THE RELIGIONS OF INDIA
(1) _Animism._ At the base of all the religions, perhaps at the base of
all religions all over the world, lies a mass of primitive beliefs, not
perhaps yet consciously classed by the holders of them as distinctly
religious, which are called by the question-begging name of Animism. By
this statement, I mean merely that many of the more ignorant and simple
folk who profess and call themselves Hindus, Buddhists, Jains,
Muhammadans, or Christians, are in fact at the animistic stage of
intellectual evolution. The religious impulse is there, but has not
become specialised. There is no religious theorising, but merely
communal and transmitted beliefs about the nature of things in general.
Perhaps I had better quote Sir H. H. Risley's definition of Hinduism as
it exists in India. "It conceives of man," he says, "as passing through
life surrounded by a ghostly company of powers, elements, tendencies,
mostly impersonal in their character, shapeless phantasms of which no
image can be made and no definite idea can be formed. Some of these have
departments or spheres of influence of their own: one presides over
cholera, another over small pox, another over cattle disease; some dwell
in rocks, others haunt trees, others, again, are associated with rivers,
whirlpools, waterfalls, or strange pools hidden in the depths of the
hills. All of them require to be diligently propitiated by reason of the
ills which proceed from them, and usually the land of the village
provides the means for their propitiation."
If this definition, that of a kindly and experienced student of
primitive thought and emotion, be correct, there is already an attempt
at analysis and classification. But the analysis is feeble, the
classification very elementary. The differences which seem obvious to
the civilised man, who inherits the analytic inventions and
investigations of long series of ancestors, are not yet realised. There
is practically no distinction between things animate and inanimate,
since all may be maleficent and must therefore, on occasion, be
propitiated. There is no sense of things subter-human, human, and
superhuman. Still less, of course, is there any recognition of the
difference between things religious and things secular. Grown men face
the facts of life as children do, and receive the impressions life
conveys to them _en masse_, without making much effort to sort them out.
In our own case, we learn to classify from our elders, and
classification, literary, scientific, social, religious, is a large part
of what we call education. How does primitive man begin to sort out the
facts of life, to remember them in classes, to discriminate between
human beings and other animals, to place animals above inanimate things,
himself above animals, and, finally, the gods above himself? The history
of the evolution of Hinduism throws some light on this evolution as it
occurred in India.
Meanwhile, it is worth noticing that the Census returns of 1901 returned
the Animists of India at only about 8½ millions, or less than 3 per
cent. Those who returned themselves as Hindu or Musalmān were so
recorded, whatever their degree of mental and social culture. An attempt
has been made in the Census of 1911 to distinguish between true Hindus
and Animists who call themselves Hindu. How far the attempt was
successful, I do not know. I can well believe that it was not welcomed
even by educated and intelligent Hindus. Many years ago, I remember a
highly educated Hindu in Bengal telling me that there is no distinction
between Animists and Hindus; that an Animist is merely a Hindu "in the
making" as it were. But perhaps that assertion only amounted to an
admission that the Hindu mind is averse from the kind of intellectual
evolution by conscious analysis and classification which is dear to
Western imaginations. Yet the history of Hinduism and its branches shows
that such an evolution has taken place.
[Illustration: _Plate VII_
A Ghāsiya
(_Mirzapur district_)]
I should like to suggest that at the stage of human evolution which we
call animistic, man takes the facts of life in the lump, as it were, and
does not sort them out into classes. If we are to judge by what we know
of the history of Hinduism, the evolution of primitive man from this
unclassifying stage is something as follows. Art comes into play. The
practice of song and draughtsmanship introduces specialisation. From
singing comes verse, from drawing comes some kind of rude writing. The
first trains the memory, the second aids memory. Then comes the social
classification which results from the breaking up of clans, and contact
with other clans and communities. All men are not the same, and the
difference is grasped and finds expression in language. The new power of
classification is extended to other things. The difference between
animate and inanimate things is understood, and their relative powers of
helping or hurting the tribal community. When classification has
proceeded thus far, the inference is easy that as what is known of the
faculties of subter-human beings and things to benefit or hurt humans
does not by any means account for the joys and calamities of life, there
must be a class of superhuman beings who are to be conciliated. By their
supposed deeds they are judged. If they are, on the whole, kindly and
easily placated, they will be classified by some title which they will
usually share with great and good men. If their action on mankind be
harmful, they will bear the names given to malicious or inimical races
or individuals. At a subsequent stage of analytical evolution their
generic names will be confined to their own class; they will be gods or
demons. Many Hindus have hardly gone beyond this stage, and we can
hardly be surprised that some objection should be taken to too rigid a
distinction between Hindus and Animists. In practice, it is often
difficult to say whether a given observance is Animistic or Hindu. Here
is one case, out of thousands that occur in India, from my own
experience. In the seaport town of Chittagong is the shrine of the
famous Muhammadan saint Pir Badr, a holy man often invoked by travellers
on sea or river. In a niche in a little pillar in the open air,
Christians and Buddhists, Hindus and Musalmāns alike place lighted
candles by way of propitiation. This, surely, is an observance of the
Animistic type. It has no part in any theorised or classified religious
system. It is merely the attempt to gratify an influence which may help
or harm. Animism is consistent with the most vivid, if childlike,
curiosity. All is grist that comes to that primitive mill. But the
resulting flour of thought is, as it were, coarse and unsifted. Artistic
specialisation, the birth of literature, brings a need of
classification. Out of propitiation comes ritual, a belief in the
efficacy of sacramental gestures, offerings, formulæ. But, as time goes
on, they are appropriated to the service of highly specialised deities.
As man learns the advantage of a division of labour and a specialisation
of function, so his gods become "departmental." The classification will
not be that of modern times. Among animate things will be reckoned fire,
and air, the sun and moon and the twinkling stars. But the process of
analysing and sorting will have begun.
