Chapter 22

INDIA AND THE WEST.

If in Hinduism, and even in Brahmanism, there are certain traits which, with some verisimilitude, may be referred to the immediate environment of these religions, how stands it in respect of that wider circle of influence which is represented by the peoples of the West? With Egypt and Phoenicia, India had intercourse at an early date, but this appears to have been restricted to mercantile exchange; for India till very late was affected neither by the literature nor by the religion of Egyptians or Syrians.[1] Of a more direct sort seem to have been the relations between India and Babylon, and the former may owe to the latter her later astronomy, but no definitive proof exists (or even any great historical probability) that Babylon gave India even legendary additions to her native wealth of myths.[2] From the Iranians the Hindus parted too early to receive from Zoroastrianism any influence. On the contrary, in our opinion the religion of Zoroaster budded from a branch taken from Indic soil. Even where Persian influence may, with propriety, be suspected, in the later Indic worship of the sun, India took no new religion from Persia; but it is very possible that her own antique and preserved heliolatry was aided, and acquired new strength from more modern contact with the sun-worshippers of the West. Of Iranian influence in early times, along the line of Hindu religious development, there is scarcely a trace, although in 509 B.C. Darius's general conquered the land about the Indus.[3] But the most zealous advocate of Persia's prestige can find little to support his claims in pre-Buddhistic Brahmanic literature, though such claims have been made, not only in respect of the position of secondary divinities, but even as regards eschatological conceptions. It is not so easy to refute an improbable historical theory as it is to propound it, but, on the other hand, the _onus probandi_ rests upon him that propounds it, and till now all arguments on this point have resulted only in increasing the number of unproved hypotheses, which the historian should mention and may then dismiss.

The Northern dynasty that ruled in India in the sixth century seems to have had a hand in spreading Iranian sun-worship beyond the Indus, but we doubt whether the radical effect of this dominion and its belief (it is described by Kosmas, an Egyptian traveller of the time) is as great as has been claimed.[4]

From Greece, the Hindus received architectural designs, numismatic, and perhaps a few literary hints, but they got thence neither religious myths, nor, with the possible exception of the cult of the later Love-god and fresh encouragement to phallic -worship, new rites;[5] though they may have borrowed some fables, and one even hears of a Buddhistic king endeavoring to buy a sophist of Antiochus. But there is no ground for assuming philosophical influence on Brahmanism.

Christianity came late into the religious life of India, and as a doctrine made upon her no deep or lasting impression. Certain details of Christian story have been woven into the legends of Krishna, and some scholars believe that the monotheistic worshippers depicted in the pseudo-epic were Christians. But in respect of the latter point it is enough to say that this account of foreign belief had no new monotheizing effect upon the pantheism of India; the strange (unbrahmanic) god was simply accepted as Vishnu. Nor do we believe that the faith-doctrine of Hindu sectarianism and the trinitarianism of India were derived from Christian sources. But it must be admitted to be historically possible that the creed of the Christians, known to the Hindus of the sixth and seventh centuries, may have suggested to the latter the idea of the trinity as a means of adjusting the claims of Brahmanism, Krishnaism, and Çivaism.[6]

But from the Mohammedan India has taken much, albeit only in the last few centuries. When Alexander entered India there were still two bodies of Indic people west of the Indus. But the trend was eastward, as it had been for centuries, and the first inroad of the Mohammedan had little further effect than to seize a land forsaken by Aryans and given over to the hordes of the North. The foundation of the new empire was not laid till the permanent occupation of the Punj[=a]b and annexation of Lahore in 1022-23. In the thirteenth century all Hindustan acknowledged the authority of the slave sultan of Delhi.[7] Akbar died in 1605. By the end of the century the Mogul rule was broken; the Mahratta princes became imperial. It is now just in this period of Mohammedan power when arise the deistic reforming sects, which, as we have shown, were surrounded with deists and trinitarians. Here, then, we draw the line across the inner development of India's religions, with Kab[=i]r, N[=a]nak, D[=a]du, and perhaps even Basava. In the philosophy of the age that succeeds the epic there are but two phases of religion, pantheism for the wise, a more or less deistic polytheism for the vulgar[8] (in isolated cases may be added the monotheism of certain scholastic philosophers); and so Indic religion continued till the advent of Islamism. Nevertheless, though under Mohammedan influence,[9] the most thoughtful spirits of India received monotheism and gave up pantheism, yet was the religious attitude of these thinkers not averse from that taken by the Sankyan philosophers and by the earlier pantheists. From a philosophical point of view one must, indeed, separate the two. But all these, the Unitarian Hariharaist, the real pantheist of the Upanishads, who completed the work of the Vedic quasi-pantheist, and the circle that comprises Kab[=i]r, N[=a]nak, and D[=a]du, were united in that they stood against encircling polytheism. They were religiously at one in that they gave up the cult of many divinities, which represented respectively nature-worship and fiend-worship (with beast-worship), for the worship of one god. Therefore it is that, while native advance stops with the Mohammedan conquest, one may yet claim an uninterrupted progress for the higher Indic religion, a continual elevation of the thoughts of the wise; although at the same time, beside and below this, there is the circle of lower beliefs that continually revolves upon itself. For in the zoölatry[10] and polytheism that adores monsters to-day it is difficult to see a form of religion higher in any respect than that more simple nature-polytheism which first obtained.[11]

This lower aspect of Indic religions hinges historically on the relation between the accepted cults of Hinduism[12] and those of the wild tribes. We cannot venture to make any statements that will cast upon this question more light than has been thrown by the above account of the latter cults and of their points of contact with Hinduism. It may be taken for granted that with the entrance into the body politic of a class composed of vanquished[13] or vanquishing natives, some of the religion of the latter may have been received also. Such, there is every reason to believe, was the original worship of Çiva as Çarva, Bhava, and of Krishna; in other words, of the first features of modern sectarian Hinduism, though this has been so influenced by Aryan civilization that it has become an integral part of Hindu religion.[14]

But, again, for a further question here presents itself, how much in India to-day is Aryan? We are inclined to answer that very little of blood or of religion is Aryan. Some priestly families keep perhaps a strain of Aryan blood. But Hindu literature is not afraid to state how many of its authors are of low caste, how many of its priests were begotten of mixed marriages, how many formed low connections; while both legendary and prophetic (_ex post facto_) history speak too often of slave-kings and the evil times when low castes will reign, for any unprejudiced person to doubt that the Hindu population, excluding many pure priests but including many of the priests and the R[=a]jputs ('sons of kings'), represents Aryanhood even less than the belief of the Rig Veda represents the primitive religion; and how little of aboriginal Aryan faith is reflected in that work has been shown already.

As one reviews the post-Vedic religions of civilized India he is impressed with the fact that, heterogeneous as they are, they yet in some regards are so alike as to present, when contrasted with other beliefs, a homogeneous whole. A certain uniqueness of religious style, so to speak, differentiates every expression of India's theosophy from that of her Western neighbors. What is common and world-wide in the forms of Indic faith we have shown in a previous chapter. But on this universal foundation India has erected many individual temples, temples built after designs which are not uniform, but are all self-sketched, and therefore peculiar to herself. In each of these mental houses of God there is revealed the same disposition, and that disposition is necessarily identical with that expressed in her profane artistry,[15] for the form of religion is as much a matter of national taste as is that which is embodied in literature, architecture, and painting. And this taste, as expressed in religion, isolates Brahmanic and Hinduistic India, placing her apart, both from the gloom of Egypt and the grace of Greece; even as in her earliest records she shows herself individual, as contrasted with her Aryan kinsfolk. Like Egypt, she feels her dead ever around her, and her cult is tinged with darkness; but she is fond of pleasure, and seeks it deliriously. Like Greece, she loves beauty, but she loves more to decorate it; and again, she rejoices in her gods, but she rejoices with fear; fear that overcomes reason, and pictures such horrors as are conjured up by the wild leaps of an uncurbed fancy. For an imagination that knows no let has run away with every form of her intellectual productivity, theosophy as well as art. This is perceptible even in her ritualistic, scientific, and philosophical systems; for though it is an element that at first seems incongruous with such systems, it is yet in reality the factor that has produced them. Complex, varied, minute, exact, as are the details which she loves to elaborate in all her work, they are the result of this same unfettered imagination, which follows out every fancy, pleased with them all, exaggerating every present interest, unconfined by especial regard for what is essential.[16] This is a heavy charge to bring, nor can it be passed over with the usual remark that one must accept India's canon as authoritative for herself, for the taste of cosmopolitan civilization is the only norm of judgment, a norm accepted even by the Hindus of the present day when they have learned what it is. But we do not bring the charge of extravagance for the sake of comparing India unfavorably with the Occident. Confining ourselves to the historical method of treatment which we have endeavored heretofore to maintain, we wish to point out the important bearings which this intellectual trait has had upon the lesser products of India's religious activity.

