New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century: A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments — John Shaqi
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
none but Hindus be admitted to the exposition of the sacred texts, thus
excluding the European heads of the university from a university
lecture. Perhaps the lecturer thought himself liberal, for to men like
him at the beginning of the century it would have been an offence to
read the sacred texts with Sudras or Hindus of humble castes. According
to strict Hindu rule, only brahmans can read the sacred books.[2]
[Sidenote: Indian ideas.]
For in all three spheres, social, political, and religious, the advent
of the new age implied more or less of a conflict. India has still of
her own a social system, political ideas, and religious ideas and
ideals. In the Indian social system, caste and the social inferiority of
women stand opposed to the freedom of the individual and the equality of
the sexes that prevail in Great Britain, at least in greater degree. In
the sphere of politics, the absolutism, long familiar to the Indian
mind, is the antithesis of the life of a citizen under a limited
monarchy, with party government and unfettered political criticism. In
the sphere of religion, the hereditary priesthood of India stands over
against the British ideal of a clergy trained for their duties and
proved in character. The Hindu conception of a religious life as a life
of sacrificial offerings and penances, or of ecstasies, or of
asceticism, or of sacred study, stands over against the British ideal of
religion in daily life and in practical philanthropies. To the Hindu,
the religious mood is that of ecstatic whole-hearted devotion; the
Briton reverences as the religious mood a quiet staying intensity in
noble endurance or effort.
[Sidenote: Testimony to the change in ideas]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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