Two Books on India
The Song of God : a New Translation of the Bhugavad Gita. By Dhan (lapel Mukerji. (Dent. 7s. 6d.) Ms. O'MALLEY, late of the Indian Civil Service, is to be con- gratulated on a little volume which does more than bring up to date the Abbe Dubois' famous work : it is a deseriptiob of the social scene in modern India which no politician or worker in that field can afford to neglect. No one should express an opinion about Indian affairs who does not under- stand something of the caste system ; still less should any young Englishman be permitted to earn his living in India without being acquainted with the ancient and jealously guarded customs of the country.
Caste is by no means the unmixed evil which Mr. Gandhi and some reformers represent it to be. (And even Mr. Gandhi has stated that he would not marry a daughter of his below her caste.) A former Editor of the Spectator, the late Meredith Townsend, believed the caste 'system to be " a. marvellous discovery . . . . which through ages has protected Hindu society from anarchy and from the worst evils of industrial and competitive life—it is an automatic poor-law to begin with and the strongest form known of trade union." The present reviewer heartily agrees with this distinguished authority, in spite of the fact that equally high authorities hold the contrary opinion. Caste is good., if we believe that the majority of mankind are happiest doing their duty in-that state of life unto which it has pleased God to call them 1 But this is not to say that " untouchability" and the absurd ideas concerning pollution until recently prevalent in Southern India- were rights. dr justifiable. Caste, like most human institutions, has its rises-and abuses.
No doubt the worst features of the system will soon. dis- appear. When Mr. Tyndale Biscoe first taught the Brahmin boys in his school to play football the game was stopped because the ball had struck a player in the face. .That was forty years ago. Nowadays bays of all castes play football : the game is very popular and no one dreams of pollution through contact with -leather. It is the same with: un- touchability. The old scale of distances which outr,astes were compelled to keep when passing a Brahmin now exist only in a few remote districts of Travancore or Malabar. The Justice party of Madras, led by Sir A. P. Petro, has done much to abolish such absurd distinctions ; and considerations of material interest and convenience have -done even more, Mr. O'Malley mentions a caste in Bombay which is divided into two sections, called the ' Londoners and ' non-Lon- doners,' of which the former consists of those who were ex- -eommunicated for dining with persons who had returned from
Europe, and the latter those who retained their caste honour. The laxity of some high castes (Mr. O'Malley continues) has become proverbial . . . . " •
The march of industry and the exigencies of travel, no less than the fear of the higher castes that under a demo-
cratic electoral system they would be swamped by their " depressed " fellow countrymen, haVe led to the relaxation of restrictions. This is all to the good. But the caste system will remain. It has kept the Hindu race intact through many centuries of chaos and confusion and will not disappear in our time.
Mr. Dhan Copal Mukerji's translation of the Bhagavad Gila is also a book which should be in possession of all who have to do with India, for the discourse of Krishna to the Charioteer is admittedly one of the highest flights of Indian philosophy, and in the reviewer's belief one of the sublimest conceptions of work and duty, war and peace, love and life, ever formulated by the mind of man. Anyone who knows the Gila will recognize the aptness of these two passages from Mr. Mukerji's tho-
roughbred and well-poised English : •
" viii. 19 and 20. The constellations of life that existed in the yesterday of Brehm, merge to-day without volition, Arjuna, into the unmanifest dark and rise again into form, and return again into nothingness at the break of to-morrow. But behind these immensities of light-and darkness is the unfathomed existence which riseth not nor setteth, wherci"the rumour of destruction roacheth not, nor the sounds and echoes of rebirth."
" xviii. 23. An net performed with serenity, without love of reward, and with neither taste nor distaste, is indeed of the Spirit. But the act of the power-loving is urgent with desire, and foameth with effort and conceit."
The Gila dictated the main decisions of Mr. Gandhi's life, according to his own confession. It has influenced the mind and heart of India for more than fifteen centuries and remains to-day the supremest expression of what India has to give to the world. Mr. Mukerji has'attempted a great task, and has
Previous page
