In Buddhist literature the composite and tertiary character of the Sutta Pitaka is equally plain. The various Nikayas are confessedly collections of discourses. The two older ones seem dominated by the desire to bring before the reader the image of the Buddha preaching: the Samyutta and Anguttara emphasize the doctrine rather than the teacher and arrange much the same matter under new headings. But it is clear that in whatever form the various sermons, dialogues and dissertations appear, that form is not primary but presupposes compilers dealing with an oral tradition already stereotyped in language. For long pa.s.sages such as the tract on morality and the description of progress in the religious life occur in several discourses and the amount of matter common to different Suttas and Nikayas is surprising. Thus nearly the whole of the long Sutta describing the Buddha"s last days and death[64], which at first sight seems to be a connected narrative somewhat different from other Suttas, is found scattered in other parts of the Canon.
Thus our oldest texts whether Brahmanic or Buddhist are editions and codifications, perhaps amplifications, of a considerably older oral teaching. They cannot be treated as personal doc.u.ments similar to the Koran or the Epistles of Paul.
The works of middle antiquity such as the Epics, Puranas, and Mahayanist sutras were also not produced by one author. Many of them exist in more than one recension and they usually consist of a nucleus enveloped and sometimes itself affected by additions which may exceed the original matter in bulk. The Mahabharata and Prajnaparamita are not books in the European sense: we cannot give a date or a table of contents for the first edition[65]: they each represent a body of literature whose composition extended over a long period. As time goes on, history naturally grows clearer and literary personalities become more distinct, yet the later Puranas are not attributed to human authors and were susceptible of interpolation even in recent times. Thus the story of Genesis has been incorporated in the Bhavishya Purana, apparently after Protestant missionaries had begun to preach in India.
The other point to which I would draw attention is the importance of relatively modern works, which supersede the older scriptures, especially in Hinduism. This phenomenon is common in many countries, for only a few books such as the Bhagavad-gita, the Gospels and the sayings of Confucius have a portion of the eternal and universal sufficient to outlast the wear and tear of a thousand years. Vedic literature is far from being discredited in India, though some Tantras say openly that it is useless. It still has a place in ritual and is appealed to by reforming sects. But to see Hinduism in proper perspective we must remember that from the time of the Buddha till now, the composition of religious literature in India has been almost uninterrupted and that almost every century has produced works accepted by some sect as infallible scripture. For most Vishnuites the Bhagavad-gita is the beginning of sacred literature and the Naraya?iya[66] is also held in high esteem: the philosophy of each sect is usually determined by a commentary on the Brahma Sutras: the Bhagavata Purana (perhaps in a vernacular paraphrase) and the Ramayana of Tulsi Das are probably the favourite reading of the laity and for devotional purposes may be supplemented by a collection of hymns such as the Namghosha, copies of which actually receive homage in a.s.sam. The average man-even the average priest-regards all these as sacred works without troubling himself with distinctions as to _sruti_ and _sm?iti_, and the Vedas and Upanishads are hardly within his horizon.
In respect of sacred literature Buddhism is more conservative than Hinduism, or to put it another way, has been less productive in the last fifteen hundred years. The Hinayanists are like those Protestant sects which still profess not to go beyond the Bible. The monks read the Abhidhamma and the laity the Suttas, though perhaps both are disposed to use extracts and compendiums rather than the full ancient texts. Among the Mahayanists the ancient Vinaya and Nikayas exist only as literary curiosities. The former is superseded by modern manuals, the latter by Mahayanist Sutras such as the Lotus and the Happy Land, which are however of respectable antiquity. As in India, each sect selects rather arbitrarily a few books for its own use, without condemning others but also without according to them the formal recognition received by the Old and New Testaments among Christians.
No Asiatic country possesses so large a portion of the critical spirit as China. The educated Chinese, however much they may venerate their cla.s.sics, think of them as we think of the masterpieces of Greek literature, aS texts which may contain wrong readings, interpolations and lacunae, which owe whatever authority they possess to the labours of the scholars who collected, arranged and corrected them. This att.i.tude is to some extent the result of the attempt made by the First Emperor about 200 B.C. to destroy the cla.s.sical literature and to its subsequent laborious restoration. At a time when the Indians regarded the Veda as a verbal revelation, certain and divine in every syllable, the Chinese were painfully recovering and re-piecing their ancient chronicles and poems from imperfect ma.n.u.scripts and fallible memories. The process obliged them to enquire at every step whether the texts which they examined were genuine and complete: to admit that they might be defective or paraphrases of a difficult original. Hence the Chinese have sound principles of criticism unknown to the Hindus and in discussing the date of an ancient work or the probability of an alleged historical event they generally use arguments which a European scholar can accept.
