Chips From A German Workshop Vol-I

Preface

M ORE than twenty years have passed since my revered friend Bunsen called me one day into his library at Carlton House Terrace, and announced to me with beaming eyes that the publication of the Rig-veda was secure. He had spent many days in seeing the Directors of the East-India Company, and explaining to them the importance of this work, and the necessity of having it published in England. At last his efforts had been successful, the funds for printing my edition of the text and commentary of the Sacred Hymns of the Brahmans had been granted, and Bunsen was the first to announce to me the happy result of his literary diplomacy. 1 How,’ he said, 1 you have got a work for life—a large block that will take years to plane and polish.’ ‘But mind,’ he added, ‘let us have from time to time some chips from your workshop.’

I have tried to follow the advice of my departed friend, and I have published almost every year a few articles on such subjects as had engaged my attention, while prosecuting at the same time, as far yui

PREFACE.

as altered circumstances would allow, my edition of the Rig-veda, and of other Sanskrit works connected with it. These articles were chiefly published in the ‘ Edinburgh’ and ‘ Quarterly Reviews,’ in the ‘ Oxford Essays,’ and ‘ Macmillan’s ’ and ‘ Fraser’s Magazines,’ in the ‘Saturday Review,’ and in the ‘Times.’ In writing them my principal endeavour has been to bring «out even in the most abstruse subjects the points of real interest, that ought to engage the attention of the public at large, and never to leave a dark nook or corner without attempting to sweep away the cobwebs of false learning, and let in the light of real knowledge. Here, too, I owe much to Bunsen’s advice, and when last year I saw in Cornwall the large heaps of copper ore piled up around the mines, like so many heaps of rubbish, while the poor people were asking for coppers to buy bread, I frequently thought of Bunsen’s words, ‘Your work is not finished when you have brought the ore from the mine: it must be sifted, smelted, refined, and coined before it can be of real use, and contribute towards the intellectual food of mankind.’ I can hardly hope that in this my endeavour to be clear and plain, to follow the threads of every thought to the very ends, and to place the web of every argument clearly and fully before my readers, I have always been suc¬ cessful. Several of the subjects treated in these essays are, no doubt, obscure and difficult: but there is no subject, I believe, in the whole realm of human

PREFACE.

IX knowledge, that cannot be rendered clear and intelligible, if we ourselves bave perfectly mastered it. And nov^ while the two last volumes of my edition of the Rig-veda are passing through the press, I thought the time* had come for gathering up a few armfulls of these chips and splinters, throwing away what seemed worthless,* and putting the rest into some kind of shape, in order to clear my work¬ shop for other work.

The first and second volumes which I am now publishing contain essays on the early thoughts of mankind, whether religious »r mythological, and on early traditions and customs. There is to my mind no subject more absorbing than the tracing the origin and first growth of human thought;— not theoretically, or in accordance with the Hegelian laws of thought, or the Comtian epochs; but his¬ torically, and like an Indian trapper, spying for every footprint, every layer, every broken blade that might tell and testify of the former presence of man in his early wanderings and searchings after light and truth.

In the languages of mankind, in which everything new is old and everything old is new, an inex¬ haustible mine has been discovered for researches of this kind. Language still bears the impress of the earliest thoughts of man, obliterated, it may be, buried under new thoughts, yet here and there still recoverable in their sharp original outline. The growth of language is continuous, and by continuing

X

PREFACE.

our researches backward from the most modern to

the most ancient strata, the very elements and roots

of human speech have been reached, and yith them

the elements and roots of human thought. What

lies beyond the beginnings of language, however * * # * interesting it may be to the physiologist, does not

yet belong to the history of man, in the true and

original sense of that word. Man means the thinker,

and the first manifestation of thought is speech.

But more surprising than the continuity in the growth of language, is the continuity in the growth of religion. Of religion, too, as of language, it may be said that in it everything new is old, and every¬ thing old is new, and that there has.been no entirely new religion since the beginning of the world. The elements and roots of religion were there, as far back as we can trace the history of man; and the history of religion, like the history of language, shows us throughout a succession of new combina¬ tions of the same radical elements. An intuition of God, a sense of human weakness and dependance, a belief in a Divine government of the world, a distinction between good and evil, and a hope of a better life, these are some of the radical elements of all religions. Though sometimes hidden, they rise again and again to the surface. Though fre¬ quently distorted, they tend again and again to their perfect form. Unless they had formed part of the original dowry of the human soul, religion itself would have remained an impossibility, and

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XI the_ tongues of angels would have been to human

~ o

ears but as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. If we oiyce understand this clearly, the words of St. Augustine which have seemed startling to many of his admirers, become perfectly clear and intelli¬ gible, when he says 1 : ‘ What is now called the Christian religion, has existed among the ancients, and was not absent from the beginning of the human race, until Christ came in- the flesh: from which time the true religion, which existed already, began to be called Christian.’ From this point of view the words of Christ too,” which startled the Jews, assume their true meaning, when He said to the centurion of Capernaum: 1 Many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven.’

