compare the passage quoted from Pandit Siva Nath Sastrl, above,
pp. 142-143.

2 Briefly reported in J.S, A'., Dec. 26, 1909.

278 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

be its theoretical faults and philosophical incompleteness (we can afford
to let that pass), here it stands head and shoulders over every other
religion. By its side, the most ancient religions and grandest philo
sophical systems of the world sink into insignificance, as a motive for
philanthropic action.1

We give next a very emphatic statement which occurs in
a letter by Mr. K. Srmtvasa Rao, Sub-Judge, Tuticorin, to
TIic Indian Social Reformer : 2

The feeling of prejudice against Christian Missions and Missionaries
is an old feeling based on the apprehension that they are engaged in
the work of proselytism, pure and simple. As a matter of fact, how
ever, in the first place, they are engaged in the work largely of educating
the country. The educational institutions bear witness to it. Secondly,
they are engaged in relieving the sick, and, for instance, the hospital of
Jammalmadugu is resorted by all classes for treatment of some of the
most difficult cases of diseases of women and diseases of the eye.
Brahman ladies of position have been availing themselves of this splendid
institution. Thirdly, they are engaged in raising the status of the
depressed classes and educating their boys and girls, in a manner that
must fill us all with gratitude, that but for them these poor children and
these despised classes will both continue to be in the same degraded
condition in which they have been born for ages.

Our next quotation is from a Parsee paper 3 and deals
with missionary education :

The aid of Missionary enterprise may be enlisted with enduring
benefit to teachers and scholars in India. Christian Missionaries as
school-masters have done lasting and material good to the cause
of moral education in Indian schools and colleges. Order, method, and
discipline are nowhere observed and enforced at school with greater
sternness as they are done here. The personal influence of these
missionary teachers is in itself a great asset. Drawn from a class
of men of high character and moral worth who have taken to teaching
as a labour of love and a life-long profession, they have left a permanent
mark on the educational work in India. Their educational activity has
furnished Indian towns and cities with some very ably conducted
schools and colleges. The selfless nature of their work and the high

1 Quoted by T. E. Slater in Missions and Sociology, p. 55.
~ March 13, 1910, p. 328.

3 From the Rast Goftar, a Bombay paper. Quoted in the Bombay
Guardian, April 30, 1910.

THE YELLOW ROBE 279

moral tone of individual workers among them have invariably impressed
students who have received education under them with that esteem and
reverence which we would wish to see established in youngsters towards
their betters in age and wisdom. The relation between the teacher and
his pupil in their schools has always been one of perfect cordiality, and
when the student enters life the memory of the gratitude he owed to his
school in his young days never forsakes him. The missionary in India
acts as a connecting link between its rising generation and his own race
in the same sense that he ties together Christian and non-Christian
races in this country by his philanthropic social work.

The following, a brief leader from the Calcutta Hindu daily,
The Bengalee?- deals chiefly with mission work for the
depressed classes :

There are missionaries and missionaries. The type of the Christian
missionary, who delights in reviling the religions of Hindus and
Mohammedans, is familiar to every one of us and it is a type which does
little credit to Christianity. But there is another, if rarer, type. Go to
Sonthal Parganas and the Central Provinces and you will find Christian
missionaries literally sacrificing their lives for the amelioration of the
condition of the aboriginal population in whose midst they work and
live. Go to Southern India and you will see what missionary effort has
achieved in the way of the regeneration of the despised Pariahs. These
missionaries do not dwell in palaces nor enjoy the income of a petty
principality. Luxury's contagion, weak and vile, has not enervated
them nor has physical discomfort and privation damped their ardour in
the furtherance of their self-imposed task. They left their native
country as young men. They have grown grey in their noble ministry.
Some of them have not revisited their native land even once in twenty
or thirty years, and not a few of them are destined to lay their bones
under the sod in some remote, obscure and out-of-the-way hamlet
in India, which has been the centre of their life's work. They are not
necessarily Englishmen. Germans and Frenchmen, Belgians, and even
the Swiss from his mountain home are found among these toilers in the
Indian vineyard. Talk to them and you would be surprised at the
utter absence of that arrogance and racial pride which are seldom
inseparable from even the mildest of the European laymen. It is they
who exalt their nations and their religion. They give to their work
their very life ; they collect funds from their countrymen to enable
them to carry on their work ; they appeal to and work among the

1 March 17, 1903.

2o'o THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

millions whom Hindu Society has cast out of its pale and looks down
upon with contempt. They are teaching the pariah to consider himself,
not an outcaste, but a member of the great human family. They are
teaching him to reclaim jungles and establish prosperous settlements.
They are giving him food when he is in want and medicine when he
is attacked with disease. The world knows them not, cares not for
them and would not miss them were they to withdraw in a body from
India. But to the pariah in his hovel, to the Ko in the forest glades,
the difference would be immeasurable — the loss would be irreparable.
Nor must it be forgotten that in the days when the schoolmaster had
not been abroad, the Christian missionary was the pioneer of education
in this country.

The last extract we shall quote speaks of the value of the
work of missionaries in the matter of social reform, and
as a humanizing and elevating influence :

We hold that most of the good influence at work in India is to be
traced, not to the fantastic and obscure teaching of theosophists, but to
the devoted efforts of the noble band of foreign missionaries who have
ever been foremost in every effort for the good of the country. Whether
as philanthropists, as social regenerators, industrial benefactors, or
workers on behalf of the depressed classes the Christian Missionaries
have been pioneers in every good cause and it is doubtful if the country
would have progressed in the marvellous manner it has done if no
Christian Missionary had ever set his foot in India. \Ve do not here
refer to the spiritual side of the missionary's labour although even here
his influence has been exerted to the dispelling of ignorance and grovel
ling superstitions among the lower orders. We would rather dwell on
the humanizing and beneficent work of the missionary for the social,
mental and moral upliftment of India. Judged by any standard the
influence of the missionary has always been exerted on behalf of all
that is good and noble and of good report. Modern India owes a debt
of gratitude which it will be difficult to acknowledge adequately.1

There can, therefore, be no doubt that Jesus Christ has
raised up a great company of men and women in India, both
Indian and foreign, who have shown the spirit of self-renuncia
tion in priceless practical service to this country.

1 From United India. Quoted in the Madras Christian College
Magazine, Feb. 1910.

THE YELLOW ROBE 281

Hindus now and then go so far as frankly to recognize the
contrast between Christianity and Hinduism in this regard :

One of the foremost causes of success of the missionary is his
burning zeal for his religion. He believes in his message. He has
left his parents, his friends, and his native land to spread his Gospel.
He has crossed the seas to attack us. He belongs to a cold country,
but he chooses to live under the scorching Indian sun, in order to save
us from going to a hotter place after death. Young men belonging to
the richest families, have sacrificed their all in order to fight our
civilization. I know persons of the most brilliant parts at Oxford —
first-class scholars who have won any number of prizes and degrees —
who throw up their whole career and come out as missionaries.

Our young men can have no idea of the sacrifice these people
undergo ; they accept exile for the sake of their religion ; they work
day and night, like coolies, in a country thousands of miles from their
home. Many of them are quite young. They have not tasted any of the
sweet things of life. They are determined, earnest men, who are devoid
of avarice, who know no rest in pursuit of their aim, who never lose
heart amid difficulties, and who realize that life is given to man to be
spent for some great and good cause. Such tremendous enthusiasm
can overcome many obstacles. Endowed with such enormous moral
capital, a movement can go a long way, even against heavy odds. . . .
Give me such workers and I will Hinduise the world in a decade.1

It is from this point of view that we shall best understand
Vivekanarida's scheme of what he calls ' Practical Vedanta '.
He expects Vedantists to be stimulated by their faith to
practical service for India. Prof. Deussen's words quoted
above 2 show that one might as well attempt to warm the
house with ice. The Roman Empire offers an interesting
parallel to Vivekananda's exhortations : Julian the Apostate
'urged benevolence on his fellow-pagans, if they wished to
compete with the Christians '.;i

IX. It will therefore be well worth while to inquire how it is
that Christ succeeds so much better than any other leader in
turning his followers into servants of humanity. Can we see
what the Christian process is ?

A. If a man wishes to become a Christian, complete self-

1 From The Vedic ^Magazine. - p. 276. J Glover, 162.

282 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

surrender to Christ is the primal law of discipleship laid
down for him. This is stated quite clearly by Jesus Himself:

If any man wishes to come after me, let him renounce himself and
take up his cross and follow me.1

Paul understood the law perfectly, and gave it classic
expression :

And Christ died for all, that they which live might no longer live
unto themselves, but unto him who for their sakes died and rose
again.2

What is called for in these words is an act of will in which
the man surrenders himself completely, gives up the citadel
of his being to Christ, so that henceforward he may obey
Christ in all things.

This is the significance of the fact that everywhere through
out the New Testament Jesus is called the Christian's Lord.
The word is no otiose or ornamental epithet, but vividly
expresses the fact that the Christian is a man wholly sur
rendered to Christ, that he is bound to obey his Master in all
things. Christ Himself says,

And why call ye me, ' Lord, Lord,' and do not the things which
I say ? 3

This yielding up of the whole inner nature to Christ is a
spiritual act, an inner change, a change from self to God, from
sin to righteousness. Such an act is impossible so long as
Christ is regarded as an ordinary man. It is possible only
when one realizes the absolute supremacy of Jesus, when one
realizes that He has the right to demand complete allegiance,
that He is the Lord of the soul and of righteousness. When
one realizes that, and surrenders to Him, then a mighty
spiritual change passes over the soul.

This change also contains within itself, implicitly, the
surrender of all things. Christ demands the perfect yielding
of the self, including the heart and the will. If I have actually

1 Matt. 16, 24. " II Cor. 5, 15. ;! Luke 6, 46.

THE YELLOW ROBE 283

given myself up in completeness to Christ, there is nothing
else that I can wish to hold back. The self is the citadel of
the man, and things are of value only as they are related to
the self. Hence the surrender of the self contains within
itself the surrender of all things. If there is anything I am
unwilling to give up for Christ's sake, clearly I have not given
myself up to Him. Hence Jesus declares that we cannot be
His disciples, unless we let go everything else :

So then whosoever he be of you that does not give up in his heart
nil that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.1

This act of letting everything go appears in different forms in
His teaching :

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hid in the field, which when
a man found he hid and from the joy thereof goeth and selleth all that
he hath and buyeth that field.2

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a merchant
seeking goodly pearls ; and having found one pearl of great price, he
went and sold all that he had, and bought it.3

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,
and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.1

If any man cometh unto me and hateth not his father and his mother
and his wife and his children and his brothers and his sisters, yea and
his own life also, he cannot be my disciple."'

Whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it, but whoever will lose his
life for my sake shall find it.G

But, mark, while Jesus demands that we shall make an
inner surrender of everything, He does not demand that we
shall actually abandon everything. What He wants is to have
the heart so closely bound to Himself that all earthly ties
shall become loose. He wishes us to remain in the world, but
to hold its goods, its pleasures, and its relationships, our very
lives, so lightly that at any moment we may be ready to give
them up for the sake of the Kingdom. Self-surrender puts
the whole world in subjection to Jesus. Only in complete

1 Luke 14, 33. 2 Matt. 13, 44. * Matt. 13, 45-46.

4 Matt. 10, 37. 5 Luke 14, 26. 6 Matt. 16, 25.

284 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

obedience to Him can I enjoy the purest and simplest
pleasures of the world ; and if He desires me to give up any
or all of them, I must yield at once.

Jesus knows that it is quite possible for a man to give up
property or any other thing, if he thinks he shall thereby be
the gainer religiously, and yet to love the world all the time.
It is far easier to give up all worldly things than to give up
the heart wholly to Jesus. Therefore He demands the deeper,
the far more difficult, renunciation, the surrender of the heart.
The heart surrendered to Jesus is necessarily severed from the
world. Here, as elsewhere, Jesus holds the spiritual position,
and takes external actions and external things at their true
value.

Christ's way actually enables a man to conquer the stubborn
hold which earthly things have upon him. Attachment to
Christ brings detachment from the world. Love for Jesus
necessarily leads to a transference of interest from earthly to
spiritual things, a changed estimate of the value of property,
place, and pleasure, a splendid slackening of the hold which
the world has on the affections ; and the full surrender of the
will cuts these things adrift. Complete surrender to Christ
brings complete emancipation from the world.

Nature and all its gifts to man are thus put in their true
place. They are good, but not the best. We ought to use
them and enjoy them, but in completest subordination to
spiritual ends. Since the Son of God took to Himself
a human body, we cannot despise, or condemn, or destroy
our physical nature; but, since He yielded His body to be
crucified for the sake of higher things, we, too, must be ready
to lay aside all earthly things for the sake of the Kingdom.

B. The principle which Jesus gives His disciple for his
intercourse with men in the world is love :
Thou shall love thy neighbour as thyself.1
Love your enemies.2

1 Matt. 22, 39. 2 Matt. 5, 44.

THE YELLOW ROBE 285

This law is no mere pretty saying, no mere call to sentiment,
but the Christian law of conduct. It rests on the solid
foundation of the truths, that God is our common Father,
that all men are therefore full brothers, and that, in con
sequence, love is the only rational rule possible for their
mutual intercourse. Christ points out that love to God and
love to man sum up our whole human duty :

On these two commandments hangeth the whole law, and the
prophets.1

They are thus not mere exhortations to good feeling, but
supreme principles of conduct. From them every other duty
can be deduced. Paul saw this clearly :

Love worketh no ill to his neighbour : love therefore is the fulfilment
of the law.2

Christians have learned how to use love as the supreme
moral principle from the example of Christ. His every action
was ruled by love. The man who takes Christ as his Lord
has abundance of guidance in this matter. This law works
by way of restraint. As Paul says, ' Love works no ill to his
neighbour.' The man who loves will be kept from anger,
revenge, selfishness, adultery, theft, lying, abuse, slander,
cruelty, injustice, envy. Each of these is the negation of love.
But love is also the mightiest stimulus in all the world. It
has inspired the most heroic and the most unselfish actions.
It is the secret of the possibility of forgiveness, that most
difficult act. But the active side of love brings us to the next
law of the Christian life. It is but one application of the
supreme law of love ; but it is so important that we must set
it down by itself.

C. The most important clause in the all-inclusive law of
love is, Serve every man according to Ids needs. How strongly
Christ felt on this point is evident from two great passages in
the Gospels. In the first we have, to begin with, the state-

1 Matt. 22, 40. 2 Romans 13, 10.

2<S6 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

ment of the supreme principles, ' Love God with the utmost
intensity,' and 'Love thy neighbour as thyself; and then in
answer to a question as to the meaning of the latter law,
Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan, which we have
already quoted.1 The other passage is, if possible, charged
with deeper feeling:

But when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the angels
with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his glory : and before him
shall be gathered all the nations : and he shall separate them one from
another, as the shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats ; and he
shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then
shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my
Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the
world : for I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat : I was thirsty, and
ye gave me drink : I was a stranger, and ye took me in ; naked, and
ye clothed me : I was sick, and ye visited me : I was in prison, and
ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord,
when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee ? or athirst, and gave thee
drink ? And when saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in ? or naked,
and clothed thee ? And when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came
unto thee ? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say
unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brethren, even
these least, ye did it unto me. Then shall he say also unto them on the
left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire which is
prepared for the devil and his angels : for I was an hungred, and ye
gave me no meat : I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink : I was
a stranger, and ye took me not in ; naked, and ye clothed me not ; sick,
and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer,
saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or
naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee ? Then
shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye
did it not unto one of these least, ye did it not unto me.2
Here Christ tells us that our final relationship to Him will
be determined by the question whether we have served our
brothers and sisters or not. Six forms of help only are men
tioned ; feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty,
clothing the naked, visiting the sick, giving hospitality to
strangers, visiting those in prison ; but no one can mistake

1 Above, pp. 194-195. 2 Matt. 25, 31-45-

THE YELLOW ROBE 287

what Christ means to teach : the principle clearly is ' Serve
your fellow men according to their needs '. Thus every one
who has surrendered to Christ is bound to serve those round
him, ministering to all their needs as far as lies in his power.

These passages show with the utmost clearness how
practical Christ's understanding of the law of love is. To
Him the humblest human being is a child of His heavenly
Father ; and therefore no service that any man can do can
be too great. What is the limit of the honour, the kindness,
the help due to my own brother, when we are both children
of the Lord of all things ?

The example of Christ has been of priceless value in the
matter of service. His words, ' The Son of Man came not to
be served but to be a servant/ : are but a simple statement
of fact. He went about doing good. Every miracle was an
act of service. He cured fever,2 atrophy/' paralysis,4 lunacy,5
epilepsy," leprosy;7 He made the blind see,8 the deaf hear,
the dumb speak,9 the lame walk;10 He raised the dead;11 He
fed the hungry crowds ; 12 He made water wine at the
marriage feast ; 13 and He stilled the tempest ; 14 in each case
serving some man, woman, or child in need. But, apart from
miracle altogether, Jesus constantly found opportunity to
serve those round about Him. He waited on His own dis
ciples ; 15 on one occasion at least He washed their feet ; 1C He
took the little children in His arms and blessed them, at the
request of their mothers ; 1T He thrilled the leper with His
touch, because no kindly hand had been laid on his unclean
shoulder for years ; 1S He sat at the tables of rich and poor
alike, to give them the help of His presence and of His words,
in order that social intercourse might become a hallowed
thing.

Matt. 20, 28. 2 Mark 1, 29-31. * Mark 3, 1-5.

Matt. 8, 5-13. 5 Mark 5, 1-20. c Matt. 17, 14-20.

Mark 1, 40-42. 8 Luke 18, 35-43. 9 Matt. 0, 32-33.

Matt. 11, 5. " Matt. 9, 23-26. 12 Mark 6, 35-44.

John 2,i-io. » Matt. 8, 23-27. r> Luke 22, 26 -27.

John 13, 1-12. 17 Mark 10, 13-16. " Mark 1, 41.

288 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

No less significant are those bold acts of public service by
which He protested in the most effective way possible against
certain moral and religious abuses which marked orthodox
Jewish life in His day, and thereby became the pioneer and
the example of moral and religious reform to the nations.
He exposed the social exclusiveness of the Pharisees by
dining with ' publicans and sinners ', i. e. the social Outcastes
of the day ; l He ate food without washing His hands cere
monially in advance, to teach the Jews that spiritual purity is
not a matter of a clean skin ; 2 He did not keep the stated
fasts, that men might learn that the mere abstinence from
food is in itself of no religious value;3 He persisted in healing
on the Jewish Sabbath, in order to rouse men to observe the
day in the spirit and not in the mere letter ; 4 He drove the
buyers and sellers out of the Temple, publicly showing that
one man at least would not tolerate the use of God's house
for money-making.5

D. The last point to be noticed is one that is involved in
the first law. We saw that to every disciple Jesus says,

If any man wishes to come after me, let him renounce himself and
take up his cross and follow me,0

and we recognized that it was a summons to full self-surrender
to Christ as the Lord of the human spirit. We have now to
notice another element contained in it, namely the implica
tion that a. man cannot follow Christ without carrying a cross.
Christ went out through the streets of Jerusalem carrying
His cross on His shoulders ; and He here warns every would-
be follower that to follow Him is to be a cross-bearer. The
meaning is plain : the faithful follower of Christ will have to
endure suffering as a result of his faithfulness as Christ did.
The same warning is given over and over again with the
utmost explicitness by Jesus in His teaching :
In the world ye have tribulation.7

1 Matt. 9, 9-13. 2 Matt. 15, 1-20.

3 Mark 2, 18-22. 4 Mark 2, 23-28 ; John 9.

5 Mark 11, 15-18. ° Matt. 16, 24. 7 John 16, 33.

THE YELLOW ROBE 289

Behold I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves.1
But take heed to yourselves : they shall hand you over to councils;
and in synagogues you shall be scourged ; and before governors and
kings you shall stand for my sake ; . . . and brother shall betray
brother to death, and father child ; and children shall rise against
parents and have them put to death ; and ye shall be hated by all men
for my name's sake.2

Suffering comes in two ways. There is first the simple
truth that every act of service involves self-sacrifice. It is
done for others, not for self. At the very least it costs a little
time, money, or effort that might have been expended on
oneself. Even the work of establishing and conducting a little
school for poor children will cost much effort and the patient
expenditure of hours of time. When the service one attempts
to do is something new, such as Howard's crusade for the
betterment of European prisons, it will demand the sacrifice
of almost everything, time, money, comfort, and home-life,
and will bring scorn and misrepresentation; and probably
severe suffering besides.

Whoever wishes to serve his fellow men in non-Christian
lands must make great sacrifices. He may have to give away
his property, like Robert Haldane, in order to provide funds
for the work. He may have to give up the society of his loved
ones, and live with coarse savages, with no friend, no congenial
society, like James Gilmour in Mongolia. He may have to
live in some lonely spot in New Guinea all alone, or, if married,
must risk the health and life of wife and little ones. The
scholar gives up all chance of a life of study and preferment
to live a teacher's life in China or Japan. Or, if he is a
business man, and God calls him to preach, he must lay aside
his business and its success. Or he takes his life in his hand
and lives with lepers on their island. All this comes, even if
no one oppose.

But, besides that, the faithful servant of humanity must
expect opposition and persecution. Vidyasagara's memory is

1 Luke 10, 3. 2 Mark 13, 9, 12-13.

290 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

now honoured for his noble struggle on behalf of Hindu
widows, but during his lifetime the reward he received was
persecution and social ostracism. So, wherever the faithful
Christian goes with the message of Christ, he must be ready
for opposition and unpleasantness. It may be only the cold
shoulder, the scornful answer, the biting phrase ; or it may be
petty persecution at home ; or forcible separation from one's
own flesh and blood ; or opposition in society ; or disturbances
and assaults in the streets and squares of the city ; or coarse
slander; or sudden violence; or secret murder; or imprison
ment, condemnation, and death.

This is all very strange at first sight. People are inclined
to say, ' These Christians must be very fanatical, or at least
very unwise in their methods, else they would not suffer so
much.' The reasoning seems good until we think of Christ
Himself. He was 'meek and lowly in heart';1 He 'went
about doing good ' ; 2 He was the greatest teacher the world
ever saw; yet He was crucified. What can the faithful
Christian expect ? 3

The experience of the first generation of Christians in all
lands has fully agreed with Christ's warnings. The mere
public confession of Christ by word and deed in a non-Christian
country usually entails suffering. It was so during the life
time of Jesus Himself:

For the Jews had already agreed among themselves that, if any one
should confess him to be Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue.11

Here is what Paul says in this connexion with reference to
himself and the other apostles :

For I think God has made a display of us apostles last of all as men
condemned to death ; for we are become a spectacle to the world and to
angels, and to men. ... To this present hour we suffer hunger and
thirst and nakedness and blows and homelessness, and we toil, working
with our hands. . . . We are made as it were the scum of the world,
the offscouring of all things, even to this moment."

1 Matt. 11, 29. 2 Acts 10, 38. 3 Matt. 10, 24-25.

4 John 9, 22. * I Cor. 4, 9, 11-12, 13.

THE YELLOW ROBE 291

Again he speaks of himself as preaching the Kingdom,

... in afflictions, in necessities, in straits, in scourgings, in imprison
ments, in houselessness, in toils, in watchings, in fastings.1

The persecutions of the Roman Empire are the next chapter
in the long story. For three centuries there was no continuous
peace. Men, women, and children suffered equally. At any
moment the Christian was liable to prison, torture, fire, sword,
the cross, the lions. And everything turned on this single
principle, the duty of frank confession of Christ and fearless
loyalty to Him in all circumstances. If the Christians had
been willing to palter, and to yield here and there to pagan
practice, there would have been no martyrs.

The same has been true of every land where the faith has
laid hold. Christianity made great headway in Japan in the
sixteenth century ; but in the seventeenth the Government rose
in opposition and stamped it out in such a carnival of cruelty
as has seldom been seen in the world.

We read of Christians being executed in a barbarous manner in
sight of each other, of their being hurled from the tops of precipices, of
their being buried alive, of their being torn asunder by oxen, of their
being tied up in rice-bags, which were heaped up together, and of the
pile thus formed being set on fire. Others were tortured before death
by the insertion of sharp spikes under the nails of their hands and feet,
while some poor wretches by a refinement of horrid cruelty were shut
up in cages and there left to starve with food before their eyes.2

Again, in the South Seas, where, after incredible sufferings on
the part of the missionaries of the London Mission, the people
of several islands were won for Christ, thousands of these
Polynesians, once savages, now Christians, have from time to
time gone out to other islands to preach the Gospel, and many
of them have suffered death at the hands of the ignorant
barbarians whom they sought to help. In the four months of
the Boxer rising in China (only thirteen years ago), many
missionaries were killed, and thousands of Chinese Christians

1 2 Cor. 6, 5-6.

2 Ouoted from Asiatic Society's Transactions in Murray 's Japan, 249.

T 2,

292 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

joyfully met scourging, burning, anguish, and death for the
love of Jesus. In England, in the autumn of 1899, the writer
stood on the same platform with a young man who thereafter
left home with a high heart, looking forward to a life of great
usefulness in New Guinea. Within eighteen months he was
killed and eaten, along with the heroic Chalmers, by one of
the wilder tribes of the country.

In India such things do not happen ; yet what terrible
agony many a high-caste convert has had to go through in
order to be faithful to his Lord ! Driven from his home,
forcibly separated from father, mother, wife, child, brother and
sister, deprived of his property, and persecuted socially in
every possible way, he has had to endure a fiery ordeal indeed.

But now let us realize the most startling fact with regard
to cross-bearing: suffering, patiently endured according to the
command of Jesus, produces extraordinary spiritual results.
Who can measure the influence which has been exercised by
Christ's death? Millions of men and women have thereby
been turned from sin to God. So in the Roman Empire, when
Christians were thrown to the lions or burnt in the fire, the
usual result was a great accession of new converts ; so that
the saying of Tertullian, ' The blood of Christians is the seed
of the Church,' became proverbial. The same is true of
modern times. During the persecution in Madagascar, which
lasted twenty-six years, thousands of Christians were sold as
slaves, hunted like wild beasts, imprisoned, tortured, flung over
precipices, burnt to death ; and yet, at the end of the persecu
tion, the Christians were far more numerous than they were at
the beginning.1 More Chinese became Christians in the eight
years that followed the Boxer persecution than in the eighty
that preceded it. In every case the sufferings of Christians
have been greatly fruitful for the Kingdom. A Bengali
student, who was mad against Christianity, flung a stone one
day at a missionary who was preaching in the street, and

1 Home, Story of the L.AI. S., 356-357.

THE YELLOW ROBE 293

wounded him in the forehead. The man held his handkerchief
up to the wound to stanch the blood, and, without an angry
word, went on with his address. His behaviour so struck
home upon his assailant that he became a Christian, and is
to-day a preacher of Christ.

Such, then, is Christ's method of training men to be servants
of humanity. Such is the secret of His unparalleled success in
turning ordinary men into self-sacrificing servants.

It will be recollected that the Sanskrit word for the
monastic life is sannyasa, world-surrender. The essential
characteristic of the Indian monk is his complete surrender of
the world, all the comforts and interests of life, everything
that could please or attract the human heart. He was then
trained to complete indifference^ to feel neither love nor hatred,
neither gratitude nor resentment, neither ambition nor disgust :
the ideal was, not that he should train, but that he should
check, every active emotion. Thirdly, he was bid cultivate
actionlessness. He was taught to restrain his senses, his
intellect, and all his impulses to action, and to give up all the
work of the world. He could take no part in government,
agriculture, industry, art, literature, education, except in so far
as he trained disciples in the Vcdanta. Lastly, he was bid
practice self-torture, subject himself to severe discomfort and
long-continued pain, in order that he might subdue the stubborn
strainings of our common human nature towards the joys and
pleasures and amenities of life, and that he might win for
himself ' the overlordship of nature and the eightfold divine
faculty '.

Now Christ's method of training His men bears a very
startling relationship to this stern discipline.

Instead of world-surrender Christ demands self -surrender.
On the surface they seem to be opposed to each other ; but
self- surrender contains within itself world-surrender, as we have
seen.1 Christ's demand is infinitely the deeper of the two ;

1 See pp. 282-283 above.

294 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

for it is inner, spiritual, real ; and while it brings all that
detachment from the world which is necessary for the moral
and spiritual discipline of the soul, it leaves the man in the
world to do his work there. Hindu world-surrender thus finds
its spiritual consummation in self-surrender to Christ.

Instead of indifference Christ's law is love. Are these not
diametrically opposed ? Let us see. Christian love leads to
the giving up of anger, hatred, envy, greed, ambition, revenge,
and lust, and the cultivation of meekness, gentleness, compas
sion, and mercy ; is not that precisely what is meant by
indifference ? But Christ goes a long step farther ; for these
are all passive virtues, which could be safely cultivated by the
monk, because they would not rouse him to action. The
monk was told to suppress love, while Christ does all He can
to stir up love ; and love cannot but express itself in action.
Thus the love which Christ commands is the next step after
the restrained character of the meek and compassionate monk ;
but that single step makes all the difference.

Instead of the inaction which comes from indifference,
Christ commands the service which springs from love. But
the two are by no means so hopelessly opposed as one might
suppose from a quick glance at the words, or from contrasting
the sannyasi in the depths of meditation with the busy
missionary. Christ does not command action in general, but
service. How much restraint and inaction are implied in that
large word as well as active work ! Further, the Indian monk
has never been able to be truly inactive : the Gitd tells us
frankly that complete inaction is impossible ; 1 and all the
best men have unconsciously found their way past the rule of
inaction into acts of service. The followers of Gautama had
many pleasant memories of their master, but none sweeter
than his loving attendance on the sick. All the greatest
sannyasls were teachers, writers, and preachers. Their own
hearts and the needs of men were too strong for the rule under

in. 5.

THE YELLOW ROBE 295

which they lived. Thus the inaction of the monk finds its true
climax in the service which Christ commands.

Lastly, instead of self-torture Christ leads us to self -sacrifice.
There is as much suffering in Christianity as in Hindu asceti
cism, only it is not self-inflicted ; and it is not endured for
one's own advantage, but in loyalty to Christ and for the sake
of others. The old monks were on the verge of a great
discovery : they saw how noble it is to bear pain, and they
had a hazy idea of something redemptive in it, but they just
missed the divine truth. They expected to win miraculous
results for themselves by their endurance of self-torture. The
truth which they were seeking to reach appears in Christ.
Suffering patiently borne does produce marvellous results, but
not of the type they thought of. Its fruits are souls won from
sin to God, men lifted out of selfishness into the spiritual life.

The convert from Hinduism to Christianity is the true
modern sannyasT. For the sake of the spiritual religion which
he recognizes to be the truth he renounces the whole BrFih-
manical system, precisely as the ancient monk did, giving up
home, property, father, mother, sister, brother, and often wife
and child as well ! The act of world-surrender is appallingly
real. It springs from self-surrender to Christ. An educated
young Brahman on the verge of baptism was offered Rs. 50,000
by his relatives, if he would remain a Hindu ; but he chose
the eternal riches. If the convert is a man of high caste, the
funeral ceremony is performed over him in accordance with
ancient law/ precisely as was the rule for the ancient sannyasi.-
He usually passes through bitter persecution ; and, like the
ancient monk, he is required by his religion to bear every
insult and injury with patient meekness. The writer knows
a Brahman convert who one day, some time after his baptism,
was going through the bazaar of his native town. His father
met him and spat in his face. The Christian son walked on
without a word. Thus the correspondence is most remarkable ;

1 Gautama, xx. 1-6. 2 See above, p. 254, note 3.

296 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

indeed, the chief difference between the ancient monk and the
convert is this, that the latter is bound by his religion to
become a servant of India. Is not that precisely the kind of
sannyasi India needs ?

Christ Jesus makes His followers servants of humanity, and
in so doing He completes and consummates the ideal of the
Hindu monk.

CHAPTER VIII
THE WORK OF MEN'S HANDS

WHAT are we to say about the Hindu use of images in
worship ? Is it a valuable help to a monotheistic and spiritual
faith, as the Neo-Hindu declares, or a coarse and degrading
idolatry, as the missionary says, or does the truth lie some
where between them ? Here, as elsewhere, we shall seek to
reach a just judgement through a careful survey of the facts
from the point of view of history.

I. We begin with a brief statement of how the Hindus
thought about their gods before the use of idols arose. The
gods of Hinduism are the gods which the invading Aryans
worshipped when they entered India, and many more intro
duced from various sources since then. We take our descrip
tion of them chiefly from the original Ramayana, a poem in
which their nature and their worship stand out in pictorial
vividness. The use of idols is already coming in, but the con
ceptions of the gods are still ancient ; and the whole of this
early picture remains true of the Hindu gods throughout their
history. Later developments are mostly of the nature of
additions, and are dealt with below.

In the Rdmdyana the gods live a more or less happy family
in the heavenly country, which is above the earth and yet
near enough to allow a good deal that goes on here below to
be seen and heard. They are conceived as being like men
and women. They have physical bodies l which require food
and which may be hurt. They are married and many of them

1 See what Ramanuja says, S. B>K.t xlviii. 328-331.

298 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

have children.1 They are so like mortals that they now and
then have sexual intercourse with men and women.2 The great
royal families of India are believed to be of divine origin.

Indeed, it is clear that to the ancient Hindus the gods were
like Hindu kings, only they possessed supernatural powers.
As there were many kings in North India in early times, each
with his palace, his consorts and his train, so in heaven there
are many gods ; and each has appropriated a mountain of the
heavenly country and has decked it out to be his residence.
Here he dwells with his wife or wives and children in
splendour and luxury. A Hindu king had his courtiers, his
companies of musicians, his dancing and singing women of
very easy virtue,3 his hundreds of slaves and servants, his
clowns, and his horses and carriages. The gods are pictured
in precisely the same way. Round each great god are troops
of minor divinities and sprites, heavenly musicians called
Gandharvas, heavenly nymphs of most yielding disposition
called Apsarases, who are often sent to earth by the gods to
beguile ascetics when their austerities become too serious,4
and mixed human-animal creatures of wondrous forms. Each
god has his heavenly car, which runs on the ground or sails
through the air according to his pleasure, and also his favourite
mount, whether elephant, bull, eagle, lion, or tiger:'

But, though they are like men and women, they are above
man. They have large freedom and larger power. They are
not bound by morality : the petty distinctions between right
and wrong actions are necessary for human life, but the gods

1 Kalidasa's famous heroic poem, Kiunara Sanibhava, is an account of
the marriage of Siva to ParvatI and of the birth of their son, the god
of war. The marriage of Siva and ParvatI occurs among the sculptures
of the cave of Elephanta. Brahma and Vishnu have each three consorts.

2 Indra seduced Ahalya, a Brahman's wife. Ratnayana, I. xlviii.

3 This custom survives in modern India. See Vincent Smith's Asoka, 89.

4 So the Apsaras Menaka, sent by the gods to disturb the austerities of
the royal sage Visvamitra, became by him the mother of the famous
Saknntala.

B P^or this whole paragraph see The Light of the School ofSriRamanuja.
133-135, where the heaven of Vishnu is described. This authoritative work
shows what the modern Vishnuite theist holds.

THE WORK OF MEN'S HANDS 299

are free. ' The mighty can do no wrong.' They have many
superhuman powers. They can fly through the air at pleasure,
render themselves invisible, and assume any form they please.
Each can animate a number of bodies at the same time. But,
though very powerful, they are by no means omniscient or
omnipotent. They require to be told about things just like
men. They are often in great danger. Extreme austerities
on the part of human ascetics may lead to any result, even the
conquest of heaven itself. Hence any man or demon who
persists in long-continued self-torture causes the gods the
utmost terror.1 They are usually called immortal ; yet they
are thought of as having been born or created, early ideas
about the gods not being a consistent or unified body of
beliefs. The introduction of the doctrine of transmigration
and of the one God behind the gods reduced them, in the eyes
of thinking men, to transmigrating beings, who had risen to
the power and position of gods by intense austerities or lavish
sacrifices ; 2 but popular belief inclined to think of them as
immortal.

They often visit the earth. They come sailing in their cars
or flying through the air. They may be invisible, or they
may be seen by human eyes ; :! and at first sight it may be
hard to tell them from men and women. But if you look
carefully, you will see that their feet do not rest on the
ground, that their bodies cast no shadow, that their eyes are
unwinking, and that no dust lies on the garlands of flowers
they wear.4

The worship of the gods by means of sacrifices in the open
air, as we meet it in the Rigveda? has through all the centuries
been recognized as the normal worship ; yet it fell almost
altogether into disuse many centuries ago ; and only occa
sionally has a sacrifice been offered in Vedic fashion in modern

1 It was the terror of the gods over the austerities of Havana that led to
the incarnation of Rama. See below, pp. 362-336.

2 See above, p. 222.

3 See an instructive theophany in Rawayana, III. v.

4 Rantayana, III. Ivii. G See above, p. 73.

300 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

times. During the period when the other constituents of
Hinduism arose, worship by means of temple and image
came into use; and it is almost the only mode employed
to-day.

The gods need nourishment. They live on the sacrifices
and offerings made by men. Hence their interest in human
worship and their favour for those who worship them. Food
offered to them, according to the ancient ritual, is either laid
out so that they may come and take it, or wafted to them on
the flames and smoke of the altar. In temples it is presented
to the idol, as we shall see. When men offer sacrifices, they
ask and receive gifts from the gods. Indeed the doctrine
tends to be this, that the sacrifice compels the gift. Any
earthly blessing, such as pleasure, love, children, success,
wealth, kingship, or power, may be got by sacrifice ; and if
men are able to make a sufficient offering, supernatural power
may be acquired. At death the faithful worshipper is received
by his god to his own particular paradise.1

II. We next give a brief sketch of the way in which idolatry
is believed by students of religion to have arisen.

Most primitive men do not use images at all. Their beliefs
and practices are such that they do not feel the need of any
thing of the kind. It is most difficult to make sure that one
understands the mind of early peoples, yet one can probably
see sufficient to distinguish between this period and the next,
when images make their appearance. In the earliest forms of
religion known to us men revere either an invisible life sub
stance, the source of all life and power, portions of which they
believe can be obtained by various means, or else visible
things, whether certain classes of animals, plants, stones, or
other objects, or the greater aspects of nature, such as sun,
moon, sky, thunder, rain, wind, fire. In the former case an
image is impossible. In the latter, while men usually think
of the god as a living being, he is still so closely identified

1 Ramdyana, III. v.

THE WORK OF MEN'S HANDS 301

with that which is his manifestation that there is no need of
an image : the god is present and visible when he is wor
shipped.

A time comes, however, when the personality of the gods
becomes clearer, and they are habitually thought of as beings
having a life of their own, apart from any natural objects with
which they may have been associated. They are believed to
have homes of their own, whether in heaven, the air, on earth,
in the sea, or under the earth ; and, while they are believed
to appear to men frequently, their visits are irregular and
unexpected.

(a) Hence, if there is a spot where a god appears from time
to time, or, if he has done any noteworthy thing at some
particular place, the spot becomes sacred, and is marked by
a stone or post. People visit the place ; a local worship arises ;
the blood of the sacrificial victim is splashed upon the stone
or post ; or offerings are placed beside it.

(b) As time goes on, the personality and the character of
the god become much more clearly defined to his worshippers ;
he receives a personal name ; and they form a definite picture
of his form and appearance. He is thought of as being like
a man or an animal. When this id'ea has been reached, it is
quite natural to paint a face or carve a head on the top of the
sacred stone or post. The second stage is thus a pillar with
a carved head.

(c) Once this is done, the gradual evolution of a complete
image is only a question of time. The rude block is carved
into a form corresponding as closely as it is possible for the
artist to make it to the popular belief about the appearance
of the god. It is always possible, however, that the process
may be arrested midway. At any particular moment the
belief, that the existing form is a true image of the god and in
accordance with his will, may fix the form irrevocably. But in
most cases change does not cease until a complete image, either
human or animal, is produced.

(d) Even then development does not cease. As thought

302 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

and civilization advance, a tribe whose god is an animal
gradually forms a higher idea of his personality and powers,
until it is impossible to think of him in purely animal form.
Then appears t/ie half-animal image, an animal with a human
head, or a human body with an animal head.

(e) Later still, when the conception of the god has become
still nobler, the mixed image cannot satisfy the worshipper,
and the god is represented as completely human, while the
animal becomes sacred to him and is recognized as his com
panion. Here then we have a human god with an animal.

(f) A further stage is also found in some lands. The gods
are thought of as so great that it is felt that a merely human
form is not a sufficient expression of their powers. Hence
wings are added, or they are represented with several heads,
or with many arms or eyes. The sacred animals share the
same tendency, and mixed and monstrous forms are invented.
Thus human or animal forms with extra limbs are evolved.

(g) The power of reproduction strikes the primitive mind as
peculiarly god-like. Hence sex seems divine and worthy of
worship. From this and other roots have come the phallic
worship which usually accompanies idolatry. The emblem is
usually a pillar, as the Hindu I ing a is.

(h] Sometimes a tribe continues to worship its own god by
itself, but usually a number of tribes unite, thereby forming
a nation, and then the united people acknowledge all the gods
of the tribes. In some such way as this all the great national,
polytheistic religions were formed. Hence we have the group
of gods of many various forms.

Great advances may follow these changes. Unless religious
progress is arrested, the gods are conceived more nobly.
Their personality stands out more clear. Each is an individual
with a character of his own. They are thought of as like men
in their passions, thoughts, and purposes, only more powerful
than men. As they are believed to be bound to the nation
by ties of interest, they are thought of as watching over the
welfare of the people, as sympathizing with them and helping

THE WORK OF MEN'S HANDS 303

them in difficulty and distress. The morals of the nation are
usually, but not always, supposed to be under their care. If
the nation prosper, they praise their gods for their kindness,
and make their worship more dignified and more costly.

Civilization reaps a great harvest from these new develop
ments in the religion. The interest of the people in their gods
creates a mythology, which is handed down from generation
to generation and held sacred. From the mythology there
springs a literature, it may be epic, dramatic, or lyrical. When
the moral customs of the people are believed to be in the care
of the gods, they become more sacred than ever ; and in any
case they take shape in a code of laws. The priesthood rises
in influence, and their training may create a national system
of education, as happened in ancient India. The elaboration
of the worship of the gods demands the most beautiful images
possible, and worthy temples to receive them. To these
creative needs we owe the appearance of sculpture and archi
tecture. If the ritual is carried far, painting, music, and other
arts may also arise. From speculations about the nature of
the gods comes philosophy.

The history of the greatest nations of antiquity falls within
this period of human life, Babylonia, Egypt, Assyria, Persia,
Phoenicia, Greece, Rome, and likewise India.

III. We turn now to the rise of image-worship in India.
Most of the gods worshipped in the Rigvedic age were natural
forces — sun and wind, bright sky and thunder-cloud, fire and
rain — powers which helped or hindered men and were therefore
honoured with song and sacrifice. These gods were, however,
conceived as personal, as possessing mind and will, and as
having a life of their own ; yet, being revealed to men in these
visible natural phenomena, idols were never thought of and
temples were unknown.

At some point late in the age of the Rigveda, however,
idols began to find their way into the community. Some of
the old gods (e.g. Indra) had by a gradual process become so
anthropomorphic in character that it was no longer unnatural

304 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

to represent them in human form. But in the whole Rigveda
there are only a couple of references to images of the gods : 1
clearly the practice had only just begun to creep in before the
final redaction of the Rik.

