Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) by Charles Eliot

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In the next epoch, say the twelfth to the seventeenth centuries, Indian
thought clearly hankers after theism in the western sense and yet never
completely acquiesces in it. Mythology, if still rampant according to
our taste, at least becomes subsidiary and more detachable from the
supreme deity, and this deity, if less anthropomorphic than Allah or
Jehovah, is still a being who loves and helps souls, and these souls are
explained in varying formulae as being identical with him and yet
distinct.

It can hardly be by chance that as the Hindus became more familiar with
Islam their sects grew more definite in doctrine and organization
especially among the Vishnuites who showed a greater disposition to form
sects than the Sivaites, partly because the incarnations of Vishnu offer
an obvious ground for diversity. About 1100 A.D.[27] the first great
Vaishnava sect was founded by Ramanuja. He was a native of the Madras
country and claimed to be the spiritual descendant of the early Tamil
saints. In doctrine he expressly accepted the views of the ancient
Bhagavatas, which had been condemned by Sankara, and he affirmed the
existence of one personal deity commonly spoken of as Narayana or
Vasudeva.

From the time of Sankara onwards nearly all Hindu theologians of the
first rank expounded their views by writing a commentary on the Brahma
Sutras, an authoritative but singularly enigmatic digest of the
Upanishads. Sankara's doctrine may be summarized as absolute monism
which holds that nothing really exists but Brahman and that Brahman is
identical with the soul. All apparent plurality is due to illusion. He
draws a distinction between the lower and higher Brahman which perhaps
may be rendered by God and the Godhead. In the same sense in which
individual souls and matter exist, a personal God also exists, but the
higher truth is that individuality, personality and matter are all
illusion. But the teaching of Ramanuja rejects the doctrines that the
world is an illusion and that there is a distinction between the lower
and higher Brahman and it affirms that the soul, though of the same
substance as God and emitted from him rather than created, can obtain
bliss not in absorption but in existence near him.

It is round these problems that Hindu theology turns. The innumerable
solutions lack neither boldness nor variety but they all try to satisfy
both the philosopher and the saint and none achieve both tasks. The
system of Sankara is a masterpiece of intellect, despite his
disparagement of reasoning in theology, and could inspire a fine piety,
as when on his deathbed he asked forgiveness for having frequented
temples, since by so doing he had seemed to deny that God is everywhere.
But piety of this kind is unfavourable to public worship and even to
those religious experiences in which the soul seems to have direct
contact with God in return for its tribute of faith and love. In fact
the Advaita philosophy countenances emotional theism only as an
imperfect creed and not as the highest truth. But the existence of all
sects and priesthoods depends on their power to satisfy the religious
instinct with ceremonial or some better method of putting the soul in
communication with the divine. On the other hand pantheism in India is
not a philosophical speculation, it is a habit of mind: it is not enough
for the Hindu that his God is lord of all things: he must _be_ all
things and the soul in its endeavour to reach God must obtain
deliverance from the fetters not only of matter but of individuality.
Hence Hindu theology is in a perpetual oscillation illustrated by the
discrepant statements found side by side in the Bhagavad-gita and other
works. Indian temperament and Indian logic want a pantheistic God and a
soul which can transcend personality, but religious thought and practice
imply personality both in the soul and in God. All varieties of
Vishnuism show an effort to reconcile these double aspirations and
theories. The theistic view is popular, for without it what would become
of temples, worshippers and priests? But I think that the pantheistic
view is the real basis of Indian religious thought.

The qualified monism of Ramanuja (as his system is sometimes called) led
to more uncompromising treatment of the question and to the affirmation
of dualism, not the dualism of God and the Devil but the distinctness of
the soul and of matter from God. This is the doctrine of Madhva, another
southern teacher who lived about a century after Ramanuja and was
perhaps directly influenced by Islam. But though the logical outcome of
his teaching may appear to be simple theism analogous to Islam or
Judaism, it does not in practice lead to this result but rather to the
worship of Krishna. Madhva's sect is still important but even more
important is another branch of the spiritual family of Ramanuja,
starting from Ramanand who probably flourished in the fourteenth
century[28].

