Day .25-JAWAHARLAL NEHRU - The Discovery of India (Continued)

 Effect of Buddhism on Hinduism

What was the effect of Buddha's teachings on the old Aryan reli-gion and the popular beliefs that prevailed in India? There can be no doubt that they produced powerful and permanent effects on many aspects of religious and national life. Buddha may not have thought of himself as the founder of a new religion; probably he looked upon himself as a reformer only. But his dynamic perso-nality and his forceful messages attacking many social and religious practices inevitably led to conflict with the entrenched priesthood. He did not claim to be an uprooter of the existing social order or economic system; he accepted their basic premises and only at-tacked the evils that had grown under them. Nevertheless he functioned, to some extent, as a social revolutionary and it was because of this that he angered the Brahmin class who were inter-ested in the continuance of the existing social practices. There is nothing in Buddha's teachings that cannot be reconciled with the wide-flung range of Hindu thought. But when Brahmin supre-macy was attacked it was a different matter.

It is interesting to note that Buddhism first took root in Magadha, that part of northern India where Brahminism was weak. It spread gradually west and north and many Brahmins also joined it. To begin with, it was essentially a Kshatriya move-ment but with a popular appeal. Probably it was due to the Brahmins, who later joined it, that it developed more along philo-sophical and metaphysical lines. It may have been due also chiefly to the Brahmin Buddhists that the Mahayana form developed; for, in some ways, and notably in its catholic variety, this was more akin to the varied form of the existing Aryan faith. Buddhism influenced Indian life in a hundred ways, as it was bound to, for it must be remembered that it was a living, dynamic, and widespread religion in India for over a thousand years. Even in the long years of its decline in India, and when later it practically ceased to count as a separate religion here, much of it remained as a part of the Hindu faith and in national ways of life and thought. Even though the religion as such was ultimately rejected by the people, the ineffaceable imprint of it remained and powerfully influenced the development of the race. This permanent effect had little to do with dogma or philosophic theory or religious belief. It was the ethical and social and practical idealism of Buddha and his religion that influenced our people and left their imperishable marks upon them, even as the ethical ideals of Christianity affected Europe though it may not pay much attention to its dogmas, and as Islam's human, social, and practical approach influenced many people who were not attracted by its religious forms and beliefs. The Aryan faith in India was essentially a national religion restricted to the land, and the social caste structure it was developing emphasized this aspect of it. There were no missionary enterprises, no proselytization, no looking outside the frontiers of India. Within India it proceeded on its own unobtrusive and subconscious way and absorbed new-comers and old, often forming new castes out of them. This attitude to the outside world was natural for those days, for communications were difficult and the need for foreign contacts hardly arose. There were no doubt such contacts for trade and other purposes but they made no difference to India's life and ways. The ocean of Indian life was a self-contained one, big and diverse enough to allow full play for its many currents, self-conscious and absorbed in itself, caring little for what happened beyond its boundaries. In the very heart of this ocean burst forth a new spring, pouring out a fountain of fresh and limpid water, which ruffled the old surface and overflowed, not caring at all for those old boundaries and barriers that man and nature had erected. In this fountain of Buddha's teaching the appeal was to the nation but it was also to more than the nation. It was a universal call for the good life and it recognized no barriers of class or caste or nation.

 This was a novel approach for the India of his day. Ashoka was the first person to act upon it in a big way with his embassies to, and missionary activities in, foreign countries. India thus began to develop an awareness of the world, and probably it was largely this that led, in the early centuries of the Christian era, to vast colonial enterprises. These expeditions across the seas were orga-nized by Hindu rulers and they carried the Brahminical system and Aryan culture with them. This was an extraordinary development for a self-contained faith and culture which were gradually build-ing up a mutually exclusive caste system. Only a powerful urge and something changing their basic outlook could have brought this about. That urge may have been due to many reasons, and most of all to trade and the needs of an expanding society, but the change of outlook was partly due to Buddhism and the foreign contacts it had brought about. Hinduism was dynamic enough and full of an overflowing energy at the time but it had previously not paid much attention to foreign countries. One of the effects of the universalism of the new faith was to encourage this dynamic energy to flow out to distant countries.Much of the ritualism and ceremonial associated with the Vedic, as well as more popular forms of religion, disappeared, particularly animal sacrifices. The idea of non-violence, already present in the Vedas and Upanishads, were emphasized by Buddhism and and even more so by Jainism. There was a new respect for life and a kindness to animals. And always behind all this was the endea-vour to lead the good life, the higher life.Buddha had denied the moral value of austere asceticism. But the whole effect of his teaching was one of pessimism towards life. This was especially the Hinayana view and even more so that of Jainism. There was an emphasis on other-worldliness, a desire for liberation, of freedom from the burdens of the world. Sexual continence was encouraged and vegetarianism increased. All these ideas were present in India before the Buddha but the emphasis was different. The emphasis of the old Aryan ideal was on a full and all-rounded life. The student stage was one of continence and discipline, the householder participated fully in life's activities and took sex as part of them. Then came a gradual withdrawal and a greater concentration on public service and individual improve-ment. Only the last stage of life, when old age had come, was that of sanyasa or full withdrawal from life's normal work and attachments.Previously small groups of ascetically inclined people lived in forest settlements, usually attracting students. With the coming of Buddhism huge monasteries and nunneries grew up every- where and there was a regular flow of population towards them. The very name of the province of Bihar to-day is derived from Vihara, monastery, which indicates how full that huge area must have been of monasteries. Such monasteries were educational establishments also or were connected with schools and some-times with universities.