(2) _The Vedas._ The Aryan immigrants seem to have brought a scanty and
summary theology with them, or it may be that in different surroundings
they forgot their old religious ideas, and, with the help of Dravidian
and other aboriginal speculations, evolved new ones. Sir G. Grierson has
suggested that the fact that they migrated in two afterwards hostile
bodies finds its reflection, in the Vedas, in the fabled antagonism of
the rival priests Visvāmitra and Vasishta; in the Mahābhāratā in the
famous war between the Kauravas and Pāndavas, the Eastern counterpart of
the siege of Troy.
The Vedas are four collections of ritual hymns, used in connection with
the oblation of the intoxicating juice of the Soma, the moon-plant, or
with the sacrificial Fire. The Rig-veda (the oldest) and its supplement
the Sāma-veda are now held to have been composed when the Aryans had
reached the junction of the Panjāb rivers with the Indus: the Black and
White Yajur-veda when they reached the Sutlej and the Jumna; the
Atharva-veda, which contains the lower beliefs of aboriginal races, when
they had reached Benares. There are gods and goddesses of the sky, the
most important being the Sun, and Varuna (the Greek οὐρανός), afterwards
a kind of Hindu Neptune, but in these early days represented as sitting
in the vault of heaven, and having the sun and stars as the eyes with
which he watches the doings of men. His function was to encourage
personal holiness as a human ideal. In the mid-air Indra became
pre-eminent on Indian soil, where the dependence of an agricultural
people on periodical rains made the rain-god an important deity. On
earth the most important deities are Soma and Agni (fire) already
mentioned. There was also Yama, the beautiful and stately god of death,
who though naturally immortal chose to die, and lead the way for mortal
successors to the abodes of the dead. Besides the departmental gods,
there is in the Vedas a distinct foreshadowing of Pantheism.
(3) _The Brāhmanas._ When the Aryans reached the "Midland," the upper
Gangetic valley, the Vedic hymns were supplemented by new Scriptures,
called Brāhmanas, which were digests of dicta on matters of ritual for
the guidance of priests. These were the beginning of Brāhmanism. The
elementary Pantheistic theory of the Vedas was developed into a belief
in one Spiritual Being or Ātman. When manifested and impersonal, this
Being was the neuter Brahma; when regarded as the Creator, he was the
masculine Brahmā; but when manifested in the highest order of
intellectual men, he was Brāhman, the Brāhman priestly class. Following
the Brāhmanas, was a third order of religious literature, the
Upanishads. Dr Hopkins has thus summarised the teaching of these three
Scriptures. "In the Vedic hymns, man fears the gods. In the Brāhmanas
man subdues the gods, and fears God. In the Upanishads man ignores the
gods and becomes God." Not that these three kinds of Scripture, these
three evolutions of religious speculation, followed one another in
chronological order. But this was, roughly, the logical evolution.
Finally the doctrine was established that knowledge leads to the supreme
bliss of absorption into Brahmā, and with this was combined the theory
of transmigration.
Even from this extremely crude and simplified statement, it will be
evident that the priesthood had secured for themselves an unexampled
supremacy, and, in the Midland at least, had placed the administrator
and warrior in a state of marked inferiority. But in the surrounding
territories, success in arms and government won men the consideration
still considered their due among ourselves. In the Midland itself the
territory was divided among a number of petty chiefs, who waged
perpetual warfare with one another. They were not likely to ignore the
prestige won by valour and warlike skill. One of them was Gautama, the
Buddha (_c._ 596-508 B.C.). Another was Vardhamāna, his contemporary,
the founder of Jainism. This is not the place to tell of Buddhism,
which, as a recognised creed, though it has spread far to the north and
east, and is the religion of Ceylon and Burma, only survives in India
proper in faint influences on the belief and practice of various Hindu
sects.
(4) _Jainism._ The Jain Reform still exists and numbers over a million
of followers. Its doctrines have a vague and general resemblance to
those of Buddhism, not because either copied the other, but because they
sprang from a common origin. In both Nirvāna, the "blowing out," as it
were, of the lamp of life is the goal aimed at. But to the Buddhist,
Nirvāna means the peace of extinction; to the Jain, it is final escape
from the body after various metamorphoses. Mr Crooke defines the
fivefold vow of the Jains as prescribing (1) the sanctity of human life;
(2) renunciation of lying, which proceeds from anger, greed, fear or
mirth; (3) refusal to take things not given; (4) chastity; (5)
renunciation of worldly attachments. The Jain pantheon consists of
deified saints who are either Tīrthan-kara, "making a passage through
the circuit of life," or Jina, "the victorious ones."
(5) _Hinduism Proper._ These reforms, joined with the spread of the
Brāhmanical faith into lands where the authority of Aryan priests was
not recognised, produced something which, in its way, resembles the
Protestant Reformation. The Vedic religion had come to be the monopoly
of a limited order of hereditary priests. This ritual supremacy was
broken up by two influences. A new national ideal of worship found
expression in the Epics, which to this day, in metrical translations,
are the layman's scripture all over India. Secondly, the Vedic pantheon
was enormously enlarged by the admission of non-Aryan deities and
aboriginal modes of worship. Hence arose the body of writings known as
the Purānas, or "ancient" books, not all really old in the trace of
their composition, but perhaps deserving their title as containing very
old beliefs. Of all these books and their teaching other authorities
have written recently in various works on the early history and
religious poetry of India, and it would therefore be presumptuous for me
to say anything about the religious literature of Hinduism. It is
sufficient to say that the Epics introduced, in place of the vague and
shadowy Vedic gods, heroic incarnations of divine virtue, wisdom and
valour, and thus led to the sectarian worship of the two active members
of a new supreme triad of gods, Brahmā, the creator, Vishnu, the
preserver, and Siva, the destroyer. Most Hindus are now followers of one
or other of the two latter in some incarnation. In early times this
sectarian rivalry led to wars and persecutions, but Hinduism is
singularly tolerant in matters of belief and doctrine. A Saiva is not a
disbeliever in the divinity of the incarnations of Vishnu; a Vaishnava
recognises the ascetic powers of Siva. But each has his favourite deity
and chiefly studies the scriptures relating to him. The principal
incarnations of Vishnu are Krishna and Rāma, who seem to have been
originally deified heroes of the Midland. There were many Vishnuvite
reformers, some of whom, it is interesting to note, may have derived
suggestions from the early Christianity of Southern India.
