SOME BOOKS ON INDIA.* IN the seventeenth century white men
sailed east and west, driven forth from quiet homes by a new spirit of enterprise, some few of them disinterested explorers and adventurers, most of them traders desirous of quicker and easier gains than could be found in Europe. In the West, America has become a white man's continent, and the aborigines, interesting indeed to the ethnologist, made little show in the great cities that rival those of the Old World in population and riches. In India, too, white adventurers founded great ports and acquired wealth. But the case was different. Climate and other conditions rendered it impossible for white men to enter in and possess the land. They would have been content to remain as merchant adventurers if there had been a govern- ment strong enough to give them the peace, justice, and security which were a necessity of their business. But the decaying rule of the Moghals and the growing audacity of Maratha freebooters left them no option. The merchants became administrators, and since it was necessary, somehow, (1) Indian. Theism, from the 'Vedic to the Muhammadan Period. By Dr. Nicol Maculeol. "The Religious Quest of India " Series. Ostord at the University Press. (6s. net. J—(2) The Heart of Jainism. Dr. Margaret Stevenson. Same series and publishers. [7s. Ott net.]-11) The People of India. By Sir H. II. Risley, K.C.I.E. Second Edition, with Introduction and Notes by William Crooke. London W. Thacker and Co. Pia. meta— (4) Folk Lore Notes on Gujarat. Compiled by E. E. Enthoven from materials collected by the late A. 111, T. Jackson, London: British India Press, Carter • Lane. [Ss. 6d. net.]--(5) Indian Myth and Legend, By Donald A. Mackenzie. Loudon: Gresham Publishing Company. [7s. 6d. net.]--(6) My Visit to the West. By T, Ramakrialina. London: T. Fairer Unwin. net.]—(71' A Short History of the Sikhs. By C. IL Payne, London: T. Nelson and Sons. [2s.]--(8) Talks by Abdul Atha. Loudon: G. Bell and Sons. [25. net.1—(9) List of the Feasts and Hotidaye or Hindus and Muhant. :nations. Calcutta: • Government Printing Press. 1111. 8 souss.]_([0) The Confessions of Inavat Pan. By Regina M. Bloch, London: Bud Publishing Society-. [2s. ed. net.]
to find' a moral 'justification for their new occupation, they evolved the theory that it was their duty to educate Indians in Western arts and sciences, and especially perhaps to teach them the system, of self-government which their race hnd slowly evolved under vastly different social and economical conditions.
Edecation there undoubtedly has been, on both sides, as sufficiently appears from the batch of books before us. One of the tasks attempted by white men in the East has been the evangelizing of India. Time was when such men as Macaulay imagined that the spread of Western science would bring the ancient and rickety structure of Hindu superstition tottering to its fall. • It was regarded as a thing at once immoral and absurd. But it was the religion of an old and elaborate civilization. It was professed by men of piety, learning, and trained intelligence. Converts were made, it is true, but mostly among the rude jungle tribes and castes whose own religion' wasa terrified adoration of hostile and uneornpre- hended natural forces. The religion of-the educated classes, was affected by Western teaching and example. „The higher classes could appreciate the social and moral superiority of Christian ethics. But they were prepared tie adopt Western morality without surrendering their own theories. The result has been an edueation of the West, since it has become necessary to study Hinduism in a more respectful fashion. One excellent result is the series which the Oxford University Press has begun under the title of "The Religions Quest of India." If the remaining volumes are as good as the two now before us, the series may do good educative work iu East and West alike. In his study of Indian Theism.' Dr. Macnicol has given an admirable bird's-eye view of the successive appearances of monotheistic ideas in the long history of Hindu theology. Each in turn was overcome by philosophic pan- theism, or popular polytheism, or both. The survey is instructive and, in Dr. Macnieol's capable hands, of great interest. Mrs. Stevenson's account of the faith of the Jains, The Heart of Jainism,' the result of eight years of careful inquiry on the spot, is even more valuable, Specialized study is much required in Indian religions and ethnology alike. As India is in fact a continent, so is Hinduism and its products a congeries of many practices and beliefs, best investigated locally. The series is, we hope, destined to have a real educative value, in India as well as in the West.
Much the same lesson may be learned from Mr, Crooke's new edition of Sir H. H. Risley's now classical work on The People of India.3 Mr. Crooke has brought the statistics up to date, has used a uniform transliteration of vernacular words, and has added many valuable notes and references, chiefly taken from the Reports of the Census of India and its Provinces carried out in 1911 by Sir E. A. Gait. Mr. Crooke, himself a respected veteran of Indian anthropology, justly remarks that " much further investigation, more extended and more careful collection of anthropontetric data will be needed before the ethnology of India can be placed on a scientific basis." That is true. But Sir H. H. Risley was a pioneer in Indian ethnology. If not all the theories that arose in his active and ingenious mind have end/eyed the test of subse- quent investigation, they supplied a neoetnatlestimulus to hie own inquiries and those of other ethnologists. In his day, for inattince, the measurement of skulls seemed a more hopeful method of study than it has in fact proved to be. But the energy and learning which made a distinguished ethnologist of a busy official amounted to genius of a kind, and it may be long before a manual of Indian ethnology is written which shall wholly supersede Risley's great work.
