New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century: A Study of Social, Political, and Religious DevelopmentsMorrison, John
Religion
New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century: A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments
Morrison, John
Christianity and other religions; India -- Civilization; India -- Religion
Salvation does mean something to every class. The huge fabric of
Brahmanism does not continue to exist without ministering to some
wide-felt need of the masses. It was in obedience to some inward demand,
however perverted, that children were cast into the Ganges at Saugor,
that human sacrifices were offered and self-tortures like hook-swinging
were endured. These have been put down by British authority, but there
still remain many austerities and bloody sacrifices and strange devices
to satisfy the clamant demand of our souls. Even may we not say that,
along with other reasons for the disappearance of Buddhism from India,
some response more satisfying to the human need must have been offered
by the rival system of Hinduism. Hinduism has deities and avatars;
Buddhism had none. Two of the most interesting spots in India, the most
sacred in the world to Buddhists, are Budh-gaya, where under the bo tree
Buddha attained to enlightenment, and S[=a]rn[=a]th, where he began his
preaching. Yet the worship at neither place to-day is Buddhist. At the
scene of Gautama's enlightenment, where he became Buddha or Enlightened,
one of the conventional statues of Buddha is actually marked and
worshipped as Vishnu, the Hindu deity, the Preserver in the Hindu triad.
Even at that most holy shrine of Buddhism, Hinduism has supplanted it,
for popular Hinduism offered salvation, while Buddhism offered
extinction. Turning from the masses to the philosophical ascetic--when
he cuts himself off from family life with all its variety of pleasure
and interest, not to speak of the self-torture he also sometimes
inflicts, he too has some corresponding demand, some adequate motive to
satisfy. His is the resolute quest for salvation of the higher, older
type. But we are dealing with modern, new-educated India, and now we ask
ourselves: What does the modern, new-educated Indian mean by salvation?
Why does the thought of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ fail to reach
his heart?
[Sidenote: Three ways of salvation in Hinduism: more strictly, three
stages.]
[Sidenote: 1. Saving knowledge]
[Sidenote: Or now Beatific Vision.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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