EASTERN 
RELIGIONS 

AND 
WESTERN 
THOUGHT 



By S, Radhakrishnan 
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

PREFACE 

MODERN civilization with its scientific temper, 
humanistic spirit, and secular view of life is uprooting 
the world over the customs of long centuries and creating a 
ferment of restlessness. The new world cannot remain a con- 
fused mass of needs and impulses, ambitions and activities, 
without any control or guidance of the spirit. The void 
created by abandoned superstitions and uprooted beliefs 
calls for a spiritual filling. 

The world has found itself as one body. But physical 
unity and economic interdependence are not by themselves 
sufficient to create a universal human community. For this 
we require a human consciousness of community, a sense 
of personal relationships among men. Though this human 
consciousness was till recently limited to the members of the 
political States, there has been a rapid extension of it after 
the War, The modes and customs of all men are now a part 
of the consciousness of all men. Man has become the 
spectator of man. A new humanism is on the horizon. But 
this time it embraces the whole of mankind. An intimate 
mutual knowledge between peoples is producing an enrich- 
ment of world-consciousness. We can no more escape being 
members of a world community than we can jump out of 
our own skin. Yet to our dismay we find that the world is 
anarchical and unruly. Its mind is in confusion; its brain 
out of hinge. More than ever before, the world is to-day 
divided and afflicted by formidable evils. The cause of the 
present tension and disorder is the lack of adjustment 
between the process of life, which is one of increasing inter- 
dependence, and the 'ideology' of life, the integrating habits 
of mind, loyalties, and affections 'embodied in our laws and 
institutions. Education, which has for its aim the transmis- 
sion not only of skills and techniques, but of ideals and 
loyalties, of affections and % appreciations, is busy in the new 
world with the old ideals of national sovereignty and economic 
self-sufficiency. The present organization of the world is 
inconsistent with the Zeitgeist shining on the distant horizon 
as well as the true spirit of religion. To say that there is only 



viii PREFACE 

one God is to affirm that there is only one community of 
mankind. The obstacles to the organization of human 
society in an international commonwealth are in the minds 
of men who have not developed the sense of the duty they 
owe to each other. We have to touch the soul of mankind. 
'For soul is Form and doth the body make/ We must evolve 
ideals, habits, and sentiments which would enable us to 
build up a world community, live in a co-operative common- 
wealth working for the faith: 'so long as one man is in prison, 
I am not free; so long as one community is enslaved I belong 
to it'. 

The supreme task of our generation is to give a soul to 
the growing world-consciousness, to develop ideals and in- 
stitutions necessary for the creative expression of the world 
soul,, to transmit these loyalties and impulses to future 
generations and train them into world citizens. To this 
great work of creating a new pattern of living, some of the 
fundamental insights of Eastern religions-, especially Hindu- 
ism and Buddhism, seem to be particularly relevant, and an 
attempt is made in these lectures to indicate them* No 
culture, no country, lives or has a right to live for itself. If 
it has any contribution to make towards the enrichment of 
the human spirit, it owes that contribution to the widest 
circle that it can reach. The contributions of ancient Greece, 
of the Roman Empire, of Renaissance Italy to the progress 
of humanity do not concern only the inhabitants of modern 
Greece or modern Italy. They are a part of the heritage of 
humanity. In the life of mind and spirit we cannot afford to 
display a mood of provincialism. At any rate, a mobilization 
of the wisdom of the world may have some justification at a 
time when so many other forms of mobilization are threaten- 
ing it. : 

I am aware of the scale and difficulty of the problems on 
which I touch. I am not a trained theologian and can only 
speak from the point of view <?f a student of philosophy who 
has endeavoured to keep abreast with modern investigations 
into the origin and growth of the chief religions of the world, 
and it seems to me that in the mystic traditions of the dif- 
ferent religions we have a remarkable unity of spirit. What- 
ever religions they may profess, the mystics are spiritual 



PREFACE ii 

kinsmen. While the different religions in their historical 
forms bind us to limited groups and militate against the 
development of loyalty to the world community, the mystics 
have always stood for the fellowship of humanity. They 
transcend the tyranny of names and the rivalry of creeds as 
well as the conflict of races and the strife of nations. As the 
religion of spirit, mysticism avoids the two extremes of 
dogmatic affirmation and dogmatic denial. All signs indi- 
cate that it is likely to be the religion of the future. 

I have a feeling that.it is not quite proper for me to write 
a book where I have to depend for information at least in 
part on translations, but I thought that it was no use waiting 
for a scholar who shall have a proper and critical knowledge of 
Sanskrit and Hebrew, Greek and Latin, French and German, 
who alone could get all the sides in proper order, for such 
a scholar has not yet been born. Even translations could be 
used with care and judgement. So I felt that it was time that 
some one with some knowledge, got together the main 
points into order. Again, I wish to lay claim to the task of 
a historian and not that of a partisan. If I have misrepre- 
sented any point of real importance, no one will be more 
grieved than myself. Those who know the extent and 
intricacy of the ground traversed will readily pardon less 
serious errors. 

These lectures were given in the years 19368, and 
though they have been revised and slightly expanded for 
publication, their informal character has been retained. 
There is inevitably a certain amount of repetition in a book 
of this kind. I have made no serious attempt to avoid it, 
partly because it would have tended to spoil the construction 
of individual lectures and partly because a certain amount of 
repetition of general principles in different connexions has 
some value in itself. The book is intended more for the larger 
public interested in the higher pursuits of the mind and pro- 
blems of human culture and living than for the professional 
student of philosophy. Though the book has not the 
structural perfection which the importance of the theme 
requires, I hope there is a certain unity of outlook binding 
the different sections. 

I desire to thank the Delegates of the Clarendon Press for 



x PREFACE 

undertaking the publication of the book and for permitting 
me to use material already published by them, and to thank 
the staff of the Press for the way in which the publication has 
been carried out. Sir Richard Livingstone kindly read the 
proofs and I am greatly indebted to him. Lastly I would 
take this opportunity to pay a tribute of gratitude to Pro- 
fessor J. H. Muirheadj to whom this work is dedicated and 
whose critical sense and clear judgement have been my 
unfailing help in almost all the things that I have written 
in the last twenty years. Neither he nor Sir Richard Living- 
stone is, however, responsible for the views contained in this 
book. 

S. R. 



CONTENTS 

I. THE WORLD'S UNBORN SOUL i 

i. The meaning of history. 

ii. The Greek spirit: science and rationalism, secular human- 
ism and civic patriotism. 

in. Medieval culture: Christian religion. 

iv. The Renaissance in philosophy, religion, and politics, 
v. Our times and the need for the emphasis of Eastern reli- 
gions. 

vi. The Hindu view of religion as spiritual experience is 
essentially rationalistic and humanistic. The nature of 
Brahman and self. Divine personality. The meaning of 
maya. 

vn. Mankind still in the making. 

II. THE SUPREME SPIRITUAL IDEAL: THE HINDU 

VIEW 35 

i. The Hindu outlook and its germs in the Indus valley 

civilization. The goal of an integrated life, 
n. Intellectual consciousness and its working. The meaning 

of avidya. Religion as freedom from fear (abhaya) and 

love (ahimsa). 
in. The discipline for attaining spiritual freedom. Toga and 

its stages. Spiritual insight is the birth-place of religion, 
iv. Consideration of the criticism that the Hindu ideal is not 

sufficiently ethical. Its reference to the political failure 01 

India. Religion has two sides, individual and social, and is 

defective if it neglects either. 

III. MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 58 

i. The present indifference to religion is a sign more of 
deepening spirituality than of growing secularism. Advance 
of science and criticism of history affect external religions. 
Increasing attention to the spiritual side of religion or 
mysticism. What is mysticism? 

ii. Schweitzer's criticism of Indian mysticism as life- and 
world-negating. The distinction that Hindu thought is 
world- and life-negating and Christian thought is world- and 
life-affirming cannot be historically sustained. The contrast 
is really between religion and a self-sufficient humanism. 

in. A statement of Schweitzer's points. 

iv. The nature of ecstasy. Its relation to and bearing on 
spiritual life. 



xii CONTENTS 

v. Ethics and metaphysics and their intimate relation. 

Highest ethics must be rooted in other-worldliness. 
vi. The doctrine of may a. Its exact significance for ethics. 

Maya is not solipsism. 

vii. The problem of creation. There is no organic relationship 
between the Absolute and the world. The analogy of fila 
or play. 

viii. jHana or spiritual insight is regarded as more important 
than morality. Perfection is more than progress. Ethical 
life is essential for spiritual attainment, 
ix. Release is criticized as freedom from the world and the will 

to live. The nature of eternal life examined. 
x. The conception of 'beyond good and evil'. 
xi. Inner perfection and outer activity. Asceticism, 
xii. A reborn faith in spiritual values is our deepest need. 

IV. INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT: 

GREECE 115 

i. The new Renaissance in the West due to close contact with 

Eastern ideas, 
u. The civilizations of the Indus valley, Sumer, Egypt, and 

Minos, 
in. Rg PC da and the Olympian religion of the Greeks. 

Iranian gods. 

iv. The Upani^ads and the Orphic and Eleusinian mysteries, 
Pythagoras and Plato. 

V. INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT: 

CHRISTENDOM. I 153 

i. Alexander's invasion of India, 
ii. Non-Semitic influences in Palestine, The Essenes. John 

the Baptist, Enoch. Life and teaching of Jesus. Buddha, 
in. Roman Empire and the cults of Mithraism. The Egyptian 

mysteries and Alexandrian theology, 
iv. Gnosticism. Philo. 
v. The Hermetic tradition of Egypt. Plutarch, Apollonius, 

Basilides, Valentinus, Theodotus, Bardesanes, Marcion. 
vi. Poseidonius, Numenius, Plotinus, Porphyry, lamblichus, 

Proclus. 

VI. INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT: 

CHRISTENDOM. II 219 

i. St. Paul, the Fourth Gospel. The Apologists. Clement and 
Origen. Augustine. Boethius. Dionysius the Areopagite. 



CONTENTS xiii 

n. Hindu, Persian, and Christian mysticism. John Scotus 
Erigena. Hugo and Richard of St. Victor. Albertus 
Magnus. Thomas Aquinas. 

in. The influence of India on the West in recent times. 

VII. GREECE, PALESTINE, AND INDIA 252 

i. The character of Western civilization and its distinction 

from the Hindu and the Chinese, 
ii. Three currents in Western religious tradition, Graeco- 

Roman, the Hebrew, and the Indian. Historical outline of 

the Graeco-Roman influence. The strain of scepticism, 
in. The Jewish tendency and its development. The strain of 

dogmatism, 
iv. The Indian tradition of mysticism. Earth's Dialectical 

Theology. Christianity and the heritage of India. 

VIII. THE MEETING OF RELIGIONS 306 

i. Religion in the Indus civilization. Hospitality of the 

Indian mind. Historical outline, 
ii. The Hindu attitude is the outcome not of scepticism or of 

expediency. 

m-v. It is traceable to faith in spiritual experience as the essence 
of religion. Arguments in favour of the Hindu attitude to 
other religions. Religious tradition and its value for reli- 
gious growth. The Logos conception. 

vi. The Hindu method of religious reform. Its merits and de- 
fects, 
vn-x. The effect of Hindu spirit on Islam and on Christianity. 

IX. THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE SOCIAL ORDER IN 

HINDUISM 349 

i. Obstacles to mutual understanding, 
ii. Hindu social organization. General character, 
in. The four ends of life: spiritual, artistic, economic, and ethical, 
iv. The scheme of four classes dealt with from three stand- 
points, the spiritual-social, the ethical-psychological, and 
the conventional. The democratic character of the class 
system. Caste divisions and Protestant movements. 
Merits and defects of the scheme. 
v. The four stages of life, 
vi. Values, social and universal, 
vn. Modern world and non-resistance. 

APPENDIX 386 

INDEX 389 



I 

THE WORLD'S UNBORN SOUL' 

WERE I to express adequately my feelings at the 
honour this ancient University has done me by elect- 
ing me to this newly founded Chair of Eastern Religions and 
Ethics, I should be tempted to become somewhat elaborate 
and perhaps tedious. Permit me therefore to express my 
gratitude to you with a plain Thank you'. 

Six years ago I spent a few months in this University. 
I was, however, a stranger within its gates, in it but not of 
it. I therefore appreciate the honour of being received into 
this fellowship of men and women united in their loyalty to 
the supreme ideal of truth and in their resolution to practise 
it for the welfare of humanity. When I look at the names of 
my colleagues and think of the learning and scholarship they 
represent, I realize my own limitations and can only plead for 
all the indulgence which they can offer and I very much need. 



To attempt to understand one's age is an undertaking full 
of difficulties. No one who is in it can take a detached view 
of it. However, as rational beings, we cannot help asking 
what modern life in all its intense activity and rapid change 
signifies, what the sense of it all is, for, as Socrates tells us, 
the noblest of all investigations is the study of what itian 
should be and what he should pursue. 2 

Human history is not a series of secular happenings with- 
out any shape or pattern ; it is a meaningful process, a signi- 
ficant development. Those who look at it from the outside 
are carried away by the wars and battles, the economic dis- 
orders and the political upheavals, but below in the depths 
is to be found the truly majestic drama, the tension between 
the limited effort of man and the sovereign purpose of the 
universe. Man cannot rest in an unresolved discord. He 
must seek for harmony, strive for adjustment. His progress 
is marked by a series of integrations, by the formation of 

1 An Inaugural Lecture delivered before the University of Oxford on 
20 October 1936. 2 Pkto, Gvgiu, 487. 



2 THE WORLD'S UNBORN SOUL 

more and more comprehensive harmonies. When any parti- 
cular integration is found inadequate to the new conditions, 
he breaks it down and advances to a larger whole. While 
civilization is always on the move, certain periods stand out 
clearly marked as periods of intense cultural change. The 
sixth century B.C., the transition from antiquity to the 
Middle Ages and from the Middle Ages to modern times 
in Europe, were such periods. None of these, however, is 
comparable to the present tension and anxiety which are 
world-wide in character and extend to every aspect of human 
life. We seem to feel that the end of one period of civiliza- 
tion is slowly drawing into sight. 

For the first time in the history of our planet its inhabi- 
tants have become one whole, each and every part of which 
is affected by the fortunes of every other. Science and tech- 
nology, without aiming at this result, have achieved the 
unity. Economic and political phenomena are increasingly 
imposing on us the obligation to treat the world as a unit. 
Currencies are linked, commerce is international, political 
fortunes are interdependent. And yet the sense that man- 
kind must become a community is still a casual whim, a 
vague aspiration, not generally accepted as a conscious ideal 
or an urgent practical necessity moving us to feel the dignity 
of a common citizenship ana the call of a common duty. 
Attempts to bring about human unity through mechanical 
means, through political adjustments, have proved abortive. 
It is not by these devices, not at any rate by them alone, that 
the unity of the human race can be enduringly accomplished. 

The destiny of the human race, as of the individual, de- 
pends on the direction of its life forces, the lights which 
guide it, and the laws that mould it. There is a region be- 
yond the body and the intellect, one in which the human 
spirit finds its expression in aspiration, not in formulas, a 
region which Plato enters when he frames his myths. It is 
called the soul of a being, the determining principle of body 
and mind. In the souls of men to-day there are clashing tides 
of colour and race, nation and religion, which create mutual 
antagonisms, myths, and dreams that divide mankind into 
hostile groups. Conflicts in human affairs are due to divi- 
sions in the human soul. The average general mind is 



THE WORLD'S UNBORN SOUL 3 

respectful of the status quo and disinclined to great adven- 
tures, in which the security and isolation of the past have to 
be given up. It is not quite convinced by the moral collapse 
of the present system reposing on a ring of national egoisms 
held in check by mutual fear and hesitation, by ineffective 
treaties and futile resolutions of international tribunals, 'Do 
you imagine', asks Plato in the Republic^ 'that political con- 
stitutions spring from a tree or a rock and not from the 
dispositions of the citizens which turn the scale and draw all 
else in their direction ? . . . The constitutions are as the men 
are and grow out of their characters.' 1 A society can be re- 
made only by changing men's hearts and minds. However 
much we may desire to make all things new, we cannot get 
away from our roots in the old. Let us go for some distance 
into the past and trace the ideas which rule the present. 

ii 

The moulding influences of modern civilization, the spirit 
of science and rationalism, secular humanism and the sove- 
reign State can be traced to the period of classical antiquity. 

i. The Greeks faid the foundations of natural science for 
the European world. To analyse and explore, to test and 
prove all things in the light of reason, was the ambition of 
the Greek mind. No part of life is excluded from criticism 
by the dictates of the State or the scruples of the scriptures. 
The Greeks were the first to attempt to make life rational, to 
ask what is the right life for man and to apply the principles 
of reason and order to the chaos of primitive beliefs. Socrates 
warned us against the unexamined life and subjected the 
unanalysed catchwords of his time to careful scrutiny. He 
had firm faith that it is the nature of man to do right and 
walk straight. Human nature is fundamentally good, and 
the spread of enlightenment will abolish all wrong. Vice is 
only a miss, an error. We can learn to become good. Virtue 
is teachable. 

Plato tells us that the universal or the general idea deter- 
mines the nature of a particular individual and has greater 
reality than the latter. The philosopher is one who seeks to 
escape from the realm of the transient and contemplates the 
1 viii. 544, See Jowett's E.T. 



4 THE WORLD'S UNBORN SOUL 

world of real being freed from all confusion and error, which 
infect the objects of everyday experience. The world of ideas 
is the only realm of certainty in which man can dwell secure, 
freed from opinion and probability. The most obvious ex- 
ample of such truth is to be seen in the general propositions 
of mathematics. 

2. Yet the Greek could never forget that his main con- 
cern was with man in his full concrete reality. His bodily 
desires should be given free play, his mental powers full 
scope. Every side of his nature should be developed so as 
to produce a harmony in which no part tyrannizes over the 
rest. Here is a definition of happiness attributed to Solon 
and approved by Herodotus. 'He is whole of limb, a stranger 
to disease, free from misfortune, happy in his children and 
comely to look upon. If in addition to all this he ends his 
life well, he is of a truth the man of whom thou art in search, 
the man who may rightly be termed happy.' 1 The Greeks 
were not famous for their religious genius or moral fervour. 
We do not come across any hunger for the eternal or any 
passionate indignation against injustice. The main religion 
of the Greeks was the worship of the Olympian gods. 
Originally they were powers or forces of nature, though they 
soon became representative of human qualities. Dionysus, 
Aphrodite, Hermes, Artemis, each of them represents some 
quality of man. They were magnified human beings free 

1 1-32, Rawlinson's E.T., vol. i, p. 16; Solon prays to the Muses: 'Let me 
at all times obtain good fortune from the blessed gods and enjoy honourable 
repute among men.* Ischomachus in the Economics of Xenophon reckons among 
subjects of prayer 'health, bodily strength, good repute in the city, kindly 
relation with friends, safety in war, increase of wealth'. An echo of this view is 
found in Aristotle, who defines happiness as 'Prosperity combined with virtue; 
or independence of life; or that existence which, being safe, is pleasantest; or a 
flourishing state of prosperity and of body, with the faculty of guarding and 
producing this; for it may be said that all men allow happiness to be one or 
more of these things. If then happiness is this sort of thing, these must be 
parts of it; good birth, the possession of many friends, wealth, the possession of 
good children, the possession of many children, a happy old age: further the 
excellence of the body as health, beauty, strength, great stature, athletic 
power; also good repute, honour, good fortune, virtue. For a man would then 
be most independent, if he possessed both the personal and the external goods 
since besides these there are no others' (Rhetoric, 1360 b). Jebbs's E.T. 
Plutarch records a prayer, 'put off old age, thou beautiful Aphrodite'. 



THE WORLD'S UNBORN SOUL 5 

from old age and death. 1 Sometimes, as in Aeschylus, their 
justice and righteousness are insisted upon; but more often, 
as in Euripides, the gods display their might in a manner 
that defies all judgement by merely human standards, though 
it may be in conformity with the ways of natural forces. The 
sense of mystery was felt strongly in the presence of divine 
powers so long as they were conceived as natural forces, but 
it diminished somewhat when they were anthropomorphized. 
If we measure the nature of a religion by the sense of mystery 
it induces in its followers, the mythology of the Greeks is 
not religion of a high quality. The Sophists questioned the 
right of what religion taught to control man's conduct It 
was 'at best a human convention. 2 

Religious beliefs, however, were useful for political pur- 
poses. Some god or other guards every city with special care. 
The religious festivals were open to the Greeks and closed 
to others. If Socrates was executed and Anaxagoras exiled 
for attacking traditional beliefs, it was because of their un- 
patriotic impiety. It was more political oppression than reli- 
gious persecution. If the Sophists did not for long subvert 
the piety of the ancients, if Epicurus admitted the existence 
of the gods, even while he denied them any part in the 
government of the world, if the Stoics with the most pro- 
nounced rationalism still employed the old religious dyna- 
mic, it was because they knew the social value of religion. 3 

1 Sophocles, Oedipus Col one us, 607-1 5. 

2 Protagoras expresses clearly the easy view of the Sophists: 'I do not know 
whether God exists or does not exist, nor what is his nature; there are many 
obstacles to such knowledge, the obscurity of the subject and the shortness of 
man's life' (Fr. 4). 

3 The essentially subordinate part played by religion in the Greek view can 
be illustrated by a reference to the doctrine of future life. Even Plato on occa- 
sions felt uncertain about life after death, whether it is immortality or dream- 
less sleep (Republic, ii. 363, iii. 387). Aristotle is not clear on the subject, for he 
suggests that when a man is dead, neither good nor evil affects him any more 
(Ntchomachean Ethics, 1115 a. 25). The Stoics denied personal immortality 
though on occasions they affirmed the survival of the soul till the general con- 
flagration. The Greeks played with the belief of future life, though they 
were little affected by it. In its great days the Greek mind remained positivist 
and humanistic and was indifferent to the fate of the soul. An ordinary young 
Athenian Glaucon in Plato's Republic answers the question 'Have you not 
heard that our soul is immortal?': *No, really I have not' (608). 



6 THE WORLD'S UNBORN SOUL 

It is true that in Pythagoras and Plato, the Orphics and 
the Neoplatonists, mystic elements were found, but these 
tendencies were by no means representative of the Greek 
spirit. Pindar and Pericles, Thucydides and Socrates, who 
represent the Greek genius at its best, with their visions of 
art and science, with their conceptions of civic life and aspira- 
tion, were essentially humanist thinkers. 1 The mystery reli- 
gions believed in the deification of man, and the typical 
Greek has no use for it. Pindar writes: 'Two things alone 
there are that cherish life's bloom to its utmost sweetness 
amid the fair flowers of wealth to have good success and 
to win therefor fair fame. Seek not to be a God; if the por- 
tion of these honours falls to thee, thou hast already all. The 
things of mortals best befit mortality/ 2 There are passages 
in Plato which ask us to mistrust our nature, to see in it an 
incurable taint, and exhort us to live in the world of the un- 
seen, but in them Plato is not voicing the Greek spirit. 3 

3. Devotion to the city-State filled the spiritual vacuum 
in the Greek consciousness. The city was the unit of Greek 
society and claimed the devotion of its citizens. No Greek 
city was willing to submit to the leadership of another. 4 The 
funeral oration of Pericles proclaims service of the po/is, 
which is both Church and State in one, as the highest duty. 
Since each city had a consciousness of its own superiority, 
the Greeks failed to develop a larger loyalty towards a union 
of the whole Greek world. They could not organize and act 

1 'Supposing Plato and Pindar to have a vein of Orphism and Pythagoras's 
queer ideas on numbers, supposing Aeschylus to be touched with mysticism 
and Euripides with mysticism and morbidity, the student of the Greek genius 
has a right to disregard their peculiarities, if he feels that he has his hand on an 
essential quality in Hellenism and that they are inconsistent with it* (Living- 
stone, The Greek Genius and its Meaning to Us, 2nd ed., 191 5, p. 21 ; see also 
p. 22). 2 Isthm.^. 12. 

3 Laws, 918. Rohde says in Psyche ( 1 9 2 5), E .T., chap, xiii, that the Platonic 
spirit is an alien phenomenon in Greece. Sir Richard Livingstone writes: 
'Though in a thousand ways Pkto is a Greek of the Greeks, in all that is most 
distinctive in his thought, he is a heretic* (op. cit., p. 183). For a different view 
see W. R. Inge, The Philosophy of Phtinus (1918), vol. i, pp. 71-4. 

4 Grote writes: 'In respect to political sovereignty complete disunion was 
among their most cherished principles. The only source of supreme authority 
to which a Greek felt respect and attachment was to be sought within the 
walls of his own city* (A History of Greece, vol. iii, p. 41). 



THE WORLD'S UNBORN SOUL 7 

together, and their lives were spent in violent conflicts of the 
mutually repellent autonomies. Plato, it is true, dreamed of 
an ideal society, but it was conceived as a city-State, not a 
commonwealth of mankind. Greek civilization came to an 
end mainly on account of its adherence to the false religion of 
patriotism. 1 While it gave Europe the habit of disinterested 
pursuit of knowledge, 2 it also left her a negative legacy of the 
untenability of holding up patriotism as the highest virtue. 
With the disappearance of the city-State, Greek patriotism 
died or survived as public spirit. Rome, which succeeded 
Greece, was powerful for a time, but her religion had a special 
relation to the State. Worship was a public duty or civic func- 
tion carried out by an official priesthood. The citizens may 
have their own private beliefs, so long as they publicly acknow- 
ledge the religion of the State. New worships were readily 
accepted and Rome soon became a museum of strange faiths. 
Besides, the dignity of the gods was greatly prejudiced when 
wielders of supreme power in the State like Julius Caesar and 
Augustus were deified. 3 The political apotheosis removed 
the last shred of mystery from religion and made it into a 
'national anthem'. Such a religion could neither satisfy the 
immortal longings of man nor supply the spiritual unity 
which could bind the different provinces of Rome. Each of 
them had its own religious forms and practices and despised 
those of its neighbours, and in the hour of her trial localism 
prevailed and Rome failed. By the time the old tradition 
broke down the new current of Christianity had set in. 

in 

The vital urge to the development of medieval culture, 
which attained high and beautiful expression in the twelfth 
and thirteenth centuries, was derived from the Judaic- 
Christian conception of life. Some Hellenists are inclined 

1 "This state worship was the spiritual disease tb*.t Hellenism died of 
(A. J. Toynbee, Essays in Honour of Professor Gilbert Murray (1936), p. 308). 

2 'Men differ from beasts and the race of the Hellenes from barbarians in 
that they are better educated for thought and for its expression in words' 
(Isocrates, xv. 293). 

3 In the last part of his rule Commodus believed in his identity with the 
god Hercules, whose reincarnation he pretended to be. 



8 THE WORLD'S UNBORN SOUL 

to suggest that this movement is an unhappy interruption 
of human progress. It is said that Europe would have been 
a very different place, more humane and peace-loving, less 
given to national and racial feuds, cultural and religious 
strife, if the essential rationality and cosmopolitanism of the 
Stoics had been allowed to leaven the European world, if 
the persecutions of Marcus Aurelius had exterminated the 
Christian creed. Such speculations are profitless, for history 
has taken a different course. Nature obviously had a different 
intention. 

Rome's military conquests brought her into contact with 
other communities and her spiritual poverty exposed her 
to foreign religious influences. After a period of struggle, 
Christianity won. Even as Justinian's closure of the schools 
of Athens defined the end of the ancient world, the con- 
version of Constantine gave an official recognition to the 
victory of Christianity. While retaining the Jewish beliefs 
in a living God and passion for righteousness, it absorbed 
Greek thought and Roman traditions. 

i . Its two chief contributions to European thought are 
an insistence on the insufficiency of the intellectual and the 
importance of the historical. Both Judaism and Christianity 
take their stand on revelation. While for the most spiritual 
of Greek thinkers God was the 'Idea of the Good', 'The 
First Mover', 'The Ruling Principle', Reason or Logos, for 
the Jews and the Christians, God is a supreme person who 
reveals His will to His lawgivers and prophets. Christians 
believe in addition that God took the form of man and led 
a human life on earth. Again, while the greatest of Hellenic 
thinkers had no conception of history as a purposive process 
with a direction and a goal, but believed it to be a cyclic 
movement, the Jews had faith in an historical fulfilment. 1 
The Jewish consciousness lived in the intense expectation of 
some great decisive event which will be the definitive solu- 
tion of the historical problem. The Messianic idea, which 
is the determining factor in Jewish history, survived in 

1 Cf. Isaiah: 'This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth: 
and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations. For the Lord of 
hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is stretched out, 
and who shall turn it back?' (xiv. 26-7). 



THE WORLD'S UNBORN SOUL 9 

Christianity. The Christian view represents a blend of the 
Greek and the Jewish conceptions of the historical. In the 
works of St. Augustine, who stood at the meeting-point of 
the two worlds, the classical and the Christian, we find the 
struggle between the two conceptions. When he saw the 
great catastrophe happening before his eyes, the decay and 
death of the Roman Empire, the end of what seemed the 
most stable structure the world had seen, he pointed to 
the transcendent reality of God, the one changeless being 
above all the chances and changes of life. This is the central 
idea in his Confessions. The Jewish emphasis on the historical, 
and the Christian doctrine of incarnation are difficult to 
reconcile with the absolute and non-historical character of 
the Godhead. The vigorous intellectual life of the Middle 
Ages was devoted to the explication of this problem and the 
finding of credible justifications for the other doctrines of 
the faith. In the theological writings of Thomas Aquinas we 
find an impressive attempt to build a system of Christian 
theology with the aid of the cold logic of the Aristotelians. 
In spite of these great attempts, however, the problem still 
remains unsolved, 1 

The very completeness of the edifice of thought raised by 
the Middle Ages left little room for undiscovered facts and 
paralysed thought. 

2. When righteousness is practised, not for its own sake 
but because it is the will of God, it is practised with a fervour 
and a fanaticism that are sometimes ungodly. When the 
will of God is known, we feel driven to pass it on and think 
it intolerable that it should be disobeyed. 'The Lord God 

1 A great Russian theologian, Nicholas Berdyaev, refers to this difficulty 
thus: * According to the dogma of the Church and its prevailing philosophy, the 
possibility of a movement or of an historical process in the depths of divine 
life would appear to be incompatible with the Christian consciousness. There 
exists, indeed, a wide-spread Christian doctrine which denies that the principle 
of movement and of tragic destiny can affect the nature of the Divine Being. 
But I am deeply convinced that the Christian doctrine of the immobility and 
inertia of God and the Absolute, and of the effectiveness of the historical 
principle only in the creative and relative world that differs essentially from 
the Absolute is a purely exoteric and superficial doctrine. And it ignores 
what is most inward and mysterious, the esoteric truth implicit in the doctrine 
of the divinity* (The Meaning of History, E.T. (1936), p. 47). 



io THE WORLD'S UNBORN SOUL 

hath spoken, who can but prophesy?' 1 While such a belief 
gives definiteness, conviction, and urgency to the ethical 
message, which no abstract logic could give, it at the same 
time shuts the door against all change and progress. 

The Jews first invented the myth that only one religion 
could be true. As they, however, conceived themselves to 
be the 'Chosen People', 2 they did not feel a mission to con- 
vert the whole world. The Jews gave to Christianity an 
ethical passion and a sense of superiority; the Greeks gave 
the vague aspirations and mysteries of the spirit a logical 
form, a dogmatic setting; the Romans with their practical 
bent and love of organization helped to institutionalize the 
religion. Their desire for world dominion transformed the 
simple faith of Jesus into a fiercely proselytizing creed. After 
the time of Constantine, authorities, clerical and secular, dis- 
played systematic intolerance towards other forms of religious 
belief, taking shelter under the words 'He that is not with me 
is against me, and he that gathereth not with me, scattereth'. 

Add to this the idea that the Kingdom is not of this world 
and Augustine's distinction of the Two Cities and the world 
becomes a fleeting show, beauty a snare, and pleasure a 
temptation. The highest virtue is abstinence and mortifica- 
tion. 'If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and 
mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, 
yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.' Under 
the shadow of this great renunciation social impulses 
declined and intellectual curiosity slackened. 

3. The doctrine of the State as a divine creation was 
supported by the apostles and the Primitive Church. 
'Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's.' 'The 
powers that be are ordained of God.' It was one of the ele- 
mentary duties of the Christians to pray for princes and 
other powers. The supremacy of the State obtained religious 
support. 

The conquests of the Romans imposed unity on a large 
part of Europe and gave it a characteristic civilization with 
its laws and languages. Roman law still forms the basis of 
the codes of several European countries. Before the close 
of the fifth century the Roman Empire of the West had 

1 Amosiii. 8. 2 Deuteronomy xiv. 2. 



THE WORLD'S UNBORN SOUL n 

fallen before the arms of the northern invaders, and though 
a shadow of Rome's ancient power and name still survived 
at Constantinople, Europe had lost its former political unity. 
But the idea of cultural unity was sustained to some extent 
by the Holy Roman Empire. Though there were local and 
feudal anarchy and a good deal of fighting in the Middle 
Ages, her greatest representatives, Charlemagne and Otto, 
Barbarossa and Hildebrand, Aquinas and Dante, believed in 
one Church and one Empire. The capture of Constantinople 
by the Turks in 1453 destroyed the last remains of the Roman 
Empire in the East and ushered in a new era. 

While medieval Christianity gave to Europe a sure sense 
of the reality of the unseen, which holds the key to the destiny 
of man and the clue to right conduct, and thus redeemed even 
the intellectual and artistic pagans from an easy, self-centred, 
and self-complacent superficiality, it imposed on Europe 
religious bigotry, which stifled free intellectual inquiry and 
fostered narrowness and obscurantism. But people whose 
physical and mental powers are unexhausted cannot remain 
content with such an order. The elements of a freer life 
gradually asserted themselves. Though the Middle Ages 
had lived in the shadow of antiquity and were more con- 
cerned with its forms than the spirit, still through a gradual 
inward ripening of the mind the easy and natural thought 
of the ancient Greeks, their exactitude of conception and 
experiment, attracted attention. The scholastic movement 
itself prepared the way for a rationalist revival. The greatest 
minds had a perception of the interrelations of the divine 
and the human. Dante tells us that divine providence has 
set before man two ends: blessedness of this life, which con- 
sists in the exercise of his natural powers, and blessedness 
of eternal life, which consists in the fruition of the vision of 
God. Religion and humanism are not opposites. Each needs 
the characteristic gifts and graces of the other. This recogni- 
tion prepared the way for the belief in the perfectibility of 
man and society which was later raised to the rank of a 
dogma. 

IV 

The Renaissance is the great age of disintegration and 
rebirth, when for good or ill the organic unity of life of the 



12 THE WORLD'S UNBORN SOUL 

Middle Ages, derived from its religious orientation, passed 
away, and the new world of Copernicus and Columbus, of 
Luther and Calvin, of Galileo and Descartes, of Machiavelli 
and Henry VIII, came to birth. The history of the last four 
hundred years in Europe has been a simultaneous growth 
in political freedom, economic prosperity, intellectual ad- 
vancement, and social reform, but it has also been a slow and 
sure decay of traditional religion, morality, and social order. 
If in one sense it has been a progress, in another it has been 
a reaction, marked by a departure from the authentic founda- 
tions of life. A new civilization, based on the three Greek 
ideals of rationalist philosophy, humanist ethics, and nation- 
alist politics, has been growing up. 

r. The Renaissance gave back to Europe the free curio- 
sity of the Greek mind, its eager search for first principles 
as well as the Roman's large practicality and sense for the 
ordering of life in harmony with social utility. These were 
pursued with a passion, a seriousness, an almost religious 
ardour, which Europe acquired during the long centuries of 
medieval religious discipline. 

Under the influence of the new movement aiming at a 
complete rehabilitation of the human spirit, science started 
on its unfettered career. The sky changed with Copernicus, 
and the habitable world with the explorers. The scientific 
and technological achievements cast the world into a closely 
knit unity and modern history slowly grew into the stature 
of world history. 

Philosophical thought was moulded by the prestige of 
science. The reassertion of the mental habits of the Graeco- 
Roman world dates from Descartes, who rejects all that his 
intellect cannot include. He tries to put an end to the capri- 
cious multifariousness of opinion by the practice of the 
critical method. Truth is contained only in that which can 
be recognized clearly and distinctly. What is unclear and 
mysterious is not true. Truth lies where all men think alike, 
in judgements of universal validity. Mathematics is the 
great example of ideal truth. Spinoza, like Kant, aimed at 
a strictly scientific metaphysics and clothed his thoughts in 
the form of geometrical propositions. Metaphysics should 
be strict science and contain no arbitrariness, 'Truth', says 



THE WORLD'S UNBORN SOUL 13 

Spinoza, 'would be eternally hidden from the human race, 
had not mathematics, which deals, not with ends, but with 
the nature and properties of figures, shown to man another 
norm of truth/ 1 So he treats of God, understanding, and 
human passions as though they were circles and triangles. 
Nature becomes an enormous silent machine which is in- 
different to the values of man. Even if we call the former 
by the name of God, it does not come nearer the human 
being. 'For the reason and will which constitute God's 
essence must differ by the breadth of all heaven from our 
reason and will, have nothing in common with them, except 
the name; as little, in fact, as the dog star has in common 
with the dog, the barking animal. 1 Leibniz breaks up the 
one world of Spinoza into an infinitely large number of parts 
which move according to eternally existing laws and have 
neither the right nor the power to alter by a hair's breadth, 
the order which is independent of them. Kant raises the 
question whether a science of metaphysics with a logical 
structure like that of the well-established mathematical and 
natural sciences is possible. These latter have acquired a 
scientific character on account of the universal rules, the syn- 
thetic a priori judgements, which they employ. Since these 
rules are applicable only within the limits of possible experi- 
ence, metaphysics, which aims at the transcendent, is an im- 
possibility. The passion for law, for rule, dominates Kant's 
philosophy. Rule expresses truth and justifies conduct. An 
action is right if we so act that the principle of it can be made 
a general rule. Hegel does not ask whether it is necessary 
for metaphysics to be a science, but strengthens the belief 
in the autonomy of reason. For him philosophy is the self- 
development of the spirit, its natural and necessary un- 
folding. 

The English school of empiricism would get rid of all 
ideas which do not correspond to actual facts, of all proposi- 
tions which cannot be tested by experience. Locke wished 
to rid philosophy of futile speculations into the inscrutable. 
In his hands even natural science becomes uncertain. *In 
physical things', says he, 'scientific knowledge will still be 
out of our reach.' Sense is the only way of knowing, and it 
1 Ethics, pt. i, Appendix. 



14 THE WORLD'S UNBORN SOUL 

cannot give us certainty. Though his intellectual successor 
Berkeley imparted a theological impulse to his empiricism 
and admitted the reality of spirits, human and divine, Hume 
developed the logical implications of the empirical attitude 
when he left us with a world of impressions and ideas about 
whose origin and significance we know next to nothing. The 
successors of the rationalist and empirical schools to-day are 
dominated by the scientific method. Some of the recent 
writings of realists remind us of Humian analysis and scepti- 
cism. A contemporary German thinker, Husserl, says that 
it is his desire 'to discover a radical beginning of a philo- 
sophy which, to repeat the Kantian phrase, will be able to 
present itself as science', 'to furnish philosophy with a 
scientific beginning'. 1 The infallibility of the Church had 
yielded to the infallibility of scientific reason. As it in its 
turn seems to be failing us, we are in a tide of reaction against 
it. The different philosophical tendencies of voluntarism, 
pragmatism, and vitalism are indications of the transition 
from the predominantly rationalistic period of human de- 
velopment. 

2. To conserve the ancient wisdom and practise the 
ancient virtue was the ambition of the humanist thinkers of 
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. They aimed at an 
escape from a life regulated by rigid ecclesiastical tradition 
into one of joyous freedom and unfettered spontaneity. 
Earthly life becomes the object of all striving and action. 
The critical spirit helps us to see the relativism of all moral 
codes. We refuse to be satisfied by mere statements about 
right and wrong, but ask for their reasons. We long for 
freedom from convention, mistaking it for real freedom. 
Conventions are said to be mere inhibitions and habits an 
orthodoxy. A cold dissection of the deepest things men have 
lived by ends in libertarian experiments in morals. Intel- 
lectual and artistic refinement places no check on brutal lusts 
and savage passions. The faith that the spread of reason will 
abolish all irrational outbursts has disappeared. There is 
more violence, oppression, and cruelty than there used to be. 
Man tries to rule his conduct by means external to himself, 

1 Ideas, by E. Husserl, E.T. by W. R. Boyce Gibson, pp. 27 and 30 
(1931). See also Ayer, Language, Truth, and Logic (1936). 



THE WORLD'S UNBORN SOUL 15 

by technique and not self-control. Morality as an individual 
regeneration, an inner transformation, is not accepted. 

Under the influence of the democratic conception of the 
right of all individuals as members of the society to the full 
life and development of which they are individually capable, 
the old landed economy of feudalism broke up, and the new 
money economy with the beginnings of economic individual- 
ism and the promise of modern industrialism developed. 
The release of the middle classes, which was effected by the 
abolition of privilege and feudalism, was succeeded by the 
claim of the working classes to a fair share in the wealth 
they produce. Liberal attempts to free the workers from 
their ignorance, isolation, and poverty by gradual humani- 
tarian legislation and increased taxation seemed to be very 
slow, and a new programme of abolishing capitalism, which 
is said to be the root cause of all political and social evils, 
by persuasion and constitutional methods if possible and by 
violence and revolution if necessary, became more popular. 
Everywhere a tendency towards State absolutism has been 
growing. The pressure of society on the individual is not 
less effective to-day than it was in the days of barbarism. 
The view that social discipline is intended to assist the de- 
velopment of the innate goodness in man, which he does 
not altogether abandon even when his nature is heated by 
passion, finds little support. Coercion becomes justified both 
within and without the State. 

The influence of the Renaissance aided the breaking of 
the power of the Papacy, in the establishment of Protestant- 
ism, and the right of free inquiry. Luther put the Bible in 
place of the infallible Church and held it to be an unerring 
expression of God's relation to man. The Reformation in- 
sists on the right of the individual reason to determine the 
sense of the inspired scripture. Though in theory the inter- 
pretation of the Bible was left to the individual thinker, in 
practice the members of the different Churches were re- 
quired to accept their varying interpretations of the contents 
of the Bible. Each Church thought itself to be the special 
depositary of the only true exposition of the perfect will 
of God. 

From the philosophical side, attacks were made on the 



16 THE WORLD'S UNBORN SOUL 

traditional religion. If the world is an expression of law, if 
the universe is mechanical in character, God is necessary 
perhaps to set up the machinery which can work of itself. 
He is only the architect of the world. The theism of the 
Middle Ages lapses into deism. If the machine can work 
of itself it can also set itself up and start working. 

While the philosophers of the Enlightenment and Ger- 
man Idealism attempt to reconcile Christian truth with the 
findings of reason, Schleiermacher sets out to prove that it 
is in conformity with the conditions of religious conscious- 
ness. Ritschl tries to establish that it is consistent with the 
cultural ethos. Thus Christian theology, which was once 
based on a sovereign act of God transcending all human 
powers of comprehension, gets steadily rationalized and is 
recommended on the ground that it can be reconciled with 
scientific truth and ethical values. The latter thus become 
more important than the revelation itself. The new spirit, 
which questioned the conventional forms of religion and the 
mediation of the priesthood between God and man, could 
not fail to go forward and question the scripture itself, and 
then all sense of the supernatural. 

Humanism is the religion of the majority of the intellectuals 
to-day. Most of us who profess to be religious do so by habit, 
sentiment, or inertia. We accept our religion even as we do 
the Bank of England or the illusion of progress. We profess 
faith in God but are not inclined to act on it. We know the 
forms of thought but do not have the substance of conviction. 
When men have lost the old faith and have not yet found 
anything solid to put in its place, superstition grows. The 
long-starved powers of the soul reassert their claims and shift 
the foundations of our mind. The weak, the wounded, and 
the overstrained souls turn to psycho-analysis, which deals 
with the problems of the soul under the guise of rationality 
and with the prestige of science. It tells us that man is only 
rational in part. The authoritarian creeds, which take us 
back to pre-Renaissance days, appeal to those who find the 
life of pure reason so utterly disconcerting. Revivals over- 
take us, and we yield to them in the faith that something is 
better than nothing. The age is distracted between new 
knowledge and old belief, between the cheap godless natural- 



THE WORLD'S UNBORN SOUL 17 

ism of the intellectuals and the crude revivals of the funda- 
mentalists. As piety in any real sense has been effectively 
destroyed for large numbers, the national State absorbs all 
their energies and emotions, social, ethical, and religious. 

3. The State which is the most powerful organization is 
least hampered by inner scruples or outer checks. Man in 
the community is at least half-civilized, -but the State is still 
primitive, essentially a huge beast of prey. We have no 
strong public opinion, or effective international law, to re- 
strain the predatory State. The fear of defeat or of a disas- 
trous break-down is all that prevents an outburst. 

Nations have become mysterious symbols to whose pro- 
tection We rally as savages to fetishes. They claim to be 
enduring entities each sufficient to itself and independent of 
the rest. They are trained to believe that there would be no 
impoverishment of the world if other nations perished and 
they themselves were left intact. Speaking of Athens, Pericles 
says : * We of the present generation have made our City in 
all respects most self-sufficient to meet the demands of peace 
or war.' 1 If the modern Frenchman, German, or American is 
sincerely convinced of his own immeasurable superiority to 
the 'lesser breeds without the law 1 and proclaims himself 
as the source and consummation of world civilization, he is 
only the spiritual heir of the Greeks and the Jews. While 
Plato knew that patriotism was not enough, that it was some- 
thing of a pious fraud, he yet commended it on grounds of 
social expediency. 2 For him barbarians were enemies by 
nature, and it was not improper to wage war on them even 
to the point of enslaving or extirpating them. 3 The influence 
of the Jews, who were intensely conscious of being not as 
other men are, helped to strengthen the sacred egoism of 
the nation. Paul reaffirmed the dichotomy when he divided 
'vessels of mercy afore prepared into glory' from 'vessels of 
wrath fitted to 'destruction' on the basis of religion, and 
patriotism used it for its purposes. The antitheses of the 
Greek and the barbarian, of the Jew and the Gentile, of Nordic 
and non-Nordic, have all a family likeness. Only the other 
day did we hear a great leader declare that 'Germany is 

1 Thucydides, ii, E.T. by Marchant. 

2 Republic, 414 b. 3 Republic, v. 470 0-471 a. 



1 8 THE WORLD'S UNBORN SOUL 

our religion ', the glory of the blood and soil of 'eternal 
Germany* is the sole purpose of existence justifying any 
sacrifice of individual liberty and thought. These resound- 
ing appeals for national hegemony and racial domination 
have a common origin and accent. 



What then is the position to-day ? Uncertainty, a funda- 
mental agnosticism, a sense of uneasiness that we are hasten- 
ing confusedly to unknown ends. In his famous cartoon 
The Twentieth Century Looks at the Future^ Max Beerbohm 
depicts a tall^ well-dressed, somewhat stooping figure looking 
out over a wide landscape at a large question-mark which 
hangs over the distant horizon like a malignant star. The 
future is incalculable. We do not know what we want. In 
previous periods men had a clear conception of the goal they 
were aiming at. It is either a life of reason or a triumph of 
religion or a return to old perfection. We are aware of the 
emptiness and the profaneness of our life, but not of a way 
of escape from it. Some advise us to retain our respect for 
reason and submit to fate. Others tell us that the task is too 
much for man and we *re only to wait for a saviour who 
alojie can set right the disorder in the heart of things. Some 
gaze back in spirit to the mellow vistas of the nineteenth 
century, of industrial prosperity, colonial expansion, and 
liberal humanitarianism, honestly persuaded that the world 
was better off under the guidance of men of birth and breed- 
ing, and are prepared to fight a last battle for authorky and 
order. A vision of the medieval order with Church and theo- 
cracy, militarism, and despotism for its principles is some- 
times held up before us. All these efforts are irrelevant to 
our times. They are like doses of morphia which give us 
temporary relief but cause permanent injury to the health. 
Neither a contented fatalism nor religious expectancy nor 
reversions to the past can give meaning to a world which is 
in search of its soul. The slow dying of the old order need 
not fill us with despair, as it is the law of all nature that life 
comes only by death. Every civilization is an experiment 
in life, an essay in creation, to be discarded when done with. 
With the infinite patience of one who has endless time and 



THE WORLD'S UNBORN SOUL 19 

limitless resources at her absolute command, Nature slowly, 
hesitatingly, often wastefully, goes on her triumphant way. 
She takes up an idea, works out its form till, at the moment 
of its perfect expression, it reveals some fundamental flaw, 
and then breaks it up again to begin anew a different pattern. 
Yet in some way the wisdom and spirit of all past forms 
enter into those which succeed them and inspire the gradual 
evolution of the purpose of history. 

To-day the soul of man no longer rests upon secure 
foundations. Everything round him is unsteady and contra- 
dictory. His soul has become more complicated, his spirit 
more bitter, and his outlook more bewildered. But his unrest 
is not a mere negative force. He is not only oppressed by 
new doubts but is inspired by new horizons, new per- 
spectives, and a thirst for new relations with fellow men. He 
has reached a more advanced state of spiritual maturity, and 
so the dogmas of traditional religions are no longer able to 
answer his questions or overcome his doubts. The present 
profound malaise is really a form of growing-pains. The 
new world for which the old is in travail is still like an em- 
bryo. The components are all there; what is lacking is the 
integration, the completeness which is organic conscious- 
ness, the binding together of the different elements, making 
them breathe and come to life. We cannot live by instinct, 
habit, or emotion. We need a rational fakh to sustain a new 
order of life and rescue us from our mental fag and spiritual 
anxiety. 

The great periods of human history are marked by a wide- 
spread access of spiritual vitality derived from the fusion of 
national cultures with foreign influences. If we take Judaism 
we find that Abraham came from Mesopotamia and Joseph 
and Moses from Egypt. Later, Judaism shows the influence 
of Hellenism. Asia Minor and Egypt exercised considerable 
influence over the Greek development. The creative genius 
of the medieval world came from Palestine. The transition 
to the modern world was marked by the recovery of the 
ancient. In times of trouble we draw the profoundest in- 
spiration from sources outside us, from the newly recovered 
past or the achievement of men under different skies. So, 
perhaps, the civilizations of the East, their religions and 



20 THE WORLD'S UNBORN SOUL 

ethics, may offer us some help in negotiating difficulties that 
we are up against. The only past known to the Europeans 
emerging from the Middle Ages was the Biblical, and the 
Graeco-Roman and their classics happen to be the subjects 
studied in the great universities founded in that period* Now 
that we have the whole world for our cultural base, the pro- 
cess of recovery and training in classics cannot cease with 
listening to the voices of Isaiah and Paul, Socrates and 
Cicero. That would be an academic error, a failure of per- 
spective. There are others also who have participated in the 
supreme adventure of the ages, the prophets of Egypt, the 
sages of China, and the seers of India, who are guide-posts 
disclosing to us the course of the trail. Of the living non- 
European civilizations, the chief are the Islamic, the Chinese, 
and the Hindu. The Islamic has the same historical back- 
ground as Judaism and Christianity, which is well known 
in the West. The humanist civilization of China was con- 
siderably affected by the religious conceptions of India, 
especially the Buddhist. Religion, however, has been the 
master passion of the Hindu mind, a lamp unto its feet 
and a light unto its path, the presupposition and basis of 
its civilization, the driving force of its culture, and the 
expression in spite of its tragic failures, inconsistencies, 
divisions, and degradations of its life in God. In the West, 
even in the most sympathetic quarters, Hindu thought is 
in general a subject for respectful but in every sense distant 
homage, not of living concern. The institution of this Chair 
by the far-sighted generosity of Mr. and Mrs. Spalding 
which is a sign of the times, pregnant with meaning and 
the unprecedented appointment of an Asiatic to an Oxford 
Chair are motived, I take it, by a desire to lift Eastern 
thought from its sheltered remoteness and indicate its en- 
during value as a living force in shaping the soul of the 
modern man. 

VI 

i . Hinduism adopts a rationalist attitude in the matter of 
religion. It tries to study the facts of human life in a scientific 
spirit, not only the obvious facts, the triumphs and defeats 
of men who sleep in spiritual unconsciousness, but the facts 



THE WORLD'S UNBORN SOUL 21 

of life's depths. Religion is not so much a revelation to be 
attained by us in faith as an effort to unveil the deepest layers 
of man's being and get into enduring contact with them. 

The religions of the world can be distinguished into those 
which emphasize the object and those which insist on ex- 
perience. For the first class religion is an attitude of faith 
and conduct directed to a power without. For the second it 
is an experience to which the individual attaches supreme 
value. The Hindu and the Buddhist religions are of this 
class. For them religion is salvation. It is more a trans- 
forming experience than a notion of God. Real religion can 
exist .without a definite conception of the deity but not with- 
out a distinction between the spiritual and the profane, the 
sacred and the secular. Even in primitive religion, with its 
characteristic phenomena of magic, we have religion, though 
not a belief in God. In theistic systems the essential thing 
is not the existence of the deity, but its power to transform 
man. Bodhi, or enlightenment, which Buddha attained and 
his followers aim at, is an experience. Perfect insight (sam- 
bodhi) is the end and aim of the Buddhist eightfold path. 
There are systems of Hindu thought like the Samkhya and 
the Jaina which do not admit God but affirm the reality of 
the spiritual consciousness. There are theists like Ramanuja 
for whom the spiritual consciousness, though not God Him- 
self, is the only way in which God can be known. All, how- 
ever, are agreed in regarding salvation as the attainment of 
the true status of the individual. 1 Belief and conduct, rites 
and ceremonies, authorities and dogma, are assigned a place 
subordinate to the art of conscious self-discovery and contact 
with the divine. This distinctiveness of the Hindu religion 
was observed even by the ancients. Philostratus puts in the 
mouth of Apollonius of Tyana these words : 'all wish to live 
in the nearness of God, but only the Hindus bring it to 
pass'. 2 

1 *Stmapraptikkanam mokam.' 

2 About spiritual experience, Sir Charles Eliot writes that 'it has been con- 
firmed by the experience of men whose writings testify to their intellectual 
power and has commanded the respect of the masses. It must command our 
respect too, even if it is contrary to our temperament, for it is the persistent 
ideal of a great nation and cannot be explained away as hallucination or char- 
latanism* (Hinduism and Buddhism, vol. i (1921), p. kii). 



22 THE WORLD'S UNBORN SOUL 

Brahman, which is the Sanskrit word for the Absolute, 
is the principle of search as well as the object sought, the 
animating ideal and its fulfilment. 1 The striving of the soul 
for the infinite is said to be Brahman. The impulse that 
compels us to raise the question of the true, the divine, is 
itself divine. Brahman stands for the breath, 'the breath of 
the power of God', as it is said in the Wisdom of Solomon. 
It is man's sense of the divine as well as the divine, and the 
two meanings coalesce. The transcendent self stoops down 
as it were and touches the eyes of the empirical self, over- 
whelmed by the delusion of the world's work. When the 
individual withdraws his soul from all outward events, 
gathers himself together inwardly and strives with con- 
centration, there breaks upon him an experience, secret, 
strange, and wondrous, which quickens within him, lays 
hold on him, and becomes his very being. Even if God be 
an idea and has no reality apart from one's ideation, that 
which frames the idea of God and strives to realize it is itself 
divine. 2 Our longing for perfection, our sense of lack, our 
striving to attain consciousness of infinity, our urge to the 
ideal, are the sources of divine revelation. They are to be 
found in some measure in all beings. The very fact that we 
seek God clearly proves that life cannot be without Him. 
God is life. Recognition of this fact is spiritual conscious- 
ness. 

