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HINDUISM
By Ernest R. Hull, S.J.
The main object of this paper is to describe Hin
duism as a concrete working reality among the
Hindu people to-day. The variety of its forms and
its general promiscuousness make the presentation an
extremely difficult task, especially as Hinduism is
entirely unformulated in any official creed or code or
standard handbook of theological or moral instruction.
Whatever Hinduism may be, one thing however is
clear. It is essentially a traditional inheritance from
ancient times,—not indeed a primeval deposit handed
down unchanged in crystalline form, but a residual
deposit resulting from a long process both of
accretions and decretions, developments and modifica
tions—, so that it has never been one and the same
thing in successive periods of the past, and is never
altogether the same thing among different sections
of the people themselves. In order, therefore, to
understand the meaning of Hinduism, it is not enough
to enumerate the various existing elements which
make up the whole It is necessary also to see how
these elements have come together, and the idea and
motive which has lain at the back of them. And this
is possible only through a comprehensive view of the
history of the entire development from earliest times.
The Aryan Immigration
By “earliest times,” for present purposes, I mean
the unascertainable date at which the original Aryan
stock, then dwelling somewhere in Central Asia,
divided into two streams, the one migrating west
wards through Persia, and then on to Greece, Italy,
5
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•
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The History of Religions
and Germany, while the other diverted southwards
through the passes of the Himalayas, and worked its
way first down to the Indus, then eastwards along
the Ganges, and finally southwards over the peninsula.
The peoples whom they found already occupying the
country were of two sorts, probably representing two
earlier migrations — first, the “ Kolarians,” still
surviving in remnants among the hill tribes of
Central India; and secondly, the “Dravidians,” who
even now predominate in the southern half of the
country. These peoples were partly subjugated by
the Aryan immigrants and partly left untouched in
the more inaccessible districts. Of those subjugated
races some remained more or less unmixed, while
others gradually intermingled and formed semi
Aryan tribes. Both these previous populations had
their own distinct forms of religion ; and (though it
would require much detailed study to be definite) it
is certain that they contributed many of the grosser
elements which afterwards went to make up the
congeries of later Hinduism—animistic beliefs, fetish,
stone, image, and demon worship, and a multiplicity of
local deities of low type.
First Period: 1500-1000 b.c.
Our sole knowledge of the early Aryan worship is
derived from the sacred books called the Vedas, of
which a very brief account must now be given. First
and oldest comes the Rig Veda, a collection of religious
hymns, which on the one hand embody the conception
of one sublime deity, and on the other hand so personificate the powers of nature as to make them seem
separate gods—Dyospita. the shining one, or father
and superior of the sky (the Zeus of the Greeks, and
Jupiter, supreme God of Rome1); Varuna, the god
of the dark sky ; Mitra, god of the bright sky;2 Indra,
god of the cloudy sky (or of rain); Agni, the god of
1 Cf. xi. 16; xiii. 15.
2 Cf. x. 16 ; x. passim \ xvi. 5 and passim.
�Hinduism
3
fire; Surya, god of the sun ; Savitri, Pushan, and
finally Vishnu — at that time a sun-god of quite
inferior note; Vayu, god of the air; the Maruts, or
storm gods ; Rudra, father of the Maruts, a third-rate
deity, but (like Vishnu) elevated in later times to a
position of supreme prominence under the name of
Siva\ Yama, the first of the Blessed (z>. of men
elevated to heaven), afterwards the dread king of
hell; the Aswins, healers of men; Ushas, goddess of
dawn ; Saraswati, goddess of a river of that name,
and now surviving as the goddess of eloquence, etc.
—making in all a total of thirty-three—eleven in
heaven, eleven on earth, and eleven in mid-air. Each
of these objects was separately worshipped as supreme
by prostrations, oblations, sacrifices of the goat, cow,
horse, and even man. It is difficult to judge how far
they were regarded polytheistically as distinct
divinities, or monotheistically as various aspects of
one and the same all-pervading power. Enough to
say that a noble and elevated tone pervades the
hymns throughout, far different from that of most
later literature. In fact, in no instance is the down
ward tendency from primitive to later times more
strongly manifested than in the history of Hinduism
viewed from the starting-point of the Rig Veda, thus
rendering difficult any theory of the consistent up
ward evolution of religions generally. Even Rigvedism itself seems already to mark a downward
departure from a more primitive belief in one God.
In certain social points, too, now identified religiously
with Hinduism, the same evidence appears. In the
Rig-vedic times caste was unknown. Even the priest
class were men of the world, and in no way an exclu
sive racial clique.1 Women were in full enjoyment
of a healthy social liberty and equality with men,
sharers in sacrifice and praise ; and some of them were
counted even as priestesses. They married at a reason
able age, had some voice in the choice of their
1 Cf xiii. 18.
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The History of Religions
husbands, were free to re-marry, and the ritual suicide
of Sati was unknown. The people had no religious
restrictions in the use of meat and drink. The dead
were sometimes cremated, but also sometimes buried.
The chief aim of worship was indeed to secure pros
perity in this world, but conceptions of sin and
forgiveness were not wanting.1 The people believed
in the happiness of a future state, and the doctrine of
transmigration was unknown. Neither (except in a
few hymns of undoubtedly late origin) is there any
suggestion of the pantheism of a later age, nor of any
official intermingling of magic with religion.
Second Period : 1000-800 b.c.
By a convenient speculation, the compilation of the
Rig Veda may be placed somewhere between 1500
and 1000 B.C., and its place of composition was the
Punjab. With similarly convenient definiteness we
can assign the composition of the other three Vedas
to somewhere between 1000 and 800 B.C., during
which time the Aryans pressed on from the country
of the Indus and settled in the Jumna and Ganges
plains as far eastwards as Behar. The literature
which came into existence during this second period
is as follows:—(1) The Sama Veda, a collection of
sacrificial chants taken from the Rig Veda and
arranged for solemn recitation or singing to music;
(2) The Yajur Veda, a collection of sacrificial
formulas ; (3) The Atharva Veda, including a few
late hymns from the Rig Veda, but consisting chiefly
of “ mantras ”—spells against evil, incantations against
diseases, imprecations against demons, sorcerers, and
enemies, and charms for securing prosperity and
success. This document may not indicate the origin
of magic, but certainly reveals its gradual incorpora
tion with religion, thus marking a clear stage of
degradation.2 For centuries it was not regarded as a
1 Cf. xiii. 29,
2 Cf. i. 9 ; xiii. 2,
�Hinduism
5
sacred book, and only became incorporated into the
canon after religious degeneracy had prepared the
way.
Subsequently to the foregoing Vedas, and now at
least regarded also as Vedas, came a series of com
mentaries called Brahmanas. They deal with the
procedure of sacrifice, but are chiefly full of theo
logical and mystical speculations, with citations from
earlier authors now otherwise lost. They mark a
time when the simple and natural worship of the Rig
Veda had expanded into a totally artificial system,
and presuppose as already accomplished the trans
formation which they represent.
Following on the Brahmanas came the Aranyakas
or “forest lectures,” to be read by Brahmins during
their ascetical probation; and secondly the Upanishads,
which show the beginnings of intellectual speculation
in theology—not claiming at the time to be divine
revelations, but “guesses at truth,” and attempts to
penetrate into the problems of the soul, the universe,
and the Supreme Being. In some of these works
there appears a strong tinge of pantheistic specula
tion, which was afterwards developed into a system.
Side by side with the religious transformations
revealed by this literature, social changes of no less
importance were taking place. The original divisions
into four classes—if not indeed a pure myth from
beginning to end—had been established, viz. the
priests, warriors, and agriculturalists, with the Sudras
or incorporated aborigines added as a fourth. It was
only afterwards that caste developed into an ironbound system of social division, and came to be
identified with religion as it now is. The position of
women and their privileges still remained almost
unaffected, while flesh-eating was still in full vogue.
Third Period: 800-500 b.c.
Following on this comes the Sutra or so-called
rationalistic period, which may be placed between 800
�6
The History of Religions
and 500 B.C.1 It is named from the appearance of the
Sutras—treatises of theology, philosophy, law, and
domestic rites. Among these Sutras must be
included the six Darsanas, Shastras, or systems of
philosophy as follows:—(1) Nyaya, mainly a system
of logic, and atheistic in character; (2) Vaiseshika, a
system of atoms and eternal matter, which under
criticism adopted the idea of God, but made souls
eternal before and after, and independent of Him; (3)
Sankhya (the classical system), originally atheistic,
but modified so as to include God ; (4) Yoga, atheistic
adaptation of the Sankhya; (5) Purva Mimansa, an
exegesis on the Vedas ; (6) Uttara Mimansa (also
called the Vedanta), divided into two systems—(«) the
unqualified or extreme, which teaches pure idealism:
“ There is One, and no second ”; the world is an
unreal delusion of Maya; (6) the qualified Vedanta,
which makes the world and souls realities, but still
only forms of the One. Among these treatises the
most celebrated is the Vedanta group, the contents of
which is undoubtedly pantheistic. For though efforts
have been made to use the more theistic portions as a
key for the interpretation of the whole, the Vedantic
philosophy is generally understood in such a way as
to make the name “ Vedantist ” identical with
“ Emanative Pantheist.” This group marks the climax
of theological development in ancient literature—
later writers having done nothing but evolve the
teaching here contained into a more explicit and
methodic form.
At the same time the old religion had in practice
reached its most formalized condition ; though, even
so, there were as yet no temples, no images, and no
fantastic mythology of gods and goddesses such as
constitutes the entire make-up of later Hinduism.2
No doubt the growth of the six Shastras or
philosophies had already given rise to the distinction
1 Cf. xi. 24-26.
2 Cf. xii. 4 ; xiii. 4, 7.
�Hinduism
7
between “ esoteric ” and “ exoteric ” Hinduism ;
philosophical pantheism prevailed among the select
circle of the priestly caste, while the multifarious
ceremonial cult of the people was connived at, fostered,
and encouraged by them as the only form of religion
suited to their lower capacities.
Buddhistic Period: 500
b.c. to
500
a.d.
Gautama Buddha,1 founder of Buddhism in the sixth
century B.C., who came with an answer to a growing
aspiration after a purer and nobler form of faith,
found all the materials out of which to select his
theology in the literature already existing around
him. The conception of Brahma as the unconscious
All, producing souls and matter identical with himself
by means of Maya or the principle of delusion; the
eternity of the universe, souls, and matter before and
after; the union of souls and matter, affording the
condition for consciousness, desire, and action ; karma,
or the good and evil consequences of action; the
transmigrations of souls through an indefinite series
of lives ; release from the series by uprightness of life ;
the attainment of the goal of human destiny by
absorption into the All—these ideas are found already,
some of them first hinted at in the Upanishads, and
all of them expanded and systemized by the six
systems of the Shastras, the latest dating a century
or two before Buddha’s time. What Buddha really
did was this. First, he preached the unreality of the
ritual worship prevalent among the people and the
impotence of priestly ministrations; secondly, he set
about popularizing selected portions of the esoteric
Vedanta—in the light of which he substituted con
templation and self-restraint for ceremonial observ
ances as the means of sanctification and salvation.
