India's Problem, Krishna or Christ

by John P. Jones

The most common results of a Hindu woman's toilet are the smooth hair, the blackened eyebrow, the reddened finger-nails, the pendent nose jewels, the bulky ear-rings, the heavy bangles for ankles and arms. Without these, life, to the Hindu belle, is not worth living. On wedding occasions, among the common folk, red ochre is also daubed over the throat in ghastly suggestion to the Westerner; but in glorious attractiveness to the native of the land!

West and East associate a fair complexion with highest beauty. A fond Hindu mother once came to the writer moaning that she could not find a husband for her daughter because she was “too black!” The young man of India puts a premium upon every shade of added lightness of complexion. His taste is reflected in the universal feminine custom of using saffron dye to lighten the complexion upon all festive occasions.

The clothing of the woman of India is exceedingly attractive. Her pretty garb sets off admirably the beauty of her person; and, both in inexpensiveness and grace, and in its contribution to health, is far better than the complicated extravagance, the heavy encumbrance and the insanitary tight-lacing of the West. The women of South India dress with a view to comfort in the tropics; but they have also, in a most remarkable degree, conserved appropriateness, [pg 148] beauty, and simplicity in their robes. The possibilities of the one cloth, which is the full dress of the South Indian woman, as a modest garment and as a charming full-dress equipment would be a revelation to the much dressed votary of the West. In the arranging of this cloth there is considerable scope for ingenuity and for æsthetic taste; although, in this matter, the rules of each caste furnish an iron etiquette which must be followed by the women. Indeed, the tyranny of Worth in the West is nothing as compared with caste tyranny as the Fashioner of the East. This is accounted for by the fact that a woman's dress must be arranged in such a way as to publish abroad her caste affiliations.

Woman has a vast influence upon the life of the people of India. In no other country has she relatively exercised more power. All this, notwithstanding the fact that, for more than twenty centuries, she has had no recognized position in religion or in society. Her spiritual destiny has been entirely in the hands of man. By the highest authorities her salvation has been made entirely dependent upon her connection with him. She has absolutely no right of worship of her own. From the cradle to the grave she is in man's keeping. Until she is married, supreme obedience to her father is her only safety; while her husband lives, heaven's blessings can come to her only through his favour and prayer; and, after his death, her sons become her lords and the sole guardians and protectors of her spiritual interests. All this is everywhere recognized by Hindu society, and by none more than by the woman herself.

And yet, it is equally true, and a fact of remarkable [pg 149] significance, that, in India today, the religious influence of woman is paramount. She is the stronghold of Hinduism at the beginning of this twentieth century. Man, under the growing influence of western thought, civilization, and faith, has largely lost his moorings and is growing increasingly insincere and a trifler with religious beliefs and institutions. The woman, on the other hand, is a conservative of the conservatives. In her superstition she is deeply sincere; her faith has no questionings, and her piety shapes her every activity. Were it not for the women of India, Hinduism, with all its vaunted philosophy, its wonderful ritual and its mighty caste tyranny, would, within a decade, fall into “innocuous desuetude.”

It is a significant fact that in the religion of no other people on earth does the worship of the female find so prominent a place. In many parts of the land Sakti worship, or the worship of goddesses, is widely prevalent and almost paramount in influence. It is really the worship of power under a female form; and the power which these goddesses exercise is mostly malevolent in its character. The terrible wife of Siva, in all her dread manifestations, is the most popular deity, because the most feared in the land.

It is natural to inquire whether this characteristic of the Hindu pantheon is not a reflection of the Hindu mind as to the influence of woman, and as to the belief of man in the evil character of that influence. As is the place and power of woman among the men so is the character and place of the goddesses in the pantheon of that people.

The famous religious reformer Chunder Sen, though he adopted and used the Lord's Prayer, changed the form of address from the masculine to the feminine and said, “Our Mother who art in heaven!” The adoration of the female in Hindu worship was never more marked than at present. What has Christianity to meet this bent of the Hindu mind? Or should it be discouraged as an element in worship? The Romanists meet it by exalting and giving preëminence to the Virgin Mother. The Protestants have nothing corresponding to this.

Socially, the Hindu woman is a reactionary of the most pronounced type; she opposes social reform at all points—nowhere more than when it is directed to ameliorate her own condition. Religiously, as we have seen, she is the slave of man by law and teaching; yet she rules her household, even in these matters, with an iron hand.

From her throne in the home she so wields her sceptre that it is felt also throughout the whole social fabric. Her beloved lord has perhaps passed through a university course, is a pronounced social reformer and discourses in eloquent English, before large audiences of his admiring countrymen, concerning the mighty social evils which are the curse of the country; he, with his ardent fellow-reformers, frames rules which shall soon usher in the millennium of social reform and progress! And then he—this man of culture, of eloquence, of noble purposes and of altruistic ambitions—goes to his home and meekly submits to the grandmotherly tyranny which has shaped his life much more than he knows, and which vitiates and renders nugatory all his social and other schemes! [pg 151] As man has narrowed the scope of woman's life in that land, so she has given it intensity of power.