THE RELIGIONS OF INDIA.
India is the mother of religions. No other land has been so prolific in
religious thought or has founded faiths which have commanded the
allegiance of so large a portion of the human race. While the Aryans of
the West have been content to borrow their faith from the Hebrews;
Indo-Aryans have produced the most wonderful and mighty ethnic religion
(Brahmanism) and also one of the three great missionary religions of the
world (Buddhism). A third of the human race today cling with devotion to
these two products of the fertility of the mind, and the spirituality of
the heart, of India.
India’s toleration for other religions has been marked. For twelve
centuries she has been the asylum of Zoroastrianism. Nearly nine-tenths of
the followers of that ancient cult of Persia found and still enjoy a
hospitable home in India. There are more of the narrow, bigoted followers
of Mohammed among these tolerant people than are found in any other
land—even in the wide domains of the Sultan. Christians also have lived,
practically unmolested, in this great land almost from Apostolic days.
Thus not a few of the great Faiths of the world are at present
represented, and are struggling either for existence or dominance, in the
land of the Vedas.
The principal faiths of the land, with their adherents, were as follows,
according to census of 1891:
Hindu 207,731,727
Sikh 1,907,838
Jain 1,416,638
Buddhist(5) 7,131,361
Parsee 89,904
Mohammedan 57,231,164
Jewish 17,000
Christian(6) 2,284,000
Let us consider these faiths briefly. It will be seen that Christianity
has, as its followers, only one per cent. of the whole population of the
land.
(_a_) Judaism.
The Jewish Community in India numbers only 17,000; these are found mostly
in Bombay and Poonah. Perhaps the most interesting colony of them is that
on the west coast in Cochin. I had the pleasure of visiting them in 1897.
There are 1,500 of them divided into two sections—the White, and the Black
Jews. There is a marked racial difference between the two. The Blacks were
originally the slaves of the Whites as is shown by their historical
documents. It is not known when the Whites came to India. Some think that
they fled there during the Jewish exile. More likely they came upon the
dispersion during the first century of our era. The purity of their blood
and the remarkable fairness of their complexion indicate that the
settlement has been from time to time reenforced from northwestern
countries. They are an exceedingly conservative people; and in their two
synagogues, they conduct their worship perhaps more like the Jews of
twenty centuries ago than do any other representatives of that race today.
The day-school connected with the White Synagogue closely resembles the
little school which our Lord attended at Nazareth.
(_b_) Mohammedanism.
About one-fifth of the whole population of that land is connected with the
religion of the great prophet of Arabia. This is a number largely in
excess of the whole Mohammedan population of Turkey. It is very suggestive
that this faith finds larger growth under the peaceable protection of the
Indian, than under the semi-barbarism of the Moslem, government.
This religion was carried into India in 711 A. D. at the point of the
sword; and its establishment and success for centuries was owing to the
same method. This community is not evenly distributed all over India; for,
more than one-third of it is found in Bengal alone, where it furnishes the
majority of the population. More than one-half of the adherents of this
faith in India are converts from Hinduism. These were gathered in former
centuries when the Mohammedan power was dominant, and when to be a member
of any other faith than Islam was regarded as a disability. The
Mohammedans of the country are, on the whole, physically more sturdy and
vigorous than their neighbours. Government, in its treatment of the
people, has to conciliate and regard with favour this class more than the
Hindus who are four times their number. They possess a great deal of
religious bigotry which is intrenched behind their dense ignorance. There
is a no more ignorant element than this in the population of India; only
six per cent. of the men are able to read and hardly any of the women; and
they seem, even today, to have a positive aversion to the schoolhouse.
Mohammedanism had, during the days of its dominance, considerable
influence in the land; but it did very little to improve the material,
moral or religious condition of the people; and it is a significant fact
that, comparing today the adherents of Islam in India, with those of
Hinduism, the latter are found not inferior in life, morals and
aspirations to the followers of the prophet.
The converts gathered from Mohammedanism by Christianity are few, though
not so few as ordinarily represented. In North India encouraging success
has been achieved by missions for this class. But in South India, where
their numbers are fewer, efforts in their behalf have not been so well
organised and have produced smaller results. It is a hard task to reach
and to move this class, owing not only to the important truth of
monotheism, which they hold with great enthusiasm, but also because of the
supreme ignorance which blinds them equally to the weakness of their own,
and to the excellence of the Christian, faith.