In short, the original Buddhism seems to have been
little more than the logical and practical (though
1 Cj. iv. passim.
�8
The History of Religions
eclectic) use of intellectual Hinduism as a solvent to
popular Hinduism. That Buddhism was merely a
practical outcome of a pre-existing theology is perhaps
shown from the fact that just before Buddha’s time
there had started quite independently a parallel move
ment on very similar lines, now known and still surviv
ing under the name of Jainism.1
Buddhism spread gradually throughout the peninsula,
but received its chief push forward from the powerful
patronage of Asoka {circa 250 B.C.).2 The country was
soon covered over with Buddhistic temples and monas
teries, whose material remains are still the delight of
the archaeologist and traveller. A monkish system was
developed on lines so strangely parallel to those of
Christian monasticism as to suggest imitation on one
side or the other; but the likeness is fully explained
by the co-ordinate working out of the same root-idea
of discipline and self-restraint.3
Puranic Period: 500-1000
a.d.
Meantime Brahminism, though much weakened for
a time, was by no means universally superseded, and
gradually reasserted itself among the masses of the
people—not indeed in the Vedic form existing prior
to Buddhism, but in the Puranic, which was itself
even a greater transformation from Vedic Brahminism
than Vedic Brahminism had been from pure RigVedism. The later or Puranic religion, the staple of
modern Hinduism, embodied the full apparatus of a
fanciful mythology, a large pantheon of gods and
goddesses, very human and superhuman and preter
human and infrahuman, with spirits good and evil,
represented by fantastic image-forms and worshipped
with manifold rites. Every action in life and after life,
great and small, was brought under the good and
evil influences of these deities, and prosperity and
1 Cf. iv. 7.
2 Cf ib., 24.
3 Cf ib., 9, 10, 28.
�Hinduism
9
adversity in life were made to depend upon ceremonial
observances of a more or less magical character con
nected with their worship.
But what we want to say at this point is that
Buddhism, with its exacting moral code resting on
transcendental ideas, could not possibly hold its own
among the masses of the people, especially when
placed in rivalry with the attractive concreteness of
the growing Puranic Brahminism. And so Buddhism
was gradually drawn down to the level of its environ
ment. Reverence for Buddha as a saint soon became
worship of Buddha as a god. Other Buddhist saints
were similarly deified, and there grew up a system of
semi-polytheism, semi-saint-worship, in which the
veneration of sacred places and relics formed the
most prominent feature. This change had established
itself by the early centuries of the Christian era ; but
any effective hold upon the mind of the people was
not of long duration. For even with its new popular
attractions Buddhism could hardly compete with the
increasing popularity of Puranism, and the ever grow
ing domination of the Brahminical caste. The result
was that by the twelfth century A.D., Buddhism was
practically obsolete in India, though it survived and
still flourishes in Ceylon, Burma, Thibet, and elsewhere.
Jainism, which went through a similar popularizing
process, managed to survive in certain parts such
as Gujerat, Rajputana, etc.; but for the rest, from
this time forward the new or Puranic Brahminism
prevailed throughout the length and breadth of India,
and prevails still—being adopted not only by the
Aryans, but also by the Dravidians of the south, and
by such portions of the Kolarian tribes as had been
drawn into connection with the Aryan race.
Puranic Hinduism
We have now reached that traditional deposit of
religion which is meant by Hinduism in the ordinary
5
I*
�io
The History of Religions
acceptance of the term. In point of contents it is
extremely heterogeneous and complex, and in various
degrees participated in piecemeal by different sections
of the people; it permeates however the community
as a whole, so that there is a remarkable uniformity
of spirit and practice prevailing throughout the
country. This unity is forced upon the traveller by
the practical fact that the same features recur again
and again in every part, so that after a short time he
finds little or nothing new to be seen—a festival
scene in the great Temple at Madura and another in
the Golden Temple at Benares being undistinguishable except by locality. To put it philosophically,
Hinduism, if taken analytically, divides up into an
amazing complexity of diverse parts which it would
take a volume to enumerate ; but when looked at
synthetically, it is the same one thing in its essential
ideas wherever found. There are thousands of castes,
each with its own distinctive religious practices, and
there are scores of “ sects ” or different religious
allegiances; and yet all share promiscuously in each
other’s practices, the Vishnavite mingling with the
Sivaite, and the worshipper of Ganesh making no
distinction when he comes in front of a shrine of
Vittoba. The primary instinct to worship something
is so strong that it issues readily in the worship
of anything. Hence the Hindus even flock with
Christians to the more famous Catholic shrines, and
make their votive offerings to Our Lady just as they
will make them the next day to Durga or Parvati.
It is quite an ordinary thing to find a Christian grave
of unknown origin turned into a Hindu shrine, and
loaded with bits of rags and faded garlands and
coco-nut shells smeared with butter by way of
sacrifice.
Method
of
Synthesis
“Hinduism—that is, latter-day Hinduism,” writes
Hunter—“ the Hinduism of the Puranas and after
�Hinduism
11
wards—is a social league and a religious alliance. As
the various race-elements of the Indian peoples have
been welded together, the simple old beliefs of the
Veda, the mild doctrines of Buddha, and the fierce
rites of the non-Aryan tribes have been thrown into
the melting-pot, and poured out thence as a mixture
of precious metal and dross to be worked up into the
complex worship of the Hindu gods.” Unfortunately
our literary resources are too scanty to allow anything
like a tracing of the whole process in detail. A few
of the factors can, however, be indicated, even though
their exact share in the results cannot be other than
conjecturally assigned.
Starting from the fact that the systematization of
later Hinduism was the work of the Brahmins and
the stepping-stone to their ascendency, it is easy to
understand that they would use every form of belief
and practice already prevailing among the people as
a means of securing their desired object. And in
justification of this “accommodation” they had a
magnificent instrument at their back. This was none
other than the pantheistic philosophy of the Vedanta.
According to this speculation, the whole universe is
nothing but a kind of shadowy reflection of the One
Infinite Supreme, being really identical with Him, and
only by a delusive limitation of mind conceived as
distinct. It thus becomes not only possible but
inevitable to regard the whole world, and whatever is
in it, not only as a manifestation of God, but as
actually divine, and so capable of receiving divine
worship. If, therefore, the people were found worship
ping forces of nature, spirits, demons, animals, and
even curiously shaped stones, there was no necessity
to convert them from their errors. Once recognize
the all-pervading divinity, and the worship can be
sanctioned as legitimate and embodied into orthodox
Hinduism without essential alteration.
Such is the explanation which you will get now
adays if you catechize a Brahmin priest about the
�12
The History of Religions
many bizarre worships which he encourages and
perhaps takes part in ; and it seems likely that such
was the means by which a large part of the Hindu
pantheon was created. Of the deities of Vedic times
several have thus survived, e.g. Saraswati, Savitri,
Vishnu, and Siva, the two latter of whom had by the
decline of the Buddhist period assumed such impor
tance as almost to eclipse all the rest, and to divide
the country into two enormous sects, of which we
shall have more to say later on. Besides these Vedic
gods there were many others of local origin to be
synthesized. Among them, in the first place, were the
five brothers Pandavas, possibly historical persons,
celebrated by the old epic called the Mahabharata
(500 to 200 B.C.), and afterwards deified and worshipped
collectively under the material form- of five round
stones grouped together. Shrines of this kind can be
found along the roadsides in many parts of the
country. Another was Rama, also a deified hero,
celebrated in the epic called the Ramayana (similar
date). In connection with him comes Hanuman, a
warlike general having the form of a monkey, who
was instrumental in the recovery of Rama’s wife Sita,
and who is still worshipped in many temples as the
“ Monkey-God.” Then comes Krishna, the most
popular of all, celebrated in several of the Puranas ;
probably also a historical personage of great prowess,
afterwards deified and made the subject of a vast
amount of mythology, and then the revealer of a
religious philosophy. Among the rest may be
mentioned Ganesh or Ganpati, a mythological youth
whose head was cut off by his own father Siva, and
replaced by that of an elephant, since when he has
become the god of the domestic hearth and the patron
of successful enterprise. These and a multitude of
decidedly local gods, to say nothing of goddesses
(Kali or Durga, Parvati, Mahaluxmi, etc. etc.), all
found a place in the pantheon under the general
category of manifestations or avatars. Even Buddha
�Hinduism
13
himself was adopted as one among the avatars of
Vishnu.
Siva and Vishnu
As the worship of Vishnu and Siva are almost the
two substantial halves of popular Hinduism, it will be
useful here to enter into summary particulars of the
leading differences between them.
Siva
Vishnu
(1) Originally the vedic god
Rudra, father of the storm
gods, who gradually gained
popularity.
The cult was
especially propagated by Sankaracharya in the eighth
century A.D.
(2) A stern and exacting
deity, standing aloof from men,
who must raise themselves
towards him by painful efforts.
(1) Originally a minor sun
god of Vedic times, who
gradually gained popularity.
The cult was especially propa
gated by Ramanuja in the
eleventh and Chaitanya in the
fourteenth century A.D.
(2) A bright and comfortable
deity, who condescendingly
comes down to the level of
men by avatars or manifesta
tions.
(3) He is worshipped with
festal praise as a king by his
courtiers in “the way of de
votion,” and not of works.
(4) His clients are distin
guished by the use of vertical
paint-marks on the brow.
(5) The theology tends to
theism by emphasizing personal
manifestations of the divinity.
Salvation is a free gift of grace.
(3) He is worshipped by
ascetical practices—“ the way
of works ”—and propitiated by
sacrifices of blood.
(4) His clients are distin
guished by horizontal paint
marks on the brow.
(5) The theology is panthe
istic, and maintains the law of
salvation by works as a means
of final absorption into the
divine.
(6) The worship gives rise
to numerous Jogis, and tends
to acts of excessive penance,
fanaticism, secret sects, and
pious fraud.
(7) The worship of the linga
or generative power is charac
teristic, as well as animal sacri
fice. The objects worshipped
are not regarded as avatars of
the divinity, but as symbols of
his attributes and powers.
(6) The worship tends to
degenerate into licentiousness
sanctified by religion (prosti
tution in temples, etc.).
(7) The principle of avatars
favours polytheism and fetish
by incorporating the worship
of the fish, tortoise, boar, etc.,
and also of deified heroes as
avatars of Vishnu.
�14
The History of Religions
The Avatars
The ten chief avatars or incarnations of Vishnu are
as follows:—
(1) Matsya, the fish. Vishnu becomes a fish to save
Manu, the first progenitor of the human race, from the
deluge.
(2) Kurma, the tortoise. Vishnu appears as a
tortoise in order to rescue certain valuable articles
lost in the deluge.
(3) Varaha, the boar. Vishnu descended to rescue
the world from a demon called Hiranyaksa who had
plunged it beneath the sea.
(4) Nara Sinha, the man-lion. Vishnu, in the form
of a half-man half-lion, delivers the world from a
demon called Hiranya Kasipu, who had appropriated
the sacrifices made to the gods.
These four avatars are said to have taken place in
the Satya, the first or golden age of the world.
(5) Vamana, the dwarf. Vishnu descends as a
dwarf to rescue the world from the power of the
demon Bali. In two strides the dwarf passed over
heaven and earth, but left the third or under world
unreclaimed.
(6) Parashu rama = Rama with the Axe. Born to
suppress the domineering of the Kshatrya or warrior
caste over the Brahmin or priestly caste.
(7) Rama Chandra, the mild or moon-like. A
Kshatrya prince and the hero of the Ramayana epic,
who destroyed the demon Ravana.
These three occurred in the Treta, the second or
silver age.
(8) Krishna, the dark god, the most popular of all.
