[Footnote 34: The fact that environment has to a certain extent affected
the religions of mankind is entirely overworked, when men like Buckle
make it formative and controlling.]
[Footnote 35: Instead of the later and universal pessimism, there was in
the Vedic religion a simple but joyous sense of life.]
[Footnote 36: _Hinduism_, p. 31.]
[Footnote 37: _Chips from a German Workshop_, vol. i., p. 15.]
[Footnote 38: _Aryan Witness_, p. 204; also _Hinduism_, p. 36.]
[Footnote 39: Ibid., p. 37.]
[Footnote 40: A son of Hariscandra. _Hinduism_, p. 37.]
[Footnote 41: This is in strong contrast with the Old Testament
precepts, which everywhere had greater respect to the heart of the
offerer than to the gifts.]
[Footnote 42: The Brahmans had found certain grades of population marked
by color lines, shaded off from the negroid aborigines to the
Dravidians, and from them to the more recent and nobler Aryans, and they
were prompt also to seize upon a mere poetic and fanciful expression
found in the Rig Veda, which seemed to give countenance to their
fourfold caste distinction by representing one class as having sprung
from the head of Brahma, another from the shoulders, the third from his
thighs, and a fourth from his feet. Altogether they founded a social
system which has been the wonder of the ages, and which has given to the
_Brahmans_ the prestige of celestial descent. The _Kshatreych_ or
soldier caste stands next, and as it has furnished many military leaders
and monarchs who disputed the arrogant claims of the Brahmans, conflicts
of the upper castes have not been infrequent.
The _Vaishya_, or farmer caste, has furnished the principal groundwork
of many admixtures and subdivisions, until at the present time there are
endless subcastes, to each of which a particular kind of employment is
assigned. The _Sudras_ are still the menials, but there are different
grades of degradation even among them.]
[Footnote 43: _Hindu Philosophy_, Bose, p. 47.]
[Footnote 44: _Indian Wisdom_ on the Brahmanas and Upanishads. Also
_Hindu Philosophy_, Bose.]
[Footnote 45: _Colebrook's Essays_, foot-note, p. 85.]
[Footnote 46: See _Introduction to the Sacred Books of the East_, vol. i.]
[Footnote 47: Vaiseshika Philosophy, in _Indian Wisdom_.]
[Footnote 48: Mimansa Philosophy. Ibid.]
[Footnote 49: Sir Monier Williams assigns the Code of Manu _in its
present form_ to the sixth century B.C. _Indian Wisdom_, p. 215. Other
Oriental scholars consider it older.]
[Footnote 50: These tendencies were more intensely emphasized in some of
the later codes, which, however, were only variations of the greater one
of Manu.]
[Footnote 51: See p. 82.]
[Footnote 52: Quoted on p. 76.]
[Footnote 53: See note, p. 80.]
[Footnote 54: Sir Monier Williams declares that some of Mann's precepts
are worthy of Christianity. _Indian Wisdom_, p. 212.]
[Footnote 55: It should be set down to the credit of the Code of Manu
that with all its relentless cruelty toward woman it nowhere gives
countenance to the atrocious custom of widow-burning which soon
afterward became an important factor in the Hindu system and desolated
the homes of India for more than two thousand years.
There would seem to be some dispute as to whether or not widow-burning
is sanctioned in the Rig Veda. Colebrooke, in his _Essays_ (Vol. I., p,
135), quotes one or two passages which authorize the rite, but Sir
Monier Williams (_Indian Wisdom_, p. 259, note) has shown that changes
were made in this text at a much later day for the purpose of gaining
Vedic authority for a cruel system, of which even so late a work as the
Code of Manu makes no mention, and (page 205 Ibid.) he quotes another
passage from the Rig Veda which directs a widow to ascend the pyre of
her husband as a token of attachment, but to leave it before the burning
is begun.]
[Footnote 56: As the spread of Buddhism had owed much to the political
triumph of King Ashoka, so the revival of Hinduism was greatly indebted
to the influence of a new dynasty about a century B.C.]
[Footnote 57: _Indian Wisdom_, p. 314.]
[Footnote 58: Ibid., p. 317.]
[Footnote 59: Brahmanism and Hinduism are often used interchangeably,
but all confusion will be avoided by confining the former to that
intense sacerdotalism which prevailed during the Brahmana period, while
the latter is used more comprehensively, or is referred particularly to
the later and fully developed system.]
[Footnote 60: _Hinduism_, pp. 12, 13.]
[Footnote 61: The Brahmans were careful, however, to brand the Buddha,
while admitting him as an avatar. Their theory was that Vishnu appeared
in Gautama for the purpose of deluding certain demons into despising the
worship of the gods, and thus securing their destruction. This affords
an incidental proof that Gautama was regarded as an atheist.--See
_Indian Wisdom_, p. 335.]
[Footnote 62: See _Aryan Witness_, closing chapter; also _Christ and
Other Masters_, p. 198, notes 1, 2, and 3.]
[Footnote 63: See _Brahmanism and Hinduism_, Monier Williams.]
[Footnote 64: Hardwick traces similarities between Hindu traditions and
Christianity in such points as these: 1, The primitive state of man; 2,
his fall by transgression; 3, his punishment in the Deluge; 4, the rite
of sacrifice; 5, the primitive hope of restoration.--_Christ and Other
Masters_, p. 209.]
[Footnote 65: The Hindus hold that "truth was originally deposited with
men, but gradually slumbered and was forgotten; the knowledge of it
returns like a recollection."--_Humboldt's Kosmos_, ii., p. 112.]
[Footnote 66: _Professor Wilson's Lectures_, p. 52.]
[Footnote 67: _Vishnu Puranas_, p. 45, note 4.]
[Footnote 68: Buddhism is still more disheartening, since it denies the
separate conscious existence of the ego. There cannot be divine
fellowship, therefore, but only the current of thoughts and emotions
like the continuous flame of a burning candle. Not our souls will
survive, but our Karma.]
[Footnote 69: _Christ and Other Masters_, p. 182.]
[Footnote 70: Yet in spite of Manu and the inveteracy of old custom,
there gleams here and there in Hindu literature and history a bright
ideal of woman's character and rank; while the _Ramayana_ has its model
Sita, the _Mahabharata_, i., 3028, has this peerless sketch:
"A wife is half the man, his truest friend;
A loving wife is a perpetual spring
Of virtue, pleasure, wealth; a faithful wife
Is his best aid in seeking heavenly bliss;
A sweetly-speaking wife is a companion
In solitude; a father in advice;
A mother in all seasons of distress;
A rest in passing through life's wilderness."