Chinese literature has a strong ethical and political flavour which tempered the extravagance of imported Indian ideas. Most Chinese systems a.s.sert more or less plainly that right conduct is conduct in harmony with the laws of the State and the Universe.
18. _Morality and Will_
It is dangerous to make sweeping statements about the huge ma.s.s of Indian literature, but I think that most Buddhist and Brahmanic systems a.s.sume that morality is merely a means of obtaining happiness[67] and is not obedience to a categorical imperative or to the will of G.o.d.
Morality is by inference raised to the status of a cosmic law, because evil deeds will infallibly bring evil consequences to the doer in this life or in another. But it is not commonly spoken of as such a law. The usual point of view is that man desires happiness and for this morality is a necessary though insufficient preparation. But there may be higher states which cannot be expressed in terms of happiness.
The will receives more attention in European philosophy than in Indian, whether Buddhist or Brahmanic, which both regard it not as a separate kind of activity but as a form of thought. As such it is not neglected in Buddhist psychology: will, desire and struggle are recognized as good provided their object is good, a point overlooked by those who accuse Buddhism of preaching inaction[68].
Schopenhauer"s doctrine that will is the essential fact in the universe and in life may appear to have a.n.a.logies to Indian thought: it would be easy for instance to quote pa.s.sages from the Pitakas showing that _ta?ha_, thirst, craving or desire, is the force which makes and remakes the world. But such statements must be taken as generalizations respecting the world as it is rather than as implying theories of its origin, for though _ta?ha_ is a link in the chain of causation, it is not regarded as an ultimate principle more than any other link but is made to depend on feeling. The Maya of the Vedanta is not so much the affirmation of the will to live as the illusion that we have a real existence apart from Brahman, and the same may be said of Aha?kara in the Sankhya philosophy. It is the principle of egoism and individuality, but its essence is not so much self-a.s.sertion as the _mistaken_ idea that this is _mine_, that _I_ am happy or unhappy.
There is a question much debated in European philosophy but little argued in India, namely the freedom of the will. The active European feeling the obligation and the difficulties of morality is perplexed by the doubt whether he really has the power to act as he wishes. This problem has not much troubled the Hindus and rightly, as I think. For if the human will is not free, what does freedom mean? What example of freedom can be quoted with which to contrast the supposed non-freedom of the will? If in fact it is from the will that our notion of freedom is derived, is it not unreasonable to say that the will is not free?
Absolute freedom in the sense of something regulated by no laws is unthinkable. When a thing is conditioned by external causes it is dependent. When it is conditioned by internal causes which are part of its own nature, it is free. No other freedom is known. An Indian would say that a man"s nature is limited by Karma. Some minds are incapable of the higher forms of virtue and wisdom, just as some bodies are incapable of athletic feats. But within the limits of his own nature a human being is free. Indian theology is not much hampered by the mad doctrine that G.o.d has predestined some souls to d.a.m.nation, nor by the idea of Fate, except in so far as Karma is Fate. It is Fate in the sense that Karma inherited from a previous birth is a store of rewards and punishments which must be enjoyed or endured, but it differs from Fate because we are all the time making our own karma and determining the character of our next birth.
The older Upanishads hint at a doctrine a.n.a.logous to that of Kant, namely that man is bound and conditioned in so far as he is a part of the world of phenomena but free in so far as the self within him is identical with the divine self which is the creator of all bonds and conditions. Thus the Kaus.h.i.taki Upanishad says, "He it is who causes the man whom he will lead upwards from these worlds to do good works and He it is who causes the man whom he will lead downwards to do evil works.
He is the guardian of the world, He is the ruler of the world, He is the Lord of the world and He is myself." Here the last words destroy the apparent determinism of the first part of the sentence. And similarly the Chandogya Upanishad says, "They who depart hence without having known the Self and those true desires, for them there is no freedom in all worlds. But they who depart hence after knowing the Self and those true desires, for them there is freedom in all worlds[70]."