He appeared at the close of the Dvapara, the third or
copper age, for the destruction of the tyrant Kansa,
who represented the principle of evil. Details of his
later life are woven into the Mahabharata epic, but his
principal place is in the Puranas. Some say, however,
�Hinduism
15
that he was not an avatar of Vishnu, but Vishnu
himself.
(9) Buddha, adopted as the ninth incarnation in
order to incorporate the Buddhists under the Brahmin
domination.
(10) Kalki, who is yet to appear at the close of the
fourth—the present—“ kali ” or iron age, riding on a
white horse, and restoring the first or golden age
once more. Hence the many votive images of horses
ranged round the temples of southern India, in the
hope of hastening his looked-for advent.
Some of the present-day Hindus are said to have
adopted Queen Victoria (embodiment of the British
power), and others, it is reported, have tried to adopt
Christ, as additional avatars of Vishnu.
The word Avatar means “descent.” Its meta
physics do not seem to have been explicitly analyzed.
On the one hand, it is said that avatars are not incar
nations in the sense of adopting or assuming a finite
object into union with the godhead—that Krishna,
for instance, is not God-made-man but God-mademanifest—God pure and simple, manifested under the
appearance of a human form—theophany, not incar
nation. On the other hand, different degrees of avatar
are specified according to the proportion of divinity
contained in the object, thus: (1) the full divinity, as
Krishna; (2) half the divinity, as Rama; (3) quarter
divinity, as Bharata; (4) one-eighth divinity, as
Lakshmana and Satrughna ; and (5) a mere infusion
of divine powers and qualities into men, animals,
plants, or even stones.
The Hindu Trinity
The cults of Vishnu and Siva were at first developed
separately among different sections of the people.
When the two forms of worship came face to face with
each other their votaries maintained a sharp opposition
between them as between two rival gods. But efforts
�16
The History of Religions
were made by the Brahmins to bring the two into
harmony. This they did by putting forward Brahma,
Vishnu, and Siva together as three different aspects
of the one Supreme Being, viz. as Creator, Preserver,
and Destroyer respectively. More philosophically
speaking, Brahma represents the principle of origina
tion, Vishnu the principle of continuation, and Siva
the principle of mutation—the destruction of one
thing with the emergence of another. By this means
was constructed the Hindu Trimurthi or Trinity,
which came to be represented in concrete form by a
three-headed and six-armed human figure. The two
ways of devotion and of works were also synthesized
into one called “ the way of knowledge,” and the
Bhagavat Purana was written to express this combina
tion. The scheme was successful. The two sects
continued to exist distinct, but in peace and mutual
tolerance, and the two worships soon came to be
practised promiscuously by both parties alike.
How far the Hindu Trinity is in analogy with the
Christian depends on the point of view. The Trimurthi
was formed late enough to be an imitation of Christian
doctrine, but is probably nothing of the kind, as its
origin can be explained by the exigencies of Hinduism
at the time. The problem was how to reconcile the
claims of two rival divinities without sacrificing either,
and at the same time to uphold the reality of Brahma
himself as the one true God. And the solution by
aspects, modes, or roles (like the theory of Sabellianism)
was the obvious way out of the difficulty. A panthe
istic god can contain a million distinct hypostases
just as easily as he can contain one. The Christian
difficulty, “ How can there be processiones reales ad
intra, or a triplicity of really distinct hypostases in
an infinitely simple substance ? ” is in pantheistic
Hinduism extended to the whole universe, and takes
the form “ How can the One be also the manifold, or
the unconditioned be also the conditioned ? ” The
Christian meets the crux by reasserting the facts of
�Hinduism
17
revelation, and leaving the how a strict mystery. The
Hindu cuts the knot by saying that the manifold and
the conditioned are not realities, but delusions of
Maya, and that in truth there is “only the One, and
no other.”
Considering the prominence of Siva and Vishnu in
the scheme of Hindu worship, it is strange to find
that so little attention has been given to Brahma.
Although Brahma was in Hindu philosophy no other
than the One Supreme himself, and the one all-com
prehensive object of adoration among the esoteric
elite, his worship never formed any part of the popular
programme. No temple or shrine of his exists to
day in India, nor has any existed for a thousand
years past—a few very ancient and insignificant
instances in remote parts being occasionally unearthed
by archseologists. The fact that the One Supreme
God himself is about the only object not provided for
in Hindu worship would seem to lend itself to scath
ing satire. This, however, is disarmed by the reply
that since Brahma as such is the infinite unconscious
principle, devoid of attributes or qualities, he is there
fore incapable of providing a tangible object of
worship—not because he is below our esteem, but
because he is above our comprehension. It is only
as the conditioned that the Supreme can become
manifest to our minds ; and since Vishnu and Siva,
the principles of continuity and change, are the most
radical of these manifestations, they therefore form
the first and most ultimate objects of feasible worship.
Starting from Vedantic premises the answer is valid.
Medieval Goddess-worship
A word about the goddesses of Hinduism, who are
almost invariably represented as wives of the gods.
The idea of a female principle in the divinity, though
to our minds bizarre on account of its human associa
tions, philosophically seems to express no more than
�18
The History of Religions
the principle of fecundity, or the terminus a quo of
production. In fact “matter” in the Vedantic phi
losophy is nothing other than a sort of womb out of
which the divine power produces the manifold of
creation. It may be described as the divine substance
regarded as impregnated by the divine activity, and
affording a substratum for the multiplication of finite
form (cf principium individuationis}. That the female
principle is really identified with the male is shown
from the fact that, nowadays at least, the wives of the
gods are not supposed to be worshipped apart from, but
rather in conjunction with their husbands, though
the unreflecting masses may not always discriminate.
So far in the abstract. Practically, however, the
idea of the female principle did at one time develop
into a distinct cult—and one both professedly licentious
and deeply superstitious—under the name of Saktism,
or, from the writings which embody it, Tantrism.
Curiously enough, the female was not regarded as the
passive but as the active principle, so that Saktism
(as implied by the name) was a worship of active
force. It included at once the most debased use of
magic, and the practice of promiscuous intercourse in
the temple precincts. It is said that in the twelfth
century A.D., Saktism was prevalent throughout
India, though at the present time it seems to survive
only in a few parts, of which Bengal is one. During
that period Hindus were divided into “ right-hand
worshippers,” who made the Puranas their real Veda,
and were devoted in the ordinary way to Siva,
Vishnu, Krishna, and their wives taken in practical
identity with them, and “ left-hand worshippers,”
who made the Tantras their real Veda, and worshipped
the female counterpart of the deities (Durga, Radha,
Sita, etc.) as separate goddesses presiding over the
two operations of sexual intercourse and magic.
This corrupt state of things soon gave rise to several
reforming sects, called after their founders the Nimbarkas, Madhvacaryas, Vallabhacaryas, Ramanujas,
�Hinduism
19
Ramandas, and Chaitanyas, dating from the twelfth to
the fifteenth centuries, and many others later—all ot
which worked for the betterment of religion in various
parts of India, and, though now merged and forgotten
as sects, seem to have succeeded in bringing Hinduism
back from the lower abyss of degradation into which
it had sunk,and leaving the less objectionable Puranism
of the “ right-hand worshippers ” for the most part in
possession down to this day.
It is to be remarked that Sivaism, which is charac
terized by its linga or phallus worship, was the source
whence Saktism or Tantrism was developed. Yet
this development was not an outcome of phallus
worship, but of the worship of female fecundity.
Secondly, that lihga-worship is not, as one might
expect, licentious, but, on the contrary, rather austere.
It is significant to note in this connection that in
modern times, since Tantrism has practically disap
peared, sanctified licentiousness is not attached to the
worship of Siva and the linga, but to that of Vishnu,
the god of divine grace and condescension, especially
in connection with the worship of Krishna, who is
supposed to derive sensuous pleasure from seeing the
immodest caresses of his maharajas or priestly repre
sentatives on earth. These favours are regarded by the
people of that sect, even married women, as the
greatest honour and privilege they can receive. To
what extent this immoral view prevails is unascertainable. It certainly cannot be imputed to Hindus in
general, especially educated ones, and at most it
exists only among the professedly Vishnuite section.
The Puranas
~ Modern Hinduism is undoubtedly much more com
prehensive than the Puranas; but as.it is so often
called by that name, we ought to add just a word on
those documents. The existing works are eighteen
in number, of which the Vayu Matsya and Vishnu
puranas are the oldest, dating possibly from the fourth
�20
The History of Religions
to the sixth century A.D. They are very miscellaneous
in contents, and most of them probably composite,
embodying much historical tradition, inextricably
intermingled with legend and moral or theological
teaching, as well as rules for ceremonies. Six
(Rajasa) relate mainly to Brahma, six (Sattvika) to
Vishnu, and six (Tamasa) to Siva. They seem all to
have been compiled with a view of promoting some
phase of Brahminical teaching, especially the tri
murthi and the idea of incarnations or avatars. They
came to be called “the Veda of the common people
and of women, ’ and form the staple religious reading
of the ordinary Hindu who cares to read at all.
Extracts from them are habitually recited or embodied
in songs.
The almost total severance between the later
Puranic and the earlier Vedic Hinduism has been
sufficiently remarked as regards the objects of worship.
Another difference is the introduction of images or
idol worship in the later religion; the building of
numberless temples, pilgrimages to famous shrines,
the upgrowth of many fantastic rites, including bath
ing in sacred rivers for the instantaneous washing
away of sins, etc. In addition should be mentioned
the observance of signs and omens, and the magical
use of incantations in connection with every important
incident of daily life, and an elaborate code of caste
and social ceremonies regarded as of vital importance
and as integral to religion—so much so that it has
been said that in India “ caste is religion, and religion
is caste.” Among peculiarities which would specially
strike a Christian, it should be mentioned that the
essentials of worship are all strictly domestic. When
(as on feast days) temples are visited, this is always
individually, there being nothing in Hinduism analo
gous to collective public worship, or our system of
preaching sermons or giving public instructions. The
management of the domestic observances is in the
hands of the family priest (always a Brahmin). The
�Hinduism
%i
children pick up the practices of their mothers with
out anything like a course of instruction on their
meaning or on the fundamental truths of theological
belief—although in the better educated families such
instruction is said to form part of the domestic pro
gramme. But it is extremely difficult for the outsider
to penetrate into the domestic workings of the Hindu
religion.
Meaning of Idol-worship
As regards the use of idols or images, it is well to
be on our guard against the somewhat naive idea of
“ stock-and-stone worship” prevalent among many,
viz. the notion that image worshippers really worship
material objects, viewing them at the same time
simply as such. Among students of comparative
religion no such idea prevails. All writers I have
seen are unanimous in understanding that image
worship (and even the grossest fetish) is animistic in
its lower forms and symbolic or representative in its
higher.1 Where the concrete object is directly made
an object of adoration, this is always because it is
viewed not merely as the material thing which it
appears, but because it is invisibly permeated or
animated by the presence of spirit, of which it is
merely the dwelling-place and vehicle; cf. the
doctrines of consubstantiation and transubstantiation
in the Blessed Eucharist.
Hindus have their
recognized ritual for inducing the presence of the god,
and even of causing its cessation. At the beginning
of the Ganpati feast the images, hitherto nothing but
clay, are consecrated, and then worshipped as divine.
