ARTICLE III. THE RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTIES OF INDIA. 1. Dialogues on the Hindu Philosophy: comprising the Nyâya, Sânkhya, the Vedant; to which is added a discussion of the authority of the Vedas. By Rev. K. M. BANERJEA, Second Professor of Bishop's College, Calcutta. London. 1861. 2. A Rational Refutation of the Hindu Philosophical Systems. By NEHEMIAH NILAKANTHA SASTRI GORE. Translated from the original Hindi, printed and manuscript, by Fitz-Edward Hall, D.C.L., Oxon., H.M.'s Inspector of Public Instruction for the Central Provinces. Calcutta. 1862. 3. The Chhandogya Upanishad of the the Commentary of Sankara Acharya. Sanskrita, by RAJENDRALALA MITRA. Sama Veda, with extracts from OURS is an age of unbelief. Meteors do not warn us; eclipses of sun and moon have lost for us their power of prognostication. We have fowls, like the ancient Romans, but they do not, as Pliny says, "daily govern the minds of our rulers " (hi magistratus nostros quotidie regunt). We kill and roast oxen and sheep, but there is no haruspex or thyoskoos to enlighten us on the mystical properties of their entrails, or on those of the smoke ascending from their flesh. Ants, spiders, and bees, VOL. II. 1 which had so much to tell in olden times, are silent now about future events; and though the aged portion of our fair sex seems still to adhere to the mysterious rules on omens and portents laid down in the learned works of Atreya, Charaka, Susruta, and other fathers of Hindu medicine, we have still a doubt whether it is powerful enough to arrest the sceptical bias of this age. Nevertheless there are signs which we should do well to dwell upon with the same awe as our forefathers did when a comet made its sudden appearance on their horizon. Five years have passed since we quelled that untoward rebellion of India. Then, we said, it was the inferior race which dared to feel dissatisfied with the governing wisdom of its superiors. Men, deficient in religious notions, with a literature not worth considering, with institutions not heard of in civilized Europe, with laws of inheritance and adoption so inconvenient to the Indian Exchequer, had the presumption to give vent to a feeling of treasonable uneasiness, utterly unjustified, and therefore deserving the severest punishment. We have grown wiser since. We now remember that vast and wonderful literature of ancient India, which still fertilizes the native mind; we no longer close our ears to the numerous witnesses, dead and living, which testify to the superior intelligence and capacities of the Hindu race; we begin to admit that the institutions and laws dating from immemorial times and outlasting all the vicissitudes of Indian history must be congenial to the nation that reverses and upholds them so tenaciously; nay, humbly mindful of our own religious perplexities, we have thought it the wiser course to allow the Hindus themselves to settle their own mode of attaining eternal bliss. "We desire," says Her Majesty, in that memorable Proclamation of the 1st November, 1858, which will ever be quoted to the glory of her reign, and to the honour of the Minister who then presided in her Councils of India "We desire," says Her Majesty to the Princes, Chiefs, and People of India, "no extension of our present territorial possessions; and while we permit no aggression on our dominions or our rights to be attempted with impunity, we shall sanction no encroachment on those of others. We shall respect the rights, dignity, and honour of our native princes as our own; and we desire that they, as well as our own subjects, should enjoy that prosperity and social advancement which can only be secured by internal peace and good government. 66 Firmly relying ourselves on the truth of Christianity, and acknowledging with gratitude the solace of religion, we disclaim alike the right and the desire to impose our convictions on any of our subjects. We declare it to be our Royal will and pleasure that none be anywise favoured, none molested or disquieted, by reason of their religious faith or observances, but all shall alike enjoy the equal or impartial protection of the law; and we do strictly charge and enjoin all those who may be in authority under us, that they abstain from all interference with the religious belief or worship of our subjects, on pain of our highest displeasure. And it is our further will that, so far as may be, our subjects, of whatever race or creed, be freely and partially admitted to offices in our service, the duties of which they may be qualified by their education, ability and integrity duly to discharge. "We know and respect the feelings of attachment with which the natives of India regard the lands inherited by them from their ancestors, and we desire to protect them in all rights connected therewith, subject to the equitable demands of the State; and we will that generally in framing and administering the law, due regard be paid to the ancient rights, usages, and customs of India." It would be in vain to deny that these words have become the Magna Charta of India; and it would be dangerous to misunderstand the signs which have risen on the political horizon of that country since they struck root in the native mind. The Hindus have ceased to look upon themselves as inferior in rights to their fellow-subjects in Europe. Their princes, undeterred by adverse decisions of former governments, firmly renew their claims, and plead them before the people of England; their native associations hold meetings, discuss and issue reports of the acts of Government, which rival in their form and contents the proceedings of the British Parliament; their press, though loyal, has grown manly, and their political agents in this country offer us the novel and instructive spectacle of convening meetings of Englishmen and of enlightening them on the actual position, the wishes, the rights, and the claims of their countrymen. But whereas those who were in the habit of looking down upon native talent and native acquirements may feel surprised when hearing Hindu politicians descant on international law, with quotations from Grotius, Puffenderf, Vattel, Donat, and Wheaton, others will probably find not less ground for reflection when they discover that religious questions also are dealt with now by native writers in a spirit and with an amount of European erudition which hitherto seemed to have been the exclusive privilege of western scholarship. While contenting ourselves for the present with these general remarks on the important political changes which are shadowed forth by the actual movements in India, we intend in this article to draw the attention of our readers to that remarkable religious feature of Hindu development just alluded to. Of all problems concerning the future of India the most problematical at all times has been the religious one. No government, whether Mohammedan or Christian, ever approached it without the strongest misgivings; and no government has hitherto been able to |