INDPRIDE

It is often said that Hinduism is not the name of a particular religion, nor that of a religious nationality, and that it does not represent one set of beliefs, common to all who call themselves Hindus, and that therefore it is perfectly idle to appeal to the Hindus in the name of a common nationality. It has become almost a fashion to insist that the term Hinduism is too vague to be properly defined, and that there is hardly anything substantial common which binds one Hindu to another in the ties of national brotherhood. Hinduism, in short, is said to be more of congeries of different religious sects holding diverse and not unoften diametrically opposite views on matters of faith and doctrine. Hinduism is said to include and cover almost every form of religious faith known to or practiced by mankind, from the purest monotheism, to the lowest form of animism, polytheism, henotheism, pantheism, in fact all sorts of isms. There is a fairly large class of Hindus who suffer from want of faith in the potentialities of their religion to unite them or to inspire them to the lofty ideals of a great religious platform whereupon to bring together a Hindu union. To many the idea of a Hindu union seems to be nothing more than an unrealizable dream. In their opinion, the talk of a Hindu nationality is a senseless talk, and the attempt to bring about a union amongst Hindus on the basis of religion is extremely impracticable. Some even go further and opine that the religious difficulties of the Hindus cannot be met with, removed or solved by an appeal to Shastras, and that amongst Hindus religious reform, too, must proceed on lines and ideas borrowed from the West. We confess we are unable to subscribe to these views, and are rather inclined to hold just the otherwise. We have substantial reasons to maintain that Hinduism is at least as much a religious nationality as its sister faiths, Christianity or Islam. These two latter contain as many varieties and shades of religious beliefs and doctrines in themselves, if not more, as Hinduism does, of course giving due consideration to the ages of these three religions. If Hindus have got their Vedantists, the Muhammadans have theirs Sufis and the Christians have those who have raised the banner of higher Christianity. If Hindus have their Trinity in Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, the Christians have theirs in Father, Son and Holy Ghost. If the Hindus have got their Avataras, the Christians have (besides the great incarnation of God in the body of Christ) their popes and saints. If the Hindus believe in different deities, there are Muhammadans and Christians who believe in saints, Walis, Mahdils, etc. If the Hindus have their sacrifices, the Christians and Muhammadans have theirs also. If there are Hindus who are steeped in superstitious beliefs and observe many gross forms of worship, there are millions and millions of Muhammadans and Christians also, particularly the latter, whose religious practices are as gross as those of the multitude of Hindus. If there are fables in the Puranas, there are equally ridiculous stories in the Quran and the Bible. What is, then, that deprives Hinduism of that binding force which knits together the different discordant elements in Islam and Christianity? What are the special features of the latter that are absent in the former? Is Hinduism entirely devoid of any basal principles on which the foundations of a church national could be laid? It is these latter that we, at first propose to take in hand and examine touching upon the former whenever it is relevant to do so. Our first contention is that, like the general mass of Muhammadans and Christians, the Hindus, likewise, directly or indirectly profess to accept the Vedas as their religious scriptures. The great bulk of the latter like the great bulk of the former, believe that their scriptures are the word of God, and are infallible. There are learned Muhammadans and Christians who cannot go so far and do not believe that the Quran and the Bible are the word of God. On the question of the exact authority of the scriptures in these great religions of the world there are as many schools and shades of thought with all their varieties and niceties as one as in the other. There are scoffers, agnostics and skeptics everywhere. Everywhere there are men who do not care a jot for the scripture, make no secret of their views, but still cling to the outer form of the religion, the very essence of which they take pleasure in decrying. The number of such Christians is legion who do not believe that Christ was the son of God or the son of the Virgin, or that the Bible is the revealed word of God, but who do not still care to go out of the pale of outward Christianity. For the purposes of baptism, marriage etc, they are as much Christians as those who believe that every letter of the Bible was spoken by God Himself.

We have said all this not with the intention of disparaging either Islam or Christianity but only in support of our contention that in these respects the religious difficulties of the Hindus are their fellow subjects, the Muhammadans and the Christians. We know that there are some people who are so hopeless of Hindu unity, or who are so much perplexed with the endless variety of religious belief in Hinduism, that in moments of despondency they have been heard to apostrophize if it would not be better for India if the Hindus were to accept Christianity, but irrespective of spiritual efficiency or inefficiency of Christianity, we are afraid even from the unity point of view we will not thereby be nearer the desired millennium. That such is the opinion of all impartial and disinterested observers will be amply borne out by the following quotations which we cull from a paper written by the late Professor Theodore Goldstucker on the �Religious Difficulties of India�. In the paper under reference were noticed certain recent publications by two learned Hindu converts to Christianity criticizing Hindu religion and philosophy and exhorting their late co-religionists to solve their religious problem by embracing Christianity.

