THE IDEA OF SALVATION
"The slender sound
As from a distance beyond distance grew,
Coming upon me--O never harp nor horn
Was like that music as it came; and then
Stream'd thro' my cell a cold and silver beam,
And down the long beam stole the Holy Grail."
TENNYSON.
[Sidenote: Hinduism superseded Buddhism because it offered salvation,
not extinction.]
Salvation does mean something to every class. The huge fabric of
Brahmanism does not continue to exist without ministering to some
wide-felt need of the masses. It was in obedience to some inward demand,
however perverted, that children were cast into the Ganges at Saugor,
that human sacrifices were offered and self-tortures like hook-swinging
were endured. These have been put down by British authority, but there
still remain many austerities and bloody sacrifices and strange devices
to satisfy the clamant demand of our souls. Even may we not say that,
along with other reasons for the disappearance of Buddhism from India,
some response more satisfying to the human need must have been offered
by the rival system of Hinduism. Hinduism has deities and avatars;
Buddhism had none. Two of the most interesting spots in India, the most
sacred in the world to Buddhists, are Budh-gaya, where under the bo tree
Buddha attained to enlightenment, and S[=a]rn[=a]th, where he began his
preaching. Yet the worship at neither place to-day is Buddhist. At the
scene of Gautama's enlightenment, where he became Buddha or Enlightened,
one of the conventional statues of Buddha is actually marked and
worshipped as Vishnu, the Hindu deity, the Preserver in the Hindu triad.
Even at that most holy shrine of Buddhism, Hinduism has supplanted it,
for popular Hinduism offered salvation, while Buddhism offered
extinction. Turning from the masses to the philosophical ascetic--when
he cuts himself off from family life with all its variety of pleasure
and interest, not to speak of the self-torture he also sometimes
inflicts, he too has some corresponding demand, some adequate motive to
satisfy. His is the resolute quest for salvation of the higher, older
type. But we are dealing with modern, new-educated India, and now we ask
ourselves: What does the modern, new-educated Indian mean by salvation?
Why does the thought of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ fail to reach
his heart?
[Sidenote: Three ways of salvation in Hinduism: more strictly, three
stages.]
[Sidenote: 1. Saving knowledge]
[Sidenote: Or now Beatific Vision.]
The acute Indian mind, with its disposition to analyse and its
tenderness towards all manifestations of religion, has noted three
different paths of salvation, or more strictly three stages in the path.
The last only really leads to salvation, the other two paths are
tolerant recognition of the well-meaning religious efforts of those who
have not attained to understanding of the true and final path of
salvation. For convenience sake we may roughly designate the three ways
as Saving Works, and Saving Faith, and Saving Knowledge, placing the
elementary stage first. One of the Tantras or ritual scriptures of
Modern Hinduism, the Mahanirv[=a]na Tantra, thus explains the three
stages in the path and their respective merits: "The knowledge that
Brahma alone is true is the best expedient; meditation is the middling
[= the means?]; and (2) the chanting of glories and the recitation of
names is the worst; and (3) the worship of idols is the worst of the
worst.[128] Of the pantheist's "saving knowledge," perhaps enough has
been said. But again, it is the piercing of the veil of Maya or Delusion
which hides from the soul that God is the One and the All. It is the
transformation of the consciousness of "I" into that of the "One only,
without a second." It is the ability to say "Aham Brahman," _i.e._ I am
Brahma. In the _Life of Dr. Wilson_, the Scottish Missionary at Bombay,
we read that in 1833, Dr. Wilson went with a visitor to see a celebrated
jogi who was lying in the sun in the street, the nails of whose hands
were grown into his cheek, and on whose head there was the nest of a
bird. The visitor questioned the jogi, "How can one obtain the knowledge
of God?" and the reply of the jogi was, "Do not ask me questions; you
may look at me, for I am God." "Aham Brahman," very probably was his
reply. That is pantheistic salvation, _mukti_, or deliverance from
further human existences and their desires and delusions. At last the
spirit is free, and the galling chains of the lusting and limited body
are broken. But as pantheism is declining, such cases are growing fewer,
and for the educated Hindus, now largely monotheists, the saving
knowledge is rather a beatific vision of the Divine, only vouchsafed to
minds intensely concentrated upon the quest and thought of God, and cut
off from mundane distractions. This is the union with God which is
salvation to many of the modern monotheistic Hindus.