(_c_) Parseeism.
This faith has had adherents in India for eleven centuries. Driven out by
Mohammedanism from their home in Persia, the Parsees found refuge in
India. There are only 100,000 of these followers of Zoroaster in the
world. 90,000 of them are in India; and nearly all of these reside in
Bombay and its vicinity. Their faith, Zoroastrianism, is the purest of
ethnic religions. It has preserved its ancient integrity and high tone
much better than its sister faith, Brahmanism. Among the members of this
religion are found men possessed of great enterprise, much wealth, the
spirit of progress and of philanthropy and culture. They give high honour
and position to their women, and in all matters of civilization are
considerably in advance of even the best class of Hindus.
This religion, though from the same source with Brahmanism, has
fundamental differences of doctrine from that faith. None is more marked
or significant than its Dualism as contrasted with the Pantheism of its
sister faith. The problem of the origin of evil has found these two
diverse interpretations and these have had a large influence in shaping
the characters, respectively, of these two great ethnic religions.
Besides the far-off common source of these two religions, indicated by the
earliest names and character of their deities, there is hardly any bond of
fellowship in doctrine, worship or observance between the fire worshipping
Parsee and the Hindu idolater. And though these Parsees have, for more
than a millennium, made India their home, they have kept themselves apart
from the people of the land and are still as truly foreigners in the land
of their adoption as are the English residents.
(_d_) Buddhism.
This religion is a child of India; its founder, Gautama, was the product
of that land, and, next to our Lord Himself, is the greatest among the
founders of religions. Buddhism arose as a reaction, twenty-five centuries
ago, against the excesses of Brahmanism. It flourished wonderfully for a
few centuries, and at the time when Christ was on earth, had gained
supremacy over the old faith and had become the State religion in India.
Owing to the Brahmanic revival, in the eighth century of our era, Buddhism
was in its turn, driven out of the land, and has found refuge in Ceylon
and in more eastern countries from that time until the present. Since then
it has been almost entirely without followers in India proper. Of the
British India possessions Burma is the only place where it is the popular
faith today.
Still it is not without much influence in the land of its birth. For,
Brahmanism overcame its rival faith in India only by adopting some of its
most fundamental contentions and teachings. Indeed, modern Hinduism is
largely a blending of the Brahmanism of old with its supplanter, Buddhism.
The abundant sacrifices which Brahmanism offered were entirely abolished
in deference to Buddhistic sensibilities. The doctrine of transmigration,
through Buddhism, received new emphasis; and kindness to all living
creatures was extolled to a supreme virtue. As a climax to this attitude
of conciliation Hinduism finally adopted the Buddha as the ninth
incarnation of Vishnu. Thus, by the irony of history, Gautama, the Buddha,
found a place in the pantheon of the religion which he gave his life to
overthrow; and today many of the leading aspects of the life and teaching
of the Hindus may be traced, either in source or in emphasis, to his
religion.
(_e_) Jainism.
This religion is an offshoot, or the India remnant, of Buddhism. It
perhaps represents that element among the followers of the Buddha who
declined to be absorbed into the revived and transformed Brahmanic faith.
Through the many centuries of their existence as a sect they have spurned
every approach of the Brahmans and have largely stood for Buddhistic
teaching and observances. They have differed little from Buddhists in
their beliefs; for they deny the authority of the Hindu Vedas, disregard
sacrifices, cultivate a high morality, believe strongly in transmigration
and reverence life in all its forms. And yet, strangely enough, many of
the priests of their temples are Brahmans and they place Hindu idols close
to their shrines. They differ from the Buddhists chiefly in their objects
of worship and in their ritual. They have a mythology of their own—a
mythology of saints rather than of gods. These saints, or “Jaina,” (the
“victorious ones”—those who have attained perfection through self-victory
and discipline) are worshipped, and furnish an inspiration to all the
devotees of that faith.
The Jains, like the Parsees, are found mostly in Bombay and are a wealthy
community, usually engaged in banking and commerce. They are noted for
their charity, and their philanthropy is largely directed towards helping
the poor among them and for maintaining hospitals for animals.
[Illustration: Temple Of Buddha’s Tooth, Ceylon.]
