Philosophy of Hinduism
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Chapter 1 Philosophy of Hinduism
Does Hinduism
recognize Equality?
How does Hinduism stand in
this matter?
Does Hinduism
recognise Fraternity?
What
is the value of
such a religion to man ?
On
what level does Hindu morality
stand?
Of
what use is this philosophy of
the Upanishadas?
(The script published in
the Writings and Speeches, vol. 3 published by Government of Maharashtra did
not have any chapter names. It was divided in I to VI parts. For the sake of
readership convenience we are providing additional hyperlinks to some paras by
way of projecting some questions in the text. )
Editorial Note:
This script on Philosophy of Hinduism was found as a well-bound copy
which we feel is complete by itself.
The whole script seems to be a Chapter of one big scheme. This foolscap
original typed copy consists of 169 pages.— Editors
What is the philosophy of Hinduism? This is a question which arises in its logical sequence.
But apart from its logical sequence its importance is such that it can never be
omitted from consideration. Without it no one can understand the aims and
ideals of Hinduism.
It is obvious that such a study must
be preceded by a certain amount of what may be called clearing of the ground
and defining of the terms involved.
At the outset it may be asked what does this
proposed title comprehend? Is this title of the
Philosophy of Hinduism of the same nature as that of the Philosophy of
Religion? I wish I could commit myself one way or the other on this point.
Indeed I cannot. I have read a good deal on the subject, but I confess I have
not got a clear idea of what is meant by Philosophy of Religion. This is
probably due to two facts. In the first place while religion is something
definite, there is nothing definite*[f1] as to what is to be included in the
term philosophy. In the second place Philosophy and Religion have been
adversaries if not actual antagonists as may be seen from the story of the
philosopher and the theologian. According to the story, the two were engaged in
disputation and the theologian accused the
philosopher that he was "like a blind man in a
dark room, looking for a black cat which was not there".
In reply the philosopher charged the theologian
saying that "he was like a blind man in the
dark room, looking for a black cat which was not there but he declared to have
found there". Perhaps it is the unhappy choice
of the title — Philosophy of Religion—which is responsible for causing
confusion in the matter of the exact definition of its field. The nearest
approach to an intelligible statement as to the exact subject matter of
Philosophy of Religion I find in Prof. Pringle-Pattison
who observes[f2] :—
"A few words may be useful at the outset as an indication of what we commonly mean by the Philosophy of Religion. Plato described philosophy long ago as the synoptic view of things. That is to say, it is the attempt to see things together-to keep all the main features of the world in view, and to grasp them in their relation to one another as parts of one whole. Only thus can we acquire a sense of proportion and estimate aright the significance of any particular range of facts for our ultimate conclusions about the nature of the world-process and the world-ground. Accordingly, the philosophy of any particular department of experience, the Philosophy of Religion, the Philosophy of Art, the Philosophy of Law, is to be taken as meaning an analysis and interpretation of the experience in question in its bearing upon our view of man and the world in which he lives. And when the facts upon which we concentrate are so universal, and in their nature so remarkable, as those disclosed by the history of religion—the philosophy of man's religious experience—cannot but exercise a determining influence upon our general philosophical conclusions. In fact with many writers the particular discussion tends to merge in the more general."
"The facts with which a
philosophy of religion has to deal are supplied by the history of religion, in
the most comprehensive sense of that term. As Tiele
puts it, "all religions of the civilised and uncivilised world, dead and
living", is a `historical and psychological phenomenon' in all its
manifestations. These facts, it should be noted, constitute the data of the
philosophy of religion; they do not themselves constitute a `philosophy' or, in
Tiele's use of the term, a `science' of religion.
`If, he says, 1 have minutely described all the religions in existence, their
doctrines, myths and customs, the observances they inculcate, and the
organisation of their adherents, tracing the different religions from their origin to their bloom and decay, I
have merely. Collected the materials with which the
science of religion works'. 'The historical record,
however complete, is not enough; pure history is not philosophy. To achieve a
philosophy of religion we should be able to discover in the varied
manifestations a common principle to whose roots in human nature we can point,
whose evolution we can trace by intelligible-stages from lower to higher and
more adequate forms, as well as its intimate relations with the other main
factors in human civilisation".
If this is Philosophy of Religion it appears to me that it is merely a different name for that department of study, which is called comparative religion with the added aim of discovering a common principle in the varied manifestations of religion. Whatever be the scope and value of such a study, I am using the title Philosophy of Religion to denote something quite different from the sense and aim given to it by Prof. Pringle-Pattison. I am using the word Philosophy in its original sense, which was two-fold. It meant teachings as it did when people spoke of the philosophy of Socrates or the philosophy of Plato. In another sense it meant critical reason used in passing judgements upon things and events. Proceeding on this basis Philosophy of Religion is to me not a merely descriptive science. I regard it as being both descriptive as well as normative. In so far as it deals with the teachings of a Religion, Philosophy of Religion becomes a descriptive science. In so far as it involves the use of critical reason for passing judgement on those teachings, the Philosophy of Religion becomes a normative science. From this it will be clear what I shall be concerned with in this study of the Philosophy of Hinduism. To be explicit I shall be putting Hinduism on its trial to assess its worth as a way of life.
Here is one part of the ground cleared. There remains another part to be cleared. That concerns the ascertainment of the factors concerned and the definitions of the terms I shall be using.
A study of the Philosophy of Religion it seems to me involves the determination of three dimensions. I call them dimensions because they are like the unknown quantities contained as factors in a product. One must ascertain and define these dimensions of the Philosophy of Religion if an examination of it is to be fruitful.
Of the three dimensions, Religion is
the first. One must therefore define what he understands by religion in order
to avoid argument being directed at cross-purposes. This is particularly
necessary in the case of Religion for the reason that there is no agreement as
to its exact definition. This is no place to enter upon an elaborate
consideration of this question. I will therefore content myself by stating the meaning in which I am using the word in
the discussion, which follows.
I am using the word Religion to mean
Theology. This will perhaps be insufficient for the purposes of definition. For
there are different kinds of Theologies and I must particularise which one I
mean. Historically there have been two Theologies spoken of from ancient times.
Mythical theology and Civil theology. The Greeks who
distinguished them gave each a definite content. By Mythical theology they
meant the tales of gods and their doings told in or implied by current
imaginative literature. Civil theology according to them consisted of the
knowledge of the various feasts and fasts of the State Calendar and the ritual
appropriate to them. I am not using the word theology in either of these two
senses of that word. I mean by theology natural
theology[f3] which is-the doctrine of God and the divine, as
an integral part of the theory of nature. As traditionally understood there are
three thesis which `natural theology' propounds. (1) That God exists and is the
author of what we call nature or universe (2) That God controls all the events
which make nature and (3) God exercises a government over mankind in accordance
with his sovereign moral law.
I am aware
there is another class of theology known as Revealed
Theology—spontaneous self disclosure of divine reality—which may be
distinguished from Natural theology.
But this distinction does not really matter. For as has been pointed out[f4] that a revelation may either
"leave the results won by Natural
theology standing without modifications, merely supplementing them by
further knowledge not attainable by unassisted human effort" or it "may
transform Natural theology in such a way that all the truths of natural
theology would acquire richer and deeper meaning when seen in the light of a
true revelation." But the view that a genuine natural theology and a genuine revelation
theology might stand in real contradiction may be safely excluded as not
being possible.
Taking the three
thesis of Theology namely (1) the existence of God, (2) God's providential
government of the universe and (3) God's moral government of mankind, I take
Religion to mean the propounding of an ideal scheme of divine governance the
aim and object of which is to make the social order in which men live a moral
order. This is what I understand by Religion and this is the sense in which I
shall be using the term Religion in this discussion.
The second dimension is to know the ideal scheme for which a Religion stands. To define what is the fixed, permanent and dominant part in the religion of any society and to separate its essential characteristics from those which are unessential is often very difficult. The reason for this difficulty in all probability lies in the difficulty pointed out by Prof. Robertson Smith[f5] when he says:—
"The traditional usage of religion had grown up gradually in the course of many centuries, and reflected habits of thought, characteristic of very diverse stages of man's intellectual and moral development. No conception of the nature of the gods could possibly afford the clue to all parts of that motley complex of rites and ceremonies which the later paganism had received by inheritance, from a series of ancestors in every state of culture from pure savagery upwards. The record of the religious thought of mankind, as it is embodied in religious institutions, resembles the geological record of the history of the earth's crust; the new and the old are preserved side by side, or rather layer upon layer".
The same thing has happened in India.
Speaking about the growth of Religion in India, says Prof. Max Muller :—
"We have seen a religion growing up
from stage to stage, from the simplest childish prayers to the highest
metaphysical abstractions. In the majority of the hymns of the Veda we might
recognise the childhood; in the Brahmanas and their
sacrificial, domestic and moral ordinances the busy manhood; in the Upanishads the old age of the Vedic
religion. We could have well understood if, with the historical progress of the
Indian mind, they had discarded the purely childish prayers as soon as they had
arrived at the maturity of the Brahamans; and if,
when the vanity of sacrifices and the real character of the old god's had once
been recognised, they would have been superseded by the more exalted religion of the Upanishads.
But it was not so. Every religious thought that had once found expression in
India, that had once been handed down as a sacred heirloom, was preserved, and
the thoughts of the three historical periods, the childhood, the manhood, and
the old age of the Indian nation, were made to do permanent service in the
three stages of the life of every individual. Thus alone can we explain how the
same sacred code, the Veda, contains not only the records of different phases
of religious thought, but of doctrines which we may call almost diametrically
opposed to each other."
But this difficulty is not so great in
the case of Religions which are positive
religions. The fundamental characteristic of positive Religions, is that they have not grown up like primitive
religions, under the action. of unconscious forces
operating silently from age to age, but trace their origin to the teaching of
great religious innovators, who spoke as the organs of a divine revelation.
Being the result of conscious formulations the philosophy of a religion which
is positive is easy to find and easy to state. Hinduism like Judaism,
Christianity and Islam is in the main a positive religion. One does not have to search for its scheme of divine
governance. It is not like an unwritten constitution. On the Hindu scheme of
divine governance is enshrined in a written constitution and any one who cares
to know it will find it laid bare in that Sacred Book called the Manu Smriti, a divine Code
which lays down the rules which govern the religious, ritualistic
and social life of the Hindus in minute detail and which must be regarded as
the Bible of the Hindus and containing the philosophy of Hinduism.
The third dimension in the philosophy
of religion is the criterion[f6] to be adopted for judging the value
of the ideal scheme of divine governance for which a given Religion stands.
Religion must be put on its trial. By what criterion shall it be judged? That
leads to the definition of the norm. Of the three dimensions this third one is
the most difficult one to be ascertained and defined.
Unfortunately the question does not
appear to have been tackled although much has been written on the philosophy of
Religion and certainly no method has been found for satisfactorily dealing with
the problem. One is left to one's own method for determining the issue. As for
myself I think it is safe to proceed on the view that to know the philosophy of
any movement or any institution one must study the revolutions which the
movement or the institution has undergone. Revolution is the mother of philosophy and if it is not the mother
of philosophy it is a lamp which illuminates philosophy. Religion is no
exception to this rule. To me therefore it seems quite evident that the best
method to ascertain the criterion by which to judge the philosophy of Religion
is to study the Revolutions which religion has undergone. That is the method
which I propose to adopt.
Students of History are familiar with
one Religious Revolution. That Revolution was concerned with the sphere of
Religion and the extent of its authority. There was a time when Religion had
covered the whole field of human knowledge and claimed infallibility for what
it taught. It covered astronomy and taught a theory of the universe according
to which the earth is at rest in the center of the universe, while the sun,
moon, planets and system of fixed stars revolve round it each in its own
sphere. It included biology and geology and propounded the view that the growth
of life on the earth had been created all at once and had contained from the
time of creation onwards, all the heavenly bodies that it now contains and all
kinds of animals of plants. It claimed medicine to be its province and taught
that disease was either a divine visitation as punishment for sin or it was the
work of demons and that it could be cured by the intervention of saints, either
in person or through their holy relics; or by
prayers or
pilgrimages; or (when due to demons) by exorcism and by treatment which the demons (and the patient) found disgusting. It also claimed physiology and psychology to be its domain and taught that the body and soul were two distinct substances.
Bit by bit this vast Empire of Religion was destroyed. The Copernican Revolution freed astronomy from the domination of Religion. The Darwinian Revolution freed biology and geology from the trammels of Religion. The authority of theology in medicine is not yet completely destroyed. Its intervention in medical questions still continues. Opinion on such subjects as birth control, abortion and sterilisation of the defective are still influenced by theological dogmas. Psychology has not completely freed itself from its entanglements. None the less Darwinism was such a severe blow that the authority of theology was shattered all over to such an extent that it never afterwards made any serious effort to remain its lost empire.
It is quite natural that this disruption
of the Empire of Religion should be treated as a great Revolution. It is the
result of the warfare which science waged against theology for 400 years, in
which many pitched battles were fought between the two and the excitement
caused by them was so great that nobody could fail to be impressed by the
revolution that was blazing on.
There is no doubt that this religious revolution has been a great blessing. It has established freedom of thought. It has enabled society " to assume control of itself, making its own the world it once shared with superstition, facing undaunted the things of its former fears, and so carving out for itself, from the realm of mystery in which it lies, a sphere of unhampered action and a field of independent thought". The process of secularisation is not only welcomed by scientists for making civilisation—as distinguished from culture—possible, even Religious men and women have come to feel that much of what theology taught was unnecessary and a mere hindrance to the religious life and that this chopping of its wild growth was a welcome process.
But for ascertaining the norm for
judging the philosophy of Religion we must turn to another and a different kind
of Revolution which Religion has undergone. That Revolution touches the nature
and content of ruling conceptions of the relations of God to man, of Society to
man and of man to man. How great was this revolution can be seen from the
differences which divide savage society from civilized society.
Strange as it may seem no systematic
study of this Religious Revolution has so far been made. None the less this
Revolution is so great and so immense that it has brought about a complete
transformation in the nature of Religion as it is taken to be by savage society
and by civilised society although very few seem to be aware of it.
To begin with the comparison between
savage society and civilised society.
In the religion of the savage one is
struck by the presence of two things. First is the performance of rites and
ceremonies, the practice of magic or tabu and the worship of fetish or totem.
The second thing that is noticeable is that the rites, ceremonies, magic, tabu,
totem and fetish are conspicuous by their connection with
certain occasions. These occasions are chiefly those, which represent the
crises of human life. The events such as birth, the birth of the first born,
attaining manhood, reaching puberty, marriage, sickness, death and war are the
usual occasions which are marked out for the performance of rites and
ceremonies, the use of magic and the worship of the totem.
Students of the origin and history of
Religion have sought to explain the origin and substance of religion by
reference to either magic, tabu and totem and the rites and ceremonies
connected therewith, and have deemed the occasions with which they are
connected as of no account. Consequently we have theories explaining religion
as having arisen in magic or as having arisen in fetishism. Nothing can be a greater
error than this. It is true that savage society practices magic, believes in
tabu and worships the totem. But it is wrong to suppose that these constitute
the religion or form the source of religion. To take such a view is to elevate
what is incidental to the position of the principal. The principal thing in the
Religion of the savage are the elemental facts of human existence such as life,
death, birth, marriage etc. Magic, tabu, totem are things which are incidental.
Magic, tabu, totem, fetish etc., are not the ends. They are only the means. The
end is life and the preservation of life. Magic, tabu etc., are resorted to by
the savage society not for their own sake but to conserve life and to exercise evil influences from doing harm
to life. Thus understood the religion of the savage society was concerned with
life and the preservation of life and it is these life processes which
constitute the substance and source of the religion of the savage society. So
great was the concern of the savage society for life and the preservation of
life that it made them the basis of its religion. So central were the life
processes in the religion of the savage society that everything, which affected
them, became part of its religion. The ceremonies of the savage society were
not only concerned with the events of birth, attaining of manhood, puberty,
marriage, sickness, death and war they were also concerned with food. Among
pastoral peoples the flocks and herds are sacred. Among agricultural peoples
seedtime and harvest are marked by ceremonials performed with some reference to
the growth and the preservation of the crops. Likewise drought, pestilence, and
other strange, irregular phenomena of nature occasion the performance of
ceremonials. Why should such occasions as harvest and famine be accompanied by
religious ceremonies? Why is magic, tabu, totem be
of such importance to the savage. The only answer is that they all affect the
preservation of life. The process of life and its preservation form the main
purpose. Life and preservation of life is the core and centre of the Religion
of the savage society. As pointed out by Prof. Crawley
the religion of the savage begins and ends with the affirmation and
conservation of life.
In life and preservation of life
consists the religion of the savage. What is however true of the religion of
the savage is true of all religions wherever they are found for the simple
reason that constitutes the essence of religion. It is true that in the present
day society with its theological refinements this essence of religion has
become hidden from view and is even forgotten. But that life and the
preservation of life constitute the essence of religion even in the present day
society is beyond question. This is well illustrated by Prof. Crowley. When speaking of the religious life of man in
the present day society, he says how—
"a man's religion does not enter
into his professional or social hours, his scientific or artistic moments; practically its chief claims are settled on one day
in the week from which ordinary worldly concerns
are excluded. In fact, his life is in two parts; but the moiety with which
religion is concerned is the elemental. Serious thinking on ultimate questions
of life and death is, roughly speaking, the essence of his Sabbath; add to this the habit of prayer, giving the thanks
at meals, and the subconscious feeling that birth and death, continuation and
marriage are rightly solemnised by religion, while business and pleasure may
possibly be consecrated, but only metaphorically or by an overflow of religious
feeling."
Comparing this description of the
religious concerns of the man in the present day society with that of the
savage, who can deny that the religion is essentially the same, both in theory
and practice whether one speaks of the religion of the savage society or of the
civilised society.
It is therefore clear that savage and civilised societies agree in one respect. In both the central interests of religion—namely in the life processes by which individuals are preserved and the race maintained—are the same. In this there is no real difference between the two. But they differ in two other important respects.
In the first place in the religion of
the savage society there is no trace of the idea of God. In the second place in the
religion of the savage society there is no bond between morality and Religion.
In the savage society there is religion without God. In the savage society
there is morality but it is independent of Religion.
How and when the idea of God became
fused in Religion it is not possible to say. It may be that the idea of God had
its origin in the worship of the Great Man in Society, the Hero—giving rise to
theism—with its faith in its living God. It may be that the idea of God came
into existence as a result of the purely philosophical speculation upon the
problem as to who created life—giving rise to Deism—with its belief in God as
Architect of the Universe.[f7] In any case the idea of God is not
integral to Religion. How it got fused into Religion it is difficult to
explain. With regard to the relation between Religion and Morality this much
may be safely said. Though the relation between God and Religion is not quite
integral, the relation between Religion and morality is. Both religion and
morality are connected with the same elemental facts of human existence—namely
life, death, birth and marriage. Religion consecrates these life processes
while morality furnishes rules for their preservation. Religion in consecrating
the elemental facts and processes of life came to consecrate also the rules
laid down by Society for their preservation. Looked at from this point it is
easily explained why the bond between Religion and Morality took place. It was
more intimate and more natural than the bond between Religion and God. But when
exactly this fusion between Religion and Morality took place it is not easy to
say.
Be that as it may, the fact remains
that the religion of the Civilised Society differs from that of the Savage
Society into two important features. In civilised
society God comes in the scheme of Religion. In civilised society morality
becomes sanctified by Religion.
This is the first stage in the
Religious Revolution I am speaking of. This Religious Revolution must not be
supposed to have been ended here with the emergence of these two new features
in the development of religion. The two ideas having become part of the
constitution of the Religion of the Civilised Society have undergone further
changes which have revolutionized their meaning and their moral significance.
The second stage of the Religious Revolution marks a very radical change. The
contrast is so big that civilized society has become split into two, antique
society and modern society, so that instead of speaking of the religion of the
civilised society it becomes necessary to speak of the religion of antique
society as against the religion of modern society.
The religious revolution, which marks
off antique society from modern society, is far greater than the religious
revolution, which divides savage society from civilised society. Its dimensions
will be obvious from the differences it has brought about in the conceptions
regarding the relations between God, Society and Man. The first point of
difference relates to the composition of society. Every human being, without choice
on his own part, but simply in virtue of his birth and upbringing, becomes a member of what we call a natural society. He belongs that is to a
certain family and a certain nation. This membership lays upon him definite
obligations and duties which he is called upon to fulfil as a matter of course
and on pain of social penalties and disabilities while at the same time it
confers upon him certain social rights and advantages. In this respect the
ancient and modern worlds are alike. But in the words of Prof. Smith[f8]:—
"There is this important difference, that the tribal or national societies of the ancient world were not strictly natural in the modern sense of the word, for the gods had their part and place in them equally with men. The circle into which a man was born was not simply a group of kinsfolk and fellow citizens, but embraced also certain divine beings, the gods of the family and of the state, which to the ancient mind were as much a part of the particular community with which they stood connected as the human members of the social circle. The relation between the gods of antiquity and their worshippers was expressed in the language of human relationship, and this language was not taken in a figurative sense but with strict literally. If a god was spoken of as father and his worshippers as his offspring, the meaning was that the worshippers were literally of his stock, that he and they made up one natural family with reciprocal family duties to one another. Or, again, if the god was addressed as king, and worshippers called themselves his servants, they meant that the supreme guidance of the state was actually in his hands, and accordingly the organisation of the state included provision for consulting his will and obtaining his direction in all weighty matters, also provision for approaching him as king with due homage and tribute.
"Thus a man was born into a fixed
relation to certain gods as surely as he was born into relation to his fellow
men; and his religion, that is, the part of conduct which was determined by his
relation to the gods, was simply one side of the general scheme of conduct
prescribed for him by his position as a member of society. There was no
separation between the spheres of religion and of ordinary life. Every social
act had a reference to the gods as well as to men, for the social body was not
made up of men only, but of gods and men."
Thus in ancient Society men and their
Gods formed a social and political as well as a religious whole. Religion was founded
on kinship between the God and his worshippers. Modern Society has eliminated
God from its composition. It consists of men only.
The second point of difference between
antique and modern society relates to the bond between God and Society. In the
antique world the various communities
"believed in the existence of many
Gods, for they accepted as real the Gods of their enemies as well as their own,
but they did not worship the strange Gods from whom they had no favour to
expect, and on whom their gifts and offerings would have been thrown away.... Each group had its own God, or perhaps a God and
Goddess, to whom the other Gods bore no relation whatever, " [f9]
The God of the antique society was an exclusive God. God was owned by and bound to one singly community. This is largely to be accounted for by
"the share taken by the Gods in
the feuds and wars of their worshippers. The enemies of the God and the enemies
of his people are identical; even in the Old
Testament `the enemies of Jehovah' are originally
nothing else than the enemies of Israel. In battle each God fights for his own
people, and to his aid success is ascribed ; Chemosh
gives victory to Moab, and Asshyr
to Assyria ; and often the divine image or symbol
accompanies the host to battle. When the ark was brought into the camp of
Israel, the Philistines said, "Gods are come
into the camp ; who can deliver us from their own
practice, for when David defeated them at Baalperazirm, part of the booty consisted in their idols which had
been carried into the field. When the Carthaginians, in their treaty with Phillip of Macedon, speak
of "the Gods that take part in the campaign," they doubtless refer to the inmates of the
sacred tent which was pitched in time of war beside the tent of the general,
and before which prisoners were sacrificed after a victory. Similarly an Arabic
poet says, "Yaguth went forth with us against Morad"; that is, the image of the God Yaguth was
carried into the fray".
This fact had produced a solidarity between God and the community.
"Hence, on the principle of solidarity
between Gods and their worshippers, the particularism characteristic of
political society could not but reappear in the sphere of religion. In the same
measure as the God of a clan or town had indisputable claim to the reverence
and service of the community to which he belonged, he was necessarily an enemy
to their enemies and a stranger to those to whom they were strangers".[f10]
God had become attached to a community, and the community had become attached to their God. God had become the God of the Community and the Community had become the chosen community of the God.
This view had two consequences. Antique Society never came to conceive that God could be universal God, the God of all. Antique Society never could conceive that there was any such thing as humanity in general.