To say that God exists means that spiritual experience is 
attainable. The possibility of the experience constitutes the 
most conclusive proof of the reality of God. God is 'given ', 
and is the factual content of the spiritual experience. All 
other proofs are descriptions of God, matters of definition, 
and language. The fact of God does not depend on mere 
human authority or evidence from alleged miraculous events. 
The authority of scripture, the traditions of the Church, or 

1 Indian Philosophy, 2nd ed. (1929), vol. i, p. 163 n. 

2 The Apostle has given the classical expression to this paradox: 'Work out 
your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who worketh in 
you both to will and to do of his good pleasure* (Phil. ii. 12-13). 'When a 
soul truly desires God, it already possesseth Him* (St. Gregory). When Pascal 
uttered the anguish of his soul in the silence of the night, he heard the 
answer: 'Be comforted, thou wouldst not have sought Me unless thou hadst 
found Me.' 



THE WORLD'S UNBORN SOUL 23 

the casuistries of schoolmen who proclaim but do not prove, 
may not carry conviction to many of us who are the children 
of science and reason, but we must submit to the fact of 
spiritual experience, which is primary and positive. We may 
dispute theologies, but cannot deny facts. The fire of life in 
its visible burning compels assent, though not the fumbling 
speculations of smokers sitting around the fire. 

While realization is the fact, the theory of reality is an 
inference. There is difference between contact with reality 
and opinion about it, between the mystery of godliness and 
belief in God. A man may know much about theology but 
yet be lacking in the spirit of religion. The Hindu thinkers 
warn us against rationalistic self-sufficiency. The learned 
run far more risks than the unlearned. 1 There are two ways 
in which we deceive ourselves: the easy way of the unlearned 
who believe that the world we see is all, and the laborious 
way of the learned who establish the truth of naturalism 
and are deceived by the definite. Both of them succeed in 
shutting us away from the reality of our being. 

The process of self-discovery is not the result of intel- 
lectual analysis but of the attainment of a human integrity 
reached by a complete mastery over nature. The old faith 
in mere reason that we will act properly if we think rightly 
is not true. Mere knowledge is of the nature of a decoration, 
an exhibit with no roots. It does not free the mind. In the 
Chandogya Upanisad Narada confesses that all his scriptural 
learning has not taught him the true nature of the self, and 
in the same Upanisad, Svetaketu, in spite of his study of the 
scriptures for the prescribed period, is said to be merely 
conceited and not well instructed. 2 Spiritual attainment is 
not the perfection of the intellectual man but an energy 
pouring into it from beyond it, vivifying it. The Kafka 
Upanisad says : 'As the self existent pierced the openings of 
the senses outward, one looks outward, not within himself. 
A certain thoughtful person, seeking immortality, turned the 
eye inward and saw the self.' 3 It is seeing with the spiritual 
eye of the pure in heart, who have overcome the passions of 
greed and envy, hatred and suspicion, that is here insisted 

d, iv. 4. 10; I/a Up. ix. 

3 iv. I. 



H THE WORLD'S UNBORN SOUL 

on. This is the fulfilment of man's life, where every aspect 
of his being is raised to its highest point, where all the senses 
gather, the whole mind leaps forward and realizes in one 
quivering instant such things as cannot be easily expressed. 
Though it is beyond the word of tongue or concept of mind, 
the longing and love of the soul, its desire and anxiety, its 
seeking and thinking, are filled with the highest spirit. This 
state of being or awareness to which man could attain is the 
meaning of human life. It is religion, and not mere argu- 
ment about it, that is the ultimate authority for one's ideas 
of God and life. God is not an intellectual idea or a moral 
principle, but the deepest consciousness from whom ideas 
and rules derive. He is not a logical construction but the 
perceived reality present in each of us and giving to each of 
us the reality we possess. We are saved not by creeds but 
by gnosis, jnana^ or spiritual wisdom. This is the result of 
the remaking of man. Logical knowledge is comparable to 
a finger which points to the object and disappears when the 
object is seen. True knowledge is awareness, a perception 
of the identity with the supreme, a clear-sighted intuition, 
a dawning of insight into that which logic infers and scrip- 
tures teach. An austere life turns knowledge into wisdom, 
a pundit into a prophet. 1 

This is not, however, to attribute strength to sentiment, 
or derive illumination from ignorance. The truth of the 
experience does not arise from the mystery of its origin or 
the delight it causes in us. It is due to the fact that it satisfiesr 
our wants, including the intellectual, and thus gives peace 
of mind to the individual and contributes to the social har- 
mony of the community. He who enters into an awareness 
of the real is the complete man whose mind is serene and 
whole being at rest. It is essential for us to seize and sift 
our intuitions, for the dangers of mistaking paradoxes for 
discoveries, metaphors for proofs, and words for truth are 
quite serious. If we are suspicious of the claims of intel- 

1 See Efhadaranyaka Up. iv. 4. 21. Ruysbroeck says: 'If we desire to 
taste God in our own selves we must pass beyond reason. . . . We must remain 
despoiled and free of all images. . . . We go on to a state of ignorance and 
darkness to suffer the higher information of the Eternal word, the image of the 
Father' (Tfo Ring, chap. ix). 



THE WORLD'S UNBORN SOUL 25 

ligence we will land in a self-satisfied obscurantism. Any 
experience which does not fit in with tested knowledge must 
be rejected as hocus-pocus. To be spiritual is not to reject 
reason but to go beyond it. It is to think so hard that 
thinking becomes knowing or viewing, what we might call 
creative thinking. Philosophy and religion are two aspects 
of a single movement. 

2. This view is humanistic in a deeper sense. It looks 
upon religion as a natural development of a really human 
life. Man, no doubt, is the measure of all things ; only his 
nature contains or reflects every level of reality from matter 
to God. He is a many-levelled being. He may identify him- 
self with his animal nature, the physical and the physiologi- 
cal, or with the self-conscious reason. The subrational vital 
aims, however indispensable and valuable in their own place, 
cannot without disaster take control of a being who after all 
is not and cannot be a mere animal. In the thought and life 
of the modern man self-conscious intellect, with its clear 
analysis and limited aims, takes the highest place, and suici- 
dal scepticism is the result; for while it accepts the evidence 
of the senses and the results of judgement and inference, it 
rejects as spurious and subjective the deeper intuitions which 
discursive reason must take for granted. Faith in conceptual 
reason is the logical counterpart of the egoism which makes 
the selfish ego the deadliest foe of the soul. True humanism 
tells us that there is something more in man than is apparent 
in his ordinary consciousness, something which frames ideals 
and thoughts, a finer spiritual presence, which makes him 
dissatisfied with mere earthly pursuits. The one doctrine 
that has the longest intellectual ancestry is the belief that the 
ordinary condition of man is not his ultimate being, that he 
has in him a deeper self, call it breath or ghost, soul or spirit. 
In each being dwells a light which no power can extinguish, 
an immortal spirit, benign and tolerant, the silent witness 
in his heart. The greatest thinkers of the world unite in 
asking us to know the self. Mencius declares : 'Who knows 
his own nature knows heaven/ St. Augustine writes: 'I, 
Lord, went wandering like a strayed sheep, seeking thee 
with anxious reasoning without, whilst thou wast within 
me. ... I went round the streets and squares of the city of 



26 THE WORLD'S UNBORN SOUL 

this world seeking thee, and I found thee not, because in 
vain I sought without for him who was within myself.' We 
make a detour round the universe to get back to the self. 
The oldest wisdom in the world tells us that we can con- 
sciously unite with the divine while in this body, for this is 
man really born. If he misses his destiny, Nature is not in 
a hurry; she will catch him some day and compel him to 
fulfil her secret purpose. Truth, beauty, peace, power, and 
wisdom are all attributes of the divine self which awaits our 
finding. 

What is our true self? While our bodily organization 
undergoes changes, while our thoughts gather like clouds in 
the sky and disperse again, the self is never lost. It is present 
in all, yet distinct from all. Its nature is not affected by 
ordinary happenings. It is the source of the sense of identity 
through numerous transformations. It remains itself though 
it sees all things. It is the one thing that remains constant 
and unchanged in the incessant and multiform activity of 
the universe, in the slow changes of the organism, in the 
flux of sensations, in the dissipation of ideas, the fading of 
memories. Our personality, which we generally take for our 
self, is conscious only by fits and starts. There are large gaps 
in it, without consciousness. The seer always exists. Even 
if death comes, the seer cannot die. 'When the sun and the 
moon have both set, the fire has gone out, and speech has 
stopped, Yajfiavalkya, what serves as the light for a man? 
The self serves as his light (atmaivasya jyotir bhavatt). It is 
through the light of the self that he sits, goes out, works, 
and returns.' 1 Nothing on the object side can touch the 
subject. Feelings and thoughts are on the same plane as 
objects and events in so far as they are observable. Things 
can be different from what they are without the self being 
different from itself. This persisting self which is universal 
seer to all things seen, this essential awareness which nothing 
has the power to suppress, which knows nothing of having 
been born as it knows nothing of dying, which is the basis 
of all knowledge, of dreams and ecstasies, is, says Samkara, 
not capable of proof, nor does it need any, for it is self- 
proven (svasiddha). Though itself inconceivable, it is the 

1 Brhadaranyak* Up. iv. 3. 6. 



THE WORLD'S UNBORN SOUL 27 

ground of every possibility of conceiving, of every act of 
knowledge. Even he who denies it presupposes it in so far 
as he thinks. It is not an organ or a faculty but that which 
vivifies and disposes every organ and every faculty, the vast 
background of our being in which all organs, intellect, and 
will lie. Body, mind, and the world are almost arbitrary 
restrictions imposed on this consciousness. This universal 
self is in our ordinary life obscured by psychological im- 
purities and fluctuations and becomes confused with the 
empirical self, The latter, which is a system of energies, 
psychological and logical, lays claim to perfect independence 
and, individuality, little knowing that it can conserve itself 
only by perpetual change. We take our personality to be 
our most intimate and deepest possession, our sovereign 
good. But it belongs to the object side, itself shaped by 
relative happenings, mutable and accidental, as compared 
with the self. We can think about it, calculate its interests, 
sacrifice them on occasions. It is a sort of psychological 
being that answers to our name, is reflected in the looking- 
glass (namarupa\ a number in statistical tables. It is subject 
to pleasure and pain, expands when praised, contracts when 
criticized, admires itself, and is lost in the masquerade. 1 The 
Mundaka Upanisad makes a distinction between the two 
birds which dwell in the same tree, one eating the sweet 
fruit and the other looking on without eating. 2 The former 
is the empirical self and the latter the transcendental self. 

The phenomenal character of the empirical self and the 
world answering to it is denoted by the word maya y which 
signifies the fragility of the universe. Maya does not mean 
that the empirical world with the selves in it is an illusion, 
for the whole effort of the cosmos is directed to and sustained 
by the one supreme self, which though distinct from every- 
thing is implicated in everything. The criticism that Hindu 
thought is pantheistic makes out that the supreme being, 
which is complete and impenetrable, is yet filled with things 
which live, breathe, and move each according to its nature. 
Nothing can be born, exist, or die in any degree, nothing 
can have time, place, form, or meaning, except on this uni- 
versal background. 

1 Chandogya Uf. viii. 3. 12. a ii. I. 2. 



28 THE WORLD'S UNBORN SOUL 

Maya is a term employed also to indicate the tendency 
to identify ourselves with our apparent selves and become 
exiled from our spiritual consciousness with its maximum of 
clarity and certainty. This tendency is the expression of the 
working of self-conscious reason. Intellectual activities are 
a derivation, a selection, and, so long as they are cut off from 
the truth which is their secret source, a deformation of true 
knowledge (avidya) which has its natural result in selfish- 
ness. The aim of all human living is self-definition. It is 
to isolate the substantial permanence which each finite life 
possesses deep down from the strife of empirical happen- 
ings. We can exceed the limits within which human con- 
sciousness normally functions. Man can abstract from his 
body and .flesh, from his feelings and desires, even from 
thoughts which rise like waves on the surface of his mind, 
and reach a pure awareness, the naked condition of his pure 
selfhood. By steady discipline he can be led back to the 
pure being, the subject that reflects, and reach that state of 
immediacy and unity in which all chaos disappears. When 
we break through the ring of smoke round the self, unwrap 
.the sheaths which cover it, we achieve here and now in the 
flesh the destiny of our being. The T, the atman, the uni- 
versal self, infinitely simple, is a trinity of transcendent 
reality (sat\ awareness ('/), and freedom (ananda). Such is 
the way in which we formulate in intellectual terms the truth 
of our own being to which our ordinary consciousness is now 
alien. We recommend to others this truth by conceiving of 
it as pure superpersonality or cosmic personality manifesting 
the universe. The negative method which requires us to 
give up the creaturely, to divest ourselves of all qualities, 
push slowly out beyond all distinctions, reveals the inexpres- 
sible sanctity of the experience. This exaltation, this motion- 
less concentration, this holy calm and deep serenity which 
is like the state of a deep sea at rest, reflecting heaven on 
its surface, or, in the image of the Bhagavadgita, 'still as a 
flame in a windless place', bathed as it were in an incompre- 
hensible brightness (tejas)^ is hard to describe. An austere 
reticence or a negative account is all that is open to us. 
When, however, we lapse back from this state into our 
ordinary consciousness, we represent the self as another with 



THE WORLD'S UNBORN SOUL 29 

its transcendent majesty. We quake and shiver, bleed and 
moan with a longing gaze at it. We dare not even lift up 
our eyes. We are filled with a desire to escape from the 
world of discord and struggle. In this mood we represent 
the supreme as the sovereign personality encompassing this 
whole world, working through the cosmos and ourselves for 
the realization of the universal kingdom. If the personal 
concept is more prominent, the individual seeks his develop- 
ment in a humble, trustful submission to God. We may 
adopt the mode of bhakti or devotion, or the method ofjnana 
or contemplation by which the self, set free from all that is 
not self, regains its pure dignity. The attainment of spiritual 
status when refracted in the logical universe appears as a 
revelation of grace. 

Sarhkara brings out clearly the distinction between the 
absolute self, the divine person, and the human individual: 

'Therefore the unconditioned self, being beyond speech and mind, 
undifferentiated and one, is designated as "not this, not this"; when it 
has the limiting adjuncts of the body and organs which are character- 
ized by imperfect knowledge, desire, and work, it is called the empirical 
individual self; and when the self has the limitation of the creative 
power manifesting through eternal and unlimited knowledge, it is 
called the inner ruler and divine person. The same self, as by its 
nature transcendent, absolute, and pure, is called the immutable and 
supreme self.' 1 

When we seek to grasp the reality superpersonal in itself, 
personal from the cosmic end, by conceptual methods, we 
must note that logically precise formulas are at best pro- 
visional and incomplete. The definiteness and transparency 
of the symbols do not mean that the thing signified has been 
grasped completely. Those who have no contact with reality, 
no insight into truth, accept the relative symbol for the abso- 
lute truth. In their self-confident jugglery with symbols and 
definitions they forget the thing itself. Only the background 
of reality can transform the empty sounds of words into 

1 Gasman nirupadhikasya'tmano nirupakhyatvStn nirvisesatvad ekatvacca 
neti net! ti vyapadeso bhavati. avidyakamakarmavisistakSryakaranopadhir 
atma sarhsari jiva ucyate. nityaniratisaya jnanasaktyupadhir atma* ntary- 
ami^vara ucyate. sa eva nirupadhih kevalah suddhah svenasvabhavenaksaram 
para ucyate' (Sarhkara on Brhadaranyaka Up. iii. 8. 12). 



30 THE WORLD'S UNBORN SOUL 

significant expressions of truth. Our pictures of God have 
no reality save a spiritual one. They are not in things outside 
ourselves. 'The mortal made the immortal', says the Rg 
Veda. The Indian monk Bodhidharma, in the sixth century 
of our era, said to the emperor Leang Wu Ti : 'There is no 
Buddha outside the spirit. Save the reality of the spirit all 
is imaginary. The spirit is the Buddha and the Buddha is 
the spirit. To imagine a Buddha outside the spirit, to con- 
ceive that he is seen in an external place is but delirium/ 1 
The distinction of superpersonal and personal, nirguna and 
saguna, is found in all mysticism, Eastern or Western. If 
Samkara distinguishes Brahman from ISvara, Eckhart con- 
trasts the Godhead (Deitas) with God (Deus). While God is 
the personal triune God of Church doctrine, which 'becomes 
and dis-becomes', the pure Godhead stands high above God, 
and is the ground of the possibility of God, who is absorbed 
in the Godhead, which is beyond being and goodness. 

The two familiar criticisms that for Hindu thought the 
world is an illusion (mdyd\ that it is divine (pantheism) 
cancel each other and point out that the Hindu is aware of 
both the upward and the downward movements. The way 
to the knowledge of the divine has two sides, the negative 
and the positive. The negative takes us to the spiritual con- 
sciousness, the silent witness which dissolves all form and 
thought, what Plotinus, the Neoplatonic Christian mystic 
called Dionysus the Areopagite, Eckhart, Ruysbroeck aim 
at, the 'Divine Darkness', 'the nameless, formless nothing'. 
But there is the way of affirmation by which the God-con- 
scious man affirms that the great silent sea of infinity, in 
whose mysterious embrace the individual loses his name and 
form, is also the over-mastering, all-embracing life. Here is 
the refrain of the Chandogya Upanisad: 2 'This whole world 
has that being for itself. That is reality. That is the self. 
That art thou, O Svetaketu.' The self is the core of being, 
the inner thread by being strung on which the world with 
all its variety exists. It is the real of the real, satyasya satyam. 
The manifold universe is not an illusion; it is being, though 
of a lower order, subject to change, waxing and waning, 

1 Wieger, A History of the Religious Beliefs and Philosophical Opinions in 
China, E.T. (1927), p. 524. 2 vi. ro ff. 



THE WORLD'S UNBORN SOUL 31 

growing and shrinking. Compare again, 'He who dwells in 
the Earth, who is other than the Earth, whom the Earth 
does not know, whose body the Earth is, who controls the 
Earth from within, he is yourself, the inner controller, the 
immortal.' This is said to be true of all things in the world, 
subjective and objective, which are the manifestations of the 
'unseen seer'. 1 Even Sarhkara admits that 'This whole 
multiplicity of creatures existing under name and form in so 
far as it has the supreme Being itself for its essence is true; 
if regarded as self-dependent is untrue'. 2 Everything every- 
where is based on reality. 3 For the Hindu thinkers, the objec- 
tive .world exists. It is not an illusion. It is real not in being 
ultimate, but in being a form, an expression of the ultimate. 
To regard the world as ultimately real is delusion (moha). 

While the criticism regarding the illusory nature of the 
world suggests the superpersonal restful character of the sup- 
reme, that of pantheism brings out its ceaseless self-expres- 
sion or active creativity. It is not true to contend that the 
experience of the pure realm of being, timeless and perfect, 
breeds in us contempt for the more familiar world of exis- 
tence, which is unhappily full of imperfection. Reality and 
existence are not to be set against each other as metaphysical 
contraries. Nothing on earth is utterly perfect or utterly 
without perfection. Those who have the vision of perfection 
strive continually to increase the perfection and diminish the 
imperfection. Life is for ever striving for its fuller creative 
manifestation. For one who has the vision of the supreme, 
life, personality, and history become important. The life of 
God is the fullness of our life. 

When man apprehends the supreme being, returns to the 
concrete, and controls his life in the light of its truth, he is 
a complete man. He reaches an almost inconceivable uni- 
versality. All his powers which have been hitherto bound 
up with narrow pursuits are liberated for larger ends. The 
doctrine ofmaya tells us that we fall away from our authentic 
being if we are lost in the world of empirical objects and 

1 Bfhaetaranyaka Up. iii. 7. 

2 'sarvam ca namarupadivikarajatam sadatmana eva satyam, svatas tu 
anrtam' (Sariikara on Ckandogya Up. vi. 3. 2). 

3 'sadaspadam sarvam sarvatra' (Saihkara on BhagevadgitS, xiii. 14). 



32 THE WORLD'S UNBORN SOUL 

earthly desires, turning our back on the reality, which gives 
them value. They are so alluring that they provoke ardent 
desires, but they cannot satisfy the inner being, and in the 
world outside they break forth into frantic disorder. This 
does not mean that we have to neglect worldly welfare or des- 
pise body and mind. The body is a necessity for the soul. A 
system which believes in rebirth cannot despise bodily life, for 
every soul has need of it. Personal life is not to be repressed 
in order to gain the end of religion. It is to be re-created and 
purified in the light of the higher truth. He in whom the 
spark of spirit glows grows into a new man, the man of God, 
the transfigured person. The divine penetrates his self, wells 
up and flows through him, absorbing him and enriching him 
within it. God is not for him another self, He is the real self 
closer than his own ego. 'I live, yet not I, but it is Christ 
who liveth in me. 1 In the order of nature, he keeps up his 
separate individuality; in the order of spirit, the divine has 
taken hold of him, remoulding his personality. The pride 
of a self-conscious individual yields to the humility of a God- 
centred one. He works in the world with the faith that life 
in its pure quality is always noble and beautiful and only its 
frustration evil. 

3. The fundamental truths of a spiritual religion are that 
our real self is the supreme being, which it is our business 
to discover and consciously become, and this being is one in 
all. The soul that has found itself is no longer conscious of 
itself in its isolation. It is conscious rather of the universal 
life of which all individuals, races, and nations are specific 
articulations. A single impulsion runs beneath all the ad- 
ventures and aspirations or man. It is the soul's experience 
of the essential unity with the whole of being that is brought 
out in the words, 'Thou in me and I in thee'. Fellowship 
is life, lack of fellowship death. The secret solidarity of the 
human race we cannot escape from. It cannot be abolished 
by the passing insanities of the world. Those who are 
anxious to live in peace with their own species and all life 
will not find it possible to gloat over the massacres of large 
numbers of men simply because they do not belong to their 
race or country. Working for a wider, all-embracing vision 
they cut across the artificial ways of living, which seduce us 



THE WORLD'S UNBORN SOUL 33 

from the natural springs of life. Our normal attitudes to 
other races and nations are no more than artificial masks, 
habits of thought and feeling, sedulously cultivated by long 
practice in dissimulation. The social nature of man is dis- 
torted into queer shapes by the poison poured into his blood 
which turns him into a hunting animal. Racialism and 
nationalism, which require us to exercise our baser passions, 
to bully and cheat, to kill and loot, all with a feeling that we 
are profoundly virtuous and doing God's work, are abhor- 
rent to the spiritually awakened. For them all races and 
nations lie beneath the same arch of heaven. They proclaim 
a new social relationship and serve a new society with civil 
liberties for all individuals, and political freedom for all 
nations, great and small. 

VII 

The collapse of a civilization built on the audacities of 
speculative doubt, moral impressionism, and the fierce and 
confused enthusiasms of races and nations need not dis- 
hearten us, for it has in it elements of an antisocial and anti- 
moral character, which deserve to perish. It is directed to 
the good, not of mankind as a whole, but of a powerful 
privileged few among individuals as well as nations. What- 
ever is valuable in it will enter into the new world which is 
struggling to be born. In spite of all appearances ta the con- 
trary, we discern in the present unrest the gradual dawning 
of a great light, a converging life-endeavour, a growing 
realization that there is a secret spirit in which we are all 
one, and of which humanity is the highest vehicle on earth, 
and an increasing desire to live out this knowledge and 
establish a kingdom of spirit on earth. Science has produced 
the necessary means for easy transport of men and com- 
munication of thought. Intellectually the world is bound 
together in a web of common ideas and reciprocal know- 
ledge. Even the obstacles of religious dogma are not so 
formidable as they were in the past. The progress of thought 
and criticism is helping the different religions to sound the 
note of the eternal, the universal, the one truth of spirit 
which life obeys, seeks for, and delights in at all times and 
in all places. We are able to see a little more clearly that the 



34 THE WORLD'S UNBORN SOUL 

truth of a religion is not what is singular and private to it, 
is not the mere letter of the law which its priests are apt to 
insist on, and its faithful to fight for, but that part of it 
which it is capable of sharing with all others. Humanity's 
ultimate realization of itself and of the world can be attained 
only by an ever-increasing liberation of the values that are 
universal and human. Mankind is still in the making. 
Human life as we have it is only the raw material for human 
life as it might be. There is a hitherto undreamt-of fullness, 
freedom, and happiness within reach of our species, if only 
we can pull ourselves together and go forward with a high 
purpose and fine resolve. What we require is not professions 
and programmes but the power of spirit in the hearts of 
men, a power which will help us to discipline our passions 
of greed and selfishness and organize the world which is at 
one with us in desire. 



II 

THE SUPREME SPIRITUAL IDEAL: 
THE HINDU VIEW 

i 

WHEN we enter the world of ideals the differences 
among religions become negligible and the agree- 
ments striking. There is only one ideal for man, to make 
himself profoundly human, perfectly human. 'Be ye per- 
fect/ The whole man, the complete man, is the ideal man, 
the divine man. ^You are complete in the godhead 1 , said 
St. Paul. The seeking for our highest and inmost self is the 
seeking for God. Self-discovery, self-knowledge, self-fulfil- 
ment is man's destiny. 

From the beginning of her history India has adored and 
idealized, not soldiers and statesmen, not men of science 
and leaders of industry, not even poets and philosophers, 
who influence the world by their deeds or by their words, 
but those rarer and more chastened spirits, whose greatness 
lies in what they are and not in what they do; men who have 
stamped infinity on the thought and life of the country, men 
who have added to the invisible forces of goodness in the 
world. To a world given over to the pursuit of power and 
pleasure, wealth and glory, they declare the reality of the 
unseen world and the call of the spiritual life. Their self- 
potsession and self-command, their strange deep wisdom, 
their exquisite courtesy, their humility and gentleness of 
soul, their abounding humanity, proclaim that the destiny 
of man is to know himself and thereby further the universal 
life of which he is an integral element. 

This ideal has dominated the Indian religious landscape 
for over forty centuries. If we wish to know the spirit of 
a religion which has had a long and continuous evolution, 
we cannot get at it by taking a cross-section of it at any one 
stage. It is not to be found either in its earlier phases or in its 
later developments. Any historical process can be understood 

1 An Address delivered before the World Congress of Faiths at Queen's 
Hall, London, on 6 July 1936. 



36 THE SUPREME SPIRITUAL IDEAL 

only by surveying the whole growth and grasping that inner 
meaning which is struggling for expression at every stage, 
though never expressed perfectly at any stage. This is the 
spirit which binds together the different stages of its history, 
which is present in the earliest as well as in the latest. What 
is this meaning, this spiritual core of the Hindu religion ? 

If we turn to the Indus valley civilization which archaeo- 
logists have unfolded for us in recent times, we see that 
among the relics of a religious character found at Mohenjo- 
daro are not only figurines of the mother goddess but also 
figures of a male god, who is the prototype of the historic 
Siva. Obviously many of the features of modern Hinduism 
are derived from very early primitive sources. Sir John 
Marshall tells us that the god, who is three-faced, is seated 
on a low Indian throne in a typical attitude of yoga, with 
legs bent double beneath him, heel to heel, with toes turned 
downwards, and hands extended above the knees. He has 
a deer throne and has the elephant, the tiger, the rhinoceros, 
and the buffalo grouped round him. 1 This figure of Siva, 
the great Yogi, has been there from nearly 3250 B.C. (if not 
earlier), the date which archaeologists give to the Indus 
valley civilization ; calling upon all those who have ears to 
hear, the inhabitants of the native land as well as the invaders 
from outside who frequently pass and repass, to be kings not 
over others, but over themselves. Perfection can be achieved 
only through self-conquest, through courage and austerity, 
through unity and brotherhood in life. 

We hear nowadays a good deal about yoga even in the 
West. It means the process, as well as the result, of balancing 
the different sides of our nature, body, mind, and spirit, the 
objective and the subjective, the individual and the social, 
the finite and the infinite. A passage in the Bhagavadgfta 
makes out that this world has its roots above in heaven while 
its branches spread out earthward. 2 The human being has 
his roots in the invisible though his life belongs to the pass- 
ing stream of the visible. While he moves in the order of 
things visible, tangible, measurable in reference to time and 
space, while his life is subject to succession and change, 

1 Mohenjo-daro and the Indus Cwilisation t by Sir John Marshall, vol. i, 
pp. 52-3 (1931)- * 'urdhvamukm adhaljufokham', xv. i. 



THE HINDU VIEW 37 

corruption and death, he is also a spirit belonging to the 
invisible and intangible world, which we can in no way com- 
prehend, though we think and speak of it in symbols and 
metaphors drawn from the things of our world. If we think 
that our nature is limited by the little wave of our being 
which is our conscious waking self, we are ignorant of our 
true being. The relation of our life to a larger spiritual world 
betrays itself even in the waking consciousness through our 
intellectual ideals, our moral aspirations, our cravings for 
beauty, and our longing for perfection. Behind our con- 
scious self is our secret being without which the superficial 
consciousness cannot exist or act. Consciousness in us is 
partly manifest and partly hidden. We can enlarge the 
waking part of it by bringing into play ranges of our being 
which are now hidden. It is our duty to become aware of 
ourselves as spiritual beings instead of falsely identifying 
ourselves with the body, life, or mind. While we start with 
the immediate and the actual, our limited self-consciousness, 
we can constantly increase and enrich it, gathering into it all 
that we can realize of the seen and the unseen, of the world 
around us and above us. This is the goal of man. His 
evolution is a constant self-transcending until he reaches his 
potential and ultimate nature which the appearances of life 
conceal or inadequately express. We are not, through this 
process, abolishing our individuality but transforming it into 
a conscious term of the universal being, an utterance of the 
transcendent divine. The instinctive and the intellectual 
both attain their fruition in the spiritual personality. The 
flesh is sanctified and harmonized with the spirit; the intel- 
lect is illumined and harnessed to the realm of ends. Body 
and mind, instinct and intellect become the willing servants 
of spirit and not its tyrannical masters. 

The uniqueness of man among all the products of nature 
lies in this, that in him nature seeks to exceed itself con- 
sciously, no longer by an automatic or unconscious activity, 
but by a mental and spiritual effort. Man is not a plant or 
an animal, but a thinking and spiritual being set to shape 
his nature for higher purposes. He seeks to establish order 
and harmony among the different parts of his nature and 
strives after an integrated life. He is unhappy so long as 



38 THE SUPREME SPIRITUAL IDEAL 

he does not succeed in his attempt at reaching an organic 
wholeness of life. There is always a mental and moral fer- 
ment in him, a tension between what he is and what he 
wishes to become, between the matter which offers the 
possibility of existence and the spirit which moulds it into 
significant being. 

it 

The present crisis in human affairs is due to a profound 
crisis in human consciousness, a lapse from the organic 
wholeness of life. There is a tendency to overlook the 
spiritual and exalt the intellectual. It can be traced chiefly 
to the influence of the Greeks, who determined the bent of 
the Western mind towards science and the pursuit of truth 
for its own sake. Greek civilization was a magnificent 
achievement of the human reason and it was by no means 
one-sided. The Greek inheritance has enabled the West to 
remake the world. Earth, sea, and air have been made to 
yield to the service of man. Though the triumphs of intellect 
are great, its failures are not less great. Some of the finest 
things of life have escaped its meshes, which the uncouth 
and unlettered peasants, who lived more naturally and pro- 
fessed animistic conceptions of life, had possessed. Pitiful 
and sordid as had been their estate, they had a hope in their 
hearts, a spark of poetry in their lives, and a feeling of exalta- 
tion in their human relationships. Ignorant and super- 
stitious they might have been, but wholly forsaken they were 
not. Their lives were not empty and devoid of content. 
They had their deep affections, a sense of the great value of 
the little things of life, love, companionship, and family 
attachments, an element of mystery in their make-up, a faith 
in the unseen which is the consolation of their dreams. The 
business of intellect is to dispel the mystery, put an end to 
the dreams, strip life of its illusions, and reduce the great 
play of human life to a dull show, comic on occasions but 
tragic more frequently. The primitive cults which helped 
their adherents to live healthily and happily on their own 
plane are dismissed as crude superstitions. Everything is 
stripped of soul, of inner life. This world is all, and we 
must rest content with it. 



THE HINDU VIEW 39 

Religion, however, cannot be so lightly disposed of. 
When man gets a feeling or a fear that after all life means 
nothing, leads nowhere, and at bottom no one is really 
necessary and nothing worth while, he cannot live. Even if 
life be aimless, man must pursue some dream. To deny him 
hope is to take away his interest in life. Religions exploit 
this need, this fundamental insufficiency of an all-pervading 
positivism, this primitive hunger for fellowship. The fugi- 
tive character of life makes man fondly hope that his life is 
not at an end with the death of the body, that it cannot be 
true that the suffering of the innocent meets with no reward 
and -the triumph of the wicked with no requital. It must 
be that man does count. Religions attempt to satisfy this 
fundamental need of man by giving him a faith and a way of 
life, a creed and a community, and thus restore the broken 
relationship between him and the spiritual world above and 
the human world around. While the prophet founders of 
religions declare that the community is world-wide and make 
no distinctions between the Jew and the Gentile, the Greek 
and the barbarian, the traders in religion* declare that the 
greatness of one's own creed and group is the end and coer- 
cion and violence are the ways to it. They develop group 
loyalties at the expense of world loyalty. Such a bellicose 
condition is the only one in which life becomes worth while 
for a large number of people. There is not much to choose 
between these religions, which exalt belief, bigotry, and pre- 
servation of group loyalties and vested interests, and the 
older, cruder, primitive cults. The later, which are the more 
sophisticated, are the more dangerous, for they are con- 
structions of intellect interfering with the natural relations 
of man. 

Left to himself, man feels kinship with the whole universe, 
especially with living things and human beings. The sense 
of community is latent in the hearts of men. Even in this 
artificial world, where intellect has imposed on us the restric- 
tions of tribe, race, and nation, the fundamental humanity 
of man wells up on occasions. When there is an earth- 
quake in Japan or a famine in India, an explosion in a mine 
in Great Britain, or a crash of an airship on the Atlantic, 
pur hearts go out to the victims. When there is an act of 



40 THE SUPREME SPIRITUAL IDEAL 

heroism or daring, an achievement of genius in science or 
art, we feel elated and do not pause to ask the religion or the 
race to which the author belongs. We salute spontaneously 
the great ones of the world and do not wait to know whether 
a Ranji or a Robeson is of our group or race. One touch of 
nature makes the whole world kin. The feeling of fellowship 
with the whole of humanity is implanted in our nature. We 
are members of a world community. It is our intellectual 
consciousness that breeds in us the feeling of separatist in- 
dividuality, and this unnatural development is checked by 
artificial devices to bring men back into communal relations. 
Unfortunately, instead of strengthening the invisible bonds 
which bind man to man, irrespective of colour or race, the 
natural feeling of the oneness of humanity, these attempts 
keep men in separate camps hostile to one another. We are 
educated into the mystic worship of race and nation. By 
force and fraud, by politics and pseudo-religions, diplomats 
and priests exploit the baser passions of fear and greed and 
impose on us the deadly restraints of blood, race, and nation, 
and thus accentuate the division in man's soul. Political 
dictatorships and religious dogmatisms have no understand- 
ing of the profound identity of human beings, their passions 
and reactions, their ideals and aspirations in all ages and in 
all places. Religions, by propagating illusions such as the 
fear of hell, damnation, and arrogant assumptions of inviol- 
able authority and exclusive monopolies of the divine word, 
and politics, by intoxicating whole peoples with dreams 
of their messianic missions, by engendering in them false 
memories, by keeping the old wounds open, by developing 
in them megalomania or persecution complex, destroy the 
sense of oneness with the world and divide humanity into 
narrow groups which are vain and ambitious, bitter and 
intolerant. By getting mixed up with politics, religion be- 
comes degraded into a species of materialism. 

We believe that we have conquered nature, simply be- 
cause science has pushed the boundaries of the unknown 
farther from us, yet we are as far as ever from having con- 
quered our own nature. The problems of outer organization 
are not so pressing in some respects, but so long as our 
passions of greed and selfishness are unconquered, our outer 



THE HINDU VIEW 41 

conquests will only be the material for the exercise of our 
inner barbarisms. Thanks to centuries of one-sided training, 
the barbarous occupies a large place in our nature, ready to 
prostrate itself before all representations of power that are 
external. Brute force attracts it, not moral law or spiritual 
ideal. It compels our respect, on account of our fear and 
greed, our selfish passions and crudity of mind. The tra- 
gedies of the world, individual and national, are due, in 
the main, to the fact that we are gripped by ruinous and 
explosive passions, the burden of which could not be easily 
shaken oft, and they take us inevitably to our doom. 

Life to-day, in spite of our material possessions and intel- 
lectual acquisitions, in spite of our moral codes and religious 
doctrines, has not given us happiness. If we knew the 
deepest thoughts of men to-day, we should find that there 
are millions who are dissatisfied with themselves and with 
the pursuits that absorb their energies. They have lost 
the radiance and gladness of life, they have no hopes to 
inspire, no ambitions to realize, no happiness to which they 
can look forward, no faith to live by. Their minds are 
distracted and so their action is fragmentary and futile. 
Let us take, for illustration, the one problem which is now 
demanding all our attention and effort, how to make the 
world safe for peace and humanity. This great country is 
in two minds about that question. It is unable to decide 
between power politics and peace politics, between binding 
secret agreements and the League Covenant, between inter- 
national anarchy and international order and justice. We 
are thoroughly convinced of the futility, the horror of war 
and its dreadful consequences for civilization, and yet we 
are drifting towards it, overpowered by the machine which 
we have built up, as if we were not reasonable human beings 
but mere victims of forces blind and deep, slow and irre- 
sistible, bearing all things away. The condition of the world 
to-day reminds one of Joseph Conrad's Typhoon, the story 
of the adventure of a vessel carrying Chinese coolies who 
begin to murder each other in the midst of a terrific storm 
on account of some missing money. We are prepared to pay 
the price, run the risk of collective suicide, for the sake of 
national glory and honour, which are 'fictional abstractions', 



42 THE SUPREME SPIRITUAL IDEAL 

idols of the market-place, but are not prepared to pay the 
price for world peace by way of surrender of control over 
subject nations, a submission of national sovereignty to 
international control, the transformation of backward areas 
into mandates. Nations, like individuals, are made, not only 
by what they acquire, but by what they resign. We are on 
the eve of gigantic changes and are witnessing a struggle 
between clashing sets of ideas. Why should nations which 
have the moral leadership of the world continue to serve 
discredited ideals ? Is it necessary to wade through war, to 
pass through hell, before we can settle down and adjust in 
a spirit of reasonableness and equity the conflicting claims 
of the different nations ? A peace concluded at the end of 
a war, when passions run high, is bound to be of an unjust 
character, a source of bitterness and humiliation to the van- 
quished, like the Treaty of Versailles. It is possible to take 
a just view of the whole situation, and work for a con- 
structive peace when, as yet, there is no war to disturb and 
distract. Wars scarcely ever achieve the ends for which they 
are undertaken, and even if they do, the other results they 
produce are so mischievous that even the victors gain little 
from their achievements. If only we can visualize the 
misery and devastation, the pain and the horror which the 
armaments we are piling up will cause to common people, 
when they go off! Statistics which give us estimates hide 
the sorrow of human hearts and the tension of human minds. 
They speak as if they were dealing with earth and water, 
and not flesh and blood. Will humanity declare itself to be 
bankrupt of all statesmanship and wisdom and transfer the 
future to the decision of a disastrous war ? Are we, after ages 
of enlightenment, to admit the defeat of reason and accept 
a reversion to the Dark Ages, a relapse into barbarism ? 

We live on the surface and are afraid of thinking because 
it is all so confused and disordered; we suffer from conflicts. 
We are divided from our real nature, cut off from the uni- 
versal in us by our egoistic impulses and separatist ten- 
dencies. Rodin ha created that wonderful statue called The 
Thinker^ the striking figure of a man sitting with his head 
bent, his eyes staring out into space, his brows wrinkled 
with thought, his face furrowed with suffering and tense with 



THE HINDU VIEW 43 

concentration, and looking at ... what ? Looking down the 
ages, age after age, world after world, he finds man advan- 
cing along the corridors of time, trying to control his difficult, 
discordant, divided self and asking, Shall we never escape 
from this division ? Must we go on for ever aiming at the 
high and doing the low? Is it our fate to be for ever split 
selves, with bewildered outlooks, aspiring after ideals of 
universal human decency and practising policies which lead 
us to universal barbarism ? Why, why cannot we have the 
courage and the selflessness, the vision and the generosity to 
regulate our affairs on principles of equity and justice? 

Hindu and Buddhist thinkers with a singular unanimity 
make out that avidya or ignorance is the source of our 
anguish, and vidyd or wisdom, bodhi or enlightenment is our 
salvation. The former is intellectual knowledge which pro- 
duces self-consciousness and self-will. Our anxieties are 
bound up with our intellectuality, whose emergence at the 
human level causes a fissure or cleavage in our life. The 
break in the normal and natural order of things in human 
life is directly traceable to man's intellectuality, the way in 
which he knows himself and distinguishes himself from 
others. Firstly^ he thinks and imagines an uncertain future 
which rouses his hopes and fears. The rest of nature goes 
on in absolute tranquillity. But man becomes aware of the 
inevitability of death. This knowledge of death produces 
the fear of death. He worries himself about ways and means 
by which he can overcome death and gain life eternal. His 
cry is, Who shall save me from the body of this death? 
Though he is born of the cosmic process he feels himself at 
enmity with it. Nature, which is his parent, is imagined to be 
a threat to his existence. An overmastering fear thwarts his 
life, distorts his vision, and strangles his impulse. Secondly^ 
man's naive at-oneness with the living universe, his essential 
innocence or sense of fellow feeling, is lost. He does not sub- 
mit willingly to a rational organization of society. He puts 
his individual preferences above social welfare. He looks 
upon himself as something lonely, final, and absolute, and 
every other man as his potential enemy. He becomes an ac- 
quisitive soul, adopting a defensive attitude against society. 
Thirdly, the knowledge of death and the knowledge of 



44 THE SUPREME SPIRITUAL IDEAL 

isolation breed inner division. Man falls into fragmentariness. 
He becomes a divided, riven being, tormented by doubt, fear, 
and suffering. His identity splits, his nucleus collapses, his 
naivete perishes. He is no more a free soul. He seeks for 
support outside to escape from the freezing fear and isola- 
tion. He clings to nature, to his neighbours, or to anything. 
Frightened of life, he huddles together with others. The 
present nervousness of mankind, where fear is the pervasive 
element of consciousness, where we are always taking pre- 
cautions, avoiding entanglements, where life is always on 
the defensive, where man has lost his community with nature 
and man, is another name for spiritual death. The world in 
which we live to-day, the world of incessant fear (bhayd] and 
violence (himsa\ of wars and rumours of wars, where we 
are afraid of everything, suspect mines under our feet, 
snipers in thickets, poison in the air we breathe and the very 
food we eat, is nothing but the ordinary life of ignorance 
hurried up, intensified, and exaggerated. The tragedy is 
that we are not conscious of our ignorance. The more sick, 
the less sensible. 

This view, that the problem of religion is inherent in the 
nature of man, that it arises from the division in man's soul, 
is supported by high authority. According to the familiar 
legend human history began with a grave tension in the 
dimness of remote antiquity, starting the dialectic movement 
which we witness to-day. As a result of the first transgres- 
sion, the spirit of discord entered. A tremendous upheaval 
of the human consciousness brought about a revolution in 
natural relations. The Fall symbolizes the disintegration of 
the harmony, the lapse from the primeval condition into 
division, from a unitive life into a separate self-centred one. 
A reintegration of human nature is the meaning of salvation. 

Religion is the conquest of fear, the antidote to failure and 
death. The fear which is an expression of man's rationality 
cannot be removed by any change in his circumstances. It 
is not an instinctive fear which can be displaced by the 
stimulation of other instincts. We cannot get rid of it by 
slipping into a subrational animal existence, by attempting 
to abolish altogether the reason which gives rise to the afflic- 
tion. Man cannot shake off his rationality. We cannot still 



THE HINDU VIEW 45 

our doubts by drugging ourselves with myths and illusions. 
We can obtain a kind of psychological peace, but it will not 
endure. True freedom from fear can be reached only by 
indna or wisdom, the truth that casteth out fear. So long as 
religions themselves are an expression of fear, the security 
and protection they afford us are purchased at a terrible price 
and end in distorting human life. The dogmas lead to 
mutual destruction ; the devotions become a trap for fruitless 
self-immolation. By demanding loyalty to warring creeds 
equally arbitrary and unverifiable we turn men against one 
another. The ideal elements of religion which make for uni- 
versalism and the current beliefs and institutional practices 
which make for narrow group loyalties do not fit each other. 
What we need is a religion of freedom, which stimulates 
faith not fear, spontaneity not formalism, abundant life not 
the monotony of the mechanical, the mechanization of mind 
which is dogmatism, the mechanization of ends which is 
conformity. When one is in contact with the universal 
source of life, one is filled with vitality and freedom from 
fear. When we discover the secret seed of spirit which lies 
concealed within the coatings of our nature and live by it, 
life becomes a pure flame full of light and happiness. 'Know- 
ing the bliss of Brahman, he does not fear anything.' 1 'By 
knowing him alone, one surpasses death.' 2 'What sorrow, 
what delusion is there for him who perceives this unity?' 3 
The soul is no more lonely or isolated. It becomes one with 
the enveloping world and is saved from despair and defiance. 
It enters a spiritual context in which its life finds a new and 
deeper significance and purpose. Abhaya^ or freedom from 
fear, is a temper of mind, not the acceptance of a belief or 
the practice of a rite. Under the insight of such a faith our 
fellow men become something more than creatures of time 
and place separated from us by the accidents of nature, set 
against us by the necessities of animal existence. To be 
religious is to apprehend the reality of other souls. The law 
of love is obeyed not because it is known or willed but 
because life which has been more fully revealed consists in 

1 Tail tiny a Up. ii. 8. 'May I reach the lighten reaching which one attains 
freedom from fear' (Rg Veda, ii. 27). 

2 Svetdhatara Uf.vi. 15. 3 //* Up. 7. 



46 THE SUPREME SPIRITUAL IDEAL 

loving. When the Upanisad says 'yasmin sarvSni bhutani 
atmaivabhud vijanatah', it means that he who realizes the 
universal self sees all human beings as belonging to a king- 
dom of ends. Spirits in unity with themselves must in the 
end be in unity with one another. To live as selfish in- 
dividuals is to miscarry the purpose of creation. Ahimsd or 
fellow feeling for all living things, enfolding in its merciful 
arms even the lowest forms of animal life, is the natural fruit 
of abhaya or spiritual life/ 

The marks of genuine religion are abhaya or freedom 
from fear, expressing itself in harmony, balance, perfect 
agreement between body and soul, between the hands and 
the brain, and ahimsa or love. Abhaya and ahimsa, awareness 
and sympathy, freedom and love, are the two features, 
theoretical and practical, of religion. The free individual 
does not suffer from any conflicts. He does not give way to 
anger or depression not even to what is called righteous 
indignation. For those who are opposed to us are our 
brothers, from whom we happen to be estranged, and they 
can be won over by love and understanding. A Gandhi who 
declares that *if untruth and violence are necessary for 
furthering the interests of my country, let my country go 
under' shows himself to be more religious than the so-called 
religious who tell us that it is sometimes our religious duty 
to kill I 1 They are then talking as politicians, not as religious 
men. In this imperfect world it may be an urgent political 
duty to make our defences as secure as possible against attack, 
but under no circumstances can it be one's religious duty to 
slaughter one's fellow men. Nations and civilizations are 
not eternal. They live and die. Man is to live for the eternal 
values of spirit, truth, and goodness. The free man has that 
sovereign loyalty which belongs to true spiritual liberty. 

Life is a supreme good and offers the possibility of happi- 
ness to every one. No generation has ever had so much 

1 The Bishop of London in his sermon in Westminster Abbey on 28 
November 1915 said: 'Everyone that puts principle above ease, and life itself 
beyond mere living, is banded in a great crusade to kill Germans, not for 
the sake of killing, but to save the world, to kill the good as well as the bad, 
to kill those who have shown kindness to our wounded as well as the friends' 
(The Potter and Clay, by the Rt. Rev. A. W. Ingram (1917) ). 



THE HINDU VIEW 47 

opportunity. Yet the blessings of the earth have turned into 
curses on account of the maladies which afflict us, envy and 
hatred, pride and lust, stupidity and selfishness. Man, as he 
exists to-day, is not capable of survival. He must change or 
perish. Man, as he is, is not the last word of creation. If 
he does not, if he cannot, adapt himself and his institutions 
to the new world, he will yield his place to a species more 
sensitive and less gross in its nature. If man cannot do the 
work demanded of him, another creature who can will arise. 

We need not lose hope of changing our ideals and re- 
ordering our life. We are not by nature savage and violent; 
we are highly suggestible and sensitive. We must endeavour 
to preserve our natural characteristics, and use our intellect 
to confirm, not cripple, them; we must consciously recover 
and retain the sense of reality and kinship with the universe, 
the essential solidarity of the human race. When the Hindu 
thinkers ask us to free ourselves from m aya, they are asking 
us to shake off our bondage to the unreal values which are 
dominating us. They do not ask us to treat life as an illusion 
or be indifferent to the world's welfare. They are asking us 
to escape from the illusion which holds us by the throat and 
makes us pursue physical satisfaction or corporate self- 
seeking as the highest end. It is the function of religion to 
reaffirm the intuitive loyalty to life and solidarity of human 
nature, to lift us out of the illusion of isolation and take us 
back to reality. The religious soul does not seek for release 
from suffering in the present life or a place in paradise in 
the next life. His prayer, in the words of the Upanisad, is 
'Lead me from the unreal to the real, lead me from dark- 
ness to light, lead me from death to immortality'. 1 The 
resurrection is not the rise of the dead from their tombs 
but the passage from the death of self-absorption to the life 
of unselfish love, the transition from the darkness of selfish 
individualism to the light of universal spirit, from falsehood 
to truth, from the slavery of the world to the liberty of the 
eternal. Creation 'groaneth and travaileth in pain', 'to be 
delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty 
of the glory of the children of God*. 

1 'asato ma sad gamaya, tamaso ma jyotir gamaya, mrtyor ma amrtam 
gamaya.' 



48 THE SUPREME SPIRITUAL IDEAL 

ill 

How can we rise above the present vision of the world 
with its anarchic individualism, its economic interpretations 
of history, and materialist views of life ? This world of m ay a 
has thrown our consciousness out of focus. We must shift 
the focus of consciousness and see better and more. The 
way to growth lies through an increasing impersonality, 
through the unifying of the self with a greater than the self. 
Prayer, worship, meditation, as well as philosophy, art, and 
literature, help to revive and purify the inner being and pre- 
dispose it to the contact with the divine. The discipline 
has different stages which are not clearly marked off from 
one another. Speaking roughly, three stages may be distin- 
guished: purification, concentration, and identification. 

They answer to the via purgativa, via contemplativa^ and 
via unitiva. They are not successive steps but different 
points of view. The path to perfection is more a slope than 
a staircase. The first stage insists on the ethical preparation, 
which is an essential prerequisite for spiritual insight. The 
mind must be rid of its impurities and made a clean mirror 
% in which the divine can be reflected. Not only the ordinary 
obligations but the more austere vows of chastity and poverty 
are taken as helpful to the development of a pure moral life. 
He who has no possessions is relieved of many worries ; if 
he is vowed to obedience to a teacher, which is sometimes 
abused by teachers, he has no casuistical problems to puzzle 
out. If ascetic practices are adopted, they are for disciplining 
one's nature and strengthening the will and not for pleasing 
an angry deity or imitating a past model. Absence of cares 
and preoccupations is essential for spiritual life. In the Toga 
Sutra, which is the classic on the subject, this moral training 
is included under the first two heads ofyama and niyama of 
the eightfold means (astdhga) of yoga. 1 The obstacles to per- 
fection are the common defects of sensuality, avarice, glut- 

1 Yama is negative, consisting of non-injury (akirhsa), truth-speaking (satya), 
integrity or abstinence from appropriating the property of others (asteya), 
celibacy (brahmacarya), and not having possessions (aparigraha). Niyama 
signifies the cultivation of positive virtues. It includes purity (jauca), content- 
ment (sathtosa), austerity (tapas), study (svadhyaya), and devotion to God 
(ifoara pranidhdna). In Toga Sutra, i. 23, devotion to God is represented & 
one, and not the only, way of attaining samddhi. 



THE HINDU VIEW 49 

tony, envy, and sloth, and they must be put to rest. The 
next three stages of yogic training are designed to restrain 
the mind from the physical side. They are bodily posture 
(asana\ control of breath (frdndydma\ and withdrawal of 
the senses from the objects (pratyahara). These are the aids 
of the contemplative life. A comfortable posture of the body 
and regulation of breath help to ease the mind. When we 
withdraw the senses from the objects, the mental discipline 
starts. If people sometimes go to hill-tops or monasteries, 
deserts and caves, it is because they are places which help 
to draw the soul away from its familiar surroundings. This 
withdrawal from the world into a solitary retreat is not 
essential, though it is helpful. For a disciplined mind 
ordinary life or familiar surroundings are no distraction. 
Pratydhdra is what is generally known as abstraction. The 
three remaining stages are dhdrana or concentration, dhydna 
or meditation, and samddhi or unification. It is assumed that 
the real nature of man, his inherent capacity for the divine, 
cannot be obliterated. We can reach the depths of our 
nature by bursting through the outer strata. Deep down in 
his own self is the divine secret, which we must reach. All 
the forms, superficial and alien, imposed and forced upon it 
from without, are secondary, and the spirit in us which is a 
constant affirmation of our oneness with the whole universe 
is the primary fact. The process of reaching the spirit in 
us is, in Plato's expression, an act of recollection, tor it is 
there already 1 and we have only to recognize it. The pro- 
cess starts with a quiet introspection, the tiny beginning of 
spiritual contemplation. By a repetition of a text, or by 
focusing the mind on an external object such as an image, 
we try to banish intruding thoughts and collect ourselves. 
Dhdrana is concentration. It is the control of will, of atten- 
tion. To chain the mind, which is generally compared to 
a restless monkey, to a single object is not easy. Irrelevant 
thoughts will drift in, desires and worries will disturb, and 
only with an effort can we fix our mind on the chosen object. 
When attention becomes less discursive and concentration 
deepens and mind ceases to wander we get into the state of 

1 'I will put my law in their inward parts and in their heart will I write ii 1 
(Jeremiah xxxi. 33). 



