Brahminism

“ It is only by contact with the crowds of eager pilgrims and devotees which throng the streets and temples of Benares that one may realize the vital force which Brahminism exercises in India. Next to Mohammedanism it is the livest and most influential and practical of all religions. The devotee lives and breathes and feels his faith. It enters every experience of his career, it governs every act, and compared with Brahminism, Christianity is perfunctory and exercises practically little control over its believers. ”

“ The humbled Brahmins learned in the three Vedas then ask Buddha to "show them the way to a state of union with Brahma."
Buddha replies at considerable length, drawing a sharp contrast between the lower Brahminism and the higher Brahminism, the "householder" and the "houseless one." The householder Brahmins are gross, sensual, avaricious, insincere. They practise for lucre black magic, fortune-telling, cozenage. They gain the ear of kings, breed wars, predict victories, sacrifice life, spoil the poor. ”

“ But in these modern days Benares is wholly given over to ignorance, superstition, vice, filth and idolatry. The pure and lofty doctrines of Buddha are no longer taught. The "Well of Knowledge" is a filthy, putrid hole filled with slime and rotting vegetation. Buddhism has been swept out of India altogether, and Brahminism is taught and practiced there in its most repulsive and depraved forms.
Occasionally some reformer appears who endeavors to rebuke the depravity and appeals to the thinking members of the Brahmin sect to restore the ancient philosophy and morality of their fathers. ”

“ As these deities became more and more vague and indefinite in the popular mind, and the simple, instinctive appeal of the human soul to a Power it could not see or comprehend was gradually debased into what is now known as Brahminism, and the most repugnant, revolting, cruel, obscene and vicious rites ever practiced by savages or barbarians. ”

“ England, rooted in men’s habits and interests, and intertwined with the whole system of social order; and, just as a Brahmin, lax enough in his own speculative allegiance to the Brahminical faith, might still desire to maintain Brahminism as a vast pervading establishment in Hindostan, so might Swift, with a heart and a head dubious enough respecting men’s eternal interest in the facts of the Judæan record, see a use notwithstanding in that fabric of bishoprics, deaneries, prebends, parochial livings, and curacies, which ancient belief in those facts had first created and put together. ”

“ As I have determined to state the significance of some of the Brahminical institutions, I would ask the reader to fix his eyes on the prudence and somewhat innocent cunning of the learned priests. As Brahminism regards faith as fruitless unless manifested in deeds, it joins some acts of charity to every form of worship or devotion. Now the poor people cannot possibly offer gifts or bring sacrifices to the temple often. ”

“ In Brahminism, God is all, and man, as personal being, nothing; in Buddhism, man is recognized as an individual, but apart from God, while in both systems, the highest endeavor is to be delivered from, according to Brahminism a seeming, according to Sakya-muni a really existing individuality, the source of all human woe, and to lose one's self either in Brahma or in the Nirvana. ”

“ It is universally recognized among educated Brahmins that India is approaching a great religious crisis which demands the attention of all who are interested in the welfare of the people. The movement is slow, but quite obvious to all who are watching the development of reforms that have been proposed for the last fifteen or twenty years. It is based upon the fact that Brahminism, as taught at the temples of India to-day, does not satisfy or even appeal to educated men. ”

“ Their political tradition has been practically that of unrelieved Oriental despotism, the only exceptions being a few primitive self-governing communities in very early times, which never exerted any widespread influence and quickly faded away. As for Brahminism, the Hindu religion, it is perhaps the most illiberal cult which ever afflicted mankind, dividing society as it does into an infinity of rigid castes between which no real intercourse is possible; each caste regarding all those of lesser rank as unclean, polluting creatures, scarcely to be distinguished from animals. ”

“ And yet it is in its social aspects, in its enslavement of all the women and the majority of the men who come within its reach, that Hinduism presents its most terrible phases. For Hinduism is Caste and Caste is Hinduism. Upon the innate, Heaven-ordained superiority of the Brahmin and the other twice-born castes, and upon the consequent inferiority of the lower castes, the whole system of Brahminism rests. ”

