Chapter VIII: Preface (8)

These words contain a rapid survey of the work of a whole life, and if we were to enter here into the details of what was actually achieved by this native statesman we should find that few Prime Ministers even of the greatest states in Europe had so many tasks on their hands, and performed them so boldly and so well. The clock on the tower of the Houses of Parliament strikes louder than the repeater in our waistcoat pocket, but the machinery, the wheels within wheels, and particularly the spring, have all the same tasks to perform as in Big Ben himself. Even men like Disraeli or Gladstone, if placed in the position of these native statesmen, could hardly have been more successful in grappling with the difficulties of a new state, with rebellious subjects, envious neighbours, a weak sovereign, and an all-powerful suzerain, to say nothing of court intrigues, religious squabbles, and corrupt officials. We are too much given to measure the capacity of ministers and statesmen by the magnitude of the results which they achieve with the immense forces placed at their disposal. But most of them are very ordinary mortals, and it is not too much to say that for making a successful marriage-settlement a country solicitor stands often in need of the same vigilance, the same knowledge of men and women, the same tact, and the same determination or bluff which Bismarck displayed in making the treaty of Prague or of Frankfurt. Nay, there are mistakes made by the greatest statesmen in history which, if made by our solicitor, would lead to his instant dismissal. If Bismarck made Germany, Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara made Bhavnagar. The two achievements are so different that even to compare them seems absurd, but the methods to be followed in either case are, after all, the same; nay, it is well known that the making or regulating of a small watch may require more nimble and careful fingers than the large clock of a cathedral. We are so apt to imagine that the man who performs a great work is a great man, though from revelations lately made we ought to have learnt how small—nay, how mean—some of these so-called great men have really been.

Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara found nothing to begin with—or rather, less than nothing, for he found not only an unorganised but a disorganised state. General Keatinge, who was Political Agent of Kathiawar during the years 1863 to 1867, found the transformation that had been wrought by Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara so complete that he could hardly believe that Bhavnagar was the same town which he had known in former days. Splendid buildings had arisen, devoted either to education or to the relief of the sick, the poor, and the needy. The harbour had been improved, and roads for trade and communications of every kind had been newly laid out or made serviceable. There was a large reservoir to supply the town with water; there were paddocks, a new jail, two medical dispensaries, and an immense hospital; there were telegraph and post offices, a High School, and a High Court of Justice. A railway had been built from Bhavnagar to Gondal, and so well was it administered, without syndicates or any other kind of jobbery, that it yielded annually a fair revenue to the state. The responsibility for all these undertakings rested on the shoulders of one man, and the credit for them should rest there also.

All this, however, is not what interested me in the old man, nor will it, I fear, interest many of my readers. He is after all but one of the many unknown ants that build up hills which, for all we know, one stroke of a stick may destroy again. Nor was it his moral character, noble and pure as it doubtless must have been, that riveted my attention chiefly. A man could hardly have achieved what he did, unless he stood high above the reach of the vulgar vices and failings of mankind. In that direction, I may quote a few more judgments from the mouths of those who had known him during his long active life. “His chief strength,” as one of his friends writes, “was to be found in his exemplary private character—

“His words were bonds, his oaths were oracles,
His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate;
His tears pure messengers sent from his heart;
His heart as far from fraud as heaven from earth.”

This is beautifully expressed; but does it give us an image of the man himself? Even the strongest words seem so colourless when they are meant to give us the picture of a living man. It may be quite true that he enjoyed in private and domestic life a veneration that was due to his noble and patriarchal character, and that his influence was, as we are told, invariably and unerringly exerted in putting an extinguisher on private feuds and disagreements among a wide and ever-widening circle of relations, friends, and members of his caste. We read that “in order to promote harmony among them he often made personal sacrifices, and that he proved himself a friend of the needy and the helpless, of genius and talent struggling to rise. If it was not to be a blessing to others, life seemed to him not worth living.”

All this is very strong testimony; and yet of how many people has the same been said, particularly by mourners at the grave of one whom they loved, and who had loved them! Funeral eloquence has its bright, but it also has its very dark side. It is delightful to see how much can be forgotten and forgiven at the grave, how gently all faults can be passed over or accounted for, how none but the noblest motives can then be imputed. But all is spoiled at once if rhetorical exaggeration comes in, so that even the truth contained in the panegyrics is hidden and choked by a rank growth of adulation and untruthfulness.

But though I was quite prepared to believe all that we were told about the private as well as public character of Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara, what attracted me most in him was that the same man should through life have been a true philosopher, nay, what men of the world would call a dreamer of dreams; and should yet have proved so excellent a man of business. Plato’s dictum, which has so often been ridiculed, that philosophers are the true rulers of men, has indeed been signally vindicated in Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara’s case. And his philosophy was not what may be called useful philosophy—a knowledge of nature and its laws. This might be tolerated in a Prime Minister, even in Europe. No; it consisted in the most abstruse metaphysics which would turn even the hardened brains of some of our best philosophers perfectly giddy. And yet that very philosophy, so far from unfitting Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara for his arduous work, gave him the proper strength for doing and doing well whatever from day to day his hands found to do. He felt the importance of his official work to the fullest extent, but he always felt that there was something more important still. Though devoting all his powers to this life and its duties, he felt convinced that this life would soon pass away, that there was no true reality in it, that it was Mâyâ, illusion, arising from Avidyâ, nescience, and that there was behind, beneath, and above, another and higher life which alone was worth living. It was his faith in, or his knowledge of, that higher life which best fitted him to perform his work in the turmoil of the world. Thus it was that when any of his schemes ended in failure, disappointment never upset him, and that though he was often deceived in the friends he had trusted, he never became a pessimist.