[Illustration: Oldest Relics Of Buddhism, Ceylon.]
(_f_) Sikhism.
This religion, if we may so denominate it, was founded by Nanak Shah in
the fifteenth century. Nanak Shah was apparently an admirer, if not a
follower, of Kabir, the Hindu reformer who established a sect which was
essentially a compromise between Hinduism and Mohammedanism. This is the
chief characteristic of Sikhism. It eschewed the polytheism and idolatry
of Hinduism. It taught the unity of the Godhead, abolished caste, and
enforced a high type of morality. It has, however, subsequently fallen
under the blighting influence of surrounding Hinduism and has lost much of
its distinctive excellence. So that, according to the census report of
1891, “distinction between Sikhs and the rest of the Brahmanic community
is mainly ritualistic.... The only trustworthy method of distinguishing
this creed was to ask if the person in question repudiated the services of
the barber and the tobacconist; for the precepts most strictly enforced
nowadays (by the Sikhs) are that the hair of the head and face must never
be cut, and that smoking is a habit to be avoided.”
However manifestly the Sikh religion is going the common way of all the
new faiths and religious revolts of India—the way of reabsorption into
Hinduism—it has done much to create and foster a strong national feeling.
Sikhs were cruelly persecuted by the then ruling Mohammedans. But the
overthrow of the Moghul Empire gave the Sikhs territorial power and they
possessed the only remaining political organization in the Punjab. So
that, at the advent of the British, the Sikhs were a mighty power to be
dealt with. They became the great power of North India; and during the
Indian mutiny their loyalty to the British Raj was its salvation. At
present the Sikh nation, warlike and valiant as ever, furnishes, perhaps,
the most stalwart and invincible contingent for the Indian Army.
(_g_) Hinduism.
This is the religion of three-fourths of all the inhabitants of India and
of nine-tenths of all those who are there reached by missionaries.
What is Hinduism? It is a mixture of Brahmanism, Buddhism and
Devil-worship. As we have seen, the supplanting faith of Buddha was
finally absorbed, so far as India was concerned, into the old faith. When,
later on, the Brahmans moved towards the southern part of the peninsula
they entered the region occupied by, and largely given over to,
demonolatry. According to its wont Brahmanism, as modified by Buddhism,
sought not to overthrow the primitive cult of the people, but to absorb
it. Thus, in South India today, more than three-fourths of the people are
devil worshippers. And yet, with their demons, they have been accepted
into the higher faith of the Aryan; and, according to their mood and
preference, give themselves to the worship of Hindu gods or village
demons. Worshipping in pure Hindu temples is to that people but a pastime,
a mere holiday diversion; while the appeasing of the demons at their
village shrines and under old trees in their hamlets is the most serious
concern of their life. And yet all of them are regarded, and rightly
regarded, as Hindus. Indeed, in the Hinduism of today, especially as found
in South India, can be found living amicably together and without any
apparent sense of incongruity or conflict the lowest type of fetishism, an
ardent devil-worship, an engrossing ceremonialism, a worship of the higher
Brahmanical deities, a thoroughgoing pantheism and a pure theism. I have
witnessed in our district, side by side, a hideous fetish, a gross idol of
a local demon, an image of Vishnu who is the best of Brahmanical gods,
while in an adjacent hamlet lived families who belonged to none of these
cults but who gave themselves to a belief in, and practice of, a vague
theism which is farther removed from the fetishism of their neighbours
than is their religion from the highest type of Christian teaching.
Thus Hinduism may be viewed as an immense cloth of many colours; which
colours have been patched together without any reference to harmony or
consistency. In other words, that religion is a big mass of mutually
inconsistent and undigested beliefs, practices and ceremonies. It has not
only mutually antagonistic philosophies, it has also three different ways
of salvation, 330,000,000 gods and as many laws and customs which, though
binding as the laws of the Medes and Persians, are nevertheless,
absolutely wanting in consistency and in unity of purpose and teaching. In
the words of Sir Alfred Lyall,—“The general character of Indian religion
is that it is unlimited and comprehensive, up to the point of confusion;
it is a boundless sea of divine beliefs and practices; it encourages the
worship of innumerable gods by an infinite variety of rites; it permits
every doctrine to be taught, every kind of mystery to be imagined, any
sort of theory to be held as to the inner nature and visible operation of
the divine power.”
