2

In considering the evolution of modern Hinduism out of the old Vedic religion, three of the many factors responsible for this huge and complicated result deserve special attention.  The first is the unusual intensity and prevalence of the religious temperament.  This has a double effect, both conservative and alterative:  ancient customs receive an unreasonable respect:  they are not abolished for their immorality or absurdity; but since real interest implies some measure of constructive power, there is a constant growth of new ideas and reinterpretations resulting in inconsistent combinations.  The second is the absence of hierarchy and discipline.  The guiding principle of the Brahmans has always been not so much that they have a particular creed to enforce, as that whatever is the creed of India they must be its ministers.  Naturally every priest is the champion of his own god or rite, and such zeal may lead to occasional conflicts.  But though the antithesis between the ritualism of the older Brahmanism and the faith or philosophy of Sivaism and Vishnuism may remind us of the differences between the Catholic Church and Protestant reformers, yet historically there is no resemblance in the development of the antithesis.  To some extent Hinduism showed a united front against Buddhism, but the older Brahmanism had no organization which enabled it to stand as a separate Church in opposition to movements which it disliked.  The third factor is the deeply rooted idea, which reappears at frequent intervals from the time of the Upanishads until to-day, that rules and rites and even creeds are somehow part of the lower and temporal order of things which the soul should transcend and leave behind.  This idea tinges the whole of Indian philosophy and continually crops up in practice.  The founder of a strange sect who declares that nothing is necessary but faith in a particular deity and that all ceremonies and caste observances are superfluous is not in the popular esteem a subverter of Hinduism.

The history of both Sivaism and Vishnuism illustrates these features.  Siva begins as a wild deity of non-moral attributes.  As the religious sense develops he is not rejected like the less reputable deities of the Jews and Arabs but remains and collects round himself other strange wild ideas which in time are made philosophical but not ethical.  The rites of the new religion are, if not antagonistic, at least alternative to the ancient sacrifices, yet far from being forbidden they are performed by Brahmans and modern Indian writers describe Siva as peculiarly the Brahman’s god.  Finally the Sivaite schools of the Tamil country reject in successive stages the grosser and more formal elements until there remains nothing but an ecstatic and mystical monotheism.  Similarly among the Vishnuites Krishna is the centre of legends which have even less of conventional morality.  Yet out of them arises a doctrine that the love of God is the one thing needful so similar to Christian teaching that many have supposed it must be borrowed.