During the last fifty years the accumulation of new and authentic materials for the study of the religions of the world, has been most extraordinary; but such are the difficulties in mastering these materials that I doubt whether the time has yet come for attempting to trace, after the model of the Science of Language, the definite outlines of the Science of Religion. By a succession of the most

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*

fortunate circumstances, the canonical books of tjjree of the principal religions of the ancient world have lately been recovered, the Yeda, the Zend-Avesta, and the Tripitaka. But not qnly have we thus gained access to the most authentic documejits from which to study the ancient religion of the Brahmans, the Zoroasfrians, and the Buddhists, but by discovering the real origin of Greek, Roman, and likewise of Teutonic, Slavonic, and Celtic mytho¬ logy it has become possible to separate the truly religious elements in the sacred traditions of these nations from the mythological crust by which they are surrounded, and thus to gain a clearer insight into the real faith of the ancient Aryan world.

If we turn to the Semitic world, we find that although but few new materials have been discovered from which to study the ancient religion of the Jews, yet a new spirit of inquiry has brought new life into the study of the sacred records of Abraham, Moses, and the Prophets; and the recent researches of Biblical scholars, though starting from the most opposite points, have all helped to bring <out the historical interest of the Old Testament, in a manner not dreamt of by former theologians. The same may be said of another Semitic religion, the religion of Mahommed, since the Koran and the literature con¬ nected with it were submitted to the searching criticism of real scholars and historians. Some new materials for the study of the Semitic religions have come from the monuments of Babylon and Nineveh.

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XU1

The very images of Bel and Nisroch now stand before oar eyes, and the inscriptions on the tablets may hereafter tell us even more of the thoughts of those who bowed their knees before them. The religious worship 6f the Phenicians and Cartha¬ ginians has been illustrated by Movers from the ruins of their ancient temple^, and from scattered notices in classical writers; nay, even the religious ideas of the Nomads of the Arabian "peninsula, previous to the rise of "Mohammedanism, have been brought to light by the patient researches of Oriental scholars.

There is no lack of idols among the ruined and buried temples of Egypt with which to reconstruct the pantheon of that primeval country: nor need we despair of recovering more and more of the thoughts buried under the hieroglyphics of the inscriptions, or preserved in hieratic and demotic MSS., if we watch the brilliant discoveries that have rewarded the patient researches of the disciples of Champollion.

Besides the Aryan and Semitic families of religion, we have in China three recognised forms of public worship, the religion of Confucius, that of Laotse, and that of Fo (Buddha); and here, too, recent publications have shed new light, and have rendered an access to the canonical works of these religions, and an understanding of their various purports, more easy, even to those who have not mastered the intricacies of the Chinese language.

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Among the Turanian nations, a few only, such as the Finns and the Mongolians, have preseiNed some remnants of their ancient worship and mythology, and these too have lately been more* carefully collected and explained by d’Ohson, Castren, and others.

In America the religions of Mexico and Peru had long attracted the attention of theologians; and of late years the impulse imparted to ethnological researches has induced tra^Uers and missionaries to record any traces of religious life that could be discovered among the savage inhabitants of Africa, America, and the Polynesian islands.

It will be seen from fhese few indications, that there is no lack *of materials for the student of religion; but we shall also perceive how difficult it is to master such vast materials. To gain a full knowledge of the Yeda, or the Zend-Avesta, or the Triphaka, of the Old Testament, the Koran, or the sacred books of China, is the work of a whole life. How then is one man to survey the whole field of religious thought, to classify the religions of the world according to definite and permanent criteria, and to describe their characteristic features with a sure and discriminating hand ?

Nothing is more difficult to seize than the salient features, the traits that constitute the permanent expression and real character of a religion. Religion seems to be the common property of a large com¬ munity, and yet it not only varies in numerous

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XV sects, as language does in its dialects, but it escapes our firm grasp till we can trace it to its real habitat, the heart of^one true believer. We speak glibly of Buddhism and Brahmanism, forgetting that we are generalising on the most intimate convictions of millions and millions of human souls, divided by half the world and by thousands of yChrs.