It has been the wont of Brahmanism not to directly antagonize and
overthrow the old and the opposing cults, but rather to absorb them. Note
here its fundamental contrast with Christianity. It meets its rival with a
smile of appreciation, then seeks to fraternize with it, after which it
approves and appropriates and finally absorbs it.
In the Madura District of South India, where I have lived, the Brahmans,
upon their first arrival, found all the people given to the worship of
their village demons. They said to them, practically,—“We do not wish to
deprive you of your devil shrines and images and worship. We will take the
leading demons which you worship and marry them to our great gods and then
give to them a place in our pantheon and a part in our worship. Come ye
also with them and we will welcome you into our temples and faith.” Thus
“Meenatchi,” the old and the principal demoness of the primitive cult of
that region, was married to the great god Siva and became the presiding
goddess of the great Hindu temple of Madura; and all her old worshippers
followed her into the new faith of Hinduism. So all those people are
Hindus today. And yet they have not abated one jot of their interest in
and practice of their demonolatry.
That which may be regarded as the more strictly Brahmanical development
and manifestation of Hinduism is divided, at present, into two great
cults. These are Saivism, or the worship of Siva, and Vaishnavism, or the
worship of Vishnu. These two cults, while not mutually antagonistic, are
nevertheless entirely separate—their devotees, respectively, being
satisfied with their own god and his incarnation and manifestations.
The first god of the Hindu triad (Brahma, Vishnu and Siva)—has practically
no shrines among Hindus today. His worship has been largely transferred to
his so-called sons, the Brahmans; and Siva has, in the main, absorbed all
his functions as creator. As it is only Vishnu, the preserver, and Siva,
the destroyer and recreator that have anything to do with men, the Hindus
devote themselves to these two only. Siva is the “great god,” the austere
and terrible one whom the people fear. He is known chiefly through his
phallic emblem, the _linga_, which emphasizes his creative activity.
Vishnu is the benign god who has resorted to many incarnations whereby he
might free the world of demons who were worrying and destroying our race.
Siva has many manifestations; Vishnu alone has “descents” or incarnations,
some of which were in brute, and some in human, form.
These two cults obtain universally throughout India. Vaishnavism (the
worship of Vishnu) has many popular sects which wield extensive influence
throughout the country. The one established by Vallabha-Swami, in the
sixteenth century, is a worship of Krishna and is given to the indulgence
of the passions and is characterised by gross licentiousness.
The sect founded by Chaitanya in the fourteenth century is one of the most
celebrated, and is very popular in Bengal. It subordinates everything to
faith (_bhakti_) even making this more important than caste.
Contemplation, rather than ritual, was Chaitanya’s pathway to salvation
and he gave supreme value to the virtue of obedience to the “guru” or
religious guide.
In South India the cult of the religious reformer, Ramanuja, who
flourished in the twelfth century, has extensive popularity. He was a man
of great thought, and his special type of Vedantic philosophy is much in
vogue today. He proclaimed the unity of God under the name of Vishnu. He
received converts from every caste. It is an interesting fact that nearly
all, in the long list of religious reformers in India, took a position of
hostility to the caste system. But it is also significant that none of
these reform movements has persisted through the centuries in that
attitude, but has fallen into line with orthodox Hinduism in absolute
submission to the caste demon.
“_Sakti_” worship has also attained great influence and extensive
predominance in many parts of India. This is the worship of the _Sakti_ or
the female half of the great deities of the land. The _Saktar_
preëminently worship _Kali_, the goddess of blood, and the other consorts
of Siva. It is a worship of power (“_Sakti_” means energy or power), and
usually power of the maleficent type. It is perhaps the lowest form of
Hinduism and easily lends itself to a gratification of the lowest passions
of men. This _tantric_ cult (the _tantras_ are the sacred books of the
Saktar) is the only one in modern Hinduism which indulges in bloody
sacrifices—_Kali_ and her sisters being satisfied by blood as by nothing
else. This attests the non-Aryan origin and character of this worship,
inasmuch as Brahmanism, since the days of Buddha, abjures all bloody
sacrifice.
