The Pilgrim

The Quarterly Bulletin of the Christian Society for the Study of Hinduism

Editor: P. Chenchiah

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Our Contributors

Mr. Job a prominent member of Christo-samaj one of the writers in ‘Re-thinking Christianity’ Secretary of C.S.I., a delegate to Amsterdam Conference-has given his paper ‘The faith I live by’ read before International Fellowship - for publication in ‘The Pilgrim’.

Editorials

1. A Talk With Mr. T.R. Venkatarama Sastri

When our President Sri Rajendra Prasad came to Madras he performed a pleasant function - the unveiling of the portrait of Sri T.R. Venkatarama Sastri at the Sanskrit Academy, Mylapore. He paid a tribute to the scholarship and services - substantial though unostentatious - of Sastriar and for his love of Sanskrit. Mr. Sastriar has been a leader of public life in Madras for a generation, and you don’t know Madras if you don’t know him. At the bar in the High Court, he has been a front rank advocate. As a liberal he represents the old guard which has all but disappeared and has been the President of The All India Liberal Conference. He has the rare experience of resigning his membership of the executive council (representing the cabinet of nowadays) under the British the day after he took it, as his conscience would not permit him to merely sign over the dotted line. He is a “Sir” of British days though I doubt whether he cares for these honours, indigenous or foreign very much. He was a moving spirit in the International Fellowship when health permitted him to be active. A lifelong fellowship with the late Sri Srinivasa Sastri - has associated him intimately with one of the most respected politicians of Madras. With all these, deep down Sastriar is a lover of Sanskrit and Sanskrit culture. Hence, the appropriateness of his portrait being unveiled in the Sanskrit Academy. Our political leaders have a deeper life which we rarely see. How many of us suspected religious strata in Srinivasa Sastri till he delivered his Ramayana lectures? Mr. Sastriar told me what few know, that he has often caught his friend lost in tearful ecstasy over Ramayana, when he was alone. I have sensed a similar vein of intense devotion in Mr. Venkatarama Sastriar. I have tried to induce him to follow the example of his friend and give us the benefit of his mature thought and reflection in religion. Would I succeed where others have failed?

Imagine my surprise when I got his letter which I publish in this issue. That gave me an opportunity to meet him and have a long chat. It would take a good deal of space if I give even the gist of our talk. He greeted me with the words “I say, you are in the position of a drum. You are thumped on both sides. Hindus go at you for your Christianity and Christians, I dare say, for your sympathy with Hinduism.” “Mr. Sastriar” I replied “We of the legal fraternity should, by this time, become inured to a situation which is the essence of our profession. I don’t mind how hard they thump if only they drum some music out of me.” Mr. Sastriar told me that he finds his enforced leisure weighing heavily on him, and he reads day and night. It is a common thing to find him go to sleep with his finger in a book at the page he was reading. He showed me Newman’s ‘sermons’ he was reading and which was the occasion for his letter. The long talk left me with one impression that true religion is a spirit whose essence lies in adventurous daring and capacity to go forth abroad and come back home richly laden and that religion can comfortably lie quiet in its orthodoxy permanently only when it turns it into its own coffin. The hope for those embedded in orthodoxy lies in violently kicking against the walls of their abode that threatens to be their grave. This is not what Sastriar said but my reaction to what he said. We join the great circle of his friends in wishing him good health, long-life and social service.

2. I Visit a Patasala

It is a sheer accident-being in a Bus at the same time that introduced me to Mr. P.A. Subramania Iyer the retired Professor of English in the Annamalai University. In the course of conversation I gathered that he was running a Sanskrit Patasala in Egmore, Madras, where I reside, on rather novel lines. I accepted his invitation to visit his classes with alacrity for I saw that in his experiment there was great promise. First it is purely cultural with no utility attached to it. Students come there for the love of Sanskrit, for they are not taught the text books or coached up for any examination. Secondly it is a co-education centre - girls and boys are admitted to classes and vie with each other in learning Gita. Thirdly men of all religions are welcome. There was a Mohamadan approaching middle age learning Sanskrit. I missed Christians and my presence filled the lacuna in a way for an hour or two. I was almost tempted to enrol myself as a student and learn Sanskrit with boys and girls of 15 and 20. The experiment itself is interesting. The students teach themselves and the teacher is silent except to guide them now and then.

Gita is learnt by heart. Then the students ask themselves questions in Sanskrit to bring out the significance of each word. This looks like Dr. Miller’s technique. He used to give the answers and asked the students to frame the questions for which there are answers. The pupils have to pick out parallel quotations where the same word occurs and quote the meaning from Amara Kosa. I found the boys and girls cheerful, brisk, full of animation - each bursting to answer questions and lifting their hands to attract attention before the question is out of the lips of the teacher.

It may be asked whether in this utilitarian age anybody would care to learn Sanskrit guaranteed to be of no market value. The patasala answers in the affirmative. Here is the greatness of the institution which I learnt from one of the parents of the boys. Mr. Subramania Iyer runs the school as a labour of love. No tuition fees. He teaches for the love of Sanskrit - pupils learn for the love of Sanskrit. If there is any missionary in Madras or Indian padre who wants to learn Sanskrit I recommend this institution to him. I may write more about it, but I refrain for the time being. I enjoyed personally the reading of the Gita text in good swara. Somehow it appealed to me immensely.

Articles

1. What Hindu South India Thinks

The district conference of Sivananda association was held at Venkatagiri on 30-31, December 1950 and the Editor was invited to attend and be a speaker. The Editor spoke on ‘Religion and Social Service.’

The conference was presided over by Swami Rejeswarananda and the flag was unfurled by Dr. Mahadevan. The lectures were on Gita, Advaita and Yoga. Sankirtan and, Yoga demonstrations were a feature of the meetings. The spirit of brotherhood was the prevailing atmosphere. Christians and Muslims were invited for prayers and speeches. Though no Muslim representative was able to attend the meeting, some Christians were present and took part in the proceedings. Mr. Hanumanta Rao - Advocate - read a paper on ‘The message of the Lord Christ’. The secretary spared no pains to make the delegates comfortable and the success of the conference was due to his untiring labours and devoted services.

Most of the speeches were on high adwaitin topics much above the level of the audience and were of little practical use. Swami Chinmayananda in a clear and informing speech on the ‘That is I in you’ defined God as the am-ness in ‘I am’ without I and are-ness in ‘you are’ without you. However, metaphysical such statements may be, they are of little help to India that is facing colossal moral problems. We feel that these conferences have to descend to earth from clouds if they are to be of any practical use. No social work can be done if we constantly harp that there is no I and you or doing good. We suggest that such conferences should formulate a national moral code suitable for today and bring to bear on its implementation all the resources of religions. Else they will be nothing more than debating societies.

The conference brought to prominence the visions and religious outlooks of those who have the good of the country at heart. Hinduism is gaining this worldly and life affirming mood and seeks salvation here and now - and not a postmortem bliss. The leaders of religions are anxious to bring to the common man the consolation and the strength of love and solve national problems on a spiritual level. The Inter-religious mood is gaining ground and Hinduism says to other religions “come let us pray together for God’s guidance.” This aspect of the conference deserves the notice of Muslims and Christians, and we hope responses from them will not be wanting.

I have enjoyed the fellowship and brotherhood offered at the conference and felt myself at home and this is the highest tribute I can pay.

2. The Faith That Moves Me

By Mr. G.V. Job

“Faith,” said St. Paul, “is the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen.” As a psychological phenomenon Faith may be described as the response of the whole personality to the totality of its environment from a standpoint which remains unchanged whatever changes may take place in the environment. Its motive power comes not from anything attractive in the environment which a person may seek to possess or accomplish, but from an overmastering drive from within the soul. For instance, it is not the sight of food that creates hunger, but it is hunger that starts an animal on the search for food. It is hunger that awakens the senses to the presence of food. Hunger is not a conscious aim but a basic drive. So is faith St. Augustine stated this fact with rare insight when he said “Thou hast made us for Thyself; and our souls are restless till they find rest in Thee.” Its emergence in the soul usually called conversion, is like the awakening of an instinct in due season.

