would feel it irreligious, as well as a social disgrace, to let a daughter become adult without being married.
A comparison of Indian Mohammedans and Hindus suggests that the former are more warlike and robust, the latter more intellectual and ingenious. The fact that some Mohammedans belong to hardy tribes of invaders must be taken into account but Islam deserves the credit of having introduced a simple and fairly healthy rule of life which does not allow every caste to make its own observances into a divine law. Yet it would seem that the medical and sanitary rules of Hinduism deserve less abuse than they generally receive. Col. King, Sanitary Commissioner of the Madras Presidency, is quoted as saying in a lecture83: "The Institutes of Vishnu and the Laws of Manu fit in excellently with the bacteriology, parasitology and applied hygiene of the West. The hygiene of food and water, private and public conservancy, disease suppression and prevention, are all carefully dealt with."
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 warlike84 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. In ages when original talent is rare this close relation has disadvantages for it tends to make all art symbolic and conventional. An artist must not represent a deity in the way that he thinks most effective: the proportions, attitude and ornaments are all prescribed, not because they suit a picture or statue but because they mean something.
Indian literature is also directly related to religion. Its extent is well-nigh immeasurable. I will not alarm the reader with statistics of the theological and metaphysical treatises which it contains. A little of such goes a long way even when they are first-rate, but India may at least boast of having more theological works which, if considered as intellectual productions, must be placed in the first class than Europe. Nor are religious writings of a more human type absent—the language of heart to heart and of the heart to God. The Ramayana of Tulsi Das and the Tiruvwçagam are extolled by Groâse, Grierson and Pope (all of them Christians, I believe) as not only masterpieces of literature but as noble expressions of pure devotion, and the poems of Kabir and Tukaram, if less considerable as literary efforts, show the same spiritual quality. Indian poetry, even when nominally secular, is perhaps too much under religious influence to suit our taste and the long didactic and philosophic harangues which interrupt the action of the Mahabharata seem to us inartistic, yet to those who take the pains to familiarize themselves with what at first is strange, the Mahabharata is, I think, a greater poem than the Iliad. It should not be regarded as an epic distended and interrupted by interpolated sermons but as the scripture of the warrior caste, which sees in the soldier's life a form of religion.
I have touched in several places on the defects of Hinduism. They are due partly to its sanction of customs which have no necessary connection with it and partly to its extravagance, which in the service of the gods sees no barriers of morality or humanity. But suttee, human sacrifices and orgies strike the imagination and assume an importance which they have not and never had for Hinduism as a whole. If Hinduism were really bad, so many great thoughts, so many good lives could not have grown up in its atmosphere. More than any other religion it is a quest of truth and not a creed, which must necessarily become antiquated: it admits the possibility of new scriptures, new incarnations, new institutions. It has no quarrel with knowledge or speculation: perhaps it excludes materialists, because they have no common ground with religion, but it tolerates even the Sânkhya philosophy which has nothing to say about God or worship. It is truly dynamic and in the past whenever it has seemed in danger of withering it has never failed to bud with new life and put forth new flowers.
More than other religions, Hinduism appeals to the soul's immediate knowledge and experience of God. It has sacred books innumerable but they agree in little but this, that the soul can come into contact and intimacy with its God, whatever name be given him and even if he be superpersonal. The possibility and truth of this experience is hardly questioned in India and the task of religion is to bring it about, not to promote the welfare of tribes and states but to effect the enlightenment and salvation of souls.
The love of the Hindus for every form of argument and philosophizing is well known but it is happily counterbalanced by another tendency. Instinct and religion both bring them into close sympathy with nature. India is in the main an agricultural country85 and nearly three-quarters of the population are villagers whose life is bound up with the welfare of plants and animals and lies at the mercy of rivers that overflow or skies that withhold the rain. To such people nature-myths and sacred animals appeal with a force that Europeans rarely understand. The parrots that perch on the pinnacles of the temple and the oxen that rest in the shade of its courts are not intruders but humble brothers of mankind, who may also be the messengers of the gods.
24. Buddhism in Practice
As I said above, it is easier to estimate the effects of Buddhism than of Hinduism, for its history is the chronicle of a great missionary enterprise and there are abundant materials for studying the results of its diffusion.
Even its adversaries must admit that it has many excellent qualities. It preaches morality and charity and was the first religion to proclaim to the world—not to a caste or country—that these are the foundation of that Law which if kept brings happiness. It civilized many nations, for instance the Tibetans and Mongols. It has practised toleration and true unworldliness, if not without any exception86, at least far more generally than any other great religion. It has directly encouraged art and literature and, so far as I know, has never opposed the progress of knowledge. But two charges may be brought against it which deserve consideration. First that its pessimistic doctrines and monastic institutions are, if judged by ordinary standards, bad for the welfare of a nation: second that more than any other religion it is liable to become corrupt.
In all Buddhist lands, though good laymen are promised the blessings of religion, the monastic and contemplative life is held up as the ideal. In Christendom, this ideal is rejected by Protestants and for the Roman and Oriental Churches it is only one among others. Hence every one's judgment of Buddhism must in a large measure depend on what he thinks of this ideal. Monks are not of this world and therefore the world hateth them. If they keep to themselves, they are called lazy and useless. If they take part in secular matters, they meet with even severer criticism. Yet can any one doubt that what is most needed in the present age is more people who have leisure and ability to think?
Whatever evil is said of Buddhist monks is also said of Mt Athos and similar Christian establishments. I am far from saying that this depreciation of the cloistered life is just in either case but any impartial critic of monastic institutions must admit that their virtues avoid publicity and their faults attract attention. In all countries a large percentage of monks are indolent: it is the temptation which besets all but the elect. Yet the Buddhist ideal of the man who has renounced the world leaves no place for slackness, nor I think does the Christian. Buddhist monks are men of higher aspirations than others: they try to make themselves supermen by cultivating not the forceful and domineering part of their nature but the gentle, charitable and intelligent part. The laity treat them with the greatest respect provided that they set an example of a life better than most men can live. A monastic system of this kind is found in Burma. I do not mean that it is not found in other Buddhist lands, but I cite an instance which I have seen myself and which has impressed most observers favourably.
The Burmese monks are not far from the ideal of Gotama, yet perhaps by adhering somewhat strictly to the letter of his law they have lost something of the freedom which he contemplated. In his time there were no books: the mind found exercise and knowledge in conversation. A monastery was not a permanent residence, except
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According to the census of 1911 no less than 72 per cent. of the population live by agriculture.
The chief exceptions are: (