At the close, the god is literally cast out by another
ceremony, after which the images are thrown away,
eg., into the sea. Apart from this, the presence of
a god can be induced by the simple expedient of
covering any suitable object with vermilion paint, a
1 Cf. i. 4; xiii. 3, 16 note.
�22
The History of Religions
modern substitute for the original use of blood. In
country parts the villagers will smear any fantasticallyshaped boulder they find in the neighbourhood, and
thereby set up what may in time become a per
manent shrine. Most of the ancient monuments
have been spoiled in this way by smudges of red
paint placed on the sculptures, eg. Elephanta, Ellora,
Pandu Lena, etc.
The more educated, especially those under Western
influences, adopt the higher or symbolic explanation,
viz. that the image is merely a symbol of some
attribute of the deity, or a representation of some
legendary fact—to be venerated by association as
Catholics venerate images, but not to be directly
worshipped. Thus one Brahmin priest said, “The
common people believe that the God is here, but we
believe that God is up there” Another said, “We
call this God and that God, for this is Siva and that
is Vishnu. They are all Gods, and yet there is only
one God.” A third explained, “We adore not the
image but the God in the image, because he dwells
there.” On asking them whether God was not
everywhere present; and if so, why say that He dwells
in this image? I managed, with a little help, to
elicit the answer, “ God is present everywhere, for
He is everything and in everything. What we mean
is only that He is more operative towards us in the
image than apart from it.” An educated layman told
me that three-quarters of his fellow-countrymen
believed in the real presence of the god in the image,
and that the other quarter, who reduced it to a symbol
merely, were not true Hindus. The educated
Brahmin, however, with his esoteric philosophy, would
probably not admit this latter aspersion.
The Mind of the People
Among the great mass of the people there is
nothing like a reasoned belief. Even among the
�Hinduism
23
educated, who will talk of the Sacred Books as the
great charter of their religion, the Vedas are little
read, if only because the knowledge of Sanskrit is so
rare as to attract attention where found. Those
interested in scientific theology are, it would seem,
generally Vedanists; but opportunities of meeting
men who show knowledge in this subject are few and
far between. The general attitude is one of implicit
and unreasoned practice of whatever the Brahmins
tell them to do, and a blind following of ceremonial
hereditary in the family. The least touch of Western
education seems to act as a solvent even of this amount
of orthodoxy; with the result that the men become
totally indifferent, and leave the religious usages of
the family to the women-sort. Intercourse with
educated Hindus shows that they possess a great
capacity for religious discussion, and generally a keen
interest in listening to religious teaching; but the
tolerance and sympathy thus shown rarely issues in
any practical result. The Hindu mind is so imbued
with the spirit of heredity that when he gives up the
practice of his own religion he feels no disposition
to embrace any other ; he thinks that being born a
Hindu, he must inevitably remain a Hindu, and a
Hindu means in religion Hinduism or nothing. The
result is that many at the present time absorb a large
amount of Christian thought and feeling and
appreciate its moral and mental value, but are no
nearer the prospect of embracing Christianity as such
than they were before hearing a word of it.
Chief Blots
on
Hinduism
The chief blots on the social-religious system of the
Hindus—for “ social ” and “ religious ” among them
are inseparable—are as follows:—
(1) The iron-bound system of caste, though useful
in certain respects, stands in the way of all social
expansion and development, and especially of any
�24
The History of Religions
thing like racial or national unification. It places
artificially a far wider gulf between pure Hindu and
pure Hindu (otherwise equal in mental and social
qualities) than nature itself seems to have placed
between European and Asiatic, or between the white
and the coloured man. On the other hand, the
formal means by which one who has broken caste can
secure recovery tend to expose the system itself to
ridicule and contempt.
(2) The inability of the higher castes to touch food
unless prepared by one of a caste equal to or superior
to their own. An orthodox Hindu servant of high
caste recently starved himself almost to death for five
days on board ship from Calcutta to Madras, and had
to be put on land and sent back by his master simply
for this reason: a more incapacitating piece of
ceremonialism could hardly be imagined, or a more
dismal slavery to superstition. Apart from such
emergencies, the system is an insuperable barrier to
the intercourse required in modern times if social
progress is to have place. Nothing brings home
more clearly the unhuman effects of this system than
the fact which I have personally experienced more
than once, that a European pedestrian in the country,
half-dying with thirst, may ask dozens of times for a
“ cup of cold water” in vain—even from those actually
drawing water from a well. This comes not from
any ill-nature or want of friendliness, but from a
mortal dread of having their drinking-vessels defiled
by the touch of a stranger.
(3) The practice of infant marriage, and, above all,
the prohibition of those thus married in infancy to
marry anyone else in case their tiny husband dies.
These enforced widows are looked upon with the
greatest contempt, and the usage is rife with evil
consequences in the form of illicit intercourse and
prostitution.
(4) The supreme emphasis laid on formal observ
ances, not only for the securing of good-luck, but
�Hinduism
25
also for the attainment of sanctity, forgiveness, and
salvation—thus putting the importance of a virtuous
life in the background, and robbing sin of its penalties
by means of an extravagant and debased sacramentalism. One who bathes in the Ganges or the
Godavery is made wholly clean, and he who dies at
Benares goes straight to heaven, and so on.
(5) The mortal dread of misfortune if the ceremon
ial observances of religion are even for any excusable
motive omitted. This dread of the penalties of omis
sion is the great mainstay of Hindu practice, and the
result is to rob it of all real religious value and reduce
it to a mere policy of “saving one’s skin.”
(6) The total stoppage of the most important busi
ness enterprises at a critical moment simply because
an unlucky omen has been observed. Only the other
day a bargain in land was just on the point of being
signed when the purchaser, looking at the plan,
perceived that the plot was “ tiger-shaped ”—what we
should call leg-of-mutton-shaped, more or less—and
therefore bound to bring ill-luck. At no price what
ever would the man entertain the purchase after
that.1
(7) The supremacy of the Brahmin and the Jogi,
involving as it does a cruel incubus 0^ the people, and
the encouragement of professional vagabondage and
roguery. Mortal dread of the power of a Brahmin’s
curse drives people to do whatever is demanded of
them, thus turning what might be charity into brutal
compulsion. Moreover, this no doubt stands as a
strong obstacle to the people entertaining the idea of
any change of religion.
Other blots are of a more local character, and would
be repudiated by the better kind of Hindus as outside
the range of true orthodoxy. For instance, Thuggee,
of course, or the religious sanctificationzof murder,
now extinct; dacoity or highway-robbery similarly
sanctified (both peculiar only to a few remote tribes);
1 C/. xiii. 23, 24.
f
�26
The History of Religions
Sati, or the burning of the widow beside the pyre of
the husband (now made penal by English law, but
occurring occasionally on the sly); the use of obscene
language on certain festival occasions; prostitution in
temples under the cloak of “ espousal to the gods,”
etc.
More attractive Features
Of the more attractive points in Hinduism are the
following:—
(1) The way in which religion permeates the whole
life—in diametrical opposition to the idea that religion
is a Sunday affair, or a separate department in which
a small fraction of life must be given to God and the
rest taken for ourselves.
(2) Beautiful traits -of religious symbolism, some
times underlying what to the outsider seem to be
grotesque and monstrous forms. Thus a hideous idol
often embodies a sublime thought, or at least is made
the vehicle for it—according to Hunter, “the precious
metal mingled with the dross.”
(3) A deep and far-reaching family-spirit, which
binds the members together throughout their lives,
generation after generation—proving no doubt an
intolerable nuisance at times, but certainly a powerful
object-lesson to the West, where the spirit of family
life is so badly on the wane.1
(4) A tender regard for life and for the sufferings
of the lower creation—which, regarded as a system, is
not perhaps theologically sound. It probably rests
on the belief in transmigration, according to which any
particular plague-rat may be a man’s ancestress. But
it is nevertheless a beautiful feature in itself, and an
eloquent set-off against all tendencies to recklessness
and cruelty.
It is curious, however, that this
tenderness for life, and even the belief in the divinity
of the cow, does not for a moment prevent a driver
1 Cf, ii. 13 ; xiii. 9.
�Hinduism
from habitually twisting his animal’s tail till it
becomes one long string of knotty disfigurements.
This may sometimes be his only way of getting the
beast to move, and so facts become too strong for
faith; which perhaps may excuse the inconsistency.
When it comes to pass that a Hindu will rather
let himself be bitten into a piebald condition than
lift his hand to kill a flea, it seems going a little
too far.
(5) Almsgiving as a regular habit of life, not only
to strolling Jogis but also to all and sundry beggars.
A well-to-do Hindu carries a pocketful of small
copper coins ready for all applicants. He never
rebuffs a beggar rudely, or refuses him an alms until
his pocket is empty, and then politely indicates the
fact by a sign, which is always respectfully accepted
as final. The literal teaching of the Gospel on the
one hand, and the economic, social, and moral
objections to indiscriminate almsgiving on the other,
here begin to loom strong on the horizon. So we
must confine ourselves to remarking on the beauty of
the trait, whatever criticism may be involved.
(6) A certain stability in the social order, and a
certain habitual discipline borne in upon the individual,
through the rules of caste. The'existence of caste
has hitherto made the Hindu an easy people to
govern, and its breaking down is opening the way
to a perilous unsettlement and unrest.
Relations to Christianity
(1) Down to quite recent times the influence of
Christianity on Hindu thought and worship may be
safely regarded as nil, with the exception of the later
aspects of Krishna-worship. An attempt has been
made to show that the portrayal of Krishna as a
baby-god, which occurs as a late development, is a
conscious imitation of the child Jesus; and the
spiritual doctrine of personal devotion and renuncia-
�28
The History of Religions
tion, or of giving oneself over to the divinity by
faith and self-abandonment (embodied in the Bagavad
Gita), is also probably the outcome of Christian
influence. The Brahmo and Arya Samajs, instituted
for the purification of popular Hinduism, though
professedly returning to the purity of the Vedic
religion, show themselves imbued with an ethos
borrowed from non-Catholic Christianity. At the
present day educated Hindus, including Brahmins,
show a marked tendency to explain matters in
Christian terminology and in analogy with Christian
belief and practice. They do not, as a rule, acknow
ledge indebtedness, but endeavour rather, by searching
their own books or by free allegorizing, to show that
Hinduism already contains everything, and needs no
help from outside sources.
(2) The antagonism between Christianity and
intellectual Hinduism is most marked.
Vedantic Hinduism
Christian Theism
(1) God, as He is in Himself,
absolutely unknowable and in
capable of definite attributions.
(1) God, as He is in Himself,
knowable correctly though in
adequately under definite attri
butions.
(2) The universe a creation
of the divine power, real, and
substantially distinct from the
divine substance.
(2) The universe an emana
tion of the divine substance,
unreal and delusive when
viewed as distinct from the
divine substance.
(3) The universe eternal
before and after, and in a
state of unending cyclic flux.
(4) Spirit, soul, and body, all
three distinct, and yet all in
different ways identical in
essence with the One and the
All.
(5) The spirit in each indi
vidual man identically the one
same infinite spirit pervading
all.
(3) The universe finite, with
a beginning in time, and not
(at least of necessity) to last
for ever.
(4) Spirit and soul identical,
but neither soul nor body
identical in essence with the
One or the All, but only
“according to his image and
likeness.”
(5) The spirit in each indi
vidual man a self-contained
entity, separately created by
�Hinduism
Vedantic Hinduism
(6) An eternal series of lives
(by transmigration) brought to
an end only by achieving a
conscious identification of self
with the Supreme.
(7) Probation continued in
definitely until a man has
attained absolute perfection.
No finality of the state of
punishment.