The first of these was Rāmānuja, who lived in the eleventh century A.D.
Fifth in succession to him was Rāmānanda, who lived in the fourteenth
century and was the missionary of popular Vaishnavism in Northern India.
To him that tract owes the prevalence of the cult of Rāma and his wife
Sītā, the hero and heroine of the Epic known as the Rāmāyana. His chief
innovation was the admission of low-caste disciples into the communion.
His disciple, the famous Kabir (1380-1420 A.D.), went further. He even
linked Hinduism with Islam. Himself a humble weaver, he taught the
spiritual equality of all men. God is one, he argued, by whatever name
men choose to call Him. The accidents of life, social station and caste,
happiness and grief, prosperity and misfortune, are all the results of
Māya or Illusion. Happiness comes not by formula or sacrifice but by
passionate adoration (_bhakti_) of God. Kabir's chief importance in the
history of Hindu evolution is in the fact that his doctrines were the
origin of Sikhism.
Another great name in the democratic Vaishnava reformation was that of
Chaitanya (1485-1527 A.D.). Mr E. A. Gait writes of him that he was "a
Baidik Brāhman. He preached mainly in Central Bengal and Orissa, and his
doctrine found ready acceptance among large numbers of the people,
especially among those who were still, or had only recently ceased to
be, Buddhists. This was mainly due to the fact that he drew his
followers from all sources, so much so that even Muhammadans followed
him. He preached vehemently against the immolation of animals in
sacrifice, and the use of animal food and stimulants, and taught that
the true road to salvation lay in bhakti, or fervent devotion to God. He
recommended Rādhā worship, and taught that the love felt by her for
Krishna was the highest form of devotion. The acceptable offerings were
flowers, money, and the like; but the great form of worship was the
Sankirtan, or procession of worshippers playing and singing. The
peculiarity of Chaitanya's cult is that the post of spiritual guide, or
Goshain, is not confined to Brāhmans, and several of those best known
belong to the Baidya caste[5]."
_The Sikhs._ As a religious system, the creed of the Sikhs originated
from the Hindu teaching of Kabir, and may yet be reabsorbed into
Hinduism, though the Census of 1911 shows that it still flourishes as a
separate religion. It began as a religious reform and ended by being a
political organisation. It was founded by the Guru Nānak (1469-1538
A.D.) in the Panjāb. Its formula was the Unity of God and the
Brotherhood of Man. Ultimately it became a martial brotherhood, one of
whose objects was by training, diet, and self-denial to present a strong
front to the encroachments of Muhammadan invaders from across the
north-west frontier. Circumstances led the Sikh confederacy to try its
fortune in arms in two fiercely fought campaigns with the growing power
of our East India Company. Defeat was followed by a loyal acceptance of
British supremacy, and the Sikhs rival the Gurkhas as the best soldiers
in the Indian army. Their services during the mutiny of 1857 will never
be forgotten.
_The Sāktas._ One other great Hindu sect, that of the Sāktas, must be
briefly mentioned. It worships the active female principle (_prakriti_)
of one or other of the forms of the Consort of Siva—Durgā, Kāli, or
Pārvati. This cult arose in Eastern Bengal or Assam about the fifth
century, A.D., and has its own scriptures in the Tantras. This sect is
probably due to the recrudescence of very ancient aboriginal cults. It
is associated with blood-offerings and libidinous rites. It was
denounced by the Vaishnava reformers, but still survives, even among
educated men. It affected the later forms of Buddhism.
Finally, by omitting all mention of numerous modern Vaishnava sects, we
come to the modern Theistic sects. The Brahmo Samāj of Bengal was
founded by the celebrated Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1774-1833) who died and
was buried at Clifton. His teachings were continued and developed by his
successors Maharshi Devendranāth Tagore (the father of the poet
Rabindranāth Tagore), Keshav Chandra Sen, and Pratāp Chandra Majumdār.
All of these were men of much piety, eloquence, and learning. Sir Alfred
Lyall says that "Brahmoism, as propagated by its latest expounders,
seems to be unitarianism of a European type, and as far as one can
understand its argument, appears to have no logical stability or _locus
standi_ between revelation and pure rationalism; it propounds either too
much or too little to its hearers." It has, however, been an effectual
bar to the spread of Christianity among the educated classes in Bengal.
It enables them to remain in touch with Hinduism, from which an adoption
of any European creed would effectually divide them. Its services of
praise and prayer, with a sermon or discourse, are held on Sundays, and
in form resemble those of the Christian free churches. Its creed
consists in a belief in the Unity of God, the brotherhood of man, and
direct communion with God without the intervention of any mediator. It
may fairly be claimed for it that it has satisfied the religious needs
of men most of whom lead exemplary and in some cases saintly lives,
without compelling them to join what is regarded as a foreign and
uncongenial religion. But for Ram Mohan Roy, educated Bengal might well
have furnished the nucleus of a Christian Church of India, since, before
his time, many distinguished and able converts were made. I need only
mention the late Rev. K. M. Bannerjee. The Brahmo Samāj is divided into
three sections. The Ādi Samāj, as its name indicates, is the original
church. It is the most conservative of the three, and takes its
inspiration wholly from the Hindu scriptures, and especially from the
Upanishads. The Navavidhān Samāj, founded by Keshav Chandra Sen, "the
Church of the New Dispensation," is much more eclectic and has borrowed
what it considers acceptable, not only from the holy books of Hinduism,
but from Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam. The Sādhāran (or "general")
Brāhmo Samāj is the most advanced of the three Churches. It rejects
caste and the seclusion of women, allows inter-caste marriages, and is
seemingly as far from orthodox Hinduism as from orthodox Christianity.
