New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century Part 7

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.

CHAPTER XII

THE NEW MAHOMEDANS

[Sidenote: The national anti-British feeling not manifested among Mahomedans.]

[Sidenote: Mahomedan religious movements.]

The Mahomedans, the other great religious community of India,[59] have been far less stirred by the new era than the Hindus, whom hitherto we have been chiefly considering. Only a small number of Mahomedans belong to the professional cla.s.s, so that modern education and the awakening have not reached Mahomedans in the same degree as Hindus. Quite outnumbered also by Hindus, they identify themselves politically with the British rather than with the Hindus, so that as a body they do not support the Congress, the great Indian Political a.s.sociation, and have no anti-British consciousness. Mahomedan solidarity is strong enough, but it is religious not national, and so it is only in the religious sphere that we find the new era telling upon Mahomedans. Two small religious movements may be noted curiously parallel to the [=A]rya and Br[=a]hma movements among Hindus, and suggesting the operation of like influences.

[Sidenote: The Wahabbi movement a.n.a.logous to [=A]ryaism.]

As the [=A]ryas preach a return to the pure original Hinduism of the Vedas, the first Mahomedan movement inculcates a return to the pure original Mahomedanism of the Koran. In particular, it urges a casting off of the Hindu customs and superst.i.tions that the Indian converts to Mahomedanism have frequently retained,--the offerings to the dead, for example. In the first instance, the movement came from a seventeenth century Arabian sect, the Wahabbis, but the movement reached India only about the year 1820, and therefore is a feature of the period we are surveying. The movement belongs specially to Bengal and the United Provinces north-west of Bengal, and is known by a variety of local names, Wahabbi and other. Significant, as supporting what has been said regarding the absence of anti-British feeling among present-day Mahomedans, is the fact that in the first stages of the Wahabbi movement, both in Eastern and Western Bengal, the duty of war upon infidels--on the British and the Hindus in this case--was a prominent doctrine of the crusade. In Mahomedan language, India was _Daru-l-harb_ or a Mansion of War. In these later years, on the contrary, it is generally recognised by Mahomedans that India under the British rule is not _Daru-l-harb_, but _Daru-l-Islam_, or a Mansion of Islamism, in which war on infidels is not inc.u.mbent.[60] It may be noted that the decree, recently issued from Mecca, that British territory is Daru-l-Islam, can only refer to India.

[Sidenote: The Aligarh movement a.n.a.logous to Brahmaism.]

Exactly like the Brahmas, the other new Mahomedan sect, in the modern rational spirit, have refined away their faith to a theism or deism purged of the supernatural. Mahomed's inspiration and miracles are rejected. These represent the modern rationalising spirit in religion; reason is their standard, and "reason alone is a sufficient guide."

According to Sir Syed Ahmad, founder of the movement, "Islam is Nature, and Nature Islam." Hence the sect is sometimes called the Naturis,[61]

or followers of _Natural_ Religion, the adoption of the English word identifying them again with the Br[=a]hmas, who are essentially the outcome of English education and Christian influence among Hindus. The Naturis, the modernised Mahomedans, have as their headquarters the Mahomedan Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh in the United Provinces. It ought to be said that they also claim to be going back to pure original Mahomedanism before it was corrupted by the "Fathers" of Islam.

CHAPTER XIII

HINDU DOCTRINES--HOW THEY CHANGE

"As men's minds receive new ideas, laying aside the old and effete, the world advances. Society rests upon them; mighty revolutions spring from them; inst.i.tutions crumble before their onward march."

--_Extract from Mr. Kiddle, an American writer, which occurs in a letter "received" by Madame Blavatsky from Koot Humi in Thibet_.

[Sidenote: Will the new religious organisations survive?]