Not only India but the whole of Central Asia had large numbers of huge Buddhist monasteries. There was a famous one in Balkh, accommodating 1,000 monks, of which we have many records. This was called Nava-vihara, the new monastery, which was Persianized into Naubahar.Why was it that Buddhism resulted in the growth of other-worldliness in India far more than in some other countries where it has flourished for long periods—in China, Japan and Burma? I do not know, but I imagine that the national background of each country was strong enough to mould the religion according to its shape. China, for instance, had the powerful traditions derived from Confucius and Lao-tze and other philosophers. Then again, China and Japan adopted the Mahayana form of Buddhism which was less pessimistic in its approach than the Hinayana. India was also influenced by Jainism which was the most otherworldly and life-negating of all these doctrines and philosophies.

Yet another very curious effect of Buddhism in India and on its social structure appears to have been one that was entirely opposed to its whole outlook. This was in relation to caste, which it did not approve of though it accepted its original basis. The caste system in the time of the Buddha was flexible and had not developed the rigidity of later periods. More importance was attached to capacity, character, and occupation, than to birth. Buddha himself often uses the term Brahmin as equivalent to an able, earnest, and disciplined person. There is a famous story in the Chhandogya Upanishad which shows us how caste and sex relations were viewed then.

This is the story of Satyakama whose mother was Jabala. Satyakama wanted to become a student of the sage Gautama (not the Buddha) and, as he was leaving his home, he asked his mother: 'Of what gotra (family or clan) am I?' His mother said to him: 'I do not know, my child, of what family thou art. In my youth when I had to move about much as a servant (waiting on the guests in my father's house), I conceived thee. I do not know of what family thou art. I was Jabala by name, thou art Satyakama. Say that thou art Satyakama Jabala (that is, Satyakama, the son of Jabala).' Satyakama then went to Gautama and the sage asked him about his family. He replied in the words of his mother. Thereupon the teacher said: 'No one but a true Brahmin would thus speak out. Go and fetch fuel, friend. I shall initiate you. You have  not swerved from the truth.

Probably at the time of the Buddha the Brahmins were the only more or less rigid caste. The Kshatriyas or the ruling class were proud of their group and family traditions but, as a class, their doors were open for the incorporation of individuals or families who became rulers. For the rest most people were Vaishyas, the agriculturists, an honoured calling. There were other occupational castes also. The so-called caste-less people, the untouchables, appear to have been very few, probably some forest folk and some whose occupation was the disposal of dead bodies, etc.

The emphasis of Jainism and Buddhism on non-violence led to the tilling of the soil being considered a lowly occupation, for it often resulted in the destruction of animal life. This occupation, which had been the pride of the Indo-Aryans, went down in the scale of values in some parts of the country, in spite of its fundamental importance, and those who actually tilled the land des-cended in the social scale.Thus Buddhism, which was a revolt against priestcraft and ritualism and against the degradation of any human being and his deprivation of the opportunities of growth and leading a higher life, unconsciously led to the degradation of vast numbers of tillers of the soil. It would be wrong to make Buddhism respon-sible for this, for it had no such effect elsewhere. There was some-thing inherent in the caste system which took it in this direction. Jainism pushed it along that way because of its passionate attach-ment to non-violence—Buddhism also inadvertently helped in the process.

How did Hinduism Absorb Buddhism in India?

Eight or nine years ago, when I was in Paris, Andre Malraux put me a strange question at the very beginning of our conversation. What was it, he asked me, that enabled Hinduism, to push away organized Buddhism from India, without any major conflict, over a thousand years ago? How did Hinduism succeed in absorbing, as it were, a great and widespread popular religion, without the usual wars of religion which disfigure the history of so many countires? What inner vitality or strength did Hinduism possess then which enabled it to perform this remarkable feat? And did India possess this inner vitality and strength to-day? If so, then her freedom and greatness were assured. The question was perhaps typical of a French intellectual who was also a man of action. And yet few persons in Europe or America would trouble themselves over such matters; they would be much too full of the problems of to-day. Those present-day world prob-lems filled and troubled Malraux also, and with his powerful and analytical mind he sought light wherever he could find it in the past or in the present—in thought, speech, writing, or, best of all, in action, in the game of life and death.

For Malraux the question was obviously not just an academic one. He was full of it and he burst out with it as soon as we met. It was a question after my own heart, or rather the kind of ques-tion that my own mind was frequently framing. But I had no satisfactory answer to it for him or for myself. There are answers and explanations enough, but they seem to miss the core of the problem.