It has even allowed one of its lady members to be married to an
Englishman by Brāhmo rites. If it can hardly be called Hindu in ritual
or in belief, it is Hindu in what is probably regarded as the more
important sense of being a purely Indian sect and not a direct product
of European missionary zeal.
Another new sect, the Ārya Samāj, or Aryan Society, has much influence
in the Panjāb and North-Western India generally. It was founded by
Dayānand Saraswati (1827-53). Its only scriptures are the Vedas. It
professes pure monotheism, repudiates idol worship, and is much
interested in social reform. It has also at times been mixed up, more or
less directly, with political agitation. Like the Brāhmo Samāj, it is
probably due in its inception to the influence of European religious
teaching, but, as is perhaps natural, its acceptance of European ethics
is marked by a sturdy resistance to European dogma.
The great bulk of Hinduism, however, remains still but little removed
from the Animistic stage of religious evolution, and one of the results
of the spread of British rule into wild and savage tracts has been the
extension of the borders of Hinduism in competition with Christianity.
In the rougher and wilder races, not yet sufficiently softened and
civilised for the acceptance of the Hindu social system, the Christian
missionary prevails. He has been most successful among the Gonds of
Central India, among such savage tribes as the Nāgas, Gāros, and Lushais
on the Assam border. Elsewhere Hinduism pursues its quietly
imperturbable course and admits savage races to its lower castes as it
has always admitted them during the last two thousand years.
_Islam in India._ Since King George V has more Muhammadan subjects than
any other ruler on earth—some 75,000,000 in number, it would not be
proper to close a little book on the Peoples of India without saying
something of those of their number who are Musalmāns. The early
Muhammadan invasions of the tenth century were mere predatory raids, and
were attended neither by settlement nor conversion. But at the end of
the twelfth century Muhammad Ghori overthrew the Hindu dynasties of
Delhi and Kanauj and thus opened the way to future Muhammadan conquests.
In the sixteenth century Moghal rule was established under Babar and his
successors. During the preceding five centuries Hindu India suffered
much oppression and wrong at the hands of Muhammadan invaders, but Islam
had made no attempt to become an Indian religion. The early Moghal
emperors were too busy in consolidating their conquests and organising
their administration to have much leisure or inclination for
proselytising. Their policy depended largely on co-operation with Rājput
princes, whose daughters they married. The influence of Rājput empresses
and princesses made for kindly tolerance. It was only under the zealot
Aurangzeb that any tendency to forcible conversion showed itself.
The final result of some seven hundred years of Muhammadan rule in
various parts of the country is that Musalmāns are in excess of Hindus
only in the Western Panjāb, which is in contact with a purely Muhammadan
country, and in Eastern Bengal, where the aboriginal low-caste Hindu was
glad to get social promotion by accepting Islam, and where he thrives
and prospers at the expense of his Hindu brother, partly because his
diet is more nutritious, partly because he does not practise
infant-marriage and other debilitating customs.
As has been said above, Animism has affected Islam as well as Hinduism.
From the old religion of the country Musalmāns have borrowed demonology,
a belief in witchcraft, and the worship of departed Pirs or saints. The
most remarkable instance of the latter is the sect of the Pachpiriyas of
Bengal, the worshippers of the Five Saints, a cult which some have
traced to the cult of the five Pāndava heroes of the Mahābhārata. The
five Pirs, however, vary in name from district to district. In Eastern
Bengal, no one, whether Hindu or Musalmān (or, I had almost said,
Christian), begins a journey by boat without a loud and hearty
invocation of the Ganges, the Wind, the Five Pirs, and Pir Badr before
mentioned.
Of the two great sects of Islam, the Sunnis and the Shias, the former
are by far the most numerous in India. The Sunnis or Traditionalists
accept the Sunnat or collected body of Arabic usage as possessing
authority concurrent with that of the Koran, which is the sole scripture
of the Shias. Yet in Eastern Bengal the annual procession of the Tazias,
or representations of the tombs of the martyred grandsons of the
Prophet, is much attended by Sunnis (though for them the practice is
unorthodox), and indeed by Hindus also. In other parts of India, the
Mohurram festival has often led to serious encounters between Hindus and
Musalmāns, and even in Calcutta and Bombay has been the cause of
dangerous riots.
The sects of Islam in India, unlike the Hindu sects, are not due to the
instinct for differentiation, for obvious reasons. They are, in Mr
Crooke's words, either puritanical or pietistic. Consequently, followers
of them are apt to show a tendency to fanaticism. The Hindu sectarian
adores some favourite deity, but does not deny the merits, or the
Hinduism, of other deities or their followers. The Musalmān sectarian is
one who has discovered a higher orthodoxy than others, or a straighter
road to religion, and regards those who do not share his views as an
enemy of God and the true faith. Of the puritanical sects, the best
known is that of the Wahābis, founded by Ibn Abdul Wahāb at Nejd in
Arabia, at the beginning of the eighteenth century. It was an attempt to
revive primitive Muhammadanship without the corruptions and accretions
of later ages and foreign lands. It was brought into India by Sayid
Ahmad Shāh, who proclaimed a Jihād, or holy war, against the Sikhs in
1826. The Wahābis hold that the doctrine of the Unity of God has been
endangered by the excessive reverence paid to the Prophet, to his
successors the Imāns, and to shrines. At times Wahābis have given
trouble to the administration, especially in Bengal. In recent years,
however, they call themselves Ahl-i-hadīs, or "followers of tradition,"
and employ themselves chiefly in endeavouring to eradicate modern
superstitions.
The pietistic sects tend towards Sūfi-ism, a combination of Aryan
pantheism with Semitic monotheism, which takes the form of ecstatic
devotion. Something of the same kind may be found in the Vaisnav sects
of Hinduism, and in both cases ultimate absorption in the divinity is
the goal aimed at.
Very interesting local communities of Muhammadans are the Moplahs of the
Malabar coast, descendants of Arab settlers; the Bohras or "traders" of
Western India; and the Khojās, followers of the "Old Man of the
Mountain," whose present representative is H.H. the Agha Khān of Bombay,
who has many friends in England.
