India's Problem, Krishna or Christ

by John P. Jones

Oldest Relics Of Buddhism, Ceylon.

(f) Sikhism.

This religion, if we may so denominate it, was founded by Nanak Shah in the fifteenth century. Nanak Shah was apparently an admirer, if not a follower, of Kabir, the Hindu reformer who established a sect which was essentially a compromise between Hinduism and Mohammedanism. This is the chief characteristic of Sikhism. It eschewed the polytheism and idolatry of Hinduism. It taught the unity of the Godhead, abolished caste, and enforced a high type of morality. It has, however, subsequently fallen under the blighting influence of surrounding Hinduism and has lost much of its distinctive excellence. So that, according to the census report of 1891, “distinction between Sikhs and the rest of the Brahmanic community is mainly ritualistic.... The only trustworthy method of distinguishing this creed was to ask if the person in question repudiated the services of the barber and the tobacconist; for the precepts most strictly enforced nowadays (by the Sikhs) are that the hair of the head and face must never be cut, and that smoking is a habit to be avoided.”

However manifestly the Sikh religion is going the common way of all the new faiths and religious revolts of India—the way of reabsorption into Hinduism—it has done much to create and foster a strong national feeling. Sikhs were cruelly persecuted by the then ruling Mohammedans. But the overthrow of the Moghul Empire gave the Sikhs territorial power and they possessed the only remaining political organization in the Punjab. So that, at the advent of the British, the Sikhs were a mighty power to be [pg 062] dealt with. They became the great power of North India; and during the Indian mutiny their loyalty to the British Raj was its salvation. At present the Sikh nation, warlike and valiant as ever, furnishes, perhaps, the most stalwart and invincible contingent for the Indian Army.

(g) Hinduism.

This is the religion of three-fourths of all the inhabitants of India and of nine-tenths of all those who are there reached by missionaries.

What is Hinduism? It is a mixture of Brahmanism, Buddhism and Devil-worship. As we have seen, the supplanting faith of Buddha was finally absorbed, so far as India was concerned, into the old faith. When, later on, the Brahmans moved towards the southern part of the peninsula they entered the region occupied by, and largely given over to, demonolatry. According to its wont Brahmanism, as modified by Buddhism, sought not to overthrow the primitive cult of the people, but to absorb it. Thus, in South India today, more than three-fourths of the people are devil worshippers. And yet, with their demons, they have been accepted into the higher faith of the Aryan; and, according to their mood and preference, give themselves to the worship of Hindu gods or village demons. Worshipping in pure Hindu temples is to that people but a pastime, a mere holiday diversion; while the appeasing of the demons at their village shrines and under old trees in their hamlets is the most serious concern of their life. And yet all of them are regarded, and rightly regarded, as Hindus. Indeed, in the Hinduism of today, especially [pg 063] as found in South India, can be found living amicably together and without any apparent sense of incongruity or conflict the lowest type of fetishism, an ardent devil-worship, an engrossing ceremonialism, a worship of the higher Brahmanical deities, a thoroughgoing pantheism and a pure theism. I have witnessed in our district, side by side, a hideous fetish, a gross idol of a local demon, an image of Vishnu who is the best of Brahmanical gods, while in an adjacent hamlet lived families who belonged to none of these cults but who gave themselves to a belief in, and practice of, a vague theism which is farther removed from the fetishism of their neighbours than is their religion from the highest type of Christian teaching.

Thus Hinduism may be viewed as an immense cloth of many colours; which colours have been patched together without any reference to harmony or consistency. In other words, that religion is a big mass of mutually inconsistent and undigested beliefs, practices and ceremonies. It has not only mutually antagonistic philosophies, it has also three different ways of salvation, 330,000,000 gods and as many laws and customs which, though binding as the laws of the Medes and Persians, are nevertheless, absolutely wanting in consistency and in unity of purpose and teaching. In the words of Sir Alfred Lyall,—“The general character of Indian religion is that it is unlimited and comprehensive, up to the point of confusion; it is a boundless sea of divine beliefs and practices; it encourages the worship of innumerable gods by an infinite variety of rites; it permits every doctrine to be taught, every kind of [pg 064] mystery to be imagined, any sort of theory to be held as to the inner nature and visible operation of the divine power.”