ings of the Gospel in India. Missionaries, if they are wise in their generation, will not fail to turn to valuable account the facts and sentiments above described; they will, as it has been well expressed, 'convert into a fulcrum, for the upheaving of the whole mass of surrounding error,' such fragments of the rock of truth as may be found imbedded in the mythological strata.1 1 Indian Wisdom, 4.

CHAPTER IV.

MEDIEVAL HINDUISM.

'When they knew God they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened ; professing themselves to be wise, they became fools . . . who changed the truth of God into a lie and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator.'Rom. i. 21, 22, 25.

NOTHING is more difficult than to fix the chronology of the religious history of India. Certain great facts, certain changing phases of conviction and sentiment, are sufficiently discernible; but the difficulty is to relegate those facts and phases to their proper periods, and so illustrate their natural sequence and mutual dependence. The truth of the matter seems to be that, various and numerous as have been the systems which have flourished in different eras, none of them came suddenly to the birth; instead of sharply-defined steps of transition, you rather find system fading into system as do the colours of the rainbow; as in that natural phenomenon you perceive several rays individually distinct, yet strangely blending one with another, so is it with the systems we speak of; in certain features they may differ materially, but in other respects they blend and harmonise; some of them may seem to be mutually antagonistic, but on a closer observation you find that they are really supplemental one to the other. They all, moreover, have a common parentage; it may probably be said with truth that every system of religion or philosophy which has figured in India for the last twenty-five centuries has had its germ or seed-plant in the teaching of the Vedas.

We have already seen abundant evidence of deep religious feeling in the early Hindus; a sense of need and helplessness, a consciousness of sin, and an undefined dread of its consequences, a yearning after knowledge of the unseen and eternal, a desire to account for the origin and tendency of things-these principles, operating differently on different minds, gave rise to various currents of thought and speculation which ultimately found their expression in the varied systems of succeeding ages. In every case some devout breathing or some doctrinal enunciation of the Vedas formed the basis of the conception.

It cannot be denied that the later developments of Hinduism bore a more sensuous aspect than its earliest characteristics; in this respect we may trace undoubted evidences of declension and deterioration; but, at the same time, a higher and deeper principle was at work-was not that principle an effort to get nearer to God, and to bring God nearer to man? Already in Vedic times the Hindus had striven to realise God in His works they had ended in deifying and worshipping nature. But no idea of divine incarnation seems to have occurred to them; this was the next step; it was something to see God in illimitable space and the starry heavens, better still to discern Him in the fructifying showers and the genial heat of the sun, but best of all to trace Him as one with ourselves—able to share our joys and sorrows, and sympathise with our infirmities. That unenlightened man, though prompted by a true instinct in seeking after closer union with God, was all the while receding further and further from Him, affords one of the strongest evidences of human helplessness and ignorance and of the need of a divine revelation. Man could conceive the idea of a divine incarnation, but when he set himself to realise the idea, he produced deities more sensual and depraved than himself. The conception of God manifest in the flesh, in some form or other, meets one everywhere; but, outside the pages of the New Testament, we search in vain for a worthy illustration of the grand idea-an

illustration, that is, which is honouring to God and helpful to

man.

In our last chapter we assumed B.C. 1200 to be about the date of the compilation of the Rig-Veda; we may now suppose four or five centuries to have passed over since that; all the while, changes-social, religious, and philosophical-have been slowly developing. Caste distinctions have been gathering strength and consolidation; the lordly Brahmans have been growing in power and importance; through their influence a wide-spread sacerdotalism and a complicated ritual have supplanted the simpler aspects of primitive Hinduism. Old Vedic deities are lapsing into oblivion, whilst new and strange gods take their place; a tendency to hero-worship is beginning to show itself; pantheistic thought and polytheistic practice are increasing on every hand; although the infallibility of Vedic teaching is universally held, yet rationalistic speculations are beginning to be heard-speculations which, in their very nature, struck at the authority of the holy books and prepared the way for the Atheistic revolt of Buddhism.

It was about this period that the later Hindu Triad, to which reference has already been made, came into prominence. Of the three deities, Brahmā, Vishnu, Siva, only the second is mentioned in the Rig-Veda; Vishnu appears in the Vedic system as an inferior deity, but as in some way connected with or representing the sun. The name of Siva occurs, but only as an adjective; the meaning of the word is auspicious' or 'gracious,' and it is applied as an epithet of Rudra, the god of storms; there is very little doubt this Vedic deity furnished the ideal of Siva, the Destroyer. It is less easy to trace the origin of the first name in the Triad. Some think it originated from the word Brahman,' which means prayer or religious ordinance; this idea was actually deified under the term Brahmanaspati, the lord or god of prayer. The name of Brahma may have been thus derived; and, as he was the deity principally worshipped

by the Brahmans, it is highly probable they called themselves after him.

The root, however, from which this word comes is brih, to expand or increase. It is important to note this circumstance, as it really involves the primordial conception out of which this later form of Hinduism took its rise. Pantheism had already permeated the notions of Hindu sages; they had come to conceive of God as an all-pervading Essence, a universally-diffused Substance. They spoke of his Being or Substance in the neuter as Brahman (nom. Brahmă). This denoted 'simple infinite being,' or the 'one eternal Essence.' This Brahmă, this soleexisting Entity, ultimately assumed the quality of activity; he became the personal, masculine Brahmā; in this character he created the phenomena of the universe; thus, Brahma, the first person of the Triad, appears as the Creator. The progress of self-evolution next resulted in the appearance of Vishnu, as the Preserver of the new creation. The third manifestation of Brahma was in the character of Siva, the Destroyer. The pervading idea of this whole conception is evidently this-for certain reasons the one universal Spirit has assumed this triple manifestation; but, as he is the only real existing essence, so those temporary manifestations will ultimately yield to the law of dissolution, and be merged again into Brahmă, the one simple, all-embracing Entity.

Our readers may be curious to know how the ideas of evolution, creation, preservation, and destruction could co-exist with the doctrine of pantheism; the natural impression is that if all being be identical with the one great Unity, and if there be nothing external to him, then those ideas must be excluded. The Hindu sages found a solution of this problem in the theory of emanation. They maintained that everything which exists or seems to exist is but an outgoing of the Great Self-existent— a peculiar form or development of his existence. The Upanishads contain several ingenious illustrations of this idea; we