It is clear that there was no widespread or violent extermina-tion of Buddhism in India. Occasionally there were local troubles or conflicts between a Hindu ruler and the Buddhist Sangha, or organization of monks, which had grown powerful. These had usually a political origin and they did not make any essential difference. It must also be remembered that Hinduism was at no time wholly displaced by Buddhism. Even when Buddhism was at its height in India, Hinduism was widely prevalent. Buddhism died a natural death in India, or rather it was a fading out and a transformation into something else. 'India,' says Keith, 'has a strange genius for converting what it borrows and assimilating it.' If that is true of borrowings from abroad or from alien sources, still more is it applicable to something that came out of its own mind and thought. Buddhism was not only entirely a product of India; its philosophy was in line with pre-vious Indian thought and the philosophy of the Vedanta (the Upanishads). The Upanishads had even ridiculed priestcraft and ritualism and minimised the importance of caste.

Brahminism and Buddhism acted and reacted on each other, and in spite of their dialectical conflicts or because of them, approached nearer to each other, both in the realm of philosophy and that of popular belief. The Mahayana especially approached the Brahminical system and forms. It was prepared to compromise with almost anything, so long as its ethical background remained. Brahminism made of Buddha an avatar, a God. So did Buddhism. The Mahayana doctrine spread rapidly but it lost in quality and distinctiveness what it gained in extent. The monasteries became rich, centres of vested interests, and their discipline became lax;. Magic and superstition crept into the popular forms of worship. There was a progressive degeneration of Buddhism in India after the first millenium of its existence. Mrs. Rhys Davids points out its diseased state during that period: 'under the overpowering influence of these sickly imaginations the moral teachings of Gautama have been almost hid from view. The theories grew and flourished, each new step, each new hypothesis demanded an-other; until the whole sky was filled with forgeries of the brain, and the nobler and simpler lessons of the founder of the religion were smothered beneath the glittering mass of metaphysical subtleties(S. Radhakrishnan, 'Indian Philosophy,' Allen & Unwin, London, 1927.).This description might well apply to many of the 'sickly imagin-ings' and 'forgeries of the brain' which were afflicting Brahminism and its offshoots at that time.

Buddhism had started at a time of social and spiritual revival and reform in India. It infused the breath of new life in the people, it tapped new sources of popular strength and released new talent and capacity for leadership. Under the imperial patronage of Ashoka it spread rapidly and became the dominant religion of India. It spread also to other countries and there was a constant stream of learned Buddhist scholars going abroad from India and coming to India. This stream continued for many centuries. When the Chinese pilgrim Fa-hien came to India in the fifth century A.C., a thousand years after Buddha, he saw that Buddhism was flourishing in its parent country. In the seventh century A.C. the still more famous pilgrim Hsuan Tsang (or Yuan-Chwang) came to India and witnessed signs of decay, although even then it was strong in some areas. Quite a large number of Buddhist scholars and monks gradually drifted from India to China.

Meanwhile there had been a revival of Brahminism and a great cultural renaissance under the Imperial Guptas in the fourth and fifth centuries A.C. This was not anti-Buddhist in any way but it certainly increased the importance and power of Brahmin-ism, and it was also a reaction against the otherworldliness of Buddhism. The later Guptas contended for long against Hun invasions and, though they drove them off ultimately, the country was weakened and a process of decay set in. There were several bright periods subsequently and many remarkable men arose. But both Brahminism and Buddhism deteriorated and degrading practices grew up in them. It became difficult to distinguish the two. If Brahminism absorbed Buddhism, this process changed Brahminism also in many ways.

In the eighth century Shankaracharya, one of the greatest of India's philosophers, started religious orders or maths for Hindu sanyasins or monks. This was an adoption of the old Buddhist practice of the sangha. Previously there had been no such organizations of sanyasins in Brahminism, although small groups of them existed.

Some degraded forms of Buddhism continued in East Bengal and in Sind in the north-west. Otherwise Buddhism gradually vanished from India as a widespread religion.

The Indian Philosophical Approach

Though one thought leads to another, each usually related to life's changing texture, and a logical movement of the human mind is sometimes discrenible, yet thoughts overlap and the new and the old run side by side, irreconcilable and often contra-dicting each other. Even an individual's mind is a bundle of contradictions and it is difficult to recocnile his action one with another. A people, comprising all stages of cultural development, represent in themselves and in their thoughts, beliefs, and activities,, different ages of the past leading up to the present. Probably their activities may conform more to the social and cultural pattern of the present day, or else they would be stranded and isolated from life's moving stream, but behind these activities lie primitive beliefs and unreasoned convictions. It is astonishing to find in countries industrially advanced, where every person automatically uses or takes advantage of the latest modern discovery or device, beliefs and set ideas which reason denies and intelligence cannot accept. A politician may of course succeed in his business without being a shining example of reason or intelligence. A lawyer may be a brilliant advocate and jurist and yet be singularly ignorant of other matters. Even a scientist, that typical representative of the modern age, often forgets the method and outlook of science when he goes out of his study or laboratory.