It is very difficult to describe what was the faith or the philosophy which supported him throughout his busy life. From his early youth he was impressed with certain views of the Vedânta philosophy, which form the common spiritual property, so to say, of all the inhabitants of India. That philosophy seems to have entered into the very life-blood of the nation, but it assumed, of course, very different forms as believed in by men of talent and education, and by the drudging tillers of the soil throughout the land. The number of those who study the Vedânta in the works of such minute philosophers as Bâdarâya_n_a and _S_a_m_kara is naturally very small, but the number of those who have drunk in the spirit of it, it may be in a few sayings only, is legion.

It seems almost impossible to give a short and clear account of that ancient philosophy, though, when once known, it can be, and has been, described and epitomised in a few very short lines. The approaches to it are very various, but anybody accustomed to Greek or European forms of thought is sorely perplexed how to find an entrance into it from exactly the same point as the Hindus themselves. The Vedânta philosophy is meant to be an interpretation of the world, different from all other interpretations, whether philosophical or religious. It was to lead to a new birth, and therefore remained unintelligible and unmeaning to souls that will not be regenerated. It is partly an advantage, partly a disadvantage, that for several of their most important tenets the Vedântists simply appeal to the Vedas, their Bible, as containing the absolute truth, as being the highest seat of authority, or the last Court of Appeal on questions which with us would require very different arguments to prove that, given our reasoning powers, such as they are, and the world, such as it is, certain doctrines are inevitable, or that at all events their opposites are unthinkable. To make the results at which the Vedântists arrive intelligible, it is best for us to start with a few maxims which seem to underlie their philosophy, and which, whether true in themselves or not, do not at all events offend against our own rules of reasoning.

If, then, we start with the idea of the Godhead, which is never quite absent in any system of philosophy or religion, we may, excluding all polytheistic forms of faith, allow our friends, the Vedântists, to lay it down that before all things the Godhead must be one, so that it may not be limited or conditioned by anything else. This is the Vedânta tenet which they express by the ever-recurring formula that the Sat, the true Being or Brahman, must be Ekam, one, and Advitîyam, without any second whatsoever. If, then, it is once admitted that in the beginning, in the present, and in the future, the Godhead must be one, all, and everything, it follows that nothing but that Godhead can be conceived as the true, though distant cause of everything material as well as spiritual, of our body as well as of our soul. Another maxim of the Vedântist, which likewise could hardly be gainsaid by any thinker, is that the Godhead, if it exists at all in its postulated character, must be unchangeable, because it is perfect and cannot possibly be interfered with by anything else, there being nothing beside itself. On this point also all the advanced religions seem agreed. But then arises at once the next question, If the Godhead is one without a second, and if it is unchangeable, whence comes change or development into the world; nay, whence comes the world itself, or what we call creation—whence comes nature with its ever-changing life and growth and decay?

Here the Vedântist answer sounds at first very strange to us, and yet it is not so very different from other philosophies. The Vedântist evidently holds, though this view is implied rather than enunciated, that, as far as we are concerned, the objective world is, and can only be, _our knowledge_ of the objective world, and that everything that is objective is _ipso facto_ phenomenal. Objective, if properly analysed, is to the Vedântist the same as phenomenal, the result of what _we_ see, hear, and touch. Nothing objective could exist objectively, except as perceived, by us, nor can we ever go beyond this, and come nearer in any other way to the hidden, subjective part of the objective world, to the _Ding an sich_ supposed to be without us. If, then, we perceive that the objective world—that is, whatever we know by our senses, call it nature or anything else—is always changing, whilst on the other hand, the one Being that exists, the Sat, can be one only, without a second, and without change, the only way to escape from this dilemma is to take the world when known to us as purely phenomenal, i.e. as created by our knowledge of it, only that what we call knowledge is called from a higher point of view not knowledge, but Avidyâ, i.e. Nescience. Thus the Godhead, though being that which alone supplies the reality underlying the objective world, is never itself objective, still less can it be changing. This is illustrated by a simile, such as are frequently used by the Vedântists, not to prove a thing, but to make things clear and intelligible. When the sun is reflected in the running water it seems to move and to change, but in reality it remains unaffected and unchanged. What our senses see is phenomenal, but it evidences a reality sustaining it. It is, therefore, not false or illusory, but it is phenomenal. It is fully recognised that there could not be even a phenomenal world without that postulated real Sat, that power which we call the Godhead, as distinguished from God or the gods, which are its phenomenal manifestations, known to us under different names.

The Sat, or the cause, remains itself, always one and the same, unknowable and nameless. And what applies to external nature applies likewise to whatever name we may give to our internal, eternal, or subjective nature. Our true being—call it soul, or mind, or anything else—is the Sat, the Godhead, and nothing else, and that is what the Vedântists call the Self or the Âtman. That Âtman, however, as soon as it looks upon itself, becomes _ipso facto_ phenomenal, at least for a time; it becomes the I, and that I may change. The I is not one, but many. It is the Âtman in a state of Nescience, but when that Nescience is removed by Vidyâ, or philosophy, the phenomenal I vanishes in death, or even before death, and becomes what it always has been, Âtman, which Âtman is nothing but the Sat, the Brahman, or, in our language, the Godhead.

