Present Day Tracts, THE NON- CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. MUIR, i[.EGG£i MITCHELL, REYNOLDS YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY TS^U/i-ofzAy^^^^ICL^- PRESENT DAY TRACTS. SPECIAL VOLUMES OF PRESENT DAY TRACTS. In One Volume^ crown %vo. 2s. dd. cloth boards. j:on-r.FRiEDRiCH Pfaff 9 The Antiquity of Man Historically Considered, By Rev. Canon Raw- LINSON, M.A. 12 The Witfiess of Man^s Moral Nature to Christianity. By Rev. J. Radford Thomson, m.a. 30 Man not a Machine^ but a Responsible Free Agent. By the Rev. Prebendary How, m.a. 31 Tlte Adaptation of the Bible to the Needs and Nature of Man. By the Rev. W. G, Blaikie, d.d., ll.d. 39 Man^ Physiologically Cotisidered. By A. Macalister, m.a., m.d., f.r.s., Professor of Anatomy, Cambridge. 42 Poi?its of Contact between Revelation and Natural Science. By Sir J. William Dawson, ll.d., f.r.s. 62 Christ and Creation: a Two-Sided Quest. By Rev. W. S. Lewis, m.a PRESENT DAY TRACTS OS THE BY Sir William Muir, Prof. Legge, LL.D., The Eevs. J. Murray Mitchell, LL.D., and H. E. Eeynolds, D.D, ContainiHg Six Tracts of xlie Series, Nos 14, 18, 25, 33, 46, 51. THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY: 56, Paternostek Row; 65, St. Paul's Churchyard; and 164, Piccadilly. Edwa.^d Knight, MisDix Stkeet. E a PREFACE. The branch of the series of Present Day Tracts devoted to the discussion of the non-Christian religions of tlie world has reached such a state of completeness that it seems advisable to issue the Tracts belonging to it in a separate Volume. It is believed that the convenience of readers specially interested in this study will be met by this arrange ment. Tbe Tracts will thus be made more readily available for use by students, by teachers of Christian Evidence classes, and others. The six Tracts comprised in this branch of the Series are simply bound together and furnished with a title page and table of contents. The Tracts are all by writers who have had special opportunities of studying the non-Christian religions treated among the people who profess them, or have given such prolonged study and attention to the subjects on which they write that they have a claim to be heard, and to speak or write with authority upon them. It is hoped that the separate issue of these Tracts in a collected form will not only prove to be helpful in their work to many who are not strangers to the Present Bay Tracts, but also deepen and extend the already wide-spread interest in the series. October, 1SS7. CONTENTS. XIV. THE RISE AND DECLINE OF ISLAM. By Sir WILLIAM MUIR, K.C.S.I., LL.D., D.C.L. XVlll. CHRISTIANITY AND CONFUCIANISM COMPARED IN THEIR TEACHING OF THE WHOLE DUTY OF MAN. By JAMES LEGGE, LL.D. XXV. THE ZEND-AVESTA AND THE RELIGION OF THE PARSIS. By J. MURRAY MITCHELL, M.A. LL.D. XXXIIl. THE HINDU RELIGION : A SKETCH AND A CONTRAST. By J. MURRAY MITCHELL, M.A. LL.D. XLVl. BUDDHISM : A COMPARISON AND A CONTRAST BETWEEN BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY. By the Rev. HENRY ROBERT REYNOLDS, D.D. LI. CHRISTIANITY AND ANCIENT PAGANISM. By J. MURRAY MITCHELL, M.A. LL.D. THE RISE AND DECLINE OF ISLAM. BY SIR WILLIAM MUIR, K.C.S.I., LL.D., D.C.L. (Formerly Lieut. -Governor of the North-West Provinces of India.) AUTHOR OF ^'' The Life of Mahomet;" *^ Anjials of the Early Caliphate;" " The Cora7t: Its Composition and Teaching, and the Testimony it bears to the Holy Scriptures ; " " The Apology of Al Kindy" (with an Essay on its age and authorship read before the Royal Asiatic Society), &c. THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY- 56, Pateenoster Row; 65, St. Paul's Churchyard; and 164, Piccadilly, ^tQument oS the Trax!t. The progress of Islam was slow until Mahomet cast aside the precepts of toleration, and adopted an aggressive, mili tant policy. Then it became rapid. The motives which animated the armies of Islam were mixed — material and spiritual. Without the truths contained in the system, success would have been impossible, but neither without the sword would the religion have been planted in Arabia, nor beyond. The alternatives offered to conquered peoples were Islam, the Sword, or Tribute. The drawbacks and attractions of the system are examined. The former were not such as to deter men of the world from embracing the faith. The sexual indulgences sanctioned by it are such as to make Islam " the Easy way." The spread of Islam was stayed whenever military success was checked. The Faith was meant for Arabia and not for the world, hence it is constitutionally incapable of change or development. The degradation of woman hin ders the growth of freedom and civilization under it. Christianity is contrasted in the means used for its pro pagation, the methods it employed in grappling with and overcoming the evils that it found existing in the world, in the relations it established between the sexes, in its teaching with regard to the respective duties of the civil and spiritual powers, and, above all, in its redeeming character, and then the conclusion come to that Christianity is Divine in its arigin. THE RISE AND DECLINE OF ISLAM. Imongst the religions of the earth, Islam isiam vrc i ° eminent in must take the precedence in the rapidity ""Jg''' and force with which it spread. "Within a very short time from its planting in Arabia, the new faith had subdued great and populous provinces. In half a dozen years, count ing from the death of the founder, the religion prevailed throughout Arabia, Syria, Persia, and Egypt; and before the close of the century, it ruled supreme over the greater part of the vast populations from Gribraltar to the Oxus, from the Black Sea to the river Indus. In comparison with this grand outburst, the first Propagatinn ^ " far quicker efforts of Christianity were, to the outward eye, cM'salnitv faint and feeble ; aud its extension so gradual, that what the Mahometan religion achieved in ten or twentj"- years, it took the faith of Jesus long cen turies to accomplish. The object of these few pages is, first, to iaquire ^llf°^ ""^ briefly into the causes which led to the marvellous rapidity of the first movement of Islam ; secondly, to consider the reasons which eventually stayed its advance ; and, lastly, to ascertain why Mahometan The Rise and Decline of Islarti countries have kept so far in the rear of other lands in respect of intellectual and social progress. In short, the question is, how it was that, Pallas-like, the Faith sprang, ready armed, from the ground, conquering and to conquer ; and why, the weapons dropping from its grasp, Islam began to lose its pristine vigour, and finally relapsed into inactivity. T\ro periods in the mission of Mahomet. I. Ministry at Mecca; A.D. 609-622. The Rapid Spread of Islam. The personal ministry of Mahomet divides itself into two distinct periods. First, his life at Mecca, as a preacher and a prophet. Second, his life at Medina, as a prophet and a king. It is only in the first of these periods that Islam at all runs parallel with Christianity. The great body of his fellow- citizens rejected the ministry of Mahomet, and bitterly opposed his claims. His efforts at Mecca were, therefore, confined to teach ing and preaching, and to the publishing of the earHer " Suras " or chapters of his " Revelation." After some thirteen years spent thus, his converts, to the number of about a hundred and fifty men and women, were forced by the persecution of the Coreish (the ruling tribe at Mecca, from which Mahomet was descended), to quit their native city and emigrate to Medina.^ A hundred more ' See Life of Mahomet, p. 138. Smith and Elder. The Rapid Spread of Islam. had previously fled from Mecca for the same success at -*¦ '' Mecca cause, and found refuge at the court of the i'™*«*- Negus, or king of Abyssinia; and there were already a small company of followers amongst the citizens of Medina. At the utmost, therefore, the number of disciples gained over by the simple resort to teaching and preaching, did not, during the first twelve years of Mahomet's ministry, exceed a few hundreds. It is true that the soil at Mecca was stubborn and (unlike that of Judsea) wholly unprepared. The cause also, at times, became the object of sustained and violent op position. Even so much of success was conse quently, under the peculiar circumstances, remark able. But it was by no means singular. The pro gress fell far short of that made by Christianity during the corresponding period of its existence,^ and indeed by many reformers who have been the preachers of a new faith. It gave no promise what ever of the marvellous spectacle that was about to follow. Having escaped from Mecca, and found a new jj change and congenial home in Medina, Mahomet was not iie^iaf " long in changing his ffont. At Mecca, surrounded by enemies, he taught toleration. He was simply the preacher commissioned to deliver a message, and bidden to leave the responsibility with his Master and his hearers. He might argue with the ' Life of Mahomet, p. 172, where the results are compared. Tlie Rise and Decline of Islam. Arabia convertedfrom Medina at the point of the aword. L.D. 630. k.D. 632. disputants, but it must be " in a way most mild and gracious ;" for "in religion" (such was his teaching before he reached Medina) " there should be neither violence nor constraint."^ At Medina the precepts of toleration were quickly cast aside, and his whole policy reversed. No sooner did Mahomet begin to be recognize i and obeyed as the chief of Medina, than he proceeded to attack the Jewish tribes settled in the neighbourhood, because they refused to acknowledge his claims and believe in him as a prophet foretold in their Scriptures ; two of these tribes were exiled, and the third exterminated ia cold blood. In the second year after the Hegira, or flight from Mecca (the period from which the Ma hometan era dates), he began to plunder the caravans of the Coreish, which passed near to Medina on their mercantile journeys between Arabia and Syria. So popular did the cause of the now militant and marauding prophet speedily become amongst the citizens of Medina and the tribes around, that after many battles fought with varying success, he was able, in the eighth year of the Hegira, to re-enter his native city at the head of ten thou sand armed followers. Thenceforward, success was assured. None dared to oppose his preten sions. And before his death, in the eleventh year of the Hegira, all Arabia, from B^b-el-Mandeb and Oman to the confines of the Syrian desert, ' Life of Mahomet, p. 341 ; Sura ii. 257; xxix. 46. The Rapid Spread of Islam. was forced to submit to the supreme authority of the now kingly prophet, and to recognize the faith and obligations of Islam. ^ This I&l&m, so called from its demanding the entire S^^j^f "^j"' " surrender " of the believer to the will and service *^"™''«*- of Grod, is based on the recognition of Mahomet as a prophet foretold in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, — the last and greatest of the prophets. On him descended the Coran, from time to time, an immediate revelation from the Almighty. Idolatry and Polytheism are with iconoclastic zeal denounced as sins of the deepest dye ; while the unity of the Deity is proclaimed as the grand and cardinal doc trine of the Faith. Divine providence pervades the minutest concerns of life; and predestination is taught in its most naked form. Yet prayer is en joined as both meritorious and effective ; and at five stated times every day must it be specially per formed. The duties generally of the moral law are enforced, though an evil laxity is given in the matter of polygamy and divorce. Tithes are demanded as alms for the poor. A fast during the month of Ramzan must be kept throughout the whole of every day ; and the yearly pilgrimage to Mecca, — an ancient institution, the rites of which were now ' The only exceptions were the Jews of Kheibar and the Christians of Najran, who were permitted to continue in the profession of their faith. They were, however, forced by Omar to quit the peninsula, which thenceforward remained exclusively Mahometan. "Islam" is a synonym for the Mussulman faith. Its origina! meaning is "surrender" of oneself to God. The Rise and Decline of Islam,. Arabia apostatizes : hut is speedily reconquered and reclaimed, A.D. 633. divested of their heathenish accompaniments, — maintained. The existence of angels and devils is taught ; and heaven and hell are depicted ia ma terial colours, — the one of sensuous pleasure, the other of bodily torment. , Finally, the resurrection, judgment, and retribution of good and evil, are set forth in great detail. Such was the creed — there is no god hut the Lord, and Mahomet is his prophet — to which Arabia now became obedient. But immediately on the death of Mahomet, the entire Peninsula relapsed into apostasy. Medina and Mecca remained faithful; but everywhere else the land seethed with rebellion. Some tribes joined the "false prophets," of whom four had arisen in different parts of Arabia; some relapsed into their ancient heathenism; while others proposed a compromise, — they would observe the stated times of prayer, but would be excused the tithe. Everywhere was rampant anarchy. The apostate tribes attacked Medina, but were repulsed by the brave old CaHph Abu Bekr, who refused to abate one jot or tittle, as the suc cessor of Mahomet, of the obligations of Islam. Eleven columns were sent forth, under as many leaders, trained in the warlike school of Ma homet. These fought their way step by step successfully ; and thus, mainly through the wisdom and firmness of Abu Bekr, and the valour and genius of Khaiid, "the Sword of God," the The Rapid Spread of Islam. Arab tribes, one by one, were overcome, and forced back into their allegiance and the profession of Islam. The re-conquest of Arabia, and re-im position of Mahometanism as the national faith,. which it took a whole year to accomplish, is thus described by an Arabian author, who wrote at the close of the second century of the Mahometan era : After his decease, there remained not one of the followers of the Prophet that did not apostatize, saving only a small company of his ' ' Companions " and kinsfolk, who hoped thus to secure the government to themselves. Hereupon, Abu Bekr displayed marvellous skill, energy, and address, so that the power passed into his hands. . . . And thus he persevered until the apostate tribes were all brought back to their allegiance, some by kindly treatment, persuasion, and craft ; some through terror and fear of the sword ; and others by the prospect of power and wealth, as well as by the lusts and pleasures of this life. Aud so it came to pass that all the Bedouin tribes were in the end con verted outwardly, but not from inward conviction. ' The temper of the tribes, thus reclaimed by force ^Jhs thus of arms, was at the first strained and sullen. But were™tthe the scene soon changed. Suddenly the whole peninsula was shaken, and the people, seized with a burning zeal, issued forth to plant the new faith in other lands. It happened on this wise. The columns sent from Medina to reduce the re- housed by war cry, bellious tribes to the north-west on the Gulf of ftZae' Ayla, and to the north-east on the Persian Gulf, 5*^34,'^/ came at once into coUision with the Christian Bedouins of Syria on the one hand, and with those ' Apology of Al Kvnd/y, the Christian, p. 18. Smith & Elder, 1882. This remarkable Ajiologist will be noticed farther below. seq. 10 The Rise and Decline of Islam,. The oppos ing forces. Arab euthusiasm. of Mesopotamia on the other. These, again, were immediately supported by the neighbouring forces of the Roman and Persian empires, whose vassals respectively they were. And so, before many months, Abu Bekr found his generals opposed by great and imposing armies on either side. He was, in fact, waging mortal combat, at one and the same moment, with the Kaiser and the Chosroes, the Byzantine emperor and the great king of Persia. The risk was imminent, and an appeal went forth for help to meet the danger. The battle-cry re sounded from one end of Arabia to the other, and electrified the land. Levy after levy, en masse, started up at the call from every quarter of the Peninsula ; and the Bedouin tribes, as bees from their hive, streamed forth in swarms, animated by the prospect of conquest, plunder, and captive damsels; or, if slain ia battle, by the still more coveted prize of the "Martyr" in the material paradise of Mahomet. With a military ardour and new-bom zeal in which carnal and spiritual aspirations were strangely blended, the Arabs rushed forth to the field, Kke the war-horse of Job, " that smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains and the shouting." Sullen con straint was in a moment transformed into an absolute devotion and fiery resolve to spread the faith. The Arab warrior became the Missionary of Islam. The Rapid Spread of Islam. 11 It was now the care of Omar, the second Caliph Arabs, a T^ 1 p 1 1 • military or Ruler of the new-born empire, to establish a ^°^7' ^ subsidized system whereby the spirit militant, called into ™obiiizedby existence with such force and fervour, might be '^^^^' rendered permanent. The entire Arabian people was subsidized. The surplus revenues, which, in rapidly increasing volume, began to flow from the conquered lands into the Moslem treasuries, were to the last farthing distributed among the soldiers of Arabian descent. The whole nation was enrolled, and the name of every warrior entered upon the roster of Islam. Forbidden to settle anywhere, and relieved from all other work, the Arab hordes became, in fact, a standing army threatening the world. Great bodies of armed men were kept thus ever mobilized, separate and in readiness for new enterprise. The change which came over the poHcy of the Mission of Founder of the faith at Medina, and paved the icscnbedby ' ^ ITairbairn. way for this marvellous system of world-wide rapine and conversion to Islam, is thus described by a thoughtful and sagacious writer : — .... Medina was fatal to the higher capabilities of Islam. Mahomet became then a king ; his religion was incorporated in a State that had to struggle for its life in the fashion familiar to the rough-handed sons of the desert. The Prophet was turned into the legislator and commander ; his revelations were now laws, and now military orders aud manifestoes. The mission of Islam became one that only the sword could accom plish, robbery of the infidel became meritorious, and conquest the supreme duty it owed to the world. . , . 12 The Rise and Decline of Islam. The religion which lived an unprospeiing and precarious life, BO long as it depended on the prophetic word alone, became an aggressive and victorious power, so soon as it was embodied in a State. ^ nn^remet. Another learned and impartial authority teUs us: The Mussulman power under the first four Caliphs was nothing but a grand religio-political association of Arab tribes for universal plunder and conquest under the holy banner of Islam, and the watch- word "There is no God but The Lord, and Mahomet is His Apostle." On pretext of spreading the only true religion, the Arabs swallowed up fair provinces lying all around ; and, driving a profitable business, enriched them selves simultaneously in a worldly sense.^ jaigious The motives which nerved the armies of Islam ment of 'ihivi^fof' ^^^^ ^ strange combination of the lower instiacts t eLor ^£ nature with the higher aspirations of the spirit. To engage in the Holy "War was the rarest and most blessed of all religious virtues, and conferred on the combatant a special merit ; and side by side with it lay the bright prospect of spoil and female slaves, conquest and glory. " Mount thy horse," said Os^ma ibn Zeid to Abu Bekr as he accompanied the Syrian army a little way on its march out of Medina. " Nay," replied the Caliph, " I wiU not ride ; but I wiU walk, and soil my feet a little space in the ways of the Lord. Verily, every footstep in the ways of the Lord is equal in merit to manifold good works, and wipeth away a ' Principal Fairbairn : "The Primitive Polity of Islam," Contemporary Review, December, 1882, pp. 866, 867. * Herr von Eremer, Cultm-gesehichte des Orients, unter dai Chaltfen, vol. i., p. 383. The Rapid Spread of Islam. 13 multitude of sins."^ And of the " Martyrs," those who fell in these crusading campaigns, Mahomet thus described the blessed state : — Think not, in any wise, of those killed in the ways of the Lord, a^ if they were dead. Yea, they are alive, and are nourished with their Lord, exulting in that which God hath given them of His favour, aud rejoicing in behalf of those who have not yet joined them, but are following after. No terror afflicteth them, neither are they grieved. — Sura m. The material fruits of their victories raised the Materialfruits of Arabs at once from being the needy inhabitants ^^^ of a stony sterile soil, where, with difficulty, they eked out a hardy subsistence, to be the masters of rich and luxuriant lands flowing with milk and honey. After one of his great victories on the plains of Chaldaea, Khalid called together his troops, flushed with conquest, and lost in wonder at the exuberance around them, and thus ad dressed them: "Ye see the riches of the land. Its paths drop fatness and plenty, so that the fruits of the earth are scattered abroad, even as stones are in Arabia. If but as ^ a provision for this present life, it were worth our while to fight for these fair fields, and banish care and penury for eyer from us." Such were the aspira tions dear to the heart of every Arab warrior. Again, after the battle of Jal61a, a few years later, the treasure and spoil of the Persian monarch, captured by the victors, was valued at thirty ' Annals of the Early Caliphate, p. 9. Smith & Elder, 1883. 14 The Rise and Decline of Islain. million of dirhems (about a million sterling). The royal fifth (the Crown share of the booty) was sent as usual to Medina, under charge of Ziad, who, in the presence of the Caliph Omar, harangued the citizens in a glowing description of what had been won in Persia, fertile lands, rich cities, and endless spoU, beside captive maids and princesses. Rich booty In relating the capture of Medain (the ancient capital of Ctesiphou), tradition revels in the untold wealth Persia, '^ ' A.D. 637. which fell into the hands of Sad, the conqueror, and his followers. Besides millions of treasure, there was endless store of gold and silver vessels, rich vestments, and rare and precious things. The Arabs gazed bewildered at the tiara, brocaded vestments, jewelled armour, and splendid surround ings of the throne. They teU of a camel of silver, Hfe-size, with a rider of gold, and of a golden horse with emeralds for teeth, the neck set with rubies, the trappings of gold. And we may read in Gibbon of the marvellous banqueting carpet, representing a garden, the ground of wrought gold, the walks of silver, the meadows of emeralds, rivulets of pearls, and flowers and fruits of diamonds, rubies, and rare gems. The precious metals lost their cor ventional value, gold was parted with for its weight in silver ; and so on. i It is the virtue of Islam that it recognizes a ' Gibbon's Decline and Fall, chapter Li. ; and Annals of th* Early Caliphate, p. 184. The Rapid Spread of Islam,. 1 5 special Providence, seeing the hand of God, as in success in everything, so pre-eminently also in victory. When ^-^^^aii Sad, therefore, had established himself in the palace of the Chosroes, he was not forgetful to render thanks in a Service of praise. One of the princely mansions was turned for the moment into a temple, and there, followed by his troops, he ascribed the victory to the Lord of Hosts. The lesson accompanying the prayers, was taken from a Sura (or chapter of the Coran) which speaks of Pharaoh and his riders being overwhelmed in the Red Sea, and contains this passage, held to be peculiarly appropriate to the occasion : — How many Gardens and Fountains did they leave behind, And Fields of com, and fair Dwelling-places, And pleasant things which they enjoyed ! Even thus have We made another people to inherit the same.' Such as fell in the conflict were called Martyrs ; do^^n'the a halo of glory surrounded them, and special joys by Moslem awaited them even on the battle-field. And so it came to pass that the warriors of Islam had an unearthly longing for the crown of martyr dom. The Caliph Omar was inconsolable at the loss of his brother, Zeid, who fell in the fatal "Garden of Death," at the battle of Yema,ma: " Thou art returned home," he said to his son, Abdallah, "safe and sound, and Zeid is dead. Wherefore wast not thou slain before him ? I Ihd ; and Sura XLiv. v. 25.. We, that is, the Lord. 16 The Rise and Decline of Islam,. wish not to see thy face." "Father," answered Jro'™ of "° Abdallah, " he asked for the crown of martyrdom, martyrdom. ^^^ ^^^ j^^^^ granted it. I strove after the same, but it was not given unto me."^ It was the proud boast of the Saracens in their summons to the craven Greeks and Persians, that " they loved death more than their foes loved life." Familiar with the pictures drawn in the Coran of the beautiful "' Houries " of Paradise,^ the Saracens believed that immediate fruition on the field of battle was the martyr's special prize. We are told of a Moslem soldier, fourscore years of age, who, seeing a comrade fall by his side, cried out, " 0 Paradise ! how close art thou beneath the arrow's point and the falchion's flash ! O Hashim ! even now I see heaven opened, and black- eyed maidens aU bridally attired, clasping thee in their fond embrace." And shouting thus, the aged warrior, flred again with the ardour of youth, rushed upon the enemy, and met the envied fate. For those who survived there was the less ethereal but closer prospect of Persian, Greek, or ' Annals of the Early Caliphate, p. 46. " See, e.g.. Sura Ixxviii. ; " Verily for the Pious, there is a blissful abode : gardens and vineyards ; and damsels with swelling bosoms, of a fitting age ; and a full cup. Lovely large-eyed girls, like pearls hidden in their shells, a reward for that which the faithful shall have wrought. Verily We have created them of a rare creation, virgins, young and fascinating. . . . Modest damsels averting then- eyes, whom no man shall have known before, nor any Jinn," etc. The reader will not fail to be struck by the materialistic cha racter of Mahomet's Paradise. The Rapid Spread of Islam. 17 Coptic women, both maids and matrons, who, on " being taken captive by their right hand," were forthwith, according to the Coran, without stint of number, at the conqueror's will and pleasure. These, immediately they were made prisoners, might (according to the example of Mahomet him self at Kheibar) be carried off without further ceremony to the victor's tent ; and in this respect the Saracens certainly were nothing loth to execute upon the heathen the judgment written in their law. So strangely was religious fanaticism fed and fostered in the Moslem camp by incentives irresistible to the Arab ; — fight and foray, the spoil of war and captive charms. The courage of the troops was stimulated by the Partial divine promises of victory, which were read (and on 'e^fed m" like occasions still are read) at the head of each battle. column drawn up for battle. Thus, on the field of • • p T> ¦ 1 *.D. 635. Cadesiya, which decided the fate of Persia, the Sura Jehad, with the stirring tale of the thousand angels that fought on the Prophet's side at Bedr was recited, and such texts as these : — Stir up the faithful unto battle. If there be twenty stedfast among you, they shall put two hundred tofl,ight of the unbelievers, and a hundred shall put to flight a thousand. Victory is from the Lord. He is mighty and wise. I the Lord will cast terror into the hearts of the infidels. Strike off their heads and their fingers' ends. Beware lest ye turn your hack c 18 The Rise and Decline of Islam. in battle. Verily, he that turneth his back shall draw down upon himself the wrath of God. Sis abode shall be hell fire; an evil journey thither. And we are told that on the recital of these verses " the heart of the people was refreshed, and their eyes lightened, and they felt the tranquillity that ensueth thereupon." Three days they fought, and on the morning of the fourth, returning with unabated vigour to the charge, they scattered to the winds the vast host of Persia. ^ Defeat of l^or was it othcrwise in the great battle of the Byzantme ° y^m^'*" Yermuk, which laid Syria at the feet of the Arabs. A.D. 634. ijij^g virgin vigour of the Saracens was fired by a wild fanatical zeal " to fight in the ways of the Lord," obtaining thus heavenly merit and a worldly prize— rthe spoil of Syria and its fair maidens ravished from their homes ; or should they fall by the sword, the black-eyed houries waiting for them on the field of battle. "Of warriors nerved by this strange combination of earth and heaven, of the flesh and of the spirit, of the in centives at once of faith and rapine, of fanatical devotion to the Prophet and deathless passion for the sex, ten might chase a hundred half-hearted Romans. The forty thousand Moslems were ¦ stronger far than the two hundred and forty thou sand of the enemy." The combat lasted for weeks; ' See Sura Jehad. Also Annals of the Early Caliphate, p. 167 et seq. ' ' ' The Rapid Spread of Islam,. 19 but at the last the Byzantine force was utterly routed, and thousands hurled in wild confusion over the beetling cliffs of the Yermuk, into the yawning chasm of Wacusa. ^ Such, then, was the nature of the Moslem pro- ^f^^ ^., paganda, such the agency by which the faith was Material spread, and such the motives at once material and spiritual, by which its martial Missionaries were inspired. 'No wonder that the. effete empires of Rome and Persia recoiled and quivered at the shock, and that province after province quickly fell under the sway of Islam. It is far from my intention to imply that the truths set forth by the new faith had nothing to do with its success. On the contrary, it may well be admitted that but for those truths success might have been impos sible. The grand enunciation of the Divine Unity, and the duty of an absolute submission to the same ; the recognition of a special Providence reaching to the minutest details of life; the in culcation of prayer and other religious duties ; the establishment of a code in which the leading prin ciples of morality are enforced ; and the acknow ledgment of previous revelation in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, told not only on the idolaters of Arabia and the Fire- worshippers of Persia, but on Jews and Samaritans, and the followers of a debased and priest-ridden Christianity. All this Annals of the Early Caliphate, p. 105, et. seq. 20 Tlie Rise and Decline of Islam. conquered nations ; Islam, the Sword, or rribute. is true; but it is still not the less true that without the sword, Islam would never have been planted even in Arabia, much less ever have spread to the countries beyond. The weapons of its warfare were " carnal," material, and earthly ; and by them it conquered. The pressure brought to bear on the inhabitant.'^ of the countries overrun by Saracen arms was of 'ff*'"""rt"th^ the most stringent character. They were offered the triple alternative — Islam, the Swoud or Tribute. The first brought immediate relief. Acceptance of the faith not only stayed the enemy's hand, and conferred immunity from the perils of war, but associated the convert with his conquerors in the common brotherhood and in all the privileges of Islam. Reading the story of the spread of Islam, we are constantly told of this and that enemy, that "being beaten, he believed and embraced the faith." Take as an example of an every-day occur rence, the story of Hormuzan. A Persian prince of high rank long maintained a border warfare against the Moslems. At last he was taken prisoner, and sent in chains to Medina. As he was conducted into the Groat Mosque, Omar exclaimed, "Blessed be the Lord, that hath humbled this man and the hke of him ! " He bade them disrobe the prisoner, and clothe him in sack cloth. Then, whip in hand, he upbraided him for Acceptanceof Islam, inunediate relief from the sword. The Rapid Spread of Islam. 21 his oft-repeated attacks and treachery. Hormuzan made as if fain to reply ; then gasping, like one faint from thirst, he begged for water to drink. " Give it him," said the Caliph, " and let him drink in peace." " Nslj," cried the wretched captive, trem bling, " I fear to drink, lest some one slay nie unawares." " Thy life is safe," said Omar, " until thou hast drunk the water up." The words were no sooner said than Hormuzan emptied the vessel on the ground. " I wanted not the water," he said, " but quarter, and thou hast given it me." " Liar ! " cried Omar, angrily, " thy life is forfeit." — "But not," interposed the bystanders, " until he drink the water up." " Strange," said Omar, " the fellow hath deceived me ; and yet I cannot spare the Ufe of one who hath slain so many noble Moslems. I swear that thou shalt not gain by thy deceit, unless thou wilt forthwith embrace Islam." Upon that, "believing, he made profession of the true faith upon the spot;" and thenceforth, re siding at Medina, he received a pension of the highest grade.^ On the other hand, for those who held to their Tribute and humiliation. ancestral faith, there was no escape from the second or the third alternative. If they would avoid the sword, or having wielded it were beaten, they must become tributary. Moreover, the payment of tribute is not the only condition enjoined by the Coran. ' See Annals, etc., p. 253. Christians. 22 The Rise and Decline of Islam. " Fight against them (the Jews and Christians) until they pay tribute with the hand, and are humbled." ^ The command fell on willing ears. An ample interpretation was given to it. And so it came to pass that, though Jews and Christians were, on the payment of tribute, tolerated in the profession of their ancestral faith, they were yet subjected (and Disabilities still are subjcctcd) to severe humiliation. The imposed on „.,_. i-t Jews and nature and extent of the degradation to which they were brought down, and the strength of the inducement to purchase exemption and the equality of civil rights, by surrendering their religion, may be learned from the provisions which were embodied in the Code named The Ordi nance of Omar, which has been more or less enforced from the earliest times. Besides the tribute and various other imposts levied from the "People of the Book,"^ and the duty of re ceiving Moslem travellers quartered upon them, the dress of both sexes must be distinguished by broad stripes of yellow. They are forbidden to appear on horseback, and if mounted on a mule or ass, their stirrups must be of wood, and their saddles known by knobs of the same material. Their graves must not rise above the level of the son, and the devil's mark is placed upon the lintel of their doors. Their children must be taught by s IX. V. 30. » So Jews and Christians as possessing the Bible are named in the Cor&n. The Rapid Spread of Islam,. 23 Moslem masters, and tbe race, however able or well qualified, proscribed from any office of high emolument or trust. Besides the churches spared at the time of conquest, no new building can be erected for the purposes of worship ; nor can free entrance into their holy places at pleasure be refused to the Moslem. No cross must remain in view outside, nor any church bells be rung. They must refrain from processions in the street at Easter, and other solemnities ; and from any thing, in short, whether by outward symbol, word, ar deed, which could be construed into rivalry, or competition with the ruling faith. Such was the so-called Code of Omar. Enforced with less or greater stringency, according to the intolerance and caprice of the day, by different dynasties, it was, and (however much relaxed in certain countries), it still remains, the law of Islam. One must admire the rare tenacity of the Christian faith, which, with but scanty light and hope, held its ground through weary ages of insult and de pression, and still survives to see the dawning of a brighter day. ^ Such, then, was the hostUe attitude of Islam ccntinumg militant in its early days ; such the pressure brought in times of , n . peace. to bear on conquered lands for its acceptance ; and such the disabilities imposed upon recusant Jews and Christians. On the one hand, rapine, ' See Annals, etc., p. 213. 24 The Rise and Decline of Islam. plunder, slavery, tribute, civil disability; on the other, security, peace, and honour. Wi need not be surprised that, under such constraint, conquered peoples succumbed before Islam, l^or were the temporal inducements to conversion confined to the period during which the Saracens were engaged in spreading Islam by force of arms. Let us come down a couple of centuries from the time of Mahomet, and take the reign of the tolerant and liberal-minded Sovereign, Al Mamun. Amongst the philosophers of all creeds whom that great Caliph gathered around him at Bagh dad, was a noble Arab of the l^estorian faith, AfmSdyta descended from the kingly tribe of the Beni SS^of Kinda, and hence called Al Kindy. A friend of 4.D. 830. this Eastern Christian, himself a member of the Royal family, invited Al Kindy to embrace Islam in an epistle enlarging on the distin guished rank which, in virtue of his descent, he would (if a true believer) occupy at court, and the other privileges, spiritual and material, social and conjugal, which he would enjoy. In reply, the Christian wrote an Apology of singular eloquence and power, throwing a flood of light on the worldly inducements which, even at that com paratively late period, abounded in a Moslem state to promote conversion to Islam. Thus Al Mamun himself, in a speech delivered before his council The Rapid Spread of Islam,. 25 characterizes certain of his courtiers accused as speech of p 1 fv • p • 1 ^^ Mamun. secret adherents of the Zoroastrian faith :~— Though professing Islam, they are free from the same. This they do to be seen of me ; while their convictions, I am well aware, are just the opposite of that which they profess. They belong to a class which embrace Islam, not from any love of tills our Faith, but thinking thereby to gain access to Our court, and share in the honour, wealth, and power of the Realm. They have no inward persuasion of that which they outwardly prore.ss .^ Again, speaking: of the various classes brought converts O • e i> o jj,„nj sordid over to Islam b}' sordid and unworthy motives, motives. Al Kindy says : — Moreover, there are the idolatrous races, — Magians and Jews, — low people aspiring by the profession of Islam to raise them selves to riches and power, and to form alliances with the families of the learned and honourable. There are, besides, hypocritical men of the world, who in this way obtain indul gences in the matter of marriage and concubinage which are forbidden to them by the Christian faith. Then we have the dissolute class given over wholly to the lusts of the flesh. And lastly, there are those who by this means obtain a more secure and easy livelihood. - Before leaving this part of our subject, it may ^^^^^^ be opportune to quote a few more passages from co^elS Al Kindy, in which he contrasts the induce ments that, under the military and political pre dominance of Islam, promoted its rapid spread, and the opposite conditions under which Chris tianity made progress, slow indeed comparatively, with the Moslem ' martyr.' ' The Apology of Al Kindy, written at the court of Al M4mun A.H. 215 (A.D. 830), with an Essay on its age and authorship, p. xii. Smith & Elder, 1882. ' Hid., p. 34. 26 The Rise and Decline of Islam. TheCliristiaiiConfessorand the MoslemMartvr. but sure and steady. First, he compares the Christian confessor with the Moslem " Martyr :"— I marvel much, he says, that ye call those Martyrs that fall in war. Thou hast read, no doubt, in history of the foUowera of Christ put to death in the persecutions of the kings of Persia and elsewhere. Say, now, which are the more worthy to be called martyrs,— these, or thy fellows that fall fighting for the world and the power thereof ? How diverse were the barbarities and kinds of death inflicted on the Christian confessors ! The more they were slain, the more rapidly spread the faith ; in place of one sprang up ahundred. On a certain occasion, when a great multitude had been put to death, one at court said to the king, ' ' The number of them increaseth, instead of as thou thinkest diminishing. " "How can that be ?" exclaimed the king. "But yesterday, " replied the courtier, "thou didst put such and such a one to death, and lo, there were converted double that number ; and the people say that a man appeared to the confessors from heaven strengthen ing them in their last moments. " Whereupon the king himself was converted. In those days men thought not their lives dear unto them. Some were transfixed while yet alive ; others had their limbs cut off one after another ; some were cast to th(! wild beasts, and others burned in the fire. Such continued long to be the fate of the Christian confessors. No parallel is found thereto in any other religion ; aud all was endured with con stancy and even with joy. One smiled in the midst of his great suffering. "Was it cold water," they asked, "that was brought unto thee?" "No," answered the sufferer, "it was one like a youth that stood by me aud anointed my wounds ; and that made me smile, for the pain forthwith departed." Now tell me seriously, my Friend, which of the two hath the best claim to be called a Martyr, ' ' slain in the ways of the Lord " : he who surrendereth his life rather than renounce his faith ; who, when it is said,— FaU down and worship the sun aud moon, or the idols of silver and gold, work of men's hands, instead of the true God, — refuseth, choosing rather to give up life, abandon wealth, and forego even wife and family ; or he that goeth foi-th, ravaging and laying waste, plundering and spoiling, slaying the men, carrying away their children into captivity, and ravisliing their wives and maidens in his unlatvful embrace, and then shall call it " JehM in the ways of the Lord?" The Rapid Spread of Islam. 27 . . . And not content therewith, instead of humbUng thyself before the Lord, and seeking pardon for the crime, thou sayest of such a one slain in the war that " he hath earned Paradise, " and thou namest him ' ' a Martyr in the ways of the Lord " ! ' And again, contrasting the spread of Islam, AiKindy's "its rattling quiver and its glittering sword," with J^f^^^'.^f^"' the silent progress of Christianity, our Apologist, SriSanity after dwelling on the teaching and the miracles of the Apostles, writes : — They published their message by means of these miracles ; and thus great and powerful kings and philosophers and learned men and judges of the earth hearkened unto them, without the lash or rod, with neither sword nor spear, nor the advantages of birth or "Helpers;"^ — with no wisdom of this world, or eloquence or power of language, or subtlety of reason ; with no worldly inducement, nor yet again with any relaxation of the moral law, but simply at the voice of truth enforced by miracles beyond the power of man to show. And so there came over to them the kings and great ones of the earth. And the philosophers abandoned their systems, with all their wisdom and learning, and betook them to a saiatly Kfe, giving up the delights of this world together with their old-established usages, and became followers of a company of poor men, fishers and publicans, who had neither name nor rank, nor any claim other than that they were obedient to the command of the Messiah — He that gave them power to do such wonderful works.' And yet once more, comparing the Apostles with TheApostJcs . compared themilitarj' chiefs of Islam, Al Kmdy proceeds : — ^!^*ot After the descent of the Holy Ghost and the gift of tongues, the apostles separated each to the country to which he waa called. They wrote out in every tongue the Holy Gospel, and ' Apology, p. 47, et. seq. ' Alluding to the " Ansar," or martial " Helpers " of Mahomet at Medina. Throughout, the Apologist, it wiU be observed, is drawing a contrast with the means used for the spread of Islam. ' Apology, p. 16. 28 The Rise and Decline of Islam. the story and teaching of Christ, at the dictation of the Holy Ghost. So the nations drew near unto them, believing their testimony ; and giving up the world and their false beliefs, they embraced the Christian faith as soon as ever the dawn of truth, and the light of the good tidings, broke in upon them. Dis tinguishing the true from the false, and error from the right direction, they embraced the Gospel and held it fast without doubt or wavering, when they saw the wonderful works and signs of the apostles, and their lives and conversation set after the holy and beautiful example of our , Saviour, the traces whereof remain even unto the present day. . . . How different this from the life of thy Master (Mahomet) and his Companions, who ceased not to go forth in battle and rapine, to smite with the sword, to seize the little ones, and ravish the wives and maidens, plundering and laying waste, and carrying the peojile into captivity. And thus they continue unto this present day, inciting men to these evil deeds, even as it is told of Omar the Caliph. ' ' If one amongst you, " said he, ' ' hath a heathen neighbour, and is in need, let him seize and seD him." And many such things they say and teach. Look now at the lives of Simon and Paul, who went about healing the sick and raising the dead, by the name of Christ our Lord ; and mark the contrast.' Such are the conclusionsof a native of Chaldaea. Hindrancesor induce ments inherent in the faith itself. Such are the reflections of one who lived at a Mahometan Court, and who, moreover, — flourishing as he did a thousand years ago, — was sufficiently near the early spread of Islam to be able to con trast what he saw, and heard, and read, of the causes of its success with those of the Gospel, and had the courage to confess the same. Apart, now, from the outward and extraneous aids given to Islam by the sword and by the civil arm, I will inquire, for a moment, what natural effect the teaching of Islam itself had in attracting Apology, p. 67. The Rapid Spread of Islam. 29 or repelling mankind. I do not now speak of any power contained in the truths it inculcated to con vert to Islam by the rousing and quickening of spiritual impulses ; for that lies beyond my present purpose, — which is, to inquire whether there is not in material causes and secular motives enough in themselves to account for success. I speak rather of the effect of the indulgences granted by Islam, on the one hand, as calculated to attract ; and of the restraints imposed and sacrifices required, on the other, as calculated to repel. How far, in fact, did there exist inducements or hindrances to its adoption inherent in the religion itself ? What may be regarded as the most constant Eequu-e- and irksome of the obligations of Islam is the isiam; duty of prayer, which must be observed at stated intervals, five times every day, with the contingent ceremony of lustration. The rite consists of certain forms and passages to be repeated with prescribed series of prostrations and genuflexion.s. These must be repeated at the right times, — but any where, in the house or by the wayside, as well as in the Mosque; and the ordinance is obligatory in whatever state of mind the worshipper may be, or however occupied. As the appointed hour comes round, the Moslem is bound to turn aside to pray, — so much so that in Central Asia we read of the police driving the backward worshipper by the lash to discharge the duty. Thus, with the 30 The Rise and Decline of Islam. mass of Mussulmans, the obligation becomes a mere formal ceremony, and one sees it performed any where and everywhere by the whole people, like any social custom, as a matter of course. JSTo doubt, there are exceptions; but with the multi tude it does not involve the irksomeness of a spiritual service, and so it sits lightly on high and low. The Friday prayers should as a rule bo attended in the Mosque; but neither need there be much devotion there ; and once per formed the rest of the day is free for pleasure or for business.