English
A passage for editorial review. PREFACE. “What new thing is contained in this?” is the common question of those who are careless or incapable of understanding the importance of philosophical inquiry, when any work on the philosophy of religion is produced. There is no new thing contained in this work. The author of the sacred song, its subject, did but endeavour, as many before and after him, to raise the veil of ignorance and superstition from the heart of man, and so enable him to read the characters written there by Reason in her own fair hand. The old saying of the Greek sage, “ Know thyself,” is here, as everywhere, all-important. Man, who finds delight in the reason of others, must find yet greater delight in his own — still greater delight in considering that its origin is from God, and that it is the only path by which to approach Him. As man, before he can love God, whom he has not seen, must love his brother, whom he has seen, so, before he can know and feel pleasure in God, he must know and feel pleasure in himself. What little philosophy the reader may find in these pages is not that of Patanjali, or Epicurus, of Lucretius, or Kant, of Berkeley, or Cousin ; let me call it the philosophy of common sense, and so appeal to all for its consideration. Its chief object is the cleansing of spiritual truth; for as in the material world gold and precious metals have at all times existed, but mixed with dross and dirt, and requiring purifi- cation in the furnace of the refiner, so spiritual truth has likewise always existed in the world of knowledge, but has ever been mixed at first with some debasing alloy of ignorance or superstition, which must be removed by the refining influence of Reason. The whole dictionary of ancient religion is made up of metaphor. Polytheism is but the polyonomy of religion; mythology is the baby talk of religion. The fault is ours if we now misunderstand that early speaking of a child to a child. Various successive religions answer the purpose of God in pro- TRKFACE. viii viding suitable meats for various digestions. Nor are the worshippers in every religion but one excluded from salvation. The Indian pundits, from the age of Kapila, the modem Descartes, to that of Krishna Dwaipayana, whether they have been Nishvara or Seslivara, Charvaka, or the disciples of Atmabodha, care as little for the thirty-three millions of gods which people the Hindu Pantheon, as the educated ministers of the Church for the Saints of the Anglican Calendar. But the policy of priests in Asia, as in Europe, has ever been to hide knowledge from the vulgar, as nurses hide knives from children — not to throw pearls before swine, or that which is holy before dogs. In Hindustan, as in England, there are doctrines for the learned, and dogmas for the unlearned ; strong meat for men, and milk for babes ; facts for the few, and fictions for the many ; realities for the wise, and romances for the simple ; esoteric truth for the philo- sopher, and exoteric fable for the fool. The Chandala knows no more of Sanscrit than the French peasant of Latin, yet it is in these languages only that it is given to them respectively to know the mysteries of heaven, — in these, and in idle, if imposing, rites and ceremonies, and in profane and old wives’ fables, against which Timothy was cautioned by Paul. Divine service may be divided, therefore, into knowledge of external fable or ceremony, and knowledge of internal fact or truth. The latter finds fit audience, though few ; the disciples of the former are the world at large. I need not, I think, warn those for whom this book is intended, not to reject as nonsense that which is merely new, or to consider that which is barbarous, therefore bad. I presume they will judge for them- selves, like the old Berceans, whether these things are so ; and if they are not, I shall at least have had the credit of assisting in the detection of error. Nor is the philosophy contained in this book difficult to under- stand. Its object is simply the removal of those mists of error which hide from man the beauty of his own spiritual nature ; its end is to attract and reduce them to nothing by the warm, radiant light of Reason, in a time when the icy chains of error and superstition which have circled him so long and with so cold a clasp, are being fast melted by the increasing heat of education and intelligence. The text, with the aid of the commentary, will, it is to be hoped, be PREFACE. ix sufficiently plain. One or two observations only, which seemed out of place in the notes, may be made here. First, it is worth while to remark that pithy climax of Arjuna’s creed : after he has addressed Krishna as