_The Pārsīs._ The word Pārsī simply means Persian, and the Pārsī
religion is the dualistic faith, combined with fire-worship, of the
ancient Persians. It is also called Mazdaism from Ahura Mazda (Ormuzd),
who is in perpetual conflict with Angro Mainyush (Ahriman), the spirit
of evil. It is also called Zoroastrianism, from the reformer Zoroaster,
the Greek form of the old Iranian Zarathushtra, the modern Persian
Zardusht. The religious phraseology of the Pārsīs shows that their faith
must have had a common origin with the Aryan religion of India before
the Iranian and Indo-Aryan migrations parted company. By a curious trick
of language, the Devas, who in India and Europe are beneficent gods, in
Persia become evil spirits. In India by a corresponding inversion, the
word Asura, which in the Rig-veda is still a name of gods, was applied
to hostile (generally aboriginal) demons. By a further process Asura was
regarded as a negative word, and gave birth to a tribe of beneficent
Suras. In the earlier times, there were both Ahura and Daeva
worshippers, the former being socially superior, cattle-breeders, who,
like the Indian Hindus, venerated the cow. It was Zoroaster's mission to
fuse these two cults into a dualistic creed, whose main principle was
the continuous struggle between the powers of good and evil. Submerged
for a time during the Greek occupation, the Mazdaist faith revived under
the Sassanids, but was finally overthrown by the advent of Islam, which
persecuted and strove to extirpate the worship of fire.
Many of the survivors migrated to India, where they secured the
tolerance of Hindu and Muhammadan rulers alike, and increased and
multiplied. Up to the middle of the eighteenth century, Surat, Nausāri,
and the neighbouring parts of Gujarāt were their home. When, under
British rule, Bombay became a great commercial port, large numbers of
Pārsīs migrated thither, and in many cases won great wealth and
influence.
In the early days of their dispersion, the weak colonies of Pārsīs
assimilated themselves with the lower classes of Hindus by whom they
were surrounded. But fresh accessions from Irān, and a growth of
national prosperity and self-confidence brought about a restoration of
the ancient faith. On Indian soil, the Pārsīs now number 94,000. But
owing to their intelligence and wealth, due to their remarkable success
in trading, the Pārsīs command a much wider political and social
influence than their numbers would seem to show. According to Pārsī
belief, the soul passes after death to paradise (Bihisht) or a place of
punishment (Dozakh) according to a man's conduct in life. Much
importance is attached to the performance of rites to the _manes_ of
ancestors. Fire, water, the sun, moon, and stars were created by Ahura
Mazda, and are venerated, as is Zarathushtra the Prophet. Soshios, his
son, will some day be reincarnated as a Messiah, and will convert the
world to the true faith. As with other Indian religions, contact with
Europeans tends to produce laxity of belief and conduct.
_Christianity._ It is interesting to remember that there were Christians
in India before the Christian faith reached our islands. The tradition
that St Thomas was the Apostle of India, and suffered martyrdom there,
is indeed discredited. This tradition originated with the Syriac _Acta
Thomae_, and was accepted by Catholic teachers from the middle of the
fourth century. The Indian King Gundaphar of the _Acta_ is undoubtedly
the historical Gondophares, whose dynasty was Parthian, though his
territories were loosely considered to extend to India. A full account
of the traditions connecting St Thomas with India (by W. R. Philipps)
will be found in vol. XXXII. of the _Indian Antiquary_, 1903, pp. 1-15,
145-160.
The term "Christians of St Thomas" is often applied to the members of
the ancient Christian churches of Southern India which claim him as
their first founder, and honour as their second founder a bishop called
Thomas, who is said to have come from Jerusalem to Malabar in 345 A.D.
According to local tradition, St Thomas went from Malabar to Mylapur,
now a suburb of Madras and the seat of a Roman Catholic bishop. Here
still exists the shrine of his martyrdom on Mount St Thomas. A
miraculous cross is shown with a Pahlavi inscription which is said to be
as old as the end of the seventh century. The old churches of the south
were certainly of East Syrian origin. They never wholly lost their sense
of connection with their mother church, for it is known that they sent
deputies in 1490 to the Nestorian patriarch Simeon, who provided them
with bishops. Under Musalmān rule, they suffered severely, and welcomed
the advent of the Portuguese to India. They were, however, recalcitrant
to Roman influence, and it was with much difficulty that in 1599 they
were induced to submit to a formal union with Rome at the synod of
Diamper (Udayamperur in Cochin). During the following century and a half
the Thomasine churches were under foreign Jesuit rule, but yielded an
unwilling and intermittent obedience. In 1653, there was a great schism,
and of about 200,000 Christians of St Thomas only 400 remained loyal to
Rome, though some of their churches were soon won back by the
Carmelites. The remainder fell under the influence of the Jacobite Mar
Gregorius, styled patriarch of Jerusalem, who reached Malabar in 1665 as
an emissary from Ignatius patriarch of Antioch. From this time, the
independent churches of Southern India have been Jacobite. At the
present time, they are on friendly terms with the Anglican church in
India, and are loosening their dependence on the Jacobite patriarch of
Antioch.
Of missionary work in India I need not speak in a book of this size.
