Hindu Kush

“ Hinduism is, however, not only a social league resting upon caste—it is also a religious alliance based upon worship. As the various race elements of the Indian people have been welded into caste, so the simple old beliefs of the Veda, the mild doctrines of Buddha, and the fierce rites of the non-Aryan tribes, have been thrown into the melting-pot, and poured out thence as a mixture of precious metal and dross, to be worked up into the complex worship of the Hindu gods. ”

“ In The Religions of India M. Barth defined a Hindu as a man who has a caste: ‘The man who is a member of a caste is a Hindu; he who is not, is not a Hindu.’ His definition remains perhaps the best. There is practically no dogma which is essential to Hinduism, nor is the veneration of any deity or sacred object either necessary or heretical. As has often been pointed out, there is no assembly more catholic or less exclusive than the Hindu pantheon. Another writer has said that the three essentials of a Hindu are to be a member of a caste, to venerate Brāhmans, and to hold the cow sacred. ”

“ The oldest of these religions is Animism (q.v.) , which represents the beginnings of religion in India, and is still professed by the more primitive tribes, such as Santals, Bhils and Gonds. The transition from this crude form of religion to popular Hinduism (q.v.) is comparatively easy. The most obvious characteristics of the ordinary Hindu are that he worships a plurality of gods, looks upon the cow as a sacred animal, and accepts the Brahmanical supremacy (see Brahmanism) and the caste system ”

“ Religiously, the native Christian is slowly shaking off the clinging brood of superstitions which he inherited from Hinduism. Our most recent converts have often a tenacious belief in the efficacy of some of those childish superstitions and charms which were largely their main stay in their ancestral religion. In most cases these are not a matter of faith so much as of inheritance which have become more than a second nature to them. Idolatry may be abandoned, belief in Hinduism as a saving faith may be thrown to the winds, Hindu ritual may lose its charm ”

“ This holy herb is grown in pots near every temple and dwelling of devout Hindus. It is sacred to Vishnu, Kushna, and Lakshmi, but all the gods are interested in it. Narada, the celestial sage, has sung the praises of the immortal plant, which is perfection itself, and which, whilst protecting from every misfortune those who cultivate it, sanctifies and guides them to heaven. For this double sanctity it is reared in every Hindu house, where it is daily watered and worshipped by all the members of the household. ”

“ At first sight, seeing the jumble up of strange gods,—the cow-goddess, the monkey-god, elephant-god, and others,—it seems rather to resemble the religion of the ancient Egyptians, but it is not a real resemblance. The highest idea of the Hindu, as of the Buddhist, is to pass out into a sort of painless existence of nothingness. And to overcome the flesh and to arrive at a placid state, where nothing matters, is attempted here on earth by some. Some of the old men, fakirs as they are called, like the [Pg 245] one we met in Delhi, do astonishing things merely by force of an iron determination. ”

“ There were coils of rope-like pastry fried in oil, lumps, balls, cakes of sweetmeats, chappatties—bread-sheets smaller and more brittle than those of the Arab—pans of dark red chillies, potatoes cut into small cubes and covered with a green curry sauce. The Hindu is as much given to nibbling as the Mohammedan. By choice, perhaps, he would eat seldom and heartily, but he lives the most literally from hand to mouth of any human creature, and no sooner earns a half-anna than he hurries away to sacrifice it to his ever-unsatisfied hunger. ”

“ But the diffusion of Indian influence, especially in China, was also due to another agency, namely religious propaganda and the deliberate despatch of missions. These missions seem to have been exclusively Buddhist for wherever we find records of Hinduism outside India, for instance in Java and Camboja, the presence of Hindu conquerors or colonists is also recorded. [2] Hinduism accompanied Hindus and sometimes spread round their settlements, but it never attempted to convert distant and alien lands. ”

“ And the Christian preacher's or teacher's vivid portrayal of the Christian's heaven too often denotes to the Hindu only one of the many purgatorial heavens of his religion, and rarely suggests to him the supreme test of the value of our faith as contrasted with his own. The glories of our heaven do not appeal to the stolid, weary, transmigration-ridden soul of the Hindu as they do to the youthful, hopeful, buoyant soul of the Christian. ”