(8) The inexorable reign of
karma, or the causality of
actions; the effects of evil
actions being cancelled only
by equivalent good actions—a
system of rigid causality in
volving the denial of anything
like mercy, forgiveness, vicari
ous atonement or redemption.
(9) The consequent negation
of moral and personal relations
between God and man. In
God no such attribute as
holiness, love, freedom of will,
providence, retributive judge
ment, or the prerogatives of
Creator, Lord, Master, Re
deemer, etc.
(10) No idea of personal
service, sanctification and sal
vation being self-centred and
autonomous. Each man at
once master and slave of his
own karma ; no real fear,
loyalty, gratitude or love to
God, and no proper idea of
the meaning of sin.
29
Christian Theism
(6) One life only, followed «
after death by perseverance of
individual existence — capable
of moral union with, but not
physical absorption into, the
Supreme.
(7) Probation closed ab
solutely at the end of this one
life, and followed by eternal
fixity either in heaven or in
hell.
(8) Causality of actions of
secondary import ; moral effect
all-important, viz. outrage of
the divine law. Effects of evil
actions cancelled by repentance
and by gratuitous forgiveness
through the mercy of God, and
this on a basis of vicarious
atonement.
(9) The consequent belief in
personal and moral relations
between God and man. In
God there are the attributes
of holiness, love, freedom of
will, providence, retributive
judgement, and the preroga
tives of Creator, Lord, Master,
Redeemer, etc.
(10) Personal service the
very essence of religion ; sancti
fication and salvation the work
of God, requiring only the co
operation of man. Hence the
spirit of loyalty, gratitude, and
love to God, and an intense
realization of the proper mean
ing of sin.
The radical antagonism is therefore strongest in
Vedantic Hinduism. The more theistic philosophies
obliterate some but substitute other points of
difference; eg. the Nyaya system, which, while
representing God as eternal and personal, regards
souls as also eternal and independent of Him; and
�30
The History of Religions
similarly with the Vaiseshika system, which is
developed on atomistic lines. But it is the Vedanta
which prevails most widely among those who cultivate
speculative theology at all.
(3) Strange to say, with all its aberrations in the
way of superstition, popular Hinduism is not so
radically opposed to Christianity as is the philosophical.
The mass of Hindus, even if tinged with pantheistic
ideas, do practically regard God as a personal being
with attributes, and by them religion is viewed as
service. They believe in the divine governance of
the world, though in a way sadly degraded to a kind
of fatalism. They seem to have a notion of the
divine mercy and forgiveness, though again debased
into a hideous sacramentalism, more or less inde
pendent of repentance and a virtuous life. The use
of images and of symbolical ceremonies would be
theoretically unobjectionable, at least from the
Catholic point of view, were it not centred round
objects both mythical and unworthy of the Divine
Being, and associated with astrology and magic. The
radical antagonism between the popular religion and
Christianity lies rather in these main points: (1) The
idea of heredity (Hindu by birth = Hindu by religion).
(2) Hence no notion of truth as a criterion of religion,
or of rational inquiry into the truth of religion on a
basis of historical fact. (3) The identification of
religion with caste, so that no Hindu can change his
religion, even on conviction, without being penalized
as an outcaste; and, of course (4) the mythology,
superstition, magic and fatalism which run through the
system.
Hints on Interpretation
Finally, I deem it necessary to warn Europeans
approaching Hinduism against certain prejudices
which tend to putting the worst instead of the best
interpretation on things read or seen—thus making
Hinduism in many respects appear far otherwise than
�Hinduism
3i
a more intimate knowledge shows it to be. These
prejudices arise partly from pure and simple precon
ceptions, based no doubt on an appreciation of the ex
cellence of Christianity and the inferiority of paganism,
etc. But they arise also from the totally different con
stitution of the Eastern as compared with the Western
mind. The Western temperament is primarily matterof-fact, or, if you like, historical and scientific ; while
the Eastern temperament is primarily romantic, poetic,
and artistic. Whereas in so vital a matter as religion
our first query would be, “ Is it a fact ?”, the oriental
mind, left to itself, would hardly ever dream of asking
such a question. Instead of the fact, he always looks
to the idea; and the acceptability of the idea is his
criterion of assent. To him it is a matter of supreme
indifference whether Vishnu ever made his nine
“ descents ” in history or not. Enough if the idea is
there as part of his traditional inheritance and
edifies his mind. He would be just as ready to
worship Christ as he is to worship Krishna, if only
Christ were presented to him in an acceptable light
and embodied for him in his code. Moreover, the
power of the Hindu to work in symbols is enough
to amaze the Western spectator. He will tell you
how a certain god—I forget his name, but he is repre
sented in scores of rustic shrines under the form of a
shapeless trunk without arms or legs or nose, but with
two eyes of porcelain glaring monstrously out of a
pudding-face where the breast ought to be—how this
god lost his limbs through nameless diseases contracted
by.a licentious life ; and will then go on to explain it
to mean the divinity labouring and suffering out of
love for mankind ! The instance is an extreme one,
but illustrates my point—viz. that the various gro
tesquenesses of the Hindu religious apparatus must
not .be judged altogether by their surface appearance
or literal sense, but by the sometimes far-fetched but
sometimes apt and beautiful imagery which may
underlie it in the worshipper’s mind.
�32
The History of Religions
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Sacred Books of the East described and examined, Christian
Literature Society for India, London and Madras. Vol. I., on the
Vedas and Brahmanas, three tracts; Vol. II., Philosophical Works
and Law Books, five tracts; Vol. III., Epic Poems and Puranas,
three tracts ; Hindu Philosophy, seven tracts under the heading
Hinduism and Christianity; Popular Hinduism, five tracts;
Papers for Thoughtful Hindus, sixteen tracts, especially Nos. 2, 7,
10, 11, 14. These tracts are most useful for gaining a clear idea
of Hinduism.
The Hymns of the Rig Veda, translated by Griffith, 2 vols., Lazarus &
Co., Benares.
The Hymns of the Sama Veda, by Griffith, 1 vol.
The Hymns of the Atharva Veda, by Griffith, 2 vols.
A metrical translation of Valuiski’s Ramayan by Griffith, 1 vol.—
illustrates extravagance of the Hindu imagination.
Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, London, 1868, 5 vols. Excellent for
Vedic age, giving many translations, but chiefly useful for orientalists.
Muller, Sacred Books of the East, especially vols. on Upanishads,
Vedas, Puranas, Law-books—important but costly works.
Williams, Brahminism and Hinduism, or Religious Thought and Life
in India ; also Hinduism, S.P.C.K., 1885 ; also Indian Wisdom ;
also Modern Hinduism and the Indians.
Barth, Religions of India, Triibner.
Davies, Hindu Philosophy, also The Bhagavad Gi.a, Triibner.
Jacob, A Manual of Hindu Pantheism, Triibner.
Gough, Philosophy of the Upanishads and Ancient Indian Metaphysics,
Triibner.
Madhava Acharya, The Sarva Darsana Samgraha, translated by
Cowell and Gough.
Ballantyne, The Sankhya Aphorisms of Kapila.
Burnell. The Ordinances of Manu.
Wortham, The Satakas of Bhartrihati—a sample of Hindu poetry,
sensuality, asceticism, and pessimism.
Wilkins, Hindu Mythology ; also Modern Hinduism, Fisher Unwin,
1887 ; also Daily Life and Work in India.
Crooke, Popular Religion and Folklore of R orthem India, Constable,
1896.
Wheeler, History of India, 4 vols. ; or Short History, I vol.
Padfield, The Hindu at Home.
Dubois, Hindu Manne/s, Customs, and Ceremonies.
Hull, Studies in Idolatry ; also Studies in Hinduism, part i., “Examiner”
Reprints, Bombay.
Dutt, Civilisation in Ancient India, 2 vols.—paints India in rather
glowing colours.
Hunter, Indian Empire.
Macdonell, Sanskrit Literature, Heinemann, London.
Central Hindu College, Elementary and Advanced Text-books of Hindu
Religion and Morals—considerably tinctured with ideas borrowed
from the West, but otherwise enlightening.
Cyclopadia of India, introductory article, Thacker, I9°9—a g°°d
summary conspectus.
�
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I
CHRISTIANITY AND EDUCATION
IN INDIA.
LECTURE
A
DELIVERED AT ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LONDON,
NOVEMBER 12, 1871.
BY
A.
JYRAM
ROW,
OF MYSORE.
PUBLISHED
BY THOMAS
MOUNT PLEASANT, RAMSGATE.
Price Sixpence.
SCOTT,
�»ae
�HINDU
EDUCATION.
Ladies and Gentlemen,—The subject we are come
together this evening to consider is one, the import
ance of which it is scarce possible to estimate too
highly. Viewed in its integrity—in the vastness of
the interests at stake on its proper solution—interests,
not simply of a speculative character, but as connected
with the destinies of a considerable portion of man
kind, I should be more sanguine than wise if I
flattered myself that I could do the barest justice
to it.
Agitated as is the human mind in our times with
thousands of questions, more or less directly bearing
on human advancement, I know none more exciting
in their immediate interest, more momentous in their
ultimate results, in short, more imperative in their
demand on our deepest attention, than those which
have for their solution the complicated phenomena of
social science. Of these, the subject of education, it
will be conceded on all hands, must ever stand out
prominently as the question of questions.
But it is not the question of education in general
that I propose to myself, but the more circumscribed
one of Hindu education. I propose to bring before
you the present state of education in India, its short
comings, and the nature of the emendations it stands
in need of, if it is to succeed at all in the object for
which it has been undertaken. I may further pre
mise that I shall deal with the subject, not only in
its bearings on the regeneration of India, but also in
�4
Christianity and Education in India.
its wider relations to the advancement of science and
the promotion of human welfare in general.
It is well known that in India there are two
systems of education working side by side,—the one
secular and the other religious,—the one conducted
by the Government, the other by Christian Mis
sionaries sent out by this country for the conversion
of the Hindus. Now to take the last first.
rar be it from me to ignore the noble spirit that
supports this enterprise; and farther still to traduce
wantonly, or speak in a spirit of levity of, anything
connected with it. So long as these magnificent
efforts on your part at self-sacrifice are made under
the conviction that we, pagans and heathens, are lost
uidess brought to embrace your faith, and bend our
knees to your idols; so long, I repeat, we cannot be
too grateful. But sooner or later the truth must out,
and, I am sure, you will bear with me, if my very
gratitude for what you are doing for us compels me
to speak candidly the bare unvarnished truth on the
subject. I can conscientiously state, then, and every
one who has any personal knowledge of India will bear
me out in this statement, that Christianity, in spite
of all the efforts of all its zealous apostles, has not
succeeded, and is never likely to succeed, in the land of
the Hindus. It is a notorious fact that, notwith
standing the unremitted operation now nearly for a
century of a vast machinery, specially designed for
this purpose, and worked under the most favourable
auspices, Christianity cannot name its proselytes from
any part of the more intelligent and educated classes
of our community whose total number at any time
could not be counted on one’s fingers. Not less
notorious is the fact that nine hundred and ninetynine out of every thousand of the converted Hindus
are from the very dregs, the Parias, of our population.
There is scarcely, too, one in a thousand among them
who can so much as conceive the simplest points of
�Christianity and Education in India.
5
divergence between the faith he has abandoned and
the faith he has embraced.
