on the principles which they find there questions here suggested, and which are too expounded. They do not, however, exhibit much overlooked in the missionary enterthe least independence of thought in examin- prises of Scottish and English Churches. ing the truths of those principles, which they They deserve, in a special manner, the receive implicitly on the authority, accounted attention of all who are interested in the divine, of the Sages to whom they are spread of Christian civilisation among the ascribed. Even the discrepancies between leading minds of the vast Hindu and Mothe Sankhya, Nyaya, and Vedanta systems, hammedan populations, with a view to the which to the European scholar appear ultimate influence of Christianity over pubso distinct and fundamental, are regarded lic opinion in the East. by them as reconcilable, and as springing from the desire of their sacred writers to accommodate truth to different capacities. The Vedanta is, however, popularly considered as the one system, to the comprehension of which all the others are subservient, as the climax of transcendental truth. Pantheistic principles are thus, in fact, not only common among the learned, but are widely diffused among the middle classes of Hindu society. Brahmâ is the masculine or personal form While Indian speculation had been occupied in the way we have described, and the undefined belief in one supreme Spirit, which in the latest Vedic hymns begins to emerge out of the anterior nature-worship and poly. theism, had been gradually developing itself, in the progress of rationalism, into different theistic and pantheistic systems, a change, not less decided, had been proceeding in the mythological representations of their popu The task imposed on those of our mis- lar religion. The imagination of the Hinsionaries who are brought into contact with dus, ceaselessly creative, has, under the thinkers of this school, is one of very great stimulus of a fervid religious temperament, difficulty; and the fact cannot be disguised, been striving for thousands of years to that many of them are quite incompetent to picture to itself the secrets of the unseen fulfil it satisfactorily. The seeming argu- world, and the agency of those superior ments against Pantheism, which suggest powers by whom the destiny of man is conthemselves to ordinary and unmetaphysical trolled. Gradually, by a process which our reasoners, do not, in reality, go near to the present acquaintance with Indian literature bottom of the question. If a missionary does not enable us to trace with entire preargues that the Vedanta doctrine must be cision, the ancient worship of the Vedic untrue, because it recognises no distinction gods declined, and made way for the adorabetween the human soul and God-the sub- tion of Brahmâ, Vishnu, and Siva. ject and object of worship, and thus annihilates religion and morality, he must expect of the word Brahmăn, which, in its neuter to be told by the defender of that system, form, means the universal Spirit. In the that this is no proper ground of objection, systematized Hindu mythology, he is the since the question at issue is, whether or not creator, as Vishnu is the preserver, and Siva an absolute distinction of ego and non-ego be the destroyer, of the worlds. While, howphilosophically necessary or even possible. ever, Brahma appears to be little more than If he rejoin, that our sense of personality a theological conception, and has never been and of dependence on a superior power, and the object of any general or enthusiastic our moral instincts lead us irresistibly to worship, Vishnu and Siva, on the contrary, believe that a distinction really exists, he have for two thousand years shared together must be prepared to explain in opposition the passionate adoration of the Hindus. to the asserters of mâyâ or unreality, in Both these popular deities have, as we have what sense the alleged illusion is impossible. seen, their nominal representatives in the A line of argument, satisfactory in a meta- Vedic hymns, where Vishnu appears as one physical point of view, has not, as far as we of the forms of the sun, and Rudra, (a name are aware, been propounded by any of our eventually assigned to Siva,) is a god of fire European missionaries. In fact, when we or of tempest. Whether these two Vedic study the Hindu ontology, and consider the gods drew to themselves and absorbed the mental training needed for bringing about a functions and attributes of two or more rational sympathy between Christian teach- popular deities; or whether, on the other ers and minds disciplined in the subtleties hand, those popular deities constituted the of Eastern speculation-Hindu and Moham- real objects of adoration, and appropriated medan, a new and special department of some of the characters and appellations of missionary preparation and effort seems to their Vedic rivals, or whether some different be urgently required. We cannot at present process took place, it would be difficult