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
It is interesting to note how monotheism spread. The Br[=a]hma Sam[=a]j
of Madras was founded in 1864, theistic like the mother society, the
Br[=a]hma Sam[=a]j of Bengal. Three years later the first of similar
bodies on the west side of India was founded, the Pr[=a]rthan[=a]
Sam[=a]jes or Prayer Associations of Bombay. Their very name, the
_Prayer_ Associations, implies the dual conception of God and Man, for
the pantheistic conception does not admit of the idea of prayer any more
than it admits of the other dualistic conceptions of revelation, of
worship, and of sin. These movements, again, were followed in the United
Provinces and the North-West of India by the founding of the _[=A]rya
Sam[=a]j_, or, as I have called it, the Vedic Theistic Association, also
professedly theistic. Polytheism and pantheism alike, the [=A]ryas
repudiate. For the gods and goddesses of the Hindu pantheon, the founder
of the [=A]ryas declared there was no recognition in the Vedas.
Demonstrable or not, that is the [=A]rya position. The rejection of
pantheism by such a body is noteworthy, for pantheism is identified with
India and the Vedanta, the most widely accepted of the six systems of
Indian philosophy, and the [=A]rya Sam[=a]j is nothing if not patriotic.
It is above all pro-Indian and pro-Vedic. Their direct repudiation of
pantheism may not be apparent to Western minds. [=A]ryas predicate three
eternal entities, God, the Soul, and Matter,[77] and this declaration of
the reality of the soul and of matter is a direct denial of the
pantheistic conception, its very antithesis. One pantheistic formula is:
"Brahma is reality, the world unreality" (Brahma satyam, jagan
mithy[=a]). The Pantheist must declare, and does declare in his doctrine
of Maya or Delusion, that the soul and matter are illusions.
[Sidenote: The progress of monotheism seen in the _Text-book of Hindu
Religion_.]
A very striking illustration of the present insufficiency of the
pantheistic conception of God and of the movement of educated India
towards theism is to be found where one would least expect it--in
connection with the Hindu Revival. In 1903 an _Advanced Text-book of
Hindu Religion and Ethics_ was published by the Board of Trustees of the
Hindu College, Benares, a body representing the movement for a revival
of Hinduism. It was a heroic undertaking to reconcile, in the one
Text-book, Vedic, philosophic, and popular Hinduism, to harmonise all
the six schools of philosophy, to embrace all the aspects of modern
Hinduism, and lastly to satisfy the monotheistic opinions of modern
enlightened Hindus.
[Sidenote: What is Pantheism?]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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