It may be objected that this is the mystical aspect of faith. Let me assure you that there is no other aspect to it. It is when faith is understood to be an intellectual assent to a set of propositions relating to facts which lie beyond the purview of science and philosophy, the question of reconciling faith and reason arises. Then you begin to ask for proofs of the existence of God. No theist has yet proved to the entire satisfaction of the reasonable man the existence of God. Nor has any atheist proved His non-existence. Here is the relevancy of St, Paul’s definition of faith as the evidence of things unseen.

It is also the assurance of things hoped for. Faith dispels doubt not by converting the future into the immediate present, but by making the present a foretaste of the future. No sensible man seeks to prove to his satisfaction the love of wife, son or daughter. He accepts this as axiomatic. He seldom asks himself whether his wife and children will continue to love him to the end of his days. But he finds in their present conduct a foretaste and promise of the future. He believes exactly in the same way when the instinct for God awakens in him. Then reason finds many things in the life lived in faith which verifies the initial assumption. It is God he seeks; and when he finds Him he obtains from that discovery and communion something here and now completely satisfying. “Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.” Psalms 73:25. If he is dissatisfied with things and seeks to change them, he does so because he finds them contrary to the mind of God, and realises that God Himself is striving to change them.

With these introductory remarks, let me state briefly the faith that has been moving me ever since a certain intimate personal experience gave new direction to my life.

1. I believe in God, the maker, sustainer and ruler of the world. He is ‘our Father.’ He is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. He is righteous, not in the sense that he conforms to the Moral Law, but in the sense that the Moral Law, which has only been partially understood by men, derives its categorical imperativeness from Him. He transcends the Moral Law. That transcendental nature of His is sought to be expressed by the word holy.

2. I believe that man is made in the image of God, or that he is essentially a spirit. Man’s destiny is to become a son of God and reach the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. That such a destiny is not an unrealisable dream, but the sure goal of man’s spiritual progress, is authenticated to me in the divine humanity of Christ. There is no unbridgeable gulf between God and man. Because there is a gulf, there is the anguish of bridge-building. Because man should be reborn as the child of God, there is the age long travail of the soul.

    Oh, for a man to arise in me
    That the man I am may cease to be!

St. Paul uttered the same penetrating cry when he said, “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” He went on immediately to declare his triumphant faith, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

1. Because God is Holy and man is imperfect and often deliberately sinful, and because man’s true destiny is to become a son of God, God’s attitude to him assumes two aspects - one of relentless justice and the other of redeeming grace. It is in seeking a way of reconciling absolute justice with adequate grace, love of man with the abhorrence of his sin, the coming of Christ at a certain point of time in history became indispensable for the spiritual progress of humanity. Christ’s coming was an authentic revelation of the utter loathsomeness of sin, and God’s readiness to go to the uttermost to save the sinner. It is a declaration that the law of victory through defeat, of resurrection through death, is operating in the lives of men. Therefore, I believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God and redeemer of the world.

2. God, who has established the reign of Law everywhere in His universe except in the region of human desire and will, is seeking to establish the reign of Law in human relationships also. Therefore, he is continuously acting in history. It is to the constant pressure of the Divine Spirit from the beginning of time on the human spirit the development of morals and religion are attributable. When man consciously or unconsciously resists: this pressure there is friction. It is that friction which we see manifesting itself today as frustration, perplexity and despair. That is why sin is robbed of its satisfaction, selfishness of success and pride of its anticipated triumph. Every time a man wakens to the stultifying effect of sin and cries out for a power to remake him, the Holy Spirit hastens to the rescue and brings about a change of heart. Every time a nation realises the urgency of a juster social order, it gives evidence of the fact that the Holy Spirit has come to sanctify the common relationships of men. When humanity as a whole has wakened to the importance of co-operation quickly replacing competition and conflict among nations, I see evidence of the mighty work of the Holy Spirit in history. That is why we are speaking today as never men did before of one family under heaven and of one world. We of this generation see more clearly than the generations gone by the dark shadow of a Cross across the length and breadth of human affairs. To me as a Christian that shadow brings God, the just and merciful, right into the centre of the picture. Man’s perplexity and agony are not mere sport to the Almighty They are not a passing illusion. They are matters of the utmost seriousness to God as well as men. It is indeed a fearful, thing to fall into the hands of the Almighty. But those hands, uplifted in the cause of righteousness, are ready to descend in healing touch. Therein lies hope for mankind. It is this that makes man’s travail endurable. Therefore, I believe in the Holy Spirit.

3. I believe man’s redemption is going to bring about a revolutionary change in Nature. “The earnest expectation of the creature waited for the manifestation of the sons of God. Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” Romans 8:19-21. I do not know if there was a time when the wolf dwelt in peace with the lamb and the lion ate straw like an ox. But I believe such a time is coming. Then it will be the boast of the saints that “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” Isaiah 11. That is the eschatology of the Christian faith - the New Heaven and the New earth, the Millennium when the kingdoms of the world shall have become the Kingdom of God and His Christ. Even Millennium, the reign of universal goodness and peace, is not the consummation of the present cosmic process. It is but the ante-chamber to Heaven where God, the angels and regenerated men live in unbroken communion with one another, until perhaps God goes forth once again to create a universe or forever.

The millennium itself is an act of re-creation. Only the omnipotence, omniscience and limitless love of God are adequate to this task. But the amazing fact is that every soul, that has felt the breath of the Holy Spirit on it, is invited immediately to take a hand in and hasten the consummation of this great act of recreation; or in the language of the Apostle Paul to fill up that which is behind (incomplete) of the afflictions of Christ. Colossians 1:24.

TO SUM UP, I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, the eternal Son, who at the time of creation appeared as the Logos or Word of God and who in the fullness of time became the hero of the divine Drama of Redemption. I believe in man, essentially a spirit, and, though ignorant and wilful, destined to become a son of God. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the immanent Power that is continuously urging men, individually and collectively, towards perfection. Perfection means rebirth for the individual, a new social order for the race and the transformation of Nature which is now oppressed with violence.

Such a faith can indeed be the response of a man’s whole being to the totality of his environment from a fixed centre. It calls into activity every faculty of body, mind and soul it gives to personality an amazing unity by imparting confidence and hope under all the vicissitudes of life. For the believer knows that he, mankind and nature came from God and are steadily moving to find their fulfilment in Him. Death has no terrors, because life is continuous with the Divine Life, embraces the whole temporal series of events and passes from time into eternity, from corruption into incorruption. Pain and sorrow are evidences of maladjustment between man and Nature, man and man, and man and God. Because the Cross lay on God’s heart ever since sin entered the world and was revealed to us in a historic act, suffering can be accepted as just, but not too heavy a punishment, can be gladly endured as hastening our redemption and can be eagerly sought as a privilege which yokes the human soul with the self-giving love of God. When it is realised that man’s brief sojourn and discipline in this world. Which often appears to be a vale of tears, is but the strait gate and narrow way which leads to Eternal Life, life becomes meaningful and therefore worth living in spite of all hazards.

Part 2

This statement of the faith that moves me may strike you as simply an excerpt from some book of Christian Theology. If it were so it may be my faith, but it will not move me. What has imparted constraining power to a set of theological propositions is the context in which they arose? They were extracted not from some book, but from my life with its joys and sorrows. I should seek your permission to unlock my book of life and let you glance through a few of its pages. As I was privileged to be born of parents, the excellence of whose character was attributable to their acceptance of the Christian faith in their adolescence. I grew up as a decent Christian lad, regular in public worship and sometimes relishing private prayer. But that faith, simple and uncritical, disintegrated under the hard experience of unanswered prayer. The success I pleaded vainly for in prayer came to me when I had ceased to pray, but had learnt to work. Then followed a period of doubting and questioning - a state of mind very marked in the case of many young people in their teens. The intellectual world into which I plunged with the zeal of an explorer brought me into touch with scientific agnosticism which was very rampant at the beginning of the century. First I, gave up prayer as an illogical and futile exercise of the mind. Then I began to question the justice of God in appointing eternal punishment for a few years of sin. I was rather sorry that theists did not succeed in furnishing satisfactory proof of the existence of God. I became deeply concerned when I thought I should give up my faith in Jesus, because some eminent critics were sure that such a person never existed. I felt that life for me would become bleak, if I could not cling to my admiration for Christ and His teachings.

While I was in this state of uncertainty, another incident happened. It was nothing very extraordinary. It was just a long illness which sent me into hospital for over a month. When I went home from the hospital for a long convalescence, I was free to turn from study of college texts to general literature, some of which was religious. There was one awkward question for which I wanted an answer. What was it that made me lose a year of college study, when time was precious and money was scarce in the family? If it was God who did it, how could He explain His conduct, though not to me, least to my parents who worshipped Him devoutly and prayed, among other things, for my success? Neither Fate nor Karma could give me a satisfactory answer, because Fate was blind, and Karma an unverifiable hypothesis.

Then another thing happened, again nothing very unusual in the life of a student. I had written a University examination, and while returning home I was in despair because I had done one set of papers very badly. That old question which was lurking in the back of my mind for over two years came up and oppressed me. I was ready to curse fate, karma or God. Then light suddenly dawned. I remembered the mood and temper that dominated my thoughts before and after my long illness. I realised that if I had gone on from success to success since I passed the Matriculation by my own self effort, as I thought, without a blessing from God, I should have taken my degree a year or two earlier. But I should have left college and faced life as an overconfident and Godless man. During those years of adolescent arrogance, God was not in all my thoughts. But the illness put a brake, and that pause, without my seeking, awakened a new interest in religion and tempered my zeal for knowledge and truth with proper humility. Through pain and loss I had learnt a great lesson. Therefore, pain and loss were gifts from God, who knew my real need better than I or my parents did. And in the words of that good man who was struck blind in the prime of life, Rev. Dr. George Matheson, I said:

    O Love that will not let me go,
    I rest my weary soul on Thee;
    I give Thee back the life I owe,
    That in Thine ocean depths its flow
    My richer fuller be

One thing I had then recovered, from the ruin of the uncritical faith of my youth. I learnt to believe in God who was righteous and yet loving. If He could intervene, as He had done, in the life of a single person who was but a drop in the ocean of humanity, and which again was a mere drop in the vaster ocean of the universe, what can I say of His love? Step by step, with many lingering doubts and uncertainties, I have since been plodding on the road to full Christian faith. I have been cheered and encouraged to plod on with a few more evidences of the ‘Love that will not let me go’, even when under the stress of disappointment I tried to turn from the straight and narrow way and run after the alluring promises of the world, the devil and the flesh. There are still a few intellectual problems unresolved. Life is still a deep mystery to me. I have no answer for many of the questions which I know you would want to ask me. But thank God, I have been granted enough light to foot the path of life bravely, sometimes in weariness and sometimes in strength. I claim that this faith which I have learnt from Jesus Christ, at the foot of the Cross - the Cross on which the glory of Resurrection shines is an adequate philosophy of life.

3. Sri Ramanuja’s Visistadwaitism

BY V.S. Narasimhachar.

It is proposed in this article to give a brief outline of Visishtadwaitism as expounded by Sri Ramanujacharya and the sources of knowledge on which it is based. The system is called “Vishishtadvaita” for the reason among others that it insists on the non-duality of different objects. Its tenets are summarily given in the following sentences:

    Sriman Narayana eva
    Chidachid Vishishtadvaita tatvam
    Paravasu devo Vishnu vakyo
    Brahma Sabdena vachyaha
    Isvaro jagajivan
    Dehedeha Bhavam gathaha
    Prasanno Bhakti prapatti Bhyam
    Upassa prapya Evacha
    Aprakrita desa visishto sou
    Nanya pantha thra vidyate
    Akshadi thritam pramanamcha
    Brahma vedaika vedya kila

[“Narayana, the supreme Vasudeva known by the name of Vishnu, expressed by the term ‘Brahman’, qualified by the sentient and the non-sentient is the only Reality without a second. Iswara and the world including jivas stand towards one another as soul and body. Iswara who is associated with the non-material realm, when propitiated by devotion and self-surrender is the means (to salvation) and also the sole goal to be attained. There is no other path for this. Perception and others are the three sources of knowledge and Brahman is verily knowable only through Vedas.”]

Sri Ramanuja accepts:

1. Pratyaksha or perception,
2. Anumana or Inference or reasoning,
3. Shruti or the scripture or sabda or revealed word as pramanas or as valid sources of knowledge.

Of these prathyaksha is that which is the instrument of valid perceptual knowledge The word “perceptual” is used to differentiate it from Inference. The phrase “valid knowledge” is used to differentiate it from (erroneous) knowledge arising from the defective sense organ. (Yathindramata Deepika I-12.)

“Verbal cognition is the knowledge of the meaning derived from the sentence, unuttered by untrustworthy person” The sabda pramana is the instrument of that i.e., the verbal cognition. “Unuttered by untrustworthy person” has been said to refute the doctrine of personal origin of the Vedas, or that sentence is (sabdapramana) which is devoid of the errors of the instrument (karana) and sublating cognition.

“In the beginning of (every) creation, Bhagavan remembering the vedas in the same order as they had been before, teaches them to Chaturmukha since it has been said so (in the scriptures) eternality and impersonal origin of the vedas are established; therefore they are devoid of errors of instrument and subletting cognition.” (Ibid. 3. 1,2)

Veda includes both Karma Kanda and Gnana Kanda. The two mimamsa, purva and uttara which deal with the two Kandas of veda constitute a single scriptural authority, The limbs of the vedas viz., Chandas (prosody or meters) Kalpa (Ritual) Siksha, (phonetics) Niruktam, (etymology) Jyotisham (astronomy) and Vyakarna (Grammar) are also authoritative.

Smriti which is not opposed to sruti is also pramana. Sankhya and yoga smriti’s and others which contradict the doctrines of Manusmriti, Bhagavad Gita, Mahabharata and Vishnupurana are rejected, but they are authority only in certain points so far as they do not contradict the Manusmriti, Bhagavad Gita etc., i.e., sankhya conception of twenty-five principles and yoga method of mental concentration. Brahmasutras are fully authoritative. Itihasas and puranas which possess the character of being supplementary to vedas are authoritative.

Bharata and Ramayana though in some places appear contradictory, must be regarded as authoritative in the portions dealing with truth like Vedanta passages. Pancharatragama and vaikhanasagama are authoritative in toto. Dharma sastras, Silpa, Ayurveda, Gandharva, Bharath and other sciences are authoritative in their useful portion.

The holy sayings of saints like Bakulabharan and others are also authoritative.

Inference

Inference is knowledge derived from a general principle. By means of indirect proof or tarka and the use of both positive and negative instances, the non-essentials are eliminated, and the general rule is established.

Sri Ramanuja lays down the relative probative value of Veda and inference pramanas as follows (vide Brahmasutra 2-12).

    A theory which rests exclusively on arguments derived
    from human reason may, at another time or place, be disestablished
    by people more skilful than you in reasoning thus
    there is no getting over the objection founded on the invalidity
    of all mere argumentation. The conclusion from all
    this is that, with regard to super-sensuous matters scripture
    alone is authoritative and that reasoning is to be applied
    only to the support of the scripture. In agreement herewith
    Manu says "He who supports the teaching of the Rishis and
    the doctrine as to sacred duty with arguments not conflicting
    with the veda, he alone truly knows the sacred duty."

— Manusmriti 12.106

Narayana qualified by the sentient and the non-sentient is the only Reality without a second. He is the soul of the world. Brahman is knowable only through vedas.

Brahmasutra 2 and 3 says Sastrayonithvathe (Because scripture is the source of the knowledge of Brahman) Sri Ramanuja says - Commenting on this:

“Because Brahman, being raised above all contact with the senses, is not an object of perception and the other means of proof, but to be known through scripture only.” Again in commenting on Br. S. 22.2.3. Thadanyakta mahahi (that is unmanifested for this Scripture declares). Sri Ramanuja says:

    "Brahman is not manifested by other means of proof,"
    for scripture says "He is not to be seen, no one beholds him
    with the eye."

— Katha Upanishad 6.9

    He is not apprehended by the eye nor by speech

— Mundaka Upanishad 3.2.8

    I am indeed he who is to be known by all the vedas

— Bhagavad Gita 10.1.15

Nature of Brahman

According to Sri Ramanuja, Brahman comprises plurality in itself and is not a bare identity. It is not mere consciousness but conscious subject, having as its attribute consciousness i.e., Dharmabhuta gnana (S.B.E.P. 56 and 61).

No scriptural texts teach a Brahman devoid of all differences nor do smriti and purana teach such doctrine (Ibid. p. 78).

Ramanuja admits that the vedic texts describe Brahman as Nirguna (without attributes) and also as saguna (with attributes). But he sees no conflict really between them for the texts which declare Brahman to be without qualities are according to him, meant to negative the evil qualities depending on prakriti. He quotes vedic passages of which the last is from Chandogya Upanishad 8.1-5: “This is the self, free from sin, ageless, deathless, griefless, free from hunger and thirst whose wishes are true, whose purposes are true” and says “Those and other texts declare that to Brahman, whose essential nature is knowledge, there may be excellent qualities - among which that of knowing a subject stands first, and that Brahman is free from all evil qualities. That the texts referring to Brahman as free from qualities and those which speak of it as possessing qualities, have really one and the same object may be inferred from the last of the passages quoted above, the earlier part of which -”free from Sin” unto ‘free from thirst’ - denies Brahman all evil qualities, while its later part- “whose wishes are true” and so on asserts of its certain excellent qualities. As thus there is no contradiction between the two classes of texts there is no reason whatever to assume that either of them has for its object something that is false.”

Sri Ramanuja says further, “Everywhere in scripture as well as smriti Brahman is described as having characteristics of double kind viz., on the one hand freedom from all imperfections and on the other possession of all blessed qualities. For scripture says that the supreme person is” (Here the passage quoted above from Chan. Up 8:1 quoted). And smriti says (quoting from Vishnu purana 6-5/64-65.) “He comprises within himself all blessed qualities by a particle of his power, the whole mass of beings is supported. In him there are combined energy, strength, might, wisdom, valour and all other noble qualities. He is the highest of the high, no pain or other imperfections affect him, the Lord of all, high or low. From all evil He is free, He whose name is Vishnu, the highest abode.”. These and other passages teach that Brahman possesses the double characteristics stated above.

Iswara is Vibhu swarupam essentially of the nature of Vibhu i.e., all pervasiveness. To the class of qualities which are attributes determining the essential character Swarupanirupakadharmaha and therefore necessarily entering into the idea of the thing, belong, says Ramanuja, qualities such as satyam, Jnanam, anandam, Amala, ananta (“True being, knowledge, bliss, purity and infinity.”). For Brahman the essential definition Swarupa Nirupa rupanam is given in the texts - Satyam, annam Anandam (The truth knowledge and infinity is Brahman and anandam Brahma (Bliss is Brahman) such additional qualities, says he, such as, compassion which cannot exist apart from the subject to which they belong are not necessary elements in the idea of Brahman (Brahmasutra 3-3-13.)

Yatindramata deepika says “Truth, consciousness, bliss, purity are the attributes which determine the essential nature of Iswara. Knowledge, power etc. are the attributes of the essential nature so determined.” Further it says, “Omniscience, Omnipotence are the attributes which are useful for the act of creation. Love, excellence of disposition, easiness of approach etc., are the attributes which are useful for providing refuge. (to be devotees.) Compassion and others are the attributes which are useful for protection of the good.)”

Brahman is defined in Brahmasutra 2.1.1 as Janmadyasya Yatha (The Brahman is that from which the origin etc. of this (i.e.) the world process.) etc. includes preservation, withdrawal or dissolution and order.

The motive which prompts Brahman - ‘all whose wishes are fulfilled’ and who is perfect in himself says Ramanuja, to the creation of a world comprising all kinds of sentient and non-sentient beings dependent on His volition, is nothing else but sport only (vide Brahmasutra 33-1-2).

Brahman Soul of This Universe

According to Sri Ramanuja the Brahman is the soul of the Universe consisting of the entire complex of the intelligent and unintelligent beings (souls and matter) which in all their different estates are real and which constitute the form i.e., the body of the highest Brahman. This relationship is the most essential truth of Vishishtadwaita. Sri Ramanuja relies on many passages to establish this truth. Only some of them are quoted here:

    He who dwells in the earth and within the earth
    whom the earth does not know whose body the earth is and
    who rules the earth within

— Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 3. 7-3

    He who dwells in Atma and within Atma, whom
    Atma does not know whose body the Atma is and who rules
    the Atma within, he is thy self the ruler within, the
    immortal

— Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 3. 7-22

    Entered within the ruler of creatures, the self of all

— Tait Aranyaka 3.11.2

    In that all that exists has its self

— Chapter. 6.8.7

    All this indeed is Brahman

— Chapter. 3.14.1

    The whole world is your body

— Ramajana Yudha Kandam 1.20.26

Sri Ramanuja says “all these texts teach that sentient and non-sentient beings spring from Brahman, are merged in him, breath through him, are ruled by him, constitute his body, so that he is self of all of them.”

Sarira or body, is defined by Ramanuja as “any substance which a sentient soul is capable of completely controlling and supporting for its own purposes, and which stands to the soul in an entirely subordinate relation,” and says. “In this sense, then, all sentient and non-sentient beings together constitute the body of the supreme person, for they are completely controlled and supported by Him for His own ends and are absolutely subordinate to him.”

The relationship of saririn and sareera (soul and body) implies:

1. Brahman is The support (Adhara) of The world of chit and achit (sentient and non-sentient)
2. The Lord is The niyanta or controller
3. The lord is the seshi (i.e., the principal) who uses the chit and achit for his own satisfaction and matter and the soul is the sesha - the Dasa or servant. The sesha exists in the seshi and for the seshi and
4. Brahman is the prakari of whom the souls and the world are prakaras or mode.

The unity of Brahman and the world as saririn and sarira and visesha and viseshana or subject and its attribute is visishta. Aikya the union of different things and not swarupa Aikya - complete merger.

An attribute which cannot be apprehended apart from the subject, of which it is the distinguishing attribute is called the “Apruthak siddha Viseshana.” In this sense the world i.e. the intelligent souls and the non-intelligent matter is the Apruthak siddha Viseshana of Brahman; one thing is called the prakara of another if it cannot subsist by itself without its substrate or sustaining life and final cause or prayojana. Since world cannot exist without the self, being its Aprithak siddha Viseshana, since when the self separates itself from the body the latter perishes and since the world exists to the end the fruits of actions of the self may be en joyed and the world is a mere attribute of the self manifesting itself as god, man or the like the world is a mode of the self (S.B.E. Vol. 48 p. 138).

“Brahman having for its modes intelligent and unintelligent things in their gross and subtle states, thus constitutes effect and cause, and the world thus has Brahman for its material cause. He becomes the efficient cause by virtue of His will to become many and also the co-operant cause by virtue of His immanence in Nature.” Brahman is the material, efficient and co-operant cause of the world (Y.D.I into 2.)

Iswara abides in five-fold form as para, Vyuha, Vibhava Antaryamin and Archavatara. The highest mode - para Narayana is Narayana or Brahman living in vaikunta where God is said to exist in a body made of pure sattva. In Vaikunta the Lord is seated on the serpent Adisesha supported by his consort Lakshmi, the divine mother of the universe who sometimes intercedes with God on behalf of the weak and erring humanity. The vyuhas, according to Ramanuja, are the forms which the Highest Brahman assumes out of tenderness for his devotees. They are respectively the rulers of individual souls (Sankarshana), minds (pradyumna) and egos (Aniruddha.)

The Vibhava rupas are the incarnations of Vishnu who assumes in his infinite mercy various forms without putting away his own essential God-like nature and comes into the world with the purpose of relieving the world from the burden of evil and restoring Dharma.

God, as an Antaryamin, dwells in all beings and accompanies the soul in all its wanderings through heaven and hell.

God dwells in duly consecrated images (pratima or Vigraha.)

The bodies of Bhagavan in his aspects of Vyuha, Vibhava and Archavatara are made up of non-material substance (Aprakruthe.) In the case of Archavataras after the consecration, the nonmaterial body manifests itself, dependent on the will of Iswara who is disposed to bless (Y.M.D. 6. 5)

Souls-Infinite in number different from one another eternal and dependent on God but inseparable from God.

From the fact that the soul constitutes the body of Brahma of which the soul is the ‘Apruthaksiddha Viseshana’ inseparable from Brahma but separate in existence as already stated, it follows:

1. The soul is eternal.
2. The souls are infinite in number, differing from one another.
3. The soul is entirely dependent on God.
4. It is part of the Brahman.
5. It is different from Brahman.
6. It is an agent.
7. There is similarity between the nature of soul and the Brahman
8. The soul is a knower.
9. The soul is eternal.

(to be continued.)

Reviews

1. The Philosophy of Bhedabedha

By P.N. Srinivasachari, M.A. - P.N. Srinivasa Varadachari and Co., Mount Road, Madras, pp. 361. Price not stated.

This book was published in 1934. We are reviewing it in this issue as the author presented us with a copy and the substance of the book is helpful to all those who are studying adwaita and post-sankara reactions to it.

The dialectic of adwaita follows closely the Hegelian dialectic. The Upanishads which record the discovery of Brahman is the thesis - Buddhism which denied Brahman was the antithesis. The effect of Buddhism on Advaita was rather interesting. Advaita which affirmed Brahman, denied the world. Sankya which denied Brahman, affirmed the creation. Buddhism which denied Brahman ultimately denied the world and Adwaitism which denied the world - approximated Brahman to Sunya. The synthesis of the two ideals produced a complete or near nihilism. Then began again the circuit of thesis and antithesis in which sankara takes a mediating position. How are we to save the world and Brahman since the denial of the one led to the denial of the other?

Ramanuja, Vallabah, Baskara tackled this question without effecting a complete breach as Madhwa did. Ramanuja held that God is the soul and the creation his body. Baskara, one of the acharya held that creation was a real modification of Brahman. As late Prof. Hiriyanne put it “Reality conceived as Bhinnabhinna is not static but is continually changing and yet maintains its identity throughout.”

This position was midway logically and chronologically between adwaita of sankara and Vishishtadvaita of Ramanuja and like all middle positions lost its ground, under the logical attacks of Post-Sankarite champions of adwaita. Verdicts of the past are not ‘settled facts’ in the modern world any more than Partition of Bengal. We have learned that logical contradiction does not condemn truth and a paradox is an index of truth for all its seeming contradiction. Modern thought will find in Bhaskara a far more reliable guide to vedanta than medieval India has done. Bhedabheda Philosophy will be a force to reckon with in the battle between neo-adwaitins and their opponents.

This book of nearly 360 pages is an exhaustive study of Bhaskara’s Bhedabheda philosophy - far more complete in treatment than any other book on the subject. The first part deals with the Epistemology, ontology, cosmology psychology, ethics, religion and bhaskara’s, criticism of the doctrine of maya. We have thus a positive statement of the content of Bhaskara’s Philosophy. Book two deals with Bhaskara system in relation to Adwaitism, Vishishtadvaitam, Philosophies of Yadavaprakasa, Bhatr-prapancha, Nimbarka and Saktas part 2. Compares Bhaskara system with western systems of Spinoza, Hegal, Royce Bosanquet, Fichte, Schelling. The conclusion is an able, critical and impartial estimate of Bhedabheda P.N. Srinivasachari’s ‘The philosophy of Bhedabheda’ is indispensable for students who desire to follow reactions to Sankara in the adwaitin system of thought.

2. Divine Vision

By Acharya Mardikar, B.A., pp. 66, price Rs. 2-8-0. Published by Shrimati S. Chandrika Devi Mardikar, Ganespeth, Nagpur M.P. (India)

This book embodies an interesting idea … namely to teach how to attain Viswarupa Dharsana imparted to Arjuna by Sri Krishna and described in the 11th chapter of the Gita. It is said that Baghavan Mayanand Chaitanya was born as the ninth avatar (why ninth and how ?) to teach the sadhana of Viswarupadarsana by imparting to aspirants Divya Dhristi. The book gives a translation of Swami Mayanand’s ‘Divine Vision’ and ‘sarvanga yoga’.

Put in a nut-shell the teaching comes to this that Kshra and Akshara are the inner and outer aspects of reality and to comprehend them as one - purushottama constitutes Viswarupa Darsana.

Neither in substance nor in form is this teaching new or adequate. It has been propounded over and over again. There is no clue to the sadhana which we are told is imparted free at the ashram - at Omkareshwar - Madhya Pradesh.

It is somewhat strange that in this century of easy travel and extensive publicity an incarnation such as Swami Mayanand is claimed to be is unknown in south India and his teachings unheard. Viswarupa darsana is traditionally regarded as an individual gift to Arjuna and never treated as an integral part of Gita sadhana. We do not think that any follower of Gita claimed it even in the so-called good old days, let alone the present degenerate days.

The introduction of Mardikar is good and informing. But the whole philosophy is so elementary and thin that it hardly adds or illuminates existing knowledge. It is not explained why a vision of terror, as visvarupa was, should have any elevating effect and why it should lead to moksha any more than a film of nature in all its fearful aspects. Terror that purifies, according to Greeks is human tragedy and not nature-vision. Though good to explain the view point of the ‘Divine Vision’, as a philosophic exposition, the introduction is inadequate.

It may be that a yoga technique cannot be adequately described in a book but should be taught by the guru. Yet yoga text books exist and a description of the sadhana for acquiring viscarupadarsana, is the least that could have been done to save the book from being jejune. We hope this will be done in the next edition.

There is hardly anything in the contents of this book to justify the somewhat pontifical attitude taken by Pandit Chaturvedi towards the West that is still groping in the darkness of materialism. There is enough grovelling in materialism in India for Mr. Chaturvedi to assail the west Sancho-panza wise. Let him expend his missionary zeal to save India from engulfing corruption - of which he as an M.P. ought to be aware.

We think the idea of making Viswarupa darsana popular by a spiritual technique within the availability of ordinary men deserves commendation. In the absence of any information we are not in a position to say how far the sadana imparted at the ashram achieves the end. A book giving a description of the sadhana and testimonies of Sadhanas will be more useful and instructive than the present one.

3. The Primal Power in Man or Kundalini Sakti

By Swami Narayananda published by Messrs. N.K. Prasad and Co. Rishikesh, U.P. pp. 155, price Rs. 4.

If appearances are a good test of the effects of Kundaliyoga on Physique and health the frontispiece presenting the Swamiji in the pink of health - predisposes the reader to open the book with hope and expectation. We do not know whether the picture taken on the second day of his renunciation, represents him as he looked before he started the yoga or after he finished it. Anyway Swamiji’s face recalls Swami Vivekananda in his youth.

The ‘Kundalini-sakti’ is not a book for beginners in Hatha yoga. It seeks to instruct those who have passed beyond the preliminary stages of Asana and pranayama and are entering the final lap of the journey which beginning with Mudras should end in samadhi. Sadhuji writes on the basis of personal experience and this makes the book very valuable for those who want something more than a hotch-potch from text books. After the preliminary chapters dealing with Nadis and chakras and a general description of Kundalini, - its location and its function - Swamiji treats at some length how to raise Kundalini till it reaches sahasrahara. There are cautions and warnings throughout which may deter any who do not possess a stout heart and an iron will from entering on the sadhana. The three dangers referred to are:

1. A partial raising of the Kundalini, even up to sahasrahara is followed by its sinking down attended with numerous diseases.
2. That pranayama without Brahmacharya (continence) will lead to insanity

(p. 39) 3. Even the full raising of Kundalini below viscacha gives no permanent benefits.

Since ninety-nine and a half percent of humanity are grihastas and half percent of sadhus are a fast dwindling number, one wonders whom this heroic adventure of raising Kundalini is likely to enthuse in modern India.

The author does not preach the shallow and cheerful gospel which sadhu adventurers in America who are more after American dollars than after the spiritual welfare of Truman’s countrymen have made current that yoga is everybody’s purchase for ten dollars. He rather deters than encourages you. Says the Sadhu “the act of taking the Kundalini sakti upward is an adamantine task. It may take years of hard and ardent work or may be a life-long struggle.” All this may be endured if the prize is physical immortality. But the sadhu assures us that when Sakti joins Siva, the sadaka quits the mortal coil in twenty-one days (p. 132). One may hesitate to enter a path that seems to lead us to a pleasant and even cheerful suicide-policy called samadhi.

To the Christian the primary difficulty is why Siva and Sakti are treated entirely as physical forces to be raised up and lowered like a bucket in a well and not personalities responsive to prayer. One may well ponder whether violent assaults on sealed forces of life is advisable even for those prepared for the risk. These reflections are not in any way intended to affect the excellency of the book. Swamiji has written a lucid and helpful book on a delicate and difficult subject and the reviewer has been much instructed himself by a perusal and has no hesitation in recommending it to the Hindu and the Christian, to the Indian and foreigners alike, as one of the excellent books we have come across, if only he seeks knowledge and does not rush to practice.

4. The Concept of Time in Indian Philosophy

By Swami Madhavatirtha, Published by the Vedanta Ashram, Port Valad - Ahmedabad Prantig Rly - India, pp. 71, price Rs. 1-2-0.

Ever since we read Bergson and Dunne we were fascinated by the mystery of time and wondered what our ancestors thought about it? While we have good books on Hindu Philosophy - those of Radhakrishna, Dasgupta, Hirayanna, we are poorly served in Metaphysics. The only book on Hindu Metaphysics by Manmathanath Sastri does not deal with ‘time’. Nor do we think the transactions of Indian Philosophical Association ever tackled the topic Swami Madhavathirtha’s book of about 70 pages, turns the first sod in the field and is welcome for the systematic attempt made to gather all that Indian Philosophy has to say about time - and that seems to be precious little.

Swami Madhavatirtha is the solitary figure in the field of philosophy in India who has been impressed with the possibilities of relativism and has been attempting to apply it to Indian philosophy. We hope his example will be followed by other scholars.

The book - rather the booklet - covers a wide ground - and we have paras on concept of time in Vedas, Upanishads, six systems, puranas, in Jain and Buddhist philosophy, in the speculations of Sri Aurobindo and Sri Ramana Maharishi. In each field a glimpse or two is sought to be caught and developed. The material in all conscience is very meagre and even when augmented by logic and imagination the yield is very poor. All that we could say is that the Indian Philosophers had a fleeting glimpse of the mystery of time. It is difficult to build either a concrete theory of relativity or precise formulation of the nature of time from the fugitive gleams. Gita is somewhat disappointing in this respect and yogavasishta more hopeful. The stories of yogavasishta all boil down to this that time - measure is not constant but varying and that thousand years to man may be a day for the Lord. It is a long way from fanciful stories to philosophical theories. The puranas seem to believe in the objective reality of time as Kalasarpa, Kala Bhairava, as the destroyer and digester of life. The author swings to the other pole and holds time as unreal and a creation of mind.

As in his ‘Wonders of space-time’ Swamiji is inclined to draw very large conclusions unjustified by the premises. No amount of hypnotic passes can charm away in the name of relativity - the elements that are related nor can the name of relativity - of the scientific type, be invoked to support maya - or solipsism such as here and there advocated in the book that the creation is the product of individual mind. It is somewhat extravagant to argue that time does not exist because there are various time - measures.

Nevertheless, Swamiji’s is a stimulating book and Madhavatirtha has the courage to face new and difficult problems which others pass by. As perhaps the only serious book on the subject, we have no doubt, it will be welcomed by the Indian and western thinkers and by Christians who are challenged by the statement in Revelations 10:56 “I saw the angels sware - that there should be time no longer.”

5. Sivananda Publication League Book

We have received many books from Swami Sivananda for which we are thankful. The Sivananda publication league Rishikesh is one of our active publishing houses and has for its object the popularisation of Hindu heritage amidst conditions of modern India under the guidance and overseership of Swami Sivananda. Most of the books published are from the pen of Swamiji himself. Swami Sivananda is an ardent advocate of interreligious fellowship and his writings breathe a spirit of respect and reverence to other religions. To our readers Swamiji may appeal as an exponent of universal aspects of Hinduism and generality of Christians not accustomed to technical studies yet desiring to know what Hinduism stands for, can derive considerable help from the publications of Sivanandaswami. We draw their attention to the following books.

Yoga Vedanta Dictionary

Pp. 134, price Rs. 5.

It is a glossary of vedantic and yogic vocabulary and makes a welcome departure from the usual type of religious literature. A Hindu theological dictionary is yet to come into existence. But before the venture can be made adequate, some dictionaries exploiting limited areas such as Vedanta, Upanishads, Six darsanas have to be prepared. Those who have been reading our samapada-chaturanga will realise the great value of these dictionaries in shaping comparative religious theology. The ground covered is fairly extensive - vedanta and yoga. We have found it very helpful. Almost all technical terms have found a place and the English equivalents are well-chosen. A dictionary of vedantic terms appeared at the end of Karma yoga where Swamiji says it took him five years to gather the material The present edition is an enlarged edition and will be welcomed by Christian scholars labouring in the field of Hinduism as an aid of great value. Chitta is translated as subconscious. We wonder whether the translation is accurate. We have sub, supra, infra, ultra consciousness, and we need accurate Sanskrit terms for these. We hope Swamiji will deal with modern psychological states of consciousness, and their Sanskrit equivalents in an early issue of ‘The divine life.’ It would be very helpful.

World’s Religions

Pp. 179, price Rs. 2-8-0.

A study of the prominent religions of the world as a Hindu views them. The religions dealt with are Hinduism, Zorastranism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Sufism, Jainism, Sikhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Shintoism. In each case a summary of scriptures, teachings and tests, prominent features, striking sayings are given. Not a harsh word said of any religion. A sense of reverence and an atmosphere of sincerity pervades the pages. The mood and temper of approach is irreproachable. It is a decided advantage to a student of religion to have all main religions surveyed within the compass of a single volume. This volume is a welcome aid to interreligious understanding. We read with interest the chapter on Christianity which is satisfactory in every respect. The Cross is mentioned but not resurrection. Speculations, such as that Jesus spent his life between 12 and 32 years at Buddhist monastery in India, that Christianity is based partly on Buddhism, that John the Baptist was the preceptor of Jesus, are stated as facts. Few sound scholars accept these conjectures. Sermon on the mount and Lord’s prayer are given prominence. Some sayings like ‘the Voice of people is the voice of God’, ‘Good deeds are the best prayers’ - and some other sayings are given as from scriptures, but they are not. On the whole, reading the chapter as a Christian I feel it brings out many of the features of Christianity as a Christian would desire. A timely contribution when India is in a mood to learn of God’s ways in other religions.

All About Hinduism

Pp. 270, price Rs 4.

To those who desire to have a bird’s eye view of Hinduism its development and growth - this is just the book. All aspects of Hinduism popular as well as philosophic are dealt with fairly fully. There are chapters on Hindu scriptures, Rituals, Ethics, Philosophy, Sects and Mythology, Symbols. The chapters on Hindu philosophy, the four paths, Hindu scriptures, shadarsanas are particularly good. Nyaya, Vaishesika - skipped over in text books on Hinduism receive fuller treatment. The chapter on Hindu ritual is informative. Curiously enough the chapter on santana Dharma is thin and Avatars receive a bare reference only. As a reference book on Hinduism, this will be found helpful.

Hindu Fasts and Festivals

Pp. 154 price Rs. 3-4-0.

One can never understand a religion unless one grasps the spirit of its fasts and feasts. In the case of an ethnic religion like Hinduism such knowledge is essential. There have been one or two books on the subject such as the ‘Hindu year’ in the Dr. Farquhar series. But a book from a Hindu to whom these fasts and feasts have a psychological meaning and value - has greater appeal. Chapters are assigned for festivals, jayantis, for vratas, melas. Foreigner who wants to know the ‘why’ and ‘wherefore’ of the rejoicings of the people of this land, finds what he wants here. The other day I went to the house of a Hindu friend - a Madhwa. He told me that day was Vyasa puja - day - as much esteemed by Madhwas as Krishna jayanti. Vyasa is regarded as an incarnation. I have missed a reference to it in the book. I hope it will get in the next edition. I keep the book on my table and refer to it whenever I get a Hindu religious holiday.

Srimad Bhagavad Gita

Pp. 895, price Rs. 10.

Text, meaning, notes and commentary. We have been insisting that every new book on Gita should justify its existence, and we cannot avoid challenging this book also. In the first place it is a single volume translation quite handy. In the second place, it follows Sankara and, other Acharyas in giving word for word translation very useful to those who have limited knowledge of Sanskrit and want to read the original slokas. Thirdly - the most important consideration that the commentator introduces the reader to the text and withdraws without intruding himself between the text and the reader. The commentaries on Gita have been so long and so pressed into service for systems derived aliendi that a commentator who wants the reader to hear Gita and not himself is rare indeed. The commentaries are short and always for making the meaning of the text clear. This Gita takes its place along with Mrs. Besant and Bhagavan Das’s very useful translation of Gita.

(6) Beyond Ethics

This is a copy of the presidential address of Dr. T.M.P. Mahadevan - head of the department of Philosophy, University of Madras, delivered at the last All India Philosophic Conference. Dr. Mahadevan gives to the subject the title ‘Beyond Ethics’ stressing the point that looking beyond the socially and nationally defined borders of ethics tends to confirm its value to men. In the first part we have a critique of Dr. Leake’s view that ethics should be constructed purely on naturalistic basis and defined as values that make for survival in the struggle. In criticising this school a reference is made to Prof. Romanell’s meeting of the naturalistic position. Having disposed off the new attacks on ethics, the doctor, points out that ‘oughtness’ is the essence of ethics - at the normal level - both from the standpoint of Gita and Kant. Nevertheless, the ought is only a scaffolding. Hindu ethics strives to reach a status of personality where the compulsion of ‘ought’ gives place to action under attraction (Leela). Thus, according to the doctor ethics fulfils itself by transcending itself and law passes into life.

Dr. Mahadevan has given us a compendious conspectus of the ethical situation which should be taken as a basis for further study. We commend this thoughtful address to the general public. Though dealing with a technical subject it is written in a style easily comprehended by laymen.

Samapada-Chaturanga

Ism-mism.

We discuss in this issue some ‘isms’ to which constant reference has to be made in any book on theology. We cannot however avoid some philosophical and scientific ‘isms’ in any modern theological treatise even of an elementary nature. Hence, some of them also have to be considered.

Just going back to the list of ‘treatises on theology and subdivisions’ we may add ‘pravachana’ for grand commentary, or exposition. It means also vedas. For the Devil the vedic vrtra and Nirrti are equivalents. The former is a dragon (see Revelations 20:2) the dragon which is the Devil and Satan and the latter the spirit of death, dismay and destruction and is a feminine Satan.

Of religious ‘isms’ we have the following:

1. Theism - Iswara or Brahma Bhakti.

2. Polytheism - curiously polytheists have no indigenous name for it, others have to give the name - Bahu Deva visvasam is good enough

3. Monotheism - for this we have a classical Sanskrit equivalent - Ekanta or Ekantika matam. Other names are:

   1. Satvata Dharma
   2. Narayaniyam
   3. pancharatra matam
   4. saiva
   5. Naradiyam
   6. Vaishnavam.

   These should be used discriminately.

4. Pantheism too is not Indian or indigenous but paryayas are available - ‘sarvam Kal vidam Brahman’ - shortly Brahman - jagat matam or Idam sarvam Brahman matam.

The theological terms (C.L.S.) gives viswa-Brahma Aika vada and equivalents are a sarvamiti Brahman jagat Brahma Mayam, para - prakrit samanvayasiddhantam.

As India has primitive tribes we have to speak of:

1. Animism - Bhuta Bhakti

2. Totemism - Vriksha, Mrga gotra karma visvasam, mrga-linganvaya siddha (C.L.S.)

3. Fetchism - Achetana-dravya - Aradhana or Achetana aradhana - I think it is advisable to take over the terms Tatemism and Fetchism as they are into Sanskrit

4. Ancestor worship - Pitru pradhama

5. Anthropomorphism - Bhuta-Deva bhakti would be a short one if understood as a faith which regards elements as gods as well as powers of nature. The one given in C.L.S. Theological terms needs further consideration. Now that Godlessness has become a religion:

   1. Atheism - Nastikam or Nir-Iswara, Lokayata, charvaka-matam or jadavadam have to be included in the list
   2. Scepticism is samsaya or Anirnaya matam or vicikitsa.

   Skepticism has given place to Agnosticism - which though new to Hinduism has equivalents - Agamyavadam, Ajnana Ajneya Vadam. I find a short word in tenth mandala of Rigveda in the Rik which ends in Kasmai. Kasmai Vadam is very apt. The Rik no doubt ends in making prajapati the unknown God. But this need not distract from the aptness of the term which means which God shall we worship?

6. Monism is a philosophical term not indigenous though western scholars have fathered it on Hinduism. Adwitam is not monism - vedantic might be in certain aspects. Aikyamata for the view that all things can be worked into one whole - take their meaning and significance from the whole may be found suitable.

7. Ekam mata has to be reserved for the faith that only one exists Adwaitiya-matam (not adwaita) also fits - Ekam sat-matam is a third alternative.

8. Humanism is Manava Dharma - Daivam manusha Rupena - visvasam - Daivam manama Koti - Bhakti.

9. Deism - Nirvichara daiva vadam.

We deal with philosophical isms in the next issue.

We may however make two remarks. We have to use longer terms for sometime to read into shorter terms the longer meaning. Ultimately short terms only will survive. Vada, Mata, siddhartha have to be used with discrimination. Well established or largely accepted views are mata or siddhartha- rest are vada. In philosophy everything is vada - in religion everything mata.

Since writing the above - we find that tabuva is used for tapu in atharva veda - Taboo is the anglicised form of Tapu.

Our Religious Magazines

Kalyan and Kalyan-Kalpataru issuing from Gorakpur and forming part of wider activities including a press and a publishing house, have attained to an established status in the contemporary religious life. Both the magazines expound Hinduism from a conservative and traditional standpoint but take into account the changing conditions in India. Both of them, we note gladly, demand from the followers of Hinduism, a disciplined life of high ethical tone, an endeavour to realise in life elevated ideals. The Hindi magazine Kalyan has secured the co-operation of a wide range of writers ranging from pandits and Mattadhipathies to modern English scholars. Its object is stated to be “to promote bhakti, Gnana, Vairagya, Dharma and sadachara” and every issue has articles calculated to advance these objectives. Coloured pictures and portraits from ancient Art centres are a prominent feature. Special numbers are almost an annual occurrence. We had occasion to refer to the bumper number on Hindu culture quite recently and other special numbers are planned. Each issue begins with a prayer and a page of advice on spiritual matters which we find are always high-toned. Then follow articles covering almost all aspects of Hinduism. Cow protection and a critique of Hindu code have been constant themes of late.

Kalyan-Kalpataru has been offering to English reading public the same service in the same spirit as Kalyan. A coloured picture invariably forms the frontispiece. A prayer, a page of answers to correspondents under the heading of unto bliss, - letters to fellow seekers; lives of departed saints have been enjoyable constants in the last few years. This year the special numbers are devoted to a serial publication of Thulasidas Ramayana- Ramacharitra manasa. The second number translates Balakanda. Here again pictures beautifully executed are a great help. The special number of Kalyan-Kalpataru-dealing with Gita, God, Yoga have obtained wide publication and appreciative press.

In the religious magazines of India, which are few Kalyan, Kalyan-Kalpataru have taken the front rank. Their clientele is perhaps the widest in India. Those of other religions who want to be in touch with orthodox currents of Hinduism in modern India and Hindus who would like to have knowledge of their own faith should regularly read these two religious magazines to be abreast with the times. Both these magazines are on our exchange since we assumed editorship. We have derived much instruction and enlightenment by reading the English and Hindi issues.

Both these Magazines do not take in any commercial advertisements. I am not aware of any magazine, except Salvation Army’s “war cry” which has imposed upon itself such restraints at the cost of much financial sacrifice, on principle. This circumstance alone, elevates these two magazines in our opinion.

Correspondence

T.R.V. Sastri. Mylapore, Madras, April 7th, 1951.

Dear Mi. Editor,

1. Is original sin a living belief in the Catholic Church and in the Protestant Church? Does disbelief in original sin remain still the Pelagian Heresy that it was originally declared to be.

2. Is it right to say that Death, Adam’s gift to man, has been conquered as it still remains unaffected? Soul was a conception which was unknown to the heathen, says Newman in his sermons. Is it true of Greek and Roman religions. I doubt if it is correct even as to them. It is certainly not true of India. One Indian system at least is believed to lay down that nothing is real compared to the reality of the soul.

3. I recognise that the Christian conception of immortality includes bodily resurrection and that leads Newman to say that cremation, preferred by many as the cleaner disposal of the dead, is irreverence. Accepting the bodily resurrection as correct, does not burial destroy the body? Even the Bible speaks of the dust returning to dust and if God can restore the body from dust, cannot he restore it from ashes. The resurrection of this, our body, is doubtful though a kind of Sukshma body is believed to cover the soul in some of the stages after the long journey?

To THE EDITOR “PILGRIM” Halls Road, Egmore.

Yours sincerely;

T.R.V. Sastri.

Reply

Para 1. Cannot be said to be a living belief in the form it was held a heresy. Heresies once declared continue to be so on the church’s statute book. With the loss of the sanction of capital punishment for heresy, heresies are now no more than disapproved views. The church, Catholic and Protestant turns its blind eye to them when held by the laity. If it is aggressively held by the clergy it may involve disrobing. Among protestants, in my experience there has been only one trial in which a clergyman was removed from the rolls for holding that Jesus was not divine. The Unitarian faith is the only heresy that counts even for disapproval. Every educated Christian, clergy or laity is usually guilty of four or five heresies consciously or unconsciously.

Para 2. No. Obviously Christians are dying as much as Hindus. St. Paul who faced this problem held that those who die in Christ come to life again at the time of the second coming and those who are alive at that time do not die. How the ordinary Christian reconciles conquest of sin and existence of death is too long a story for a short note. If our readers are interested the whole question may be discussed. Soul to a Jew meant life. The Greeks and the Romans also believed in something that survives death. The Jew believed it to be a pale shadow of less reality than life. It is certainly not correct to say that Hinduism does not believe in soul. We have life, soul, ego, self, their mutual relation in different religions require careful study which is not yet done. Here is another subject for investigation if our readers are interested.

Para 3. If God can raise the buried, out of dust, certainly he can raise the burnt from ashes. Burial and cremation are customs. We can’t rationalise them. Sanyasis are buried, so also burial is custom in some castes. The resurrection body is not the physical body which dies. It is according to St. Paul a spiritual body-suddha-satva dena.

The hypothesis of original sin is necessary to explain the existence of tendencies (vasanas) which are not due to actions in this life - even on the basis of heredity. It corresponds to prarabdha karma. There is a root defect in life - which Christ came to remove. This root defect is original or fundamental defect of human constitution. Death is the original sin. It may be asked whether man has an original virtue as well as original sin. The image of God in man is one original virtue. Neglect of it is perhaps the original sin. Jews, on whose scriptures the doctrine is based on the disobedience of Adam - made no use of it for doctrinal purposes. It was St. Paul who used it for his theology. For him Adam and 2nd Adam - Jesus, are two types - one subject to death and original sin and the other immortal. Both being typal and representative - in Adam mankind dies and in Jesus it becomes immortal. - Editor

PENN THOMPSON AND Co., VEPERY, MADRAS.

We draw the attention of our Readers to the following articles:

1. Communism-a problem for Christianity by D.B. Singh, lecturer. University College, Trivandrum - a balanced view - communism without mysteries - for and against - a rare thing nowadays - May - N.C.C. Review

2. Ramanamahrishi on Christ-from the diary of Kapali Sastri - Sunday Times, May 6th

3. American way of life - March ‘post’ quoting from ‘Fortune’ - an admirable statement of what America stands for.

THE CHRISTIAN SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF HINDUISM

Patrons:

1. The Metropolitan of India - Calcutta
2. Bishop Clement D. Rockey Lucknow:

President:

The Rt. Rev. G.J.G. Robinson M.A., Allahabad.

Vice-Presidents:

1. The Ven. Rev. A.J. Appasamy, M.A., D. PHIL, Palamcottah
2. The Rev. C.I. Abraham, M.A., B.D., D.D., Serampore.
3. The Rev. C.S. Thoburn, MA, S.T.B., Jabalpur:

Secretary of Society and Convener of Institutes:

The Rev. R.C. Das, M.A., 129, Dashashwamedh, Benares.

Editor of the Pilgrim

P. Chenchiah Esq., ML., 28, Halls Road, Egmore, Madras.

Committee:

1. Prof. V.E. Devadut, M.A., B.D., Serampore
2. The Rev. Paul Das, B.A., Allahabad.
3. The Rev. C.G. Diehl, Madura.
4. The Rev. J. Altor, Allahabad.
5. Mr. S.J. Duraisamy, B.A., N.M.S., Madras.
6. The Rev. R.W. Scott; M.A., Christian Council, Nagpur,
7. Dr. D.W. Donaldson, School of Islamics, Aligarh

Editorial Committee:

1. Rt. Rev. Bishop A.J. Appasamy - Coimbatore
2. Rev. C.G. Diehi - Madura
3. Rev. R.C. Das, M.A., - Benares

Objects and Aims

The objects of the Christian Society for the Study of Hinduism are:

1. To create and maintain adequate interest in the study of Hinduism by, Christians,
2. To carry on the study in a sympathetic, constructive and critical way for the purpose of effective evangelism and
3. To achieve the above objects in co-operation with Church and Mission bodies.

The activities of the Society are:

1. An Institute of Hinduism in Benares,
2. ‘The Pilgrim’, a quarterly bulletin, bearing on Hinduism, its relation to Christianity and work among Hindus and
3. Organising a permanent School of Hinduism.

Every member will receive THE PILGRIM free

Membership fee Rs: 4 per year

Note

Enquiries about the Society and its work should be addressed to the Secretary:

Rev. R.C. DAS, 129, Dashashwamedh, Benares.

THE PILGRIM is sent free to members of the Society. Complaints as to non-receipt, corrections or changes of address and communications about the paper and literary contributions and applications to the membership of the Society should be sent to:

P. Chenchiah, M.L.,
Advocate,
Editor ‘The Pilgrim’,
28, Halls Road,
Egmore, Madras