to investigate the speculative and practical say. The result of the process, whatever it 1856. Indian Literature. may have been, was, that Vishnu and Siva this goddess is unknown to the earliest Vedic became at length the most prominent figures hymns. in the Hindu pantheon. It would be needless to enter into details The The character of Vishnu, as ultimately of the Hindu popular religion. They are conceived, is that of a beneficent preserver, sufficiently accessible to our readers. We who became incarnate in various shapes for will, however, give a short account of the the deliverance of the world. The Bhagavad later sacred books which are the Hindu's auGita introduces him as declaring in the per- thority for cosmogony, mythology, and all son of Krishna, that he appears in every the branches of his ordinary religious belief These are the Itihasas (to great mundane era for the salvation of the and practice. virtuous, the punishment of evil doers, and which class the great heroic poems called the establishment of righteousness. These the Râmâyana and Mahabharata belong) and incarnations, however, as described in the the eighteen Puranas, with their appendages. Puranas, have very little of a moral import. These two classes of works, though distinAs a fish, Vishnu preserved Menu, the pro-guished by the native writers, resemble each genitor of men, with the seeds of things, in other so closely, as to justify our here conan ark: as a boar he raised on his tusks the sidering them together. The first beginnings earth which had been submerged in the of this poetical literature are to be found in ocean; as a man-lion he tore in pieces an the legends in the Brâhmănas, and in various impious king; as a tortoise he supported mythical fragments embodied in the Mahabthe mountain with which the ocean was harata. These legendary poems were gradchurned; in the form of Buddha, the arch-ually expanded and multiplied, till at length heretic, he deluded the enemies of the gods; vast collections of cosmogonic and heroic as Krishna, the hero of Mathura, he per- traditions were formed. These collections formed in childhood a great many super- have been undergoing continual alterations natural feats, in youth abandoned himself to and additions, conformable to the successlove and to frolic, and in manhood took part ive changes in the popular belief. in the great war of the Kurus and Pandus, nucleus of the Mahabharata is supposed to and delivered himself of the mystical the be very ancient-probably more than two ology of the Bhagavad Gita. The worship thousand years old-but it appears from inof Vishnu has passed through many phases. ternal evidence to have been repeatedly inThe principal is the deification of Krishna, terpolated with new matter. Krishna seems which who was first regarded as a hero; then to have been at first described in it as a came to be considered as a partial incarna- mere human hero; and the passages tion of the deity; and was ultimately iden-represent him as a demigod, or as the susupreme preme deity, bears marks of a more recent tified by his votaries with the origin. None of the Puránas, in their preGod. While Vishnu thus represents the mild sent form, are very ancient; and many of and beneficent side of the divine agency, as the number, while they embody or repeat old conceived by the Hindus, the contrary is legends, have evidently been compiled in the case with Siva in his distinctive charac-modern times with a sectarian aim to celeHe is portrayed brate some new character or manifestation of ter, as finally developed. with all the attributes of terror and destruc- a favourite god. Some of them are devotion; his befitting and emblematic orna- ted to the glorification of Vishnu; others ment is a necklace of human skulls. As in extol the superior dignity of Siva; while a the great cycle of nature, however, death third class more especially celebrates the leads to life, and ruin to renovation, Siva is Saktis or female energies of the deity. In also regarded as the restorer of all things, as these works the odium theologicum is somethe generative power, and by his enthusias- times manifested in the strongest manner tic votaries he is represented as one with the towards the votaries of the rival god. Thus, for example, a Vishnuite writer says, "He Supreme. Lakshmí is the spouse of Vishnu, and who forsakes Vishnu, and worships any other the personification of prosperity and good god, is like the fool, who, to quench his thirst, fortune. Siva's consort bears most com- digs a well on the very brink of the Ganges." "The very sight of Vishnu kindles the wrath monly the name of Bhawânî or Durgâ or Kali. She is the most popular of Hindu of Siva, and that wrath will plunge you into goddesses, and is worshipped under a great a dreadful hell," retorts the Sivaite." Those variety of forms and designations, chiefly ex- who seek for salvation,must reject the hideous pressive of terror and destruction. Bloody lord of devils," angrily rejoins the