“ In Southern India, there are still quite large bodies of them living in their own villages, with their own shastiris and gurus, (religious teachers,) maintaining their protest against Brahminism. Their hatred of their enemies, though powerless, is often bitter, nor is it unreturned. They are generally tradesmen, mechanics, and farmers. ”

“ The true orthodox Brahmins are the children of the mysterious Fire-mist known to Eastern Occultists. The two Sanskrit words, Badaba and Badabaya, generally applied to Brahmins, will reveal to the author the real basis of orthodox Brahminism, if he can but understand their significance. The real orthodox Brahmin is the Astral man and his religion is the only true religion in the world; it is as eternal as the mighty law which governs the Universe. It is this grand religion which is the foundation of Theosophy. ”

“ This being about to be demonstrated, a few pages forwards, as the oldest species of worship recognised upon earth, it were needless, one would hope, to enter into a comparison in point of antiquity between [Pg 214] it and any of its living derivatives. But as many learned men, misled by that cloud which heretofore enveloped the subject, have promulgated the belief that Brahminism was the parent stock, whence Budhism, with its adjuncts, diverged as a scion, I shall, omitting others, address myself to the consideration of Mr. ”

“ Just as these tremendous privileges are independent of the external circumstances of wealth and rank, so are they independent of individual character. The pure soul of a Brahmin is beyond all moral elevation, and above all moral pollution. He may be a man of the purest life and loftiest morality, but he is none the better Brahmin for that; he may be one of the vilest of debauchees, and be none the worse Brahmin for that, provided he does not commit any act which would forfeit his caste,—such, for example, as killing a cow, or eating food that had been cooked by an inferior. ”

“ It has smothered many noble feelings, and taught men to hate and despise each other; and so strong is the class distinction of this system that a good Hindoo of our day would a thousand times rather die of thirst or hunger than take a glass of water or a piece of bread from a person of a lower caste. Like other evils it has also been a curse to its authors, the Brahmins themselves, by lulling the great majority of them into ignorance and indifference. For why should they take the trouble to study or work when the whole world with its joys, pleasures and honors is open to them anyway? ”

“ If you ask the Christian missionary, "What is a Brahmin?” he might answer, “He is what you would expect a man to be who held such opinions as to his nature, rights, and offices.” The proud belief of his own purity, wisdom, and exaltation, the supreme contempt of all other men that dwells in the breast and appears in the speech and mien of the Brahmin, cannot, I think, be paralleled in the world. From his birth he is followed by a succession of ceremonies, each one tending to enhance his self-sufficiency. ”

“ And their cupidity is so great, that every principle of law and morality is shamefully compromised in their dealings with mankind. A Brahmin is no longer typical of either religious purity or moral excellence. His profound erudition, his logical subtlety in spinning into niceties the most commonplace distinctions, his spirit of deep research and his illimitable power of polemical discussion, have all forsaken him, and from an inspired priest he has degenerated into a mercenary purohit. ”

“ The conservative Brahmo can do one thing, that is, observe the old ritual, leaving out only the idolatrous portion of it, if he do not choose to follow the positive Brahmo ritual laid down in the ‘Anushthána Paddhati.’ Liberty should be given by the progressive Brahmo to the conservative Brahmo in judging of the idolatrous character of the portions of the old ritual rejected by him. If a progressive Brahmo requires a conservative one to reject those portions which the former considers to be idolatrous, but the latter does not, he denies liberty of conscience to a fellow-Brahmo. ”

“ Whoever disturbs a Brahmin during his religious contemplations shall lose his life; if a person of a lower caste sits down on the mat of a Brahmin, his back shall be burned with red-hot irons; if he touches the hair, beard or neck of a Brahmin, the judge shall order both his hands to be cut off; if he listens to evil reports about the Brahmins, molten lead shall be poured into his ears; if he does not arise when a Brahmin approaches, he will be changed into a tree after death ”

