A HISTORY OF RELIGION

EAST AND WEST

 By the same author

The Significance of Satan (s.P.C.K.)

Buddhism and the Mythology of Evil (ALLEN AND UNWIN)
Buddha, Marx and God (MACMILLAN)
Prophetic Religion (MACMILLAN)
A History
of Religion
East and West

AN INTRODUCTION AND INTERPRETATION

Trevor Ling
SENIOR LECTURER IN COMPARATIVE RELIGION
UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS

Palgrave Macmillan
1968
 © Trevor Ling 1968
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1968

Published by
MACMILLAN AND CO LTD
Little Essex Street London wc2
and also at Bombay Calcutta and Madras
Macmillan South Africa (Publishers) Pty Ltd Johannesburg
The Macmillan Company of Australia Pty Ltd Melbourne
The Macmillan Company of Canada Ltd Toronto
StMartin's Press Inc New York
ISBN 978-0-333-10172-8 ISBN 978-1-349-15290-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-15290-2
Contents
Acknowledgements xv
Introduction xvii
Chronological Table xxv
CHAPTER ONE: NOMADS, PEASANTS AND KINGS I
1.1 Religion in the early city-civilisations ofAsia I
1.10 The area of concern
1.11 The making of Mesopotamia's civilisation
1.12 Religious aspects of Mesopotamia's civilisation
1.13 The civilisation ofEgypt
1.14 The religious aspect of Egyptian civilisation
1.15 Kingship, myth and ritual in the ancient Near East
1.16 Myth, ritual and magic
1.17 Magical rituals and creation myths
1.18 The Indus valley civilisation
1.19 Religious aspects of the Indus valley civilisation
1.2 Out ofMesopotamia and out ofEgypt I2
1.20 The significance oflsrael
1.21 Weber's view of the essence oflsrael's religion
1.22 Sources for the study oflsrael's religion
1.23 The earliest outline oflsrael's history
1.24 The patriarchal background to Israel's beginnings
1.25 The status of creation-beliefs among the Hebrews
1.26 The distinctive character ofYahwism
1.27 The event of the Exodus
1.28 The prophetic role of Moses
1.29 Prophetic interpretation ofhistorical events

1.3 Religion in India during the early Vedic period (1500-1000

B.c. approx.) 25
1.30 Pre-Aryan India
1.31 Religious features of pre-Aryan India
1.32 The Dravidians and the notion ofkarma
1.33 The coming of the Aryans
vi ~ontents

1.34 The gods of the ~g-veda

1.35 Vedic sacrifice
1.36 Career patterns ofthe Vedic gods
1.37 The importance oflndra
1.38 Indo-Aryan social structure
1.39 Aryan expansion eastwards
1.4 Yahweh and the Hebrew monarchy, to 926 B.C. 36
1.40 The Settlement, and the emerging tension in Yahwistic religion
1.41 Yahwism, and Israel's territorial integrity
1.42 The theocratic character ofthe Israelite league
1.43 Early demands for a monarchy
1.44 Samuel, and the twilight ofYahwistic theocracy
1.45 The controversy over kingship
1.46 The reign of Saul
1.47 The reign ofDavid
1.48 ThereignofSolomon
1.49 Yahwistic religion during the early monarchy
1.5 Religion in India during the later Vedic period (1000-500 B.c.
approx.) 48
1.50 The Dravidianisation ofAryan culture
1.51 Religious speculation in the later Vedic age
1.52 The brahmans and the cosmic order
1.53 The concept ofrta, or cosmic law
1.54 The Brahmat}.as
1.55 The emergent caste system
1.56 The forest-dwellers
1.57 The emergence of the Up~ads
1.58 The religious ideas of the Up~ads
1.59 The Atharva-veda
Summary and comment on ~hapter One 58

CHAPTER Two: PROPHETS AND PHILOSOPHERS 62

2.1 The prophetic tradition ofIsrael (926-520 B.c.) 62
2.10 The parting ofthe ways within Hebrew religion
2.11 Prophetic opposition to the monarchy
2.12 The significance ofElijah
2.13 Hebrew prophets ofthe eighth century B.C.
2.14 The prophets and the corruption ofworship
Contents vu
2.15 The prophets and social corruption
2.16 The prophets and political opportunism
2.17 The traditionalist character ofeighth-century prophecy
2.18 The growth of the idea of God as potentate
2.19 The divine monarch, and the Hebrew idea ofsin
2.2 Zarathustra, the prophet ofIran (618-541 B.C. approx.) 75
2.20 The historical importance ofZarathustra
2.21 Light from the East?
2.22 Zarathustra as prophet-reformer
2.23 Zarathustra's cosmic dualism
2.24 The special nature ofZoroastrian dualism
2.25 The question ofthe originality ofZarathustra's dualism
2.26 The social factor in Zarathustra's dualism
2.27 The ethical element in the religion ofZarathustra
2.28 Zoroastrian eschatology
2.29 The Zoroastrian sacrament

2.3 Gautama the Buddha, the prophet ofIndia (563-483 B.c.) 83

2.30 The social situation in fudia in the sixth century B.C.
2.31 The Buddha, his life and ministry
2.32 The essentials of early Buddhist doctrine
2.33 The Buddhist way
2.34 Buddhist monks and laymen
2.35 Nibbana, the Buddhist summum bonum
2.36 The Buddhist ideal: the man who is nibbuta
2.37 Nibbana as transcendent
2.38 The social dimension ofBuddhist doctrine
2.39 The significance of the Buddhist Sangha

2.4 The sophistication ofprimitive religion 98

2.40 The emergence ofJainism
2.41 Distinction ofJainism from Brahmanism
2.42 Distinction ofJainism from Buddhism
2.43 Confucius
2.44 Confucius and the popular religion of ancient China
2. 45 Popular religion in ancient China: ancestors and nature-spirits
2. 46 The Chinese state cult
2. 47 Taoist development of primitive Chinese religion
2.48 The religion ofancient Japan
2. 49 The development ofstate Shinto

Summary and comment on Chapter Two 108

viii Contents

CHAPTER THREE: SCRIBES, MONKS AND PRIESTS III

3.1 judaism from the Exile to the Fall of Jerusalem (587 B.C.-
70 C.E.) III
3.10 Historical perspective
3.11 Religious devdopments during the Exile
3.12 The revival of the priestly tradition
3.13 The growing importance of the Torah and the scribes
3.14 The emergence of dualistic ideas
3.15 Greek rule and Jewish resistance
3.16 Jewish piety ofthe old school: Ben Sira
3.17 The desecration of the Temple and the Maccabean revolt
3.18 Pharisees and Sadducees
3.19 Roman rule and Jewish apocalyptic ideas
3.2 Early Buddhism (500 B.c.-70 C.E.) 125
3.20 The Buddhist Sangha after the Buddha's decease
3.21 The routinisation ofBuddhist religion
3.22 The development of Abhidhamma
3.23 The Personalists (Pudgala-vadins)
3.24 The Pan-realists (Sarvastivadins)
3.25 Monks, laymen and devotional practices
3.26 Buddhism and the emperor Asoka
3.27 Buddhist missionary activity in Asoka' s reign
3.28 The Brahmanisation of the Buddhist Sangha
3.29 The early phases of the Mahayana
3.3 The reorientation ofBrahmanism (500 B.c.-70 C.E.) 142
3.30 Non-Buddhist India, from the rise of the Magadhan empire
3.31 'Great' and 'Little' Traditions in India
3.32 The brahmans at a disadvantage
3.33 New roles for the brahman
3.34 Bhakti: or Hindu popular devotion
3.35 The cult ofVishnu
3.36 The cult ofKrishna
3.37 The doctrine of avataras
3.38 Factors in the emergence ofbhakti mythology
3.39 The development ofHindu ethics
3.4 The rise ofChristianity, to 70 c.E. 151
3.40 Sources for the life ofJesus
3.41 The non-Christian testimony
Contents ix
3.42 TheNewTestamentdocuments
3.43 TheevidenceofStPaul'sletters
3.44 Two types of early Christianity
3.45 St Paul's view of the significance ofJesus
3.46 How did the Jerusalem community think ofJesus?
3.47 A possible answer
3.48 The fusion ofthe two types ofearly Christianity
3.49 The increasing importance ofRome
Summary and comment on Chapter Three I6I

CHAPTER FouR: CREEDS AND CONFORMITY 167

4.1 Christianity: from jewish sect to Roman state-religion (70-500

C.E.) 167
4.10 The Jewish basis of the Christian concept ofscripture
4.11 The development of Christian literature
4.12 The challenge ofGnosticism
4.13 Christian resistance to Gnosticism
4.14 The importance of Origen
4.15 The routinisation of the Christian religion
4.16 Controversies concerning the nature of Christ
4.17 The emperor Constantine and Christianity
4.18 Monotheism, sin and St Augustine
4.19 The beginnings of Christian monasticism

4.2 The emergence ofHinduism (70-500 C.E.) 186

4.20 The caste system: further ramifications
4.21 The growth ofHindu philosophy and literature
4.22 TheBhagavad-Gita
4.23 Varying views of the Bhagavad-Gita
4.24 The Ramayana
4.25 The Hindu Law Books
4.26 The golden age ofHinduism
4.27 The cult ofShiva
4.28 Shiva, Vishnu and their consorts
4.29 Brahmanism and South-East Asia

4.3 The Hinduisation ofBuddhism (70-600 C.E.) 195

4.30 The further development of the Mahayana
4.31 In what sense was the Mahayana •Great'?
A2 L.H.R.
x Contents
4.32 Mahayana and the Great Tradition ofHinduism
4.33 Nagarjuna and the Madhyamika school
4.34 Two new Mahayana emphases
4.35 The Yogacara school
4.36 The spread ofBuddhism to China
4.37 Establishment and growth of Buddhism in China up to
600c.E.
4.38 Mahayana Buddhist influence in Ceylon
4.39 The work ofBuddhaghosa

Summary and comment on Chapter Four

CHAPTER FIVE: RELIGION AND CIVILISATION 209

5.1 The Riseoflslam (600-750c.E.) 209

5.10 Arabia at the beginning of the seventh century C.B.
5.11 The social situation in Mecca
5.12 Muhammad, the prophet of Mecca
5.13 The religious ideas of the Meccan period
5.14 Muhammad, thestatesman-prophetofMedina
5.15 The Islamic theocracy
5.16 The four 'rightly guided' caliphs ofMedina (632-661)
5.17 Muslim religious ideas during the Medinan caliphate
5.18 Islam under the Umayyadcaliphs (661-750)
5.19 Muslim religious ideas during the Umayyad period (661-
750)
5.2 The expansion ojBuddhism (600-1100 C.E.) 232
5.20 Buddhism in China 600-1100
5.21 The Vinaya school
5.22 The Pure Land school
5.23 The Ch'an school
5.24 Buddhism in Japan, 600-800
5.25 Buddhism in India, 600-1100
5.26 The growth ofTantric ritual
5.27 Buddhism in Tibet and South-East Asia, 600-1000
5.28 Buddhism in Japan in the Heian period (794-1185)
5.29 Buddhism in Ceylon, 600-1000
Summary and comment on Chapter Five 254
Contents xi

CHAPTER Srx: THEOLOGIANS, POETS AND

MYSTICS 257
6.1 Medieval Hinduism (500-1500 C.E.) 257
6.10 Medieval Hinduism: major factors and features
6.11 The songs of the Tamil saints of the seventh century
6.12 The philosopher Shankara (788-820)
6.13 Medieval Hindu temples and monasteries
6.14 The development of Hindu theology: Rimanuja
6.15 The continuing influence ofRamanuja
6.16 Brahmans and caste in medieval south India
6.17 Further developments in Hindu theology: Madhva and
Ramananda
6.18 The Lingayata: a Shaiva sect
6.19 The Shakta cult

6.2 The Rise and Fall ofMedieval Christendom (500-1500 C.E.) 27I
6.20 The primacy ofRome
6.21 The political importance of the Roman Church in medieval
Europe
6.22 The growth of Christian monasticism
6.23 Medieval Roman Christian orthodoxy
6.24 The significance of medieval catholic theology
6.25 Religious alternatives: anti-sacerdotal
6.26 Religious alternatives: mystical
6.27 Jewish medieval mysticism
6.28 The disintegration of the Christian medieval pattern
6.29 Eastern and Western Christianity

6.3 Islam comes ofage (750-1500 C.E.) 286

6.30 The social basis oflslamic civilisation
6.31 Islam in Iraq
6.32 Islamic civilisation and learning
6.33 Islamic thought in Iraq
6.34 The emergence ofnormative Islam
6.35 The work of Al Ashari (873-935)
6.36 The Sufis
6.37 Al Ghazali and the philosophers
6.38 The Muslim Turks in north India
6.39 The diversification ofislamic culture
xii Contents

6.4 Buddhist civilisation i~ Asia Beyond India (1000-1800 c.E.) 304

6. 40 The further development ofBuddhism in South-East Asia
6.41 The disappearance ofBuddhism from India
6.42 The growing influence of Theravada Buddhism in South-
East Asia
6.43 The continuance of the Abhidhamma tradition in Ceylon
and Burma
6.44 The religious role ofthe Buddhist kings of South-East Asia
6.45 The medieval Buddhist rulers of Ceylon
6.46 Buddhist values and the South-East Asian state
6.47 The decline ofBuddhism in China
6.48 Buddhism in Japan, 1200-1868
6.49 Buddhist Tibet, 1000-1800
6.5 Religious Contrasts and Conflicts (1500-1800 c.E.) 318
6.50 Conflict within Christendom in the sixteenth century
6.51 The Catholic Counter-Reformation
6.52 The sectarian religion ofthe disinherited
6.53 The nature of the sixteenth-century Hindu revival in South
India
6.54 The proliferation ofdevotional cults in North India
6.55 The Sikhs
6.56 The interaction ofHinduism and Islam in India
6.57 The heterodoxy of Akbar (1543-1605), and the orthodox
Muslim reaction
6.58 Islam and Christianity in Eastern Europe, 1500-1800
6.59 The early interaction of European Christianity and Asian
religions
Summary and comment on Chapter Six 335

CHAPTER SEVEN: RELIGION AND INDUSTRIAL

socmTY 3~

7.1 Religion in the West, 1800 to the present 339

7.10 Protestantism and Capitalism
7.11 Evangelicalism, Agnosticism and American revivalism
7.12 Methodism and Socialism
7.13 Catholicism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
7.14 Religion in Russia, 1721-1917
7.15 Nineteenth-century Christian missions
Contents :xiii
7.16 Judaism in the illneteenth and early twentieth centuries
7.17 Jewish reform and counter-reform movements of the illne-
teenth century
7.18 Contrasting trends in institutional Christianity in the
twentieth century
7.19 Religion and the new state oflsrael

7.2 Hinduism in the modern period, 1800 to the present 364

7.20 Hinduism at the end of the eighteenth century
7.21 Ram Mohan Roy: Hindu unitarianism
7.22 Europeanised Hinduism: later developments
7.23 Reformed Hinduism: the Arya Samaj
7.24 Hindu universalism: Ramakrishna and Vivekananda
7.25 Militant Hinduism: B. G. Tilak
7.26 Modem Hindu hero-worship
7.27 Neo-Hinduism: M. K. Gandhi
7.28 Hinduism in the new India
7.29 Hinduism outside India

7.3 Islam in the modern period, 1707 to the present 378

7.30 Islamic reform: the setting
7.31 Early reform movements in India and Arabia
7.32 Some religious issues leading to the events of1857
7.33 Beginnings of a new era for Muslims
7.34 Islamic reform in Egypt
7.35 Muslim India: the late illneteenth century
7.36 Muhammad Iqbal and the Muslim League
7.37 Modem syncretistic sects: Babism-Baha'ism and the
Ahmadiya
7.38 Islam in Indonesia
7.39 Islam in the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent since 1947

7.4 Buddhism in the modern period, 1800 to the present

7. 40 Ceylon in the British colonial period
7.41 India and Burma in the British colonial period
7.42 China and Vietnam
7.43 Japan,1868-1947
7.44 Thailand in the modem period
7.45 Ceylon since independence
7.46 India since independence
7.47 Burma since independence
xiv Contents
7.48 New religions ofJapan since 1947
7.49 Buddhism and modem thought
Summary and comment on Chapter Seven 418

EPILOGUE: Religious beliefand the future

General Bibliography 431

Sectional Bibliography 438
Glossary and Index 441

ABBREVIATIONS
B.C. Before the Christian era.
C.E. Christian era.
E.R.E. Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, ed. H. G. Hastings,
Edinburgh, 1905.
Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the following firms for their kindness in allowing
me to use material which has already appeared in their publications:
Cambridge University Press, for material from 'Buddhist Mysticism'
from Religious Studies, vol. i; The Society for Promoting Christian
Knowledge, for material from 'The Buddhist Christian Encounter'
from Theology, vol.lxxix, no. 554, August 1966.
Introduction: Comparative
Religion Today
1
IT has been said that no man is so vain of his own religion as he who
knows no other. There is another side to this: no one is more likely to
be hostile to all religion than theW estern sceptic who knows no other
tradition than that of the West. Karl Marx's critique of religion, that it
consisted of the ideological epiphenomena thrown up by the real brute
facts of existence, which were economic, was based almost entirely
upon his observation of the nature and workings of nineteenth-century
European Protestantism. On the other hand, Max Weber, in contesting
this view and offering very important modifications of it, ranged over
a wide area of the world in the course of his study: ancient Judaism,
China, India, the Islamic world, as well as Europe. In the present
writer's view this method of Weber's is the only reputable course for
any scientific study of religion to follow. What is offered here, however,
does not begin to approach anything like the scale or the intensity of
Weber's comparative study; it merely acknowledges that the wide area
which Weber covered is the important territory, the territory that needs
to be explored afresh; the student is here offered simply an introductory
view of this whole area.
An extremely pious clergyman, hearing from a student that the
comparative study of religion formed part of her university course,
exclaimed with horror, 'My dear, I would rather you read Lady Chatter-
ley's Lover than that subject!' The desperate nature of the comparison
showed how strong his feelings were. He added, by way of explanation,
that at least you were aware that the Devil was attacking you when you
read D. H. Lawrence.
The same would no doubt be true of a number of other academic
subjects, and perhaps he would have been equally nervous if she had
been reading any of them. The comparative study of religion, however,
is particularly strongly disliked by a certain type of Christian. The
objection seems to be that an impartial study fails to indoctrinate the
xviii Introduction: Comparative Religion Today
student in the way the objector wishes him to be indoctrinated. This
kind of rejection by Christians of any extension of the area of study to
include other traditions is very understandable in certain cases. For there
are those who seem to suppose that loyalty to Christ means the blind and
passionate adherence to anything which in the course of history has
come to be labelled 'Christian', and unquestioning hostility towards
anything which is 'non-Christian'. These attitudes themselves demand
study. Such is the conceit of some Christians with whom the present
writer has discussed these things that when they are confronted by
evidence that Islam and Buddhism have, for example, been charac-
terised by more tolerant attitudes and greater care for minorities under
their control than has Christianity during much of its history, their
reaction is to assume that this simply cannot be true.
A fair and impartial study of religious traditions means the study of
their actual historical records in terms of the ideas they teach, the types
of personality they have produced, and the kinds of societies found in
association with them. Those who, from the standpoint of one par-
ticular religion, object to the comparative study of religion immediately
raise the suspicion that they have something to hide: that their faith
does not bear scrutiny alongside others, or that its historical record
needs to be hushed up. If this is so, then the plight of the student who is
an adherent of that faith is parlous, whatever branch of human learning
he happens to be studying; the best advice to him would be not simply
that he should drop the comparative study of religion but that he should
withdraw from academic study altogether, give up exercising his mind
and retreat into an anti-intellectual obscurantism.
The present writer's own conviction is that an appreciation of the
many and varied waysmenhavemanifested their awareness ofa dimension
other than the temporal and 'material' can be of the greatest value in an
age which is increasingly menaced by secularism. The comparative
study of religion has a more positive and constructive role than nervous
piety sometimes imagines. But first it must be made clear what is being
compared with what. We are not here concerned with that somewhat
debased form of study in which Christianity is compared with the
'other religions', or the 'non-Christian religions'; these latter all-
embracing and rather condescending terms are still in favour with some
nee-orthodox theologians. In this kind of undertaking it is accepted
from the start that the comparison is to be to the advantage of Chris-
tianity.
Introduction: Comparative Religion Today :xix
At a more respectable academic level comparative religion did mean,
and to some extent still does mean, a study of the interrelationships of
the major systems of religious thought and of the way in which the
diffusion of religious themes and ideas has taken place. For there is a
great deal of intertwining among the great religious traditions,
especially of Eurasia. Judaism was affected by Zoroastrianism, and
together they both contributed to Islam. Islam, expanding eastwards,
hastened the demise of Buddhism from India and in turn was itself
influenced by Hinduism. Christianity reaching India from Europe had
its effects upon nineteenth-century Hindu and Islamic revival move-
ments, and in Ceylon had the effect of an antibody to stimulate Bud-
dhism to a recovery of its own intrinsic ideas. In recent decades Asian
religious thought, particularly Buddhist, has had subtle effects upon
Western theology. The issues are not so simple, of course, as this hasty
summary of cross-currents suggests, and it is with the more complicated
and delicate mechanism of the diffusion of ideas that comparative
religion is partly concerned; this alone would provide it with a raison
d'etre.
The subject entails more, however, than the comparative study of
religious ideas. Comparative religion has in recent years, especially in
the United States, begun to mean, and needs very much more to
become, the relating of the fmdings of two separate disciplines, the
philosophy of religion and the sociology of religion, each pursued in a
world context. These two subjects, as they are at present studied, are not
always, and perhaps not often, pursued in a world context. The subject
matter of courses labelled 'the philosophy of religion' frequently
consists only of the philosophy ofWestern religion, or (even more
partisan) philosophical Christian theology. The sociology of religion,
moreover, much more advanced nowadays in the United States than in
Europe, usually confmes itself to the study of religion in contemporary
American society, although there are notable exceptions, particularly in
some of the studies of millenarian movements. The direction in
which comparative religion has begun to develop is a corrective to this,
and it is at the same time a logical advance from what was its earlier
position, represented for example by the work of such scholars as
E.O.James.
In this earlier period comparative religion relied to a considerable
extent on the work of anthropologists; indeed it was often difficult to
draw any clear line of demarcation between comparative religion and
x:x Introduction: Comparative Religion Today
anthropology. Within the field of social science generally, sociology
now tends to take over the position of importance which anthropology
formally held, as more and more of the world's peoples become in-
dustrialised and urbanised, or at least, with the growth of new states,
are organised in more complex societies. Certainly it is the sociologists
today who are active in studying and reporting on the religious
behaviour of men, on the effect which this has upon economic and
social structures, and, conversely, the ways in which religious behaviour
is affected by social and economic structures. However, in doing so,
sociology has in recent years become increasingly empirical, to the
exclusion of theory; facts are gathered from the results of field work
and from sociological analysis of the data, and some kind of immediate
conclusions are drawn relevant to the situation under scrutiny. There
is much less concern with the construction of general theories of re-
ligion and society than there was in the days of those giants and
pioneers, Max Weber and Emile Durkheim, upon whose work writers
like R. H. Tawney were able to build. The recent tendency is under-
standable; intensive development of a subject inevitably leads to
specialisation, and where circumstances virtually compel all to become
specialists, who has time for constructing general theories? Even though
Weber claimed not to be formulating a general theory, the fact remains
that he surveyed a very much wider field than any sociologist of re-
ligion has done since - seventeenth-century Puritanism, Judaism,
Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and the religions of China all came within
his purview. His American commentator and expositor, Talcott
Parsons, may be a more thorough sociological system-builder with a
lively awareness of the interaction of religion and society, but his work
does not claim to have the breadth of Weber's. We may hear from
Gerhard Lenski in great and very useful detail about the religious
situation in the Detroit area, or from Herberg about overall American
values fmding expression in the three major religious communities,
Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish, but in what academic discipline are
these related to similar researches in neo-Shintoist Japan, or Buddhist
Burma, or the Islamic society ofPakistan? More important, what other
discipline exists, apart from comparative religion, which is likely not
only to lead to a synoptic view of such studies, but also to bring us a
little nearer to a more accurate understanding of the place of religion in
the modem world?
This might be thought to be the task of what, if it existed, could be
Introduction: Comparative Religion Today XX1

called 'the comparative sociology of religion'. But such a discipline

would have certain disadvantages and limitations. For the academic
sociologist works, professionally at least, within certain self-imposed
limits; if he were required to investigate other aspects of religion than
the sociological he might consider that he was trespassing upon the
province of the philosopher of religion - or he might simply not be
interested in raising these other questions. Let the philosopher, or even
the theologian, raise them. But if the sociologist is not interested in at
least the tentative answers or findings worked out by the philosopher,
some of the potential value of the philosopher's work will be lost. And
if, on the other hand, the philosophers and theologians have not really
taken the pains to understand what the sociologist has been pointing out
concerning the interrelation of religion and society there may remain a
suspicion that their account of religious belief and religious behaviour
is as unsatisfactory as that of the purely empirical sociologist.
The argument thus seems to lead to the demand for an academic
discipline that might be called 'the philosophy and sociology of re-
ligion'. Some means would have to be found, however, both for
ensuring, and for making clear, that the subject was to be pursued by
comparative study, and in a world context. The title might therefore be
'the comparative philosophy and sociology of world religions'. If such
a long-winded title were ever used it would in fact indicate what I
believe are the present proper concerns ofcomparative religion.
To return then to the question,'What is being compared with what?'
we fmd that the word 'comparative' has here a double reference; it
refers to the fact that the fmdings of sociologists need to be compared
with those of philosophers of religion; and also to the fact that in each
case East must be compared with West; that is, the researches of
sociologists in the United States are to be set alongside those of their
colleagues in, say Japan, or India; and that a similar catholicity is to be
encouraged in the case of the philosophy of religion.
There is, however, yet another approach to the subject without
which a good deal of the contemporary evidence might not be properly
interpreted, and that is the historical. One needs to be aware of the
changes which particular religious traditions and institutions have
undergone, changes which are evident from historical comparison. One
does not understand the Hindu caste system if one regards it as some-
thing which is eternally the same, having existed as it is today from
time immemorial (the view which some Hindus take), and subject
xxii Introduction: Comparative Religion Today
only to minor modifications here and there. A proper appreciation of
the nature of caste in India demands an understanding of what it was
(embryonically, perhaps) at the time of the Buddha, compared with
what it had become some centuries later when the laws of Manu
received their present codification, compared again with what it was at
the beginning of the nineteenth century, and compared yet again with
what it is today. Similarly one does not properly understand the
religion of one's Pakistani immigrant neighbour if one attends only to
the rise of Islam in seventh-century Mecca and Medina. The modern
Pakistani Muslim is heir also to centuries of tradition which have
moulded the Islamic tradition of the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent and
have provided him with his present religious and cultural heritage.
He cannot easily shake this off, nor can we properly understand his
situation apart from this. One of the valuable qualities of Weber's work
was his historical realism about religion; he studied religion as it
actually existed- in seventeenth-century Europe, for example- and not
as what its adherents claimed for it in some ideal form which they
believed had existed in the past.
This, then, is the scope of comparative religion. The :field begins to
seem vast - perhaps too vast to be comprehended as a single area of
study; too vast a subject for any one man to undertake to study or to
teach. A little reflection shows, however, that the same is true of other
academic subjects, including those with which this one has common
frontiers, especially philosophy, sociology, history and theology. All
these demand wide competence and all to some extent overlap one
another; yet each has its own special contribution to make to the under-
standing of the world and of the human situation. So too has com-
parative religion; the student who works in this field will be aware of
his indebtedness to researchers in many other fields; he will, moreover,
be encouraged in his own special research by the conviction that this
area, too, has its own particular contribution to make, in the better
understanding of religion, and of what is happening today in the
religious life of man.

Such, then, is the scope of the study to which I have endeavoured to

provide an introduction in the present volume. But should an introduc-
tion be concerned also with interpretation? I can see no good reason
Introduction: Comparative Religion Today xxiii
why not. Textbooks which I have used with students in the past have
been more stimulating and hence more effective when their authors
have presented a subject from a particular point of view, while
acknowledging that there are other points of view and indicating what
these are. Quite frequently, the student who comes to a study of this
sort for the first time (but concerning which he may have some general
notion) is more likely to be provoked into further and more intensive
study than he might otherwise have engaged in if he is confronted with
what is quite clearly an interpretative presentation, which he may wish
either to question or to pursue further.
In the present work the interpretative comment is mainly to be found
in the summaries which follow each chapter. Within the chapters I have
attempted to present the most widely-accepted fmdings of scholars in
the various fields concerned, to indicate where fuller treatment of the
subject under discussion may be found, and, where appropriate, to
indicate the existence of contrasting views upon a subject.
In an introductory work of this character, a great deal of interesting
detail inevitably has to go unmentioned. This is true in the treatment
here of both Eastern and Western religions. Certainly, no attempt is
made to present a complete account of Christian developments of the
kind which is undertaken in that branch of theological study known as
Church History.
Christian views of the growth of the Church, in a variety of shades
of orthodoxy, are available in abundance. What is less common is a
study of Christian history in the context of the history of religion,
undertaken not from the point of view of Christian confessionalism,
but in relation to the study of the history of other religious movements.
Some Christians, as we have noted, do not regard this kind of under-
taking with much favour, especially if they happen to hold the view
that the Christian Church is unique and therefore not to be compared
with 'other religions'. But Hindu institutions and ideas also are unique;
so are Buddhist and Muslim religious practices and ideas. There is, for
example, nothing quite like the Sangha, or the doctrine of anatta, out-
side Buddhism. Others, hostile to Christianity, view the history of the
Christian Church as valuable only in confrrming their own view that
Christianity has been an impediment to human progress. There is,
nevertheless, value in the kind of appreciative and sympathetic study of
Christian religious history that a discerning and thoughtful religious
man of Asia, say a Hindu or a Buddhist, might engage in; this would be
xxiv Introduction: Comparative Religion Today
the sort of study which would aim at sifting out, from among the
European vanity and prejudice which have sometimes obscured it,
what in Judaism and Christianity is of permanent and universal re-
ligious value. Work of this kind is beginning to be done, as the modem
comparative study of religion becomes an item of university teaching
and research in places as diverse as California, Jerusalem, Bengal, and
Japan. What is outlined here may help to provide some indication of the
kind of study which needs increasingly to be undertaken, and may, it is
hoped, stimulate others to enter more thoroughly into this area of great
potential importance within the general field of liberal and humane
studies.
Chronological Table

B.C.
1700 Hammurabi king ofBabylon
1500 (approx) Aryan tribes invade north-west India
1230 (approx) Exodus ofHebrew tribes from Egypt under Moses
1200-1025 Period of Hebrew settlement in Canaan and the amphictyony
oflsrael
1000 (approx) Composition oflater B.g-vedic hymns (cosmogonic)
1025 Beginning ofHebrew monarchy: Saul
1006 Beginning of reign ofDavid.
960 Beginning of reign of Solomon
922 End of Solomon's reign: division of the Hebrew kingdom
900-700 Composition ofBrahma~as
750 (approx) Beginning of prophetic activity of Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah
721 Fall of Samaria and end of northern kingdom oflsrael
700-500
(approx) Composition of earlier Upani~ads
588 Beginning ofZarathustra's prophetic activity
587 Fall ofJerusalem and end of southern kingdom ofJudah: exile
ofleaders to Babylon
563(?) Birth ofBuddha
551(?) Birth of Confucius
541 Death ofZarathustra
538 Cyrus captures Babylon. Beginning of Persian period in Near
East. Jews begin to return to Jerusalem
520 Darius allows more Jews to return
515 Dedication of rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem
483(?) Death of the Buddha
479(?) Death of Confucius
468(?) Death ofMahavira, founder ofJain movement
445 Rebuilding of the walls ofJerusalem begun
400 (approx) Ezra active in Judah
383 Buddhist Council at Vesali
331 Alexander conquers Palestine. Beginning of period of Greek
rule
327-325 Alexander in north-west India
XXVI Chronological Table
270 (approx) Beginning of emperor Asoka' s reign in India
250 Buddhist Council at Patna, under ASoka
Hebrew Pentateuch translation into Greek begun at Alexandria
232 End of Asoka' s reign
175 Beginning of the reign of Antiochus IV (Epiphanes)
168 Antiochus IV persecutes Jews and desecrates Temple at
Jerusalem
167 Revolt led by Judas Maccabeus
165 Cleansing and rededication ofTemple in Jerusalem
155-130 Menander, Indo-Greek king of north-west oflndia (Milinda)
63 Pompey captures Jerusalem. Beginning of period of Roman
rule
50 (approx) Commencement ofRoman trade with southern India

C.E. Birth ofJesus ofNazareth

33(?) Crucifixion ofJesus ofNazareth
Beginning of growth of the Christian sect
65 Persecution of Christians in Rome under Nero
? Mission ofThomas the Apostle to India
70 Fall ofJerusalem, and destruction by the Romans
115 Martyrdom in Rome ofSt Ignatius, bishop of Antioch
150 (approx) Buddhist monks and missionaries enter China
180 (approx) St lrenaeus bishop ofLyons. Anti-Gnostic writings
186 (approx) Birth of Origen, Christian theologian and philosopher
216 Birth of Manes, inaugurator ofManichaeism
271 Death of Origen
313 Christians granted equality of rights by emperor Constantine
320 Beginning of the Gupta dynasty in India
325 Council ofNicaea, under presidency of Constantine
346 Death ofPachomius, founder of Christian monastic settlements
in Egypt
354 Birth ofSt Augustine
387 Baptism of Augustine
395 Augustine made bishop ofHippo
410 Sack ofRome by Visigoth king Alaric
430 Invasion ofNorth Africa by Vandals. Death of Augustine
520 Arrival in China of Bodhidharma, traditional founder of Ch'an
school
550 (approx) Buddhism introduced into Japan
570 Birth of Muhammad, the Prophet
593-621 Shotoku, Buddhist ruler ofJapan
610 (approx) Beginning of Muhammad's prophetic activity in Mecca
Chronological Table xxvii
622 Year ofHijra (migration to Medina)
629-645 Chinese pilgrim Hsuan-tsang in India
630 Submission of Mecca to Muhammad
632 Death of Muhammad. Abu Bakr becomes successor (caliph)
634 Death of Abu Bakr; succeeded by Umar
644 Death ofUmar; succeeded by Uthman
656 Death of Uthman; succeeded by Ali. Ali's claim disputed by
Mu'awiya
661 Assassination of Ali. Mu'awiya proclaimed caliph
671-695 Chinese pilgrim 1-Tsing in India
711 Arab Muslims under Tariq enter Spain
Beginning of Arab conquest of Sind, north-west India
750 (approx) Introduction of Vajrayana Buddhism to Tibet by Padma
Sambhava
788 Birth ofHindu philosopher Shankara
803 Tendai Buddhism introduced to Japan by Saicho
820 Death ofShankara
845-847 Persecution ofBuddhists in China by Tang emperor
849 Founding of the Burmese kingdom ofPagan
873 Birth of Al Ashari, Muslim theologian
925 Death of Al Ashari
970 Founding by Fatirnids of city of Al Qahira (Cairo)
972 Printing of the Buddhist Tripitaka in China
1000 (approx) Beginning of Muslim Turk raids on Punjab
Atisha' s mission to Tibet
1033 Birth ofSt Anselm
1044 Founding of the Pagan dynasty in Burma by Anawratha
1054 Patriarch of Constantinople excommunicated by Rome. Final
schism between Eastern and Western Christian Churches
1055 Baghdad taken by Seljuq Turks
1058 Birth of Al Ghazali, Muslim theologian and mystic
1093 Anselm becomes Archbishop of Canterbury
1096 First Crusade arrives in Constantinople
1109 Death of Anselm
1111 Death of Al Ghazali
1135 Birth ofMaimonides
1184 W aldenses anathematised by Rome
1191 Rinzai Zen Buddhism introduced into Japan from China
1200 (approx) Final disappearance ofBuddhism from India
1204 DeathofMaimonides
1206 Founding of the Sultanate ofDelhi by Aibak
1222 Birth ofJapanese Buddhist, Nichiren
XXVlll Chronological Table
1225 Birth ofSt Thomas Aquinas
1228 Soto Zen Buddhism introduced into Japan from China
1274 Death ofSt Thomas Aquinas
1280 Establishment of Mongol rule in China by Kublai Khan
1283 Death ofNichiren
1285 Fall ofBaghdad to Mongol Turks. End of caliphate
1287 End ofPagan dynasty in Burma
1329 Eckhart condemned by Papal Bull
1336 Establishment of the South Indian Kingdom ofVijayanagar
1440 Birth ofKabir in Banaras
1453 Conquest of Constantinople by Ottoman Turks
1469 Birth of Guru N anak, founder of Sikhism
1483 Birth of Martin Luther
1485 Birth of Chaitanya
1491 Birth ofSt Ignatius Loyola
1517 Beginning of the Protestant Reformation at Wittenberg
1532 Birth ofTulasi Dasa
1540 Founding by Ignatius Loyola of the Society ofJesus
1542 St Francis Xavier sent by Ignatius to Asia
1543 Birth of Akbar, Mughal emperor
1545 Council ofTrent begins meeting
1546 Death of Martin Luther
1549 Francis Xavier arrives in China
1556 Akbar becomes Mughal emperor
1603 Beginning ofTokugawa regime in Japan
1605 Death ofMughal emperor Akbar
1666 Birth of Guru Gobind Singh, Sikh leader
1702 Birth of Shah W ali Allah ofDelhi, Muslim reformer
1703 Birth ofJohn Wesley
Birth of AI Wahab, Muslim reformer of Arabia
1721 Peter the Great of Russia's Spiritual Regulation of Orthodox
Church
1729 Birth of Moses Mendelssohn, Jewish reformer and transformer
1772 Birth ofR:'im Mohan Roy, Hindu reformer
1773 Society ofJesus suppressed by the Pope
1791 Jews granted equal rights with Christians in France
Death ofJohn Wesley
1792 Death of AI Wahab
1793 •The Terror': persecution of Catholics in France
1809 Pope imprisoned by Napoleon
1810 Jewish Reform Temple built in Brunswick
1815 Pope released from imprisonment. Society ofJesus reinstated
Chronological Table xxix
1815 Christian missionary activity begins to be permitted in British
India
1818 Birth ofKarl Marx
1820 Muslim reform movement in Bengal
1827 Founding ofBrahma Samaj movement by Ram Mohan Roy
1829 Catholic Emancipation in Britain. Birth ofWilliam Booth
1833 Beginning of Oxford Movement in Church of England
1834 Birth ofRamakrishna
1845 John Newman enters Roman Catholic Church
1854 Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary declared an article
offaith
1859 Publication ofDarwin's Origin ofSpecies
1858 End of Mughal rule in India. Beginning of expansion of
Christian missionary activity in Asia
1864 Syllabus ofErrors published by Roman Catholic Church
1865 Founding of the Salvation Army
1868 End ofTokugawa regime: Japan opened to the West
1869-1870 Vatican Council. Birth ofM. K. Gandhi
1875 Founding of the Arya Samaj
1885 End ofBurmese Buddhist kingdom of Mandalay
1886 Death ofRamakrishna
1891 Founding ofMaha Bodhi Society
1893 Parliament ofReligions in Chicago
1896 Zionist Congress in Basle
Founding ofRamakrishna Mission by Vivekananda
1906 Founding of the Muslim League in India
1910 Christian missionary conference at Edinburgh
1912 Founding ofMuhammadiya movement in Indonesia
1930 Muhammad Iqbal president of Muslim League
1938 Death of Muhammad Iqbal
1941 Founding ofJama' at-i-Islami movement in Muslim India
1948 Murder ofM. K. Gandhi by Hindu extremist
World Council of Churches founded at Amsterdam
1950 World Fellowship ofBuddhists founded in Ceylon
1956 'Sixth' World Buddhist Council in Rangoon
...

1 N D J A

ARABIAN

SEA

OAjanm
{Buddhist _Cr::r'lf!
Monasteries}
Ancient sites- o
0 100 200 300 •POONA
MILES

North-West India and West Pakistan

I Nomads, Peasants
and Kings
1.1 RELIGION IN THE EARLY CITY-CIVILISATIONS
OF ASIA

1.10 The area ofconcern

'NOT in innocence, and not in Asia, was mankind born.' Such is the
contention of a recent writer on the subject of man's animal origins, as
he presents evidence to show that man first emerged as man somewhere
in the African highlands (Ardrey, 1961; 9). Whether mankind was born
in innocence, and subsequently by some kind of'fall' became sinful, or
whether man evolved from a particularly murderous species of animal
and is still in the process of evolution towards some 'nobler' form of
existence, is a question on which religious traditions are divided, as we
shall see later in our study. It is however fairly clear that wherever homo
sapiens may first have emerged, it is in Asia that the roots of the present
great civilisations of the world are to be found. Moreover, it is in the
land mass which extends from the Atlantic eastwards to the Pacific,
known for convenience as Eurasia, that three-quarters of the world's
present population is contained. Here the major religious and philo-
sophical traditions of the world had their origins- Jewish, Christian,
Islamic, Hindu and Buddhist - and it is these which we are concerned
to trace.
Within the continental area of Eurasia certain regions are of special
importance in the early development of religious traditions: these are
Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Indus valley (see Maps 1 and 3}.

