V.
SANCTIMONIOUS.
>THE foregoing pages are, I am afraid, rather dry and tiresome, but still, one cannot travel through a country like India with one’s eyes and ears closed; and when it is taken into consideration that we are accustomed to look upon the Indian population with contempt—entirely losing sight of the undeniable fact that when the Gaul and the Saxon were savages, clad in sheep and goat-skins, the Brahmins of India were almost as highly advanced in civilisation as the French and English of the present day—it is natural that in travelling through such a country one should spend a few hours, at least, in studying with interest a people whose history is traceable far beyond the Christian era. W. W. Hunter, in his admirable work on India, traces its history back 3000 years. Vedic temples have been found, showing an advanced state of civilisation several centuries before Christ.
A collection of short lyrical poems, containing 10,580 verses, addressed to the gods, are still in existence.
These people, whom we now treat with contempt, are direct descendants from a nation whose faith, after all, is not so very dissimilar from our own.
Three thousand years have elapsed since the production of some of these poems or hymns. Religion, like many other matters, may have changed somewhat since then, yet words remain such as these:—“Neither gods nor men reach unto thee, O Indra; Soma is King of Heaven and earth, the conqueror of all.” To Varuna, also, it is said in prayer:—“Thou art Lord of all, of heaven and earth; thou art the King of all those who are gods, and of all who are men.” This evidently shows that they worshipped one god, although not one alone.
Not very far, after all, from the Creed we are so proud of in the year of our Lord, 1889.
At the rate we are daily modifying and twisting it about, I doubt much if in three thousand years from this we shall have as much of the original as the poor Hindus now have of theirs.