DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.636#0015
Introductory Observations.
3
this—that it takes little account of the primordial, impersonal
Being Brahma, and wholly neglects its personal manifestation
Brahma, substituting, in place of both Brahma and Brahma,
the two popular personal deities Siva and Vishnu. Be it
noted, however, that the employment of the term Hinduism
is wholly arbitrary and confessedly unsatisfactory. Unhappily
there is no other expression sufficiently comprehensive to
embrace that all-receptive system, which, without any one
common Founder, was the product of Brahmanism multiplied
by contact with its own offspring Buddhism, and with various
pre-existing cults. Hinduism is Brahmanism modified by
the creeds and superstitions of Buddhists and Non-Aryan
races of all kinds, including Dravidians, Kolarians, and per-
haps pre-Kolarian aborigines. It has even been modified by
ideas imported from the religions of later conquering races,
such as Islam and Christianity.
I propose to trace briefly the gradual development of the
Hindu religion through these three principal phases which
really run into each other. In so doing I shall examine it,
as in fairness every religion ought to be examined, not only
from the point of view of its best as well as its worst side,
but in the light thrown upon it by its own interpreters, as
well as by European scholars. And for the sake of clearness,
it will be necessary to begin by repeating a few facts which to
many educated persons are now a thrice-told tale.
The original home of our progenitors as members of the
great Aryan or Indo-European family was probably in the
high land surrounding the sources of the Oxus, somewhere
to the north of the point connecting the Hindu Kush with the
Himalaya range. The highest part of this region is called the
Pamir plateau, and, like the table-land of Tibet, with which
it is connected by a lofty ridge, it well deserves the title of
' the roof of the world' (bam-i-dunya). The hardy inhabit-
ants of these high-lands were a pastoral and agricultural
race, and soon found themselves straitened for room within
B3
3
this—that it takes little account of the primordial, impersonal
Being Brahma, and wholly neglects its personal manifestation
Brahma, substituting, in place of both Brahma and Brahma,
the two popular personal deities Siva and Vishnu. Be it
noted, however, that the employment of the term Hinduism
is wholly arbitrary and confessedly unsatisfactory. Unhappily
there is no other expression sufficiently comprehensive to
embrace that all-receptive system, which, without any one
common Founder, was the product of Brahmanism multiplied
by contact with its own offspring Buddhism, and with various
pre-existing cults. Hinduism is Brahmanism modified by
the creeds and superstitions of Buddhists and Non-Aryan
races of all kinds, including Dravidians, Kolarians, and per-
haps pre-Kolarian aborigines. It has even been modified by
ideas imported from the religions of later conquering races,
such as Islam and Christianity.
I propose to trace briefly the gradual development of the
Hindu religion through these three principal phases which
really run into each other. In so doing I shall examine it,
as in fairness every religion ought to be examined, not only
from the point of view of its best as well as its worst side,
but in the light thrown upon it by its own interpreters, as
well as by European scholars. And for the sake of clearness,
it will be necessary to begin by repeating a few facts which to
many educated persons are now a thrice-told tale.
The original home of our progenitors as members of the
great Aryan or Indo-European family was probably in the
high land surrounding the sources of the Oxus, somewhere
to the north of the point connecting the Hindu Kush with the
Himalaya range. The highest part of this region is called the
Pamir plateau, and, like the table-land of Tibet, with which
it is connected by a lofty ridge, it well deserves the title of
' the roof of the world' (bam-i-dunya). The hardy inhabit-
ants of these high-lands were a pastoral and agricultural
race, and soon found themselves straitened for room within
B3