“ With all their pretended holiness, it is notorious that Brahmins are far more careful to avoid defilement in public than in private, and that when out of sight they violate the rules of caste to gratify their appetites. As liars, they are unrivalled in a land of liars. Though professedly abstinent, when invited to a feast, they will eat nothing the day before, so as to be in readiness for the good cheer they expect; and then will gorge themselves, so as sometimes
Brahmin at his meal, p.305
to be unable to walk home. ”

“ In the pillars that surround the temple, and the spires that taper far aloft, may be traced types and emblems borrowed from the Temple of the Sun at Baalbec, the proud fane of Diana at Ephesus, the shrines of the Delian Apollo; but the Brahminical symbols and interpretations prevail. Strange that it should be so, with a sect that suffered by the slayings and the outcastings of a ruthless persecution, at the hands of their Brahmin fathers, for the cause of restoring the culture of that simple and pure philosophy which nourished before pantheism! ”

“ Brahmâ here symbolizes personally the Collective Creators of the World and Men—the Universe with all its numberless productions of things movable and (seemingly) immovable.133 He is collectively the Prajâpatis, the Lords of Being; and the four bodies typify the four Classes of Creative Powers or Dhyân Chohans, described in the Commentary on Shloka I, Stanza VII, in Volume I. The whole philosophy of the so-called “Creation” of the good and evil in this World, and of the whole Cycle of Manvantaric results therefrom, hangs on the correct comprehension of these Four Bodies of Brahmâ. ”

“ An electric shock ran through society: all Hindudom was roused from its slumber, and began suspiciously to ponder what Brahmism meant by such daring. But the real test of principle was yet to come. It was comparatively safe to make a few modifications in domestic religious rites: the marriage of people of different castes compromised the principals chiefly: it was necessary that the entire Brahma community should by some act be universally committed to war against [Pg 98] the evils and iniquities of caste. ”

“ Such men can and will do, for such reasons, what other men have not nerve enough to adventure merely in obedience to the theoretic rules of their order.
The Brahmins would fain be regarded as the learned class of India. Of course there was a time when, in the earlier ages of the world, they were so, as compared to men in other nations. No scholar can doubt this for a moment. But the world and education are no longer what they once were; both have advanced amazingly, while the Brahmin has not only stood still, but he has retrograded. ”

“ If the Brahmin is he who has killed all selfishness and who lives and works to acquire and propagate wisdom and the power of love — if a country is altogether inhabited by such Brahmins, by men and women who are spiritual and moral and good, is it strange to think of that country as being above and beyond all law? ”

“ The people who see them are filled with dismay, fall down before them, and offer gifts and sacrifices, for fear of being injured by them. Whatever they ask is granted. The people give them to eat and drink abundantly; and when they leave a place, accompany them with instruments of music, till they arrive at some other place, where the same deception is practised.
There are various other ways in which the Brahmins deceive the people; but I have told you enough.
At every large temple, there is at least yearly one grand procession. ”

“ By a volition, an act of the will, Brahm imagines a universe, and it exists, not in fact, be it remembered, but in the imagination of Brahm. This imagination is the universe. Brahm, by the power of his will, realizes his idea; yet it is not real: it is ideal, illusory, non-existent. The individuals of this illusory universe, unconscious of the truth that they are ideal creations of this volition, suppose themselves to be separate existences. This is folly, darkness, and deception. To discover that all separate and material existence is maya—illusion—is true wisdom. ”

“ At the same time it is beyond a doubt that among the cultivated Brahmins, who have always acknowledged a higher philosophy than that of the people, [284] there is a renewed tendency towards the spiritualization of beliefs. The philosophy of the Vedas is a high one, and presents to the restored activity of thought a standard for reform in intellectual conceptions; and although the Brahminical system is without an absolute written code of morals, it is easily reconcilable with the highest, and akin to all that is best in the Semitic teaching. ”