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Title: Auld lang syne
Second series my Indian friends
Author: Freidrich Max Müller
Release date: February 26, 2024 [eBook #73047]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Longmans, Green, 1899
Credits: Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AULD LANG SYNE ***
AULD LANG SYNE
_SECOND SERIES_
MY INDIAN FRIENDS
BY
THE RIGHT HON. PROFESSOR F. MAX MÜLLER
AUTHOR OF “THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE”, ETC.
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
AND BOMBAY
1899
PREFACE.
Here follows the second volume of my _Auld Lang Syne_. In some cases my
recollections go back very far, and, after a lapse of nearly seventy
years, they may not always be so fresh as they ought to be. It is very
strange, on looking back to the various stations through which we have
passed in our journey through this life, to find how much our own fate
has depended on our surroundings and on circumstances over which we
ourselves could not possibly have had any control. Our friends, nay even
our enemies, seem to form part of our life, and thus it has come to pass
that instead of writing my own life, I have almost unconsciously come to
write about my friends rather than about myself. As to enemies, if
indeed I ever had any, I prefer to be silent, for it is difficult to be
quite fair in speaking of them, and we seldom know, till it is too late,
what real benefactors they have been to us. Scholars, who on questions
of scholarship differ from us as we differ from them, should never be
counted as personal enemies, if only they are truthful and
straightforward, and if otherwise, is it not best here also to follow
the old rule, _De mortuis nihil nisi bonum_? But with regard to my
friends and acquaintances, the older I grow, the more I feel how much I
have owed and still owe to them, nay, how often the whole stream of my
life has been turned East or West by a word or two spoken by a friend at
the right moment, just as a whole train may be turned by the mere touch
of a handle by the pointsman.
The first volume of my _Auld Lang Syne_ contained recollections of
musicians, poets, crowned heads, and beggars, such as had not entirely
vanished from the _camera obscura_ of my memory. The present volume is
chiefly devoted to my _Indian Friends_, and to certain events that first
led my attention to India. Though I have had but visions of the rivers,
the mountains, the valleys, the forests, and the men and women of India,
having never been allowed to visit that earthly paradise, I have known
for many years the beauties of its literature, the bold flights of its
native philosophy, the fervid devotion of its ancient religion, and
these together seem to me to give a much truer picture of what India
really was, and is still meant to be, in the history of the world, than
the Bazaars of Bombay, or the Durbars of Râjahs and Mahârâjahs at Delhi.
Of course, I shall be told that my picture of India is purely ideal, but
an ideal portrait may sometimes be truer than even a photograph, and,
though I trust that my facts on the whole are right, I shall always feel
most grateful, if any facts are pointed out to me which either
contradict or modify my own judgments.
India has never had full justice done to it, and when I say this I think
not only of ancient, but of modern India also. And though it can easily
be seen that my chief interest lies with ancient India, it should be
remembered that in no other country is the past still so visibly present
as in that southernmost home of the ancient family of Aryan speech.
There may be more historical monuments, reminding us of the past, in
Greece and Italy. But life, with its religion, philosophy, and
literature, has completely changed there, and we look in vain for a
Socrates or Plato on the steps of the Parthenon, or for a Cato or Caesar
among the lonely columns of the Forum. In India, on the contrary, the
religion of the Veda is by no means entirely extinct. Not long ago even
one of the old magnificent Vedic sacrifices, the Agnish_t_oma, was
performed at Benares with all its pristine array. The old epic poems are
still recited by the Pâ_th_akas of the country, and some of the old
philosophies are flourishing in native Colleges, such as Nuddea, so that
men of the present day, such as Gauri-_s_a_m_kara, the Prime Minister of
Bhavnagar, and the Yogin Râmak_ri_sh_n_a, bring back to us in full
reality the Rishis and Yogins of a thousand or two thousand years ago.
What seems to me to prevent a full appreciation of the intellectual
achievements of ancient and medieval India is that they are mostly
looked upon, as we look on the prodigies in our exhibitions, as simply
curious. Now, we should never say that Plato and Aristotle were curious.
We take them far more seriously. We look upon them as our equals, nay as
our teachers. It cannot surely be the brown skin that keeps us from
feeling the same sympathy and paying the same homage to the poets and
philosophers of ancient India, and that prevents even at the present day
any real friendship between the best sons of India and England? That
brown skin may at first cause a feeling of strangeness, but I know how
easily that feeling can be and has been overcome, and, judging from my
own limited experience, I can truly say that there is behind that warm
and almost Italian colour of the Âryas of India the same warm heart, the
same trust, and the same love as under the white skin of Europeans. Real
friendship between the rulers and the ruled in India ought to be no
impossibility; it has existed again and again; only it should no longer
be the exception, but the rule.
If the account of my Indian Friends which I give in this volume, should
serve here and there to overcome that feeling of strangeness and lead to
real trust between the two most distant members of the noble family of
Aryan speech, I should indeed feel amply rewarded.
I could not well pass over, as belonging by right to the circle of my
friends and acquaintances, the ancient Rishis of the Veda, call them
Dîrghatamas, Vasish_th_a, or any other name, and in order to show what
these ancient poets were really like, I have ventured to add metrical
translations of a few of their hymns, celebrating the matutinal
procession of their bright Devas or gods. For these I have to crave the
indulgence of my critics. These poets were the first to call me to
India, and I have never regretted having followed their call, as far as
other calls allowed me to do so. They have revealed to me a whole world
of thought of which no trace existed anywhere else, and they have helped
me to throw the first faint rays of light and reason on perhaps the
darkest period in the history of religion, philosophy, and mythology.
That period, which I should like to call the _Etymological_, will, I
doubt not, become illuminated hereafter by a flood of light from the
same source. The work of the present generation of Vedic students could
naturally be that of pioneers only, but they may fairly say _In magnis
et voluisse sat est_, or in Sanskrit, Yatne k_ri_te yadi na sidhyati,
koztra dosha_h_!
F. M. M.
OXFORD, _May 1, 1899_.
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. MY INDIAN FRIENDS 1–46
My first acquaintance with India 1–5
Dvârkanâth Tagore 5–14
Debendranâth Tagore 14–23
Râjah Râdhâkânta Deva 23–46
II. MY INDIAN FRIENDS 47–112
Nîlaka_nth_a Goreh 47–65
Keshub Chunder Sen 65–90
Chaitanya 66
Nânak and the Sikhs 69
Râmtonoo Lahari 90
Dayânanda Sarasvatî 93
Vedânta Philosophy 102
Râmak_ri_sh_n_a 105
III. MY INDIAN FRIENDS 113–166
Behramji Malabâri 113–121
Râmabâi 121–129
Ânandibâi Joshee, M.D. 129–134
National Character of the Hindus 135
Indian Theosophy 148
My Indian Correspondents 153–166
IV. MY INDIAN FRIENDS 167–234
The Veda 167–234
Hymn to the A_s_vins, Day and Night 194
Hymn to Ushas, Dawn 200
Hymn to Savit_ri_, Sun 210
Hymn to Agni, Fire 216
Hymn to Râtrî, Night 228
Hymn to Varu_n_a 230
Hymn X, 129, on Creation 232
V. MY INDIAN FRIENDS 235–268
A Prime Minister and a Child-wife 235–268
INDEX 269–271
AULD LANG SYNE.
MY INDIAN FRIENDS.
I.
My first Acquaintance with India.
How I fell in love with India is a very old, and a very long story. We
have all read of young knights who in a dream had a vision of a
beautiful princess, and who did not rest until they had found her,
delivered her, and, after many hard fights with giants and monsters,
carried her home in triumph. I had such a vision of India when I was not
yet ten years old. It may seem passing strange that a little boy in a
small town of Germany should as far back as 1833 have dreamt of India.
Few people would know that small town in which he lived. However, if
they will look on the map of Germany, somewhere between the 12th and
13th degrees of longitude and the 51st and 52nd degrees of latitude,
they will find _Dessau_, the capital of the Duchy of Anhalt. It lies on
the road from Leipzig to Magdeburg, and in these days of railways people
often pass it on their way to Berlin. I have never been a very
superstitious man, and have never believed in ghosts or spirits, in
table-turnings or spirit-rappings, in visions or apparitions; in fact,
in anything that can strike the material senses, and yet pretend to be
immaterial, and has nothing to strike with. This is the whole problem of
ghosts in a nutshell. If ghosts are immaterial, they cannot strike our
eyes, or tickle our ears. They could not even have a sulphurous smell.
If, on the contrary, they are material, they are not ghosts. But this by
the way. But though an unbeliever in ghosts, I have not been able to
withhold my belief from coincidences, strange coincidences, which we
have to accept in the course of our life without any attempt to account
for them. I well remember when I was at school, one of my copybooks had
a large picture of Benares on the outside. It was a very rough picture,
but I can still see the men, women, and children as they stepped down
the ghats to bathe in the waters of the Ganges. That picture caught my
fancy and set me dreaming. What did I know of India at that time?
Nothing but that the people were black, that they burnt their widows,
and that, in order to get into Paradise, they had first to be mangled
under the wheels of the car of Juggernâth. On my picture, however, they
were represented looking tall, and, as I thought, beautiful, certainly
not like niggers; and the mosques and temples visible on the shores of
the river impressed me as even more beautiful and majestic than the
churches and palaces at Dessau. Boys will dream dreams, and as I was
sitting idle at school dreaming and seeing visions of Benares, instead
of doing my copy, I was suddenly taken by the ear by our writing-master,
and told to copy several pages containing such names as Benares, Ganges,
India, and all the rest, because I had been so idle and had made a very
bad copy. This was my first and somewhat painful acquaintance with
India, and it led to nothing else at the time. It simply left the memory
of a kind of vision, and, if I had not later in life become devoted to
the reality of that vision, I should probably never have thought of my
copybook again.
NOTE.—In Sanskrit words an italic _k_ should be pronounced like
English “ch” in church, italic _g_ like “j” in join. Thus, mle_kkh_a,
or, as some used to spell it, mlechchha, should be pronounced like
mlêcha. Proper names, however, and Oriental words that have already a
recognised spelling in English, have mostly been left unchanged.
It was when I had left school, and had gone to the University of Leipzig
in 1841, that my vision, like a _revenant_, appeared again, and assumed
then a more tangible and permanent form. I was getting a little tired of
Greek and Latin, and the warmed-up cabbage, the _crambe repetita_, of
Homer and Horace, when I heard of the foundation of a new Chair—a Chair
of Sanskrit—and saw lectures on Indian literature advertised by
Professor Brockhaus. Here my curiosity was roused at once; I had already
had a slight flirtation with Arabic, but now I fell seriously in love
with Sanskrit, and became more and more faithless to my first classical
love. Professor Brockhaus was an excellent, kind-hearted, and helpful
teacher. I began Sanskrit with a will, and, after I had attended his
lectures for several semesters at Leipzig, and had read with him such
ordinary books as Nala, Sakuntalâ, and even a little of the Rig-Veda, I
went to Berlin to study under Bopp; and then proceeded to Paris,
attracted by the fame of Eugène Burnouf.
At that time my desire to see India, as I had seen it in the visions of
my schooldays, became very strong. As classical scholars yearn to see
Rome or Athens, I yearned to see Benares, and to bathe in the sacred
waters of the Ganges. But at that time such a thing was simply out of
the question. At that time to go to India seemed to be the privilege of
Englishmen only, and it took half a year to get there, and a great deal
more money than I could command. The dream of my life to see India face
to face has never been realised. When I was young enough, I had not the
wherewithal to go there, and when, later in life, I was invited again
and again by my Indian friends to go there, I was too old and too much
tied down by duties from which there was no escape. Besides, unless I
could have stayed in India at least two or three years, could have
learned to speak the languages, and come to know the few native scholars
still left, it was nothing to me. My India was not on the surface, but
lay many centuries beneath it; and as to paying a globe-trotter’s visit
to Calcutta and Bombay, I might as well walk through Oxford Street and
Bond Street But, though I never stood on the ghats of Benares, and never
saw the men, women, and children step down from them into the sacred
waters of the Ganges, I have had the good fortune of knowing a number of
Indians in Europe, and no doubt some of the best and most distinguished
of the sons and daughters of India. I have often been told that I have
been misled by these acquaintances, and have taken far too favourable a
view of the Indian character; that I had seen the best of India only,
but not the worst. But where is the harm? I have seen what the Indian
character can be, I have learnt what it ought to be, and I hope what it
will be, and though we cannot expect a whole nation of Rammohun Roys, of
Debendranâth Tagores, of Keshub Chunder Sens, of Malabâris and Râmabâis,
we ought not to neglect them in our estimate of the capabilities of a
whole nation.
Dvârkanâth Tagore.
Indians did not travel so freely fifty years ago as they do now. The
crossing of the black water and all its consequences had not then lost
its terrors. When, therefore, in the year 1844, a real Hindu made his
appearance in Paris, his visit created a great sensation, and filled me
with a strong desire to make his acquaintance. He was a handsome man,
and, as he took the best suite of apartments in one of the best hotels
in Paris, he naturally roused considerable curiosity. I was then
attending Professor Burnouf’s lectures at the _Collège de France_, and,
as the Indian visitor had brought letters of introduction to that great
French savant, I too was introduced to the Indian stranger, and soon
came to know him well. He was the representative of one of the greatest
and richest families in India, Dvârkanâth Tagore, the father of the
Maharshi Debendranâth Tagore, who is still alive, and the grandfather of
Satyendranâth Tagore, the first successful native candidate for the
Indian Civil Service, whom I knew as a young student in England, and who
now, after serving his country and his Empress with great distinction
for many years, has retired from the service.
Dvârkanâth Tagore was not a Sanskrit scholar, but he was not
unacquainted with Sanskrit literature. The first time I saw him was at
the _Institut de France_, when Burnouf presented him with a copy of his
splendid edition of the Bhagavat-Purâ_n_a. On one side was the Sanskrit
text, on the other the French translation, and it was curious to see the
Indian placing his delicate brown fingers on the white page with the
French translation, and saying with a sigh, “Oh, if I could read that!”
One would have expected that his wish would have been to understand the
ancient language of his own country; but no, he pined for a better
knowledge of French.
He was not an antiquarian, nor a student of his own religion or of the
language of his own sacred books. But when he was told by Burnouf what
my plans were, and how I had actually copied and collated the MSS. of
the Veda at Paris, he took a lively interest in me. He invited me, and I
often spent the mornings with him, talking about India and Indian
customs. Strange to say, he was devotedly fond of music, and had
acquired a taste for Italian and French music. What he liked was to have
me to accompany him on the pianoforte, and I soon found that he had not
only a good voice, but had been taught fairly well. So we got on very
well together. After complimenting him on his taste for Italian music, I
asked him one morning to give me a specimen of real Indian music. He
sang first of all what is called Indian, but is really Persian music,
without any style or character. This was not what I wanted, and I asked
whether he did not know some pieces of real Indian music. He smiled and
turned away. “You would not appreciate it,” he said; but, as I asked him
again and again, he sat down to the pianoforte, and, after striking a
few notes, began to play and sing. I confess I was somewhat taken aback.
I could discern neither melody, nor rhythm, nor harmony in what he sang;
but, when I told him so, he shook his head and said: “You are all alike;
if anything seems strange to you and does not please you at once, you
turn away. When I first heard Italian music, it was no music to me at
all; but I went on and on, till I began to like it, or what you call
understand it. It is the same with everything else. You say our religion
is no religion, our poetry no poetry, our philosophy no philosophy. We
try to understand and appreciate whatever Europe has produced, but do
not imagine that therefore we despise what India has produced. If you
studied our music as we do yours, you would find that there is melody,
rhythm, and harmony in it, quite as much as in yours. And if you would
study our poetry, our religion, and our philosophy, you would find that
we are not what you call heathens or miscreants, but know as much of the
Unknowable as you do, and have seen perhaps even deeper into it than you
have!” He was not far wrong.
He became quite eloquent and excited, and to pacify him I told him that
I was quite aware that India possessed a science of music, founded, as
far as I could see, on mathematics. I had examined some Sanskrit MSS. on
music, but I confessed that I could not make head or tail of them. I
once consulted Professor H. H. Wilson on the subject, who had spent many
years in India and was himself a musician. But he did not encourage me.
He told me that, while in India, he had been to a native teacher of
music who professed to understand the old books. He had expressed
himself willing to teach him, on condition that he would come to him two
or three times a week. Then at the end of half a year he would be able
to tell him whether he was fit to learn music, whether he was in fact an
Adhikârin, a fit candidate, and in five years he promised him that he
might master both the theory and the practice of music. That was too
much for an Indian civilian who had his hands full of work, and though
he learnt many things from Pandits, Professor H. H. Wilson, then, I
believe, Master of the Mint and holding several other appointments
besides, had to give up all idea of becoming apprenticed for five years
to a teacher of music. Dvârkanâth Tagore was much amused, but he quite
admitted that five years was the shortest time in which any man could
hope thoroughly to master the intricacies of ancient Hindu music, and I
too gave up in consequence all hope of ever mastering such texts as the
Sangîta-ratnâkara, the Treasury of Symphony, and similar texts, though
they have often tempted my curiosity in the library of the East India
House.
There is another member of the Tagore family, Râjah Surindro Mohun
Tagore, a very liberal patron of Indian music, who has published a great
deal about it, but he too has kept aloof from touching on the old
science of music that once existed in India, though we know as yet so
little of its literature. If we could accept a tradition that has been
repeated again and again by Sanskrit scholars, even by men of great
learning, such as the late Professor Benfey, we should have to believe
that Guido d’Arezzo (about 1000 A. D.) borrowed his gamut from the
Arabs, and that they had adopted it from the Persians, who had been the
pupils of the Hindus. In itself such a borrowing has nothing incredible
in it, for we know that our figures, not excluding the nought, travelled
on the same road, from the Indians to the Persians, the Arabs, the
Spaniards, and the Italians. It is true also that one of the Indian
gamuts consisted of seven notes, and that these notes went by the names
_sa_, _ri_, _ga_, _ma_, _pa_, _dha_, _ni_, which were the first
syllables of their Sanskrit names. So far, therefore, there is some
plausibility. But if it is maintained that these seven syllables were
changed in Italian to the well-known _do_, _re_, _mi_, _fa_, _sol_,
_la_, _si_, we require some more of real historical evidence of such a
change before stating as a fact what is, as yet, a guess only. Gladly as
I should claim any merit for the people of India, it seems to me that
the differences between the names of the notes of the two gamuts are
greater than their similarities. All we can say is that it is possible
that we owe our gamut to India, but until more evidence is produced, we
cannot say more. If we remember that we owe the nought to that country,
mathematicians will be ready to confess that this was one of the
greatest discoveries in the history of mathematics and of all the
sciences that depend on mathematics, one of the greatest benefits, in
fact, that the East has conferred on the West. Whether we owe to India
Beethoven’s symphonies is another question, that has yet to wait for an
answer.
My Indian friend Dvârkanâth Tagore, though not learned, was very
intelligent, and a man of the world. He rather looked down on the
Brâhmans, and when I asked him whether he would have to perform penance,
or Prâya_sk_itta, after his return to India, he laughed and said, “No. I
am all this time feeding a large number of Brâhmans at home, and that is
quite penance enough!” The real penance was, of course, the
Pa_ñk_agavya, the five products of the cow which the penitent had to
swallow before he could be readmitted to his caste; and these products
were not only milk, sour milk, and clarified butter, but likewise other
products, such as Mûtra and Gomaya. That penance still exists, and many
of our Indian visitors have had to undergo it after their return, though
at present the five products of the cow are reduced to infinitesimal
proportions and swallowed in the shape of a gilded pill.
But if he took a low view of his Brâhmans, he did not show much more
respect for what he called the black-coated English Brâhmans. Much as he
admired everything English, he had a mischievous delight in finding out
the weak points of English society, and particularly of the English
clergy. He read a number of English newspapers, political and
ecclesiastic, and he kept a kind of black book in which he carefully
noted whatever did not redound very much to the honour of any bishops,
priests, or deacons. It certainly was a curious collection of every kind
of ecclesiastical scandal, and I have often wondered what could have
become of it. His son, the saint-like Debendranâth Tagore, the head of
the Ârya-Samâj, would hardly make use of such weapons; but his father
delighted in the book, and brought it out whenever the question turned
on the respective merits of the Indian and the Christian religions. All
I could say was that no religion should be judged by its clergy only,
whether in Italy, in England, or in India.
Dvârkanâth Tagore lived in a truly magnificent Oriental style while at
Paris. The king, Louis Philippe, received him, nay, he honoured him, if
I remember right, by his presence and that of his Court at a grand
evening party. The room was hung with Indian shawls, then the height of
ambition of every French lady. And what was their delight when the
Indian Prince placed a shawl on the shoulders of each lady as she left
the room!
When in England, Dvârkanâth fulfilled a sacred duty to the memory of
Rammohun Roy, the great religious reformer of India, by erecting a tomb
over his ashes in the cemetery at Bristol, little thinking that he would
soon share his fate, and die like him in a foreign land.
I believe it was his doing also that a new interest was roused in India
for the study of the Veda. It was certainly a curious and anomalous
state of things that in a country where the Veda was recognised as the
highest authority in religion, invested with all the authority of a
divine revelation to a greater degree even than the New Testament is in
England, this Bible of theirs should never have been printed, and should
have been accessible to a small class of priests only, who knew it by
heart and possessed a few MSS. of it. Still, so it was; nay, so much had
the study of the Veda become neglected that when a prize was offered by
the late J. Muir to any one who would undertake an edition of it, not a
single native scholar was willing or able to undertake the task. When,
therefore, Dvârkanâth saw that I was quietly preparing an edition of the
most important, in fact, the only true Veda, the Rig-Veda, and that I
had copied and collated the MSS. which existed in the Royal Libraries at
Paris, at Berlin, and elsewhere, and was going to finish my collection
in London, he seems to have informed his son, Debendranâth Tagore, of
what I was doing at Paris, who, full of interest for religion and
religious reform, dispatched about the same time four young native
students to Benares, in order to enable them to study the Veda under the
guidance of the Pandits of that sacred city. One was to learn the
Rig-Veda, another the Sâma-Veda, a third the Ya_g_ur-Veda, a fourth the
Atharva-Veda. To judge, however, from a letter of Debendranâth Tagore
himself, this may have been a mere coincidence. Unfortunately not one of
these young Pandits seems ever to have done any independent work in the
direction suggested by Debendranâth Tagore.
I may as well state here that I never claimed nor received the very
substantial prize offered by J. Muir. Such vague and exaggerated
accounts have been spread and even published as to the magnificent
_honorarium_ paid to me by the late East India Company that I may as
well state that, even if I could have carried through the press one
sheet per week, after copying, collating, and adding all the references
to Sâya_n_a’s commentary, I should never have earned more than £200 a
year for a work which during more than twenty years of my life occupied
nearly all my time. I do not grudge that time, and I shall always feel
deeply grateful to some of the Directors of the old Company for having
taken so active an interest in what seemed at the time a very useless
undertaking. I do not think that the financial position of India has
greatly suffered on account of the printing of the Rig-Veda, nay, the
expense incurred for it must have been amply recovered, considering how
largely the six large quartos have been used for presents to the Râjahs
in India and to the Universities and Museums in Europe. Of course it is
impossible to make presents without having to pay for them. If people
will invent and exaggerate, I may as well tell them that I believe the
youngest clerk in the India Office would have declined to work for
twenty years at such a salary as I did. And yet I was as happy as a king
all the time.
Debendranâth Tagore.
Though I have never seen the son of Dvârkanâth, Debendranâth Tagore, I
have had several most interesting letters from him, and I have always
felt the deepest sympathy for his noble and unselfish efforts to purify
the religion of his countrymen. He was the patron and friend of Keshub
Chunder Sen, and, though he was too conservative to be able to follow
his young friend in all his reforms, his love for his enthusiastic pupil
never ceased. When Keshub Chunder Sen had been forsaken by nearly all
his friends, because he allowed the marriage of his daughter with the
Mahârâjah of Kuch Behar, when she was a few months under age, the old
man remained true to him to the last, and mourned over him at his
deathbed as a father would mourn over his only son.
Here is at least one of Debendranâth Tagore’s letters to me. I am always
ashamed when I print any letters from my Indian friends. They are far
too kind, far too complimentary. I know how to make allowance for their
warm heart and for their exuberant language, but I am afraid that to
people unacquainted with Eastern skies and Eastern hearts, it will
naturally seem that such letters ought never to have been published. But
what gives so true a picture of a man as a confidential letter?
“CHINSURA, via CALCUTTA,
_December 27, 1884_.
“MY DEAR SIR,
I was very glad to receive your letter. It will always give me
pleasure to hear from the Pandit of the Far West who has done so much
for the language and literature of my country. There are branches of
knowledge and art in which the East is deficient, and which she must
learn from foreign sources. But there are other things all her own,
and even your enlightened countrymen may turn with pleasure and profit
to a leaf or two out of the books of the East to learn something new,
to get a glimpse of vistas of thought with which they are not
familiar. And you, Sir, have done not a little to open out before the
world treasures of Oriental wisdom which only the diligence of
scholars like you could unfold. By the publication of the Rig-Veda and
the Upanishads you have brought within the reach of European scholars
the thoughts and aspirations of our ancient Rishis, hitherto hidden in
inaccessible manuscripts. And it is to be hoped that the dissemination
of the knowledge of our ancient literature will help to cement the
bonds of union between the two peoples who, brought up under a common
roof, parted from each other and scattered over distant quarters of
the globe, again to be brought together under the mysterious decree of
Almighty Providence.
“You are perhaps not quite right in taking me for a Sannyâsin in the
sense of one who has wholly renounced the world. To be in the world,
but not of it, is my _beau idéal_ of a Sannyâsin, and in that sense I
am one. My sons are settled in life and working before my eyes. I take
a keen interest in all that goes on far and near, in my domestic
circle and outside. My infirm health, however, does not permit me to
take an active part in the affairs of the world. So I have settled
down for the present in a country house by the banks of the Ganges,
far from the din and bustle of the town, and yet not too far to be out
of its reach, and my life glides smoothly along like the waves in
winter, resigned to His will and ready to quit its mortal coils at His
call.
“The schism in the Brahmo Samâj is a thing to be regretted, perhaps it
may do present harm to the cause. We should have been stronger, if
united, but there is no cause for despondency. The seeds have been
sown, and they will bear fruit in God’s own time. We are but humble
seekers of the Truth and humble workers in her cause. We must work and
labour each in his own sphere and according to his own light,
regardless of consequences. The crowning and fruition of our work
rests with God alone, and we may repose our trust in Him for success.
Truth will triumph in the end. Satyam eva _g_ayati.
“Accept my best thanks for the copy of your Biographical Essays you
have so kindly presented to me. It is a very interesting book, and I
have read it with the greatest delight. The charitable feeling which
you have shown in judging of Keshub Chunder Sen is worthy of your
liberality of thought. I received no intimation from my father
regarding the publication of the Rig-Veda. It was my own idea to send
Pandits to Benares to study the Vedas. The project entirely originated
with me, and had no connection with the work you had taken in hand.
Yours sincerely,
DEBENDRANÂTH TAGORE.”
Whatever may be thought by others of such a letter, to me it seems a
most instructive and characteristic page in the recent history of India.
Let us think, first of all, whether there is a single man living in
Europe, a man of wealth and high position in his own country, who could
have penned such a letter in a foreign language, whether German or
Sanskrit. There is hardly a word in it that would have to be altered,
and as to the spirit pervading it, no bishop need be ashamed of it. And
yet how many people are there even among members of the Indian Civil
Service, who would look upon this man as their equal, not to say, as
their better? What he says about the new lessons which even we in
England might learn from India, more particularly from the Rig-Veda and
the Upanishads, is by no means a mere phrase. He knew quite well what he
meant. He was quite sufficiently acquainted with our language, our
literature, our philosophy and religion to have a right to say that
there are things in those books which are new to us, and might be truly
helpful to everybody who strives to solve for himself the many riddles
of this world. Let us remember, first of all, that the Rig-Veda is the
oldest book of the world. It is older than anything in Greece and Rome,
older, as a book, than any book in China, older than the old Persian
Avesta, older than Buddhism and its sacred canon, older also than the
Old Testament. I know that this last statement will make many people
shake their heads, as if the truth and value of a book depended on its
age. Is the Old Testament truer than the New, because it is older? Truth
is neither young nor old, it is eternal, and history teaches us that the
older a religion, the more has it been exposed to deterioration in the
hands of priests and no-priests. Ancient ruins are, no doubt, venerable
and impressive, but for dwelling in them and for the daily work of life
new buildings are better.
No one would say that because the Rig-Veda is the oldest book of the
human race—we cannot call cuneiform or hieroglyphic inscriptions,
however large they are, books in the ordinary sense of the word—it is
therefore the best or the truest. It is on the contrary a record of the
childhood of our race, full of childish things, but full also of such
unexpected sparks of thought as occasionally startle us from the minds
and mouths of babes. The more childish the words of the Rig-Veda are,
the more instructive they should prove to us. Where are we to study the
origin of religion of the Aryan race to which we ourselves belong by
language and thought, if not in the Rig-Veda? Nor does it require much
study. Whoever runs may read it on every page. No one doubts now that
the gods of the ancient Âryas were representatives of the great
phenomena of nature, conceived in the only way in which, in the then
state of language and thought, they could be conceived, that is as
active and personified. What we should have anticipated, and what in
fact was anticipated by philosophers, was fully confirmed by the hymns
of the Rig-Veda, which were found to be addressed to the Dawn, the first
miracle and the greatest revelation the world has ever seen, though we
have learnt to look upon the light of the morning as a matter of course.
They were addressed to the morning Sun, the bringer of light and life,
to the blue Sky, the gatherer of clouds, the giver of rain and
fertility, to the Earth, the Rivers, the Fire, the Storms, and many
more.
During the period reflected in the songs of the Rig-Veda, the poets had
already made the step from the worship of many gods, the Devas, or the
Bright Ones, as they called them, to the recognition of one, but still
personal God above all gods, nay, they had purified the concept of that
Supreme Being from all that was implied in a male or female personality,
and had acknowledged it as neither of the one nor of the other sex, as
untrammelled by what personality means with us, as the true, free, and
eternal Godhead of which the other gods were but human renderings more
or less perfect. We can watch in the Rig-Veda how all these thoughts and
conceptions of the Deity arose naturally in the human heart, and there
is no other literature in which the genesis of the Divine in the human
mind can be so fully and so clearly watched and studied. A record of
this theogonic process is surely worth having, and though it naturally
holds true of the Aryan race only, it is after all the race to which we
ourselves belong, not merely by blood and bones, but, by what is far
more important, by language and thought. If we can observe this
theogonic process among other races also, whether civilised or
uncivilised, a comparison of the different roads that led to God may
become most important. Care, however, must be taken not to mix what is
heterogeneous. The religions of uncivilised races, whether ancient or
modern, but mostly modern, should be studied by themselves, and of
course by scholars only, or by those who have at least a knowledge of
the grammar of the language in which the religious ideas of such races
lie embedded. A beginning in this direction has been made, and much may
be expected from ethnological studies in the future. Hitherto they have
mostly proved amusing only, and without much scientific value, for which
the scarcity of materials is answerable far more than the credulity of
some of our ethnological students. What is the true value of the
theogony of the Aryan race is its historical character, and its
continuity which enables us to watch the growth of the concepts of the
gods and of God in an unbroken chain till we arrive, chiefly in the
Upanishads, at that true conception of the Godhead, free from all
limitations, even from that of personality, in the human sense of that
word, a stage that had been reached by Greek and Jewish thinkers at
Alexandria in the first centuries of Christianity, but was soon
afterwards hidden again in the clouds of theological anthropomorphism.
It makes no difference whether we ourselves consider this religious
development of Aryan thought of the Godhead as true or mistaken. Its
real interest is that it has historical reality, and that at all events
we can learn lessons from it which we can learn nowhere else. It was my
desire to gain a direct knowledge of what is preserved in the Rig-Veda
of the earliest religious development of our race, and thus to fill a
gap which had been felt for many years and deplored by all true
scholars, that made me conceive the idea of publishing the text and
native commentary of the Rig-Veda; a task not without its difficulties,
both scientific and material, for it would otherwise have been
undertaken long before.
I have a letter dated August, 1845, now before me from the late
Professor Roth, the editor with Professor Boehtlingk of our great
Sanskrit Dictionary, where he says, “It is a truly youthful boldness to
undertake an edition of the whole of Sâya_n_a’s commentary by yourself
alone,” and he proposes that I should allow him, Dr. Trithen, Dr. Rieu
and others to take each a part of the work. In some respects I am sorry
now that I did not accept this offer, for the Veda would have appeared
sooner. But there were difficulties in this combination, as in most
combinations, and being then very youthful and bold, I took the whole
work on my own shoulders.
But if my edition of the Rig-Veda helped to usher in quite a new period
in Sanskrit scholarship in Europe, it naturally produced an even greater
commotion all over India. After all, it was their Bible, and had never
been published before during the three or four thousand years of its
existence. Attempts were made in various quarters to taboo it, as having
been printed by a Mle_kkh_a and with cow’s blood; but the book proved
itself too strong, it was indispensable, and was soon accepted even by
those who at first had placed it under their interdict. The late Dr.
Haug sent me a full account of a meeting held by the Brâhmans at Poonah,
who, though unwilling at first to touch the book, called an assembly in
which a man, not a Brâhman, read out my edition, and all the Brâhmans
corrected whatever MSS. they possessed, according to the text as settled
in the distant University of Oxford.
Râjah Râdhâkânta Deva.
This brought me into correspondence with many of the leading men both
among the conservative and orthodox, and among the progressive and
enlightened party in India. At the head of the conservative party stood
then a well-known man, Râjah Râdhâkânta Deva, a kind of Indian Lord
Shaftesbury. He had distinguished himself by publishing a large
thesaurus of the Sanskrit language in seven large quarto volumes, called
the _S_abdakalpa-druma, the paradise-tree of words. I was highly pleased
when I received so valuable a present from the Râjah, and deeply
interested in a letter which accompanied it. People in India, even
intelligent people, were evidently very much puzzled, how a Mle_kkh_a,
as they called all barbarians, or all not twice-born men, could have got
hold in the libraries of Germany, France, and England of the _disjecta
membra_ of their sacred book, how he could have made it out, and
actually corrected it. The reforming party naturally rejoiced in the
publication of the Veda. But some even of the old orthodox believers in
the Veda were highly pleased when I presented to them their venerable
Bible. Strange as it may seem to us, such is the power of a
long-continued tradition that even the more enlightened among the
Hindus, at least at the time of which I am writing, had no kind of doubt
as to the divine origin of the Veda. They looked upon it not only as a
revelation granted to mankind thousands of years ago, but they believed
that it was premundane, that it had existed in the mind of the Supreme
Being from all eternity, and had been breathed forth before the
beginning of the world. They thought of it, not as a book, but as a
revelation handed down from teacher to pupil in an uninterrupted
succession. There existed manuscripts of it, but not very many, and the
only way recognised in India of learning the Veda, without destroying
its sanctity and efficacy, was to learn it by heart from the mouth of a
qualified teacher. Every word, every letter, every accent of the Veda
had been settled by authority as far back as about the fifth century
B.C., and from that point of view the authority of oral tradition was,
and is still considered much higher than that of a mere manuscript.
Formerly, as in the time of the Laws of Manu, it was even forbidden to
write the Veda or to sell copies of it. That so sacred and more than
sacred a work should have been published for the first time by a
barbarian, and that hundreds of copies of it should suddenly be for sale
in the streets of Benares, Bombay, and Poonah, was at first a very great
shock to the orthodox. Still, though there were protests, and though all
sorts of doubts were thrown on the genuineness of the printed text, even
the most bigoted opponents of everything European had at last to give
in, and to confess that the printed text was really their true Veda, and
that it was more complete and more correct than any manuscript then in
existence.
We must never forget that the ancient literature of India was entirely
mnemonic. This may sound almost incredible, yet there are few Sanskrit
scholars who would any longer doubt it. In their recognised system of
education the imprinting of the ancient books on the memory of the young
was the most essential feature. Boys, not girls, had to spend years and
years of their youth, while staying in the house of a Guru, in learning
by heart line after line of certain books, and nothing else. Thus only
can we account for the wonderful capacity and tenacity of their memory.
They at first learnt their sacred books, as I have known children to
learn poems in a foreign language, without even attempting to understand
a single word. Children of good Brâhman families were simply treated
like sheets of paper, on which the teacher impressed letters, syllables,
words, and sentences by sound only. Later only came the time for going
over (Adhyayana) what stood thus imprinted on their memory, and for
understanding, under the guidance of qualified teachers, its real
purport. This, too, may seem almost incredible to us, but in the absence
of writing and printing, what else could have been done? Every boy who
passed through the orthodox system of education (Brahma_k_aryâ) became a
copy of whatever text he was made to learn, and this copy had to be kept
in good condition by constant repetition. Unless we keep this clearly
before our mind, we shall never understand the state of ancient
literature in India, with all its changes and chances, before the
introduction of writing. When we consider, for instance, the enormous
bulk of the ancient Sanskrit epic, the Mahâbhârata, a poem of more than
90,000 couplets, four volumes quarto, we hesitate before accepting it as
a mnemonic poem. And yet we have what amounts to almost positive
evidence of the poem having existed before the introduction of writing
into India, in the fact that there is an episode, added at the beginning
of the poem, in which we are told how the whole poem was reduced to
writing by the god Ga_n_e_s_a, and that this episode is absent in many
MSS., particularly those of the South of India. And even after the
introduction of writing every precaution was taken to keep certain
sacred texts from being written down, so as to force each rising
generation to learn their literature, sacred and profane, from the mouth
of a teacher, and not from a manuscript. Even to the present day this
old system of imprinting whole books on the brain has not been allowed
to become entirely obsolete, and the mnemonic achievements which in
several cases I have witnessed myself in young men when they come to
Oxford are almost unbelievable.
A printed edition of their sacred Rig-Veda was therefore, even under the
changed circumstances of the nineteenth century, a kind of monstrosity.
Among the first to recognise my edition of the Rig-Veda was the Râjah
Râdhâkânta Deva, and his recognition was all the more important to me as
he stood at the head of the strictly orthodox and conservative party in
Bengal. He himself had no doubt that the whole Veda was really the
eternal word of God, and that an unswerving faith in it was the _sine
quâ non_ of a religious and pious life. Even such highly esteemed books
as the Laws of Manu, the Mahâbhârata and the Purâ_n_as had to give way
before it, if there should ever be any difference between them and the
Veda. We can hardly imagine how people in India could live in such an
atmosphere, but it evidently agreed both with those who thought for
themselves and with those who thought as they were bid.
My friend, Râdhâdkânta, however, made some reservations. The Rig-Veda,
he said, though far the most important, is only one out of four Vedas
which, though all founded on the Rig-Veda, have each certain portions
peculiar to themselves. This no one would have denied, but what are the
hymns of all other so-called Vedas put together, if compared with the
Rig-Veda? They are mere sacrificial prayer-books, most of their hymns
being taken from the Rig-Veda, and the Atharva-Veda being confessedly a
later collection, though it contains curious remnants of Indian popular
poetry, incantations, medical formulas, and the like. If all had been
lost, except the Rig-Veda, the loss would not have been very great, at
least so far as the study of ancient mythology and religion was
concerned. Of course I had studied the Ya_g_ur-Veda, and had actually
copied the whole of it with Mahîdhara’s commentary at Paris. This was
published afterwards by Professor Weber from my own copy which I had
presented to him. I could also tell my Indian friend that we possessed
in Germany an edition of the Sâma-Veda by Benfey, and were expecting an
edition of the Atharva-Veda by Roth. These were editions of the hymns of
the four Vedas, but I could assure him that even the Brâhma_n_as, on
which he laid great stress as being the highest authorities for
sacrificial rules, for traditions, and ancient customs, were no longer
hidden from us, but ready to be published by scholars such as Haug,
Weber, Aufrecht, and others. But even then he would still make his
reservations. We might know one _S_âkhâ, or text, he said, of each of
their sacred books; but, in conformity with the highest theological
authorities, he maintained that there existed formerly many more of such
texts which had become extinct; but which nevertheless must be admitted
as the original authority for any doctrines or customs not sanctioned by
the Vedas, such as we possess them now. The first part of this argument
I readily granted, but I had to demur to the second, because anything,
even the most degrading customs, might thus have been invested with a
divine sanction.
And so it was, as is well known by this time, in the case of Sutti, or
the burning of widows, a custom which, though it had long ago been
abolished by law, gave rise to a long and animated controversy between
the old Râjah, Professor Wilson, and myself.
To show what kind of man the Râjah was, I shall here give some specimens
of his letters. It is difficult to do this, because, as I stated before,
the style adopted by Hindus in writing letters, whether in Sanskrit or
in English, is so flowery and ornate that, particularly when it is
addressed to oneself, it seems very conceited and egotistical to publish
any of their laudatory remarks. Allowance must be made for Oriental
phraseology, and all superlative expressions have to be considerably
reduced in English before they reach the level of reality.
In November, 1851, the Râjah, when sending me his Thesaurus, wrote:—
“When I ventured to assume the character of a lexicographer, my most
ambitious wish was but to revive the study of Sanskrit in my own
country, where it has been on the decline; but I should not dissemble
that love of fame stimulated my exertions through worldly tribulations,
where patience must have failed and perseverance wearied. I devoted the
greatest portion of my life and no inconsiderable amount of labour and
expense to the execution of the work; and though as an encyclopaedist I
have no claim to originality, or to the merits of genius, yet, I trust,
my industry and application will, at least, be applauded when I may be
considered as a humble pioneer of Sanskrit learning. I have endeavoured
to obtain the approbation of those whose good opinion one cannot but be
proud of and solicitous to secure; nor is it an inconsiderable reward of
my labour that it has deserved the commendation of a Müller and a
Wilson, who have won golden opinions by their profound scholarship in
Sanskrit.”
To be named by the side of Wilson was a compliment highly appreciated by
a young man of twenty-eight, as I then was, and I may be pardoned for
having felt flattered at the time more than was perhaps quite right, by
the old Râjah’s well-turned phrases.
Then, turning to my edition of the Rig-Veda, my correspondent
continued:—
“I have lately been honoured by the Honourable the Court of Directors
with the present of the first volume of your noble and excellent edition
of the Rig-Veda, published under their patronage. Some time ago when I
received your specimen copy of it, which you had so politely desired Dr.
Roer to send me, I read it with eagerness, and, although I was obliged
to return it sooner than I could have wished, I saw enough to convince
me that you would go far beyond all expectation, and your present
publication has confirmed this opinion.
“Arduous and novel as is the undertaking you have entered on amidst a
variety of disadvantages, the able and masterly manner in which you have
begun to execute it displays your profound erudition, critical acumen,
and unparalleled industry of research; you stand forth a very
illustrious example of uncommon ardour and undaunted perseverance, such
as is not to be cooled by discouragement, nor obstructed by difficulty;
your labours will furnish the Vaidik Pandits with a complete collection
of the Holy Sanhitâs of the first Veda, only detached portions of which
are to be found in the possession of a few of them, and enable the
student of antiquity ‘to snatch the veil that hung her face before,’
supply materials for the history of the ancient East—nay, ancient world,
and rear up for you a monument more durable than brass.”
I confess I feel somewhat ashamed of copying this panegyric, but no one
will suspect me of having believed a word of it. It seemed to me,
however, that a letter so well conceived and so well expressed was
worthy of being preserved as showing a phase through which the Indian
mind had to pass, and which by this time it has left behind. If we
consider how different the trend of native thought really is from our
own, we shall have to confess that few, if any, European scholars have
ever mastered any Oriental language to the same extent as the writer of
this letter has mastered English, or have adapted their thoughts so
cleverly to English models as this old Râjah.
Let us see now how he arranged the facts of the case, so as to satisfy
his own mind:—
“It is surely,” he continues, “a very curious reflection on the
vicissitudes of human affairs that the descendants of the divine Rishis
(prophets) should be studying on the banks of the Bhâgîrathî (Ganges),
the Yamunâ (Jumna), and the Sindhu their Holy Scriptures as published on
the banks of the Thames by one whom they regard as a distant Mlechchha,
and this Mlechchha, the descendant of the degraded Kshattriyas
(noblemen), according to our _S_âstras, and claiming a cognate origin
with the Hindus, according to the investigations of the modern
philologists, who will ere long rise to the rank of a Veda-Vyâsa
(arranger and revealer of the Veda) of the Kaliyuga.