1.11 The making ofMesopotamia's civilisation

The primary natural importance of Mesopotamia lies in its rivers, the
Euphrates and the Tigris. The wide expanse of alluvial plain has a
climate which in the south is mild enough for the date palm to flourish,
2 Nomads, Peasants and Kings
and in the north cold enough, with its winter frosts, for vigorous
activity. The southern part of the region is the home of the most ancient
civilisation known to us. The people called Sumerians were in possession
of this territory from at least the middle of the third millennium B.C.,
that is from the earliest time at which it is possible to identify its
inhabitants. Here, it is claimed, history began; that is, in the sense of the
possible reconstruction of the story of human affairs on the basis of
contemporary records and archaeological evidence. Here were the first
schools of which we have any evidence, the first legal procedures, the
first system of ethics of which we know, the first library, and even, it is
claimed, the first 'war of nerves' (Kramer, 1958). Ancient Sumer
appears to have consisted of a confederation of cities, all of which
possessed similar patterns of culture. Each city acknowledged a god
who was the 'owner' or patron of the place. From what is known of
their mythology it has been suggested that the Sumerians came
originally from a different kind of territory from that of lower
Mesopotamia- possibly from the mountainous area oflran, to the east.
The Sumerians are usually regarded as having been more distinctively
Asian than the Semitic people who began to invade the area from about
2000 B.c. The first of these were the Accadians, whose city, Accad, was
set up in the northern part of Mesopotamia. Then came a second wave
of Semitic invaders known as the Amurru, better known in the West by
their Old Testament name of Amorites. One of the great centres which
they developed was Mari, and in this Amorite state there eventually
emerged the great ruler Hammurabi (eighteenth century B.c.) known
to us best for the law code associated with his name. Under his rule
Babylon, a village on the banks of the Euphrates, was expanded to
become the capital city of the state. The new state included what had
previously been Sumer and Accad, and it was in the capital that the
great 'tower' of Babylon was set up (the 'House of the Foundation-
Platform of Heaven and Earth'). Such towers, known as ziggurats,
were a common feature of ancient Babylonia; on a high platform
reached by successive tiers of masonry, a temple was placed, and in the
city of Babylon this temple was dedicated to the city's patron-god,
Marduk.
One of the most important waves of invasion into Mesopotamia was
that of the people known as the Hurrians (referred to in the Old
Testament as the Horites). They came from the highlands of Iran into
the northern part of the region in the eighteenth and seventeenth
The making ofMesopotamia's civilisation 3
centuries B.C. and are of special interest in that they belonged to the
Aryan-speaking race, another branch of which invaded north-west
India a century or two later; the Hurrian invaders of Mesopotamia
worshipped gods having the same names as those worshipped by the
Vedic Aryans oflndia, such as Mitra, Indra and Varuna (1.33; 1.34).

1.12 Religious aspects ofMesopotamia's civilisation

Such waves of immigrants were successfully absorbed into the life and
culture of Mesopotamia, each perhaps contributing something to the
high civilisation of this land of cities, a civilisation whose fame was
widespread in the ancient world. There were eventually about ten
major cities, each of which was in essence a small state, each with its
own god, and each subject to the central city of Babylon, as the city-
gods were subject to Marduk. Marduk in time thus acquired the
attributes of conqueror of the world, and the gods of other cities came
to be regarded as aspects of the one supreme power. Just as each god
presiding over the life of a city-community was, so to speak, its unseen
spirit-genius, the element of continuity from generation to generation,
so Marduk, presiding over the life of the whole empire of cities, was
the supernatural focus for the life of the great community, existing
above the changes and chances of individual human kingship, and
giving supernatural sanction to the laws by which, in the interests of
justice and the welfare of the community, the human ruler, such as
Hammurabi, sought to order the life of the state.
More popular forms of religion were provided by soothsayers and
seers. These were men who claimed a special competence in the business
of divination, warning their fellows of impending calamities and
seeking ways for them out of present distresses. Here, as so often, the
raw material of popular religion was the sense of the unsatisfactoriness
of actual human existence and a conviction that things should be
otherwise. This manifests itself also in the 'wisdom' type of literature of
which there was a considerable amount in Babylonia, which attempted
to deal with such problems as apparently unmerited human suffering,
and the reconciling of this with the idea of divine justice and power.
There are thus found in Babylonian religion two prominent features
or aspects: first, that of the high god, the supernatural ruler, the spirit of
the society enduring through all human generations and providing
B LoH.R.
4 Nomads, Peasants and Kings
continuity, and so nullifying the transiency of human life; and second,
an attempt to answer problems arising from the actual day-to-day
experience of human individuals, and to provide ways of dealing with
suffering and distress.

1.13 The civilisation ofEgypt

Among the reasons for the early emergence of Egyptian civilisation
are, as in the case of Mesopotamia, its natural advantages of terrain and
climate. The southern part of the Nile valley is a fertile alluvial strip of
land set between the sides of a rift valley, which at its northern end
opens out into the wide fan-shaped expanse of the delta, extending into
the Mediterranean. These two territories, the 'African' Egypt of the
south, and the 'Mediterranean' Egypt of the north, were made one by
the necessity for centralised control of the Nile waters, and early in
history the single state of Egypt came into existence. The people of
Egypt similarly are made up of two main elements: African, of the
Somali type found in the Sudan; and Semitic, from the Arabian
peninsula. Their language also is a combination of these two elements.
Egypt thus early became one of the great 'oriental despotisms'
described by Karl Wittfogel (1957), characterised by large-scale, state-
controlled irrigation works and a rationalised system of agriculture
made possible by the centralisation of political power in the person of
the monarch. Egyptian civilisation emerged roughly contemporane-
ously with that of Mesopotamia, by about the beginning of the third
millennium B.C., but in Egypt the institution of monarchy seems to
have been more deeply rooted- possibly in African concepts ofkingship
(Frankfort, 1948).

1.14 The religious aspect ofEgyptian civilisation

Unified political power: this is the important aspect of Egyptian
civilisation for the purposes of our study, for it is clear that it was chiefly
in terms of power that deity was thought ofin Egypt. But we must now
take account of the fact that Egyptian religion includes a mythology of
many gods. The precise nature of ancient Egyptian religion is in fact not
fully understood. Henri Frankfort has described it as a polytheism
The religious aspect ofEgyptian civilisation 5
which was also a monotheism. There appear to have been two
contrasting tendencies of thought: there was the particularising
tendency, by which every local appearance of power was seen as a
separate manifestation of the divine, a separate god; and there was the
universalising tendency, by which all these were recognised as mani-
festations of one power. This was, however, seen in three main spheres:
the power of the sun, in creation; the power residing in animal life,
seen in procreation; and the power inherent in the earth, manifested in
the yearly 'resurrection' of life. The one focus of these three kinds of
power was the monarch himself, and in this way the Egyptian concep-
tion of deity came to be that of an absolute potentate and creator, one
who had by his power produced habitable and productive territory and
upon whose will the circumstances of men's daily lives depended.
Absence of clear distinction between kingship and deity: this more
than any other single feature is the outstanding characteristic of Egyptian
religion. Kingship and deity were so closely interconnected that each
shared the nature of the other. This conception of monarchy is difficult
for us to appreciate; our experience of monarchy is of an institution
which survives largely as a matter of tradition and picturesque ceremony.
Modern societies, it seems, can accept it or do without it. But in ancient
Egypt the monarch was believed to perform a cosmic role. The life of
his people and the life of nature throughout his territory was thought to
be closely bound up with his life, his vigour, his virility. Chaos might
ensue at his death if his natural successor were not immediately
enthroned in his stead; by this was understood not only political chaos,
but something more akin to cosmic chaos. The king was deity incarnate,
the guarantor of life and fertility, the upholder of the whole natural
order.
The correlation between monarchy and monotheism has been
pointed out by a succession ofanthropologists and sociologists. Whereas
earlier theorists such as Max Weber were impressed by the frequency
of the correlation in such societies as they had studied, recent modern
studies have gone beyond these impressionistic findings, and have been
based on precise factual and statistical analysis. One of the most recent
of such studies is that by Guy Swanson (1960). Swanson, examining the
evidence provided by fifty separate societies (Azanda, Aztec, Bemba,
Carib, Cuna, ancient Egyptian, etc.), found that there was a strong
correlation between societies having a clearly identifiable hierarchical
structure - that is, having three or more types of sovereign groups
6 Nomads, Peasants and Kings
ranked in hierarchical order - and monotheistic beliefs. A summary of
Swanson's fmdings is sufficient for our purpose here. A perfect
correlation, that is, one in which monotheism was always found to
occur in hierarchically-structured societies, and never in simple-
structured societies, would be represented by a coefficient of + 1·0.
A result which showed the complete reverse of this, viz. that mono-
theism never occurs in hierarchically-structured societies, would be
represented by a coefficient of -1·0. A complete absence of correlation
one way or the other would be represented by the coefficient 0. On the
basis of the fifty societies examined, the coefficient of contingency
between hierarchically-structured societies and monotheistic beliefs was
found to be + 0·81, a result which is near enough to the absolute of
positive correlation ( + 1·0) to be very impressive.
Moreover, among these ancient Egypt is a particularly strong case,
since it satisfies other general results from Swanson's study, such as that
monotheistic beliefs are most likely to occur in societies possessing
normally stable sources of food, that is large-scale grain-producing
agricultural societies.
Correlation must not be confused with causal connection. But in the
case of Egypt the causal factors responsible for the emergence of
centralised political power are overwhelmingly geographical, physical
and cultural. The territory itself, as Frankfort points out, is of a kind
which has much more clearly-marked natural frontiers than most, from
which political power would most easily recoil to the centre. And it is
clear that in Egypt it was in terms of such power that deity was thought
o£

1.15 Kingship, myth and ritual in the andent Near East

Both in Egypt and Babylon the life of the king was considered to be
directly related to the life of the land, its crops, its herds and its people.
Even in Babylon where the king was not regarded as himself divine, as
he was in Egypt, there was a high evaluation of the person of the king
as the god's representative.
In both Egypt and Babylon such ideas found expression in an annual
festival. The ritual associated with the festival was intended to repel the
powers hostile to life, and to safeguard and secure fertility and the
continuance of life. Connected with the ritual actions was a creation
Kingship, myth and ritual in the ancient Near East 7
myth which told of the conquest of a primeval chaos-monster and the
setting up of the ordered life of nature and of the nation. At the annual
festival the king personally played the chief role in the ritual which was
held to be a re-enactment of the creation drama related in the myth.
The common features of this festival were therefore:
1. A drama representing the death and resurrection of the
deity
2. A recapitulation of the creation story
3. A ritual combat, or mimic battle, m which the god-king
overthrew his enemies
4. The celebration of a sacred marriage between the deity and the
land
5. A triumphal procession of the victorious god-king
This was the climax of the festival, and often took the form of the
enthronement of the king. This last feature has provided the name by
which scholars often refer to this ancient Near Eastern ritual,
Thronbesteigungifest or Enthronement-festival.
In Babylon this festival marked the beginning of a new year. The
accompanying myth has become well known as the Epic of Creation:
the story of Marduk, god of Babylon; of how he engaged in battle
with Tiamat, the female personification of the great ocean, and her
demon-host, the monsters of chaos; of how Marduk emerged trium-
phant, having slain Tiamat; of how he then organised the natural order
of the universe. The story of the creation of man follows, which tells
how man was created for the service of the god. Marduk was then
confirmed in his place as 'king for ever'.
In Egypt the myth told of Osiris, the god, who was killed, and
subsequently brought back to life by Isis the goddess in order that he
might father Horus his successor. It has been suggested that this myth,
and the accompanying ritual performance, was a dramatic represen-
tation of the annual disappearance of vegetation in Egypt, when the
land was inundated by the flood-waters of the Nile, followed by the
subsequent renewal of life when the waters had subsided. Thus, Osiris
died and was hidden- but always with the expectation of reappearance
and renewal of life. In the Egyptian form of the enthronement ritual
the human king of Egypt was identified with Horus, and the previous
(dead) king with Osiris. The ritual actions of the living king were
deliberately made to represent those of Horus in the myth; the meaning,
comments A. M. Blackman, is that 'he in whom the life of his people is
8 Nomads, Peasants and Kings
centred, will ensure the fertility ofhis subjects, and of their fields, flocks
and herds' (Hooke, 1933; 32).

1.16 Myth, ritual and magic

According to S. H. Hooke, the origin of such ritual 'lies in the attempt
to control the unpredictable element in human experience' (present writer's
italics). 'The ritual pattern represents the things which were done to
and by the king in order to secure the prosperity of the community in
every sense for the coming year' {Hooke, 1933; 8). In this connection it
is interesting to note the distinction made by Bronislaw Malinowski
between magic and religion. According to Malinowski magic is
essentially practical in its scope and intention: 'It is always the affirmation
of man's power to cause definite effects by a definite spell and rite'
(Malinowski, 1926; 81). It is the kind of routinised activity in which
men engage in face of the unpredictable, that is in situations where their
empirically-based skills, such as sailing or agriculture, become in-
sufficient, 'the domain of the unaccountable and adverse influences'.
In such situations magic is resorted to, and it thus consists of'a practical
art consisting of acts which are only means to a definite end expected to
follow later on'. In addition to the acts Malinowski points out there are
also certain important sounds, to be chanted or recited; these constitute
the spell, in which the power of the magic resides. Religious faith on
the other hand is concerned not so much with producing immediate
practical effects, as with establishing, fixing and enhancing 'all valuable
mental attitudes, such as reverence for tradition, harmony with
environment, courage and confidence in the struggle with difficulties
and at the prospect of death' (Malinowski, 1926; 82).
In describing the myth-ritual state ceremonies of the ancient Near
East as attempts 'to control the unpredictable element in human
experience', S. H. Hooke is in effect identifying them, according to
Malinowski's analysis, as magic rather than religion. It is important that
in the course of a survey of religion such as we are making we should be
able to distinguish the characteristically religious attitude from other
attitudes, often closely associated and sometimes confused with it.
Malinowski's distinction between science as an empirical body of
knowledge, magic as a routinised method of attempting to control
forces present in situations of uncertainty or unpredictability, and
Myth, ritual and magic 9
religious faith as the enhancing of certain valuable mental attitudes,
although it is obviously somewhat over-simplified, nevertheless
provides what is probably the clearest guide in these matters.

1.17 Magical rituals and creation myths

A further question which needs to be raised in connection with the
myths and ritual of the ancient Near East concerns the creation myths.
As S. G. F. Brandon has pointed out, so accustomed are we to the idea
of the creation of the world in the Hebrew tradition of Genesis, that we
have come to regard the idea as axiomatic (Brandon, 1963). We have
also come to regard this idea as a necessary part of religious belie£ Yet
the origins of the idea in its traditional Hebrew form appear to be in the
ancient myths of Egypt and Babylon, and in the realm of magic.
Brandon has shown that the earliest Egyptian creation legends come
from the 'first vigorous phase of its civilisation known as the Old
Kingdom (2740--2270 B.c.)', when the country had first come under a
centralised monarchical government. Before that time Egypt as we
know it scarcely existed:
The annual submergence of the low-lying land by the great river meant
that habitation was possible only at places above the level of the inunda-
tion, while large tracts of the valley and delta must have been a per-
manent swamp, full of water-weed and teeming with aquatic life. Only
gradually and by immense labour were these swamps drained, and
irrigation works constructed to control and conserve the flood waters.
Such undertakings in turn extended the area possible for settlement and
so allowed the increase of a settled population, occupied in agriculture.
(Brandon, 1963; 14 £)
The connection between such an achievement and the power of the
monarch who had unified the country and, in a sense, brought Egypt
into existence was so strong that it is not surprising that the god-king
came to be regarded as one who, by his own will and power, had
created the land upon which his people lived. It is this idea of creation
that forms an important element, as we have seen, in the myth and
ritual pattern of Egypt, that is, in state ceremonies that are ostensibly as
much magical as they are religious. This is a subject which can only be
lightly touched upon here, but it is a question to be borne in mind in
any historical survey of religious belief and practices: is the idea of a
10 Nomads, Peasants and Kings
divine creation ex nihilo a necessary element in religious belief, as
Westerners tend to assume? We shall see that a creation legend is not a
primary feature of the formative period of Israel's characteristic
religious faith (1.20); nor is it an element of Buddhist religious faith.
On the other hand, where in Indian religion it does assume a place of
prominence it is in the context of the magical practices of Brahmanism
(1.53).

1.18 The Indus valley civilisation

It was not until1920, when the excavation of two ancient and forgotten
cities of the Punjab began, that any evidence oflndia's early history was
available. Until then scholars relied on the Vedic sacred texts (1.34),
which, so far as India is concerned, provide us with evidence only from
about 1500 B.C. onwards, when the Vedic Aryan tribes entered north-
west India. These facts need to be mentioned so that the student may be
aware that books concerning Indian religion written before 1920 are
based on the assumption that the only light that can be shed on ancient
India's religious beliefs and practices is that provided in the Vedic texts.
Since the early 1920s, however, it has become possible to construct a
picture of conditions in north-west India before the invasion of the
Indo-European or Aryan-speaking tribes. Two extensive city sites,
known as Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa, have been excavated, the
former on the west bank of the Indus and the latter on the south bank of
the Ravi, one of the five rivers of the 'Punjab' (i.e. the 'five waters').
These excavations have revealed the existence throughout a period of
at least a thousand years before the coming of the Aryans of an urban
civilisation similar to those of Babylonia (1.11) and Egypt (1.13).
Archaeological work has now been carried out at many other sites in
the Indus valley besides Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa, and has revealed
how extensive this urban civilisation was, covering as it did most of the
lower Indus valley and the Punjab, that is to say an area of about a
thousand miles in extent from south-west to north-east. It seems to have
been roughly contemporaneous with the other two river valley
civilisations, although it is possible that it emerged a little later than the
other two, and may even have been due to some extent to their
influence: an urban civilisation centring on a few large towns or cities
was probably imposed on an earlier village economy. That is to say, a
The Indus valley civilisation 11
social and political pattern which was otherwise foreign to India may
have been stimulated in the Indus region, in imitation of these other
civilisations whose fame was widespread.
The literature describing the layout of these Indus valley cities and
the kind of economy which supported them is now easily available
(Piggott, 1950; Childe, 1952; H. M. Wheeler, 1959 and 1966). Briefly,
what is important for our purpose is that by about the middle of the
second millennium B.C. this civilisation was already a thousand years
old, and in a state of decline. The type of buildings which have been
unearthed, the layout of the cities, as well as the large number of small
household objects such as pottery and terra-cotta and bronze figurines,
and articles of a mercantile character such as seals, all indicate, says
Stuart Piggott, the existence of what may be described as a largely
'middle-class' civilisation, that is one in which a comfortable standard
of living was enjoyed by the maximum number; they imply 'the
elaborate organisation of an urban mercantile class whose products lack
not only the barbaric spontaneity of the older and more primitive
cultures, but even the cheery nouveau-riche vulgarity of Early Dynastic
Sumer ... and display instead a dead level of bourgeois mediocrity in
almost every branch of the visual arts and crafts' (Piggott, 1950; 200).
There was evidently a highly organised system of central government
capable of administering large-scale building and town-planning, but
nothing is known for certain about the nature of this government.
Some scholars have suggested that it was of a priestly-hierarchical kind,
but this remains uncertain.

1.19 Religious aspects ofthe Indus valley civilisation

The main evidence upon which some reconstruction of religious
practices may be based consists of the seals and statuettes found
throughout the area. First, there are the many terra-cotta statuettes of a
female figure evidently intended to suggest motherhood; so many of
these have been found that they are generally regarded as evidence of
the worship of a mother-goddess. In some cases vegetation is shown
issuing from the womb of the figure, and this would seem to indicate
the idea of a mother-earth goddess. Second, there are frequent
representations on seals of a male figure seated in the characteristic
posture of the Indian yogin, with crossed legs. This yogic figure is
B2 L.H.R.
12 Nomads, Peasants and Kings
often three-faced and surrounded by various animals. There is little
doubt, concludes Piggott, that this is a prototype of the Qater) Hindu
god Siva, who is known as the Prince of Yogins, the Lord of Beasts,
whose faces look to the four quarters of the earth (Piggott, 1950; 202).
Third, there is evidence of the veneration of phallic symbols, and thus
of the generative powers in the natural world; this also corresponds
with what appear in later Indian practice as fertility cults. Fourth, there
is evidence of the veneration of a sacred tree; this too is a feature oflater
Indian practice, in the worship of the pipal, the Hindu holy tree. Fifth,
there is a piece of negative evidence, in the absence of anything in the
nature of a temple-building. In conjunction with the large number of
mother-goddess statuettes this suggests that the religious practices of
the Indus valley civilisation were largely domestic; this too corresponds
with the major emphasis in later Hindu practice, even when temples do
begin to play some part.
These similarities between the religious practices of the Indus valley -
the mother-goddess, the yogic god, the phallic emblem, the sacred tree,
the domestic emphasis - are of great interest, especially in view of the
characteristic conservatism of religion in India. It may be suggested,
therefore, that the Hindu cults of the post-Buddhist period do not
constitute a new development, but something which in essence is to be
found at least two thousand years earlier.
Little is known, or can be reconstructed, concerning the religious
ideas of the Indus civilisation. One of the major obstacles here is that the
script which appears on the objects discovered is unlike any other of the
ancient world, and is so far undeciphered.

1.2 OUT OF MESOPOTAMIA AND OUT OF EGYPT

1.20 The significance oflsrael

Within the whole context of ancient oriental history, Israel's place is
very small; certainly it was of much less importance in the ancient
world than it has come to be regarded subsequently, because of what
has developed out of the religion of Israel. Even within the context of
the history of the ancient Near East, the great names are Egypt,
Babylon, Assyria, while Israel's role is of minor importance. Neverthe-
The significance ofIsrael 13
less, from the religious life of a small confederation of tribes have
developed, historically, the major religions of the Western world:
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; the religious ideas of the Old
Testament have, for better or worse, heavily influenced the religious
thought of Europe and America. The three major systems just mentioned
together constitute most of the Western stream of religious tradition,
and are sometimes grouped in contrast to the other religions of the
world, especially those oflndia, namely Hinduism, Buddhism,Jainism,
and Sikhism. That there are some real differences of emphasis and
outlook between these two groups or traditions cannot be denied; how
these differences are to be identified or characterised, however, is not
easy to decide. Some call the Western tradition prophetic, in contrast
to the Eastern tradition which they describe as mystical (Zaehner, 1959).
But the religion of the Buddha also has claims to the title 'prophetic'and
was so regarded by the German sociologist of religion, Max Weber.
Some have characterised the Western tradition as monotheistic in
contrast to the Eastern tradition as pantheistic. Yet there is a strong and
important element of monotheism in the religion of India, which
receives classic formulation in the thought of the Hindu theologians
Ramanuja, Ramananda and others (6.14-6.17), although it did not
begin with them. For these and other reasons it is difficult to find any
clear differential factor between what are broadly the original religious
traditions of West and East, and even these now overlap one another
geographically. This overlapping came about, first, by the large-scale
missionary expansion of Islam into Asia from the eighth century
onwards, to be followed later by Christianity; and then in modem
times by the missionary expansion of the Hindu and Buddhist systems
into the Western world. It is therefore inappropriate to speak of the
religious tradition of the West as monotheistic, or prophetic, and that
of the East as pantheistic, or mystical, as some people especially in the
West are inclined to do (and more especially ifwhen they call something
pantheistic or mystical they are thereby indicating its inferiority to what
is monotheistic and prophetic). All that can strictly be said of these two
broad streams of religious tradition is that one stream has its most
important single source in Israel and the other in ancient India; both
have received considerable accessions of thought and practice from
elsewhere in the course of their progress through history.
14 Nomads, Peasants and Kings

1.21 Weber's view ofthe essence ofIsrael's religion

Another important distinction between the religious beliefs and
practices (especially the latter) of East and West was that made by Max
Weber in his studies in the sociology of religion. According to Weber
there is a fundamental contrast between oriental and occidental
religion; the former he sees as being characterised by contemplative
mysticism, and the latter by ascetic activism. He contrasts the attitude
found among Hindus with that of the Jews:
Ritually correct conduct, i.e. conduct conforming to caste standards,
earned for the Indian pariah castes the premium of ascent by way of
rebirth in a caste-structured world thought to be eternal and unchange-
able.••• For the Jew the religious promise was the opposite. The social
order of the world was conceived to have been turned into the opposite
of that promised for the future, but in the future it was to be overturned
so that Jewry could be once again dominant. The world was conceived
as neither eternal nor unchangeable, but rather as having been created.
Its present structures were a product of man's activities, above all those
of the Jews, and ofGod'sreaction to them. (Weber, 1952; 3ff.)

Weber thus sees the cultural heritage of the religion of Israel for the
West as that of 'a highly rational religious ethic of social conduct',
which, he considers, was 'worlds apart from the paths of salvation
offered by Asiatic religions'. This alleged contrast is one of the important
issues in the modem comparative study of religion, and we shall return
to it later. Briefly, it may be observed at this point that Weber's
contrast, made in the opening pages of his Ancient Judaism, is far from
satisfactory as it stands for the following reason. The religion of Israel
was not a simple, uncomplicated 'rational religious ethic', as Weber
himself acknowledges. What he is here describing is the religious
attitude exemplified and commended by the ethical prophets of Israel;
over against it and in continual opposition to it was the other major
element of Israelite religion concerned with monarchy and magic.
Precisely the same dichotomy is to be observed in Indian religion,
between the ritualistic, monarchy-supporting, priestly tradition of
Brahmanism, and the rejection of this in the ethical-prophetic move-
ments of Jainism and Buddhism. Weber's sources of information on
Indian religion were not as rich as those he was able to use for Judaism,
as we shall see; and his genius for making conceptual structures and
Weber's view ofthe essence ofIsrael's religion 15
then applying them to actual religious systems seems to have led him
astray to some extent. One further point which can be made here is
that the religion oflsrael bequeathed something else to Western culture
besides a rational religious ethic; something equally important, far-
reaching and possibly disastrous in its consequences all through Western
history- the idea of the holy war. Out of the earliest most formative
period of Israel's history comes the idea of a god who fights for his
people against their enemies, an idea which has, in the eyes of those
Jews, Christians and Muslims who have been influenced by it, provided
legitimation for various courses of international, inter-cultural, and
inter-religious violence, right up to the present day where its influence
is still at work in such policies as those which aim at destroying
communism in Asia by military might.

1.22 Sources for the study ofIsrael's religion

The main source for the study of the religion of ancient Israel is the
Old Testament. This, however, is itself a collection of documents of
various kinds whose origins range over a period of about a thousand
years, so that the evidence of each part has to be used with discrimina-
tion, after its historical reliability has been evaluated. It has to be
supplemented by and compared with certain other sources of historical
evidence. The most important of these extra-Biblical sources are as
follows.
1. The Egyptian execration texts. These consist of a large number of
fragments of earthenware pots on which had been inscribed certain
magical formulae in execration of Egypt's enemies, and which had
then been smashed (to make the formulae effective). Their value as
historical evidence lies in the fact that they give the names of rulers
and places in the ancient Near East in the early centuries of the
second millennium B.c. They have, says W. F. Albright, 'illumi-
nated the political and demographic situation within the Egyptian
empire in Asia (Palestine, Phoenicia and Southern Syria) to a
previously unimagined degree.'
2. The Mari Texts. These relate to a period probably just after that
referred to in the Execration Texts. They consist of some 20,000
tablets and fragments comprising the official records of the kings
of Mari (1.11), at that time a powerful state; the texts provide
16 Nomads, Peasants and Kings
valuable evidence of the international Near Eastern culture of the
period (Bright, 1959; 50£).
3. The El Amarna tablets. These consist of about 400 clay tablets
dating from about the fourteenth century B.C. They began to be
discovered in 1887 in a mound, or tell, at El Amarna in upper
Egypt, where there was once a palace of one of the Pharaohs.
Their value lies in the fact that they consist of items of imperial
correspondence in the international script and language of the
time, namely Babylonian, and throw considerable light. on the
background oflsrael's early history.
4. The Riis Shamra tablets. These, too, belong to approximately
the fourteenth century B.c., and provide a rich source of Canaanite
religious literature in the form of epics (Rowley, 1951; 30-4).
5. Various other sources of archaeological evidence relating to the
period of Israel's origin and development, the more important of
which are: the Code of Hammurabi, the Babylonian Epics, and
certain Hittite and Assyrian tablets (Winton Thomas, 1958).
It will be seen that there is a considerable amount of independent
historical evidence outside the Hebrew documents ofthe Old Testament,
and it is on the basis of this kind of evidence that Old Testament
scholarship now proceeds, as well as on that of the Hebrew texts.

1.23 The earliest outline ofIsrael's history

When does Israel's history begin? The question is not easy to answer,
for there are a number of different possible starting points, each of
which appears in some sense to have been the real beginning. In the
Old Testament any continuous narrative of the history of a recognisable
group called Israel would appear to begin in the book of Exodus,
although this has now been prefaced by the patriarchal narratives of
Genesis, and these in tum are prefaced by stories of what purports to be
the primeval history of the world. The early chapters of Genesis are
not, however, the oldest in point of composition. For sheer contem-
poraneousness with the events described one of the best claimants is an
ancient song embedded in Judg. 5, the Song of Deborah. Another
claimant to great antiquity is the very ancient creedal confession now
found in the book of Deuteronomy (26: 5-9), the words of which are
important enough to be quoted in full here:
The earliest outline ofIsrael's history 17
A wandering Aramean was my father [the speaker is any Israelite,
in the period after the settlement in Canaan], and he went down into
Egypt, and sojourned there, few in number; and he became there a
nation, great, mighty and populous:
And the Egyptians evil entreated us, and affiicted us, and laid upon us
hard bondage:
And we cried unto the LoRD, the God of our fathers, and the LORD
heard our voice, and saw our affiiction, and out toil, and out oppression:
And the LORD brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and
with an outstretched arm, and with great terribleness, and with signs and
with wonders:
And he has brought us unto this place, and he has given us this land, a
land flowing with milk and honey.
Here we have words which were used as a religious confession by
ancient Israel long before the Bible had come into existence, and it is
important to notice, therefore, what is said and what is not said.
Nothing is said concerning an act of divine creation; at that time
Israel's religious affirmation did not start from the doctrine of a God
who had created the universe. Nothing is said concerning the patriarchs
Abraham or Isaac; 'a wandering Aramean' almost certainly means
Jacob (1.24). Nothing is said concerning the great events at Sinai, the
making of the covenant between Israel and her God, and the reception
of the Law. Each of these points must therefore be examined in a little
more detail, together with those things which are affirmed in this
ancient Israelite creed.

1.24 The patriarchal background to Israel's beginnings

For the ancient Israelite the history of the special group of tribes of
which he was a member began with an eponymous ancestor, one who
bore the name by which the whole group was now known, that is,
Israel. Jacob' and 'Israel' are interchangeable, alternative names, both
for the patriarch and for the group, throughout the Hebrew scriptures.
Outside the Pentateuch (where one would expect to find mention of
Jacob the patriarch) there are elsewhere in the Old Testament just over
130 different references to Jacob'; in most of these the name is used as a
synonym for Israel, the nation. While Jacob' is thus not unusual outside
the Pentateuch, the names Abraham and Isaac (surprisingly) occur only
rarely. The identification ofJacob as the nation's ancestor was obviously
something very characteristic of Israel's tradition. Nevertheless, even
18 Nomads} Peasants and Kings
though Israel's history proper really begins with Jacob, the figure of
Abraham also had an undeniable importance, and in course of time the
traditions about this earlier ancestor from Mesopotamia were gathered
together and given a place in the 'preface' to Israel's history which we
now call the book of Genesis. Apart from the possibility that he may
well represent a Mesopotamian ancestry for the Hebrews, Abraham has
an importance in the religious tradition quite different from that of
Jacob. He is the ideal Israelite whereas Jacob was so obviously the real
Israelite, scheming, shrewd, full of guile (c£ John 1: 47). To say this is
in no way to suggest that Abraham was not an historical figure: the
traditions concerning him seem to be well grounded and the incidental
details accord well with what is now known of names and customs of
Mesopotamia and Canaan at the beginning of the second millennium
B.C.; moreover the fact that Isaac appears as a link between Abraham
and Jacob (and for little other purpose, if the narrative was a pious
invention) indicates that we are dealing here with real, remembered
facts. Abraham is the ideal Israelite in the sense that he represents,
especially in the view of the ethical prophets, what every Israelite
should be, or should aspire to be - a man entirely obedient to God, a
man of moral uprightness and devout faith.

1.25 The status ofcreation-beliefs among the Hebrews

Another ancient creedal confession, similar to that which is now
embedded in the narrative ofDeut. 26, is to be found in Josh. 24: 2-13.
This is similar, but slightly longer. Already the process of elaboration
can be seen at work; the process of filling out the original basic creed
had begun, which was eventually to result in the present Pentateuch.
The narrative in Josh. 24 consists of words attributed to Joshua on the
solemn occasion of the covenant with various other tribes who had not
been present at the original covenant occasion at Sinai (1.28);Joshua is
reminding the whole community of Israel, the original members and
the newcomers, of the essentials of their faith. The narrative statement
begins: 'Your fathers dwelt of old time beyond the River [that is, the
river Euphrates; thus, in Mesopotamia], even Terah, the father of
Abraham, and the father ofNahor: and they served other gods. And I
took your father Abraham from beyond the River, and led him
throughout all the land of Canaan....'
The status ofcreation-beliefs among the Hebrews 19
It will be noticed that in neither of these two very ancient formulae
setting out the essentials of the faith of Israel is there any introductory
statement concerning God as creator of the universe. For Israel, their
history began with Jacob, or possibly with Abraham. And this is how
the book of Genesis very naturally and easily divides: the historical
material begins in chapter 12, with Abraham's sense of a divine call to
him to leave Mesopotamia and journey into some new territory; before
that now stand the eleven chapters which consist largely of ancient
Near Eastern mythology, modified and adapted by later Hebrew
thought. The fact that later on in Israel's history it was felt to be
necessary to preface the 'salvation-history' which began at Abraham
with a cosmological introduction reveals the extent to which the
Hebrews were influenced by the culture of the rest of the ancient Near
East, particularly of Mesopotamia and Egypt. For it was in these
countries most notably (and, indeed, with their hydraulic-agrarian
despotisms, understandably), that creation ideas had developed.
Especially in Egypt it was the god-king who was regarded as having, by
his will and activity, created the land upon which his people lived; here
the centre of political power had indeed been the creative factor in
producing land for cultivation by flood control and co-ordinated
planning. In Mesopotamia the central power had achieved this through
an overall scheme of irrigation works. We have seen, too, that creation
stories in these lands were integrally related to a national ritual-magic
in which the king as the embodiment of the nation's life procured
through the process of the ritual the continuance of the life of this
created world each new year.
The religion of Israel did not spring primarily from such roots. Its
major impetus was not a desire for the safeguarding and continuance of
the life of the land, the crops, and the herds. The doctrine of divine
production of the land was therefore of less primary importance, as
were also the rituals by which the life of the land was yearly maintained,
although both these elements did later come to be features of the
complex which is known as Hebrew religion.

1.26 The distinctive character ofYahwism

Essentially the religion of Israel differed from that of other nations of
the ancient Near East in that it was at its most characteristic not a royal
20 Nomads, Peasants and Kings
ritual-magic, nor a popular system of divination and wisdom for
enabling men to pick a trouble-free way through the changes and
chances of mortal life (1.12), but had the character which Talcott
Parsons, in translating the works ofWeber into English, calls 'prophetic
breakthrough' (Weber, 1963; xxix).
It is because Weber's 'primary interest is in religion as a source of the
dynamics of social change, not religion as a reinforcement of the
stability of societies' (Weber, 1963; xxx), as it was in Egypt and
Babylonia, that he regards the prophetic religion of Israel as a crucial
factor in the development of Western society. We have, therefore, to
examine the circumstances in which this prophetic breakthrough
occurred. ·
Out of Egypt came Israel. A group of tribes, by tradition herdsmen
rather than cultivators, whose ancestors had perhaps taken refuge in
this land where food supply was more secure because of skilful
centralised administration, had by that same administration been forced
to toil as slaves, contributing to some of the vast state enterprises of the
Egyptian monarch. But at last there emerged among them a man of
great charisma under whose leadership they escaped from this oppressive
rule, from this land of highly organised agriculture, with its great urban
centres and massive temples which a potentate had built and where
power was worshipped. Out of Egypt came Israel, at first glad to shake
Egypt's dust from their feet, reviling everything Egyptian, and most of
all perhaps, monarchical rule, against which, it must not be forgotten,
the Exodus was a revolt. To Israel escaping there came the awareness of
spiritual reality of another kind, formulated in other terms. It came to
them through their own prophet-leader; the awareness first experienced
by him of personal encounter with a spiritual being whose nature was
supremely that of compassion, one who had heard the cry of the afllicted
Hebrews and knew their sorrows (Exod. 3: 7), and whose only name
was I am what I am, or I will be what I will be, that is, one whose nature
was disclosed in the course of ongoing relationship. Between this holy
one and themselves the Hebrews believed there now existed a firm and
unbreakable relationship, a covenant, not initiated by them but to
which they, out of gratitude, must be faithful. This became the
cohesive factor for a confederation of Hebrew tribes, including not
only those who had come out of Egypt but others who appear to have
been already settled in central Canaan, and to whom the covenant
relationship was now extended upon the acceptance by them of its
The distinctive character oJYahwism 21
implications - loyalty to and worship of the holy one of Israel (see
Josh. 24: 14-15}.
In the early creedal confession (1.23) deliverance from Egypt is the
central affirmation; around this other statements are grouped by way of
introduction and consequence. From the fact of what the Hebrews held
to have been a divine act of deliverance the subsequent statements
in the confession take their significance. Three aspects of this deliver-
ance which forms the basis of Israel's faith demand our attention:
the event itself; the man who is notably associated with the event, i.e.
Moses; and the interpretation and subsequent understanding of the
event.

1.27 The event ofthe Exodus

It is clear that later piety has been at work on the tradition concerning
the Exodus, as often elsewhere, embroidering and magnifying the
marvellous nature of the event. When the early creed found in Deut. 26
(1.23) is compared with the somewhat later and already amplified form
found in Josh. 24, it will be seen that certain features in the older
statement have been considerably expanded, in the direction of
thaumaturgy, or heightening the element of the marvellous. Deut. 26
speaks simply of' signs and wonders'; whereas in Josh. 24 these are spelt
out in detail, in connection with the Egyptian army's miraculous
destruction in the waters of the Red Sea after the Hebrews' equally
miraculous safe crossing. When the book ofExodus (a still later stage in
the development of the tradition) is consulted we find a further
magnification of marvels. In the earlier version, 'a strong east wind'
opened a way through a lagoon (Exod. 14: 21}, whereas in what is
generally regarded on linguistic grounds as being a later version, the
waters are said to stand up like walls on either side of the Israelites
(Exod. 14: 22). In what is a later tradition still, Ps. 114: 3, the trend
continues, for we are told that 'the sea fled'. Perhaps the ultimate is
reached in the treatment given to the incident by modern Hollywood
film-makers.
But whatever 'really happened' it is obvious that it made a deep
impression on those who experienced it, and the interpretation of its
significance by Moses became the central religious tradition of Israel.
The tradition that the Hebrew people had been serfs in Egypt is very
22 Nomads, Peasants and Kings
strong, and it accords with what is known of Egyptian history. There is
on the other hand the equally strong and well-attested tradition among
the Hebrews that when they entered Canaanite territory it was as
conquerors - disciplined and well organised, and thus able to overcome
the resistance of the inhabitants of the land in their strongholds. Some
historical experience of outstanding quality has to be postulated to
explain the transformation which a comparison of these two traditions
implies, from serfs to disciplined conquerors of superior forces. We
have to consider how much of this was due to Moses, and what was his
most characteristic role.