Through the whole extent of religious literature one finds what are apparently rare and valuable bits of historical information. It is these which, from the point of view to which we have just referred, one must learn to estimate at their real worth. In nine cases out of ten, these seeming truths are due only to the light imagination of a subsequent age, playing at will over the records of the past, and seeking by a mental caper to leap over what it fails to understand. To the Oriental of an age still later all the facts deducible from such statements as are embodied in the hoary literature of antiquity appear to be historical data, and, if mystic in tone, these statements are to him an old revelation of profoundest truth. But the Occidental, who recognizes no hidden wisdom in palpable mystification, should hesitate also to accept at their face value such historical notes as have been drafted by the same priestly hand.

Nor would we confine the application of this principle to the output of extant Brahmanic works. The same truth cuts right and left among many utterances of the Vedic seers and all the theories built upon them. To pick out here and there an _ipse dixit_ of one of the later fanciful Vedic poets, who lived in a period as Brahmanic (that is, as ritualistic) as is that which is represented by the actual ritual-texts, and attempt to reconstruct the original form of divinities on the basis of such vagaries is useless, for it is an unhistorical method which ignores ancient conditions.

In less degree, because here the conditions are more obvious, does this apply to the religious interpretation of the great body of literature which has conserved for posterity the beginnings of Hinduism. But upon this we have already animadverted, and now need only range this literature in line with its predecessors. Not because the epic pictures Krishna as making obeisance to Çiva is Krishna here the undeveloped man-god, who represents but the beginning of his (later) greatness, and is still subject to the older Çiva. On the contrary, it is the epic's last extravagance in regard to Çiva (who has already bowed before the great image of Krishna-Vishnu) that demands a furious counter-blast against the rival god. It is the Çivaite who says that Krishna-Vishnu bows; and because it is the Çivaite, and because this is the national mode of expression of every sectary, therefore what the Çivaite says is in all probability historically false, and the sober historian will at least not discover 'the earlier Krishna' in the Krishna portrayed by his rival's satellites.

But when one comes to the modern sects, then he has to deplore not so much the lack of historical data as the grotesque form into which this same over-vivid imagination of the Hindu has builded his gods. As the scientific systems grow more and more fancifully, detailed, and as the liturgy flowers out into the most extraordinary bloom of weird legend, so the images of the gods, to the eye in their temples, to the mind in the descriptions of them, take to themselves the most uncouth details imagined by a curious fancy. This god is an ascetic; he must be portrayed with the ascetic's hair, the ascetic's wild appearance. He kills; he must be depicted as a monster, every trait exaggerated, every conceivable horror detailed. This god sported with the shepherdesses; he must have love-adventures related in full, and be worshipped as a darling god of love; and in this worship all must be pictured in excess, that weaker mortal power may strive to appreciate the magnitude of the divine in every fine detail.

These traits are those of late Vedism, Brahmanism, and Hinduism. But how marked is the contrast with the earlier Vedic age! The grotesque fancy, the love of minutiae, in a word, the extravagance of imagination and unreason are here absent, or present only in hymns that contrast vividly with those of the older tone. This older tone is Aryan, the later is Hindu, and it is another proof of what we have already emphasized, that the Hinduizing influence was felt in the later Vedic or Brahmanic period. There is, indeed, almost as great a gulf between the Dawn-hymns and the Çatapatha as there is between the latter and the Pur[=a]nas. One may rest assured that the perverted later taste reproduces the advance of Hindu influence upon the Aryan mind exactly in proportion to the enormity displayed.

On the other hand, from the point of view of morality, Brahmanic religion is not in any way individual. The race, whether Aryan or Hinduistic, had as fragile virtue as have other folks, and shows the same tentative efforts to become purer as those which characterize every national advance. There is, perhaps, a little too much formal insistence on veraciousness, and one is rather inclined to suspect, despite Müllers brave defence of the Hindu in this regard, that lying came very naturally to a people whose law-givers were so continuously harping on the beauty of truth. The vicious caste-system necessarily scheduled immorality in accordance with the caste order, as certain crimes in other countries are estimated according to the race of the sinner rather than according to any abstract standard. In the matter of precept we know no better moral laws than those promulgated by the Brahmans, but they are the laws that every people evolves for itself. Religious immorality, the excess of Çakti worship, is also not peculiar to the Hindu. If one ask how the morality of India as a whole compares with that of other countries, we reply that, including religious excesses, it stands level with the personal morality of Greece in her best days,[17] and that without the religiously sensual (Hindu) element, it is _nominally_ on a par with that of London or New York. There are good and bad men, and these make good and bad coteries, which stand inside the pale of a religious profession. There is not much theoretical difference. Few of the older gods are virtuous, and Right, even in the Rig Veda, is the moral power, that is, Right as Order, correct behavior, the prototype both of ritual and of _[=a]c[=a]ra,_ custom, which rules the gods. In the law-court the gods are a moral group, and two of them, Varuna and Agni, hate respectively the sins of adultery and untruth. In the law it is, however, Dharma and the Father-god or his diadochos, who, handing down heavenly precepts, gives all moral laws, though it must be confessed that the Father-god is almost the last to care for morality. And pure Brahmanism stops with Brahm[=a]. In modern Hinduism, to kill, lust, steal, drink, so far from offending, may please a god that is amorous, or bloodthirsty, or, like Çiva, is 'the lord of thieves.' Morality here has God himself against it. In the Rig Veda, to sin is merely to displease a god. But even in Brahmanism, as in Buddhism, there is not that intimate connection between goodness and godness that obtains in Christianity. The Brahman, like the Buddhist, was self-controlled, in order to exert control upon the gods and the course of his own future life. He not only, as is perhaps the case elsewhere, was moral with an ulterior motive, but his moral code lacked the divine hand. It was felt as a system which he applied to himself for his own good. He did not assume that he offended a god by not following it, except in two special cases, as in sins against Agni and Varuna. Ulterior motives are deprecated, but because he that seeks absorption into God must quit desires.[18]