Ramanuja, while in some ways accepting innovations, insisted on the
strict observance of caste. Ramanand abandoned this, separated from his
sect and removed to Benares. His teaching marks a turning-point in the
history of modern Hinduism. Firstly he held that caste need not prevent
a man from rightly worshipping God and he admitted even Moslims as
members of his community. To this liberality are directly traceable the
numerous sects combining Hindu with Mohammedan doctrines, among which
the Kabir Panthis and the Sikhs are the most conspicuous. But it is a
singular testimony to the tenacity of Hindu ideas that though many
teachers holding most diverse opinions have declared there is no caste
before God, yet caste has generally reasserted itself among their
followers as a social if not as a religious institution. The second
important point in Ramanand's teaching was the use of the vernacular for
religious literature. Dravidian scriptures had already been recognized
in the south but it is from this time that there begins to flow in the
north that great stream of sacred poetry in Hindi and Bengali which
waters the roots of modern popular Hinduism. Among many eminent names
which have contributed to it, the greatest is Tulsi Das who retold the
Ramayana in Hindi and thus wrote a poem which is little less than a
Bible for millions in the Ganges valley.

The sects which derive from the teaching of Ramanand mostly worship the
Supreme Being under the name of Rama. Even more numerous, especially in
the north, are those who use the name of Krishna, the other great
incarnation of Vishnu. This worship was organized and extended by the
preaching of Vallabha and Caitanya (c. 1500) in the valley of the Ganges
and Bengal, but was not new. I shall discuss in some detail below the
many elements combined in the complex figure of Krishna but in one way
or another he was connected with the earliest forms of Vishnuite
monotheism and is the chief figure in the Bhagavad-gita, its earliest
text-book. Legend connects him partly with Muttra and partly with
western India but, though by no means ignored in southern India, he does
not receive there such definite and exclusive adoration as in the north.
The Krishnaite sects are emotional, and their favourite doctrine that
the relation between God and the soul is typified by passionate love has
led to dubious moral results.

This Krishnaite propaganda, which coincided with the Reformation in
Europe, was the last great religious movement in India. Since that time
there has been considerable activity of a minor kind. Protests have been
raised against abuses and existing communities have undergone changes,
such as may be seen in the growth of the Sikhs, but there has been no
general or original movement. The absence of such can be easily
explained by the persecutions of Aurungzeb and by the invasions and
internal struggles of the eighteenth century. At the end of that century
Hinduism was at its lowest but its productive power was not destroyed.
The decennial census never fails to record the rise of new sects and the
sudden growth of others which had been obscure and minute.

Any historical treatment of Hinduism inevitably makes Vishnuism seem
more prominent than other sects, for it offers more events to record.
But though Sivaism has undergone fewer changes and produced fewer great
names, it must not be thought of as lifeless or decadent. The lingam is
worshipped all over India and many of the most celebrated shrines, such
as Benares and Bhubaneshwar, are dedicated to the Lord of life and
death. The Sivaism of the Tamil country is one of the most energetic and
progressive forms of modern Hinduism, but in doctrine it hardly varies
from the ancient standard of the Tiruvacagam.

9. _European Influence and Modern Hinduism_

The small effect of European religion on Hinduism is remarkable. Islam,
though aggressively hostile, yet fused with it in some sects, for
instance the Sikhs, but such fusions of Indian religion and Christianity
as have been noted[29] are microscopic curiosities. European free
thought and Deism have not fared better, for the Brahmo Samaj which was
founded under their inspiration has only 5504 adherents[30]. In social
life there has been some change: caste restrictions, though not
abolished, are evaded by ingenious subterfuges and there is a growing
feeling against child-marriage. Yet were the laws against sati and human
sacrifice repealed, there are many districts in which such practices
would not be forbidden by popular sentiment.

It is easy to explain the insensibility of Hinduism to European contact:
even Islam had little effect on its stubborn vitality, though Islam
brought with it settlers and resident rulers, ready to make converts by
force. But the British have shown perfect toleration and are merely
sojourners in the land who spend their youth and age elsewhere. European
exclusiveness and Indian ideas about caste alike made it natural to
regard them as an isolated class charged with the business of Government
but divorced from the intellectual and religious life of other classes.
Previous experience of Moslims and other invaders disposed the Brahmans
to accept foreigners as rulers without admitting that their creeds and
customs were in the least worthy of imitation. European methods of
organization and advertisement have not however been disdained.