The third point of difference between ancient and modern society, has reference to the conception of the fatherhood of God. In the antique Society God was the Father of his people but the basis of this conception of Fatherhood was deemed to be physical.
"In heathen religions the Fatherhood of
the Gods is physical fatherhood. Among the Greeks, for example, the idea that the
Gods fashioned men out of clay, as potters fashion images, is relatively modern.
The older conception is that the races of men have Gods for their ancestors, or
are the children of the earth, the common mother of Gods and men, so that men
are really of the stock or kin of the Gods. That the same conception was
familiar to the older Semites appears from the Bible. Jeremiah describes
idolaters as saying to a stock, Thou art my father ;
and to a stone, Thou has brought me forth. In the ancient poem, Num. xxi. 29, The Moabites are
called the sons and daughters of Chemosh, and at a
much more recent date the prophet Malachi calls a
heathen woman "the daughter of a strange God". These phrases are doubtless accommodations to
the language, which the heathen neighbours of Israel used about themselves. In
Syria and Palestine each clan, or even complex of clans forming a small
independent people, traced back its origin to a great first father ; and they indicate that, just as in Greece this
father or progenitor of the race was commonly identified with the God of the
race. With this it accords that in the judgment of most modern enquirers several names of deities appear in the old
genealogies of nations in the Book of Genesis. Edom,
for example, the progenitor of the Edomites, was
identified by the Hebrews with Esau the brother of Jacob, but to the heathen he
was a God, as appears from the theophorous proper
name Obededom, " worshipper of Edom", the extant fragments of Phoenician and Babylonian cosmogonies date from a time when tribal
religion and the connection of individual Gods with particular kindreds
was forgotten or had fallen into the
background. But in a generalized form the notion that men are the offspring of
the Gods still held its ground. In the Phoenician cosmogony of Philo Bablius it does so
in a confused shape, due to the authors euhemerism,
that is, to his theory that deities are nothing more than deified men who had
been great benefactors to their species. Again, in the Chaldaean
legend preserved by Berosus, the belief that men
are of the blood of the Gods is expressed in a form too crude not to be very
ancient; for animals as well as men are said to have been formed out of clay
mingled with the blood of a decapitated deity. "[f11]
This conception of blood kinship of
Gods and men had one important consequence. To the antique world God was a
human being and as such was not capable of absolute virtue and absolute
goodness. God shared the physical nature of man and was afflicted with the
passions infirmities and vices to which man was subject. The God of the antique world had all the wants and appetites of man
and he often indulged in the vices in which many revelled. Worshipers had to
implore God not to lead them into temptations.
In modern Society the idea of divine
fatherhood has become entirely dissociated from the physical basis of natural
fatherhood. In its place man is conceived to be created in the image of God ;
he is not deemed I to be begotten by God. This change in the conception of the
fatherhood of God looked at from its moral aspect has made a tremendous
difference in the nature of God as a Governor of the Universe. God with his
physical basis was not capable of absolute good and absolute virtue. With God
wanting in righteousness the universe could not
insist on righteousness as an immutable principle. This dissociation of God
from physical contact with man has made it possible for God to be conceived of
as capable of absolute good and absolute virtue.
The fourth point of difference relates
to the part religion plays when a change of nationality takes place.
In the antique world there could be no change of nationality unless it was accompanied by a change of Religion. In the antique world, "It was impossible for an. individual to change his religion without changing his nationality, and a whole community could hardly change its religion at all without being absorbed into another stock or nation. Religions like political ties were transmitted from father to son ; for a man could not choose a new God at will ; the Gods of his fathers were the only deities on whom he could count as friendly and ready to accept his homage, unless he forswore his own kindred and was received into a new circle of civil as well as religious life."
How change of religion was a condition precedent to a Social fusion is well illustrated by the dialogue between Naomi and Ruth in the Old Testament.
"Thy Sister" says Naomi to Ruth, "is gone back unto her people and unto her Gods"; and Ruth replies, "Thy people shall be my people and thy God my God."
It is quite clear that in the ancient
world a change of nationality involved a change of cult. Social fusion meant
religious fusion.
In modern society abandonment of
religion or acceptance of another is not necessary for social fusion. This is
best illustrated by what is in modern terminology and naturalisation, whereby
the citizen of one state abandons his citizenship of the state and becomes a
citizen of new state. In this process of naturalisation religion has no place.
One can have a social fusion which is another name for naturalisation without
undergoing a religious fusion.
To distinguish modern society from
antique society it is not enough to say that Modern Society consists of men
only. It must be added that it consists of men who are worshippers of different
Gods.
The fifth point of difference relates to the necessity of knowledge as
to the nature of God as part of religion.
"From the antique point of view, indeed
the question what the Gods are in themselves is not a religious but a
speculative one ; what is requisite to religion is
a practical acquaintance with the rules on I
which the deity acts and on which he expects his worshippers to frame
their conduct—what in 2 Kings xvii. 26 is called
the "manner"
or rather the "customary law " (misphat) of the
God of the land. This is true even of the religion of Israel. When the prophets
speak of the knowledge of the laws and principles of His government in Israel,
and a summary expression for religion as a whole is "the
knowledge and fear of Jehovah," i.e. the
knowledge of what Jehovah prescribes, combined with a reverent obedience. An
extreme skepticism towards all religious speculation is recommended in the Book
of Ecclesiastes as the proper attitude of piety,
for no amount of discussion can carry a man beyond the plain rule, to "fear God and keep His Commandments". This counsel the author puts into the mouth of
Solomon, and so represents it, not unjustly, as summing up the old view of
religion, which in more modern days had unfortunately begun to be undermined."
The sixth point of difference relates
to the place of belief in Religion.
In ancient Society :—
"Ritual and practical usages were,
strictly speaking, the sum total of ancient religions. Religion in primitive
times was not a system of belief with practical applications ; it was a body of fixed traditional practices, to
which every member of society conformed as a matter of courage. Men would not
be men if they agreed to do certain things without having a reason for their
action ; but in ancient religion the reason was not
first formulated as a doctrine and then expressed in practice, but conversely,
practice preceded doctrinal theory. Men form
general rule of conduct before they begin to express general principles in
words ; political institutions are older than
political theories and in like manner religious institutions are older than
religious theories. This analogy is not arbitrarily chosen, for in fact the parallelism
in ancient society between religious and political institutions is complete. In
each sphere great importance was attached to form and precedent, but the
explanation why the precedent was followed consisted merely of legend as to its
first establishment. That the
precedent, once established, was authoritative did not appear to require
any proof. The rules of society were based on precedent, and the continued
existence of the society was sufficient reason why a precedent once set should
continue to be followed."
The seventh point of difference
relates to the place of individual conviction in Religion. In ancient Society :—
"Religion was a part of the organized
social life into which a man was born, and to which he conformed through life
in the same unconscious way in which men fall into any habitual practice of the
society in which they live. Men took the Gods and their worship for granted,
just as they took the other usages of the state for granted, and if they reason
or speculated about them, they did so on the presupposition that the
traditional usages were fixed things, behind which their reasoning must not go,
and which no reasoning could be allowed to overturn. To us moderns religion is
above all a matter of individual conviction and reasoned belief, but to the
ancients it was a part of the citizen's public life, reduced to fixed forms,
which he was not bound to understand and was not at liberty to criticize or to
neglect. Religious non-conformity was an offence against the state; for if sacred
tradition was tampered with the bases of society were undermined, and the
favour of the Gods was forfeited. But so long as the prescribed forms were duly
observed, a man was recognized as truly pious, and no one asked how his
religion was rooted in his heart or affected his reason. Like political duty,
of which indeed it was a part, religion was entirely comprehended in the
observance of certain fixed rules of outward conduct."
The eighth point of difference
pertains to the relation of God to Society and man, of Society to Man in the
matter of God's Providence.
First as to the difference in the
relation of God to Society. In this connection three points may be noted. The
faith of the antique world
"Sought nothing higher than a condition
of physical bien
etre. .
. . The good things desired of the
Gods were the blessings of earthly life, not spiritual but carnal things." What the antique societies asked and believed
themselves to receive from their God lay mainly in the following things :
"Abundant harvests, help against their
enemies and counsel by oracles or soothsayers in matters of natural difficulty." In the antique world
"Religion was not the affair of the
individual but of the Community. . . . It was the community,
and not the individual, that was sure of the permanent and the unfailing hand
of the deity." Next as to the difference in
the relation of God to man.
"It was not the business of the Gods of
heathenish to watch, by a series of special providence, over the welfare of
every individual. It is true that individuals laid their private affairs before
the Gods, and asked with prayers and views for strictly personal blessings. But
they did this just as they might crave a personal boon from a king, or as a son
craves a boon from a father, without expecting to get all that was asked. What
the Gods might do in this way was done as a matter of personal favour, and was
no part of their proper function as heads of the community."
"The Gods watched over a man's civic
life, they gave him his share in public benefits, the annual largess of the
harvest and the vintage, national peace or victory over enemies, and so forth,
but they were not sure helpers in every private need, and above all they would
not help him in matters that were against the interests of the community as a
whole. There was therefore a whole region of possible needs and desires for
which religion could and would do nothing." Next
the difference in the attitude of God and Society to man.
In the antique
world Society was indifferent to individual welfare. God as no doubt bound to
Society. But
"The
compact between the God and his worshippers was not held to pledge the deity to
make the private cares of each member of the Community his own."
"The
benefits expected of God were of a public character affecting the whole
community, especially fruitful seasons, increase of flocks of herds and success
in war. So long as community flourished the fact that an individual was
miserable reflected no discredit on divine providence."
On the contrary
the antique world looked upon the misery of a man as proof.
"That the sufferer was an evil-doer, justly
hateful to the Gods. Such a man was out of place among the happy and the
prosperous crowd that assembled on feast days before the alter." It is in accordance with this view that the
leper and the mourner were shut out from the exercise of religion as well as
from the privileges of social life and their food was not brought into the
house of God.
As for conflict between individual and individual and between society and the individual God had no concern. In the antique world :
"It was
not expected that (God) should always be busy righting human affairs. In
ordinary matters it was men's business to help themselves and their own kins
folk, though the sense that the God was always near, and could be called upon
at need, was a moral force continually working in some degree for the
maintenance of social righteousness and order. The strength of this moral force
was indeed very uncertain, for it was always possible for the evil-doer to
flatter himself that his offence would be overlooked."
In the antique world man did not ask God to be righteous to him.
"Whether in civil or in profane matters, the habit
of the old world was to think much of the community
and little of the individual life, and no one felt this to be unjust even
though it bore hardly on himself. The God was the God of the national or of the
tribe, and he knew and cared for the individual only as a member of the
community."
That
was the attitude that man in the antique world took of his own private
misfortune. Man came to rejoice before his God and "in
rejoicing before his God man rejoiced with and for the welfare of his kindred,
his neighbours and his country, and, in renewing by solemn act of worship the
bond that united him to God, he also renewed the bonds of family, social and
national obligation." Man in the antique world
did not call upon his maker to be righteous to him.
Such is this
other Revolution in Religion. There have thus been two Religious Revolutions.
One was an external Revolution. The other was an internal Revolution. The
External Revolution was concerned with the field within which the authority of
Religion was to prevail. The Internal Revolution had to do with the changes in
Religion as a scheme of divine Governance for human society. The External
Revolution was not really a Religious Revolution at all. It was a revolt of
science against the extra territorial jurisdiction
assumed by Religion over a field which did not belong. The Internal Revolution
was a real Revolution or may be compared to any other political Revolution,
such as the French Revolution or the Russian Revolution. It involved a
constitutional change. By this Revolution the Scheme of divine governance came
to be altered, amended and reconstituted.
How profound
have been the changes which this internal Revolution, has made in the antique
scheme of divine governance can be easily seen. By this Revolution God has
ceased to be a member of a community. Thereby he has become impartial. God has
ceased to be the Father of Man in the physical sense of the word. He has become
the creator of the Universe. The breaking of this blood bond has made it
possible to hold that God is good. By this Revolution man has ceased to be a
blind worshipper of God doing nothing but obeying his commands. Thereby man has
become a responsible person required to justify his belief in God's
commandments by his conviction. By this Revolution God has ceased to be merely
the protector of Society and social interests in gross have ceased to be the
center of the divine Order. Society and man have changed places as centers of
this divine order. It is man who has become the center of it.
All this
analysis of the Revolution in the Ruling concepts of Religion as a scheme of
divine governance had one purpose namely to discover the norm for evaluating
the philosophy of a Religion. The impatient reader may not ask where are these
norms and what are they? The reader may not have found the norms specified by
their names in the foregoing discussion. But he could not have failed to notice
that the whole of this Religious Revolution was raging around the norms for
judging what is right and what is wrong. If he has not, let me make explicit
what has been implicit in the whole of this discussion. We began with the
distinction between antique society and modern society as has been pointed out
they differed in the type of divine governance they accepted as their Religious
ideals. At one end of the Revolution was the antique society with its Religious
ideal in which the end was Society. At the other end of the Revolution is the
modern Society with its Religious ideal in which the end is the individual. To
put the same fact in terms of the norm it can be said that the norm or the
criterion, for judging right and wrong in the Antique Society was utility while the norm or the criterion
for judging right and wrong in the modern Society is Justice. The Religious Revolution was not thus a revolution in the
religious organization of Society resulting in the shifting of the center—from
society to the individual—it was a revolution in the norms.
Some may
demur to the norms I have suggested. It may be that it is a new way of reaching
them. But to my mind there is no doubt that they are the real norms by which to
judge the philosophy of religion. In the first place the norm must enable
people to judge what is right and wrong in the conduct of men. In the second
place the norm must be appropriate to current notion of what constitutes the
moral good. From both these points of view they appear to be the true norms.
They enable us to judge what is right and wrong. They are appropriate to the
society which adopted them. Utility as a criterion was appropriate to the
antique world in which society being the end, the moral good was held to be
something which had social utility. Justice as a criterion became appropriate
to the Modern World in which individual being the end, the moral good was held
to be something which does justice to the individual. There may be controversy
as to which of the two norms is morally superior. But I do not think there can
be any serious controversy that these are not the norms. If it is said that
these norms are not transcendental enough ; my
reply is that if a norm whereby one is to judge the philosophy of religion must
be Godly, it must also be earthly. At any rate these are the norms I propose to
adopt in examining the philosophy of Hinduism.
This is a long detour.
But it was a necessary preliminary to any inquiry into the main question.
However, when one begins the inquiry one meets with an initial difficulty. The
Hindu is not prepared to face the inquiry. He either argues that religion is of
no importance or he takes shelter behind the view—fostered by the study of
comparative Religion—that all religions are good. There is no doubt that both
these views are mistaken and untenable.
Religion as a social
force cannot be ignored. Religion has been aptly described by Hebert Spencer as "the
weft which everywhere crosses the warp of history".
This is true of every Society. But Religion has not only crossed everywhere the
warp of Indian History it forms the warp and woof of the Hindu mind. The life
of the Hindu is regulated by Religion at every moment of his life. It orders
him how during life he should conduct himself and how on death his body shall
be disposed of. It tells him how and when he shall indulge in his sexual
impulses. It tells him what ceremonies are to be performed when a child is
born—how he should name, how he should cut the hair on its head, how he should
perform its first feeding. It tells him what occupation he can take to, what
woman he should marry. It tells him with whom he should dine and what food he
should eat, what vegetables are lawful and what are forbidden. It tells how he
should spend his day, how many times he should eat, how many times he should
pray. There is no act of the Hindu which is not covered or ordained by
Religion. It seems strange that the educated Hindus should come to look upon it
as though it was a matter of indifference.
Besides, Religion is a social force.
As I have pointed out Religion stands for a scheme of divine governance. The
scheme becomes an ideal for society to follow. The ideal may be non-existent in
the sense that it is something which is constructed. But although non-existent,
it is real. For an ideal it has full operative force which is inherent in every
ideal. Those who deny the importance of religion not only forget this, they also
fail to realize how great is the potency and sanction that lies behind a
religious ideal as compound with that of a purely secular ideal. This is
probably due to the lag which one sees between the real and the ideal which is
always present whether the ideal is religious or secular. But the relative
potency of the two ideals is to be measured by another test—namely their power
to override the practical instincts of man. The ideal is concerned with
something that is remote. The practical instincts of man are concerned with the
immediate present. Now placed as against the force of the practical instincts
of man the two ideals show their difference in an unmistaken manner. The
practical instincts of man do yield to the prescriptions of a religious ideal
however much the two are opposed to each other. The practical instincts of man
do not on the other hand yield to the secular ideal if the two are in conflict.
This means that a religious ideal has a hold on mankind, irrespective of an
earthly gain. This can never be said of a purely secular ideal. Its power
depends upon its power to confer material benefit. This shows how great is the
difference in the potency and sanction of the two ideals over the human mind. A
religious ideal never fails to work so long as there is faith in that ideal. To
ignore religion is to ignore a live wire.
Again to hold that all religions are
true and good is to cherish a belief which is positively and demonstrably wrong. This belief, one is sorry to say, is the result
of what is known as the study of comparative religion. Comparative religion has
done one great service to humanity. It has broken down the claim and arrogance
of revealed religions as being the only true and good religions of study. While
it is true that comparative religion has abrogated the capricious distinction
between true and false religions based on purely arbitrary and a priori
considerations, it has brought in its wake some
false notions about religion. The most harmful one is the one I have mentioned
namely that all religions are equally good and that there is no necessity of
discriminating between them. Nothing can be a greater error than this. Religion
is an institution or an influence and like all social influences and
institutions, it may help or it may harm a society which is in its grip. As
pointed out by Prof. Tiele[f12] religion is
"one of the mightiest motors in the
history of mankind, which formed as well as tore asunder nations, united as
well as divided empires, which sanctioned the most atrocious and barbarous
deeds, the most libinous customs, inspired the most
admirable acts of heroism, self renunciation, and devotion, which occasioned
the most sanguinary wars, rebellions and persecutions, as well as brought about
the freedom, happiness and peace of nations—at one time a partisan of tyranny,
at another breaking its chains, now calling into existence and fostering a new
and brilliant civilization, then the deadly foe to
progress, science and art."
A force which shows such a strange contrast
in its result can be accepted as good without examining the form it takes and
the ideal it serves. Everything depends upon what social ideal a given religion
as a divine scheme of governance hold out. This is a question which is not
avowed by the science of comparative religion. Indeed it begins where
comparative religion ends. The Hindu is merely trying to avoid it by saying
that although religions are many they are equally good. For they are not.
However much the Hindu may seek to burke the inquiry into the philosophy of Hinduism
there is no escape. He must face it.
Now to begin with the subject. I
propose to apply both the tests, the test of justice and the test of utility to
judge the philosophy of Hinduism.
First I will apply the test of justice. Before doing so I want to explain what
I mean by the principle of justice.
No one has expounded it better than
Professor Bergbon[f13]. As interpreted by him the principle of justice
is a compendious one and includes most of the other principles which have
become the foundation of a moral order. Justice has always evoked ideas of
equality, of proportion of "compensation". Equity signifies equality. Rules and
regulations, right and righteousness are concerned with equality in value. If
all men are equal, all men are of the same essence and the common essence
entitled them to the same fundamental rights and to equal liberty.
In short justice is simply another
name for liberty equality and fraternity. It is in this sense I shall be using[f14] justice as a criterion to judge
Hinduism.
Which of these tenets does Hinduism
recognize? Let us take the question one by one.
1. Does Hinduism recognize Equality?
The question instantaneously brings to
one's mind the caste system. One striking feature of the caste system is that
the different castes do not stand as an horizontal series all on the same
plane. It is a system in which the different castes are placed in a vertical
series one above the other. Manu may not be
responsible for the creation of caste. Manu preached
the sanctity of the Varna and as I have shown Varna is the parent of caste. In
that sense Manu can be charged with being the progenitor if not the author of
the Caste System. Whatever be the case as to the guilt of Manu regarding the
Caste System there can be no question that Manu is responsible for upholding
the principle of gradation and rank.
In the scheme of Manu the Brahmin is
placed at the first in rank. Below
him is the Kshatriya. Below Kshatriya is the Vaishya. Below Vaishya is the Shudra and Below Shudra
is the Ati-Shudra (the Untouchables). This system
of rank and gradation is, simply another way of enunciating the principle of
inequality so that it may be truly said that Hinduism does not recognize
equality. This inequality in status is not merely the inequality that one sees
in the warrant of precedence prescribed for a ceremonial gathering at a King's
Court. It is a permanent social relationship among the classes to be observed—
to be enforced—at all times in all places and for all purposes. It will take
too long to show how in every phase of life Manu has introduced and made
inequality the vital force of life. But I will illustrate it by taking a few
examples such as slavery, marriage and Rule of Law.
Manu
recognizes[f15] Slavery. But he confined it to the Shudras. Only Shudras
could be made slaves of the three higher classes. But the higher classes could
not be the slaves of the Shudra.
But evidently practice differed from
the law of Manu and not only Shudras happened to
become slaves but members of the other three classes also become slaves. When
this was discovered to be the case a new rule was enacted by a Successor of
Manu namely Narada[f16]. This new rule of Narada
runs as follows :—
V 39. In the inverse order of the four
castes slavery is not ordained except where a man violates the duties peculiar
to his caste. Slavery (in that respect) is analogous to the condition of a
wife."
Recognition of slavery was bad enough.
But if the rule of slavery had been left free to take its own course it would
have had at least one beneficial effect. It would have been a levelling force.
The foundation of caste would have been destroyed. For under it a Brahmin might
have become the slave of the Untouchable and the Untouchable would have become
the master of the Brahmin. But it was seen that unfettered slavery was an equalitarian principle and an attempt was made to
nullify it. Manu and his successors therefore while recognising slavery ordain
that it shall not be recognised in its inverse order to the Varna System. That
means that a Brahmin may become the slave of another Brahmin. But he shall not
be the slave of a person of another Varna i.e. of the Kshatriya,
Vaishya, Shudra, or Ati-Shudra.
On the other hand a Brahmin may hold as his slave any one belonging to the four
Varnas. A Kshatriya can
have a Kshatriya, Vaisha, Shudra and Ati-Shudra as
his slaves but not one who is a Brahmin. A Vaishya can have a Vaishya, Shudra
and Ati-Shudra as his slaves but not one who is a Brahmin or a Kshatriya. A
Shudra can hold a Shudra and Ati-shudra can hold an
Ati-Shudra as his slave but not one who is a Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya or
Shudra.
Consider Manu on marriage. Here are
his rules governing intermarriage among the different classes. Manu says :—-
III. 12. "For the first marriage
of the twice born classes, a woman of the same class is recommended but for
such as are impelled by inclination to marry again, women in the direct order
of the classes are to be preferred."
III. 13. "A Shudra woman only must be the wife of Shudra : she and a Vaisya, of a Vaisya; they two and a Kshatriya, of a Kshatriya ; those two and a Brahmani of a Brahman."
Manu is of course opposed to
intermarriage. His injunction is for each class to marry within his class. But
he does recognize marriage outside the defined class. Here again he is
particularly careful not to allow intermarriage to do harm to his principle of
inequality among classes. Like Slavery he permits intermarriage but not in the
inverse order. A Brahmin when marrying outside his class may marry any woman
from any of the classes below him. A Kshatriya is free to marry a woman from
the two classes next below him namely the Vaishya
and Shudra but must not marry a woman from the Brahmin class which is above
him. A Vaishya is free to marry a woman from the Shudra Class which is next
below him. But he cannot marry a woman from the Brahmin and the Kshatriya Class
which are above him.
Why this discrimination? The only answer is that Manu was most anxious to
preserve the rule of inequality which was his guiding principle.
Take Rule of Law. Rule of Law is
generally understood to mean equality before law. Let any one interested to
know what Manu has to say on the point ponder over the following Rules
extracted from his code which for easy understanding I have arranged under
distinct headings.
As to witnesses.—According to Manu they are to be sworn as follows :—
VIII. 87. "In
the forenoon let the judge, being purified, severally call on the twice-born,
being purified also, to declare the truth, in the presence of some image, a
symbol of the divinity and of Brahmins, while the
witnesses turn their faces either to the north or to the east."