“Though our _S_âstra is deemed the grand and primeval fountain from
which the present streams of knowledge that run through the civilised
countries of the globe have taken their rise, yet it has not been
considered as defiled by receiving into it a foreign tributary. As
Yavanâchârya (a Greek teacher) gave to the Hindus his system of
astronomy many centuries ago, so the German Bha_tt_a (Doctor) is now
giving them his edition of the Rig-Veda, and will, as he promises,
furnish them with his commentaries upon them.”
If we wish to understand and to appreciate the effort made by this
highly educated Indian nobleman, to digest what must have been a hard
morsel to his orthodox mind, the edition of his own sacred book by a
German or an Englishman, let us try to imagine what it would have been
to us if the New Testament, never printed before, had been published for
the first time, not by a Dutch scholar, such as Erasmus, but by a Hindu
at Benares. We know how great was the commotion when, after the
invention of printing, Erasmus published the first critical edition of
the New Testament. We must not imagine that the feelings of awe and
reverence for their Veda were different from our own for the Bible. To
have this book, which few only had ever seen before in India, sent to
them from London and offered for sale, proved indeed a great shock to
the Hindu conscience, nor was it easy for many of their priests to take
the same dispassionate view as this enlightened Râjah. He had by no
means broken with his religious convictions or national prejudices, and
in his eyes, in spite of all his kindness and politeness, I was and
could be no more than a Mle_kkh_a, that is a barbarian. As I had never
been in India and could never, like so many other scholars, have availed
myself of the valuable assistance of native Pandits, it seemed to him
impossible to account for my knowledge of Sanskrit, particularly of the
obscure and difficult Vedic Sanskrit, unless he made me a descendant of
certain noble or Kshattriya families who, according to the Purâ_n_as,
had been exiled from India many centuries ago. And, as if to quiet his
own conscience in accepting my edition of his sacred book as undefiled
by the foreign hands through which it had passed, he reminded himself
that after Alexander’s conquests in India certain Greeks or Yavanas had
acted as teachers to the astronomers of India, and had even been
accepted as inspired, so long as they taught what was true. All this
shows a most interesting crisis through which the Hindu mind had passed
in former times, and had to pass once more, a crisis which, though it
has not yet finished, is at all events preparing a religious reformation
in India, by assigning to the Veda its true historical position, as the
best that the Hindu mind could have produced four thousand years ago,
and that to the present day has retained a certain vitality among the
true leaders of the people of India.
I have always been a bad correspondent, finding it quite impossible even
at that early time to answer all the letters of my many unknown friends.
India, from a very early day in my career, has been smothering me with
letters, many of them in Sanskrit or in local dialects which I do not
even understand. Now it seems that in this case also I waited for some
time before acknowledging so interesting a letter as that of the
Mahârâjah. However, I find the draft of a letter to him among my papers,
and I may as well give an extract from it here:—
“The letter which you addressed to me in 1851 on receiving the first
volume of my edition of the Rig-Veda reached me so late that I had
nearly finished the second volume of my Rig-Veda, and I therefore
postponed writing to you, because I wished at the same time to send this
my second volume, if only to show you that I meant what I said, and was
determined to carry out my undertaking—namely, to publish in time the
whole collection of the sacred hymns of your Rishis, together with the
commentary composed in the fourteenth century by the learned
Sâya_n_â_k_ârya. I have stated in my Preface how much I owe to your
valuable Thesaurus, a work which will make your name not only revered by
your own countrymen, but respected among all the scholars of Europe.
Tathâ _k_a _s_ruti_h_, Yâvad asmi_n_ loke purusha_h_ pu_n_yena karma_n_â
_s_rûyate, tâvad ayam svarge loke vasatîti. And thus says your
Scripture: ‘So long as a man is known in this world by a good work, so
long does he dwell in heaven.’... How happy I should be if I could spend
some time at Calcutta or Benares, and discuss with you and your learned
Pandits your ancient religion, your sacred writings, your traditions,
and the future of religion in India. It was not mere idle curiosity that
led me to a study of the Veda, but a wish to know a work which has been
for so many centuries the foundation on which millions and millions of
human beings have built up their religious convictions. However much we
may differ from the old forms of faith and worship, it is our duty, it
seems to me, to approach every religion with respect, nay, with
reverence. The vital principle, the original source of religion, is the
same everywhere; it is faith in a Higher Power, and a belief that our
moral life should be such as to please Him to whom we owe our being and
to whom we feel bound to ascribe the highest perfection which our
limited human faculties can conceive. Nor have I been disappointed by
the Rig-Veda, though it is different from what I and others expected.
There are large portions in it which have hardly any connection with
religion at all, but they are interesting all the same as relics of
antiquity, such as the song of the gambler, the dialogue between
Lopamudrâ and Agastya, between Yama and Yamî, between Purûravas and
Urva_s_î. Other prayers for health and wealth are appropriate in their
simplicity to a very primitive state of society. But there are passages
which show a truly religious spirit, such as ‘Eka_m_ sad viprâ bahudhâ
vadanti’—‘The sages speak in many ways of the One that exists’; ‘Yo
deveshu adhi deva eka âsît’—‘He who alone is God above gods.’ Simple
moral sentiments also occur in it which deserve to be treasured; such is
‘Vi ma_k_ _kh_rathâya rasanâm ivâga_h_’—‘Loose from me sin like a rope’;
‘Dâmeva vatsâd vi mumugdhy a_m_ho, na hi tvadâre nimishas _k_a
ne_s_e’—‘Loose from me sin like a rope from a calf, for away from Thee I
am not master of a twinkling of the eye.’ Though their number is small
in the Sanhitâ, yet there is so much more simplicity and purity in most
of these old hymns that I cannot understand how they could ever have
been superseded by the Purâ_n_as, works which from a moral, religious,
and intellectual point of view do not seem to me worthy to rank as the
Bibles of a nation so highly gifted as the inhabitants of Âryâvarta.
“If my edition of the Rig-Veda could help towards bringing the people of
India back to the study of what their ancient writers unanimously
considered as the highest authority of their religion, it would, I
think, be an important step forward, not backward, though I hope that
the future has even greater things in store for them than a mere return
to their ancient form of belief and worship. We must not forget that,
like everything else, religions also grow old and can seldom defy four
thousand years. The antiquity of a religion which is often appealed to
as a proof of its truth, seems to me to tell in the very opposite
direction. The older it is, the more likely it is to have become effete
in human hands, and unfit for new times, and to require either
reformation or entire abolition, to make room for a new and better form
of faith.
“I know you are bound to consider me as a Mle_kkh_a, but allow me to say
that I do not entertain the same exclusive feelings towards you and your
countrymen. And remember that one of your Vedic Rishis says that all the
castes, the Sûdra as well as the Brâhmana, came from Brahman, and
participate, therefore, in the same nature and substance, the Divine in
man. We believe that all men are equal before God, and with that feeling
and in that spirit I remain, with great respect,
Yours sincerely,
F. MAX MÜLLER.”
I shall, with the same caution as before, add one more letter, though I
know I shall be very much blamed for doing so. The Râjah in expressing
his own sentiments, expressed no doubt the sentiments of the society in
which he moved, and the crisis through which the conservative and
orthodox party passed at that time, unimportant as it may seem to us,
was full of vital problems for the future of the religion of the
cultivated classes of India. On March 5, 1855, Râdhâkânta Deva wrote:—
“I have lately received through the Bengal Government a copy of the
second volume of the Rig-Veda, as a present from the Honourable the
Court of Directors, and I can ill express the feelings of mingled joy
and admiration with which I grasped this most precious gift. Our Pandits
are startled out of their wits, and scarcely credit their senses, when
they are told that the sacred volume before them has been edited by a
distant European scholar who had no opportunities of consulting with a
Vaidik Pandit, who had to collect, copy out, and collate various
manuscripts of texts and commentaries, mutilated and corrupted, and to
refer to the scanty and almost inaccessible sources of information on
the subject for the purpose of ascertaining their genuine reading, and
then with aching eyes to revise the proof-sheets.
“Great is the obligation under which you have laid the learned world. By
your successfully embarking on such an arduous undertaking, you have
done to the Hindus an inestimable benefit, supplying them with a correct
and superb edition of their Holy Scriptures. Accept therefore my most
grateful and sincere thanks, which, in common with my countrymen, I owe
you, and my special acknowledgments for the very kind and obliging
manner in which you have noticed my name and work in the preface to the
second volume of the Rig-Veda. At the conclusion of this preface is to
be found a truly poetic touch, a noble, frank, and irresistible gush of
feeling for the irreparable loss sustained by the literary world and you
personally, on the termination of the earthly career of Eugène Burnouf.
I wish I could find terms adequate to respond to your sympathy; we
cannot be too lavish of eulogies for his merits, or weary of dirges for
his loss. In the few letters he has written to me I find a noble trait
of humility and simplicity in his character which is the invariable
exponent of a great mind.
“In 1833 on the occasion of acknowledging the present of the
Sabda-kalpa-druma he says: ‘Ce n’est pas à un Européen qui est à peine
sur le seuil de cette vaste science de l’Inde, qu’il appartient de juger
une composition de ce mérite et d’une telle étendue. Des hommes comme
les Colebrooke et les Wilson, qui ont puisé la grande partie de leurs
connaissances à la source des entretiens brahmaniques, sont les juges
les plus dignes d’un aussi beau travail.’
“In 1840, when he had the kindness to send me a copy of his fine edition
of the Bhâgavata Purâ_n_a, he—the first decipherer of the Cuneiform
inscriptions—the first Pali scholar and historian of Buddhism—the first
editor and interpreter of the Zend-Avesta—and the great Sanskrit
philologist—thus speaks of himself: ‘Mais, vous songerez que c’est
l’œuvre d’un lointain Mletchha qui ne fait que commencer à balbutier la
langue des grands et vénérables Rishis....’
“Wishing you a long life to crown all your undertakings with success,
and requesting you to offer my best regards to my learned friend
Professor Wilson, I remain with great respect,
Yours sincerely,
RÂDHÂKÂNT, RÂJA BAHADOOR.”
I repeat once more that I must decline all the undeserved compliments
paid to me by my Indian correspondents, who, though they show so perfect
a mastery of English, are hardly aware that in the North our language is
less warm and less sunny than in the South, and that we leave many
things unsaid which must bring a blush to the cheeks of any one who
knows himself, and knows how very imperfect his knowledge really is, and
how far below his ideals the execution of the work of his life has
remained. If Burnouf said that he was only beginning to stammer
Sanskrit, what shall I, his unworthy pupil, say? But the letters
themselves are important as showing the attitude assumed by the
conservative orthodox party in India, when the first edition of their
Sacred Book fell among them like a bombshell. For years, for centuries,
nay for thousands of years, this Veda on which their whole religion was
founded had been to them a kind of invisible power, much as the Bible
was in the early centuries of the Papacy, when the privileged only were
supposed to know it and were allowed to interpret it. In discussions
between Brâhmans and Christian missionaries, this Veda had always been
the last stronghold of the Brâhmans. Whatever was held up to them as a
doctrine peculiar to Christianity, was met by them with the ready reply
that it had been taught long ago in the Vedas also. But this Veda itself
was never produced when they were asked to point out chapter and verse.
Long after the MSS. of other Sanskrit texts had been freely communicated
to English students, the MSS. of the Veda were kept apart, and the
touch, nay the very look of an unbeliever was supposed to desecrate
them. And now the book was there, handled by everybody, and spelt out
more or less successfully by anybody acquainted with Sanskrit. The
Brâhmans always accept the inevitable, but we shall see how, with a
better knowledge of the Veda, there sprang up discussions as to its
divine or revealed character, and how these discussions led gradually to
the formation of a new religious sect, which, though at present confined
to small circles, will no doubt in the end stir the millions, and
produce a reformation in a country which seemed to be unchangeable. Of
this I shall have to speak later on, when I gather up my reminiscences
of Keshub Chunder Sen and his fellow-workers. Movements in which we are
interested and engaged ourselves from their beginnings seem generally
much smaller to us than they really are in the light of history. When
Luther was translating the Bible in the castle of the Wartburg, he
little dreamt that he was laying the foundation of a new Church in
Germany and in all Teutonic countries, nor did Rammohun Roy on his
deathbed at Bristol foresee what would grow up from the few hints he had
thrown out as to the possibility of a reform and a revival of the
ancient national religion of his country. But Debendranâth followed,
Keshub Chunder Sen followed, and if the fire they lit does not at
present burn and shine so brightly as it ought, it will certainly not
die, but burst out again; for the way which those heroes pointed out is
the only possible way leading from the past to the future, from ancient
to modern religion, from darkness to light. Many who have lived in India
and who imagine that they know India, because they know Calcutta or
Bombay, are inclined to shrug their shoulders and to look down with
superior wisdom and pity on those misguided dreamers, as they call them,
who imagine that they can guide millions to a higher and more truly
religious life. We may not live to see the hopes of Rammohun Roy or
Keshub Chunder Sen realised; but, as certainly as the sun rises in the
morning, the new light for India will break forth from that East to
which those prophets and martyrs pointed in the last moments of their
life.
The Râjah Râdhâkânta Deva was a conservative of the purest water, not
touched as yet even by that conservative liberalism which guided
Debendranâth Tagore and made him sympathise with, though it kept him for
a time aloof from, his bolder pupil and friend, Keshub Chunder Sen. He
himself seems to have never doubted the divine authority of the Veda,
and in a curious controversy which I had with him on the Burning of
Widows he held his ground firmly as a defender of the old ways. As we
became better acquainted with the Veda, it became perfectly clear that
the verse from the Rig-Veda which was cited by the Brâhmans as the
supreme command for the burning of widows, had been tampered with. The
Brâhmans themselves seem to have felt that so barbarous and murderous a
custom as the burning of widows, whatever its origin may have been,
could only be defended by an authority that was admitted to be
infallible and superhuman. Such was the Rig-Veda, and they did not
shrink from altering a verse which occurred in a funeral hymn of that
Veda, so that instead of conveying a command to the widows to return to
their home after having performed the last duty to their departed
husbands, it came to mean that they should enter into the womb of fire
to follow their husbands to a better world. How such a falsification
could have been committed is difficult to understand, when we consider
that at first the falsification had to be made in the thousands of
memories which represented the real copies of the Rig-Veda. It must have
taken place at a very early time, because cases of Sutti do occur, if
not in the Rig-Veda, at least in the ancient popular tradition of India,
as represented to us in the Mahâbhârata. Even Râdhâkânta Deva seemed
inclined at last to agree with me that in the Veda, as we possess it,
there is no direct command for this terrible custom; but he took his
stand on the old tradition and maintained that we did not possess the
whole of the ancient Vedic literature, and that the authority for the
old custom may have existed in one of the lost _S_âkhâs or branches of
the Veda. This was a favourite argument with Indian casuists, but Indian
casuists had likewise found an answer to it. They called it the “skull
argument,” and reasoned that as little as a skull could be accepted as a
witness in a court of law, could a lost _S_âkhâ of the Veda be appealed
to as an authority for a custom like the burning of widows.
All this gives us an insight into the thoughts that rule Indian society,
of which even those who spend their best years in India have hardly any
suspicion. That an educated Hindu should defend the burning of widows
seems strange; still, if Popes and Cardinals could defend auto-da-fé’s
or the burning of heretics, nay, even of witches, because the fire would
purify and save their souls which could not be saved otherwise, why
should not an Indian Râjah have been convinced that the burning of
widows could not be wrong, believing, as he did, that it was enjoined by
a lost _S_âkhâ of the Veda, and that the poor women could not be saved
unless they followed their husbands on their heels into another world?
These are ingrained feelings, and every Hindu would at once recite the
popular verses, “Accompanying her husband, she shall reside so long in
Svarga (Heaven) as are the thirty-five millions of hairs on the human
body.”
A loyal wife is defined as “she whose sympathy feels the pains and joys
of her husband, who mourns and pines in his absence, and dies when he
dies.”
In theory this is all very beautiful, and that there may have been cases
where a widow wished to be burnt on her husband’s pile, can hardly be
doubted[1]. It is well known that this custom of widow-burning, or of
widows dying with their husbands, was by no means confined to India; but
it is known also, now that the pages of the Veda are open to us, that
the Veda certainly does not countenance it. The custom seems to have
arisen with the warrior caste, and I still feel inclined to think that
in its origin it was voluntary, and arose from blind, passionate love,
and a strong belief in an immediate meeting again in a better world. The
idea that its object was to deter wives from poisoning their husbands is
simply preposterous, and though it may be quite true that at present the
life of a widow has been rendered so miserable that many would willingly
prefer death to so wretched an existence as that of a widow, that too
could not account for so ancient and so widely spread a custom. In our
own ancient Teutonic mythology, when Baldur had been murdered and his
body had been placed in a ship to be carried out to sea, his wife,
Nanna, died of grief, and was burnt with him on the same pile[2]. And
Gudrun (Brynhild) also, after Sigurd had been slain, had but one wish,
to be burnt with him on the same pile, two servants at their head and
two at their feet, two dogs also and two hawks, and the biting sword
between them, the same sword that lay between them when they slept
together on the same bed, like brother and sister[3]. There is humanity
in all this inhuman barbarism, if only we try to discover it. The
strange part is that this human feeling should have manifested itself in
the women only, and never in the men.
MY INDIAN FRIENDS.
II.
Nîlaka_nth_a Goreh.
If I knew the Râjah Râdhâkânta Deva by correspondence only, the next son
of India whom I came to know, and for a time very intimately, as one
knows and loves a friend, had travelled all the way from India, having
come to England with Dhulip Singh. While I was sitting in my room at
Oxford copying Sanskrit MSS., a gentleman was shown in, dressed in a
long black coat, looking different from my usual visitors, and
addressing me in a language of which I did not understand a single word.
I spoke to him in English, and asked him what language he was speaking,
and he replied with great surprise, “Do you not understand Sanskrit?”
“No,” I said, “I have never heard it spoken, but here are some MSS. of
the Veda which will interest you.” He was delighted to see them, and
began to read, but he had soon to confess that he was not able to
translate a single word. When I expressed my surprise—though perhaps I
ought not to have done so—he told me that he did not believe in the Veda
any longer, but had become a Christian. His countenance was most
intelligent, and almost heavy with thought, his language and his manners
most winning, and we were soon deep in conversation. His name had been
Nîlaka_nth_a Goreh—Nîlaka_nth_a being a name of _S_iva (the
Blue-neck)—but had been changed into Nehemiah Goreh, when he became a
Christian. I have tried to find out more about his birth-place and his
parents, but in vain; and, after all, who cares for all these monotonous
details with which biographers generally fill the first chapters of
their books? Nor did I care much for them myself, except to know that he
came from a highly respected Brâhman family, and that his father had
been an educated man and a Sanskrit scholar. What I really cared for was
the man himself, such as he stood before me, a man, I should have
guessed, of about five-and-twenty, glowing with youthful enthusiasm, and
evidently brimful of thought. I must leave it to others to supply the
year of his birth and all the details of his paternal and maternal
genealogy.
It was not long before I discovered a sad and perplexed tone in his
conversation, and, though he assured me that nothing but a deep
conviction of the truth of Christ’s teaching had induced him to change
his religion, he told me that he was in great anxiety and did not know
what to do for the future. What he had seen of England, more
particularly of London, was not what he had imagined a Christian country
to be. His patron, Dhulip Singh, had placed him at some kind of
missionary seminary in London, where he found himself together with a
number of what he considered half-educated and narrow-minded young men,
candidates for ordination and missionary work. They showed him no
sympathy and love, but found fault with everything he did and said. He
had been, as I soon found out, a careful student of Hindu philosophy,
and his mind had passed through a strict philosophical discipline. Hindu
philosophy is in many respects as good a discipline as Plato or
Aristotle, and, Christian though he was, he was familiar with the
boldest conceptions of the world, as found in the six systems of Hindu
philosophy, and he could argue with great subtlety and accuracy on any
of the old problems of the human mind. The fact was he stood too high
for his companions, and they were evidently unable to understand and
appreciate his thoughts. He did not use words at random, and was always
ready to give a definition of them, whenever they seemed ambiguous. And
yet this man was treated as a kind of nigger by those who ought to have
been not only kind, but respectful to him. He was told that smoking was
a sin, and that he never could be a true Christian if he abstained from
eating meat, particularly beef. He told me that with the greatest effort
he had once brought himself to swallow a sandwich containing a slice of
meat, but it was to him what eating human flesh would be to us. He could
not do it again. When he thus found himself in this thoroughly
uncongenial society, and saw nothing in London of what he had supposed a
Christian city to be, he ran away, and came to Oxford to find me, having
heard of my interest in India, in its religion, and its ancient
literature. He had evidently dreamt of a Christian country where
everybody loved his neighbour as himself; where everybody, if struck on
the right cheek, would turn the other also; where everybody, when robbed
of his coat, would give up his cloak also. All this, as we know, is not
the fashion in the streets of London, and what he actually saw in those
streets was so different from his ideals that he said to me, “If what I
have seen in London is Christianity, I want to go back to India; if that
is Christianity, I am not a Christian.” This sounded very ominous, and I
hardly knew what to say or what to do with him. He was not a man to be
smoothed down by a few kind words. I tried to find out first why he had
given up his native religion, and the more I heard, the more I was
amazed. He began life as a worshipper of _S_iva, had then chosen
K_ri_sh_n_a as his deity, and, dissatisfied with this form of worship
also, had proceeded to study the Korân. All that time he had kept
carefully aloof from Christian missionaries and Christian converts. But
when he saw that the Korân also was full of contradictions and of things
which he could not approve, he began to study by himself both the Old
and the New Testaments. Saturated as he was with philosophical ideas, he
soon found that these books also did not satisfy his yearnings, and he
wrote, as I was told, two essays in Sanskrit, one against the Old, the
other against the New Testament, both directed against a book written by
my old friend, J. Muir, the Mataparîkshâ (Examination of Doctrines).
Those who knew him at the time in India say that his answer to the
Scotch scholar was in flowing and melodious Sanskrit, and was “alike
most classical in diction and irrefragable in reasoning.” Christianity
in India, even as represented by so enlightened a Christian as J. Muir,
was supposed to have received its death-blow by it. But the fact was,
that in studying the New Testament and trying to refute it, he had
become a Christian unawares.
When I asked him to tell me how in the end he succumbed, and was
satisfied with the religion of Christ, he shook his head and said, “I
can explain everything, I can explain why I rejected _S_iva, and
K_ri_sh_n_a, and Allah, and tell you everything that kept me back so
long from Christianity, as preached to us in India, and made me reject
the New as well as the Old Testament as unsatisfactory to a thinking
man. But why and how I became a Christian I cannot explain. I was caught
as in a net, and I could not get away from Christ.” This did not quite
satisfy me, and I pressed him hard several times to find out whether
there had not been any other inducement, perhaps unknown to himself at
the time, that might have influenced him in taking this momentous step.
But it was all in vain. So far from there being any worldly motives
mixed up with his conversion, all outward circumstances, on the
contrary, were strongly against his professing himself a Christian. He
could not tell me of any missionary or teacher whose personal influence
might directly or indirectly have told on him.
No one was more surprised than the clergyman, to whom he wrote that he
was a Christian, that he required no instruction or persuasion, but
simply wished to be baptized. His mind was like a crystal, perfectly
bright and transparent. He held nothing back from me, but the answer
which I most cared for, he could not give. His father, a learned man,
holding a high place among the Brâhmans socially, a kind of bishop or
dean, as we should call it, owed it to his position, not only to disown,
but to disinherit, nay, publicly to curse, his son. The loss of his
fortune was nothing to the son; but when it came to the curse, the
father himself shrank back. He loved his son, and it is hinted that to a
certain extent he may have shared his feelings. So, in order to evade
the necessity of the curse, he retired from the world and took upon
himself the vow of perpetual silence (Mauna-vrata). We wonder at the
Trappists and their silence, but they at all events live in company with
other Trappists. But to be silent among friends who speak must be a
greater trial still. These men generally retire from the world
altogether. Nehemiah Goreh’s father, after he had retired into the
forest, never uttered a single word again to any human being. He
disappeared altogether, and, though for several years his son and his
friends hoped that he would return, he never came back. He probably went
out of his mind, and died, as many Sannyâsins die in the forests of
India. There are more tragedies in heaven and earth than are dreamt of
in our philosophy. Nor was that all. Even his wife was taken away from
the new convert, though she really was devoted to her husband. Timid as
Hindu ladies are, his young wife had been frightened when asked before a
judge whether she would remain with her apostate husband or return to
her parents. This is what the law enjoins in case of a husband becoming
a Christian. But after she had taken refuge in her parental home she
repented, and wished to join her husband again. And here a curious scene
occurred. The husband actually had to elope with his own wife, and carry
her off by main force. After that the law allows a new appeal; the
guilty couple were brought once more before a judge, and when the young
wife (she was only thirteen) was asked what she wished to do, she
declared publicly that she would remain with her husband, and was then
allowed to return to him and to her home. What more could a man
sacrifice for his religious convictions? All I can say is that in the
whole of my life I have never seen so true a Christian, so true a
martyr, as Nehemiah Goreh. Few Christians, not even bishops, would have
passed through such ordeals unscathed. And with all that, he was a
philosopher, he knew what philosophy could say and had said on the
possibility of revelation and of religion, and yet he was perfectly
satisfied with Christianity in its very simplest form. One thing he said
sometimes, to account to me for the momentous step he had taken, and for
the sacrifices he had made to retain his inward honesty. “Christianity
is so pure,” he said. One can quite understand how this purity must have
told on a mind that had waded through the impurities of the sombre
worship of Siva, and the lascivious innuendos of the legends of Krishna
and the shepherdesses, however much they may be explained as a mere
allegory. Even as an allegory, the story of a god who carries off the
clothes of the shepherdesses while bathing, is not edifying. If it is
meant for devotion without guise or disguise, the meaning is too much
hidden for ordinary mortals. We may be able to account historically or
mythologically for many excrescences of religion, but we cannot dispute
them away, nor can we wonder that a pure mind, sickened by them, should
turn with a delightful relief to the pure and fresh atmosphere of
Christianity.
There was for a time real danger of Nehemiah’s falling into utter
despair, and all that his friends could do was to send him back, as soon
as possible, to India, and to find him some occupation there as a
teacher and Scripture reader. There, what seems almost an innate
tendency of the Indian mind soon developed itself in Nehemiah, namely,
asceticism and a complete renunciation of the world. For a time he was
attracted by outward ceremonial and symbolism, and found comfort in it;
but when that also failed to satisfy him, he became, to all intents and
purposes, a Christian Sannyâsin (hermit). For himself he wanted nothing,
even controversy had no longer any charm for him; though, in the essays
which he was induced to address to his countrymen on the insufficiency
of the six systems of native philosophy, he proved himself a subtle
critic of Hinduism, and a powerful defender of Christianity. These
essays, originally written in Hindi, have been translated into English
by Dr. Fitz-Edward Hall, under the title of “Rational Refutation of the
Hindu Philosophical Systems,” Calcutta, 1862, and they are extremely
interesting and useful.
Judging from letters which I received from him from time to time, he
never quite recovered the balance of his mind. His trials had been too
much for him. Not only had he lost his father and his wife, but he
became separated even from his children, so that no cares of this world
should disturb his peace with God and in God. But to give up a
religion—the religion of our father and mother, the religion of our
childhood and of all our friends, however imperfect it may be from our
own point of view, inflicts a wound that heals but slowly, and is apt to
break open again and again. Why should missionaries fail to see this,
and expect from their heathen pupils sacrifices which they themselves
would shrink from by a natural instinct of self-preservation? It is no
answer to say that the religion of those whom they wish to bring over to
Christianity is antiquated, vulgar, hideous, and false. The religion in
which a man is born, the religion of a man’s father and mother, has
always something sacred in it that ought to be respected. Is there a
single missionary who, if he had been born a Hindu or a Parsi, would
have embraced Christianity without a struggle? When we consider how
unimportant the differences are between the religion of reformed and
unreformed Christians if compared with the treasures that both share in
common, why should it be such a wrench for a Roman Catholic to become a
Protestant, except that his father and mother were Roman Catholics? The
points of difference between them are all, without exception, the work
of men, and often of men who have no very high record in the pages of
history. Yet to give up the mass for the eucharist, the wafer for the
bread, the mixed for the pure wine, has often been too much even for a
truly Christian heart, and has separated those who were meant to be
brothers in Christ. I say all this only in order to make people
understand what trials and tortures Nehemiah Goreh had to undergo before
he could take that step which, from a missionary point of view, seems so
easy and natural. To be torn away from all our friends, to think that
they are all wrong and we alone are right, was too great an effort to a
sensitive mind, such as his was, and left a wound behind which it
required a very strong and healthy nature to bear and many years to
heal. That he should have become a kind of Christian Sannyâsin, or
anchorite, was natural; that he should have been attracted for a time by
childish ritualism was a pity. This, however, was chiefly due to
personal influences, and, if it in any way soothed his broken spirits,
no one would grudge him such anodynes. I was much touched when, in one
of his later letters, after expressing his perfect satisfaction with
what Christianity had given him, he added, “Yet, I often feel like a man
who has taken poison.” He was for many years a useful member of a
Christian brotherhood at Sigra, founded by the Rev. R. M. Benson, whom I
remember meeting often in old days in the cheerful common-room of Christ
Church. They were very kind to him, and he was most grateful to his
brothers. Yet I feel doubtful whether even they understood him fully,
and made allowance for all his troubles and all his sacrifices.
When Nehemiah Goreh was in England for the last time, and staying at
Oxford, he was not allowed to come to see me, except on the very day of
his departure. This was unkind to both of us; he was in no more danger
from me than I was from him. I know that in his early days he had used
the wings of his mind with great freedom, that he had tried to soar to
the highest abodes of the Divine, and to fathom the deepest abysses of
human nature, fearless of all consequences. He reminded me in that
respect of Dr. Pusey, who often declared that he had studied more heresy
than anybody else; but, having seen the horrors of utter darkness on
every side, he felt it his duty to warn others, and to keep them from
seeing what he had seen. Strange only that Nehemiah, brought up as he
had been in the doctrines of the Vedânta, should not have seen how even
the highest heights and the deepest depths which can be reached by the
human mind are lighted up by the omnipresence of Brahman, the Indian
name and concept of what we mean by the omnipresent Father, or, if you
like, of that ineffable Godhead of which even the Father is one person
only. He had become tired of his lifelong search, and had long closed
his eyes to this world of seeming. When at last his heart ceased to
beat, he felt satisfied that all was well, and that he was safe in
trusting in Christ.
It is curious that he should not have drawn more of his countrymen to
follow him. His original conception of Christ’s teaching was such that
many an excellent Hindu could honestly have accepted it. If anywhere,
the harvest is ripe in India, and the labourers are many. Unfortunately
his philosophical Christianity became more and more ecclesiastical, nay
ritualistic in time, through influences which he was too weak to resist.
He might have done a great work in India; but what India wants is the
young and vigorous Christianity of the first century, not the effete
Christianity of the fifteenth century, still less its poor modern
imitations. Much the same opinion was expressed by an Indian
correspondent, Mr. Brojolall Chuckerbutty, a personal friend and admirer
of Nehemiah Goreh. In one of his letters to me he said: “Years ago I had
a long discussion in my own house with Nehemiah Nîlaka_nth_a Goreh
concerning the Christian religion. He, of course, tried hard to convert
me to his faith. But we arrived at a conclusion in which nothing was
concluded. I really could not understand how a man of Mr. Goreh’s
intelligence and learning, who had discarded Hinduism, could accept, in
its stead, popular Christianity which stands on the same level with
popular Hinduism. By popular Christianity I mean the Christianity of the
Church, as contra-distinguished from the Christianity of Christ.”
His friends have sometimes found fault with Nehemiah Goreh for having
during the latter part of his life so completely withdrawn himself from
the world and its social obligations. But here too we must learn to make
allowances for the old Indian leaven. He longed for rest. It was a
recognised thing in India—I speak, of course, of ancient India—that a
man who had fought his fight might retire from the world, shake off all
shackles, and become free, even here on earth. Many left their homes and
lived in forests—a most delightful way of life in India. These
anchorites, fugitives from the world, wanted very little to support
life, and that little, so far as we know, was either supplied by nature
or given them readily by the members of their family, or even by
strangers. There was no lack of family affection in India, but higher
than all worldly affections stood the ideal of Vairâgya, freedom from
all desires and passions, freedom from all worldly attachments, freedom
from all that must perish, real happiness in the Eternal, in the Self,
that is, in God who changes not. Some of the most beautiful poetry of
ancient and modern India was inspired by that sentiment of
unworldliness, the very opposite of that passionate love and attachment
which forms the constant theme of European poetry. Love, so far as it
means passion and desire, or exclusive attachment to one person, was
considered as of this world, and everything belonging to this world was
perishable, and therefore not worthy of our highest affection. The
Buddhists adopted the same doctrine, but, while condemning love, they
preached pity—a splendid substitute. Father and mother, wife, husband,
and children were not excepted. They, too, should never be passionately
loved or idolised, but they should always be pitied. That pity means a
great deal, it may mean all that is best in love. The very relation in
which husband and wife, father and mother, parents and children stood to
each other could be of this life only, not of that life in which they
neither marry nor are given in marriage, the life that underlies even
this life on earth. We find it difficult to enter into these ideas, they
are so entirely absent from our own literature, particularly from our
poetry; which deals mostly with passionate love, but they were quite
familiar to the Hindus. We call them strange and curious and
extravagant, and then we have done with them. But the subject is not so
easily disposed of, and in a country such as India, it is difficult to
say who has chosen the good part. There the man at rest with himself and
with his God, the man free from all worldly fetters, was a recognised
character, and was allowed to live up to his ideals without let or
hindrance. How those ideals were realised we may learn from Indian
poetry, from the Vairâgya-_S_ataka, for instance (the century of
dispassionateness) ascribed to Bhart_ri_hari, and from many similar
works. There we read[4]:—
“A hermit’s forest cell, and fellowship with deer,
A harmless meal of fruit, stone beds beside the stream,
Are helps to those who long for _S_iva’s guidance here,
But be the mind devout, our homes will forests seem[5].”
A more literal translation would be:—
“Dwelling in a hallowed forest, nay fellowship with deer, pure diet of
fruit, and stones for beds from day to day, such are the requirements of
those who desire to worship Hara; but for those whose minds are entirely
fixed and pacified, forest or house is alike.” (No. 33, ed. Gopinâth.)
I give a few more verses in prose translations, as more faithful, though
less perfect than poetry:—
“The earth has been dug by me in hope of treasure, the ore of the
mountains has been melted, the ocean has been crossed, and princes have
been zealously served, nights have been passed among the graves with a
mind bent on propitiating by charms; yet have I not obtained a doit. O
Desire, leave me now!” (No. 4, ed. Gopinâth.)
“Even if they have longer remained with us, the objects of sense are
sure to vanish. What difference is there in the separation, that man
should not forsake them himself? If they pass away by themselves, they
cause the greatest pain to the mind, but if we forsake them ourselves,
they cause endless happiness and peace.” (No. 16, ed. Gopinâth.)
“When pride is failing, when our wealth has departed, when the beggar
has gone away disappointed, when our kinsmen have vanished and our
friends have disappeared, and youth is slowly waning, one thing only
befits the wise man—to dwell somewhere in the arbour of a cave in the
valley of a high mountain where the rocks are sanctified by the milk
(waters) of the daughter of _G_ahnu (Ga_m_gâ).” (No. 31.)
“In health there is fear of disease, in family-pride fear of a fall, in
wealth fear of the king, in silence fear of disregard, in strength fear
of an enemy, in beauty fear of old age, in knowledge fear of blame, in
virtue fear of calumny, in life fear of death; everything on earth is
surrounded by fear; freedom from desires alone gives us freedom from
fear.” (No. 116.)
“Where before there were many in the house, there is left only one;
where there was one, there are now many, and in the end there is not
left even one; thus does Kâla (time), shaking the day and the night like
two dice, play cleverly, together with Kâlî (death), with mortals as
with figures on a board.” (No. 38.)
“Delights are unsteady like lightning, flashing from the midst of a veil
of clouds, life is fleeting like a shower from a mass of clouds that
have been torn asunder by the wind; the caresses of youth enjoyed by man
are fickle. O ye wise, when you have pondered this, set your heart
quickly on Yoga that can be gained by perfection of meditation and
firmness.” (No. 53.)
“You are I, and I am you, such was formerly our mind; what has happened
now that you are you and I am I?” (No. 63.)
“What good is there in the Vedas, the Sm_ri_tis, the reciting of the
Purâ_n_as, and all the tedious _S_âstras, or in the trouble of
performing sacrifices which are to reward us with an abode in the
arbours of the gardens of Svarga? If we except only the compassing of an
entrance into that place where there is bliss in oneself and which is
like the fire at the end of the world which destroys all that produces
pains by means of the fetters of existence, everything else is a mere
matter of bargain.” (No. 79.)
“O mother Earth, father Wind, friend Light, kinsman Water, brother Sky,
I fold my hands in adoration to you. I, with whom the burden of all
ignorance has been cast off by means of bright and spotless knowledge;
I, shining with increase of good works produced through contact with
you, I now melt away in the Highest Spirit (Brahman).” (No. 85.)
Ideas like these, very beautiful when clothed in the beautiful language
of ancient India, seemed never to be absent from the mind of my friend,
though modified by the Christian atmosphere in which he had learnt to
breathe. He too would have been happiest in the forest, on the banks of
the Ganges—a stone for his couch, the deer for his friends, wild fruits
for his food, lost in his God, who was more to him than a mere Jehovah,
more also than the Brahman of the multitude. He might have called him
Brahman, hidden under the features, or under the Pratîka (_persona_) of
a father. He himself, however, had soared higher and discovered the true
Brahman in himself, and with all these exalted ideas he had found rest
and happiness in the humble faith of a Christian. With him Christianity
would have been perfectly compatible with Indian philosophy,
particularly the Vedânta, if only properly understood. Men such as Dr.
Henry More were Christian Platonists at Cambridge; why then should there
be no Christian Vedântists, such as Nehemiah Goreh was in the beginning
of his career? Later in life the bold eagle became tired, his pinions
faltered, and he yearned for his nest. He is at rest now from all his
doubts and earthly troubles. His name is known to few only, and will
soon be forgotten altogether, like the names of many who were martyrs to
their convictions on earth. He had the true courage of his convictions,
and in my memory he will always retain his place very near to Stanley,
Colenso, and a few others who shall remain unnamed. If he changed later
in life, I feel sure that he changed honestly, and that he was as true
in his ecstatic adorations (Upâsanâ) as he had been in his philosophy
(G_ñ_âna).
Keshub Chunder Sen.
While through Râdhâkânta I came in contact with the rigid conservative
elements of Indian society, and in Nehemiah Goreh was able to witness
the first real conquest achieved by Christianity and its concomitant
powers over the Indian mind in its highest excellence—for I doubt
whether, if left to itself, the Indian mind could reach a higher degree
of intellectual vigour than it did in Nehemiah Goreh—a new phase of
Indian life was opened to me through my long friendship with Keshub
Chunder Sen. That contact with Christianity would sooner or later
produce a fermentation in the religion of India might easily have been
foreseen. It was the same when Mohammedanism reached India. Both
Mohammedanism and Christianity were modern religions compared with
Brâhmanism, they belonged to a more advanced state of thought and
culture, and were free from many of the childish ideas almost
inseparable from an earlier stage of religion in the history of mankind.
But, strange to say, the very antiquity of the Vedic religion was looked
upon as an argument in its favour, and it certainly made its surrender
more difficult to its followers. Nânak, Kabir, Chaitanya, and other
reformers, near contemporaries of our own reformers, tried to effect a
compromise between the two religions by eliminating the glaring
imperfections of the ancient national faith of India, such as
idol-worship, animal sacrifices, &c., but retaining its sublime moral
and philosophical spirit, which, in some respects, was purer and higher
than even the doctrines of the Korân. It may be useful to glance at some
of these reformers, if only to show that Keshub Chunder Sen was not
without his predecessors.
Chaitanya.
The most important among these reformers about the beginning of the
sixteenth century was Chaitanya (1485–1527). At all events he had the
largest following, and has so even to the present day. He did not
perhaps go quite so far as Keshub Chunder Sen, but in many cases this
modern reformer seems certainly to have been influenced by the spirit of
Chaitanya, nay, in some cases, to have used almost the same words. The
followers of Chaitanya, whether they are called Gosains, Bhâgavatas,
Vairâgis, or other names, are said to form even now one-fifth of the
whole population of Bengal. Whether for rules of life or for doctrine
they still appeal to Chaitanya and to his two fellow-workers,
Advaitânanda and Nityânanda, as their highest authorities. They are
outwardly worshippers of Vish_n_u in his form of K_ri_sh_n_a, but by the
more enlightened among them, K_ri_sh_n_a or Vish_n_u is conceived as
Brahman or the Supreme Spirit. The social importance of this reform
consisted chiefly in the complete ignoring of caste. “The teacher of the
four Vedas,” Chaitanya used to say, “is not my disciple, but the
faithful _K_a_nd_âla (outcast) enjoys my friendship.” Even Mohammedans
were received as brothers in the faith, in fact the union of Hinduism
and Islam was one of the leading ideas of the time. Every true disciple
of Chaitanya had the right of begging for alms, and was expected to lead
an ascetic life. At the same time there is a verse quoted as coming from
Chaitanya, which leaves the impression that his ideas of asceticism were
not very strict. “Let all enjoy fish, broth, and women’s charms, be
happy and call upon Hari (Vish_n_u).” But if he saw no harm in the
enjoyment of life, resembling in this another honest reformer, Luther,
he protested and warned his disciples against all worldly pleasures that
would draw away their thoughts from K_ri_sh_n_a. According to an article
lately published in the “Journal of the Buddhist Text Society,” 1897,
Vol. V, Part 4, p. 87, Chaitanya taught, and his followers continue to
teach that the original cause of all things was Wisdom. That Divine Soul
was believed to vivify all, and to be the Lord of all and the Protector
of all. He is called spiritual, pure, and full of ecstasy. The Vedas
chant His praises unceasingly. It is this Being, he taught, whom we call
K_ri_sh_n_a. This Supreme Being has three phases: (1) Brahman, the light
of the world that gives vitality to all. The sages try to reach Him by
wisdom. (2) Paramâtman, he who is sentient, omnipresent, and omniscient.
The sages go to Him through contemplation or Yoga; and (3) Bhagavat or
the Personal God, who manifests Himself in the material world. Men try
to reach Him through Bhakti (devotion).
Some ascribe creation to matter: but this, according to Chaitanya, is
impossible. What power has inert matter, he asks, that can produce so
grand a creation, filled with wisdom and beauty? It is the will of an
Almighty Being that brought this universe into existence. It is
impossible for man even to think of His greatness.
The human soul, the _G_îvâtman, is, according to Chaitanya, an
infinitesimal portion, like a ray, of the Divine Being. God is like a
blazing fire, and the souls are like sparks that come out of it. Deluded
by Mâyâ, i.e. the attractions of the world, the _G_îvâtman forgets its
own nature: but when it has recognised the transitory nature of all
things, it goes up again to its Maker.
Many ascribe to this _G_îvâtman the attributes of God. But this,
according to Chaitanya, cannot be, because it has an individual
character. _S_ruti (revelation) says that he who thinks that he has
found out the nature of God knows nothing of Him.
Chaitanya says that it is the duty of every man to adore K_ri_sh_n_a and
to perform good deeds without any expectation of rewards. Bhakti
(devotion) is the channel that carries man to K_ri_sh_n_a. When a
devotee says, “O Lord, I am yours,” it is then only that he can attain
K_ri_sh_n_a.
Lastly, it must be the aim of every man to gain K_ri_sh_n_a’s love, and
Bhakti is the way that leads to it. Chaitanya defined Bhakti as an
uninterrupted tendency of the heart towards God, just like the flow of a
river towards the sea.
