Page:Monier Monier-Williams - Indian Wisdom.djvu/31

 from all religions, and to present phases suited to all mindsl. It has its spiritual and its material aspect, its esoteric and exoteric, its subjective and objective, its pure and its impure. It is at once vaguely pantheistic, severely monotheistic, grossly potytheistic. and coldly atheistic. It has a side for the practical, another for the devotional, and another for the speculative. Those who rest in ceremonial observances find it all-satisfying; those who deny the efficacy of works, and make faith the one thing needful, need not wander from its pale; those who delight in meditating on the nature of God and man, the relation of matter to spirit, the mystery of separate existence, and the origin of evil, may here indulge their love of speculation. And this capacity for almost endless expansion and variety causes almost endless sectarian divisions even among those who worship the same favourite deity. And these differences are enhanced by the close intertwining of religion with social distinctions. The higher classes are supposed capable of a higher form of religion than the lower, the educated than the uneducated, men than women; just as the religions of Muhammadans and Christians are held (like their complexions) to be most suited to their peculiar constitutions, circumstances, and nationalities.

In unison with its variable character, the religious belief of the Hindus has really no single succinct designation. We sometimes call it Hinduism and sometimes Brahmanism, but these are not names recognized by the natives.

If, then, such great diversities of race, spoken dialect, character, social organization, 'and religious belief exist among a teeming population, spread over an extent of territory so vast that almost every variety of soil, climate, and physical feature may be found there represented, the question fairly arises—How is it possible for us Englishmen, in the face of such differences, to gain any really satisfactory knowledge of the people committed to our rule ? Only one key to this difficulty exists. Happily India, though it has at least twenty spoken languages (p. xxix), has but one sacred and learned language

1 It is on this principle, I suppose, that Sir Mungoldas Nnthooboy, K. S. I., of Bombay, is reported to have once argued with a zealous raw missionary that Hindus being Christians by nature needed not to be converted; adding, ' But I thank God that you English were converted to Christianity, or you would by this time Lave eaten up the world to the bone.'