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IND.o.ARyan
THOUGHT AND CULTURE
AND THEIR BEARING
ON PRESENT DAY PROBLEMS IN INDIA
An Argument from the Standpoint of a Native of that Country
º, OR
BY
PRABHAKER. S. SHILOTRI
1926
university or Micrºcº
Gºl Llºº -








ſº
• INDO-ARYAN
THOUGHT AND CULTURE .
AND THEIR BEARING a
ON PRESENT DAY PROBLEMS IN INDIA
An Argument from the Standpoint of a Native of that Country
OR
WHY BRITAIN RULES INDIA
BY
PRABHAKER S. SHILOTRI
1926
as
2.
*
2
*
º
CoPYRIGHT, IQI3
- BY
PRABHAKER S. SHILOTRI
22-2 / 2 % ºf 3
In Gratitude
to
Those who enabled me to enjoy a
prolonged University career
Preface . . . . .
Chapter I.
Chapter II.
Chapter III.
Chapter IV.
Chapter V.
Bibliography
g e º 'º e º 'º e º e º ſº e º tº sº e º e º e º 'º e º ºs e º e º ºs e e º 'º º º º
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Ultimate Physical Determinants of the
Indo-Aryan Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Intermediate Psychological Forces—Con-
flict between Spiritual and Economic Val-
ues—Triumph of the Former and Forma-
tion of the Indo-Aryan Social Mind. . . . .
In the Fetters of Sacred Law and Custom
—Powerlessness of Disintegrating Forces.
Socio-Political and Economic Conse-
quences—Beginnings of Effective Disin-
tegration—Exploitation—Program of Re-
construction—Methods and Means.......
s e e º e º e º e º g g º e e º e e º e e e e º e e º 'º e º 'º e & © tº tº e &
26–38
39–56
57–63
© PREFACE eſ'
The aim of this study is not so much to bring to light new
data as to interpret some commonplace facts from the history of
Indo-Aryan culture, the full significance of which is not, in my
judgment, properly appreciated nor made use of in dealing with
the present day problems of India. The cause of some of India's
most acute economic and political problems"is to be found in the
unique Indo-Aryan mental evolution, which has crystalized into
an almost “fixed attitude” of the Indian social mind, and which
supports some of her deep-rooted institutions. These institu-
tions were formed 10ng before foreigners exploited the country,
and to the tyranny of these institutions the population still cheer-
fully submits, almost unconsciously, I maintain, in spite of the
“new spirit” which is doing so much today for the regeneration
of the country. What I mean by a “fixed attitude” of the Indian
Social mind and an unconscious homage to ruinous customs even
on the part of the most educated amongst us, I shall try to make
clear in the course of this study.
The lack of full appreciation of these simple facts has cre-
ated, on the one hand, an unnecessary prejudice against an intel-
ligent population, in consequence of which the British govern-
ment has committed some serious administrative blunders. A
failure, on the other hand, to reckon with these facts on the
part of our own political and social leaders has led them into
prisons or to the gallows.
I cannot subscribe to the attitude of the haughty English
civilian and the Western scholar who, with an incomplete knowl-
edge of ethnology, maintain that the dark skinned races of India
are degenerate products of a tropical clime, unfit for pros-
perous economic institutions and incapable of constitutional self-
government. Such an attitude is based upon the innate preju-
dice which the European has against the dark skinned races and
tropical climes. It is based upon superficial knowledge of the
stamina of a population acclimatized to hot regions, well quali-
fied to exploit the natural resources of such places, and yet held
in check by predominantly psychological factors. Such racial
prejudice once extended to all Asiatic races, but Japan
having redeemed the Mongolian race from the stigma, the
calumny is now directed at India alone.
8
&
I believe that whatever may have been the influence of the
geographic and racial factors in the past, in the problems of
present reconstruction psychological and institutional factors
predominate. tº
Nor can I subscribe to the enthusiastic claims of some of
our leaders that they are the honorable descendants of the
noble Aryan race—those who are most zealous in claiming such
an affinity have in fact sometimes the least of that blood in them
—representatives of a glorious civilization and in every way fit
for Western democratic political institutions, capable of bringing
about a quick economic regeneration of their country, but held
in check by what they call the malignant influence of the British
rule. While appreciating the disadvantages of a foreign rule, I
must say that their claims are based upon illusions. In the first
place there is hardly any element in India of the so-called pure
Aryan blood—the entire population being a mixture of the
Dravidian, the Mongolian and Aryan blood in all degrees, show-
ing in its results an imperceptible gradation of color. But,
as we shall later point out, the Indians are the better for this
promiscuous mixture of races, and their freedom from color
and race prejudice is one of the best economic assets for the
future. In spite of this excellent racial composition of the
population, well fitted, as it is, to exploit tropical economic
resources, it is not fit today for the political goal it seeks nor
the economic prosperity to which it aspires, because there
has not as yet been born in that population that spirit which
is absolutely the essential basis of a prosperous national
life—a political and economic consciousness of kind. This
racially mixed and more or less unified population of 3OO,OOO,OOO
people stands hopelessly differentiated into 3,000 or more small
and large communities of interest, called castes, speaking over
I50 languages or dialects, and having no common conscious
political or economic interest.
Caste again is only a comprehensive name that includes the
thousand and one customs and rules that have been such great
obstacles to political and economic progress in India.
My aim is to trace the progress of the mental evolution that
has given birth to that “fixed attitude” of the Indian social
mind, which in turn supports a relentless tyranny of institutions.
This condition has created in India some of the most difficult
and unique problems for the people of that country. To it we
owe the spectacle of a vigorous population, racially more or less
9
O
mixed, yet socially differentiated; of proved intelligence for
political and military organization, yet subject to the ruſe of
a handful of foreigners having their homes in a distant land;
a people dwelling in the midst of vast nafural resources yet
proverbially poor and suffering from chronic famines; excelling
in clear thinking, yet paying slavish homage to superstition
and custom. *
In the light of these remarkable results the literary docu-
ments of the Indo-Aryan civilization present unrivalled oppor-
tunities for a study of socio-economic causation, and happily in
them we find a complete record of this unique process of mental
evolution. To my knowledge, no attempt has thus far been
made to use these data for such a purpose, for which in fact
they are most valuable, apart from their linguistic, literary and
religious merits which have been so zealously exploited.
My main thesis is that the abnormal mental evolution of the
Indo-Aryan stock has been largely responsible for the chaotic
political, social and economic conditions that we find in India as
the curtain rises on her authentic political history. The factors
of climatic environment and contact with the Dravidian races
are important, I admit, but their evil influence has been over-esti-
mated and benefits therefrom are generally overlooked. In
my judgment, the most difficult task before the leaders of India
today is to create forces in society that will disintegrate the
present “fixed attitude” of the Indian social mind and enable
them gradually to soften the rigid differences that exist between
caste and caste, and create among the people of India a feeling
of nationality that will be based not only upon a sense of com-
mon political and economic interests, but also upon a consan-
guineal consciousness of kind. This will mean that the difference
of status between members of the so-called Aryan and the Dra-
vidian castes will have to be gradually eliminated. That is, in
the end we have to face the fusion of the Aryan and the Dravid-
ian blood in India, which, it is believed, the caste system has so
strenuously exerted itself to keep apart. Are we warranted in
such a procedure? Yes. In the first place, if the caste system had
as one of its missions the preservation of the purity of the
Aryan blood, in that respect, it has been a failure, as we shall
later point out. In the second place, the value of the Dravidian
races in India is under-estimated. They possess many excellent
qualities which the Aryans do not have. They are moreover a
IO
Qº
race by no means widely separated from the Aryans, and in
theif history prior to the coming of the Aryans into India, they
possess excellent credentials for their admission tº equal status
with the so-called Aryan castes.
My estimate of the Dravidian races, as the reader will notice,
I have largely supported by Mr. Hewitt's researches. Mr.
Hewitt had been a commissioner of Chutia Nagpur for many
years. This district is one of the chief centres of the pure
Dravidian populatioſ in India. Here he had, by personal con-
tact, an opportunity to study the characteristics, qualities, tradi-
tions, and folk lore of these people. Mr. Hewitt was so much
impressed by the stamina of these people that he went even so
far as to maintain that"the famous Bharata kings of India were
of Dravidian descent. Mr. Hewitt further maintains that these
people were of Semitic origin, who had invaded India from the
northeast and had established large centralized kingdoms. He
says that (true to their blood affiliations) these invaders were
great merchant kings. In my own judgment also, an attempt to
class all the pre-Aryan black aborigines of India into one race
is to ignore the very marked differences of physiognomy that
exist between the members of the Kolarian and the Dravidian
tribes. I am not personally qualified to judge of the full value of
Mr. Hewitt's researches, but I feel that the worth of the Dra-
vidian races and the part they have played in the formation of
Indian history, religion and mythology have been generally under-
valued. In order to remove any misapprehension on the part
of the reader as to my affiliation with the Dravidian race, I
may state here that I belong to a Maratha caste which claims to
be of pure Aryan Kshatriya origin, and as such I can have no
personal interest in emphasizing the commendable qualities of
the Dravidian race.
My emphasis on the evils of the “fixed attitude” of the In-
dian social mind and the stationary institutions of the country
should not be misconstrued as implying that I advocate a
promiscuous mixing of castes and races or any radical change in
the existing social order. It would not prove advantageous—
indeed it might be actually disastrous in its result—to shock
the cherished sentiments and prejudices of the “mob mind” be-
fore the soil is prepared for the planting of the new seed. There
are methods which I shall suggest by which the desired re-
sults can be gradually obtained without arousing unnecessary
antagonism on the part of the people.
II
©
I shall consider these pages to have fulfilled their mission
if they go even a little toward removing some of the innate
prejudices of my countrymen, and if they produce on the part of
the Western nations a somewhat more sympathetic and inquiring
attitude towards the problems and people of India.
I wish to record here my indebtedness to my teachers in the
Department of Economics and Sociology, whose courses it has
been my privilege to attend, and from whose association I have
derived much benefit. To a fellow student, Mrs. Alice S.
Gitterman, M. A., I desire to express my sincere appreciation
for her thorough revision of the proofs. My heaviest obligations
are due to Professor Seager for his kind encouragement
throughout, and to Professor Jackson, who, although I was not
a pupil in any of his classes, made many very valuable sugges-
tions and criticisms and gave me many evidences of his personal
kindness. While acknowledging my indebtedness to each
of these gentlemen I must add at the same time that they are
to be relieved of responsibility for any particular view advanced,
as the opinions and arguments are my own.
NEw York, March, IQI3.
.” CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Q
In giving my reasons for undertaking to write on so broad a
theme, various phases of which have been dealt with by many ex-
cellent scholars, I myst say at the outset that it is the product of
an unpremeditated plan. I had occasion to go through the
translations of some of the leading Sanskrit texts, and while I
obtained no appreciable results for my original purpose in
perusing them, I came across abundant evidence to confirm me
in some of the views which I had been forming concerning the
problems and people of India on the basis of my acquaintance
with the actual conditions in that country and an immediate
knowledge of the Indian psychology.
A quest for the root of the socio-economic problems of In-
dia is of most vital interest to us to-day, and I thought that an
attempt on my part to offer even a slight clue towards their
solution might be appreciated by my countrymen as a greater
service than even very fruitful results in any other branch of
research. -
Something is radically wrong in a country where hundreds
of millions of people in a perpetual low standard of life succumb
to a condition of chronic poverty, restless political discontent,
and misery. Superficial analyses have simply resulted in rem-
edial measures—while the fundamental conditions remain prac-
tically unchanged. To put the blame on the tropical clime or
the racial qualities of the population and declare the problem as
insoluble and hopeless, is deliberately to shut our eyes to the
history of the country and the native stamina of its people. It
is a good working hypothesis for the British Government and
for indifferent Westerners, but the people of India cannot be
satisfied with such a summary dismissal of the case and must
make an independent effort to solve the problem.
The gravity of a problem, however, or an interest in its so-
lution, is no license for anyone to undertake its treatment.
I fully realize that many able scholars have worked on it,
and after devoting years of research and reflection, confessed
their inability to say a final word on the subject. Yet India is
today passing through a period of mental transition and prepar-
a-w
a
I3
ing for a mental crisis. The mind of the Indian youth now
craves a consistent theory that will explain to him his situation
and offer himea clue towards its solution. Past at such a period
it is necessary that the intellectual leadership of that country
shall fall into sane hands. Unfortunately, many Western and
Eastern men of note and scholars of excellent repute are pro-
mulgating some not only erroneous but positively dangerous
doctrines as to the potentialities and fate of India and her peo-
ple. Victims to these doctrines, many of our excellent young
men have gone to the gallows and others have fallen into a
mood of pessimism, believing that things must remain as they
21 e.
First: There is a class of men who ascribe famines and all
other evils in India to what they call the malignant influence of
the British rule. They insist that conditions will remain pretty
much as they are so long as that obstacle remains in the way.
Second : There are those who maintain that tropical peoples
and dark skinned races are incapable of maintaining a constitu-
tional self-government and sound economic institutions, that is,
in plain words: people of dark skin are destined to a dark fate
—one of perpetual slavery to their masters from temperate
zones. A certain scholar who has travelled all over the world
and is reputed an authority on Eastern questions, in discoursing
to his classes upon colonies and dependencies, showed for
nearly an hour lantern slides displaying the half-fed and half-
clothed inhabitants of India and the Malay Peninsula, and asked
if such filthy-looking creatures could be worthy of the self-gov-
ernment, which their leaders seek for them. These are by no
means false representations, but we shall later point out the
dangers of generalizations about peoples and civilizations based
upon such superficial observations.
Third : There is the pet doctrine of a defective ethnology
which insists that race hybridization produces degenerate prog-
eny, and maintains that the barrier between separate races
must remain as a perpetual condition. In this connection it
should be remembered that the major part of the population of
India represents just such a hybrid product.
Fourth: We are told that the British government is doing
much benevolent work in India, and that the people of that
country are ungrateful malcontents and do not know what is
I4
good for them, and cannot appreciate it when they get it. The
people of India, it is maintained, have no grounds for complaint.
The British governsent is the best government and the most effi-
cient; as though the best ever must inevitably be the best forever.
A scholar (and I may say he has his supporters) who has spent
a considerable part of his Jife in studying the problems of India,
points out that the people of that country today are much hap-
pier and economically more prosperous than they were under
their native Rajas, who robbed and looted them under the pre-
text of collecting taxes. We shall later point out why this
statement, which is partly incorrect, fails to prove the superior
merit of the present administration as a desirable perpetual
condition. &
Since such are the attitudes toward the problems of India
even of those from whom we should expect more balanced
views, we cannot blame the zealous apostles of Christ who
offer the gospel as a panacea for all the evils in India.
Under the seducing attractiveness of the four mischief-
making doctrines above enumerated, our young men have been
led into rash attempts or into the pessimistic belief that the
tropic and sub-tropic regions are the graves of human energy
and progress. We warn them to guard against such fascina-
ting or pessimistic doctrines, and, keeping sober aims in view,
to work steadily for the reconstruction of the country, which
has the best of prospects in the future.
False pride, narrow-minded prejudices, and a spirit of re-
venge and ridicule are the results of a superficial study of the
isolated chapters of a past period of human civilization. It is
little wonder that an Englishman who reads of the Black Hole
of Calcutta and the massacre of women and children by friends
of Nanasahib, or a Westerner who only knows that the people
of India are dark skinned, should come to that country with a
contempt for the people, or that others, reading only of the phil-
osophical doctrines of the people of India, should expect to find
in all the Indians great philosophers. Neither is it surprising
that an Indian youth, reading isolated chapters of Warren
Hastings' administration, should be imbued with a spirit of re-
venge against Englishmen, irrespective of their motives and
opinions.
Unfortunately, it is a defective system of education in which
we are drilled at home. It trains our memory and teaches us
I5
to perform some intellectual feats, but creates in us no inquiring
and unbiased attitude towards our social, political, and econfomic
problems. This neglect of the teaching Qi social sciences is
largely responsible for the unsatisfactory intellectual leadership
that we find in India today.
And as we leave our shores seeking for a better understand-
ing of our problems and a more definite scheme for their solu-
tion, our ears are stunned with the noise about the clement spirit
and the high standard of honor of the English. Here we are
given an opposite swing to the pendulum of our theories. We
are taught some perverted ethnological doctrines as to the dan-
gers of race mixture and the advantages of race prejudices—
doctrines based upon insufficient data for such sweeping gener-
alizations as to the destiny of mankind. Yet I know of many
victims of such mischief-making doctrines amongst us who ad-
vocate an accentuation of caste spirit, and others who have come
to despair of the prospects of their country and the fate of their
kindred.
It is to prevent the minds of our simple and inquiring youths
from being polluted by such suicidal views and to remove at
least some of the grosser prejudices of Western scholars as re-
gards the peoples and problems of India, that I have undertaken
such an ambitious task, with some diffidence as to my ability to
discharge it successfully. I hope, however, that my presumption
may be pardoned if I do not extend my ambition beyond merely
presenting a point of view.
In the course of this essay I shall try to show to what extent
the tropical climate of India brought about the degeneration of
the Indo-Aryan stock; point out the worth of the Pre-Aryan
races and civilization of India; give my reasons for declaring the
present racially mixed composition of the population of India
to be an economic advantage to the country; show the value of
absence of color prejudice to the future regeneration of that
country, and why I consider it would be a pity if from the con-
tact with civilized Western nations we should breed in ourselves
a contempt for the dark skin and the so-called lower races; that
the problem of India hinges on the possibility of the disintegra-
tion of the present attitude of the Indian social mind, and of
creating in its stead another social mind, possessing political
and economic “consciousness of kind,”—that is to say, that it is
a problem of psychogenesis primarily, whatever may have been
I6
the influence of geographical and racial factors in times gone by.
I shall point out the special advantages accruing from the Brit-
ish government in the direction of this psychotdisintegration
which we so muchedesire, and also explain why in my judgment
this government may perhaps stand as a serious obstacle to the
furthereprogress of a healthy growth of national economic life
in India. My main task, however, will be to trace the growth
of this peculiar attitude of the Indo-Aryan Social mind which
supports the apparent contrast and contradistinctions, the ex-
istence of the sublime and the ridiculous side by side in the life
of the people of India.