Let it not be supposed, however, from the above remarks, about the
multiform and self-contradictory character of the amorphous thing called
Hinduism, that it is therefore impossible for us to understand and measure
its nature and power. For Brahmanism, through all ages, has not been
without a definite tendency, an underlying philosophy and pervasive
fundamental beliefs. It is indeed more a congeries of faiths than a simple
religion, like Christianity. And yet, amid all its hosts of contradictions
and ways of salvation and sects and cults there have sounded, as a
diapason through all the centuries, the fundamental teachings of
Vedantism. A few doctrines such as pantheism, transmigration, “karma,”
“bhakti” and final absorption into the Supreme Soul are all but
universally held by the people of all sects and divisions, however much at
variance with these their peculiar beliefs may seem to be.
The prominent staple of Hindu religious thinking in all ages has doubtless
been Vedantism—that subtle form of pantheism which has charmed and
bewildered not a few of the great minds of the Occident also. The
paramount influence of this philosophy upon all religious thought and life
in India is unmistakable today, as it has been through the centuries. Of
this Max Müller says,—“If the people of India can be said to have now any
system of religion at all ... it is to be found in the Vedanta philosophy,
the leading tenets of which are known to some extent in every village....
Nothing will extinguish that ancient spirit of Vedantism which is breathed
by every Hindu from his earliest youth, and pervades, in various forms,
even the prayers of the idolater, the speculations of the philosopher, and
the proverbs of the beggar.”
We may therefore, without hesitation, so far as Hinduism is concerned
regard as philosophic Hinduism those basal doctrines and their corollaries
which, from the earliest days, have been the stock in trade of all
Indo-Aryan thinkers and at the same time the source and solvent of all the
mysteries of their faith.
By a study of these one may easily reach the heart of Hindus and of
Hinduism and can weigh and measure the forces which enter into their
religious life and thinking, and can compare them with the teachings and
institutions of Christianity.
This study will bring a twofold blessing to Christians of the West,
especially to missionaries who have given themselves to the regeneration
of India. It will give them a larger degree of respect for that great
people of the East and a new appreciation for Hindu thought and religious
speculation. We of the West have been imbued with too much of an
intellectual arrogance and a spirit of contempt for “the benighted Hindu.”
Even if we ever learned, we certainly have too easily forgotten, that
many, many centuries ago—when our ancestors were grovelling in the lowest
depths of primitive savagery—the rishis of India were engaged in perhaps
the highest self-propelled flights of religious speculation the world has
ever known and were working out a philosophy, or more correctly a system
of ontology, which is today the wonder and admiration of Western savants.
I argue for a study of those teachings which, though hoary with age, are
today all-important as the foundation upon which the many-aisled temple of
Hinduism is built and (if I may change the figure) as the cement which
binds the whole structure together.
A few years ago it was generally thought that Brahmanism was little else
than the insane ravings of well-meaning, but unguided, or, worse still,
misguided, denizens of darkness; the whole literature was considered a
mass of intellectual and moral rubbish. How much the verdict of Western
scholars upon this subject has changed during the last quarter of a
century I need not mention. All men who have investigated the subject give
today unstinted praise to the heart and intellect of those sages who
produced much of the ancient religious literature of India. They will not
endorse the statement of the great German philosopher who exclaimed, “In
the whole world there is no study so beneficial and so elevating as that
of the Upanishads. It has been the solace of my life—it will be the solace
of my death.” And yet many claim that its truths are numerous and
spiritually helpful. Hopkins writes(7):—“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.” And Barth truly remarks(8):—“The religion of India has not only
given birth to Buddhism and produced, to its own credit, a code of
precepts which is not inferior to any other; but in the poetry which they
have inspired there is at times a delicacy and bloom of moral sentiment
which the Western world has never seen outside of Christianity. Nowhere
else, perhaps, do we meet with an equal wealth of fine sentences.” Of
their intellectual acumen Dr. Matheson says: “It is not too much to say
that the mind of the West, with all its undoubted impulses towards the
progress of humanity, has never exhibited such an intense amount of
intellectual force as is to be found in the religious speculations of
India.... These have been the cradle of all Western speculations; and
wheresoever the European mind has risen into heights of philosophy, it has
done so because the Brahman has been the pioneer. There is no intellectual
problem in the West which had not its earliest discussion in the East; and
there is no modern solution of that problem which will not be found
anticipated in the East.” These words of the Scotch divine are doubtless
strong; too strong, I think. And yet they may be serviceable, if they warn
us against that proneness to depreciate the intellectual value and serious
purpose of the religious books of that land. It is worse than useless to
confidently descant upon the errors, inconsistencies, the follies and
absurdities of these writings without acknowledging at the same time the
profound thought, the deep spiritual yearning and the sublime poetic
beauty, which characterize some portions.