By 500 B. C., however, they were not only quite common,
but had received some sort of sanction from the priests. They
are frankly recognized in the earliest legal sutras - that have
come down to us; and thereafter Hindu literature is full of
them.

Several Hindu gods are represented in the earliest surviving
Buddhist sculptures, dating from about 200 to ico B.C. ; and
it is evident that a long history lies behind them, for a number
of the traditional types are already fixed. Amongst them are
Sri, i. e. Lakshmi, the wife of Vishnu, Surya, the sun god,
Kuvera, the god of riches, Nagas, Yakshas, &c. Temples are
also represented .;!

Hindu coins of the first and second century A. D. give us
representations of several gods, notably Siva and his bull.
A little later Hindu sculpture begins ; and thereafter the
whole history can be traced, at least in outline, in surviving
specimens.

Although Buddhism and Jainism started as philosophies,
protesting against all the follies of the Brahmanic system, yet,
before the Christian era, both had succumbed to the over
powering attraction of idols ; and images of the Buddha and
his followers, the mythical Buddhas of previous ages, and
Maitreya the coming Buddha, on the one hand, and of the
various Tlrthakaras, on the other, filled the Buddhist and
Jain temples.

It is quite clear that in the early Christian centuries Hindu
idols felt very deeply the influence of Buddhist and Jain image
types. At a later date the same artistic forms were used in
all the three religions; and, in consequence, Hindu, Buddhist,

1 iv. 24, 9; viii. I, 5._ Kaegi, 119.

2 Gautama, ix. 12 ; Apastamba, i. II, 30, 20, 22 ; Vasishtha, xi, 41.

3 See Cunningham, Stupa of Bharhut, and Maisey's Sanchi Stupa.

THE WORK OF MEN'S HANDS 305

and Jain idols are, in numerous instances, scarcely distinguish
able the one from the other.

Buddhism carried Indian image types into Ceylon and
Tibet, and into every part of Eastern Asia ; so that the whole
history of idolatry in these lands is, in the main at least,
dependent on India.

IV. If we compare the images of Hinduism with those of
other lands, it will appear that parallels to almost every type
of Indian image or symbol are to be found in the remains of
the worship of Assyria, Babylonia, Syria, Egypt, Greece, and
Rome ; and, if some of the cruder and grosser idols of the
ignorant classes are hard to match in classical archaeology,
forms similar down almost to the last detail may be found
to-day among the peoples of Polynesia and of Africa.

(a) The use of the stone or post to represent a divinity is
very common in the ruder village worships of India to-day.
The stone may be daubed with vermilion, or may have a simple
pattern cut in it or painted on it, or it may be quite bare. It
may stand alone, or in a little square outlined with rough
stones, or in a very low simple shrine lighted only from the
door. From time to time one may sec a fowl or some other
animal sacrificed there and its blood sprinkled on the sacred
object.

(b) The earliest approach to an idol, the post or pillar with
its top carved to some semblance of a human head, may be
frequently seen in village shrines in India. The half-formed
image is even more common. It maybe seen even in some of
the great Hindu temples. The image of Jagannath at Puri is
a rude unfinished figure ; and Kali is frequently but a head
and shoulders.

(c) The animal god and the human god are both common
in the shrines of Hinduism. The purely human image is quite
frequent. Vishnu, Krishna, Rama, and their consorts are
usually so represented.1 This type of idol is found in many

1 Most of the gods of Hinduism are pictured in Moor's Hindu Pantheon.
U

3o6 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

lands ; but it reaches its summit in the images of ancient
Greece,1 where the greatest sculpture the world has ever seen
produced the most exquisite idealizations of the human form.

The most notable of the animal gods that are worshipped in
India are Hanuman,the monkey, Naga, the hooded snake, and
the ever-sacred cow. These are worshipped by themselves,
not merely as companions of gods. Images of the baboon
were common in Egypt,2 also of the snake, the cow, and the
bull. More than once Indian troops in Egypt have seen
the cow upon the monuments and worshipped her. Nuit, the
Egyptian goddess of the sky, with all the gods around her, is
exactly like a Hindu picture of the sacred cow accompanied
by her adorers.

(d) Next comes the half-evolved divinity, part man, part
animal. In India we have the human body mingled with the
fish, the tortoise, the boar, the lion, the horse, the elephant,
the goat, and the snake : the animal-avataras of Vishnu are
man-fish, man-tortoise, man-boar, man-lion, and man-horse ;
while Ganesa has the head of an elephant, Daksha the head ot
a goat, and the Nagas are half-man, half-snake. The adver
saries of the gods, known as Asnras, are also represented with
animal heads. In Egypt there is a similar catalogue of semi-
animal forms. There man is compounded with the bull, cow,
ram, lion, jackal, dog, cat, frog, snake, crocodile, ibis, hawk, and
fish. In Assyria, the man-lion, the man-bird, and the man-fish
forms are common ; only the man-lion is always winged. Some
of the parallels are so close as to be well worth notice. For
example, the representations of the fish-avatara of Vishnu are
practically identical with divine forms found in Assyria, and
with all we know about Dagon, the Philistine god. The Greek
Triton, a sea-divinity, is often sculptured in very similar fashion.
The man-lion of Assyria, and Kronos, the man- lion of Mith-

1 Classical divinities may be found in a Classical Dictionary, or in
Gai'diner's Grammar of Greek Art.

2 The Egyptian deities mentioned in this chapter will be found in
Wilkinson's Egyptians.

THE WORK OF MEN'S HANDS 307

raism, are exceedingly like Narasirhha, the man-lion avatara
of Vishnu, except that they are winged. The wives of Kaliya,
the great snake slain by Krishna, are pictured like Nereids.
The sculptured boar-man incarnation of Vishnu at Mahavelli-
pore is very like an Egyptian deity. The Naga is represented
in several ways in Hindu sculpture, each of which may be
paralleled elsewhere. The human head and body with a serpent
tail may be compared with the Greek giants ; while the human
body surmounted by the snake hood and head is found in
Egypt. Daksha with his goat-head in Hindu sculpture is often
scarcely distinguishable from the Egyptian Khnumu ; and the
Hindu Asuras at the churning of the ocean look like many of
the images of the ram-headed Amen-ra of Thebes. The Hindu
Kinnarls, heavenly musicians, half-woman, half-bird, are
precisely like the Greek Sirens, beautiful bird -women who
beguiled sailors with their song. Vishnu's vehicle, the man-
eagle Garuda, is in many points as dignified as the eagle of
Zeus, but in form, and also in his feud with snakes, he recalls
the Greek harpy. Other Greek conceptions of similar charac
ter are the Centaurs, half-man, half-horse ; the Sphinx, a winged
man-lion ; and Pan, the god of the woods, who has a man's
head and body but the legs and tail of a goat.

(e) Sacred animals attached to individual gods are very
common in India ; and the parallels with other lands are very
numerous. The bull is the companion of Siva, as it was the
representative of the Egyptian Osiris. So the Persian Mithra
has a great bull on which he rides and which he slays. The
mouse accompanies Apollo in Greece, as it does Ganesa in
India. The dogs of Yama, the god of death, have their
parallel in the Egyptian Amt, a great dog guarding the gate
of the lower world, and Cerberus, the dog of hell, among the
Greeks. The monkey goes with Rama in India and with
Thoth, the god of letters, in Egypt. In the great gold and
ivory image of Athene in Athens her snake appeared on the
ground between her left foot and her shield; and a snake
appears in Mithraic sculptures representing Mithra killing the
U 3

308 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

bull. So Siva frequently has a snake with him, and other
Hindu gods also. The lion accompanies Durga in India, as it
did Cybele in Asia Minor. In a piece of ancient sculpture at
Olympia, Artemis holds a lion in each hand. Seb in Egypt
and Sarasvati in India are accompanied by the goose. The
ram is sacred to Agni in India, as it was to Amon in Egypt.
The god of the sun rides in a horse-drawn chariot in both India
and Greece, while in India the moon rides in a car drawn by
an antelope. The elephant is sacred to Indra and the peacock
to Karttikeya. The remarkable Hindu conception of Vishnu
reclining on Sesha, the thousand-headed snake representing
eternity,1 finds a striking parallel in the Mithraic image of
Kronos, infinite time, a winged figure encircled by the coils of
a great snake.2 Lakshml, the wife of Vishnu, is often repre
sented seated on a lotus between two elephants pouring water
over her. In Egypt, the following additional animals are sacred
each to a divinity : cat dog, jackal, wolf, fox, owl, hawk, eagle,
crocodile, hippopotamus.

Frequently in India as elsewhere the divinity rides upon
his sacred animal. This is true of Indra and the elephant,
Karttikeya and the peacock, ParvatI and the tiger, Durga and
the lion, Agni and the ram, Sarasvati and the goose, Yama
and the buffalo. Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea, rides on
a dolphin precisely like Varuna, the Hindu god of the waters.
Triveni also, the mythical representative of the rivers Ganges,
Jumna, and Sarasvati, sometimes rides a dolphin. The Persian
Mithra rides on his bull as Siva rides on Nandi. Sometimes
in India and in Egypt the god stands on his animal. As the
youthful Krishna is represented standing on a snake, so the
child Horus stands on two crocodiles. As Durga stands on
a lion, so does Ket, the Egyptian mistress of heaven, and
Ishtar, the Babylonian Venus.

(f] The remains of classical antiquity do not give us many
parallels to the very numerous class of Hindu images which

' See below, p. 404. 2 Cumont, The Mysteries of Mithra, 105-108.

THE WORK OF MEN'S HANDS 309

are of human form but have extra limbs. Siva, his wife Kali,
and his sons Ganesa and Karttikeya, are represented with
a third eye set vertically in the middle of the forehead. Agni
has two faces, three legs, and seven arms. The Trimurti,
representing Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva as one, is really
a three-headed figure. Brahma, the Creator, has very fre
quently four heads ; and one of the forms of Siva has five
faces. His consort in her various forms, Kali, Durga, Uma,
&c., has four, eight, ten, or even eighteen arms ; and the god
himself has often four arms. Yama is said to have thirty-two
arms. Vishnu has often four arms also. All these monstrous
additions to the human form were copied in Tantric Buddhism,
and are found to this day in Tibet. The nearest classic
parallels are the Ephesian Diana with her many breasts, the
Roman Janus with his two faces, the Greek Hecate, who is
represented as a triple figure consisting of three women grouped
back to back, and similar quadruple forms in Egypt.1

Animal forms with extra limbs are common in Hinduism.
The five-headed snake, called Naga, is well known, and Sesha,
the thousand-headed snake, typifying eternity. The horse
which draws the chariot of Siirya, the sun, has seven heads.
Indra's elephant, Airavana, has three trunks, while in Buddhism
and in the paintings at Ajanta we meet an elephant with six
tusks, Chhaddanta. There are classical parallels for some of
these. Cerberus, the dog of hell, is represented as having
three heads. Winged lions are common in Babylonian and
Indian sculpture.

There are, then, mythical forms made up of parts of different
animals. In India the best known of these are the makara
and the viratarupa, the former composed of an elephant
and a dolphin, the latter as hard to describe as the chimera
of Greece or the fanciful creatures with which the ancient
Egyptians peopled the lone desert. Winged snakes are
common in Egypt. Various forms of sphinx — a lion's body

1 An example may be seen in the British Museum.

3io THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

with the head of a ram, an eagle, or some other beast — received
very skilful treatment at the hands of Egyptian sculptors.

(g) The great god Siva is seldom represented by an image.
His worship centres in the linga, the phallic symbol of India.1
Hinduism in possessing a phallic worship is strictly parallel
with the polytheisms of the ancient world2 and of Japan. In
India, the symbol is less suggestive than it was in many lands.

In the earliest times the linga was not associated with Siva.
He was represented by images, as may be seen from Kushan
coins, before he was represented by the linga. There is no
mention of the linga in the Vedic literature or in the Ramayana.
It is in the later parts of the Mahabharata that we fVhd the
earliest references to the practice. Here is one of the signi
ficant passages :

Is Isa (i.e. Siva) the Cause of causes for any other reasons? We
have not heard that the linga of any other person is worshipped by the
gods. Declare, if thou hast heard, what other being's linga except
that of Mahesvara (i.e. the great god, &va) is now worshipped, or
has formerly been worshipped, by the gods ? He whose linga Brahma
and Vishnu and thou (Indra) with the deities continually worship, is
therefore the most eminent. Since children bear neither the mark of
the lotus (Brahma's), nor of the discus (Vishnu's), nor of the thunder
bolt (Indra's), but are marked with the male and female organs —
therefore offspring is derived from Mahesvara.3

(Ji) The vast collection of gods, human, semi-animal and
animal, adored in India is parallel, in general, with the groups of
divinities revered by nearly all the great nations of antiquity ;
but, in number, variety, and peculiarity of forms, the Egyptian
pantheon comes nearest to the Hindu.

It will be well, also, to note the symbols which usually
accompany images. Most gods are represented as wearing
a head-dress or crown of some sort. Both in India and Egypt,
these are often very high and very elaborate in structure. In
Egypt the head-dress is filled with symbolism, while in India

1 See below, pp. 314, 316, 361, 380. 2 Havell, Benares, 68.

3 From the Anusasana Parvan of the Mahabharata. The passage is
translated by Muir in his Sanskrit Texts, iv. 161.

THE WORK OF MEN'S HANDS 311

more attention is paid to artistic grace. Yet, even in India,
numerous symbols occur on the head. There is usually
a snake on the head of Siva and of Ganesa ; and it frequently
occurs in the case of other Hindu divinities : in Egypt, the
sacred snake called uracits occurs in the same way in a very
large number of cases. The crescent moon was worn on her
head by Astarte, the Syrian queen of love, and by the Egyptian
gods Thoth and Khonsu, as it is frequently worn by Siva and
by Ganesa. Siva usually wears a symbol on his head to show
that the river Ganges sprang from him, it may be the head of
the goddess Gahga or the sacred stream itself. The consort
of Siva frequently wears his symbol, the linga, as an ornament
on her head.

It is still more common for the god to carry a symbol in his
hand. Indra, the greatest god of the time of the Rigveda,
carries a thunderbolt, and so does Ram man, the Assyrian god
of storms and thunder, Bel-Merodach of Babylon, and Zeus,
the king of gods in Greece. Siva holds a trident precisely
like Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea. It is almost as
common for an Egyptian divinity to carry a lotus in the hand
as it is for an Indian god. Durgfi frequently holds a snake in
her hand, and the Egyptian Osiris is similarly represented.
The gods of writing and learning in Egypt frequently hold
a book, as Brahma and SarasvatI do. Osiris in Egypt and
Siva in India frequently hold an antelope by the hind legs ;
and weapons of war are constantly carried.

Symbols occur also beside the image of the god. Shamash,
the sun-god of Babylonia, is represented with a great wheel,
just like Vishnu with his cJiakra. Beside the god of the Nile
we find fishes and lotuses. In Egypt, as in India, standards
and banners are common.

The attitudes of the gods also correspond in certain cases.
The head of the goddess Kali with her long protruding tongue
is precisely parallel with the Egyptian god Bes, and with
Medusa as represented in early Greek sculpture. All these
are of Gorgon origin, i.e. each is a fierce countenance meant

313 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

to frighten evil spirits.1 The corpulent dwarfish body of
Ganesa is paralleled in many lands, for example in Egypt,
in one of the forms of Osiris and in Bes, and in the god of
good luck in China and Japan. When the Egyptian Thoth
is represented with the head of an ape, the resemblance to the
figure of Ganesa is extraordinarily close. The child Hercules,
like the youthful Krishna, is represented as killing a snake.
The Hindu triad, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, which gave birth
to similar triads in Mahayana Buddhism in India, China, and
Japan, has many parallels in Egypt, where nearly every district
had its triad of gods, and in Babylonia, where we meet at least
two triads, the first Anu, Bel, and Ea, the second Sin, Shamash
and Ramman. Finally, in Egypt the sun-god springs from
a lotus, just as Brahma is represented in the great scene where
he rises from the lotus which springs from Vishnu's navel.

Thus Hindu images, from the crudest blocks and pillars up
to the most beautiful forms and the most elaborate groups,
are in all respects parallel to the idols of other lands, whether
of ancient or of modern times.

V. We turn now to the temple and the cult. We have
already seen2 that, in the earliest literature, the great gods
are conceived like Hindu kings. They live in their palaces
in heaven, precisely like earthly kings, with their families,
courtiers, and servants, in shining splendour and high luxury.
They have physical bodies which need nourishment ; so they
come from heaven to enjoy the sacrifices offered by men.

But the temple and the image change things somewhat.
Each divinity's temple is an earthly replica of his heavenly
palace.3 The beautifully sculptured tower of the temple repre
sents the high architecture of heaven. Here the god lives
with spouse and family. His subordinate sprites are also
with him, sculptured in bronze or stone. Whatever the god's
mount (vdhana) may be, bull, elephant, lion, or peacock,
there it is ready for his use. The temple-musicians take the

1 The writer owes this point to Prof. Rudolf Otto of Gottingen.

2 Above, p. 298. 3 See The Light of the School of Ramanuja, 96, 133.

THE WORK OF MEN'S HANDS 313

place of the Gandharvas, who play before him in heaven.
The nymphs of easy virtue called Apsarases, who dance and
sing before him in heaven, are represented by the Devadasis
of the temple, who sing and dance before him in the ritual and
are most complaisant to worshippers.1 The priests of the
temple are the servants of the god. As in heaven he goes
for an outing in his car, so in the temple there is the car for
the use of the idol, when he goes round the town to be seen
by his people, or when he pays his annual visit to his summer
residence.

The cult is the personal service of the god by his servants,
the priests. They wake him in the morning, give him a bath,
offer him perfume and flowers, burn incense before him, and
give him food and drink. They give him other meals at
different times during the day. When an offering is made to
him, a bell is rung to call his attention to it. At night he is
put to bed,- and the shrine is closed.

Here are the sixteen operations of morning worship as set
forth in the Vaishnava manual, the Narad a Pancharatra :

j . pady a : the priest brings water and washes

the feet ;

2. achauianlya: gives water to rinse the mouth ;

3. argJiya: pours out a libation of water with

several ingredients ;

4. madhuparka : gives a mouthful of a honey-mixture ;

5. pnnarachamanlya : gives water to rinse the mouth again ;

6. sndnlya : bathes the idol ;

7. vastra: puts on the under garment ;

8. littarlya : puts on the upper garment ;

9. yajnopavlta: puts on the sacred thread ;
jo. bhushana: puts on all the ornaments ;
u. jala: gives drinking-water ;

13. gandhdi gives perfumes ;

1 See below, pp. 314 and 315.

2 The ritual and liturgy with which the idol is put to bed are described
in Agni Punlna, Iviii. 28-34.

3M THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

13. pushpa : gives flowers ;

14. dhupa: burns incense ;

15. dlpa: swings a light before the idol ;

1 6. naivedya: gives the morning meal.

Readers may compare the account of the worship of Krishna
given by Professor Monier- Williams.1 In the case of a goddess
number 9 is omitted, as no woman wears the sacred thread.
In the Makanirvana Tantra* the worship of Kali is described.
There is some variation in the order and in the offerings, but
most points are the same, and the operations are again sixteen.
We are told how Madhvas (a sub-sect of Vishnuites) worship
in their homes :

Sfilagrama-stones, metallic or wood images, are set up on a throne,
and homage rendered thereto as at the throne of an Emperor. The
details comprise a long and elaborate programme. The stone and
images are bathed with reverence, rubbed dry with cloth, ornamented
with flowers, and prayed to with devotion. Bells, flowers, sandal,
incense, and lights are used abundantly in the act of worship.3

In the temples of Siva the service is practically the same ; for
the linga is treated precisely like an image. This may be
clearly seen from Dr. Rajendralala Mitra's description of the
worship of the linga in the great temple of Bhuvanesvara.4
The Vallabhacharyas worship the child Krishna eight times a
day. A vivid description is given by Dr. Murdoch.5

A liturgy in Sanskrit accompanies the rites of the cult, and in
the greater temples, especially in South India, hymns are sung,
both in Sanskrit and the vernacular. The Tamil hymns of the
Adiyars G are sung with great feeling in Saiva 7 temples, while
in Vaishnava7 shrines the hymns of the Alvars6 stir quite as
deep emotions. Bells are rung and drums are beaten at various
points in the service. On special occasions the Devadasls and

1 Brahmatiisnt and Hinduism, 144. •••// yj-

3 Madhva, 400. * Brahmanism and Hinduism, 93-94.

D Religious Sects, 63. G See below, p. 384.

7 Saiva and Vaishnava are very convenient Sanskrit adjectives for
Sivaite and Vishnuite.

THE WORK OF MEN'S HANDS 315

the temple-band take part in the liturgy with instrumental
music, dance, and song.

In most of the great temples the offerings are vegetarian ; l
yet in the temples of Kali, and in vast numbers of village
temples, animal sacrifice is still in use. It is not the ancient
Vedic animal sacrifice, however. That has almost disappeared
under the pressure of the doctrine of ahirhsa. Where animals
are now slain, it is clear that the custom has come from some
aboriginal tribe.2

The ritual is all performed by the priests, and they also
repeat the liturgy. But the worshipper is by no means left
out of count. Though he can only watch the ceremonial and
join in the hymns of praise, yet he is the guest of the god, and
receives all the honours of the temple. He enjoys the greatest
of all privileges, which is to ' see the face ' of the god himself
and to pour his prayer directly into the divine ear. He shares
the god's banquet, receiving water (ttrtha) and food (pi asada)
from his table. He is shown all the great sights of the temple,
gazes at the sculptured record of the god's famous deeds, and
hears some of the marvellous things which he does for his
worshippers. If he visits the Devadas!s,;} he does no more
than he expects to do when he reaches the heaven of his
gracious god ; for that is the meaning of the obscene sculptures
on the gate and the idol -car, and of the lascivious paintings
on the ceilings.4

How vividly real and right Indians have felt this cult to be

1 See below, pp. 380-382.

2 With regard to sacrifice the temple of Kali at Kallghat, Calcutta, is
very instructive. Within the temple itself only vegetarian offerings are
made, in accordance with the rules of the Tantras, and only Brahman
priests officiate. But in front of the shrine and in full view of the goddess,
there is a large porch whereon learned Brahmans read sacred books and
make offerings of ghl and rice in fire according to Vedic ritual. Beyond
that again is the place where kids and buffaloes are beheaded by a man
of the blacksmith caste. The body belongs to the worshipper, the head
to the sacrificer, while the blood is Kali's portion. Here human sacrifice
used to be carried on. The worship of this temple is thus an epitome of
the history of Hinduism.

3 See p. 397. * See below, pp. 397-398.

3i6 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

may be seen from the fact that Jain and Buddhist worship is
in essentials the same. Though Tlrthakaras and Buddhas are
believed to have entered nirvana and thus can neither receive
praise nor food, yet the main operations of the Hindu cult are
carried out in their case also. Mrs. Sinclair Stevenson l has
described Jain worship for us in detail. In the worship of
the Svetambara sect of Jains the image is bathed and dressed.
Sacred marks are put on it with coloured paste. Then flowers
are offered, incense is burned, a light is waved in front of it,
and thereafter rice, sweetmeats, and fruit are offered. Any one
who will watch a Buddhist layman at worship in Burma or
Ceylon will see a number of the old Hindu rites carried out
before the image of Gautama himself.

The worship of idols in other lands was of the same character,
and the ritual startlingly similar. Let any one read pp. 71-73
of Flinders Petric's little book, The Religion of Ancient Egypt,
and note how amazingly like the above description of Hindu
ritual his account of Egyptian worship is. In Babylonia, in
Greece, and in Syria we find the same general features. The
priests wait upon the idols like servants, attending to all their
personal wants, offering them incense, flowers, and food ; and
in many places the worship is deeply stained with phallicism
and immorality.

In certain temples of Siva, especially in Northern India,
another form of worship is found. Near the great temple
of Kali at Kallghat, Calcutta, there is a small temple of Siva.
It is square, and the upper part of the wall on all sides is
open, so that an outsider can watch the cult. In the centre of
the temple there is a circular tank, and in the centre of the
tank a stone linga. The worshipper kneels on the outer edge
of the tank, and, stretching over to the linga, places a few
bael leaves and pours a little Ganges water on it, muttering
a prayer the while. In certain temples there is an arrange
ment whereby water constantly falls in a trickling stream on

1 Modern Jainisin, 92 ff.

THE WORK OF MEN'S HANDS 317

the linga from above. The idea is that the phallus is always
in a state of heat.

VI. We are now in a position to realize how Hindus think
and feel about the images of the gods.

The one great broad fact to be clearly grasped is that to the
Hindu each idol is a living personal god. The image has
been made by human hands, but the god lives in it, using the
stone or metal body as the human soul uses the human body.
He lives in the temple among his people, receives from their
hands the food by which he subsists, welcomes them to his
presence and makes them his guests. He listens to their
prayers and answers them. He hears and speaks, eats and
sleeps, moves and acts.

The whole of the temple-worship depends on this belief.
What is the use of honey-mixture, perfumes, incense, waving
lights, and food, if the image is not a living god ? The villager
goes to the temple ' to see Kali's face '. He believes he looks
into her own great divine eyes. He prays his fervent prayer,
and hears the goddess answer him with her own lips. Nor
the villager only. In the lives of all the saints we meet the
same beliefs.

In the official life of Ramanuja, written in Tamil in the
thirteenth century by Pinbalagla-Perumal-Jlyar, we are told
that there was a dispute in Ramanuja's day as to whether the
image in the great temple of Tirupati was Vishnu or Siva.
Ramanuja proposed that both sets of emblems — Siva's trident
and drum, Vishnu's discus and shell — should be laid in front
of the image, every person carefully excluded from the shrine,
and the doors locked, so that the god himself might decide
the dispute. The narrative proceeds :

This test was gladly agreed to by all. The emblems were accordingly
prepared and placed before the Image. Next day both the parties came
in a body with eager expectations of their own opinion being realized.
But when the doors were thrown open in full daylight and in the
presence of the whole assembly, it was found that the Lord had assumed
the Vaishnava emblems, with the $aiva emblems lying unused on the
floor. Ramanuja's joy knew no bounds. He sang and danced, eyes

3i« THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

streaming with tears of delight at the miraculous event and the Beatific
Vision presented to his view.1

Here is another story from Ramanuja's life. After com
pleting his famous commentary on the Vedanta-siitras, we are
told that he took a long journey, visiting many sacred places,
and finally reaching the temple of Sarasvati in Kashmir. The
goddess asked Ramanuja to explain a passage in the Chhdn-
dogya Upanishad, the meaning of which has caused endless
discussion among pandits. Ramanuja embodied his explana
tion in a couplet of verse, and the narrative proceeds :

On hearing this, Sarasvati said : ' Ramanuja ! Sankara had ere this
unhappily interpreted this as " monkey's posteriors ", and I was much
grieved at his perverse understanding and warped heart. Thou hast
now wiped my tears.' So saying she placed Ramanuja's commentary,
the Srl-bhashya, upon her head, drew Ramanuja to her breast, gave
him the title Bhashyakara, and handed him the image of Hayagrlva
(i.e. Horse-mane, one of Vishnu's incarnations) for worship.2

At a later date Ramanuja was driven by persecution to
take refuge in Mysore. There he found an image of Vishnu
and had a temple erected for it. But he had no processional
image. In a vision he was told that the image he wanted was
named Ramapriya and was in the possession of the Muham-
madan king in Delhi. The saint journeyed to the capital, and
there a second vision informed him that the king's daughter
had the image in her rooms. We give the rest of the story
from the text :

The king took the Sannyasin Ramanuja into the seraglio, where no
other man dared enter ; and wonderful to relate, Ramapriya was there
found, fondled by the Sultani, his daughter, to whom He played the
husband. Ramanuja, entering, called Him by His name, and lo, the
image jumped down from the couch on which the Sultani had placed
Him, and walked to where Ramanuja stood, in all the glory and grace
of an incarnated deity.3

Ill the life of Tiru-mangai, one of the Vaishnava poet-saints

1 Ramanuja, 143. * Ramanuja, 140.

3 Ramanuja, 1 88.

THE WORK OF MEN'S HANDS 319

known as Alvars,1 we are told that he went one day with two
companions, Parakalar and Yatirasan, to steal a golden image
of Buddha from a disused Buddhist shrine. The only way in
which they could manage the holy burglary was to get up on
the tower and lower one of their number through an opening.
We quote the rest of the story :

Parakalar then let down his brother-in-law Yatirasan into the aperture.
When Yatirasan laid his hands on the idol, it escaped ; and he ran,
and it ran, round and round the apartment. Parakalar suggested
Yatirasan's spitting on it. He did so, and the mantra-power which
gave the idol motion vanished by this act of pollution. He then
clutched the idol and hoisted it up to the aperture and Parakalar
lifted it out.2

Mirfi Ba! was the wife of one of the Rajput kings of Udaipur,
but she was driven from his bed and palace on account of her
devotion to Krishna and her refusal to worship Devi, the wife
of Siva. She lived a wandering life for some time. Then
Brahmans were sent to Dvarika to bring her home. Before
departing she went to the temple of Krishna to take leave of
him. Tradition says that, when she had completed her adora
tion, the image opened, and the princess leaped into the fissure,
and was never seen again.3

Here is a story of an image of Devi, i. e. Uma, or Kali, the
wife of Siva. Haryanand, a Vishnuite saint,

being one day in want of fuel to dress his meat, he directed one of his
pupils to proceed to a neighbouring temple of Devi, and bring away
from it any portion of the timber he could conveniently remove. This
was done, to the great alarm, but utter helplessness, of the goddess, who
could not dispute the authority of a mortal of Haryanand's sanctity.
A neighbour who had observed this transaction laboured under a like
want of wood : at the instigation of his wife, he repaired also to the
temple and attempted to remove one of the beams, when the goddess,
indignant at his presumption, hurled him down and broke his neck.
The widow, hearing of her husband's fate, immediately hastened to the
temple and liberally abused the vindictive deity. Devi took advantage
of the business to make a bargain for her temple, and restored the

1 See below, p. 384. 2 Holy Lives, 177. s Religious Secfs, 71.

320 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

man to life, on condition that he would ever afterwards buy fuel for
Haryanand.1

Innumerable passages in the same strain occur in the most
reliable literature.2

The truth shines out from these narratives, but we may add
a few clear statements from the most authoritative books.
Here is how a modern Vishnuite, a follower of Ramanuja, puts
the matter :

The Manifestation worshipable is that form of the Lord, in which
the Lord is pleased without any kind of limitation as to times, places,
or persons, to be present and manifest Himself to all, in temples and
homes, to wink at faults, and to be, for every movement or business,
dependent on the worshipper.3

The following is a sentence from the paper by Mr. V.
Srlnivasa Rao quoted above:4

Whatever the apologists . . . may say, as for instance that . . . Idolatry
is only keeping in view a concrete thing for concentration in worshipping
the One True Spiritual God; the stern and incontrovertible fact remains
. . . that the idolater does believe that some of the idols are the actual
incarnations of God, called Archavataras (incarnations for worship5),
and not mere symbols, that there is not one God but many, quite inde
pendent of each other, one at Tirupati, the other at Chidambaram, and
so on ; that one should be worshipped on a certain day with different
leaves ; that the marriage and consummation ceremonies of one God
should be celebrated on a particular day, and those of the other on
another day, and so on.

Our next quotations are from a modern defence of the Madhva
sub-sect of Vaishnavas :

In daily service, we worship God dwelling in a metallic image, after
invoking God's presence therein. The invocation is the most important
part of the function, to make sure of God's special presence in the idol.5

Every honour and every homage that the mind of man can conceive
of, to glorify an Emperor of Emperors, if present in flesh and blood, is

1 Religious Sects, 33.

2 Ramanuja, 5, 78, 125, 126, 140, 146, 149, 152, 155, 180, 202, £03, 217 ;
Holy Lives, 108, 112, 114, 177 ; Divine Wisdom, 40; Madhva, 114, 254,
714 ; Indian Interpreter, April, 1913, p. 17.

3 Divine Wisdom, 138-139. See pp. 111-112.

6 This is the special teaching of the Madhva sect, Madhva, 269.

THE WORK OF MEN'S HANDS 321

paid with tireless patience and obeisance, day after day, in total forget-
fulness of the fact that it is after all an image that stands before them.1

The following is from Max Miiller's biography of Rama-
krishna Paramahamsa, and refers to the time when he was
priest of the temple of Kali at Dakshinesvara near Calcutta :

He now began to look upon the image of the goddess Kali as his
mother and the mother of the universe. He believed it to be living and
breathing and taking food out of his hand. After the regular forms of
worship he would sit there for hours and hours, singing hymns and
talking and praying to her as a child to his mother, till he lost all
consciousness of the outward world. !

One of his own disciples reports 3 that he said,

We should believe in the Divine Presence infilling the Images of the
Deity.

Mr. Havell 4 speaks of the image undergoing the pranapra-
tishthd ceremony,5 and adds,

Thereafter it is regarded as a being endowed with life and feeling.

It is because the god lives in the temple that it is sacred,
and must be kept from all pollution. That is the reason why
all Hindu sects believe that the shrines and the idols, and also
the flowers, ashes, water, and food that have been presented to
idols, all transmit spiritual efficacy.

The Hindu belief is that the gods live in heaven, but
frequently visit earth. Thus, they have been often seen,6 and
the appearance of each is perfectly well known.7 Hence it is
quite possible for the Hindu artist to make a statue which
is a true likeness of Vishnu or Lakshmi, of Siva or Brahma,
or of any other god that is wanted. The linga is not an
image of Siva, but it is believed that he himself took the form

1 Mudhva, ,254. 2 Rdmakrislma, p. 36.

3 Gospel oj Sri Ramakrishna, i. 187. '* Benares, 161. 5 Seep. 322.

a Sarikara confesses that the gods were never seen in his day, but says,
'What is not accessible to our perception may have been within the sphere
of perception of people in ancient times. Smriti also declares that Vyasa
and others conversed with the gods face to face.' S. B. £., xxxiv. 222.

7 Sahkara writes, ' The Vedic injunctions . . . presuppose certain
characteristic shapes of the individual deities.' S. B.E., xxxiv. 221.

X

322 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

of a liriga of light in heaven, in order to manifest his greatness,
and that he created the earliest lirigas on earth. Consequently,
it is easy to cut a stone in accordance with his will.

The next step is to transform the mere statue or carved
stone into a sacred image or symbol by inducing the god to
come and live in it. The priest performs a ceremony over it,
using holy mantras, i. e. sacred formulae instinct with magic
power, and thereby brings the god into the statue. This
ceremony is called avdhana, a bringing in \sc. of the god into
the image], or more often pranapratisJitJid, the establishment
of life, the installing of vital breath \sc. in the image]. The
ceremony of bringing Kali into an image is thus described in
the MaJianirvana Tantra : l

Having thus welcomed the goddess, one should install vital breath
into her. Having first recited Am, Hri/ti, Krimt Shrim, and Sivahd,
he should exclaim ' Life unto all the gods ; life unto this god '. Next
he should recite the five mantras. Then he should exclaim ' May Jiva
(individual soul) be in this god and may the deity have all the senses '.
Again reciting the five mantras, he should say, ' Speech, mind, eyes,
nose, ears, speech be unto her.' Afterwards he should recite twice the
mantras, ' May Pranas (vital breaths) come here and live happily for
ever, Swaha.' Having thus written thrice on the Yantra, with the help
of LilihanMudra, the mantra of inspiring vital breath, he should with
folded hands exclaim, 'Welcome unto thee, O Prime Kali. Auspicious
is thy coming here, O great goddess.' Thereupon reciting the principal
mantra for purifying the image of the goddess, he should sprinkle her
thrice with the water of special arghyn. Then, consecrating all the
limbs of the goddess with six sorts of tiyiisa, he should worship her
with sixteen ingredients.

The translator's note on the first sentence of the above
account is,

The word in the text is Prana Pratishtha. \Ve have given the
literal rendering, besides which the phrase has a theological signifi
cance. The practice among the Hindus is that they first make an
image of the deity they worship either with clay or stone. This image
is not considered sacred till this ceremony is performed. It thus goes
to prove that they do not worship the image but the spirit indwelling it.

8 vi. 70-77. Dutt's translation, 88.

THE WORK OF MEN'S HANDS 323

On the word nyasa in the last sentence his note is,

The assignment of the limbs of the body [sc. of the goddess] to the
corresponding parts of the image.

Vishnuites say that Vishnu exists in five modes, as the Absolute
in heaven, in his emanations, in his incarnations, in his saints,
and in images. Pope describes Saiva practice and belief:
' Each image by a peculiar service which is called Avaganain
(Sans. Avahanam, " bringing unto ") becomes the permanent
abode of an indwelling deity, and is itself divine.' : In the
Agni Pnrana* there occurs a description of a ceremony
performed to open the eyes of the image and endow it with
sight.

Buddhists and Jains seem to have taken to the use of
images for reasons similar to those that move Roman Catholic
Christians, viz. to stimulate feeling and meditation. But how
dangerous it is to play with fire in this way is plain from the
history of the practice both in Jainism and Buddhism. Despite
the fact that the Tlrthakaras and the Buddhas have entered
nirvana, and therefore can neither listen to praise and prayer
nor receive gifts, in both religions food,2 flowers, and incense
are offered and many a prayer is uttered. Nor is that all.
In Ceylon the last act in the making of an image is the
painting of the eyes, a magical ceremony, clearly copied from
the Hindu rite for the opening of the eyes. In Burmah the
image is dedicated in a ceremony called 'the giving of life',
which thus corresponds precisely with the Hindu pranapra-
tisJitJia. Here is what we arc told about Buddhist images in
China :

The images of the gods are usually made from wood or clay, gilded
or painted ; specially costly ones are bronze or marble. When the
craftsmen have finished their work, the image is vivified by a special

xxxv. - Iviii. 7-10.

The writer had the privilege recently of travelling in the same railway
carriage with an intelligent Jain lady, who is an eager promoter of educa
tion in her own community. Her theory is that Jains offer food to the
images in order to learn self-denial.

324 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

rite, and is raised to the actual godship. As a rule there is a small
hole in the back of the image, through which some animal — a snake,
a cat, a frog, or a centipede— is inserted into the hollows inside, and
the opening is closed. The soul of the creature gives the impetus of
life to the dead image. Afterwards the pupil of the eye is painted in,
and thereby the deity has taken full possession of the image. This act
is called k\ii kuang, the opening of eyelight.1

Let any one look through Hiouen Tsang's travels, and it will
become plain that the greatest Buddhist teacher which China
ever bred believed implicitly that the images of the Buddhas
and Bodhisattvas were alive and could walk about, speak,
and act.

There are innumerable images of each of the great gods in
India, and each is regarded as a living god. But this creates
no difficulty to the Hindu mind ; for one of the many super
natural powers which the gods are said to possess is the
capacity of assuming many bodies at the same moment.
Sarikaracharya and Ramanuja both tell us this quite plainly
in their commentaries.2

Further, it is of great importance to realize that it is not
the connexion of the idols with their original in heaven, but
their local personality and power that makes them of value to
the Hindu. The living beliefs of the people, which make their
religion a helpful reality to them, and the whole practice of
the temple, depend upon the conviction that each idol is
a distinct and independent divine personality. Each idol has
his own personal name, suggested by some episode in his
history or by the particular blessing which he is believed to
bestow. Each idol has usually his own local form. Each
idol has his own biography recorded in the legend of his
temple, the Sthala-pnrana. It is on the idol that the saint
lavishes his love.3 It is in looking in the eyes of his beloved
local lord that he kindles his emotion to rapture and breaks

1 Hackmann, Buddhism as a Religion, 214. 2 Infra, p. 331.

3 A saint now and then gets the malady known as ' sunset and sunrise ',
i.e. he falls ill because he cannot see his favourite god, the doors of the
shrine being closed by night to allow the god to sleep.

THE WORK OF MEN'S HANDS 325

into a song of bJiakti. So the villager trusts the power of
each separate idol. A Hindu wife goes to one divinity if she
wants to get a son, to another to pray for her husband's
recovery from a serious illness, to a third to ask for the removal
of cholera from the village.

Here is a very significant passage from the life of Ramanuja.
While still young, and living in KafichT, i.e. Conjeeveram, in
the service of the temple of Vishnu there, he became a sannyus!,
and took up a course of philosophic study. But his help was
greatly needed in the metropolitan shrine of Trichinopoly.
The Vishnu of Conjeeveram is known as Lord Varada, the
Boon-giver, while the Vishnu of Trichinopoly is called Lord
Ranga, Lord of the World-stage, and his temple is called
Srlrangam. The narrative proceeds:

\Vhile such studies were being prosecuted, the tidings travelled to
Srlrangam of the assumption by Ramanuja of the sannyasl order, and
other events rapidly succeeding it. Mahapurna and other disciples of
Yamunacharya received the tidings with joy, and longed for Ramanuja's
coming to Srlrangam, making it his permanent quarters. But they
were helpless ; and Ramanuja too had once before in grief and despair
returned from the place without even visiting Lord Ranga, being dis
appointed at the sudden death of Yamuna. So they went in a body to
Lord Ranga and petitioned to Him to prevail upon His Type at Kanchi
— the Lord Varada — to spare Ramanuja for them. So a message from
Lord Ranga was sent to Lord Varada. But a reply came to the effect :
' If it is possible for one to forego his love, I too can part with my
Ramanuja.' On hearing this, Mahapurna and other worthies were
much disconcerted, but after some deliberation, determined to depute
an elder in person to approach Lord Varada and persuade Him by
hymns to grant them Ramanuja, inasmuch as the Lord's very name
Varada meant : ' Grantor.' They besought accordingly Tiruvaranga-
p-perumal Araiyar, the Venerable Elder of the place, to march to
KanchI on their behalf, and so extol Lord Varada as to make him
condescend to grant them Ramanuja. Araiyar immediately left
Srlrangam on this holy errand, after obtaining leave to do so from
Lord Ranga. On his nearing KaiichI, his relative there, by name
Varantaram Perumal Araiyar, met him and escorted him to the Holy
City, and tended him under his roof as befitted a distinguished visitor.
The next morning, in due fashion, Araiyar proceeded to the Temple.

326 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

Lord Varada had that day taken His august seat in the pavilion called
Kacchikkui>ayttan> surrounded by the Holy Assembly ; Kanchl-purna,
stationed before the Lord, reverently doing his allotted service of fanning.
Ramanuja stood by his side devoutly uttering the Devaraja-Ashtaka
hymn sung by Pfirna. Ramanuja saw Araiyar, went forward and
received him most cordially. ' May I be allowed to pay my obeisance
to Lord Varada ? ' inquired Araiyar. Piirna led him to His august
presence, in full Holy Council seated, and Araiyar fell prostrate before
Him, repeating Yamuna's verse : 'Oh, when, O Strider of the Three
Spheres, will Thy Lotus-Feet, decked with all the signs such as the
discus, bedeck my head ? ' Rising, he was honoured with tirtha,
prasilda J and Sri Sathakopa.2 Araiyar then chanted a select number
of the Lyrical Psalter of the Alvars, set to celestial music ; and as he
sang, danced and went into raptures.