These ideas, though not exactly in this form or in this succession, seem to me to underlie all Vedântic philosophy, and they will, at all events, form the best and easiest introduction to its sanctuary. And, strange as some of these ideas may sound to us, they are really not so very far removed from the earlier doctrines of Christianity. The belief in a Godhead beyond the Divine Persons is clearly enunciated in the much-abused Athanasian Creed, of which in my heart of hearts I often feel inclined to say: “Except a man believe it faithfully, he cannot be saved.” There is but one step which the Vedântists would seem inclined to take beyond us. The Second Person, or what the earliest Christians called the Word—that is, the divine idea of the universe, culminating in the highest concept, the Logos of Man—would be with them the _Thou_, i.e. the created world. And while the early Christians saw that divine ideal of manhood realized and incarnate in one historical person, the Vedântist would probably not go beyond recognising that highest Logos, the Son of God and the Son of man, as Man, as every man, whose manhood, springing from the Godhead, must be taken back into the Godhead. And here is the point where the Vedântist differs from all other so-called mystic religions which have as their highest object the approach of the soul to God, the union of the two, or the absorption of the one into the other. The Vedântist does not admit any such approach or union between God and man, but only a recovery of man’s true nature, a remembrance or restoration of his divine nature or of his godhead, which has always been there, though covered for a time by Nescience. After this point has once been reached, there would be no great difficulty in bringing on an agreement between Christianity, such as it was in its original form, and Vedântism, the religious philosophy of India. What seems to us almost blasphemy—a kind of _apotheosis_ of man, is with the Vedântist an act of the highest reverence. It is taken as man’s _anatheosis_, or return to his true Father, a recovery of his true godlike nature. And what is or can be the meaning of God-like? Can anything be godlike that is not originally divine, though hidden for a time by Nescience? After all, though Nescience may represent Manhood as the very opposite of Godhead, what beings are there, or can be imagined to be, that could fill the artificial interval that has been established long ago between God and man, unless we allow our poets to people that interval with angels and devils? The real difficulty is how that interval, that abyss between God and man, was ever created, and if the Vedântist says by Nescience, is that so different from what we say “By human ignorance”?

It was necessary to give these somewhat abstruse, explanations—though in reality they are not abstruse, but intelligible to every unsophisticated and childlike mind. These, then, were the ideas that supported our friend Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara, and which support, under different disguises, millions of human beings in India—men, women, and children. On such simple but solid foundations it is easy to erect ever so many religions, to build ever so many temples, and to find room for the most elevated and the most superstitious minds, all yearning for the same Peace of God, and for the same Giver of Peace and Rest. Names may differ and truth may adopt different disguises. But, after all, the peace which Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara enjoyed amid the daily cares of his official life, and which arose from his forgetting himself and finding himself in God, or, as he would say, forgetting his phenomenal in his real Âtman, could it have been so very different from what we call the peace of God that passes all understanding? Such a view of the world as his was, is generally supposed to unfit a man for all practical work, but this, as we see, is by no means a necessary consequence. One thought of Brahman was sufficient to refresh and strengthen him for the battle of life, like a header taken into the waves of an unfathomable ocean. He knew where he was and what he was, and that was enough to keep him afloat.

And here we come across another curious feature of Hindu life, which shows how thoroughly their philosophy had leavened and shaped their social institutions in ancient times. As soon as we know anything of these institutions we read that the passage through life of a twice-born man was divided into four periods—one of the pupil, Brahma_k_ârin, the next of the married man or the householder, G_ri_hastha. Then followed the third stage, after a man had fulfilled all his duties, had performed all necessary sacrifices, and had seen the children of his children. Then and then only came the time when he might retire from his house, give up all that belonged to him, and settle somewhere in the forest near, with or without his wife, but still accessible to his relations, and chiefly occupied in overcoming all passions by means of ascetic exercises, and withdrawing his affections more and more from all the things of this life. During that third station, that of the Vânaprastha or the ὑλόβιος, the mind of the hermit became more and more concentrated on that higher philosophy which we call religion, and more particularly on the Vedânta, as contained in the Upanishads, and similar but later works. Instead of merely dipping into the waters, the philosophical baptism became then a complete submergence, an entrance into life with Brahman, where alone perfect peace and a perfect satisfaction of man’s spiritual desires could be found. This third station was followed by a fourth—the last chapter of life, when the old and decrepit man dragged himself away into the deep solitude of the forest, forgetting all that had once troubled or delighted his heart, and falling at last into the arms of his last friend, Death.

Such a conception and division of life seems quite natural from a Hindu point of view, and there was no necessity therefore for explaining it, as some anthropologists have done, by a circuitous appeal to savage customs, as is now the fashion. It is well known, no doubt, that both savage and half-civilised races get rid of their old people by either killing them or by causing them to be killed by wild animals. This inhuman cruelty may, no doubt, have been an act of necessity, particularly during a nomadic state of life. But in India the third station of life is quite different. It is based on a voluntary act, and it is followed by a fourth and final station, equally chosen by a man’s own free will. Besides, all this was meant for the higher classes only, without a hint of its ever having been considered as inhuman or cruel. These anthropological explanations are very amusing, no doubt; their only drawback is that most of them can neither be proved nor disproved.

At present the four stations of life in India seem to possess an archaeological interest only, they are no longer of any practical importance. In the case of Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara it was no doubt his love of the ancient customs of his country, combined with a true desire for rest at the end of a most laborious and most successful career, that made him think of reviving in his own case the old custom, though even then in a milder form only. He gave up his post as Prime Minister, and entered into private life in January, 1879. His mind, we are told, when he was bordering upon eighty, was as bright and active as ever, but he then directed all his mental energies to one subject only, to a constant contemplation of the great problems of life. His presence had attracted many itinerant anchorites, many eminent teachers and students of the Vedânta to Bhavnagar, which became for a time the home of Indian philosophical speculation. He himself now devoted his time to a serious study of Sanskrit, for which his incessantly busy career had left him little time in youth. He published in 1884 _The Svarûpânusandhâna_ in Sanskrit, being considerations on the nature of the Âtmâ (Self), and on the unity of the Âtmâ with the Paramâtmâ (the Highest Self). He still saw some friends, and, living in what we should call a garden house, he remained in touch with the outer world, though no longer affected by any of the conflicting interests which had occupied him for so many years. When, in 1886, Lord and Lady Reay wished to see him once more, he consented to receive them, but in the dress, or rather uniform, of his Order, with his Dhoti, his frock, and his cap all covered with ochre. Their interview lasted for an hour, and Lord Reay declared that of all the happy moments he spent in India, those spent in the presence of that remarkable man remain engraved on his memory.