In this connection the question of the origin of Hinduism is important.
It was formerly laid down as a postulate of the Christian’s belief that
Hinduism is of the devil; and that, coming from below, it must be shunned
as a study and denounced root and branch as a thing purely satanic. This
theory has entirely given way to a more rational belief. The question
whether the truths of Hinduism, with those of other ethnic religions, have
filtered down from some primitive revelation and are the relics of a
vanishing faith, divinely communicated to some of the earliest members of
our race; or whether God has directly, from time to time, guided the
thoughts and answered the deep yearnings of the soul of the Indo-Aryan, is
one which is still discussed. But modern scholarship is practically of one
voice in maintaining that God hath not left Himself without witness among
the many nations of the earth,—a witness that has indeed been
comparatively feeble—a revelation that is dim and starlike as compared
with the noonday brightness of the Sun of Righteousness in the Christian
religion. The day has come when the Christian must accept and believe that
God has been dealing directly with this people through the many centuries
of their history, leading them to important truths, even though their evil
hearts and worse lives have caused them, in many cases, to “change the
truth of God into a lie and worship and serve the creature more than the
Creator.” Many of the truths which are imbedded in the religion of that
land find their solution in no other hypothesis than this.
This study of Hinduism will also lead us to realize the important truth of
the many points of contact between that faith and our own. A knowledge of
their sympathies cannot be of less importance than that of their
antipathies. And this knowledge is indispensable to the Christian worker
in India as it gives a new and a most direct way of approach to the Hindu
heart, and a fresh and all-potent argument with them in behalf of
Christianity.
This process also best illustrates the method and Spirit of Christ. Dr.
Robson aptly remarks that “while no religion has done more to overthrow
other religions than Christianity, no religious teacher has said less
against other religions than Christ. We have from Him only one short
saying condemning the Gentiles’ aim in life, but not even one reflecting
on the gods they believed in, or the worship they paid them. Was not this
because He came not to destroy but to fulfill?”
I can refer to only a few of these common points and belief in the two
faiths.
(_a_) Incarnation.
These are the only two faiths which have exalted, to primal importance,
this doctrine. In Christianity it is basal, and in later Brahmanism, or
Hinduism, it has overshadowed nearly every other teaching. In a sense the
all-pervasive pantheism of Brahmanism made a certain form of incarnation a
necessity from the earliest days. The ancient Aryans could not rest
satisfied with the Unknown and the Absolute of their Vedantism; so they
speedily began to erect for their evergrowing pantheon an endless
procession of emanations. But it was, probably, the phenomenal success of
Gautama, and especially the posthumous influence of his life and example,
that opened the eyes of the Brahmans and suggested to them the supreme
need of an _avatar_ (“descent”), for the popularizing of their faith. And
thus originated that vast system of descents, or incarnations, which have
multiplied so greatly and developed so grotesquely all over the land. The
common ground furnished by this doctrine to the two faiths is not
adequately appreciated. This truth of incarnation, in its fundamental
doctrinal bearing upon Hinduism, and in the strengthening of its hold,
even until the present, upon the popular imagination and affection, should
not go for nought in the mind of Christian critics, because of the content
of the multitudinous descents, which is mostly grotesque, debasing and
repulsive. They forget that the Christian doctrine of incarnation
furnishes, perhaps, the best leverage with which the Christian missionary
is to overturn the faith of that people, simply because the doctrine
itself has been so popularized, even if debased, in India for many
centuries. Christ should be none the less, yea the more, welcome to that
land because the most popular god of the Hindu pantheon (Krishna) is also
the leading incarnation of Vishnu.
(_b_) Vicarious Atonement.