This is so even in regard to the problems that affect our daily lives in their material aspects. In philosophy and metaphysics the problems are more remote, less transient and less connected with our day's routine. For most of us they are entirely beyond our grasp unless we undergo a rigid discipline and training of the mind. And yet all of us have some kind of philosophy of life, conscious or unconscious, if not thought out then inherited or accepted from others and considered as self-evident. Or we may seek refuge from the perils of thought in faith in some religious creed or dogma, or in national destiny, or in a vague and com-forting humanitarianism. Often all these and others are present together, though with little to connect them, and we develop split personalities, each functioning in its separate compartment.

Probably there was more unity and harmony in the human personality in the old days, though this was at a lower level than to-day except for certain individuals who were obviously of a very high type. During this long age of transition, through which huma-nity has been passing, we have managed to break up that unity, but have not so far succeeded in finding another. We cling still to the ways of dogmatic religion, adhere to outworn practices and beliefs, and yet talk and presume to live in terms of the scientific method. Perhaps science has been too narrow in its approach to life and has ignored many vital aspects of it, and hence it could not provide a suitable basis for a new unity and harmony. Perhaps it is gradually broadening this basis now, and we shall achieve a new harmony for the human personality on a much higher level than the previous one. But the problem is a more difficult and complex one now, for it has grown beyond the limits of the human personality. It was perhaps easier to develop some kind of a har-monious personality in the restricted spheres of ancient and medieval times. In that little world of town and village, with fixed concepts of social organization and behaviour, the individual and the group lived their self-contained lives, protected, as a rule, from outer storms. To-day the sphere of even the individual has grown world-wide, and different concepts of social organization conflict with each other and behind them are different philosophies of life. A strong wind arising somewhere creates a cyclone in one place and an anti-cyclone in another. So if harmony is to be achieved by the individual, it has to be supported by some kind of social harmony throughout the world.

In India, far more so than elsewhere, the old concept of social organization and the philosophy of life underlying it, have per-sisted, to some extent, to the present day. They could not have done so unless they had some virtue which stabilized society and made it conform to life's conditions. And they would not have failed ultimately and become a drag and a hindrance, divorced from life, if the evil in them had not overcome that virtue. But, in any event, they cannot be considered to-day as isolated pheno-mena; they must be viewed in that world context and made to harmonize with it.

 'In India,' says Havell, 'religion is hardly a dogma, but a working hypothesis of human conduct, adapted to different stages of spiritual development and different conditions of life. A dogma might continue to be believed in, isolated from life, but a working hypothesis of human conduct must work and conform to life, or it obstructs life. The very raison d'etre of such a hypothesis is its workableness, its conformity to life, and its capacity to adapt itself to changing conditions. So long as it can do so it serves its purpose and performs its allotted function. When it goes off at a tangent from the curve of life, loses contact with social needs, and the distance between it and life grows, it loses all its vitality and significance.

Metaphysical theories and speculations deal not with the ever-changing stuff of life but with the permanent reality behind it, if such exists. Hence they have a certain permanence which is not affected by external changes. But, inevitably, they are the products of the environment in which they grow and of the state of development of the human minds that conceived them. If their influence spreads they affect the general philosophy of life of a people. In India, philosophy, though in its higher reaches confined to the elect, has been more pervasive than elsewhere and has had a strong influence in moulding the national outlook and in deve-loping a certain distinctive attitude of mind.

Buddhist philosophy played an important part in this process and, during the medieval period, Islam left its impress upon the national outlook, directly as well as indirectly, through the evolution of new sects which sought to bridge the gap between Hinduism and the Islamic social and religious structure. But, in the main, the dominating influence has been that of the six systems of Indian philosophy, or darshanas, as they are called. Some of these systems were themselves greatly affected by Buddhist thought. All of them are considered orthodox and yet they vary in their approach and their conclusions, though they have many common ideas. There is polytheism, and theism with a personal God, and pure monism, and a system which ignores God altogether and bases itself on a theory of evolution. There is both idealism and realism. The various facets of the complex and inclusive Indian mind are shown in their unity and diversity. Max Miiller drew attention to both these factors: '... the more have I become impressed with the truth... that there is behind the variety of the six systems a common fund of what may be called national and popular philosophy.. .from which each thinker was allowed to draw for his own purposes.'

There is a common presumption in all of them: that the uni-verse is orderly and functions according to law, that there is a mighty rhythm about it. Some such presumption becomes necessary, for otherwise there could hardly be any system to explain it. Though the law of causality, of cause and effect, functions, yet there is a measure of freedom to the individual to shape his own destiny. There is belief in rebirth and an emphasis on unselfish love and disinterested activity. Logic and reason are relied upon and used effectively for argument, but it is recognised that often intuition is greater than either. The general argument proceeds on a rational basis, in so far as reason can be applied to matters often outside its scope. Professor Keith has pointed out that 'The systems are indeed orthodox and admit the authority of the sacred scriptures, but they attack the problems of existence with human means, and scripture serves for all practical purposes but to lend sanctity to results which are achieved not only without its aid, but often in very dubious harmony with its tenets.'