The four new religious organisations described in the preceding chapters may or may not survive--who can tell? What would they become, or what would become of them, in the event, say, of the great nations of Europe issuing from some deadly conflict so balanced that India and the East had to be let alone, entirely cut off? The Indian Christian Church, hardly yet acclimatised so far as it is the creation of modern efforts, would she survive? The English sweet-pea, sown in India, produced its flowers, but not at first any vigorous self-propagating seed. The Br[=a]hma Sam[=a]j, graft of West on East, and still sterile as an intellectual coterie, how would it fare, cut off from its Western nurture? The [=A]rya Sam[=a]j--what, in that event, would be her resistance to the centripetal force that we have noted in her blind patriotism? The reactionary Theosophists--after the provocative action had ceased--what of them? Would not the Indian jungle, which they are trying to reduce to a well-ordered garden of indigenous fruits, speedily lapse to jungle again? We shall not attempt to answer our own questions directly, but proceed to the second part of our programme sketched on p.

122. How far then have Christian and modern religious ideas been _naturalised_ in New India, whether within the new religious organisations or without? Whatever the fate of the organisations, these naturalised ideas might be expected to survive.

[Sidenote: Modification of doctrines.]

[Sidenote: Elements of Christianity being naturalised in India--three.]

We recall the statements made on ample authority in an earlier chapter, that certain aspects of Christianity are attracting attention in India and proving themselves possessed of inherent force and attractiveness.

These, the dynamical elements of Christianity, were specially the idea of G.o.d the Father, the person of Jesus Christ, and the Christian conception of the Here and Hereafter. For although Hinduism declares a social boycott against any Hindu who transports his person over the sea to Europe, within India itself the Hindu mind is in close contact with such modern religious ideas. The wall built round the garden will not shut out the crows. Indeed, like the ancient Athenian, the modern Hindu takes the keenest interest in new religious ideas.

To comprehend the impression that such new religious ideas are making, we must realise in some measure the background upon which they are cast, both that part of it which the new ideas are superseding and the remainder which const.i.tutes their new setting and gives them their significance. In brief, what is the present position of India in regard to religious belief; and in particular, what are the prevailing beliefs about G.o.d?

[Sidenote: Indian beliefs about G.o.d--Polytheists; Theists; Pantheists.]

A rough cla.s.sification of the theological belief of the Hindus of the present day would be--the mult.i.tude are polytheists; the new-educated are monotheists; the brahmanically educated are professed pantheists.

Rough as it is, we must keep the cla.s.sification before us in trying to estimate the influence upon the Indian mind of the Christian idea of G.o.d. From that fundamental cla.s.sification let us try to understand the Hindu position more fully.

[Sidenote: No one doctrine is distinctive of Hinduism.]

Let it be realised, in the first place, how _undefined_ is the Hindu's religious position. From the rudest polytheism up to pantheism, and even to an atheistic philosophy, all is within the Hindu pale, like fantastic cloud shapes and vague mist and empty ether, all within the same sky. To the student of Hinduism, then, the first fact that emerges is that there are no distinctive Hindu doctrines. No one doctrine is distinctive of Hinduism. There is no canonical book, nowhere any stated body of doctrine that might be called the Hindu creed. The only common measure of Hindus is that they employ brahmans in their religious ceremonies, and even that does not hold universally. A saying of their own is, "On two main points all sects agree--the sanct.i.ty of the cow and the depravity of women." In contrast to Hindus in this respect of the absence of a standard creed, Mahomedans call themselves _kitabi_ or possessing a book, since in the Koran they do possess such a canon. In the words of Mahomed, Christians and Jews likewise are "the peoples of the book," and have a defined theological position. But regarding Hindus, again, we note there is no doctrinal pale, no orthodoxy or heterodoxy. "We Europeans," writes Sir Alfred Lyall regarding Hinduism, "can scarcely comprehend an ancient religion, still alive and powerful, which is a mere troubled sea without sh.o.r.e or visible horizon."[62] In these days of opportunist denunciation of creeds, the amorphous state of creedless Hinduism may be noted.