Mr. Crooke is also indirectly responsible for the valuable notes on the folk-lore of Gujarat+ collected by the lamented A. If. T. Jackson, who was murdered by a Nationalist fanatic at Nasik in 1909. It is one of the saddest features of political crime in India that its victims have often been the kindest and most disinterested friends of the Indian people. Jackson was a Sanskrit scholar of real erudition, and an enthusiastic student of the manners and customs of the races among' whom he laboured. The materials now edited by Mr. Enthoven
as a memorial to the memory of his friend were compiled from answers to Me. Crooke's well-known list of questions on folk-lore. They deal chiefly with beliefs relating to the spirits of the dead. Here again we have specialized inquiry into local usages and superstitions modifying the ideas common to Hinduism at large. Such things tend to disappear, even in India, as education spreads, and they hire a real value in the systematic study of Indian ethnology.
Mr. Donald A. Mackenzie's book, Indian Myth and Legend,5 is written for a more popular Radiance. It is one of a series dealing with " Myth and Legend in Literature and Art." The art is, we suppose, represented by numerous illustrations in colour and monochrome—the former from the brash of Mr. Warwick Goble. life Goble's pictures are attractive in their way, in the way of the Oriental romance of Thomas Moores Paradise and the Peri. So Mr. Mackenzie has made a story- book out of the Vedic hymns and the epics. It could only have been written by one who has read widely in translations of Indian literature. But the literature of India is not of the same texture out of which the Arabian Nights are woven, and his vigorous rendering of the old tales gives them a deceptive air of Western romance. Still, they are readable, and the introduction supplies a good, if elementary, summary of the leading theories of Western scholars as to the evolution of Indian ethics and religion. Let us not forgot to note that the book is provided with a full and careful index.
Mr. Ramakrishna's account of his tour in Europe,' chiefly in Scotland, is unpretentious, and has the homely interest of wayside jottings by a Dravidian scholar, who, as Sir Andrew Fraser remarks in his brief preface to the book, has an affectionate reverence foe his old Scottish teachers in Madras.
Ur. Payne's unassuming little History of the Sikhs 7 has real value at the present time. Sikh soldiers are fighting valiantly in the Weet and maintaining their old reputation. Mean- while the community to which they belong is sharing the social changes which are bringing a new self-confidence and new political ambitions to all educated India. It is well to be reminded that the history of the Sikhs marks them off from their Hindu and Mohammedan neighbours, and that their seeming oompronaise with Nationalist agitators may be due to temporary causes. Mr. Payne has packed much matter into a brief and clear narrative, and his little book is well worthy of a careful reading.
Before war absorbed all the energies of the nation, the French were much interested in Indian studies. Paris in its admirable Ecole des Langues Vivontes Orientales has an institution the like of which is still wanting to London. When the Effendi Abdul Balaa was in Paris it was his wont to deliver a daily lecture to a circle of friends and sympathizers. The French record of the substance of these lectures has now been rendered into English. Those who can enjoy a vague and kindly mysticism adaptable to all formal creeds, a. religion which only postulates love of God and man, will and in Talks by Abdul Bahas much that will interest them. They will read that "the day is coming when all the religions of the world will unite, for in principle they are one already." But in the competitive West party spirit seems a necessity of religious as of political life, and Christian men will continue to differ about matters which, if unimportant to the mystic, are still of practical interest as affecting the tangled web of social life.
Even in modern India the sectarian impulse is extra- ordinarily strong, as we may learn from the interesting manual recently publialled by the Government of India as a guide to the Pearls and Holidays of Hindus and Aftthant- ?widens, Mr. E. Denison Ross, the editor, tells us that, though the book is intended primarily for young adminis- trators, it is hoped that it may also be "of interest to a larger public outside." Compiled by a learned Hindu and a Mohammedan expert, it may be accepted as an authoritative account of Indian holy days, and of the remarkable beliefs on which they are founded. It is in effect an epitome of popular superstitions in the plains of India. We could have wished that there had been appended to this valuable list game account of the various Indian calendars, and of their connexion with the astrology of the later Roman Empire.
From popular and indigenous religions we turn once more to a typical specimen of the composite and eclectic creeds of the educated. Such is the mystical Sufi faith of the well- known Indian musician, Professor Inayat Khane" who has wen .a wide. reputation as a virtuoso in the technique of his art. We have qualms of quite good-natured doubt when we read that the Professor hopes "to harmonise the East and West in music, the universal language, by an exchange of knowledge and a revival of unity." How shall we tvvive what has never existed P And what shall commonplace Westerns
think of the American lady, "an earnest seeker of truth, who entered most enthusiastically into the spirit of Sufism," and " opened a Sufi temple in San Francisco for the free worship of peoples of all religions " ? We have heard a good deal of late of rich and idle American women who have become the disciples of sundry Yogis and Gurus. Such indulgence in exotic cults has obvious intellectual and moral dangers attached to it. The Professor's genial if vague Confessions may, however, be read with some interest, if only as a matter of curiosity, and as a study of human nature of the aesthetic type.
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