NEW RELIGIOUS ORGANISATIONS
THE [=A]RYAS AND THE THEOSOPHISTS.
"Let us receive not only the revelations of the past, but also
welcome joyfully the revelations of the present day."
--BISHOP COLENSO.
[Sidenote: The [=A]rya Sam[=a]j.]
III. _The [=A]rya Sam[=a]j_ or _Vedic Theistic Association_--In contrast
to the Sam[=a]jes which are leavening the country but themselves are
numerically unprogressive, are two other organisations--first, the
[=A]rya Sam[=a]j of the United Provinces and the Punjab, and secondly,
the Theosophists, who are now most active in Upper India, with Benares
the metropolis of Hinduism, as their headquarters. These two have taken
hold of educated India as no other movements yet have done. They appeal
directly to patriotic pride and the new national feeling, or, more
truly, are primarily shaped thereby.
Founded in 1875, the [=A]ryas are the most rapidly increasing of the new
Indian sects. In 1901 they numbered 92,419, an increase in the decade of
131 per cent. What ideas have such an attraction for the educated middle
class, for to that class the [=A]ryas almost exclusively belong? In
certain parts of the United Provinces and the Punjab, it seems as much a
matter of course that one who has received a modern education should be
an [=A]rya, as that in certain other provinces he should be a supporter
of the Congress.
[Sidenote: Foundation ideas of the [=A]ryas--two.]
The prime motive ideas are two. One is the result of modern education
and of Christian influence, namely, a consciousness that in certain
grosser aspects, such as polytheism, idolatry, animal sacrifices, caste,
and the seclusion of women, the present-day Hinduism cannot be defended.
Those things the [=A]ryas repudiate,--all honour to them for their
protest in behalf of reason, although in respect of caste and the
seclusion of women, their theory is said to be considerably ahead of
their practice. In the same modern spirit every [=A]rya member pledges
himself to endeavour to diffuse knowledge; and a college and a number of
schools are carried on by [=A]ryas in the Punjab. Repudiating all those
current customs, of course the [=A]ryas have parted company with the
orthodox Hindus. [=A]rya preachers denounce the corruptions of Hinduism,
and in turn, what may be called a Great Council of orthodox Hindus has
pronounced condemnation on the [=A]ryas. At an assembly of about four
hundred Hindu pandits, held in 1881 in the Senate House of the
University in Calcutta, the views of the founder of the [=A]ryas,
Dyanand Saraswati, were condemned as heterodox.[53]
The second motive idea is the new national consciousness, the new
patriotic feeling of Indians. The patriotic feeling is manifest in the
name; the [=A]ryas identify themselves with the [=A]ryans, the
Indo-European invaders of India, from whom the higher castes of Hindus
claim to be descended. Virtually, we may say, the [=A]ryas claim by
their name to be the pure original Hindus.
[Sidenote: Infallibility of the Vedas the leading tenet at first.]
To the first influence we may assign one of the chief doctrines of the
[=A]ryas, namely, their monotheism. Others of their doctrines belong to
the theology and philosophy of Hinduism, _e.g._ the ancient doctrine of
the transmigration of souls, and the doctrine of the three eternal
entities, God, the Soul, and Matter, the doctrinal significance of which
we shall have occasion to consider hereafter. These three uncreated
existences constitute one of the doctrines of the Joga system of Hindu
philosophy. To the second, or patriotic, influence, we may assign
especially the fundamental tenet of the founder of the [=A]ryas, namely,
the infallibility of the original Scriptures, the four Vedas, given, as
he alleged, to Indian sages at the creation of the world. "Back to the
Vedas!" we may say, is the cry of the [=A]ryas. In effect, the cry is
tantamount to the plea that the errors of Hinduism are only later
accretions; and be it acknowledged that no sanction can be drawn from
the Vedas for the prohibition of widow marriages, for the general
prevalence of child marriages, for the tyranny of caste, for idolatry
and several other objectionable customs.[54] Among the [=A]ryas,
therefore, we have the championship of things Indian in its crudest
form. Ludicrous are the attempts to rationalise all the statements of
the Vedas, and to find in them all modern science and modern ideas,
pouring new wine into old wine-skins, in perfect innocence of "the
higher criticism." Thus while animal sacrifices are proscribed by the
[=A]ryas, they are everywhere assumed in the Vedas, and two of the hymns
in the Rigveda are for use at the sacrifice of a horse
(a[s']wamedha).[55] According to an [=A]rya commentator, however,
a[s']wamedha is to be translated not "sacrifice of a horse," but
destruction of ignorance,--sacrifice of an ass, as one may jestingly
say.[56] Offerings for deceased parents, prescribed in detail in the
Vedas, are similarly rationalised into kind treatment of parents in old
age. The ancient and modern condemnation of eating beef was rationalised
by the [=A]ryas as follows: To kill a cow is as bad as to kill many men.