  

The Six Systems of Philosophy

The early beginnings of the Indian systems of philosophy take us back to the pre-Buddhist era. They develop gradually, the Brahminical systems side by side with the Buddhist, often criti-cizing each other, often borrowing from one another. Before the beginning of the Christian era, six Brahminical systems had taken shape and crystallized themselves, out of the welter of many such systems. Each one of them represents an independent approach, a separate argument, and yet they were not isolated from each other but rather parts of a larger plan.

The six systems are known as: (1) Nyaya, (2) Vaishesika, (3) Samkhya, (4) Toga, (5) MimUmsa, and (6) Vedanta.

The Nyaya method is analytic and logical. In fact Nyaya means logic or the science of right reasoning. It is similar in many ways to Aristotle's syllogisms, though there are also fundamental dif-ferences between the two. The principles underlying Nyaya logic were accepted by all the other systems, and, as a kind of mental discipline, Nyaya has been taught throughout the ancient and medieval periods and up to to-day in India's schools and universities. Modern education in India has discarded it, but wherever Sanskrit is taught in the old way, Nyaya is still an essen-tial part of the curriculum. It was not only considered an indispens-able preparation for the study of philosophy, but a necessary mental training for every educated person. It has had at least as important a place in the old scheme of Indian education as Aristotle's logic has had in European education.

The method was, of course, very different from the modern scientific method of objective investigation. Nevertheless, it was critical and scientific in its own way, and, instead of relying on faith, tried to examine the objects of knowledge critically and to proceed step by step by methods of logical proof. There was some faith behind it, certain presumptions which were not capable of logical treatment. Having accepted some hypotheses the system was built up on those foundations. It was presumed that there is a rhythm and unity in life and nature. There was belief in a personal God, in individual souls, and an atomic universe. The individual was neither the soul alone nor the body, but the product of their union. Reality was supposed to be a complex of souls and nature.

The Vaishesika system resembles the Nyaya in many ways. It emphasizes the separateness of individual selves and objects, and develops the atomic theory of the universe. The principle of dharma, the moral law, is said to govern the universe, and round this the whole system revolves. The hypothesis of a God is not clearly admitted. Between the Nyaya and Vaisheshika systems and early Buddhist philosophy there are many points of contact. On the whole they adopt a realistic approach.

The Samkhya system, which Kapila (c. seventh century B.C.) is said to have shaped out of many early and pre-Buddhist currents of thought, is remarkable. According to Richard Garbe: 'In Kapila's doctrine, for the first time in the history of the world, the complete independence and freedom of the human mind, its full confidence in its own powers, were exhibited.'

The Samkhya became a well-co-ordinated system after the rise of Buddhism. The theory is a purely philosophical and meta-physical conception arising out of the mind of man and having little to do with objective observation. Indeed, such observation was not possible in matters beyond its reach. Like Buddhism, Samkhya proceeded along rationalistic lines of inquiry and met the challenge of Buddhism on the latter's own ground of reasoned argument without support of authority. Because of this rationalistic approach, God had to be ruled out. In SSmkhya thus there is neither a personal God nor an impersonal one, neither mono-theism nor monism. Its approach was atheistic and it undermined the foundations of a supernatural religion. There is no creation of the universe by a god, but rather a constant evolution, the product of interaction between spirit, or rather spirits, and matter, though that matter itself is of the nature of energy. This evolution is a continuous process.

The Samkhya is called dvaita, or a dualistic philosophy, because it builds its structure on two primary causes: prakriti, or an ever-active and changing nature or energy, and purusha, the spirit which does not change. There is an infinite number of purushas or souls, or something in the nature of consciousness. Under the influence of purusha, which itself is inactive, prakriti evolves and leads to the world of continuous becoming. Causality is accepted, but it is said that the effect really exists hidden in the cause. Cause and effect become the undeveloped and developed states of one and the same thing. From our practical point of view, however, cause and effect are different and distinct, but basically there is an iden-tity between them. And so the argument goes on, showing how from the unmanifested prakriti or energy, through the influence of purusha or consciousness, and the principle of causality, nature with its immense complexity and variety of elements has developed and is ever changing and developing. Between the lowest and the highest in the universe there is a continuity and a unity. The whole conception is metaphysical, and the argument, based on certain hypotheses, is long, intricate, and reasoned.

The Toga system of Patanjali is essentially a method for the discipline of the body and the mind leading up to psychic and spiritual training. Patanjali not only crystallized this old system but also wrote a famous commentary on Panini's Sanskrit gram-mar. This commentary, called the 'Mahabhashya' is as much of a classic as Panini's work. Professor Stcherbatsky, of Leningrad, has written that 'the ideal scientific wrok for India is the grammar of Panini with the Mahabhashya of Patanjali (It is not established that Patanjali, the grammarian, was the same person as Patanjali, the author of the 'Toga Sutras.' The grammarian's date is definitely known—second century B.C. Some people are of opinion that the author of the 'Toga Sutras' was a different person and lived two or three hundred years later.).