1.28 The prophetic role ofMoses

Walter Eichrodt says of Moses that he does not easily fit into any one
category as leader of the Hebrew tribes, but combines several functions:
tribal chieftain, leader of an army, priest, inspired seer, legislator.
Eichrodt considers that in the tradition of Israel it is only later that
Moses comes to be regarded as a prophet, 'when there had been time
to reflect on the analogy between Moses and prophetism' (Eichrodt,
1961; 290). But this is simply to say that the word 'prophet' was applied
to Moses only later on, when it had come into general use and when
there were a number of exemplars in what are called the classical
prophets, that is, from Amos onwards (2.13). To deny Moses the nature
or religious function of prophet is a purely arbitrary decision based on the
assumption that Hebrew prophecy occurred only from the eighth
century B.C. onwards. In fact, he has a number of the characteristic
marks of the classical prophet.
1. There is first of all the strong tradition of a profound personal
experience of an inaugural kind - inaugural, that is, to his
activity as a charismatic leader - the tradition which is contained
in the narrative ofExod. 3. The vision of the bush which glowed
as with fire and yet was not consumed; the overwhelming
consciousness of a divine presence; the awareness that he was
being personally addressed by this divine reality whose name
(that is, whose nature) he did not as yet know; the enigmatic
name which was conveyed to him in this experience- YHWH,
meaning possibly 'I will be what I will be' or 'I am what I am'
or even simply 'He who is' (the name which in the English
The prophetic role ofMoses 23
translation of the Old Testament is indicated by the word
'LoRn' in upper-case letters): all these are characteristic features
of the initial vision and 'call' of a prophet in Hebrew tradition.
In this kind of experience the constant elements are the sense of
being confronted by transcendent reality as never before, and
the sense that this reality is of a personal kind, making unavoid-
able demands and promising the individual who is thus
confronted a special endowment of the qualities necessary for
the fulfilment of the task which is now laid upon him.
2. Besides the knowledge of the name (nature) of the divine being
which comes to Moses in this experience there is also the
disclosure concerning something that is about to happen,
something which Yahweh (this is the accepted modem
vocalisation of YHWH) is going to bring to pass. This, too, is
characteristic of the Hebrew prophets; their role was to make
known something which Yahweh was about to do.
3. Moses is represented as being himself the human agent of this
happening - the deliverance of the Hebrews from their
Egyptian serfdom. This involvement in the action is also
characteristic of the classical Hebrew prophets: Elijah, Elisha,
Isaiah, Jeremiah; these were certainly men of action as well as of
words.
4. Above all, Moses is the human agent through whom the events
are interpreted to the people as the activity of God; it is he who
invests them with meaning for Israel, meaning which it is given
to the prophet to perceive.
There is, however, another aspect of the activity of Moses according
to Hebrew tradition, namely that of lawgiver. The fact that the large
complex of events which later tradition places at Sinai (the communica-
tion of the divine law and the making of a sacred covenant between
Yahweh and the Hebrew tribes) is not mentioned at all in the early
summaries oflsrael's history, in Deut. 26 (1.23) and Josh. 24 (1.25), is
certainly on the face of it a very curious fact. This has led some modem
German scholars (Noth, 1960; Von Rad, 1962) to suggest that the
association of Moses with the law-giving at Sinai is a later embellish-
ment; that originally there were two separate groups of tribes, one of
which experienced the deliverance from Egypt and whose tradition is
represented in the early creedal summaries; while the other group
experienced a theophany at a sacred mountain somewhere outside
24 Nomads, Peasants and Kings
Canaan, an experience later formulated in terms of a covenant-making
and law-giving. These two groups, it is suggested, later joined forces on
Canaanite soil, and their originally separate traditions of deliverance
from Egypt and covenant at Sinai became fused into one tradition
which was from then on common to both. According to this theory
Moses was the leader of the group which came out of Egypt and
originally had no connection with the reception of the sacred law.
There is, however, an alternative explanation for the absence of any
mention of Sinai from the earliest creedal confessions, namely, that the
sheer bulk of the Sinai tradition, and its special nature, meant that it was
transmitted independently, in a separate parallel form from the
summaries of the 'salvation history'. Moreover, it is the event of the
deliverance from Egypt which provides the basis for the covenant
between Yahweh and the Hebrew tribes; if this was not the basis for
the very powerful covenant idea, then some other event very like it
would have to be discovered in order to account for what is a most
strongly attested and persistent and peculiar idea among the ancient
Hebrews - that the divine being, Yahweh, had in some way given
outstanding proof of the relation which was to be regarded as existing
between him and the Hebrews.
On the whole, therefore, the connection of Moses with the com-
munication to the tribes of the sacred law which was henceforth to
govern their common life may be regarded as genuine and trustworthy
tradition. The prophet who made known to the Hebrew tribes what
had been revealed to him concerning the nature and purposes of the
divine being, also made known to them in precise detail the pattern of
life which this entailed for them, as the beneficiaries ofYahweh' s saving
action. Here, in fact, we see another characteristic mark of Hebrew
prophecy throughout its history, namely the insistence that to be the
recipients of divine revelation means also for the Hebrews that their
common life is to exhibit a certain pattern of ethical conduct.

1.29 Prophetic interpretation ofhistorical events

The role of Moses in relation to the Exodus of the Hebrew tribes from
Egypt is, then, essentially that of prophet, as this is understood in
subsequent Hebrew tradition. He who interprets certain significant
events of human history and points out to men the revelation of
Prophetic interpretation ofhistorical events 25
Yahweh's nature which these events constitute is, in the tradition of
Israel, a prophet. Whether or not it is proper to speak of Moses as the
founder of Israel's religion is debatable. But certainly it is with Moses
that we can first clearly recognise the emergence of a religious tradition
which is markedly different from other major religious traditions of the
ancient Near East. It is a tradition whose most characteristic bearers are
such men as Moses, who appear from time to time as inspired leaders
and interpreters of the great events of human history; who appeal to
their fellows to see in the course of events what they have seen, the
manifestation of the purposes of a personal, transcendent, holy being,
who can only be known as 'He who is', but with whom, the prophets
declare, it is possible for men to enter into a relation of personal
communion as they observe and fulfil the demands which he makes
upon them; in Hebrew prophetic religion such relationship is itself the
summum bonum, a self-authenticating experience which in prophetic
terms is 'to know the LoRn' (Jer. 31: 34). The effects of the kind of
innovation which Yahwism represented, even although the prophet
doctrine was never fully comprehended or adhered to by all of Israel,
were sufficiently radical in the situation of the time to justify the modern
description of it as a 'prophetic breakthrough'. Nothing corresponding
to this is found in contemporary Babylonian or Egyptian culture; nor
in Persia until the sixth century B.C. when something like it appears in
the prophetic activity of Zarathustra (2.2); nor in India either until
(also in the sixth century) there appear the Mahavira and the Buddha.
At this point, however, we have still to trace certain developments
which took place in India in the second half of the second millennium
B.C., that is, the period immediately before and after the events which
have just been related were taking place in Egypt and Canaan.

1.3 RELIGION IN INDIA DURING THE EARLY

VEDIC PERIOD (150o-1ooo B.c. approx.)

1.30 Pre-Aryan India

One of the earliest chapters of Indian history of which we have any
record at all, that of the Indus valley civilisation (1.18), came to an end
as other subsequent chapters of Indian history have done, partly because
26 Nomads, Peasants and Kings
of internal decay, partly because of invasion from without. In this case
it was the Aryans who were the invaders. More precisely, it was a wave
of Nordic peoples speaking an Aryan language; and this Aryan language
and culture, from the middle of the second millennium B.C., was
gradually to impose itself on the earlier, Dravidian culture, and extend
further and further into India from the river plains of the Punjab; this
is a process which has continued for centuries and is still going on today.
Because the chief feature of the process is the acceptance of the Aryan
language, Sanskrit, or at least of names and terms derived from
Sanskrit, it is sometimes called 'Sanskritisation'. Another principal
feature of the process has been the recognition of the special status of
the Aryan priestly class, or brahmans; hence it is sometimes also called
'brahmanisation'. What we need to enquire at this point is: What kind
of culture, and what kind of people were (and still are) being subjected
to this process?
Before the coming of theN ordics there had already been considerable
intermixture of the ethnic types in the Indian subcontinent: Negrito is
perhaps the earliest known, followed by Australoid, Mediterranean and
Mongolian races. The Australoid peoples are represented by small
pockets of Munda-speaking tribes. The Mediterranean element is
broadly represented by the Dravidian language-groups of South India.
Mongolian stock is found largely in the north along the Himalayan
foothills, but has spread into other areas as well.

1.31 Religiousfeatures ofpre-Aryan India

What we know of the religious practices of the Indus valley civilisation
provides a rough, rather indistinct picture from which we may possibly
infer a little about the religion of the other parts of pre-Aryan India.
The Indus valley civilisation was essentially urban; its one or two large
cities determined the pattern of its life. But as we have seen this pattern
had probably been imposed on an earlier one in which the village was
the characteristic unit of society. Outside the Indus valley, throughout
the rest of India, this village economy was probably the general pattern
at the coming of the Aryans. The village-pattern is still most charac-
teristic of India, and is even now only gradually giving place to larger,
overall regional and national patterns. A further point which we have to
note is that over most of India from at least the time of the Indus valley
The Religiousfeatures ofpre-Aryan India 27
civilisation until now agriculture has provided the characteristic basis
of Indian life. With this village society based on an agricultural
economy goes yet one more characteristic feature - the cult of the
village goddess. In nomadic, pastoral, herd-keeping societies the male
principle predominates; among agricultural peoples, aware of the
fertile earth which brings forth from itself and nourishes its progeny
upon its broad bosom, it is the mother-principle which seems important,
unless, as in Egypt, some other factor intervenes. Among Semitic
peoples therefore, whose traditions are those of herdsmen, the sacred is
thought of in male terms: God the father. Among Indian peoples whose
tradition has been for many centuries, and even millennia, agricultural,
it is in female terms that the sacred is understood: God the mother.
Throughout the more Dravidian area of South India the gramadevata,
the village goddess, still constitutes the most characteristic cult-object.
Eliade notes such names for these village deities as Ellamma, Mari-
yamma, Ambika, formed from a Dravidian root 'aroma', meaning
'mother' (Eliade, 1958; 349). D. D. Kosambi also draws attention to the
'strong, highly localised cult' of goddesses bearing names with the
termination 'ai', meaning mother: Mengai, Mandhrai, Songjai, Udalai,
and so on (Kosambi, 1965; 48).
Here then is one of the dominant features which we shall notice
again and again in the history of Indian religion, a persistent tendency
to think of the sacred in terms of motherhood. It is a characteristic
which seems to belong to the soul of India itself- or India herself, we
should say, since the country is commonly referred to by her children
as Mother-India. It is not a characteristic of the religious ideas of the
invading Aryans, whose gods, as we shall see, were almost exclusively
male.

1.32 The Dravidians and the notion of karma

Another thoroughly characteristic feature of Indian religious belief is
that of karma. By this is meant a law of moral cause and effect which
operates automatically and externally throughout the whole universe.
It is in its relation to human beings, however, that the significance of
this notion comes out most clearly, and provides one of the major
factors in the development oflndian religious ideas. At the human level
karma means that what a man is in this present life has been determined
28 Nomads, Peasants and Kings
by his conduct in previous lives. Similarly, his conduct in this life will
determine the kind of life he will lead in his next existence. This is
sometimes known as the theory of transmigration, or metempsychosis.
While it is not unknown elsewhere it is specially strong and persistent
in India. Like the tendency to conceive of deity as feminine, this does
not appear to have been characteristic of the Aryan invaders of India,
but to have been learnt by them from the peoples whose land they
invaded.
In his book, The Dravidian Element in Indian Culture, Gilbert Slater
suggested that the roots of this idea are possibly to be found in the
period when there was as yet no understanding of the facts of human
reproduction; in particular, when the connection between intercourse
and conception had not been perceived. Such was the case, Slater said,
even in modem times among certain Australian aboriginal tribes.
Among primitive tribes at this stage of development it was thought that
conception was due to the entry of a spirit into the body of a young
woman. Spirits commonly lurked in lonely and secluded places, it was
held, and young women who resorted to such places were liable to
become pregnant. The next stage in the development of the notion was
to ask where the spirit came from which thus entered the woman's
body and produced the embryo. The answer that would have been
given was that the spirit came from some person who had recently died.
In this way the idea arose of spirits passing through a series of human
bodies, through one life after another. The important development
which took place in India, however, was the linking of this attempt at
biological explanation with moral ideas, that is, the introducing of the
notion that the spirit in the course of its transmigration from one body
to another carried with it its moral guilt or its merit, and that this
explained the bad or good fortune which appeared, otherwise in-
explicably, to mark the life of the new human being. Thus was evolved
a satisfying solution to the problem of why men appeared to suffer
misfortune undeservedly or, equally undeservedly perhaps, to enjoy
good fortune and immunity from harm. If a man suffered misfortune
without apparent cause, it was because of evil which he had done in a
previous existence. If he committed countless wrongs and yet went
unscathed this immunity was only for a while; in a future existence his
moral guilt would bring its entail of suffering. So satisfying an
explanation was this theory of karma, once developed, that even when
the process of reproduction and the role of the father were better
The Dravidians and the notion ofkarma 29
understood, the idea of a transmigrating spirit which was the bearer of a
man's moral constitution persisted. This idea still does persist in India
and South-East Asia, and one of the strongest reasons in its favour, so
those who hold the theory maintain, is that no other explanation can
account, as this does, for the apparent inequalities of human fortunes on
the one hand, and the demand for justice in human affairs on the other.
To abandon this idea, it is said, would be to attribute meaninglessness
and injustice to the structure ofhuman existence.

1.33 The coming ofthe Aryans

The Nordic, Aryan-speaking tribes who invaded the Indus valley and
the Punjab in the middle of the second millennium B.C. came probably
from the area of central Asia which lies to the south of Russia. They
may have migrated from even further north. They called themselves
Aryans, a name that in another form appears in 'Iran'. What is known
of them is largely contained in the very ancient collection of chants or
hymns to the gods known as the B.g-veda, the language of which is an
earlier form of Sanskrit usually referred to as Vedic. In these hymns is
found a different conception of man's destiny after death from that of
karma and rebirth, one which has closer affmities with the ideas of
northern Europe. (It is even possible that the name Arya is connected
also with the name 'Eire', and that another branch of this same linguistic
group may have found its way to Ireland.) There was among the
Aryans when they first began to move into north-west India no belief
that man's destiny consisted in an eternal round of transmigration;
rather, those who had sinned were banished by the high god Varuna to
the 'House of Clay', a gloomy place beneath the earth, rather like the
Hebrew Sheol, while those who had lived worthily and earned Varuna' s
approval passed into the 'World of the Fathers', a celestial realm where
they lived a life of bliss.
Here we have one of a number of indications that the religious ideas
of the Aryans when they entered India differed considerably from those
of the Dravidians already settled there. Another of these is the nature of
the Aryan gods.
30 Nomads, Peasants and Kings

1.34 The gods ofthe Jl..g-veda

The prefix 'rg' means that which is concerned with praise, that is, the
praise of the Aryan gods. The B.g-veda collection of hymns, 1,017 in
number (or 1,028 by another reckoning), is arranged in ten maiJ.~alas,
or cycles. The grouping of the hymns in maiJ.~alas ii-viii is according
to their reputed authorship, all the hymns ascribed to one author being
placed together. MaiJ.~ala ix is in praise of the sacred soma plant which
is regarded virtually as a deity (see below). The first and tenth maiJ.~alas
contain hymns composed by a variety of authors, and incorporate
compositions which are undoubtedly later in date than the bulk of the
hymns; something more will be said subsequently about the more
important of these later hymns (1.52), but first we must consider the
nature of the Aryan gods as this appears in the majority of the hymns,
which belong to the earlier period.
Whereas the worship of the mother-goddess is so prominent a
feature ofDravidian culture, the gods worshipped by the Aryans were
predominantly male. Their names show that they belong to a common
stock of Aryan, non-Indian religious ideas. (The generic name for these
beings, devas, is cognate with Latin deus, god.) Varona, whom we have
just mentioned, is in his concern with moral rectitude not unlike
Yahweh of the Hebrews (1.26). The hymns in the B.g-veda which are
addressed to Varuna are characterised by a spirit of penitence on the
part of the worshipper which, it has been said, is very reminiscent of the
Hebrew penitential psalms (Basham, 1954; 237). Varona is, literally,
the 'heavenly' deity, and his name is cognate with that of a similar deity
in ancient Greece, Ouranos, the god of the heavens. Other of the Vedic
deities' names also reveal linguistic connections with Greece, Rome and
Iran. Dyaus, for example, is the sky-god who is also the father (pitar) of
the gods. In Greek mythology this is Zeus, and in Roman Ju-piter.
Mitra the sun-god is also associated with Varona in Vedic religion; by
his Greek and Iranian name ofMithras he was worshipped in the Middle
East and the Mediterranean region. Another of the powers of nature to
which deity was attributed by the Aryans was soma, the king of plants,
the source of a very potent drug which was ritually prepared from the
plant and drunk by the worshipper, upon whom it seems to have had,
to say the least, a most invigorating effect. In its Iranian form soma was
known as haoma, and in Iran too was used in a similar way. Another
Vedic deity whose name is Aryan in form is Agni, that is, fire as a
The gods ofthe IJ..g-veda 31
sacred power {cognate with the Latin word for fire, ignis). Agni was
the bearer of the sacrifice between men and the gods - fire was the
'power' which consumed the oblation and carried it upwards to the
heavens. An interesting problem in connection with Agni is at what
point he came to be regarded as the power who also conveyed mortal
man to the heavens after death; this is connected with another question,
namely at what point did the Indo-Aryans abandon the practice of
burying their dead in favour of cremation? Two passages in the -B.g-veda
provide evidence that burial had formerly been the Aryan practice
(namely, mai_lc;lala x, hymn 15, verse 14; and x, 18, 10); whereas by the
time the -B.g-vedic collection of hymns was assembled cremation seems
to have become the custom {Brandon, 1963; 310). The transition from
one custom to the other may have been an aspect of the general
Dravidianisation of Aryan culture which occurred in the later Vedic
period, about which more will be said later (1.50). But the fact that the
sacred power of fire has an Aryan name suggests that the deifying of
fire belongs to the pre-Indian history of Vedic religion. Agni is also
par excellence the priestly deity; with him especially the Vedic priest
co-operated in the performance of the sacrificial ritual.

1.35 Vedic sacrifice

The sacrificial ritual provides the raison d'etre of the -B.g-vedic hymns.
The recent tendency among Sanskrit scholars is to emphasise that it is a
liturgical purpose which has shaped many of these hymns, certainly in
the form in which they have survived, and that even those which were
not in the first place composed with such a purpose in view have been
pressed into the service of the cultic ritual and given a liturgical form
{Renou, 1953; 11). Like a great deal of Sanskritic religious literature
they are often highly allusive (and many of the allusions are now lost
upon modem ears, Indian or other); sometimes they are undoubtedly
esoteric. This may be due partly to their poetic character, in that they
embody certain inspired correspondences between the sacred and the
secular which the Vedic poet {the vipra, or, literally, the 'quivering
one') had seized upon and expressed. It may also be due partly to the
liturgical context in which they were to be used, which alone would
supply the sense which otherwise remains hidden.
It is impossible, says Renou, to reconstruct this early cult. It is,
32 Nomads, Peasants and Kings
however, possible to assert that it 'was in the charge of a priestly elite
who served a military aristocracy' (Renou, 1953; 6). It was essentially a
ceremonial rather than a private or domestic cult, although it was not a
public cult in the sense of being congregational. Its purpose seems to
have been to gratify the heavenly power or powers being invoked, and
to whom the sacrifice was offered. On the principle of a supposed
reciprocity between gods and men, the worshipper, through the priests,
offered oblations on an open-air altar specially set up in an area carefully
marked out for the purpose, and the gods in return bestowed upon the
worshipper such boons as he was seeking - victory in battle, offspring,
increase of herds, or other largely mundane benefits. But as Basham
points out, of guilt-offerings and thank-offerings, such as the Hebrews
offered, practically nothing is heard in the 13-g-veda (Basham, 1954;
239). Priestly roles in the performance of the cultus were clearly
differentiated; while one was concerned with the manual tasks of the
sacrifice another would be responsible for the chanting of the sacred
hymns, invoking the god and imploring the desired blessing, while yet
another would supervise the whole procedure. In the later Vedic period
it was the chanting of the hymns which became supremely important,
and the utterance itself (brahman) came to be invested with a magical
power, as we shall see later (1.54).
The differentiation of priestly roles is reflected to some extent in two
other forms of Vedic literature: the Siima-veda, or 'song' veda, a
collection of 13-g-vedic hymns rearranged for a priest to sing; and the
Yajur-veda, or 'sacrificial' veda, a collection of supplementary sacrificial
formulae to be used by the priest who is responsible for the manual
action. A fourth collection of a somewhat different kind was the
Atharva-veda, which will be discussed later (1.59). At this point it may
be mentioned that the word 'veda' implies something akin to 'revela-
tion'; the word means literally 'that which been (supernaturally)
perceived' ; perceived, that is, by the r~i or seer of old. These seers are
legendary and largely unknown figures, but this in no way detracts
from the revelational status which the Vedic hymns and chants are
given throughout subsequent Indian history.

1.36 Career patterns ofthe Vedic gods

The deities worshipped by the Vedic Aryans have been likened to
planets in the sky: some are low on the horizon and about to disappear
Career patterns ofthe Vedic gods 33
from view; others are at their zenith; others again have only recently
appeared over the horizon, or are in the ascendant. In the first category,
among deities already old in Vedic times and soon to be lost to view,
was Dyaus, a deity who belongs to a pre-Indian stage of development,
the great 'sky-father' of the Indo-Europeans. Another whose prestige
was waning was Varona, who is known as an asura (lord), a word which
links Varuna with Iran, for the Iranian form ahura was the Zoroastrian
designation of the great 'Lord oflight', Ahura Mazda. We have already
noted that the name Varuna has a linguistic connection with the Greek
sky-god, Ouranos. In Vedic India Varuna continued to be ofimportance
for some time, but already he had yielded pride of place to Indra, who
is undoubtedly the greatest god of the Vedic pantheon, a war-god and
of great importance to the Aryan warrior. Varuna on the other hand is
the most 'ethical' of the Vedic gods; the ideas of moral rectitude and
moral retribution which were associated with him never again attached
themselves to any Indian deity in quite the same unambiguous way -
possibly because other conceptions of retribution (karma) took their
place as Aryans became slowly Dravidianised (1.50). Another deity who
is beginning to make an appearance in the Vedic period, but is not yet
very prominent, is Vigm (anglicised, Vishnu), who seems to have
some of the characteristics of a solar deity. In later Hinduism Vishnu
becomes one of the two or three most important names for the supreme
god.

1.37 The importance oflndra

It has been suggested that the Vedic god Indra may possibly be a deified
hero, and that there had been a human warrior-leader of the Aryan
invaders of this name. Certainly he is a war-god, and Vedic hymns
ascribe to Indra the credit for the successful conquest by the Aryans of
their enemies; it was he who enabled them to overcome the city-
dwelling, dark-skinned aboriginals, whom they called the Dasas. He
was, however, associated also with the storm; his characteristic weapon
was the vajra, or thunderbolt. Even in this stem role he is still beneficent,
for it is he who looses the pent-up rain in the thundercloud and brings
refreshment to the parched earth, and thus sustenance to its human
inhabitants. The worship of a deity of this name is not confined to the
Indian Aryans, moreover; he was known as a god among the Kassites
34 Nomads, Peasants and Kings
who conquered Babylon. He is mentioned in the Boghazkoi list of gods
worshipped by the Mittani {1400 B.c.?); together with Varuna and
Mitra, Indra is mentioned as one of the gods of the 'Hurrians' {Aryans)
who entered Mesopotamia possibly from Iran. While it is unlikely
therefore that the name originally belonged to a human leader of the
Indo-Aryans, it is easy to see that a warrior-god would be likely to be
held in high honour by a largely warrior community, engaged in the
early Vedic period in the invasion, conquest and colonisation of the
river plains of the Punjab.

1.38 Indo-Aryan social structure

Rudimentary division into social classes was already a feature of the
Aryan tribes before they entered north-west India; this is the view of a
number of modem orientalists. Dumezil has argued that a threefold
social structure is reflected in Aryan mythology: the concerns of the
three classes were respectively religious and juridical, military and
temporal, and economic. Emile Benveniste {1938) also found evidence
of a three-class social system in the Vedic literature. Basham points out
that in the earliest Vedic hymns there appears to be a simple twofold
division into nobility (k~atra) and ordinary tribesmen (vis) {Basham,
1954; 34£). During the period we are at present concerned with the
priests (briihmans) were developing a special social role for themselves,
and something of a tripartite division of Aryan society can be said to
have existed almost from the time of the Aryans' entry into India.
Here, then, is to be found one of the contributory factors which led, in a
later period, to the gradual emergence of the caste system of Hindu
India.
The basic social unit was the family, and in Vedic society the family
was patrilinear, and a patriarchal system of authority was recognised.
Unlike the people of the Indus valley whose civilisation they overthrew,
the Aryans were not dwellers in towns; rather, kinship-groups of
families, each of which was called a grama, formed the usual pattern of
social organisation; as the Aryans settled down these kinship-groups
became village communities and this remained the characteristic form
of their civilisation during the early Vedic period. Families and village
kinship-groups existed within the larger context of the tribe. The tribal
ruler was the raja (cognate with Latin rex, king) who was not, however,
Indo-Aryan social structure 35
an absolute monarch, but shared the governing of the tribe with a
tribal council or assembly (sabha). The raja was primarily a leader,
especially in war and in the defence of the tribe. Even although there is
little foundation for the idea that the Vedic god Indra was a deified
hero-warrior, it is nevertheless not without significance that in this
period of conquest and consolidation of new territory the sacred was
conceived of in terms of Indra, the warrior; a deity belonging to the
pre-Indian period of Aryan tradition, he was by nature specially suited
for elevation into a primary position in the Vedic pantheon during this
period.

1.39 Aryan expansion eastwards

During the earlier Vedic period the Aryan tribes had consolidated their
position in the north-west river plains, the area today known as the
Punjab, and had probably not penetrated further eastwards than the
Jumna river (on which modern Delhi stands). During the later period,
however, the tribes moved eastwards into the Ganges valley, and
continued their advance as far as the area now known as Bihar, and the
western borders of Bengal. They do not seem to have penetrated the
area to the south of the Ganges, and it has been suggested that as the
Ganges plain was at this time a jungle-covered swamp, the Aryan
advance may have been confmed to the Himalayan foothills along the
northern side of the Ganges, where the going was less arduous and the
territory slightly easier to bring under cultivation. For by this time the
Aryans had certainly become as much an agricultural as a pastoral, herd-
keeping people. Agriculture only with difficulty established itself
among them as a respectable occupation, however, and seems to have
been looked upon as a rather demeaning activity, at least by those whose
interests are reflected in the hymns - the aristocracy of horse-riding
warriors and hereditary priests. A certain amount of intermarriage was
now taking place between some of the Aryan tribesmen and the dark-
skinned Dravidian women, and in this way a lower class of Aryan
society, less hostile to agricultural pursuits, was gradually developing.
A further factor which has to be mentioned is that in moving south-
eastwards down the Ganges valley the Aryans were leaving behind the
somewhat cooler climate of the Punjab for the hot, humid and more
enervating atmosphere of the Indian midland plain. This does not mean
c L.H.R.
36 Nomads, Peasants and Kings
that they soon settled down into less vigorous ways and into the
contemplative habits of a hot climate: the energetic way of life which
modem Americans and Europeans continue to carry on in such tropical
regions is an indication of how attitudes to work and vigorous activity
persist even when conditions are against them. But in the course of time
climate may be regarded as having had its effect on the Aryans, as we
shall see.

1.4 YAHWEH AND THE HEBREW MONARCHY,

TO 926 B.C.

1.40 The Settlement, and the emerging tension in Yahwistic religion

The important formative period in the history oflsrael' s religion is that
of the early centuries of the settlement in Canaan. The wording of the
basic summaries oflsrael' s faith which have been referred to (1.23, 1.25)
postulates a Canaanite situation ('And he has brought us unto this place,
and has given us this land .. .'). The very fact of settlement in a certain
territory which the Hebrew tribes now regarded as their own introduced
a tension into Israelite religion. How this tension arose may be briefly
outlined as follows. The basis of the unity of the tribal confederation
was the prophetic-interpretative activity of Moses. It is important to
notice that it was this, rather than the actual remembered experience of
deliverance from Egypt. Not all those who took part in the settlement
on Canaanite soil had been present at the Exodus; some had not been
born, other tribal groups had attached themselves to the main body
somewhere along the line between Egypt and Canaan. The principle of
cohesion among them was acceptance of what had been proclaimed by
Moses the prophet: namely, that there existed a divine being whose
nature was compassion, who was also the director of human history
(even although his purposes might be inscrutable), and who had
pledged himself to this group of tribes to whom his nature had thus
been revealed, and had led the nucleus of the group out of Egypt; and
that they were therefore pledged to serve him and order their common
life according to his will, together with such others as might join with
them in the acceptance of this faith. There seems to have been a
considerable accession in Canaan to the original Exodus group of tribes,
The Settlement, and the emerging tension in Yahwistic religion 37
mainly from other Hebrew tribes already settled in the land. The
incorporation of these others is probably the main reason for what seems
to have been a repetition at Shechem, under Joshua's leadership, of the
original covenant-making occasion at Sinai. This is related in Josh. 24,
and it was in that context at Shechem that the essentials oflsrael' s faith
were rehearsed by the whole company of tribes, original and newly
acceded, and were accepted by them all. The principle of unity was
thus acceptance of the Mosaic interpretation of history, and common
allegiance to, and worship of, the divine being to whom this inter-
pretation testified. The principle of unity, that is to say, was primarily
religious. This unity had also a very loose political expression from the
time of the Shechem covenant-making onwards, for the tribes who
thus acknowledged a common allegiance to Yahweh formed a religious
confederation or league. This confederation is sometimes described as
an amphictyony, because its unity consisted in a common cultus, or
worship. The fact that the tribes of this religious league also possessed a
certain territorial or geographical unity is, from the religious point of
view, of secondary importance. However, it was the defence and
preservation of the territorial area which before long became a major
consideration, and the cause of the tension which now entered
Yahwistic religion.

1.41 Yahwism, and Israel's territorial integrity

It in no way detracts from the status of Moses as a prophet that not all
the tribesmen of Israel comprehended the nature of the divine being as
Moses had done; indeed this is part of the common experience of
prophets, that their message is often only half-comprehended. The fact
that this happened in early Israel, and that Moses is by tradition
represented as being aware of how far the average Israelite fell short of
the prophetic experience ('Would God that all the LORD's people
were prophets, that the LORD would put his spirit upon them!'), at
least enables us to understand the limitations of Yahwistic religion in
ancient Israel. To the extent to which the Hebrew tribesmen had
responded to the prophetic message they had acquired a new solidarity,
and it was as a result of this that they were transformed from fugitive
serfs to disciplined conquerors (1.27). Religious cohesion had as its
consequence military success, as centuries later it had also in the case of
Islam (5.15, 5.16).
38 Nomads, Peasants and Kings
We fmd therefore that the conception of Yahweh which emerged
during the early settlement period was that of a war-god, one who
fights on behalf of his people against their territorial rivals. In the Song
of Deborah, possibly almost contemporary with the events it records,
Yahweh is described as a god of thunder, rain and earthquake (Judg.
5: 4). One is here strongly reminded of the thunder- and war-god
Indra of the Aryans. In this way the security ofYahwistic religion came
to be identified with the security oflsraelite territory, an identification
which was to have far-reaching consequences, down to modem times.

1.42 The theocratic character ofthe Israelite league

During the period following the settlement in Canaan and the setting-
up of the tribal league or confederation oflsrael, the affairs of the tribes
were largely in the hands of inspired leaders and men of wisdom, known
to English readers by the misleading name of 'judges'; more precisely,
they were 'deliverers'; an even more accurate term would be the
modem 'charismatic leaders'. The book of Judges presents a round
number of twelve of such 'deliverers': six 'minor' and six 'major'. At
first sight the minor ones do not seem to have been markedly charismatic
or to have provided much leadership; they appear more as local
worthies, persons of substance, pillars of society, men who administered
the laws, perhaps rather like justices of the peace in English society. But
their function was not quite so localised as this; they probably con-
stituted something more like a higher court of appeal, or were men
who could be entrusted with the making of decisions which affected
the tribal confederation as a whole, men who knew the law of Yahweh
and could apply it to a new situation. It begins thus to look as though
they would have needed to be men possessed of special gifts, and the
tradition linking them all, minor and major, in one category is not
lightly to be set aside. Of the same kind, although not included as one
of the twelve, was Deborah; it is noteworthy that she is described as a
'prophetess'. That is to say she was an 'inspired person', a person of
special charisma.
What is indisputable is the importance which the tradition accords to
these leaders, men 'raised up' by Yahweh from time to time, men upon
whom the spirit ofYahweh came. The fact that those who interpreted
and administered the divine law were the most important figures in the
The theocratic character ofthe Israelite league 39
community is an indication that the tribal league was virtually a
theocracy. A common cultus was the practical unifying force, and
associated with this cultus was the sacred law, and behind both of these
lay the covenant between the tribes and Yahweh. Cultus, law and
charisma; all three at this period seem to have been closely integrated
and interrelated.

1.43 Early demands for a monarchy

One of the most outstanding of these charismatic leaders was the major
judge', Gideon. In the stories of Gideon's successful defence ofisrael' s
territory against neighbouring tribes we have a number of clues
concerning popular religious attitudes in Israel as they existed at that
time. Before the settlement in Canaan under Joshua's leadership the
Hebrew tribes who were the bearers of Y ahwistic religion were
nomadic in character, wanderers without special attachment or claim
to any particular territory. But after the setting-up of the confederation
the bearers of Y ahwistic religion become also the claimants to and
inhabitants of a certain territory into which they had intruded and
where they had established themselves at the expense of the former
inhabitants ('the Amorites, in whose land you dwell .. .',Judg. 6: 10).
Their success in this enterprise they regarded as a consequence of their
adherence to the worship ofYahweh, so that Yahweh was regarded as
having 'given' them the land (Judg. 6: 9). Its sacred places were now
taken over for the purpose of the Yahweh cultus and made into
Y ahwistic sacred places. The Hebrews took to agriculture and fruit
growing, and becoming thus dependent on the land adopted the
seasonal festivals that were associated with agriculture: the spring
festival of unleavened bread at the beginning of the barley harvest
(upon which the nomadic 'passover' spring-festival was also imposed);
the midsummer festival of Weeks, at the wheat harvest (made the
occasion also for celebrating the giving of the Law at Sinai) ; and at the
autumn (i.e. New Year) vine harvest, the feast of Booths {perhaps
originally the bridal bowers of the sacred marriage between the
Canaanite god and the land), which was also made the occasion for
remembering the time when Israel dwelt in tents in the wilderness.
Y ahwistic religion, in its original Mosaic, prophetic character as the
worship of one who was the lord of history, was thus both territorialised
40 Nomads, Peasants and Kings
(i.e. it became associated with particular localities), and modi£ed in the
direction of Canaanite agricultural religion. A prophetic religious
movement had acquired economic interests; although it was not
inevitable that Yahwism should have been brought into partnership
with these economic interests, this in fact is what happened.
A further development was a need for a political system better fitted
for the defence of these economic interests than was the loose structure
of the Yahwistic cult-league. In other words, there arose the demand
for a king such as other nations had. The associations of Egypt had not
been entirely thrown off. Just as in the migratory period, in times of
hardship, there had been those who looked back longingly to the
fleshpots of Egypt, so there were those who in times of trouble tended
to see as the only solution to the problem of threats to their security, the
idea of monarchy. The knowledge of this was not only kept alive in the
folk-memory of tribes who had once lived under a monarchy, but was
also directly available to them in Canaan, since it was a pattern
widespread throughout the ancient Near East. So when one of the
tribal confederation's prophet-deliverers was acclaimed for his success
in unifying and inspiring the Hebrew tribes, there arose a demand that
he should be set up as monarch and inaugurate a kingly dynasty.
Gideon's answer to this demand is one which expresses the prophetic
attitude throughout this period: 'I will not rule over you, nor shall my
son rule over you' (the rejection of the idea of an hereditary kingship) -
'Yahweh shall rule over you' (Judg. 8: 23). Here we see, in this rejection
of the demand for a kingly dynasty, a representative of Yahwism, a
charismatic person, one upon whom 'the spirit of Yahweh' had come,
reaffirming the earlier Yahwistic principle of theocracy.

1.44 Samuel, and the twilight ofYahwistic theocracy

The sanctuary of Shiloh is given considerable prominence in connection
with Samuel. It was there, before his birth, that he was dedicated to the
service of Yahweh by Hannah his mother. It was to the sanctuary at
Shiloh that as a young child he was brought and presented; and it was
there that he ministered, assisting Eli the priest in the sacrificial cultus.
It was in the sanctuary precincts of Shiloh that there occurred his
inaugural experience as a seer, that is, one to whom were disclosed the
immediate purposes of Yahweh. One could hardly ask for more
Samuel, and the twilight ofYahwistic theocracy 41
evidence that Samuel was regarded in ancient Hebrew tradition as a
cultic figure. But he was also a seer (roeh) which, we are told, (1 Sam. 9:
10-16) was the name by which at an earlier period prophets were
known. In Samuel we have a powerful reminder of something which
has been emphasised by modern scholarship, that in ancient Israel
prophets were closely connected with the cultus; that is to say, there
was not a rigid dichotomy of priest and prophet, such as a superficial
reading of some passages from the canonical prophets might suggest.
Samuel had another role also, that ofjudge; we are told that he went on
annual circuit as a judge, a decider of difficult issues. He went from
Ramah to Bethel, from Bethel to Gilgal, from Gilgal to Mizpeh, and
from Mizpeh back to Ramah, where his home was and where he served
as priest (1 Sam. 7: 15). He is represented as a man of considerable
authority, authority exercised by virtue of his charisma and his cultic
office. So venerable a figure had he become that during the last years of
his life the question arose of who could possibly succeed him. It became
clear that his sons were not worthy successors, and this seems to have
provided the opportunity for those hankering after the establishment
of a monarchy to raise their demands once again, as in the time of
Gideon (1.43). This demand for a king is represented as having initially
met the same response from Samuel as from Gideon.
However, circumstances combined to make this rejection by the
Yahwistic priest-prophet of the idea of a monarch in Israel more
difficult to sustain. The demand was sharpened now by the pressure of
events; in particular by the hostile presence of the Philistines on the
western borders of Israel's territory. These were peoples from the
islands of the Greek archipelago, Crete, Cyprus and possibly Asia
Minor, who in the latter part of the second millennium B.c. had been
forced to migrate by the advance of the Aryan-speaking peoples from
the north (1.33). (The Aryan language in India developed into Sanskrit;
among the invaders who displaced the Philistines it took the form we
know as Greek.) One of the ways in which the Philistines were
distinguished from the Semitic and Egyptian peoples as being of an
alien culture was that they were 'uncircumcised'. They settled at first in
the coastal plain of Palestine, and then began to advance into the hill
territory of the interior. The Hebrew tribes tried to resist this advance
but were defeated in the violent encounters they had with the Philistines.
The occupation by the Philistines of the central area, until then held by
the tribes of Ephraim and Benjamin, seemed to threaten the whole
42 Nomads, Peasants and Kings
confederation, and it is probably this which explains the serious step
which was taken, of carrying the sacred ark out from Shiloh, with the
idea of ensuring the presence ofYahweh among the defenders of what
had now come to be regarded as his territory. The defeat of the Hebrew
forces, the capture of the ark, and the destruction by the Philistines of
the sanctuary at Shiloh, presented itself as a situation of the most
alarming seriousness and horror.
In these circumstances the demand for a king made itself felt with
much greater urgency, and it was within this general situation that the
decision was taken to set up Saul as king. But it was not a decision that
was easily reached, and there remained within Israel a strong current of
opposition to the institution of monarchy, which in later periods
became much more vocal than it could be at that time. Something of
the memory of the controversy remains in the narrative found in the
first book of Samuel.

1.45 The controversy over kingship

It has been suggested that in the narrative contained in chapters 9-11 of
the first book of Samuel two originally separate traditions have been
combined: one pro-royalist and the other anti-royalist. This is perhaps
to draw the distinction too sharply; it would be better to speak of two
slightly different emphases in the points of view. One represents an
uncompromisingly Yahwistic, theocratic point of view: theocracy is
the proper form of common life for the worshippers of Yahweh, and
should not be abandoned. The other is the compromise view, which
recognised the difficulties of Israel's political situation and saw a need
for some modification of the old theocracy in the direction ofmonarchy.
This view was based on the assumptions that Israel was Yahweh's
people, and that her territory was Yahweh's land, and that the
preservation of the one was bound up with the preservation of the
other. What was required, in this view, was a theocratic king, one who
would rule in the name of Yahweh, and lead Israel against her enemies
in the power of Yahweh. Such a king, it was hoped, Saul would prove
to be. His charismatic qualities were emphasised by the upholders of
this point of view - for example, in the incident described in 1 Sam. 10:
9-13. The situation demanded the handing over of centralised control
to a charismatic military leader, a servant ofYahweh. The upholders of
The controversy over kingship 43
the other point of view questioned whether it was right to introduce
the alien religious institution of kingship -associated with the religious-
state systems of Egypt and Babylon - into the life of the people of
Yahweh. Perhaps both these different emphases, found side by side
within the present form of the narrative, represent the interpretations
of two differing schools of thought in later times, both looking at the
event with historical hindsight.