Early Buddhist literature a.s.serts uncompromisingly that every state of consciousness has a cause and in one of his earliest discourses the Buddha argues that the Skandhas, including mental states, cannot be the Self because we have not free will to make them exactly what we choose[71]. But throughout his ethical teaching it is I think a.s.sumed that, subject to the law of karma, conscious action is equivalent to spontaneous action. Good mental states can be made to grow and bad mental states to decrease until the stage is reached when the saint knows that he is free. It may perhaps be thought that the early Buddhists did not realize the consequences of applying their doctrine of causation to psychology and hence never faced the possibility of determinism. But determinism, fatalism, and the uselessness of effort formed part of the paradoxical teaching of Makkhali Gosala reported in the Pitakas and therefore well known. If neither the Jains nor the Buddhists allowed themselves to be embarra.s.sed by such denials of free will, the inference is that in some matters at least the Hindus had strong common sense and declined to accept any view which takes away from man the responsibility and lordship of his own soul.
19. _The Origin of Evil_
The reader will have gathered from what precedes that Hinduism has little room for the Devil[72]. Buddhism being essentially an ethical system recognizes the importance of the Tempter or Mara, but still Mara is not an evil spirit who has spoilt a good world. In Hinduism, whether pantheistic or polytheistic, there is even less disposition to personify evil in one figure, and most Indian religious systems are disposed to think of the imperfections of the world as suffering rather than as sin.
Yet the existence of evil is the chief reason for the existence of religion, at least of such religions as promise salvation, and the explanation of evil is the chief problem of all religions and philosophies, and the problem which they all alike are conspicuously unsuccessful in solving. I can a.s.sign no reason for rejecting as untenable the idea that the ultimate reality may be a duality-a good and an evil spirit-or even a plurality[73], but still it is unthinkable for me and I believe for most minds. If there are two ultimate beings, either they must be complementary and necessary one to the other, in which case it seems to me more correct to describe them as two aspects of one being, or if they are quite separate, my mind postulates (but I do not know why) a third being who is the cause of them both.
The problem of evil is not quite the same for Indian and European pantheists. The European pantheist holds that since G.o.d is all things or in all things, evil is only something viewed out of due perspective: that the world would be seen to be perfect, if it could be seen as a whole, or that evil will be eliminated in the course of development. But he cannot explain why the partial view of the world which human beings are obliged to take shows the existence of obvious evil. The Hindus think that it is possible and better for the soul to leave the vain show of the world and find peace in union with G.o.d. They are therefore not concerned to prove that the world is good, although they cannot explain why G.o.d allows it to exist. The Upanishads contain some myths and parables about the introduction of evil but they do not say that a naturally good world was spoilt[74]. They rather imply that increasing complexity involves the increase of evil as well as of good. This is also the ground thought of the Agganna Sutta, the Buddhist Genesis (Dig.
Nik. XXVII.).
I think that the substance of much Indian pantheism-late Buddhist as well as Brahmanic-is that the world, the soul and G.o.d (the three terms being practically the same) have two modes of existence: one of repose and bliss, the other of struggle and trouble. Of these the first mode is the better and it is only by mistake[75] that the eternal spirit adopts the latter. But both the mistake and the correction of it are being eternally repeated. Such a formulation of the Advaita philosophy would no doubt be regarded in India as wholly unorthodox. Yet orthodoxy admits that the existence of the world is due to the coexistence of Maya (illusion) with Brahman (spirit) and also states that the task of the soul is to pa.s.s beyond Maya to Brahman. If this is so, there is either a real duality (Brahman and Maya) or else Maya is an aspect of Brahman, but an aspect which the soul should transcend and avoid, and for whose existence no reason whatever is given. The more theistic forms of Indian religion, whether Sivaite or Vishnuite, tend to regard individual souls and matter as eternal. By the help of G.o.d souls can obtain release from matter. But here again there is no explanation why the soul is contaminated by matter or ignorance.
It is clearly illogical to condemn the Infinite as bad or a mistake.
Buddhism is perhaps sometimes open to this charge because on account of its exceedingly cautious language about nirvana it fails to set it up as a reality contrasted with the world of suffering. But many varieties of Indian religion do emphatically point to the infinite reality behind and beyond Maya. It is only Maya which is unsatisfactory because it is partial.