' When His faithful sing and dance for joy, God Himself keeps time,'
it is said. So, Lord Varada was pleased with the devotion of Gayaka,
i.e. Araiyar, and vouchsafed to Him all the honours belonging to His
Shrine. ' Why do I want these ? ' said Gayaka, ' my wish is not for these.
Pray grant me a boon, as Thou art, O God, famous as the Boon-Giver.'
And so saying, he continued his song and dance with more fervour.
Pleased, Lord Varada spoke thus : ' Ask, my beloved, anything, except
Me and My Consorts.' ' Him, pray grant,' readily replied Gayaka,
pointing to Ramanuja, who was close by. ' Oh lost,' exclaimed the
Lord, ' I wish I had had the forethought to include Ramanuja on the side
of exceptions. However, son, except Ramanuja, ask for any other boon.'
' But ', remonstrated Gayaka, ' dost Thou retract also like mortals ? Are
not Thy own words these: "Rama hath no two tongues"?' On
hearing this, Lord Varada had no alternative but to reluctantly say :
' Well, we grant you Ramanuja ; take him. And we bestow on him the
title, Yatiraja.' No sooner was this said, than almost convulsively
Gayaka grasped Ramanuja by the hand and said : ' Proceed, Sire.'
Ramanuja said not a word. He fell prostrate before Lord Varada and
saying : ' Thy will be done,' he immediately started, not even caring to
enter his cloister.8

This narrative is quite sufficient by itself to prove that even to
the most cultured Hindus two images of the same god are
distinct persons, who may disagree the one with the other.

1 See above, p. 315.

2 Sathakopa is the greatest of the Al.vars. See below, p. 384. His
sandals are presented to specially honoured guests.

. 3 Ramanuja, 74-76.

THE WORK OF MEN'S HANDS 327

Hinduism has proved itself a most powerful system both in
organizing the people and in stimulating them religiously ; and
no part of the religion has been more living and effective than
the worship of the temple. But the grip of that worship on
the heart of India depends altogether on this cardinal belief,
that each idol is a living god. The temple is a constant joy
to the Hindu, because he can go and actually look on the face
of the god whom he loves, express his affection by giving him
a gift of food, pour into his ear all his sorrows and all his
desires, hear the god's reply from his own lips, and go home
fortified against evil spirits and ill-luck through eating a portion
of the food that has been offered to the divinity. The bJiakti
of the Hindu, whether villager or saintly poet, is usually
a passionate devotion to a single idol. He dances with
rapture, or falls in a swoon from sudden emotion, when he sees
the glory of the divine eyes.

No one who knows what polytheism has been in other lands
will have any doubt as to the truth of this account of Hindu
image- worship. The ritual is everywhere of the same general
type; and, though the beliefs vary in particulars, the ground
work is the same in every case : the image is a living god ; the
temple is his house ; he receives his worshippers in audience,
listens to all their requests, makes them his guests, treats them
royally, and gives them his personal blessing.

VII. Now that we have got a firm hold of the facts of image-
worship among Hindus, we are in a position to trace the history
that lies behind.

A. The use of the temple and the image is one of the
elements of the fresh fabric of Hinduism which took shape
while the invading Aryans were bringing North India under
their sway. It arose rather later than the doctrine of trans
migration and the philosophy of Brahman ; yet it came from
the same general period of the history and from the same
conditions.

The next point to notice is that, from the beginning down
to our own days, all temples have been open on the same terms

328 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

to Hindus of all the four great castes,1 both men and women.
This proves incontestably that temple-worship had a different
origin from the regular sacrificial worship of the gods ; for
that has always been restricted to the three twice-born castes ;
and no woman can take any part in it except along with her
husband. The temple, on the other hand, is open to the Sudra
on the same terms as to the Brahman; and any woman,
whether wife or widow, may worship there by herself, and will
receive the same welcome as a man.

Thirdly, a vast number of divinities are found in the Hindu
pantheon which do not occur in the Vedas. It is clear that,
while some of these were created by priestly and philosophic
reflection, the great majority of them passed into the religion
and found recognition through temple-worship. It is also most
noteworthy that goddesses play a very minor role in the Vedic
religion, while in Hinduism they receive quite as much attention
as gods.

Fourthly, a type of worship which has never received official
sanction in Hinduism is found in every part of India, viz. the
cult of the village gods. Most of these divinities are goddesses,
and they are, therefore, frequently referred to as the Mothers.
There are three points to be noted with regard to them. First,
each is a local divinity distinct from every other and with
a name of her own. Secondly, each has a holy place where
she lives. Thirdly, she is represented at the holy place by an
image, a stone, or some other symbol. There is thus a good
deal of difference between one of these goddesses and one of
the heavenly gods of the Indo-Aryans as described above.2
The one is local, the other is heavenly. The one is a present
divinity, the other only visits. The one is represented by
a symbol, while the other has none.

Fifthly, from the beginning the priests in Hindu temples
have been always and everywhere Brfihmans.

Sixthly, for centuries the ancient Vedic worship was regarded

1 See above, p. 164.

THE WORK OF MEN'S HANDS 329

as the only perfect worship for twice-born men ; but after the
Christian era temple-worship gradually rose in favour ; and in
modern times the ancient sacrificial cult has fallen into almost
complete disuse.

On the very surface these facts suggest that the temple and
the idol came into Hinduism with the aborigines who became
Sudras, and that the new worship was admitted on condition
that only Brahmans should officiate as priests. If we suppose
that the worship of the aborigines was in the main similar to
the cult of the village divinities of to-day, then all the features
of Hindu image-worship are easily comprehensible. Each
local aboriginal god of note would be identified with one of the
Vedic celestials, while each goddess would find recognition as
the wife of one of those heavenly gods. Minor divinities
became Hinduized through receiving recognition as children
or dependents of the great gods. In this way we account, on
the one hand, for the growth of the pantheon and the increased
importance of goddesses, and on the other, for the fact that
though there are thousands of images of such a god as Vishnu,
each idol is a living god, a distinct personality with his own
name, character, and history, and yet is held to be, in a sense,
the great heavenly god himself. One competent Hindu
scholar, Mr. P. T. SrTnivasa lyengar, has realized part of the
truth. He writes that Hindu temple ritual

was primarily based on the ceremonies of the fetish-worship of the
Dravidian races, many of which are still observed in villages and under
wayside trees in all their primitive barbarism.1

Necessarily, the temples were open to Sudra men and
women after they were Hinduized just as they were before ;
so that the ancient temple-rule causes no difficulty.

The gradual acceptance of temple-worship by the twice-born
castes and the progressive decay of the ancient cult are
accounted for by two facts. First, the presence of Brahman
priests in every temple made it possible for the twice-born to

1 Outlines, 128.

330 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

use them. The women of these castes would be especially
eager to go to temples, since they could worship there by
themselves and when they pleased. Temple-priests, naturally,
would do all they possibly could to induce high-caste people,
both men and women, to visit the shrines. But the second fact
is the real reason for the final predominance of idolatry over
the old cult. In temples Hindus had their gods living with
them and visible to their eyes. The present divinity grips the
heart, creating keen religious feeling and fervent worship. The
absent and invisible celestials were at a great disadvantage.

B. The rise of the early philosophy of India must next be
noticed. The basis of the whole is the idea of Brahman,
indissolubly one, spiritual, real, unknowable. In the light of
this conception the old gods appeared transient, immersed in
phenomenal things, able to give only phenomenal gifts. From
them the philosopher turns away, renouncing, in sannyfisa, all
phenomenal things. He seeks not the world, but release from
transmigration, and he believes it can be won only by know
ledge of Brahman.

But though the philosopher turned away from the popular
faith, that faith went on unchanged and with as much vigour
as ever.

We have seen how the Brahmans introduced the philosophy
of Brahman into their schools, how it there received the name
Vedanta, and how the earliest records of the philosophy, the
Upanishads, became integral parts of the Brahmanas of the
Vedas. This naturally led in the long run to a close alliance
between the Vedanta philosophy and the sacrificial system
which it had originally repudiated. How soon this was worked
out we do not know, although traces of it appear in the later
Upanishads ; but the Vcdanta-sutras make it plain that the
alliance was complete before the time of Badarayana; so that we
may use the Sutras and Sankara's BhdsJiya freely as evidence.
We note four significant points.

(i) It is acknowledged that the gods are transient beings,
finite, mortal, transmigrating, spirits, with physical bodies, as

THE WORK OF MEN'S HANDS 331

the early Upanishads declare them to be ; but it is contended
that, when one god dies, another exactly corresponding to him
takes his placed There is thus a permanent succession, and
the basis of the popular faith remains undisturbed.

(ii) It is clear that the idea that the gods feed on the sacri
fices created a difficulty for the philosophic mind. Indeed,
Sankara says they do not eat them ; yet he acknowledges that
they do enjoy them. The eating is tJins volatilized, so as to
satisfy philosophic scruple, but is retained as a reality because
of the popular faith.2

(iii) We are also told that there is no difficulty in believing
that the gods are present at all sacrifices, though many may
be offered to one god at the same moment ; for, through his
supernatural power, a god can assume as many bodies as Jie
pleases? Sankara is here thinking primarily of Vedic sacrifice ;
yet his words justify idol-worship also.

(iv) The contention of the early philosophers, that the
phenomenal gifts of the gods arc worthless, Release being the
only thing worth striving for, is acknowledged ; yet it is argued
that, though the gifts, which are the fruit of sacrifice, are of no
value in themselves, yet the worship of the gods is of service in
ripening the man for final Released

C. In this way philosophy held by the old teaching, yet
found ways of justifying the whole of the popular religion.
When the Vaishnava and the Saiva brought the Vedanta
philosophy into the theology of the sects, they declared
Vishnu, in the one case, and Siva, in the other, to be Brahman.
That is, instead of saying with the strict Vedantists, ' All the
gods are created, mortal, transmigrating beings,' each sect said,
' All minus one.' 5 The theist accepted the Vedantic statement
that release is obtained by knowledge of Brahman only, but

S. B. E., xxxiv. 203. Compare S. />'. E., xlviii. 331.

S. 7?. E., xxxviii. 1 10-1 1 1 ; xxxiv. 201. Cf. Six Sysfems, 217.

.V. B. E., xxxiv. 199-200. Compare 6". B. E., xlviii. 331.

S. B. E., xxxiv. 197 n. ; xxxviii. 306-309 ; 313-315.

See below, pp. 364-367.

332 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

he added the rider, that a man may rise to knowledge by
means of bhakti, deep, strong devotion to the personal god.

With the exception of the results produced by the doctrine
of ahirhsa,1 there is no thought of reform. Apart from that,
the worship went on absolutely unchanged. The pantheon is
not altered in a single particular. Vishnu, though now equated
with the incomprehensible Brahman, is worshipped just as he
had been during the centuries when he was regarded as merely
one of the celestials ; and the same is true of Siva. The
whole of the mythology remains unchanged.

VIII. We have next to notice certain rather important
movements arising from criticisms of idolatry.

A number of very outspoken criticisms occur in Tamil and
Telugu literature, especially in the poems of Pattanattu Pijjai,
of ' Sivavakyar ' and Vemana ; 2 but, as we do not know the
dates of these writers, it is impossible as yet to tell whence
they received their inspiration. Namadeva, the Maratha saint
who flourished about 1300 A.D., also condemns idolatry in his
cibhangs? But it seems clear that no religious sect rejecting
idolatry sprang from these efforts ; so that we need not linger
over them.

We find ourselves in another atmosphere when we turn to
the North in the time of Muhammadan supremacy. During
the conquest the Muhammadans expressed their detestation of
idols by the destruction of temples and images and the murder
of their priests ; but these violent methods do not appear to
have produced any religious result. Peaceful teaching, how
ever, did what the hammer and the sword failed to do.
Through the instrumentality of Kablr,4 who seems to have
been half a Muhammadan, the stern monotheism of Islam and
its hatred of idolatry passed into Hinduism and took organized
form. The followers of Kablr to this day are a separate Hindu
sect who do not visit Hindu temples, but worship in their own
buildings without images. Still more important than the sect

1 Infra, pp. 380-382. 2 Heart of India, 88, 91, no, 112.

s Indian Interpreter, April, 1913, p. 17. 4 See p. 387.

THE WORK OF MEN'S HANDS 333

of Kablris the famous Sikh sect, founded by Nanak, a disciple
of Kabir.1 A smaller body, the Dadupanthls, arose in Ahmad-
abad rather later. They also look back to Kabir as the source
of their ideas. Both groups condemn the use of idols. There
is also a Jain sect, the Sthanakavasls,2 who have renounced
idolatry. They are a branch of the Svetambara sect, and
belong to Gujarat ; so that it is probable that they sprang
from the same movement as the Dadupanthls.

It is a very remarkable fact that these sects have failed to
influence Hinduism in general. Outside the small groups of
their own members they have had very little influence indeed.
Even in their own midst they have found it difficult to main
tain the pristine ideal. It is well known that certain groups of
Sikhs were long addicted to idol-worship ; and in the Golden
Temple of Amritsar their sacred book, the Graiitk, is to this
day treated like an image. It lies open in the centre of the
temple. Priests fan it with chowries, while the people bow
down before it and offer flowers to it. At night it is put to
bed, and brought out for worship again next morning. It is
significant, also, that groups of Sikhs go on pilgrimage to visit
Hindu temples. When questioned on the subject, they say
they go to look at the idols, not to worship them.

A new era begins with the opening of the nineteenth century.
The bold teaching of the Serampore missionaries found its way
into Hinduism; and Rammohan Rai founded the Brahma
Samaj, a theistic body which is vehemently opposed to idolatry.
The Samaj has exercised a wide influence among educated
men, especially in North India. Its greatest triumphs have
been won in Bengal, but there are groups of men in other
cities, notably in Bombay, Lahore, and Madras, who follow its
teaching. For many years there were thousands of educated
men within Hinduism, outside the Samaj, who refused to
worship idols, and in consequence never visited temples nor
took part in the daily worship of the family idols. The

1 7fi/ra,p. 38$. 2 Modern Jainis/ii, 13-14.

334 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

Prarthana Samaj in Bombay sprang from the Brahma Samaj
and testifies as frankly against idolatry.

During the last twenty-five years the Arya Samaj has done
a good deal to rouse opinion against idols in North India. This
body was founded by Dayananda SarasvatI in 1875. Its
influence is not very great outside the Punjab and the
United Provinces ; but within those limits its earnest crusade
against image- worship has attained a measure of success.

IX. But a very great reaction has been in progress for some
years. The movement is to be traced to two sources. The
first of these is the teaching of Ramakrishna Paramaharhsa,
who has been already mentioned and quoted. The warm
defence of everything Hindu, including idols, which he started,
and which his disciples, and especially Vivekananda, continued,
has been caught up with the utmost eagerness by Hindus
everywhere. The second source is the Theosophical Society,
which unquestionably owes its great popularity in India to-day
almost exclusively to its defence of caste and idols. These
movements arose some thirty-five years ago ; during the last
ten years their influence has spread with great rapidity ; and
to-day it is felt in every part of India. In consequence, instead
of the thousands of educated men who twenty years ago were
ashamed of idolatry, there are tens of thousands who defend
the practice. The movement for the removal of idols from
Hinduism has been flung aside and forgotten. So that to the
casual observer it might seem to-day as if the battle had
been finally decided in favour of idolatry in every part of
India, except in the two provinces where the Arya Samaj is
powerful.

Yet Hindu idolatry is dying. The educated Hindu who
defends it does not believe in it. That is perfectly clear from
the various arguments he uses in favour of it.

(a) The most common defence is that the image is a symbol
of God, and that the ordinary man cannot worship God with
out having some sort of symbol on which to concentrate his
attention. Those who follow this line of defence usually go on

\

\

THE WORK OF MEN'S HANDS 335

to urge that Protestant Christians use symbols also, and, there
fore, are as idolatrous as Hindus are. It is almost unnecessary
to point out how absurd the comparison is : Protestants do
not worship these things, whether they think of them as in any
sense symbols or not. To compare a Protestant's feeling for
the Church or the Bible with the Hindu process of feeding an
image and expecting it to speak is simply utter futility.

Alas ! the iconoclasts of this fashion miss the point or purposes of
true idolatry altogether. They fail to realize what powerful aids images
are for concentration. Human thoughts allowed to roam about to
catch an abstraction seldom attain the object. We think in pictures
and forms, and whenever the picture or the form is vague, the mental
grasp is feeble. To conceive of the Formless and fix it in the mind is
an impossibility.1

Protestants hold that churches are more sacred than other places.
This church, as it is, stands for a symbol. Or there is the Book. The
idea of the Book, to them, is much holier than any other symbol.
The image of the Cross with the Protestants takes the place of the
image of the Saint with the Catholics. It is vain to preach against the
use of symbols, and why should we preach against them ? There is no
reason under the sun why man should not use these symbols. They
have them in order to represent the thing signified behind them. This
universe is a symbol in and through which we are trying to grasp the
thing signified, which is beyond and behind. This is the lower human
constitution, and we are bound to have it so. Yet, at the same time,
it is true that we are struggling to get to the thing signified, to get
beyond the material, to the spiritual; the spirit is the goal, and not
matter. Forms, images, bells, candles, books, churches, temples, and
all holy symbols are very good, very helpful to the growing plant of
spirituality, but thus far and no farther.2

Clearly this is no explanation of Hindu idolatry. If the
image is merely a symbol, what is the use of the ceremony
Q{ pranapratishtfia, the bringing of life into the image? It is
quite true that many an educated Hindu, who, like Vivekananda,
has felt the force of Christian criticism of idolatry, no longer
thinks of the image as a living god, but, in loyalty to Hinduism,
attempts to use it as a symbol to lift his thought to the

1 Madhva, 142. z Vivekananda, 340.

336 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

Invisible. But that is not Hindu idolatry. That is not what
the idol is to the Hindu villager.

(b] Mrs. Besant knows that. She, therefore, goes a step
further, frankly acknowledging that the Hindu does not use an
image until it has been consecrated by this ceremony, but
attempting to justify the ceremony as a magnetizing of the
idol :

You know how, from time immemorial, pictures and images have
been used for the purpose of worship among Hindus of all shades
of thought. . . . Now, what is the connexion between the sacred image,
the sacred picture, and the magnetic bodies I have been talking about ?
They have the same force. Only the force of a higher grade of fineness
and complicacy. You don't, in Hinduism, take an ordinary image,
an ordinary picture, and use it in worship straight away. On the
contrary, you subject it to a divine ceremony. You recite over it certain
Mantras, you use certain objects, you pour certain liquids, and it is
only after all this ceremony has been performed that the image becomes
sacred and fit to be used for purposes of worship. Now, what have
you been doing by these ceremonies, by these Mantras, by the sub
stances you used ? To put it in ordinary scientific language, you have
been magnetizing your image or picture. . . . And if a European doctor,
a sceptic, or an unbeliever is able to magnetize a physical object for the
curing of a physical disease, do you mean to tell me it is superstition to
believe that a man or a Uevata can magnetize another object for the
curing of mental disease and helping a man to devotion ? l

But, if the idol is merely a magnetized stone, or a piece of
magnetized brass, able to cure a man of materialism and make
him a spiritual man, what is the use of worshipping the image ?
What is the use of singing praises to it ? Magnetism does
not require to be worshipped before it will act. Clearly
Mrs. Besant's defence does not explain image-worship at all.

(c) Others, realizing this, go a step further. To them it is
perfectly evident that the Hindu believes that God is in the
image. Unless that point is explained, the Hindu use of
images is not explained at all. A famous Vaishnava scholar,
therefore, acknowledges the fact and undertakes to prove that
it is quite rational to worship images on that understanding :

1 Speeches at Trivandriint^ 36-38.

THE WORK OF MEN'S HANDS 337

When we speak of 'an animated discourse', even the most ignorant
among us do not mean that the discoursing person began to live, i.e.
had his Pranpratishtha for the first time, at the moment of his making
that discourse, but only that his animation or power of life was realized
by his audience by attending to his discourse. So likewise, our greatest
slanderer cannot ascribe to us the folly of believing that the Infinite
Omnipresent Lord, Vasudeva, began to penetrate any particular image,
i.e. any particular part of His nature or universe, after a particular
devotee's performance of the ceremony of Pranpratis/itha, but that the
worshipper, as a witness is by an oath, has, by the power of the
consecrating ceremony, become self-recollected, and he so realizes the
Divine Presence in (among the infinity of others) those particular
images of the Lord and Lady of the Universe, that, henceforth, to use
the calumniator's own language, they are esteemed the arbiters of his
destiny, and continually receive his most ardent adoration.1

The defence here is that, since God is everywhere, He is in the
image also. Thus there is nothing irrational in worshipping
God as present in the image. The ceremony is merely to
enable the worshipper to realize God's presence in the image.
We need only refer readers to the quotation above,- in which
the ceremony is described, to show that this is not the truth.
The ceremony is undoubtedly performed in order to bring the
god into the image. Before the ceremony, the image is a piece
of inert matter. After the ceremony, it is a living god who
speaks, moves, eats, and acts. Clearly the divine omnipresence
is no explanation of idols. If God is in the image merely
in the same way as He is in any ordinary stone, what is the
reason for worshipping that particular stone more than any
other ? why is it carved into the shape of a man ? and why, in
the name of everything, is food offered to it ?

(d) A few of the more sincere souls frankly acknowledge the
truth, that Hindus believe that each image is a living god ;
but no attempt is made anywhere to show that it is reasonable
to treat every image as a living being :

And where worship is found enjoined in the case of avesa Avataras,

and even Images of God, it means that God elects to be specially

1 Parthasarathi Aiyangar, Holy Image Worship, 31.

2 P- 322.

338 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

present in such media — the soul in the former case, and matter in the
latter case.1

Image worship is not the worship of the mere symbol, but what
it imparts. The visible symbol, to the knower of the secret thereof,
becomes the very transcendental person of God.2

The bare fact is that ninety-nine out of every hundred of image-
worshippers believe that the images consecrated in temples are really
the gods whose names they bear.3

Clearly, no one of all these writers really grapples with the
problem. What they say throws no convincing light upon the
Hindu use of images. The truth is that they have lost all
genuine faith in idolatry themselves ; yet they are dimly
conscious of something noble and good in the practice ; but,
being unwilling to admit even to themselves that it is in
defensible to modern thought, they fail to bring out in clear
and convincing fashion the real religious elements which find
expression in it.

That the average educated man no longer believes in idolatry
is sometimes naively confessed. Oftener it shows itself in the
writer's own tone :

Image-worship is a large question. It has suffered deadly attack
from iconoclasts both physical and theoretical from every quarter. The
foreign missionary levels all his blows at it in the belief that it is the
most vulnerable point of the Hindu system. The University man
suppresses a sneer rising to his lips out of a conflict between patriotism
on the one hand and intellectual honesty on the other. He wishes in
his heart of hearts that this practice were swept away, and sees, with
a sigh, no signs of the consummation.4

Salagrams are worshipped in India as stones of peculiar merit, as the
special abode of Vishnu. The orthodox read the various configurations
of circles in the gaping mouths or simple holes of the $alagram stones,
and identify the tracings as representing some form of Vishnu.5

With regard to the linga we have indisputable evidence that

1 Holy Lives, xxviii-xxix. '2 Holy Lives, 216.

3 From the article, parts of which are reproduced in the Introduction,
pp. 40-42. * Madhva, 214.

5 Ibid., 165. Cf. the passage quoted on pp. 320-321 above from p. 254
of the same volume.

THE WORK OF MEN'S HANDS 339

men have lost faith in it. The pressure of Western thought
and Christian criticism is so great that no modern educated
Hindu can accept a phallic symbol as a worthy representation
of the one living and true God ; and consequently Vivekfmanda,
the great defender of the faith, gets out of the difficulty by
declaring that the liriga is not a phallic symbol at all, but that
Hindus, in their most degraded days, mistook it for such.1
It is a most remarkable fact that Dr. Coomaraswamy, the art
critic, and Mr. NallasvamI Pillai, the most notable living writer
among Saiva Siddhantists, endorse this judgement. The latter
thinks that the linga may have originally been a model of
a sacred hill.~ But it is clear from the passage quoted above 3
from the MaliabJiarata that from the very time when the
linga was introduced into the worship of Siva Hindus have
recognized it to be a phallic symbol. Indeed nobody ever
questioned the fact till our own days. Oddly enough, a fresh
piece of archaeological evidence has recently turned up which
proves the point conclusively. In a temple at Gudimallam in
North Arcot there stands a very ancient linga, dating clearly
from one of the early Christian centuries, which is such
a realistic representation of the penis that Mr. P. T. Srlnivasa
lyengar, to whom a photograph of it was sent, does not
venture to publish it.4

Thus the various defences of idolatry by educated Hindus
reveal nothing so clearly as their own want of faith in the
practice.

X. But surely what the defenders of idolatry say is not all
that can be said in rational exposition of the use of images
in Hinduism. A method of worship which began among the
lower classes and which yet finally won the allegiance not
only of the upper castes but of such master-spirits as Sankara,
Manikka Vachakar, Ramanuja, Ramananda, Tulsi Das, and
Tukaram must have something of real power and value in it.
No one who truly honours these great men can believe that the

1 Sah>a Siddhanta, 294. 2 Ibid., 295, 339.

3 See above, p. 310. 4 lyenyar's Outlines, 165-166.

Y 2

34° THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

peddling explanations quoted above really explain how image-
worship was so much to them. The following thoughts are
flung out tentatively, with the desire to reach the truth.
Readers will judge for themselves whether they get at the real
reasons for the popularity of idols in India or not.

(a] A temple with its image has usually been founded and
dedicated because it was believed that a god had manifested
himself or had done some noteworthy deed, and people wanted
to do him honour for his grace and goodness. The temple
usually marks the very spot where the theophany is believed
to have taken place. It would be possible to compile an end
less list of examples of such foundations. The legendary
histories of the temples (sthala purand) are filled with evidence
of this kind. The human heart is deeply touched by the idea
that God cares for us and has done something for us.

(b] The image is meant to be a faithful representation of the
god. If he were to appear himself, he would be just like the
image. This has been already brought out in our account of
how Hindus think about their idols.1 Thus the making of
images is a response to the eager human desire to know God's
nature and character. The idol seems to meet this need in
the happiest way : there it stands, permanently showing what
the revered Being is like. You can gaze on the great features,
read the character, and carry away a picture in your heart.
The ineffaceable impression produced on the Greek mind by
the image of Zeus at Olympia may help us to understand how
idols lay hold of the common heart of man. Under this spell
many a man, who ordinarily is far enough removed from
reverence, feels he can adore and pray. His god is now no
mere thought or imagination to him, but a definite person
whose character he is in touch with. Religion becomes at
once a reality, a practical sort of intercourse which he can
understand.

(c] But the lives of the great saints show us that the chief

1 Supra, 321.

THE WORK OF MEN'S HANDS 341

joy they received from idols was in seeing them daily, in asking
for guidance from them, in hearing them speak, in rapturous
dancing and singing before them, in receiving food and water
from the god's table, and in the ecstasy of bhakti. The
ordinary Hindu wants a temple near his home, that he may
be able to see his god at any moment, to make him an offering
of food, to ask for his help in distress or in danger, to pour out
his heart in prayer or in praise. It is the living, present god
that the human heart adores with rapture and gratitude. This
is the reason for the limitless multiplication of temples, for the
idols of the home and the little shrines by the roadside. The
Hindu must have a living god to turn to wherever he is.

The use of idols is thus completely justified in the case of
men who really believe in them. If each image is a living
god, then every detail of the worship is not only natural but
right; and we have no difficulty in understanding how men
and women lavish their affection upon idols.

From the same point of view we can sympathize with the
Hindu people in gradually adopting temple-worship in place
of the ancient mode of sacrificing. In temple-worship the
gods are so near to man and so accessible that the ancient
cult is scarcely comparable with the new.

Idolatry brought to the Hindu people something which
their philosophy never gave them, and never could give them,
present and accessible gods. Brahman, being ' beyond thought
and speech ', can never be to any man what an idol is. It is
the god to whom a man can turn in prayer at any moment
and receive the help or the answer he wants that will finally
hold the human heart.

It is thus evident that idolatry ministers to some of the
most powerful and most valuable of our religious instincts.
That is the reason why it has laid such a hold of the heart of
the Hindu people. That is the reason why it has played such
a great part in the religious history of our race. Every nation
that rose to great power and influence in the ancient world
bowed down to idols. We have only to think of Babylon and

342 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

Egypt, those mighty peoples whose science and art lie behind
all the progress of the West, of Greece, the homeland of cul
ture, and of Rome, the practical, sober-minded mistress of the
world, to realize how completely the ancient world was under
the sway of image-worship. Even Persia, for long content
with fire as a symbol of the Divine, sent idols of Mithra
throughout the length and breadth of the Roman Empire. If
further proof is wanted of the part idolatry has played in
human life, let us recollect that to it we are indebted for
architecture, sculpture, and painting.

But idolatry is dying among educated Hindus; and the
exigencies of the time will soon compel Indian leaders to seek
to destroy the practice among the common people. For the
belief that every image is a living god, who is able to bless or
curse, and that food, water, flowers, and every other thing that
comes in contact with the image is charged with supernatural
power, is the chief source of the limitless mass of superstitions
under which the Hindu people live enslaved. Two things at
least are necessary if a vigorous modern people is to be built
up in India : the villager must be set free from superstition,
and he must be educated. Idolatry is thus one of the chief
hindrances to the progress of India. The clear-sighted patriot
will do his utmost to wean the simple Hindu villager from
idols.

Therefore, educated men, who are themselves already
emancipated from idols, ought at once to turn to the task of
setting the people free from their superstitions. But how?
Man has his clamant religious needs. History brings us face
to face with this most solemn fact, that, if these^needs are not
fulfilled spiritually, they seek satisfaction in the grossness of
idolatry. One writer proposes to cleanse the temples from
idols and use them as schools for religious instruction. But
that will not prevent the reappearance of idols. We must find
a spiritual force as vivid and as real as idolatry, and as fully
charged with religious emotion, a spiritual dynamic which will
render idols obsolete by appealing as successfully as they do,

THE WORK OF MEN'S HANDS 343

and yet in healthy spiritual fashion, to the religious imagina
tion and feeling.

XI. It is one of the marvels of Christ that He is able to
make such an appeal and to make it effectively ; so that the
man who has been used to the accessibility of idols and the
joy and passion of their worship finds in Him, in purest
spiritual form, more than all the emotion and stimulus to
reverent adoration which their vividness used to bring him.

There is the richest devotional life and the most living
worship in Christianity without idols, because Christ takes
their place. In Him the purest spiritual monotheism rises to
the highest joy and adoring veneration ; so that the full range
of man's religious faculties find exercise and expression, but
in noblest, truest forms, altogether apart from the degrading
superstitions of idolatry.

Idolatry has proved its power not only by its mastery over
the nations but by creating architecture and sculpture. One
of the clearest proofs that Christ has completely taken the
place of idols is this, that in Judaism and Muhammadanism,
the other two faiths which condemn idolatry, the consciousness
of the danger and the fascination of idols is so great that the
faithful are forbidden to make statues and other representa
tions of men and animals, lest they should be drawn to
worship them, while Christians, by their knowledge of God in
Jesus Christ, are set completely free from this terror, and are
therefore able to use sculpture and painting with perfect
freedom. Christianity, so far from standing in the way of art,
has stimulated architecture, sculpture, painting, and music to
the utmost.

This is precisely what India needs, a pure spiritual worship,
to set her free from the need of idols. We shall, therefore, do
well to ask how Christ satisfies the instincts which in so many
lands have found satisfaction in idolatry.

We do not here make any attempt to demonstrate the truth
of the Christian system. We merely seek to show how, by
means of the central beliefs of the system, the worship of God

344 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

is secured in living power and spirituality, apart from the
superstitions of idols.

A. The Christian conception of the coming of Christ is that
God, our Father, who had revealed Himself partially to men
in former ages, sent His Son into human life, to crown all
former revelation, and to draw the whole human family back
to Himself.

Jesus opened His public life with the declaration,
The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand.1
He calls Himself the Messiah, as introducing the Kingdom,
and allows Himself to be crucified rather than give up the
claim. The central idea of His teaching is that God is the
Father ; and He regularly calls Himself the Son in relation to
the Father. But He uses the name the Son of Man still
oftcner, indicating at once His real humanity and His headship
of the whole human race. As the Son of Man, He must die
for men, in accordance with the will of His Father :

The Son of man must suffer many things . . . and be killed.2
The Son of man came ... to give his life a ransom for many.3

My Father, if this cannot pass away, except I drink it, thy will be
done.4

His life is thus the central event of the world's whole history ;
so that even His disciples are of infinite import to all men :

Ye are the salt of the earth.5
Ye are the light of the world.6

The truth must be told everywhere :

Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to the whole creation.7

The whole significance of Christ's coming is summed up by
Paul in one brief sentence :

God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself.8

] Mark 1, 15. 2 Mark 8, 31. 3 Matt. 20, 28.

4 Matt. 26, 42. B Matt. 5, 13. 6 Matt. 5, 14.

7 Mark 16, 15. 8 2 Cor. 5, 19.

THE WORK OF MEN'S HANDS

345

B. We notice next that Jesus was able to reveal the Father,
because He is the Son. This Jesus states most explicitly
Himself:

No one knoweth the Son, save the Father ; neither doth any know
the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to
reveal him.1

It was His conviction also that the revelation was not a mere
matter of teaching: in His own personality, character, life,
death and resurrection, as well as in His teaching, the Father
was revealed. He was the full representation of His Father :

He that believeth on me believeth not on me but on him that sent me ;
and he that beholdeth me beholdeth him that sent mc."

His relation to the Father is intimate in the extreme :

I am in the Father and the Father is in me.3
Hence He is the perfect revelation of the Father:

He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.4

Paul gave another expression to this thought. He calls
Christ

The image of the invisible God/'

Another early Christian writer used rather different words,
calling Him

The outflashing of God's glory, the perfect expression of His
personality.15

It is very important that we should realize in what sense
these great statements are made. Clearly God's omniscience,
omnipotence, and omnipresence could not be revealed in a man.
But we need no revelation of these : the things of nature make
plain to us that He who made the world is infinite in wisdom,
knowledge, and power, that He works in all places at all times,

1 Matt. 11, 27.
3 John 14, 10.
5 Col. 1 15. Cf. 2 Cor. 4, 4.

2 John 12, 44-45.
4 John 14, 9.
6 Hebrews 1, 3.

346 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

and that He is a God of system and order. What we need to
know is what God is to man, how He regards our life, and
whether He is able and willing to listen to us and do anything
for us. In fact, we need to know God's person and character,
so far as these affect man. It is in this sane and practical
sense that Jesus is held to be the image of God. His life,
death, and resurrection give us a complete revelation of the
character of God in relation to men and human life. The man
who understands Jesus understands the Father in heaven. The
Son is a perfect likeness of the Father's person.

Two points stand out in the picture prominent beyond all
others. There is first God's holiness, which is moral perfection
of such a real and practical character that He can never rest
until men have become holy too. Man must live a really
lofty moral life if he is to please God :

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the
kingdom of heaven ; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is
in heaven.1

Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.2

The other point is God's love for men, which Jesus declares to
be so true and deep that the Father will shrink from no self-
sacrifice to bring His children to Himself:

How think ye ? if any .man have a hundred sheep, and one of them
be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and go unto the
mountains, and seek that which goeth astray ? And if so be that he
find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth over it more than over the
ninety and nine which have not gone astray. Even so it is not the will
of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should
perish.8

God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son.4

But teaching is of little force by itself. Hence, in His own
life and actions Jesus exhibited the very love and holiness
which He said belonged to the Father ; and they thus stood

1 Matt. 7, 21. 2 Matt. 5, 48.

z Matt. 18, 12-14. " John 3, 16.

THE WORK OF MEN'S HANDS 347

out before the disciples as not merely credible but as actual,
visible to their human eyes. Jesus lived out in our common
human life the righteousness and the love which He described
as being the life of God.

His perfect holiness they realized best in their own experience.
They were driven by His utter sincerity and purity to a new
life such as they had never dreamt of. The only alternative
was the hypocrisy and deceit of Judas. So with others : the
poor unfortunate weeps out her repentance at His feet ; l
Zacchaeus feels he cannot receive Him as his guest until he has
turned his life outside in ; 2 the robber is driven to confess his
evil life even on the cross/"'

His love they knew in His personal friendship, but it was
also written publicly in such actions as no human eyes have
seen in any other man. They saw it when He took the
children in His arms,4 when He touched the leper,5 when He
forgave the paralytic,6 when he dined with the Outcastes,7
when He fed the hungry,8 when He opened blind eyes,9 when
He healed the sick,10 when He restored the lunatic.11 They
saw it in the tears He shed over Jerusalem,12 in the cleansing of
the Temple,13 in the agony and bloody sweat in Gethsemane,14
in His meekness when His judges spat in His face,15 and when
He was crowned with thorns and mocked by the soldiers,10 in
His prayer for those who nailed Him to the cross,17 when He
died, saving others, not Himself,18 and when He rose from the
dead to bring us life and immortality.1'

Thus, to His disciples Jesus proved Himself the very image
of the Father of whom He spoke.

C. Jesus, then, was the image of the Father to those who
knew Him. How was this used to create a worship of God at

Luke 7, 36-50.
Mark 10, 13-16.
Mark 1, 41.
Matt. 14, 13-21.
Mark 5, 1-20.
Luke 22, 39-44. J
Luke 23, 33-34.

2 Luke 10, 8.

Matt. 9, 2.
Mark 10, 46-52.
Luke 11), 41-44.
Matt. 26, 67.
Matt. 27, 39-42, 50.

s Luke 23, 40-41.

Matt. 0, 10-13.
0 Matt. 8, 16-17.
3 Mark 11, 15-18.
fi Matt. 27, 27-31.
9 2 Tim. 1, 10.

348 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

once purely spiritual and yet vivid and full of emotion ? The
means employed were two : first, Christ's teaching on the sub
ject of prayer and of our Father's response to our needs ;
secondly, His own resurrection and ascension.

(a) In His time no people worshipped the Father with com
plete directness. Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Hindus all either
worshipped idols or merely meditated on God as beyond
thought and speech, unreachable by prayer or praise. Even
the Jew still felt the need of temple and sacrifice in approach
ing Jahveh.

Jesus taught that all this was unnecessary. The Father is
as accessible, as reasonable, as loving as an earthly father :
Ask and it shall be given you.1
If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,

how much more shall your heavenly Father give good things to them

that ask him ? "

His personal attentiveness to man's needs is as infinite as His
power :

The hairs of your head are all numbered.3

Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of these things.4
Be not anxious . . . what ye shall eat ; nor yet . . . what ye shall put
on. . . . Consider the ravens, that they sow not, neither reap ; . . . yet
God feedeth them : of how much more value are ye than the birds ! . . .
Consider the lilies : . . . they toil not, neither do they spin ; yet even
Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. If God
doth so clothe the grass in the field, . . . how much more shall he
clothe you ? 5

But though this is very beautiful teaching, the ordinary
human heart finds it infinitely difficult to believe it with such
conviction as to be able to live by it. Hence Jesus sought
to bring the truth home to His disciples by His own life. We
shall probably understand best if we take His example in two
parts.

There is first His own religious life. He lived in human
dependence on His Father. His disciples, spending their days

1 Matt. 7, 7. 2 Matt. 7, 11. 3 Matt. 10, 30.

4 Matt. 6, 32. 5 Luke 12, 22, 24, 27-8.

THE WORK OF MEN'S HANDS 349

with Him, saw how He trusted His Father for everything,
turned to Him in prayer in any place and at any time, and
had His prayers answered. He lived with His Father, never
losing the consciousness of His presence, sometimes seeking
eagerly to learn His will, never opposing that will, once He
knew it, and always basking in His love.

There is, in the second place, the way Jesus dealt with His
disciples and all other men. He showed a most perfect
love for every human being, a love which expressed itself in
a lively sympathy with every sorrow, every need, and every
temptation, and in an eager will to help with every available
resource. It was from this point of view that the miracles
struck home upon the heart of these simple Galileans : the
power displayed in them was as nothing compared with the
love that inspired them. They learned to trust Jesus absolutely.
They knew He would always be ready to listen to them, to feel
for them, and to help them to the uttermost of His power.

(b) When Jesus, whom they had learned to think of as the
Christ, the Son of God, was suddenly snatched away and
crucified, the disciples were overwhelmed with despair. But
His resurrection brought Him back to them ; and the meaning
of the Cross began to dawn upon them.

When He left them, their real Christian experience began.
Knowing that Jesus had gone to the Father, they found they
were able to live the life of prayer, complete trust, and filial
dependence which He had lived. They no longer needed
temple, priest, and sacrifice ; they needed no ritual, no forms
of prayer. Like children, they turned to their heavenly Father
with their every want, in joy or sorrow, in prayer or praise, as
readily as Jesus used to do. But they did not do it as Jesus did,
from immediate knowledge of the Father. Their knowledge of
Him was found in Jesus: He was to them the image of God.
Through all that they had seen in Him and heard from Him
they had been set free from symbol, shadow, and form, so that
they approached the Father directly, at any moment, in any
place, with the full confidence of sons ; and what filled their

350 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

hearts with the deepest humiliation and the sincerest love and
thrilled their worship with the most passionate devotion was
the death of the Son of God on the Cross for men. The joy
and solemnity of their adoration reached its climax in the
eating of the bread and the drinking of the wine that com
memorate the broken body and shed blood of our Lord ; for
it was on the Cross that He proved Himself the perfect image
of the ineffable God by revealing to the uttermost the self-
sacrifice and love of the Father's heart.

To later generations came the same freedom and the same
confidence, mediated also by Jesus. We have not seen nor
heard Him ; but \ve have four sketches of Him in the Gospels
which enable us to catch His spirit and realize His love.
Never did Hindu gaze on the features of the image that he
worshipped with such devotion of spirit, with such inexpressible
depth of feeling, as the Christian reads the lineaments of his
Lord in the Gospels. Jesus actually takes in the Christian's
life the place which is held by idols in idolatrous systems. He
is effectively the image of God, expressing to us with perfect
clearness and convincing power the heart and the will of the
Father, and teaching us to live day by day as He lived, in
direct personal intercourse with the invisible God, speaking to
Him at any moment, and receiving from Him the help, the
courage, the guidance, the strength we require for our life as
His children on earth. And, as to the disciples, so to us, it is
the Cross that fills our worship with passionate humility,
reverence, and triumph ; for there the Son of God died for us
in accordance with the Father's will.

Thus there is a great truth behind all idolatry, the truth
that at any moment, in any place, we may have access to the
Father's heart, but it is pitiably distorted by idols and mixed
up with the most degrading and polluting superstitions. Christ
by His life and teaching reveals the Father in His holiness,
His self-sacrificing love, and His readiness to answer prayer,
thus making idolatry impossible, and enabling us to worship
the Father in spirit and in truth.

CHAPTER IX

THE GREAT SECTS

I. A. In the time of the Rigvcda,a.s we have seen above, the
worship of the people was polytheistic. The gods were spoken
of as being thirty-three in number; and sacrifices, offerings,
and prayers were offered to each in varying circumstances, or
to all of them together in one group. Each of the greater
gods had his own functions which dictated the time and
manner of his worship.

Amongst these Vedic gods we find Vishnu, who is said to
have measured the whole wide earth in three strides. He is
a kindly and friendly god who gave the vast expanse of earth
with its rich pastures to man for a sure dwelling-place.1
Another of these gods is Rudra, the god of the destroying
storm. He smites the evil-doer with his mighty spear or
swift arrow. He is called the best of physicians. His sons
and companions are the well-armed Maruts, the gods of the
thunder-storm, the heavenly singers.2

Neither of these gods occupies a very prominent place in
the pantheon of the Veda. Indra and Agni are the greatest
gods.