^ The prohibition of wine is a re striction which was severely felt in the early days of the faith; but it was not long before the universal sentiment (though eluded in some quar ters) supported it. The embargo upon games of chance was certainly unpopular; and the pro hibition of the receipt of interest was also an important limitation, tending as it did to shackle the freedom of mercantile speculation ; but they have been partially evaded on various pretexts. The Fast throughout the month of Ramzan was a severer test; but even this lasts only during the day; and at night from sunset till dawn, all restrictions are withdrawn, not only Prohibitionof wine, crames of chance, and u.-ary. Fs.-.t of Ramzan. ' I am not here comparing the value of these observances with those of other religions. I am inquiring only how far the obligations of Islam may be held to involve hardship or sacrifice such as might have retarded the progress of Islam by renderuig it on its first introduction unpopular. The Rapid Spread of Islam,. '31 in respect of food, but of all otherwise lawful gratifications.^ There is nothing, therefore, in the requirements Little that is . unpopular and ordinances of Islam, exceptmg the Fast, that is in these ¦*- " ordinances. very irksome to humanity, or which, as involving any material sacrifice, or the renunciation of the pleasures or indulgences of hfe, should lead a man of the world to hesitate in embracing the new faith. On the other hand, the license allowed by the indulgences allowed in Coran between the sexes, — at least, m favour oi ^e matter ' of wives an'] the male sex,— is so wide, that for such as have the concubines. means and the desire to take advantage of it, there need be no limit whatever to sexual indulgence. It is true that adultery is punishable by death, and fornication with stripes. But then the Coran gives the behever permission to have four wives at a time. And he may exchange them; that is, he may divorce them at pleasure, taking others in their stead.^ And, as if this were not license enough, the divine law permits the believer to consort with aU. female slaves whom he may be the master of, — such, namely, as have been taken in war, or have been acquired by gift or purchase. These he may receive into his harem instead of wives, or in addition to them; and without any limit of number or restraint whatever, he is at liberty to cohabit with them. > See Sura ii., v. 88. ' Sura, iv. 18. " Exchange " is the word used in the Ooran. 32 The Rise and Decline of Islam. Polygamy, A fcw instanccs taken at random wiU enable the and divorce.' reader to judge how the indulgences thus allowed Practice at . . isiam^^ °' ^y *^® religion were taken advantage of in the early days of Islam. In the great plague which devast ated Syria seven years after the Prophet's death, Khalid, the Sword of Grod, lost forty sons. Abdal Rahman, one of the " Companions " of Mahomet, had issue by sixteen -wives, not counting slave- girls.1 Moghira ibn Shoba, another " Companion," and Governor of Kufa and Bussorah, had in his harem eighty consorts, free and servile. Coming closer to the Prophet's household, we find that Mahomet himself at one period had in his harem no fewer than nine wives, and two slave-girls. Of his grandson Hasan, we read that his vagrant passion gained for him the unenviable soubriquet of The Divorcer; for it was only by continually divorcing his consorts that he could harmonize his craving for fresh nuptials with the require ments of the divine law, which limited the number of his free wives to four. We are told that, as a matter of simple caprice, he exercised the power of divorce seventy (according to other traditions ninety) times. When the leading men complained to Aly of the licentious practice of his son, his only reply was, that the remedy lay in their own hands, of refusing Hasan their daughters alto- ' Each of his widows had 100,000 golden pieces left her. Life of Mahomet, r>. 171. ' The Rapid Spread of Islam,. 33 gather.^ Such are the material inducements, — the "works of the flesh," which Islam makes lawful to its votaries, and which promoted thus its early spread. Descending now to modern times, we still find that Practice m this sexual license is taken advantage of more or less times. in different countries and conditions of society. The following examples are simply meant as showing to what excess it is possible for the believer to carry these indulgences, under the sanction of his religion. Of the Malays in Penang it was written Tk« Malays not very long ago : " Young men of thirty to thirty-five years of age may be met with who have had from fifteen to twenty wives, and chil dren by several of them. These women have been divorced, married others, and had children by them." Regarding Egypt, Lane tells us: "I J^^^^y have heard of men who have been in the habit eot^^ of marrying a new wife almost every month." ^ Burkhardt speaks of an Arab, forty-five years old, who had had fiLfty wives, "so that he must have divorced two wives and married two fresh ones on the average every year." And not to go further • " These divorced wives were irrespective of his concubines or slave-girls, upon the number and variety of whom there was no limit or check whatever." — Annals, p. 418. ' Lane adds, " There are many men in this country who, in the course of ten years, have married as many as twenty, thirty, or more wives ; and women not far advanced in age have been wives to a dozen or more husbands successively." Note, that all this is entirely within the religious sanction. 34 The, Rise and Decline of Islam. than the sacred city of Mecca, the late reigning Princess of Bhopal in Central India, herself an orthodox follower of the Prophet, after making the pilgrimage of the Holy places, writes thus : — The Princess Women frequently contract as many as ten marriages, and acc"ount?f° tliose who have only been married twice are few in number. Mecca. If a woman sees her husband growing old, or if she happen to admire anyone else, she goes to the Shereef (the spiritual and civil head of the holy city) ; and after having settled the matter with him, she puts away her husband, and takes to herself another, who is perhaps young, good-looking, and rich. In this way a marriage seldom lasts more than a year or two. And of slave-girls, the same high and impartial authority, stiU writing of the Holy city and of her fellow Moslems, tells us : — Some of the women (African and Georgian girls) are taken in marriage ; and after that, on being sold again, they receive from their masters a divorce, and are sold in their houses, — that is to say, they are sent to the purchaser from their master's house on receipt of payment, and are not exposed for sale in the slave-market. They are only married when purchased for the first time. . . . When the poorer people buy (female) slaves they keep them for themselves, and change them every year as one would replace old things by new ; but the women who have children are not sold.^ Islam What I desire to make clear is the fact that betw^^nth ^^°^ things may be practised mth the sanction SsJ'^t °* ^^^ Scripture which the Moslem holds to be forbids. ' Pilgrimage to Mecca, by Her Highness the reigning Begum of Bhopal ; translated by Mrs. W. Osborne, 1870, pp. 82, 88. Slave-girls cannot be married until freed by their master. What Her Highness tells us of women divorcing their husbands, is of course entirely ultra vires, and shows how the laxity of conjugal relations allowed to the male sex has extended itself to the female also, and that in a city where, if anywhere, we should have expected to find the law observed. The Rapid Spread of Islam,. 35 divine, and that these same indulgences have from the first existed as inducements which helped materially to forward the spread of the faith. I am very far, indeed, from implying that excessive indulgence in polygamy is the universal state of Moslem society. Happily this is not the case. There are not only individuals, but tribes and districts, which, either from custom or preference, voluntarily restrict the license given them in the Coran ; while the natural influence of the family, even in Moslem countries, has an antiseptic ten dency that often itself tends greatly to neutralise the evil.^ Nor am I seeking to institute any con trast between the morals at large of Moslem countries and the rest of the world. If Christian nations are (as with shame it must be confessed) in some strata of society immoral, it is in the teeth of their Divine law. And the restrictions of that Ji^^.^s™.?! Christianity law are calculated, and ia the early days of Chris- itmSSai tianity did tend, in point of fact, to deter men, ""^^'senees. devoted to the indulgences of the flesh, from em- ' In India, for example, there are Mahometan races among whom monogamy, as a rule, prevails by cutom, and individuals exercising their right of polygamy are looked upon with disfavour. On the other hand, we meet occasionally with men who aver that rather against their will (as they will sometimes rather amusingly say) they have been forced by custom or family influence to add by polygamy to their domestic burdens. In Mahometan countries, however, when we hear of a man confining himself to one wife, it does not necessarily follow that he has no slaves to consort with in his harem. I may remark that slave-girls have by Mahometan laws no conjugal rights whatever; but are like playthings at the absolute discretion of their master. 36 The Rise and Decline of Islam. Islam the "Easy way." bracing the faith.i The religion of Mahomet, on the other hand, gives direct sanction to the sexual indulgences we have been speaking of. Thus it panders to the lower instincts of humanity, and makes its spread the easier. In direct opposition to the precepts of Christianity, it " makes provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof." Hence Islam has been well called by its own votaries the Easy Way. Once more, to quote Al Kindy : — Thou invitest me (says our Apologist to his Friend) into the " Easy way of faith and practice." Alas, alas ! for our Saviour in the Gospel telleth us, "When ye have done all that ye are commanded, say. We are unprofitable servants ; we have but done that which was commanded us." Where then is our merit? The same Lord Jesus saith, "How strait is the road which leadeth unto life, and how few they be that walk therein ! How wide the gate that leadeth to destruction, and how many there be that go in thereat ! " Different this, my Friend, from the comforts of thy wide and easy gate, and the facilities for enjoy ing, as thou wouldst have me, the pleasures offered by thy faith in wives and damsels ! ^ Laxity among nominal Christians ; ' The case of the Corinthian offender is much in point, as showing how the strict discipline of the Church must have availed to make Christianity unpopular with the mere worldling. ' Apology, p. 51. I repeat that, in the remarks I have made under this head, no comparison is sought to be drawn betwixt the morality of nominally Christian and Moslem peoples. On this subject I may be allowed to quote from what I have said elsewhere : " The Moslem advocate will urge . . the social evil as the necessary result of inexorable monogamy. The Corto not only denounces any Ulicit laxity between the sexes in the severest terms, but exposes the transgressor to condign punishment. For this reason, and because the conditions of what is licit are so accommodating and wide, a certain negative virtue (it can hardly be called continence or chastity) pervades Mahometan society, in contrast with which the gross and systematic immorality in certain parts of every European community may be regarded by the Christian with shame and confusion. lu The Spread of Islam Stayed. 37 II. Why the Spread of Islam was Stayed. Having thus traced the rapid early spread of Jt^tonarv Islam to its proper source, I proceed to the remain- ^d'ln ' ing topics, namely, the causes which have checked ^tro^ade! its further extension, and those likewise which have depressed the followers of this religion in the scale of civilization. I shall take the former first, — just remarking here in respect of the latter, that the depression of Islam is itself one of the causes which retard the expansion of the faith. As the first spread of Islam was due to the ^agg^?'^^ sword, so when the sword was sheathed Islam centey,to ceased to spread. The apostles and missionaries of cmsading Islam were, as we have seen, the martial tribes of a purely Mahometan land, however low may be the general level of moral feeling, the still lower depths of fallen humanity are unknown. The "social evil," and intemperance, prevalent in Christian lands, are the strongest, weapons in the armoury of Islam. We poiot, and justly, to the higher morality and civilization of those who do observe the precepts of the G-ospel, to the stricter unity and virtue which cement the family, and to the elevation of the sex ; but in vain, while the example of our great cities, and too often of our representatives abroad, belies the argument. And yet the argument is sound. For, in proportion as Christianity exercises her legitimate Vanishes in influence, vice and intemperance will wane and vanish, and the oimstiaSv* higher morality pervade the whole body; whereas in Islam the exercises deteriorating influences of polygamy, divorce, and concubinage, ^^™„ have been stereotyped for all time." — The Coran: its Composition and Teaching, and the Testimony it bears to the Soly Scriptures, n fin 38 The Rise and Decline of Islam,. Arabia; that is to say, the grand military force organized by Omar, and by him launched upon the surrounding nations. Gorged with the plunder of the world, these began, after a time, to settle on their lees, and to mingle with the ordinary population. So soon as this came to pass, they lost the fiery zeal which at the first had made them irresistible. By the second and third centuries, the Arabs had disappeared as the standing army of the CaHphate, or, in other words, as a body set apart for the dissemination of the faith. The crusading spirit, indeed, ever and anon burst f orth,^ — and it still bursts forth, as opportunity offers, — simply for the reason that this spirit pervades the Coran, and is ingrained in the creed. But with the special agency created and maintained during the first ages for the spread of Islam, the incentive of crusade ceased as a distinctive missionary spring of action, and degenerated into the common lust of conquest which we meet with in the world at large. TOssation of '^^^ extcusion of Islam depending upon military i™amte*ased success, stopped whcrevcr that was checked. The to spread. religion advaucod or retired, speaking broadly, as the armed predominance made head or retroceded. Thus the tide of Moslem victory, rushing along the coast of Africa, extinguished the seats of European civilization on the Mediterranean, over whelmed Spain, and was rapidly advancing north, when the onward wave was stemmed at Tours; The Spread of Islam Stayed. 39 and so with the arms, the faith also, of Islam was driven back into Spain, and bounded by the Pyrenees. So Kkewise, the hold which the religion seized both of Spain and Sicily came to an end with Mussulman defeat. It is true that when once long and firmly rooted, as in India and Cbina, Islam may survive the loss of military power, and even flourish. But it is equally true, that in no single country has Islam been planted, nor has it anywhere materially spread, saving under the banner of the Crescent, or the political ascendancy of some neighbouring state. Accordingly, we find that, excepting some barbarous zones in Africa which have been raised thereby a step above the groveUing level of fetishism, the faith has in modern times made no advance worth mentioning. '^ From the Jewish and Christian rehgions there has ' Much loose assertion has been made regarding the progress of Islam Alleged in Africa ; but I have found no proof of it apart lirom armed, political, Taw^i^ "' or trading influence, dogged too often by the slave trade ; — ^to a great Africa. extent a social rather than a religious movement, and raising the fetish tribes (haply without intemperance) into a somewhat higher stage of semi-barbarism. I have met nothing which would touch the argument in the text. The following is the testimony of Dr. KoeUe, the best possible witness on the subject : "It is true, the Mohammedan nations in the interior of Africa, namely, the Bomuese, Mandengas, Pulaa, etc., invited by the weak and defenceless condition of the surrounding negro tribes, still occasionally make conquests, and after subduing a tribe of Pagans, by almost exterminating its male population, and committing the most horrible atrocities, impose upon those that remain the creed of Islam; but keeping in view the whole of the Mohammedan world, this fitful activity reminds one only of those green branches sometimes seen on trees, already, and for long, decayed at the core from age." — Food for Beflection, p. 37- 40 The Rise and Decline of Islam,. (again speaking broadly) been no secession what ever to Islam since the wave of Saracen victory was stayed, exceptiag by the force of arms. Even in the palmy days of the Abbasside Caliphs, our Apologist could challenge his adversary to produce a single con version otherwise than by reason of some powerful material inducement. Here is his testimony: — Al Kindy' s challenge to produce a Christianconvert to Islam apart frommaterial in ducements. Now tell me, hast thou ever seen, my Friend (the Lord be gracious unto thee !) or ever heard, of a single person of sound mind— any one of learning and experience, and acquainted with the Scriptures — renouncing Christianity otherwise than for some worldly object to be reached only through thy religion, or for some gratification withheld by the faith of Jesus ? Thou wilt find none. For, excepting the tempted ones, all continue sted fast in their faith, secure under our most Gracious Sovereign, in the profession of their own religion.^ Social and intellectual deprossion. Islamintended for the Arabs. III. Low Position of Islam in the Scale of Civilization. I pass on to consider why Mahometan nations occupy so low a position, halting as almost every where they do in the march of social and intellectual development. The reason is not far to find. Islam was meant for Arabia, not for the world ; — for the Arabs of the seventh century, not for the Arabs of all time ; and being such, and nothing more, its claim of ' Apology, p. 34, The Decadence of Islam. 41 divine origin renders change or development im possible. It has within itself neither the germ of natural growth, nor the lively spring of adaptation. Mahomet declared himself a prophet to the Arabs ; ^ and however much in his later days he may have contemplated the reformation of other rehgions beyond the Peninsula, or the further spread of his own (which is doubtful), stiU the rites and ceremonies, the customs and the laws enjoined upon his people, were suitable (if suitable at all) for the Arabs of that day, and in many respects for them alone. Again, the code containing these injunctions, social and ceremonial, as well as doctrinal and didactic, is embodied with every particularity of detail, as part of the divine law, in the Cor§,n ; and so defying, as sacrilege, all human touch, it stands unalterable for ever. From the stiff and rigid shroud in which it is thus swathed, the reliaion of Mahomet cannot emerge, wants tne .° . . faculty of It has no plastic power beyond that exercised in adaptation, its earliest days. Hardened now and inelastic, it can neither adapt itself, nor yet shape its votaries, nor even suffer them to shape themselves, to the varying circumstances, the wants and developments of mankind. We may judge of the local and inflexible cha- locai ^ . ceremonies: racter of the faith from one or two of its ceremonies. Kigrimage. To perform the pilgrimage to Mecca and Mount ' Annals, pp. 61, 224. 42 The Rise and Decline of Islam. Arafit, with the slaying of victims at Mina, and the worship of the K4aba, is an ordinance obliga tory (with the condition only that they have the means) on aU believers, who are bound to make the journey even from the furthest ends of the earth ; — an ordinance intelligible enough in a local worship, but unmeaning and impracticable when required of a world-Avide religion. The rSL'Si ®^™® ^^^ ^® ^^^^ °^ *^^ ^^^ °^ Ramzan. It is prescribed in the Coran to be observed by all with undeviating strictness, during the whole day, from earhestdawn till sunset, throughout the month, with specified exemptions for the sick, and penalties for every occasion on which it is broken. The com mand, imposed thus with an iron rule on male and female, young and old, operates with excessive inequality in different seasons, lands, and cHmates. However suitable to countries near the equator, where the variations of day and night are imma terial,' the Fast becomes intolerable to those who are far removed either towards the north or the south ; and, stiU closer to the poles, where night merges into day, and day into night, impracticable. Again, with the lunar year (itself an institution divinely imposed), the month of Ramzan travels in the third of a century from month to month over the whole cycle of a year. The Fast was estab lished at a time when Ramzan fell in winter, and the change of season was probably not foreseen The Decadence of Islam. 43 by the Prophet. But the result is one which, under some conditions of time and place, involves the greatest hardship. For, when the Fast comes round to summer, the trial in a sultry climate, like that of the burning Indian plains, of passing the whole day without a morsel of bread or a drop of water, becomes to many the occasion of intense suffering. Such is the effect of the Arabian legislator's attempt at circumstantial legislation in matters of rehgions ceremonial. Nearly the same is the case with all the religious obHgations of Islam, prayer, lustration, etc. But ^™„°„f^^ although the minuteness of detail with which these ^^™'t™ are enjoined, tends towards that jejune and formal beWeen^he worship which we witness everywhere in Moslem lands, still there is nothing in these observances themselves which (rehgion apart) should lower the social condition of Mahometan popidations, and prevent their emerging from that normal state of semi-barbarism and uncivilized depression in which we find all Moslem peoples. For the cause of this we must look elsewhere; and it may be recognized, without doubt, in the relations established by the Coran between the sexes. Polygamy, divorce, servile concubinage, and the veil, are at the root of Moslem decadence. In resnect of married life, the condition allotted Depression i: ' of the by the Coran to woman is that of an inferior female sex dependent creature, destined only for the service 44 The Rise and Decline of Islam. of her master, liable to be cast adrift without the assignment of a single reason, or the notice of a single hour. While the husband possesses the power of divorce, absolute, immediate, unquesti'oned, no privilege of a corresponding nature has been reserved for the wife. She hangs on, however unwilling, neglected, or superseded, the perpetual slave of her lord, if such be his will. When actually divorced, she can, indeed, claim her dower, — her hire, as it is called in the too plain language of the Coran ; but the knowledge that the wife can make this claim is at the best a miserable security against capricious taste ; and in the case of bond maids even that imperfect check is wanting. The power of divorce is not the only power that may be exercised by the tyrannical husband. Authority to confine and to beat his wives is distinctly vested in his discretion.^ " Thus restrained, secluded, de graded, the mere minister of enjoyment, Hable at the caprice or passion of the moment to be turned adrift, it would be hard to say that the position of a wife was improved by the code of Mahomet."^ Divorce. Bvcu if the privilege of divorce and marital tyranny be not exercised, the knowledge of its existence as a potential right must tend to abate the self- respect, and in like degree to weaken the influence of the sex, impairing thus the ameliorating and civiliziag power which she was meant to exercise ' Sura IV. V. 33. « Life of Mahomet, p. 348. The Decadence of Islam,. 45 upon mankind. And the evil has been stereotyped by the Coran for all time. I must quote one more passage from Principal principal T-, . , . , , . . f. n Fairbairn on Fairbairn on the lowering influence of Moslem home life under Islam. domestic life : The god of Mohammed . . . "spares the sins the Arab loves. A religion that does not purify the home cannot regenerate the race ; one that depraves the home is certain to deprave humanity. Motherhood is to be sacred if manhood is to be honourable. Spoil the wife of sanctity, and for the man the sanctities of life have perished. And so it has been with Islam. It has reformed and lifted savage tribes ; it has deprived and barbarised civilized nations. At the root of its fairest culture, a worm has ever lived that has caused its blossoms soon to wither and die. Were Mahomet the hope of man, then his state were hopeless ; before him could only be retrogression, tyranny, and despair."^ StiU worse is the influence of servUe concubinage, pemoraiiz- The foUowing is the evidence of a shrewd and able of servUe ^ concubinage. observer in the East : All ZenSna hfe must be bad for men at all stages of their existence. ... In youth, it must be ruin to be petted and spoiled by a company of submissive slave-girls. In manhood, it is no less an evil that when a man enters into private life, his affections should be put up to auction among foolish, fond competitors full of mutual jealousies and slanders. We are not left entirely to conjecture as to the effect of female influence on home life, when it is exerted under these unenlightened and demoralizing conditions. That is, plainly, an element lying at the root of all the most important features that differentiate progress from stagnation. ^ Such are the institutions which gnaw at the root ?|*g^'^3^*;g of Islam, and prevent the growth of freedom and "ftibSSe^d between the > The City of God, p. 97. Hodder & Stoughton, 1883. ' The Turks in India, by H. &. Keene, c.s.i. Allen & Company, 1879. 46 The Rise and Decline of Islam. civilization. "By these the unity of the household is fataUy broken, and the purity and virtue of the family tie weakened ; the vigour of the dominant classes is sapped ; the body poUtic becomes weak and languid, excepting for intrigue; and the throne itself Uable to fall a prey to a doubtful or contested succession," 1 — contested by the progeny of the various rivals crowded into the royal harem. From the palace downwards polygamy and servile con cubinage lower the moral tone, loosen the ties of domestic Ufe, and hopelessly depress the people. The Veil. ]\I"or is the Veil — albeit under the circumstances a necessary precaution — less detrimental, though in a different way, to the interests of Moslem society. This strange custom owes its origin to the Prophet's jealous temperament. It is for bidden in the Coran for women to appear unveiled before any member of the other sex, with the exception of certain near relatives of specified pro pinquity .^ And this law, coupled with other restric tions of the kind, has led to the imposition of the Boorka or Purdah (the dress which conceals the person, and the veil), and to the greater or less seclusion of the Harem and Zenana. ' Annals, etc., p. 457. 2 See Swra xxiv. v. 32. The excepted relations are : " Husbands, fathers, husbands' fathers, sons, husbands' sons, brothers, brothers' sons, sisters' sons, the captives which their right hands possess, such men as attend them and have no need of women, or children below the age of puberty.' ' The Decadence of Islam,. This ordinance, and the practices flowing from it, society , . , , 1 rn h vitiated by must survive, more or less, so long as the Coran ttewithdrawal remains the rule of faith. It may appear, at first °^^^^ ^^ sight, a mere negative evU, — a social custom com paratively harmless; but in truth it has a more debiUtating effect upon the Moslem race perhaps than anything else, for by it Woman is totally with drawn from her proper place in the social circle. She may, indeed, in the comparatively laxer Ucense of some lands, be seen flitting along the streets or driving in her carriage ; but, even so, it is Uke one belonging to another world, — veiled, shrouded, and cut off from intercourse with those around her. Free only in the retirement of her own secluded apartments, she is altogether shut out from her legitimate sphere in the duties and enjoyments of Ufe. But the bUght on the sex itself, from this unnatural regulation, sad as it is, must be regarded as a minor evU. The mischief extends beyond her. The tone and framework of society, as it came from the Maker's hands, are altered, damaged, and deteriorated. From the veil there flows this double injury. The bright, refining, softening influence of woman is withdrawn from the ' outer world ; and social Ufe, wanting the gracious influences of the female sex, becomes, as we see throughout Moslem lands, forced, hard, unnatural, „ , " . Mahometan and morose. Moreover, the Mahometan nations, ^^^j^^"' for aU purposes of common elevation, and for all p^o^ess.* °* 48 The Rise and Decline of Islam. The defects of Moham medan society. efforts of philanthropy and Uberty, are (as they Uve in public and beyond the inner recesses of their homes) but a truncated and imperfect ex hibition of humanity. They are wanting in one of its constituent parts, the better half, the human izing and the softening element. And it would be against the nature of things to suppose that the body thus shorn and mutUated, can possess in itseU the virtue and power of progress, reform, and elevation. The Unk connecting the family with social and public Ufe is detached, and so neither is en rapport, as it should be, with the other. Reforms f aU to find entrance into the family, or to penetrate the domestic soil, where alone they could take root, grow into the national mind, Uve and be per petuated. Under such conditions the seeds of civilization refuse to germinate, l^o real growth is possible in free and useful institutions, nor any permanent and healthy force in those great move ments which elsewhere tend to uplift the masses and elevate mankind. There may, it is true, be some advance, from time to time, in science and in material prosperity ; but the social groundwork for the same is wanting, and the people surely relapse into the semi-barbarism forced upon them by an ordinance which is opposed to the best in stincts of humanity. Sustained progress becomes impossible. Such is the outcome of an attempt to improve upon nature, and banish Woman, the The Decadence of Islam. 49 help-meet of man, from the position assigned by God to her in the world. At the same time I am not prepared to say that ^jes^arj^"' in view of the laxity of the conjugal relations SsSigcir. .., j*ii 'i-jj- PT1 1 cumstances inherent m the institutions of Islam, some such social check as that of the Veil (apart from the power to confine and castigate) is not needed for the repression of license and the maintenance of outward decency. There is too much reason to apprehend that free social intercourse might other wise be dangerous to morality under the code ol Mahomet, and with the example before men and women of the early worthies of Islam. So long as the sentiments and habits of the Moslem world remain as they are, some remedial oi preventive measure of the kind seems indispens able. But the pecuUarity of the Mussulman poUty; as we have seen, is such that the sexual laws and institutions which call for restrictions of the kind, as founded on the Coran are incapable of change ; they must co-exist with the faith itself, and last while it lasts. So long, then, as this polity prevails, the depression of woman, as well as her exclusion from the social circle, must injure the health and vitaUty of the body poUtic, impair its purity and grace, paralyze vigour, retard progress in the direc tion of freedom, philanthropy, and moral elevation, and generaUy perpetuate the normal state of Mahometan peoples, as one of semi-barbarism. 50 The Rise and Decline of Islam. Recapituia- To recapitulate, we have seen : tion. Mrst. That Islam was propagated mainly by the sword. With the tide of conquest the religion went forward ; where conquest was arrested it made no advance beyond ; and at the withdrawal of the Moslem arms the ' faith also commonly retired. Second. The inducements, whether material or spiritual, to embrace Islam, have proved insufficient of themselves (speaking broadly) to spread the faith, in the absence of the sword, and without the influence of the poUtical or secular arm. Third. The ordinances of Islam, those especially having respect to the female sex, have induced an inherent weakness, which depresses the social system, and retards its progress. If the reader should have foUowed me in the Christianity, argument by which these conclusions have been reached, the contrast with the Christian faith has no doubt been suggesting itself at each successive step. cTiristianity Christianity, as Al Kindy has so forcibly put it, propagated gained a firm footing in the world without the sword, and without any aid whatever from the secular arm. So far from haviag the countenance of the State, it triumphed in spite of opposition, persecution, and discouragement. "My kingdom," said Jesus, " is not of this world. If My kingdom Contrast by force. The Decadence of Islam. 51 were of this world, then would My servants fight that I should not be delivered to the Jews ; but now is My kingdom not from hence. . . For this end came I into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Every one that is of the truth, heareth My voice." ^ The religion itself, in its early days, offered no worby ° _ _ ¦' •' ' worldly in- worldly attractions or indulgences. It was not, ducements. Uke Islam, an " Easy way." Whether in with drawal from social observances deeply tainted with idolatry, the refusal to participate in sacrificial ceremonies insisted on by the rulers, or in the renunciation of indulgences inconsistent with a saintly life, the Christian profession required self- denial at every step. But otherwise the teaching of Christianity Adaptive principles nowhere interfered with the civil institutions of andpiastio faculty of the countries into which it penetrated, or with any Christianity. social customs or practices that were not in them selves immoral or idolatrous. It did not, indeed, neglect to guide the Christian life. But it did so by the enunciation of principles and rules of wide and far-reaching appUcation. These, no less than the injunctions of the Coran, served amply for the exigencies of the day. But they have done a vast deal more. They have proved themselves capable of adaptation to the most advanced stages of social development and intellectual elevation. And > John xviii. 36, 37. 52 The Rise and Decline of Islam. ' what is infinitely more, it may be claimed for the lessons embodied in the Gospel that they have been themselves promotive, if indeed they have not been the immediate cause, of all the most important reforms and philanthropies that now prevail in Christendom. The principles thus laid down contained germs endowed with the power of Ufe and growth which, expanding and flourishing, slowly it may be, but surely, have at the last borne the fruits, we see. fta™y.'''" Take, for example, the institiition of Slavery. It prevailed in the Roman Empire at the introduction of Christianity, as it did in Arabia at the rise of Islam. In the Moslem code, as we have seen, the practice has been perpetuated. Slavery must be held permissible so long as the Coran is taken to be the rule of faith. The divine sanction thus im pressed upon the institution, and the closeness with which by law and custom it intermingles with social and domestic Ufe, make it impossible for any Mahometan people to impugn slavery as contrary to sound morality, or for any body of loyal beUevers to advocate its abolition upon the ground of prin ciple. There are, moreover, so many privileges and gratifications accruing to the higher classes from its maintenance, that (excepting under the strong pressure of European diplomacy) no sincere and hearty effort can be expected from the Moslem race in the suppression of the inhuman traffic, the The Decadence of Islam,. 53 horrors of which, as pursued by Moslem slave- traders, their Prophet would have been the first to denounce. Look now at the wisdom with which the Gospel treats the institution. It is nowhere in so many words proscribed, for that would, under the circumstances, have led to the abnegation of relative duties and the disruption of society. It is accepted as a prevailing institution recognized by the civil powers. However desirable freedom might be, slavery was not inconsistent with the Christian profession: — "Art thou caUed being a icor.vii.si. servant ? care not for it : but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather." The duty of obedience to his master is enjoined upon the slave, and the duty of mildness and urbanity towards his slave is enjoined upon the master. But with aU this was laid the seed which grew into emancipa tion. " Our Father" gave the keynote of freedom. " Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ «^- *"¦ ^e. Jesus." " There is neither . . bond nor free, for ye are aU one in Christ Jesus." "He that 22°°''™' is caUed in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's freeman." The converted slave is to be received "not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother Piuiemomd beloved." The seed has borne its proper harvest. Late in time, no doubt, but by a sure and certain development, the grand truth of the equality of the human race, and the right of every man and'woman to freedom of thought, and (within reasonable 54 The Rise and Decline of Islain. limit of law) to freedom of action, has triumphed ; and it has triumphed through the spirit and the precepts inculcated by the gospel eighteen hundred years ago. Retations J^or is it otherwisc with the relations estabUshed between the '^^^''° oetween the sexes. Polygamy, divorce, and concu binage with bondmaids, have been perpetuated, as we have seen, by Islam for all time ; and the ordi nances connected therewith have given rise, in the laborious task of defining the conditions and limits of what is lawful, to a mass of prurient casuistry defiUng the books of Mahometan law. Contrast with this our Saviour's words, "He which made them at the Matt, xix. 4. beginning made them male and female. . What therefore God hath joined together let no man put asunder." From which simple utterance have resulted monogamy, and (in the absence of adultery) the indissolubUity of the marriage bond. While in respect of conjugal duties we have such 1 Cor. vii. 3. large, but sufficiently intelUgible, commands as " to render due benevolence," — whereby, while the obU- gations of the marriage state are maintained, Christianity is saved from the impurities which, in expounding the ordinances of Mahomet, surround the sexual ethics of Islam, and east so foul a stain upon its literature. Take, again, the place of woman in the world. We need no injunction of the veil or the harem. As the temples of the Holy Ghost, the body is to Elevation of fvoman. The Decadence of Islam. 55 be kept undefiled, and every one is "to possess iThes.iv.*. his vessel in sanctification and honour." Men are to treat " the elder women as mothers ; the younger } Tim. .. 2. as sisters, with aU purity." Women are to " adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamef acedness 1 Tim. i; 9. and sobriety." These, and such like, maxims embrace the whole moral fitness of the several relations and duties which they define. They are adapted for aU ages of time, and for aU conditions of men. They are capable of being taken by every individual for personal guidance, according to his own sense of propriety, and they can be accom modated by society at large with a due reference to the habits and customs of the day. The attempt of Mahomet to lay down, with circumstantial minuteness, the position of the female sex, the veiling of her person, and her withdrawal from the gaze of man, has resulted in seclusion and degradation; while the spirit of the gospel, and injunctions Uke that of " giving honour to 1 1'eter iii. 7. the wife as to the weaker vessel," have borne the fruit of woman's elevation, and have raised her to the position of influence, honour, and equaUty, which (notwithstanding the marital supe riority of the husband in the ideal of the Christian family) she now occupies in the social scale. In the type of Mussulman government, which ^^^°^ (though not laid down in the Coran) is founded ®*'-*^' upon the spirit of the Faith and the precedent of the 56 The Rise and Decline of Islam. Christianity humanity free to expand. Prophet, the civil is indissolubly blended with the spiritual authority, to the detriment of reUgious liberty and poUtical progress. The Ameer, or com mander of the faithful, should, as in the early times, so also in all ages, be the Imam, or reUgious chief ; and as such he should preside at the weekly Cathedral service. It is not a case of the Church being subject to the State, or the State being subject to the Church. Here (as we used to see in the Papal domains) the Church is the State, and the State the Church. They both are one. And in this, we have another cause of the back wardness and depression of Mahometan society. Since the aboUtion of the temporal power in Italy, we have nowhere in Christian lands any such theocratic union of Caesar and the Church, so that secular and religious advance is left more or less unhampered. Whereas in Islam, the hierarchicho- political constitution has hopelessly welded the secular arm with the spiritual in one common sceptre, to the furthering of despotism, and eUmi- nation of the popular voice from its proper place in the concerns of State. And so, throughout the whole range of poUtical, reUgious, social and domestic relations, the attempt made by the founder of Islam to provide for aU contingencies, and to fix everything afore- hand by rigid rule and scale, has availed to cramp and benumb the free activities of Ufe, and to The Coran checks progress. Conclusion. 57 paralyze the natural efforts of society at healthy growth, expansion, and reform. As an author already quoted has so well put it : " The Goran has frozen Mahometan thought ; to obey it is to abandon progress." ^ Writers have indeed been found who, dwelling isisiam T p T1T1 '11 suitable for upon the benebts conferred by Islam on idolatrous any nation? and savage nations, have gone so far as to hold that the religion of Mahomet may in consequence be suited to certain portions of mankind, — as if the faith of Jesus might peaceably divide with it the world. But surely to acquiesce in a system which reduces the people to a dead level of social de pression, despotism, and semi-barbarism, would be abhorrent from the first principles of philanthropy. With the beUever, who holds the gospel to be "Good tidings of great joy, ichich shall be to all Luteii. lo. people," such a notion is on higher grounds un tenable ; but even in view of purely secular con siderations it is not only untenable, but altogether uninteUigible. As I have said elsewhere: — The eclipse in the Bast, which still sheds its blight on the ancient seats of Jerome and Chrysostom, and shrouds in dark ness the once bright and famous Sees of Cyprian and Augustine, has been disastrous everywhere to liberty and progress, equally as it has been to Christianity. And it is only as that eclipse shall pass away, and the Sun of Eighteousness again shine forth, that we can look to the nations now dominated by Islam sharing with us those secondary but precious fruits of Divine teaching. Then with the higher and enduring blessings which our faith ' Dr. Fairbairn, Contemporary Review, p. S 58 The Rise and Decline of Islam,. bestows, but not till then, we may hope that there will follow likewise in their wake freedom and progress, and all that tends to elevate the human race.^ No sacrifice Although with the view of placing the argument redemptive on independent ground, I have refrained from touch- grace. ¦*¦ o , ing the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, and the inestimable benefits which flow to mankind there from, I may be excused, before I conclude, if I add a word regarding them. The foUowers of Mahomet have no knowledge of God as a Father ; still less have they knowledge of Him as " Our Father," — the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. They acknowledge, indeed, that Jesus was a true prophet sent of God ; but they deny His crucifixion and death, and they know nothing of the power of His resurrection. To those who have found redemption and peace, in these the grand and distinctive truths of the Christian faith, it may be aUowed to mourn over the lands ia which the Ught of the Gospel has been quenched, and these blessings blotted out, by the material forces of Islam ; where, together with civiUzation and Uberty, Christianity has given place to gross darkness, and it is as if now "there were no more sacrifice for sins." We may, and we do, look forward with earnest expectation to the day when knowledge of salvation shaU be given to these ' The Early Caliphate and Rise of Islam, being the Eede Lecture for 1881, delivered before the University of Cambridge, p. 28. Conclusion. 59 nations "by the remission of their sins, through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us, to give Ught to ^^^l^' them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace." But even apart from these, the special blessings contrast . . / . between of- Christianity, I ask, which now, of the two ^^^n™'^ faiths, bears, in its birth and growth, the mark ^""^ of a Divine hand, and which the human stamp ? Which looks Ukest the handiwork of the God of Nature who " hath laid the measures of the earth," ^oh xxxviu and " hath stretched the Une upon it," but not the less with an ever- varying adaptation to time and place ? and which the artificial imitation ? "As a Reformer, Mahomet did indeed advance his people to j^^^^ a certain point ; but as a Prophet he left them fixed immovably at that point for aU time to come. As there can be no return, so neither can there be any progress. The tree is of artificial planting. Instead of containing within itself the germ of growth and adaptation to the various requirements of time, and clime, and circumstance, expanding with the genial sunshine and the rain from heaven, it remains the same forced and stunted thing as when first planted twelve centuries ago."' Such is Islam. If ow what is Christianity ? Listen to the prophetic words of the Founder Him- compared by Christ to self, who compares it to the works of Nature : — the worirs ' '^ of Nature. " So is the Hngdom of God, as if a mam should cast seed into jj^^k iv. 26 27, 28. "And should sleep, and rise night amd day, and the seed should spring and grow v/p, he hnoweth not how. "For the ea/rth hringeth forth fruit of herself : .first the hlade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear." ' The Coran, etc., p. 65. 