It is difficult to understand how the followers of Mohammed could ever
have been induced to use the name of K_ri_sh_n_a for that of Allah, but
we know that it was so, and the same religious amalgamation between
Hinduism and Islam was attempted by Nânak, the contemporary of
Chaitanya. The Sîkhs, though much changed in time, are the followers of
that reformer.
Nânak and the Sîkhs.
It is a pity that we possess so little trustworthy information about the
original Sîkh reformers. Their sacred book, the Granth, exists, nay, it
has even been translated into English by the late Dr. Trumpp. But it
turns out now that Dr. Trumpp was by no means a trustworthy translator.
The language of the Granth is generally called old Penjâbi, and it was
supposed that a scholar who knew modern Penjâbi might easily learn to
understand the language as it was four hundred years ago. But that is
not the case. The language of the Granth is said to be full of local
dialectic varieties and forgotten idioms, so much so that it has been
said to be without any grammar at all. That is, of course, impossible,
for there is method even in what we might call grammatical madness, and
we may hope that such a method may in time be discovered. Mr.
Macauliffe, who has spent many years among the Sîkhs, and has with the
help of their priests paid much attention to their Granth, has given us
some most interesting and beautiful specimens of their poetry which form
part of their sacred book. Though Nânak was the chief founder of the new
religion of the Sîkhs, that is of the _S_ishyas or disciples, other
well-known poets, such as A_m_gada, Râmdâs, Râmânand, Kabîr, Farîd (a
Mussulman), and Mira Bir, a queen, are mentioned as his helpers and as
contributors to the Granth. Râmânand, a Brâhman, or rather a Sannyâsin
who had renounced many of the old ceremonial restrictions, on being
asked one day to attend a Hindu religious worship, wrote the following
lines:—
“Whither shall I go? I am happy at home,
My heart will not go with me; it has become a cripple.
One day my heart desired to go;
I ground sandal, took attar of roses and many perfumes,
And was proceeding to worship in the temple of Brahm;
But my spiritual guide showed me God in my heart.
Wherever I go I find only water and stones (for bathing and
worshipping);
But thou, O God, art equally contained in everything.
The Vedas and the Purâ_n_as I have all seen and searched.
Go thou thither, if God be not here (in the heart).
O true Guru, I am a sacrifice unto Thee,
Who hast cut away all my perplexities and doubts.
Râmânand’s Lord is the all-pervading God,
The Guru’s word has cut away millions of acts (sins).”
Another and perhaps the greatest among the disciples of Nânak was Kabîr,
i.e. the Great. He was strongly opposed to idol-worship. “If God is a
stone,” he used to say, “I will worship a mountain.” Idol-worship was,
of course, the greatest stumbling-block in the way of a reconciliation
between Hinduism and Islam. Still the defenders of idol-worship and the
iconoclastic Mohammedans managed to come to a certain understanding.
They agreed to speak each his own language, but to feel that they meant
the same. Why cannot Christians and Hindus do the same, particularly
when the best spirits among the Hindus at least, have adopted a language
which shows that they are very near the Kingdom of God, nearer, I
believe, than thousands who are baptized and call themselves Christians?
It is most interesting to watch the compromise made between Hinduism and
Islam four hundred years ago and to compare it with the compromise
between Hinduism and Christianity that is now so eloquently advocated by
the followers of Rammohun Roy and Keshub Chunder Sen.
Kabîr said:—
“What availeth devotion, what penance, what fasting and worship,
To him in whose heart there is worldly love?
O man, apply thy heart to God:
Thou shalt not obtain Him by artifice.
Put away covetousness and regard for what people say of thee.
Renounce lust, wrath, and pride.
By the religious ceremonies (of the Hindus) conceit is produced,
That if they join and worship a stone (they shall receive salvation).
Saith Kabîr, by serving Him I have obtained the Lord.
By becoming simple in heart I have met my God.
How many wear the bark of trees as clothes! What if men dwell in the
forest?
What availeth it, O man, to offer incense to idols and drench thy body
with ablutions?
O my soul, I know that thou shalt depart.
O silly one, know God!
Wherever I look I see none but those who are entangled in worldly love.
Men of Divine knowledge and meditation, great preachers, all are
engrossed in this world’s affairs.
Saith Kabîr, without the name of the One God, this world is blinded by
Mammon.
By the favour of the Guru the slave Kabîr loveth God.
O Brethren, the Vedas and Mohammedan books are lies, and free not the
mind from anxiety.
If for a moment thou restrain thy mind, God shall appear before thee.
O man, search thy heart daily, that thou mayest not fall into despair.
This world is a magic show which hath no tangibility.
Men read falsehood and are pleased; they quarrel over what they do not
understand.
The truth is, the Creator is contained in the Creation. He is not of a
blue colour, like K_ri_sh_n_a.”
Nânak himself expresses his devotion to the true God in the following
words:—
“Were a mansion of pearls erected and inlaid with gems for me,
Perfumed with musk, fragrant aloe, and sandal, so as to confer delight—
May it not be that on beholding it I should forget Thee and not remember
Thy name!
My soul burneth without God.
I have ascertained from my Guru that there is no other shelter than
thou, O God.
Were the earth to be studded with diamonds and rubies, and my couch to
be similarly adorned,
Were fascinating damsels, whose faces shine with jewels, to shed lustre
and diffuse pleasure,
May it not be that on beholding them, I should forget Thee, and not
remember Thy name!”
The following verses will show what was in the mind of Nânak and of his
followers, and we know from history how well their labours for
conciliation between Hindus and Mohammedans succeeded, at least for a
time, and how what seems to us impossible at present was fully achieved
by them. Rammohun Roy and Keshub Chunder Sen would gladly have joined in
the following words of the Granth:—
“Some men are Hindus and some Musalmans.
Among the latter are Rawazis, Imams, and Sufis; know that all men are
of the same caste.
The Creator and the Beneficent are the same; the Provider and the
Merciful are the same, there is no difference, let no one suppose
so even by mistake.
Worship the One God, He is the one Divine Guru after all; know that
His form is one, and that He is the one light diffused in all.
The Temple and the Mosque are the same, the Hindu worship and the
Musalman prayer are the same; all men are the same; it is through
error they appear different.
Allah and Alekh are the same, the Purâ_n_as and the Korân are the
same; they are all alike, it is the One God who created all.”
No wonder then that Rammohun Roy and Keshub Chunder Sen should have been
hopeful that their endeavours also might be crowned by the same success
as Nânak’s, and that their new Church would have included not only the
believers in the Vedas and the Korân, but the believers in the Bible
also. They both tried very hard to come to an understanding with the
representatives of Christianity in India. It is the same even now. There
are men who can speak in the name of the Indian people at large, and
whose example would tell on the masses who in every country have to be
led by their own men of light and leading. Mozoomdar, the natural
successor of Keshub Chunder Sen, would not recede a step from the
position which his great predecessors took up with regard to
Christianity. The idea that his Samâj was in any sense opposed to
Christianity or jealous of it would be scouted by him as it was by
Keshub Chunder Sen. “Woe unto me,” Keshub wrote, “if ever I harboured in
my mind the remotest desire to found a new sect, and thus add to the
already accumulated evils of sectarianism! Woe unto us, if I ever
conceived the project of setting up a movement against the Church of
Christ! Perish these lips if they utter a word of rebellion against
Jesus. And let the genial currents of my life-blood be curdled at this
very moment, if I glory in the hateful ambition of rising against my
master. A new sect! God forbid. We preach not a new sect, but the death
of sectarianism and the universal reconciliation of all churches. But
the very idea of an eclectic church, it will be contended, is
anti-Christian. To mix up Christ with the hundred and one creeds of the
world is to destroy and deny Christ. To mix Christ with what? With
error, with impurity? No. Mix Christ with all that is Christian in other
creeds. Surely that is not un-Christian, far less anti-Christian. In
uniting the East and the West, in uniting Asiatic and European faith and
character, the Church of the New Dispensation works faithfully upon the
lines laid down by Christ, and only seeks to amalgamate the Western
Christ and the Eastern Christ. It is not a treaty of Christ with
anti-Christ that is proposed, but the reconciliation of all in Christ.
It is not the mixture of purity with impurity, of truth with falsehood,
of light with darkness, but the fusion of all types of purity, truth,
and light in all systems of faith into one integral whole. It is the
expurgation of anti-Christian elements from the so-called Christian and
heathen creeds of the world, and the amalgamation of the pure Christian
residuum left. Such is the pure Christian electicism of the Church of
the New Dispensation.”
Men of the type of Rammohun Roy could not, and did not, shut their eyes
to the superiority of Christianity from an ethical point of view. They
despised in their heart the idols, as worshipped by the vulgar, they saw
through the pretensions of their priests, and had long learnt to doubt
the efficacy of their sacrifices. But their social institutions were so
intimately interwoven with their religion that it required no small
amount of moral courage openly to break with it, and to lose caste, that
is, to become estranged from all relations, friends, and acquaintances.
But while they clearly perceived that their religion was behind the
time, and, as a social institution, could not stand long against
Christianity, they were by no means inclined to admit that from a
philosophical point of view also it was inferior to Christianity. Then
was the time when Christianity might have stepped forth in its strong
armour and gained its greatest victories in India. Rammohun Roy and his
friends were ready. He himself spoke with the greatest humility of the
ancient Hindu religion; nay, in conversations with his English friends,
he used language far too depreciatory, as it seems to me, of the
religious and philosophical inheritance of India. Then was the time to
act, but there were no Christian ambassadors to grasp the hands that
were stretched out. Such missionaries as were in India then, wanted
unconditional surrender and submission, not union or conciliation. In
many cases they were themselves fettered by superstitions which men of
the type of Rammohun Roy had long discarded. We keep religion and
philosophy in different compartments, while with men such as Rammohun
Roy the two were one, and the religion of the Veda led naturally on to
the philosophy of the Vedânta, which became in turn the firm foundation
of their religion. The Vedânta philosophy was so broad that it could
well have served as a common ground for religions so different as
Hinduism and Christianity undoubtedly are, both in the form of _Gñ_âna
(knowledge) and of Bhakti (devotion). Rammohun Roy went so far that,
when he was in England, it was doubtful whether he, in his mind a
Vedântist, was not in his heart a Christian. He spoke with the highest
respect and enthusiasm of Christianity, he carefully studied the New
Testament, and he willingly joined in Christian worship. Though after
his death the Brâhmanic thread was found on his breast, this does not
prove that he would not have been willing to surrender that also, if he
had met with a real response from his Christian friends on more
important subjects. We shall see that some of his followers surrendered
even that outward badge of Brâhmanism, but they could not surrender that
ineradicable belief in the substantial identity of the eternal element
in God and in man. A man like Athanasius might easily have brought them
to call this consubstantiality the divine sonship of man, if that
expression had been fully explained to the Vedântists. But no one was
there, nay, no one seems even now bold enough to speak out, and to
separate the vital kernel from the perishable crust of religion. That
vital kernel was more clearly seen by Rammohun Roy than by many of the
missionaries who came to convert him. In Rammohun Roy’s translation of
the Upanishads we can clearly see that in his view of the Deity and of
the relation between the human and the Divine he had never yielded an
inch of his old Hindu convictions, though his practical religion was
saturated with Christian sentiments. The same mixture of Christian and
Hindu thoughts and Christian sentiments may be seen in nearly all the
recent reformers of the ancient Hindu religion. The history of these
attempted reforms has been so often written that I need not enter more
fully into it, beyond repeating my conviction that great opportunities
were lost then for planting Christianity on the old and fertile soil of
India.
As to Keshub Chunder Sen he was more of a true Christian than many who
call themselves Christians, and who are Christians in the ordinary sense
of the word. And he knew it and did not deny it. Only he thought that
Christianity should not be confined to a small sect, but should
comprehend all religions. As Nânak had declared that what was wanted was
a religion in which there were all religions, Keshub Chunder Sen also
held that Jesus and Moses, Chaitanya and Buddha, Mohammed and Nânak
should all become one before God. His New Dispensation was to embrace
and unify all religions, all scriptures, and all prophets in God, and
India was to be the birth-place of that all-embracing religion, because
it was the birth-place of the Vedic and the Buddhist religions, and the
meeting-place of Christianity and Islam. In one of the last numbers of
the “New Dispensation,” the organ of the followers of Keshub Chunder
Sen, we read:—
“Who rules India? What power is that which sways the destinies of India
at the present moment? You are mistaken if you think that it is the
ability of Lord Lytton in the cabinet or the military genius of Sir
Frederick Haines in the field that rules India. It is not politics, it
is not diplomacy that has laid a firm hold of the Indian heart. It is
not the glittering bayonet nor the fiery cannon of the British army that
can make our people loyal. No. None of these can hold India in
subjection. Armies never conquered the heart of a nation. Muscular force
and prowess never made a man’s head and heart bow before a foreign
power. No. If you wish to secure the attachment and allegiance of India,
it must be through spiritual influence and moral suasion. And such
indeed has been the case in India. You cannot deny that your hearts have
been touched, conquered, and subjugated by a superior power. That power
need I tell you—is Christ. It is Christ who rules British India, and not
the British Government. England has sent out a tremendous moral force in
the life and character of that mighty prophet, to conquer and hold this
vast empire. None but Jesus ever deserved this bright, this precious
diadem, India, and Jesus shall have it.”
Is it not time to lay hold of these outstretched hands, and not reject
them any longer with a cold _non possumus_?
After Rammohun Roy’s death there was a pause, for nothing moves in India
without a leader, and, though there were followers of the enlightened
Râjah, there was for a time no leader of sufficient strength to inspire
enthusiasm and to command respect. What happens generally to religious
reformers happened in India also. They all agreed in wishing for reform
in general, but when it came to settling special reforms, some of no
importance whatever, they soon diverged in different directions.
Those who are acquainted with the Vedas, I mean with the hymns and
Brâhma_n_as, find it hard to understand how people of enlightened
intellect could have hesitated for years and years before deciding
against their revealed character. These hymns are not only old, they are
antiquated and effete, they have no right, like megatheria of old, to
hover about in the strata in which we live. We are ready to give them a
place of honour in our museums, but we cannot allow ourselves to be
swayed by them any longer. This may seem a harsh judgment, especially as
coming from one who has devoted the best years of his life to the
publication of the Rig-Veda, and who certainly has never regretted
having done so, as little as he would regret having been the first to
unearth the bones of the oldest of all megatheria, or the ruins of
Babylon or Nineveh. I am not unaware that there are sparks of profound
truth in some of the Vedic hymns, but they form a small portion only of
that large collection, and have been brought into focus in the
Upanishads and in the Vedânta-Sûtras. With these neither Rammohun Roy
nor Keshub Chunder Sen nor Mozoomdar would be willing to part, but to
break with anything called Veda was by no means an easy task, even for
men of enlightened minds, nor can there be any doubt that the surrender
when it took place at last, involved an enormous sacrifice. All that
Keshub himself tells us in one of his Lectures is that there was a
terrible strife, the strife of conscience against associations of mind
and place; duty against prepossessions; truth against cherished
convictions. But conscience triumphed over all; the Vedas were thrown
overboard by Babu Debendranâth Tagore; and the Brâhma-Samâj bade
farewell to their Bible. This step was particularly painful, because all
these struggles had to go on before the eyes of foreign observers. In
their controversies with the advocates of Christianity, who claimed all
the privileges of a revelation for their own Bible, the invariable
answer of men like Rammohun Roy had been for a long time “that the Veda
also had for thousands of years been considered as divinely inspired.”
And who could prove that it was not? Arguments in support of the
revealed character of the Veda were quickly at hand, for they had been
carefully prepared by the ancient theologians of India. And, if the
truth must be told, the ideas which missionaries connected with
revelation were mostly not very different from those familiar to the
Brâhmans. “What argument is there,” the Indian apologists asked, “in
support of the revealed character of your New Testament which is not
equally applicable to the Vedas?” The Buddhists had already said the
same to the Brâhmans, though for the sake of argument only, hundreds of
years before. “If your Kapila is inspired,” they said, “why not our
Buddha?” In the same spirit the Brâhmans now said, “If your Christian
revelation is claimed as infallible, why should not the Vedic revelation
be the same?” The fact was that on one side, as well as on the other,
the idea of revelation had lost its original and true meaning; had
become purely mechanical, a mere name to conjure with. But the more
revelation had become something miraculous in the eyes of the people of
India, the more creditable was it that the members of the Brâhma-Samâj,
founded by Rammohun Roy, after becoming better acquainted with their own
sacred writings than they ever had been before, should solemnly have
declared in the year 1850, that the claim of being divinely inspired
could no longer be maintained in favour of the hymns and Brâhma_n_as of
the Veda. I know of no other instance in the whole history of religions
that equals the honesty and self-denial of the members of the
Brâhma-Samâj in their throwing down and levelling the ramparts of their
own fortress, and opening the gates wide for any messengers of truth.
Their honesty will appear all the more creditable when we remember that
they were by no means inclined to discard the Vedas altogether, but only
declared that reverence for the Deity prevented them from claiming any
longer anything like divine workmanship or penmanship for the whole of
it. It is a pity that we know so little of the mental struggles through
which men like Keshub Chunder Sen and his friends had to pass before
they could bring themselves to let go the chief anchor of their
religious faith. But Hindus keep their agonies to themselves. No doubt
they lose thereby much of that human sympathy which we feel for others
who lay open their inmost hearts before us, while slowly surrendering
their old for a new, a purer, and a better faith. It is very rare that
we are allowed an insight into the home-life and heart-life of eminent
Hindus. The female members of their families, the mothers, wives, and
sisters, who with us take often so prominent a place in religious
struggles, are excluded from our sight altogether. But we know that in
India also their influence as mothers and wives is very great. I have
several times heard from my more enlightened friends in India that they
would like to come to England, or would like to do this or that, but
that they shrink from offending their wives or mothers. Women in India,
ignorant as they may be, wield great power in their own homes, and it is
a common saying that it is easier to defy H. M.’s Secretary of State
than to defy one’s own mother-in-law. Though mothers and wives are much
less enlightened than their husbands and sons, it is for that very
reason that they feel the apostasy of their beloved all the more deeply.
It is everywhere a more severe trial for a woman than for a man to lose
caste, and to lose caste means more in India than it does with us. When
now and then we catch a glimpse of what is going on in the sanctuary of
an Indian home, we learn that human nature is the same everywhere. Thus
we read of the old mother of Keshub Chunder Sen, who must have felt her
son’s discarding of his old religion very keenly, standing by his
deathbed and lamenting that she, poor sinner, should be left behind,
while the dearest jewel of her heart was being plucked away from her!
And the dying one answers, “Don’t say so, dear mother. All that is good
in me I have inherited from you; all that I call my own is yours.” So
saying, he took the dust of her feet and put it upon his head.
When Keshub Chunder Sen arrived in England, he was received with open
arms, particularly by the Unitarians. Wherever he spoke or preached, he
attracted immense audiences, and his command of the English language,
nay his real eloquence produced a deep impression on the religious
public in London and elsewhere. I regretted that there was no
opportunity of his addressing the young men when he came to Oxford. I
was very anxious also that Dr. Pusey should see him, and the
kind-hearted old Doctor, friendly as he always was to me, was willing to
receive him and to hear what he had to say. Though Dr. Pusey was a
scholar, and, as such, above many of the prejudices of his followers, he
was not particularly pleased with the speeches made by Keshub Chunder
Sen, nor was his close relation with the Unitarians to his theological
taste. Still he received him with friendly sympathy, and some very
serious questions of religion were discussed by the two men with great
freedom. I never kept memoranda even of such important meetings and
discussions at which I happened to be present. I thought they would
remain engraved on my memory. But now, after the lapse of so many years,
I find that it is not so. I have indeed the general impression remaining
in my mind, but I cannot trust myself to repeat the actual words that
passed, and it would not be fair to give what one thinks was said by
such men as Dr. Pusey and Keshub Chunder Sen, when brought face to face,
as if it were what was actually said by them. In conversation I have
often repeated what passed between them, and this very repetition is apt
to mislead a poor memory like my own. I know I cannot trust it as to
minute details. I remember, however, very distinctly, how at the end of
their conversation, the question turned up, whether those who were born
and bred as members of a non-Christian religion could be saved. Keshub
Chunder Sen and myself pleaded for it, Dr. Pusey held his ground against
us. Much of course depended on what was meant by salvation, and Keshub
defined it as an uninterrupted union with God. “My thoughts,” he said,
“are never away from God;” and he added, “my life is a constant prayer,
and there are but few moments in the day when I am not praying to God.”
This, uttered with great warmth and sincerity, softened Dr. Pusey’s
heart. “Then you are all right,” he said, and they parted as friends,
both deeply moved.
I must say for Dr. Pusey, much as I differed from his views, and much as
I regretted some of the steps he took at Oxford, where his influence for
a time was very great, he always tolerated me, and befriended me on
different occasions. We had a common ground as scholars, and whenever I
seemed to go too far for him, I well remember his looking up to the
clouds and saying, “Oh, I see you are a German still.” When my friends
first submitted to the Delegates of the University Press at Oxford my
plan of publishing, whether at Oxford or at Vienna, translations of all
the Sacred Books of the East, Dr. Pusey, being a Delegate and a very
influential Delegate, strongly supported my plan, only stipulating that
the Old and New Testaments should not be included. In vain did I explain
to him that these two books could never have a better setting than in
the frame formed by the other Sacred Books, and my firm conviction that
the time would come when the gap thus left would be greatly regretted;
but he remained unshaken. I had to give up a wish that was very near to
my heart in order to save the rest, but I still hope that hereafter
these two, the most important of the Sacred Books of the East, will find
their proper place in my collection. Nothing will serve better to show
the difference between these and the rest of the Sacred Books, and to
make us see both what they share in common with the rest, and what it is
that has given to them the overwhelming influence which they have
exercised on the highest destinies of the human race.
When Keshub Chunder Sen was staying with me at Oxford, I had a good
opportunity of watching him. I always found him perfectly tranquil, even
when most in earnest, and all his opinions were clear and settled. He
never claimed any merit for the sacrifices he had made, he rather smiled
at what was past, and seldom complained of his opponents, except when
they accused him of having been a traitor to his own cause by allowing
his daughter to be betrothed and married to the Mahârâjah of Kuch Behar,
before she had reached, by a few months, the marriageable age which he
and his friends had themselves fixed for all members of the
Brâhma-Samâj. This is too long and too complicated a story to be told
here; but, whether the father had shown any paternal weakness or not,
there was surely no cause for his former friends to separate from him on
so paltry a ground, to insult him and to break his heart, and in the end
to produce a fatal schism in the Brâhma-Samâj. When Keshub Chunder Sen
introduced new reforms, surrendering the Vedas, abandoning the Brâhmanic
thread, sanctioning widow marriages, and forbidding child-marriages, his
society, hitherto called the Brâhma-Samâj, assumed the new name of the
Brâhma-Samâj of India (1861), while the more conservative Brâhmas[6]
under Debendranâth Tagore, were distinguished by the name of Âdi
Brâhma-Samâj, or the first Brâhma-Samâj. Those who later on separated
again from Keshub Chunder Sen, because they disapproved of the marriage
of his daughter, and objected to his claiming, or seeming to claim for
himself the gift of inspiration and a higher authority than was right
for any human being, assumed the new name of Sadhâra_n_a Brâhma-Samâj or
the Catholic Society of Brâhmas. These different sections carry on the
same work, each in its own way. Some see in these divisions signs of
healthy vitality, others regret them, as impeding the more rapid advance
of a powerful army. The points of difference are so few and so
insignificant that it only requires a strong arm to weld them together
once more. Protâp Chunder Mozoomdar seemed pointed out for this, and it
is to be hoped that he may still succeed in the great work of
conciliation.
Many of those who bore the burden of the day, and without whose ready
help Keshub Chunder Sen would hardly have been able to achieve what he
did achieve in his short life, are by this time dead and forgotten. Even
Debendranâth Tagore’s constant help and patronage are seldom recognised
as they deserve to be in the history of the Brâhma-Samâj. The memory of
Hurrish Chunder Mookerjee has lately been revived by the republication
of his Three Lectures on Religious Subjects (Calcutta, 1887); and it was
his recent death (August, 1898) that reminded the friends of India of
the sacrifices made by Râmtonoo Lahari and others in support of the
reforms initiated by Rammohun Roy.
Râmtonoo Lahari.
Râmtonoo[7] was born in 1813, and must therefore have been older than
Debendranâth Tagore, who is generally considered as the Nestor of the
Brâhma-Samâj.
He was a pupil of David Hare, who had undertaken the philanthropic work
of educating native youths, and after spending a few years at his
school, he was admitted into the Hindu College at Calcutta, which was
established in 1817 as the first fruit of the annual vote of £10,000 for
educational purposes insisted on by the English Parliament. The teacher
who chiefly influenced the young men was D. Rozario, who, though branded
by the clergy as an infidel and as a devil of the Thomas Paine school,
was worshipped by his pupils as an incarnation of goodness and kindness.
It was Christian morality, as preached by D. Rozario, that appealed most
strongly to the heart of Râmtonoo and his fellow-pupils, many of them
very distinguished in later life, the fathers and grandfathers of the
present generation of Indian reformers. Râmtonoo became a model among
his friends in all matters pertaining to morality and conscience,
penitence and sincerity being the watchwords of his early career, vice
and hypocrisy the constant objects of his denunciation, both among his
equals and among those of higher rank and authority. Even the founder of
the Brâhma-Samâj did not escape his reproof, on account of what he
considered want of moral courage to act up to his convictions. As to
himself, he denounced caste as a great social and moral evil, and silent
submission to superstitious customs as reprehensible weakness. In order
to shame those who denounced beef-eating as sinful, he and his friends
would actually parade the streets with beef in their hands, inviting the
people to take it and eat it. The Brâhmanical thread which was retained
by the members of the Brâhma-Samâj as late as 1861, was openly discarded
by him as early as 1851. And we must remember that in those days such
open apostasy was almost a question of life or death, and that Rammohun
Roy was in danger of assassination in the very streets of Calcutta. It
is true that European officials respected and supported Râmtonoo, but
among his own countrymen he was despised and shunned. However, he
continued his career undisturbed by friend or foe, and guided by his own
conscience only. Poor as he was, he desired no more than to earn a small
pittance as a teacher in public and private schools. Later in life he
was attracted to the new Brâhma-Samâj, and became a close friend of
Keshub Chunder Sen. When he saw others who spent much time in prayer he
considered them as the most favoured of mortals, for pure and
conscientious as he was, he felt himself so sinful that he could but
seldom utter a word or two in the spirit of what he considered true
prayer before the eyes of the Lord. While cultivating his little garden
he was found lost in devotion at the sight of a full-blown rose, and
while singing a hymn in adoration of God, his whole countenance seemed
to beam with a heavenly light. One of his friends tells us that one
morning early he rushed into his room like a madman and dragged him out
of bed, saying that when the whole nature was ablaze with the light and
fire of God’s glory, it was a shame to lie in bed. He took the sleeper
to the next field, and pointing his fingers to the rising sun and the
beautiful trees and foliage, he recited with the greatest rapture—what?
Not a hymn of the Veda, but some verses from Wordsworth. When his end
approached, his old friend Debendranâth Tagore went to take leave of
him, and when he left him, he cried: “Now the gates of heaven are open
to you, and the gods are waiting with their outstretched arms to receive
you to the glorious region.” Did the old Vedântist really say “the
gods”? I doubt it, unless he used the language of Mâyâ, as we also do
sometimes, knowing that his friend would interpret it in the right
sense. I see, however, that Mozoomdar also speaks of his spirit reposing
in his God—showing how the old habits of thought and old words cling to
us and never lose their meaning altogether.
Many more names might be mentioned, but to us they would hardly be more
than names. Debendranâth Tagore is the only one left who could give us a
history of that important religious movement in India, and of the
principal actors in it. But he is too old now to undertake such a task.
The others, to use the language of their friends, have, like the stars
that rise in the Eastern sky, after completing their appointed journey,
sunk below the visible horizon of death, to pass from the hemisphere of
time to that of eternity! But though their names may be forgotten, their
good works will remain, for “Good deed,” as they say in India, “never
dies.”
Dayânanda Sarasvatî.
One more Samâj should be mentioned here to prevent confusion, namely,
the Ârya-Samâj. This movement, which was inaugurated by another man, of
the name of Dayânanda Sarasvatî, was proclaimed as a revival of the
ancient Vedic religion. Dayânanda held fast to his belief in the Veda as
a divine revelation, though he understood by Veda the hymns only, and
admitted that the Brâhma_n_as showed clear traces of human workmanship.
The followers of Dayânanda are quite aware that the Vedas were composed
long before the art of writing was discovered in India, and they
strongly object to the Veda being styled book-revelation, which they
evidently consider as an inferior kind of revelation. They say, what
they have no doubt learnt from European scholars, that the Vedas were
not received in the form of books, but were revealed to the four
principal Rishis. But their antagonists of the Brâhma-Samâj rejoin that,
because the Vedas were committed to paper only a few thousand years
back, it does not follow that they do not partake of the nature of
book-revelation. They ask point blank whether Dayânanda and his
followers believe that the very words and combinations of words forming
the hymns of the Vedas as we now find them in MSS. were uttered by God
Himself? As long as they hold to this belief, the followers of Keshub
Chunder Sen accuse them of being believers in book-revelation, quite as
much as if they held that the bound volumes of the Veda had tumbled down
from heaven. Their discussions on that point are often very ingenious,
and may prove instructive even to our own apologists. Dayânanda himself
and his followers disclaim any indebtedness to Western ideas, and they
have gained many adherents, chiefly on the ground that, though pervaded
by a reforming spirit, their Samâj has always remained thoroughly
national. Dayânanda denounced idolatry and polytheism, he even
repudiated caste, and allowed widow marriages. This required great
courage, but, being a liberal-conservative, he was naturally attacked
both by liberals, for not going far enough, and by conservatives, for
going too far. His followers believe that he was actually poisoned by
his enemies. I am told that, at present, this revival of the ancient
national religion has gained and is gaining far more support in India
than the reforms initiated by Rammohun Roy and Keshub Chunder Sen.
National feelings are strong in religious matters also. But though his
doctrines may be more popular, there is more real vitality, more real
reasonableness in the ideas of the other Brâhma-Samâjes. If they would
only combine under a strong leader, they would, I believe, soon carry
with them the wavering followers of Dayânanda; for in India whoever has
once taken the first step, and surrendered his belief in the revealed
character of even a part of the Veda, will easily be driven to take
another step and adopt human reason as the only guide to human truth.
We know little of the personal character of Dayânanda, and what we know
sounds very apocryphal. Though I was told soon after his death that he
had been poisoned by the Brâhmans, who were afraid of his sweeping
social reforms, I am now told by an Indian friend of mine that it is
supposed that his death was caused by the dancing-girls who, at the
instigation of Dayânanda, had been placed under strict _surveillance_ by
the Mahârâjah of Jayapura. Their stipends had been stopped, and they are
supposed to have enticed a young Brâhman cook to poison their enemy. The
cook is said to have afterwards committed suicide. This though only a
rumour among rumours, would certainly put a different aspect on
Dayânanda’s sudden death. He must have been a powerful man, and he knew
how to be a leader of men. His ignorance of English deprived him of much
that would have been helpful to him, and would have kept him from some
of his wild ideas about the Veda. He maintained that all wisdom was to
be found in it, down to the discovery of the power of steam and its
application to steam engines for railways; and this thousands of years
B.C.! He was still more unfortunate in falling, for a time, an easy prey
to Madame Blavatsky’s spiritual fascinations.
For some time he understood her as little as she understood him, and
that is saying a good deal. But when at last they came to understand
each other, there followed a breach that could never be healed. The life
of Dayânanda, published under the authority of the so-called
Theosophists, which I accepted formerly as genuine, has been
discredited, and we shall probably never have a real biography of the
man, for biography in India seems to share the fate of history; either
it tells us nothing, or what it tells us is fact and fiction so mixed
together that it is impossible to separate the one from the other.
We can see clearly, however, that a strong and healthy fermentation is
going on in the religious life of India, and if we consider the
geographical extent of that country and the influence that it has always
exercised on the intellectual atmosphere of the East, we can hardly
treat that religious movement, which was inaugurated by Rammohun Roy, as
indifferent to ourselves. What is wanting in it at present is the
personal element, which is always very important in India. People are
ready to be led, but they expect a leader to lead them.
I should never have understood the real motives and the true objects of
these Indian reformers but for my personal intercourse with Dvârkanâth,
years ago, and more recently with Keshub Chunder Sen. Though I did not
know Rammohun Roy personally, I knew several of his friends who had
known him at Bristol, and though I had no personal intercourse with
Dayânanda, I learnt something of him also from some of his personal
friends and followers. Still, we want to know a great deal more of the
chief actors in a reformation which affects a far larger number of human
beings than did the Reformation when it reinvigorated the whole of
Europe in the sixteenth century. Some of the questions now being
agitated in India are just the same as the questions which led in the
end to the reformation of our own Church. If with us the chief question
was that of the authority of the Bible replacing that of Pope and
Councils, with them it is the authority of the Vedas. And if it was the
first printed edition of the Greek New Testament by Erasmus that gave
the strongest impulse to our Reformation, it was the first printed
edition of the Veda that gave the most powerful incentive and the
strongest weapon to the founders of the Brâhma-Samâj in India. Let us
hope that India may be spared a Thirty Years’ War before it can
consolidate the work so courageously begun by Rammohun Roy, and so
valiantly carried on by my departed friend, Keshub Chunder Sen.
It may very naturally be asked, but what is to become of the religion of
India, and more particularly of the religion of Keshub Chunder Sen and
his friends and followers, after the very foundation of their ancient
faith has been withdrawn, or, at all events, has been deprived of its
sacred and infallible character? What would become of us if, say, by the
discovery of ancient papyri in Egypt, it were suddenly placed beyond the
reach of reasonable doubt that the Old and the New Testaments had been
composed by some well-known Rabbi or philosopher in Egypt? Keshub
Chunder Sen himself might have thought that all was gained after the
heavy incubus of the Vedas had once been removed from his conscience;
but some even of his best friends thought, not unnaturally, that all was
lost. The idea that whatever truth was contained in the Vedas remained
the same, whether with or without supernatural credentials, and that its
acceptance without any such credentials required even a greater amount
of honest conviction or faith than its acceptance on the ground of an
assurance of its superhuman authorship, and that assurance given by
human individuals like ourselves, seems never to have been entertained
by the former believers in the Veda. To most of us the Bible would
probably remain the same, whoever might be proved to have written it.
But it was not so, as far as I can see, with the members of the
Brâhma-Samâj. And yet it was felt that their Samâj or Church, if it was
to strike root, required some kind of sacred code after the momentous
decision had been taken to give up the Vedas. It must not be supposed
that these reformers were without religion; on the contrary, they had
more of the true religious spirit in them than those from whom they
differed and from whom they had separated; and it was only the strength
of their religious convictions that emboldened them to throw away their
crutches and to stand without any intermediary, whether human or divine,
before the highest object of their faith and veneration.
The first step they took was to explore some of the great religions of
the world, and to select from their sacred books the most important and
most convincing passages. This was very carefully done by Keshub Chunder
Sen himself, but this international Bible failed to appeal to the hearts
of the people of India. In religion anything that is not homegrown, or
has become familiar to us from our childhood, cannot easily be divested
of a strange and almost grotesque sound. When Bishop Colenso published
an English translation of a beautiful prayer addressed to Vish_n_u, it
produced nothing but merriment among his English readers, and why?
Because Vish_n_u was addressed in it by his well-known popular name of
Hari, and the invocation “O Harry” was too much for the risible muscles
of John Bull.
The same effect was produced on the Hindus when they were told of a God
that had made the world in six days, and rested the seventh day, or when
they heard Christ invoked as _Agnus Dei_, or Vatsa Devasya. Language is
a very important element in religion, and the slightest incongruity is
sometimes fatal. It is well known that Dr. Arnold had to part with an
excellent French master at Rugby simply because he had spoken of the
Holy Ghost as a pigeon, instead of a dove. The boys could never forget
or forgive it.
Then there was also the national sentiment, which asserts itself, even
when it seems to be most out of place. The people of India wanted to
have a national religion, and they did not see why they should have to
borrow their prayers from Jews, Christians, Parsis, or other infidels. I
strongly advised Keshub Chunder Sen, when he was staying with me at
Oxford, to have a good translation made of the New Testament in
Sanskrit, and in the more important vernaculars of India, only leaving
out the historical passages, which conveyed no meaning to the large
masses of the people in India, and any other chapters or verses which he
considered inappropriate for influencing the Indian mind. Keshub himself
was quite ready to adopt such a course, for he was really in his heart a
true follower of Christ. Once when I had asked him why he did not
declare himself publicly a Christian, he said, in a very grave and
thoughtful tone, “Suppose that thirty years hence people find out that I
was a disciple of Christ, what would be the harm? Only were I to profess
myself a Christian now, all my influence would be gone at once.” Whether
any steps were taken by Keshub to carry out the idea of a New Testament
for India I cannot tell. Something of the same kind had been done in
English by Rammohun Roy himself. The book has become very scarce, and I
doubt whether it ever influenced even his own followers.
Debendranâth Tagore, the paternal friend of Keshub Chunder Sen, adopted
a different course. He would never declare against the whole Veda, but,
discarding the hymns and the Brâhma_n_as, he made a careful selection of
important passages from the Upanishads, and published them, with an
explanation in Sanskrit, under the title of “Brâhma-dharma,” the Law of
the Brâhmas. This became for a time the new guide of the Brâhmas, even
before Keshub Chunder Sen published his selections from the Bibles of
the world, and will probably in time become their Bible, or at all
events their Book of Meditations. The primitive religious doctrines of
the Upanishads were reduced to an elaborate system of philosophy by
Bâdarâya_n_a, probably long before the Christian era, though after the
rise of Buddhism (fifth century), under the title of Vedânta-Sûtras, and
a most wonderful system it is, though difficult to describe in a few
pages. It is generally supposed that the Vedânta philosophy denies the
reality of the whole world. But this is not so; it only declares, and
even more consistently than we do, that the world is phenomenal. It is
not what it seems to be, but it would not even seem to be, unless it
reposed on the Divine, which alone is really real. That Divine, in order
to be what it is, or what it ought to be conceived to be, must,
according to the Vedânta, be free from all limitation, it must therefore
be one, with nothing beside it, it must be subjective, not objective or
perceptible by the senses, devoid therefore of all qualities. But,
instead of calling the world a mere nothing, the old Vedântists held, on
the contrary, that there could be nothing objective or phenomenal,
unless there was something real beneath it, in comparison with which
anything else might be called unreal, that is, phenomenal. Thus, even
our unreal world could not exist unless there was at the back of it a
something real; and, if we claim any reality for ourselves, we can only
do so after surrendering all that is phenomenal in ourselves, all that
is changing, perishing, and mortal. Only then can we find and recover
our true being, where alone it can be found, namely in the divine,
invisible, but ever-present, absolute Power, the uncreate, the eternal
and never-changing Being whom we call God. This was that ultimate
Reality which they called Brahman, and this was, in fact, but another
name for what European philosophers have called the Ultimate, the
Unknowable, the Great Reality, the Hidden, the Abyss, the Silence, the
Fullness, the Eternal Life—names all meaning the same, or meant for the
same, though powerless to reach what is beyond the reach of words.
Then came the very natural question, whence comes the change from the
Real to the Phenomenal, or what we call the creation? Whence the
phenomenal in place of the noumenal world? The Vedânta answer is, From
Nescience. This has been called the weak, the human, the vulnerable
point in the Vedânta; but we should remember that, in some shape or
other, that vulnerable point can never be absent from any system of
philosophy. I doubt whether there are many founders of philosophies who
have disguised it better than Bâdarâya_n_a and his predecessors in the
Upanishads. Nescience, they say, is neither real nor unreal. It is, but
it cannot be called real, because it can be destroyed, and is to be
destroyed by Vidyâ, science, i.e. the Vedânta philosophy; yet it cannot
be called unreal, for we see its effects in all the phenomenal world.
This nescience must not be taken for the ignorance of the individual
man, or for his unacquaintance with the Vedânta philosophy. It is
something inherent in human nature. Brahman itself is affected by it
indirectly, but not directly. Brahman, as conceived by us, may be said
to be for a time under its sway. A power such as this nescience was sure
to yield to the mythopoeic influence of language, and to become _she_,
as it did under the name of Mâyâ (illusion, magic), or even of _S_akti,
_potentia_.
But whether that impulse which produced the phenomenal world is called
Avidyâ (nescience), or Mâyâ (illusion), or _S_akti (_potentia_), it was
and is the aim of Vidyâ or the Vedânta philosophy to dispel it, and thus
to destroy the illusion that there is any real difference between man
and Brahman. It then becomes clear that this phenomenal world in its
endless variety is but an ignorance, a dream that will pass away, if
once our eyes are opened. Whatever is known by us, becomes, _ipso
facto_, objective and phenomenal, and to know this is the first step
towards the truth. It may seem difficult to understand how such a
philosophy could be treated as orthodox, and go hand in hand with the
popular religion. But we must remember that Brahman, the first and the
only real Being, as soon as perceived or conceived as an object, becomes
at once a phenomenal being. Thus Brahman (neut.) became to human
intelligence Brahmâ (masc.), and was recognised and worshipped as
phenomenalised under such popular names as _S_iva, Vish_n_u,
K_ri_sh_n_a, and many more. In this way the old mythological gods had
not to be discarded altogether; on the contrary, devotion to them
(Bhakti) was not only tolerated, but actually enjoined, till true
knowledge or G_ñ_âna had arisen. _S_iva and Vish_n_u and other gods were
accepted as persons or as faces (Pratîka) of Brahman. Nay, they were
recognised as the phenomena of Brahman, and whosoever worshipped them
was led to believe that he worshipped Brahman, though ignorantly. Here
lies a wonderful amount of wisdom, from which even we may have something
to learn; and it is not surprising that some of these modern Hindu
philosophers and religious teachers should have felt that they had not
only to learn from us, but had something also to teach us. This may
sound very strange to our ears, and yet what is more natural? Nay,
strange as it sounds to our ears, it is nevertheless a fact, that may
have been exaggerated in the American papers, but that is not without
some real foundation, namely, that some Vedântist missionaries, such as
Vivekânanda, Abhedânanda, _S_âradânada, and others, who were sent to
America, are lecturing there before large audiences, and have actually
made some converts who accept the Vedântic view of the world, and call
themselves Theosophists or Vedântists. These missionaries are mostly the
disciples and followers of a well-known Indian ascetic, who had spent
his life in preaching Vedântic sentiments, and who died as late as
1886[8]. Men of that class are well known in India, and are spoken of as
Mahâtmans. They live as much as possible retired from the world, it may
be in a cave or a small hut in the forest. They wear hardly anything but
rags, bear heat, cold, and hunger without complaining, and strive hard
to become Vairâgins, men without any passions and without any desires.