The rationale of this inevitable state of things is
not very far to seek. The whole of the Hindu com
munity, for our present purpose, may be divided into
four classes, not in accordance with the ordinary
distinction of castes, but with the mental peculiarities
observable among them. Our first division will com
prise those who have received no education, either
English or Hindu ; the second, those who possess an
elementary knowledge of English, with a tolerable
acquaintance with their own literature; while the
third shall hold together those who, not being satis
fied with the rudiments of education vouchsafed them
by their thrifty Government, have pushed their
curiosity into the forbidden precincts of science, as
far, at least, as their unassisted efforts might avail
them, and have made themselves familiar, if not with
the more recondite truths and processes of its various
departments, at least with their general results, and
the more fundamental methods of inductive investiga
tion. There remains now the fourth class to cha
racterize, which, after the above assignments, must
evidently consist of those Hindus who, though devoid
of English education, and a knowledge of European
science, are yet the repositories of all that is highest
and soundest in Hindu philosophy and Hindu science,
such as they may be. Now to review each class, in
order, in its relations to Christianity and the possible
points of contact between them, where alone the
latter might exert any influence.
We have seen that the characteristic of our first
division is the absence of all education. And hence
the presence of ignorance in unmitigated intensity.
Now ignorance and superstition must ever go
hand in hand.
The rampant extravagances of the
latter are a necessary consequence of the former.
The same faculty of analogical reasoning, which
�6
„
Christianity and Education in India.
under due subordination to wide inductions and
subject to continued processes of verification or correc
tion, results in the highest triumphs of science, leads,
in the absence of these safeguards, to the grossest
fallacies of thought and belief. Fetishism is a natural
concomitant of this stage of our mental development.
There is no place here for either metaphysical or
positive conceptions. There is as little possibility of
metaphysical abstractions making impression upon the
dim consciousness of ignorance, as of the comprehen
sive generalisations of positive science being grasped
by its narrow faculties.
Hence the only religion
possible at this stage is the religion of sense. The
more sensuous the conceptions, the more tangible the
images presented for adoration, the firmer is their
hold upon the ignorant mind. The slightest infusion
of anything like abstraction is eschewed and thrown
out as unassimilable with its simple organisation. Now
Christianity, with its medley of dogmas and theories,
half fetishistic, half metaphysical, has far less chance of
success here than a religion that is purely fetishistic.
The one is easy of comprehension to the most un
tutored mind; while the other bristles up with
inconsistencies incapable of reconciliation by the
subtlest intellect. Further, if sensuous accessories
are at all requisite, stocks and stones, idols and
oracles, are far better helps to devotion than the
pulpit or the priest—the surplice or the sermon.
But independently of the intrinsic unfitness of
Christianity, the conduct of the missionary is scarce
better fitted to ensure success. It is very rarely that
he masters the vernaculars sufficiently to make him
self easily intelligible to his native audience. Even
where this superlative merit is achieved by the
grumbling apostle, he scarce forgets the whiteness of
his skin, his easy five hundred a year, or his com
fortable bungalow, with its pankas and tattees, when
he sees the dark masses rolling on before him,
�Christianity and Education in India.
7
doomed to work under a tropical sun. When he
addresses himself to them, perhaps once in a week,
and for half an hour in a thoroughfare, he is full as
conscious of his superiority as when lolling on
cushioned sofas in the luxurious abandonment of a
midday repose ; or when driving his beautiful phaeton
and pair of an evening through fashionable walks, to
enjoy the glories of a setting sun or the grateful
breezes of approaching night. It is beneath him to
mix with them freely—to talk to them familiarly—
and therefore to understand how to influence their
minds effectually. Is it a matter of surprise, then,
if his hebdomadal harangues, more remarkable for
periodic sententiousness and dramatic accompani
ments of voice and gesture, than earnestness of
purpose or common sense, should fall on careless ears ?
And yet this is the class from which the ranks of
Hindu Christianity are oftenest supplied. We have
seen there is nothing specially adapted in the new
religion, nor anything specially attractive in the
behaviour of the missionaries to bring about such a
result. Is it then an easy frame of mind in these
ignorant Hindus or their indifference that supplies
the explanation? No, they are bigoted enough and
tenacious too, like other Hindus, in what they consider
to be right, not to succumb to ordinary influences.
It is their poverty, or vitiated course of life, that
makes them take refuge in a change of social con
dition. The converted Hindu is always provided for
by Christian munificence, if not in every case liberally,
at least in a way to satisfy every reasonable demand
of nature. Can you wonder, then, if a few unfortu
nate or unprincipled Hindus would gladly take
shelter under a religion that does not leave the poor to
starve, nor compel the idle to work. But this same
supply which feeds expiring Christianity in India,
and gives it for a time a delusive appearance of
vitality and growth, carries with it, in reality, in'
B
�8
Christianity and Education in India.
evitable seeds of decay and death. The contempt
and disgust, which these dissipated and ignorant
wretches engender in every mind, are in themselves
a sufficient bar to its progress among the better
classes.
But enough of this. Let us proceed to our second
division—those Hindus, namely, who have received
a tolerably good English education, and are therefore
in a position to come more directly under the influence
of the Missionaries. Do these, at least, profit by the
light so considerately proffered them ? I am afraid
the position of Christianity is more hopeless here
than in the last case. I am afraid what is recom
mended to them as light, is looked upon by them
more as an ignis fatuus, decoying them to deeper
sloughs of error and superstition, than as an unmis
takable beacon leading to the calm haven of truth.
Whatever defects may have been laid at our door by
European opinionists, intelligence at any rate—at
least one kind of intelligence—has never been denied
us, even by the boldest amongst them. It is nothing
strange, therefore, if the same exercise of faculties which
leads the inquiring Hindu to question his own beliefs,
leads him also to question others recommended in their
stead. Once the spirit of Scepticism roused in him,
he knows no moderation. In his eyes authority be
comes mockery—faith impotence.
Free from the
magic of superstition, he becomes conscious of his
own strength. No dogma is too sacred—no explana
tion too plausible, to escape his rude challenge.
Hence, it is easy to conceive what treatment Christi. anity, with its manifold defects, has to expect from
his tender mercies. He pounces upon the thousand
metaphysical difficulties which surround its doctrines
and which have puzzled the ingenuity of its highest
philosophers, without being brought one step nearer to
a satisfactory solution. Nay, he rips open its very
fundamental conceptions, dragging to light every
�Christianity and Education in India.
9
•inconsistency, inconsequence, and self-contradiction
lurking or enshrined therein; while their helpless
champion, trembling with horror but unable to stop
this work of vandalism, wonders if heaven’s wrath
had spent its lightnings.
Meantime, the havoc pro
ceeds. The shattered images crowd on every side,—
the different attributes of the Godhead, so necessary
to Christian Orthodoxy, but so irreconcilable with
one another, and, therefore, incapable of predication
together; the strange doctrine of prayer, so useless if
God be just, so impious, so blasphemous, if it implies
his openness to flattery or adulation ; the enjoined
duty of a simultaneous belief in Predestination and
Free-Will, an impossibility both of thought and fact;
the necessity of inherited sin, and salvation through
the sufferings of an innocent God, a conception more
allied to wild caprice or wanton blood-thirstiness,
than any notion of justice or equity possible to hu
man intelligence, and yet a conception constituting
the essence of a Christian’s speciality as respects the
other believers in the Unknown and Unknowable: and
to crown all, this very salvation, worked through
centuries of human suffering and crowned with the
sufferings of a God, proving no salvation to the
greater part of mankind, who could scarce help
wondering if it might not be a deception of the
unholy Spirit working in the dark for our ruin: a
scheme, in short, so clumsy and unavailing, though
brought out in such wanton defiance of every law,
natural and moral, and worked with all the tentative
skill of Supreme Wisdom, improving upon itself
through experience of five thousand years, that it
leaves as much sin, suffering, and ignorance now in
the world as when it found them; a scheme, in fine,
which even human pride might blush to own.
Such is a rough sketch of the pugilistic skill of our
Hindu controversialist of the second class. 'If he
bares his breast to the fist of his antagonist, he ex-
�io
Christianity and Education in India.
acts a like courtesy from the opposite side. He knows
not the meekness that would present you the second
cheek to smite, when you have smitten the first.
But this would not do. This is contrary to all
acknowledged precedents and rules of Missionary
warfare in all heathen lands. Give but not receive,
is its motto ; and it is not our modern Missionary
that would derogate from his dignity as an infallible
mouthpiece of Pure Wisdom so low as to forget this
excellent precept. But whether from this motive or
from a lurking suspicion in his own breast that
“ Something is rotten jn the state of Denmark,” it is
a significant fact, the Missionary ever avoids an
educated Hindu. Though the conversion of one such
would be far more favourable to his cause than that of
a thousand ignorant unprincipled wretches, he never
attempts to convert him. It is almost ludicrous to
see the studious solicitude with which the anxious
apostle shuns all contact with him as with a dreaded
imp of evil. But unfortunately, as ill luck sometimes
would have it, his care is not always successful. Very
often some enterprising Hindu ferrets him out actual
ly to pay off for many a blow and poisoned shaft
aimed at him and his beliefs from behind his back.
And then, when once they are brought face to face,
the former, in whose constitution a love of contro
versy may almost be said to be hereditary, and now
smarting too from a sense of injury, hurls at his
antagonist every objection in its most damaging shape
with all the ingenuity of a Hindu brain; while the
latter, goaded to the quick and surprised out of his
usual reserve, but unable to maintain even a show of
contest, either flies into a passion, which is worse than
defeat, or gets entangled in platitudes, which produce
only mischievous merriment in his opponent.
But this is not all. The educated Hindoo, however
ignorant of science himself, does not fail to see,—and
living as he does in the nineteenth century can he
�Christianity and Education in India.
11
help seeing?—that the identical faith, which is so
strongly recommended for his adoption in India, is
exposed to a life-and-death struggle from the rapid
advances of science in the very land of its highest
triumphs, in the very cradle of its early successes.
Under these circumstances, is it not a matter of course
that the intelligent Hindoo should not rush forward
blindly to embrace what seems to him not only the
losing, but the erroneous side ?
If then Christianity has no chance, as we have seen,
with our first and second classes, how much more
unlikely is it that it should succeed with the third,
which comprises the most advanced amongst us:—those, that is, who combine, to a knowledge of the
English Language, a tolerable acquaintance with the
results of modern science and the principal processes
of its investigations ? It is not those, who have learnt
to regard the constancy and uniformity of Nature aa
the highest dicta of experience and the only foundation
of sure knowledge, that would accept your arbitrary
interpositions, sudden suspensions, and unnatural
intersections of natural laws, as any thing more than
the vagaries of a morbid imagination.
It is not
those, who have learnt to trace the operation of un
alterable causes, not only in the progressive develop
ment of life, not only in the gradual formation of our
globe, nor yet only in the slow emergence of the
system to which it belongs, but quite as well in the
general evolution of the whole universe in all its
details, and from times reaching backwards beyond
the power of calculation, that would believe them to
have failed or been set aside during one insignificant
life-time, on one insignificant spot of earth, for the
immediate benefit of one insignificant [art of one
insignificant race. It is not such, therefore, that
would swallow, at the bidding of the missionary, any
miracles that it might please him or his book to pro
pound. It is not down the throats of such that the
�12
Christianity and Education in India.
missionary may hope to cram his speaking donkeys
and suns that stand paralysed in their course. Nay,
they would not condescend even to wonder at the
existence of such beliefs in our times. To them,
credulity begot of ignorance and fostered by prejudice
supplies the necessary explanation.