60 The Rise and Decline of Islam,. Mark iv. 30, 31, 32. Islam the work of man;Chri.stianity the work of Ood. And again : — ^'Wheremito shall we liken the kingdom of God, or with what comparison shall we compare it ? " It is like a grain of mustard seed, which when it is sown in the earth, is less than all seeds that be in the ea/rth ; " But when it is sown, it groweth up and hecometh greater thorn all herbs, amd shooteth out great branches, so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it. " Which is Nature, and which is Art, let the reader judge. Which bears the impress of man's hand, and which that of Him who " is wonderful in counsel, and exceUent in working ? " In fine, of the Arabian it may be said : " Hitherto shalt thou come, but no fwriher, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." But of Christ,— " His name shall endure for ever. His name shall be continued as long as the sun. And men shall be blessed in Him; all nations shaU caU Him blessed. "He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river rnito the ends of the earth. "Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only deeth wondrous things. And blessed be His glorious name for ever; and lei the whole earth befUled with His glory. Amen, and Amen. " Psalm Ixxii. i7, 8, 18, 19. -»-| Present Day Tracts, No. 14. \^ CHRISTIANITY and CONFOCIANISM COMPARED IN THEIR Ceasing rf tlj^ Wi\ah Juig d S^u, BY JAMES LEGGE, LL.D., Professor of the Chinese Language and Literature in the University of Oxford, and formerly of the London MissionaTy Society author of " The Religions of China," etc. THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY: 56, Paternoster Row ; 65, St. Paul's Churchyard ; and 164, Piccadilly. ^rgtitnent at the ^xul The writer does not institute a comparison between Christianity as a whole and Confucianism. He does not dwell upon the teaching of Christianity as to the moral and spiritual condition of man by nature, nor on the redeeming and regenerating power of Chris tianity, but confines himself to a comparison between the teaching of the respective systems on the whole duty of man. The whole duty of man, according to Christianity, is comprised in the word LOVE. Christ's love to us is to be the measure, and His death for us the motive, of our love to one another. This love will prompt to obedience, self-control, and self-denial. The Christian will seek to be perfect, according to the prayer of the Apostle for the entire sanctification of believers. Christianity teaches the cultivation of the more winning as well as the sterner graces of character. Confucianism teaches men the discharge of their duties in the various relations of life. It regards the moral nature as conferred on men by God, and so gives a religious sanction to the per formance of human duties. The worship of God is confined to the sovereign. The religious sensibilities of the people flow into the worship of parents and ancestors, as a part of filial piety, which is regarded as the first and chief of human duties. The general rule of Confucius and the golden rule of Christ are compared, and the original character of the latter is vindicated. The absence of any glow of piety in the teaching of Confucius, and the uncertainty in which he left his followers about religion, are pointed out. The superiority of Christian to Confucian teaching is shown to consist in the importance it attaches to the duties of religion, in the nearness of God to men which it reveals, the advantages which this nearness confers, in placing all our social duties under the guar dianship of God, and the strength it assures to us in the battle with temptation, in the motive to which it appeals for obedience, in the duties which it inculcates with reference to the five relations of society, in the perfection of the example it offers for our imita tion in our sinless High Priest and Saviour, who is the revelation of the Father. Confucianism is shown to be incapable of produc ing fruits comparable to the character formed by Christianity when its principles have free course. The aggressive character of Christianity, and what is needed in order to win the Chinese to Christ, are indicated. CHRISTIANITY AND CONFUCIANISM COMPARED IN THEIR TEACHING OF THE WHOLE DUTY OF MAN. |rom the teachings of Christianity and ^^^t„( Confucianism I have selected and con- oSn"'™ fined myself to one important point, by their treatment of which we may form a judgment as to their comparative worth. The subject chosen, however, as the ground of com parison between them is a testing one, and that in which the cause of Confucianism is specially strong. The courses and styles of life, to the attainment of which they respectively caU their followers, wiU enable the reader to decide which of them is the more suited to secure the complete and harmonious development of our nature, to make men good, and to make them happy. It was one of the deep, if somewhat enigmatic utterances of Confucius (Analects xv. 28), " Man confudus ^ ¦" on man can enlarge his principles of conduct; it is not prildpics. those principles that enlarge man." His idea was, that man is greater than any system which he may be called to follow, and that there is that in 4: Christianity and Confucianism Compared him which constitutes him its judge, and will enable him to supplement and complete it, if that be necessary. In accordance with that saying, I will endeavour to set forth what Christianity and The whole Confucianism lay down as The Whole Duty duty of man. "^ OF Man, and then ask my readers to judge of their own selves which of the two is the right teaching ; or, if it shall be thought that both are good, then to say which is the better. of'ctofs°'™^ Let us begin with Christianity. I prefer to do th™S)jSt. so> because my readers are probably all acquainted with it. I cannot teU them anything about its teaching on the point in hand which they have not often heard and read. I must refer to it, how ever, stirring up their minds, it may be, only by way of remembrance, but preparing them thereby all the better to appreciate and estimate what I shall shortly tell them about the teaching of Con fucianism. What, then, is the Whole Duty of Man according to Christianity ? There will probably occur to most, in answer to P^ISS.'''' this question, the words of the Hebrew preacher (Eccles. xii. 13) : " Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter : Fear Grod, and keep His com mandments : for this is the whole duty of man." When the preacher thus spoke of " the command ments of G-od," he, no doubt, had in his mind what we call "The Ten Commandments;" the " Ten Words," as the Hebrew text of the Bible in their Teaching of the Whole Duty of Man. 5 has it, in which God summed up His legislation for the infant nation at mount Sinai. Of those com mandments " the mediator," Moses, himself gave Thesummary of a summary in the two sentences : " Thou shalt ^^ i'™ , •f Command- love Jehovah thy God with all thine heart, and ^^S.''^ with all thy soul, and with all thy might " (Deut. vi. 5) ; and " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself "(Lev. xix. 18). It may be said that this was a summary of the Jewish law, while in this Tract we have to do with Christianitv. But Christ made it His own. On Adopted by Christ. one occasion, when He was asked by a lawyer, one of the Pharisees, which was the great command ment (Matt. xxii. 36), He answered : " Thou shalt love the Lord thy Q-od with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second hke unto it is this : Thou shalt love thy neigh bour as thyself. On these two commandments hangeth the whole law and the prophets." Did not Christ in these words adopt the Mosaic sum mary of the Jewish law, and repeat it with His own authority? But we have been told that that second sentence in the summary of man's duty, as originally de livered, foUows the injunction, " Thou shalt not l^^'''"^^ bear any grudge against the children of thy people," *™'"=^''°°' so that it was only of national, and not of universal, application. This objection, however, cannot be Christianity and Confucianism Compared urged against the re-af&rmation of it by Christ, when, replying to a vicious application of it, in His Sermon on the Mount (Matt. v. 43), He pronounced. Whom we " But I sav unto vou. Love your enemies." Then aretoloTO. •' •' ' •' . we have His parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke X. 30-37), in answer to the question, "Who is my neighbour?" teaching us that aU who need our sympathy and assistance, without distinction of nation or creed, should be regarded as our neighbours, and be loved and helped by us. According to Christianity, therefore, the whole duty of man is comprised in the one Httle word Love. That is " the fulfilling of the law." And Christ went beyond "tho law." It was impos sible to insist more strongly on the love of God than Moses, or rather than Jehovah Himself speaking by the mouth of Moses, had done ; but the love of our neighbour appears in the Gospels enjoined more emphatically than in the summary of it which has come to us with our Christ's love Lord's approval and commendation. He said : " A to us to he . the measure now Commandment i give unto you, that ye lore of our love ° J • j one another, even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another " (John xiii. 34 ; comp. xv. 12). These words show the depth of His meaning in the declaration in the Sermon on the Mount, that He was come not to destroy the law or the prophets, but to fulfil them. And thus those who heard them understood Him. Witness the lan- to one another. in their Teaching of the Whole Duty of Man. 7 guage of " the beloved disciple : " " Hereby know Christ's we love, because He laid down His life for us ; and sacrifice to ' be the we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren " ^o'";™ °\ ° *' our Icve to (1 Jolm iii. 16). one another. Where there is love — ^not to say this love — there will be the performance of all its promptings. The duties which we owe will be discharged sincerely, and to, the extent of our ability. This implies of what is ^ implied in course the exercise of self-government, and the thisiove. regulation of all the faculties in the continent of our nature. Every contrary lust and selfish desire, every angry impulse and passion must be denied lodgment even in the deep and hidden recesses of the breast. He who is seeking to fulfil his whole The aim duty as enjoined by Christ will be striving, under christian. the constraint of love, to be perfect emotionally, intellectually, and practically, a true son of God his Father, a faithful servant of Christ his Lord. The object of the Christian ministry is " for the perfecting of the saints" (Eph. iv. 12). The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians, " This also The ^ ^^^ Apostle's we prayfor, even your perfecting" (2Cor. xiii. 9). l^J^,^°^_ His prayer for the Thessalonians was, " The God ^^1™°*. of peace Himself sanctify you wholly, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire, without blame " (1 Thess. v. 23). The summary summary of ¦ T L -I -ni -T • St. Paul's of his teaching, as inculcated on the Philippians, teaching. was : " Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever thinffs are hnnrinTa'KiQ ¦"''i-'-tsoever 8 Christianity and Confucianism Compared things are just, whatsoever things are pure, what soever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report,— if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things " (Phil. iv. 8). Such is a brief exhibition of the teaching of Christianity on the duty of man. I wiU leave it for the present, and proceed to show the teaching Confucian of Confucianism on the same subiect. And I am teachmg. J glad to be able to place in the forefront a descrip tion of it by the highest Chinese authority. The second emperor of the present dynasty (1662-1722), certainly a very great man, published in 1670 what has become known in Europe as the Khang-hsi Sacred Edict, a collection of sixteen tteSa-"" Precepts, by which his people should form their ch™a°oter. charactors, and order their conduct, involving all principles essential to their goodness and happiness, and to the prosperity of the empire. It was enacted that, on the first and fifteenth day of every month, it should be read in the hearing of the soldiery and people in each statistical division of the country. The emperor's son and successor, whose reign is called the Yung-chang period gjm" (1723-1735), published in 1724 an Amplification Precepts. ^^ ^j^^ Prcccpts in a high style of composition, forming a volume of elegant essays or sermons, which should be read on those days. But such finished Chinese compositions are not intelhgible to a promiscuous audience without commentary in their Teaching of the Whole Duty of Man. 9 and paraphrase ; and by-and-by there appeared a colloquial Exposition of the Essays, admirably ooucqmai _^^ exposition adapted for popular use, by Wang Tu-po, the oftiiem. Salt-comptroller of Shen-hsi province. A Han Fang tells us that, having been appointed governor of Canton province in 1808, and become acquainted with Wang's paraphrase, he selected four scholars with very distinct enunciation, to deHver it on the appointed days in the Canton dialect. " The people," he says, "thronged round them, and such ThedeUvery a change was effected that they exceedingly loved p"''^<=- to hear, and found it easy to practise." He then distributed it throughout the districts, and charged the local officers to proclaim it everywhere, "and not leave a single person, even along the thinly- inhabited coasts of the sea, ignorant and dis obedient." The Paraphrase has thus very generally superseded the balanced sentences of the Amplifica tion. The public reading of it approaches more nearly to our popular preaching than anything else in China. Other expositions of the Precepts, other .*¦ ^ expositions, some of them profusely illustrated, and others in easy verse, are also widely known. The publication of the Khang-hsi edict has been a great success. Tbe text of the seventh Precept is this: "Dis- ^^'j^'f"' countenance and put away strange principles, in order to exact the correct doctrine." " The correct doctrine '' is Confucianism, or the whole duty of man as inculcated by the great sage and the other 10 Christianity and Confucianism Compared and older sages, whose views it was his boast that The strange he transmitted. "The strange principles" are all principles. cj j. ± systems of doctrine of a contrary character, and teaching other ways of life. Chief among them are Buddhism and Taoism, which, though tolerated and even supported to some extent by the govern ment of China, are not regarded as orthodox, and should be discountenanced and put away. Chris tianity also is mentioned, and men are warned against beheving it; but it was very Httle that they knew about it in China two hundred years The imperial ago. On what " the correct doctrine " is, the Amplifier on . • i i the correct imperial Amphfier says : — doctrine. ^ ± ., ' ' Man, horn in the position intermediate between heaven and earth, has nothing to attend to but the relationships of society and the regular constituents of moral worth, which are daily called into exercise. All should observe and pursue these, the wise as well as the simple. The sages and worthies do not approve of the search after what is abstruse, and the practice of what is marvellous. " Para hrast's ^^® Paraphrast expands these and one or two ¦expansion, more sentcnccs in the following manner : — " What is most to be feared for the manners and customs of the people is that they become violent and selfish. But if men's hearts be not good, how can their manners and customs be generous aud right? The heart of man, indeed, ia naturally perfectly upright and correct ; but through the existence of corrupt doctrines, men all get to practise and learn what is not good. That their hearts may be good, therefore, we must look to what they learn and practise, and make sure that it is correct and right. Here is man, with his head towards heaven and his feet planted on the earth, in the middle of all existing things ; — he is endowed with a natural rectitude all complete ; and there are the requirements of duty in his lot. Is there anything in their Teaching of the Whole Duty of Man. 11 besides, anything marvellous or rare, that he has to do? There are simply the relations of ruler aud minister, of father and son, of husband and wife, of elder brother and younger, and of friend and friend. No one, whether intelligeut or stupid, may neglect, even for a single day, the courses proper to those relationships. If, besides those courses, beyond your proper lot, you go about to seek after refined and mysterious dogmas, and to engage in strange and marvellous performances, you will show yourselves to be very bad men." In what they thus say on the seventh Precept, '^^J^^^^^^ neither the Amplifier nor his Paraphrast tells us what the '' regular constituents of our moral nature " are, nor what are the duties of the several members of the five relations. They did not think it necessary to enter on these subjects, their Chinese readers being familiar with them from their early years. It will be well for me, however, to touch briefly on both topics at this point, in order to clear the way for the further prosecution of my argument. It is not necessary nor in accordance with the plan of this Tract, to discuss what is said about the heart of man being naturally upright and correct. "The five regular constituents of The five ^ regular our moral nature" are the principles, attributes Xti*m?rai and faculties, of benevolence, righteousness, pro- ''''*""^''- priety, wisdom, and sincerity. The duties of the human lot in the five relations, as stated by Mencius, are " between father and son, affection ; between ruler and subject, righteousness ; between husband and wife, attention to their separate functions ; between elders and youngers, a proper dietinction ; 12 Christianity and Confucianism Compared The Chinese Primer. and between friends, fideHty."^ A more detailed account of these duties is given in what we may call the Chinese Primer, the first book which boys learn at school. " Affection between father and son ; concord between husband and wife ; kindness on the part of the elder brother, and deference on the part of the younger ; order between seniors and juniors; sincerity between friends and associates; respect on the part of the ruler, and loyalty on that of the minister : — these are the ten righteous courses equally binding on all men." ^ But in these additions to the statements of the authorities which I have been using, there is nothing to indicate clearly that in "the correct doctrine," the Confucian orthodoxy of China, there is required of men anything but the discharge of their duties in the relations of society. It is not to be wondered at that some Christian writers, in comparing Confucianism and Christianity, and not well acquainted with the former, should contend that we have in it "an attempt to substitute a morality for a theology." ^ I will point out imme diately wherein their view is defective; but at present we freely grant to them that in the above Only social duties treated in these state.. meuts. ^ See Mencius, ni, i., 4. 8. 2 This is taken from The Classic in Lines of Three Characters. (San Tsze King), by Wang Po-hao, better known perhaps as Wang Tung hn, of our 1 3th century. The fullest treatment of the duties is in The Book of the Recmd of Rites. 3 See Dr. Matheson, The Faiths of the World. Lecture in. in their Teaching of the Whole Duty of Man. 13 expositions of man's duties there is no mention of any duty which he owes to God. There are the five relations of society : — let him manifest his cog nizance of them, and to the utmost of his ability discharge their requirements. There are the five constituents of his moral nature ; let him show his appreciation of them, and regulate that discharge in accordance with them. Let him do this, and there is nothing more that he ought to do. I do not say Nothing in _ ° ° ¦" this ideal that this is a poor ideal of human duty, or that it relation''' is not a high ideal of it; but it does not say a word and'oo^r™ about any relation between man and God. The first and great commandment of Christ is: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with aR thy soul, and with all thy mind." On this those Confucian teachers are absolutely silent. Does the rehgion of China, then, teach anything about any worship of God or of other beings ? No one who has sufficiently studied writings that have come down to us from an antiquity greater than that of Confucius, and with his approval, or those stiU older than the beginning of our era, and pur porting to record his words and sentiments, wiU venture to say that it does not. In the first place, the relations of society and ^^^^^^^^' the duties belonging to them are set forth as the forfhthl*^ appointments of Heaven or God. We have a Inddu^ treatise called "The Doctrine of the Mean," by thlappoint ment of the grandson of Confucius. It contains a con- heaven. 14 Christianity and Confucianism Compared densed exhibition of his teaching, and begins with this sentence : " What heaven has conferred is called The Nature ; an accordance with the nature is called The Path of Duty ; the regula tion of the path is called The System of Instruc tion." A great monarch, in the eighteenth cen tury, B.C., proclaimed : A moral sense con ferred by God. A religions sanctiongiven to aU man's duties and relation ships. "The great God has conferred even on the inferior people a moral sense, compliance with which would show their nature invariably right." ^ A poem of the ninth century B.C. commences thus : " Heaven, in giving birth to the multitudes of the people, to every faculty and relationship annexed its law. The people possess this normal nature, and they consequently love its normal virtue. Heaven beheld the ruler of Ch^u, brilliantly affecting It, by his conduct below, and to maintaia him. Its son, gave birth to Chung Shan-fft."^ These passages testify that while man is by his moral nature constituted a law to himself, he is so by the act and decree of God ; a rehgions sanction is given to all his relationships and his performance of their duties. In the second place, among the relations of ^ See The Sacred Books of the Fast, iii., p. 90. " The Sacred Books of tlie Fast, in., p. 425. I have versified the stanza in The Book of Ancient Poetry, pp. 334^7: Heaven made the race of men, designed With nature good and large ; Functions of body, powers of mind. Their duties to discharge. All men this normal nature own ; Its normal nature all men crown With love sincere and true. Heaven by our Sovereign's course was moved 4nd him to aid. Its son approved. Gave birth to Chung Shan-fil. in their Teaching of the Whole Duty of Man. 15 society is that of father and son, or of parent and child. The " affection " belonging to it takes, on the part of the son, the form of fihal piety. My ™fi 'i°*y " readers will all have heard of this as the distin- fegstiMf the guishing characteristic of the Chinese race. It is °'™''^^^^'=^- so. Fihal duty is with them the first and great commandment. " It is," they say, " the first and chief of all human virtues." I do not wish to detract from their commendations of it, nor to deny the general estimate of their observance of it. I look, indeed, on the long- continued existence and growth of the Chinese nation as a fulfilment of the promise annexed to our fifth commandment, " Honour thy father and mother, that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." But now Confucianism inculcates The worsHp of the dead the worship of the dead as a part of fihal piety, incuicateda^ ^ ^ r J part of fihal The sage himself specifies five things as necessary ^'^'^¦ to its full discharge : the utmost reverence, the amplest and most ungrudging support, the greatest anxiety when parents are iU, every demonstration of grief in mourning for them, and the utmost solemnity in sacrificing (or presenting oblations) to them. ^ Quotations need not be multiplied. To bow before the shrines of ancestors and parents, to present offerings to them, and to pray to them, — these things are as much essential to fihal duty as obedience to the commands of parents, reverently ' The Sacred Books of the Bast, III., p. 480. 16 ChristioAiity and Confucianism Gompa/red An element of religion in the highestmoralities of Confucian- Worship of God in Con fucianism. Confined to the Sove reign. At first re presentationby the head of the ¦ family. honouring them, copying their good example, and ministering to their wants. Thus in this highest of the morahties of Confucianism there is also the element of rehgion. And it would be easy to sub stantiate further this point by adducing the worship which the system enjoins, not only of ancestors and parents, but also of the departed great, — of all who have distinguished themselves as legislators, inventors of useful arts, general benefactors, and patriots.^ In the third place, there is in Confucianism a worship of God Himself. From time immemorial, there has been in China the behef of one Supreme Being, first indicated by the name heaven, and then by the personal designation of God as the Supreme Lord and Ruler. For between three and four thousand years at the least, there has been the worship of this Being; but as formally ap proved and organized by the ordinances of the State, it is confined to the Sovereign for the time being. He renders it in the suburbs of his capital on a few occasions in the course of the year, attended by certain of his nobles and official functionaries ; but of the people there are none with him. It was at first, no doubt, a representative worship by the Head of the Family ; it continued to be the same when the Family grew into the Tribe ; it is stiU ' Seethe writer's Religions of China (Hodder and Stoughton), pp. 88-90. in their Teaching of the Whole Duty of Man. ] 7 the same when the tribe has multiplied, and be- Never come the most populous empire on the earth. It through the nation or has never been extended through the nation or i?inedinby o the people. joined in by the multitudes of the people. A most wonderful fact, and most deplorable ! The greatest occasion of the imperial religious celebration is at the earhest dawn on the morning of the winter solstice at " the Altar of Heaven." Some of the prayers, or psalms rather, with which the various oblations have been occasionally accompanied, have been remarkable, and have risen to a high style of devotion ; but, after all, the whole service is but a The service ' ' a form of form of state ceremonial, of which the people have Ceremonial. hardly any knowledge, and which does not contri- Does not •t , i • 1 • • ,^ 1 T- tpj contribute to bute to maintain m them a real religious hie to any maintain in . them a real great extent. Where it has that effect, the result religious ufe . , to any great is due mainly to a sentence of Confucius, in which, «^tent. as if to guard against its being considered merely a worship of the great forms or forces of nature, he pronounced that " The ceremonies of the sacrifices to Heaven and Earth are those by which we serve the Supreme God."^ Debarred from this direct worship of God, the The spiritual susceptibiU- spiritual sensibihties and susceptibilities of the flj^^ilntg masses of the Chinese have flowed all the more of^aJoestS. into the worship of their parents and ancestors, and the way has been all the easier for the dissemination among them of the magical pretensions and psy- ' The Boctrine of the Mean, ch. xix. 6. 18 Christianity and Confucianism, Compared chical fancies of Taoism and the idolatries and What transmigrations of Buddhism. There remains for remains for " them. them only the natural and indistinct reverence of Heaven, with groanings and complaining appeals to It, or to God in heaven, when they are suffering under calamity or other cause of distress. I have seen " the falhng of the tear " in the bitter ness of grief, and "the upward glancing of the eye'' a young''"' *° ^^^ ^^^ ^^o^^^. Recently I was struck with ' ''¦ a passage in the story of a young lady pressed to a certain course which, though not contrary to what was right, did not command her full approval. It was not evil, but might be misinterpreted so as to give to another passage in her hfe the appearance of being evil, though it had been good and even praise- Her trust in worthy in itsolf . She wished to avoid it, and to trust m Heaven to bring about, in a perfectly legitimate way, the object which it was intended to serve. " I have heard," she says, " that Heaven is sure to bring -to pass the thing of which Heaven has originated the purpose." It was an expression it seemed to me of simple and genuine piety. Such a sentiment and such language, however, are rarely met with in Chiaese society or writings. And where they do occur, it is as calculations of the understanding more than gushings of the heart. They are argumentative rather than emotional, expressing the fear to offend Heaven and not the wish to please it. They come short, very far short. in their Teaching of the Whole Duty of Man. 19 of that love of God which is the first and great Noinoite- commandment of Christianity. I have been read- oodin Chinese ing Chinese books for more than forty years, and ^°'''^- any general requirement to " love God," or the mention of anyone as actuahy "loving" Him, has yet to come for the first time under my eye. The three considerations which I have urged make it clear that the Confucian system is not a morahty merely, but also a rehgion. That the sage, however, " the Master," as his disciples hked to style him, confudan- did not speak of the higher aspects of the system religion. which he found existing in his country ; and that he shrank from discussing metaphysical subjects, and even all questions about the existence and operations of God : this is a fact which we must accept, and which no explanation that we may try to give of it will alter. Morahty, and its promotion, MoraUty .,,.,.,., and the with the culture of the understanding through the ™'*™^°' study of the ancient hterature, were his chosen ^^^^f^'^ themes; and it is with his moral teaching, as I c'^oXoiul have expressly stated, that we have specially to do in this Tract. We return therefore to the consideration of that; and the first and chief thing that claims our at tention is the general rule in which Confucius ThegeneraJ, summed up all his inculcation of the duties of the Confucius. human relations : — " What ye would not that men should do to you, do not ye do to them." He eTiiinp.ifltprl tTiio vnio cqtt^^oI tz™£"., T^:~ aimilarity 20 Christianity and Confucianism Compared Contrastwith the golden rule of Christ. Misunder standing of the rule of Confucius. to " the golden rule " of our Lord never fails to strike the Christian when he hears or reads it for the first time. It is negative, indeed, while Christ's is positive ; but the Chinese sage knew that man ought to take the initiative in doing to others what he would have others do to him. Eight, perhaps nine, of our Ten Commandments are really pro hibitions. Was it a knowledge of the difficulty which men find in giving to others what is their due, and of their proneness to think of themselves first, and act with a view to their own advantage, which made Confucius give the negative form to his comprehensive rule? To say that " he did not mean to do anything more by it than suggest a law for the well-being of the State," preventing retahations which would end in political anarchy : ^ — this is a strange under valuing both of the man and his object. At the same time, there is one passage in Confucius' history from which it is natural to conclude that the rule was prompted chiefly by his sentiment of justice or instinctive feeling of what was right. One of his contemporaries, Lao-tsze, the reputed founder of Taoism, had been led, by the pecuhar nature of his philosophical system, to teach "the returning of good for evU." This seemed "strange doctiine" to some of the disciples of Confucius, and they consulted him about it. His reply was: "What 1 Dr. Matheson 's Lecture iii.. The Faiths of the World, p. 86, in their Teaching of the Whole Duty of Man. 21 then will you return for good ? Recompense injury The highest with justice, and return good for good." Higher which than this he could not rise. 1™i? 'j^^- Analects Passing now to " the golden rule of Christ," we ^"'' "^^ '^' must pronounce it a greater error to argue that He was indebted for it to what we may call " the silver rule of Confucius." And yet this has been more than surmised. It has been said : Dr. Mathe- ' ' That Confucius is the author of this precept is undisputed, >i™'s Lec- and therefore it is indisputable that Christianity has incorporated of tile an article of Chinese morahty." ForW,p.83. There is not the slightest evidence that any ^4"^^™^*'' knowledge of the Chinese sage or of his teachings goSIn mie had penetrated to Judea at so early a time ; and t«aSiing of Christ subjoined to His rule a statement of the sources from which He formulated it in the words, " This is the law and the prophets." It was with Him the essence of the two commandments, to love God supremely, and to love our neighbours as our selves. This is the secret of its positive form. It The secret of the positive is the outgushing demand of love, while the other '°™j,^'jjjj': is the constrained expression of justice. And hence "' '^'"''''*' it was that in the same Sermon on the Mount, Christ pronounced, in language more unequivocal and fuU than that of Lao-tsze, " I say unto you. Love your enemies; do good to them that hate you ; pray for them that despitefuUy use you and persecute you " (Luke vi. 27, 28). I have, in the above pages, endeavoured to set 22 Christianity and Confucianism Coinpared The defects of Con fucianism. No glow of piety in the sayings of Confucius. forth generally the teaching of Christianity and Confucianism on the whole duty of man. Where the former is most emphatic, the latter is all but silent. The old rehgion of China was very de fective in what it required of man to God, and "the Master" said very little to supplement it. There was no glow of piety in his utterances. He never called his disciples to join with him in adoring God, as the perfection of beauty, the Framer of our bodies, and the Father of our spirits, in Whom we live and move and have our being, the Source of all our good, and the Fountain of our greatest comfort and consolation. He left his countrymen to the uncertain gropings and vague monitions of natural rehgion. I do not ask my readers to join with me and pronounce a stern condemnation of him. for this. He had no mission to teach rehgion. He had no book to instruct him as to the character and doings of God, at aU akin to our Scriptures. He had no gift or aptitude for anything like theology. But when we turn to the Confucian teaching of the duties of man to other men, we ought to accord to it much appreciation. It is at once comprehen sive and minute. The analysis of society into the five relations covers the whole ground. It is a piece of philosophical generalization of which we should not be slow to recognize the value and truth. And the duties incumbent in those relations are enjoined He had no mission to teach religion, no Scripture to teach him about God. iluch to admire in his practical teaching. m their Teaching of tne Whole Duty of Man. 23 in hundreds of passages with explicitness and point. One is often grieved to read the incautious asser- incautious (. p •; T_ 1.1 • 1 ±1 j_ j_ p Statements tions of writers who think that apart from our about the Christian Scriptures there are no lessons for men heathendom about their duties, and that heathendom has in consequence never been anything but a slough of immoral filth and outrageous crime. Such writers betray their ignorance of the systems and peoples about which they affirm such things, and their ignorance also of the sacred volume which they wish to exalt. Their advocacy is damaging rather than beneficial to Christianity. But while I do not hesitate to avow this con- aii human duties set viction, I am at the same time persuaded that f^iyiT"* there is not a single human duty set forth by thanl'™'^ „ p . . ,.,. ., ., , Confucian- Confucianism which is not also recognized and ism. more fully enjoined by Christianity. In Chris tianity, moreover, there is no admixture of error in regard to the ground of the duty, christian or the details of its requirements from which fi-oofrom the account of it in Confucianism is by no means free. In The Eclipse of Faith, of the late Professor Henry Rogers, he says (p. 196) that • ' If his sceptical opponent would do as he had done, and compile a selection of the principal precepts and maxims from the most admirable ethical works of antiquity, and compare them with two or three of the summaries of similar precepts in the New Testament, he would at once feel how much more vivid, touching, animated, and even comprehensive was the scriptural expression of the same truth." error. 24 Christianity and Confucianism Compared Confucius andAristotle. When he so expressed himself. Professor Rogers was thinking of the ancient Grecian moralists, and especially of Aristotle. The sage of China needs not to hide a diminished head, when placed amidst the Stagirite and his compeers ; but the judgment is true as well, if it be apphed to his sayings and those of all his school, in comparison with the teachings of Christianity. I can set to my seal that it is so. On the ground of all that has been said above, I venture now to ask the assent of my readers to the following conclusions regarding the superiority of the Christian teaching of the whole duty of man. I. It is superior to the Confucian teaching be cause it attaches so much greater importance to the duties of rehgion, and gives so much fuller a disclosure of their reasonableness and nature. ¦ Con fucianism, indeed, affirms the relation between men and God ; but its understanding of that relation is incomplete, and its teaching both about it and the duties springing from it is consequently imperfect. It keeps the masses of the people at an awful distance from God. Only " the One man," the sove reign of the Chinese race, is permitted to present to Him directly the offerings of reverence, gratitude, and prayer. Christianity, on the contrary, teaches how God is never far from any one of us, how He accepteth not the persons of princes, neither regardeth the rich man more than the poor, how Christianityattaches more import ance to the duties of rehgion. No direct access to God in Con fucianism. Thenearness of God according to Christianity. in their Teaching of the Whole Duty of Man. 25 we all have to do with Him and how He is always near to all that call on Him. Of the dignity and The peace, ^ ^ safety, and strength, the peace, security, and hope which this f^lH^ relation between God and him imparts to man's being and experience amid the vicissitudes of life, so various and often painful, I do not speak; — our subject is his duty. But any system which does not make provision for the discharge of our rehgions duties, which does not in fact summon men to them, and encourage them to resort to them, and dehght themselves in them, must be pronounced incomplete and insufficient. Such a system is Confucianism. II. The Christian teaching is superior to the Confucian because it makes God the Guardian of ^ua^^™^,, all the duties obhgatory on men even in their dnu^™ social relations. With what majesty and power tKoSlof "^ Moses. the announcement, " I am the Lord," or " I am the Lord your God," comes in at the close of very many of the ordinances in the Mosaic legislation ! For example, "Therefore shall ye keep Mine ordinance that ye commit not any one of these abominable customs, and that ye defile not your selves therein : I am the Lord your God " (Leviticus xviii. 30). " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself : I am the Lord " (Leviticus xix. 18). Not less powerfully though less rhe- New . . _ m J j_ Testament torically, it is said m the New lestament : teaching. "Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or what- 26 Christianity and Confucianism Compared The Christian rule. Confucianism leaves a man to his own strength.Christianityassures him of Divine help. soever ye do, do all to the glory of God" (1 Cor. X. 31). And this injunction is completed, according to the Christian rule, by the same apostle : "Whatsoever ye do, in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him" (Col. hi. 17). Con fucianism prefers to speak in this wise : " If you do this, if you do not do that, how can you regard yourself as a man ?" That is all very well. But it leaves man to fight the battle of temptation in his own strength. He is strongest, however, when he is most humble. The assurance of God's presence and guardianship doubly arms him. It helps him, if he faU, to rise again ; and if he seem to fail or be overthrown, he can yet write victory on his shield. To use the words of the Apostle Peter^ " This is acceptable, if, for conscience towards God, a man endure grief, suffering wrongfully" (1 Peter ii. 19). III. Still looking merely at the duties springing out of the social relations, the Christian teaching is superior to the Confucian, because the motive on which it requires their discharge is nobler and more powerful. That motive, we have seen, is love, while the Confucian motive is the sentiment of justice or right. Now love takes the per formances out of the category of duty in which thexe is the element of constraint, and transforms them into that of gracious ministry. The love Christianity appeals to the motive of love. in their Teaching of the Whole Duty of Man. 27 wiU always operate in the sphere of right ; but its constraint is of itself. At the very best the doer of justice is a servant of God, but the doer of love is a child of God. The service of duty may be slow and grudging; the service of love is prompt howIo™ and untiring. Duty asks, " Is this enough ?" Love asks, " Can I do anything more ?" This is the operation of all love. Can its range and effectiveness over the whole being be calculated when the true nature of the Christian attribute is appreciated, when its measure, as has been pointed out above, is the love with which Christ loved us ? IV. The Christian teaching in regard to the christian p . 1 • 1 1 ^^"1 Con- five relations of society themselves is better than fnoian '' teaching the Confucian. We have spoken of the relation ^^^^''''1'^°' between parent and child, and of the fihal duty ^trSS^^i obhgatory on the child. It includes in Con- contra^ed. fucianism the worship of the deceased parent as well as of remoter ancestors. Honour to the hving parent is what Christianity requires ; but it knows nothing of the worship of the dead, and of oblations and prayers to them. We accept with sorrow the fact that our parents have gone by death away from our circle; we cherish the memory of them and seek to copy their virtues ; but we find that it would be in vain to try and have communion with them over any rehgious feast. Our behef and practice are more true and healthy than those of the Confucian. 28 Christianity and Confucianism Compared Christianprecepts "ivith respect to the duty of parents to children distasteful to the Chinese. And while the requirements of filial duty in the latter are so stringent that I have often known them become a grievous yoke, a burden which Chinese sons were unable to bear, httle is found in the Con fucian writings 'lO instruct or caution parents in their treatment of their children. More than enough is said of the rights of the parent, less than enough of the rights of the children. There are two texts in the New Testament, of the wisdom of which my readers will not entertain any doubt, while yet I have always found them very dis tasteful not only to Chinese hterati but also to the people. One is that in which the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians: "The children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children" (2 Cor. xii. 14). The other is also from St. Paul (Colossians iii. 21) : " Fathers, provoke not your children, that they be not discouraged." Another of the five relations of society is that of husband and wife ; — " it is the one, indeed," as Chinese writers say, " out of which aH the other relations grow." And many fine and beautiful sentiments are found in them on marriage. But the position of woman in China has always been an inferior one. Girls are of small account in a family as compared with boys. Infanticide, mainly owing, I beheve, to the poverty of the people, is more common than in any western country, but it The position of woman in China always an inferior one. in their Teaching of the Whole Duty of Man. 29 is always female infanticide. A woman should The i_ 1 • -1 [. 1 -, 1 . prevalance not have any mind oi her own, nor take the m- of intanti- ... . . citte. itiative even in what is good.^ If she come out of the strict seclusion of her own apartments and domestic duties, her influence will prove to be for evil.^ There is indeed only one wife, '' one correct wife," in a family, but from the oldest times concu- concumnage . . the rule in bmage has been the rule in China. The ancient china. Yao, whose beneficent influence, according to Confucius, "corresponded to that of Heaven, and whose virtue was so great that the people could find no name for it," ^ yet gave his two daughters in marriage to the same man at the same time.* The hfe of woman in China is truly a hard and The life of •J woman m inferior one. It is not till she becomes a mother Sard me. that she shares in the regard due to the higher party in the relation of parent and child. Even then she is subject to the law of "the three obediences," ^ and is bound, if a widow, to obey her eldest son, as she had, in the earher stages of her life, been bound to obey first her parents, and then her husband. I have often thanked the Apostle Peter in spirit for his words, " Ye husbands, give christian honour to the woman as unto the weaker vessel, as a husband's ... . duties. being also joint-heirs of the grace of life" (1 Peter 1 The Sacred Books of the Bast, in. , p. 350. = The She King, or Book of Ancient Poetry, p. 347. ^ Confucian Analects, vni., ch. 19. * The Sacred Books of the Bast, m., p. 36. ^ See the Prolegomena to my Chinese Classics, i., pp. 104, 105; 30 Christianity and Confacianism Compared Nothing iii. 7) . In all my reading in Chinese hterature I have parallel to , , this ju Con- not met with so kindly and generous a sentiment. tuciaiusm. •^ ° There is not so much to object to in the Con fucian teaching about the other three relations of society. I pass on to the last point of superiority in the Christian teaching, with the general remark that too much authority is assigned to the superior member in each category, and too much deference required from the inferior. V. The Christian teaching of human duty is superior to the Confucian, because it is com mended and enforced by the perfect example of its oic"i5ud?s° Author. " What I wish to do," said' Mencius, the The Chinese ablost expouudcr of the Confucian system: "What Bookn^'pt' I wish to do is to learn to be hke Confucius." He goes on to adduce the estimate of "the Master " given by several of " the disciples," with the opinion of one of whom we must here content ourselves, that of Yu Jo : — " There is the Ch'l-lin among quadrupeds, the phoenix among birds, the Thai mountain among ant-hOls, and the Ho and the sea among rain-pools. (Though they are different in degree), they are the same in kind ; and so the sages among men are also the same in kind. But they stand out from then- fellows, and rise above the crowd ; and from the birth of mankind till now there never has been one so complete as Confucius.'' I have no pleasure in shattering this idol, nor would I lay a rude hand or an effacing finger on the reputation of the Chinese " Master." He was a great man and a good man, and deserved well of his own country and of the world. Yet it is a i.. 2. 