A few letters which I received from the old man after his retirement from the world may be interesting. He had sent me a copy of his book which contained, as he said, a collection of Vedântic sentences, forming, as it were, a chain of precious jewels or pearls. I thanked him in the same spirit, and as my letter has been published in his Life, I may as well repeat it here:—

“OXFORD, _December 3, 1884_.

“I have to thank you for your kind letter and for your valuable
present, the Svarûpânusandhâna. If you had sent me a real necklace of
precious stones it might have been called a magnificent present, but
it would not have benefited myself, my true Âtman. The necklace of
precious sentences which you have sent me has, however, benefited
myself, my true Âtman, and I, therefore, consider it a far more
precious present than mere stones or pearls. Besides, in accepting it,
I need not be ashamed, for they become only my own, if I deserve them,
that is, if I truly understand them. While we are still in our first
and second Â_s_rama (station of life) we cannot help differing from
one another according to the country in which we are born, according
to the language we speak, and according to the Dharma (religion) in
which we have been educated. But when we enter into the third and
fourth Â_s_rama, into which you have entered and I am entering, we
differ no longer, G_ñ_âtvâ Deva_m_ sarvapâ_s_âpahâni_h_, ‘When God has
become really known, all fetters fall.’

“Though in this life we shall never meet, I am glad to have met you in
spirit.”

I received another letter from him when he was just on the point of retiring from the world altogether and becoming a Sa_m_nyâsin, as far as that is possible in modern India. By taking this step he showed that he was indeed a Vedântist in good earnest. What with us is but one of the many theories of life, was to him the only saving faith; and while with us an old Prime Minister clings to the end to his political interests, and loves to be surrounded and amused by those who belong to him, we see here a real hero of thought who, freed from all desires, turns his eyes away from the whole phenomenal world to dwell only on what is eternal and unchangeable, the Paramâtman—the Highest Self. To most of us this intellectual atmosphere, which he breathed to the very last, would prove too exhausting. We can never drop all fetters—nay, many of us glory in them to the very end. But whatever we may think of his philosophy, there can be no doubt that his life was consistent throughout. He tried to live up to the standard which had been handed down to him from remote antiquity, and which he fully believed to be the best and the truest. This last letter is dated July 11, 1886. In it he says:—

“I had sent you a book which is the result of my long study of the Vedânta Philosophy. You can easily imagine that I, being a Hindu Brâhman, can be said to have fully realized the truth of the doctrine therein discussed, when I can give you patent proofs of the effect which that study has had on me. There are, as you well know, four Â_s_ramas prescribed by our _S_âstras, and the Brâhmans are required to successively pass through them all, if they can do so. But in this Kaliyuga people are not very particular about it. The second Â_s_rama, namely that of G_ri_hastha (householder), is more or less enjoyed by all, and there are some who enter into the third or fourth order. Fortunately for myself I have attained an old age by which I was enabled to fulfil the requirements of the _S_âstras, and thus lead a life of the third order after I left public life.

“Now my health is failing fast, and to finish the whole I have made up my mind to enter into the fourth order or Â_s_rama—namely, that of Sa_m_nyâsin. Thereby I shall attain that stage in life when I shall be free from all the cares and anxieties of this world, and shall have nothing to do with my present circumstances in life.

“After leading a public life for more than sixty years, I think there is nothing left for me to desire except the life of a Sa_m_nyâsin, which will enable my Âtman (Self) to be one with Paramâtman (highest Self), as shown to us by the enlightened of old. When this is accomplished a man is free from births and rebirths; and what can I wish more than that which will free me from births and rebirths, and give me means to attain Moksha (freedom)?

“My learned friend, in a few days I shall be a Sa_m_nyâsin, and thus there will be a total change of life. I shall no more be able to address you in this style, so I send you this letter to convey my best wishes for your success in life, and my regards, which you so well deserve.

“After this, as you have so well said in your note, you and I will be not two persons, and as the Âtman which, being all-pervading, is one, there is total absence of duality. I shall end this note with the same words which you have mentioned, G_ñ_âtvâ Deva_m_ sarvapâ_s_âpahâni_h_, ‘When God has been known, all fetters fall.’”

I heard no more of him except indirectly, when his son sent me a copy of the Bhagavad-gîtâ as a present from his father, who was no longer Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara then, but Sa_kk_idânanda, that is, the Supreme Spirit, i.e. he “who is, who perceives, and is blessed.”

It would be a mistake to imagine that a life such as was lived by Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara is usual in modern India. On the contrary, it is now quite exceptional, and Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara was in every respect an exceptional character. Still we must guard against a mistake made by many biographers, who represent their hero as standing alone on a high pedestal without any other people around him with whom he could be compared. We have of late had a number of biographies that would make us believe that in England great men differed by their whole stature from their contemporaries. It is but seldom, however, that we find one man a whole head taller in physical stature than the majority; and so it is in intellectual and moral height also. It is true that it is the head that makes the whole difference, and sometimes a very great difference, still we must never forget that, as a mountain peak seldom stands up by itself, even our greatest men are surrounded in history by their equals, and should be measured accordingly.