B. During the period of the Brahmanas both Rudra and
Vishnu came into greater prominence than before, especially
Vishnu ; but they were still far from being the greatest gods.
The highest place is held by a rather elusive figure who is
thought of as the Creator and is called Prajapati or Brahma.

C. There then came the time when the new Hindu system

1 Kaegi, 56. 8 Kaegi, 38-39.

352 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

of religion and society, as described above in Chapter V, took
shape. Very soon thereafter there arose the first speculative
philosophy of India, outlined in Chapter VI above. We need
say nothing further on that matter here, except to note that,
for the subject of this chapter, it is important to realize that
there are numerous passages in the early Upanishads which
have a distinctly theistic tone. They tend to speak of Brahman
as personal, speak of him as the antarydmin or inward ruler
of the soul, and represent him as producing and governing
the world.1

We ought also to notice that in the whole compass of Vedic
literature there is no mention of Rama or Krishna as divine
beings. Indeed Rama is never mentioned at all. Krishna
occurs once, but only once, and then as a mere man, a Vedic
student. The passage is in the Chhandogya Upanishad? and
he is called Krishna Devakiputra. Doubtless this is one of
several strands, both historical and imaginative, which were
later spun together to make the god.

D. While the new Hindu system and the philosophy of the
Atman were taking shape in the minds of the leaders of the
community, the common people continued their religious life
and practice as before. The formal acknowledgement of the
existence of the one Supreme made no practical difference to
their belief in the gods and their worship. Yet other changes
were in process. The people tended to divide into sects, each
giving prominence to one god, instead of worshipping the
whole group of divinities. Vishnu and Rudra (who had
received the more auspicious name Siva) gradually rose to
great favour among the common people, while the Creator
remained the chief god of the Brahmans. The ideas the
people had of their gods had meantime become much more
definite. They had become more anthropomorphically con
ceived, and the appearance of each god had been definitely
realized, as we have shown above in Chapter VIII. The use

1 Deussen, 175-176.

THE GREAT SECTS 353

of images had also come in, largely as a result of the animistic
beliefs and practices of the aboriginal Sudras, and had coalesced
with sectarian religion. It will be remembered that, from
the very beginning, temple-worship, unlike the ancient Vedic
sacrifices, was open to Sudras and to women on the same
terms as to twice-born men.1

E. From this time onward our subject is closely intertwined
with the rise of the two epics, the Mahabhdrata and the
Ramdyana.

While the legends which form the basis of the Great Epic
arc clearly earlier than the story of Rama, it seems certain
that the original heroic poem, the Ramdyana of Valmiki, is
earlier than the Mahabhdrata. Vfilmiki's poem corresponds
in general with Books II-VI of our present Ramdyana. The
poem is a unity, the work of one hand, apart from interpola
tions ; and we need not doubt that its author was Valmiki.
It is clearly of fairly early date ; for it shows no sign what
soever of the influence of Buddhism, and there is scarcely
any trace of the philosophy of the Upanishads in it. Scholars
believe that it may be dated about 500 l?.c.2

The poem is an account of how Rama, the eldest son of the
king of Ayodhya, came to be banished to the forest by his
father, how his young wife Sita voluntarily went with him,
and how she was carried away by the giant Ravana and finally
recovered by Rama. The work is a heroic poem, and not in
any sense a religious book, although the very human hero
and his wife are pious and faithful Hindus.

Ravana, a great Rakshas or demon-giant, by means of his
austerities had obtained from Brahma the great boon that he
could not be killed by any god or demon. Relying on this
immunity, he behaved with unmeasured insolence and violence,
actually going the length of carrying off Sita, Rama's wedded
wife. But his overweening arrogance met its just punishment.
It had never entered his head that a man could overcome
him ; but this the pious hero did with the blessing of the

1 See p. 164. 2 Macdonell, 302-309.

Z

354 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

gods. Thus, his great boon proved in Rama's case no pro
tection ; for he and his ally Sugriva were neither gods nor
demons, as Hanuman pointed out to Ravana.

Thy pride has led thy thoughts astray,
That fancy not a hand may slay
The monarch of the giants, screened
From mortal blow of God and fiend.
Sugriva still thy death may be :
No Yaksha, fiend, or God is he.
And Rama from a woman springs,
The mortal seed of mortal kings.1

The plot of the story thus turns on the fact that Rama is
a man and only a man. He and Slta are ordinary Hindus.
There is not a hint that they are incarnate gods. Indeed,
the doctrine of incarnations never occurs. Rama is not even
a religious leader. He is a great king, a heroic warrior, a just
and pious man, but nothing more. Slta is a brave and faithful
wife, and, like her husband, is careful to fulfil every religious
duty. They are as simple-hearted a pair of polytheists as
one will meet anywhere. They fulfil their duties to each
other, to the gods,2 to their ancestors, to their family, and
to the kingdom. They keep caste, follow the rules of the
family, and perform the sraddha rites.3 Slta prays to rivers
and trees as they fare onward in their long forest journey.4

The poem gives us very vivid glimpses of the beliefs and
practices of popular Hinduism before 500 B.C. Brahma, the
Creator, is the greatest of all the gods ; next to him are
Vishnu and Siva ; but all the other Vedic divinities are also
acknowledged. Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva have now each
a traditional form and appearance, and are provided each
with his own characteristic weapons and symbols, while we
can trace the growth of a good deal of mythology since the
close of the Rigveda. Siva and his wife Uma both occur
frequently. Siva's bull Nandi,5 his son Karttikeya,6 and his

1 V. li, Griffith, 422. MI. Ivi. s II. ciii. See p. 84, above.

4 II. Hi, Iv. 8 V. 1. 6 III. xii.

THE GREAT SECTS 355

attendant Nandlsvara 1 arc all mentioned. The story of
Daksha's sacrifice and Siva's fierce wrath occurs ; 2 and we
are also told that the love-god Kama was consumed by the
fierce gleam of Siva's eye.3

Vishnu occurs still more frequently in the poem, and also
his consort Lakshml. He is occasionally called Narfiyana.4
He rides on the great man-bird Garuda.5 We hear now and
then of Vishnu's weapons, especially the discus.1' Sesha, the
divine snake which has a thousand heads, is the supporter of
the earth,7 but he is not as yet connected with Vishnu.8
We arc told that the car of Havana, the arch-demon, the
enemy of Rama, was covered with beautiful sculpture, and
amongst the carvings was the consort of Vishnu :

There Lakshml, beauty's heavenly queen,
Wrought by the artist's skill, was seen
Beside a flower-clad pool to stand
Holding a lotus in her hand.9

We are not astonished to meet with this image of Lakshml in
the original Epic ; for it is evident from the early Dharmasutras
that idols were already common in India by 500 r,.c. It is
also noteworthy that of the earliest representations of Hindu
idols in Buddhist sculpture of the second century B.C. the
most frequent is Lakshml.

It was probably during the first half of the fifth century B.C.
that the Mahabhdrata first took shape. Like the Ramayana,
it was a heroic poem with purely human heroes. Krishna is
one of the most prominent characters, but he is in no sense
divine. He is king of Dvarika in Gujarat and a great warrior,
but he is no god. As in the Rdmdyana, so here, Brahma is
the greatest god, but Vishnu and Siva stand very near him.
There is no doctrine of incarnations.

F. Somewhere about 525 B.C. Gautama, the Buddha, began

1 VI. Ix. 2 Ill.xxiv. 3 III. ivi.

s VI. lix. fi III. xxiv. 7 IV. xl.

8 See below, p. 404. 1J V. vii, Griffith, 400.

Z 2

356 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

to teach. He died about 480 B.C., leaving behind him a body
of monastic followers, and also a large company of lay
adherents more or less loosely attached to the monastic order.
There was no worship of any kind in his system. Indeed, one
of the fundamental principles of his teaching is the doctrine
of anatta, i. e. of the absence of the self or atman. The idea
is that everything is impermanent, that no person or thing
has a spiritual self or lasting centre. There is no Atman or
world-soul ; man has no soul ; and things have no underlying
persistent reality.1 Early Buddhism is thus an atheistic
philosophy attempting to supply the consolations of religion.
Gautama regarded himself simply as a man who had seen to
the centre of things. His teaching is the very antipodes of
an incarnation faith. Man stands here in his own strength,
declaring that he needs no divine help, that he has within
him no instinct that compels him to worship. Buddha, when
dying, said to his disciples,

Be ye a refuge to yourselves. Betake yourselves to no external
refuge. Hold fast to the truth as a lamp. Hold fast as a refuge to the
truth. Look not for a refuge to any one besides yourselves.2

Can we get further away from revelation, incarnation, and
worship than this ? Yet the main interest of the history of
his system during the following centuries is his progressive
deification and the rise of his worship.

In one of the Pali Buddhist Suttas we have an account of
the death of the Buddha and the events that followed it.3
Though it is clear that the narrative is considerably inflated,
we need not doubt the main statements of the Sutta, that the
body of the great teacher was burned with much pomp, and
that portions of his relics were laid in funeral mounds called
stupas.

Naturally, his followers went in large numbers to visit these
most interesting monuments, and manifested their reverence

1 Warren, 113. 2 S. B. £".,xi. 38.

5 Mahaparinibbana Sutta, S. B, E., xi.

THE GRKAT SKCTS 357

for the great dead each in his own way. Monks and other
well-educated Buddhists would be stirred to brood all the
more over his teaching and to emulate his example ; but the
illiterate layman would express himself by bowing low as he
approached, prostrating himself on the ground and circum
ambulating the stiipa. Places connected with the leading
events of Buddha's life were very soon marked by stupas also,
and became places of pilgrimage. These are the beginnings
of Buddhist worship.

In each monastery there was a hall where the monks met
regularly for confession, and where, at stated times, the laity
gathered to receive instruction. These meetings formed
another starting-point for Buddhist worship. At a later date
a sort of model stiipa was introduced into the hall to stimulate
meditation;1 or a dharmachakra? i.e. a wheel representing
Buddha's doctrine, or some other symbol of the faith, was
set up, and served to move the simple-hearted layman to
demonstrations of love and veneration. Doubtless the monks
kept themselves in the main to their meditations, and merely
smiled indulgently at the growing worship among the laity.

While worship was springing up at the stupas and in the
Buddhist halls, expressions of reverence for the Buddha and
for his immediate disciples were coming more and more into
use. The use of Bhagavan, Lord, did not suffice. Very soon
Buddhists learned to call Buddha by the word used by Hindus
for a god, i. e. Dcva. Then, even that seemed too little, and
he was called Devatideva, the god above all gods.

Buddhists also gradually came to believe that the truth had
been taught by a succession of Buddhas before Gautama, and
that in the next age another would arise. At first three
Buddhas before Gautama were recognized, then six, then as
many as twenty-two. Kach of these Buddhas also became
an object of fervent adoration.

At first each Buddha was simply a man who, by dint of

1 e.g. at Kfirli. 2 Cunningham, Slupa of Bharhut, PI. XXXI.

358 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

perseverance in the right path through innumerable births,
had at last come to clear knowledge of the truth, and had
thereby risen to a place of spirituality far above all the gods
of the Hindu pantheon. But the exaltation of a man to
a station religiously far above the gods could not fail to issue
in his being placed above the gods in other relations also.
He necessarily assumed divine functions. It is thus clear
that the lay Buddhist was on the logical path, after all, when
he went beyond meditations and exercises and actually
worshipped the Buddhas ; and the divine titles mentioned
above were not only justifiable but inevitable.

The conversion of Asoka, the great Maurya emperor, to
Buddhism about the middle of the third century B.C. was an
event of very great importance. He not only helped the
religion by his potent example and by his precepts graven on
rocks and pillars in every part of his vast dominions ; he also
erected large numbers of buildings for the various uses of the
Buddhist faith." The whole religion must have felt the
stimulus of his efforts ; and the growth of worship must have
been greatly accelerated.

We ought also to notice that at some time after Asoka, and
seemingly in the first century B.C., Buddhists began to use
images. It is most remarkable that, in all the beautiful
sculpture of the Sanchi and Bharhut Stiipas, Gautama is
never once represented. His footprints, or the wheel of the
law, or some other symbol, may be present ; or his presence
may be merely understood ; in any case there is no image.
Doubtless the consciousness that he had gone to nirvana was
still too strong to permit of his being represented like other
men. But, by the Christian era, Buddhists used images
freely for Gautama and the other Buddhas. It is the Buddhism
of this stage which remains for us practically unchanged in
Burma and Ceylon. The evolution of Jain worship seems to
have followed precisely the same course ; but we need not
attempt to trace it here.

1 V. Smith's Asoka, 107.

THE GREAT SECTS 359

G. The descendants of Asoka did not possess his strength ;
and in 184 B.C. the Sungas seized the throne. The importance
of this revolution for our subject lies in this, that the Sungas
were Hindus and were as ready to work for Hinduism as
Asoka and his successors had been to help Buddhism. From
this point onwards for some time the old religion had a far
better chance, and its growth is very marked. Scholars are
inclined to believe that Hindu literature was greatly stimulated
by Sunga patronage.

It is probably to them that we owe the new vigorous
religious movement which laid hold of the two heroic poems
above described and transformed them into Vishnuite works.
While it is quite impossible as yet to say with certainty that
the recasting of the two poems comes from the years imme
diately following 184 B.C., there can be no doubt that it was
about that time that the process of redaction was carried out ; l
and it seems very unlikely that such work would have been
done except under the patronage of Hindu kings. We may
thus be certain that we are not far wrong when we say that
the transformed poems come from the first half of the second
century B. c. A new book was prefixed to the Ramayana,
and considerable additions were appended, while much larger
additions were made to the MahdbJidrata. Instead of a poem
of eight thousand eight hundred couplets it became a work of
twenty thousand couplets.

This fresh outburst of religious literary activity is of the
highest interest for our subject. In these rewritten poems the
doctrine of incarnations suddenly, and seemingly without the
slightest warning, appears in the Hindu faith. In the Rania-
yana Rama is now a partial incarnation of Vishnu, while in
the MahdbJidrata Krishna is a partial incarnation of the same
god. It must be carefully noted that there is no suggestion in
either poem at this time that Vishnu is the supreme and only
God. In both poems Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva are now

1 Macdonell, 286, 309 ; Hopkins, Great Epic, 399.

360 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

practically on a level, the greatest gods of the Hindu pantheon,
but that is all.

We must here note carefully the difference between ordinary
man-worship and the incarnation doctrine. When the Hindu
sees something very extraordinary in a man or an animal, or
even in a thing, he is inclined to worship. He bows down in
reverence, or it may be in fear, before that which strikes him
as beyond the ordinary. Thus far the tendency is on a level
with what happens among simple people all over the world.
But the man who first called Krishna an avatara of Vishnu
meant to say that a portion of the energy of the great heavenly
god Vishnu had descended to earth and had been born as
a man. The early Hindus believed, as we have seen, that
Vishnu was accustomed to come to earth to enjoy the sacrifices
offered to him ; but never before had any Hindu thought of
a part of the energy of a celestial god being born as a man
and living a human life.

Nor is that all. The belief is that Vishnu has been twice
incarnate, once as Rama and once as Krishna. Rama is held
to have lived at a much earlier date than Krishna ; so that
Vishnu is thought of as having become in part incarnate at
two distinct times.

It is not yet possible to say what led to the appearance of
this doctrine. There was nothing precisely like it in Buddhism
at the time, so far as we know. The utmost that can be said is
that Buddhism had already formed, as we have seen above, the
idea of a succession of supreme teachers who were worshipped
and credited with divine powers ; and the rise of that worship
was contemporaneous with the rise of the worship of Rama
and Krishna. But the recognition of two deified men as
repeated incarnations of a heavenly god who had been adored
for many centuries is a different idea, and was the creation of
the Vishnuite sect. The one point that is clear is this, that
the Hindu doctrine is absolutely new and appears suddenly in
the history. Indian writers frequently assert that incarnations
are to be found in Vedic literature, but that is a complete

THE GREAT SECTS 361

mistake. There are stories in Vedic literature which were
turned into incarnation stories in the early Christian centuries ;
but within the whole compass of Vedic literature there is no
reference to the doctrine.

Megasthenes, the Seleucid ambassador at the Court of
Chandragupta about 300 B.C., tells us that Hercules was
worshipped at Methora and Kleisobora. This probably means
that Krishna was already worshipped as a god at Mat hum
and a town, now unknown, called then Krishnapur. If that is
so, we have probably in this fact an intermediate step between
the human hero and the incarnation of Vishnu ; but we dare
not build very much on such an uncertain foundation.

A sketch of the theology of these additions to the Raina-
yana will be useful for our subject. Brahma is still the Creator
and the great Father. He constantly comes forward as the
adviser and comforter of the gods. He has the epithet, the
Self-existent ; l and he is already called ' four-faced ' ; 2 so that
we may be certain his traditional image was already common.

Siva and his consort Uma are recognized as very great. He
is still now and then called Rudra,3 but much more frequently
he is called Siva (the kindly one), Mahadeva (the great god),
Pasupati (lord of flocks), Bhagavan (the blessed one), or
Sankara (the beneficent).4 He is the three-eyed god.5 We
arc told how he slew the giant Tripura." The story of his
drinking the poison at the churning of the ocean of milk is
told in detail ; and he is spoken of as the god whose neck is
stained with blue as the result of that draught of venom.7 The
river Ganges is said to flow down from heaven upon his head
and thence to fall down to earth.8 He carries the trident,0
and is accompanied by his bull, but there seems to be no
mention as yet of the linga.10

Vishnu and his consort Lakshml arc very prominent indeed
in the first and last books of our Epic. He is called Vasudeva,11

1 I.xvi. 2 I. ii. 3 I.xlv. « I.xlv.

M.lxxv. « I.lxxv. M. Ixxv. * I.xliv.

9 I. xliii. 10 See p. 310. u I. xli.

362 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

Narayana,1 and Hrishikesa (the real meaning of all three is
uncertain), Bhagavan (blessed), Prabhu (lord), Jagatpati (lord
of the world), Purushottama (best spirit), and Han (saviour).
He is frequently spoken of as having slain the demon Madhu ; 2
his exploits at the churning of the ocean are described ; and
we are told how, in the form of Kapila, he killed the sixty
thousand sons of Sagara.3 He is vividly described as carrying
the shell, mace, and discus, as having four arms, as brilliantly
bright, and as wearing saffron robes.4

The theology here is still completely polytheistic. Vishnu
is not yet raised above all others as the one spiritual Reality.
Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva are practically on a level ; and
each is still materialistically conceived as in the earlier
theology. Of one of the great sacrifices we are told

Now all the gods had gathered there,
Each one for his allotted share ; °

In one very striking passage Vishnu and Siva are spoken of as
the great rivals. They meet in battle ; Siva is overcome ;

And gods and heavenly sages thence
To Vishnu gave pre-eminence.0

In another passage Vishnu, addressing Siva, calls him ' the
first-born of the gods '.7

Krishna does not occur at all in these additions. Rama is
an incarnation of half the energy of Vishnu, the other half
being subdivided and incarnated as his three brothers. The
fractions are given as \, 5, |, |.8 The reason given for the
incarnation of Vishnu in Rama and his three brothers is that
the giant Ravana is behaving in such a way as to strike
terror into the hearts of the gods. Vishnu must become
incarnate as a man in order to kill Ravana, who is invulnerable
by god or demon. Here is the appeal of the gods to the
Creator. Was ever anything more clearly polytheistic written ?

1 I. xiv. 2 I. xli. 3 1. xli.

4 I. xiv, xlv. B I. xiv, Griffith, 25.

6 I. Ixxv, Griffith, 86. 7 I. xlv. 8 I.xv, xix.

THE GREAT SECTS 363

O Brahma, mighty by thy grace,
Ravan, who rules the giant race,
Torments us in his senseless pride,
And penance-loving saints beside.
That lord of giants fierce and fell
Scourges the earth and heaven and hell.
Mad with thy boon, his impious rage
Smites saint and bard and god and sage.
The sun himself withholds his glow,
The wind in fear forbears to blow ;
The fire restrains his wonted heat
Where stand the dreaded Ravan's feet ;
And, necklaced with the wandering wave,
The sea before him fears to rave.
Kuvera's self in sad defeat
Is driven from his blissful seat.
We see, we feel the giant's might,
And woe comes o'er us and affright.
To thee, O Lord, thy suppliants pray
To find some cure this plague to stay.1

The theology of the second stage of the Mahdbharata is pre
cisely similar. Brahma, Siva, and Vishnu are on an equality,
and Krishna is a partial incarnation of Vishnu.2

Several other scraps of evidence which are available fall in
perfectly with the facts revealed in the Epics. The statement
of Megasthenes has been already quoted. Patanjali, about
150 B. C., refers to plays which were representations of the
slaying of Kamsa and the binding of Bali, episodes in the
Krishna myth.3 It is probable that, like the Greek drama,
the Hindu drama was at first a religious performance, in which
case these plays are further evidence of the cult of Krishna.
There are also inscriptions which show that Samkarshana 4
and Vasudeva were worshipped in the second and first
centuries B. C., and that the latter was called Bhagavan, while
his worshipper might call himself a Bhagavata. All this fits
in well with what we have learnt of the sectarian worships

1 I. xiv, Griffith, 25. 2 Great Epic, 397-398.

3 E. R. E., iv. 887. * See pp. 378-379 below.

364 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

before the birth of Christ. Vasudeva was a title of Vishnu ;
and he, Siva, Indra, Brahma, and even Gautama the Buddha
and Mahavlra the Jina, were honoured with the title Bhagavan.
Another inscription shows that the worshipper who addressed
Siva as Bhagavan was also accustomed to call himself a
Bhagavata.1

II. As we have seen above,2 the chief evidence of the activity
of the school of the Vedanta in the five centuries preceding
the Christian era that has survived to our day is a small group
of Upanishacls in verse, the Kdthaka, Isd, Svetdsvatara, Mun-
daka, and MaJidndrdyana Upanishads. These are of interest
for this chapter because of the theistic tone of the theology of
the first three. They show that there \vere thinkers in the
Vedanta school during those centuries who held that Brahman
was a personal God. They used the words Deva, Bhagavan,
Isa, Isana of him, and spoke of his grace. In Svetdsvatara?
the bhakti or adoring devotion of the worshipper is mentioned.
The same work identifies Brahman with Rudra, and applies to
him the adjective siva, gracious.4 The word does not seem
to be used as a proper name. Another characteristic of later
Hinduism also appears here, the doctrine that the gnrn, the
philosophic teacher, is to be worshipped as God.5 It is most
important to realize that these theistic Upanishads do not
imply the existence of a theistic sect with a priesthood and
a worship, but merely the presence of theistic thinkers within
the schools of the Vedanta.

A. Towards the Christian era new movements of thought
make their appearance among educated Indian laymen. They
were attracted by the philosophies, both as systems of thought
and as means of reaching emancipation. But as these philo
sophies all indicated the monastic life as the road to emanci
pation, the layman found himself in a grave difficulty as soon
as he began to think of seeking release for himself.

1 Indian Antiquary, Nov., 1912. For a Bhagavata sect who revere
both Siva and Vishnu, see Madhva, 12.

8 Above, p. 241. 3 vi. 23. 4 iii. 2-11. ° vi. 23.

THE GREAT SECTS 365

B. A new type of teaching then arose, probably suggested
by Buddhist thought. Gautama taught his monks that desire
was the great enemy : desire leads to action and action to
renewed existence. Thus Buddhist discipline was framed
with the object of destroying desire. Now the Hindu monk,
as we have seen, aimed at complete inaction ; and, with that
in view, laid aside, by a great act of surrender, every detail of
Hindu life, and lived thereafter as a man whose work was
done, outside Hindu society. But the new thought distin
guished from all other actions the acts prescribed in Scripture
for the Hindu householder ; and distinguished also between
these actions and the rewards connected with them. Every
act prescribed in Hindu law brings its own proper reward,1
like the fifth commandment of the Decalogue. The idea was
that these actions, being ordained in Scripture, must be so
pure in themselves that the mere doing of them would not
form karma and lead to rebirth, but that the doing of them
with a desire for the rewards which arise from them as fruit
necessarily formed karma and led to rebirth. Hence the new
precept was, Lay aside all desire for the fruits of prescribed
actions, but do these actions themselves, merely because they
are ordained. In this way, the teaching ran, the layman may
remain a householder and do all his duties in the family, in
caste and in religion, and may yet win emancipation as truly
as the monk. The phrases in which this idea is expressed are,
' Do your prescribed duties without attachment to the fruits
of action ' ; or, more briefly, ' Do your duties without attach
ment.' This type of action was called nishkdma karma,
' desireless action,' nivritti karma, 'restraint action,' karma-
yoga, ' the yoking of action.' These ideas and phrases occur
in the Gita* the Laws of Manu,3 the Mahabhdrata? and later
literature ; and the same thought is expressed in the great
Buddhist work, the Mahayana Sraddhotpada Sastra of Asva-
ghosha by the phrase ' spontaneity of action '.5

1 S. B. E., xlviii. 330. 2 See below, p. 371. a xii. 89.

4 xiii. 54. 5 Suzuki, 94.

366 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

C. But the effect produced on laymen by the theology of
the Vedanta is of even greater importance. How that philo
sophy gained its influence we do not know. Perhaps the
fact that it was taught in the Brahmanical schools, through
which the flower of the twice-born youth passed, gave it an
advantage over other systems. Whatever may have been the
cause, it is clear that during the first century A. D. the leading
conceptions of the Vedanta about God, caught up by the
time-spirit, pressed very seriously on the best minds. The
conviction that behind the phenomena of the world there
exists one great spiritual Reality, and the conclusion which
necessarily follows therefrom, that the ordinary gods are
phenomenal, mortal, and unreal, became accepted as axioms
by thinking men. The identification of the human spirit with
the divine did not grip men so strongly ; yet it was not
without influence.

For those laymen who were ready to accept all the gods
as partial manifestations of the invisible and unknowable
Reality, the Vedanta was a help to thought, and also to
religion ; but, in so far as the old Vedic pantheon had decayed,
and men's faith tended to fasten with greater courage and
vividness on Vishnu or Siva, a grave difficulty arose. A man
whose living religion centred altogether, say, in Vishnu, and
who yet felt the force of the great ideas of the Vedanta, was
pulled two ways at once. He could not lay aside the philo
sophy, for it appealed to him as reasonable. He could not
give up Vishnu, for apart from him he had no real religion for
himself and his family.

The difficulty was felt in Buddhist as well as in Hindu
circles, but in a different way. Gautama taught that there
was no spiritual reality behind phenomena.1 Hence the
thoughtful Buddhist found his reverence for Gautama severely
strained by the growing conviction that there is a spiritual
Existence immanent in the universe.

1 Supra, p. 356.

THE GREAT SECTS 367

The result of the crisis was that the two great Hindu sects,
viz. the Vishnuite and the Sivaite, and two distinct groups of
Buddhists drew in and amalgamated with their old doctrine
the main ideas of the Vedanta philosophy with regard to
God. and taught that the layman could reach emancipation
without becoming a monk. The new Vishnuite teaching
appears first in the BJiagavadglta, and the Sivaite in the
Mahdbharata,) while the two types of Neo-Buddhist doctrine
arc found in the Saddharma Pnndarlka and in Asvaghosha's
Mahayana SraddJiotpdda Sastra^

These new doctrines fall into two groups, according as they
construe the Supreme as personal or impersonal. The
system of Asvaghosha is impersonal in its theology, while the
other three are personal. Asvaghosha, and Nagarjuna after
him, posit the existence of the Absolute, eternal, immutable,
unknowable, impersonal ; and they represent the Buddhas as
its embodiments.

Vishnuites, Sivaites, and the author of the Saddharma
Pundarlka, on the other hand, declare the Supreme to be
personal. This common faith, however, did not unite them ;
for the Vishnuites identified Brahman with Vishnu ; the
Sivaites identified him with Siva ; while the Buddhist identi
fied him with Gautama, the Buddha.

D. But we must here note another important development
of doctrine. We have seen that in the second century B. C.
Rama and Krishna were declared to be each a fractional
incarnation of Vishnu. When Vishnu was identified with
Brahman, the incarnation doctrine was also altered. Krishna
and Rama were declared to be full incarnations of Vishnu.
We thus reach a pair of double equations :

Krishna — Vishnu = Brahman
Rama = Vishnu = Brahman.

Sivaites did not accept the doctrine of incarnations. The
theophanies of Siva correspond in their system. Both groups

1 The influence extended to other schools as well. lyengar's Outlines,
248.

368 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

of Buddhists, however, adopted the Hindu doctrine of ava
tar as, Asvaghosha teaching that Gautama and the other
Buddhas are ' unfoldings ' l of ' the real Reality ',2 the Sad-
dJiarma Pundarlka declaring that Gautama is the one God,
spiritual, personal, supreme, and that he becomes incarnate
from time to time. Thus the system of the Saddhanna
Pundarika is precisely parallel to Vishnuite teaching as
given in the Bhagavadglta. Gautama takes the place of
Vishnu.

E. We had better now deal briefly with the new systems in
order. Readers will note how distinctly the main lines of
the theology of the Vedfmta reappear. The Supreme is one,
spiritual, real. He is also the source of all things, but he has
no purpose in view, and does not act : his activity in the
world is magic or play, may a or Ilia? He is beyond the
range of thought and speech, and thus cannot reveal himself
to man nor receive prayer nor worship. He is therefore
revealed either by way of manifestation (by the old gods), by
personal theophany, or by incarnations.

i. We begin with Asvaghosha, as his impersonal theology
stands so near Sahkara's system. In order that readers may
see how close the resemblance is, we quote a few sentences
and phrases :

(The system for all.)

That all beings may rid themselves of doubt, become free from evil
attachment, and, by the awakening of faith, inherit Buddha-seeds,
I write this discourse.4

(The Absolute.)

The oneness of the totality of things.
The oneness of the universe that has no second.
Completely set apart from the attributes of all things unreal.
The real reality ; self-existent.

1 Suzuki, 70. 2 Ib., 59.

3 See above, p. 246, and below, p. 406. 4 Suzuki, 47.

THE GREAT SECTS 369

(Ignorance.)

All modes of consciousness and mentation are mere products of
ignorance.

(Illusion.)

All things and conditions in the phenomenal world, hypostatized
and established only through ignorance and subjectivity on the part of
all beings, have no more reality than the images in a mirror.

(The Buddhas.)

It transforms and unfolds itself ... in the form of a Tathiigata.
All Tathagatas are the Dharmakaya (i. e. the Absolute) itself.1

What a very striking development of belief this is in the
system of Gautama, who taught most distinctly that there is
no inner essence or self of things.2 Here, then, the Absolute
is impersonal, and the Buddhas are his incarnations.

2. In the Saddhaniia Pnndarlka Buddha is the Supreme,
but is personal, and he becomes incarnate from time to time.
Here are some of the phrases : Buddha is the Self-existent,:j
the Supreme Spirit,4 the Great Father,"' the World- Father,6
the Ruler of the triple world,7 the Creator,8 the Destroyer,0
the Father and the Protector of all creatures,10 the Great
Physician.11 He is Everlasting,12 All-knowing,13 All-seeing.14
Like Krishna he is indifferent,15 yet compassionate.16

The world is illusion (mayd):11 for the Buddha has created
it in sport (/J/«),18 by his magic power (may a).™ He is not at
rest ; 20 for he is ever active ; yet he is always at rest,21 for he
rules himself,22 and his activity is sport.

He did not reach enlightenment at Buddh-Gaya, but
hundreds of millions of ages before then ; 23 and the measure
of his life will yet contain countless myriads of ages.24 He is
repeatedly born in the world of the living.25 When men

I Suzuki, 55, 116, 59, 59, 67, 77, 70, 99. " See above, p. 356.
3 S.B.E., xxi. 46, 217, 309. 4 44. 5 76. 6 309.

7 275. 8 290, 300, 308. 9 122. « 81, 310.

II 310. 12 302, 309. 13 120, 291. n 120.
15 124, 125, 128. 16 54,76. 17 136. 18 291. 19 76.
20 310. 2l 120. 22 307. 23 299, 300, 307. U 302.

25 124, 3°8.

A a

370 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

become unbelieving, unwise, ignorant, careless, fond of sensual
pleasures, and from thoughtlessness run into misfortune, he
appears in this world to save.1 When he passes away, he
does not become extinct, but only makes a show of extinction
on behalf of those who need help and teaching.2

The essence of salvation is deliverance, absence of passion,
knowledge of the All-knowing.3 He proclaims the law to
men of all castes without distinction.4 All may reach
enlightenment and final release through faith in the Buddha
and devotion towards him.5 Emancipation is thus brought
within reach of the layman. These who worship any
Buddhist symbol or relic, were it but with a flower, will reap
endless benefit.0 A story is told of a Bodhisattva who burnt
his own body out of devotion to the Buddha,7 and young
men and young women are recommended to burn a finger,
a toe, or a whole limb at a Buddhist shrine, in order to win
great merit.8 This reversion to ancient tapas is very extra
ordinary in Buddhism.9

The Buddha does not show his proper being when he is
in the world.10 He reveals his true nature only to saintly
souls.11 So, in the course of the narrative of the Saddharma
Pundarlka he appears in indescribable glory to countless
multitudes of his followers,12 just as Krishna does in the
Glta™

Thus we do not wonder that he is represented as saying,
' Being perfectly at rest, I lead others to rest. Come to me,
ye gods and men ! ' nor do we wonder at the stately worship
of the Mahayana temple.

3. We now come to Vaishnava 14 theology as we find it in
the Bhagavadglta. The Gltd cannot be understood unless
we realize that in it the Vedanta philosophy and emancipation

1 124, 310. 2 302. s 121. 4 124-125.

5 49-53, 99. 124-128, 158, 379, 385. 6 50-51. 7 379-

8 385. 9 See p. 258, above. 10 308. " 223, 225, 307, 321.

12 236-237. 1S Book xi.

14 Vaishnava, and Saiva are very convenient Sanskrit adjectives for
Vishnuite and Sivaite.

THE GREAT SECTS 371

are brought within reach of the ordinary Vaishnava layman.
From beginning to end the Gltd shows the keenest interest
in the position, the life, the worship, and the salvation of the
householder and his wife.1 The interlocutor of the incarnate
God is Arjuna, a Kshatriya layman. Krishna says that the
teaching of the Gltd brings emancipation within the reach
of women and Sudras.- This is most significant ; for the old
Vedanta was open only to men, and only to men of the three
twice-born castes ; 3 while in Vaishnava, as in other temples,
Sudras and women were as welcome as twice-born men.4
Again, throughout the Gltd, inaction, which is the ideal of the
monk of the Vedanta, is condemned ; action, which is the
only life possible to the layman, is praised ; "' and the new
theory of emancipation through karma-yoga explained above
is elaborately set forth.0 Amongst the numerous passages
which show a special interest in laymen we must reckon the
very noteworthy verses in the third book,7 where the enlightened
man is urged not to disturb the minds of ordinary house
holders by speaking to them of the value of inaction. Not
only is the incarnation doctrine used throughout the poem,
but in several passages we are shown the value of the
ordinary worship of the four-handed human form of Krishna
in Vaishnava temples.8 The Gltd is the layman's Upanishad.
Krishna is very fully dealt with. He is Vishnu 9 and
Vasudeva.10 He is also Brahman^ the Atman™ Tat 13
(that), Purushottama 14 (the supreme Spirit), and is unborn,1"'
eternal,16 without beginning,17 without end,18 imperishable,19
unknowable,20 omniscient,21 and omnipotent.2- He is Father
of this universe, Mother, Ordainer, Grandsire,23 the Way, the

vi. 37-44 ; vii. 21; viii. 5 ; ix. 23-26. 2 ix. 32.

See above, p. 234. 4 See above, pp. 164, 327-328.

iii. 3-9, 19; xviii. 2-11, 56. 6 Especially in Books iii and xviii.

26-29. 8 xi. 46, 51 ; ix. 26. 9 x. 21 ; xi. 24, 30.

" vii. 19 ; x. 37 ; xi. 50 ; xviii. 74. u vii. 29 ; viii. 3-4 ; x. 12.

2 x. 20 ; iv. 6. 13 xi. 37. 14 viii. I ; x. 15 ; xi. 3 ; xv. 18.

5 iv.6; vii. 25 ; x. 3, 12. 10 x. 12. 17 x. 3. 18 xi. 37.

9 xi. 18, 37. 20 vii. 26 ; x. 2, 14. 21 vii. 26.
23 ix. 17.

A a 2

372 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

Supporter, the Lord, the Witness, the Dwelling-place, the
Refuge, the Friend, the Origin, the Dissolution, the undecaying
Seed.1

He is the source of the Universe.2 He creates and causes
all things to revolve as on a merry-go-round by means of his
magic, i. e. may a? He creates the castes ; 4 is the source
of the Veda,5 and the cnjoyer of sacrifice.0 But, while
Krishna is thus the supreme power in the universe,7 he is
altogether without personal interest in the activity therein
displayed;8 he sits unconcerned,9 always engaged in action,10
yet controlling his own nature,11 and therefore actionless and
not bound by the results of his action.12

The doctrine of incarnations had better be given in the
words of the text :

Though birthless and unchanging of essence, and though lord of born
beings, yet in My sway over the Nature that is Mine own I come into
birth by my own Magic (Maya).

For whensoever the Law fails and lawlessness uprises, O thou of
Bharata's race, then do I bring Myself to bodied birth.

To guard the righteous, to destroy evil-doers, to establish the Law,
I come into birth age after age.13

Since all the gods come from Krishna,14 and since he is in
the last resort the sole Reality,15 worship offered to other gods
is in a sense offered to him.16 He accepts it and rewards it.17
Yet the highest blessings fall only to those who recognize
him directly.18 Men may win release and immortality by
Knowledge, by Action,19 or by Devotion (b/iakti) towards
Krishna.20 The value of personal trust in Krishna and fer
vent devotion (bhakti) towards him is strongly emphasized :

If one of earnest spirit set before Me with devotion a leaf, a flower,
fruit, or water, I enjoy this offering of devotion.21

1 ix. 18. 2 vii. 6. s xviii. 61.

5 xv. 15. 6 ix. 24. 7 ix. 10, 17-18. 8 iv. 14. '•' ix. 9.

10 iii. 22-24. n ix- 8. 12 iv. 14 ; ix. 9. __ 13 iv. 6-8.

14 x. 2. 13 x. 1-3, 20. 16 ix. 23. 17 vii. 21-22.

18 ix. 22 ; x. 7-11. 19 xii. 12.

20 ix. 26-34 ; vi. 47 ; xi. 54 ; xii. 2. ai ix. 26.

THE GREAT SECTS 373

Have thy mind on Me, thy devotion toward Me, thy sacrifice to Me,
do homage to Me. Thus guiding thyself, given over to Me, so to Me
shall thou come.1

In the original Vedfmta a man realizes his own identity
with Brahman and thus reaches dcathlcssness and peace ; but
this identification leaves little room for personal feeling and
life. But when the Supreme was recognized as personal,
a personal immortality became possible. In the Gita the soul
is still too completely identified with God to allow the new and
richer idea to arise in fullness, but there is an approach to it.
The immortality which a man may win through karma-yoga
and devotion to Krishna tends to be a personal immortality.
The devotee goes to Krishna and abides in Krishna. Perhaps
the most advanced expression is,

On me then set thy mind, in me let thine understanding dwell ; so
shalt thou assuredly abide afterward in me.2

We have already pointed out that the teaching which
encouraged the householder to seek emancipation by doing
all his prescribed duties as a Hindu without any desire for
the rewards connected therewith is adopted in the Gita. We
have now to note that the same poem carries this teaching
one step farther, bidding the layman surrender all these
actions to Krishna, i.e. do the actions and surrender the fruits
to Krishna.3 In other passages this type of desireless action
is represented as a sacrifice to Krishna.4 The original form of
the doctrine and this form modified by a personal theology
occur in the Gita side by side.

It is of importance to note that the Gita teaches in the
clearest way possible that every Hindu should keep all the
rules of Hinduism with the utmost strictness. Family duties,
caste duties, and the laws of worship must all be kept with
care.5 No one must neglect ordained action. This is finally
summed up in a verse in which the Dharmasastras are set up
as the rule of conduct :

1 ix. 34. Cf. xi. 54. 2 xii. 8. 3 iii. 30; xii. 16.

4 ix. 27. 5 i. 40-44; iii. 8 ; v. II ; xviii. 5-7, 45, 47-48, 56.

374 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

Therefore, realizing the sdstra to be the standard for determining
right and wrong, thou should'st do here the works specified in the
ordinances of the sdstra.1

The Gttd is in the form of a dialogue between Krishna and
his warrior-friend Arjuna. When Arjuna has realized the
idea that Krishna is not only divine but the absolute One,
the Supporter of the world and all the gods, he asks Krishna
to show him his supreme form. This Krishna does, manifesting
himself as a glorious being of surpassing brilliancy, in which
are contained all the worlds, all the gods, all beings of
every name.2 Arjuna worships him with lowly obeisance
and faltering voice, and expresses his joy in having seen the
indescribable glory,3 but begs Krishna to return to his old
four-armed shape, with diadem, discus, and mace.4

Rama does not occur in the Gitd at all, but a passage
interpolated into the sixth book of the Rdmdyana r> shows us
that the theology which we find applied to Krishna in the
Gitd was also applied to Rama. He is equated with Vishnu ;
and Vishnu is called the true, eternal, undecaying Brahman.
He is incomprehensible, beyond the reach of human sense, yet
visible in all material things. We can, thus, trace within the
Rdmdyana itself the complete growth of the Rama- myth. In
the centre of the poem he is a man, and only a man. In the
first book he is an incarnation of half the energy of Vishnu.
Here he is a full incarnation. But for a full delineation of
Rama as the incarnation of the Supreme we must turn to the
Hindi poet Tulsl Das.

4. The doctrine that Brahman is personal and identical
with Siva, the beginnings of which we found in the Svetdsvatara
Upanis/tad, first appears as the teaching of the Saiva sect in
the Mahdbhdrata ; but, as there is no single document in the
Epic that can be used for Sivaite theology as the Gitd can
be used for Vishnuite teaching, we may as well illustrate
it from a work that is purely Saiva, the Tiru-vdchakam

1 xvi. 24. See above, p. 218. 2 xi. 1-13. :! xi. 14-44.

4 xi. 44-45. ° Canto cxix.

THE GREAT SECTS 375

of Manikka Vachakar, a collection of Tamil hymns belonging
to the tenth century. The following lines will show how com
pletely the theology of the Vedanta has been absorbed. The
italicized phrases are very noteworthy.

See Him the First ! see Him the Whole !

See Him, the Infinite ! See Him, the Ancient One !

See Him, the Great One Whom Brahma and Vishnu saw not !

See Him, the Wonderful ! See, the Manifold !

See Him, the Ancient One, transcending words!

See, He dwells afar where human thought goes not !

See, He extends throughout the wide extended earth !

See Him, more subtile than an atom small !

See Him, the Lord Whom all may gain !

See, Siva Whom the gods know not!1

The Sivaite denies that God is ever born of a woman,2 but
he believes that Siva has manifested himself in human form
innumerable times and still does so.3 Here are a few lines
from the same Tamil work :

Assuming diverse forms, and diverse habitudes,
As hundreds of hundreds of thousands of natures,
Isan, Lord of the bull, that the world might be saved, —
He and the Lady, His partner,— came in grace.

Becoming a Brahman, graciously making me His own,

He showed a magic illusion.

Coming to Madura, the city great and fair,

He became a horse's groom.

And therein too, for the female devotee

He condescended to carry earth,

In Uttara-kosa-mangai abiding,

He showed His special form.

