Two Old Faiths | Page 9

alone--as we have seen--knew the holy text; he alone could rightly pronounce the words of awful mystery and power on which depended all weal or woe. On all religions occasions the priest must be called in, and, on all occasions, implicitly obeyed. For a considerable time the princes straggled against the encroachments of the priests; but in the end they were completely vanquished. Never was sacerdotal tyranny more absolute; the proudest pope in medi?val times never lorded it over Western Christendom with such unrelenting rigor as the Brahmans exercised over both princes and people. The feeling of the priests is expressed in a well-known stanza:
"All the world is subject to the gods; the gods are subject to the holy texts; the holy texts are subject to the Brahman; therefore the Brahman is my god."
Yes, the sacred man could breathe the spell which made earth and hell and heaven itself to tremble. He therefore logically called himself an earthly god. Indeed, the Brahman is always logical. He draws conclusions from premises with iron rigor of reasoning; and with side-issues he has nothing to do. He stands upon his rights. Woe to the being--god or man--who comes in conflict with him!
[Sidenote: Ritual becomes extravagant.] The priests naturally multiplied religious ceremonies, and made ritual the soul of worship. Sacrifice especially assumed still more and more exaggerated forms--becoming more protracted, more expensive, more bloody. A hecatomb of victims was but a small offering. More and more awful powers were ascribed to the rite.
[Sidenote: Reaction.] But the tension was too great, and the bow snapped. Buddhism arose. We may call this remarkable system the product of the age--an inevitable rebellion against intolerable sacerdotalism; and yet we must not overlook the importance of the very distinct and lofty personality of Buddha (Sakya Muni) as a power molding it into shape.
[Sidenote: Buddhism. Moral elements of this system. Conflict with Brahmanism. Victory of Brahmanism.] Wherever it extended it effected a vast revolution in Indian thought. Thus in regard to the institution of caste, Buddha did not attack it; he did not, it would appear, even formally renounce it; as a mere social institution he seems to have acknowledged it; but then he held that all the religious were freed from its restrictions. "My law," said he, "is a law of mercy for all;" and forthwith he proceeded to admit men of every caste into the closest fellowship with himself and his followers. Then, he preached--he, though not a Brahman--in the vernacular languages--an immense innovation, which made his teachings popular. He put in the forefront of his system certain great fundamental principles of morality. He made religion consist in duty, not rites. He reduced duty mainly to mercy or kindness toward all living beings--a marvelous generalization. This set aside all slaughter of animals. The mind of the princes and people was weary of priestcraft and ritualism; and the teaching of the great reformer was most timely. Accordingly his doctrine spread with great rapidity, and for a long time it seemed likely to prevail over Brahmanism. But various causes gradually combined against it. Partly, it was overwhelmed by its own luxuriance of growth; partly, Brahmanism, which had all along maintained an intellectual superiority, adopted, either from conviction or policy, most of the principles of Buddhism, and skillfully supplied some of its main deficiencies. Thus the Brahmans retained their position; and, at least nominally, their religion won the day.

III.
RECONSTRUCTION--MODERN HINDUISM.
[Sidenote: Revival, in an altered form, of Hinduism. Only the position of the Brahman and the restrictions of caste retained.] But the Hinduism that grew up, as Buddhism faded from Indian soil, was widely different from the system with which early Buddhism had contended. Hinduism, as it has been developed during the last thousand or twelve hundred years, resembles a stupendous far-extended building, or series of buildings, which is still receiving additions, while portions have crumbled and are crumbling into ruin. Every conceivable style of architecture, from that of the stately palace to the meanest hut, is comprehended in it. On a portion of the structure here or there the eye may rest with pleasure; but as a whole it is an unsightly, almost monstrous, pile. Or, dismissing figures, we must describe it as the most extraordinary creation which the world has seen. A jumble of all things; polytheistic pantheism; much of Buddhism; something apparently of Christianity, but terribly disfigured; a science wholly outrageous; shreds of history twisted into wild mythology; the bold poetry of the older books understood as literal prose; any local deity, any demon of the aborigines, however hideous, identified with some accredited Hindu divinity; any custom, however repugnant to common sense or common decency, accepted and explained--in a word, later Hinduism has been omnivorous; it has partially absorbed and assimilated every system of belief, every form of worship,