Another attempt to make the Universe intelligible regards it as an eternal rhythm playing and pulsing outwards from spirit to matter (pravritti) and then backwards and inwards from matter to spirit (nirvritti). This idea seems implied by Sankara"s view that creation is similar to the sportive impulses of exuberant youth and the Bhagavad-gita is familiar with _pravritti_ and _nirvritti_, but the double character of the rhythm is emphasized most clearly in Sakta treatises. Ordinary Hinduism concentrates its attention on the process of liberation and return to Brahman, but the Tantras recognize and consecrate both movements, the outward throbbing stream of energy and enjoyment (bhukti) and the calm returning flow of liberation and peace.
Both are happiness, but the wise understand that the active outward movement is right and happy only up to a certain point and under certain restrictions.
That great poet Tulsi Das hints at an explanation of the creation or of G.o.d"s expansion of himself which will perhaps commend itself to Europeans more than most Indian ideas, namely that the bliss enjoyed by G.o.d and the souls whom he loves is greater than the bliss of solitary divinity[76].
20. _Church and State_
I will now turn to another point, namely the relations of Church and State. These are simplest in Buddhism, which teaches that the truth is one, that all men ought to follow it and that all good kings should honour and encourage it. This is also the Christian position but Buddhism has almost always been tolerant and has hardly ever countenanced the doctrine that error should be suppressed by force[77].
Buddhism does not claim to cover the whole field of religion as understood in Europe: if people like to propitiate spirits in the hope of obtaining wealth and crops, it permits them to do so. In j.a.pan and Tibet Buddhism has played a more secular role than in other countries, a.n.a.logous to the struggles of the mediaeval European church for temporal authority. In j.a.pan the great monasteries very nearly became the chief military as well as the chief political power and this danger was averted only by the destruction of Hieizan and other large establishments in the sixteenth century. What was prevented in j.a.pan did actually happen in Tibet, for the monasteries became stronger than any of the competing secular factions and the princ.i.p.al sect set up an ecclesiastical government singularly like the Papacy. In southern countries, such as Burma and Ceylon, Buddhism made no attempt to interfere in politics. This aloofness is particularly remarkable in Siam and Camboja, where state festivals are usually conducted by Brahmans not by Buddhist ecclesiastics. In Siam, as formerly in Burma, the king being a Buddhist is in some ways the head of the Church. He may reform lax discipline or incorrect observances, but apparently not of his own authority but merely as an executive power enforcing the opinion of the higher clergy.
Buddhism and Hinduism both have the idea that the monk or priest is a person who in virtue of ordination or birth lives on a higher level than others. He may teach and do good but irrespective of that it is the duty of the laity to support the priesthood. This doctrine is preached by Hinduism in a stronger form than by Buddhism. The intellectual superiority of the Brahmans as a caste was sufficiently real to ensure its acceptance and in politics they had the good sense to rule by serving, to be ministers and not kings. In theory and to a considerable extent in practice, the Brahmans and their G.o.ds are not an _imperium in imperio_ but an _imperium super imperium_. The position was possible only because, unlike the Papacy and unlike the Lamas of Tibet, they had no Pope and no hierarchy. They produced no a"Beckets or Hildebrands and no Inquisition. They did not quarrel with science but monopolized it.
In India kings are expected to maintain the priesthood and the temples yet Hinduism rarely a.s.sumes the form of a state religion[78] nor does it admit, as state religions generally have to admit, that the secular arm has a co-ordinate jurisdiction in ecclesiastical matters. Yet it affects every department of social life and a Hindu who breaks with it loses his social status. Hindu deities are rarely tribal G.o.ds like Athene of Athens or the G.o.ds of Mr Kipling and the German Emperor. There are thousands of shrines specially favoured by a divine presence but the worshippers think of that presence not as the protector of a race or city but as a special manifestation of a universal though often invisible power. The conquests of Mohammedans and Christians are not interpreted as meaning that the G.o.ds of Hinduism have succ.u.mbed to alien deities.
