Читать книгу India's Problem, Krishna or Christ - John P. Jones - Страница 19

Table of Contents

Their starting points are almost antipodal. This will seem evident when we study their views:

(a) In reference to religion itself. Christianity is briefly and beautifully explained by its Founder (Luke 15) as a divine method of seeking and saving the lost. It is the expression of the Father's love yearning for the return, and seeking the complete salvation, of the son. It is primarily and pervasively a “Thus saith the Lord”—a revelation from God manward. Hinduism on the other hand has been the embodiment of man's aspirations after God. Wonderfully pathetic, beautiful and elevating these aspirations have been at times; and doubtless guided [pg 081] at points by Him whom they so ardently sought. They perhaps represent the highest reach of the soul in its self-propelled flight towards its Maker. It is true that orthodox Hindus variously describe the Vedas as eternal, as a direct emanation from Brahma and as a divine entity in themselves. They constitute the “Sruti”—“the directly heard” message of God to man. But the authors of the Upanishads, which are a part of Sruti, absolve man from the necessity of accepting the four Vedas and propound a way of salvation entirely separate from, and independent of, vedic prayers and ritual. The direct influence of the Vedas upon religious life and ritual in India today is practically nil; while that of the Upanishads, which are the fons et origo of the all-potent philosophy, is felt in every Hindu life, however humble.

This aspect of the two faiths is not unexpected when we remember:

(b) Their very dissimilar conceptions of God. The monotheism of the one and the pantheism of the other are clear and uncompromising. They have stood for many centuries as representatives, to the world, of these very dissimilar beliefs. Christianity inherited from Judaism its passion for monotheism, and brings the “God of Israel” very near to our race as the infinitely loving Father. It has not only emphasized His personality but reveals, with incomparable power and tenderness, His supreme interest in our race and His loving purpose concerning it.

On the other hand Hinduism derived its highest wisdom and deepest convictions concerning the Divine Being from the ancient rishis through the [pg 082] Upanishads. There they accepted, once for all, the doctrine of the Brahm (neuter)—the one passionless, immovable, unsearchable, ineffable Being who, without a second, stands as the source and embodiment of all real being.

Barth truly remarks that “this is the most imposing and subtle of the systems of ontology yet known in the history of philosophy.” This inscrutable Being is the only real existence, all else being illusion projected by ignorance. This doctrine of identity or nonduality (advaitha) lies at the foundation of all their religious thinking. This Being which is devoid of qualities (nirguna), because incomprehensible to man, can be of no comfort to him. In this respect the Hindu is an agnostic of a profound type.

For this mystical philosophy one word of praise is eminently due. It is not to be confounded with that species of Western pantheism which is rank materialism—making God and the material universe convertible terms. Sir William Jones emphasized this difference—the difference between a system which, in all that it sees, sees God alone, and that which acknowledges no God beyond what it sees. One is the bulwark of materialism; the other its most uncompromising enemy. Whatever the defects of this philosophy of the Upanishads it must be confessed to be deeply spiritual.

And yet in this very effort to conserve the spiritual and transcendental character of Brâhm the Aryan sage has covered Him with the dark robe of mysticism and pushed Him into a far off realm beyond human ken.

[pg 083]

So that the only intimations which man has of Him are confessedly false projection of ignorance. For all practical purposes this hypothetical deity—for the very existence of Brâhm is only assumed as a working hypothesis by the theosophist—is a nonentity to the worshipper. How can a being lend itself to a devout soul in worship when it is rigidly devoid of every quality that can inspire or attract the soul? This very fact has led the ordinary Hindu to seek and develop something else as an object of his devotion. Hence the polytheism of Brahmanism. Let it not be supposed that there is any antagonism between their pantheism and their polytheism. One is the natural offspring of the other. The numberless gods which today are supposed to preside over the destiny of the people, are but emanations, the so-called “play” of Brâhm. Properly speaking they are neither supreme nor possessed of truly divine attributes. Even the Hindu Triad—Brahma (masculine gender), Vishnu and Siva—are but manifestations of the delight of the eternal Soul to invest itself with qualities (guna). These three gods are no more real existences than are the myriad other children of illusion (maya) and ignorance (avidya) which constitute the universe. And as they had their existence, so will they find their dissolution, in the fiat of the Supreme Soul. India finds polytheism no more satisfying than it does pantheism. There is no more assurance of comfort in worshipping 330,000,000 gods, whose multitude not only bewilders but also carries in itself refutation to the claim of any one to be supreme, than there is in the yearning after an absolute, ineffable Being which cruelly evades human [pg 084] thought and definition. It is no wonder therefore that the growth of the Hindu pantheon is constant, and both follows, and bears testimony to, the craving of the human soul for a God who can satisfy its wants and realize its deepest longings.