It need hardly be said that some of them are mere impostors and
disreputable characters, well known to the police. Others, however, are
real religious enthusiasts. Though they may know a little Sanskrit, they
are not the recognised depositaries of ancient learning; but, once
filled and fired with the spirit of the Vedânta, they become very
eloquent preachers, and gather crowds around them, willing to drink in
the truths which never fail to exercise their intoxicating power on the
Indian mind. Many of these Mahâtmans know by long practice how to put
themselves into a real trance, and thus to make people believe that they
have been outside their body or beside themselves, and have received
inspirations from a divine source. If this is a deception, it is
certainly a very old deception. It is practised by sons, as they had
seen it practised by their fathers, and, as far as I can see, without
any sinister intentions. Râmak_ri_sh_n_a and men of his class are
addicted to Bhakti, devotion or love, rather than to G_ñ_âna.,
knowledge, or pure philosophy. They speak of K_ri_sh_n_a rather than of
Brahman, nay, Brahman itself becomes with them Brahmâ, a masculine and
active god. If some of these men declare their perfect willingness to
adopt the religion of Christ, they can do so with perfect honesty. The
God of Christianity, the Creator of the world, the Father of all the
children of man, would be to them but another name, another face or
person of the Godhead. Christ would be to them not simply a
manifestation, like Râma or Nârada, but, from a far higher point of
view, born of God, one with God, having realised God, as we all are to
realise Him in time, in order to attain real brotherhood with Christ and
among ourselves, and divine sonship, the long forgotten or forfeited
birthright of every son of man. Would not that be enough to make them
Christians, truer Christians than even some of the missionaries, who
approach them as if they were a degraded race, and who are often
satisfied if they can baptize them, even without having really converted
them? If we want them to understand us, let us first try to understand
them. If that mutual recognition is once achieved, there may be a future
for Christianity in store in India such as we hardly venture to dream of
as yet. There are Hindus of the highest caste who would be able, like
the eunuch, to say with perfect honesty that they believed that Jesus
Christ was the son of God, in the highest sense of the word. What then
hindereth them from being baptized? No wonder that European visitors who
come to see these devotees in India should often be repelled by what
they see. They are generally naked, or in rags, with dishevelled hair,
emaciated, and not always very clean. Their expression is wild and often
half crazy. Even their photographs are enough to frighten us. But for
all that, their utterances, partly their own, partly echoes of what they
have heard, are sometimes very powerful and even beautiful, and people
of all classes, educated and uneducated, are willing to listen to them
for hours. One thing is certainly to their credit. Though they accept
alms, they never ask for them; and even the missionaries who have
travelled all the way to America to lecture and preach, never ask for
money. They do not want it, and what is given to them is sent to India
forthwith towards a fund for building and endowing what we should call
monasteries, where the style of life is as simple as it was in the best
days of monastic life in Europe. The sayings of Râmak_ri_sh_n_a have
been published by his disciples, and I cannot resist the temptation of
giving here at least a few of them:—
“Thou seest many stars at night in the sky, but findest them not when
the sun rises. Canst thou say that there are no stars then in the heaven
of day? O man, because thou beholdest not the Almighty in the days of
thy ignorance, say not that there is no God.”
“Different creeds are but different paths to reach the Almighty.”
“As from the same gold various ornaments are made, having different
forms and names, so our God is worshipped in different countries and
ages, and has different forms and names. Though He may be worshipped
variously, some loving to call Him Father, others Mother &c., yet it is
one God that is being worshipped in all these various relations and
modes.”
“Man is like a cushion-cover. The colour of one may be red, another
blue, another black, but all contain the same cotton inside. So it is
with man; one is beautiful, one is black, another holy, a fourth wicked;
but the Divine dwells in all of them.”
“God is in all men, but all men are not in God, that is the reason why
they suffer.”
“As the lamp does not burn without oil, man cannot live without God.”
“There are two egos in man, one ripe and the other unripe. The ripe ego
thinks, ‘Nothing is mine, whatever I see, or feel, or hear, nay, even
this body is not mine; I am always free and eternal.’ The unripe ego, on
the contrary, thinks, ‘This is my house, my room, my child, my wife, my
body,’ &c.”
“When the knowledge of Self is obtained, all fetters fall off by
themselves. Then there is no distinction of a Brâhma_n_a or a _S_ûdra,
of high caste or low caste. In that case the sacred thread, the sign of
caste, falls away of itself. But so long as man has the consciousness of
distinction and difference of caste, he should not forcibly throw it
away.”
“A man after fourteen years of hard asceticism in a lonely forest,
obtained at last the power of walking on the waters. Overjoyed at this
acquisition, he went to his teacher and told him of his great feat. At
this the master replied: ‘My poor boy, what thou hast accomplished after
fourteen years of arduous labour, ordinary men do the same by paying a
penny to the boatman.’”
“Where is God? How can we get at Him? There are pearls in the sea. One
must dive again and again till one gets at them. So there is God in the
world, but you should persevere in diving.”
“The vanities of all others may gradually die out, but the vanity of a
saint is hard, indeed, to wear away.”
There are hundreds of such sayings, all breathing the same spirituality,
the same familiarity with the unseen world. Some of them sound to us
trivial and common, but in publishing them I did not like to leave out
any, for fear of being suspected of falsifying the record and
representing the bright side of the movement only. To our taste there
may be too much of that familiarity. Silence in the presence of God
seems to us more reverential than words, but to a man of the character
of Râmak_ri_sh_n_a, and I might say, to Hindus in general, the distance
between the human and the Divine, between God and man, has always been
very small, till at last it seems to vanish altogether. To their eyes
the unseen world and the unseen God are not unseen. The veil formed by
what we call the flesh is to them so transparent that it often vanishes
altogether. The idea of a distance from God or of a gradual approach to
Him after death exists indeed in their exoteric philosophy, but to the
true Vedântist such an approach is really unthinkable. To the Vedântist
the highest goal has always been to have his humanity taken back into
the Godhead, not to put on a new nature, but to recover his old and true
nature, in fact to become what, in spite of the dreams and fancies of
life, he has always been. Those who cannot soar so high, may indeed be
allowed to worship a distant God, nay, to approach His throne
reverentially in another life, and they are taught that even in that
state of mind, they are moving forward on the right road, the road that
may at last bring them to themselves and make them enjoy the Divine and
the Eternal within them. Hence with all their strong sense of the
imperfections of this life, with the acknowledgment of their guilt and
their consequent separation from God, they never use the disparaging
language of other religions which seems to make man the most
contemptible worm on earth. No doubt, they also have imagined a number
of beings intermediate between God and man, but when these creatures of
their own fancy have been dissolved again, they seem to feel that in
reality there is no class of real beings that can claim to fill the
self-made gap between God and man. Râmak_ri_sh_n_a himself was still in
the bonds of the popular faith of India. He worshipped the gods created
by man, such as Vish_n_u, _S_iva, and others, he did not shrink even
from offering sacrifices to idols, but he felt and saw that behind them
there is the inexpressible Essence which is more than any or all of
them. The purely human devotion and love which he expresses for his
Divine Mother, for instance, is sometimes most startling, but one feels
all the time that, if he could only express it, he is groping for that
Godhead which he must find in himself or in his Self before he can find
it in the Self of the whole world, in the Self even of the old idols. A
distant God like the Jewish Jehovah would be no God at all to the
Vedântist, he cannot be too near to his God; nay, to be without Him but
for one moment would be death and annihilation to him.
Such ideas are no doubt strange to most of us, but if we cannot as yet
make them our own, we should at all events give Râmak_ri_sh_n_a and his
followers credit for holding them honestly.
MY INDIAN FRIENDS.
III.
Behramji Malabâri.
Intimately connected with the reform of religion in India were social
reforms, such as the education of women, the recognition of widow
marriages, the fixing of the marriageable age of boys and girls, &c. The
burning of widows or of Suttees, had been boldly put down by the English
Government years ago; though, as we saw, it was still defended as
resting on Vedic authority by so learned and enlightened a man as
Râdhâkânta Deva. But, though widows were no longer burnt, their life as
widows was in many cases worse than death. Owing to the system of very
early, and what has been truly called, child-marriages, the number of
child-widows is, and has been for many years, very large in India; and
the only means of reducing their number was to prohibit early marriages
altogether. The chief actors in this good work were my friend Behramji
Malabâri, and another dear friend, Râmabâi, both still alive and hard at
work in the good cause. The former was chiefly bent on preventing these
premature marriages, the latter on taking care of the victims of that
pernicious system. We need not enter here on purely physiological
questions, for here the answer is always ready that marriage at the
early age of seven or eight can mean no more than betrothal. That in the
East, men and women are more precocious in their physical development is
an assertion rather than an established fact. But it is not the body
only, it is the mind that has to be considered, and what can be the
mental condition of a child-wife of seven, nay, even of fourteen? How
such a system ever sprang up, it is difficult to say. It was not the old
Indian system. It may have originated at the time of the Mohammedan
conquest, married women being supposed to be more respected by the
conquerors than unmarried girls. At present its fatal effects are but
too clear, in the premature decay of the women, in the weakness of their
offspring, and, more particularly, in the large number of child-widows.
No wonder therefore that a man of Malabâri’s patriotism and sense of
duty should have devoted himself body and soul, and purse too, to the
abolition of that evil. Though there were many to sympathise with him
and to help him, still there was also strong opposition, and from
quarters where one would least have expected it. Malabâri was a Parsi,
and the Hindus did not like to be lectured by an outsider. If their
dirty linen had to be washed at all, they wished to have it washed at
home by their own washerwomen. Others, though admitting abuses, gave a
most idyllic picture of the first love of young children, which extended
its blessing over the whole of their lives, while the European system
led to endless misery, to broken hearts, to divided affections, and
sometimes even to a sundering of ties which in the eyes of the Hindus
can never be sundered.
There have been many strong protests from numbers of well-conducted
families in India who deny altogether that child-widows, or any widows,
are subject to cruel treatment, and who maintain that early marriages
have by no means all the evil effects which are charged against them.
There are exceptions, no doubt, to everything, but I doubt whether these
exceptions can make up for the mischief caused by the system of early
marriages as still prevalent in India. And what is there that can be
urged in favour of a system which even its strongest supporters can only
defend as less monstrous than it appears to be. We are told[9] that in
Bengal a young husband is able to educate his young wife. That sounds
very well. But in a Hindu family a married child is not supposed even to
see her husband during the daytime, so that the education, whatever that
may mean, could only take place in the stillness of the night, not the
most propitious time after a day of constant work. We are likewise told
that a child-wife divides her year in two halves. One of them she spends
with her parents, this being a sort of vacation time, and the other she
spends at the house of her husband’s parents, this being confessedly the
time of daily drudgery. In well-ordered families the young wife is never
allowed to live with her husband permanently till she has reached her
fourteenth year.
This defence, however, does not amount to much, and though we may quite
believe that in good families the evils of the system of child-marriage
are very much mitigated, the system itself is unnatural, full of
dangers, and certainly lowering, both physically and morally, to the
mothers of India.
The most unexpected defender of child-marriages appeared in Ânandibâi
Joshee, a young Hindu lady who had gone to America to study medicine,
and, after taking her medical degree at the Women’s Medical College of
Pennsylvania in 1886, was appointed Physician-in-charge of the Female
Ward of the Albert-Edward Hospital at Kolhapur, and died in 1887 at the
early age of twenty-two. She was evidently a most enlightened lady, and
a great friend of Râmabâi. But when she had been asked, in 1884, to
lecture on child-marriages, she surprised her large American audience by
defending the national custom of early marriage. I am sorry I have never
been able to see her lecture, but it shows at all events that the
abolition of that custom was not so universally desired as it ought to
have been, and by no means so easy in India as it might appear to us. We
are told that the early betrothal of boys and girls made their mutual
affection more natural and firm, and added the feelings of brother and
sister to those of husband and wife. It was fondly hoped that under such
circumstances the idea of anybody else ever taking the place of the
first beloved one would be altogether impossible. Many other arguments
were adduced in support of what seemed a national, time-hallowed, and
almost sacred custom, but they soon crumbled away at the touch of so
well-informed and determined a man as my friend Malabâri. I do not know
how many voyages he has made to England to insure sympathy and help. He
has spent years in travelling all over India and gaining support for his
crusade. He has told us that he is a poor man, but whatever he possessed
or gained, he seems to have given up for the main object of his life. I
am quite willing to believe that in the better families the evil
consequences of premature matrimony are guarded against, just as I
cannot altogether withhold my belief from those who declare that in good
families child-widows, and in fact all widows, are treated with sympathy
and respect. But without denying such exceptions, it was the rule or the
custom, such as he knew it to exist, that roused the indignation of
Malabâri. He may be congratulated on having lived to see some at least
of the fruits of his devoted labours. Assisted by his friends, both
native and English, he carried at last a Bill which fixed the respective
ages of freedom to marry at eighteen and twelve. This was a decided
victory; still the battle is by no means over, and probably never will
be till the marriageable age of girls is raised at least to sixteen, and
that of boys to twenty. It was twenty-four in Vedic times. That every
kind of abuse was heaped on Malabâri need not surprise us; still his own
conscience must tell him that he has done a real service to millions of
human beings, and removed from his country a slur that had lowered it in
the eyes of all civilised nations. It is highly creditable to him that
he declined all rewards and honours offered to him at the end of his
successful campaign, and we should not be surprised if we met him again
on the old battlefield, anxious to win new victories as the defender of
a good cause.
The number of widows in India is simply appalling. According to the
census of the year 1881 their number of all ages amounted, at that time,
to twenty million nine hundred and thirty thousand six hundred and
twenty-six. Of these six hundred and sixty-nine thousand one hundred
were under nineteen years of age.
From 15 to 19 years of age 382,736
From 10 to 14 years of age 207,388
Under 9 years of age 78,976
———————
669,100
Even native states have taken up the cause of the unhappy children. Some
of the Rajput states some years ago declared against premature marriage,
and Mysore has now followed their good example, passing a law not only
to prevent child-marriages, but to make it penal for an old man to marry
a young girl. I doubt whether such a law would pass even our own
Parliament. Clause 3 says:—
“Any person who causes the marriage of a girl who has not completed
fourteen years of age, with a man who has completed fifty years of age,
and any person who knowingly aids and abets, within the meaning of the
Indian Penal Code, such marriage, shall be punished with simple
imprisonment for a term which may extend to six months, or with fine, or
with both.”
The Madras Presidency will now have to follow the example of Mysore,
instead of taking the lead, as it ought to have done. In a Memorandum
accompanying the Bill for the Madras Presidency, it is stated that in
1882 there were 157,466 girls married under the age of nine, and that
there were 5,621 widows under the same age. Think of widows under nine
years of age!
In the census of 1891 it was shown that there were 23,938 girls married
in their fourth year and under, and 142,606 between five and nine years
of age, giving a total of 166,544 girls married under nine years of age.
There were 988 widows of four years and under, and 4,147 between five
and nine years, making a total of 5,135. In future, however, the law is
never to recognise any widows under nine years of age, and there is
every hope that the number of these baby-widows will be considerably
reduced as soon as no girl can be betrothed till she has reached, at
least, the age of eight; the bridegroom being, as a rule, five or six
years older. This is, of course, much too low an age, but it was
considered the least likely to rouse opposition among the native
population, as some of the law-books of the Hindus are in favour of that
age, while they actually threaten parents who do not marry their
daughter before ten with the hell called Raurava. The greatest living
legal authorities in India have declared in favour of a limit of age,
fixing it at eight for girls. As their support gives immense strength to
the aspirations of the reform party, its leaders have accepted it for
the present. Men like Malabâri are of course not satisfied, yet they may
be proud to have achieved what they have achieved. They have at all
events reduced the number of possible child-widows, by limiting the
marriageable age of girls to eight. Much more, however, remains to be
done, and Malabâri is not the man to let sleeping dogs lie. He wields a
powerful pen in English, and he is the best living writer of Guzerathi.
He began life as a Guzerathi poet, but he gave up poetry and everything
else to concentrate all his energy on his crusade. He has written
several very successful English books, the last being “The Indian Eye on
English Life.” He is the editor of an influential paper at Bombay, _The
Indian Spectator_. He has also undertaken to spread my Hibbert Lectures
“On the Origin and Growth of Religion” all over India, by having them
translated into Sanskrit and every one of the modern languages of the
country. This undertaking also he has carried through successfully,
without flinching from considerable trouble and pecuniary risk. All
these undertakings require money, and in the present state of things a
willingness to spend money is a very good, if not the best, test of a
man’s sincerity. Malabâri has stood that test for many years, and much
as he longs for rest, I learn that he is not likely to stand by with
folded arms, and to leave the fight to others[10].
Râmabâi.
If we admire the boldness and perseverance of Malabâri, we cannot
withhold the same admiration from a young Indian lady who, though she
could not hope to prevent child-marriages, has done her very best to
ameliorate the lot of the victims of those unnatural unions.
To be a widow at all is hard enough, but nothing can be more miserable
than the lot of a young widow in India, whose life may be said to be
over before it has begun. Widows are looked upon in their own homes as
beings of evil omen, as having deserved their misfortune by some unknown
misdeeds in this or, what is worse, in a former life, and, particularly
if childless, they are treated no better than servants, whether in the
house of their parents-in-law, or even in the house of their real
parents, if they are allowed to return there. They are shunned, excluded
from all amusements, obliged to wear coarse garments, deprived of their
ornaments, and often condemned to have their heads shaved, a great
indignity in the eyes of every woman. What a life to look forward to for
a girl, often, it may be, not yet sixteen years old! No wonder that they
should often commit suicide, or fall still lower by being driven to lead
an immoral life. It is to ameliorate the lot of these unhappy creatures
that Râmabâi has been working for years, chiefly at Poonah. She is
certainly a most courageous woman, not to be turned away from her
purpose by any misfortunes or any threats.
I saw much of her when she stayed with us at Oxford, but the most
eventful part of her career belonged to an earlier period. With what she
told me then, and what has been published since by Mrs. R. L. Bodley in
the Introduction to Râmabâi’s account of the “Life of a High-Caste Hindu
Woman” (Philadelphia, 1887), we begin to understand the high aims of
this truly heroic Hindu lady, in appearance small, delicate, and timid,
but in reality strong and bold as a lioness. Her life, so far as we know
it from herself and from others, draws away the veil behind which so
much that is really of the deepest interest to us, is hidden in the
East. Here we see first of all from her own case how carelessly
marriages are often arranged in India. Râmabâi’s grandfather, who
belonged to an old and very illustrious Brâhmanic family, the Kauthumas,
was on a religious pilgrimage with his family, that is, his wife and two
daughters, one nine, the other seven years of age. One morning, when
bathing in the Godâvarî, he saw a fine-looking man in the river, and
after inquiring for his caste, his clan, and his home, and finding out
that he was a widower, he offered him his eldest daughter, that is, a
child of nine, in marriage. All things being satisfactorily settled in a
few hours, the marriage took place the next day, and the stranger
started with his child-wife for his home, nearly nine hundred miles away
from the child’s own home, while the father continued his pilgrimage,
unconcerned any longer about the fate of his daughter. However, the
marriage, though we might call it hasty and imprudent, turned out well,
and her husband, who was a great Sanskrit scholar, a pupil of
Râmachandra _S_âstri, not only was kind to his little wife, but was most
anxious to teach her the sacred language. This was a very unusual
measure, in fact, it was against the Brâhmanic law. It seems that he had
made the same experiment with his first wife, but that it had failed
owing to the opposition of her family. When therefore he was met by a
similar opposition in the case of his second wife, he suddenly left his
home and his friends, and journeyed with his young wife to the forest of
Gungamul, on a remote plateau of the Western Ghauts, and there founded
his new home, where the world could no longer hinder or trouble him.
Such things are possible in India only, and even there they are of rare
occurrence. Râmabâi was told by her mother how she and her husband spent
the first night after their flight from home in the open air without
shelter of any kind, she rolled up in her pasodi or cotton quilt, he
watching by her side. Wild animals were heard howling all around them,
and the young wife lay convulsed with terror; and no wonder she did,
though her husband kept watch till daybreak, frightening the wild
animals away as best he could from his bride and his new home. However,
there, in the forest, husband and wife, like another Yâ_gñ_avalkya and
Maitreyî, remained, and there the husband began to teach his wife
Sanskrit. A rude hut was soon constructed, such as suffices in a forest
and in the climate of India. The wife grew in stature and in knowledge,
and soon became the mother of three children born in this wilderness,
one son and two daughters. As they grew up the father at once began the
instruction of his son and his elder daughter. Soon the fame of his
scholarship began to attract other students from the neighbourhood, and
the hermitage, situated as it was near the source of one of the rivers,
became a place of pilgrimage, and attracted many visitors.
When the younger daughter, our Râmabâi, grew up, the father was getting
too old and too weary to teach her also, so that her education fell
chiefly to the share of her mother, Lakshmâbâi.
Soon the household grew, partly by the arrival of the aged father and
mother-in-law, who had to be taken care of, partly by the arrival of
many pilgrims, who in India have a right to hospitable entertainment. At
last the expenses grew too high, the little hermitage had to be broken
up, and father and children had to begin a new life, that of a pilgrim
family without any home, wandering about from place to place, tramping,
in fact, as we should say, and earning a small livelihood by
recitations, whether in palaces or monasteries. When Râmabâi began her
career as a prodigy of learning, she had learned ever so many Sanskrit
texts by heart, either from her mother or from listening unknown, as she
told me, to the lessons given by her father to her brother. Erudition in
India means learning by heart. A pupil learns a number of verses every
day and repeats them the next day, constantly adding new lines, till at
last he can repeat thousands of lines without a hitch. Râmabâi listened
at the door while her brother and other students repeated their daily
lessons, and in this way she learnt in the end to repeat more lines than
most young Brâhmans. For this she received rewards while travelling on
foot from place to place with her father, mother, and brother. The elder
sister had been married, though not very happily, it would seem, while
Râmabâi gladly remained unmarried long after the statutable age. This
was really considered as a breach of the law, but as long as her parents
were alive she had a recognised support in them. When, however, the
father died, and very soon after the mother also, her position became
almost desperate. She still had her brother, who then became her natural
guardian and protector; but the whole of the small family property had
been spent. There was not even enough left to pay a few Brâhmans for
carrying the remains of her mother to the burning-ghat, about three
miles distant. At last two Brâhmans were found who took pity on the
bereaved children, and with their assistance son and daughter carried
the sacred burden to the place of cremation. Poor Râmabâi’s low stature
compelled her to carry her share of the dear burden on her head. We can
hardly imagine such a state of things, and such suffering; yet what
seems to us incredible comes from Râmabâi’s own mouth, and, from what I
know of her, she may be implicitly trusted. When I once asked her how
she knew that she belonged to the famous Brâhmanic clan of the
Kauthumas, she replied very simply, “But who would ever doubt it?” And
the same remark applies to all that she has told us of the sufferings of
her life.
These sufferings were not over yet. She had now no one to look to but
her brother, and without some male support the life of a single woman is
simply impossible in India. For some years brother and sister travelled
together on foot all over India, earning what they wanted for their
support by their recitations of Sanskrit texts, and afterwards by
lecturing on the degraded position of women in India. Arrived in
Calcutta Râmabâi’s lectures excited great interest. But now followed a
new blow. Her brother died, and from sheer necessity she had to take a
husband. The marriage turned out perfectly happy, but after nineteen
months of quiet married life there followed a new blow. Her husband
died, and she was left a widow with one daughter, whom she called
Manoramâ, or Heart’s Joy.
Her case seemed desperate indeed, but she was upheld by her strong
desire to fit herself for useful work among her own countrywomen.
Helpless as she was, she resolved to go to England in order to study
medicine. This was a bold decision, and required more moral courage than
Napoleon’s march to Russia.
Member of a high-caste Brâhman family though she was, the mere prejudice
against crossing the black water would hardly have affected her, but she
was very poor. All she possessed was a small sum of money which she had
earned by her lectures and by translations done for Government, and how
was she to pay for her passage and to support herself, her child, and a
friend who was to accompany her to England? But undeterred by any fears
she started with her little daughter and a female friend, and when she
arrived in England, almost destitute, she fortunately found shelter for
a time with the Sisterhood at Wantage, some members of which she had
known at Poonah. But even then her tragedy was not yet ended. She had
declared to the Sisters that, grateful as she felt for their kindness,
she would never become a Christian, because, as she often said, a good
Brâhmanî is quite as good as a good Christian. Her friend, however, was
frightened by the idea that she and Râmabâi would be made Christians by
force; and to save Râmabâi and herself from such a fate, she tried one
night to strangle her. Failing in that, she killed herself. It was after
this terrible catastrophe at Wantage that Râmabâi came to stay with us
at Oxford, and such was her nervous prostration that we had to give her
a maidservant to sleep every night in the same room with her. Nor was
this all. After all arrangements had been made to enable her to attend
medical lectures at Oxford, her hearing became suddenly so much affected
that she had to give up all idea of a medical career. She then
determined to study nursing, and thus fit herself for useful work in
India. Then came an invitation from America to be present at the
conferring of a medical degree on her countrywoman, Ânandibâi Joshee, of
whom I spoke before, and being once there, she soon succeeded in gaining
many friends, who helped her to start a refuge or Âsrama for
child-widows in India. This is the work to which at last she has devoted
herself, and with great success, her only difficulty being that in the
meantime she had, after all, become a Christian and joined her Christian
friends; not that she considered her former religion false or
mischievous, but because, as she told me, she could no longer stand
quite alone, she wanted to belong to somebody, and particularly to be
able to worship together with those whom she loved and who had been so
kind to her. Her having become a Christian has, no doubt, proved a
serious obstacle to her success in her chosen sphere of usefulness in
India. Though we may trust her that she never made an attempt at
proselytising among the little widows committed to her care, yet how
could it be otherwise than that those to whom the world had been so
unkind, and Râmabâi so kind, should wish to be what their friend was,
Christian! Her goodness was the real proselytising power that could not
be hidden; but she lost, of course, the support of her native friends,
and has even now to fight her battles alone, in order to secure the
pecuniary assistance necessary for the support of her little army of
child-widows. She is, indeed, a noble and unselfish woman, and deserves
every help which those who sympathise with her objects, can afford to
give her.
Ânandibâi Joshee, M.D.
There is another Hindu lady to whom I alluded before as a friend of
Râmabâi’s, who in fact invited Râmabâi to come to the United States to
be present at her taking her degree of M.D. in the Medical College of
Pennsylvania, and who thus determined, to a great extent, the future
course of Râmabâi’s life. She too must have been a young heroine, and it
is well that her name should not be forgotten on the roll of martyrs,
who have lived, worked, and died in the cause of elevating and
regenerating their country. I draw my information chiefly from a
sympathetic article, signed Isabel M. Sullivan, in the _Indian Social
Reformer_, July 10, 1898. Ânandibâi was different from Râmabâi in one
respect. Though free from many prejudices, she remained a true Brâhmani
through life. She fearlessly stood by Râmabâi after her husband’s death,
and even offered her the shelter of her home. She remained her faithful
friend to the end, which took place in 1887, when she was only
twenty-two years of age. Though she could not bring herself to go quite
so far as Râmabâi in giving up the religion of her childhood, her
enthusiasm took another, yet very perilous form. She had seen the untold
physical sufferings of girls and women in India, who are almost entirely
left to the medical care of uneducated _femmes sages_ and inefficient
nurses. But for a young girl of eighteen, brought up in the narrowly
guarded sphere of an Indian home, to dream of leaving her country, to
travel to America, and enter as a medical student at an American
University required such an amount of moral courage as we should never
have expected from a young and timid Hindu lady who could know little of
the world outside her Zenânah, and had probably never spoken to a man
except her husband and members of her own family. She was married
already, when she conceived her plan of going to America, and such was
her strength of character that she succeeded in persuading her husband
to accompany her in her voyage of discovery, and to support her in her
endeavour to preserve her caste while living abroad. “I will go to
America as a Hindu,” she said, “and come back and live among my people
as a Hindu.” And she carried out her resolve in spite of endless
difficulties. Yes, she had been married in 1874, at the age of nine. We
can hardly believe in such marriages, yet they exist, and in her case
this early, nay premature marriage proved certainly most successful. No
wonder therefore that, when she was asked to speak about child-marriages
before an American audience, she should have stood up for them, even in
the presence of her friend Râmabâi, treating them, of course, as what
they really are, betrothals, but betrothals binding for life.
Accompanied by her husband, Gopalrao Vinayak Joshee, she arrived in the
United States, being really the first Brâhman lady who had ever set foot
in New York. From thence she went to Philadelphia, where her arrival is
described to us by her friend, Dr. Rachel Bodley. “One day in September,
1883,” she writes, “there came to my door a little lady in a blue cotton
saree, accompanied by her faithful friend, Mrs. B. F. Carpenter of New
Jersey, and since that hour, when, speechless for very wonder, I
bestowed a kiss of welcome upon the strangers cheek instead of words, I
have loved the women of India. The little lady was Mrs. Ânandibâi
Joshee, who had come to study medicine in the Medical College of
Pennsylvania.” Dr. Bodley proved a true friend in need to the lonely
stranger. She tells us that “though from the first Ânandibâi had
received a cordial welcome in America, it must have been with some
heart-sinking that she settled down alone in her college rooms,
confronted by the anthracite coal stove, which was the only means of
cooking her food, and which she did not know how to manage. She tried
faithfully to prosecute her studies, and at the same time keep
caste-rules and cook her own food, but the anthracite coal stove in her
room was a constant vexation and likewise a source of danger, and the
solitude of the individual house-keeping was overwhelming. After a trial
of two weeks her health declined to such an alarming extent that I
invited her to pay a short visit to my home, and she never left it again
to dwell elsewhere in Philadelphia during her student-residence. In the
performance of College duties, going in and out, up and down, always in
her measured, quiet, dignified, patient way, she has filled every room
with memories which now hallow the home and must continue to do so
throughout the years to come.” Ânandibâi’s faculties developed rapidly
under Western opportunities, her scientific acquirements placed her high
in rank among her peers in College, and on March 11, 1886, she took her
medical degree, being the first Hindu woman to receive the Degree of
Doctor of Medicine in any country. On June 1, 1886, she was appointed to
the position of Physician-in-Charge of the Female Ward of the Albert
Edward Hospital at Kolhapur, and on October 9 she sailed from New York
to assume the duties of her new official position. But, alas, the strain
of the last three years in a foreign land had undermined her
constitution, perchance the cold of the American winters had attacked
lungs inured to naught but tropical heat, and when she landed in Bombay
it was found that she was in an advanced stage of consumption. She had
come home to die, and, after spending three years in the study of
medicine, she must have known very well the fate that awaited her. After
these three years of voluntary exile, she found herself once more in the
familiar places of her childhood, at Poonah, surrounded by her mother
and sisters, and it was her mother’s sad privilege to support her
daughter in her arms when at midnight the end came quickly. This
occurred on February 26, 1887, in the home in which she was born.
All this is unspeakably sad. So much silent heroism, so many sacrifices
patiently borne for years, and then at the end resignation, and
farewell! Mrs. Bodley, who has been such a motherly friend both to
Ânandibâi and Râmabâi, and to whom we owe most of what we have been
allowed to know of Ânandibâi’s last years, when receiving the photograph
of her protégée taken on her deathbed, writes: “The pathos of that
lifeless form is indescribable. The last of several pictures taken
during the brief public career of the little reformer, it is the most
eloquent of them all. The mute lips, and the face wan and wasted and
prematurely aged in the fierce battle with sorrow and pain alike convey
to her American friends this message, not to be forgotten: ‘I have done
what I could.’”
If we consider all the impediments that barred the way of a young Indian
lady when conceiving the plan of studying medicine in a foreign country,
we are amazed at Ânandibâi’s courage and perseverance, and we shall
hesitate before we declare that Hindu women cannot be worthy peers of
English women. Our own lady doctors, who have cut their way through the
compact phalanx of prejudice and jealousy, can best judge of the heroism
of their unknown Hindu colleague, whose name ought to hold its place on
the roll of those who have fallen in a noble fight, and whose very death
marks a victory. Though she had so painfully striven to preserve her
caste in a foreign land, it seemed doubtful at first whether the
Brâhmans of Poonah would receive her as pure, after her long sojourn
among unbelievers. But humanity proved too strong even for caste. Men
and women, old and young, orthodox and unorthodox, all received the
young doctor with open arms, paid her friendly visits, and extended to
her a most cordial welcome. Her own friends were astonished at the
unprecedented concession made in her favour by the strictly orthodox
party. And when the end came the whole of Poonah seemed to share in the
mourning of the family, and the fear that the priests might raise
objections to cremating her body according to the sacred rites of the
Hindus, proved perfectly groundless. Not only on the occasion of her
funeral, but earlier, when her husband offered sacrifices to the gods
and the guardian planets to avert their anger and her death, the priests
showed no sign of any prejudice against him or her. This, too, is a
victory, for it shows that even the most inveterate social and religious
diseases are not incurable when treated with unselfish love and
generosity. If all this could be achieved by a frail young daughter of
India, what is there that could be called impossible for the strong men
of that country? Even now her example has been followed, and Ânandibâi’s
life has not been in vain.
National Character of the Hindus.
No wonder that those who look upon the Indian nation as an inferior race
should have so often protested against my judgment of them as prejudiced
and as far too favourable. I know quite well that the men and women of
whom I have here spoken are exceptional beings. They would be
exceptional in England also, and anywhere else. But exceptions, after
all, represent possibilities, and the good work achieved by such men as
Rammohun Roy, Keshub Chunder Sen, and Malabâri, or by Râmabâi, shows how
much of real power lies dormant in the people of India. If it is always
wise in judging of people to look more to their strong than to their
weak points; why should we, in trying to determine the average
intellectual and moral stature of the Hindus, take account of their
dwarfs rather than of their giants? Is it right, for instance, to say
that all Indians are liars? It is a very hackneyed charge, but it is
never forgotten, and it often crops up again when least expected.
Because culprits before an Indian judge and witnesses before a jury,
nay, even cooks and butlers in Anglo-Indian homes, have occasionally, or
even frequently, told lies, does it follow that all Indians are liars?
It is unfortunate that so many who have spent their lives as civil
servants or officers in India should represent the few hundreds or the
few thousands of people with whom they have been brought into contact at
Calcutta, Benares, Bombay, or Madras as fair specimens of the people of
India at large. It should never be forgotten that the true home of the
Indians is in their villages, and that those who go to Calcutta or other
great towns to take service in English families are by no means the best
specimens of the Indian population. They are willing to submit for some
time to the unkind treatment which they not seldom receive from men,
women, and children of alien origin; but they can but seldom feel any
real attachment or even respect for their employers, though here, too,
there are most honourable exceptions. From the earliest times
truthfulness has always been mentioned as a national characteristic of
the inhabitants of India, and we are now told that all Indians are
liars! We cannot open any of the ancient law-books or epic poems without
coming across such sentences as “Truth is the ladder to heaven and the
ship across the ocean”; “The end of all the Vedas is Truth”; “Seeking
after all the virtues, I have nowhere found anything so purifying as
Truth.” We appeal to the literatures of other nations as records of
their true character, why not in the case of the Hindus? It is easy to
say that all this is changed now, and that those who have been
magistrates and judges in India ought to know best. But do these judges
consider the peculiar difficulties with which the lower classes in India
have to contend, being ruled by men of a different colour, of a
different language, and a different religion? Would they expect or find
much regard for truth even in an English sailor if examined by a French,
ay, even by an English judge? It is easy to be truthful if you have
nothing to fear, but we must not wonder if, to escape an oath or a kick,
a native servant will now and then tell a lie to his master. Anyhow, one
case, a hundred, nay, a thousand cases are not sufficient to condemn a
whole nation of more than two hundred millions. It has been my rule
through life never to accept any of these sweeping assertions about a
whole nation. If I hear a man calling all Indians liars, I generally ask
how many he has known, and I do the same when I hear all Frenchmen
called monkeys, all Italians assassins, all Germans unwashed, all
Russians savages, or even England _Perfide Albion_. I have never in all
my life repented having had eyes for the bright side rather than the
dark side of nations as well as of individuals. I hoped I had exposed
the fallacy and folly of such undiscriminating accusations in the
Lectures which I gave at Cambridge, to the candidates for the Indian
Civil Service, Lect. 2, “On the Truthful Character of the Hindus.” But
no, the old charge is brought up again and again. That some members of
the Indian Civil Service who had for years to deal with native servants
and tradesmen should have had some painful experiences, who can doubt?
Even within the small circle of my own personal acquaintances I have met
with Indians who disregarded the old commandment of telling the truth;
but to generalise in such matters, from a limited number of instances,
is surely against all the rules of inductive logic. This prejudice
against the inhabitants of India as being a nation of liars may become
really dangerous in its consequences. Even now, as the press is open to
the ruled as well as to the rulers of India, the charge of ingrained
untruthfulness has been hurled back most savagely by the accused on the
accusers. It always is so, and there is in the end but one remedy, even
when an inclination towards untruthfulness does exist, and that is
trust. I have no doubt that I shall be much abused again for having
ventured to say so much, and to stand up for the people of India, and
particularly for having produced evidence in support of my opinion,
taken from their literature, ancient and modern, from their sacred
books, their law-books, and their philosophical systems. Such evidence
is admitted when we judge of any other nation; why should it be ruled
out of court in the case of the people of India?
Missionaries seem to imagine that they have a better chance of spreading
their own religion by vilifying the popular religion of India, and
trying to show that all the vices of the people are due to it. King
Asoka, in the third century B.C., knew better, when he had his edicts
engraved all over his kingdom, and declared “that people should never
praise their own religion or disparage other religions without a cause;
and that whenever there is a cause, our words should be moderate.” Our
own missionaries might safely take these words to heart. At all events,
no virtue stands higher in the eyes of the founders of the Indian
religion than truthfulness, and if religion has any influence in forming
the character of a whole nation, no nation should be more truthful than
that of India.
I am far from being an indiscriminate admirer of India, and, if I am
told that I exaggerate the good qualities of the people, I am quite
willing to confess that even among the small number of young men who are
now sent every year from India to England, and particularly to Oxford, I
have myself had some disappointing experiences. Want of
straightforwardness arising from want of moral courage, want of
truthfulness arising from a desire to please, hollow pretence amounting
in some cases to actual deception, all these I have witnessed among the
young men who now come to spend two or three years at Oxford. But may we
not look upon these defects as clouds that will pass? And are there
never any cases of untruthfulness when there has been a disturbance in
college, or when an election has to be carried, _coûte qu’il coûte_. The
worst of it is that those who complain of untruthfulness in others,
cannot help posing as patterns of truthfulness themselves.
I may mention some curious cases. A young Bengali told me that he came
all the way from Benares to Oxford, because he had been told by his
friends who had contributed money towards the founding of an Indian
Institute there, that he would be received there and enabled to attend
lectures in the University. How he had paid his passage money I cannot
understand, but I believe the poor boy was actually starving when he
came to me, and he was in despair, when I had to tell him that there was
no such institution at Oxford, and no scholarships open to him as he had
been led to imagine. He told me that he had been to the Indian
Institute, but could get no help. He told me that he saw no students or
teachers there, but only stuffed animals. “My friends in India,” he
said, “have been asked to subscribe money for the benefit of Indian
students at Oxford, but no one would even speak to me or help me there.
If one of your students,” he added, “came to Benares, our Pandits would
receive him with open arms, teach him all they know, and gladly give him
food and lodging.” “Yes,” I said, “but the laws of Manu do not apply to
England.” I gave him the little he wanted, but what became of him
afterwards I cannot tell, nor how he found the means of returning to his
own country. I confess I was at first a little suspicious, but, after
all, his story may have been true, and what then?
The manners of the young Indians when they arrive at Oxford are
generally excellent, but they soon acquire what they consider English
manners, rough and ready, bluff and blunt, and by no means an
improvement on their own. The same young man who at first enters your
room with folded hands and a graceful salâm, will after a very short
time walk in, sit down, stretch out his legs, and address you in the
most familiar terms. They imagine that this is English. Some profess to
know Sanskrit, and pour out a stream of words which at school they may
have learnt by heart, but often with an utter disregard of case and
gender. Some who had failed, as we afterwards were informed by the
authorities, to even pass their matriculation examination in Sanskrit at
the Calcutta University, posed as Pandits at Oxford, expressing at the
same time their undisguised contempt for all who professed to know and
to teach Sanskrit in the Universities of England. These men have a very
curious way of blushing. If you convict them of a downright falsehood,
their bright brown colour turns suddenly greyish, but their eloquence in
defending themselves never fades or flags.
Altogether the experiment of sending young Hindus to prepare for the
Civil Service Examination in England has not, as far as I have been able
to judge, proved a great success. At Oxford they find it very hard to
make friends among the better class of undergraduates. Most of our
undergraduates come from public schools, and have plenty of friends of
their own. If they are asked to be kind to any of the Indian students,
all they can do, or really be expected to do, is to invite them once or
twice to a breakfast party. They have hardly any interests in common
with them, and anything like friendship is out of the question. If the
young students from India have money to spend, there is danger of their
falling into bad company, and even if they pass their examinations, I am
afraid that some of them return to India not much improved by their
English exile. The worst of it is that they often return
_désillusionné_. At first everything English is grand and perfect in
their eyes, an Oxford degree is the highest goal of their ambition. But
when they have obtained it, chiefly by learning by heart, they make very
light of it. And this making light of it is soon applied to other things
English also, which they hear constantly criticised or abused,
particularly in the newspapers and in Parliament, so that they often
leave England better informed, it may be, but hardly better affected
towards the Government which they are meant to serve. The present state
of things is certainly discouraging, particularly as it seems impossible
to suggest any real remedy. But here also there are bright exceptions,
and I have always held that we must judge of things by their bright
rather than by their dark sides. There are, and there always will be,
difficulties in the intercourse between Europeans and Orientals. It is
wonderful to see how well they have been overcome in the Government of
India. Natives in the Civil Service or at the Bar seem to work quite
harmoniously with their English colleagues, and even after they have
reached high employment, and have to exercise authority, little has been
heard of conflicts, whether caused by arrogance or subserviency. There
are Continental statesmen who, while they cannot help admiring the
English system of governing India, look upon it as suicidal in the end.
They consider the Russian system of complete repression as the only
right system of dealing with Orientals, and as far more merciful in the
end. Well, we must wait for the end; but, whatever it may be, it seems
right to treat the inhabitants of India as they have been hitherto
treated by the Government and by the wisest rulers of India, not as born
enemies or as conspirators to be kept under by force, but as loyal
subjects to be trusted. Of course, there sometimes will be troubles, for
how can it be expected that in two or three hundred millions of
conquered subjects there should be no grumbling, no disaffection, no
fanaticism? The government of India by a mere handful of Englishmen is,
indeed, an achievement unparalleled in the whole history of the world.
The suppression of the Indian mutiny shows what stuff English soldiers
and statesmen are made of. If people say that ours is not an age for
Epic poetry, let them read Lord Roberts’ “Forty-one Years in India.”
When I see in a circus a man standing with outstretched legs on two or
three horses, and two men standing on his shoulders, and other men
standing on theirs, and a little child at the top of all, while the
horses are running full gallop round the arena, I feel what I feel when
watching the government of India. One hardly dares to breathe, and one
wishes one could persuade one’s neighbours also to sit still and hold
their breath. If ever there were an accident, the crash would be
fearful, and who would suffer most? Fortunately, by this time the people
of India know all this, and they have learnt to appreciate what they owe
not only to the _Pax_, but to the _Lux Britannica_. If one could dare to
read the mind of three hundred millions, I should say that in the
present state of things the people of India, as a whole, want no change
except such changes as can be achieved by ordinary constitutional means.
It is true that I have not known a large number of Indians, but I have
known Indians who could well speak in the name of large numbers, and
they speak to me more openly perhaps than to others, looking upon me as
a kind of Mle_kkh_a, but at the same time as half an Indian. Some young
Indian Râjahs while travelling in Switzerland, found themselves lately
in the same railway carriage with some Russian princes and noblemen.
They had been discussing among themselves some of their grievances in
English, and the Russians, who of course understood English, after
listening to them for some time, became very communicative, and began to
explain to them the beneficent rule of the Tsar. They even went so far
as to hold out a hope to them of an Indian Parliament, as soon as the
Russians were settled in Calcutta. On parting they asked the Indian
princes, “When shall we see you at St. Petersburg?” And they were not a
little taken aback when the strangers bowed and smiled, and said, “We
are going just now to be present at the opening of Parliament in London.
We should like very much to see St. Petersburg afterwards, and to be
present at the opening of your Parliament there....”
Again and again have I been urged to go to India, and have been told
many a time by people who had spent a few months there that I could
never hope to know the Indians, to understand Indian literature, or even
pronounce Sanskrit properly without having passed a vacation at Calcutta
or Bombay. I would have given anything to go to India when I was young.
There was a time when I was on the point of becoming a missionary in
order to be able to spend some years in India. But what a strange
missionary I should have made! What I cared to know in India were not
the Râjahs and Mahârâjahs, the streets of Bombay, the towers of silence,
or the temples of Ellora. What I cared to see were the few remaining
_S_rotriyas who still knew their Vedas by heart, who would have talked
to me and shaken hands with me, even though I was a Mle_kkh_a. Had they
not asked me even at a distance to act as one of the sixteen priests at
their Shrâddhs (_S_râddhas), their funeral services? Had they not asked
me to recite Vedic prayers for the souls of their deceased fathers? Had
they not actually sent me the same presents which on those occasions
they are bound to give to their priests, because, as they wrote, I knew
the Veda better than their own priests? Had they not actually sent me
the sacred Brâhmanic thread which I am as proud to wear as any more
brilliant decoration?