22. in their Teaching of the Whole Duty of Man. 31 true saying that " the best of men are but men at the best." He was not a perfect character. On one occasion, immediately after enunciating his "silver rule," he subjoined : Sl^^Jeccharacter. "In the way of the superior man there are four things, to not acooiJing one of which have I as yet attained. To serve my father as I confesriou would require my son to serve me : to this I have not attained ; to serve my ruler as I would require my minister to serve me : to this I have not attained ; to serve my elder brother as 1 would require my younger brother to serve me : to this I have not attained ; to set the example in behaving to a friend as I would require him to behave to me: to this I have not attained. " ^ The Chinese character which I have here trans lated by " I," is the personal name of Confucius, and ties his readers down to accept his words as his own acknowledgment of his personal imper fection. They are not the words of a sham " humihty," as Chinese commentators contend, nor an example merely of the way in which men should measure others as they measure themselves ; but we do not think less of him, we think indeed more of him, because he was thus conscious of his own incompetencies, and that he fell short of his own standard of duty. One of the four things, again, which Confucius His teaching ° ° about truth- was fond of teaching was " truthfulness ; " ^ and 'niness. vet it is difficult to maintain that, according to our idea of the duty of a historian, he was not untruthful in his accounts of men and events.^ I cannot resist ^ The Doctrine of the Mean, 13. 4. ^ Confucian Analects, m., 24. * See the Prolegomena to The Chinese Classics, Vol v. pp. 40-49 32 Christianity and Confucianism Corrvpared Confucius was not truthful in his accounts of men and events. No con sciousness of sin in Christ. His appeal to His enemies. A sinless High Priest needed by The testimony of enemies. the impression that his example in this respect has lowered the standard of this important virtue among his countrymen. Confucius was not a perfect character ; and I appeal to my readers whether, if any acknowledg ment on the part of Christ, similar to that which I have just adduced, were to be found in our Gospels, it would not sound very strange, and be disturbing to their faith, Christ could say, on the contrary, to his enemies, "Which of you convicteth me of sin'' (John viil. 46) ? After nearly nineteen centuries, throughout Christendom, the instances are very exceptional of any men who have ventured to insinuate a judgment concerning Him, different from that of the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews : " He was in aU points tempted like as {we are, yet) without sin" (iv. 15). "Such a high priest became us, holy, guileless, undefiled, separated from sinners" (vii. 26). Even such men as Rousseau, and the late John Stuart Mill, whom we must class among unbehevers, have borne concurrent testimony as to the impression made by His life and words upon their minds. ^ Christ was indeed the perfect Teacher, and the perfect Exemplar of what He taught. The more that we press on to be like Him, the more do we =¦ See Present Day Tract, No. in., Christ the Central Evidence of Christianity, by the Rev. Principal Cairns. See th'?re also, pp. 12-16, the discriminating observations on "Modem Theories of Christ's Moral Excellence." in their Teaching of the Whole Duty of Man. '33 feel that we fail to be so. But He said, "He that Christ our perfect hath seen Me, hath seen the Father ; " and the example.The more conscious we are of copying His example, and revelation of rJ n . the Father. endeavouring to realize in ourselves "the mind ^^^ eacein that was in Him," the greater is our peace, and the ^^/pJsscs-*" brighter our hope that we are going on to be ^d° " perfect, even as our heavenly Father is perfect." I have not, in writing this Tract, played the part of an advocate whose object is to win his cause. My endeavour has been to describe the case of both systems on the point laid down at the outset, — to describe it dispassionately, and yet sufficiently for my readers to form a judgment on the subject discussed themselves, I think that the evidence of facts bears out the conclusion as to the superiority of Christianity to which I have come. It is, indeed, an eternal truth An appeal tc the fruits of that "by their fruits" we know both men and t^^^*™ systems ; but though I have tried, over a long series of years, to weigh the moral condition of the Chinese people as compared with our own, and that of other nominally Christian peoples, I have felt the difficulty of doing so in an even balance, and there has frequently occurred to me the warning in the Sermon on the Mount: "Judge not, that ye be not judged." Take the Chinese people as a whole, apart from . the points on which I have already given my opinion, and there is much about them to like and 34 Christianity and Confucianism Comioared Chinese virtues. • Their civilisation, enlighten ment, and superstition. Their con servatism. The short comings of Christendom. even to admire. They are cheerful, temperate, industrious, and kindly; and in those respects they will bear a comparison, perhaps a favourable com parison, with the masses of our own population. The ancient and universal use of tea as their ordinary drink has been beneficial to their habits. I found those of them who had any position in society for the most part faithful to their engage ments and true to their word. I thought of them better, both morally and sociahy, when I left them, than when I first went among them, more than thirty years before. Their civilisation has developed under very different conditions from our own. They are less enlightened, very much less enlightened, and less capable of comprehensive views, and more superstitious. They have learned almost nothing from abroad, and are more conservative, thinking much of the past, and httle of the future. Still they deserve our esteem ; and they measure for eigners from their own standpoints, weighing them as well as they can in the balances of " benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and sincerity." Their Confucianism has done much for them, and its teaching of human duty has modified the practical influence which the systems of Taoism and Buddhism have on multitudes of them. On the other hand, we ourselves in this and the other nations of Christendom come far short of the standard of duty and character which in their Teaching of the Whole Duty of Man. 35 we ought to be aiming after. Where our Chris- The fruits of tian principles, religious and moral, indeed, have incompar- r r ¦ o ^ • ' ably better free course, as they have in millions, they pro- *f^n'^°'*° duce a humanity with which there is nothing ^ter™™ in China worthy to be compared ; but in our social principles and national condition there are many things that course. may well make us lay our hands on our mouths. and cease from judging hardly of the heathen Chinese. The best promise of a better state for ourselves and the world is in the growing conviction that we need to rise more to the height of our privileges, and in the individual and combined efforts constantly caUed forth to remove evils that are brought to light. This is one remarkable feature of the different influence which the two systems that we have been comparing have on their adherents. Confucianism tends to make men 9^^°5^- satisfied with what they are, while true Christianity ^fe||d!' makes them dissatisfied that they are not better, makes tSm , , ¦ •.; • 1 • dissatisfied Then the former system has not m it an impulsive with them selves. spirit of propagandism. I have heard the saying among the people that "the Four Books do not go out beyond the four seas environing the Middle Land;" whereas the last command of Christ was that His followers should " go and make disciples ag^essive of all the nations." No one who has become Christianity imbued with the principles of Christianity can be satisfied till he has realised " a new moral world " in himself, and sees a real progress to the same 36 Christianity and Confucianism Compccred. goal in the manners and institutions of his own country and in the world at large. How so many centuries have elapsed since the dehvery of the Sermon on the Mount, and the " lifting up '' on the The slow Cross, and the rising from the tomb, and Christen- progress of ° a^yste^''' <^^°™- should remain so imperfectly Christian, and so great a portion of mankind be still non- Christian : — this is a mystery which I will not try to fathom. Christianity! But thcro is a spirit in Christianity that nerves its members to continue the struggle with what is evil in and around themselves, and maintains the consecration of time and labour and talents to bring " all the nations " to the fellowship of the Gospel. If we are to do our part in weaning the Chinese from their inordinate attachment to their sage and his teaching, and bringing the nation to "mew its mighty age, and kindle her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam," it can only be by How the our showing that, in all our intercourse with them, Chinese are ... Christ™''*" politically, commercially, and in other ways, we are ruled by the principles of love and righteous ness, which blend together in " the golden rule " of Christ, " Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto them." '^\ PRESENT Day Tracts, No. 18. ^-s- THE ZEND-AVESTA A A THE RELIGION OF TEE PARSIS. J. MURRAY MITCHELL, M.A., LL.D. (Formerly of Bombay). THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY: 56, Paternoster Row; 65, St. Paul's Churchyard; amd 164, Piccadilly. ^t^ument cxt tbe Ttaxit. Of the great religions of antiquity that have survived to the present time, the system which is affirmed by its followers to have been promulgated by the famous Zoroaster is one of the most remarkable. It is now professed only by the Parsees of India and their brethren, the Zoroastrians of Persia ; but it was once a widely-extended and influential faith, with notable cha racteristics peculiar to itself. The sacred book of the Zoroas trians is the Zend-Avesta (or Avesta). Of the founder of the religion we cannot speak with certainty ; and the same thing may be said of the history of Zoroastrianism up to the time of Darius, the son of Hystaspes. Little was known in Europe regarding the system till 1771. The Tract examines in succession the theology, the ritual, the ethics, and the jurisprudence of the Avesta. The theology is not homogeneous ; the Avesta contains a quasi monotheism, dualism, and polytheistic nature-worship. Starting with the same root-ideas as Hinduism, Zoroastrianism developed them differently ; it rose nearer to Monotheism, and it avoided Pan theism. One great excellence of the system is that it connects nothing immoral with the character or worship of God. Its most distinctive mark is its strong dualism ; it asserts the existence from eternity of two principles or powers — one good, one evil : the former the creator of all good, the latter the creator of all evil. The Zoroastrian must share in the great struggle between good and evil ; which is finally to issue in the triumph of the former. There is no image-worship in Zoroastrianism. Fire is the great visible object of homage. But everything in the good creation is, or may be, worshipped. Homage is ren dered both to the outward object and the being presiding over it. Nothing in the Zoroastrian ritual is more remarkable than its elaborate purifications in connection with ceremonial defile ment. Among Gentile religions, Zoroastrianism ranks high in point of morality ; but the whole Avesta is lacking in depth both of reflection and emotion. Finally, a brief comparison is made between Zoroastrianism and Christianity. THE ZEND-AVESTA AND THE RELIGION OF THE PARSIS. Iery few of the religions of antiquity ofthe ni ^ *-¦ J. .' surviving have survived to the present day. For ^^™t °* example, the impure divinities of Syria i^°f Jje S and the brutish gods of Egypt have markawe"" completely disappeared. Peer and Baalim Forsake their temples dim. . . Nor is Osiris seen In Memphian grove or green, TrampKng the unshowered grass with lowiags loud. The divinities of Greece and Rome have, in like manner, passed away. Zeus no longer sways from the summit of Olympus his sceptre over " gods and men ; " and a Christian church now occupies the spot on which stood in ancient days the temple of Jupiter, the guardian of the Capitol. Of those ancient systems of rehgion that have come down to our times one of the most remarkable The Zend-Avesta, and the Pirst inculcated by Zc aster. is the one which is embodied in the Zend-Avesta.^ The faith propounded in the Avesta is usually called Zoroastrianism ; since, according to its pro- mcmcaiea £gggQj,g^ j^^ ^^^ Originally inculcated by the celebrated Zoroaster. It is also frequently called Parsiism, still as being still followed by the interesting body of followedby the neoule in Western India, known by the name of Parsis. r r Parsis, and also by the small remnant of the same race in Persia. There are not a few questions connected with the Avesta and the history of Zoroastrianism which are still matters of keen controversy. We shall not enter into these, but shall, in a great degree, confine our attention to matters in which there exists a large measure of agreement among Ori ental scholars. Happily, these are not few in number; nor are they by any means devoid of interest. In these days, when so much attention is paid to the comparative study of rehgions, the Avesta faith ought by no means to be overlooked. ithas The system possesses some striking pecuharities. an™an"'''^^ Farther, it has had a very remarkable history. Sstorj^™^ Most important problems are involved in its re lations to Hinduism, Judaism, the Babylonian religion, the Q-nostic heresies, and the great system of Manicheeism ; and in the Mithraic mysteries, 1 The name Avesta is more correct than Zend-Avesta. More exact would be the spelling Avasti; but we adopt the more usual form. Religion of the Parsis. which were mainly of Persian origin, its influence spread extensively over the Roman empire, and even as far west as Britain. Much had been written regarding Zoroaster, and many had been the speculations regarding his doctrines ; but no satisfactory conclusions could be reached so long as the Avesta remained un known. Even before the Christian era Zoroaster had become a mythical personage, and forged oracles were ascribed to him which only increased the Dernlexitv. The laborious researches of scholars Dr. Hyde's r r J ^ ^ researches. like Dr. Thomas Hyde^ are deserving of high respect ; but such men had to reason from data always insufB.cient and often untrustworthy. A new era in the study of Zoroastrianism began with the labours of Anquetil du Perron. The story of ^^^^ ^" the travels and researches of this enthusiastic ex plorer reads almost hke a romance. He went to India in quest of the venerable book ascribed to Zoroaster; found it among the Parsi priests of Surat; and, after years of toilsome investigation into its doctrines, returned in triumph with his prize to Europe. He published a French transla tion of it, with accompanying dissertations, in 1771. The work at once excited the greatest interest. This, after some time, began to diminish, mainly 1 Veterum Persarmn et Parthorwm et Medorum rdigiomis his- toria. 2iid edition. Oxford, 1760. The first edition, with a slightly dififerent title, was pubUshed at Oxford in 1700. The Zend-Avesta, and the iu consequence of the faulty character of the trans lation, which was frequently very obscure, and not infrequently incorrect. During rather more than the last fifty years, however, the study of the Avesta has been prosecuted by a succession of able men with unflagging zeal, and with no inconsider able success. Date of the We cau traco the Avesta, as we find it, up to Avesta. , _ ¦'^ the time of the Sasanian dynasty in Persia. The Persian empire was restored in the year 226 after Christ by Ardashir Babegan, the first of the Sasanian line. He was a man of no common force of character ; bold and successful as a warrior, and skilful in administration. In building up his kingdom he called rehgion to his aid. He earnestly sought to collect the writings that inculcated the ancient faith of Zoroaster; and several of his successors persevered in the attempt. The canon of the Avesta was fixed under Sh&pur II., about the year 350 ; revision and condensation were effected in the reign of Khosru Parviz, between 531 and 579. The Avesta, as we possess it, may thus be safely traced back at least to the sixth State of the ccntury after Christ. We must aUow for errors of transcription in the case of what had long been a dead language. Uncouth and uniatelhgible phrases abound in the work; the text is often manifestly incorrect, and critics are sorely tempted to try the undesirable expedient of conjectural text. Religion of the Parsis. emendation. StiU, on the whole, here stands the Avesta, very nearly as it must have stood some thirteen, or even fifteen, centuries ago. But farther: although collected in the days of the Sasanian kings, we have no reason to beheve that it was then composed. An extensive literature existed in Persia Persian hterature before the Macedonian conquest. The tradition of ^aoedom^an the Parsis is that Alexander — "the accursed wretch °™iuest. Sikandar," as they call him — burnt aU their books, with the exception of a few fragments. The tradi tion cannot count for much ; for the great conqueror was generaUy tolerant in matters of rehgion, and pursued, as far as possible, a pohcy of conciliation. The disappearance of the ancient books is rather nisappear- , ance of the to be regarded as the result of the centuries of ancjent o books. confusion that succeeded the Macedonian conquest over the countries in which the Zoroastrian faith generally prevailed. Be this as it may, we have The greater reason to beheve that by far the greatest part of ^J^^^ the Avesta was composed at various dates ranging ^ewn the over the space from about the seventh to the fourth oenfaSy Lc. century before Christ. Portions may be still more Portions . . ... ^ - . , T more recent. recent ; and it is possible, and even probable, that some additions were made as late as the fourth century after Christ, or even later. The work, as it stands, is not only fragmentary, but chaotic ; wonderfully httle skill having been exhibited in the arrangement of its component parts. About Zoroaster himself we must say a few The Zend-Avesta, and the words. Some able men doubt his very existence, and find in his history only a mythical description of elemental war — an atmospheric storm.'' On the whole, however, we hold that he actually Zoroaster existed, and that he was possibly a Bactrian, but probably a . Mede. probably a Mode. There is reason to believe that, while the Medes were under Assyrian dominion, their religion had to some extent become mixed with that of the conquerors ; but that, when the foreign yoke was thrown off, an earnest attempt was made to revive the ancient Aryan faith. With this reformation we may perhaps, provisionally, connect the name of Zoroaster. Thus, in round numbers, we can with some probabihty assign his era to the commencement of the sixth century, or perhaps 610 b.c. Such, at least, was Dr. Hang's final opinion.^ On these questions, however, we can as yet attain to no more than plausible conjecture, and all dogmatism is out of place.^ Even the name of ¦^ Professor Darmesteter and others. See his treatise, Ormmzd et AhriTna/n, passim. ^ Haug, who at first maintained that Zoroaster might have been as ancient as Moses, and must have been before 1000 B.C., in later years altered his opinion, aud supported the view now expressed. It nearly agrees with that of the Parsis. But the question is by no means finally settled. Professors Eoth and Tiele will not admit the older part of the Avesta to be later than from 1000 to 800 E.o. 2 M. Renan justly remarks : 11 n'est pas bon dans ces diffioiles Etudes de croire tenir I'absolue v&ite. — Journal Asiatique, His era 1880, p. 27. Religion of the Parsis. the great teacher — in Zend, Zarathustra — has re ceived no satisfactory explanation. We may be lieve — stih, it is only a plausible conjecture — that the Avesta rehgion arose to the south-east of the Caspian Sea, among a race still semi-nomadic, but inclining more and more to pastoral and agricultural hfe. It seems to have powerfully affected Bactria late and ¦*¦ _ slow growth and Media, before it entered Persia. In the last- oiz?™: ' astnanism named country the precepts of the Avesta were ''i^*'^*'^- but partially submitted to during the earher reigns, from that of Cyrus downwards ; but the power of the Magi — the priests — with a short interruption after the death of the Pseudo-Smerdis, appears to have gone on steadily increasing, until the Mace donian conquest shattered it to pieces. The suc cessors of Alexander reigned eighty years over Persia. Under the Parthian power which suc ceeded, the Magi slowly recovered a certain mea sure of their authority ; and Yalkhash (Volegeses), one of the later kings, seems to have begun the work of collecting the scattered fragments of the sacred books. The Parthian dominion was itshigh overthrown by Ardashir BS.beg4n, who has been second •' . . Persian mentioned above; and, under him and his empire. successors, Zoroastrianism obtained a far more influential position than it had ever previously held. This it retained until Persia was conquered by the Arabs, in the middle of the seventh century after Christ. 10 The Zend-Avesta, and the Division of the Avesta. Prayers and sacrificial rites. The legislationof the Avesta. Objectsinvoked. The Avesta, as it now stands, is not so large in size as the Christian Bible. It consists of the following parts: — The Yasna, including the five Gathas, or Hymns. The Vandidad. The YispARAD. The Yashts. A few short prayers called Afeigan, Nyavish, and GrAH. The SiROZAH, or Calendar of the thirty days of the month. The meaning of the word Yasna is sacrifice. This division of the Avesta contains the prayers offered along with sacrificial rites. The Gathas, which are its most important part, are written in a different dialect from the rest of the Avesta, and are very probably of a more ancient date. The Yandidad contains the legislation of the Avesta. The name is characteristic; it signifies given, against the demons. The Yisparad contains a collection of prayers very similar to those in the Yasna. The name means all heads, or chiefs ; it is so called because the chief objects of the good creation are invoked in it. The Yashts. This name is connected with Religion of the Parsis. 11 Yasna, which has been explained above. The Prayers addressed to term yasht properly means worshipping. A Yasht one deity. is properly a prayer or hjrmn in which one deity is more especially singled out for adoration. It certainly is not easy to see any logical prin ciple ruhng the division and arrangement of the parts of the Avesta. We proceed, however, to the examination of the book as we find it. We shall speak successively of the following subjects : — I. The Theological system of the Avesta. II. The Ritual. III. The Ethical and Judicial systems. I. The Theology. When we proceed to examine the theology of conflicting ¦*¦ "'^^ doctrines m the book we are at once struck with the conflicting thetheoiogy. character of its doctrines. We discover in one place either Monotheism, or what approaches it; in another place, decided Duahsm; in a third. Polytheism. We cannot divest ourselves of the behef that such jarring creeds imply diversity of origin. If they arose in the same country, they must have done so at different epochs. Yet when we strive to arrange the systems in the chrono logical order of their sequence, we are perplexed by the fact that no division of the Avesta is homo geneous in its doctrine ; discordant voices often 12 The Zend-Avesta, and the Monotheism. Dualism. Polytheism. The chrono logicalrelations of these unexpectedly break in upon us. The most that we can say is that the Grathas, on the whole, come nearest to Monotheistic teaching; the Yandidad is more tinged with Dualism; while the Yasna (except the Grathas) and the Yisparad are more Polytheistic, and the Yashts are the most decid edly so of all. Difficult as it is to theorize on the chronological relations of these systems of thought, one is irresistibly driven to do so. Professor Spiegel, who has devoted a laborious life to the study of the Avesta, holds that the order was not first polytheism, then duahsm, then monotheism, but that the monotheism preceded the duahsm. We also beheve that a kind of monotheism came first. But this point requires explanation. There can be httle doubt that Ahura Mazda, the chief divinity in the Avesta, was originally the same as the Yaruna Asura of the Yeda. (Ahura is simply the Zend form of Asura, which means Lord.) Yaruna is etymologically the same as the Greek 'ovpavos, heaven ; and Yaruna was the heaven-god. A very lofty character is ascribed to this deity ; if the Yeda ever approaches the con ception of holiness, it is in connection with Yaruna it does so. The counterparts of Yaruna, the heaven- god, are found in Zeus, Ju-piter, and Ahura Mazda; and it may be held as demonstrated that the con ception of a supreme divinity, wise, powerful, and good, was common to the four great divisions of the Avesta. Ahura Mar^da and Varuna originally the same deity. Their counterparts are Zeus and Jupiter. Theconceptionof a supreme divinitycommon to the great divisions of the Aryan race. Religion of the Parsis. 18 the Aryan race, — the Greeks, Romans, Hindus, and Iranians. It must have belonged to them before they separated from each other. Yet, ^^^'¦°™'^ although supreme, this divinity was not sole ; he ^°'^' was, in the phrase which meets us so frequently from the time of Homer downwards, " the father of gods and men ; " but he. received no exclusive homage. After the other branches of the Aryan family Iranians •' "^ and Hindus. had migrated to the west, the Iranians and Hindus evidently remained for some time together ; and hence, many elements are common to the two systems of rehgious thought. But, ere long, the Indo-Iranian stream divided into two parts, which were never to re-unite. Each of the two systems of faith now received its own special development. In India, Yarima was gradually divested of his varuuaiost . his high. serene majesty. Even m Yedio times Indra, the position in tumultuous god of the lower sky, who had none of his lofty attributes, was exalted into the place of Yaruna ; and other gods were gradually multiplied. But in Iran the authority of Ahura Mazda {i.e., the 2hura wise Lord^) became more fully recognized than before. His moral attributes also were never oh- e^i^tlrof scured. Still, Ahura Mazda faUs very far below ^^l^^^"' the divinity who is revealed in the Jewish Scrip tures. He is not a purely spiritual being. He is f ^^^^^'^ being. ' Haug does not admit that Mazda means wise. He renders itjoimt-creator, or creator of all. 14 The Zend-Avesta, and the The evil principle everlasting as truly as Ahura. Various representations concerningAhura. not omnipresent, nor omnipotent. Ha is not creator of all things ; for the Evil Principle, residing in primeval darkness, is from everlasting as truly as Ahura himself. There is an inconsistency in the statements regarding Ahura's relation to the Amesha-spentas (hteraUy, holy immortals), who are a kind of archangels. They are said to be seven; but this number is made up only by in cluding Ahura Mazda as one of them, — while yet, in many passages, he is said to have created them. Ahura is represented as praying for help even to such inferior divinities as Mithra, Anahit, Tistriya, and Y^yu, who preside respectively over the sun (see infra), the waters, the star Sirius, and the wind. Again, Ahura is repeatedly called " the greatest of the yazatas," — a name generaUy given to divini ties of the second class. There is also considerable confusion in the statements regarding his relation to Spenta Mainyu, the good or beneficent spirit. Ahura is frequently identified with the latter ; but in many places a kind of distinction is preserved. Dr. Haug represents the G§,thas — which inculcate, as he maintains, the original Zoroastrian faith — as asserting that from the beginning there was a pair of beings — twins — in Ahura Mazda ; one of whom was the good spirit, and the other the evil spirit.^ ' They are the two moving causes in the universe, united from the beginning, and therefore called tvrius. They are present everywhere; in Ahura Mazda as well as in men. — Hamg's Essays, p. 303, Religion of the Parsis. 15 This seems to involve the tremendous consequence that evil is an essential attribute of the self-existent deity — a tenet with which we are reluctant to charge the Avesta. The view of Haug — that the two opposed spirits are in Ahura Mazda, — seems scarcely borne out by the original text ; and even if it were, we must not press too far the logical result of certain phrases. The Avesta in truth Noreasoned- contains no reasoned-out system ; but its whole in the Avesta. teaching asserts that to the nature of God evil is abhorrent. The Avesta has, indeed, a very imper fect conception of what sin and evil are ; but, so far as its knowledge goes, it denounces and detests them. Closely connected with Ahura is a hierarchy of ^^^j^^^ celestial beings, the Amesha-spentas,^ mentioned StSi" above. They are very generally adored along with '^'^'^° ^' Ahura. Thus : " We sacrifice to Ahura Mazda, bright and glorious; we sacrifice to the Amesha- spentas, aU-ruling, all-beneficent." ^ The function of these " holy immortals " is to inspect and aid the whole of the good creation. Their designations The designations are as follows : — of the hoiy immortals. 1. Yohumano (hterally, good mind). The name ^ The term Amesha-spentas was in later times corrupted into Amshaspands ; and the names now usually assigned them are as follows : — Bahman, Ardibahisht, Shahrivar, Spendermad, Khordad, and Amerdad. None of these names has any re semblance to the Hebrew name of any angel or archangel. 2 Haptan Yasht 6. 16 The Zend-Avesta, and the The genius originally denotes submission to the revealed law. of truth. ° •' He became the genius of truth, and also of flocks. Truth and 2. Asha vasistha {the best rectitude) denotes con- holiness. „ . T . , , , . f ormity to divme order ; truth and holiness. He presides over fire. He also cures diseases. Supreme 3. Khshathra vairya {supreme sovereignty). He represents royal dominion. He presides over metals. The genius 4. Spcnta Armaiti {holy wisdom). She became of the earth. • r. the genius of the earth. Health and 5, 6. Haurvatat and Ameret^t are generaUy immortality. . . . . „ mentioned together. Their names signify health and immortality. They denote the fulness of blessing. The In the GS,thas, the Amesha-spentas seem ab- spentas in stract ideas, or qualities, rather than personal beings. Their names sound hke attributes of Ahura Mazda ; and many passages appear to require them to be so understood. In others they are represented as his gifts bestowed on faithful worshippers. If not attributes, their relation to Ahura Mazda is such that we are almost compelled to conclude either that they were simply repetitions of him — seven being a kind of sacred number among the Aryans, as weU as various other races, — or that there were seven origiaal separate divinities, of whom Ahura was chief. In any case, the distinction between Ahura and the Amesha-spentas became clearer as time went on. They latterly formed a kind of celestial councU. Religion of the Parsis. 17 Yazatas. This term means loorthy of worship, The ... . -- , . - ., . Yazatas, or and IS occasionaUv used m that comprehensive inferior -*- celestial sense. More frequently, however, it denotes a ijeinga. very large class of beings who are inferior in point of dignity to the Amesha-spentas. Yery many of them resemble divinities of the Yedas; but others have no counterparts in the Indian system. Of the first kind are genii presiding over natural objects, especiaUy those connected with the four elements — fire and hght, air, earth, and water. Yery great importance is attached to Fire (Atar) ; oreat ., G t- \ , ' iinportance SO much SO that the Persians have often been called ^f^^^ *° par excellence fire-worshippers. Atar is the son of character- Ahura Mazda ; ^ he is the beneficent, the warrior ; (fire). he is a full source of glory, a full source of heahng. He is a most potent opponent of the evil principle.^ He is most quick and powerful in helping those that bring him dry wood, weU cleansed, and weU examined in the light of day.^ The fire is never to be aUowed to go out. Its altar must be kept pure; it is a heinous sin to poUute the sacred element in any way whatever. Airyaman is also a genius of fire. He is the Airyamana '' ° genius of much-desired. The prayer addressed to him is ^™- caUed the mightiest of speUs : the most healing of all cures for disease. Every form of evil flees before it. Sirozah i. and ii. 9. ^ Farvardin Yasht xxii. 77, 78. ' Atash NySyish 16, 18 Ttte Zend-Avesta, and the Great importancealso attached to Light. Mithra. Functionsand attri butes of Mithra. Spread of the worship of Mithra. Tistriva. Equal importance is attached to the genii con nected with Light. A very high place among these is assigned to Mithra. He is originaUy the god of the luminous heaven. As such he knows everything ; having a thousand ears and ten thou sand eyes. He is strong, sleepless, ever watching. He is the lord of wide pastures. He swings in his hands a club with a hundred knots, the strongest of aU weapons. With arms uphfted he drives ia a beautiful chariot of gold, which is drawn on one wheel by four swift horses, hving on heavenly food, and deathless, whose forefeet are shod with gold, and their hind feet with sUver. He is the strongest, the most vahant, the most active, the most fiend- smiting of all gods. He precedes the undying, swift-horsed sun ; which, in later days, came to be identified with him. The praises heaped upon Mithra make him almost equal to Ahura Mazda, with whom he is especially associated, — " May Mithra and Ahura, the high gods, come to our help ! " ^ It was towards the Christian era that the worship of Mithra, mixed apparently with cruel rites borrowed from Babylon, spread far and wide in the west. Another exalted being is Tistriya, the genius of the star Sirius. He presides over the first month of summer. He is the great leader of the fixed stars in their contest with the planets; for, sin- ' Mihir Yasht 113. Religion of the Parsis. 19 gularly enough, these two classes of beings are a leader in 1 i 1 J 1 - T • f 1 *^^ strife opposed to each other m the great strife between between ..... . good and good and evU. Tistriya is the chief author of rain ; <'^- he is the chief opponent of Apaosha, the fiend who causes drought. Tistriya, in the shape of a beau- conflict with tiful white horse with golden ears and harness, meets the fiend in the shape of a black horse, black with black ears, black vdth a black back, black with a black taU, stamped with brands caus ing terror. They meet, hoof against hoof, and fight for three days and three nights. Tistriya is beaten and flees. He loudly complains that men his defeat. do not sacrifice to him as they do to other yazatas ; otherwise, he would have had the strength of ten horses, ten camels, ten buUs, ten mountains, and ten rivers. Ahura Mazda comes to his aid by His rescue. offering him a sacrifice. He returns and van quishes the fiend ; and then come wind and cloud and rain and sleet, and the seven continents of the world are soon refreshed by " the friendly showers, the fertUizing waters." ^ Ahura Mazda says of Ahura . . . Mazda's "the bright and glorious Tistriya," " I have created testimony a a J , concerning him as worthy of sacrifice, prayer, propitiation, and ^'™- glorification as myself, Ahura Mazda." Of the genii of the waters the most celebrated is oeniiofthe IT- 1 AT • Tvaters. Ardvi sura Anahit, i.e., the high, powerful, undefiled. An^Mt. She descends from the region of the stars. She is 1 Tir Yasht 20-33. 20 The Zend-Avesta, cmd tht What she does. Descriptionof her. wide-spreading, health- giving, herd-increasing, fold- increasing. She guards living beings, as a shepherd does his flock. She has a thousand reservoirs and a thousand channels, each as large as a man could ride across in forty days, mounted on a good horse. Ahura Mazda created for her four horses — wind, rain, cloud, and sleet — so that it is con- tinuaUy blowing, raining, haihng, or snowing on earth. She has a golden necklace on her beautiful neck, and golden rings in her ears. The description of the goddess is very graphic ; and it has been suggested that it must have been drawn from the inspection of a statue raised in her honour. This is possible, as Artaxerxes Mnemon erected statues to her, and is said to have introduced her worship among the Persians.^ She seems to have become identified with the Babylonian goddess Mylitta, whose attributes were ascribed to the genius of the waters; although originally the latter was very un- likein character to the immoral " queen of heaven." Vegetable world. Homa, How the Avesta speaks of it. Of the productions of the vegetable world the most celebrated was Homa, or Haomo. The Homa is a plant with thick stalks and yeUow flowers, growing chiefly on the mountains of Ghilan in northern Persia. The Avesta speaks of it in the most exalted terms. It flourishes in resplendent ^ It existed, however, before his time, for Herodotus mentions it. Religion of the Pcorsis. 21 glory on "the highest height" of the heavenly Effects of ..... , its juice. mountain Hara Berezaiti ; ^ its, juice cures all ills of mind and body. The juice is extracted by pound ing the plant with a pestle in a mortar. It is the enlivening, the beautiful, the lordly, the golden- eyed,^ the victorious,^ and the giver of victory. It is the most precious part of the offering. Later Parsusm — though not the Avesta — speaks of two Homas, — a terrestrial one which is yeUow, and a celestial one which is pure white. This exaltation of Homa in the Avesta reminds us of the position assigned in the Yeda to Soma. (The two words are the same, with the usual dialectic difference.) Soma, among the Hindus, became a stUl mightier deity than Homa, being sometimes caUed the creator of heaven and earth. The spirits of the air are not of much importance, oenii of the The most important is Yayu — the wind; who is said to belong in part to the good, and in part to the bad, creation. The reason of this distinc tion is obvious; but it is remarkable that the same division is not made in the case of fire and water. Of the spirits of the earth the most important is ^^^h* '^^ Spenta Armaiti, who is also one of the Amesha spentas. 1 Gosh Yasht, 17. '' Ashi Yasht 37. ^ Bahram Yasht 57- 22 The Zend-Avesta, and the Divinitiesnot known to the Hindus. Sraosha the genius of obedience. The beings hitherto mentioned, with the excep tion of Anahit, were originaUy common to the Indo-Iranian race. There are other divinities who are of purely Iranian origin, and unknown in India. The most important of these are the following. Sraosha. This name is derived from a verb signi fying to hear. Sraosha is the genius of obedience to the law. He is a mighty -speared and lordly divin ity ; taU in form, fiend-smiting, the best protector of the poor, guarding the faithful like a shepherd's dog. Like Mithra, he never sleeps ; he watches aU the world with club uphfted, from the hour when the sun is down ; indeed, since " the two spirits made the world " he has never slept ; night and day he battles with the demons. His strong arm smites, and their skulls are shattered by the blow. The Law (daena) and the holy formulse or spells are also worshipped as divine. So are the sacred books, especiaUy the Gathas. Sacrifice is offered to them, and iiiey are frequently invoked for aid. Ashi Yanguhi {^ood piety) is highly celebrated. She is beautiful ; her rays are far-piercing ; she brings aU earthly blessings. Splendid garments, and hoards of silver and gold brought from distant lands are the portion of her votaries. A very remarkable class of divinities is that of the Fravashis. There is considerable obscurity — ^not The holy formulae. TheFravashis— a remark.. able class of beings, Religion of the Parsis. 23 to say contradiction — in the descriptions of them. Originally they probably were the souls of the what they T T 1 . p . . . yfeie and dead; but, m process of time, all hvmg beings — came to animals, as weU as men — sky, waters, earth, fire, and plants, were behoved to have each a fravashi. Beings yetunbornpossess them. Even Ahura Mazda has a fravashi. The fravashi seems sometimes a kind of guardian angel ; sometimes it nearly cor responds with the archetypal ideas of the Platonic philosophy. It is quite possible that the original conception of the fravashi was modified in later times by Babylonian ideas. " The awful fravashis of the faithful" are irresistible, overpowering. Ahura Mazda confesses that they bring him. assistance ; indeed, it is through their brightness and glory that he maintains the sky and the life-giving waters ; and had not the fravashis of the faithful helped him, the whole material world would have faUen under the power of the demons. Space is also worshipped.'- So is Time, There space and are both " the sovereign time of the long period," and " time without bounds." Space and Time are not personified ; they have no genius specially connected with them. The position held by " boundless Time " has led to some controversy. A text wliich means "in boundless Time"^ had been rendered by AnquetU " by boundless Time " ; and on this mainly was founded the belief that ' Larger Sirozah 30, 21. = Vand. xix. 9. 24 The Zend-Avesta, and the The whole of the good creation is worshipped. infinite Time was the supreme divinity of the Avesta. '^ Undoubtedly an influential sect oi Zoroastrians — the Zarvanites — ^held this doctrint in the time of the Sasanian kings ; and indeed it had been known from before the Christian era. StUl, it is certainly not the doctrine of the Avesta proper ; it is a later refinement introduced by specu lative minds. It seems needless to go into greater detail. Suffice it to say that there is nothing in the whole of the good creation that is not held to be deserving of worship. Prayers are addressed to human souls, the souls of animals, vegetables, springs of water, rivers, mountains, the earth, the wind, the sky, the stars, etc., etc. In the case of those objects that have a presiding divinity, it must be carefuUy ¦ noted that the homage is rendered both to the divinity and the outward object. It is often diffi cult to say which is intended ; in fact, the mind of the worshipper oscUlates between them, and fre quently blends, not to say confounds, the two. But so it was in Greece and Rome, — the river and the river-god were the same, yet different; — and so it is among the Hindus. The question as to the real object of the invocation is less difficult when an abstract conception — a quahty or a feehng — is exalted to divinity. In such cases the abstract idea is personahzed and worshipped. In other ^ So Gibbon, and many more. Worship of abstract ideas. prayers. Religion of the Parsis. 25 words, the being who presides over, or inspires, the feehng, is the object addressed ; there are not two objects. Even so the Greeks and Romans wor shipped the goddess of love, the goddess of -wisdom, the god of war, and so on. The only peculiarity lies in the great extent to which the Zoroastrian carries the personifications and deifications. We may quote the following prayer, offered on specimen of the last day of each month, as giving a good idea ofthe remarkable manner in which different objects of worship are thrown together in the invocations. 30(A day. {.Dedicated to) Aneran {i.e. Anaghra, or Infinite Light. ) We sacrifice to the eternal and sovereign luminous space. We sacrifice to the bright Gar6nmana [heaven]. We sacrifice to the sovereign place of eternal weal. We sacrifice to the Chinvat bridge, made by Mazda. We sacrifice to Ap^m Napat, the swift-horsed, the high and shining lord, who has many wives. We sacrifice to the water made by Mazda and holy. We sacrifice to the golden and tall Homa. We sacrifice to the enhvening Homa, who makes the world grow. We sacrifice to Homa, who keeps death far away. We sacrifice to the pious and good Blessing. We sacrifice to the awful, powerful, cursing thought of the -wise, a god. We sacrifice to all the holy gods of the heavenly world. We sacrifice to all the holy gods of the material world. 1 praise, I invoke, I meditate on, and we sacrifice to, the good, strong, beneficent Fravashis of the holy We proceed now to speak of evU beings. The Evii beings Avesta, as Professor Darmesteter rather ,'5arcasti- cally remarks, is " very rich in demons." Daevas, urujas, yatus, pairikas, dvarants, dregvants, and 26 The Zend-Avesta, and the The chief evil being, Angro Mainyus (Ahriman) , the hurtful spirit. SO on ; we have them of varied classes, and in numbers without number.^ The chief of these — and the creator of aU of them — is Angro mainyus or Ahriman. His name in Zend means hurtful spirit. He is from aU eternity ; he is whoUy e-vil; his original dweUing was in primeval, uncreated darkness, which existed in boundless space, far apart from the primeval, un created light. Angro mainyus was at first ignorant of the productions, and apparently of the existence, of the good spirit ; but when he became aware of these, he " broke into the fair creation,"^ determined to counterwork, and if possible destroy, it. For 1 The dualism of the Avesta has sometimes been called the product of philosophic thought. But the Medo-Persian, while strong in action, was in speculation weak. And dualism exists among some very simple races; for example, the Santals of India. These hold the sun-god to be good. AU other super human beings are malevolent ; and every calamity comes from the demons. Even so, the Zoroastrian ascribed all evil to the demons. Demons were therefore multiphed ; for he had many evils to contend -with. IJnhke, the Hindus in their progress down the rich Gangetic valley, he had to maintain a perpetual struggle for existence. Cold blasts from the Caspian and the Elburz mountains chilled his blood aud killed his crops ; in summer he suffered from drought ; and he was perpetually ia danger from the incursions of savage nomades. AU such misfortunes were, he beUeved, the work of devils. Then, as the conception of the moraj character of Ahura Mazda was developed, the conception of his adversary, Ahriman, was developed proportionaUy ; the brighter Ught caused a darker shadow. DiiaUsm thus sprung from no profound speculation. A higher idea of Divine power or a deeper insight iato the moral government of the world would have checked its growth. Farvardin Yasht 77. Religion of the Parsis. 27 every pure being created by the good spirit, Angro mainyus created a corresponding e-vil being ; in place of health, he made disease;^ and for life, death. The good spirit (we have seen) is surrounded by six immortal holy ones. Angro mainyus ms council. created six arch-demons, the grisly council of heU, whose very names seem mockeries of those of the pure hierarchy of heaven. The entire struggle The great between good and evil — hght and darkness — lasts between ° ° _ good and for twelve thousand years ; and we are now in the j^^j^^*' thick of the fight. AU creationis divided, andranged ^^^'^"^ in two hostUe camps. Angels, men, animals, plants, and inanimate nature are so. Even the heavenly bodies are divided : the fixed stars are on the side of the right, whUe the planets are with the evil one. It is not easy (as we have said above) to see why this distinction between stars and planets is made ; but, for the sake of symmetry, some division of the heavenly bodies was required. The side assigned to animals is often no less surprising ; thus, frogs, turtles, cats, and even ants are partizans of the demon. But the world-wide contest is not to endure Not to ^ endure for for ever. Zoroaster was created by Ahura Mazaa to e™r. oppose the great enemy and all his auxUiary hosts. Zoroaster was the only being that could daunt Angro mainyus.^ He smote the fiend -with the 1 He created 99,999 diseases. A favourite number iu the Avesta. " Ashi Yasht 20. 