Vishnuite. While, however, the estimation of Insacrifices are offered to her; and her patronage is claimed by the murderous Thugs. dra, Agni, and the other Vedic divinities, Though so prominent in the later mythology, has thus declined, owing to the growth of new forms of worship, they still maintained to more or less degradation and unhaptheir place in the old Vedic ritual, which, to piness. The true means of deliverance, the present time, forms the main part of however, he professed to be able to commuthe Brahaman's daily ceremonial. The great nicate; and he offered his aid to all, unletpowers of nature, too, still exert an overaw-tered as well as learned. This method coning influence over the Hindu's mind. The sisted in the knowledge of the Twelve-fold sun, as his glorious life-inspiring orb mounts series of causes, which, beginning with ignoabove the level horizon, or the towering rance, have successively led to mundane exridge of the Himalaya, is still greeted with istence and to misery; and of the Four grand bowed head and reverent ejaculations. verities, of which the substance is, that suf These facts prove at once the strong hold fering arises from passion, and is universal, which Vedic tradition has on the mind of but may be extinguished by nirvana, which India, and the irresistible tendency of its is to be attained by right faith, right relipeople towards new forms of worship. gious discipline of the prescribed sort, and right meditation, which reaches its climax in four stages. This final state, according to the most recent authorities,* is nothing else than eternal sleep. Mr. Colebrooke, however, pronounces that nirvana is not annihilation, but perfect quietude. In the meanwhile, at a period long anterior to that at which the Puranas had assumed their present form, a momentous schism had occurred in the religious system of India. The great reformer Buddha had appeared, and, under the influence of his teaching, a considerable portion of the Indian world had practically thrown aside caste and deserted the worship of their ancestral gods. This extraordinary religious revolution affords another proof of the activity and independence of the Hindu mind in past ages. As Sakya Muni rejected the authority of the Vedas, asserted his own personal superiority over the popular deities, and invited all his countrymen of every caste to enrol themselves as members of his new community, it was only in the natural course of things that he should experience a determined opposition from the Brahmans, whom he robbed of their prescriptive influence and Sakya Muni, the founder of Buddhism, was the son of a king, and seems to have lived not less than six centuries before the consideration. The Buddhist legends, acChristian era. He was naturally of a cordingly, relate that he was challenged by thoughtful turn of mind. Having become them to a trial of strength, and that he triimpressed with the vanity of earthly things, umphantly defeated them, by performing, in he left his home, and visited the schools of the presence of large multitudes, the most the learned Brahmans, to make himself fa- brilliant miracles. He enabled his mesmiliar with their doctrines. Being, however, senger to fly through the air, created a lumindissatisfied with what they taught, he prose- ous apparition in the atmosphere, supernatcuted the search after truth for himself, and urally kindled and extinguished a conflaafter making trial both of rigid self-disci-gration, produced earthquakes, and so forth pline and of a more natural mode of life, and -a series of wonders which his mortified passing some time in extatic contemplation, antagonists in vain attempted to rival by he became assured that he had attained an in- connter demonstrations. sight into absolute knowledge,—that he had His success was signal. Large and inbecome Buddha, (i. e., enlightened.) From creasing numbers of all classes deserted the this time he began, and for a long series of ranks of the Brahmans and flocked to his years continued, to travel about in the cen- standard. Many of the Indian princes emtral and eastern provinces of Northern India, braced his religion; and ultimately it appropagating his new doctrines, which he re- pears to have stood nearly on a footing of commended by his persuasive discourses in equality with the old established creed. the vernacular tongue, (at that time a novel Though Buddhism has long been swept from vehicle of instruction,) by the influence of the continent of India, and comparatively his charity and mild virtues, and, according few traces of its existence are to be found in to the legends, by the display of supernatu- the extant Brahmanical literature, some idea ral powers. His doctrine was, to some ex- of the extent to which it was diffused, and of tent, the result of preceding influences, and the power and wealth of its supporters, dubears a strong resemblance in some points ring many centuries, may be formed from to the Sankhya philosophy. He held, in the rock inscriptions which have of late years common with the Brahmans, the transmi- been discovered and decyphered in various gration of souls, and that all living be- parts of the country, and still more from the ings, until they employ they right means of numerous splendid monasteries and temples, attaining final liberation, must continue to revolve in a continual cycle of births, subject Barthélemy St. Hilaire, Du Bouddhisme, p. 196. 