So THE SUPREME SPIRITUAL IDEAL 

dhydna or meditation. The soul becomes empty of every 
thought except the one meditated on, which takes possession 
of it. When it is awake only to the reality to which it is 
directed and all else is forgotten, ekagrata or one-pointedness 
arises. Out of the brooding darkness, illumination is won. 
While outer knowledge can be easily acquired, inner truth 
demands an absolute concentration of the mind on its object. 
So in the third stage of samadhi or identification, the con- 
scious division and separation of the self from the divine 
being, the object from the subject, which is the normal con- 
dition of unregenerate humanity, is broken down. The in- 
dividual surrenders to the object and is absorbed by it. He 
becomes what he beholds. The distinction between subject 
and object disappears. Tasting nothing, comprehending 
nothing in particular, holding itself in emptiness, the soul 
finds itself as having all. A lightning flash, a sudden flame 
of incandescence, throws a momentary but eternal gleam on 
life in time. A strange quietness enters the soul; a great 
peace invades its being. The vision, the spark, the supreme 
moment of unification or conscious realization, sets the whole 
being ablaze with perfect purpose. The supreme awareness, 
the intimately felt presence, brings with it a rapture beyond 
joy, a knowledge beyond reason, a sensation more intense 
than that of life itself, infinite in peace and harmony. When 
it occurs our rigidity breaks, 'we flow agairf, and *are aware, 
as at no other time, of a continuity in ourselves* and know 
more than the little section of it that is our life in this world! 1 
When we find the real in our own heart, we feel exalted and 
humbled. The memory of the eternal illumination has en- 
during effects and calls for renewal. Plotinus gives a glowing 
description of this state. 

'Since in the vision there were not two things, but seer and seen 
were one, if a man could preserve the memory of what he was when 
he was mingled with the divine, he would have in himself an image 
of God. For he was then one with God, and retained no difference, 
either in relation to himself or to others. Nothing stirred within him, 
neither anger nor concupiscence nor even reason or spiritual perception 
or his own personality, if we may say so. Caught up in an ecstasy, 
tranquil and alone with God, he enjoyed an imperturbable calm, shut 
up in his proper essence he declined not to either side, he turned not 

1 See Charles Morgan, Sparkenbroke (1936), p. 71. 



THE HINDU VIEW 51 

even to himself; he was in a state of perfect stability; he had become 
stability itself. . . . Perhaps we ought not to speak of vision; it is rather 
another mode of seeing, an ecstasy and simplification, an abandonment 
of oneself, a desire for immediate contact, a stability, a deep intention 
to unite oneself with what is to be seen in the sanctuary.' 1 

The development of this power which, in the words of 
Plotinus, all have but few use 2 is not anything distinct from 
the normal operations of the mind but is acquired by a 
whole-hearted concentration of these on the supreme being. 
It is not a mystical faculty, as there is a continuous develop- 
ment from sense perception to the vision of the real. The 
different steps are not meant to enable men to find the truth 
by successive steps as in a process of logical demonstration 
but to bring them into that condition of mind in which truth 
reveals itself in and to them. 

This process of vital realization of God is not a com- 
fortable one for those of us who are given to the delights of 
the flesh and love of visible things. Natures which are 
marred by self-conceit and self-will will find it extremely 
hard to tread the path to the mountain-top. Ignorance is in 
the centre of the soul, has become connatural to it, and it 
must be burned in the fire of knowledge and annihilated. 
The complexes in the unconscious must be broken up. The 
passions and imperfections which are as old as Adam are 
confounded with our very selves. Their whole substance 
must groan and travail, must liquefy itself in order that it 
may reach the life eternal. All must be surrendered. Anni- 
hilation is the condition of abundance, death of life. 3 Our 
lack of possessiveness and proprietorship must be absolute. 

In samddhi or ecstatic consciousness we have a sense of 
immediate contact with ultimate reality, of the unification 
of the different sides of our nature. It is a state of pure 
apprehension, in which the whole being is welded into one. 
To make this complete subjection of the whole personality 

1 Enneads, vi. 9. 7. 

2 Cf. John Wesley: 'I pretend to no extraordinary revelation or gifts of the 
Holy Ghost, none but what every Christian may receive, and ought to expect 
and pray for.' 

3 'To win to the being of all, wish not to be anything', says St. John of the 
Cross. 



52 THE SUPREME SPIRITUAL IDEAL 

to the divine a settled habit, a permanent condition, and not 
merely a fleeting and transitory episode, is the aim of reli- 
gious discipline. Ecstasy or emotional excitement is not the 
goal of religious striving. The unitive life, the integration 
of the self which the contact brings, must become an abiding 
possession of the soul. 

The methods adopted by religions such as contemplation 
and service are intended to stabilize our nature and aid the 
systematic purification of our whole being, essential for an 
integral reflection and taking in of the divine reality. Our 
powers are by force of habit adjusted to a life of claims and 
counterclaims, and if they are to be adapted to a life of 
universalism, a drastic process of change is necessary. When 
religion succeeds in making us spiritual, our conflicts are 
resolved, and we find ourselves in the great current of life. 
Nothing human is alien to us. We are no more members 
of this or that particular group, but belong to humanity as 
a whole. We have the primary patriotism which is the love 
of humanity. We have respect for the diversity which is 
natural to the constitution of things and understand the 
unity underlying it all. We feel in our deeper selves our 
oneness with our fellows and unity with life. We realize the 
idea in the mind of God of what each individual is meant to 
be. The unity of all life, which is the intellectual assumption 
of science, becomes the consuming conviction of the sage. 
He feels and acts as he knows. By his self-mastery and 
purity he attains that contentment in the depths, that serenity 
in the soul, that profound peace which is not mere emotion, 
what the Hindus call janti, which enables its possessor to 
say: 4 I have overcome the world.' However wicked the 
world may be, whatever pain and misery it may contain, he 
is not ruffled, for he has seen that at rock bottom things 
are good, and there is a power which is ceaselessly over- 
coming evil and transforming it into good. He is aware of 
the central drive of the universe. It drives through him and 
he has a vision of what it is driving at, the transformation of 
the indwelling of God into a conscious fact, of the possibility 
or hope of God for every man into a realization. He has the 
sense of power by which he creates meaning and beauty out 
of the conflicts of human desires and passions. For the sake 



THE HINDU VIEW 53 

of his sanctities he would embrace poverty and exile and 
would much rather have his tongue plucked out than shape 
it to a lie. He does not remain proudly on the mountain-top 
apart from the world but devotes his energies to its spiritual- 
ization and raising it to its highest levels. No one, not at 
any rate he who has perfected himself, can be at ease when 
the world cries for help. The well-being of others becomes 
his deepest concern. He loves his fellows with a tender- 
ness and depth unknown to others. He can no more help 
loving humanity than a sunflower can help pointing to the 
sun. To be saved is not to enter a region of blissful ease and 
unending rest. The saved one becomes an elemental force 
of nature, a dynamo of spirit, working at a stupendously 
high velocity. The renunciation he has practised does not 
require him to flee from the world of works but only to slay 
the ego sense. Eternal life is here and now. It is the life 
of the eternal part of us, of the light within us, of intelligence 
and love, whose objects are incorruptible. 

The soul in solitude is the birthplace of religion. Moses 
on the lonely Mount of Sinai, Buddha under the bodhi tree 
lost in contemplation, Jesus by the Jordan in the stillness of 
prayer, Paul in the lonely sojourn in the desert, Mohammad 
on a solitary mount at Mecca, Francis of Assisi in his prayers 
in the remote crags of the highlands of Alverno, found the 
strength and the assurance of the reality of God. Everything 
that is great, new, and creative in religion rises out of the 
unfathomable depths of the soul in the quiet of prayer, in 
the solitude of meditation. 

IV 

Now and again the criticism is brought against the Hindu 
ideal that it is not sufficiently ethical in character. It is 
difficult to know what exactly this criticism means. An ideal 
which requires us to integrate ourselves, to maintain a con- 
stant fight with the passions which impede the growth of 
the soul, to wage war on lust, anger, and worry, cannot but 
be deeply ethical. The power to perceive reality, to absorb 
it and be absorbed by it, is the reward of a severe and sus- 
tained process of self-purification. 

Nor can it be said that the saint does not believe in the 



54 THE SUPREME SPIRITUAL IDEAL 

efficacy of human action, in the power of suffering and 
sacrifice to redeem the world. Those who realize that every 
soul belongs to God cannot help working for the divinization 
of the world. The great march of humanity towards the far- 
off divine ideal is directed and held together in the central 
lines by the effort and example of the saints, who are the 
natural leaders of mankind. Religion is not for them a refuge 
from reality. They do not escape to a world of fantasy and 
thus evade the responsibilities of life. The Hindu ideal 
affirms that man can attain his immortal destiny here and 
now. The Kingdom of God is within us and we need not 
wait for its attainment till some undated future or look for 
an apocalyptic display in the sky. It is true that the deepest 
secret of spiritual life is hidden from the common view and 
can be attained only with an effort. This effort is a lonely 
one, a flight of the alone to the alone. It is also true that 
when the world tires us we go back to ourselves, plunge 
into the deep wells of our spiritual being and return from it 
refreshed, serene, satisfied, and happy. On that account, we 
cannot say that life has become individualistic. As a matter 
of fact it is an escape from individualism. When the per- 
fected individual works for the world, he is the channel 
through which the divine influence flows. He is only the 
instrument (nimittamatram). He works in the spirit of the 
words 'I, yet not F (kartaram akartaram). 

The criticism has obvious reference to the political failure 
of India despite her profession of exalted spiritual ideals. 
Her leaders dwelt in prayer and let the legions pass by. 
Solitude and isolation were the roots of their existence. At 
best they fed the deer and held converse at night with the 
stars, healed the sick, and preached the word of God. 

The criticism, which is partly justified, amounts to this, 
that India did not till recently take to the cult of the nation. 
We did not make our country a national goddess, with an 
historic destiny, a sacred mission, and a right of expansion. 
We did not worship Mother India (bhdratmdta) as others do, 
'Britannia', 'La France', 'The Fatherland'. We did not tell 
the people that the enemy of India is the enemy of God and 
if the enemy said he, too, had a god, he could only be a 
false god. Our leaders disdained to become leaders of hosts, 



THE HINDU VIEW 55 

proclaiming to the people that we are the finest people on 
earth, the chosen race of the universe. 

Secondly, let us remember that conquests and empires do 
not result from the exercise of religious virtues. It will do 
good to be reminded of William Watson's lines : 

Best by remembering God, say some, 
We keep our high imperial lot; 
Fortune, I fear, hath oftenest come 
When we forgot when we forgot. 

May it not be that the Evil One offered the nations security 
and- aggrandizement as the price of their soul? 'All these 
things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship 
me* in the guise of the Nation-State. External success and 
frightfulness did not attract the Indian temperament at its 
best. 

While independence for every country is its legitimate 
right, there is something vulgar and philistine about aggres- 
sive nationalism which lapses into imperialism. When it 
overtakes us, it spoils our sight, torments our rest, confuses 
our values, and makes the transitory seem more important 
than the permanent. In the present crisis, Great Britain 
is not able to see clearly or act honestly on account of her 
imperial interests and ambitions. The world of independent 
sovereign nations with a mystic significance is in dissolution 
and will soon be a past chapter in man's history, like the 
world of feudalism. Let us prefer to be human. 

All the same, Indian culture has failed to give political 
expression to its ideals. The importance of wealth and power 
to give expression to spirit, though theoretically recognized, 
was not practically realized. India has suffered for this 
negligence. Though she affected deeply even the strangers 
who came to conquer but stayed behind, politically she has 
failed. Thanks to the contact with the West, her people are 
to-day infected with the nationalistic passion, and some of 
them feel justified in adopting the methods of organized 
violence sanctified in the history of the world, for gaining 
political freedom, if it is not conceded to the demands of 
justice. The arguments which are employed the world over 
to justify militarism, that war is the nursery of heroic virtues 



56 THE SUPREME SPIRITUAL IDEAL 

like fidelity and restraint, courage and cohesiveness, health 
and vigour, are not unfamiliar in India. But her religious 
leader, who is, happily, also her leader in politics, has evolved 
a method to free India from political domination, which is 
in consonance with the religious traditions and mental back- 
ground of the country. This method, which has not yet 
been tried on a large scale, can well serve as the moral 
equivalent for war in William James's words. It gives us 
the virtues of war without its horrors. In a famous article 
on 'The Doctrine of the Sword*, Gandhi says: 

*I do believe that when there is only a choice between cowardice 
and violence, I would advise violence. ... I would rather have India 
resort to arms in order to defend her honour than that she should in 
a cowardly manner become or remain a helpless victim to her own 
dishonour. But I believe that non-violence is infinitely superior to 
violence, forgiveness more manly than punishment. Ksama virasya 
bhusanam. . . . Non-violence is the law of our species as violence is 
the law of the brute. The spirit lies dormant in the brute and he knows 
no law but that of physical might. The dignity of man requires 
obedience to a higher law, to the strength of the spirit. The rishis who 
discovered the law of non-violence in the midst of violence, were 
greater geniuses than Newton. They were themselves greater warriors 
than Wellington. Having themselves known the use of arms, they 
realized their uselessness and taught a weary world that its salvation 
lay not through violence but through non-violence. Non-violence in 
its dynamic condition means conscious suffering. It does not mean 
meek submission to the will of the evildoer, but it means the putting 
of one's whole self against the will of the tyrant. Working under this 
law of our being, it is possible for a single individual to defy the whole 
might of an unjust empire, to save his honour, his religion, his soul 
and lay the foundation for that empire's fall or regeneration. . . . And 
so I am not pleading for India to practise non-violence because she 
is weak. I want her to practise non-violence being conscious of her 
strength and power. I want India to recognize that she has a soul that 
cannot perish and that can rise triumphant above any physical weak- 
ness and defy the physical combination of a whole empire.' 

With all her poverty and degradation, her suffering and 
subjection, India still bears witness to the cult of the spirit. 
It is not right to complain that India has failed because 
she has followed after things spiritual. She has failed be- 
cause she has not followed after them sufficiently. She has 



THE HINDU VIEW 57 

not learned how to make spirit entirely the master of life, 
but has created in recent times a gulf between spirit and life 
and has rested in a compromise. Some of our holy men are 
inclined to become creatures set apart, beings who take flight 
from the temporal in order to cling to the heart of the eternal. 
If, in our eagerness to seek after God, we ignore the interests 
of humanity, we may produce a few giants but we will not 
elevate the race. We have shown how high individuals can 
rise by spiritual culture and how low a race can fall by its 
one-sidedness. To master life, to accept it and improve it, 
is a difficult task for the individual and more difficult for 
the race. Harmony of the social order is an essential aim 
of the spiritual man. 

To be inspired in our thoughts by divine knowledge, to 
be moved in our will by the divine purpose, to mould our 
emotions into harmony with divine bliss, to get at the great 
self of truth, goodness, and beauty to which we give the 
name of God as a spiritual presence, to raise our whole being 
and life to the divine status, is the ultimate purpose and 
meaning of human living. Some exceptional individuals 
have achieved this status and harmony. They are the highest 
type of humanity yet reached and indicate the final shape 
which humanity has to assume. They are the forerunners 
of the new race. 

These men with wisdom and vitality, constant awareness 
and unremitting social effort, are not members of limited 
groups based on blood and soil but citizens of a world yet 
unborn, still in the womb of time. 

Whatever the individual has done, the race, too, may and 
should eventually succeed in doing. When the incarnation 
of God is realized, not only in a few individuals but in the 
whole of humanity, we will have the new creation, the new 
race of men and women, mankind transformed, redeemed, 
and reborn, and a world created anew. This is the destiny 
of the world, the supreme spiritual ideal. It alone can rouse 
our deepest creative energies, rescue us from cold reason, 
inspire us with constructive passion, and unite us mentally, 
morally, and spiritually in a world fellowship. 



Ill 

MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU 
THOUGHT' 



THOUGH the British have been in India for many 
decades and Christian missionaries from this country 
are to be found there in large numbers, Indian culture 
occupies less space in their thoughts and studies than in 
those of some other countries of the West. The ordinary 
Englishman is interested in law and order, in political and 
economic relations, and is indifferent to the life and thought 
which alone can bind peoples together. He thinks that he 
has comprehended India because he has conquered it Sir 
George Birdwood, with his keen sense of inquietude for 
Indian culture and his imaginative understanding, is an 
exception to the general rule. If these two great sections 
of humanity, Great Britain, which represents the best of 
Europe, and India, which is the ultimate East, with their 
distinctive temperaments and traditions can live together in 
a political system whose keynote is equality and friendship, 
and not dominion or subjection, it will be the greatest 
achievement of history. An appreciation of cultural values 
and psychological differences is essential if the present con- 
nexion between the two countries is not to end in a tragedy 
of cross-purposes. We have a proper approach to the Indian 
problem in the writings of Sir George Birdwood, who 
realized that religion represents the essential motive of 
Indian life. 

The place of religion in the life of mankind has of late 
become the subject of keen and anxious discussion among 
the thoughtful The hurry and distraction of our life are 
obvious; the deep faith in the reality of eternal values and 
the earnest endeavour to live, individually and socially, in 
the light of that faith escape notice. The indifference to 

1 The Sir George Birdwood Memorial Lecture given at the Royal Society 
of Arts, London, on 30 April 1937. 



MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 59 

organized religions is the product not so much of growing 
secularism as of deepening spirituality. 

Scrupulous sensitiveness in our search for truth is making 
it difficult for us to accept doubtful authority or half-heard 
traditions. If genuine religious belief has become for many 
a phenomenon of the past, it is because religions confound 
eternal truth with temporal facts, metaphysics with history. 
They have become largely a traffic with the past. For ex- 
ample, in Christendom theology is busy with such questions 
as, Are the Scriptures inspired ? How shall we explain the 
divergencies in the accounts of the life of Christ ? How shall 
we reconcile the Biblical account of creation with modern 
science? Were the Old Testament prophecies fulfilled? 
Shall we believe in the New Testament miracles? Acute 
thinkers spend their time and energies in finding modern 
ideas in ancient texts or reading meanings into them which 
are not there. So long as the life of Jesus is regarded as a 
mere event in history which occurred nineteen hundred 
years ago there can be no understanding of what that life 
should mean to us. A study of comparative religion has 
broken down the barriers behind which dogmatists seek to 
entrench themselves and show that their own religion is 
unique. Besides, the anthropomorphic conceptions which 
look upon God as king or conqueror, father or lawgiver, 
the good shepherd or the righteous judge possessing to a 
transcendent degree the qualities of power and virtue which 
we most admire in human beings, seem to many somewhat 
archaic and crude. They tend to hide the central truth that 
God is Spirit and that the only real worship is that which 
is in spirit and truth. We cannot say that definiteness in 
conception makes for depth in religion. The image narrows 
the thought of the divine being within human limits and 
works against a more spiritual conception of Godhead, 
As we have to live on earth, the spectacle of an incarnate God 
has great religious value, but a sharply defined anthropo- 
morphism makes for narrowness and intolerance and takes us 
sometimes to absurd lengths. When the Titanic was going 
down, it is said that an American millionaire retired to his 
cabin, not to say his prayers, but to put on his dinner 
clothes. When asked, he explained that he wished to go 



60 MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 

before his Maker looking like a gentleman. We cannot be 
satisfied with gods who are inconstant and fickle, easily 
moved to love or anger, revengeful for trifling provo- 
cations and vexed at small things. If we educate men in 
the belief that God is like a father in a patriarchal society, 
who has His favourite children to whom He communicates 
His mind, we cannot blame simple people if they assume that 
some persons possess divine knowledge through mysterious 
agencies. If the Roman Catholics accept the Pope's Encycli- 
cal on Marriage, the National Socialists accept the decrees 
of Hitler as Holy Writ. Those who question the true faith 
are thrown into concentration camps, and Dante and Milton 
tell us in detail much that we know about them. 1 

Again, religion as a way of life is the seeking of the 
eternal. It is more behaviour than belief. If we believe in 
God we must act in the light of that faith. There are many 
who feel that outward conformity is all that is expected of 
them. We are said to be religious if we go through the 
round of ceremonies from baptism at birth to the solemn 
commitment of the body to the grave at death, even though 
this process is unaccompanied by any intense inward dis- 
cipline or spiritual experience. If we repeat the phrases and 
make the gestures, we need not bother about the rest. Many 
of those who affirm belief in God or in future life act as if 
neither existed. There is a difference between what we think 
we believe and what we really believe. We are familiar with 
the story of the clergyman who asked the captain of the ship, 
when a storm broke out, what he was doing. The captain 
said: 'We have done all we could and now we can only trust 
in God/ The clergyman replied: 'Is it as bad as all that?' 
Religion is not to-day an operative force in men's lives or 
public affairs. Countries which stand at the head of civiliza- 
tion do not hesitate to slaughter thousands and thousands of 
human beings for the sake of their political programmes. 
Lady Macbeth remarked of the murder of Duncan, 'A little 
water clears us of this deed/ A sprinkling of holy water 
and the muttering of a formula will put to flight all the 

1 Is it an accident that Hitler and Mussolini have been brought up in 
Roman Catholic societies, where it is blasphemous to criticize infallible 
authority? 



MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 61 

agonies and cruelties of the world. The difficulties of the 
situation are due to the substitution o( religion for God, of 
an infallible Church or book for personal effort. If religion 
is to revive, it must be founded on verifiable truth. The 
centre should shift from reliance on external direction, whose 
validity is becoming more and more questionable, to a trust 
in experience, intimate and personal. There is a fervent 
desire to replace the religion of dogma by a religion of life, 
and the worship of the Nation-State by loyalty to a world 
community. 

Religion begins for us with an awareness that our life is 
not of ourselves alone. There is another, greater life enfold- 
ing and sustaining us. Religion as man's search for this 
greater self will not accept any creeds as final or any laws 
as perfect. It will be evolutionary, moving ever onward. 
The witness to this spiritual view is borne, not only by the 
great religious teachers and leaders of mankind, but by 
the ordinary man in the street, in whose inmost being the 
well of the spirit is set deep. In our normal experience events 
happen which imply the existence of a spiritual world. The 
fact of prayer or meditation, the impulse to seek and appeal 
to a power beyond our normal self, the moving sense of 
revelation which the sudden impact of beauty brings, the 
way in which decisive contacts with certain individuals bring 
meaning and coherence into our scattered lives, suggest that 
we are essentially spiritual. To know oneself is to know all 
we can know and all we need to know. A spiritual as distinct 
from a dogmatic view of life remains unaffected by the ad- 
vance of science and criticism of history. Religion generally 
refers to something external, a system of sanctions and con- 
solations, while spirituality points to the need for knowing 
and living in the highest self and raising life in all its parts. 
Spirituality is the core of religion and its inward essence, 
and mysticism emphasizes this side of religion. 

Mysticism is a word ill favoured by the rationalist as well 
as by the dogmatic theologian. It is criticized as a tendency 
to see things cloudily, in a golden or sentimental haze, to 
justify the habit of the human mind to entertain contra- 
dictory beliefs at the same time, to exalt confusion of thought. 
Mysticism is none of these things. It is the admission of 



62 MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 

mystery in the universe. 1 It cannot be regarded as a reproach 
in a world which is by all rational accounts mysterious. If 
we were only what we seem to be to our normal self-aware- 
ness there would be no mystery; if the world were only what 
it can be made out to be by the perceptions of the senses 
and the analysis of reason, there would be no riddle. At any 
rate, the mystery will not be deep, nor the riddle difficult. 
In our rationalistic consciousness we are ignorant of our- 
selves because we know only that which changes in us from 
moment to moment and not that which is enduring; we are 
ignorant of the world because we are aware of its appearances 
and not its true being. Mysticism is opposed to the natural- 
ism which categorically denies the existence of God and the 
dogmatism which talks as if it knew all about Him. Both 
agree in abolishing all mystery in the world. In his exalta- 
tion of scientific integrity the rationalist can at times be as 
vehement, as dogmatic, and as narrow as any of the creeds 
which he believes himself to have supplanted. Without a 
sense of awe in the presence of the unknown, religion would 
be a petty thing. 2 There is a well-known story of St. Augus- 
tine which relates that, while meditating on his book De 
Trinitate by the sea-shore, he saw a child engaged in filling 
a shell from the ocean and then pouring it out into a hole 
he had dug in the sand. In answer to his question as to what 
he was doing, the child replied that he meant to empty all 
the water of the sea into his hole. When the great theologian 
gently rebuked the child about the futility of such a task, 
the child retorted, 'What I am doing is more likely to be 
accomplished than what you are trying to do, that is to 
understand the nature of the divine being.' In mystic reli- 
gion God is not a logical concept or the conclusion of a 
syllogism but a real presence, the ground and possibility of 
all knowledge and values. Mysticism, which lays stress on 

1 Etymological]/ considered, the mystic is one who closes his eyes to all 
external things and keeps silent about the divine mysteries into which he has 
been initiated. 

2 Einstein puts the point thus: 'The fairest thing we can experience is the 
mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true 
art and true science. He who knows it not can no longer wonder, no longer 
feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed out candle' (The World as I 
Seelt). 



MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 63 

the personal experience of God, direct contact with the 
creative spirit, is what Bergson calls 'open religion'. The 
closed religions are the credal, ritualistic ones which give 
a sense of security to frightened children. Only an open 
religion which requires us to enter the spiritual stream 
where our spirit can refresh and restore itself can save 
humanity, which is half crushed by the weight of its own 
progress. 

The criticism that mysticism is an effective spiritual in- 
strument in the hands of political reaction points to its abuse. 
The mystic or the intuitive consciousness is not to be con- 
fused with the instinctive. It is not a flight to unreason or 
a glorification of ignorance and obscurity. It assumes the 
indivisible oneness of human life, whose apprehensions can- 
not be contrary to reason. 

Pascal's well-known classification of the three ways to 
belief, custom, reason, and inspiration, suggests the three 
stages of mental evolution, sense, reason, and intuition, 
though they are not to be regarded as chronologically suc- 
cessive and separate. In the lowest stage of infancy the 
senses are most active. In youth we rise from the empirical 
to the dialectical stage when we argue and derive conclusions 
from observed data. At a more mature stage we obtain a 
synthetic and intuitive knowledge of reality by means of an 
experience which embraces the whole soul. But intuition, 
though it includes the testimony of will and feeling, is never 
fully attained without strenuous intellectual effort. It cannot 
dispense with the discipline of reason and the technique of 
proof. Religion itself may take three forms, primitive or 
sensuous, reflective, and mystical. Religion in the mystic 
sense is not a mere speculation of reason of a feeling of 
dependence or a mode of behaviour. It is something which 
our entire self is, feels, and does ; it is the concurrent activity 
of thought, feeling, and will. It satisfies the logical demand 
for abiding certainty, the aesthetic longing for repose, and 
the ethical desire for perfection. In the great mystics, the 
rsis of the Upanisads, Buddha, Samkara, and hundreds of 
others, holiness and learning, purity of soul, and penetration 
of understanding are fused in an harmonious whole. 



64 MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 

ii 

A study of the classic types of mystical experience dis- 
closes an astonishing agreement which is almost entirely 
independent of race, clime, or age. 1 An ultimate inward 
similarity of the human spirit does not mean an absolute 
identity of mystical experience. There are individual varia- 
tions within the large framework. In the East, for example, 
the mysticisms of the Upanisads, of the Bhagavadgita, of 
Samkara, of Ramanuja, of Ramakrsna, of Zen Buddhism, 
of Jalaluddin Rumi are different one from the other. Simi- 
larly in the West, the mysticisms of Plato and Paul, of 
Proclus and Tauler, Plotinus and Eckhart differ from one 
another. The variations are not determined by race, climate, 
or geographical situation. They appear side by side within 
the same circle of race or culture, developing different 
tendencies and traditions. 

Unfortunately, a tendency has grown up of late to distin- 
guish Eastern mysticism from that of the West, or, to be 
more precise, Hindu mysticism from the Christian, by con- 
trasting the immense ethical seriousness of the latter with 
the ethical indifference of the former. Christian thought, it 
is said, is dynamic and creative. It affirms the reality of the 
world and the meaningfulness of life. Hindu thought, on 
the other hand, is said to deny the reality of the world, 
despair of human life, poison the very springs of thought 
and activity, and exalt death and immobility. It does not 
create power and purpose directed to high ends. 

A characteristic statement of this contrast is found in 
Dr. Schweitzer's account of Indian thought, which we shall 
consider for two reasons. 2 Firstly, the author is a thinker 
of great influence and importance whose writings, whatever 
faults we may find in them, are nevertheless entitled to our 

1 Cf. Dr. Inge: 'Mysticism is singularly uniform in all times and places. 
The communion of the soul with God has found much the same expression 
whether the mystic is a Neo-platonic philosopher like Plotinus, a Moham- 
madan Sufi, a Catholic monk or a Quaker. Mysticism, which is the living 
heart of religion, springs from a deeper level than the differences which divide 
the Churches, the cultural changes which divide the ages of history' (Freedom, 
Love, and Truth (1936), pp. 25-6). 

1 Indian Thought and its Development, E.T. (1936). 



MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 65 

respect and gratitude. Secondly, his account brings together 
in a convenient form the chief criticisms urged against 
Hindu thought. His argument is based mainly on the 
antagonism of the two attitudes which he calls 'world and 
life affirmation* and 'world and life negation*. The former 
accepts the reality and value of world and life, while the 
latter denies any real existence to the world and the life in 
it. These are said to be meaningless and sorrowful. In this 
scheme the individual is required to 'bring life to a standstill 
in himself by mortifying his will to live and to renounce all 
activity which aims at improvement of the conditions of life 
in this world', 1 World and life affirmation results in social 
service, whilst the other takes no interest in a world which 
it dismisses as a stage play or at best a puzzling pilgrimage 
through time to eternity. The latter view is bound to make 
compromises, since 'ethical world and life negation is in itself 
a contradictory and non-realizable idea. For ethics comprise 
world and life affirmation.' 2 The instinctive will to live is in 
us and it operates in the direction of world affirmation. 

It is interesting to compare with this the almost identical 
phrases in which another great German theologian, Pro- 
fessor Heiler, commends the prophetic as against the mysti- 
cal religion in his book on Prayer. 3 He, however, recognizes 
the presence of the two types both in India and the West, 
and his contrast is not geographical. 

'The fundamental psychic experience in mysticism\ says Heiler, 'is 
the denial of the impulse of life, a denial born of weariness of life, the 
unreserved surrender to the Infinite, the crown and culmination of 
which is ecstasy. The fundamental psychic experience in prophetic 
religion is an uncontrollable will to live, a constant impulse to the 
assertion, strengthening and enhancement of the feeling of life. 
Mysticism is passive, quietist, resigned, contemplative; the prophetic 
religion is active, challenging, desiring, ethical.' 

'Mysticism flees from and denies the natural life and the relish of life 
in order to experience an infinite life beyond it; prophetic piety, on 
the contrary, believes in life and affirms it, throws itself resolutely and 
joyfully into the arms of life. On the one side we have an uncom- 
promising denial of life; on the other an unconquerable belief in life.* 

'Mysticism is the religion of feminine natures. Enthusiastic 
surrender, a delicate capacity for feeling, soft passiveness are its 

1 Op. cit., pp. 1-2. * Ibid., p. in. * E.T. v*93 2 ) 



66 MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 

characteristics. Prophetic religion, on the contrary, has an unmis- 
takably masculine character, ethical severity, bold resoluteness, and 
disregard of consequence, energetic activity.' 

Prophetic religion is severe, militant, uncompromising, in- 
tolerant, while mystic religion is renouncing, other-worldly, 
peaceful. 

* "Personality affirming" and "personality denying" religion, the 
experience of God which values history and that which ignores it, 
"revelation and ecstasy", prophetism and monasticism, transforma- 
tion of the world and flight from the world, preaching of the gospel 
and contemplation these contradictions are too great to give us the 
right to assert an essential identity of both types.' 1 

While Heiler admits that Christianity and Hinduism have 
both these types, he argues that the mystic tendency in 
Christianity is derived from Indian sources, while the pro- 
phetic tendency is based on the Jewish revelation. In other 
words, he indirectly supports Schweitzer's contention that 
Indian religion, which is predominantly mystical, is other- 
worldly and life-denying, while the Western development of 
Christianity is self-assertive and voluntaristic. It enshrines, 
according to both these thinkers, 'an irresistible will to live, 
an uncontrollable impulse toward the expression, mastery 
and exaltation of the sense of living'. The religious man in 
the West believes in life, affirms life, and throws himself 
with joy and resolution into the tasks of life. While the 
mystic is lost in the contemplation of God, the Western man 
is engaged in the vindication of personal worth ; he directs 
all his energies to our joys and sorrows, our troubles and 
fears, our plans and confidences. I hope I have not mis- 
represented by these extracts writers who have few equals 
in the sphere of theology, but it is hard to resist the 
conclusion that their conceptions of prophetic and world- 
affirming religions have more in common with neo-pagan 
faiths than with the self-denying, self-forgetful genius of 
Christianity whose symbol is the Cross. There are many 
who will not agree with Heiler's characterization of Chris- 
tian mysticism but will grant that it is possibly true of Hindu 
mysticism and thus support Schweitzer's views. 

1 Op. cit., pp. 142, 146, 163, 170-1. 



MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 67 

This type of criticism and contrast has been so pervasive 
and persistent that there is no little danger of its being 
accepted without much examination as an incontrovertible 
truth. Large historic movements cannot be forced into exag- 
gerated symmetry. Nature refuses to be regulated accord- 
ing to our prescription. If we start with the idea of fitting 
history into neat patterns, we shall find it difficult to resist 
the temptation of overlooking essential facts or twisting 
them out of shape. Schweitzer defines world and life affirma- 
tion and world and life negation as antitheses or alternatives 
which exclude each other, whereas they are only phases 
which are emphasized more or less. He is compelled by the 
evidence of facts to admit in Hindu thought aspects which 
are of a world-affirming character and in Christian thought 
aspects of a world-negating character. On account of his 
starting-point he is obliged to regard them as inconsistencies. 

There are certain central features in Hindu thought such 
as the four stages of life (asrama$\ the second of which is 
that of the householder, the doctrines of Karma and rebirth 
which imply action in a real world. In the earliest Hindu 
thought as found in the Rg Veda and the Upanisads these 
characteristic views are set forth and Schweitzer can only 
say that 'Brahmanism has the courage to be inconsistent'. 1 
Again, Buddhist ethics with their pity for suffering and 
sympathy for every form of sentient life are incompatible 
with world negation. Buddha's thinking was as clear and 
objective as his feeling was warm and tender. He would 
spend hours alone in the forest, 'causing', as he said, 

'the power of benevolence which fills my mind to extend over one 
quarter of the world, in the same way over the second quarter, over 
the third, over the fourth, above, below, across, on all sides, in all 
directions. Over the entire universe I send forth the power of 
benevolence which fills my spirit; the wide, the great, the immeasur- 
able feeling which knows naught of hate, which doeth no evil.' 

Buddha insists on an active and systematic cultivation of the 
spirit of goodwill for all kinds and conditions of men and 
even for animals and all other sentient creatures. 2 This 

1 Op. cit, P . 38. 

2 In the second Rock Edict of Asoka we read: 'Everywhere his sacred and 



68 MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 

whole exalted conception of compassion not only for man- 
kind but for all living things does not trouble Schweitzer, 
who observes 'the commandment not to kill, not to harm 
does not arise . . . from a feeling of compassion but from 
the idea of keeping undefiled from the world. It belongs 
originally to the ethic of becoming more perfect, not to the 
ethic of action/ It is difficult to know why we should regard 
perfection and action as antithetical. We find in the Epics 
of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata stress laid on the joy 
of life and the dignity of man, an eager desire for personal 
pre-eminence and love of adventure. The Bhagavadgita 
exalts the idea of action as the way to God, but Schweitzer 
reminds us that such action was to be empty of all motive. 
It is essentially a form of inactivity. We are not told, how- 
ever, when action is really action. If Ramanuja and the long 
line of theists who came after him affirm the reality of the 
world and the efficacy of action, they are to be treated as 
a departure from the main tradition. If Gandhi and Tagore 
to-day adopt an ethical view of life, it is certainly to be 
traced to their contact with the Christian West. The whole 
development of Indian thought is described as a gradual 
weaning from 'world and life negation' to the more rational 
'world and life affirmation'. 

It is not easy to argue that Christian thought insists on 
the reality of the world, the value of life, and the necessity 
for social service. As an historical critic of Christianity, 
Schweitzer took the same view as Johannes Weiss, Loisy, 
and Baron von Htigel, that Jesus predicted His own coming 
in power within a very short time, a prediction with which 
the event failed to correspond. The eschatological teaching 
of Jesus that the end of the world was at hand reveals an 
attitude of world and life negation in so far as He did not 
assume that the Kingdom of God would be realized in this 
natural world but expected its sudden and startling in- 
auguration by supernatural power. 1 In the coming Kingdom 

gracious Majesty has made curative arrangements of two kinds, curative 
arrangements for men and curative arrangements for animals.' 

1 When the rich young man came to Jesus saying, *What shall I do that I 
may inherit eternal life ?' he was first asked about his knowledge of the com- 
mandments. When the young man replied, 'All these things have I observed 



MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 69 
the State and the other earthly institutions and conditions 
shall either not exist at all or shall exist only in a sublimated 
form. The only ethic that Jesus can preach is a negative 
one, to enable man to free himself from the world and fit 
himself for the Kingdom. It is a penitential discipline and 
not a humanist ethic. Earthly goods are emptied of any 
essential value. Our highest ideals and noblest impulses are 
to be swept away, as the new world is wholly other than that 
which now is. As it is to be realized by the unmediated and 
catastrophic activity of God, our attitude to this world must 
be one of uncompromising hostility. Jesus did not think 
that .the Kingdom of God is something embryonically pre- 
sent in human nature and society to be brought into realiza- 
tion by steady progress. No good can come except by direct 
divine intervention. It is possible to cite many texts which 
support the legitimacy of earthly joys and ideals and the value 
of natural beauty, domestic happiness, and civil order, but 
Schweitzer is definite that 'his acceptance of the world is but 
the last expression of the completeness with which he rejects 
it*. 'The teaching of the historical Jesus was purely and 
exclusively world-renouncing.' 1 For the late Bishop Gore 
the Sermon on the Mount 

'is a proclamation of unworldliness in its extremest form. It is the 
poor, or those who have no care at all for wealth, those whose con- 
cessiveness or submissiveness to injustice knows no limit, and who 
have no desire for place or power or distinction, and those who take 
up their burden of misery most readily, who are to enjoy the blessings 
of the kingdom. These negative characteristics- expressing an 
extreme renunciation of "the world" and aH its normal desires are 
constantly emphasized.' 2 

Even an 'interim ethic' is inherently inconsistent with the 
eschatological teaching that the end is at hand. There is no 

from my youth', Jesus said: 'Go and sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the 
poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven* (Mark x. 1722). 'So likewise, 
whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my 
disciple* (Luke xiv. 33). 'Love not the world, neither the things that are in 
the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him* 
(i John ii. 1 5). These statements may be interpreted as the extreme negation 
of all possible kinds of social values. 

1 The Quest of the Historical Jesus, E.T. (1910), pp. 248, 249. 

2 New Commentary on Holy Scripture, pt. iii, pp. 287-8. 



70 MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 

denying that Jesus had a real and acute feeling of the im- 
mediate nearness of the end. In the Gospels we find that 
even while Jesus was living the vision or His disciples is 
fixed upon the future in a second coming of the Master. 
St. Peter, writing to the converts widely scattered through 
the provinces of Asia Minor, has no doubt that 'the end of 
all things is at hand*. When the delay in the return awakened 
doubts as to the certainty of the coming of the Messianic 
Kingdom, the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews exhorts 
believers not to give up hope but to remain steadfast to the 
end. 1 When the sceptics asserted that the return of Christ 
would not take place at all, the Second Epistle of Peter points 
out that God's reckoning of time is not like man's, for a 
thousand years are in his sight as a single day. If he still 
delayed it was to give men more time for repentance. 2 The 
Apocalypse of John closes with the words, 'Surely I come 
quickly. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus/ 3 Ignatius in his Epistle 
to the Ephesians (about A.D. 1 10) holds that 'the last times 
have come*. Justin says to Trypho, 'You have only a short 
time now in which to attach yourself to us; after the return 
of Christ your remorse and weeping will be of no avail; for 
he will not listen to you.' 4 This thought of the second 
coming 'within the lifetime of those now living' became an 
obsession and proved disastrous to normal life. The Chris- 
tians give away their property because they will have no use 
for it 'in the day of the Lord 1 . They are not encouraged to 
marry or give in marriage since it is foolish to establish house- 
holds and conceive children when the end of all things is at 
hand. As the hope of the second coming began to fade, 
another hope, more remote but not less certain, that of meet- 
ing Jesus beyond the grave, took its place. By the third cen- 
tury the great body of Christians were living for this future 
life. Four centuries after the death of Jesus Augustine saw the 
capture and destruction of Rome and wrote his City of GW, 
in which he comforted himself and the people of the Empire 
with the thought that the destruction of our earthly cities 
was a matter of no importance, since there was a spiritual 
city of God triumphant here and in the world to come, which 

1 vi. n-i2;x. 23, 35;xii. 12-14. * iii. 4-9. 

3 Revelation xxii. 20. 4 Dial, xrviii. 2. 



MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 71 

was destined to endure for ever. 1 For Augustine the builder 
of this world was Cain and its head the Devil, 2 Through the 
centuries the preparation for the life that is to come, the 
heaven or hell that is to follow after death has been the key- 
note of Christian doctrine and discipline. St. Basil says: 
4 We consider this human life of ours to be of no value what- 
soever; nor do we think or call anything absolutely good 
which is profitable to us while we are here . . . but we run 
forward in hope, and act in everything with a view to another 
life/ 3 The typical Christian attitude in this matter is beauti- 
fully set forth in Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress. In this 
text-book of Christian faith the hero of the story, signi- 
ficantly named Christian, discovers that he is living in a 
city which is doomed to imminent destruction. Filled with 
alarm, he wonders what he shall do and encounters a man 
named Evangelist, who counsels him to fly. Immediately 
Christian begins to run away. His wife and children, frigh- 
tened at his precipitate departure, 'began to cry after him to 
return', but Christian 'put his fingers in his ears, and ran 
on crying "Life! Life! Eternal Life!" V His friends and 
neighbours tried to stop him, but Christian would not so 
much as even pause for a moment to tell them the doom 
that was upon the city and bid them to fly as well. He was 
thinking only of himself, of his own salvation. So far as the 
city was concerned, it might disappear together with his wife 
and children, and all his friends and neighbours, but there 
was no need to worry if only he were saved. 

Austerities, flagellations, and fastings were adopted by 
many religious people as means for controlling the body. 
In many cases they were desired for their own sake. 4 A 

1 Mr. Edwyn Bevan points out that certain forms of Christianity were 
world-negating: 'To turn from the wearying transitoriness of earthly things to 
the contemplation of the eternal and the unchanging that seems widely to 
have been felt in Eastern Christianity as the core or the highest goal of 
religion renunciation and tranquillity though this is hardly anything dis- 
tinctively Christian, but common to Eastern Christianity with Neoplatonism 
and Indian religion' (Christianity (1932), p. 141). 

2 The City of God, xv. i (2). 

3 A Monument to St. Augustine (1930), p. 133. 

4 Cf. St. Theresa: 'Suffering alone, from now on, can make life supportable 

. to me. My dearest wishes all lead to suffering. How often from the bottom of 



72 MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 

glorification of suffering led to the exaltation of martyrdom 
in the early Church. St. Jerome writes to the priest Helio- 
dorus bidding him break away from all contact with the 
world and leave his mother's house, adding these words: 
'Should your little nephew hang on your neck, pay no regard 
to him. Should your mother, with ashes on her head and 
garments rent, show you the breasts at which she nursed 
you, heed her not. Should your father prostrate himself on 
the threshold, trample him underfoot and go your way/ 
The extravagances with which we are familiar in the East 
are not unknown in the West. Some endeavoured to subdue 
the body by spending nights in ditches and brooks, others 
made their abodes in holes and cisterns. Some exposed 
themselves to the scorching heat of the day and the bitter 
cold at night. Some stood on one leg, wore heavy chains, 
and carried weights. Describing the life of Dorotheus, Sozo- 
men says that he limited himself to six ounces of bread and a 
few vegetables each day and drank only water. 'He was never 
seen to recline on a mat or bed, nor even to place his limbs 
in an easy attitude, or willingly surrender himself to sleep/ 
To the question why he was destroying his body his reply 
was: 'Because it is destroying me/ 1 The lives of Suso and 
Marguerite Marie, the founder of the Society of the Sacred 
Heart, are marked by an excessive emphasis on self-denial 
and suffering. In the eighteenth century Rousseau wrote: 

'Christianity is an entirely spiritual religion concerned solely with 
heavenly things: the Christian's country is not of this world. He does 
his duty, it is true; but he does it with a profound indifference as to 
the good or ill success of his endeavours. Provided that he has nothing 
to reproach himself with, it matters little to him whether all goes well 
or ill here below. If the State flourishes, he scarcely dares to enjoy the 
public felicity. If the State declines, he blesses the hand of God which 
lies heavy on his people.' 2 

Many social idealists in whose hearts a real faith for service 
of humanity burns are turning away from Christianity on 
account of its ascetic tradition. The Communists declare 

my heart have I cried out to God, O Lord, to suffer or die is the only thing 
I ask/ 

1 Ecclesiastical History, bk. vi, chap. xxix. See also Madame Guyon's Life, 
by Upham, chap, xix, p. 140. 2 The Social Contract, bk. iv, chap. viii. 



MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 73 

that they adopt the religion of the love of one's neighbour 
in a more thoroughgoing way than Christianity ever did. 1 
It is not easy to make out that Christianity's principal con- 
cern is with world and life affirmation and that world and 
life negation is merely an accidental or peripheral error. 

When confronted with historical evidence of the world- 
negating character of Christianity, Schweitzer contends that 
the Christian form of negation denies not the world as such 
but only the imperfect world in expectation of the perfect 
world yet to come. It is not easy to establish this view. 
St. John tells us, 'The whole world lieth in wickedness.' 
Christian theology takes the account of the Fall in the third 
chapter of Genesis and the Platonic theory as literal facts 
and exaggerates man's alienation from God and the de- 
pravity of human nature. As a consequence of Adam's dis- 
obedience, it is impossible for sinful man to fulfil the moral 
law by his own effort and attain salvation. For St. Paul * flesh 
and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God'. 2 Man can 
be saved only by God's grace. About the year A.D. 400 
Pelagius dared to assert that man is created good and is free 
to fulfil God's commandments, the implication being that 
the grace of God is an aid and not a necessity for man's 
salvation. Augustine, when he shook himself free from the 
influence of Plotinus, held against Pelagius that man is in- 
herently evil and helpless and that only the grace of God 
can save him. He looked upon life not merely as imperfect 
but as utterly corrupt. Man's salvation is a miracle of divine 
grace. Even the faith by which the individual is inclined to 
accept the proffered prevenient grace is divinely bestowed 
on him. The complete depravity of man gives the oppor- 
tunity for the divine plan of salvation through Christ. The 
Church decided that Augustine was right and Pelagius 
wrong. Luther accepts this view, and it persists in Calvin 
and Knox. The movement of Jansenism in the Roman 

1 Dr. Needham says of the religion of the Communists: 'Their doctrine may 
be described as the highest form which religion has yet taken. . . . They alone 
have noted the Apostle's warning "He that despiseth man, despiseth not man 
but God". Religion must die to be born again as the holy spirit of a righteous 
social order' (Faiths and Fellowship, being the proceedings of the World Con- 
gress of Faiths (1937)* PP- 

2 See Romans ix. 15-21. 



74 MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 

Catholic Church, and the mystical intensity of seventeenth- 
century quietism, are expressions of the same type of 
thought. The utter inability of man to do anything for him- 
self, to discover God, promote his own salvation, or be an 
organ of spiritual values has received new emphasis in the 
Crisis Theology of Karl Earth and his followers. For them 
the nature of God is for ever unrevealable in terms of human 
life and thought. The whole point may be put in another 
way. For the orthodox Christian, the coming of the King- 
dom is catastrophic and not the peaceful outcome of an ever- 
widehing process of evolution, an intervention of God cutting 
right into history and not springing from it. He despairs of 
earth and lives in apocalyptic hopes of divine intervention. 
There is, of course, the other emphasis in Christianity brought 
out by the parables of the leaven and the grain of mustard 
seed and utterances like 'The Kingdom of God is within you'. 
All immense simplifications of the complicated patterns 
of reality are misleading. To divide peoples into those who 
will not accept the world at all and those who will accept 
nothing else is hardly fair. The many reservations which 
Schweitzer is obliged to make in applying his scheme of 
world affirmation and world negation as opposite categories 
of which one or the other must be denied show that it is not 
adequate to the facts. A very different view is expressed by 
Sir George Birdwood when he says: 

'European Christianity, unfortunately through the accident of the 
impatience of some of its early converts of the military discipline of 
Rome, was at its beginning placed in opposition to the general philo- 
sophical, literary, artistic and scientific culture of the Gentile world, 
and thenceforward in more or less marked antagonism also to the 
modern secular life of the west. Happily in India ... the Brahmanical 
religious life has never sundered itself from the daily working life of the 
laity, but is a component part of it and indissolubly bound up with it. 9 

He concludes his chief work, Sva , with the hope that 

'India may yet be destined to prepare the way for the reconciliation 
of Christianity with the world, and through the practical identification 
of the spiritual with the temporal life, to hasten the period of that 
third step forward in the moral development of humanity, when there 
will be no divisions of race, or creed, or class, or nationality, between 
men, by whatsoever name they may be called) for they will all be one 



MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 75 

in the acknowledgment of their common brotherhood, with the same 
reality, and sense of consequent responsibility, with which two 
thousand years ago, they recognised the Fatherhood of God, and 
again, two thousand years before that an exceptionally endowed tribe 
of Semites, in the very heart of Anterior Asia, formulated for all men, 
and for all time, the inspiring and elevating doctrine of his unity.' 1 

In other words, Sir George Birdwood believes that while the 
Hebrews gave the world the conception of the unity of God- 
head and the Christians that of the Fatherhood of God, the 
Hindus will help to make these truths effective in life and thus 
to achieve the brotherhood of man. While Schweitzer, whose 
knowledge of India is based on books, holds that Hinduism 
makes us fugitives from life, Birdwood, who spent a lifetime 
among the Indians, hopes that Hinduism will yet reconcile 
the truths of Judaism and Christianity with earthly life. 

The contrast to my mind is not so much between Hindu- 
ism and Christianity as between religion and a self-sufficient 
humanism. While religion is taken more seriously in the 
East, humanism is the predominant feature of Western life. 
Hindu religion, like all true religion, is essentially 'other- 
worldly'. It pictures the world as a mere vestibule and 
training-ground for another in which alone life is real, rich, 
and abiding; yet it moves men to the most impressive and sus- 
tained demonstrations of human courage, power, and persis- 
tence and has woven for itself a secular vesture. Its adherents 
describe themselves as strangers and pilgrims on- earth. 
Its most illustrious representatives are saints and martyrs. 2 



), pp. 354-6. . . 

2 The contrast between the Eastern and die Western points of view is 
brought out vividly in Arnold's well-known lines. He gives us first the impact 
of Europe drunk with power on Asia: 

The East bow'd low before the blast, 

In patient, deep disdain 

She let the legions thunder past 

And plunged in thought again. 

A Europe grown weary of humanism and secular development heeded the 
voice of the East, when she accepted Christianity: 

She heard it, the Victorious West, 

In sword and crown array'd 

She felt the void that mined her breast ! 

She shivered and obey'd. 



76 MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 

Religion and humanism do not exclude each other. If 
we wrongly identify religion with world and life negation, 
and ethics with humanism and social progress, the two 
become quite different and require to be pursued on their 
own separate lines and in obedience to. their own separate 
principles. They are, on the contrary, organic to each other. 
While the chief value of religion lies in its power to raise and 
enlarge the internal man, its soundness is not complete 
until it has shaped properly his external existence. For 
the latter we require a sound political, economic, and social 
life, a power and an efficiency which will make a people 
not only survive but grow towards a collective perfection. If 
a religion does not secure these ends, there is a defect some- 
where, either in its essential principles or in their application. 
A spiritual view is sustained not only by insight but by a 
rational philosophy and sound social institutions. 

in 

Let us now consider the chief arguments which Schweitzer 
advances in support of his thesis, (i) The emphasis on 
ecstasy in Hindu thought naturally tends to world and life 
negation. (2) Hindu thought is essentially other-worldly, 
and humanist ethics and other-worldliness are incompatible 
with each other. (3) The Hindu doctrine of maya, which 
declares that life is an illusion, contains the flaw of world 
and life negation, and in consequence Hindu thought is 
non-ethical. (4) The best that the Hindu has to say about 
the origin of the world is that it is a game played by God. 
(5) The way to salvation is jnana or self-discovery. This is 
different from moral development, and so Hindu religion 
is non-ethical. (6) The goal of human endeavour is escape, 
not reconciliation. It is the deliverance of the soul from the 
bonds of finitude, not the conversion of the finite into the 
organ and manifestation of the infinite. Religion is a refuge 
from life and its problems, and man has no hope of better 
things to come. (7) The ideal man of the Hindu religion 
is raised above the ethical distinctions of good and evil. 
(8) The ethics of inner perfection insisted on by Hindu 
thought conflict with an active ethic and wide-hearted love 
of one's neighbour. 



MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 77 

IV 

'The real belief of the Brahmins', says Schweitzer, 'is that 
man does not attain to union with Brahman by means of any 
achievement of his natural power of gaining knowledge, but 
solely by quitting the world of the senses in a state of ecstasy 
and thus learning the reality of pure being.' 1 The suggestion 
here is that Christian mysticism represents the enrichment 
of personality, the heightened expression of spiritual life, 
and Hindu mysticism requires one to run away from oneself. 
This is another example of over-simplification. As a reading 
of Hindu mysticism it is far from correct. For the Hindu, 
the 'spiritual is the basic element of human nature. Spiritual 
realization is not a miraculous solution of life's problems but 
a slow deposit of life's fullness, a fruit which grows on the 
tree of life when it is mature. The soul, in the state of 
ecstasy, enters the stream of life, is borne along in the 
flowing current of it, and finds its reality in the larger en- 
veloping life. This life of spirit, where freedom from the 
sense of bodily or even mental limitations and emergence 
into a space of unlimited and infinite life are felt, is not the 
same as magical mysticism. 

What Schweitzer regards as the supernatural or the 
magical, the spasm of the human mind in contact with pure 
spirit, is the supremely normal, though most of us are feeble- 
minded or more or less insane compared with this ideal of 
sanity. 

Ecstasy is a word which covers a multitude of things, 
from alcoholic intoxication and possession by demons to the 
raptures of Plotinus. 2 Ecstasy of the quiet contemplative 
type is different from the wild excitement induced by physi- 
cal means and indulged in for its intoxicating effects. All 
experience of God when it becomes intense is ecstatic, 
though every ecstatic emotion is not an experience of God. 
It is true, however, that there is a certain temperament 
which predisposes its subject to emotional exaltation which 
is quite different from a convulsed state. This is not 

1 Op. cit., p. 38. 

2 On the ecstatic as a sign of communion with God, see W. James, The 
Varieties of Religious Experience (1906), pp. 379-422; R. H. Thouless, An 
Introduction to the Psychology of Religion (1924), pp. 230-2, 249-51. 