The last half century has witnessed a remarkable revival of Hinduism. In
the previous decades the most conspicuous force in India, although
numerically weak, was the already mentioned Brahmo Samaj, founded by Ram
Mohun Roy in 1828. But it was colourless and wanting in constructive
power. Educated opinion, at least in Bengal, seemed to be tending
towards agnosticism and social revolution. This tendency was checked by
a conservative and nationalist movement, which in all its varied phases
gave support to Indian religion and was intolerant of European ideas. It
had a political side but there was nothing disloyal in its main idea,
namely, that in the intellectual and religious sphere, where Indian life
is most intense, Indian ideas must not decay. No one who has known India
during the last thirty years can have failed to notice how many new
temples have been built and how many old ones repaired. Almost all the
principal sects have founded associations to protect and extend their
interests by such means as financial and administrative organization,
the publication of periodicals and other literature, annual conferences,
lectures and the foundation of religious houses or quasi-monastic
orders. Several societies have been founded not restricted to any
particular sect but with the avowed object of defending and promoting
strict Hinduism. Among such the most important are, first the Bharat
Dharma Mahamandala, under the distinguished presidency of the Maharaja
of Darbhanga: secondly the movement started by Ramakrishna and Swami
Vivekananda and adorned by the beautiful life and writings of Sister
Nivedita (Miss Noble) and thirdly the Theosophical Society under the
leadership of Mrs Besant. It is remarkable that Europeans, both men and
women, have played a considerable part in this revival. All these
organizations are influential: the two latter have done great service in
defending and encouraging Hinduism, but I am less sure of their success
in mingling Eastern and Western ideas or in popularizing Hinduism among
Europeans.

Somewhat different, but described by the Census of 1911 as "the greatest
religious movement in India of the past half century" is the Arya Samaj,
founded in 1875 by Swami Dayanand. Whereas the movements mentioned above
support Sanatana Dharma or Orthodox Hinduism in all its shapes, the Arya
Samaj aims at reform. Its original programme was a revival of the
ancient Vedic religion but it has since been perceptibly modified and
tends towards conciliating contemporary orthodoxy, for it now prohibits
the slaughter of cattle, accords a partial recognition to caste, affirms
its belief in karma and apparently approves a form of the Yoga
philosophy. Though it is not yet accepted as a form of orthodox
Hinduism, it seems probable that concessions on both sides will produce
this result before long. It numbers at present only about a quarter of a
million but is said to be rapidly increasing, especially in the United
Provinces and Panjab, and to be remarkable for the completeness and
efficiency of its organization. It maintains missionary colleges,
orphanages and schools. Affiliated to it is a society for the
purification (shuddhi) of Mohammedans, Christians and outcasts, that is
for turning them into Hindus and giving them some kind of caste. It
would appear that those who undergo this purification do not always
become members of the Samaj but are merged in the ordinary Hindu
community where they are accepted without opposition if also without
enthusiasm.

10. _Change and Permanence in Buddhism_

Thus we have a record of Indian thought for about 3000 years. It has
directly affected such distant points as Balkh, Java and Japan and it is
still living and active. But life and action mean change and such wide
extension in time and space implies variety. We talk of converting
foreign countries but the religion which is transplanted also undergoes
conversion or else it cannot enter new brains and hearts. Buddhism in
Ceylon and Japan, Christianity in Scotland and Russia are not the same,
although professing to reverence the same teachers. It is easy to argue
the other way, but it can only be done by setting aside as non-essential
differences of great practical importance. Europeans are ready enough to
admit that Buddhism is changeable and easily corrupted but it is not
singular in that respect[31]. I doubt if Lhasa and Tantrism are further
from the teaching of Gotama than the Papacy, the Inquisition, and the
religion of the German Emperor, from the teaching of Christ.