Here is a letter which I received some years ago beautifully printed in
gold:—
“RESPECTED SIR,—On the occasion of my departed fathers Shrâddh ceremony,
which was celebrated some months ago, amongst the offerings to Adhyâpaks
and Âchâryas (teachers), an offering was made to you in consideration of
your eminent services to the laws of Sanskrit literature (_sic_). I am a
believer in the New Dispensation of the Brahmo-Somâj of India, which
teaches reverence to the great and good men of all lands and religions.
I trust you will kindly accept the piece of shawl sent in separate
parcels, and pronounce your blessing both for me and for the spirit of
my honoured father in heaven.”
Was it very wrong or sacrilegious that I did so? I extract a few
sentences from the letter I wrote in reply:—
“I deeply sympathise with your Shrâddh ceremony; nay, I wish we had
something like it in our own religion. To keep alive the memory of our
parents, to feel their presence during the great trials of our life, to
be influenced by what we know they would have wished us to do, and to
try to honour their name by showing ourselves not unworthy bearers of
it, that is a Shrâddh ceremony in which we can all partake, nay, ought
to partake, whatever our religion may be. There is a real, though unseen
bond of union (tantu) that connects us through our parents and ancestors
with the Great Author of all things, and the same bond will connect
ourselves through our children with the most distant generations. If we
know that, and are constantly reminded of it by ceremonies like that of
your Shrâddh, we are not likely to forget the responsibility that rests
on every one of us. In that sense your Shrâddh is a blessing, on your
parents because on yourselves, and whatever the future of your religion
may be in India, I hope this communion with the spirits of your
ancestors, or Pit_ri_s, will always form an essential part of it.”
Two or three years in India would certainly have been a delight to me,
but short of that I did not care to go. I was quite satisfied with that
ideal India which I had built up for myself, whether from their books or
from those who had come to see me at Oxford. If my India, as I am often
told, is an ideal India, is it more so than Greece as seen through the
poems of Homer, or Italy as seen through the verses of Virgil? What is
ideal is not necessarily unreal, it is only like a landscape seen in
sunshine. Look at a landscape on a brilliant summer’s day bathed in
light and verdure, and again on a bleak day of March with its bitter
winds and cloudy sky. It is the same landscape, but which of the two is
its true aspect? I shall not speak here of ancient Indian poets, of
ancient Indian philosophers, or of ancient Indian heroes. What I feel,
and what I wish my friends would feel with me, is that a country which,
even in these unheroic days, could produce a Rammohun Roy, a Keshub
Chunder Sen, a Malabâri, and a Râmabâi, is not a decadent country, but
may look forward to a bright, sunny future, as it can look back with
satisfaction and even pride on four thousand years of a not inglorious
history.
I have never bestowed excessive praise on Indian literature, nor do I
feel answerable for having filled the brains of native scholars with
exaggerated ideas about its value. Its value to us is great, but chiefly
from a historical point of view, and this is just what native scholars
find it so difficult to understand. No wonder that after Goethe had
bestowed such superlative praise on the Sanskrit play of “_S_akuntalâ,”
the Hindus should have spoken of their Kâlidâsa as the equal of
Shakespeare. They forget that what surprised Goethe was not only the
beauty of Kâlidâsa’s poetry, great as it is, but its antiquity, and the
fact that such refined poetry should have existed where it was least
expected, and at a time when it could not have been matched by the
poetry of any other country.
Indian Theosophy.
Empty panegyrics are always to be deprecated, and I am afraid that great
and lasting mischief has been wrought, for instance, by Madame Blavatsky
and her friends who went to India, ignorant of Sanskrit and Sanskrit
literature, and who have for years been proclaiming to the world at
large that Hindu philosophy, particularly that of the Vedânta and that
of Buddhism, which they did not always distinguish very carefully one
from the other, was infinitely superior to all the philosophies of
Europe, that the Brâhmans even at the present day were the depositaries
of the primeval wisdom of the world, and that by the united efforts of
Madame Blavatsky and Dayânanda Sarasvatî a new theosophy would dawn on
India and Europe which would eclipse all former systems of thought. Poor
Dayânanda Sarasvatî had no idea of what Madame Blavatsky was thinking
of; but, though bewildered for a time by the unaccustomed adulation
poured on him and the extravagant veneration paid to him by Europeans,
he soon recovered, and declined to have anything to do with the Polish
prophetess and her vagaries.
Mme. Blavatsky might certainly have done a good work if she had joined
some really learned Pandits, familiar with the six systems of Hindu
philosophy; nor would it have been too much for a person endowed with
such extraordinary, if not miraculous, powers as she was said to have
possessed, to have mastered the grammar of Sanskrit. But what has been
the result of all her labours? Indian philosophy has gained some
Corybantic followers, but the true teaching of Bâdarâya_n_a and Kapila
has been obscured rather than illuminated by being mixed up with poor
and contemptible conjuring tricks. New prejudices have been roused
against the noble philosophies of Vedânta, Sâ_m_khya, and Yoga which it
will take many years to remove. Why not take the authoritative texts of
these systems, many of which have been translated into English and
German, and place their essential doctrines in a clear and intelligible
form before the philosophic public of Europe? There is no mystery about
that philosophy, or about the Mahâtmans who are versed in it. There is
nothing esoteric in their teaching; all is open to those who are
properly qualified and trustworthy. Their Upanishads and Dar_s_anas can
be studied exactly like the philosophies of Plato or DesCartes—nay, even
better, because every one of their tenets has been put down in their
Sûtras very clearly and definitely by Indian philosophers far more so
than by Plato or Hegel. It is difficult, therefore, not to get angry if
one sees the elevated views of these ancient philosophers dragged down
to the level of cloudy hallucinations, and rendered absurd by being
mixed up with vulgar trickeries. “Corruptio optimi pessima.”
I have often been blamed for the hard judgments which I have pronounced
against Madame Blavatsky and her friends. I have been told that she and
her friends have done good by rousing a new interest in their ancient
philosophy among the people of India, and by attracting the attention of
European thinkers towards it. If that is so, let it be to their credit;
but I feel convinced that no good has ever come from anything that is
not perfectly honest and straightforward; and what a lurid light has
been thrown on the Theosophist Society at Adyar! There is no excuse for
such things, however good the intention may have been, and even now,
when I see well-intentioned men like Vivekânanda preaching the doctrines
of the Upanishads, of Bâdarâya_n_a and Sa_m_kara in America, and
gaining, as I read, numerous converts, I still seem to perceive now and
then something of the old Blavatsky leaven, that has not yet been
entirely thrown off. Vedântism requires no bush, no trappings, no
tricks. What we want is a historical and critical treatment, just the
same as that which has been applied to Plato and Aristotle.
When I saw hundreds of people running after Madame Blavatsky and her
apostles, and the texts and the excellent translations of the
philosophical Sûtras hardly looked at, an old Oriental story often came
into my mind. The story is a mere illustration, a D_ri_sh_t_ânta, but it
is full of truth.
“A certain man had the peculiar power of grunting exactly like a pig, so
much so that whenever he grunted where pigs were grazing they would all
turn round to see if any new member had come into their fold. This man’s
fame spread abroad, and he began a tour to obtain money by means of his
art. Wherever he went he erected a pandal, and issued tickets for
admission, all of which got exhausted very soon, such was the eagerness
of people to hear him grunt. While he was thus making money in a village
a sage happened to pass by with his disciples, and it struck him that he
could teach a good lesson to them through this incident. Accordingly he
ordered a small pandal to be erected, and advertised that even better
grunting would be heard here than in the other pandal, and that free of
cost. The people were naturally very eager to hear it, and they visited
it. The sage brought a real pig before them, and squeezing it a little,
made it grunt. Really the grunt was much better than the man’s, but the
people exclaimed, ‘Pooh, is this all? We hear this every day, but what
is there in it? It is nothing wonderful,’ and went away. The sage said,
‘Here is a splendid lesson for us. We seldom care for reality, but
always go in for imitation.’ That is why even this world exists, which
is a mere imitation, a reflection in the distorting mirror of Mâyâ, of
the great Âtman. No external help is required to see the Self, but very
few care for it, and, even if you eagerly advertise it, none will go to
you except those who love truth for truth’s sake. Reflect on this.”
This story is a mere parable, and, as such, cannot possibly offend
anybody. At all events, if anybody might complain, it would be the
showman of the real pig, not the mere imitator. I have never seen Madame
Blavatsky. She threatened once she would come to Oxford to face and to
confound me, but she never did. Though she preached to the
undergraduates at Balliol, she never came near me. It is simply my love
of genuine Indian philosophy that induced me to protest against what I
knew to be a mere travesty of Vedânta, Sâ_m_khya, and Yoga philosophy.
If even in this travestied form Indian philosophy has found friends, in
India and Europe, owing to her preaching, I am quite content, but Satyam
paramo dharma_h_, “Truth is the highest religion,” or the highest
virtue, and nothing, I am deeply convinced, can prosper for any length
of time that is mixed up with exaggeration or untruth. If it is right
and our bounden duty to protest against foolish disfigurements of our
own religion, why should misrepresentation of the Hindu religion and
Hindu philosophy be allowed to pass unchallenged?
From what I have seen and read of Vivekânanda and his colleagues, they
seem to me honestly bent on doing good work, and I feel the same about
the propaganda carried on by Dharmapâla in favour of Buddhism. It is
honest, it is unselfish, it is free from juggling. Vivekânanda and the
other followers of Râmak_ri_sh_n_a ought, however, to teach their
followers how to distinguish between the perfervid utterances of their
teacher, Râmak_ri_sh_n_a, an enthusiastic Bhakta (devotee), and the
clear and dry style of the Sûtras of Bâdarâya_n_a. The Vedânta spirit is
there, but the form often becomes too vague and exaggerated to give us
an idea of what the true _Gñ_ânin (knower) ought to be. However, as long
as these devoted preachers keep true to the Upanishads, the Sûtras, and
the recognised commentaries, whether of Sa_m_kara or of Râmânu_g_a, I
wish them all the success which they deserve by their unselfish devotion
and their high ideals.
My Indian Correspondents.
Were I to publish any of the innumerable letters which I receive from
unknown correspondents from every part of India, some written in
English, others in Sanskrit, they would surprise many readers by showing
how like the present political, philosophic, and religious atmosphere in
the higher classes of Indian society is to our own. My Indian friends
are interested in the same questions which interest us, and they often
refer us to their own ancient philosophers who have discussed the same
questions many centuries ago. Many of them read and write English
perfectly well, though there is a certain bluntness in their questions
which would startle us in England.
While I am writing these lines, a letter signed by a number of Indian
gentlemen is lying on my table, as yet unanswered, and, if the nature of
the questions be considered, likely to remain unanswered for some time.
To us some of these questions sound certainly very startling, but they
are nevertheless interesting, because they show us the problems on which
the Indian mind is brooding, and which to many of them are like their
daily bread. We ourselves are more inclined to suppress questions of
this kind, or to say with Sir Philip Sidney, “Reason cannot show itself
more reasonable than to leave off reasoning on things above reason.” To
Indian thinkers, however, there seem to be no regions at all which
cannot be approached and penetrated by human reason.
The questions on which my unknown friends want my answer, and probably
expect it by return of post, are:—
(1) What is your opinion regarding God and soul? Is the latter a
reflection of the former, or is the one quite separate from the other?
Athanasius might have answered such a question, but how can I?
(2) If both God and soul are said to have been separated from the
beginning, then how, when, and whence is the latter afflicted with
Karman (acts and their results) which cause sad suffering to each
individual soul?
(3) Is the universe eternal and self-abiding, or has it been created by
some one?
(4A) Taking it for granted that there is some one to be considered the
Creator of the universe, we want to know what was the period of the
creation, and how long the creation will last; what it was at first, and
what will it be hereafter? Did the Creator create all beings (old and
young, children and parents) in a moment, or did He create them in
succession? Were male and female created at the same time, or one after
the other?
(4B) Did the Creator bestow rewards on the actions of men in a former
life, or did He create them freely of His own accord? Is He the Giver of
rewards, the Ruler of the Universe, or simply the Creator?
(4C) How is it, then, that God created rich and poor, happy and sad?
What were the acts that could have produced such results?
(5) What is the real matter of the five elements—earth, water, fire,
air, and ether, and of the soul? What is the origin of the smallest
atoms (paramâ_n_u) and of time?
(6) Is there any method which, acted upon, will save us from anxieties
and troubles of this world, and by means of which we may reach
Nirvâ_n_a?
(7) What was the origin of idol-worship? Is it good, or is it contrary
to the Sacred Books?
(8) Was Buddhism an offshoot of _G_ainism, or vice versa? or have both
religions arisen separately from time immemorial?
(9) By whom were the Vedas compiled, and what do they treat of?
(10) Where does the soul go to after death? Is there any heaven or hell
in which the rewards of actions, both good and bad, are to be enjoyed?
My correspondents, who are evidently men of cultivated minds, describe
themselves simply as cloth-merchants. I know nothing more about them,
but we may learn from their letter what is the unseen stream of thought
running through India. They seem to belong to the Digambara sect of the
_G_ain religion. I doubt whether any English cloth-merchants would have
appealed to J. S. Mill or to Darwin for a solution of such metaphysical
difficulties. We may consider such questions unreasonable, only we must
not imagine that because we do not speak of these riddles, we ourselves
have solved them. Nay, it may be useful to be reminded from time to time
of the limits of our knowledge, so as not to trust too much to the
omniscience of our own philosophers.
I often feel ashamed that I cannot answer such letters. But first of
all, let me assure my kind correspondents that I am not omniscient, and
never pretended to be so. On some of the questions they ask me, their
own philosophers have said all that can be said, more even than our own.
But let them consider likewise that with the best will on my part, I
should have no time left for my own studies, were I to attempt to enter
on a discussion of such problems as are set before me by my unknown
friends in India and elsewhere. Every one who writes to me seems to
imagine that he is the only person who does so. If they saw the chaos of
unanswered letters on my table they would see that I do not exaggerate,
and would understand that it would be physically impossible for any
human being to answer all the letters addressed to me. Life has its
limits, every day has its limits, and one hour out of the twenty-four
might well be left to an old man for dreaming, for looking back on the
years and the friends that are gone, and forward to that life to which
our stay on earth forms, as he thinks, but a short prelude.
In one respect, as I pointed out before, the Indians differ from us very
characteristically. They give very free expression to their sentiments,
whether of love or of admiration, and even when they have to express
their disapproval they do it in the gentlest and least offensive words.
Some of them have expressed to me on several occasions their surprise,
nay, disgust, at the rudeness and coarseness of certain Sanskrit
scholars in their literary controversies. Some people may call Oriental
gentleness and courtesy flattery, some dishonesty, and it certainly
would be so for us. Even in French and Italian, however, there are some
expressions which we would not use in English, and which, if translated
into English, sound to us unreal and exaggerated, while not to use them
would amount in French to a want of politeness. We are not so easily
_enchanted_ or _ravished_, nor are we always _devoted servants_, but at
the same time I must confess that our _yours truly_ sounds almost brutal
in answer to the eloquent finish of the letters of our French friends.
But though I fully admit that considerable deductions must be made from
the panegyrics addressed to us by our Indian correspondents, it would be
wrong to accuse them of intentional insincerity. If their panegyrics
seem sometimes to come very near to an apotheosis, we must not forget
that their Devas or gods are not looked upon as anything very
extraordinary after all.
I must mention at least one instance when I was agreeably surprised by
the thorough sincerity of one of my Indian correspondents, who certainly
meant far more than he said. The Mahârâjah of Vizianagram wrote to me
some years ago expressing a wish to possess a copy of my edition of the
“Rig-Veda” in six volumes. It had been published at £15, but when I
applied to a second-hand bookseller he charged £24, and told me that
complete copies of the book were getting very scarce. Soon after the
Mahârâjah wrote again asking the bookseller to send him a second copy,
but he was informed by his agent in England that he could not get a
complete set for love or for money. The Mahârâjah wrote to ask me why I
did not bring out a new edition, and I had to tell him what the expense
of printing such a work would be, and that, though I should gladly give
my labour for nothing, I could not find a publisher in England, not even
a University Press, to undertake such a work. The Indian Government had
for years used the first edition for making presents in Europe and in
India, and though in this way it had fully reimbursed itself for the
original outlay, it was not inclined to venture on a second edition.
Upon this the Mahârâjah, who had hitherto been most lavish in his
praises of the work, showed that the praise he had bestowed on it was
not mere empty praise, but was really meant. After telling me what his
Pandits had said to him, and sending me some valuable MSS., as a
present, which they had prepared for me, he offered to pay himself for
the printing of a new edition, if I would undertake the labour of
revising the text.
This I readily accepted, and in two years, 1890 to 1892, a new, and I
hope more correct edition, was issued from the Press at Oxford in four
large volumes. The Mahârâjah paid to the Press not less than £4,000. I
found out afterwards that this Indian nobleman was by no means a
student, an antiquarian, or a theologian; but, on the contrary, a man of
the world, very fond of racing and hunting. He distinguished himself on
one occasion, as I was told, by riding up the staircase to the very roof
of his palace. When in one of my last letters I asked him what had
induced him to spend so large a sum on the Rig-Veda, he replied that
India wanted its Bible, and he added, “It may benefit me hereafter.”
That hereafter has come sooner than he expected. He died a comparatively
young man, and as long as the Veda lives his name will certainly not be
forgotten. The Veda has lived now for four thousand years, or, according
to Indian ideas, it has existed from all eternity. Four thousand years
is but a small slice of eternity, but are there many books that have
lasted or will last four thousand years? I ought to add that his
liberality did not stop at paying the expenses of the work, but that he
placed a large number of copies at my disposal, which was more than I
expected or deserved. Are there many Mahârâjahs or Zemindârs in Europe
who would have spent so large a sum on a new edition of the Bible, or,
in fact, of any other important book? Would any scholar even think of
appealing to the millionaires of England or America to help him in
bringing out an old forgotten book, if it “benefited them hereafter”
only? Anyhow, I came to learn that Hindus are not simply grandiloquent,
but that they can do grand things also, when the opportunity offers.
If I finish here the list of my Indian friends, it is not because I have
no more names to add. We have lately had a book called “Representative
Indians,” by C. P. Pillai, 1897, containing biographical sketches of
thirty-six distinguished Hindus and Parsis. Many of them I have known or
corresponded with, but of their sentiments, their hopes and
disappointments, I know but little. The undercurrent of their life, the
deeper motives of their actions, are under a kind of purdah, and we
hardly ever get either autobiographical confessions or outspoken
memoirs. This is a pity, and naturally deprives reminiscences of Indian
friends of much of that human interest which everybody feels when
catching glimpses of the more intimate life of distinguished persons. We
seldom hear of a good or smart saying from a Hindu, such as we have in
large numbers from English, German, or French statesmen or poets. The
people of India are still a deep secret to us, and if I have succeeded
in withdrawing the curtain from only a small portion of their inmost
thoughts and feelings, if, here and there, I have helped to change mere
curiosity about them into a warm human sympathy with them, my
reminiscences will have fulfilled their true object. In some respects,
and particularly in respect to the greatest things (τὰ μέγιστα), India
has as much to teach us as Greece and Rome, nay, I should say more. We
must not forget, of course, that we are the direct intellectual heirs of
the Greeks, and that our philosophical currency is taken from the
capital left to us by them. Our palates are accustomed to the food which
they have supplied to us from our very childhood, and hence whatever
comes to us now from the thought-mines of India is generally put aside
as merely curious or strange, whether in language, mythology, religion,
or philosophy. But however foreign Indian thought may appear to us, it
has filled an important place in the growth of the human race, and that
growth is important, whether it took place on the borders of the Ilissos
or on the shores of the Ganges. In India we still see, as it were, the
last traces of the primordial surprise at this world. Their earliest
thinkers seem still to feel strange in it, while Greeks and Romans are
thoroughly at home in their little world. No doubt the Greeks as well as
the Indians saw the riddles of the world, were perplexed by them, and
tried to solve them. But while Greeks and Romans, and later on the
leading races of Europe also, settled down to their practical work in
life, the Indians, at least the leading thinkers among them, never felt
quite at ease even in their beautiful forests, by the side of their
mighty rivers, or under the shadow of their gigantic snow-mountains in
the north. They never cared so intensely for this span of life on earth
as the Greeks did. Hence they never brought political life to its full
development, like the Greeks and Romans; they never strove to conquer
what was not theirs, or to govern the world which they had conquered;
nor did they, like the Hebrews, look upon the exact fulfilment of the
law as the highest object of their life on earth. Even while passing
through this world, their eyes were for ever fixed on the Beyond. They
strove to pierce through the dark roof of their forests, to travel to
the distant sources of their rivers, and to transcend even the snowy
peaks of the Himâlaya Mountains. Their hearts would never forget the
life that lay behind them, and their minds were for ever set on the life
that was to come.
The old questions of Whence? Why? and Whither? fascinated and enthralled
their thoughts. They may have but little of practical wisdom to teach
us, for they paid but small attention to the arts of peace and war. But,
though they fell in consequence an easy prey to their neighbours, they
had something nevertheless which their barbarous conquerors had not.
They had their own view of the world, and this view, different as it is
from our own, deserves to be looked at carefully and seriously by us.
Whatever we may think of the world which they had built up for
themselves, and in which they lived, their idea of the Godhead is
certainly higher, purer, and more consistent than that of Greeks,
Romans, and Hebrews. They passed through polytheism, henotheism, and
monotheism, and they arrived at last at what is generally called
pantheism, but a pantheism very different from vulgar pantheism. They
started with the firm conviction that what we mean by God must be a
Being without a second, without beginning or end, without limitations of
any kind. Whatever there is or seems to be, call it mind or matter, man
or nature, can have one substance only, one and the same, whatever we
name it, God, or Brahman, the Absolute, or the Supreme Being. They never
say, like other pantheists, that everything in this phenomenal world is
God, but that everything has its being in God.
How the change from the real to the phenomenal came about, or, as we
say, how the world was created, they can tell us as little as we can
tell them. They simply point to the fact that it has come about, that it
is there, that it is and can be nothing but phenomenal to us, but that
the phenomenal could not even seem to be without the real behind it. In
order to restore the phenomenal world to its reality, they hold that all
that is wanted is knowledge or philosophy, which destroys that universal
Nescience which makes us all take the phenomenal for the real, the
objective for the subjective. Their philosophy is chiefly the Vedânta,
though other systems also pursue the same object. Each man is in
substance or in self identical with God, for what else could he be? If
they say that each man is God, that would, no doubt, offend us, but that
man and everything else has its true being in the Godhead is a very
different kind of pantheism. To regain that full self-consciousness or
God-consciousness, to return to God, to break down the artificial wall
that seemed to separate man from God, is the highest object of Indian
philosophy, and in some form or other these thoughts have gradually
leavened all classes of society from the highest to the lowest.
In order to be able to appreciate the true value of the Vedânta, we have
to study its growth in the Upanishads, and in the minute disquisitions
of the Vedânta-Sûtras and their commentaries. No doubt these are
sometimes very tedious, and to us, in this age of the world, may often
appear childish and useless. And yet the Vedânta view of the world has a
right to claim the same attention as that of Heraclitus, Plato, Spinoza,
or Kant. It is as true and as untrue as any of these philosophical
intuitions, but it possesses an attraction of its own which has held the
best minds of India captive for generations, and will continue to do so
for ages to come.
Nay, as we have always had among us Platonists, Spinozists, and
Kantians, the time will come, nay, has come already, when European
philosophers will try to look at the world through the glasses of the
Vedânta also. It is well known that Schopenhauer, no mean thinker of
modern times, declared the Vedânta as taught in the Upanishads “the
product of the highest wisdom” (_Ausgeburt der höchsten Weisheit_). May
not these words make other philosophers pause before they reject as
childish a philosophy which Schopenhauer placed above the philosophy of
Giordano Bruno, Malebranche, and Spinoza?
India should be known, not from without, but from within, and it will
require a long time and far abler hands than mine before we really know
what India was meant to be in the development of mankind. Heinrich Simon
remarked very truly, “Our history is miserable because we have no
biographies.... If a man’s life lies open before me from day to day in
all his acts and all his thoughts, so far as they can be represented
externally, I gain a better insight into the history of the time than by
the best general representation of it.” What we want to know is, how the
prominent men of India imbibed the Vedânta, and how the principles they
had imbibed from that source influenced their lives, their acts, and
their thoughts. With us philosophy remains always something collateral
only. Our mainstay is formed by religion and ethics. But with the
Hindus, philosophy is life in full earnest, it is but another name for
religion, while morality has a place assigned to it as an essential
preliminary to all philosophy. Most of our greatest philosophers and of
their followers seem to lead two lives, one as it ought to be, the other
as it is. One of our greatest philosophers, Berkeley, knew quite well
what the world is, but he lived as a bishop, unconcerned about the
unreal character of all with which he had to deal. There have been cases
of true Vedântists, also, who have led useful, active lives as ministers
and organisers of states, but he who has grasped the highest truths of
the Vedânta, or has been grasped by them, is driven at once into the
solitude of the forests, waiting there for the solution of all riddles,
for perfect freedom, and in the end for the truest freedom of all, for
death—Θανοῦμαι καὶ ἐλευθερήσομαι.
MY INDIAN FRIENDS.
IV.
The Veda.
We live no longer in times when the head of a great publishing firm
would ask a scholar who offered a translation of the Veda, as I know the
late Professor H. H. Wilson was asked, “But what in all the world is the
Veda, or what you call the Rig-Veda?” But nevertheless in spite of the
years that have passed since, I am still asked from time to time much
the same question, and I confess I cannot answer it in two words.
I should not be surprised if even some of those who are doing me the
honour of reading my Recollections of Auld Lang Syne, and who in this
volume of recollections of my Indian Friends, have so often come across
the name of Veda, were to say in their secret heart, What in all the
world can that Veda be to which this misguided man has devoted the whole
of his life? I have been asked such a question before now, and it is
perhaps not unreasonable that I should try to answer it here. For after
all, was not the Veda the first of my Indian friends? Was it not the
bridge that led me from West to East, from Greece and Italy to India,
nay, from Dessau to Oxford, from Germany to England? Whatever other
people may say about the misguided man who sacrificed everything to the
Veda, I still count the Veda among my best friends, and I sometimes
regret that my duties as Professor of Comparative Philology in the
University of Oxford should during my later years have withdrawn my full
allegiance from it. What then is the Veda?
The Vedas, as we possess them, are four systematically arranged
collections of hymns and verses, and the Veda is often used in the sense
of these four Vedas taken together. The first and most important Veda is
the Rig-Veda, which has often, and not without some truth, been called
the only true Veda. It contains 1,017, or with some additions, the
Vâlakhilya-hymns, 1,028 hymns, each on an average containing about ten
verses. They are all addressed to Devatâs or deities, and whatever
subject is addressed in these hymns, down to bows, arrows, and stones,
is supposed to become, _ipso facto_, a Devatâ, while the poet is called
the seer or Rishi. The metres are numerous and strictly regulated,
though there is more freedom in them than in the later artificial poetry
of India.
The hymns of the Rig-Veda were meant to be recited at sacrifices, and
this is no doubt the explanation of their careful preservation during
many centuries, by means of a strictly regulated oral tradition.
The second, the Sâma-Veda, is a much smaller collection of hymns, most
of them borrowed from the Rig-Veda, but different in character so far as
they were meant to be sung at the ancient sacrifices.
The third, the Ya_g_ur-Veda, consists of sacrificial formulas and of
verses to be repeated in a low voice by a class of priests who were
entrusted chiefly with the manual work required for the performance of
sacrifices.
The fourth, the Atharva-Veda, probably collected at a later time,
contains, besides many hymns from the Rig-Veda, a large number of
popular verses used for magical and medicinal purposes, some of them
possibly of great antiquity, particularly if we adopt the principle that
whatever is very silly is necessarily very old.
Taken as a whole these hymns, particularly those of the Rig-Veda, are
certainly older than any other poetry we possess in India, nay, older
than any literary composition we possess of any of the Aryan nations in
Asia or Europe. Their real interest, however, consists not only in their
age, but in the simplicity and naturalness of their poetical addresses
to the most striking phenomena of nature by which the Aryan settlers
found themselves surrounded in India, and in which and behind which they
recognised unseen agents by whom both their physical and their moral
life were powerfully influenced.
If all books have their fates, the oldest book of the world, the Veda,
has certainly had the most extraordinary fate. It was known to exist and
people began to write about it, long before it had been seen or handled
by any European. I remember Baron Bunsen telling me how his chief object
in arranging to go to India with his pupil, Mr. Astor, was to see
whether there really was such a book in existence. By consulting the
_Lettres édifiantes_ he might have known that it was in existence as a
real book, and had been seen and handled by some of the Catholic
missionaries in India. But though seen, not a line of it had ever been
published, still less translated, because native scholars, willing as
they might be to help missionaries and others in reading the Laws of
Manu, the Mahâbhârata and Râmâya_n_a, were most decidedly unwilling to
help them to an understanding of the Veda. There were, no doubt, many
reasons for it, one of them being possibly that there were few, if any,
Brâhmans at the beginning of this century who were able to translate the
Veda themselves. There were many who knew it or large portions of it by
heart, and could recite the hymns at sacrifices and public or private
gatherings, but they did not even profess that they understood it. They
were proud to know it by heart and by sound, and there were some who
actually thought that the hymns would lose their magic power, if recited
by one who understood their meaning. Manuscripts were never very
numerous, and even when one of them fell into the hands of Europeans,
they soon found that, without a commentary, the hymns baffled all
endeavours at translation.
During all that time the most exaggerated ideas were spread about the
Vedas. The Brâhmans themselves declared that they contained the oldest
divine revelation, that they were not the compositions of human authors,
but the work of Brahman, the Supreme Spirit, who had revealed them to
inspired sages or Rishis, seers. European scholars were carried away for
a time by the hope that they would find in these Vedas, if not the
jabberings of the Pithecanthropoi, at least the earliest flashes of
thoughts of an awakening humanity, the faint echoes of a primordial
wisdom going back to the very beginning of human life on earth, “when
the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for
joy.”
When at last not only the texts but the immense Sanskrit commentary also
of the most important, the Rig-Veda, had been published, people began to
see that there was little of primeval, mysterious wisdom to be found in
the Vedic hymns, but only the simplest thoughts that must have passed
through the minds of the Rishis when they began to ponder on the great
phenomena of nature which every morning and night, every spring and
winter were unfolded before their eyes. No superhuman revelation was
required for that kind of poetry. Nothing could be clearer than that the
constant themes of these Vedic songs were sunrise and morning, day and
night, earth and the rivers, storms, lightning, rain, sunset and night.
Even this was for a time stoutly denied by writers who did not know the
Sanskrit alphabet. But what else was there to interest the ancient
Âryas? It is true that even the Brâhmans themselves protested against
the Western scholars, whose translations seemed to reduce their sacred
hymns to the low level of mere descriptions of nature[11]. We are not
and never have been, they said, mere sun-worshippers or
fire-worshippers, or rain-worshippers, but sun, fire, and sky were only
symbols to us of the Godhead, of one and the same Divine Being in His
manifold manifestations. In one sense they were certainly right, but I
doubt whether many of the much abused Western scholars had ever denied
this. Many things have to be taken as understood, and Western scholars
evidently took it for granted that when the Vedic poets addressed their
hymns to the dawn, to the sun, the sky, the storm-winds, the earth, or
the rain, they did not simply mean the fiery ball that rose in the
morning and vanished at night, or the blue sky, or the soil on which
they stood, or the rain that had fertilised the soil. The very fact that
they addressed these phenomena of nature with the pronoun of the second
person, changed them at once into persons, or what were called Devatâs,
deities, and thus the saying of one of their old grammarians, Yâska, is
justified, that whatever object is addressed in these Vedic hymns is to
be called its Devatâ—or deity. Later on it came to be recognised that
there was even a deeper ground for this deification, and that the
necessities of language, that is, of thought, did not allow at first of
any names being formed, except names of agent. Dyaus, masc., for
instance, the lighter, was earlier than Dyaus, fem., what is lighted up,
the sky.
If we take some of the most ancient and most popular daily prayers, used
in the daily Sandhyâvandana[12], we find that one of them is the famous
Gâyatrî, addressed to Savit_r_i, the sun:—
“We meditate on the adorable light of the divine Savit_r_i, that he may
rouse our thoughts.”
This Savit_r_i, the sun, is, of course, more than the fiery ball that
rises from the sea or over the hills, but nevertheless the real sun
serves as a symbol, and it was that symbol which suggested to the
suppliant the divine power manifested in the sun. Hence almost
everything that could be predicated of the sun was predicated of
Savit_r_i also, whatever was true of the sky, Dyaus, fem., was supposed
to be true of Dyaus, masc., Zeus or Jupiter also. As early an authority
as Kâtyâyana in his Index to the Rig-Veda declared that all the gods
invoked in the Vedic hymns can be reduced to three, to Agni, fire and
light, on earth, to Vâyu, air, in the atmosphere, and to Sûrya, sun, in
the sky, but he adds that all three are in the end meant for one, for
Pra_g_âpati, the Lord of creation. And later on he says, that there is
only one deity, namely the Great Self, Mahân Âtmâ, and some say that he
is the sun, (Sûrya), or that the sun is he. One of the prayers in the
Sandhyâvandana begins with Asâv Âdityo Brahma, that Âditya (sun) is
Brahman, and in the Taitt. Upanishad, VIII, 8, it is said: “He who
dwells in man and he who dwells in the sun, are one and the same.” The
same idea may be likewise deduced from the hymns themselves. In X, 158,
1, we read: “May the sun (Sûrya) protect us from the sky, the wind
(Vâyu) from mid-air, and fire (Agni) from the earth;” whereas in another
hymn, 115, 1, we read: “the Sun is the Self or soul of all that moves
and rests.” Here we can clearly watch the gradual transition from the
visible sun to the invisible agent of the sun which may have taken
centuries to evolve, and if we consider how almost everything on earth
is dependent on the sun for its very life, we can understand how a
perfectly natural road led from the sun as seen in heaven, to the sun as
the highest, the supreme, nay, in the end, as the only deity. This
religious and philosophical development of the concept of the sun did
not, however, prevent its simultaneous mythological growth. This is the
famous Solar Theory, which, no doubt, has been much exaggerated, but
which, if properly understood, admits, we know, of cheap cavil, but
never of refutation; nay, which, if but rightly understood, has really
received more support from its supposed critics than from its
originators and supporters. One of the most intelligible names given to
the sun was A_s_va, the racer, or Dadhikrâvan or Vâ_g_in, horse. And
while at one time the sun was a racer, at another the sun was conceived
as approaching men and standing on a golden chariot which was drawn by
horses, as in Greek mythology. Thus we read, Rig-Veda I, 35, 2: “The god
Savit_r_i (the sun), approaching on the dark-blue sky, sustaining
mortals and immortals, comes on his golden chariot, beholding all the
worlds.”
I have been assured that the noisy cannonade which was directed for
years against this explanation of Vedic and Aryan mythology, was really
meant as a kind of salute; but I should have much preferred a few
twenty-pounders to test the solidity of my entrenched position. When at
last I was charged with never having taken any notice of certain
illustrious critics, it seemed to me but courteous to respond to that
appeal. But there was really little to answer because there was so
little difference between my critics and myself. They evidently thought
that I was opposed to their anthropological theories, whereas on the
contrary I rejoiced in them, whenever they rested on scholarly evidence.
I had myself dabbled in the grammar of the Mohawk and Hottentot
languages, because I considered grammar a _sine quâ non_ of mythology,
nor was I much disturbed when my Sanskrit scholarship was found fault
with by critics who did not know the Sanskrit alphabet. That real
Sanskrit scholars should have differed on certain etymologies, was quite
another thing, nor was it difficult to come to an understanding with
them. Either they were mistaken on certain points or I was, but no real
Sanskrit scholar would ever join in the clamour of those who maintained
that Greek, Latin, and Teutonic mythology had quite a different origin
from that of the Veda. Such things pass and are soon forgotten, and no
one who, like myself, remembers the time when Bopp was laughed at by
classical scholars for the foolish idea that Greek and Latin grammar
should be explained by a comparison with Sanskrit would be much
disturbed by those who did not blush to say that there was only one
tenable equation between the names of classical and Vedic deities, viz.
Dyaus = Zeus. But have those ready writers ever reflected what such an
admission would really mean, and how it would disable the whole of their
machinery? What would happen if the name of Jehovah, or even of Yahveh,
turned up suddenly in the Veda? Thinking is difficult, but it is
sometimes useful. Such things will be remembered hereafter among the
Curiosities of Literature. No one is infallible, but because we have
occasionally a fall on the ice, it does not follow that we must not
skate or even cut figures on the ice. There is plenty of work to do for
those who are willing to work either at the language of the Rig-Veda, or
at that of the Maoris, but without some of that grammatical drudgery, I
doubt whether mere assertions, or repeating the opinions of others, will
really forward our knowledge of the _origines_ of our own race.
It is surely as clear as daylight to anybody who will read a number of
the hymns of the Rig-Veda that they refer to the principal phenomena of
nature, and that in that respect they require no antecedents, but are
intelligible to any child. Yet for a number of years there has been a
constant outcry from certain anthropologists, who asserted that the
Vedic hymns were modern in spirit, modern in language, and modern in
their pantheon, and that this pantheon had nothing whatever to do with
the phenomena of nature, and had no relationship whatever with the gods
of the other Aryan nations, particularly of Greeks, Romans, and Teutons.
They looked upon the Vedic religion as the last phase in a development,
the earlier stages of which had to be studied among savage races, such
as the _well-known_ Kamilaroi, Wiraturei, Waihvun, &c. Have they
forgotten this? It is true, no doubt, that the ideas expressed in the
Veda presupposed a long development, even a period of savagery,
considering that all civilised nations must once have been less
civilised, uncivilised, or even savages. There are quite sufficient
survivals of savagery even in the Veda itself, only it is Aryan
savagery, not savagery of the Pacific Islanders, African negroes, or
Dravidians. If only some cases could be produced in which the Australian
blacks shared any of the ideas of the Veda, or displayed similar ideas,
only more savage, every true scholar would welcome them with open arms.
Our expectations have been raised to a very high pitch in that
direction, and I still hope that in time they may be fulfilled. In the
meantime it is fortunate that the mere clamour against the Veda has at
last subsided, so that now people only marvel how it could ever have
arisen.
Most of the names of the Vedic deities implied at first activity only,
but very soon personality also, and what is most important, some of them
were found to be exactly the same in Sanskrit, in Greek, Latin, German,
and Slavonic, being only changed in every one of these languages
according to the phonetic rules peculiar to each. Such verbal
coincidences had to be accounted for, and they could not be accounted
for except by the admission that there was once a period, a truly
historical period, during which the framers of these mythological names
and the believers in these physical powers, or, as we are accustomed to
call them, these natural Gods or Devas, were still living together as
one language, people or nation. Such an admission, inevitable as it was
in the eyes of all true scholars, roused at the time a certain dislike
and incredulity among those who like to shrug their shoulders at every
new discovery. Forgetful of the fact that proper names in all languages
undergo certain phonetic changes which do not apply to ordinary
appellatives, they thought they could belittle the value of such
equations as Sâramêya = Ἑρμείας, Sara_n_yû = Ἐρινύς, Haritas = Χάριτες
by pointing out that strictly speaking the Greek forms should have been
Ἑρεμείας and Ἑρινύς, while the Greek Charites, though identical in
names, seemed to resist all efforts to trace them back to the same
source from which sprang the bright horses of the sun-god.
This cheap scepticism, however, or, as it is now called, this higher
criticism, may safely be said to belong to the past. I am old enough to
remember the conversion of such giants as Gottfried Hermann, Otfried
Müller, and Welcker to the principles of scholarship, as taught by Bopp,
Grimm, and others. That was indeed a real triumph. In 1825, Otfried
Müller, the real founder of a scientific mythology (_wissenschaftliche
Mythologie_), was sighing for a translation of the Rig-Veda. In 1899,
when a great part of it has been made accessible by the patient labours
of English, French, and German scholars, some writers, who call
themselves mythologists, seem to take a pride in ignoring the existence
of the Veda. How far we have advanced since 1825, may be gathered from a
statement to which I should be very sorry to affix a name, “that the
only generally accepted case of similarity between Vedic and classical
mythological names was that of Dyaush-pitar, Ζεὺς πατήρ, and Jupiter.”
Has Benfey taught in vain? Even in 1839, Benfey (_Wörterbuch_, II, 334)
knew that Ushas was = Eos, Agni (fire) = ignis, (ibid., II, 217), Sûrya
= Helios (ibid., I, 458), to say nothing of later equations which, even
if disapproved of, or disproved, would leave the general principles of
Comparative Mythology exactly as they were fifty years ago. Has all this
been forgotten, or never been learnt?
The discovery of Vedic literature which had retained the clearest traces
of a common Aryan mythology, even if no equation besides that of
Dyaush-pitar = Ζεὺς πατήρ had survived, was really the discovery of a
new world, of a _terra antiquis incognita_, and gave us a glimpse at a
whole period of thought, of which no relics whatever could be found
anywhere else, whether in Greece, Italy, or Germany.
But highly interesting as these Vedic hymns are to us, in spite of, or,
I should say, on account of their simplicity and childishness, anybody
who came to know them at first hand had to confess that they seem quite
unfit to satisfy the religious cravings of a later generation. They
contain praises of the physical gods, they implore their help, they
render thanks for benefits supposed to have come from their hands, light
and life from Dyaus, rain and food from a closely related power, called
Indra, warmth and light from Agni, new life every morning from Ushas or
Eos. All this is historically and psychologically full of interest, but
there is little only, except here and there, of exalted religious
thought, of poetry or philosophy, still less of any records of
historical events. Besides, their language is so difficult that, as yet,
it makes a satisfactory translation of the whole Veda a perfect
impossibility. This may seem surprising in the days when hieroglyphic
and cuneiform inscriptions have been so readily translated. But the fact
is that most of those inscriptions are very straightforward, they hardly
contain a conditional or a relative sentence. We read of Kings and Kings
of Kings, of their battles from year to year, of the towns they founded,
of the conquests they made, the captives they led away, the tribute they
received and so on, and yet even such simple statements vary very
considerably from year to year according as they are translated by bold
or timid scholars. The Vedic hymns on the contrary, even when we
understand every word of them, remain very obscure in their structure or
construction; and though their texts are very firmly established from
the time they were first reduced to writing and made the subject of the
most minute grammatical study in India, even before the spreading of
Buddhism, it is clear that before that time, when the Vedic texts
existed in oral tradition only, they must have been exposed to many
vicissitudes. There are verbal emendations so palpable that we can
hardly understand how the mistakes could have arisen, and could have
been tolerated for one moment. Besides that, there are evidently old and
new hymns, yet all of them are recognised as belonging to the Veda, ever
since the Vedic hymns were systematically collected.
The attempts that have been made to translate the Vedic hymns may be
divided into four periods. The first consisted of those who followed
Sâya_n_a’s great Sanskrit commentary. This was the method followed by
Rosen in 1830 and 1838, and again, in 1850, by H. H. Wilson. It was soon
found out, however, that highly useful, nay indispensable, as the
traditional interpretation of Sâya_n_a might be, it was in many places
quite impossible to follow him, because the true meaning was too clear,
and that adopted by Sâya_n_a too absurd. Rosen already used very freely
the privilege of the scholar to choose between what is rational and what
is not. Wilson had a stronger faith in Sâya_n_a, and gave us in his
translation the traditional rendering, even where his own sound sense
rebelled against it.
There were others again who went into the other extreme, and from sheer
despair at Sâya_n_a’s commentary, translated the Veda according to what
they thought it ought to mean. Langlois, a professor of eloquence at
Paris, carried this principle very far indeed, yet we find that his
translation is still followed by some writers on ancient religion and
mythology.