We have said that the moral code of the Hindus at its best seems to be on a par with the best as found elsewhere. Not to lie, not to steal, not to injure another illegally,[19] to be brave, to be loyal, to be hospitable,--these are the factors of its early and late law. In certain late cases may be added 'to be self-restrained.' But if these laws be compared with those of the savage races it will be found that most of them are also factors of primitive ethics. Therefore we say that the Hindu code as a whole is savage and antique, and that, excluding religious excess and debauchery, it is on a par with the modern ethical code only nominally. In reality, however, this savage and ancient code is not on a level with that of to-day. And the reason is that the ideal of each is different. In the savage and old-world conception of morality it is the ideal virtue that is represented by the code. It was distinct laudation to say of a man that he did not lie, or steal, and that he was hospitable.[20] But to-day, while these factors remain to formulate the code, they no longer represent ideal virtue. Nay rather, they are but the assumed base of virtue, and so thoroughly is this assumed that to say of a gentleman that he does not lie or steal is not praise, but rather an insult, since the imputation to him of what is but the virtue of children is no longer an encomium when applied to the adult, who is supposed to have passed the point where theft and lying are moral temptations, and to have reached a point where, on the basis of these savage, antique, and now childish virtues, he strives for a higher moral ideal. And this ideal of to-day, which makes fair-mindedness, liberality of thought, and altruism the respective representatives of the savage virtues of manual honesty, truth-speaking, and hospitality, is just what is lacking in the more primitive ideal formulated in the code of savages and of the Brahman alike.[21] It is not found at all among savages, and they may be left on one side. In India all the factors of the modern code are entirely lacking at the time when the old code was first completely formulated. Liberality of thought comes in with the era of the Upanishads, but it is a restricted freedom. Altruism is unknown to pure Brahmanism. But it obtains among the Buddhists, who also have liberality of thought and fair-mindedness. Hence, from the point of view of the higher morality, one must confess that Buddhism offers the best parallel to the best of to-day. On the other hand, Buddhistic altruism exceeds all other.

We have sketched the sphere of influence exerted by the West upon India, and found it on the whole inconsiderable. The Indic religions till the twelfth century assimilated what little they drew from foreign sources, and stand before the world as a peculiar growth, native to the soil in all their essential characteristics.[22]

But to the other side of India's contact with the West we have as yet barely alluded. India has given as she has received. What influence has she had upon Western cults and beliefs? The worship that substituted idols for ideal forms we have traced back to the end of the Vedic period. It is not, however, a mark of early Brahmanism, nor is it a pronounced feature before the age of Buddhism. But in Buddha's time, or soon after, flourished the worship of images, and with it the respect for relics. The latter feature of the new religion made necessary shrines to keep the holy objects, sacred museums, which soon became the formal _st[=u]pas,_ above-ground and under-ground, and these made the first temples of India.[23] Fully developed, they became the great religious buildings affected by Buddhism, with their idol service, prostrations, repetitions of prayers, dim religious light (lamp-service), offerings of flowers, fruits, etc. From this source may have been derived many of the details in the Roman Catholic worship, which appears to have taken from Buddhism the rosary, originally a mark of the Çivaite.[24] By what is, to say the least, an extraordinary coincidence, each of these churches is conspicuous for its use of holy water, choirs, sacred pictures, tonsure, vestments, the bell in religious service, the orders of nuns, monks, and the vows of the monastic system.[25] The most curious loan made by the Roman and Greek churches is, however, the quasi-worship of Gotama Buddha himself (in so far as a Romanist worships his saints), for, under cover of the Barlaam and Josaphat story, Buddha has found a niche as a saint in the row of canonized Catholic worthies, and has his saint-day in the calendar of the Greek and Roman churches.[26] But it is not his mother who is the Virgin of Lamaism, which has made of Buddha the Supreme God.

Besides external phases of the religious cult, India has given to the West a certain class of literary works and certain philosophical ideas. The former consists, of course, in the fable-literature, which spread from India to Eastern Europe (Babrius) and has preserved in many tales of to-day nothing more than Buddhistic Birth-stories or other Indic tales (the Pa[.n]catantra) and legends.[27] Of these we can make only passing mention here, to turn at once to the more important question of philosophical and religious borrowing.

It has been claimed, as we have incidentally stated, that the Logos doctrine was imported from India. Were this so, it would, indeed, be a fact of great historical importance, but, interesting as would be such a loan, we cannot see that the suggestion is based on data of cogent character. The history of the doctrine in India and Greece is simply this: V[=a]c, Speech or Word, appears in the Rig Veda (in the hymn cited above, p. 143) as an active female divine power, showing grace to mortals. In the Brahmanic period V[=a]c becomes more and more like the Greek Logos, and it may truthfuly be said that in this period "the Word was God." In Greece, on the other hand, the conception of Logos begins with Heraclitus, passes on to the Stoics; is adopted by Philo; becomes a prominent feature of Neo-Platonism; and reappears in the Gospel of St. John. It is certainly legitimate to suppose that Heraclitus might have received the idea indirectly, if not directly, from contemporary Eastern philosophers; but the fact that he did so remains unproved; nor is there any foundation for the assumption of borrowing other than the resemblance between the Grecian and Indic conceptions. But this resemblance is scarcely marked enough in essential features to prejudice one in favor of Weber's theory (amplified by Garbe), as it is not detailed enough to be striking, for V[=a]c is never more than one of many female abstractions.

With the exception of the one case to be mentioned immediately, we are forced to take the same position in regard to the similarity between other forms of early Greek and Hindu philosophy. Both Thales and Parmenides were indeed anticipated by Hindu sages, and the Eleatic school seems to be but a reflexion of the Upanishads. The doctrines of Anaximander and Heraclitus are, perhaps, not known first in Greece, but there is no evidence that they were not original to Greece, or that they were borrowed from India, however much older may be the parallel trains of thought on Indic soil.

Quite as decidedly, however, as we deny all appearance of borrowing on the part of the founders of other early Grecian schools, must we claim the thought of India to be the archetype of Pythagorean philosophy. After a careful review of the points of contact, and weighing as dispassionately as possible the historical evidence for and against the originality of Pythagoras, we are unable to come to any other conclusion than that the Greek philosopher took his whole system indirectly from India. His 'numbers,' indeed, are the S[=a]nkhya only in appearances.[28] But his theory of metempsychosis is the Indic _sams[=a]ra_, and Plato is full of Sankhyan thought, worked out by him but taken from Pythagoras. Before the sixth century B.C. all the religious-philosophical ideas of Pythagoras are current in India (L. von Schroeder, _Pythagoras_). If there were but one or two of these cases, they might be set aside as accidental coincidences, but such coincidences are too numerous to be the result of chance. Even in details the transmigration theory of Pythagoras harmonizes with that of India. Further (after Schroeder und Garbe) may be mentioned the curious prohibition against eating beans; the Hesiodic-Pythagorean [Greek: _pros êlion mê omichein_]; the vow of silence, like that taken by the Hindu _muni_; the doctrine of _five_ elements (aether as fifth); above all, the so-called Pythagorean Theorem, developed in the mathematical Çulvas[=u]tras[29] of India; the irrrational number [square root symbol]2; then the whole character of the religious-philosophical fraternity, which is exactly analogous to the Indic orders of the time; and finally the mystic speculation, which is peculiar to the Pythagorean school, and bears a striking resemblance to the fantastical notions affected by the authors of the Br[=a]hmana.[30] Greek legend is full of the Samian's travels to Egypt, Chaldaea, Phoenicia, and India. The fire beneath this smoke is hidden. One knows not how much to believe of such tales. But they only strengthen the inference, drawn from 'the Pythagorean school,' the man's work itself, that the mysticism and numbers with which he is surrounded are taken from that system of numbers and from that mysticism which are so astonishingly like his own. All subsequent philosophies borrowed from Pythagoreanism, and in so far has India helped to form the mind of Europe.[31]

But we cannot omit a yet more important religious influence exerted by India upon the West. As is well known, Neo-Platonism and Christian Gnosticism owe much to India. The Gnostic ideas in regard to a plurality of heavens and spiritual worlds go back directly to Hindu sources. Soul and light are one in the S[=a]nkhya system before they become so in Greece, and when they appear united in Greece it is by means of the thought which is borrowed from India. The famous 'three qualities' of the S[=a]nkhya reappear as the Gnostic 'three classes,' [Greek: pneumagikoi], [Greek: psuchikoi], [Greek: ulikoi].[32] In regard to Neo-Platonism, Garbe says: "The views of Plotinus are in perfect agreement with those of the S[=a]nkhya system."[33] Porphyry, the disciple of Plotinus, has the Yoga doctrine of immediate perception of truth leading to union with the deity. As is well known and undisputed, this Porphyry copies directly from the treatise of Bardesanes, which contains an account of the Brahmatis;[34] while in many instances he simply repeats the tenets of the S[=a]nkhya philosophy. The means of communication may have been Alexandria, where met the trades of the East and West. Perhaps the philosophers of India as well as of Greece were brought together there. But, if the East and West had a mutual meeting-ground, the ideas common to both occupy no common place in their respective homes. In Greece, Pythagoreanism and Gnosticism are strange, and are felt as such by the natives. In India these traits are founded on ancient beliefs, long current, universal, nationally recognized. The question of giver and receiver, then, admitting the identity of thought, can scarcely be raised. If two men meet, one a Methodist and one a Baptist, and after they have conversed the Methodist be found totally immersed, he will not be credited with having invented independently his new mode of baptism.