1.46 The reign of Saul

What in fact we see in the ongoing course of Saul's reign is how Saul
the ecstatic, the man subject to the impulse of the spirit of Yahweh,
becomes Saul the arrogant official and would-be autocrat. There
appears to have been a change in Saul's character, perhaps as a result of
his assuming power. But there seems also to have been a certain
ambiguity in the situation: Samuel remained very much a central and
powerful figure even after Saul's consecration as king. Saul is not
allowed to unite sacred and secular affairs; he is the military leader, but
Samuel remains supreme in the administration of the sacred (1 Sam. 13).
Again, in sparing the life of Agag the king of the Amalekites (1 Sam.
15: 9) Saul found himself in conflict with the theocratic commands of
Samuel the representative of Yahweh. The estrangement between the
two men seems to have gradually deepened, and it may well have
coincided with an estrangement between the holders of the two points
of view within Israel. What this phase oflsrael' s history seems to show
is the extreme difficulty of combining in a single control the ultimate
interests which are at stake in the religious life with the immediate and
pressing concerns which are involved in the government and defence
of a particular state or territory. It is a difficulty which we shall
encounter again in the later history of Islam. Certainly the attempt to
solve it which the Saul-Samuel partnership represented was a failure.
Yet, granted the assumption that was being made concerning the need
to preserve 'Yahweh's' territory, some solution had to be found. It
might be thought that the kingship of David provided the answer,
since in David we see Israel's ideal of a king who preserves both religion
and land. We need to be clear, however, about how David achieved
this, and what happened to the prophetic Yahwistic religion in the
process.
L.H.R,
C2
44 Nomads, Peasants and Kings

1.47 The reign ofDavid

The naive, superficial and sentimental view of David is that he was a
harp-playing shepherd boy who made good; an upright man who
because of his skill and virtue was chosen to be king, and who also,
incidentally, wrote many of the psalms. This idealised picture does not
quite square with what Hebrew tradition tells us about this particular
monarch. His reign falls into roughly two periods: first, seven years
during which he reigned from Hebron, first as king ofJudah only and
then of both Judah and Israel; second, thirty-three years as king of
Judah and Israel in Jerusalem.
At the death of Saul, Abner, who had been his officer-in-chief, took
it into his hands to make Saul's son Eshbaal (also, in later tradition
called Ishbosheth) king of Israel. The men of Judah had proclaimed
their warrior-leader David king of Judah. King Eshbaal then fell out
with Abner the general over the matter of a concubine, and Abner
decided to throw in Israel's lot with that ofJudah, and support David.
David strengthened his position by taking Saul's daughter Michal as
his wife. David's earlier marriage to her had been annulled by Saul, and
she was now in fact the wife of another man. Abner arranged the
remarriage as one of the conditions for a united kingdom, and Michal
took her place alongside the two other wives David already had - the
wealthy widow Abigail, and Ahinoam. Shortly after, Abner was
murdered by Joab, one of David's officers, in revenge for his own
brother's death. On hearing the news of Abner's murder David uttered
an impressive curse on his murderer's descendants: 'May there never be
lacking one of them who is ill, or a leper, or slain by the sword or
hungry.' Before his own death David charged Solomon his son that he
should not allow Joab's 'gray head to go down to Sheol [the place of
the dead] in peace'. Eshbaal, now unsupported in his capital at
Mahanairn, was also murdered, during his midday siesta by two
brigands who bore a grudge against his father. This left David without
a serious rival to the leadership of the tribes ofisrael and Judah. These,
then, were the circumstances in which the Hebrews acquired their
greatest king.
The immediate result was that the Philistines, now confronted with a
united Israel, had to contend with a stiffer opposition; the rest of the
period of David's rule from Hebron was taken up with removing the
The reign ofDavid 45
Philistine threat to Israel's territorial security. Having strengthened his
position thus, the king went on to strengthen it further by acquiring a
new capital, namely Jerusalem, a city which until then had no Hebrew
associations at all, but which he now annexed from the Jebusites. It had
the double advantage of being a natural stronghold and also an ancient
Canaanite cultic centre, the place where the deity El-Elyon was
worshipped. This Canaanite god was known also by the names Sedek
and Shalem; the latter appears in the name ofDavid's son, Solomon, as
well as in the name of the city. Since it was a place that had no previous
connection with either the northern or southern Hebrew tribes it was a
particularly appropriate symbol of the king's personal prowess and
military achievement. Whether or not its cultic importance was an
additional advantage from the king's point of view, the fact is that it
now became the new centre for the Yahweh cult, which was possibly
superimposed on the El-Elyon cult. According to the tradition David's
intention was to set up there a temple; this in fact was not done until
the time of his son and successor Solomon, but it is evident what the
trend had already become. Yahwistic religion, first of all identified
with a certain territory, and a tribal confederation, was now further
assimilated to the pattern of the state religions of the Near East by its
association with monarchical government. The logical end of this
process was the establishment of an urban temple cult like those of
Babylon and Egypt. As a first step, the Ark, the ancient symbol of
Yahwism, was solemnly brought from Kiriath-Jearim in a festal
procession led by the king, performing a ritual dance. It was the king
as priest (after the Near Eastern pattern) who then offered sacrifice and
gave the people his blessing, presumably at the Canaanite city-shrine
where the Ark was now installed, and where it was now to be served by
priests who were royal officials (N oth, 1960; 191).

1.48 The reign of Solomon

All the main ingredients of the reign of Solomon as a minor oriental
potentate had thus been provided by his warrior father David: an
expanded territory gained by military aggression; an hereditary
monarchy; a royal city-capital; a temple cult with its official priesthood.
All this Solomon consolidated into a centralised system of autocratic
power after the Egyptian model.
46 Nomads, Peasants and Kings
A superficial view of the reign of Solomon is that it was for Israel a
time of unparalleled peace, prosperity and security. 1 Kgs. 4: 20
presents an idyllic picture of all Judah and Israel eating, drinking and
enjoying general happiness. This is difficult to reconcile with the
repercussions which followed Solomon's death, in the revolt of
Jeroboam. Then, we are told, the whole assembly of Israel were
smarting under the repressive measures which Solomon had carried
out. They expressed their resentment to Rehoboam thus: 'your father
made our yoke grievous.' Of the wealth and prosperity of the court
there can be no doubt. We are told that the Queen of Sheba was
breathless with admiration at all she saw of Solomon's court, his
organisation, his beautiful wives and his magnificent staff. Allowance
has to be made for the fact that she was a neighbouring chieftain who
had come probably with some commercial purpose in view, and that
this may account for such oriental hyperbole as she uttered, but even so
there can be little doubt that Solomon's court and city were characterised
by a good deal of vain ostentation and display and that this was a far
remove from the life of the peasants and artificers upon whom the
economic burden of all this ultimately rested. The timber for the new
city temple in Jerusalem, for example, was obtained from King Hiram
of Tyre at the cost of an annual export of wheat of 220,000 bushels of
wheat and a considerable quantity of oil. Again, Solomon's civil
servants alone consumed nearly 400,000 bushels of grain yearly, and it
has been estimated that in a country of the size and productivity of
Israel at that time, this, together with the wheat export to Tyre, would
alone have constituted a heavy burden on the peasant population. The
forced labour of Canaanites whom Solomon was holding in captivity
as state slaves would have gone part of the way to meet the labour
problem which Solomon's many ambitious state building plans entailed,
but not all his needs could have been met thus.
The Temple became both the political and religious centre of the
state, with Solomon exercising a royal priestly function. The close
association of the Temple cult with the royal court and its luxurious life
enables us to understand how the Jewish priesthood ofJerusalem came
to be characterised by aristocratic and courtly attitudes, both at this
period and in the post-Exilic period (just as the high-priestly vestments
were an adaptation of the royal vesture). The capital was also the place
where Canaanite and foreign deities were worshipped, as a concession
to Solomon's many foreign wives and paramours.
Yahwistic religion during the early monarchy 47

1.49 Yahwistic religion during the early monarchy

In the shrines of the tribal confederation outside Jerusalem the local
priests continued the worship ofYahweh in accordance with the earlier
tradition. If the extent to which they fell under the influence of
Canaanite nature-religion increased during the early monarchy, it has
to be admitted that they had every encouragement from Solomon's
introduction into Jerusalem of the cults of Egyptian, Moabite,
Ammonite, Phoenician and Hittite gods.
Religious opposition to the monarchy among those who remained
faithful to the prophetic Yahwism of the earlier period would by no
means have diminished during this formative period of the Jerusalem
dynasty. The building of the Temple was itself a great innovation in
Hebrew religion, and was inspired by religious ideas alien to Yahwism-
those of the Egyptian and Babylonian systems centring around the god-
kings. The fact of the Temple's existence later came to be accepted and
reconciled with Yahwistic ideas: the present narrative concerning its
building is coloured by such an attitude of accommodation. But at the
time there was a genuine protest against it- represented no doubt in the
words of reproach of Nathan the prophet addressed to King David:
'Thus saith Yahweh, Shalt thou build me an house for me to dwell in?
For I have not dwelt in an house since the day that I brought up the
children of Israel out of Egypt, even to this day, but have walked in a
tent and in a tabernacle.' Von Rad has suggested that 'in speaking as he
did, Nathan was acting as a spokesman of the old tradition of the "tent
of meeting", with its completely different ideas of the presence of
Yahweh', that is, a tradition in which Yahweh was thought of as
moving about among the Hebrew tribes, rather than solidly established
in one special place (Von Rad, 1962; 61). But the Yahwistic protest
represented by Nathan came to nothing; the Temple was built, after
the Near Eastern style, the worship of God became linked with a
political capital, and the seeds were sown of the Jewish religious
attitude which in the modern world we know as Zionism.
48 Nomads, Peasants and Kings

1.5 RELIGION IN INDIA DURING THE LATER

VEDIC PERIOD (1ooo-soo B.c. approx.)

1.50 The Dravidianisation ofAryan culture

Undoubtedly the Aryans were being affected by their migration farther
into the heart of India. Probably the intermarriage with Dravidians
which has already been mentioned was one of the chief factors. One of
the most important ways in which this is indicated is to be found in
some innovations in Aryan language which occurred during this period.
Alone among the Indo-European or Aryan group of languages,
Sanskrit has a number of consonants which are peculiarly Indian.
These are the 'cerebral' or 'retroflex' consonants, usually transliterated
r.
with a subscript dot to indicate the retroflex form: thus, q, If, r. l. ~­
They represent consonants which do not come naturally to a European,
and are made by attempting to speak the consonant indicated while
keeping the tip of the tongue turned inwards against the back of the
palate. These are sounds which are Dravidian in origin, and we have
here one indication, from the realm of language, of the process of
Dravidianisation which the Aryans now began to undergo.
In the same way that they absorbed this non-Aryan and characteris-
tically Dravidian consonant-sound, it is safe to assume they would be
absorbing other elements of Dravidian culture, and to a consideration
of some of the more important of these we now turn.

1.51 Religious speculation in the later Vedic age

Among the hymns in the tenth ma!fqala of the B.g-veda, that is, those
which belong to a later period than the bulk of the hymns (1.34), are
three which may be selected for special attention. These are: x.90, 'The
Sacrifice ofPrimal Man'; x.121, 'Prajapati', i.e. 'The Lord of Creation';
and x.129, 'In the Beginning' (Zaehner, 1966; 8-12). They reveal a
mood of cosmic speculation, of enquiry into the nature of the universe,
and even of scepticism concerning any possible answer, which is not
found in the earlier hymns. Hymn 90, 'The Sacrifice of Primal Man',
will be examined later in connection with the emergence of classes in
Vedic society (1.55). It is the other two which indicate most clearly the
Religious speculation in the later Vedic age 49
trend of thought among the Aryans during this later period; at least,
among the brahman or priestly class. Hymn 121, 'The Lord ofCreation"
asks the question: 'What god shall we revere with the oblation? ..•
Who by his might has ever been the One King of all that breathes?'
This question is repeated in various forms all through the hymn. By
whom are heaven and earth held in place? By whom does the sun shed
its light? Who generated heaven, and gave birth to the water? In the
tenth and last verse of the hymn the answer is given - Prajapati! ('Lord
of Creation'). As R. C. Zaehner comments (1966; vi), the polytheism
of the Indo-Europeans has here taken a different turning and developed
into something very characteristically Indian. No single one of the
many gods has achieved real supremacy in the way that happened
elsewhere; rather, the gods have coalesced, losing their separate
identities and even their relevance. By what name the Supreme is
known makes no difference: 'What is but One the wise call by manifold
names' Clf.g-veda i. 164, 46). Even Prajapati, here worshipped as the
Lord of Creation, has other names: Visvakarman, the Maker of All; or
Brihaspati, the Lord of brahman, the sacred power of the chant. In
these ideas found in the last book of the B.g-veda, Aryan thought is
already moving towards the pantheistic monism which is characteristic
oflndia, and which appears plainly in the later form ofVedic literature
known as the Upani~ads (1.57).
In the hymn entitled 'In the Beginning' the mood of religious
speculation becomes virtual scepticism about the relevance of the old
gods. This hymn asks the question: 'How did everything really come
into being? What existed before Being and Not-Being, before there
was death or immortality, night or day, darkness or light? Who knows
truly? Who can here declare it?' So the questioning goes on, until in
the last verse speculation goes so far as to say, 'Only he who is its
overseer in highest heaven knows', and then withdraws in the last line
into an ultimate, knowledge-shattering scepticism: ' ... or perhaps he
does not know!'
How far this is a natural development of principles inherent in the
Aryan polytheism of the earlier period it is difficult to say; one can only
point to the fact that it does not seem to have happened in any of the
other areas into which Aryan polytheism moved. One is entitled to
suspect that it is a peculiarly Indian development. It might possibly be
explained as the effect of the north Indian environment: geographical-
with its vast, flat, and apparently unending plains, conditioning thought
50 Nomads, Peasants and Kings
in the direction of undifferentiated unity; or climatic- the merciless
heat which is a disincentive to vigorous pursuits, and an encouragement
to more contemplative habits. On the other hand we have to remember
that subsequent immigrants into India have more successfully resisted
any such effect of the Indian environment upon their religious ideas -
Muslims, Parsees, Jews and Christians, especially (as in the case of
Parsees and Jews) where there was a minimum of intermarriage with
the already settled Indian inhabitants, but less so (as the case of Muslims)
where there was such intermarriage. This point will need to be raised
again in connection with Indian Islam in the Mughal period (6.56).
So far as the Aryans are concerned intermarriage with Dravidians
certainly does seem to have occurred and may be one of the more
important factors in the development of hitherto new trends in Aryan
religious attitudes.

1.52 The briihmans and the cosmic order

In the remaining one of these later hymns of the B.g-veda which have
been mentioned (1.51), namely 'The Sacrifice ofPrimal Man' C~-g-veda
x.90), the origination of the universe is represented as having been a
process of sacrifice. What can be detected here is the elevating of the
very act of sacrifice to a place of supreme importance in the religious
scheme, so that it became more important even than the gods them-
selves, to whom the sacrifice was ostensibly offered. The notion which
we see emerging here is one in which sacrifice, the very process by
which the universe came into existence, is regarded as the really
effective factor. Seen from another perspective this is the enhancement
by the brahmans, the priests, of that activity of which they alone in
Vedic society were the practitioners and controllers; with this point we
shall be concerned again (1.53). This emphasis on the importance of the
sacrificial activity had the effect not only of relegating the gods to a
subordinate position in the religious scheme of things, but also of
investing sacrifice with something of the character of magic. It became
the vital element in the cosmic machinery; the maintenance of the
cosmic order was now seen as being dependent on the due and proper
performance of the sacrificial ritual. This conception of the sacrifice,
and the effects which in due course it was believed to produce, as it
were automatically, is one which, says Dasgupta, is 'like the fulfilment
of a natural law in the physical world'.
The briihmans and the cosmic order 51

1.53 The concept of rta, or cosmic law

Also to be found in the J;l.g-veda is the conception of a cosmic law by
which all things are maintained in existence and in accordance with
which certain results must always duly, automatically, and inevitably,
follow from any given action. This cosmic law is known as rta in the
Vedic hymns; Basham sees it as 'perhaps the highest flight ofl;l.g-vedic
thought'; it may represent a development from the belief in the
magical and automatic operation of sacrificial ritual, or it may be a
conception which the Aryans learnt from the earlier inhabitants of the
land. Dasgupta takes the view that in the sacrificial magic and in this
concept of cosmic law, rta, are to be found the origins of the law of
karma, that is, of action as causal, inevitably entailing effects that can
never be averted or postponed once their due season of fruition has been
reached - a conception which, especially in its moral form, dominates
the mind of India right up to modern times (Dasgupta, 1922; 22).
The immediate result of this development was the enormously
enhanced prestige of the brahman priest who alone had the professional
knowledge necessary for the scrupulously correct performance of the
sacrificial ritual (for if either the least syllable in the chanting or the
slightest action were incorrect, chaos might ensue, it was held).
D. D. Kosambi sees another reason for the increasing importance of
sacrifice in the later Vedic period: 'society had begun to exhaust its
means of subsistence' (Kosambi, 1965; 87). Since prosperity and good
fortune were believed to be dependent on the sacrifice, a threatened
scarcity of cattle or food would lead to an increase in the number of
sacrifices offered and in aggressive activity on the part of the warriors;
success in this latter enterprise also required sacrificial offerings before-
hand, so there would be a further reason for increasing the frequency of
sacrifice. The brahman priests would thus grow in wealth and prestige.
This had two immediate results, one literary, the other social: the
composition of the treatises called the BrahmaJ]as, and the sharpening
of class distinctions in the rudimentary caste-system.

1.54 The Briihma1;1as

The BrahmaJ]as are treatises which embody the notion of the magical
efficacy of sacrifice that has just been described. They take the form of
52 Nomads, Peasants and Kings
commentary or exposition of the text of the Vedic hymns. In this
respect they are the forerunners of a long tradition of Indian religious
literature in which new developments of thought are presented as
expositions of some earlier text, even though in fact the new literature
may embody ideas which differ very greatly from those found in the
older text. In the case of the Brahmat].as we fmd all kinds of fanciful
speculations concerning the nature of the sacrificial ritual, its symbolism,
its cosmic significance, and so on. Entirely speculative though this
thinking might be, its authors did not attempt to set it out as such, but
sought to legitimate it by presenting it as exposition of the hymns used
in the course of the ritual. It is not so much that the ideas expressed in
the Vedic hymns are regarded as important and therefore expounded;
it is rather that the very sound of the syllables themselves has become
invested with a sacred quality, a magical power. This it is which
constitutes brahman, a supernatural force similar to that which in
primitive religion is called mana. The possessor or controller of this
sacred power of brahman residing in the sound of the chant is the
brahmat]. (often transliterated in English as 'brahmin') or priest. The
Brahmat].as, then, are the 'priestly' writings which set forth and
elaborate the many aspects of this sacred (or, more correctly, magical)
power.

1.55 The emergent caste system

The growing importance of the brahman, and his special status as the
controller of the magic of the chant, are already to be seen in one of the
hymns of the tenth mat].qala of the ~g-veda which we have already
noticed, namely number 90, 'The Sacrifice ofPrimal Man'. The singer
asks, 'When they divided primal man, with how many parts did they
divide him?' The answer is then given: 'The brahman was his mouth,
the arms were made the prince (k~atriya), his thighs the common people
(vaisya), and from his feet the serf(sudra) was born' (Zaehner, 1966; 9 £).
It is appropriate that the brahman should be represented by the mouth,
that is the sound-uttering part of the primal man, for this at once connects
the brahman with the most potent of the faculties of man in this way of
thinking. Moreover, in this hymn of the later Vedic period we see how
the earlier twofold differentiation of the elite (kfatriya) and the ordinary
tribesmen (vis) has now developed into a fourfold division of society,
The emergent caste system 53
with the brahman as the first in rank-order, having a status higher even
than that of the warrior, or k~atriya. At the same time some of the
ordinary tribesmen have sunk to a lower place, that of sudras, or serfs.
It is usually held that these consisted of those of the indigenous peoples
who had been forced to labour for the conquering and territory-
occupying Aryans, and possibly also the offspring of the mixed
marriages between these natives and their Aryan conquerors. The fact
that the four classes of society are described in this way in a Vedic hymn
indicates that by the later Vedic period this division of society was
already regarded as having religious legitimation - that is, it was
represented as part of the ordained structure of the universe proceeding
from a primeval sacrifice. Since speculative religious thought seems to
have been the prerogative of the brahmans at this period we may safely
infer that this particular rank-order (first brahmans, then k~atriyas,
then vaisyas and last of all sudras) reflects the brahman point of view;
hence it was this order which was credited with religious sanction.
From this brahman-inspired hymn we are simply left to guess whether
the k~atriya class would have concurred in the order of the classes. The
fact that the sudras are the lowest class, and that this class was drawn
largely from autochthonous groups does not mean, however, that the
class structure was based on racial discrimination. For there is evidence
that the b_rahman priesthood of the later Vedic period was drawn from
both Aryan and non-Aryan sources. Some of the major brahman clan
groups are curiously described as having been 'born of a jar'. This
probably means that they were sons of a human representative of a
mother-goddess; the 'jar', according to Kosambi, represents the womb
of the mother-goddess. The adoption of such non-Aryan sages into the
Aryan priesthood was, he says, an innovation, but it had the great value
of assimilating 'otherwise hostile groups, along with their many new
cults, into one society worshippmg common gods' (Kosambi, 1965; 83);
in this way a new, highly-specialised priesthood developed.

1.56 The forest-dwellers

Were there some among the Vedic Aryans who did not fully concur
with the priests' high estimation of their own activities and place in
society? It is sometimes suggested that evidence of this may perhaps be
found in the type of treatise which follows the priestly Brahma!:fas,
54 Nomads, Peasants and Kings
namely the Forest-Writings, or AraJ;lyakas. These writings represent a
turning away from ritual towards a more mystical and ascetic type of
religious life. The name AraJ;lyaka certainly implies a connection of
some kind with the forest (araJ;lya). Dasgupta suggests that these treatises
originated as compositions intended for old men who were no longer
capable of performing the sacrificial ritual and had instead retired to the
forest to meditate; the symbolism of the sacrificial ritual provided the
subject matter for their meditation (Dasgupta, 1922; 14). The AraJ;lyakas
may be said to represent a transitional stage between the earlier
situation, in which the actual performance of the sacrifice was all-
important, and the later situation represented by the Upani~ads (1.57)
where thought-activity, in the form of meditation on the mystical
correspondences and symbolism of the ritual, takes the place of cultic
activity. While this trend may have originated among the old men of
the priestly class, it seems to have been taken up by others, among
whom the AraJ;lyaka type of treatise develops into the Upani~ad.
'Sacrifice in itself was losing value in the eyes of these men and diverse
mystical significances and imports were beginning to be considered as
their real truth' (Dasgupta, 1922; 35). But whether or not the AraJ;lyakas
represent a reaction of the k~atriya class against the prestige claimed by
the priests for the sacrificial ritual is a question on which scholarship is
divided. Such a reaction did arise later, in the form of the Jain and
Buddhist movements. The AraJ;lyaka treatises may perhaps be said to
represent an intermediate position between the all-importance of the
cultic ritual and the rejection of it by these later heterodox movements.

1.57 The emergence ofthe Upani~ads

The Upani~adic literature, into which the AraJ;lyaka treatises developed,

is regarded by some scholars as being broadly orthodox so far as the
sacrificial cult is concerned; that is to say, in the Upani~ads cultic
activity is not opposed or repudiated. Rather, it is seen as having even
greater importance as a basis or starting point for metaphysical
speculation, and it is this speculation which is pursued with such
thoroughness in the Upani~ads. Basham maintains that these represent
the position of the orthodox mystics; they 'in no way oppose the
sacrificial cult but maintain its qualified validity' (Basham, 1954; 246).
Similarly Dasgupta holds 'there seems to be no definite evidence for
The emergence ofthe Upani~ads 55
thinking that the Upani~ad philosophy originated among the K~atriyas'
(Dasgupta, 1922; 35). But other scholars, in Europe and India, have
taken a different view: for instance, Garbe, and Winternitz, whose
arguments are examined by Dasgupta. More recently D. D. Kosambi
has suggested that the Upani~ads represent an entirely different
development from that found in the Brahma!fas. He inclines to the
view that while the Upani~ads are brahman books they embody ideas
which brahmans were learning from k~atriyas; this, in fact, is what is
actually suggested in the text of some of the Upani~ads, where brahmans
are found receiving instruction concerning the mystical significance of
the sacrifice and the nature of the universal Self; such a case is that of the
five brahmans who approach the k~atriya ruler Asvapati Paikeya, who
had a reputation as a teacher of such matters (Chiindogya Upani~ad, v,
xi-xviii). As Dasgupta points out, in other cases it was the brahmans
themselves who were discussing such matters and instructing others
concerning them. This, however, does not rule out the possibility that
the initiative in setting forth such new theories may have come in the
first place from non-brahmans, and Dasgupta himself acknowledges
that among the k~atriyas in general 'there existed earnest philosophic
enquiries which must be regarded as having exerted an important
influence in the formation of the Upani~adic doctrines' (Dasgupta,
1922; 31).
The effect of the emerging ideas concerning the universal Self would
certainly seem to be to direct attention away from the sacrifice to other
means of gaining religious ends. This was partly because the ends
themselves were changing. The sacrifice was intended to secure
prosperity, success, and earthly good fortune. But other goals were now
being sought. The reasons for this are various and complicated, but the
most important feature in the situation seems to be that the Aryan
attitude to life had changed; life had come to be accepted as basically
miserable, so that men longed to escape into some kind of dreamless
sleep. With this went a new emphasis on asceticism, developed by the
forest-dwellers and communicated by them even to brahmans; this
consisted of a rejection of the transitory, so-called pleasures of the senses
in order to acquire and accumulate tapas, or spiritual 'heat'. Finally, the
old Vedic ideas concerning man's destiny after death had now given
place to the theory of an endless succession of lives, that is, the theory of
transmigration.
56 Nomads, Peasants and Kings

1.58 The religious ideas ofthe Upani~ads

In the collection of disputations and discourses that go to make up the

Upani~ads there is no systematic arrangement or single doctrinal
position. Certain general assumptions, however, seem to be present in
all the Upanipds, the most important and fundamental of which is, in
Dasgupta's words, 'that underlying the exterior world of change there
is an unchangeable reality which is identical with that which underlies
the essence in man' (Dasgupta, 1922; 42). The goal towards which the
Upani~ads point men is the realisation by the human individual of this
identity between his own spirit or self (atman) and the world-spirit or
Self (brahman). Not all men would be capable of realising this identity,
it was recognised, but only those who had been initiated and prepared
by a spiritual master or guru. The word Upani~ad signifies teaching
that is esoteric. This idea of 'secret instruction' is confirmed by many
passages in the Upani~ads themselves (Dasgupta, 1922; 38). It is
therefore hardly surprising that when the Western reader learns that
the one underlying doctrine is the equation of atman with brahman,
this may not mean very much to him; he does not immediately
appreciate the spiritual release which this was held to entail among
those who received and practised the Upani~adic religious doctrine. It
certainly was understood by them as release, however, for this is what
men had begun to seek; release, that is, from the prison-house ofkarma
and transmigration. It was the spread and the acceptance of this notion,
in place of the older Vedic idea that man's destiny after death was
either heaven (the Abode of the Fathers) or hell (the House of Clay),
which paved the way for various doctrines of release or mok~a, of
which the Upani~adic way of release through esoteric knowledge of
the identity ofatman and brahman was one. It is in the Upani~ads that
the first real evidence of belief in karma and transmigration is found in
Aryan literature. The fact that this now became orthodox doctrine
among the brahmans, and that asceticism and meditational practices
were accepted by them as being among the principal methods for
attaining such release, indicates the extent of the change in religious
attitudes among brahmans even within the later Vedic period.
 The Atharva-veda 57

1.59 The Atharva-veda

For many people, however, such doctrines would have been beyond
comprehension; for them, religious goals were more immediate and
more restricted. This was probably true of the majority of the popula-
tion, the lower classes of society, both Aryan and non-Aryan, who were
principally engaged in agriculture. Among them, religion appears to
have been virtually identical with magic. The evidence for this is found
in the collection of texts known as the Atharva-veda. As the fourth
collection of Vedic hymns and chants this was added later than the
B-g-veda, the Yajur-veda, and the Sama-veda, but it incorporates
material which is probably just as ancient as the hymns of the other
collections. Some of this material may have originated among the
lower class of the Aryan tribesmen; much of it is probably derived
from aboriginal sources, and consists of magical spells and incantations,
expiatory charms, exorcisms and so on. The Vedic gods of the Aryans
have little place here, if any; there is some cosmology, but it has more
affmities with that of the U pani~ads than with early hymns of the
B-g-veda. Such, for instance, is the hymn to the Goddess Earth, a
composition which is one of the most characteristic and most attractive
of the Atharvan hymns, 'rising at times to poetic conceptions of no
mean merit', as Bloomfield comments. But by and large the concerns
of the Atharva-veda are domestic, and if they extend beyond that, they
still remain within the realm of social relationships and functions. The
subjects dealt with are: charms to cure diseases and to promote health
and immunity from disease; imprecations against demons and sorcerers;
charms for the benefit of women - for the obtaining of a husband, or a
son; charms for the benefit of men - to secure a woman's love, to
cause the return of a truant wife; charms relating to kings, their
consecration, and success in their enterprises; charms relating to personal
relationships in general - the securing of harmony, the allaying of
discord, the appeasement of anger and so on. Many of the hymns are of
such a kind that we can understand, as Bloomfield says, that 'they
cannot have been otherwise than highly esteemed', so obviously
auspicious are the intentions and aims. Perhaps it is significant that a
class of person mentioned frequently in the Atharva-veda is the vratya.
They were apparently priests of non-Aryan indigenous fertility cults;
Basham comments that 'great efforts were made to convert them to the
58 Nomads, Peasants and Kings
Aryan faith, and to find room for them in the orthodox cult' (Basham,
1954; 244). On the other hand the word 'vratya' comes in later times
to mean one who did not honour the Vedas, that is, one who adheres
to non-Vedic ideas and practices. The prominence of the vratya in the
Atharva-veda would therefore seem to suggest that in this Atharvan
material we come nearer than in any other surviving literary source to
the religious ideas and attitudes of pre-Aryan and early non-Aryan
India.

SUMMARY AND COMMENT ON CHAPTER ONE

In this chapter we have looked at some of the principal features of

religion in eastern and western Asia from the beginning of its known
history. It must be emphasised that we have not been concerned here to
investigate the historical origins of religion, for these lie far back in the
period of mankind's early history, where evidence is scanty and more
ambiguous and speculative theories flourish. What we have examined
are the historical roots of some of the more important religious beliefs
and practices of the traditions of Europe and Asia.
In the period with which we have been dealing human belief in a
supernatural power or powers, or a human sense of that which was sacred,
was already old. One of the earliest forms which such belief took was
that of the earth as mother, or mother-goddess, a form of belief which
has persisted in India more strongly than in the Near East (although it
has never completely died out, even there). It is not difficult to under-
stand why, if men were to regard anything at all as uniquely venerable,
or sacred, it should be either the earth which bore them and supported
them, or else the sun, which was evidently the prime source of physical
life and light and the other dominant phenomenon of man's existence.
In some societies it was one, in some it was the other which was
venerated; primitive Japanese religion, which is an example of the latter
kind, will be dealt with in the next chapter (2.48). It should be remem-
bered that we are concerned here mainly to describe, in the sense that
we simply note that men have from earliest times apparently felt
constrained to express a sense either of dependence, a need to affirm
what it was which for them was of the utmost value, or even what was
for them sacred; but in noting this we still have not explained why it
Summary and comment on Chapter One 59
should be so. We may note also that there existed in these ancient
civilisations a need for some view of life's changes and chances, in the
light of which men might hope to take appropriate action to secure
their welfare and avoid the experiences of suffering and the sense of
injustice. This demand men sought to satisfy in ancient Mesopotamia,
for example, by resort to the soothsayer and seer and the explanations
offered in the traditional wisdom; and in ancient India by the theory of
karma and rebirth, and by conduct appropriate to a good rebirth: this
demand for meaning is one of the major constituent features of other
religious systems, as we shall see.
More immediately germane to our study is the coincidence of two
facts concerning these ancient societies and their religious beliefs. First,
in the Near East the third millennium B.C. was the period of the
emergence of autocratic empire-states in Egypt and in Babylon, a
feature of which was the worship of territorial deities, and a state-
priesthood, or city-priesthood, responsible for the cults of these deities.
Second, alongside this fact we have to note that, as S. G. F. Brandon
has written, while 'the fundamental concepts of cosmogonic speculation
were laid far back in the preliterary period', it appears that 'true
cosmogonic speculation concerning the origin of the world or the
universe was probably little developed before the third millennium B.C.,
when the earliest known cosmogonic texts were composed.' Doctrines
of creation by an omnipotent being thus have their rise within recorded
history, and are seen to have been associated with certain kinds of
political structures, of which the Egyptian and Babylonian states are
outstanding examples.
In the case of the Indus valley civilisation knowledge of such beliefs
is hindered by the present indecipherability of the script. In any case, it
is not certain that the political structure there was of exactly the same
kind as in Egypt and Babylon; in general the Indus valley civilisation
appears to have been an assimilation to the Near Eastern river valley
civilisations, but not by any means an exact reproduction. It has also to
be remembered that the earlier village cultures of north-west India
upon which this pattern was imposed would have made their own
contribution to the special nature of the Indus valley civilisation. What
may be called the 'theology' of the mother-goddess appears to have
persisted more strongly in the case of the Indian civilisation than it did
in the Near East, although it persisted there also. In India the first
evidence we have of cosmogonic speculation is that provided by the
60 Nomads, Peasants and Kings
Aryan culture at a time when the brahman priests were as a class
beginning to establish their position of superiority in Aryan society.
The creation legend here was thus not one of divine fiat, the word of an
omnipotent ruler; it was a doctrine of creation by primeval sacrifice,
that is to say, by a priestly type of activity. This association of
cosmogenic ideas with brahman priesthood had the important con-
sequence later that the challenging of brahman priestly claims (by the
Buddhists, most notably) entailed also the challenging of this creation-
theory which was associated with the bralunans.
In the ancient Near East religious ideas and practices were clearly
bound up with the idea of a definite territory. The assertion of
territorial rights, one of the most basic features of animal and human
life, here received what may be described as sacralisation. In both Egypt
and Babylon it was the territory that was the primary element, together
with the king who was its human protector and maintainer. The
relationship between the king and his territory (including the in-
habitants) was given a ritual expression, and this constituted the
dominant feature of the religion in these two areas. The other subsidiary
but important feature, as we have seen, consisted of the whole range of
practices by which men sought to obtain, in ways other than purely
logical, comfort in this life and possibly assurance of some ultimately
happy destiny hereafter.
In contrast to this whole pattern of religious belief and practice was
the life of ancient Israel. Founded upon an act of revolt against the
territorial royal theocracy of Egypt, the metaphysical context in which
this group of tribes was led by the prophet-leader Moses to see their
common life was that of a people, rather than the inhabitants of a certain
territory, a people, moreover, whose welfare depended upon a
particularly vivid relationship with a deity who could be known only
as 'He who is', or 'I will be that I will be'. But this situation of the early
days of Israel's history gave way to another in which the people and
their deity became territorialised. Yahwism became the religion of a
territory, interpreted as the 'promised land', and before long assimilated
to the territorial-religious systems of the Near East. The idea emerged
of Yahweh as the territorial ruler or king, and also of Yahweh as the
omnipotent creator by his royal-divine fiat. However, in early Israelite
religion the conception ofYahweh as deliverer from Egypt, protector
of his people, the One who stood in special relation to them, remained
primary; the conception of Yahweh as creator-king was still only
Summary and comment on Chapter One 61
secondary to this. The assimilation ofYahwism to other Near Eastern
systems was carried further by the establishment of a monarchy;
nevertheless there remained some adherents to the older tradition of
Israel's life who, by their charismatic authority, were able to challenge
the more blatant of the developments towards the Near Eastern pattern
of a royal deity and a king-god and the autochthonous and magical
practices which were associated with such a culture. For the prophetic
tradition within Israel Yahweh remained pre-eminently the lord of
history rather than the lord of a territory, and the supreme purpose of
man's life was 'to know Yahweh', that is, to realise the special relation-
ship which was capable of existing between men and Yahweh, which
was life's proper fulfilment. Nevertheless, the conjunction between
Yahweh and Near Eastern kingship had been made, and was increasingly
accepted within Israel, a conjunction which was to have important
consequences in the subsequent history of Western religion.
2 Prophets and
Philosophers
2.1 THE PROPHETIC TRADITION OF ISRAEL (gz6-
szo B.c.)

2.10 The parting ofthe ways within Hebrew religion

ONE of the main effects of the Jerusalem monarchy was, as a modem
Jewish writer has said (Epstein, 1959), the disruption of the religious
unity of the old tribal confederation. That unity had been broken after
the death of Saul, but was restored temporarily by the military prowess
of King David; at the death of Solomon it was broken again,
fmally. The most important single reason for this, apart from the
oppressive rule of Solomon (1.48) which was the immediate cause, was
the imposition upon the earlier form of Yahwism, as it existed to the
time of Samuel, of what was ultimately alien to it - the institution of
monarchy. The characteristically Yahwistic figure, the great prophet,
the man who by virtue of religious charisma combined the roles of seer,
priest and judge, and was accepted as leader of the cultic confederation,
had now been displaced by that characteristically Near Eastern figure,
the king, who from now on very often owed his position to hereditary
succession. It is true that the Davidic dynasty was an attempt to modify
oriental monarchy and make it a Yahwistic institution, but the attempt
did not meet with great success; its chief permanent result was that it
eventually gave rise to the notion of an ideal monarch who would
succeed in leading Israel in accordance with the religious spirit of
Yahwism, where actual monarchs so far had failed. Those who tried to
be both faithful Yahweh-worshippers and faithful royalists held on to
the conviction that such a combination was not impossible. When the
monarchy fmally came to an end (and in all it lasted only just over four
centuries) this notion of the ideal monarch, the Anointed One, or
Messiah, who was to appear in the future and set up an enduring
and righteous kingdom, became the focus of Jewish religious
aspiration.
Prophetic opposition to the monarchy 63

2.11 Prophetic opposition to the monarchy

There were, however, those worshippers of Yahweh who did not so
easily succumb to the idea, who continued to reject the notion of
monarchy and to resist the policies of actual monarchs, who more often
than not seemed to the faithful to be acting in opposition to the will of
Yahweh. A dichotomy had developed within Hebrew religion, a
dichotomy which is not always recognised by readers of the Bible
{Ringgren, 1966; 220). It would perhaps be carrying historical analysis
too far to say that there were now two religions: one faithful to the
principle that the worship ofYahweh and acknowledgement of his law
was the only real basis for Hebrew unity; the other committed to loyalty
not only toYahweh but also to the king as his representative. There was,
however, some approximation to this in the difference which un-
doubtedly existed between the religion of the royal court, and that of
the areas outside Jerusalem, where the earlier Yahwistic traditions
remained stronger and the cultic prophets at the local sanctuaries
preserved the ethos ofYahwism.
Certainly there was a tension, and it manifested itself from time to
time in conflict between Yahwistic prophets and the royal house. An
outstanding example is the encounter of Elijah with King Ahab, and
more especially with his queen. Early in the ninth century B.C. an army
officer named Omri seized the throne of the now separate northern
kingdom. His reign lasted for twelve years and was notable for the
building of a new, well-placed and well-fortified capital, Samaria.
{Excavations on the site of Samaria in the 1930s indicated that there had
been an elaborate palace and strong fortifications belonging to the time
of Omri.) Omri's son Ahab strengthened the economic and political
position of the northern kingdom by a diplomatic marriage with a
Phoenician princess, Jezebel, daughter of the king of Tyre. The narra-
tive in I Kings presents us with a picture of a weak king and a forceful,
determined queen, intent on imposing upon Israel both the Baal-
worship of Tyre and the thoroughly autocratic Phoenician style of
government. This resulted in the spirited challenge to such trends
presented by Elijah, as the loyal representative of Yahweh and the
traditional faith oflsrael.
Just as Solomon had built shrines for the gods of his foreign wives, so
now Ahab consented to the building in Samaria of a temple for
64 Prophets and Philosophers
Jezebel's god, Melkart, the Baal ofTyre. Ahab could have considered
he had a good precedent in the action ofSolomon. The prophetic attitude
to Ahab and Jezebel and their religious policy is depicted very clearly
in the collection of Elijah-stories found in chapters 17-19 of the first
book of Kings. A feature of these stories is the frequent occurrence of
miracles; for instance, the prophet is hungry; he is miraculously fed by
ravens. It is only straining the evidence of the text to say that 'ravens' is
a misreading for 'merchants' or 'Arabs', just as it is misinterpreting the
plain intention of the narrative to say that perhaps the child of the
woman of Zarephath did not really die but only swooned; or that the
meaning of the miraculous supply of meal and oil is simply an eking out
of a small, continuing supply. The narrator clearly intends to present
us with miracles - this is one of the places in the Hebrew scriptures
where they cluster together - and in doing so he is seeking to enhance
the prestige of Elijah as a man of God, a servant ofYahweh. He is in-
dicating where the true Yahwist' s interest and sympathy should lie, in
disputes between syncretising kings such as Solomon and Ahab, and all
loyal upholders of the traditional faith oflsrael.
Having thus been introduced to us, Elijah's role in the religious drama
is then indicated. We are told, in two asides, of the activities ofJezebel:
she persecuted the prophets of Yahweh (I Kgs 18: 4), and she had the
altars of Yahweh overthrown (I Kgs 18: 30). The fact that her action
was directed against these places and these people- altars and prophets-
suggests that there was an important connection between them at the
time, and is generally taken to mean that there had been some kind of
popular demonstration at these altars, led by the prophets of Yahweh,
against the royal institution of the cult of Melkart. In the dramatic
confrontation on Mount Carmel between Elijah and the prophets of
Baal it is, again, the prophets who are the cultic functionaries. The
offering of sacrifice on the respective altars of Baal and Yahweh was
performed by the prophets of Baal (without success) and by the one
prophet of Yahweh (with resounding success). In order to do this Elijah
had to rebuild the Yahweh-altar which had been thrown down on
Jezebel' s orders. In all this, it is to be noted, Elijah is acting in a priestly
role. He was also acting, as the prophet-priest of Yahweh, in direct
defiance of the religious policy of the royal house. The fire from the
sky, followed by a torrential downpour of rain, was regarded as a
confirmation of the faithfulness and integrity of Elijah in acting thus.
This vindication of Elijah in the eyes of the people only served to
 Prophetic opposition to the monarchy 65
infuriate Jezebel, however, and Elijah found it necessary to withdraw
in order to preserve his life. It is clear that in travelling to the far south
of Palestine, to the mountain of Horeb, Elijah was not simply putting
the greatest possible distance between himself and Jezebel. Horeb has
another, and in this context most important, significance. In the earlier
tradition oflsrael it was the place of Yahweh's abode, and with it was
associated the original revelation of Yahweh as the lord of history
which had been delivered to Israel in the wilderness period. In with-
drawing to Horeb, Elijah was symbolically returning to the sources of
Israel's faith.