VIII. 88. "To
a Brahman he must begin with saying, `Declare ; to a Kshatriya, with saying, '
Declare the truth '; to a Vaisya, with comparing perjury to the crime of
stealing kine, grain or gold ; to a Sudra, with
comparing it in some or all of the following sentences, to every crime that men
can commit.".
VIII. 113. "Let the judge cause a
priest to swear by his veracity ; a soldier, by his horse, or elephant, and his
weapons ; a merchant, by his kine, grain, and gold ; a mechanic or servile man, by imprecating on his own
head, if he speak falsely, all possible crimes ;"
Manu also deals with cases of witnesses
giving false evidence. According to Manu giving false evidence is a crime, says
Manu :—
VIII. 122. "Learned
men have specified these punishments, which were ordained by sage legislators
for perjured witnesses, with a view to prevent a failure of justice and to
restrain iniquity."
VIII. 123. "Let
a just prince banish men of the three lower classes, if they give false
evidence, having first levied the fine ; but a Brahman let him only banish."
But Manu made one exception :—
VIII. 1 12. "To
women, however, at a time of dalliance, or on a proposal of marriage, in the
case of grass or fruit eaten by a cow, of wood taken for a sacrifice, or of a
promise made for the preservation of a Brahman, it is deadly sin to take a
light oath." As parties to proceedings—Their
position can be illustrated by quoting the ordinances of Manu relating to a few
of the important criminal offences dealt with by Manu. Take the offence of
Defamation. Manu says :—
VIII. 267. "A
soldier, defaming a priest, shall be fined a hundred panas,
a merchant, thus offending, an hundred and fifty, or two hundred; but, for such
an offence, a mechanic or servile man shall be shipped."
III. 268. "A priest shall be
fined fifty, if he slander a soldier; twenty five, if a merchant ; and twelve, if he slander a man of the servile
class." Take the offence of Insult—Manu says:—
VIII. 270. "A once born man, who
insults the twice-born with gross invectives, ought to have his tongue slit ; for he sprang from the lowest part of Brahma."
VIII. 271. "If he mention their
names and classes with contumely, as if he say, "Oh Devadatta, though refuse of Brahmin", an iron style, ten fingers long, shall be
thrust red into his mouth."
VIII. 272. "Should he, through
pride, give instruction to priests concerning their duty, let the king order
some hot oil to be dropped into his mouth and his ear."
Take the offence of Abuse—Manu says :—
VIII. 276. "For
mutual abuse by a priest and a soldier, this fine must be imposed by a learned
king; the lowest amercement on the priest, and the middle-most on the soldier."
VIII. 277. "Such exactly, as
before mentioned, must be the punishment a merchant and a mechanic, in respect
of their several classes, except the slitting of the tongue ; this is a fixed rule of punishment. " Take the
offence of Assault—Manu propounds :—
VIII. 279. "With whatever member
a low-born man shall assault or hurt a superior, even that member of his must
be slit, or cut more or less in proportion to the injury ; this is an ordinance of Manu."
VIII. 280. "He
who raises his hand or a staff against another, shall have his hand cut ; and he, who kicks another in wrath, shall have an
incision made in his foot." Take the offence
of Arrogance—According to Manu:—
VIII. 28). "A man of the lowest
class, who shall insolently place himself on the same seat with one of the highest,
shall either be banished with a mark on his hinder parts, or the king, shall
cause a gash to be made on his buttock."
VIII. 282. "Should he spit on him
through price, the king shall order both his lips to be gashed; should he urine
on him, his penis: should he break wing against
him, his anus."
VIII. 283. "If
he seize the Brahman by the locks, or by the feet,
or by the beard, or by the throat, or by the scrotum, let the king without
hesitation cause incisions to be made in his hands."
Take the offence of Adultery. Says Manu:—
VIII. 359. "A man of the servile
class, who commits actual adultery with the wife of a priest, ought to suffer
death; the wives, indeed, of all the four classes must ever be most especially
guarded."
VIII. 366. "A low man, who makes
love to a damsel of high birth, ought to be punished corporal; but he who
addresses a maid of equal rank, shall give the nuptial present and marry her,
if her father please."
VIII. 374. "A mechanic or servile
man, having an adulterous connection with a woman
of a twice-born class, whether guarded at home or unguarded, shall thus be
punished ; if she was unguarded, he shall lose the
part offending, and his whole substance ; if
guarded, and a priestess, every thing, even his life."
VIII. 375. "For adultery with a
guarded priestess, a merchant shall forfeit all his wealth after imprisonment
for a year; a soldier shall be fined a thousand panas,
and he be shaved with the urine of an ass."
VIII. 376. "But,
if a merchant or soldier commit adultery with a woman of the sacerdotal class,
whom her husband guards not at home, the king shall only fine the merchant five
hundred, and the soldier a thousand;”
VIII. 377. "Both
of them, however, if they commit that offence with a priestess not only guarded
but eminent for good qualities, shall be punished like men of the servile
class, or be burned in a fire of dry grass or reeds."
VIII. 382. "If a merchant
converse criminally with a guarded woman of the military, or a soldier with one
of the mercantile class, they both deserve the same punishment as in the case
of a priestess unguarded."
VIII. 383. "But a Brahman, who shall commit adultery with a guarded
woman of those two classes, must be fined a thousand panas
; and for the life offence with a guarded woman of
the servile class, the fine of a soldier or a merchant shall be also one
thousand."
VIII. 384. "For
adultery with a woman of the military class, if guarded, the fine of a merchant
is five hundred ; but a soldier, for the converse
of that offence, must be shaved with urine, or pay the fine just mentioned."
VIII. 385. "A priest shall pay
five hundred panas if he connect himself criminally with an unguarded woman of
the military, commercial, or servile class, and a thousand, for such a
connection with a woman of a vile mixed breed."
Turning to the system of punishment
for offences Manu's Scheme throws an interesting
light on the subject. Consider the following ordinances :—
VIII. 379. "Ignominious tonsure
is ordained, instead of capital punishment, for an adulterer of the priestly
class, where the punishment of other classes may extend to Loss of life."
VIII. 380. "Never shall the king
slay a Brahman, though convicted of all possible crimes ; let him banish the offender from his realm, but with
all his property secure, and his body unhurt."
XI. 127. "For killing
intentionally a virtuous man of the military class, the penance must be a
fourth part of that ordained for killing a priest ; for killing a Vaisya, only an eighth, for killing a Sudra, who had been constant in discharging his
duties, a sixteenth part."
XI. 128. "But, if a Brahmen kill a Kshatriya
without malice, he must, after a full performance of his religious rites, give
the priests one bull together with a thousand cows."
XI. 129. "Or he may perform for
three years the penance for slaying a Brahmen, mortifying his organs of
sensation and action, letting his hair grow long, and living remote from the
town, with the root of a tree for his mansion."
XI. 130. "If he kill without
malice a Vaisya, who had a good moral character, he
may perform the same penance for one year, or give the priests a hundred cows
and a bull."
XI. 131. "For six months must he
perform this whole penance, if without intention he kill a Sudra ; or he may give ten
white cows and a bull to the priests."
VIII. 381.
"No greater crime is known on earth than slaying a Brahman ; and the king,
therefore, must not even form in his mind an idea of killing a priest."
VIII. 126. "Let the king having
considered and ascertained the frequency of a similar offence, the place and
time, the ability of the criminal to pay or suffer and the crime itself, cause
punishment to fall on those alone, who deserves it."
VIII. 124. "Manu,
son of the Self-existent, has named ten places of punishment, which are
appropriated to the three lower classes, but a Brahman must depart from the
realm unhurt in any one of them."
VIII. 125. "The part of
generation, the belly, the tongue, the two hands, and, fifthly, the two feet,
the eye, the nose, both ears, the property, and, in a capital case, the whole
body." How strange is the contrast between
Hindu and Non-Hindu criminal jurisprudence? How inequality is writ large in
Hinduism as seen in its criminal jurisprudence? In a penal code charged with
the spirit of justice we find two things—a section dealing defining the crime
and a prescribing a rational form of punishment for breach of it and a rule
that all offenders are liable to the same penalty. In Manu what do we find? First
an irrational system of punishment. The punishment for a crime is inflicted on
the organ concerned in the crime such as belly, tongue, nose, eyes, ears,
organs of generation etc., as if the offending organ was a sentient being
having a will for its own and had not been merely a servitor of human being.
Second feature of Manu's penal code is the inhuman
character of the punishment which has no proportion to the gravity of the
offence. But the most striking feature of Manu's Penal Code which stands out in
all its nakedness is the inequality of punishment for the same offence.
Inequality designed not merely to punish the offender but to protect also the
dignity and to maintain the baseness of the parties coming to a Court of Law to
seek justice in other words to maintain the social inequality on which his
whole scheme is founded.
So far I have taken for illustrations such matters as serve to show * how Manu has ordained social
inequality. I now propose to take other matters dealt with by Manu in order to
illustrate that Manu has also ordained Religious inequality. These are matters
which are connected with what are called sacraments and Ashrams.
The Hindus like the Christians believe
in sacraments. The only difference is that the Hindus have so many of them that
even the Roman Catholic Christians would be surprised at the extravagant number
observed by the Hindus. Originally their number was forty and covered the most
trivial as well as the most important occasions in I a person's life. First
they were reduced to twenty. Later on it was reduced to sixteen[f17] and at that figure the sacraments of
the Hindus have remained stabilized.
Before I explain how at the core of these rules of sacraments there lies the spirit of inequality the reader must know what the rules are. It is impossible to examine all. It will be enough if I deal with a few of them. I will take only three categories of them, those relating with Initiation, Gayatri and Daily Sacrifices.
First as to Initiation. This initiation is effected by the investitute of a person with the sacred thread. The following are the most important rules of Manu regarding the sacrament of investiture.
II. 36. "In
the eighth year from the conception of a Brahman, in
the eleventh from that of a Kshatriya, and in the twelfth from that of a Vaisya,
let the father invest the child with the mark of his class."
II. 37. "Should
a Brahman, or his father for him, be desirous of his advancement in sacred
knowledge ; a Kshatriya, of extending his power; or
a Vaisya of engaging in mercantile business; the investitute may be made in the
fifth, sixth, or eighth years respectively."
II. 38. "The ceremony of
investitute hallowed by the Gayatri must not be delayed, in the case of a
priest, beyond the sixteenth year ; nor in that of
a soldier, beyond the twenty second ; nor in that
of a merchant, beyond the twenty fourth."
II. 39. "After that, all youths
of these three classes, who have not been invested at the proper time, become vratyas, or outcasts, degraded from the Gayatri, and
condemned by the virtuous."
II. 147. "Let
a man consider that as a mere human birth, which his parents gave him for their
mutual gratification, and which he receives after
lying in the womb."
II. 148. "But that birth which his principal acharya, who knows the whole Veda, procures for him by his divine mother the Gayatri, is a true birth ; that birth is exempt from age and from death."
II. 169. "The first birth is from
a natural mother; the second, from the ligation of
the zone ; the third from the due performance of
the sacrifice ; such are the births of him who is
usually called twice-born, according to a text of the Veda."
II. 170. "Among them his divine
birth is that, which is distinguished by the ligation of the zone, and
sacrificial cord ; and in that birth the Gayatri is his mother, and the Acharya, his father." Then
let me come to Gayatri. It is a Mantra or an
invocation of special spiritual efficacy. Manu
explains what it is. II. 76. "Brahma milked out, as it were, from the three
Vedas, the letter A, the letter U, and the letter M which
form by their coalition the triliteral
monosyllable, together with three mysterious words, bhur,
bhuvah, swer, or earth,
sky, heaven."
II. 77. "From the three Vedas,
also the Lord of creatures, incomprehensibly exalted, successively milked out
the three measures of that ineffable text, be ginning
with the word tad, and entitled Savitri or Gayatri."
II. 78. "A priest who shall know
the Veda, and shall pronounce to himself, both morning and evening, that
syllable and that holy text preceded by the three words, shall attain the
sanctity which the Veda confers."
II. 79. "And a twice born man,
who shall a thousand times repeat those three (or om,
the vyahritis, and the gayatri,) apart from the multitude, shall be released in a
month even from a great offence, as a snake from his slough."
II. 80. "The priest, the soldier,
and the merchant, who shall neglect this mysterious text, and fail to perform in
due season his peculiar acts of piety, shall meet with contempt among the
virtuous."
11.81 "The great immutable words,
preceded by the triliteral syllable, and followed by the Gayatri which consists
of three measures, must be considered as the mouth, or principal part of the
Veda."
II. 82. "Whoever shall repeat,
day by day, for three years, without negligence, that sacred text, shall
hereafter approach the divine essence, move as freely as air, and assume an
ethereal form."
II. 83. "The triliteral monosyllable
is an emblem of the Supreme, the suppressions of breath with a mind fixed on
God are
the highest devotion ; but nothing is more exalted than the gayatri ; a declaration of truth is more excellent than
silence."
II. 84. "All rights ordained in
the Veda, oblations to fire, and solemn sacrifices
pass away; but that which passes not away, is declared to be the sylable om, thence called acshare ; since it is a symbol of God, the Lord of
created beings."
II. 85. "The act of repeating his
Holy Name is ten times better than the appointed sacrifice: an hundred times
better when it is heard by no man ; and a thousand times better when it is
purely mental."
II. 86. "The four domestic
sacraments which are accompanied with the appointed sacrifice, are not equal,
though all be united, to a sixteenth part of the sacrifice performed by a
repetition of the gayatri." Now to the Daily
Sacrifices.
III. 69. "For the sake of
expiating offences committed ignorantly in those
places mentioned in order, the five great sacrifices were appointed by eminent
sages to be performed each day by such as keep house."
III. 70. "Teaching (and studying) the scripture is the sacrifice to the Veda; offering cakes and water, the sacrifice to the Manes, an oblation to fire, the sacrifice to the Deities; giving rice or other food to living creatures, the sacraments of spirits; receiving guests with honour, the sacrifice to men."
III. 71. "Whoever omits not those
five great sacrifices, if he has ability to perform them, is untainted by the
sons of the five slaughtering places, even though he constantly resides at
home."
Turning to the Ashramas. The Ashram
theory is a peculiar feature of the philosophy of Hinduism. It is not known to
have found a place in the teachings of any other religion. According to the
Ashram theory life is to be divided into four stages called Brahmachari, Grahastha,
Vanaprastha and Sannyas.
In the Brahamachari stage a person is unmarried and
devotes his time to the study and education. After this stage is over he enters
the stage of a Grahastha i.e. he marries, rears a
family and attends to his worldly welfare.
Thereafter he enters the third stage and is then known as a Vanaprastha. As a
Vanaprastha he dwells in the forest as a hermit but without severing his ties
with his family or without abandoning his rights to his worldly goods. Then
comes the fourth and the last stage--that of Sannyas—which means complete renunciation of the world
in search of God. The two stages of Braharnchari and Grahastha are natural
enough. The two last stages are only recommendatory. There is no compulsion
about them. All that Manu lays down is as follows:
VI. 1. A twice born who has thus lived according to the law in the order of householders, may, taking a firm resolution and keeping his organs in subjection, dwell in the forest, duly (observing the rules given below.)
VI. 2. When a householder sees his (skin) wrinkled, and
(his hair) white, and the sons of his son, then he may resort to the forest.
VI. 3. Abandoning all food raised by cultivation, all his belongings, he may depart into the forest, either committing his wife to his sons, or accompanied by her.
VI. 33. But having passed the third
pan of (a man's natural term of) life in the forest, he may live as an ascetic during the fourth
part of his existence, after abandoning all attachment to worldly objects.
The inequality embodied in these rules
is real although it may not be quite obvious. Observe that all these sacraments
and Ashramas are confined to the twice-born. The Shudras are excluded[f18] from their benefit. Manu of course has no objection to their undergoing the forms of the ceremonies. But he objects to
their use of the Sacred Mantras in the performance
of the ceremonies. On this Manu says: — X. 127.
"Even Shudras, who were anxious to perform (heir entire duty, and knowing what
they should perform, imitate the practice of good
men in the household sacraments, but without any holy text, except those
containing praise and salutation, are so far from
sinning, that they acquire just applause." See the following text of Manu
for women: — -
II. 66. "The
same ceremonies, except that of the sacrificial thread, must be duly performed
for women at the same age and in the same order, that the body may be made
perfect; but without any text from the Veda."
Why does Manu prohibit the Shudras from the benefit of the Sacraments? His interdict against the Shudras becoming a Sannyasi is a puzzle. Sannyas means and involves renunciation, abandonment of worldly object. In legal language Sannyas is interpreted as being equivalent to civil death. So that when a man becomes a Sannyasi he is treated as being dead from that moment and his heir succeeds immediately. This would be the only consequence, which would follow if a Shudra become a Sannyasi. Such a consequence could hurt nobody except the Shudra himself. Why then this interdict? The issue is important and I will quote Manu to explain the significance and importance of the Sacraments and Sannyas. Let us all ponder over the following relevant texts of Manu :
II. 26. With holy rites, prescribed by the Veda, must the ceremony on conception and other sacraments be performed for twice-born men, which sanctify the body and purify (from sin) in this (life) and after death.
II. 28. By the study of the Veda, by vows, by burnt oblations, by
(the recitation of) sacred texts, by the (acquisition of the) three sacred Vedas, by offering (to the gods Rishis and Manes), by (the procreation of) sons, by
the Great Sacrifices, and by (Srauta) rites this
(human) body is made fit for (union with) Bramha. This
is the aim and object of the Samscaras. Manu also explains the aim and object of Sannyas.
VI. 81. He (the Sannyasi) who has in this manner gradually given up
all attachments and is freed from all the pairs (of opposites), reposes in Brahman alone.
VI. 85. A twice born man who becomes
an ascetic, after the successive performance of the above-mentioned acts,
shakes off sin here below and reaches the highest Brahman. From these texts it
is clear that according to Manu himself the object of the sacraments is to
sanctify the body and purify it from sin in this life and hereafter and to make
it fit for union with God. According to Manu the object of Sannyas to reach and
repose in God. Yet Manu says that the sacraments and Sannyas are the privileges
of the higher classes. They are not open to the Shudra. Why? Does not
a Shudra need sanctification of his body,
purification of his soul? •Does not a Shudra need to have an aspiration to reach
God? Manu probably would have answered these questions in the affirmative. Why
did he then make such rules. The answer is that he was a staunch believer in
social inequality and he knew the danger of admitting religious Equality. If I
am equal before God why am I not equal on earth? Manu was probably terrified by
this question. Rather than admit and allow religious equality to affect social
inequality he preferred to deny religious equality.
Thus in Hinduism you will find both
social inequality and religious inequality imbedded in its philosophy.
To prevent man from purifying himself
from sin!! To prevent man from getting near to God!! To any rational person such rules must appear to be
abnominal and an indication of a perverse mind. It is
a glaring instance of how Hinduism is a denial not only of equality but how it
is denial of the sacred character of human personality.
This is not all. For Manu does not
stop with the non-recognition of human personality. He advocates a deliberate
debasement of human personality. I will take only two instances to illustrate
this feature of the philosophy of Hinduism.
All those who study the Caste System
are naturally led to inquire into the origin of it. Manu
being the progenitor of Caste had to give an explanation of the origin of the
various castes. What is the origin which Manu gives? His explanation is simple.
He says that leaving aside the four original castes the rest are simply
baseborn!! He says they are the progeny
of fornication and adultery between men and women of the four original castes.
The immorality and looseness of character among men and women of the four
original castes must have been limitless to account for the rise of innumerable
castes consisting of innumerable souls!! Manu makes
the wild allegation without stopping to consider what aspersions he is casting
upon men and women of the four original castes. For if the chandals—the old name for the Untouchables—are the
progeny of a Brahman female and a Shudra male then it is obvious that to account for
such a large number of Chandals it must be assumed that every Brahman woman was
slut and a whore and every Shudra lived an adulterous
life with complete abandon. Manu in his mad just
for debasing the different castes by ascribing to them an ignoble origin seems deliberately to pervert historical facts.
I will give only two illustrations. Take Manu's
origin of Magadha
and Vaidehik
and compare it with the origin of the same castes as given by Panini the great Grammarian. Manu says that Magadha is a caste which is born from sexual intercourse between Vaishya male and Kshatriya female.
Manu says that Vaidehik is a caste
which is born from sexual intercourse between a Vaishya male and a Brahmin
female. Now turn to Panini. Panini says that Magadha means a person who is resident of the country known as Magadha. As to Vaidehik Panini says that Vaidehik
means a person who is resident of the country known as Videha. What a contrast!! How cruel it is. Panini lived not later than 300
B.C. Manu lived about 200A.D. How is it that people who bore no stigma in the
time of Panini became so stained in the hands of Manu? The answer is that Manu
was bent on debasing them. Why Manu was bent on deliberately debasing people is
a task which is still awaiting exploration[f19]
In the meantime we have the strange contrast that while Religion
everywhere else is engaged in the task of raising and ennobling mankind
Hinduism is busy in debasing and degrading it.
The other instance I want to use for illustrating
the spirit of debasement which is inherent in Hinduism pertains to rules
regarding the naming of a Hindu child.
The names among Hindus fall into four
classes. They are either connected with
(i)
family deity (ii) the month in which the child is
born (iti)
with the planets under which a child is born or (iv)
are purely temporal i.e. connected with business. According to Manu the temporal name of a Hindu should consist of
two parts and Manu gives directions as to what the first and the second part
should denote. The second part of a Brahmin's name shall be a word implying
happiness ; of a Kshatriya's
a word implying protection; of a Vaishya's a term
expressive of prosperity and of a Shudra's an
expression denoting service. Accordingly the Brahmins have Sharma
(happiness) or Deva
(God), the Kshatriyas have Raja (authority) or Verma (armour), the Vaishyas
have Gupta (gifts) or Datta
(Giver) and the Shudras
have Das
(service) for the second part of their names. As to the first part of their
names Manu says that in the case of a Brahmin it should denote something
auspicious, in the case of a Kshatriya something
connected with power, in the case of a Vaishya something
connected with wealth. But in the case of a Shudra
Manu says the first part of his name should denote something contemptible!! Those who think that such a philosophy is
incredible would like to know the exact reference. For their satisfaction I am
reproducing the following texts from Manu. Regarding the naming ceremony Manu
says :—
II. 30. Let (the father perform or)
cause to be performed the namadheya (the rite of
naming the child), on the tenth or twelfth (day after birth), or on a lucky
lunar day, in a lucky muhurta under an auspicious
constellation.
II. 31. Let (the first part of) a Brahman's name (denote) something auspicious, a Kshatriya's name be
connected with power, and a Vaishya's with wealth,
but a Shudra's (express something) contemptible.
II. 32.
(The second part of) a Brahman's (name) shall be (a
word) implying happiness, of a Kshatriya's (a word) implying protection, of a
Vaishya's (a term) expressive of thriving, and of a Shudra's (an expression)
denoting service.
Manu will not tolerate the Shudra to
have the comfort of a high sounding name. He must
be contemptible both in fact and in name.
Enough has been said to show how
Hinduism is a denial of equality both social as well as religious and how it is
also a degradation of human personality. Does Hinduism recognise liberty?
Liberty to be real must be accompanied
by certain social conditions[f20].
In the first place there should be
social equality. "Privilege tilts the balance
of social action in favour of its possessors. The more equal are the social rights
of citizens, the more able they are to utilise their freedom… If liberty is to
move to its appointed end it is important that there should be equality."
In the second place there must be
economic security. "A man may be free to enter any vocation he may choose.
. . . Yet if he is deprived of security in employment he
becomes a prey of mental and physical servitude incompatible with the very
essence of liberty.... The perpetual fear of the
morrow, its haunting sense of impending disaster, its fitful search for
happiness and beauty which perpetually eludes,
shows that without economic security, liberty is not worth having. Men may well
be free and yet remain unable to realise the purposes of freedom".
In the third place there must be
knowledge made available to all. In the complex world man lives at his peril
and he must find his way in it without losing his freedom.
"There can, under these
conditions, be no freedom that is worthwhile unless the mind is trained to use
its freedom. (Given this fact) the right of man to education becomes
fundamental to his freedom. Deprive a man of knowledge and you will make him
inevitably the slave of those more fortunate than himself.... deprivation of knowledge is a denial of the power
to use liberty for great ends.