A religion is the expression of the thought of a particular age and
cannot really be permanent in other ages which have other thoughts. The
apparent permanence of Christianity is due first to the suppression of
much original teaching, such as Christ's turning the cheek to the smiter
and Paul's belief in the coming end of the world, and secondly to the
adoption of new social ideals which have no place in the New Testament,
such as the abolition of slavery and the improved status of women.

Buddhism arising out of Brahmanism suggests a comparison with
Christianity arising out of Judaism, but the comparison breaks down in
most points of detail. But there is one real resemblance, namely that
Buddhism and Christianity have both won their greatest triumphs outside
the land of their birth. The flowers of the mind, if they can be
transplanted at all, often flourish with special vigour on alien soil.
Witness the triumphs of Islam in the hands of the Turks and Mughals, the
progress of Nestorianism in Central Asia, and the spread of Manichaeism
in both the East and West outside the limits of Persia. Even so Lamaism
in Tibet and Amidism in Japan, though scholars may regard them as
singular perversions, have more vitality than any branch of Buddhism
which has existed in India since the seventh century. But even here the
parallel with Christian sects is imperfect. It would be more complete if
Palestine had been the centre from which different phases of
Christianity radiated during some twelve centuries, for this is the
relation between Indian and foreign Buddhism. Lamaism is not the
teaching of the Buddha travestied by Tibetans but a late form of Indian
Buddhism exported to Tibet and modified there in some external features
(such as ecclesiastical organization and art) but not differing greatly
in doctrine from Bengali Buddhism of the eleventh century. And even
Amidism appears to have originated not in the Far East but in Gandhara
and the adjacent lands. Thus the many varieties of Buddhism now existing
are due partly to local colour but even more to the workings of the
restless Hindu mind which during many centuries after the Christian era
continued to invent for it novelties in metaphysics and mythology.

The preservation of a very ancient form of Buddhism in Ceylon[32] is
truly remarkable, for if in many countries Buddhism has shown itself
fluid and protean, it here manifests a stability which can hardly be
paralleled except in Judaism. The Sinhalese, unlike the Hindus, had no
native propensity to speculation. They were content to classify,
summarize and expound the teaching of the Pitakas without restating it
in the light of their own imagination. Whereas the most stable form of
Christianity is the Church of Rome, which began by making considerable
additions to the doctrine of the New Testament, the most stable form of
Buddhism is neither a transformation of the old nor a protest against
innovation but simply the continuation of a very ancient sect in strange
lands[33]. This ancient Buddhism, like Islam which is also simple and
stable, is somewhat open to the charge of engaging in disputes about
trivial details[34], but alike in Ceylon, Burma and Siam, it has not
only shown remarkable persistence but has become a truly national
religion, the glory and comfort of those who profess it.

11. _Rebirth and the Nature of the Soul_

The most characteristic doctrine of Indian religion--rarely absent in
India and imported by Buddhism into all the countries which it
influenced--is that called metempsychosis, the transmigration of the soul
or reincarnation. The last of these terms best expresses Indian,
especially Buddhist, ideas but still the usual Sanskrit equivalent,
_Samsara_, means migration. The body breaks up at death but something
passes on and migrates to another equally transitory tenement. Neither
Brahmans nor Buddhists seem to contemplate the possibility that the
human soul may be a temporary manifestation of the Eternal Spirit which
comes to an end at death--a leaf on a tree or a momentary ripple on the
water. It is always regarded as passing through many births, a wave
traversing the ocean.

Hindu speculation has never passed through the materialistic phase, and
the doctrine that the soul is annihilated at death is extremely rare in
India. Even rarer perhaps is the doctrine that it usually enters on a
permanent existence, happy or otherwise. The idea underlying the
transmigration theory is that every state which we call existence must
come to an end. If the soul can be isolated from all the accidents and
accessories attaching to it, then there may be a state of permanence and
peace but not a state comparable with human existence, however enlarged
and glorified. But why does not this conviction of impermanence lead to
the simpler conclusion that the end of physical life is the end of all
life? Because the Hindus have an equally strong conviction of
continuity: everything passes away and changes but it is not true to say
of anything that it arises from nothing or passes into nothing. If human
organisms (or any other organisms) are mere machines, if there is
nothing more to be said about a corpse than about a smashed watch, then
(the Hindu thinks) the universe is not continuous. Its continuity means
for him that there is something which eternally manifests itself in
perishable forms but does not perish with them any more than water when
a pitcher is broken or fire that passes from the wood it has consumed to
fresh fuel.