There are nearly three millions of Christians in India, of whom two and
a half millions are native converts. Seeing that missionary work has
been in operation since 1500, a tale of converts amounting to less than
one per cent. may seem a discouraging result of over 400 years of
contact with European religious thought. But actual conversion has taken
place chiefly among the lower classes and least advanced races. Among
the educated classes the influence of Christianity has been indirect,
and in many cases has produced a transformation in ethical belief and
social conduct as complete as could have been wrought by open
conversion. The Brāhmo Samāj, for instance, remains Hindu in a sense,
because it refuses to sever its connection with India, or to acknowledge
European authority in matters of religion. But the Brāhmo Samāj could
not have come into existence but for Rām Mohan Roy's friendly and
intimate acquaintance with European Christians and Unitarians. Even in
the matter of conversion, the rate of progress is increasing rapidly,
partly because missionary effort is being directed to savage tracts
hitherto unvisited by civilised men, but partly, also, because the
native Christian community is beginning to have sufficient
self-confidence and status to proselytise in its turn. The multiplicity
of missionary agencies, due to the accidents of European history and
development, has been an impediment. Such terms as the Church of
England, Church of Scotland, Welsh Baptists, American Baptists, etc.,
can have little signification for races who cannot be expected to know
the historical causes which brought about these local varieties of
Christian doctrine and practice. There may yet arise among one of the
rival churches in India a Christian Rāmanuja or Chaitanya, who may found
a great Church of India, with a ritual, and, perhaps, doctrines of its
own. The most successful of the Jesuit missionaries, Robert de Nobili[6]
for instance, and such men as the Abbé Dubois in later times, owed their
success to the fact that they assumed the habits, dress, and often the
titles of Brāhmanic ascetics. They could not assume the dusky skin
which, after all, is the first and easiest means of gaining an Indian's
confidence. They could not wholly accept caste, they could not wink at
polygamy in the case of men whose first wives were infertile, and who
had an hereditary sense that the lack of an heir is socially and
religiously reprehensible. Perhaps a truly indigenous Church of India
may deal with such difficulties more successfully than men who are
compelled to teach, not only the elements of the Christian faith, but
the ethical traditions belonging to their own race.
In this connection, I may be allowed to conclude my necessarily brief
story of Indian races and religions with an anecdote. Just thirty-five
years ago I was in charge of a "subdivision" in Bengal which contained a
large number of native Christians belonging to the Church of England.
There were several churches with parsonages, and the nearest of these to
my headquarters was in the charge of a young missionary who was glad to
have an occasional chat with a young magistrate. One day my missionary
friend told me that he had discovered with dismay that his flock were in
the habit of attending the Communion Service in batches, according to
their castes, so as not to be obliged to drink out of the cup with men
of alien caste. There were Hindu Christians and Muhammadan Christians
who could not eat or drink together. He decided that this state of
things must be stopped at all costs, as being wholly contrary to
Christian teaching. I ventured to suggest that spiritual equality is not
the same thing as social equality, but had to admit that caste is not
usually recognised as a Christian institution. Apparently the Christians
listened to their pastor's admonition, for, a few days after, he rode
over to say that, in consequence of ex-scavengers and ex-Brāhmans having
communicated together, his whole congregation had been put out of caste
by their Hindu neighbours. This may not, at first sight, seem a very
serious calamity. But it happened that, in the caste specialisation
which had survived among the Christians, there were none of the
community who were barbers or midwives by caste. Christian men were
going about with stubbly chins: worse still, Christian women were in
need of help which their Hindu sisters refused to supply. It was a
difficult situation for two young bachelors. However, I now confess,
after all these years, that I brought a little official pressure to bear
on the midwives, and the situation was saved for the moment. In those
days, the educational policy of Government was to give grants-in-aid to
primary schools, most of which, in this very Christian "subdivision"
were either Roman Catholic or Anglican. When next I proceeded to issue
my doles according to school-population and other educational results, I
was astonished to find that the Roman Catholic grant-in-aid had
increased greatly and the Anglican grant-in-aid had proportionally
diminished. This was the immediate (and no doubt temporary) result of my
missionary friend's zeal. Such survivals of old beliefs are common in
all the religions of India. The main social impulse of the people was
implanted on their minds at the distant epoch of the Aryan settlement,
the sense of social and racial inequality which has now hardened into
the caste system. To most Indians a recognition of the importance and
value of caste is the first step towards decent and seemly conduct,
towards civilised morality. When a semi-savage hill-man begins to
recognise his inferiority to his Hindu neighbours and makes tentative
approaches with a view to inclusion in civilised society, his first duty
is to abjure the diet of pork and rice-beer which his unregenerate
appetite loves, since these indulgences stand in the way of sharing a
meal with Hindu folk. (In other parts of India, liquor and meat are
consumed by low-caste Hindus of aboriginal origin.) In Assam, a Kachāri
first accepts the _sarana_ or "protection" of a Hindu Goshain. He is
then called a Saraniya Koch. His next step is to abandon strong drinks,
on which he is promoted to the status of a Modāhi Koch. At this stage,
he may be fortunate enough to win the hand of a bride of pure Koch
family, and, under her guidance, acquires enough of conventional habits
and beliefs to be recognised as a Kāmtāli or Bor Koch, and is a true
Hindu, a member of a genuine Hindu caste. Musalmāns and Christians have
other social conventions, and do not usually regard them as essential to
good manners or godliness. But their converts retain their social
superstitions and carry them into the new surroundings, where they
sometimes come into disagreeable contact with the ethical ideas
belonging to imported religions.
The contact of Aryan with Dravidian races, some three thousand years
ago, brought about the beginnings of caste, which, from one point of
view, may be regarded as a rude form of "race-protection," a primitive
system of eugenics. It is still most rigidly enforced in the south,
where the semi-Aryan classes are in a great minority. It is most relaxed
in the Panjāb, where, though caste rules exist, the population is, and
probably always has been, as homogeneous as our own race. French
travellers in India have sometimes said, half-humorously, that the
Anglo-Indian administrators and merchants are practically a caste unto
themselves. Bengalis have made the same remark and have said that our
Civil Service is composed of _Kali Yuger Brāhman_, "the Brāhmans of the
Iron Age." There was once some truth in the accusation, if accusation it
be. It was not our business to interfere deliberately with caste, since
British policy from the first has been one of kindly neutrality and
toleration. Whether indirect influences have mitigated the effect of the
sentiment of caste is a moot point. Educated Indians who have lived in
Europe see its irksomeness, and in some cases denounce it more
vigorously than most Europeans will care to denounce a system due to
historical causes which are still partly operative. On the other hand,
railways and other facilities for travel, though they have necessarily
introduced laxity in matters of food and contact, have probably
heightened the caste feeling by emphasising the variety of Hindu
humanity and of the customs and habits of its many races. Hence the
evolution of Indian society remains as interesting and as incalculable
as ever.