(c) Their theories of the universe are also divergent. According to the Bible the outer world is the creation, by God, out of nothing. To the Brahman of all times the idea of pure creation has seemed absurd. Ex nihilo nihil fit is an axiom of all their philosophies. Whether it be the Vedantin who tells us that the material universe is the result of Brâhm invested with illusion, or the Sankya philosopher who attributes it to prakriti—the power of nature; or the Veisashika sage who traces it to eternal atoms; they all practically posit that it is eternal.

Of course the Christian doctrine of creation from nothing does not, as the Hindu too often assumes, maintain that the universe is a result without a cause; for it teaches that God Himself, by the exercise of His sovereign will and omnipotence, is an all-adequate cause to all created things.

If the Vedantin claims that creation is impossible, how can he at the same time believe that ideas have from time to time sprung up in the mind of Brâhm, which ideas themselves have put on illusion and appear to human ignorance as the universe? It is, to say the least, no easier for him, with his conception of Brâhm, to account for the origin of such ideas than it is for the Christian to trace the source of the material universe to an all-wise and omnipotent God. Nor does the Sankya philosopher, by practically denying God and positing the eternal existence of souls [pg 085] and prakriti, remove half the difficulties that he creates.

(d) Again, the teachings of the two faiths concerning man are no less divergent. In the Bible man is represented as a son of God. He is fallen indeed, but with a trace, even in his degradation, of his Father's lineaments. We follow him in his willful rebellion against his Father; he plunges into the lowest depths of sin. But we still recognise in him the promise of infinite and eternal possibilities of spiritual expansion and happiness. Indeed we find at work a divinely benevolent scheme through which he is to be ultimately exalted to heavenly places in Christ Jesus and made the heir of infinite bliss.

On the other hand, Hindu Shastras represent man as mere illusion—the poor plaything of the absolute One. For man to assume and to declare his own real existence is, they say, but the raving of his ignorance (avidya). To the practical Western mind it seems almost impossible that a philosopher should be so lost in his philosophy as to aver that he, the thinker and father of his philosophy, has no real existence—is only illusion, concerning which real existence can only be assumed for practical purposes. What must be said of the philosophy begotten by such an illusive being? Shall it not also be doomed to vanish with him into the nothingness whence he came and which he now really is, if he only knew it? Sir Monier Williams aptly remarks—“Common sense tells an Englishman that he really exists himself and that everything he sees around him really exists also. He cannot abandon these two primary convictions. Not so the Hindu Vedantist. [pg 086] Dualism is his bugbear, and common sense, when it maintains any kind of real duality, either the separate independent existence of a man's own spirit and of God's spirit, or of spirit and matter, is guilty of gross deception.”

Another conception regards the human soul (jivatma) as a part of the Supreme Soul. This theory adds small comfort or dignity to it when we remember that this whole of which it is declared a part is an intangible, unattractive Being—devoid of all qualities (nirguna). If the soul existed from eternity as a part of the divine Soul and will ultimately resume that interrupted existence, what value, ethical or otherwise, can be attached to that bondage of manhood which was thrust upon the soul (or was it voluntarily assumed?)? This part of deity called individual soul certainly cannot be improved by its human conditions; and the question is not—“How soon can I pass through this slough of despond,” but, “why was I thrust into it at all? Was it a mere sacred whim (tiruvileiadal) of Brâhm?”

Moreover this view of human “self,” or soul, carries one out too far into the sea of transcendental metaphysics to be of any practical use, religiously. We know something of man—this strange compound of soul and body—and we are deeply interested in his history and destiny; the more deeply because we are included in this category.

But who knows of the eternal soul—that part of the absolute—separate from human conditions and apart from all experiences of men? Is it not simply the dream of the philosopher, a convenient assumption to satisfy the needs of an impractical [pg 087] ontology? To magnify the soul apart from human life, and to interpret human life as the self's lowest degradation and something which is to be shaken off as quickly as possible, can hardly be sound philosophy, and is certainly bad theology. It simply reduces this life into an irremedial evil, with no moral significance or spiritual value.

This leads us to the second point of contrast:—