TENDENCIES OF DOCTRINE.

63

illustration of what we consider in general the nature of the world."

"Perhaps," rejoined Blancombe, "it would not be proper for me to deny that your system may turn out to be founded, as you believe, upon systematic investigation; though, as far as we have hitherto gone, I observe only illustrations or analogies, rather than arguments, adduced for its groundwork: but at least the reflexions, which you suggest as consolatory, do not remove from my mind the overwhelming awe with which I contemplate a theory in which the universe seems whirled on a blind career without compass or guide. Supposing however, upon greater familiarity with your views, this alarm of mine should subside, as you imagine it would, I almost fear that it might give place to even a greater disease of the mind."

Why perhaps

"What might that be?" asked Sadánanda. scarcely less," answered Blancombe, "than an incurable recklessness of the difference between right and wrong, or a readiness to indulge whatever vicious temptation, either the promptings of Pracriti, or of whatever is lowest and most bestial in man, might engender. Not that probably such an effect is produced in persons like yourself, in whom it may be neutralised by some better disposition; but with many men your doctrine would at least tend, either to alarm, or to corrupt; either taking away the stay of their mental hope, or the safeguard of their moral conduct and that this latter apprehension is not merely imaginary may seem proved by some of the sectarians whom you do not willingly acknowledge as associates, and who, indeed, appear ashamed of their own secret worship. For you are aware, and indeed I have heard pious Hindús lament, that bodies of men exist whose worship is addressed merely to the productive powers of nature in their animal aspect, and who therefore indulge secretly in a licentious ritual; while, although the opinion of other men tends somewhat to check their vile propensities, it can scarcely fail but that their belief must act injuriously upon their general conduct in the relations of life.

64

TENDENCIES OF DOCTRINE

At

You call such persons, I believe, left-handed worshippers of Sakti; their sacred books, if such books can in any propriety of speech be designated sacred, are the Tantras; and they are themselves so ashamed of their degrading ritual as rarely, if ever, to profess it in public; thereby shewing that evil shrinks from the light. Now I think it quite needless, in arguing with yourself, to condemn such men; but it seems not irrelevant to remark that their conduct might derive some sanction from your opinion of the all-absorbing activity of Pracriti, and from the passive character of the soul of man. For thus you appear to degrade mankind from accountable beings into machines; and to leave thereby little room for either praise or censure. least you allow, I apprehend, that praise and blame imply at any rate volition, and probably also some kind of sequence between volition and action; whatever therefore magnifies the mechanical power of nature, and so lessens the sphere of volition, seems to leave bad men a greater liberty of obeying whatever evil impulse a good man would, by the energy of conscience and will, endeavour to restrain. So that, on the whole, your doctrine, if it does not create uneasiness of the saddened spirit, seems to encourage a licentiousness of the animal appetite. Whether then that can be true knowledge, which tends to such evil results, appears to me at least a question."

Say rather," here answered Sadananda, "that there ought to be no question of such evils as you describe being due to ignorance and passion rather than to knowledge. The first form of intellect is virtue (dharma); and knowledge (jnyána) is followed by dispassion (vairágya); for he who knows the practice of the pious is animated thereby to strain after their felicity; and having distinguished the excellence of soul from the elements of whatever partakes of tamas (darkness), a man accomplishes its liberation. Whereas for want of knowledge, not only lower temptations may corrupt a man, but even the scriptures (sruti) may become to him the means of entanglement. Thus, for example, a man

WHETHER IMPROVING.