In a little book of this sort it has been necessary to make many general
and sweeping statements which are not always literally true of any given
part of India. But perhaps enough has been said to show the interesting
and significant differences between the three hundred odd millions of
Western Europe and the three hundred odd millions of India. Our business
in India has been primarily to keep the peace, to provide a
breathing-space after the social and political turmoil that followed on
the breaking-up of the Moghal empire. The principal result, so far, has
been a notable increase in Hindu self-confidence and ambition, and a
growing belief among Hindus that their ancient social system is not
incompatible with industrial, commercial, and political advance on
European lines. This belief has been much strengthened by the
modernisation of Japan, and its results. It has been fostered by the
free admission of educated Hindus to the highest and most responsible
posts in the King-Emperor's administration. Inasmuch as that statement
brings me to the most modern development of Hindu life and thought, I
cannot do better than end at this point.
[5] Some account of the development of Chaitanya's teaching in Assam may
be found in an article of mine in Dr Hastings' _Dictionary of Religion
and Ethics_.
[6] In 1606, R. de Nobili, a nephew of Bellarmine, was in charge of the
Jesuit mission at Madura, and adopted the costume of a Dravidian Brāhman.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
CHAPTER I
The standard authority on the Hindu literary theory of Caste is M. Emile
Senart's _Les Castes dans l'lnde_. Paris. Ernest Leroux. 1896.
Probably the best succinct account of Caste is Mr E. A. Gait's article
in Dr Hastings' _Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics_. This will, of
course, be brought up to date in the forthcoming Report on the Indian
Census of 1911.
Sir A. C. Lyall's _Asiatic Studies_. London. John Murray. Contains a
sympathetic and learned account of Hindu social life and of the workings
of Caste in Upper India.
M. C. Bouglé's _Essai sur le Régime des Castes_. Paris. Felix Alcan.
1908. Contains much interesting matter taken from many sources, but
sometimes, from want of local knowledge, does not sufficiently
discriminate between different developments of the caste system.
There is an enormous literature on the races, tribes, and castes of
India, but references to the most important books will be found in the
above authorities.
* * * * *
Chapter I is, in the main, a summary of Sir H. H. Risley's views as
expressed in Chapter VI of Vol. I of the _Imperial Gazetteer_. That is
inevitable, since the _Gazetteer_ contains necessarily the most
authoritative summary of what is known on the subject, pending the
appearance of Mr Gait's forthcoming Census Report.
CHAPTER II
The standard authority on the modern languages of India is Sir G. A.
Grierson's work on _The Languages of India_ (Calcutta, 1903). It will,
however, be superseded by the book which Sir G. A. Grierson is now
writing on the basis of the further materials collected in his
_Linguistic Survey_, and in the Census Reports of 1911. The eleven
volumes hitherto published of the _Survey_ itself give specimens of the
Indian languages and skeleton grammars.
CHAPTER III
Professor Macdonell's _History of Sanskrit Literature_ (Heinemann, 1905)
contains a fascinating and readable account of the Hindu scriptures from
the Vedic ages up to modern times.
Professor Hopkins' _Religions of India_ and _India Old and New_ deal
with both the literature and the actual working of Indian religions. Mr
W. Crooke's _Native Races of Northern India_ is a popular account of the
Aryan region, and Mr Thurston's _Castes and Tribes of Southern India_.
Madras, Government Press. 1908. Though it is more elaborate and
scientific in its treatment, is full of matters which are interesting
not only to the specialist.
Meredith Townsend's _Asia and Europe_. London. Archibald Constable.
1905. Is still an interesting and suggestive study of the differences
between East and West, and Sir A. C. Lyall's _Asiatic Studies_ are the
even more illuminating results of a long, intimate, and sympathetic
familiarity with Indian religious thought.
The chapter on Religion in the forthcoming Census Report for 1911 will
contain the latest fruits of research, statistical and other.
There is an enormous mass of literature dealing in detail with the
religions and sects of India. A selected list of books will be found at
p. 446 of the _Imperial Gazetteer_.
INDEX
Abor race, 44
Accent in Indian languages, 74
Ādi Brāhmo Samāj, 96
Alphabets of India, 70
Animism among Muhammadans, 99
Animistic religions of India, 81
Animists as potential Hindus, 83
_Anu-loma_ castes, 38
Apabhramsa or "decayed" languages, 75
Arjuna, supposed ancestor of Manipur dynasty, 42
Aryan settlement in Gangetic _do-āb_, 27
Aryan settlement in the Panjāb, 26
Aryo-Dravidian type of race, 22
_Assam, History of_, by E. A. Gait, 45
Assamese language, 76
Bannerjee, Rev. K. M., 95
Bengali language, 76
Bengali race, origins of, 28
Bihārī language, 76
Bohra Muhammadans, 101
Brachycephalous races, 17
Brahma, one of the Hindu Trinity, 91