the formless form, mortal and im- mortal, indivisible and divisible, being and non-being, motion and rest, the great omnipresent and everlasting God, with whom one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day, he ends his hymn of praise with those sublime and impassioned words, “Thou All!” The “ Bhagavad-Gita ” describes Him, in whom we live and move and have our being, and without whom nothing is, as the origin of all birth, death, might, wisdom, and goodness. It says He receives no one’s virtue or vice ; that is, it is a matter of indifference to the Supreme whether man or any other animal be what man calls good, or what man calls bad. It is the pride of humanity alone whicli considers itself worthy of the notice of God. David has the same idea when he says, “ My goodness extendeth not to Thee;” or, as the Septuagint reads, or* mv ayadcov j u,ov ou xpsiocv (“Thou hast no need of my goodness”) — an interpretation followed by the Vulgate and the Arabic, of a sentence which, according to Adam Clarke, no man can read without being confounded by it. Adam Clarke speaks of the Orthodox. It is a very simple sentence from any other point of view. God in the “Bhagavad-Gita” is THrmfir, or Lord of all creatures; srw*r, or Master of the world ; scaffold or support ; womb of gold or light ; the Artist of the gods ; T*ftfiT 3 and HTO, or light, ether, and life. He can only be known by him who has found that to know Him is impossible. Creation is the power to evolve form, not to originate essence, as it is understood in the episode of the great Sanscrit poem, the JTfWTOT, or the “ Iliad” of India. “Ex nihilo nihil ” is an axiom of India as well as of Borne. The exercise of this creative power is called *TPn, and the world only appears real as the oyster-shell appears to be silver. This JTRT can only be conquered by Reason. The soul (^TIWT) is the mainspring of the watch, in which mind, understanding, and senses (iJTTOj are the directing and decreasing wheels. The reader will notice especially the following opinions of philo- sophic latitudinarianism. Indifference to doctrines will be the result of X PREFACE. escape from delusion. God is to be worshipped without any religious form. In the end, as Paul preached to the Corinthians, God is to be all in all. The real philosophical Nirvana is to be the final state, after all vicissitude and misery, of everlasting and supreme repose. Knowledge is throughout represented as power, and the worst form of poverty as the poverty of wisdom. Learning is more than loveliness, more than hidden treasure, a companion and a consoler. It distinguishes between what is transitory and what is eternal, and so subdues sorrow ; it shows the sturdy tree carried away by the flood which passes by the bending rush, and so prevents pride ; it teaches that religious ceremony cannot alone absolve from sin. It is the path by which man may pass from the unreal to the real, from night to dawn, from death to immortality ; it is the ladder which leads to God. I have only, in conclusion, to add my obligations to Mr. J. C. Thomson, whose excellent translation of the “ llhagavad-Glta ” into English — the best that is known to me — I have taken the liberty of choosing as the subject of my Commentary ; and to Mr. •Ilrock ic, from whom I have borrowed some excellent remarks. I have also had throughout in my book the assistance of a distinguished English scholar, whose modesty, 1 regret to say, forbids my rendering my work more valuable with his name. CONTENTS. PREFACE Vli Questions on Universal Tueologv xiii Moral Precepts xiv Theological Progress xv Introduction xxvii l>HAGAVAD-(JlTA : — Chapter L — The Despondency of Arjuna 1 „ 11. — Application to the Sankhya Doctrine .... 7 „ 111. — Devotion through Action 17 „ IV. — Devotion through Spiritual Knowledge ... 23 „ V. — Devotion by means of the Denunciation of Actions . . 28 „ VI. — Devotion by means of Self-restraint .... 32 „ Vll. — Devotion through Spiritual Discernment . . .38 „ VIII. — Devotion to the Indivisible Supreme Spirit . . 41 „ IX. — Devotion by means of Kingly Knowledge and Kingly Mystery ' 44 „ X. —Devotion to the Divine Virtues 47 „ XI. — The Vision of the Universal Form . . . 51 „ XI 1. — Devotion through Worship . 58 „ Xlll, — Devotion in connection with the Kshetra and Kshetrajua . 61 „ XIV. — Devotion in connection with the Three Qualities . . 64 „ XV. — Devotion by the Attainment to the Highest Person . . 67 „ XVI. — Devotion in regard to the Lot of the Devas and that of the Asuras . . 70 „ XVII. — Devotion as regards the Three Kinds of Faith . . 73 „ XV ill. — Devotion as regards Emancipation and Renunciation . 76 QUESTIONS ON UNIVERSAL THEOLOGY.