It may be said that at all events where a religion possesses canonical books, or a definite number of articles, the task of the student of religion becomes easier, and this, no doubt, is true to a certain extent. But even then we know that thcr* interpretation of these canonical books varies, .so much so that sects appealing to the sa»me revealed authorities, as, for instance, the founders of the Vedanta and the Sankhya systems, accuse each other of error, if not of wilful error or heresy. Articles too, though drawn up with a view to define the principal doctrines of a religion, lose much of their historical value by the treatment they receive from subsequent schools; and they are frequently silent on the very points which make religion what it is.

A few instances may serve to show what difficulties the student of religion has to contend with, before he can hope firmly to grasp the facts on which his theories are to be based.

Roman Catholic missionaries who had spent their fives in China, who had every opportunity, while staying at the court of Pekin, of studying in the original the canonical works of Confucius and their

vol. i. a

XVI

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commentaries, who could consult the greatest theo¬ logians then living, and converse with the crowds that thronged the temples of the capital, differed diametrically in their opinions as to the most vital points in the state religion of China. Lecomte, Fouquet, Prdmare, and Bouvet thought it undeniable that Confucius, his predecessors and his disciples, had entertained the noblest ideas on the constitution of the universe, and had sacrificed to the true God in the most ancient temple of the earth. According .to Maigrot, Navarette, on the contrary, and even according to the'" Jesuit Longobardi, the adoration of the Chinese was addressed to inanimate tablets, meaningless inscriptions, or, in tlfte best case, to coarse ancestral spirits and beings without intelligence 2 . If we believe the former, the ancient deism of China approached the purity of the Christian religion; if we listen to the latter, the absurd fetichism of the multitude degenerated amongst the educated, into systematic materialism and atheism. In answer to the peremptory texts quoted by one party, the other adduced the glosses of accredited interpreters, and the dispute of the missionaries who had lived in China and knew Chinese, had to be settled in the last instance by a decision of the see of Rome.

There is hardly any religion that has been studied in its sacred literature, and watched in its external worship with greater care than the

2 Abel Kemusat, ‘ Melanges,’ p. 162.

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XVU modern religion of the Hindus, and yet it would be extremely hard to give a faithful and intelli¬ gible description of it. Most people who have lived in India would^ maintain that the Indian religion, as believed in and practised at present by the mass of the people, is idol worship and nothing else. But let us hear one of the mass of the people, a Hindu of Benares, who in a Jecture delivered before an English and native audience defends his faith and the faith of his forefathers against such sweeping accusations. ‘ If by idolatry,’ he says, ‘ is meant a system of worship which con¬ fines our ideas of the Deity to, a mere image of clay or stone, which prevents our hearts from being expanded and elevated with lofty notions of the attributes of God, if this is what is meant by idolatry, we disclaim idolatry, we abhor idolatry, and deplore the ignorance or uncharitableness of those that charge us with this grovelling system of wor¬ ship.But if, firmly believing, as we do, in the

omnipresence of God, we behold, by the aid of our imagination^ in the form of an image any of His glorious manifestations, ought we to be charged with identifying them with the matter of the image, whilst during those moments of sincere and fervent devotion, we do not even think of matter ? If at the sight of a portrait of a beloved and venerated friend no longer existing in this world, our heart is filled with sentiments of love and reverence; if we fancy him present in the picture, still looking

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xviii

upon us with, his wonted tenderness apd affection, and then indulge our feelings of love and gratitude, should we be charged with offering ..the grossest insult to him—that of fancying him to be no other than a piece of painted paper? .... We really lament the ignorance or uncharitableness of those who con¬ found our representative worship with the Phenician, Grecian, or Roman idolatry as represented by European writers, and then charge us with poly¬ theism in the teeth of thousands of texts in the Pur&nas, declaring in clear and unmistakeable terms that there is brft one God who manifests Himself as Brahma, Vishwu, and Rudra (Siva) in His func¬ tions of creation, preservation, afid destruction 3 .’

In support of these statements, this eloquent advocate quotes numerous passages from the sacred literature of the Brahmans, and he sums up his view of the three manifestations of the Deity in the words of their great poet Ralidasa, as trans¬ lated by Mr. Griffith:

In those Three Persons the One God was shown,

Each First in place, each Last,—not one alone;

Of /Siva, Vishnu, Brahma, each may be First, second, third, among the Blessed Three.

3 The modern pandit’s reply to the missionary who accuses him of polytheism is : 4 Oh, these are only various manifestations of the one God; the same as, though the sun be one in the heavens, yet he appears in multiform reflections upon the lake. The various sects are only different entrances to the one city.’— See W. W. Hunter, Annals of Rural Bengal , p. 116.