Brāhmanas, sacred books, 88
Brāhmans of Bengal, 17
Brāhmo Samāj in Bengal, 94
Brāhui language, 62, 66
Buddha (Gautama) and Buddhism, 89
Caste, definition of, 35;
functional type of, 45;
as divided in _gotras_, 41;
as a result of migration, 49;
as resulting from change of custom, 50;
as formed by mixture of blood, 47;
of the national type, 48;
sectarian type, 46;
tribal castes, 40, 43;
as including Koches and other indigenous tribes, 109
Chaitanya, Hindu reformer, 92
Chandāls, 38
Chitrangadā, supposed ancestress of Manipur dynasty, 42
Clans, exogamous, 35
Crooke, Mr W., on "Rājputs and Marāthas", 52
Dafla race, 44
Dolicocephalous races, 17
Doms in Assam, 44
Dravidian languages, 61, 62
Dravidian type of race, 24
Dravidians as probable autochthones, 25
Dubois, Abbé, 106
Fiction as an origin of caste, 33
Functional type of castes, 45
Gait, E. A., _History of Assam_, 45
Gandhara, kingdom of, 31
Gārpagāri (hail averters) as functional caste, 45
Gond language, 62, 65
_Gotras_, as branch of caste, 41
Gujarāti language, 76
Hindi (Eastern) language, 76
Hindi (Western) language, 75
Hindustāni or Urdū language, 77
Hoernle's theory of Aryan settlements, 28
Hypergamy, 26
Indo-Aryan type of race, 21
Indo-Chinese invasions, 80
Islām in India, 97
Jains, their religion, 89
Kabir, Hindu reformer, 92
Kachāri race, 109
Kāli, worship of, 94
Kanarese language, 61, 64
Kandh language, 62
Kartā-bhajās, sectarian caste, 46
Kāshmīrī language, 76
Kāyasthas of Bengal, 17
Khojā Muhammadans, 101
Koch race, 41
Koches as Hindu caste, 109
Kodagu language, 61
Kohistāni language, 76
Kolāmi language, 62
Kota language, 62
Kurukh language, 62
Lahnda language, 76
Languages of India generally, 56;
Apabhramsa, 75;
Assamese, 76;
Bengali, 76;
Bihārī, 76;
Brāhui, 62, 66;
Dravidian, 61, 62;
Gond, 62, 65;
Gujarāti, 76;
Hindi (Western), 75;
Hindi (Eastern), 76;
Hindustāni, 77;
Kanarese, 61, 65;
Kandh, 62;
Kashmīri, 76;
Kodagu, 61;
Kohistāni, 76;
Kolāmi, 62;
Kota, 62;
Kurukh, 62;
Lahnda, 76;
Māgadhi Prākrit, 75;
Mahārāshtri Prākrit, 75;
Malayalam, 61, 64;
Malto, 62;
Marāthi, 76;
Mon-Khmer, 78, 79;
Mundā, 66;
Oriyā, 72, 76;
Pahārī, 76;
Pāli, 75;
Panjābi, 76;
Prākrit, 71;
"Primary" Prākrits, 74;
Rājasthāni, 76;
Sauraseni, 75;
Sindhi, 76;
Tamil, 61, 62;
Telugu, 62, 65;
Toda, 62;
Tulu, 62
Lingayats as a sectarian caste, 47
Madhya-deça, the linguistic Midland, 69
Māgadhi Prākrit language, 75
Mags of Chittagong, 23
Mahārāshtri language, 75
Malayalam language, 61, 64
Malto language, 62
Manipur and the Meithei race, 42
Manu, Institutes of, 37
Marātha race and its origins, 29, 48
Marāthi language, 76
Meithei race of Manipur, 42
Migration as a cause of caste, 49
Mixed castes, 47
Mongolo-Dravidian race, 23
Mongolian races brachycephalous, 18
Mongoloid type of race, 23
Mon-Khmer languages, 78, 79
Moplah Muhammadans, 101
Mundā languages, 66
Nānak (Sikh reformer), 93
National castes, 48
Navavidhān Brāhmo Samāj, 96
Navin Chandra Sen, his definition of caste, 33
Nesfield, Mr, _Brief View of the Caste System
of the N. W. P. and Oude_ quoted, 13
Nestorian Christians, 103
Newār tribe in Nepāl, 48
Nirvāna as a Buddhist, and Jain doctrine, 89
Nobili, Robert de, 106
Nose-measurements, 19
Orbito-nasal index, 19
Oriyā language, 72, 76
Pahārī language, 76
Pāli language, 75
Pānini and other grammarians, 70
Panjābi language, 76
Pantheism, 37
Parasu Rāma, 41
Pārsīs and their religion, 101
Pir Badr of Chittagong, 85
Pirs (Muhammadan saints), 99
Prākrit languages, 71
_Prati-loma_ (see _Anu-loma_) castes, 38
Primary Prākrits, 74
Purānas (sacred books), 90
Rājputs in Nepāl, etc., 24
Rāmānuja (Hindu reformer), 91
Risley, Sir H. H., his account of Marātha origins, 30;
Article in _Journal of R. A. Institute_ quoted, 15
Roy, Rājā Rām Mohan, 94
Sādhāran Brāhmo Samāj, 96
Sāktas, a Hindu sect, 94
Saraswati (Dayānand), 96
Sauraseni language, 75
Scytho-Dravidian type of race, 22
Scytho-Dravidian, supposed origin, 29
Sectarian type of caste, 46
Sen (Keshav Chandra), 94
Shagird-peshās as a mixed caste, 48
Shia Muhammadans, 99
Sikhs and the Sikh religion, 93
Sindhī language, 76
Siva, as a member of the Hindu Trinity, 91
Sse or Sakas (Scythians), 30
Stature as an index of race, 20
Sunni Muhammadans, 99
Tagore, Maharshi Devendranāth, 94
Tagore, Rabindranāth, 94
Tamil language, 61, 64
Tantras (sacred books), 94
Telugu language, 62, 65
Thomasine Christians, 103
Tīrthan-karas (Jain saints), 90
Toda language, 62
Totems and Totemistic clans in Assam, 36
Tribal castes, 40, 43
Tribes in Assam, 35
Tribes, Turko-Iranian, 37
Tulu language, 62
Turko-Iranian type of race, 20
Turushka race, 31
Upanishads (sacred books), 88
_Vangiya Sāhitya Parisat_ (Bengal Academy of Literature), 56
Vardhamāna, the founder of Jainism, 89
Vedas, the four sacred books, 86
Vedic deities, 87
Vishnu as one of the Hindu Trinity, 91
Wahābi Muhammadans, 100
Yueh-chi race, 31
CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A. AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
[Illustration: map
THE INDIAN EMPIRE
Distribution of Population
_Camb. Univ. Press_]
[Illustration: map
THE INDIAN EMPIRE
Distribution of Prevailing Languages
_Camb. Univ. Press_]
End of Project Gutenberg's The Peoples of India, by James Drummond Anderson