India's influence as an intellectual factor in modern European thought has thus far been of the slightest. Her modern deism is borrowed, and her pantheism is not scientific. Sanskrit scholars are rather fond of citing the pathetic words of Schopenhauer, who, speaking of the Upanishads, says that the study of these works "has been the solace of my life; it will be the solace of my death"; but Schopenbauer knew the Upanishads only in a very free form of translation, and it can scarcely have been the loose philosophy so much as the elevated spirit of these works that solaced the unphilosophical bitterness of his life. This general impression will doubtless continue to be felt by all that study the best works of Brahmanism. The sincerity, the fearless search of the Indic sages for truth, their loftiness of thinking, all these will affect the religious student of every clime and age, though the fancied result of their thinking may pass without effect over a modern mind. For a philosophy that must be orthodox can never be definitive. But, if one turn from the orthodox completed systems to the tentative beginnings of the Ved[=a]nta (in the Upanishads), he finds as the basis of this earlier speculation only an _a priori_ meta-physical assumption.[35]

Apart from philosophical influence there is at present more or less interest in Europe and America in Indic superstition and spiritualism, and half-educated people will doubtless be influenced for some time to come by Mah[=a]tmaism and Yogism, just as they are moved by native séance-spirits and mesmerism. Blavatskyism (which represents no phase of Buddhism) will always find disciples among the ignorant classes, especially in an agnostic or atheistic environment, so that one should attribute the mental attitude of such minds to their lack of culture rather than to India; for if Mah[=a]tmaism had not been discovered, they would still profess it under another name. Buddhism, too, apart from Hartmann, may be said to have some influence on popular thought, yet it is a very unreal Buddhism, which amounts only to the adoption of an altruistic creed. But we know of none among the many that profess themselves 'Buddhists' who has really adopted Buddhistic principles, and but few who even understand those principles. A bar to the adoption of Buddhism lies in the implicit necessity of renunciation for all who would become perfected, and in the explicit doctrine of _karma_ in its native form. The true Buddhist is not satisfied to be a third-class Buddhist, that is, simply a man that seeks to avoid lust, anger, and ignorance. He will become a second-class Buddhist and renounce the world, give up all family ties and earthly affections, and enter the Order. But he will not do this, thinking that he is thereby to become perfect. For, to be a first-class Buddhist, he must get wisdom. He must believe in the impermanence of everything, and in the awful continuation of his own _karma_ as a resultant group, which, as such, will continue to exist if, to the purity and peace of the lower classes of Buddhists, he fail to add in his own case the wisdom that understands the truth of this _karma_ doctrine.[36] Now no modern mind will believe this hypothesis of _karma_ and no modern will even enter the Order. Nevertheless, while one may not become a true Buddhist in the native sense, it is possible to be a Buddhist in a higher sense, and in its new form this is a religion that will doubtless attract many Occidentals, though it is almost too chaste to win adherents where marriage is not regarded as detrimental to high thinking. But if one substitute for the Buddhistic _karma_ the _karma_ of to-day, he may well believe that his acts are to have effect hereafter, not as a complex but as individual factors in determining the goodness of his descendants and indirectly of his environment. Then there remains the attainment of purity, kindness,[37] and wisdom, which last may be interpreted, in accordance with the spirit of the Master, as seeing things in their true relations, and the abandonment of whatever prevents such attainment, namely, of lust, anger, and ignorance. But to be a true Buddhist one must renounce, as lust, all desire of evil, of future life, which brings evil; and must live without other hope than that of extinguishing all desire and passion, believing that in so doing he will at death be annihilated, that is, that he will have caused his acts to cease to work for good or ill, and that, since being without a soul he exists only in his acts, he will in their cessation also cease to be.

At least one thing may be learned from Buddhism. It is possible to be religious without being devout. True Buddhism is the only religion which, discarding all animism, consists in character and wisdom. But neither in sacrificial works, nor in kindness alone, nor in wisdom alone, lies the highest. One must renounce all selfish desires and live to build up a character of which the signs are purity, love for all, and that courageous wisdom which is calm insight into truth. The Buddhist worked out his own salvation without fear or trembling. To these characteristics may be added that tolerance and freedom of thought which are so dissimilar to the traits of many other religions.

So much may be learned from Buddhism, and it were much only to know that such a religion existed twenty-four centuries ago. But in what, from a wider point of view, lies the importance of the study of Hindu religions? Not, we venture to think, in their face value for the religious or philosophical life of the Occident, but in the revelation, which is made by this study, of the origin and growth of theistic ideas in one land; in the light these cast by analogy on the origin of such ideas elsewhere; in the prodigious significance of the religious factor in the development of a race, as exhibited in this instance; in the inspiring review of that development as it is seen through successive ages in the loftiest aspirations of a great people; and finally in the lesson taught by the intellectual and religious fate of them among that people that have substituted, like the Brahman ritualist, form for spirit; like the Vedantist, ideas for ideals; like the sectary, emotion for morality. But greatest, if woeful, is the lesson taught by that phase of Buddhism, which has developed into Lamaism and its kindred cults. For here one learns how few are they that can endure to be wise, how inaccessible to the masses is the height on which sits the sage, how unpalatable to the vulgar is a religion without credulity.

Ever since Cotton Mather took up a collection to convert the Hindus,[38] Americans have felt a great interest in missionary labor in India. Under the just and beneficent rule of the British the Hindus to-day are no longer plundered and murdered in the way they once were; nor is there now so striking a contrast between the invader's precept and example as obtained when India first made the acquaintance of Christian militants.

The slight progress of the missionaries, who for centuries have been working among the Hindus, is, perhaps, justified in view of this painful contrast. In its earlier stages there can be no doubt that all such progress was thereby impeded. But it is cause for encouragement, rather than for dismay, that the slowness of Christian advance is in part historically explicable, sad as is the explanation. For against what odds had not the early missionaries to struggle! Not the heathen, but the Christian, barred the way against Christianity. Four hundred years ago the Portuguese descended upon the Hindus, cross and sword in hand. For a whole century these victorious immigrants, with unheard-of cruelty and tyranny, cheated, stripped, and slaughtered the natives. After them came the Dutch, but, Dutch or Portuguese, it was the same. For it was merely another century, during which a new band of Christians hesitated at no crime or outrage, at no meanness or barbarity, which should win them power in India. In 1758 the Dutch were conquered by the English, who, becoming now the chief standard-bearers of the Christian church, committed, Under Varisittart, more offences against decency, honor, honesty, and humanity than is pleasant for believer or unbeliever to record; and, when their own theft had brought revolt, knew no better way to impress the Hindu with the power of Christianity than to revive the Mogul horror and slay. (in their victims' fearful belief) both soul and body alike by shooting their captives from the cannon's mouth. Such was Christian example. It is no wonder that the Christian precept ('thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself') was uttered in vain, or that the faith it epitomized was rejected. The hand stole and killed; the mouth said, 'I love you.' The Hindu understood theft and murder, but it took him some time to learn English. One may hope that this is now forgotten, for the Hindu has not the historical mind. But all this must be remembered when the expenditures of Christianity are weighed with its receipts.[39]

In coming to the end of the long course of Hindu religious thought, it is almost inevitable that one should ask what is the present effect of missionary effort upon this people, and what, again, will eventually be the direction which the native religious sense, so strongly implanted in this folk, will take, whether aided or not by influence from without.

