The Dalles times-mountaineer. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1882-1904, 1897-02-06
JIscoNTENTED WITH THE GODS
Htndoos Constantly Struggling Between
Poiytheism and E.onotheism.

Hindoos Constantly Struggling Between
Poiytheism and E.onotileism.
The gods Of India are everywhere
and yet they seem to be nowhere. In,
religion has been one long winter oi
discomfort; one prolonged struggle OF
the part of the people to worship many
gods under many shapes, while al
ways on the point of believing in one
single divine essence as the cause and
creator of all things; a hand to hand
fight between polytheism and monothe
ism, in which the priests have contin.
ually endeavored to play the part OF
| conciliators. Vishnu and silva are now
the chief contending parties, and the
| priests have tried to make them agree
by adding third supreme deity in the
shape of Brahma. OF this fact ingen-
ious searchers after collateral evidence
of Christianity have made capital. say.
ing that Brahma, Vishnu and silva are
inseparable, and that the Hindoos are
evidently in possession of the dogma of
the trinity, says a writer in the Cen
tury. AS a matter of fact this is pure
nonsense, and contains as much truth
as the parallels that have been drawn
between Christ and Buddha, Christ and
Krishma, Napoleon the Great and
Apollo. Archbishop Whately, in his
great squib, showed once and for all
the absurdity of such demonstrations.
For the chief of Buddhist institutions
was the monastery, and in no Catholic
country have the mendicant and PRIEST
ly orders ever fourished in such num-
bers, in such wealth or in such power
as they did in India during the eight
or nine hundred years which elapsed
from the rise to the extinction of Budd
hism.
The monks took the vows of poverty
and mendicaney as individuals, but the
order, as a body, owned vast estates,
magnificent buildings and untold
riches. Their error lay in severing
themselves too much from the people,
in making their religion too abstract
for popular comprehension, in leading
lives which were too secluded to admit
of any breadth of view and too well
provided with good things for any great
Intellectual activity. They have left
but little behind them worthy to be
ranked as literature. In countries
where people live much in the open air,
dress simply when they dress at all and
eat what they can get, it requires little
effort of imagination or skill of pen to
make them seem as primitive as one
pleases. As a matter of fact, where it
is very easy to live, or, at least, where
little thought or labor is requisite to
obtain the means of living, nation en-
dowed with any natural activity is very
likely to devote it's energies to intel
lectual pursuits; and the result is sure
to be state of national thought which,
in despite of scanty clothing and rice
for breakfast, dinner and supper, will |
turn out the very reverse of primitive. |
India is such country, and, SO far as
.he Aryans are concerned, always has |
been. What it was before the Aryan |
we have no means of know
ng, but it is not at all likely that the |
modern religions and customs belonged |
20 the aborigines prior to that date. 1t
eems much more natural to suppose
hat the Vedic hymns and the Vedic
aith-if we may SO call it-were at all
lines the exclusive property of the
higher class of Aryans and that popu-
ar religions existed among the masses,
IS they do now, simultaneously with
he highly-civilized belief of the Vedic
'rahmans. The word brahmana, as
designating a member of the ppiestly
aste distinguished from the brahman,
he officiating priest and singer of the
acred verses), is found only in the very
atest of the hymns, showing that no
uch distinction was necessary before
he fusion of the classes which proba-
ly accompanied the southwark migra-
ion.