In Puvanam he vouchsafed to appear in beauty,

And showed His ancient spotless form.

In Vathavur he came sweetly gracious

And caused the sound of His tinkling anklets to be heard.4

F. I. Probably about the very time when the sects, Buddhist
and Hindu, adopted the theology of the Vedanta, Vedantists

1 Pope, 20-21. 2 Saiva Siddhanta, 242, 299. 3 Ib. 299.

4 Pope, 9-11.

376 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

began to combine the leading elements of the Sankhya theory
of the evolution of the universe with the Vedantic conception
of God and the soul. The Vishnuite party were able to
accept the whole almost without change ; * Sivaites found
a little modification necessary ; while in the central school of
the Vedanta a good deal of alteration was introduced.2

2. The theistic elements in the prose Upanishads and the more
developed theism of the verse treatises show that the school
has never been without theistic thinkers. When the great
crisis occurred, the leaders of the Vaishnava and Saiva sects
probably sought the help of theistic sympathizers within the
school for the formulation of their new theology.

It seems most probable that the Git a was produced within
the school of the Vedanta. It appears to be an old verse
Upanishad redacted and enlarged by some authoritative
VedantI, in view of the needs of the times, to form a standard
manual of Vaishnava theology. This reading of the history
seems to be the best way to account for all the facts. There is
not merely the contemporaneous emergence ofVedantic forms
of theology in four sects. There is the strange fact that the
BJiagavadgitd^\\\c\\ is a thoroughly sectarian work, recogniz
ing Vishnu as identical with Brahman and Krishna as his full
avatara, is not only accepted as a piece of orthodox Vedantism,
but is one of three books which form the canon of the school.3
There is the other notable fact, that Sivaites and Vishnuites
regard themselves as Vedantists as truly as the followers of
Sankara, and accent the whole canon as inspired. That is the
reason why every Sivaite or Vishnuite sect of importance has
a commentary of its own upon the Vedanta-sutras, expounding
that old manual in accordance with its own views. It is of
great interest to note that the Gltd, which makes Vishnu the
Supreme, and teaches the doctrine of incarnation, is accepted
as an inspired work by Sivaites and is much used by them,
though they refuse to recognize Vishnu as Brahman and

1 Infra, pp. 378-379. 2 Supra, p. 245. '' Supra, pp. 242-243.

THE GREAT SECTS 377

repudiate the doctrine of incarnation. But the most sig
nificant fact of all is this, that Saiikara, the greatest of all
Vedantists, is driven by the canonical authority of the Glta
to accept Krishna as an avatara of Brahman.1 How are
we to account for these startling facts? If the Glta was
written within the school of the Vedanta, and accepted as
authoritative in the school from the outset, then every other
fact falls naturally into its place.

It is also noticeable that a work of such authority as
the Glta is — called 'the essence of all the Upanishads', and
venerated almost as much as the greatest of them — should
be called smriti and not sruti. The reason is that Sudras
and women were not allowed to hear sruti ; 2 and the Glta is
the layman's Upanishad, intended for all caste Hindus.3

III. The history of later centuries must now be dealt with.

A. There is a passage in the MaliabJiarata which requires
special notice, because it gives us a glimpse of later Vish-
nuite theology. It is the famous passage in the Santi
Parvan which contains the description of Narada's visit to
the White Island, where he saw the inhabitants worshipping
Vishnu, and had a vision of the god himself. Many have

1 See below, pp. 389-390. 2 See p. 164.

3 The writer regrets very much to be unable to follow Sir George
Grierson, Sir R. G. Bhandarkar, and other honoured scholars in the theory
that Bhagavata theism had existed many centuries before the Glta was
written. It is only because the evidence in favour of the theory adopted
in the text seems conclusive that it has been accepted. That there was
theistic thought in the schools of the Vedanta in the centuries before our
era is absolutely clear ; but the theory, that in the early centuries the
Vaishnaya sect held a theistic theology such as is found in the Glta and
in the Santi Parvan, seems to rest on the assumption that the mere
occurrence of the words Bhagavfin, Bhagavata, Vasudeva in inscrip
tions proves that those who used them in the second, third, or fourth
century before Christ held the beliefs which were associated with these
names several centuries later. So far as existing records go, the right
conclusion seems to be very different. Polytheistic Vaishnavism we know
from the Ramayana ; theistic Vaishnavism filled with the Vedanta we
know from the Gita : where do we find a theistic Vaishnavism that is not
Vedantic ? We need not fix a definite date for the change : the crucial
point which it seems necessary to grant is that it was the acceptance of
the theology of the Vedanta that transformed polytheistic Vaishnavism
into a theism.

378 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

thought that the story contains reminiscences of Christian
influence exerted on Vishnuism. It would be most unwise to
say that no such influence reached, or could have reached,
Vishnuites ; for, from the first century onward, Christianity
flowed, in varying channels and varying strength, into the
lands adjoining India and into India itself ; but, on the other
hand, it is surely only candid to say that, if this passage is an
echo of the acceptance of Christian ideas, then they must have
been so modified as to make it impossible to put one's finger
on a single thing that is clearly and decisively Christian in
origin. So we need not discuss the question further here.

Vishnuites are here called Bhagavatas, i.e. worshippers of
Bhagavan, the Lord, as they are in an early inscription. The
system and the ritual are called Pdncharatra and Satvata, but
the origin of these names has not yet been satisfactorily made
out. We are told that the seven Rishis, who are known as
the Chitrasikhandins, composed the supreme scripture, clearly
a manual of Paiicharatra theology, ritual, and law. This
must refer to the original work on which the many existing
Pancharatra Sarhhitas 1 depend. The chief advance in belief
which the passage reveals is the appearance of the doctrine of
vynha or Expansion. We had better quote the most important
lines. Vasudeva, i.e. Vishnu, is made to say,

That which is my fourth form creates the indestructible Sesha. The
Sesha is called by the name of Samkarshana. Samkarshana creates
Pradyumna. I take birth myself as Aniruddha . . . From Aniruddha
springs Brahma. The latter takes birth from Aniruddha's navel.
From Brahma spring all creatures mobile and immobile. Know that
Creation springs in this way repeatedly at the beginning of every Kalpa.
Creation and destruction succeed each other even as sunrise and sunset
in this world.2

Vasudeva, Samkarshana, Pradyumna, Aniruddha, Brahma
thus form a sort of family tree. A little earlier in the same
section Samkarshana is identified with prakriti, Pradyumna

1 Infra, p. 383.

2 Santi Parvan, cccxli, 70-73 (12936).

THE GREAT SECTS 379

with manas, and Aniruddha with ahamkdra ; and here we are
told that from Brahma are produced the bhutdni or elements
of matter. These are the series of cosmic existences posited
by the Sfmkhya philosophy for the explanation of the uni
verse.1 The system indicated may be graphically represented
thus :

Vasudeva = the supreme Reality.

. J

Sarhkarshana = primeval matter, prakriti.

\

Pradyumna = cosmic mind, maims.

Aniruddha = cosmic self-consciousness, ahamkdra.

Brahma = Creator of the visible world, the bJintani.

Clearly this genealogical scries is meant to enable the untutored
people to grasp the idea of the rather difficult emanation-
series of the Sankhya system.- The mythological character
of the series, clear enough on the surface, becomes still clearer
when we realize that Krishna was called Vasudeva, that
Balarama, his brother, was called Sarhkarshana, ' Drawn-out ',
because he was drawn out of his mother's womb and placed in
RohinI, while Pradyumna is Krishna's own son, and Aniruddha
is one of his grandsons. We have evidence that Samkarshana
was worshipped before the Christian era/'

The doctrine of incarnations is also taught, the theory being
that in each kalpa Vishnu becomes incarnate ten times, as
a swan, a tortoise, a fish, a man-horse, a boar, a man-lion,
a dwarf, Parasurama, Krishna, and Kalki.4

B. Siva is a very picturesque figure in the Mahdbhdrata.
He has two aspects, one fierce and destructive, expressed in
the names Rudra (roarer), Hara (he who sweeps all away).
Kala (Time), the other mild and beneficent, expressed in the

1 Supra, pp. 237-239. 2 See below, p. 405.

3 Supra, p. 363. 4 See below, p. 388.

3«o THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

names Siva and Sankara. In his fiercer aspect he has
a revolting and terrifying appearance. He is death, pestilence,
destruction. He is a mad ascetic, covered with ashes, carrying
a skull, haunting the burning-ghat. In his kindly aspect he
is the dancer, fond of music and sport. But the most sig
nificant fact that meets us in the Epic is that Siva's worship
is now phallic.1 His popularity rests on the liiiga, as Vishnu's
on his incarnations. The Saiva theological system is called
Pdsupata, from Pasupati, Lord of flocks, an old name of
Siva.

C. The introduction of the philosophical theology into the
sects is the chief characteristic of their history in the later
stages of the two epics. Along with the leading philosophical
element, viz. the identification of Vishnu and of Siva with the
supreme Brahman, came other philosophic and ascetic in
fluences. The chief of these is this, that the aim of Hindu
philosophy, namely, emancipation, is now brought into the
sects and is sought by devotion, bkakti, to the sectarian
god. Secondly, in order that the Vaishnava or the Saiva
layman might learn a little philosophy, the institution of the
guru or teacher was introduced from the philosophic schools.
The devotee, whether man or woman, chooses a guru for
himself or herself, and a permanent spiritual relation is
supposed to be established between teacher and disciple.
A concomitant idea, which came in at the same time, is that
to the disciple the guru is God, and must be worshipped as
such.2 It was perhaps the coming of the guru that led also
to the institution of the sectarian dlksha, or ceremony of
initiation. The name and the institution alike were already
fully established in the philosophical schools.3 Finally, it seems
clear that it was the arrival of the philosophical element that
brought the idea of ahirhsa, or harmlessness, into the sects.
It will be remembered that the law against the taking of
animal life grew up among the vfmaprasthas, hermits, in

1 See p. 310. 2 See below, p. 399.

3 Deussen, 377.

THE GREAT SECTS 3X1

very early times,1 and that it found its way much later into
the discipline of the sannyasis, Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain.2
In their case the prohibition usually extended to vegetable
life as well. As we have already seen, the rule tended later
to become restricted to the preservation of animal life,
vegetable life being dropped out of consideration:'5 Since
it was believed that the destruction of animal life made bad
karma and hindered a man from ripening towards emancipa
tion, it became necessary for the serious layman to keep the
lawofahimsa. Care for animal life was certainly emphasized
as a most serious duty in the two sects, for two far-reaching
changes arose from it.

First, animal sacrifice was given up in all the temples of
those sects who seriously claimed that they worshipped the
Absolute.4 To this day no animal sacrifice is tolerated in
any Vishnu temple, and in most temples of Siva also it is
prohibited. We can actually trace the working of the philo
sophic leaven in one case. When Madhva worked out his own
philosophic theology, and founded his sect, animal sacrifice
was forbidden in the temples of the sect, although his people
had been used to it, and they were bid to offer instead images
of animals made with rice-flour.5 Animal sacrifice in Hindu
temples may have been what it was in so many countries,
a meal in which the god and his people ate together. In
modern temples, the practice is to give every worshipper
a portion of the food and of the water offered to the idol.
The food is called prasada, a grace-gift, and the water tlrtlia,
holy water.

Secondly, flesh-eating was condemned, and the exclusive
use of vegetables gradually spread among the people. Vege
tarianism is far from being universal among Hindus. There

1 Supra, p. 250. 2 Supra, pp. 256, 258.

3 Supra, pp. 263-264.

4 Yet both Sarikara and Rfimanuja declare that the killing of animals in
sacrifice is not 'unholy': S. B. E., xxxviii. 131; xlviii. 598-599. This
was necessary in order to justify the Vedic sacrifices.

5 Madhva, 147-148.

382 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

are groups of Brahmans even who eat both fish and flesh.
Wherever philosophic and ascetic ideas have been seriously
pressed, however, vegetarianism has tended to increase.

D. There are three groups of books about which we had
better say a word, the Puranas, the sectarian Upanishads,
and the sectarian manuals, known as Sarhhitas, Agamas, and
Tantras. These all belong to the same general period. The
leading books of each class fall between the close of the Epic
period and the time of Sankara, c. A.D. 800, but many are
still later. The chief note of this literature is sectarianism :
there is no longer any attempt at a national literature to
which all might contribute, as was the case with the
Mahabhdrata.

1. The chief interest of the Puranas for our subject, apart
from their violent sectarianism, is that they give us the whole
cycle of the later myths about Krishna connected with Mathura
and Vrindavana. Here we find the story of his childhood in
full detail, and all his pranks among the cowherds. The
Harivamsa, the Vishnu Purdna, and even the late BJidgavata
Pnrdna do not allude to Radha, Krishna's cowherd mistress,
but the Padma Pnrdna, and the Brahma-vaivarta Pur ana
make a great deal of her.1 This new element is the chief
source of the immorality of certain Vaishnava sects. There
are a number of Puranas which favour the cult of Siva : the
Skanda, the Siva, the Linga, and the Bhavishya.

2. Many Upanishads in prose and verse, of various doctrine
and practice, were composed in the first millennium of the
Christian era, and were loosely attached to the Atharvaveda.
Among these are a number that teach the new philosophic
theology of the Vaishnava and Saiva sects. Prof. Deussen
in his SccJizig Upanishads des Veda translates seven Vishnu
Upanishads and five Siva Upanishads. In two of these
treatises the object of meditation is the supreme Vishnu
incarnate as the man-lion, but usually it is Vishnu himself,

1 Macdonell, 301.

THE GREAT SECTS 383

or else Rama or Krishna, that is honoured. One of the Siva
Upanishads deals with the tripundra, the Sivaite sect mark,
three horizontal lines drawn with ashes by the Sivaite across
his brow.

3. There are then the sectarian manuals. Vishnuites usually
call their books Pancharatra Samkitds, while Saivas call
theirs Saiva Agamas. The Saktas, who adore the wife of
Siva as his sakti or energy, call their manuals Tantras. All
these poems, both in their form and in their teaching, arc
very like the Puranas ; but they are of far greater importance,
for they are the authoritative manuals for both the ritual and
the theology of nearly all the Vaishnava and Saiva sects both
in the North and in the South. In them we have the systems
full grown. They give the laws for the construction of
temples, lay down the rules for the temple ritual, and give
instructions to the guru for initiating new members into the
sect. They also contain sketches of the chief theological and
philosophical doctrines of the sects. This is the literature
which has guided the priests and the gurus in their labours
up and down the centuries, while they have been regarded
as inspired authorities by poets and thinkers, especially at
times when the great books of the Vedanta have been little
known. There are a few temples still to be found in which
the ritual is controlled by the Kalpa-sutras, but they are very
few. They are known as smarta temples, because they are
ruled by smriti. The Agamas and Sarhhitas have been very
little studied by Europeans as yet; so that it is impossible
to speak definitely with regard to their dates. The utmost
that can be said is that a few seem to be as old as the fifth
century ; l a larger number are known to have existed in the
days of Ramanuja ; but many are still later.2

1 Some scholars believe that there is evidence to prove that the earliest
of these works is still older. See Schomerus, Der faiva Sidiihdnta, 10 ;
lyengar's Outlines, 173.

2 For the Vishnuite Samhitas see /. R. A. S., October, 1911 ; for the
$aiva Agamas see Saiva-Siddhanta ; and for the Tantras see Hopkins,
Religions of India, 489-494.

384 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

E. In the seventh and following centuries Vaishnavism
and Saivism in the South were greatly strengthened and
inspired by two parallel lines of poet-saints, the Alvars
among Vishnuites and the Adiyars among Sivaites. These
men drew their inspiration mainly from the Puranas, on
the one hand, and from the Agamas and Samhitas, on the
other. They too identify Vishnu and Siva with the absolute
Brahman. They gained their influence over the common
people by their great enthusiasm and their fervid devotion
to Vishnu and to Siva. They preached and spoke in Tamil,
and their influence lives to-day in their Tamil hymns. These
hymns are sung in the daily worship of most of the temples
in the Tamil country, and even where the vernacular is
Telugu or Canarese.

F. Both the great sects gave birth to erotic sub-sects with
very immoral cults. The history of the rise of these move
ments has not yet been worked out. From Saivism there
sprang the two Sdkta sects, that is those who worship the
sakti of Siva. Hindu sects recognize every goddess as the
sakti or energy of her husband ; but the sects called Sdkta
all worship Uma, Siva's wife, as Durga and Kali, and are
closely connected with Bengal. The right-hand Saktas are
respectable, but the left-hand Saktas hold their worship in
secret and are most immoral. Erotic Vaishnavism seems
to have arisen round Mathura, where Krishna's childhood is
fabled to have been led. Yet, like the Saktas, these Vaishnava
sub-sects are found in many parts of India. These move
ments have produced very serious results in the Hindu
community.

G. Early in the ninth century there appeared among the
ascetic teachers of the ancient school of the Vedanta the
famous Sankara, a scholar of the highest capacity, who gave
the philosophy its final and definite form. Partly through
the splendour of his scholarship and his capacity, partly
because he was head of the school to which all were proud
to belong, Sankara was able to carry almost the whole

THE GREAT SECTS 385

country with him in his monistic (advaitd) exposition of the
Vedanta.

H. But gradually the sects began to feel that his pantheistic
doctrine of Brahman, his complete identification of the soul
with God, and his theory that the world is altogether illusory,
were scarcely compatible with the fundamental implications
of their religion. If they were right in worshipping Vishnu
and Siva as they did, clearly the Supreme must be personal,
the soul must be in some sense distinct from God, and the
world must have some reality. The first clear note of
rebellion against Sankara is found in Manikka Vachakar, the
Tamil poet quoted above.1 His date is perhaps a century
after Sankara. He expresses in his verse his detestation of
the haughty creed of the Vedanta,2 which must mean defi
nitely, the system of Sankara. The crusade was carried much
further, early in the twelfth century, by Ramanuja for the
Vishnuite Church. His commentary on the Vcddnta-sutras,
known as the Sri-bhashya, is really a great piece of work, well
worthy of a place beside Sankara' s masterpiece. The activity
of Mcy-kanda-devar, a Saivite philosopher who wrote in Tamil
in the thirteenth century, giving systematic expression in the
vernacular to the philosophic theology of Siva, may be taken
as the next step. In the fourteenth century, Madhva founded
his new Vishnuite sect in the Canarese country and attacked
Sankara's system with great vehemence and success in a
commentary on the Vcdaiita-sutras, while Umapati continued
the fight for Siva in the Tamil country. Later still came
Vallabhficharya and Chaitanya in the North, each a Vaishnava
leader, eager to hold his own as a thcistic Vcdantist against
Sankara. The Saiva commentary on the Vcdanta-siitras is
by Nilakantha. His date is probably very early, but it is
not yet known with certainty.

Ramanuja's philosophic position is that there exists only
the one Eternal Brahman, absolute, invisible, beyond the
range of thought and speech. He is the god of the Vaishnava

1 Seep. 375. 2 Pope, 33.

B b

386 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

sect, known as Vishnu and Vasudeva. But, though he is
absolute, he is personal and is not without qualities : he
is separate from all evil and has innumerable excellent
characteristics. He is a God of love and grace. While he
is the one Absolute, he yet contains everything. Souls and
the world are his body, each soul a portion (amsci) of God.
Being the body of God, they have existed from all eternity
and will never cease to exist. Both the world and souls are
real. Souls and matter, however, exist at different times in
two conditions, contracted and expanded, latent and causal.
The body of God is in its contracted and latent condition
during the pralayas, the periods between the destruction
and the creation of the world, while it is in its causal and
expanded state during the kalpas, the periods between the
creation and the destruction, when the world is visible and
active.

Souls live under the laws of transmigration and karma,
undergoing an endless round of births and deaths. Release
from this bondage can come only when the soul acquires
knowledge of the eternal Brahman. This knowledge is
possible through the grace of God to the soul and the response
of the soul in b/iakti, devotion. When the released man dies,
his soul enters eternal bliss, retaining its individuality for
ever. The emancipated soul is like Brahman in all particulars,
except that it does not possess his power of creating, pre
serving, and destroying the world. This system is called
Visislitadvaita, modified monism.

The philosophy of Saivas is very little different from that
of Ramanuja, only they identify Brahman with Siva, and
they hold that the released soul at death actually merges in
Brahman and loses all consciousness of individual existence.
It is for this reason that Saivas prefer to call their system
advaita, monistic. When the released soul at death goes to
Brahman, there is, according to them, no difference between it
and Brahman.

Madhvas also hold practically the same philosophy as

THE GREAT SECTS 387

Ramanuja, though they emphasize still more the distinction
between the soul and God and therefore call their system
dvaita^ dualistic.

Thus, the philosophy of the theistic sects stands out as very
distinct from Saiikara's, but the differences amongst themselves
arc of very little consequence, except in so far as the one
group reverence Vishnu and the other Siva.

I. We now turn to the development of Vaishnavism in
North India, where certain features of the system receive fuller
and clearer expression than elsewhere.

Ramananda, a follower of Ramanuja, rebelled against the
galling rules about food, dress, and the bath which characterize
the sect, migrated to North India about A. D. 1400, and there
preached to men of all castes, using the vernacular in every
thing. Yet even he did not propose to break down caste.
He merely neglected it so far as preaching and worship were
concerned. The sects that look back to him live in caste like
other Hindus. He retained the old Vaishnava theology and
worship unchanged, except that he laid special stress on
the worship of Rama, while in the parent sect Rama and
Krishna are equally honoured. This feature marks all those
who trace their spiritual lineage to him.

Kablr was greatly influenced by Muhammadanism as well
as by the Vaishnavism of his teacher Ramananda, and, in con
sequence, we find two very great departures from ordinary
Hindu practice in his case. He took more seriously than the
Vaishnavas did the doctrine that the knowledge of God is not
dependent on caste, and in consequence refused to submit to
the rule of the Brahman priest. Here, then, we have a definite
break with caste. He also ridiculed the Hindu mythology,
denied the doctrine of incarnations, affirmed that all the
Hindu gods were dead, and forbade the worship of idols. His
followers were thus not only cut off from Brahman ministrations
but from Hindu temple-worship also. They met for worship
by themselves. Yet he retained many features of Vaishnavism.
He called God Rama, gave the guru the same prominence
B b 2

388 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

which he has among Vaishnavas, retained the mantra, the
rosary of Tulsi beads, the vertical sect-mark in the forehead,
and the sacred food known asflrasdda.
Here are two quotations from him :

The Hindus bathe in sacred streams, go on pilgrimage to sacred
places, bow down to images of brass and stone, and think that in so
doing they are honouring God. In this they are mistaken. What God
desires is purity of heart ; to rest in symbols that should lead men on
to God is to be guilty of idolatry.1

If by worshipping stones one can find God, 1 shall worship a mountain ;
better than these stones (idols) are the stones of the flour mill with
which men grind their corn.2

Nanak, the founder of the Sikh sect, is said to have been
a disciple of Kablr, and it is clear that in certain large matters
he followed his master. He would have nothing to do with
idolatry; and thus the Sikhs cannot worship in ordinary
Hindu temples, but have their own places of worship.3 This
meant a revolt from the Brahmans in matters of worship, but
it docs not seem probable that Nanak condemned caste as
such. That condemnation came under a later guru. Nanak
was a theist, yet, like an ordinary Hindu, he retained the
whole Hindu mythology. He did not go nearly so far in
reform as Kablr did. Caste has found its way back into the
Sikh community.

IV. The influence of the doctrine of incarnation, especially
as taught in the Bhagavadglta> has been very great. Krishna
and Rama were the earliest incarnations ; but very soon
a number of old stories were taken from the Vedas and the
Brahmanas and turned into incarnations; and others were
created ; so that within the compass of the Mahabharata
itself we find a list of ten incarnations recognized. Some of
these are of semi-animal form, the man-fish, man-boar, man-
tortoise, man-horse, and man-lion incarnations.4 Later still

1 Westcott, 54. 2 Westcott, 58.

3 See above, pp. 332-333. 4 See above, p. 379.

THE GREAT SECTS 389

the number was raised to twenty-four, as we find it in the
RJiagavata Purdna. It seems certain that this long list is
partly at least an imitation of the long list of Buddhas which
we find in the Buddhist books at a much earlier date. The
Jains have a long list of Tlrthakaras also.1

At a still later date every prominent Vaishnava leader was
declared to be an incarnation, not of Vishnu himself, but of
one of his attendant spirits or of one of his symbols. Thus
Ramanuja is usually said to have been an incarnation of
the great snake Sesha. His predecessor in the metropolitan
temple, Yamunacharya, is held to have been an incarnation
of Vishvaksena, Vishnu's commander-in-chief. In two of his
disciples, Dasarathi and Kuresa, Vishnu's shell and discus
took human form. Earlier saints arc said to have been incarna
tions of his necklace, mace, sword, bow, jewel, and eagle.2

Even sects whose chief principles are inconsistent with the
doctrine of incarnations have later adopted it in one shape or
another. Kablr scoffs at the incarnations of Vishnu ; yet by
his own followers he is praised as an incarnation of the
Supreme.3 His disciple Nanak, the founder of the Sikh
religion, and all the nine gurus who followed him, are regarded
as incarnations by the Sikhs.4

But it is still more remarkable to find the doctrine in the
ancient Vedanta school. Since it is one of the chief doctrines
of the Vedanta that the human spirit is God, it seems
incredible that any strict Vedantist should dream of accepting
the doctrine of avataras. There is no mention of such a thing
in any of the early Upanishads ; nor does it occur in the
Vedanta-sutras, Yet Sankaracharya accepts the Bhagavad-
gltd as one of the authoritative books of the Vedanta, and calls
Krishna an incarnation. But it is most noteworthy that he
does not equate Krishna with Brahman : he makes him only

1 See the author's Primer of Hinduism ', 97.

2 Ramanuja.) 91, 96, 104, 182, 231 ; tfoly Lives, I, 19, 41, 73, 74, 88,
117, 136, I45> 193-

3 Westcott, 144. 4 Trumpp, Adi Granth, cxi. 34, 69, 73.

39o THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

a partial incarnation.1 The truth seems to be that he was
conscious of the difficulty which the doctrine raises within the
Vedanta system, and introduced this modification to lessen
the pressure.

Stranger still is it to find the doctrine of incarnations
among Saivas ; for it is one of the leading principles of Saiva
theology that God cannot be born of a woman. It is only
among Saivas of the last few centuries that we find the doc
trine. Careful writers avoid it altogether. It seems certain
that the idea crept in through the old doctrine that every
Saiva guru is to be received and worshipped as Siva himself.
From that it is but a step to the idea of incarnation. Hence,
in later Saiva literature, Sankara and all the great achfiryas
of the Saiva sect are distinctly spoken of as incarnations
of a portion of Siva.2

V. We have now before us in outline the whole develop
ment of theology within Hinduism from the moment when,
under the pressure of the karma theory, the doctrine of the
Brahman-Atman was produced down to the chief movements
that occurred under Muhammadan influence. The thought
and the practice of the Vedanta remain the most notable
achievement of the Indian religious genius from beginning to
end ; but the story which has unfolded itself before us in this
chapter takes us nearer the heart of Hinduism than any other
that can be told. To conceive the Supreme as truly absolute,
on the one hand, and as personal and interested in man, on
the other, is what the great central group of thinking Hindus
have struggled to do since somewhere about the Christian era.
The Sankhya and the Vedanta have interested the intellectual
man, and they have provided most of the metaphysical and
psychological categories which have ruled the Hindu mind ;

1 See the introduction to his Glta-bhashya. The writer owes this
reference to Pandit Sltanath Tattvabhushana. See Sri Sankaracharya,

2 Appayadikshita's proem to his commentary on Nllakantha's Saiva
Bhashya.

THE GREAT SECTS 391

but a worthy theism has been what the cultured Indian has
longed for and worked for.

The introduction of Vedantism into the worship of Vishnu
and Siva greatly enlarged the spiritual outlook of the sects,
and brought in its train important changes in ritual and in
everyday life. It was an ennobling thing for the ordinary
worshipper of Vishnu or Siva to be told that the God whom
he revered is the Supreme, the inconceivable One, the object
of the speculation of all the seers of India, and that he is
a God of love and grace towards whom it is his duty to feel
a passionate devotion. It was also stimulating to hear that
each man is a portion of God. The new philosophic theology
also brought near to him the idea that the real end of the
religious life is not the petty things he asked from his god
from day to day, but a complete release from the thraldom of
sense and from the round of birth and death, a final escape
from all that is transitory, unsatisfying, and sorrowful. The
bringing of these ideas within the reach of the ordinary lay
man must have been a great uplift. Along with the idea
of release came the thought that the destruction of animal life
was one of the chief lines of action that would retard his pro
gress towards the goal. Hence, he gladly acquiesced in the
reform whereby offerings of grain, vegetables, fruit, and flowers
were substituted for the animal sacrifices which his forefathers
had offered so long. Still more striking is the fact that in
large parts of South India, and also in certain parts of Central
and Northern India, many groups of high-caste Hindus
yielded to the pressure of this idea so far as to become
complete vegetarians. As time went on, it was found that
men of low caste were as able to grasp spiritual ideas as
Brfihmans themselves ; and henceforward we find the con
viction in all the theistic churches that all men arc capable of
winning salvation.

Yet we must acknowledge that much superstition remained.
Above all things idolatry was not laid aside. Animal sacrifice
was given up, it is true ; yet, though that is evidence of the

392 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

existence of fine feeling, it was no gain to spiritual religion :
the offering of fruits and vegetables to a stone is quite as super
stitious as the offering of animal food. The shrine, the image,
the food, and the water offered to the idol are all believed to
be filled with divine power. We read of a dog that ate some
of the food offered to an idol and straightway went to heaven.1
Nay, Ramanuja tells us that ' the killing of animals in sacrifice
makes them to go up to the heavenly world '.2 The belief
in the magic potency of the mere utterance of the divine
name and of the sectarian mantra continues in all its old
strength. Indeed, it seems clear that the philosophy brought
its own superstition with it : the guru is not only worshipped
as God in both sects, but the dust of his feet conveys
spirituality, and the water in which he has washed them
is drunk by his disciples as nectar for the soul. The Vishnuite
declares that Vishnu is present in great power in every sala-
graina, a black fossil found in the Gandak river,3 while the
Sivaite believes that Siva resides in every round white pebble
found in the Nerbudda. Hence, innumerable poisonous super
stitions flourish in the unhealthy atmosphere, such as the value
of spells, charms, and amulets, the divine nature and power of
cows, bulls, monkeys, snakes, and of many trees and plants,
the virtue of sacred rivers, springs, and ponds, and the efficacy
of weird sacrifices and magic practices. Hinduism has never
got beyond the superstition that holiness and divine power
reside in things.

VI. We must now endeavour to understand what the great
forces are which throughout the centuries have determined
the main lines of the development of Indian theism and have
given it its distinctive Hindu character. Our study has shown
us that the interest of the history of the sects lies in the bold

1 Holy Lives, 208.

2 S.B.E., xlviii. 599. Cf. 7.S.R., Feb. 13, 1910, p. 283.

3 A Hindu scholar writes : ' The modern Vaishnava sips the water in
which the fossil ammonite is washed to the chanting of the Purusha
Snkta, for disinfecting his inside of the bacillus of sin.' lyengar's Out
lines, 191.

THE GREAT SECTS 393

attempt they make to combine the loftiest features of the
theology of the Vedfinta with popular religion. We have
here to consider how the two elements, the philosophy and the
popular religion, have worked together, how the attempt to
unite them has succeeded.

As in the original Vedanta, so here the doctrine of
karma ruled the development. Brahman is still construed
as actionless, in order that he may not fall under the sway
of karma. The old phrase, 'Brahman is beyond thought and
speech ' is repeated thousands of times. Rfimanuja writes l
that Vishnu,

after having created the universe from Brahma down to stocks and
stones, withdrew into his own nature, and thus became impervious to
the meditations and worship- of the gods, from Brahma downwards,
and of mankind ;

Manikka Vachakar says :

He dwells where human thought goes not; 3
and Tulsi Das writes,4

Rama is beyond the grasp of intellect, or soul, or speech.

Consequently we find the same results arising here as we met
in the early Vedanta.

A. In the early period, before their alliance with the
Vedanta, the sects never dreamed of subjecting Vishnu and
Siva to moral restrictions. The gods are above moral law.
We need not refer to the early mythology for proof. It is,
however, of importance to remember the point, for the con
ception continued active throughout the subsequent history.

But the serious attempt to conceive the Supreme as per
sonal necessarily led both sects towards moral ideas. Vishnu
and Siva, like other Hindu gods, had been believed to be very
gracious and kindly towards their own worshippers ; and in
the verse Upanishads we have the beginnings of the doctrine

1 In the prelude to his commentary on the Glta. Heart of India, 41.

2 Compare what Sarikara says, S.B.E., xxxiv. 31-32.

3 Pope, 20. « Growse, 63. Also 97, ico.

394 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

that Brahman is personal and full of grace. Hence Vishnu
and Siva, conceived as the Supreme, could not but be
gracious. This finally led in each sect to the definite doctrine,
that the Supreme is a God of love and grace. Besides that,
the very attempt to make the personality of God real led to
moral ideas. Hence to Ramanuja Vishnu is one

whose essence is absolute negation of all evil, . . . who is an ocean of
boundless and blest qualities of nature ; l

and, in the Saiva Agamas, Siva is called sagnna in the sense
that he possesses all auspicious qualities. This is a most
important fact. The thcistic sects refused absolutely to
receive the old Vedantic idea, that God is non-moral.2

But mark the result. Brahman is personal and ethical, but
he has ' retired into his own nature', as Ramanuja says, and
is absolutely actionless. Hence he cannot bring his moral
nature to bear on the world or on men. It remains far with
drawn, in the unruffled peace of his transcendental life. He
cannot be the source and centre of the moral order of the
universe. He cannot rule over the nations as the righteous
God. His ethical nature is thus altogether ineffective. He
cannot be said to have a character. It is most necessary to
realize this point ; otherwise we are faced with an absolute
contradiction. Except on the supposition that the moral
nature of Brahman does not act effectively on the world and
man, how can we reconcile his character with the following
phenomena ?

i. In the great books of the sects we still find the old con
viction that the gods are above morality, and that they may
do deeds which man must neither copy nor condemn. We
begin with a quotation from the BJiagavata Purana? one of
the very greatest Vishnuite authorities :

The transgression of virtue and the daring acts which are witnessed
in gods (Isvaranani) must not be charged as faults to these glorious

1 Prelude to commentary on the Glta. 2 See above, p. 229.

5 x- 33> 3°-35' The passage occurs in Muir's Sanskrit Texts, iv. 50 f.

THE GREAT SECTS 395

persons. . . . Let no one other than a god ever oven in thought
practise the same. . . . The word of gods is true, and so also their
conduct is sometimes correct : let a wise man observe their command,
which is right. . . . Since Munis are uncontrolled and act as they
please, how can there be any restraint upon him (the supreme Deity),
when he has voluntarily assumed a body ?

We find the same thought in the biography of Ramanuja.
One day heavy rain came on while the image of Vishnu was
being carried in procession, Ramanuja in its train. The
image was carried into a Saiva temple by the priests, but
Ramanuja refused to follow ; for no serious Vaishnava will
enter a temple of Siva. The story proceeds as follows :

'Sire ! Thy Lord has taken shelter inside, why dost thou not do the

same

' Fool thou art,' fulminated Ramanuja, ' if the Emperor electeth to
make love to a courtesan, doth it signify that his chaste Queen also
should imitate her Lord by herself resorting to a courtier? '

We are like the chaste Queen and cannot do as the Lord doth.1

So Tulsl Das, speaking of Siva and other gods, writes :

The fool who in the pride of knowledge presumes to copy them,
saying, ' It is the same for a man as for a god,' shall be cast into hell
for as long as the world lasts.2

No argument is needed to show that we have in all these
passages the pagan idea, that the gods arc above morality,
still unpurified.

2. Krishna is held to be a full incarnation of Vishnu-
Brahman, ' whose essence is absolute negation of all evil ' ; and
yet, in the literature which is accepted by the sects as inspired,
he is represented as having been guilty of lies, deceit, theft,
murder, and limitless adultery. So Siva is credited with acts
during his thcophanies which no self-respecting man would do.
This extraordinary situation can be understood only when we
take full account of the Vedantic doctrine that the divine
activity is sport, and recognize that it covers the old rule that

1 Divine Wisdom, 198. 2 Growse, 38.

396 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

the gods are above morality. Indeed, it is only by the aid of
these two ideas that we can realize how the sects retained
the whole of the early mythology relating to the Hindu gods.
Had there been one gust of pure moral air blown from
Brahman, these unworthy stones about the gods, with their
lusts and quarrels, their facile nymphs sent to draw ascetics
into sin, their adultery and incest, their shameful fears and
terrors, their spites and lies and revenges, would have been
hurled into oblivion.

3. The stories about Krishna's amours among the milkmaids
in Vrindavana, and, above all, his passion for Radha, gave
birth to new sub-sects among the Vaishnavas, some of them
respectable in their worship, others very impure. The root-
ideas which made the rise of these erotic sects possible within
the great Vishnuite community were clearly these, that, when
a god appears in human life, his sports are unrestrained by
moral law, and that, while in ordinary life man must not dream
of imitating the divine sports, in worship such imitation leads
to closest fellowship with the god. Further, while ordinary
men who live in the world must submit to the moral laws of
the community to which they belong, the priests of the god
who became incarnate may be expected, as the representatives
of the god, to copy in his worship his divine actions. From
this point of view even the foulness of Vallabhacharya practice
is comprehensible.

As we have seen above, the Left-hand Saktas are a branch
of the Saiva sect, and have most immoral practices. They
worship the wife of Siva, calling her Kali and Durga. It
seems probable that this cult, which commands promiscuous
sexual intercourse as part of its observances, is really an
aboriginal worship, introduced, like many others, into Hinduism.
The science of religion knows many examples of goddesses of
fertility and reproduction in whose worship such practices are
enjoined. For us the significant point is that this gross system
was admitted by Brahmans into Hinduism and placed under
the aegis of the great god Siva. The inevitable inference is

THE GREAT SECTS 397

that Siva was not conceived as having a moral nature which
would rise in righteous indignation against such a worship.

The great temple-gateways of South India known as
gopnrams and the temple-towers of Central India l are in
many cases covered with sculpture of indescribable obscenity ;
while here and there, as in the metropolitan Vishnuite shrine,
Srlrangam, at Trichinopoly, the internal walls and ceiling
are, in Hopkins's phrase, 'frescoed with bestiality' — frescoes
representing the pleasures of Vishnu's heaven.2 The car in
which the god rides on great festival days is also frequently
defiled with obscene carvings. To this day troops of dancing-
girls, who are called devaddsis, servants of the god, and who
now and then do take part in the ritual, but whose real
occupation is prostitution,3 arc connected with most of the
great temples of the South and West,4 and do immeasurable
harm. Women scour the country, and adopt or buy little
girls to bring them up for this infamous life.5 In Siva's
temples in all parts of India one almost invariably finds
his phallic symbol,'5 the linga, instead of an image. It seems
clear that the symbol docs not stir impure thoughts or feelings
in the average Hindu ; yet here we have a survival of coarse,
indecent, barbaric religion tolerated for centuries under a
theistic philosophy. The extraordinary thing is that the
obscene sculptures, the foul frescoes, the dancing-girls, and the
offensive symbols are found, not in private buildings, but in
the temples, the high palaces made holy by the living
presence of the gods. The inevitable conclusion is that
neither Vishnu nor Siva has ever been regarded as having
such a character as would be shocked by such things. Even
the greatest philosophers failed to feel any incongruity

1 It is to the devastation wrought by the Muhammadans that we owe
the fact that obscene sculptures are scarcely to b'e seen in North India.

2 Religions of India, 456. 3 See above, pp. 314-315.

4 In the North the dancing-girls are not permanently connected with
the temples, but are hired for the great festivals. Havell, Benares, 87.
r" See Amy Wilson Carmichael's Lotus Buds.
6 See above, p. 310.

39« THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

between these temples and the ethical Brahman of their
theology. Srirangam is the temple in which Ramanuja lived
and ruled for many years as high-priest. There his great Srl-
BJidshya was written. Manikka Vachakar frequently bewails
his own feebleness and folly in yielding to the attractions
of the devadasls ; but he never demands that they should be
driven from the temples as dishonouring to Siva.

Animal sacrifice was given up in most temples, and multi
tudes of Hindus became vegetarians, because it was felt that
the slaughter of animals would retard one's progress towards
emancipation. Clearly, the sexual immorality of the Krishna
myths, of the Krishnaite sects, and of the temples was never
seriously regarded by the sectarian leaders as an obstacle to
release ; else a resolute agitation would have been raised for
their removal.

4. The greatest saints are guilty of most immoral acts in
the service of their gods, and are held to be quite justified.
Manikka Vachakar, one of the greatest of Sivaite saints, who
has been already referred to, was originally Prime Minister to
the king of Madura. The king entrusted him with a large
sum of money to go to a seaport and buy Arab horses. On
his way he sees Siva in the form of a guru surrounded by
ninety-nine disciples, is converted and becomes a Sivaite
ascetic. He then hands over the whole of the king's money
to be distributed to the devotees of Siva and the poor.1 Tiru-
Mangai-Alvar is one of the chief Vishnuite saints of the South.
Yet, in his official biography we have a narrative in which, in
order to get money for the service of Vishnu, he is guilty of
lies, deception, burglary, murder, and sacrilegious theft: he
breaks into a Buddhist shrine and steals a golden image of
Buddha.2 Numerous stones could be quoted in which devotees,
both men and women, are guilty of gross immorality in order
to serve the god or the guru.3 Nay, the doctrine is frankly
put into the mouth of Vishnu in a Sanskrit couplet :

1 Pope, xxi-xxiii. 2 Holy Lives, 173-179. 3 Ramanuja, 117.

THE GREAT SECTS 399

If for my sake thou sinnest, it becometh merit ;
All merit without reference to me becometh sin.1

5. Had Brahman been effectively conceived as absolutely
holy, it would have been impossible to think of the sectarian
gurus and saints as his true manifestation. How are we to
understand the following statements ? Umnai Vilakkam,
one of the fourteen authoritative Tamil books of the Saiva
Siddhanta, says,

They who regard and worship the Guru, the liriga and God's
devotees as the incomparable God will not suffer births and deaths.'2

One of the Vishnuite Samhitas reads,
The guru is Parabrahman himself.3

These sayings and the worship of these men as saviours prove,
at the very least, that in this connexion the perfect moral
nature attributed to Brahman was neglected or forgotten ; for
men of most imperfect character are recognized as Brahman
himself, and receive the worship which ought to be given to
God alone.

6. One of the most precious doctrines held by Indian
thcists is this, that God is full of love and grace. Both
Vishnuite and Sivaitc teach this faith most earnestly. It has
inspired much beautiful literature and has touched the hearts
of thousands of simple people. It is especially noticeable in
the works of the great sectarian poets, Mfmikka Vachakar,
Tukaram, Tulsi Das, and others.

Yet under this very faith there grew up both in the North
and the South the practice of widow-burning. Under this
very faith female infanticide was tolerated, and all the cruel
inhumanities of caste. It is one of the principles of both these
sects that the Outcaste is capable of bhakti and may attain
emancipation as truly as the Brahman ; so that he too is an
object of the love of God. Yet there has never been a move
ment within these great sects to set the Outcaste free from the

1 Ramanuja, 117. 2 Saiva Siddhanta, 12.

3 Ramamijii) 105. Parabrahman means the transcendental Brahman.

400 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

intolerable position in which caste places him. Ramanuja,
clearly, was deeply impressed with the spiritual capacity of
the Outcaste class. His biography contains many touching
incidents to that effect. Yet he never proposed to change their
social position.