28 The Zend-Avesta, and the holy speUs, and especially -with the one called Ahuna vairya (or Honover), which was as strong a weapon as a stone of the size of a house. StiU, however, the battle raged. Three sons of Zoroaster ¦will yet be miraculously born,^ who wUl carry on his work, in which the last of them — Soshyant, or Sosiosh — wiU be completely victorious. Angro mainyus wiU be overthrown ; he will be cast into heU, and (as is generally held) destroyed. Then comes the frasho-kereti, the perpetuation of life. The fair creation that had been slain by the fiend revives ; the good hve in a renovated world ; and everlasting joy prevaUs. Its tmal issue. The battle field. The Avesta does not explain how the good spirit left the region of imcreated light, and the bad spirit that of uncreated darkness. Both of these regions are finite in extent, existing in infinite space ; and the battle-field hes between them. Garonmana is often mentioned as the dweUing- place of Ahura Mazda. The name means "the house of song." Ahura there sits on a throne of gold, surrounded by the Amesha spentas and Yazatas. Paradise is often identified with it. HeU is full of darkness and horror. It is situated 1 We might explain how ; but our readers would not pardon us if we did. The whole representation is outrageously extra vagant. Yet the Avesta stands committed to the worst part oi it. See Yasht xiii. 62. Religion of the Pctrsis. 29 in the north, under the earth ; its mouth is beside the mountain Arezura. In heaven the good are The food of n , . , , ... . . . heaven and fed with butter made m spring ; m hell the wicked iieU- eat poison, and have to endure a poisonous stench. It would seem that the good man at death is con ducted to Garonmana, the heaven of Ahura ; but that (as has just been said) the earth after its renovation becomes his dweUing-place. II. The Ritual. The foUowing remarks may suffice as a state ment of the chief ritual observances of the Parsis. We shall speak in succession of their care of the sacred fire, their prayers, offerings, and purifica tions. The fire is kept in a special buUding called 1^^^^'^^^ Atash Bahram ; in the innermost, and most sacred di-vision of the building. This is separated from the rest by a waU ; but the door remains open. The fire is kept burning day and night ; it would be regarded as an a-wful calamity if it were to be extinguished. It is constantly watched by two priests. The fire is on a stone altar, and is -within an urn, which is occasionally of sUver, but gene raUy of bronze. The urn may be of any size ; AnquetU saw one which was three feet and a half in height. The fire is large, and the fiames rise n is fed high. It is fed chiefly -with sandal wood. Ifo wood chiefly. 30 The Zend-Avesta, and the moist or green wood can be used. The priest has a pair of tongs about one foot and a half in length, ¦with which he supplies large pieces of wood as re- other fuel, quired. Incense of gum benzoin is also burnt along ¦with the sandal wood ; and for this a large spoon is used. There is a room in the buUding for storing sandal wood, quantities of which are brought by worshippers ; and this the priests cut up into suitable pieces. Everything issuing from the mouth defiles; hence the lower part of the face of the priest is covered with a veU of mushn, to prevent his breath reaching the sacred element. Prayer, ho-w Prayers are chaunted memoriter by the priest offered in J r pubuc. (Mobed), m front of the fire. Every portion of the day has its allotted prayer. WhUe these are offered within the inner apartment, the people -without read or repeat prayers, facing the fire. These are in Zend, in the Gujar§,ti character ; they are pronounced generally -without being understood. Every man prays by himself; there is no common worship. Sometimes the worshipper may add an extempore supplication of his own in the vernacular. Women occasionaUy attend. WhUe praymg, the priest holds in his left hand the barsom (beresma). This originaUy was a bundle of small twigs, generaUy of date or pome granate, bound tightly together ¦with a small twig. It is now "generaUy composed of smaU sUver rods. Religion of the Parsis. '"^l The priest sits ¦with his legs crossed, when repeating the prayers, holding the barsom in his left hand. Prayers for the dead are recited daUy in the Atesh Bahram. Richer people generally have the service performed in their o'wn houses; but poor people come to the fire-temple. The Mobed performs this service in the forenoon, chaunting a particular kind of prayer caUed Afrigan. It is especially during the recitation of these prayers that the barsom is now used. So much for pubhc worship; but even the The . . ., ., _ domestic fire domestic fire is always sacred, and must be treated is also •^ _ sacred. as such. It, too, must never be extinguished. In the first part of the night, in the second, and the third, "Fire caUs for help to the master of the house : ' Up ! put on thy girdle over thy clothes, wash thy hands, take wood, bring it to me, and let me burn bright.' " ^ This threefold call must be obeyed. Ifow-a-days the Parsis usuaUy cover the fire with ashes at night, to prevent its going out ; and in the morning the first food it gets must be sandal wood. The mistress of the house attends to this duty. A handful of sandal wood is put on the fire by each member of the f amUy. We may next speak of offerings. When asked °^Sr how the demon could be repeUed by him, Zoro aster said: "The sacred mortar, the sacred cup, implements 1 Vandidad xviii. 18-22. cup. 32 The Zend-Avesta, and the the Homa, and the words taught by Mazda ; these are my weapons, my best weapons." ^ AU these things occupy an important place in connexion with offerings. mortar'"'^* The mortar (havana) is of metal, as is also the pestle. In it are pounded small t^wigs of the Homa plant, which was referred to above (p. 20). Water is added to the sap which is expressed, and the mixture when filtered is coUected in a "sacred cup." When the due prayers have accompanied the process of preparation, this hquid becomes endowed with almost divine attributes. The sacred The Soma of the Hindus was fermented and intoxicating ; and no doubt it was the great exhUa- ration produced by the beverage that led a simple- minded people to ascribe to it such transcendant attributes and powers. The Avesta supphes no evidence of the Iranians confounding intoxication with a di^vine afflatus.^ So far well ; only, no ex planation then remains of the boundless and endless laudation of Homa. The Magi seem never to have asked themselves why tasting the least drop of this disagreeable drink should destroy a thousand devils.^ The great Iranian heroes of the ancient times ' 'Vandidad xix. 9. ^ Ahura Mazda is described as "never intoxicated" (Vand. xix. 20). To Indra, on the contrary, the Veda says: "Thy inebriety is intense." = Yasna x. 14 (De Harlez, p. 287). Religion of the Parsis. 33 offered up animal sacrifices. Thus Thraetono Animai m -, 4 1 • -rr T • • p sacrifice was offered up to Ashi Yanguhi a sacrifice of a hun- offered in ¦*¦ ^ ancient dred male horses, a thousand oxen, and ten thou- *'^y=- sand lambs.^ The practice of animal sacrifice was continued to a late period; for Xerxes sacrificed at the site of Troy, " a thousand oxen, whUe the Magi poured out hbations in honour of the ancient heroes."^ Animal sacrifices are not unknown in the Yandidad. Thus, for a certain very grave offence the guilty person must " slay a thousand head of small cattle, and offer the entrails to the fire." * In other cases also animal offerings Not so now. were required, untU in comparatively recent times ; but aU such observances seem now to have entirely But the normal offering was different. It was xhe presented by Ahura Mazda himself to Anahita, offering. "with homa and fiesh, the baresma, the wisdom of the tongue, the deeds, the hbations, and the rightly spoken words." * (The wisdom of the tongue means, no doubt, the sacred formulae.) In the present day, however, the flesh (myazda) has ceased to be offered. The priest takes the cup containing the Homa in his right hand, raises it in his right hand before the sacred fire, and drinks a smaU quantity. The rest is poured into a weU. 1 Aban Yasht 33. ^ Herodotus vii. 43. So also the Magi "propitiated the river Strymon by sacrificing white horses to it." — Herod, vii, 113. 8 Vand. xviii. 70 * Aban Yasht 1 7. 3i The Zend-Avesta, and the The Homa offering is made in private houses as weU as in fire-temples ; and the ceremony should be performed twice a day. The other offerings are chiefly bread, flowers, fruits, — especiaUy dates and pomegranates — leaves, mainly those of pomegranates, branches of homa, and less frequently fresh milk. Offerings are stUl made to the sea, consisting chiefly of flowers and fruits, such as cocoa nuts. On one remarkable occasion in Bombay there was an offering of thirty (if it was not three hundred) tubs of sugar candy. Purificationfrom ceremonial defilementis of supremeimportance. Means of purification. Ceremonial purity is ¦with the Parsi a matter of supreme importance. Defilement is easUy incurred, and hence the means of purification are earnestly prescribed in the Avesta. The glory of the Zoro astrian law is said to consist in its so fuUy and clearly declaring the ceremonies needful for cleans ing the defiled. The distinction between ceremonial and moral defilement is far from clear in the Avesta. The one is regarded as equally dreadful with the other, and as requiring equal expiation. Nay, the Avesta would regard the crime of murder as less heinous than that of a single man carrying a dead body to the sepulchre. The great material agents of purification are water and gomez, or nirang (urina bovis). But the efficacy of these agents depends on their right pre- Religion of the Parsis. 35 paration and application. Should the requisite ceremonies and prayers have been neglected, the potency of the means is gone ; and then, as Anquetil puts it, there is "no purification, no purifier, no priest, and no Parsi! " Everything that issues from the human body is regarded as dead, and as belonging to the demons. Even the hair and nails when cut off are the same ; Disposal of 1 1 1- j_ ¦ ¦ - 1 • hair and and elaborate prescriptions are given as to their naiis. disposal. If these rites are neglected, and the hair and naUs aUowed to f aU about as they may, the power of the demons is increased as much as if a sacrifice were offered them. Holes must therefore be dug, far away from fire, water, and the barsom, and the naUs and hair must be deposited separately in these; three, six, or nine furrows must be drawn around the holes with a knife, and certain prayers must be offered. When aU this is rightly per formed, a certain bird eats up thenaUs (it does not seem that the bird does the same to the hair) ; otherwise they would have become so many spears, knives, bows, arrows, and shng-stones in the hands of the demons. It is right to mention, however, that these ceremonies are often neglected by modern Parsis, at least in India. The great source of defilement is contact with a §om™ntact dead body.^ In death is the chief triumph of the body. ' " It grieves the sun, 0 holy Zoroaster, to shine upon a man defiled by the dead ; it gi-ieves the moon j it grieves the star's." 36 The Zend-Avesta, and the demon. Hence the dread of death, which is suffi ciently marked among the Hindus, becomes stiU more intense among the Parsis. The moment the breath is out, the fiend (Druj) Nasu rushes upon it from the regions of the north, in the shape of a raging fly. The body is now utterly unclean, and pollutes every one near it. But the demon can be expelled by bringing in " a dog with four eyes " — a white dog, according to modern usage, — and the Druj, as soon as the dog looks at the body, flies back to hell. ^ Soh'cases From the living who have been poUuted by S'lxpXd! contact with the dead, the Druj is expeUed by the application of consecrated water and nirang, — in some cases by using only one of these. By a most complex form of ceremonies the demon is driven from post to post — aU do^wn from the top of the head to the point of the toes; and when the prescribed prayers accompany all this, the triumph is complete, and the baffled fiend files back to the regions of the north "in the shape of a raging fly, ¦with knees and taU sticking out, all stained with stains, and (Vand. ix. 41). Or as Professor De Harlez renders it : "It is with regret the sun shines on the impure ; it is in spite of them selves that the moon and stars give him Ught." 1 Vandidad x-rii. 9, 10. Darmesteter holds the text to be genuine wliich declares the corpse to be in the power of the druj (demon) untU the dog has seen it or "eaten it up, or untfl flesh-eating birds have flown to it" (Vand. vu. 3). We have the same thing distinctly mentioned of the dog in Vand. viii. 3. Religion of the Parsis. 37 like in appearance to the foulest monsters."^ About thirty parts of the body are mentioned, from which the demon has to be successively expelled ; it is a terribly long battle, but it ends in certain victory. The greatest of aU the purifications is the The chief ^ ^ ^ ^ _ purification Barashnum, a ceremony which lasts for nine nights. ^ *^ashnum (The signification of the name is not fully ascer tained.) Originally the rite was used only as a means of removing the defilement arising from contact with a corpse of a dog or a man. But it has long been used to cleanse away defilement in other cases. Nine holes have to be dug in a space cleared from trees ; a furrow has to be drawn round each -with a metal knife, and other furrows up to the number of twelve ; three holes hold water, six hold nirang ; prayers are recited ; the unclean per son is sprinkled -with nirang from a spoon of brass or lead; the hands are then washed first, otherwise everything goes wrong ; then the various parts of the body are sprinkled, as mentioned in last para graph, untU finally the demon, whose power has been becoming weaker at each sprinkling, is com pletely beaten off and driven away to hell. The new-born child must be washed with water, — not generaUy now with nirang ; before this, it is im pure. Before the age of fifteen, and generaUy be- initiation .... ¦ I n rj I- ™*o Zoro- tween nine and eleven, initiation mto the Zoroastrian astrianism how per- f aith takes place by means of prayers, purifications, formed. ' Vandidad viii. 71. 38 The Zend-Avesta, and the and the putting on of the husti'^ (a string made of seventy-two woollen threads twisted together), and the sadarah or sacred shirt, which is of mushn -with short sleeves. If after the age of fifteen any one walks four steps without these accoutrements, the demons wither him up, and he himself becomes a hobgoblin. All of this applies equally to men and women. Except during ablutions, the kusti and sadarah must be worn day and night. A spiritual teacher should be provided for the young Parsi. Morning Evcry moming fresh nirang is brought to the purification. •' ° ... house. The hands are dipped into it ; then a small quantity is apphed to the face, hands, and feet. But in greater purifications the hquid is drunk; three sips are taken. Then (probably to banish the taste) pomegranate leaves are chewed, — -'though this seems no part of the prescribed ritual. Treatmer.t When any one dies, men first wash the body, of the dead. ... . dress it in white garments, and lay it on a stone slab in the front room. The priest comes and reads prayers. The women are in the same room with the body, the men outside. During the last prayer a white dog, kept usually in the fire-temple, is brought near the corpse, and induced, if possible, to look at it. Two, now generaUy four, men lay the body on an iron bier. The dog is commonly ' The threads of the kusti can be spun only by the wives of the Mobeds. Religion of the Parsis. 39 brought in twice; and the whole ceremony may The funeral . procession. occupy forty minutes. Then the body is borne off by the four men — a fifth man preceding to clear the way, so that not even the shadow of an un believer may fall on the corpse. The Mobeds walk two and two, generally holding a hand kerchief between them. Ceremonies are performed The scene . "^ of the close to the dakhma — or "tower of sUence," as ceremonies. it is usually called in Enghsh. This is a circular pit, very deep, round which is a stone pavement about seven feet -wide. On this the corpses are ex posed naked. The ^ face of the dead is uncovered ; the birds of prey come in multitudes, and very soon the flesh is aU devoured. Every morning the bones are swept down into the great receptacle — the pit. Every day of the month is consecrated to some Hoiy days. divinity. Besides this, the 1st, 8th, 15th, and 23rd days of the month are sacred to Ahura Mazda; from the 3rd to the 8th to the Amesha spentas. The six Gahambars are in commemoration of the six periods of creation.^ The last is the most im portant. It lasts ten days — from 10th to 20th March — which is the end of the year. It is espe cially marked by ceremonies in commemoration of ' There is something touching in the expression used regarding the dead man : " Lay him down, clothed with the light of heaven, and beholding the sun." — Vand. vi. 41. ° See Hang's Essays, p. 192. 40 The Zend-Avesta, and the Commemoration and services for the dead. Festivals. the dead. During these ten days the souls of the dead are believed to quit their dwellings in the other world, and revisit their relatives on earth. Besides this, there are special services for the dead, performed on the day of the month on which they died. The New Year is a great festival. There is a festival in honour of Mithra at the autumnal equinox. Every new moon and full moon are festivals. The three great prayers, viz. : — The Ahuna vairya. Prayers have already been frequently mentioned as connected -with various rites. But there are prayers for every division of the day. There are three different gahs between morning and evening, of different lengths ; and two gaJis from evening to morning, each six hours long. Different prayers are appointed for each gah. There are three great prayers, the potency of which is extolled continually and in the strongest possible language. These are the Ahuna vairya, the Ashem Yohu, and the Y^nM Hatam. The Ahuna vairya is so caUed from the three initial words YathA ahu vairyo. It existed before heaven, earth, water, or fire; and it is the most effective weapon that Ahura Mazda himself can use to crush the demons. It is much to be regretted that of this very important part of the Avesta, we have at least six conflicting versions from scholars Religion of the Parsis. 41 of high name. In the midst of this perplexity, the ordinary Parsi will console himself with the reflection that the efficacy of the prayer depends entirely on the right sounds being uttered, and not at all on the sense attached to them. But we can not be certain even of the sounds ; for the com mentary on the prayer given in the 19th chapter (Ha) of the Yasna must be founded on readings considerably different from those which the present MSS. contain. The translation of Haug is the Hang's . . translation. foUo-wmg : As a heavenly lord is to be chosen, se is an earthly master (spiritual guide) for the sake of righteousness , to be the giver of the good thoughts, the good actions of life towards Mazda; and the dominion is for the lord (ahura) whom he has given as a protector to the poor." With all possible respect to the learned man who supplies this version it is surely impossible that this can be the mean ing of the most potent, " most flend-smiting " prayer in the Avesta. Professor de Harlez DeHariez's ^ '' ^ paraphrase. paraphrases it thus : "As there exists a supreme master, perfect, so there is a master of the law estab lished to maintain and propagate holiness ; the regu lator of good thoughts and of actions springing out of the order of things referring to Mazda. Sovereign power belongs to Ahura ; he has constituted him {viz., the master of the law) protector {shepherd) of the poor." Professor Darmesteter renders the prayer Darmes- ^ ^ fetor's as foUows : " The tvill of the Lord is the law of holi- reading. 42 The Zend-Avesta, and the The Ashem Vohu prayer. The riches of Vohumano shall be given to him who works in the world for Mazda, and wields according to the will of Ahura the poiver he gave him to relieve the poor." The sense of the last render ing is clear ; but it is not easy to see how the Professor extracts it from the present text. Finally, let it be remembered that holiness or righteousness, as used in this passage and elsewhere in the Avesta, merely means ceremonial purity.^ The Ashem Yohu prayer, which, if not quite so potent, is used stiU more frequently than the Ahuna vairya, is translated by Haug as foUows : "Righteousness is' the best good ; a blessing it is ; a blessing he to that which is righteousness towards perfect righteousness." Darmesteter makes it — " Holiness is the best of all good. Well is it for that holiness which is the perfection of holiness." We leave our readers to judge for themselves of the value of these much-lauded invocations, — if invocations they be. We need not add the third great " prayer " — the Y^nhe Hatam. Variousterms of homage and invocation. The terms of homage and invocation used in the prayers are various. One frequently employed is yazamaide, which Darmesteter renders literally, we sacrifice to. It also, however, means we worship, 'So even Haug admits. ' ' It means what is right or meritorious in a ritualistic or materialistic sense, and does not necessarily imply holiness." — Essays, p. 141, Religion of the Parsis. 43 we pray to.^ Other terms signify to invoke, to praise, to glorify, to' celebrate. These words seem to be used indiscriminately ; at least, no distinction can be perceived between the homage rendered to higher and to lower beings ; assuredly there is no such difference implied as is drawn by certain theologians between dulia and Idtria. But finally on this head. The prevailing prayerisa • 1 A -IP ^^^^ of conception of prayer m the Avesta is that of incantation a spell- or incantation. Sometimes, we hear of formulse that are on no account to be communi cated except to the nearest relatives. When we see how prayer is thus transformed into a species of conjuration, we cannot be surprised that the practice of magic, as the very name implies, has been so often traced back to the Magi, the followers of Zoroaster. It is remarkable that prayer itself is prayed to ia the Avesta. The Ahuna vairya is especially thus honoured.^ Fasting occupies so important a place in most uo systems of religion that its entire absence from the aUowod. hst of prescribed duties in the Avesta attracts the more attention. There is no trace of asceticism in the Avesta precepts or the Parsi practice. The reader wUl at once see how much is involved in ' De Harlez renders it, npt so exactly — we honour •^ Hormazd Yasht 22, etc. 44 The Zend-Avesta, and the Zoroastrian ideas of drinking,and health. this characteristic. Milton speaks of " spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet " ; but to the Zoro astrian such language appears entirely ridiculous.^ He holds that by good eating and drinking he keeps his body in health, and so fits himself to carry on a more vigorous warfare against the demon and all his works. Certainly, the typical Parsi is at the opposite pole of thought from the pale recluse, worn to a skeleton by abstinence and ¦vigUs ; and when the bodUy mortification is carried to still greater lengths, the Zoroastrian can only trace the self-denial to the influence of the demons. In like manner, cehbacy and monasticism can never in any way be approved by Zoroastrians. SeU-denial traced to the influence of demons. Di-rision of humanduty. III. The Ethical and Judicial Systems. It has been mentioned above that Ahura Mazda has no immoral attributes ascribed to him. As no thing e^vil can form a part of his worship, so nothing evil should be practised by his worshippers. The Avesta frequently ¦ mentions a threefold division of human duty, viz.. Good Thought, Good Word, and Good Deed. It dweUs earnestly on the importance of Truth fulness. Mithra, the divinity of Light, is especially the guardian of Truth ; and " to he to Mithra," or ' He who fiUs himself -with food is fiUed with the good spirit much more than he -who does not so. — Vand. iv. 48. Religion of the Parsis. 45 perjure oneself, is a very grievous sin. Promises Duties and and contracts must be faithfuUy observed. Kindness and charity to followers of the true faith are inculcated. Theft, robbery, personal assault, and murder are aU strongly reprobated. Marriage is much encouraged. It is imphed attfchedtaf that monogamy was the general rule. Yet one ™^™=«'- extraordinary practice is recognized in the later books of the Avesta — marriage with the nearest of kin. The Parsis have naturally been slow to admit that brother was aUowed to marry with sister, and even mother ¦with son ; but the testimony of ancient authors leaves httle or no doubt as to the existence of such unnatural connexions.-'- The practice of prostitution, adultery, sodomy, ^™*^f™'^ and such crimes is strongly denounced. Sffences. ' See Yasna xiii. 28. The rendering of this verse by Prof. De Harlez agrees -with that of M. Hovelacque. It is as follows: " I praise marriage between relatives, pure, which is the greatest among marriages present or to come," etc. etc. Unless we are to discard the testimony of a multitude of Greek and Boman writers, marriages which we should call incestuous were pretty frequent among the Persians. It is for this reason the poet Catullus (Carmen xc. 4) exclaims against ' ' the impious rehgion of the Persians " (Persarum impia reUgio). See the question carefuUy examined by Dr. West, Pahlavi Texts, Part II. Appendix p. 389, etc. Between the 6th and 9th centuries after Christ, man-iages between the nearest of kin were earnestly recommended by the priests. Modern Parsis highly approve of the marriage of cousins german ; but they discourage the union of those more nearly allied in blood. 46 The Zend-Avesta, and the Agriculturegreatlyencouraged. The observance of magical rites is in a few cases mentioned and reprobated. The Avesta dweUs with all possible earnestness on the importance of agriculture. Its ideas on this subject are embodied in quaint, and some times coarse, phraseology ; but it is interesting to note the anxiety of the authors of the Avesta that the people should cease to be nomadic and take to a settled hfe. " Whoso cultivates barley cultivates righteousness." ^ The putting to death of the creatures of the e-vil principle was a high rehgious duty. If the di^vision of animals into good and bad had been less arbi trary, this might have caUed forth a half-approving snule ; the slaughter of tigers, serpents, and other noxious creatures being surely a good thing. But when we hear of tortoises, frogs, cats, ants, etc., being proscribed, we are somewhat startled. With all the efforts of the Avesta to be exact, there seems to be no division of fishes, and no clear division of birds, into good and bad. Every creature being either of divine or demoniac origin, this omission E-rilanimals must be killed. ' Vand. iii. 25, 31. Dr. Haug reminds us that there are metrical lines and rhymes on this subject introduced into the usuaUy very prosaic Vandidad, The chief metrical passage may be rendered thus : — When the barley appears, the demons pine ; When the barley is threshed, the demons whine ; When the barley is ground, the demons fly ; When the meal is prepared, the demons die. Religion of the Parsis. 47 is — on the principles of the Avesta itself — a grievous fault. The place assigned to the dog is very notable, ^^moe One entire division of the Avesta is devoted to the o**^^*°b- celebration of his excellence. The shepherd's dog and the house dog are highly lauded ; but the dog of dogs is the water dog, whoever he may be.^ The murder of such a dog is inconceivably heinous. "Sweetness and fatness "wiU never return to the place where it has been committed, untU the mur derer has been smitten to death, and the holy soul of the dog has been offered a sacrifice for three days and three nights, ¦with fire blazing, with the baresma tied, and the homa uplifted." ^ And the reason of all this is that out of every thousand common he-dogs and every thousand she-dogs two water-dogs are formed, one male and one female. We need not wonder, then, that the correct methods of feeding and breeding dogs are prescribed -with aU possible solemnity in the Avesta. Physical and ceremonial defilements are put on Piiysioai '' .*• and cere- a level ¦with moral offences. Contact with a dead J^^^g^ts body — especiaUy that of a man or dog — must with aU possible care be avoided. To bury, or burn, a corpse is an unpardonable crime. So is it for one man to carry a dead body. The punishments for offences are of various ments. ' The otter (?) Possibly the beaver, ¦' Vand. xiii, 172, 167, 48 The Zend-Avesta, and the kinds ; stripes, fines, imprisonment, and death. They are often capriciously disproportionate to the offence. We hear of five stripes with a horse whip, and of as many as two hundred. Man slaughter is visited with ninety stripes; but the man who gives bad food to a dog receives two hundred. There is much intricate legislation about the uncleanness of woman in child-birth and at other times ; but on this we wUl not dweU. A woman in chUd-birth suffering from fever and thirst is not absolutely debarred from water ; — but the penalty of drinking it is two hundred stripes ; the reason being that she is unclean and poUutes the holy element. For kUhng a water-dog the penalty is ten thousand stripes. Intricatelegislationabout women Partialexecutionof such legislation. Our readers wiU ask with some curiosity. Was such legislation ever practicaUy carried out? Cer tainly not in the earher Persian Idngdom; and probably not in all its fulness even under the Sasanian monarchs. The Yandidad supphes us with the priestly ideal of right and wrong— an ideal which we cannot conceive to have ever been completely reahzed. Conclusion. It is now time to give a brief statement of the impression left on the mind by the re^view ¦we have taken of the general teaching of the Avesta. Religion of the Parsis. 49 There are several characteristics which entitle the Zoroastrian faith to a high place among GentUe systems of religion. 1. It ascribes no immoral attributes to the object Merits of ''^ Zoroas. of worship. Ahura Mazda, the supreme divinity, tnanism. stands ethicaUy much higher than the popular gods of Pagan nations generaUy. The Avesta, as we have seen, retains much of nature-worship ; but evU qualities are never ascribed either to the physical object or the being who presides over it. 2, The Avesta sanctions no immoral acts as a part of worship. 3. None of the prescribed forms of worship is marked by cruelty. 4. In the great contest between hght and dark ness, the Avesta exhorts the true worshipper not to remain passive, but to contend ¦with all his might against the productions of the EvU Prin ciple. 5. One remarkable characteristic of the system is the absence of image-worship.^ 6. The Avesta never despairs of the future of humanity ; it affirms the final -victory of good over evU. In regard to all these points there is a striking |^^||; difference between Zoroastrianism and Hinduism. m^uS^ ' As has been mentioned above, image- worship was not wholly unkno-wn in ancient Persia. Contact -with Hindus led some of the Parsis in India into idolatry ; but all the educated agreed in condemning it. Differencebetween 50 The Zend-Avesta, and the other merits of Zoro astrianism. It is not easy to explain how the former system struggled successfully against that fatal gra-vitation downwards which made primitive Hinduism sink deeper and deeper in the mire ; but the fact, at all events, is undeniable. Assuredly, we have no wish to undervalue the importance of the great characteristics of Zoro astrianism that have now been mentioned ; and we might point to yet other merits, such as (7) its encouragement of agriculture, (8) its inculcation of truth in thought, word, and deed, (9) the position of respect it assigns to women, and (10) the kind ness towards, at least, Zoroastrians which it incul cates. StUl, it must be confessed that the creed of the Avesta is greatly wanting in many essential respects. It is by no means such a faith as en lightened reason can accept or defend. 1. We have seen that th= Avesta contains a mixture of various systems of thought, — a quasi monotheism, duahsm, and nature- worship. It has often been mentioned as a characteristic of the Bible that, although its composition extended over more than a thousand years, there is a strict unity of monotheistic belief running through it from Genesis to the Apocalypse. Such a harmony per vades no one portion of the Avesta; each great division contains confiicting elements. But (2) even in its highest representations of divinity the book is deplorably defective. A glance Itsdeficienciesand errors. It contains conflicting systems of thought. Its theism very defective. Religion of the Parsis. 51 at what has been said on page 13 -will clearly show this. Or take the formal enumeration of the divine attributes contained in the foUowing passage : — HoEMAZD Yasht. Ver. 5, Zarathustra said. Reveal to me that name of thine, Enumeration 0 Ahara Mazda, which is the greatest, the best, the fairest, the attributes. most efl'ective, the most fiend-smiting, the best-heahng, that destroys best the malice of devas and men ; 6, That I may afflict all devas and men ; that I may afflict aU Yatus and Pairikas ; that neither devas nor men may be able to afBict me, neither Yatus nor Pairikas, 7. Ahura Mazda answered him, "My name is the one of whom questions are asked, 0 holy Zarathustra ! My second name is the giver of herds. My third name is the strong one. My fourth name is perfect holiness. My fifth name is. All good things created by Mazda, the offspring of the holy principle. My sixth name is understanding. My seventh name is the one with understanding. My eighth name is knowledge. My ninth name is the one with knowledge. My tenth name is weal. My eleventh name is he who produces weal. My twelfth name is Ahura (the Lord). My thirteenth name is the most beneficent. My fourteenth name is he in whom there is no harm. My fifteenth name is the unconquerable. My sixteenth name is he who makes the true account. My seven teenth name is the aU-seeing. My eighteenth name is the healer. My nineijeenth name is the Creator. My twentieth name is Mazda (the knowing one). 9. Worship me, 0 Zarathustra, by day and by night -with offerings of hbations well accepted. I wiU come to thee for help and joy ; I, Ahura Mazda. The good holy Sraosha vdR come to thee for help and joy. The waters, the plants, and the fravashis of the holy ones wiU come to thee for help and joy. 52 The Zend-Avesta, and the Contrastwith Biblical conceptions. Zoroas trianisminferior to Sufiism. No worship of God prescribed. Ideas of ofierings to the gods. How little, after aU, do these twenty names convey to satisfy the needs and cra-vings of the human soul ! No idea is hinted of the fatherhood of God. How sublime and melting is that one utter ance of the Bible, " God is Love," in comparison with aU this laboured and labouring description of Ahura Mazda ! With respect to the idea of communion with God, not only does Zoroastrianism fall immeasur ably below Christianity, — it is decidedly inferior even to Sufiism, which is a later production of the Persian mind itself. 3. With regard to the worship of God. There doubtless were deep meanings connected with the rite of animal sacrifice, as practised by the ancient heroes; but the Avesta does not prescribe it, and, in overlooking animal sacrifice, it certainly parted -with truths both venerable and precious. Prayer in the Avesta becomes, as we have seen, very much a magical formula ; the sounds of which are aU-important, not the sense. No common worship is prescribed, — the worshipper prays for himself, or is prayed for by the priest. That blending of hearts and interests which is imphed in the subhme invocation — Our Father, which art in heaven — is not known to the Avesta. 4, The idea -which the Avesta has of the offerings presented to the di-vinities is as low as that of Religion of the Parsis. 53 the Yedas. The divinities generaUy need food; they are aU strengthened by praise. 5. Our readers wiU remember that Ahura Mazda neither receives nor asks any peculiar homage. He is honoured as almost every object in the good creation is honoured. Although the Avesta never, or scarcely ever, deviates into the pantheism which confounds the Creator with the creation, yet, in so Degrading 1 ¦ • 1 11 • 1 ideas of far as worship is concerned, it is chargeable with ood degrading the Creator to an equality with his own productions. In this respect there is the strongest possible contrast between the Avesta and the Bible. The contrastbetween the latter is strongly, even vehemently, monotheistic ; ^rmbiT'^ it condemns in the sternest language everything which in any degree trenches on the high intrans- ferable claims of Jehovah. " The Lord, whose name is jealous, is a jealous God." " Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve." In place of worshipping the works of God, the Bible, by a bold personification and apostrophe, demands that they shaU worship God. " Praise Him, sun and moon ; praise Him, all ye stars of light ! " Instead of being adored, fire is itseH commanded to adore (Psalm cxlviu. 3-10). It was not that the seers and poets of Israel had no eye to discern the glory of Nature ; they saw it more clearly than Mede or Persian did, and they celebrated it in still loftier strains ; but they knew 54 The Zend-Avesta, o,nd the Defectaveidea of Sin. that the glory had no subsistence apart from Him who gave it birth, and Him they could not too exclusively or ardently adore. 6. The notion of Sin in the Avesta is exceedingly imperfect. EvU, as dweUing in the heart, is very seldom mentioned ; external poUution is nearly aU in aU. Hence, such a piercing cry as that of the Psalmist : " Pardon mine iniquity, for it is great," is never heard. Equally unknown is the feeling, akin to rapture, which is expressed in the words of the prophet Micah : " Who is a God like unto Thee, that pardoneth iniquity ? " We see no sad introspection, no wrestlings of the spirit -with in ward corruption, no " bitter thoughts of conscience bom," no cry of self-despair like this : " Who can understand his errors? Cleanse Thou me from secret faults." 7. Coincident "with this very imperfect sense of human sinfulness is the entire absence of any deep idea of expiation. The great problem of expiation, which receives so sublime a solution in the Cross, has occupied and distressed not a few who never had the light of Judaism or Christianity ; but it seems hardly to have suggested itseU to the writers of the Avesta. For ordinary faults they prescribe washings, purifications, or penalties; and some extraordinary crimes are pronounced unpardonable. 8. The idea of Salvation does not appear in the Avesta. No contrast can be more complete than No deep idea of expiation. No idea of Salvation in the Avesta. Religion of the Parsis. 55 that which exists between its mode of treating sin and the Christian doctrine of the Atonement. Not a few -writers who do not accept the fact of the atonement made by Jesus Christ have yet been awed by the sublimity of the conception — the The / •' . -^ sublimity of conception of the Son of God becominar the Son of the christian i^ ^ conception Man, and, by His obedience unto death, bringing ment™'^" sinful man to God ; and nothing, surely, could set in a clearer hght the essential evU of sin, and also both the divine righteousness and mercy. Even unbehevers have repeatedly confessed that the doctrine of the atonement has a strange power of stirring the deeper and better emotions of the human heart. 9. Again, there is not only the guUt of sin ; there Defective are the dreadful consequences of poUution, degra- spiritual purification, dation, and death, entaUed on the soul which is surrendered to its power. How shall the dead spirit live, and, as on eagle's wings, soar upward to a holy heaven ? Alas ! the Avesta knows not of the need of our " escaping the corruption that is in the world through lust," nor of our becoming "partakers of the divine nature" by the direct action of the Spirit of God in regenerating and purifying the heart of fallen man. 10. We have seen that the Zoroastrian idea of moral purity was never able to disengage itself from Moral and . . . . . ceremonial that of ceremonial purity. The Avesta is, in this p^^ity , , ^ •" ' confounded. respect, considerably behind some of the Hindu 56 The Zend-Avesta, and the writings, as well as immeasurably below the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. The explanation Explanation, scoms to be this T A saccrdotal caste will, if un checked, go on multiplying ceremonies and the externals of religion, until the mind becomes wholly absorbed in what is merely ritual. So, doubtless, it would have been in ancient Judea, had not the prophetical office been established. The prophet, clothed with Di-vine authority, exclaimed : " Bring no more vain oblations." " I wUl have mercy, and not sacrifice." Words of burning indignation and holy scorn recaUed the people to the observance of the weightier matters of the law. But in ancienl Persia the laity seem to have left rehgion entirely to the dictation of the priests. From the reign of Darius, the son of Hystaspes, the Magi slowly regained their power, until it was crushed by the invasion of Alexander; and under the revived empire — the Sasanian — their authority appears to have been almost uncontroUed from the very outset. 11. The Avesta has no conception of that deep principle in the di^vine administration, — "Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth." Utterly incom prehensible also to the Zoroastrian would have been the solemn warning which the prophet Amos addresses to the people in the name of God : " You only have I kno^wn of all the famihes of the earth; therefore will I punish you for your iniquities." Erroneousconceptionofthedivine government Religion of the Parsis. 57 When calamity came on the people of Ahura Mazda, they behoved it must be from the demon or his servants. The Avesta thus knows nothina; of the dis- The Avesta *-• knows cipline of sorrow — a principle not whoUy unknown "^e'^fi"* to various ancient nations — which, through the sorrow? influence of the Bible, pervades nearly all modern thought. " Sweet are the uses of adversity : " the principle embodied in these well-kno^wn words is recognized by nearly aU who are not avowed pessimists. Most educated Parsis ¦wiU, I think, accept it ; but certainly they have not derived this important truth from the Avesta. 12. The great ideas of self-denial and self- Noseu- . -11 denial. sacrifice find no place m the Avesta. 13. Many of the rites prescribed in the Avesta Manyntes are exceedingly chUdish. Some of them are even some are disgusting. disgusting — such as the use of urina bovis, — and I have therefore been compelled to pass them hur riedly over. 14. InteUectuaUy, the Avesta is but a shallow inteiiect- •' . . uallythe book. Many deep questions, connected with the ^'^^'^ di-vine government of the world, which necessarily occur to every reflecting man,^such as those -with which the patriarch Job wrestled to agony — seem never to have occupied the Zoroastrian mind. 15. There is a large amount of verse, — or else, at least, of rhythmical prose — ^in the Avesta. It may be that the knowledge which now exists of the 58 The Zend-Avesta, and the It contains no history. sounds of the language does not help us to catch the melody; but certainly it does not seem a captivating music. As for the ideas, they are for the most part drUy prosaic. The rich imagination of the early Hindu Pishis has no counterpart in the Avesta: far less have we anything corresponding to the sublimity and seraphic glow of Isaiah and other Hebrew poets. 16. The Avesta contains no history. There are brief references in the Yashts to men and women who probably were — in some cases at least — real historic characters ; but in no case have we more than a momentary glimpse of the personahty. Sunny pictures of old Oriental life — such as abound in the Hebrew Scriptures — there are none. Equally wanting is aU that pathos of character and situa tion of which the Old and New Testaments are full. 17. References to the physical world are fre quently made ; and these, in numberless instances, are directly opposed to scientific facts. 18, But finally: — Zoroastrianism is deplorably wanting in spiritual and moral force, for this reason among others, that there is so httle attrac tive or elevating in the character and doings of its prophet. We have mentioned that his yery exist ence has been caUed in question by Orientahsts of high name. But supposing him to have actually existed, the mists of time have gathered thick around him. He is a name, a voice, rather than It abounds in false science. It lacks spiritual and moral force. Religion of the Parsis. 59 a man of flesh and blood. Yery httle can be gleaned ¦^e do not ° know the from the Avesta regarding him. He is said to have J^^a^^t^^ ^^ had three ¦wives, three sons, and three daughters ; but ^'"'''^*°'- of his joys and sorrows, his life or death, we know nothing that is fitted to touch the human heart, and awaken either admiration or love. The Zartosht N&mah, which professes to give his history, is a modern compUation abounding in the sUliest tales ; and the real Zoroaster was probably a greater and better man than his modern followers have made him out to be. Tradition pretty generaUy holds that he died in battle, fighting by the side of his patron. King Yistaspa. How can we compare this shadowy form ¦with Him whose "Name is above every name ? " Part of the Gathas may possibly be the composition of Zoroaster himself, or of his earhest foUowers ; and, if so, we should conjecture him to have been a hard- battling man, who laid little claim to inspiration, but honestly disburdened his soul of what he deemed important truth. Yarious passages seem to indicate a character severe and stern, but strona; and indications -11 °^^^^ earnest ; a man not sohcitous about ritual obser- character. vances, and "with ideas almost monotheistic. Well, we feel that to dwell on the difference between Zoroaster and Jesus Christ is hke contrastiog a little rushhght which is doing its feeble best to scatter the darkness, with the unclouded sun, throned in the height of heaven. 60 The Zend-Avesta, and the Yet this tract would be incomplete if we did not glance for a moment at the immense supe riority of the New Testament over the Avesta, The in having the character of Christ depicted in it. character of ¦*¦ Christ. Example, it is said, is better than precept. Are then the marvellous truths and precepts, which flowed like beams of hght from the hps of Jesus, exemplified in His own hfe ? Thus, we know that one of the new commands He issued, was "love your enemies ; " but did He Himself act up to that grand ideal ? Hear Him, as His enemies nail Him to the cross, exclaiming — " Father ! forgive them ; they know not what they do ; " and your answer to the question must come in tears rather than in words. If those highest of high moral attainments, ¦What it self-denial and self-sacrifice for the good of others, are ever to be learned, where can we better learn them than at the cross of Christ ? To say that the character of Jesus is faultless is saying httle ; it is Its gloriously complete, — it is possessed of every con- perfection. .11 n ., . IT. ceivabie exceUence, — it is " orbed into a perfect star." Even those who do not beheve in Christ as the Son of God must admit that, if the Divinity were to become incarnate, the result would be such a career and character as actuaUy belonged to Jesus Christ. The poet reminds us that there are Truths which wake. To perish never. Such are the truths that Jesus uttered ; and even Religion of the Parsis. 