Although it is no part of our purpose to examine into the workings of that honest zeal which has succeeded in planting so many stations up the Indic coast, there are yet some obvious truths which, in the light of religious history, should be an assistance to all whose work lies in making Hindu converts. To compile these truths from this history will not be otiose. In the first place, Christian dogma was formally introduced into South India in the sixth century; it was known in the North in the seventh, and possibly long before this; it was the topic of debate by educated Hindus in the sixteenth and seventeenth. It has helped to mould the Hindus' own most intellectual sects; and, either through the influence of Christian or native teaching, or that of both, have been created not only the Northern monotheistic schools, but also the strict unitarianism of the later Southern sects, whose scriptures, for at least some centuries, have inculcated the purest morality and simplest monotheistic creed in language of the most elevated character.[40] In the second place, the Hindu sectary has interwoven with his doctrine of pantheism that of the trinity. In the third place, the orthodox Brahman recognizes in the cult of Christianity, as that cult is expressed, for instance, in Christmas festivities, one that is characteristic, in outward form and inner belief, of a native heterodox sect. In the fourth place, the Hindu sectary believes that the native expression of trinitarian dogma, faith-doctrine, child-god worship, and madonna-worship takes historical precedence over that of Christianity; and the orthodox Hindu believes the same of his completed code of lofty moral teachings. Vishnuism is, again, so catholic that it will accept Christ as an _avatar_ of Vishnu, but not as an exclusive manifestation of God. In the fifth place, the Hindu doctors are very well educated, and often very clever, both delighting in debate and acute in argument It follows, if we may draw the obvious inference, that, to attack orthodox Brahmanism, or even heterodox Hinduism, requires much logical ability as well as learning, and that the best thing a missionary can do in India, if he be not conscious of possessing both these requisites, is to let the native scholars alone.

But native scholars make but a small part of the population, and among the uneducated and 'depressed' classes there is plenty for the missionary to do. Here, too, where caste is hated because these classes suffer from it, there is more effect in preaching equality and the brotherly love of Christianity, doctrines abhorrent to the social aristocrats, and not favored even by the middle classes. But what here opposes Christian efforts is the splendid system of devotion, the magnificent fêtes, the gorgeous shows, and the tickling ritualism, which please and overawe the fancy of the native, who is apt to desire for himself a pageant of religion, not to speak of a visible god in idol form; while from his religious teacher he demands either an asceticism which is no part of the Christian faith, or a leadership in sensuous and sensual worship.

What will be the result of proselytizing zeal among these variegated masses?[41] Evidently this depends on where and how it is exercised. The orthodox theologian will not give up his inherited faith for one that to him is on a par with a schismatic heresy, or take dogmatic instruction from a level which he regards as intellectually below his own. From the Sam[=a]jas no present help will come to the missionary; for, while they have already accepted the spirit of Christianity, liberal Hindus reject the Christian creed.[42] At a later day they will join hands with the missionary, perhaps, but not before the latter is prepared to say: There is but one God, and many are his prophets.

There remain such of the higher classes as can be induced to prefer undogmatic Christianity to polytheism, and the lowest class, which may be persuaded by acts of kindness to accept the dogmas with which these are accompanied. It is with this class that the missionary has succeeded best. In other cases his success has been in inverse ratio to the amount of his dogmatic teaching. And this we believe to be the key to the second problem. For, if one examine the maze of India's tangled creeds, he will be surprised to find that, though dogmatic Christianity has its Indic representative, there yet is no indigenous representative of undogmatic Christianity. For a god in human form is worshipped, and a trinity is revered; but this is not Christianity. Love of man is preached; but this is not Christianity. Love of God and faith in his earthly incarnation is taught; but this, again, is not Christianity. No sect has ever formulated as an original doctrine Christ's two indissoluble commandments, on which hang all the law and the prophets.

It would seem, therefore, that to inculcate active kindness, simple morality, and the simplest creed were the most persuasive means of converting the Hindu, if the teacher unite with this a practical affection, without venturing upon ratiocination, and without seeking to attract by display, which at best cannot compete with native pageants.[43] Moreover, on the basis of undogmatic teaching, the missionary even now can unite with the Sam[=a]j and Sittar church, neither of which is of indigenous origin, though both are native in their secondary growth. For it is significant that it is the Christian union of morality and altruism which has appealed to each of these religious bodies, and which each of them has made its own. In insisting upon a strict morality the Christian missionary will be supported by the purest creeds of India itself, by Brahmanism, unsectarian Hinduism, the Jain heretics, and many others, all of whom either taught the same morality before Christianity existed, or developed it without Christian aid. The strength of Christian teaching lies in uniting with this the practical altruism which was taught by Christ. In her own religions there is no hope for India, and her best minds have renounced them. The body of Hinduism is corrupt, its soul is evil. As for Brahmanism--the Brahmanism that produced the Upanishads--the spirit is departed, and the form that remains is dead. But a new spirit, the spirit of progress and of education, will prevail at last. When it rules it will undo the bonds of caste and do away with low superstition. Then India also will be free to accept, as the creed of her new religion, Christ's words, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, and thy neighbor as thyself.' But to educate India up to this point will take many centuries, even more, perhaps, than will be needed to educate in the same degree Europe and America.[44]

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Lassen interprets _ophir_ as Abh[=i]ras, at the mouth of the Indus. The biblical _koph_ is Sanskrit _kapi_, ape. Other doubtful equivalents are discussed by Weber, _Indische Skizzen_, p. 74.]

[Footnote 2: The legend of the Flood and the fancy of the Four Ages has been attributed to Babylon by some writers. Ecstein claims Chaldean influence in Indic atomic philosophy, _Indische Studien_, ii. 369, which is doubtful; but the Indic alphabet probably derived thence, possibly from Greece. The conquests of Semiramis (Serimamis in the original) may have included a part of India, but only Brunnhofer finds trace of this in Vedic literature, and the character of his work we have already described.]

[Footnote 3: Senart attributes to the Achaemenides certain Indic formulae of administration. IA. xx. 256.]

[Footnote 4: Certain Hindu names, like those to which we called attention in the epic, containing Mihira, _i.e.,_ Mithra; the Magas; _i.e.,_ Magi; and recommendations of sun-worship in the Pur[=a]nas are the facts on which Weber bases a theory of great influence of Persia at this later period. Weber claims, in fact, that the native sun-worship was quite replaced by this importation (_Indische Skizzen_, p. 104). This we do not believe. Even the great number of Persians who, driven out by Arabians, settled in Gujar[=a]t (the name of Bombay is the same with Pumbadita, a Jewish settlement in Mesopotamia) had no other effect on the Brahmanic world that absorbed them (_ib._ p. 109) than to intensify the fervor of a native cult.]

[Footnote 5: Weber ascribes to Greek influence the Hindus first acquaintance with the planets. On a possible dramatic loan see above, p. 2, note. The Greeks were first to get into the heart of India (as far as Patna), and between the court of Antiochus the Great and the king S[=a]ubhagasena there was formal exchange of ambassadors in the third century B.C. The name of Demetrius appears as Datt[.a]mitra in the Hindu epic. He had "extended his rule over the Indus as far as the Hydaspes and perhaps over M[=a]lava and Gujarat" (about 200 B.C.; Weber, _Skizzen_). In the second century Menandros (the Buddhists' 'Milinda') got as far as the Jumna; but his successors retreated to the Punj[=a]b and eventually to Kabul (_ib_.) Compare also Weber, _Sitz. d. könig. Preuss. Akad_., 1890, p. 901 ff., _Die Griechien in Indien_. The period of Greek influence coincides with that of Buddhist supremacy in its first vigor, and it is for this reason that Brahmanic literature and religion were so untouched by it. There is to our mind no great probability that the Hindu epic owes anything to that of Greece, although Weber has put in a strong plea for this view in his essay _Ueber das R[=a]m[=a]ya[n.]a_.]