Finally, I shall try to point out to my countrymen that the
situation is such that we need be neither pessimistic nor over-op-
timistic as to the prospects of our country and the fate of our
people, and that every Indian youth, if he cares to, can become
an active force in building up his nation and serve his country
even without sacrificing his business or domestic interests.
Very few people either in or out of India, except those who
happen to have devoted special attention to the problem, have a
clear idea of the complicated racial composition or the peculiar
mental constitution of the population of that country. To the
Westerners India has been a land of mystery, curiosity, con-
tempt, or admiration, according to the particular phase of its
civilization they happen to have studied or heard of. To the
orthodox Indian mind she is the only holy spot on the face of
the earth, possessing the only religion that gives salvation. Re-
gions and peoples outside it are impious barbarians. If we
take some of the most commonplace beliefs and facts about
India and her people, we find in them a deep meaning for our
purpose—for we shall soon realize that in an attempt to furnish
a consistent explanation of these we are confronted with a
laborious task. - -
What are some of these facts, then, that give us an inkling of
her problems? The popular mind readily catches and stores
whatever is generally most peculiar and offers vivid contrasts
about a country and her people, and yet these very commonplace
popular beliefs reveal on genetic analysis some important truths.
The popular mind credits or discredits India with many con-
trasts, some of which are as follows: it is a country of wisdom
and intellect, of whose people much has been heard, and yet we
are told that they are heathens and victims of gross superstition,
17
9.
practising idolatry and fetish worship. And the people -claim
the ribble Aryans, a white Caucasian race, for their ancestors,
yet the majórity amongst them appears & half-clad, half-fed
population, not at first glance differing much from the colored
population of the United States, and in fact containing many
racial and cultural elements even ºnferior to the lowest of
negroes. Amidst the glittering glory of wealth and courtly pomp
of thousands of native princes, who wear costly jewels and
make such lovely scenery at Durbars, miſſions are held in the
jaws of famine and have to be supported by contributions to
the missionary funds. There is a fundamental psychological
unity that supports the heterogeneous structure of the caste
system. There are hundreds of millions of people representing
strong and vigorous race elements, yet held in subjugation by a
handful of foreigners.
These are some of the facts of commonplace knowledge
which seem inexplicable to the Western mind. Many times
during my stay in America have I been asked by sympathetic
friends of India for an explanation of such astonishing anoma-
lies. These contrasts and contradictions are facts, and an at-
tempt on the part of some of our patriots either to deny or to
defend them has led them into a ridiculous situation. I shall
make no attempt either at refutation or removal of these beliefs,
but hope to show that in a genetic study of these phenomena
we find an explanation that renders these contrasts less aston-
ishing and these apparent incompatabilities less baffling.
The people who are credited by some as being the earliest
inhabitants of India are the Kols.” Their racial affinity is
not well known. They are believed to belong to a branch of the
Australian negroid type. They are jet black in color, have wooly
hair and are animistic in belief. These people are said to have
been the first in the world to take to a settled life. They
built villages on their hunting grounds and made beginnings
in agriculture. Their number must have been very small,
perhaps only a few millions. As these people were de-
veloping their tribal politics, another race, supposedly of
Turanian origin, came from the northeast, conquered and
*J. F. Hewitt, Primitive Traditional History, Vol. I, p. 92 et seq.
For an opposite view see Risley's People of India, p. 43 et seq. Mr.
Risley places the entire aboriginal population of India into one main
group which he calls Dravidian and gives them a negroid description of
physique.
I8
enslzved these people and established their supremacy.” These
people are called the Dravidians—the true backbone Öf the
population of Indiá. They are of reddish black color, have
smooth, straight hair, pointed noses, and in general physiog-
nomy greatly resemble the so-called white races of Europe—
except that their color is lark. It is believed that these were a
brave and war-like people, possessed of great genius for political
organization, and a native instinct for industrial development.
They had established large kingdoms in India and had made con-
siderable progress in agriculture, industry and commerce.” Their
number must have been very large, as they form the major" part
of the present population of India and their blood has filtered
through almost all the facial stocks that later arrived in the coun-
try. From the standpoint of acclimatization and economic effi-
ciency this is perhaps the best racial stock in India today.”
After them came the so-called Indo-Aryans, the most power-
ful and intelligent of all the races that went to India for perma-
nent colonization. They were a Caucasian white race, believed
to be descended from the same forefathers as those of the Ger-
manic tribes of Europe and the Gauls of Scotland. It is imma-
terial whether or not we admit the close racial affinity of these
people to the races of Western Europe; it is sufficient for our
purpose that they were the most vigorous and intelligent ele-
ment that entered the country, and by their unique civilization,
which has now become known world-wide amongst scholars, pro-
foundly affected the entire course of future events in India and
decided her political and economic fate. Yet these people were
also only a few millions in number. It is they who started the
caste system in India, originally to preserve and perpetuate the
purity of their blood as well as the sanctity of their spiritual status
from the surrounding black ocean of irreligious people in which
they found themselves situate. But their most rigorous caste sys-
“Ibid., p. 235 et seq. Mr. Hewitt believes these Turanian people
are of Semitic origin. See also, his Ruling Races of Pre-historic Times,
p. 6I et seq.
“Hewitt's Ruling Races of Pre-historic Times, p. 105. Also Prim.
Trad. His., pp. 885 et seq. Also see reference in note above.
‘See statistics of castes given in Mr. Risley's Ethnological Appendix
to Vol. I of the Census of India for 1901, and compare the numerical
strength of the dominantly Aryan and the dominantly Dravidian castes.
“Whatever may be the difference of opinion as to the racial affinity
of the Dravidians, Mr. Risley, , Mr. Hewitt and Mr. Elphinstone ail
agree, as to their industrial efficiency in a warm climate. See Elphin-
stone's History of India, 9th ed., p. 215, and Risley, People of India,
D. 43.
*A
I9
ga
tem and religious and race prejudices failed to keep their blood
from-assimilation with their neighbors, and thus today we find
a very smalk element of predominantly Aryan white blood in
India. tº
After many centuries of tranquility during which the Indo-
Aryans were accomplishing their mºntal evolution and crystal- "
izing it into their institutions, came successive waves of the
Greeks, the White Huns, the Mongolians, the Semitic Arabs, the
Mohammedans, the Negroes from Africa; and the Jews from
Palestine and Asia Minor. Some of these like the Scythians and
the Greeks, adopted the Indo-Aryan creeds and institutions, while
others, like the Mohammedans, imposed their creed on a por-
tion of the existing population. All of them, however, became
inevitably mixed in race and culture, and all in time submitted
to the powerful influence of Indo-Aryan culture and customs.
It is interesting to note that among many other things we find
this peculiar fact, that under the influence of Indo-Aryan cul-
ture even the Mohammedans, the Christians, and the Jews in
India have learned to follow indirectly some form of a caste
system.
Thus we see that the population of India consists of a vast
conglomeration of many race elements, which, though racially
mixed, have been split up into thousands of small and large
communities of interest, some of them racially purer than others.
We find that the Turanian Dravidian people, a reddish-black
race of Caucasian appearance and physiognomy, constitutes the
major part of the Indian population, and from the point of view
of their economic contribution and the numerical majority the
country may properly be said to belong to them. In the north-
west of India we find the center of the predominantly white
Indo-Aryan blood, and as we go farther from that point towards
east and south, we come across various degrees of mixed Aryan
and Dravidian blood, until towards the farthest east and in al-
most the whole of the south below the Vindhya mountains we find
a predominantly black Dravidian population, in the northeast
somewhat intermingled with the Mongolian blood.” Of course,
there are exceptions to this general rule, as there are later im-
migrants who have settled south and east and show the predom-
inantly white blood of the Greek or Scythian invaders with
whom their affinity is recognized.
*Baine’s Ethnology (in Bühler's Grundriss) p. I5. Also the map
showing race distribution in India attached to Mr. Risley's Appendix
referred to above.
2O
It is these basic facts of pseudo-heterogeneity of racial com-
position and the multiplicity of the rigidly close communities of
interest called castes, a unique product of Indian psychology,
that have accentuated the influence of such secondary factors
as the religious and linguistic differences and impaired the po-
litico-economic structure ºf society to such an extent as to pre-
sent an insuperable obstacle to rapid political and economic
progress—and the most daring reformer in India stands aghast
before the power of these factors.
I cannot here recount the innumerable secondary prob-
lems of India, but let the reader imagine a country two-fifths as
large as the United States, containing a population of 3OO,OOO,-
OOO people divided into over 3,000 castes, speaking more than
I5O dialects, professing countless creeds, ruled by super-
stitious customs and under the tutelage of thousands of princes
or heads of small and large estates. Embracing some race ele-
ments equal to any of the progressive and prosperous peoples of
Western Europe, the country failed to build an economically
sound civilization, failed to assimilate the fresh supplies of blood
that came in, failed to eliminate linguistic and religious differ-
ences and consolidate political organization; in short, these
heterogeneous elements failed to merge into one “people.”
Even today there is no “people” in India, in the political sense
of that word. Yes, there are priests and princes and rulers
and heads of castes and corporations and clerks, but there is
no “people” in the sense in which that term is understood in
Western countries. How did this come about, and how can
such a condition be ameliorated? To find a clue to the reply is
the aim of this study.
If we must fix the blame on someone for creating such con-
ditions in India, we can lay it especially on those immigrants
who came there about 2500 B. C., and called themselves Aryans,
distant kinsmen of the Germanic tribes of Europe. But we
can hardly place the responsibility on these people. Their own
thinking and actions were conditioned by factors which were
beyond their control. At any rate, these are the people whose
history, beliefs, and institutions supply the most important gen-
etic clue to the problems of India. But for the coming of these
people to India the history of that country would have been to-
day either a relatively blank page or would have contained a
list of kingdoms and dynasties to match those of the Chinese
2I
and Ottoman Empires. Prior to the coming of the Indo-
Aryans, political events in India, it is believed, were shaping
themselves afong the normal lines. We find the powerful Dra-
vidian kingdoms organized and maintained on an efficient politi-
cal basis, the population classified into three main divisions on .
a strict precedence of wealth and political power—the nobility,
gentry, and slaves to correspond to the English earl, thane and
ceorl, the Roman patrician, plebian and slave.” The Dravidian
freeman of the village community had become subject to the
manorial lord and the manorial lord paid homage to the central
control. Political organization was gradually consolidating and
economic progress was slowly making headway, and one notes
with intense interest the parallel between the politico-economic
developments in feudal Europe and those in India at this
period. It seems that at a given stage of evolution human na-
ture unfolds itself in a precisely similar fashion under identical
conditions. But all this until the Aryans came on the scene,
and now we find that the feudal lordships stayed where they
were and failed to disintegrate and make room for the people,
for the people did not care and the people as a body politic was
11O In Ore. -
The Indo-Aryans themselves sincerely believed and told
these distinguished predecessors of theirs that they were en-
gaged in a wild goose chase;" that the ambition to accumulate
riches and build empires was unworthy, because it never ends,
and because, moreover, riches and empires belong to this world
and remain here, from which after a temporary sojourn, the hu-
man soul must depart. Therefore, they advised them to go
after permanent values that appertain to the soul and bring
eternal bliss. Such was the sincerity of their attitude in this
matter, the reality of their belief, the attractiveness of their
philosophy, the subtlety of their intellect, and the plasticity of
their teachings that they readily enlisted to their standard that
vast population including the most powerful princes and the
poorest beggars; and the king as well as the beggar were now
alike zealously devoted to making accumulations for the here-
after. A vast population was, so to say, hypnotized. The complex
"Hewitt's Primitive Traditional History, chap. IV, Sec. K, pp. 4Io-
445. Sec. on the comparison of the Indian and the European Monarch-
ical Institutions and Land Tenure.
‘This is my inference. For influence of the Aryans as teachers of
the Dravidian princes see Ruling Races, etc., p. III et seq.
22
O
machinery for manufacturing these spiritual products was now
set in motion, the elaborate sacrifices and ceremonies éosting
many princes their fortunes, the caste system bringing many mil-
lions to their ruin, the various cults and austere practices, the min-
ute regulation of everyday life activities by the sacred law—all
these were at first intended to facilitate the accumulation of
spiritual merits and to open the path upwards to a higher
birth, to a better world with less misery, and, finally, to
that stage of complete absorption into the universal soul
which gives freedom from birth, death, sickness, and from
all the misery and trouble that go with life and living.
For over twenty centuries this charm worked on the popu-
lar mind undisturbed" by outside influences, and so deeply
were the people hynotized by the fascinating ideals that
when the shock came from the outside world it was too late to
waken them from the power of this sweet slumber. The mould
was cast and hardened and it was in vain that Buddha, Chan-
dragupta, Asoka, Vikramaditya, even an Akbar, a Shivaji, and
a Madhji Sindya tried to give new impressions and stamp to
the original setting; and the British government and the Indian
reformers of today well know the burden of their problem. It
is through the Indo-Aryans then that the political and economic
fate of India was sealed. But can they at least tell us why they
did so or how they achieved these remarkable results? Yes,
for this purpose they have left us a most valuable legacy, per-
haps as though to justify and acquit themselves before the great
tribunal of humanity. We shall now examine the character of
this evidence.
The British conquered not only the land and the people of
India, but their versatile genius and all inquiring spirit sent
forth their rays into all the dismal corners of the country, which
were closed even to her own sons by almost impassable barriers
set by the Brahmanical law. Not many years had elapsed since
their first tiny territorial acquisition in that land, when scholars
like Wilkins and Jones began their labors in the field of Sans-
krit literature, and sent forth messages to the Western world
that they had discovered the existence of another world of
thought and spirit, entirely unique in its character and
without parallel elsewhere. Colebrooke and Wilson by their
further studies confirmed this news. Then came the great
French Scholar Bournouf, who by his comparative method
23
and organizing genius disclosed for the first time, the
true worth of the Vedic discovery and gave tremendous im-
petus to Sanskrit research, and it was not wasted as was proved
by the labors of his pupils, Max Müller and Roth, who later
became famous Vedic scholars and pushed still further the
work of their predecessors. er.
It is not my aim here to give a sketch” of the history of the
progress of Sanskrit research, but I may emphasize its import-
ance by pointing to the rapidity of its exploitation. Such was
the fervor with which these studies were prosecuted that within
the short space of only half a century the entire field of Sans-
krit literature was organized and systematized, and in spite of
the fact that there are thousands of manuscripts yet unedited
and probably many more yet undiscovered, there is scarcely a
known document of importance that has not been translated
or edited and made accessible to the student. Even the earliest
labors in Sanskrit research did not remain unappreciated. Senti-
ments in “Sakuntala” enraptured as enlightened a soul as that of
Goethe and the Upanishads solaced as stern and wilful a spirit as
that of Schopenhauer. The discovery was not, however, allowed
to remain a mere literary curiosity. A closer study of Sanskrit
at once disclosed that it was a language” “unparalleled among
its cognates in antiquity and distinctness of structure, yet re-
vealing many points of resemblance with the substratum of the
European languages”. Sir William Jones as early as 1786 de-
clared it to be a language of wonderful structure; “more perfect
than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more ex-
quisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a
stronger affinity both in the roots and verbs and the forms of
grammar than could have been produced by accident, and he
hinted at a common source of all these languages”. This sugges-
tion was developed into a valid scientific theory by the German
scholar, Franz Bopp, who led in the foundation of the study of
scientific and comparative philology. By a series of further
studies by other scholars the mutual relationship of the indi-
vidual members of the entire group of Indo-European lan-
guages was made clear. For a time these findings in linguistic
*For a sketch of the progress of Sanskrit research see A. A. Mac-
donell, A History of Sanskrit Literature, chap. I. Also Schroeder,
Indiens Literatur und Kultur; Erste Vorlesung.
"Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. XIV, IIth ed. ; article on Indo-
European languages. -
24
affinity were, in the enthusiasm of the discovery, misinterpreted,
and on the basis of linguistic affinity the dark skinned Bengali
and Madrasi and the blue-eyed Teuton were declared to be of
the same race. So complete was the illusion for a time that
even as scrutinizing a mind as that of Sir Walter Bagehot
wonders why the Bengaks,” who belong to the Aryan race,
are found to be incapable of maintaining self-government and
building up progressive and democratic institutions. These
illusions were soonſ dispelled by light from ethnological re-
searches. As early as 1864 the great ethnologist Broca empha-
sized the fact that race and language were not necessarily identi-
cal and that an affinity of language of the two peoples was not
in itself a guarantee of their racial affinity.
A close study of Vedic literature revealed the fact that it
presented a vivid picture of the working of the primitive
human mind at a certain stage of its religious development, and
thereupon Kuhn and Max Müller established a science of com-
parative mythology.” As research progressed farther in
Sanskrit philosophical documents, they proved to be an excel-
lent field for the study of the evolution of the Indian mind from
its stage of the early simple Vedic beliefs to the period which
produced the most acute metaphysical speculations. It was
unanimously noted that the later developments in these various
branches of Sanskrit culture were entirely original and unique
and this fact has been explained as a result of exclusion from
the outside world and a consequent one-sided development of
thought for a period of over twenty centuries.”
While the linguistic, religious and philosophical merits of
Sanskrit literature were thus duly appreciated and eagerly ex-
ploited, its historical merits for a study of social economic cau-
sation remain practically unrecognized. For beyond a few com-
monplace observations regarding the influence of the Indian
climate on the energy of the Aryan stock there seems to have
been little effort on the part of the scholars to use these researches
for a more thorough genetic analysis of the present-day compli-
cations of India. Yet for just such a purpose the Sanskrit litera-
*Sir Walter Bagehot's Physics and Politics, chap. III, p. 182.
*Macdonell, A History of Sanskrit Literature, p. 6.
“Even the most conservative estimates locate the period of Indo-
Aryan invasion as early as about 1200 B. C. and the first Mohammedan
conquest of epoch making importance entered India from the north in
the IIth century A. D.