[Sidenote: The quest of the beatific vision still implies the
dissociation of religion and active life.]
[Sidenote: An unproductive religious ideal.]
What concerns us here is that in the conception of the beatific vision,
we still find ourselves in a different religious world from
ours--religion exoteric for the vulgar, and religion esoteric for the
enlightened; religion not for living by, but for a period of retirement;
a religion of spiritual self-culture, not of active sonship and
brotherhood. Far be it from me to say that at this point the West may
not learn as well as teach, for how much thought does the culture of the
spirit receive among us? How little! However that may be, this
conception of the religious life is deeply rooted in educated India. The
impersonal pantheistic conception of the Deity may be passing into the
theistic, and even into Christian theism; the doctrine of transmigration
may be little more than the current orthodox explanation of the coming
of misfortune; the doctrine of Maya or the illusory character of the
phenomena of our consciousness, it may be impossible to utter in this
new practical age; and Jesus Christ may be the object of the highest
reverence; but still the instinctive thought of the educated Hindu is
that there is a period of life for the world's work, and a later period
for devotion to religion. When dissatisfaction with himself or with the
world does overtake him, instinctively there occur to him thoughts of
retirement from the world and concentration of his mind, thereby to
reach God's presence. Very few spiritually minded Hindus past middle
life pass into the Christian Church, as some do at the earlier stages of
life. Under the sway of the Hindu idea of salvation, by knowledge or by
intense intuition, they withdraw from active life to meditate on God,
with less or more of the practice of religious exercises. Painful to
contemplate the spiritual loss to the community of a conception of
religion that diverts the spiritual energy away from the community, and
renders it practically unproductive, except as an example. Once more we
recall as typical the jogi, not going about doing good, anointed with
the Holy Ghost and with power, but fixed like a plant to its own spot,
and with inward-looking eyes. Time was that there were jogis and joginis
(female jogis) in Europe; but even of St. Theresa, at one period of her
life a typical jogini, we read that not long after her visions and
supernatural visitations, she became a most energetic reformer of the
convents.
[Sidenote: The jogi, not the brahman, is the living part of present-day
Hinduism.]
That quest for the beatific vision or for union with God, is the highest
and the most living part of present-day Hinduism, whether monotheistic
or pantheistic. Not the purohit brahman (the domestic celebrant), or the
guru brahman (the professional spiritual director), conventionally
spoken of as divine, but the jogi or religious seeker is the object of
universal reverence. And rightly so. The reality of this aspect of
Hinduism is manifest in the ease with which it overrides the idea of
caste. In theory brahmans are the twice-born caste, the nearest to the
Deity and to union with Him. A man of lower caste, in his upward
transmigrations towards union with God or absorption into Deity, should
pass through an existence as a brahman. In the chapter on Transmigration
we found that the upward steps of the ladder up to the brahman caste had
been clearly stated in an authoritative Hindu text-book. The word
_br[=a]hman_, the name of the highest caste, is itself in fact a synonym
for Deity. But as a matter of fact, men of any caste, moved by the
spirit, are found devoting themselves to the jogi life. "He who attains
to God is the true br[=a]hman," is the current maxim, attributed to the
great Buddha.
[Sidenote: Saving Faith, or Bhakti.]
[Sidenote: Bhakti implies a personal God.]
[Sidenote: Bhakti a genuine feeling because it may override caste.]
[Sidenote: Bhakti not fit to cope with caste.]