The views prevalent in China and j.a.pan as to the relations of Church and State are almost the antipodes of those described. In those countries it is the hardly dissembled theory of the official world that religion is a department of government and that there should be regulations for G.o.ds and worship, just as there are for ministers and etiquette. If we say that religion is identified with the government in Tibet and forms an _imperium super imperium_ in India, we may compare its position in the Far East to native states under British rule. There is no interference with creeds provided they respect ethical and social conventions: interesting doctrines and rites are appreciated: the Government accepts and rewards the loyal co-operation of the Buddhist and Taoist priesthoods but maintains the right to restrict their activity should it take a wrong political turn or should an excessive increase in the number of monks seem a public danger. The Chinese Imperial Government successfully claimed the strangest powers of ecclesiastical discipline, since it promoted and degraded not only priests but deities. In both China and j.a.pan there has often been a strong current of feeling in the official cla.s.ses against Buddhism but on the other hand it often had the support of both emperors and people, and princes not infrequently joined the clergy, especially when it was desirable for them to live in retirement. Confucianism and Shintoism, which are ethical and ceremonial rather than doctrinal, have been in the past to some extent a law to the governments of China and j.a.pan, or more accurately an aspect of those governments. But for many centuries Far Eastern statesmen have rarely regarded Buddhism and Taoism as more than interesting and legitimate activities, to be encouraged and regulated like educational and scientific inst.i.tutions.
21. _Public Worship and Ceremonial_
In no point does Hinduism differ from western religions more than in its public worship and, in spite of much that is striking and interesting, the comparison is not to the advantage of India. It is true that temple worship is not so important for the Hindus as Church services are for the Christian. They set more store on home ceremonies and on contemplation. Still the temples of India are so numerous, so conspicuous and so crowded that the religion which maintains them must to some extent be judged by them.
At any rate they avoid the faults of public worship in the west. The practice of arranging the congregation in seats for which they pay seems to me more irreligious than the slovenliness of the heathen and makes the whole performance resemble a very dull concert.
Protestant services are in the main modelled on the ritual of the synagogue. They are meetings of the laity at which the scriptures are read, prayers offered, sermons preached and benedictions p.r.o.nounced. The clergy play a princ.i.p.al but not exclusive part. The rites of the Roman and Eastern Churches have borrowed much from pagan ceremonial but still they have not wholly departed from the traditions of the synagogue.
These have also served as a model for Mohammedan ritual which differs from the Jewish in little but its almost military regularity.
But with all this the ordinary ritual of Hindu temples[79] has nothing in common. It derives from another origin and follows other lines. The temple is regarded as the court of a prince and the daily ceremonies are the attendance of his courtiers on him. He must be awakened, fed, amused and finally put to bed. This conception of ritual prevailed in Egypt but in India there is no trace of it in Vedic literature and perhaps it did not come into fashion until Gupta times. Although the laity may be present and salute the G.o.d, such worship cannot be called congregational. Yet in other ways a Hindu temple may provide as much popular worship as a Nonconformist chapel. In the corridors will generally be found readers surrounded by an attentive crowd to whom they recite and expound the Mahabharata or some other sacred text. At festivals and times of pilgrimage the precincts are thronged by a crowd of worshippers the like of which is hardly to be seen in Europe, worshippers not only devout but fired with an enthusiasm which bursts into a mighty chorus of welcome when the image of the G.o.d is brought forth from the inner shrine.
The earlier forms of Buddhist ceremonial are of the synagogue type (though in no way derived from Jewish sources) for, though there is no prayer, they consist chiefly of confession, preaching and reading the scriptures. But this puritanic severity could not be popular and the veneration of images and relics was soon added to the ritual. The former was adopted by Buddhism earlier than by the Brahmans. The latter, though a conspicuous feature of Buddhism in all lands, is almost unknown to Hinduism. In their later developments Buddhist and Christian ceremonies show an extraordinary resemblance due in my opinion chiefly to convergence, though I do not entirely exclude mutual influence. Both Buddhism and Roman Catholicism accepted pagan ritual with some reservations and refinements. The worship has for its object an image or a shrine containing a relic which is placed in a conspicuous position at the end of the hall of worship[80]. Animal sacrifices are rejected but offerings of flowers, lights and incense are permitted, as well as the singing of hymns. It is not altogether strange if Buddhist and Catholic rituals starting from the same elements ended by producing similar scenic effects.
