Differences between Ancient and Modern Conditions of Thought.
But the enormous interval of time separating us from those early Indian thinkers necessarily involves very great differences in conditions of thought. And we should not be surprised if amidst much in their writings that stirs our sympathy, there is also a great deal which is to us incongruous and absurd. Therefore, it may be well before quoting these writings to note one or two points marking an almost incommensurable difference between their mode and ours of regarding the world.
1. Survival In their day of Fetishistic and Animistic Ideas.
1. First, they were much less removed than we are from the influence of fetishistic and animistic traditions. Even in the Greek and Roman classics the casual reader is often revolted by the grossly absurd stories told of gods and heroes. And, indeed, it is impossible to conceive of the amours of Zeus (or Jove), for instance, with Leda, Europa or Danaë as having been first conceived during an age marked by the poetic genius and comparative culture evinced in the most ancient epics. But the most probable solution of the puzzle is that the earliest civilization inherited a number of animal stories, such as are characteristic of savagery in all parts of the world, and that the first literary generations into whose poetic myths those stories were transferred, being as much accustomed to them as to other surroundings of their childhood, such as bloody sacrifices, mystic expiations, and fantastic initiations, saw no incongruity in anything told them of the gods. Besides, as those wild myths were associated with sacred rites, the inveterate conservatism of religion, which insisted on stone knives in sacrifices long after bronze and iron came in, was likely enough to maintain the divine importance of those fables, just as the historicity of Balaam's ass and Jonah's whale is in some churches piously upheld still.
2. Ancient Ignorance of Natural Order.
2. In the times from which the first known Pantheistic teaching dates, ideas of nature's order were incongruous and indeed incommensurable with ours. Not that the world was then regarded as a chaos. But such order as existed was considered to be a kind of "balance of power" between various unseen beings, some good, some evil, some indifferent. True, some Indian prophets projected an idea of One Eternal Being including all such veiled Principalities and Powers. But their Pantheism was necessarily conditioned by their ignorance of natural phenomena. In fact, an irreducible inconsistency marred their view of the world. For while their Pantheism should have taught them to think of a universal life or energy as working within all things, their theological habit of mind bound them to the incongruous notion of devils or deities moulding, or at least ruling, matter from without. And, indeed, the nearest approach they made to the more genuine Pantheism of modern times was the conception of a world emanating from and projected outside Brahmă, to be re-merged in him after the lapse of ages. Now, if I am right in my definition of Pantheism as absolutely identifying God with the Universe,[[3]] so that, in fact, there cannot be anything but God, the inconsistency here noted must be regarded as fatal to the genuineness of the Indian or indeed of any other ancient Pantheism. For the defect proved during many centuries to be incurable, and was not indeed fully removed until Spinoza's time.
3. Absence of Definite Creeds.
3. Another difference between ancient Pantheists and ourselves was the absence in their case of any religious creed, sanctioned by supernatural authority and embodied in a definite form, like that of the three Anglican creeds, or the Westminster Confession of Faith. Not that those ancients supposed themselves to be without a revelation. For the Vedas, at least, were considered to be of divine authority, and their words, metres, and grammar were regarded with a superstitious awe, such as reminds us of what has been called the "bibliolatry" of the Jewish Rabbis. But subject to this verbal veneration, the Rishis, or learned divines, used the utmost freedom in regard to the forced and fanciful interpretations extorted from the sacred text, a freedom which again reminds us of the paradoxical caprice shown by some schools of Jewish Rabbis in their treatment of the volume they professed to regard with awe. The various finite gods, such as Vishnu, Indra, Krishna, Marut, or Varuna, were not the subjects of any church creed chanted every day, and carefully stereotyped in the tender minds of children. On the contrary, various rôles were assigned by successive generations to these divinities. So that, for instance, Varuna was at one time the god of the ocean, and at another of the sky. But the uniform tendency of all poets and Rishis alike was to seek, beyond all these gods, one unbeginning, unending, and all comprehensive Being, from whom these "devas" emerged, and into whom they must return. Not only so, but it is clearly suggested in many passages, of which an instance will presently be quoted, that the Eternal, called Brahmă who was the true Self of all gods, was also the true Self of man and bird and beast. So that, in fact, notwithstanding the illogical emanation theory, He was the only real Being, the All in All.
Illustration from the Upanishads.
Thus, one section of the Khandogya Upanishad[[4]] consists entirely of instructions given by a father, Uddâlaka, to his son, Svetaketu, who had gone through the ordinary courses of study in the Vedas, but who, in the father's view, had failed to reach the true significance of life. Accordingly, Uddâlaka inquires: "Have you ever asked for that instruction by which we hear what cannot be heard, by which we perceive what cannot be perceived, by which we know what cannot be known?"[[5]] The youth, more accustomed than we are to teaching by paradox, expresses no surprise at this mode of putting things, but simply asks: "What is that instruction, sir?" The father then proceeds to give an explanation of Monism.what in these days is called "Monism," that is, the absolute singleness of ultimate Being, and traces all that is, or seems to be, up to one ultimate Essence. Now, whether in the form given by Uddâlaka to his exposition, his theory can properly be called Pantheism, according to the definition of it assumed above, is perhaps questionable. But that it was intended to be Pantheism there can be no doubt. "In the beginning," says Uddâlaka, "there was that only which is ([Greek: to hon]); one only, without a second. Others say, in the beginning there was that only which is not ([Greek: to mae hon]); one only, without a second; and from that which is not, that which is was born." But Uddâlaka rejects this latter doctrine as unthinkable—which, indeed, many explorers of Hegel have found with pain and anguish of mind. And then the father traces all the multiformity of the Universe to the desire or will of the original One, "that which is." Evolution from the One through Desire. "It thought, 'may I be many; may I grow forth.' It sent forth fire." My limits do not allow me to quote further the fantastic account given of the farther process by which water and earth, plants, animals, and men sprang out of that desire of the One: "May I become many; may I grow forth." For our purpose it is more important to show that in the view of Uddâlaka—however inconsistently he may express himself—the original One was never really divided, but remains the true Self of every finite being, however apparently separate. Thus, consider the following dialogue, the first words being a direction of the father, Uddâlaka:—