61 so, there is one example which has become an im perishable part of the highest heritage of humanity, and which must shine on, like the brightness of the firmament, yea, with continuaUy increasing glory, for ever and for ever — the example supphed by the life and death of Christ. Now, the immense disparity between Christ The ' ^ •/ difference and Zoroaster is da^wning, we believe, on that cS™nd iilteresting people, the Parsis of India. They have been chnging to their ancient faith from a feeling of nationahty rather than of rehgion, from tiadition more than from con"viction ; but immense changes are certainly at hand. Of these we cannot now speak. But we beheve that, as the " Magi from the east " — who probably were Zoroastrians — hastened to lay their gold, frankincense, and myrrh, at the feet of the new-bom Redeemer, so, ere long, the Parsis wUl in aU probabUity be the first of eastern races, to take upon them, as a race, the easy yoke of Christ. Zoroasterdawning on tile Parsis. EXPLANATOKT AND SUPPLEMENTAET NOTES. a. The Avesta is composed in a language usuaUy called Zend, which is cognate with Sanskrit. The translations from the Avesta in this Tract are generally those of Darmesteter, as given in his version of the Vandidad and Yashts, forming two volumes of the Sacred Books of the East. In other cases Haug or De Harlez has been foUowed. 5. The Veda is the most ancient of the sacred books of the Hindus. 62 The Zend-Avesta, and the Religion of the Parsis. c IrUn is the general Oriental designation of Persia. The term Iranians includes the Bactrians and Medes as weU as the ancient Persians. d. Ahura Mazda is generally written Hormazd by the Parsis. The usual names of the two principles, as given in the classical ¦writers, are Oromasdes and Arimanes, e. In Persia the adherents of the Avesta are now reduced to a very small number. In October, 1879, they were only 8499. A few of these were in Teheran, Kashan, Shiraz, and Bushire ; and in these towns they were treated fairly well. But the great body of Zoroastrians resides in Yezd and Barman. They are greatly oppressed by the Mohammedans, They are not aUowed to travel, and are forbidden to ride even on asses. The form and colour of their dress are strictly prescribed, — Zeit- schrift der Deutschen Morgenldndischen Gesellschaft, vol, xxxvi., p, 54. /. In India, according to the census of 1881, the number of Zoroastrians was 85,397. The far greater part of these are in Western India — chiefly on the island of Bombay. g. Some Parsis, engaged in commerce, reside temporarily in China At least, an equal number may be found in England. Some of these are merchants ; others are students — of law, medicine, or engineering. -^ Present Day Tracts, No. 25. ^ THE HINDU RELIGION: 4 SKETCH MD ^ CONTMST^ J. MURRAY MITCHELL, M.A., LL.D., Author of "The Zend-Avesta and the Religion of the Parsis," etc. THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY- S6, Paternoster Row ; 65, St. Paul's Churchyard ; and 164, Piccadilly. ^t^nment at th.e Tract. The place of Hinduism — which is professed by about a hundred and ninety millions in India — among the religions of ' the world, and its great antiquity are pointed out. The comparative simplicity of the system contained in the Vedas, the oldest sacred books of the Hindus, its almost entire freedom from the use of images, its gradual deterioration in the later hymns, its gradual multiplication of gods, the advance of sacerdotalism, and the increasing complexity of its reUgious rites are set forth. The philosophical speculation that was carried on, the different philosophical Schools, the Buddhist reaction, its conflict with Brahmanism, its final defeat, and its influence on the victorious system are discussed. The religious reconstruction represented by the Purinas, their theological character, the modern ritual, the introduction and rise of caste, and the treatment of women are then con sidered. A contrast is drawn between the leading characteristics of Hinduism and those of Christianity, and the effect of Christian ideas on modern Hinduism is exhibited. The history of the Brahmo Somaj under Keshub Chunder Sen is given at some length. THE HINDU RELIGION. Inteoduction. iHE system of rehgious behef vs^hich is Hinduism ' deserving of generally called Hinduism is, on many ^''^'^y- accounts, eminently deserving of study. If we desire to trace the history of the ancient religions of the widely-extended Aryan, or Indo-European race, to which we ourselves belong, we shall find in the earlier writings of the Hindus an exhibition of it decidedly more archaic even than that which is presented in the Homeric poems. Then, the growth — the historical develop ment — of Hinduism is not less worthy of attention thanits earher phases. It has endured for upwards its - •*¦ ¦*¦ antiquity. of three thousand years, — no doubt undergoing very important changes, yet in many things re taining its original spirit. The progress of the system has not been lawless ; and it is exceedingly mstructive to note the development, and, if possible, explain it. We are, then, to endeavour to study Hinduism The Hindu Religion. chronologically. Unless he does so, almost every man who tries to comprehend it is, at first, over whelmed with a feeling of utter confusion and bewilderment. Hinduism spreads out before him as a vast river, or even what seems at first a dark " Illimitable ocean, without bound, Without dimension, where length, breadth, and height. And time, and place are lost," The discussionchronological. TheChristian'sduty in relation to tile suhject. Eut matters begin to clear up when he begins at the beginning, and notes how one thing succeeded another. It may not be possible as yet to trace all the windings of the stream, or to show at what precise points in its long course it was joined by such and such a tributary ; yet much is knovm regarding the mighty river which every inteUigent man will find it profitable to note and understand. The Christian ought not to rest satisfied with the vague general idea that Hinduism is a form of heathenism with which he has nothing to do, save to help in destroying it. Let him try to reahze the ideas of the Hindu regarding God, and the soul, and sin, and salvation, and neaven, and heU, and the many sore trials of this mortal hfe. He will then certainly have a much more vivid per ception of the Divine origin and transcendent importance of his own religion. Farther, he will then extend a helping hand to his Eastern hrother with far more of sensibOity and tenderness; The Hindu Religion. and, in proportion to the measure of his loving sympathy will doubtless be the measure of his success, A yearning heart wih accomplish more than the most cogent argument. In this Tract we confine ourselves to the laying The 1 T p 1 . ./ o pujpose of down ot great leading facts and principles; but the Tract. these will be dwelt upon at sufficient length to give the reader, we trust, an accurate conception of the general character and history of Hinduism. We shall also briefly contrast the system with Christianity. The history of Hinduism may be divided into three great periods, — each embracing, in round numbers, about a thousand years. The Vedas. Regarding the earliest form of Hinduism we The most must draw our conceptions from the Veda, or, to writings of ¦^ India. speak more accurately, the four Vedas. The most important of th^se is the Rig Veda ; and internal evidence proves it to be the most ancient. It con tains above a thousand hymns ; the earhest of which may date from about the year 1500 b.c. The Hindus, or, as they called themselves, the Aryas, had by that time entered India, and were dwelling in its north-western portion, the Panjab. The hymns, we may say, are racy of the soil. The Hindu Religion. The hymns are strongly religious. They are a selection. There is no reference to the life led by the people before they crossed the Himalaya mountains, or entered by some of the passes of Afghanistan. It would be very interesting if we could discover the pre-Vedic form of the rehgion. InferentiaUy this may, to some extent, be done by comparing the teachings of the Vedas with those contained in the books of other branches of the great Aryan family — such as the Q-reeks, the Romans, and above all, the Iranians (ancient Persians). The ancient Hindus were a highly- gifted, ener getic race ; civilized to a considerable extent ; not nomadic ; chiefly shepherds and herdsmen, but also acquainted with agriculture. Commerce was not unknown ; the river Indus formed a highway to the Indian Ocean, and at least the Phenicians availed themselves of it from perhaps the seven teenth century B.C., or even earher. As soon as we begin to study the hymns of the Veda, we are struck by their strongly religious character. Tacitly assuming that the book contains the whole of the early hterature of India, many writers have expressed themselves in strong terms regarding the primitive Hindus as rehgious above all other races. But, as we read on, we become convinced that these poems are a selection, rather than a collection, of the Hterature ; and the con viction grows that the selection has been made by priestly hands for priestly purposes. An acute The Hindu Religion. critic has af&rmed that the Vedic poems are " pre- I're- ^, 1. 1- eminently eminently sacerdotal, and in no sense popular." ^ sacerdotal. We can thus explain a pervading characteristic of the book which has taken most readers by surprise. There is a want of simplicity in the Veda. It is often most elaborate, artificial, over-refined, — one might even say, affected. How could these be the thoughts, or those the expressions, of the imperfectly civihzed shepherds of the Panjab? But if it be only a hymn book, with its materials arranged for hturgical purposes, the difficulty vanishes.^ We shall accordingly take it for granted that the Present the Veda presents only the rehgious thought of the thought of ancient Hindus, — and not the whole of the rehgious Hindus. thought, but only that of a very influential portion of the race. With aU. the qualifications now stated, the Veda must retain a position of high importance for all who study Indian thought and life. The religious stamp which the compilers of the Veda impressed so widely and so deeply has not been obhterated in the course of thirty centuries. The prevailing aspect of the religion presented Their Ti 11 111' 1 religion is m the Vedic hymns may be broadly designated as wature- Nature- worship. AU physical phenomena in India are invested 1 Earth. " Bergaigne, in his able treatise. La Religion VMique, insists earnestly on what he calls the " liturgical contamination of the myths." See Vol. III. p, 320. The Hindu Religion. Physicalphenoiaenain India. Their effect on the religion. The deities are " the hright ones," ¦according to the language of the sacred books of India. with a grandeur which they do not possess in northern or even southern Europe, Sunlight, moonhght, starlight, the clouds purpled with the beam of morning, or flaming in the west like fiery chariots of heaven ; to behold these things in their full magnificence one ought to see them in the East, Even so the sterner phenomena of Nature, — whirlwind and tempest, lightning and thunder, flood and storm-wave, plague, pestilence, and famine ; all of these oftentimes assume in the East a character of awful majesty before which man cowers in helplessness and despair. The con ceptions and feelings hence arising have from the beginning powerfully affected the rehgion of the Hindus. Everywhere we can trace the impress of the grander manifestations of Nature — the impress of their beneficence, their beauty, their might, their mystery, or their terribleness. The Sanskrit word for god is deva, which means bright, shining. Of physical phenomena it was especially those connected with hght that en kindled feelings of reverence. The black thunder cloud that enshrouded Nature, in which the demon had bound the life-giving waters, passed away; for the ghttering thunderbolt was launched, and the streams rushed down, exulting in their freedom ; and then the heaven shone out again, pure and peaceful as before. But such a wonder as the Dawn — with far-streaming radiance, returning from the Tlie Hindu Religion. land of mystery, fresh in eternal youth, and scat tering the terrors of the night before her ; who could sufficiently admire ? And let it be remem bered that in the Hindu mind the interval between admiration and adoration is exceedingly small. Yet, while it is the Dawn which has evoked the truest poetry, she has not retained the highest place in worship. No divinity has fuller worship paid him than Kremuch Agni, the Eire {Ignis). More hymns are dedicated to him than to any other being. Astonishment at the properties of fire ; a sense of his condescension in that he, a mighty god, resides in their dwellings ; his importance as the messenger between heaven and earth, bearing the offerings aloft; his kind- . ness at night in repehing the darkness and the demons which it hides ; aU these things raised Agni to an exalted place. He is fed with pure clarified butter, and so rises heavenward in his brightness. The physical conception of fire, however, adheres to him, and he never quite ceases to be the earthly flame ; yet mystical conceptions thickly gather round this root-idea ; he is fire pervading all Nature ; and he often becomes supreme, a god of gods. All this seems natural enough ; but one is soma hardly prepared for the high exaltation to which exalted. Soma is raised. Soma is properly the juice of a mUky plant {asclepias acida, or sarcostemma vimi- nale), which, when fermented, is intoxicating. The 10 The Hindu Religion. Soma becomes a Yery mighty god. simple-minded Aryas were both astonished and de- hghted at its effects : they hked it themselves ; and they knew nothing more precious to present to their gods. Accordingly, all of these rejoice in it. Indra in particular quaffs it " like a thirsty stag ; " and under its exhilarating effects he strides vic toriously to battle. Soma itself becomes a god, and a very mighty one ; he is even the creator and father of the gods ; ^ the king of gods and men ; ^ aU creatures are in his hand. It is surely extra ordinary that the Aryas could apply such hyper- bohcal laudations to the hquor which they had made to trickle into the vat, and which they knew to be the juice of a plant they had cut down on the mountains and pounded in a mortar ; and that in toxication should be confounded with inspiration. Yet of such aberrations we know the human mind is perfectly capable. We have first referred to Agni and Soma, as being the only divinities of highest rank which still retain their physical character. The worship paid to them was of great antiquity ; for it is also prescribed in the Persian Avesta, and must have been common to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Aryan race before the Hindus entered India. But we can inferentially go still further back, and speak of a deity common to the Greeks, Romans, Persians, and Hindus. This deity is Varuna; the most Connection withPersian, Greek, and Romansystems. ' K, V, ix, 42, i. ix. 97, 24, The Hindu Religion. 11 remarkable personahty in the Veda, The name, varuna,tho which is etymologically connected with Oupavo'c, sig- Jjearen, nifies " the encompasser," and is applied to heaven — especially the all-encompassing, extreme vault of heaven — not the nearer sky, which is the region of cloud and storm. It is in describing Varuna Thesublimity of that the Veda rises to the greatest sublimity theVedic ° *' description which it ever reaches. A mysterious presence, °*i™"- a mysterious power, a mysterious knowledge amounting almost to omniscience, are ascribed to Varuna. The winkings of men's eyes are num bered by him. He upholds order, both physical and moral, throughout the universe. The winds are his breath, the sun his eye, the sky his garment. He rewards the good, and punishes the wicked. Yet to the trulv penitent he is merciful. It is absolutely contrast with the confounding to pass from a hymn that celebrates laudations the serene majesty and awful purity of Varuna soma. to one fiUed with measureless laudations of Soma or Agni. Could conceptions of divinity so incon gruous co-exist ? That they could not spring up in the same mind, or even in the same age, is abundantlv manifest. And, as we have mentioned. The loftier ¦, conceptions the loftier conceptions of divinity are unquestion- °^^^J^^ ably the earlier. It is vain to speak, as certain writers do, of religion gradually refining itself, as a muddy stream can run itself pure ; Hinduism resembles the Ganges, which when it breaks forth from its mountain cradle at Hard war, is com- 12 The Hindu Religion. Indra. paratively pellucid, but, as it rolls on, becomes more and more muddy, discoloured, and unclean.''^ Various scholars affirm that Varuna, in more ancient, pre-Vedic times, held a position still higher than the very high one which he stiU retains. This is probable ; indeed it is certain that, before later divinities had intruded, he held a place of unrivalled majesty. But, in the Vedas, Indm is a more conspicuous figure. He corresponds to the Jupiter Pluvius of the Romans. In north western India, after the burning heat, the annual return of the rains was hailed with unspeakable joy; it was like hfe succeeding death. The clouds that floated up from the ocean were at first thin and light ; ah ! a hostile demon was in them carrying off the healing waters, and not permitting them to fall ; hut the thunderbolt of Indra flashed; the demon was driven away howhng, and the emancipated streams refreshed the thirsty earth. Varuna was not indeed dethroned, but he was ob scured, by the achievements of the warlike Indra ; and the super-sensuous, moral conceptions that were connected with the former gradually faded from His achieYe- ments. ^ The rehgion of the Indo-European race, whUe still united, "recognized a supreme God; an organizing God; almighty omniscient, moral .... This conception was a heritage of the past .... The supreme God was originaUy the God of heaven. So Darmesteter : Contemporary Review, Oct., 1879. Both had previously written with much learning and acuteness to the same effect. The Hindu Religion. 13 the minds of the people, and Varuna ere long became quite a subordinate figure in the Pantheon. The deities are generally said in the Veda to be Number and relations of " thrice eleven " m number. We also hear of three ^'^i'^^^ . uncertain. thousand three hundred and thirty-nine. There is no system, no fixed order in the hierarchy ; a deity who, in one hymn, is quite subordinate, becomes in another supreme; almost every god becomes supreme in turn ; in one hymn he is the son of some deity, and in another that deity's father, and so (if logic ruled) his own grandfather. Every poet exalts his favourite god, till the mind becomes utterly bewildered in tracing the relationships. We have already spoken of Agni, Varuna, and Indra, as well as Soma, Next to these in im portance may come the deities of light, viz,, the Sun, the Dawn, and the two Asvina or beams that accompany the dawn. The Winds come next. The Earth is a goddess. The Waters are goddesses. It is remarkable that the Stars are very little mentioned; and the Moon holds no distinguished place. In the religion of the Rig Veda we hardly see nardiy any . ft 1 n . 1 . ' 1 1 • fetishism iu fetishism — if by fetishism we mean the worship theaig of small physical objects, such as stones, shells, plants, etc., which are behoved to be charged (so to speak) with divinity; though this appears in the fourth Veda — the Atharva. But even in the Rig Veda, almost any object that is grand, beneficent, or 14 The Hindu Religion. Earlytendency towards pantheism. ReYerenceof the dead. terrible, may be adored ; and implements associated with worship are themselves worshipped. Thus, the war-chariot, the plough, the furrow, etc., are prayed to. A pantheistic conception of Nature was also present in the Indian mind from very early times, although its development was later. Even in the earliest hymns, any portion of Nature with which man is brought into close relation may be adored.^ We must on no account overlook the reverence paid to the dead. The Pitris (p)atres) or Fathers are frequently referred to in the Veda. They are clearly distinguished from the devas or gods. In later writings they are also distinguished from men, as having been created separately from them ; but this idea does not appear in the Veda. Yama, the first mortal, travelled the road by which none returns, and now drinks the Soma in the inner most of heaven, surrounded by the other Fathers. These come also, along with the gods, to the banquets prepared for them on earth, and, sitting on the sacred grass, rejoice in the exhilarating draught. The hymns of the Rig V. celebrate the power, exploits, or generosity of the deity invoked; and sometimes his personal beauty. The praises lavished on the god not only secured his favour, but increased his power to help the worshipper, ' Muir's Sanskrit Texts, v, 412. The subjects of the hymns of the Eig Veda. The Hindu Religion. ]?/ There is one prayer (so-caUed) which is es- ThehoUest i- •, ^ , prayer. teemed pre-eminently holy ; generally called — ^from . the metre in which it is composed — the Gayatri.^ It may be rendered thus : "Let us meditate on that excellent glory of the Divine Sun (or Vivifier) ; may he enlighten our understandings ! " It has always been frequently repeated in important rites. So far we have referred almost exclusively to the Rig Veda. The next in importance is the Atharva Atharva, sometimes termed the Brahma Veda; which we may render the Veda of incantations. It contains six hundred and seventy hymns. Of inferior • 1 T» • TT ' morally and these a few are equal to those m the Ris; V. ; but, BpirituaUy ^ _ _ . ' to the Eig as a whole, the Atharva is far inferior to the other '^^'^^• in a moral and spiritual point of view. It abounds in imprecations, charms for the destruc tion of enemies, and so forth. ' Talismans, plants, or gems, are invoked, as possessed of irresistible might to kiU or heal. The deities are often different from those of the Rig V. The Atharva manifests a great dread of mahgnant beings, whose wrath it deprecates. We have thus simple demon- Explanation worship. How is this great falhng-off to be ex- terioration, plained? In one of two ways. Either a con siderable time intervened between the composition of the two books, during which the original faith ¦ Rig. V. iii. 62, 10. 16 The Hindu Religion. had rapidly degenerated, probably through contact with aboriginal races who worshipped dark and sanguinary deities ; or else there had existed from the beginning two forms of the rehgion — the higher of which is embodied in the hymns of the Rig v., and the lower in the Atharva. We ; beheve the latter explanation to be correct ; although doubtless the superstitions of the ab origines must all along have exerted an influence on the faith of the invaders. The The offerings presented to the gods consisted offerings. ^ , chiefly of clarified butter, curdled milk, rice, cakes, and fermented Soma juice, which was generally mixed with water or milk. All was thrown into the fire, which bore them or their essences to the gods. The Soma was also sprinkled on the sacred grass, which was strown on the floor ; and on which the gods and fathers were invited to come and seat themselves, that they might enjoy the cheering beverage. The remainder was drunk by the officiating priests. The offerings were under stood to nourish and gratify the gods as corporeal beings. Ammai Animal victims were also offered up. We hear of sheep, goats, hulls, cows, and buffaloes being sacrificed, and sometimes in large numbers. But the great offering was the Asvamedha, or sacrifice of the horse. The body of the horse was hacked to pieces ; the fragments were dressed — nctims. The Hindu Religion. 17 part was boiled, part roasted ; some of the flesh was then eaten by the persons present, and the rest was offered to the gods. Tremendous was the potency — at least as stated in later times — of a hundred such sacrifices ; it rendered the offerer equal or superior to the gods ; — even the mighty Indra trembled for his sovereignty, and strove to hinder the consummation of the awful rite. Human sacrifice was not unknown ; though Human sacrifice. there are very few allusions to it m the earlier hymns. Even from the first, however, the rite of sacrifice sacrifice deemed of occupies a very high place ; and allusions to it are J^J^^^^^ exceedingly frequent. The observances connected with it are said to be the " first rehgious rites," Sacrifice was early believed to be expiatory ; it removed sin. It was substitutionary ; the victim stood in place of the offerer, AU order in the universe depends upon it; it is "the nave of the world-wheel." Sometimes Vishnu is said to be the sacrifice ; sometimes even the Supreme Being himself is so. Elaborated ideas and a complex ritual, which we could have expected to grow up only in the course of ages, appear from very early times. We seem compelled to draw the inference that sacrifice formed an essential, and very im portant, part of the pre-Vedic faith.^ 1 The rites, says Haug, ' ' must have existed from times im memorial." Aitareya Brdhmana, pp. 7, 9. ' 18 The Hindu Religion. No image- worship. In the Veda, worship is a kind of barter. In exchange for praises and offerings, the deity is asked to bestow favours. Temporal blessmgs are implored, such as food, wealth, life, children, cows, horses, success in battle, the destruction of enemies, and so forth. Not much is said regarding sin, and the need of forgiveness. A distinguished scholar ^ has said that " the rehgious notion of sin is wanting altogether;" but this affirmation is decidedly too sweeping. The worship exemphfied in the Veda is not image-worship. Images of the fire, or the winds, or the waters, could hardly be required; and, while the original Nature-worship lasted, idols must have been nearly unknown. Yet, the description of various deities is so precise and full that it seems to be probably drawn from visible representations of them. Worship was personal and domestic ; not, in any way, public. Indeed, two men praying at the same time had to pray quite apart, so that neither might disturb the other. Each dealt with heaven, so to speak, solely on his own behalf. We hear of no places set apart as temples in Vedic times. No public worship. No temples. A Veda consists of two parts called Mantra or SanhitcL, and Br&hmana. The first is composed of ' Weber, History of Indian Literature, p. 38. The Hindu Religion. 19 hymns. The second is a statement of ritual, and "^^^ . treatises on IS generally in prose. The existing Br&hmanas "*^'^- are several centuries later than the great body of the Hymns, and were probably composed when the Hindus had crossed the Indus, and were advancing along the Gangetic valley. The oldest may be about the date of 800 or 700 b.c. The Brahmanas are very poor, both in thought and expression. They have hardly their match in any hterature for "pedantry and downright absurdity."^ Poetical feehng, and even rehgious feehng, seem gone ; aU is dead and dry as dust. By this time the Sanskrit language had ceased to be generally understood. The original texts could hardly receive accessions ; the most learned man could do httle more than interpret, or perhaps misinterpret, them. The worshipper looked on; he worshipped now by proxy. Thus the priest had risen greatly in importance. He alone knew the sacred verses and the sacred rites. An error Growth of pnestly in the pronunciation of the mystic text might ^°'^^^- bring destruction on the worshipper : what could he do but lean upon the priest ? The latter could say the prayers, if he could not pray. All this worked powerfully for the elevation of the Brahmans, the "men of prayer;" they steadily grew into a class, a caste ; and into this no one could enter who was not of priestly descent. ^ Max Miiller, Ancient Sanskrit Literature, p. 389. 20 The Hindu Religion. Schools for the study of sacredbooks, rites, and traditions. Moral character of the Veda. Indra supersedesVartma. Schools were now found necessary for the study of the sacred books, rites, and traditions. The im portance which these attach to theology — doctrine — ^is very smaR : the externals of rehgion are all in all. The rites, in factj now threw the very gods into the shade ; everything depended on their due performance. And thus the Hindu ritual gradually grew up into a stupendous system, the most elaborate, complex, and burdensome which the earth has seen. It is time, however, to give a brief estimate of the moral character of the Veda. The first thing that strikes us is its inconsistency. Some hymns — especially those addressed to Varuna — rise as high as Gentile conceptions regarding deity ever rose ; others — even in the Rig V. — sink miserably low ; and in the Atharva we find, " even in the lowest depth, a lower still." The character of Indra — who has displaced or overshadowed Varuna^ — has no high attributes. He is " voracious ; " his " inebriety is most intense ;" he "dances with delight in battle." His wor shippers supply him abundantly with the drink he loves ; and he supports them against their foes, ninety and more of whose cities he has destroyed. We do not know that these foes, the Dasyus, were morally worse than the intrusive Aryas ; but the feelings of the latter towards the former were of '¦ "The haughty Indra takes precedence of all gods." SigV. 1, 55. The Hindu Religion. ' 21 unexampled ferocity. Here is one passage out of multitudes similar : " Hurl thy hottest thunderbolt upon them ! Uproot them ! Cleave them asunder ! 0 Indra, overpower, subdue, slay the demon ! Pluck him up ! Cut him through the middle ! Crush his head ! " Indra, if provided with Soma, is always indulgent to his votaries; he supports them per fas et nefas. Varuna, on the other hand, is grave, just, and to wicked men, severe.-' The Deteriora- . .--r 1 • tion begins supersession of Varuna by Indra, then, is early. easily understood. We see the principle on which it rests stated in the Old Testament. " Ye cannot serve the Lord," said Joshua to the elders of Israel ; " for He is a holy God." Even so Jeremiah points sorrowfully to the fact that the Pagan nations clung to their false gods, while Israel was faithless to the true. As St. Paul expresses it : " they did not like to retain God in their knowledge." Unless this principle is fully taken into account, we cannot understand the historical development of Hinduism. The Veda frequently ascribes to the gods, to use the language of Max Miiller, " sentiments and passions unworthy of deity." In truth, except in varunathe the case of Varuna, there is not one divinity that possessed oi pure and IS possessed of pure and elevated attributes, elevated ^ ^ attributes. 1 ' ' These two personages [Indra and Varuna] sum up the two conceptions of divinity, between which the religious con sciousness of the Vedic Aryans seems to oscillate. " — Bergaigne, La Religion VMvjue, Vol. Ill, p, 149, 22 The Hindu Religion. II. Philosophy; and Ritualism. Speculation DuEiNG the Vodic period — -certainly towards its begins. conclusion — a tendency to speculation had begun to appear. Probably it had all along existed in the Hindu mind, but had remained latent during the stirring period when the people were engaged in incessant wars. Climate, also, must have af fected the temperament of the race; and, as the Hindus steadily pressed down the valley of the Ganges into warmer regions, their love of repose and contemplative quietism would continually deepen. And when the Brahmans became a fuUy developed hierarchy, lavishly endowed, with no employment except the performance of religious ceremonies, their minds could avoid stagnation only by having recourse to speculative thought. Srettdsm ^g^i"^' asceticism has a deep root in human nature ; earnest souls, conscious of their own weakness, will fly from the temptations of the world. Various causes thus led numbers of men to seek a life of seclusion ; they dwelt chiefly in forests, and there they revolved the everlasting problems of existence, creation, the soul, and God. The lively Greeks, for whom, with all theu' high intellectual endow ments, a happy sensuous existence was nearly all The Hindu Religion. 23 in all, were amazed at the numbers in Northern India, who appeared weary of the world and in different to hfe itself. By and for these recluses were gradually composed the Aranyakas, or forest treatises ; and out of these grew a series of more regular works, called Upanishads,^ At least 250 upanishads, of these are known to exist. They have been called " guesses at truth ; " they are more so than formal solutions of great questions. Many of them are uninteUigible rhapsodies ; others rise almost to sublimity. They frequently contradict each other ; the same writer sometimes contradicts himself. One prevailing characteristic is all-important ; their doctrine is pantheism. The pantheism is some- They are -*¦ pantheistic. times not so much a coldly reasoned system as an aspiration, a yearning, a deep-felt need of some thing better than the mob of gods who came in the train of Indra, and the darker deities who were still crowding in. Even in spite of the counteracting power of the Gospel, mysticism has run easily into pantheism in Europe; and orthodox Christians sometimes shde unconsciously into it — or at least into its language.^ But as has been already noted, ^ The meaning of the term is not quite certain. Sessions, or Instructions, may perhaps be the rendering. So Monier WUliams, ^ For example, Wordsworth : Thou, Thou alone Art everlasting, and the blessed Spirits Which Thou inoludest, as the sea her waves. Excursion, Book IV. 24 The Hindu, Religion. a strain of pantheism existed in the Hindu mind from early times. Accordingly, these hermit sages, these mystic dreamers, soon came to identify the human soul with God. And the chief end of man was to seek that the stream derived from God should return to its source, and ceasing to wander through the wilderness of this world, should find repose in the bosom of the illimitable deep, the One, the AU. The Brahmans attached the Upanishads to the Veda proper, and they soon came to be regarded as its most sacred part. In this way the influence these treatises have exercised has been immense ; more than any other portion of the earlier Hindu writings, they have moulded the thoughts of suc ceeding generations. Philosophy had thus begun. Six The speculations of which we see the commence- philosophiG ¦*- schools. ment and progress in the Upanishads were finally developed and classified in a series of writings called the six Sastras or darsanas. These constitute the regular, official philosophy of India. They are without much difficulty reducible to three leading schools of thought — the Nyaya, the Sankhya, and ¦ the Vedanta. Roundly and speaking generally, we may cha racterize these systems as theistic, atheistic, and pantheistic respectively. TheNyftya. It is doubtful, howovcr, whether the earlier form of the Nyaya was theistic or not. The later form The Hindu Religion. 25 is so ; but it says nothing of the moral attributes of God, nor of His government. The chief end of man, according to the Nyaya, is deliverance from pain ; and this is to be attained by cessation from aU action, whether good or bad. The Sankhya declares matter to be self-existent The •' ... Sankhya. and eternal. Soul is distinct from matter, and also eternal. When it attains true knowledge it is hberated from matter and from pain. The Sankhya holds the existence of God to be without proof. But the leading philosophy of India is un- The_ questionably the Vedanta. The name means " the end or scope of the Veda ; " and if the Upanishads were the Veda, instead of treatises tacked on to it, the name would be correct : for the Vedanta, like the Upanishads, inculcates pantheism. The form which this philosophy ultimately as sumed is weU represented in the treatise caUed the Vedanta Sara, or Essence of the Vedanta. A few extracts wUl suffice to exhibit its character. " The unity of thesouland God ; this is the scope of all Vedanta treatises," We have frequent references made to the "great saying" Tat twam, i.e.. That art thou, or Thou art God; and Aham Brahma, i.e., I am God, Again it is said, "The whole universe is God." God is " existence (or more exactly, an existent thing^), knowledge, and joy." Knowledge, not a knower ; joy, not one who rejoices. ^ Or, the thing that really is — the ivrais iv. 26 The Hindu Religion. It teaches absolute ideaUsm, Doctrine of "the Self." Everything else has only a seeming existence, which is in consequence of ignorance (or Ulusion) Ignorance makes the soul think itself different from God; and it also "projects " the appearance of an external world, " He who knows God becomes God." " When He, the first and last is discerned, one's own acts are annihUated." Meditation, without distinction of subject and object, is the highest form of thought. It is a ' high attahiment to say, "I am God;" but the consummation is when thought exists without an object. There are four states of the soul — waking, dreaming, dreamless sleep, and the " fourth state," or pure intelligence. The waking man is in dense ignorance ; in sleep he is freed from part of this ignorance ; in dreamless sleep he is freed from still more ; but the consummation is when he attains something beyond this, which it seems cannot be explained, and is therefore called the fourth state. The name, which in later writings is most fre quently given to the " one without a second," ^ is Atman, which properly means Self. Much is said of the way in which the self in each man is to recover, or discover, its unity with the Supreme, or real self. For as the one sun shining in the heavens is refiected, often in distorted images, in ' Ekamadvitiyam. The Hindu Religion. 27 multitudes of vessels fiUed with water, so the one Self is present in all human minds.^ There is not inconsistent statements. — perhaps there could not be — consistency in the statements of the relation of the seeming to the real. In most of the older books a practical, or conventional, existence is admitted of the Self in each man, but not a real existence. But when the conception is fuUy formulated, the finite world is not admitted to exist, save as a mere iUusion. All phenomena are a play — a play without plot or pur pose, which thu Absolute plays with itself,^ This is surely transcendent transcendentahsm. One regrets that speculation did not take one step more, and declare that the illusion was itself illusory. Then we should have gone round the circle, and returned to sensus communis. We must be pardoned if we seem to speak disrespectfuUy of such fantastic speculations ; we desire rather to speak regretfully of the many generations of men which successively occupied themselves with such unprofitable dreams ; for this kind of thought is traceable even from Vedic days. It is more fully developed in the Upanishads. In them occurs the classical sentence so frequently quoted in later hterature, which declares that the Absolute being is the " one [thing] without a second."^ ^ This illustration is in the mouth of every Hindu disputant at the present day, ^ Earth, p. 75. ' Ekamadvitiyam, 28 The Hindu Religion. Theoita. The book which perhaps above aU others has moulded the mind of India in more recent days is the Bhagavad Gita, or Song of the Holy One. It is written in stately and harmonious verse, and has achieved the same task for Indian philosophy as Lucretius did for ancient Epicureanism.^ It is eclectic, and succeeds, in a sort of way, in forcing the leading systems of Indian thought into seeming harmony. Some have thought they could discern in these daring speculations indications of souls groping after God, and saddened because of the difficulty of finding Him. Were it so, all our sympathies would at once be called forth. But no ; we see in inteUectua! thcsc Writings far more of intellectual pride than of spiritual sadness. Those ancient dreamers never learned their own ignorance. They scarcely recog nized the limitations of the human mind. And when reason could take them no farther, they sup plemented it by dreams and ecstasy untU, in the Yoga phUosophy, they rushed into systematized mysticism and magic, far more extravagant than the wildest theurgy of the degraded Neoplatonism of the Roman empire. A learned writer thus expresses himself : " The only one of the six schools that seems to recognize the ' Volui tibi suaviloquenti Carmine Pierio ratiouem exponere nostram Et quasi Musaso dulci contingere melle. The Hindu Religion. 29 doctrine of divine providence is the Yoga. It thus seems that the consistent followers of these systems cau have, in their perfected state, no rehgion, no action, aud no moral character."' And now to take a brief review of the whole subject. The Hindu sages were men of acute and Indianphilosophy a patient thought ; but their attempt to solve the sad failure. problem of the Divine and human natures, of human destiny and duty, has ended in total failure. Each system baseless, and all mutuaUy conflicting ; systems cold and cheerless, that frown on love and virtuous exertion, and speak of annihilation or its equivalent, absorption, as our highest hope : such is the poor result of infinite speculation. "The world by wisdom knew not God." Oh that India would learn the much-needed lesson of humility which the experience of ages ought to teach her ! While speculation was thus busy, Sacerdotahsm sacerdotai- . ... ism. was also continually extending its infiuence. The Brahman, the man of prayer, had made himself indispensable in aU sacred rites. He alone — as we have seen — knew the holy texts; he alone could rightly pronounce the words of awful mystery and power on which depended all weal or woe. On all religious occasions the priest must be called in, and, on aU occasions, imphcitly obeyed. For a considerable time the princes struggled against the encroachments of the priests ; but, in the end, they were completely vanquished. Never was sacer- ' Dr. J. Muir, in North British Review, 'So. xUx. p. 224. 30 The Hindu Religion. The tyranny dotal tyranny more absolute ; the proudest pope dotaiism. j^ mediaeval times never lorded it over Western Christendom vsdth such unrelenting rigour as the Brahmans exercised over both princes and people. The feeling of the priests is expressed in a well- known stanza : ' ' AU the world is subject to the gods ; the gods are subject to the holy texts ; the holy texts are subject to the Brahman ; therefore the Brahman is my God. " Yes, the sacred man could breathe the speU which made earth and hell and heaven itself to tremble. He therefore logically caUed himself an earthly god. Indeed, the Brahman is always logical. He draws conclusions from premises with iron rigour of reasoning ; and with side-issues he has nothing to do. He stands upon his rights. Woe to the being — god or man — who comes in conflict with him ! Eituai The priests naturally multiphed religious cere- extravagant, monies, and made ritual the soul of worship. Sacrifice especially -assumed stiU more and more exaggerated forms — becommg more protracted, more expensive, more bloody. A hecatomb of victims was but a smaU offering. More and more awful powers were ascribed to the rite. Reaction. But the tension was too great, and the bow snapped. Buddhism arose. We may caU this remarkable system the product of the age— an in evitable rebeUion against intolerable sacerdotahsm; The Hindu Religion. 31 and yet we must not overlook the importance of the very distinct and lofty personality of Buddha (Sakya Muni) as a power moulding it into shape. Wherever it extended, it effected a vast re- Buddhism. volution in Indian thought. Thus, in regard to the institution of caste, Buddha did not attack it, — he did not, it would appear, even formaUy re nounce it; as a mere social institution, he seems to have acknowledged it; but then he held that aU the religious were freed from its restrictions. "My law," said he, "is a law of mercy for all;" and forthwith he proceeded to admit men of every caste into the closest feUowship with himself and his foUowers. Then, he preached — he, though not a Brahman — in the vernacular languages, — an im mense innovation, which made his teaching popular. He put in the forefront of his system certain great Moral 1 • ¦ 1 p 1 • TT 1 elements of fundamental principles of morahty. He made re- this system. hgion consist in duty, not rites. He reduced duty mainly to mercy or kindness towards aU hvimg beings — a marvellous generalization. This set aside aU' slaughter of animals. The mind of the princes and people was weary of priestcraft and rituahsm ; and the teaching of the great reformer was most timely. Accordingly his doctrine spread Br^j""* with great rapidity ; and for a long time it seemed '™' likely to prevail over Brahmanism. But various causes gradually combined against it. Partly, it was 32 The Hindu Religion. overwhelmed by its own luxuriance of growth ; Yictmy of partly, Brahmanism, which had all along maintained '™- an intellectual superiority, adopted, either from con viction or policy, most of the principles of Buddh ism, and skilfully supphed some of its main de ficiencies. Thus the Brahmans retained their position; and, at least nominally, their religion won the day. Efivival, in an altered form, of ninduism. III. Reconstruction. Modern Hinduism. But the Hinduism that grew up, as Buddhism faded from Indian soU, was widely different from the system with which early Buddhism had con tended. Hinduism, as it has been developed during the last thousand or twelve hundred years, resembles a stupendous far-extended buUding, or series of buUdings, which is stUl receiving additions, while portions have crumbled and are crumbhng into ruin. Every conceivable style of architecture, from that of the stately palace to the meanest hut, is comprehended in it. On a portion of the'structure here or there, the eye may rest with pleasure ; but, as a whole, it is an unsightly, almost monstrous, pUe. Or, dismissing figures, we must describe it as the most extraordinary creation which the world has seen. A jumble of aU things; polytheistic pantheism; much of Buddhism; something ap- The Hindu Religion. 33 parently of Christianity, but terribly disfigured; a science wholly outrageous ; shreds of history twisted into wild mythology ; the bold poetry of the older books understood as literal prose ; any local deity, any demon of the aborigines, however hideous, identified with some accredited Hindu divinity ; any custom, however repugnant to common sense or common decency, accepted and explained ; — in a word, later Hinduism has been omnivorous ; it has partiaUy absorbed and assimUated every system of belief, eveiy form of worship, with which it has come in contact. Only to one or two things has it Oniy the position of remamed inflexibly true. It has steadUy upheld JJie •' J £ Brahman the proudest pretensions of the Brahman ; and it ^'^oaons has never relaxed the sternest restrictions of Caste. retSn^. We cannot wonder at the severe judgment pro nounced on Hinduism by nearly every Western author. According to Macaulay, "all is hideous and grotesque and ignoble;" and the calmer De TocquevUle maintains that "Hinduism is perhaps the only system of belief that is worse than having no rehgion at aU."^ When a modern Hindu is asked what are the sacred books of his rehgion, he generally answers ; " The Vedas, the Sastras {i.e. phUosophical systems), and the Puranas." Some authorities add the Tantras. The modern form of Hinduism is exhibited ' Miscellaneous Writings (MacmiUan, 1861), Vol. I., p. 77. 34 The Hindu Religion. chiefly in the eighteen Puranas, and an equal number of Upa-puranas (minor puranas).