2.12 The significance ofElijah

In assessing the significance of Elijah, Fleming James pointed out that
in him 'the religion of Moses lived again'. Certainly in Hebrew pro-
phetic tradition the two figures are closely associated. Elijah was
pre-eminently one who was faithful to the religious ideas and traditions
associated with the great name of Moses. He has also been hailed as a
true forerunner of the Hebrew prophets of the eighth and seventh
centuries B.C. The fact that he adhered so firmly to the cultic worship
of Yahweh and that he regarded the pure Y ahwistic cultus as of such
importance accords well with the concerns of the eighth-century B.C.
prophets. It is significant that it was the figure of Elijah which suggested
itself to the prophet of an even later age, whom we know as Malachi,
as the one who would prepare Israel for the coming great day of the
divine consummation: 'Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet
before the great and terrible day of Yahweh comes' (Mal. 4:5). To
this day at their celebration of the Passover the Jews set aside 'a cup of
wine for Elijah' in case he should come.

2.13 Hebrew prophets ofthe eighth century B.C.

We have now to consider how to regard the remarkable growth of
prophetic activity in the eighth century B.c., of which the great names
are Amos, Micah, Hosea and Isaiah. Why did this happen? And why
when it did? Was it because, as G. F. Moore suggested, 'it was not until
the eighth century B.C. that the men came who thought through what
the moral idea of God involves, and had the courage to proclaim its
66 Prophets and Philosophers
consequences'? (Moore, 1948; 128). Was it a newly emergent in-
dividualism which produced these great religious geniuses? Such an
explanation postulates a new kind of development in what had until
this time been guilds or companies of prophets, when, as T. H.
Robinson suggested, 'one of the individuals in the band separated
himself and delivered a message out of harmony with the rest' (Robin-
son; 1923). Yet another distinction that is sometimes claimed for the
eighth-century B.C. prophets is that in their desire to communicate their
message by every means possible certain inspired men adopted the novel
procedure of writing down what they had proclaimed, thus giving a
more permanent character to their prophetic outpourings. It is possible
that there is a certain amount of truth in each of these three ideas. In the
first place there certainly would have been some kind of reflective
thought in the life of a prophet of Yahweh. But the important question
is why such reflective activity was so strongly marked a feature of
eighth-century B.C. Israel and Judah. It cannot have been that the
capacity for religious and moral thought had only just developed; the
reason more probably lies in the fact that the monarchical systems of the
two kingdoms were by this time producing a religious and social
situation such as would make any faithful Yahwist think pretty hard.
Again, it is no doubt true that the results of religious reflection might
most effectively be expressed in the form of an individual utterance.
The faithful worshipper of Yahweh might well feel himself under a
strong compulsion to declare to his contemporaries what the spirit of
Yahweh forced him to say, and in thus speaking out he might appear
in the role of an isolated preacher. But this does not mean that he was
not in fact one of a guild or company of men, all of whom were in
some way associated with him in his declaration: it simply means that
the strong individual voice was more natural and more urgent than a
joint statement would have been. The historical picture of Hebrew
prophecy which has been built up in recent years has as one of its
striking features, as Eissfeldt has written, 'the close linking up of the
prophets Qike Amos, Hosea, Isaiah and Jeremiah), with the cultus, and
their membership in organised cultic associations .. .' (Rowley, 1951;
117). So far as the third suggestion is concerned, that the prophets set
out to write, as conscious apologists of the Yahwistic faith, so that
writing can be said to have been their deliberate and avowed purpose -
this has now been seen as very improbable. The literary form of the
collections that bear their names suggests that their words in each case,
Hebrew prophets ofthe eighth century B.c. 67
'were treasured in the memories of the disciples; i.e., the members of
the associations of cultic prophets to which the Master had belonged,
and were transmitted to later times within the cult-prophetic associa-
tion by word of mouth alone' (Rowley, 1951; 117).
To return to the original question, why was Hebrew prophetic
activity of this kind so prominent a feature of the eighth century B.C.?
It will be seen that we have still to seek a satisfactory answer to the
questions, Why? and Why at that time? The answer suggested here is
that as in so many other similar situations in religious history there was
at that time a special combination of, on the one hand, socio-political
unease, and on the other, men conscious of a divine message to their
distressed contemporary world. In this case, the social and psychological
malaise was seen by the prophets to be closely connected with the
institution of monarchy. In the preceding century it had been royal
policies which had frequently stimulated prophetic protests; examples
of this are Nathan (2 Sam. 12), Micaiah ben Irnlah (1 Kgs 22) and
Elijah, already mentioned (2.12). In each case the prophet is chiefly
remembered for his opposition, in the name of Yahweh, to the policy
or the conduct of the monarch concerned.

2.14 The prophets and the corruption ofworship

In the case of the eighth-century B.c. prophets, however, there is
something more. Not only is there criticism of, or opposition to, royal
policies or attitudes, or conduct, but also to those of the people,
especially the chief citizens and courtiers, that is, those whose moral and
religious attitudes were derived from those of the court. If the words of
these eighth-century B.C. prophets which have come down to us some-
times give the impression that the entire nation was being rebuked, it is
important to remember that the matters for which the nation was being
criticised were more often than not closely connected with, or the
direct result of, the monarchical system which had been imposed on
Yahwistic religion. The chief of these, in the prophetic view, was the
debased and degenerate state of the worship of Yahweh, and this was
the result very largely of syncretism; we have already noted the large
share which certain kings, such as Solomon and Ahab, had had in the
process of incorporating into the cultus at Jerusalem and Samaria
elements of foreign nature-religion and magic. It was this debasement
L.H.R,
D
68 Prophets and Philosophers
and distortion of the worship of Yahweh which, in the prophetic view,
lay at the root of a good deal oflsrael' s malaise.

2.15 The prophets and social corruption

There had been a distortion also in the structure oflsraelite society: the
townsman had prospered at the expense of the peasant. The peasant,
burdened with the economic impositions made necessary by the
various state schemes of the monarchy, had become more and more
impoverished. The evils of usury, to which the peasant became a
victim, led to the situation where, being unable to pay, he had to forfeit
his land and possibly even become a slave. Land passed increasingly into
the hands of a minority group of urban rich men, with all the evil social
consequences that were denounced by prophets such as Amos and
Isaiah. The rich, moreover, found ways and means of influencing legal
decisions in their favour should the poor man make any attempt to
resort to law for the redress of his grievances. Thus Israel ceased to be a
society of equals before Yahweh and become instead a nation of ex-
tremes: of wealth and poverty, luxury and misery, urban ostentation
and rural depression. The rich, while outwardly conforming to the
ritual of the royal temple cult, could say inwardly, 'There is no God';
no God, that is, to take any account of injustice and exploitation. The
extremist reaction to all this on the part of certain minority groups such
as the Rechabites was to renounce altogether a settled form of civilisa-
tion. The classical Hebrew prophets, however, proclaimed that Israel
must return to a just order of society, in accordance with the religious
ideals and principles of earlier Yahwism.

2.16 The prophets and political opportunism

A third aspect of Israel's falling away from the earlier faith, according
to the prophets of Yahweh, was her involvement in Near Eastern
international politics. The transformation of Israel from a cultic
confederation to a monarchy had facilitated the provision of armaments
and alliances as a defence of her life - with correspondingly less
apparent need for reliance on the guidance and protection ofYahweh.
With the idleness and ostentation of the ruling class went, apparently,
The prophets and political opportunism 69
a spirit ofjingoism and national pride- ridiculous, as it turned out, but
none the less real. As T. H. Robinson pointed out, there was a striking
comparison between the spirit of the ruling classes in Israel in the eighth
and seventh centuries B.C. and that of the French aristocracy before the
Revolution.
A further factor in the development of the prophetic interpretation
of contemporary affairs was the rise of Assyria to a position of domi-
nance in Western Asia. The Assyrian empire had been extended to
include much of the ancient Near East and Middle East. Confronted by
the existence of this new international giant Israel began to be aware of
world history in a new way. The god oflsrael might, it seemed, have
to give way to the mighty gods of Assyria; for it was in the name of
these gods, the Assyrian generals solemnly declared in the inscriptions,
that Assyria waged her campaigns. This constituted a crisis of belief in
the reality and power of Yahweh. The prophets interpreted the
international events of their day as the work of Yahweh, whose sphere
of activity they now saw as enormously extended beyond what had
been envisaged earlier. They were convinced that the divine being
whom they worshipped was the lord of history - even though he
might not intervene to save faithless Israel, and even though Israel
might have to suffer in the events that now loomed on the international
horizon, in which or beyond which the prophets saw 'the day of
Yahweh' -the day of retribution and disaster. But for the faithful and
the righteous it might even, according to some of the prophets such as
Jeremiah, be a day to be hoped for and welcomed. The monarchy
might be overthrown, the Temple whose precincts the men of Judah
thought to be inviolable might be destroyed, the nation might suffer
defeat and even enslavement - and yet, claimed the prophets, in all this
the name of Yahweh as lord of history would only be magnified and
the true worshippers would be vindicated. Jerusalem would be de-
stroyed, Micah proclaimed, but Yahweh was concerned more with the
righteousness of his people than with the Temple and its cultus. 'What
does Yahweh require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?' It is this expectation of ill
fortune by means of which religious apostasy was to be condemned
that marks off the prophets of Yahweh from the royal prophets, and
indeed from all the soothsayers and the givers of oracles in the ancient
world. When the event foretold by the prophets happened, the national
disaster in which first the northern tribes were defeated and their
70 Prophets and Philosophers
capital Samaria captured, in 721, and then the southern kingdom
overthrown and the city of Jerusalem abandoned and many of the
leaders of the nation carried off into exile in Babylon, in 587, the pro-
phetic message was powerfully vindicated. The result was a measure of
recovery of the authentic religious faith of Israel. As Max Weber
wrote: 'It is a stupendous paradox, that a god does not only fail to
protect his chosen people against its enemies but allows them to fall, or
pushes them himself, into ignominy and enslavement, yet is worshipped
only the more ardently. This is unexampled in history and is only to be
explained by the powerful prestige of the prophetic message' (Weber,
1952; 364).

2.17 The traditionalist character ofeighth-century prophecy

It is thus possible to see that it is the religious tradition manifested in the
prophets that is both the original and the enduring central element in
Hebrew religion. In the eighth-century situation it might well have
seemed that such men as Amos were marginal to the main streams of
Hebrew life and thought - as indeed at the time they probably were.
But one has to distinguish between the short-term and the long-term
effects and consequences of the prophetic witness. Indeed, it is in the
perspective of subsequent religious history that the effect upon Israel of
the prophetic message is fully appreciated; for this reason they are
sometimes regarded as innovators, men who laid the foundations of
a new religious attitude. But Amos, for example, speaks ofhimselfas the
upholder of an ancient faith, faith in Yahweh as the God who is active in
the affairs of history. 'Thus says Yahweh, I brought you up out of the
land of Egypt, and led you forty years in the wilderness. . .. Is it not so
indeed, 0 people oflsrael?' (Amos 2: 10; 3: 1). The indictment which
Amos brings is that in the past Israel has attempted to silence the
prophets (Amos 2: 12). Obviously, then, the prophetic tradition in
which Amos was conscious of standing was not something new.
According to Amos the essential element in Yahwistic religion is the
existence of the prophet as the declarer and interpreter of the divine
purposes: 'Surely the Lord God does nothing without revealing his
secret to his servants the prophets' (Amos 3: 7). One of the principal
roles of the prophet, illustrated in the message of Amos and of Hosea,
for example, is the call to men to turn back from secular ways of
The traditionalist character ofeighth-century prophecy 71
thought and conduct, to seek to know the will of God: 'Seek Yahweh,
and you shall live.' 'Seek good and not evil, that you may live.' 'Come,
let us return to Yahweh... .' What is clear is that such men were not
consciously setting forth, in the eighth century B.c., a new form of
religion; they believed they were calling men to return to religious
attitudes, a religious way of life, and a religious structure of society,
which had been the original basis and raison d' etre of the community of
Israel but which had been corrupted and distorted in more recent times
by the introduction of an alien element, the oriental pattern of despotic
monarchy.

2.18 The growth ofthe idea ofGod as potentate

Once introduced into the life of Israel, however, the institution of
monarchy left its permanent imprint on Israel's religion. This is to be
seen not so much in the dominant place held by the royal temple-
cultus from the time of Solomon onwards - fraught with serious and
enduring consequences though this was - but in the influence which the
institution of monarchy had upon the Hebrew conception of God. By
the sixth century B.C. even the prophetic conception of Yahweh's
nature had been affected; the utterances of Jeremiah, for example,
reveal the extent to which ideas associated with monarchical govern-
ment had entered into the mainstream of Hebrew thought. One of the
significant changes in the Hebrew conception of God is from the earlier
idea of Yahweh as dwelling in the holy mountain of the wilderness
where the Hebrews first became his covenant people - an idea which
survives in Ps. 68 and Hab. 3, where Yahweh is described as coming
from Sinai - to the later idea in which he is regarded as having his
dwelling in Zion, the capital city of King David, whence he 'shines
forth' against his enemies (Ps. 50 : 2-4; 48 : 2-7). He is, in this later
stratum of pre-Exilic thought, regarded as dwelling in Canaan only,
the ruler of the land; beyond this territory other gods hold sway. The
situation is one in which 'the worship of other gods by foreign nations
is accepted as an empirical fact, while Yahweh alone is of significance
for the Israelites' (Ringgren, 1966; 99). During the pre-Exilic period he
is described also as 'Yahweh Sabaoth'. The word 'Sabaoth' is of
uncertain meaning in this connection, but underlying the various
possible interpretations is the idea of heavenly hosts or armies, or
72 Prophets and Philosophers
possibly a heavenly court. In this, too, we see how the divine being is
thought of in terms of a mighty king.
Important though this conception of God as a powerful national
monarch became, however, other aspects of his nature were also
emphasised alongside this. Outstanding was the apprehension of
Yahweh's holiness. The roots of this sense of the holiness of God lie
far back in the early history of the Hebrews, and, in particular, in the
experience of certain outstanding figures such as Moses and Samuel. An
element in the sense of the holy is, as Otto has demonstrated in his
famous book The Idea of the Holy, a feeling of awe and dread, as well as
of fascination, in the presence of the mysterium tremendum. Yet it is easy
to see how even this conception provided the basis for a transition into
the idea of Yahweh as a majestic potentate. For the holiness of God
'signifies the unapproachability, the awesomeness, even the dangerous-
ness of the God who is wholly other' (Ringgren, 1966; 74). This has
obvious affmities with the unapproachability by ordinary men of the
great and powerful monarch. Belief in the divine holiness could thus,
in the context of monarchical government, very easily lead by yet
another path to the idea of God as a king. Significantly it is Isaiah of
Jerusalem who makes the transition. 'Holy, holy, holy, is Yahweh
Sabaoth ... I am a man of unclean lips, and ... my eyes have seen the
King, Yahweh Sabaoth!' (Isa. 6: 3,5). The relationship of the humble
subject and the mighty king is thus transposed into religious thought;
the concept of Yahweh's holiness imperceptibly becomes the concept
ofYahweh' s kingship.
Nevertheless, there was something more that was denoted by the
word 'holy', and this remained, unassimilated to the symbolism of
kingship. Hosea represents Yahweh as saying 'I am the Holy One in
your midst', that is the one who is kindly and compassionate, who has
mercy, and is present among his people. Something of this sense of a
shared nature, between God and men, is found in the so-called Holiness
Code: 'You shall be holy, fori Yahweh yourGodamholy' (Lev.19: 2),
where the injunction very clearly has a moral and ethical connotation.

2.19 The divine monarch, and the Hebrew idea ofsin

Something of this same duality has affected the Hebrew notion of sin,
which received its formative development during the pre-Exilic period.
 The divine monarch, and the Hebrew idea ofsin 73
It is not always realised that the idea of sin is by no means universal
among mankind; for instance it is not a prominent or even important
feature of ancient Chinese and Japanese religion (2.45; 2.48). So far as
the Western world in general is concerned, the popular understanding
of the idea of sin is in the form in which it has been bequeathed to the
West by Hebrew religion. And in so far as the original Hebrew idea is
twofold, the consequences of the acceptance of this twofold idea may
be seen to have been, to say the least, ambiguous.
One main root, perhaps the major one, is almost certainly man's
sense of moral inadequacy. This seems to have depended in turn on the
emergence of an awareness of good and evil; of good and evil, that is to
say, of an external and objective character, other than what is immedi-
ately the 'good' for the individual or group concerned. We shall see
that such an awareness emerged also in Iranian religion (2.23), just as it
had to some extent in the ~g-vedic hymns addressed to Varuna (1.34).
Obviously in such situations there is some criterion by which men
decide what kind of conduct and attitudes are good, and what are evil.
In the broadest general terms it can be said that in the history of
religion the criterion is related to the ultimate religious goal, whatever
that may be. The religious goal may be peace, or inward harmony, or
union with God, or eternal life; then that is 'good' which most surely
leads to the desired end. In Hebrew religion, in the pre-Exilic period,
the religious goal at the highest level was 'to know God'. A secondary
but perhaps more common goal, regarded as the supreme blessing
bestowed on men by God, was long life on earth, while sudden and
premature death was regarded as a divine punishment upon the wicked
and godless {Prov. 10: 21; 11: 9; Ps. 73: 18£;Job 20: 6ff.). The dead
were thought to have some kind of continued existence in the sub-
terranean region or Sheol, but in pre-Exilic Hebrew thought this was
the bourn from which no traveller returned; in Sheol a man was soon
forgotten by the living and cut off from the presence of God. Yet there
was also a conviction that the Holy One was stronger than death and
Sheol, and it was for this reason that the pre-Exilic worshipper of
Yahweh believed that God could' deliver' him from the threat of death:
'Thou dost not give me up to Sheol, or let thy godly one see the Pit'
{Ps. 16: 10). This conviction that the power of God was greater than
the power of death which threatened to claim a man provided the
basis, in post-Exilic times, for the development of the idea of resurrec-
tion (3.17). But that development waited upon the influence of another
74 Prophets and Philosophers
religious tradition, that ofPersia, which we shall shortly be considering
(2.20).
Meanwhile, the ideas of good and evil associated with the belief that
to know God and to enjoy life on earth in his presence for as long as
possible was the ultimate goal of man's existence, would be of the kind
which placed a high value on conduct and attitudes which contributed
to physical and mental health and to harmony in human relationships.
This was the good; this was what Yahweh desired from his people. Evil
was seen to lie in conduct and attitudes which were destructive of the
good, and to act in such ways and to adopt such attitudes was to have
chosen wrongly, and had as its consequence a sense of failure to live as
Yahweh required and in a way that would mean forfeiting his blessing.
Here then is one of the basic roots of the idea of sin in pre-Exilic Israel:
the sense of failure, of having fallen short of what might have been.
The commonest word for 'sin' in the Old Testament (bet) is connected
with a root that means 'to miss', in the sense of failure (Ringgren, 1966;
138).
There is, however, another very common Hebrew word for un-
desirable moral conduct and attitudes (pesa), and this is connected with
the idea of rebellion. Here the basic meaning is that of having flouted the
commands of a monarch, or of having the desire to throw off his rule.
There is, of course, an underlying affmity of meaning between these
two words of sin. But in the second there lies the germ of the idea that
a man who is conscious of moral failure may not rest there but must
also regard himself as a rebel, or as one who had displeased a powerful
monarch. Now it is one of the truisms of the philosophy of religion that
men have scarcely ever escaped from thinking of the divine, the holy,
the eternal, in some kind of human terms. But while anthropo-
morphism may be inevitable there is a variety of possible kinds, and
upon the kind that gains acceptance depends what kind of religious life
and community will develop. What we have to record here is that in
pre-Exilic Israel the institution of monarchy of the ancient oriental kind
seems to have had an important influence on the shaping of Hebrew
religious ideas; among these was the conception that developed during
this period of God as an arbitrary oriental monarch, and of the sinner
as a rebel against the dictates of autocratic power. This is certainly
something which is characteristic of the Western tradition of religion;
it is much less characteristic of the religious thought oflndia, where the
idea of moral evil remains more closely related in a causal fashion to the
The divine monarch, and the Hebrew idea ofsin 75
perceived religious goal: a certain kind of conduct will lead to this
religious goal. In the Western tradition the idea of moral evil as rebel-
lion against autocratic power exists alongside other ways of regarding
the matter which are more akin to the Indian, and to earlier Hebrew
conception: it is the idea of God as an absolute monarch which had led
to some of the difficulties which attend Western theology at the present
time.

2.2 ZARATHUSTRA, THE PROPHET OF IRAN (618-

541 B.C. approx.)

2.20 The historical importance ofZarathustra

In the year 586 B.C., when many of the leading families of the kingdom
of Judah were deported into Babylonia and the Jerusalem monarchy
came to an end, in Persia a young man of about thirty had just begun
to be active as a prophet (Zaehner, 1959; 209). This was Zarathustra, to
give him the Iranian form of his name, although he is better known as
Zoroaster, which is the Greek form. Tradition records that the Prophet
of Iran commenced his prophetic work '258 years before Alexander',
that is, in 588 B.C. Zarathustra belongs in the category of prophet, in
that he appears to have undergone religious experiences which led him
to proclaim certain truths which had been disclosed to him about the
nature of the spiritual world. The period of his prophetic ministry
covers roughly the period of fifty years the Jews were in exile in Baby-
lonia, for his death occurred about 541 B.c., just three years before the
Persian King Cyrus captured Babylon, incorporating it into the Persian
empire and making it possible for the Jewish exiles in Babylonia to
think of returning to Jerusalem. By this time Zarathustra's religious
teaching had exerted a wide enough influence in Persia for the Jewish
exiles to have become 'thoroughly impregnated with Zoroastrian ideas'
(Zaehner, 1959; 209). The difference which these ideas made to Jewish
religious thinking will be evident when post-Exilic Judaism (3.1) is
compared with the religion of the pre-Exilic period. Through Judaism
many of these ideas passed into Christianity in its early formative period.
While Zoroastrianism now exists only as the religion of a small minority
in Persia and in western India (the Parsees) the Prophet of Iran has
D2 L.H.R.
76 Prophets and Philosophers
exercised a much wider influence than this would suggest, and it is
important to trace the emergence in ancient Persia of some of the ideas
which have subsequently held so central a place in Western religious
thought.

2.21 Lightfrom the East?

Persia, as R. C. Zaehner points out (1955; 3), is the true Middle East;
it is the meeting ground of East and West, the bridge between the
culture of the Mediterranean world and that of India, the link between
two widely differing civilisations. Zarathustra appears to have been
indebted to a tradition of thought which is characteristic of India and
China, but which his own prophetic genius transformed, thus making
possible its easier transmission westwards. For a long time Western
scholars, particularly Christian, were reluctant to admit that the Pro-
phet of Iran had bequeathed anything in the way of religious ideas to
Judaism. That he did so is more readily conceded now, but there is still
considerable difference of opinion about Zarathustra' s own beliefs,
compared with those of later Zoroastrianism. An excellent and com-
prehensive account of the oscillation of scholarly views on this subject
will be found inJ. Duchesne-Guillemin's work, The Western Response
to Zoroaster (1958), in the last sentence of which we are cautioned that
'the West has not said its last word on Zoroaster'. We must therefore
leave speculation on one side and confine ourselves to what is known
of the prophet's teaching, what elements of this undeniably found their
way into Judaism, and how, if at all, these can be said to constitute a
positive and helpful contribution from the East to the problems of
religious thought encountered by the West.

2.22 Zarathustra as prophet-reformer

The source of our knowledge ofZarathustra's religious teaching are the
'Gathas', or songs which are now found within the Y asna, the great
liturgical text of Zoroastrianism, one of the three main parts of the
Zoroastrian scriptures. (The other two parts are the Y asts, sacrificial
hymns addressed to specific spirits; and the Videvdat, the laws of ritual
purification.) The Gathas are composed in the first person, and are
generally regarded as utterances of Zarathustra himsel£ In these the
Zarathustra as prophet-reformer 77
prophet speaks as one who is conscious both of having been chosen by
God to communicate the Truth to men, and who having himself
contemplated God's holiness freely chooses to be 'the friend of Truth'
and to follow the way of holiness. His mission is to call his contem-
poraries from their worship of many deities, a worship which often
involved bloody sacrifices, to the worship of the one 'Wise Lord' -
Ahura Mazda. The background to his prophetic message is the Indo-
Iranian religion, another form of which we have already noted in the
early Vedic period in India (1.33-1.35). We saw in that connection that
the Aryans conceived of two classes of supernatural beings, asuras (in
Iran, ahuras) and devas (in Iran, daevas). Whereas in India the word
'asura' gradually came to be used for a demonic being, and 'deva' for a
divine being, in Iran it was the other way round: the daevas, probably
under the influence of Zarathustra, come to be regarded as demonic,
while from the ahura class one great Ahura (Lord) emerges as the Lord
ofLight or Wise Lord, Ahura Mazda.

2.23 Zarathustra' s cosmic dualism

Nevertheless it is not as a proclaimer of monotheistic ideas that
Zarathustra is chiefly to be remembered. Rather it is for the dualism
that is characteristic of his system. This, as R. C. Zaehner describes it,
'was a dualism of spirit, postulating two principles at the origin of the
Universe - the Spirit of Good or Ohrmazd, and the Spirit of Evil or
Ahriman. This extremely original idea', comments Zaehner, 'dates
back to Zoroaster himself, and it is his basic contribution to the
philosophy of religion' {Zaehner, 1955; 4). Zarathustra represented
these two opposed spirits as twins, one of whom chose good, while the
other chose evil. He seems to have regarded the twin cosmic principles
as having had their origin in the one supreme Wise Lord, Ahura Mazda.
They are designated in the Zoroastrian scriptures by the names Spenta
Mainyu (Holy Spirit) and Angra Mainyu {Evil Spirit). The relationship
of the former to Ahura Mazda was obviously closer than was that of the
latter. It is for this reason that in later tradition the Holy Spirit comes to
be identified with Ahura Mazda (or in the alternative form Ohrmazd).
While logic demands that Ahura Mazda must be regarded as father of
the Evil Spirit also (if the spirits were twins}, Zoroastrian thought does
not require Ahura Mazda to be responsible in any way for the principle
78 Prophets and Philosophers
of evil. What is emphasised in Zarathustra's teaching is the complete
freedom of choice exercised by the spirits, and the consequent responsi-
bility that rested entirely upon the choice. The same emphasis is laid in
Zoroastrian thought on human freedom of choice. Man is not God's
servant or his slave, as in Semitic religion, and especially in Islam, but a
being who has complete freedom of moral choice.

2.24 The special nature ofZoroastrian dualism

It is important to distinguish between two usages of the word 'dualism'
in connection with religious idea. There is the dualism which has for its
best-known example the system of thought called Manichaeism (4.18),
in which the material, physical world is regarded as wholly evil and all
goodness is confined to what is spiritual. But in Zoroastrian thought it
is within the spiritual world that the ultimate dualism of good and evil
has its origin. The spiritual is not wholly good; it can also be evil. On
the other hand the material realm is not dismissed as the arena of evil;
instead it is regarded as basically good. This is because it is thought of as
the work of Ahura Mazda himself. The physical world being thus
regarded as inherently good by Zoroastrians, it is by them reverenced
and respected; the material things of the earth are to be used and
enjoyed by man in wise ways, that is in ways that will contribute to the
holy life. Asceticism, in the sense of the rejection of certain physical
aspects oflife as opposed to the pursuit of holiness, has thus no place in
Zoroastrianism.
The other feature of Zarathustra's teaching which qualifies it to be
regarded as unique is the fact that it envisages not a single ultimate
principle in the Universe, but two. It is, as Zaehner says, 'a dualism of
two rival spiritual and moral forces - good and evil, light and darkness,
order and disorder' {1955; 4). And behind these opposed forces lies an
original, primeval choice. If there is in any sense an ultimate principle in
Zoroastrianism it would appear to be the ultimacy of moral choice -
for truth, light and order, or for untruth, darkness and chaos: this is a
choice of free agents, whether spirits or men.

2.25 The question ofthe originality ofZarathustra' s dualism

It has been suggested that the religious ideas of Zarathustra, and in
particular his unique moral dualism, owe their origin to antecedent
The question ofthe originality ofZarathustra' s dualism 79
ideas, from which they represent a logical development. In the first
place there is the contention of W. B. Henning that Zoroastrian ideas
depend on an earlier monotheism. 'As are most dualistic movements,
it is perhaps best understood as a protest against monotheism.' As a
fuller exposition of this point of view Duchesne-Guillemin quotes the
words ofFr. Spiegal:

It is only when one has come to admit one omnipotent, omniscient

creator, who created the world with all there is in it, that the question
arises why everything in the world does not go according to the will of
the creator and ruler, why not only praiseworthy undertakings of the
creatures go wrong but also things happen of which he cannot possibly
approve. In one word: the question arises as to how evil came into the
world. An attempt to answer this question: such is dualism in its different
forms. (Duchesne-Guillemin, 1958; 1)

This line of thought can be pursued in two different directions: one

conclusion would be that since moral dualism of the Zoroastrian kind
may well be a protest against monotheism, this relegates such dualism
to a secondary, dependent or inferior position; the other conclusion
would be that since the idea of moral dualism is necessary in order to
attempt to explain what monotheism fails to explain, this constitutes a
damaging criticism of monotheism, and indicates its inherent weakness.
It is therefore at least an open question whether or not, because
Zoroastrian dualism may postulate an earlier monotheism, it is therefore
philosophically or religiously inferior to monotheism. But it is in fact
entirely uncertain whether any form of monotheistic thought already
existed in Iran; it is very unlikely that Zarathustra would have come
into contact with Jewish monotheism, although not impossible. His
prophetic activities were located in the north-eastern area of Persia,
bordering on what is now Afghanistan and the Turkmen region of the
U.S.S.R.; whereas contact with the Jewish exiles would have required
him to be in Babylonia, to the south-west of Persia. The possibility
remains, however, that Zarathustra himself developed a monotheistic
form of belief - that of the Ahura Mazda, which he subsequently
modified into the dualism which is the special characteristic of his
teaching.
This brings us to the other sense in which Zoroastrian thought may
owe something to earlier ideas, a point which has already been touched
on in passing (2.22}. An understanding of the world in terms of an
80 Prophets and Philosophers
absolute, moral dualism is not entirely peculiar to Zoroastrianism. It
was, by Zarathustra' s time, already present in Indo-Iranian religion,
with its fundamental dichotomy of asuras and devas. This seems to have
been so deep-rooted a conception of Indian thought, for example, that
it endured even within the Buddhist tradition; it was so popular a way
of understanding the nature of the world that frequent references occur
in the discourses of the Buddha (in the Pali canon) to these asura-hosts
and deva-hosts, who wage constant war with one another (Ling,
1962; 21-6). Even so, there is no clear moral distinction between their
natures; the asura-deva mythology represents an earlier stage of
development, before one group had been identified as good and the
other as evil. In Iranian religion it seems to have been in the teaching of
Zarathustra that these opposing forces were raised to a cosmic moral
dualism. Thus Zarathustra owes something to these earlier ideas, but
his teaching represents also a new interpretation, the introduction of a
new dimension.

2.26 The social factor in Zarathustra' s dualism

An interesting and important feature of the Prophet's utterances con-
tained in the Gathas is the conflict to which he refers between settled
herdsmen and predatory warriors. The settled community of herdsmen
are identified as followers of the Truth, while the raiders are followers
of the Lie, and engage in sanguinary sacrifices in honour of the daevas
(devas). It is possible that these latter were in fact the warrior-class in
Iranian society, corresponding to the k~atriya class in ancient India;
they were upholders of the traditional, pagan religion of the Indo-
Iranians, worshippers of the daevas. The settled herdsmen, whose labour
was devoted to the pastoral care of the herds, were the class in Iranian
society who were the real producers of wealth, and would thus
correspond to the vaisya class among the Indian Aryans. These, rather
than the warrior class, responding to the teaching of the prophet
would have formed the basis of the new Zoroastrian community, and
since their oppressors and enemies were traditionally devoted to the
daevas, it would follow that the ahuras would necessarily become the
spirit-forces to be venerated by those who accepted the new prophetic
religion. The fact that the hostile warrior class were by tradition
worshippers of the many daevas might have provided a stimulus to any
The socialfactor in Zarathustra' s dualism 81
incipient tendency in Zarathustra's religious thought towards belief in
the One rather than the many; that is, the One Ahura, rather than the
many ahuras. Certainly the opposition of warrior classes towards
ethical prophetic religion is a common feature of the history of
religions, and would provide a further reason in favour of the suggested
analysis of the situation in social terms.

2.27 The ethical element in the religion of Zarathustra

An important feature of the religious ideas proclaimed by the Prophet
of Iran is that which we have just referred to, namely their strongly
ethical character. Nietzsche recognised this, in commenting on the
public's enormous misapprehension of the irony contained in his Thus
Spake Zarathustra (Also sprach Zarathustra, 1885-7): 'I should have been
asked what the name Zarathustra means in my mouth, the mouth of the
first Immoralist: for what makes up the enormous uniqueness of that
Persian in history is exactly the opposite of it' (Duchesne-Guillemin,
1958; 21£.). Nietzsche's 'immoralism' was the exact opposite of Zara-
thustra' s teaching; the Prophet of Iran's achievement was to provide
a sound and logical metaphysical basis for morality. The elaboration of
the Zoroastrian system of ethics belongs to a later period of history,
the Sassanian era (from A.D. 236), but the foundations were laid in the
teaching of the Prophet. The presupposition of the Zoroastrian ethic
is that man is free to choose his course of action, and that the wise will
choose that which is consonant with truth, light, and order, that which
will identify him with the forces of good, and assist their triumph over
the forces of evil. Man's part in the cosmic struggle, therefore, is to
think good thoughts, speak good words, and perform good actions.
In practice this manifested itself in a way oflife that is best summed up
as urbane and moderate.

2.28 Zoroastrian eschatology

Initially the Prophet's hope seems to have been for the victory of the
forces of good and the establishment of a realm of righteousness on
earth. Later, however, another perspective emerges: 'Powerful in
immortality shall be the soul of the follower of Truth, but lasting
82 Prophets and Philosophers
torment shall there be for the man who cleaves to the Lie.' Both
Zarathustra and his followers looked forward to a life beyond death,
and since life was essentially life in the body, this hope demanded a
doctrine of resurrection of the body. Thus in later Zoroastrianism the
idea of a restored physical world appears, a world 'most excellent,
unageing, undecaying, neither passing away nor falling into cor-
ruption ... .' Associated with this was the doctrine of the coming of
the Saoshyant, or Saviour, who was to appear at the end of time, when
all the forces of evil in the universe would be finally overcome and
rendered eternally powerless. These ideas received their full formulation
among the Prophet's followers after his death, but they had already
been adumbrated in the Prophet's teaching, or were implications of
principles which the Prophet himself had taught. They were sufficiently
well formulated during the period when Jews were in close contact with
Persia for them to pass into the religious life ofJudaism.

2.29 The Zoroastrian sacrament

One point remains to be dealt with, and that is the curious history of
the central rite in Zoroastrian religion, the drinking of the haoma
juice. We have already noted (1.34} that the Indian branch of the Indo-
Iranian peoples deified the juice of the soma {Iranian, haoma} plant, the
drinking of which constituted an important Vedic ritual, and produced
in the worshipper a state of great exaltation. The same practice seems
to have been a feature of the religion of the Iranian branch of the
Aryans, among whom also the haoma juice was regarded as a god,
able to bestow immortality on those who partook of this rite. One of
the unsolved problems of the study of Zoroastrianism is whether this
practice was tolerated by the Prophet, or whether, after being pro-
scribed by the Prophet (who we know was opposed to the practice in
its earlier context in the bull-sacrifice} it was later reintroduced by his
followers. Certainly in later Zoroastrianism it held a central place; the
haoma was regarded as the 'son' of Ahura Mazda, and in a ritual which,
as Zaehner comments, is curiously like the Catholic Mass, it was
ceremonially offered up to the heavenly Father, after which priest and
people partook of the drink, an act which was regarded as a proleptic
form of participation in life eternal.
The social situation in India in the sixth century B.C. 83

2.3 GAUTAMA THE BUDDHA, THE PROPHET OF

INDIA (56]-483 B.c.)

2.30 The social situation in India in the sixth century B.C.

We return now to the India of the sixth century B.C. Some of the
features of that situation have already been sketched in (1.57, 1.58, 1.59).
Recent historical studies, such as those of D. D. Kosambi, have given
us a clearer picture of the social and political conditions in northern
India in the sixth century B.c., and have enabled us to understand why
answers were being sought to the problems which then exercised men's
minds. The older form of society, that of the tribe or group of tribes
ruled over by an assembly of elders, was everywhere in north India
breaking down before the advance of a few great, new monarchies,
especially those ofKashi, Kosala and Magadha (Map 2). The older tribal
republics were being conquered and brought into the territory and
under the dominion of these new autocratic monarchies (2.38). The
old, familiar structure of society was, for many men at that time, being
replaced by a more impersonal machinery of government; the individ-
ual frequently felt himself adrift, socially and morally, and unable to
fmd in the new autocratic society the meaningful structure he had
known formerly. The problems which were, as Kosambi has said,
'in the air' in sixth-century B.C. north India were: What is the soul?
What is man's destiny after death? Why do men suffer, apparently
undeservedly? How is suffering to be escaped? What is the supreme
good, and how is it attained?

2.31 The Buddha, his life and ministry

Into this situation in about the year 563 B.C., when Zarathustra was
still active in Persia, was born Gautama, later to be known by the
religious title of the Buddha (the Enlightened, or Awakened, One). He
was a member of the Sakya clan, whose territory lay along what is now
the border between Nepal and India. His father was a k~atriya chieftain;
later piety has magnified his position to that of a great king. In these
mountainous areas to the north of the Ganges plain the old tribal
confederations survived most strongly, although they too were
 /1-f ,q'
~..<1
>-"..q
41(ou
SAKYAS ) IV 7" A I N S
~pilavastu
e,L;;_b. , •(KATMANDU)
ltravastr ,_um m.
\
•Kusinagara

:N'

t
Ancient names - :Patalfputn:t
Modern namt:.s- (PATNA)
Ancient 'tribes or I<Jngdoms- )I{AGADHA
BENGAL)
0 roo 200

MiL E S

North India in early Buddhist times

The Buddha, his life and ministry 85
threatened by the continually expanding monarchies of the Ganges
plain, especially by Magadha, whose kings, Bimbisara and his son
Ajatasattu, are frequently mentioned in the Buddhist canonical
writings. Gautama thus grew up in an environment which to some
extent protected him from the psychological malaise of the monarchical
societies, but he became acutely aware of it before long. In Buddhist
legend it is said that in the course of a single day he encountered an old
man in the last stages of senility, then a person wasted with a foul
disease, and then a dead man being carried to the burning ghat,
followed by sorrowing friends. These sights made him think deeply
about the nature of human existence, its meaning and its purpose.
Finally, on the same day, he saw an ascetic man walking calmly and
confidently along the road, and this convinced him of the supreme
value of the holy life. He set out, leaving his home, to fmd a teacher
and guide who would be able to point him to the Truth and instruct
him in spiritual disciplines. After a long period of such searching, during
which he practised severe ascetism and became extremely thin and
weak, he fmally attained supreme enlightenment while he was engaged
in deep and strenuous meditation on the nature of the self and the causes
of man's decay and death. In his meditation he experienced a strong
spiritual opposition, which in Buddhist terminology has come to be
known as Mara, the Evil One (literally 'the killer'). The Buddha's con-
quest ofMara has in later Buddhist tradition been embellished with much
spectacular and mythological detail, especially in the Mahayana school
(4.32). The tradition that the great enlightenment occurred near Gaya
(in modem Bihar) on the bank of the river Neranjara, a tributary of the
Ganges, is strong and ancient, and can probably be accepted as historic-
ally authentic. For the Buddha all the evil passions that are at the root
of men's suffering had been overcome, and all doubts and fears con-
cerning his future destiny were at rest. According to the tradition, he
spent a further four weeks there in meditation beneath the sacred pipal
tree, henceforth known as the bodhi (enlightenment), or simply bo,
tree. Then he sat out to make known to others the way to the enlighten-
ment which he had gained. Traditionally, the first preaching of these
truths, now known as the Buddha's Dhamma (Sanskrit, Dharma) or
doctrine, took place at Samath, near Banaras. Like many other religious
teachers in contemporary India he gathered a group of disciples and
converts, the nucleus of the Buddhist order of monks or Sangha. For
about forty years he and his disciples travelled about north-east India
86 Prophets and Philosophers
until finally at Kusinagara at about the age of eighty the Buddha's life-
span came to an end and, in Buddhist terminology, the entry into
complete nibbana occurred (2.36).
The traditional dating of the Buddha's life in the countries of
South-East Asia gives 623 B.C. as the year of his birth and 543 as the year
of his entry into complete nibbana (parinibbana). On this reckoning
the year 1957 c.E. was the completion of 2,500 years of Buddhist
history and as such it was celebrated in the various Buddhist countries
of South Asia. Modem scholars, however, are inclined to date the
Buddha's life slightly later, with his birth in 563 B.C. and his decease in
483 B.C. This agrees, says Kosambi, with a record taken in Canton in a
known Chinese year; the record, on a palm-leaf manuscript, gives one
dot per year from the Buddha's decease to the date of writing, that is,
the known year (Kosambi, 1965; 109).