Yoga is a word well known now in Europe and America, though little understood, and it is associated with quaint practices, more especially with sitting Buddha-like and gazing on one's navel or the tip of one's nose (The word 'Toga' means union. Possibly it is derived from the same root as the English word 'yoke'—joining.). Some people learning odd tricks of the body presume to become authorities on the subject in the West, and impress and exploit the credulous and the seekers after the sensational. The system is much more than these devices and is based on the psychological conception that by proper training of the mind certain higher levels of consciousness can be reached. It is meant to be a method for finding out things for oneself rather than a preconceived metaphysical theory of reality or of the universe. It is thus experimental and the most suitable conditions for carrying out the experiment are pointed out. As such a method it can be adopted and used by any system of philo-sophy, whatever its theoretical approach may be. Thus the adherents of the atheistic Samkhya philosophy may use this method. Buddhism developed its own forms of Yoga training, partly similar, pardy different. The theoretical parts of Patanjali's Yoga system are therefore of relatively small importance; it is the method that counts. Belief in God is no integral part of the system, but it is suggested that such belief in a personal God, and devotion to him, helps in concentrating the mind and thus serves a practical purpose.

The later stages of Yoga are supposed to lead to some kind of intuitive insight or to a condition of ecstasy, such as the mystics speak of. Whether this is some kind of higher mental state, opening the door to further knowledge, or is merely a kind of self-hypnosis, I do not know. Even if the former is possible, the latter fcertainly also happens, and it is well-known that unregulated Yoga has sometimes led to unfortunate consequences so far as the mind of the person is concerned.

But before these final stages of meditation and contemplation are reached, there is the discipline of the body and mind to be practised. The body should be fit and healthy, supple and graceful, hard and strong. A number of bodily exercises are prescribed, as also ways of breathing, in order to have some control over it and normally to take deep and long breaths. 'Exercises' is the wrong word, for they involve no strenuous movement. They are rather postures—asanas as they are called-—and, properly done, they relax and tone up the body and do not tire it at all. This old and typical Indian method of preserving bodily fitness is rather re-markable when one compares it with the more usual methods involving rushing about, jerks, hops, and jumps which leave one panting, out of breath, and tired out. These other methods have also been common enough in India, as have wrestling, swimming, riding, fencing, archery, Indian clubs, something in the nature of ju-jitsu, and many other pastimes and games. But the old asana method is perhaps more typical of India and seems to fit in with the spirit of her philosophy. There is a poise in it and an unruffled calm even while it exercises the body. Strength and fitness are gained without any waste of energy or disturbance of the mind. And because of this the asanas are suited to any age and some of them can be performed even by the old.

There are a large number of these asanas. For many years now I have practised a few simple selected ones, whenever I have had the chance, and I have no doubt that I have profited greatly by them, living as I often did in environments unfavourable to the mind and body. These and some breathing exercises are the extent of my practice of the physical exercises of the Yoga system. I have not gone beyond the elementary stages of the body, and my mind continues to be an unruly member, misbehaving far too often.

The discipline of the body, which includes eating and drinking the right things and avoiding the wrong ones, is to be accompanied by what the Yoga system describes as ethical preparation. This includes non-violence, truthfulness, continence, etc. Non-violence or ahimsa is something much more than abstention from physical violence. It is an avoidance of malice and hatred.

All this is supposed to lead to a control of the senses; then comes contemplation and meditation, and finally intense concentration, which should lead to various kinds of intuition.

Vivekananda, one of the greatest of the modern exponents of Yoga and the Vedanta, has laid repeated stress on the experi-mental character of Yoga and on basing it on reason. 'No one of these Yogas gives up reason, no one asks you to be hood-winked or to deliver your reason into the hands of priests of any type whatsoever.... Each one of them tells you to cling to your reason, to hold fast to it.' Though the spirit of Yoga and the Vedanta may be akin to the spirit of science, it is true that they deal with different media, and hence vital differences creep in. According to the Yoga, the spirit is not limited to the intelligence, and also 'thought is action, and only action can make thought of any value.' Inspiration and intuition are recognized but may they not lead to deception? Vivekananda answers that inspiration must not contradict reason: 'What we call inspiration is the development of reason. The way to intuition is through reason... .No genuine inspiration ever contradicts reason. Where it does it is no inspira-tion.' Also 'inspiration must be for the good of one and all; and not for name or fame or personal gain. It should always be for the good of the world, and perfectly unselfish.'