Do we condemn Ramanuja and the other leaders, both
Saiva and Vaishnava? Nay, by no means. Who does not
feel deeply the sincerity and nobility of those men, the high
motives that inspired them, the heroic toils and sacrifices they
endured for the faith they held ? What is clear, however, is
this, that the faith which they had received had not ethical
force and warmth sufficient to condemn widow-burning, female
infanticide, and the cruel tyranny under which the Outcaste
lives.

The real explanation of the situation is this, that the Hindu
system took shape, as we saw in Chapter V, while the religion
was fully polytheistic, many centuries before the sects adopted
the theology of the Vedanta and rose to the high faith that
Brahman is a personal and ethical spirit ; that the leaders of
the sects as well as the common people held that the ancient
system of religious, social, and family life was a divine creation,
holy and unchangeable in every part, as it is represented in
the Bhagavadgltd ; x and that the ethical character ascribed to
Brahman, being shut up in his transcendental nature, and
never made manifest among men in action, was utterly im
potent to stir even the best men to moral indignation against
the immorality and social cruelty which the system inculcated.
Whatever value the moral character of Brahman may have
had, it never sufficed to rouse any theistic thinker to ethical
criticism of the Hindu system. Brahman was never effectively
moralized.

B. In Sankara's Vedanta Brahman is held to be impersonal.
To the theist, however, the main thought was that if Brahman
was to be identified with Vishnu (or with Siva), he must

1 Supra, pp. 218, 373-374'

THE GREAT SECTS 401

be construed as a person. Both sects consistently taught that
Brahman was personal. Here, then, we have a point on which
the sects differed absolutely from the central school of the
Vedanta.

C. All theistic thinkers accept fully the Upanishad doctrine
that Brahman, being ' beyond thought and speech ', can receive
neither sacrifice nor prayer. The passages quoted above from
Ramanuja, ManikkaVfichakar, and Tulsl Das show how these
men felt,1 and similar statements might be quoted from other
theologians. Thus, it is one of the highest principles of Hindu
theology that the Supreme receives no sacrifice and hears no
prayer. Unless this principle be firmly grasped, the develop
ment of the theology will remain incomprehensible.

But if God receives no offering and answers no prayer, what
is the use of religion, some one will ask, and how can there be
theistic sects? Surely this cannot be a principle of Hinduism.
The fact remains, however, that the absolute nature of God
has been most strictly conceived by all serious thinkers of all
sects. He is consistently regarded as deaf to prayer and
unmoved by sacrifice.2 What the sects worship are his repre
sentatives.

This is the reason why the worship of the two sects went on
unchanged when the theology of the Vedanta was introduced.
As Brahman could not be worshipped by the sannyasl, so
Vishnu-Brahman could not be worshipped by the Vishnuite.
But, since Rama and Krishna were already regarded as avataras
of Vishnu, and since each image of Vishnu was believed to be
so instinct with his essence as to be a mighty living god, there
was abundant opportunity and reason for worship. In precisely
the same way, Siva-Brahman was beyond the reach of the
meditations, the prayers, or the sacrifices of the Saivas ; but
he had poured his presence into every image of himself and
into every liriga all over the land, so that there was no
difficulty about worship. All the old stories in the mythology

1 Above, p. 393. 2 See above, p. 220.

C c

402 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

about Siva were also carefully treasured and interpreted as
theophanies of the god for the benefit of his devotees. They
thus took, in the Saiva sect, the place occupied by incarnations
among Vaishnavas. And in both sects there was another
object of worship.

In the schools of the early Vedanta the teacher was called
guru, and the relation between the disciple and his teacher was
very close and lasted throughout life. The disciple never wrote
a book without expressing his reverence for his guru, whether
the latter was alive or dead. No one would be recognized as
a guru, unless he had already reached jndna, i. e. the knowledge
which is emancipation, viz. the clear realization that he is
Brahman. Hence in the Svetasvatara Upanishad the wise
Vedantist feels the same devotion (bJiakti] for his guru as for
Brahman.1 Now, when the sects adopted the theology of the
Vedanta, they adopted this institution also. It became
customary for the man who was a serious Vaishnava or Saiva
to select a guru for himself, that he might receive instruction
in theology. But along with the institution there came the
doctrine, that the guru is Brahman. In both sects the disciple
is taught to worship his guru as God. Thus Vishnu in his
own inner nature cannot be worshipped, but Vishnu manifest
in the guru can and ought to be worshipped. The Saiva
doctrine is the same. Then the rule was extended to saints
as well as gurus. Nor is this a mere doing honour where
honour is due. According to all the authorities, the worship
paid to the guru is truly worship. Further, the guru is a
Saviour, and emancipation may be achieved by devotion to
him. The following sentences are from Ramanuja's biography :

When the gracious eyes of a good guru fall on a person, his salvation
is sure, be he deaf or dumb, fool or wise, young or old.2

Apart from Ramanuja, no God exists for me.3

The guru is even greater than God.4

Narayana . . . can both save and damn, but Ramanuja . . . can only
save.6

1 vi. 23. 2 170. 3 197. 4 117. 6 249.

THE GREAT SECTS 403

Hence it is that images of all the chief gurus are set up
in the great temples, both Saiva and Vaishnava : they are
placed there that people may get salvation by worshipping
them.

The late Mr. Justice Ranade of Bombay, leader of the
Prarthana Samaj and also of the Social Reform movement,
said in one of his addresses : l

This contrast between the monotheistic spirit and the polytheistic
observances strikes every student of our religious life as a puzzle which
baffles the understanding. ... I offer no solution of it myself to-day ;
because, though I have been thinking about it for a long time, I have
not yet been able to find a rational and consistent solution of the
difficulty.

The analysis of the history has now laid bare the cause.
On account of the karma theory Brahman was conceived as
actionless, ' beyond the range of thought and speech ', alto
gether unmoved by prayer and sacrifice. Since, then, the
Supreme could not be worshipped, there was no possibility
that the characteristic rule of monotheism,

The Lord thy God shalt thou worship, and Him only shall thou
serve,2

should ever grow up in the theistic sects. Both these sects
call themselves Ekdntins, Unitarians ; but that word means
' Those who recognize one transcendental God alone ' : it has
nothing to do with worship. Had that idea ever appeared
among Vaishnavas or Saivas, it would have very quickly swept
away the innumerable ' Lords ',3 who are worshipped each in
his temple, and the gurus who are recognized as Saviours and
receive fervent adoration.

D. Lastly, there is the conviction that Brahman, being
actionless, cannot create the world. He is indisputably the
source of the universe ; but the mode of its production cannot
be creation ; for that would imply purposeful action, and

1 Essays, 130-131. 2 Deuteronomy, 6. 13; Matt. 4. 10.

3 Holy Lives, 205.

C C a

404 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

would render him subject to karma. But Brahman has no
desire, plan, or purpose that would lead him to creative action.1
Yet, since the world proceeds from him, he is in some sense
the subject of activity which is not truly action. The solution
of this problem was suggested by the author of the Svetas-
vatara Upaniskad. As the gods were believed to be able,
through supernatural power, to conceal their identity under
any form they pleased, so he conceived Brahman as a magician
and the world as a sort of spectre conjured up by his magic.2
This reappears in the Gltd :

The Lord ... by his magic makes all born beings whirl about as
though set in a merry-go-round.3

Henceforward the activity of Brahman in the world is always
construed as sport.4 He is, therefore, constantly called juggler,
magician, actor, by all the best writers.

In the original Rdmdyana^ as we saw above, Brahma is the
Creator and the greatest of all the gods, Vishnu is one of the
two that stand nearest him, and Sesha is a huge serpent with
a thousand heads who supports the earth.5 The three are in
no way more closely connected with each other than any
others of the denizens of heaven. But from the time when
Vishnu was identified with the transcendental Brahman a
new piece of mythology makes its appearance. Sesha forms
with his coils a couch for Vishnu, from whose navel springs
a lotus bearing upon it Brahma the Creator. This remarkable
conception brings before us the main elements of Vedantic
theology as held by Vishnuites. It is meant to teach the
people, in vivid pictorial fashion, that Vishnu is the supreme
Brahman, that Brahma, Creator though he be, is but a

1 So Badarayana, ^ahkara, and Ramanuja, S.B.E., xxxiv. 356-357
and xlviii. 477.

2 iv. 9-10. 3 xviii. 61.

4 So Badarayana, Sankara, and Ramanuja in the passages just re
ferred to.

8 Supra, p. 355.

THE GREAT SECTS 4°5

temporary being, springing from the source of all life, and
that Vishnu, though the whole universe proceeds from him, is
yet actionless and at rest, reclining as he does on the emblem
of eternity. This pictorial myth is referred to in the inter
polation in the sixth book of the Rdmdyana referred to above,1
and is given also by Ramanuja.2 It is this representation
of Vishnu that is worshipped in the metropolitan temple at
Trichinopoly. In this form he is called Ranganatha, i.e.
lord of the stage, and the temple is called Srirangam. He
is the lord who looks on while the drama of the world is
played. It is his sport.

In the same way the identification of Siva with Brahman
led his worshippers to think of him as producing the world in
sport. Hence his activity, whether in the world or in the
soul, is symbolized in his dance. He is called Natesa, the
dancing lord, Nataraja, the dancing king, and in thousands of
beautiful works of art is represented as dancing.

But a different way of looking at things was worked out
from Sankhya conceptions in some Krishnaite centre in the
later period of the Epic. According to the Sankhya there is
no supreme Spirit, and the world is evolved from a formless
substance called prakriti. Every group of Vcdantists adopted
the Sankhya theory of the production of the visible world ;
and each, in its own way, fitted it into its main conceptions.
Now to the Vishnuite the world is real, as it is to the Sankhya,
only he believes it comes from Vishnu -Brahman, who is
personal but actionless. How is the connexion to be formed ?
The myth of Vishnu, Sesha, and Brahma given above is one
way ; and it has the merit of representing Brahma in his
ancient role of Creator, but it leaves no room for the Sankhya
evolutionary series. Such are the considerations that led to
the creation of the emanation-series given above 3 from the
Santi Parvan of the Ma/tdb/tdrata. As in the Gnostic systems
the Supreme is several steps removed from the Demiurge. To

1 See p. 374. 2 S.B.E., xlviii. 334. 3 p. 379.

406 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

the Gnostic, however, the aim was to avoid bringing God into
contact with matter, while the Hindu motive is to separate
him from action.

Still another method was employed to connect the far-away,
uncommunicating God with the world. The new idea was
that the wife of the god is a much more approachable being
than her husband, and stands nearer the world and men. She
is usually thought of as his energy in action, while he remains
absolute and at rest. Thus, among Vishnuites, Lakshmi is
said to be the sakti or energy of Vishnu, while Sivaites say
that Uma is the sakti of Siva. How widespread and popular
the idea must have been we can see from the fact that it
actually found its way into Buddhism. In Tantric Buddhism
the great Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are each credited with
having a sakti or wife.

But it was the conception of sport that was most widely
used. Sankara, Manikka Vachakar, Ramanuja, and all the
other authorities use the word Kid, sport, to denote the
activity of the Supreme in the production of the world. All
the theophanies of Siva to his worshippers are also spoken of
as sport. Hence, they were expected to be whimsical, playful,
wild, unaccountable. They show no settled purpose, and
come under no law. In this way, all the early myths about
Siva, which took shape long before any one dreamed of
calling him the Supreme, were retold as gracious theophanies
of Siva-Brahman ; and all the early legends about Vishnu,
such as the salving of the earth, were transformed into
incarnations of Vishnu-Brahman.

This is the point of view from which we can understand
Krishna's boyish knaveries and his immoralities among the
milkmaids. He was an incarnate god, and therefore all his
actions were bound to be lild, sport. If they were full of fun
and amusement, they were worthy of a divinity. You must
not judge a god by the standard that obtains among men.
To bind him down to moral action would be to deprive
him of his divine freedom. Neo-Hindus who defend these

THE GREAT SECTS 407

immoralities by interpreting them as mere allegories are very
wide of the mark. How broadly the writers of the Padma
and Bhagavata Puranas would smile, if they could hear
them !

These considerations show how far Indian thought is from
conceiving the Supreme as the Creator.

CHAPTER X

GOD WITH US

IN this chapter we endeavour to bring Christian teaching
into faithful comparison with the karma doctrine, with the
theology of the Vedanta and of the great sects, and with the
Indian incarnation ideal. The connexion between these
doctrines is so close that it will greatly conduce to clearness
to deal with them as one body of thought.

I. We begin with the nature of God. The evidence is pre
sented by means of direct quotation from the Old Testament l
and from the Gospels, with an illustrative phrase here and
there from the Epistles.

A. In Christianity God is conceived as perfectly spiritual
and absolutely transcendent. He is the supreme Spirit :

God is a Spirit.2

The Lord is high above all nations,

And his glory above the heavens ; z

the only God of the whole universe,

I am the first, and I am the last ; and beside me there is no God ; 4
everlasting,

From everlasting to everlasting thou art God ; 5
timeless,

The high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity ; 6
changeless,

For I the Lord change not ; therefore ye, O sons of Jacob, are not
consumed ; 7

1 For the Christian use of the Old Testament, see p. 52.

2 John 4, 24. s Ps. 113, 4. 4 Isa. 44, 6.
fi Ps. 90, 2. 6 Isa. 57, 15. 7 Mai. 3, 6.

GOD WITH US 409

invisible,

For he endured, as seeing him who is invisible ; l
incomprehensible,

Canst thou by searching find out God ?

Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection ? -

of infinite understanding,

Great is our Lord, and mighty in power ;
His understanding is infinite;3

omniscient,

All things are naked and laid open before the eyes of him with whom
we have to do ; 4

omnipotent,

The Lord God omnipotent reigneth ; 5
omnipresent,

Do not I fill heaven and earth ? saith the Lord ; 6
immanent in nature and in man,

One God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and
in all ; 7

yet transcending all things,

Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee.8

The God of the Bible is thus as truly transcendent, spiritual,
and absolute as Brahman in the Upanishads.

B. The next element to be realized is God's moral nature.
He is perfectly righteous in Himself. No man's character
may be compared with His : he is morally transcendent and
absolute. He is

The high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is
Holy.9

The Rock, his work is perfect ;
For all his ways are judgement :

1 Heb. 11,27. 2 Job 11, 7. s Ps. 147, 5.

4 Heb. 4, 13. c Rev. 19, 6. • Jer. 28,24.

7 Eph. 4,6. * i Kings 8, 27. '•> Isa. 57, 15.

410 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

A God of faithfulness and without iniquity,
Just and right is he.1

The Lord is righteous ; he loveth righteousness.2

The word of the Lord is right.3

God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.4

Thy lovingkindness, O Lord, is in the heavens ;
Thy faithfulness reacheth unto the skies.
Thy righteousness is like the mountains of God ;
Thy judgements are a great deep.5

Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness,
And thy law is truth."

Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath :
for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax
old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner:
but my salvation shall be for ever, and my righteousness shall not be
abolished.7

He is the Centre and Source of the moral order of the
universe, the Author of the moral law, the Creator of man's
moral nature :

The Lord reigneth ; let the earth rejoice ;

Let the multitude of isles be glad.

Clouds and darkness are round about him :

Righteousness and judgement are the foundation of his throne.8

The earth is full of the lovingkindness of the Lord.9

The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof;

The world, and they that dwell therein.

For he hath founded it upon the seas,

And established it upon the floods.

Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord ?

And who shall stand in his holy place?

He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart ;

Who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity,

And hath not sworn deceitfully.10

1 Deut. 32,4. 2Ps. ll,y. 3 Ps. 33, 4.

< I John 1, 5. 6 Ps. 36, 5. 6 Ps. 119. 142.

7 Isa. 51, 6. 8 Ps. 97, 1-2. 9 Ps. 33, 5.

10 Ps. 24, 1-4.

GOD WITH US 411

The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul :

The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.

The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart :

The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.1

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.2

From the place of his habitation he looketh forth

Upon all the inhabitants of the earth ;

He that fashioneth the hearts of them all.3

We saw in Chapter III that the source of nearly all the
weakness of the doctrine of karma and transmigration arises
from the fact that it is conceived as automatic, self-acting.
The system and the laws of karma do not proceed from
Brahman. The moral system is divorced from God.

This fatal error is avoided in Christianity. God is con
ceived as essentially ethical. His innermost being is moral.
He is the God of righteousness as well as the God of intellect
and power. He is transcendently, absolutely good. He is
incapable of doing wrong, right in all His thoughts, right in
all His emotions, and perfectly righteous in will. He is the
source of all the morality inwoven into the constitution of the
world and into the nature of man. Moral law is as truly an
expression of His sovereign will as natural law is. There can
never be any separation between God and the moral system
of the universe.

C. God, then, is the moral Absolute ; and, being perfect in
moral character, He is able to act. In this way the problem
which has vexed Hindu theology from beginning to end is
solved once for all. There is no reason why the ethical Soul
of the universe should be actionless.

Having only perfect ends in view, being guided by motives
which are absolutely righteous, God is able to rule every
detail of the physical world, to come into closest personal
contact with the needs and the sorrows of man, to rule the
nations, to listen to men's praise and prayer, to speak in each

1 Ps. 19, 7-8. 2 Gen. 1, 26. 3 Ps. 33, 14-15.

412 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

man's conscience, condemning or approving his actions, to
plague the criminal with remorse and to comfort the penitent
with His presence, and yet to remain the universal, the per
fect, the unchangeable God, glorious in action and full of all
lovingkindness to men.

The wonder of this relationship of God to the world and
man was very clearly before the Jewish mind. God is God
alone, high above all height, dwelling in eternity, yet near the
humble man, sublime in His exaltation, yet condescending to
the lowliest things. The following sentences give expression
to the wonderful contrast of His majesty with His active
interest in the tiniest worm and in the sorrows of the poor:

Who is like unto the Lord our God,

That hath his seat on high,

That humbleth himself to behold

The things that are in heaven and in the earth ? l

For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose
name is Holy : I dwell in the high and holy place ; with him also that
is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble,
and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.2

The eternal God is thy dwelling place, and underneath are the
everlasting arms.3

Trust ye in the Lord for ever ; for in the Lord Jehovah is an ever
lasting rock.4

We shall consider singly the chief aspects of God's activity
in the world.

i. Being perfect in righteousness, having filled the world
with righteousness, and having created man a moral being, it
is possible for God to influence the moral life of the world at
every point. He controls the course of events, and rules
among the nations. He watches what goes on in every
human heart, speaking in each human conscience, stirring the
sinner to remorse and repentance, and strengthening the man
who does what is right. God is with us in our moral life :

1 Ps. 113, 5-6. 2 Isa. 57, 15. 3 Deut. 33, 27. 4 Isa. 26, 4.

GOD WITH US 413

I am the Lord which exercise lovingkindness, judgement, and
righteousness in the earth : for in these things I delight, saith the
Lord.1

The Lord hath made known his salvation :

His righteousness hath he openly shewed in the sight of the nations.2

But God is the judge :

He putteth down one, and lifteth up another.3

The Lord executeth righteous acts,

And judgements for all that are oppressed.4

The Lord is in his holy temple,

The Lord, his throne is in heaven ;

His eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men.5

He that planted the ear, shall he not hear ?
He that formed the eye, shall he not see?6

The Lord is righteous in all his ways,
And gracious in all his works.7

Here are a few passages which tell of his dealings with
individuals :

He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good ; and what doth the Lord
require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly
with thy God.8

If I regard iniquity in my heart,
The Lord will not hear.9

Search me, O God, and know my heart :

Try me, and know my thoughts :

And see if there be any way of wickedness in me,

And lead me in the way everlasting.10

Create in me a clean heart, O God ;
And renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from thy presence ;
And take not thy holy spirit from me.11

1 Jer. 9, 24. 2 Ps. 98. 2. 3 Ps. 75, 7.

4 Ps. 103, 6. 5 Ps. 11, 4. G Ps. 94, 9.

7 Ps. 145, 17. 8 Mic. 6, 8. 9 Ps. 66, 18.

10 Ps. 139, 23-24. " Ps. 51, IO-H.

4i4 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities,
O Lord, who shall stand ?
But there is forgiveness with thee,
That thou mayest be feared.1

The Lord is full of compassion and gracious,
Slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.2

Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O Lord,
And teachest out of thy law.3

l. Being the moral Absolute, God is construed not only as
a person, but as the supreme Personality, the universal per
sonal Spirit, on whom all spirits depend, and as sustaining
relationships at once personal and perfectly moral with every
human being. This last conception, so full of all spiritual
riches, is expressed by Christ in the doctrine of the Father
hood of God. God is with us personally :

The Father of spirits.4

In him we live, and move, and have our being.5

Thou hast beset me behind and before,
And laid thy hand upon me . . .
Whither shall I go from thy spirit ?
Or whither shall I flee from thy presence ? 6

Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy
kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.7
God dealeth with you as with sons.8

If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things
to them that ask him ? 9

3. God bears the closest possible religious relation to every
human being. This never-ceasing religious action, this un
limited participation in the spiritual life of men, is possible,
because God is altogether independent of men, their praises
and their sacrifices. He receives their worship and listens to
their prayers for their good, not for His own sake. Christ put

1 Ps. 130, 3-4. 2 Ps. 103, 8. 3 Ps. 94, 12.

4 Heb. 12, 9. ° Acts 17, 28. c Ps. 139, 5, 7.

7 Matt. 6, 9-10. 8 Heb. 12, 7. 9 Matt. 7, u.

GOD WITH US 415

the matter clearly : He is our Father and is guided by love.
He can thus act from purpose, in the most serious way
possible, without acting selfishly, or becoming dependent on
the objects of His action. God is with us religiously.
He speaks to man, revealing Himself and His will :

He made known his way unto Moses,

His doings unto the children of Israel.1

God having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by
divers portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of these days
spoken unto us in his Son.J

Blessed art thou, Simon, son of John ; for flesh and blood hath not
revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.3

He knows all about us, and sympathizes with us :

He knoweth our frame ;
He remembereth that we are dust.4

Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.5
He hears and answers prayers :

O thou that hearest prayer,

Unto thee shall all flesh come.0

Ask, and it shall be given you ; seek, and ye shall find ; knock, and it
shall be opened unto you : for every one that asketh receiveth ; and he
that seeketh findeth ; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.7

He guards and helps the poor and the oppressed :

The Lord also will be a high tower for the oppressed,

A high tower in times of trouble ; 8

The poor and needy seek water and there is none, and their tongue
faileth for thirst ; I the Lord will answer them, I the God of Israel
will not forsake them.9

He is our comforter :

As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you.10

He healeth the broken in heart,

And bindeth up their sorrows.11

God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes.12

1 Ps. 103, 7. 2 Heb. 1, 1-2. 3 Matt. 16, 17. 4 Ps. 103, 14.

5 Matt. 6, 32. 6 Ps. 65, 2. 7 Matt. 7, 7-8. 8 Ps. 9, 9.

9 Isa. 41, 17. 10 Isa. 66. 13. " Ps. 147, 3. 12 Rev. 7, 17.

416 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

He does not depend upon man for anything :

I know all the fowls of the mountains :
And the wild beasts of the field are mine.
If I were hungry, I would not tell thee :
For the world is mine, and the fulness thereof.1

The God that made the world and all things therein, he, being Lord
of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands ;
neither is he served by men's hands, as though he needed anything,
seeing he himself giveth to all life, and breath, and all things.2

Yet He asks for our love, worship, and service. It is the
duty of every human being to love, worship, and obey God,
and God alone :

My son, give me thine heart.3

The Lord thy God shall thou worship and him only shalt thou serve.4

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy
soul, and with all thy mind.5

Every sin is thus an act of personal rebellion against God,
deserving severest punishment :
The soul that sinneth, it shall die.6

But God woos every soul to repentance, and offers forgiveness
to the man who will give up sin :

Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord : though your
sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow ; though they be red
like crimson, they shall be as wool.7

John came, who baptized in the wilderness and preached the baptism
of repentance unto remission of sins.8

He sent His Son into the world, and surrendered Him to
shame, agony, and death, in order that His children might be
drawn back to His love :

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life.9

1 Ps. 50, il-iz. 2 Acts 17, 24-25. 3 Prov. 23, 26,

4 Matt. 4, 10. 6 Matt. 22, 37. ° Ezek. 18, 4.

7 Isa. 1, 18. 8 Mark 1, 4. 9 John 3, 16.

GOD WITH US 417

4. lie is clearly and definitely conceived as the Creator of
the universe. This is possible, because He is so truly abso
lute morally. There is no danger of His being lost in His
world, or conquered by it. His perfectly holy character
enables Him to form the highest of all purposes, to create the
world so that it may be the field for the execution of this
purpose, and then to guide the course of events so as to help
in the accomplishment of that which He has at heart. God
is with us in our physical relations :

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.1

The God that made the world and all things therein . . . made of one
blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, . . . that
they might seek God, if haply they might feel after him, and find him.2

He is not merely immanent in the world in the sense of being
present everywhere : He maintains the closest practical rela
tions with all nature, organic as well as inorganic, and with
the spirit of man. His hand is first of all on every part of the
material universe :

One God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and
in all.3

He telleth the number of the stars ;
He giveth them all their names.4

In his hand are the deep places of the earth ;
The heights of the mountains are his also.5

Who maketh the clouds his chariot ;
Who walketh upon the wings of the wind ;
Who maketh winds his messengers ;
His ministers a flame of fire.6

He sendeth forth springs into the valleys;
They run among the mountains ;
They give drink to every beast of the field ;
The wild asses quench their thirst.7

Who looketh on the earth, and it trembleth ;
He toucheth the mountains, and they smoke.8

1 Gen. 1, I. J Acts 17, 24, 26, 27. s Eph. 4, 6. 4 Ps. 147, 4.

5 Ps. 95, 4. 6 Ps. 104, 3-4. 7 Ps. 104, lo-n. * Ps. 104, 32.

D d

418 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

He causes plants and trees to grow :

He causeth the grass to grow for cattle,
And herb for the service of man.1

The trees of the Lord are satisfied ;

The cedars of Lebanon, which he hath planted.2

He cares for all animals :

He giveth to the beast his food,
And to the young ravens which cry.3

Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing ? and not one of them shall
fall on the ground without your Father.4

He cares for man in the matter of all his needs, physical,
mental, and spiritual :

The Lord is my shepherd ; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:

He leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul :

He guideth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil ; for thou art with me :

Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. •

Thou prepares! a table before me in the presence of mine enemies :

Thou hast anointed my head with oil ; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life :

And I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.5

In particular, He cares for the bodies of men :

The very hairs of your head are all numbered.6

My God shall fulfil every need of yours.7
He protects man from danger :

God is our refuge and strength,
A very present help in trouble.8

As the mountains are round about Jerusalem,
So the Lord is round about his people,
From this time forth and for evermore.9

1 Ps. 104, 14. 2 Ps. 104, 1 6. 3 Ps. 147, 9. " Matt. 10, 29.

•' Ps. 23. 6 Matt. 10, 30. 7 Phil. 4, 19. 8 Ps. 46, i.

9 Ps. 125, 2.

GOD WITH US 419

Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night,
Nor for the arrow that flieth by day ;
Nor the pestilence that walketh in darkness,
Nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.1

The great problem which has vexed Hindu philosophers
and theologians from the very beginning ; which deprived
God of a living, active character ; which made it impossible
to conceive the supreme Person as in constant practical touch
with every human spirit ; which set an impassable barrier
between the ardent worshipper and Brahman, ' beyond thought
and speech ' ; and which gave birth to the idea that God's
only action is sport, and thereby opened the door to so
much unworthy mythology — that age-old Hindu problem is
solved in Christianity. The righteous Father of Jesus Christ
is the end of the long, noble, passionate quest of Indian
philosophy.

II. The second great doctrine of the Vedanta is the
identity of the soul and God. We have already thought of
the value of the idea, and of the lofty testimony it bears to
the divine side of human nature. Man's greatness cannot be
assessed more highly, nor his kinship to God more emphatically
expressed.

But Indian thinkers have felt very distinctly that it fails to
deal seriously with man's moral nature. If man is identical
with God, then man's vice must be a negligible clement ;
for it is impossible to conceive that as belonging to the
Absolute.

The doctrine also makes love for God and union with God
impossible. These religious activities imply that man is dis
tinct from God, and that the two can come into close spiritual
intercourse, while remaining distinct.

Then, if the doctrine is to be held in its fullness, God must
be construed impersonally. So soon as the divine personality
is vividly conceived, it becomes impossible to equate man and
God. The differences then become too glaring. Now, the

1 Ps. 91, 5-6.
D d 2

420 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

religious experience of India throughout the centuries has
consistently demanded a personal God : that is the lesson
of the whole history of the great sects, and of Buddhism and
Jainism as well. Nay, even Sarikara's Vedanta is driven to
bear the same testimony ; for, in order to explain religion
and to provide for the clamant needs of the human heart,
there appears, in the strict Vedanta, beside the mighty
Brahman, a pale spectre, the personal, but temporal and unreal
Brahma. The whole history of Hinduism thus proves that
man cannot live without a personal God.

But, given the personal God, the identity of man and God
disappears. So, in all the sects, man's spirit is no longer the
supreme Spirit whole and undivided, but an ainsa or portion
of God. The Saiva sect still call their system advaita, pure
monism, and they say that, when the released man dies, he is
absorbed in God and loses his individual consciousness. Yet
a clear distinction is made between the human spirit and the
divine, and the amsa idea is distinctly held.

The idea that man is but a portion of the divine Spirit
escapes the difficulties which the identity doctrine brings to
the theist, but it involves others scarcely less serious. It
makes it possible to conceive God as a person, but it fails to
explain man. How can a fragment of God be a person?
Whence come man's personal will, his highly charged emo
tions, his vivid self-consciousness?

But turn to Christ's doctrine of man. Each human being
is a child of God, made in the image of his Father, possessing
a spiritual nature that is finite, yet parallel with the divine in
its capacities. Man is so like God as to be fit for the imme
diate, personal, spiritual converse of a son with a father : yet,
being a son, he does not lose his personality in God. Man is
thus uplifted as high as he is in the old Vedanta : yet all the
hallowed relationships of prayer, worship, and love of God
are possible. Since he is a son of the personal and righteous
God, his self-consciousness and his moral freedom occasion
no surprise : while human frailty and sin, though clearly

GOD WITH US 43i

unnatural and unworthy of our high birth, are not altogether
incomprehensible. Indian theists have felt very distinctly
that God is a God of love and grace ; and they have felt
that it was both natural and right that man should feel bhakti
— deep trust and warm affection— towards God. These high
spiritual truths find their full justification only in the teaching
of Jesus. If God is truly the Father of all men ; and if every
human being is a finite child, made in the image of the eternal
Father, then God will undoubtedly shower His love and grace
on us, and man's highest privilege and duty must be to trust,
to love, and to obey his Father. Christ's doctrine of man is,
thus, the final truth of which the strict Vedanta and Hindu
theism offer each a partial adumbration.

III. The brief outline of the growth of the Indian belief
in incarnations given in our last chapter brings us into close
touch with one of the most powerful forces working in Hin
duism. In these matters we do not deal merely with the ideas
of individuals, or of isolated groups of individuals, but with
those hidden powers which refuse to submit to the control of
man, and work out, in the course of the centuries, vast historical
results. That the doctrine of incarnation, which appeared
originally in the ancient Vishnuite sect, should have found its
way into almost every division of the Hindu people, and
into every corner of Eastern Asia, is the strongest possible
testimony to the religious value it possesses for the Hindu
and the Asiatic spirit. Nor can there be any doubt as to what
clement in the doctrine it is that has given the movement its
power : it is the belief that God actually appeared as a man,
was born, and lived and died among men. This fact comes
out quite clearly in the literature ; but it becomes still more
manifest in intercourse with the people.

A. We must now note and seek to understand certain rather
remarkable modifications which the incarnation doctrine has
been undergoing in the minds of educated Hindus for some
time. It has been both narrowed and widened.

It will be recollected that in both the great sects it has

422 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

been usual for centuries to call every outstanding leader
an incarnation. Sathakopa, Yamunacharya, and Ramanuja
among Vishnuites, Sankara, Svetacharya, and Nilakantha
among Sivaites, and scores of minor saints and scholars of
these and other sects, have been recognized as avataras for
several centuries. No thoughtful Hindu would press this
seriously to-day. It is too big a stretch to ask any one to
believe that Vishnu's necklace or his discus took human birth.
It is quite true that a few enthusiastic disciples have called
Ramakrishna Paramaharhsa and Mrs. Besant avataras ; but
no thoughtful man takes such a proposal as a piece of
theology : it is merely a way of testifying to their great
services to Hinduism. Faith in the animal incarnations of
Vishnu has also disappeared. It is simply impossible for the
modern man to believe that God appeared on earth in the
form of a monster, half-man, half-lion. These things arc too
clearly mythology to be believed to-day.

The only incarnations which the modern Hindu attempts
to hold by seriously are Rama and Krishna. He may give
some sort of acknowledgement to earlier stories, but he docs
not vouch for them. Rama and Krishna, however, he does
defend. Indeed, one of the most significant things in Neo-
Hindu literature is this, that books have been written to
attempt to prove that the accounts given in the Epics of Rama
and Krishna are historical.1 Thinking men have realized that,
unless these things can be shown to be really historical, the
old incarnation faith cannot but disappear. These books
make sorry reading ; and no wonder ; for they undertake an
impossible task. During the last few years Hindus have
usually contented themselves with bold assertions : so far as
the writer knows, no serious treatise on the subject has been
published recently.

On the other hand, there has been a very significant widen
ing of the old idea, so as to cover Christ, Muhammad, Confucius,

1 For an account of some of this literature see the Appendix to the
present writer's Gltd and Gospel.

GOD WITH US 423

and other religious leaders ; and many a modern Hindu
believes that he holds a philosophy of religion not only
reasonable but liberal, because he acknowledges all the great
teachers of mankind to have been incarnations. Such a theory
draws out one's sympathy very deeply. The modern man
cannot get on without a working theory of religion covering
all the phenomena. But what a change this registers in
Hindu belief! Buddha was long ago acknowledged to have
been an incarnation of Vishnu, but only in the sense that
Vishnu became embodied as Buddha to deceive men and
seduce them into a false religion. Here we have all the great
religions of the world acknowledged as good, and as having
been founded by real incarnations. Do Hindus realize what
a revolution in Hindu thought and practice the sincere accep
tance of such a doctrine would involve ?

B. We cannot wonder at this serious unsettlcment of opinion ;
for our study of the history has made it absolutely plain that
all Indian stories of incarnation are baseless. Rama, Krishna,
and Gautama the Buddha, as they appear in the earliest
literature, are men, and men only, indeed, are as far from
being incarnations as any men could possibly be. Rama and
Krishna are not even religious leaders in any sense : they are
but kings and warriors ; and it was only some three hundred
years after their appearance in literature that the belief arose
that they were incarnations. It was much later still before
they were called full incarnations of the Supreme. In the
case of Gautama, the Buddha, the history is rather different.
He was one of the greatest religious leaders the world has
ever seen. A large section of the human race still draw their
religious inspiration from him. But his system was deter
minedly opposed to the ideas that lie behind incarnation. To
have thought of himself as an incarnate god would have been
revolting to him ; and it was at least five hundred years after
his death before his followers dared associate his name with
the doctrine of the one living God. Only on the basis of such
a doctrine was the idea of incarnation possible. Gautama

424 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

had been five hundred years dead before he was called an
avatara. Thus every Indian incarnation story is a myth.

Philosophic Hinduism is independent of history : no matter
when or by whom the ideas were first expressed, they retain
their intrinsic value. Hindus are keenly conscious of this fact
and often refer to it. But the principle does not apply to the
belief in incarnations : the very pith of the doctrine is the
appearance of God in human history. As we have seen,
the power the doctrine wields over the Hindu heart springs
from the belief that at certain definite times God was born,
lived, and died as a man in India.

Hence, since every single Hindu incarnation is altogether
mythical, the doctrine is dying, and will inevitably pass away.
The changes it has undergone in the educated mind during the
last half-century are symptoms of its dying condition.

Nor can the patriotic Hindu wish the doctrine to survive.
He cannot desire that the poor of the people should be fed
with mythology. A strong Indian nation can never be bred
on such diet.

C. It is the spirit of the West that has wrought these changes
in the incarnation doctrine. Two forms of Western influence
have been specially active in this part of Hinduism. First,
the sense of history has laid hold of the most cultured men,
and has led them to study the growth of Hinduism frankly
and openly. Hence, some have been found to confess that
the incarnation tales are mythical. But most say nothing on
the subject, or, like Barikim Chandra Chatterji, try to persuade
themselves and others that the man-god Krishna is historical.
Secondly, the presentation of the historical Jesus has produced
very large results. His sure place in the world's history, His
personal claims, His boundless personal interest, and the
historical grip of the New Testament have proved very potent
in rousing the Hindu mind.

D. On the other hand, the acceptance of these incarnation
stories by such vast multitudes of the people of India and of
Eastern Asia is all the more significant, when we realize how

GOD WITH US 425

baseless they are. How deep and how powerful must the
instinct be to which these mythical stories are a response !
The instinct for the living God is undoubtedly the deepest
and most insistent of all our natural religious faculties ; but,
clearly, amongst those that come next none is more vivid or
more powerful than the longing for God manifest in the flesh.

E. But the question now rises, If the avataras are all
mythical, what are Hindus to do? Are they simply to drop
the doctrine and do without it ? The large place it has held
in Hinduism for more than two thousand years shows how
highly the Hindu religious spirit appreciates the idea of GOD
WITH us. To give it up would be to confess, not only that
the Hindu mind mistook myth for history, but that it has
been seriously mistaken in one of its chief religious intuitions.
If we cannot trust the Hindu spirit in a large matter such as
this, in what can we afford to trust it ?

F. The Christian standpoint is much less sceptical. The man
who accepts Jesus as the incarnate Son of God certainly con
fesses that the Hindu mind has mistaken the Rama and
Krishna myths for history ; but he holds that the Hindu
spirit was right in looking for God manifest in the flesh.
Must not this be the attitude of the true Indian patriot ? In
loyalty to truth he cannot but confess the incarnation stories
to be mythical ; but, if he feels any confidence in the spiritual
capacities of his people, he will expect to find in human
history a real divine descent into human life. Thus Jesus,
whose teaching so wonderfully crowns the ideas of Hinduism,
is needed to give stability and reality to the Hindu belief in
incarnations. Without Him, it must pass away like the base
less fabric of a vision.

G. But have Christians any rational ground for asking
the Hindu to accept Jesus as the incarnate Son of God? The
following lines of thought may bring the foundations of
Christian conviction before the reader.

i. Those who knew Jesus best declared that in Him they
had seen God revealed. The whole of the New Testament is

426 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

evidence of what they thought and how strong their faith was.
Here is what a modern historian says of the fact :

Where in the history of mankind can we find anything resembling
this, that men who had eaten and drunk with their Master should
glorify him, not only as the revealer of God, but as the Prince of life,
as the Redeemer and Judge of the world, as the living power of its
existence, and that a choir of Jews and Gentiles, Greeks and Barbarians,
wise and foolish, should along with them immediately confess that out
of the fullness of this one man they have received grace for grace ? *

2. The whole history of Christian influence in the world
proves conclusively that Christian truth produces its charac
teristic results on a community only when Jesus is recognized
as the Son of God. Unitarianism is a beautiful plant, but it is
always sickly. Hindus have an object lesson before their
eyes in the vigour of the Christian Church as compared with
the weakness of the Brahma Samaj.

3. When we turn to the teaching of Jesus, as handed down
to us in the Gospels by His disciples, we find not only that
Jesus calls Himself the Son of God, but that His teaching
from beginning to end is steeped in such ideas as could have
been held only by a mind that conceived itself as possessing
divine authority.

(a) Jesus summons His hearers to personal surrender to
Himself, to complete obedience, to public confession of their
allegiance to Him, to readiness to suffer or even to die for
His sake :

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me ;
and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
And he that doth not take his cross and follow after me, is not worthy
of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it ; and he that loseth his life
for my sake shall find it.2

Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things that I say ? 3

Every one therefore who shall confess me before men, him will
I also confess before my Father which is in heaven.4

1 Harnack, History of Dogma, i. 76.

2 Matt. 10, 37-39. 3 Luke 6, 46. " Matt. 10, 32.

GOD WITH US 427

Blessed are ye when men shall reproach you, and persecute you, and
say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.1

He also set Himself forth as the example which we should
copy:

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me ; for I am meek
and lowly in heart : and ye shall find rest unto your souls.2

Now the strange thing is that men have discovered that, in
order to live such a life as Jesus calls us to live, it is necessary
not only to attend to His teaching carefully, but to surrender
ourselves to Him as Lord in the precise way which the above
texts prescribe. The demand of Jesus that we should give
Him absolute obedience is verified as a right thing religiously,
in Christian experience. Here is what Harnack says :

The Gospel can only be grasped and held firm by a believing self-
surrender to the person of Christ.3

James Drummond, one of the leading Unitarian writers of
recent years, says :

Jesus is, to the heart that loves him, 'a quickening spirit,' one who
forms the interior life, and fills it with an abounding energy.4

What is implied in this wonderful spiritual relation between
Christ and the soul ?

(b) That is precisely the question which Jesus Himself
asks. He does not obtrude His person on us, but becomes
our servant and helper, doing the more for us the more com
pletely we yield to Him. Then He asks each one of us in the
quiet of our own hearts the question which He asked of His
disciples,

Who say ye that I am ? 5

(c) When first we make the acquaintance of Jesus, one of

1 Matt. 5, II. 2 Matt. 11, 28-29.

3 Dogmengeschichte, iii. 69. I owe this quotation to Mackintosh,
Person of Jesus Christ, 347.

4 Studies in Christian Doctrine, 291. See Mackintosh, 340.
B Matt. 16, 15.

428 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

the things that puzzle us most is the fact that He usually
calls Himself the Son of Man. Careful study reveals that He
thought of Himself as the head of the human race, and that
He felt Himself directly related to every man, woman, and
child.1 He believed that every man needed Him :

And blessed is he, whosoever shall find none occasion of stumbling
in me.2

As the Son of Man, He believed that He had authority on
earth to forgive sin.3 Finally, He was convinced that, as the
Son of Man, He must die for men :

For verily the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to
minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.4

(d) Feeling so keenly that all men needed His teaching and
help, He said that His disciples, to whom He committed the
carrying on of His work, occupied a position of the utmost
responsibility with regard to all men ; and He urged them in
the most solemn way to fulfil it :

Ye are the salt of the earth.5

Ye are the light of the world.6

Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations.7

(e) Since Jesus thought in this way about His life and
work, we are not astonished to find that, in relation to the
Jewish people, He called Himself the Messiah, and said that
He had come to introduce the Kingdom of God. When He
was tried by the Jewish Council, the President definitely asked
Him the question. In reply He declared Himself the Messiah;
and, finally, He allowed Himself to be crucified rather than
give up the claim.