But their position does not stop here. Armed
with positive knowledge, and commanding every
avenue to error, they fear not to charge into the
heart of the enemies’ camp. Their lance is at rest for
no ordinary prize. It seeks the heart-blood—the
sine qua non—of all superstition and error. In other
words, they join issue with their opponents on the
question of those very beliefs, without which not only
Christianity, but every other religion, in the usual
meaning of the term, becomes impossible. They con
tend, in short, that the popular idea, that what we
call the soul or mind is an independent entity, a some
thing quite distinct from the body and capable of
existence without it; and the supplementary notion,
that there is a conscious personal being, who is the
creator and ruler of the universe; are, to say the least
of it, notions which find support neither in nature
nor in reason.
Instead, therefore, of Christianity making any pro
gress among our third class Hindus, they are more
likely to contribute to its final and general rejection
by their countrymen.
But what of the fourth division 1
With the
Hindus belonging to this class at least, it might be
imagined, there must be better hope.
Neither
acquainted with modern science nor blind to the
gross superstitions common among their less educated
brethren, they must surely be more favourably
disposed to receive Christianity if properly presented
to them. Unfortunately for the cause of unfounded
hopes, the probabilities once more go hard against
such fond anticipations. The state of society in India,
�Christianity and Education in India.
13
in respect of beliefs and principles of action is, and
has been for a long time, very much like what that of
Greece and Rome used to be in their palmiest days.
In Rome and Greece, we know, the beliefs of the
higher and more educated classes—of their so-called
philosophers—had very little in common with the
superstitions of their less advanced countrymen. If
they tolerated them, or rather if they seemed them
selves to share in them, it was only from prudential,
self-interested considerations. They knew, too, that
all men could not be philosophers, nor was it desirable
that all should be. Something very similar to this
obtains now in Hindu Society. The Philosophers
or Pundits of India are not what they seem. If they
encourage the popular beliefs, it is purely from motives
of policy and self-interest. Their philosophy is too
subtle for the mass, nor is it their interest to
popularize it. They are the priests of the nation ;
and you know how everywhere the priests are jealous
of knowledge among any but themselves.
Their
power everywhere is in a direct ratio to the ignorance
around them.
Accordingly the Brahmin has two
schools—the esoteric and the exoteric, the one full of
ceremonies, prayers, penances, with all the remaining
paraphernalia of religious denomination, the other, of
philosophic discussions relative to the explanation of
the phenomena of the universe. The former is meant
to satisfy the wild cravings of untutored imagination
and utilize the emotional energies of aboriginal nature
for purposes of social economy; while the . latter
furnishes gratifications to choicer spirits seeking in
tellectual luxuries and contemplative repose.
Now of all the systems of philosophy I have any
knowledge of—whether the systems of ancient Greece
and Rome, the Peripatetic, the Sceptic, or the Epicu
rean ; their later developments in those of the schools ;
or still later forms—the modern systems of Kant,
Cousin, and Hamilton—I have no hesitation in pro-
�14
Christianity and Education in India.
nouncing the Vadantic philosophy of the Hindus the
most logical and profound. It makes the nearest ap
proach, I know of any, to the strict requirements of
modern scientific thought. In its fundamental aspects,
it is enough to add here, it resembles the system of
Mill and Bain.
It is a. well-known fact that Buddhism, in its origi
nal purity, was an offshoot of Hindu philosophy.
Buddha, who was familiar with its deepest mysteries,
but who. endeavoured to organize them into a religion,
was obliged, evidently to meet the grosser apprehen
sion of the masses, to make a compromise between the
requirements of logical precision and the necessities of
a practical reduction. It was accordingly an abortion
between philosophy and religion ; an unsuccessful
attempt to reconcile the rational and emotional natures
of man. It would neither satisfy the conditions of
pure reason, nor give scope to the full play of feeling.
And yet this system, abortive as it manifestly is, has
been pronounced,, even by European critics, the most
rational religion in the world. How much greater
must be the superiority then, of that philosophy over
all religions, of which Buddhism is but an offshoot,
and an inferior offshoot too !
There is.one circumstance connected with this phil
osophy which at first has a very misleading effect: I
mean the peculiarly difficult and almost mystical
phraseology in which its doctrines are couched. But
this, far from, being a demerit, ought to constitute a
recommendation in its favour, since it enabled the
enunciation of the subtlest and profoundest truths in a
language singularly consistent, accurate, and powerful.
Anything more than a hasty glance at some of its
principal features would be not only out of place, but
would demand far more space and time than can be
afforded in a lecture like this. I shall select, therefore,
a few salient points for comparison.
The Berkleyan theory of what is improperly called
�Christianity and Education in India.
15
Idealism, which reduces both the objective and subjec
tive worlds to Permanent Possibilities of Sensation,
and which is beyond doubt the most logical theory
yet conceived by the European intellect, is distinctly
stated, and enforced by powerful reasoning in this
Philosophy of the Hindus, now so many centuries old.
When it enunciates the grand truth that the internal
and external worlds are merely the varying manifesta
tions of oue and the same principle ‘ Maya,’ the
ignorant dabbler in Hindu philosophy translates the
word in its ordinary acceptation, and pronounces the
doctrine absurd. If he had only the patience to master
the language in which it is closed before jumping to a
conclusion, he would find that, as in English or any
other language, the popular and philosophic significa
tions of words are different, and sometimes almost
contradictory. The ordinary meaning of ‘Maya’ is
certainly delusion, but the philosophic value of it is as
certainly—the system of phenomena in contradistinc
tion to noumena—the totality of existence, real and
potential, regarded as possible or actual groups of sen
sations. So that the theory of ‘ Maya,’ as it is gene
rally called, is far from being what it is ignorantly
taken for. On the contrary, it is the enunciation of
the doctrines of the school of Mill and Bain in strict
philosophical language.
The modern theory of evolution, again, is plainly
shadowed forth in this philosophy, where it resolves
the first cause, not into an unmeaning change of
expression—“ a guiding and controlling intelligence”
—but into a principle, unconscious, self-existent, and
ever-changing—a principle of which concrete existence
in all its varieties is only an expression of varying
aspects. Thus the only First Cause that this philosophy
recognizes, is the first cause also of modern science—
matter with its properties.
One more point worthy of notice here is the theory
of necessity or fate. The first cause itself is subject to
�16
Christianity and Education in India.
it; rather necessity is itself one of its properties. Hence
it followed also that everything in the universe, being
but a manifestation of the first principle, is equally
necessary in respect of its co-existence or sequence.
This doctrine, it will be seen, is nothing more nor less
than the general uniformity and constancy of nature
which forms the ground-work of science. It is true
this doctrine, under the name of Asiatic Fatalism, has
been ridiculed by persons who neither understood its
unassailable foundation in fact, nor could distinguish
between its legitimate consequences, awful enough, to
confuse their narrow apprehension, and the illegiti
mate or unnecessary ones imported into the question
by their own incapable reasonings. But however
ignorantly ridiculed, or whatever preposterous effects
have been ascribed to it, the doctrine itself stands up
a sublime monument of Hindu thought at a time when
even the bulk of educated intellects of Europe are not
prepared for its intelligent reception.
Even the common version of the Hindu Trinity
is a fallacy of misconception. The popular notion of
the three deities—Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva is
merely a flesh and-blood personification of the three
fundamental generalisations of our philosophy, of the
universe. These are respectively the constructive, the
restorative, and the degenerative or destructive prin
ciples in nature. They were no doubt suggested by
a careful observation of the operations of natural
agencies around us. Their truth is now acknowledged
by all, and requires no special amplification. Only it
deserves to be remarked how even such a simple belief
of the uneducated Hindu as that in the three gods,
turns out to be merely a stultification of the wisdom
of his philosophers, who centuries ago recognised
principles of nature but recently discovered by modern
science.
If we had time we might dig deeper into this won
derful philosophy, and bring to light richer ores of
�Christianity and Education in India,
xy
truth and reasoning ; but we must stop. Nor will
such work be necessary for our present object, if what
we have seen of it, slight as it is, has given us some
idea of the rich stores of wisdom that are the birth
right and pride of the Hindu Pundit. Is it this Pun
dit, then, that would renounce such a legacy of sublime
conceptions for the no-philosophy and bad science of
the missionary ?
Thus the chances of Christianity in India are small
indeed, after every allowance,—bad enough with the
first class, but worse with the second, and worst of all
with the third and fourth. Hence is its present un
satisfactory condition. Hence, too, its no better future.
As for the good which the missionaries are doing in
India in the way of imparting elementary English
education to the people, I gladly bear testimony to
their comparative success. But here, again, to show
our true gratitude to our benefactors, we, Hindus, can
do nothing better than try to convince them, as early
as we may, how absolutely unnecessary are these vast
sacrifices on their part for this purpose. India has
never been known to be a poor country. We can
stand perfectly well upon our own resources. Only
like the magic gate in the Arabian Nights’ Entertain
ments, the portals of our hidden energies open to no
sound but that of wisdom. Let but a little more dis
cretion and wit be infused into our administrative
element, and we shall never hear again the irrational
clang of debts and deficits. What we want is not
alms from others’ riches, but only wise direction to
develope our own. Our revenue, wisely expended,
would not only defray all governmental expenses, but
would leave a surplus more than enough for the con
struction and working of the most efficient educational
machinery ever known.
Under these circumstances can we d o betteT than re
mind our simple well-wishers, that ch arity had better
begin at home. Looking on the condition of the
�18
Christianity and Education in India.
working-classes in this country, can any body doubt
for a second that they need every farthing, that the
superfluous wealth of their more favoured country
men could ever spare ? Neither need I insist that
they alone deserve these good offices—at least deserve
them with far greater right than we may ever pretend
to do.
Having thus completed our survey of the position
of Christianity in India, let us now turn to the other
system of education, which is being conducted by the
Government in a purely secular spirit. It may be
desirable, however, to dispose of a preliminary diffi
culty in our way, relative to the supposed duties of a
Government. It may be, and it has been, asked if
the Government of India is under any obligations to
do more for its people in the way of their education
than the Governments of other countries, such as
those of Europe, for instance. To this question I
must reply, Yes. India is now in a phase of its
existence, in which it is weak enough to require a
guiding hand, but is strong withal to prove recal
citrant whenever its sense of justice is outraged—a
phase, in consequence, in which its destinies are
trembling in the balance, in which the highest delicacy
and foresight are requisite in those who have its
management to bring about results in any degree
conducive to the promotion of human welfare and
progi e 5S.
Such considerations, I admit, are of no higher
validity than those which have for their basis the
good of mankind. But unless dreamy transcendent
alism and empty inanities are to sway our notions,
I know no considerations more sacred or more bind
ing in any code of morality than these. If, therefore,
our Government be upright in its intentions, and not
mercenary—if its highest object be the advancement
of our race in mental and material prosperity, and
not the squeezing out the means of luxurious subsis-
�Christianity and Education in India.
19
tence for its officials from an enraged people, alike to
the detriment of its own stability and the welfare of
a whole nation :—if, I say, our Government be what
it ought to be, and my happy experience of seven and
twenty years justifies me in asserting that it has been
such in every essential element; then it will do for
the attainment of this noble object whatever will
conduce to it. Unflinching discussion and free ventila
tion of the opinions of every one interested in the
issue are necessary, not so much to cavil with what
has been done, as to show how best may be done
what yet remains to be done.