In the meantime a new school was slowly gaining ground who held that the
only satisfactory way of translating the Veda was to construct, first of
all, a complete _Index Verborum_[13], to examine every passage in which
the same word occurs, and then to assign that meaning to each word which
would satisfy the context wherever it occurred. I published such an
_Index Verborum_ at the end of my edition of Sâya_n_a’s commentary, and
it is easy to see the influence which it exercised at once on the
translations of the Rig-Veda which we owe to Grassmann, to Ludwig, and
to Ralph T. H. Griffith, and to others who tried their hands on single
hymns or single verses. Still greater was the influence exercised by the
Sanskrit Dictionary of Boehtlingk and Roth, and the Vedic Vocabulary of
Grassmann, though, of course, neither the one nor the other professed to
give a complete index of every word and every form in every passage in
which it occurred.
The method which I recommended, and which I followed in the specimens
published (in 1859, in my “History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature,” in
1869, in the “Hymns to the Storm-gods,” and again in the “Sacred Books
of the East,” 1891), was so tedious, however, that few scholars only
felt tempted to follow it. Professor Roth, the scholar most qualified,
through his lexical labours, to give us a real translation of the Veda,
was honest enough to say again and again that such a work belonged to
the next generation of Sanskrit scholars, and to the next century. I
myself, having accepted the appointment to a new professorship of
Comparative Philology at Oxford, had other things to do, and after I had
given the best part of my life to supplying the materials necessary for
such a task, I hoped that the ambition of younger scholars would have
been roused to undertake this no doubt difficult, but very grateful
work. I did not go so far as to say, as has been supposed, that every
word, whenever it occurred, should again and again be followed by every
translator through all its hiding-places. A number of words have once
for all been fixed in their meanings, and when that was the case, they
were naturally passed, as known to every Sanskrit scholar. Still the
mere physical exertion in collecting all parallel passages became too
much for me, and I had reluctantly to give it up to younger and more
vigorous hands.
We are now at the beginning of a new era in Vedic scholarship whenever
the Complete Concordance, promised by Professors Bloomfield and Lanman,
shall have been published. This will be a gigantic work, but it is
really the _sine quâ non_ for the Vedic exegesis of the future, and we
may expect much help from it. But though many passages may be unravelled
by a more complete intercomparison, my own impression is that, through
the influence of a long-continued oral tradition a great amount of real
corruption has crept into our texts which no amount of conjectural
emendation will ever entirely remove. This may sound very discouraging,
but fortunately, after deducting ever so much that is hopeless, there
remains enough of the 1,017 hymns to give us that insight into the first
development of religious thought in India and indirectly among the Aryan
nations in general, which is so full of interest to us psychologically,
even more than historically. So many conflicting theories have lately
been started about the origin of religion, that it must seem to many
people as if, like other beginnings, that of religion also was really
beyond our grasp. But this is to a great extent our own fault, because
philosophers are bent on discovering the origin of religion, instead of
being satisfied with studying the origin of religions, or of each
individual religion with which it is possible to do so, that is of which
we possess old literary documents. For that purpose the study of the
Veda is invaluable. But who would try to discover the origin of Islam,
without studying the Korân? or of Buddhism without knowing the Suttas?
Who would offer an opinion about the beginning of Christianity, unless
he had read the Gospels? Even then, it is well known how far removed the
Gospels are from the Nativity, and the Korân from the Hejrah. But if we
approach the religions of Greeks and Romans, where shall we find the
Sibylline leaves telling us of their real parentage? If there lived many
heroes before Agamemnon, there lived many poets and prophets before
Homer; but who can pierce through the cruel darkness that hides them
from our sight?
And what shall we do when we have to deal with religious customs and
mythological lore of savage, uncivilised, and illiterate tribes? A study
of their languages is no doubt an immense help towards a correct
understanding of their traditions; and we cannot be sufficiently
grateful to men like Hahn, Codrington, Tregear, and others who did not
shrink from that drudgery, before writing on the myths or customs of
uncivilised tribes. The most useful materials may be found where some
popular poetry has been preserved to the present day, as among the
Maoris or of some of the Ugro-Finnic tribes.
It is well known how much labour has been spent on establishing the date
and the authenticity of the Vedic hymns. Their authenticity is now
admitted by all Sanskrit scholars. Their date has been fixed by me in my
“History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature” (1859) at about 1200 to 1500
B.C. But though this date has met with very general acceptance, I am the
very last person to consider it as firmly established, and I have again
and again given my reasons why I should gladly escape from the force of
my own arguments. If other scholars have clamoured for a higher age, for
2000 or 5000 B.C., they are quite welcome to these dates if they can
establish them by any kind of historical evidence, and not merely by
their wishes; but as yet these guesses are outside the sphere of
practical scholarship, quite as much as the date assigned by a
Babylonian scholar to the immigration of the Âryas into India, so late
as 500 or at the utmost 600 B.C.!
But no literary or traditional documents which we possess, whether in
Greek or Latin or in any other Oriental language, to say nothing of
barbarous dialects, bring us so near, if not to the origin, at least to
the early historical development of any of the ancient religions of
mankind as the hymns of the Veda. If the study of single religions must
precede the study of religion in general, nowhere can we get so near to
the origin of any single religion as in the hymns of the Rig-Veda. Other
religions may be older, and religion by itself may be beyond all
conception old, but no single religion, as far as I know, has been
preserved in documents so old, and so near to the very cradle of a
religion as that which we see growing before our eyes in the Veda. Let
those who want to know the origin of religion, _a priori_, take refuge
in metaphysics; but those who care to understand the origin of one
single religion will find no better oracle to consult than the poems of
the Vedic Rishis.
The chronological date of the Vedic hymns, which has been fixed by some
at 1200, by others at 2000, nay at 4500 B.C., are, no doubt, very
uncertain, and can be no more than constructive. But though Egyptian and
Babylonian dates go far beyond any date in India, we can see more of the
real beginnings of religion in India than even in Egypt or Babylon. Nor
would anybody accept the principle laid down by students of the religion
of savages, that whatever is savage or barbarous in religion, must be
old. This is a major premiss that would play fearful havoc with our
chronology.
What is quite clear is that, between the Vedic hymns and the next
period, that of the prose Brâhma_n_as, there is a great gulf. The hymns
of the three Vedas had not only been collected, such as we have them,
but had already been invested with a divine authority, such as is seldom
ascribed to works of recent date. Besides, it is clear that the language
of the hymns had often been completely misunderstood by the authors of
the Brâhma_n_as, and that a new style had sprung up in the place of that
of the old poetical compositions. From the time of the Brâhma_n_as,
which precede the rise of Buddhism (500 B.C.), to the present day, the
old hymns of the Veda have retained their unique position in India.
Invested with the character of a divine revelation, they have been to
the people of India what the Bible has been to us.
And yet how different is this Bible of India from all other Bibles! No
doubt we meet in the Veda with some exalted, and some very abstract
ideas also, but its general character is very different. It is simple,
straightforward, natural, without any attempt at systematic treatment,
without any effort for poetical beauty. When we take day and night,
spring and winter, as they come and go, we shall find in the hymns
thoughts such as would naturally spring up in the minds of any
unsophisticated observers who felt that there must be something behind
the visible world, some powers or persons directing the course of
nature, possibly some power even beyond the powers, whom they called
Devas or Bright ones. It was chiefly the phenomena which recurred
regularly that impressed themselves on their minds and evoked in time
the idea of order and law as pervading the whole of nature, even its
very thunderstorms and lightnings.
There is hardly a language in which sun and moon, day and night, dawn
and fire have not received their names, many of which, on account of
their multiplicity, led almost inevitably to mythological metamorphosis.
Anthropology has clearly shown that the idea that exceptional events
such as meteors, earthquakes, hurricanes, lightning, eclipses of sun or
moon, furnished the first impulses to religion and mythology is no
longer tenable, even though it has, or rather seemed to have, the often
quoted support of Seneca. If we may judge by what has been observed
among uncivilised as well as civilised races—for even civilised races
must once have been uncivilised—regularity attracts attention first and
irregularity follows, or, as it has been more tersely expressed, the
Gods come first, the Devils second, though it is quite true that in
later times Devil-worship may have become more important, or, at least,
more prominent than the worship of the Gods. Of these so-called
prehistoric periods of human thought, however, we must always speak with
great reserve. We must never forget that they are constructions of our
own, and that we shall never be able to appeal to historical facts in
support of our theories. Facts are given us for the first time during
the Etymological Period of languages, and afterwards, but at a much
later time, by the scant remains to be gathered from the Sacred Books of
the East. And here the Vedic hymns will always hold their foremost
place. However late we may place this systematic collection, their
composition carries us back far beyond the chronological limits reached
by any other documents. And what gives an additional interest to these
Vedic fragments is that they allow us an insight into the earliest
development not only of religion, but of mythology also. We see
superstitions springing up by the side of religion, demons by the side
of gods, agriculture by the side of the chase, bows and arrows by the
side of the stone-weapons (A_s_ani), such as Indra hurled against
V_ri_tra in his fight against the powers of darkness. Though the
conception of the rainbow being the bow of the god of the sky is not to
be found in the Rig-Veda, bows and arrows were well known to the
worshippers of the Vedic gods. The Science of Mythology, after tossing
about for centuries on the ocean of mere conjectures, has at last found
its compass. We no longer see in it, like Bacon, mere lessons of
morality in the disguise of fables, or broken rays of a primeval
revelation, or misunderstood fragments of the Old Testament, still less
recollections of a period of savagery to be studied in the myths and
customs of modern savages, or survivals of a belief in amulets and magic
incantations, generally the very latest outcome of mythology in its
historical development, though I believe there are still survivals of
defenders of every one of these time-hallowed theories. We know now, and
we know it chiefly from the lessons taught us by the Veda, that our
Aryan mythology, and to a certain extent our ancient Aryan religion
also, took its origin from a poetical interpretation of the great
phenomena of nature, personified and named as the chief agents of the
eternal physical drama, enacted before us every day, every month, every
season, every year, and we know also that this broad stream of
mythology, when once started, was open to ever so many tributaries,
superstitions, customs, vain genealogies, sorceries, idolatries of every
kind, whether springing from fancies and imaginations, or from downright
falsehoods and impositions. All these things are apt to be absorbed by
mythology, and must be taken into account when we attempt a scientific
analysis of it. It must not be supposed, however, that the attempt to
find the key of Aryan mythology in fetishism, totemism, shamanism, and
wherever it was _not_ to be found, have been entirely wasted. A
reconnoitring party, even though it return disappointed, has rendered
real service by showing where the enemy is not to be found, and that
service has certainly been rendered by the exploring parties who thought
they could discover in Africa, America, or Australia what was ready to
hand in India, Greece, Italy, and among Celtic, Teutonic, and Slavonic
races.
People continue to write as if there was still some mystery about the
Rig-Veda. There may have been when we began, in the days of Rosen and
Burnouf, but there is no longer. The tools are there, all that is now
required is honest work, and there is plenty of it, even if there were
more real labourers and not merely gleaners than we have at present. It
would be by no means difficult to put together a number of hymns which
would at once settle the question by showing us the Hindu mind such as
it really was during the Vedic period, and impressed by the grand sights
of nature that passed before it day and night.
The same story is told again and again, and wherever we open the
Rig-Veda, the same daily drama in its successive stages seems enacted
before our eyes. Some people, more particularly the late M. Bergaigne,
have been disconcerted by the many allusions not only to the sights of
nature, but to the daily sacrifices also which occur in these hymns, but
they evidently did not realise that, however complicated and technical
the sacrifice had become before the time when these Vedic hymns were
collected, there is nothing incongruous between praise and sacrifice.
Sacrifice was a very natural occupation for the Vedic savages, as it is
among savages at the present day. Whether a man who can describe the
daily sunrise in artificial metres belongs to a more primitive humanity
than a man who marks the stations of the sun, the phases of the moon, or
the return of the seasons to say his prayers and pour out his libations,
Sanskrit scholars would gladly leave to members of Ethnological
Societies to determine. Whether the Veda is primeval or not, is another
question that may likewise be left to those who know what primeval
really means.
The grave mistake to be guarded against is to suppose that the Veda is
an exclusively liturgical book, monotonous throughout, and belongs
therefore to a late liturgical age. Savages, as ethnologists themselves
have told us, are often very punctilious ritualists, and if we only
consider how essential the Vedic sacrificial system was to the Âryas of
India in determining times and seasons, in fact, in laying the first
foundations of a well-regulated society, we shall no longer be surprised
at the numerous liturgical allusions which occur in the Vedic hymns, nor
on the other hand see more of liturgy in them than there really is.
Whoever has read if only the first hymn of the Rig-Veda[14], will know
how many words in it have a liturgical meaning, but nowhere have those
liturgical ideas obscured the original character of the Vedic gods, as
being the agents or actors in the physical drama of nature which first
made the simple sons of nature ponder on the meaning of day and night,
of sun and moon, of earth and sky, in fact of all that made them wonder,
and turn their thoughts beyond the horizon of the visible world.
I think it may be best if I give here a few of those Vedic hymns. They
have a right to a place among my Indian Friends. They have been with me
for many years. They have often roused me in the morning, they have
soothed me in the evening. I have tried to make them out as one tries to
make out the character of a friend, even when at times one feels puzzled
with him. I have always trusted them with good intentions, and if some
of their utterances for a long time remained dark and still remain dark,
are there not some dark corners in most of our friends, nay, even in
ourselves?
It has been truly said that books are our best friends. We see more of
them than of any other friends, and even if we get tired of them at
times, they are always ready to renew their friendship. People of the
world may wonder what we can see to attract us in such books as the
Rig-Veda and to keep us faithful to them to the end. But if they tried,
they would find that there are few of the great books of the world which
are not worth knowing, and that there are many which deserve our
friendship, our love, and our lasting gratitude.
I shall select these Vedic friends at random, following, however, the
guidance of an old grammarian, Yâska, who tells us in what succession
the Vedic gods appear on the heavenly stage every day, and particularly
in the morning. It is in the morning, when light and life return that
the bright beings, the Devas, are seen, and the daily revelation of
another world takes place, while the various aspects of the new light
are personified in the principal gods of the Veda. The order in which
they appear, according to Yâska, is: A_s_vinau, day and night, Ushas,
dawn, Sûryâ, wife of the sun, V_ri_shakapâyî, wife of V_ri_shakapi,
doubtful, Sara_n_yû, early dawn, Erinys, Savit_ri_, the enlivening sun,
Bhaga, the sun before sunrise, Sûrya, the risen sun.
We begin with the two A_s_vins whom Yâska places at the head of the
daily procession of the Devas, the Bright Ones.
Hymn to the A_s_vins, Day and Night.
No Vedic gods have been so completely misunderstood as these heavenly
twins, and misunderstood by the Brâhmans themselves. Still even these
misunderstandings are instructive. The A_s_vins were taken for a pair of
horsemen, though it is well known that riders on horseback occur very
seldom in the Veda, so that some scholars have wrongly maintained that
riding on horseback was altogether unknown in Vedic times. The A_s_vins
were taken by native exegetes for old heroes or kings, and why they
should have formed part of the Vedic gods who appear in the morning and
the evening[15], was never so much as asked. Besides, A_s_vin would be a
very strange name for rider, and would much rather convey the meaning of
a descendant or connection of A_s_va, or A_s_vâ, i. e. the Horse, or the
Mare, one of the many mythological names, as we saw, of the sun and the
dawn. Being a couple the A_s_vins were really the oldest representatives
of the couple of day and night, travelling always on their ordained path
from morning till evening, the same path on which Agni also travels[16]
in his character of the light of day. Thus they were very naturally
mixed up with many of the daily adventures of the Sun and the Dawn[17].
Dyaus is called the father of the A_s_vins (Rig-Veda X, 61, 4), the Dawn
their mother, while under another name, as Sûryâ, she is represented as
the daughter of Savit_ri_ and as the beloved of the A_s_vins[18].
Another poet says that the Dawn is born, when the A_s_vins have
harnessed their chariot, and that Day and Night, again the A_s_vins,
spring from Vivasvat[19], the shining sun. As Sara_n_yû, Erinys, also is
called the mother of the A_s_vins, she must likewise have been another
form of the Dawn in her varying aspects.
The stories about the A_s_vins when they have once become mythological
characters, heroes, saviours, and physicians, are endless, but they need
not detain us. The important point is to perceive their physical
background, and that can always be discovered even behind the thick veil
of legend. Nothing is more instructive for the student of mythology than
to see how this natural conception of Day and Night, of Light and
Darkness, as the A_s_vins, becomes the germ from which spring in time
ever so many half-legendary and even half-historical fables, the
so-called Itihâras.
Most of the hymns addressed to the A_s_vins are very tedious, and repeat
again and again the numerous miracles which they performed and the
kindnesses which they showed to their friends and worshippers. I give
here one short hymn only (V, 76), enough, however, to show what physical
background there was for them, a background which in many cases had
entirely vanished from the purview of the Vedic Rishis, but which is
clear enough to the student of mythology.
I have endeavoured in these translations to keep strictly to the metre
of the original, which is not always easy. I must therefore crave the
indulgence of my readers for certain infelicities of expression which I
could not avoid without departing too much from the original.
HYMN TO THE A_S_VINS, DAY AND NIGHT.
1.
Agni shines forth, the shining face of Ushas[20],
The priests’ god-loving voices have ascended,
O A_s_vins, on your chariot hither tending,
Come to our overflowing morn-libation.
2.
The quick do not despise our ready offering;
They have been praised, and are now near beside us;
Early and late they hasten to our succour,
The worshippers best friends against all evil.
3.
Come hither then at milking-time, at breakfast,
Come here at noon, and come at sunset also,
By day, by night, come with your happy succour;
Our draught has always brought the A_s_vins hither.
4.
This place, forsooth, has always been your dwelling,
The houses here, O A_s_vins, and this shelter;
Come from high heaven then, and from the mountain[21],
Come from the waters, bringing food and vigour.
5.
May we attain the A_s_vins’ newest blessings,
Their happy guidance, health and wealth bestowing;
Immortals, bring us riches, bring us heroes,
And all that here on earth can make us happy.
If we remember that these twins were originally meant for morning and
evening, the process by which they gradually became what they are in
this hymn and in other hymns more full of personal legends, is most
instructive to watch. That the A_s_vins were originally meant for
morning and evening, or for the two halves of the diurnal twenty-four
hours, cannot be called in question, unless another germ-idea is first
suggested for them. But then, is it not instructive to see how day and
night simply by being addressed in the second person became personified,
became human and even divine, and were called by a name which would be
unintelligible unless we remembered that the sun had once been called
A_s_va, the runner, and that Asvâ, the mare, had been used as a not
uncommon name of the Dawn. These beings who seemed to move on the same
daily path as the sun, or to have been born of the Dawn, called A_s_vâ,
were then called the sons or friends of the Dawn, A_s_vinau, or the
horsemen, as representing the two phases of the sun, or of the horse;
or, as Yâska says, Nir. XII, 2, the sun of night and the sun of morning.
Their three-wheeled chariot is golden, and in a single day goes round
heaven and earth. And when that first metamorphosis had once been
effected, when Day and Night had once become a pair of runners, ever
returning to the same spot in the morning, almost every blessing that
comes from day and night, particularly health and length of days, would
naturally be ascribed to them. Thus they gradually assumed the general
character of saviours and of physicians, and ever so many beings who
were rescued from dangers or from death, whether the setting sun, or the
setting moon, or the setting year, were supposed to have been rescued by
them. Their chief work is to restore life, and to renew youth, or to
give sight to the blind. In many cases the names of the heroes rescued
or helped by them speak for themselves, and leave no doubt, in the minds
of Sanskrit scholars at least, that they represent physical phenomena, a
fact admitted in this case even by so great a sceptic as Bergaigne. Only
it must not be supposed that, because we can explain some of their
names, we ought to be able to explain them all. The Brâhmans themselves
had long forgotten the original purport of these names, and when that
was the case, they did not hesitate to give us as facts what were merely
their conjectures. As one of the characteristic features of the A_s_vins
was that they always returned, Nâsatya, the returning (*νόστιοι from
νόστος, homeward journey) would seem a very applicable name. But ancient
grammarians quoted by Yâska, VI, 13, explained it by Na + Asatya, not
untrue, or by Nasikâprabhava, born of the nose. Yet Yâska himself had a
very just perception of the nature of the A_s_vins. He quotes various
opinions of his predecessors who saw in them heaven and earth, or day
and night, or sun and moon, or, lastly, two pious kings. Only this is
not a question so much of _aut—aut_, as of _et—et_. They were all this,
only from different points of view, and this comprehensiveness is one of
the most important features of ancient mythological thought. However
startling this may sound to those who form their theories without any
reference to historical facts, it is really one of the most important
keys for unlocking the riddles of the most ancient periods of mythology,
and should be carefully distinguished from what is meant by the
syncretism of much later times.
Hymn to Ushas, Dawn.
Next follows Ushas, the Dawn, identical in name, _pace_ M. Reinach, with
the Greek Eos. She is represented as the most beautiful heavenly
apparition among the gods in their procession from East to West. She is
called the daughter of Dyaus, the sister of Agni, also his beloved,
according to the changing aspects in which the sun of the morning and
the dawn presented themselves to the fancy, of the Vedic poets. I
subjoin the translation of a hymn addressed to Ushas from the first
Ma_nd_ala, hymn 123.
1.
Dakshi_n_â’s[22] roomy chariot has been harnessed,
And the immortal gods have mounted on it,
The growing Dawn, free from the dark oppressor,
Stepped forth to spy for the abode of mortals.
2.
The mighty woke before all other creatures,
She wins the race, and always conquers riches;
The Dawn looks out, young and reviving ever,
She came the first here to our morning prayers.
3.
When thou, O Dawn, to-day dividest treasures,
Thou goddess, nobly born, among all mortals,
May Savit_ri_[23], the god, the friend of homesteads,
Proclaim us innocent before the sun-god!
4.
To every house is Ahanâ[24] approaching,
Giving to every day its name and being,
Dyotanâ[24] came, for ever bent on conquest,
She gets the best of all the splendid treasures.
5.
Varu_n_a’s sister, sister thou of Bhaga,
O Sûn_ri_tâ[24], O Dawn, sing first at daybreak;
May he fall back, the man that plotteth mischief,
With Dakshi_n_â and car let us subdue him.
6.
Let hymns rise up, let pray’rs rise up together,
The fires have risen, clad in flaring splendour,
The brilliant Dawn displays the lovely treasures
Which had been hidden by the night and darkness.
7.
The one departeth and the other cometh[25],
Unlike in hue the two march close together;
One secretly brought night to earth and heaven,
Dawn sparkled forth on her refulgent chariot.
8.
Alike to-day, alike to-morrow also,
They ever follow Varu_n_a’s[26] commandment;
They one by one achieve their thirty Yogans[27],
And without fail achieve their lord’s (Varu_n_a’s) commandment[28].
9.
She knows the first day’s name, and brightly shining,
White she is born to-day, from out the darkness;
The maiden never breaks th’ eternal order[29],
And day by day comes to the place appointed.
10.
Proud of thy beauty, maiden-like thou comest,
O goddess to the god[30] who thee desireth;
A smiling girl, thou openest before him
Thy bosom’s splendour, as thou shinest brightly.
11.
Fair as a bride, adorned by loving mother,
Thou showest forth thy form, that they may see it;
Auspicious Dawn, shine forth more wide and brightly,
No other dawns[31] have ever reached thy splendour.
12.
With horses, cows, and all delightful treasures,
And striving with the rays of yonder Sûrya,
The Dawns depart and come again with splendour,
Bearing auspicious names and forms auspicious.
13.
Obedient to the reins of law eternal,
Grant us auspicious thoughts for our endeavours,
Shine thou upon us, Dawn, thou swift to listen,
May we and all our liberal chieftains prosper!
In spite of all the angry and ill-natured words of M. Bergaigne, I ask
once more whether this address to the Dawn is not perfectly natural and
intelligible. Whether it required a priest to compose it, or whether any
father of a family could have done so, who can tell? And who can tell
whether the first priest was not simply the father of a family, who had
his fire always burning on the domestic hearth, and who felt grateful
for the return of the dawn, which coincided with the kindling of the
fire on his hearth? If the morning service was called Pûrvahûti, what is
that more than the early calling, Hûti being derived from the same root,
Hvê, from which we had before Hot_ri_, the invoker, the priest.
But whatever we may think on that point, it seems perfectly clear that
the different names by which the Dawn is here addressed, Ushas, Ahanâ,
Dyotanâ, Dakshi_n_â, and Sûn_ri_tâ, were understood as names of the
Dawn. But will it be believed, that when the Dawn is addressed in the
very first verse by the name of Dakshi_n_â, when her chariot is
mentioned, and her stepping forth out of darkness to come to the
morning-prayer of the people, Mr. Bergaigne, always on the look-out for
priest-craft and ritual, sees in Dakshi_n_â, not the Dawn, but _le
salaire du sacrifice_? He thinks it not impossible that _le salaire du
sacrifice_ might have been the name of the Dawn, _considérée comme le
don céleste accordé pour récompense à l’homme pieux_. But he declines
even this small concession, and, if I understand him rightly, he
actually takes Dakshi_n_â in the first and fifth verses of our hymn as
the salary of the priests. Now it is quite true that Dakshi_n_â has this
meaning of salary or gift due to the priest who performs that sacrifice,
but that meaning is clearly impossible here. Our hymn contains several
unusual names of the Dawn, such as Ahanâ, Dyotanâ, Sûn_ri_tâ, all ἅπαξ
λεγόμενα, as names of the Dawn, then why not Dakshi_n_â? Dakshi_n_â
means right, _dexter_, evidently from Daksha, strength, the right hand
being the strong or clever hand. It then means southern. It also means
the cow, the strong cow which has calves and gives milk (Dakshi_n_â
gâva_h_, Lâ_t_y. VIII, 5), and as such a cow was the most primitive
payment (_fee_ and _pecu_), it may well have become the regular name for
the fee due to the priest. She is celebrated as such in one of the Vedic
hymns, X, 107. But however prominent a place may have been assigned to
this Dakshi_n_â, the salary of priests, how could the Dawn have been
called the salary? We can hardly explain why even that salary was called
Dakshi_n_â, unless we suppose that it was meant for the right hand, or
_la bonne main_, and in that case Dakshi_n_â, Dawn, might have been
meant for the liberal goddess. But whatever the evolution of the meaning
of Dakshi_n_â may have been[32], when she was invoked as Dakshi_n_â, she
could not have been invoked as Salary. I am glad to see that even M.
Bergaigne has not been bold enough to translate “_Le large char du
Salaire a été attelé_,” but “_Le large char de la Dakshi_n_â_.” If
Dakshi_n_â were really in that sense an ἅπαξ λεγόμενον, surely it is not
the only ἅπαξ λεγόμενον in the scanty survivals of Vedic poetry. When we
read that Dakshi_n_â was the daughter of Dyaus and the mother of Agni
(Rig-Veda III, 58, 1), we need no more to feel convinced that she was
meant for the Dawn. Besides, who is the Putro Dakshi_n_âya_h_, the son
of Dakshi_n_â, if not Agni, the same who brings Dyotani, Rig-Veda III,
58, 1? Another name of the Dawn is Dyotanâ, and who can doubt that it
meant the brilliant, i.e. the Dawn. More difficult are the other names
Ahanâ and Sûn_ri_tâ.
Ahanâ is clearly connected with Ahan, day, just as our dawn is connected
with day. It has long been known that day is not connected with _dies_,
as was formerly supposed, but that the root of Goth. dags, day, can only
have been dah, or dhah, with double aspirate, to burn, to shine. The
loss of an initial d is no doubt quite irregular[33], though it can be
matched by Goth. tagr, Gr. δάκρυ, tear, which in Sanskrit appears as
A_s_ru, instead of Da_s_ru. I pointed out long ago, and I have never
seen any valid reason to retract it, that in the Greek δάφνη, laurel
tree, the name of a matutinal goddess, we have the root with its initial
d, and that another derivation of the same root, without the initial d,
may be recognised in Athanâ or Athênê.
No one, I thought, could have supposed that I meant to see in this Ahanâ
one of the grandest Greek goddesses, Athênê. Why will people so often
misunderstand, and then place their misunderstanding on the shoulders of
those whom they misunderstand? When I said that Zeus is Dyaus, that Eos
is Ushas, that Agni is Ignis, surely I could not have meant that these
gods and goddesses migrated bodily from India to Greece and from Greece
to India. Why must what seems perfectly clear be said again and again,
that the Greek and Indian gods were not beings that ever existed in
heaven or on earth, but were mere names, mere creations of the human
mind. In all comparative mythological studies we have to look for the
germs only, and I see in Ahanâ and Athênê a common germ, that withered
on Indian soil, while it assumed the grandest development in Greece.
Surely not even Deva is the same as Deus; though it may be the same
sound, it does not represent the same meaning, so that strictly speaking
we cannot translate the one by the other. The Greek concept of Zeus also
was very different from that of the Vedic Dyaus, as that of Eos from
that of Ushas. I never went so far as to claim for Greek and Vedic
deities what might be called personal or bodily identity. I was simply
looking for germs which after thousands of years might have developed
into a Sûrya in the Veda, and into a Helios in Homer. These very modest
claims may possibly surprise my adversaries, for, to judge from their
remarks, they evidently imagined that I recognised in Zeus a heavenly
king who had migrated from India to Greece, and in the Haritas the
horses of the morning who in their journey to Greece had been
metamorphosed into the brilliant children of Helios and Aigle. I even
begin to see why what some critics supposed to have been my idea, should
have ruffled their temper so much, and I say once more, and I hope for
the last time, that I never believed that Athênê lived in the thoughts
of Vedic Rishis, nor Varu_n_a in the prayers of Greek priests. No, I am
and always have been satisfied with far less. All I stand up for is
that, given the sky, the Greeks raised Dyu, sky, to become their Zeus,
while the Vedic Rishis made the sky their Dyaus. This Dyaus is
superseded in the Veda by his own son, Indra, whereas Zeus in Greece
remained to the end the θεῶν ὕπατος καὶ ἄριστος. What is common to both
is the word, that is, the concept of Dyaus, or Greek Zeus, the sky as a
person and as an agent. I may not always have spoken quite guardedly,
and have taken certain things for granted which are understood by
themselves among scholars. The important lesson is always the same. If
Ahanâ is phonetically identical with Greek Athanâ and if Ahanâ is a name
of the Dawn, it follows that the first conception of Athênê was the Dawn
and that, as such, she sprang from the East or from the forehead of Zeus
or Dyaus, the sky. If in the Veda she brings light and wakes and stirs
up the thoughts of men, she became in Homer also the goddess of wisdom
and the τεχνῶν μήτηρ πολύολβος. All this was perfectly known to Otfried
Müller when in 1825 he wrote: “Because the name of the goddess was
originally a word of the language and always remained so, Charis glided
from poem to poem and preserved by means of the word her general meaning
in every individual manifestation” (p. 249).
Sûn_ri_tâ, another name of the Dawn, is more difficult to explain.
Sûn_ri_ta in the sense of true, seems to me to have been formed in
mistaken analogy to An-_ri_ta[34], untrue, and to have meant originally
true, then sincere, gentle, agreeable. As applied to the Dawn it would
have meant true, kind, auspicious.
But whatever obscurity there may still be left as to the meaning of
single words in our hymn, can any one doubt that the whole of it was
simply an address or a prayer to the Dawn, without any reference, as
yet, to any complicated ceremonial, as described in the Sûtras and
Brâhma_n_as, and alluded to in some of the hymns also? And why this
persistent searching for allusions to ceremonial? No one ever denied the
presence of real allusions in the Vedic hymns. But it is a matter of
degree, a question of more or less, and these ceremonial details, so far
from proving our hymns to be very modern and the work of professed
priests, serve only to prove, what was well known from other sources
also, that savage or uncivilised races adhere at all times with great
punctiliousness to their ceremonial customs and traditions. M. Bergaigne
has done excellent work in pointing out traces of the same
punctiliousness among Vedic poets, but he has allowed himself to be
carried away much too far by his own system, without either paying
sufficient attention to native commentaries or allowing sufficient
credit to his predecessors, particularly in Germany. To speak of _ces
philologues d’outre Rhin_, is entirely out of place in the republic of
letters, and encourages a literary _chauvinisme_ which will never find
favour with the best scholars of France.
Leaving out Sûryâ, the female representative of the sun, and more or
less a Dawn again, and V_ri_shâkapâyî, because her character is not
quite clear as yet, and Sara_n_yû = Erinys, because she is only
mentioned in a few verses, we proceed now to Savit_ri_, the rising sun.
Though Savit_ri_ is a name applied to the sun in general, it is most
frequently used as the name of the rising and life- and light-giving
sun. Nor must it be supposed that Savit_ri_ is simply an appellative of
the solar globe. Savit_ri_ has become a divine name or a divine _numen_
as full of life and personality as any other Deva. He can therefore be
asked, as he is in verse 9, to hale and bring back the real sun. We
shall easily recognise his character in the following hymn (Rig-Veda I,
35, 2):—
Hymn to Savit_ri_, Sun.
1.
I first call Agni[35] hither for our happiness,
I then call Mitra-Varu_n_a[36] to shield us here,
I call on Râtrî[37], sending all the world to rest,
I call for help on Savit_ri_, the brightest god.
2.
Approaching on the darkest path of heaven,
Setting to rest both mortal and immortal,
God Savit_ri_, on golden chariot standing,
Comes hither and beholdeth all creation.
3.
The brilliant god moves upward and moves downward,
The worshipful, drawn by his brilliant racers,
And from afar god Savit_ri_ approaches,
Driving away from us all that is evil[38].
4.
God Savit_ri_ stepped on his jewelled chariot,
The strong, the many-hued, its pins all golden[39],
And he, the worshipful, in brightest splendour,
Displays his strength across the darkest welkin.
5.
Black with white hoofs the horses shone upon us,
Dragging along the golden-shafted chariot;
All men, all creatures here for ever rested,
Safe in the lap of Savit_ri_ in heaven.
6.
Three skies are there of Savit_ri_, two places,
And one in Yama’s realm that holds our heroes[40],
Immortals[41] mounted on the chariot’s axle,—
Let him speak out who understands this saying.
7.
The glorious bird[42] has lighted-up the heaven,
The guide divine, whose wings are deeply sounding;
Where is the sun? Who knows it now, to tell us,
Which of the heavens his ray may have illumined?
8.
The earth’s eight quarters has the sun illumined,
Three miles of land, and all the seven rivers,
God Savit_ri_, the golden-eyed, has neared us,
And brought choice treasures to the liberal mortals.
9.
The golden Savit_ri_, who never rested,
Is moving forward, straight ‘tween earth and heaven,
He strikes disease, and hales the sun from yonder;
Through darkest clouds up to the sky he hastens.
10.
The guide divine, with golden arms appearing,
May come to us, the rich and gracious giver,
Praised every night, the god did come towards us,
Chasing away the noxious evil spirits.
11.
O Savit_ri_, come hither on thy pathways,
The old, well-made ones, dustless in the heavens,
And on those paths be thou our sure protector,
And grant to us to-day thy gracious blessing!
Is there one verse in this hymn that is not perfectly clear and
intelligible, as belonging to a hymn addressed to the personified deity
of the sun? Let us once understand that Savit_ri_ was a name of the sun,
and why should he not be invoked for protection and for every kind of
blessing? Of course, as soon as the sun was addressed by a poet, he
ceased to be a mere sight. He became subjective, personal, and human,
whether we like it or not. After that it does not require a great effort
of imagination to address him as standing on a golden chariot, drawn by
brilliant horses and all the rest. Surely the Vedic poets stood not
alone in indulging in such imagery.
The sixth verse is no doubt difficult to understand in its minute
detail, but its general sense is clear, and we must remember that the
whole verse was really meant as a kind of riddle, a kind of amusement in
which uncivilised races all over the world seem to have delighted.
Everything else is exactly what any poet might say of the sun. The sun
might well be called a bird with golden wings, and if he is thanked for
the treasures which he brings, surely the mere light of the morning and
the warmth of the day are treasures sufficient for those whose very life
must often have depended on the return of light and warmth after a cold
and dark night, or on the return of spring after a severe winter. I
cannot think that even native scholars could discover anything beyond
what we ourselves see in this hymn, and as to M. Bergaigne, he must
surely have been dazzled by his own system if he could perceive many,
nay, any allusions to a highly developed system of sacrifice in any hymn
like this. That such allusions exist in other hymns, I am very far from
denying; what I deny is that liturgical thoughts ever obscured the broad
physical features which formed the background of the ancient Vedic
religion[43], nay, of the Vedic ceremonial also, built up at first for
the sake of regulating the times and seasons of the year. I am the very
last to deny to M. Bergaigne and his pupils the merit of having made the
sacrificial system of the Vedic hymns more intelligible, but they have
not sufficiently resisted the temptation of trying the key that opened
one drawer, on all the drawers that still remained to be unlocked.
These hymns would suffice for the gods of the morning, and may help to
open the eyes of our mythological Parâv_rig_as, who cannot see the light
because there is too much of it.
I shall, however, add one more matutinal hymn addressed to Agni, not
simply as the fire, but as the god of light which brightens the world
every morning, and is in fact very difficult to distinguish from the
sun. This Agni is sometimes called the first of all the gods. The word
itself is the general name of fire in Sanskrit. It is phonetically the
same as the Latin _ignis_, though the change of a into i is phonetically
irregular. No one, however, is likely to be so bold an agnostic as to
deny that the Âryas, before they separated, had made the discovery of
fire, and given a name to it, such as Agni or _ignis_. What is most
interesting in the development of this word is that while in India it
entered into a very rich, religious, and mythological career, it
remained a simple appellative in Italy, and was almost entirely lost and
forgotten among the other Aryan nations. Should we be justified then in
saying that the Latin _ignis_ cannot possibly be the same word as Agni,
because the latter is one of the greatest gods in the Veda, while
_ignis_ is no god at all? In the Veda Agni is a most prominent deity,
though his character has often been misunderstood. Agni was, no doubt,
the fire on the hearth and on the altar, and as such had his own
development in India[44]. But Agni was also light in general, and more
especially the light of the sun, whether in the morning, or at noon, or
in the evening. Thus we read, Rig-Veda III, 28, 1:—
Agni, accept our offering, the cake, at the _morning libation_!
Agni, eat the cake offered to thee when the _day is over_!
Agni, accept here the cake at the _midday libation_!
Here Agni is clearly the sun, or the sunlight, or some power dwelling in
the sun, all of which are very natural ideas with people in a nomadic or
even agricultural state of society, nor do the three daily libations
seem to me to point to any elaborate ceremonial. They are hardly more
than the beginnings of the Sandhyâvandana and they could easily be
matched among Semitic, nay, even among savage races.
In many hymns the solar character of Agni is merged in his domestic
character, as the fire on the domestic hearth, as the centre of each
family. Thus we read, Rig-Veda X, 1:—
Hymn to Agni, Fire.
1.
High[45], at the head of Dawn, he stood, the mighty,
With light he came, emerging from the darkness,
Fair-bodied Agni with his radiant splendour
Has filled, when born, all human habitations.
2.
Thou, being born, art child of Earth and Heaven,
Agni, the fair one, spread among the flowers[46];
The brilliant child by night and through the darkness,
Shouts for the cows[47] from far, above his mothers.
3.
Then knowing well the highest place in heaven,
As Vish_n_u, he, when born, protects the third place[48].
And when their milk[49] has in his mouth been offered,
They sing to him with one accord their praises.
4.
And then the mothers, bringing food, approach him,
They bring him viands and they watch his increase;
Though they have changed, thou goest again to see them
And art a priest[50] among the tribes of mortals.
5.
Then hail to Agni, as the guest of mortals[50],
The priest of holy rites on glittering chariot,
The brilliant signal[50] of all sacrifices,
Of any god, by might divine, the equal.
6.
Then, dressed in raiment beautiful, and standing
In morning light, a priest on earth’s old centre,
Thou, born in I_l_â’s place[51], a king and high priest,
Shalt hither bring the gods to our oblation.
7.
For thou hast ever spread both earth and heaven[52],
Again our friend, a true son to thy parents
Come hither, youthful god, to us who call thee,
And bring the gods, O son of strength[53], to usward!
Now, I ask once more, can anything be more simple and natural? And can
we not, without any great effort on our part, transport ourselves into
the position of the Vedic poet who uttered these words, and follow his
thoughts, as he gazed on the rising sun? No one would suppose that this
poet was the first on earth who ever addressed the rising sun, and that
it was he who coined all the names by which the sun is addressed in
these short songs. We can easily see what a long distance lies behind
him, behind his words and behind his ideas. He was certainly not the
first who invented priests and their sacrificial work. Only let us
remember that, if we use such terms as priest or high priest, or king,
we must not allow ourselves to assign to these terms, however
unconsciously, all the meanings these words have with us.
These are very important cautions for people ignorant of Sanskrit, who
have been led to imagine that the Vedic Âryas had kings like Solomon or
Louis Quatorze, or High Priests like Samuel or Bossuet. The word which I
translate by priest, is hot_ri_, which meant originally no more than
shouter or invoker, and which in due time became the technical name of
one of the sixteen _Ri_tvi_g_as or Season-priests. The other word
Purohita means _praepositus_, or provost, and was at first no more than
the priest who had to assist or to replace the father of a family, and
had to see that all the offerings to the gods were made at the proper
times and seasons, which probably was in the beginning no more than a
contrivance for marking the essential divisions of the year.
Much depends here, as elsewhere, on the words which we use. Every act of
worship may be called a sacrifice, and every sacred poet a high priest.
To us these are very grand names and full of meaning. But let us look at
some of the hymns addressed to Agni which are called sacrificial, and it
seems to me that any peasant in his own cottage could have performed
what is called a sacrifice, as presupposed, for instance, in the
following hymn (Rig-Veda II, 6).
Hymn to Agni, Fire.
1.
Agni, accept this log of wood,
This service which I bring to thee,
Hear graciously these prayers and songs!
2.
With this log let us honour thee,
Thou son of strength, the horse’s friend,
And with this hymn, thou nobly born.
3.
And let us servants with our songs
Serve thee, the lover of our songs,
Wealth-lover, giver of our wealth!
4.
Be thou our mighty, generous lord,
Thou lord and giver of our wealth,
And drive all hatred far from us!
5.
He gives us rain from heaven above,
He gives inviolable strength,
He gives us food a thousandfold.
6.
Come here, most youthful messenger,
To him who lauds and craves thy help,
Most holy priest[54], called by our song.
7.
Agni, between both worlds[55], O sage,
Thou passest, as a messenger
Between two hamlets, kind and wise,
8.
Thou hast befriended us before,
Bring hither always all the gods,
And sit thou on this sacred turf[56].
But whether these so-called sacrifices were in the beginning as
complicated as they certainly were in the end, they are perfectly
intelligible, and probably will become much more so when we know more of
the literature in which they are described. How much of their
development is presupposed in the Vedic hymns, I tried to explain,
however shortly, as long ago as 1859 in my ‘History of Ancient Sanskrit
Literature,’ p. 468, and much has been added by others during the last
forty years; but when we speak of Vedic sacrifices, we must not think of
the temple at Jerusalem, or of St. Peter’s, but of a small plot of
grass, on which a fire was kindled within the walls of piled up turf,
and kept alive by pouring butter or fat upon it.
What is far more instructive in these hymns is the general attitude of
the poet towards the sights of nature which attracted his attention, and
the transition from a mere description of nature such as he saw it, to
its being peopled with persons whom we call either divine or
mythological. Here it is where the Veda has proved so useful, and has
given quite a new character to the study of ancient religion and ancient
mythology in every part of the world.
How much ingenuity was spent in former days to discover the origin of
Zeus and the Greek dwellers on Olympus! After opening the Veda all
becomes clear. What doubt can there remain that Zeus was Dyaus,
originally the sky, but not the sky as the blue vault of heaven, but the
sky as active, as personified and divine? We cannot expect to find many
such cases as that of Dyaus = Zeus, where an Aryan god has preserved not
only his old character in India and Greece and Italy, but his name, and
that almost unchanged. We saw how the name of Agni was altogether lost
in Greece, though preserved as an appellative in Italy. Yet the Greeks
also had their god of fire, and their gods of light, such as Hephaestos,
Apollon, Dionysos, Hermes and others, each developed in his own way. And
here we come across some curious reminiscences among the Aryan nations.
We saw how Agni, as morning sun, was called the son of heaven and earth.
