THE PHILOSOPHY OF HINDOOISM.*
Tuts is a most valuable book. There are speculations in it, par- ticularly about Buddhism, which some scholars will not, we think, readily accept ; the author ignores too completely the military phase of Hindooism, which was undoubtedly at one period propagated by the sword, and his remarks on the relation of the principle of vicarious sacrifice in Hindooism to the same principle in Christianity are a little conventional, but his book well deserves careful reading. It is a successful effort to explain to English thinkers the nature and character- istic features of that philosophy which underlies Hindooism, which is known more or less to every Hindoo above the lowest classes, and which has baffled the assaults of Mission- aries, who feeling sure that they had argumentatively overthrown the Hindoo cult, or as we call it, the Hindoo "religion," were puzzled to find their hearers still unconvinced that their true "faith," that is, the philosophy of their faith, had been assailed at all. This philosophy is so entirely different from the external worship of Hindooism that even acute minds become bewildered, and we have the absurd spectacle of a man like Macaulay denouncing Ilindooism as "this superstition which is of all superstitions the most irrational, of all superstitions the most inelegant, and of all superstitions the most immoral ;" while a man like Dr. Ballantyne, the late Principal of the Sanskrit College, Benares, and perhaps the ablest Christian theologian who "Spirit is under the influence of this Maya or illusion, and it in .over visited India, declared it to be "a cubit, clear, collected ex- therefore subject to conditions or qualities. As to what these con- Position of principles, which Germany constantly and England occasionally gropes after, without ever grasping them with any such grasp as that with which India has taken hold on them." The explanation is, says Mr. Robson, that,— " Hindu philosophers live in a world of thought such as Europeans -can form little idea of. The practical and real questions that are ever present to the mind of the German, and still more of the Englishman, leading them to tread with doubt and hesitation, if not with humility, never trouble the Hindu metaphysician at all. He moves in the region of pure thought, unimpeded by the contradictions which retard the course of his Western brethren, on to the goal of a transcendental abstraction from which the most daring of them would shrink. But man is not all thought ; he has an outward life which he must lead, actual relations which he must fulfil, yearnings and aspirations of the soul which he must satisfy. The real value of a system is found when it comes to deal practically with these questions, and the practical result of Hindu philosophy in dealing with them is that hideous picture -which Macaulay has drawn, not one trait of which is too dark, but of which he saw only the outer form without noting the subtle soul of Pantheism that pervades it, justifying its grossest excesses and wildest extravagances. It is this union of a subtle Pantheistic philosophy with a gross popular idolatry that constitutes modern Hinduism, and makes it the most redoubtable foe with which Christianity has to contend in India, if not in the world."
The gross external Hindooism is tolerably familiar to us all, though even this has another side of which many Englishmen never dream, a side sketched, or rather indicated, in Colonel Meadows Taylor's remarkable novel, &eta ; but the esoteric Hindooism is familiar to few, and has never, that we know of, been described in phrases at once so concise and so intelligible as those of Mr. Robson :— " The fundamental principle of Hindu philosophy is, that out of • Rindooism and its Belatioru to Christianity. By the Rev. J. Robson. London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co. Tuts is a most valuable book. There are speculations in it, par- ticularly about Buddhism, which some scholars will not, we think, readily accept ; the author ignores too completely the military phase of Hindooism, which was undoubtedly at one period propagated by the sword, and his remarks on the relation of the principle of vicarious sacrifice in Hindooism to the same principle in Christianity are a little conventional, but his book well deserves careful reading. It is a successful effort to explain to English thinkers the nature and character- istic features of that philosophy which underlies Hindooism, which is known more or less to every Hindoo above the lowest classes, and which has baffled the assaults of Mission- aries, who feeling sure that they had argumentatively overthrown the Hindoo cult, or as we call it, the Hindoo "religion," were puzzled to find their hearers still unconvinced that their true "faith," that is, the philosophy of their faith, had been assailed at all. This philosophy is so entirely different from the external worship of Hindooism that even acute minds become bewildered, and we have the absurd spectacle of a man like Macaulay denouncing Ilindooism as "this superstition which is of all superstitions the most irrational, of all superstitions the most inelegant, and of all superstitions the most immoral ;" while a man like Dr. Ballantyne, the late Principal of the Sanskrit College, Benares, and perhaps the ablest Christian theologian who "Spirit is under the influence