India's Problem, Krishna or Christ. John P. Jones
receive the full reward of all its deeds in a body. It is also, in a certain way, a response to that deep instinct of justice which is a part of human nature. But these cannot atone for its fundamental defects and errors. Some claim that its highest merit is that it is a powerful deterrent from sin and incentive to virtue. Beyond the remarks made above the all-sufficient refutation to such a statement is the present condition of the Hindu race itself. If any people on earth, more than others, sin with “fatal facility” and seem perfectly oblivious to the character and consequences of their deeds they are the descendants of the rishis of old and the heirs, in rich abundance, of this and its cognate doctrines. To judge this doctrine by its results in India is to pronounce it an error and a curse.
5. The Ideals of the Two Faiths.
No religion can regenerate or exalt men simply through a code of moral laws, or even through impassioned appeals to a higher life and threats of eternal punishment. There must be, above and beyond all this, a life which stands boldly forth as an example and inspiration to good men. The noble example of the royal Gautama did more perhaps than any other thing to disseminate Buddhism throughout [pg 102] India. His supreme renunciation and his loyalty to truth exalted him before his disciples and transformed him into an ideal for Buddhists of future ages. This also is a preëminent characteristic of Christianity. It is the religion of the Christ. He stands supreme in it—not merely as its Founder, Expounder and Life. He is also the embodiment of His own teaching, the ideal of life and conduct which He has brought to men. His command to all is not—“Do this or that”; but “Follow Me”—not, “Believe in this truth or another,” but “Believe in Me,” who am “the way, the truth and the life.” For these twenty centuries He has stood before the world as the incomparable, unapproachable, perfect ideal which has wrought more for the regeneration of the world than all other forces put together.
Do we find any counterpart to this in Hinduism? Do we find any life or example which stands related to it as Buddha's to Buddhism or as Mohammed's to Mohammedanism, or, even in a slight degree, as Christ's to Christianity? None whatever. Starting with the absolute Brâhm, we have seen this Supreme Soul shrouded in unfathomable, unapproachable darkness. We descend to the divine emanations of this eternal Soul and search in vain among the millions of beings which constitute the Hindu pantheon to find one who could become an ideal of life and an inspiration to the soul struggling against sin. “Godlike life could scarcely start from its examples of incarnations; for none of their lives is superhuman in holiness. Even Rama, the most blameless character in Hindu mythological literature, is by no means perfect; while the most popularly [pg 103] worshipped incarnation committed deeds so vile that even the narrator warns his hearers not to take him for their example. ‘Listen to the story of Hari, but do not think of doing his deeds,’ he says.”
We look again at the sages and heroes of India with the hope that we may possibly find one who stood conspicuous among others as the perfect type of character and the helper of those struggling after a better and holier life. Here again we are wofully disappointed, though it must be confessed that there are loftier types of goodness and of self-discipline among them than we found among the gods. Thus, with no worthy ideal of life before them and no one to inspire them to better things, the wonder is that men in India have not descended to a lower level than they have. It is perhaps this very reason that has discouraged them and has led them to strive to attain unto beatitude, not by perfecting, but by destroying humanity. The renunciation and loss, rather than the realization, of self has thus become their aim and ambition. Perhaps it is for this same reason also that the votaries of this faith have constructed one of the most elaborate systems of ceremonial and ritual that the world has ever witnessed; whereby, in the absence of a high ideal and of a divine inspiration, the whole life from birth even until after death, may be directed and protected from evil.
6. The Credentials of the Two Faiths.
Each has its Scriptures in which are found its original teachings including a declaration of its source and message to man. Beyond this general statement very little can be predicated of these two in common. [pg 104] The theories of their inspiration are dissimilar. In the Bible there is no theory of inspiration taught. Its testimony to its own divine origin is indirect rather than direct. And yet the evidence, both internal and external, that the Bible was written by men under Divine guidance and inspiration is unmistakable and convincing. Whether we have regard to its prophetic utterances, its record of miracles, its plan of salvation, its delineation of the incomparable life and character of Jesus Christ; or whether we behold its marvellous power among men of all classes and of all countries and tongues—all that pertain to it point unmistakably to its divine origin.
Nor can any one fail to appreciate the beauty and sublimity of some of the Vedic hymns of the Hindus or the profound depth of the philosophic reach of the Upanishads, those sublime “guesses at truth,” or the great excellence of the Bhagavad-Gita which is the gem of all Hindu literature. And yet the puerilities of many and the obscenity of others of the Vedic songs and prayers are well-known. So are the strange vagaries and the rambling character of many parts of the Upanishads. And as for the Bhagavad-Gita it is simply a dialogue whose gist is the argument of Krishna—“the Supreme God”—to urge the tender-hearted and the conscience-smitten Arjuna to slay his relatives in war. Its argument is that no evil which one man may do to another is of any moment, since he cannot touch his soul which is eternal and beyond the reach of any human power! In the destiny of a soul what can the destruction of one of its bodies signify? This is an argument which is subversive of morality and of social order.
[pg 105]
When one leaves these earlier scriptures of Brahmanism and takes up the later productions—the Puranas and Tantras—he comes into a very different atmosphere, most of which is morally pestilential and spiritually degrading. The ascription of divine inspiration and special heavenly guidance in the production of such literature is nought else but blasphemy. To pass over from the study of the Bible, with its transcendent beauty, its perfect ethics, its heavenly spirit, its Divine Saviour and way of salvation, to the Scriptures of India, especially the more recent parts, is to exchange the pure air of heaven for the charnel house.
The “divine brevity” of the Bible is one of its most striking features. Few things could impress one with the heavenly source of this Book more markedly than its wonderful omissions.
How very different when we examine the countless tomes of the sacred literature of India! If the salvation of a soul depended upon the reading of even a hundredth part of these, who then could be saved? Their very multiplicity and their voluminous character debar any man, however learned, from an acquaintance with more than a small fraction of them. Moreover, among learned pandits of today the Smriti (traditions) are more frequently quoted as authority, and they wield a larger power over the life of the people, than the Sruti (revelation) itself.
In the Christian Bible we are permitted to see a progressive revelation. From age to age, and from page to page, we see new glimpses of truth and are attracted by the divine light whose illumination grows ever brighter from Genesis to Revelation. [pg 106] This is what we should have expected from a God-inspired book. We should have looked forward to a gradual transition from the starry midnight of the far-off past to the rising, in Christ, of the sun of righteousness with healing in His wings.
In Hindu literature this process is reversed. The surest, I may almost say, the only, evidence we have of divine guidance in the production of this literature is to be found among the earliest productions. There we see earnestness of purpose combined with heavenly aspiration and deep searching after truth. Subsequent to this we see the light vanishing and earnestness giving place to triviality of thought, to the ravings of superstition, to the inanities of ceremonialism and to the laws of social and religious bondage. All this progress downward is in direct ratio to our distance from Vedic times.
What could be more conclusive