In other hymns he is actually called Dvimâtâ, having two mothers. This
strange name meets us again in Greek Dimêtôr, in Latin as Bimatris. The
child of two mothers or parents, a name quite intelligible, as we saw,
in Sanskrit, as the son of heaven and earth, had become unintelligible
in Greek and Latin, so that every kind of myth was invented to account
for so strange a name. To say that the deity called Dvimâtâ in the Veda
was the same as the Greek Dimêtôr or the Latin Bimatris would be going
too far; but to say that Dimêtôr, i.e. Dionysos (*Dyu-ni_s_ya) was
originally a god of light, as much as Agni, as much as Apollon, and
Hermes, the son of heaven and earth, is perfectly right and helps us to
account for a number of myths in classical mythology.
These more hidden influences of ancient Aryan mythology on that of
Greeks and Romans, are often the most interesting. We have a similar
case in Jupiter Stator, which is generally explained as the stopper,
stopping the soldiers from running away. That may be the Roman
explanation, but in the Veda we have the same word Sthâtâ, applied to
Indra, first as Sthâtâ harî_n_âm, i.e. holder of horses, when he comes
in his chariot; then as Sthâtâ rathasya, holder or governor of his
chariot. When this origin was once forgotten, it would be not unlikely
that a new meaning was discovered in Stator, viz. the preserver of law
and order, or the keeper in battle.
If Agni, as in hymn X, 1, is identified with Vish_n_u, i. e. the sun in
the zenith, we see how pliant the ideas of gods still were in the Veda.
This Vish_n_u in India became in time as independent a deity as Apollon
and Dionysos ever were in Greece, but they were all conceived as in the
beginning sons of heaven and earth, and as closely allied with the sun
in its various manifestations. The Vedic poet saw no difficulty in
recognising the same elementary power in the sun rising in the morning,
culminating at noon, and vanishing at night, nay in the fire on the
hearth, and in the fire of the sacrifice, as the divine guest, the
friend of the family, the priest on the altar. All this is not the Solar
Theory, it is the Solar Fact, and not easily to be disposed of by an
ignorant smile. Though Sanskrit scholars differ as much as other
scholars, the broad facts of the Solar Theory have never been called in
question by any competent authority, I mean, by anybody acquainted with
Greek and Latin, and a little of Vedic Sanskrit.
While Agni here appears before us as the god of light in general, and
often begins the procession of the daily gods as the light of the
morning, as chasing away the dark night, as holding aloft the radiant
sun, as leading forth the daughter of Dyaus (Διὸς θυγάτηρ), that is the
Dawn, he being represented sometimes as the brother of the Dawn,
sometimes as her lover[57], once even as kissing her[58], there are
other deities, equally representative of light, but more specialised in
their functions. Sûrya himself, the Greek Helios, appears among the
Vedic deities, and Ushas (Eos), the dawn, is called Sûrya-prabhâ or
sunshine.
We have so far watched the daily procession of the Vedic gods as
reflected in the hymns, beginning with Agni, as god of light, especially
the light of the morning, and in many respects the _alter ego_ of the
sun. We saw that in one sense the Dawn also is only a female repetition
of the auroral Agni (Agnir aushasya), and we met with a third
personification of the morning sun in the shape of Savit_ri_, who is
perhaps the most dramatic among the solar heroes, such as Mitra, Âditya,
Vish_n_u and others.
The procession of the matutinal gods, which we have followed so far
under the guidance of our old grammarian, Yâska, can be shown to rest on
even earlier authority. Thus we read in one of the hymns themselves,
Rig-Veda I, 157, 1:—
Agni awoke, from earth arises Sûrya,
Ushas, the great and bright, throws heaven open,
The pair of A_s_vins yoked their car to travel,
God Savit_ri_ has roused the world to labour.
There are other hymns, of course, that refer to the light of day or to
the sun in his later stages also, culminating as Vish_n_u, or setting
with T_ri_ta, till at last Râtrî, night, appears, and Varu_n_a, the
coverer, reigns once more supreme in heaven. When we see Varu_n_a
together with Mitra, the sun-god, they represent a divine couple,
dividing between them the sovereignty of the whole world, heaven and
earth, very much like the A_s_vins. They are not so much in opposition
to each other, as partners in a common work.
Just as the night, the sister of the Dawn, is sometimes conceived as a
dawn or day (Ahan) herself, Mitra and Varu_n_a also seem often to be
charged with the same duties. They hold heaven and earth asunder, they
support heaven and earth and are the common guardians of the whole
world. Varu_n_a as well as Mitra is represented as sun-eyed. Still the
contrast between the two becomes gradually more and more pointed, and we
can clearly see that, while light and day become the portion of Mitra,
night and darkness fall more and more to the share of Varu_n_a. The sun
is said to rise from the abode of Mitra and Varu_n_a, but night, moon,
and stars are mentioned in the hymns already, as more closely related to
Varu_n_a. Thus we read, Rig-Veda I, 27, 10:—
The stars fixed high in heaven and shining brightly
By night, Oh say, where have they gone by daytime?
The laws of Varu_n_a are everlasting,
The moon moves on by night in brilliant splendour.
In Rig-Veda VIII, 41, 10, we ought surely to translate, “He made the
white-clothed black-clothed,” and not, as proposed, “He made the
black-clothed white-clothed,” a change which is never ascribed to
Varu_n_a.
This explains why some scholars went so far as to recognise in Varu_n_a
the original representative of the moon or of the evening star, a far
too narrow conception, however, of that supreme deity, though true, no
doubt, so far as Varu_n_a, like the sky, comprehends within his sphere
of influence night and stars as well as sun and dawn. The almost perfect
identity of name between Varu_n_a and Ouranos shows that Varu_n_a was
not only a Vedic or Indian deity, but had been named already in the
Aryan period. There are phonetic difficulties, but how should we account
for the coincidences in the name and character of these two gods?
These few specimens of Vedic poetry will suffice, I hope, to show what
is meant by the Solar Theory. It means that most of the physical
phenomena which impressed the mind of primitive races, like those that
have left us their religious utterances in the Veda, were connected with
the sun, with the light of the morning, with day and night succeeding
each other, and regulating the whole life of an agricultural population.
What else was there to interest such people and to draw away their
thoughts from a visible to an invisible world? If I have sometimes
called that population uncivilised, what I meant was that we come across
customs, such as the selling of children or offering them as victims,
polygamy, possibly even polyandry, which are generally considered as
signs or survivals of savagery. Such general terms, however, are often
very misleading, and because in the Râ_g_asûya sacrifice, for instance,
there are remnants of disgusting customs, we must not allow ourselves to
indulge with certain so-called missionaries in a general condemnation of
the Vedic ceremonial. We should rather learn the lesson that ceremonial
is generally the accumulation of centuries, and contains, besides much
that may be useful, a large quantity of old rubbish, mostly
misunderstood, muddled, and complicated, till the meaning of it, if it
ever had any, is lost beyond the hope of recovery.
If anybody, after reading these few hymns, selected quite at random, can
still doubt whether the Solar Theory is the only possible theory to
account for these Vedic deities, and in consequence, for the Aryan
deities connected with them by name or character, I have nothing more to
say. I doubt the existence of such a person. He must in very truth be a
solar myth. Let me say once more that I have never looked upon all Vedic
deities as solar or matutinal, but that other physical phenomena also,
such as rivers, clouds, earth, night, storms, and rain had been
personified or deified before these hymns could have been composed. It
is true there is one hymn only addressed exclusively to the Night (X,
127), two only addressed to the Earth, but I pointed out before why such
statistics, though very tempting, are altogether untrustworthy and have
nothing whatever to do with the real importance or popularity of these
deities. Does the ninth Ma_nd_ala of the Rig-Veda, with its 114 hymns
almost entirely addressed to Soma, prove the supreme popularity of Soma
as a member of the Vedic Pantheon? However, to guard against all
possibility of misapprehending my purpose, here follows the hymn to
Râtrî or Night; which can hardly be called solar in the usual sense of
that word.
Hymn to Râtrî, Night.
1.
The Night comes near and looks about,
The goddess with her many eyes,
She has put on her glories all.
2.
Immortal, she has filled the space,
Both far and wide, both low and high,
She conquers darkness with her light[59].
3.
She has undone her sister, Dawn[60],
The goddess Night, as she approached,
And utter darkness[61] flies away.
4.
For thou art she in whose approach
We seek to-day for rest, like birds
Who in the branches seek their nest.
5.
The villages have sought for rest,
And all that walks and all that flies,
The falcons come, intent on prey.
6.
Keep off the she-wolf, keep the wolf,
Keep off the thief, O kindly Night,
And be thou light for us to pass.
7.
Black darkness came, yet bright with stars,
It came to us, with brilliant hues;
Dawn, free us as from heavy debt!
8.
Like cows, I brought this hymn to thee,
As to a conqueror, child of Dyaus,
Accept it graciously, O Night!
We must remember that the night to the Vedic poet was not the same as
darkness, but that on the contrary, when the night had driven away the
day, she was supposed to lighten the darkness, and even to rival her
sister, the bright day, with her starlight beauty. The night, no doubt,
gives peace and rest, yet the Dawn is looked upon as the kindlier light,
and is implored to free mortals from the dangers of the night, as
debtors are freed from a debt. Many conjectural alterations have been
proposed in this hymn, but it seems to me to be intelligible even as it
stands.
One more hymn to show how the belief in and the worship of these
physical gods, the actors behind the phenomena of nature, could grow
naturally into a belief in and a worship of moral powers, endowed with
all the qualities essential to divine beings. Moral ideas are not so
entirely absent from the Veda, as has sometimes been asserted, and
nothing can be more instructive than to watch the process by which they
spring naturally from a belief in the gods of nature. I give the hymn to
Varu_n_a from Rig-Veda VII, 86, which I translated for the first time in
my “History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature” in the year 1859, and which,
with the help of other translations published in the meantime, I have
now tried to improve and to clothe in the metrical form of the original.
Hymn to Varu_n_a.
1.
Wise, surely, through his might is his creation,
Who stemmed asunder spacious earth and heaven;
He pushed the sky, the bright and glorious, upward,
And stretched the starry sky and earth asunder.
2.
With my own heart I commune, how I ever
Can now approach Varu_n_a’s sacred presence;
Will he accept my gift without displeasure?
When may I fearless look and find him gracious?
3.
Fain to discover this my sin, I question,
I go to those who know, and ask for counsel.
The same reply I get from all the sages,
’Tis Varu_n_a indeed whom thou hast angered.
4.
What was my chief offence that thou wilt slay me,
Thy oldest friend who always sang thy praises?
Tell me, unconquered Lord, and I shall quickly
Fall down before thee, sinless with my homage.
5.
Loose us from sins committed by our fathers,
From others too which we ourselves committed,
As from a calf, take from us all our fetters,
Loose us as thieves are loosed that lifted cattle.
6.
’Twas not our own free will, ’twas strong temptation,
Or thoughtlessness, strong drink, or dice, or passion,
The old was near to lead astray the younger,
Nay, sleep itself suggests unrighteous actions.
7.
Let me do service to the bounteous giver,
The angry god, like to a slave, but sinless;
The gracious god gave wisdom to the foolish,
And he, the wiser, leads the wise to riches.
8.
O let this song, god Varu_n_a, approach thee,
And let it reach thy heart, O Lord and Master!
Prosper thou us in winning and in keeping,
Protect us, gods, for evermore with blessings!
I wish I could have introduced a larger number of my so-called Indian
friends, the poets of sacred songs who may have lived thousands of years
ago. But I am afraid I have already tired out the patience of my readers
with these very ancient friends of mine. The only excuse I can plead is
that my own friends in England and in Germany have so often wondered how
I could have fallen in love with the Veda, and actually left my own
country in order to rescue this forgotten Bible from utter oblivion. It
is fortunate that people have different tastes and that we are not all
devoted to the same beauty.
One more hymn I must add, however, for I am afraid if I do not, I shall
be accused of having misrepresented the character of the Veda, as
reflecting only the simplest thoughts of shepherds and cultivators of
the land. I have remarked several times before that the Rig-Veda
contains some very striking philosophical passages, and how far some of
the Vedic poets must have been carried by purely metaphysical
speculations may be seen by a hymn which I translated for the first time
in my “History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature,” 1859. In putting it into
a metrical form I was helped at the time by my departed friend, the late
Archbishop of York, then Mr. Thomson, and I am glad to say I find little
to alter in his translation even now.
Hymn X, 129.
Nor aught nor naught existed; yon bright sky
Was not, nor heaven’s broad woof outstretched above;
What covered all? what sheltered? what concealed?
Was it the waters’ fathomless abyss?
There was not death, hence was there naught immortal,
There was no light of night, no light of day,
The only One breathed breathless in itself,
Other than it there nothing since has been.
Darkness there was, and all at first was veiled
In gloom profound, an ocean without light;
The germ that still lay covered in the husk,
Burst forth, one nature, from the fervent heat.
Then first came Love upon it, the new germ,
Of mind; yea, poets in their hearts discerned
Pondering this bond between created things
And uncreated. Came this ray from earth
Piercing and all-pervading, or from heaven?
Then seeds were sown, and mighty powers arose,
Nature below, and Power and Will above;
Who knows the secret? who proclaimed it here,
Whence, whence this manifold creation sprang?
The gods themselves came later into being,
Who knows from whence this great creation sprang?
He from whom all this great creation came,
Whether his will created or was mute,
The most high Seer that is in highest heaven,
He knows it—or perchance e’en He knows not.
This hymn is important, not only by what it says, but by what it
presupposes. Whatever date we may ascribe to it as incorporated in the
Rig-Veda, many generations of thinkers must have passed before such
questions could have been asked or could have been answered. As yet we
see the Vedic age only as through a glass darkly. The first generation
of Vedic scholars is passing away. It has done its work bravely, though
well aware of its limits. Let the next generation dig deeper and deeper.
What is wanted is patient, but independent and original work. There is
so much new ground still to be broken, that the time has hardly come as
yet for going again and again over the same ploughed field.
I must now part with my Vedic Friends. I can hardly hope that I have
persuaded many of my English friends to share my feelings for my
antediluvian acquaintances. All I care for is to make others understand
how my heart was caught, and what I saw in my Indian love, not only in
her Vedântic dreams and aspirations, but in the simplicity of her
earliest utterances of trust in powers invisible, yet present behind
what is visible, and in her faith in a law that rules both the natural
and the supernatural world.
MY INDIAN FRIENDS.
V.
A Prime Minister and a Child-wife.
I have often had to give expression to a certain disappointment at not
being able, when speaking of my Indian friends, to reveal more of their
inner life. That life, we may be certain, is not absent, but it is kept
hidden, just as Indian women are kept behind their purdahs or curtains
and hidden under veils, more or less transparent. Some of our own
distinguished men and women are perhaps too much given to perform their
confessions and moral ablutions in public, while in India such books as
Rousseau’s _Confessions_, or the _Confessions of St. Augustine_, nay, of
Amiel or Marie Bashkirtseff, to mention some well-known instances only,
can hardly be imagined. Introspection or self-examination exists no
doubt among the men and women of India as well as anywhere else. But
unless such inward searchings take a definite form in words, nay, in
written and published words, they can hardly be said to exist. A man may
enter into a dark cave and see visions, but unless he can find his way
back into the bright light of day, unless he can find words for what was
vaguely passing through the twilight of his memory, all vanishes again
and leaves nothing behind but a nameless sentiment, like the feeling
that is left by a dream, when we know indeed that we have been dreaming,
but cannot recall what we saw in our dreams.
Even in the prayers which we possess of the people in India we find no
very deep delvings into the soul of man. They consist chiefly of praises
of the greatness of the gods or of God, of general confessions of human
weakness or sin, but we hardly ever come across the agonised sufferings
of self-reproachful saints, and we see little of that moral vivisection
which, painful as it is to witness, often reveals to us some of the most
secret springs of human nature which nothing else will bring to our
view.
I cannot, therefore, even in the two cases of Indian friends which I
have selected for my purpose here, promise anything like that minute
moral and spiritual analysis which we find in the works of St.
Augustine, of Rousseau, or Marie Bashkirtseff. One of my friends
belonged to the highest, the other to the lowest ranks of Indian life;
the one was a Prime Minister, the other what we should call a poor
peasant-girl. I was brought into contact with them, not indeed face to
face, but by correspondence only. The Prime Minister was the well-known
Gaurîshankar Udayshankar Ozá, Minister of Bhavnagar. I am afraid that
when people see these long and unpronounceable names they will at once
put down the book. Names such as Rudyard Kipling, Bashkirtseff, or
Pobedonostzeff may be mastered in time, but Gaurîshankar Udayshankar Ozá
is too much for most people’s memories; and how can people, even if they
manage to pronounce such a name, attach any meaning whatever to it? It
might be better, perhaps, to give the name in its Sanskrit form, viz.
Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara; we could then see some kind of meaning in it,
provided we knew a little of Sanskrit. So far as one may guess the
meaning of any proper names, Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara would be the name of the
divine couple, _S_iva, sometimes called _S_a_m_kara, and Gaurî, better
known under the name of Pârvatî, his wife. Of course the name may be
interpreted differently also, but when we know that Gaurî stands for
Pârvatî, and Shankar for _S_iva, we move at once in more or less
familiar spheres, and we may look on the name as something like the
Christian name Joseph Maria, which is not unusual as a Christian name in
Roman Catholic countries. But when I call Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara the
well-known Prime Minister of Bhavnagar, I anticipate another shrugging
of the shoulders. What is Bhavnagar, where is it, and what is there
really known about its “well-known” Prime Minister? Here are our
difficulties, when we want to rouse the sympathies of our readers for
anything connected with India. Yes, if Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara of Bhavnagar
were Fergus McIvor, chief of Glennaquoich, all would go well. But to
most people, except those who have been in India, Bhavnagar is almost a
_terra incognita_, and as there are now no separate postage-stamps for
the independent states of India, even children would say that there is
no such state as Bhavnagar anywhere. Still there is a native state of
that name in Kathiawar, with about 500,000 inhabitants, and there is a
Râjah, who is called the Thakur Sahib of Bhavnagar. There is also a town
of Bhavnagar, the capital of the state. Like most of the protected
Rajput states, Bhavnagar enjoys as much freedom as is compatible with
the welfare of its neighbours and the imperial interests of India. Under
such conditions conflicts are, no doubt, inevitable, and it required no
little statesmanship in the Râjah, and in his Dewân, or Prime Minister,
to reconcile the interests of their subjects with those of their
neighbours and with those of the British Empire. Quite a new class of
native statesmen seems to have sprung up of late in these various
dependent states, who are enabled, through the moral support which they
receive from the Central Government, to reform the abuses of a personal
and autocratic _régime_, to revive education, and to improve the
sanitary condition of the towns and villages, to open commercial
communications, and altogether to raise the political and moral status
and character of the people committed to their charge. In many cases
they had at the same time to keep on good terms with the English
residents, who are not always the most amiable, and to protect the
Râjahs themselves against the corrupting influences of their little
courts and harems. Taking all this together, it is not difficult to see
that their position was by no means an easy one, and that it required
high qualities indeed in these native statesmen to enable them to hold
their own, to satisfy the claims of all the parties with whom they had
to deal, and at the same time not to stifle the voice of their own
conscience.
But when an opening had once been made for native talent in this
direction, native talent was not wanting. The names of such men as Sir
Salar Jung in Hyderabad, Sir T. Madao Rao in Travancore, Indore, and
Baroda, Sir Dinkar Rao in Gwalior, are well known, not in India only,
but in England also, and not the least successful among them was our
friend Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara.
With all the narrow prejudices of Oriental society, particularly in
India, there was always a _carrière ouverte aux talents_.
Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara was the son of a poor man, though he belonged to a
good Brâhmanic family. His education would not, perhaps, have enabled
him to pass the Indian Civil Service Examination, and yet what an
excellent Civil servant would he have made. Examinations prevent many
evils, but they cannot create or even discover the qualities necessary
for a ruler of men.
Like Mr. Gladstone, Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara became known in India as the Grand
Old Man, or, better still, as the Good Old Man, and, like Mr. Gladstone,
he represented in himself a striking combination of the thinker and the
doer, of the meditative and the active man. His deepest interest lay
with the great problems of human life on earth, but this did not prevent
him from taking a most active part in the great and small concerns of
the daily life and the daily cares of a small state. He acted as
Minister to four generations of the rulers of Bhavnagar, and he was a
constant referee on intricate political questions to successive
Political agents of Kathiawar. He could remember the first establishment
of British authority in the Bombay Presidency, and he had been the
contemporary and fellow-worker of Mountstuart Elphinstone at the time
when the settlement of Guzarat and Kathiawar had to be worked out
between the Gaikwar on one side and the English Government, as successor
of the Peshwa, on the other. He came in contact not only with
Mountstuart Elphinstone, who visited Kathiawar in 1821, but with Sir
John Malcolm also, with Lord Elphinstone and Sir Bartle Frere—nay, as
late as 1886, with Lord Reay, then Governor of the Bombay Presidency.
After a conference with the old man—he was then eighty-one years of age,
having been born in 1805—Lord Reay declared that he was struck as much
by the clearness of his intellect as by the simplicity and fairness and
openness of his mind; “and if we admire administrators,” he added, “we
also admire straightforward advisers—those who tell their chiefs the
real truth about the condition of their country and their subjects. In
seeing the man who freed this State from all encumbrances, who restored
civil and criminal jurisdiction to their villages, who settled grave
disputes with Junaghad, who got rid of refractory Jemadars, I could not
help thinking what could be done by such men of purpose and strength of
character.
These words contain a rapid survey of the work of a whole life, and if
we were to enter here into the details of what was actually achieved by
this native statesman we should find that few Prime Ministers even of
the greatest states in Europe had so many tasks on their hands, and
performed them so boldly and so well. The clock on the tower of the
Houses of Parliament strikes louder than the repeater in our waistcoat
pocket, but the machinery, the wheels within wheels, and particularly
the spring, have all the same tasks to perform as in Big Ben himself.
Even men like Disraeli or Gladstone, if placed in the position of these
native statesmen, could hardly have been more successful in grappling
with the difficulties of a new state, with rebellious subjects, envious
neighbours, a weak sovereign, and an all-powerful suzerain, to say
nothing of court intrigues, religious squabbles, and corrupt officials.
We are too much given to measure the capacity of ministers and statesmen
by the magnitude of the results which they achieve with the immense
forces placed at their disposal. But most of them are very ordinary
mortals, and it is not too much to say that for making a successful
marriage-settlement a country solicitor stands often in need of the same
vigilance, the same knowledge of men and women, the same tact, and the
same determination or bluff which Bismarck displayed in making the
treaty of Prague or of Frankfurt. Nay, there are mistakes made by the
greatest statesmen in history which, if made by our solicitor, would
lead to his instant dismissal. If Bismarck made Germany,
Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara made Bhavnagar. The two achievements are so different
that even to compare them seems absurd, but the methods to be followed
in either case are, after all, the same; nay, it is well known that the
making or regulating of a small watch may require more nimble and
careful fingers than the large clock of a cathedral. We are so apt to
imagine that the man who performs a great work is a great man, though
from revelations lately made we ought to have learnt how small—nay, how
mean—some of these so-called great men have really been.
Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara found nothing to begin with—or rather, less than
nothing, for he found not only an unorganised but a disorganised state.
General Keatinge, who was Political Agent of Kathiawar during the years
1863 to 1867, found the transformation that had been wrought by
Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara so complete that he could hardly believe that
Bhavnagar was the same town which he had known in former days. Splendid
buildings had arisen, devoted either to education or to the relief of
the sick, the poor, and the needy. The harbour had been improved, and
roads for trade and communications of every kind had been newly laid out
or made serviceable. There was a large reservoir to supply the town with
water; there were paddocks, a new jail, two medical dispensaries, and an
immense hospital; there were telegraph and post offices, a High School,
and a High Court of Justice. A railway had been built from Bhavnagar to
Gondal, and so well was it administered, without syndicates or any other
kind of jobbery, that it yielded annually a fair revenue to the state.
The responsibility for all these undertakings rested on the shoulders of
one man, and the credit for them should rest there also.
All this, however, is not what interested me in the old man, nor will
it, I fear, interest many of my readers. He is after all but one of the
many unknown ants that build up hills which, for all we know, one stroke
of a stick may destroy again. Nor was it his moral character, noble and
pure as it doubtless must have been, that riveted my attention chiefly.
A man could hardly have achieved what he did, unless he stood high above
the reach of the vulgar vices and failings of mankind. In that
direction, I may quote a few more judgments from the mouths of those who
had known him during his long active life. “His chief strength,” as one
of his friends writes, “was to be found in his exemplary private
character—
“His words were bonds, his oaths were oracles,
His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate;
His tears pure messengers sent from his heart;
His heart as far from fraud as heaven from earth.”
This is beautifully expressed; but does it give us an image of the man
himself? Even the strongest words seem so colourless when they are meant
to give us the picture of a living man. It may be quite true that he
enjoyed in private and domestic life a veneration that was due to his
noble and patriarchal character, and that his influence was, as we are
told, invariably and unerringly exerted in putting an extinguisher on
private feuds and disagreements among a wide and ever-widening circle of
relations, friends, and members of his caste. We read that “in order to
promote harmony among them he often made personal sacrifices, and that
he proved himself a friend of the needy and the helpless, of genius and
talent struggling to rise. If it was not to be a blessing to others,
life seemed to him not worth living.”
All this is very strong testimony; and yet of how many people has the
same been said, particularly by mourners at the grave of one whom they
loved, and who had loved them! Funeral eloquence has its bright, but it
also has its very dark side. It is delightful to see how much can be
forgotten and forgiven at the grave, how gently all faults can be passed
over or accounted for, how none but the noblest motives can then be
imputed. But all is spoiled at once if rhetorical exaggeration comes in,
so that even the truth contained in the panegyrics is hidden and choked
by a rank growth of adulation and untruthfulness.
But though I was quite prepared to believe all that we were told about
the private as well as public character of Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara, what
attracted me most in him was that the same man should through life have
been a true philosopher, nay, what men of the world would call a dreamer
of dreams; and should yet have proved so excellent a man of business.
Plato’s dictum, which has so often been ridiculed, that philosophers are
the true rulers of men, has indeed been signally vindicated in
Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara’s case. And his philosophy was not what may be called
useful philosophy—a knowledge of nature and its laws. This might be
tolerated in a Prime Minister, even in Europe. No; it consisted in the
most abstruse metaphysics which would turn even the hardened brains of
some of our best philosophers perfectly giddy. And yet that very
philosophy, so far from unfitting Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara for his arduous
work, gave him the proper strength for doing and doing well whatever
from day to day his hands found to do. He felt the importance of his
official work to the fullest extent, but he always felt that there was
something more important still. Though devoting all his powers to this
life and its duties, he felt convinced that this life would soon pass
away, that there was no true reality in it, that it was Mâyâ, illusion,
arising from Avidyâ, nescience, and that there was behind, beneath, and
above, another and higher life which alone was worth living. It was his
faith in, or his knowledge of, that higher life which best fitted him to
perform his work in the turmoil of the world. Thus it was that when any
of his schemes ended in failure, disappointment never upset him, and
that though he was often deceived in the friends he had trusted, he
never became a pessimist.
It is very difficult to describe what was the faith or the philosophy
which supported him throughout his busy life. From his early youth he
was impressed with certain views of the Vedânta philosophy, which form
the common spiritual property, so to say, of all the inhabitants of
India. That philosophy seems to have entered into the very life-blood of
the nation, but it assumed, of course, very different forms as believed
in by men of talent and education, and by the drudging tillers of the
soil throughout the land. The number of those who study the Vedânta in
the works of such minute philosophers as Bâdarâya_n_a and _S_a_m_kara is
naturally very small, but the number of those who have drunk in the
spirit of it, it may be in a few sayings only, is legion.
It seems almost impossible to give a short and clear account of that
ancient philosophy, though, when once known, it can be, and has been,
described and epitomised in a few very short lines. The approaches to it
are very various, but anybody accustomed to Greek or European forms of
thought is sorely perplexed how to find an entrance into it from exactly
the same point as the Hindus themselves. The Vedânta philosophy is meant
to be an interpretation of the world, different from all other
interpretations, whether philosophical or religious. It was to lead to a
new birth, and therefore remained unintelligible and unmeaning to souls
that will not be regenerated. It is partly an advantage, partly a
disadvantage, that for several of their most important tenets the
Vedântists simply appeal to the Vedas, their Bible, as containing the
absolute truth, as being the highest seat of authority, or the last
Court of Appeal on questions which with us would require very different
arguments to prove that, given our reasoning powers, such as they are,
and the world, such as it is, certain doctrines are inevitable, or that
at all events their opposites are unthinkable. To make the results at
which the Vedântists arrive intelligible, it is best for us to start
with a few maxims which seem to underlie their philosophy, and which,
whether true in themselves or not, do not at all events offend against
our own rules of reasoning.
If, then, we start with the idea of the Godhead, which is never quite
absent in any system of philosophy or religion, we may, excluding all
polytheistic forms of faith, allow our friends, the Vedântists, to lay
it down that before all things the Godhead must be one, so that it may
not be limited or conditioned by anything else. This is the Vedânta
tenet which they express by the ever-recurring formula that the Sat, the
true Being or Brahman, must be Ekam, one, and Advitîyam, without any
second whatsoever. If, then, it is once admitted that in the beginning,
in the present, and in the future, the Godhead must be one, all, and
everything, it follows that nothing but that Godhead can be conceived as
the true, though distant cause of everything material as well as
spiritual, of our body as well as of our soul. Another maxim of the
Vedântist, which likewise could hardly be gainsaid by any thinker, is
that the Godhead, if it exists at all in its postulated character, must
be unchangeable, because it is perfect and cannot possibly be interfered
with by anything else, there being nothing beside itself. On this point
also all the advanced religions seem agreed. But then arises at once the
next question, If the Godhead is one without a second, and if it is
unchangeable, whence comes change or development into the world; nay,
whence comes the world itself, or what we call creation—whence comes
nature with its ever-changing life and growth and decay?
Here the Vedântist answer sounds at first very strange to us, and yet it
is not so very different from other philosophies. The Vedântist
evidently holds, though this view is implied rather than enunciated,
that, as far as we are concerned, the objective world is, and can only
be, _our knowledge_ of the objective world, and that everything that is
objective is _ipso facto_ phenomenal. Objective, if properly analysed,
is to the Vedântist the same as phenomenal, the result of what _we_ see,
hear, and touch. Nothing objective could exist objectively, except as
perceived, by us, nor can we ever go beyond this, and come nearer in any
other way to the hidden, subjective part of the objective world, to the
_Ding an sich_ supposed to be without us. If, then, we perceive that the
objective world—that is, whatever we know by our senses, call it nature
or anything else—is always changing, whilst on the other hand, the one
Being that exists, the Sat, can be one only, without a second, and
without change, the only way to escape from this dilemma is to take the
world when known to us as purely phenomenal, i.e. as created by our
knowledge of it, only that what we call knowledge is called from a
higher point of view not knowledge, but Avidyâ, i.e. Nescience. Thus the
Godhead, though being that which alone supplies the reality underlying
the objective world, is never itself objective, still less can it be
changing. This is illustrated by a simile, such as are frequently used
by the Vedântists, not to prove a thing, but to make things clear and
intelligible. When the sun is reflected in the running water it seems to
move and to change, but in reality it remains unaffected and unchanged.
What our senses see is phenomenal, but it evidences a reality sustaining
it. It is, therefore, not false or illusory, but it is phenomenal. It is
fully recognised that there could not be even a phenomenal world without
that postulated real Sat, that power which we call the Godhead, as
distinguished from God or the gods, which are its phenomenal
manifestations, known to us under different names.
The Sat, or the cause, remains itself, always one and the same,
unknowable and nameless. And what applies to external nature applies
likewise to whatever name we may give to our internal, eternal, or
subjective nature. Our true being—call it soul, or mind, or anything
else—is the Sat, the Godhead, and nothing else, and that is what the
Vedântists call the Self or the Âtman. That Âtman, however, as soon as
it looks upon itself, becomes _ipso facto_ phenomenal, at least for a
time; it becomes the I, and that I may change. The I is not one, but
many. It is the Âtman in a state of Nescience, but when that Nescience
is removed by Vidyâ, or philosophy, the phenomenal I vanishes in death,
or even before death, and becomes what it always has been, Âtman, which
Âtman is nothing but the Sat, the Brahman, or, in our language, the
Godhead.
These ideas, though not exactly in this form or in this succession, seem
to me to underlie all Vedântic philosophy, and they will, at all events,
form the best and easiest introduction to its sanctuary. And, strange as
some of these ideas may sound to us, they are really not so very far
removed from the earlier doctrines of Christianity. The belief in a
Godhead beyond the Divine Persons is clearly enunciated in the
much-abused Athanasian Creed, of which in my heart of hearts I often
feel inclined to say: “Except a man believe it faithfully, he cannot be
saved.” There is but one step which the Vedântists would seem inclined
to take beyond us. The Second Person, or what the earliest Christians
called the Word—that is, the divine idea of the universe, culminating in
the highest concept, the Logos of Man—would be with them the _Thou_,
i.e. the created world. And while the early Christians saw that divine
ideal of manhood realized and incarnate in one historical person, the
Vedântist would probably not go beyond recognising that highest Logos,
the Son of God and the Son of man, as Man, as every man, whose manhood,
springing from the Godhead, must be taken back into the Godhead. And
here is the point where the Vedântist differs from all other so-called
mystic religions which have as their highest object the approach of the
soul to God, the union of the two, or the absorption of the one into the
other. The Vedântist does not admit any such approach or union between
God and man, but only a recovery of man’s true nature, a remembrance or
restoration of his divine nature or of his godhead, which has always
been there, though covered for a time by Nescience. After this point has
once been reached, there would be no great difficulty in bringing on an
agreement between Christianity, such as it was in its original form, and
Vedântism, the religious philosophy of India. What seems to us almost
blasphemy—a kind of _apotheosis_ of man, is with the Vedântist an act of
the highest reverence. It is taken as man’s _anatheosis_, or return to
his true Father, a recovery of his true godlike nature. And what is or
can be the meaning of God-like? Can anything be godlike that is not
originally divine, though hidden for a time by Nescience? After all,
though Nescience may represent Manhood as the very opposite of Godhead,
what beings are there, or can be imagined to be, that could fill the
artificial interval that has been established long ago between God and
man, unless we allow our poets to people that interval with angels and
devils? The real difficulty is how that interval, that abyss between God
and man, was ever created, and if the Vedântist says by Nescience, is
that so different from what we say “By human ignorance”?
It was necessary to give these somewhat abstruse, explanations—though in
reality they are not abstruse, but intelligible to every unsophisticated
and childlike mind. These, then, were the ideas that supported our
friend Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara, and which support, under different disguises,
millions of human beings in India—men, women, and children. On such
simple but solid foundations it is easy to erect ever so many religions,
to build ever so many temples, and to find room for the most elevated
and the most superstitious minds, all yearning for the same Peace of
God, and for the same Giver of Peace and Rest. Names may differ and
truth may adopt different disguises. But, after all, the peace which
Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara enjoyed amid the daily cares of his official life, and
which arose from his forgetting himself and finding himself in God, or,
as he would say, forgetting his phenomenal in his real Âtman, could it
have been so very different from what we call the peace of God that
passes all understanding? Such a view of the world as his was, is
generally supposed to unfit a man for all practical work, but this, as
we see, is by no means a necessary consequence. One thought of Brahman
was sufficient to refresh and strengthen him for the battle of life,
like a header taken into the waves of an unfathomable ocean. He knew
where he was and what he was, and that was enough to keep him afloat.
And here we come across another curious feature of Hindu life, which
shows how thoroughly their philosophy had leavened and shaped their
social institutions in ancient times. As soon as we know anything of
these institutions we read that the passage through life of a twice-born
man was divided into four periods—one of the pupil, Brahma_k_ârin, the
next of the married man or the householder, G_ri_hastha. Then followed
the third stage, after a man had fulfilled all his duties, had performed
all necessary sacrifices, and had seen the children of his children.
Then and then only came the time when he might retire from his house,
give up all that belonged to him, and settle somewhere in the forest
near, with or without his wife, but still accessible to his relations,
and chiefly occupied in overcoming all passions by means of ascetic
exercises, and withdrawing his affections more and more from all the
things of this life. During that third station, that of the Vânaprastha
or the ὑλόβιος, the mind of the hermit became more and more concentrated
on that higher philosophy which we call religion, and more particularly
on the Vedânta, as contained in the Upanishads, and similar but later
works. Instead of merely dipping into the waters, the philosophical
baptism became then a complete submergence, an entrance into life with
Brahman, where alone perfect peace and a perfect satisfaction of man’s
spiritual desires could be found. This third station was followed by a
fourth—the last chapter of life, when the old and decrepit man dragged
himself away into the deep solitude of the forest, forgetting all that
had once troubled or delighted his heart, and falling at last into the
arms of his last friend, Death.
Such a conception and division of life seems quite natural from a Hindu
point of view, and there was no necessity therefore for explaining it,
as some anthropologists have done, by a circuitous appeal to savage
customs, as is now the fashion. It is well known, no doubt, that both
savage and half-civilised races get rid of their old people by either
killing them or by causing them to be killed by wild animals. This
inhuman cruelty may, no doubt, have been an act of necessity,
particularly during a nomadic state of life. But in India the third
station of life is quite different. It is based on a voluntary act, and
it is followed by a fourth and final station, equally chosen by a man’s
own free will. Besides, all this was meant for the higher classes only,
without a hint of its ever having been considered as inhuman or cruel.
These anthropological explanations are very amusing, no doubt; their
only drawback is that most of them can neither be proved nor disproved.
At present the four stations of life in India seem to possess an
archaeological interest only, they are no longer of any practical
importance. In the case of Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara it was no doubt his love of
the ancient customs of his country, combined with a true desire for rest
at the end of a most laborious and most successful career, that made him
think of reviving in his own case the old custom, though even then in a
milder form only. He gave up his post as Prime Minister, and entered
into private life in January, 1879. His mind, we are told, when he was
bordering upon eighty, was as bright and active as ever, but he then
directed all his mental energies to one subject only, to a constant
contemplation of the great problems of life. His presence had attracted
many itinerant anchorites, many eminent teachers and students of the
Vedânta to Bhavnagar, which became for a time the home of Indian
philosophical speculation. He himself now devoted his time to a serious
study of Sanskrit, for which his incessantly busy career had left him
little time in youth. He published in 1884 _The Svarûpânusandhâna_ in
Sanskrit, being considerations on the nature of the Âtmâ (Self), and on
the unity of the Âtmâ with the Paramâtmâ (the Highest Self). He still
saw some friends, and, living in what we should call a garden house, he
remained in touch with the outer world, though no longer affected by any
of the conflicting interests which had occupied him for so many years.
When, in 1886, Lord and Lady Reay wished to see him once more, he
consented to receive them, but in the dress, or rather uniform, of his
Order, with his Dhoti, his frock, and his cap all covered with ochre.
Their interview lasted for an hour, and Lord Reay declared that of all
the happy moments he spent in India, those spent in the presence of that
remarkable man remain engraved on his memory.
A few letters which I received from the old man after his retirement
from the world may be interesting. He had sent me a copy of his book
which contained, as he said, a collection of Vedântic sentences,
forming, as it were, a chain of precious jewels or pearls. I thanked him
in the same spirit, and as my letter has been published in his Life, I
may as well repeat it here:—
“OXFORD, _December 3, 1884_.
“I have to thank you for your kind letter and for your valuable
present, the Svarûpânusandhâna. If you had sent me a real necklace of
precious stones it might have been called a magnificent present, but
it would not have benefited myself, my true Âtman. The necklace of
precious sentences which you have sent me has, however, benefited
myself, my true Âtman, and I, therefore, consider it a far more
precious present than mere stones or pearls. Besides, in accepting it,
I need not be ashamed, for they become only my own, if I deserve them,
that is, if I truly understand them. While we are still in our first
and second Â_s_rama (station of life) we cannot help differing from
one another according to the country in which we are born, according
to the language we speak, and according to the Dharma (religion) in
which we have been educated. But when we enter into the third and
fourth Â_s_rama, into which you have entered and I am entering, we
differ no longer, G_ñ_âtvâ Deva_m_ sarvapâ_s_âpahâni_h_, ‘When God has
become really known, all fetters fall.’
“Though in this life we shall never meet, I am glad to have met you in
spirit.”
I received another letter from him when he was just on the point of
retiring from the world altogether and becoming a Sa_m_nyâsin, as far as
that is possible in modern India. By taking this step he showed that he
was indeed a Vedântist in good earnest. What with us is but one of the
many theories of life, was to him the only saving faith; and while with
us an old Prime Minister clings to the end to his political interests,
and loves to be surrounded and amused by those who belong to him, we see
here a real hero of thought who, freed from all desires, turns his eyes
away from the whole phenomenal world to dwell only on what is eternal
and unchangeable, the Paramâtman—the Highest Self. To most of us this
intellectual atmosphere, which he breathed to the very last, would prove
too exhausting. We can never drop all fetters—nay, many of us glory in
them to the very end. But whatever we may think of his philosophy, there
can be no doubt that his life was consistent throughout. He tried to
live up to the standard which had been handed down to him from remote
antiquity, and which he fully believed to be the best and the truest.
This last letter is dated July 11, 1886. In it he says:—
“I had sent you a book which is the result of my long study of the
Vedânta Philosophy. You can easily imagine that I, being a Hindu
Brâhman, can be said to have fully realized the truth of the doctrine
therein discussed, when I can give you patent proofs of the effect which
that study has had on me. There are, as you well know, four Â_s_ramas
prescribed by our _S_âstras, and the Brâhmans are required to
successively pass through them all, if they can do so. But in this
Kaliyuga people are not very particular about it. The second Â_s_rama,
namely that of G_ri_hastha (householder), is more or less enjoyed by
all, and there are some who enter into the third or fourth order.
Fortunately for myself I have attained an old age by which I was enabled
to fulfil the requirements of the _S_âstras, and thus lead a life of the
third order after I left public life.
“Now my health is failing fast, and to finish the whole I have made up
my mind to enter into the fourth order or Â_s_rama—namely, that of
Sa_m_nyâsin. Thereby I shall attain that stage in life when I shall be
free from all the cares and anxieties of this world, and shall have
nothing to do with my present circumstances in life.
“After leading a public life for more than sixty years, I think there is
nothing left for me to desire except the life of a Sa_m_nyâsin, which
will enable my Âtman (Self) to be one with Paramâtman (highest Self), as
shown to us by the enlightened of old. When this is accomplished a man
is free from births and rebirths; and what can I wish more than that
which will free me from births and rebirths, and give me means to attain
Moksha (freedom)?
“My learned friend, in a few days I shall be a Sa_m_nyâsin, and thus
there will be a total change of life. I shall no more be able to address
you in this style, so I send you this letter to convey my best wishes
for your success in life, and my regards, which you so well deserve.
“After this, as you have so well said in your note, you and I will be
not two persons, and as the Âtman which, being all-pervading, is one,
there is total absence of duality. I shall end this note with the same
words which you have mentioned, G_ñ_âtvâ Deva_m_ sarvapâ_s_âpahâni_h_,
‘When God has been known, all fetters fall.’”
I heard no more of him except indirectly, when his son sent me a copy of
the Bhagavad-gîtâ as a present from his father, who was no longer
Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara then, but Sa_kk_idânanda, that is, the Supreme Spirit,
i.e. he “who is, who perceives, and is blessed.”
It would be a mistake to imagine that a life such as was lived by
Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara is usual in modern India. On the contrary, it is now
quite exceptional, and Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara was in every respect an
exceptional character. Still we must guard against a mistake made by
many biographers, who represent their hero as standing alone on a high
pedestal without any other people around him with whom he could be
compared. We have of late had a number of biographies that would make us
believe that in England great men differed by their whole stature from
their contemporaries. It is but seldom, however, that we find one man a
whole head taller in physical stature than the majority; and so it is in
intellectual and moral height also. It is true that it is the head that
makes the whole difference, and sometimes a very great difference, still
we must never forget that, as a mountain peak seldom stands up by
itself, even our greatest men are surrounded in history by their equals,
and should be measured accordingly.