78 MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 

surprising in view of the obvious fact that something of the 
same kind is true of poets and philosophers, painters and 
musicians. If we do not say that the genius of the artist is 
due to mental degeneration or nervous instability, religious 
geniuses need not be treated differently. A sense of rapture 
is a frequent accompaniment of mystic states, but it by no 
means implies a disintegration of the self. To be rapt is not 
to pass beyond one's self but to be intensely one's self, not to 
lose self-consciousness but to be greatly conscious. Man is 
not torn out of the ordinary setting of his earthly life. He 
still has a body and mind, though he knows them to be 
instruments of his higher life. He does not exult in his own 
intelligence or seek for his own soul, for he has it no more. 
If he has gained a transcendent personality and an indepen- 
dence which nothing in this world can touch, it is because 
not he but the Super-spirit lives in him, making him illimit- 
able. While mystic experience has something in common 
with the delight of the artist or the ecstasy of love, which 
exceed all law and restriction and indicate the possibility of 
a real communion with life, it is not a mere glow of feeling. 
Excited emotionalism, which seeks and strives after sensa- 
tions and rapturous states of a sensual character, is quite 
different from perfect insight (samyag-darsana). The con- 
templative saints assign a subordinate position to images and 
other sensible presentations. These are symbols which we 
use to understand, and the symbol is different from experi- 
ence or understanding. Jnana or vidya is cool, clear-sighted 
vision. In ecstasy the soul feels itself, or thinks it feels itself, 
in the presence of God, being irradiated by the light; but 
we must go beyond it to a stage where the consciousness of 
being at unity with the divine becomes constant. To have 
an ecstasy is to look upon the promised land but not to set 
foot on its soil. It is not beatitude or the perfect spiritual 
possession of divine reality but is its beginning, the first 
step here below. After the tremendous experience of the 
celestial vision in chapter xi of the BhagavaJgtta the book 
does not end. The illumination must be transformed into 
the spiritual union of man with infinite being. When the 
ecstasy dies out, the soul stands alone and feels desolate, 
dissatisfied with its incomplete union. Accustomed for a 



MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 79 

time to dazzling light, it now gropes in gloom, striving for 
the purity of heart and the chastity of mind essential for that 
spiritual life which is the gradual penetration of the human 
consciousness by the divine. The effort to conquer the will 
and subdue it entirely is unceasing, until the union is abso- 
lute, until the personality is permanently changed, until it 
becomes a God-moved soul. 1 

Ecstasy is not the only way to spiritual life. It is often 
a perversion of mysticism rather than an illustration of it. 
As there is a tendency to mistake it for spiritual life, we are 
warned against it. The spiritual mystics the world over 
regard ecstasy, visions, auditions as things to be avoided and 
of secondary importance. They are the anomalies of the life 
of mystics from which they sometimes suffer, and are the 
results of an imperfect adaptation to a changed inner world. 
When the personality of the mystic rises to a level which is 
disconcerting to his normal self-centred life, certain dis- 
orders show themselves. The experience throws an intense 
strain on the organism. When the seed of the oak is planted 
in earthen vessels, they break asunder. When new wine is 
poured in old bottles, they burst. Man must become a new 
vessel, a new creature, if he is to bear the spiritual light. That 
is why the Hindu system of yoga insists on the development 
of healthy nerves. 

Ecstatic phenomena are not peculiar to Hinduism. We 
have a case of ecstasy in the book of Numbers in the Balaam 
narrative: 'seeing the vision, falling down and having his 
eyes open'. 2 Trance visions initiated the prophecies of Isaiah 
and Ezekiel.3 St. Paul speaks of spiritual rapture indepen- 
dent of the senses and was only reminded of their existence 
by the 'sting of the flesh*. The experience of gifts in the i 
early Church, 'speaking with tongues' and the 'interpretation 
of tongues', messages given by the prophets, 4 are more 

1 Cf. St. Theresa, for whom ecstasy is betrothal leading up to the spiritual 
marriage 'in which the soul always remains in its centre with God" (The 
Interior Cast/e, Seventh Mansion, chap, ii, sees. 2-4). 

2 xxiv. 4. See also Isaiah vi. 

3 Ezra vi. 32. 

4 See Acts of the Apostles and the First Letter to the Corinthians. See also 
Mark i. 12; Luke iv. I. 'The great prophets do not depart from the con- 
ception of inspiration common to the whole of Semitic antiquity; for them 



8o MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 

invasions from beyond than developments from within. 
Montanism, which prevailed in the second and third cen- 
turies, was definitely ecstatic. St. Theresa and St. Catherine 
of Genoa, among others, suffered from visions and ecstasies. 
Any argument based on ecstatic phenomena will apply to all 
religions alike. 

v 

Any ethical theory must be grounded in metaphysics, in 
a philosophical conception of the relation between human 
conduct and ultimate reality. As we think ultimate reality 
to be, so we behave. Vision and action go together. If we 
believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities. A self-suffi- 
cient humanism has its own metaphysical presuppositions. 
It requires us to confine our attention to the immediate 
world of space and time and argues that moral duty consists 
in conforming to nature and modelling our behaviour in ac- 
cordance with the principles of her working. It attempts to 
perfect the causes of human life by purely natural means. 
The subject of ethics is treated as a branch of sociology or 
a department of psychology. Scientific materialism and mys- 
tical nationalism are two types of humanist ethics, interpreted 
in a narrow sense. They look upon man as a purely natural 
phenomenon whose outlook is rigorously confined by space 
and time. They encourage a cynical subservience to nature 
and historical process and an acquiescence in the merely prac- 
ticable. Renunciation, self-sacrifice, disinterested service of 
humanity are not stimulated by the workings of natural law. 

An abundance of material things will not help to make 
life more interesting. The rich of the world are among those 
who find life stale, flat, and unprofitable. Even the social 
conscience that urges us to extend the benefits of a material 
civilization cannot be accounted for by the principles of 
scientific naturalism. The material basis, while essential, is 
still too narrow for real living. The collective myths of 
Nazism, Fascism, and Communism propose to make life 
seem rich and significant by asking us to banish all con- 
siderations of reason and humanity and to worship the State, 
it is the invasion of a human personality by a power foreign to it, which they 
usually call the spirit or the word of Yahweh.' Adolphe Lods: The Prophets 
and the Rise of Judaism (1937), p. 53. 



MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 81 

Man is not merely an emotional being. The Nation-State 
falls short of the human and the universal and constitutes 
a deadly menace to the growth of the universal in man which 
is postulated with increasing force by the advance of science 
and which the well-being of human society demands. 

The question has its centre in the nature of man. Is he only 
a body which can be fed, clothed, and housed, or is he also a 
spirit that can aspire ? The feeling of frustration experienced 
even by those who are provided with all the comforts and 
conveniences which a material civilization can supply in- 
dicates that man does not live by bread or emotional excite- 
ment alone. Besides, progress is not its own end. If it is 
the ultimate reality, it cannot ever be completed. We can 
draw nearer and nearer the goal, but cannot reach it. Its 
process has neither a beginning nor an end. It starts no- 
where and leads nowhere. It has no issue, no goal. Sense- 
less cycles of repetition cannot give meaning to life. It may 
be argued that, although the universe may have no purpose, 
items in the universe such as nations and individuals may have 
their purposes. The rise and fall of nations, the growth and 
crash of individuals may be quite interesting, and the universe 
may be viewed as an infinite succession of finite purposes. 
This cannot be regarded as a satisfactory goal of ethics. Does 
not the humanist hope to build a terrestrial paradise inhab- 
ited by a perfect race of artists and thinkers ? What is the 
good of telling us that though our sun, moon, and stars will 
share in the destruction of earthly life, other suns, moons, 
and stars will arise? We long for a good which is never 
left behind and never superseded. Man's incapacity to be 
satisfied with what is merely relative and remain permanently 
within the boundaries of the finite and empirical reality can- 
not be denied. Man stands before the shrine of his own 
mystery. He enters it the moment he becomes aware of his 
own eternity. Apart from eternity there is nothing that can, 
strictly speaking, be called human. A meaningful ethical 
ideal must be transcendent to the immediate flow of events. 

Again, in view of the enigmatic character of the actual, 
is moral life possible ? There are some thinkers who exhort 
us to do what is right even though we may not know whether 
it can be realized or not. Moral enthusiasm is possible only 



82 MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 

if our motive includes the expectation of being able to con- 
tribute to the achievement of moral ideals. If we are not 
certain that active service of the ideals will further their 
actualization, we cannot be sure of their worthwhileness. 

We cannot help asking ourselves whether our ideals are 
mere private dreams of our own or bonds created by society, 
or even aspirations characteristic of the human species. Only 
a philosophy which affirms that they are rooted in the uni- 
versal nature of things can give depth and fervour to moral 
life, courage and confidence in moral difficulties. We need 
to be fortified by the conviction that the service of the ideals 
is what the cosmic scheme demands of us, that our loyalty 
or disloyalty to them is a matter of the deepest moment not 
only to ourselves or to society, or even to the human species, 
but to the nature of things. If ethical thought is profound, 
it will give a cosmic motive to morality. Moral conscious- 
ness must include a conviction of the reality of ideals. If the 
latter is religion, then ethical humanism is acted religion. 
When man realizes his essential unity with the whole of 
being, he expresses this unity in his life. Mysticism and 
ethics, other-worldliness and worldly work go together. In 
the primitive religions we have this combination. Other- 
worldliness appears as mdna^ which the savage derives from 
an innate sense of some mysterious power within the pheno- 
mena and behind the events of the visible world, and morality 
appears as taboo, and the sense of sacredness in things and 
persons, which with its inhibitions controls the whole range 
of his conduct. In the higher religions of mankind, belief 
in the transcendent and work in the natural have grown 
together in close intimacy and interaction. Religion is the 
soul's attitude, response, and adjustment in the presence of 
the supreme realities of the transcendent order; ethics deal 
with the right adjustment of life on earth, especially in 
human society. Both are motived by a desire to live in the 
light of ideals. If we are satisfied with what exists, there is 
no meaning in 'ought* ; if we are a species of passing pheno- 
mena, there is no meaning in religion. Religion springs 
from the conviction that there is another world beyond the 
visible and the temporal with which man has dealings, and 
ethics require us to act in this world with the compelling 



MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 83 
vision of another. With our minds anchored in the beyond 
we are to strive to make the actual more nearly like what it 
ought to be. Religion alone can give assurance and wider re- 
ference to ethics and a new meaning to human life. We make 
moral judgements about individuallives and societies simply 
because we are spiritual beings, not merely social animals. 

If there is one doctrine more than another which is 
characteristic of Hindu thought, it is the belief that there 
is an interior depth to the human soul, which, in its essence, 
is uncreated and deathless and absolutely real. The spirit 
in man is different from the individual ego; it is that which 
animates and exercises the individual, the vast background 
of his being in which all individuals lie. It is the core of all 
being, the inner thread by being strung on which the world 
exists. In the soul of man are conflicting tendencies: the 
attraction of the infinite, which abides for ever, changeless, 
unqualified, untouched by the world; and the fascination of 
the finite, that which like the wind-beaten surface of the 
waters is never for a moment the same. Every human being 
is a potential spirit and represents, as has been well said, 
a hope of God and is not a mere fortuitous concourse of 
episodes like the changing forms of clouds or the patterns 
of a kaleidoscope. If the feeling for God were not in man, 
we could not implant it any more than we could squeeze 
blood from a stone. The heart of religion is that man truly 
belongs to another order> and the meaning of man's life is 
to be found not in this world but in more than historical 
reality. His highest aim is release from the historical succes- 
sion denoted by birth and death. So long as he is lost in the 
historical process without a realization of the super-historical 
goal, he is only *once born' and is liable to sorrow. God and 
not the world of history is the true environment of our souls. 
If we overlook this important fact, and make ethics or world 
affirmation independent of religion or world negation, our 
life and thought become condescending, though this con- 
descension may take the form of social service or philan- 
thropy. But it is essentially a form of self-assertion and not 
real concern for the well-being of others. If goodwill, pure 
love, and disinterestedness are our ideals, then our ethics 
must be rooted in other-worldliness. This is the great 



84 MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 

classical tradition of spiritual wisdom. The mystery cults of 
Greece had for their central doctrine that man's soul is of 
divine origin and is akin to the spirit of God. The influence 
of these mystery cults on Socrates and Plato is unmistakable. 
When Jesus tells Nicodemus that until a man is begotten 
from above he cannot see or enter the Kingdom of God, 1 
when Paul declares that 'he that soweth to the flesh shall of 
the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the spirit 
shall of the spirit reap everlasting life', 2 they are implying 
that our natural life is mortal and it is invaded by sm and 
death, 3 and that the life of spirit is immortal. St. John in 
the First Epistle says : 'the world passeth away, and the lust 
thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever/ 4 
We are amphibious beings, according to Plotinus. We live 
on earth and in a world of spirit. 

VI 

Although the view about the coexistence of the human 
and the divine in close intimacy and interpenetration may 
be true, does not Hindu thought declare that life is empty 
and unreal, and that it has no purpose or meaning ? Schweit- 
zer tells us that for the Upanisads 'the world of the senses 
is a magic play staged by the universal soul for itself. The 
individual soul is brought into this magic play under a spell. 
By reflection about itself it must become capable of seeing 
through the deception. Thereupon it gives up taking part 
in the play. It waits quietly and enjoys its identity with the 
universal soul until, at death, the magic play for it ceases to 
be/ 5 'Man cannot engage in ethical activity in a world with 
no meaning/ 6 'For any believer in the may a doctrine ethics 
can have only a quite relative importance/ 7 This account is 
by no means a fair representation of the position of the 
Upanisads. The long theistic tradition interprets the doc- 
trine of the Upanisads in a way directly opposed to this 
account. Samkara adopts the doctrine of maya, and it is 
doubtful whether Schweitzer's view is adequate to Sarhkara's 
thought. Religious experience, by its affirmation that the 
basic fact in the universe is spiritual, implies that the world of 

1 John iii. 5. * Galatians vi. 8. 3 Romans vi. 23. 4 i John ii. 17. 
5 Op. cit., p. 59. * Ibid., p. 60. 7 Ibid., p. 65. 



MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 85 
sound and sense is not final. All existence finds its source and 
support in a supreme reality whose nature is spirit. The visible 
world is the symbol of a more real world. It is the reflection 
of a spiritual universe which gives to it its life and significance. 
What is the relation of absolute being to historical be- 
coming, of eternity to time? Is succession, history, progress, 
real and sufficient in its own right, or does man's deep 
instinct for the unchanging point to an eternal perfection 
which alone gives the world meaning and worth? Is the 
inescapable flux all, or is there anything which abides? 
Religious consciousness bears testimony to the reality of 
something behind the visible, a haunting beyond, which 
both attracts and disturbs, in the light of which the world 
of change is said to be unreal. The Hebrews contrasted the 
abidingness of God with the swift flow of human genera- 
tions. 'Before the mountains were brought forth or ever 
Thou hadst formed the earth and the world even from ever- 
lasting to everlasting, Thou art God/ 1 The Psalmist cries 
to his God: 'They [i.e. heaven and earth] shall be changed: 
but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall have no end.' 2 
The Christian exclaims: 'The things which are seen are 
temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.' 3 
The mutability of things which is part of the connotation 
of the word mdyd is a well-known theme in the world's 
literature. The saying that 'time and chance happeneth to 
them all' of Ecclesiastes is the refrain we hear often. 4 

1 Psalms xc. 2. 2 Psalms cii. 26 and 27. 3 2 Corinthians iv. 18. 

4 Shakespeare in his Sonnet 65 speaks of the mortality of things: 

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea, 
But sad mortality o'ersways their power, 
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, 
Whose action is no stronger than a flower? 
O, how shall summer's honeybreath hold out 
Against the wreckful siege of battering days, 
When rocks impregnable are not so stout, 
Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays? 

Milton writes: 

Then all this earthly grossness quit, 
Attired with stars, we shall forever sit, 
Triumphing over Death and Chance and thee, O Time. 

[Note cant, ovtrleaf.] 



86 MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 

Gaudapada argues that 'whatever is non-existent at the 
beginning and in the end is non-existent in the middle also'. 1 
In other words, the things of the world are not eternal. 
The world is maya, i.e. passes away, but God is eternal. 
Change, causality, activity are finite categories and the 
Eternal is lifted above them. God is not a mere means to 
explain the universe or improve human society. 

Saihkara, who is rightly credited with the systematic 
formulation of the doctrine ofmaya, tells us that the highest 
reality is unchangeable, 2 and therefore that changing 
existence such as human history has not ultimate reality 
(faramanhika satta). He warns us, however, against the 
temptation to regard what is not completely real as utterly 
illusory. The world has empirical being (yyavaharika satta) 
which is quite different from illusory existence (fratibhasika 
satta). Human experience is neither ultimately real nor com- 
pletely illusory. Simply because the world of experience is 
not the perfect form of reality, it does not follow that it is 
a delusion, without any significance. The world is not a 
phantom, though it is not real. 3 Brahman is said to be the 

Shelley's lines in the Aetonais are well known: 

Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, 
Stains the white radiance of Eternity, 
Until Death tramples it to fragments. 

So Kingsley: 

They drift away ah, God, they drift for ever; 

I watch the stream sweep onward to the sea 

. . . Ah, God, my God, Thou wilt not drift away. 

Sometimes we say with Fa her: 

O Lord, my heart is sick, 

Sick of this everlasting change; 

And life runs tediously quick 

Through its unresting race and varied range. 

Change finds no likeness of itself in Thee 

And makes no echo in Thy mute eternity. 

1 *ld*vante ca yannSsti vartamlnepi tat tathl.' Karika on Manjukya Up. 
ii. 6. 

2 In the tenth chapter of Revelation the angel who comes down from 
heaven declares: 'There should be time no longer.' 

3 Even Gaudapada says: 'maylmltram idam dvaitam advaitam paramSrtha- 
tah. f This duality is phenomenal; non-duality is the supreme reality (i. 17). 
Maya is not non-existence. For 'the non-existent cannot be born either really 



MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 87 

real of the real, satyasyasatyam. In all objective conscious- 
ness, we are in a sense aware of the real. 

Similarly, all knowledge presupposes the knower who is 
constant, while the known is unsteady. When Plato tells us 
that we bring universal ideas with us from the world in 
which we lived before our birth, he is referring to the non- 
phenomenal, time-transcending power in us which belongs 
to a different world from the observed phenomena. The 
'nous* which organizes the facts of experience and interprets 
them is not itself a fact of experience. It must have had its 
origin in and belong to another world. It beholds by virtue 
of its own nature eternal realities. This presence in us is an 
assurance that we are in touch with reality. Spirit is real 
being and the rest its limited activity. The spirit is pure 
existence, self-aware, timeless, spaceless, unconditioned, not 
dependent for its being on its sense of objects, not dependent 
for its delight on the gross or subtle touches of outward 
things. It is not divided in the multitude of beings. Sam- 
kara's advaita or non-duality has for its central thesis the 
non-difference between the individual self and Brahman. As 
for difference or multiplicity (nanafva\ it is not real. Its 
self-discrepant character shows that it is only an appearance 
of the real. All schools of advaita are agreed on these two 
propositions. Differences arise when the nature of the 
actuality of the manifold world as distinct from the reality 
is described. Samkara accepts the empirical reality of the 
world, which is negated only when perfect insight or intui- 
tion of the oneness of all is attained. Until then it has 
empirical validity or pragmatic justification. There are ad- 
vaitixs who argue that the world of difference has not even 
empirical validity. Samkara, however, tells us that so long 
as we are in the world of m aya and occupy a dualistic stand- 
point, the world is there, standing over against us, deter- 
mining our perceptions and conduct. 

Besides, the world we see and touch is not independent 
and self-sufficing. It carries no explanation of itself. It is a 
world reflecting the condition of our minds, a partial con- 
struction made from insufficient data under the stress of self- 

or through mayl. For the son of a barren woman is born neither in reality nor 
through mlya"' (ii. 28). 



88 MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 

conscious individuality with its cravings and desires. What 
is perceived and shaped into meaning depends on the powers 
of apprehension we employ and the interests we possess. 
Our passion-limited apprehension gives us the world of com- 
mon sense. Take the apparent facts of the universe. Matter 
is not primal. It is a thing made, not self-existent. It is not 
unreal but being as it forms itself to sense. It is not a base- 
less fiction but at the lowest a misrepresentation of truth; 
at the highest an imperfect representation or translation 
of the truth into a lower plane. Even as our knowledge 
implies the presence of a constant consciousness, the object 
of our knowledge implies the reality of pure being. Our 
conceptions of the universe answer to our degrees of con- 
sciousness. As our consciousness increases in its scope, we 
see more clearly. We now see partly as an animal and partly 
as a human being. Sometimes the world is viewed as one of 
self-satisfaction, at other times as an object of curiosity and 
contemplation. To see it in truth, one has to free oneself 
from sense addiction and concentrate the whole energy of 
one's consciousness on the nature of reality. It is the only 
way by which we can attain a clear consciousness of reality 
as it is and get a true picture of the world instead of partial 
sketches. Knowledge which we now obtain through senses 
and reason cannot be regarded as complete or perfect. It is 
flawed with antinomies and contradictions. Through the 
force of avidya (not knowing) we impose on the reality of 
the one the multiplicity of the world. Being which is one 
only appears to the soul as manifoldness, and the soul be- 
holds itself as entangled in the world ofsamsara, in the chain 
of birth and death. This avidya is natural (naisargika) to the 
human mind, and the world is organically connected with it. 
It is not therefore mere waking dream. 

Maya is not solipsism. It does not say that suns and 
universes are the invention of the solitary mind. Samkara 
proclaims his opposition to VijHanavdda or mentalism. He 
argues that waking experiences are distinct from dream- 
states, though neither can be regarded as real metaphysically. 
Our world of waking experience is not the ultimate reality, 
but neither is it a shadow-show. We are surrounded by 
something other than ourselves, which cannot be reduced 



MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 89 
to states of our own consciousness. Though the world Is 
always changing, it has a unity and a meaning. These are 
revealed by the reality present all through it. This reality 
lies not in the facts but in the principle which makes them 
into a whole. We are able to know that the world is imper- 
fect, finite, and changing, because we have a consciousness 
of the eternal and the perfect. It is by the light of this con- 
sciousness that we criticize ourselves or condemn the world. 
Even as the human individual is a complex of the eternal 
and the temporal, the world which confronts him contains 
both. It is for Samkara a mixture of truth and illusion. 1 It 
partakes of the characteristics of being and non-being (sada- 
sadatmaka). Although, therefore, it has a lower form of reality 
than pure spirit, it is not non-existent. While Samkara 
refuses to acquiesce in the seeming reality of the actual, he 
does not dismiss it as an unreal phantasmagoria. It is not 
determinable either as real or as unreal. 2 Its truth is in 
being, reality, truth (saf)\ its multiplicity and division, its 
dispersal in space and time is untrue (an-rtam). In the world 
itself we have change. Samkara does not tell us that the 
process of the world is perpetual recurrence, in which events 
of past cycles are repeated in all their details. If everything 
is recurrent, perpetually rotating, and governed by a law of 
cyclic motion, there is nothing new, no meaning in history. 
But there is an historical fulfilment and destiny for the 
cosmic process. Mankind is engaged in a pursuit that 
tends towards a definite goal. Truth will be victorious on 
earth, and it is the nature of the cosmic process that the 
finite individual is called upon to work through the exercise 
of his freedom for that goal through ages of struggle and 
effort. The soul has risen from the sleep of matter, through 
plant and animal life, to the human level, and is battling 
with ignorance and imperfection to take possession of its 
infinite kingdom. It is absolute not in its actual empirical 
condition but in its potentiality, in its capacity to appro- 
priate the Absolute. The historical process is not a mere 
external chain of events, but offers a succession of spiritual 
opportunities. Man has to attain a mastery over it and 

1 'satylnfte mithunlkf tya . . .' 

2 'sadasadbhySm anirvacaniyam/ 



90 MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 

reveal the higher world operating in it. The world is not 
therefore an empty dream or an eternal delirium. 

VII 

To the question why the supreme spirit makes individual 
souls and the world arise from itself Schweitzer informs us 
that the Hindus have no better answer than that the whole 
thing is just a play. 4 So it is impossible for them to attribute 
real importance to ethics/ 1 This brings us to the problem 
of the relation between the unchanging real and the changing 
world. Whatever the nature of the world may be, finite or 
infinite, it is contingent. The question remains, Why does 
the world exist at all ? To say that it is a mystery is perhaps 
true, but it can hardly be called an answer. 2 No theory can 
be logically satisfactory since the question itself is not 
logically framed. It involves a confusion of standpoints. 
We are using temporal terms with reference to an order 
which is essentially non-temporal. The Psalmist tells us, 
'God is in heaven, and thou upon earth; therefore let thy 
words be few/ 3 When Augustine was asked, 'What was 
God doing before He made heaven and earth ?' he answered, 
'Preparing hell for the over-curious/ Time was with crea- 
tion, and so the question of 'before* has no meaning. As 
to how the primal reality in which the divine light shines 
everlastingly can yet be the source and fount of all empirical 
being, we can only say that it is a mystery, m aya. If we still 
raise the question, our answers are bound to be riddled with 
difficulties. Why should there arise an imperfect process of 
becoming from a being who is perfection itself? If we 
answer with Plato that God was not jealous and He wished 
to share His goodness with others, other difficulties arise. 
Is the creation different from perfection or not ? If it is not, 
we have no creation but only repetition. If it is, in what 
sense is it so ? Is it good or bad ? If it is bad, then per- 
fection has produced something imperfect. If it is good, 

1 Op. cit., p. 158. 

* Schweitzer himself admits that 'ethical mysticism humbly leaves un- 
answered the question in what manner the world spirit exists within the poor 
human spirit and in it attains to consciousness of itself (ibid., p. 264). 

3 Psalms cii. 25-7. 



MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 91 

then it is not new, for perfection by definition includes all 
that is good. If it is said that God is not perfect without 
His creation, and that creation is necessary to His full 
expression, then God is not perfection or absolute reality. 
The two together, God and the world, make up the total 
reality. God by Himself is imperfect. A being who is per- 
fect and eternal cannot depend on anything fragmentary and 
temporal. If God is bound by the necessity to create, He is 
dependent on the worshippers and so cannot be an object of 
worship. And yet there is a world of becoming which in 
a sense is other than God. How can God and the world both 
be real ? If God is always complete reality without the world, 
how can anything else arise ? 

The explanation offered by amkara admits that the uni- 
verse is dependent on the Absolute, though not the Absolute 
on the universe. A distinction is made between manifesta- 
tion or transformation (parinama) and one-sided dependence 
(vivarta). The illustrations used for explaining the latter 
type of dependence suggest the illusory theory of the world. 
The world is said to depend on the Absolute, even as the 
appearance of snake depends on the rope, or that of a mirage 
on shining sand particles, or that of silver on a conch-shell. 
The point of these illustrations is to affirm that the produc- 
tion and cessation of the appearances make no difference to 
the reality of which they are the reflections. In the case of 
transformation, the substance itself is changed. When the 
effect is destroyed, the cause also is destroyed. If the 
supreme itself were modified into the world, then the im- 
mortal would become mortal. 1 So it is said that it does not 
itself become many but seems to have become many through 
maya. Aristotle tells us that the world depends on God, 
though God is completely unaware of and unaffected by it. 
The temporal yields a real apprehension of the eternal, 
though it does not contain or exhaust the eternal. The 
eternal does not take part in the temporal process as though 
it were one with it. We see the eternal through the temporal, 
not face to face but under a veil. Becoming is an imperfect 
representation of being. The doctrine of one-sided depen- 

1 *martyatam amftam vrajet.* Gaudapada (Karika on Mifdukya Up. in. 
19); see also iii. 20-4; iv. 6-8. 



92 MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 

dence is hostile to ideas of organic relationship between God 
and the world, which are popular to-day. Evolution is intro- 
duced into the life of God. For William James, God 'may 
draw vital strength and increase of very being from our 
fidelity'. 1 Bergson's life-force and Alexander's emergent 
deity are finite self-educating gods. For Nicholas Berdyaev 
the process of history belongs to the inmost depths of the 
divine. 2 For him God is susceptible of change and even 
suffering. Hindu thought is emphatic in asserting that the 
changes of the world do not affect the integrity or perfection 
of the Absolute. Evolution and novelty do certainly exist, 
but they belong solely to the cosmic side of the picture, and 
their function is to reveal the immutable presence of an 
Absolute to which they add nothing. Advaita Vedanta pro- 
claims that this cosmos is not the final end of the Absolute, 
which is independent of creation. When we look at the 
Absolute from the cosmic end, not as it is in itself, but as 
it is in relation to the world, the Absolute is envisaged as 
ISvara or personal God who guides and directs the process 
by His providence. In the Upanisads the Absolute is said 
to have nothing of empiric being about it. It is perfection 
itself, though personality is attributed to it. Samkara ex- 
plains that there are two different doctrines in the Upani- 
sads, one representing the esoteric truth that Brahman is the 
impersonal, unknowable Absolute without attributes, the 
other exoteric, that Brahman is the God who manifests Him- 
self in the universe. The Upanisads believed that there was 
only one doctrine. Theistic philosophy conceives Brahman 
as a personal God. Samkara makes out that impersonal 
Brahman beyond all word and thought becomes personal 
ISvara through combining with the limitation of wisdom.3 
God has in His own being eternal values which human history 
tries to realize on the plane of space-time-cause. Creation is a 
necessary part of God's being. God needs it for the fullness of 
His being. God, the self-conscious Igvara, is the great mdyin 
who produces the world. The world has its roots in God. 
The analogy of play (Kla) is employed to suggest the free 

1 The Will to Believe, and other Essays. 

2 The Meaning of History, E.T. (1936), pp. 45-6. 

3 Commentary on Aitarcyd Up. v. 3. 



MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 93 

overflow of the divine into the universe. It does not mean 
that there is nothing real or significant going on all the time. 
The world is the profoundest expression of the divine nature. 
Gaudapada mentions different theories of creation. Some 
attribute it to the wondrous power (vibhut?) of God ; others 
look upon it as of the same nature as dream and illusion 
(svapnamayasarupa) ; some assign it to the mere will of God 
(icchamatram prabhoh sristih}\ others declare time to be the 
manifester of all beings (kalatprasutim bhiitanam). Some 
think that creation is for the enjoyment of God (bhogarthani)\ 
others attribute it to mere diversion (kndartham). But the 
truth is that it is of the very nature of the supreme being, 
for what desire can he whose desires are fulfilled have? 1 
The analogy is not intended to suggest that the universe is 
a meaningless show made in a jest. 2 The world is created 
by God out of the abundance of His joy. 3 

VIII 

Schweitzer declares: 'If the reality of the world is denied, 
then ethics altogether cease to have any importance. The 
only thing that remains for man to do is to see through the 
delusion of believing in a material world/ 4 Again, 'for any 
believer in the maya doctrine ethics can have only a quite 
relative importance'. 5 The second statement is somewhat 
different from the first, since it affirms the compatibility of 
ethics with the maya doctrine, though the first denies it 
altogether. While this doctrine suggests that the world may 
not be worthy of being lived in, it holds that life in it is 
worth living if it is directed by spiritual ideals. Enthusiastic 
service of humanity is possible only if we have faith in a 
transcendent goal. Mere morality without spiritual convic- 
tion orjnana is incapable of giving us satisfaction. 

1 'devasyesa svabhavoyam aptakamasya k3 spruha' (Karikd, i. 79). The 
theory that the world is of the nature of dream or illusion is set aside by 
Gaudapada. 

2 The Qur'an asks, 'Thinkest thou that I have made the heavens and the 
earth and all that is between in a jest?' 

3 Cf.: srstyadikam harir naiva prayojanam apeksjatu 

kurute kevalanandat yathS mattasya nartanam. 

4 Op. cit., p. 60. 5 Ibid., p. 65. 



94 MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 

Jfiana, or seeing through the veil of maya, is the spiritual 
destiny of man. It is something more than ethical goodness, 
though it cannot be achieved without it. The difference is 
that between perfection and progress, between eternal life 
and temporal development, between time suspended and 
time extended. One is an improvement of human nature, 
while the other is a reorientation of it. We cannot reach 
perfection by means of progress any more than we can reach 
the point where the clouds touch the horizon by running. 

The old sage Yajfiavalkya, in order to follow the way of 
salvation, gives up his possessions, leaving them to his two 
wives. But his wife Maitreyl refuses these riches of the 
world with the words, 'What are these to me if I am not 
thereby to gain life eternal?' 1 All activity only helps that 
which is perishable; the seeker after perfection is not satisfied 
by it. A well-known Sanskrit verse asks : 'What if a man 
has all the wealth to realize his ends? What if he defeats 
his enemies; what if he helps his friends by gifts to them 
all ? What if he continues to live endlessly in an embodied 
existence?' 2 We can become perfect only by overcoming 
selfishness. The moral man battles with selfishness but 
works all the time under the illusion of egoism. The saint 
'covers himself with the truth of the universal self. If we 
take our stand on unreality we may grow better or worse, 
but not perfect. 

The view which regards the multiplicity as ultimate is 
deceptive (mayo), for it causes the desire to live separate and 
independent lives. When we are under the influence of 
maya y we think we are completely separate entities, sharing 
little and mistaking individuality, which is one of the con- 
ditions of our life in space-time, for isolation and not wishing 
to lose the hard outlines of our separate existence. Maya 
keeps us busy with the world of succession and finitude. It 
causes a certain restlessness in our souls, fever in our blood. 
It tempts us to accept, as real, bubbles which will be broken, 

1 'yena na amjtasyam, kim tena kuryam.' 

2 prSptas friyas sakakk&madhugSs Utah kim 
nyastam padam&rasi vidvisatam tatah kim 
sarapaditah pranayino vibhavais tatah kim 
kalpam sthitam tanubhritam tanubhih tatah kim. 



MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 95 

cobwebs which will be swept away. This wearing of masks, 
this playing of roles, this marionette performance of our- 
selves, is mistaken for truth. We forget that we are more 
closely allied in spirit than we suspect, that we share in- 
finitely more than we realize. If this life were all, if our 
brief little existence on the little lighted stage were the grand 
reality, if there were no invisible sphere, no great com- 
munion of minds, no shared adventures of spirit, we would 
not have the feeling of moving through a haunted world. 
Compared with those who have seen the truth of things, the 
awakened spirits, we are sleep-walkers. There is a saying 
of Goethe that error stands in the same relation to truth as 
sleep to waking. The BhagavaJgita tells us that 'the wise 
one is awake when it is night for all others and he looks 
upon that as night in which other living beings are awake', 1 
The genuineness of one's awakening is directly proportionate 
to one's apprehension of truth. Wisdom liberates while ignor- 
ance binds, and the inner change is essential to perfection. 
This self-finding or becoming one with the infinite, 
Schweitzer complains, is 'a pure act of the spirit which has 
nothing to do with ethics'. 2 Progress is represented as a 
growing out of ignorance into knowledge. This knowledge 
is not merely intellectual any more than ignorance is error. 
Ignorance (avidya) and selfish desire (kama) are two phases 
of one phenomenon. Patafijali traces the karmas which bind 
us to the cycle of birth and death to ignorance (avidya), 
egoism (asmita), attachment (raga\ hatred (Jvesa\ and self- 
love (abhiniveSa). These five are different expressions of the 
fundamental ignorance. Only when a man rises to dispassion 
and acts without selfish attachment is he really free. The 
ego is the knot of our continued state of ignorance, and so 
long as we live in the ego we do not share in the delight of 
the universal spirit. In order to know the truth we must 
cease to identify ourselves with the separate ego shut up in 
the walls of body, life, and mind. We must renounce the 
narrow horizon, the selfish interest, the unreal objective. 
This is an ethical process. Truth can never be perceived 
except by those who are in love with goodness. Again, the 
delivery from the illusion is not achieved by means of 
1 ii. 69. * Op. cit., p. 43. 



96 MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 

abstract knowledge. Intellectual progress helps us to clear 
the mental atmosphere of chimeras and phantoms, of errors 
and illusions. When these hindrances are removed, the truth 
of spirit is revealed, self-supported and indubitable, filling 
our entire horizon. An inward change alone fits souls for 
eternal life. Besides, our apprehension of reality is by no 
means final, until it is total. It must embrace the whole of 
our nature, thought, feeling, and will. Wherever the appre- 
hension is only partial, in thought or feeling or will, there 
will be discontent and unrest in the midst of repose. The 
individual strives to make God-control entire by throwing 
off all that is impure and selfish. All this means effort. 
Wisdom is not cheaply won. It is achieved through hard 
sacrifice and discipline, through the endurance of conflict 
and pain. It is the perfection of human living, the ceaseless 
straining of the human soul to pierce through the crushing 
body, the distracting intellect, the selfish will, and to appre- 
hend the unsheathed spirit. It is intent living, the most 
fruitful act of man by which he tries to reach reality behind 
the restless stream of nature and his own feelings and desires. 
The destiny of the human soul is to realize its oneness with 
the supreme. There is a difference between the substantial 
immanence and the conscious union which requires of the 
creature voluntary identification. If the substantial reality 
of the human soul abides in that quality which we call spirit, 
growth or spiritual life means conscious realization of the 
fundamental truth. The Brhaddranyaka Upanisad tells us 
that when the individual soul (purusa) is embraced by the 
all-embracing spirit (prajnenatmana) he attains his proper 
form in which his desire is fulfilled (dptdkdmam\ in which 
his desire is the spirit (atmakamam)\ he is without desire 
(akamam), apart from grief (sokdntaram). 1 The heart is re- 
leased from its burden of care. The sorrows and errors of 
the past, the anxiety of unsatisfied desire, and the bitterness 
of resentment disappear, 

IX 

In another way Hindu thought is said to be non-ethical. 
Systematic ethical reflection cannot be found in it, for the 

1 iv. 3. 21. 



MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 97 

obvious reason that the supreme end is release from the 
constitutive conditions of actuality. 'Deliverance from rein- 
carnation can only be attained through freedom from the 
world and freedom from the will to live.' 1 Samkara tells us 
that the end of all discipline is to secure the full riddance of 
the causes which make for rebirth. 2 The question relates 
to the 'constitutive condition of actuality*. It is the ego 
sense, the illusion that each of us is an exclusive unity 
sharply marked off from whatever lies outside his body in 
space and beyond his experience in time. So long as the 
illusion of a separate ego persists, existence in the temporal 
process is inevitable. Negatively, release is freedom from 
hampering egoism; positively, it is realization of one's 
spiritual destiny. The abandonment of the ego is the identi- 
fication with a fuller life and consciousness. The soul is 
raised to a sense of its universality. It leaves behind its exist- 
ence for itself alone and becomes united with the spirit of the 
universe. No longer has it any private wishes of its own. In 
Gethsemane, Christ as an individual felt that the cup should 
pass away. That was His personal desire. The secret of 
the Cross is the crucifixion of the ego and the yielding 
to the will of God. 'Thy will be done.' Every man by 
merging his will in the will of God, by losing his self in 
submission to God, finds the truth of his own self. The 
burden of experience is laid upon us in order to purify us 
from egoism. 

Eternal life is one in which the universal spirit is all in 
all. The jHdni or the seer does not abstain from the work 
of the world but does it with his eyes fixed on the eternal. 
Religion is not a flight from the world, a taking refuge in 
the ordered serenity of heaven, in despair over the hopeless 
disorder of earth. Man belongs to both orders, and his 
religion is here or nowhere. Lire eternal consists in another 
kind of life in the midst of time. Religious life is a rhythm 
with moments of contemplation, and of action, of refresh- 
ment and restoration in the life of spirit, and of action with 
a sense of mission in the world. Action of the seer is more 
efficient since it springs from conviction and depth and is 

1 p-4*. 

2 'sahetukasya samsarasya atyantoparamam*. 



98 MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 

carried out with poise and serenity. The man of wisdom 
is interested in promoting the welfare of all created beings 
according to the Bhagavadgita (sarvabhutahiterataK). Holi- 
ness is known by the happiness it sheds. The test of 
authentic spiritual insight is an increased integration of the 
personal life, quickened sensibility, heightened power, and 
universal tenderness. The fusing of the finite and the in- 
finite, of the surface consciousness and the ultimate depths, 
gives the sense of a new creation. To live consciously in the 
finite alone is to live in bondage, with ignorance and egoism, 
suffering and death. By drawing back from an ignorant 
absorption in ourselves, we recover our spiritual being, un- 
affected by the limitations of mind, life, and body, so that 
the finite in which we outwardly live becomes a conscious 
representation of the divine being. Thus does it escape from 
its apparent bondage into its real freedom. 

Freedom, love, light, and power are not to be confused 
with dejected looks or depression of mind. Spirit without 
mind or spirit without body is not the aim of human per- 
fection. Body and mind are the conditions or instruments 
of the life of spirit in man, valuable not for their own sake 
but because of the spirit in them. In the Maitri Upanisad 
the knower of the self is compared to a smokeless fire burn- 
ing as it were with glow. 1 The body becomes a transparency 
through which the spirit shines, a glass for its indwelling 
flame. The spiritual tendency does not move in the region 
of the abstract, but has its grip on the actual and embraces 
the complexity of thought and the richness of life. Body and 
mind are the conditions and instruments of the life of spirit 
in man. 

The dualism between body and spirit is not radical. 
Without maltreating the body we can attain to the freedom 
of spirit. In a famous passage we are called upon to make 
body and the senses, speech and thought worthy of the 
infinite spirit which dwells in them. 'May the earth, water, 
fire, air and ether that compose my body become purified; 
may sound, touch, vision, taste and smell become purified . . . 
may my thought, speech, actions become purified . . . may 
my soul become purified so that I may become the effulgent 

1 i. 2. 



MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 99 
spirit, free from sullying passion and sin.' 1 The distinctive 
feature of the Hindu view is that it does not look upon the 
development of mind, life, and body as the primary ends of 
life. Health and vigour of the body are essential for vital 
energy and mental satisfaction. As the expression of the 
spiritual, the perfection of the physical is an integral part 
of man's complete living. While it is desired to some extent 
for its own sake, it is desired more for its capacity to further 
human activity which has for its aim the discovery and 
expression of the divine in man (dharmasadhanam). Simi- 
larly, we are not called upon to crush the natural impulses 
of human life or ignore the intellectual, emotional, and 
aesthetic sides of man's being, for they are a part of man's 
finer nature, and their development not only satisfies the 
individual but helps to express the spirit in him. The aim 
of ascetic discipline is the sanctification of the entire per- 
sonality. Again, morality, individual and social, is not a mere 
rational ordering of man's relations with his fellows but is 
a means for his growing into the nature of spirit. This 
is true of all our aims and activities. The Upanisad tells 
us that health and wealth, husband and wife are dear to us 
not for their own sake but because of the spirit in them 
(atmanastu kamaya). The power of the spiritual truth casts 
its light on the natural life of man and leads it to flower into 
its own profound spiritual significance. Such a view does 
not take away from the value of ordinary life, which becomes 
supremely important when it is felt to be instinct with the 
life of the spirit and a support for its expression. 

Mysticism has its fanatics who look upon the real as 
spiritual freedom and contrast it with the actual in its bond- 
age, declaring that birth is an error of the soul and our 
chance of liberation lies in shaking off these shackles. The 
theory of m dyd has been interpreted in this negative sense 
so as to lend support to the doctrine that man's life has no 
real meaning, that it is a mistake of the soul, an error that 



prthivyapas tejo vSyur aka& me foddhyantam . . . 

labda sparsa rupa rasa gandha me suddhyantam . . . 

mano vakkaya karmSni me suddhyantam 

atma me Suddhyantam, jyotir aham virajs 

vipapma bhuyasam. (Taittiriya Jranyaka, x. 66.) 



ioo MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 

has inexplicably crept into being. Since the real is the 
supreme Brahman, the only thing to do is to get away from 
all existence, celestial or terrestrial. The illusion is real to 
itself and it binds us so long as we rest in it. Our true aim 
should be to get rid of the error and thus of life. Moksa or 
release is the extinction of the individual, his annulment in 
the Absolute. Since the world is an illusion, it is a waste of 
energy to spend labour and heroism in battling with its 
merely illusory events. Our duty consists in putting up 
uncomplainingly with its annoying semblance of reality. By 
adopting an ethic of quietism and resignation we are enabled 
to enter in some measure into the peaceful being of the 
Absolute, which knows nothing of errors and illusions and 
is tirelessly at rest. If this view is accepted, the path of the 
universe becomes an aimless one. The world of history and 
the wheel of rebirth are parts of a mechanism of self-decep- 
tion. The will not to live is the highest good, the one 
desirable result of all living. 

Such exaggerations are to be met with in mysticism, 
Eastern as well as Western. But Samkara has nothing 
in common with people who will not accept the visible 
world any more than with those who will accept nothing 
else. Exclusive absorption in a super-historical goal often 
produces the feeling that all things temporal are so fragile 
and fleeting that they are hardly worth our serious atten- 
tion. But the eternal is not out of all relation to the world 
of history. Though caught in the finite, we aspire for the 
infinite. The long series of births and rebirths, though in 
one sense a chain of bondage, is in another sense a means 
to self-knowledge. To develop out of a materialized being 
into a spiritualized one is the crown of human evolution. It 
is to live in the immortality of spirit though attached to a 
mortal body. It consists in a self-finding, a self-becoming. 
We have to outgrow much and exceed many of our limita- 
tions in order to attain this, but the transfiguration to which 
we aspire is the very law of our nature. Ignorance and im- 
perfection of self-knowledge conceal this fact from us. 

The liberated individual works for the welfare of the 
world. The Bhagavadgtta tells us, 'Man does not attain to 
the state of being without work by undertaking no work, 



MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 101 

nor does he reach perfection by simply shunning the world.' 
It is improper for man to remain without sharing in the 
work of the world even when God consents to work for the 
universe. Besides, so long as man lives, he cannot remain 
even for an instant without activity, 1 Love to God expresses 
itself in love to creation. 2 The sage is not egocentric in the 
sense of caring for his own soul, or altruistic in the sense of 
caring for others, or theocentric in the sense of wishing to 
enjoy God in the solitude of his soul. He is at the heart 
of the universe in which he himself and others live, move, and 
have their being. He is conscious of the wider destiny of 
the universe. The question is not, What shall I do to be 
saved ? but In what spirit shall I do ? Detachment of spirit 
and not renunciation of the world is what is demanded from 
us. The knowers of Brahman remake the world according 
to the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad* Action done in a dis- 
interested spirit does not bind or sully the soul (na karma 
lipyate nare). Until this cosmic process is terminated, the 
saved individuals along with the world soul continue to 
function. This cosmic process from the world soul to the 
lowest objects is a phenomenon, an historical series, 4 which 
when it reaches its end disappears into the Absolute. Until 
this consummation is attained, the freed individuals share, 
though in a disinterested spirit, in the work of the world. 
Religion has no secret which absolves us from living. 

Schweitzer forgets that the great text 'That art Thou* 
(tat tvam asf) is bound up with an ethic of active service. 
He writes: 'Easy as it would be to turn the doctrine of tat 
tvam asi in an ethical direction, they nevertheless neglect to 
do it, '5 At the end of his Indian tour Dr. Paul Deussen said 
to a gathering at Bombay: 'The Gospels quite correctly 
establish as the highest law of morality, "Love your neigh- 
bour as yourselves," But why should I do so since by the 
order of nature I feel pain and pleasure only in myself, not 
in my neighbour? The answer is not in the Bible . . . but 
it is in the Veda, in the great formula That at Thou which 

1 iii. 8. * xii. 13-14. 3 iii. 5. 

4 Sariikara on Bfhadaranyaka Up. i. I. *evam brahinadyS sth&varlntS 
ivabhavikavidyadidoavatodharmadharmasadhanakrta samsSragatir namarupa- 

5 Op. cit, p. 43. 



102 MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 

gives in three words the combined sum of metaphysics and 
morals. You shall love your neighbour as yourselves because 
you are your neighbour/ In the words of the Bhagavadgita: 
'He who knows himself in everything and everything in 
himself will not injure himself by himself/ Every person 
round me is myself at a different point of space and time 
and at a different grade of being. When one realizes that 
all beings are but the self (atmaivabhut\ one acts not selfishly 
but for all beings. 



Schweitzer thinks that 'Brahmanic mysticism has nothing 
to do with ethics. It is through and through supra-ethical/ 1 
When the individual soul is liberated from egoism and 
attains spiritual freedom, it is at spontaneous unity with 
universal will. It acts in an impersonal way without effort 
or expectation. It has become a passive instrument of the 
divine, itself without initiative, sarvarambhaparityagi. Ordi- 
narily, action distracts us from our true self. Man in affirm- 
ing himself by his actions thinks himself to be the agent. 
Such action tends to be an escape from the deeper reality 
of his own nature. As we have seen, the action of the seer 
is of a different kind. It is creative living where external 
authority gives place to inward freedom. Only in this sense 
do the Upanisads declare: 'The immortal man overcomes 
both the thoughts "I did evil" and "I did good". Good and 
evil, done or not done, cause him no pain/ 2 'Give up good 
and evil, truth as well as untruth. Having given up truth 
and untruth, give up the consciousness that you have given 
them up/ 3 Even self-consciousness is an obstacle. The 
liberated individual is lifted beyond the ethical distinctions 
of good and evil. When the Upanisad says that 'sin does 
not cling to a wise man any more than water clings to a lotus 
leaf it does not mean that the sage may sin and yet be free, 

1 Op. cit, p. 43. * Brhadaranyaka Up. iii. 4. 

3 tyaja dharmain adharmam ca 
ubhe satyanfte tyaja 
ubhe satySnrte tyaktvl 
yena tyajasi tat tyaja. 

(Mahabharata> xii. 337. 40.) 



MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 103 

but rather that any one who is free from worldly attachments 
is also free from all temptation to sin. So long as a man is 
a creature of desire, he will do as he wills to be, and act in 
accordance with his will. 'He will become pure by good 
acts and impure by evil acts. Whatever deed he does, of 
that will he reap the fruit/ Good and evil are the most real 
things in his existence, but when he has shaken off his ego- 
ism, then the moral distinction has no longer any point. 
'Whosoever is begotten of God cannot sin.* 1 Augustine 
shows by the example of the mind of God that liberty in 
its perfect state has no place for wrong choosing but is at 
one with righteousness. Green argues that the freedom is 
a choice of right, not wrong. It is not a choice between right 
and wrong. The passionate physico-mental individual is not 
the real man. It is the envelope encompassing the person's 
real self. When the individual spirit realizes his divine nature 
and acts from it, he transcends the distinctions of good and 
evil. Not that he can do evil and yet be free from sin, but 
that it is impossible for him to do wrong, for he is no more 
the agent or the enjoyer. Good and evil presuppose the basis 
of egoism. Good acts are those which aim at the well-being 
of oneself and others, and evil ones are those which interfere 
with the well-being of oneself and others. Where exactly 
the line between self and others falls depends on convention. 
The essence of evil lies in invading what is regarded as 
another's sphere. While all kinds of actions based on the 
conception of a separate self are in essence evil^ the term 
wrongdoing is reserved for those actions in which one's 
egoism goes so far as to break from its own sphere into that 
of another in order to deny it. From ethical 6r non-ethical 
conduct higher or lower forms of rebirth ensue. By the con- 
stant practice of goodness is finally attained the highest form 
of existence in which man becomes capable of the experience 
of union with the universal soul. While ethical life can give 
rise to a better existence, it by itself cannot effect release, 
which requires the shifting of the very basis of all life and 
activity, Schweitzer is right when he contends that 'ethical 
conduct is only an aid to a better reincarnation but does not 
effect redemption'. 2 Ethics presuppose the separatist view 
1 i John iii. 9. * Op. cit., p. 165. 



104 MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 

of life. When we transcend it, we get beyond ethical laws. 1 
The followers of Samkara repudiate the Mimamsa view that 
works lead to salvation and argue that spiritual insight 
(jnana) is the only way to it. When the theory of 'put a 
penny in the slot and pull out a pardon' became fashionable 
in Christianity, Luther held justification is by faith alone 
and not by works. Release is eternal, while pursuit of works 
is transient. The latter is helpful in hindering the hindrances 
to spiritual life. The conception of saintliness which is be- 
yond good and evil is not an invitation to practise unethical 
conduct. Katha Upanisad declares that 'he who has not 
ceased from immoral conduct cannot obtain God through 
intelligence'. 2 Immoral conduct (duharita) and spiritual life 
are incompatible, since the eternal is pure and free of all 
evil (apahatapdpma). That pure being (tat Subhram) can be 
apprehended only by those 'whose nature is purified' 
(viiuddhasattvay vttardga)* God is both truth and virtue. 4 
'Only when one's whole nature is purified are the bonds 
released which keep the soul from God.' 5 

This contention is based upon the conception of God as 
superior to the categories of the world. We cannot speak 
of Him as doing right and wrong. In its inmost being 
reality i$ neither good nor evil, neither moral nor immoral, 
just as it is neither high nor low, neither coloured nor 
colourless. These distinctions belong not to reality as such 
but to the human world which is a part of this cosmic pro- 
cess, which is itself a phase in which being is alienated from 
itself. Not that the distinctions of good and evil are arbitrary 
or conventional; they are certainly reasonable and natural, 
and they express absolute truths of the moral order, but they 
are fundamentally the categories of this world. They are 
symbolic, not images or shadows. The symbolism is not 
artificial, accidental, or false. It tells us about the ultimate 
reality, but darkly, reflected as it were in the mirror of the 
world. As good and evil belong to this world, and as the 
real is beyond good and evil, the problem for man is to pass 

1 St. Paulsays: 'Ifyeare led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law.' See also 
I John iii. 6, 9, 14. 

2 i- 2. 24, 3 Mundaka, Up. ii. 2. 7. 
4 Brhad&ra$yaka Uf. ii. 5. n. s ChanJogya Up. v. 10. 7. 



MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 105 

from symbols to reality. When he succeeds in his attempt 
he is beyond good and evil. In the life of spirit, all symbolism 
is overcome. 

XI 

The last criticism which we shall deal with is that Hindu 
ethics treat inner perfection and inward calm as of more 
importance than outer activity. Schweitzer contrasts 'the 
inactive ethic of perfecting the self alone* with the active 
enthusiastic love of one's neighbour. 1 Hindu ethics hold 
'before man as the highest aim that he should endeavour to 
attain to the right composure, the right inwardness, the 
right ethical attitude of mind and the true peace of soul'. 2 
He forsakes the arena, abandons action, and withdraws into 
himself. He is, in the words of Bishop Creighton, 'as good 
as gold and fit for heaven but of no earthly use*. Hindu 
ethics will plead guilty to this charge. The motive behind 
ethical practices is that of purging the soul of selfish im- 
pulses so that it may be fitted to receive the beatific vision. 
Spiritual strenuousness, meditation, the freeing of the mind 
from hatred, anger, and lust are emphasized. We must seek 
the eternal with all our power, with purified emotion, illu- 
mined mind, and reflective will. The perfecting of self is 
to pass from the narrow, constricted, individual life to the 
free, creative, r piritual life. It is to get our tangled lives into 
harmony with the great movement of reality. It is not to 
be unsocial, or to despise the natural relationships of life or 
end in a type of self-centred spiritual megalomania. The 
Mahabharata says : 'For a knower of Brahman there is no 
wealth comparable to unity, sameness, truthfulness, virtue, 
steadfastness, non-injury, candour, and withdrawal from all 
activities.' 3 

There is no reason why we should regard self-perfecting 
as a species of inactivity. To harness the restless steeds of 

1 Op. cit., pp. 5, 8-9. 

2 Ibid., p. 9. M. Bergson supports this contention when he says that 
Hindu thought 'did not believe in the efficacy of human action* (Two Sources 
of Morality and Religion, E.T. (1935), p. 192). 