Again, 'Experience is the only source of knowledge.' The same methods of investigation which we apply to the sciences and to exterior knowledge should be applied to religion. 'If a religion is destroyed by such investigation it was nothing but a useless and unworthy superstition; the sooner it disappeared the better.' 'Why religions should claim that they are not bound to abide by the standpoint of reason no one knows... .For it is better that mankind should become atheist by following reason than blindly believe in two hundred million gods on the authority of anybody. . .. Perhaps there are prophets, who have passed the limits of sense and obtained a glimpse of the beyond. We shall believe it only when we can do the same ourselves; not before.' It is said that reason is not strong enough, that often it makes mistakes. If reason is weak why should a body of priests be considered any better guides? 'I will abide by my reason,' continues Vivekananda, 'because with all its weakness there is some chance of my getting at truth through it... . We should therefore follow reason, and also sympathise with those who do not come to any sort of belief, following reason.' 'In the study of this Raja Yoga no faith or belief is necessary. Believe nothing until you find it out for yourself (Most of the extracts from Vivekananda's writings have been taken from Romain Rolland's 'Life of Vivekananda). 

Vivekananda's unceasing stress on reason and his refusal to take anything on trust derived from his passionate belief in the freedom of the mind and also because he had seen the evils of authority in his own country: 'for I was born in a country where they have gone to the extreme of authority.' He interpreted— and he had the right to interpret—the old Yoga systems and the Vedenta accordingly. But, however much experiment and reason may be at the back of them, they deal with regions which are beyond the reach or even the understanding of the average man— a realm of psychical and psychological experiences entirely dif-ferent from the world we know and are used to. Those experi-ments and experiences have certainly not been confined to India, and there is abundant evidence of them in the records of Christian mystics, Persian Sufis, and others. It is extraordinary how these experiences resemble each other, demonstrating, as Romain Rolland says, 'the universality and perennial occurrence of the great facts of religious experience, their close resemblance under the diverse costumes of race and time, attesting to the persistent unity of the human spirit—or rather, for it goes deeper than the spirit, which is itself obliged to delve for it—to the identity of the materials constituting humanity.'

Yoga, then, is an experimental system of probing into the psychical background of the individual and thus developing cer-tain perceptions and control of the mind. How far this can be utilised to advantage by modern psychology, I do not know; but some attempt to do so seems worth while. Aurobindo Ghose has defined Yoga as follows: 'All Raja-Yoga depends on this perception and experience—that our inner elements, combina-tions, functions, forces, can be separated or dissolved, can be newly combined and set to novel and formerly impossible uses, or can be transformed and resolved into a new general synthesis by fixed internal processes.'

The next system of philosophy is known as the Mimamsa. This is ritualistic and tends towards polytheism. Modern popular Hinduism as well as Hindu Law have been largely influenced by this system and its rules which lay down the dharma or the scheme of right living as conceived by it. It might be noted that the poly-theism of the Hindus is of a curious variety, for the devas, the shin-ing ones or gods, for all their special powers are supposed to be of a lower order of creation than man. Both the Hindus and Buddhists believe that human birth is the highest stage that the Being has reached on the road to self-realization. Even the devas can only achieve this freedom and realization through human birth. This conception is evidently far removed from normal polytheism. Buddhists say that only man can attain the supreme consummation of Buddhahood.

Sixthly and lastly in this series comes the Vedanta system, which, arising out of the Upanishads, developed and took many shapes and forms, but was always based on a monistic philosophy of the universe. The purusha and prakriti of the Samkhya are not consi-dered as independent substances but as modifications of a single reality—the absolute. On the foundation of the early Vedanta, Shankara (or Shankaracharya) built a system which is called the Advaita Vedanta or non-dualist Vedanta. It is this philosophy which represents the dominant philosophic outlook of Hinduism today.

It is based on pure monism, the only ultimate reality in the metaphysical sense being the Atman, the Absolute Soul. That is the subject, all else is objective. How that Absolute Soul pervades everything, how the one appears as the many, and yet retains its wholeness, for the Absolute is indivisible and cannot be divided, all this cannot be accounted for by the processes of logical reason-ing, for our minds are limited by the finite world. The Upanishad had described this Atman, if this can be called a description thus: 'Whole is that, whole (too) is this; from whole, whole cometh; take whole from whole, (yet) whole remains.'

Shankara builds a subtle and intricate theory of knowledge and proceeding from certain assumptions, step by step, by logical argu-ment, leads up to the complete system of advaitism or non-dualism. The individual soul is not a separate entity but that Absolute Soul itself though limited in some ways. It is compared to the space enclosed in a jar, the Atman being universal space. For practical purposes they may be treated as distinct from one another but this distinction is apparent only, not real. Freedom consists in realizing this unity, this oneness of the individual with the Absolute Soul.

The phenomenal world we see about us thus becomes a mere reflection of that reality, or a shadow cast by it on the empirical plane. It has been called Mayi, which has been mistranslated as 'illusion.' But it is not non-existence. It is an intermediate form between Being and non-Being. It is a kind of relative existence, and so perhaps the conception of relativity brings us nearer to the meaning of May&. What is good and evil then in this world? Are they also mere reflections and shadows with no substance? Whatever they may be in the ultimate analysis in this empirical world of ours there is a validity and importance in these ethical distinctions. They are relevant where individuals function as such.

