India, Its Life and Thought

by John P. Jones

II

What, then, is Popular Hinduism?

I shall endeavour to analyze it and present some of its outstanding features, such as are witnessed all over the land.

1. That which obtrudes itself upon all sides and which is, perhaps, its most determining factor is its caste system. In other lands, mean social distinctions obtain and divide the people. In India only, Caste is a religious institution, founded by the authority of Heaven, penetrating every department and entering into every detail of life, and enforced by strictly religious penalties. One has well said that Hinduism and caste are convertible terms.

2. Another outstanding feature of popular Hinduism is its Polytheism.

While pantheism is the essential philosophy of the land,—a pantheism which denies the existence of all beings and everything save Brâhm (the Supreme Soul),—nevertheless this pantheism has, in the popular mind, degenerated into the greatest pantheon the world has ever known. Even ten centuries ago its gods were said to number three hundred and thirty millions! And this army of deities has been multiplying ever since. Even twenty-five centuries ago, the fertile imagination of the Brahman had so peopled this world with gods and godlets of all grades that the stern and sensible mind of the great Buddha became disgusted with the whole pantheon; and he established his new faith as a reaction from the old to the extent of ignoring any Divine Being.

If, in these earlier days, such a man was unable to endure this manifestation of human folly, what can we not say in these days, when, in addition to the acknowledged host of well-known Hindu deities, every family has its god, and every hamlet its protecting demons; and when trees, rivers, mountains, and a thousand other objects represent to the popular mind separate godlets? One can well say that India has gone mad in its passion for populating the world with gods.

3. Moreover, this pantheon has been incarnated. It has descended into a wild and hideous idolatry. There is no other land on earth where idolatry is so rampant as it is in India. Images are found everywhere. If the gods are numberless, how much more the idols which represent them, and which are found in every hamlet and house and upon roadsides!

In addition to those idols which are made for regular and permanent worship, there are myriad others which are made of clay and other perishable substances, to be used for the time only, and then to be thrown into the river or to be washed away by the rain.

And what hideous objects these idols of India are! The images of the gods of the ancient Greeks were beautiful, and one feels sometimes almost inclined to excuse an image-worship where ignorance weds art to religion and combines beauty with devotion.