India's Problem, Krishna or Christ Part 4

"_Sakti_" worship has also attained great influence and extensive predominance in many parts of India. This is the worship of the _Sakti_ or the female half of the great deities of the land. The _Saktar_ preeminently worship _Kali_, the G.o.ddess of blood, and the other consorts of Siva. It is a worship of power ("_Sakti_" means energy or power), and usually power of the maleficent type. It is perhaps the lowest form of Hinduism and easily lends itself to a gratification of the lowest pa.s.sions of men. This _tantric_ cult (the _tantras_ are the sacred books of the Saktar) is the only one in modern Hinduism which indulges in b.l.o.o.d.y sacrifices-_Kali_ and her sisters being satisfied by blood as by nothing else. This attests the non-Aryan origin and character of this worship, inasmuch as Brahmanism, since the days of Buddha, abjures all b.l.o.o.d.y sacrifice.

Let it not be supposed, however, from the above remarks, about the multiform and self-contradictory character of the amorphous thing called Hinduism, that it is therefore impossible for us to understand and measure its nature and power. For Brahmanism, through all ages, has not been without a definite tendency, an underlying philosophy and pervasive fundamental beliefs. It is indeed more a congeries of faiths than a simple religion, like Christianity. And yet, amid all its hosts of contradictions and ways of salvation and sects and cults there have sounded, as a diapason through all the centuries, the fundamental teachings of Vedantism. A few doctrines such as pantheism, transmigration, "karma,"

"bhakti" and final absorption into the Supreme Soul are all but universally held by the people of all sects and divisions, however much at variance with these their peculiar beliefs may seem to be.

The prominent staple of Hindu religious thinking in all ages has doubtless been Vedantism-that subtle form of pantheism which has charmed and bewildered not a few of the great minds of the Occident also. The paramount influence of this philosophy upon all religious thought and life in India is unmistakable today, as it has been through the centuries. Of this Max Muller says,-"If the people of India can be said to have now any system of religion at all ... it is to be found in the Vedanta philosophy, the leading tenets of which are known to some extent in every village....

Nothing will extinguish that ancient spirit of Vedantism which is breathed by every Hindu from his earliest youth, and pervades, in various forms, even the prayers of the idolater, the speculations of the philosopher, and the proverbs of the beggar."

We may therefore, without hesitation, so far as Hinduism is concerned regard as philosophic Hinduism those basal doctrines and their corollaries which, from the earliest days, have been the stock in trade of all Indo-Aryan thinkers and at the same time the source and solvent of all the mysteries of their faith.

By a study of these one may easily reach the heart of Hindus and of Hinduism and can weigh and measure the forces which enter into their religious life and thinking, and can compare them with the teachings and inst.i.tutions of Christianity.

This study will bring a twofold blessing to Christians of the West, especially to missionaries who have given themselves to the regeneration of India. It will give them a larger degree of respect for that great people of the East and a new appreciation for Hindu thought and religious speculation. We of the West have been imbued with too much of an intellectual arrogance and a spirit of contempt for "the benighted Hindu."

Even if we ever learned, we certainly have too easily forgotten, that many, many centuries ago-when our ancestors were grovelling in the lowest depths of primitive savagery-the rishis of India were engaged in perhaps the highest self-propelled flights of religious speculation the world has ever known and were working out a philosophy, or more correctly a system of ontology, which is today the wonder and admiration of Western savants.

I argue for a study of those teachings which, though h.o.a.ry with age, are today all-important as the foundation upon which the many-aisled temple of Hinduism is built and (if I may change the figure) as the cement which binds the whole structure together.