65

who reads of bloody sacrifices in the Vedas, is tempted to shed blood; whereas by knowing that such ordinances were only temporary or faulty, he will learn to respect life. Thus you see that all true knowledge has a constant tendency to improve, even to an indefinite extent, until man becomes truly divine, and so enjoys the highest blessedness. By no lower means, such as human works, could he aspire to such a reward, for it is evident that, as they are themselves finite, so their recompence must have an end; but since knowledge is capable of indefinite expansion, and since the soul enjoying it is completely extricated from the trammels of Pracriti in any of her manifestations, so it alone renders perfect and eternal. But even venerable persons who suffer themselves to be fettered by scripture without true knowledge, must find impediments to their onward progress; as, for example, they may feel compelled to sacrifice blood, or authorised to practise incantations against the life of their enemy, because such actions are enjoined or sanctioned in the Vedas. Much more then, such left-handed worshippers as you alluded to, sin not from knowledge, but from ignorance. Thus you will find the Tatwa-samása justly class intoxication, sloth, and impurity, with atheism, as fruits of tamas." Very well," answered Blancombe, "but the proper remedy for ignorance is instruction. How then shall we proceed to give those benighted persons of whom we have spoken true instruction; or by what method of enlightenment would you propose to reclaim them from their errors? For surely we could do them no greater service, than by imparting to them that knowledge upon which you believe the salvation of their souls depends." "Why," said Sadananda, "we have not been wanting in efforts of the kind." "But to what then," asked Blancombe, "are we to ascribe the vicious practices, the low idolatry, and the ignorance, which prevail among so many men who may naturally be capable of better things?" "Perhaps the reason may be," replied the other, "such men are not really capable of improvement. They may have committed sins in a former life, for which their present

M. P.

แ

5

66

MISSIONARY CHALLENGE.

degradation is a just punishment; or they may come of some. stock hopelessly incurable. We have already seen that all things act according to their qualities; and in certain families there are hereditary diseases; for which reason our wise lawgiver Manu forbids the Brahman youth to marry into any tainted family, however large may be the dowry he might purchase by doing so. If then persons are for any reason cursed with incurable blindness, it is not wonderful that the wisdom of our Sankhya teachers should not have been able to rescue them from an inevitable lot." "But at least," said Blancombe, "you must feel that it would be a great triumph of benevolence and enlightenment to succeed in such a task; perhaps, indeed, if any doctrines should appear more capable of such success than others, that circumstance would alone go far to prove the superior excellence of the doctrines which so prevailed. What then if we both try, by disseminating the highest truth, to lift up a larger portion of the benighted children of Manu into the enjoyment of knowledge? It will be no mean testimony either to our sacred books, or to your profound and subtle doctrines, if either of us renders a whole community of men purer in life and more enlightened in understanding than they have ever hitherto been. There are parts of India, as I have heard, where men murder their children newly born under the impression that such murder is an act of piety; nor need I enumerate to you a thousand acts of wickedness which we daily observe, and which are forbidden even by the laws of Manu. Tell me then, how you would proceed in such a benevolent undertaking as the reformation of the moral sentiments among vicious or ignorant men. Or if, as you imply, your efforts in that direction have not hitherto been successful, may not such a failure imply some want of adaptation in your doctrine to the eternal conscience of mankind. At least let me repeat here some such declaration as I have already ventured to make in reference to the duty of searching after Truth. Just as there it was admitted that we should not lightly despair of finding that treasure, the existence

of which somewhere is implied even in the term knowledge, so here let all the virtues of which the Múni has spoken, and which you also endeavour to practise, persuade us to think hopefully of the possibility of enlightening large masses, even though they consisted of the Sudra and the Chándála, and let us not desist from this inquiry, until we have decided, either what is truest, or at least most likely to lead men into the paths of knowledge, and to the waters of immortality."

NOTE ON CHAPTER II.

In addition to Colebrooke may be mentioned as authorities for this and for the following chapter, the texts and lectures published for the use of the Benares College, on the Vedánta, Nyáya, and other philosophies; the Rig-Veda hymns, translated by Professor Wilson; the same eminent scholar's lectures, his account of Hindú sects in general, and his editions of the Vishnu Purána, and of the Sánkhya Karika.

For the Benares College texts I am indebted to the kindness of Mr Muir; and I understand that the comments, by which the difficulty of the original texts is so much mitigated, are due to Dr Ballantyne. They tend to place Hindú thought in a more favourable light than some works more generally read; such as the meritorious, but far from penetrating, work on Missions, by the Rev. Dr Duff. Many of the Hindú deities are described by Sir William Jones; whose account, however, should be tested by the more accurate ideas derivable from the Rig-Veda and Professor Wilson's other publications, such as that on the sects of India (published in the Asiatic Researches, and reprinted at Calcutta) and the analyses furnished in Colebrooke.

A friend tells me that the infanticide occasional among the Rajputs is not connected with religion; but that at Ganga Sugar, at the mouth of the Hooghly, it was so. The challenge in the text, however, might be applied to either.