3 naitadrSam brahmanasyJsti vittam yathaikata" samati satyat&ca 
iilam sthitir dandanidhanam Srjavam tatakoparamah kriyabhyah. 

(xii. 176. 37.) 



106 MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 

the senses, to subdue the passions and evil impulses which 
lead us away from our real nature, is an essential part of 
ethics. The root of all evil is desire, which determines will 
and act. Desires torment the soul, bind it in chains, reducing 
it to a servitude. They darken and blind the intellect. It 
cannot be said that those who aim at perfecting themselves 
are doing something non-ethical simply because they are not 
'troubled over many things'. What appears to be passivity 
is intense concentration of consciousness where the soul lays 
hold immediately and ineffably on divine reality. 

While normally the individual is called upon to develop 
the universal life through social institutions, the love of con- 
templative life has prompted men to abandon the world, 
surrender all ties, and live in solitude. But these hermits 
and anchorites are not confined to Hinduism. 

Asceticism is associated with all religions and represents 
a basic need of human nature. It is the outgrowth of the 
demand that the highest religion requires the surrender of 
the individual claim and identification with the universal 
life. Subject to this primary demand, Hinduism recognizes 
the value of simple human relationships. The noblest love 
can grow in and through the simple love of a father or a 
mother. We must climb to the love of the universal through 
the staircase of human love, though even a strong earthly 
love demands self-control and self-surrender. The essential 
quality of asceticism is the denial of the individual desires, 
which is a part of religious life. Ascesis is training, and a 
religious man is in training all his life. Ascetic practices are 
adopted for different reasons. Some take to them in order 
that they may escape from the corruption of society, which 
makes life in the world almost intolerable to gentle spirits, 
Others are prompted by the desire to achieve invulnera- 
bility. Still others hope that the mystic vision which they 
wish to enjoy may sometimes be induced by physical buffet- 
ings. The wish to harden the will against the temptation of 
the senses is also among the motives of asceticism. 

For the sake of self-knowledge, some enter monasteries 
and hermitages not because they are afraid of life or are 
cowardly, but in order that they may train themselves for 
the work of the world and approach it with an inextinguish- 



MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 107 

able hope, a vision of divine purpose at work, with a deeper 
peace in the acceptance of sorrow and a beauty of holiness. 
If they do not at once rush into the world, it is because they 
are arraid of losing these. Asceticism has entered far too 
deeply into the texture of religious life for it to be regarded 
as a mistake, though our critics would now generally look 
upon any attempt to withdraw from the life of the world in 
order to gain greater purity of motive and energy of spirit 
as a case of forsaking our duties to our neighbour. Morality 
is not merely a question of laws and conventions but one of 
purity of mind with action as its outward manifestation. 

The opposite of outward action is not inaction but inward 
action. Buddha went to a rich farmer of Benares and asked 
alms of him. He said to Buddha, 'I having ploughed and 
sowed eat; you, on the other hand, propose to eat without 
ploughing and sowing.' Buddha replied that he was engaged 
in an even more important tillage of the spirit. 'Faith is the 
seed, penance the rain, understanding my yoke and plough, 
modesty the pole of the plough, mind the tie, though tfulness 
my ploughshare and goad. . . . Exertion is my beast of 
burden carrying me without turning back to the place, 
where, having gone, one does not grieve. ... So this plough- 
ing is ploughed; it bears the fruit of immortality/ 1 What 
is called passivity is not inertia. The Hindu emphasis on 
inner life seems to many leaders of our generation, apostles 
of success and efficiency, a sheer waste of time. We are 
asked to get out and do something. The man who bakes 
bread or builds a house is said to be doing something useful, 
while he who paints pictures or composes music is doing 
something selfish. A variation of this astonishing doctrine 
animates the work of social uplifters. The royal road to the 
Golden Age is the road of economic reform or military con- 
quest or armed revolution or the dictatorship of the pro- 
letariat: all these methods insist on social machinery and 
organization. They have resulted in a coarsening of fibre 
and a cheapening of life. Humanity is plunged to the depths 
in external things, class and nation, State and society. Man 
is treated as a part of the objective world and is not per- 
mitted to remain himself, have his own inner being. The 
1 Hardy, Manual of Buddhism* p. 2 1 5. 



io8 MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 

emphasis on negative virtues such as gentleness and love, 
passivism and lack of aggressiveness, which makes one sur- 
render one's rights rather than fight for them, appears to those 
engaged in the busy life of politics and sport to be weakness 
and cowardice. There are many in India who believe that 
the gentleness of the strong who refuse to push their way 
in a crowd is prompted by fear and cowardice. 1 But like all 
Eastern religions Christianity also preaches a gospel of re- 
nunciation, of passivity, of withdrawal from the traffic of 
external things. The Cross signifies that progress is achieved 
not by those who fight for it but by those who suffer for it. 
It appealed to the Western mind in the turbulent times of 
the Roman Empire, when life was insecure and injustice 
rife. Are we to believe that insistence on negative virtues 
is attractive only when the glitter and glamour of life fade, 
when power becomes a burden and nerve fails ? 

The perfection of a human being differs from that of an 
instrument or a machine. We may judge the latter by its 
capacity to produce certain goods which are external to it, 
by its speed and efficiency in its productivity. We are not 
right in judging human civilization by the same standards 
of energy and efficiency, though we actually do so. Peaceful 
nations whose wheels are not turning at an excessive speed, 
which look upon insensate strife and savage slaughter as 
inhuman, are dismissed as worthless, anaemic, politically 
backward, senile civilizations, whose veins are not flooded 
by the sap of youth. 

The great teachers are united in thinking that the soul 
of man is more precious than the immensity of the world 
and its growth is effected in moments of leisure and medi- 
tation. To grow more profound, to grasp essential truth, is 
the special privilege of man. But this is not to shirk living 
or run away from life. 

There is no inconsistency between mysticism and the 
most exalted ethics. It is a one-sided view of contemplation 
that makes it exclusive of moral activity. Inner perfection 
and outer conduct are two sides of one life. Contemplation 
and action, the yoga of Krsiia and the dhanus of Arjuna, are 

1 Cf. 'yad evam ksamayS yuktam akktam manyate janah' (Mahabhdrata, 
Santiparva, ck. 34). 



MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 109 

two movements merged in one act. Love is organic to 
spiritual life. While the eyes are lifted up to the Eternal, 
the arms are stretched out to embrace the whole creation. 
Some of the greatest contemplatives were those who were 
most intensely active in the service of others. There are 
extremists among mystics and they are not confined to one 
religion who are intent on becoming one with God and 
indifferent to suffering bodies and broken hearts, but the 
normal mystic has a burning passion for social righteous- 
ness. In spite of our strong dislike of monasticism, it is well 
to remember that the Christian monks took the leading part 
in rebuilding European civilization after the barbarian 
hordes had almost destroyed it. The lamp of knowledge 
was kept burning in the Dark Ages in the monasteries by 
the teachers and scholars who sought the deep places of truth 
and counted all else as dross. The life and work of Dr. 
Schweitzer are themselves an example of disciplined asceti- 
cism at a time when both purpose and discipline are lacking 
in the world. 

India, however, is full of mendicant ascetics who wander 
from one part of that vast continent to the other, leaving 
the world around to its fate. But these are not the true 
representatives of the genius of India, who, with a perception 
of the unity of things (ekatvam anupa$yati\ move at ease in 
the world of spirit and the world of sense. 

The semblance of truth which this view of the world- 
negating character of Hinduism has is due to the impression 
that Hindu culture has not resulted in a strong and success- 
ful organization of life such as Europe shows to us. Because 
India has blundered in life and failed to make the best of 
her material resources, she is said to be a nation of un- 
practical dreamers, world-shunning ascetics, patient and 
docile, inept and inefficient. Because the West has recently 
made marvellous progress in science and technology, social 
reform and political advancement, Christian religion, which 
is professed in the West, is said to be world-affirming in 
character. Any such sharp contrast confuses different ques- 
tions. What is civilized life? Is the great Western civiliza- 
tion the only measure and standard by which we judge 
human achievement ? Do the East and the West happen to 



i io MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 

be what they are on account of the religions they profess ? 
Are they guided in their actual lives and public affairs by 
religious considerations, and if so, to what extent ? Are the 
insane ambitions which make of life a hideous reign of terror 
attributable to religion or to a betrayal of it ? Have there 
been fundamental differences between the East and the West 
till three or four centuries ago ? Reality is never so clear-cut 
in its differences as the rubrics under which we dismember 
it for neat handling. 

XII 

What we need to-day, when executive man has far out- 
reached reflective man, is increase of depth and the power of 
life. We have exalted ideals but not the power to operate 
them. The world commonwealth has been for some time on 
the agenda of mankind, but the soul that can shape the body 
is not there. The world over, religious theory goes one way 
and the drift of social tendencies is in another way. The 
great religions have had every opportunity which power, 
prestige, and wealth could give, and yet the world is as far 
as ever from an age of mutual helpfulness, peace, and joy. 
There is a general tradition of dishonesty which even honest 
men do not wish to notice. As they are afraid of losing their 
sanity and peace, they, like the pious priest and orthodox 
Levite of the parable, carefully pass by on the other side. 
We profess ourselves to be religious while we wallow in 
brutishness and lawless violence. We live a double life on 
utterly different moral levels. 

Tolstoi relates that when he was in the Army he saw one 
of his brother officers strike a man who fell out from the 
ranks during a march. Tolstoi said to him: 'Are you not 
ashamed to treat a fellow human being this way ? Have you 
not read the Gospels?' The other officer replied, 'Have 
you not read the Army Orders?' Those who lead men to 
the conquest of material things do not seem to feel the need 
for justice and charity. Religion does not possess us with 
a grip that is born of first-hand conviction. Our inner lives 
are empty. We have little initiative and less imagination, 
and have made ourselves so passive-minded that we are the 
helpless victims of all forms of publicity and propaganda. 



MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT in 

If we do not pull ourselves together another dark age will 
cover the world. 

Religion itself must be reborn. It has compromised with 
the world; there has been a good deal of world affirmation 
in it. By withdrawing from politics on the assumption that 
it deals with the salvation of souls, and politics with the 
preservation of society, it betrayed civilization to its worst 
enemy. The withdrawal of vision from life is a phenomenon 
of some seriousness. The romantic who is very much with 
us tends to look upon God as a name for his own scheme of 
improvement. We are satisfied that religion is compatible 
with .militarism and imperialism, with mass murders and the 
crushing of human decencies. Organized religions bless our 
arms and comfort us with the belief that our policies are just 
and inevitable. In every age, religion adjusted itself to the 
follies and cruelties of men. If the Thugs dedicated their 
swords to Kali, if chapels are attached to bull-rings and 
matadors do their ghastly work in the name of their favourite 
saint, are they in principle different from the habit of 
blessing wars encouraged by our religious leaders ? I do not 
deny that, in this imperfect world, force is a sad necessity. 
I am not reproaching the religious teacher for exhorting us 
to kill. I can understand his devotion to his country. I am 
only uneasy when he tries to pretend that his exhortation is 
not in conflict with his religion. In exhorting us to kill he 
is violating the law of religion, and he cannot overlook it. 
The real distinction between the two positions is brought 
out by the remark of Cardinal Lavigerie, who was asked, 
'What would you do if some one slapped your right cheek?' 
and who replied, 'I know what I ought to do, but I do not 
know what I should do.' Whatever he may do, he knows 
what he ought to do. The modern world is like the brigand 
in one of Tolstoi's stories who made his confession to a her- 
mit and the hermit said in amazement: 'Others were at least 
ashamed of being brigands: but what is to be done with this 
man, who is proud or it?' 

We have to-day to fight against not nature's death but 
man-made death. There are the great catastrophes of famine, 
flood, and earthquake. They cause suffering and devasta- 
tion, and yet is not Gibbon right when he says that 'Man 



ii2 MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 

has much more to dread from the passions of his fellow 
creatures than from the convulsions of the elements' ? Gibbon 
wrote many years ago, but have we improved since his 
time ? Have we abolished the rivalries of mankind ? Is not 
economic competition quite as ruthless as war itself, though 
less dramatic and spectacular? Slow-grinding starvation is 
not less deadly in its effects than bombs and bullets. Reli- 
gion has to fight against wars, military and economic, even 
though it may mean loss of dividends to a few individuals, 
We need not reaffirm the major temptations of our age, 
which sets a high value on a life of action. The prominence 
given to conation in psychology, pragmatism in philosophy, 
and social gospels in religion is leading us away from the 
inner life of the soul, the need for self-possession. It is an 
age in which power and speed are held to be more important 
than comprehension and love, an age of the tyranny and 
the futility of success. We are preoccupied with gospels of 
world affirmation, to the exclusion of world negation. We 
are unable to control the 'here and now* because we have 
lost conscious contact with a sphere of existence that trans- 
cends our own. The creeds which are anxious to save the 
world take many forms: Neo-paganism, Fascism, Nazism, 
Bolshevism, conventional religion. They are all marked by 
violence and brutality. Civilization is comradeship. It is to 
be civil, friendly, and not hostile to one's neighbours. Brave 
Italians machine-gun ignorant Abyssinians who have been 
blinded with mustard gas by gallant young airmen. Russian 
Communists liquidate Russian peasants and aristocrats, 
loyalists and heretics impartially. Blond Germans brutally 
beat Jews for the great fault of not having fair hair and blue 
eyes. Spaniards slay Spaniards with a savagery unheard of 
even among savages. The Arab and the Jew have for their 
daily recreation shooting one another. The military forces 
of Japan attack with immunity defenceless Chinese, inflict- 
ing on them untold suffering and misery, and the world 
looks on helpless, unable to check or modify the course of 
events. All these groups of world-affirmers proclaim the 
noble purpose of the redemption of the world. They would 
save the world in their own way or blow it to bits. This 
indifference to suffering, this callous disrespect of the stuff of 



MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN F ( U THOUGHT 113 
life, shows the decadence of the moral sense of mankind, 
the attrition of ethical values. The civilized man who 
operates a machine-gun and massacres unarmed women and 
children is not in moral nature an improvement on the 
savage who raped and slew without turning back. Hate is 
spreading like a vast black cloud. Terror has become the 
technique of States. Freedom won by centuries of effort is 
lightly surrendered. Fear is over the world, and our hearts 
are failing us. We protest a little too much our desire for 
peace, while preparing for war. It is like professing vege- 
tarianism while running a butcher's shop. 

But why? There is nothing finer in our murderous species 
than this noble curiosity, this restless and reckless passion 
to understand. We cannot help asking why we are unable to 
save ourselves; why this incomprehensible world is so savage 
and stupid and suffering; why we make ourselves responsible 
for such queer happenings and monstrous contrasts. It is 
the selfishness of man and his worship of abstractions of 
race, nation, empire. When we get to the root of the matter 
we find that the individual spirit is the creator of world con- 
ditions. From within our natures comes all that will exalt or 
defile a man. Out of the heart are the issues of life. 1 The 
passions of the heart upset the balance of the mind and the 
even course of the world. It is the human heart that is 
decadent and mercenary, brutal and selfish. Pater's Marius 
the Epicurean was one day watching the butcheries of the 
gladiators in ancient Rome. What was wanting, he thought, 
was the heart that would make it impossible to witness all 
this: and the future would be with the forces that could 
beget that heart. The world can be saved only if men and 
women develop a heart that will make it impossible for them 
to witness with equanimity mutual slaughter and suffering 
of people. The fallen nature of man is the source of the 
disastrous disintegration of humanity. Until the dignity of 
life, the importance of human happiness, and a horror of 

1 Jeremiah says: 'The heart is deceitful above all things and is desperately 
sick: who can know it? f (xvii. 9). Jesus says: 'Out of the heart of men evil 
thoughts proceed, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, coverings, wicked- 
nesses, deceit, lasciviousness, and evil eye, railing, pride, foolishness' (Mark vii. 

21, 22). 



ii 4 MYSTICISM A Tr . ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT 

D x. 

subjection under any guise become functioning realities, our 
economic, our racial, and our national Utopias will remain 
inhuman monstrosities demanding the murder of bodies and 
souls. All else is sophistry and deception. The coming 
struggle is not so much between Fascism and Communism 
as between empires of material values, supported by organ- 
ized religions and provincial patriotisms, and the sovereignty 
of spiritual ideals. Those who tell us that asceticism is 
superfluous, that contemplation is perilous, and the precept 
'be perfect' means 'make a success of life and attend if pos- 
sible to the perishing moment', do not understand the high 
destiny of man. A reborn living faith in spiritual values is 
the deepest need of our lives. Only religion which demands 
as its first principle individual change, the substitution of 
the divine for the dark image in the soul, can create that 
new heart in the peoples, can give them the courage and the 
faith to be consistent and change their life and institutions 
which are so barbarous, in a thousand details which loyalty 
to their religion demands. 



IV 

INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS 
THOUGHT: GREECE 

i 

THOUGH Asia and Europe are different, they are not so 
completely different as to disallow an interchange of 
goods, material and spiritual. This interchange has occurred 
throughout the centuries and points to the underlying unity 
of the human mind. India, which is, in a sense, representa- 
tive of the Asiatic consciousness, has never been isolated 
from the Western continent in spite of geographical, linguis- 
tic, and racial barriers. Its influence or, at any rate, connexion 
with Western thought, though not constant and continuous, 
has been quite significant. We cannot speak of India as we 
do of Assyria or Egypt, Crete or Babylon, for its history is 
still being made and its civilization is still in progress. 

The West is passing through a new Renaissance due to 
the sudden entry into its consciousness of a whole new world 
of ideas, shapes, and fancies. Even as its consciousness was 
enlarged in the period of the Renaissance by the revelation 
of the classical culture of Greece and Rome, there is a sudden 
growth of the spirit to-day effected by the new inheritance 
of Asia with which India is linked up. For the first time in 
the history of mankind, the consciousness of the unity of the 
world has dawned on us. Whether we like it or not, East 
and West have come together and can no more part. The 
spatial nearness is preparing the way for a spiritual approxi- 
mation and interchange of treasures of mind and imagina- 
tion. If we are nurtured exclusively on the past of Europe 
or of Asia we cannot consider ourselves to be cultivated. 
The thought and experience of one-half of humanity cannot 
be neglected without peril. If we are to correct the narrow- 
ness resulting from a one-sided and exclusive preoccupation 
with either Eastern or Western thought, if we are to fortify 
our inner life with the dignity of a more perfect and universal 
experience, an understanding of each other's cultures is 
essential. It is a foolish pride that impels some of us to 



ii6 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

combat all external influences. Every spiritual or scientific 
advance which any branch of the human family achieves is 
achieved not for itself alone, but for all mankind. Besides, 
there is no power possessed by any race of men that is not 
possessed in some measure by all. The difference is one of 
degree. The mysticism of ancient India or the rationalism 
of modern Europe is only a fuller development of something 
which belongs to man as man. To the observer of the essen- 
tial drifts of the dawning world, it is clear that we are in an 
age when cultures are in fusion. To penetrate to the heart of 
a civilization we ought to study its secret springs of thought, 
its religious ideals. Religion has been from the beginning 
the bearer of human culture. It is the supreme achievement 
of man's profound experience. It is the deepest kind of life 
reflecting the different phases, complex and conflicting, of 
human living. Millions of minds, their thoughts and dreams, 
go to make a religion. A large part of the world received 
its religious education from India. In spite of continuous 
struggle with superstition and theological baggage, India has 
held fast for centuries to the ideals ofspirit. 1 

ii 

In this short sketch it is impossible to give even an out- 
line of either Eastern or Western thought. My object is a 
very limited one,to refer to the mystic tendencies in the two 
streams and indicate their affinity of type more than their 
identity of origin. My endeavour is to argue that mystical 
aspiration is a genuine part of human nature and it assumes 
the same general forms wherever it is developed. Even this 

1 *It is true that even across the Himalayan barrier India has sent to us such 
questionable gifts as grammar and logic, philosophy and fables, hypnotism and 
chess, and above all our numerals and our decimal system. But these are not 
the essence of her spirit; they are trifles compared to what we may learn from 
her in the future. As invention, industry, and trade bind the continents 
together, or as they fling us into conflict with Asia, we shall study its civilisa- 
tion more closely, and shall absorb, even in enmity, some of its ways and 
thoughts. Perhaps, in return for conquest, arrogance and spoliation, India will 
teach us the tolerance and gentleness of the mature mind, the quiet content of 
the unacquisitive soul, the calm of the understanding spirit and a unifying, 
pacifying love for all living things' (Will. Durant, The Story of Civilisation: 
Our Oriental Heritage ( 1 93 5), p. 63 3). 



GREECE 117 

can only be done in a cursory manner. The proportions of 
treatment, therefore, will be widely different from those which 
are proper in a complete study of the philosophical and 
religious problems. If this seems to be unsatisfactory I must 
beg the reader to look upon this treatment only as an intro- 
duction to the subject. 

Hindu civilization goes back to the period of the Indus 
valley in which were found great cities of well-planned 
houses built with baths and sanitary arrangements. Only 
two of the ruined cities have been explored so far, Mohenjo- 
daro on the Indus, and Harappa on the Ravi. They are four 
hundred miles apart, though the civilization of the two is 
astonishingly homogeneous. 1 The same forms of architec- 
ture and town planning, of metal tools and weapons, are 
found in both. The members of the civilization which 
flourished in the fourth millennium B.C. cultivated fields of 
grain, raised cattle, tamed the horse, harnessed the bullock 
to two-wheeled carts, and taught the elephant to carry bur- 
dens. Tools of copper and bronze were in use and craftsmen 
worked in silver and understood the art of glazing. A form 
of picture writing was in use. This civilization resembled in 
essential features those of Sumer, Egypt, and Minos. 

According to Sir John Marshall, the four cultures seem to 
have had a common parent in the Afrasian Chalcolithic cul- 
ture of which they are the articulations. He says 'each no 
doubt had its own particular type of civilisation which was 
adopted to suit local conditions. But between them all was a 
fundamental unity of ideas which could hardly have been the 
result of mere commercial intercourse.' 2 He gives as illustra- 
tions, (i) the idea of using picture signs to represent objects, 
concepts, and actual sounds; (2) the discovery of spinning 
and weaving; (3) painted pottery. The Indus civilization 
developed on this basis, in a way peculiar to itself. As Pro- 
fessor Childe puts it: 'The Indus civilisation represents a 
very perfect adjustment of human life to a specific environ- 
ment that can only have resulted from years of patient effort. 

1 The area embraced by the Indus civilisation must have been twice that 
of the old Kingdom of Egypt and probably four times that of Sumer and 
Akkad* (Childe, New Light on the Most Ancient East (1934), p. 206). 

1 Mohcnjo-daro and the Indus Civilisation (1931)1 vol. i f pp. 93-5. 



u8 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

And it has endured; it is already specifically Indian and 
forms the basis of modern Indian culture.' 1 When we speak 
about the religious and social doctrines of the Indus people 
we are in the region of conjecture. From the isolated sculp- 
tural works we can infer the presence of the Siva cult, 
Sakti worship, and yoga method. An apparent polytheism 
and a technique of psychological development found also 
among Hermetic groups in Egypt are indicated. From the 
skeletal remains and figurines or several physically distinct 
types, primitive Australoid, Eurafrican, Alpine, and Mon- 
goloid, 2 we may infer that the social order was not based on 
any racial or religious exclusiveness. It permitted the wor- 
ship of more than one God, exalted yogic perfection, and 
tolerated different racial groups. Obviously its philosophy 
of life, if it had one, must have been profoundly social and 
profoundly religious. This culture is linked up with that of 
Sumer, which changed into Babylonia and forms along with 
it the tradition which Europe,tias inherited. 

in 

The second stage of Indian civilization, the period of the 
Rg Veda^ takes us to the second millennium B.C., and we find 
close agreements between the language and mythology, 
religious traditions and social institutions, of Indians and 
Iranians on the one hand, and those of the Greeks, Romans, 
Celts, Germans, and Slavs on the other. The gods of Father 
Heaven (dyauspitar, Jupiter), Mother Earth, the wide ex- 
panse of heaven (^oarund)^ the Dawn (aurora^ Usas), the Sun 
(surya\ are common to the Greeks and the Indians, and they 
were conceived primarily as powers or causes working in 
nature. Though they have some human attributes, they were 
not clearly anthropomorphized. The Olympian religion of 
the Greeks and Vedic beliefs had a common background. 
There is also striking similarity between the social life 
described in the Homeric poems and that of the Veda. Both 
are patriarchal and tribal. These agreements indicate that 
the two peoples must have been in close contact at some 
early period, but neither possessed any recollection of those 

1 New Light on the Most Ancient East ( 1 934), p. 220. 

2 Ibid., pp. 208-9. 



GREECE 119 

times, and they met as strangers within the Persian Empire. 
Thus in the Rg Veda the European will find memorials of 
his own racial inheritance. 1 For a considerable period after 
their separation from their Western kinsmen, the Indians 
and Iranians lived together. The most prominent figure 
among the deities of the Rg Veda is Varuna, wise and all- 
powerful, who rules heaven and earth and the underworld 
by his holy ordinance, rta^ the right. He is the protector of 
the moral order. Nothing is hidden from his eye. He is 
holy and pure-minded (futadaksa). 

What is between heaven and earth and what is above, 
Everything Varuna, the King, sees clearly 
The very blinking of men's eyes he numbers. 
He who moves, he who stands, he who hides himself, 
He who slips away or secretly steals into hiding, 
That which two, sitting together, secretly debate, 
That is known by Varuna, the King, as third. 

He has his kingdom, spiritual and truthful, 'which he 
leads to victory against all opposition', 2 an idea which receives 
emphasis in Zoroastrianism in the struggle of Ormuz against 
Ahriman, in the contest of the divine light with demonic 
darkness. 3 Varuna's kingdom is the anticipation of the King- 
dom of God (brahmaloka) and the Kingdom of Heaven. 

The Vedic hymns were, however, composed after the 
separation of the Indians from the Iranians, and at the time 
of their composition 4 their place of abode was the territory 
of the Sindhu (Indus). 

1 Cf. Max Mailer: 'In so far as we are Aryans in speech, that is, in thought, 
so far the Rg Veda is our own oldest book.' 'If one will only take the trouble to 
project himself into the life and thought, the poetry and action, of a people 
and age, which best display the first development of intellectual activity in 
our own race, he will find himself attracted by these hymns on many sides. . . .' 
See Kaegi, The %g Feda ( 1 898), p. 2 5 . 2 fg Veda, vii. 87. 

3 'Here first arises the important conception of a being who is by nature 
opposed to God, not only in the sense of a demonic abomination generally, but 
in the sense of an adversary of the holy spirit of the deity with which he is in 
fundamental conflict. This idea did not arise upon the soil of Israel, but came 
down from Aryan times' (Rudolph Otto, The Kingdom of God and the Son of 
Man, E.T. (1938), p. 272). The idea of a divine warfare is to be met with in 
the Book of Enoch, in the Assumption of Moses (x. i, 2). 

4 Max M tiller gives 1500-1200 B.C. as the period of composition of the 
Vedic hymns, Chips, 1 . 1 1 ; Weber the sixteenth century B.C. (History of Indian 



120 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

Twice the Persian gods all but conquered the West. On 
the first occasion they were stopped at Salamis. Centuries 
later, under the dynasty of the Arsacids, the god Mithra found 
his way into the Roman world. The hymns of the Vedas and 
the Avesta celebrate his name, and the Vedic Mitra and the 
Iranian Mithra have so many points of resemblance that 
there is not any doubt about their identity. For both religions 
he is a god of light invoked together with Heaven, who is 
called Varuna in the Vedas and Ahura in the Avesta. He is 
the protector of truth and the enemy of falsehood and error. 
Mitra-Varuna and the five other Adityas such as the Mithra- 
Ahura and the Amshaspands are not to be found in the 
original Aryan pantheon. They seem to have grown up at 
a later stage when the Hindus and Persians were still to- 
gether. In Zoroastrianism, Mithra acquired greater impor- 
tance. 'Ahuramazda established him to maintain and watch 
over all this moving world/ 1 A distinction is made between 
the supreme deity who dwells in perpetual serenity above the 
stars and an active deity engaged in ceaseless combat with 
the spirit of darkness. The fame of Mithra extended to the 
borders of the Aegean Sea, and his name was well known in 
Ancient Greece. Artaxerxes popularized his worship in his 
different capitals at Babylon, Damascus, and Sardis, as well 
as at Susa, Ecbatana, and Persepolis. In Babylon the 
official clergy (Magi) became more powerful than the indi- 
genous priests. They looked upon Mithra as the mediator 
between Ormuz, or light, and Ahriman, or darkness. They 
soon crossed Mesopotamia and penetrated into the heart of 
Asia Minor. They swarmed into Pontus, Galatia, and 
Phrygia. After the break-up of the Persian Empire, in the 
religious fermentation caused by the Macedonian conquest, 
Mithraism received a definitive form. Hellenic and Iranian 
beliefs came to be identified; Ahuramazda with Zeus, Vere- 
thraghna with Heracles, Anahita, to whom the bull was 
consecrated, with Artemis Tauropolos, and Mithra with 

Literature, p. 2); Haug 2400-1400 (Introduction to Aitareya Brahmana, 
i. 47 f.); Whitney 2000-1400 B.C. (Oriental and Linguistic Studies, p. 21); 
Kaegi 2000*1 500 B.C. (TAe lg Feda (1898), p. 1 1). He holds that the col- 
lection of the Vedic hymns was closed about 1 500 B.C. (p. 22). 
1 Tasht, x. 103. 



GREECE 121 

Helios. The mysteries of Mithra found their way into the 
Roman Empire. Nero (A.D. 5468) wished to be initiated 
into the ceremonies by the Magi. Mithra became linked up 
with the Great Mother Isis and secured the official protec- 
tion which the latter enjoyed. Commodus (A.D. 180-92) 
became an adept and participated in the ceremonies. In 
A.D. 270 Aurelian won his victories in the name of Mithra. 
In the year A.D. 307, Diocletian, Galerius, and Licinius 
dedicated at Carnuntum on the Danube a temple to Mithra, 
'the protector of their Empire', and the last pagan who 
occupied the throne of the Caesars, Julian the Apostate, was 
an ardent votary of Mithra. The worship of Mithra proved 
the most dangerous rival to the Christian Church before its 
alliance with Constantine. No wonder Renan observed: 
'If Christianity had been stopped in its growth by some 
deadly disease, the world would have been Mithraist.' Then 
in the cathedrals the Bull would have supplanted the Cross. 

Commerce between the mouth of the Indus and the Per- 
sian Gulf was unbroken down to Buddhist times. We have 
evidence of trade by sea between the Phoenicians of the 
Levant and western India as early as 975 B.C., when Hiram, 
King of Tyre, imported 'ivory, apes and peacocks' for 
decorating the palaces and the temple of King Solomon. 1 

Trade between the Indus valley and the Euphrates seems 
to be very ancient, for we find in the cuneiform inscriptions 
of the Hittite kings of Mittani in Cappadocia belonging to 
the sixteenth or fifteenth century B.C., the names of the 
Vedic gods Indra, Mitra, Varuna, and the Asvins, whom 
they call by the Vedic title Nasatya. The Hittite kings bore 
Aryan names. 2 

The ethical and religious speculations of the Jews derive 
largely from the culture which was common to Sumer, 
Egypt, and the Indus, The Hebrews first appear in history 
in the letters of Tell-el-Amarna, which date from 1400 B.C. 
They relate how Hebrew nomads drifted into Palestine, 
which was then under Egyptian control, and entered the 
military service of the Egyptians. The Jews then were 
a barbarous nomad people with only the most rudimentary 

1 i Kings x. 22. 

* Cambridge History oflndia % vol. i (1922), p. 320. 



122 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

social forms. Apparently the Hebrew nomads who took 
refuge in Egypt were subjected to slavery^ from which they 
were delivered by a leader of notable gifts,' whose name has 
come down to us. Moses persuaded the Hebrews to give up 
polytheism. The great Egyptologist Professor Breasted tells 
us that the Book of Proverbs and a large part of the Psalms 
are based on older Egyptian literature, and the code exem- 
plified in Deuteronomy is largely a degraded version of the 
Hammurabi Code. 

IV 

We get to the third stage of Indian civilization in the older 
or canonical Upanisads, 1 which are pre-Buddhistic (900 to 
600 B.C.). They set forth the fundamental concepts of 
Hindu thought, which still dominate the Indian mind. The 
highest wisdom is to know the self (atmanam viddhi). What 
is the self? The Upanisads answer that it is the primal spirit, 
pure awareness, distinct from bodily states and mental hap- 
penings. By a process of analysis, the self can be discrimin- 
ated from the not-self. The self is assumed to be that which 
remains identical in tke varied experiences of life. It cannot 
be the body, which is subject to constant change. Nor can it 
be identified with the dreaming self, which, though relatively 
free from association with external objects, is subject to 
changes like pains and pleasures, suffering and joy. Nor can 
it be confused with the state in dreamless sleep, for the self 
in such a condition seems to be non-existent. The Chandogya 
Upanisad 2 where this analysis of self is undertaken concludes 
by asserting that the self which is the basis of the stream of 
changes is the supreme light by which we see and hear, 
think and meditate. The Mandukya Upanisad confirms this 
account. It distinguishes four states of consciousness : ecstatic 
or transcendental consciousness (turiya)^ dreamless sleep 
(susupti), dream ($<uapna\ and waking (jagrai). In the waking 
state the self is brought into relation with the physical en- 
vironment by the functioning of the body, but the body is 

1 The word Upanifad means etymologically ufa near by, at devotedly, 
/^ sitting; and later came to signify secret (rahasya) instruction imparted at 
private meetings. * viii. 7-12. 



GREECE 123 

not the self, for the sense of self persists even when our 
bodies are injured and brains affected. The self which is 
aware of possessing the body cannot be the same as the 
body. In the state of dreams, the self is aware of other 
worlds than the physical. In dreamless sleep the self subsists, 
even though it is not aware of the physical world of waking 
experience or the subtler world of dreams. The principle of 
objectivity is there, though it is unmanifest. Neither body 
nor mind can function but for the principle of self. Though 
it is the intellect that gives rise to the consciousness of the 
ego, in another sense, it is itself its product. The psycholo- 
gical ego is a composite of ideas and imaginations, memories 
and affections, desires and habits. It is not the self, for we 
look upon our hopes and fears, our loves and disappoint- 
ments, as waves on the stream which we can objectify or 
dramatize by means of the inward light. The self is more 
than the ego; personality is truly a mask. The self is the 
silent eternal witness, a light which no power can extinguish, 
whose attributes are truth and beauty, peace and wisdom, 
our true being which we do not perceive on account of the 
cloud of ignorance which covers our eyes. We can, however, 
see it in the empty space of the heart (hrdayaka$e\ in the bare 
room of the inner man (antarbhutasya khe). When the 
interior darkness is illuminated there is the reflection in our 
consciousness of that principle which is the foundation of our 
life, which by its continuous presence sustains the broken 
parts of life and correlates them. It is the mysterious depth 
in which the spirit turns back on itself, its most secret 
dimension. This spiritual consciousness is not a meta- 
physical fantasy but one that can be realized by each of us. 
In this transcendental consciousness, where the body is still, 
the mind attains quiescence, and thought comes to rest, we 
are in contact with the pure spirit of which the states of 
waking, dream, and sleep are imperfect articulations. It is, 
according to the Upanisad, unseen (by sense organs), un- 
related to the things of the world, incomprehensible (by the 
mind), devoid of marks (which can be the basis of inference), 
unthinkable, indescribable, essentially of the nature of 
consciousness which constitutes the character of the self, 
negation of all phenomena, the tranquil, the blissful, the 



124 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

'non-dual*. 1 This negative knowledge is not mere ignorance. 
To know that the supreme spirit is not to be confused with any 
object that can be apprehended in this life is the most perfect 
knowledge of it. Even when we say that it remains unknown 
it is known by us. We affirm that it is unrelated to objects 
external as in waking experience, or internal as in dreams, 
and is a state which transcends all ordinary experience, 2 
though it is its basis. Reality is not an object of knowledge 
but is knowledge. For when knowledge is objectified, the 
knower and the known are mutually alien. In such cases we 
cannot know an object but only know about it. In true 
knowledge of the real, we must know the real and not merely 
ideas about it. We should know the spirit and by the spirit 
(atmdnam atmana). And this is not possible if the spirit were 
an object. The moment we make it into an object, we distort 
its nature. 

Answering to the four states of the self are the four views 
of reality. Brahman is the impersonal Absolute to which no 
finite signs or symbols are applicable. It is beyond all the 
similitudes of our limited understanding. The via negativa 
or the way of negation is prominent in the Upanisads. 3 We 
can only say 'I am that I am*. 4 'That in which one sees 
nothing else, hears nothing else, knows nothing else is the 
infinite/ 5 On this Narada asks, 'Where does the infinite 
exist ?' (sa kasmin pratisfhitaK). He who raises such a query 
has not comprehended the nature of the infinite. So Sanat- 
kumara says, 'He exists in his majesty' (sve mahimnfy and, 
afraid that his answer might suggest a distinction between 
the infinite and his majesty, adds: 'or rather he does not 
exist in his majesty' (yadi va na mahimnett). The Upanisads 
require us to adopt an attitude of utter silence in regard to the 
nature of the absolute spirit. If, however, any description is 
permitted, it can only be in negative terms. This does not 
mean that the absolute is non-being, for the very fact that the 

1 'adr?tam, avyavahlryam, agrahyam, akkai>am, acintyam, avyapaddyam, 
ekltmapratyayasaram prapancopa&mam, &ntam, iivam, advaitam' (Mandukya 

ty.i.7). 
* 'avastu, anupakmbham, lokottaram.' Gau4plda's Karika on M&nduhya 

7/.iv.88. 

3 See Brhaddranyaka Up. ii. 3. I. 

4 'so'hamasmi.' I/a Up. 16. * Chandogya Up. vir. 24. I. 



GREECE 125 

self of man is able to know it indicates its kinship with the 
deepest in man. Brahman is Atman. That art thou. If a 
more detailed description is required, it is said to be pure 
being, awareness, and bliss (saccidananda). 

Evidently the authors of these writings are aware that the 
highest reality thus conceived seems to the ordinary intelli- 
gence to be that which has the least content, the thinnest of 
all abstractions. For the religious consciousness, God as 
pure being is not of much importance. While insisting that 
the nature of the supreme being cannot be adequately 
expressed in terms familiar to our finite mind, the Upanisads 
ascribe qualities such as oneness, wisdom, perfection to the 
object or their worship. 'He who is one, above all distinction 
of colour, who dispenses through his varied powers the hid- 
den needs of men of many colours, who knows all things 
from beginning to end, may he unite us with the sacred 
wisdom/ 1 This conception of the real as the divine self 
answers to the state of dreamless sleep. 

In the state of dreamless sleep the principle of objectivity 
from which the dream and waking states arise is present, 
though it is inactive. So also when Brahman becomes I^vara 
the personal god, he is confronted by the principle of objec- 
tivity. The repose of Brahman is dissevered into the duality 
of subject and object, self-conscious intelligence facing the 
principle of objectivity which is in an unmanifested (avyakrta) 
form in the state of world dissolution when all distinctions 
disappear. If our feeble minds are to form any conception of 
the inconceivable beginning of things, we may think of the 
cosmos as arising from a self-division of the Absolute. In 
the undivided Absolute, time is not, and there is no history. 
God negates Himself in order that there may be a world. 
The sundering of the Absolute into the personal God and 
object is creation's dawn. The object is regarded as the void, 
the mere framework of space-time. We can think away all 
objects, all worlds, but the vast void cannot be thought away. 
It is the abyss, the unfathomable night, the tamas which is 

1 ya eko'varno bahudha Saktiyogat 
varnan anekan nihitartho dadhati, 
vicaiticante visvam adau sa devah 
sa no buddhyS ^ubhaya" samyunaktu. 



126 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

mentioned in the Ndsadiya sukta of the Rg Veda. The whole 
universe shrivels into nothingness, though it has limitless 
possibilities which will be roused into activity by the divine 
overlord, the spirit of God floating on the waters. The 
supreme is compared to light which shineth in darkness, and 
yet light presupposes the infinity of darkness. 

The contemplation of sheer nothingness as a possibility 
leads to the perception that any kind of existence requires an 
absolute being which would overcome utter non-being. Even 
the minimum of being involves the defeat of non-being by 
positive being. The existence of anything at all presupposes 
absolute positivity, eternal being, activity, and form which 
actualizes potentialities. At the stage of duality the Supreme 
is conceived as a personal being whose knowledge and will 
are not dependent on anything outside himself and who is in 
turn identical with the Absolute being itself. 'He is the lord 
of all, the knower of all, the controller within, the source of 
all, that from which all things originate, and in which they 
finally disappear.' 1 He is the Logos, the knower of all 
beings ever present in the hearts of all (saruasya hrdi sams- 
thitam). If we start from the cosmic end, it is true to say 'In 
the beginning was the Logos', the personal creator God. The 
dualism of God and matter, good and evil, eternity and time, 
is not ultimate as with some Gnostics and Manichaeans. It 
is subordinate to a fundamental monism. Yet the problem of 
evil is a real problem. 2 In the view of the Upanisads, the 
Absolute is not the creator of the world. God the creator 
facing nothingness is the first act and the rest of creation is 
secondary. The world is created by God because nothing 
can become something, something new that never existed 
before, only through the dynamism of being. From the 
womb of nature (frakrtt) the self (purusa) creates. Creative- 

1 Manduhya Up. \. 6. 

2 It is not traced to the abuse of freedom with which God endowed his 
creatures. Such an explanation is not free from difficulties. If God gave us 
freedom which we used to choose evil, the giver of such a fatal gift is the cause 
of pain and evil. As He is omniscient, He would have foreseen the suffering and 
evil of the world and vet created man and gave him this source of all perdition. 
Calvinist theology, which affirms that God has from all eternity predeter- 
mined some to eternal salvation and others to eternal damnation, follows as a 
natural corollary from the omniscience of God. 



GREECE 127 

ness is out of the freedom of being; birth or production is 
from nature or non-being. Self is the father who creates; 
not-self is the mother who generates. The two principles 
interact and supplement one another. The free human 
individual is a child of God as well as the product of non- 
being from out of which God creates the world. He is both 
being and non-being, and the progress of man consists in the 
awakening of spirit and the overcoming of the abyss of non- 
being in his own nature. Creation of the world cannot be 
deduced from the Absolute (Brahman), which is perfectly 
self-sufficient, beyond all distinctions of the world, but the 
world implies movement in God (Isvara), and its relation to 
God is not accidental or unnecessary. 1 

In the stage answering to the dream, ISvara the personal 
God becomes Hiranyagarbha the world-soul, which is said to 
be the first-born son of God. 2 The conception of the world- 
soul affirms not only the oneness of the cosmos but the 
organic unity of humanity and the significance of its social 
destiny. When the world is manifested as in the waking 
state, we have Virat or the cosmic person. We thus have the 
supreme Absolute which is the first principle, from which 
both the personal God (nous) and world-soul arise to mediate 
between the Absolute and the world. The symbol Aum, 
including the three sounds A u M, represents the supreme 
with its three gross, subtle, and causal aspects. Even as the 
totality of man's experience includes the three states of 
waking, dream, and dreamless sleep, 3 the reality of Brahman 
includes the gross, subtle, and causal aspects of the universe. 
As the Upanisad says : 'All that is past, present and future is 
verily Aum; that which is beyond these three modes of 
time is also Aum/ 4 There is no justification for confusing 
the Brahman of the Upanisads with the Ens abstractimmum. 
The pure being of Brahman is not the last residue of analysis 
and abstraction, which is almost identical with pure nothing- 

1 This view has led to the misconception in Gnostics like Marcion who 
contend that the evil world was created by an evil god, Demiourgos. 

2 See Svetdfoatara Up. iii. 4; iv. 12; vi. 18. 

3 GaudapSda, i. 2: 'tridhs dehe vyavasthitah.' See also *trisudhamasu yat- 
tulyam s5ma"nyam', i. 22. 

4 'bhutam bhavad bhavisyad id sarvam aumkSra eva, yaccanyat trikala"- 
titam tadapy aumkSra eva.' Mandukya Up. i. i. See also i. 8-1 1. 



128 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

ness, but the one Transcendent Fact in which all other facts 
are held. It is incomprehensible not because it is empty but 
because it is full (j>urnam\ as the Upanisad has it. 1 It exceeds 
our powers of comprehension. Every idea or image we 
form of the highest reality is in a sense an abstraction. The 
most concrete idea we can form of it, viz. divine personality, 
is also an abstraction, however comprehensive it may be. 
The supreme reality is incomprehensible in the sense that 
it cannot be expressed in logical propositions but it is in- 
creasingly apprehensible by the purified mind. This appre- 
hension is reached not so much by the exercise of reason as 
by the purification of the heart, by the process of turning the 
attention of the soul to its own central necessities. The con- 
ception of the ground of all existence in God and of the kin- 
ship of the human spirit to the divine is at the basis of the 
idea that the human soul is an exile always longing for home. 
It is the source of the urge in the heart towards union with 
the beloved. 

The world of our daily experience is different from the 
real world, whose existence we are able to infer from the 
empirical facts of direct intuition. The world of multiplicity 
(nanatva) is declared to be less real than the Absolute. He 
who has attained an insight into reality will see that the 
world of multiplicity is the non-dual Brahman, pure, free, 
and ever illumined. When God is defined as the sole reality, 
there is a tendency to do less than justice to the existence 
of creatures. The status of the world is an interpretation and 
not a fact of experience as the being of God is. All mystic 
experience involves an experience of the comparative un- 
reality of everything else, including the finite individual. 
The relative non-being of creatures is the fact of experience 
which is interpreted in different ways by systems of philo- 
sophy. It is to theists nothing more than utter dependence 
on God. The view of the Upanisads does not destroy the 
sense of the reality and importance of the historical process. 

1 It is unfortunate that this point should be persistently misunderstood. 
Cf. Father Tyrrell: * Heaven and earth are not more asunder than Oriental 
and Christian mysticism: the one looking to nonentity as the Summum Bonum, 
the other to the Fulness of Infinite existence' (M. D. Petre, Fon HUgel and 



GREECE 129 

History is not a meaningless repetition but a creative pro- 
cess determined by the free acts of the individuals. The 
spiritual world is more real than the material world, and we 
can remake the earth in its likeness if we truly believe and 
practise the life of spirit. 

The Upanisads protest against the exclusive sway of the 
dialectical spirit, against the rigid limitation of experience 
to the data of sense and reason. They believe in the possi- 
bility of a direct intercourse with the central reality, inter- 
course not through any external media such as historical 
revelations, oracles, answers to prayers, and the like, but by a 
species of intuitive identification in which the individual 
becomes in very truth the partaker of the divine nature. 
Since that which is sought is one, he who would have the 
vision of it must get back to the principle of unity in himself. 
He must become one instead of being many. Life in the 
physical body which casts its glamour over us is not our real 
self. Senses and intellect are only means, for the self is the 
witness of both. We must empty and exhaust ourselves if we 
would be filled. It is in that stra^g^ejgcperience when we check 
the stream of tKouSts aiicT 3esires ""^^^ 

rlSr^ one oFwalc^^ 

fs "" acc^pltehrd more in 



i in see* 
bflFTffiffi^^ 



EKelBTniiiun ofrronF^^ prisnffg 

HTHlrtfldyw^^ tKet^t^ 
ffc^sfc^-p^ " 

,__ or * -.- ..... -_.~.....^i^^^^ 



^ f that weafre, 

inlo tKe fai^ 
ag^nmrmtf : and js^^ 

llSihfi jqaft.Qf.niir liws afl 'pil],ars 



^ 



depths of its own 
beinglt experiences the touch of divinity and feels the life of 
God. By breaking through the entanglements of created 
things, the veils of sense and of intellect, the soul establishes 
itself in the nudity of spirit. The seer no longer distinguishes 
himself from that which is seen. He is one with the centre 
which is the centre of all. It is the flight of the alone to the 



130 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

alone of Plotinus, the meeting of naked substances, the soul 
and God of St. John of the Cross. 1 God ceases to be an 
object external to the individual and becomes a consuming 
experience. 

In the Taittiriya Upanisad it is argued that the human in- 
dividual is the microcosm. The same structure is found on 
a large scale in the universe and on a small scale in the in- 
dividuals, who reproduce the whole in miniature, mirror 
every level and form of being from inanimate matter to God. 
All grades of being intersect in man. 2 He stands on the 
frontier between impersonal nature, where operation is deter- 
mined by rigid law and the domain of spiritual freedom. 
This paradoxical character of man is suggested by the state- 
ment that he is a fallen creature, an earthly being preserving 
memories of heaven. The reflection of the divine light is in 
him. He is the highest of all created beings, who can share 
consciously the creative freedom of spirit. Matter (anna\ 
life (frana\ consciousness (mana$\ intelligence (vijnana\ 
and bliss (ananda) constitute a ladder of increasing reality 
which passes from the negative pole of pure nonentity to the 
positive pole of God's absolute being. Man is essentially 
an intellectual being, though he shares the vital subpersonal 
life of the animals, and is united with spirit. A healthy 
animal by its sound instincts is able to lead a normal life, but 
man can attain normality not merely by the development of 
his intellect with its productions of arts and crafts but by the 
acceptance of the world of spirit with its non-utilitarian 
values. Man hungers and thirsts not only for bread but for 
the bread of eternal life, for truth, beauty, goodness, and 
holiness. To achieve harmony is the aim of his existence. 3 If 
he purifies himself, he becomes divine; if he is still impure, he 
will sink into lower forms of life. Man's will is free to assert 

1 St John of the Cross says: 'In order that God should bring the soul to 
this union in his own way, the sole worthy action is that which unloads and 
empties the faculties, which makes them renounce their natural jurisdiction 
and operations in order that they may receive the infusion and the illumination 
of the supernatural' (Ascent of Mount Carmel, bk. iii, chap. 2). 

* Cf. Proclus: 'All things are in all things, but in each according to its 
proper nature' (Element* of Theology, prop. 103). 

3 Human beings are distinguished into three classes: sattvika, rajasa, and 
tamasa, according as one or the other quality preponderates. 



GREECE 131 

itself against the universal order. If he does so, it will assert 
itself against him. An inner disharmony between his self-will 
and the spiritual impulse of his nature produces disquiet. 

So long as the soul is held captive in the body and the 
senses and is not their master, there is an internal conflict of 
good and evil, light and darkness. This dualism is a part of 
ethical struggle and religious consciousness, but it is not 
ultimate. Evil is not a positive malignant thing incapable 
of control and change. If good and evil are regarded as abso- 
lute, then their opposition and struggle will be without end 
and meaning. Avidya, which is more a functional disorder 
of the human mind than an organic defect of the universe, 
can be removed and evil overcome. We must win a victory 
over our self before we can win it over the environment. 

All the things of the world are there to be enjoyed by man, 
but in a spirit of detachment. 'Enjoy by renunciation', says 
the Upanisad. 1 What matters is not the possession or the 
non-possession of things but our attitude towards them. The 
question relates to the desires and the appetites, not to the 
things to which they are directed. It is what a man /V, not 
what he has, his frame of mind that matters. The Brhadaran- 
yaka Upanisad asks us to use the resources of the world for 
the unfolding of the spirit. All things are dear, not for their 
own sake but for the sake of the spirit. To be detached is 
never to want anything for oneself. If we cannot be satisfied 
with the beauty of the flower until we pluck it and put it 
in our buttonhole, we cannot be at peace. From detachment 
comes wisdom, harmony with the environment, peace. The 
higher vision is possible only for those who have organized 
their natures. Jnana or wisdom is a function of being. The 
path to it is as hard 'as the sharp edge of a razor'. 

The individual is already in possession of the truth. The 
part of the teacher is that of the midwife, to assist to bring 
the truth to clear consciousness. To become conscious of the 
world of spirit is to be reborn. Brahmacarya or initiation into 
gayatri marks the second birth. 2 While the first birth into 
the physical environment involves disunion and separation, 
submission to necessity, the second birth represents the 

1 'tyaktena bhunjitha' (I/a Up.). 

2 Cf. the Upanisad, 'tad dvitiyam janma, mSta savitri, pitatu ttcSryah*. 



132 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

victory over the constraint of necessity and the attainment of 
union and liberty. It is life at a deeper level. Thejffani or the 
man of insight has liberated himself from the bondage of fear 
of life and of death, from the prejudices of his time and place, 
of his age and country. As one with the universal self, he has 
the utmost charity and love for all creation. Things of the 
world do not tempt him, for he is freed from the bondage of 
selfish desires and passions. 1 He does not look upon himself 
as his own. He has emptied himself of all selfishness. 2 In a 
famous image, the Upanisads declare that the released souls 
become one with Brahman even as the rivers losing their 
name and form become one with the ocean. 3 Another 
image is that of a lump of salt dropped into water and dis- 
solved in it, 4 The Taittinya Upanisad makes out that the 
liberated soul feels his oneness with God but is not absorbed 
in the Absolute. It is unity of spirit but not of substance. 5 
It is the infinite love of God that is lived by the soul. It is a 
unity of spirit between the individual and God, so long as the 
cosmic process lasts. 6 The highest life is an incomparable 
plenitude and infinite liberty. The free man is not bound by 
laws, for he has become more than the law, the lawmaker, 
a king (svaraf). 7 

1 Brhadaranyaka Up. iv. 4. 23. 

2 In representing the relation between the soul and God, St. John of the 
Cross has recourse to the classic image of the flame and the* wood. So long as 
the wood keeps its own native humidity, it smokes, it crackles. It is ehanging 
but is not changed. Only when it becomes pure flame is it completely changed. 
(Living Flame, Str. I, v. 5.) 

3 Cf. St. Theresa: 'One might speak of the water from the sky, which falls 
into a river or a fountain, and is so lost in it that we cannot any longer divide or 
distinguish which is the water of the river and which the drop from the sky. 
Or better, of a tiny brook which throws itself into the sea, and which it is im- 
possible to separate from thence* (Interior Castle, Seventh Mansion, chap. ii). 

4 Brhadaranyaka Up. ii. 4. 12. 

5 Cf. St. John of the Cross: 'Mine are the heavens and mine is the earth, 
mine are mankind and the just and the sinners; the angels are mine and the 
Mother of God, and all things are mine; and God himself is mine and for me; 
for Christ is mine and all for me. Truly then what seekest thou for, my soul, 
and what doest thou ask for? All that is is thine and is all for thee* (Spiritual 
Maxims and Sentences, cited in Mari tain, The Degrees of Knowledge (1937), 
pp. 446-7). 

6 See An Idealist View of Life, 2nd ed. (1937)* pp. 306-10. 

7 Bfhadaranyaka Up. iv. 4. 23. 



GREECE 133 

'Whoever knows I am Brahman becomes all this.' 1 This 
supreme aim of eternal life is accessible here below, even 
before the dissolution of the pitiable flesh, 2 in this perishable 
and fleeting existence itself. It is the state ofjtvanwukti. The 
individual reflects from his personal centre the vitality, the 
fire, the light, the intelligence, the inexhaustible energy of 
the primordial source. He does not lose his individual being 
so long as the cosmic process lasts. 

