| Some writers explain Indian religion as the worship of | | | | Thirdly, the deepest conviction of Hindus in all ages is |
| nature spirits, others as the veneration of the dead. | | | | that salvation and happiness are attainable by |
| But it is a mistake to see in the religion of any large | | | | knowledge. The corresponding phrases in Sanskrit are |
| area only one origin or impulse. Assuredly both these | | | | perhaps less purely intellectual than our word and |
| lines of thought-the worship of nature and of the | | | | contain some idea of effort and emotion. He who |
| dead-and perhaps many others existed in ancient | | | | knows God attains to God, nay he is God. Rites and |
| India. | | | | self-denial are but necessary preliminaries to such |
| By the time of the Upanishads, that is about 600 B.C., | | | | knowledge: he who possesses it stands above them. |
| we trace three clear currents in Indian religion which | | | | It is inconceivable to the Hindus that he should care |
| have persisted until the present day. The first is ritual. | | | | for the things of the world but he cares equally little |
| This became extraordinarily complicated but retained | | | | for creeds and ceremonies. |
| its primitive and magical character. The object of an | | | | Hence, side by side with irksome codes, complicated |
| ancient Indian sacrifice was partly to please the gods | | | | ritual and elaborate theology, we find the conviction |
| but still more to coerce them by certain acts and | | | | that all these things are but vanity and weariness, |
| formulae. | | | | fetters to be shaken off by the free in spirit. The |
| Secondly all Hindus lay stress on asceticism and | | | | ascetic sitting in the temple court often holds that |
| self-mortification, as a means of purifying the soul | | | | the rites performed around him are spiritually useless |
| and obtaining supernatural powers. They have a | | | | and the gods of the shrine mere fanciful |
| conviction that every man who is in earnest about | | | | presentments of that which cannot be depicted or |
| religion and even every student of philosophy must | | | | described. |
| follow a discipline at least to the extent of observing | | | | Rather later, but still before the Christian era, another |
| chastity and eating only to support life. Severer | | | | idea makes itself prominent in Indian religion, namely |
| austerities give clearer insight into divine mysteries | | | | faith or devotion to a particular deity. This idea, which |
| and control over the forces of nature. Europeans are | | | | needs no explanation, is pushed on the one hand to |
| apt to condemn eastern asceticism as a waste of life | | | | every extreme of theory and practice: on the other |
| but it has had an important moral effect. In India no | | | | it rarely abolishes altogether the belief in ritualism, |
| religious teacher can expect a hearing unless he | | | | asceticism and knowledge. |
| begins by renouncing the world. | | | | |