Thus in our case, though in Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara we see a rare union of the
man of the world and the man out of the world, of the Prime Minister and
the philosopher, it so happens that there were several other statesmen
living at the same time who, if they had not actually become hermits,
were, all their life, devoted students and followers of the Vedânta. The
Minister of the neighbouring state of Junagadh, Gokulaji Zâlâ, who had
likewise made his way from poverty to the highest place in his little
kingdom, was all his life devoted to the study of the Vedânta. He was
the personal friend of Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara, and in the reports of the
Political Agent he is spoken of as the equal of Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara[62].
Lord Lytton conferred on him the title of Râo Bahâdur, in recognition of
his loyal conduct and services. When he died, in 1878, too young to have
become a Sa_m_nyâsin, it was said that “having done his task, he became,
through the true self-knowledge, free from the three forces—causal,
subtile, and gross—which disguise the Self, and that his Self, absorbed
in the highest Self, became all happiness, just as space, enclosed in a
vessel, becomes one with infinite space and force, as soon as the vessel
is broken.” Everywhere we come across the same Vedântic thoughts in
India, though, no doubt, under various forms, according to the
comprehension of different classes, but in their essence they all mean
the same. Gokulaji himself, if we may judge by his biographer, was an
assiduous student of the Vedânta all his life, perhaps more even than
Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara had been; and, while the latter rejoiced more in the
ancient abrupt Vedântic utterances of the Upanishads, Gokulaji had
evidently taken an interest in the modern Vedânta also, which enters
more minutely into many of the problems which are but stated or hinted
at in the ancient Upanishads.
In the case of the two Prime Ministers of Bhavnagar and Junagadh there
can be little doubt that the Vedântic spirit which filled their minds
and guided their steps in life was drawn from a study of the classical
works in which that ancient philosophy has been preserved to us. They
were Vedântists, as even with us Prime Ministers may be Platonists or
Darwinians. But the same philosophical spirit has entered into the
language of the people also, into their proverbs and popular maxims,
into their laws and poetry. If people, instead of saying “Know thyself,”
can only say “Know Âtman by Âtman” (know self by self) they are reminded
at once of the identity of the ordinary and higher Self. If they meet
with people who called themselves Âtmârâma, i.e. self-pleased, they are
easily led on to see that the name was really meant for delighting in
the Self, i. e. God; if they are taught that he who sees himself in all
creatures, and all creatures in himself, is a self-sacrificer and
obtains the heavenly kingdom, they learn at least that this Self is
meant for something more than the material body or the Ego, though it
can no doubt be used in that sense also.
This Vedânta spirit pervades the whole of India. It is not restricted to
the higher classes, or to men so exceptional as the Prime Minister of
Bhavnagar. It lives in the very language of the people, and is preached
in the streets and in the forests by mendicant Saints. Even behind the
coarse idol-worship of the people some Vedântic truth may often be
discovered. The “Sayings of Râmak_ri_sh_n_a,” which I lately published
(“Râmak_ri_sh_n_a, His Life and Sayings,” 1898), are steeped in Vedântic
thought, and the life-spring of the reforms inaugurated by such men as
Rammohun Roy, Debendranâth Tagore, and Keshub Chunder Sen, must be
sought for in the Vedântic Upanishads, though quickened, no doubt, by
the spirit of the New Testament.
How omnipresent the influence of the old Vedânta is, even in the lower
strata of Indian society, I can, perhaps, show best if I repeat here a
story which I have told once before, the story of a poor little girl and
her boyish husband. I came to hear that story through her friends who
were the friends of Keshub Chunder Sen. We must try to understand, first
of all, that it is possible in India for a girl of nine and a boy of
twelve to fall in love and to be married, or, rather, to be betrothed.
To us such a state of things seems most unnatural; but as long as the
custom prevails and is looked upon with favour rather than with
disapproval, we can hardly blame a young peasant boy and a still younger
peasant girl for following the example set them by their father, mother,
and all their friends. That hearts so young are capable of mutual
affection and devotion we know from the biographies of some of our own
most distinguished men. Nay, we are told by the people of India that the
years of their boyish love form the happiest years of their life. As a
rule, these young couples remain for some time with their relations—they
are like brother and sister; and as they grow up they have the feeling
that, like their father and mother, brothers and sisters, husband and
wife also are given, not chosen, and the idea that the bonds of their
betrothal could ever be severed never enters their minds. The custom
itself is no doubt both objectionable and mischievous, and those who
have laboured to get it abolished by law deserve our strongest sympathy.
All I wish to say here is that we must not make an innocent, ignorant
couple, living in an Indian village, responsible for the perversity of a
whole nation.
How perverse a nation can be may be seen from an Indian newspaper
calling itself _The Indian Nation_, which first denies that Hindu widows
are unhappy, and then adds “that, according to Hindu ideas, they ought
to be unhappy, because the end of life is not happiness, nor the
gratification of dreams, but the regulation, or, if possible, the
extinction of them.” The widow’s life, we are told, was not meant to be
joyful, nor should it be rendered joyful or useful, because Hindu ethics
are not utilitarian like ours.
These two, _S_rîmatî and her husband Kedar Nâth, were as happy as
children all day long; but what is even more surprising than their
premature marriage is the premature earnestness with which they looked
on life. Their thoughts were engaged on questions which with us would
seem but rarely to form the subject of conversation, even of far more
mature couples. They felt dissatisfied with their religion which, much
as we hear about it in Indian newspapers, occupies after all a very
small portion only of the daily life of a poor Hindu family. Their
priest may come to say a few prayers before their uncouth idol, provided
they possess one, there may be some popular rather than religious
festivals to attend, and charitable contributions may be extorted by the
priests even from those who have barely enough to eat themselves. They
wear their sectarian mark on the forehead, and they may repeat a few
simple prayers learnt from their mothers. But of religion, in our sense
of the word, they know little indeed. Even when there is a sacred book
for their own form of faith, Vedas, Purâ_n_as, or Tantras, they probably
have never seen or handled it. They are surrounded, however, by temples
and idols, and repulsive idolatrous practices are apt to sicken the
heart and to excite doubts even in the least inquisitive minds. Thus
when _S_rîmatî’s young husband arrived at the conclusion that stones
could not be gods (nay, in their hideousness, not even symbols of the
Godhead), he took refuge in the Vedânta as preached by Keshub Chunder
Sen. This was a bold step. But when he told his young wife what had
happened to him, and explained to her his reasons, serious as the
consequences of such a step were in India, she, as a faithful and
devoted wife, at once followed his example. Even then their creed was
indeed very simple. It was not pure Vedânta, it was rather devotional
Vedânta-Bhakti, a belief in a phenomenal and personal God, not yet in
the Godhead that lends substance and reality to all individual beings,
whether gods or men. They held that God was one, without a second, that
He existed in the beginning and created the universe. They believed Him
to be intelligent, infinite, benevolent, eternal, governor of the
universe, all-knowing, all-powerful, the refuge of all, devoid of parts,
immutable, self-existent, and beyond all comparison. They also believed
that in worshipping Him, and Him alone, they could obtain the highest
good in this life and in the next, and that true worship consisted in
loving Him and doing His will. There is not much heresy, it would seem,
in such a simple creed, but to adopt it meant for the young husband and
his wife degradation and complete social isolation. They might easily
have kept up an appearance of orthodoxy, while holding in their hearts
those simple, pure, and enlightened convictions. The temptation was
great, but they resisted. The families to which she and her husband
belonged occupied a highly respected position in Hindu society, which in
India is fortunately quite compatible with extreme poverty. Much as both
she and her husband had been loved and respected before, they were now
despised, avoided, excommunicated. Even the allowance which they had
received from their family was ordered to be reduced to a minimum, and
in order to fit himself to earn an independent livelihood, the husband
had to enter as a student in one of the Government colleges, while his
little wife had to look after their small household. Soon there came a
new trial. Her husband’s father, who had renounced his son when he
joined Keshub Chunder Sen’s church, died broken-hearted, and the duty of
performing the funeral rites (_S_râddha) fell on his son. To neglect to
perform these rites is considered something awful, because it is
supposed to deprive the departed of all hope of eternal life. The son
was quite ready to perform all that was essential in such rites, but he
declared that he would never take part in any of the usual idolatrous
ceremonies. In spite of the prayers of his relatives and the
protestations of the whole village, he would not yield. He fled the very
night that the funeral ceremony was to take place, accompanied again by
no one except his brave little wife. Thereupon his father’s brothers
stopped all allowances due to him, and he was left with eight rupees per
month to support his wife and mother. _S_rîmatî however managed, with
this small pittance, to maintain not only herself and her husband but
her husband’s mother also, who had become insane, his little sister, and
a nurse. Under these changed circumstances her husband found it
impossible to continue his career at the Presidency College, and had to
migrate to Dacca to prosecute his studies there. Here they all lived
together again, and though they were sometimes almost starving,
_S_rîmatî considered these years the happiest of her life. She herself
tried to perfect her education by attending an Adult Female School, and
so rapid was her progress, that on one occasion she was chosen to read
an address to Lord Northbrook when he visited the school at Dacca.
The rest of their lives was not very eventful. The husband, after a
time, secured a small income; but their life was always a struggle.
_S_rîmatî, blessed with healthy children, thought that she had all that
her heart desired, though she deeply felt the unkindness of their
relatives. Her servants loved her and would never leave her, and when
her husband complained of certain irregularities in the household and
thought she was too lenient to her maids, she would but sigh and say:
“Why should I lose patience, and thereby my peace of mind? Is it not
better that I should suffer a little by their conduct than that they
should be unhappy?” Her love of her children was most ardent. Yet her
highest desire was always the happiness of her husband. She twined round
him, as her friends used to say, like a creeper, but it was often the
creeper that had to give strength to him and uphold him in his many
trials and unfulfilled aspirations. Religion was the never-failing
support for both of them, and their conversation constantly turned on
the unseen life here and hereafter. The life which they lived together
may seem to us uneventful, uninteresting, unsatisfying; but it was not
so to them. This quiet couple, breathing the keen, wholesome air of
poverty, and drinking from the well of homely life, performing their
daily round of duty in the village which had been the home of their
ancestors, were happy and perfectly satisfied with their lot on earth.
When at last the wife’s health began to fail, young and happy as she
was, she was quite willing to go. She complained but little on her
sick-bed, and her only fear was lest she might disturb her husband’s
slumber and deprive him of the rest which was so necessary for him. She
watched and prayed, and when the end came she looked at him whom she had
loved from her early childhood, and quietly murmured: “O, All-merciful”
(Dayâmaya), and passed away.
Thus she lived and died: a true child-wife, pure as a child, devoted as
a wife, and always yearning for that Spirit whom she had sought for, if,
haply, she might feel after Him and find Him. And surely He was not far
from her, nor she from Him!
INDEX.
Abhedânanda, 105.
Âdi Brâhma-Samâj, 89.
Agni, son of Dakshi_n_â, 205.
— first of all the gods, 214.
— fire, hymns to, 214, 216, 219.
Ahanâ, Dawn, 201, 204, 206, 208.
Ânandibâi Joshee, 116, 129;
defends child-marriages, 116.
— — her American Degree, 132.
An-_ri_ta, 208.
Arnold, Dr., and the French master, 100.
Ârya-Samâj, 93.
— — hold to the Veda, 94.
Aryan mythology derived from natural phenomena, 190.
Asoka, King, 138.
A_s_va, racer, or Vâ_g_in, horse, 174.
A_s_vins, Day and Night, hymn to, 194–197.
— the pair of, 224.
Atharva-Veda, 28, 169.
Athênê, first conception of, the Dawn, 208.
Babu Debendranâth Tagore, threw over the Veda, 82.
Bâdarâya_n_a, 149, 153.
Bashkirtseff, Marie, 235, 236.
Bergaigne, M., 192, 203.
— letter from, 182 _n._
Bhavnagar, 237.
Blavatsky, Madame, 96, 148–152.
Bloomfield’s Concordance of the Veda, 184.
Bodley, Dr., and Ânandibâi Joshee, 131.
Bopp, 4, 176.
Brâhma-dharma, the, 101.
Brâhma_n_as, 187.
Brâhmanical thread, 91.
Brâhmans, and the published Rig-Veda, 23.
Brahmo Samâj, 17.
— — gave up the Veda, 82.
Brockhaus, Professor, 3.
Bunsen, his wish to see the Rig-Veda, 170.
Burnouf, Eugène, 4.
Chaitanya, fifteenth century, 66.
— his followers, 67.
— his teaching, 68 et seq.
Charis, 208.
Charites, Gk., 178.
Child-marriages, 113.
Child-wife, a, 262.
Codrington, 185.
Dakshâya_n_î, 205 _n._
Dakshi_n_â, the Dawn, 200, 200 _n._, 204, 205.
Dawn, names for, 204.
Dayânanda Sarasvatî, 93, 148.
Debendranâth Tagore, 6, 13, 14, 92.
— — never declared against the Veda, 101.
Dessau, 2.
Devas, 20.
Digambara sect of the _G_ains, 156.
Dimêtôr, a god of light, 222.
Dvârkanâth Tagore, 5–14, 97.
— — his hospitality, 12.
Dyaus, fem., the sky, 173.
Dyaus, masc. = Zeus, 173.
Dyaush-pitar, Ζεὺς πατήρ, and Jupiter, 179.
Dyotanâ, Dawn, 204, 205.
English translation of a prayer to Vish_n_u, 100.
Erasmus, 98.
Gaurîshankar Udayshankar Ozá, 236.
— interview with Lord Reay, 240.
— his work in Bhavnagar, 242.
— his belief, 245.
— his retirement into private life, 255.
— letter from, 256.
— change of name, 259.
Gâyatrî, prayer addressed to Savit_ri_, the sun, 173.
Gods chiefly invoked in the Veda, Agni, fire, Vâyu, air, Sûrya, sun,
173.
Gokulaji Zâlâ, minister of Junagadh, 260.
Granth, the, 69, 70.
Gudrun, 46.
Guido d’Arezzo, 9.
Hahn, 185.
Hare, David, 90.
Haritas = Χάριτες, 178.
Hindu life, four periods of, 253.
Hindus, national character of, 135.
— are they truthful? 136.
— entering the Civil Service of India, 141.
Hot_ri_, priest, 218.
Index Verborum of the Rig-Veda, 182.
India, people of, still a secret to us, 161.
— deep thinkers in, 162.
Indian correspondents, 15.
— literature, the ancient, mnemonic, 25.
— Music, 7–9.
— Theosophy, 148.
Inspiration claimed for the Veda, 83.
— — for Buddha, 8.
Jayapura, Mahârâjah of, 96.
Jupiter Stator, 222.
Kabîr, “the Great,” 71.
Kapila, 149.
Kâtyâyana on the Vedic gods, 173.
Keshub Chunder Sen, 15, 42, 43, 65, 72, 75–90, 95.
— his feelings about Christianity, 76, 79.
— his visit to England, 85–88.
— his study of various religions, 99.
— selections from the Bibles of the world, 101.
Mahân Âtmâ, the Great Self, 173.
Mahâtmans, 105.
Malabâri, B., 113, 117–121.
Mâyâ, illusion, 104.
Mitra-Varu_n_a, 210.
Mookerjee, H. C., 90.
More, Dr. Henry, 64.
Mozoomdar, 89.
Muir, J., 13, 51.
Müller, Otfried, 208.
Names identical, of deities in Sk., Gk., Latin, &c., 178.
Nânak, 69.
— his teaching, 74.
Nehemiah Goreh, 47.
— — his life in England, 49, 57.
— — his book against Christianity, 51.
— — became a Christian, 51.
Nescience, 103.
Oriental courtesy, 157.
Oxford, young Hindus in, 139–141.
Pig, fable of the man who grunted like a, 151.
Pillai, “Representative Indians,” 160.
Prime Minister and child-wife, 235.
Purohita, provost, 218.
Râdhâkânta Deva, 23, 113.
— — recognition of the printed Rig-Veda, 27.
— — his letters, 30, 38.
— — a conservative, 43.
Râmabâi, 113, 121.
Râmabâi, her parents, 123.
— her lectures, 126.
— her life in England, 127.
— her present work, 128.
Râmak_ri_sh_n_a, 105 _n._
— his views, 106, 111, 112.
— his sayings, 108–110, 153.
Râmânu_g_a, commentary of, 153.
Rammohun Roy, 5, 42, 75.
— — his feeling for Christianity, 77, 78.
Râmtonoo Lahari, 90.
Râtrî, night, 210, 210, _n._ 3, 224.
— hymn to, 228.
Reformers, Hindu, 66.
Rig-Veda, 168, 170, 171.
— publication of the, 14, 16, 22, 23.
— — considered profane, 27, 33.
Roberts, Lord, “Forty-one Years in India,” 143.
Rosen, 181.
Roth, Professor, letter from, 22.
— on translating the Veda, 183.
Rozario, D., 91.
Russians and Indians, 144.
Sacrifices, 220.
Samâjes in India, 89 _n._
Sâma-Veda, 168.
— Benfey’s edition, 28.
_S_a_m_kara’s commentary, 153.
Sandhyâ, twilight, 173 _n._
Sandhyâvandana, 215.
_S_âradânada, 105.
Sâramêya = Ἐρμείας, 178.
Sara_n_yû = Ἑρινύς, 178.
Sat, the cause, 249.
Satyendranâth Tagore, 6.
Savit_ri_, 224.
— the Sun, 173.
— distinct from Sûrya, 201.
— Sun, hymn to, 210.
Sâya_n_a’s commentary, 181.
Schopenhauer, on the Vedânta, 165.
Shrâddh ceremonies, 145, 146.
— presents to M. M., 145.
Simon, Heinrich, 165.
Solar Fact, not Theory, 223.
Solar Theory, 174, 226.
Soma, hymns to, 227.
_S_rîmatî and her husband, 264.
_S_rîmatî and her husband, their belief in the Vedânta, 265.
— her life and death, 267, 268.
Sûn_ri_tâ, Dawn, 201, 204, 208.
Sutti, 29, 45.
Tagore family, 6.
Tawney, C. H., 61, _n._ 1.
Theosophist Society, 150.
Tregear, 185.
T_ri_ta, 224.
Truthfulness of Hindus, 136, 137.
Upanishads, 153, 164, 262.
Ushas, 200–210.
— Dawn, hymn to, 200.
Vairâgya-_S_ataka, the translations from, 61.
Varu_n_a, 224, 225.
— hymn to, 230.
Varu_n_a and Mitra, 224, 225.
Veda, the, 167.
— four collections of hymns, 168.
Vedânta system, 102, 164, 248 et seq.
— Schopenhauer on the, 165.
— objective world is phenomenal, 248.
Vedânta spirit pervades India, 262.
Vedântists, modern, 105.
Vedic hymn, translated by Abp. Thomson, 232.
— hymns, translations of, 181.
— — their date, 186.
— literature, discovery of, 179.
Vish_n_u, identified with Agni, 216.
— an independent deity, 222.
Vivekânanda, 105, 150, 153.
Vizianagram, Mahârâjah of, 158.
— — pays for the reprint of the Rig-Veda, 159–160.
Widows in India, 118, 119, 121, 263–264.
Wilson, Professor, 9, 181.
Women, influence of, in India, 84, 85.
Yagur-Veda, 28, 169.
Yâska, on the Devatâs of the Rig-Veda, 172, 224.
Zeus, Dyaus, &c., 221.
OXFORD: HORACE HART
PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
-----
Footnote 1:
Chips from a German Workshop, Vol. IV, pp. 35–9.
Footnote 2:
Edda, Gylfaginning, 49.
Footnote 3:
Sigurdakwida, III, 64; Helreidh Brynhildar, 12.
Footnote 4:
Metrical translation by C. H. Tawney, _Indian Antiquary_, November,
1876.
Footnote 5:
That is, if only our mind is quieted, we shall enjoy peace in our own
home as well as in a forest. _S_iva is here looked upon as the symbol
of the Supreme Spirit.
Footnote 6:
Brâhma is the same as Brâhmo; the former Sanskrit, the latter
Bengali. Thus, Debendranâth called his book on the Upanishads
“Brâhma-dharma_h_,” though Brâhma also is a faulty name in Sanskrit.
_Samâjes existing in India._
1. Brâhma-Samâj,
Rammohun Roy.
|
+-------------+-------------+
| |
2. Âdi Brâhma-Samâj, 3. Brâhma-Samâj of India,
Debendranâth Tagore. Keshub Chunder Sen.
4. Sadhâra_n_a Brâhma-Samâj,
Schismatic.
5. Ârya-Samâj,
Dayânanda Sarasvatî.
Footnote 7:
Râmtonoo is probably meant for Râmatanu, body of Râma, but when a name
has once become familiar in its modern Bengali form, I do not always
like to put it back into its classical Sanskrit form.
Footnote 8:
A full account of this Saint is to be found in a book lately published
by me, “Râmak_ri_sh_n_a, his Life and Sayings,” by F. M. M., 1898.
Footnote 9:
The Interpreter, Nov. 1898, p. 303.
Footnote 10:
See an excellent account of his life by Karkaria.
Footnote 11:
Kâme_s_var Aiyar, Sandhyâvandana, pp. 58, 105, 113.
Footnote 12:
Sandhyâ is derived from Sandhi, literally the joining, the coming
together of day and night, or night and day. Sandhivelâ is twilight,
and Sandhyâ has the same meaning. Sandhyâvandana was originally the
twilight-worship, the morning and evening prayer, to which a third was
added (the Mâdhyâhnika) the noon prayer, when the sun culminated.
These prayers were once incumbent on every Brâhman, though they have
now assumed a very perfunctory form, or are omitted altogether.
Footnote 13:
I still have a letter from the late M. Bergaigne, in which he asks
when my Index would be published, and adds: “Je m’étais décidé pendant
ces vacances à écrire tout le Rig-Véda sur des fiches, et à me
composer ainsi un index qui pût me permettre des essais
d’interprétation indépendante. Je suis arrivé à la moitié de ce
travail, et grâce à la rapidité que je suis parvenu à atteindre, et
aussi à une grande puissance de travail, je puis le terminer en moins
d’un mois ... S’il n’était pas trop exiger, je vous prierais de me
dire aussi si vous citez tous les emplois de chaque mot _sans aucune
exception_, ou si vous êtes départi de cette rigueur pour les mots
très usuels, et enfin si vous adoptez l’ordre alphabétique pur et
simple.” I could answer all these questions in the affirmative.
Footnote 14:
Giuseppe Turrini, _Raccolta degli Inni del Vèda_, Libro I, Fascicolo
I, Bologna, 1899.
Footnote 15:
Rig-Veda X, 39, 1.
Footnote 16:
Rig-Veda III, 29, 6.
Footnote 17:
Rig-Veda III, 20, 1.
Footnote 18:
Rig-Veda I, 116, 17.
Footnote 19:
Rig-Veda X, 39, 12.
Footnote 20:
Dawn.
Footnote 21:
The cloud.
Footnote 22:
Name of the Dawn. It requires a considerable acquaintance with
phonetic laws to doubt the identity of the names Ushas in Sanskrit and
Eos in Greek. Yet I believe that even this has been achieved by those
who seem to imagine that scepticism is the best proof of knowledge.
Footnote 23:
Savit_ri_, the sun-god, but distinct from Sûrya, the sun and sun-god.
Footnote 24:
Name of Dawn.
Footnote 25:
Day and Night, Dawn and Twilight are conceived as sisters, and spoken
of as Ahanî, the two days, one bright, the other dark, like the
A_s_vins.
Footnote 26:
Varu_n_a, sometimes the highest god, whose laws have to be obeyed by
all creatures.
Footnote 27:
Their appointed course.
Footnote 28:
Kratu, thought, will, here command.
Footnote 29:
The order in which the heavenly bodies come and go, which gave the
first intimation of order in the universe.
Footnote 30:
The sun.
Footnote 31:
Dawn is often spoken of in the plural, being conceived as new every
day, or being considered manifold in her wide expanse.
Footnote 32:
Perhaps it should be remembered that in the Mahâbhârata the wife of
Ka_s_yapa, the mother of the Âdityas, was called Dakshâya_n_î; see
Pramatha Nâth Mullick, “Origin of Caste,” p. 33.
Footnote 33:
Cf. “Chips,” IV, p. 385.
Footnote 34:
The two words are used together, as ubhayor antara_m_ veda,
sûn_ri_tân_ri_tayor api, Mahâbh. V, 5667.
Footnote 35:
Agni, fire, is here, as often, taken for the light of day.
Footnote 36:
Mitra and Varu_n_a stand for morning and evening, or day and night.
Footnote 37:
Râtrî, night, sometimes called the black day, Kr_i_sh_n_am ahar,
opposed to Ar_g_unam ahar, the bright day. Cf. Rig-Veda VI, 9, 1.
Footnote 38:
Evil, physically darkness, morally sin.
Footnote 39:
Pins of the chariot.
Footnote 40:
The departed.
Footnote 41:
Explained as stars.
Footnote 42:
The sun.
Footnote 43:
Bergaigne, Vol. II, p. 277: ‘Les interprétations purement
naturalistes, appliquées à l’analyse des mythes du Rig-Véda, laissent
toujours, ou presque toujours, un résidu liturgique, et ce résidu, le
plus souvent négligé jusqu’alors, en est précisément la partie la plus
importante pour l’exégèse des hymnes.’
Footnote 44:
See M. M., “Physical Religion,” p. 120.
Footnote 45:
I have tried to preserve some of the Vedic rhythm in these
translations, but I must apologise for these poetic efforts of mine in
English. I have consulted, of course, the translations of Grassmann,
Ludwig, Griffiths, and Bergaigne, and others where accessible, and
have adopted some of the renderings which seemed to me particularly
happy.
Footnote 46:
Flowers and plants in general are supposed to be supported by warmth
within them.
Footnote 47:
The clouds that give their milk, the rain.
Footnote 48:
The culminating point of the sun, between sunrise and sunset.
Footnote 49:
The milk of the clouds, or the rain.
Footnote 50:
The fire on the hearth, in which oblations were offered.
Footnote 51:
On the altar or the omphalos of the earth.
Footnote 52:
Made visible.
Footnote 53:
The rubbing of the fire-sticks required great strength and skill to
bring out the fire that was supposed to be hidden in the wood. The
fire, when lighted on the hearth, was supposed to bring the gods to
their offerings; nay, by a change of cause and effect the fire kindled
on the hearth was identified with the light kindled in the sky at the
approach of the dawn.
Footnote 54:
The fire on the altar was supposed to call the gods, like a priest.
Footnote 55:
Heaven and earth, gods and men.
Footnote 56:
The place where the fire was kept.
Footnote 57:
X, 3, 3.
Footnote 58:
X, 4, 4.
Footnote 59:
The darkness of the night is lighted by the light of the moon and
stars.
Footnote 60:
The dawn or bright day that lasts from morning till evening.
Footnote 61:
The darkness, caused by the retreat of Dawn or Day, is lighted up by
the brilliant Night.
Footnote 62:
See “A Sketch of the Life of Gokulaji Zâlâ and of the Vedânta.” By
Manassukharâma Sûryarâma Tripâthi. 1881.
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_BADMINTON LIBRARY_ (_THE_) 1010
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CHILDREN’S BOOKS 1025
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MENTAL, MORAL, AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 1014
MISCELLANEOUS AND CRITICAL WORKS 1029
MISCELLANEOUS THEOLOGICAL WORKS 1032
POETRY AND THE DRAMA 1019
POLITICAL ECONOMY AND ECONOMICS 1016
POPULAR SCIENCE 1024
_SILVER LIBRARY_ (_THE_) 1027
SPORT AND PASTIME 1010
_STUDIES IN ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE_ 1017
TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE, THE COLONIES, &c. 1008
VETERINARY MEDICINE, &c. 1010
WORKS OF REFERENCE 1025
INDEX OF AUTHORS AND EDITORS.
Abbott (Evelyn), 1003, 1018
—— (T. K.), 1014
—— (E. A.), 1014
Acland (A. H. D.), 1003
Acton (Eliza), 1028
Adeane (J. H.), 1007
Æschylus, 1018
Ainger (A. C.), 1011
Albemarle (Earl of), 1010
Allen (Grant), 1024
Allingham (F.), 1021
Amos (S.), 1003
André (R.), 1012
Anstey (F.), 1021
Archer (W.), 1008
Aristophanes, 1018
Aristotle, 1014, 1018
Armstrong (G. F. Savage), 1019
—— (E. J. Savage), 1007, 1019, 1029
Arnold (Sir Edwin), 1008, 1019
—— (Dr. T.), 1003
Ashbourne (Lord), 1003
Ashby (H.), 1028
Ashley (W. J.), 1016
_Atelier du Lys_ (_Author of_), 1029
Ayre (Rev. J.), 1025
Bacon, 1007, 1014
Baden-Powell (B. H.), 1003
Bagehot (W.), 1007, 1016, 1029
Bagwell (R.), 1003
Bain (Alexander), 1014
Baker (Sir S. W.), 1008, 1010
Balfour (A. J.), 1011, 1032
Ball (John), 1008
—— (J. T.), 1003
Baring-Gould (Rev. S.), 1027, 1029
Barraud (C. W.), 1019
Baynes (T. S.), 1029
Beaconsfield (Earl of), 1021
Beaufort (Duke of), 1010, 1011
Becker (W. A.), 1018
Beddard (F. E.), 1024
Bell (Mrs. Hugh), 1019
—— (Mrs. Arthur), 1007
Bent (J. Theodore), 1008
Besant (Sir Walter), 1003
Bickerdyke (J.), 1011
Bicknell (A. C.), 1008
Bird (R.), 1032
Bland (Mrs. Hubert), 1020
Boase (Rev. C. W.), 1004
Boedder (Rev. B.), 1016
Boevey (A. W. Crawley-), 1007
Bosanquet (B.), 1014
Boyd (Rev. A. K. H.), 1029, 1032
Brassey (Lady), 1009
—— (Lord), 1003, 1008, 1011, 1016
Bray (C. and Mrs.), 1014
Bright (Rev. J. F.), 1003
Broadfoot (Major W.), 1010
Brögger (W. C.), 1008
Browning (H. Ellen), 1009
Buck (H. A.), 1011
Buckland (Jas.), 1025
Buckle (H. T.), 1003
Buckton (C. M.), 1028
Bull (T.), 1028
Burke (U. R.), 1003
Burrows (Montagu), 1004
Butler (E. A.), 1024
—— (Samuel), 1018, 1029
Cameron of Lochiel, 1012
Campbell (Rev. Lewis), 1032
Camperdown (Earl of), 1007
Cannan (E.), 1017
Channing (F. A.), 1016
Cheancy (Sir G.), 1003
Chisholm (G. G.), 1025
Cholmondeley-Pennell (H.), 1011
Churchill (W. Spencer), 1009
Cicero, 1018
Clarke (Rev. R. F.), 1016
Clodd (Edward), 1017
Clutterbuck (W. J.), 1009
Coleridge (S. T.), 1019
Comparetti (D.), 1030
Comyn (L. N.), 1026
Conington (John), 1018
Conway (Sir W. M.), 1011
Conybeare (Rev. W. J.) & Howson (Dean), 1027
Coolidge (W. A. B.), 1008
Corbett (Julian S.), 1003
Corder (Annie), 1019
Coutts (W.), 1018
Coventry (A.), 1011
Cox (Harding), 1010
Crake (Rev. A. D.), 1025
Creighton (Bishop), 1003, 1004
Crozier (J. B.), 1007, 1014
Cuningham (G. C.), 1003
Curzon of Kedleston (Lord), 1003
Custance (Col. H.), 1012
Cutts (Rev. E. L.), 1004
Dellinger (F. W.), 1004
Davidson (W. L.), 1014, 1016, 1032
Davies (J.F.), 1018
Deland (Mrs.), 1021, 1026
Dent (C. T.), 1011
Deplolge (S.), 1017
De Salis (Mrs.), 1028, 1029
De Tocqueville (A.), 1003
Devas (C. S.), 1016
Dickinson (G. L.), 1004
Diderot, 1021
Dougall (L.), 1021
Douglas (Sir G.), 1019
Dowden (E.), 1031
Doyle (A. Conan), 1021
Dreyfus (Irma), 1030
Du Bois (W. E. B.), 1004
Dufferin (Marquis of), 1011
Dunbar (Mary F.), 1020
Eardley-Wilmot (Capt. S.), 1008
Ebrington (Viscount), 1012
Ellis (J. H.), 1012
—— (R. L.), 1014
Evans (Sir John), 1030
Farrar (Dean), 1016, 1021
Fitzwygram (Sir F.), 1010
Folkard (H. C.), 1012
Ford (H.), 1012
Fowler (Edith H.), 1021
Foxcroft (H. C.), 1007
Francis (Francis), 1012
Freeman (Edward A.), 1004
Freshfield (D. W.), 1011
Frothingham (A. L.), 1030
Froude (James A.), 1004, 1007, 1009, 1021
Furneaux (W.), 1024
Galton (W. F.), 1017
Gardiner (Samuel R.), 1004
Gathorne-Hardy (Hon. A. E.), 1012
Gerard (Dorothea), 1026
Gibbons (J. S.), 1012
Gibson (Hon. H.), 1013
—— (C.H.), 1014
—— (Hon. W.), 1032
Gilkes (A. H.), 1021
Gleig (Rev. G. R.), 1008
Goethe, 1019
Gore-Booth (Eva), 1019
—— (Sir H. W.), 1011
Graham (P. A.), 1013, 1021
—— (G. F.), 1016
Granby (Marquis of), 1012
Grant (Sir A.), 1014
Graves (R. P.), 1007
Green (T. Hill), 1014
Greener (E. B.), 1004
Greville (C. C. F.), 1004
Grey (Maria), 1026
Grose (T. H.), 1014
Gross (C.), 1004
Grove (F. C.), 1011
—— (Mrs. Lilly), 1010
Gurdon (Lady Camilla), 1021
Gwilt (J.), 1025
Haggard (H. Rider), 1021, 1022
Hake (O.), 1011
Halliwell-Phillipps (J.), 1008
Hamlin (A. D. F.), 1030
Hammond (Mrs. J. H.), 1004
Harding (S. B.), 1004
Harte (Bret), 1022
Harting (J. E.), 1012
Hartwig (G.), 1024
Hassall (A.), 1006
Haweis (Rev. H. R.), 1007, 1030
Heath (D. D.), 1014
Heathcote (J. M. and C. G.), 1011
Helmholtz (Hermann von), 1024
Henderson (Lieut-Col. G. F.), 1007
Henry (W.), 1011
Henty (G. A.), 1026
Herbert (Col. Kenney), 1012
Hewins (W. A. S.), 1017
Hill (Sylvia M.), 1021
Hillier (G. Lacy), 1010
Hirne (Lieut.-Col. H. W. L.), 1030
Hodgson (Shadworth H.), 1014
Holroyd (Maria J.), 1007
Homer, 1018
Hope (Anthony), 1022
Horace, 1018
Hornung (E. W.), 1022
Houston (D. F.), 1004
Howell (G.), 1016
Howitt (W.), 1009
Hudson (W. H.), 1024
Hullah (I.), 1030
Hume (David), 1014
Hunt (Rev. W.), 1004
Hunter (Sir W.), 1005
Hutchinson (Horace G.), 1011
Ingelow (Jean), 1019, 1026
James (W.), 1014
Jefferies (Richard), 1030
Jerome (Jerome K.), 1022
Johnson (J. & J. H.), 1030
Jones (H. Bence), 1025
Jordan (W. L.), 1016
Jowett (Dr. B.), 1017
Joyce (P. W.), 1005, 1022, 1030
Justinian:, 1014
Kant (I.), 1014
Kaye (Sir J. W.), 1005
Kerr (Rev. J.), 1011
Killick (Rev. A. H.), 1014
Kingsley (Rose G.), 1030
Kitchin (Dr. G. W.), 1004
Knight (E. F.), 1009, 1011
Köstlin (J.), 1007
Ladd (G. T.), 1015
Lang (Andrew), 1005, 1010, 1011, 1013,, 1017, 1018, 1019, 1020, 1022,
1026, 1030, 1032
Lascelles (Hon. G.), 1010, 1011, 1012
Laughton (J. K.), 1008
Laurence (F. W.), 1017
Lawley (Hon. F.), 1011
Layard (Nina F.), 1019
Leaf (Walter), 1031
Lear (H. L. Sidney), 1029
Lecky (W. E. H.), 1005, 1019
Lees (J. A.), 1009
Lejeune (Baron), 1007
Leslie (T. E. Cliffe), 1016
Lester (L. V.), 1007
Levett-Yeats (S.), 1022
Lillie (A.), 1013
Lindley (J.), 1025
Lodge (H. C.), 1004
Loftie (Rev. W. J.), 1004
Longman (C. J.), 1010, 1012, 1030
—— (F. W.), 1013
—— (G. H.), 1011, 1012
Lowell (A. L.), 1005
Lubbock (Sir John), 1017
Lucan, 1018
Lutoslawski (W.), 1015
Lyall (Edna), 1022
Lyttelton (Hon. R. H.), 1010
—— (Hon. A.), 1011
Lytton (Earl of), 1019
Macaulay (Lord), 1005, 1006, 1019
MacColl (Canon), 1006
Macdonald (G.), 1009
—— (Dr. G.), 1020, 1032
Macfarren (Sir G. A.), 1030
Mackail (J. W.), 1018
Mackinnon (J.), 1006
Macleod (H. D.), 1016
Macpherson (Rev. H. A.), 1012
Madden (D. H.), 1013
Maher (Rev. M.), 1016
Malleson (Col. G. B.), 1005
Marbot (Baron de), 1007
Marquand (A.), 1030
Marshman (J. C.), 1007
Martineau (Dr. James), 1032
Maskelyne (J. N.), 1013
Maunder (S.), 1025
Max Müller (F.), 1007, 1008, 1015, 1016, 1022, 1030, 1032
—— (Mrs.), 1009
May (Sir T. Erskine), 1006
Meade (L. T.), 1026
Melville (G. J. Whyte), 1022
Merivale (Dean), 1006
Merriman (H. S.), 1022
Mill (James), 1015
—— (John Stuart), 1015, 1017
Milner (G.), 1031
_Miss Molly_ (_Author of_), 1026
Moffat (D.), 1013
Molesworth (Mrs.), 1026
Monck (W. H. S.), 1015
Montague (F. C.), 1006
Montagu (Hon. John Scott), 1012
Moore (T.), 1025
—— (Rev. Edward), 1014
Morgan (C. Lloyd), 1017
Morris (W.), 1020, 1022, 1031
—— (Mowbray), 1011
Mulhall (M. G.), 1017
Nansen (F.), 1009
Nesbit (E.), 1020
Nettleship (R. L.), 1014
Newdigate - Newdegate (Lady), 1008
Newman (Cardinal), 1022
Ogle (W.), 1018
Oliphant (Mrs.), 1022
Oliver (W. D.), 1009
Onslow (Earl of), 1011
Orchard (T. N.), 1031
Osbourne (L.), 1023
Park (W.), 1013
Parr (Louisa), 1026
Payne-Gallwey (Sir R.), 1011, 1013
Peek (Hedley), 1011
Pembroke (Earl of), 1011
Phillipps-Wolley (C.), 1010, 1022
Pitman (C. M.), 1011
Pleydell-Bouverie (E. O.), 1011
Pole (W.), 1013
Pollock (W. H.), 1011
Poole (W. H. and Mrs.), 1029
Poore (G. V.), 1031
Potter (J.), 1016
Praeger (S. Rosamond), 1026
Prevost (C.), 1011
Pritchett (R. T.), 1011
Proctor (R. A.), 1013, 1024, 1028
Quill (A. W.), 1018
Raine (Rev. James), 1004
Ransome (Cyril), 1003, 1006
Rauschenbusch-Clough (Emma), 1008
Rawlinson (Rev. Canon), 1008
Rhoades (J.), 1018
Rhoscomyl (O.), 1023
Ribblesdale (Lord), 1013
Rich (A.), 1018
Richardson (C.), 1012
Richman (I. B.), 1006
Richmond (Ennis), 1031
Richter (J. Paul), 1031
Rickaby (Rev. John), 1016
—— (Rev. Joseph), 1016
Ridley (Sir E.), 1018
Riley (J. W.), 1020
Roget (Peter M.), 1016, 1025
Rolfsen (N.), 1008
Romanes (G. J.), 1008, 1015, 1017, 1020, 1032
—— (Mrs.), 1008
Ronalds (A.), 1013
Roosevelt (T.), 1004
Rossetti (Maria Francesca), 1031
—— (W. M.), 1020
Rowe (R. P. P.), 1011
Russell (Bertrand), 1017
—— (Alys), 1017
—— (Rev. M.), 1020
Saintsbury (G.), 1012
Samuels (E.), 1020
Sandars (T. C.), 1014
Sargent (A. J.), 1017
Schreiner (S. C. Cronwright), 1010
Seebohm (F.), 1006, 1008
Selous (F. C.), 1010
Sewell (Elizabeth M.), 1023
Shakespeare, 1020
Shand (A. I.), 1012
Sharpe (R. R.), 1006
Shearman (M.), 1010, 1011
Sinclair (A.), 1011
Smith (R. Bosworth), 1006
Smith (T. C.), 1004
Smith (W. P. Haskett), 1009
Solovyoff (V. S.), 1031
Sophocles, 1018
Soulsby (Lucy H.), 1026, 1031
Spedding (J.), 1007, 1014
Sprigge (S. Squire), 1008
Stanley (Bishop), 1024
Steel (A. G.), 1010
—— (J. H.), 1010
Stephen (Leslie), 1009
Stephens (H. Morse), 1006
Stevens (R. W.), 1031
Stevenson (R. L.), 1023, 1026
‘Stonehenge’, 1010
Storr (F.), 1014
Stuart-Wortley (A. J.), 1011, 1012
Stubbs (J. W.), 1006
Suffolk & Berkshire (Earl of), 1011
Sullivan (Sir E.), 1011
—— (J. F.), 1026
Sully (James), 1015
Sutherland (A. and G.), 1006
—— (Alex.), 1015, 1031
Suttner (B. von), 1023
Swinburne (A. J.), 1015
Symes (J. E.), 1017
Tacitus, 1018
Taylor (Col. Meadows), 1006
Tebbutt (C. G.), 1011
Thornhill (W. J.), 1018
Thornton (T. H.), 1008
Todd (A.), 1006
Toynbee (A.), 1017
Trevelyan (Sir G. O.), 1006, 1007
—— (C. P.), 1017
—— (G. M.), 1006
Trollope (Anthony), 1023
Tupper (L.), 1020
Turner (H. G.), 1031
Tyndall (J.), 1007, 1009
Tyrrell (R. Y.), 1018
Tyszkiewicz (M.), 1031
Upton (F. K. and Bertha), 1026
Van Dyke (J. C.), 1031
Verney (Frances P. and Margaret M.), 1008
Virgil, 1018
Vivekananda (Swami), 1032
Vivian (Herbert), 1009
Wakeman (H. O.), 1006
Walford (L. B.), 1023
Walker (Jane H.), 1029
Wallas (Graham), 1008
Walpole (Sir Spencer), 1006
Walrond (Col. H.), 1010
Walsingham (Lord), 1011
Walter (J.), 1008
Warwick (Countess of), 1031
Watson (A. E. T.), 1010, 1011, 1012, 1013, 1023
Webb (Mr. and Mrs. Sidney), 1017
—— (T. E.), 1015, 1019
Weber (A.), 1015
Weir (Capt. R.), 1011
Weyman (Stanley), 1023
Whately (Archbishop), 1014, 1015
—— (E. Jane), 1016
Whishaw (F.), 1023
White (W. Hale), 1020, 1031
Whitelaw (R.), 1018
Wilcocks (J. C.), 1013
Wilkins (G.), 1018
Willard (A. R.), 1031
Willich (C. M.), 1025
Witham (T. M.), 1011
Wood (Rev. J. G.), 1025
Wood-Martin (W. G.), 1006
Woods (Margaret L.), 1023
Wordsworth (Elizabeth), 1026
—— (William), 1020
Wyatt (A. J.), 1020
Wylie (J. H.), 1006
Youatt (W.), 1010
Zeller (E.), 1015
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