There are, however, unexpected contradictions in the Indian character which baffle explanation. In spite of the almost universal moral laxity in the conversation and personal life of a Hindu, any English lady could travel in perfect safety through the length and breadth of the land, in city or in jungle, with no other attendants than her heathen Indian servants. There are also English parents who have found that an Indian boy is, from a moral point of view, a safer guardian for their young children than the average Indian woman who usually fulfils that office.
CHAPTER XXIV
RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY IN INDIA
Discussing religion with Indians. Their illustrations from Nature. Want of applicability. Access to the King of kings. Moral maxims for an ascetic. Misapplication of the word "religion." Observance of caste easy. Caste often broken in private. Brahmin schoolboy asking for water. The mischievous village boy.
People with missionary aspirations have hesitated to volunteer for Indian work because they felt that they were not competent to grapple with the acute intellects and subtle philosophy of Indian thinkers. It is commonly said that the acutest intellects in India are to be found amongst the Brahmins of Poona City. A tolerably wide acquaintance amongst them would lead one to say that the would-be missionary's fears are groundless. The real difficulty of controversy with Indians, so far as it may be expedient to embark in it at all, which is doubtful, is that their arguments are often so discursive, their reasoning so childish, their illustrations so comically beside the mark, that it is scarcely possible to deal with them seriously.
They are particularly fond of illustrations drawn from Nature, and they always regard the illustration as a conclusive answer to an argument. If you point out its want of applicability, they reply by at once giving another illustration equally inapplicable. For instance, the broad-minded modern Indian argues that all religions ultimately lead to God, and so that they are all equally good; and he gives as his illustrative proof, that many rivers starting from a variety of sources eventually empty themselves into the sea. And he looks upon this, not merely as an illustration, but as a clinching argument against which nothing can be said. But if you demur he will put the case in the reverse order, and he will say that just as in Poona City there are many tanks, but the water which supplies them all comes from the great reservoir many miles away, so the various forms of religion found in different countries came originally from the same source, and are therefore identical.
A Hindu, defending the multiplicity of gods, said to me that of course there was only one Supreme Being, but that he was too great to be approached by ordinary mortals, and that it was through the lesser deities that man had access to him. To make this clear, he used the following illustration. He said that if a man had a grievance he could not go direct to the emperor and state his case, but he must begin by approaching the district collector, and ultimately his petition might reach the ears of the emperor. Happily this illustration gave the opportunity to say that in the Kingdom of Christ the poorest outcast, or the little child, can have direct and immediate access to the King of kings, whose ears are always open to the prayers of all His people.
Moral maxims, such as they are, are often put into the same illustrative form. The following maxims are for the guidance of an ascetic:—