The experience of the late Dr. John Henry Barrows, President of the Parliament of Religions at Chicago in 1893, may be quoted in confirmation of the absence of a Hindu creed. After he had won the confidence of India's representatives as their host at Chicago, and had secured for them a unique audience there, being himself desirous to write on Hinduism, he wrote to over a hundred prominent Hindus requesting each to indicate what in his view were some of the leading tenets of Hinduism. He received only one reply.

[Sidenote: Pantheism, Maya, and Transmigration may be called Hindu doctrines.]

No one doctrine is distinctive of Hinduism. It is an extreme misleading statement, nevertheless, to say as some Western writers have done, and at least one Hindu writer,[63] that Hinduism is not a religion at all, but only a social system. There are several doctrines to which a great many Hindus would at once conventionally subscribe, and these I venture to call Hindu doctrines. In theological conversations with Hindus, three doctrines very frequently show themselves as a theological background.

These are, first, Pantheism; secondly, Transmigration and Final Absorption into Deity; and, thirdly, Maya, i.e. Delusion, or the Unreality of the phenomena of Sense and Consciousness. I find a recent pro-Hindu writer making virtually the same selection. In the ninth century, she writes, Sankarachargya, the great upholder of Pantheism, "took up and defined the [now] current catch-words--maya, karma [the doctrine of works, or of re-birth according to desert], reincarnation, and left the terminology of Hinduism what it is to-day."... "But," she also adds, "they are nowhere and in no sense regarded as essential."[64]

Naturally, then, the inquiry that we have set ourselves to will at the same time be an inquiry how far Christian thought has affected these three main Hindu doctrines of Pantheism, Transmigration, and Maya.

[Sidenote: Commingling of contradictory beliefs--]

[Sidenote: Polytheism with Monotheism.]

Nor is it to be imagined that the Hindu polytheism, theism, and pantheism are distinguishable religious strata. "Uniformity and consistency of creeds are inventions of the European mind," says a cynical writer already quoted. "Hinduism bristles with contradictions, inconsistencies, and surprises," says Sir M. Monier Williams. The common people are indeed polytheists, at different seasons of the year and on different social occasions worshipping different deities, male or female, and setting out to this or that shrine, as the touts of the rival shrines have persuaded them. Nevertheless, an intelligent member of the humbler ranks is always ready to acknowledge that there is really only one G.o.d, of whom the so-called G.o.ds are only variations in name. Or his theory may be that there is one supreme G.o.d, under whom the popular deities are only departmental heads; for the presence of the great central British Government in India is a standing suggestion of monotheism. The officer who drew up the _Report of the Census of India_, 1901 (p. 363) gives an instance of this commingling of monotheism and polytheism. "An orderly," he writes, "into whose belief I was inquiring, described the relation between the supreme G.o.d and the Devata [minor G.o.ds] as that between an official and his orderlies, and another popular simile often used is that of the Government and the district officer."[65] The polytheism of the ma.s.ses may thus blend with the theism which is the ordinary intellectual standpoint of the educated cla.s.ses.

[Sidenote: Monotheism with Polytheism.]

Rising to the next stage, namely, the theism of the educated cla.s.s--the blending of their theism with the polytheism of the ma.s.ses is ill.u.s.trated in the July number of the magazine of the Hindu College, Benares, the headquarters of the late Hindu revival and of the pantheistic philosophy. In answer to an inquirer's question--"Is there only one G.o.d?" the reply is, "There is one supreme Lord or Ishvara of the universe, and there are minor deities or devas who intelligently guide the various processes of nature in their different departments in willing obedience to Ishvara." The Hindu College, Benares, be it remembered, is primarily one of the modern colleges whence the modern new-Indians come.

[Sidenote: Monotheism with Pantheism.]