Thus in our case, though in Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara we see a rare union of the man of the world and the man out of the world, of the Prime Minister and the philosopher, it so happens that there were several other statesmen living at the same time who, if they had not actually become hermits, were, all their life, devoted students and followers of the Vedânta. The Minister of the neighbouring state of Junagadh, Gokulaji Zâlâ, who had likewise made his way from poverty to the highest place in his little kingdom, was all his life devoted to the study of the Vedânta. He was the personal friend of Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara, and in the reports of the Political Agent he is spoken of as the equal of Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara[62]. Lord Lytton conferred on him the title of Râo Bahâdur, in recognition of his loyal conduct and services. When he died, in 1878, too young to have become a Sa_m_nyâsin, it was said that “having done his task, he became, through the true self-knowledge, free from the three forces—causal, subtile, and gross—which disguise the Self, and that his Self, absorbed in the highest Self, became all happiness, just as space, enclosed in a vessel, becomes one with infinite space and force, as soon as the vessel is broken.” Everywhere we come across the same Vedântic thoughts in India, though, no doubt, under various forms, according to the comprehension of different classes, but in their essence they all mean the same. Gokulaji himself, if we may judge by his biographer, was an assiduous student of the Vedânta all his life, perhaps more even than Gaurî-_s_a_m_kara had been; and, while the latter rejoiced more in the ancient abrupt Vedântic utterances of the Upanishads, Gokulaji had evidently taken an interest in the modern Vedânta also, which enters more minutely into many of the problems which are but stated or hinted at in the ancient Upanishads.

In the case of the two Prime Ministers of Bhavnagar and Junagadh there can be little doubt that the Vedântic spirit which filled their minds and guided their steps in life was drawn from a study of the classical works in which that ancient philosophy has been preserved to us. They were Vedântists, as even with us Prime Ministers may be Platonists or Darwinians. But the same philosophical spirit has entered into the language of the people also, into their proverbs and popular maxims, into their laws and poetry. If people, instead of saying “Know thyself,” can only say “Know Âtman by Âtman” (know self by self) they are reminded at once of the identity of the ordinary and higher Self. If they meet with people who called themselves Âtmârâma, i.e. self-pleased, they are easily led on to see that the name was really meant for delighting in the Self, i. e. God; if they are taught that he who sees himself in all creatures, and all creatures in himself, is a self-sacrificer and obtains the heavenly kingdom, they learn at least that this Self is meant for something more than the material body or the Ego, though it can no doubt be used in that sense also.

This Vedânta spirit pervades the whole of India. It is not restricted to the higher classes, or to men so exceptional as the Prime Minister of Bhavnagar. It lives in the very language of the people, and is preached in the streets and in the forests by mendicant Saints. Even behind the coarse idol-worship of the people some Vedântic truth may often be discovered. The “Sayings of Râmak_ri_sh_n_a,” which I lately published (“Râmak_ri_sh_n_a, His Life and Sayings,” 1898), are steeped in Vedântic thought, and the life-spring of the reforms inaugurated by such men as Rammohun Roy, Debendranâth Tagore, and Keshub Chunder Sen, must be sought for in the Vedântic Upanishads, though quickened, no doubt, by the spirit of the New Testament.

How omnipresent the influence of the old Vedânta is, even in the lower strata of Indian society, I can, perhaps, show best if I repeat here a story which I have told once before, the story of a poor little girl and her boyish husband. I came to hear that story through her friends who were the friends of Keshub Chunder Sen. We must try to understand, first of all, that it is possible in India for a girl of nine and a boy of twelve to fall in love and to be married, or, rather, to be betrothed. To us such a state of things seems most unnatural; but as long as the custom prevails and is looked upon with favour rather than with disapproval, we can hardly blame a young peasant boy and a still younger peasant girl for following the example set them by their father, mother, and all their friends. That hearts so young are capable of mutual affection and devotion we know from the biographies of some of our own most distinguished men. Nay, we are told by the people of India that the years of their boyish love form the happiest years of their life. As a rule, these young couples remain for some time with their relations—they are like brother and sister; and as they grow up they have the feeling that, like their father and mother, brothers and sisters, husband and wife also are given, not chosen, and the idea that the bonds of their betrothal could ever be severed never enters their minds. The custom itself is no doubt both objectionable and mischievous, and those who have laboured to get it abolished by law deserve our strongest sympathy. All I wish to say here is that we must not make an innocent, ignorant couple, living in an Indian village, responsible for the perversity of a whole nation.

How perverse a nation can be may be seen from an Indian newspaper calling itself _The Indian Nation_, which first denies that Hindu widows are unhappy, and then adds “that, according to Hindu ideas, they ought to be unhappy, because the end of life is not happiness, nor the gratification of dreams, but the regulation, or, if possible, the extinction of them.” The widow’s life, we are told, was not meant to be joyful, nor should it be rendered joyful or useful, because Hindu ethics are not utilitarian like ours.