of this Maya or illusion, and it in .over visited India, declared it to be "a cubit, clear, collected ex- therefore subject to conditions or qualities. As to what these con- is nothing, nothing can be made; hence whatever now exists must be accounted for by what has previously existed, and therefore our spirits must have existed before. Another principle now almost universally adopted is that of the great Unity ; that there is only one really existent Being, who is from everlasting to everlasting—the Supreme Lord, or- Supreme Spirit. He alone is, everything else is not. Our spirits must,. therefore, be part of Him. Such is the argument of the 'Pedantic, the most influential school of modern Hindu philosophy. Now the question comes, who or what is this Supreme Spirit? It has often been objected to the Vedantic Deity, that it is a mere abstraction and negation, and that therefore the system is atheistic as much as Buddhism. This is. founded on the word always used in characterising the Supreme, which in popular language moans void of qualities. But the word means. primarily without bonds or unfettered, and this is rather the sense in which it is used in Hindu philosophy. Man's spirit is fettered by union with the body, but not so the Supreme Spirit. He is free. The word which in modern European philosophy corresponds most nearly with it- is Unconditioned. Those who are not familiar with philosophical ex- pressions may form some idea of what that means, by trying to conceive the existence of God before anything was created. This is the point. which Ballantyne maintains Brahmanical philosophers have grasped with a far clearer and firmer hold than English or even German thinkers,—the distinction between the Unconditioned and the Con- ditioned. Now what do the former declare Unconditioned Spirit to be ? They say that it is Being, Thought, and Joy But in maintaining that the human spirit is part of the Divine Spirit,, the Hindu is met by those facts which for the Englishman at once decide the question, and against which the whole of Hindu philosophy is a. vain struggle,—the facts of consciousness. We are not conscious that we are parts of the Supreme Spirit ; we are conscious of limitation and imperfection contradictory of our idea of God. These facts the Hindus too acknowledge ; but 'so much the worse for the facts ;' they are the- effects of Maya. And what is Maya ? This it is very difficult to. explain. It means properly illusion or delusion. It is an attempt to. explain the consciousness of man and the existence of an eternal world, in accordance with the sole existence of God and the prin- ciple,—nothing from nothing. They say that the visible universe is a. projection of the Spirit, as the shadow is the projection of the pillar, or the figure on the screen the projection of the picture in the magic lantern. They attribute to it two effects,—envelop- ing the soul, which gives rise to the conceit of personality, and project- ing the appearance of a world, which the individual imagines to be- external to himself. Spirit thus invested or deluded is what the universe- consists of. This abstract speculation will be better understood by means- of a simile which the Hindus often employ. They say that the world is just. like a dream. We fall asleep ; we imagine things to be about us which are. only the creations of the brain, but which have for us all the value of realities ; we wake up and find that they are all a delusion. So shall we one day wake up and find that all the external universe, which we. , now imagine to be about us, has been but the play of our spirit, and has vanished 'like the baseless fabric of a vision.'"
This philosophy, which is Pantheism, with the Berkeley= ex- planation of external phenomena added, has taken fast hold of the Hindoo mind, has, so to speak, satisfied it, is the explanation of most of its apparent aberrations, and will, we suspect, in. the course of years profoundly modify both Christianity and Mohammedism, should men of the true Hindoo type of thought. accept either of those creeds. Hindoos do not hesitate in theory,. at all events, to make their system account for the whole. universe :-
ditions are, they fall back for explanation on an earlier philosophy,— the Sankhya. which accounted for the creation of the world by an eternal Prakriti, which modern European philosophers would probably translate by cosmic vapour. It in fact means matter, but the Vedantiats have discovered it to be really a delusion, though practically a reality. It is- supposed to consist of an equipoise of three conditions or qualities,— intelligence, passion, and darkness or indifference. Where intelligence prevails, we have such beings as man; • where passion or foulness pre- vails, such beings as the lower animals ; and where darkness or in- difference prevails, such beings as trees and stones. The Spirit or Self,. imprisoned in all these, is the same with the Supreme Spirit, and the. final end of it is to be freed from all, and identified with its parent. source. After this liberation, man must consciously strive. Thus. the Hindus, groping after the same truth as that expressed by Paul, The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now," have changed it into, The whole Creator groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now, waiting for the liberation, to wit, redemption fxono
the body."
