Man's highest achievement

THE WORLD'S LIVING RELIGIONS: Robert Ernest Hume; Crest Publishing House (Jaico Enterprise), G-2-16, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi-110002. Rs. 150.

THE AUTHOR of the book under review was born in a Christian Missionary family in Western India. He did considerable work as a missionary. But what is noteworthy about him is that he felt morally impelled to study the several scriptures of the religion, against which Christian Missionary activity was directed in India - Hinduism. He learnt Sanskrit to this end and brought forth a work Thirteen Principal Upanishads published by the Oxford University Press decades ago. This translation of the sacred Upanishad came after Max Mueller had brought out his translation of the Ten Principal Upanishads in the Great Sacred Books of the East series, funded by the East India Company and published by the Oxford University Press.

Hume is singularly blessed in his study of the living religions of the world. India, where he spent his early manhood, happened to be the birth place of some of the great religions. And Asia was the birth place of practically every religion that deserves to be called great and living still. Hume is also blessed with a singularly valuable mental outlook of freedom from fanatical adherence to his own true faith and a healthy curiosity about other faiths. In this regard he stands almost alone. Max Mueller looked forward to India accepting Christianity. The Indian Army Officer Boden, who established a Sanskrit Chair at the Oxford University specially emphasised the need for using the study of the Sanskrit texts of Hinduism to displace them altogether by Christianity and the Christian scriptures. But Gerald Heard, Schopenhaer, Aldous Huxley, Christopher Isherwood are among those who accepted the Hindu view of faith as almost exclusively valid for the human mind in its search for a spiritual guide.

Hinduism has had a long period of historical evolution and the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, have been noted for a splendid renaissance Hinduism, with Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Ramana and Gandhiji as the leading figures. In speaking of the hereditarily graded social structure of Hinduism, it must be noted that Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita speaks of Guna and Karma - character and function - as the exclusive criteria of the Varna dharma of His creation. The degeneration of this into a birth-based hereditary caste system is unwarranted by the principal scriptures. Hutton, Census Commissioner of India in the 1930s in his book, Caste in India speaks of more than four castes. Caste is an occupational affair. Speaking of polytheism and pantheism, Hume fails to realise what Max Mueller said that Hindu theism is Henotheism, based on a recognition of the Supreme Being as manifest in the universe. Elsewhere Hume speaks of the Christian deity as the Heavenly Father, but he himself quotes from the Veda the verse, ``Heaven is my Father, Progenitor. Where is my origin?'' Hume speaks of Varuna, one of the forms of the Supreme Being, as having passed away in later Hinduism. He does not seem to know that Varuna is invoked and worshipped in the evening Sandhyavandana, as well as in all important ceremonies like Udhaka shanti. The author speaks of the early invasion of India, presumably by Aryans from outside India. The Aryan invasion theory has been under continuous reappraisal and there is sufficient evidence to show that it is not to be automatically accepted. The philological evidence on which so much reliance is placed has to be reconsidered. Hume himself recognises that Sanskrit is the grandmother of the major Indo-European languages. Did the grandmother go abroad?

We hail his interpretation of the growth of Hinduism from early nature worship to the high level of philosophical Hinduism based on the Upanishads. But the date 800-600 B.C. is wholly conjectural. Besides as Sri Aurobindo has shown, there is an immemorial continuity between the Veda and that part of it called Vedanta. The idea behind the knowledge ``I am Brahma'' (Aham Brahma Asmi) is merely the summit, the Everest of Hindu philosophical speculation. When Hume says that there are no ethical distinctions whatsoever, of right or wrong, of good or evil, he fails to note that the state of human response to the universe of Being is beyond good and evil.

Hume's discussion of the Gita comes, strangely enough in the section entitled ``Devotional Hinduism''. The message of the Gita which calls itself an Upanishad is however monistic in essence. The section ``Attempted reforms'' recognises that the Mahavir and the Buddha represented a move against sacerdotalism and ritualism and not a revolt against the fundamentals of Hindu doctrine. The doctrine of ishta-devata enables variety to a divinity coexist with unity in Hinduism. Hume refers to Brahma as the super personal philosophical Absolute. He should have used the word ``Brahman''.

Asceticism, as Prof. Hiriyanna shows in his classic Indian Conception of Values is not new to Hinduism or a borrowing from Jainism. Hume's discussion of Jainism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity and Shinto is marked both by knowledge and objectivity, neither of which is merely in evidence in assessing accounts of other religions. When he speaks of the unlimitedly omnipotent Allah of Islam, he forgets that omnipotence can never be limited. Only when he implies irresponsibility and despotism, does one feel like protesting. God in all the religions is omniscient. Irresponsible despotism is by no means a characteristic exclusively of Islam. The concessions Allah makes to the believers are fantastic. But should Allah be obeyed when He says ``Slay the Kafir?'' Blashphemy laws in Islamic nations are an outrage on human freedom. They should go.

The author's Christian faith has not prevented him from making an essentially sympathetic and objective approach to his study and presentation of other religions.

His bibliography, apparently limited to works published before and around 1924, is rather disappointingly limited. Since this book is a new edition of the 1924 book, the bibliography should have been revised and brought up-to-date. We heartily and enthusiastically commend this book to all serious students of religion which is man's highest achievement and his noblest goal.

S.R.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Features
Previous : Disaster in Gujarat: a challenge to the people
Next     : 'Teacher, not a mirror'