A few years ago it was generally thought that Brahmanism was little else than the insane ravings of well-meaning, but unguided, or, worse still, misguided, denizens of darkness; the whole literature was considered a ma.s.s of intellectual and moral rubbish. How much the verdict of Western scholars upon this subject has changed during the last quarter of a century I need not mention. All men who have investigated the subject give today unstinted praise to the heart and intellect of those sages who produced much of the ancient religious literature of India. They will not endorse the statement of the great German philosopher who exclaimed, "In the whole world there is no study so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Upanishads. It has been the solace of my life-it will be the solace of my death." And yet many claim that its truths are numerous and spiritually helpful. Hopkins writes(7):-"The sincerity, the fearless search of the Indic Sages for truth, their loftiness of thinking, all these will affect the religious student of every clime and age, though the fancied result of their thinking may pa.s.s without effect over a modern mind." And Barth truly remarks(8):-"The religion of India has not only given birth to Buddhism and produced, to its own credit, a code of precepts which is not inferior to any other; but in the poetry which they have inspired there is at times a delicacy and bloom of moral sentiment which the Western world has never seen outside of Christianity. Nowhere else, perhaps, do we meet with an equal wealth of fine sentences." Of their intellectual ac.u.men Dr. Matheson says: "It is not too much to say that the mind of the West, with all its undoubted impulses towards the progress of humanity, has never exhibited such an intense amount of intellectual force as is to be found in the religious speculations of India.... These have been the cradle of all Western speculations; and wheresoever the European mind has risen into heights of philosophy, it has done so because the Brahman has been the pioneer. There is no intellectual problem in the West which had not its earliest discussion in the East; and there is no modern solution of that problem which will not be found antic.i.p.ated in the East." These words of the Scotch divine are doubtless strong; too strong, I think. And yet they may be serviceable, if they warn us against that p.r.o.neness to depreciate the intellectual value and serious purpose of the religious books of that land. It is worse than useless to confidently descant upon the errors, inconsistencies, the follies and absurdities of these writings without acknowledging at the same time the profound thought, the deep spiritual yearning and the sublime poetic beauty, which characterize some portions.

In this connection the question of the origin of Hinduism is important.

It was formerly laid down as a postulate of the Christian's belief that Hinduism is of the devil; and that, coming from below, it must be shunned as a study and denounced root and branch as a thing purely satanic. This theory has entirely given way to a more rational belief. The question whether the truths of Hinduism, with those of other ethnic religions, have filtered down from some primitive revelation and are the relics of a vanishing faith, divinely communicated to some of the earliest members of our race; or whether G.o.d has directly, from time to time, guided the thoughts and answered the deep yearnings of the soul of the Indo-Aryan, is one which is still discussed. But modern scholarship is practically of one voice in maintaining that G.o.d hath not left Himself without witness among the many nations of the earth,-a witness that has indeed been comparatively feeble-a revelation that is dim and starlike as compared with the noonday brightness of the Sun of Righteousness in the Christian religion. The day has come when the Christian must accept and believe that G.o.d has been dealing directly with this people through the many centuries of their history, leading them to important truths, even though their evil hearts and worse lives have caused them, in many cases, to "change the truth of G.o.d into a lie and worship and serve the creature more than the Creator." Many of the truths which are imbedded in the religion of that land find their solution in no other hypothesis than this.

This study of Hinduism will also lead us to realize the important truth of the many points of contact between that faith and our own. A knowledge of their sympathies cannot be of less importance than that of their antipathies. And this knowledge is indispensable to the Christian worker in India as it gives a new and a most direct way of approach to the Hindu heart, and a fresh and all-potent argument with them in behalf of Christianity.

This process also best ill.u.s.trates the method and Spirit of Christ. Dr.

Robson aptly remarks that "while no religion has done more to overthrow other religions than Christianity, no religious teacher has said less against other religions than Christ. We have from Him only one short saying condemning the Gentiles' aim in life, but not even one reflecting on the G.o.ds they believed in, or the worship they paid them. Was not this because He came not to destroy but to fulfill?"

I can refer to only a few of these common points and belief in the two faiths.

(_a_) Incarnation.

These are the only two faiths which have exalted, to primal importance, this doctrine. In Christianity it is basal, and in later Brahmanism, or Hinduism, it has overshadowed nearly every other teaching. In a sense the all-pervasive pantheism of Brahmanism made a certain form of incarnation a necessity from the earliest days. The ancient Aryans could not rest satisfied with the Unknown and the Absolute of their Vedantism; so they speedily began to erect for their evergrowing pantheon an endless procession of emanations. But it was, probably, the phenomenal success of Gautama, and especially the posthumous influence of his life and example, that opened the eyes of the Brahmans and suggested to them the supreme need of an _avatar_ ("descent"), for the popularizing of their faith. And thus originated that vast system of descents, or incarnations, which have multiplied so greatly and developed so grotesquely all over the land. The common ground furnished by this doctrine to the two faiths is not adequately appreciated. This truth of incarnation, in its fundamental doctrinal bearing upon Hinduism, and in the strengthening of its hold, even until the present, upon the popular imagination and affection, should not go for nought in the mind of Christian critics, because of the content of the mult.i.tudinous descents, which is mostly grotesque, debasing and repulsive. They forget that the Christian doctrine of incarnation furnishes, perhaps, the best leverage with which the Christian missionary is to overturn the faith of that people, simply because the doctrine itself has been so popularized, even if debased, in India for many centuries. Christ should be none the less, yea the more, welcome to that land because the most popular G.o.d of the Hindu pantheon (Krishna) is also the leading incarnation of Vishnu.