“ But that is the ruling feature of the Hindu religion. There is no sweetness or light in its theology--it exists to make people unhappy and wretched, and to bring misery, suffering and crime into the world.
The Hindus fear their gods, but do not love them, with perhaps the exception of Vishnu, the second person in the Hindu trinity, while Brahma is the third. These three are the supreme deities in the pantheon, but Brahma is more of an abstract proposition than an actual god. For purposes of worship the Hindus may be divided into two classes--the followers of Siva and the followers of Vishnu. ”

“ Hinduism gives more or less of colouring to his religious thought and aspirations; and not a few of its forms and ceremonies are retained, but filled with a new Christian content, and are utilized to aid in the development of Christian life. Even as the Jews of old entered into possession and appreciation of Christian life through Jewish rites and ceremonies, so do native converts enter Christian life through Hindu forms today. From the necessity of their thought and being they utilize not a few of the processes of the old, in order to acquire and enjoy the blessings of the new, faith. ”

“ In India when a young boy or girl happens to break, in eating or dress, the orthodox rules of caste, his or her parents will say, 'Oh! it is all the result of the Kali yuga.' If a Hindu becomes a convert to any other religion, or if any atrocious act is committed, the Hindu will observe, 'Oh! it is the ripening of Kali.' Every deviation from the established custom, every vice, every crime, in fact, everything wicked, is set down by the ordinary Hindu to the ascending power of the Lord of the Kali age. ”

“ During the 8th and 9th centuries the Indians became the teachers in arithmetic and algebra of the Arabs, and through them of the nations of the West. Thus, though we call the latter science by an Arabic name, it is a gift we owe to India." We have thus far attempted to present our readers with a brief, hurried and necessarily imperfect survey of the gradual evolution and development of Hindu medicine and alchemy from the Vedic age onward. ”

“ Therefore the Hindu has come to regard caste observance as the supreme claim of his faith. As we have seen, a man may believe or disbelieve any doctrine he please; that does not affect his status as a Hindu so long as he is loyal to caste rules and observances. As one has aptly remarked, the seat of other religions may be in the mind; the seat of Hinduism is preëminently in the stomach. It is not [pg 125] what he thinks but what and how and with whom he eats that gives him his religious status.
The Hindu regards himself as socially devoid of any right of initiative and choice ”

“ India, Progress and Condition, Blue Book presented to Parliament, 1873, p. 99. “It is asserted (but the assertion must be taken with reserve) that it is a mistake to suppose that the Hindu religion is not proselytizing. Any number of outsiders, so long as they do not interfere with established castes, can form a new caste, and call themselves Hindus, and the Brahmans are always ready to receive all who submit to and pay them.” ”

“ It is not quite correct to say that one must be born a Hindu, since Hinduism has grown by gradually hinduizing the wilder tribes of India and the process still continues. But a convert cannot enter the fold by any simple ceremony like baptism. The community to which he belongs must adopt Hindu usages and then it will be recognized as a caste, at first of very low standing but in a few generations it may rise in the general esteem. A Hindu is bound to his religion by almost the same ties that bind him to his family. Hence the strength of Hinduism in India. ”

“ Hinduism certainly has proved marvellously stimulating to the intellect or—shall we put it the other way?--is the product of profound, acute, and restless minds. It cannot be justly accused of being enervating or melancholy, for many Hindu states were vigorous and warlike [85] and the accounts of early travellers indicate that in pre-mohammedan days the people were humane, civilized and contented. It created an original and spiritual art, for Indian art, more than any other, is the direct product of religion and not merely inspired by it. ”

“ There is nothing in the life of a Hindu devotee, whether it be eating, sleeping, bathing or travelling, which is not religiously prescribed both as to time and method. And utterly regardless of the significance of these rites or the appropriateness of them to his life, he deems their observance as essential to his salvation and finds in their daily keeping the highest satisfaction and completest assurance of his spiritual progress.
The Hindu is no rationalist in his religion. ”