These finite individuals cannot imagine the infinite without limiting it; they can only form limited and objective conceptions of it. Yet even these finite forms and concepts rest ultimately in the infinite and Absolute. Hence the form of religion becomes a relative affair and each individual has liberty to form such con-ceptions as he is capable of.

Shankara accepted the Brahminical organization of social life on the caste basis, as representing the collective experience and wisdom of the race. But he held that any person belonging to any caste could attain the highest knowledge.

There is about Shankara's attitude and philosophy a sense of world negation and withdrawal from the normal activities of the world in search for that freedom of the self which was to him the final goal for every person. There is also a continual insistence on self-sacrifice and detachment.And yet Shankara was a man of amazing energy and vast activity. He was no escapist retiring into his shell or into a corner of the forest, seeking his own individual perfection and oblivious of what happened to others. Born in Malabar in the far south of India, he travelled incessantly all over India, meeting innumerable people, arguing, debating, reasoning, convincing, and filling them with a part of his own passion and tremendous vitality. He was evi-dently a man who was intensely conscious of his mission, a man who looked upon the whole of India from Cape Comorin to the Himalayas as his field of action and as something that held to-gether culturally and was infused by the same spirit, though this might take many external forms. He strove hard to synthesize the diverse currents that were troubling the mind of India of his day and to build a unity of outlook out of that diversity. In a brief life of thirty-two years he did the work of many long lives and left such an impress of his powerful mind and rich personality on India that it is very evident to-day. He was a curious mixture of a philosopher and a scholar, an agnostic and a mystic, a poet and a saint, and in addition to all this, a practical reformer and an able organizer. He built up, for the first time within the Brahminical fold, ten religious orders and of these four are very much alive to-day. He established four great maths or monasteries, locating them far from each other, almost at the fojir corners of India. One of these was in the south at Sringeri in Mysore, another at Puri on the east coast, the third at Dvaraka in Kathiawad on the west coast, and the fourth at Badrinath in the heart of the Hima-layas. At the age of thirty-two this Brahmin from the tropical south died at Kedarnath in the upper snow-covered reaches of the Himalayas.

There is a significance about these long journeys of Shankara throughout this vast land at a time when travel was difficult and the means of transport very slow and primitive. The very concep-tion of these journeys, and his meeting kindred souls everywhere and speaking to them in Sanskrit, the common language of the learned throughout India, brings out the essential unity of India even in those far-off days. Such journeys could not have been uncommon then or earlier, people went to and fro in spite of political divisions, new books travelled, and every new thought or fresh theory spread rapidly over the entire country and became the subject of interested talk and often of heated debate. There was not only a common intellectual and cultural life among the educated people, but vast numbers of common folk were conti-nually travelling to the numerous places of pilgrimage, spread out all over the land and famous from epic times.

All this going to and fro and meeting people from different parts of the country must have intensified the conception of a common land and a common culture. This travelling was not confined to the upper castes; among the pilgrims were men and women of all castes and classes. Whatever the religious signi-ficance of these pilgrimages in the minds of the people might have been, they were looked upon also, as they are to-day, as holiday-time and opportunities for merry-making and seeing different parts of the country. Every place of pilgrimage contained a cross-section of the people of India in all their great variety of custom, dress, and language, and yet very conscious of their common features and the bonds that held them together and brought all of them to meet in one place. Even the difference of language between the north and the south did not prove a formidable barrier to this intercourse.

All this was so then and Shankara was doubtless fully aware of it. It would seem that Shankara wanted to add to this sense of national unity and common consciousness. He functioned on the intellectual, philosophical and religious plane and tried to bring about a greater unity of thought all over the country. He functioned also on the popular plane in many ways, destroying many a dogma and opening the door of his philosophic sanctuary to every one who was capable of entering it. By locating his four great monasteries in the north, south, east, and west, he evidently wanted to encourage the conception of a culturally united India. These four places had been previously places of pilgrimage from all parts of the country, and now became more so.

How well the ancient Indians chose their sacred places of pilgrimage! Almost always they are lovely spots with beautiful natural surroundings. There is the icy cave of Amaranath in Kashmir, and there is the temple of the Virgin Goddess right at the southern tip of India at Rameshwaram, near Cape Comorin. There is Benares, of course, and Hardwar, nestling at the foot of the Himalayas, where the Ganges flows out of its tortuous moun-tain valleys into the plains below, and Prayaga (or Allahabad) where the Ganges meets the Jumna, and Mathura and Brindaban by the Jumna, round which the Krishna legends cluster, and Budh Gaya where Buddha is said to have attained enlightenment, and so many places in the south. Many of the old temples, especially in the south, contain famous sculptures and other artistic remains. A visit to many of the places of pilgrimage thus gives an insight into old Indian art.

Shankara is said to have helped in putting an end to Buddhism in India as a widespread religion, and that thereafter Brahminism absorbed it in a fraternal embrace. But Buddhism had shrunk in India even before Shankara's time. Some of Shankara's Brahmin opponents called him a disguised Buddhist. It is true that Buddhism influenced him considerably.