2.32 The essentials of early Buddhist doctrine

The Buddha's doctrine (Dhamma) began from an analysis of the
conditions of human existence. There are three major characteristics
of all existence: first, dukkha, a word which is variously translated as
'evil' or 'ill' or 'suffering', and means any or all of these as they are
expressions of the general unsatisfactoriness of ordinary empirical
existence, the sense that things are not as they should be; second,
anicca or impermanence, that is, the transient quality of all earthly
experiences, especially the so-called 'pleasures' of life, and the un-
relenting law of change and decay observable in all things; third,
anatta, or the absence of a permanent enduring private 'self' (atta) within
the human individual. This last is the doctrine which most clearly
distinguished the teaching of the Buddha from other contemporary
schools of thought, and especially from Upani~adic thought, in which
the affirmation of the soul or self (Sanskrit, iitman; Pali, atta) within the
human individual and its identification with the world-soul, or
brahman, was the central doctrine (1.58). It was an error, according to
the Buddha, to find the basis of that which was eternal within the
human individual. The Buddha did not deny that there was something
which is eternal; only it was not to be found in the temporary agglo-
meration of factors, physical and psychical, which produce the appear-
ance of an 'individual'. The so-called individual, he taught, is in fact
The essentials ofearly Buddhist doctrine 87
a flux of material and mental events. Analysis of individual 'selfhood'
can be made at various levels of complexity: the most simple analysis is
into five Khandhas, or groups Oiterally 'heaps'). These are, outward
form (the physical body), sensation, perception, volition, and con-
sciousness, that is, consciousness especially of the preceding four. The
physical body is most obviously impermanent, for it is continually
changing throughout its life-span; but no less impermanent are the
other factors. Together they produce the temporary illusion of an
enduring reality, but it is an illusion. What is permanent and enduring
must be sought elsewhere.
What then was the enduring reality to which the Buddha pointed
men, and which he bade them seek? In one sense it was the Dhamma.
This is a word virtually incapable of being translated into English.
Conze, in his Buddhist Thought in India, distinguishes seven main senses
of the word. The fundamental meaning of dhamma is that which is
self-subsistent, that which alone exists in its own right and without
dependence on any prior reality. In this sense it is strongly akin to the
Greek notion of the Logos, that which upholds all things. The Pali
word dhamma has passed into the vocabulary of South-East Asian
languages, such as Burmese, where it is used by Christians to render
into Burmese the word 'Logos' in the opening sentences of StJohn's
Gospel: 'In the beginning was the Dhamma . ...'
Ultimate, full and real knowledge of the Dhamma is the goal to
which the Buddha advised men to direct all their efforts. The immediate
way of encountering the Dhamma is in that form of it which is the
Buddha's doctrine. Another way of describing the ultimate reality,
however, is nibbana (Sanskrit, nirvana). What was meant by this term
will be discussed a little later (2.35; 2.37). Meanwhile it has to be
noted that the basic teaching of the Buddha was expressed in another
form, that of the Four Holy Truths. These were, first, that all life is
dukkha (see above); second, that the cause of dukkha is desire (tanha);
third, that the bringing to an end of desire means the bringing to an
end of dukkha; and fourth, that there is a way of doing so, namely,
the Buddhist way, outlined in the teaching of the Buddha, that is the
Dhamma. The Four Holy Truths are expressed in terms of what was
probably a contemporary medical procedure, from prognosis and
diagnosis, through to the therapeutic measures necessary for a cure,
which is announced as possible.
88 Prophets and Philosophers

2.33 The Buddhist way

Various terms are used to describe these 'therapeutic' measures which
man needs to follow. Since it is a method that avoids the extremes
(practised in the Buddha's day) of sensuous pleasure and austere
asceticism, it was called 'the Middle Way'. It was also known as the
Buddha-dhamma (the Buddha-doctrine) or the Buddha-sasana (the
Buddha-discipline). The last of these is most commonly used in Asia
to refer to what in the West is called 'Buddhist religion' or simply
'Buddhism'.
The Buddhist way has three principal features: morality, meditation
and wisdom. Morality is the indispensable basis of the system. The
essence of Buddhist morality is contained in the five precepts (paiica-
sila): to abstain from taking life, from falsehood, from taking what is
not given (i.e. theft), from sexual misconduct, and from using in-
toxicants and drugs, which tend to cloud the mind. Upon the founda-
tion of a serious resolve to keep these precepts can then be built the
practice of meditation, or concentration (samadhi). This is the central
and most characteristic feature of the Buddhist way, and the most that
can be offered in a general study of this kind is a brief reference to its
methods and purpose. (For a fuller description the student should
consult E. Conze's Buddhist Meditation.) The ultimate purpose is to
enable the Buddhist to perceive directly and immediately the reality of
which the Buddha spoke, and which is hidden from men who are
immersed in ordinary existence; in these circumstances perception of
reality is distorted by avijja (Sanskrit, avidya), that is, ignorance, or
failure to perceive aright. A man has first of all therefore to accept in
faith the fact there is a direct perception, or knowledge, vijja (Sanskrit,
vidya) to which the Buddha himself attained, and to which others may
attain who are prepared to follow his counsel. Such knowledge is
obscured in the ordinary 'worldling' (putthu-janu, the Buddhist term
for those who have not yet began to seek enlightenment) by the
perpetual agitation that takes place on the surface of the mind, an
agitation due to constant distraction of every kind by the senses and the
uncontrolled impulses of the mind. The first step in meditation, there-
fore, in order to direct consciousness away from this surface agitation
to calmer depths below, is to cut off discursive thinking and the
pursuit of this or that thought at random, which can lead nowhere,
The Buddhist way 89
certainly not, says the Buddhist, to a cure of the human condition.
The initial practice of meditation then, is the cutting off of discursive
thought, by 'concentration', that is by narrowing the field of attention.
Another major concern of Buddhist meditation is to damp down, as it
were, and extinguish the fires or evil forces oflobha, dosa and moha, or
greed, hatred and illusion, which are regarded as endemic in the human
situation. There must also be a fostering of their opposites, generosity,
love and insight. What mental object is to occupy the attention of the
meditator is the next important question, and the answer to this will
vary with different types of person. For some, one object of meditation
will be specially suitable for his condition or constitution, for another
it will be something different. Guidance in the procedures of meditation
and in the selection of the right focus for meditation is the indispensable
function of the meditation master. This is why Buddhist meditation
cannot be undertaken in isolation, and is one of the main reasons why
Buddhism cannot be a 'private' religion. More than this it is not
possible to say here concerning Buddhist meditation; in any case this,
like the central practice in all religion, can never properly be understood
from outside. Suffice it that the aim of the practice is the gaining of the
third stage of the Buddhist way, transcendental wisdom, or paiiiia
(Sanskrit, prajna). At this stage, what was formerly accepted in faith
and on trust is now perceived and apprehended directly and im-
mediately, and the result, it is claimed, will be the emergence of the
truly enlightened man.

2.34 Buddhist monks and laymen

As we have already noted, one of the earliest results of the Buddha's
preaching was the formation of the Sangha, the group of men who
devoted themselves full-time to the practice of meditation and the
pursuit of transcendental wisdom under the guidance of the Buddha
as their master. Like other holy men in the India of their day they were
content to live on whatever in the way of food they might be offered
by sympathetic householders. There were many such wandering
ascetics, philosophers, and holy men in sixth-century B.C. India; only
in the case of the Buddhists, however, did a permanent, settled,
institutional life develop. It probably had its origin in the practice of
these wandering seekers after salvation of gathering together in a
90 Prophets and Philosophers
common place of shelter during the monsoon period, when heavy
and often continuous rain, day after day, made travelling impossible.
Mter the rains such assemblies of ascetics would normally disperse and
go their several ways again, but in the case of the Buddhists these
rainy-season retreats developed into permanent settlements (avasas).
Each such local settlement would welcome Buddhist monks from else-
where, but each had its own 'parish' that is, the area from which it
could expect alms, in the form of daily contributions of food from the
local householders. The members of the Sangha came to be known as
bhikkhus (Sanskrit, bhikshus), that is 'sharesmen' or 'almsmen', those
who were given a 'share' of food by the local people. These latter did
so out of admiration for the holiness oflife and seriousness of purpose of
the members of the Sangha, and were themselves often drawn towards
the teachings and practices of the monks. Those who acknowledged
the Buddha and wished to prepare themselves, as laymen, for eventual
admission into the Order, were known as adherents, or upasakas. The
Buddha himself is represented as having offered them his teaching and
guidance, and as having laid down proper duties for the householder
who was a upasaka. The class system which was emerging within
Indian society (1.55) was totally disregarded by the Buddha, whose
followers and adherents were drawn from various social classes, but
notably from the vaisya or trading class. The form of teaching given
by the Buddha, as it is contained in the canonical Pali texts, reflects a
popular orientation: it is not for a few initiates within an esoteric group,
as the Upani~adic teaching was originally; the Buddha's teaching was
addressed to all and sundry, in the form of parables, stories, proverbs
and illustrations that all could understand. As Kosambi points out, 'this
was the most social of religions'; its doctrine continued to spread
'because it was eminently fitted to the needs of a rapidly evolving
society' (Kosambi, 1965; 106, 114), This view of early Buddhism
conflicts with earlier judgments made by W estemers, largely on the
basis of inadequate knowledge: judgments such as that of Max Weber,
that Buddhism was essentially mystical and a-social. The question of the
nature of Buddhist mysticism and its social implications must therefore
be investigated in some detail.
 Nibbana, the Buddhist summum bonum 91

2.35 Nibbana, the Buddhist summum bonum

It is sometimes said that Buddhism is a religion without a God. This is
not strictly true. Early Buddhist texts contain numerous references to
the gods, and these are not only the Vedic gods (some mention of
whom would be understandable in the ancient Indian situation), but
also gods of a peculiarly Buddhist character, such as Sakk:a, who is a
milder, more humane Buddhist version of the Vedic Indra. Buddhism
has its own mythology of gods, but they are really to be regarded as
picturesque items of the celestial scenery rather than beings of any very
great or ultimate importance. Certainly Buddhist thought is not
committed to, or in any way dependent on, the idea of a divine being
who as Creator is to be held responsible for all that exists, good and
evil, as we have seen was the case with the ancient Near Eastern
religions. In Buddhist thought the universe itself is the given fact; no
explanation for its existence is offered or sought; any attempt to
provide one, said the Buddha, could only be idle speculation. Buddhism
is more accurately described, therefore, as a system of thought which,
so far as the notion of a Creator is concerned, is agnostic; it is un-
committed one way or the other.
Nevertheless, Buddhism has a summum bonum, that which, while it
transcends the normal limits ofhuman experience, is yet held to be the
goal of the Buddhist way, namely nibbana; to use Tillich's description,
this is the Buddhist's 'ultimate concern'. This has led some observers to
describe Buddhism as a form of mysticism; but it is a term which needs
to be used with care.
It is characteristic of Western investigations in this connection to
begin by asking 'What is nibbana?' with the further question in view:
'Can it be related to Christian concepts such as God or heaven?'
Edward Conze has very rightly warned Western readers against 'the
custom of trying to ascertain the meaning of Nibbana by collecting
and examining many disconnected quotations' (Conze, 1962; 77). A
more reliable approach to an understanding of the concept nibbana is
to examine all that is said about it in one text; one in particular which
suggests itself as suitable for this purpose is the Sutta Nipata, since it is
generally agreed to contain some of the most ancient material in the
Pali canon.
This has recently been subjected to very careful and close textual
92 Prophets and Philosophers
examination by Professor Jayawickrama of the University of Ceylon,
and one of his general conclusions is to confirm that in the Sutta
Nipata we get as near as possible perhaps to some of the earliest forms
of Buddhist teaching.
There are some eighteen references to nibbana in the Sutta Nipata.
E. M. Hare, in his English translation first published in 1945, renders
the word nibbana as 'the cool'. One can think of objections to this
rendering, but it does have the advantage of representing the fact that
the Pali word nibbana, like the English word 'cool', can be used both
as a noun and as an adjective.
In the case of nibbana it is the noun sense which is primary, and so
one can say that basically nibbana is 'the coolness'. But this in itself is
obviously not a sufficient explanation. We need to pursue the matter
further.

2.36 The Buddhist ideal: the man who is nibbuta

Even more frequent than references to nibbana in this early Buddhist
text are references which use another form of the word- nibbuta- to
describe the ideal man. This word is sometimes applied to the Buddha
himself, sometimes to the man whom the Buddha describes as the ideal
type of humanity, the muni or sage. Such a man is nibbuta, i.e., one
who has 'become cool'. He it is, the muni, says the Buddha addressing
the brahman Bharadvaja, who is worthy of oblation. Upon hearing
this Bharadvaja proceeds to offer to the Buddha the brahmanic
oblation of the sacred cake. This the Buddha declines to accept, replying
that it is not for a Buddha to enjoy fare won in this way, as brahmans
do from chanting hymns. 'To whom then shall the oblation be
offered?' asks the perplexed Bharadvaja. The Buddha then describes
once again the worthy recipient of oblation, the ideal man, 'the
unprovokable, him of unclouded mind, freed from all lustfulness, void
of all indolence, guide to those of passionate nature, master of life and
death', and so on. He it is who should be venerated and worshipped,
and in making such oblation the offerer himself will fmd blessing.
'But,' cries Bharadvaja, 'who else is this but thou, 0 Buddha, most
meet recipient of all the world as an offering!' The Sutta thus ends and
the inference seems clear: the Buddha is the type of the ideal man, the
muni, the nibbuta-man. Not as an individual, however, is he to be
venerated, but simply as the ideal man, the type.
The Buddhist ideal: the man who is nibbuta 93
This brings us to a point which needs to be strongly emphasised,
namely that the large number of references in this early text to the man
who is nibbuta suggests that this was the practical focus of early
Buddhism. The abstract idea of nibbana appears to be secondary to the
notion of the ideal man, the nibbuta-man. This suggests that it is when
the term 'nibbana' becomes separated from the conception of the ideal
man, the nibbuta, that we are likely to run into difficulties in under-
standing the meaning of 'nibbana'. As we shall see shortly, 'nibbana'
has a transcendental meaning, but it is misleading to concentrate too
much attention on this, or at least, to make this our starting point in
seeking to understand the term.
When the final state of holiness has been achieved, when all the
fires of greed, hate, and illusion have been extinguished (2.33), then one
is nibbuta. But this plainly does not mean the extinction of life or
annihilation. The nibbuta-man continues to live, to move about in the
world, to proclaim the truth, as, for example, the Buddha did from
his enlightenment until the age of eighty. The distinction between
entering into the state of coolness in this life and the final state which
follows at the dissolution of the body is one which is given formal
expression in the distinction made in the Abhidhamma literature
between kilesa nibbana, the dying away of the moral defilements, and
khanda nibbiina, the dying away of the constituents of empirical
existence.

2.37 Nibbiina as transcendent

We come now to the important point that nibbana is sometimes
referred to in the Sutta Nipata in terms that make it quite clear that it is
regarded as a transcendental state. It is sometimes referred to simply as
'the beyond' (paramam). It is also said that those who know that
nibbana is a transcendent state (the 'the island of ne plus ultra') are by this
knowledge 'exceedingly cooled' (abhinibbuta). 'Where no thing is,
where no grasping is, that is the isle of no-beyond, nibbana, where
decay and death are no more; this I declare to you.' Elsewhere in the
Sutta Nipata we fmd nibbana described as amatam, that is, characterised
by the absence of death, santim, tranquil or peaceful, and accutam,
permanent - that is, characterised by no passing from one existence to
another.
94 Prophets and Philosophers
All this and more concerning nibbana is to be found in other
Buddhist works, from the five Nikayas to such later compendia as the
Visuddhimagga (4.39) and the Abhidhammattha-Sangaha (6.43). What
is significant about these Sutta Nipata references is, on the one hand,
the extent of the references to nibbana in this life as the present, realis-
able goal of Buddhist living (and with this the references to the con-
dition of being nibbuta), compared with, on the other hand, the
relatively small number of references to nibbana as a transcendent state.
This may provide us with a clue to where attention was focused in
early Buddhism, namely, on the condition of being nibbuta, ideal man,
perfected man; and then, secondarily, on the transcendental nature of
the condition into which man thus enters. The order reflects the
practical concern that characterises so much of the Buddha's teaching.
The transcendent nature of nibbana is not being relegated to a position
of unimportance because it is less often spoken of; it is simply that the
cooling of the fires of greed, hatred and delusion is a more important
task for the generality of men. It is more important for most men to
know how to become nibbuta than to be able to expatiate on the nature
ofnibbana.
To return now to the subject of mysticism, it will be seen more
readily that there are difficulties in the way of any attempt to categorise
Buddhist religion in terms of mysticism or non-mysticism. Certainly
in the early Buddhist thought represented in the Sutta Nipata one does
not begin by postulating a transcendent Absolute, with which the
individual is to seek communion or identity. One begins with the
empirical condition of man. Yet one cannot say that the transcendent
has no place in Buddhist religious life and thought. More of a positive
nature is said concerning nibbana than is sometimes recognised by
Western writers. Long lists of epithets of nibbana occur in the canonical
writings. In particular, nibbana is often said to be sufifiatii, apranihita,
and animita; those terms especially suggest that the Buddhist way has
affmities with other forms of mysticism. The Buddhist goal, nibbana,
is sufiiiata, or 'void'. This is a way of referring to the fact that the path to
nibbana involves affirming the non-existence of the empirical self,
nibbana is 'void' of all notions of the ego. Nibbana is also apranihita, that
is, it is without longing or hankering, it is characterised by contentment.
Again, it is animita, that is to say, without an image, non-conceptual.
It is not a 'concept' that can be recognised; one cannot say, 'Ah! there
is a nibbana'. This must be so necessarily, since nibbana is the
Nibbiina as transcendent 95
goal of the Buddhist life, and cannot be known until it is reached.
That this is the goal is the clear evidence of the Pali canon and its
commentaries. Buddhaghosa (4.29) makes it explicit in the opening
sentences of his great work, the Visuddhimagga: 'The goal is purifica-
tion, and by purification is meant nibbana.' What is clear throughout
the whole of Buddhaghosa' s summary and interpretation of Buddhist
teaching is that the purification to which he refers, and which is the
Buddhist goal, could also be described as a deep and radical moral
change. Above all, it must be noted that in Buddhist tradition this
remains a very high ideal; nibbuta-man is not commonly found; such
men are rare, and highly to be esteemed.

2.38 The social dimension of Buddhist doctrine

We are now in a position to consider the second main point to be
made concerning Buddhist mysticism, namely, the question of whether
the Buddhist way is to be characterised as one of world-renunciation,
for in the view of some this would be a characteristic of any true
mysticism. Max Weber, for example, in the course ofhis sociological
analysis of Indian religion categorised Buddhism as mystical and
a-social. Salvation in Buddhism, says Weber, is 'an absolutely personal
performance of the self-reliant individual' (Weber, 1958; 213). This
statement indicates Weber's failure to take proper account of the
anatta doctrine and properly to understand the nature of the Buddhist
way. However, from this he goes on to comment on Buddhism that
'the specific a-social character of all genuine mysticism is here carried
to its maximum.' It is not surprising that he fmds the creation of the
Buddhist Order of monks a 'contradiction' of this principle, a contra-
diction which has somehow to be explained; perhaps, he says, it is the
work oflater Buddhists.
The significance of the Buddhist Sangha (2.31), the Order (or
literally 'assembly') of monks, has attracted some attention in recent
historical and sociological studies of the early Buddhist movement. It
is true that there is something of a contradiction in the fact that a
Sangha should have emerged in sixth-century B.C. India, but the
contradiction is with the orthodox Indian religions of salvation, not
with Buddhist doctrine or principles. The ancient Indian tradition was
certainly one of solitude for mystics and ascetics; it was so strong a
96 Prophets and Philosophers
tradition that traces of it are to be found in early Buddhist practice.
But in spite of this, the positively and characteristically Buddhist
development so far as the social dimension is concerned, was the Sangha.
Its development is all the more notable because it runs counter to the
rest of ancient Indian religious tradition.
In the Maha Parinibbana Sutta, which deals with the last days of the
Buddha's life, a direct cotmection is established between the old
republican assemblies (1.38, 2.30) and the Buddhist Sangha. On the
eve of his attack on the Vajjian republic King Ajatasattu asks the Buddha
to make some pronouncement concerning the future of the Vajji. The
Buddha is represented as making the strange reply that if the Vajji
continued to meet regularly in their tribal assemblies, if their assemblies
began and ended in a spirit of unanimity, if they observed the ancient
traditions, and honoured the elders among them, then they might
expect to prosper. The Buddha then goes on to apply this prophecy to the
Buddhist Sangha also. If the monks continue to meet regularly in their
assembly, if they begin and end their assemblies in a spirit of unanimity,
if they observe the traditions and honour their elders, their assembly
(sangha) may expect to prosper.
In fact, the Vajji were defeated by Ajatasattu; by the time these
words of the Buddha were being transmitted in the oral tradition the
fate of the tribes was known: the Vajjian republic had been destroyed.
It may seem curious that the Buddha should have pronounced in favour
of the losing side, and even more curious that his words foretelling
their prosperity should go on being repeated. Some have therefore
seen in these words of approval from the Buddha of a republican-
assembly form of rule a post-eventu way of affirming that the Buddhist
Sangha was the successor or substitute for the old tribal structure of
society that was, in sixth-century B.C. India, being destroyed andre-
placed by autocratic monarchies. In the social distress and insecurity which
this engendered the Buddhist Sangha, it is said, was the ark of salvation
for the individual adrift from his old social moorings, and that is why
so many individuals found refuge within it. This, for example, is the
view of Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya, an Indian Marxist, in his book
Lokayata: A Study in Ancient Indian Materialism (1959). He maintains
that in this situation of social malaise, in a society experiencing a bitter
struggle for power and an increasing class-stratification, the Buddhist
Sangha provided men with the only experience they could have of true
collective living; based on an illusion (i.e. religion), it was nevertheless,
The social dimension ofBuddhist doctrine 97
according to Chattopadhyaya, the best remedy available Wltil Marxism
appeared.
Another student of ancient India, Charles Drekmeier, in his book
Kingship and Community in Early India, has examined the situation from a
similar point of view, but has come up with a Freudian explanation of
the Buddhist movement. In the disturbed and perplexing conditions of
the time, he says, the Buddha's teaching regarding nibbana, and the
life of the Buddhist Sangha, can together be seen as the expression of a
desire to withdraw from the difficult situation in an increasingly
individualistic society and to seek refuge in a primeval state of Wl-
differentiated being, a desire akin to that of the individual who in any
age cannot adjust to the condition of being a separate individual, and
Wlconsciously longs to return to the womb, to the condition preceding
the state of individuation.
Neither of these views is to be dismissed lightly, and they may point
towards an explanation of which they are both to some extent
travesties - travesties, because (in the Freudian case particularly) the
mistake is made of saying that because A is like B, than A is in fact B;
that is, they confuse resemblance with identity. But the resemblance is
important, and what these explanations may point to is another,
slight~y different explanation, which may be outlined as follows.

2.39 The significance of the Buddhist Sangha

From the earliest days of the Buddhist movement, as we have seen, the
ideal has been the nibbuta-man, the muni, he who is 'cooled' of all
egoistic desires and illusions, one in whom anatta is a manifest reality.
Towards this ideal Buddhist teaching and practice directs and leads
men. From the start one of the most important ways of achieving this
was membership of the Buddhist Sangha. For life in the Sangha would
indeed be a school of anatta, a continuous exercise in ridding oneself of
the illusion of the empirical self and its importance; life in the Sangha
is a mode of existence in which one has no private or personal pos-
sessions except the bare minimum of necessities allowed by the rule of
the Sangha, and in which one is continually subject to the common
mind and judgment of the Sangha. The Sangha thus provides the
optimum conditions for the realising of anatta; it makes available a new
and different kind of social existence not possible in mWidane society,
98 Prophets and Philosophers
least of all in the society that was already becoming increasingly
common in sixth-century B.C. northern India (2.30). Moreover, this
new kind of social structure went beyond the collective life that men
had known in the tribal system, for the Sangha was in principle of
universal dimensions. To put this another way, the Buddhist Sangha
differed from the old tribal sanghas in that it was non-territorial, or
rather was supra-territorial. The member of this Sangha had entered
into a different, a transcendent kind of kinship. This is referred to in
the term that occurs in the later Nikayas and in subsequent Buddhist
literature, the term 'gotrabhu', that is, 'to have become one of the
dan' (and by this is understood, the clan of the Buddha). He who
enters the Sangha enters a new gotra or dan-structure. Buddhaghosa
(4.29) comments that this term 'gotrabhu' indicates a 'change-of-
lineage'; he says it is the transcending of the (old), what he calls
'sense-sphere' lineage, which brings one into the (new) 'fine-sphere'
lineage - or as we might render it approximately, into a new, spiritual
lineage, or perhaps better, a transcendental lineage.
This indicates a high view of the nature of the Sangha; it is no mere
accidental historical feature of the Buddhist movement as it chanced to
develop: the Sangha is integral to the pursuit of the Buddhist ideal, and
this explains why the Sangha is linked with the Buddha and the
Dhamma in the triple-gem formula; this is why a man goes 'for refuge
to the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha'.

2.4 THE SOPHISTICATION OF PRIMITIVE

RELIGION

2.40 The emergence of]ainism

Somewhat similar to the religious movement inaugurated by the
Buddha was that which has come to be known as Jainism. In the
disturbed situation of north India of the sixth century B.c. (2.30) a
number of religious teachers arose, each claiming to present a more
satisfactory version of the truth concerning the human situation, and
a more effective way of release from human troubles than was to be
found in the contemporary ritualistic Brahmanism. Some of the teach-
ings of these sects are known to us from references in the Buddhist
 The emergence ofjainism 99
Suttas. Most of them have vanished, but Jainism has survived. A much
greater antiquity is claimed for this system by its followers than the
sixth and fifth centuries B.C. when Vardhamana Mahavira (d.? 468 B.c.)
taught its doctrines, and modem scholars are inclined to accept the
possibility of an earlier teacher, Par5va, whose doctrines were developed
by Mahavira. Like the many other heterodox (that is, non-brahman)
systems of the time, this was basically a system of psychic discipline
supported by its own metaphysical doctrine. Its fundamental viewpoint
is that the whole universe is animated by countless individual souls;
not only human beings but all living things are believed to be inhabited
by souls. This applies to animals, insects and even plants. Each of these
souls may be said to inhabit a material body, but more precisely this is
an imprisonment from which the soul seeks to escape. It was in this
view of existence and in the method of escape taught by the Mahavira
that his doctrine differed from both Brahmanism and Buddhism.

2.41 Distinction ofJainism from Brahmanism

On the one hand Jainism was sharply distinguished from Brahmanism,
and on the other from Buddhism. It was distinguished from the former
by its doctrine of ahimsa or non-violence. Since every living thing is
inhabited by a soul, it is important to avoid doing violence to, and
above all killing, any living being. In practical terms this meant a
rejection of the brahmanical system of animal sacrifice. The reason for
such non-violence towards animal life was metaphysical rather than
sentimental. The escape of the soul from the body to the realm where
the soul would dwell eternally in bliss was the goal of the Jain system.
This was to be achieved, it was held, by the avoidance of karma. In the
Jain view, karma was a substance which adhered to the soul as a
result of activity of any kind, but more especially activity of a cruel or
violent kind; it was the adherence of karma which clouded over the
soul and gave it a solid material body, a kind of encrustation. This could
be gradually broken down and dissolved by ascetic discipline and
meditation, and the avoidance of harmful activity. For this reason
Jains were, and have always continued to be, the very strictest of
vegetarians; eating plants rather than animals is held to reduce the
degree of harmful activity one engages in. For this reason also Jains
have been unable to follow agricultural occupations, for fear of doing
E L.H.R,
100 Prophets and Philosophers
violence to the small creatures of the earth with the plough. (This
occupation being barred to them they have become traders, and in
modern times merchants and industrialists.) While thus rejecting
Brahmanism, the Jains did, however, accept the notion of gods, as
beings of a more exalted kind who could bestow temporal blessings.
This would seem to be a compromise with popular Indian religion
rather than as something inherent in the Jain view of things. It should
be noted, however, that the Jains remained fundamentally atheistic in
their doctrine, in the sense that there was no place or no need for the
conception of an omnipotent divine creator. In their compromise with
Hinduism, moreover, there was nothing in their history comparable
to the compromise which occurred in Buddhism, known as the
Mahayana (4.31-4.35), especially in its Tantric form (5.26).

2.42 Distinction ofJainism from Buddhism

The method of ascetic discipline was much more austere among the
Jains than among the Buddhists. It consisted not only of fasting but
also of self-mortification, including nudity, and deliberate castigation
of the body by long exposure to sun or cold. Early in their history,
during the third century B.c., a schism developed between those
ascetics who insisted on the old practice of nudity and some others who
took to wearing a simple white garment. The former more conservative
group came to be known as the Digambaras, or 'space-clad' (i.e. clothed
with air only), while the latter were known as Svetiimbaras, or 'white-
clad'. Not only their greater austerity distinguished the Jains from the
Buddhists, but also and possibly more significantly eventually, their
doctrine of a universe made up of an infinity of separate individual
souls, each requiring to gain individual salvation. The Buddhist view,
as we have seen (2.32), consisted in the rejection of the idea of a
permanent individual entity known as a soul. Moreover, the Jain view
of karma was of a materialistic kind: karma was a film or cloud
deposited on the soul which became the soul's corporeal prison. (Jains
would have agreed in calling it 'this too too solid flesh'.) To the Budd-
hist, however, karma is the system of moral causal relationships by
which, so to speak, the actions of one life go on echoing down the
years, through countless other lives (whether lives of the same
'individual' or not being in the original Buddhist view a question that
Distinction ofJain ism from Buddhism 101
has no meaning), until the echo dies away or is silenced by contrary
karma.

2.43 Confucius
Contemporary with the Buddha and Mahavira in India was Confucius
in China. The only justification for including his name in a history of
religion is that Westerners have mistakenly supposed that there was an
affmity between other prophetic religious figures of the sixth century
B.C. in Israel, Persia and India, such as we have already considered, and
this important figure in the cultural history of China. It has even been
supposed that there was a form of Chinese religion which could be
termed 'Confucianism', which included a cult of Confucius-worship.
K'ung Fu-tzu, (to give the Chinese form of his name, of which
'Confucius' is a Latinisation made by Jesuits in China) was an aristocrat,
a teacher, and for part ofhis life a public administrator, whose doctrines
were primarily political and social, and religious only in so far as they
dealt with ethical matters. The reverence afforded Confucius was not so
much a religious cult as a special example of the reverence which
Chinese people have generally afforded their ancestors in proper
acknowledgment of their indebtedness to them. The proper context
for a consideration of the life and teaching of Confucius would therefore
be a history of political and philosophical thought; it does not properly
fall within the scope of a history of religion, nor can Confucius
justifiably be included among those figures of the sixth century B.C.
who may be described as 'prophets' because they claimed to be trans-
mitting to their fellow men doctrines which were in some sense or
another revealed. Some kind of prophetic role has, however, some-
times been claimed for Confucius (Rowley, 1956), but even apart from
the fact that it is difficult to imagine Confucius behaving like some of
the Hebrew prophets, it is doubtful whether this can be upheld.

2.44 Confucius and the popular religion of ancient China

Confucius was a member of the upper class of Chinese society. His
teaching was characterised by the distinction between two classes of
men, the 'superior man' and the 'lesser man'. Originally a social-class
102 Prophets and Philosophers
distinction, this was given by Confucius a certain ethical content also.
The pursuit of Confucian policies and doctrines has been the concern
primarily of the upper class of Chinese society. The lower classes,
however, while they have been influenced indirectly by the Confucian
ethic, have more immediately had recourse to practices of a popular
character to which the name religion may be applied, linked as they
are with certain beliefs about the nature of the universe in general and
of the spirit-world in particular. If Confucius from time to time made
references to the gods, or to Heaven as a quasi-deity, this was because
it was natural for a man of China of that period to do so in certain
contexts. The people of China, like those of many other regions,
practised an ancient form of worship of the powers of nature, and
concerning this Confucius appears to have been non-committal. It
was accepted by him as part of the inherited order of things, and
because it had the aura of antiquity. But it should not be confused with
the practice of the Chinese in venerating their ancestors, which is
essentially an aspect of the great emphasis in Chinese life on the family,
whether the family of the present or past. The 'way of the sages' or the
'way of the ancients' is similarly venerated, and of these Confucius is
held to have been one of the most outstanding (Shryock, 1932).

2.45 Popular religion in ancient China: ancestors and nature-spirits

The religion of ancient China has frequently been described as a
combination of the worship of deified powers of nature with worship
of the spirits of departed ancestors. Whether the cult of the ancestors
was a religious phenomenon has, however, been questioned by some
modern writers (Shryock, 1932). To some extent this tendency to
separate the veneration of ancestors from the nature-cults may be seen
as part of general trend among Western Sinologues to play down the
importance of religion in Chinese society and to assert that the Chinese
are by nature non-religious (Yang, 1961; 4-6), so that wherever a
secular interpretation of Chinese customs can be offered, as in this case,
the opportunity is seized to add one more item of evidence concerning
Chinese non-religiousness. It may be also that earlier scholars were
predisposed to see ancestor-veneration as one of the roots of Chinese
religion because they were influenced by the then popular theory of
euhemerism (from the name of the Latin writer Euhemerus, who held
Popular religion in ancient China: ancestors and nature-spirits 103
that the gods were but dead heroes elevated to the status of supernatural
beings). At a period when many scholars were confident that the origins
of religion were to be found by historical research this was an attractive
theory by which to explain the origin of religious beliefs. It may be
also that modern Sinologues, in denying the religious nature of the
ancestor cult, are partly right; certainly there is less disposition nowa-
days to find examples everywhere to prove Euhemerus' s theory. But
the answer to the question whether or not ancestor veneration in China
is to be thought of as a religious phenomenon will depend ultimately
on one's understanding of what religion is; this will determine what is
to be included as religious and what is to be excluded as non-religious.
Leaving the cult of the ancestors on one side for the present, it is
clear that from earliest times the Chinese people engaged in the
worship of numerous spirits of various kinds, of the earth and of the
air, and that sacrifices to these spirits were of the greatest importance;
this certainly cannot be said to have been marginal to ancient Chinese
culture. So far as the destiny of man was concerned, the earliest
traceable Chinese belief appears to be that man must ultimately return
to the darkness from which he came. This was described as the 'gate of
the dark female', that is, the orifice of some vast ancient earth-goddess,
a dark cosmic womb from which all things came and which would
receive all things again at the last. Within the bounds of this encom-
passing darkness man's life was lived, and it is in this context that such
popular religious practices as were characteristic of ancient China have
to be seen, practices which were aimed at alleviating suffering and
enhancing man's temporal welfare during the span of his mortal
existence.
In these practices, the offering of sacrifices to gods and spirits of
earth and air, the people of ancient China were at one with many other
primitive peoples in every part of the world. What is significant in
the case of China is the direction in which such primitive practices
developed.

2.46 The Chinese state cult

By what appears to have been a gradual process, the system of sacrifice
in which the people of China engaged, as they made offerings to the
local spirit-powers on whom they believed their welfare depended,
104 Prophets and Philosophers
was assimilated to the hierarchical system of early Chinese feudalism.
This may be regarded as having developed by the beginning of the
period of the Chou dynasty, about 1150 B.c. Sacrifice was gradually
taken up into the processes by means of which it was considered that
the life of man was to be preserved. The great sacrifice for the nation
was offered to Heaven by the king; sacrifices for subordinate territories
were offered by officials of subordinate grades, down to the sacrifices
offered by the villager to the local deity or spirit. The sacrificial system
became so moulded that it was above all else a reflection in the realm
of religion of the hierarchical organisation of the state. Confucius later
commented on this system to the effect that whoever understood the
meaning of the Great Sacrifice possessed the key to understanding the
whole cosmic system (Wilhelm, 1929; 108). Primitive Chinese religion
was thus forced into two separate channels: into a sophisticated cult
of the state on the one hand, and a multitude of cults of local village
godlings to whom appeal was made for immediate temporal benefits
on the other. This had the consequence that in the first case religious
belief and practice eventually disappeared in a secularised state theory
and ethic; in the second case religious beliefs and practices were effec-
tively isolated from any wider concerns, were kept local, and inhibited
from being brought into relationship with any universalist religious
idea; the only acknowledged universal in this system was the idea of
Heaven, the approach to which remained the prerogative of the king
aided by the state ministers. In remaining at the primitive level oflocal
cults the popular religion thus had nothing by which in later periods
it could command the respect of more thoughtful minds, and hence
has tended to come into disrepute. There was, however, one notable
exception to this, namely, the religious system known as Taoism, to
which we now tum.

2.47 Taoist development of primitive Chinese religion

The nearest Chinese approach to a religious concept of a universalist
character was that of the Tao. The system of belief known as Taoism
emerged gradually, although it had certain well known exponents,
notably Lao-tzu (Laocius), an older contemporary of Confucius.
Taoism coexisted uneasily with the state cult, the latter being under-
girded by the Confucian system of ethics. The concept of Tao was in
Taoist development ofprimitive Chinese religion 105
essence a natural development of the older idea of the primeval dark-
ness from which all living things had emerged (2.45). In the classic
book of the Tao, the Tao-te-ching, it is said: 'There was a living thing,
a mixture of all potentialities but perfect in itself, before the skies and
the earth were formed. It was tranquil and empty ... and may be
regarded as the mother of the universe. I do not know its proper name,
but choosing a written character for it, I take the character Tao, the
Way.' Tao was thought of as undifferentiated being, and, because
undifferentiated, eternally at rest. Since the people of ancient China
had no doctrine of a life following the death of the body, the only kind
of immortality that could possibly be sought was the indefinite physical
prolongation of life. The position was not unlike that which was
found in Hebrew religion during the pre-Exilic period when the boon
sought was 'length of days'. In the case of China the quest for physical
immortality became one of the major concerns or even obsessions of
Taoist religion. Since Tao was the origin of all being, it was itself the
essence oflife; it was life par excellence; it was not subject to corruption,
since it had no growth or decay but was eternally the same. For a
human being to become immortal, to prolong his existence indefinitely,
it was necessary, so it was believed, for him to become physically
transformed into a fme, non-corruptible body not subject to the
incidence of disease or decay. In order to develop such a body one had
to become as much like Tao as possible, or even become united with
Tao. This demanded withdrawal from all normal activity. One had to
remain quiet, and empty oneself of all desires. These were the character-
istically Taoist ideas developed by the teachers Lao-tzu, Lieh-tzu, and
Chuang-tzu. It is clear that such doctrines, unlike the ethical political
doctrines of Confucius, reached down to the lower classes of Chinese
society, as well as having an attraction for more advanced and educated
minds. The doctrines of Taoism became, in fact, the basis of a wide-
spread popular religious movement.
It is important to notice two aspects of Taoism which were the
potential causes of its subsequent degradation and the reason for the
hostility it encountered. Its overriding concern with the problem
how to gain physical immortality led to a preoccupation with alchemy,
in the search for the elixir of life, and to various kinds of crude rituals
and practices of a quasi-magical kind. The other aspect of Tao which
led to its decline was its quietism, the other essential requirement for
the achievement of immortality. Such quietism encouraged a wholly
106 Prophets and Philosophers
negative attitude towards the affairs of the state (even in the case of
some emperors who became Taoists) and indeed towards all temporal
affairs; in other words, social inaction and lethargy were necessary
virtues. It is because of what Taoism became, for such reasons as these,
that Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, a modern Chinese writer, observed that
'Taoism is the only religion indigenous to China ... but to include
it in a Chinese history of religion is indeed a great humiliation. [The
Taoists'] activities have not benefited the nation at all. Moreover, down
through the centuries, they have repeatedly misled the people by their
pagan magic and disturbed the peace' (Yang, 1961; 5).