It would follow from this, and indeed does follow, that as all evidence is merely external evidence, which may be as delusive as the fancies of a hypochondriac, no array of material facts can affect Hindooism, and no proof that his cosmogony is all wrong: can deprive a Hindoo of confidence in his inner creed. Tell a. Pundit that the world is not surrounded by seven seas, and.ha says, Very likely, to your senses, and it might also be to mine,. but in the supra-sensual region which we should reach if liberated from Matter the seven seas will in some sense be found to be true,' —an assertion to which, the hypothesis once granted, there can be no reply. On this system, there should be no distinction between virtue and vice, both being illusions, and there would be none, but that the philosophers, unwilling to destroy society, teach that every action binds the spirit, otherwise free, to existence, and therefore must have its consequence,—good, if the action is virtuous ; bad, if the action is vicious. This consequence is a new fetter after death, the free spirit passing, if bad actions have chained it, into an animal or a demon ; or if good actions have chained it, into a king or a loftier being, even a god, for Seeva himself is a conditioned being under Maya like a man, and will at last pass away. In either state, either bad or good actions are possible, neither being quite voluntary, and then the spirit has more migrations to pass through, till it is at last freed, and rejoins the one existent being, the Supreme Spirit. Every Hindoo, therefore, of every grade, if asked the object of [life, says "Liberation,"—that is, the cutting- short of the eighty-four inevitable transmigrations previous to rejoining the Spirit. Why the Supreme Spirit should have exhaled himself in a multiplicity of forms Hindoos do not profess to know, answering questions thereon by a reference to Adrisleta, "the Unseen "—Mansel's Unknown and Unknowable—but on the method of regaining the Supreme they are clear :— "Liberation is not to be attained by virtuous life or by works of any kind. Bad works require to be punished and good ones to be rewarded. We must seek a higher end—deliverance from pain and pleasure alike —and look for it by nobler means, by being free from works altogether. Knowledge is the instrument, meditation the means, by which our spirit is to be freed. To avoid all contact with the world, to avoid distraction, to avoid works, and to meditate on the identity of the internal with the external spirit till their oneness be realised, is the way of salvation' prescribed by the higher Hinduism. The following are the words of one
of their principal authorities The recluse, pondering the teacher's words, "Thou art the Supreme Being," and receiving the text of the Vedas, "I am God," having thus in three several ways—by the teacher's precept, by the Word of God, by his own contemplation—persuaded himself, "I am God," obtains liberation.' This is the Hindu philo- sophical answer to the question, What must I do to be saved ?' It is called the 'way of knowledge,' and is said to be the highest and only infallible way ; the other ways, at which we shall have to look, being supposed to conduce to it."
This philosophy has filtered down to the masses as no European philosophy has ever done, and is the source at once of the bitter melancholy and almost sublime patience of the Hindoo. Mr.
Robson, who has conversed much with the lower classes, says :—
" The transmigration of souls is universally accepted. Every Hindu that I have met with believes that he has previously inhabited other bodies, and that he must again tenant others after quitting his present one. Deeds are looked on as the power binding him to his existence, causing his present condition, and even forcing him to his present action. If I were to translate the word Karma by fate instead of deeds, it would perhaps be more intelligible. But the European fatalist looks on himself as impelled by.a power altogether external to himself, which, while it deprives him of liberty, excuses him at the same time from responsibility. The Hindu looks on himself as impelled by what he himself has previously done, as reaping the fruit of his own deeds, though not deeds of his present consciousness. Thus a dreadful sense of retri- bution and responsibility is superadded to that of helplessness, making it tenfold more gloomy and terrible. The full force of this can be un- derstood only by one who has seen a Hindu under sentence of death for a heinous crime, and who, to all appeals to his conscience and responsibility, can only reply by a stolid • Karat.' His crime and his punishment alike are the fruit of deeds done, he knows not when or where. How can be escape ? Lastly, nearly all Hindus believe more or less that their inner self—that which passes from body to body—is the Deity. When I have asked a Hindu Who is God?' the answer I have received about as often as any other, and from peasant as well as priest, is 'Jo bole,'—he who speaks."