Again, the modern theism of the educated, in like manner, very readily pa.s.ses into the pantheism of the philosophers and of those educated in Sanscrit, which I have described as part of the accepted Hindu orthodoxy. For, whatever its origin, an observer finds the pantheistic idea emerge all over educated India. The late Sir M. Monier Williams speaks of pantheism as a main root of the original Indo-Aryan creed, which has "branched out into an endless variety of polytheistic superst.i.tions." Whether that be so, or whether, as is now more generally believed, the polytheism is the aboriginal Indian plant into which the pantheistic idea has been grafted as communities have become brahmanised, the pantheistic idea very readily presents itself to the mind of the educated Hindu. In any discussion regarding human responsibility the idea crops up that _all_ is G.o.d, "There is One only, and no second." We can scarcely realise how readily it comes to the middle-cla.s.s Hindu's lips that G.o.d is all, and that there can be no such thing as sin. The pantheists are thus no separate sect from the theists, any more than the theists are from the polytheists. The same man, if a member of the educated cla.s.s, will be polytheist in his established domestic religion, theist in his personal standpoint and general profession, and probably a pantheist in a controversy regarding moral responsibility, or should he set himself to write about religion.

[Sidenote: Ill.u.s.tration of polytheism, monotheism, and pantheism commingling.]

Take a statement of the mingling of polytheism, monotheism, and pantheism from the extreme south of India, a thousand miles away from Benares. "Though those men all affirmed," we read, "that there is only one G.o.d, they admitted that they each worshipped several. They saw nothing inconsistent in this. Just as the air is in everything, so G.o.d is in everything, therefore in the various symbols. And as our king has diverse representative Viceroys and Governors to rule over his dominions in his name, so the Supreme has these subdeities, less in power and only existing by force of Himself, and He, being all pervasive, can be worshipped under their forms."[66]

[Sidenote: Pure pantheism rare.]

At the top of all is the pure pantheist, a believer in the illusion of the senses, and generally though not always an ascetic. For life is not worth living if it is merely an illusion, and the illusion must be dispelled, and the world of the senses renounced. If "father and brother, etc., have no actual ent.i.ty," said the reformer Raja Rammohan Roy [1829] when combating pantheism, "they consequently deserve no real affection, and the sooner we escape from them and leave the world the better." So the pantheist is generally an ascetic cut off from the world to be consistent in his pantheism. Yet again, we repeat that such pure pantheists are very rare, and that "in India forms of pantheism, theism, and polytheism are ever interwoven with each other."[67]

To one familiar with India, such a medley is neither inconceivable nor improbable; the debatable question only is, what sufficient account of the cause thereof can be given. Why is it that Hindu doctrine has never set? Why this incongruity between doctrine and domestic practice? Why this double-mindedness in the same educated individual? Much might be said in the endeavour to account for these characteristic features of India, the despair of the Christian missionary. I confine myself to the bearing of the question upon the influence of Christian ideas, and particularly of Christian theism.

[Sidenote: Fluidity of Hindu thought; rigidity of Hindu practice.]

For the student of this special aspect of Hinduism a second pertinent fact here emerges, namely, that Hindu practice is much more established than Hindu doctrine. The unchangeableness of Hindu ritual is not a new idea; it is its bearing on doctrine that has not been clearly considered. There _is_, then, a distinctly recognised Hindu orthodoxy in manners and worship, at least for each Hindu community, while there is no orthodoxy in doctrine. The broad distinctive marks of Hindu practice, we may repeat, are the social usage of caste, and the employment of brahmans in religious ritual. With ideas, then, thus fluid and practice thus rigid, it will be easily understood that Christian and modern ideas have made much greater headway in India than Christian customs and modes of worship. The mind of educated India has been Christianised to a much greater extent than the religious or domestic practices have been.

Perhaps it might be said that all down the centuries of Christian Church history, opinion has often been in advance of worship and the social code, that social and religious conventionalities have lagged behind belief. If so, it is the marked conservatism in ceremonial that is noteworthy in India. While Hindu beliefs are dissolving or dropping out of the mind, Hindu practices are successfully resisting the solvent influences or only slowly being transformed.

[Sidenote: More progress towards Christian thought than Christian practice.]