I shall proceed, therefore, to express my views
boldly on this much neglected subject, under the con
viction that they will meet with that amount of con
sideration which, if not their intrinsic worth, at
least their sincerity will demand from every thought
ful person.
In the Government system of education, then, the
one feature that stands out most glaringly is the
utter absence of what we understand by scientific
education from first to last in general instruction.
Nay, even what is taught is taught in an exceedingly
unscientific way. It is not only in respect of the
sort of instruction vouchsafed, but also in respect of the
manner in which it is imparted, that we have to com
plain of being left strangely behind the times. In
fact, such a state of things is inevitable so long as
the character of the staff of educational officers there
employed continues to be what it has been hitherto.
Throughout the whole educational staff in the Madras
Presidency, I cannot now recollect one name known
to science or philosophy. Beginning from the Pro
vincial School Head-Master up to the Director of
Public Instruction inclusive, the reign of ignorance
is supreme—ignorance in everything that constitutes
the real essence of knowledge. One might almost
stagger with dismay, if it did not border on unmiti-
�20
Christianity and Education in India.
gated contempt, to see the sublime innocence displayed
by these bearers of western light for the illumination
of the east:—innocence, sublime indeed, since it is
innocence in respect of those very sciences and
systems of belief, engendered thereby, which con
stitute the highest triumphs of modern western
civilisation.
Now to refer for a few seconds to the immense dis
advantages which a want of scientific education en
tails upon a nation. In the present day this reference
need not detain us long. It is enough to recollect
that every step forward in civilisation has been due
to some advance in science. In the world in which
we live we are surrounded by powers, conservative as
well as destructive, a knowledge of which, to some
extent at least, is necessary for our continued exist
ence ; while life, with any degree of comfort and
success, is possible only when we have mastered
them to considerable detail, and can utilize them
for our own purposes. Further, Nature is an inex
orable mistress. The slightest infringement of her
laws, whether through ignorance or perversity, is
alike avenged with the severest penalties. In the
reign of natural law reparation is impossible. It is
a deduction from the persistence of force that if we
make a single false step, we must be content to carry
its consequences with us to the grave. Hence the
inadequacy, the disadvantage of any system of educa
tion which does not include a knowledge of nature.
There is yet another aspect of the question, which
might bear a little further handling. I allude to the
rapid increase of population, particularly in civilised
countries, whose pent-up energies, under accumulating
pressure, must, in longer or shorter periods, find a
vent, as they have found already so often even under
less imminent circumstances, in acts of aggression or
wars of extermination against one another, or against
less favoured races. How helpless must be the con-
�Christianity and Education in India.
11
'dition of a people, then, who, from want of requisite
culture, are unable either to avert or withstand these
destructive irruptions! I know the time is yet far
off, thank our stars, when these volcanic outbursts of
human energy will become general. But is it the
less certain on that account, or should we be justified
in enjoying the delicious repose of the present in the
fancied security of a distant future ? No, we shall
not be a second too soon in urging upon our govern
ment the necessity of making us the best return for
our money in their power—of starting us with a fair
chance for the imminent struggle for existence looming
before us—for the threatening future so pregnant
with mysterious fates.
There is yet another consideration we might urge
with less selfish motives. The sooner an equilibrium
is established between the different civilised nations
in respect of power of self-maintenance or strength
of resistance, the better will it be for all parties con
cerned. The hurricanes of human violence that have
swept so often over the globe with such destructive
fury would have lost much of their vehemence if in
equalities in the distribution of power and the conse
quent tendency to a convective rearrangement had
been less pronounced.
But irrespective of negative considerations, are there
no positive benefits in the course I recommend to
accrue to mankind in general 1 I answer unhesitat
ingly, yes ! The process of natural selection, founded
as it is upon the fixation of favourable proclivities
through inheritance, and the elimination of un
favourable tendencies in the struggle for existence, is
a process not less operative in the evolution of
organic functions than in that of organic forms.
Further, there is no reason why a process, through
which such high results have already been achieved,
should not continue to bring about results higher
still. In point of fact, it is not only man that has
�22
Christianity and Education in India.
been evolved from lower forms, but higher races of
men are being developed from lower ones. It is true,
in this latter process, the operation of the principle
is far from being unobstructed as hitherto. But
though at several points along its line of action, its
force is being deflected for a time or even retarded
by antagonistic contact with the peculiar agency of
man’s psychological nature, which itself has brought
about; still its ultimate triumph is not for a moment
to be doubted. We have only to look into the past
history of mankind, imperfect as it is, and then
project ourselves in imagination into the future a
few centuries hence, when the conditions of existence
shall wax more stringent, and the struggle for sur
vival more violent, to be satisfied of the truth of
what I contend for.
Such being the case, does it not follow that the
better the materials presented for this law to work
upon—when the time should come for its unrestricted,
at any rate, more steady operation, the higher will
be the results attained 1 Is it not evident, too, that
the sooner we set about improving the general con
dition of mankind in order that, when the day
shall come, there may be always enough of the
to
best and highest type available to cover the whole
ground of survival without adulteration, the more
effectually shall we have assisted nature in its
progress to a glorious destiny 1 Now with such views
as these before us, both as to the present and the future,
can it be doubted for a moment that India, with its
already two hundred millions of people, covering in
extent no inconsiderable part of the habitable globe,
and endowed with powers of vitality and resistance
by no means contemptible, is destined to play a
significant part in the future history of mankind, or
that every step in human progress will be influenced
by the state of preparation and reach of antecedent
advancement, with which it shall enter the contest 1
�Christianity and Education in India.
23
Hence, even from a cosmopolitan point of view is
the course I recommend rendered a crying necessity.
But, independently of remote advantages, which,
however real, lose half their importance to the ordi
nary mind from their distance, are there no conside
rations of less equivocal significance and of a more
immediate bearing upon our collective interests 1 The
answer once more must be in the affirmative. We
have seen already that true progress consists in nothing
so much as in a successful cultivation of science—a
deepening insight into nature and her operations.
No amount of mere literary accomplishments—no
amount of mere analytical skill, if employed only in
the manipulation of a few abstract mathematical ideas
-—can avail us amidst the rigid and unbending pheno
mena of concrete existence.
Now, of these concrete phenomena, which cannot
be evolved deductively from a few comprehensive first
principles, no class of them is of more vital import
ance to us than that whose explanation we term
sociology or social science. Though there is scarcely
a department of natural knowledge which does not
in the long run, either directly or indirectly, contri
bute to our advancement, it must still be granted
that some are more useful to us in their immediate
results than others. A large proportion of our know
ledge is purely speculative, and has no bearing upon
our practical interests; while every additional cor
relation of its various factors tends more to the equili
brium of thought than utility in the ordinary accep
tation of the term. Hence those correlations which
result in useful applications naturally excite greater
interest in us, and are of more immediate importance,
than those which are purely of a theoretical character.
From this point of view, it is needless to remark'
the correlations of social science must evidently take
the precedence. But, unfortunately, in proportion to
their usefulness is also their difficulty.
Their satis-
�24
Christianity and Education in India.
factory establishment can be accomplished only by
those who combine to a knowledge of the other
sciences a familiar acquaintance with the different
methods of investigation applicable to different groups
of phenomena.
The truth of this statement will
become manifest when we recollect the position which
sociology assumes in the classification of the sciences
founded upon the principle of progressive complexity.
The social philosopher has to lay under contribution,
for the elucidation of his subject, not only the agencies
peculiar to itself, but also those regulating the condi
tions of other phenomenal sequences.
But further
more, not to speak of correct generalisations to be
achieved in this difficult science—even for a careful
sifting and selection of proper materials for arriving
at such—a preliminary knowledge of the kind we
have characterised is indispensable.
To know what
order of facts may be eschewed as having no bearing
upon any particular question in hand, and what order
are to be seized upon and tabulated for purposes of
further elaboration, is in itself a process possible only
under a previous scientific culture.
Now for a satisfactory settlement of many a con
tested point in social science, I know no country
better calculated to supply the necessary data than
Hindustan. The very fact that India contains such a
large population, broken up into so many races, each
speaking a different language and each presenting
different peculiarities, physical, social, intellectual and
moral; while yet a thread of broad community in
several respects runs through them all; must in itself
be a sufficient argument in its favour. Even a careful
observation and intelligent tabulation of these
interesting differences, with a running commentary
on the obvious causes thereof, placed alongside of
the results of a similar process applied to points of
resemblance, must I conceive inevitably lead to no
ordinary consequences. I feel convinced that as a
�Christianity and Education in India.
25
knowledge of the classic language of India first led to
the creation of a science already rich in results, but
richer far in the results it has yet in store for us, so
it is only a thorough knowledge of social institutions,
religious beliefs and other characteristic circumstances
connected with the Hindus that will place social
science on a sure scientific basis. We may almost
predict the various lines along which such a know
ledge is likely to extend its influence, after what we
know of the growth of philology and geology within
the last few years. In fact there are several points
of close resemblance between geology and sociology.
The customs, habits, beliefs, languages, &c. of the differ
ent nations are as it were the different strati cal systems
of social geology; while those preserved in their
literatures are the entombed fossils of anterior states,
wdiich taken with the present are capable of affording
as consistent and satisfactory an explanation of social
evolution as geology does of organic development.
The countries of Europe, as seen within the historical
period, are in one sense enough to illucidate the later
steps in this evolution ; in the same way as the
latest or tertiary rocks are sufficient to explain the
comparatively recent passage of man through the
three stages of flint, bronze, and iron.
But just
as for the comprehension of the far deeper and more
searching question of his origin, a careful study
of the earlier systems—the mesozoic and the palyozoic
—was found necessary; so a discriminating knowledge
of the more aboriginal institutions and literatures of
the eastern nations is indispensable for the explanation
of the more important problem of the genesis of society.
But of all eastern countries, no land presents, within
such a comparatively small area, a larger or a more
varied field for research than India. No country, too,
comprises within itself such varied systems of living
and dead forms of social life, reaching to the remotest
past, as India once more. Hence it is manifest the
�26
Christianity and Education in India.
study of India from a sociological point of view must
be of the last importance.
This, however, can be done with any approach to
efficiency only by those who are most intimately
familiar with the phenomena concerned; and are
capable at the same time of such intelligent work. It
must be evident therefore that it is only Hindus that
can successfully undertake this all important task. But
Hindus, though Hindus they be, would be worse than
useless if they had not the requisite preliminary
training. As for strangers attempting to accomplish
this end without native agency, they might as soon
attempt the merest impossibilities for aught one cares
about the result. So long as Europeans and Hindus
are what they are, no matter whose fault it is that
they cannot understand and do not sympathise with
one another, such must continue to be the case.
Hence an additional reason, the last but not the least
weighty I have herein adduced, why the Hindus should
receive a scientific education.
And now having thus brought these few reflections
on Hindu education to a close, it only remains for
me to thank you sincerely for the kind and indulgent
hearing you have accorded to my unequal attempt to
handle a subject full of the deepest interest and im
portance.
TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Christianity and education in India: a lecture delivered at St. George's Hall, London, November 12, 1871
Creator
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Row, A. Jyram
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 26 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by Turnbull and Spears, Edinburgh.
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Thomas Scott
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[1872]
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G5483
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Education
Christianity
India
Hinduism
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Christianity and education in India: a lecture delivered at St. George's Hall, London, November 12, 1871), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Text
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English
Christian Education-India
Conway Tracts
Hinduism
India