-*^ Purfnas When we compare the religion embodied in the Puranas with that of Vedic times, we are startled at the magnitude of the change. The Pantheon is largely new ; old deities have been superseded ; other deities have taken their place. There has been both accretion from without and evolution from within. The thirty-three gods of the Vedas have been fantastically raised to three hundred and thirty mUhons. Siva, Durga, Rama, Krishna, Kali — unknown in ancient days — are now mighty divinities ; Indra is almost entirely overlooked ; and Varuna has been degraded from his lofty throne, and turned into a regent of the waters. ritellSd'''' "^^^ worship of the Linga (phaUus) has been customs. introduced. So has the great dogma of Trans migration ; which has stamped a deeper impress on later Hindu mind than almost any other doctrine. Caste is fully established ; though in Vedic days scarcely, if at aU, recognized. The dreadful prac tice of widow-burning has been brought in, and this by a most daring perversion of the Vedic texts. Woman, in fact, has faUen far below the position assigned her in early days. One of the notable thmgs in connection with the 1 But the truth is that every man is accounted a good Hindu who keeps the rules of caste, and pays due respect to the Brahmans, What he beUeves, or disbeheves, is of little or no consequence. The Hindu Religion. 35 reconstruction of Hinduism is the position it gives The ... '^ ° Trimurtti, a to the Trimurtti, or triad of gods — Brahma, Vish- *"j* »' ^ ' o ' gods. nu, and Siva. Something like an anticipation of this had been presented in the later Vedic times : Fire, Air, and the Sun (Agni, Vayu, and Surya) being regarded by tho commentator ^ as summing up the divine energies. But in the Vedas the deities often go in pairs; and little stress should be laid on the idea of a Vedic triad. That idea, however, came prominently forward in later days. The worship both of Vishnu and Siva may have existed, from ancient times, as popular rites not acknowledged by the Brahmans ; but both of these deities were now f uUy recognized. The god Brahma was an invention of the Brahmans ; he was no real divinity of the people, and has hardly ever been actually worshipped. It is usual to designate Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva as Creator, Preserver, and De- •stroyer respectively; but the generalization is by no means weU maintained in the Hindu books. The Puranas are in general violently sectarian ; some being Vishnuite, others Sivite. It is in con nexion with Vishnu, especially, that the idea of incarnation becomes prominent. The Hindu term The 1 1 ., . Avatai-as. IS Avatara, hterally, descent; the deity is repre sented as descending from heaven to earth, for the vindication of truth and righteousness, or to use the words ascribed to Krishna: ' YS,ska; probably in the 5th century B.C. 36 The Hindu Religion. For the preservation of the good, and the destruction of the wicked. For the establishment of rehgion, I am bom from age to age. The "descents" of Vishnu, The god Rama. The "descents" of Vishnu are usually reckoned ten. Of these by far the most celebrated are those of Rama and Krishna. The great importance at tached to these two deities has been traced to the influence of Buddhism. That system had exerted immense power in consequence of the gentle and attractive character ascribed to Buddha. The older gods were dim, distant, and often stern ; some near, intelhgible, and loving divinity was longed for. Buddha was a brother man, and yet a quasi- deity ; and hearts longing for sympathy and succour were strongly attracted by such a personahty. The character of Rama — or Ramachandra — is possessed of some high quahties. The great poem in which it is described at f uUest length — the Ramayana of Vahniki— seems to have been an alteration, made in the interests of Hinduism, of early Buddhist legends ; and the Buddhist quahty of gentleness has not disappeared in the history.^ Rama, however, is far from a perfect character. His wife Sita is possessed of much womanly grace, and every wifely virtue ; and the sorrowful story of the warrior-god and his faithful spouse has appealed to deep sympathies in the human breast. ' Weber thinks that Christian elements may have been in troduced, in course of time, into the representation. The Hindu Religion. The worship of Rama has seldom, if ever, degene rated into lasciviousness. In spite, however, of the charm thrown around the hfe of R^ma and Sita by the genius of Valmiki and Tulsidas,^ it is Krishna, not Rama, that has attained the greatest popularity among the " descents " of Vishnu. Very different moraUy from that of Rama is Krishna. the character of Krishna, While Rama is but a partial manifestation of divinity, Krishna is a full manifestation ; — yet what a manifestation ! He is represented as full of naughty tricks in his youth, although exercising the highest powers of deity; and, when he grows up, his conduct is grossly im moral and disgusting. It is most startling to think that this being is by grave writers — like the authors of the Bhagavad Gita and the Bhagavata Purana — made the highest of the gods, or indeed the only real God. Stranger stUl, if possible, is the pro- his early bability that the early hfe of Krishna — in part, at ^^^^ f least — is a dreadful travesty of the early life of aS'ingto Christ, as given in the apocryphal Gospels, espe- S^tS'"^''' cially the Gospel of the Infancy. The faUing off ''¦'^'^'^'^¦ in the apocryphal Gospels, when compared with the canonical, is truly sad ; but the falling off even from the apocryphal ones, in the Hindu books, is altogether sickening.^ * His Eamayan was written in Hindi verse in the sixteeutn century. ^ When Jhans! was captured in the times of the great mutiny, 38 The Hindu Religion. Doctrine of hhakti introduced. A very striking characteristic of modern Hinduism is what is termed bhakti, or devotion. There are three great ways of attaining to salvation : karma marga, or the way of ceremonial works ; jnana mctrga, or the way of knowledge ; and bhakti marga, or the way of devotion. The notion of trust in the gods was famUiar to the mind of India from Vedic days, but the deity was indistinct and unsympathetic, and there could hardly be love and attachment to him. But there now arose the doctrine of bhakti (devotion), which resolved religion into emotion. It came into the Hindu system rather abruptly ; and many learned men have traced its origin to the influence of Christianity. This is quite possible ; but perhaps the fact is hardly proved. Contact with Chris tianity, however, probably accelerated a process which had previously begun. At all events the system of bhakti has had, and stUl has, great sway in India — particularly in Bengal, among the followers of Chaitanya, and the large body of people in Western India who style themselves Vaishnavas Influence of the system. EngUsh officers were disgusted to see the walls of the queen's palace covered with what they described as "grossly obscene" pictures. There is little or no doubt that these were simply representations of the acts of Krishna. Therefore to the Hindu queen they were reUgious pictures. When questioned about such things the Brahmans reply that deeds which would be wicked in men, were quite right in Krishna : who, being God, could do whatever he pleased. The Hindu Religion. 39 or Bhaktas (devotees). The popular poetry of Maharashtra, as exemplified in such poets as TukS,- r&ma, is an impassioned inculcation of devotion to Vithoba of Pandharpur, who is a manifestation of Krishna. Into the bhakti system of Western Mixed -with 1-1 1 111 Buddhist India Buddhist elements have entered; and the elements. school of devotees is often denominated Bauddha- Vaishnava, Along with extravagant idolatry it inculcates generally — at least in the Maratha coun try — a pure morality ; — and the latter it apparently owes to Buddhism, Yet there are many sad lapses from purity. Almost of necessity the worship of Krishna led to corruption. The hymns became erotic ; and movements hopeful at their commence ment — hke that of Chaitanya of Bengal, in the 16th century — soon grievously feU off in character. The attempt to make religion consist of emotion without thought — of bhakti without ymdwa— had disastrous issues. Coincident with the development Exaltation of the gurv. of bhakti was the exaltation of the guru, or religious teacher, which soon amounted to deification; — a change traceable from about the 12th century A.D. When pressed on the subject of Krishna's evil Expiana, deeds, many are anxious to explain them as alle- ^f J°fg gorical representations of the union between the divinity and true worshippers ; but some interpret them in the most literal way possible. This is done especially by the followers of Vallabha 40 The Hindu Religion, Ach§.rya.^ These men attained a most unenviable notoriety about twenty years ago, when a case was tried in the Supreme Court of Bombay, which revealed the practice of the most shameful hcen- tiousness by the religious teachers and their female followers — and this as a part of worship ! The disgust excited was so great and general that it was believed the influence of the sect was at an end ; but this hope unhappUy has not been reahzed. ueforms Reformers have arisen from time to time in attempted. India ; men who saw the deplorable corruption of rehgion, and strove to restore it to what they con- Kabir. sidorcd purity. Next to Buddha we may men tion Kabir; to whom are ascribed many verses stUl popular. Probably the doctrine of the unity of God, as maintained by the Mohammadans, had impressed him. He opposed • idolatry, caste, and Brahmanical assumption. Yet his monotheism was a kind of pantheism. His date may be the be- Ntnak. ginning of the fifteenth century. Nanak followed, and founded the religion of the Sikhs. His sacred book, the G-ranth, is mainly pantheistic : it dweUs earnestly on devotion — especially devotion to the guru. The Sikhs now seem slowly relapsing into idolatry. In truth, the history of all attempts at reformation in India has been most discouraging. Sect after sect has successively risen to some eleva tion above the prevalent idolatry ; and then ' Born probably in 1649. The Hindu Religion. 41 gradually, as by some irresistible gravitation, it has sunk back into the nmre magnum of Hinduism. If we regard experience, purification from within Failure of ° '^ -^ . . . , all reforms, is hopeless ; the struggle for it is only a repetition of the toil of Sisyphus, and always with the same sad issue. Deliverance must come from without — from the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We mentioned the Tantras as exerting great in- influence of . the Tantras. fluence in later days.^ In these the worship of Siva, and stiU more, that of his vrife is predominant. The deity is now supposed to possess a double nature, — one quiescent, one active ; the latter being regarded as the sakti or energy of the god, otherwise called his wife. The origin of the system is not fully explained : nor is the date of its rise ascer tained. The worship assumes wild, extravagant worship of forms, — generally obscene, sometimes bloody. It is divided into two schools — that of the right hand and that of the left. The former runs into mysticism and magic in comphcated observances ; and the latter into the most appalling licentiousness. The worship of the Sakti, or female principle, has become a most elaborate system. The beings adored are " the most outrageous divinities which man has ever conceived."^ Sorcery began early ^ E^j4 NS.r^an Basu (Bose), in enumerating the sacred books of Hinduism, excluded the phUosophical systems, and included the Tantras. He was and, we believe, is a leading man iu the Adi Brahma Sam&j , ^ Earth, as above, p, 202. 42 The Hindu, Religion. in India ; but it is in connection with this system that it attains to full development. Human sacri fices are a normal part of the worship, when fuUy performed. We cannot go farther into detaU. It is profoundly saddening to think that such abomi nations are committed ; it is stiU more saddening to think that they are performed as a part of divine worship. Conscience, however, is so far ahve that these detestable rites are practised only in secret ; and few, if any, are willing to confess that they have been initiated as worshippers. Modern We havo uot yet said much about the ritual of ritual. modern days. It is exceedingly comphcated. In the case of the god Siva the rites are as follows, when performed by a priest in the temple : — Worship of The Brahman first bathes, then enters the temple, and bows Siva. to the god. He anoints the image with clarified butter or boUed oil ; pours pure water over it ; and then wipes it dry. He grinds some white powder, mixing it with water ; dips the ends of his three fore fingers in it, and draws them across the image. He sits down ; meditates ; places rice aud durwa grass on the image, — places a flower on his own head, and then on the top of the image ; then another flower on the image, and another, and another,— accompanying each act with the recita tion of sacred speUs ; places white powder, flowers, bflva leaves, incense, meat-offerings, rice, plantains, and a lamp before the image ; repeats the name of Siva, with praises, then prostrates himself before the image. In the evening he returns, washes his feet, prostrates himself before the door, opens the door, places a lamp within, ofiers mUk, sweetmeats, and fruits to the image, prostrates himself before it, locks the door and departs. Very similar is the worship paid to Vishnu : The priest bathes, and theu awakes the sleeping god by blowing The Hindu Religion. 43 a shell and ringing a bell. More abundant offerings are made Worship of than to Siva. About noon, fruits, roots, soaked peas, sweet- ' meats, etc., are presented. Then later, boUed rice, fried herbs, and spices ; but no flesh, fish, nor fowl. After dinner, betel nut. The god is then left to sleep ; aud the temple is shut up for some hours. Towards evening curds, butter, sweetmeats, fruits, are presented. At sunset a lamp is brought, and fresh offerings made. Lights are waved before the image ; a smaU beU is rung : water is presented for washing the mouth, face, and feet, — with ¦.•. towel to dry them. In a few minutes the offerings and the lamp are removed : and the god is left to sleep in the dark. The prescribed worship is not always fully per formed. StUl, sixteen things are essential ; of which the following are the most important : — " 1st. Preparing a seat for the god ; invoking his presence ; bathing the image ; clothing it ; putting the string round it ; ofiering perfumes ; flowers ; incense ; lamps ; offerings of fruits and prepared eatables : betel nut ; prayers ; oircumambulation. An ordinary worshipper presents some of the offerings, mutters a short prayer or two, when circumambulating the image ; the rest being done by the priest,^ We give one additional specimen of the ritual : " As an atonement for unwarily eating or drinking what ia for- oidden, eight hundred repetitions of the Gayatri prayer should be preceded by three suppressions of the breath, water being touched during the recital of the foUowing text : ' The bull roars ; he has four horns, three feet, two heads, seven hands ; and is bound by a three-fold cord ; he is the mighty, resplendent being, and pervades mortal men," '¦' The bull is understood to be justice personified. AU Brahmanical ceremonies exhibit, we may say, ritualism and symbolism run mad. ' So writes Vans Kennedy, a good authority. The rites. however, vary with varying places. ^ Asiatic Researches, V. p. 356. 44 The Hindu Religion. Caste. The most prominent and characteristic institution of Hinduism is Caste. The power of caste is as irrational as it is unbounded ; and it works almost unmixed evU. The touch — even the shadow — of a low caste man pollutes. The Scriptural precept, " Honour all men," appears to a true Hindu infinitely absurd. He honours and worships a cow ; but he shrinks with horror from the touch of a Mhar or Mang. Even Brahmans, if they come from differ ent provinces, wiU not eat together. Thus Hinduism separates man from man ; it goes on dividing and still dividing ; and new fences to guard imaginary purity are continually added. The whole treatment of women has gradually become most tyrannical and unjust. In very ancient days they were held in considerable respect; but, for ages past, the idea of woman has been steadily sinking lower and lower, and her rights have been more and more assaUed. The burning of widows has been prohibited by enactment ; ^ but the awful rite would in many places be restored were it not for the strong hand of the British government. The practice of marrying women in chUdhood is stUl generaUy — aU but universally — prevalent; and when, owing to the zeal of reformers, a case of widow-marriage occurs, its rarity makes it be haUed as a signal triumph. Multitudes of the so-caUed widows were never ' In British territoiy since 1829. Treatmentof women. The Hindu Religion. 45 really wives, their husbands (so-caUed) having died in chUdhood. Widows are subjected to widows. treatment which they deem worse than death; and yet their number, it is calculated, amounts to about twenty-one millions ! More cruel and de moralizing customs than exist in India in regard to women can hardly be found among the lowest barbarians. We are glad to escape from dwelling on points so exceedingly painful. IV. Contrast with Christianity. The immense difference between the Hindu and Christian religions has doubtless already frequently suggested itself to the reader. It will not be necessary, therefore, to dwell on this topic at very great length. The contrast forces itself upon us at every point. When, about fifteen centuries b.c, the Aryas Thelryas and were victoriously occupying the Panjab, and the S™'^'^^„^~ Israehtes were escaping from the "iron furnace" abouV^*"^ of Egypt, if one had been asked which of the two ''¦°' races would probably rise to the highest conception of the divine, and contribute most largely to the well-being of mankind, the answer, quite possibly, might have been, the Aryas. Egypt, with its brutish idolatries, had corrupted the faith of the Israelites, and slavery had crushed all manliness 46 The Hindu Religion. Contrast of their after history. Hindutheologycomparedwith Christian, out of them. Yet how wonderful has been their after history ! Among ancient religions that of the Old Testament stands absolutely unique ; and in the fulness of time it blossomed into Christianity. How is the marvel to be explained ? We cannot account for it except by ascribing it to a divine election of the Israehtes, and a providential training intended to fit them to become the teachers of the world. " Salvation is of the Jews." The contrast between the teachings of the Bible and those of the Hindu books is simply infinite. The conception of a purely immaterial Being, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, which is that of the Bible regarding God, is entirely foreign to the Hindu books. Their doctrine is various ; but, in every case, erroneous. It is absolute pantheism; or polytheism ; or an inconsistent blending of poly theism and pantheism ; or atheism. Equally strUiing is the contrast between Chris tianity and Hinduism as to the attributes of God. According to the former. He is omnipresent; omnipotent ; possessed of every exceUence — ^hoh- ness, justice, goodness, truth. According to the chief Hindu phUosophy, the Supreme is devoid of attributes — devoid of consciousness. According to the popular conception, when the Supreme becomes conscious. He is developed into three gods, who possess respectively the qualities of truth, passion, and darkness. The Hindu Religion. 47 " God is a Spirit." " God is light." " God is conceptions ^ _ . ° of God. love." These sublime declarations have no counter parts in Hinduism. He is " the Father of spirits," according to the Bible. According to Hinduism, the individual .=pirit is a portion of the divine. Even the common [jeople firmly believe this. Every thing is referred by Hinduism to God as its immediate cause. A Christian is continually shocked by the Hindus ascribing all sin to God as its source. The adoration of God as a Being possessed of The object of worship. every glorious excellence is earnestly commanded in the Bible. " Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God ; and Him only shalt thou serve." In India the Supreme is never worshipped; but any one of the miUtitudinous gods ma.y be so ; and, in fact, every thing can be worshipped except God. A maxim in the mouth of every Hindu is the foUowing : " Where there is faith, there is God." Believe the stone a god, and it is so. Everv sin being traced to God as its ultimate The sense •' ° . . .of sin, source, the sense of personal guilt is very slight among Hindus, Where it exists it is generaUy connected with ceremonial defilement or the breach of s(^me one of the innumerable and meaningless rites of the rehgion. How unlike in all this is the Gospel! The Bible dweUs with all possible earnestness on the evU of sin — not of ceremonial 48 The Hindu Religion, but moral defilement — the transgression of the divine law, the eternal law of right. How important a place in the Christian system is held by Atonement — the great atonement made by Christ — it is unnecessary to say. Nor need we enlarge on the extraordinary power it exercises over the human heart, — at once fiUing it with con trition, hatred of sin, and overflowing joy. We turn to Hinduism ; alas ! we find that the earnest questionings and higher views of the ancient thinkers have in a great degree been ignored in later times. Sacrifice in its original form has passed away. Atonement is often spoken of ; but it is only some paltry device or other, such as eating the five products of the cow, going on pU- grimage to some sacred shrine, paying money to the priests, or it may be some bodUy penance, that is had recourse to. Such expedients leave no im pression on the heart as to the true nature, and essential evil, of sin. Salvation, in the Christian system, denotes de liverance not only from the punishment of sin, but from its power, — implying a renovation of the moral nature. The entire man is to be rectified in heart, speech, and behaviour. The perfection of the individual, and through that the perfection of society, are the objects aimed at; and the con summation desired is the doing of the wUl of God on earth, as it is done in heaven. Now of all this Salvation. Sanctification. The Hindu Religion. 49 ^surely a magnificent ideal — we find in Hinduism no trace whatever. Christianity is emphatically a religion of hope ; views of Hinduism may be designated a religion of despair. The trials of hfe are many and great ; Christianity bids us regard them as discipline from a Father's hand, and teUs us that affliction rightly borne yields ' the peaceable fruits of righteousness." To death the Christian looks forward without fear ; to him it is a quiet sleep ; and the resurrection draws nigh. Then comes the beatific vision of God. Glorified in soul and body, the companion of angels and saints, strong in immortal youth, he will serve without let or hindrance the God and Saviour whom he loves. To the Hindu the trials of hfe are penal, not remedial. At death his soiU passes into another body. Rightly, every human soul animates in succession eighty-four lacs (8,400,000) of bodies — the body of a human being, or a beast, or a bird, or a fish, or a plant, or a stone, according to desert. This weary, all but endless, round of births, fills the mind of a Hindu with the greatest horror. At last the soul is lost in God, as a drop mingles with the ocean ; individual existence and consciousness then cease. The thought is pro foundly sorrowful that this is the cheerless faith of countless multitudes. No wonder, though the great The great tenet of Hinduism is this — Existence is misery. Hinduism. So much for the future of the individual. Re- 50 The Hindu Religion. The future gardiug the future of the race, Hinduism speaks in equally cheerless terms. Its golden age lies in the immeasurably distant past ; and the further we recede from it, the deeper must we plunge into sin and wretchedness. True, ages and ages hence, the "Age of Truth" returns; but it returns only to pass away again, and torment us with the memory of lost purity and joy. The experience of the universe is thus an eternal renovation of hope and disappoint- bS^lm ^^'° '^^^^- III t^e struggle between good and evil there l^_ ™'i is no^final triumph for the good. We tread a fated, eternal round from which there is no escape ; and ahke the hero fights, and the martyr dies, in vain. It is remarkable that acute inteUectual men — as many of the Hindu poets were — should never have grappled with the problem of the Divine government of the world. S'the"*"" EquaUy notable is the unconcern of the Veda as Arvan race, to the Welfare and the future of even the Aryan race. But how sublime is the promise given to Abraham, that in him and his seed aU nations of the earth should be blessed ! Renan has pointed with admiration to the confidence entertained at aU times by the Jew in a brilliant and happy future for mankind. The ancient Hindu cared not about the future of his neighbours ; and doubtless even the expression "human race" would have been uninteUigible to him. — Nor is there any pathos iu the Veda; there is no deep sense of The Hindu Religion. 51 the sorrows of life. — Max Miiller has affixed the epithet " transcendent " to the Hindu mind. Its bent was much more towards the metaphysical, the mystical, the incomprehensible, than towards the moral and the practical. Hence endless subtleties, more meaningless and unprofitable than ever occupied the mind of Talmudist or schoolman of the middle ages. But finallv, on this part of the subiect, — the The words . ,. . . . . of St. P,TOl development of Indian religion supplies a striking illustrated comment on the words of St. Paul : Hinduism, ' ' The invisible things of God are clearly seen, being understood from the things that are made. But when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their f ooUsh heart was darkened, " Hinduism is deplorably deficient in power to Moral i- *> ^ ^ power. raise and purify the human soul, from having no high example of moral excellence. Its renowned sages were noted for irritabUity and selfishness — great men at cursing ; — and the gods for the most part were worse. Need we say how gloriously rich the Gospel is in having, in the character of Christ, the reahzed ideal of every possible excellence ? Summa religionis est imitari quem colis : " It is Ethical thesum of religion to imitate the being worshipped." ^ Hinduism Or, as the Hindus express it : " As is the deity, such is the devotee." Worship the God revealed in the Bible, and you become godlike ; the soul ^ Cicero. 52 The Hi/ndu Religion. The people better than theirreligion. strives, with Divine aid, to " purify itself even as God is pure." But apply the principle to Hindu ism. Alas! the Pantheon is almost a pande monium. Krishna, who in these days is the chief deity to at least a hundred millions of people, does not possess one elevated attribute. If, in these circumstances, society does not become a moral pesthouse, it is only because the people con tinue better than their rehgion. The human heart, though fallen, is not fiendish. It has stUl its purer instincts ; and, when the legends about abominable gods and goddesses are falling hke mUdew, these are stUl to some extent kept ahve by the sweet infiuences of earth and sky, and by the charities of family life. When the heart of woman is about to be swept into the abyss, her infant's smile restores her to her better self. Thus famUy life does not go to ruin ; and, so long as that anchor holds, society will not drift on the rocks that stand so perilously near. Still, the state of things is deplorably distressing. The doctrine of the Incarnation is of funda mental importance in Christianity. It seems al most profanation to compare it with the Hindu teaching regarding the Avataras, or Descents of Vishnu. It is difficult to extract any meaning out of the three first manifestations — when the god became in succession a fish, a boar, and a tortoise. Of the great " descents " in Rama and Krishna, The doctiine of Incarnation. The Hindu Religion. 63 we have already spoken. The ninth Avatara was that of Buddha, — in which the deity descended for the purpose of deceiving men, making them deny the gods, and leading them to destruction. So blasphemous an idea may seem hardly possible even for the bewUdered mind of India ; but this is doubtless the Brahmanical explanation of the rise and progress of Buddhism ; it was fatal error, but inculcated by a divine being ! Even the sick ening tales of Krishna and his amours are less shocking than this. When we turn from such representations of divinity to " the Word made flesh," we seem to have escaped from the pestilential air of a charnel house to the sweet pure breath of heaven. V. Hinduism in contact vs'ith Christianity. We have used the word reformer in this Tract. Attempted We formerly noted that, in India, there have arisen from time to time, men who saw and sorrowed over the erroneous doctrines and degrading rites of the popular system. In quite recent times they have had successors. Some account of their work may form a fitting conclusion to our discussion. With the large influx into India of Christian ideas it was to be expected that some impression reforms. 54 The Hindu Religion. would be made on Hinduism. We do not refer to conversion — the full acceptance of the Christian Advance of faith, Christianity has advanced and is advancing Christianity . ,.,. . in India. m India more rapidly than is generally supposed ; but far beyond the circle of those who " come out and are separate," its mighty power is teUing on Hinduism, The great fundamental truths of the Gospel, when once uttered and understood, can hardly be forgotten. Disliked and denied they may be ; but forgotten ? No. Thus, they graduaUy win their way ; and multitudes who have no thought of becoming Christians are ready to admit that they are beautiful and true, — for behef and practice are often widely separated in Hindu minds. The Brahma But it was to bo cxpectod that the new ideas Samaj, . . . ¦* pouring into India — and among these we include not only distinctively Christian ideas, but Western thought generally — would manifest their presence and activity in concrete forms — in attempted re constructions of rehgion. The most remarkable example of such a reconstruction is exhibited in the Brahmo Somaj (more correctly Brahma Samaj) — which may be rendered the " Church of God." Bammohun It is traccable to the efforts of a truly dis tinguished man, Rammohun Roy. He was a person of studious habits, inteUigent, acute; and deeply in earnest on the subject of rehgion. He studied not only Hinduism in its various forms, but Buddhism, Mohammadanism, and Christianitv. The Hindu Religion. 55 He was naturally an eclectic — gathering truth W^^^^^ .. from all quarters where he thought he could find "p™ ^°'- it. A specially deep impression was made on his mind by Christianity ; and in 1820 he published a book with the remarkable title, " The precepts of Jesus the guide to peace and happiness." Very frequently he gave expression to the sentiment that the teachings of Christ were the truest and deepest that he knew. StiU, he did not believe in Christ's divinity. In January, 1830, a place of worship was opened by Rammohun Roy and his friends. It was intended for the worship of one God, without idolatrous rites of any kind. This was un doubtedly a very important event ; and great was the interest aroused in connection with it. Ram mohun Roy, however, visited Britain in 1831, and died at Bristol in 1833 ; and the cause for which he had so earnestly laboured in India languished for a time. But in the year 1841, Debendernath uebender- •' . . nathTagore. Tagore, a man of character and wealth, joined the Brahmo Somaj, and gave a kind of constitution to it. It was fuUy organized by 1844, No definite declaration, however, had been made as to the authority of the Vedas ; but, after a lengthened period of inquiry and discussion, a majority of the Somaj rejected the doctrine of their in- fallihUity by 1850. " The rock of intuition " now began to be spoken of ; man's reason was his 56 The Hindu Religion. sufficient guide. StUl, great respect was cherished for the ancient behef and customs of the land. But in 1858 a new champion appeared on the Keshub scene, in the well-known Keshub Chunder Sen. ChunderSen, Ardent, impetuous, ambitious — full of ideas derived from Christian sources ^ — he could not brook the slow movements of the Somaj in the path of reform. Important changes, both religious and social, were pressed by him ; and the more conservative Debendernath somewhat reluctantly consented to their introduction. Matters were, however, brought to a crisis by the marriage of Formation two pcrsous of different castes in 1864. In of a new Sam&j. Februar}', 1865, the progressive party formally severed their connection with the original Somaj ; and in August, 1869, they opened a new place of worship of theii own. Since this time the original or Adi Somaj has been little heard of ; and its movement — if it has moved at all — has been re trogressive. The new Somaj — the Brahmo Somaj of India, as it called itself, — under the guidance of Mr. Sen became very active. A missionary institute was set up, and preachers were sent over a great part of India. Much was accomphshed on behalf of women ; and in 1872 a Marriage Act for members of the Somaj was passed by the Indian 1 We learned from his own hps that among the books whicii most deeply impressed him were the Bible and tht vmtings of Dr. Chalmers, The Hindu Religion. 57 legislature, which legalized union between people of different castes, and fixed on fourteen as the lowest age for the marriage of females. These wore important reforms. Mr. Sen's infiuence was naturally and necessarUy great ; but, in opposing the venerable leader of the original Somaj, he had set an example which others were quite willing to copy. Several of his foUowers began to demand more Discontentgrowing. radical reforms than he was wUhng to grant. The autocracy exercised by Mr, Sen was strongly objected to ; and a constitution of the Somaj was demanded, Mr. Sen openly maintained that heaven from time to time raises up men en dowed with special powers, and commissioned to introduce new forms or "dispensations" of religion ; and his conduct fully proved that he regarded himself as far above, his foUowers. Complaints became louder ; and although the eloquence and genius of Keshub were able to keep the rebeUious elements from exploding, it was evident, as early as 1873, that a crisis was approaching. This came in 1878, when Mr. Sen's daughter was married to the Maharaja of Kuch Behar. The bride was not fourteen, and the bridegroom was sixteen. Now, Mr. Sen had been earnest and successful in getting the Brahmo Marriage Act passed, which ruled that the lowest marriageable age for a woman was 58 The Hindu Religion. fourteen, and for a man, eighteen. Here was gross inconsistency. What could explain it? " Ambition," exclaimed great numbers ; " the wish to exalt himself and his daughter by alliance with a prince." But Mr. Sen declared that he had consented to the marriage in con sequence of an express intimation that such was the will of heaven. Mr, Sen denied miracles, but believed in inspiration ; and of his own inspiration he seems to have entertained no doubt. We thus obtain a glimpse into the peculiar working of his mind. Every full conviction, every strong wish, of his own he ascribed to divine suggestion. This put him in a position of extreme peril. It was clear that an enthusiastic, imaginative, self-rehant nature hke his might thus be borne on to any extent of fanaticism. AtiSld ^ ^¦'^^^^ revolt from Mr. Sen's authority now sam&j. took place; and theSadharan Samaj was organized in May, 1878. An appeal had been made to the members generaUy ; and no fewer than twenty-one provincial Samaj es, with more than 400 members, male and female, joined the new society This number amounted to about two-thirds of the whole body. Keshub and his friends denounced the rebels in very bitter language ; and yet, in one point of view, their secession was a rehef. Men of abUities equal, and education superior, to his own had hitherto acted as a drag on his movements; he The Hindu Religion. 59 was now delivered from their interference, and could deal with the admiring and submissive rem nant as he pleased. Ideas that had been working in his mind now attained rapid development. Within two years the flag of the "New Dispensa- "XewDis- '' ° ^ pensation. tion" was raised; and of that dispensation Mr. Sen was the undoubted head. Very daring was the language Mr, Sen used in a public lecture regarding this new creation. He claimed equality for it with the Jewish and Christian dispensations, and for himself "singular" authority and a Divine commission. In the Creed of the New Dispensation the name its creed. of Christ does not occur. The articles were as foUows : — a. One God, one Scripture, one Church, h. Eternal progress of the Soul, c. Communion of Prophets and Saints, d. Fatherhood and Motherhood of God, e. Brotherhood of Man, aud Sisterhood of Woman, /, Harmony of knowledge and hoh- ness, love and work, yoga and asceticism in their highest de velopment, g. Loyalty to Sovereign, The omission of Christ's name is the more re- ^l^!^ "' markable because Mr. Sen spoke much of Him in his pubhc lectures. He had said in May, 1879, " None but Jesus, none but Jesus, none but Jesus ever deserved this precious diadem, India; and Jesus shaU have it." But he clearly indicated that the Christ he sought was an Indian Christ ; one who was " a Hindu in faith," and who would help name. 60 The Hindu Religion. the Hindus to "reahze their national idea of a yogi" (ascetic). Let it be noted that, from the beginning of his career, Mr, Sen had spoken earnestly of the father hood of God and brotherhood of man — though these great conceptions are not of Hindu origin. It is difficult to see why, in later days, he insisted "Mother- so much on the "motherhood of God," Perhaps hood of . .r ''"'^" it was a repetition — he probably would have called it an exaltation — of the old Hindu idea, prevalent especiaUy among the worshippers of Siva, that there is a female counterpart — a Sakti — of every divinity. Or, possibly, it may have been to con- cihate the worshippers of DurgS, and Kali, those great goddesses of Bengal. ''rMi'amation "^ puhhc proclamation was soon issued, pur- frlm Gol porting to be from God Himself, as India's Mother. The whole thing was very starthng ; many, even of Keshub's friends, declared it blasphemous. Next, in the "Flag Ceremony," the flag or banner of the New Dispensation received a hoEiage scarcely distinguishable from worship. Then — as if in strict imitation of the ancient adoration of Agni, or Fire— a pUe of wood was hghted, clarified butter poured on it, and prayers addressed to it, ending thus—" 0 briUiant Fire ! in thee we behold our resplendent Lord." This was, at least, symbohsm run wild ; and every one, except those who were prepared to follow their leader to aU lengths, saw "•?^ The Hindu Religion. 61 that in a land like India, wedded to idolatry, it was fearfully perilous. In March, 1881, Mr. Sen and his friends intro duced celebrations which, to Christian minds, seemed a distressing caricature of the Christian sacraments. Other institutions followed; an Apostolic Durbar, "Apostolic ¦¦^ . ' Durbar." (Court of Apostles), for instance, was established. There was no end to Mr, Sen's inventiveness. In a public lecture delivered in January, 1883, on "Asia's message to Europe," he elaborately expounded the idea that all the great rehgions are of Asiatic origin, and that all of them are true ; and that the one thing required to consfe'tute the faith of the future — the religion of humanity — is the blending of aU these varied Oriental systems into one. It was not easy to reconcUe Mr. Sen's public inoon. . sistencies utterances with his private ones — though far be it ^'''l™,^ from us to tax him with insincerity. Thus, in an ^,"^."(3™'' interview extending over two hours, which the , "*¦ '^'¦™™^' writer and two missionary friends had with him a week or so before the lecture now referred to, he said he accepted as true and vital aU the leading doctrines of the Christian faith, with the exception of the resurrection of Christ. But another funda mental difference remained — he avowedly dissented from the orthodox creed in rejecting the miraculous element in Scripture. At an interview I had with him some time before, he earnestly disclaimed all 62 The Hindu Religion. Mr, Sen's policy of intention to put Christ on a level with Buddha or Mohammad. "I am educating my friends," he said, "to understand and approve of Christianity; I have not yet said my last word about Christ." It is a solemn question — Had he said it when his career was ended ? If so, it was far from a satis factory word. His policy of reserve and adaptation had probably kept him from uttering all that was in his heart ; but it was a sorely mistaken pohcy. Had he temporized less, he would have accom plished more. Since the death of Mr. Sen there has been a violent dispute between his family and the "Apostolic Durbar" on one side, and one of his ablest foUowers, on the other ; and the New Dispensation wUl probably split in two, if it does not perish altogether. In the meantime, the Sidharan Samaj, which broke off from Keshub's party in 1878, has been going on with no smaU vigour. Vagaries, either in doctrine or rites, have been carefully shunned ; its partisans profess a pure Theistic creed, and labour dihgently in the cause of social reform. Their position is nearly that of Unitarian Christianity ; and we fear they are not at present approxi mating to the full belief of the Church Catholic. Very simUar in character to the Brahmo Somaj is the Prarthana Somaj in Western India, As fnr back as 1850, or a httle earher, there was The Sadharan Samaj. Movements in Western India The Hindu Religion. 63 formed a society caUed the Prarthana Sabha Tenets of the Pr.irthana (Prayer Meeting). Its leading tenets were as ^"i"^"- foUows : — 1. I beheve in one God. 2. I renounce idol-worship. 3. I will do my best to lead a moral life. 4. If I commit any sin through the weakness of my moral nature, I will repent of it, and ask the pardon of God. The Society, after some time, began to languish ; but in 1867 it was revived under the name of Prarthan^ Somaj. Itschief branches are iuBombay, Poena, Ahmedabad, and Surat. An interesting movement caUed the Arya Samaj was commenced a few years ago by a Pandit, — Dayanand Sarasvati. He received the Vedas as Aiya Samdj. fuUy inspired, but maintained that they taught monotheism, — Agni, Indra, and all the rest being merely different names of God. It was a desperate effort to save the reputation of the ancient books ; but, as aU Sanskrit scholars saw at a glance, the whole idea was a delusion. The Pandit is now dead; and the Arya Samaj may not long survive him. At the time we write we hear of an attempt to defend idolatry and caste made by men of con siderable education. The so-called " Theosophists " have, for several years, been active in India. Of existing religions. Buddhism is their natural ally. They are atheists, TheosopMsts A combination which they formed with the Arya Samaj speedUy came to an end. 6i The Hindu Religion. Lastly, the followers of Mr. Bradlaugh are dili gent in supplying their books to Indian students. Poor India ! No wonder if her mind is be wildered as she hstens to such a Babel of voices. The state of things in India now strikingly re sembles that which existed in the Roman Empire at the rise of Christianity ; when east and west were brought into the closest contact, and a great conflict of systems of thought took place in con sequence. But even as one hostUe form of Gnostic belief rose after another, and rose only to fall, — and as the greatest and best-disciphned foe of early Chris tianity — the later Platonism — gave way before the steady, irresistible march of Gospel truth, so — we have every reason to hope — ^it will be yet again. The Christian feels his heart swell in his breast as he thinks what, in aU human probabUity, India will be a century, or even half a century, hence. Oh what a new life to that fairest of Eastern lands, when she casts herself in sorrow and supphcation at the feet of the Living God, and then rises to proclaim to a listening world Her deep repentance and her new-found joy ! May God hasten the advent of that happy day ! -»¦{ Present Day Tracts, No. 33. \-&- BUDDHISM: ^ Comparison anb a Contrast BETWEEN BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY. BY HENRY ROBERT REYNOLDS, D.D., Fellow of University College, London; Principal of Cheslnmt College. Author or Articles on ' Beiigiohs Systems Ancient and Modeen ; ' and ' The BuDiiHisT Pilgrims ' in the British Quarterly Review ; 'Notes op the Cbhistian Life ; ' ' PHlLOSorHY of Prayer and other Essays; ' John the Baptist : a Contribution to Christian Evidences,' etc. THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY- 56, Paternoster Row ; 65, St. Paul's Churchvaed ; and 164, Piccadilly. ^vgummi xxf th^ TmcU Buddhism and Christianity are compared and contrasted in respect to their external resemblances, and fundamental and essential divergencies and antitheses, viz. : their local origin ; the histories of their founders ; their relation to the past ; the place given in both to the death of the founders ; the basis of the two systems, and their historical development as organised societies ; the resemblances are shown to be illusory in the extreme ; the differences vital and all-important. Christ revealed the Father — took human sorrows and death on Himself, that He might take them away ; laid down His Hfe, that He might take it again ; died, the just for the unjust ; He saves men from their sins. He fulSUed the law and the prophets. The highest Christian virtue is not practised for the extinction of desire, but because pardon through faith in Christ's blood has been received. Christian hohness is the purification of the most essential characteristics of human nature. The end set before the Christian is the hope of beholding Christ's glory, and being with Him and like Him for ever. The peace of the Christian is not the obliteration but the satisfaction of desire, and the result of reconciliation with God through Christ. The Christian desires that Christ may be magnified in his body whether by life or death. The history of Buddhism is sketched, and the resemblances to the history of Christianity are shown to be in the laws that regulate all human society. Buddhism knows no being as the First Cause of all things, as the basis of moral obligation, or Ruler of the universe. The doctrine of Buddhism concerning the ground of the universe is agnostic, if not positively atheistic. Law, according to Buddhism, is impersonal. It has no conception of pardon, redemption, or sacrifice, and is an exceeding bitter cry for what Christianity has to offer, viz. : an antidote for sin, reconciliation with God, hope in death, and union with God through Christ. Reason for hoping that when Christ is made known to it, Buddhism will call Him Lord of all. BUDDHISM BDDHiSM in its origin was a philosophical Buddhism method rather than a religious faith, sopuoai ^ system Many experiments have been made by ™reUgious° mighty thinkers to solve the mystery of '''^*''' human hfe. This was one of them. The principles of Gautama the Buddha, an Indian sage, were not absolutely new, nor were his methods unknown, when he essayed his memorable task. His im mense personality, assisted by current tendencies at work in Hindu society, enabled him to originate a society, which has in its main features, during more than two thousand years, dominated large portions of the continent of Asia. The ideas and institutions which date from the Tie -wide , . . . . influence of initiatory of Gautama exercise a potent spell m Buddhism. their most antique form over Ceylon, British and Native Burmah, Siam, Anam, and (in the form of Jainism) over parts of North Western India. With large modification Buddhism has prevailed over eighteen provinces of China, where it is held in combination with Confucianism and Taoism. Buddhism has exerted much influence in Japan, in Japan. Buddhism. In Tibet. In Nepal, where it has suffered the embrace of the aboriginal nature-worship. It has been corrupted in some outlying tribes by devU-worship, and the rites of Siva. In Tibet it has developed into a complicated hierarchy, and has culminated in a patriarchal and pontifical regime. Here Buddhism is the State re ligion, and has created an organization and diffused ideas which have powerfully affected Mongoha, Mantchuria, and other states tributary to China. In Nepal at one time a most impressive develop ment of the Buddhistic faith prevaUed, and one which was theoretically based on Monotheistic ideas. Though Buddhism took its origin in the Aryan, its greatest triumphs have been won over the Turanian races, and it has been compared to a vast parasitical growth, which has fed on the life and covered the institutions of various types of civUization. Its propaganda is not at an end. At the present hour it is said to be increasing in Tartary, it sends its missionaries to Australia and Oahfornia, has made a vigorous attempt to co operate with Western Pessimism, and professes to formulate a true philosophy of history. Buddha may be discriminated from the his torical and practical issues of his thought, as Christ is discriminated from Christendom. If by "Buddhism" be meant the ideas and discipline of the earliest followers of Gautama, irrespective of their subsequent development, our Its present increase in Tartary. Buddha and Buddha-dom. Buddhism. theme is a literary and exegetic one, and turns upon the relative value of Pali, Sanscrit, Tibetan, and Chinese books. On the other hand, if a wnoie cluster of "Buddhism" be regarded as synonymous with [^^fj^JJion- what may be called " Buddha-dom," it must be f^SaL- held to embrace the geographical and historic °'^' features of a whole cluster of religious institutions, which have mastered, for more than a thousand years, a fourth part of the human race. Seeing that the Northern Buddhists outnumber the older and more orthodox foUowers fifteen times over, we cannot exclude their peculiarities from our estimate of what Buddhism is, and its relation to both Christ and Christendom. The comparison between Christianity and Buddh ism embraces a comparison in both senses. The resemblances between Buddha-dom and Christ- The resem- • 1 n ¦ 1 1 • p blances endom are imposing but superficial, they spring from between the common material with which both systems have c^s^^^^jr. had to deal, and from the similar conditions under ™P'*'fi'=''''- which they have laboured even for opposite ends. The divergencies and opposition, and utter dis- simUarity between Buddhism and Christianity belong to their inmost essence and aim. The purport of the present Tract is to illustrate The diver- ^ ^ ^ . _ gencies and this twofold representation by , enumerating the f-gjej^j^j"'' details of this argument. In doing so, the reader will be reminded of the principal facts with re ference to Buddha and his religion. Buddhism. We propose to enumerate I. The impressive external resemblances between Buddhadom and Christendom, calling attention in these very respects to the contrasts which accompany them. II. The fundamental divergencies and antitheses between Buddhism and Christianity. The geo graphical origin of the two rehgions. The lands of the Bible. Christian ideas and principles arose by God's grace in human hearts and lives. 