2.48 The religion of ancient Japan

The religion of Japan prior to the coming of Buddhism shows some
of the same features as that of ancient China, but with some important
differences also. The people ofJapan at the beginning of the country's
known history consisted of an ethnic mixture of three main groups:
the indigenous Ainu and two waves of immigrants - one from the
west, men of more advanced type than the Ainu, taller in build and
sharper features; and the other from the south, possibly from Malaya,
flat-faced and vigorous. Aboriginals and immigrants appear to have
been integrated without much difficulty, and a national community
developed in which there was little sense of racial antagonism, but with
a wide variety of folk practices and beliefs from various sources. The
common characteristic of these appears to have been a keen awareness
of and sympathy with the natural environment. It is said that the
Japanese are most at ease when they are close to natural things;
certainly it is sensitiveness to and love of nature which is more
characteristic of Shinto, as the indigenous religion is called, rather than
artificiality or abstract speculation. This naturalness expressed itself in
terms of belief in powers of nature whom the Japanese called Kami, a
word of disputed etymology, but which is generally held to refer to
some kind of'superior beings' or superior powers. In general the kami
were regarded by the Japanese people as beneficent; there is very
little fear of supernatural powers in the national religion. Among the
more prominent of the kami was the sun goddess, Amaterasu; the
sun as the stimulant of life and growth was thought of as beneficent.
The feature which is most characteristic of Shinto is the dualism be-
 The religion ofancientJapan 107
tween what belongs to life and health, cleanness and fertility, and what
contrasts with these, namely death, disease, pollution and barrenness.
The realm of the sun and light is contrasted with the realm of darkness
which is the place of decay and of the dead. It was this keenly felt
contrast which gave rise to the major concerns of ancient Japanese
religion: promotion of fertility and cleansing from pollution. Creation
was thought of as the result of sexual union of two partners, themselves
spontaneously generated: Izanagi, the male, and Izanami, the female.
The notion that the world itself was the product of their fertility, and
regarded as basically good, is in accord with the general tenor of Shinto
ideas. Similar ideas were reflected in the mythology. One of the
ancient myths tells how the sun-goddess Amaterasu (daughter of
Izanagi and Izanami) was offended by the unruly and violent behaviour
of her brother Susanoo (the rough wind oflate summer) and in order
to avoid him withdrew into a cave, thus depriving the world oflight.
After some time a vast crowd of the kami gathered outside the cave
in order to entice her out again. One of them, a goddess, then began to
dance outside the cave, and in the ecstasy of the dance threw off all her
clothes. The roar of laughter and the cheers which greeted this caused
Amaterasu to peep out to see what was happening, whereupon two
of the kami stretched a rope behind her to prevent her from retiring
again into the cave. It has been suggested that this myth is an expression
of ideas associated with a fertility cult, and was perhaps recited in
connection with such a ritual. The withdrawal of the sun in autumn
following the fierce wind oflate summer leads to winter; the restoration
oflight and warmth in the springtime was associated with ritual dances
of a kind which might now be regarded as obscene, but characterised
also by cheerfulness and rejoicing at the return of spring, as the sun-
goddess appears once again from hiding.
The major rites of Shinto were certainly those of cleansing from
pollution, in whatever form this had been encountered; typically
polluting were contact with the dead, or with excrement, disease,
menstruation, and so on. The pollution envisaged was, however,
always of an external and 'biological' kind; it was seldom, if ever, of an
internal or moral kind. This can be seen very clearly in the fact that in
the case of the wounding of a person pollution was thought to occur
simply because of the spilling of blood; the guilt or otherwise of the
one who may have caused the wound was of no account; the pollution
consisted entirely in the fact that blood had flowed. However and for
E2 L.H.R.
108 Prophets and Philosophers
whatever reason the flowing of blood occurred it would be polluting.
Moral rights and wrongs had no bearing on the matter.

2.49 The development ofstate Shinto

Whether this system of primitive fertility rites and taboos would ever
have developed beyond this stage apart from the influence first of
Confucianism (from about 400 c.E.) and then of Buddhism (from about
550 C.E.) must remain entirely a matter of speculation, but from the
nature of Shinto and the conservatism it has shown up to the present
time the possibility that any radically new developments would have
occurred from within the system seems very unlikely. One direction in
which Shinto may however be said to have moved is towards the
veneration of the emperor of Japan, and of past emperors, as karni.
This is a tendency which is closely akin to the worship of the state,
especially as the emperors who are singled out for special veneration are
those under whom the national life was most greatly enhanced (Holtom,
1938; 175). The national cult aspect of Shinto was already to be seen in
the Ceremony of the Great Purification, a ritual in which the whole
nation was required to take part twice a year for plenary cleansing of
the national life and territory from all corruption. This had developed
at least by the eighth century c.E. and the observance may go back
earlier than that. In considering this development we have been forced
to jump ahead of our period by thirteen centuries; the fact that
remarkably little development had taken place in the general nature of
Shinto in the ancient period is itselfsignificant: no prophetic movement,
no philosophical or theological development of thought comparable
even with the rise of the Tao school in China or the emergence ofJain
ideas in India are to be found. The theory and the practice remain
basically the same over a very long period, and even after fourteen
centuries of the presence of Buddhism in Japan, the methods used in
the Great Purification ritual are today virtually what they were before
the advent ofBuddhism (Holtom, 1938; 30).

SUMMARY AND COMMENT ON CHAPTER TWO

It is often observed that the period from the eighth to the sixth
centuries B.C. was particularly rich in charismatic religious personalities.
Summary and comment on Chapter Two 109
In Israel during this period there were the prophets Amos, Hosea,
Micah, Isaiah and Jeremiah, to name the more outstanding; in Persia
there was Zarathustra, and in India the Buddha and Mahavira. We
noted reasons for deciding that Confucius is probably not to be
included in this company, but on the other hand it could possibly be
argued that the early Taoist thinkers and teachers, Lao-tzu, Lieh-tzu
and Chuang-tzu, should be. These last named, however, together with
Mahavira the Jain teacher, were responsible not so much for the
promulgation of radically new and challenging doctrines as for the
developing of elements of thought already present in more primitive
forms. In the case of the Hebrew prophets one of their most radical and
challenging ideas was that of the universalism of Yahweh, that he was
not a territorial god, and that he was not bound to preserve inviolate
the territory of Israel, the royal city of Jerusalem or even its Temple.
In this they were in a sense cutting through the accretions which, under
the influence of monarchical institutions, had gathered round the earlier
Yahwism of the Exodus period. In the case of Zarathustra, the new
doctrine for which he seems to have been responsible was that of the
two single spiritual principles of good and evil which underlay the
universe and the human situation - rather than an inchoate mass of
spirits of indeterminate and unreliable character as in the earlier daeva-
ahura mythology. In the case of the Buddha the outstandingly novel
doctrine which he announced was one which challenged the whole
essentially self-contained individualism of the karma and rebirth theory;
his doctrine of anatta, that the self-contained individual does not
constitute the ultimately real, the eternal, but that this is to be found in
the state into which the perfected man enters, the state of being which
by the Buddhist is called nibbana.
All of these are characterised as prophets by the fact that they spoke to
their contemporaries as they did, proclaiming these radically new ideas
out of a sense of constraint. In each case there was the conception of a
power or a being greater than themselves, the nature of which compelled
them to share with other men their new vision even though it would
have been safer or easier or more logical to keep quiet. This is a point
which is sometimes missed in the case of the Buddha. There is no logical
reason why the enlightened, or 'awakened' man should want to awaken
others; he might assume that they would awaken themselves in due
time. But there is a strong tradition, represented in various forms, that
the Buddha was under a constraint to proclaim the Dhamma, a
110 Prophets and Philosophers
constraint which in the last analysis was due to the nature of the
Dhamma, of which he was the historical representative or voice.
The other important point to be noted in connection with this period
is that such prophetic breakthrough did not inevitably occur in every
society. In some traditions, as in the Jain and the Taoist, there was what
may be better described as a gradual sophistication of certain features of
more primitive religion; in others, as in Shinto, there appears to have
been a total lack not only of anything like a prophetic breakthrough but
even of anything that really approaches a sophistication of the primitive
religious ideas and practices. Again, why there should be this disparity,
why prophetic breakthrough occurs in one place and not in another, it
is not our concern to attempt to explain. We note that it is so, but in a
later chapter we shall see how the prophetic breakthrough of one area
does not remain confmed to that area, but is conveyed to other areas
besides - an important fact to be reckoned with in any consideration of
the historical development of religion.
3 Scribes, Monks and
Priests

3.1 JUDAISM FROM THE EXILE TO THE FALL OF

JERUSALEM (587 B.C.-70 C.E.)

3.10 Historical perspective

JUST as the early, uniquely Yahwistic cultic confederation of Israel
(1.40) had been superseded by the monarchical religion which had its
centres in the royal temples of Jerusalem and Samaria, and which
shared many features with the religion of neighbouring oriental
monarchies, so in turn this was superseded, so far as Judah, the southern
kingdom, was concerned, by the emerging form of religion which has
since become known as Judaism. In 587 B.C. the kingdom ofJudah came
to an end, the capital city Jerusalem was largely destroyed and the
region became a Babylonian province. For just over 400 years Jerusalem
had been ruled by the Davidic dynasty; in 587 B.C. this chapter ended,
and Judah was successively under the rule of Babylonians, Persians,
Greeks, Romans, Arabs, and Turks, and finally in the First World War,
almost exactly 2,500 years later, became a British mandated territory.
The period with which we are now concerned is that covered by the
six and a half centuries of Babylonian (586-539), Persian (539-333),
Greek (333-63), and Roman rule (63 B.C.-C.E. 70), for during this
period the foundations of the religion known as Judaism were laid.
The new developments which occurred during that period may be
summarised as scripture, Sabbath and synagogue, together also with
certain developments in the realm of theology, notably the growth of
dualism, belief in angels, the doctrine of resurrection, and ideas of an
apocalyptic kind concerning the future.
It is important to remember that by the middle of the sixth century
B.C. the people of Judah, the Jews, had already begun to spread and
settle outside the confmes of their original territory: there were sizeable
settlements in Egypt; there were the leading Jews and their families who
had been deported to Babylonia and were by then settled there and
112 Scribes, Monks and Priests
living in not too great discomfort; there were some, largely peasants,
who remained in Judah itsel£ In the development of Judaism the
Babylonian and Egyptian communities played the major part.

3.11 Religious developments during the Exile

An important factor in the situation of the Jews who were deported to
Babylonia was that they were able to take with them their sacred
writings. The extent of these in the early sixth century B.C. is not
known with certainty. In order to understand something of the
probable nature of the collection of scripture as it existed at that time it
is necessary to go back to the earlier period, before the Exile.
The formation of the Hebrew religious historical narratives had been
going on throughout the pre-Exilic period. At first it would have been
in oral form that the traditions concerning Israel were put together;
later these would have begun to be put into writing. The underlying
motive for the assembling of these traditions can be seen from what is
perhaps the earliest form of the Hebrew historical narrative, namely,
the creedal confession of Deut. 26: 5-9 (1.23). This was a solemn
recapitulation of the great facts which constituted the religious faith of
this group of tribes known as Israel. Historical narrative was not
indulged in simply for the sake of historiography, that is, in order that
posterity in general might have a record of certain events; rather it was
because there was an immediate religious or theological purpose, namely
the kindling of faith, and the strengthening of loyalty to Yahweh. The
story which was unfolded in the Old Testament narrative was one
which, in a sense, was numinous in quality: the kind which produces,
and is intended to produce, an awesome shudder, a thrill of horror, or
of pride, or of humble gratitude. It has often been pointed out that the
narratives of the Bible are not of the same order as the so-called factual
reporting found in daily newspapers, yet many modern readers of these
narratives still regard them as though they were. The difference between
mere chronicle and theologically-coloured history is implicitly recog-
nised in the formula which occurs from time to time in the theological
history found in the book ofKings: 'Now the rest of the acts of[for
example] Jehoash ... are they not written in the book of the chronicles
of the Kings of Israel?' 'Now the rest of the acts of [for example]
Amaziah, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the
Religious developments during the Exile 113
Kings ofJudah?' In other words, if the reader wants historical informa-
tion, the standard chronicles will provide that; here he is reading a
theological interpretation, a treatment of the history from a certain
point of view, and with a certain purpose.
By the time of the Exile the theological narratives which make up a
substantial amount of the Old Testament from the book of Genesis to
the books of the Kings had already begun to take shape, and to be put
into written form. Precisely what stage in the literary formation of the
Old Testament had been reached by the time of the Exile is not clear;
the older strata which scholars have identified within these writings
would almost certainly by this time have existed in written form; the
strata which are identified as later literary products might then have
existed only in oral tradition. What is fairly certain is that those deported
Jews from the kingdom of Judah who went into exile in Babylonia
were able to take with them certain sacred writings, and that during the
time they were in exile certain of the oral traditions were committed to
writing and added to the existing literature as the concept of'scripture'
became more and more important.
The reason for this was that the downgrading of the local Yahwistic
sanctuaries at the expense of the central, royal sanctuary of Jerusalem
had concentrated the cultic life of the pre-Exilic Hebrews in one place.
When that one place was destroyed, in 586 B.c., and the Jews were
removed from proximity to it, the only central rallying point that was
left to them were the sacred writings. Special occasions for the reading
of these sacred writings were developed, the most important being the
seventh day of the week {sabbath), originally a tabu day rather than a
special day of devotional practice. In Babylonia, however, it became
much more the latter type of day. On this day assemblies were held
where the scriptures were read and expounded, prayers were offered,
and possibly some existing psalms were sung. In the course of time the
circumstances of the Jewish exiles allowed them to erect special
buildings for such devotional occasions; the name for these was 'the
house of assembly' (beth ha-keneseth); they later came to be known by
the Greek form of the name, synagogue. A similar institution developed
also among the Jews in Egypt; synagogues are mentioned there in the
third century B.c.
114 Scribes, Monks and Priests

3.12 The revival ofthe priestly tradition

In 538 B.C. the Babylonian empire was overthrown by Cyrus, the
Persian. This event had effects of several kinds upon Jewish religion.
In the first place the lenient policy of the Persian ruler made possible the
despatch of an expedition to Jerusalem in order to set about the
rebuilding of what had been destroyed in 586. An altar was set up on
the Temple site and the sacrificial cultus was restored. Although there
was an abortive attempt to rebuild the Temple, conditions in the ruined
city made the work difficult, and it was not until about 520, under the
influence of Haggai and Zechariah, that the work was begun which
resulted in the dedication of the rebuilt Temple in 515. But interest in
the priestly tradition had been reviving for some years before this,
possibly even in the period immediately before Cyrus's victory, when
it was foreseen as an imminent possibility. That stratum of the Old
Testament scriptures which is generally characterised as predominantly
'priestly' in its outlook and emphasis was therefore probably passing
into written form during this period, and to some extent also through
the ensuing years. It is to this stratum, for example, that the first
chapter of Genesis belongs, with its account of the creation of the
universe, an account which incorporates details which are Meso-
potamian rather than Palestinian in character, and which leads up to
the sanctifying of the sabbath day as the day of rest (Gen. 2: 2-3). For a
discussion of the difference between this 'priestly' account of creation
and the older, more characteristically Canaanite account found in
Gen. 2: 4ff., the reader must be referred to the specialist literature. A
particularly useful and careful study has been made by S. G. F. Brandon
(1963). On the wider subject of the identification of the various strata
within the Old Testament narratives a valuable summary of recent
scholarship has been made available by C. R. North (1951).

3.13 The growing importance ofthe Torah and the scribes

Alongside the revived priestly emphasis which accompanied the re-
building of the Jerusalem Temple there was also from now on a very
strong emphasis on the body of the Jewish scriptures as normative for
Jewish life and religion, and in particular on the body oflaw, or Torah,
 The growing importance ofthe Torah and the scribes 115
which the scriptures contained. Here we see emerging another of the
great characteristic features of Judaism. Associated with this trend was
Nehemiah, who arrived in Jerusalem from Babylonia (about 445 B.c.)
with permission and resources from the Persian ruler Artaxerxes
(probably Artaxerxes I}, to rebuild the city walls of Jerusalem and
organise the life of the Jewish community now resettling there.
Another leader followed from Babylon, namely Ezra, a scribe who
continued the organising work of Nehemiah and in particular set up
the Torah as the standard by which the life of the Jewish community
was to be governed. From now on the scribe, as the one who was
learned in the law and able to expound and interpret it, became an
increasingly important religious functionary in Judaism. In Jerusalem
the restored cultus and its subsequent aggrandisement resulted in the
growth in prestige of the Jerusalem priesthood; alongside this, both in
Jerusalem and in the surrounding territory of Judah it was the Law
and its expounders which provided the other major feature of
post-Exilic Judaism.

3.14 The emergence ofdualistic ideas

It is easy to understand that during this period, in view of the recent
course of events, the Jews would have been generally well disposed
towards Persia, and things Persian. This was the second main effect of
the Persian overthrow of the Babylonian empire. Proud though the
Jews were of their own tradition, they nevertheless accepted, whether
consciously or not, a good deal that they had acquired, and still were
acquiring, from Persian religion. This becomes apparent in the Jewish
literature of the post-Exilic period. Most of these ideas, such as those of
the millennium, the resurrection of the body, the last judgment and the
final transformation of the earth, awaited a slightly later age and other,
more bitter experiences before they finally came into their own among
the Jews (3.17}. But already in the Persian period of Jewish history a
tendency began to show itself towards a modification of Hebrew
monotheism in terms of Persian dualism. The process of development
of thought which can be observed in this case lends weight to the view
that dualism, of the Persian kind, is likely to emerge from an antecedent,
more rigidly monotheistic form of belief (2.25}. It is possible to conceive
that the universe is the work of a supreme potentate who brought it
116 Scribes, Monks and Priests
into existence and who continually directs the course of its affairs. If,
however, into such a conception there is introduced the idea of moral
goodness a tension arises: how can the apparent injustices of life, the
undeserved suffering which man experiences, be explained if the ruler
of all things, who can do whatever he pleases, is to be thought of as
morally good? It is this problem which underlies the book of Job.
While this book is usually considered to be a product of the post-Exilic
period, there is no compelling reason for regarding it as such; the
problem which the book poses was one for which all the ingredients
were present in the pre-Exilic period, when the two forms of belief,
first that Yahweh is morally good, the compassionate one who cares for
his people Israel, and second that he is a king or potentate, had already
been brought into juxtaposition in the course of the development of
Hebrew thought under the monarchy (2.18). The problem to which
these two conceptions give rise is difficult of solution; some might say,
impossible. Certainly the book ofJob does not appear to provide any
logical way out of the impasse, but rather gives a hint that the solution
lies outside logic, in the existential experience of the Holy such as came
to Job (Job 38-41, and especially 42: 1-6).
Another way ofliving with this problem is that which is provided by
dualism of the Persian kind. The greater the emphasis upon the goodness
and compassion of God, such for example as is found in the great
prophet of the Exilic period who is usually known as Deutero-Isaiah
(Isa. 40-54), the greater becomes the problem of accounting for men's
actual experience of evil and suffering, and the greater the tendency to
find the origin of evil elsewhere than in the direct will of God. At this
point the conception of a hostile spirit-power can provide a useful way
out of theological difficulties, and it was this which Persian thought
provided. Not until the period of Greek rule, however, did these ideas
develop fully into the dualism of spirit-hosts, good and evil; at least, it
was not until late in the Greek period that they found expression in
literary form (3.19).

3.15 Greek rule andJervish resistance

In the latter half of the fourth century B.c. the Macedonian forces of
Alexander the Great replaced Persian rule throughout most of the Near
East, Persia, and even as far east as the Indus valley and the Punjab in
Greek rule andJewish resistance 117
India. It has been said of Alexander that 'he lifted the civilised world
out of one groove and put it in another; he started a new epoch;
nothing could again be as it had been' (Cambridge Ancient History,
vol. vi, p. 436). Certainly this was so for the Jews, who were now
exposed to Greek culture and civilisation in a way that seemed to many
of them to threaten the very existence of Judaism as a way oflife and
belief. It was not, however, until the time of the Seleucids, one of the
three Hellenistic dynasties which succeeded to the empire of Alexander,
that the full force of Hellenisation was felt, and especially during the
reign of Antiochus IV, known also by the title 'Epiphanes', the
'manifestation' (that is, of God).
The structure of the Jewish community during the period of Greek
rule has been characterised by Edwyn Bevan as one which was
dominated by an aristocracy; this was an hereditary aristocracy, and it
was an aristocracy of priestly families; the high-priest was the chief
Jewish official (Bevan, 1904; 6). Even within the context of the Jewish
community, however, and apart from Greek political dominance,
there was another power in Judaism, superior even to that of the priests,
and that was the Law. Nevertheless, under the Law the priesthood held
a highly privileged position, and enjoyed a great source of material
wealth from the offerings which the people were obliged by the Law to
pay them. 'Fear the Lord and glorify the priest'; thus we read in one of
the Jewish writings of this period, the book of Ecclesiasticus.

3.16 Jewish piety ofthe old school: Ben Sira

Besides the priest, however, there was another type ofJew influential
and characteristic of this period, the sage, the kind of man whose
attitude to life is contained in the Jewish 'Wisdom' literature (of which
the book of Proverbs is an early example). Such a man was Ben Sira,
the author of Ecclesiasticus, a wise man, or scribe, rich in the traditional
piety of the grey-beards ofJerusalem. For him right conduct, according
to the Law of God, carried its own reward in this life; indeed, there was
no other. Concerning the dead he says, 'Tum not thy heart after him,
let him go his way and remember the last end. Forget not that he hath
no more expectation. . . . Consider his lot that it is thy lot also, his
yesterday and thine today. When the dead resteth, let thy thoughts of
him also rest, and be comforted in the going away of his soul.' Such
118 Scribes, Monks and Priests
was the counsel of the wise man, who held that man has to make the
best of this present life, the only life he has, by securing the approval of
God. The good man is always rewarded by God in this life; the wicked
is always punished in this life; any other view is based on deceptive
appearances, asserts Ben Sira. The great advantage which the good man
has when he dies at last is the good name which he leaves behind: 'Take
thought for the name, for that it is that remaineth to thee, longer than
thousands of goodly treasures. The good things of life are only for a
tale of days; but the good of the name is for days untold.' It was this
view of life which was soon to be shattered by the unprecedented
persecutions which the Jews were to suffer under Antiochus Epiphanes.

3.17 The desecration ofthe Temple and the Maccabean revolt

By the year 175 B.c. when Antiochus IV Epiphanes became ruler of the
Seleucid portion of the Hellenistic empire, the aristocratic families of
Jerusalem had already begun to suffer division on account of Hellenistic
culture. There was a strong Hellenising party who sought to bring
Jewish life into line with Hellenistic culture and to make Jerusalem a
new Antioch. It is important to notice that the Hellenism with which
the Jews came into contact at this time was not the classical Hellenism
of Alexandria, the Hellenism of Greece, and of Plato, but the debased,
more voluptuous and sensuous Hellenism of Antioch, the capital of the
Syrian, Seleucid empire. Some of the Jewish aristocrats of Jerusalem
were prepared to come to terms with the new culture, but they were
opposed in this by other members of the priestly class, as well as by the
sect or party known as the Hasidim, the 'godly' or 'pious' ones. These,
remaining faithful to the Law ofYahweh and the religious traditions of
Judaism, regarded the Hellenising activities of some of the aristocrats
with grief and abhorrence. Among the priestly families the situation
became one of intrigue and jockeying for power, and in 169 B.C., when
Antiochus Epiphanes was campaigning in Egypt, one of these factions
saw the opportunity to rebel and attempt to seize political power in
Jerusalem. Antiochus returned and dealt savagely with those in
Jerusalem who had been responsible for the rebellion. He went further,
and raided the sanctuary of the Temple, appropriating its wealth of
gold vessels. But even this was not enough; he decided to stamp out this
troublesome and bizarre Jewish religion altogether. He built a fortress
The desecration ofthe Temple and the Maccabean revolt 119
on the hill opposite the Temple (the Akra), and stationed a garrison
there to keep control of the area. The Temple he dedicated in 167 B.C.
to the service of Zeus, an image of whom was set up in the sanctuary,
and on the Temple altar swine and other animals unclean according to
Jewish law were sacrificed to Zeus. Circumcision and other Jewish
practices were forbidden; the observance of the Jewish Sabbath became
punishable with death. A gymnasium was set up in Jerusalem, where,
in accordance with Greek custom, exercises were performed in the
nude; this too gave great offence to the Jews. The resistance of the
Jewish people to these things was at first passive, then fiercely and
zealously active.
Any success which the attempt to impose Antiochene Hellenism
upon the Jews may have had was confmed to Jerusalem, and to those of
the upper classes to whom it was an advantage to preserve the peace.
In the Judean countryside this Hellenisation was more difficult to carry
out, and among the Jews who lived outside the city it was resisted.
Their resistance took the form of staunch loyalty to the Torah, even to
the point of refusing to defend themselves on the Sabbath day, and
thus suffering death for their obedience.
All this presented a serious challenge to the old type of piety
represented by Ben Sira. Jews were now suffering for their loyalty to
Yahweh, and in many cases their loyalty led only to sudden and violent
death at the hands of their Hellenic persecutors. Edwyn Bevan describes
their bitter perplexity:

Death, remember, had not been to their thinking the gate into life, but a
darkness which God, in the case of His faithful servants, held back till
they had enjoyed their full measure of days. And now - ? How did the
old easy comfortable doctrine of the happy end of the righteous sound to
those carried to the tormentors? .•• To the faithfUl it must have seemed
that the ground was gone from under their feet and that before their eyes
was only a void of darkness. (Bevan, 1904; 84)

It is of this situation, it is now generally agreed, that the book of

Daniel spoke. Through the name of a great hero of old who had
resisted every attempt of Gentile rulers to make him abandon his faith
in Yahweh came this contemporary message to Jews to follow the
example of Daniel now. Moreover, a large part of the book's message
was concerned with the inevitable God-ordained destiny in the affairs
of men that would at last, through all the suffering of the present, lead
120 Scribes, Monks and Priests
to the coming of the kingdom of the saints, when through a represen-
tative figure described as a Son of Man the saints would rule for ever.
Stand fast then; be faithful, even to death- this was the message of
Daniel to the Jews of the second century B.C. But more than this: here
for the first time in Jewish literature is found the doctrine of the
resurrection of the faithful to eternal life: 'And many of them that
sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and
some to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that be wise shall
shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to
righteousness as the stars for ever and ever' (Dan. 12: 2-3). Ideas which
had perhaps first come to the Jews from Persia, from the religious
teaching of the Prophet oflran (2.28) were now in a time of persecution
and distress accepted as a true insight into human destiny, an authentic
revelation.
A more active spirit of resistance began to show itself, however,
under the influence of the Hashmon family, one of those families of the
priestly class which had not succumbed to the Hellenising trend. Of the
five brothers of this family the most outstanding was Judas, who was
given the additional name Maccabeus, meaning 'hammer'. These
brothers became the leaders of a revolt which took the form of guerrilla
warfare throughout the countryside; an initial success led to increasing
numbers of the Jews of the countryside rallying to their support.
Another possible factor in the strength ofJewish resistance outside the
capital may by this time have been the local centres of religious zeal
which the synagogues provided. Support for the Maccabees was thus
probably of two kinds: from those Jews whose concern was for
religious liberty, the element in Judaism represented by the Hasidim,
'the pious ones'; and from those whose concern was primarily for
political independence. In the course of the struggle the Maccabees
were helped by external events: the Greek commander had to withdraw
to Antioch, and this made possible the return of the Temple to Jewish
hands. In December 165 B.c. it was restored to its proper use at a
ceremony of cleansing and rededication (Hanukkah) celebrated still by
Jews every December, as a festival oflights.
Thus we see that the attempt to Hellenise Judah by force resulted in a
violent reaction on the part of the majority of the Jews against what
was to them a vile form of heathenism. It was elsewhere, notably in
Egypt, that Hellenism had a more positive influence on Judaism.
Judas Maccabeus died in the spring of160 B.c. His brothers Jonathan
The desecration ofthe Temple and the Maccabean revolt 121
and Simon played the leading role thereafter. As E. Bevan pointed out,
it is difficult to know how to assess the achievement of Judas. His
brothers who succeeded him certainly pursued a thoroughly worldly
policy. Perhaps Judas has suffered by the reflection upon him of their
shortcomings, but it may also be significant that Judaism did not
include the book of Maccabees in its sacred canon.

3.18 Pharisees and Sadducees

The ideas which were expressed in the book of Daniel (3.17) were
henceforth accepted by some as an essential feature of the Jew's faith in
God; by others, more conservative, they were rejected. Among those
who accepted them were, most notably, the sect which is first mentioned
during the time of Simon Maccabeus' s son and successor John Hyrcanus,
namely the Pharisees. They appear in conflict with this high-priest and
civil ruler ofJerusalem (134-104 B.c.) as the upholders of an unwritten
law, men who accepted 'the tradition of the fathers'. Among those who
rejected the newer ideas were, most notably, the party of traditionalist,
high-priestly aristocrats, the Sadducees.
The Pharisees were in general in the tradition of the Hasidim, 'the
pious' (3.17). Their name indicates that they 'separated' themselves,
though from what is not clear; possibly from the priesthood, or from
impurity, or from all contemporary secularising or Hellenistic trends.
They, like the Hasidim, sought to live scrupulously in accordance with
the Law, but in their case with the additional guidance ofan accumulated
body of oral tradition. They formed only a minority of the Jewish
people as a whole, but appear to have been regarded by the people with
great reverence on account of their piety. Cronbach (1963) points out
that the Pharisees have had a bad press among Christians. To some
extent this may be because certain of the authors of the New Testament
writings were Pharisees who had broken with the movement, and
hence regarded it with a violently critical dislike, just as today the
ex-communist, the ex-Catholic, the ex-Jew is the most violent critic of
the system he has just renounced. The ideals and the practice of the
Pharisees were by no means always what the New Testament represents
them to have been: patience and sincerity, puritan and ascetic personal
living, concern for the life of the common people, these were the
characteristics of the Pharisees in the earlier period, and in these matters
122 Scribes, Monks and Priests
they provided a striking contrast with the Sadducees. Their openness to
progressive ideas and their readiness to allow an ongoing, developing
tradition of religious thought resulted, as we have already noted, in
their acceptance of the originally Persian doctrine of resurrection and
fmal judgment. They were also upholders of the belief in angels which
was characteristic of later Judaism, a belief which can be seen to be
related to the increasing tendency to think of God as majestic, remote
and utterly exalted, who must therefore employ intermediaries in order
to communicate with men.
The Sadducees, shunning what was to them such religious extremism
and enthusiasm (as socially superior classes frequently do) continued to
take their stand on the old, conventional morality of Ben Sira, a
morality very congenial to men to whom life was now once again
fairly generous. When the Greek persecution had passed away the
priestly families regained their old positions of prestige and influence,
and became for a while the virtual rulers ofJerusalem. It was during the
reign of one of them, bearing the Greek name of Alexander, that the
Pharisees had become so powerful a force among the people that at his
death Alexander advised his queen and successor Salome to admit them
to a major share of influence in the affairs ofJudea. This she did, so that
the Pharisees now became a party enjoying political power, and once
having entered upon it they were reluctant to give it up. It is this
situation, in which the Pharisees and the Sadducees are not only
opposing religious factions, but also rival political parties, that forms the
background to the rise of Christianity.

3.19 Roman rule andJewish apocalyptic ideas

In the early years of the first century B.C. a new European power had
appeared on the Jewish horizon, namely Rome. The rivalries and
intrigues which characterised the rule of the priestly, Sadducean families
eventually led to their appealing to Rome for help. In 63 B.C. Pompey
occupied Jerusalem, and from then Judea was a province of the Roman
empire, at first ruled by local kings set up by Rome, of whom Herod
the Great was the most outstanding, and then by procurators appointed
from Rome, until the Jewish revolt in the year 66 of the Christian era,
followed by the destruction of Jerusalem four years later. Like their
European predecessors the Greeks, the Romans were inclined to despise
Roman rule andJewish apocalyptic ideas 123
the Jews for their religious bigotry and curious customs; the Jews
replied with varying degrees of dislike and scorn for their Gentile
overlords. It was a situation which led to the emergence of a number of
extremist Jewish factions, in addition to the already existing three main
divisions who are mentioned by the Jewish historian Josephus; the
Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes. The last-named group appear
to have been religious pietists of a nonconformist kind, possibly of the
same type, if not identical with, the Qumran sect, about whom a good
deal has been learnt from the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947
(Burrows, 1956). The extremist factions, however, such as the Zealots,
the Galileans and others, were political activists who, in the tradition of
the Maccabeans, sought opportunities of throwing off foreign rule.
It is during this period, the first century B.C., that the type ofJewish
religious literature known as 'apocalyptic' comes into prominence. By
this time the Jews regarded the sacred writings as consisting of the
Torah, (the Law, or first five books, attributed to Moses) and the
Prophets. The latter included as 'former prophets' those books which
have since come to be regarded as the 'historical' narratives. In addition
to these there existed 'the Writings', consisting of collections of psalms,
proverbs, didactic books such as Job and other examples of 'wisdom'
literature. The prophetic literature was regarded as complete and closed
with Malachi. Hence the kind of'revelational' writing (for that is what
is meant by the Greek word 'apocalypsis') that was now being produced
by seers, visionaries and similar men who believed they were writing
under inspiration found acceptance in so far as the authors of these
writings believed they were functioning as the mouthpieces of great
heroes of old, to whom their works were therefore attributed. The first
example of this kind is to be found in the book of Daniel, which in its
present form dates from the middle of the second century B.c.; here we
see the beginning of that type of literature characterised by prophetic
visions of'the future' ascribed to some great figure in Israel's past, such
as Daniel, or Ezra, or Enoch; but which in fact may have consisted of a
description of what, in the second or first century B.c., was actually
recent history, with a narrative continued into the immediate future in
order to show how in the fmal consummation the forces of evil will be
overthrown and the forces of good will prevail. Dualism of the Persian
kind is a very marked characteristic of this literature, and so also is an
emphasis upon the idea of some extra-mundane or supernatural event
which will usher in salvation for the faithful, and the consummation of
124 Scribes, Monks and Priests
human history. In connection with these eschatological ideas there
developed, in the apocalyptic literature, the doctrines of warring hosts
of good and evil spirits, under the command of spirit-princes. These
princes of evil were known by various names - Azazel, Mastema,
Beliar, and others. In earlier Hebrew thought there had existed, outside
the doctrine of Yahweh as supreme ruler, a body of popular belief in
various, random evil spirits. The demonology of the apocalyptic
literature is distinguished from this by its development towards a
unitary concept of evil: a development which reached its climax in the
Satan of the New Testament. The demonology of this period has
another importance also: it provides a way of explaining the nature of
evil within human life which does not require that this be attributed to
God, and yet does not on the other hand need to explain any ill that the
individual may suffer as due to his own previous sinful action. The
view found in the apocalyptic literature allows for the fact that evil may
befall a man for which he is not personally responsible; it also points to
the fact that such experiences may be due to an exterior collective force
of evil (the demonic hosts), which is yet itself a consequence of sinful
human existence, for the Jewish apocalyptic view of the origin of the
demonic hosts is that their 'fall' was subsequent to the appearance of
human life in the Universe (Ling, 1961; 10£).
While the basic features of this moral dualism were derived from
Zoroastrian religion, it is significant that it is not until the second and
first centuries B.C. that it really began to develop vigorously within
Jewish thought. The clash of warring forces- Greek, Jewish, Roman-
in the earthly, political sphere suggested to the religious mind a conflict
of a more fundamental kind, between those who were described in the
Dead Sea Scrolls as the Children of Light and the Children of Darkness,
between the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. Contemporary
political realities thus brought the Iranian doctrines to life in a very
vivid and impressive way, and thus it was that the Iranian dualism
came into its own with all the force of an idea when its time has
come.
Partly from the Iranian conception of the eschatological saviour, and
partly from the Jewish hope of the ideal Davidic king (2.10) there
developed also in this period the concept of the Messiah, a prominent
feature of the apocalyptic literature. Sometimes he is referred to as a
coming great and wonderful king; sometimes as Lord Messiah, or by
such titles as 'the Chosen One', 'the Son ofDavid' and so on (Ringgren,
Roman rule andJewish apocalyptic ideas 125
1966; 337). Elsewhere a universal saviour, the 'son of Man' (Aramaic,
bar enasa, literally, a member of the human race), is spoken of. He is,
however, of more than human nature, pre-existent before creation and
transcending human existence. Mowinckel has suggested that this is a
conception which was derived from the Iranian notion of the Primordial
Man (Mowinckel, 1956; 427 f.).
The various elements of thought found in the apocalyptic literature
had gained fairly widespread popular currency among the Jews by the
end of the first century B.c. The overall pattern is summarised by
A. D. Nock as follows:

The approaching end of the present world order, in which the heathen
triumphed and the chosen people were afflicted, would be heralded by
certain signs. On the one hand, God would send certain forerunners - a
returning Moses and Elijah. On the other, the forces of evil would, as it
were, be intensified and would push their ascendancy to the length of a
second profanation of the Holy Place at Jerusalem, comparable with that
for which Antiochus Epiphanes had been responsible. Then, at what
seemed the darkest hour, God's Anointed would appear to captain God's
people, and to lead them in that desperate struggle which must end in
victory. (N ock, 1946; 36 £)

Such was the background ofJewish thought at the beginning of the

Christian era; it will be recognised by the reader of the New Testament
as the background of those writings also. It is from this context of
Roman rule and Jewish apocalyptic literature that we shall later consider
the rise of the Christian movement.

3.2 EARLY BUDDHISM (soo B.C.-70 c.E.)

3.20 The Buddhist Sangha after the Buddha's decease

During five centuries which followed the Buddha's decease Buddhism
developed most of the characteristic features by which it is now known.
These centuries were also the period during which Judaism was
developing its normative features, as we have just observed (3.1), and
the two systems were thus roughly contemporaneous in their develop-
ment. India, like Palestine, had an encounter with the Greek civilisation
126 Scribes, Monks and Priests
of Alexander the Great, but in India the encounter was slight and
scarcely noticeable compared with the effects which Hellenism produced
in Palestine.
The first five centuries of Buddhist history from the decease of the
Buddha are conveniently divided by the reign of the Indian emperor
Asoka, and the Buddhist council held at Pataliputra (Patna) during his
reign, in the year approximately 250 B.C. Asoka's reign is also in certain
respects, as we shall see (3.26), an important period of transition in
Buddhist history.
The situation in north India immediately after 483 B.c. was one in
which three major factors can be discerned, so far as the history of
Indian religion is concerned. The first is the growing strength and size
of the kingdom of Magadha, which by the time king Ajatasattu (2.31)
died, in 461 B.C., had become the largest and most powerful of the
newly emerged kingdoms of the Ganges plain. Iron was easily obtainable
from the ore found in the vicinity ofRajgir; control of the eastern end
of the Ganges valley made possible the development of sea trade with
areas to the east; the forests of the Ganges plain were being steadily
pushed back to provide more land for agriculture; and added to this,
and perhaps because of it, Magadhan military power increased through-
out this period, so that after Alexander the Great's brief raid on the
Punjab (for that is all it was) the Magadhan king, Chandragupta (321-
297 B.c.), founder of the Maurya dynasty, was able to move into the
north-west after the retreating Greek forces and take advantage of the
situation to bring yet further large territories under Magadhan control.
By the time Chandragupta' s grandson Asoka succeeded to the position
of ruler of this Magadhan empire in 272 B.c., it formed the largest single
political unit India had known, and covered the whole area of the
subcontinent southwards from the Khyber pass, with the exception of
the extreme tip of the peninsula south of the river Krishna, and of the
area in the north-east now known as Assam.
The second major factor was the gradual spread of the Buddhist
community (i.e. the Sangha) throughout the ever-expanding territory
of this Magadhan empire. Just as the political unit had grown outwards
from a relatively small territory in the eastern part of the Ganges valley,
expanding westward and southward, so also did the religious com-
munity of the Buddha. The same social condition which underlay the
initial success of the Buddha's religion, namely the transition from
tribal society to monarchy (2.30), continued to operate in favour of
The Buddhist Sangha after the Buddha's decease 127
Buddhism wherever the Magadhan state extended to engulf former
tribal territories.
The third major factor during this period was the response of the
brahmans to the situation just described, throughout north India. With
the details of this response we shall be concerned in the next section
(3.3); at this point we may note that while Buddhism was in the
ascendant and had the initiative, up to the time of Asoka, the brahmans
also quickly learnt to adapt themselves to the new circumstances and
were throughout this period fmding new ways of validating and
maintaining their position of privilege. Broadly speaking the heartland
of Brahmanism was in the western, upper reaches of the Ganges valley;
the heartland of Buddhism was in the eastern, lower hal£ The west
remained the stronghold of brahman learning and especially of the
priestly Sanskrit language, the east was the centre of the non-brahman
philosophies and of the vernacular or dialect forms of Sanskrit. The
centuries we are at present considering were a period in which these
two cultures were gradually interpenetrating each other; the result in
the case of Brahmanism was the taking over of ideas and practices that
were in origin Buddhist, and in the case of Buddhism the development
of the later, Sanskritic, semi-Brahmanised form of Buddhism which
came to be known as the Mahayana (3.28).