(_b_) Vicarious Atonement.

In Christianity this is second in importance only to the doctrine of incarnation. In Brahmanism also it has maintained, from the first, a position of cardinal importance. In pre-Buddhistic days this found expression in sacrifices that were probably more numerous and more precious than those offered by any other people. This is partly shown by the fact that words used for sacrifice are more numerous in the Sanskrit than even in the Hebrew language. It is true that their idea of sacrifice, both as to its import and object, was different from ours or from that of the Israelites; and indeed their own ideas also varied at different times.

Under the influence of Buddhism, sacrifice, as such, was practically abandoned; but the idea of atonement for sin, which was underlying them, they practically carried over into the doctrine of transmigration. For, however stiffly they contend that, through metempsychosis, the doctrine of _karma_ is realized and every soul atones for its own sin, it nevertheless remains true that the element of consciousness separates the person who sinned from him who suffers; and one becomes the involuntary atoner and the other the atoned for.

(_c_) Spirituality.

It may, to some, seem absurd to bring the two faiths into anything but the relationship of contrast in this particular, when it is remembered that we are confronted daily by a Hinduism which is as grossly formal, materialistic and sensual as any religion known in any land. But it is unnecessary to remind us of the fact that the literature of the faith of this people is, in some respects, far removed from the low life and ritual of the present day; and in no greater respect than in this which we are now considering. All students recognize in many writings, vedic and post-vedic, profound seriousness and a sometimes strange depth of spiritual apprehension coupled with an other-worldliness which, to the western mind, seems absurdly impractical. Indeed, the naturally mystical bent of the Hindu mind has been regarded, and, doubtless, rightly regarded, as one of the chief obstacles to a true and easy understanding of much that is in their sacred writings by the too practical Westerner.

We should not be blind to the lofty height of spiritual thought which we occasionally, and the deep spiritual yearning which we frequently, are permitted to witness in their books. In evidence of this we need only to refer to the powerful hold which the _yoga_ system of philosophy and life has upon them. An intense meditativeness, a devotional ecstasy and an insight of true heavenly wisdom is the ideal of life to which the Hindu has been called from time very remote.

(_d_) Eschatology.

In Hinduism, as in Christianity, man is directed to look to a judgment-seat and a system of rewards and punishments in the world to come. While this doctrine again, in its development and detail, differs essentially from that of the Christian faith, it is well to call attention to it as a point of contact. It breathes the spirit of _karma_, which, in its retributive power, has been compared by some to the doctrine of heredity, and by others, to that of fate. _Karma_ demands the full future fruition of every act done in the body; and many re-births, with intervals of keener suffering and bliss in numerous h.e.l.ls and heavens, are the countless steps in the doleful fugue of emanc.i.p.ation-a process which is enough to appall any but the patient, stolid soul of a Hindu. And yet this weary detail of a very long and sisyphean effort to shake off this mortal coil and to enter into rest is worthy of the missionary's attention, as it represents, perhaps, the most elaborate system of eschatology outside of the New Testament. It is also ethical in its character, and in its fundamental principles has chords which harmonize with those of the Christian doctrine.

(_e_) The Doctrine of Faith.

This doctrine maintains that, by devotion to a personal G.o.d, salvation is achieved. This idea separates this doctrine from, and apparently antagonizes, the prevailing philosophy of the land-Vedantism. This cult of _Bhakti_ is connected with Krishnaolatry, which is the worship of the most unworthy and licentious G.o.d of the Hindu pantheon.

Of Vaishnavism, or the worship of Vishnu, in which the _bhakti_, or faith, doctrine prevails, Sir Monier Williams remarks:-"Notwithstanding the gross polytheistic superst.i.tions and hideous idolatry to which it gives rise, it is the only Hindu system worthy of being called a religion. At all events it must be admitted that it has more common ground with Christianity than any other form of non-Christian faiths." The basal truth of _bhakti_-that of supreme attachment to, or faith in, a personal G.o.d-could not fail of rousing within the devout lofty and stirring emotion. _Bhaktar_, _i.e._, those who have given themselves absolutely to this doctrine and make it the motive and inspiration of their lives, are oblivious to all other bonds, abjuring among themselves even caste and all its demands, and proclaiming the true oneness of the brotherhood of the faith among all the devotees of the same G.o.d.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Rock-Cut Temple, South India.]

