This survey of the Indian sects will have shown how little the character of their divine objects of worship is calculated to exert that elevating and spiritualizing influence, so characteristic of true religious devotion. In all General conclusions. but a few of the minor groups religious fervour is only too apt to degenerate into that very state of sexual excitation which devotional exercises should surely tend to repress. If the worship of Siva, despite the purport of his chief symbol, seems on the whole less liable to produce these undesirable effects than that of the rival deity, it is doubtless due partly to the real nature of that emblem being little realized by the common people, and partly to the somewhat repellent character of the “great god,” more favourable to evoking feelings of awe and terror than a spirit of fervid devotion. All the more are, however, the gross stimulants, connected with the adoration of his consort, calculated to work up the carnal instincts of the devotees to an extreme degree of sensual frenzy. In the Vaishnava camp, on the other hand, the cult of Krishna, and more especially that of the youthful Krishna, can scarcely fail to exert an influence which, if of a subtler and more insinuating, is not on that account of a less demoralizing kind. Indeed, it would be hard to find anything less consonant with godliness and divine perfection than the pranks of this juvenile god; and if poets and thinkers try to explain them away by dint of allegorical interpretation, the plain man will not for all their refinements take these amusing adventures any the less au pied de la lettre. No fault, in this respect, can assuredly be found with the legendary Rama, a very paragon of knightly honour and virtue, even as his consort Sita is the very model of a noble and faithful wife; and yet this cult has perhaps retained even more of the character of mere hero-worship than that of Krishna. Since by the universally accepted doctrine of karman (deed) or karmavipaka (“the maturing of deeds”) man himself—either in his present, or some future, existence—enjoys the fruit of, or has to atone for, his former good and bad actions, there could hardly be room in Hindu pantheism for a belief in the remission of sin by divine grace or vicarious substitution. And accordingly the “descents” or incarnations of the deity have for their object, not so much the spiritual regeneration of man as the deliverance of the world from some material calamity threatening to overwhelm it. The generally recognized principal Avatars do not, however, by any means constitute the only occasions of a direct intercession of the deity in worldly affairs, but—in the same way as to this day the eclipses of the sun and moon are ascribed by the ordinary Hindu to these luminaries being temporarily swallowed by the dragon Rahu (or Graha, “the seizer”)—so any uncommon occurrence would be apt to be set down as a special manifestation of divine power; and any man credited with exceptional merit or achievement, or even remarkable for some strange incident connected with his life or death, might ultimately come to be looked upon as a veritable incarnation of the deity, capable of influencing the destinies of man, and might become an object of local adoration or superstitious awe and propitiatory rites to multitudes of people. That the transmigration theory, which makes the spirit of the departed hover about for a time in quest of a new corporeal abode, would naturally lend itself to superstitious notions of this kind can scarcely be doubted. Of peculiar importance in this respect is the worship of the Pitris (“fathers”) or deceased ancestors, as entering largely into the everyday life and family relations of the Hindus. At stated intervals to offer reverential homage and oblations of food to the forefathers up to the third degree is one of the most sacred duties the devout Hindu has to discharge. The periodical performance of the commemorative rite of obsequies called Sraddha—i.e. an oblation “made in faith” (sraddha, Lat. credo)—is the duty and privilege of the eldest son of the deceased, or, failing him, of the nearest relative who thereby establishes his right as next of kin in respect of inheritance; and those other relatives who have the right to take part in the ceremony are called sapinda, i.e. sharing in the pindas (or balls of cooked rice, constituting along with libations of water the usual offering to the Manes)—such relationship being held a bar to intermarriage. The first Sraddha takes place as soon as possible after the antyeshti (“final offering”) or funeral ceremony proper, usually spread over ten days; being afterwards repeated once a month for a year, and subsequently at every anniversary and otherwise voluntarily on special occasions. Moreover, a simple libation of water should be offered to the Fathers twice daily at the morning and evening devotion called sandhya (“twilight”). It is doubtless a sense of filial obligation coupled with sentiments of piety and reverence that gave rise to this practice of offering gifts of food and drink to the deceased ancestors. Hence also frequent allusion is made by poets to the anxious care caused to the Fathers by the possibility of the living head of the family being afflicted with failure of offspring; this dire prospect compelling them to use but sparingly their little store of provisions, in case the supply should shortly cease altogether. At the same time one also meets with frank avowals of a superstitious fear lest any irregularity in the performance of the obsequial rites should cause the Fathers to haunt their old home and trouble the peace of their undutiful descendant, or even prematurely draw him after them to the Pitri-loka or world of the Fathers, supposed to be located in the southern region. Terminating as it usually does with the feeding and feeing of a greater or less number of Brahmans and the feasting of members of the performers’ own caste, the Sraddha, especially its first performance, is often a matter of very considerable expense; and more than ordinary benefit to the deceased is supposed to accrue from it when it takes place at a spot of recognized sanctity, such as one of the great places of pilgrimage like Prayaga (Allahabad, where the three sacred rivers, Ganga, Yamuna and Sarasvati, meet), Mathura, and especially Gaya and Kasi (Benares). But indeed the tirtha-yatra, or pilgrimage to holy bathing-places, is in itself considered an act of piety conferring religious merit in proportion to the time and trouble expended upon it. The number of such places is legion and is constantly increasing. The banks of the great rivers such as the Ganga (Ganges), the Yamuna (Jumna), the Narbada, the Krishna (Kistna), are studded with them, and the water of these rivers is supposed to be imbued with the essence of sanctity capable of cleansing the pious bather of all sin and moral taint. To follow the entire course of one of the sacred rivers from the mouth to the source on one side and back again on the other in the sun-wise (pradakshina) direction—that is, always keeping the stream on one’s right-hand side—is held to be a highly meritorious undertaking which it requires years to carry through. No wonder that water from these rivers, especially the Ganges, is sent and taken in bottles to all parts of India to be used on occasion as healing medicine or for sacramental purposes. In Vedic times, at the Rajasuya, or inauguration of a king, some water from the holy river Sarasvati was mixed with the sprinkling water used for consecrating the king. Hence also sick persons are frequently conveyed long distances to a sacred river to heal them of their maladies; and for a dying man to breathe his last at the side of the Ganges is devoutly believed to be the surest way of securing for him salvation and eternal bliss.
