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" But if I can only give as doubtful the earlier date for the Epic poems, still less would one fix the Drama in }K)int of time. We see clearly that it must have been subsequent to the Epics ; for its subjects are sometimes taken from them, and its language is more modem. But the mere question, whether the court at which Kdlid^isa flourished is that of Vicram&ditya at MaJwa 56 B. c, or that of another prince at Ujjiyini, nearly a thou- sand years later, shews the imcertainty of most things in Indian literature. Here also comes in the suspicion, which Dr Wolff has suggested, of the Hindii Drama's having profited by hearsay of Grecian models; and this is possible, wliichever chronology we prefer. "The mere literary question has carried me for a moment from what was more important. Just as in the Brdhmanas, or rubrics* of the Vedas, and in the Sdtras, whicli arc tlieir sup- plement, we have the first footsteps of the later Brahmanism, so * The Hebrew tklet to the Psahns, and the early Rabbiuical comments, might sjrve as a rough parallel to the BnUimanas. 288 KNOWLEDGE AND WOKSH IP— ETHICS. in these and in the Upanishads, we have the beginnings of speculation. It is the office of reason in religion, to question the religious instincts as to their meaning, and so to restrain their wanderings, by directing them ever to the highest object. Unhappily, it has often been more skilful in criticising the im- perfect, than in substituting a more excellent way. Yet we must not deny its real services. At one time it disengages the religious sentiment from irrelevant theories which, on the side of intellect, encumbered it. For example, it does not allow men to make their faith in God depend upon those conceptions of the mode of His working, which may at any time have been imper- fect. Thus the views of earthly science, by which a sense of heavenly things is accompanied, may at any time be disengaged from what is more essential. Your great astronomer Bh^cara rightly teaches, that ' in mathematical science holy tradition is authority 80 fax only as it agrees with demonstration;' and ^accordingly this mathematical science has no end in eternal time*.' But still more important is the service to religion which reason renders by bringing out its ethical element, or by associating the glow of devotion with the sense of duty to man. It comes of human weakness, that because God controls our destiny, we are tempted to make our service of him a flattery; or, in milder cases we become so absorbed in the need of faith and devotion, that we lay too little stress on moral right- eousness. Forgive me, if I say, that in the religious history of India, as of other countries, we find too many instances of the i^ligious instincts thus absorbing the duty of right. But reason, which cannot be sound, unless it comprehends in itself that feeling of an eternal law which we term conscience, sees that God is not so bribed, for that the highest might must be in righteousness, and hence it purifies the impulses of religion, by sifting whatever had been merely emotional in their operation, and sets our duty to man ever by the side of our faith in the unseen God. Take an instance of this from your own Mimdns^. • Colebrooke, Vol. il. pp. 380—381. PURIFYING OF WORSHIP. 289 When its thoughtful framers reasoned of true righteousness, they felt unable to approve of those incantations to hurt the life of an enemy, which appear in your older religious books. Hence, although such practices have what is deemed Vedic authority, they are yet rightly forbidden by the M(m&ns£. Perhaps another instance may be found even in the Purusha- m^dha. For that this was not always symbolical, seems to me proved by the hymn of Simah-sephas* in the Rig- Veda, as well as by the legend of his having been bound for sacrifice. Probably there was a time when the dread of an overruling Divinity made your ancestors shed even human blood ; but as the conscience or reason of men imder Divine guidance awoke to its full function, such a misjudgment of the religious impulse was set aside, aiid the rite turned into a symbol. Some such purifying process was perhaps intended by Capila. But as our weakness rarely attains in each man that great harmony which perhaps the eternal Iswara rejoices in seeing maintained on the whole by the partial jarrings of mankind, so Capila obscured the Deity by Nature. His successor Patanjali at- tempted to restore the religious balance, but went so far on the other side, that lie obscured the reason, and fell into a devotional mysticism, which is called the Y6ga. In such cases Nature revenges herself by sufiering a quietude of the nerves, which is animal rather than spiritual, to obscure the vision which boasts of seeing direct into heaven. Nor under such a system can the mind of man attain its full stature, however specious may be its show of more rapt devotion. For our Maker has intended us to strive and contrive, as well as to pray. Of the later philo- sophical schools of logic, or of physical atoms, I need only say, that I should be glad to see you employ their processes in education. For the more reason is trained by method and ob- servation, the better will she be able to judge, if her heart be pure, of the more directly religious revelation which the supreme Iswara gives us of Himself. * See Vithnu Purdna, pp. 404, 405. It is also referred to in Manu, M. P. 19 290 vedjilnta and vedas. "It might have been hoped that the Ved^ntlsts, either earlier or later, would work out a better harmony of faith and reason. But if your school did on the one hand the work of the Vedas by maintaining their authority, you did on the other that of the speculators by explaining the purpose of the Vedas in such a way as to be hardly reconcilable with the original text. Those psalms of a physical nature-worship were never conceived upon a theory that nature is only the play of the Universal Spirit manifesting its energies. What indeed can be less likely to give men a spiritual faith, than the practice of hymning Fire, and Sun, and the Winds ? There is something pretty in making Agni, or Fire in its diflferent forms, either as Sun, or Heat, or Flame, a sort of Priest of the Gods in the universal temple of Nature; but then, who are the Gods to whom he ministers? We want some clear spiritual Being, such as the earlier hymns at least do not clearly shew, who shall be superior to all these agencies; and these which are properly ministering, should not be made themselves the supreme objects of worship, as they apparently are in the hymns. Again, when your theory has embodied the Spirit in Nature, so as to take away the just contra-position of creature and Creator, prayer and its Hearer, mankind and his Judge, there is no more room for priest, as there is no worship except a Divine self- contemplation. If men like Angiras and S^kalya had foreseen your theory, they would not have sung or arranged hymns to Ushas and Agni. What your school originally meant, I suppose, was to dissociate the Deity from all fetters of time and place and matter, until they got themselves confused, as I tried to shew above. But here I want you to notice the greatness of their departure from the Vedic text. This is so wide, that your relation to the text is only in name rather than in effect, much more friendly than that of Sakya. You have alike that profound sense of the transitoriness of things earthly, which has come of later specu- lation, rather than of the Vedas. You believe alike in the transmigration of souls, of which they say not a word; and BUDDHA AND BRAHMANISM. 291 even if your return of the soul to ineffable union with the primal Spirit can be speculatively distinguished from the Bauddha nirvdna which it resembles, at least neither of them is Vedic. I say nothing yet of apotheosis, or incarnation, or of the names of deities. " H now we turn to Sdkya, we see that he was willing to proceed some way in the old path of the Brahmans. He was evidently their pupil, and his early speculations have the Hindti cast of gentleness, a vague vastness, and asceticism.