For suppose a cow to have a lifetime of fourteen or fifteen years. Her
calves, let us say, would be six cow calves and six bull calves. The
milk of the cow and her six cow calves during her natural lifetime would
give food for a day to an army of 154,440 men, according to the
calculation of the founder of the [=A]ryas, while the labour of the
other six calves as oxen would give a full meal to an army of 256,000
men. Therefore to kill a cow, etc., Q.E.D. Modern democracy, the
Copernican system of astronomy, a knowledge of the American continent,
of steamships, and of the telegraph are all discovered by Dyanand in the
Vedas, as no doubt wireless telegraphy and radium would have been, had
death not cut short, in 1883, the discoveries of the founder of the
[=A]ryas.[57]
[Sidenote: The modern leaven still affecting the [=A]ryas.]
These specimens of [=A]rya exposition of the Vedas I have given with no
intention of scoffing, although we may be permitted a laugh. I desire to
show the conflict of modern ideas and the new patriotic feeling, and how
the latter has affected the religious and theological position of the
[=A]ryas. It is the prominence of the patriotic feeling in many branches
of the Sam[=a]j that has led some observers to describe it as less of a
religious than a political organisation, anti-British and anti-Mahomedan
and anti-Christian. But the opponents of the Sam[=a]j are always
associated by [=A]ryas with rival religions; _keranis, kuranis,_ and
_puranis_ is their echoing list of their opponents,--namely, Christians
_(kerani_ being a corruption of _Christiani_), and believers in the
Koran, and believers in the Purans, _i.e._ the later Hindu books. And
that there is much more than political feeling is apparent in their
latest developments. The leaven of modern ideas has now led to the rise
of a party among the [=A]ryas which is prepared to stand by reason out
and out, and repudiate the founder's bondage to the Vedas and his _à
priori_ expositions. Popularly, the new party is known as the
"flesh-eaters." At present the Sam[=a]j is about equally divided, but
the more rationalistic section comprises most of the new-educated
members. Should the [=A]rya Sam[=a]j retain, as their chief doctrinal
positions, the perfection of pure original Hinduism and opposition to
every other ism, no great foresight or historical knowledge is required
to predict for the [=A]ryas, despite their vigour, a speedy lapse from
their reforming zeal into the position simply of a new Hindu caste,
reverting gradually to type. Their fate is still in the balance.
[Sidenote: The Bombay [=A]rya Sam[=a]j.]
The [=A]rya Sam[=a]j in Bombay does not repudiate caste. One of their
principles is that no member is expected to violate any of his own
special caste rules. Why, one cannot help asking, this invertebrate
character of the new Indian religious associations in Western India? It
is patent that what the Pr[=a]rthan[=a] Sam[=a]jes of Western India are
to the Br[=a]hma Sam[=a]j of Bengal, the [=A]rya Sam[=a]j in Bombay is
to that in the Punjab and the United Provinces--only feeble echoes.
Bombay Indians lead their countrymen in commercial enterprise, and in
political questions they take as keen an interest as any of the Indian
races. With hesitation and with apologies to Parsee friends, we ask
whether it is the numerous Parsees in Bombay who have made their
fellow-westerns only worldly-wise. For to great commercial enterprise,
the Parsees add a stubborn conservatism in religion.
[Sidenote: The Theosophical Society and the national feeling.]
IV. _The Theosophists_ are the only other new religious organisation
whom we can notice.--Them too the new patriotic feeling has very largely
shaped. Founded in America in 1875, the very year in which the [=A]rya
Sam[=a]j was established in Bombay, the Theosophical Society professed
to be "the nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity," representing
and excluding no religious creed and interfering with no man's caste. On
the other hand, somewhat inconsistently, it professed to be a society to
promote the study of [=A]ryan and other Eastern literature, religion,
and sciences, and to vindicate their importance; and it appealed for
support, amongst others, "to all who loved India and would see a revival
of her ancient glories, intellectual and spiritual." At the same time
the society professed "to investigate the hidden mysteries of nature and
the psychical powers latent in man." The society naturally gravitated
towards India, and by 1884 had 87 branches in India and Ceylon, against
12 in all the rest of the world. Its career might easily have been
predicted. Inevitably, when transplanted to India, about the year 1878,
such a society came under the spell of the new national consciousness
already referred to. For a time Theosophy shared with the political
Congress the first place in the interest of New India, and crowds of
educated Indians still assemble whenever Mrs. Besant, now the leading
Theosophist, is to speak. One of the rules of the society, however,
saved it from the descent into politics that has overtaken the [=A]rya
Sam[=a]j and tainted it as a religious movement. Rule XVI (1884) forbids
members, as such, to interfere in politics, and declares expulsion to be
the penalty for violation of the rule.