These two, _S_rîmatî and her husband Kedar Nâth, were as happy as children all day long; but what is even more surprising than their premature marriage is the premature earnestness with which they looked on life. Their thoughts were engaged on questions which with us would seem but rarely to form the subject of conversation, even of far more mature couples. They felt dissatisfied with their religion which, much as we hear about it in Indian newspapers, occupies after all a very small portion only of the daily life of a poor Hindu family. Their priest may come to say a few prayers before their uncouth idol, provided they possess one, there may be some popular rather than religious festivals to attend, and charitable contributions may be extorted by the priests even from those who have barely enough to eat themselves. They wear their sectarian mark on the forehead, and they may repeat a few simple prayers learnt from their mothers. But of religion, in our sense of the word, they know little indeed. Even when there is a sacred book for their own form of faith, Vedas, Purâ_n_as, or Tantras, they probably have never seen or handled it. They are surrounded, however, by temples and idols, and repulsive idolatrous practices are apt to sicken the heart and to excite doubts even in the least inquisitive minds. Thus when _S_rîmatî’s young husband arrived at the conclusion that stones could not be gods (nay, in their hideousness, not even symbols of the Godhead), he took refuge in the Vedânta as preached by Keshub Chunder Sen. This was a bold step. But when he told his young wife what had happened to him, and explained to her his reasons, serious as the consequences of such a step were in India, she, as a faithful and devoted wife, at once followed his example. Even then their creed was indeed very simple. It was not pure Vedânta, it was rather devotional Vedânta-Bhakti, a belief in a phenomenal and personal God, not yet in the Godhead that lends substance and reality to all individual beings, whether gods or men. They held that God was one, without a second, that He existed in the beginning and created the universe. They believed Him to be intelligent, infinite, benevolent, eternal, governor of the universe, all-knowing, all-powerful, the refuge of all, devoid of parts, immutable, self-existent, and beyond all comparison. They also believed that in worshipping Him, and Him alone, they could obtain the highest good in this life and in the next, and that true worship consisted in loving Him and doing His will. There is not much heresy, it would seem, in such a simple creed, but to adopt it meant for the young husband and his wife degradation and complete social isolation. They might easily have kept up an appearance of orthodoxy, while holding in their hearts those simple, pure, and enlightened convictions. The temptation was great, but they resisted. The families to which she and her husband belonged occupied a highly respected position in Hindu society, which in India is fortunately quite compatible with extreme poverty. Much as both she and her husband had been loved and respected before, they were now despised, avoided, excommunicated. Even the allowance which they had received from their family was ordered to be reduced to a minimum, and in order to fit himself to earn an independent livelihood, the husband had to enter as a student in one of the Government colleges, while his little wife had to look after their small household. Soon there came a new trial. Her husband’s father, who had renounced his son when he joined Keshub Chunder Sen’s church, died broken-hearted, and the duty of performing the funeral rites (_S_râddha) fell on his son. To neglect to perform these rites is considered something awful, because it is supposed to deprive the departed of all hope of eternal life. The son was quite ready to perform all that was essential in such rites, but he declared that he would never take part in any of the usual idolatrous ceremonies. In spite of the prayers of his relatives and the protestations of the whole village, he would not yield. He fled the very night that the funeral ceremony was to take place, accompanied again by no one except his brave little wife. Thereupon his father’s brothers stopped all allowances due to him, and he was left with eight rupees per month to support his wife and mother. _S_rîmatî however managed, with this small pittance, to maintain not only herself and her husband but her husband’s mother also, who had become insane, his little sister, and a nurse. Under these changed circumstances her husband found it impossible to continue his career at the Presidency College, and had to migrate to Dacca to prosecute his studies there. Here they all lived together again, and though they were sometimes almost starving, _S_rîmatî considered these years the happiest of her life. She herself tried to perfect her education by attending an Adult Female School, and so rapid was her progress, that on one occasion she was chosen to read an address to Lord Northbrook when he visited the school at Dacca.

The rest of their lives was not very eventful. The husband, after a time, secured a small income; but their life was always a struggle. _S_rîmatî, blessed with healthy children, thought that she had all that her heart desired, though she deeply felt the unkindness of their relatives. Her servants loved her and would never leave her, and when her husband complained of certain irregularities in the household and thought she was too lenient to her maids, she would but sigh and say: “Why should I lose patience, and thereby my peace of mind? Is it not better that I should suffer a little by their conduct than that they should be unhappy?” Her love of her children was most ardent. Yet her highest desire was always the happiness of her husband. She twined round him, as her friends used to say, like a creeper, but it was often the creeper that had to give strength to him and uphold him in his many trials and unfulfilled aspirations. Religion was the never-failing support for both of them, and their conversation constantly turned on the unseen life here and hereafter. The life which they lived together may seem to us uneventful, uninteresting, unsatisfying; but it was not so to them. This quiet couple, breathing the keen, wholesome air of poverty, and drinking from the well of homely life, performing their daily round of duty in the village which had been the home of their ancestors, were happy and perfectly satisfied with their lot on earth. When at last the wife’s health began to fail, young and happy as she was, she was quite willing to go. She complained but little on her sick-bed, and her only fear was lest she might disturb her husband’s slumber and deprive him of the rest which was so necessary for him. She watched and prayed, and when the end came she looked at him whom she had loved from her early childhood, and quietly murmured: “O, All-merciful” (Dayâmaya), and passed away.

Thus she lived and died: a true child-wife, pure as a child, devoted as a wife, and always yearning for that Spirit whom she had sought for, if, haply, she might feel after Him and find Him. And surely He was not far from her, nor she from Him!

INDEX.

Abhedânanda, 105.

Âdi Brâhma-Samâj, 89.

Agni, son of Dakshi_n_â, 205.

— first of all the gods, 214.

— fire, hymns to, 214, 216, 219.

Ahanâ, Dawn, 201, 204, 206, 208.

Ânandibâi Joshee, 116, 129;
defends child-marriages, 116.

— — her American Degree, 132.

An-_ri_ta, 208.

Arnold, Dr., and the French master, 100.

Ârya-Samâj, 93.

— — hold to the Veda, 94.

Aryan mythology derived from natural phenomena, 190.

Asoka, King, 138.

A_s_va, racer, or Vâ_g_in, horse, 174.

A_s_vins, Day and Night, hymn to, 194–197.

— the pair of, 224.

Atharva-Veda, 28, 169.

Athênê, first conception of, the Dawn, 208.

Babu Debendranâth Tagore, threw over the Veda, 82.

Bâdarâya_n_a, 149, 153.

Bashkirtseff, Marie, 235, 236.

Bergaigne, M., 192, 203.

— letter from, 182 _n._

Bhavnagar, 237.

Blavatsky, Madame, 96, 148–152.