An ignorant man may be free. . . . (But) he cannot employ
his freedom so as to give him assurance of happiness."
Which of these conditions does
Hinduism satisfy? How Hinduism is a denial of equality has already been made
clear. It upholds privilege and inequality. Thus in Hinduism the very first
collection for liberty is conspicuous by its
absence.
Regarding economic security three
things shine out in Hinduism. In the first place Hinduism denies freedom of a
vocation. In the Scheme of Manu
each man has his avocation preordained for him before he is born. Hinduism
allows no choice. The occupation being preordained it has no relation to
capacity nor to inclination.
In the second place Hinduism compels people to serve ends chosen by others. Manu tells the Shudra that he is born to serve the higher classes. He exhorts him to make that his ideal. Observe the following rules lay down by Manu.
X. 121. If a Shudra (unable to subsist
by serving Brahmanas) seeks a livelihood, he may
serve Kshatriyas, or he may also seek to maintain
himself by attending on a wealthy Vaishya.
X. 122. But let a Shudra serve Brahmans....
Manu does
not leave the matter of acting upto the ideal to
the Shudra. He goes a step further and provides
that the Shudra does not escape or avoid his destined
task. For one of the duties enjoined by Manu upon the King is to see that all
castes including the Shudra to discharge their appointed tasks.
VIII. 410. "The king should order
each man of the mercantile class to practice trade, or money lending, or
agriculture and attendance on cattle ; and each man
of the servile class to act in the service of the twice born."
VIII. 418. "With vigilant care
should the king exert himself in compelling merchants and mechanics to perform
their respective duties ; for, when such men swerve
from their duty, they throw this world into confusion."
Failure to maintain was made an
offence in the King punishable at Law.
VIII. 335. "Neither a father, nor
a preceptor, nor a
friend, nor a mother, nor a wife, nor a son, nor a domestic priest must be left
unpunished by the King, if they adhere not with firmness to their duty."
VIII. 336. "Where
another man of lower birth would be fined one pana,
the king shall be fined a thousand, and he shall
give the fine to the priests, or cast it into the river, this is a sacred rule." These rules have a two-fold significance,
spiritual as well as economic. In the spiritual sense they constitute the
gospel of slavery. This may not be quite apparent to those who know slavery
only by its legal outward form and not by reference to its inner meaning. With
reference to its inner meaning a slave as defined by Plato means a person who
accepts from another the purposes which control his conduct. In this sense a
slave is not an end in him. He is only a means for filling the ends desired by
others. Thus understood the Shudra is a slave. In their economic significance
the Rules put an interdict on the economic independence of the Shudra. A Shudra,
says Manu, must serve. There may not be much in that to complain of. The wrong
however consists in that the rules require him to serve others. He is not to
serve himself, which means that he must not strive after economic independence.
He must forever remain economically dependent on others. For as Manu says:—
1. 91. One occupation only the lord
prescribed to the Shudra to serve meekly even these other three castes. In the
third place Hinduism leaves no scope for the Shudra to accumulate wealth. Manu's rules regarding the wages to be paid to the Shudra when employed by the three higher classes are
very instructive on this point. Dealing with the question of wages to the Shudras, Manu says :—
X. 124. "They must allot to him
(Shudra) out of their own family property a suitable maintenance, after
considering his ability, his industry, and the number of those whom he is bound
to support."
X. 125. "The remnants of their
food must be given to him, as well as their old clothes, the refuse of their
grain, and their old household furniture.
This is Manu's
law of wages. It is not a minimum wage law. It is a maximum wage law. It was
also an iron law fixed so low that there was no fear of the Shudra accumulating
wealth and obtaining economic security. But Manu did not want to take chances
and he went to the length of prohibiting the Shudra from accumulating property.
He says imperatively:—
X. 129. No collection of wealth must
be made by a Shudra even though he be able to do it; for a Shudra who has
acquired wealth gives pain to Brahmans.
Thus in Hinduism, there is no choice
of avocation. There is no economic independence and there is no economic
security. Economically, speaking of a Shudra is a precarious thing.
In the matter of the spread of
knowledge two conditions are prerequisites. There must be formal education.
There must be literacy. Without these two, knowledge cannot spread. Without
formal education it is not possible to transmit all the resources and
achievements of a complex society. Without formal education the accumulated
thought and experience relating to a subject cannot be made accessible to the
young and which they will never get if they were left to pick up their training
in informal association with others. Without formal education he will not get
new perceptions. His horizon will not be widened and he will remain an ignorant
slave of his routine work. But formal education involves the establishment of
special agencies such as schools, books, planned materials such as studies etc.
How can any one take advantage of these special agencies of formal education
unless he is literate and able to read and write? The spread of the arts of
reading and writing i.e. literacy and formal education go hand in hand. Without
the existence of two there can be no spread of knowledge.
How does Hinduism stand in this matter?
The conception of formal education in
Hinduism is of a very limited character. Formal education was confined only to
the study of the Vedas. That
was only natural. For the Hindus believed that there was no knowledge outside
the Vedas. That being so formal education was confined to the study of the
Vedas. Another consequence was that the Hindu recognised that its only duty was
to study in the schools established for the study of the Vedas. These schools
benefited only the Brahmins. The State did not hold itself responsible for
opening establishments for the study of arts and sciences, which concerned the
life of the merchant and the artisan. Neglected by the state they had to shift
for themselves.
Each class managed to transmit to its members the ways of doing things it was traditionally
engaged in doing. The duties of the Vaishya class
required that a young Vaishya should know the rudiments of commercial
geography, arithmetic, some languages as well as
the practical details of trade. This he learned from his father in the course
of the business. The Artisan's class or the Craftsman who sprang out of the `Shudra class also taught the arts and crafts to their
children in the same way. Education was domestic. Education was practical. It
only increased the skill to do a particular thing. It did not lead to new perceptions.
It did not widen horizon, with the result that the practical education taught him only an isolated and uniform way
of acting so that in a changing environment the skill turned out to be gross
ineptitude. Illiteracy became an inherent part of Hinduism by a process which
is indirect but integral to Hinduism. To understand this process it is
necessary to draw attention to rules framed by Manu in regard to the right to teach and study the
Vedas. They are dealt with in the following Rules.
1. 88. To the Brahmanas
he (the creator) assigned teaching
and studying the Veda.
1. 89. The Kshatriya
he (the creator) commanded to study
the Veda.
1. 90. The Vaishya he (the creator)
commanded. . . . . . to study the Veda.
II. 116. He who shall acquire
knowledge of the Veda without the assent of his preceptor, incurs the guilt of
stealing the scripture, and shall sink to the region of torment."
IV. 99. He (the twice born) must never
read (the Veda). . . . . . in the presence of the Shudras.
IX. 18. Women have no business with
the text of the Veda. XI. 199. A
twice born man who has...... (improperly) divulged
the Veda (i.e. to Shudras and women) (commits sin), atones for his offence, if
he subsists a year on barley. In these texts there are embodied three distinct
propositions. The Brahmin, Kshatriya and Vaishya can study the Vedas. Of these
the Brahmins alone have the right to teach the Vedas.
But in the case of the Shudra he has not only not
to study the Vedas but he should not be allowed to hear it read.
The successors of Manu made the disability of the Shudra in the matter
of the study of the Veda into an offence involving dire penalties. For instance
Gautama says:
XII. 4. If the Shudra intentionally listens for committing to memory the Veda, then his ears should be filled with (molten) lead and lac ; if he utters the Veda, then his tongue should be cut off; if he has mastered the Veda his body should be cut to pieces. To the same effect is Katyayana.
The ancient world may be said to have
been guilty for failing to take the responsibility for the education of the
masses. But never has any society been guilty of closing to the generality of
its people the study of the books of its religion. Never has society been
guilty of prohibiting the mass of its people from acquiring knowledge. Never
has society made any attempt to declare that any attempt made by the common man
to acquire knowledge shall be punishable as a crime. Manu is the only devine
law giver who has denied the common man the right to knowledge.
But I cannot wait to dilate upon this.
I am more immediately concerned in showing how the prohibition against the
study of the Vedas to the mass of the people came to give rise to illiteracy
and ignorance in secular life. The answer is easy. It must be realized that
reading and writing have an integral connection with the teaching and study of
the Vedas. Reading and writing were arts necessary
for those who were free and privileged to study the Vedas. They were not necessary to those who were not free to do
so. In this way reading and writing became
incidental to the study of the Vedas. The result was that the theory of Manu
regarding the rights and prohibitions in the matter of the teaching and the
study of Vedas came to be extended to the arts of
reading and writing. Those who had the right to study the Vedas were accorded
the right to read and write. Those who had no right to study the Vedas were
deprived of the right to read and write. So that it can be rightly said
according to the law of Manu reading and writing has become the right of the
high class few and illiteracy has become the destiny of the low class many.
Only a step
in the process of this analysis will show how Manu by prohibiting literacy was
responsible for the general ignorance in which the
masses came to be enveloped.
Thus Hinduism far from encouraging
spread of knowledge is a gospel of darkness.
Taking these facts into consideration
Hinduism is opposed to the conditions in which liberty can thrive. It is
therefore denial of liberty.
There are two forces prevalent in
Society. Individualism and Fraternity. Individualism is ever present. Every individual is ever
asking "I and my neighbours, are we all
brothers, are we even fiftieth cousins, am I their keeper, why should I do
right to them" and under the pressure of his
own particular interests acting as though he was an end to himself, thereby
developing a non-social and even an anti-social self. Fraternity is a force of
opposite character. Fraternity is another name for fellow feeling. It consists
in a sentiment which leads an individual to identify himself with the good of
others whereby "the good of others becomes to
him a thing naturally and necessarily to be attended to like any of the
physical conditions of our existence". It is
because of this sentiment of fraternity that the individual does not "bring himself to think of the rest of his
fellow-creatures as struggling rivals with him for the means of happiness, whom
he must desire to see defeated in their object in order that he may succeed in
his own." Individualism would produce anarchy.
It is only fraternity, which prevents it and helps to sustain the moral order
among men. Of this there can be no doubt.
How does this sentiment of Fraternity of fellow feeling arise? J. S. Mill says that this sentiment is a natural sentiment.
"The social state is at once so
natural, so necessary, and so habitual to man, that, except in some unusual
circumstances or by an effort of voluntary abstraction he never conceives
himself otherwise than as a member of a body; and this
association is riveted more and more, as mankind
are further removed from the state of savage independence. Any condition,
therefore, which is essential to a state of society, becomes more and more an
inseparable part of every person's conception of the state of things which he
is born into, and which is the destiny of a human being. Now, society between
human beings, except in the relation of master and slave, is manifestly
impossible on any other footing than that the interests of all are to be
consulted. Society between equals can only exist on the understanding that the
interests of all are to be regarded equally. And since in all states of
civilisation, every person, except an absolute monarch, has equals, every one
is obliged to live on these terms with some body; and in every age some advance
is made towards a state in which it will be impossible to live permanently on
other terms with any body. In this way people grow up unable to conceive as
possible to them a state of total disregard of other people's interests."
Does this sentiment of fellow feeling
find a place among the Hindus? The following facts throw a flood of light on
this question.
The first fact that strikes one is the
number of castes. No body has made an exact computation of their number. But it
is estimated that total is not less than 2000. It might be 3000. This is not
the only distressing aspect of this fact. There are others. Castes are divided
into sub-castes. Their number is legion. The total population of the Brahmin
Caste is about a crore and a half. But there are
1886 sub-castes of the Brahmin Caste. In the Punjab alone the Saraswat Brahmins of the Province of Punjab are
divided into 469 sub-castes. The Kayasthas of
Punjab are divided into 590 sub-castes. One could go on giving figures to show
this infinite process of splitting social life into small fragments.
The third aspect of this splitting
process is the infinitely small fragments into which the Castes are split. Some
of the Baniya sub-castes can count no more than 100
families. They are so inter related they find extremely difficult to marry within
their castes without transgressing the rules of
consanguinity.
It is noteworthy what small excuses
suffice to bring about this splitting.
Equally noteworthy is the hierarchical
character of the Caste System. Castes form an hierarchy in which one caste is
at the top and is the highest, another at the bottom and it is the lowest and
in between there are castes every one of which is at once above some castes and
below some castes. The caste system is a system of gradation in which every
caste except the highest and the lowest has a priority and precedence over some
other castes.
How is this precedence or this
superiority determined ? This order of superiority
and inferiority or this insubordination is determined by Rules (1) which are
connected with religious rites and (2) which are connected with commensuality.
Religion as a basis of Rules of
precedence manifests itself in three ways. Firstly through religious
ceremonies, secondly through incantations that accompany the religious
ceremonies and thirdly through the position of the priest.
Beginning with the ceremonies as a
source of rules of precedence it should be noted that the Hindu Scriptures
prescribe sixteen religious ceremonies. Although those are Hindu ceremonies
every Hindu Caste cannot by right claim to perform all the sixteen ceremonies.
Few can claim the right to perform all. Some are allowed to perform certain
ceremonies, some are not allowed to perform certain of the ceremonies. For
instance take the ceremony of Upanayan, wearing of
the sacred thread. Some castes can't. Precedence follows this distinction in
the matter of right to perform the ceremonies. A caste which can claim to
perform all the ceremonies is higher in status than the caste which has a right
to perform a few.
Turning to the Mantras, it is another source for rules of precedence. According to the Hindu Religion the same ceremony can be performed in two different ways. (1) Vedokta and (2) Puranokta. In the Vedokta form the ceremonies are performed with Mantras (incantations) from the Vedas. In the Puranokta form the ceremony is performed with Mantras (incantations) from the Puranas. Hindu Religious Scriptures fall into two distinct categories (1) The Vedas which are four, and (2) the Puranas which are eighteen. Although they are all respected as scriptures they do not all have the same sanctity. The Vedas have the highest sanctity and the Puranas have the lowest sanctity. The way the Mantras give rise to social precedence will be obvious if it is borne in mind that not every caste is entitled to have the ceremony performed in the Vedokta form. Three castes may well claim the right to the performance of one of the sixteen ceremonies. But it will be that one of it is entitled to perform it in the Vedokta form, another in the Puranokta form. Precedence goes with the kind of Mantra that a caste is entitled to use in the performance of a religious ceremony. A caste which is entitled to use Vedic Mantras is superior to a caste which is entitled to use only Puranokta Mantras.
Taking the priest as a second source
of precedence connected with Religion, Hinduism requires the instrumentality of
a priest for the derivation of the full benefit from the performance of a
religious ceremony. The priest appointed by the scripture is the Brahmin. A Brahmin
therefore is indispensable. But the scriptures do not require -that a Brahmin
shall accept the invitation of any and every Hindu irrespective of his caste to
officiate at a religious ceremony. The invitation of which caste he will accept
and of which he will refuse is a matter left to the wishes of the Brahmin. By
long and well-established custom it is now settled at which caste he will
officiate and at which caste he will not. This fact has become the basis of
precedence as between castes. The caste at which a Brahmin will officiate is
held as superior to a caste at whose religious functions a Brahmin will not
officiate.
The second source for rules of
precedence is commonality. It will be noticed that
rules of marriage have not given rise to rules of precedence as rules of
commonality have. The reason lies in the distinction between the rules
prohibiting intermarriage and inter-dining. That
difference is obvious. The prohibition on intermarriage is such that it cannot
only be respected but it can be carried out quite strictly. But the prohibition
of inter-dining creates difficulties. It cannot be carried out quite strictly
in all places and under all circumstances. Man migrates and must migrate from
place to place. In every place he happens to go he may not find his caste-men. He may find himself landed in the midst of
strangers. Marriage is not a matter of urgency but food is. He can wait for
getting himself married till he returns to the Society of his caste-men. But he
cannot wait for his food. He must find it from somewhere and from someone.
Question arises from which caste he can take food, if he has to. The rule is
that he will take food from a caste above him but will not take food from a
caste, which is below him. There is no way of finding how it came to be decided
that a Hindu can take food from one caste and not from another. By long series
of precedent every Hindu knows from what caste he can take food and from what
caste he cannot. This is determined chiefly by the rule followed by the Brahmin.
A caste is higher or lower according as
the Brahmin takes from it food or not. In this connection the Brahmin has a
very elaborate set of rules in the matter of food and water. (1) He will take only
water from some and not from others. (2) A brahmin will not take food cooked in
water by any caste. (3) He will take only food cooked in oil from some castes.
Again he has a set of rules in the matter of the vessels, in which he will
accept food and water. He will take food or water in an earthen vessel from some
castes, only in metallic vessel from some and only in glass vessel from others.
This goes to determine the level of the castes. If he takes food cooked in oil
from a caste its status is higher than the caste from which he will not. If he
takes water from a caste its status is higher than the caste from which he will
not. If he takes water in a metallic vessel that caste is higher than the caste
from which he will take water in an earthen vessel. Both these castes are
higher than the caste from which he will take water
in a glass vessel. Glass is a substance which is called (Nirlep) (which conserves no stain) therefore a
Brahmin can take water in it even from the lowest. But other metals do conserve
stains. Contaminating character of the stain depends upon the status of the
person who has used it. That status depends upon the Brahmins will to accept
water in that vessel. These are some of the factors which determine the place and status of a
caste in this Hindu hierarchical system of castes.
This hierarchical organisation of the
caste system is responsible for producing a social psychology, which is
noteworthy. In the first place it produces a spirit of rivalry among the
different castes for dignity. Secondly
it produces an ascending scale of hatred and descending scale of contempt.
This social psychology of mutual
hatred and contempt is well illustrated by the innumerable proverbs that are
flying about in India. As examples I record a few of them.[f21]
This spirit of hatred and contempt has
not only found its place in proverbs but it has found its place in Hindu
literature also. I refer to a Scripture known as the Sahyadrikhand. It is one of the Puranas
which form a part of the Hindu Sacred literature. But its subject matter is
totally foreign to the subject matter of other Puranas. It deals with the
*origin of the different castes. In doing so it assigns noble origin to other
castes while it assigns
to the Brahmin caste the filthiest origin. It was a revenge on Manu. It was worst lampoon on the Brahmins as a caste.
The Peshwas very naturally ordered its destruction.
Some survived the general destruction.
I will just record one more fact
before I put the question. Present day Hindus are probably the strongest
opponents of Marxism. They are horrified at its doctrine of class struggle. But they forget that India has been
not merely the land of class struggle but she has been the land of class
wars.
The bitterest class war took place between the Brahmins and the Kshatriyas. The classical literature of the Hindus abounds in reference to class wars between these two Varnas.
The first recorded conflict was between the Brahmins and King Vena. Vena was the son of King Anga, of the race of Atri and was born of Sunitha, the daughter of Mrityu (Death). This son of the daughter of Kala (death), owing to the taint derived from his maternal grandfather, threw his duties behind his back, and lived in covetousness under the influence of desire. This king established an irreligious system of conduct; transgressing the ordinances of the Veda, he was devoted to lawlessness. In his reign men lived without study of the sacred books and the gods had no soma-libations to drink at sacrifices. `I' he declared, 'am the object, and the performer of sacrifice, and the sacrifice itself; it is to me that sacrifice should be presented, and oblation offered'. This transgressor of the rules of duty, who arrogated to himself what was not his due, was then addressed by all the great rishis, headed by Marichi. 'We are about to consecrate ourselves for a ceremony which shall last for many years, practice not unrighteousness, O Vena : this is not the eternal rule of duty. Thou art in every deed a Prajapati of Atri's race, and thou has engaged to protect thy subjects.' The foolish Vena, ignorant of what was right, laughingly answered those great rishis who had so addressed him ; ' Who but myself is the ordained of duty or whom ought I to obey? Who on earth equals me in sacred knowledge, in prowess, in austere fervour, in truth? Yes who are deluded and senseless know not that I am the source of all beings and duties. Hesitate not to believe that I, if I willed, could burn up the earth, or deluge it with water, or close up heaven and earth. ' When owing to his delusion and arrogance Vena could not be governed then the mighty rishis becoming incensed, seized the vigorous and struggling king, and rubbed his left thigh. From this thigh, so rubbed, was produced a black man, very short in stature, who, I being alarmed, stood with joined hands. Seeing that he was agitated, Atri said to him ' Sit down' (Nishada). He became the founder of the race of the Nishadas, and also progenitor of the Dhivaras (fishermen), who sprang from the corruption of Vena. So two were produced from him the other inhabitants of the Vindhya range, the Tukharas and Tumburas, who are prone to lawlessness. Then the mighty sages, excited and incensed, again rubbed the right hand of Vena, as men do the Arani wood, and from it arose Pritha, respondent in body, glowing like the manifested Agni." "The son of Vena (Pritha) then, with joined hands, addressed the great Rishis: 'A very slender understanding for perceiving the principles of duty has been given to me by nature; tell me truly how I must employ it. Doubt not that I shall perform whatever thy shall declare to me as my duty, and its object '. Then those gods and great I rishis said to him: ' Whatever duty is enjoined perform it without hesitation, disregarding what though mayest like or dislike, looking on all creatures with an equal eye, putting far from thy lust, anger, cupidity and pride. Restrain by the strength of thin arm all those men who swerve from righteousness, having a constant regard to duty. And in thought, act, and word take upon thyself, and continually renew, the engagement to protect the terrestrial Brahman (Veda or Brahmins?). . .. .. And promise that thou wilt exempts the Brahmans from punishment, and preserve society from the confusion of Castes '. The son of Vena then replied to the gods, headed by the rishis : ' The great Brahmans, the chief of men, shall be reverenced by me '. `So be it,' rejoined those declare of the Veda. Sukra, the depository of divine knowledge, became his Purohita ; the Balakhilyas and Sarasvatyas his ministers; and the venerable Garga, the great rishi, his astrologer.
The second recorded conflict took
place between the Brahmins and the Kshatriya king Pururavas. A brief reference to it occurs in the Adiparva of the Mahabharat.
Pururavas was born of lla. Ruling over thirteen islands of the ocean, and surrounded by beings who were all superhuman, himself a man of great renown, Pururavas, intoxicated by his prowess engaged in a conflict with the Brahmans, and robbed them of their jewels, although they loudly remonstrated. Sanatkumara came from Brahma's heaven, and addressed to him an admonition, which however, he did not regard. Being then straightway cursed by the incensed rishis, he perished, this covetous monarch, who, through pride of power, had lost his understanding. This glorious being (virat), accompanied Urvasi, brought down for the performance of sacred rites the fires which existed in the heaven of the Gandharvas, properly distributed into three.