1856. Indian Literature. enemies of the gods. A glance at the early history of Christianity, and the alternations of repose and persecution which the Church then experienced, makes it less difficult for us to understand how Buddhism should have been long tolerated, and at length overwhelmed.* the work of Buddhists, excavated from the mountain sides, which still survive in solitary grandeur at Ajunta, Ellora, Carli, and numerous other places in Western India.* How, it may be inquired, did Sâkya Muni succeed in overcoming the opposition of the Brahmans and collecting around him so The expulsion or conversion of the Budmany adherents? It is possible that he may, under the influence of enthusiasm, have laid dhists was not followed by any complete unity claim to supernatural power, and that this of faith or worship among the Hindus. Vishnu claim, if put forward, may have been admit- and Siva, with their consorts, still continued ted by his contemporaries, who had been ac- to divide the affections of the people; and customed to believe that such power could new legends were invented by the Brahbe extorted from the gods by any one who manical partisans of each god to describe persevered long enough in the practice of new manifestations of his glory, and augintense austerities. We have already al- ment the popularity of those favoured shrines where they were feigned to have occurred. luded to the popular character and hensive basis of his teaching, to the common Many popular sects, too, arose, both Vishnuite ground which his system had with Brahman- and Sivite, whose teachers, sprung from the ism in the tenet of transmigration, already lower ranks, gave utterance to their pious deeply rooted in the general belief, and to his and mystical emotions in the vernacular own personal sanctity, kindness, and conde- tongues, and shewed that religious knowledge scension. His doctrine satisfied that love of and leadership were no longer the exclusive quietude and abstract contemplation which heritage of the priestly caste. The tendency is so natural to the Indian mind. Ignorance, of many of these popular sects is to spiritualize poverty, misfortune, and the prospect of ob- the idolatrous worship of the country. taining not only subsistence, but honour and consideration by the profession of an easy asceticism, no doubt attracted men to the community of the Buddhists. compre Enough has been said, in this article, to shew the profoundly religious character of the Hindus, (which is manifested no less by The system which Buddha established and the fasts, and penances, and self-immolations his followers further organized, and which of their popular faith, than by the lofty underwent many successive modifications, though devious flights of their metaphysical existed in India alongside of Brahmanism for theology,) and to indicate the restless activity In the present with which they have striven for ages to more than a thousand years. state of our information we cannot tell what solve the deepest problems affecting man's the circumstances were which enabled the destiny and relations to the Divine nature. Brahmans, after so long a period of tolera- We think it is impossible to rise from the tion, to banish the rival system from the study of Sanskrit literature without a more country of its birth. They could never have favourable idea of Hinduism as a whole, and regarded the heretical Buddhists but with a more hopeful estimate of the religious ill-will, though the feeling may have been prospects of its followers, than have been softened by time and habit; and the popu- hitherto prevalent, especially in this country. larity of the Buddhists with the lower classes, The Hindus can no longer be regarded as joined, perhaps, to a want of organization mere ignorant and fanatical worshippers of among themselves, would tend to keep their stocks and stones, whose chief characteristics rancour in check. It may be conjectured, are to burn widows, drown their infants, however, that the quietude and asceticism of the Buddhist system had proved less attractive to the great body of the people than the sensuous polytheism of the Brahmans, and that these tendencies to reaction were turned to the best advantage by some able and ardent votaries of Vishnu and Siva, who appear to have arisen at this particular crisis, and aroused an enthusiasm among their fellow-worshippers which they were able to direct with irresistible force against the * See Mr. James Fergusson's Illustrations of the Rock-cut temples of India. The temples at Ajunta are all