Bloomfield’s Concordance of the Veda, 184.

Bodley, Dr., and Ânandibâi Joshee, 131.

Bopp, 4, 176.

Brâhma-dharma, the, 101.

Brâhma_n_as, 187.

Brâhmanical thread, 91.

Brâhmans, and the published Rig-Veda, 23.

Brahmo Samâj, 17.

— — gave up the Veda, 82.

Brockhaus, Professor, 3.

Bunsen, his wish to see the Rig-Veda, 170.

Burnouf, Eugène, 4.

Chaitanya, fifteenth century, 66.

— his followers, 67.

— his teaching, 68 et seq.

Charis, 208.

Charites, Gk., 178.

Child-marriages, 113.

Child-wife, a, 262.

Codrington, 185.

Dakshâya_n_î, 205 _n._

Dakshi_n_â, the Dawn, 200, 200 _n._, 204, 205.

Dawn, names for, 204.

Dayânanda Sarasvatî, 93, 148.

Debendranâth Tagore, 6, 13, 14, 92.

— — never declared against the Veda, 101.

Dessau, 2.

Devas, 20.

Digambara sect of the _G_ains, 156.

Dimêtôr, a god of light, 222.

Dvârkanâth Tagore, 5–14, 97.

— — his hospitality, 12.

Dyaus, fem., the sky, 173.

Dyaus, masc. = Zeus, 173.

Dyaush-pitar, Ζεὺς πατήρ, and Jupiter, 179.

Dyotanâ, Dawn, 204, 205.

English translation of a prayer to Vish_n_u, 100.

Erasmus, 98.

Gaurîshankar Udayshankar Ozá, 236.

— interview with Lord Reay, 240.

— his work in Bhavnagar, 242.

— his belief, 245.

— his retirement into private life, 255.

— letter from, 256.

— change of name, 259.

Gâyatrî, prayer addressed to Savit_ri_, the sun, 173.

Gods chiefly invoked in the Veda, Agni, fire, Vâyu, air, Sûrya, sun,
173.

Gokulaji Zâlâ, minister of Junagadh, 260.

Granth, the, 69, 70.

Gudrun, 46.

Guido d’Arezzo, 9.

Hahn, 185.

Hare, David, 90.

Haritas = Χάριτες, 178.

Hindu life, four periods of, 253.

Hindus, national character of, 135.

— are they truthful? 136.

— entering the Civil Service of India, 141.

Hot_ri_, priest, 218.

Index Verborum of the Rig-Veda, 182.

India, people of, still a secret to us, 161.

— deep thinkers in, 162.

Indian correspondents, 15.

— literature, the ancient, mnemonic, 25.

— Music, 7–9.

— Theosophy, 148.

Inspiration claimed for the Veda, 83.

— — for Buddha, 8.

Jayapura, Mahârâjah of, 96.

Jupiter Stator, 222.

Kabîr, “the Great,” 71.

Kapila, 149.

Kâtyâyana on the Vedic gods, 173.

Keshub Chunder Sen, 15, 42, 43, 65, 72, 75–90, 95.

— his feelings about Christianity, 76, 79.

— his visit to England, 85–88.

— his study of various religions, 99.

— selections from the Bibles of the world, 101.

Mahân Âtmâ, the Great Self, 173.

Mahâtmans, 105.

Malabâri, B., 113, 117–121.

Mâyâ, illusion, 104.

Mitra-Varu_n_a, 210.

Mookerjee, H. C., 90.

More, Dr. Henry, 64.

Mozoomdar, 89.

Muir, J., 13, 51.

Müller, Otfried, 208.

Names identical, of deities in Sk., Gk., Latin, &c., 178.

Nânak, 69.

— his teaching, 74.

Nehemiah Goreh, 47.

— — his life in England, 49, 57.

— — his book against Christianity, 51.

— — became a Christian, 51.

Nescience, 103.

Oriental courtesy, 157.

Oxford, young Hindus in, 139–141.

Pig, fable of the man who grunted like a, 151.

Pillai, “Representative Indians,” 160.

Prime Minister and child-wife, 235.

Purohita, provost, 218.

Râdhâkânta Deva, 23, 113.

— — recognition of the printed Rig-Veda, 27.

— — his letters, 30, 38.

— — a conservative, 43.

Râmabâi, 113, 121.

Râmabâi, her parents, 123.

— her lectures, 126.

— her life in England, 127.

— her present work, 128.

Râmak_ri_sh_n_a, 105 _n._

— his views, 106, 111, 112.

— his sayings, 108–110, 153.

Râmânu_g_a, commentary of, 153.

Rammohun Roy, 5, 42, 75.

— — his feeling for Christianity, 77, 78.

Râmtonoo Lahari, 90.

Râtrî, night, 210, 210, _n._ 3, 224.

— hymn to, 228.

Reformers, Hindu, 66.

Rig-Veda, 168, 170, 171.

— publication of the, 14, 16, 22, 23.

— — considered profane, 27, 33.

Roberts, Lord, “Forty-one Years in India,” 143.

Rosen, 181.

Roth, Professor, letter from, 22.

— on translating the Veda, 183.

Rozario, D., 91.

Russians and Indians, 144.

Sacrifices, 220.

Samâjes in India, 89 _n._

Sâma-Veda, 168.

— Benfey’s edition, 28.

_S_a_m_kara’s commentary, 153.

Sandhyâ, twilight, 173 _n._

Sandhyâvandana, 215.

_S_âradânada, 105.

Sâramêya = Ἐρμείας, 178.

Sara_n_yû = Ἑρινύς, 178.

Sat, the cause, 249.

Satyendranâth Tagore, 6.

Savit_ri_, 224.

— the Sun, 173.

