New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century | Page 3

what
wonder that Britons' views are often incomplete and distorted? On the
Indian side, on the other hand, the terrible anti-British feeling now
prevailing in India must surely be based on ignorance and
misunderstanding, and in part at least removable.
* * * * *
The Rev. Alexander Robertson, a probationer of the Free Church of
Scotland, although never in office, died at Glasgow in 1879, leaving the
residue of his estate for the endowment of a lectureship as aforesaid. As
trustees he nominated two personal friends--the Rev. J.B. Dalgety, of
the Abbey Church, Paisley, and James Lymburn, Esq., the librarian of
Glasgow University. These two gentlemen made over the trust to the
Glasgow University Court, and the writer had the honour of being
appointed the first lecturer.
The Gunning Victoria Jubilee Lectureship in the University of
Edinburgh was founded by the late Dr. R.H. Gunning of Edinburgh and
Rio de Janeiro, in the year 1889. The object of the lectureship was "to
promote among candidates for the ministry, and to bring out among
ministers the fruits of study in Science, Philosophy, Languages,
Antiquity, and Sociology."

CONTENTS
I. THE NEW ERA--SOME LEADING WITNESSES 1
II. INDIAN CONSERVATISM 11
III. NEW SOCIAL IDEAS 21
IV. THE CHIEF SOLVENT OF THE OLD IDEAS 39
V. WOMAN'S PLACE 50
VI. THE TERMS WE EMPLOY 65

VII. NEW POLITICAL IDEAS--A UNITING INDIA 72
VIII. NEW POLITICAL IDEAS--FALSE PATRIOTISM 88
IX. NEW RELIGIOUS IDEAS--ARE THERE ANY? 103
X. THE NEW RELIGIOUS ORGANISATIONS OF INDIA IN THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY--INDIAN CHRISTIANS AND
BRAHMAS 120
XI. NEW RELIGIOUS ORGANISATIONS--[=A]RYAS AND
THEOSOPHISTS 132
XII. THE NEW MAHOMEDANS 144
XIII. HINDU DOCTRINES--HOW THEY CHANGE 148
XIV. THE NEW THEISM 166
XV. JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF 184
XVI. JESUS CHRIST THE LODESTONE 194
XVII. INDIAN PESSIMISM--ITS BEARING ON BELIEF IN THE
HERE AND HEREAFTER 213
XVIII. INDIAN TRANSMIGRATION AND THE CHRISTIAN HERE
AND HEREAFTER 223
XIX. THE IDEAS OF SIN AND SALVATION 239
XX. THE IDEA OF SALVATION 254
XXI. CONCLUSION 269

NEW IDEAS IN INDIA
CHAPTER I

THE NEW ERA--SOME LEADING WITNESSES
"The epoch ends, the world is still, The age has talked and worked its
fill;
The famous men of war have fought, The famous speculators thought.
See on the cumbered plain, Clearing a stage, Scattering the past about,
Comes the New Age. Bards make new poems; Thinkers, new schools;
Statesmen, new systems; Critics, new rules."
MATTHEW ARNOLD.
India is a land of manifold interest. For the visitors who crowd thither
every cold season, and for the still larger number who will never see
India, but have felt the glamour of the ancient land whose destiny is
now so strangely linked to that of our far-off and latter-day islands,
India has not one but many interests. There is the interest of the
architectural glories of the Moghul emperors, in whose grand halls of
audience, now deserted and merely places of show, a solitary British
soldier stands sentry over a visitors' book. For the great capitals of
India have moved from Delhi and Agra, the old strategic points in the
centre of the great northern plain, to Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, and
Rangoon, new cities on the sea, to suit the later over-sea rulers of India.
There is the interest of the grand organisation of the British
Government, holding in its strong paternal grasp that vast continent of
three hundred million souls. Sometimes the sight of the letters V.R.I, or
E.R.I. (Edwardus Rex Imperator) makes one think of the imperial
S.P.Q.R.[1] once not unfamiliar in Britain. But this interest rather I
would emphasise--the penetration into the remotest jungle of the great
organisation of the British Government is a wonderful thing. By the
coinage, the post-office, the railways, the administration of justice, the
encouragement of education, the relief of famine,--by such ways the
great organisation has penetrated everywhere,--in spite of faults, the
greatest blessing that has come to India in her long history. Travelling
by rail from Calcutta to Benares, the metropolis of Hinduism, situated
upon the north bank of the sacred Ganges, we see the British rule, in
symbol, in the great railway bridge spanning the river. By it old India,

self-centred, exclusive, introspective, was brought into the modern
world; compelled, one might say, by these great spans to admit the
modern world and its conveniences, in spite of protest that the railway
bridge would pollute the sacred stream. Crossing the bridge, our eyes
are fixed on the outstanding feature of Benares--city of hundreds of
Hindu temples. What is it? Not a Hindu temple, but a splendid
Mahomedan mosque whose minarets overlook the Hindu city, calling
the city of Hindus to the worship of Allah. For the site of that mosque,
the Moghul emperor Aurangzeb ruthlessly cleared away a magnificent
temple most sacred to the Hindus. Concerning another famous Hindu
temple in the