A third collision is reported to have
occurred between the Brahmins and King Nahusha. The
story is given in great details in the Udyogaparva
of the Mahabharat. It is there recorded:
"After his slaughter of the demon
Vrittra, Indra became
alarmed at the idea of having taken the life of a Brahmin (for Vrittra was
regarded as such), and hid himself in waters. In consequence of the
disappearance of the king of gods, all affairs, celestial as well as terrestrial,
fell into confusion. The rishis and Gods then applied to Nahusha to be their
king. After at first excusing himself on the plea of want of power, Nahusha at
length, in compliance with their solicitations, accepted the high function. Up
to the period of his elevation he had led a virtuous life, but he now became
addicted to amusement and sensual pleasure; and even aspired to the possession
of Indrani, Indra's
wife, whom he had happened to see. The queen resorted to the Angiras Vrihaspati, the
preceptor of the Gods, who engaged to protect her. Nahusha was greatly incensed
on hearing of this interference; but the Gods endeavoured to pacify him, and
pointed out the immorality of appropriating another person's wife. Nahusha,
however, would listen to no remonstrance, and insisted that in his adulterous designs he was not worse than Indra
himself; "The renowned Ahalya, a rish's wife, was formerly corrupted by Indra in her
husband's lifetime; why was he not prevented by you? And many barbarous acts,
and unrighteous deeds, and frauds were perpetrated of by old Indra; Why was he
not prevented by you?" The Gods, urged by Nahusha, then went to bring
Indrani; but Vrihaspati would not give her up. At his recommendation, however,
she solicited Nahusha for some delay, till she
should ascertain what had become of her husband. This request was granted. The
Gods next applied to Vishnu on behalf of Indra ; and Vishnu promised that if Indra
would sacrifice to him, he should be purged from his guilt,
and recover his dominion, while Nahusha would be destroyed. Indra sacrificed
accordingly; and the result is thus told ; "Having
divided the guilt of Brahmanicide among trees,
rivers, mountains, the earth, women and the elements, Vasava
(Indra), lord of the Gods, became freed from suffering
and sin, and self governed. "Nahusha was by
this means, shaken from his place. But he must have speedily regained his position, as we are told that Indra
was again ruined, and became invisible. Indrani now went in search of her husband; and by the
help of Upasriti (the Goddess of night and revealer
of secrets) discovered him existing in a very
subtle form in the stem of a lotus growing in a lake situated in a continent
within an ocean north of the Himalaya. She made known to him the wicked
intention of Nahusha, and entreated him to exert his power, rescue her from
danger, and resume his dominion. Indra declined any immediate interposition on
the plea of Nahusha's superior strength; but
suggested to his wife a device by which the usurper might be hurled from his position. She was recommended to say
to Nahusha that "if he would visit her on a celestial vehicle borne by rishis, she would with pleasure submit herself to him". The question of the Gods accordingly went to
Nahusha, by whom she was graciously received, and made this proposal:" I desire for thee, king of the Gods, a
vehicle hitherto unknown, such as neither Vishnu, nor Rudra,
nor the asuras, nor the rakshases employ. Let the
eminent rishis, all united, bear thee, lord, in a car; this idea pleases
me". Nahusha receives favourably this appeal
to his vanity, and in the course of his reply thus gives utterance to his self
congratulation: "He is a personage of no mean
prowess who makes the Munis his bearers. I am a fervid devotee of great might, lord
of the past, the future and the present. If I were angry the world would no
longer stand; on me everything depends....
Wherefore, 0 Goddess I shall, without doubt, carry out what you propose. The
seven rishis, and all the Brahman rishis, shall
carry me. Behold beautiful Goddess, my majesty and my prosperity. "The narrative goes on: "Accordingly
this wicked being, irreligious, violent, intoxicated by the force of conceit,
and arbitrary in his conduct, attached to his car the rishis, who submitted to
his commands, and compelled them to bear him".
Indrani then again resorts to Vrihaspati, who
assures her that vengeance will soon overtake Nahusha for his presumption; and
promises that he will himself perform a sacrifice with a view to the
destruction of the oppressor, and the discovery of Indra's
lurking place. Agni is then sent to discover and
bring Indra to Vrihaspati
; and the latter, on Indra's arrival, informs him
of all that had occurred during his absence. While Indra with Kuvera, Yama, Soma, and Varuna, was
devising means for the destruction of Nahusha, the
sage Agastya came up, congratulated Indra on the
fall of his rival, and proceeded to relate how it had occurred: "Wearied with carrying the sinner Nahusha, the
eminent divine rishis, and the spotless brahman-rishis asked that divine personage Nahusha (to
solve) a difficulty: 'Dost thou, Vasava, most excellent of conquerors, regard as
authoritative or not those Brahmana texts which are
recited at the immolation of king?' 'No', replied Nahusha,
whose understanding was enveloped in darkness. The rishis rejoined: 'Engaged in unrighteousness, thou attainest not unto righteousness: these texts, which
were formerly uttered by great rishis, are regarded by us as authoritative. 'The (proceeds Agastya) disputing with the munis, impelled by unrighteousness, touched me on the
head with his foot. In consequence of this the king's glory was smitten and his
prosperity departed. When he had instantly become agitated and oppressed with
fear, I said to him, ' Since thou, O fool, condiments that sacred text, always
held in honor, which has been composed by former sages, and employed by Brahman-rishis, and hast touched my head with thy
foot, and employest the Brahma—like and irresistable rishis as bearers to carry thee,—therefore,
short of thy lustre and all thy merit exhausted, sink down, sinner, degraded
from heaven to earth. For then thousand years thou shalt
crawl in the form of a huge serpent. When that period is completed, thou shalt
again ascend to heaven. `So fell that wicked wretch from the sovereignty of the
Gods."
Next there is a reference to the
conflict between King Nimi and the Brahmins. The
Vishnu Puran relates the story as follows :—
"Nimi had requested the Brahman-rishi Vasishtha to
officiate at a sacrifice, which was to last a thousand years, Vasishtha in
reply pleaded a pre-engagement to Indra for five
hundred years, but promised to return at the end of that period. The king made
no remark, and Vasishtha went away, supposing that he had assented to this
arrangement. On his return, however, the priest discovered that Nimi had
retained Gautama (who was equal with Vasishtha a Brahman-rishi) and others to
perform the sacrifices ; and being incensed at the
neglect to give him notice of what was intended, he cursed the king, who was
then asleep, to lose his corporeal form. When Nimi awoke and learnt that he had
been cursed without any previous warning, he retorted,
by uttering a similar curse on Vasishtha, and then died. In consequence of
this curse the vigour of Vasistha, however,
received from them another body when their seed had fallen from them at the
sight of Urvasi. Nimi's
body was embalmed.
At the close of the sacrifice which he
had begun, the Gods were willing, on the intercession of the priests, to
restore him to life, but he declined the offer, and was placed by the deities,
according to his desire, in the eyes of all living creatures. It is in
consequence of this fact that they are always opening the shutting. (nimishas means "the twinkling of the eye")." Manu mentions another conflict between
the Brahmins and King Sumukha.
But of this no details are available.
These are instances of conflict
between the Brahmins and the Kshatriya Kings. From
this it must not be supposed that the Brahmins and the Kshatriyas
as two classes did not clash. That there were clashes between these two classes
as distinguished from conflicts with kings is abundantly proved by material the
historic value of which cannot be doubted. Reference may be made to three
events.
First is the contest between two
individuals Vishvamitra the Kshatriya and Vasishtha
the Brahmin. The issue between the two was whether a Kshatriya can claim Brahmahood. The story is told in Ramayana and is as follows :-"There
was formerly, we are told, a king called Kusa, son
of Prajapati, who had a son called Kushanabha, who was father of Gadhi,
the father of Visvamitra. The latter ruled the
earth for many thousand years. On one occasion, when he was making a circuit of
the earth, he came to Vasishtha's hermitage, the
pleasant abode of many saints, sages, and holy devotees, where, after at first
declining he allowed himself to be hospitably entertained with his followers.
Visvamitra, however, coveting the wondrous cow, which had supplied all the
dainties of the feast, first of alt asked that she should be given to him in
exchange for a hundred thousand common cows, adding that "she was a gem, that gems were the property of
the king, and that, therefore,
the cow was his by right". On this price being
refused the king advances immensely in his offers,
but all without effect.
He then proceeds very ungratefully and tyrannically, it must be
allowed—to have the cow removed by force, but she breaks away from his
attendants, and rushes back to her master, complaining that he was deserting
her. He replied that he was not deserting her, but that the king was much more
powerful than he. She answers, "Men do not
ascribe strength to a Kshatriya; the Brahmins are stronger. The Strength of
Brahmins is divine, and superior to that of Kshatriya. Thy strength is immeasurable. Visvamitra, though of great vigour, is
not more powerful than thou. Thy energy is invincible. Commission me, who have
been acquired by the Brahmanical power, and I will
destroy the pride, and force, and attempt of this wicked prince".
She accordingly by her bellowing creates hundreds of Pahlavas,
who destroy the entire host of Visvamitra, but are
slain by him in their turn. Sakas and Yavans, of great power and valour, and well armed,
were then produced who consumed the king's soldiers, but were routed by him.
The cow then calls into existence by her bellowing, and from different parts of
her body, other warriors of various tribes, who again destroyed Visvamitra's entire army, foot soldiers, elephants,
horses, chariots, and all. "A hundred of the monarch's sons, armed with
various weapons, then rushed in great fury on Vashistha,
but were all reduced to ashes in a moment by the blast
of that sage's mouth. Vishvamitra, being thus
utterly vanquished and humbled, appointed one of his sons to be regent, and
travelled to the Himalaya, where he betook himself to austerities, and thereby
obtained a vision of Mahadeva, who at his desire
revealed to him the science of arms in all its branches, and gave him celestial
weapons with which, elated and full of pride, he consumed the hermitage of Vashishtha, and put its inhabitants to flight.
Vashishtha then threatens Vishvamitra
and uplifts his Brahminical mace. Vishvamitra too,
raises his fiery weapon and calls out to his adversary to stand. Vashishtha
bids him to show his strength, and boasts that he will soon humble his pride.
He asks : "What comparison is there between a
Kshatriya's might, and the great might of a Brahman? Behold, thou contemptible Kshatriya, my divine Brahmanical power".
The dreadful fiery weapon uplifted by
the son of Gadhi was then quenched by the rod of
the Brahman, as fire is by water. Many and various other celestial missiles, as
the nooses of Brahma, Kala (time), and Varuna, the discus of Vishnu, and the trident Siva,
were hurled by Vishvamitra at his antagonist, but
the son of Brahma swallowed them up in his all-devouring mace. Finally, to the
intense consternation of all the Gods, the warrior shot off the terrific weapon
of Brahma (Brahmastra) ;
but this was equally ineffectual against the Brahmanical sage. Vashishtha had
now assumed a direful appearance: 'Jets of fire
mingled with smoke darted from the pores of his body; the Brahminical mace blazed in his hand like a smokeless mundane
conflagration, or a second sceptre of Yama".
Being appeased, however, by the munis, who proclaimed his superiority to his rival,
the sage stayed his vengeance ; and Vishvamitra
exclaimed with a groan : 'Shame on a Kshatriya's
strength ; the strength of a Brahman's might alone is strength ; by the single Brahmanical mace all my weapons have
been destroyed. ' No alternative now remains, to the humiliated monarch, but
either to acquiesce in this helpless inferiority, or to work out his own
elevation to the Brahmanical order. He embraces
the latter alternative: "Having
pondered well this defeat, I shall betake myself, with composed senses and mind, to strenous
austere fervour, which shall exalt me to the rank of a Brahman". Intensely vexed and mortified, groaning and full of
hatred against his enemy, he travelled with his queen to the south, and carried
his resolution into effect; and we are first of
all told that three sons Havishyanda, Madhusyanda, and Dridhanetra
were born to him.
At the end of a thousand years Brahma
appeared, and announced that he had conquered the heaven of royal sages (Rajarshis) ; and, in
consequence of his austere fervour, he was recognised as having attained that
rank. Vishvamitra, however, was ashamed, grieved,
and incensed at the offer of so very inadequate a reward, and exclaimed: " I have practised intense austerity,
and the Gods and Rishis regard me only as a Rajarshi and not as a Brahman. "There is conflict recorded between the same
persons or different persons of the same name though on a somewhat different
issue.
King Trisanku,
one of Ikshvaku's descendants, had conceived the
design of celebrating a sacrifice by virtue of which he should ascent bodily to
heaven. As Vashistha, on being summoned, declared
that the thing was impossible (asakyam), Trisanku travelled
to the south, where the sage's hundred sons were engaged in austerities, and
applied to them to do what their father had declined. Though he addressed them
with the greatest reverence and humility, and added that "the Ikshvaku
regarded their family—priests as their highest resource in difficulties, and
that, after their father, he himself looked to them as his tutelary deities "he
received from the haughty priests the following rebuke for his presumption : "Asakyam" "Fool, thou
hast been refused by thy truth speaking preceptor. How is it that, disregarding his authority, thou hast resorted to another school
(sakha). The family priest is the highest oracle
of all the Ikshvakus', and the command of that
veracious personages cannot be transgressed. Vashishtha, the divine Rishi,
has declared that 'the thing cannot be'; and how can we undertake thy sacrifice? Thou art
foolish king; return to thy capital. The divine (Vashishtha)
is competent to act as priest of the three worlds; how can we shew him disrespect?"
Trisanku then gave them to understand that as his preceptor and "his preceptor's sons had declined compliance
with his requests, he should think of some other expedient". In consequence of his venturing to express
this presumptuous intention, they condemned him by their imprecation to become
a Chandala.
As this curse soon took effect, and
the unhappy king's form was changed into that of a degraded outcast, he
resorted to Vishvamitra (who, as we have seen, was also dwelling at this period in the south),
enlarging on his own virtues and piety, and bewailing his fate. Vishvamitra
commiserated his condition, and promised to sacrifice on his behalf, and exalt
him to heaven in the same Chandala form to which
he had been condemned by his preceptor's curse. "Heaven
is now as good as in thy possession, since thou hast resorted to the son of Kusika". He then directed that preparations
should be made for the sacrifice, and that all the Rishis,
including the family of Vashishtha should be
invited to the ceremony. The disciples of Vishvamitra, who had conveyed his
message, reported the result on their return in these words : "Having heard
your message, all the Brahmans are assembling in
all the countries, and have arrived, excepting Mahodaya
(Vashishtha)? Hear what dreadful words those
hundred Vashishthas, their voices quivering with
rage, have uttered : " How can the Gods and
Rishis consume the oblation at the sacrifice of that man, especially if he be a
Chandala, for whom a Kshatriya is officiating
priest? How can illustrious Brahmans ascend to heaven after eating the food of
a Chandala, and being entertained by Vishvamitra? "These ruthless words all Vashishthas, together
with Mahodaya, uttered, their eyes inflamed with anger.
Vishvamitra, who was greatly incensed
on receiving this, message by a curse doomed the sons of Vashishtha to be
reduced to ashes, and reborn as degraded outcasts (mritapah)
for seven hundred births, and Mahodaya to become a Nishada.
Knowing that this curse had taken effect, Vishvamitra then after eulogizing Trisanku, proposed to the assembled Rishis that the
sacrifice should be celebrated. To this they assented, being actuated by fear
of the terrible sage's wrath. Vishvamitra himself officiated at the sacrifices
as vajakas ; and the
other Rishis as priests (Ritvijah) (with other
functions) performed all the ceremonies. Vishvamitra next invited the gods to
partake of the oblations ; "When, however,
the deities did not come to receive
their portions, Vishvamitra became full of wrath, and raising aloft the
sacrificial ladle, thus addressed Trisanku : 'Behold, O monarch, the power of austere fervour
acquired by my own efforts. I myself, by my own energy, will conduct thy to
heaven.
Ascend to that celestial region which is so arduous to attain in an
earthly body. I have surely earned SOME reward of my austerity '. "Trisanku ascended instantly to heaven in the
sight of Munis. Indra,
however, ordered him to be gone, as a person who, having incurred the curse of
his spiritual preceptors, was unfit for the abode of the celestials :—and to fall down headlong
to earth. He accordingly began to descend, invoking loudly, as he fell, the
help of his spiritual patron. Vishvamitra, greatly
incensed, called out to him to stop: "Then by the power of his divine knowledge
and austere fervour created, like another Prajapati,
other Seven Rishis (a constellation so called) in
the southern part of the sky. Having proceeded to this quarter of the heavens,
the renowned sage, in the midst of the Rishis, formed another garland of stars,
being overcome with fury. Exclaiming, 'I will
create another Indra, or the world shall have no Indra at all', he began,
in his rage, to call Gods also into being".
The Rishis, Gods, (Suras), and Asuras now became seriously alarmed
and said to Vishvamitra, in a concilliatory tone,
that Trisanku, "as
he had been cursed by his preceptors, should not be admitted bodily into
heaven, until he had undergone some lustration".
The sage replied that he had given a promise to Trisanku, and appealed to the
Gods to permit his portage to remain bodily in heaven, and the newly created
stars to retain their places in perpetuity. The Gods agreed that "these numerous stars should remain, but beyond
the Sun's path, and that Trisanku, like an immortal, with his head downwards
should shine among them, and be followed by them",
adding "that his object would be thus
attained, and his renown secured, and he would be like a dweller in heaven". Thus was this great dispute adjusted by a
compromise, which Vishvamitra accepted.[f22]
When all the Gods and rishis had departed at the conclusion of the
sacrifice, Vishvamitra said to his attendant devotees ;
"This has been a great interruption (to our
austerities) which has occurred in the southern region : we must proceed in another direction to continue
our penances". He accordingly went to a
forest in the west, and began his austerities anew. Here the narrative is again
interrupted by the introduction of another story, that of king Ambarisha, king of Ayodhya,
who was, according to the Ramayana, the twenty
eighth in descent from Ikshvaku, and the twenty
second from Trisanku. Vishvamitra
is nevertheless represented as flourishing
contemporaneously with both of these princes. The story relates that Ambarisha
was engaged in performing a sacrifice, when Indra carried away the victim. The
priest said that this ill-omened event had occurred owing to the king's bad
administration ; and would call for a great
expiation, unless a human victim could be produced. After a long search the
royal rishi (Ambarisha) came upon the Brahmin-rishi Richika, a descendant of Bhrigu, and asked him to sell one of his sons for a
victim, at the price of a hundred thousand cows. Richika answered that he would
not sell his eldest son ; and his wife added that she would not sell the youngest : "Eldest sons," she observed, "being
generally the favourites of their fathers, and youngest sons of their mothers". The second son, Sunassepa
then said that in that case he regarded himself as the one who was to be sold,
and desired the king to remove him. The hundred thousand cows, with ten
millions of gold pieces and heaps of jewels, were paid down, and Sunassepa was
carried away. As they were passing through Puskara,
Sunassepa beheld his maternal uncle Vishvamitra who was engaged in austerities there with other rishis, threw himself into his arms, and implored his
assistance, urging his orphan, friendless, and
helpless state, as claims on the sage's benevolence. Vishvarnitra soothed him:
and pressed his own sons to offer themselves as victims in the room of
Sunassepa. This proposition met with no favour from Madhushanda
and the other sons of the royal hermit, who answered with haughtiness and derison : "How is it that thou sacrificest
thine own sons, and seekest to
rescue those of others? We look upon this as
wrong, and like the eating of one's own flesh".
The sage was exceedingly wrath at this disregard
of his injunction, and doomed his sons to be born in the most degraded classes,
like Vashishtha's sons, and to eat dog's flesh,
for a thousand years. He then said to Sunassepa : "When thou art bound with hallowed cords, decked
with a red garland, and anointed with unguents, and fastened to the sacrificial
post of Vishnu, then address thyself to Agni, and
sing these two divine verses (gathas), at the
sacrifice of Ambarisha ;
then shall thou attain the fulfilment of thy desire". Being furnished with the two gathas,
Sunassepa proposed at once to King Ambarisha that they should set out for their
destination. Then bound at the stake to be immolated, dressed in a red garment,
"he celebrated the two Gods, Indra and his younger brother (Vishnu), with the
excellent verses. The thousand-eyed (Indra) was
pleased with the sacred hymn, and bestowed long life on Sunassepa". King Ambarisha also received great benefits
from this sacrifice. Vishvamitra meanwhile
proceeded with his austerities, which he prolonged
for a thousand years. "At the end of this
time the Gods came to allot his reward; and Brahma announced that he had
attained the rank of a rishi, thus apparently
advancing an additional step. Dissatisfied, as it would seem, with this, the
sage commenced his task of penance anew. After a length of time he beheld the nymph (Apsara) Menka, who had come to bathe in the lake of Pushkara.
She flashed on his view, unequalled in her radiant beauty, like lightning in a cloud. He was smitten by her charms, invited her to be his companion in his hermitage, and for ten years remained a slave to her witchery, to the great prejudice of his austerities. At length he became ashamed of this ignoble subjection, and full of indignation at what he believed to be a device of the Gods to disturb his devotion ; and, dismissing the nymph with gentle accents, he departed for the northern mountains, where he practised severe austerities for a thousand years on the banks of the Kausiki river. The Gods became alarmed at the progress he was making, and decided that he should be dignified with the appellation of great rishi (Maharshi) ; and Brahma, giving effect to the general opinion of the deities, announced that he had conferred that rank upon him. Joining his hands and bowing his head, Vishvamitra replied that he should consider himself to have indeed completely subdued his senses, if the incomparable title of Brahmin-rishi were conferred upon him. Brahma informed him in answer, that he had not yet acquired the power of perfectly controlling his senses ; but should make further efforts with that view.
The sage then began to put himself through a yet more rigorous
course of austerities, standing with his arms erect, without support, feeding
on air, in summer exposed to five fires (i.e. one on each of four sides, and
the sun overhead), in the rainy season remaining unsheltered from the wet, and
in winter lying on a watery couch night and day. This he continued for a
thousand years. At last Indra and the other
deities became greatly distressed at the idea of the merit he was storing up,
and the power which he was thereby acquiring; and the chief of the celestials
desired the nymph Rambha to go and bewitch him by
her blandishments. She expressed great reluctance to expose herself to the
wrath of the formidable muni, but obeyed the
repeated injunction of Indra, who promised that he and Kandarpa (the God of love) should stand by her, and
assumed her most attractive aspect with the view of overcoming the sage's
impassability. He, however, suspected this design, and becoming greatly
incensed, he doomed the nymph by a curse to be turned into stone and to
continue in that state for a thousand years.
The curse took effect, and Kandarpa
and Indra sunk away. In this way, though he resisted the allurements of sensual
love, he lost the whole fruit of his austerities by yielding to anger; and had
to begin his work over again. He resolved to check his irresistibility, to
remain silent, not even to breathe for hundreds of years ; to dry up his body ;
and to fast and stop his breath till he had obtained the coveted character of a
Brahmin. He then left the Himalaya and travelled to the east, where he
underwent a dreadful exercise, unequalled in the whole history of austerities,
maintaining silence, according to a vow, for a thousand years. At the end of
this time he had attained to perfection, and although thwarted
by many obstacles, he remained unmoved by anger. On the expiration of this
course of austerity, he prepared some food to eat; which Indra, coming in the
form of a Brahmin, begged that he would give him. Vishvamitra
did so, and though he had done left for himself, and was obliged to remain
fasting, he said nothing to the Brahmin, on account of his vow of silence. "As he continued to suspend his breath, smoke
issued from his head, to the great consternation and distress of the three
worlds."
The Gods, rishis,
etc., then addressed Brahma. "The great muni Vishvamitra has been allured and provoked in
various ways, but still advances in his sanctity. If his wish is not conceded,
he will destroy the three worlds by the force of his austerity. All the regions
of the universe are confounded, no light anywhere shines; all the oceans are tossed, and the mountains crumble, the earth quakes,
and the wind blows confusedly. We cannot, 0 Brahma, guarantee that
mankind shall not become atheistic..... Before the
great and glorious sage of fiery form resolves to destroy (everything) let him
be propitiated. "The Gods, headed by Brahma,
then addressed Vishvamitra : 'Hail, Brahman rishi, we are gratified by the austerity ; O Kausika, thou hast,
through their intensity, attained to Brahmahood. O
Brahman, associated with the Maruts, confers on
thee long life. May every blessing attend thee ;
depart where ever thou wilt.' The sage, delighted, made his obeisance to
the Gods, and said: ' If I have obtained
Brahmahood, and long life, then let the mystic monosyllable (ornkara) and the sacrificial formula (vashatkara) and the Vedas
recognise me in that capacity. And let Vashishtha,
the son of Brahmin, the most eminent of those who are skilled in the Kshatra-Veda, and the Brahma-Veda (the knowledge of
the Kshatriya and the Brahmnical
disciplines), address me similarly '.....
Accordingly Vashishtha, being propitiated by the Gods, became reconciled to
Vishvamitra, and recognised his claim to all the prerogatives of a Brahman rishi.
.... Vishvamitra, too having attained the Brahmanical rank, paid all honour to Vashishtha".
The second event has a reference to
the slaughter of the Brahmins by the Kshatriyas.