— distinct from Sûrya, 201.

— Sun, hymn to, 210.

Sâya_n_a’s commentary, 181.

Schopenhauer, on the Vedânta, 165.

Shrâddh ceremonies, 145, 146.

— presents to M. M., 145.

Simon, Heinrich, 165.

Solar Fact, not Theory, 223.

Solar Theory, 174, 226.

Soma, hymns to, 227.

_S_rîmatî and her husband, 264.

_S_rîmatî and her husband, their belief in the Vedânta, 265.

— her life and death, 267, 268.

Sûn_ri_tâ, Dawn, 201, 204, 208.

Sutti, 29, 45.

Tagore family, 6.

Tawney, C. H., 61, _n._ 1.

Theosophist Society, 150.

Tregear, 185.

T_ri_ta, 224.

Truthfulness of Hindus, 136, 137.

Upanishads, 153, 164, 262.

Ushas, 200–210.

— Dawn, hymn to, 200.

Vairâgya-_S_ataka, the translations from, 61.

Varu_n_a, 224, 225.

— hymn to, 230.

Varu_n_a and Mitra, 224, 225.

Veda, the, 167.

— four collections of hymns, 168.

Vedânta system, 102, 164, 248 et seq.

— Schopenhauer on the, 165.

— objective world is phenomenal, 248.

Vedânta spirit pervades India, 262.

Vedântists, modern, 105.

Vedic hymn, translated by Abp. Thomson, 232.

— hymns, translations of, 181.

— — their date, 186.

— literature, discovery of, 179.

Vish_n_u, identified with Agni, 216.

— an independent deity, 222.

Vivekânanda, 105, 150, 153.

Vizianagram, Mahârâjah of, 158.

— — pays for the reprint of the Rig-Veda, 159–160.

Widows in India, 118, 119, 121, 263–264.

Wilson, Professor, 9, 181.

Women, influence of, in India, 84, 85.

Yagur-Veda, 28, 169.

Yâska, on the Devatâs of the Rig-Veda, 172, 224.

Zeus, Dyaus, &c., 221.

OXFORD: HORACE HART
PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY

-----

Footnote 1:

Chips from a German Workshop, Vol. IV, pp. 35–9.

Footnote 2:

Edda, Gylfaginning, 49.

Footnote 3:

Sigurdakwida, III, 64; Helreidh Brynhildar, 12.

Footnote 4:

Metrical translation by C. H. Tawney, _Indian Antiquary_, November,
1876.

Footnote 5:

That is, if only our mind is quieted, we shall enjoy peace in our own
home as well as in a forest. _S_iva is here looked upon as the symbol
of the Supreme Spirit.

Footnote 6:

Brâhma is the same as Brâhmo; the former Sanskrit, the latter
Bengali. Thus, Debendranâth called his book on the Upanishads
“Brâhma-dharma_h_,” though Brâhma also is a faulty name in Sanskrit.

_Samâjes existing in India._

1. Brâhma-Samâj,
Rammohun Roy.
|
+-------------+-------------+
| |
2. Âdi Brâhma-Samâj, 3. Brâhma-Samâj of India,
Debendranâth Tagore. Keshub Chunder Sen.
4. Sadhâra_n_a Brâhma-Samâj,
Schismatic.
5. Ârya-Samâj,
Dayânanda Sarasvatî.

Footnote 7:

Râmtonoo is probably meant for Râmatanu, body of Râma, but when a name
has once become familiar in its modern Bengali form, I do not always
like to put it back into its classical Sanskrit form.

Footnote 8:

A full account of this Saint is to be found in a book lately published
by me, “Râmak_ri_sh_n_a, his Life and Sayings,” by F. M. M., 1898.

Footnote 9:

The Interpreter, Nov. 1898, p. 303.

Footnote 10:

See an excellent account of his life by Karkaria.

Footnote 11:

Kâme_s_var Aiyar, Sandhyâvandana, pp. 58, 105, 113.

Footnote 12:

Sandhyâ is derived from Sandhi, literally the joining, the coming
together of day and night, or night and day. Sandhivelâ is twilight,
and Sandhyâ has the same meaning. Sandhyâvandana was originally the
twilight-worship, the morning and evening prayer, to which a third was
added (the Mâdhyâhnika) the noon prayer, when the sun culminated.
These prayers were once incumbent on every Brâhman, though they have
now assumed a very perfunctory form, or are omitted altogether.

Footnote 13:

I still have a letter from the late M. Bergaigne, in which he asks
when my Index would be published, and adds: “Je m’étais décidé pendant
ces vacances à écrire tout le Rig-Véda sur des fiches, et à me
composer ainsi un index qui pût me permettre des essais
d’interprétation indépendante. Je suis arrivé à la moitié de ce
travail, et grâce à la rapidité que je suis parvenu à atteindre, et
aussi à une grande puissance de travail, je puis le terminer en moins
d’un mois ... S’il n’était pas trop exiger, je vous prierais de me
dire aussi si vous citez tous les emplois de chaque mot _sans aucune
exception_, ou si vous êtes départi de cette rigueur pour les mots
très usuels, et enfin si vous adoptez l’ordre alphabétique pur et
simple.” I could answer all these questions in the affirmative.

Footnote 14:

Giuseppe Turrini, _Raccolta degli Inni del Vèda_, Libro I, Fascicolo
I, Bologna, 1899.

Footnote 15:

Rig-Veda X, 39, 1.

Footnote 16:

Rig-Veda III, 29, 6.

Footnote 17:

Rig-Veda III, 20, 1.

Footnote 18:

Rig-Veda I, 116, 17.

Footnote 19:

Rig-Veda X, 39, 12.

Footnote 20:

Dawn.

Footnote 21:

The cloud.

Footnote 22: