[Footnote 36: American Indians are also Dravidian, because both have totems![* unknown symbol]
[Footnote 37: For the Akkadist theory may be consulted Lacouperie in the Babylonian and Oriental Record, i. 1, 25, 58; iii. 62 ff.; v. 44, 97; vi. 1 ff.; Hewitt, in reviewing Risley's Tribes and Castes of Bengal, JRAS. 1893, p. 238 ff. See also Sayce's Hibbert Lectures. On the Deluge and Tree of Life, compare the Babylonian and Oriental Record, iv. 15 and 217.]
* * * * *
CHAPTER XIX.
INDIA AND THE WEST.
If in Hinduism, and even in Brahmanism, there are certain traits which, with some verisimilitude, may be referred to the immediate environment of these religions, how stands it in respect of that wider circle of influence which is represented by the peoples of the West? With Egypt and Phoenicia, India had intercourse at an early date, but this appears to have been restricted to mercantile exchange; for India till very late was affected neither by the literature nor by the religion of Egyptians or Syrians.[1] Of a more direct sort seem to have been the relations between India and Babylon, and the former may owe to the latter her later astronomy, but no definitive proof exists (or even any great historical probability) that Babylon gave India even legendary additions to her native wealth of myths.[2] From the Iranians the Hindus parted too early to receive from Zoroastrianism any influence. On the contrary, in our opinion the religion of Zoroaster budded from a branch taken from Indic soil. Even where Persian influence may, with propriety, be suspected, in the later Indic worship of the sun, India took no new religion from Persia; but it is very possible that her own antique and preserved heliolatry was aided, and acquired new strength from more modern contact with the sun-worshippers of the West. Of Iranian influence in early times, along the line of Hindu religious development, there is scarcely a trace, although in 509 B.C. Darius's general conquered the land about the Indus.[3] But the most zealous advocate of Persia's prestige can find little to support his claims in pre-Buddhistic Brahmanic literature, though such claims have been made, not only in respect of the position of secondary divinities, but even as regards eschatological conceptions. It is not so easy to refute an improbable historical theory as it is to propound it, but, on the other hand, the onus probandi rests upon him that propounds it, and till now all arguments on this point have resulted only in increasing the number of unproved hypotheses, which the historian should mention and may then dismiss.
The Northern dynasty that ruled in India in the sixth century seems to have had a hand in spreading Iranian sun-worship beyond the Indus, but we doubt whether the radical effect of this dominion and its belief (it is described by Kosmas, an Egyptian traveller of the time) is as great as has been claimed.[4]
From Greece, the Hindus received architectural designs, numismatic, and perhaps a few literary hints, but they got thence neither religious myths, nor, with the possible exception of the cult of the later Love-god and fresh encouragement to phallic -worship, new rites;[5] though they may have borrowed some fables, and one even hears of a Buddhistic king endeavoring to buy a sophist of Antiochus. But there is no ground for assuming philosophical influence on Brahmanism.
Christianity came late into the religious life of India, and as a doctrine made upon her no deep or lasting impression. Certain details of Christian story have been woven into the legends of Krishna, and some scholars believe that the monotheistic worshippers depicted in the pseudo-epic were Christians. But in respect of the latter point it is enough to say that this account of foreign belief had no new monotheizing effect upon the pantheism of India; the strange (unbrahmanic) god was simply accepted as Vishnu. Nor do we believe that the faith-doctrine of Hindu sectarianism and the trinitarianism of India were derived from Christian sources. But it must be admitted to be historically possible that the creed of the Christians, known to the Hindus of the sixth and seventh centuries, may have suggested to the latter the idea of the trinity as a means of adjusting the claims of Brahmanism, Krishnaism, and Çivaism.[6]
But from the Mohammedan India has taken much, albeit only in the last few centuries. When Alexander entered India there were still two bodies of Indic people west of the Indus. But the trend was eastward, as it had been for centuries, and the first inroad of the Mohammedan had little further effect than to seize a land forsaken by Aryans and given over to the hordes of the North. The foundation of the new empire was not laid till the permanent occupation of the Punj[=a]b and annexation of Lahore in 1022-23. In the thirteenth century all Hindustan acknowledged the authority of the slave sultan of Delhi.[7] Akbar died in 1605. By the end of the century the Mogul rule was broken; the Mahratta princes became imperial. It is now just in this period of Mohammedan power when arise the deistic reforming sects, which, as we have shown, were surrounded with deists and trinitarians. Here, then, we draw the line across the inner development of India's religions, with Kab[=i]r, N[=a]nak, D[=a]du, and perhaps even Basava. In the philosophy of the age that succeeds the epic there are but two phases of religion, pantheism for the wise, a more or less deistic polytheism for the vulgar[8] (in isolated cases may be added the monotheism of certain scholastic philosophers); and so Indic religion continued till the advent of Islamism. Nevertheless, though under Mohammedan influence,[9] the most thoughtful spirits of India received monotheism and gave up pantheism, yet was the religious attitude of these thinkers not averse from that taken by the Sankyan philosophers and by the earlier pantheists. From a philosophical point of view one must, indeed, separate the two. But all these, the Unitarian Hariharaist, the real pantheist of the Upanishads, who completed the work of the Vedic quasi-pantheist, and the circle that comprises Kab[=i]r, N[=a]nak, and D[=a]du, were united in that they stood against encircling polytheism. They were religiously at one in that they gave up the cult of many divinities, which represented respectively nature-worship and fiend-worship (with beast-worship), for the worship of one god. Therefore it is that, while native advance stops with the Mohammedan conquest, one may yet claim an uninterrupted progress for the higher Indic religion, a continual elevation of the thoughts of the wise; although at the same time, beside and below this, there is the circle of lower beliefs that continually revolves upon itself. For in the zoölatry[10] and polytheism that adores monsters to-day it is difficult to see a form of religion higher in any respect than that more simple nature-polytheism which first obtained.[11]