(/) In relation to God the Father, Jesus called Himself the
Son, and He affirmed that He alone could reveal the Father :
All things have been delivered unto me of my Father : and no one

1 Matt. 25, 40-45. 2 Matt. 11, 6. 3 Mark 2, 10.

4 Mark 10, 45. 5 Matt. 5, 13. 6 Matt. 5, 14.

7 Matt. 28, 19.

GOD WITH US 429

knoweth who the Son 5s, save the Father ; and who the Father is, save
the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal him.1

These, in briefest, simplest form, are the foundations of the
Christian conviction that Jesus is the incarnate Son of God.
We do not talk of proving that He is the Son. Like all the
deepest things of religion, this is a matter of moral and
spiritual apprehension, not of logical demonstration. Jesus
conies to every educated Hindu to-day, and says, ' In the light
of all the history of Hinduism, of the history of the world, of
my teaching, of my Cross, of your own religious experience,
who say you that I am ? '

IV. The following paragraphs are intended to throw light
on the relation in which the historic Christ stands to the
mythical incarnations of India.

Poets sang of the avataras, and saints of many schools
meditated on them, until a common portrait took definite form
and became a national ideal ; so that the main features are
found in the Krishna of the Gitd, the Buddha of the Saddharma
Pnndarika, the Rama of Tulsl Das, and even in Manikka
Vachakar's conception of the frequent theophanies of Siva.

A. The central conception of the doctrine is this, that God
became a man, was born, lived, and died a man. Here, as we
have seen, lies the real power of the whole movement over the
mind and heart of India and of the other lands that have
accepted it. There are many passages in the books which
give expression to the sense of wonder which the belief creates,
and the lowly adoration stirred by it. Thus, according to the
Glta, when Krishna showed his transcendent form to Arjuna,
the latter burst into a hymn of adoring praise, of which we
quote a few stanzas :

Hail, hail to Thee ! a thousand times all hail !
Hail unto Thee ! again, again all hail !

In power boundless, measureless in strength,
Thou holdest all : then Thou Thyself art All.

1 Luke 10, 22.

430 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

If, thinking Thee but friend, importunate,

0 Krishna ! or O Yadava ! O friend !

1 cried, unknowing of Thy majesty,

And careless in the fondness of my love ;

If jesting, I irreverence showed to Thee,
At play, reposing, sitting or at meals,
Alone, O sinless One, or with my friends,
Forgive my error, O Thou boundless One.

Therefore I fall before Thee ; with my body
I worship as is fitting ; bless Thou me.
As father with the son, as friend with friend,
With the beloved as lover, bear with me.1

We see the influence of the same emotions in the passionate
love of Hindus for the baby Krishna and the innumerable
idols of the little crawling boy to be found in Indian homes all
over the country. So Tulsi Das is filled with wondering
reverence for the humility and condescension of Rama in
being born a man ; and Manikka Vachakar is never done
pouring out his praises to Siva for the love and self-humilia
tion of his theophanies.

Yet, in the case of every Indian incarnation, the humanity
assumed by the god is unreal. His human body is but a dis
guise ; his human weakness and emotion are assumed ; his
limitations are but a pretence. The glory of the Supreme is
scarcely dimmed by the muddy vesture of human flesh in
which for the moment the great Actor robes himself. To the
Hindu anything beyond this would seem to be unworthy of
the Highest. There is never the idea that the incarnate God
was confined to human conditions or limited to the powers of
human nature. In the Gltd all the stress is laid on the
divinity of Krishna : he has a man-like form, but he is never
conceived as a true man. He is always the god concealed in
the seemingly human form.

We meet the same conceptions of Gautama in the Sad-
dharma Pundarika. Everything that he does is llld, sport.

1 xi. 39-44. Mrs. Besant's translation.

GOD WITH US 431

His coming to earth and his passing to Nirvana are mere
pretences : he remains all the time on Gridhrakuta. His
death is but a device, an expedient, a piece of deceit, necessary
for the good of men.

Similar phrases are used by Manikka Vachakar of Siva.
All his operations, whether in the universe or in the soul, are
only sport, lild. They are typified in his dance. All his
theophanies are illusion. He is constantly called the great
Deceiver. He appears and works as a cooly, as a groom
among horses, and in various other ways ; but on each
occasion he is the god disporting himself: there is no human
toil, no true human experience.

The same terms reappear in Tulsl Das. All that Rama
does is sport. He is an actor ; he is the great master of the
unreal ; he constantly uses his deceptive, illusive power. He
pretends to feel pain, sorrow, astonishment, or pleasure, but it
is all mere acting:

For the sake of his faithful people, the very God, our lord Rama, has
become incarnate as a king and for our supreme sanctification has lived
as it were the life of any ordinary man. As an actor in the course of
his performance assumes a variety of dresses and exhibits different
characters, but himself remains the same ; such, Garuda, is Rama's
divertissement, a bewilderment to the demons, but a delight to the
faithful.1

In the case of Jesus, however, the very reverse is true. He
was truly a man. He was no actor, no sportive illusionist.
All was actual from beginning to end. He was born a helpless
babe and grew in knowledge as He grew in body.2 As a baby,
He had no divine powers to display to a terrified mother, like
Rama in Tulsl Das's poem.3 By the age of twelve, He knew
and loved His heavenly Father, but He was subject to His
parents.4 He was trained as a carpenter,5 and toiled at the
bench, earning bread for Himself, His mother, and the others
by the sweat of His brow. There was no divine power used

1 Growse, 533. 2 Luke 2, 40. 3 Growse, 96-97.

4 Luke 2, 41-51. 6 Mark 6,3.

432 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

to lighten His labour. It was no few minutes of pretended
toil, like Siva's cooly labour. He made yokes and ploughs
and such-like. until He was thirty years of age,1 thus ennobling
and hallowing all manual labour for man.

Throughout His public life He remained a real man, our
brother, living our common human life under all the restric
tions and limitations which narrow and shut us in. He was
homeless,2 suffered from thirst,3 from hunger,4 from fatigue.5
His knowledge was limited : He frequently asked for informa
tion, never making any pretence of ignorance, and once at
least He said He did not know.6 Miraculous powers were given
Him for His work, but they were always used to help others,
never once for Himself, not even in the hunger that followed
a forty days' fast,7 not even in the agonies of crucifixion.8
His favourite name for Himself was ' the Son of Man '. It
is the glory of the Son of Man that He shared all the toil,
sorrow and sufferings of His brothers and sisters of the human
race.9

We here reach the point where the divergence between the
Hindu incarnate ideal and Christ is at its greatest. ' How can
Jesus be divine, since he was crucified ? If he had been divine,
he could have easily overcome his murderers. God cannot be
defeated by man.' In such wise has many a Hindu argued.
The Jews who stood round the Cross argued in the same way :

And it was the third hour, and they crucified him. And the super
scription of his accusation was written over, THE KING OF THE
JEWS. And with him they crucify two robbers ; one on his right
hand, and one on his left. And they that passed by railed on him,
wagging their heads, and saying, Ha ! thou that destroyest the temple,
and buildest it in three days, save thyself, and come down from the
cross. In like manner also the chief priests mocking him among
themselves with the scribes said, He saved others ; himself he cannot
save. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the
cross, that we may see and believe.10

1 Luke 3, 23. '2 Matt. 8, 20. 3 John 4, 7.

4 Matt. 4, 2. 5 John 4, 6. 6 Matt. 24, 36. 7 Matt. 4, 4.

8 Matt. 27, 39-44. ' 9 Heb. 2, 14-18. 10 Mark 15, 25-32,

GOD WITH US 433

But is it not evident that, if Jesus came to earth to be the
Saviour, it was His duty to save others, not Himself? The
innermost secret of Christ's method is this, that He gives
Himself up in self-sacrifice to win the sinner back to God.
The Crucifixion is only the final exhibition before all the
world of what had been going on in the life of Jesus from the
beginning :

For the Son of man came not to be served but to be a servant, and to
give his life a ransom for many.1

The devout Hindu will probably be sore amazed at the idea
of the incarnate One being truly a man ; for it stands wide
apart from Hindu conceptions. But here, in the central
mystery of the Word become flesh and the only-begotten
and well-beloved Son self-devoted on the Cross, lies the very
heart of the Christian faith, the very fountain-head of the
Christian life.

The Indian religious instinct divined that God would become
man, but did not realize the depths of the divine humility and
self-sacrifice. The main idea is right, but the detailed out
working is a failure. Even at its best Hindu incarnation is no
true incarnation ; God only seems to become man. Even if by
some writers the human body be conceived as a reality, God
has not become man, but only appears within a human shell.
In Christ, on the other hand, the Son of God actually becomes
man, shares our pains and sorrows, our temptations and moral
difficulties, and lives under the same conditions as we do.
Thus, Jesus fulfils the Indian thought. He is the realization
of the Indian ideal ; but in this case, as in every other, the
reality sent by God is far better and more wonderful than
the imagination of man.

B. The character of the incarnate One is described with
a good deal of detail in some of the books, and is regarded
by modern Hindus as a matter of considerable moment. It
has two aspects.

1 Matt. 20, 28.
E c

434 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

(a) The idea that the incarnate One should be an example
to men scarcely occurs in the literature. Yet for many
centuries the Rdmdyana of Valmiki has been used as a mirror
of character, Rama being regarded as the ideal man and
husband, and Sita as the ideal wife. Fortunate is the Hindu
people in having this piece of literature. Rama and his
faithful wife are indeed beautiful and healthy examples of
Hindu life. Men of every race will heartily admire them.
Yet it would be unwise to think of them as likely to exercise
any serious ethical influence on the world. They are good
Hindus ; and there is much that is noble and helpful in
their characters ; but they do not lead the van of human life.
It is also necessary to note that it is the original part of
the poem, in which Rama and Sita are still purely human
characters, that has proved fruitful in this regard.

From the time when Rama and Krishna were thought of as
the Deity incarnate, there is no longer any idea that their
earthly life can afford moral examples to men. That is the
reason why the Gitd says not a word about the earthly life of
Krishna beyond what is implied in the situation. If we
wanted to study the character and behaviour attributed to
him in. the literature, we should have to turn to the
Mahabharata and the Pitranas ; and there the material is
the very opposite of promising. Fortunately, we are saved
the trouble of dealing with it ; for the Bhdgavata Ptirdna,
one of the chief Krishnaite authorities, warns us in the most
serious way that men must on no account imitate the actions
of gods. Tulsi Das fully concurs in this judgement. Both
passages have been already quoted.1

In spite of this solemn warning, a modern Hindu, roused
to emulation by the Christian attitude to Christ, has written
a work called The Imitation of Srikrishna. It is a daily text
book, consisting of extracts from the Gltd, the MahdbJidrata,
and the very book which condemns such imitation, the
Bhdgavata Purdna.

] Above, pp. 394-395-

GOD WITH US 435

In order to avoid misunderstanding, we may point out that
in the Bhagavadgtta the actionless action of the transcendental
Krishna-Brahman is put forward as an example of karma-yoga
for men to follow. This is not the action of the incarnate
One, however.

(b] But the character and life of the Incarnate are every
where regarded as a revelation of the unknowable Brahman,
whether he be construed as personal or impersonal. The
outlines of this character are described in the various books
with a good deal of unanimity.

His most prominent trait is sportiveness : he is full of play,
tricks, and pretences. His illusive power enables him to do
anything and to appear in any guise. One never knows what
he will do next. In this way all the old mythology, which
was current about Siva, Vishnu, Rama, and Krishna before
the doctrine of incarnations and of humanitarian theophanics
arose, is retained, and is used to give variety to the character
and incident to the life. Next in importance comes his
indifference. He has the same feeling to every creature born.
He is as kind to the evil as to the good. The Glta says he
neither loves nor hates. Although he is always active, his
activity is not purposeful action, but mere sport. Hence he is
always at peace. Thus far the character is precisely the same
as that attributed to the Atman in the Upanishads.

But, where God is conceived as personal, other traits appear
in the character of the incarnate One. He is compassionate
toward all, and is ready to give his grace to those who show
devotion to him. He is their refuge, friend, and comforter ;
and he is ready to release them from sin. From the time of
the Tamil poet-saints the Incarnate is always said to be a god
of love. Hence the statement of the Glta quoted above is not
repeated. Manikka Vachakar frequently insists on Siva's
humility, and Tills! Das thinks similarly of Rama. Finally,
Manikka speaks of Siva as having suffered for men, and Tulsl
Das also emphasizes the sufferings of Rama.

It is a most remarkable fact that the characteristic features
E e 2

436 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

of the most beautiful moral ideal ever created in India, namely,
the ideal for ascetics, which we have already dealt with, was
never ascribed to the incarnate One. World-renunciation, self-
effacement, meekness, gentleness, forgiveness, and endurance
were the marks of the monk, but were not thought of as
characteristic of the avatara, the reason being that he was
always the divine in human disguise, never a real man.

We now turn from these wonderful creations of the Hindu
religious imagination to the character of the historical Jesus.

(1) As He was truly a man, His character is genuinely
human. We watch the growth of His moral nature ; and we
recognize in Him all the strain and struggle which we
experience ourselves. His character grew gradually to ripe
ness. He had to fight His way upward against temptations,
just as we have to do ; only He never yielded, but kept free
from all sin. He was dependent upon His Father as ordinary
men are. This becomes completely apparent when we study
His prayer- life. He struggled to learn and to do the will of
His Father, putting down the human heart, which tended to
rebel against the awful ordeal He had to pass through. He
prayed whole nights, and cried to His Father with tears
and mighty wrestlings of spirit. In fighting temptation and
enduring persecution He learned obedience, and won His way
to the perfection of the full moral stature.

(2) The most extraordinary fact about His character is
this, that He, in whom the moral ideal was so lofty and so
exacting, who knew sin so thoroughly as to hate it perfectly,
who demanded repentance, and brought so many to it, never
expresses any consciousness of sin, never shows the slightest
trace of repentance or confession. Clearly He was that
supremest miracle, a sinless soul. Through boyhood, youth,
and manhood He lived so close to His Father that He was
kept utterly pure. It is this above all things that sets Him
apart from the greatest of men. He alone was utterly with
out stain. In Him the moral ideal was realized. He is the
fairest of the sons of men, yea altogether lovely. Men of all

GOD WITH US 437

nations have recognized that the character of Jesus is perfect,
that there is no difference between His teaching and His life.

(3) Since Jesus, then, lived up to the highest moral ideal
ever conceived by man, He is the highest example for us. In
Him we see what we ought to be. He is our religious as
well as our moral example ; for, being a true man, He lived
by prayer, dependence on God and worship, as we do.
Readers will realize how impossible it would be to form
such a conception as this in the case of the incarnations of
Hinduism.

(4) But, since Jesus exhibited in character and life the
moral ideal at its very height, He was also the revelation of
God. When we say that God is ethical, we mean that He
Himself conforms to the standard which He bids us live by ;
but no religion, except Judaism and Christianity, has had the
courage to say this frankly. It is the message of the Old
Testament. It receives concrete expression in the character
of Jesus, who, being the revelation of the Father, the express
image of the righteous God, is also the example for men.

In Him the Indian incarnate ideal is more than fulfilled.
The sketch of the divine character given by Hindu writers is
here filled with a glory and a beauty they never dreamt of.
And what the Hindu books declare to be impossible, namely,
that the incarnate One should be a model to men, was actually
accomplished by Jesus. In revealing the Father, He became
our Exemplar. The chief points of character ascribed to the
avatara are raised to glory in Him. He lived in the peace of
His Father's arms, and sought to lead men to the same.
The indifference to men, which is the Indian ideal, is in Him
raised to that love for the human race which was the main
spring of His life. His humility far surpasses anything told
of Siva. Compassion showed itself in daily toil for the sick
and the suffering. Tulsl Das and Manikka Vachakar make
their heroes endure suffering for the sake of men ; but there is
nothing in either poet to compare with the Cross of Christ.

(5) But strange to say, Jesus fulfils the Indian ascetic ideal

43« THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

also. The main difference between Him and the Indian ascetic
is that He did not seek suffering nor inflict pain upon Himself.
Humiliation, contempt, slander, mockery, shame, desertion,
treachery, hunger, thirst, pain, torture, death — all came to
Him in the course of His daily endeavour to serve mankind.
' He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and
acquainted with grief.' ' Behold and see if there is any sorrow
like unto his sorrow.' Yet all the meekness, gentleness, and
forgiveness laid down as an ideal for the monk appear in
actual fact in His daily life, the product of the love which
inspired Him.

C. The incarnate God of Hinduism and Buddhism is a great
teacher.

This aspect of the ideal is very weak in all the literature
referring to Rama. In Valmiki's Ramayana he is no teacher
at all ; the same is true of the late Rama Upanishads ; and in
Tulsl Das, though here and there he gives religious advice, it
scarcely amounts to teaching.

The original man-god Krishna of the second stage of the
Mahdbhdrata is also no teacher : his work was the destruction
of monsters. But in the Gltd the situation is very different.
The god is no longer required to rid the earth of demons.
A new need has arisen : the Vaishnava layman needs a
theistic theology. Hence Krishna is transformed into a guru
of the school of the Vedanta, and teaches the ancient lore
of the Upanishads, with the addition, that he himself is
Brahman incarnate. Hence he is called ' World-teacher,
worshipful and most reverend.'1 In the Saddharma Pim-
darika Gautama, transformed into an incarnate god, teaches
as he actually did during life, only his message is new. It
was probably the example of Krishna that led to the idea
that Siva frequently appears on earth as a guru. Manikka
Vachakar attributes his own conversion to a theophany of
this type.

The Gltd has had an extraordinary influence in India for
1 xi. 43.

GOD WITH US 439

at least seventeen centuries, and the Saddharma Piindanka
has played almost as great a role in China and Japan. But,
while we venerate works which have touched men's hearts so
deeply, we cannot read them to-day as the teaching of Krishna
and Gautama. They are sisters, children of the same pregnant
period, but the names of the great men who wrote them are
altogether unknown.

In the Gospels, on the other hand, we have the undoubted
teaching of Jesus of Nazareth. From Him came Christianity.
So the ancient Romans tell us, and the Jews, as well as His
own followers. Of the source of Christianity there is no more
doubt than there is as to the source of Muhammadanism, of
Buddhism, or of the system of Ramanuja.

Jesus conceives Himself as the World-teacher. He invites
all to come and learn from Him. He makes His offers to
everybody. His disciples are the salt of the earth, and the
light of the world,1 and His Gospel will be preached throughout
the world.2 There are no national limits in His teaching.
He thinks of all men as children of God, and of God's love as
blessing all men. When He sits as Judge, all the nations will
be gathered before Him.:i

In the preceding chapters of this book we have seen some
thing of the character and power of the teaching of Jesus, its
spirituality, its universality, and the wonderful way in which
it fits into the needs of modern India and crowns the noblest
ideals of the old religion. As we have already seen, His
teaching is distinguished from the teaching of all other
religious leaders in this, that He lays down no detailed laws
for our guidance, but merely states the universal spiritual
principles which lie at the basis of human life and conduct.4
This is the secret of the fact that His moral and religious
ideas are applicable in every country in the world and to men in
all stages of civilization. Wherever a religion has undertaken
to lay down a detailed religious law, it has thereby localized

1 Matt. 5, 13-14. 2 Matt. 26, 13.

3 Matt. 25, 31-32. 4 See above, pp. 58-59.

440 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

itself. No matter how excellent such laws may be, they
cannot be applied to all the world. Conceive of Manu
imposed on the Esquimaux, or the law of Moses given to a
cannibal tribe in Central Africa. There is nothing in Christ's
teaching that binds human freedom, nothing that offends
against the laws of health, nothing that hinders simple human
intercourse. He gives us the great principles, and each
nation is left free to work out its own practice in harmony
with the latest discoveries of science, and in such a way as
to suit its own peculiar history and environment. Christ's
teaching is universally applicable, and everywhere lays the
foundations of freedom.

Every man may see the outcome of these facts in the
world to-day. Christ's teaching is really preached in all the
world. Indeed there is no race of men of any importance on
earth that does not contain Christians. The message of Jesus
has already proved itself universal in actual experience.

Although Jesus deals with universal principles, His words
are supreme in their simplicity. His sentences are terse,
epigrammatic, unforgettable. They are homely in the extreme,
richly illustrated, parabolic. The consequence is that His
teaching is utterly unlike any other piece of literature in
the world. It is cast in such a form that it is universally
comprehensible, even by men scarcely out of barbarism.
This is the reason why the Gospels can be so readily trans
lated into every language on earth. When translated, these
books are not only intelligible to the simplest men : they
retain the power of the original ; they are as mighty to touch
human hearts, as potent in producing repentance and faith
and holiness, as the original itself. Where is there in all the
world another book that shows this universal adaptability and
simplicity ? Imagine the Gltd and the ChJidndogya Upanisliad
translated and put into the hands of the cannibals of New
Guinea, the savages of Terra del Fuego, or even the Outcastes
of India ! But the Gospels are actually known and treasured
by men of these races, men who through Christ have escaped

GOD WITH US 441

from savagery. You may go and hear them read the Gospels
at family prayers. Thus does Christ daily prove Himself in
fact the Teacher of the human race.

D. The Incarnate comes to save.

In the earliest period of the doctrine the saving work of
Rama and Krishna consists in killing monsters. Krishna
kills Kamsa, the murderous king, Putana, the demon-nurse,
and Kaliya, the snake-king. Rama kills the demon-king
Ravana. It was the gods who required help against Ravana :
it was as their Saviour that Vishnu became incarnate as the
four sons of Dasaratha.

In the Gitd we have a much wider outlook. Krishna is
represented as saying :

To save the righteous, to destroy evil-doers, to establish the law,
I come into birth age after age.1

He now saves the righteous and establishes dharma 2 as well as
destroys demons.

In the SaddJiarvia Pundarlka another step forward is
taken. Destruction is dropped out of the task of the Incarnate.
Gautama is represented as saying :

Repeatedly am I born in the world of the living.
I am the Tathagata, the Lord, who has no superior, who appears in
this world to save.3

There is the same point of view in Asvaghosha. To save all
beings is said to be the aim of the Buddhas.4

Siva, as we have seen, does not become incarnate, but
manifests himself in human form. In these theophanies Siva
usually springs from a linga, or else takes the form of a Saiva
guru ; but he may come in any guise. He appears either to
teach or to help his devotees in need. Manikka Vachakar
says :

Assuming diverse forms, and diverse habitudes, . . . Isa, Lord of the
bull, that the world might be saved,— He and the Lady, His partner, —
came in grace.6

1 iv. 8. 2 Seep. 218. 3 5. B. E., xxi. 308 ; 124.

4 Suzuki, 98. D Pope, 9.

442 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

Tulsl Das includes many things in the work of Rama, but
he never represents him as a guru. Here is his statement of
the reasons for his incarnation :

Whenever virtue decays, and evil spirits, waxing strong in pride,
work iniquity that cannot be told, to the confusion of Brahmans, cows,
gods, and earth itself, the compassionate Lord assumes some new bodily
form, relieves the distress of the faithful ; destroys evil spirits ; rein
states the gods ; maintains the way of salvation ; and diffuses the
brightness of his glory throughout the world. Such are the motives of
Rama's incarnations.1

He confesses frankly that Rama was no Saviour of men
when he was on the earth ; but he declares that ' his name '
has saved millions :

Rama himself redeemed only one woman, the ascetic's wife ;2 but his
name has corrected the errors of millions of sinners.3

These two last writers also introduce the touching thought of
vicarious suffering. Manikka Vachakar says :

Thou mad'st me thine ; didst fiery poison eat, pitying poor souls ;
That I might thine ambrosia taste, I meanest one ! 4

Tulsl Das :

From the love that he bore to his followers, Rama took the form of
a man, and by himself enduring misery secured their happiness.5

It is very remarkable how the crude original idea of an
incarnation, undertaken to rid the gods of an almost omni
potent demon, was gradually purified in the course of the
centuries. The advance in the Gitd is very great, but the
highest thought of all is the vicarious suffering taught by
the Tamil and Hindu saints.

From these fascinating imaginations we turn to the actual
life of Jesus. At this point the most significant thing for us
to notice is that the whole of His public life was one con
tinuous piece of saving activity.

He was the first religious teacher to take up a healthy

1 Growse, 63. 2 Namely Ahalya. See p. 298.

3 Ib. 1 6. 4 Pope, 102. fl Growse, 16.

GOD WITH US 443

attitude to the human body. Me knew full well the value of
the soul :

What shall it profit a man, if he sha'J gain the whole world, and lose
his soul ? *

Yet he recognized the place of the body, as all modern
thought does, and left us His example of loving care for it.
He spent a great deal of time and energy in healing the body.
All that modern science has got to say as to the importance
of attending to our physical well-being is in accordance with
the spirit of Jesus. All that we can do to bring medical aid
to the sick, to introduce sanitation into Indian villages, to
destroy the germs of disease, and to transform unhealthy con
ditions, and all our plans for healthy physical exercise, for
outdoor games, for drill and gymnastics, arc completely in
accordance with His teaching and practice. India needs to
learn to look after the body.

He sought to save human society, to make social inter
course happy, healthy, pure, and free. Having the heart of
a brother to every son of Adam, He was the most sociable
and the most hospitable of men. He would not have people
go hungry nor a festive occasion fail. This is the reason why
He spread His table on the rich green grass of Bethsaida for
more than five thousand guests. He knew well the deep
influence exerted on character by every aspect of social life ;
and, therefore, He wished to fill it with His own spirit of love.
He wished to mould society as well as religion. He also used
such occasions to win the hearts of those around Him, so as to
draw them to His Father.

One of the chief aims Jesus had in view in His social life
was the breaking down of social barriers, the actual establish
ment in practice of the new social idea, that a man may
honourably cat and drink with men of every race and of every
social grade. How completely new, how explosively revolu
tionary, this idea was then, every student of antiquity and of

444 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

India knows. Jesus was ready to sit down and eat with any
one. He dined with wealthy men belonging to the strictest
Jewish sect, the Pharisees ; He dined with those who were
considered hopelessly beyond the pale of respectable or
religious society.

But Jesus goes still further. To Him human society is
a mystic, a divine thing, of incalculable influence ; our daily
bread comes from our Father's hand ; food eaten in common,
whether at a family meal or in some larger gathering, ought
to bind us to one another as well as to the great Provider : its
significance is inexhaustible. Hence He chose the last meal
He had with His disciples to be the Memorial of His own
dying Love, and to become the central and most precious
element in Christian worship.

But Jesus came into the world to save men from sin ; and
therefore the chief toil of His life was teaching, and the
greatest of His acts was His redemptive death. Manikka
Vachakar and TulsT Das realized that the Incarnate One in
His compassion and love would suffer for the sake of men :
Jesus fulfilled their thought on the Cross of Calvary. Every
student of the Gospels realizes that in His death Jesus laid
down his life deliberately, voluntarily, in full obedience to His
Father's will, realizing that the Cross was needed to secure
our emancipation from the chains of sin. His blood was the
only possible ransom. It was shed for us. He died on the
tree, fast bound to the sacrificial post, the victim slain for our
transgressions. Great High Priest of the human race, He
offered up Himself, at once High Priest and Sacrifice, that we,
redeemed through His death, might share His life here and
hereafter. As He hung on the Cross, His enemies said in
mockery, ' He saved others : Himself He cannot save,' not
realizing that their sarcasm was the highest possible praise,
that they had, without knowing it or intending it, marked
Him out, once and for ever, as the True Saviour.

CHAPTER XI

THE RELIGIOUS ORGANISM

I. THE root of all religious life is the relation between God
and the individual ; yet religion is never found in actual life in
that bare condition. As known to observation, religion is
always found in a community, in an organized, historical form;
and each individual receives it from the community in that
shape. This is what distinguishes a religion from a mere
theory, whether philosophical or religious. A religion is
a religious theory controlling, in organized form, the life of
a community. Bare theories may have very great interest
for thought, and they may even influence the action of the
individual to some extent ; but their work in the world is not
at all comparable to the action of a religion. One single fact
by itself is sufficient to reveal at a glance the radical difference
there is between a religious theory or a philosophy, on the one
hand, and a real religion, on the other, namely this, that
behind every theory, whether religious or philosophic, there
will always be found an organized religion, from which the
theory has sprung and under \vhose aegis it lives. If the
theory succeed in becoming a religion, as happened in the case
of Buddhism, the old religion will be repudiated and deserted;
but, in order to exist apart from the old organized religion, it
is absolutely essential that the theory should transform itself
into a religious organism ; and many religious and philosophic
theories are quite incapable of such a transformation.

A real religion as opposed to a bare theory shows very dis
tinctive powers. It forms society and the family in its own
likeness. It produces a morality, and imposes it on the

446 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

community. From its central belief there arises such deep
feeling that it cannot but express itself in worship.

II. The Hindu system, which we studied in its simplest form
in Chapter V, has proved itself throughout many centuries
a really living religion. Men have believed in it and lived by it.
It has controlled their thinking and their social and family
life, and has produced a characteristic morality. Its religious
energy has been above all displayed in its cult, which has not
only swayed the Hindu people most powerfully, but has
expressed itself in a very great and varied literature, and has
created architecture, sculpture, painting, and music. The
survival of the race is largely due to the nature of the social
and family organization of Hinduism. A similar phenomenon
faces us in China. Hence, we cannot wonder at the extra
ordinary hold which these things have on the people. The
consciousness of their importance for the race lives within
them, planted by the events of history and worked into their
innermost mind by the cumulative action of heredity.

A. Yet our chapters have shown conclusively that most of
the elements which go to form the Hindu system produce very
unhealthy 'results; the whole is now breaking down under the
pressure of Western influence. The characteristic features of the
Hindu family, of which the Hindu Social Reform movement
provides a most radical criticism, spring from religious beliefs
which educated men no longer hold. Indian politicians unite
with social reformers in condemning caste as the chief cause
of the weakness of the Hindu people ; and we have seen that
behind each of its rules there is a religious doctrine which no
cultured man believes. The position of the Brahman priest
and, in consequence, of the whole system of Hindu worship
and teaching, is thus completely undermined. No educated
man to-day believes that the souls which are born as
Brahmans are the most spiritual souls in all the world ; yet
that dogma is the sole basis of the exclusive sacerdotal
powers of the Brahman. Idolatry, the chief source of the
vast incubus of superstition which prevents the Indian villager

THE RELIGIOUS ORGANISM 447

from rising out of his inefficiency and poverty, springs from
the belief, no longer held by the educated class, that every
idol is a living god. The whole course of the religious history
of India exhibits a sustained effort on the part of thinking
Hindus to get away from the impersonal God and to reach
a God of love and grace. The sadhu, the living modern out
come of the philosophic-ascetic movement, is pronounced
useless by the modern man. Finally, we have seen that the
doctrine of karma and transmigration, the most pervasive and
powerful of all Hindu ideas, has proved a most unhealthy
influence in theology throughout the centuries, has been the
real strength and justification of the beliefs on which the
caste system rests, and has given the Hindu a deep religious
reason for the most punctilious fulfilment of every detail of
religious law and custom. The average educated man, not
realizing clearly the foundations of Hindu belief and practice,
thinks he still believes the theory, and expresses his conviction
that it is one of the greatest principles ever thought out by
the human mind ; yet we have found abundant proof that
Western thought and influence have destroyed belief in the
deeper and more important aspects of the doctrine.

B. We must now realize that, though the multitudinous
superstitions under which the Hindu people are labouring
affect the Hindu mind and character most deleteriously, yet
on every single one of them some glint of the spiritual world
shines. These suggestions of the spiritual world do not alter
the evil character and pernicious results of these practices,
yet it is these gleams of light that have made the practices
seem to the Hindu mind to be truly religious. We here
mention a few of them.

i. Take the crude custom of bathing in the Ganges to
wash away sin. The custom is not only absurd, but seriously
immoral. Here is how a Hindu writes of it :

If we can commit sins and wash them away by bathing in the waters
of certain rivers, how easy have things become ! Such ideas are most
dangerous to man's moral evolution. They encourage the commission

44« THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

of sin by holding out the hope of cleansing through the holy water of
the Ganges.1

Yet there is behind it the true religious instinct, that there
must be a way whereby man can get his sin forgiven, that,
since God exists, there must be a fountain for sin and
uncleanness.

2. At first sight it is difficult to understand how Hindus
were able to practise the cruelties which were once regularly
carried out in certain sects. The British Government has
prohibited the worst of them, such as hook-swinging, tongue-
extraction, thigh-piercing, and the impaling of animals. The
self-torture of ascetics has been already dealt with. One may
see any day the ordinary pilgrim measuring his length along
the road to some famous shrine. Yet, however inhuman and
irrational these things may be, two long lines of light stream
from them, the hope (however vain it may be) of conquering
the stubborn passions of the body by means of repression,
and the thought that a man may rightly endure anything
and give up anything if he can thereby win the favour of
God/

3. We have seen above that satl, the very thought of which
fills a modern mind with shame and horror, rests in its ultimate
analysis on a very high ideal of wifely loyalty and purity, and
a deep faith in the reality of heaven and the reunion of loved
ones there.

4. Religious suicide has been not infrequent in India, both
in Jainism and Hinduism. To the modern mind the man
who takes his own life is both irreligious and cowardly : he
will neither accept God's will nor face the battle of life. Yet
behind religious suicide there is the noble desire to discard
this sensuous frame, to give up this poor life so as to win
the real life. It is a pitiful travesty of Christ's great principle :

Whosoever would save his life shall lose it ; and whosoever shall
lose his life for my sake and the gospel's shall save it.J

1 See above, p. 41. 2 Mark 8, 35.

THE RELIGIOUS ORGANISM 449

5. There is no more shallow superstition than the common
Hindu belief in the spiritual value of the mere utterance of
the name of the god one adores, or of the repetition of the
sectarian mantra, or watchword. Two things have led to the
rise of these unreasoning beliefs ; first, the fact that the divine
name and the sacred mantra, being the expression of the
uttermost reverence of the soul, are uttered with the very
deepest feeling ; and secondly, the belief that the idea con
tained in the mantra is the sum of all spiritual truth, is, in
fact, the spiritual food which has to be assimilated by the soul.

6. The beliefs of the ordinary Hindu villager about the
Brahman priest of his village arc about as absurd and in
credible as they can well be. He can not only sacrifice to
the gods and declare their will, but can wield unlimited
power over nature and man. He could blot the sun out of the
heavens with a word ; he could destroy the village and all its
inhabitants with a nod. Yet the root from which all this most
harmful superstition has grown is the belief that the Brahman
is a spiritual being of the highest rank, and that, on account
of his spirituality, he has been chosen and appointed by the
gods a priest to his people, to stand between them and
their gods in sacrifice, in the revelation of the divine will, and
in the use of supernatural power.

7. Here is how a Hindu writes about sacrifices to the
village divinities:

Again, it is a sorry spectacle to witness Hindus still worshipping the
village gods and goddesses in the most hideous and superstitious
manner. In my own place there is a ' kavu ' (temple) where thousands
of fowls and sheep are every year butchered for the propitiation of the
supposed god and goddess. The sacred temple is literally transformed
into a slaughter-house. Can any man conceive a more horrible and
degrading way of worshipping the supreme Father of the universe ? l

Yet sacrifice is perhaps the most constant and the most real
element in the average Hindu's worship. How are we to account
for its persistence for so many thousand years ? — We must

1 See above, p. 41.
F f

450 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

recognize that it ministers to some of the deepest needs of
the human heart, giving expression to man's gratitude to God,
his desire to be on friendly terms with God, his desire to make
atonement for wrong-doing. All that mass of noble belief
and feeling is behind the gross practices which the modern
man sees must not continue. But it is most necessary to
realize that they cannot be removed, until something equally
powerful, but spiritual, takes their place.

8. In most modern Hindu sects the disciple bows down
before his guru and places some of the dust of his feet upon
his own head. In some cases he drinks the water in which
the guru has washed his feet. These are not mere manifesta
tions of humility or expressions of respect : they are modes of
receiving spiritual help. How can men believe such things ?
The grossly superstitious character of such practices stares us
in the face ; yet there is at their root the instinct that God will
provide a teacher for us, and will pour into him such grace
and wisdom that spiritual health and strength will flow to
others from him.

9. To this day in certain castes, if a Hindu cross the ocean,
he has to submit to prdyascJiitta (atonement) on return. It is
a hideously unclean and sickening ceremony to which no self-
respecting modern man can honestly subject himself. Yet,
doubtless, the men who first gave form to the ceremony were
very conscious of sin committed and of the necessity of a
serious act to cover the wrong. Strangely enough, the revolt
ing character of the ceremony arises largely from the Hindu
belief in the peculiar sacredness of the cow.

10. The passion of the Hindu for purity is one of his most
notable characteristics. Unfortunately, the various rules for
securing purity are so exclusively external that they have
benefited the Hindu only in so far as they have led to cleanli
ness of person, food, clothes, and house. But the strength of
the Hindu desire for purity can be explained only by recogniz
ing that it arises from the inner spiritual consciousness of the
need of true purity.

THE RELIGIOUS ORGANISM 451

ii. Was ever anything more hateful done in the name of
religion than that which is done by the Hindu mother when
she dedicates her daughter to a life of religious shame?
Yet even in that evil act there lies the idea that nothing is too
good to be given as a gift to God, that devotion to Him
should know no limits or restrictions. That this is the idea
which has kept the practice alive is clear from the literature.

To the modern man it is scarcely conceivable that such
true ideas and noble thoughts should express themselves in
such debasing practices as we have here dealt with. When,
however, we realize that to the Hindu mind God is not
necessarily moral, we begin to see the possibility of such things.

Thus the Hindu system, despite the fact that it is filled
with superstitions, is weakening the Hindu people, and must
be laid aside, is yet a dark apocalypse. It is a realm of wrong
and shame, of superstition and folly, yet everywhere there are
gleams of light. One feels haunted by symbol and suggestion.
The spirit is therefore twice burdened, and can but pray most
earnestly that the day may soon come when the Hindu
people will pass, in the words of Newman's epitaph, ex nmbris
et imaginibus in veritatem.

C. It is the dim consciousness of the presence of this basis
of spirituality and truth in the worst parts of the religion that
makes the educated Hindu burn with righteous indignation
against Christian condemnation of Hinduism. He has felt
the power of these things in his own life ; and therefore,
although he is as conscious as the Christian is of the folly and
immorality of many of the practices, he feels it is most
seriously unjust to condemn all without qualification. Nor can
there be any doubt that the Hindu is right. The missionary
who fails to acknowledge the presence of these right ideas
amidst all the vice, cruelty, and superstition does not deserve
to get the ear of the educated classes.

The average educated man also objects most seriously
to articles such as those reproduced in our Introduction
and quoted in this chapter, articles written by Hindus in
F f a

452 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

condemnation of Hindu superstition. He looks upon them as
acts of treachery, a playing into the hands of the enemy. So
far as that objection is concerned, every thinking man will
sympathize with the writers and not with their critics. But
there is a deeper and much more serious source of their dis
pleasure : they feel that such denunciation leads nowhere,
that it does not solve the problem. The immorality and the
superstition are there, quite true ; yet they are the only
religion the villager has. We do not require to be reminded
that it is evil and degrading. What we want to know is,
How is it to be changed ?

D. A little reflection will show any one that each of the
spiritual beliefs and motives which we have found underlying
the grosser superstitions of Hinduism reappears in Christ, set
in healthy institutions and spiritual practices. He provides
a religious system at once effective and truly spiritual.

III. We must now realize the relation which the Hindu
system has borne throughout the centuries to the philosophy,
asceticism, and theistic theology of India.

A. The philosophies and theologies are, in their very
essence, a series of attempts to transcend the organized religion.
Their principles, both metaphysical and ethical, are far higher
than the ideas of the old faith. Hence the sannyasis of the
Upanishads renounced the whole Hindu system, flung all its
literature and worship, its society, and its family life, behind
them, and sought to live a new life in a higher region, above and
beyond the gods and sacrifices which they despised, the petty
distinctions of caste, the profits of the world, and the pleasures
of domestic life. The same is true of Jains and Buddhists.
The philosophic theology of the Vaishnava and Saiva sects
seeks, not the petty gifts the gods give in return for sacrifices,
but emancipation from the sense world and from transmigra
tion. The whole movement is. essentially, a radical criticism
of organized Hinduism.

B. But turn to Sankara, in whom the thought of the
Upanishads first finds perfectly articulated expression, and

THE RELIGIOUS ORGANISM 453

you find that he defends, explains, and accepts the whole
system, the gods, their sacrifices, the priesthood, the literature,
and the laws. He tacks on to his philosophy the whole of
that Hindu system which the early monks had repudiated as
valueless.

Buddhism and Jainism had no worship to begin with ; but
gradually they became conscious of the need of a cult ; and
the system they adopted was the idolatry which they saw
around them, the gross external system which their founders
had repudiated with loathing.

The Vaishnava and the Saiva talk in their theology of the
spiritual, invisible, inconceivable Brahman, ' beyond thought
and speech,' yet personal, possessing all good qualities, and
full of love and grace. But their worship, both in the temple
and in the home, consists in offering food and drink to an idol
in the one case, to a phallus in the other, which (whether idol
or phallus) is believed to be alive and to live on the offerings.

C. What is the explanation of these most strange historical
facts ? It is this, that the Vcdanta, whether impersonal as
taught by Sankara, or personal as taught by the Vaishnava
and the Saiva, and also the systems elaborated by Mahavira
and Gautama, are philosophic theories lacking altogether that
creative power which alone can produce a living religion.
These theories attract the individual and influence him power
fully, but they do not succeed in creating that wonderful
organism which seizes a community and forms it by pro
ducing for it a cult, a morality, a social and a family system.
No single one of all this mighty group of philosophies has
succeeded in creating a religion, or in organizing itself as a
religious system. In each case the cult is simply the idolatry
of the traditional Hindu system appended to the philosophic
theology, and justified in a crude and clumsy way. The im
personal pantheism of Sankara, the atheistic metaphysic of
Gautama and of Mahavira, and the personal theism of the
great sects, have each, as the expression of their innermost
reverence, a polytheistic idolatry.

454 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

D. From the point of view of religion, the Hindu system
has proved itself far more valuable than the philosophy. It
has continuously done the work of a religion for the Hindu
people. It supported them, comforted and guided them during
the centuries when the philosophies were taking shape, pro
viding not only the seeds of these systems but the fertile soil
and the stimulating environment necessary for their growth.
When their essential incompleteness became manifest, the
Hindu system again came to the rescue, and became the ill-
fitting, yet attractive and comfortable, garments of these naked
theories. Without the ancient system, the poor of the people
throughout the centuries would have had to be content with
the ancient animisms of their ancestors. So that the work
done by the Hindu system has been very great indeed.

E. But, though we recognize the religious power of the
Hindu system as compared with the philosophy, we must
acknowledge, on the other hand, that the system has proved
a prison to the philosophies. The shell within which they
lived cramped them. No spiritual worship was possible for
them. They could not get away from caste. The Gttd
offered emancipation to women and Sudras, but they were
not allowed to read the Upanishads. Ramanuja, Nllakantha,
Ramananda, TulsT Das and many others recognized that the
Outcaste was fit for spiritual religion, but he was not set free
from his degrading position. Images of Outcaste saints are
here and there worshipped, but no Outcaste is ever appointed
a priest in any temple. The love of God never broke through
the caste system. Now and then a leader would say, ' If an
Outcaste is spiritual, eat with him,' but it remained a piece of
sentiment. Finally, the philosopher and the theologian had
to acquiesce in all the folly and filth of Hindu worship and its
accompaniments. The only point where philosophy broke
through ancient custom was in regard to animal sacrifice.
The Hindu system thus proved stronger than philosophy, and
stunted its natural growth in every direction.