[Sidenote: [=A]rya period of the Theosophical Society.]
Consistently enough, when the society was transplanted to India, it
entered into partnership with the [=A]rya Sam[=a]j; for two years,
indeed, Madame Blavatsky, the first leader of the Theosophists, had been
corresponding from America with the founder of the [=A]ryas. The [=A]rya
tenet of the infallibility of the original Hindu Scriptures needed no
reconciliation with the Theosophist declaration of the ancient spiritual
glories of India. But the [=A]ryas are also religious reformers, while,
as enlightened Hindus now complain, the Theosophists are more Hindu than
the Hindus. After three years, in 1881, difference arose on the question
of the personality of God. The [=A]ryas, we have seen, are monotheist;
the Theosophical Society, we shall see, is identified with brahmanical
pantheism.[58]
[Sidenote: Buddhist period of the Theosophical Society.]
[Sidenote: Pro-Hindu period of the Theosophical Society.]
The Buddhist period of the Theosophical Society, which came next, is
best known to general readers, but is only an episode in its history. In
the early "eighties," we find the society pro-Buddhist, and apparently
identifying _Buddhism_ with "the ancient glories of India, spiritual and
intellectual," that the society was professedly desirous to revive. We
associate the period with the publication of _Esoteric Buddhism_, by Mr.
A.P. Sinnett, one of the society's leaders, and with Madame Blavatsky's
claim to be in spiritual communication with Mahatmas [great spirits] in
Thibet, the Buddhist land, now robbed of its mystery by the British
expedition of 1904. Madame Blavatsky claimed to be receiving letters
carried straight from Thibet by some air-borne Ariel. The discovery in
1884 of Madame Blavatsky's trickery ended the exhibition of "psychical
powers," and also apparently the Buddhist period of the society. That
the society itself survived the exposure is proof that it had a deeper
root than any mere cult of Buddhism or Spiritualism could give. Its
appeal, as we have said, was to the new patriotic feeling in the sphere
of religion. To Madame Blavatsky succeeded Mrs. Besant as leading
spirit, and to the cult of Buddhism again succeeded the glorification of
ancient Hinduism and now also apologies of Hinduism as it is; and to
Madras as chief centre of Theosophy succeeded Benares, metropolis of
Hinduism. Mrs. Besant proclaimed herself the reincarnation of some
ancient Hindu pandit, and called upon Hindus to devote themselves to the
study of the Sacred Sanscrit. Supported by many well-to-do Hindus, in
1900 she founded a college at Benares in which Hinduism might be lived
and inculcated as Christianity is inculcated in the Indian Missionary
Colleges. In the beginning of 1904 a great figure of the goddess
Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of Learning, was being erected in the
grounds of the College. The subordination of the Indian Theosophical
Society, at least in the person of Mrs. Besant, to the pro-Hindu
national movement may be pronounced complete. In the sphere of religion,
this new Indian consciousness which has enveloped the Theosophists is a
force opposed to change and reform. The Theosophical Society, which at
the outset professed to be the nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood, is
now fostering caste and Hindu exclusiveness, the antitheses of the idea
of humanity. Yet, as we shall see, even in the text-books of Hindu
Religion prepared for use in the Hindu College, Benares, Christian
thought is not difficult to discover. And its meed of praise must not be
withheld from the attempts of Theosophists and the Hindu College,
Benares, to rationalise current Hindu customs and to reduce the chaos of
Hindu beliefs to some system that will satisfy New India. Fain would the
Theosophists propound, as we have already noted in the chapter, "New
Social Ideas," that caste should be determined by character and
occupation, not by birth. That being impossible, they would fain see the
myriad of castes reduced to the original four named in Manu. To quote
again the summing up regarding the caste system in the chief Hindu
text-book referred to--"Unless the abuses which are interwoven with caste
can be eliminated, its doom is certain." That is much from the leaders
of the Hindu reaction. In Hinduism they may often see only what they
wish to see, but they are not wholly blinded.
The Theosophists, it should be noted, do not figure as such in the
Census. Indian Christians, Brahmas, and [=A]ryas have all taken up a
definite new position in respect of religion, and ticket themselves as
such; the Theosophists are now at least mainly the apologists of things
as they are, and require no name to differentiate themselves.