25
ture affords a wealth of material which, if correctly interpreted,
throws a singular light on the mental evolution of the Indo-
Aryans and supplies at the same time a yaluable clue to the
solution of some of India's most difficult economic and political
problems. It tells us why the Aryans when they first went to
India wanted wealth, progeny, and prosperity and why ſhey de-
spised the same in their later programs for life achievements. It
gives us a better understanding of some of those most unique
products of the Indian psychology, such as the ceremonial, the
caste system, asceticism, eroticism, and the existence of
gross superstition that we find in India today. It shows us how
the economic life of the people which at first formed a powerful
upper current was finally, under the influence of Indo-Aryan
thought, reduced to a mere under current, bringing about the
economic and political decay of Indian society. For a genetic
study of this type the literary documents of Sanskrit culture
owing to their completeness and unique character remain un-
rivalled. With the help of these we shall now study how the
racial conglomeration, social differentiation and fixed psychic
constitution, observable among the people of India, were formed.
CHAPTER II
&^
THE ULTIMATE PHYSICAL DETERMINANTS OF INDO-ARYAN #OLITI-
SAL AND ECONQMIC LIFE
We shall do well to start with an attempt to familiarize our-
selves with the early life history of the Aryans, in whose
culture and institutions we expect to find an explanation of the
present-day conditions in India and a clue to their solution. But
if we are too inquisitive and go too far back, we are likely to
come out disappointed, for in spite of the most persistent re-
searches of many able European scholars, practically nothing is
yet definitely known of the original home of the so-called Aryan
family, from whom the Germans, the Greeks, the Romans, Slavs,
Persians, and the Sanskrit people are supposed to have origi-
nated. For some time in the early stages of Indo-European
philological research scholars had located the home of the re-
mote ancestors of all these people in central Asia near the
river Oxus. This opinion held sway completely until there
came others who claimed some place in Europe as the seat of
the first Aryan home. More recently Otto Schrader places it in
the steppes of southern Russia,” on the theory that the more
definitely located centers of Aryan stock in the east and west
tend to point out that region at the meeting point. In short, we
have not sufficient data to come to any definite conclusion in
this matter.
Of the racial type of this supposed original stock we
also know very little. Its members have been described
as having been of tall stature, blonde hair, blue eyes and
in almost all respects possessing the bodily type of the
Germanic tribes of Europe as described by Tacitus in
his “Germania.” But there has been a great controversy
as to whether the differentiation in the physical type of
the Aryan race as we find it later came about after their dis-
persal from their original home or existed even when they lived
together. Some maintain that the original group must have
Occupied a wide region, as it takes many square miles per head
to Support human life at the hunting stage of civilization; and at
this time it may have been that the various physical types, rep-
*Otto Schrader’s “Sprachvergleichung,” latest edition, 1906. Here
we find a thorough discussion of the original home and culture
of the so-called Aryan races. He presents a critical survey of the
past and contemporary writings on the subject and gives an exhaustive
bibliography.
27
resented by blonde and brünette hair and bracho- and dolicho-
cephalic skulls and different colors of eye pigment already dif-
ferentiated, may have lived together under the influence of a
common culture and uniform institutions. " .
Notwithstanding all these hypotheses we are unable to do
more than maintain that they were à people belonging to the
Caucasian white race in the present sense of that term, and that
perhaps the stock that came towards India resembled in physi-
cal appearance the Germanic tribes of Europe. v
The glowing pictures of their home life and culture that have
been drawn by M. Pictet and others have also been rejected,
and now our actual knowledge as to their social and economic
condition is confined to a few meagre- statements. We have
overwhelming proof, however, of the remote cultural and racial
affinity between the branches of the Indo-Aryans that came to
India and those that went westwards to the Graeco-Italian
Peninsula and northward to Germany. We grant then to the
Aryans who came to India a physical and cultural equipment
similar to that of the western races of Europe who are now
marching under the banner of progress and enjoying economic
prosperity.
In the words of Dr. Oldenberg:”
Die arischen Einwanderer in Indien nahmen, indem sie sich von
ihren Brudervölkern trennten, doch die Spuren, und mehr als blosse
Spuren, der einstigen Gemeinsamkeit in die neue Heimat mit hinüber.
Bei ihren Opfern wurden Lieder gesungen, deren Sprache der Sprache
Homers und des Ulfilas nah verwandt war. Diese Lieder feierten
Götter wie das reisige himmlische Zwillingspaar, wahrscheinlich die
Dioskuren der Griechen, oder den starken Riesen, welcher den Donner-
keil schwingt, wohl den Donar-Thor der Germanen. Ueberall waren
Keime vorhanden, aus denen, wenn ähnliche Luft und Sonne sie zur
Entwicklung gebracht hätte, Formen von Glauben and Poesie, von Sitte
und Recht hätten hervorgehen können, die sich den Denk-und Lebens-
formen jener Nationen, der Trägerinnen höchster europäischer Kultur,
gleichartig und gleichwertig an die Seite gestellt hätten.
In Wahrheit is es anders gekommen, musste es anders kommen.
Die nach Westen weisenden Kräfte und Charakterzüge des indischen
Volks mussten in der Abgeschnittenheit vom frischen Leben des Westens
rettungslos erschlaffen, in der müden Stille, unter dem glühenden
Himmel der neuen Heimat, in der langsamen aber unausbleiblichen
Vermischung mit den dunkelfarbigen Urbewohnern. Ein neues Volk,
ein neuer Volkscharakter musste sich bilden, der Charakter, welcher
daraus hervorging, dass der alten hohen intellektuellen Begabüng
der reichen Phantasie der indischen Arier das Gegengewicht gesunder
“Die Literatur des Alten Indien, p. 2.
28
Tatkraft entzogen ward. Auf allen Gebieten des geistigen Daseins
gewarºn dieser Charakter die Herrschaft. Im Öffentlichen Leben
trat statt der plastischen Gebilde von Staatsformen, welche die nationalen
Kräft zugleich zu entifesseln und zusammenzuhalten vermocht hätten,
die unplastische Formlosigkeit des Despotismus und der Kaste mit
ihrer dumpfen Atmosphäre von Zwang und Aberglauben in den Vorder-
grund. Auf sittlichem und religiösem Gebiet ein Hinundherschwanken
zwischen Extremen der Sinnlichkeit und der Entsagung, zwischen
ekstatisch iberspannter Selbstvergötterung und Verzweiflung an allem
Dasein. In der Wissenschaft ein Aufbauen spitzfindiger Systeme,
manch glänzender Gedänke, der doch unter dem Wust willkürlicher, alle
Realität aus den Augen verlierender Spielereien mit tiberkünstlichen
Begriffen und leeren Worten verschüttet wurde. In der Dichtung viel
sinnige Zartheit, die Pracht bunter und glühender Farben, aber auch
hier jener selbe Mangel an Mass und plastischer Form, jene selbe
Künstlichkeit, jenes Spielén mit einem immer tibertriebener zugespitzten
Raffinement der Gedanken und Worte.
The vigorous seed was there, but failed to develop into a
full grown tree of healthy growth. It produced profuse foliage
on some of its branches and abundant blossoms on others and
allowed still others to decay. Dr. Oldenberg along with many
Indo-Aryan scholars finds the chief explanation of these facts in
some well-known factors such as climate, race mixture, etc.
We shall point out that in order fully to account for all the
peculiarities of Indo-Aryan institutions we shall have to give
credit to many other important factors not before well recog-
nized.
A greater part of the achievements of man of which he is so
proud or his failures of which he feels so ashamed is often the
result of certain “conjunctures” or accidents (as we may call
them) in the course of his life history in the widest sense of that
term, including the incident of his heredity. This is even more
so when that achievement or failure becomes the lot of a whole
Society or community. Many such “conjunctures,” as we shall
presently see, occurred in the life history of the Indo-Aryans
after they arrived in India, and so many of them that we should
not blame those people if we find a fatalistic attitude in their
philosophy. In this chapter I shall mention some of the more
important of these “conjunctures” and indicate their significance
in shaping the course of the future life history of the Indo-
Aryans and those that have come under the influence of their
thought. Some of these significant incidents are as follows:
I. The point at which the Aryans entered India was espe-
cially favorable and the consequences of such an incident were
far reaching.
29
O
2. These vigorous and warlike people, used to a.hard
struggle for livelihood on their advance towards the Gangetic
Valley, came into sudden possession of syrplus energy due to
the bounty of nature, influence over their rich predecessors and
“easy conditions of life.”
C
3. Atmospheric and climatic conditions. Degeneration and
disappearance of the dominant type. Development of abnormal
psychological tendencies. O
4. Influence of the surrounding Dravidian races and culture.
Caste system and race mixture.
5. Isolation: they were excluded from contact with the out-
side world for twenty centuries or more and the direction of
their thoughts, which was the result of an accident, became
accentuated and confirmed.
These five factors we may now take up for a more detailed
discussion, in the order named above.
I. The favorable point of entry: The geographical condi-
tions disclosed by the Rig Vedic hymns tell us that the Aryans
after they crossed the Hindukush mountains found themselves
first in Panjab. This was a lucky incident, for the people with
whom they first came into contact were not the most civilized
and powerful of their predecessors in India. Here was a popu-
lation represented by the timid, wild Kol tribes, whom the more
civilized Dravidians had already ousted” from their stronghold
in the northeast and forced to seek resort in the less favorable
regions of Panjab. It was no wonder, therefore, that the
Aryans made a clean sweep of the Dasyus before them. These
are the “speechless niggards,” the “impious cannibals” and the
“black-skinned devils” of whom they tell us in the Rig Veda.”
Certainly this is not the description of the more civilized" Dra-
vidians whom they came across later.
Fortunately or unfortunately for the Aryans the center of
the Dravidian power lay in the northeast, in the localities of the
present provinces of Orissa and Chutia Nagpur.” Had the
Aryans happened to be trying to get into India from this direc-
*Prim, Trad. Hist., chap. 3, Sc. H., pp. 218–40, on Pre-Vedic Migra-
tions into India.
*R. C. Dutt, History of Civilization in Ancient India, Ist ed., 1889,
chap. IV, pp. 75–90.
“Ruling Races, p. 310.
*Prim. Trad. Hist., Vol. I, p. 4Io et seq.
3O
tion, the Vedic hymns would have been written in a different
vein and the contempt for the “black-skinned devil” wolfid not
have been so unqualified. It was the same luck that the British
people had in getting an entry into India through the already
emasculated Bengal. -
This triumphant entry into the new country not only gave
them a basis for their future operations, but led them to a
stronger belief in the efficacy of their sacrificial rites, which gen-
erally preceded their attacks on their enemies and in which the
assistance of Indra, Agni, and the Maruts, etc., was invoked.
This accidental coincidence of the apparent causal relations of
sacrifice to success at once brought a high prestige both to the
sacrifice and the sacrificer. The influence of such a lucky acci-
dent in creating strange casual beliefs and superstitions in prim-
itive minds, has been well recognized by interpreters of history.
2. Sudden possession of surplus energy, a condition of civili-
zation as well as of degeneracy: “Madhyadesha,” or “midland”
between the east and the west, is credited as being the chief seat
of the Brahmanical culture. What is the significance of this
fact? So long as the Aryans were in Panjab their struggle
for livelihood was not very different from what they had been
accustomed to in their former home in Iran. The topography and
the climatic conditions" made it necessary for them to keep mov-
ing in order to gain subsistence. However, as they advanced east-
ward and brought under their influence the prosperous Dravid-
ians” and their fertile territories, in conjunction with the easier
life conditions, they found themselves in sudden possession of
enormous surplus energy. The Aryans were a strong and ener-
getic people, their bodies representing highly developed physio-
logical apparatus, holding in reserve a plentiful energy that was
kept alive by constant application in gaining their livelihood and
struggling against their environment. Under their new life
conditions systematic gaining of livelihood was a matter of no
consequence, as it required little effort on their part. Thus a vast
amount of surplus energy was liberated from its original use and
for this they had to find a new outlet. Leisure creates culture as
well as induces degeneracy according to the use to which it is put
“Macdonell, p. 213 et seq. Zimmer, Altindisches Leben, p. 38.
'Zimmer, p. 40. Also, Lassen, Christian—Indische Altertumskunde,
I, 247 et seq., 2nd ed.
“Ruling Races, Essay II, pp. IoI-121. Also p. 61 et seq.
3I
© O
and the environmental condition of its possessors. The surplus
energy of the early settlers of the United States has given birth to
one of the mºst prosperous of economic ciyilizations. The Rom-
ans once used surplus energy to play the parts described in “Quo
Vadis.” Here then we find conditions that made possible the
evolution of the Indo-Aryan cultures as well as the voluptuous ©
and erotic tendencies of the Sanskrit folk which show them-
selves so prominently in the spirit of some of their literary pro-
ductions. O
3. Does the geographical environment determine the extent of
the progress and the character of the culture of a community?
There are some who make man a slave of nature and there are
others who warn us not to interpret cultures and civilizations in
terms of the bounty of nature, majesty of the skies and
grandeur of the landscape. They consider the views of men like
Montesquieu, Ratzel, Bullock, etc., as exaggerated and suggest
predominantly psychological factors as causal determinants of
progress. The truth seems to lie somewhere between these two
extremes and Professor Giddings has well expressed it in his
“Principles of Sociology,” where he maintains that while the
volitional factors play a prominent rôle in social causation, the
ultimate limits of the extent of that process are dependent upon
processes of the physical and organized world. But it helps us
little to know that man has a range of choice between certain lim-
its and that beyond these limits his powers fail. Far more im-
portant for our purpose is the fact that in the struggle between
volition and the influence of environment man is, in time, not a
constant but a variable factor, and any generalization as regards
the relation of man to his environment, if made to hold true with-
out regard to time and a particular period of humanity, is likely to
be too rigid to fit the actual facts or too loose to be of any prac-
tical value in a study of social economic causation. In applying
analogies of the physical world to the laws of social progress a
mistake is made in counting upon time as an independent variable
in respect to man. This error has led some scholars to absurd
conclusions as regards the destiny of some races of mankind. As
time goes on, man as a factor in social evolution is constantly
changing, and to what extent this change will qualify him in the
future to resist the baleful influences of environment that have
once compelled his homage we should not be too hasty to predict.
"Principles of Sociology, p. 416.
32
If the tropics have been in times gone by the grave of human
energy and progress, they may fail to repeat identical restlts in
the future, for time is constantly changing man, aſid man unlike
an inorganic body čanilot be exactly duplicated so that the experi-
ment may be repeated under identical conditions at different
periods of time. The resºonse of an inorganic element under
identical experimental conditions can be counted upon with
certainty and predicted with precision. In the case of man such
a response may vary—especially after the lapse of ages. The
failure of scientists to recognize time as a variable not inde-
pendent in respect to man is well emphasized by Professor
Bergson in his “Creative Evolution”.”
Thus, while we cannot lay down very definitely what will
happen to mankind or to a particular race in the future, under
conditions that change environment, we can state somewhat more
definitely what has happened to them in the past and estimate
the effect of their behavior as a factor in the process of pro-
gressive causation. Even a superficial study of the history of
mankind convinces us that in the past human societies in the
different regions of the world have been profoundly influenced
by the nature of their geographical environment. The Indo-
Aryans present a most remarkable case in point. The spirit
of the early Rig Vedic verses is too obvious to be mistaken. In
these verses we find the active Aryans eager to exterminate their
enemies and obtain wealth, progeny and prosperity. Life and
the things of life were now to them a joy. Compare such a spirit
with that of the quiescent and ascetic Sanskrit philosophy and
especially that of Buddhism where life is looked upon as a
source of constant misery and living a necessary evil. Mr.
Schroeder well expresses the contrast in the following lines:*
Charakteristisch ist diesen Hymnen Kraft, Frische und Ursprünglich-
keit der Empfindung, gegentiber der in der späteren Poesie sich findenden
Zartheit, ja Weichlichkeit und Ueppigkeit; desgleichen Einfachheit und
Gesundheit der Anschauungen und nicht selten eine gewisse Naivität der
Gedanken und Bilder, gegentiber später sich findenden Uebertreibungen,
Maassiosigkeiten, ja Ungeheuerlichkeiten. Von den später so deutlich
hervortretenden romantischen Eigenschaften ist im Rigveda gar nichts
zu finden, weder nach der guten, noch nach der schlimmen Seite, Kraft-
volle poetische Schilderungen der Natur, die sich bis zu kühnem Schwung
erheben, treten uns hier entgegen. Wie die Culturstufe des Rigveda uns
an die Schilderung der Germanen bei Tacitus erinnert, so hat auch die
*Especially chapters I and IV.
“Indiens Literatur und Kultur, p. 46.
*
33
º
©
Poesie des Rigveda eine gewisse Wahlverwandtschaft mit der, altger-
manisehen Poesie. Es its ein kühner, kraftvoller, streitbarer Geist, der
in diesen Hymnen lebt, noch ungebrochen durch die später erst
enstehenden priesterlichen Satzungen. Mit Veudiger Lust klammert
sich der Inder des Rigveda an das frische, blühende Leben. Er will
leben, will reichen, tüchtigen Besitz, streitbare Söhne haben und hundert
Winter fråhlich und gesund schauen. Seinen Göttern will er germ und
freudig dienen, sie sollen ihm dafir aber auch helfen, hier glücklich
und reich zu leben und dereinst in die seligen Gefilde Yama's einzugehen.
What can have brought about the change that we observe
in the Brahmanical philosophy of life? Undoubtedly, the cli-
mate has indirectly played a prominent rôle in determining the
nature of Indo-Aryan culture. Almost every prominent scholar
of Indian history has mentioned this fat. It is pointed out that
the energetic Aryans, Arabs, and Greeks, who went there,
under the malignant influence of that climate degenerated and
fell a prey to their successors, and it is maintained that the
British people hold their sway in India only by reason of their
not being permanently domiciled in that country.
From our point of view, important as the climatic factor has
been in the history of Indo-Aryan civilization, its modus oper-
andi has been heretofore misunderstood, and hence its evil effects
overestimated and its favorable influence underestimated. In
a good many parts of India the summer climate is not any more
oppressive or severe than the hot July and August days in New
York State. The winters, though they do not bring snow, are
chilly and brisk. We must also remember that the same climate
has produced such energetic men as Chandragupta, Asoka,
Schivaji and Madhji-Scindya and others when the occasion re-
quired them and the social environment permitted the assertion
of such personalities. Moreover, it was under the influence of this
climate that the Aryan intellect blossomed and bore its fruit in
Indian philosophy and Indian wisdom, which in time will be
better appreciated and more fully recognized by the Western
world even than it has been so far. I am not writing all this in
order merely to indulge in the praise of the past glories of India.
I only wish to remove the impression that the climate of India
as a genetic factor is bound to remain, as Some maintain, a
permanent obstacle to the future progress of that country.