IV. A. It is also most significant that those who defend

THE RELIGIOUS ORGANISM 455

Hinduism to-day are being more and more driven, in similar
fashion, to the acceptance of the whole of the ancient Hindu
system. Twenty-five years ago no educated Hindu dreamt of
defending idolatry and the grosser features of caste and Hindu
family life: to-day almost every type of Hindu revivalist
defends the whole of Hinduism. The Arya Samaj still main
tains its polemic against polytheism and idolatry (although
many an Arya still bows to idols) ; and here and there a Hindu
may be found who condemns certain aspects of customary
Hinduism ; but all the rest defend the system as such. The
reason is laid bare by the history: the Hindu system is a
real religion, while Hindu philosophy, despite its spirituality
and power, cannot develop by itself into a religious system.

B. It is abundantly evident that the Hindu people cannot
enjoy light and freedom until they are liberated from the
Hindu system. Yet the modern Hindu leader and the
Theosophist put forward certain reasons for their policy of
retaining the whole of the ancient faith. Vivekananda
writes :

To the reformers I will point out, I am a greater reformer than any
one of them. They want to reform only little bits. I want root and
branch reform. Where we differ is exactly in the method. Theirs is
the method of destruction, mine is that of construction. I do not
believe in reform. I believe in growth. ... I cannot join any one of
these condemning societies. Why condemn ? There are evils in
every society ; everybody knows it ; every child of to-day knows it ; he
can stand upon a platform and give us a harangue on the evils in
Hindu society. Every uneducated foreigner who comes in globe
trotting takes a vanishing railway view of India, and lectures most
learnedly on the awful evils in India. We admit it. Everybody can
show what evil is, but he is the friend of mankind who finds a way out
of the difficulty.1

These apologists of Hinduism point to the gleams of spiritual
light visible in customary Hinduism, some of which we have
dealt with above. They explain that these truths are the

1 Vivekananda, 540, 542.

456 THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

real source and origin of the religion, and that the immoralities
and superstitions, the existence of which every one acknow
ledges, are later accretions and corruptions. The religion
in itself is altogether holy and pure. Therefore, they argue,
nothing must be lost. Every law and institution is of priceless
worth. Reform along the lines advocated by social reformers
is, first, destructive of that which is beyond price, and, secondly,
it docs not go deep enough. Make the spirit of the people
right, and true reform will come of itself. We quote Vive-
kananda once more :

Therefore, this I have to tell to the social reformers of Madras, that
I have the greatest respect and love for them. I love them for their
great hearts and their love for their country, for the poor, for the
oppressed. But what I would tell them with a brother's love is that
their method is not right. . . . Most of the reforms that have been
agitated for during the last century have been ornamental. Every one
of these reforms only touches the first two castes, and no other. The
question of widow marriage would not touch seventy per cent, of the
Indian women, and all such questions only reach the higher classes of
Indian people who are educated, mark you, at the expense of the
masses. Every effort of these classes has been spent in cleaning their
own houses, making themselves nice and looking pretty before foreigners.
That is no reformation. You must go down to the basis of the thing,
to the very roots. That is what I call radical reformation. Put the
fire there and let it burn upwards and make an Indian nation.1

C. Our analysis of the family, karma, caste, and idolatry has
conclusively shown that this reasoning is altogether mistaken.
It is the character of the Hindu system itself that is at fault.
It is the very laws of the Hindu family that require to be
laid aside. It is karma itself that has weakened Hindu
theology. The basal conceptions of the caste system must
be repudiated, if Hindu society is to become healthy. The
whole system of idolatry is essentially polytheistic and pagan.
The gleams of light which stream from these things do not
justify them. The paragraphs above which draw out the

1 Vivekananda, 546, 543.

THE RELIGIOUS ORGANISM 457

lines of spirituality visible in the grossest parts of the religion
further illustrate the principle.

D. Will any modern Hindu defend religious prostitution,
because, throughout the centuries, the mother has had a noble
thought in her mind in dedicating her daughter? Would the
reader be ready to dedicate his own daughter on that basis ?
Shall we petition the British Government to rescind the laws
against sat!, cruel religious rites and obscenity, because in
each case some gleam of the ideal is visible in the evil
practice? If we are to act on that principle, the worst excesses
of cannibalism and religious promiscuity arc defensible ; for
in every such rite some true idea lurks behind. These noble
accompaniments of ignoble practices do not hallow the vile
things they accompany ; and they are not lost when the
immoral and superstitious rites and institutions are laid
aside.

The folly of this policy is above all things apparent with
regard to caste and idols, although, without any doubt, Vivc-
kananda's party and the Theosophists owe their popularity
to their defence of these institutions. How can any patriotic
Indian or intelligent Western follow them in their policy of
maintaining the caste system ? The conscience of Hinduism
has already revolted against the treatment of the Outcastes :
if caste is defensible, on what grounds are they to be set
free? Hinduism is perfectly explicit about them. If we are
to obey the laws of Manu, we must shut them up in hopeless
degradation. It is easy to spin explanations and defences of
idolatry ; but the question for the modern man is this, Do
we wish to condemn the Hindu race to eternal imprisonment
in debasing superstition ? Shall we seek to maintain institu
tions which destroy Indian vitality and intelligence, simply
because they are parts of the traditional Hindu system ? The
time has come when the Indian patriot must choose between
tradition and the health of his country.

V. We have already seen how Christ provides the fulfilment
of each of the highest aspirations and aims of Hinduism.

45« THE CROWN OF HINDUISM

A little reflection on the material contained in this chapter
will show that every line of light which is visible in the
grossest parts of the religion reappears in Him set in healthy
institutions and spiritual worship. Every true motive which
in Hinduism has found expression in unclean, debasing, or
unworthy practices finds in Him fullest exercise in work for
the downtrodden, the ignorant, the sick, and the sinful. In
Him is focused every ray of light that shines in Hinduism.
He is the Crown of the faith of India.

INDEX

Aborigines, 68, 158, 159, 161, 162,
163, 164, 167, 182, 183, 211, 215,

_ 329, 396.

AchamanTya, 313.

Action, 146 ; thought of as evil,
224.

Actionlessness, I37«.,222, 228, 244,
260, 275, 276, 293, 294.

Actor, 404.

Adhvaryus, 75.

Aditi, 70.

Adityas, 71.

Adiyars, 314, 384.

Adolescence, 86, 128, 132 f.

Advaita, 385, 386.

Agastya, 252.

Ages, 139, 213.

Agni, 70, 73, 308, 309

Ahariikara, 238 f., 261, 379.

Ahi, 70.

Ahiihsa, among hermits, 250 ;
Hindu monks, 231, 256, 263;
Jain monks, 258, 263 ; Buddhist
monks, 258, 263 ; laymen, 263-4,
380-2, 391 ; in temples, 315, 332,

391.

Ahura Mazda, 67.
Airavana, 309.
Akbar, 94, 99, 115.
Al.vars, 314, 319,384.
Amen-ra, 307.
Amon, 308.
Aihsa, 386, 420.
Amt, 307.

Ancestor-service, 78.
Ancestor-worship, 66, 67, 68, 73,

79, 80, 81, 82, 85, 103, 211, 250.
Animal gods, 305, 306.
Animal life, 250, 263 f.
Animism, 135, 236, 257.
Aniruddha, 379.

Antaryamin, 352.

Antelope, 308.

Apollo, 307.

Appayadfkshita, 390 n.

Apsarases, heavenly nymphs, 313,

_ 252, 298, 396.

Aranyaka, 252.

Architecture, 303, 342, 343.

Arghya, 313.

Artemis, 308.

Arts, skill in, 168, 207.

Aryaman, 67, 70.

Aryan Brotherhood, 1 72.

Aryans, 66, 79.

Arya Samaj, 76, 105, 117, 151, 174,

177, 204, 334.
Asceticism, chap. vii. Definition,

247 ; of the widow, loo f. ; of the

student, 259; of the householder,

259.

Ashes, bodies smeared with, 267.
Asoka, 264, 358.
Asrama, hermitage, 148,249,250;

stage of life, 259, 260 ; an order

of sannyasls, 265.
Astarte, 311.
Asuras, 306, 3^7.
Asvaghosha, 365, 367, 368.
Asvins, 70.

Atharvaveda, 74, 77, 219.
Atheism, 235, 241, 257.
Athene, 307.
Atman, chap. vi.
Atonement, 171.
Austerity, see Tapas.
Avfihana, 322, 323.
Avesta, 66,J57.
Azhvars = Al.vars.

Baboon, 306.
Badarayana, 242.

460

INDEX

Badges of pilgrimage, 267.

Bahiidaka, 265.

Bannerjea, Surendranath, 37, 149,

I74-.

Banurji, K. C., 47.

Bark coats, 249, 251.

Baroda, Gaekvvar of, 92, 109.

Basava, 169.

Beggar's bowl, 254, 266.

Bel-Merodach, 311.

Bengalee, the, 37, 275, 279-80.

Bes, 311, 312.

Besant, Mrs., 18, 20, 177, 275, 336.

Bhaga, 67, 70.

Bhagavadglta, see Gita.

Bhagavan, 361, 362, 363, 364.

Bhaga vat a, 363, 364.

Bhakti, 203, 242, 264,325,327,332,
380, 386, 399, 402.

Bharati, 265.

Bhikshu, 225, 254.

Bhushana, 313.

Bhutani, 379.

Bhuvanesvara, 314.

Birth the basis of caste, 203, 205 ;
the second, 209.

Blavatsky, Madame, 272.

Body, the human, 261, 284.

Body of God, 386.

Brahma, 92, 244, 309,311, 312, 351,
404, 420.

Brahman, chap, vi ; origin of con
ception, 219 ; identified with the
Atman, 220 ; a self-conscious
spirit, 220, 222, 223 ; union with
B., 221 ; identified with human
spirit, 223, 226, 419 ; dear to those
who know him, 227 ; contrasted
with the world, 222 ; identified
with, 228 ; unborn, 221; desire-
less, 220 ; actionless, 220, 228-9,
244, 368, 372, 403, 419 ; not under
karma, 144, 222; divorced from
moral order, 143, 144, 152, 411 ;
non-moral, 229, 244, 394 ff., 45 1 ;
declared moral, 244 /?., 394; has
no character, 244 #., 394; imper
sonal, 232, 244 ; construed as
personal, 241, 364, 376, 385 ff.,
401; beyond thought and speech,
232, 245, 393, 401 ; cannot be
worshipped, 232, 245, 401, 419;

has no purpose, 368 ; does not
create, 232, 246, 403-7 ; all his
action is sport, 246, 368, 369, 372,
419; his existence denied by early
Buddhists, Jains, and Sankhyas,
235 ; identified with Vishnu, 367,
371, 391 ; with Siva, 367, 374, 391 ;
with the Buddha, 367, 369 ; the
lower B., 244, 420.

Brahmans, 82, 83, 86, 92, 135, 140,
158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164,
168, 171, 178, 179, 181, 185, 199,
203, 204, 208, 212, 213, 214, 216,
3_28, 387, 388, 449-

Brahmanas, 134, 219, 221, 234, 248,
249.

Brahma Samaj, 104, 151, 170, 174,

333-

Broom of Jain monk, 258.

Brotherhood of divine men, 21.

Buddhas, 304, 316.

Budclhi, 238 f., 261.

Buddhism, 115, 169, 214, 239, 254,
258, 316, 356,366, 367; ethics of,
239 ; left Hinduism, 240; rise of
worship, 357; Tantric B., 309,
406.

Buffalo, 308.

Bull, 306, 307, 308.

Burial, 73, 85.

Burning-ghat, 267.

Calamity, 141.

Canon of Vedanta, 242 f.

Car (of a god), 313, 3 1 5.

Caste, chap, iv ; not in Rik, 69 ; a
divine institution, 216 ; sources of
c-> J57-63; essential features,
163-6; no marriage outside c.,
87 ; the three castes, 214; the
four castes, 214 ; c., the social ex
pression of karma and transmi
gration, 138, 140, 198, 215; given
up by the monk, 225 ; good
results of, 167-8; Hindu criticism
of, 168-77, 388 ; abolition neces
sary for political freedom, 149;
modificationsof, 170-1 ; reappear
ing where it has been given up,
388; religious ideas underlying,
177-81 ; these ideas superstitious,
185 6 ; decay of these ideas, 177-

INDEX

461

8, 185-7 ; social reform and caste,
149, 172-6, 187-91 ; its principles
completed by Christ, 191-210.

Caste Conferences, 105.

Caste duty, see Occupation.

Caste-guilds, 168.

Cat, 306, 308.

Celsus, 19 n.

Centaur, 307.

Chaddanta, 309.

Chaitanya, 265, 272, 385.

Chakra, 311.

Chandala, 142.

Chandavarkar, Sir N., 54.

Characteristics of being, Buddhist,

239-

Child-marriage, 76, 94, 95, 114;
criticism of, 104, 105, 106, 107,
116, 127, 131.

Child-widows, 96.

Chimaera, 309.

Christianity and the non-Christian
religions, 16 ; held hostile to
society by the Romans, 1 57 ;
called denationalizing by Hindus,
33 ff., 43 ff. ; as Crown of Hindu
ism, 55, 58,64, 75 ff., 119-33, 193-
210, 281-96, 343-50, chap, x,
452, 457-8.

Colour, 158.

Coma, 272.

Concubinage, 113, 191.

Congress, Indian National, 105,
174, 187.

Cooking, 165.

Coomaraswamy, Dr., 339.

Conch, 317.

Cow, 170, 306.

Cremation, 73, 83.

Criminal tribes, 88, 125, 185.

Crocodile, 306, 308.

Cult, Hindu, 312, 313; Egyptian,
316 ; Buddhist, 316 ; Jain, 316.

Curse of a hermit, 251.

Custom, law of, 103.

Cybele, 308.

Dfidu, 265.
Dfidupanthis, 333.
I) agon, 306.
Daksha, 306, 307.
Damaru drum, 266, 317.

Danda, a sannyasl's staff or rod,

254, 265, 266.
DandJs, 265.
Dasa'ratha, 126, 141.
Dasarathi, 389.
Dasnamis, 265, 266.
Dayfmanda SarasvatT, 177, 334.
Debendranath Tagore, 104.
Demiurge, 405.
Depressed Classes, 162, 277, 278,

279.

Depressed Classes M ission, 1 74,204.
DevadasTs, 103, 313, 314, 315, 397,

398,45i-

Dharma, 206, 218.
Dharmasastra, 145, 218; of Mann,

218.

Dharmasutra of Gautama, 94, 1 60.
Dhupa, 314.
Diana (Ephesian), 309.
Digambara Jains, 264.
Diksha, 380.
Dlpa, 314.
Discus, 267,317.
Dissolution of the world, 140.
Divorce, 103, 119, 127, 191.
Dog, 307, 308.
Dolphin, 308.
Draupadl, 251.
Drugs smoked, 266.
Durga, 308, 309, 311, 384, 396.
Dvaita, 387.
Dvapara yuga, 139.
Dwarf, 379.
Dyaus, 70.

Eagle, 308.

Edinburgh Conference, 16.

Education, Hindu, see Schools for
priests. Female, 93, 105, 106,
107, 114, 122 ; Western, 36, 116,
1 1 8, 119, 170, 187; missionary,
277, 278.

Ekadandls, 265 f.

Ekantins, 403.

Elephant, 306, 308.

Emancipation, 138, 144, 146, 223,
224, 230, 235, 236, 237, 240, 253,
258, 259, 331, 380, 386, 391, 402.

Equality, 187, 198.

Erotic sects, 384, 396.

Etherealization of the body, 268 ff.

462

INDEX

Europeans and Indians, 55.
Excommunication, Jewish, 290 ;
Hindu, 166.

Family, chap, ii ; patriarchal f.,
69, 78-82 ; the family priest, 79-
80; the Hindu f., 82 ff.; the
joint- family system, 81, 89-90,
93 ; criticism of Hindu f., 104-8 ;
reform of, 104-13 ; principles
of, 85-104 ; the Hindu f. and
karma, 103-4 ; religious basis
of Hindu f., 109-10, 116; decay
of fundamental ideas, 113-16;
Christ's teaching completes the
Hindu f., 116-33.

Fasting, 288.

Father's place in family, 79; power,
8 1 ; authority over son, 88.

Fathers (pitris), 73, 82, 83, 84,
134, 212, 248.

Feasts for the dead, 78. .SV^Sraddha.

Fish, 306, 379.

Foisting, 161.

Food, 150, 165, 171, I Si ff., 199.

Forgiveness, 143, 285.

Fox, 308.

Freedom of children of God, 125,
198; of women, 114; social, 189,
198 ff. ; Hindu, 216 ff.

Frog, 306.

Funeral ceremony, 73, 82, 83, 254
n. 3, 295. See Sraddha.

Gandha, 313.

Gandharvas, 298, 313.

Gahga, 311.

Ganges, 311, 388; bathing in,

447-8.

Ganesa, 306, 307, 309, 311, 312.
Garuda, 307.
Gautama, the Buddha, 51, 239, 258,

262,269,271,294,355,453.
Gautama's Dharmasutra, 252.
Giants, 307.
Gita, 203, 204, 242, 243, 273, 368,

370-4, 376, 377, 388.
Gnosticism, 405.
Goat, 306.
God, His Fatherhood, iigf., 130,

*93> 19S ; the Godhead, 408-19.
Goddesses, 328, 329.

Gods, functional, 66; heavenly, 66,
70; of Rigveda, 70-3, 303, 351 ;
Hindu g., 212, 216, 220, 297- 3co;
description of H indu g., 297 ff.; live
in heaven like Hindu kings, 298;
visit earth, 299, 321 ; have bodies,
297> 33°; their food, 300, 331;
their desires, 220; their worship,

299 ; their worship ripens a man
for release, 331 ; their gifts, 220,

300 ; married, 297 ; not bound
by morality, 298, 394-5, 451 ;
have great powers, 299, 331 ; not
omniscient or omnipotent, 299 ;
are transmigrating beings, 222,
330; succession of gods, 331 ;
monks gave up their worship,
225, 232 ; but recognized their
existence, 260; worshipped by
modern ascetics, 365-6.

Goose, 308.
Gopuram, 397.
Gorakhnath, 265.
Gorgon, 311.
Grace of God, 247, 364.
Granth of the Sikhs, 333.
Gross body, 83.
Gupta, Sir K. G., 175.
Guru, 241, 272, 364, 380, 387, 392,
399, 402, 450.

Hair of Sadhu, 267.

Halo of light, 268 ff.

Hamsa, 265.

Hanuman, 306.

Haoma, 67.

Hara, 379.

Har Dayal, 34 »., 36 «., 53, 275.

Harpy, 307.

Haryanand, 319.

Havell, 270.

Hawk, 306, 308.

Hayagrlva, 318.

Head-dress of gods, 310.

Hearth, the, 80.

Heaven, 70, 73, 132, 144, 297, 298,

300.

Hecate, 309.
Hell, 134, 144.
Hercules, 312.

Hermit, 65, 148^236, 249, 270, 380.
Hermitage, see Asrama.

INDEX

463

Hinduism, its formation, chap, v ;
as a system, chap, xi, 400; its
code, 59 ; laid aside by monks,
233 ; being attacked by Hindus,
36 ff. ; revival of, 177 ; decay of,
34, 42, 113-15, 148-51, 177-87,
191, 273-6, 334-9. 342, 421-4,
446-7.

Hindu kings, 298.

Hippopotamus, 308.

Home, the, 132.

Horus, 308.

Hotris, 75.

Householder, 252, 259.

Husband, 88 ; his authority, 87 f. ;
must not eat with his wife, 93.

Ibis, 306.

Identity of God and man, 221, 223,
226, 419-21.

Idolatry, see Idols.
Idols, chap, viii ; origin of i., 300-3 ;
rise of Hindu i., 3°3.-5., 327~32 5
from aboriginal animism, 329 ;
of many forms, 305-12 ; cult of,
312-17; Buddhist i., 269, 270,
304, 323-4, 358, 453 ; Jain i., 304,
3°5> 323> 358, 453 5 Hindu beliefs
about i., 317-27 ; each i. a living
god, 317-21, 325-7, 341 ; each a
faithful representation, 321, 340;
pranapratishtha of, 322 ; opening
of eyes, 323 ; a source of much
superstition, 342 ; philosophy and
i., 246, 330-1, 341, 453 ; criticism
of Hindu i., 332-4, 387, 388, 392,
455 ; defence of, 334-9, 455, 457 5
decay of faith in i., 334, 338, 339,
342 ; exposition of, 339-43 ; rea
son for predominance of idols
over old sacrifices, 330, 341 ;
Christ and i., 343-50.

Illusion, see Maya.

Images, see Idols.

Immanence of God, 228, 232.

Immortality, 74, 134, 144, 224, 226,
227.

Incarnation, 243, 354, 359, 362, 367,
379, 388-90, 421-5, 429-31, 433-
6, 438-9, 441-2, 444 ; Christian
doctrine of, 425-44.

India, the new, 149, 151 ; persecu
tion in, 292.

Indian politics, 105, 149, 187, 198.
Indian Social Reformer, 105.
Indifference, 231, 256, 293, 294.
Indo-Aryans, 68, 98, 134, 157, 182,

191, 211, 247.

I ndo- Iranians, 66.

Indra, 67, 70, 72, 152, 308, 311.

Industries, skill in, 168.

Infanticide, 69, 81, 91, 113, 399.

Initiation, 86, 94.

Interdining, 165, 172, 183, 189, 195,

196.

Intermarriage, 178.
Isa, I sana, 364.
Isa Upamshad, 242.
Ishtar, 308.
Israel and the revelation of the Old

Testament, 62.
Isvara Chandra Vidyasagara. 105,

289.

ackal, 306, 308.

agannath, 305.
_,ahnu, 252.

Jainism, 32 n, 214, 236, 254, 257,
264, 271, 305, 316, 333; left
Hinduism, 240 ; worship, 316.
Jala, 313.
Janus, 309.
Jnana, 402.
Job, 136.
Judaism, 343.
Julian the Apostate, 281.
Jumna, 308.
Justice, social, 189, 200 f.

Kabir, 265, 332, 387, 389.

Kablrpanthls, 169, 389.

KaikeyT, 141.

Kaivalya, 237.

Kala, 379-

Kali, 185, 305, 309, 311, 314, 315,

316, 384, 396.
Kallghat, 315 //., 316.
Kaliya, 307.
Kali yuga, 140, 149.
Kalki, 379.
Kalpa, 140, 386.
Kalpa-sutras, 383.
Kapilar, 169, 1 80, iSl.

INDEX

Karma, definition of, 137, chap, iii;
also 159, 191, 212, 213, 216, 221,

222, 253, 254, 256, 393.

Karma-yoga, 365.

Karttikeya, 308, 309.

Kathaka Upanishad, 241.

Kausalya, 141.

Keshab Chandra Sen, 104, 109.

Ket, 308.

Ketkar, Shridhar, 175.

Khnumu, 307.

Khonsu, 311.

King, the, 56.

Kinnarls, 307.

Knowledge, 146.

Krishna, 243, 267, 305, 307, 308,

312, 314, 352, 359, 36i, 362, 363,

367, 371-3; 376, 379, 387, 388,

3.89, 395, 396, 398, 406.
Kritayuga, 139.
Kronos, 306, 308.
Kshatriyas, 86, 92, 140, 158, 160,

161, 163, 214.
KulTn Brahmans, 92.
Kuresa, 389.
Kunhikannan, V., 40.
KutTchara, 265.
Kuvera, 304.

LakshmT, 304, 308, 355, 361.

Lala Lajpat Rai, 175.

Laymen, 147, 364, 366, 367, 377,

380-2, 391.
Learning, 168, 207.
Lepers, 194, 197.
Levitation, 272.
Life, reverence for, 96, 236, 250, 256,

263.

Llla, see Sport.
Linga, 266, 267, 310, 311, 314, 316,

321, 339, 380, 397.
Lingayats, 169.
Lion, 306, 308 ; winged, 309.
Liturgy of Hindu temples, 314,315.
Lotus, 308, 311.
Love, 284 ff., 294.

Madhuparka, 313.
Madhva, 265, 272, 381, 385.
Madhvas, 314, 386.
Magic powers, 248, 25 if., 270 ff.,
404.

Mahabharata, 94, 242, 355, 359, 363,
377-

Mahavlra, 257, 258, 269, 271,^453.

Mahdydna Sraddhotpdda Sastra,
365, 367, 368-9-

Maitreya, 304.

Makara, 309.

Man, Hindu doctrine of, 179 ;
Ankara's doctrine of, 244; Bud
dhist doctrine of, 240 ; Christian
doctrine of, 120 ff., 193, 420-1;
dignity of, 226 ; brotherhood of,
226.

Manas, 238 f., 261 f., 379.

Man-bird, 306.

Man-boar, 306, 307, 388.

Man-eagle, 307.

Man-fish, 306, 388.

Man-horse, 306, 379, 388.

Manikka Vachakar, 375, 385, 393,
398, 399, 4oi.

Man-lion, 306, 379, 382, 388.

Man-tortoise, 306, 388.

Manners, 208, 209.

Mantras, 94, 274, 322, 388, 392, 449.

Manu, law of, 96.

Marriage, chap. ii. See also Child-
marriage, Svayamvara, Poly
gamy, Monogamy. Hindu con
ception of, 96 ; a religious duty,
85 ; age of, 105, 122 ; conditions
of, 127, 165 ; sacredness of, 126,
130 ; continued in heaven, 96,
97 ; m. of second wife, 88, 93,
1 06 ; of boys, 86 ; to an object,
103 ; to an idol, 103 ; Marriage
Act, 104 ; m. reform, 106-9, I5°5
Christian in., 126 ; a divine insti
tution, 126-7 > no m« U1 Heaven,
128, 130; dissoluble only by
death, 127 ; for adults only, 127.

Maruts, 70.

Mathura, 384.

Matted braids, 249.

Maya, 244.

Medusa, 311.

Meekness, 256, 258, 295.

Megasthenes, 361.

Mey-kanda-devar, 385.

Mirabal,' 94, 319.

Mission Study Circles, 16.

Missionaries, necessity for self-

INDEX

465

effacement, 55 ; attitude to Hin
duism, 56; preaching, 34; educa
tion, 35, 47 ; literature, 35, 57 ;
social reform, 280 ; their devotion
recognized, 281.

Missions, opposition to, 17 ff., 33 ;
growth, 16 ; work of, 150, 173,
181 ; service to India, 277 ff.

Mithra, 307, 308, 342.

Mithraism, 306.

Mitra, 67, 70.

Mlecchas, 160, 164, 179, 180, 204.

Monasteries, 258, 259, 264, 266.

Monastic orders, 257, 264.

Monkey, 307.

Monks = sannyasls. Rise of the
order, 222-5, 253~4 ; their great
ness, 273; their discipline, 224-5,
254-7; adopt tapas, 231, 255 ;
adopt yoga, 231, 255; adopt
ahiihsa, 231, 256; originally under
no moral rules, 230, 256 ; under
moral rules, 230-1, 256-7 ; the
vows, 257 ; actionless, 224, 225 ;
indifferent, 231 ; reject popular
system, 232-3, 260; believe in
Hindu gods, 233, 236, 260 ; re
ceived into the Vedic schools,
261; despise the body, 261; re
strain the senses and the intellect,
261 ; outside ordinary society,
254, 262-3, 206; do not worship,
225, 240; do worship, 265-6;
originally, not vegetarian, 263 ;
later, vegetarian, 264 ; ethereali-
zation of, 268-70; miraculous
powers of, 270-2 ; Buddhist m.,
239, 258, 263 ; Jain m., 236,
258, 263 ; Sankhya m., 237 ; the
modern m. sectarian, 264-6.
See Sadhu. The true sannyasi,
295.

Monogamy, 92, 106, 122, 132.

Moon, 311.

Moral standard, 145 ; distinctions,
238, 256 ; rules, at first not im
posed on monks, 256 ; then im
posed, 256; Buddhist moral
rules, 259.

Mothers, Hindu, 102.

Muhammadanism,2l,343; its code,
59; its doctrines, 191; its influ

ence, 163, 169, 332, 390 ; its

social order, 191.
Mullick, Dr. S. C, 172.
Muni, 248, 254, 270.
Music, 303, 343.
Mythology, 303, 332.

Nagarjuna, 367.

Nagas, 304, 306, 307, 309.

Xaivedya, 314.

Nakedness, 225, 236, 266.

Nallasvami PiJJai, Mr., 339.

Namadeva, 332.

Nambutlri Brahmans, 103.

Nanak, 265, 333, 388, 389.

NandT, 308.

Narasiihha, 307.

Nataraja, 405.

Natesa, 405.

NTlakantha, 385, 390 n.

Nirvana, 240, 259, 316; its two

senses, 240.
Nishkama karma, 365.
Nivritti karma, 365.
Niyoga, 117.
Nuit, 306.
Nuns, 240, 257; Buddhist, 94;

Jain, 264.
Nyasa, 323.

Obedience of children, 124.

Obscenity, 397.

Occupation, 160, 165, 166, 170, 184,
199.

Ocean, crossing the, 166, 171.

Offerings in Hindu temples, 315.

Old Testament, Christian use of.
52.

Oriental religions, interest in, 22.

Orthodox philosophies, 242.

Osiris, 307, 311, 312.

Outcastes, 47, 141, 150, 160, 162,
163, 165, 168, 173, 178, 181, 182,
i84f., 1 86, 188, 196, 197, 198, 203,
204, 205, 399, 457 ; Jewish, 194-
7, 288.

Outcasting, see Excommunication.

Owl, 308.

Padya, 313.

Painting, 303, 342, 343.

466

INDEX

Pan, 307.

Parichamas, 163, 164.

Pancharatra Sarhhitas, 378, 383.

Paramahamsa, 265.

Parasurama, 379.

Pariahs, 169, 179.

Parivrajaka, 225, 254.

ParvatT, 308.

Pasupata, 380.

Pasupati, 361, 380.

Patanjali, 363.

Patria potestas, 79.

Pattanattu Pillai, 332.

Peacock, 308.

Persecution of Christians, 290 ff.

Persia, 157, 187, 191, 202, 303, 342.

Pessimism, 139, 145, 151.

Phallus and phallicisrn, 310, 316,

3.17, 339, 38o.
Philosophy of religion, Hindu, 212,

215.

Pilgrimage, 266.
Pillar (idol), 301, 305 ; with carved

head, 301, 305.

Pinbalagia-Perumal-Jlyar, 317.
Pinda, 82, 83, 84, 113, 116, 131, 165.
Pitris, see Fathers.
Plutarch, 25.
Polyandry, 103.
Polygamy, 69, 91, 106, 108, 113,

122, 191.
Poverty, 273.
Practical Vedanta, 281.
Pradyumna, 379.
Prakriti, 237, 238,379,405.
Pralaya, 140, 237, 386.
Pranapratishtha, 322,323, 335, 337.
Prarthana Samaj, 151, 174, 334,

403-

Prasada, 315, 381, 388.
Prasthanatraya, 242.
Prayaschitta, 171, 450.
Prayer, 209.
Preta, 84.

Priests, see Brahmans.
Principles of conduct, Christ's, 58,

285.

Prithivi, 70.
Progress, 139, 213.
Publicans, 195.
Punarachamamya, 313.
Puranas, 382.

Purity, 165, 182-3, 2°7> 2°8> 450 ;

spiritual, 288, 450.
Purusha, 158.
Pushan, 70.
Pushpa, 314.

Rabindranath Tagore, 175.

Radha, 396.

Raja GopI Chandra, 262.

Rajanya, 158, 159.

Ram, 306, 308.

Rama, 88, 136, 141, 250, 267, 305,

307, 352, 353, 359, 362, 367, 374,

387, 388.

Ramakrishna Mission, 105.
Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, 19,

_24, 177, 321, 334.
Ramananda, 387.
Ramanuja, 264, 265, 271, 317, 318,

325, 393, 400, 401, 405 ; his

biography, 317 ; his theology,

385-6, 393 f-

Ramapnya, 318.

Ramayana, 94, 353, 359-

Ramman, 311, 312.

Ram Mohan Rai, 99, 104, 118, 333.

Ranade, Mr. Justice, 105, 117, 403.

Rahganatha, 405.

Ravana, 353, 362, 363.

Reincarnation, 19. See Trans
migration.

Release, see Emancipation.

Relic-worship, 272.

Religion, national, 48 ; savage, 26,
27 ; polytheistic, 28 ; contrasted
with religious and philosophic
theories, 445 ; science of, 12, 14.

Religions, relative value of, 15 ;
their unity, 26 ; every religion of
value, 26 ; the great r., 28 ; r. of
Greece and Rome, 53 ; to be
judged by their principles, 58,
119, 192.

Restraint of senses and intellect,
261.

Retribution, 135, 138, 139, 213.

Rigveda^ 68, 69 ff., 74, 75, 76,77,

' 82,91,94,98, 129, 151, 157, 158,

178, 211, 214, 215, 219, 247.

Rishis, 140, 215.

Rita, 68, 71, 76, 151.

Ritual of Hindu temples. 315.

INDEX

467

Rosary, 266, 388.
Rudra, 70, 242, 379.

Sacraments, 104, 164, 165.

Sacrifice, 73, 94, 164, 165, 209,
21 3 f., 249 f., 260, 264, 299, 315,
449; allegorized, 252 ; given up,
381, 391, 392.

Saddharma Pundanka, 266, 367,
368, 369-70.

Saguna, 394.

Saint-worship, 399, 402.

S,aiva Agamas, 383.

Saktas, 383, 384, 396.

Sakti, 383, 384, 406.

Sakuntala, 87.

Salagrfima stone, 267, 314, 392.

Samfidhi, 250, 262.

Samavartana, 86.

Sdtnaveda, 77.

Saihkarshana, 363, 378-9.

Samsara, 139, 213.

Sarhskaras, 104.

Sandhya, 164, 165.

Sarikara, a name of Siva, 361, 380 ;
name of a philosopher, 243 ff.,
264, 265, 271, 377, 384, 385, 389,
390, 452.

Sahkhya system, 214, 236, 376,
390; remained in Hinduism,
240; S. ideas in verse Upani-
shads, 241 ; drawn into other
syste_ms, 245, 375 f., 405.

Sannyasa, 146, 225 ff., 230 f., 235,
254, 293.

Sanskrit, 69, 94.

S'anti Parvan, 377.

Sapinda, 84, 87.

SarasvatI (goddess), 308, 311, 318 ;
(name of an order of sannyfisis),
265.

Sathakopa, 326.

SatI, 76, 98, 399, 448 ; explanation
of, 99; prohibition of, 99, 113.

Savitar, 70.

Schools, philosophic, 257.

Schools for priests, 75, 86, 164,
240 ; girls excluded, 93 ; only
men of the three highest castes
admitted, 164, 234, 240 ; Vedanta
introduced, 234, 261 ; tapas of
the students, 248, 259.

Sculpture, 269, 303, 304, 342, 343.

Seb, 308.

Sect Conferences, 105.

Sect-marks, 266, 388.

Sects, chap. ix.

Sect-symbol, 266..

Self, see Atman.

Self-torture, see Tapas.

Senses in Sahkhya system, 238.

Serampore Missionaries, 104, 333.

Service, 199, 201 f., 209, 275;

Christian law of, 285 ff., 294 ; and

self-sacrifice, 289.
Sesha, 308, 309, 389, 404.
Shamash, 311, 312.
Shell, see Conch.
Sikhs, 169, 203, 333, 388.
Sirens, 307.
Sjta, 88, 96, 250, 353.
Siva, 266, 267, 307, 308, 309, 310,

311,314,316,332, 351.361,379.

A 39-5~7'

Sivaite sect, 147, 352, 367, 376, 383.

Sivavakyar, 332.

Skin coats, 249.

Skull, 266.

Smarta temples, 383.

Snake, 306.

Snfmlya, 313.

Social intercourse, 165.

Social organization, of divine origin,
157 ; sacred, 205.

Social Reform Movement, 86, 105,
106, 108, 149, 171, 178, 403 ; its
slow progress, io8ff. ; its methods,
no, 131.

Soma, 67, 70, 73, 82.

Sons, 81, 83, 85, 92 ; duty of abso
lute obedience, 88.

Soul, conceived as identical with
Brahman, 221 ; conceived as
material, 78 ; surviving death,
78 ; requiring food, 78, 83 ;
spiritual, 83; eternal, 139, 143;
transmigrating, 179; Sahkhya.
conception of, 237 ff. ; souls in all
things, 236, 257 f. ; s. denied by
Buddhists, 239 ; a portion of God,

391-

Sphinx, 307, 309.
Spikes, bed of, 267 ; shoes filled

with, 267.

468

INDEX

Spiritualization of the body, 268.
Sport, 246, 368, 369, 372, 419.
Sraddha, 83, 84, 85, 106, 113, 131,

A I6s>

Sri, see Lakshml.

Sribhashya, 318, 385, 398.
sVlnivasa lyengar, 329, 339.
Srinivasa Rao, 1 10, 320.
Srirangam, 325, 397, 398, 405.
Sruti, 164.

Sthala-purana, 324, 340.
SthanakavasI Jains, 264, 333.
Stupas, 356.
Subtle body, 83.
^fldras, 158, 159, 1 60, 161, 163, 164,

167. 168, 178, 179, 203. 204.
Suicide, 236, 258, 448.
Suiigas, 359.
Superstitions, 342, 391-2, 447-52;

glint of spiritual light on each,

447-5 i •

Suryn, 70, 304, 309.
Sutras, 241, 242.
Suttas, Buddhist. 273.
Svayarhvara, 95.
S,vetambara Jains, 264, 316.
S-vetasvatara U., 242, 268, 270.
Swan, 379.

Tantras, 383.

Tapas, definition, 247 ; in Rik, 74,

247-9; of hermits, 249, 251-2,

295, 148; of Hindu monks, 231,

255, 293; of Jain monks, '258 ;

of Sadhus, 267 ; of others, 448 ;

rejected by Buddhists, 258;

adopted in Mahayana Buddhism,

370; Christian t., 288-93, 295.
Tarpana, 84.
Temple, 312-17, 340; open to four

castes, 164, 165, 214, 327-8;

origin of temple-worship, 327-9.
Temple-musicians, 312, 315.
Thags, 185.

Theistic thought inUpanishads,24i.
Theosophy and the Theosophical

Society, 18, 20, 40, 105, 177, 275,

334-

Therlgatha, 94.
Thoth, 307, 311, 312.
Thread, sacred, 86, 160, 163, 254,

265.

Thunderbolt, 311.

Tiger, 308.

Tiger-skin, 266.

TTrtha, 315,387.

Tirthakaras, 304, 316.

Tirumangai Alvar, 318.398.

Tirupati, 317.

Tiru-Vdchakam, 374-5.

Tortoise, 379.

Totemism, 135.

Trade-guilds, 1 68.

Trance, see Samadhi.

Transmigration, 24, 74, 77, 82, 83,

101, 103, 159, 169, 179, 191, 212,
213,215, 216, 221, 223,252, 253,

299; definition of, 137. See Re
incarnation.

Triads of gods, 312.

Tridandls, 265 f.

Trident', 266, 317.

Trimurti, 309.

Tripitaka, 169.

Tripundra, 383.

Triton, 306.

TrivenT, 308.

Tukaram, 399.

Tuls! Das, 393, 399, 401.

TulsT plant, 267 ; beads, 388.

Turkey, 187, 188, 189, 191, 192, 202.

Twice-born, 160, 163, 209, 265.

Udgatris, 75.

Uma, 309, 361.

Umapati, 385.

Untouchables. 162, 163, 194, 197,
203.

Upanishads, 94, 135, 136, 146, 235,
240, 241, 243, 273, 376; forma
tion of early prose U., 234, 261 ;
verse U., 241, 257, 364, 376;
later U., 261, 282-3.

Uraeus, 31 1.

Ushas, 70.

UttarTya, 313.

Vfihana, 312.
Vaishnava, see Vishnuite.
Vaisyas, 86, 92, 158,' 159, 160, 161,

163, 164, 214.
Vallabha, 265, 385.
Vallabhacharyas, 314, 396.

INDEX

469

Varna, 158.

Vanaprastha, see Hermit.
Varuna, 67, 71, 72, 76, 152, 308.
Vastra, 313.
Vasudeva, 361, 378-9.
Vayu, 70.
Vedanta, chap. vi.
Vedanta-school. 243, 244, 330, 366,

376, 39°-
Vedanta-sutras, 242, 243, 330, 376,

385-
Vedas, 66 ; forbidden to women,

93, 94, 117, 140, 178, 213, 215,

216.

Vegetable life, 256, 263, 264.
Vegetarianism, 250, 263, 264, 381-

2, 391-

Vemana, 169, 332.

Vicharasdgara, 273.

Vidya, 146.

Village divinities, 41, 328, 449.

Vlra-oaivas, 169, 203.

Viratarupa, 309.

Viresalingam Pantulu, 105.

Virgin widows, 96, 107, 108, 114.

Vishnu, 70, 92, 147, 243, 267, 305.
306, 307, 309, 332, 351,361,392,
397, 404 ; his five modes, 323 ;
called Varada and Ranganatha,
325 ; on $esha, 308, 312.

Vishnuite sect, 243, 252, 367, 383.

Vishvaksena, 389.

Visishtadvaita, 386.

Visvamitra, 251.

Vivekananda, Svami, 171, 177, 281,
334,335, 339,455,456.

Vyuha, 378.

Water, the receiving of, 165, 196 f.
Western influence, 35, 104, 114,

118, 149, 151, 181, 186, 189,190.
Widow-asceticism, 100.
Widow-burning, see Satl.
Widow-celibacy, 76, 96, 97, 107,

129.
Widow- remarriage, 69, 105, 106,

107, 114, 116, 126, 131.

Widows, 95, 107-8, 141 ; w. and
widowers, 107,114, 122.

Widow-tonsure, 100.

Wife, her rights, 82, 102 ; duty of
obedience, 87, 88; worships her
husband as a god, 87, 97 ; may
be chastised, 88 ; incorporated
into husband's family, 97 ; her
virtue, 97.

Wolf, 308.

Women, depreciation and subjec
tion of, 81, 87, 90-102 ; in Bud
dhism, 91 ; always in subjection,
90 ; born such because of sin in
former life, 91, 97, 131, 141, 151 ;
cannot sacrifice alone, 94 ; ex
cluded from education, 94, 164,
214 ; spiritual equality with men,
121-3, 132.

World, the, 139, 213, 216, 222 ;
its power lost over men, 227;
regarded as almost identical with
God, 228.

World-surrender, 213, 216, 224,
225,235,254,293; Hindu, 254;
Buddhist, 258; Jain, 258 ; Chris
tian, 282, 295.

Worship of the gods, disdained by
early monks, 232,240; practised
by later monks, 245, 265 ; of
idols, see Idols ; of a book, 333.

Yajnopavlta, 313.

Yajurveda, 77.

Yakshas, 304.

Yama, 67, 70, 73, 307, 308, 3C9.

Yamunacharya, 389.

Yellow robe, 247, 248, 254, 259,

266.

Yoga, 241, 250, 255,267, 269, 270.
"Yogasfttra of Patanjali, 269, 271.
Yogis, 255, 277 ; their trickery, 272.
Yugas, 139.

Zenana, 69, 76, 94, loi, 114, 122.
Zend, 67.

Zeus, 220, 307, 311, 340.
Zoroastrianism, 66.

OXFORD : 1IOKACK 1IAR1
PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY

BL FARQUHAR

1201 THE CROWN OF

,F3 HINDUISM

1913 121348