It is related in the Adiparva of the Mahabharat from which the following account is taken :—
"There was a King named Kritrvirya, by whose liberality the Bhrigus, learned in the Vedas, who officiated as his priests, had been greatly enriched with corn and money. After he had gone to heaven, his descendants were in want of money, and came to beg for a supply from the Bhrigus, of whose wealth they were aware. Some of the latter hid their money under ground, others bestowed it on Brahmins, being afraid of the Kshatriyas, while others again gave these last what they wanted. It happened, however, that a Kshatriya, while digging the ground, discovered some money buried in the house of Bhrigu. The Kshatriyas then assembled and saw this treasure, and, being incensed, slew in consequence all the Bhrigus, who they regarded with contempt, down to the children in the womb. The widows, however, fled to the Himalaya mountains. One of them concealed her unborn child in her thigh. The Kshatriya, hearing of its existence from a Brahmani informant, sought to kill it ; but it issued forth from its mother's thigh with lustre, and blinded the persecutors. After wandering about bewildered among the mountains for a time, they humbly supplicated the mother of the child for the restoration of their sight ; but she referred them to her wonderful infant Aurva into whom the whole Veda, with its six Vedangas, had entered as the person who (in retaliation of the slaughter of his relatives) had robbed them of their eyesight, and who alone could restore it. They accordingly had recourse to him, and their eyesight was restored. Aurva, however, meditated the destruction of all living creatures, in revenge for the slaughter of the Bhrigus. and entered on a course of austerities which alarmed both Gods, Asuras, and men ; but his progenitors (Pitris) themselves appeared, and sought to turn him from his purpose by saying that they had no desire to be revenged on the Kshatriyas: "It was not from weakness that the devout Bhrigus overlooked the massacre perpetrated by the murderous Kshatriyas.
When we became distressed by old age, we ourselves desired to be slaughtered by them. The money which was buried by someone in a Bhrigu's house was placed there for the purpose of exciting hatred, by those who wished to provoke the Kshatriyas. For what had we, who were desiring heaven, to do with money? "They added that they hit upon this device because they did not wish to be guilty of suicide, and concluded by calling upon Aurva to restrain his wrath ; and abstain from the sin he was meditating, "Destroy not the Kshatriyas. Oh, son, nor the seven worlds. Suppress thy kindled anger which nullifies the power of austere fervour."
Aurva, however, replies that he cannot allow his threat to remain un-executed. His anger, unless wreaked upon some other object, will, he says, consume himself. And he argues on grounds of justice, expediency, and duty, against the clemency which his progenitors recommend. He is, however, persuaded by the Pitris to throw the fire of his anger into the sea, where they say it will find exercise in assailing the watery element, and in this way his threat will be fulfilled."
The third event has reference to the
slaughter of the Kshatriyas by the Brahmins. This story is told in several
places in the Mahabharat. The magnificent and
mighty Kartavirya, possessing a thousand arms, was
lord of this whole world, living in Mahishmati.
This Haihaya of unquestioned valour ruled over the whole sea-girt earth, with its
oceans and continents. He obtained boons from the Muni
Dattatreya, a thousand arms whenever he should go into battle, power to
make the conquest of the whole earth, a disposition to rule it with justice and
the promise of instruction from the virtuous in the event of his going astray. "Then ascending his chariot glorious as the
resplendent Sun, he exclaimed in the intoxication of his prowess, ' Who is like me in fortitude, courage, fame, heroism, energy, and vigour?'
At the end of this speech a bodiless
voice in the sky addressed him: 'Thou knowest not, 0 fool, that a Brahman
is better than Kshatriya. It is with the help of
the Brahman that the Kshatriya rules his subjects.
' Arjuna answers : ' If I am pleased, I
can create, or, if displeased, annihilate living beings; and no Brahman is
superior to me in act, thought or word. The first
proposition is that the Brahmins are superior: the second that the Kshatriyas are superior; both of these thou hast
stated with their grounds, but there is a difference between them (in point of
force). The Brahmins are dependent on the Kshatriyas and not the Kshatriyas on
the Brahmins, who wait upon them, and only make
the Vedas a pretence. Justice, the protection of
the people, has its seat in the Kshatriyas. From them the Brahmins derive their
livelihood; how then can the latter be superior? I
always keep in subjection myself those Brahmins, the chief of all beings, who
subsist on air and sand who have a high opinion of
themselves. For truth was spoken by that female the Gayatri
in the sky. I shall
subdue all those unruly Brahmins clad in hides. No one in the three worlds, god
or man can hurl me from my royal authority; therefore I am superior to any Brahman. Now shall I
turn the world in which Brahmins have the upper hand into a place where
Kshatriyas shall have the upper hand; for no one dares to encounter my force in battle. '
Hearing this speech of Arjun, the female roving in
the night became alarmed.
Then Vayu
hovering in the air, said to Arjuna: 'Abandon this
sinful disposition, and do obeisance to the Brahmins. If thou shall do them
wrong, thy kingdom shall be convulsed. They will subdue thee; those powerful men will humble thee, and expel thee
from thy country. ' The King asks him, 'Who art
thou?" Vayu replies, 'I am Vayu, the messenger of the Gods. and tell thee
what is for thy benefit. ' Arjuna rejoins, ' Oh, thou displayest
today a great warmth of devotion to the Brahmins. But say that a Brahman is
like (any other) earth-horn creature. "
This king came into conflict with Parsuram the son of a Brahman sage Jamadagni. The history of this conflict is as follows:—
There lived a king of Kanyakubja, called Gadhi,
who had a daughter named Satyavati. The marriage
of this princess to the rishi Richika, and the birth of Jamadagni, are then told in
nearly the same way as above narrated. Jamadagni and Satyavati had five sons,
the youngest of whom was the redoubtable Parasuram.
By his father's command he kills his mother (who, by the indulgence of impure
desire, had fallen from her previous sanctity), after the four elder sons had
refused this matricidal
offence, and had in consequence been deprived of reason bv their father's curse. At Parasuram's desire, however, his mother is restored by his
father to life, and his brothers to reason; and he himself is absolved from all
the guilt of murder ; and obtains the boon of
invincibility and long life from his father.
His history now begins to be connected
with that of king Arjuna (or Kartavirya). The latter had come to Jamadagni's hermitage, and had been respectfully
received by his wife; but he had requited this honour by carrying away by force
the calf of the sage's sacrificial cow, and breaking down his lofty trees. On
being informed of this violence, Parasurama was
filled with indignation, attacked Arjuna, cut off his thousand arms, and slew
him. Arjuna's sons, in return slew the peaceful
sage Jamadagni, in the absence of Parasuram.
Rama, after performing, on his return, his father's funeral
obsequies, vowed to destroy the whole Kshatriya
race ; and execucted
his threat by killing first Arjun's sons and their
followers. Twenty one times did he sweep
away all the Kshatriyas from the earth, and formed
five lakes of blood in Samantpanchaka ; in which he satiated the manes of the Bhrigus, and beheld face to face (his grandfather), Richika, who addressed himself to Rama. The latter
gratified Indra by offering to him a grand
sacrifice, and gave the earth to the officiating priests. He bestowed also a
golden altar, ten fathoms long and nine high, on the mighty Kasyapa.
This, by his permission, the Brahmins
divided among themselves, deriving thence the name of Khandavavanas.
Having given away the earth to Kasyapa, Parasuram himself dwells on the
mountain Mahendra. Thus did enmity arise between
him and Kshatriyas, and thus was the earth conquered by Parasuram of boundless
might." The Kshatriyas who were slain by
Parasuram are described in the Dronaparvan of the Mahabharata as of various provinces, viz., Kasmiras, Daradas, Kuntis, Kshudrakas, Malavas, Angas, Vangas, Kalingas,
Videhas, Tamraliptakas, Marttikavatas,
Sivis and other Rajanyas.
The means by which the Kshattriya race was restored
is also told as part of this story of annihilation of the Kshatriyas by the
Brahmins. It is said :—
"Having one and twenty times swept away
all the Kshatriyas from the earth, the son of Jamdagni engaged in austerities on Mahendra the most
excellent of mountains. After he had cleared the world of Kshatriyas, their
widows came to the Brahmins, praying for offspring. The religious Brahmins,
free from any impulse of lust cohabited at the proper seasons with these women,
who in consequence became pregnant, and brought forth valiant Kshatriya boys and girls, to continue the Kshatriya
stock. Thus was the Kshatriya race virtuously begotten by Brahmins on Kshatriya
women, and became multiplied and long
lived. Thence there arose four castes inferior to the Brahmins." No country has such a dismal record of class
war as Hindustan. It was the proud
boast of the Brahmin Parsuram that he
exterminated the Kshatriyas twenty one times from the face of
Hindustan and recreated them by Brahmans
cohabiting with the widows of the Kshatriyas.
It must not be supposed that this
Class War in India is a matter of ancient History. It has been present all
along. Its existence was very much noticeable in Maharashtra
during the Maratha Rule. It destroyed the Maratha
Empire. It must not be supposed that these class Wars were like ordinary wars
which are a momentary phenomena which come and go and which leave no permanent
chasms to divide the peoples of the different nations. In India the class war
is a permanent phenomenon, which is silently but surely working its way. It is
a grain in the life and it has become genius of the Hindus.
These facts it will not be denied are
symptomatic in the sense they indicate health and character. Do they suggest
that there is fraternity among Hindus? In the face of these facts I am sure it
would be impossible to give an affirmative answer.
What is the explanation of this
absence of fraternity among the Hindus? It is
Hinduism and its philosophy that is responsible for it. The sentiment of
fraternity as Mill said is natural but it is a plant, which grows only where
the soil is propitious and the conditions for its growth exist. The fundamental
condition for the growth of the sentiment of fraternity is not preaching that
we are children of God or the realisation that one's life is dependent upon
others. It is too rational to give rise to a sentiment. The condition for the
growth of this sentiment of fraternity lies in sharing in the vital processes
of life. It is sharing in the joys and sorrows of birth, death, marriage and
food. Those who participate in these come to feel as brothers. Prof. Smith very
rightly emphasises the importance of sharing food as a prime factor in the
creation of community feeling when he says;
"The sacrificial meal was an
appropriate expression of the antique ideal of religious life, not merely
because it was a social act and in which the God and his worshippers were
conceived as partaking together, but because, as has already been said, the
very act of eating and drinking with a man was a symbol and 4 a confirmation of fellowship and
mutual social obligations. The one thing directly expressed in the sacrificial
meal is that the God and his worshippers are common sols but every other point
in their mutual relations is included in what this involves. Those who sit at
meal together are united for all social effects; those who do not eat together
are aliens to one another, without fellowship in religion and without
reciprocal social duties".[f23]
There is no sharing among Hindus of
joys and sorrows involved in the vital facts of life. Everything is separate
and exclusive. The Hindu is separate and exclusive all through his life. A
foreigner coming to India will not find men crying Hindu Pani (water for Hindus) and Musalman
Pani (water for Musalmans). He will find Brahmin
Coffee
Houses, Brahmin Eating-Houses, where
no non-Brahmin Hindus can go. He will find Brahmin
Maternity Homes, Maratha Maternity Homes and Bhatia Maternity homes although Brahmins, Marathas and Bhatias are
all Hindus. If there is a birth at the house of a Brahmin, no non-Brahmin will
be invited nor will he feel the desire to join. If there is marriage in the
family of a Brahmin, no non-Brahmin will be invited nor will he feel the desire
to join if a Brahmin dies, no non-Brahmin will be invited to join the funeral
nor will he think it necessary to join in the procession. If there is a
festivity in the house of a Brahmin, no non-Brahmin will be called and no
non-Brahmin will feel any wrong about it. Joys and sorrows of one caste are not
the joys and sorrows of another. One caste has no concern with other castes.
Even charity has become caste bound. Among Hindus there is no public charity in
the sense of its benefit being open to all. You have Brahmin Charity for
Brahmins. Within that you have Chitpavan Brahmin
Charity for Chitpavan Brahmins only. Deshastha
Brahmin Charity for Deshastha Brahmins only, Karhada Brahmin Charity for Karahda
Brahmins only. You have Sarasvat Brahmin Charity.
Within that you have Kudaldeshkar Brahmin Charity.
One could go on with such instances ad nauseum
to show the exclusive character of Hindu Charity—rather Charity among
Hindus—for there is no such thing as Hindu Charity. Thus one Hindu will share
nothing with another Hindu while they are alive. But they will be separate and
exclusive even when they are dead. Some Hindus bury their dead. Some Hindus
burn their dead. But those bury will not share the same cemetery. Each will
appropriate a part of the cemetery to bury its dead. Those Who burn will not
burn at the same burning place. If they do, each will have a separate funeral
pan.
Is there any wonder that the sentiment of fraternity is foreign to the Hindus? With a complete refusal to share the joys and sorrows of life how can the sentiment of fraternity take roots?
But the question of all questions is why do the Hindus refuse to share the joys and sorrows of life? It needs no saying that he refuses to share because his religion tells him not to share them. This conclusion need cause no surprise. For what does Hinduism teach? It teaches not to inter-dine, not to intermarry, not to associate. These don'ts constitute the essence of its teaching. All the shameful facts I have referred to, to illustrate the separate and exclusive character of the Hindus is the direct outcome of this philosophy of Hindusim. The philosophy of Hinduism is a direct denial of fraternity.
This brief analysis of the Philosophy
of Hinduism from the point of view of justice reveals in a glaring manner how
Hinduism is inimical to equality, antagonistic to liberty and opposed to
fraternity.
Fraternity and liberty are really
derivative notions. The basic and fundamental conceptions are equality and
respect for human personality. Fraternity and liberty take their roots in these
two fundamental conceptions. Digging further down it may be said that equality
is the original notion and respect for human personality is a reflection of it.
So that where equality is denied, everything else may be taken to be denied. In
other words it was enough for me to have shown that there was no equality in
Hinduism. But as Hinduism has not been examined so far in the manner I have
done, I did not think it sufficient to leave it to implication that Hinduism
was a denial of Fraternity and Liberty as well.
There is one final observation with
which I wish to conclude this discussion with the profound observation of Lord Acton. The great Lord says that inequality has grown
as a result of historical circumstances. It has never been adopted as a creed.
It is obvious that in making this observation Lord Acton must have omitted to
take note of Hinduism. For in Hinduism inequality is a religious doctrine
adopted and conscientiously preached as a sacred dogma. It is an official creed
and nobody is ashamed to profess it openly. Inequality for the Hindus is a
divinely prescribed way of life as a religious doctrine and as a prescribed way
of life, it has become incarnate in Hindu Society and is shaped and moulded by
it in its thoughts and in its doings. Indeed inequality is the Soul of
Hinduism.
Let me now turn to the examination of
the philosophy of Hinduism from the point of view of Utility.
This examination of Hinduism from this
aspect need not be long and detailed. For as Mill pointed out there is no
necessary antagonism between justice and utility.
In other words what is unjust to the individual cannot be useful to society.
Apart from this we have before us the consequences of caste staring us in the
face.
The ideal of caste was not mere ideal.
The ideal was put into practice; was therefore something real. So that, in the
matter of the Chaturvarna the Hindus have very
faithfully followed the German Philosopher Nietszche
who said "Realise the-ideal and idealise the
real".
The value of the ideal must be tested
by its results. If experience therefore must be the criterion then the ideal of
Chaturvarna stands thrice condemned. Purely as a form of social organisation it
stands condemned. As a producer's organisation it stands discredited. As an
ideal scheme of distribution it has miserably failed. If it is an ideal form of
organisation how is it that the Hinduism has been unable to form a common
front. If it is an ideal form of production, how is it that its technique never
advanced beyond that of the primitive man. If it is an ideal form of
distribution, how is it that it has produced appalling inequality of wealth,
immense wealth side by side extreme poverty.
But I do not wish to dismiss the
subject so summarily, for I know many Hindus who claim great social utility to
the institution of caste and praise Manu for
having been so wise and so thoughtful not only in devising it but in giving it
a divine sanction.
This view of the caste is due to
taking the separate aspects of caste separately. One must take them in
conjunction. The resultant social utility or distillate of caste can be ascertained
only by putting together the separate aspects of caste and judge them in their
combination. Following this line of attacking the problem, the following
conclusions follow: —
(1) Caste divides Labourers (2) Caste
disassociates work from interest (3) Caste disconnects intelligence from manual
labour (4) Caste devitalises by denying to him the right to cultivate vital
interest and (5) Caste prevents mobilisation. Caste System is not merely
division of labour. IT IS ALSO A DIVISION
OF LABOURERS. Civilised society undoubtedly needs division of labour. But in no civilised society is division of labour
accompanied by this unnatural division of labourers into watertight
compartments. Caste System is not merely a division of labourers, which is
quite different from division of labour it is an hierarchy in which the
divisions of labourers are graded one above the other. In no other country is
the division of labour accompanied by this gradation of labourers. There is
also a third point of criticism against this view of the Caste System. This
division of labour is not spontaneous, it is not based on natural aptitudes.
Social and individual efficiency requires us to develop the capacity of an
individual to the point of competency to chose and to make his own career. This
principle is violated in the Caste System in so far as it involves an attempt
to appoint tasks to individuals in advance, selected not on the basis of
trained original capacities, but on that of the social status of the parents.
Looked at from another point of view this stratification of occupations which
is the result of the Caste System is positively pernicious. Industry is never
static. It undergoes rapid and abrupt changes. With such changes an individual
must be free to change his occupations. Without such freedom to adjust himself
to changing circumstances it would be impossible for him to gain his
livelihood. Now the Caste System will not allow Hindus to take occupations
where they are wanted if they do not belong to them by heredity. If a Hindu is
seen to starve rather than take to new occupations not assigned to his Caste,
the reason is to be found in the Caste System. By not permitting readjustment
of occupations, caste becomes a direct cause of much of the unemployment we see
in the country.
As a form of division of labour the
Caste System suffers from another serious defect. The division of labour
brought about by the Caste System is not a division based on choice. Individual
sentiment, individual preference has no place in it. It is based on the dogma
of predestination. Considerations of social efficiency would compel us to
recognise that the greatest evil in the industrial system is not so much
poverty and the suffering that it involves, as the fact that so many persons
have callings which make no appeal to those who are engaged in them. Such
callings constantly provoke one to aversion, ill will and the desire to evade.
There are many occupations in India which on account of the fact that they are
regarded as degraded by the Hindus provoke those who are engaged in it to
aversion. There is a constant desire to evade and escape from such occupations
which arises solely because of the blighting effect which they produce upon
those who follow them owing to the slight and stigma cast upon them by the
Hindu religion.
The second mischief it dose is to dissociate intelligence from work and create
contempt for labour. The theory of the Caste is that a Brahmin who is permitted
to cultivate his intellect is not permitted to labour, indeed is taught to look
down upon labour. While the Shudra who is required
to labour is not permitted to cultivate his intelligence. The disastrous
consequences of this have been well portrayed by Mr. R.C.Dutt. [f24]..... barren. Wealth without education
and wealth is brutal. Each is necessary to every one. They are necessary for
the growth of a man.
That the Brahmin should cultivate
knowledge, Kshatriya should bear arms, the Vaishya should trade and that the Shudra should serve is presented as a theory of
mutual interdependence found in the family. It is asked why should the Shudra
need trouble to acquire wealth when the three Varnas
are there to support him; Why need the Shudra bother to take to education when
the Brahmin to whom he can go when the occasion for reading or writing arises;
Why need the Shudra worry to arm himself because there is the Kshatriya to
protect him? The theory of Chaturvarnya understood
in this sense may be said to look upon the Shudra as the ward and the three
Varnas as his guardians. Thus interpreted it is a simple and alluring theory.
Assuming this to be the correct view of the underlying conception of
Chaturvarnya it seems to me that the system is neither fool-proof nor
knave-proof. What is to happen if the Brahmins, Vaishyas and Kshatriyas fail to pursue knowledge, to engage in
economic enterprises and to be efficient soldiers which are their respective
functions? Contrary-wise, suppose that they discharge their functions but flout
their duty to the Shudra or to one another? What is to happen to the Shudra if
the three classes refuse to support him on fair terms or combine to keep him
down? Who is to safeguard the interests of the Shudra or for the matter of that
of the Vaishya and Kshatriya when the person who is trying to take advantage of
his ignorance is the Brahmin? Who is to defend the
liberty of the Shudra or that of the Brahmin and the Vaishya, when the person who is robbing him of it is the
Kshatriya? Inter-dependence of one class on
another class is inevitable. Even dependence of one class upon another may
sometimes become allowable. But why make one person depend upon another in the
matter of his vital needs? Education every one must have. Means of defence
every one must have. These are the paramount requirements of every man for his
self-preservation. How can the fact that his neighbour is educated and armed, help a man who
is uneducated and disarmed. The whole theory is absurd. These are the questions
which the defenders of Chaturvarnya do not seem to be troubled about. But they
are very pertinent questions. Assuming their conception of Chaturvarnya that
the relationship between the different classes is
that of ward and guardian is the real conception underlying Chaturvarnya, it
must be admitted that it makes no provision to safeguard the interests of the ward from the misdeeds of the
guardian. Whether the relationship of guardian and ward was the real underlying
conception on which Chaturvarnya was based there is no doubt that in practice
the relation was that of master and servant. The three classes, Brahmins, Kshatriyas and Vaishyas
although not very happy in their mutual relationship managed to work by
compromise. The Brahmin flattered the Kshatriya
and both let the Vaishya live in order to be able
to live upon him. But the three agreed to beat down the Shudra. He was not allowed to acquire wealth lest he
should be independent of the three Varnas. He was
prohibited from acquiring knowledge lest he should keep a steady vigil regarding his interests. He was prohibited from
bearing arms lest he should have the means to rebel against their authority.
That this is how the Shudras were treated by the Trayavarnikas is evidenced by the Laws of Manu. There is no code of laws more infamous
regarding social rights than the Laws of Manu. Any instance from anywhere of social
injustice must pale before it. Why have the mass of people tolerated the social
evils to which they have been subjected? There
have been social revolutions in other countries of the world. Why have there
not been social revolutions in India is a question which has incessantly
troubled me. There is only one answer which I can give and it is that the lower
classes of Hindus have been completely disabled for direct action on account of
this wretched system of Chaturvarnya.
They could not bear arms and without arms they could not rebel. They were all
ploughmen or rather condemned to be ploughmen and they were allowed to convert
their ploughshares into swords. They had no bayonets and therefore everyone who
chose ploughs did sit upon them. On account of the Chaturvarnya they could
receive no education. They could not think out or know the way to their
salvation. They were condemned to be lowly and not knowing the way of escape
and not having the means of escape, they became reconciled to eternal servitude
which they accepted as their inescapable fate. It is true that even in Europe
the strong has not shrunk from the exploitation, nay the spoliation of the weak
but in Europe, the strong have never contrived to make the weak helpless
against exploitation so shamelessly as was the case in India among the Hindus.
Social war has been raging between the strong and the weak far more violently
in Europe than it has ever been in India. Yet the weak in Europe has had in him
freedom of military service his physical weapon, in suffrage his political
weapon and in education his moral weapon. Three weapons for emancipation were
never withheld by the strong from the weak in Europe. All these weapons were
however denied to the masses in India by Chaturvarnya. There cannot be a more
degrading system of social organisation than Chaturvarnya. It is the system,
which deadens, paralyses and cripples the people from helpful activity. This is
no exaggeration. History bears ample evidence. There is only one period in
Indian history, which is a period of freedom, greatness and glory. That is the
period of the Mourya Empire. At all other times
the country suffered from defeat and darkness. But the Mourya period was a
period when Chaturvarnya was completely
annihilated, when the Shudras, who constituted the
mass of the people came into their own and became the rulers of the country.
The period of defeat and darkness is the period when Chaturvarnya flourished to
the damnation of the greater part of the people of the country.
Caste prevents mobilisation. Occasions
arise when society must mobilise all its resources to one end in order to save
itself from a catastrophe. To take a catastrophe
like war, Society must mobilise all its resources for militarization. Every one
must do war. Every one must be a soldier. Is this possible under the theory of
caste? Obviously not. Indeed the destiny of a defeat which has been the lot of
India throughout history is due to caste. Caste prevented general mobilisation.
Or the extent of mobilisation was of a very limited character. Only the Kshatriyas were expected to fight. The rest the
Brahmins and the Vaishyas were not armed and the
Shudras who formed the large majority of the country were disarmed. The result
was that once the small class of Kshatriyas were defeated by a foreign foe. the
whole country fell at his feet. It could offer no resistance.
It was not capable of resistance. Indian wars have been mostly wars of single
battles or single campaigns. This was due to the fact that once the Kshatriyas
fell everything fell. Why? Simply because there was no general mobilisation and
the theory deeply imbedded in the psychology of the people.