From the cold climate of their original home in Iran to the
stifling heat of the midland and the Gangetic Valley, was a radi-
cal change in their environment to which even the sturdy Aryans
34
º
could anot help being susceptible. They frequently tell us in Rig
Veda that they find the summer heat very oppressive. Yet in
the bounty of nature, the good will of the prosperous Dra-
vidians and the easy conditions of life they had too many advan-
... tages to think of abandoning their new home. So for good or
ill they accepted the conditions as they were and adopted that
country as their permanent place of residence.
My hypothesis as to the manner in which the climate worked
on the physiological 'apparatus of the Aryans is somewhat dif-
ferent from that usually accepted and has two aspects. One
finds ample evidence, I think, in Sanskrit literature to distin-
guish two diametrically opposite tendencies on the part of these
people—under the influênce of the climate—one to physiological
degeneracy and eroticism and the other to abnormal psychologi-
cal developments culminating in asceticism. The extent of erotic
literature” in the Sanskrit language gives us a good idea of the
enervating effects of the Indian climate on the Indo-Aryan
stock and the accounts in the Itihasa writings of the hundreds
of voluptuous men and women of India confirm the actual ex-
istence of this evil to a large extent. This tendency, however,
affected only the less vital type of the community which suc-
cumbed eventually to impotence or consumption and was thus
self-eliminated.
The other tendency—that to overcontemplation and ascetic-
ism—affected only the very dominant type. It was the most am-
bitious men of the community who laid out for themselves the
difficult programs of concentration, spiritual communion, and
exclusion from the worldly life. This ascetic tendency acted it-
self as a process of elimination. To live the life of Brahmacha-
rya (celibacy) was an ambition which only the most self-con-
trolled type of men could achieve. Manu tells us that thousands
of Brahmans wishing to live this exalted life went to heaven
without leaving any progeny” and even in his own time the
illustrious Rishis of radiant power who could transgress laws
with impunity were no more in existence and the people had to
live more ordinary lives keeping themselves within the bound-
aries of caste duties.
*See Richard Schmidt's Beiträge zur Indischen Erotik, Berlin, 1911.
Mr. Schmidt attributes the erotic character of Sanskrit people partly
to their reflective tendencies. In my judgment both the eroticism and
the reflective tendencies were results of a common cause—the climate.
*Manu, V, 159.
35
*
º
The disappearance of these two types—the erotic weaklings
and the dominant psychopaths—need be no cause of regret to
any descendants of that race and inheritors of their culture. The
Aryan of the average type was in the meaflwhile becoming grad-
ually acclimatized and racially mixed with the surrounding Dra-
vidian, forming as a result a population, superior to both the
parent stocks from the point of view of its efficiency for exploit-
ing the economic resources of warm regions. Had it not been
for the legacy of a perverted social mind from the extinct domi-
nant type India today would be a very prosperous coun-
try and politically independent. But the social mind of the
population of India paid homage to the teachings of these
dominant men and followed them and ere following them long
after they have passed away. It is in this legacy of abnormal
psychology and not in the physiological degeneracy that we find
a true explanation of the political and economic stagnation of
the people of India. What was the nature of these psycholog-
ical tendencies we shall presently see. It is sufficient to say
here that they diverted the attention of the people from the
tangible pursuits of economic and political life to the intangible
goals of eternal bliss and salvation.
4. Under the influence of this changed attitude of life the
Severity of their hatred of the aboriginal races was miti-
gated. Moreover, the Dravidians, whom they now confronted
in the midland and the Gangetic Valley, were far superior
both in physique and culture to the “speechless niggards”
whom they had met first on their arrival in Panjab. The
shrewd Aryan was well aware of the numerical superiority
of the Dravidians as well as of their military efficiency.
This was a population they could neither enslave nor extermi-
nate. The vastness of the area, furthermore, make it possible
that both the races could live together side by side without con-
stant warfare. Under the influence of these various circum-
stances the Aryans used the strategy of enlisting the Dravidians
under their religious standards. By force of their arguments
and the show of their ceremonies they easily succeeded in making
obedient to their will the vast ocean of the surrounding black
population. But granting them their religion they had to grant
them at least some of the Social privileges that went with it.
Thus there had to be effected a process of readjustment of social
relations between the two races, and it is chiefly in this process
gº
36
O
of spiritual recognition of the various Dravidian communities in
different degrees that we find the true genesis of the caste sys-
tem. The many hundreds of castes do not represent race
hybridization and degåees of race mixture as has been conceived
by many, but they are based upon spiritual differentiation, and
it is only so far as tace guality elevated the spiritual standing
or as race mixture lowered it, that race distinction played any
part in creating and perpetuating the caste system in India.
5. Isolation: Powerful as the climatic factor has been, its
effect would not have been so accentuated and indefinitely per-
petuated had it not been for still another conjunction which we
come across in the course of the Indo-Aryan history. Whatever
psychological tendencies the Indo-Aryans developed under the
influence of their environment became cumulative in their effect
in the total absence of any disintegrating forces from the outside
world. The character of the Indian mental evolution is described
as being absolutely unique and original, having no parallel else-
where in the world.” But it is also true that nowhere in the
world did so superior a race as the Aryans meet with so many
remarkable conjunctions. The unique and original character of
the Indian civilization lies mainly in the development of ex-
tremes” in all directions, beginnings of most of which we find in
the simple Rig Vedic civilization and in that of their brethren in
Europe. In part, this exaggeration was due to the development
of the patho-psychological tendencies just mentioned. For an
explanation of a still larger part we must look to another factor
which is to be found in their complete isolation from the out-
side world for many centuries. After the Aryans came to
India about 2500 B. C., there was no invasion of that coun-
try for a period of over twenty centuries. The Aryans in
India being bent upon salvation and heavenly bliss did not de-
velop any commercial intercourse with neighboring countries.
That we find the Indo-Aryans gradually bringing to perfection
whatever tendencies they had developed, and during the course
of centuries they built the structures of their institutions so
solidly that neither the Greeks, the Mohammedans, nor even the
powerful bombardment of the British contact could shake them
effectively. Granting the vigorous racial stock and the exhilar-
ating influence of the geographical environment, this fact
“Macdonell, Literary History, p. 7.
*Ibid., p. Io.

37
*
of isolation has played the most prominent rôle in sealing the
fate of the Indo-Aryan civilization.
Under the combined influence of these various factors—en-
vironmental and racial—was born that rºid attitude of the
Indian social mind which in course of centuries has become
developed into almost a “fixed idea” —and which supports un-
grudgingly the tyranny of the Brahmanical Law and Institu-
tions, so ruinous to the growth of healthy national life.
How, in the absence of these unfavorabłe coincidences, the
vigorous and intelligent Aryans would have used their boon of
surplus energy is a matter about which we need not much in-
dulge conjecture. We cannot help noticing, however, that they
had, and they have today, all the equipment for the building of a
progressive and prosperous economic and political civilization—
daring and intelligent leaders, fertile soil, vast mineral resources”
and, in the Dravidian races, a strong and sturdy population well
acclimatized to hot regions and well acquainted with the prac-
tical arts of life. On these foundations they could have built a
politico-economic structure that would have resisted easily the
attacks of the Greeks, the Scythians, the Arabs, the Mongols,
and even of the English. To assert that under pressure of
proper environment they were fully capable of achieving such
results, is not a mere haphazard guess.
After the conquest or invasion from the north by Alexander
the Great (327 B. C.) the eyes of the Indians were opened to the
fact that there existed another world besides their own and that
the people of this world were not as peaceful and humane
as those of the one in which they were living. They
were brought to realize therefore the necessity of a more
centralized system of government and a more efficient
military organization. In the developments that now fol-
lowed we find the Indian princes eager to make their
people more prosperous, their treasuries stronger and their mil-
itia more efficient. This period of readjustment gave birth to
men like Chanakya” in whose ideas and policies we find a close
"For even those resources of which the Aryans had taken cogniz-
ance see Zimmer, p. 49 et seq.
“Chanakya is reputed to have been the Finance Minister of
Chandragupta, the head of perhaps the first large empire in India. He
lived in the middle of the 3rd century B. C. It is said that it was
through his tactics that the Dynasty was founded. His chief maxim
seems to have been “Maximum of Revenue with Maximum of Pros-
perity.” His principles of revenue are set forth in his treatise, Artha-
shastra (Science of Wealth), parts of which are translated by Mr.
Shastry and have appeared in Indian Antiquary, Vol. 34, pp. 5, 47, and
IIo et seq. See infra p. 44.
38
parallel to the doctrines of the Mercantilists of England and
France and the Cameralists of Germany. The incentive, how-
ever, came too late. The attitude of the Indian mind had become
too fixed to permit ºf any thorough-going change and we find
the Indians again falling into their sweet spiritual slumber
until amother shock came in the form of the Mohammedan in-
vasion of the IIth century A. D. But this was nearly a thousand
years after the last Greek and Scythian disturbances, and during
that period the meuld had become still more hardened.
\
q, dº CHAPTER III
INTERMEDIATE PSYCHOLOGICAL FORCEs—%NFLICT BETWEEN
SPIRITUAL AND ECONOMIC VALUES.–TRIUMPH OF THE
FORMER AND FORMATION OF THE spo-Aryan -
SOCIAL, MIND
The various environmental factors mentioned in the last
chapter furnished, so to say, a hotbed for the growth of the
Aryan mind. What happened to the Aryan mind in its new
environment may be likened to what may happen to a vigorous
seed which is induced to a forced and rapid growth. The intel-
lect of the dominant type of the Indo-Aryan ripened rapidly and
suffered a correspondingly rapid decay. Thoughts which oc-
curred to Schopenhauer and Goethe 1800 years after Christ
had already blossomed in the souls of their brethren in India as
many centuries before Christ." These were abnormal develop-
ments and were not suited for humanity as a whole at the time
they took place. Imagine a child realizing the worthlessness of
its toys or the limited powers of its mother to whom it looks
for protection from all dangers. Or suppose the child learns the
virtue of dignity. The greater part of the joys of its life will be
lost to it. The Indo-Aryans saw the littleness of life too soon
for the age in which they flourished. They developed human-
istic tendencies too early in the life history of man to win recog-
nition from the outside barbarian world, and they fell victims
to their own greatness of mind. The authors of this system of
thought, as we have seen before, were self-eliminated, but for-
tunately or unfortunately they have been most effectively sur-
vived by their ideas which have now become crystalized into a
“fixed attitude” of the Indian social mind. We shall now exam-
ine more closely the process by which these developments came
about.
What are the conditions of a persistent mental evolution of
man? We can answer such a question at best only in a negative
way, i.e., we can say that certain conditions in the past have not
been conducive to a healthy mental growth of man and that
certain others have positively checked it. The potentiality of
growth of a seed resides within the seed itself, nor can we
*Winternitz, Morris: Geschichte der Indischen Literatur, pp. 6, 7.
Also Schroeder, pp. 17, 18.
4O
declare by merely looking at it why it grows into a tree or why
it develops into a particular kind of a tree. We can say, how-
ever, somewhat more definitely that certain conditions of nour-
ishment and cliniatiè environment will be favorable to a healthy
growth of the seed and that others will produce its premature
decay. So it is in-the ease of man. A persistent tendency of
mental evolution is his peculiar potentiality but in the past it
has not always been able to assert itself despite environ-
ment. What it witl do in the future we may merely guess from
what has happened in the past and we are justified in conclud-
ing that the progressive potentiality of man seems to be capable
of overcoming all obstacles of environment, perhaps, as Pro-
fessor Bergson says, even of death.
The Aryans came to India with the potentiality of a tremen-
dous push which had to find its expression in some form of
activity. With this impetus they would have built almost any
type of civilization according to the nature of their environment.
They were yet a young, vigorous people, with child-like sim-
plicity, an indefinite prospect of life, and diverse potentialities of
growth. But such a condition could not continue in face of cir-
cumstances so favorable for their progress. “These interwoven
personalities became incompatible in course of growth, and as
each one of us can live but one life, a choice must perforce be
made.” And the Indo-Aryans made their choice. It was not,
however, a mere haphazard choice. All the dominant elements
of their civilization we find in an ascent state in their unspecial-
ized childhood of life which they exhibit in the Rig Veda. The
small, simple rites which later became transformed into compli-
cated sacrifices lasting for years, the child-like enquiring atti-
tude that developed itself into a speculative mood, and in fact the
seed for all the tendencies that developed could be found in the
Rig Veda civilization. Only, it was planted in the soil that fed
unevenly the different roots of the growing tree, with the result
that some of its branches bore profuse foliage and fragrant
flowers while others were undernourished and decayed. The
mental evolution of the Indo-Aryans was indeed unique, but,
as we have said before, the uniqueness and abnormality consists
in the accentuation and exaggeration of certain normal phases
of human character to the detriment of certain others equally
normal and necessary for the healthy growth of man. Whatever
*Bergson, Creative Evolution, chap. II, pp. 90-91.
2-
4 I
s
º
tendencies the Indo-Aryans undertook to develop they tried to
carry te perfection; and whatever others they neglected, they
never found any occasion to attend to. -
Why human beings, when they enjoy tºe blessings of vigor
and leisure, turn to philosophy and knowledge is a metaphysical
question which we do not propose to answºr. We take it for
granted that the pursuit of knowledge and culture is a native
potentiality of humanity and that it will unfold and assert itself
whenever opportunity arises. The dominant" type of the Indo-
Aryans who were destined to guide the stream of thought of the
masses asked themselves under conditions of leisure and surplus
energy a very pertinent question. What is most worth while in
life, and what is most permanently valurable? Had necessity
called for competition either with unkind nature or a cruel neigh-
bor, the answer would have been different, but here was a com-
plete freedom from the economic and political burden of life.
Therefore they found their reply in the conviction of the use-
lessness and transitoriness of worldly surroundings and the
permanent worth of heavenly bliss. By their deep meditation on
life and cosmos they decided that nothing in this world was of
permanent value—worldly goods were perishable, the human
body full of filth and a mere link in the great chain of life that
connects the individual soul with the universal soul, the home of
eternal bliss, the final destination of man and of all matter living
and not living. To reach that destination must be the highest
goal of the ambition of every man. And one should exert
oneself to the uttermost to push forward to that goal. What-
ever sectarian differences existed as to the manner of reaching
the goal, there was unanimous agreement on the transitoriness
of human existence, the worthlessness of worldly goods, and
the necessity of freedom from the misery of life and death.
This is essentially a pessimistic philosophy so far as this life is
concerned. If all the joys in this life are but an illusion and
oftentimes stand only as an obstacle in the forward path towards
the original home of bliss, what boots it whether or not one has
worldly possessions and worldly honors? Was this pessimistic
philosophy an outcome of the development of the pathopsycho-
logical tendencies of which we spoke a little while ago? If we
look to its erotic and pessimistic phase we may be reasonably
inclined to such a conclusion. What shall we say of a mind that
looks only upon the drawbacks and pitfalls of human life, a
42
mind that broods over nothing but the decay and filth that are
necessarily associated with human life?” It is a mind: that we
may say is developing a philosophy suitable or:ly to an age of
decadence. If the ºrocess of evolution having pursued its full
course should confront dissolution, nothing would be more cor-
rect and consoling than, the pessimistic Indian philosophy that
pities life and dwells on its ignorance of its inherent elements of
decay. But such a philosophy, whatever may be its ultimate
worth to humanity, was entirely unsuited to develop a vigorous
national life.
The character of the major interests of the Indo-Aryans was
thus formed and the direction of their major activities thus
determined. What havoc this choice made and in what con-
fusion of political, social and economic life it resulted we shall
in course of time make clear.
An important phase of this development directing the Indo-
Aryan mind to intangible goals was that the process hit princi-
pally the entrepreneur type of the community. It is well known
that some of the most daring speculations in Indian philosophy
“In this decaying body, made of bones,
Skin, tendons, membranes, muscles, blood, saliva,
Full of putrescence, and impurity.
What relish can there be for true enjoyment?
In this weak body, ever liable
To wrath, ambition, avarice, to illusion,
To fear, grief, envy, hatred, separation
From those we hold most dear, association
With those we hate; continually exposed
To hunger, thirst, disease, decrepitude,
Emaciation, growth, decline, and death,
What relish can there be for true enjoyment?
The Universe is tending to decay,
Grass, trees and animals spring up and die.
But what are they? Beings greater still than
Gods, demigods and demons, all have gone.
But what are they? For others greater still
Have passed away, vast oceans have dried,
Mountains thrown down, the polar star displaced,
The cords that bind the planets rent asunder,
The whole earth deluged with a flood of water,
Even the highest angels driven from their state;
In such a world what relish can there be
For true enjoyment? Deign to rescue us;
Thou only art our refuge, holy Lord.
Living in such a world I seem to be
A frog abiding in a dried up well.”
Sir Monier-Williams' Indian Wisdom, 3rd ed., p. 47.
Translated from the Maitrayani Upanishad of the Black
Yajur Veda.
,--
43
•
O
are ascribed to the members of the military caste"—the true
entrepreneurs of the religious-military stage of social evolution.
The men whost main business it was to fight and conquer and
persecute in the process of evolution wafe themselves perse-
cuted by the haunting ghost of the mystery of life. They wanted
to know the origin of the universe and phe destiny of man.
Under the influence of this reflective tendency they developed
a humane spirit far excelling any to be found in the history of
other national cultures. Arjuna," a brave hero, mourns the fact
that he has to kill human beings in battle in order to get posses-
sion of worldly goods that were after all not a worthy goal of
human endeavor. After the famous battle between the Pan-
davas and Kauravas we find Yudhisthira, the victor in battle and
heir to the throne, disgusted at the carnage of men in that war
and ashamed of the victory obtained at such a sacrifice of human
life and sorrow to women and children. He wanted neither the
kingdom nor the glory of the battle, but wished to retire to the
woods and practice penance for his sins." To him his bloody
victory at the cost of human life and sorrow was rather a
source of deep humiliation than a cause for joy. How many
victors in the battles of the Western world ever think of the
miseries of their enemies or the sorrow of their wives and
children? Manu and other sacred law givers enjoined the kings
not to use poisonous weapons in battles nor practice unnecessary
cruelties upon their enemies," or take undue advantage of their
weak position. Such a course was unworthy of an Aryan.
