The Historians' History of the World 02

We have now examined the elaborate doctrines of the Hindus in some detail. It remains to be seen how far they affected the real life of the people.

The works of modern science have not yet been able to dispel the false ideas that prevail concerning the religions of India. It is only after studying the practice of these religions on the soil of the peninsula itself that one can begin to have a conception of its contradictions that seem to us so strange, and to comprehend that the word religion has totally different meanings for the Hindu and the European. In the buoyant, illogical, dreamy soul of the Hindu the most contrary beliefs are associated in a manner quite incomprehensible to us. The same man who will believe firmly in the speculations of the most daring atheism will prostrate himself with equal conviction before thousands of strange, grotesque, or terrible divinities, or respectfully kiss the footprint of Buddha or Vishnu. In India, not only do all religions dwell in perfect harmony, but the most contrary dogmas exist side by side in the same religion.

The innumerable sects of Neo-Brahmanism or Hinduism all share in the two dominant cults of Siva the destroyer and Vishnu the preserver, the two great divinities worshipped by every pious Hindu, who, together with the great creator Brahma, make up the Hindu trinity or trimurti. Although Brahma is conceived as the most powerful of these three gods, he has no special worshippers, and there is hardly a temple in all India dedicated to him. While the symbols of Siva and the incarnations of Vishnu, people the temples with a crowd of forms and images, Brahma is not represented in visible form, and remains the great impalpable soul that animates all creatures and in whose bosom the Hindu dreams of being absorbed.

Siva, the god of destruction, or rather of transformation, the god of birth and of death, whose symbol is the lingam or phallus and to whom victims are sacrificed, the god of the seed that produces beings and of the death that dissolves them—Siva is the true god of India, the true creation of its racial genius.

The female counterpart of Siva is his spouse, Parvati or Kali, goddess of life and death, the great mother of whom the universe was born, and by whom it will finally be swallowed up again. No cult has been the source of more monstrous scenes than that of the terrible Kali. Her worship was a mixture of obscenity and cruelty. On her altars flowed the blood of the last human sacrifices, which have now been abolished forever among the Brahmanic populations. Scenes of debauchery impossible to describe, gloomy or obscene mysteries are still practised in her temples, especially in those frequented by the sect called “Sivaites of the left hand.”

While Siva appeals rather to the intellect and represents the particular form in which Hindu genius has conceived the universe, Vishnu responds to the eternal needs of the heart. He is the god of love and of faith. He is without question a monistic god; but in order to manifest himself to mortals he has assumed so many different forms that it would be quite impossible to define, or even simply to enumerate them. These incarnations, called the avatars of Vishnu, represent so many special divinities, the worship of each belonging to a particular country, age, or social condition. While the principal ones are only ten in number, there is no limit to the multiplication of the others. One can fearlessly preach to the Hindus whatever god one will, as sublime or as coarse as the imagination of man can conceive; they will very likely adopt it, making it at once an avatar of Vishnu. Thus, Christ, whose history has some analogy with that of Krishna, has become one of these avatars; and to all the representations of the missionaries the Hindus reply that they have nothing to learn from them, being already more Christian than the Christians themselves.

As to external forms, they have always changed, and are still changing. The prodigious imagination of the Hindu, which has so multiplied them, is continually altering them. The Hindus love images and material symbols; they are great formalists in the practice of their religion, whatever it may be. Their temples are full of emblems, the principal ones being the lingam and the yoni, symbols of the male and female natures. Vows, penances, mortifications, the reading of sacred books, litanies, prayers, pilgrimages, are regarded as very meritorious and are very scrupulously observed. No other people has ever shown itself so strict in the performance of religious duties.

The pilgrims of Benares, of Jagannath, and of the great pagodas of the south of India, must still be estimated at hundreds of thousands annually. The celebrated places of pilgrimage are most frequently common to the two great sects. Vishnuites and Sivaites mingle on the solemn day; even Mussulmans sometimes come, not through a motive of curiosity, but for a pious end and to perform a meritorious work.