Page:History of India Vol 9.djvu/193

 THE HINDU IDEA OF GOD 155 Hindu religion and to pilgrimages made to sacred shrines are here given. ' The belief of educated and uneducated people dif- fers in every nation; for the former strive to con- ceive abstract ideas and to define general principles, while the latter do not pass beyond the apprehension of the senses and are content with derived rules, with- out caring for details, especially in questions of relig- ion and law, regarding which opinions and interests are divided. With regard to God, the Hindus believe that he is one, eternal, without beginning and end, acting by free will, almighty, all-wise, living, giving life, ruling, and preserving; one who is unique in his sovereignty, be- yond all likeness and unlikeness, and neither resem- bling anything nor having anything resemble him. In order to illustrate this, we shall produce some extracts from the Hindu literature, lest the reader should think that our account is nothing but hearsay. In the book of Patanjali the pupil asks: " Who is the worshipped one, by the worship of whom blessing is obtained? ' : The master says: " It is he who, being eternal and unique, does not for his part stand in need of any human action for which he might give as a recompense either a blissful repose, which is hoped and longed for, or a troubled existence, which is feared and dreaded. He is unattainable to thought, being sublime beyond all unlikeness which is abhorrent and all like- ness which is sympathetic. By his essence he knows from all eternity. Knowledge, in the human sense of