The most detrimental feature, however, of this humane
spirit was the development on the part of Indian princes of a
suicidal attitude towards territorial aggrandizement and polit-
ical consolidation.* You may conquer a king, advised the Sacred
Law, but do not deprive the poor fellow of his kingdom unless
absolutely obliged to do so, and in that case turn over the king-
dom and its management to some near relative” of the conquered
prince. Prior to the conquest of Alexander, to build large
empires was not, therefore, an ideal goal of the Indian rajah.
“R. C. Dutt, History of Civilization in Ancient India, Vol. I, p. 9,
2nd ed., 2 Vols., London; and cf. R. Garbe, Philosophy of Ancient
India, p. 57–85, Chicago, 1897.
*Bhagavadgita, chap. I.
"Çantiparva Mahabharata-Adhaya, I.
"Manu, VII, 90-93.
*Ibid., VII, 2II.
“Ibid., VII, 202.
44
The Sacred Law moreover advised him to withhold from reck-
less fighting if victory was in doubt” and to secure peace by
means of treaty, tribute, or even surrender. Infagine the result
of such an attitude Ös the part of rival kingdoms upon the politi-
cal framework of India And as the curtain rises on the politi-
cal history of India, we find in consequence thousands of king-
doms and principalities existing side by side without either great
friction or co-operation. Their energies were bent on the con-
quest of eternal bºiss and their humane spirit forbade them to
molest their fellow men. Imagine the inherent weakness of
political life built on such an attitude!
This humanistic tendency is one of the most unique and ad-
mirable characteristice of the Indo-Aryan mind. Nowhere in
the world do we find so high a regard for the feelings and con-
venience of others as in the India of the Indo-Aryan period.
The spirit was not confined to the educated, but had permeated
the very heart of the masses and had become of the essence of
their character. We find its full expression in the Law of Piety
of Gautama Buddha. The administration of justice was based
upon this spirit and the punishment for a crime was to be severer
or milder according to the ability of the criminal to bear it. The
king was to be the father of his subjects and was to treat them
as his children. He was to collect taxes in such a manner as not
to cause them undue hardship. Even Chanakya, the Machiavelli
of India, in his schemes to amass revenues and strengthen
the treasury of the state enjoins upon his tax collectors that
crooked means for getting funds should be used only against the
wicked people” of the kingdom under the emergency of meeting
unexpected situations. Whatever rapacities the Indian Rajahs
practiced on their subjects in the later stages of Indo-Aryan
history, it should be remembered that these occurred after the
disintegrating forces from the outside world had set in and a
process of readjustment to new environment had begun. There
are many able scholars who are very fond of comparing the mis-
rule and exorbitant tax systems of the native rajahs with the
more virtuous administration of the British rule. But they fail
to see that they are comparing the policies of one party during
a period of readjustment to a policy under a settled system of
*Ibid., VII, 212-2I4. -
“See Mr. Shamshastry's translation in Indian Antiquary, vol. 34,
p. II5 et Seq.
45
government of another party. A fair comparison would be
between the British rule in India between the years 1757 and
I857 and the administration of Indian princes during this period
of condemned misrule. * *
Whatever the merit of the humanistic spirit as an ultimate
goal of the evolution of man's character, if is sufficient "for our
purpose to point out here that it was developed prematurely in
reference to the rest of humanity and as such was destined to
bring in disastrous consequences. ©
The aim of life of those who were leaders in thought and
action being fixed upon heavenly bliss, ways and means were de-
veloped to attain that goal. Among the developments along this
line we shall now speak of sacrifices and ceremonies. There
were three reasons why sacrifices were raised to such high emi-
nence and assumed such complex forms in India. In the first
place sacrifice, we must remember, is one of the oldest of
human institutions—going back to the very beginnings of human
history. The Soma sacrifice can be clearly traced back to the
Indo-Iranian period.” Sacrifice had, therefore, what we may
call the momentum of start. Secondly, we should recognize the
importance of coincidence in the relation between sacrifice and
success in war. The Indo-Aryans made it a practice to offer
public sacrifices and to invoke the assistance of their gods before
going to the battlefield, and their unqualified success over the
first Dasyus they came across led them to believe in the thorough
efficacy of the power of sacrifice to secure for them the aid of their
gods. Later we find them believing that they could even com-
pel gods to their wills by means of faultless sacrifices. The effect
of such a coincidence upon the minds of as young a people as
the Aryans should be kept in mind when judging of their appar-
ently irrational belief in sacrifice and ceremony as a remedy for
all evil and as instrument of all achievements. Sir Walter
Bagehot has well observed the relation of such chance coinci-
dences to the fixed notions of a community.” Third, there is a
process which works in the course of the development of all
human institutions and ideas and by which an insignificant be-
ginning grows into a complex structure under the influence of
changed times and environments. What I mean may be well
illustrated by what happened to the Greek Dromean rite which
*Professor Eggeling's translation of Qatapatha Brahmanna, Vol. 12,
of the Sacred Books of the East, Introduction, p. xv.
“Physics and Politics, p. 131.
46
in the beginning was a simple initiation ceremony. In a later
peridd of Greek history we find that it has assumed the form of
the elaborate spring festivities—Dithyramb and Olympic con-
tests.” What was qiginally meant for a simple realistic rite
now gave opportunity to the Greek people to hold a festival and
thus bacame a means for the outlet for their surplus energies.
Recreation and amusement are among the principal outlets for
the surplus energy of primitive peoples, and it was no wonder
that an occasion for public gathering, such as the initiation
ceremony, should have been transformed into a public festival.
The Indian public sacrifices, over and above their religious
features, had also assumed such a festive character.
After the notion was once formed that sacrifice was powerful
enough to yield any object of desire it was of course used as an
instrument to accumulate religious merit. The sacrifice, more-
over, worked double wonders. It gave religious merit and it also
gave material prosperity and in that material prosperity it gave
power to perform more sacrifices.” We can get a little idea of
the powerful influence of this institution over the mind of the
Indian people if we bear in mind the fact that some sacrifices
such as Rajasuya and Ashwamedha grew into such complicated
ceremonies that they lasted over years, and princes and nobles
are known to have spent their fortunes in their proper perform-
ance. We have anecdotes of Indian princes who became beggars
through having lavished their wealth as Dakshina upon Brahmans
who performed sacrifices. These sacrifices needed the services
of hundreds of skilled experts well trained in the art of building
the altar fire, pronouncing the syllables of the hymn with the
right accent, and attending to the thousand and one details of
the ceremony; for even a slight mistake offended the gods very
highly and the ceremony in that case had to be repeated all over
again. In the demands of the Roman priests for the exact per-
formance of sacrificial ceremonies we find a parallel to the sacri-
ficial developments in India, with this difference, that in Rome
the emperor controlled the sacrificers, whereas in India the sac-
rificers compelled the kings to obedience. The Indian sacrifice
was not merely a public ceremony. The king had to have a
house priest who performed the daily sacrifices for him.
Daily sacrifices were prescribed also for all householders. They
“Jane Ellen Harrison, Themis, chap. IV.
*Catapatha Brahmanna. Kanda I, Adhaya VIII, Br. I, 32-36.
47
had to perform numerous domestic rites and ceremonies if they
wanted to live a correct life and accumulate religious credit.
This, 6f course, everyone wanted to do. There were from forty
to sixty of these rites and ceremonies that had to be performed
by a householder from birth to death, some of them being re-
peated daily and others only periodically O O
With the growing importance of sacrificial ceremonies and
domestic rites of necessity arose those who could perform these
functions satisfactorily in a manner acceptable to the gods, i. e.,
without committing mistakes in details. Even in the early days
of their expansion towards the east beyond the Panjab the Indo-
Aryans fighting on the frontier left some amongst them to per-
form the sacrifices in order to insure wictory in war with the
non-Aryans. These men in the meantime made the ceremony
more elaborate, added more recitations, and eventually claimed
that none but they could offer these sacrifices in a correct fashion
so as to bring the desired fruit. They claimed to be experts on
such matters and made a still more presumptuous claim that none
but those of their own flesh and blood” could fill that rôle. A
great controversy arose over this claim to spiritual supremacy
and blood superiority.” The claim was sustained only after
a hard struggle between these experts and the fighting nobility.
The vivid realism of the Aryan belief in the efficacy of sacrifice
in securing success in war and attaining prosperity in peace
paved the way for this epoch-making stage in the mental evolu-
tion of the Indo-Aryan people. A struggle between priesthood
and nobility was not an incident peculiar to Indo-Aryan history.
Similar incidents occurred in Rome, and the secularization of
politics forms one of the most brilliant chapters of the history
of Western nations.” The trap which the Western kings
escaped by circumstances of favorable environment the Indian
princes were caught in by an opposite turn of events. Once the
claim established that blood and spiritual qualifications were
necessary to fit a person to offer sacrifices it was but a short step
to arrange the gradations of such fitness based on heredity and
degrees of spiritual purity. The concept of spiritual purity has
*For an excellent treatment of the relation between caste and race,
see Baine's Ethnology, pp. I-29. Also Ketker's History of Caste,
Stuttgart, 1912.
“Zimmer, p. 196-197.
*See “Secularization of Western Politics,” a doctor's dissertation by
C. C. Eckhardt, presented to the Faculty of Political Science, Cornell
|University, Igo&.
48
played an important rôle in the history of caste in India and has
given rise to an elaborate system of observances and penances
in order to insure its preservation. Only a Brahman wās fit to
take part in the sacrificial offering, but not every Brahman; those
only who had not violated any of the rules of their profession
and who had not fallen from their status of purity and spiritual
elevation. The manner of living from birth till death from
morning until night had been prescribed for them by the
Shastras. They could eat only certain kinds of food and dress
only in a certain manner. Intermarriage with members of the
military class and other castes was not absolutely forbidden,
but children from such marriages formed a separate caste
whose spiritual status was determined by the sacred law accord-
ing to the caste of the wife. The occupations by which a Brah-
man could make his living were also prescribed, and while other
occupations were permitted in times of distress they could be
followed only at the risk of being excluded from his originally
exalted status. Such Brahmans disqualified themselves as
guests at certain sacrificial rites.”
The Aryans were fast enlisting the vast masses of the civil-
ized Dravidians under their religious standard. Room had to
be made for these new converts in the Aryan scheme of spiritual
hierarchy. All black men, all Anaryas, were not Gudras as is
sometimes believed. According to their status of wealth and
political precedence they occupied different places in this scheme.
The lowest and most ignorant classes formed the Qudra or
working class and the captured aborigines were made domestic
slaves. Whatever distinction wealth and social recognition con-
fer on a family in the West, the same was conferred on a caste
in India on account of its spiritual superiority. This com-
petition for social recognition on the basis of spiritual superi-
ority kept the proud groups from mixing promiscuously with
one another. The later ramification of the caste system, repre-
senting differences of occupation, locality, race, and tribal
affinities hinged upon the central pivot of recognition in the
scheme of spiritual and social hierarchy. Those Dravidians,
whose claims to be Brahmans and Kshatriyas were granted
either as a matter of political expediency or in return for finan-
cial gain, became men of higher caste than the members of
the Vaishya caste of the Aryan blood. Thus by caste a black
"Manu, III, I50-156.
49
Q
Brahman of Madras or Bengal is higher than a Panjabi or
Maratha Kshatriya, though the latter are racially superior, i. e.,
if we insist tºpon ascribing racial superiority to peoples accord-
ing to their affinity to the white blood.r Then there were the
mixed castes whose status hinged on somewhat uncertain and
ill-defined caste boundaries and for them p secure a little higher ().
status than another community of mixed type was merely a mat-
ter of asserting their superiority and gaining recognition of it
from the people. C
The superiority of caste, then, is not necessarily based upon
Superiority of race, though such may actually be the fact in
many cases; the spiritual superiority of the Brahmans of Aryan
blood had been emphasized from the wery first.” The mixed
castes by change of locality must have been constantly ascend-
ing to higher levels, but even then how is it that we find in
India some traces of the black Dravidian blood in the highest
of castes? My hypothesis is as follows: From a mixed marriage
between a white Aryan and a black Dravidian by the Mendelian
law of heredity some children must have been born with an
absolutely white complexion, and as the Dravidians are a race
in physiognomy of a Caucasian type, these children may have
found easy entrance into the castes of Aryan blood. Manu
warns us to beware of the low caste man who resembles an
Aryan in appearance and tells us that the status of such a per-
son can be easily ascertained from his occupation.” Many
Aryan families must have been in this manner confronted
with racially differing progeny, for if either the wife or the
husband was a pseudo-Aryan, they could produce a black child
of Dravidian race by the process of atavism. Biological
science had not then made sufficient advancement to tell the
Aryans that an apparently white Aryan could bear a child of
another race. Again, the spirit of humanitarianism had been
constantly growing in India. This spirit had created sympathy
in the Indo-Aryan mind for all living beings, and the people had
already begun to look upon the entire living creation of God as
one family and consequently no distinction on race grounds
alone could stand.” The only differences they could see between
living beings were those of spirituality and were based upon
*Baine's Ethnology, p. I5.
*Manu, X, 40.
*The culmination of this spirit had found its expression in the
Law of Piety of Buddha.
50
their good and bad actions in former births. It was for this
reason that caste was to keep aloof from caste, a negéssary
precaution to retain spiritual standing. This brings us to the
well-known doctrine of transmigration of souls of which I shall
speak presently. I must meanwhile emphasize that the caste
prejudice in India is got a color or a race prejudice. A white
complexioned Brahman will more cheerfully marry an absolutely
black and homely girl of his own caste than accept a fair and
beautiful damsel frºm a lower caste, perhaps racially even
superior to himself. This absence of color prejudice is one of
the most valuable assets India possesses today for her future
economic and political regeneration, for if we can break the
caste system this absente of color prejudice will speedily lead
in spite of race differences to the formation of a one-race nation
out of the present racially heterogeneous population of India.
It will be a pity if by contact with the civilized western nations
our young men learn the charm of color prejudice. Unfor-
tunately many young men have already begun to taste that
poison and I have within my knowledge instances of our young
men who have studied in the United States and who have gone
back to India with intense contempt for black skin, and with
the intention of accentuating the caste spirit in order to pre-
serve the purity of the so-called Aryan blood, of which there
is really very little to be found in India.”
Caste meant discrimination on a basis of spiritual standing,
which came to be determined by the mere fact of birth. It
seems strange that the spirited and energetic Aryan and Dra-
vidian population should have tamely submitted to such a sys-
tem of baseless distinction. We must remember, however, that
the major stream of Indian thought was now bent to the exclu-
sion of all else on obtaining heavenly bliss—worldly goods were
perishable and worldy honors hollow sounds. Moreover, Brah-
mans alone held the key to the secret of salvation and they alone
being in direct touch with the divine spirit could correctly in-
terpret the meaning of human existence. In such an attitude
of mind it was easy to fall a victim to the fatalistic doctrine of
Transmigration of Souls. This doctrine declared that every
man's lot in this life was determined by his action in the past
life and it was in vain for him to complain of and aspire to the
benefits which others enjoyed. The best he could do was to
*See Supra, p. 18, chap. I, note 4.
5I
O
live this life correctly according to the duties prescribed for his
caste and thus pave the way for a position in a higher caste in
the next birth? If he was defective or poor or miserable in this
life it was all the fault of his own actions in a bygone life and
he could improve his future only by good actions in this life—
especially by accumulating religious merit, Many devices were
offered him by which he could make such accumulations and
get higher up. Such a doctrine at once explained all incompati-
bilities in life and tended to reconcile all casſes to their respective
positions by birth. What could be a more inviting philosophy
of life than to feel that one could not help what had happened
in the past, and how consoling to feel that one could positively
improve one's future by living a correct"present. The easy life
conditions and the lack of economic and political competition
made the birth of any other doctrine unnecessary. Further, the
fatalistic aspect of this doctrine well fitted the pessimistic frame
of the Indo-Aryan mind. The doctrine of Karma if correctly
interpreted is not very harmful. One of our most modern philo-
Sophical doctrines holds that in our present our entire past is
unmistakably and unerringly stored by nature, and our only
hope for improving our future lies in our conduct in the present.
In the goal of life, however, the two philosophies differ. We
aim at developing and unfolding the human personality, whereas
the doctrine of Karma aims at accumulating religious merit
and obtaining a better birth. The practical use of the new doc-
trine lies in the hope it gives for the life we live at present.
The Karma doctrine maintains that the fate of our present life
is sealed and that it is of no use trying to change it. All you can
do is to make preparations for the next birth. Imagine the
effect of such a view of life on the spirit of initiative of the
people who came under its influence!
The hard and fast philosophy of the doctrine of Karma and
the obligatory restrictions and duties of caste were not suited
for the more reflective and restless souls. The complete liberty
of action that comes through knowledge was their happy lot.
They declared that while the caste duties, sacrificial rites, and
other slow ways to go higher up towards the Universal Soul.
were all very well suited for the ordinary folks, there was a path
extraordinary, though difficult, by which exceptional individuals
could transgress all limitations of caste and ties of Karma and
soar direct to the home of eternal bliss. This path was nothing
52
less than that of knowledge. Knowledge was the one direct way
of absorbing oneself into the Universal Soul without making use
of the step-ladder of birth by Karma. For Xarma simply
meant another life and that meant more Karma and still an-
other life and so on in an endless chain of life and death.
Knowledge alone could relieve one from the wheel of Karma.
To know God is to be God, and if your qualifications can fit
you to make the direct daring dash you can do nothing better
than to rid yourself of all attachment to things of this life and
contemplate with the concentrated mind the eternal Essence until
you experience it. And when you succeed the eternal joy is
yours. This was an attractive ideal and worked like a charm on
the minds of the moreoenergetic and ambitious youth of India,
and Indo-Aryan literature is full of evidence showing that the
major attention of the best amongst the population was absorbed
in solving the problems of the destiny of man and the aim of
human existence. By introspective analysis these thinkers dis-
covered desire as the source of all evil. The chain of causation
was as follows. Desire brought action, action determined
Karma, and Karma meant perpetual life and death. Therefore,
kill desire, kill action the source of all misery, and you break
the otherwise endless chain of life and death and all the misery
and sorrow that go with it. How was this to be accomplished?
