CHAPTER II.

THE RELIGION, THE SCIENCES, AND THE LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS.

"The Hindú system of learning has formed the character of the people up to the present point; and it must still be studied, to account for daily occurring phenomena of habits and manners."-Sir Chas. Trevelyan, Education of the People of India.

Ir is not to be supposed that more than twenty-five centuries could have elapsed without producing some alterations in the manners and customs of the Hindús, consequently we find that although as a nation the Hindús have retained their primitive laws and social customs more entire than any people we know, yet changes have been effected which it will be our duty to notice, in proportion to their magnitude and the relation they bear to the subject under discussion.

In the last chapter we began by laying it down as a rule that the moral and social advancement of a rising nation was generally preceded by an extension of their theological system, and that this necessarily involved the pre-eminence of the clerical over the lay portion of the community, this pre-eminence being still further maintained by the intimate mixture of religious and secular instruction which caused the sources of popular education to be placed solely in the hands of the clergy. Now, as we shall in the course of this Essay have to describe at length the grand question which was agitated some thirty years

ago, as to the relative claims of Oriental and European literature to hold the chief place in the education by the English Government of the natives of India, and as for some time previously, all public grants in support of their education had been solely employed in fostering Oriental and native literature, it is evident that no Essay on the education of the natives of India could be complete without a notice, not only of that literature itself, with the arts and sciences as therein taught, but also of the Hindú religion, of which it forms, as it were a branch, from which it is inseparable, and whose ministers alone are its sole teachers.

In the preceding Chapter we have endeavoured to give a slight sketch of the religion inculcated by the Védas and the code of Menu, with brief remarks upon the state of the arts and sciences, and of the civil and criminal law at the period of the compilation of the latter code. We shall, therefore, in this Chapter shortly point out the changes which have taken place in these since Menu, or rather describe their present state, alluding, when necessary, to any important alterations. We have reserved for the end of the chapter a more lengthened notice of the literature, comprising poetry and the drama, and the sciences, in particular the science of mathematics, as taught in the Oriental schools, feeling that it would be more in its place there, than here, immediately preceding Chapter III., in which we propose to give an account of the question between the Orientals and the Europeans, which we have just said, was agitated about thirty years ago, and was the turning point in the scale of modern native education.

The changes in the fourfold division of cast we have already alluded to. The Brahmins have been, for the most part, successful in excluding all casts but their own, from the study of the Védas, and in retaining within their own body the great bulk of the learning of the country. This

it may be remarked, is a step in a backward direction. We have previously shown how the members of the ecclesiastical order contrive to be the first and sole repositories of learning, which they are enabled to do more from the circumstances of their position as ministers and teachers of the religious mysteries, than as actually qualified on the score of superior intellectual ability. No sooner, however, does civilisation advance, whether from some internal movement, or from intercourse with neighbouring nations, than the more enlightened of the laity begin to grudge the priests the possession of so great a blessing, to discover the faults of the system, and the evils invariably attendant upon too close a combination of religious and secular instruction. They perceive that truth is perverted in support of popular superstitions, those strongholds of priestly power, and that statements of fact are often garbled to serve the ends of priestcraft. The more vigorous minds amongst the laity, determine by the acquisition of true knowledge to oust the priests from the position they occupy, and insensibly divert from the hands of the ecclesiastical order those streams of knowledge which have too long flowed in one channel. The Hindús, however, just at a time when judging from analogous movements in other countries, they should have freed themselves from priestly bondages, cemented yet more strongly the union between religion and science, and suffered the Brahmins to take away from the other three casts the few sources of learning to which they had previously had access. To show how this was effected would lead us into too lengthy a discussion, and one irrelevant to the matter in hand; suffice it to say, that the state of complete isolation, as regards other countries, in which the Hindús lived, no doubt tended, so far as we are able to judge, to bring about such an undesirable result.

The Brahmins, although they have retained their lineage undisputed, have departed in many ways from their original rules and practice. In some particulars they have become more strict, but the general tendency is towards laxity, especially in those points which if rigidly adhered to, would interfere with the acquirement of wealth and with worldly prosperity.

The numerous casts which to some extent replace the last three of Menu's four classes are of obscure and uncertain origin, but still retain their divisions, and neither intermarry, eat together, nor partake in common rites. This multiplicity of casts answers in some cases, as we have previously stated, to the trades followed; the members of each trade forming a cast of themselves. The rules of cast are very strict, and often capriciously enforced. It is giving but a faint idea of the effect of loss of cast to say that it is civil death, so tremendous is the social punishment inflicted upon the loser. Unless, however, lost for an enormous offence, it is exceedingly easy to regain cast by expiation, so that practically, the inconvenience of such strict rules of life is rarely felt, and an outcast is seldom met with; indeed Mountstuart Elphinstone states, that during a lengthened residence in India, he cannot call to mind ever having heard of an instance of irrecoverable loss of cast. It might be supposed that the extended influence of cast would have much to do with obstructing enterprise of all kinds. But this is not the case. Nowhere hardly can be found such sudden reverses of fortune as in India; nowhere so many instances of large fortunes rapidly acquired, of positions of importance and influence quickly reached. To an European, who cannot understand how fickle the disposition of the native is, how pliant his nature, the existence of cast seems an insuperable obstacle to all progress. It may be shrewdly

questioned, we think, whether in a matter of business, in the overreaching of a neighbour, the acquisition of gain, or the pursuit of fame, the Hindú ever allows cast to stand in his way. We have been too much in the habit of judging of the nature and influence of cast from the impediments it has placed in the path of the missionary, and to the spread of Christianity throughout our Indian dominions. It is scarcely fair to do so from such insufficient grounds. The number of converts we have hitherto made is, we regret to say, excessively small; but a drop in the ocean of paganism. These converts are, for the most part, drawn from the lowest class of the people; the consequence is that a convert to Christianity finds himself at once isolated, or if he belong to the upper classes, compelled to associate with men whom he has been taught all his life to detest, and whose inferiority, in social and intellectual standing, to himself he cannot help perceiving. No wonder, then, that loss of cast is put forward as a plea for not embracing Christianity, when the position of the new convert is as painful as it would have been had he actually, while a follower of the religion of Brahmá, lost cast and incurred all the penalties thereunto attached. That a change of religion is regarded very easily by the native is evidenced by the fact that more than once the servants of English residents have turned Mahomedans because the grass-cutters and others employed with them professed that religion, and it was inconvenient and productive of social discomfort not to hold the same faith as their fellow-servants. As soon as Christian natives shall have become so numerous as to form an important part of the community, we venture to assert that cast will no longer afford an insurmountable obstacle to the work of the missionary.

If further proof were needed to show that the Hindús