The distinction between paravidya, or higher wisdom, and 
aparavidya, or lower knowledge, is made in the Upanisads. 3 
While a few are capable of the effort required to attain en- 
lightenment, the large majority are incapable of such effort 
and for them the lower knowledge, with its belief in ritual 
and traditional ceremonial, is intended. While it has to be 
transcended by those who seek enlightenment, it is a useful 
aid for the ordinary people. Those who are not saved are 
bound to the wheel of rebirth governed by the law of Karma 
or moral causation. 

For the first time in the history of thought, the Upanisads 
indicate a religious view which has for its iritegral elements: 
the supremacy of the Absolute spirit; the reality of mystic 
consciousness; the distinction between intellect soberly con- 
templating the intelligible and intellect rapt into enthusiasm 
and borne ibove itself; higher and lower knowledge; the 
via negativa as the way of approach to the mystic conscious- 
ness; the non-ultimateness or the pluralistic universe with its 
independent existents, some with life, some with conscious- 
ness; insistence on ascetic discipline; rebirth determined by 
the law of Karma, until the destiny of man is realized which 
is release or deliverance. This religious outlook seems to 
have affected the thought of the West from very early times. 4 

The rise of philosophical reflection in Greece and the 
revolt against the traditional Homeric religion belongs to 
this period. India and the West were brought into closer 

1 Ibid. 1.4. 10. 2 Ibid. iv. 4. 7. 

3 Mundaka Up. i. i. 4-5. 

4 'Especially does there seem to be a growing probability that, from the 
historical standpoint at any rate, India was the birthplace of our fundamental 
imaginings, the cradle of contemplative religion and the nobler philosophy' 
(Stutfield, Mysticism and Catholicism (1925), p. 31). 



134 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

political, economic, and cultural connexion in the sixth cen- 
tury B.C. The outstanding event of the period was the rise 
of Persia. Babylon fell in 538 B.C., and Cyrus founded the 
Persian Empire. About 510 B.C., his successor Darius made 
the Indus valley a part of his empire, which also included 
Greece. 1 The Iranians, who ruled the empire from the 
Mediterranean to the Indus, were themselves kinsmen of 
the Vedic Aryans. The community of interest and ideals 
between the kindred peoples received emphasis during the 
centuries preceding the invasion of India by Alexander the 
Great, when Persia exercised sway over north-western India. 
While Indians took part in the invasion of Greece in 480 
B.C., Greek officials and soldiers served in India also. The 
Indians knew the Greek lonians (yavanas) 2 as early as the 
period when north-west India was under Persian rule. The 
earliest speculations, which questioned the simple eschato- 
logy of Homer and sought for a more rational explanation 
of the meaning of life, originated with the Ionian Greeks of 
Asia Minor, who were in touch with Persia. Though Thales 
of Miletus was the father of Greek philosophy, the founda- 
tions of Greek metaphysics were laid by the Eleatic school, 
Xenophanes, Parmenides, and Zeno. The merchant seamen 
who established Greek colonies broke down the seclusion of 
Greek life and brought to their native cities knowledge of 
many strange things from other lands. Anaxagoras, the 
chief forerunner of Socrates, came from the Ionian Clazo- 
menae of Asia Minor, and Xenophanes was a homeless 
wanderer. There is great agreement between the teaching 
of the Upanisads on the nature of reality and the Eleatic 
doctrine, between the Sarhkhya teaching and the views of 
Empedocles and Anaxagoras. Much has been made of these 
resemblances, though it is quite possible that the Greeks and 
the Indians reached similar conclusions independently of 
one another. 

1 The first Greek book about India was perhaps written by Scylax, a Greek 
sea-captain whom Darius commissioned to explore the course of the Indus 
about 510 B.C. (Herodotus, iv. 44). 

2 Cf. Panini, who speaks of the Greek script a& yavanSni lipi, iv. I. 49. 
The Prakrit equivalent of yavana, viz. yona> is used in the inscriptions of 
A4oka to describe the Hellenic princes of Egypt, Gyrene, Macedonia, Epirus, 
and Syria. 



GREECE 135 

The case is somewhat different with the mystery cults and 
the teaching of Pythagoras and Plato, In them we find a 
decisive break with the Greek tradition of rationalism and 
humanism. The mystic tradition is definitely un-Greek in 
its character. 1 A reference to the Orphic and Eleusinian 
mysteries and the doctrines of Pythagoras and Plato will 
help to elucidate the distinctive character of this tradition 
in Greek thought. 

Orpheus, said to be a Thracian, appears in Greek history 
as the prophet of a religious school or sect with a code of 
rules or life, a mystical theology, and a system of purificatory 
and expiatory rites. 2 His teachings are embodied in a col- 
lection of writings to which there are frequent references in 
Greek literature. 3 Dionysus is the god of the cult. Faith 
in the inherent immortality of the soul is a cardinal feature 
of the Orphic religion. 4 In the phenomenon of ecstasy the 
soul 'steps out or the body' and reveals its true nature. 
Orgiastic religions share the conviction that the worshippers 
of God are possessed by God. 5 When we are possessed by 
God, we are for the moment lifted to the divine status. What 
can become divine even for a time cannot be different in 
essence from the divine, though it is not, however, divine 
when it is enclosed in the body. There is no insuperable 
gulf betwer n God and the soul. The release of the divine 
from the non-divine elements is the objective of the Orphic 

1 Nietzsche looks upon Plato's thought as 'anti-Hellenic'. See his Will to 
Power, ed. by Dr. Oscar Levy, vol. i (1909), p. 346. 

2 Pkto, Phaedrus, 69 c. 

3 In the Hippolytus of Euripides, Theseus taunts his son with the ascetic life 
he leads through having taken Orpheus for his lord. In the A Ices tit the chorus 
lament that they have found no remedy for the blows of fate, 'no charm on 
Thracian tablets which tuneful Orpheus carved out'. Orphism is mentioned 
in Plato's Craty/us, 402 b; Laws, ii. 669 d, viii. 829 d; Republic, ii. 3646; 
/or, p. 536b. 

4 Herodotus, ii. 81. 

5 Orphism was a reformation of the Dionysian religion. 'The great step 
that Orpheus took was that, while he kept the old Bacchic faith that man 
might become a god, he altered the conception of what a God was and he 
sought to obtain that godhead by wholly different means. The grace he sought 
was not physical intoxication but spiritual ecstasy; the means he adopted, not 
drunkenness but abstinence and rites of purification* (J. E. Harrison, 

mena to the Study of Greek Religion (1903), p. 477). 



136 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

religion. The soul is not a feeble double of the individual 
as in Homer, but is a fallen god which is restored to its high 
estate by a system of sacraments and purifications. 

If the soul is divine and immortal in essence, and if it is 
not at once freed from bondage at death, then it must remain 
in an intermediate state or in other animal and human forms 
until release is attained. Man is required to free himself 
from the chains of the body in which the soul lies bound 
like a prisoner in the cell. It has a long way to go before it 
can find its freedom. The death of the body frees it for a 
little while, but it passes on to a new body. It continues 
the journey perpetually, alternating between an unfettered 
separate existence and an ever-renewed embodiment travers- 
ing the great circle of necessity in which it assumes many 
bodies. Birth is not the beginning of a new life but admis- 
sion into a new environment. This wheel of birth goes on 
until the soul escapes from it by attaining release. 1 It be- 
comes divine, as it was before it entered a mortal body. 2 To 
seek to become like the gods is to the orthodox Greek the 
height of insolence, though it is of the essence of the Orphic 
religion. We have the typical Greek reaction to the fine 
abandon of the Orphic 'God am I, mortal no longer' in 
Pindar. 'Seek not to become a god/ 'Seek not to become 
Zeus . . . mortal things befit mortals best.' 'Mortal minds 
must seek what is fitting at the hands of the gods, recog- 
nising what is at our feet, and to what lot we are born. 
Strive not, my soul, for an immortal life, but do the thing 
which it is within thy power to do.' 3 The concern of the 
Orphic is not so much with the future of the soul as with 
the attainment of perfect purity. 

1 Cf. Campagno, Gold Tablets, No. 5. 'I have flown out of the sorrowful 
weary wheel' (Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, J. E. Harrison 
(1903), p. 670). 

2 See Plato, Phaedrus, 62 b; Cratylus, 400 b: Herodotus speaks of a 
Thracian tribe, the Getai, who believe in 'men made immortal', iv. 93-4. 
They accept the doctrine of rebirth also. See Rohde, Psyche, p. 263. 

3 W. K. C. Guthrie, Orpheus and Greek Religion (1935), pp. 236-7. 
'Genuine Greek religion knows no mystical striving after a blessed union with 
God in ecstasy after an abolition of the limits of individuality in a realm 
beyond the conscious life. Prophetic austerity and mystic indifference are alike 
foreign to it' (Heiler, Prayer, E.T. (1932), p. 76). 



GREECE 137 

The possibility of salvation or the germ of divinity lies 
within each of us. Its existence does not assure one of per- 
fection, for it may be suppressed by a life of sinfulness. To 
become actually what we are now potentially, to shake off 
our earthly trammels, we must lead the Orphic life. The 
source of evil is in our appetites and passions, which must 
be subdued. Ascetic practices are prescribed, such as ab- 
stinence from beans, flesh, and certain kinds of fish, wearing 
ordained clothes, and avoidance of bloody sacrifices. In the 
Orphic mysteries we find in addition to baptism such rites as 
the Sacred Marriage, the Birth of the Holy Child, and these 
perhaps led to later Christian sacraments. 1 Union with the 
body and its desires is regarded as a thwarting hindrance 
to the immortal abiding lire of the soul. Orphism does not 
insist on the civic virtues characteristic of Greek morality. 2 
The Orphic cult transcends the limits of blood groups. It 
affirms that all men are brothers. The sense of solidarity not 
only includes all mankind but embraces all living things. 
All life is one, and God is one. The pictures of Orpheus 
in ifrhich wild and tame animals were represented as lying 
down in amity side by side all alike, charmed by the notes 
of his lyre, illustrate the unity of all living creation. 3 The 
influence of the Orphic cult was on the side of civilization 
and the arts of peace. Orpheus was entirely free from war- 
like attributes, and his lyre was used to soften the hearts of 
men. Orphic religion is different from the anthropomorphic 
worship of the Greeks. Its adherents are organized in 
communities based on voluntary admission and initiation. 
Orphic cosmogony and eschatology are foreign to the Greek 

1 'The early Christians owed some of their noblest impulses to Orphism.' 
J. E. Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (1903), p. 504; 
see also p. 549. 

2 Rohde observes: 'It does not enjoin the practice of the civic virtues, nor 
is discipline or transformation of character required by it; the sum total of its 
morality is to bend one's course towards the deity and turn away, not from the 
moral lapses and aberrations of earthly life, but from earthly existence itself* 
(Psyche, ii. 125). 'This was a religion of an entirely different kind from the 
civic worship to which the ordinary Greek professed his allegiance* (Guthrie, 
op. cit., p. 206). 

3 They may be the Symbol of the Good Shepherd of the Christians and 
remind us of Krsna with the flute. 



138 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

spirit. Homer is not troubled by the problem of the origin 
of things. He knows of no world egg which plays a pro- 
minent part in many cosmogonies and in Orphism. Those 
who are familiar with the Vedic hymn of creation will note 
that the conceptions of night and chaos and the birth of 
love, as well as that of the cosmic egg, are accepted by the 
Orphics, 1 

In later times Orphic theology was studied by Greek 
philosophers, Eudemus the Peripatetic, Chrysippus the 
Stoic, and Proclus the Neoplatonist. It became a raVourite 
study of the grammarians of Alexandria. While much of the 
Orphic literature that has come down to us is of a late date, 
'the thin gold plates, with Orphic verses inscribed on them 
discovered at Thourioi and Petelia, take us back to a time 
when Orphicism was still a living creed', 2 'From them we 
learn', says Professor Burnet, 'that it has some striking re- 
semblances to the beliefs prevalent in India about the same 
time', though he finds it 'impossible to assume any Indian 
influence in Greece at this date'. The beliefs held in common 
are those of rebirth, the immortality and godlike character 
of the soul, the bondage of the soul in the body, and the 
possibility of release by purification. If we add to them 
metaphors like the wheel of birth and the world egg, the sug- 
gestion of natural coincidence is somewhat unconvincing. 3 

1 The most popular of all Orphic theogonies holds that Chronos or Time, 
'who grows not old', first existed, and from it sprang ether and the formless 
chaos. From them was formed an egg which bursting in due time disclosed 
Eros or Phanes, the firstborn, at once male and female and having within 
himself the seeds of all creatures. Phanes creates the Sun and Moon and 
Night, and from Night arise Uranos and Gaea (Heaven and Earth). These 
two give birth to the Titans, among whom is Kronos, who defeats his father 
Uranos and succeeds to his throne. He is in turn deposed by Zeus, who 
swallows Phanes and thus becomes the father of gods and men (Legge, Fort- 
runners and Rivals of Christianity (1925), vol. i, p. 123; see Aristophanes, 
The Birds, 693 ff.). For the Vedic theory of creation, see Indian Philosophy, 
2nd ed., vol. i (1929), pp. 100 ff. 

2 Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy (1930), p. 82. 

3 There are certain striking resemblances in the matter of the passage to 
heaven. In the $g Feda heaven is the home of 'the soul to which, after death, 
it returns purified (x. 14. 8); before reaching heaven it has to cross a stream 
(x. 63. 10) and pass by Yama's watchful dogs, 'the spotted dogs of Sarama' 
(x. 14. 10). 



GREECE 139 

The Eleusinian cult is akin to the Orphic and uses Orphic 
hymns. While the Orphic cult imposes an ascetic regimen, 
no such claim is made for Eleusis. Its root idea seems to be 
more magical than ethical. 1 If we perform the correct ritual 
the great goddess will protect us here and hereafter. Yet, 
so far as the theoretical background is concerned, it is not 
different from that of the Orphics. It believes that the divine 
dwells in man. Dark shrouds are wrapped round it and we 
must unwrap them. Initiation was considered to be of great 
importance. Any one who has not had initiation is only a 
half-man. Through it we enter into an awareness of our real 
selfhood, which is divine. This is to be twice born. Our 
first birth is the physical one; the second is unto what is 
real in us, to be changed in our nature. The yearning of 
religion is the desire for union with our true self. At the 
conclusion of the rites, the last words heard by the initiates 
were 'Go in peace'. 2 They were to depart with their minds 
serene and souls at rest. 'The initiated', said Aristotle, 'are 
not supposed to learn anything, but to be affected in a cer- 
tain way and put into a certain frame of mind,' 3 Even 
Alexander and Julius Caesar availed themselves of these 
initiatory rites. God is not a word or a concept but a con- 
sciousness we can realize here and now in the flesh. Religion 
is more than worship of a personal God. These doctrines 
inspired the Bacchae of Euripides, as in the oft quoted 
line 'Who knows if life be death and death be life ?' It is 
fairly certain that only a small proportion of those who 
attended the ceremonies grasped the full meaning of what 
they saw and heard. 'Many are the thyrsus bearers,' quotes 

1 Sophocles wrote: "Thrice happy are those mortals who see these rites 
before they depart for Hades ; for to them alone is it granted to have true life 
on the other side. To the rest, all there is evil.' To this Diogenes the cynic is 
said to have retorted: 'What! Is Pataikion the thief to have a better lot after 
death than Epaminondas, just because he has been initiated?' (Plutarch). 

* Cf. 'om &ntih &ntih &ntih'; also, 'Peace I leave with you, my peace I 
give unto you.' 

3 />. 45 (1483 a. 19); see also />. 15. 'Those who are being initiated are 
not required to grasp anything with the understanding, but to have a certain 
inner experience, and so to be put into a particular frame of mind, presuming 
that they are capable of this frame of mind in the first place' (Jaeger, Arittotle, 
E.T.(i 93 4),p.i6o). 



140 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

Plato, 'but few are the mystes.' 1 These mystic cults were 
well known to and favoured by the tragic poets, Aeschylus, 
Sophocles, and Euripides. They exercised great influence 
until they were proscribed by the Christian emperors. 2 

There was a close analogy between these cults and the 
teaching of Pythagoras, which was noticed by Herodotus. 3 
Pythagoras lived and taught in the second half of the sixth 
century B.C. at Kroton. He looked upon Orpheus as the 
chief of his patrons. The great musician of legend impressed 
Pythagoras, who was led by his experiments in music to the 
understanding of numerical ratios and hence to the founda- 
tion of mathematical science. For Pythagoras the universe 
is not only an order or observance of due proportions but 
a 'harmonia' or being in tune. The human soul must also 
strive to imitate the orderliness of the universe. Pythagoras 
enjoined an ascetic way of living. Abstention from meat 
was a principal requirement. He believed in rebirth. The 
earliest reference to Pythagoras is in a few verses quoted by 
Xenophanes in which we are told that Pythagoras once heard 
a dog howling and appealed to its master not to beat it, as 
he recognized the voice of a departed friend. 4 Another anec- 
dote which has become famous through Ennius and Horace 
tells us that Pythagoras was gifted with the power of re- 
membering his former births, and he claimed to have been 
Euphorbus among others. Pythagoras believed not only in 
rebirth but in purification of the soul. The cycle of births 
is regarded as a means for the growth of man's higher nature. 
The theoretic is for him the highest form of life. He was 
also known as an important scientific man. 5 According to 

1 Phaedrus. 

2 F. Legge, Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity (1915), vol. i, p. 123. 
Julian the Apostate was initiated at Athens into the mysteries of Eleusis. Sir 
W. M. Ramsay affirms that the Eleusinian mysteries constituted 'the one great 
attempt made by Hellenic genius to construct a religion that should keep 
pace with the growth of thought and civilisation in Greece' (Encyclopaedia 
Britannica, 9th ed., vol. xvii, p. 126). 3 ii. 81. 

4 Fr. 7: Once he was passing by an ill-used pup, 

And pitied it, and said (or so they tell) 

'Stop, do not thrash it ! 'tis a dear friend's soul: 

I recognized it when I heard it yell.' 

(Oxford Book of Greek Verse in Translation (^938), p. 226.) 

5 Heraclitus, Fr. 17; Herodotus, iv. 95. 



GREECE 141 

Aristotle, Pythagoras first busied himself with mathematics 
and numbers. The only mention of Pythagoras in Plato is 
in the Republic, 1 where he tells us that Pythagoras won the 
affection of his followers by teaching them a way of life 
which was still called Pythagorean. 2 A peculiar feature in 
the asceticism of the Pythagoreans from the fourth century 
at least seems to have been silence. The Pythagorean order 
was a religious fraternity. Admission to the fraternity was 
gained by initiation, i.e. by purification followed by the 
revelation of truth. Purification consisted not only in the 
observance of rules of abstinence from certain kinds of 
food and dress but also in the purification of the soul by 
theoria, or the contemplation of the divine reality. Plato 
in the Phaedo* states as the Pythagorean doctrine the view 
that men are strangers to the world and the body is the 
tomb of the soul, and yet we must not escape from it by 
suicide. For Pythagoras, pure contemplation is the end of 
man, the completion of human nature. To the question what 
are we born for he replied, 'To gaze upon the heavens/ 4 
When by the contemplative process the soul is perfected, 
that is, purified from the taint of its subjection to the body, 
there would be no need of further rebirths. Pythagoras is 
believed to have reached this threshold of divinity. 5 Pro- 
fessor Burnet says: 'If we can trust Herakleides, it was 
Pythagoras who first distinguished the "three lives", the 
Theoretic, the Practical, and the Apolaustic, which Aristotle 
made use of in the Ethics?** Pythagoras held, as the early 

1 x. 600 b. 2 Republican. 53od. 3 62 b. 

4 Jaeger, Aristotle, E.T. (1934)* P- 75- 

5 Aristotle, Fr. 192. Aristoxenus says of Pythagoras and his followers: 
'Every distinction they lay down as to what should be done or not done aims* 
at communion with the divine. This is their starting point; their whole life is 
ordered with a view to following God and it is the governing principle of 
their philosophy' (see F. M. Cornford, 'Mysticism and Science in Pythagorean 
Tradition', Classical Quarterly (1922), p. 142). 

6 Early Greek Phihsophy(\w)> p. 98. 'The doctrine is to this effect. We 
are strangers in this world and the body is the tomb of the soul, and yet we 
must not seek to escape by self-murder; for we are the chattels of God who is 
our herdsman, and without his command we have no right to make our 
escape. In this life there are three kinds of men, just as there are three sorts 
of people who come to the Olympic games. The lowest class is made up of 
those who come to buy and sell and next above them are those who come to 



H2 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

Upanisad thinkers did, that all souls are similar in class and 
the apparent distinctions between human and other kinds 
of beings are not ultimate. lamblichus 1 informs us that 
Pythagoras held that the islands of the blest were the sun 
and the moon. In the Upanisads the moon is mentioned as 
the dwelling-place of spirits. 2 

Being a mathematician, Pythagoras expressed his cosmo- 
gony in mathematical terms. The primal Monad takes the 
place of the world egg. The world is a mixture of light and 
darkness, the formless and the form. The mathematical 
and mystical sides were side by side in Pythagoras and, 
according to tradition, a split occurred within the school 
between the Mathematikoi or the rationalists, whose interest 
was in the theory of numbers, and the Akusmatihoi y who fol- 
lowed up the religious side of the movement. We have in 
Pythagoras a rare combination of high intellectual power 
and profound spiritual insight. 

Herodotus suggests that Pythagoras got the doctrine of 
rebirth from the Egyptians, 3 but 'the Egyptians did not 
believe in transmigration at all and Herodotus was deceived 
by the priests or the symbolism of the monuments'. 4 Even 
if the theory be a development from the primitive belief in 
the kinship of men and beasts, it is difficult to account for 
the other parts of the system, taboos on certain kinds of 
food, 5 the rule of silence which the members of his fraternity 
were required to observe, the ascetic emphasis and insistence 
on release assured to those who are initiated. lamblichus, 
the biographer of Pythagoras, tells us that he travelled 
widely, studying the teachings of Egyptians, Assyrians, and 
Brahmins. 6 Gomperz writes: 'It is not too much to assume 

compete. Best of all, however, are those who come to look on. The greatest 
purification of all is science and it is the man who devotes himself to that, 
the true philosopher, who has most effectually released himself from the 
"wheel of birth".' * /?/. Pyth. 82. 

2 See Deussen, Philosophy of the Upanifads, E.T. (1906), pp. 326 ff. 

3 ii. 123. 

4 Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy (1930), 4th ed., pp. 88-9. 

5 'Timaios told how al Delos, Pythagoras refused to sacrifice on any but the 
oldest altar, that of Apollo the Father, where only bloodless sacrifices were 
allowed* (ibid., p. 93). 

6 Professor H. G. Rawlinson writes: 'It is more likely that Pythagoras was 



GREECE 143 

that the curious Greek, who was a contemporary of Buddha, 
and it may be of Zoroaster too, would have acquired a more 
or less exact knowledge of the East in that age of intellectual 
fermentation, through the medium of Persia.' 1 

Whether or not we accept the hypothesis of direct in- 
fluence from India through Persia on the Greeks, a student 
of Orphic and Pythagorean thought cannot fail to see that 
the similarities between it and the Indian religion are so close 
as to warrant our regarding them as expressions of the same 
view of life. We can use the one system to interpret the other. 

Though Socrates (470-399 B.C.) was a great advocate of 
rational self-discipline, he was a deeply religious man. He 
often talked of his 'inner voice', which would forbid him on 
occasions to do something which he planned to do. Being 
something of a mystic he would occasionally fall into deep 
meditation . Once when he was serving in the army in northern 
Greece, he was observed standing still meditating in the early 
hours of the morning. Deep in thought he stood there all day 
and all night, and with the return of light he offered a prayer 
to the sun and went on his way. For him religion was quite 
different from the ritualistic religion of the Greeks. He was 
aware of the supernatural world and felt himself a member 
of the heavenly city. The world might kill, but it has not 
the last word. 

4 If you should say to me, "O Socrates, at the moment we will not 

influenced by India than by Egypt. Almost all the theories, religious, philoso- 
phical and mathematical taught by the Pythagoreans, were known in India 
in the sixth century B.C., and the Pythagoreans, like the Jains and the Buddhists, 
refrained from the destruction of life and eating meat and regarded certain 
vegetables such as beans as taboo' (Legacy of India (1937), p. 5). 'It seems 
also that the so-called Pythagorean theorem of the quadrature of the hypo- 
tenuse was already known to the Indians in the older Vedic times, and thus 
before Pythagoras' (ibid.). Professor Winternitz is of the same opinion: *As 
regards Pythagoras, it seems to me very probable that he became acquainted 
with Indian doctrines in Persia* (Fitoabha'rati Quarterly, Feb. 1937, p. 8). 
It is also the view of Sir William Jones (Work, iii. 236), Colebrooke (Miscel- 
laneous Essays, i. 436 ff.), Schroeder (Pythagoras unddie Inder), Garbe (Philo- 
sophy of Ancient India, pp. 39 ff.), Hopkins (Religions of India, pp. 559 and 
560), and Macdonell (Sanskrit Literature, p. 422). Professor A. Berriedale 
Keith is needlessly critical of this view. See his article on 'Pythagoras and the 
Doctrine of Transmigration', J.R~d.S., 1909, pp. 569 ff. 
1 Greek Thinkers, vol. i, p. 127. 



144 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

hearken to Anytus, but we release you on this condition, that you 
no longer abide in this inquiry or practise philosophy and if you are 
caught still doing this, you will be put to death", if then you would 
release me on these conditions, I should say to you, "You have my 
thanks and affection, men of Athens, but I will obey the God rather 
than you and, while I have breath and power, I will not desist from 
practising philosophy." ' J 

He perhaps accepted the Orphic view that the soul is im- 
mortal and that happiness means the achieving of immortality 
by renunciation of the world, and that all men are brothers 
whatever their conditions be. 

The mystic tradition finds its full expression in Plato 
(427-347 B.C.). Plato does not adopt the Greek view of 
rationality. For him truth cannot always be proved. Some- 
times it can only be suggested and grasped by the mind in 
a wordless dialectic. It appeals to the whole nature of man 
and not simply to the intellect. Plato speaks of the poet as 
'a light and winged and holy thing, one whom God possesses 
and uses as his mouthpiece'. 2 He finds the empiricist view 
that Forms are present in sensible things and our knowledge 
of them is conveyed through the senses unsatisfying. The 
world of intelligible forms is separate from the things our 
senses perceive, and it is the rational soul that has a know- 
ledge of them. The Forms must always be what they are. 
The many things that we perceive are perpetually changing. 
There are two orders of reality: the unperceived, exempt 
from all change, and the perceived, which change perpetually. 
The soul is unperceived, simple, indissoluble, immortal; the 
body is complex, dissoluble, mortal. When the soul is mixed 
up with the senses, it is lost in the world of change; when 
it withdraws from the senses, it escapes into that other region 
of pure, eternal, unchanging being. Plato speaks of the 
supersensual vision of the philosophers : 

4 We beheld the beatific vision and were initiated into a mystery 
which may be truly called most blessed, celebrated by us in our state 
of innocence, before we had any experience of evils to come, when 
we were admitted to the sight of apparitions innocent and simple and 
calm and happy which we beheld shining in pure light; pure ourselves, 

1 Plato's Apology* 29 c. 

2 Ion, p. 534. 



GREECE 145 

and not yet enshrined in that living tomb which we carry about, now 
that we are imprisoned in the body like an oyster in his shell.' 1 

Plato gives in the Phaedo an account of the life eternal : 

'When the soul returns into itself and reflects, it passes into another 
region, the region of that which is pure and everlasting, immortal and 
unchangeable; and feeling itself kindred thereto, it dwells there under 
its own control and has rest from its wanderings, and is constant and 
one with itself as are the objects with which it deals.' 

The truth of things is always in our soul, which is immortal 
and has been many times reborn. It can recover the memory 
of what it has formerly known, and in the Phaedo this fact 
of recollection is accepted as the proof for pre-existence. 
The soul not only has pre-existed but is indestructible. 
Whatever is composed or put together out of parts is liable 
to destruction. The incomposite suffers no kind of change. 

The soul is for ever travelling through a cycle of necessity 
where it gets a life agreeable to its desire. Some of the souls 
go to prisons under the earth, others to heaven, *to a life 
suited to the life which they lived while they were in the 
form of man'. In the famous apologue of Er the Pamphylian 
with which Plato ends the RepubliCj disembodied souls are 
represented as choosing their next incarnation at the hands 
of 'Lachesis, daughter of necessity', which is the law of 
Karma personified. The human soul is purified through a 
series of incarnations from which it finally escapes when 
completely purified. The theory has nothing in common 
with the popular belief of the nature of the soul as a flimsy 
double of the body, an unsubstantial shadow which is dis- 
sipated when detached from the body. Plato refers his view 
of pre-existence and rebirth to a 'sacred story'. 2 'I have heard 
something from men and women who were wise in sacred 
lore.'3 

The dominating thought in Plato is that the ordinary man 
is not truly awake but is walking about like a somnambulist 
in pursuit of phantoms. 4 So long as we are subject to pas- 
sions, dreams are taken for reality. When the truth is 
realized, the shadows of the night pass away and in the dawn 

1 Phaedrus, 250 b, c, Jowett's E.T, 2 lox, p. 534. 

3 Phaedo, 70 c. 4 Meno, 80 e. 



146 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

of another sun we see no longer in signs and symbols enig- 
matically, but face to face as the gods see and know. The 
simile of the cave reminds us of the Hindu doctrine of may a y 
or appearance. Plato compares the human race to men 
sitting in a cave, bound, with their backs to the light and 
fancying that the shadows on the wall before them are not 
shadows but real objects. We live in the darkness of the 
cave and require to be led out of it into the sunlight. Again, 
to the ordinary Greek the body counted for a good deal. To 
Plato it is a fetter to which we are chained. 1 Our affections 
must be fixed on a future world in which we will be freed 
from the body. *If we would have pure knowledge of any- 
thing, we must be quit of the body the soul in herself must 
behold things in themselves: and then we shall attain the 
wisdom which we desire and of which we say that we are 
lovers : not while we live but after death.' 2 The senses belong 
to the flesh. When the spirit withdraws from the flesh to 
think by itself untroubled by the senses, it lays hold upon 
unseen reality. The pursuit of wisdom is a 'loosing and 
separation of the spirit from the body'. 3 We have here the 
possibility of a complete detachment of the thinking self 
from the body and its senses and passions, and it implies as 
a consequence the separate existence of the Forms. Such is 
the view to be found in the earlier Dialogues. They assert 
that the Forms have an existence separate from things even 
as the spirit has an existence separate from the body. 

*Evil, Theodorus, can never pass away: for there must always 
remain something which is antagonistic to good. It has no place in 
heaven, so of necessity it haunts the mortal nature and this earthly 
sphere. Therefore we ought to escape from earth to heaven as quickly 
as we can: and to escape is to become like God, as far as possible; and 
to become like him is to become holy, just and wise. . . . God is never 
in any way unrighteous he is perfect righteousness and those of us 
who are most righteous are most like him.' 4 

The doctrine that the body is an encumbrance, the source 

1 Phaedo, 65-7. 

2 Ibid. 66. Plato attributes the view that the body is a prison or a tomb to 
the Orphics (Craty/us, 400 c). 

3 Ibid. 6yd. 

4 Theaetetus, 176. 



GREECE 147 

of evil from which the soul must long to be purified, per- 
meates the Phaedo. 

It is obvious that here we have a note which is funda- 
mentally opposed to the essentially Greek spirit that learned 
to delight in all that pleased the senses and satisfied the 
emotions, that looked upon this world not as a passage to 
the next but as something which was in itself good and 
lovely, that life must be lived beautifully as well as worthily, 
with the strenuous exercise of all the powers of body, mind, 
and spirit. The sharp separation of the world of the senses 
from the world of the Ideas should naturally result in a lack 
of interest in the sensible world and a concentration on the 
higher, but this consequence is opposed to the natural long- 
ing of the Greek to take part in practical affairs. While the 
Orphic and the Pythagorean teaching set the feet of Plato 
on the upward path from the cave into the sunlight, his 
Greek humanism sternly bade him return and help his fellow 
prisoners still fettered in the darkness of the cave. 

We have in Plato, as in the Upanisads, the highest God, 
the Idea of the Good in the Republic, the Demiurgus and 
the Soul of the World in the Timaeus. 1 Towards the end 
of the sixth book of the Republic Plato describes the en- 
deavour of philosophy to ascend to the first principle of the 
universe which transcends all definite existence. The three 
qualities of satfva, rajas, and tamas have for their equivalents 
in Plato Logistikon, Thumos, and Epithumia. Epithumia, 
like tamas, represents blind desire with its character of ignor- 
ance; Thumos is, like rajas, the element of passion and 
power, standing midway between ignorance and knowledge. 
The Logistikon, or the rational element, answers to the 
sattva quality, which harmonizes the soul and illumines it. 
The division of souls into classes based on the preponderance 
of these psychical elements answers to the divisions of the 
Indian caste system. 

In Book III of the Republic Plato criticizes the popular 
religion as embodied in Homer's poetry, and in Book X he 
contrasts Homer with Pythagoras, Besides the defects of 
his moral teaching, he (Homer) has none of the marks of the 

1 The Neoplatonic Trinity is traced by Porphyry to Plato. See Thomas 
Whittaker, The NcQ-Platonists, 2nd ed. (1918), p. 36; see also Ennead^ v. i. 8. 



148 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

freat teacher. He had no followers; he founded no school; 
e inspired no disciples; he gave no valid rule of life. The 
religion of Pythagoras was based on the Orphic teaching 
with its austere asceticism, its voluntary poverty and com- 
munity of goods, its belief in rebirth and respect for animal 
life. Aristotle suggests that Plato follows closely the teaching 
of the Pythagoreans. He took up Orphic and Pythagorean 
views and wove them into the texture of his philosophy. 

The essential unity of the human and the divine spirit, 
the immortality of the human soul, the escape from the rest- 
less wheel of the troublesome journey, the phenomenality 
of the world, the contempt for the body, the distinction 
between knowledge and opinion contradict every single idea 
of Greek popular religion. 1 They are eccentrics in the sphere 
of Greek thought. 

Empedocles accepts as indefeasible facts the divine nature 
of the soul and the doctrine of the soul's fall from its original 
divine condition into the corporeal state in which it must 
expiate its guilt by a long pilgrimage through the bodies of 
men, animals, and plants. Asceticism is for him one of the 
most effective means of delivering the soul from the world 
of sense. 'Whoever exerteth himself, with toil, him can we 
release.' The soul at length returns to its divine status and 

1 The contrast between the Greek spirit and Plato's thought is pointed out 
by Rohde: 'The real first principle of the religion of the Greek people is this 
that in the divine ordering of the world, humanity and divinity are absolutely 
divided in place and nature, so they must ever remain. A deep gulf is fixed be- 
tween the worlds of mortality and divinity Poetic fancies about the "Trans- 
lation" of individual mortals to an unending life enjoyed by the soul still united 
to the body might make their appeal to popukr belief; but such things re- 
mained miracles in which divine omnipotence had broken down the barriers 
of the natural order on a special occasion. It was but a miracle too, if the souls 
of certain mortals were raised to the rank of Heroes, and so promoted to ever- 
lasting life. The gulf between the human and the divine is not made any 
narrower on that account; it remained un bridged, abysmal. . . . Nevertheless, 
at a certain period in Greek history, and nowhere earlier or more unmistakably 
than in Greece, appeared the idea of the divinity, and the immortality implicit 
in the divinity, of the human soul. That idea belonged entirely to mysticism* 
(Psyche, E.T. (1925), pp. 253-4). Sir Richard Livingstone writes that 
'Plato is the most eminent representative of the heretics'. 'He is the prophet in 
literature of the Orphic worship, which coming from Thrace in the sixth cen- 
tury, spoke of immortality and rebirth, of intimate union with God, of heaven 
for the initiate and mud pools for the sinner, preaching asceticism and purity 



GREECE 149 

the wise men who practise such holy living eventually be- 
come gods while yet on earth. 1 

The divine origin of the soul, its pre-existence, its fall 
into corporeality, its judgement after death, its expiatory 
wanderings through the bodies of animals or men according 
to its character, its final redemption from the cycle of rebirth 
and its return to God, are common to the mystery cults and 
Plato and Empedocles. This tradition is something which 
Hellenic thought, untouched by alien speculation, was per- 
haps not very likely to have developed, and we have it in 
a striking form in Indian religion. 

.To the student of cultural development it is indifferent 
whether similarities are due to borrowing or are the result 
of parallel intellectual evolution ; the important thing is that 
the ideas are similar. They were firmly established in India 
before the sixth century B.C., and they arise in Greece after 
that period. History does not repeat itself except with varia- 
tions. It is idle to look for exact parallels, but we can trace 
a resemblance between the two systems, the Indian and the 
Greek. There are some who regard it as derogatory to 
the Greeks to send them to school to older cultures and 
assume them to have taken thence some of the sources of 
their knowledge and belief. But people of their acute intel- 
lectual vigour, inquisitiveness, and flexible mind cannot help 
being influenced by foreigners with whom they come into 
frequent and intimate contact as soldiers and merchants, as 
adventurers, seamen, and warlike settlers. When native 
traditions fail to satisfy increasing curiosity and thirst for 
knowledge, foreign sources are drawn on more freely. To 
be a Greek is not to be impervious to every other form of 
thought. 

The spirit of bigotry increased in the West only after 
Christianity became organized by the Catholic Church. Till 

as a road to the former, and somewhat after the fashion of the Egyptian Book 
of the Dead, giving its votaries elaborate instructions for their behaviour when 
they found themselves in the lower world* (Greek Genius and its Meaning to Us, 
pp. 197-8). 'The mind of Plato was heavily charged with Orphic mysticism 
mainly derived from Asiatic sources. India, always the home of mystical 
devotion, probably contributed the major share' (Stutfield, Mysticism and 
Catholicism (1925), p. 74). 
1 Fr. 146, 



ijo INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

then the new ideas and worships did not suggest foreign 
domination or alarm national pride and jealousy. They were 
freely adopted when old forms were felt to be unsatisfying. 
The Hindus, on the other hand, have been in all ages pre- 
occupied by religious questions and were, in their vigorous 
days, interested in the spread of their ideas. The establish- 
ment of Hinduism in Java and Indo-China and the spread 
of Buddhism in large parts of Asia indicate that in wide 
tracts and long periods the Indians have been culturally 
enterprising. Up to a point it is a sound principle not to 
admit that resemblances prove indebtedness unless we can 
show the exact way in which intercommunication between 
two cultures took place, but the possibility that all records 
of such contacts may disappear cannot be ignored. We have 
little evidence to show how and when the Hindu coloniza- 
tion of Java took place. We are not completely in the dark 
on the question of Indian influence on Greece. Speaking 
of ascetic practices in the West, Professor Sir Flinders Petrie 
observes : 

'The presence of a large body of Indian troops in the Persian army 
in Greece in 480 B.C. shows how for West the Indian connections were 
carried; and the discovery of modelled heads of Indians at Memphis, 
of about the fifth century B.C., shows that Indians were living there 
for trade. Hence there is no difficulty in regarding India as the source 
of the entirely new ideal of asceticism in the West.' 1 

Ascetic practices developed in the tradition represented by 
the schools associated with the mystery cults, Pythagoras, 
and Plato, and in it we may suspect the influence of India 
directly or indirectly through Persia. 

Dr. Inge observes that the Platonic or the mystical out- 
look on life for which religion is at once a philosophy and 
a discipline 'was first felt in Asia 1 , especially in the Upani- 
sads and Buddhism. 

This mystical faith appears in Greek lands as Orphism and 
Pythagoreanism. In Europe as in Asia it was associated with ideas of 
the transmigration of souls and a universal law of periodical recurrence. 
But it is in Plato, the disciple of the Pythagoreans as well as of Socrates, 
who was probably himself the head of a Pythagorean group at Athens, 

1 Egypt and Israel ( 1 92 3), p. 1 34. 



GREECE 151 

that this conception of an unseen eternal world of which the visible 
world is only a pale copy, gains a permanent foothold in the West.' 1 

Professor E. R. Dodds insists on the 'Oriental background 
against which Greek culture arose, and from which it was 
never completely isolated save in the minds of classical 
scholars'. 2 

The importance of Indian influence on Greek thought is 
not to be judged by the amount of information about it which 
has survived. Eusebius (A.D. 315) preserves a tradition 
which he attributes to Aristoxenus, the pupil of Aristotle, 
and a well-known writer on harmonics, that certain learned 
Indians actually visited Athens and conversed with Socrates. 

'Aristoxenus the musician tells the following story about the 
Indians. One of these men met Socrates at Athens, and asked him 
what was the scope of his philosophy. "An inquiry into human 
phenomena,'* replied Socrates. At this the Indian burst out laughing. 
"How can we inquire into human phenomena," he exclaimed, "when 
we are ignorant of divine ones?"' 3 

The date of Aristoxenus is 330 B.C. If Eusebius is to be 
trusted, we have contemporary evidence of the presence in 
Athens as early as the fourth century B.C. of Indian thinkers. 
The visit of the Indian to Athens is also mentioned in the 
fragment of Aristotle 4 preserved in Diogenes Laertius. 5 
Even if these stories are apocryphal, they are legendary 
formulations of the view of the influence of Indian thought 
generally accepted in the later Academy. At any rate, while 
the popular religion of the Greeks is united to the Vedic 
beliefs, the mystic tradition of the Orphic and the Eleusinian 
cults, Pythagoras and Plato, which has had a great develop- 
ment in Greek and Christian thought, started with certain 
fundamental principles which are common to Indian and 

1 The Platonic Tradition in English Religious Thought (1926), pp. 7 and 9. 

2 Humanism ana" Technique in Greek Studies (1936), p. 1 1. 

3 Praeparatio Evangelica, xi. 3. 

4 32. 'We find in the fragments of Aristotle's lost dialogues, which were 
mostly written during his earlier period, a surprising interest in certain features 
of Oriental religion* (Werner Jaeger, 'Greeks and Jews', Journal of Religion, 
April 1938, p. 128). 

5 ii. 45. Eudoxus, the astronomer and friend of Plato, was greatly inter- 
ested in Indian thought. See Pliny, Natural History, xxx. 3. 



152 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

Greek mysticism. It gave rise in Christianity to the con- 
sciousness of sin and the need of redemption, rewards and 
punishments after death, the latter both purgatorial and 
punitive, initiation by sacraments as a passport to a happy 
life hereafter, the necessity for moral as well as ceremonial 
purity. Alien in origin, alien to the spirit of Hellenism, 
predominantly Indian in character and content, walking in 
the shadow without support from the State, the Orphic, the 
Eleusinian, the Pythagorean brotherhoods, and Platonic 
schools prepared the way for the later Platonism and for 
certain elements in Catholic theology. 1 

1 Cf. Mayer: 'Egyptian, Persian, and Indian cultural influences were ab- 
sorbed into the Greek world from very early times' (Political Thought (1939), 
p. 7). As for the influence of Greece on India, it has not been on the deeper 
levels of life. In the sphere of art the Greek influence was considerable. 
Perhaps the idea of representing the founder of Buddhism as a man originated 
with them. Tarn says: 'Considered broadly, what the Asiatic took from the 
Greek was usually externals only, matters of form; he rarely took substance 
civic institutions may be an exception and never spirit. For in matters of 
the spirit Asia was quite confident that she could outstay the Greeks; and she 
did* (The Greeks in Bactria and India (1938), p. 67). Again: 'Indian civilisa- 
tion was strong enough to hold its own against Greek civilisation, but except 
in the religious sphere, was seemingly not strong enough to influence it as 
Babylonia did; nevertheless we may find reason for thinking that in certain 
respects India was the dominant partner' (ibid., pp. 375-6). 'Except for 
the Buddha-statue the history of India would in all essentials have been pre- 
cisely what it has been, had Greeks never existed' (ibid., p. 376). 



V 

INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT: 
CHRISTENDOM I 



ALEXANDER'S invasion of India in 327 B.C. starts a 
^/^ closer interchange of thought between India and the 
West. Buddhism must have been prevalent in India for over 
a century before Alexander's time, and he made an effort to 
acquaint himself with Hindu and Buddhist thought. He 
sent a Greek officer named Onesicritus, a disciple of Dio- 
genes the cynic philosopher, 1 to Taxila, the famous seat of 
learning, and the latter succeeded in getting an ascetic called 
Kalanos to join Alexander's entourage. In the feast at Susa 
which he celebrated on his return from India his great dream 
of the marriage of Europe and Asia took practical shape. 
He had already married Roxana, a princess from Bactria, 
and now he took as a second consort Statira, the daughter 
of Darius. Nearly a hundred of his superior officers and ten 
thousand of his humbler followers followed the emperor's 
example and took Asiatic brides. 

Pyrrho is said to have taken part in Alexander's expedi- 
tion to India and acquired a knowledge of Indian thought. 
In the New Academy we find a blend of the two schools of 
Plato and Pyrrho and a leaning to negative conclusions. The 
highest condition of the soul is declared to be impertur- 
bability. The joyousness of the Greek gives place to inde- 
pendence of external circumstances. The religion of the 
Epicureans, the contemplation of the nature of the gods with 
a mind at rest, that of the Stoics, who identified God with the 
living universe, with its reason, and looked upon man as 
having in him a particle of the divine reason, are in the same 
line or development. They are both parts of the new world 
which Alexander had made, produced by the feeling that 
a man was no longer merely a part of his city-State. Man, 
with Alexander, ceases to be a fraction of the polis or the 
city-State. He is an individual bound by relations to the 
1 Strabo, xv, c. 715. 



154 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

other individuals of the world. Zeus and Athena had been 
good protectors of the citizens living side by side in a small 
area, but when this little world grew up into the Oikournene, 
the inhabited world as known, they could not serve. It was 
one of the great moments of history when Alexander, at the 
famous banquet, prayed for a union of hearts (homonoia) 
and a joint commonwealth of Macedonians and Persians. 
He envisaged a brotherhood of man in which there should 
be neither Greek nor barbarian, though his outlook was 
more political than spiritual. 1 Zeno responded with alacrity 
to the appeal of Alexander and in his Republic set forth the 
vision of a world which should no longer be separate 
States but one great city under one divine law, where all 
were citizens and members one of another, bound together 
not by human laws but by their own voluntary adhesion or 
by love, as he called it. 2 This great hope has never quite 
left us, though we seem to be as far away from it as in the 
third century B.C. The Stoic universe is one great city ruled 
by one supreme power envisaged under many aspects and 
names, Nature, Law, Destiny, Providence, Zeus. Every- 
thing was ^a derivative of God and so was God. Human 
minds were sparks of the divine fire, though human body 
was clay. Wealth and poverty, sickness and health are 
matters of indifference. The wise man would not worry 
about such things but attend to the things of the soul. In 
the realm of spirit men could be equal, whatever their earthly 
status may be. Both the Stoics and the Epicureans laid full 
stress on philosophy as a way of life and desired the avoid- 
ance of passions and emotions, which bring the unhappiness 
of unsatisfied desire. Already in the third century B.C. 
Cleanthes, who succeeded Zeno, identified the traditional 
deity Zeus with the world god of Stoicism. 3 The anthropo- 

1 See further, pp. 386-7. 2 Cf. Marcus Aurelius (iv. 23): *A famous 
one says Dear City of Cecrops and wilt not thou say Dear City of Zeus?' 
3 Most glorious of immortals, Zeus all powerful, 
Author of Nature, named by many names, all hail. 
Thy law rules all; and the voice of the world may cry to thee 
For from thee we are born, and alone of living things 
That move on earth are we created in God's image. 

The hymn closes with an apostrophe to 'omnipresent law'. (The Oxford Book 
of Greek Verse in Translation (193$), pp. 533 and 535.) 



CHRISTENDOM I 155 

morphic tendency diminishes and Jupiter becomes, not one 
'Who hurls the thunderbolts with his own hands', but *the 
ruler and guardian of the universe, the mind and spirit of 
the world* (Seneca). 1 The highest life of man is to live in 
accordance with the reason which is implanted in him as 
a part and pattern of the divine reason of the universe. The 
soul of the individual is not immortal, for it must perish at 
the general conflagration which is to destroy this sensible 
world. The fiery element in it will be taken over into the 
great central fire. The souls retain their individuality until 
the cycle of time is completed. Marcus Aurelius says: 'You 
exist as a part of the whole, you will vanish into that which 
gave you birth or rather you will be taken up by a change 
into its generative reason.' The Stoics did not reject the 
gods of the people ; they were treated as parts of the world 
order, 'veils mercifully granted to the common man to spare 
his eyes the too dazzling nakedness of truth'. 2 We can know 
God by the practice of introversion. The works of Alexander's 
companions, Diognetus, Aristobulus, Nearchus, and others, 
have not come down to us. 

Alexander left behind him Greek colonists and soldiers, 3 
and in the north-west frontiers for some centuries Greek 
or semi-Greek principalities continued. In the political un- 
settlement after Alexander's invasion Chandragupta came 
to power, overthrew the Macedonian supremacy, and 
gradually conquered the whole of Hindustan. The Greek 
prince Seleucus Nikator (third century B.C.) gave one of his 
daughters in marriage to the Indian sovereign and sent an 
ambassador to his court at Pataliputra (Patna), Megasthenes, 
who gives the West an interesting account of the social and 
cultural conditions of India during his time. 'In many 
points', he says, 'their teaching agrees with that of the 
Greeks.' 3 Megasthenes was succeeded by Daimachus of 
Plataea, who went on a series of missions from Antiochus I 
to BindusSra, the son of Chandragupta. Pliny tells us of 
a certain Dionysius who was sent to India from Alexandria 
by Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-247 B.C.).-* ASoka, who 

1 Cyril Bailey, Phases in the Religion of Ancient Rome (1932), p. 233. 

2 Tarn, Hellenistic Civilisation, 2nd cd. (1930), pp. 304-5. 

3 Cambridge History of India* vol. 1(1922), pp. 419-20. 4 Nat. Hist. vi. 21. 



156 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

ascended the throne of Magadha in 270 B.C., held a Council 
at Pataliputra, when it was resolved to send missionaries to 
proclaim the new teaching throughout the world. In accor- 
dance with this decision ASoka sent Buddhistic missions to 
the sovereigns of the West, Antiochus Theos of Syria, 
Ptolemy Philadelphus of Egypt, Antigonos Gonatas of 
Macedonia, Magas of Cyrene, and Alexander of Epirus. 1 
From Aoka's statements it may be inferred that his missions 
were favourably received in these five countries. Between 
1 90 and 1 80 B.C. Demetrius extended the Bactrian Kingdom 
into India and conquered Sind and Kathiawar. The Greeks 
who settled in India gradually became Indianized, Of the 
monuments which survive of the Indo-Greek dynasties is 
a pillar discovered at Besnagar in the extreme south of the 
Gwalior State (140 B.C.). The inscription on it in Brahmi 
characters says : 'This garuda column of Vasudeva [Visnu] 
was erected here by Heliodorus, son of Dion, a wor- 
shipper of Visnu and an inhabitant of Taxila, who came as a 
Greek ambassador from the great King Antialcidas to King 
Ka!putra Bhagabhadra, the saviour, then reigning pros- 
perously in the fourteenth year of his kingship/ 2 By the time 
of these inscriptions the Greeks born in India became com- 
pletely Indianized. The greatest of the Indo-Greek kings 
was Menander, who was converted to Buddhism by the 
Buddhist teacher Nagasena (180-160 B.C.). His conversion 
is recorded in the famous work Milindapaftha.* About the 
year 160 B.C. the Scythians, driven from their ancestral 
homes in central Asia, swept down over the Jaxartes and the 
Oxus, subdued Kabul and the Panjab, and extended their con- 
quests to and established themselves in the valley of the 
Ganges. With the conversion of one of their most powerful 
monarchs, Kaniska (first century A.D.), Buddhism entered 
on a second period of glory and enterprise. Alexander Poly- 
histor of Asia Minor, according to Cyril of Alexandria, knew 
a good deal about Buddhism. Clement of Alexandria quotes 
the work of Polyhistor. 4 According to the MaAavamSa, at 

1 Thirteenth Rock Edict. * See further, p. 386. 

3 Que stints of Milinda, vol. xxv, Sacred Books of the East. See, however, 
Tarn, The Greeks in Bactria and India (1938), pp. 268-9. See further p. 386. 

4 Stromata, iii. 7. He mentions an Indian order which includes both men 



CHRISTENDOM I 157 

the foundation of the great tope by the king Dutthagamini 
in the year 157 B.C. 'the senior priest of Yona from the 
vicinity of Alasadda [Alexandria] the capital of the Yona 
country attended accompanied by thirty thousand priests'. 
The number is, of course, an exaggeration. Strabo states 
on the authority of Nicolaus of Damascus that an Indian 
embassy including a thinker who burnt himself to death at 
Athens in 20 B.C. was sent to Augustus by the Indian king 
Poros. 1 

During all this period India and the West had exten^fre 
trade relations. When Alexander chose in Egypt the site 
for a city which was destined to perpetuate his name, the 
preparation for the blending of Eastern and Western cul- 
tures started. For a thousand years Alexandria continued to 
be a centre of intellectual and commercial activity because 
it was the meeting-place of Jews, Syrians, and Greeks. 
Milindapanha mentions it as one of the places to which the 
Indians regularly resorted. 

ii 

The facts of religious origin and growth are most im- 
portant though most uncertain, and one's views can be stated 
only with great reserve. Most probably Indian religious 
ideas and legends were well known in the circles in which 
the accounts of the Gospels originated. The Jewish religion 
can only be properly understood if its vast background is 
taken into account, if the non-Semitic influences on Palestine 
and Syria are considered. Indian or Indo-Iranian groups 
who worshipped the Vedic deities, Mitra, Varuna, Indra, 
and others, were found in and to the north of Syria in the 

and women, who lived in celibacy, devoted themselves to truth, and wor- 
shipped pyramids (stiipa) which contained the bones of their god. The mass 
of people worshipped Herakles and Pan. The Brahmins abstained from 
animal food and wine. 

1 Invasion of India by Alexander the Great, by M'Crindle (1893), p. 389; 
Strabo, xv. 1.73; see also Dion Cass. liv. 9. Plutarch refers to the self-immo- 
lation in Fit. Alex. 69. According to Plutarch, *the Tomb of the Indian* is one 
of the sights shown to strangers at Athens. Lightfoot considers that this hero 
was alluded to by Paul in i Corinthians xiii. 3: *If I give my body to be 
burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing 1 (St. Paul's Epistles to the 
Colossians and to Philemon (1875), p. 156 n.). Cassius Dio (liv. 9. 10) com- 
ments on this self-immolation. 