After giving copious extracts from these publications containing the views of these learned Padries on the inconsistencies and anomalies of Hindu religion and Hindu philosophy, with his own comments thereupon, the learned Professor says: �There is another serious perplexity into which our learned authors must be aware that they will throw even those Hindus who may be clever enough to overcome all those difficulties, but it has as little been removed by them as indeed any difficulty which besets the solution of the religious problem in India. Their object as we have seen is to persuade their countrymen to embrace the Christian religion, but they have neither explained to them that the Christian religion is, not where it may be found. Any Hindu, who follows the deductions of Mr. Bannerjee, would simply infer that there is but one Christian religion, which a devout student of the Bible might easily acquire from a perusal of the sacred book. Let him descend, however, from the region of abstraction into that of reality, and he will soon discover the endless variety of opinions which may be founded on the apparently so intelligible scriptural text, and he will soon learn that, so far from this being a mere possibility, hundreds of creeds have sprung from this same scriptural soil, every one of which claims to be in exclusive possession of Christianity. And if he be disposed to investigate historically the mutual relation of all these creeds he will find that their difference is so essential that it was strong enough to perpetuate the most inveterate animosities and to result in wars the like of which cannot be traced in the history of any other creed.

�We have no desire to enlarge upon this theme, for we have said enough to explain why we hold the situation proposed by Mr. Bannerjee to be impossibility. Attempts of conversion are too frequently made without examining the limits within which they are possible and the result in which their momentary success may end. If a man derives his religious views from his own individual information or from sources which are void of authoritative influence, he may yield them to the views which are of a higher range without causing injury to the nobler part of himself. But if the creed of an individual is founded on texts held sacred and authoritative, it is a national creed; no individual can abandon it without severing himself from the national stem; no nation can surrender it without laying the axe to its own root. For religion based on texts believed sacred, embodies the whole history of the nation which professes it; it is the shortest abbreviation of all that ennobles nation�s mind, is most dear to its memory and most essential to its life. No religion has better illustrated this truth than the religion founded on the Bible. It could, and was successfully, introduced amongst all nations which possess no texts supposed to be divinely inspired, and therefore of general authority, and whenever a nation possessing merely the semblance of such a text, adopted it, it thereby decreed its own end. The Romans and Greeks, when becoming Christians, ceased to be the continuation of the classical Romans and Greeks, in history, in literature, in character. Their political importance based on the conditions on the past, was brought to a close, and they had to grow into another nationality. The conditions under which this religion introduced itself into the countries of Europe was always the absence of a book ascribed to divine authorship. When Mr.Bannerjee speaks of the Jews, he has chosen an exact counter instance which goes far to prove that even a people without land, without any history which can be called their own, that a people exposed to all the horrors of persecution and all the allurements of seduction did not and does not espouse that very religion which exercises the most powerful influence on its actual destinies and which it even supports and favors amongst those who profess it. The Jews do not become Christians, simply because they believe that their Testament is a sacred book.�

Having expressed these views as to the undesirability and impossibility of converting Hindus to Christianity, Professor Goldstucker further addresses the Hindus themselves, and lays down what, in his opinion, is the true key to the solution of their religious difficulty. We cannot do better than once more quote his words which are full of significance and pregnant with great meaning to all educated Hindus:

�We have been carried, however, with these remarks to the point where we cannot shrink from expressing the views which we entertain of the duties of the Brahmanical Hindus of our own days. We need not emphasize more than we have already done, that we reject as unwise and unpractical any attempt to persuade them to become Christians or to adopt the Biblical scriptures as their spiritual code. We want them to become a nation worthy of their ancestors and worthy of the great role, which in ancient times they have acted in the history of the human race, and we are satisfied that they cannot regain that position by breaking the spring ties of their life and by exchanging their own religious uncertainty for that of any other creed. It is necessary, however, that they should realize the condition in which they are. We need not prove to them that the minds of the enlightened portion of their nation are estranged from the sectarian worship as it is practiced now, but who could satisfy them that they are utterly remiss in examining where the root of the evil lies. Every Brahmanical believer, if asked, will tell that the mode of his worship is founded on the Vedas. He refers us, it is true, occasionally to the Puranas and Tantras, but he himself admits that these works have no authoritative powers unless they can prove that the tenets they contain are drawn from the Vedic source. The pivot, then, on which all religious questions of India turn, is and remains-the Veda. Philosophers and non-Philosophers, Vishnuits and Sivaits, all echo the word Veda;��

Forty years have elapsed since these words were written by one of the profoundest Sanskrit scholars and one of the most competent and shrewd students of comparative religions, which Europe produced, but the words hold as good, as true and as forcible today as they were ever. In fact, the events of these forty years have, instead of showing any flaw either in the arguments or in the sentiments of the learned Professor, proved, if any further proof was needed, how accurately did he grasp the real situation and how truly did he lay down the solution.

We repeat, therefore, before we close for the present that the pivot on which all religious questions of Hindu India turn is, and remains-the Veda. To the Veda, therefore, we must go for light and guidance in our religious troubles, and in the Veda we shall find our solace.