In Christianity this is second in importance only to the doctrine of
incarnation. In Brahmanism also it has maintained, from the first, a
position of cardinal importance. In pre-Buddhistic days this found
expression in sacrifices that were probably more numerous and more
precious than those offered by any other people. This is partly shown by
the fact that words used for sacrifice are more numerous in the Sanskrit
than even in the Hebrew language. It is true that their idea of sacrifice,
both as to its import and object, was different from ours or from that of
the Israelites; and indeed their own ideas also varied at different times.
Under the influence of Buddhism, sacrifice, as such, was practically
abandoned; but the idea of atonement for sin, which was underlying them,
they practically carried over into the doctrine of transmigration. For,
however stiffly they contend that, through metempsychosis, the doctrine of
_karma_ is realized and every soul atones for its own sin, it nevertheless
remains true that the element of consciousness separates the person who
sinned from him who suffers; and one becomes the involuntary atoner and
the other the atoned for.
(_c_) Spirituality.
It may, to some, seem absurd to bring the two faiths into anything but the
relationship of contrast in this particular, when it is remembered that we
are confronted daily by a Hinduism which is as grossly formal,
materialistic and sensual as any religion known in any land. But it is
unnecessary to remind us of the fact that the literature of the faith of
this people is, in some respects, far removed from the low life and ritual
of the present day; and in no greater respect than in this which we are
now considering. All students recognize in many writings, vedic and
post-vedic, profound seriousness and a sometimes strange depth of
spiritual apprehension coupled with an other-worldliness which, to the
western mind, seems absurdly impractical. Indeed, the naturally mystical
bent of the Hindu mind has been regarded, and, doubtless, rightly
regarded, as one of the chief obstacles to a true and easy understanding
of much that is in their sacred writings by the too practical Westerner.
We should not be blind to the lofty height of spiritual thought which we
occasionally, and the deep spiritual yearning which we frequently, are
permitted to witness in their books. In evidence of this we need only to
refer to the powerful hold which the _yoga_ system of philosophy and life
has upon them. An intense meditativeness, a devotional ecstasy and an
insight of true heavenly wisdom is the ideal of life to which the Hindu
has been called from time very remote.
(_d_) Eschatology.
In Hinduism, as in Christianity, man is directed to look to a
judgment-seat and a system of rewards and punishments in the world to
come. While this doctrine again, in its development and detail, differs
essentially from that of the Christian faith, it is well to call attention
to it as a point of contact. It breathes the spirit of _karma_, which, in
its retributive power, has been compared by some to the doctrine of
heredity, and by others, to that of fate. _Karma_ demands the full future
fruition of every act done in the body; and many re-births, with intervals
of keener suffering and bliss in numerous hells and heavens, are the
countless steps in the doleful fugue of emancipation—a process which is
enough to appall any but the patient, stolid soul of a Hindu. And yet this
weary detail of a very long and sisyphean effort to shake off this mortal
coil and to enter into rest is worthy of the missionary’s attention, as it
represents, perhaps, the most elaborate system of eschatology outside of
the New Testament. It is also ethical in its character, and in its
fundamental principles has chords which harmonize with those of the
Christian doctrine.
(_e_) The Doctrine of Faith.
This doctrine maintains that, by devotion to a personal god, salvation is
achieved. This idea separates this doctrine from, and apparently
antagonizes, the prevailing philosophy of the land—Vedantism. This cult of
_Bhakti_ is connected with Krishnaolatry, which is the worship of the most
unworthy and licentious god of the Hindu pantheon.
Of Vaishnavism, or the worship of Vishnu, in which the _bhakti_, or faith,
doctrine prevails, Sir Monier Williams remarks:—“Notwithstanding the gross
polytheistic superstitions and hideous idolatry to which it gives rise, it
is the only Hindu system worthy of being called a religion. At all events
it must be admitted that it has more common ground with Christianity than
any other form of non-Christian faiths.” The basal truth of _bhakti_—that
of supreme attachment to, or faith in, a personal god—could not fail of
rousing within the devout lofty and stirring emotion. _Bhaktar_, _i.e._,
those who have given themselves absolutely to this doctrine and make it
the motive and inspiration of their lives, are oblivious to all other
bonds, abjuring among themselves even caste and all its demands, and
proclaiming the true oneness of the brotherhood of the faith among all the
devotees of the same god.
[Illustration: Rock-Cut Temple, South India.]