158 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

middle of the second millennium B.C. These gods of the Rg 
Veda were known to the Hurrians of Mittani and the Hit- 
tites of Anatolia. Professor S. A. Cook writes : 

'In what may roughly be called the "Mosaic" age, viz, that illustrated 
by the Amarna letters and the "Hittite" tablets from Boghaz-Keui, 
Palestine was exposed to Iranian (Old Persian) or Indo-European 
influence. This was centuries before the days when it was part of the 
Persian Empire. ... In the Mosaic Age, Varuna, the remarkable 
ethical God of ancient India, was known to North Syria, and round 
about the time of the second Isaiah, the Zoroastrian Ahura-Mazda, 
doubtless known to the Israelites, was a deity even more spiritual.' 1 

Any interpretation of the Jewish religion which ignores the 
total environment in which it grew up would be dangerously 
narrow. Two centuries before the Christian era Buddhism 
closed in on Palestine. 2 The Essenes, the Mandeans, 3 and 
the Nazarene sects are filled with its spirit. Philo, writing 
somewhere about A.D. 20, and Josephus fifty years later 
relate that the Essenes, though Jews by birth, abjured 
marriage and practised a form of communism in the matter 
of worldly goods. They abstained from temple worship, as 
they objected to animal sacrifices. They were strict vege- 
tarians and they drank no wine. 4 They refrained from trade, 
owned no slaves, and, according to Philo, there were not 
among them any makers of warlike weapons. While they 

1 The Truth of the Bible (1938), p. 24. 

2 Buddhism and Christianity in later years happen to be confused with each 
other. Manichaeism is a syncretism of Buddhist, Zoroastrian, and Christian 
views. Mohammad mixes up the legends of Christ and Buddha. The Bud- 
dhist-Christian romance of Baarlam and Joasaph spread from the West from 
the sixth century onwards until at last in the sixteenth century Buddha was 
canonized as a Catholic saint. The name Joasaph is derived from Bodhi- 
sattva, the technical name for one destined to attain the dignity of a Buddha. 
See Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, Baralam and Tewasef, being the Ethiopian version 
of a Christianised Rescension of the Buddha and the Bodhisattva, 1923. In tie 
eighth century there was an imperial edict in China forbidding the mixture of 
the two religions. See Takakusu, I-Tsing (1896), p. 224. 

3 The Mandeans flourished in Maiian, which was the gate of entry for 
Indian trade and commerce with Mesopotamia. Indian tribes colonized 
MaiSan, whose port had an Indian temple. Mandean gnosis is full of Indian 
ideas. 

4 'In the asceticism of the Essene we seem to see the germ of that Gnostic 
dualism which regards matter as the principle, or at least the abode of evil 9 
(Lightfoot, St. Paul's Epistle* to the Colossians and to Philemon (1875), p. 87). 



CHRISTENDOM I 159 

shared in common with other Jews respect for Moses and 
the Mosaic Law, they adopted the worship of the Sun, 
probably as a symbol of the unseen power who gives light 
and life. They did not believe in the resurrection of the 
body, but held the view that the soul, now confined in the 
flesh as in a prison-house, would attain true freedom and 
immortality when disengaged from these fetters. They ac- 
cepted the doctrine of the pre-existence of the soul. They 
also believed in intermediate beings between God and the 
world, in angels, and were interested in magical arts and 
occult sciences. They had their mysteries, which they looked 
upon as the exclusive possession of the privileged few. They 
held that by mental discipline and concentration we can heal 
the fissure in our minds. Admission into the sect was both 
long and difficult, with its careful rites of initiation and 
solemn oaths by which the members were bound to one 
another. The Essenes were famous for their powers of 
endurance, simple piety, and brotherly love. 1 

John the Baptist was an Essene. His time of preparation 
was spent in the wilderness near the Dead Sea. He preached 
the Essene tenets of righteousness towards God and mercy 
towards fellow men. His insistence on baptism was in accord 
with the practice of the Essenes. Jesus was influenced 

1 Josephus suggests that the Essenes 'practise the mode of life which among 
the Greeks was introduced by Pythagoras' (Ant. xv. 10. 4). Lightfoot 
criticizes this view, which is supported by Zeller, and holds that the foreign 
element of Essenism is to be sought in the East, to which also Pythagoreanism 
may have been indebted. 'The fact that in the legendary accounts, Pytha- 
goras is represented as taking lessons from the Chaldeans, Persians, Brahmins 
and others may be taken as an evidence that their own philosophy at all events 
was partially derived from Eastern sources' (St. Paul's Epistles to the Colossians 
and to Philemon (1875), p. 148). He finds broad resemblances between 
Essenism and the religion of Zoroaster in the matter of dualism, Sun-worship, 
angeloktry, magic, and striving after purity, Hilgenfeld and Renan suggest 
Buddhist influence. 'The doctrines of the remoter East had found a welcome 
reception with the Essene' (Milman, The History of Christianity (1867), 
vol. ii, p. 41). 

According to Dr. Moffatt, 'Buddhistic tendencies helped to shape some of 
the Essenic characteristics' (Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. v, 
p. 401). It is claimed that the Book of Enoch states the Essene views. We 
have in it a complete cosmogony with references to the mundane egg, angels 
and their connexion with heavenly bodies, the rebellion of Satan and his host 
against God, and the fall of the watchers set over the earth. 



160 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

greatly by the tenets of the Essenes. Before His appearance 
in Galilee Jesus worked as a disciple of John, and He prac- 
tised baptism. He looked upon John as His master and fore- 
runner, as the greatest among those born of women. Both 
preached salvation by the forgiveness of sins. Jesus' emphasis 
on non-resistance to evil may be due to the Essenes. 

The Book of Enoch is a remarkable Hebrew work, written 
several years before the Christian era, full of non-Jewish 
speculations. 1 Some of the central features of Jesus' con- 
sciousness and teaching may be traced to it. Enoch, the 
saint of antiquity mentioned in Genesis, 2 preaches the 
coming world judgement, and proclaims 'the Son of Man* 
who was to appear in order to rule with the righteous as their 
head in the time of the new age. The four titles attributed 
to Jesus in the New Testament the Christ, 3 the Righteous 
One, 4 the Elect One, 5 and the Son of Man 6 are all to be 
found in the Book of Enoch. Enoch speaks with great con- 
viction and authority: 'Up to the present time there has 
never been bestowed by the Lord of Spirits such wisdom 
as I with my insight have received according to the good 
pleasure of the Lord of Spirits.' He exalts the conception 
of the Son of Man 'who has righteousness, with whom 
righteousness dwells and who reveals all the treasures of 
what is hidden'. Professor Otto is emphatic that this idea 
of a Son of God who was also a Son of Man is 'certainly 
not from Israel. . . . The figure of a being who had to do 
with the world, and who was subordinate to the primary, 
ineffable, remote, and aboriginal deity is of high antiquity 
among the Aryans. ... It may be regarded as indubitable 
that the phrase "this Son of Man" points back in some way 
to influences of the Aryan East.' 7 The Son of Man is also 
'the Elect One in whom dwells the spirit of those who have 

1 Dr. Charles thinks that the book was composed about 80 B.C. 'It was 
completed at the latest about the middle of the last century before Christ' (R. 
Otto, The Kingdom of God and the Son of Man (lyifi), p. 177). Otto finds in 
it 'speculations (which clearly betray their origin in an Iranian and Chaldean 
source) about the world and the angels and visions of the supernatural world 
and its mysteries' (p. 176). In the subsequent pages this indebtedness is 
worked out. 

2 v. 2$ 3 xlviii. 10. 4 xxxviiL 2. 

5 xl. 5. 6 xlviii. 4. 7 Otto, op. cit., p. 187. 



CHRISTENDOM I 161 

fallen asleep in righteousness 1 . 1 When they rise up into all 
eternity, they will be clothed with the garment of glory; 
'your garments will not grow old and your glory will not 
pass away'. 2 The metaphor of garments recurs in Paul's 
eschatology and reminds us of the radiant body made of the 
element of the pure (iuddhasatfua) of the Hindu mythology. 
'The Elect One will sit upon my Throne.' 3 He is the 
anointed one. 4 The Messianic idea of the Jews asserts itself 
here. The political fortunes of Israel and Jerusalem and the 
return of the scattered tribes are mixed up with the tran- 
scendent world catastrophe. 

Enoch himself is proclaimed the Son of Man. 'He was 
taken up on chariots of the Spirit', 5 where he sees 'the patri- 
archs and the righteous, who have dwelt in that place from 
time immemorial'. 6 'Thereafter my spirit was hidden and 
it ascended into heaven', where he sees angels clothed with 
the garments of glory. 7 He himself is transformed into an 
angel : 'And the Lord said unto Michael : Take Enoch and 
remove his earthly garments and anoint him with good oil 
and clothe him in glorious garments. I looked upon myself 
and I was like one of the glorious ones.' Michael leads 
Enoch by the hand and shows him 'all secrets of mercy and 
righteousness'. Thereupon 'the spirit transported Enoch to 
the heaven of heavens', 8 where he saw 'the Aged One [God 
Himself]. His head was white and pure as wool and his 

1 'Few could think that anything of the kind could enter the mind of an 
Israelite. But on Aryan soil the conception that the soul after death enters 
into its itadevata goes far back into Vedic times' (p. 1 89). * Ixii. 14. 

3 li. 3. Jesus says the same of Himself. See Luke xxii. 29. 

* Xlv. 3, 4. 5 llZ. 2 ff. 

6 Cf. the Hindu conception of the pitfloka or the world of manes. 

7 "Their garments were white and their clothing and countenance bright 
as snow/ Cf. with this the Hindu conception otJevaloka. 

8 R. Otto asks: *Whence came these ideas, of which neither the prophets 
nor the Old Testament as a whole had the slightest notion?' and answers: 
Tar off in the Indo-Aryan East, we find the dearest analogy to the process 
here described of spiritual ascent, of unclothing and redothing' (pp. 204-5). 
After a short statement of the Hindu view, he says: These materials are found 
in India in more primitive form not merely at a late period but in the remote 
pre-Christian Kaufltaki Upa*if<ut. That such ancient Aryan conceptions had 
analogues in Iran is not to be doubted. That they shine through in our Book 
of Enoch is just as certain' (p. 206). 



162 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

raiment indescribable. . . . When I fell upon my face , . . my 
whole body melted away, my spirit was transformed. He 
came to me and greeted me with his voice Tou are the Son 
of Man.' The predicates which are attributed to Enoch's 
God are those which are found in the Upanisads. 1 The Book 
of Enoch suggests that out of the illimitable and incom- 
prehensible proceed the limited and comprehensible with 
its series of aeons, and this account of creation is gnostic in 
spirit. 

What is claimed by Jesus later may be compared with 
these words: 'All who shall walk in thy ways, thou whom 
righteousness never forsakes, their dwelling and inheritance 
will be with thee, and they will never be separated from thee 
unto all eternity.' We are called upon to walk in His ways, 
confess Him, and become personal followers of Him, and 
if we succeed each one of us can be the Son of Man ; and 
now comes the vital conclusion in which God proclaims, 
Tor I and my son will be united with them for ever in the 
ways of truth.' 2 The Son of Man is the Son of God. He is 
the saviour: 'He shall be a staff to the righteous whereon to 
stay themselves, and not fall. And he shall be the light of 
the GentSes, and the hope of those that are troubled of 
heart.' 3 He is pre-existent from the beginning, 4 He pos- 
sesses universal dominion, 5 and all judgement is committed 
to Him. 6 When Jesus manifests rlis spiritual insight by 
His suffering unto death He inherits the Kingdom. He is 
the Son of Man and the Son of God. It is the ancient Hindu 
tradition which Enoch illustrates and Jesus continues. 

God together with His Son enters into personal fellowship 
with those who walk in the ways of truth and righteousness. 
The souls in the afterworld are separated into three divi- 
sions. 7 The first is made for the spirits of the righteous, the 
second 'for sinners when they die and are buried in the earth 

1 *The atmosphere of the predicates which describe Enoch's primitive 
deity is quite Indian' (R. Otto, The Kingdom of God and the Son of Man 
(1938), p. 398). * cv.2. 

3 xlviii. 4; R. H. Charles (1917), p. 66. 

4 xlviii. 2. *The Son of Man was previously hidden and the Most High 
kept him before his power' (Ixii. 6). Perhaps he was pre-existent in the sense 
that he was foreseen and chosen. 5 Ixii. 6. 

6 Ixix. 27. 7 xxii. 9-13. 



CHRISTENDOM I 163 

and judgment has not been executed upon them in their 
lifetime', and the last 'for the spirits of those who . . . were 
slain in the days of the sinners. Nor shall they be raised 
from thence/ The destiny of each soul is defined according 
to its character on earth. Though immortality is usually 
reserved for the righteous Jews only, on occasions it is 
extended to all men. This doctrine and that of rewards and 
punishments after death influenced considerably the New 
Testament writers. 

Christ's Messianic act in conducting the Lord's Supper 
may have been suggested by the words : 'The Lord of Spirits 
will dwell above them, and they will eat with that Son of 
Man, and lie down and rise up unto all eternity.' 1 

Different views are held in regard to the founder of 
Christianity, (i) Jesus was the Son of God who came down 
from heaven, played His assigned part, and then retired, 
(ii) He was a fanatic whose dominating idea was an early 
catastrophic last day and Judgement. 2 (iii) He was a great 
moral teacher who came into the world like other men and 
became the Son of God much as we become sons of God. 
He was one of ourselves despite His amazing personality. 3 
(iv) He was a prophet like others. 4 (v) Some even deny that 
He existed at all.s 

Jesus left nothing written. For some years after His 
death, His disciples believed that His return as judge and 
the consummation of this age were imminent. This hope 
was found even about the end of the first century.* The 
need for compiling trustworthy records of Jesus' life and 
sayings was felt late in the second generation, and it is 
difficult to assume that the accounts of the evangelists are 
historically accurate. They brought together the oral tradi- 
tions which in transmission were added to and altered. The 
similarity of the Synoptic Gospels is explained by the hypo- 
thesis that Matthew and Luke used Mark and a second 
source called Q, now lost. Latest criticism is of opinion that 
'the growth of a New Testament Canon is the result of a 
long development of which the most important stages lie in 
the second century although it was only concluded in the 

1 Ixii. 14. *. 3, 4, s See further, pp. 387-8. 

6 2 Peter iii. 3-9. 



164 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

fifth century or perhaps in a still later period'. 1 The school 
of criticism which has come to be known as that of Form- 
Criticism argues that the accounts of Jesus transmitted to us 
by the Evangelists are historically quite untrustworthy. 
They have been moulded by the devotional needs and 
spiritual experiences of the early Christian communities. 
They tell us more of the faith of the Church than of what 
Jesus actually said and did. We find in the Gospels not so 
much facts of history as the fancies of the devout. 2 Origen 
suggests something similar about the method adopted by 
the Evangelists. It was their purpose, he says, 'to give the 
truth where possible, at once spiritually and corporeally, but 
where this was not possible, to prefer the spiritual to the 
corporeal, the true spiritual meaning being orten preserved, 
as one might say, in the corporeal falsehood'. 3 Naturally the 
Synoptic Gospels deal with problems which have largely lost 
their meaning for us. Scholars do not hesitate to say that 
'to such an extent are the Synoptic Gospels Jewish books, 
occupied with problems belonging originally to first century 
Judaism, that it makes large parts of them difficult to use 
as books of universal religion'. 4 It is obvious that we have 
to be very cautious in dealing with the Gospels as historical 
records. Even if they are the products of fervent devotion, 
there must have been an historical focus for the pious 
imaginings, and that, perhaps, was the conviction that those 
who lived with Jesus felt that they had been in contact with 
a personality so superior to them as to deserve divine 
honours. In what does the uniqueness of Jesus lie ? 

1 Martin Dibelius, A Fresh Approach to the New Testament and Early 
Christian Literature, E.T. (1936), p. 20; see also R. H. Lightfoot, History 
and Interpretation in the Gospels (1935), p. I. See further, p. 388. 

2 Cf. 'It seems, then, that the form of the earthly no less than of the 
heavenly Christ is for the most part hidden from us. For all the inestimable 
value of the Gospels, they yield us little more than a whisper of his voice; 
we trace in them but the outskirts of his ways. Only when we see him here- 
after in his fulness shall we know him also as he was on earth. And perhaps 
the more we ponder the matter, the more clearly we shall understand the 
reason for it, and therefore shall not wish it otherwise. For, probably, we are 
at present as little prepared for the one as for the other' (R. H. Lightfoot, 
op. cit.,p. 225). 

3 Commentary on St. John's GospeJ, x. 4. 

4 F. C. Burkitt, The Earliest Sources of the Life of Jesus (1910), p. 30. 



CHRISTENDOM I 165 

Jesus gave form and substance to the dreams which had 
haunted His compatriots for generations, but in this He was 
greatly influenced by the non-Jewish currents of thought 
and aspiration which prevailed in His circle during His 
time. 1 The whole complex of ideas of the coming judge- 
ment, of a new age, of the Son of Man who will be trans- 
ported at the end of His earthly career to God, of the 
Suffering Servant, of the futility of the earthly kingdom, of 
the need for self-criticism and discipline, of love and non- 
resistance filled the air, and in the life and activities of Jesus 
we find a struggle between the traditional Jewish concep- 
tions which He inherited and the new spiritual outlook to 
which He laid Himself open. At one period the former 
tendency predominated, but towards the end the latter pre- 
vailed. 

If we take the conception of the Kingdom of God, the 
Hindus, the Buddhists, and the Zoroastrians maintained 
that the Kingdom of God was not to be identified with an 
earthly paradise, but is a life which is not of this world. The 
Hebrews contended that man was to expect and see the 
Kingdom of God within the limits of this life. An intense 
nationalism was the dominating feature of the Je^wish life, 
their monotheistic creed being an adjunct of the Nation-State. 
They employed it to defend themselves against the aggres- 
sion of foreign imperialists. They developed a catastrophic 
view of the universe by which history is a succession of 
crises, a series of supernatural interventions. They looked 
forward to a great final cataclysm by which they, the chosen 
people of God, would be restored to their proper place. The 
last event would close the history of the world and inaugurate 
a new age and a new society in which Israel would be all- 
powerful and her enemies nowhere. 

There was a period in Jesus' life when this Messianic 
conception was the dominant one. There are some who 

1 The New Testament gives us the story of Jesus till the age of thirteen and 
is silent about the next seventeen years till His appearance at the place of 
preaching of John the Baptist. Legends that he travelled in the East in the 
intervening period are sometimes mentioned for which there is no historical 
evidence. See Eitel, Three Lecture* on Buddhism (1884), pp. 14 ff.; Jacolliot, 
The Bible in India (1870), p. 289. 



1 66 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

think that it was the only impulse in Jesus' life. For them 
Christianity started as a movement of political revolution 
against the Roman Empire and its senile supporters, the 
Jewish priesthood. Jesus does not seem to be speaking of 
any spiritual change when He refers to the nearness of the 
impending catastrophe. He does not know when the Son of 
Man will come: only the Father knows it. He seems to 
assume a certain interval of time and anticipate wars with 
the Roman Empire, He observes, with reference to the 
Temple, that days are coming in which not one stone will be 
left upon the other. He limits His message at one stage of 
His career to the Jews only: 'Go not into the way of the 
Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans; but go rather 
to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.' 'Ye shall not have 
gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of Man be come.' 
'I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.' 1 
Such passages clearly indicate the predominantly Jewish 
character of Jesus' message. His task was to prepare the 
chosen people for the impending coming of the Kingdom. 
He was destined by God to proclaim to the Jews God's 
summons to fulfil their vocation. When Jesus announced 
after His baptism by John the Baptist, 'The Kingdom of 
heaven is at hand. Repent', His Jewish audience understood 
it to mean that the great catastrophe was at hand when the 
Messiah would intervene on behalf of the elect. His dis- 
ciples suspect that He is the expected Messiah. 'This is 
that prophet that should come into the world.' 2 Others 
desired to force Him to assume the role of the King. When 
he claimed to be the Messiah, the mob understood its revolu- 
tionary significance and welcomed him enthusiastically. 
When He entered Jerusalem He received the homage of 
His believers. 'Hosanna, blessed is he that cometh in the 
name of the Lord. Blessed is the Kingdom that cometh, 
the Kingdom of our father David.' 3 Jesus was to be the 
King of the Kingdom. This interpretation is supported by 
many passages. 'There are those who stand here who shall 
not taste of death until they see the Kingdom of heaven 
coming in power'; or again: 'This generation shall not pass 

1 Matthew x. 5-6, 23; xv. 24. 

* John vi. 14. 3 Markix. 9. 



CHRISTENDOM I 167 

away until all these things are fulfilled.' It may be that 
somewhere about A.D. 30 Jesus marched on Jerusalem with 
a band of His Galilean followers, seized the Temple, and 
expelled its occupants by force. His tumultuous entry roused 
the suspicion of the Roman government, and His act of 
cleansing the Temple was an attack on the authority of the 
officials. When Jesus subsequently lost control of the city 
and retired with His followers to the Mount of Olives, they 
were surprised by an armed force, having been betrayed 
by Judas. The Roman opposition to Him could not be on 
religious grounds. Rome did not persecute other worships 
with their mysteries and initiations, though each also claimed 
to be the sole guardian of revealed truth and that its officials 
held divine commissions to explain their truths to the whole 
world. The masses who looked for the break-down of the 
Roman power and the establishment of the Kingdom of 
God were greatly excited by Jesus' Messianic hopes and 
His revolutionary message, and He was tried as a political 
insurgent, a dangerous disturber of peace, a traitor to the 
Empire. Pilate questioned Him, 'Art tKou the King of 
the Jews?' and He answered, 'Thou sayest.' The death to 
which He was condemned was that reserved for rebels and 
traitors. 

Before thj Sanhedrin He adopted the conception of the 
Son of Man. At a point in His career, it became clear to 
Him that an attempt would be made to put Him to death. 
He claimed the right to interpret the law without reference 
to tradition. He dispensed men from Sabbath observances 
on His own authority. He held that obedience to His 
teaching was of more importance than normal obligations. 1 
His claim to interpret the law was offensive to Pharisaic 
orthodoxy, which valued traditional interpretations, and 
Sadducee conservatism, which adhered to the letter of the 
law. This situation suggested to Him that His death was 
a part of God's plan for the establishment of the Kingdom 
with power. 'For indeed the Son of Man came not to be 
served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for 
many.' 2 To 'ransom' Israel was a function generally assigned 

1 Matthew viii. 21 ; Luke ix. 59. 

2 Mark x. 4 5 . In the Beginnings of Christianity edited by Professors Jackson 



168 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

to the Messiah. It may well be that Jesus expected that His 
death would be followed by His appearance in clouds of 
glory, by the overthrow of the forces of evil, and by the 
judgement of the world. 'Ye shall see the Son of Man 
sitting at the right hand of power/ 1 Jesus believed that all 
the early predictions are to be fulfilled in Himself. He had 
a consciousness of mission, as the inaugurator of a new 
Kingdom, and felt Himself to be the instrument of its 
victorious power. This consciousness assumed the form of 
Messiah Son of Man Suffering Servant. It is uncertain 
whether Jesus knew from the beginning about His suffering 
unto death. Possibly this knowledge came to Him later, 
with the failure of the political objective. 2 A crisis in His 
life put him in mind of the other tradition that the Son of 
Man must suffer, must be delivered up into men's hands, 
and they will put Him to death. When Jesus tells His 
disciples for the first time that He must suffer, Peter re- 
proaches Him: *Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be 
unto thee', and Jesus repulses him with sharp words: 'Get 
thee behind me, Satan.' 3 The Gospel tradition shows clearly 
this change of emphasis in Jesus' teaching, and the new note 
served to heighten the significance of His message. The 
intercessory and expiative power of suffering and martyrdom 
is emphasized in all religions. In Judaism we find that 
Moses and David are ready to give their lives for Israel. 
The lives of Jonah and Elijah and the Martyrs of Mac- 
cabean times illustrate it. If the Son of Man is to fulfil His 
vocation, He must be the redemptive suffering servant of 
God. In the light of His fate, this conception seemed in- 

and Lake, the editors were inclined to doubt whether Jesus claimed for 
Himself the titles of 'Messiah', 'Lord', and even *Son of Man' (vol. i, pp. 
285-94). * Mark xiv. 62. 

2 It is doubtful whether Jesus incurred the suffering of the Cross voluntarily, 
with the pre-vision of the destiny to which His action was leading. If Jesus 
went up to Jerusalem convinced that He would be put to death and would 
rise again, there would not be the consternation among His disciples or the 
dreadful cry on the Cross which shows that crucifixion was an appalling sur- 
prise to Him. M. Loisy thinks that the journey was undertaken in the hope 
that the divine intervention to terminate the existing world order would take 
place on His arrival. 

3 Matthew xvi. 21-3. 



CHRISTENDOM I 169 

wardly akin to Him. When He had this perception, Jesus 
was certain of His exaltation to God through His death. 

His is the cause of God, and immediate and complete 
attachment to His person with the surrender of home, house, 
and possessions is true worship of God. In the style of 
Enoch, he says: 'Everyone who shall confess me before men, 
him shall the Son of Man also confess before the angels of 
God/ 1 The mystics are persuaded that their knowledge 
of God is unique and incomparable. 2 "All things have been 
delivered unto me of my Father. No one knoweth who the 
Son is save the Father 3 and who the Father is save the Son, 
and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal him/ In 
situations that test us, the depths of life are revealed. Tense 
moments of crisis are also the moments of grace. Are not 
the Temptations the impressions that Jesus retained of His 
interior struggles? 

This view that Jesus started with a Jewish nationalist 
outlook and gradually changed over to a universalist position 
need not be regarded as derogatory to His greatness or the 
Church doctrine about Him. The Church insists on the 
divinity of Jesus as well as His complete and genuine 
humanity, and looks upon the views of the Arians and the 
Docetics, the Monophysites and the Nestorians as one-sided. 
If it is a heres^ to look upon Him as 'inferior to the Father', 
it is equally a heresy to take away anything from His 
humanity. He was not exempt from feelings incidental to 
normal humanity hunger, thirst, weariness, pain, tempta- 
tion. If it is not derogatory to His nature to think that He 
felt genuine pain, shea tears at the grave of a friend, or was 
insulted, beaten, and crucified, and felt the shame and pain 
of it all, it cannot be derogatory to think that He shared 
the political passions of His contemporaries and gradually 
shook them off. It would be to give full weight to Luke's 
statement that 'Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature'. 4 

From the Synoptic Gospels it is clear that the two cur- 
rents, the Jewish and the Mystic, the materialistic and the 
spiritual, were not perfectly reconciled in Jesus' mind. The 

1 Luke xii. 8. a Enoch xxxvii. 4. 

3 Harnack thinks that the words 'No one knoweth who the Son is save the 
Father' are a later addition. 4 ii. 52. 



i yo INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

Jewish view of the Kingdom is opposed to the conception 
underlying the words: 'My Kingdom is not of this world/ 
There is a difference between the traditional interpretation 
of the Kingdom of God as the continuation of earthly con- 
ditions even to the details of eating and drinking, and the 
mystic view that its nature cannot be indicated in the terms 
of our empirical existence. The negative descriptions of 
eternal life which we have in the Upanisads and the Buddhist 
scriptures find their echo in Jesus' declaration that heaven 
and earth shall pass away, and later sayings: 'It is not yet 
made manifest what we shall be', and 'Eye hath not seen 
nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, 
the things which God hath prepared for them that love him/ 
These negations and contrasts suggest the reality of a world 
which is other than the familiar world of earth. To attain 
it we have to be reborn, must become 'as the angels in 
heaven*. It is not possible in an earthly form of existence 
to be born into the Kingdom of Heaven. It is the wondrous 
new creation. This is the consummation of the earthly pro- 
cess, this eternal heaven. We can only describe it in words 
and feelings familiar to us, for we are still in and of the 
world. So we talk of sitting on thrones, feeding on banquets, 
and living as angels. All the time we are aware of the in- 
adequacy of these images to the coming of the Kingdom, 
which is not a mere correction of earthly existence, but a 
complete transformation of it. But His Jewish audience 
interpreted the symbolic descriptions as having a reference 
to the Messianic hope. The Kingdom was to come with 
flaming lightning, with the appearance of the Son of Man, 
His angels, and His judgement; starting in Jerusalem, it 
will go forth extending itself over all the world. The sons 
of Zebedee ask for the best places in the new Kingdom. The 
chief aim of the Jew was to save himself from the impending 
wrath of God. His hopes and prayers were that he belong to 
the Kingdom of God when it should come. Resurrection 
is the only way in which the dead could share in the King- 
dom. The mystic, however, has the assurance that he has 
attained security and freedom here and now. If life eternal 
can be had here and now, there is no point in a resurrection. 
'Jesus' preaching of the Kingdom contains elements', says 



CHRISTENDOM I 171 

Professor Rudolph Otto in his last work, 'which are certainly 
not of Palestinian origin, but point definitely to connections 
with the Aryan and Iranian East.' 1 While the Messianic con- 
ception of the Kingdom belongs to the Palestinian tradition 
the mystic conception is the development of the Indian idea. 

In Jesus' mind universalism and passivism conflict with 
the exclusiveness and militarism of His Jewish ancestors. 2 
He moved forward from the latter and so often came into 
opposition with the Jews. If some of our theologians explain 
away Jesus' passivism and arrive at the comforting conclusion 
that He did not mean what He said or that He acquiesced 
in armed resistance to evil, as when He used a scourge of 
small cords in cleansing the Temple in the Johannine account, 
it is to no small extent due to the struggle in Jesus' own 
mind. The Gospel according to St. John makes Jesus say, 
'I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given 
me.' 3 It is, however, beyond doubt that there was a stage 
in Jesus' life when He attained a vision of universality and 
love, and meant literally that 'they that take the sword shall 
perish by the sword'. 

Jesus challenged the Jewish claim to the exclusive right of 
entry into the Kingdom. While they limited admission to 
the Kingdom to the righteous, Jesus announced that He 
had come to call the sinners to repentance. To the question, 

1 The Kingdom of God and the Son of Man, E.T. (1938), p. 16. 

2 Dr. Claude Montefiore asks whether as a figure calculated to inspire 
men to heroic acts of self-sacrifice, the figure of Jesus, detached from what 
Christians have believed about Him, is adequate. 'What one would have 
wished to find in the life story of Jesus would be one single incident in which 
Jesus actually performed a loving deed to one of his Rabbinic antagonists or 
enemies. That would have been worth all the injunctions of the Sermon on 
the Mount about the love of enemies put together. Even if such a deed were 
only reported, and it were of dubious authenticity, how valuable it would be. 
"Father, forgive them" is of dubious authenticity but it is little the less beauti- 
ful and inspiring. Even though it refers only to the Roman soldiers and not 
to the Jews, it is nevertheless of high ethical import. "The deed ! The deed !" as 
the poet has it. jut no such deed is ascribed to Jesus in the Gospels. Towards 
his enemies, towards those who did not believe in him, whether individuals, 
groups or cities (Matthew xi. 20-4) only denunciation and bitter words ! The 
in junctions are beautiful, but how much more beautiful would have been a ful- 
filment of those injunctions by Jesus himself' (Rabbinic Literature and Gospel 
Teachings (1930), p. 104). 

3 xvii. 9. 



172 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

Who is my neighbour? He answered: any man in trouble, 
whatever may be his race or nationality. 

Jesus protested vehemently against the Jew's exaggerated 
devotion to ceremonial details. To the Jew the important 
question is, What am I to do? He insisted on a code of 
conduct. To the Eastern religions and the mystery cults, 
the more important question is, What am I to be ? The aim 
is to become something different and not to do something 
else. Jesus is concerned, not with the wrong we do, but with 
the corruption of being of which the wrong act is the out- 
come. We must become different, change our natures, be 
born again. To be born again is to be initiated into a new 
life which is not a ceremonial act but a spiritual experience. 
Rebirth to a higher life, superiority to the bondage of the 
law, is emphasized by Jesus. We are by birth children of 
nature, by rebirth sons of God. The pathway to this re- 
birth is by a life of self-control bordering on asceticism. 
So far as the Jewish tradition is concerned, there is little 
or nothing in it of an ascetic character. The Jews have no 
monks or nuns, people who live apart from the world. For 
them there is nothing vain and deceitful about the pleasures 
of the world. Ascetic practices are adopted only as a means 
for attaining trance conditions, as in the Martyrdom of Isaiah, 
where the prophet and his companions retire to the wilder- 
ness clothed with garments of hair and eat nothing but wild 
herbs. Similarly Ezra was vouchsafed his vision on account 
of his continence. 1 To prepare for the vision was the object 
of asceticism. The main Jewish tradition accepted the un- 
interrupted continuance of the present world order, the 
doctrine of the goodness of all creation and the duty of 
peopling the world and reaping the fruits of the earth. 2 

1 Athanasius in his first festal letter (A.D. 329) writes: 'That great man 
Moses, when fasting, conversed with God and received the Law. The great 
and holy Elijah, when fasting was thought worthy of divine visions, and at last 
was taken up like him who ascended into heaven. And Daniel when fasting, 
although a very young man, was entrusted with the mystery' (A. Robertson, 
Athanasius, p. 508). 

2 Cf. the famous saying: 'A man will have to give account on the Judgement 
Day of every good thing which he refused to enjoy when he might have done 
so' (G. F. Moore, Judaism, in the First Centuries of the Christian Era (1927), 
vol. ii, p. 265. 



CHRISTENDOM I 173 

Wealth is the natural concomitant of righteousness and 
poverty of sin. The Jewish doctrine of the resurrection of 
the body implies that the body is not a thing to be con- 
demned. The righteous shall enjoy physical well-being in 
Paradise. If there would be neither buying nor selling, 
neither marrying nor giving in marriage, it is because when 
the day of the Lord comes, the number of the elect is made 
up and there can be no increase to it. When the goods of 
nature do not come to our hands unasked, trade and com- 
merce have a place. In the Messianic Kingdom every one 
will have plenty of good things without labour or barter. 
The Bishop of Oxford, Dr. Kirk, writes : 

'The ascetic outlook of the Gospels is seen to stand out of any 
recognizable relation with contemporary Judaism. The passages about 
turning the other cheek, about taking no thought for the morrow, 
about laying up no treasure on earth, about forsaking parents and 
possessions, about bearing the Cross are foreign to the genius of the 
race. The spirit which pervades them constitutes an erratic block in 
the teaching of Jesus whose provenance other than in his direct 
intuition of supernatural truth must for the moment remain un- 
known.' 1 

In John the Baptist, in Jesus and Paul, the new current of 
other-worldliness emerges, and it cannot be accounted for 
by their Jewish background. 

It is interesting to know that the moral teaching of Jesus 
with its ascetic and other-worldly emphasis has been anti- 
cipated several hundred years by the Upanisads and Buddha. 
The late Professor T. W. Rhys Davids observes: 

'It is not too much to say that almost the whole of the moral 
teaching of the Gospels as distinct from the dogmatic teaching, will 
be found in Buddhist writings, several centuries older than the 
Gospels; that for instance, of all the moral doctrines collected to- 
gether in the so-called Sermon on the Mount, all those which can be 
separated from the theistic dogmas there maintained are found again 
in the Pitakas. In the one religion as in the other we find the same 
exhortations to boundless and indiscriminate giving, the same hatred 
of pretence, the same regard paid to the spirit as above the letter of 
the law, the same importance attached to purity, humility, meekness, 

1 The Vision of God (1931), p. 63. 



174 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

gentleness, truth, and love. And the coincidence is not only in the 
matter; it extends to the manner also in which these doctrines are 
put forward. Like the Christ, the Buddha was wont to teach in 
parables, and to use homely figures of speech; and many of the sayings 
attributed to him are strangely like some of those found in the New 
Testament.'* 

It only shows that some of the noblest of the moral lessons 
usually supposed to be characteristic of Christianity are not 
characteristic of it alone. They are a necessary consequence 
of the spiritual life. 

On the question of future life, the Christian view was not 
moulded by the Jewish or the popular Graeco-Roman con- 
ceptions. The Jews were satisfied with the conception of 
Sheol, which, according to the Book of Job, was 'a land 
of darkness without any order, where the light is as dark- 
ness*. As the jurisdiction of Yahweh did not extend to it, 
all connexion between God and His worshippers ceased at 
death. In the most literal sense of the word, Yahweh is a 
'God not of the dead but of the living'. The earthly life is 
the most important. The hopes of the Hebrew were for his 
nation and not for himself. 2 If we leave aside the mystery 
cults and Pythagoras and Plato, the eschatology of the 
Greeks was singularly primitive. Homer's faint and cheer- 
less Hades is well known. The Romans did not have a 
strong belief in immortality. The Di Manes were a vague 
collection and the word had no singular. Faint indications 
of a more mature view are to be found in the later books of 
the Old Testament, but there is a vast gulf between them 
and the elements of Christian eschatology, such as the con- 
sciousness of sin, division in the mind of man, the need of 
healing and redemption, rewards and punishments, both 
purgatorial and punitive after death. These ideas must have 
grown up in the little-known period between the Old and 
the New Testaments. Faith in the high destiny of the human 
soul is not to be found in the religions of Palestine, Greece, 
and Rome except in the unofficial and un-Greek mystic cults. 
The mind of Jesus and His immediate followers on this 
question must have been shaped in the atmosphere where 

1 Journal of the Pali Text Society, 1923, pp. 43-4. 

2 Job xix. 25-7; Psalms xlix. 50; Ixxiii. 24; Isaiah zxvi. 19; Daniel xii. 2. 



CHRISTENDOM I 175 

East and West, mystical experience and intellectual specula- 
tion, acted and reacted on each other. 

The mystery religions revealed things which lay behind 
the veil of sense and gave hints of the land beyond the grave 
about which official religions were silent. As geographical 
barriers broke down and horizons expanded, mystery cults 
which promised salvation to the soul, release from the burden 
of sin, and security against judgement, became popular. 
Even the common people were not insensitive to these cults. 
Jesus says: 'Unto you is given the mystery of the Kingdom 
of God; but unto them that are without, all things are done 
in parables.' 1 'And with many such parables spake he the 
word unto them, as they were able to hear it; and without 
a parable spake he not unto them: but privately to his own 
disciples he expounded all things.' 2 He said to His disciples : 
'I have yet many things to say to you, but ye cannot hear 
them now.' 3 We have a reference to the spiritual birth after 
baptism : 'And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came 
from Nazareth to Galilee, and was baptized of John in the 
Jordan. And straightway coming up out of the water, he 
saw the heavens rent asunder, and the spirit as a dove de- 
scending into him : and a voice came out of the heavens, 
Thou art my beloved son, in thee I am well pleased.' 4 The 
Christian Eucharist perpetuates the Sacred Meal of the cults 
of Eleusis and Mithra.s 

As a Jew, Jesus recognized a corporeal resurrection. At 
death Lazarus is taken up directly into Paradise and the rich 
man goes to hell. Jesus' resurrection after three days is 
probably suggested by Matthew : 'As Jonah was three days 
and three nights in the belly of the whale: so shall the Son 
of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the 
earth.' 6 This view is in conflict with what Jesus is alleged 
to have said to the thief on the Cross: 'To-day shalt thou 
be with me in paradise.' There is immediate entrance into 

1 Mark iv. 11. a Mark iv. 33-4. 

3 John xvL 12. 

4 Mark i. 9-1 1. Justin Martyr reads: Thou art my beloved son: this day 
have I begotten Thee' (Trypko, 88) ; see also Luke Hi. 22. 

5 The early Christian Fathers Polycarp and Ignatius speak of the Christian 
mysteries. In the Strmata Clement has a chapter on The Mysteries of the 
Faith not to be divulged to all*. 6 xii. 4* 



1 76 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

blessed fellowship with God. The moment of death is the 
moment of exaltation. We need not confuse the spirit of 
man with his fleshly covering. Victory over death is the 
awakening of the spirit from the slumber, that which makes 
it capable of higher vision. Resurrection is not the revivi- 
fication of a corpse. The Christian view, that this life is a 
period of education and testing and we are sojourners in 
a strange land where we must not expect to see full satisfac- 
tion for the deepest interests in life, is not accepted by the 
orthodox Jew or the normal Greek. 

When the prediction of the Kingdom that we would live 
to see and know Jesus as the exalted Son of God was not 
fulfilled, the eschatological claim became prominent. The 
conviction of the exaltation to God through death was the 
basis of the possibility that Peter and the rest believed after 
Jesus' death that they saw Him in spiritual vision as living 
with God. It does not seem to be a question of an empty 
grave or bodily resurrection. The simple story of the life 
and activity of Jesus was transformed into an epiphany of 
a heavenly being who had descended to earth and concealed 
Himself in robes of flesh. The picture of Jesus of the later 
Christology blurred the contours of the spiritual God. The 
Risen Lord takes the place of God and the Church replaces 
His Kingdom. Even as the Supreme is identified with an 
liistorical individual, the Kingdom of God is identified with 
a concrete empirical structure with its own specific form and 
organization. 

Jesus, as we have seen, enlarges and transforms the Jewish 
conceptions in the light of His own personal experience. In 
this process He was helped considerably by His religious 
environment, which included Indian influences, as the tenets 
of the Essenes and the Book of Enoch show. In His 
teaching of the Kingdom of God, life eternal, ascetic em- 
phasis, and even future life, He breaks away from the Jewish 
tradition and approximates to Hindu and Buddhist thought. 
Though His teaching is historically continuous with Juda- 
ism, it did not develop from it in its essentials. The two 
tendencies, the Jewish and the mystic, were not perfectly 
reconciled in Jesus' mind, and the tension has continued in 
Christian development. We shall now see how the Gospel 



CHRISTENDOM I 177 

story bears striking resemblance to the life and teaching of 
Gautama the Buddha. 1 

Nearly five hundred years before Jesus, Buddha went 
round the Ganges valley proclaiming a way of life which 
would deliver men from the bondage of ignorance and sin. 
In a hundred and fifty years after his death, tradition of 
his life and passing away became systematized. He was 
miraculously conceived and wondrously born. 2 His father 
was informed by angels about it, and, according to Lalita- 
vistara, 'the queen was permitted to lead the life of a virgin 
for thirty-two months'. On the day of his birth a Brahmin 
priest predicts his future greatness. Asita is the Buddhist 
Simeon. 3 * He comes through air to visit the infant Gautama. 
Simeon 'came by the Spirit into the Temple'. When he asks 
the angels why they rejoice, they answer that they are 'joyful 
and exceeding glad' as the Buddha to be is born for the 
weal and welfare in the world of men'. 4 He steadily grew 
in wisdom and stature. In spite of great efforts to protect 
him from the sights of sorrow, Buddha found no satisfaction 
in the life by which he was surrounded. He resolved to flee 
from the joys of his home. When the tidings reached him 
that a son was born to him, he observed: 'This is a new and 
a strong tie that I shall have to break', and he left his home 
without delay. Early in his career, after a fast of forty-nine 
days, he was tempted by Mara to give up his quest for truth, 
with promises of world dominion. The Evil One said unto 
Buddha: 'So, Lord, if the Lord desired, he could turn the 
Himalayas, the king of mountains, into very gold, and gold 
would the mountain be.' Buddha replies: 'He who hath 
seen pain and the source of pain, how could such a one bow 
to lusts ?' The Evil One vanished unhappy and disconsolate. 5 
Buddha overcomes the temptations, persists in his search, 
meditates for days, and wins enlightenment. Like his con- 
ception and birth, Buddha's enlightenment is marked by the 

1 See the writer's Gautama the Buddha (1938). 2 Majjhima Nikaya, 

123. The angels who received the babe held him before his mother, saying: 
'All joy be to thee, queen Maya, rejoice and be gkd, for this child thou hast 
borne is holy.' 

3 See Luke ii. 8-40; Sutta Nipata, 679-700. 

4 Sutta Nipata, 'manussaloke hitasukhataya'. 

5 See Oldenberg, Buddha (1882), pp. 312 ff. 



178 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

thirty-two great miracles. The blind receive their sight, the 
deaf hear, and the lame walk freely. Buddha himself is 
transfigured, and his body shines with matchless brightness. 
With a tender compassion for all beings he sets forth 'to 
establish the kingdom of righteousness, to give light to those 
enshrouded in darkness and open the gate of immortality to 
men'. 1 His mission begins. He has twelve disciples whom 
he sends forth, to carry his message among all classes of 
men. 2 Buddha heals the sick, is the incomparable physician. 3 
In the striking story of the sick brother neglected by the 
other inmates of the monastery, whom the Buddha washed 
and tended with his own hands, saying afterwards to the 
careless monks, who would have been eager enough to serve 
him, 'Whosoever would wait upon me, let him wait upon the 
sick', 4 he claims his oneness with humanity so that services 
to the sick or the destitute are in reality rendered to him- 
self. We have the golden rule in the maxim : 'Doing as one 
would be done by, kill not nor cause to kill's 'As a mother 
would guard the life of her own and only son at the risk of 
her own, even so let each one practise infinite sympathy 
toward all beings in all the world.' 6 'Let goodwill with- 
out measure, impartial, unmixed, without enmity, pievail 
throughout the world, above, beneath, around.' 7 Good con- 
duct and good belief are insisted on. 8 When once we accept 
Buddha's teaching all other distinctions of caste and status 
are lost. 9 He converts the robber Angulimala, has dinner 
with Ambapali the harlot, 10 and is accused of living in 

1 See Mahavagga, i. 6. 8. 

2 'Go forth, O monks, on your journey for the weal and the welfare of 
much people, out of compassion for the world and for the wealth and the weal 
and the welfare of angels and mortals. Go no two of you the same [way]* 
(Sacred Books of the East, vol. xiii, p. 112). Mark vi. 7 ff.; Luke x. i. 

3 Itivuttaka, 100; Sutta Nipata, 560. 

4 Vinaya Texts, S.B.E., vol. xvii, p. 240. Makdvagga, viii. 26; cf. Matthew 
xxv. 40: 'Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my 
brethren, ye have done it unto me.' 

5 'attanam upamam katva/ See S.B.E., vol. x, pt. i, p. 36. 

6 Ibid.,vol.x,pt.2,p.25. 7 K6uJ</ataPatAa,E.T.byChildm,p. 16. 

8 Itivuttaka, 32; see also James ii. 14, 4, 26. 

9 S.B.E., vol. xx, p. 304; see also Galatians iii. 28; Mark iii. 34 and 35. 
10 S.B.E., vol. xvii, p. 105, and vol. xi, p. 30; see Mark ii. 16; Luke vii. 

379, viii. 102; Matthew xxi. 31 and 32. 



CHRISTENDOM I 179 

abundance. 1 The following sayings of Buddha find their 
echo in the Gospels : 

'He abused me, he beat me, 

Overcame me, robbed me.' 

In those who harbour such thoughts 

Their anger is not calmed. 

Not by anger ane angers 

In this world ever calmed. 

By meekness are they calmed. 2 

Again : 

Let one conquer wrath by meekness. 
Let one conquer wrong by goodness. 
Let one conquer the mean man by a gift 
And a liar by the truth. 3 

Victory breedeth anger, 
For in pain the vanquished lieth. 
Lieth happy the man of peace 
Renouncing victory and defeat. 4 

Let the wise man do righteousness: 
A treasure that others can share not, 
Which no thief can steal: 
A treasure which passeth not away. 5 

Both Budrtha and Jesus bid their disciples lay up for 
themselves a treasure which neither moth nor rust would 
corrupt, nor thieves break through and steal. 'A man buries 
a treasure in a deep pit', Buddha observed, 'which, lying 
day after day concealed therein, profits him nothing. , . . 
But there is a treasure that man or woman may possess, a 
treasure laid up in the heart, a treasure of charity, piety, 
temperance, soberness. A treasure secure, impregnable, that 
cannot pass away. When a man leaves the fleeting riches 
of this world, this he takes with him after death. A treasure 
unshared with others, a treasure that no thief can steal/ 6 

Majjhima Nikaya 9 26; Matthew xi. 19. 

S.B.E., vol. x, pt. i, p. 4. 

Ibid., p. 5 8 ; see also Mtjjhima Nikaya, 2 1 . 

Dhammafada, 201; see also 184, 185, 399. 

Cf. Matthew vi. 19 and 20. 

Khuddtka P&tha, E.T., Childers, p. 1 3. 



i8o INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

What use to thee is matted hair, O fool? 
What use the goat-skin garment? 
Within thee there is ravening: * 
The outside thou makest clean. 1 

'Destroying life, killing, cutting, binding, stealing, speaking lies, 
fraud and deceptions, worthless reading, intercourse with another's 
wife this is defilement, but not the eating of flesh.' 2 

Just as Buddha condemns the gloomy ascetic practices 
which prevailed in ancient India, Jesus goes beyond John 
the Baptist's emphasis on observances and ascetic rites. 
Even as Buddha condemns ceremonial religion, emphasiz- 
ing baptism, Jesus insists less on sacraments and more on 
the opening of oneself in faith.* 'Reverence shown to the 
righteous is better than sacrifice.' 4 Buddha says: 'Monks, 
even as a blue lotus, a water rose, or a white lotus is born in 
the water, grows up in the water, and stands lifted above it, 
by the water undefiled: even so, monks, does the Tathagata 
grow up in the world, by the world undefiled.' 5 'I am not 
of the world', says Jesus, according to John. 6 

Buddha has his triumphal entry into his native city of 
Kapilavastu. 7 As he approaches, marvellous rays proceed 
from him, lighting up the gates and walls, towers and monu- 
ments. The city, like the New Jerusalem illumined by the 
lamp, is full of light, and all the citizens go forth to meet 
him. But Buddha remains unmoved. When Buddha is 
taken to the temple for baptism, he points out that it is 
unnecessary, as he is superior to the gods, though he con- 
forms to the practice of the world. 8 When a merchant who 
became his disciple proposed to return to his native town 
and preach to his people, Buddha said: 'The people of Suna- 
paranta are exceedingly violent; if they revile you, what will 
you do?' 'I will make no reply,' said the disciple. 'And if 
they strike you?' 'I will not strike in return/ 'And if they 
try to kill you?' 'Death', said the disciple, 'is no evil in 

1 Dhammapada, 394; S.B.E., vol. x, pt. i, p. 90; see also Matthew vii. 1 5. 

* S.B.E., vol. x, pt. 2, pp. 40, 41; see Mark vii. 15. For the analogies in 
the ceremony of baptism see Matthew iii. 14, John iv. 2, and Mahanibbdna 
Sutta, S.B.E., vol. xi, p. 109; see also Introduction to S.B.E., vol. xlv. 

3 Mark 1.15. * Dhammapad*, 108. 

5 Samyutta Nikaya, xxii. 94. * John xvii. 14-16. 

7 Cf. Luke ii. 41 f. * See Matthew iii. 13. 



CHRISTENDOM I 181 

itself. Many even desire it, to escape from the vanities of 
this life; but I shall take no steps either to hasten or delay 
the time of my departure/ Buddha was satisfied, and the 
merchant departed. 1 Buddha had his troubles with his dis- 
ciples. Devadatta, Buddha's cousin, was the Judas among 
his followers. He once hired thirty bowmen to kill him. 
But when these came into his presence they were awed by 
his majesty and fell down at his feet, like the soldiers in the 
garden of Gethsemane. 2 When all his attempts failed, the 
faithless disciple entreated Buddha for his forgiveness. Bud- 
dha frankly forgave him. On the last day before his death, 
Buddha's body was again transfigured, 3 and when he died a 
tremendous earthquake was felt throughout the world. 4 

Many of the parables are common. Buddha is a sower 
of the word. He feeds his five hundred brethren at once 
with a small cake which has been put into his begging bowl, 
and a good deal is left over, which is thrown away. 5 In 
Jataka 1 90 we read of an eager disciple who finds no boat 
to take him across and so walks on the water. In the middle 
the waves rise and he loses his faith and begins to sink. 
When he reassures himself with faith in the Buddha, he goes 
safely to the other side. Max Miiller remarks that mere 
walking on the water is not an uncommon story, but walking 
by faith and sinking for want of it can only be accounted for 
by some historical contact or transference, 'and in this case we 
must remember that the date of the Buddhist parable is chro- 
nologically anterior to the date of the Gospel of St. Luke'. 6 

1 Hardy, Manual of Buddhism, p. 259. 2 Ibid., p. 319. 

3 Mahdparinibbdna Sutta, p. 46. 4 Ibid., p. 62. 5 Jataka 78. 

6 Max Mfiller, Last Essays, ist series (1901), p. 285. According to Euse- 
bius the Gospels were published by the Church in the reign of Trajan (A.D. 
98-1 1 7). Of course they had existed in some form before this, but this was the 
date of their authoritative redaction. The Canonical works of Buddhism were 
certainly earlier. In the sixties of the first century Buddha was welcomed offici- 
ally into China and in that decade a Buddhist work, The Sutra of 42 Sections, 
was compiled in Chinese and a temple built in its honour. This work must 
have been well known in India at the time of the first Chinese embassy in 
A.D. 64 and it refers to the 250 rules of Pra timohsa or rules of conventual dis- 
cipline. A legendary life of Buddha akin to Lalitavistara was also translated, 
and it shows a highly advanced stage of the Buddhist Canon. During the 
period of As*oka the bulk of the Canonical works was in existence, for we find 
from the BairSt rock inscription that he recommends the study of seven 



1 82 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

Though Buddha performs these miracles, 1 he disapproves 
of them as proofs of his divinity. 'It is because I see 
the danger in miracles of psychical power and of mind 
reading that I detest, abhor and despise them.' 2 Buddha 
denounces suicide except on special occasions: 'Anyone, O 
Sariputta, who lays down this body and takes another one, 
I call blameworthy. But not such was the monk Channa. 
He committed suicide without blame.' 3 If the physical life 
is surrendered out of profound inward conviction, that no 
different portions of the scripture by monks, nuns, and laymen, five of which 
are parts of the Buttapitaka and the two others are found in the Vinayapltaka. 
The Ceylon Chronicles declare that the Canon was finally settled at a council 
called by A^oka. From the great rail around the tope of Bharahat in Central 
India, built shortly after the death of Aoka, about 200 B.C., we learn not only 
the titles of the scriptures but the names of the Buddhists who are described as 
'reciters' Versed in the dialogues' Versed in the Baskets', Versed in the five 
collections'. See Fergusson, History of Indian and Eastern Architecture ( 1 876), 
p. 85; Cunningham, The Stupa of Eharhut (1879). The general agreement 
of the various lives of Buddha in Pali, Singhalese, and Chinese sources on the 
incidents of his miraculous birth, his renunciation, his temptation, his en- 
lightenment and subsequent labours as a teacher, and the aims of his mission, 
points to the existence of a widely diffused tradition in the centuries before the 
Christian era. The Pah' Canon was settled in ASoka's time and reduced to 
writing in the reign of Vattagamani (88-76 B.C.). Buddhism was in its very 
nature a missionary religion. In the second century B.C. Buddhist ascetics 
(samanas) were found in western Persia and in the first century B.C. in Bactria. 
Garbe assumes direct borrowing from Buddhism in the matter of Simeon, 
temptations, and the miracles of walking on the water, and loaves and fishes. 
We have many parallels between Krsna and Christ, (i) A marvellous light 
envelops Mary when Christ is born. A similar light envelops Devakl before 
Kr$na is born. (2) There is universal gladness of nature at their birth. (3) 
Herod inquires of the wise men, 'Where is he that is born King of the Jews?' 
(Matthew ii. 4); Narada warns Karhsa that Krna will kill him (Harivam/a, 
ii. 56). (4) Herod is mocked by the wise men (Matthew, ii. 16) and Karhsa 
is mocked by the demon that takes the pkce of Ya^oda's infant (ibid, 
ii. 59). (5) The massacre of the infants is found in both. (6) Joseph came with 
Mary to Bethlehem to be taxed: Nanda came with Yafoda to Mathura to pay 
tribute. (7) The flight into Egypt is simikr to that into Braj. The information 
on the question is so scanty that it is natural that persons approaching the 
problem with different presuppositions vary a good deal in the conclusions 
they draw from it. 

1 Anguttara Nikaya, iii. 60. For Buddha's power over water, see MahS- 
vagga, i. 20. Cf. Mark iv. 39. 

2 Digha Nikaya, U.K. In the Divyavadana Buddha commands his dis- 
ciples not to work miracles but to hide their good deeds and show their sins. 