Such probably was the belief of the ordinary Hindu two thousand years ago, and such it remains to this day. In the light of facts such as these, who could venture to say what the future of Hinduism is likely to be? Is the regeneration of India to be brought about by the modern theistic movements, such as the Brahma-samaj and Arya-samaj, as so close and sympathetic an observer of Hindu life and thought as Sir A. Lyall seems to think? “The Hindu mind,” he remarks, “is essentially speculative and transcendental; it will never consent to be shut up in the prison of sensual experience, for it has grasped and holds firmly the central idea that all things are manifestations of some power outside phenomena. And the tendency of contemporary religious discussion in India, so far as it can be followed from a distance, is towards an ethical reform on the old foundations, towards searching for some method of reconciling their Vedic theology with the practices of religion taken as a rule of conduct and a system of moral government. One can already discern a movement in various quarters towards a recognition of impersonal theism, and towards fixing the teaching of the philosophical schools upon some definitely authorized system of faith and morals, which may satisfy a rising ethical standard, and may thus permanently embody that tendency to substitute spiritual devotion for external forms and caste rules which is the characteristic of the sects that have from time to time dissented from orthodox Brahminism.”
Authorities.—Census of India (1901), vol. i. part i.; India, by H. H. Risley and E. A. Gait; vol. i. Ethnographical Appendices, by H. H. Risley; The Indian Empire, vol. i. (new ed., Oxford, 1907); J. Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts (2nd ed., 5 vols., London, 1873); Monier Williams, Religious Thought and Life in India (London, 1883); Modern India and the Indians (London, 1878, 3rd ed. 1879); Hinduism (London, 1877); Sir Alfred C. Lyall, Asiatic Studies (2 series, London, 1899); “Hinduism” in Religious Systems of the World (London, 1904); “Brahminism” in Great Religions of the World (New York and London, 1902); W. J. Wilkins, Modern Hinduism (London, 1887); J. C. Oman, Indian Life, Religious and Social (London, 1879); The Mystics, Ascetics and Saints of India (London, 1903); The Brahmans, Theists and Muslims of India (London, 1907); S. C. Bose, The Hindus as they are (2nd ed., Calcutta, 1883); J. Robson, Hinduism and Christianity (Edinburgh and London, 3rd ed., 1905); J. Murray Mitchell, Hinduism Past and Present (2nd ed., London, 1897); Jogendra Nath Bhattacharya, Hindu Castes and Sects (Calcutta, 1896); A. Barth, The Religions of India (London, 1882); E. W. Hopkins, The Religions of India (London, 1896).
(J. E.)
[1] “It is, perhaps, by surveying India that we at this day can best represent to ourselves and appreciate the vast external reform worked upon the heathen world by Christianity, as it was organized and executed throughout Europe by the combined authority of the Holy Roman Empire and the Church Apostolic.” Sir Alfred C. Lyall, Asiatic Studies, i. 2.
[2] Henry Whitehead, D. D., bishop of Madras, The Village Deities of Southern India (Madras, 1907).
[3] “The effect of caste is to give all Hindu society a religious basis.” Sir A. C. Lyall, Brahmanism.
[4] Thus, in Berar, “there is a strong non-Aryan leaven in the dregs of the agricultural class, derived from the primitive races which have gradually melted down into settled life, and thus become fused with the general community, while these same races are still distinct tribes in the wild tracts of hill and jungle.” Sir Alfred C. Lyall, As. St., i. 6.
[5] Siva is said to have first appeared in the beginning of the present age as Sveta, the White, for the purpose of benefiting the Brahmans, and he is invariably painted white; whilst Vishnu, when pictured, is always of a dark-blue colour.