These metaphors suggest that the doctrine of transmigration or
reincarnation does not promise what we call personal immortality. I
confess that I cannot understand how there can be personality in the
ordinary human sense without a body. When we think of a friend, we think
of a body and a character, thoughts and feelings, all of them connected
with that body and many of them conditioned by it. But the immortal soul
is commonly esteemed to be something equally present in a new born babe,
a youth and an old man. If so, it cannot be a personality in the
ordinary sense, for no one could recognize the spirit of a departed
friend, if it is something which was present in him the day he was born
and different from all the characteristics which he acquired during
life. The belief that we shall recognize our friends in another world
assumes that these characteristics are immortal, but it is hard to
understand how they can be so, especially as it is also assumed that
there is nothing immortal in a dog, which possesses affection and
intelligence, but that there is something immortal in a new born infant
which cannot be said to possess either.

In one way metempsychosis raises insuperable difficulties to the
survival of personality, for if you become someone else, especially an
animal, you are no longer yourself according to any ordinary use of
language. But one of the principal forms taken by the doctrine in India
makes a modified survival intelligible. For it is held that a new born
child brings with it as a result of actions done in previous lives
certain predispositions and these after being developed and modified in
the course of that child's life are transmitted to its next existence.

As to the method of transmission there are various theories, for in
India the belief in reincarnation is not so much a dogma as an instinct
innate in all and only occasionally justified by philosophers, not
because it was disputed but because they felt bound to show that their
own systems were compatible with it. One explanation is that given by
the Vedanta philosophy, according to which the soul is accompanied in
its migrations by the _Sukshmasarira_ or subtle body, a counterpart of
the mortal body but transparent and invisible, though material. The
truth of this theory, as of all theories respecting ghosts and spirits,
seems to me a matter for experimental verification, but the Vedanta
recognizes that in our experience a personal individual existence is
always connected with a physical substratum.

The Buddhist theory of rebirth is somewhat different, for Buddhism even
in its later divagations rarely ceased to profess belief in Gotama's
doctrine that there is no such thing as a soul--by which is meant no such
thing as a permanent unchanging self or _atman_. Buddhists are concerned
to show that transmigration is not inconsistent with this denial of the
_atman_. The ordinary, and indeed inevitable translation of this word by
soul leads to misunderstanding for we naturally interpret it as meaning
that there is nothing which survives the death of the body and _a
fortiori_ nothing to transmigrate. But in reality the denial of the
_atman_ applies to the living rather than to the dead. It means that in
a living man there is no permanent, unchangeable entity but only a
series of mental states, and since human beings, although they have no
_atman_, certainly exist in this present life, the absence of the
_atman_ is not in itself an obstacle to belief in a similar life after
death or before birth. Infancy, youth, age and the state immediately
after death may form a series of which the last two are as intimately
connected as any other two. The Buddhist teaching is that when men die
in whom the desire for another life exists--as it exists in all except
saints--then desire, which is really the creator of the world, fashions
another being, conditioned by the character and merits of the being
which has just come to an end. Life is like fire: its very nature is to
burn its fuel. When one body dies, it is as if one piece of fuel were
burnt: the vital process passes on and recommences in another and so
long as there is desire of life, the provision of fuel fails not.
Buddhist doctors have busied themselves with the question whether two
successive lives are the same man or different men, and have illustrated
the relationship by various analogies of things which seem to be the
same and yet not the same, such as a child and an adult, milk and curds,
or fire which spreads from a lamp and burns down a village, but, like
the Brahmans, they do not discuss why the hypothesis of transmigration
is necessary. They had the same feeling for the continuity of nature,
and more than others they insisted on the principle that everything has
a cause. They held that the sexual act creates the conditions in which a
new life appears but is not an adequate cause for the new life itself.
And unless we accept a materialist explanation of human nature, this
argument is sound: unless we admit that mind is merely a function of
matter, the birth of a mind is not explicable as a mere process of cell
development: something pre-existent must act upon the cells.