3 Samyutta Nikaya, xxxv. 87. 



CHRISTENDOM I 183 

good can any longer be served by its retention or that it is 
the higher service to society, it is commended. Buddha's 
birth stories 1 and the later Mahayana exalt his great com- 
passion and renunciation. 2 Buddha is the light of the world 
(literally Eye of the World), lokacaksu. 3 'I am a king/ says 
Buddha, *an incomparable king of dhamma.' 4 Buddha 
speaks with an authority on religion and is the lion of his 
race. 5 He proclaims : 'I, O Vasettha, know both God and the 
Kingdom of God and the path that goeth thereto. I know 
it even as one who hath entered the Kingdom of God 
(brahmaloka) and been born there.' 6 Again: 'He who sees 
not the dhamma (Truth or doctrine) sees not me. . . . He 
who sees the dhamma sees me.' 7 'Those who have merely 
faith and love toward me', says Buddha, 'are sure of paradise 
hereafter.' 8 'Those who believe in me are all assured of final 
salvation.' 9 But Buddha always puts the practice of the 
doctrine higher than devotion to himself. While Jesus is 
angry with the world which will not hear Him, Buddha 
meets opposition with calm and confidence. He thought of 
the world as ignorant rather than wicked, as unsatisfactory 
rather than rebellious. There is therefore no nervous irrita- 
bility or fierce anger about him. His behaviour is a perfect 
expression of courtesy and good feeling with a spice of irony 
in it. Three months after his death Buddha is transfigured. 
He is identifie I with the self-existent Supreme. Four cen- 
turies after his death he is declared to be a temporary mani- 
festation in an earthly form of the Infinite, accessible at all 
times to his disciples and promising to make them partakers 
of his divine nature. By prayer and meditation the pious 
Buddhist enters into living communion with the heavenly 
Lord. 

1 Jataka 316. 

2 *In the whole universe there is not a single spot so small as a mustard 
seed where he has not surrendered his body for the sake of creatures.* Sad- 
dharmafundartka^ E.T., S.B.E., vol. xxi, p. 251. 

3 Digha Nikaya, 16. Cf. John viii. 12, ix. 5. 

4 Majjhima Nikaya, 92; John xviii. 37. 

5 Anguttara Nikaya, v. 99; cf. Mark i. 22, and Revelation v. 5. 

6 Digha Nikaya, 13; cf. John vi. 46, vii. 29, viii. 42 and 55. 

7 Itivuttaka 92; cf. John xiv. 6, 9, 18-21. 

8 Majjhima Nikaya, 22 ; cf. John xi. 26. 9 Anguttara Nikaya 9 x. 64. 



1 84 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

To love one's enemies, to bless them that curse, to do 
good to them that hate, to turn the other cheek, to leave the 
cloak with him who takes the coat, to give all to him who 
asks, which are the teachings of Jesus, are precepts not only 
taught but practised in their extreme rigour by the Buddha 
in his many lives, according to the Jatakas. Buddha revolted 
against the complexities of the sacrificial religion as Jesus 
did against Jewish legalism. Both Buddha and Christ, in 
the spirit of the Upanisads, demand the death or the sacrifice 
of the immediate natural existence as the condition of the 
new richer life. 

The curious may find matter for reflection in these coin- 
cidences in the lives of the two teachers. Professor J. Estlin 
Carpenter writes: 'The lives of the teachers do not essentially 
differ. It was the mission of both to awaken men out of a 
state of spiritual indifference, to kindle within them a love 
of righteousness, to comfort the sorrowful, to reprove as well 
as to redeem the guilty.' 1 Each of these teachers had his 
own tradition and grew out of it. This fact leads to certain 
deep differences beneath the resemblances. Buddha looked 
upon the Absolute as super-personal spirit, while for Jesus 
it is a personal God. 2 The theistic emphasis which is very 
natural in Judaism is lacking in the teaching of Buddha. 
Apart from the redemptive power of suffering, the special 
feature of dogmatic Christianity that the world has been 
saved by the death of Jesus has nothing like it in Buddhism. 
As for the resemblances, other causes than borrowing may 
be assigned. If religion is the natural outcome of the human 
mind, it would be strange if we did not find coincidences. 
The highest type of self-sacrifice exalted in both may be 
regarded as common to all lands and ages. The hopes and 
fears of men, their desires and aspirations, are the same on 
the banks of the Ganges as on the shores of the Lake of 
Galilee. If the same examples and modes of illustration are 
employed, it may be because they are both members of an 

1 'The Obligations of the New Testament to Buddhism', Nineteenth 
Century ', 1 880, p. 97 5 ; see also A. J. Edmunds, Buddhist and Christian Gospels 
(1908). Many of the parallels collected in this book can be explained without 
any assumption of borrowing. 

* See Indian Philosophy, vol. i, and ed. (1929), pp. 465 F., 683 ff. 



CHRISTENDOM I 185 

agricultural society. Possibly some of the incidents, stories, 
and sayings were common tales of a widespread folk-lore. 
If both taught in parables, it is because it is the easiest form 
of teaching for simple men. Making allowance for all these, 
it is not easy to account for the illustration of two careers 
with the same legends and embellishments. They cannot be 
traced to natural evolution. They cannot be accounted for 
as due to accident. It is no comfort to ascribe them to the 
Devil, who wished to scandalize us by throwing doubts on 
our conceptions. But those who are trained in European 
culture find it somewhat irksome, if not distasteful, to admit 
the debt of Christian religion to non-Christian sources, 
especially Hindu and Buddhist. 'In these cases', Max 
Mtiller writes, 'our natural inclination would be to suppose 
that the Buddhist stories were borrowed from our Christian 
sources and not vice versa. But here the conscience of 
the scholar comes in. Some of these stories are found in the 
Hlnayana Buddhist Canon and date, therefore, before the 
Christian era.' 1 It is not unnatural to suspect that some of 

1 Last Essays, ist series (1901), p. 289. In his Christian Origins, E.T. 
(1906), p. 226, Otto Pfleiderer says: 'These [Buddhist] parallels to the child- 
hood stories of Luke are too striking to be classed as mere chance ; some kind of 
historical connexion must be postulated.' 

Speaking of the apocryphal gospels, such a cautious critic as the kte Dr. 
Winternitz says: : We can point to a series of borrowings from Buddhistic litera- 
ture which are absolutely beyond all doubt' (Vihabharati Quarterly, Feb. 1937, 
p. 14). 'A number of Buddhist legends make their appearance in the Apocry- 
phal gospels and are so obviously Indian in character that it can hardly be 
maintained that they were invented in Palestine or Egypt and spread thence 
Eastwards' (Sir Charles Eliot, Hinduism and Buddhism, vol. iii (1921), p. 441). 
Trees bend down before the young Christ and dragons adore Him. At the 
school He convicts His teacher of ignorance and the ktter faints (Gospel of 
Thomas vi and iv and Lalitavistara, x). When He enters a temple in Egypt 
the images prostrate themselves before Him, and they do the same before the 
young Gautama in the temple at Kapilavastu (Pseudo-Matthew xxii-xxiv and 
Lalitavistara viii). Mary is luminous before the birth of Christ, which hap- 
pens without any pain or impurity (Pseudo-Matthew xiii, Dfgha Nikaya 14, 
and Majjhima Nikaya, 123). At the moment of nativity all activity of man- 
kind and nature is suddenly interrupted (Gospel of James xviii and Lalitavis- 
tara, vii). The similarity of Roman Catholic services and ceremonial to the 
Buddhist is difficult to explain. 'When all allowance is made for similar causes 
and coincidences, it is hard to believe that a collection of practices such as 
clerical celibacy, confession, the veneration of relics, the use of the rosary and 



1 86 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

the prominent ideas travelled from the older to the younger 
system. As Christianity arose in a period of eclecticism, it 
is not impossible for it to have adopted the outlook and 
legends of the older religion, especially as the latter were 
accessible at a time when intercourse between India and the 
Roman Empire was quite common. Let us realize that when 
Christianity was in a formative stage Buddhism was both 
settled and enterprising. The affiliation of ideas is a useless 
pursuit. So long as it is not possible for us to establish with 
certainty the exact manner in which ideas travelled between 
India and the West, so long as we do not know who the 
intermediaries, what the opportunities and times were, it 
will be unwarrantable optimism to maintain the theory of 
direct borrowing. Our ignorance of what actually happened 
need not prevent us from noting the resemblances which 
strikingly make out that Buddha and Jesus are men of the 
same brotherhood. Our interest is in the logic of religious 
experience, and both Buddha and Jesus are eminent wit- 
nesses to it. There cannot be any difference of opinion 
regarding the view of life and the world of thought which 
seem to be common to Buddhism and Christianity in their 
early forms. Whether historically connected or not, they are 
the twin expressions of one great spiritual movement. The 
verbal parallels and ideal similarities reveal the impressive 
unity of religious aspiration. Buddha and Jesus are the 
earlier and later Hindu and Jewish representatives of the 
same upheaval of the human soul, whose typical expression 
we have in the Upanisads. Whether the two met in early 
times and one borrowed from the other is of little moment. 
Christianity began humbly among a band of disciples who 
knew and remembered the earthly life of Jesus, the ministry 
of a revolutionary prophet who announced the speedy com- 
ing of the Kingdom and demanded repentance. The Gospels 
give us what the apostles and the others had to tell of the 
bells can have originated independently in both religions' (Sir Charles Eliot, 
Hinduism and Buddhism, vol. iii (1921), p. 443). Many practices common 
to Indkn and Christian worship, such as the tonsure and the altar ritual in- 
cluding incense, flowers, lights, and singing, may have grown independently, 
but there are some, such as celibacy, relics, and confessions, which are old 
and established institutions in Buddhism and seem to have no parallels in 
Jewish, Syrian, or Egyptian antiquity. 



CHRISTENDOM I 187 

life and doctrine of Jesus, or, more accurately, what had been 
handed down in Christian families and schools as the original 
teaching of some of the apostles and their friends. While 
the memory of man is short, his imagination is prolific. The 
historical facts were soon covered over by the accretions of 
imagination. Incidents of Jesus' life assumed the form of 
legends, and it is not improbable that in this work the evan- 
gelists were unconsciously influenced by the cult of the 
Buddha. When Christianity entered the Roman Empire, 
different streams met, producing many strange eddies of 
belief and practice. 

in 

The contacts between India and the West were more fre- 
quent in the period of the Roman Empire, especially in the 
reign of Augustus, Trajan, and Marcus Aurelius. The 
Jatakas contain many references to Buddhist merchants and 
their adventures in distant lands. Greek and Indian mer- 
chants and men of letters met at Antioch, Palmyra, and 
Alexandria. The Augustan poets refer to the Medes, the 
Scythians, and the Hindus as being brought under the pro- 
tecting care of imperial Rome. 1 Indian princes sent em- 
bassies to Rome. One of these, from an Indian prince whom 
Strabo calls Pandion, left Barigaza (Broach) at the mouth of 
the Narbaaa and encountered Augustus at Samos four years 
later. 2 Another Indian embassy went to Rome to congratu- 
late Trajan on his accession in A.D. 99. The Kusan kings 
of India were on excellent terms with Rome. At Antioch 
the historian Nicolaus of Damascus encountered the three 
survivors of an embassy from a monarch bearing the historic 
name of Porus, on their way to Rome. According to the 
text of the will of Augustus, as it has been restored from 
a Greek translation on a monument at Ancyra, communica- 
tions were quite frequent from Indian princes. Pliny refers 
to an Indian embassy which arrived at Rome in the reign of 
Claudius. 3 As the commerce between the Mediterranean 
and the East was considerable, we need not think that it 
was confined only to material products. The names of the 

1 Horace, Carm. iv. 14; Virgil, Acneid, viii. 680 ff. 

* Geography* xv. 73. 3 Nat. Hist. vi. 24. 



i88 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

various imported products camphor, sulphur, beryl, opal, 
and the like show the linguistic influence of India. Accord- 
ing to Ptolemy and Dion Cassius, Indians were found in that 
great emporium of learning, Alexandria. 1 Dion Chrysostom, 
who lived in the reign of Trajan and died in or after A.D. 1 1 7, 
mentions Indians among those found in Alexandria. In his 
oration on Homer, he mentions that the Indians, who looked 
not on the same stars, sang in their own tongue of the woes 
of Priam and Andromache, of the valour of Hector and 
Achilles. 2 Apparently he was aware of the existence of the 
epic Mahabharata and its resemblance in some of its episodes 
to the incidents of the Iliad. Lecturing to an Alexandrian 
audience, he says: 'I see among you not only Greeks and 
Italians, Syrians, Libyans and Cilicians and men who dwell 
more remotely, but also Bactrians, Scythians, Persians and 
some of the Indians who are among the spectators and are 
always residing there.' 3 India had a reputation for high 
philosophy and religion in the middle of the second century 
A.D., for Lucian makes Demetrius, the Greek philosopher, 
give up his property and depart for India, there to end his 
life among the Brahmins. 4 The travels of Apollonius of 
Tyana support this tradition. Clement of Alexandria, who 
died about A.D. 220, knew the distinction between Hindu- 
ism and Buddhism. 'There are', he says, 'some Indians who 
follow the precepts of Boutta, whom, by an excessive rever- 
ence, they have exalted into a god.' 5 Clement mentions that 
Pythagoras learnt from Brahmins among others. 6 St. Jerome 
(A.D. 340) mentions Buddha by name and quotes the tradi- 
tion of his virgin birth. 7 In the reign of Constantine, Metro- 
dorus is said to have journeyed to India to study the science 
and philosophy of the Hindus. He was followed by his 
friend Meropius of Tyre and his companions Frumentius 
and Aedisius. Indian embassies continued to be sent to 
Constantine, Julian, and Justinian. Damascius mentions, in 
his life of Isidore, that certain Brahmins visited Alexandria 

1 Asiatic Researches, iii. 53. 2 Oral. liii. 

3 Ibid, xxxii, quoted in M'Crindle, Ancient India, pp. 174-8. 

4 Toxaris, 34. 

s 8tromata 9 L 15. 6 Ibid.i. 15. 

7 St. Jerome, Contr. Jwt*. i. 26. 



CHRISTENDOM I 189 

(A.D. 500) to learn Alexandrian science. In astronomy and 
geography the Indians owed a great deal to Western 
science. 

The vast development of material prosperity in the Roman 
Empire had no spiritual purpose behind it. Its ultimate end 
seemed to be the satisfaction of selfishness, individual and 
corporate. In the period preceding the birth of Christ Hel- 
lenism weakened the hold of natural religions but stimulated 
thought and curiosity. The ancestral cults had ceased to 
hold the larger part of the population in the Roman Empire. 
The gods of the Greek Olympus and the agricultural deities 
of the Latins lived in popular fables or poetic literature, but 
did not represent the religious life of the community. The 
worship of the Caesars developed the civic virtues, and the 
worship of law, as with the Stoics, satisfied the highly cul- 
tured. They were not essentially religious, though they con- 
tained many elements of religion. The religious-minded, for 
whom the Roman gods had lost their meaning and served 
only as occasions for civic ceremonial, sought to find 
spiritual solace outside the life of the society in an esoteric 
ideal of individual salvation. The people were attracted by 
the Eastern cults which were streaming into the Empire 
along the main highways that linked Europe and the Eastern 
provinces of the Empire, the cults of Isis or Mithras, Jesus 
or the Orpnic mysteries. They all possessed certain features 
in common mysticism, asceticism, and superiority to the 
secular state. The typical Greek may condemn the change 
as a false turning, a warping of values, but to the men who 
were dying of despair it seemed to be a vision of reality by 
which the world can be saved. It filled the aching void in 
their soul and dissipated despair. 

Professor Gilbert Murray tells us that the characteristics 
of 'indifference to the welfare of the state', 'asceticism, 
mysticism', are as marked in the Gnostics and the Mithras 
worshippers as in the Gospels and the Apocalypse, in Julian 
and Plotinus as in Gregory and Jerome.' 1 'With all their 
quackeries,' Professor Gwatkin says, 'these Eastern worships 
answered the craving for a higher life and for the com- 
munion with the unseen powers in a way which the old, 
1 Five Stages of Greek Religion, p. 155. 



190 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

unspiritual worship of the State could not.' 1 They pointed to 
the need of a wider fellowship than that of the State, a richer 
life than that of the good citizen. They drew the attention of 
thinking men to the tragedy of the failure of mere humanism, 
to the depth of man's longing for the eternal. Every kind of 
philosophy, every remedy for the troubles of life, found 
adherents in the Roman Empire in the first century. 

The chief cults which vied with Christianity for the 
spiritual mastery of the world are (i) Mithraism, (2) the 
Egyptian mysteries, and (3) Alexandrian theology, a curious 
blend of Greek and Hindu, Jewish and later Christian 
thought, which developed in Alexandria. When the Roman 
Empire was consolidated as a political unit, religious unity 
became essential as its counterpart. The new unitary State 
required a religion of a more universal character than the 
polytheistic cults. Mithraism was the first officially recog- 
nized monotheistic cult of the Roman world. It brought into 
religion a soldierly spirit, as it looked upon life as an un- 
ending battle between light and darkness. Mithras is the god 
of light, the representative of deity on earth, the mediator 
between the high powers of heaven and the human race. His 
adherents adopted an elaborate system of sacraments and 
degrees of initiation to secure spiritual blessings and en- 
lightenment. 

In the Persian Empire of the Sassanids, Manicha'eism was 
born. Its founder, Mani, was born in A.D. 2 1 5 on Babylonian 
territory and promulgated a creed which was a blend of 
Zoroastrian dogmas and Gnostic teaching. It held up an 
ascetic ideal of celibacy, poverty, and fasting. It emphasized 
the antagonism of the two principles of light and darkness. 
It spread among all the Christian subjects in Persia who 
spoke Aramaic. Mani gave a large place to the teaching of 
Jesus, which caused him to be accepted as a Christian heresi- 
arch. His creed, however, forbade the worship of images, 
disapproved the killing of animals for sacrifice, and so pro- 
voked the wrath of the Roman emperors. It became Bud- 
dhist in China and Christian in Europe. 

Isis the mother goddess, formed in Ancient Egypt one 
of the trinity Osiris, Isis, and Horus. She was identi- 
1 The Knowledge of God, vol. ii pp. 143 fF. 



CHRISTENDOM I 191 

fied with many other local goddesses, Ceres, Venus, and 
Diana. 1 About the period of the rise of Christianity she 
had become the centre of an elaborate cult of mysticism. 
She reappears in Christianity as the virgin Mother. 

IV 

Religious philosophy assumed different forms in Alexan- 
drian circles, where mysticism was the prevailing note. 2 
They, however, had certain points in common, such as an 
abstract notion of God as the transcendent absolute unity, 
the postulation of intermediary powers to bridge the chasm 
between the Absolute and the world, the connexion of matter 
with the principle of evil, and the recognition of ascetic self- 
discipline as a means to the clearer vision of absolute truths. 
These are to be found in all the different forms of Alexan- 
drian religious culture, of which the chief are (i) Jewish 
Platonism, (2) Gnosticism, (3) Neoplatonism, and (4) Chris- 
tian Platonism. It will be difficult to draw sharp lines of 
division between these divergent but related phases of reli- 
gious thought and aspiration. I shall not attempt to deal 
with these different tendencies except in so far as they are 
concerned with the problems of the nature of the deity, 
future life, and the connexion of religion with morality. 

In Alexandria, which was the meeting-place of East and 
West, Phiio developed his new interpretation of the Jewish 
scriptures. It is the most systematic attempt to combine 
Jewish teaching with Hellenic ideas, to express the religious 
conceptions of the Jewish prophets in the language of the 
Greek philosophers. He tried to bring together under 
the inspiration of his personal experience the dogmas of the 
Jewish revelation and the results of Greek speculative wis- 
dom. The central and the determining feature of Philo's 
system is the doctrine of the Logos. 

Among the precursors of Philo on the Jewish line are the 

1 An Oxyrhynchus papyrus (No. 1380), assigned on grounds of script to 
the early second century A.D., gives us a long invocation of Isis, equates her 
with Maia (Maya) in India, and makes her mistress of the Ganges. 

2 M. Vacherot asserts that the philosophy of the Alexandrians derived 
nothing from Greek philosophy except its knguage and its methods. The 
essentials of its thought are all Eastern. (Hist. Critique de rficole fAlcxan- 
dric, vol. iii, p. 250.) 



192 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

Sibylline Oracles and the Book of Wisdom. The former 
(c. 140 B.C.) call upon the Greek and the Egyptian to re- 
nounce their idols and worship the one God, who is con- 
ceived as everlasting, imperishable, self-existent. He alone 
really is, while the world and men under the doom of 
mortality are nothing. He is wholly invisible to the fleshly 
eye, though He reveals Himself in the human soul. He 
creates heaven and earth, the sun, stars, and moon. Unseen 
Himself, He beholds all things. He is the supreme knower, 
the witness of everything. Those who honour the true God 
will inherit eternal life and dwell for all time in Paradise. 
The specific developments of Philo's doctrine do not find 
any place here. 

The Book of Wisdom, which is undoubtedly earlier than 
the writings of Philo, makes a distinction between the 
transcendent God and Wisdom. The former is the eternal 
self-existent one of whom only being can be predicated. The 
phenomenal world, on account of its transiency, cannot be 
regarded as real or ultimate. It points to an unseen reality, 
the eternal unchangeable ground of all that we behold. He 
is the eternal light of which the light of stars and sun are 
but symbol or image. Wisdom is distinguished from the 
transcendent God. She is 'artificer of all things', 1 an in- 
separable emanation of the divine essence. She occupies the 
place of the Logos in Greek philosophy, though its nature 
is not properly worked out. The Hebrew doctrine of crea- 
tion out of nothing is not admitted. The universe is made 
out of a pre-existent material. God 'created the cosmos out 
of formless matter'. 2 Love is his motive in creation. 3 Man 
is a self-determining agent with a dual nature, soul and body. 
Immortality is a purely spiritual survival. To know God is 
to attain immortality. 4 * Plato, it has been suggested, may 
have inspired the passage, 'The souls of the righteous are in 
the hand of God.' Pre-existence of souls is assumed. 5 

The Therapeutae or the contemplative monks of Egypt, 
of whom Philo speaks with great enthusiasm, represent a 

1 vii. 21, viii. 6. 2 xi. 17. 

3 xi. 24. * xv. 3. 

5 'I was a child of comely parts and had obtained a good soul, or rather 
being good, I entered into an undefiled body* (viii. 19 and 20). 



CHRISTENDOM I 193 

blend of Alexandrian Judaism and Hindu beliefs and modes 
of life.' 

Philo looked upon himself as a devout orthodox Jew, 
though his thought is poured into the moulds of Creek 
philosophy. If the stories of Genesis are to be related to the 
Platonic doctrine of Ideas, it can only be by the method of 
allegorical interpretation which Philo adopts. His inter- 
pretations may seem to be forced, but they set forth a 
doctrine of mystic philosophy. The Absolute first principle, 
which is beyond personality and definite existence, which is 
immutable and incapable of relations to finite things and 
expressions in speech, is distinct from the God who makes 
and sustains the world. 

The predicates which it is possible to attach to the Abso- 
lute express the contrast of His pure being with the limited 
and determined nature of finite creatures. Philo says: 'He 
is full of Himself, and sufficient to Himself, equally before 
and after the creation of the universe ; for He is unchangeable, 
requiring nothing else at all, so that all things belong to 
Him, but He strictly speaking belongs to nothing.' 2 We can 
compare the Absolute to nothing that we know and so must 
contemplate it in silence. It is not a personal being. To 
Philo, the anthropomorphism of the Pentateuch is only an 
accommodation. The free spiritual worship of the Eternal 
is the goal for which the worship of the personal God is a 
preparation. He says: 'The two highest statements of the 
Law concerning the Cause are first, that "God is not as 
man", second that He is "as man". But the first is guaranteed 
by the most certain truth; the second is introduced for the 
instruction of the mass of mankind and not because God is 
such in His real nature.' 3 

We can apprehend God's existence partly by analogy. 
Even as we have an invisible mind whicn is sovereign over 
the body, so the universe must be guided by an invisible 
mind which is God. Again, the world shows traces of design, 

1 Dean Mansel finds 'in their ascetic life, in their mortification of the body 
and their devotion to pure contemplation' the influence of Hindu and Bud- 
dhist thought (TAe Gnostic Heresies of tke First and Second Centuries (1875), 
p. 32). 2 Drummond, Philo Judaeus (1888), ii. 48. 

3 Ibid. ii. 14. 



194 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

but the principle of causality cannot reside in matter which 
has nothing noble in itself but only the potentiality of 
becoming all things. 

The Absolute godhead, which is perfect, self-existent, and 
self-sufficient, cannot come into contact with matter; and yet 
Philo says that out of matter 'God generated all things, not 
touching it Himself, for it was not right for the wise and 
blessed to come in contact with indeterminate and mixed 
matter; but He used the incorporeal powers, whose real name 
is Ideas, that the fitting form might take possession of each 
genus'. 1 The Ideas are the archetypal patterns forming an 
intelligible cosmos, which is the Idea of Ideas. In mediating 
the relation between the godhead and the universe Philo 
develops his conception or the Logos and the intermediate 
powers. He looks on the latter sometimes as personal beings, 
at other times as impersonal attributes. In one sense the 
Ideas are identical with God, for, through them, the finite 
is able to participate in the deity; in another they are dif- 
ferent, for the supreme, in spite of this participation, remains 
free from all contact with the world. God touches matter 
not through His essence but through His powers. The 
cosmic process does not add to or take away from the per- 
fection of God. The thoughts are in a sense objective to 
God, independent of His essential subjectivity, but they are 
not separate from Him. They are modes of His energy, 
eternally and inseparably dependent on Him. If He were 
not, they would not be, even as there would be no rays of 
light if the central luminary were quenched. They appear 
as ideal forms in matter, and as thoughts in the human mind. 
By virtue of their origin they are independent of space and 
time. The sun is generally taken as the figure, the orb which 
burns to all appearance eternally, without need of fuel from 
outside itself. Independent of the world, it sends out its 
great stream of light and heat which makes possible life on 
earth. The light is brighter at the source or as one ap- 
proaches it. The successive stages of diminishing brilliance 
are marked off as distinct grades of reality, though these 
grades are said to be only emanations. Philo's account seems 
to presuppose a distinction between God as He is in Himself 

1 ii. 113. 



CHRISTENDOM I 195 

and God in relation to the cosmos, God the Absolute and 
God the relative. Dr. Drummond states Philo's view of 
powers thus: 

'They are the connexion between the universe and God, mediating 
between them, not because they are different from both, but because 
they are strictly separable from neither. Withdraw them from the 
mind, and it becomes a nonentity: withdraw them from the material 
world, and it ceases to be a cosmos: detach them, if that be conceivable, 
from God, and they will sink into nothingness. They are really 
divine, and wherever it turns, the seeing soul may discern some 
thought of God: but they are nowhere exhaustive of the Divine, and 
it would be wholly false to say that in their totality they were the 
equivalent of God. Through them God has indeed left no part of the 
cosmos empty of Himself; but He has not made Himself and the cosmos 
conterminous and therefore as soon as we endeavour to apprehend Him 
in the unity of His being, He remains to our thought essentially outside 
the universe though acting dynamically within it.' 1 

The perceptible universe has invisible patterns working in 
it. When we survey the cosmos as a whole, we rise to the 
apprehension of its unity and feel that the different ideas are 
the varied forms of one ultimate reason. The world is the 
concrete embodiment of this reason; it is the picture of 
God's thought. The thought or Logos of God is next only 
to God Himself. His thought presupposes His being. 'God 
is the mos*: generic thing,' says Philo, 'and the Logos of 
God is second.' The Logos is the pervasive law of the uni- 
verse, the supreme idea impressed on it. As the Idea of 
Ideas, the most general thought, it is said to be the oldest 
of things. As thought, it is conceived as produced under the 
figure of a son. Sometimes in Philo, the Logos is identified 
with wisdom; the mediating power is symbolized as the 
mother of the universe, the Sakti of Saiva and Sakta systems 
of thought. The Logos is the Platonic Idea of Good, the 
Stoic world spirit or Reason immanent in creation, which it 
fosters and sustains. As the mediator between the eternal 
and the ephemeral, it partakes of both natures. It is neither 
uncreated like the supreme nor created like the finite 
creatures. It imparts reality to all lower ideas as they in 
turn do to sensible things. 

1 Philo Judae**, ii. i 16. 



196 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

Man's material body is the source of evil. By resistance 
to the allurements of the senses and the active exercise of 
virtue, man can free himself from bondage to the body, and 
attain the divine vision when he is 'lifted above and out of 
himself. The knowledge of God is attained by vision, the 
direct personal communion of a soul that no longer reasons 
and reflects but feels and knows, becomes utterly passive, 
as in the condition of trance, of which Philo had personal 
experience. 

*I will not be ashamed to relate', says Philo, 'what has happened to 
myself a thousand times. Often when I have come to write out the 
doctrines of philosophy, though I well knew what I ought to say, 
I have found my mind dry and barren, and renounced the task in 
despair. At other times, though I came empty, I was suddenly filled 
with thoughts showered upon me from above like snowflakes or seed, 
so that in the heat of divine possession I knew not the place or the 
company, or myself, what I said or what I wrote.' 1 

We are able to know God, who dwells in us, as He has 
breathed His nature into us. The inspired soul 'may with 
good reason be called God'. The different stages for attain- 
ing the ecstatic consciousness, the withdrawal from the senses, 
the abstraction from the intellect, and the flight of the ego 
are recognized by him. The moral preparation is insisted 
on. While every good and wise man has the gift of prophecy, 
it is impossible for a wicked man to become an interpreter 
of God. 

We have in Philo's system a mystic rendering of historical 
Judaism. His passion for God, the certainty that the pure 
in heart shall see Him, the conviction that ascetic training 
alone can lead us to His presence, and his universality make 
him one of the greatest of mystics. 

The only Judaic elements are the insistence on mono- 

1 i. 14-15. Philo says: 'One must first become God which is impossible 
in order to be able to comprehend God. If one will die to the mortal life 
and live the immortal, he will perhaps see what he has never seen. But even 
the sharpest vision will be unable to see the Uncreated, for it will first be 
blinded by the piercing splendour and the rushing torrent of rays, just as 
fire affords light to those who stand at a proper distance but burns up those 
who come near' (ii. r 7). See also Bigg, The Christian Platonists of Alexandria 
(1886), p. 16. 



CHRISTENDOM I 197 

theism, contempt for image worship, and the claim that the 
Jews had in the Mosaic revelation the highest religious 
knowledge. All the other elements of his system are those 
found in Hindu thought. 

'It might almost seem', writes Dean Milman in his History of 
Christianity^ 'that there subsisted some secret and indelible congeniality, 
some latent consanguinity, whether from kindred common descent or 
from conquest, between the caste divided population on the shores of 
the Ganges, and the same artificial state of society in the valley of the 
Nile, so as to assimilate in so remarkable a manner their religion. It 
is certain that the genuine Indian mysticism first established a perman- 
ent Western settlement in the deserts of Egypt. Its first combination 
seems to have been with the Egyptian Judaism of Alexandria, and to 
have arisen from the dreamy Platonism, which in the schools of that 
city had been engrafted on the Mosaic Institutes.' 1 

The mystic tradition is preserved in the Jewish Kabbala^ 
whose two chief books are Sepher Tetzirah, or the Book of 
Creation, and Zohar, or Light. This system admits the 
reality of an En Soph^ which is the highest unity, having no 
attributes and no definite form of existence, though it com- 
prehends within itself all existence. All that is is contained 
in it and emanates from it, for since it is infinite nothing 
can exist beyond it. Its infinity becomes known by a series 
of emanations or intelligences which are ten in number. 
These ten sephiroth are the attributes of the infinite being, 
having no reality in themselves but existing in the divine 
being as their substance. From them arise, directly or re- 
motely, the three worlds of creation, formation, and action. 
The final destiny of the three worlds, as of all finite exis- 
tences, is to return to the infinite source from which they all 
emanated. The souls of men will not return to the infinite 
till they have developed all the perfections of which they are 
capable, and if this is not effected in a single life, the soul 
will migrate into other bodies, until the development is com- 
pleted. Many features of the Kabbala y such as the potency 
assigned to letters, the use of charms and amulets, the theory 
of emanation as opposed to creation ex nihilo y the doctrine 
of the correspondence between macrocosm and microcosm, 
belief in rebirth and a definite pantheistic tendency, are alien 
1 (1867) vol. ii, p. 41. 



198 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

to the spirit of orthodox Judaism and akin to that of the 
Upanisads and Tantrism. 



Gnosticism was a deliberate attempt to fuse Greek (Plato- 
nic) and Hindu elements. 1 It is a name for the whole system 
of syncretistic religious thought, which covers many sects 
with widely differing tenets which prevailed in the Eastern 
provinces of the Roman Empire during and prior to the 
early days of Christianity. It existed long before the Chris- 
tian era, though Christianity tended to look upon it as 
heresy. Many of the chief features of Gnosticism are those 
common to the Upanisads and the mystic traditions of 
Greece, (i) The divine being is indefinable and infinite, 
exalted above all thought and expression. He is different 
from the Demiurge or the Creator God. God is separated 
from His attributes, the aeons of reason and truth. He is 
eternal silence. (2) If God is the absolute being, how do 
creation and evil arise? If the world arose out of the sole 
act of God without any modifying or opposing influence, 
evil would have been impossible; or we will be driven to the 
conclusion that God created evil. So an antagonistic prin- 
ciple independent of God by which His creative energy is 
thwarted and limited is posited. This opposing principle 
is identified with the world of matter. Gnostic systems do 
not all agree with regard to the definition of matter. It is 
looked upon as either a dead passive resistance or a turbulent 
active power. The resulting dualism is also ambiguous. Evil 
which is opposed to the divine being has no reality. 2 The 

1 Harnack says: 'The union of the traditions and rites of the Oriental 
religions, viewed as mysteries with the spirit of Greek philosophy, is the char- 
acteristic of the epoch' (History of Dogma, vol. i (i 894), p. 229). In the tech- 
nical sense, the term 'gnostic* first appears in I Timothy vi. 20. 

2 This led to a denial of the Incarnation of Christ. A divine being cannot 
assume a body made of evil matter. This view took two forms. The Docetae 
held that the body of Jesus was an immaterial phantom. The Ebionites 
affirmed that the spiritual being of Christ was a distinct person from the man 
Jesus. The former descended upon the latter at the baptism and left Him be- 
fore crucifixion, never being united to Him in one person. When the Gnostic 
interprets the dualism as final and ultimate, he departs from the tradition of 
the Upanisads and manifests the influence of Persian dualism. Plotinus 
criticizes the Gnostic position on this point. 



CHRISTENDOM I 199 

dualism of good and evil is variously interpreted. It is often 
a temper which accepts the contradictions of experience as 
ultimate. There is no escape for spirit except in the destruc- 
tion of matter, no victory for the divine except in the anni- 
hilation of the human. Evil is regarded as a part of the 
constitution, something organic. (3) The infinite principle 
communicates with the finite by a series of successive emana- 
tions. They sink gradually lower and lower in the scale as 
they are farther removed from their source, until at last con- 
tact with matter becomes possible and creation ensues. 
These emanations, aeons, spirits, or angels are conceived of 
as more or less concrete or personal forms. (4) The cosmos 
is a blend of divine and non-divine material principles. It 
represents the descent of spirit into matter. Matter which 
was previously insensible is animated into life and activity by 
the descent of the spirit into it. (5) Deliverance of spirit from 
its union with matter or the world of sensuality is effected 
by asceticism and contemplation leading to gnosis or wis- 
dom. (6) Gnosis does not mean intellectual knowledge or 
logical understanding, but is seeing God, mysterious wis- 
dom. It is reception of the spirit, beatific vision, illumina- 
tion, deification. It is not imparted to all and sundry. It is 
esoteric, secret wisdom, accessible only to those who are 
initiated. 1 For the uninitiated many, faith suffices. There 
are holy ritr s and formulas, acts of initiation and consecration. 
Sacraments such as baptism by water, fire, sacred formulas, 
names, and symbols play a leading part. Gnosticism assumes 
that there is a knowledge of God, a science of realities. 
There is something to be known in religion. Salvation 
depends on the knowledge of truths, not knowledge about 
but knowledge of. Piety becomes gnosis. (7) The perfect 
Gnostic is the man who is free from the world and master 
of himself. He is emancipated from the dead letter and 
outward symbols of religion, having realized the truth. He 

1 In Pistil Sophia we have reference to the methods by which ecstatic 
experiences are obtained. According to it salvation is by a knowledge of the 
mysteries. It teaches us that we take in evil with our food, which is material, 
and so it is that we are asked to renounce the world. *And ye are in great 
sufferings and great afflictions in your being poured from one into another of 
different kinds of bodies of the world' (M., p. 248). 



200 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

lives in God and has life eternal and may be truly said to 
have passed from death to life, to have risen from the natural 
and put on the spiritual state. The true nature of resurrec- 
tion is spiritual. Many of the Gnostic sects believed in 
pre-existence and rebirth of human souls. They had also 
a magical theory of the spirit world. The disembodied soul 
travels by the dark or bright paths 1 and is saved from the 
perils on the way by the magic word. 'The essential part' 
of these Gnostic conceptions 'was already in existence and 
fully developed before Christianity'. 2 

In the first century it became fused with Christian ideas. 
In the early days Christianity wanted a philosophy which the 
Gnostics supplied. Harnack is undoubtedly correct in look- 
ing upon the Gnostics as 'the theologians of the first century'. 
He says: 'The Gnostic systems represent the acute secu- 
larising or hellenising of Christianity, with the rejection of 
the Old Testament, while the Catholic system, on the other 
hand, represents a gradual process of the same kind with the 
conservation of the Old Testament.^ The Church Fathers 
tell us that the doctrines of Gnosticism are derived from the 
mystery religions, Pythagoras, and Plato. Gnosticism is by 
no means a mere attempt to reject the Old Testament and 
hellenize the Gospels. What it did was to introduce into 
Christianity not the pure spirit of Greek philosophy but con- 
ceptions of Eastern religions which by the first century had 
taken their place everywhere in the Roman Empire. Its 
conceptions of dualistic theology, ascetic ethics, ecstatic 
experience of the real, and redemption from the trammels 
of flesh are derived from the Eastern cults. 'The first 
attempts at the intellectual comprehension [of the Christian 
doctrine], the first efforts of dogma were based on a philo- 
sophy profounder and far more venerable than the juvenile 
wisdom of the Greeks. . . . Gnosticism is not pure Hellenism 
as some say; it is rather pure orientalism in a Hellenic 
mask/ 4 By admitting the distinction of the Absolute god- 

1 These answer to the devayana and the pitryana of the Upanisads. Brhadd- 
ranyaka Up. vi. 2. 2. 

* Professor W. Bousset, 'Gnosticism', Encyclopaedia Britannica, nth ed. 

3 The History of Dogma, E.T. (1894), vol. i, pp. 227, 226. 

4 Kennedy, 'Buddhist Gnosticism', J.R.4.S. (1902), p. 383. 



CHRISTENDOM I 201 

head and creator spirit, the Gnostics break away from the 
Old Testament doctrine. The Christian Church stigmatized 
the Gnostic as the 'first-born of Satan*. Gnosticism is gen- 
erally regarded as an heretical perversion of Christianity. 

The chief document on this subject is the Philosophumena 
or the Refutation of all Heresies by Hippolytus, Bishop of 
Ostia, belonging to the early part of the third century. 1 This 
book mentions 'The Great Announcement' as containing an 
account of the pre-Christian teaching of Simon Magus. 2 
The Church Fathers describe him as a horrible sorcerer, the 
parent of all later Gnosticism. The story in Acts viii makes 
it clear that the sect of which he became the leader was a 
pre-Christian one. The first cause of all things is said to be 
Fire. 3 It has a twofold nature, hidden and manifest, appre- 
hended by reason and sense respectively. The cosmos or 
the ordered universe comes into being from the unbegotten or 
self-existent Fire by means of six roots called Mind, Thought, 
Voice, Name, Reason, and Desire. The world is a hebdomad, 
consisting of seven powers, the six roots with a seventh which 
is the source of them all. The conception of emanations is 
adopted. The conception of the Logos or the world soul is 
also accepted by the Simonians, according to Irenaeus. 

The Hermetic tradition of Egypt may be regarded as 
Gnostic in character. The Hermetic societies grew up in 
hellenized Egyptian circles where syncretistic cults were 
the fashion. The latest editor of the Hermetic books ob- 
serves: 4 If one were to try to sum up the Hermetic teaching 
in one sentence, I can think of none that would serve the 
purpose better than the sentence, "Blessed are the pure in 
heart for they shall see God." >4 Though in their present form 
they are not earlier than the fourth century, they undoubtedly 

1 E.T., 2 vols., by F. Legge (1921). The author of Philosophumena gives 
an account of Indian thought. The Brahmins are divided by him into two 
orders, the householders and the ascetics who live in seclusion and eat only 
fruits. They designated God under the figure of light, not that of sun or of 
fire but of the inward reason, the Logos which finds its expression in the 
knowledge of the wise. We can attain to this wisdom by casting off all vain 
opinion and controlling our evil passions (i. 21). 

2 See Acts viii. 9-24; Justin Martyr, Apologia, i. 26. 56 and ii. 1 5. 

3 Cf. 'God is a burning and consuming Fire* (Deuteronomy iv. 24). 

4 Scott, Hermetica (1924), vol. i, p. 14. 



202 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

represent an earlier tradition. Perhaps they are a develop- 
ment of the earlier mysteries. 1 They seem to be 'an eclectic 
combination of Platonic and Oriental doctrines'. 2 They be- 
lieved in a supreme creator God and many subordinate gods 
and angels. To account for the emanation of an imperfect 
and changing world an intermediary, a second god, was 
accepted. The Lord and Maker of all from Himself made 
the second god, the visible and perceptible whom He loved 
as His son. As finite man could not comprehend the infinite, 
he was made to contemplate the Son. The 'first born* god 
is named Agatho-Daimon, which was soon identified with 
the Logos. 'With Logos not with hands did the Creator 
make the universal cosmos.' Hermes is the messenger of the 
gods, conveying to us the mystery of the godhead. Con- 
tempt for the body as a bond of corruption encourages 
ascetic practices. The vision of God is attained not through 
ordinary natural processes but through dreams and divina- 
tion. The way to worship God is to abstain from evil. No 
one can be saved until he is born again. '[If you would be 
born again] you must cleanse yourself from the irrational 
torments of matter . . . ignorance, incontinent desires, in- 
justice, covetousness, deceitfulness, envy, fraud, rashness, 
vice. . . . When God has had mercy on a man all these depart 
from him, and thus is the rebirth accomplished.' 3 Even in 
this life, we can receive God and achieve immortality. The 
vision is ordinarily accompanied by ecstatic experiences. 
'Father/ the disciple cries, 'God has given me a new being, 
and I perceive things now not with bodily eyesight but by 
the working of the mind. I am in heaven and in earth, in 
water and in air: I am in beasts and plants. ... I am present 
everywhere. Father, I see the whole and myself in the mind.' 
The following is a typical prayer: 'We give thanks to Thee, 

1 Professor Sir Flinders Petrie gives 200 B.C. as the date of the Hermetic 
books. In the allusions to the destruction of Egyptian temples and worship and 
the massacre of people by Scythians and Indians, he finds an obvious reference 
to the second Persian invasion, 342-332 B.C., when the Scythian and Indian 
were the Western and Eastern branches of the Persian army. He sees in the 
Hermetic books 'the development of religious thought in Egypt under Persian 
and Indian influences which formed a basis of later Jewish and Greek develop* 
ments' (Egypt and Israe/ ( 1 923), p. 1 1 3). 

* Kirk, The Fmon of God (193 1), p. 47. 3 Ibid., p. 49. 



CHRISTENDOM I 203 

Most High, for by Thy grace we received this light of 
knowledge. Having been saved by Thee, we rejoice that 
Thou didst show Thyself to us wholly, that Thou didst deify 
us in our mortal bodies by the vision of Thyself/ 1 The 
whole duty of man in the Hermetic writings is declared to 
be 'to know God and injure no man 1 . 

Plutarch is a cultivated Gnostic of the first century of a 
tolerant frame of mind. He has no quarrel with any religion 
that puts God and man in right relation to each other. Be- 
wildered by the problem of evil, he resorts to a dualism and 
speaks with respect of the Persian doctrine of Ormuz and 
Ahriman. To make God the author of evil would be to con- 
tradict the idea of God. There are two principles hostile 
to each other. The evil principle is not matter which is 
characterless and indeterminate but something positive, a 
spiritual power, an evil world-soul. Matter aspires after the 
good, but is overcome and dominated by the evil spirit. The 
dualism in the constitution of the world is reflected in the 
individual soul, which has two parts opposed to each other. 
The higher part is not a part or function of the soul, it is 
something above us. Spirit is immortal. Plutarch believes in 
the rebirth of souls. The supreme godhead rules through 
subordinate powers. In the development of his views he was 
influenced by Greek thought and Egyptian religion. 

Apollonius of Tyana is another famous Gnostic. Accord- 
ing to the account of Philostratus, he journeyed to India 
and spent about four months at 'the monastery of the wise 
men'. 2 Apollonius hated bloody sacrifices and was a strict 
vegetarian. He was a complete passivist, holding that we 
have no right to shed blood under any circumstances. He 
insisted on prayer and contemplation and tried to make men 
more religious, attempting to alter their ways of worship. 
Freedom from possessions and needs is the highest value. 

Basilides in the first half of the second century A.D, 3 works 

1 Quoted in Kennedy, St. Paul and the Mystery Religions (1913), 
pp. 10910. 

2 Apollonius of Tyana, trans. Phillimore, 1912, bk. iii, chs. 10 and 50. 

3 He is said to have lived immediately prior to Valentinus, and so we may 
assume that he flourished about A.D. 120 to 130. The chief sources are the 
Phihsophumena of Hippolytus and the Miscellanies of Clement of Alexandria. 



204 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

Hindu and Buddhist thought into a Christian framework. He 
posits the reality of a supreme godhead who is above space, 
time, consciousness, and even being itself. It is to be wor- 
shipped in silence. His conception of God has little in 
common with the popular Christian view. Dean Mansel 
writes : 

*As a mere system of metaphysics, the theory of Basilides contains 
the nearest approach to the conception of a logical philosophy of the 
absolute which the history of ancient thought can furnish, almost 
rivalling that of Hegel in modern times; but in the same degree in 
which it elevates God to the position of an absolute first principle, it 
strips him of those attributes which alone can make him the object 
of moral obedience or religious worship.' 1 

The will to create the universe arises in this being. In this 
will is the seed of all universes, which contains everything 
in itself potentially, even as a grain of mustard seed contains 
the whole plant. It is the potentiality of all potentialities. 
The Demiurge, who arises 'thinking it not right that he 
should be alone, made for himself and brought into existence 
from the universal seed a son far better and wiser than him- 
selP. Even as man is the crown of the world process, Christ 
is the crown of manhood. Sonship is the manifestation of 
the deity. Clement of Alexandria says of Basilides that he 
'deified the devil'. 2 The dualism in Basilides is not so ulti- 
mate as this comment suggests. In the spirit of Buddhism, 
Basilides explains suffering as the fundamental principle of 
all existence and looks upon personality as a complex con- 
sisting of five elements. According to Clement, Basilides 
believes that men suffer for their deeds in former lives. He 
accepts rebirth in different forms as steps in the purification 
of the soul. 3 He denies resurrection of the body. He re- 
quired of his followers a probation of five years of silence. 

Though Basilides believed that Christianity was the main 
factor of his system, there is no doubt that his interpretation 
of Christianity is profoundly Buddhist. 

1 The Gnostic Heresies of the First and Second Centuries (i%7 $),?. l ^S- 

2 Strom ata t iv. 12, 85. 

3 In support of the hypothesis of rebirth, Basilides cites Scriptural texts. 
John ix. 2; Romans vii. 9. Corpocrates adopts the theory of rebirth in a 
modified form: the soul is imprisoned in the body again and again until it has 
performed all possible actions. Irenaeus, i. xxv. 



CHRISTENDOM I 205 

'All things have their law of being in themselves; suffering is the 
concomitant of existence, rebirth is the result of former acts and 
metempsychosis governs men with inflexible justice and with iron 
necessity. The office of Jesus is the office of the Buddha; the elect 
alone are saved and the mass of mankind remains content to be born 
again.' 1 

Valentinus has the reputation of being the greatest of the 
Gnostics, though our scanty information regarding his life 
and teaching is from the polemical writings of the Church 
Fathers. To the nameless being of Basilides he gives the 
name of Depth. He thus represents the absolute first prin- 
ciple in a positive way as potentially containing all existence 
rather than as actually determined by none. It is Unspeak- 
able Depth or Unutterable Silence. Its first manifestation 
is thought preparatory to action, an intellectual process in- 
dicated by Nous, whose counterpart is that perfect truth 
which belongs to divine thought. Then comes speech. 
Material existence is an error, fall, or degradation. 

Theodotus became the leader of the Eastern Valentinians 
and Clement was familiar with his writings. He taught that 
Christ came, not for our redemption alone, but for healing 
the disorders of the whole world. All those who receive Him 
and in so far as they can receive Him will be saved. There 
are different kinds of souls : those who have flesh and not 
soul will perish like the beasts; those who are spiritual are 
predestined to life eternal. Between these are the psychic, 
the feminine souls who can win eternal life by faith and 
discipline. The mingling of spirit, soul, and body is the 
cause of all evil and suffering, and their final separation is 
salvation. 

Bardesanes the Babylonian (born at Edessa on 1 1 July 
A.D. 155) is credited with a work on Indian thought. He 
met in Babylon some of the members of an embassy ad- 
dressed to the emperor Antoninus Pius (A.D. 158-8 1), From 
two of these, Damadamis and Sandanes, he derived a large 
amount of information, which Porphyry has preserved in 
his treatise on Abstinence. Bardesanes distinguishes between 

1 Kennedy, 'Buddhist Gnosticism', J.R.4.S. (1902), pp. 411-12. 'It is 
Buddhist pure and simple Buddhist in its governing ideas, its psychology, its 
metaphysics' (ibid., p. 383). 



206 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

the Brahmins and the Buddhists. He seems to have learnt 
a good deal about the teaching and mode of life of Hindu 
and Buddhist thinkers; his work was used by Porphyry. 

Marcion cannot be counted among the Gnostics, even 
though he distinguished between the God of love and the 
creator of the world, who is a self-contradictory being of 
limited knowledge and power, and adopts the antithesis of 
spirit and matter. He assumes three principles: (i) the 
Supreme God, (2) the Demiurge, and (3) eternal matter. The 
two latter are imperfect but not essentially evil. He does not 
admit the theory of emanation for the Supreme principle, 
which is an essential feature of other Gnostic mysteries. He 
denies any real assumption by Christ of human nature. 
Jewish prophecy is not for him a preparation for Christian 
revelation. He required the Church to reject the Old Testa- 
ment and thus release it from doctrinal narrowness. 1 

Gnosticism was one of the most powerful currents of 
thought which influenced Christian doctrine and practice. 
In the early third century Alexander Severus (A.D. 222-35) 
paid divine honours to the Gnostic teachers Apollonius and 
Orpheus. By the command of his mother, Philostratus wrote 
his Life of Apollonius. Gnosticism remained a power down 
to the fifth century through its alliance with Neoplatonism. 

The Gnostics 'approach the problem from a non-Christian 
j>oint of view and arrive therefore at a non-Christian solu- 
tion'. 2 But they accept the Christian creed and look upon 
themselves as Christians. They appealed to Christian scrip- 
tures and felt that they had a deeper knowledge of Christian 
truth. But their teaching was condemned as a heresy. The 
Gnostic view of creation is opposed to the Christian view as 
set forth in the first article of the Apostles' Creed: 'I believe 
in God the Father Almighty, the Maker of heaven and 
earth/ For the Gnostics creation is not the act of the 
supreme God but of an inferior demiurge. The god of 
religion and the god of creation are distinguished. Again, 
the doctrine of the resurrection of the body is opposed to the 
Gnostic view, which separates spirit and body. If personal 
existence is possible only in the body of the flesh, the dead 

1 Loisy, HMert Journal (July 1938), p. 520. 

2 Bigg, The Christian Platonists of Alexandria (1886), p. 29. 



CHRISTENDOM I 207 

will remain dead until the date of the general resurrection. 
If we cannot exist without the flesh, no one whose flesh is 
dead can be said to be alive. Its position was not impossible 
so long as the last day was believed to be imminent, but 
when it receded into the background the Gnostic view 
seemed more attractive. For the Gnostic the chief object of 
man was to set free his spiritual nature from its material 
imprisonment, and this can be accomplished by gnosis or 
sacramental rites. 

To the careful student, the close similarity between the 
teaching of the Upanisads and early Buddhism and Gnostic 
theories will be obvious. 

'That the seeds of the Gnosis were originally of Indian growth 
carried so far westward by the influence of that Buddhistic movement 
which had previously overspread all the East, from Tibet to Ceylon, 
was the great truth faintly discerned by Matter (in his Histotn 
Critique du Gnosticisms) but which became evident to me upon 
acquiring even a slight acquaintance with the chief doctrines of Indian 
theosophy.' 1 

VI 

Among the predecessors of Plotinus may be mentioned 
Poseidomus and Numenius. Poseidonius, the teacher of 
Cicero, was greatly influenced by the learning of the Chal- 
deans, and through his advocacy astrology became a popular 
study. The theory of tempers jovial, mercurial, saturnine, 
and lunatic and possession by demons, magic, and sorcery 
favoured the fatalistic attitude and crushed the mind under 
a load of gloomy and fantastic superstitions. The Gnostic 
and Neoplatonic speculations by their theory of demons and 
spiritual agencies did not discourage the spread of these 
views. But Plotinus reinterpreted the ideal of philosophic 
unity and transformed the 'return of the soul' from the 
domain of astral myths to that of experience. Sextus Em- 
piricus 2 quotes a saying of Poseidonius that 'light is appre- 

1 C. W. King, The Gnostics and Their Remains Ancient and Mediaeval^ 
2nd cd. (1887), p. xiv. 'In the history of the Church it is most certain that 
almost every notion that was subsequently denounced as heretical can be 
traced up to Indian speculative philosophy as its genuine fountain head; how 
much that was allowed to pass current for orthodox had really flowed from the 
same source, it is neither expedient nor decorous now to inquire' (p. xv). 

* Ibid.vii. 93. 



2o8 INDIA AND WESTERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

hended by the light-like power of vision, sound by the air-like 
one of hearing, and similarly the nature of the universe must 
be apprehended by reason which is akin to it'. The teaching 
of Poseidonius himself was much too Stoic in its texture and 
so could not satisfy an age which demanded a more spiritual 
conception of God and the soul. 

Numenius, whose influence on Plotinus was considerable, 
'had directed all his efforts', says Eusebius, 'towards a fusion 
of Pythagoras and Plato, while seeking for a confirmation of 
their philosophical doctrines in the religious doctrines of the 
Brahmins, the Magi and the Egyptians'. He looked upon 
Moses as a prophet and called Plato a 'Moses speaking in 
Attic*. He distinguished the Demiurge or the second god 
from the supreme b