Buddhist, and those at Ellora partly so. choke their dying parents with Ganges water, and fling themselves beneath the destroying wheels of Juggurnath. We must now frankly admit their claim to be regarded as a people of ancient renown and high civilisation, among whom science and philosophy flourished when our own forefathers were painted savages. In this country Christian writers have not hitherto done justice to heathenism. Its dark side may not, it is true, have been *It is much to be lamented that the premature death of M. Burnouf, who threw so much light on the early history of Buddhism, intervened, to prevent his investigating the circumstances of its expulsion from India too deeply shaded; but its brighter features, do not meet under one common parental the sublime, though often distorted concep-roof, go forth from it into the world. Where tions of its sages, and the heroic self-sacrifice there is an Isaac there is also an Ishmael. of its ascetics, have not been brought out Where there is a Jacob there is an Esau. into sufficient prominence. We agree in the Such are the types of modern civilisation in opinion expressed by Dr. Hoffmann, a pious Christian England; and in no place of our and evangelical German divine, (in his Mis- social morality more conspicuous than in sions Stunden, vol. ii. preface,) that some of our domestic treatment of women. Tender, our British missionaries have denounced, in considerate, self-sacrificing, caressing, on the too strong terms, the religious system of one hand; violent, selfish, brutal, on the India, and thrown its nobler background too other, Man treats his helpmate as a child or much into the shade. The feelings of un- an invalid, incapable of self-assertion and mingled horror with which Hinduism has self-defence, indeed, of all independent been regarded by these zealous men, and action, and therefore an object of deference their slowness to perceive in it any element and attention, to be humoured and indulged, of good, have no doubt impeded their success, to be aided and supported; or else, as an by rendering their teaching more distasteful inferior animal, strong in endurance, to be to the Hindus, and by depriving them of buffeted, and persecuted, and outraged, and that point of contact and bond of sympathy humiliated, and made to suffer every kind of with the people of India, which the recogni- wrong. tion of a common ground of truth and reason I would have afforded. It may Now all this, doubtless, arises from the one common feeling, that woman is the It is worthy of remark, how much a better "weaker vessel." As is man's conception acquaintance with the religious history of of the purposes and uses of strength, so is India enhances its interest as a field of Christ- his treatment of woman either of a defensive ian missions in the eyes of the devout scholar. or an offensive character. In either case It may be, that in the sight of God all human there is an overweening sense of his own supesouls are equal; that the philosopher and riority, the practical expression of which, whatthe barbarian stand on the same footing in ever its intent, is degrading to the other sex. His presence; though we know not that We are very far from any disposition to there is any warrant for making such an assert, that the two extremes of defensiveness assertion. But, at all events, it is a very and offensiveness are equal evils. different thing to a missionary of highly-cultivated mind, whether he has to deal with a savage, who has hardly any idea of God, or -as in India-with a thoughtful and cultivated heathen, whose subtle mind can thread all the mazes of speculation. It is an employment worthy of the most enlightened and philosophic of our theologians, to supply the religious affections of the nations of India, which are still clinging to shadows and distorted images of the truth, with the only real and adequate object of devotion-God in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself. ART. VIII.-1. The Times Newspaper. The 3. Sunbeams in the Cottage. By MARGARET INCONGRUITIES and inconsistencies the most palpable are often born of a common stock; but one trait of resemblance indicates their brotherhood, they have all the mark of excessiveness upon them. Extremes, if they Το seem, indeed, to be something of a paradox It is with the crime, not with the blunder, that we have to do in this place, though we may, perhaps, incidentally revert to the lat ter. It is not to be doubted, that in the criminal annals of England, outrages upon women have of late years held a distressingly prominent position. It is no exaggeration to say, that scarcely a day passes that does not add one or more to the published cases of this description of offence; and the published, that is, the judicially investigated cases, bear but a small proportion to the unpublished. The outrage may be murder itself, or it may fall short of murder. Some wretched woman goes bleeding and staggering into court, to tell how her husband or |