Thus we have today a large and vigorous class of Hindus who have
subordinated every doctrine and practice of their religion to that of
faith, or _bhakti_. I believe, with not a few illustrious scholars, that
this doctrine traces its origin to Christianity. Like everything else
which Hinduism had absorbed, it has been considerably transmuted in the
process. It has been necessarily and greatly affected and degraded by the
character of the gods who have been its objects. It has been debased by
contact with idolatry and error, with superstition and sensuality. And yet
we trace its lineaments to its lofty, divine origin, and hesitate not to
say that it furnishes a common ground of a fundamental truth of which
Christian missionaries have not yet sufficiently availed themselves in
their work for this people.
Hindus have also done not a little thinking in the elaboration of the
doctrine of salvation. In their discussion as to the relative potency of
divine grace and human agency in the salvation of man they became divided
into two antagonistic schools, corresponding, very closely, to the
Calvinistic and Arminian, among Christians—the _Tengaliar_ maintaining the
“cat theory” and the _Vadagaliar_ the “monkey theory”; so called because
one party holds that, just as the cat saves her kitten by seizing and
carrying it away bodily, so God seizes and saves man without his own
effort. This is the doctrine of absolute grace. The other party insists
that the relation of the young monkey to its mother, whereby its rescue
from trouble depends upon its own grasp, best represents the process of
salvation in which man’s coöperation is necessary.
They have also developed the doctrine of growth in grace sometimes in a
very instructive way. The spiritual development from _saloka_ (in the same
world with God) to _sāmīpa_ (in the divine presence) thence to _sārūpa_
(in the divine image) and finally to _sāyujya_ (complete identity with the
divine Being) bears, in some respects, a striking resemblance to the
teaching of St. Paul, where he writes that Jesus was “made unto us wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30).
In like manner they teach that, for the attainment of beatitude, it is
necessary to pass through five stages—(1) that of _sānti_, quiet repose or
calm and contemplative piety; (2) that of _dāsya_, the slave state—the
surrender of the whole will to God; (3) that of _sakhya_, or friendship;
(4) that of _vātsalya_, or filial affection; and (5) that of _mādhurya_,
or supreme, all-absorbing love.
I must refer briefly to only one other illustration of the probable
influence of our religion upon the faith of India, and that is in its
teaching on eschatology. The illustration is drawn from the tenth
incarnation, _Kalki avatār_, of Vishnu. This incarnation is to take place
hereafter, when Vishnu will come, at the close of the present _Kali yuga_,
or iron age, and put an end to these growing evil times, destroying with
them all the wicked and ushering in the new era of righteousness (_Satya
yuga_) upon the earth. For this great work of the restoration and the
renovation of all creation, he is to come seated upon a white horse with a
drawn sword, blazing like a comet. Hindus at present look forward to this
new incarnation as their future deliverer, when the sorrows and the
depravity of this present, shall be swallowed up in the glories and joys
of the future, age. The striking thing about this teaching is not the hope
which it inculcates for the future; for that is practically a part of the
Hindu conception of the succession of the ages of their time system.
According to this the present era must yield to the coming good _yuga_,
which must, in its turn, give way to the ages of lesser good and of evil,
which again will go and come in their ever-changing cycle. What seems
remarkable is the _form_ in which this idea is here clothed. The coming of
the Deliverer upon a _Kalki_—a white horse—with his great message of
universal destruction and deliverance, brings directly to our memory the
Bible prophecy of Rev. 6:2; 19:11-16, and also brings us into touch with
the belief of many Christians today as to the appearance and the work of
the Son of Man at the great day of His Second Coming.
The question arises as to how this _avatar_ originated. It evidently seems
to be an afterthought and of no ancient date among the series of Vishnu’s
descents. And following the ninth, or Buddha, _avatar_, which was clearly
intended as a bait to Buddhists, and as a frank and full compromise with
that hitherto supplanting and hostile faith, it seems natural to suppose
that this tenth also came in the same way and with the same spirit as a
palm leaf to another religion, even our own, whose prophetic words about
the second coming of Christ could be so easily appropriated and so
harmlessly adopted into the Hindu system. It thus introduced into their
faith an element of future glory and triumph which the religion had not
formerly possessed. Indeed this very element of aggression and conquest is
one of the signs of its Western origin and Christian source.