1. The Holy Lands. — These two rehgions re semble one another in having taken their origin in a hmited geographical region, identified with the actions and career of their Founders, which after the lapse of time ceased to be the centres of the faith, but acquired a factitious importance and in spired a sentimental and superstitious reverence. Sinai and Palestine stUl contain the sites where the highest manifestations of the living God have been made to men. The lands of the Bible have attracted pilgrims from the ends of the earth, who have there sought to deepen their faith, increase their knowledge, and satisfy their yearning after a closer intimacy with the facts of our redemption. However spiritual the form of our Christianity may bo, we cannot ignore the fact that its noblest ideas and principles arose by God's grace in human minds and hves, and that its most stupendous facts were enacted on this planet, by men and women Buddhism. who trod the soil of this solid earth. Christianity is not based on a mere speculation, a transcendental dream thought out in the spirit-world, and inde pendent of place and time and circumstance. It Christianity based on rests on a notable series of historic facts, and is Ust»rio ' facts, hence associated with certain events which occurred at of^S*'^'^''^' discoverable dates in the drama of human life, ^a'™" and therefore scientific criticism as well as pious pUgrimage stiU gathers with zest and unabated interest around Sinai and Bethlehem, Calvary, and Olivet. Now Buddhism took its chief departure in the Buddhism bosom of a Hindii Sage, whose ideas led him to in the " ^ _ bosom of certain very memorable acts of renunciation, to I^^^^^JJ^ge sore conflict, and life-long teaching. His birth are'^'sso-' and death, his parentage and consecration, with oertainlites. numerous events in his career, are associated with certain ascertainable, sites. These have sustained through even a longer period than the holy places of Palestine have done, the reverence and affection of devout Buddhists. Between the outlying moun- piaces of .,.,_, Gautama's tains of the Himalayan range and the Ganges, birth and between long. E. 75° and 85", watered by numerous rivers, and diversified with numerous centres of Hindu hfe ; between Sravasti {Sahet Mahet) in N.W., Raja-Griha {RaJ-gir), and Gaya and Pata- liputra {Patna) in E. and S.E., wUl be found Kapilavastu, the birthplace of Gautama, and Kusinagara, the place where he died, and also death. Buddhism. numerous other consecrated spots where the cremated ashes of his body rest. Here also are various scenes dear to the Buddhist legend, and for many ages visited by pilgrims from China and Mongoha, from Kashmir and Khotan, from Ceylon and Burmah. They were sacred places when Buddhism was stUl a dominant faith in N.W. India, and they were treated with even deeper reverence when the faith had perished on its earliest geographic site. Some of the most interesting Buddhistic literature which is stiU extant describes the eagerness and enthusiasm displayed by the pious devotees who, in the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries of our era, encountered incredible obstacles in their resolve to visit these sacred shrines, to obtain books, relics and images of the faith which was dear to them. Tho This superficial resemblance to the outward career superficial ^ ^_ resem- of a Tchgion profoundly dissimilar in its essence, blances anse or./ ' humau^*^ ariscs from the purely human interest that ever- attaoMng to moTO attachos to the place where great things great things have boon Said and done. The parallel is not ¦have been said or confined to the external features of Buddhism and done. Christianity. It runs through the history of other faiths which have travelled from their geographical origin to distant lands, and which yet have attracted undying affection to the cradle of their infancy. 2. The ¦ superficial resemblances between the Founders of Buddhism and Christianity. The latest researches make it doubtful whether Buddhism. Gautama, the son of Suddhodana, was the heir of Hereditary , . rank of a royal estate or domimon, as Jesus was, but the Gautama. legend undoubtedly confers on his father and on the Sakyas this distinction, coupling it with august accessories, boundless wealth, and far-extending influence. Reverence for him, and an idea of his supposedsuper- spotless purity of heart and life, assumed in the ^?^™i latest legend an introduction into the world by a supernatural process, which, from the first, singled out this great sage and recluse for the highest possible vocation. If he should become a king he His destiny ^ ^ and mission. was at once prophesied of as about to become the ruler over all lands and worlds ; and if he should appear as a sage, he would be the long-expected Buddha, "the man perfectly enlightened," who would achieve the highest victories over the evils of humanity, and lead the human race towards the reahzation of its highest goal. There is no reason to question the name of the father of Gautama, the name of his wife — the saintly Maya, who died seven days after the birth of her chUd — or of the city {Kapila-vastu), where this extraordinary child first saw the light, in the sixth century b.c. The legends of China, Ceylon, legends '' concerning and Nepal tell us that as soon as he was born he Ms Mrth. declared that this was his last birth, and that he was the greatest of aU beings. Such supposed language indicates the reverence felt for his unique career in after years; so also does the pathetic 10 Buddhism. incident, that after this precocious babe had placed his feet upon the head of one of the greatest sages, this wise man declared that Gautama would prove to be the Buddha, but he wept that he should not himself live to see the wondrous effect of his teaching and life. Names The uamos given in later times to him are very him in numcrous. Sakva-muni, " the Sakya sage ; " later times. J > J o ' Bhagava, " the blessed one ; " Tathagata, " the excellent one ; " Loka-nartha, " the Lord of the world ; " Dharma-raja, " the king of the law," or "of righteousness." These are poetic expres sions denoting the range and depth of his subsequent The natural influence. The natural desire of the father of Gautama. Gautama that his son should be prepared for the of&ce and dignities of a prince was strangely thwarted by the bent of the youthful prince towards phUosophy and ascetic habit. He was married to the daughter of a king, and surrounded by all the blandishments of an Eastern court, but they aU failed to disturb his meditation on the evUs and transitory nature of human life. The visions The legends narrate the efforts made by his he saw in „ , spite of his father to conceal from him the facts of human father s pre- taep'°f?om'' sorrow; but that, in spite of all precaution, he faSs'of saw a vision of old age, with its wrinkled skin and sorrow. tottcring gait ; another time, a victim of loathsome disease, of repulsive and forsaken aspect, and on a third occasion a dead body awaiting cremation. Buddhism. 11 After each vision he returned to his palace broken hearted and despairing. It is said that on a fourth expedition, surrounded by all the pomp of the court, he saw the form of a rigid ascetic, who seemed to him to promise the only method of escape from the evUs of hfe by extinction of ambition and con cupiscence. The legends describe his marvellous His physical .*• " and mental skUl in all athletic sports, and his superiority to superiority. aU competitors in mental and physical powers ; but nothing avaUed to prevent what has been called his " Great Renunciation," when, with a solitary attend- ks g^eat ' ' •/ renunci- ant, he broke away from his home, wife, and only '^''™ chUd, looked with loathing on the faded beauty of his singing women, as they lay in sleep around the courts of his harem, exchanged his dress with that of a mendicant, sent his attendant back with a message to his home, and commenced his memor able career of seL£-mortincation, intent upon dis covering the truth of human life. The intense picturesqueness of the main facts has been overlaid with a thousand ornamental additions to the story, which were calculated to augment the force of the "renunciation," and throw the spirit of it back into previous lives that he is supposed to have lived, in each of which he performed similar acts of abnegation and devotion to the highest interests of the hving beings with whom he came into contact.^ ' Spence Hardy, Manual of Buddhism, pp. 98-359. Dr. R. Davids, j'ataka Stories, Sacred Books of the East. 12 Buddhism,. Contrast to the life of our Lord. Doubtless there is some analogy between these stories, and the record of the introduction into the world of the Son of God, the song of angels, the prophecy of Simeon, and the sohtary incident of the youth of Jesus as preserved in the canonical Gospels. But the essential distinction between them hes in this, that our Lord foUowed the lot of ordinary men, ate with publicans and sinners, notwithstand ing his prophetic mission, pursued the quiet trade of his father Joseph, proclaimed war against sin, rather than against suffering, and far from accepting the transitory nature of earthly pleasure as a curse, poured new light on life and death. The funda mental principle of Buddha treated existence as a curse which must be evaded ; the fundamental principle of Christ's "great renunciation" of honours and glory unutterable, involved the subhme fact that life was the synonym of blessedness, and that that blessedness might be eternal. He did not turn away from the agonies of human life. He treated them as abnormal, not inevitable, He took them upon Himself. He healed disease. He cleansed the leper. He raised the dead. He confidently affirmed, " Whoso hveth and believeth in Me shaU never die." A superficial resemblance to the career of our Divine Lord was an early temptation of Gautama to relinquish the sublime purpose on which he had entered. Mara, the spirit of evil, and an imper- The funda mental principles of Buddha and Christ essentiallydivergent. The temp tation of Gautama. Buddhism. 13 sonation of the idea of death, assailed him with thoughts which were to turn him aside from his beneficent career. Legend has amphfied these in Legendary ^ amplifica- the later chronicles with the astounding efflorescence tjons of o the story. of Oriental imagination. He was approached by seductive haUucinations, and when wanton beauty faUed, Mara put forth the thunders of his wrath, and hurled a hundred thousand burning moun tains (!) at him, but they fell in garlands of flowers dt his feet. He overcame all the threats, and ms victory I ovGr it seductions, and iUusions of the spirit of evil, and continued his self-sacrifice. This great event in Buddha's life, in which he Accompany- ° _ ^ ing physical won the victory over aU evil suggestion, was portents. accompanied, according to the legend, with physical convulsions of nature. The sun was turned into darkness, the stars fell from heaven, "headless spirits filled the air." This conflict, in which the moral greatness of His conflict ' *-¦ connected Gautama appeared triumphant, was connected with ^^^^ as an effort on his part to gather from the known caus^\nd Brahman teachers who preceded him, all such of human , .. sorrow. light as they could give him as to the cause and termination of human sorrow. Their methods and their reasonings dissatisfied him. He also made trial of the most complete ascetic rule, and practised abstention from food and extreme mortification of the flesh. He is said to have spent six years in these exercises, to have secured 14 Buddhism. thereby the greatest reputation as a lonely hermit, and to have drawn around him admirers and imitators. Wiser than the Stylites of Christian asceticism, Gautama found that he came no nearer to the solution of his great problem, and resolved to alter his course, to take food, to renounce his bodily mortification. In doing this he alienated his earliest disciples, who fled from him to Benares, leaving him, stung by their lack of appreciation, to encounter with surprising courage new difficulties. It was after his friends left him, that he retired to the shade of a Bo-tree, at Gaya, known ever since as the most sacred spot in Buddhadom. There he passed through the crisis of his ministry, coming by stern exercise of thought to the idea, that not by out ward penances, but by inward culture ; not by rites and ceremonies, but by love and gentleness to others; not by spitefully punishing the flesh, but by the cessation of all desire, by the blowing out of the fires of lust and anger and illusion, he would reach a state of mind which would be per fect peace. This series of struggles and conflicts of the man Gautama bears a shadowy but not a real resemblance to the temptation and the victory of the .Lord Christ. In the case of Jesus, absolute loyalty to the Holy Father's wiU, when He was tempted by the flesh and the devil to secure that very wiU by Tlis failure to solve the great problem, and the abandon ment of his bodily mor tification. Abandonedby his disciples he betakes himself to the B6- tree. Therelearns the thought that perfectpeace is attained by inwardculture shadowy re semblances to the temptation and victory of Christ. Buddhism. 15 self-gratification, was triumphant over every seduc tion. The Bo-tree of Buddhism corresponds in The . Buddhist vague way with the Cross, " the cursed tree " on sa-tree and ° , . . the Cross which the Saviour died, but it suggests throughout °* °^^'j(,. profoundly different ideas. The " sacred tree " of ^Se^nt Buddhism is a symbol of the highest point of ex- "^^^' altation which Oriental intelligence and virtue ever reached. The " cursed tree " of Christianity, where Jesus the Just died for the unjust, is a symbol of the most terrible condemnation of human corrup tion ; but the most amazing manifestation of the love, the righteousness, the justice, the wisdom and power of God. There is no need to throw a single shadow Gautama's over the moral excellence of Gautama. He went and methods. about preaching and teaching the deliverance that he behoved himself to have found from all the evils incident to human hfe. His methods were those of moral suasion. He adopted no arm of power to enforce submission to his method or secret. The parabohc style of instruction gave vivacity to his discourse. He called upon men to pursue the middle path between the pleasures of sense, and the mortifications of the ascetic schools. " Sorrow " was with him the direct consequence his view p . T • -, T I 1 ¦ pOf sorrow of the sense of individuality, and consciousness ot and how to procure desire thwarted or ungratified. Cessation of sorrow j'^^ was only to be secured by freedom from all these causes of sorrow, all the cravings which prolong 16 Buddhism. The Hindu theory of the ego acceptedand utihsed bv him. the illusion of one's separate interests or individual being. He approximated to the Hindu theoty, which makes consciousness of the Ego an illusion, and aU the facts of human hfe and mundane existence as waves passing over a boundless ocean of being. Accepting this as the deepest truth, Gautama utilized it, as the gospel of deliverance from all the miseries of existence, and endeavoured to bring his followers to his own placid view of the boundless evils of life by the practice of a virtue which aimed at the obliteration of desire. Desire was the radical source of every calamity from birth to death, and after death. From reasons utterly diverse from these, our Lord demanded inward purity, and holy conduct, simplicity of motive, and detachment from the world. His disciples were to take up the Cross and follow Him, to come to Him, and to rest in Him, to take sides with Him against sin, to believe in Him, as one able to save and to confer eternal life, as One destined to judge all conduct and motive, and all the inward springs of life. He promised to do that for men by His own perfection of being and sacrifice which they could not do for themselves. He saved men from their sins. The highest virtue in the theory of Gautama was pursued and practised with the view of ex tinguishing all desire whatsoever, and of losing all consciousness of Ego. He taught men to lose Desire, according to him, the source of everycalamity. Thedemands of Christessentiallydifferent. His promises. Hissalvation. Buddhism. self, not in the bosom of the eternal Being, but in the ocean of more-existence. The highest virtue in ^J"? highest o virtue the way revealed by our Lord Jesus Christ, follows Stimf *" as a consequence of our having received a new and dfng to°™' nobler Ego, and because our sins have been conti-asw. pardoned through faith in His atoning blood. The highest kind of Christian life involves a quenchless yearning after God Himself, a supreme love to the Father, and to Christ as the revelation of the Father. The Buddha's holiness was the extinction BuddUst and of the most essential characteristics of human ^^^^5™ nature ; the Christ's holiness was the purification '""'^'''^'''^¦ and intensification of all those characteristics. The end set before the pious follower of Buddha was The end of . .... tlie to renounce the highest possibUities of man, and ^^"^^-^g* descend to the passionless calm of some purely Shristian!^ vegetative existence, which contemplated nothing, desired nothing, enjoyed nothing, feared nothing, expected nothing, suffered nothing; but the end set before the humblest f oUower of Jesus, was to think deeply, to desire the greatest uplifting, to master outward sorrow with a joy unspeakable, to triumph over iUusion by reality, to suffer and die with the Christ, in blessed hope of beholding His glory, of being with Him and like Him for ever. 3. The relation of both religions to the Past. The Christ cannot be properly understood if of^ohri^f™ no account be taken of the faith and hope of Israel, or, of a pre-existent hterature of unspeakable value, 18 Buddhism. Christ's relation to the scripturesof the Old Testament,Buddha'srelation to an older faith. oriental speculation about ''the sorrow of the world.'' Contending powers and forces. which enshrined both. Christ's claim was founded upon the Old Testament Scriptures. He fulfilled the law and the prophets. Buddha cannot be understood if it be not re membered that his entire career was coloured by the far-reaching influences of an older faith that he adopted, after he had freed them from some of the exclusive and national forms which they had assumed. As a philosopher he built upon the speculation of the older schools of thought, and as a great teacher he aimed to deliver man kind from the evil which earlier Hindu sages had recognized as appertaining to mundane life. Long before the days of Gautama, " the sorrow of the world " and of man had pressed on the Oriental mind with terrific force. Speculation, following upon the simpler conceptions of the Yedic age, had led to a discrimination between the Supreme Atman, the breathing energy or sub ject of aU thought, identified as it was with Brahma, the all-pervading force, the essence of aU things, on the one hand, and on the other the plurality of existence and impermanence which was " not Atman," which had issued from his sense of loneliness and unrest. Men saw on aU sides of them formless powers, chaotic forces contending with each other and with them. Death put on new and fearfiU aspects. As an enemy he did not spend his power in the one blow he struck at any Buddhism. 19 living thing. Unless men had propitiated these The need powers of destruction, they would be ceaselessly pitiatingthe powers pursued in other worlds by the tyrant death, who ».( destruo- would continuously smite down the new life which they would at each death assume. From the first there was commingled with the fear of metem psychosis, the hope and possibility of deliverance from it, but the fear itself produced a boundless, haunting dismay, verging on unutterable despair, which urged on both philosopher and priest to propound their remedies, to indicate the sacrifice, the ritual, the abstinence, the ascetic method by which this fearful entail of suffering might be cut off. To an Oriental it was supreme good if only The he could be sure that he would sink at death once good''™" [> T-i ¦ 111 the Oriental and for ever mto the ocean ot Being, and not be constrained by overwhelming fate to itinerate again and again the melancholy cycle of birth, disappoint ment, and death. He would have been content if only it had been appointed for him " once to die." It was supposed that the only wav of deliver- The 1- - . supposed ance from the domain of death was unity of soul ^gYvwance with the true mode of being, with Atman (Brahma). doTai*n of The soul must not dweU in the region of plurality, but must, in shuffling off the body, aUow con sciousness to be extinguished, and so put on the nature of Brahma himseK. " The mode of action" {Karma) pursued here on earth was slipposed to determine the course which the soul would pursue 20 Buddhism. from one state of being to another. Yet this form of moral retribution was not so much an open secret, as a profound mystery spoken by men of mark to each other. It was complicated by the distaste which the entire philosophy cast on action Undisturbed of auv kind, good or evU. The infinite Brahma sleep the ¦ J , o theTi best ^^® above all characteristics, and the highest felicity felicity. igj. j^^j^ .^^g imaged in the depth of undisturbed sleep, when he loses all desire and aU vision, and is beyond the reach of pleasure or pain. Sometimes these ancient teachers emphasized the obliteration of aU desire, and at other times the possession of the knowledge that there is no finite self at all. Desire corresponds with ignorance of this highest reality, a knowledge of it corresponds with the extinction of desire. So far Brahminical systems of thought had gone in the sixth century before Christ, and before Gautama Gautama began his meditations. This remarkable found the problem teacher found the problem ready to his hand, ready to Ins ^ caiTiedTt'^ and pursued it further. He did not create the th^Brah-™ central ideas which he and his followers repeated ^sterns that with wcarisome iteration. He gave a new and before. woird olevation to man, by removing out of his path and from the range of his contemplations the deities innumerable who were behoved by his contemporaries to contribute to emancipation, The gods themselves were stamped for him with the character of impermanence and ignorance and Buddhism. 21 passion, and man was left alone to fight this tremendous battle with sorrow and death, by an at tainment of a knowledge not yet secured by them. At this point of our review, one of the superficial but startling resemblances in the evolution of Buddh ism and Christian faith makes its appearance. Buddha certainly took up the burning question Buddha's new of the existing schools of thought, and gave them departure. as we shall see a new departure. He waved his hand over the mythologies and gods of the popular faith, and they disappeared into the formless chaos. He met the desires of men after the condition of freedom from the curse of existence, by reducing existence itself to non-existence, and by dispensing with all aid from the popular mythologv. The He reduced ^ ^ •' *-''' the differ- difierences between men, which made so startling ^^^^^ a barrier between man and woman, between race ™|niflcaMc. and race, caste and caste, he theoretically disposed of, by reducing them aU to insignificance. Our Lord Jesus Christ initiated a new departure our Lord's new on ground alreadv hallowed by Revelations of the departure *-^ " "^ was on Infinite One, but He did not effect this change by ga°?owd by drawing an impenetrable veil over Jehovah's face, JevSaSons. but by revealing the Father, by declaring that He in whom all live and have their being is Impartial Holiness and Eternal Love. He declared that He He revealed the Father and the Father were one. He called upon men ^ared^His io believe in the Father as their Father. He ^Htol assured men that the Lord of heaven and earth 22 Buddhism. God reveals His secrets to babes. Self-sur render to God's will gives a man to himself. Christ gave a new meaning to souls. Buddha turned men's eyes away from the sorrows of Ufe ; Christ took them away by bearing them. The deaths of Buddha and Christ. revealed the deepest secrets even to babes. This was a truth that Buddha with his emphasis on the virtues of knowledge utterly missed. Moral surrender to a perfectly holy and loving wiU gave a man to himself Not by under estimating the reahty of self, but by conferring upon it an infinite value and significance, did Jesus free those who believed in Him from the greatest burden ; not the burden of existence, but the burden of sin. Jesus Christ abolished distinctions, not by emphasizing the unreality of souls, but by investing aU souls with a new meaning, which in itself was more to be desired than all the temporary and vanishing shadows of earthly greatness. Buddha turned men's eyes away from the sorrows of hfe. He would have men think them out of existence by a species of intellectual training. Christ took aU our sorrows and sickness and death upon Himself, that He might take them away; and He pro nounced His benediction on the poverty, the mourning, the hunger, the sorrow, the death, which are the handmaids to the soul, in its passage into the perfect life. 4. A further superficial resemblance between the Buddha and the Christ, is the prominence given in either system to the Death of the Founders. Throughout Buddhadom the death (commonly ^ 1 Dr. Rhys Davids. Doctrine of Nirvana, Buddhism, pp. HO-123; and Hibbert Lectures, Lecture in. Buddhism. 23 though perhaps wrongly regarded as the Nirvana) of Tiie death Gautama is taken as the starting-point of the new p^int'of'S^e faith. He had been the living Head of his disciples faitK^^' to whom all difficulties were referred, by whom the faithful were exhorted and directed in the smallest matters affecting their daily conduct or their mutual government, their dress, food, gesture, and minutest habit. His departure by death would naturally leave an awful blank. His death when it came was as ^hesublimity of subhme as that of Socrates, and through the ^'^ ^^**^- various legends and amphfications of the narrative we can discern some of its real features. At a great age, having spent some fifty years in constant preaching and teaching, his mental faculties un- dimmed, he reached a grove outside Kusinag&ra, and rested for the last time. At the river, feehng that he was dying, he received food from his disciples, and promised them great reward in a future life for this act of piety. He spoke of his burial, and rules to be foUowed by his order. Ananda wept as he saw the end drawing near, and Gautama said, — " 0 ! Ananda, do not let yourself be troubled, do not weep. His last Have I not told you that we must part from all we hold most ^°'^^^- dear and pleasant ? No being however born or put together can overcome the dissolution inherent in it ; no such condition can exist. For a long time, Ananda, you have been very near to me by kindness in act and word and thoughtfulness. You have always done well ; persevere, and you shall be quite free from the thirst of life, this chain of ignorance." Afterwards he said, " You may perhaps be given to think ' th^ word is ended now 24 Buddhism. our Teacher is gone,' but you must not think so. After I am dead let the Law aud the rules of the Order be a Teacher to you." "Mendicants, I now impress it upon you, the parts and powers of man must be dissolved ; work out your own salvation with diligence." His mental state as he passedaway. Wo thought of his resurrection ever occurredto his disciples. These were the last words spoken by Gautama Buddha. Studiously and stedfastly refusing to answer the question as to any personal continuity of his own being after death, and in a mental state of utter self-negation rather than of reconcilement with any power, or fate, or Being above him or beyond him, he passed away. He lived and died a Hindii, saturated with Hindii philosophy and ethic, yet giving to both a more practical form than they had already received. The company of his disciples never dreamed even of his resurrection in any form, material or etherial. So entirely had he realized his own ideal of knowledge, and the quenching of the thirst for hfe, that he believed that he was henceforth exempt from the curse of any further itineration of the cycle of birth and death. There were no elements of character {Karma) to be gathered once more into the form of man or deva or nat (angel). He had absolutely vanished. His body was burned on the funeral pile, and his ashes were distributed (according to the legend) among his celebrated followers of high rank. Topes, or mausolea were erected over them. The mendicant order he founded took fresh lease of life, and dating from his august departure, it took Buddhism. 25 the form which has to some extent been observed to the present day. His death was a notable event in the historv of ^^ '^«=''K .' the complete Buddhism, as the hour when a complete and final aSsoMon dissolution of the personality of Buddha took place, personality.^ Buddha in death received final manumission from the servitude and cycle of change, the repetition of birth and death. Such repetition is the primal curse of all existent beings, but was evaded in his case by the cessation of every desire, and his perfect knowledge of the causes of suffering, and the way to escape from them. He is not, in any sense in which the idea of existence can be pre dicated by western mind. This is his crown of supreme glory. The moment when his knowledge obtained this lofty fruition of its interminable strife, was that from which Buddhadom originates. The method was revealed, the example given, the triumph secured. His objective death was the His ... -IP 1 • ,• • T • T objective startmg-pomt oi a subjective immortality m the death the hearts of his followers. The absolute completeness ^T' "' ^ 1 subjective of his death was, therefore, a reason for the highest 1™^"'''''*^' satisfaction of his followers; and the aspect it fo'itowers. '" assumes in the legends of many nations invests it with consummate interest. The legends of China and Tibet expand and adorn the story of the death and cremation of Buddha, and help to show how entirely superficial is the resemblance between the deaths of Buddha 26 Buddhism. The death of the Son of God the re-commencement of His life in a position of supreme influence and power. His death voluntary andsacrificial. and of Christ, in their effects upon their respective followers. The death of the Son of God was an event which, by its stupendous importance, had an effect upon the whole universe, not by the cessation of His life and the close of His personality, but by the recommencement of that life in a position of supreme influence and actual power over heaven and earth. He proceeded to fiU and rule all things. He not only vanquished death for Himself by voluntarily submitting to it, with accompaniments of inconceivable terror, though there was no in herent necessity for it, but He took away, by bearing it, the sting of death, which is sin, for aU who appreciate and acquiesce in His redeeming love. His death did not proceed from the im permanence of the corporeity He bore, but w-as for the sins of the race whose nature He had voluntarily assumed. The perpetuity of His spiritual power and the continuity of His life was made manifest to men by the fact of His resurrec tion, and a new revelation was thus given to man of the nature of the spiritual body and of the eternal life. Buddha persisted unto death m his behef that the final dissolution of his body closed for ever the career of individuality for himself, and opened up the way in which his foUowers might reach a simUar consummation. Christ laid down His life that He might take it again, and convinced man- The perpetuityof His power and the contin uity of His life mani fested by Hisresurrection. Buddhism. 27 kind that death was not the end, but rather the chnst's death the beginning of an endless life, not only for Himself beginning of ° " > J ^^ endless but for all who love His appearing. So that ^Joi°yeHis though there are many superficial resemblances in ^^v^^^^^^s- the bearing of the death of Christ and that of Buddha upon their respective followers, these ap parent resemblances are illusory in the extreme. 5. Another resemblance between the two systems is that both profess to rest upon a supreme law of life, wliich affects the entire universe. The Dharma ^?o"ij^" of Buddha. (or Dhamma) whicli is "the law" of Buddha occupies a place of high importance. Next to his own great personahty in the esteem of his followers, is the " word " that he uttered for their guidance. To proclaim the discovery made by the sage, " to '^^^ '™' turn the wheel of the law," to insist upon " the afec'tSife four noble truths," and to press the moral injunc- worws. tions involved in them, is the chief function of the disciples of Buddha. These " truths " do not simply affect human and contemporary life, but all hfe in all worlds, and in all the forms of existence, human and divine, angelic and animal, past, present, and future. They are not in themselves a cos mology or psychology, they involve no theory of the origin or end of things, or any philosophy of soul, as distinct from body, or any theological deliverance; and yet they lay tbe foundation for speculation on all these subjects, which the fol lowers of Buddha are not slow to utihze. 28 Buddhism. Perhaps the simplest form in which the more central teaching of Gautama can be presented, is preserved in the sermon preached by him at Benares, after he had received the great illumina tion under the Bd-tree and was recognized as Buddha. The First Truth. The sacred ' ' This, oh monks, is the sacred truth of suffering : Birth is suffering. suffering, old age is suffering, sickness is suffering, death is suffering, to be united with the unloved is suffering, to be sepa rated from the loved is suffering, not to obtain what one desires is suffering, the fivefold chnging to the earthly [i. e. , hankering after corporeal form, sensations, perceptions, conformations, aud also after consciousness itself] is suffering." The prevalence, the universal presence of thwarted desires, the fact of pain, the fact that wherever there are the conditions of self-consciousness in this or other worlds, there is pain — this is the imper- " first truth." Impermanence by itself is the in- mancnce the i- ^ ibi^ouroe exhaustible source of suffering, and it is theindis- of sufEermg. pg^gg^j^^.g condition of aU that is. No thinker ever came to such an irrevocable judgment on the misery of existence in all worlds. The youth with his visions of bliss, the gorgeous insect fluttering in the sunbeam, the deva drinking his chalice of joy, the king on his throne, are aU cherishing infinite delusion, if they do not see the near ap proach of suffering. Behind the sorrowful present hes a measureless sorrowful past, and an equally immeasurable future full of sorrows for him who does not put an end to sorrow. Buddhism. 29 The foUowing most pathetic passage is quoted by Oldenberg from Samyuttaka Nikaya : " The pilgrimage of beings has its beginning in eternity. No opening can be discovered from which proceeding creatures mazed in ignorance, fettered by a thirst for being, can stray and wander. What think ye, my disciples, whether is more — the water that is in the four great oceans, or the tears which have flowed from you while ye strayed and wandered on this long pilgrimage, and sorrowed and wept because that was your portion which ye abhorred, and that which ye loved was not your portion ! " The so-called gods are all bound by the chain of desire, and so are brought under the power of Mara. "Man gathers flowers, his heart is set on pleasure. Death comes upon him like the floods of water on a village and sweeps him away." This perception of the poignant sorrow of the ^^^^*2?| °' universe pervades Buddhist hterature from end to r^'speoting end; not, however, in the sense of being reconciled of\he"°''' or resigned to such fate, nor exactly in the spirit wherewith great Christian moralists have bewaUed the misery of man, but rather in the tone of lofty pity for those who have not made the discovery. The Second Sacred or Noble Truth is that Tte origin of suffering. of the origin of suffering, and this Buddha has declared to be " the thirst (for being) which leads from birth to birth, together with lust and desire, which find gratification here and there, the thirst for pleasure and the thirst for power." The Third Sacred Truth is that of "the extinction of suffering ; the extinction of this thirst by The complete annUiilation of desire, letting it go, expelling it, sepa- „( sufleriug rating oneself from it, giving it no room." 30 Buddhism. The 1 The connection between these two " truths " is connection between the difficult to seizo, but is thus explained. Buddha two truths. ' ^ himself named two links as preceding consciousness itseK, but they are not easy to understand. Taking, however, bare consciousness of any individual as a starting-point he regarded corporeal form and name as an inevitable consequence of it, and he also laid Conscious- it down that consciousness and corporeal form ness and ^ form"*^' were reciprocal to each other, — mutual conditions eao™other's "^ ^^^ another's activity. They lean upon one atuvity. another, as two bundles of sticks mutually support each other. The death of one corporeal being sets the consciousness element free for the formation of another. The next links are as foUows : from the The six consciousness and corporeal form come the six fields. -' '' fields {i.e., the five senses and the understanding), with their corresponding objects. From the six Contact. fields comes " co7itact," and from contact comes Sensation. " sensation," [and in a strange way the old sage endeavoured to account for what we term "per ception" and "conception;" but let this pass] — Thirst. "from sensation arises thirst." It is this thirst and longing for sensation that leads to rebirth, the most fruitful cause of suffering, for from " thirst " comes " clinging.'' As flame chugs to fuel, which can never be extinguished untU the fuel is consumed, so the flame of our consciousness presses on from hfe to life, by transmigration, from earth to heU, from heUs to heavens. The shghtest clinging prevents deliver- Buddhism. 31 ance, and only by utter cessation of clinging is the soul delivered from sinful and suffering existence. The question arises. Whence comes consciousness ? The source of con- It proceeds from Karma (Kamma Pali), the moral sciousuess. retribution of the entire action of a man's past state. His ignorance in a previous birth of the consequences of his thirst and chnging, produces the conditions under which consciousness takes new name and (fresh) corporeal form in this present state of his being. This Karma forces, or forms, ijf T?-'^°^: ° ' ' stitution of or reconstitutes being in the five regions of trans- ^™ma''m migration. It does not follow that men reappear regira™of . , . . , ITT transf orma- as men, they may become ammals, goblins, devas, tion. gods. The glories of the heaven-Jife into which some men's karma causes a new individuality to enter, are dazzling or satisfying. Dread and ghastly is the agony of the hells into which the karma of others causes other individualities to appear. It would seem as if the thirst for .rebirth in some particular form of being had also (on Buddhistic theory) to do with the result ; but it may and must happen that by securing any form of new birth, the soul is still chained and fettered by the miserable cycle that it has to itinerate. The extinction of the thirst which leads to the pro- '^^'^ extinc- ^ tion of pagation and perpetuation of life, the annihilation *niy Va^ of the clinging, is the only way of obtaining aeUve*'!™"^ dehverance from the misery of existence. mSery of The Fourth Sacred Truth teaches the path existence. 32 Buddhism. The path to the extinction of suffering. to the extinction of suffering, the method by which Buddhistic teachers have expanded the fundamental ideas of their founder. The path includes : — (1) Right behef (views). (2) Right feelings (or resolves). (3) Right actions. (4) Right living (or mode of hvelihood). (5) Right exertion (or endeavour), (6) Right thought (or memory). (7) Right meditation (or self-concentration). These paths, blending into one, are continually Ulustrated by parable, dialogue, fable, apologue, and by the numberless stories of Buddha, not only while passing through the final stage of his exist ence, but in hundreds of previous existences, during which his Karma was dwindling, and the necessity of a further rebirth gradually becoming anni hUated. This code is moreover re-shaped for practical use in the form of five prohibitions : (1) to kill no living thing ; (2) to lay no hand on the pro perty of another ; (3) not to touch another's wife ; (4) not to speak what is untrue ; (5) not to drink intoxicants. These prohibitions, four of which closely correspond with the law of the second table of the decalogue, are interpreted to mean far more than the bare restraint from some definite action. The first leads to most careful avoidance of any known sacrifice of life, and is probably based upon Five pro hibitions. Thesignificanceof the pro hibitions. Buddhism. 33 the incre;,>',cut of suffering involved in the origina tion of a new life, not on the sanctity of life itself. As far as human life is concerned, it is made to cover much that was expressed in our Lord's inter pretation of the sixth commandment. The second injunction corresponds with the seventh command ment, and as far as monks are concerned prohibits all sexual intercourse whatever. The strongest Thespbitof " forgiveness, emphasis is laid upon the spirit of forgiveness and ^^pj^^sised abstinence from enmity and calumnious conversa tion, on extinction of impure thought and desire, and on meekness in receiving cruel wrong. It must be carefully noted that the duties of the moral code are confined entirely to those of the second table ; and that there are no hints of the No hints of the principle of love to others, save as the expression principle of the desire to surmount and extinguish all desire, °*'^'=''^- including desire for the welfare of others. There is no room in this method of deliverance for the little chUd or the euUty sinner ; nor is there the no hint of ° •' '. help from faintest hint of help from any higher source than '^"y ^^"^ self to enable the strongest spirit to attain even the mysterious rest which is set forth as the highest hope of mankind. The moral precepts which ¦ are embodied in The moral ^ ^ ^ precepts Buddhism simply correspond with those which ^"^^^ are found in the earhest teaching of Hinduism, ^f*S3a and of the Egyptian, Chinese, and Parsi morahsts, and must not claim to be the special patrimony 34 Buddhism. They are anterior to special revelationin the Scriptures, accompaniedwith prin ciples and motives and connected with powers which lift men into harmony with them. The moral culture of Buddhismthe very antipodes of the spiritualculture of Christianity. Misery, not sin, the evil to be explainedby Karma. of Buddha. They are older and deeper than any civilization, and anterior to all special revelation, written or unwritten. They are enshrined in the decalogue, and in the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ ; but in both these revelations they are accompanied with principles and motives, and associated with powers which hft man into harmony with them. It is not by any means clear how the thirst of the soul can be annihilated by these paths of moral obedience, or by any recognition of the universahty of suffering. The contrast between the Gospel of Christ's salvation and the law of Buddha's deliverance is so great that words cannot measure it. The moral culture which schools the mind into utter passivity and indifference to aU things and persons is the very antipodes of the spiritual culture which loves and blesses aU the works of God, which embraces aU souls, and is reconcUed to the Supreme WiU. Misery, rather than sin, is the evU supposed to be explained by the theory of Karma. Moral suicide, not of the bodUy life, but of the very possibUity of reconstruction, and consequent dehver ance from the misery of existence is the great achievement of the Buddhist regime. It is obvious that the terrible evU of trans migration, which was accepted by the Oriental mind as beyond the range of scepticism or question. Buddhism. 35 was a very real and haunting terror. Although Traus- •' o