Studies in Literature and History
repression of this kind has been the cause of serious insurrections.
It is to be observed that all religious persecution is by the direct
action of the State, _not_ instigated or insisted upon by a powerful
orthodox priesthood. But a despotic administration which undertakes to
control and circumscribe all forms and manifestations of superstition
in a vast polytheistic multitude of its subjects, is inevitably driven
to repressive measures of the utmost severity. Neither Christianity
nor Islam attempted to regulate polytheism, their mission was to
exterminate it, and they succeeded mainly because in those countries
the State was acting with the support and under the uncompromising
pressure of a dominant church or faith.
Some writers have noticed a certain degree of resemblance between the
policy of the Roman empire and that of the Chinese empire toward
religion. We may read in Gibbon that the Roman magistrates regarded
the various modes of worship as equally useful, that sages and heroes
were exalted to immortality and entitled to reverence and adoration,
and that philosophic officials, viewing with indulgence the
superstitions of the multitude, diligently practised the ceremonies of
their fathers. So far, indeed, his description of the attitude of the
State toward polytheism may be applicable to China; but although the
Roman and Chinese emperors both assumed the rank of divinity, and were
supreme in the department of worships, the Roman administration never
attempted to regulate and restrain polytheism at large on the Chinese
system.
The religion of the Gentiles, said Hobbes, is a part of their policy;
and it may be said that this is still the policy of Oriental
monarchies, who admit no separation between the secular and the
ecclesiastic jurisdiction. They would agree with Hobbes that temporal
and spiritual government are but two words brought into the world to
make men see double and mistake their lawful sovereign. But while in
Mohammedan Asia the State upholds orthodox uniformity, in China and
Japan the mainspring of all such administrative action is political
expediency. It may be suggested that in the mind of these far-Eastern
people religion has never been conceived as something quite apart from
human experience and the affairs of the visible world; for Buddhism,
with its metaphysical doctrines, is a foreign importation, corrupted
and materialised in China and Japan. And we may observe that from
among the Mongolian races, which have produced mighty conquerors and
founded famous dynasties from Constantinople to Pekin, no mighty
prophet, no profound spiritual teacher, has arisen. Yet in China, as
throughout all the countries of the Asiatic mainland, an enthusiast
may still gather together ardent proselytes, and fresh revelations may
create among the people unrest that may ferment and become heated up
to the degree of fanaticism, and explode against attempts made to
suppress it. The Taeping insurrection, which devastated cities and
provinces in China, and nearly overthrew the Manchu dynasty, is a
striking example of the volcanic fires that underlie the surface of
Asiatic societies. It was quenched in torrents of blood after lasting
some ten years. And very recently there has been a determined revolt
of the Lamas in Eastern Tibet, where the provincial administration is,
as we know, sacerdotal. The imperial troops are said to be crushing it
with unrelenting severity. These are the perilous experiences of a
philosophic Government that assumes charge and control over the
religions of some three hundred millions of Asiatics.
I can only make a hasty reference to Japan. In that country the
relations of the State to religions appear to have followed the
Chinese model. Buddhism, Confucianism, Shintoism, are impartially
recognised. The emperor presides over official worship as high priest
of his people; the liturgical ordinances are issued by imperial
rescripts not differing in form from other public edicts. The dominant
article of faith is the divinity of Japan and its emperor; and Shinto,
the worship of the gods of nature, is understood to be patronised
chiefly with the motive of preserving the national traditions. But in
Japan the advance of modern science and enlightened scepticism may
have diminished the importance of the religious department. Shinto,
says a recent writer, still embodies the religion of the people; yet
in 1877 a decree was issued declaring it to be no more than a
convenient system of State ceremonial.[60] And in 1889 an article of
the constitution granted freedom of belief and worship to all Japanese
subjects, without prejudice to peace, order, and loyalty.
* * * * *
In India the religious situation is quite different. I think it is
without parallel elsewhere in the world. Here we are at the
fountain-head of metaphysical theology, of ideas that have flowed
eastward and westward across Asia. And here, also, we find every
species of primitive polytheism, unlimited and multitudinous; we can
survey a confused medley of divinities, of rites and worships
incessantly varied by popular whim and fancy, by accidents, and by the
pressure of changing circumstances. Hinduism permits any doctrine to
be taught, any sort of theory to be held regarding the divine
attributes and manifestations, the forces of nature, or the
mysterious functions of mind or body. Its tenets have never been
circumscribed by a creed; its free play has never been checked or
regulated by State authority.
Now, at first sight, this is not unlike the popular polytheism of the
ancient world, before the triumph of Christianity. There are passages
in St. Augustine's _Civitas Dei_, describing the worship of the
unconverted pagans among whom he lived, that might have been written
yesterday by a Christian bishop in India. And we might ask why all
this polytheism was not swept out from among such a highly
intellectual people as the Indians, with their restless pursuit of
divine knowledge, by some superior faith, by some central idea.