[Footnote 6: The romance of a Russian traveller's late 'discovery,' which Sanskrit scholars estimate at its true value, but which may seem to others worthy of regard, is perhaps, in view of the interest taken in it, one that should be told correctly. Nicholas Notovitch asserts that he discovered seven years ago in the Tibetan monastery of Himis, a work which purports to give a life of Christ from birth to death, including sixteen years spent in India. This life of 'Issa' (Jesus) is declared to have been written in the first century of the Christian era. Unfortunately for the reputation of the finder, he made a mistake in exploiting his discovery, and stated that his manuscript had been translated for him by the monks of Himis 'out of the original P[=a]li,' a dialect that these monks could not understand if they had specimens of it before them. This settled Notovitch's case, and since of course he did not transcribe a word of the MS. thus freely put at his disposal, but published the forgery in a French 'translation,' he may be added to the list of other imposters of his ilk. The humbug has been exposed for some time, and we know of no one who, having a right to express an opinion, believes Notovitch's tale, though some ignorant people have been hoaxed by it. If the blank sixteen years in Christ's life ever be explained, it may be found that they were passed in a Zoroastrian environment; but until real evidence be brought to show that Christ was in India, the wise will continue to doubt it. As little proof exists, it may be added, of Buddhistic influence in the making of the Gospels. But this point is nowadays scarcely worth discussing, for competent scholars no longer refer vague likenesses to borrowing. Certain features are common to the story of Christ and to the legends of Buddha; but they are common to other divine narratives also. The striking similarities are not found in the earliest texts of the Southern Buddhists. [=I]ça for Jesus is modern, Weber, _loc. cit._, p. 931.]

[Footnote 7: Elphinstone, I. pp, 140, 508; II. chap. I. The 'slave dynasty' of Kutab, 1206-1288. It was the bigoted barbarity of these Mohammedans that drove Brahmanic religion into the South.]

[Footnote 8: Though immediately before it the Harihara cult, survival of Sankhyan dualism, is practically monotheistic. Basava belongs to the twelfth century.]

[Footnote 9: The literary exchange in the realm of fable between Arabia and later Sanskrit writers (of the twelfth century) is very evident. Thus in Indic dress appear at this time the story of Troy, of the passage over the Red Sea, of Jonas, etc. On the other hand, the Arabians translated native Hindu fables. See Weber, IS. iii. 327, _Ueber den Zusammenhang griechischer Fabeln mit indischen_, and _Indische Skizzen_, p. 111, and _Die Griechen in Indien_. Arabia further drew on India for philosophical material, and Alber[=u]ni himself translated Kapila's work (Weber,_loc. cit_.).]

[Footnote 10: Whereby cows, snakes, cats (sacred to one of the Çivaite 'mothers'), crocodiles, monkeys, etc, are worshipped.]

[Footnote 11: Pantheists in name alone, most of the lower caste-men are practically polytheists, and this means that they are at bottom dualists. They are wont to worship assiduously but one of the gods they recognize.]

[Footnote 12: Where Brahmanism may be said to cease and Hinduism to begin can be defined but vaguely. Krishnaism is rank Hinduism. But Çivaism is half Brahmanic. For the rest, in its essential aspects, Hinduism is as old as the Hindus. Only the form changes (as it intrudes upon Brahmanism).]

[Footnote 13: It is highly probable that the mention of the Northwestern Ç[=u]dras in Mbh[=a]. VI. 9. 67 refers to the Afghan S[=u]droi, and that the slave-caste as a whole, which bears the name Ç[=u]dra, received this appellation first as conquered tribes of Afghanistan.]

[Footnote 14: Brahmanism has always been an island in a sea. Even in the Brahmanic age there is evidence to show that it was the isolated belief of a comparatively small group of minds. It did not even control all the Aryan population.]

[Footnote 15: We refer partly to literature, that of the drama and novel, for instance; and partly to the fine arts. But in connection with the latter it may be remarked that painting, and the fine arts generally, are expressly reckoned as the pursuit of slaves alone. For instance, even as late a jurist as he that wrote the law-code of 'Vishnu' thus (chap. ii.) parcels out the duties and occupations of the four castes: The duty of a priest is to teach the Veda, his means of livelihood is to sacrifice for others and to receive aims; the duty of the warrior is to fight, his means of livelihood is to receive taxes for protecting the other castes; the duty of the V[=a]içya is to tend cattle, his means of livelihood 1s gain from flocks, farm, trade, or money-lending. The duty of a slave, Çudra, is to serve the three upper castes; his means of livelihood is the fine arts.]

[Footnote 16: It is this that has exaggerated, though not produced, that most marked of native beliefs, a faith which Intertwines with every system, Brahmanic, Buddhistic, or Hinduistic, a belief in an ecstatic power in man which gives him control over supernatural forces. Today this Yogism and Mah[=a]tmaism, which is visible even in the Rig Veda, is nothing but unbridled fancy playing with mesmerism and lies.]

[Footnote 17: The Hindu sectarian cults are often strangely like those of Greece in details, which, as we have already suggested, must revert to a like, though not necessarily mutual, source of primitive superstition. Even the sacred free bulls, which roam at large, look like old familiar friends, [Greek: aphetôn dniôn taurôn en tps tou IIoseidônos Ierps] (Plato, _Kritias_, 119); and we have dared to question whether Lang's 'Bull-roarer' might not be sought in the command that the priest should make the bull roar at the sacrifice; and in the verse of the Rig Veda which says that the priests "beget (produce) the Dawn by means of the roar of a bull" (vii. 79. 4); or must the bull be _soma_? For Müller's defence of the Hindu's veraciousness, see his _/India, What Can It Teach Us_, p. 34.]

[Footnote 18: Some exception may be taken to this on the ground that moral laws really are referred to the Creator in one form or another, This we acknowledge as a theory of authority, but it so seldom comes into play, and there is so little rapport between gods and moral goodness, that the difference in this regard is greater by far than the resemblance. A Christian sins against God, a Hindu sins against himself. The Christian may be punished by God; the Hindu punishes himself (the _karma_). The latter may say that moral laws are of God, but he means that they are natural laws, the violation of which has the same effect as touching fire.]

[Footnote 19: The _lex talionis_ is in full force in Hindu law, even in the codes of Hinduism; for example, 'Vishnu,' V. 19.]

[Footnote 20: Deceit of a foe is no sin in any system. "All is fair in war."]

[Footnote 21: This idea may be carried out in other instances. The bravery of civilization is not the bravado that savages call bravery, and modesty is now a virtue where boasting used to be reckoned as the necessary complement of bravery. As for hospitality in the old sense, it is not now a 'virtue' not to kill a guest.]

[Footnote 22: India's relations with Rome were late and wholly of mercantile character.]

[Footnote 23: It is interesting, as showing incidentally the close connection between Buddhism and Çivaism in other than philosophical aspects, that the first Indic grotto-temple mentioned by foreigners (in the third century A.D.) was one which contained a statue of an androgynous (Çivaite) deity (Weber, _Indische Skizzen_, p. 86, note).]

[Footnote 24: Rosaries are first mentioned in the AV. Pariçista, XLIII. 4. 11 (Leumann, Rosaries).]

