The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul Part 15

"Take any of the burning questions of the day--popular education, higher education, parliamentary representation, codification of laws, finance, emigration, poor-law, and whether you have anything to teach and to try, or anything to observe and to learn, India will supply you with a laboratory such as exists nowhere else.

"And in the study of the history of the human mind, and the study of ourselves, of our true selves, India occupies a place second to no other country. Whatever sphere of the human mind you may select for your special study, whether it be language, or religion, or mythology, or philosophy, whether it be laws or customs, primitive art or primitive science, everywhere, you have to go to India, whether you like it or not, because some of the most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India, and in India only.

"Sleeman tells us men (in India) adhere habitually and religiously to the truth, and 'I have had before me hundreds of cases,' he says, 'in which a man's property, liberty, and life have depended upon his telling a lie, and he has refused to tell it.' Could many an English judge say the same?"

(Remarks by Prof. Muller.)

Prof. Muller quotes from an Arabian writer of the thirteenth century, "The Indians are innumerable, like grains of sand, free from all deceit and violence. They fear neither death nor life."

And again, from Marco Polo, in the thirteenth century, "You must know, Marco Polo says, that these Abralaman (Hindoos) are the best merchants in the world, and the most truthful, for they would not tell a lie for anything on earth."

"In the sixteenth century Abu Fazl, the minister of the Emperor Akbar, says in his 'Ayin Akbari,' 'The Hindus are religious, affable, cheerful, lovers of justice, given to retirement, able in business, admirers of truth, grateful and of unbounded fidelity, and their soldiers know not what it is to fly from the field of battle.'"

(How badly these "poor heathen" were in need of the Jesuit missionary, and the British government and civilization!)

Prof. Muller quotes Warren Hastings regarding the Hindus in general, as follows, "They are gentle and benevolent, more susceptible of grat.i.tude for kindness shown them, and less prompted to vengeance for wrongs inflicted, than any people on the face of the earth--faithful, affectionate, submissive to legal authority."

Bishop Heber said, "The Hindus are brave, courteous, intelligent, most eager for knowledge and improvement, sober, industrious, dutiful to parents, affectionate to their children, uniformly gentle and patient, and more easily affected by kindness and attention to their wants and feelings than any people I ever met with."

Elphinstone said, "No set of people among the Hindus are so depraved as the dregs of our own great towns." (It might have been wiser to have employed English missionaries at home.)

Sir Thomas Munro bears even stronger testimony. He writes, "If a good system of agriculture, unrivaled manufacturing-skill, a capacity to produce whatever can contribute to either convenience or luxury, schools established in every village for teaching reading, writing and arithmetic, the general practice of hospitality, and charity among each other, and above all, a treatment of the female s.e.x full of confidence, respect, and delicacy, are among the signs which denote a civilized people--then the Hindus are not inferior to the nations of Europe--and if civilization is to become an article of trade between England and India, _I am convinced that England will gain by the import cargo_.

"Even at the present moment, after a century of English rule and English teaching, I believe that Sanskrit is more widely understood in India, than Latin was in Europe at the time of Dante.

"There are thousands of Brahmans, even now, when so little inducement exists for Vedic studies, who know the whole of the Rig-Veda by heart, and can repeat it, and what applies to the Rig-Veda, applies to many other books." (Ten thousand and seventeen hymns.)

Speaking of other and later literature, Prof. Muller says, "It is different with the ancient literature of India, the literature dominated by the Vedic and Buddhistic religions. That literature opens to us a chapter in what has been called the Education OF THE HUMAN RACE, TO WHICH WE CAN FIND NO PARALLEL anywhere else. Whoever cares for the historical growth of our language, that is, of our thoughts; whoever cares for the intelligible development of religion and mythology, whoever cares for the first foundation of what in later times we call the sciences of astronomy, metronomy, grammar and etymology; whoever cares for the first intimations of philosophical thought; for the first attempts at regulating family life, village life, and state life, as founded on religion, ceremonial, tradition and contact (Samaya), must in future pay the same attention to the literature of the Vedic period as to the literature of Greece and Rome and Germany.

"I maintain then that for a study of man, or, if you like, for a study of Aryan humanity, there is nothing in the world equal in importance with the Veda.

"The aristocracy of those who know--_di color che sanno_--or try to know, is open to all who are willing to enter, to all who have a feeling for the past; an interest in the genealogy of our thoughts, and a reverence for the ancestry of our intellect, who are, in fact, historians in the true sense of the word, i.e. inquirers into that which is past, but not lost.

"But if we mean by primitive the people who have been the first of the Aryan race to leave behind literary relics of their existence on earth, then I say the Vedic poets are primitive; the Vedic language is primitive; the Vedic religion is primitive, and, taken as a whole, _more primitive than anything else that we are ever likely to recover in the whole history of our race_....

"For this reason, because the religion of the Veda was so completely guarded from all strange infection, it is full of lessons which the student of religion could learn nowhere else."

The foregoing quotations have been made from a little volume, "India: What Can It Teach Us?" published by Funk and Wagnalls in 1883, and sold at 25 cents, so that these statements of Prof. Max Muller have been accessible for more than a quarter of a century.

Since 1883, however, we have heard more and more of the "Wisdom of Old India."

The whole Theosophical movement, degenerate as it may have become in some directions, and much as it has been misinterpreted, and ridiculed and exploited in others, was primarily a sincere and earnest attempt "to bring the Secret Doctrine of ancient India within reach of Western students," to promote the brotherhood of man; the study of ancient philosophy and the psychical powers latent in man. There are thousands of intelligent and earnest students all over the world who have been uplifted, illuminated, and encouraged by these studies. When the true history of the present epoch comes to be written, there can be no shadow of doubt as to the recognition that will be accorded to H. P. Blavatsky and her aims, her life, and her work.

