22 chapters
8 hour read
Selected Chapters
22 chapters
PREFACE
PREFACE
The substance of the following volume was delivered in the form of lectures in the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh during Session 1904-5. As "Alexander Robertson" lecturer in the University of Glasgow, the writer dealt with the new religious ideas that have been impressing themselves upon India during the British period of her history. As "Gunning" lecturer in the University of Edinburgh, the writer dwelt more upon the new social and political ideas. The popular belief of Hindu India is, t
7 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
India is a land of manifold interest. For the visitors who crowd thither every cold season, and for the still larger number who will never see India, but have felt the glamour of the ancient land whose destiny is now so strangely linked to that of our far-off and latter-day islands, India has not one but many interests. There is the interest of the architectural glories of the Moghul emperors, in whose grand halls of audience, now deserted and merely places of show, a solitary British soldier st
8 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
But while acknowledging the potent influences at work, and accepting these representative utterances, it may yet be asked by the incredulous—What of the inherent conservatism, the proverbial tenacity of India? Is there really any perceptible and significant change to record as the outcome of the influences of the nineteenth century? Well, the expression "Indian conservatism" is misleading. There is no Indian conservatism in the sense of a philosophy of politics, of society, or of religion. India
9 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
New ideas in the social sphere first claim our attention. The individual and the community, each have rights, says a writer on the philosophy of history, and it is hurtful when the balance is not preserved. If the community be not securely established, the individuals will have no opportunity to develop; if the individual be not free, the community can have no real greatness. Speaking broadly, when Western social ideas meet Indian, the conflict is between the rights of the individual as in Weste
47 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
English education is the chief solvent of old ideas in India and the chief source from which the new are supplied. English is the language of the freest peoples in the world. It is only to be expected, therefore, that with the spread of English education in India the idea of individual freedom and the feeling of nationality should grow and the caste idea decline. The beginning of the process is often witnessed among the boys in Secondary Schools in India. You lay your hand upon the arm of a boy,
10 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
Next to caste, the chief social feature of India is the position of women in the community. Hindus and Mahomedans alike assign to the female sex an inferior position. In Mahomedan mosques, for example, no woman is ever seen at prayer; she would not be permitted to take part. Only by the neglect of female children in India, and the special disadvantages from which women suffer there, can it be explained why in India in 1901 there were only 963 females to every 1000 males. In India, as in Europe a
43 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
Experience teaches the necessity of explaining to Western readers certain terms which even long residence in India often fails to make clear to Anglo-Indians. Let it be remembered then that the terms India, Indian , have only a geographical reference: they do not signify any particular race or religion. India is the great triangular continent bounded on the south-west and south-east by the sea, and shut in on the north by the Himalayan Mountains. Self-contained though it be, and easily thought o
5 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
With modern education and the awakening of the Indian mind have come entirely new political ideas. That there are public questions has in fact been discovered; for in India the idea of citizenship, the consciousness of being a political unit, was itself a new idea. We may say that it was made possible in 1835, when an Act of Legislature was passed declaring the press free. In 1823 an English editor had been deported from Calcutta for free criticism of the authorities, but after 1835 it was legal
14 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER VIII
An unpleasant aspect of the new idea is much in evidence at the present time. On almost every public question, the cleavage of the public opinion is Europeans versus Natives. Far be it from me to assert that the natives only are carried away by the community feeling. A case in point is the violence of the European agitation over the "Ilbert Bill" of 1883, to permit trial of Europeans by native judges in rural criminal courts. Our question merely is: How has the new regime affected native ideas?
42 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER IX
It would be interesting to speculate what the Renaissance of the sixteenth century would have done for Europe had it been unaccompanied by a Reformation of religion. Without the Reformation, we may aver there would have been for the British nation no Bible of 1611, no Pilgrim Fathers to America, and no Revolution of 1688, along with all that these things imply of progress many-fold. What might have been, however, although interesting as a speculation, is too uncertain to be discussed further wit
15 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER X
When we consider how the face of a country has been altered during the lapse of time, two great changes may be noticed, both of them due to the action of man. First we may observe that the whole general character of the country has undergone transformation. Gone are the ancient forests of Scotland, which of old in many districts clad the whole countryside, and with them have gone the wild animals which they sheltered. The forests destroyed, and the rainfall in consequence less abundant, the surf
10 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XI
III. The Ārya Samāj or Vedic Theistic Association —In contrast to the Samājes which are leavening the country but themselves are numerically unprogressive, are two other organisations—first, the Ārya Samāj of the United Provinces and the Punjab, and secondly, the Theosophists, who are now most active in Upper India, with Benares the metropolis of Hinduism, as their headquarters. These two have taken hold of educated India as no other movements yet have done. They appeal directly to patriotic pri
39 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XII
The Mahomedans, the other great religious community of India, [59] have been far less stirred by the new era than the Hindus, whom hitherto we have been chiefly considering. Only a small number of Mahomedans belong to the professional class, so that modern education and the awakening have not reached Mahomedans in the same degree as Hindus. Quite outnumbered also by Hindus, they identify themselves politically with the British rather than with the Hindus, so that as a body they do not support th
2 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIII
The four new religious organisations described in the preceding chapters may or may not survive—who can tell? What would they become, or what would become of them, in the event, say, of the great nations of Europe issuing from some deadly conflict so balanced that India and the East had to be let alone, entirely cut off? The Indian Christian Church, hardly yet acclimatised so far as it is the creation of modern efforts, would she survive? The English sweet-pea, sown in India, produced its flower
16 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XIV
In some measure, then, we understand how Hindu polytheism, theism, and pantheism are related to each other; we realise in some measure the openness of the Indian mind, and we now ask ourselves how far the Christian doctrine of God has impressed itself upon that open mind. Of the polytheistic masses it has already been pointed out that intelligent individuals will now readily acknowledge that there is truly one God only. Further, that the polytheistic idolatry which is now associated with the mas
43 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XV
Pantheism, it has been said, lends itself to the lead to belief idea of avatars or incarnations of deity, and Hinduism, therefore, is familiar with avatars. Observation contradicts this à priori reasoning, nay, it justifies a statement almost contrary. To the philosopher who is thinking out a pantheistic system, or to the ascetic who is seeking after identity of consciousness with the One, the Hindu Avatars are only a part of the delusion, the Maya, in which men are steeped. To a pantheist, hold
8 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVI
Interesting phases of that divided mind—homage to Christ, resentment towards His disciples—may be found on opposite sides of the great continent of India. In Bengal, a not-infrequent standpoint of Brāhmas in reference to Christ is that they are the true exponents of Christ's spirit and His teaching. Western Christian teachers, they say, are hidebound by tradition; and the ready-made rigidity of the creeds of the Churches is no doubt a factor in the state of mind we are describing. Looking back a
43 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVII
Two commonplaces about India are that pessimism is her natural temperament, and that a natural outcome of her pessimism is the Indian doctrine of the transmigration of souls. The second statement will require explanation; but as regards the former, there is no denying the strain of melancholy, the note of hopelessness, that pervades these words we have quoted, or that they are characteristic of India. In them life seems a burden; to be born into it, a punishment; and of the transmigrations of ou
9 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XVIII
To appreciate the impact of the Christian idea of the Here and Hereafter upon the Hindu idea of Transmigration and Absorption, the two ideas must be more fully examined. Stated briefly, the Christian idea is that after this life on earth comes an Eternity, whose character has been determined by the life on earth. The crisis of death terminates our bodily activities and renders impossible any further action, either virtuous or sinful, and ushers the soul, its ledger closed, its earthy limitations
15 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XIX
In the new India, as fish out of the water die, many things cannot survive. We have seen the educated Hindu dropping polytheism, forgetting pantheism, and adopting or readopting monotheism as the basis of his religious thinking and feeling. For modern enlightenment and Indian polytheism are incongruous; there is a like incongruity between Indian pantheism and the modern demand for practical reality. Likewise, both polytheism and pantheism are inconsistent with Christian thought, which is no mino
44 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XX
Salvation does mean something to every class. The huge fabric of Brahmanism does not continue to exist without ministering to some wide-felt need of the masses. It was in obedience to some inward demand, however perverted, that children were cast into the Ganges at Saugor, that human sacrifices were offered and self-tortures like hook-swinging were endured. These have been put down by British authority, but there still remain many austerities and bloody sacrifices and strange devices to satisfy
14 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXI
Sailing, say to India, from Britain down through the Atlantic, close by the coast of Portugal and Spain, and then, within the Mediterranean, skirting the coast of Algeria, and so on, one is often oppressed with a sense of his isolation. We can see that the land we are passing is inhabited by human beings like ourselves; and those houses visible are homes; and signs of life we can see even from our passing vessel. What of all the tragedies and comedies that are daily being enacted in these houses
4 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter