Sikri and Bijapur; Taxila, the ancient seat of learning and the far-famed Ajanta caves, monuments of ancient glory and culture; the majestic fastnesses of the Rajputs; Benares unique in its "sacred" sublimity; the huge temples of the South with elaborate decorations; upstart smoke-breathing emporiums of the seaborne trader; mighty rivers whose names are as old as history; battle-fields by the score, from Kurukshetra of Mahabharat to the thrice-ensanguined Panipat of history, from Plassey to Sobraon and Gujrat, where East came to grips with West; and encircling it all, the white pinnacles of the most tremendous mountain barrier in the world whose solitudes are impenetrable.

I. Hinduism, the "Eternal Religion" of the Vedas

Guarded by the Himalayas on the north and surrounded by the sea on other sides, India looks as if she had been meant by nature to remain aloof from the rest of the world and to develop her civilization in isolation, untouched by the currents that stir humanity abroad. And yet there is hardly any country in the world that has such an eventful record of intercourse with other countries. The geography of India points to her natural isolation, but her history reveals other facts. The history of the world is in lurid light until the momentous movement of Aryan migration and expansion. Somewhere from Central Asia these Aryans spread over a large portion of the earth, carrying with them the rudiments of organization and civilization. Their entrance into India through the Khyber Pass was resisted by the Dravidians, the original inhabitants of the land. And right here we come upon a conflict of opinions. Some maintain that the higher civilization of the Dravidians was swept away by the avalanche of the on-rushing Aryans; whereas others maintain that the peaceful Dravidian was comfortably vegetating on the soil when he was driven to the south by the stalwart Aryan. Of this period no reliable records are to be had either in books

or in rocks-neither does the running brook tell tales of history. Be that as it may, the Aryans found themselves in a rich land, specially endowed by nature.

Here the necessaries of life were to be obtained merely for the asking; nay, nature put all things into their hands directly, whereas the pioneering cousins of the Indo-Aryans in Europe had to struggle hard with the soil for their maintenance. The majesty of the immovable mountains, the luxuriance of the Gangetic plains, the easy subjugation of the Dravidians. and their unquestioning subservience to the masterrace-all these induced in the Aryans a sense of easygoingness. Physical exertion having been needless, they devoted their energies to the pursuit and investigation of the eternal values of life. Brooding over the problems of existence, infinity and reality, they fell into trances which inspired the Vedic hymns of great spiritual significance. The Vedas are claimed by the Hindus to be the revelation of God just as the followers of other religions claim their Bibles to be divine revelations. In point of antiquity the Vedas are unsurpassed; they embody the first and, in many respects, the finest attempt of the human mind to solve the riddle of the universe and to seek the spiritual values of life. The Vedas are four in number; the RigVeda, the Yajur-Veda, the Sama-Veda and the Atharva-Veda. They contain hymns and invocations to the Supreme Deity and are "the earliest religious outpourings that have assumed anything like literary form." Not a few of the hymns are beautiful and show a gift of philosophic penetration, rare among the people of that early date. Besides the Vedas, the religious philosophic literature of India that originated at this time contains Aranyakas (i. e., “jungle books" for the use of anchorites) and the Upanishads which are the most penetrating philosophic treaties, dealing with and expounding the spiritual values inspirationally sung of in the Vedas. The doctrines of the Upanishads or "the secret texts" are known as Vedanta-the end or consummation of the Vedas.

The Upanishads have been given an unstinted meed of praise by scholars and savants, alike of the East and the West. "There is no study," says Schopenhauer, "more beneficial and elevating to mankind than the study of the Upanishads (Vedanta). It has been the solace of my life, and it will be the solace of my death." Says Max Müller, "If philosophy is meant to be a preparation for a happy death, or Euthanasia, I know of no better preparation for it than the Vedanta philosophy."

"Who art thou? Whence comest thou? Whither goest thou? What governs the universe? What is the essence of being?" In seeking answer to suchlike queries, the Aryan thinkers discovered the laws of thought and traced the causes of phenomena. Untrammelled by the fetters of doctrines, dogmas or creeds, those truth-seekers founded a great many schools of thought; such as, atheistic, agnostic, nihilistic, materialistic, plurastic, dualistic, spiritualistic, monotheistic, monistic, etc. They had thus anticipated the conclusions of Plato, Spinoza, Berkeley, Hume, Hegel, Kant, Schopenhauer, Herbert Spencer, Haeckel and other Western thinkers. "Indeed, if I may be allowed the anachronism," remarks Sir M. Monier Willaims, in his Brahminism and Hinduism, "the Hindus were Spinozites more than two thousand years before the existence of Spinoza; and Darwinians many centures before Darwin, and evolutionists many centuries before the doctrine of evolution had been accepted by the scientists of our time, and before any word like 'evolution' existed in any language of the world."

The principal systems of Hindu Philosophy are six in number. (I) The Vaisheshika Philosophy of Kanada traces the origin of the Universe to atoms and molecules. This system teaches that the atoms and molecules are not created by God but are eternal with Him. The power, however, which combines two atoms and makes aggregates of atoms, comes from God, who is personal, who possesses knowledge, de

sire and will, and who is the Supreme Lord and Governor of all phenomena. (II) The Nyaya philosophy of Gautama deals with the true knowledge of nature, soul and God and the attainment of ultimate freedom. Father of the first system of logic in the world, Gautama is sometimes referred to as the Aristotle of India. The Hindu syllogism consists of five parts: (1) proposition, (2) reason, (3) instance, (4) application of the reason, (5) conclusion. By omitting two parts of this, we obtain an Aristotelian syllogism. "The Hindus invented logic, the Greeks perfected it," says Romesh Chunder Dutt. It is said that Pythagoras went to India to gather the wisdom of the Hindus and since his time there was close intercourse between India and Greece. So, it is not unlikely that the Greeks learned their first lessons in logic from the Hindus. (III) The Sankhya system of Kapila deals with the theory of evolution. Kapila, who lived about 700 B. C., rejected the atomic theory and traced the origin of atoms to one eternal_cosmic energy which he called Prakriti (Cf. Latin Procreatrix, the creative energy). The whole phenomenal universe, according to this school, has evolved out of the one cosmic energy which is primordial and eternal. Kapila defined atoms as force-centers, which correspond to the eons and electrons of modern science. It was Kapila who for the first time explained creation as the result of attraction and repulsion, which literally means love and hatred, of atoms. The ultimate conclusions of this system, arrived at through observation, experiment and induction, are entirely in accord with those of modern science: namely, that, Something cannot come out of nothing; The effect lies in the cause, i. e., the effect is the cause reproduced; Destruction means the reversion of an effect to its casual state; The laws of nature are uniform and regular throughout; The building up of the cosmos is the result of the evolution of the Cosmic Energy. (IV) Whereas Kapila denied the existence of a Creator, the Yoga philosophy of Patanjali, while accept

ting the theory of evolution, asserted the existence of a cosmic Purush (personal God) who is formless, infinite, omniscient and unaffected by affliction, activity, desires, etc. The Yoga system deals with the higher psychology of the human mind. The goal of the Yoga school is to separate Purush from Prakriti (Mind from Matter) and make it reach Kaivalya, or final emancipation from the bondage of nature and its qualities. Pantanjali explains the science of concentration and meditation, the science of breath, clairaudience, telepathy and other psychic powers; and thereby shows how one can attain God-consciousness in this life. (V) Jaimini's system is called Purva Mimansa (literally meaning, Former Investigation). It describes how the rituals and other ceremonials spoken of in the Vedas are to be performed. Jaimini explains the divine and eternal attributes of the Vedas, the authoritative sources of knowledge, the relation between word and thought, and finally, how this world is the manifestation of Logos, the eternal thought-form which exists in the Cosmic Mind. (VI) Lastly comes the Uttar Mimansa or the Vedanta philosophy, most popular in India, and highly esteemed by many Western philosophers. "The ultimate reality of the universe, according to Vedanta, is the one Absolute Substance which is beyond subject and object, which is the infinite source of intelligence or knowledge, of consciousness and blissfulness, which is one and not many. It is called in Sanskrit Brahman. It is the same as the Good of Plato, the Ding-an-Sich or the transcendental Thing-in-Itself of Kant, the Will of Schopenhauer, the Substantia of Spinoza, the OverSoul of Emerson, the Unknowable of Herbert Spencer, the Divine Essence of the Heavenly Father of the Christians and of Allah of the Mohammedans. It is also the true nature of Buddha and of Christ. It pervades the universe. It is one and universal. No one can divide it; it is indivisible. This is the reality of the universe, says Vedanta. Philosophy and religion must always be in perfect harmony.