[Footnote 25: In Lamaism there is also the tiara-crowned pope, and the transubstantiation theory; the reverence to Virgin and Child, confessions, fasts, purgatory, abbots, cardinals, etc. Compare David's _Hibbert Lectures_, p. 193.]

[Footnote 26: The literature on this subject is very extensive (see the Bibliography). On Buddhism and Christianity see Bohlen's _Altes Indien_, I. 334 (Weber, _Indische Skizzen_, p. 92). At a recent meeting of the British Association E.B. Tylor presented a paper in which is made an attempt to show Buddhistic influence on pre-Columbian culture in America. On comparing the Aztec picture-writing account of the journey of the soul after death with Buddhistic eschatology, he is forced to the conclusion that there was direct transmission from Buddhism. We require more proof than Aztec pictures of hell to believe any such theory; and reckon this attempt to those already discussed in the eighth chapter.]

[Footnote 27: It is a mooted question in how far the influence in this line has been reciprocal. See _Indische Studien_, iii. 128.]

[Footnote 28: The S[=a]nkhya has no systematic connection with the 'numbers' of Pythagoras.]

[Footnote 29: Compare on the Çulvas[=u]tras, Thibaut, J.A. Beng. xliv. p. 227; Von Schroeder, _Pythagoras und die Inder; Literatur und Cultur_, p. 718 ff, who also cites Cantor, _Geschichte der Mathematik_, p. 540, and refutes the possibility, suggested by the latter, of the loan being from Greece to India on the ground that the Çulvas[=u]tra are too old to belong to the Alexandrine period, and too essentlal a part of the religious literature to have been borrowed; and also on the ground that they are not an addition to the Çr[=a]utas[=u]tra, but they make an independent portion (p. 721, note).]

[Footnote 30: Compare Garbe (_loc. cit_. below), and his _S[=a][.m]khya Philosophic_, p. 94.]

[Footnote 31: This view is not one universally accepted by Sanskrit scholars. See, for instance, Weber, _Die Griechen in Indien_. But to us the minute resemblance appears too striking to be accidental.]

[Footnote 32: Lassen, and Weber, _Indische Skizzen, p_. 91.]

[Footnote 33: Garbe, in a recent number of the _Monist_, where is given a _résumé_ of the relations between Greek and Hindu philosophical thought.]

[Footnote 34: Weber, _loc. cit._]

[Footnote 35: The existence of a soul (spirit) in man is always assumed in the Upanishads. In the pantheistic system (the completed Ved[=a]nta) the verity of traditional belief is also assumed. The latter assumption is made, too, though not in so pronounced a manner, in the Upanishads.]

[Footnote 36: The Upanishad philosopher sought only to save his life, but the Buddhist, to lose it.]

[Footnote 37: This is not a negative 'non-injury' kindness. It is a love 'far-reaching, all*pervading' (above, p. 333). The Buddhist is no Stoic save in the stoicism with which he looks forward to his own end. Rhys Davids has suggested that the popularity of Tibet Buddhism in distinction from Southern Buddhism may have been due to the greater weight laid by the former on altruism. For, while the earlier Buddhist strives chiefly for his own perfection, the spiritualist of the North affects greater love for his kind, and becomes wise to save others. The former is content to be an Arhat; the latter desires to be a Bodhisat, 'teacher of the law' (_Hibbert Lectures_, p. 254). We think, however, that the latter's success with the vulgar was the result rather of his own greater mental vulgarity and animism.]

[Footnote 38: Hurst's _Indika_, chap. XLIX, referring to _India Christiana_ of 1721, and the correspondence between Mather and Ziegenbalg, who was then a missionary in India. The wealthy 'young men' who contributed were, in Hurst's opinion, Harvard students.]

[Footnote 39: The Portuguese landed in Calcutta in 1498. They were driven out by the Dutch, to whom they ceded their mercantile monopoly, in 1640-1644. The Dutch had arrived in 1596, and held their ground till their supremacy was wrested from them by Clive in 1758, The British had followed the Dutch closely (arriving in 1600), and were themselves followed soon after by the Germans and Danes (whose activity soon subsided), and by the French. The German company, under whose protection stood Ziegenbalg, was one of the last to enter India, and first to leave it (1717-1726). The most grotesquely hideous era in India's history is that which was inaugurated by the supremacy of the Christian British. Major Munroe's barbaric punishment of the Sepoys took place, however, in Clive's absence (1760-1765). Marshman, I, p. 305, says of this Munroe only that he was "an officer of undaunted resolution"! Clive himself was acquitted by his own countrymen of theft, robbery, and extortion; but the Hindus have not acquitted him or Hastings; nor will Christianity ever do so.]

[Footnote 40: For specimens of the sacred Kural of Tiruvalluvar N[=a]r[=a]yana*N[=a]yan[=]r, see the examples given by Pope, _Indian Antiquary_, seventh and following volumes. The Sittars, to whom we have referred above, are a more modern sect. Their precept that love is the essential of religion is not, as in the case of the Hindu idolators, of erotic nature. They seem to be the modern representatives of that Buddhistic division (see above) called S[=a]ugatas, whose religion consists in 'kindness to all.' In these sects there is found quietism, a kind of quakerism, pure morality, high teaching, sternest (almost bigoted) monotheism, and the doctrine of positive altruism, strange to the Hindu idolator as to the Brahman. The Prem S[=a]gar, or 'Ocean of Love,' is a modern Hindu work, which illustrates the religious love opposed to that of the Sittars, namely, the mystic love of the Krishnaite for his savior, whose grace is given only to him that has faith. It is the mystic rapt adoration that in expression becomes erotic and sensual.]

[Footnote 41: Hinduism itself is unconsciously doing a reforming work among the wild tribes that are not touched by the Christian missionary. These tribes, becoming Hinduized, become civilized, and, in so far as they are thus made approachable, they are put in the way of improvement; though civilization often has a bad effect upon their morals for a season.]

[Footnote 42: The substitution of the doctrine of redemption for that of _karma_ is intellectually impossible for an educated Hindu. He may renounce the latter, but he cannot accept the former. The nearest approach to such a conception is that of the Buddhistic 'Redeemer' heresy referred to above. In all other regards Samaj and pantheism are too catholic to be affected; In this regard they are both unyielding.]

[Footnote 43: We question, for instance, the advisability of such means to "fill up the church" as is described in a missionary report delivered at the last meeting of the Missionary Union of the Classis of New York for the current year: "A man is sent to ride on a bicycle as fast as he can through the different streets. This invariably attracts attention. Boys and men follow him to the church, where it is easy to persuade them to enter." But this is an admission of our position in regard to the classes affected. The rabble may be Christianized by this means, but the intelligent will not be attracted.]

[Footnote 44: After the greater part of our work had passed the final revision, and several months after the whole was gone to press, appeared Oldenberg's _Die Religion des Veda_, which, as the last new book on the subject, deserves a special note. The author here takes a liberal view, and does not hesitate to illustrate Vedic religion with the light cast by other forms of superstition. But this method has its dangers, and there is perhaps a little too much straining after original types, giant-gods as prototypes and totemism in proper names, where Vedic data should be separated from what may have preceded Vedic belief. Oldenberg, as a ritualist, finds in Varuna, Dawn, and the Burial Service the inevitable stumbling-blocks of such scholars as confuse Brahmanism with early Vedism. To remove these obstacles he suggests that Varuna, as the moon, was borrowed from the Semites or Akkadians (though be frankly admits that not even the shadow of this moon lingers in Vedic belief); explains Dawn's non-participation in _soma_ by stating that she never participates in it (which explains nothing); and jumps over the Burial Hymn with the inquiry whether, after all, it could not be interpreted as a cremation-hymn (the obvious answer being that the service does imply burial, and does not even hint at cremation). On the other hand, when theoretical barbarism and ritualism are foregone, Oldenberg has a true eye for the estimation of facts, and hence takes an unimpeachable position in several important particulars, notably in rejecting Jacobi's date of the Rig Veda; in rejecting also Hillebrandt's moon-_soma_; in denying an originally supreme Dy[=a]us; in his explanation of henotheism (substantially one with the explanation we gave a year ago); and in his account of the relation of the Rig Veda to the (later) Atharvan. Despite an occasional brilliant suggestion, which makes the work more exciting than reliable, this book will prove of great value to them that are particularly interested in the ritual; though the reader must be on his guard against the substitution of deduction for induction, as manifested in the confusion of epochs, and in the tendency to interpret by analogy rather than in accordance with historical data. The worth of the latter part of the book is impaired by an unsubstantiated theory of sacrifice, but as a whole it presents a clear and valuable view of the cult.]