But such movements as are going on in the world, continually change their base, their methods, and their prospective. While the new awakening unmistakably goes back to old India, and compels a review and a readjustment of all our knowledge, and all our hopes and aims, another spirit has entered our intellectual realm, and compelled attention and recognition.

It has made for itself a habitation and a name, and nothing less than a cataclysm can altogether overthrow it.

It is the Genius of Scientific Criticism, Research, and Demonstration.

The "Mistakes of Moses" may indeed be paralleled by those of modern physical science, and these are being revealed side by side with those of theology and dogmatic a.s.sertion.

It has hardly yet dawned upon the mind of the physical scientist that the concept of the psychical and spiritual life and nature of man comprises, with the world of matter and form, a complete theorem of human life. He is often as incredulous, resentful, and contemptuous as the creed-bound religionist at the approach of more light, and the suggestion that all these essential problems were included and solved ages ago in ancient Aryavarta; and that "the few who know," the ancient order of the _Illuminati_, now designated the "School of Natural Science," has treasured this knowledge for ages.

The Vedas are not only ancient, but complicated and diffuse, and the busy life of the modern student will hardly suffice for the mastery of their wisdom, or the understanding of their secrets.

When, however, this ancient wisdom is condensed and epitomized, in perfect harmony with the concepts, the methods, and the demonstrations of Natural Science, the "Jewel in the Lotus,"--to use a Vedic synonym,--will appear in all its beauty and glory, to all who have eyes to see, and ears to hear, with determination to "honor every truth by use," and loyal service.

In the foregoing quotations it may be seen what this real knowledge did for the people of ancient India in building character on constructive lines, promoting justice, equity, charity, and kindness among the common people, and the teeming millions of India, when our Saxon and Norman ancestors were still barbarians, and before the Jew or the Christian were even dreamed of.

In the following quotations from Jacolliot's "Bible in India," an outline will be given as to the source of some of our myths, pantheons, and religions.

These brief and imperfect outlines from two small and generally forgotten books, ought to satisfy any intelligent and unbiased student how completely the general thesis may be demonstrated from the ancient records themselves.

The books from which these quotations are made are like kindergarten primers for the use of beginners.

The present writer's interest in and study of Theosophy and the Secret Doctrine were instigated by Schopenhauer's "World as Will and Idea." He found how largely Schopenhauer had drawn from the Upanishads (see previous quotation), and how little, after all, his "Philosophy" had utilized the ancient Wisdom. Hence he resolved to seek the ancient sources of knowledge, and has been trying his best to apprehend and utilize them, the h.o.a.rded wisdom of the ages.

He is not in the least anxious to gain recognition for, or to seek to rehabilitate old India, for its own sake. She speaks for herself, through the centuries of the past, and will continue to speak and to influence all coming time.

Jacolliot shows, however, a little irritation at this point over the suppression of facts, the brutality of marauding invaders, and the wholesale and brazen appropriation without the least credit to India's store of wisdom.

The present writer is, however, exceedingly desirous that his fellow-students in the West should discover, recognize, and utilize this ancient mine of wisdom for themselves.

Its day of recognition is just now at the dawn, and the most pressing problems concerning the real nature, the spiritual possibilities, and the eternal destiny of the soul of man, are pressing and burning questions to-day.

That these problems do not wait solution by modern physical science and physio-psychology, but await only the understanding and acceptance of every earnest and intelligent student, is easily demonstrated. It challenges the world to-day, as it has not done before for many millenniums, and the issues are to be tried out to a scientific demonstration.

The preferences and prejudices of partisans will not be consulted, nor will they in the least interrupt the progress, nor interfere with the solution.

The question is no longer, "What think ye of Jesus?" but "What _know_ ye of your own soul?" A new faith will supersede the old superst.i.tions.

Faith, from the viewpoint of Natural Science, is "the soul's intuitive _conviction_ of that which both reason and conscience approve." Blind faith, or belief, is ever the handmaid of superst.i.tion. The new faith is the harbinger, the promise, and the potency of knowledge, the anchor of the soul, and the armor of righteousness.

This is indeed the language of confidence, and it should be put to the test of science and experience.

The scornful and the contemptuous are not even _invited_! They are left alone with their Idols.

Coming now more directly to the splendid work of Jacolliot, one thing I think ought to be apparent to every honest and intelligent reader of "The Bible in India," and that is, that its author is in no sense a partisan of Hinduism, but a searcher and witness for the simple Truth as he finds and apprehends it.

He puts aside mystery, miracle, and Divine Revelation, as dispa.s.sionately in the Vedic, Brahmanical, and Buddhistic cults, as in the Mosaic and Christian. Belief in G.o.d, and reverence for Truth in the light of reason and conscience, s.h.i.+ne from every page of his work.

To flippantly call him an "atheist," or a "destroyer of holy things," as though that were in any sense an answer to his thesis, and which formerly was the rule, and may even now be attempted in certain quarters, will simply brand the bigot as by no means intelligent--if indeed honest--who attempts it. The majority of such sectarians have grown wise or prudent enough to ignore all such issues.

There has been a great change in public sentiment since Jacolliot went to India as an earnest student of these subjects, and in the nearly forty years since he wrote this book.

The saying that "Truth pa.s.ses through three phases before being accepted,"

specially applies here. First, people say, "It is not true." Second, "It contradicts Scripture," and when it at last is triumphant, that "_Everybody knew it before_."

The truths of which Jacolliot writes have already reached at least the beginning of the third stage. Of course, "Everybody" here means those who read, and think, and dare to use conscience and reason.