Of course through knowledge of God. But this was not pos-
sible for all human beings. Therefore, those who were not
fit for the Path of Knowledge could perform actions in this life
that would give them a better birth in the next life and qualify
them to undertake such adventures. Such was the dominant
trend of thought of the moulders of the Indian social mind.
In tune with this strain political and economic life was neglected
or rather maintained merely up to a necessary minimum so as
to enable them to prosecute this aim. Under the influence of
this attitude towards life arose the famous systems of Indian
philosophy, a very brief epitome” of the subject matter of which
I must present here in order to acquaint the reader with the
inner working of the Indian mind.
The Uparishads had concluded that the individual soul
was part and parcel of the Universal Soul. Kapila, the
founder of the Samkhya philosophy, objected to this doctrine
*This Summary of the Systems of Indian Thought is based upon
chap. IV of Macdonell’s Literary History.
53
and propounded a dualistić philosophy which maintained that
two things only existed without a beginning and without an
end. They were matter on the one hand and an infinite plu-
rality of souls on the other hand. The object of his writings
was to explain the relation of these two primary categories.
The existence of a supreme God is denied and of course evi-
dently inadmissible in such a philosophy. The unconscious
matter of nature contains within itself power of evolution, and
Karma of souls determined the course •of this evolution.
Samkhya philosophy was propounded by Patanjali admits of a
personal God who was introduced into it in order to invite
popularity. This new interpretation particularly aimed to ex-
plain a new manner of experiencing God.e. This was the famous
but much misunderstood theory of Yoga. It included bodily
purification by means of bathing, breathing, fasting and other
devices, control over the physical body by the practice of difficult
gymnastic feats, and development of mental concentration by
resort to retired places. This spirit of asceticism played quite
an important rôle in India in times of Buddhism and Jainism
and was in fact the mainstay of these two religions. Even
today we find in India people who believe that Yoga practice
confers supernatural power on man. Nyaya philosophy, an-
other system of Indian thought, sought to attain an understand-
ing of God by methods of logic and inference, and declared
atoms to be the origin of the world. The non-dualistic Vedanta
doctrine postulated that the multiplicity of phenomena in this
world was mere illusion and due to innate ignorance. To know
that the universal appearances are nothing but mirages to this
ignorance and to experience the unity of soul and God is the
true Salvation. This experience comes of course through
knowledge that is revealed in Upanishads. The materialistic
school of Charvaka was strictly pragmatic and refused to be-
lieve any authority save that of actual experience through per-
ception. And as senses could perceive matter only, matter was
the one reality in the universe. Soul was merely an attribute
which perished with the body. Nothing existed for them that
transcended the senses. Hell was earthly pain and salvation
consisted in the dissolution of the body. “While life remains,
let a man live happily, let him feed on glee (clarified butter)
even though he run into debt; when once the body becomes
ashes how can it ever return again?”
54
tº
º
The philosophy that has the greatest hold on the Indian
mind today is represented by the more eclectic teachings of
Krishna in Bhagavadgita. This discourse of "Krishna, am-
biguous as it appears, now emphasizing the necessity of active
life, now renouncing all action and extolling knowledge, and
again praising Yoga, is really an attempt to reconcile the various
systems of Indian thought and various methods of obtaining
salvation. The essence of this philosophy is to follow that
course in life for which you are best fitted. If you must lead
this worldly life for the sake of duty, perform all your commit-
ments zealously without being too engrossed in the results of
your actions. Such performance of the ordinary duties of life
without an attachment to their fruit is as effective in gaining
the higher stage as though you were following the higher path
of knowledge in Yoga.
All these philosophical systems flourished for that one pur-
pose—the discovery of the meaning of life and the aim of
existence. The leading thought that has left a final impression
on the Indian mind is represented as we just said by the teach-
ings of Krishna. In Bhagavadgita we are urged to follow any
path from the worship of idols and deities to the means of
knowledge according to our ability and position by birth, but
to have only one goal before our eyes and that is to approach
Him.
Such were the forces under which the Indian social mind
was gradually formed. The development of humanistic tend-
encies had made the Indian attitude very sympathetic towards
all living beings, yet in these ideas of unequal spiritual purity
was the birthplace of the apparently cruel caste system. The
goal of their major interest in life and the direction of their
major activity were now determined. It is only those who have
a thorough knowledge of the psychology of the Indian mind
who can appreciate the powerful force with which this charm
worked upon it. The king and the beggar alike were zealous
for the attainment of that one goal. The entire surplus energy
of the masses as well as that of the leaders was now being used
in the piling up of religious merit. This was the one basis of
the unity of the heterogeneous population of India. This was the
one sentiment by which the entire population could be aroused
to action. It was on the strength of this sentiment that Shivaji
and Nanasahib wielded their influence and retained their fol-
55
tº
lowing—a flimsy basis for a political framework. Just as two
thinking American citizens coming together will discuss a live
political fºsue of talk of business conditions, or two American
young ladies will comment on styles, even, so we find the men
and women in India of this period seriously discussing the re-
ligious merit or demerit of a particular act or ceremony: We
now find a devout Indian woman offering td a deity one million
flowers or leaves of a particular kind of plant, to execute which
performance required the patient industry • of many of her
friends and relatives, as the counting had to be very exact,
and in case of mistakes the merit of the offering was lost.
We find a prince squandering his fortune on a sacrifice; a Yogi
practicing severest austerities and mental soncentration; private
worship and public festivals of various deities and observances
of various rules laid down by the Brahman experts, or anything
else that could give the devout a little advantage in their path
... upward or place a little more credit to their account with
Chaitanya or a little better recommendation for a birth with
more powerful personality in the next life; so that they could
- follow the path of knowledge and at least experience that Es-
sence of Essence, the Universal Soul, and be finally relieved
from the pangs of life and birth and death and all the attendant
sorrow and misery.
Such was the main stream of thought of the Indian mind,
and just as the Western mind constantly worries over ways and
means to meet its bills and financial responsibilities, the one
overwhelming anxiety of the Indian mind was this necessity of
settling its score with its deities and gods. Just as volumes
could be written in merely describing the various occupations
economic men engage in to secure small and large incomes, in
a similar fashion innumerable methods may be mentioned that
were devised by the Indian mind, from the worship of stone
idols to the practice of the highest Jnana Yoga, to secure small
and large spiritual gains. However absurd and irrational the
spiritual merits of the idol worship, the daily bath, the abstinence
from eating meat and drinking liquor, the innumerable fasts and
festivities and modes of mental concentration may appear to the
Western mind, to the Indian mind it was an absolutely sound
logic. “As the many rivers finally enter one ocean, even so the
many paths finally converge to that one goal—the Knowledge of
56
God.” Such was the trend of thought of the leadership type—
authors of the creative activities of a nation. The more ambi-
tious and energetic a man was, the more zealods he became to
pursue heavenly bliss, by a difficult path, with the result that the
best amongst them left home and worldly life and in their zeal
for pārsuing this wild goose chase left no progeny. The lesser
type of entrepreneurs, though they did not become physically
lost, became ineffective economic agents under the influence
of the thought of their dead leaders.
Was it a wonder that under the influence of such an atti-
tude towards life the political and economic activities were en-
tirely neglected? They were maintained only up to a neces-
sary minimum. Thee Chakravartin ruled the princes, but left
kingdoms to their own absolute management. The princes
ruled the people, but left them to themselves in the management
of their villages and provincial affairs. It was not that the
Indian princes allowed the village communities their self-rule.
because they were democratic in spirit, but it was because they
did not care for centralization nor did they feel a necessity
for such a procedure. - Q
Thus rolled the main stream of Indian thought in the direc-
tion we have now outlined and it rolled in that direction with-
out disturbance for so many centuries that finally it has be-
come something like a “fixed idea” in the mind of a psychopath.
The Indian mind was hypnotized by the charm of a spiritual
goal, and all the ways and means devised for the attainment of
that goal also became “fixed ideas,” in so rigorous a fashion
that even a skilled physician fails to arrive at the correct diag-
nosis of the case and is at his wits end when he dares conceive
of a remedy that will bring about a rapid cure.
*This verse forms part of the Daily Prayer of Brahmans.
© O
© º
©
Q CHAPTER IV
Q Q
IN THE FETTERS OF SACRED LAw AND CUSTOMr-PowerLEssNEss
OF DISINTEGRATING FOR&Es *
If we keep in mind the main direction of the stream of
Indian thought we will not be surprised tâ find why all other
activities and forces in Indian life had to bend before this
mighty monster and make way for him or at least to adjust
themselves to a subordinate and useful place. We have seen
that the root of all activities was declared to be desire—that
produces action, which brings in Karma, the source of an ever-
lasting chain of life and death and misery. The best course
to follow would have been to renounce all desires, all actions,
and to resolve oneself into Universal Soul by a rapid passage over
the Path of Knowledge. But such a course was not open to all,
for only a few powerful minds could follow it. Most human
beings must adopt the slower path, that is, must perform actions
and lead a worldly life. Now actions were of two kinds, good
and bad. Good actions helped the path onward, the bad ones
compelled a retreat. The Sacred Law and Custom as pro-
pounded by the Brahmans—who alone were in direct touch with
the gods—professed to declare which actions were good and
helped a man forward and which were sinful and obstructed
his path. The life of the world was a reality to the masses
which these doctors of soul culture could not ignore. The
order of the householder was the only economic prop of the
other orders, on which they depended for their support. Hence
action was a necessity. But if action was a necessity at all the
best thing would have been to perform it without an attach-
ment to its fruit. Performance of action in this manner created
no Karma and left no stain, but, says Manu, nowhere in this
world do we find a desire to engage in activities without an
attachment to their fruit* and therefore it is best that such
actions should be prescribed as will bear good fruit and give
religious merit. To the Indian mind the fact of the good and
bad fruit of an action was a vivid reality. This is why we
find the Indian mind so enslaved to Sacred Law and Custom.
An Indian will undertake no activity, will form no decision that
is contrary to the sanction of Shastra. Shastra determined for
‘Manu, II, 3, 4.
58
O
each man the entire range of his actions from morning till
night, from birth until death. He had no choice but either to
do what the Shastra commanded or go to Helſ, and flo greater
horror existed in Indian minds than that of going downward
along the path to the horrible Hell. The duties of each caste,
the manner of its worship, the occupation for its livelihood, its
political, social, and moral obligations were all handed down
to its members already made before they were born. The peo-
ple were only to& glad to get such directions. They had the
satisfaction of feeling that they were doing the right thing and
piling up religious merit. It was a Brahman only who could
unfold the mystery of life and give them a guiding light for
their correct conducts in this world and on all matters of even
slightest detail in life, when in doubt, him they approached for
advice. This is why the Brahman and the Brahmanical Law
attained to such unparalleled eminence in India. It was the
well baked attitude of the social mind which supported this.
hierarchy. The Indian now felt he could not get along without
a Brahman. Thé Sacred Law” became a strong framework into
which every action of every member of every caste must fit.
The Sacred Law prescribed the number of daily and periodical
ceremonies for each caste and explained the manner of per-
forming them. It outlined the conduct of a student, of a house-
holder, of an ascetic; declared what food was fit for each caste
and prescribed the mode of their respective dress. Even the
king's actions were hedged round by its Sacred Law. The king
had to play a subordinate but useful rôle in the Brahmanical
scheme of things. His main business was to grant peace to his
subjects that they might perform their religious duties undis-
turbed. He was also to see to it that the various castes kept
within the boundaries of their duties and did not get mixed. He
was advised to keep his mind controlled and to pay respect to the
wise Brahmans. He was offered guidance in the appointment of
his ministry, in matters of taxation, and in all state business. For
Vaishyas the Sacred Law writers fixed the prices and wages and
manner of purchase and sale. To the judges they disclosed the
proper manner of administering justice and the scale of fines.
Not a soul was born for the guidance of whose activities the
Sacred Law had nothing to say. Not that this law was complied
with to the letter or that it was uniform wherever Indo-Aryan
*Manu, chap. VII. See also other law writers on duties of kings.
59
^
culture dominated. It was perhaps not even written in the
shape of a law book until centuries after its introduction. It ex-
isted in the atmºosphere of the social mind and in the heads of the
Brahmans. But its spirit had a more pºwerful binding force
than that of an order by a modern executive with the strength
of an army and navy behind it. Q
Whatever action a leading Brahman &f a particular place
prescribed as correct for the different castes tended to become
the customs of that land, and it is here that we find the greatest
mischief was done. Whatever custom was thus introduced in
a particular territory or for a particular caste became by cen-
turies of repetition a fixed habit with that community or caste
even after the original purpose of the ruling had been totally
forgotten. Such in fact is the status of the innumerable com-
plexities of Indian custom today. They were at one time
rationally accounted for by the Indian social mind. Now they
have become merely habits with no logic to support them, and
yet no force to uproot them. The history of a custom is much
like that of a biological species. . It is most unstable when it
originates and it becomes more and more fixed in age with ac-
cumulation of permanent characteristics. Prohibition of inter-
marriage between castes, ban on widow remarriage, prevalence
of child marriage, the many ceremonies, festivals, and customs
of social precedence can hardly be accounted for today by cor-
rect logic. To us they appear irrational and we feel surprised
to find that they continue to exist apparently without any occa-
sion for them. But the force of custom is more powerful than
that of reason. To the former the mind yields without an effort;
for a victory of the latter a struggle is imperative.
Thus arose customs and institutions in India based on an
accentuated religious life which undermined the politico-eco-
nomic life of the Indian people. Centuries after centuries
elapsed under this regime of the Brahmanical Supremacy. How
very weakened it left the political and economic institutions and
how in the course of time they proved to be inadequate to meet
the changed conditions and failed to preserve their integrity we
shall presently see. We shall first get a little idea as to how
deeply ingrained they have become in the Indian mind and how
they are playing the part of second nature with the people of
India even today.
During the twenty or more centuries that elapsed before
6O
/*
the outside disintegrating forces began to come into India, time
was gradually but unerringly inscribing her cumulative påst upon
the Indian mind and the cake of custom was slowly being baked
and hardened. Today we find it very hard to break this cake.
Dare an Indian social reformer suggest to an orthodox Indian
even so insignificant a departure from his “settled rule” as the
eating of a meal in company with a person of another caste, no
matter how superior his race affiliations may be? Much less
can he propose aſ remarriage of his widowed daughter, even
though she happens to be but a child of 12 years of age. Our
Indian college men may now charge me with ignorance of the
change that has come about in the Indian spirit during recent
years. At the same time I am aware that a Brahman who will
not hesitate to eat in a Parsi or a Mohammedan restaurant
will refuse to dine at the house of a Kayastha Prabhu or a
Shenavi, members of castes not racially different from his own.
The Indian college boy goes through a mental drill in his uni-
versity career that changes little his attitude towards some of
those “settled rules” of the Dharmashastra. How many Indian
2-v
A
boys will dare marry a girl beyond their own caste in spite of -
their college education of which they seem to be so proudf
How many parents in India will think of giving away their
daughter to a boy of a lower caste no matter how superior
physically and intellectually he may be to a boy of her own
caste selected for her P Should a radical reformer dare trans-
gress some of these “settled rules” he has to suffer the fate of
an outcast. The Shastra says that the mixture of castes is the
worst calamity that can happen to the world and moreover that
it is a “settled rule.” The “settled rule” of Shastra, crystallized
into custom that has fed and fattened for centuries, transcends
all logic and reason. Such is the tremendous adherence of the
present Indian social mind to institutions that have checked
progress. Eager as their leaders are for the political and eco-
nomic regeneration of the country they dare not disturb the
existing social order. They will attack the British government
at the risk of getting imprisoned for life or show heroism in
shooting perhaps a well meaning British officer at the risk of
going to the gallows, but the monster “Settled Rule” they dare
not even think of attacking.
Manifold as the economic and political problems of India
appear on the surface—like the many branches and millions of
6I
leaves of a great tree—their existence seems to be supported
by a SSlid trunk grown out of strong and well-fed roots, which
have by centuries of unchecked growth become deeply imbedded
in the favorable soil in which they found themselves. • So vigor-
ous and well-rooted has this growth become that its uprooting
appears to be an almost hopeless task to those who date con-
ceive of accomplishing such a feat. Fortúnately with the pas-
sage of time the nature of the soil itself on which this banyan-
like growth feeds is changing and the mighty monster is find-
ing it increasingly difficult to obtain its nourishment from its
wonted sources. The chances are that in the course of time
it will become so weakened that it may be either uprooted by
one tremendous pull of a huge appliance-(representing a mental
crisis) or else be allowed to starve and die a slow death.
How deeply imbedded this banyan-like growth had become
even before any foreigners visited India” is well illustrated by
the failure of so powerful a personality as that of Buddha to
uproot some of these suicidal notions. We are not interested
in Buddha from the standpoint of his philosophy. Its essential
elements are to be found in Brahmanical philosophy. Buddha
tried to eradicate among many other things the differences of
castes, but his teachings were in this respect an entire failure.
This is even more significant in view of the fact that he did
not attempt to change the main stream of the Indian thought
that was deeply bent on salvation. In fact he confirmed it in
that direction. He only tried to replace the old methods of
achieving those results by new ones. But alas, by this time the
logic of the Indian mind had already been subordinated to the
“way of doing things they had fallen into.” Brahmanism suc-
ceeded against Buddhism in India not because the logic of Brah-
manism was any sounder than that of Buddhism, but because it
fitted better into the temper and habits of the people. Buddhism
was the earliest and perhaps the most powerful disintegrating
force to which the Indian institutions were subjected and they
stood the test and proved their inviolability most effectively.
Similar was the fate of the materialistic philosophy of Char-
vaka; it arrived on the scene too late.
Then came the Greek invasion of Alexander the Great (327
*The earliest foreign invasion of India after the Indo-Aryan migra-
tion is recorded as having taken place in 516 B. C. The expedition
was sent by the Persian King Darius under the command of Skylax
of Karyanda in Karia. Herodotus, 4:44.
62
B. C.) and from now on the forces of political disintegration
began to come into India. Under the influence of its stimulus
the powerful dynasty of Chandragupta was formed, which per-
haps was the first large centralized government in India, having
under its control all the territory between Himalaya and
Vindhya. The finance pinister of this prince was Chanakya,
the author of the treatise called the Arthashastra (Science of
Wealth). His system of administration aimed at the same
efficiency in protecting state interests as the Cameralistic
regime in Germany and the Mercantilists of France and Eng-
land. This is very significant, as it shows the direction in which
Indian institutions would have developed under pressure of
proper environment. • But the stimulus came too late. The
Indian mind had been formed once for all. No system of gov-
ernment, institutions, and laws can stand long or perpetuate
themselves which are not backed by the sentiments of the
people. After the reign of Asoka the kingdom fell. Such
was the apathy of the people towards their political and eco-
nomic life that none of the future political reconstructors of
India was successful. Akbar, Shivaji, and Madhji Scindya,
all failed in their turn when they tried to infuse a national life
into the people of India. Their only hope lay in accomplish-
ing this through the unity of religious sentiment in the Indian
mind. In trying to preserve and make use of this sentiment
they were fostering those very forces which are so detrimental
to the formation of a national life in India. In making use of
this spirit for their purpose they were building a political struc-
ture on a flimsy foundation. This is our explanation of why
these political leaders of India failed—not because they were
incapable, or because they were products of a warm climate, or
because they were members of a lower race, as many scholars
would have us believe. It was simply a case of a hypnotized
population that could not be awakened from its trance, and
even today it still remains so hypnotized, at least with regard to
its customs, if not to is attitude towards heavenly bliss. The
only words of suggestion to which the people quickly responded
were those that aroused their cherished religious sentiments.
The watchword of the Moghul was Allah, of Shivaji, Harihar;
and the basis of even the much heralded attempt of the re-
bellion of 1857 was a religious prejudice against the foreigner
and not a sentiment of national pride. The thrill that goes to
63
the heart of an American"boy at the sight of his flag or the
resentsment which an Englishman feels on learning of injury
to the "ife or property of his countryman at the hands of a
foreigner never disturbed the peace of the Endian mind. And
as to religious sentiment serving as a basis for political unity, the
enmity that exists between caste and caste in India is too
well known to need any further. comment .
A scholar of international reputation once asked me a
question, the sense of which was: If the present fixed atti-
tude of the Indian social mind is a result of the teachings of
Some of your great teachers, can you not use the same methods
for its disintegration and for reconstruction along new lines,
i. e., will not the teachings of some great personality remove
these prejudices and create in their place a new attitude? In
the fate of teachings of as powerful a personality as that of
Buddha, we find an effective reply to this question and a speedy
dismissal of such a proposal. It must be remembered that a
powerful personality scores its triumphs on the popular mind
only when it is in a state of indecision. But when popular
notions are fixed, such a personality simply creates antagonism
and suffers a defeat as was the fate of Buddha. And much
work has to be done in India before such a state of indecision
can be brought about and a mental crisis effected under the
leadership of a master mind.
{{
CHAPTER V ~ *N
SOCIO-POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES-BEGINNING OF
EFFECTIVE DISINTEGRATION.—EXPLOITATION.—PROGRAM
OF RECONSTRUCTION.—METHODS AND MEANS
Some amongst us, who thoroughly believe in the virtues of
the Brahmanical social order, or see the whole mischief in the
unfavorable influence of the British rule, or expect to find a
panacea for all evils in India in the economic regeneration of the
country, will accuse me of having overemphasized the de-
structive force of Indº-Aryan institutions. We must dismiss
the objections of such radicals as being unimportant for our
purpose. Until now I have followed in a very general way
the course of the Indo-Aryan mental evolution and indicated its
disastrous as well as its beneficial consequences. Now I shall
carry my analysis a little further and make the resulting prob-
lems more specific with a view to suggesting directions along
which our work of reconstruction should begin, the methods that
we should follow in organizing our work, and the forces we
should use in carrying out our program.
In the three principal disastrous consequences which these
developments wrought in the life of the people of India we find
the three-fold directions along which our work of reconstruc-
tion, which has already begun, must continue with increased
vigor. These three consequences are as follows:
First: Effects on Race Composition and Social Constitution.
Second : Effects on Political Organization.
Third: Effects on Economic Prosperity and Progress.
In its effect on the race composition and social constitution
we find its most suicidal character. The social stratification of
the Dravidians was not based upon race or spiritual superiority,
but on a strict precedence of wealth and political power." The
Aryans themselves came to India with no caste system, and un-
der pressure of normal economic and political competition the
inevitable result of the various races coming together would
have been their complete fusion into a people with a sense of
close consanguineal affinity throughout the entire population—
something similar to what happened to the racial stocks that
went to England or what is happening to the various European
*Supra, pp. 18 and 21.
65
Q ©
races that are coming into the United States. For the Dra-
vidians were by no means a contemptible race and the Aryans
might well have been proud to make blood alliances with them.
In fact, some such process had already begun. Bºt with the
Brahmanical regime came the caste system, which checked the .
free working of that process and prevented a complete fusion
of the various race elements. • Though the caste system has
sailed to preserve the absolute blood purity of the Aryan stock,
since it was an institution not based upon race differences pri-
marily, but on spiritual superiority, it has succeeded in retaining
enough physical differences between members of castes belong-
ing to the various races to prevent the birth of a consanguineal
consciousness of kind—a necessary preliminary to the birth
of a vigorous national life. The worst consequence of the caste
system is, however, the social differences it has created. We
have already seen that in spite of the caste system the majority
of the population of India today represents a mixture of the
various races that have come into the country. It is true that
the Aryan highest caste and the Dravidian lowest caste taken
as a whole do represent race differences. But even in the high-
est of Aryan castes we find the Dravidian and Mongolian
blood infiltrated in all degrees of mixture. The various high-
caste Marathas do not differ racially and in many individual in-
stances in Bengal, Madras, and the Maratha country, the proud
Brahman and the lowest street scavenger hardly present much
difference of race. Moreover, the Indian geographical environ-
ment has put its common stamp upon all the racial stocks that
inhabit it. The writer when in European dress has been fre-
quently taken variously for a Bengali Babu, a Maratha Brah-
man, a Parsi, a Mohammedan, and a Spaniard, even by his
own countrymen, and strange enough, he, though a native of
India, belongs to no one of these castes or sects. It is not at all
uncommon to find our boys in England and the United States
asking each other their caste and provincial affiliation. What
I aim to point out is that whereas considerable differences in
physical appearance between different castes and people of dif-
ferent provinces can be recognized, if they are observed en bloc,
the race mixture in spite of the caste system and the geographic
environment has run its course to the extent of making judg-
ment difficult on the racial affiliation of any particular indi-
vidual. It is not uncommon in India to find, in the same high
66
Çe
Q
caste family, representatives of these various races, exhibiting
a gradation of color from very dark to very white and fea-
tures, from pure Aryan to dominantly Mongolian or Drăvidian.
Most unfortunately, the caste system prevented a smooth work-
ing out of this process which had begun so well. But the check-
Ting of this process of race mixture was not the worst result of
the caste system. Its effects on-the social constitution were still
more disastrous. The racial and cultural differences of the peor
ple of various provinces and castes of India may well be
likened to the differences between the various nationalities of
the Caucasian races of Europe, with perhaps this difference
that in India the feeling of consanguinity is more distant, and
enmity between caste arfd caste and province and province more
acute, than is to be found amongst the various races and nation-
alities of Europe. To an Indian a man of another province is
practically a foreigner and a member of another caste often-
times an enemy belonging to a rival corporation.
The positive forces of the caste system and of the other
religious institutions and the negative force of the neglect of
political and economic life have thus accentuated consanguineal,
cultural and linguistic differences among members of different
castes and different provinces. It led to the formation in India
of a heterogeneous mass of population—divided into over 3,000
castes or communities of interests, with multifarious differences
in speech, dress, customs and traditions.
A certain feeling of consanguineal affinity, a consciousness of
common culture, common tradition and common folk-lore, a
similarity of manners and customs, and in fact the whole back-
ground of life which creates, should occasion require, an inti-
macy between the various members of a community—all these
are necessary for a vivid realization of a national consciousness
of kind. Is this to be found in Indian life? What is there that
forms a common background of the life of a Bengali, a
Maratha, a Madrasi, a Panjabi, and a Sikh, except a vague
feeling of religious unity which has proved its failure to sus-
tain a sound political and economic structure? By history, tra-
dition, language, customs, manners and all those little and great
elements that form a major content of human life, a Maratha,
a Bengali, and a Madrasi are even more widely separated
than they may seem to be by differences of physical appear-
ance. A Maratha girl if married to a Bengali Babu under
67
the existing social order will feel about as much at home with
her husband as she would were she married to an Englishman
or an Arab, with whom she might feel even more at home
should she have gone through a common school traming with
them. Her language, her manners, her mode of dress, in fact
all the past contents of her life under present circumstances
will make her a misfit in her new Bengali home. These are
facts full of deep meaning and demand serious consideration
at the hands of those of our men who are ëager to serve their
country. They bid us go a little slowly in our program of
reform and reconstruction. The writer confesses that in spite
of his education he feeels more at home with a man from his
own province, and even more so with a man of his own caste
than with a member of any other province or caste in India.
The effects of a perverted social heredity accumulated in periods
º
of centuries has created differences between people of various
provinces which must first be removed and has created gaps be-
tween caste and caste that must be filled in before we can hope
to realize our ideal of consanguineal and cultural unity. What
pride can a Bengali or a Madrasi feel in the history of a
Maratha who has tormented him in the past? What affinity can
a Mohammedan feel with a Maratha who has been instrumental
in bringing about his overthrow from power P. We must there-
fore first create a common culture and common tradition of
which all of us—the Bengali, the Maratha, the Madrais, the
Panjabi, the Sikh, the Parsi, and the Mohammendan—can be
equally proud. We must first eliminate all unnecessary points of
dissimilarity between caste and caste and province and province
that create in us a feeling of distantness. We must develop a
common system of education that will create in us a common
background of life—a common culture, a common language, a
certain similarity of dress and manners, and above all on the
part of each one of us an intelligent appreciation of our common
position in the eyes of the world and a realization of our com-
mon political and economic interests. These are the accom-
plishments at which we must first aim before we can aspire
to realize our higher political and economic goals. A defective
social order is as poor a soil to nurture vigorous political and
economic institutions as an unsatisfactory government is to
foster a happy and prosperous social order. These various
phases of human life are mutually dependent on each other for
68
their harmonious development. The first plank of our platform
of reconstruction in India is therefore to create a national life O11 a
basis of consanguineal and cultural unity. If I may be pardoned
for induſging in specrlation, I can see a future India represent-
ing a complete race mixture of the three principal racial stocks
in the country, speaking a common language, perhaps English;
adopting a common dress, perhaps a modified European wear
for the men and a modified Parsi wear for women; and sub-
ordinating the religious life to the extent of making it a matter
of private judgment and not a matter of public concern as it
has been thus far. This is a tremendous task, and only an
Indian who has an immmediate knowledge of the psychology
that supports the p?esent malformation can appreciate the
burden of our problem.
In recommending the abolition of the caste system and the
creation of a consanguineal consciousness of kind—an almost
necessary preliminary for the birth of a national self-conscious-
ness—I realize that I shall meet opposition from those who
doubt the wisdom of mixture of the various castes and races
in India, lest the so-called superior Aryan blood, which has thus *
far been preserved by the caste system, may disappear; and
we may have eventually a dominantly Dravidian population in
India, representing an average lower racial type, since the Dra-
vidian already constitutes by far the major part of the present
population of India. I, therefore, offer grounds on which we
may not only dismiss such unwarranted fears of the lowering of
race standard, but may hope for a still better race standard out
of the mixture of the various race elements now within the
country.
In the first place, the Dravidians though of dark skin are
in physiognomy very similar to the Caucasian races, and the dif-
ference between the so-called Aryan castes and the Dravidian
castes does not represent a wide” race separation. What is still
e->
*Even where two so very widely separated races as the Anglo-
Saxon whites and the negroes are being miscegnated, as in the
Southern States of the United States, conclusive evidence is wanting
to prove that the resulting progeny is either degenerate or sterile. We
are even told that “the recognized leaders of the (negro) race are
almost invariably persons of mixed blood” (even though it may be
that), “the qualities which have made them leaders are derived cer-
tainly in part and perhaps mainly from their white ancestors.” See,
“Negroes in United States,” an article by Walter F. Willcox in Ency.
Britan, IIth ed., Vol. XIX, p. 345 et seq. Since writing the above, "I
am indebted to Professor Jackson for calling my attention to an article
69
more important, the Dravidians of India represent a very su-
perior race element. Their history speaks for them. Prior to
the coming of the Aryans into India they had developed politi-
cal systems not dissimilar to the feudal institutions of the West-
ern European races. We find the Dravidian freeman subordi-
nate to raja, a sort of manorial lord, and the latter paying
homage to the central chief, the whole scheme representing a
strongly centralized government based upon an efficient mili-
tary organization. They had a culture independent of Aryan
influence. It was the Aryans who stopped their further political
progress by their forceful religious teachings. The fabulous
wealth of India before she was robbed was a product of the
persistent industry of these people. Then we must remember
that such energetic leaders as Chandragupta, Shivaji and
Madhji Scindya were not men of the so-called pure Aryan
blood.” The Indian Rayat by whom the Dravidians are repre-
sented today have stood the test of centuries of adverse climatic
environment and have survived a condition of anarchy and
misrule for a period of over ten centuries since the first Moham-
, medan invasion and have proved their economic efficiency dur-
ing the severe conditions of this trying period.
In the second place the mixture of the various racial stocks
in India so far as it has already gone has proved a success and
warrants us in further stimulating that process. It has created
no degenerate hybrid products, as many scholars of ethnology
would have us believe. In Bengal we have (in some families)
about the best illustrations of what is likely to happen if the yel-
low Mongolian, the white Aryan and the dark Dravidian are
mixed and the result is not one to be despised. A Bengali of
this type is not only an intelligent, but a very handsome person.
In the third place, in the agile and active Maratha and Parsi,
the sturdy Sikh and Mohammedan, the intelligent Bengali
and the persevering and patient Madrasi we have all the ele-
by Professor H. E. Jordan of the University of Virginia, “The Mulatto
to save the Negro,” in the Literary Digest, vol. 46, p. 1373; and also
ibid., “Awakening of the Brahmin,” p. 1383, f. Professor Jordan thinks
that the half-breed is usually a better and more useful citizen than the
man of pure race. “The mulatto,” says Professor Johnson, “is the
leaven with which to lift the negro race.”
*I base this statement on the fact that both Shivaji and Madhji
Scinda belonged to the Maratha Kunbi Caste, a dominantly Dravidian
tribe in their present physical appearance. For low origin of
Chandragupta on the mother's side, although on his father's side of the
raja class, see Vincent Smith's Early History of India, p. IIo.
70
ments in India for the formation of a population that will result
in an unrivaled race composition for the purpose of exploiting
the economic resources of our warm country. In spite of this,
if there are some who still doubt the worth of the native Indian
stocks, they could freely import foreign blood by intermarriage
with the Europeans and the Mongolian Asiatics.
In its effect on the political life of the people of India, the
Indo-Aryan culture represents its second evil influence. Prior
to the coming of Aryans into India the Dravidian political evo-
lution was proceeding along normal lines. They had developed
manorial and feudal institutions not greatly dissimilar to those
developed by Western races in Europe. We also find that the
Aryans themselves came to India with quasi-republican institu-
tions.” The Rig Veda speaks of the nomination and election of
kings and chiefs and we find that matters of public interest were
discussed in assemblies" somewhat similar to the folk-moots of
the early settlers in Massachusetts. These splendid beginnings
under Aryan influence lapsed into a state of political disassocia-
tion that left in India thousands of principalities existing side by
side without either much friction or co-operation and exercising
over their subjects a sort of paternal despotism. From the quasi-
republican institutions of the Aryans and the centralized polity
of the Dravidians to the decentralized condition of innumerable
petty states was a change for which Brahmanism and the
Brahmanical philosophy of life were alone responsible. This
condition created in India a fertile field for political exploitation.
Every student of the history of India knows well that this fact
was not lost sight of by their foreign neighbors and we know
how for lack of co-operation these petty kingdoms were ulti-
mately swallowed one by one by the British conquerors
eventually bringing the entire country under their control. The
conquest of Alexander brought into India the very first forces
of political and social disintegration." Under the influence of
this stimulus and that of the succeeding Greek and Scythian
invasions some progress was made in developing political organ-
ization. The famous dynasties of Chandragupta and others were
formed, but the pressure being removed India again fell into
her spiritual slumber.
*Zimmer: Alt-indisches Leben, pp. 172-174.
"Foy: Königliche Gewalt, chap. II.
"Smith, Vincent A.: Early History of India—is at present the most
reliable work on the earlier period of Indian History, p. 102 et seq.
&
71
Once more we find in the Indian political history a period of
quiescènce from the third century to the eleventh century A. D.
when the first"epoch making Mohammedan invasion took place.
Now began to enter into India powerful forces of disºntegration
and they kept continually coming until finally the British people
established their powerful and stable government for the
entire territory and brought in a peaceful regime. From the
first Mohammedan invasion to the final achievements of the
British people in India was a period of over one thousand years
—a period of anarchy and misrule (with only temporary inter-
vals of stability under Mohammedan rule) during which the peo- .
ple were harassed and misgoverned by their successive temporary
masters who, conscious of their precarious position, robbed them
as much as they could. During this period of exploitation the
foreign invaders were not the only tools of molestation of the
people. After these outside forces began to shake the founda-
tions of the Indo-Aryan social order, the Indian raja as well as
the Brahman became nervous as to the stability of his in-
terests. It was during this period of demoralization, more than
before, that we find the Indian raja employing extraordinary
means to strengthen his treasury in order to protect his
lºingdom. We now find him harassing his subjects by heavy
taxes and capricious rule. Political stability and peace, the basic
foundations of their religious, industrial and social order, were
now jeopardized and they fully realized this. The foreign in-
vasions came as a complete surprise to them, and their belief in
the efficacy of sacrifices as a means of protecting their king-
doms and furnishing a panacea for all evils was suddenly
shaken. It was in short a period of readjustment.
It is not fair to compare their administration of this period
with that of Englishmen in a period of settled rule. Even
some of our own scholars in their effusive praise of
British rule are very fond of contrasting" its blessings
of peace and moderate taxes with this state of maladminis-
tration. They vehemently condemn those who mourn the
loss of that native misrule. Such errors are an inevitable re-
sult of a study of isolated chapters of the history of any people.
These enthusiasts for the British rule fail to see that there were
deeper forces than those of mere native maladministration that
"Of this type are studies like those of Mr. C. Hayavadan Rao, pub-
lished in Indian Antiquary, Vol. 40, pp. 265 and 281. Also Mr. Hop-
kins' India Old and New, see chapter on Famines.
72
brought about the establishment of British rule in India. Thus
we reconcile the two opposite descriptions of the native"rule in
India—the one painting it as a happy and prosperous regime and
the otherstondemning, it on account of its anarchy. These two
aspects represent two different periods in the history of Indo-
Aryan people and we should be cautious before we indulge in
vehement condemnation of our own ancestors and in enthusias-
tic praise of our present rulers, or vice versa. The mean lies
somewhere between these two extremes.
It was during this period of demoralization that the Brah-
man began to exploit his recognized superiority for financial
gains. A system of spiritual hierarchy, which began in all
earnestness for the batterment and salvation of humanity, de-
generated into a cunning and dishonest scheme of exploitation.
The king and other castes were now commanded to support the
Brahman and to serve his interest in every respect. The
Sanskrit literature of the later period gives us plentiful
evidence for the many devices which the Brahmans under
the garb of religious necessities had invented to exploit the
other castes. The prince must now protect him even from
the consequences of his crimes. The Vaishya must sup-
port him and the Qudra must meekly serve him. Caste now
meant privilege and discrimination—privilege for the higher
castes and discrimination against the lower castes. This applied
in all walks of life, religious, social and political, and the Brah-
man as the author of this scheme reserved for himself the cream
of everything. Therefore we should not condemn the Brah-
manical tyranny without correctly understanding the underlying
forces. A period of political readjustment is necessarily a
period of anarchy, misrule, and misery and we should be thank-
ful that it is at least temporarily ended, even though with the
result that we find ourselves under a foreign rule. We badly
needed the peace which England has granted us and should not
much grumble at the cost at which we got it or are getting it
now. We need this peaceful regime to effect thoroughgoing
changes in our existing social and economic order and to
make preparation for a stage of higher political reconstruction.
Just at present, considering the momentous work of social re-
organization before us, we need no violent political changes nor
another period of political disorganization. Our main task along
political lines now lies, it seems to me, in gradually getting more
73
political privileges that will give our ambitious young men a
freer scope for the development of their higher capacities along
these lines, watching the present administration and seeing to
it that it does not take any steps unfavorable to tae develop-
ment of our social and economic platforms and bringing proper
pressure upon it to enact legislation that will facilitate our work
of reconstruction. Against the British' administration as such, if
it shows a disposition to sympathize with our programs of recon-
struction and helps us in that work, we have no reason to grum-
ble simply because it happens to be a foreign administration.
But if it shows a disposition inimical towards our hopes of
political independence and economic prosperity, it will not only
bring a regime of discontent, but endanger its very existence,
if not at the hands of its emasculated subjects, then at the hands
of some foreign enemy. Fortunately, thus far England has
shown no hostile disposition towards our aspirations for
greater political privileges, and let us hope that with a greater
knowledge of our needs and capacities she will take a more
genuine interest in our affairs and grant more privileges that
will enable us to exercise our higher political instincts.
In its unfavorable effects on the economic prosperity of the
people of India we find the third evil consequence of the Indo-
Aryan culture. In this case its influence worked both directly
and indirectly. The Brahmanical law looked down on economic
pursuits and extolled the virtues of the study of the Vedas and
the profession of a priest. They prescribed the proper occupa-
tions for each of the four castes and for many of the
mixed castes. This was only following the general direc-
tion of their mental stream. However, the will to live
and enjoy life was stronger with the masses than a de-
sire to renounce the worldly life, and under circumstances
of pressure the rules as to the gaining of livelihood
were freely violated. A Brahman for instance was al-
lowed almost free scope in his economic activities when
necessity called for such a departure from settled custom. The
people kept up their usual toil in productive activities, though
not under the leadership of capable entrepreneurs, for we know
that their creative activities were so to speak atrophied, their at-
tention being turned away from the gains of this life to the bliss
of heaven. Even in the absence of powerful entrepreneurs in
the field of economic activity, the Indo-Aryan regime of peace
74
a-
and the easy conditions of life gave opportunities for
accumulating a greater part of whatever wealth had been
created by the persistent efforts of these lesser entrepreneurs
and economic agents. The fabulous wealth of India was a
product of the gradual savings of this period of centuries of
peace. Unfortunately these riches were protected by a flimsy
political fabric and it’suffered the fate of a ship which sank with
the very weight of gold in it. It was the fabulous wealth of
India that invited tº her door the ruinous foreign invasions and
brought up on her a condition of anarchy and misrule extending
over a period of a thousand years. And it is to the credit of the
population of India that it has stood this test and survived in-
tact for the work of future reconstruction. The Indian peasant
and merchant of today are as patiently industrious and efficient
as they have been at any time. Our chief work now along the
line of economic reconstruction lies in the creation of an entre-
preneur class that will start enterprises to exploit the natural
and commercial resources of our country and, with renewed
vigor, once again set the industrial wheel in motion, and of
an intelligent labor class that will efficiently co-operate with
these entrepreneurs in the work of production. This is the
third plank of our platform of reconstruction in India.
On methods and means one can better act than speak, and
what I shall say now will be merely for the sake of completing
this study. After a careful analysis of the past and present of
India’s life one cannot help feeling the overwhelming neces-
sity of a widespread system of elementary and secondary public
education that will offer a uniform training to every child in
India, giving it a common background of life with every other
child in the country. An efficient and widespread system of
public schools, where not only reading and writing are taught,
but the pupils are encouraged in an inquiring attitude towards
life and are given an intelligent understanding of their economic
and political position in the eyes of the world, would constitute
the best melting pot of the Indian prejudices and a birth-place
of the Indian national life. Unfortunately our present educa-
tional facilities are very inadequate, especially in the most im-
portant matter of rudimentary education. The present sys-
tem is very defective in that it does not reach the masses
effectively. Moreover, in a country where masses are buried in
ignorance a policy of laisser faire as regards the school at-
75
tendance of children is likely to be very ruinous.* And we must
compeº each child to accept at least the benefits of reading and
writing"through which we can train them for a change in their
present attitude and admit them into the atmosphere of our
“new spirit.” We see the need of normal schools for the proper
training of intellectual leaders, a system of public lectures, and
press campaigns under vigorous and sound" leadership, and many
other Social and club activities that have played such important
rôles in the reconstruction of other nations—all these can be
counted upon to contribute to the common end.
As to the means, the most powerful single agency that stands
in a position to play the title rôle in this epoch-making drama
of our program is the Government of India. At the stage of
evolution where India now stands a paternal despotism is essen-
tial. If the Government of India means well and has honest
intentions, then in co-operation with the present administration
we can bring about epoch-making changes in the existing social
order in our country and speedily carry out our program of
reconstruction. A favorable attitude of the government will
of course make us sooner qualified to assume our own political
responsibilities. But what boots it even if Great Britain is
eventually totally separated from India? Is it not better for
the progress of humanity as a whole that such a change should
occur P Even from a more selfish point of view will not Eng-
land profit more in the end by her commercial relations with a
prosperous and politically independent India than from a
half-starved and discontented politically subjected population?
A free unfolding of the national life and an active foreign rule
become mutually incompatible. But even with England’s most
liberal policy in matters of education and the granting of
political privileges, the day for a complete separation seems so
far off that let us hope than when the time comes for momentous
changes in the political affairs of India the high sense of honor
of the British people will again assert itself as it has done in the
past and we shall be able to accomplish a silent revolution in
keeping with the humanitarian stamina of our civilization.
Whether the government is sympathetic or unsympathetic,
interested or uninterested, and active or inactive along the lines
of our work of reconstruction, we must do our proper share.
*It is gratifying to note in this connection that the native state of
Baroda has taken, a lead in this direction, and has introduced a
system of free and compulsory elementary education.
76
*N
Private enterprise can accomplish a great deal. The Indian
National Congress should be recognized and created into a body
critical as well as constructive with a provisional governiſient and
with powers to collect voluntary assessments from the people
for educational purposes and a permanent central treasury to
disburse funds to the agents according to the needs of various
provinces and localities. The press should undertake to edu-
cate public opinion within the country and abroad as regards
the course of Indian affairs and to create an interest in the public
mind in current problems. Young men from the various uni-
versities should hold annual conferences where they can become
acquainted and where they can discuss questions of social re-
form. *
We should duly appreciate and heartily co-operate with the
various foreign missions that are doing so much good in our
country and helping us in our work. We should have a kindly
appreciation of the efforts of a foreign missionary who leaves
his country and his home and consecrates his life to the better-
ment of humanity. In view of the work he is doing, we can tol-
erate the little narrowness that missionaries sometimes exhibit.
When the foreign missionary christianizes the so-called un-
touchable classes in India he is performing a valuable service
not only to our country, but to humanity. He is lightening our
work of creating a national life by eliminating unnecessary dis-
similarities and differences. We must frankly admit that we
ourselves have shown no disposition until now to engage in this
kind of work. As to his changing the religion of these lower
classes he is certainly replacing a custom-ridden and ignorant
attitude of mind by a more liberal faith. Moreover, in the
future life of our country it is best that religion should be left
to the individual as a matter of private judgment and should
not be allowed to interfere in co-operative public activities.
Not only in India, but outside of our country, there are
forces which we can utilize to advantage. The world as a whole
stands today on a higher ethical level than ever before. By
educating European and American public opinion as to the prob-
lems and needs of our country we can get much in the way of
that moral support which, now that the world has become one by
means of transportation and communication, is bound to play a
more and more important part in guiding the conduct of political
and social activities everywhere. The government of any civil-
77 jº &
*
ized cºuntry today will hesitate to pass or defeat a bill in the
face of, adverse comment of the international press and notes
from foreign governments recording their disapprºval. Even
from the Selfish point of view of economic gain, the interests
of India, we may convince the world, are the interests of
humanity at large. The limits of economic society today have
no horizon, and without boundaries they embrace the entire
world. Wall Street feels the pulse of economic progress in the
remotest parts of the world. The wheat crop of Russia and the
cotton crop of India are registered on the tickers of the Wall
Street and Lombard Street exchanges and the bourses of Paris,
Berlin and other important cities. The economic efficiency of
the Indian Rayat and the Russian peasant is eventually to be
reflected in the values of the world’s markets. Is it not then a
concern to humanity as a whole that the people of India should
be prosperous and politically independent? Can the world as
a whole make progress with misery or misconduct in its train?
The wºrk of reconstruction once completed in India, she will
represent a powerful, progressive, and humanizing force and
render special services in the interest of humanity. India is the
only country where the dark Dravidian, the white Aryan, and
the yellow Mongolian, the principal stocks of humanity, are
mixed to advantage and are bound to mix still further as time
goes on. Here only we find a trained and an efficient army
well qualified for the exploitation of the economic resources of
either warm or cold regions. It is here that we shall first see
humanity en bloc, including all the world races in one family,
and, above all, it is here that we find humanitarianism, sym-
pathy, and peaceful disposition forming the dominant note of
the character of the people. Unfortunately in their eagerness
for a speedy political and economic reconstruction some of our
leaders have shown a disposition to bring about the changes
rapidly at the sacrifice of our past and most precious heritage.
Let us hope that in our enthusiasm for reconstruction we do
not lose this splendid possession of the human element in
civilization which is unique with us and of which every one of
us may well be proud.
Finis
*
SOME ORIGINAL AND SECONDARY SOURCES FOR A
STUDY OF THE INDO-ARYAN MENTAL EVOLU-
*TION AND ITS POLITICAL AND ECO-
NOMIC CONSEQUENCES.
Rig Veda.
Metrical English Translation by Ralph T. H. Griffith, Vols. I-2
—Benares, 1896-7. *
Translation begun by H. H. Wilson, Vols. 1-3 (1850-57) com-
pleted by Cowell, Vols., 4-6 (1866-88); this translation is based
upon commentary of Sanyana.
Max Müller's critical translation of some select hymns. Sacred
Books of the East, Vol. 32—Oxford, 1891.
Hermann Oldenberg’s translation of some hymns to Agni in
Mandala, I-5, S. B. E. Vol. 46—Oxford, 1897.
Yajur Veda.
Atharva Veda. *
W. D. Whitney's translation with critical commentary revised and
brought nearer to completion by C. R. Lanman, Vols. I-2—
Cambridge, Mass., 1905.
M. Bloomfield’s translation S. B. E. Vol. 42—Oxford, 1897.
R. T. H. Griffith's translation, Vols. I-2—Benares, 1895-6.
Qatapatha Brahmana.
Eggeling's translation in S. B. E. Vols. I2, 26, 41, 43, 44. --
Grihya Sutras.
Oldenberg's translations of some select Sutras in S. B. E. Vols.
29 and 30.
Upanishads.
Max Müller’s translation of some select Upanishads in S. B. E.
Vols. I and 15.
Vedanta Philosophy.
K. T. Telang's translation of Bhagavadgita in S. B. E. Vol. 8.
Dharmashastra.
Sacred Law writings of Apasthamba, Gautama, Vishnu, Vasistha,
Baudhāyana, Manu, Narada and Brihaspati, translated by vari-
- ous Oriental Scholars in S. B. E. Vols. 2, 14, 17, 25, and 33.
Mahabharata.
P. C. Roy's translation, Vols. I-18—Calcutta, 1883-1895. See espe-
cially Rajadharmanuçacanaparva in Qanti Parva.
Buddhism.
Max Müllers translation of Buddhacharita and Dhammapada, in
S. B. E. Vols. Io and 49.
Rhys David’s translation of Buddhist Suttas and other Buddhistic
texts in S. B. E. Vols. II, 13, 17, 20, 35 and 36.
Chanakya.
Shamashastry’s translation of Arthashastra has appeared partly in
Indian Antiquary, Vols. 34, 38 and 39 and partly in Mysore
Review in 1908.
Aiyangar, S. K. : Ancient India—London, 1911.
Albiruni : Alberuni's India, tr. by Sachan—London, 1888.
Arnold: Vedic Metre—Cambridge, England, 1905.
Baden-Powell: The Indian Village Community—London, 1896.
Baines, Sir Athelstane: Enthnography (Castes & Tribes) (In Buehler's
Encyclopedia of Indo-Aryan Research)—Strassburg, 1912.
Bhandarkar, R. G. : A Peep into the Early History of India, etc.—
Bombay, IQoo.
Bhattacharya, J. N. : Hindu Castes and Sects—Calcutta, 1896.
79 º
sº
^
Bloch, Adolph: Quelques remarques sur l'anthropologie des Indus
- exhibé au Jardin d'Acclimation. Soc. d’anthrop, de Paris: Bull,
et mem. sér. V. 3, pp. 786, 787.
Boell, Paul : L'Inde et le probléme indien—Paris, 1901. -
Bose, N. P. : A History of Hindu Civilization during British Rule—
London, 1894-6. Two vols. A 2
Bose, Shib Chunder: The Hindus as they arº-calcutta I88I.
Bougle, C. : Essais sur le régime des Castes—Paris, foo& º
Bühler, Georg: editor Grundriss der Indo-Arischen Philologie und
Altertumskunde—Strassburg, 1896. . " -
Burnouf, Emile: Essai sur le Veda—Paris, 1863.
Caland, W. : Altindisches Zauberei—Amsterdam, 1908.
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India—London, 1897.
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Coomaraswamy, A. K. : The Indian Craftsman—London, 1909.
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Dahlmann, Joseph : Das altindische Volkstum und seine Bedeutung für
die Gesellschaftskunde–Köln, 1899.
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Dahlmann: Das Mahabharata als Epos und Rechtsbuch—Berlin, 1895.
Davers, Frederick Ch.: The Portuguese in India—London, 1894.
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East, etc.—London, 1897.
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Zeit–Kiel, 1897.
Foy, W. : Königliche Gewalt—Leipzig, 1895.
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Goldstücker, Theodor: Literary Remains—London, 1897.
Hardy, E.: König Asoka—Mainz, 1902. .
Harrowitz, Ernest: A short history of Indian Literature—London, 1907.
Henry, Victor: Les litteratures de l’Inde—Paris, 1904.
Henry, Victor: La Magie dans l’Indie Antique—Paris, Igo2.
Hewitt, J. F. : Ruling Races of Prehistoric Times—Westminster, 1894.
Hewitt, J. F.: Primitive Traditional History, 2 Vols.-London, 1907.
Hewitt, J. F. : Pre-Aryan Communal Village (Jou. Roy. Asi. Soc.,
1899, pp.329–56). # , º tº o
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* 8O
gº
Hopkins, E. W. : India Old and New—New York, 1901.
Hopkiſis, E. W. : The mutual relations of the four castes—Leipzig, 1881.
Hopkins, E. W. : Religions of India—Boston, 1895.
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Ketker, S. V., History of Caste in India—Strassburg, 1912.
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*
tº ºr,
IQO4.
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8I •)
a
*
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SOME PERIODICALS CONTRIBUTING TO INDO-ARYAN
RESEARCH.
American Oriental Society, New Haven, 1843.
Asiatic Researches, Calcutta and London, 1788–1799.
Epigraphia Indica, Calcutta, 1892-1908.
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I895.
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Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, I005.
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Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft, Leipzig, 1837.
º VITA n
The author of this study, a Chandraseniya Kayastha Prabhu
Maratha, was born at Khutal, a small country place near Bom-
bay, India, on December 7th, 1883. His early training both in
the vernacular and in English was entrusted to the care of pri-
vate tutors under his parental roof. Prepared at Thana High
School, a district public school, and matriculated at Bombay
University in 1902.
Studied at Wilson College, Bombay, during the years
I903 aird IOO4. Completed undergraduate work at Cornell
University for A. B. in June of 1908, which institution
he had entered in October of 1905. Entered Columbia Uni-
versity in the Fall of 1908 and received the Degree of Master
of Arts in June, 1909, under the Faculty of Political Science.
Completed residence requirements for Ph. D. in June, 1910, re-
turning to complete the work for that degree in September,
1912. At Cornell University he studied under Professors Will-
cox, Jenks, Fetter and Titchner. At Columbia University he
attended the lectures of Professors Seligman, Clark, Seager and
Giddings, and the seminars of Professors Seligman, Clark and
Seager. During 1912-13 he held a Fellowship in Political
Economy at Columbia University.
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