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ADDENDA.

Page 154, note 3: Add to (RV.) x. 173, AV. vi. 88.

Page 327, third line from the top: Read Buddhaghosha. According to Chalmers, as quoted by T.W. Rhys Davids in his recent lectures, traces of mysticism are found in some of the early texts (as yet unpublished). The fact that the canonical P[=a]li books know nothing of the controversy (involving the modification of traditional rules) of the second council gives a terminus to the canon. Senart, on the other hand, thinks that the vague language of the Açoka inscriptions precludes the fixing of the canon at so early a date.

Page 340, note 4: The gods here are priests. The real meaning seems to be that the Brahman priests, who were regarded as gods, have been put to naught in being reduced to their true estate. Compare Senart, (revised) _Inscriptions de Piyadasi_, third chapter. Açoka dismissed the Brahman priests that his father had maintained, and substituted Buddhist monks.

Page 436, note 2: From B[=e]r[=u]n[=i] it would appear that the Gupta and Valabh[=i] eras were identical (319-20 A.D). See Fleet, Indian Antiquary, xvii. 245. Many scholars now assign Kum[=a]rila to the eighth century rather than to the end of the seventh.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY.[1]

GENERAL WORKS.

#Journals#: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Soctety (JRAS.);[2] Journal of the German Oriental Society (Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, ZDMG.); Journal Asiatique (JA.); Journal of the American Oriental Society (JAOS.); Branch-Journals of the JRAS.; Calcutta Review; Madras Journal; Indian Antiquary (IA.). Some of the articles in the defunct Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes (ZKM.), and in the old Asiatick Researches (AR.) are still worth reading. Besides these, the most important modern journals are the transactions of the royal Austrian, Bavarian, Prussian, and Saxon Academies, the Muséon and the Revue de l'histoire des religions. Occasional articles bearing on India's religions or mythology will be found in the American Journal of Philology (AJP.); the Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes (WZKM.); the Babylonian and Oriental Record (BOR.); Kühn's Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschuhg (KZ.); Bezzenberger's Beiträge (BB.); and the Indogermanische Forschungen (IF.).

#Histories, studies, etc.#: Prinsep, Essays (Indian Antiquities); Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde. Histories of India by Elphinstone (religious material, chapters iv book i, and iv book ii), by Elliot, by Marshman (complements Elphinstone), and by Wheeler (unreliable); The Rulers of India; Hunter's Indian Empire and Brief History. Mill's excellent History of India is somewhat prejudiced. Dutt's History of Civilization in Ancient India is praise-worthy (1890). Invaluable are the great descriptive Archaeological Surveys by Cunningham, Burgess, and Bühler, and Hunter's Statistical Account of Bengal. Literary History:[3] Colebrooke, Essays, reedited by Cowell, with notes by Whitney; Wilson, Essays; Weber, Indische Studien (IS.); Benfey, Orient and Occident (OO.); Müller, Ancient Sanskrit Literature (ASL.), Science of Religion; Weber, Vorlesungen über Indische Literaturgeschichte (also translated), Indische Streifen, Indische Skizzen; L. von Schroeder, Indiens Literatur und Cultur; Whitney, Oriental and Linguistic Studies, Language and the Study of Language; Duncker, Geschichte des Alterthums (third volume, may be bought separately); Williams, Indian Wisdom (inaccurate but readable).

VEDIC RELIGION.

#Literature#: Roth, Zur Literatur und Geschichte des Weda;[4] Benfey, Vedica und Verwandtes; Zimmer, Altindisches Leben (AIL.); R[=a]jendralala Mitra, Indo-Aryans(unreliable); Bergaigne, La Religion Védique (also JA. ix, xiii); De Gubernatis, Letture sopra la Mitologia Vedica; Pischel and Geldner, Vedische Studien;[5] Regnaud, Le Rig Veda et les origines de la mythologie indo-européenne, and Les hymnes du Rig Veda, sont-ils prières? (Ann. d. Mus. Guimet, Bibl. d'études, t. i, and special studies). Regnaud's point of view renders nugatory most of what he writes on the Veda.[6] The most useful collection of Vedic and Brahmanic Texts that illustrate Hindu Mythology and Religion is to be found in Muir's Original Sanskrit Texts (OST.), especially the fourth and fifth volumes.[7] For the Sacred Books of the East (SBE.) see Hems below.

#Translations of the rig veda#: Complete, by Grassmann and by Ludwig; partial, by Roth, Benfey, Langlois, Bergaigne; in English chiefly by Wilson, Müller, Muir, Peterson, Griffith. Of these the German translation of Grassmann is often inaccurate;[8] that of Ludwig, often unintelligible. Benfey has translated a number of specimens, OO., BB., i, vii, and in Kleinere Schriften. The incomplete translation of Wilson has been carried on by Cowell; those of Peterson and Griffith are publishing in India; Langlois' is useless. Müller's partial translations will be found in various volumes, Ancient Sanskrit Literature, India: What Can it Teach Us, Chips, Hibbert Lectures, JRAS. ii. 448, iii. 199, etc.; and all the Hymns to the Maruts, SBE. xxxii. Whitney has translated the cosmogonic hymn, PAOS., May, 1882; and Deussen has just published the philosophical hymns, Geschichte der Philosophie, i, 1. A group of Vedic hymns in English dress will be found in Muir, OST. v.; extracts (without connection) are given by Bergaigne, in La Religion Védique, and special essays in JA. (above). In German a capital little collection is the Siebzig Lieder of Geldner and Kaegi. The best general introductory manual for the study of the Rig Veda, accompanied with frequent translations, is Kaegi's Der Rig Veda (translated into English by Arrowsmith).

#Translations of the atharva veda# are all partial. The handiest collection is Grill's Hundert Lieder des Atharva Veda. Specimens will be found translated by Aufrecht, IS. i. 121 (book xv); (Roth) Bruce, JRAS. 1862, p. 321 (book xii. 1); Kuhn, Indische und Germanische Segensspriiche, KZ. xiii. 49, 113; Weber, IS. iv. 393, v. 195, 218, xiii. 129, xvii. 178 (books i-iii, xiv); Grohmann, _ib._ ix. 381; Ludwig, vol. iii, of his translation of the Rig Veda; Zimmer, AIL.: Victor Henry, books vii and xiii (Les hymnes Rohitas);[9] Bloomfield, Seven Hymns, and Contributions AJP. vii. 466, xi. 319, xii. 414, JAOS. xv. 143, xvi. 1; ZDMG. xlviii. 541; Florenz, BB. xii. 249 (book vi.). Of The S[=a]ma V[=e]da: Stevenson (1842) in English (inaccurate) and Benfey (1848) in Gcrman have made translations. On the Yajur Veda see Schroeder, Literatur und Cultur, and below.

#Vedic mythology#: Windischmann, Ursagen der Arischen Völker, Bay. Ak., 1858; Kuhn, KZ. iv. 88, Herabkunft des Feuers (Prometheus);[10] Roth, Die höchsten Götter der Arischen Völker, ZDMG. vi. 67 (_ib._