“ God and Goddess, Chamba.
Hinduism in the Panjáb.—Hinduism has always been, and to-day is more than ever, a very elastic term. The [Pg 120] Census Superintendent, himself a high caste Hindu, wrote: "The definition which would cover the Hindu of the modern times is that he should be born of parents not belonging to some recognised religion other than Hinduism, marry within the same limits, believe in God, respect the cow, and cremate the dead." ”

“ And it should not be forgotten that all over India there are probably fifty millions of people who are the so-called outcasts of the land, the miserable product of the caste system of Hinduism. They are "the submerged tenth" of India. They are not only socially ostracized, they are under the definite ban of the Hindu faith. They are the hewers of wood and drawers of water of Brahmanism. They have no place in Hinduism proper; they are not permitted to enter any of its temples. They have no right to receive whatever comforts religion may confer ”

“ In fact, the resemblance between the Hindu and Christian religion is so remarkable that some scholars think the Hindu was taken from the Christian. It is more probable that it was of greater antiquity, and that the similarity between them springs from the seed of all truth and all Nature implanted in man by God. Indian and Christian both teach regeneration. In the Indian creed, as soon as the soul is touched with the love of divine things it is supposed to drop its life of sin and become "new born." ”

“ Another difference is observable in the fact that while Christianity is always held as a system of saving truth to be believed, Hinduism, in its acceptance, does not involve the necessary belief of any doctrine or system of doctrine. It is well understood that a man of any belief, or of no belief, may be a genuine and orthodox Hindu provided he observes caste rules and ceremonies. It has been more than once insisted upon that a man may accept Christ as his Saviour and His religion as his firm belief and still remain a Hindu if he only submit to the demands of caste. ”

“ It is necessary, however, in considering this question, that we remember specially that the antecedents and the environment of the native Christian have been entirely Hindu. His ancestral faith has coloured, and must colour, largely his religious preceptions and conduct. Let it not be thought that, when a man abandons Hinduism and becomes a Christian, he thereby, once and for all, drives out of his mind all those prepossessions, prejudices and superstitions which he has inherited from the past. ”

“ The census figures attempt to differentiate Hindus (that is, those who worship the orthodox gods of the Hindu pantheon) from Animists (that is, those who reverence only animistic deities) ; but the accuracy of the result is vitiated by the fact that many members of the hill tribes, though Animists at heart, offer none the less a perfunctory and spasmodic worship to the Hindu gods of the plains and thus come within the four corners of the definition of a Hindu. ”

“ They are above the middle size of Asiatics, and exceed, both in stature and muscular power, either the Javan or the Maláyu. Though professing a religion which in western India moulds the character of the Hindu into the most tame and implicit subserviency to rule and authority, and though living under the rod of despotism which they have put into the hands of their chiefs, they still possess much of the original boldness and self-willed hardihood of the savage state. ”

“ It has been claimed that it has made the Hindus the most devotional people in the world. Like Christianity, Hinduism appeals to man's intellectual nature, and it is inwrought with profound philosophy. It does not, however, like some modern systems, teach that divine truth has been revealed to man by natural processes; rather it regards the early revelation as having suffered obscuration. [65] It also has its trinity, its incarnations, and its predictions of a Messiah who shall restore the truth and establish righteousness. The Hindu traditions maintain that mankind descended from a single pair ”

“ Thus these non-Aryan provinces were becoming gradually known to the Hindus, and were slowly coming under Hindu influence and power when the Epic Period closed and the Philosophic Period began.
The waves of Hindu conquests rolled onwards, and the aborigines submitted themselves to a higher civilization and a nobler creed. Rivers were crossed, forests were cleared, lands were reclaimed, wide wastes were peopled, and new countries hitherto aboriginal witnessed the rise of Hindu power and of Hindu religion. Where a few scanty settlers had penetrated at first, powerful colonies grew ”