Yet though the scenic effect may be similar, there is often a difference in the nature of the rite. Direct invocations are not wanting in Tibetan and Far Eastern Buddhism but many services consist not of prayers but of the recitation of scripture by which merit is acquired. This merit is then formally transferred by the officiants to some special object, such as the peace of the dead or the prosperity of a living suppliant.
The later phases of both Hinduism and Buddhism are permeated by what is called Tantrism[81], that is to say the endeavour to attain spiritual ends by ritual acts such as gestures and the repet.i.tion of formulae.
These expedients are dangerous and may become puerile, but those who ridicule them often forget that they may be termed sacramental with as much propriety as magical and are in fact based on the same theory as the sacraments of the Catholic Church. When a child is made eligible for salvation by sprinkling with water, by the sign of the cross and by the mantra "In the Name of the Father," etc., or when the divine spirit is localized in bread and wine and worshipped, these rites are closely a.n.a.logous to tantric ceremonial.
The Buddhist temples of the Far East are in original intention copies of Indian edifices and in the larger establishments there is a daily routine of services performed by resident monks. But the management of religious foundations in these countries has been much influenced by old pagan usages as to temples and worship which show an interesting resemblance to the customs of cla.s.sical antiquity but have little in common with Buddhist or Christian ideas. A Chinese munic.i.p.al temple is a public building dedicated to a spirit or departed worthy. If sacrifices are offered in it, they are not likely to take place more than three or four times a year. Private persons may go there to obtain luck by burning a little incense or still more frequently to divine the future: public meetings and theatrical performances may be held there, but anything like a congregational service is rare. Just so in ancient Rome a temple might be used for a meeting of the Senate or for funeral games.
22. _The Worship of the Reproductive Forces_
One aspect of Indian religions is so singular that it demands notice, although it is difficult to discuss. I mean the worship of the generative forces. The cult of a G.o.d, or more often of a G.o.ddess, who personifies the reproductive and also the destructive powers of nature (for it is not only in India that the two activities are seen to be akin) existed in many countries. It was prominent in Babylonia and Asia Minor, less prominent but still distinctly present in Egypt and in many cases was accompanied by hysterical and immoral rites, by mutilations of the body and offerings of blood. But in most countries such deities and rites are a matter of ancient history: they decayed as civilization grew: in China and j.a.pan, as formerly in Greece and Rome, they are not an important const.i.tuent of religion. It is only in India and to some extent in Tibet, which has been influenced by India, that they have remained unabashed until modern times.
If it is right to regard with veneration the great forces of nature, fire, sun and water, a similar feeling towards the reproductive force cannot be unphilosophic or immoral. Nor does the idea that the supreme deity is a mother rather than a father, though startling, contain anything unseemly. Yet it is an undoubted fact that all the great religions except Hinduism, though they may admit a G.o.ddess of Mercy-Kuan-yin or the Madonna-agree in rejecting essentially s.e.xual deities. Modern Europe is probably prudish to excess, but the general practice of mankind testifies that words and acts too nearly connected with s.e.xual things cannot be safely permitted in the temple. This remark would indeed be superfluous were it not that many millions of our Hindu fellow-citizens are of a contrary opinion.
Such practices prevail chiefly among the Saktas in Bengal and a.s.sam but similar licence is permitted (though the theoretical justification and theological setting are different) in some Vishnuite sects. Both are reprobated by the majority of respectable Hindus, but both find educated and able apologists. And though it may be admitted that worship of the linga may exist without bad effects, moral or intellectual, yet I think that these effects make themselves felt so soon as a sect becomes distinctly erotic. Anyone who visits two such different localities as Kamakhya in a.s.sam and Gokul near Muttra must be struck with the total absence in the shrines of anything that can be called beautiful, solemn or even terrible. The general impression is of something diseased, unclean and undignified. The figure of the Great G.o.ddess of life and death might have fired[82] the invention of artists but as a matter of fact her worship has paralyzed their hands and brains.
Nor can I give much praise to the Tantras as literature[83]. It is true that, as some authors point out, they contain fine sayings about G.o.d and the soul. But in India such things form part of the common literary stock and do not ent.i.tle the author to the praise which he would win elsewhere, unless his language or thoughts show originality. Such originality I have not found in those Tantras which are accessible. The magical and erotic parts may have the melancholy distinction of being unlike other works but the philosophical and theological sections could have been produced by any Hindu who had studied these branches of Indian literature.
23. _Hinduism in Practice_