If these conclusions are sound, how
can a philosophy which dissects society in fragments, which dissociates work
from interest, which disconnects intelligence from labour, which expropriates
the rights of man to interests vital to life and which prevented society from
mobilising resources for common action in the hour of danger, be said to
satisfy the test of Social Utility.
The Philosophy of Hinduism therefore
neither satisfies the test of social utility nor does it satisfy the test of
individual justice.
The result of my analysis is so odd
that it will surprise many. Astonished some may even say that if the
conclusions are so odd then there must be something wrong in my analysis of the
philosophy of Hinduism. I must meet this objection. To those who refuse to
accept my analysis I say that they find my analysis odd because they do not
have a correct notion what is central in the philosophy of Hinduism. If they do
they will feel no surprise at my conclusions.
This matter is so important that I
must stop to explain it. It may be recalled that the foregoing analysis of the
religious revolution showed that religious ideals as forms of divine governance
for human Society fall into two classes, one in which Society is the centre and
the other in which the Individual is the centre. The same analysis showed that for
the former the appropriate test of what is good and what is right i.e. the test
of the moral order is utility while for the latter the test is justice. Now the
reason why the philosophy of Hinduism does not answer the test either of
utility or of justice is because the religious ideal of Hinduism for divine
governance of human society is an ideal, which falls into a separate class by
itself. It is an ideal in which the individual is not the centre. The centre of
the ideal is neither individual nor society. It is a class - the class of
Supermen called Brahmins. Those who will bear the dominant and devastating fact
in mind will understand why the philosophy of Hinduism is not founded on
individual justice or social utility. The philosophy of Hinduism is founded on
a totally different principle. To the question what is right and what is good
the answer, which the philosophy of Hinduism gives, is remarkable. It holds
that to be right and good the act must serve the interest of this class of
supermen, namely, the Brahmins. Oscar Wilde said that to be intelligible is to
be found out. Manu is neither afraid nor ashamed
of being found out. Indeed Manu does not leave it to be found out. He expresses
his view in resonant and majestic notes as who are the Supermen and anything
which serves the interest of the Supermen is alone entitled to be called right
and good. Let me quote Manu.
X. 3. "On account of his
pre-eminence, on account of the superiority of his
origin, on account of his observance of (particular) restrictive rules, and on
account of his particular sanctification the Brahman is the Lord of (all) Varnas."
He proceeds to amplify his reasons and
does so in the following characteristic manner :—
1. 93. "As the Brahmana sprang from (Prajapati's
i.e. Gods) mouth, as he was first-born, and as he possesses the Veda, he is by
right the lord of this whole creation"
1. 94. For the self existent (Svayambhu i.e.God), having performed austerities,
produced him first from his own mouth, in order
that offerings might be conveyed to the Gods and Manes and that this universe
might be preserved."
1. 95. "What created being can
surpass him, through whose mouth the gods continually consume the sacrificial
viands and the manes the offerings to the dead?"
1. 96. "Of created beings the
most excellent are said to be those which are animated ; of the animated, those who subsist by intelligence ; of the intelligent, mankind ; and of the men, the Brahmanas".
Besides the reason given by Manu the Brahmin is first in rank because he was
produced by God from his mouth, in order that the offerings might be conveyed
to the Gods and manes. Manu gives another reason for the supremacy of the
Brahmins. He says :—
1. 98. "The very birth of a Brahmana is an eternal incarnation of the sacred Law
(Veda) ; for he is born to (fulfil) the sacred
law, and becomes one with Brahman (God)."
1. 99. "A Brahamana, coming into existence, is born as the
highest on earth, the lord of all created beings, for the protection of the treasury
of the Law." Manu concludes by saying that:—
1. 101. "The Brahman eats but his
own food, wears but his own apparel, bestows but his own in alms ; other mortals subsist through the benevolence of
the Brahamana." Because according to Manu:—
II.
100. "Whatever exists in the world is the property of the Brahmana ; on account of the excellence of his origin the
Brahmana is, indeed, entitled to it all." Manu
directs:—
VII. 36. "Let the King, after
rising early in the morning, worship Brahmans who
are well versed in the three-fold sacred science and learned (in polity), and
follow their advice".
VII. 38. "Let
him daily worship aged Brahmans who know the Veda and are pure. . . . ."
VII. 37. "Let the king, having
risen at early dawn, respectfully attend to Brahman, learned in the three Vedas and in the science of ethics, and by their
decision let him abide."
VII. 38. "Constantly must he show
respect to Brahmans, who have grown old, both in years and in piety, who know
the scriptures, who in body and mind are pure ;
for he, who honours the aged, will perpetually be
honoured even by cruel demons."
IX. 313. "Let him not, although
in the greatest distress for money, provoke Brahmans to anger by taking their property ; for they,
once enraged, could immediately by sacrifices and imprecations destroy him with
his troops, elephants, horses and cars."
XI. 35. "The Brahman is (hereby) declared (to be) the creator (of
the world), the punisher, the teacher, (and hence)
a benefactor (of all created beings) ; to him let
no man say anything unpropitious ; nor use any
harsh words".
• To conclude and complete the theory
of supermen and of what is right and good let me reproduce the following two
texts from Manu :—
X. 122. But let a Shudra serve Brahmans,
either for the sake of heaven or with a view to both this life and the next,
for he who is called the servant of a Brahman thereby gains all his ends.
X. 123. The service of the Brahmana alone is declared to be an excellent occupation
for a Shudra; for whatever else besides this he may perform will bear no fruit. And Manu adds :—
X. 129. No collection of wealth must
be made by a Shudra, even though he be able to do it ;
for a Shudra who has acquired wealth gives pain to Brahman.
The above texts from Manu disclose the
core and the heart of the philosophy of Hinduism. Hinduism is the gospel of the
superman and it teaches that what is right for the superman is the only thing
which is called morally right and morally good.
Is there any parallel to this
philosophy?
I hate to suggest it. But it is so obvious. The parallel to this philosophy of
Hinduism is to be found in Nietzsche. The Hindus will be angry at this
suggestion. It is quite natural. For the philosophy of Nietzsche stands in
great odium. It never took roots, In his own words he was "sometimes deified as the philosopher of the
aristocracy and squirearchy, sometimes hooted at, sometimes pitied and
sometimes boycotted as an inhuman being". Nietzsche's philosophy had
become identified with will to power, violence, denial of spiritual values,
superman and the sacrifice, servility and debasement of the common man. His
philosophy with these high spots had created a certain loathsomeness and horror
in the minds of the people of his own generation. He was utterly neglected if
not shunned and Nietzsche himself took comfort by placing himself among the "posthumous men".
He foresaw for himself a remote public, centuries
after his own time to appreciate him. Here too Nietzsche was destined to be
disappointed. Instead of there being any appreciation of his philosophy, the
lapse of time has only augmented the horror and loathing which people of his
generation felt for Nietzsche. This is principally due to the revelation that
the philosophy of Nietzsche is capable of producing Nazism. His friends have vehemently protested against such a construction.[f25] But it is not difficult to see that
his philosophy can be as easily applied to evolve a super state as to superman.
This is what the Nazis have done. At any rate the Nazis trace their ancestry
from Nietzsche and regard him as their spiritual parent. Hitler has himself
photographed beside a bust of Nietzsche ; he takes
the manuscripts of the master under his own special guardianship ; extracts are chosen from Nietzsche's writings and
loudly proclaimed at the ceremonies of Nazism, as the New German Faith. Nor is
the claim by the Nazis of spiritual ancestry with Nietzsche denied by his near
relations. Nietzsche's own cousin Richard Ochler approvingly
says that Nietzsche's thought is Hitler in action and that Nietzsche was the
foremost pioneer of the Nazi accession to power. Nietzsche's own sister, few
months before her death, thanks the Feurhar for
the honour he graciously bestows on her brother declaring that she sees in him
that incarnation of the "Superman” foretold
by Zarathustra.
To identify Nietzsche, whose name and
whose philosophy excites so much horror and so much loathing; with Manu is sure to cause astonishment and resentment in
the mind of the Hindus. But of the fact itself there can be no doubt. Nietszche himself has openly declared that in his
philosophy he is only following the scheme of Manu. In his Anti Christ this is what Nietzsche says :—
"After all, the question is, to what
end are falsehoods perpetrated? The fact that, in
Christianity, `holy' ends are entirely absent, constitutes my objection to the
means it employs. Its ends are only bad ends; the poisoning, the calumniation
and the denial of life, the contempt of the body, the degradation and self
pollution of man by virtue of the concept of sin, - consequently its means are
bad as well. My feelings are quite the reverse, When I read the law book of
Manu, an incomparably intellectual and superior work, it would be a sin against
the spirit even to mention in the same breath with the Bible. You will guess
immediately why; it has a genuine philosophy behind it, in it, not merely an
evil-smelling Jewish distillation of Rabbinism and
superstition - it gives something to chew even to the most fastidious
psychologist. And, not to forget the most important point of all, it is
fundamentally different from every kind of Bible: by means of it the noble
classes, the philosophers and the warriors guard and guide the masses; it is
replete with noble values, it is filled with a feeling of perfection, with
saying yea to life, and triumphant sense of well-being in regard to itself and
to life, - the Sun shines upon the whole book. All those things which
Christianity smothers with its bottomless vulgarity; procreation, woman,
marriage, are here treated with earnestness, with reverence, with love and
confidence. How can one possibly place in the hands of children and women, a
book that contains those vile words : "to
avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have
her own husband. . . . . it is better to
marry than to burn". And is it decent to be a
Christian so long as the very origin of man is Christianised, - that is to say,
befouled, by the idea of the immaculate conception?...
I know of no book in which so many delicate and kindly things are said to
woman, as in the Law Book of Manu ; these old grey-beards and saints have a manner of
being gallant to woman which, perhaps, cannot be surpassed. "The mouth of a woman", says Manu on one occasion, "the breast of a maiden, the prayer of
a child, and the smoke of the sacrifice, are always pure". Elsewhere he
says: "there is nothing purer than the light of the Sun, the shadow cast
by a cow, air water, fire and the breath of a Maiden".
And finally-perhaps this is also a holy lie:—
"all the openings of the body above the navel are pure, all those below
the navel are impure. Only in a maiden is the whole body pure."
This leaves no doubt that Zarathustra is a new name for Manu and that Thus Spake Zarathustra is a new edition
of Manu Smriti.
If there is any difference between
Manu and Nietzsche it lies in this. Nietzsche was genuinely interested in
creating a new race of men which will be a race of supermen as compared with
the existing race of men. Manu on the other hand was interested in maintaining
the privileges of a class who had come to arrogate to itself the claim of being
supermen. Nietzsche's supermen were supermen by reason of their worth. Manu's supermen were supermen by reason of their birth. Nietzsche was a genuine
disinterested philosopher. Manu on the contrary was an hireling engaged to
propound a philosophy which served the interests of a class born in a group and
whose title to being supermen was not to be lost even if they lost their
virtue. Compare the following texts from Manu.
X. 81. "Yet a Brahman, unable to subsist by his duties just
mentioned, may live by the duty of a soldier; for that is the next rank."
X. 82. "If
it be asked, how he must live, should he be unable to get a subsistence by
either of those employment ; the answer is, he may
subsist as a mercantile man, applying himself into tillage and attendance on
cattle."
IX. 317. "A Brahmana, be he ignorant or learned, is a great
divinity, just as the fire, whether carried forth (for the performance of a
burnt oblation) or not carried forth, is a great
divinity".
IX.323. "Thus, though the Brahmans employ themselves in all (sorts) of mean
occupation, they must be honoured in every way; (for each of) them is a very
great deity".
Thus Manu's
is a degraded and degenerate philosophy of superman as compared with that of
Nietzsche and therefore far more odious and loathsome than the philosophy of
Nietzsche.
This explains why the philosophy of
Hinduism does not satisfy the test of justice or of utility. Hinduism is not
interested in the common man. Hinduism is not interested in Society as a whole.
The centre of its interest lies in a class and its philosophy is concerned in
sustaining and supporting the rights of that class. That is why in the
Philosophy of Hinduism the interests of the common man as well as of society
are denied, suppressed and sacrificed to the interest of this class of
Supermen.
What is the value of such a religion
to man ? Mr. Balfour
in speaking on the merits of positivism as Religion asked the positivists certain questions which are worth
recalling. He very pertinently asked ;
"What has (Positivism) to say to the
more obscure multitude who are absorbed, and well nigh overwhelmed, in the
constant struggle with daily needs and narrow cares; who have but little
leisure or inclination to consider the precise role they are called on to play
in the great drama of `humanity' and who might in any case be puzzled to discover
its interest or its importance ? Can it assure
them that there is no human being so insignificant as not to be of infinite
worth in the eyes of Him who created the Heavens, or so feeble but that his
action may have consequence of infinite moment long after this material system
shall have crumbled into nothingness? Does it offer consolation to those who
are bereaved, strength to the weak, forgiveness to the sinful, rest to those
who are weary and heavy laden? "
The same questions may be asked of
Manu. The answer to each one of them must be in the affirmative. In short the
philosophy of Hinduism is such that it cannot be called the Religion of
humanity. That is why to use the language of Balfour, Hinduism,
if it penetrates, does not vitrify the inmost life of ordinary humanity. Indeed
if it does anything it paralyses it. There is in Hinduism no nourishment for
ordinary human souls, no comfort for ordinary human sorrow, no help for
ordinary human weakness. It leaves men in darkness face to face with the unthinking
energies of nature, which gives them birth to which after a few fruitless
struggles they succumb. Not less cruel than the crudest irreligious, does it
leave men divorced from all communions with God.
Such is the philosophy of Hinduism. It
is Superman's heaven and the common man's damnation.
I am conscious that my position
regarding the philosophy of Hinduism will be assailed from different sides. So
contrary it is to the current views about it that it is bound to be assailed.
The attack may come from various sides.
It will be said that I am wrong in
taking the Manu Smriti
as the book of Hindu religion and that the true gospel of Hinduism is contained
in the Vedas and the Bhagwat
Gita.
I am sure no orthodox Hindu will be
bold enough to repudiate the authority of Manu Smriti as a book of Hindu
Religion. Such a charge can be made only by some reformed sects of Hinduism
such as the Arya Samajists.
But there can be no doubt that this charge is not well founded. To refute this
charge it is perhaps desirable to explain[f26] how the Smritis
obtained a place and position of authority among the Hindus.
The Smritis originally were a
collection of rules relating to social traditions, customs and conventions
approved of and recommended by those who were learned in the Vedas. For a long
time these rules existed only in the memory of those learned in the Vedas, so
they began to be called Smritis i.e. things which are remembered in contrast to
Vedas or Shruti that is things which were heard.
In the beginning the Smritis even when they were codified were treated as rules
of inferior value as compared with the rules contained in the Vedas.
The difference in their authority and
binding force was the result of the natural difference between the trustworthiness of what is heard as compared to what
is only remembered. There was also another reason of this differentiation in
the two sorts of Dharma Shastra
literature. This was based upon the status of their authors. The authors of the
Vedas were Rishis. The authors of the Smritis were
only learned men. The Rishis were superior in status and sanctity than those
who were merely learned. Consequently the Vedas were treated as more
authoritative than the Smritis.
The consequence arising from this was
well expressed in the Hindu theological formula according to which if there was
a conflict in the rules of two Vedas on the same subject it meant option for a
rule of Vedas cannot be deemed to be inoperative.
On the other hand, in a conflict between a rule of Shriti
and a rule of Smriti the rule of Shruti prevailed becuse
for the reasons stated above Smriti was inferior in authority to the Shruti.
But as pointed out by Prof. Altekar, the Smritis in course of time came to be invested with
the same authority as belonged to the Vedas. Various means were adopted to
accomplish this purpose. In the first place the authors of the Smritis were
elevated to the status of Rishis. The early Dharma Shastra writers
like Gautama, and Baudhayana were never given the
status of a Rishi. But Manu
and Yajnavalkya are reckoned as Rishis. By this
means the status of the Smritis was equated to that of the Shrutis. The second means adopted was to regard the
Smriti as the record from memory of a Shruti which was lost. Thus Smriti
instead of being regarded as something quite different from Shruti came to be
regarded as akin to and indistinguishable from Shruti. The result of these
steps was a complete change in the rules regarding the authority of the two.
Originally if there was a conflict between a Smriti and a Shruti, the Shruti
prevailed. The new rule was that in case of conflict there was an option which
meant that the Smriti rule was as operative as the Rule of Shruti. This new
rule has been expressly laid down by Kumarila in
his commentary on the Purvamimansa Sutra whereby
the Smritis were made as authoritative as Shrutis.
While originally Hindu Society was
bound to the Vedas and could not follow any rule which was contrary to the
Vedas, the new rule altered the situation and left it to the option of society
either to follow the Shruti or the Smriti. But even this option was later on
taken away. This was done by making the study of the Smritis as compulsory as
that of the Shruti.
This was done gradually. In the first
place it was suggested that the Shrutis and Smritis are the two eyes of the Brahamana, if he is devoid of one he becomes a
one-eyed person. Then came the theory that Brahmanyam
is possible only as the result of a joint study of both the Vedas and the
Smritis. Finally came the rule according to which the study of the Smruti only was recognised and a contempt of the
Smriti was made a sin and a person guilty of it was declared to be condemned to
be born as a beast for 21 generations.
This is how the Smritis have been
recognised as a source of Hindu Religion and there is no doubt that, to quote
Prof. Altekar, the Smritis ;
"have played a great part in
determining the features of many a social and socio-religious
institutions and customs and in moulding the development of modern Hinduism."
It cannot therefore be maintained that
I was wrong in taking Manu Smriti as containing
the philosophy of Hinduism.
This work of elevating the Smritis to the status of the Vedas was undertaken by the Brahmins for a most
selfish reason. The Smritis contain in all its wild and luxurious growth the
doctrine of Caste, the doctrine of the superiority of the Brahmins, their
rights and privileges, the doctrine of the subordination of the Kshatriyas and Vaishyas and the doctrine of the degradation of the Shudras. Such being the philosophy of the Smritis,
the Brahmins were directly interested in investing the Smritis with the
authority which was claimed for the Vedas and in which they ultimately
succeeded to their advantage but to the ruination of the whole country. But
conceding—which orthodox and pious Hindu would do that the Smritis do not
contain the philosophy of Hinduism but that the same is to be found in the
Vedas and the Bhagwat Geeta
the question is what difference would this make in the result.
It seems to me that it matters very
little whether one takes the Smritis, or the Vedas or the Bhagwat Geeta.
Do the Vedas teach something, which is
fundamentally different from what the Smritis do? Does the Bhagwat Geeta run
contrary to the injunctions of the Smritis. A few illustrations will make the
matter clear.
It is indisputable that the Vedas lay
down the theory of Chaturvarna in what is known as
the Purushasukta. This Purushasukta
recognises two basic principles. It recognises the division of society into
four sections as an ideal. It also recognises that the ideal relationship
between the four sections is inequality.
What the Bhagwat Geeta teaches is also
beyond controversy. Its teaching may be summarised in the following four
pronouncements made by Krishna in the Bhagwat Geeta.
(1) "I myself have created the
arrangement known as Chaturvarna (i.e. the fourfold division of society into
four castes Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras)
assigning them different occupations in accordance with the native capacities.
It is I who am the maker of this Chaturvarna"—
Gita. IV. 13
(2) "Even
if it may be easier to follow the occupation of another Varna yet to follow the occupation of one's own Varna is more meritorious, although one may not be able to do it
quite efficiently. There is bliss in following the occupation of one's own
Varna, even if death were to result in performing it ;
but to follow the occupation of another Varna
is risky".—Geeta. HI. 35.
(3) "The educated should not
unsettle the faith of the uneducated who have become attached to their
occupation. He himself should perform the occupation of his Varna and make
others perform theirs accordingly. An educated man may not become attached to
his occupation. But the uneducated and dull-minded people who have become
attached to their occupation should not be spoiled by the educated by putting
them on a wrong path by abandoning their own occupation"— Geeta III. 26, 29.
(4) "Oh, Arjun ! Whenever this religion of duties and occupations (i.e. this religion of Chaturvarna) declines, then I myself will come to birth to punish those who are responsible for its downfall and to restore it—Geeta IV, 7-8.
Such is the position of Geeta. What difference is there between it and the Manu Smriti? Geeta is Manu in a nutshell. Those who run away from Manu Smriti and want to take refuge in Geeta either do not know Gita or are prepared to omit from their consideration that soul of Geeta which makes it akin to Manu Smriti.
Compare the teachings of the Veda, of
the Bhagwat Geeta with what is contained in the
Manu Smriti which I have taken as the text for elucidating the philosophy of
Hinduism. What difference does one find? The only
difference one can find is that the Vedas and the
Bhagwat Geeta deal with General Theory while the Smritis
are concerned in working out the particulars and details of that theory. But so
far as the essence is concerned all of them—the Smritis, the Vedas and the
Bhagwat Geeta—are woven on the same pattern, the same thread runs through them
and are really parts of the same fabric.
The reason for this is obvious. The
Brahmins who were the authors of the whole body of Hindu Religious
Literature—except the Upanishad Literature—took good
care to inject the doctrines formulated by them in the Smritis, into the Vedas
and the Bhagwat Geeta. Nothing is to be gained in picking and choosing between
them. The Philosophy of Hinduism will be the same
whether one takes the Manu Smriti as its Gospel or whether one takes the Vedas
and the Bhagwat Geeta as the gospel of Hinduism.
Secondly it will be contended that
Manu Smriti is a Book of Laws and not a code of ethics and that what I have
presented as a philosophy of Hinduism is only legal philosophy and is not the
moral philosophy of Hinduism.
My answer to this contention is simple. I hold that in Hinduism there is no distinction between legal philosophy and moral philosophy. That is because in Hinduism there is no distinction between the Legal and the Moral, the Legal being also the Moral.
Not much evidence is necessary to
support my contention. Take the
meaning[f27] of the word Dharma
in the Rig Veda. The word Dharma occurs in the Rig
Veda 58 times. It is used in six different senses. It is used to denote (1)
Ancient custom, (2) Laws, (3) Any arrangement which maintains law and order in
society, (4) The course of nature, (5) The quality of a substance and (6) Duty
of good and evil. It will thus be seen that from the very beginning the word
Dharma in Hinduism has a two fold connotation. It means both law and moral.
That is one reason why in the
philosophy of Hinduism there can be no distinction between legal philosophy and
moral philosophy.
This is not to say that the Hindus
have no code of morality. To be sure they have. But it is very pertinent to ask
the nature and character of conduct, which the Hindu Code of Ethics declares to
be moral.
To have an idea of the nature of
conduct which the Hindu thinks moral, it is better to begin by recognising that
there are three levels of conduct[f28], which must be, distinguished. (1)
Conduct arising from instincts and fundamental need (2) Conduct regulated by standards
of I society and (3) Conduct regulated by individual conscience. Conduct on the
first level, we do not call moral conduct. It is of course not immoral; it is
merely unmoral. It is governed by forces not as moral in purpose but as
valuable in result. The forces are biological or sociological
or psychological. These have purpose, such as to satisfy hunger, or to forge a
weapon against an enemy. But the end is one set up by our physical or
instinctive nature. So long as this is merely accepted as an inevitable end and
not compared with others, valued, and chosen,
it is not properly moral. Conduct on the second level is no doubt social.
Wherever groups of men are living there are certain ways of acting which are
common to the group—"folkways". There are approved
ways of acting, common to a group, and handed down from generation to
generation. Such approved ways of acting are called the mores or the morals of
the group. They imply the judgement of the group that they are to be followed.
The welfare of the group is regarded as in some sense imbedded in them. It
becomes the duty of the individual to follow them and if any one acts contrary
to them he is made to
feel the group's disapproval. We cannot strictly speaking call the conduct
moral. Because the end is accepted as a standard of `good' prescribed by
society. If it had spoken of a moral conduct it is only because it conforms to
the mores or morals of the Society. It may be called customary morality.
Conduct on the third level is conduct, which alone is truly and completely
moral. That is because in it the Individual recognises
the right or chooses the good, and
freely devotes himself heartily to its fulfilment. He does not merely accept what is inevitable or follow what is
approved by society. He values and chooses the end and becomes personally
responsible. His is reflective morality.