Suppose a man is a Brahmin, or a good man, he is so because of works in a previous condition,—suppose he is a Sudra, or a bad man, he is also obeying an impulsion from behind ; but in either case he has the duties of his condition to fulfil, and by fulfilling them will gain a step or steps towards ultimate emancipation, which, again, he may win by pleasant transmigrations, instead of un- pleasant. What these duties are only Brahmins know, they being descendants of a subordinate god early adopted into the system, and in practice they regulate them on the curious principle of utility for the particular caste, the duty or dharma of one caste, its daily life, its observances, and even its morals, being inde- pendent and separate ; one caste, for example, strictly observing chastity, while another is devoted from childhood to prostitution. Nothing is essential but "caste," and a Brahmin would rather eat with a murderer than with a man who had eaten beef. That is for all castes a breach of Hindooism, a desecration of the single sacramental symbol of the creed, of the test by which Brahmins admit new converts or aboriginal tribes within the sacred circle. The cow, Mr. Robson thinks, was selected as symbol, as the emblem of the earth, but he acknowledges some doubt, and we confess we incline to the simpler explanation that the earliest Brahmins wanted to keep draught-cattle safe from being eaten.
But, the philosophy granted, whence came the vast Hindoo Pantheon of deities ? From the necessity, Mr. Robson replies, of adopting the gods of the aborigines. They were absorbed into the system, under provisoes which left the philosophy unimpaired :
"The position which these popular deities occupy with regard to the Supreme may be understood by recurring to the image of water which I used to illustrate the theory of transmigration. A drop of water may be far away from the ocean, and it may be impossible for it to return thither directly. Nevertheless, if it fall into a stream, its own existence will, so to speak, be absorbed in that of the stream till it reaches the ocean. So, too, are we, by our connection with ignorance and illusion, hopelessly far away from the Supreme Spirit. By no effort of our own can we hope to overcome this separation, but these gods are, like the rivers, brought nearer to us. They are themselves under the power of May'a —the illusion of the universe—as we ourselves are. Hence they have desires and passions similar to ours. They can be influenced by mo- tives and considerations as we are, can be induced to grant temporal and spiritual blessings, to aid our being introduced into a happy state when we are again born, or, best of all, in certain cases, can grant us mediate liberation, by absorbing us into themselves. We then lose existence except as part of them, the burden of merit or demerit which may attach to us is borne by the deity who may absorb us, and so we shall continue till the final cataclysm, when all shall be absorbed in the universal Brahm. The Hindus thus, quite consistently with their own system, attach themselves to the worship of their inferior deities, while, for the most part, neglecting that of the Supreme."
The great gods are the earliest, Vishnu and Seeva--Braluna being a mere name applied to either when creating—who were probably adopted by the very earliest Brahmins, and Hindoos are in the main divided into the followers of these two, whose differentia is as follows :—The Vishnu worshipper or Vaishnava looks to Vishnu alone as cause of good, and tends to be a predestinarian, while the Seevaite holds by works and tends to be a free-willer. Each pushes his system sometimes over the verge of morals. Both maintain, as a rule, the moral laws found necessary to society, but the predesti- narian Vaislinava is apt to believe action wholly involuntary and therefore innocent, and the free-will Seevaite to hold motive every- thing and action nothing, thus justifying crime when its motive is worship, as some of the subordinate gods being pleased with evil —e.g., Kalee with murder—it may sometimes be. Either idea fits in with the governing philosophy. We have, however, left ourselves no space to pursue the polytheistic branch of the inquiry, and have only to say that Hindoo polytheism is a mere engraft on a philosophical system which could live without it, which is essentially a pantheistic variation on Mr. Mamas teaching about the Unconditioned, and which has ac- cepted morality mainly for its convenience in holding society together, and giving Brahmins—who, be it remembered, in modern Hindooism are held to be descendants of the "Creator," but not of the Supreme—a basis for their influence.
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