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
The doctrine of Maya is, of course, a postulate, a necessity of
Pantheism. Brahma is the name of the impersonal pantheistic deity. First
among the unrealities, the outcome of Maya or Illusion or Ignorance, is
the idea of a supreme _personal_ God, Parameswar, from whom, or in whom,
next come the three great personal deities, namely, the Hindu Triad,
Brahm[=a] (not Brahma), Vishnu, and Siva,--Creator, Preserver, and
Destroyer respectively. These and all the other deities are the product
of Maya, and thus belong to the realm of unreality along with
Parameswar.[80] Popular theology, on the other hand, begins with the
three great personal deities.
[Sidenote: The Hindu Text-book transforms Pantheism into Monotheism.]
Now come we again to the Text-book. Rightly, as scholars would agree, it
describes the predominant philosophy of Hinduism as pantheistic. The
Text-book, however, goes farther, and declares all the six systems of
Hindu philosophy to be parts of one pantheistic system.[81] The word
pantheism, I ought to say, does not occur in the Text-book. But here is
its teaching. "All six systems," we are told, "are designed to lead man
to the One Science, the One Wisdom which saw One Self Real and all else
as Unreal." And again, "Man learns to climb from the idea of himself as
separate from Brahma to the thought that he is a part of Brahma that can
unite with Him, and finally [to the thought] that he is and ever has
been Brahma, veiled from himself by Avidy[=a]" (that is, Ignorance or
Maya). Our point is that the _Text-book of Hindu Religion_ is
professedly pantheistic, and the above is clearly pantheism and its
postulate Maya. But in the final exposition of this pantheism, what do
we find? To meet the modern thought of educated India, the pantheism is
virtually given up.[82] Brahma, the One and the All, becomes simply _the
Deity Unmanifested_; who shone forth to men as _the Deity Manifested_,
Parameswar; of whom the Hindu Triad, Brahm[=a] and Vishnu and Siva, are
only three _names_. Maya or Delusion, the foundation postulate of
pantheism, by which things _seem_ to be,--by which the One seems to be
many,--is identified with the creative will of Parameswar. In fact,
Pantheism has been virtually transformed into Theism, Brahma into a
Creator, and Maya into his creative and sustaining fiat. The _Text-book
of the Hindu Religion_ is finally monotheistic, as the times will have
it.
[Sidenote: A Parsee claiming to be a monotheist.]
As further confirmation of the change in the Indian mind, we may cite
the paper read at the Congress on the History of Religions, Basel, 1904,
by the Deputy High-priest of the Parsees, Bombay. The dualism of the
Zoroastrian theology has hitherto been regarded as its distinctive
feature, but the paper sought to show "that the religion of the Parsees
was largely monotheistic, not dualistic."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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