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XIX

If such contradictory views can be held and defended with regard to religious systems still pre¬ valent amongst us, where we can cross-examine living witnesses, and appeal to chapter and verse in their sacred writings, what must the difficulty he when we have to deal with the religions of the past? I do not wish to disguise these difficulties which are inherent in a comparative study of the reli¬ gions of the world. I „ rather dwell on them strongly, in order to show how much care and caution is required in so difficult a subject, and how much indulgence should be shown in judging of the shortcomings and errors that are unavoid¬ able in so comprehensive a study. It was supposed at one time that a comparative analysis of the lan¬ guages of mankind must transcend the powers of man: and yet by the combined and well directed efforts of many scholars, great results have here been obtained, and the principles that must guide the student of the Science of Language are now firmly established. It will be the same with the Science of Religion. By a proper division of labour, the materials that are still wanting will he collected and published and translated, and ■when that is done, surely man will never rest till he has dis¬ covered the purpose that runs through the religions of mankind, and till he has reconstructed the true Civitas Dei on foundations as wide as the ends of the world. The Science of Religion may be the last of the sciences which man is destined to ela-

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borate; but when it is elaborated, it avill -change the aspect of the world, and give a new life to Christianity itself. -■»

The Fathers of the Churchy though living in much more dangerous proximity to the ancient religions of the Gentiles, admitted freely that a comparison of Christianity and other religions was useful. ‘ If there is- any agreement,’ Basilius remarked, ‘ between their (the Greeks’) doctrines and our own, it may benefit us to know them: if not, then to compare them and to learn how they differ, will help not a little towards confirming that which is the better of the two 4 .’ *

But this is not the only advantage of a compa¬ rative study of religions. The Science of Beligion will for the first time assign to Christianity its right place among the religions of the world • it will show for the first time fully what was meant by the fulness of time; it will restore to the whole history of the world, in its unconscious progress towards Christianity, its true and sacred character.

Not many years ago great offence was given by an eminent writer who remarked that the time had come when the history of Christianity should be treated in a truly historical spirit, in the same spirit in which we treat the history of other reli-

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XXI gions, such,, as Brahmanism, Buddhism, or Moham¬ medanism. And yet what can be truer? He must he a man of^ little faith, who would fear to subject his own religion to the same critical tests to which the historian subjects all other religions. We need not surely crave a tender or merciful treatment for that faith which we hold to be' the only true one.

We should rather challenge for it the severest tests and trials, as the sailor would for the good ship to which he entrusts his own life, and the lives of those who are most dear to him. In the Science of Religion, we can decline no comparisons, nor claim any immunities for Christianity, as little as the missionary® can, when wrestling with the subtle Brahman, or the fanatical Mussulman, or the plain speaking Zulu. And if we send out our missionaries to every part of the world to face every kind of religion, to shrink from no contest, to be appalled by no objections, we must not give way at home or within our own hearts to any misgivings, lest a comparative study of the religions of the woyld could shake the firm foundations on which we must stand or fall. '

To the missionary more particularly a comparative study of the religions of mankind will be, I believe, of the greatest assistance. Missionaries are apt to look upon all other religions as something totally distinct from” their own, as formerly they used to describe the languages of barbarous nations as something more like the twittering of birds than

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the articulate speech of men. The Science of Lan¬ guage has taught us that there is order and wisdom in all languages, and that even the mQet degraded jargons contain the ruins of ^former greatness and beauty. The Science of Religion, I hope, will produce a similar change in our views of barbarous forms of faith and worship; and missionaries, instead of looking ..only for points of difference, will look out more anxiously for any common ground, any spark of the true light that may still he revived, any altar that may be dedicated afresh to the true God 5 .

And even to us at-home, a wider view of the religious life of the world may 'teach many a use¬ ful lesson. Immense as is the difference between

our own and all other religions of the world_and

few can know that difference who have not honestly

5 Joguth Chundra Gangooly, a native convert, says: 'I know from personal experience that the Hindu Scriptures have a great deal of truth. ... If you go to India, and examine the common sayings of the people, you will be surprised to see what a splendid religion the Hindu religion must be. Even the most ignorant women have proverbs that are full of the purest religion. Now I am not going to India to injure their feelings by saying, “ Your Scripture is all nonsense, is good for nothing ; anything outside the Old and New Testament is a humbug.” No; I tell you I will appeal to the Hindu philosophers, and moralists, and poets, at the same time bringing to them my light, and reasoning with them in the spirit of Christ. That will be my work.’—‘A Brief Account of Joguth Chundra Gangooly, a Brahmin and a Convert to Chris¬ tianity. Christian Reformer, August, 1860.

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xxiii examined 'Hie foundations of their own as well as of other religions—the position which believers and unbelievers ’occupy with regard to their various forms of faith is very much the same all over the woild. The difficulties which trouble us, have troubled the hearts and minds of men as far back as we can trace the beginnings of religious life. The great problems touching the relatione of the Finite to the Infinite, of -the human mind as the recipient, and of the Divine Spirit as the source of truth, are old problems indeed; and while watching their appearance in different countries, and their treatment under Varying circumstances, we shall be able, I believe, to profit ourselves, both by the errors which others committed before us, and by the truth which they discovered. We shall know the rocks that threaten every religion in this changing and shifting world of ours, and having watched many a storm of religious controversy and many a shipwreck in distant seas, we shall face with greater calmness and prudence the troubled waters at home.

If there is one thing which a comparative study of religions places in the clearest light, it is the inevitable decay to which every religion is exposed. It may seem almost like a truism, that no religion can continue to be what it was during the lifetime of its founder and its first apostles. Yet it is but seldom borne in mind that without constant reforma¬ tion, i.e. without a constant return to its fountain-

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head, every religion, even the most perfect, nay the most perfect on account of its very perfection, more even than others, suffers from its contact with the world, as the purest air suffers from the mere fact of its being breathed.

Whenever we can trace back a religion to its first beginnings, we find it free from many of the blemishes that offend us in its later phases. The founders of the ancient religions of the- world, as far as we can judge, were minds of a high stamp, full of noble aspirations, yearning for truth, devoted to the welfare of their neighbours, examples of purity and unselfishness. What they desired to found upon earth was but seldom realised, afid their sayings, if preserved in their original form, offer often a strange contrast to the practice of those who profess to be their disciples. As soon as a religion is established, and more particularly when it has become the religion of a powerful state, the foreign and worldly elements encroach more and more on the original foundation,, and human interests mar the simplicity and purity of the plan which the founder had conceived in his own heart, and matured in his communings with his God. Even those who lived with Buddha misunderstood his words, and at the Great Council which had to settle the Buddhist canon, Asoka, the Indian Constantine had to remind the assembled priests that ‘what had been said by Buddha, that alone was well said ; ’ and that certain works ascribed to Buddha, as, for instance, the instruction given

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XXV to his .son, ^Rahala, were apocryphal, if not heretical 6 . With every century, Buddhism, when it was ac¬ cepted by ‘nations, differing as widely as Mongols and Hindus, when its sacred writings were trans¬ lated into languages as wide apart as Sanskrit and Chinese, assumed widely different aspects, till at last the Buddhism of the Shamans in the steppes of Tatary is as different from the teaching of the original Samana, as the ..Christianity of the leader of the Chinese rebels is from the teaching of Christ. If missionaries could show to the Brahmans, the Buddhists, the Zoroastrians, nay, even to the Moham¬ medans, how much their present faith differs from the faith of theirWorefathers and founders, if they could place in their hands and read with them in a kindly spirit the original documents on which these various religions profess to be founded, and enable them to distinguish between the doctrines of their own sacred books and the additions of later ages, an important advantage would be gained, and the choice between Christ and other Masters would be. rendered far more easy to many a truth¬ seeking soul. But for that purpose it is necessary that we too should see the beam in our own eyes, and leam to distinguish between the Christianity of the nineteenth century and the religion of Christ. If we find that the Christianity of the nineteenth century does not win as many hearts in India and

6 See Burnouf, £ Lotus de la bonne Loi,’ Appendice, No. x. § 4.

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China as it ought, let us remember that tit w^,s the Christianity of the first century in all its dogmatic simplicity, but with its overpowering h»ve of God and man, that conquered the u'orld and superseded religions and philosophies, more difficult to conquer than the religious and philosophical systems of Hindus and Buddhfsts. If we can teach something to the Brahmans in reading with them their sacred hymns, they too can t<^ch us something when reading with us the Gospel of Christ. Never shall I forget the deep despondency of a Hindu convert, a real martyr to his faith, who had pictured to him¬ self from the pages of-the New Testament what a Christian country must be, and who when he came to Europe found everything so different from what he had imagined in his lonely meditations at Benares! It was the Bible only that saved him from returning to his old religion, and helped him to discern beneath theological futilities, accumulated during nearly two thousand years, beneath pharisaical hypocrisy, infi¬ delity, and want of charity, the buried, but still living seed, committed to the earth by Christ and His Apostles. How can a missionary in such cir¬ cumstances meet the surprise and questions of his pupils, unless he may point to that seed, and tell them what Christianity was meant to be ; unless he may show that like all other religions, Christianity, too, has had its history; that the Christianity of the nineteenth century is not the Christianity of the Middle Ages, that the Christianity of the Middle