Thus we have today a large and vigorous cla.s.s of Hindus who have subordinated every doctrine and practice of their religion to that of faith, or _bhakti_. I believe, with not a few ill.u.s.trious scholars, that this doctrine traces its origin to Christianity. Like everything else which Hinduism had absorbed, it has been considerably trans.m.u.ted in the process. It has been necessarily and greatly affected and degraded by the character of the G.o.ds who have been its objects. It has been debased by contact with idolatry and error, with superst.i.tion and sensuality. And yet we trace its lineaments to its lofty, divine origin, and hesitate not to say that it furnishes a common ground of a fundamental truth of which Christian missionaries have not yet sufficiently availed themselves in their work for this people.

Hindus have also done not a little thinking in the elaboration of the doctrine of salvation. In their discussion as to the relative potency of divine grace and human agency in the salvation of man they became divided into two antagonistic schools, corresponding, very closely, to the Calvinistic and Arminian, among Christians-the _Tengaliar_ maintaining the "cat theory" and the _Vadagaliar_ the "monkey theory"; so called because one party holds that, just as the cat saves her kitten by seizing and carrying it away bodily, so G.o.d seizes and saves man without his own effort. This is the doctrine of absolute grace. The other party insists that the relation of the young monkey to its mother, whereby its rescue from trouble depends upon its own grasp, best represents the process of salvation in which man's cooperation is necessary.

They have also developed the doctrine of growth in grace sometimes in a very instructive way. The spiritual development from _saloka_ (in the same world with G.o.d) to _samipa_ (in the divine presence) thence to _sarupa_ (in the divine image) and finally to _sayujya_ (complete ident.i.ty with the divine Being) bears, in some respects, a striking resemblance to the teaching of St. Paul, where he writes that Jesus was "made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption" (1 Cor. 1:30).

In like manner they teach that, for the attainment of beat.i.tude, it is necessary to pa.s.s through five stages-(1) that of _santi_, quiet repose or calm and contemplative piety; (2) that of _dasya_, the slave state-the surrender of the whole will to G.o.d; (3) that of _sakhya_, or friendship; (4) that of _vatsalya_, or filial affection; and (5) that of _madhurya_, or supreme, all-absorbing love.

I must refer briefly to only one other ill.u.s.tration of the probable influence of our religion upon the faith of India, and that is in its teaching on eschatology. The ill.u.s.tration is drawn from the tenth incarnation, _Kalki avatar_, of Vishnu. This incarnation is to take place hereafter, when Vishnu will come, at the close of the present _Kali yuga_, or iron age, and put an end to these growing evil times, destroying with them all the wicked and ushering in the new era of righteousness (_Satya yuga_) upon the earth. For this great work of the restoration and the renovation of all creation, he is to come seated upon a white horse with a drawn sword, blazing like a comet. Hindus at present look forward to this new incarnation as their future deliverer, when the sorrows and the depravity of this present, shall be swallowed up in the glories and joys of the future, age. The striking thing about this teaching is not the hope which it inculcates for the future; for that is practically a part of the Hindu conception of the succession of the ages of their time system.

According to this the present era must yield to the coming good _yuga_, which must, in its turn, give way to the ages of lesser good and of evil, which again will go and come in their ever-changing cycle. What seems remarkable is the _form_ in which this idea is here clothed. The coming of the Deliverer upon a _Kalki_-a white horse-with his great message of universal destruction and deliverance, brings directly to our memory the Bible prophecy of Rev. 6:2; 19:11-16, and also brings us into touch with the belief of many Christians today as to the appearance and the work of the Son of Man at the great day of His Second Coming.

The question arises as to how this _avatar_ originated. It evidently seems to be an afterthought and of no ancient date among the series of Vishnu's descents. And following the ninth, or Buddha, _avatar_, which was clearly intended as a bait to Buddhists, and as a frank and full compromise with that hitherto supplanting and hostile faith, it seems natural to suppose that this tenth also came in the same way and with the same spirit as a palm leaf to another religion, even our own, whose prophetic words about the second coming of Christ could be so easily appropriated and so harmlessly adopted into the Hindu system. It thus introduced into their faith an element of future glory and triumph which the religion had not formerly possessed. Indeed this very element of aggression and conquest is one of the signs of its Western origin and Christian source.

Chapter III.

HINDUISM AND CHRISTIANITY CONTRASTED.

In the previous chapter I have endeavoured to show and emphasize the teachings common to Christianity and Hinduism.

But it must not be forgotten that if their consonances are neither few nor unimportant their dissonances are far more numerous and fundamental. They meet us at almost every point of our investigation and impress us with a sense of a vast contrast.

We will now give ourselves to a brief study of these divergences.