Men who wish to be known as scientific skeptics and unbelievers often
boast that the above-mentioned books are more worthy of respect than the
books of the Bible. For the benefit of all who may not have access to
those books, the following, from Duff’s India, credited to the Shasters,
may be of service in the search after truth:
“Brahm produced an egg. All the primary atoms, qualities, and principles,
the seeds of future worlds, that had been evolved from the substance of
Brahm, were now collected together and deposited in the newly produced
egg. And into it, along with them, entered the self-existent himself,
under the assumed form of Brahma; and then he sat vivifying, expanding,
and combining the elements, during four thousand three hundred millions of
solar years. During this amazing period the wondrous egg floated like a
bubble on the water, increasing constantly in size. At length the supreme,
who dwelt therein, burst the shell of the stupendous egg and issued forth
under a new form with a thousand heads, a thousand eyes, and a thousand
arms. Along with him issued another form, huge and measureless, which
speedily matured into the present glorious universe.”—_Shasters._
In Hindostan we may see on one hand the trident of Neptune, the eagle of
Jupiter, the satyrs of Bacchus, the bow of Cupid and the chariot of the
Sun; on the other, we hear the cymbals of Rhea, the songs of the Muses,
and the pastoral tales of Apollo Nomius. The Hindoos enumerate four grand
periods in the world’s history called _yugs_. The first comprehends one
million seven hundred and twenty-eight thousand years. The second, one
million two hundred and ninety-six thousand; the third, eight hundred and
sixty-four thousand years, and the fourth four hundred and twenty-three
thousand years. Four thousand nine hundred and thirty-seven of the last
yug expired in eighteen hundred and forty-three. The incredibility of
their chronology will be seen at a glance, if you recollect that it is
claimed that one of their sovereigns lived through the whole of the first
yug. Veda is a generic name for their four oldest and most sacred books,
containing simply a revelation directly from Brahma.
Many unbelievers in this, and the old world, who have set themselves
against our Bible, have indorsed the Vedas as scientific, without so much
as having read or known one line in them. These Vedas profess to go back
through _maha yugs_ of 4,320,000 years of men. A thousand of these _maha_
yugs, or 4,320,000,000 of years make a _kalpa_, or one day of the life of
Brahma, and his night is of equal length; a hundred such days and nights
measure the time of his life.
These books give, as facts, seven great continents, separated by that many
rivers and seven mountain-chains four hundred thousand miles high. They
record a hundred sons to one king, ten thousand to another, and sixty
thousand to another. These kings were in no danger from violating the
command to “multiply and replenish the earth;” but there is one
difficulty, at least, about the records concerning the seventy thousand
and one hundred sons born to these three kings, and that is this, the
records say: They were all born in a pumpkin and nourished in pans of
milk, reduced to ashes by the curse of a sage, and restored to life by the
waters of the Ganges. Those same sacred books say: The moon is fifty
thousand leagues higher than the sun, and that it shines by its own light
and animates our body; they say, the sun goes behind the Someyra Mountains
and this makes the night; they say, these mountains are many thousand
miles high, and are situated in the middle of our earth; they say, our
earth is flat and triangular, having seven stories, each one of peculiar
beauty, having its own inhabitants, and each one having a sea. The first
story of earth, they say, is composed of _honey_, the second is composed
of _sugar_, the third of _butter_, the fourth of _wine_; and the whole
thing is carried upon the heads of elephants, and when these shake
themselves earthquakes are produced. Among the astronomical calculations
which confirm all this there are accounts of floods of waters rising to
the Polar star. How is that for a flood?
Infidel, if you read this, and remember that you have been guilty of
foisting the Vedas against the Hebrew Scriptures, hide your face and do it
no more. The Hindoos worship cats and monkeys and holy bulls and sticks
and stones. They are yet sacrificing their infants in that sacred river,
_Ganges_. The car of Juggernaut, ’tis said, is yet rolling on its bloody
wheels, and women are yet burned upon the dead bodies of their husbands.
What is the trouble with those unfortunates? Well, they enjoy freedom from
the Bible, freedom from the Bible God, and freedom from the Protestant and
Catholic clergy—the freedom that the infidels of the United States concern
themselves so much about. Give them what they plead for and it will not be
long until they will have more hell than they will love or worship.
Infidels boast of the worth of the writings of Confucius and the religion
of the Chinese. Let us look after their condition. Here it is, as given in
the Universal Vocabulary. As they are esteemed by unbelievers so ancient
as to put to shame all others pretending to antiquity, we must be allowed
to make the test of their religious and scientific tree by its fruits.
First. “If a person be suspected of treason he is put to death in a slow
and painful manner, all his relations in the first degree are beheaded,
his female relations sold into slavery, and all his connections residing
in his house are put to death. If a physician treat the case of a patient
in any way different from established rules, and the patient dies, he is
treated as guilty of homicide, though, if on his trial it be shown that it
was a mere error, he is redeemed from death, but must quit his practice
forever. When a debtor is unable to meet the demand of his creditor he
receives thirty blows, and the same number may be repeated from time to
time till the debt is paid. In case the creditor violently seize the
debtor’s goods he is liable to eighty blows. In order to the collection of
debts, it is customary for creditors to enter the houses of their debtors
on the first day of the year and pronounce their claims with a loud voice,
and continue there until they are reimbursed. It is said that this teazing
proves a successful method of collecting debts; inasmuch as the debtor,
fearing that something may befall the creditor while in his house, and,
therefore, suspicion fall on him, he is moved to use all possible
endeavors to answer the demand. Women are sold in marriage and the highest
bidder takes them. Their government is patriarchial and despotic. The
emperor is styled Holy Son of Heaven, Sole Governor of the Earth. Their
religion is paganism.”
Zell’s Encyclopedia gives the following items as true to-day: “Their
husbandry is, to a great extent, nullified by the rude and ill-adapted
implements employed therefor, and also by the smallness of the farms.
Hence, agriculture, as scientifically considered, is but little advanced.”
The form of government is strictly patriarchial. The emperor, who bears
the various euphuistic titles of the “Brother of the Sun and Moon.”
_Teen-tsye_, or the “Sun of Heaven;” _Ta-hwang-li_, or the “Great
Emperor;” and _Wansuy-yay_, or the “Lord of a Myriad Years,” is regarded
as the father of his people, and has unlimited power over all his
subjects. The emperor is spiritual as well as temporal sovereign, and as
high priest of the empire, can alone, with his immediate representatives
and ministers, perform the great religious ceremonies. The bamboo, as the
chief instrument of government, is applied without distinction, to the
highest and lowest Chinese.
The imperial palaces are of great extent, consisting of a series of
courts, with galleries and halls of audience beautifully painted. The
temples differ greatly in form and size. The ordinary temples or
_joss-houses_, consist each of one chamber _containing an idol_. This,
gentle reader, is the store-house of pagan idolatry to which some
unbelievers in Indiana and elsewhere resort for names or titles by which
to designate the houses of Christian worship in our own country. How would
those men like to emigrate to China, where they could have a language that
suits their taste, and a literature and religion about which they have
boasted so much? If Chinese government, religion, and literature and
science be so old as is claimed by Chinamen, and by infidels in our
country, and its age be the cause of its great superiority in religion and
science, may we not thank the Lord that we are young?