This brings us to the second of the three paths of salvation, the middle
portion of the upward path to the mountain top of clear, unclouded
vision of the All, the One Soul. In Hindu theory, at this second stage
man is still amid the clouds that cling to the mountain's breast. For
easy reference I have named it _Salvation by Faith_, although the
English term must not mislead. The extract from the Mahanirv[=a]na
Tantra, already quoted, describes this inferior stage as the method of
"chanting of glories and recitation of names" of gods. The Sanscrit
name, _Bhakti_, is rendered devotion, or fervour, or faith, or fervent
love; and in spite of alien ideas associated with bhakti, bhakti is much
more akin to Faith than are many of the features of Hinduism to the
Christian analogues with whose names they are ticketed. For example,
bhakti practically implies a personal god, not the impersonal
pantheistic Brahma. Intense devotion to some personal god, generally
Vishnu the preserver, under the name Hari, or either of Vishnu's chief
incarnations, Ram or Krishna, is the usual manifestation of bhakti. In
actual practice it displays itself in ecstatic dancing or singing, or in
exclaiming the name of the god or goddess, or in self-lacerations in his
or her honour. Lacerations and what we would call penances, be it
remembered, are done to the honour of a Deity; they are not a discipline
like the self-whipping of the Flagellants and the jumping of the Jumpers
of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. "Bhakti," says Sir Monier
Williams, "is really a kind of 'meritorious work,' and not equivalent to
'faith' in the Christian sense."[129] Bhakti is the religion of many
millions of India, combined more or less with the conventional externals
of sacrifice and offerings and pilgrimages and employment of brahmans,
which together constitute the third path of salvation, by karma or
works. That ecstatic adoration is religion for many millions of India,
although the name _bhakti_ may never pass their lips. We judged the idea
of salvation by knowledge, or by intense concentration of mind, to be
_genuinely_ felt, because it could override the idea of caste. Applying
the same test here, we must acknowledge the genuineness of feeling in
bhakti. Theoretically, at least, as Sir Monier Williams says, "devotion
to Vishnu supersedes all distinctions of caste"; and again, "Vishnavism
[Vishnuism], notwithstanding the gross polytheistic superstitions and
hideous idolatry to which it gives rise, is the only Hindu system worthy
of being called a religion."[130] In actual practice the repudiation of
caste no doubt varies greatly. In some cases, caste is dropped only
during the fit of fervour or bhakti. At Puri, _during_ the celebrated
Juggernath (Jagan-nath, Lord of the world) pilgrimage, high caste and
low together receive and eat the temple food, afterwards resuming their
several ranks in caste. As a matter of fact it was found at the census
of 1901, that with the exception of a few communities of devotees, all
the professed Vishnuites returned themselves by their caste names. Hindu
bhakti, like Christianity, is in conflict with caste, and bhakti has not
proved fit to cope with it.
[Sidenote: Bhakti in other religions.]
[Sidenote: In Christian worship.]
Bhakti, then, is simply the designation for fervour in worship or in
presence of the Deity, as it appears in Hinduism. For fervour is not
peculiar to any religion, even ecstatic fervour. We see it among the
Jews in King David's dancing before the ark of the Lord, and we see it
in the whirling of the dervishes of Cairo, despite Mahomedans' overawing
idea of God. May we not say that the singing in Christian worship
recognises the same religious instinct, and the necessity to permit the
exercise of it. Many of the psalms, we feel we must chant or sing;
reading is too cold for them--the 148th Psalm for example, "Praise ye
the Lord from the heavens; praise Him in the heights: praise ye Him, sun
and moon," and so on.
[Sidenote: Bhakti a natural channel for religious feeling, now being
reconsecrated.]
We pass over the extravagances and gross depths to which bhakti,
devotion or faith or love, may degenerate in the excitement of religious
festivals--_corruptio optimi pessimum_. Even, strange to say, we find
the grossness of bhakti also deliberately embodied in figures of wood
and stone. Passing that over, we repeat that in bhakti or devotion to a
personal God, or even only ecstatic extravagant devotion to a saint or
religious hero semi-deified, we have a natural channel for the religious
feeling of Indians, a channel that in these days is wearing deep. I
speak of the middle classes, not of the ignorant masses, and my point is
that the middle classes and the new religious organisations including
the Indian Church are reconsecrating bhakti. Here is a portion of a
bhakti hymn of one of the sections of the Br[=a]hma Sam[=a]j:
"The gods dance, chanting the name of Hari;
Dances my Gouranga in the midst of the choral band;
The eyes full of tears, Oh! how beautiful!
