DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.31218#0287
CASTE IN RELATION lO RELIGION
by all manner of bloody sacrifices, and persons who will
not only kill no living creature, but who must not even
use the word “cut” ; those whose ritual consists mainly of
prayers and hymns, and those who indulge in unspeakable
orgies in the name of religion.’ This description, full
as it is, is still incomplete. To the list must be added
worshippers of natural forces, of demons and ghosts, of
ancestors, of saints and heroes. The Hindu has the
choice of pantheism and animism, of polytheism and
monotheism, of demonolatry and hagiolatry, of ancestor
worship and animal worship, of metaphysics and magic
—of every ‘ism’ and ‘olatry’ and worship known to man.
Throughout the wide range of literature on the subject,
there is not a single satisfactory definition of Hinduism,1
which is not surprising, since it is impossible to define
the indefinite. Indeed, Hinduism is not so much a single
religion, as a congeries of many, and very different,
religions. And it has become what it is as the result of
two distinct processes; firstly, the evolution of an Aryan
nature worship into theism; secondly, the continuous
1 The following will serve as examples. (a) ‘A hereditary sacerdotalism
with Brahmans for its Levites, the vitality of which is preserved by the
social institution of caste, and which may include all shades and diver-
sities of religion native to India, as distinct from the foreign importations
of Christianity and Islam, and from the later outgrowths of Buddhism,
more doubtfully of Sikhism, and still more doubtfully of Jainism.’ (Sir
D. Ibbetson, Census Report, Punjab, 1881, par. 214.) (b) ‘The large
residuum that is not Sikh, or Jain, or Buddhist, or professedly Animistic,
or included in one of the foreign religions, such as Islam, Mazdaism,
Christianity, or Hebraism.’ (Sir J. A. Baines, General Report on the
Census of India, 1891, p. 158.) (c) ‘The collection of rites, worships,
beliefs, traditions, and mythologies that are sanctioned by the sacred books
and ordinances of the Brahmans and are propagated by Brahmanic teach-
ing.’ (Sir A. Lyall, Asiatic Studies, 1899, Vol. II, p. 288.) (d) ‘What
the Hindus, or the majority of them in a Hindu community, do.’ (B.
Guru Prasad Sen, Introduction to the Study of Ilinduism, 1893, p. 9.)
(e) ‘Magic tempered by metaphysics.’ (Sir H. Risley, The People of
India, 1915 edition, p. 233.) Of these, the first is inadequate, because it
makes no mention of belief, but only of ritual. The second merely
amounts to the statement tljat Hinduism is everything which is not any-
thing else. The third is a (torrect definition of only a part of Hinduism,
i.e. Brahmanical Hinduism. The fourth cannot be regarded as defining
a religion at all ; though it would, if ‘believe’, or ‘worship’, or (better
still) both, were substituted for ‘do’. The last is professedly a mere
epigram ; yet it is as informing as any of the others.
273
18
by all manner of bloody sacrifices, and persons who will
not only kill no living creature, but who must not even
use the word “cut” ; those whose ritual consists mainly of
prayers and hymns, and those who indulge in unspeakable
orgies in the name of religion.’ This description, full
as it is, is still incomplete. To the list must be added
worshippers of natural forces, of demons and ghosts, of
ancestors, of saints and heroes. The Hindu has the
choice of pantheism and animism, of polytheism and
monotheism, of demonolatry and hagiolatry, of ancestor
worship and animal worship, of metaphysics and magic
—of every ‘ism’ and ‘olatry’ and worship known to man.
Throughout the wide range of literature on the subject,
there is not a single satisfactory definition of Hinduism,1
which is not surprising, since it is impossible to define
the indefinite. Indeed, Hinduism is not so much a single
religion, as a congeries of many, and very different,
religions. And it has become what it is as the result of
two distinct processes; firstly, the evolution of an Aryan
nature worship into theism; secondly, the continuous
1 The following will serve as examples. (a) ‘A hereditary sacerdotalism
with Brahmans for its Levites, the vitality of which is preserved by the
social institution of caste, and which may include all shades and diver-
sities of religion native to India, as distinct from the foreign importations
of Christianity and Islam, and from the later outgrowths of Buddhism,
more doubtfully of Sikhism, and still more doubtfully of Jainism.’ (Sir
D. Ibbetson, Census Report, Punjab, 1881, par. 214.) (b) ‘The large
residuum that is not Sikh, or Jain, or Buddhist, or professedly Animistic,
or included in one of the foreign religions, such as Islam, Mazdaism,
Christianity, or Hebraism.’ (Sir J. A. Baines, General Report on the
Census of India, 1891, p. 158.) (c) ‘The collection of rites, worships,
beliefs, traditions, and mythologies that are sanctioned by the sacred books
and ordinances of the Brahmans and are propagated by Brahmanic teach-
ing.’ (Sir A. Lyall, Asiatic Studies, 1899, Vol. II, p. 288.) (d) ‘What
the Hindus, or the majority of them in a Hindu community, do.’ (B.
Guru Prasad Sen, Introduction to the Study of Ilinduism, 1893, p. 9.)
(e) ‘Magic tempered by metaphysics.’ (Sir H. Risley, The People of
India, 1915 edition, p. 233.) Of these, the first is inadequate, because it
makes no mention of belief, but only of ritual. The second merely
amounts to the statement tljat Hinduism is everything which is not any-
thing else. The third is a (torrect definition of only a part of Hinduism,
i.e. Brahmanical Hinduism. The fourth cannot be regarded as defining
a religion at all ; though it would, if ‘believe’, or ‘worship’, or (better
still) both, were substituted for ‘do’. The last is professedly a mere
epigram ; yet it is as informing as any of the others.
273
18