Undoubtedly the material and moral conditions, and the course of
events which combine to stamp a particular form of religion upon any
great people, are complex and manifold; but into this inquiry I cannot
go. I can only point out that the institution of caste has riveted
down Hindu society into innumerable divisions upon a general religious
basis, and that the sacred books separated the Hindu theologians into
different schools, preventing uniformity of worship or of creed. And
it is to be observed that these books are not historical; they give no
account of the rise and spread of a faith. The Hindu theologian would
say, in the words of an early Christian father, that the objects of
divine knowledge are not historical, that they can only be apprehended
intellectually, that within experience there is no reality. And the
fact that Brahmanism has no authentic inspired narrative, that it is
the only great religion not concentrated round the life and teachings
of a person, may be one reason why it has remained diffuse and
incoherent. All ways of salvation are still open to the Hindus; the
canon of their scripture has never been authoritatively closed. New
doctrines, new sects, fresh theological controversies, are
incessantly modifying and superseding the old scholastic
interpretations of the mysteries, for Hindus, like Asiatics
everywhere, are still in that condition of mind when a fresh spiritual
message is eagerly received. Vishnu and Siva are the realistic
abstractions of the understanding from objects of sense, from
observation of the destructive and reproductive operations of nature;
they represent among educated men separate systems of worship which,
again, are parted into different schools or theories regarding the
proper ways and methods of attaining to spiritual emancipation. Yet
the higher philosophy and the lower polytheism are not mutually
antagonistic; on the contrary, they support each other; for Brahmanism
accepts and allies itself with the popular forms of idolatry, treating
them as outward visible signs of an inner truth, as indications of
all-pervading pantheism. The peasant and the philosopher reverence the
same deity, perform the same rite; they do not mean the same thing,
but they do not quarrel on this account. Nevertheless, it is certainly
remarkable that this inorganic medley of ideas and worships should
have resisted for so many ages the invasion and influence of the
coherent faiths that have won ascendancy, complete or dominant, on
either side of India, the west and the east; it has thrown off
Buddhism, it has withstood the triumphant advance of Islam, it has as
yet been little affected by Christianity. Probably the political
history of India may account in some degree for its religious
disorganisation. I may propound the theory that no religion has
obtained supremacy, or at any rate definite establishment, in any
great country except with the active co-operation, by force or favour,
of the rulers, whether by conquest, as in Western Asia, or by
patronage and protection, as in China. The direct influence and
recognition of the State has been an indispensable instrument of
religious consolidation. But until the nineteenth century the whole of
India, from the mountains to the sea, had never been united under one
stable government; the country was for ages parcelled out into
separate principalities, incessantly contending for territory. And
even the Moghul empire, which was always at war upon its frontiers,
never acquired universal dominion. The Moghul emperors, except
Aurungzeb, were by no means bigoted Mohammedans; and their obvious
interest was to abstain from meddling with Hinduism. Yet the irruption
of Islam into India seems rather to have stimulated religious activity
among the Hindus, for during the Mohammedan period various spiritual
teachers arose, new sects were formed, and theological controversies
divided the intellectual classes. To these movements the Mohammedan
governments must have been for a long time indifferent; and among the
new sects the principle of mutual toleration was universal. Towards
the close of the Moghul empire, however, Hinduism, provoked by the
bigotry of the Emperor Aurungzeb, became a serious element of
political disturbance. Attempts to suppress forcibly the followers of
Nanak Guru, and the execution of one spiritual leader of the Sikhs,
turned the Sikhs from inoffensive quietists into fanatical warriors;
and by the eighteenth century they were in open revolt against the
empire. They were, I think, the most formidable embodiment of militant
Hinduism known to Indian history. By that time, also, the Marathas in
South-West India were declaring themselves the champions of the Hindu
religion against the Mohammedan oppression; and to the Sikhs and
Marathas the dislocation of the Moghul empire may be very largely
attributed. We have here a notable example of the dynamic power upon
politics of revolts that are generated by religious fermentation, and
a proof of the strength that can be exerted by a pacific inorganic
polytheism in self-defence, when ambitious rebels proclaim themselves
defenders of a faith. The Marathas and the Sikhs founded the only
rulerships whose armies could give the English serious trouble in the
field during the nineteenth century.
On the whole, however, when we survey the history of India, and
compare it with that of Western Asia, we may say that although the
Hindus are perhaps the most intensely religious people in the world,
Hinduism has never been, like Christianity, Islam, and to some extent
Buddhism, a religion established by the State. Nor has it suffered
much from the State's power. It seems strange, indeed, that
Mohammedanism, a compact proselytising faith, closely united with the