On what level does Hindu morality
stand? Obviously it is not on the third level. This
means that a Hindu is social but not moral in the strict sense of the term. A
Hindu takes no responsibility for the ends he serves. He is a willing tool in
the hands of his society, content to follow. He is not a free agent afraid to
differ. His notions of sin give remarkable proof of his unmoral character.
Institutes of Vishnu gives a list of sins which are divided into nine classes:—
1. Deadly
sins—atipataka.
These are certain forms of incest, to be atoned for only by burning.
2. Great sins—mahapataka.
These are killing a Brahman, drinking spirituous
liquor, stealing the gold of a Brahman, connection with a Guru's wife ; also social intercourse with those
guilty of such sins.
3. Minor sins of a similar character— anupataka.
These include the killing of certain other classes of persons, giving false evidence
and killing a friend, stealing lands or deposits of a Brahman, certain forms of
incest and adultery.
4. Minor sins— upapataka.
Sins of false statement, neglect of certain religious duties, adultery,
unlawful occupation, offences connected with marrying before an elder brother
&c., not paying one's debts to the Gods, and
manes, atheism &c.
5. Sins
effecting loss of caste jatibramsakara. Causing bodily pain to a Brahman,
smelling things, which should not be smelt, dishonest dealing, and certain
unnatural crimes.
6. Sins which
degrade to a mixed caste samkarikarana. Killing domestic
or wild animals.
7. Sins which render one unworthy to
receive alms— apatrikarana.
Receiving presents and alms from despicable
persons, trade, money lending, lying, and serving a Shudra.
8. Sins cause defilement— malavaha.
Killing birds, amphibious animals, and aquatic animals, worms and insects;
eating nutmegs or other plants similar in their effects to intoxicating
liquors. 9. Miscellaneous sins— prakirnaka. Those not already mentioned. This list of sins is
not exhaustive but it, is long enough and
illustrative enough to give us the idea which underlies the Hindu notion of
Sin. In the first place it connotes the fall of man from a prescribed form of
conduct. In the second place it means to be defiled, to become unclean. This is
the root meaning of the term Patak. It means Patana (falling away) and it means Asowcha (being rendered unclean). In
either case sin according to Hindu notion is a decease of the soul. In the
first sense it is merely breach of a rule of external conduct. In the other
sense it is a defilement of the body to be cleaned and purified by both or by
pilgrimage or by sacrificial offering. But it is never the spiritual
defilement, which is associated with the harbouring of evil thoughts and
purposes.
This shows the morality of the Hindu
is purely social. This means that the level of his morality is purely
traditional and customary. There are two evils of customary morality. In the
first place there is no surety that it will always be charged with sincerity
and purity of motive. For it is only when morality penetrates to the deepest
springs of purpose and feeling in the individual that pretence will cease to
find a place in human behaviour. In the second place customary morality is an
anchor and a drag. It holds up the average man and holds back the man who
forges ahead. Customary morality is only another name for moral stagnation.
This is true of all cases where morality is only customary morality. But the
customary morality of the Hindus has an evil feature, which is peculiar to it.
Customary morality is a matter of meritorious conduct. Ordinarily this
meritorious conduct is something, which is good from the general or public
point of view. But among the Hinduism the meritorious conduct is not concerned
with the worship of God or the general good of community. Meritorious conduct
in Hinduism is concerned with the giving of presents, of good and of honour to
the Brahmins. Hindu Ethics is worship of the superman.
What difference would it have made if
I had taken Hindu Ethics as the basis for deducing the philosophy of Hinduism? Most students of Hinduism forget that just as in
Hinduism there is no difference between law and Religion so there is no
difference between law and ethics. Both are concerned with the same thing
namely regulating the conduct of the low class Hindus to subserve the ends of high Caste Hindus.
Thirdly it will be objected that I
presented an altogether false picture of Hinduism in as much as I have omitted
to take into account the Upanishads which are the
true source of Hindu philosophy.
I admit that I have not taken the
Upanishads into account. But I have a reason and I believe very good reason for
doing so. I am concerned with the philosophy of Hinduism as a part of the
philosophy of Religion. I am not concerned with Hindu philosophy. If I were, it
would have been necessary to examine the Upanishads. But I am quite willing to
deal with it so as to leave no doubt that what I have shown to be the
philosophy of Hinduism is the philosophy of Upanishads.
The philosophy of the Upanishads can be stated in very few words. It has
been well summarised by Huxley[f29] when he says that the Upanishad
philosophy agreed:—
"In supposing the existence of a permanent reality, or `substance', beneath the shifting series of phenomena, whether of matter or of mind. The substance of the cosmos was `Brahma', that of the individual man `Atman'; and the latter was separated from the former only, if I may so speak, by its phenomenal envelope, by the casing of sensations, thoughts and desires, pleasures and pains, which make up the illusive phantasmagoria of life. This the ignorant, take for reality; their `Atman' therefore remains eternally imprisoned in delusions, bound by the fetters of desire and scourged by the whip of misery.
Of what use is this philosophy of the Upanishadas? The
philosophy of the Upanishadas
meant withdrawal from the struggle for existence by resort to asceticism and a
destruction of desire by self-mortification. As a way of life it was condemned
by Huxley[f30] in scathing terms :—
"No more thorough mortification of the flesh has ever been attempted than that achieved by the Indian ascetic anchorite; no later monarchism has so nearly succeeded in reducing the human mind to that condition of impassive quasi-somnambulism, which, but for its acknowledged holiness, might run the risk of being confounded with idiocy."
But the condemnation of the philosophy
of the Upanishads is nothing as compared to the
denunciation of the same by Lala Hardyal[f31] :—
"The Upanishads claim to expound
`that, by knowing which everything is known '. This quest for ' the absolute '
is the basis of all the spurious metaphysics of India. The treatises are full
of absurd conceits, quaint fancies, and chaotic speculations. And we have not
learned that they are worthless. We keep moving in the old rut; we edit and
re-edit the old books instead of translating the classics of European social
thought. What could Europe be if Frederic Harrison,
Brieux, Bebel, Anatole France, Herve, Haekel, Giddings, and
Marshall should employ their time in composing
treatises on Duns, Scotus and Thomas Aquinas, and
discussing the merits of the laws of the Pentateuch and the poetry of Beowulf? Indian pundits and graduates seem to suffer from a
kind of mania for what is effete and antiquated. Thus an institution,
established by progressive men, aims at leading our youths through Sanskrit
grammar to the Vadasvia the Six Darshanas! What a false move in the quest for wisdom ! It is as if a caravan should travel across the
desert to the shores of the Dead Sea in search of fresh water! Young men of
India, look not for wisdom in the musty parchments of your metaphysical
treatises. There is nothing but an endless round of verbal jugglary there. Read Rousseau and Voltaire, Plato and
Aristotle, Haeckel and Spencer, Marx and Tolstoi, Ruskin and Comte, and other European thinkers, if you wish to
understand life and its problems." But
denunciations apart, did the Upanishad philosophy
have any influence on Hinduism as a social and political system? There is no
doubt that it turned out to be most ineffective and inconsequential piece of
speculation with no effect on the moral and social order of the Hindus.
It may not be out of place to inquire
into the reasons for this unfortunate result. One reason is obvious. The
philosophy of Upanishad remained incomplete and
therefore did not yield the fruit, which it ought to have done. This will be
quite clear if one asks what is the keynote of the Upanishads.
In the words of Prof. Max Muller[f32] the keynote of the Upanishads is `Know thy Self". The `Know thy
Self of the Upanishads, means, know thy true Self, that which underlies thin
ego and find it and know it in the highest, the eternal self, the One without a
Second, which underlies the whole world."
That Atman
and Brahman were one was the truth, the great
truth which the Upanishads said they had discovered and they asked man to know
this truth. Now the reasons why the philosophy of Upanishads, became
ineffective are many. I will discuss them elsewhere. At this place I will mention
only one. The philosophers of Upanishads did not realise that to know truth was
not enough. One must learn to love truth. The difference between philosophy and
religion may be put in two ways. Philosophy is concerned with knowing truth.
Religion is concerned with the love of truth. Philosophy is static. Religion is
dynamic. These differences are merely two aspects of one and the same thing.
Philosophy is static because it is concerned only with knowing truth. Religion
is dynamic because it is concerned with love of truth. As has been well said by
Max Plowman[f33] :—
". . . .Unless religion is
dynamic and begets in us the emotion of love for something, then it is better
to be without any thing that we can call religion; for religion is perception
of truth and if our perception of truth is not accompanied by our love for it
then it were better not seen at all; The Devil
himself is one who has seen the truth only to hate it. Tennyson said "We must love the highest when we see it". It does not follow. Seen in pure objectivity
the highest repels by its difference and distance; what we fear it, and what we
fear we come to hate. . .
. ."
This is the fate of all transcendental philosophies. They have no influence
on the way of life. As Blake said "Religion
is politics and politics is Brotherhood. Philosophy must become Religion that
is it must become a Working Ethic. It must not remain mere metaphysics. As Mr. Plowman says—
"If religion were a Metaphysic and
nothing else, one thing is certain, it would never be the concern of the simple
and humble men.
"To keep it wholly in the realm of
Metaphysic is to make non-sense of it. For belief in religion as in something
not directly and vitally effective of politics is ultimately belief that is
strictly speaking idiotic; because in the effective sense such a belief makes
no difference, and in the world of time and space what 'makes no difference'
does not exist."
It is for these very reasons that the
philosophy of the Upanishads proved so ineffective.
It is therefore incontrovertible that
notwithstanding the Hindu Code of Ethics, notwithstanding the philosophy of the
Upanishads not a little not a jot did abate from the philosophy of Hinduism as
propounded by Manu. They were ineffective and
powerless to erase the infamy preached by Manu in
the name of religion. Notwithstanding their existence one can still say
"Hinduism! Thy name is inequality!"
Inequality is the soul of Hinduism.
The morality of Hinduism is only social. It is unmoral and inhuman to say the
least. What is unmoral and inhuman easily becomes immoral, inhuman and
infamous. This is what Hinduism has become. Those who doubt this or deny this
proposition should examine the social composition of the Hindu Society and
ponder over the condition of some of the elements in it. Take the following
cases.
First as to the Primitive Tribes. In what state of civilisation are they ?
The history of human civilisation
includes the entire period of human progress from Savagery to Barbarism and
from Barbarism to Civilisation. The transition
from one to other has been marked by some discovery or intention in some
department of knowledge of Art resulting in advancing the onward march of man.
The development of articulate speech
was the first thing which, from the point of view of human progress, divided
man from the brute. It marks the first stage of savagery. The Middle period of
the state of savagery began with the knowledge of the manufacture and use of
fire. This wonderful discovery enabled man to extend his habit almost
indefinitely. He could leave his forest home, go to different and colder
climates, and increase his food supply by including flesh and fish. The next
discovery was the Bow and Arrow. This was the greatest achievement of primitive
man and marks the highest state of savage man. It was indeed a wonderful
implement. The possessor of this device could bring down the fleetest animal
and could defend himself against the most predatory.
The transition from Savagery to
Barbarism was marked by the discovery of pottery. Hitherto man had no utensils
that could withstand the action of fire. Without utensils man could not store
nor could he cook. Undoubtedly pottery was a great civilising influence.
The Middle State of Barbarism began
when man learned to domesticate wild animals. Man learned that captive animals
could be of service to him. Man now became a herdsman, no longer dependent for
food upon the precarious chase of wild animals. Milk procurable at all seasons
made a highly important addition to his dietary. With the aid of horse and
camel he traversed wide areas hitherto impassable. The captive animals became
aids to commerce, which resulted in the dissemination of commodities as well as
of ideas.
The next discovery was of the Art of
smelting iron. This marks the highest stage of advancement of barbaric man.
With this discovery man became a "tool-making
animal" who with his tool could fashion wood
and stone and build houses and bridges. This marks the close of the advancement
made by barbaric man. The dividing line which marks off Barbaric people from
Civilised people, in the fullest sense of the word Civilisation, is the art of
making ideas tangible by means of graphic signs— which is called the art of
writing. With this man conquered time as he had with the earlier inventions
conquered space. He could now record his deeds and his thoughts. Henceforth,
his knowledge, his poetical dreams, his moral aspirations might be recorded in
such form as to be read not merely by his contemporaries but by successive
generations of remote posterity. For man his history became safe and secure.
This was the steepest assent and the climbing of it marks the beginnings of
civilisation. Stopping here for the moment let us ask in what state of
civilisation are the Primitive Tribes.
The name Primitive Tribes[f34] is expressive of the present state of
people who are called by that name. They live in small-scattered huts in
forests. They live on wild fruits, nuts and roots. Fishing and hunting are also
resorted to for the purpose of securing food. Agriculture plays a very small
part in their social economy. Food supplies being extremely precarious, they
lead a life of semi-starvation from which there is no escape. As to clothes
they economise them to a vanishing point. They move almost in a state of
complete nakedness. There is a tribe, which is known as “Bonda Porajas” which,
means "Naked Porajas".
Of these people it is said that the women wear a very narrow strip which serves
as a petticoat almost identical with what is worn by the Momjak Nagas in Assam,
the ends hardly meeting at the top on the left thigh. These petticoats are
woven at home out of the fibre of a forest tree. Girls wear a fillet of beads
and of palmyra leaf and an enormous quantity of beads and neck ornaments
extremely like those worn by many Komjak women.
Otherwise the women wear nothing. The women shave their heads entirely. . . . . Of these Chenchus, a tribe residing near Farhabad in the Nizam's Dominions it is said that "their houses are conical, rather slight in
structure made of bamboo sloping to the central point and covered with a thin layer of thatch..... They
have very little, indeed, in the way of material effects, the scanty clothes
they wear, consisting of a langoti and a cloth in the case of men, and a short bodice and
a petticoat in the case of women, being practically all, besides a few cooking
pots and a basket or two which perhaps sometimes contains grain. They keep
cattle and goats and in this particular village do a little cultivation,
elsewhere subsisting on honey and forest produce which they sell". Regarding the Morias,
another Primitive tribe, it is stated the men generally wear a single cloth
round the waist with a slap coming down in the front. They also have a necklace
of beads and when they dance put on cock's plumes and peacock's feathers in
their turbans. Many girls are profusely tattooed, especially on their faces, and some of them on their legs as well. The
type of tattooing is said to be according to the taste of the individual and it
is done with thorns and needles. In their hair many of them stick the feathers
of jungle cocks and their heads are also adorned with combs of wood and tin and
brass.
These Primitive Tribes have no hesitation about eating anything, even worms and insects, and, in fact, there is very little meat that they will not eat, whether the animal has died a natural death or has been killed four days or more before by a tiger.
The next groups of the people he will come across are the Criminal Tribes.
The Criminal Tribes live not in Forests as the Primitive Tribes do but in the plains in close proximity to, and often in the midst of civilised life. Hollis in his "Criminal Tribes of the United Provinces" gives an account of their activities. They live entirely by crime. A few may be ostensibly engaged in agriculture, but this is only to cover up their real activities. Their nefarious practices find largest scope in dacoity or robbery by violence, but being a community organised for crime, nothing comes amiss to them. On deciding to commit a dacoity in any particular locality spies are sent out to select a suitable victim, study the general habits of the villagers, and the distance from any effective aid, and enumerate the number of men and firearms. The raid usually takes place at midnight. Acting on the information given by the spies, men are posted at various points in the village and by firing off their guns attract attention from the main gang which attacks the particular house or houses previously appointed. The gang usually consists of 30 to 40 men.
It is essential to emphasis the great
part played by crime in the general life of these peoples. A boy is initiated
into crime as soon as he is able to walk and talk. No doubt the motive is
practical, to a great extent, in so far as it is always better to risk a child
in petty theft, who, if he is caught, would probably be cuffed, while an adult
would immediately be arrested. An important part is also played by women, who,
although they do not participate in the actual raids, have many heavy
responsibilities. Besides being clever in disposing off stolen property the
women of the Criminal Tribes are experts in shop lifting.
At one time the Criminal Tribes
included such well-organised Confederacies of Professional Criminals as the Pindharies and the Thugs.
The Pindharies were a predatory body of armed gangsters. Their organisation was an open military organisation of freebooters who could muster 20000 fine horse and even more. They were under the command of brigand chiefs. Chitu one of the most powerful commanders had under his single command 10000 horse, including 5000 good cavalry, besides infantry and guns. The Pindharies had no military projects for employing their loose bands of irregular soldiery, which developed into bodies of professional plunderers. The Pindharies aimed at no conquests. Their object was to secure booty and cash for themselves. General loot and rapine was their occupation. They recognised no rulers. They were subjects of none. They rendered loyalty to none. They respected none, and plundered all, high and low, rich and poor, without fear or compunction.
The Thugs[f35] were a well organised body of
professional assassins, who, in gangs of from 10 to 100 wandered in various
guises throughout India, worked themselves into the confidence of wayfarers of
the wealthier class, and, when a favourable opportunity occurred, strangled
them by throwing a handkerchief or noose round their necks, and then plundered
and buried them. All this was done according to certain ancient and rigidly
prescribed forms and after the performance of special religious rites, in which
was the consecration of the package, and the sacrifice of sugar. They were
staunch worshippers of Kali, the Hindu Goddess of destruction. Assassination
for gain was with them a religious duty, and was considered a holy and
honourable profession. They had, in fact, no idea of doing wrong, and their
moral feelings did not come into play. The will of the Goddess, by whose
command and in whose honour they followed there calling, was revealed to them
through a very complicated system of omens.
In obedience to these they often
travelled even the distance of hundred miles in company with, or in the wake
of, their intended victims before a safe opportunity had presented itself for
executing their design; and when the deed was done, rites were performed in
honour of that tutelary deity, and a goodly
portion of the spoil was set apart for her. The Thugs had also a jargon of
their own, as well as certain signs by which its members recognised each other
in the remotest part of India. Even those who from
age or infirmities could no longer take an active part in the operations used
to aid the cause as watchmen, spies or dressers of food. It was owing to their
thorough organisation, the secrecy and security with which they went to work,
but chiefly to the religious garb in which they shrouded their murders, that
they could continue for centuries to practise their craft. The extraordinary
fact was that Thugee was regarded as a regular
profession by Indian Rulers of the day, both Hindu and Mahomedans. The Thugs paid taxes to the state and the
state left them unmolested.
It was not until the British became
rulers of the country that an attempt was made to suppress the Thugs. By 1835,
382 Thugs were hanged and 986 were transported or imprisoned for life. Even as
late as 1879 the number of registered Thugs was 344 and the Thugee and the Dacoity department of the Government of India
continued to exist until 1904 when its place was taken by the Central Criminal
Intelligence Department. While it is not possible for the criminal tribes to
live by organized bodies of criminals, crime continues to be their main
occupation.
Besides these two classes there is a
third class which comprises a body of people who
are known as Untouchables.
Below the Untouchables there are
others who are known as unapproachable. Untouchables are those who cause pollution only if
they touch. The Unapproachable are those who cause pollution if they come
within a certain distance. It is said of the Nayadis—a
people, who fall into the category of the Unapproachable, "that they are the lowest caste among the
Hindus—the dog-eaters.
They are the most persistent in their
clamour for charity, and will follow at a respectful distance, for miles
together any person walking, driving or boating. If any thing is given to them,
it must be laid down, and after the person offering it has proceeded a
sufficient distance, the recipient comes timidly forward, and removes it. "Of the same people Mr. Thurston says, "The
subject (i.e. the Nayadis) whom I examined and measured at Shoranus, though living only about three miles off,
had, by reason of the pollution which they traditionally carry with them to
avoid walking over the long bridge which spans the river, and follow a
circuitous route of many miles". Below the
Unapproachable are the Unseeables. In the Tinnevelley District of the Madras Presidency there
is a class of unseeables called Purada Vannans. Of them it is said, "that they are not allowed to come out during
day time because their sight is enough to cause pollution. These unfortunate
people are `compelled' to follow the nocturnal habits, leaving their dens after
dark and scuttling home at the false dawn like the badger, the hyena, the avordvark."
Consider the total population of these
classes. The Primitive Tribes form a total of 25 million souls. The Criminal
Tribes number 41/2 millions and the Untouchables number 50 millions. This makes
a grand total of 791/2 millions. Now ask how these
people could have remained in the state of moral, material, social and
spiritual degradation surrounded as they have been by Hinduism. Hindus say that
their civilisation is older than any civilisation, that Hinduism as a religion
is superior to any other religion. If this is so how is that Hinduism failed to
elevate these people, bring them enlightenment and hope; how is it that it
failed even to reclaim them ; how is it that it
stood with folded hands when millions and millions were taking to life to shame
and crime? What is the answer to this? The only
answer is that Hinduism is overwhelmed with the fear of pollution. It has not
got the power to purify. It has not the impulse to serve and that is because by
its very nature it is inhuman and unmoral. It is a misnomer to call it
religion. Its philosophy is opposed to very thing for which religion stands.
[f1]See
Article on `Philosophy' in Munro's Encyclopacdia of Education
[f3]Natural Theology as a distinct department of
study owes its origin to Plato-see Laws.
[f4]A. E. Taylor. "The Faith of a Moralist"
p. 19
[f5]The Religion of the Semites (1927)
[f6]Some
students of the Philosophy of Religion seem to regard the study of the first
two dimensions as all that the field of Philosophy of religion need include.
They do not seem to recognize that a consideration of the third dimension is
necessary part of the study of the Philosophy of Religion. As an illustration
of this see the Article on Theology by Mr. D. S. Adamas in Hastings
Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics' Volume XII page 393. I dissent from this
view. The difference is probably due to the fact that I regard Philosophy of
Religion as a normative study and as a descriptive study. I do not think that
there can be such a thing as a general Philosophy of Religion. I believe each
Religion has its particular philosophy. To me there is no Philosophy of
Religion. There is a philosophy of a Religion.
[f7]That the idea of God has evolved from both these
directions is well illustrated by Hinduism. Compare the idea of Indra as God
and the idea of Bramha as God.
[f8]Smith Ibid
[f9]Smith Ibid
[f10]1 Smith Ibid
[f11]1 Smith Ibid
[f12]Quoted by Crowby. Tree of Life, page 5.
[f13]1Two Moralities page.
[f14]For another interpretation of justice see .J. S. Mill— Utilitarianism.
[f15]Manu recognises seven kinds of slaves (VIII-415).
Narada recognises fifteen kinds of slaves (V-25)
[f16]2The same rule is laid down by Yajnavalkya (11-183)
whose authority is equal to that of Manu.
[f17]1
The following are the sixteen sacraments :—
[f18]1
So also are the women.
[f19]See my Essay "Manu on Caste—A puzzle". (This Essay has not been found in the papers
received. —Editors.)
[f20]'See Laski Liberty in the Modern State.
[f21]The
proverbs are not mentioned in the MS—Editors.
[f22]This is the story of Trisanku. It will have been
observed, it differs materially from the one quoted above from Harivansa : but
brings out more distinctly the character of the conflict between Vashishtha and
Vishvamitra.
[f23]1
The Religion of the Semites—p.269. 5
[f24]Caste devitalises a man. It is a process of
sterilisation. Education, wealth, labour are all necessary for every individual
if he is to reach a free and full manhood. Mere education without wealth and
labour is * Quotation not given in the
MS.—Editors
[f25]For this as also for facts which follow see
M.P.Nicolas. "From Nietzsche Down to Hitler" 1938.
[f26]See the interesting article by Prof. Altekar—on
"The Position of Smritis as a Source of Dharma" in the Kane Memorial
Volume pp. 18-25.
[f27]What follows is taken from an article on the
subject by Mr. Yeshwant Ramkrishna Date in a Marathi Magazine called
"Swadhaya' Double No. 7-8. First year pp. 18-21.
[f28]In
this I am entirely following the analysis given by Crawley and Tufts in their
volume on Ethics
[f29]Evolution and Ethics p. 63
[f30]Evolution and Ethics p. 64
[f31]Modern Review. July. 1912.
[f32]Hibbert lectures 1878, p. 317.
[f33]"The Nemesis of Ineffectual
Religion"-Adelphi. January 1941.
[f34]This
and other information is taken from Census of India 1931 Vol. I part
[f35]Encyclopaedia Britannica. 11th Ed. Vol. XXVI p.
896.