The Hindus are, among all nations, most particularly distinguished by a decided turn for metaphysics, which even tinctured the radicals of their language; they have labored more than others to solve, exhaust, comprehend, what is insolvible, inexhaustible, incomprehensible. To give a general notion of their metaphysical theology, I do not say to render it intelligible, would require an extensive treatise. We will now give a few characteristic and leading features of their systems as indicated in the Dabistán.
Some of their theological philosophers made incredible efforts to steer clear of anthropomorphism in their conceptions of the Divinity: their Brahm, in the neuter gender, has no symbol, nor image, nor temple; they generally profess the great principle of emanation of all existences from a common but unknown source. God is the producer of the beginning and end, exhibiting himself in the mirror of pure space. Creation is held to have proceeded from pure space and time. Other Hindu philosophers establish: 1. a primary, subtile, universal substance, undergoing modification through its own energy. This they call Mula Prakritti, “rudimental nature,” no production but the root of all, involving, 2. seven principles, which are productions and productive (that is, intellect, egotism, and five subtile elements); from these seven proceed: 3. sixteen productions (to wit, eleven organs and five gross elements); to these just mentioned twenty-four (namely, Nature, seven principles and sixteen productions); add, 4. the soul, which is neither a production, nor productive, and you have the twenty-five physical and metaphysical categories of the Sankhya philosophy.[134] This strikes us as a very specious methodical arrangement of an abstruse matter, which is not thereby in any degree rendered more intelligible.
We seem to understand something more when, as in the Vedenta philosophy, it is said of the truly-existing Being (God):[135] “that he has exhibited the “world and the heavens in the field of existence, but has nothing like an odor of being, nor taken a color of reality; and this manifestation is called Máya that is, ‘the Magic of God,’ because the universe is his playful deceit, and he is the bestower of imitative existence, himself the unity of reality. With this pure substance, like an imitative actor, he passes every moment into another form. He, manifesting his being and unity in three persons, separate from each other, formed the universe. The connexion of the spirits with the holy Being is like the connexion of the billows with the ocean, or that of sparks with fire.” This is pure idealism; but man will spontaneously break through the shadowy illusion, and grasp at some reality; the trinity of the Hindus became creation, preservation, and destruction (or renovation), the history of nature before their eyes.
I shall here remark, without attempting to explain, the striking contrast in the religion of the same nation between the most subtile metaphysic theology and the grossest idolatry. In the latter, the symbolical representation prevails; it is known, that in its immoderate use they have entirely abandoned the normal proportions of the human form, and by the multiplication of members banished all fitness and beauty. Their plastic and graphic typification of an all-mighty, all-bestowing, and all-resuming God, with its three, four, five heads, so many and more arms, is repulsive; in their poetry he frightens us with innumerable mouths, eyes, breasts, arms, and legs, grinding between his teeth the generations of men, who precipitate themselves into his mouth like rivers into the ocean, or flies into fire.[136]
The psychology of the Hindus is not less abstruse than the rest of their metaphysics. We have already mentioned the soul among the twenty-five categories as neither a production nor productive. The Indian philosophers distinguish spirit and soul, that is, a rational soul and a mere sensitive principle. The first is supposed enveloped with a subtile, shadowy form of the most delicate material ether. Some hold the soul to be incased in three sheaths, the intellectual, the mental, and the organic or vital sheath.[137] According to different views the vital spirit is Máya herself, or an emanation of Máyá, in any case the illusive manifestation of the universe.
This ingenuous conception seems to have taken deep and complete possession of the Hindus; it dominates in their most subtile abstractions, and embodies itself in a thousand forms to their vivid and luxuriant imagination. The Saktians, a sect wedded to sensual materialism, represent Máyá as a Saktí or energy of Siva; she is “the mother of the universe;” “non-entity finds no access to this creator, the garment of perishableness does not sit right upon the body of this fascinating empress; the dust of nothingness does not move round the circle of her dominion; the real beings and the accidental creatures of the nether world are equally enamoured and intoxicated with desire before her.” Above the six circles, into which the Hindus divide the human body, is “the window of life, and the passage of the soul, which is the top and middle of the head, and in that place is the flower of the back of one thousand leaves: this is the residence of the glorious divinity, that is, of the world-deceiving queen, and in this beautiful site reposes her origin. With the splendor of one hundred thousand world-illuminating suns, she wears, at the time of rising, manifold odoriferous herbs and various flowers upon her head, and around her neck: her resplendent body is penetrated with perfumes of divers precious ingredients, such as musk, safran, sandal, and amber, and bedecked with magnificent garments; in this manner, she is to be represented.”[138] Thus we see the poetical imagination of the Hindus, playing, as it were, with abstruseness, materializing what is spiritual, and spiritualizing what is material.
Characteristic of and peculiar to the Hindus, are their conceptions relative to the states of the embodied soul, which are chiefly three: “waking, dreaming, and profound sleep.”[138] In these three conditions the soul is imprisoned, but it may, by virtue and sanctity, break the net of illusion, that is, acquire the consciousness of the illusion which captivates it, and know that, even when awake, man is dreaming: this is the triumph of his perfection.
Such, and other notions, in their development and application, form a system of metaphysics, in which excess and abuse of refined speculations lose themselves in obscurity, contradiction, and absurdity.
Among the Indian sectaries appear the Charvak, who, rejecting the popular religion, follow their own system of philosophic opinions.
Of Buddha and the Buddhists, we are disappointed to find so little in the Dabistán, except the important information that Vichnu, in order to destroy the demons and evil genii, the agents of night, assumed the avatár of Buddha when ten years only of the Dwaparyug remained, that is, 3112 years before Christ. In the section on the tenets held by the followers of Buddha, these religionists are called Jatis or Yatis, a great number of whom are corn-traders and get their livelihood as servants; they are divided in several classes, and do not believe the incarnations of the deity; as to the rest, they have tenets and customs in common with other Indian sects, only distinguishing themselves by a great aversion to Brahmans, and an extreme care of not hurting animal life.