Jesus dances, Paul dances, dances Sakya Muni."
[Sidenote: Bhakti in the Indian Church.]
Between singing the song and acting it while singing, the distance in
India is little. The explanation of a recent Hindu devotee, Ramkrishna
Paramhansa, is: "A true devotee, who has drunk deep of divine Love, is
like a veritable drunkard, and as such cannot always observe the rules
of propriety."[131] Manifestations of bhakti we would soon have in the
Indian Christian Church were the cold moderating influence of Westerns
lessened; and as the Church increases and becomes indigenous, we must
welcome bhakti in measure. Every religious procession will lead to
manifestations of bhakti. In the Church of Scotland Magazine, _Life and
Work_, for November 1904, we are told of a convert at Calcutta: "She
kept speaking and singing of Jesus.... She appeared to the Hindu family
to be a Christ-intoxicated woman." Again, in the _Indian Standard_ for
October 1905, we read of a religious revival among the Christians of the
hills in Assam, where the Welsh missionaries work. We may contrast the
concomitants of the revival with those attending the late revival even
among the fervid Welsh. At one meeting, we are told, "the fervour rose
at times to boiling heat, and scores of men were almost beside
themselves with spiritual ecstasy. We never witnessed such scenes;
scores of people literally danced, while large numbers who did not dance
waved their arms in the air, keeping time, as they sang some of our
magnificent Khassie hymns."
[Sidenote: Saving knowledge naturally superseded by Bhakti in the new
monotheism.]
[Sidenote: An object of bhakti needed for educated India.]
[Sidenote: Buddha, Krishna, Chaitanya.]
[Sidenote: Jesus Christ, the supereminent object of bhakti.]
If what I have frequently repeated in these chapters be correct--that in
the nineteenth century educated India has become largely monotheistic,
it is in keeping therewith that the prevailing conception of religion
should have changed, alongside, from the quest of Saving Knowledge to
that of Bhakti or enthusiastic devotion to a person. Direct confirmation
of that inference, a recent Hindu historian supplies. In a different
context altogether, he declares: "The doctrine of bhakti (Faith) now
rules the Hindu to the almost utter exclusion of the higher and more
intellectual doctrine of gnan (Knowledge of the Supreme Soul)." The
conception of the all-comprehending impersonal Brahma has, indeed, lost
vitality; for the educated also the externals of the popular religion
have lost their significance and become puerile. But for them also, the
objects of popular bhakti, Ram and Krishna, are as much epical as
religious heroes. Hinduism needs an object of bhakti for her educated
people. The fact explains several of the novel religious features of the
past half-century. The great jogi, Buddha, although not a brahman, was
rediscovered as a religious hero for Hindus; at the commencement of the
century he was a heretic to the brahmans. "The head of a sect inimical
to Hinduism," the great Rammohan Roy calls him. So Sir Edwin Arnold's
_Light of Asia_ had a great vogue some twenty years ago. Then Krishna
has had his life re-written and his cult revived--purged of the old
excesses of the Krishna-bhakti. More recently, Chaitanya, the religious
teacher in Bengal in the fifteenth century, has been adopted by certain
of the educated class in Bengal as an object of bhakti. Here, it seems
to me, is found the place of Christ in the mind of educated India. They
are fairly familiar now with the story of the New Testament, and Jesus
Christ stands before them as the supereminent object of bhakti; and I
venture to say is generally regarded as such, although comparatively few
as yet have adopted the bhakti attitude towards Him. The _Imitatio
Christi_, however, is a well-known book to the spiritually minded among
the educated classes. India has advanced beyond the cold, intellectual,
Unitarian appreciation of Jesus Christ that marked the early Br[=a]hma
and Pr[=a]rthan[=a] Sam[=a]j movements and manifested itself in their
creeds in express denial of any incarnation. For Br[=a]hma worship, I
have seen the hymn, "Jesus, lover of my soul," transformed into "Father,
lover of my soul." Hindus of the newer bhakti attitude to Christ would
find no difficulty in singing the hymn as Christians do, provided the
doctrinal background be not obtruded upon them. Sober faith has dawned,
and will formulate itself by and by.