3.21 The routinisation ofBuddhist religion

Buddhism, during the early centuries, was essentially the community
of monks, the Sangha. No successor to the Buddha was appointed, or
looked for, or indeed needed, although there were greatly-respected
elders, such as Sariputta and Moggallana. The Buddha had been the
exemplar and teacher of the Dhamma; it was the Dhamma that was
eternal, and it was to this that the community of monks owed their
allegiance. The Buddha himself is represented as having charged the
monks, shortly before his death, to make the Dhamma their guide
when he had gone. In addition to the Dhamma, contained in the
discourses of the Buddha which were carefully preserved in oral
tradition by the monks, there was also the body ofregulations governing
the life of the Sangha, rulings which had accumulated during the
Buddha's lifetime, and which now came to be known as the Vinaya, or
Discipline. In early Buddhism, then, it was the Dhamma-Vinaya, the
128 Scribes, Monks and Priests
Doctrine and the Discipline, which provided the basis for the com-
munity's religious life - together, of course, with the all-important
practice of meditation.
It is probably impossible now to discover exactly what was the form
of the Buddha's teaching and of the monastic discipline as it existed at
the time of the Buddha's decease; the tradition would undoubtedly
have suffered a certain amount of accretion and modification in the
course of transmission. But one need not be too sceptical. The oldest
form of the tradition is that of the Pali canon - the sacred scriptures of
Theravada Buddhism. In general the Theravadins and the Sthaviras,
the school from which the Theravadins developed, were noted for their
strict adherence to the letter of the tradition, which they guarded with
the utmost devotion. Moreover, Buddhism does not rest exclusively
and entirely upon the historical veracity of all the stories about the
Buddha, (any more than the Christian religion rests upon the veracity
of all the stories about Jesus); the essentials are {1) the general themes
are repeated so often and in so many ways in the Pali canon that there
can be no doubt about them; and (2) the fact that a man existed who
exemplified this teaching, and who, because of what he was, persuaded
others to make the Buddhist experiment for themselves. Of these things
there need be no doubt.
As for the Vinaya, this seems very early to have reached a stage when
it was impious to question or challenge its details and when it was
venerated as a quasi-sacred tradition. During the Buddha's lifetime the
rules for the life of the community seem to have been adjusted from
time to time as need arose, with considerable flexibility; to some extent
this kind of flexibility may have continued for a while after his decease,
but it was not long before the codification of the rules was complete,
and any departure from them was regarded as a serious breach of
Buddhist morality. Within this final codification, which constitutes
the Vinaya proper, there is embedded, it is generally agreed, a very old
set of monastic rules known as the Pattimokkha (Sanskrit, Pratimoksa).
These are about 250 in number (the exact number varying with
different recensions), and from the earliest days seem to have been
recited at the meeting of monks held every new moon and full moon.
The rules are arranged in order of gravity: the first group deal with
offences punishable by permanent expulsion from the Sangha; the next
group with offences meriting only temporary expulsion, and so on,
down to minor matters of etiquette.
 The routinisation ofBuddhist religion 129
The first major example known to us of a serious breach of the
Vinaya rules is dated about one hundred years after the Buddha's
parinibbana, and was the occasion of the calling together of what is
commonly known as the second Buddhist Council, the Council of
Vesali. (The First Council had been held immediately after the
parinibbana of the Buddha, at Rajgir, to give definitive form to the
Doctrine and the Discipline; this was attended by five hundred monks,
and was presided over by Mahakassapa.) According to the account of
the Second Council given in the Cullavagga (a narrative section of the
Vinaya added later) it was attended by seven hundred monks, gathered
to consider ten points on which the monks of the Vajji territory were
said to be contravening the rules of the Vinaya. An elder monk named
Yasa had called the council, inviting monks from the 'Western Country',
the 'Southern Country' and the 'Eastern Country'. Vesili, where the
Council was held, was on Vajjian territory. After a great deal of
fruitless discussion about these ten points of infringement, the matter
was referred to a committee of four monks from the Eastern Country
and four from the Western. The committee reported that the conduct
of the Vajjian monks was unlawful on all ten points, and the full
assembly of the Council endorsed their view. The defeated party did
not accept the decision, and is said to have held another council of their
own. Whether the story of this other Vajjian council is authentic or
not, it seems clear that from about this time there was in some places a
trend towards a relaxation of the monastic rules, in favour of a more
'lay' type of Buddhist life. Those who followed this trend called
themselves the 'Great Sangha party' (Maha-sanghika). The orthodox
were thenceforth known, in distinction from this new party, as 'the
Elders' (Sthaviras). In the threefold scheme of Buddhist life, morality,
meditation and wisdom, the more conservative Sthaviras were con-
cerned to place great emphasis on morality as a prerequisite of monastic
life, and by this they meant the morality laid down in the Vinaya rules.
The Great Sangha party, drawing their support much more from lay
Buddhists, were disposed to pass lightly over the requirements for
monastic morality, and place more emphasis on meditation. In this
attitude of the Great Sangha party lay the seeds of two subsequent
developments in Mahayana Buddhism: first, the great importance
given to philosophical speculation, as a result of their heavy emphasis
on the priority ofmeditation; and second, the introduction ofindigenous
cults, such as the worship of mother-goddesses, through the popularising
130 Scribes, Monks and Priests
tendency of the Great Sangha, with its much greater concessions to the
religious needs of the lay follower.

3.22 The development ofAbhidhamma

It is necessary at this point to embark upon an aspect of Buddhist
thought which may to the Western reader seem excessively tedious,
and possibly rather remote from what are generally understood to be
the concerns of religion. The subject belongs as much to philosophy as
religion, as those terms are commonly used in the West; in India,
however, there has always been a much less clearly marked distinction
between them. What has always to be remembered, moreover, in
connection with Indian philosophical ideas is that they almost all have
what in the West would be called a religious or spiritual end in view,
namely the overcoming of the present ills of empirical existence, and
entry into the summum bonum, however that may be conceived. All this
is certainly true ofthe systematic analysis ofexistence which in Buddhism
is known as Abhidhamma, and has remained for over two thousand
years the basis of monastic Buddhism, first in India, and then in Ceylon
and South-East Asia.
At the time of the Buddha's decease, the characteristic form in which
Buddhist doctrine was contained was that of the Sutta; that is to say, a
dialogue or discourse, usually between the Buddha and an enquirer, or
disciple, or representative of some rival school of thought. Through
each discourse there usually ran a 'thread' or main topic and it is from
this that the sutta is so named (Sanskrit, sutra; Pali, sutta; c.£ English,
suture). The dialogue form was one which would have had a popular
appeal, and so it is possible to say that in the Suttas we have Buddhist
thought wrapped up in a form useful for apologetic and explanatory
purposes; we hear how the Buddha, on a certain occasion and in a
certain place became involved in conversation with such-and-such a
person, and what they said, usually in relation to some particular topic
or idea. The title of the Sutta indicates the subject of the conversation
(as for example, the Sammana-phala Sutta, which is about 'the fruits of
the life of an ascetic' (Sammana-phala)); or it indicates the name of the
Buddha's questioner (as in the Kutadanta Sutta, a conversation with a
brahman named Kutadanta).
Stripped of this local, topical and personal detail, however, the
The development ofAbhidhamma 131
Suttas taken together embody a scheme of analytical thought which is
capable of being set out in a more severe schematic form. The essential
point on which the Buddha's teaching differs from that of other schools
of Indian thought is his denial of' a permanent unchanging individual
"self"' (atman). This was analysed into its five component factors, or
khandhas, namely, outward form, feelings, perceptions, impulses and
consciousness. The last of these is the most important, and is itself
capable of analysis into its various constituent 'factors'. Such factors
may be listed in groups according to their nature, whether wholesome,
unwholesome or neutral. In each of these groups there may be many
'states' of consciousness, and it is these that are regarded in early
Buddhist thought as the 'ultimates' of this kind of analysis; they are
known as dhammas, the ultimately real factors of existence. The listing
of all these factors of every kind, for catechetical and instructional
purposes, is a feature which emerged fairly early in the course of
Buddhist history, and such catecheticallists, summaries of the ultimately
real factors, are already to be seen in some of the Sutta literature, as for
example, the Sangiti Sutta, found in the collection of Long Discourses
{the Digha Nikaya}. The name 'Sangiti' indicates that it is for 'chanting
together', that is, by a group of monks or disciples engaged in learning
the Buddhist way. Another name for such catechetical summaries is
matika, a Pali word which is cognate with 'matrix', and indicates that
this is the 'mould' in which Buddhist thought and teaching is cast.
In the collecting of such matrix-material, and its further classification
and schematisation, the Abhidhamma literature was formed. This was
a process which seems to have been going on throughout the first two
or three centuries of Buddhist history. Although the sacred literature of
the Buddhists is now generally recognised as threefold in its arrange-
ment, namely, the Vinaya-pitaka, the Sutta-pitaka, and the Abhi-
dhamma-pitaka, this was not its earliest form. The Vinaya is the corpus
of rules governing the life of the monks in the Sangha. The Sutta
collection is, as we have seen, the corpus of the Buddha's doctrine. In
the early period Buddhism was comprised in these two alone, the
Vinaya and the Suttas (or Dhamma, i.e. the doctrine). Thus it was that
the term Dhamma-Vinaya, referring to these two main aspects of the
Buddhist way, was used from early times; it occurs in the Suttas
themselves. The addition of the third pitaka or collection of literature,
the Abhidhamma, probably did not occur at least until after the split
around 300 B.C. between the Analysers (Vibhajya-vadins) and the Pan-
F L.H.R.
132 Scribes, Monks and Priests
realists (Sarviisti-viidins), about which more later (3.24). This is suggested
by the fact that each of these two schools has its own Abhidhamma-
pitaka, and that each differs slightly from the other in the books
included, whereas their Vinaya-pitakas and Sutta-pitakas are the same.
But although the actual formation of a third collection of Buddhist
texts, the Abhidhamma books, did not take place until about the third
century B.c., the production of this kind of material, in the form of
analytical schemes, was certainly going on well before that time, and
probably soon after the decease of the Buddha. And behind the
production of the matika (or lists) themselves there was, of course, the
development of this analytical way of thinking which the Buddha had
initiated, and which the monks were refining and sophisticating to an
extreme degree. Abhidhamma may be taken to mean the 'ultimate-
Dhamma or doctrine', that is, the essence of the Buddha's teaching,
abstracted from the more popular form in which it is found in the
Suttas. Or it may be taken to mean the study of ultimate reality as
consisting in the dhammas or psychic factors into which, we have seen,
Buddhist thought analysed all existence. In either case, this is what is
found in the Abhidhamma, and it was this relentless breaking down of
'commonsense' conceptions which was engaging the critical faculties of
Buddhist monks throughout the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.
Besides this analytical method there is, however, a second aspect to
the Abhidhamma, and that is the rearrangement of the dhammas (into
which existence has been analysed) into new patterns. These new
patterns are, in a sense, improvements on the old; they are more
wholesome; more likely to lead towards the ultimate goal of nibbana.
But first of all it is necessary to investigate the correlational system to
which any single dhamma, (moment of consciousness, or mental event),
belongs. As Nyanaponika puts it, 'thorough analysis implies an
acknowledgment of relationship' (1949; 4). No mental event arises
singly, but within a network of factors both 'internal' to it and also
'external'; that is, factors of which its internal structure is made up,
some stronger, some weaker; and factors which act upon consciousness
from outside. It is not to be expected that the reader who is being
introduced to Buddhist Abhidhamma will master its principles im-
mediately; the important thing is to recognise that the Abhidhamma
method does not stop when it has broken human existence down into a
number of separate mental and physical 'atoms'; it involves also the
viewing of those atoms in relationship to each other - both their actual
The development ofAbhidhamma 133
present relationship and their potential, improved, and more wholesome
relationships. For the goal of the Buddhist method is not a bleak,
ultimate 'atomism', but a wider, deeper, perfect consciousness beyond
the constraints and corruption of ordinary individual existence (see
also 4.29).

3.23 The Personalists (Pudgala-vadins)

The Abhidhamma (3.22) was a reflective, analytical and relational
approach to human psychology of a kind which the Buddha had
taught his disciples to use. The aim of this method was ultimate
enlightenment and nibbana; the immediate effect of it among those
who used it was to undermine the commonsense notion of an individual
self that transmigrated from one existence, through rebirth to another,
and another, and so on. But this was a notion which was very deeply
rooted indeed (and still is) in Indian thought, and there were some, even
among Buddhists, to whom the denial of the reality of any kind of real
entity that passes from one existence to another was too hard to accept.
Hence, as the Abhidhamma analysis was pursued more and more
rigorously it produced a reaction, somewhere towards the end of the
fourth century B.C., that is, about two hundred years after the Buddha's
parinibbana, in the form of a school of thought which came to be
known as Pudgala-vadin, that is, those who assert (vadin) the existence
of a person (pudgala) as a real entity. Ancient India believed that justice
in human affairs was possible only if there was a permanent unchanging
atman that transmigrated and received reward or punishment in each
succeeding existence. If, however, doubt was thrown upon this notion
of an unchanging, permanent atman, then what happened to the notion
ofjustice? Obviously there was none. Such a conclusion was unaccept-
able, for what motive would then remain for acting rightly? Moral
chaos would ensue, it was feared. Hence there emerged the attempt
among Buddhists, under the very strong pressure of the idea of rebirth
and karma, to assert the existence of something that persisted, even if it
was not the atman. It was, they maintained, the 'person' or pudgala
that was the enduring entity, and they claimed in support of their
contention the use by the Buddha himself of this word pudgala in a
positive sense.
The emergence of this point of view, even among early Buddhists, is
134 Scribes, Monks and Priests
of interest because it indicates how strong was the popular belief in
rebirth and karma, especially in the more Dravidian region of Bihar
and West Bengal where early Buddhism flourished. By the majority of
Buddhist monks, however, the view was rejected as contrary to the
Buddha-Dhamma. It was admitted that there were instances of the use
of the term pudgala by the Buddha, but he was on these occasions only
making concessions to the 'common-sense' point of view of those who
had not perceived the truth of the anatta doctrine. The Personalists had
simply brought in at the back door the very notion (ofatman) which
had been driven out at the front. Their view never prevailed completely
among the Buddhists oflndia. Nevertheless, some nine hundred years
or so later, when Hsuan-tsang (5.20), the Chinese pilgrim, visited India
in the seventh century C.E. he reckoned that there were about a quarter
of a million Buddhist monks in India, and that a quarter of these
belonged to the Personalist school of thought.

3.24 The Pan-realists (Sarviistiviidins)

About a century and a half after the emergence of the Personalist view,
the second major difference of opinion occurred among the Sthaviras,
that is, about three hundred and forty years after the decease of the
Buddha. This concerned the 'reality' or otherwise of past events. The
development of the Abhidhamma type of analysis (3.22) was still being
rigorously pursued by the Sthavira monks. Dukkha (ill) anatta and
anicca are the three 'marks' of existence, according to Buddhist thought.
All is momentariness, impermanence, anicca. The present, once it is
past, has no reality, but perishes entirely. Nothing is necessary to
bring this about; it is in the nature of reality to be thus instantaneous,
non-durable. But each moment arises out of the preceding; hence there
is moral continuity since each is determined by its antecedent. This was
how the notion of anicca was expounded by that wing of the monks
who rejected the Abhidhamma; they took their stand on the Suttas
(Sanskrit, Sutras) and the doctrine of the Buddha expounded there
without the aid of the Abhidhamma analysis, and so were known as the
Sautrantikas (those for whom the Sutras are the anta or end, or final
word). Those on the other hand who adhered to the Abhidhamma
analytical method were inclined to a different view, especially those
who affirmed the reality of all three kinds of dhammas - past, present,
The Pan-realists (Sarvastivadins) 135
and future. Once a dhamma had occurred it did not pass into unreality,
they declared, but continued to have a real existence and to produce
real effects. Similarly the dhammic events which were still future were
none the less real. Hence this school of thought was known as the
Pan-realist.

3.25 Monks, laymen and devotional practices

TheWestern reader may find it difficult to understand how abstractions
of the kind which have just been outlined could possibly continue to
command the loyalty of Buddhist monks for century after century and
in increasing numbers. The answer lies in the fact that such abstract
concerns were not the whole of the Buddhist life, even for the monk.
There were also those aspects which made it a religious faith, namely, its
devotional places and practices. The characteristic religious practice for
Buddhist monks is meditation, but in addition to this there are certain
devotional exercises, usually in honour of the Buddha and the Dhamma,
which go back to a very early period in Buddhist history. The
characteristic religious place for all Buddhists is the pagoda, or shrine,
which has developed from what in ancient India was known as a stupa.
This was originally a burial mound, but in early Buddhist times it had
become conventionalised into a large semi-spherical solid mound of
stone or brick, within which was contained a sacred relic of some kind.
This sacred mound or stupa, because of the relic which it enshrined,
was regarded as a focus for devotional activity. The building of such
shrines was not the concern of Buddhist monks, but of the laymen who
had the necessary resources. It was regarded as a work of great merit,
and is so still in the Buddhist countries of South-East Asia. In general
the principle which has been observed throughout Buddhist history is
that the monks provide the necessary sacred relics, the laymen provide
the pagoda; but all alike, monks and laymen, will use a pagoda as a
convenient focus for devotional exercises and possibly meditation.
Certainly the pagoda is the earlier and more characteristic object of
devotion than the Buddha-rupa, or stylised representation of the
Buddha in stone or metal (sometimes loosely called in the West
'a Buddha-image'). In the early centuries there was no plastic or
pictorial representation of the Buddha; the practice of making such
Buddha-rupas began in north-west India (Gandhara) and reflects Greek
136 Scribes, Monks and Priests
influence {that is, in the period after Alexander's visit of 327-325 B.c.).
Before that the Buddha had been represented in iconography by a
bo-tree, with an unoccupied space beneath it. But at the pagoda from
an early date flowers, lights, and incense were offered in honour of the
Buddha and his teaching, and it was such devotional practices as these
which were certainly spreading during the period we are now
considering, between the decease of the Buddha and the reign of the
emperor Asoka.

3.26 Buddhism and the emperor Asoka

The Buddhist repudiation of the principle of selfish individuality
resulted in the emergence of the Sangha, the new community where
men could realise the doctrine of anatta (2.39). In a more widely
diffused form, moreover, Buddhism gradually penetrated the fabric of
Magadhan society as a social philosophy. For the discourses of the
Buddha contained in the Buddhist Suttas were, as Kosambi has pointed
out, 'addressed to the whole of contemporary society, not reserved for
a few learned initiates and adepts' (1965; 113). The social policies that
were set forth in the Suttas were of a kind which envisaged a wise use of
the resources of the state for the benefit of all its citizens. As an Indian
historian has recently put it, Buddhism in the early centuries in India
was 'a social and intellectual movement at many levels, influencing
many aspects of society. Obviously any statesman worth the name
would have had to come to terms with it' (Thapar, 1966; 85).
The emperor Asoka showed himself to be such a statesman. His rule
of the Magadhan empire, from about 270 to 232 B.C., was outstanding
for its attempt to put into practice the social principles of Buddhism.
He himself became a Buddhist about eight years after his accession, and
undertook to fulfil the duties of a pious layman, such as the building of
stupas (3.25) which he did at a number of important sacred places. But
while he himself was a Buddhist, he did not use his authority to
persecute or even ban other religious sects; he made substantial
donations for the support of brahman and other religious groups and
their institutions. His policies and achievements have become known
to modern historians from the inscriptions which have been discovered
in many parts of India, and it is generally acknowledged that his
achievements for the welfare of his subjects were considerable. A
Buddhism and the emperor Asoka 137
minority of the edicts were addressed to the members of the Buddhist
Sangha, but the majority were to all his subjects. In one of these he says:
'Whatever exertion I make, I strive only to discharge the debt that I owe
to all living creatures.' 'This was a startlingly new and inspiring ideal of
kingship, completely strange to earlier Magadhan statecraft, where the
king symbolised the state's absolute power', comments Kosambi. 'With
Asoka the social philosophy expressed in the sixth century Magadhan
religions {Buddhism and Jainism) had at last penetrated the state
mechanism' (1965; 159).
From the edicts addressed to the Sangha it appears that some of its
members were beginning to be in need of advice on the manner of life
and behaviour proper to Buddhist monks. This was to some extent no
doubt due to the rapid expansion of the Sangha and the favoured
position which it held in Magadhan society, which in tum would have
resulted in its attracting into its membership men whose motives for
entry were not always of the highest - a trend which the less strict
attitudes of the Great Sangha party (3.21) would have done nothing to
offset.
It was during Asoka' s reign that the Third Buddhist Council was
held, at the imperial capital, Pataliputra (Patna). The leading figure
among the Sthaviras at this time was a senior monk by the name of
Moggaliputta Tissa, for whom Asoka evidently had a deep respect; he
it was who under Asoka' s patronage was concerned at the Council to
refute the doctrines of the Sarvastivadins, or Pan-realists (3.24). Asoka's
concern for the strict observance of the Vinaya, a concern which may
be inferred from his edict to monks on the matter of their life and
conduct, is possibly another aspect of his general support for the
Sthaviras, whom he now supported against the Sarvastivadins. The
latter, sensing that they were not in an altogether favourable situation
in the Pataliputra area, removed westwards, settling first at Mathura, on
the upper Jumna river, and eventually making Kashmir and Gandhara
their strongholds.
Another result of the Third Council was the official agreement by
the assembled monks on the contents of the Pali canon of scripture, or
Ti-pitaka as it was now called. 'Ti-pitaka' means 'three-baskets' (or
three-collections), that is the Vinaya-pitaka, the Sutta-pitaka, and the
Abhidhamma-pitaka (3.22).
138 Scribes, Monks and Priests

3.27 Buddhist missionary activity in Asoka's reign

Yet another result of the Council at Pataliputra was the decision to send
Buddhist monks as missionaries to various neighbouring territories of
the Magadhan empire. Of the various destinations mentioned in the
Pali chronicles, the best attested is that of Lanka, or Ceylon. Asoka' s
son Mahinda was the leader of the mission, and he and his fellow
Buddhists appear to have met with remarkable success. The king of
Ceylon, Devanampiya Tissa (Tissa Beloved-of-the-Gods), is represented
as having been immediately and strongly attracted to Buddhism; many
of his subjects followed him, and before long the Sangha had been
established on the island of Lanka, its members consisting now not only
of missionary monks from the Magadhan kingdom but men of the
island also. From that time Buddhism has had a continuous history in
Ceylon, the longest continuous history now of any Buddhist country.
The Buddhist chronicles record that similar missions were despatched
to Kashmir and Gandhara and the Himalayan regions, to western
India, to southern India, and to a land described as Suvanna-bhiimi,
'the Land of Gold'; this is sometimes thought to be Burma, but more
probably the name refers to Malaya and Sumatra. Asoka's own rock
edicts also mention the efforts made to spread the Dhamma in
neighbouring territories, especially in the Greek-ruled areas to the
north-west of Asoka's frontier. Even although there is little remaining
of Buddhism in these one-time Greek dominions, it is by no means
impossible that Buddhist influences did make their way towards the
Mediterranean world, and may have been a factor in the development
of monastic settlements such as those of the Therapeuta: in Egypt- the
land in which Christian monasticism had its origin (4.19).
The prestige which Buddhism had acquired in the Indo-Greek
kingdom of north-west India is well attested by the interest in Buddhist
ideas shown by a Greek from Alexandria who was ruler of the Indo-
Greek area in the early second century B.C., namely Menander. The
Indian form of his name is Milinda, and the Theravadin Pali work
entitled 'The Questions of Milinda' (Milinda-panha) indicates the keen
interest in Buddhist doctrine which this king displayed. The book takes
the form of a discussion between a learned monk, Nagasena, and the
king on the kind of questions that would have arisen in the mind
of a sympathetic and intelligent non-Buddhist who had made an
Buddhist missionary activity in Asoka's reign 139
initial acquaintance with the Buddha's doctrine and the life of the
Sangha.

3.28 The Brahmanisation ofthe Buddhist Sangha

Another major consequence of the benign atmosphere which the
Buddhist Sangha enjoyed in the Mauryan empire has already been
referred to in passing; namely, that the Sangha became materially
prosperous, both from Asoka' s benefactions and from those of other
wealthy citizens who followed his example; this in turn meant that life
in the Sangha was comfortable and easy and increasingly attracted
recruits for the wrong reasons. Another result of the increasing
respectability of the Buddhist Order was that more entrants to its ranks
now came from the upper classes of society than formerly. More
precisely, it attracted more men of brahman family and upbringing.
These new entrants brought with them much of their traditional
brahman learning and ways of thought, and it is this which partly
explains some of the philosophical developments within Buddhism
during the century or so immediately before Christ, developments
which go to make up a good deal of the Mahayana system. Moreover,
in spreading into southern India, Buddhism was entering one of the
strongest areas for the cult of female deities, or mother-goddesses. This
too was not without very important consequences for the future
development of the Buddhist religion in India.

3.29 The early phases ofthe Mahayana

We have seen that one of the major differences between the Sthaviras
and the Mahasanghikas (3.21) was that the former held to a more
strictly literal interpretation of the Vinaya rules, and placed a greater
importance on the necessity of monastic life for the achievement of the
Buddhist goal. By the Mahasanghikas this was held to be of relatively
less importance; for them the Sangha was the great community, or
'assembly' of monks and laymen; hence their name, Great Sangha
party. In the course of time they developed a strongly critical attitude
towards the conservative and orthodox Sthaviras on the grounds of the
Sthaviras' general literalism and dogmatism, apart from their attitude
Fl L.H.R.
140 Scribes, Monks and Priests
to the Vinaya rules. They were charged with being too dogmatic on
the subject of the Buddhist ideal. The Sthaviras held that the only type
of Buddhist perfection was that of the arhat, by which they meant the
Buddhist monk who had reached sainthood by the strictest adherence
to the letter of the law. We have seen that in the early period the
nibbuta-man, the nibbana-minded man, was the ideal type ofhumanity,
both for monks and for the wider society and culture in which the
Sangha was established (2.36). The use of the term 'arhat' (literally
'worthy') in early Buddhism is evidence of this fact; used in the earlier
texts in a fairly general sense, it meant that the nibbuta-man was a
'worthy', a man worthy of respect, and as we have noted (2.36) even of
oblation. In its later more formal or technical sense it has a meaning
something like the English 'your worship' or 'his worship'. With the
conventionalising of the term there had undoubtedly gone also a
conventionalising of the ideal itself, and some of those who claimed to
be arhats were probably not deserving of such a title. Such debasement
of religious meaning is not infrequently the result of rigid literalism in
the interpretation of sacred scriptures, once a religious tradition's
essential principles have been embodied in scriptural form. Certainly
this seems to have been the case with Buddhism at the point in its
history we are considering.
The Mahasanghikas therefore sought to revive the original ideal of
the nibbuta-man by coming forward with a new term to replace the
devalued arhat conception. More precisely they gave a new use to a
term which had already been used to describe the stage which im-
mediately precedes that ofBuddhahood, namely, the term 'bodhisattva',
or 'one who is possessed ofbodhi' (enlightenment), one who is about to
enter into the final human existence in which he will be a Buddha. This
notion implies the possibility, not always fully understood by non-
Buddhists, that there have been, and will be, many Buddhas; each one
has appeared or will appear at an appropriate period of the world's
history, a period of great need for the re-proclaiming of the eternal
Dhamma. This view of things opens up the possibility that even now
there are in existence bodhisattvas each of whom will, at some future
period, appear as the Buddha for that era.
It was this term, and this notion, which the Mahasanghikas took up
and developed: in their view the goal of Buddhist living was the
emergence of the bodhisattva, the one who in all respects possessed the
qualities of the nibbuta-man (2.36). An important new idea, however,
The early phases ofthe Mahayana 141
had also been introduced, namely that he can for the benefit of his
fellow-men, indefinitely prolong his existence as bodhisattva. The
development of the bodhisattva ideal in the centuries just before the
Christian era emphasises not only the relative spiritual bankruptcy
which had afflicted the Sthaviras by this time, but also that there was a
realisation by ordinary people of the value to common humanity of the
ideal man, the actual historical nibbuta; he so benefits mankind that the
conviction is reached by the generality of men that such a being must
remain in this realm, among men, in order that he may continue to
bestow upon them spiritual benefits. In other words, the development
of the bodhisattva conception reveals a desire among men for the
indefinite prolongation of the presence of the saintly man. It was this
ideal, therefore, which now began to replace the debased coinage called
arhatship. An important new trend in this kind of thought, as it
developed in those areas of India which had more recently become
Buddhist, was the implication that the bodhisattva's spiritual attainments
were of such a quality that his delayed entry into nibbana for the sake of
his fellow-men took the form of a supernatural kind of existence in
which he was something more than a mortal man. The bodhisattva
conception certainly had its roots in early Buddhism, in the notion of
the ideal man, the saint, the nibbuta; but it also developed a wholly new
and hitherto unknown dimension which it owed more to non-Buddhist
influences in India, the dimension of the supernatural, quasi-divine.
The other major point on which the Sthaviras were criticised for
their literalism was on the analysis ofhuman existence into its constituent
dhammas (3.22). The Sthaviras appear to have believed in the real
objective existence of these dhammas, as constituting as it were the
ultimate ontological 'atoms' of existence. The Mahasanghika schools
held that analysis into dhammas was primarily the demonstration of a
method; to stop at dhammas was to stop short at a purely arbitrary
point in the analysis, and for no good reason. The analytical process
must be continued indefinitely: even dhammas could not provide an
ultimate resting place; analysis thus relentlessly pursued must lead to a
view of all substantial entities as being sufiya, that is, void. It was this
trend of thought which eventually became the basis of the Sufiyata
doctrine in the Mahayana form of Buddhism (4.33). But before the
history of Buddhism is pursued any farther we must first consider
the nature of the developments that were taking place within
Brahmanism.
142 Scribes, Monks and Priests

3.3 THE REORIENTATION OF BRAHMANISM

(500 B.C.-70 C.E.)

3.30 Non-Buddhist India ,from the rise ofthe Magadhan empire

In this section we shall be concerned with the non-Buddhist aspects of
the religious situation in India during the five centuries before the rise
of Christianity. If this seems a rather negative way of describing our
subject, it is because there is no other really satisfactory way of referring
to the complex of factors to be dealt with. 'The non-Buddhist religious
situation' might be taken to mean, broadly, Hinduism. But the latter is a
term which cannot properly be applied to Indian religion during this
period; first, because 'Hindu' was the term used by the Muslim Arabs
of the eighth century to describe those who lived beyond the Sind or
Indus valley and is therefore an anachronistic term from that point of
view; and secondly, because what is later identified as Hinduism had as
yet not come into existence, but was in the process of developing. Nor
would it be appropriate to call the non-Buddhist religion of India in
these centuries simply 'Brahmanism', since we shall be concerned not
only with the religious ideas and institutions over which the brahmans
exercised control, but also with the vast range of aboriginal cults which
were at this time being brought into varying degrees of relationship
with Brahmanism.

3.31 'Great' and' Little' Traditions in India

The situation during these centuries is a very good example of what
Robert Redfield the anthropologist has described as the interaction of
'Great' and 'Little' Traditions (1956). By a 'great' tradition is meant a
culture (often closely associated with a religion) which is spread over
a wide area, usually embodied in some literary form, and whose typical
representatives or carriers form a learned special class recognisable
throughout the area, such as priests or monks. The 'little' tradition is of
local origin and localised, limited extent; it is less usually a literate
tradition, and if it has any special representative this will be a man
whose authority or status is recognised in his own village or locality
'Great' and 'Little' Traditions in India 143
only. Between these two, the great and the little traditions, there is
likely to be some kind of interaction. This may take the form of the
universalisation of elements from many little traditions, until these come
to constitute a new element of great tradition; or it may be of the
reverse kind, when it is known as parochialisation, that is, when elements
of the great tradition are accepted within a little tradition, but are
broken down, modified and adapted to suit local needs and beliefs.
In non-Buddhist Indian religion during the period of the Magadhan
empire and the following centuries the Great Tradition was represented
by the brahmans, their Vedic lore, and their prestige language, Sanskrit.
The Little Tradition was represented by the various local, village cults
varying from region to region, even from village to village, each with
its local priests, usually non-brahmans.

3.32 The briihmans at a disadvantage

The brahman priests were, during the early period of the Buddhist
ascendancy, having to find new ways of maintaining their position and
asserting their importance and indispensability. Formerly their clients
had been principally from the k~atriya class, for whom they had
performed the Vedic sacrifices and rituals. Now, in addition to the
k~atriya class, a new and increasingly important section of Magadhan
society was the mercantile class. The extent of the Magadhan empire,
covering most of the subcontinent, meant greatly increased possibilities
of trade. Even after the Mauryan dynasty came to an end in 185 B.C.
and the empire was broken up, the trading went on. In the north-west,
the Indo-Greek area of Gandhara was a gateway to Western Asia and
the Mediterranean world. The Mediterranean world was eager to
receive the spices of South-East Asia and the silks of China, and Indian
merchants became the great middlemen of Asia. The evidence of
inscriptions and of contemporary literature indicates the prosperity of
the merchant community everywhere in India at this time (Thapar,
1966; 109).
The ascendancy of Buddhism and Jainism had had the effect of
further undermining the importance of the Vedic sacrificial system, a
process which, as we have seen, had already begun by about the sixth
century B.C. (1.56). The Buddha is represented in the Suttas as having
directly criticised the sacrificial system, on the grounds that it involved
144 Scribes, Monks and Priests
the unnecessary slaughter of animals, and entailed undue hardship for
the labourers who were forced (often on penalty of flogging) to prepare
the very elaborate sacrificial enclosures, and represented a lavish and
pointless waste of resources. Much better, says the Buddha in reply to
the brahman Kiitadanta, is the sacrifice of almsgiving to holy men, or
even regular almsgiving to all; better still to follow the Buddhist way,
practise the five moral precepts, deny self and gain enlightenment. The
spread of Buddhism would thus inevitably have meant the further
decline of Vedic sacrifices. Asoka proclaimed throughout his realm the
futility of animal sacrifice and the respect due to animal life. From this
time onward the prohibition of meat eating which began in Buddhism
gradually began to spread and eventually became a prominent feature
of the Vaishnavite and Shaivite sects of Hinduism.
The prestige of the brahman priest was thus being assailed on two
fronts: (1) a new mercantile class was arising which had not the same
traditional religious relationship with the brahmans as had the k~atriyas,
and either continued in the practice of the local cults (which were the
more normal religious milieu for the lower classes of society), or else
gave their support to the Buddhist and Jain communities; (2) Vedic
sacrifice was certainly not likely to be a service which this new class
would require the brahmans to minister to them, at a time when it was
everywhere in decline.

3.33 New roles for the brahman

Nevertheless, the brahmans retained their position of prestige. That
they were able to do so was due in no small measure to their own
adaptability and determination. If their role as administrants of the
sacrificial ritual had been downgraded, their role as public educators
and the preservers of culture and learning was at this period being
upgraded, and they took full advantage of the fact. The brahman
technique of memorising the sacred books had become a mental
achievement of a high order, and the basis of all learning. Moreover,
Sanskrit was now established as the prestige language oflndia; brahmans,
such as Panini (first half of the second century B.c.) were the great
grammarians, and the teaching of Sanskrit was a closely guarded
privilege of the brahman. Here then was the brahman's continuing
claim to importance so far as the educated upper classes were concerned.
New roles for the brahman 145
So far as the ordinary householders of an agrarian and mercantile
society were concerned, the brahman learnt new ways of establishing
his own social utility. The new tribes and social groups that were being
brought within the scope of the Magadhan empire had their own local
cults and rites; these, the little traditions, the brahmans soon learnt to
penetrate, and thus to take them over for the Great Tradition of
Brahmanism, providing them with new rituals which they would
represent as being superior to the old rituals, giving Sanskritic names to
the village gods, thus increasing their dignity and status; with the
increase of dignity of their gods, the village householders would feel,
went an increase in their own status. In return the villagers would offer
due respect to brahman institutions and nominal deference to the Vedic
sacred writings.
In this way the brahmans became the integrative element in Indian
society. While preserving local tribal customs and mythology in their
role as the new priests, they also transmitted to the local tribe the overall
values of Brahmanism, sometimes providing suitable brahman myths
to make old tribal gods assimilable. It was this process which 'enabled
Indian society to be formed out of many diverse and even discordant
elements, with the minimum use of violence' (Kosambi, 1965; 172);
it was this process which more than any other single factor produced
the caste system as it has emerged in historical times.

3.34 Bhakti: or Hindu popular devotion

The kind of popular religious devotion whose emergence can be
recognised in India during the centuries immediately before the
Christian era, and which was given validation by the brahmans, is
commonly known as bhakti. This is one of a group of words connected
with the Sanskrit root bhaj, meaning adoration or devotion. Bhakti can
mean adorable, or the practice of devotion. A bhakta is a devotee. The
Bhagavat is the one to whom devotion is given, and is sometimes
translated 'Lord' or 'blessed one'. Bhiigavata is that which appertains to
the 'blessed one', and is used as a general name for the system ofbhakti,
and was the name of a sect at this period, who may thus be called 'the
Devotionalists'. The name Bhagavat is frequently used in the Pali
canonical scriptures of Buddhism as a synonym for the Buddha, and it
is possible that the word was borrowed from Buddhist usage.
146 Scribes, Monks and Priests
When this cult of worshipful devotion to a god (rather than the
relationship of sacrificial ritual) began it is difficult to ascertain. An early
example is provided by the cult of the god Vasudeva, which is attested
in a statement made by the Seleucid Greek ambassador Megasthenes,
who lived at the Indian capital, Pataliputra, in the time of the first
Maurya emperor Chandragupta (3.20). The Mauryan dynasty was
succeeded by that of the Sungas (183 B.c. to approximately 71 B.c.); a
Greek ambassador to one of the Sunga kings seems to have accom-
modated himself to Indian religion to the extent of declaring himself a
devotee of Vasudeva. In honour of this god he erected a column at
Besnagar, near Bhilsa in central India, which is still to be seen; in the
inscription on the column Heliodorus describes himself as a Bhagavata.

3.35 The cult of Vishnu

In the period we are considering there was evidently a tendency for the
gods who were worshipped in different regions under different names,
such as Vasudeva (just mentioned), Hari, Narayana, and others, all to
be renamed and known henceforth by the name Vi§I)-U (anglicised,
Vishnu). This was an aspect of the process of universalisation (3.31) of
which the brahmans were the agents (3.33). Vi§I)-U as we noted earlier
(1.36) was the name of a minor god of the 13-g-Veda, who had the
characteristics of a solar deity. Now, centuries later, in the period
immediately before the Christian era, his prestige had grown con-
siderably and by means of brahman influence he was absorbing other,
non-Aryan, regional deities. His cult was destined to go on increasing
in importance. Towards the end of the pre-Christian era a trinity of
brahman deities had emerged: Brahma, who created the world; Vi§I)-U
who preserves and protects the world; and Siva, who destroys. This
trinitarian doctrine was unstable and short-lived, however; Brahma' s
importance waned, and either Vi§I)-U or Siva became the all-important
god, according to the inclination of the worshipper.

3.36 The cult ofKrishna

An important development in connection with Vi§I)-U which took place
during the period we are considering was the incorporation into the
The cult ofKrishna 147
Vi~l).U cult of the figure
of Kr~l).a (anglicised, Krishna). The Greeks who
invaded northern India in the fourth century B.C. found that a demi-god
was worshipped there whom they equated with their Herakles; this
clearly was Krishna, whose cult had by then become widespread in the
Punjab (Kosambi, 1965; 117). Krishna was closely connected with
herdsmen and was the protector of cattle. It is possible that the origin of
the Krishna cult lay in the veneration of an historical figure who had
become a legendary hero; certainly by this time a copious Krishna
mythology was developing. In this mythology the hero is, comments
Kosambi:
all things to all men and everything to most women: divine and lovable
infant, mischievous shepherd boy; lover of all the milkmaids in the
herders' camp, husband of innumerable goddesses, most promiscuously
virile of bed-mates; yet devoted to [his wife] Radha alone in mystic
union, and an exponent of ascetic renunciation withal. ••• The whole
Krishna saga is a magnificent example of what a true believer can manage
to swallow, a perfect setting of opportunism for the specious arguments
oftheGita. (Kosambi, 1965; II4£)

3.37 The doctrine ofavataras

Krishna eventually came to be regarded as a manifestation of the
supreme god Vishnu. In this case however, it was not by the process of
renaming the local god by henceforth calling him Vishnu (as in the
case of Narayana, Vasudeva and other regional gods) but by regarding
Krishna as a human manifestation, or avatara (literally 'descent') of the
supreme god Vishnu. This is possibly because the tradition of the human
origins of the hero Krishna still constituted a sufficiently strong element
of the legends to make it necessary for him to be regarded as a god in
human form. The doctrine of avataras is one which made its appearance
in Vaishnavism during this period; it is set forth in the Bhagavad-Gita
(4.22) as consisting of a periodical reappearance of the great god Vishnu
(i.e. the Bhagavat, or Lord) in an earthly body or appearance whenever
evil and injustice prevails in the affairs of men, in order to set things
right again. Beliefs about these various appearances of Vishnu were
eventually systematised: it was held that there had so far been nine such
avataras. The first three had been manifestations of the god Vishnu in
the form of animal beings who had, in various ways, saved the world
148 Scribes, Monks and Priests
from disaster; it is possible that historically the origin of these avataras
is to be found in cults of sacred animals. The fourth avatara was half-
lion, half-man; the fifth was a dwarf, and the sixth was a brahman,
Parasu.Rama, who according to the legend destroyed the k~atriya-class
when the world was in danger of being dominated by them. The
seventh and eighth avataras are the most important in point of
popularity, that is, the extent of devotion which they receive from
Vaishnavites: these are Rama, or Rama-candra, and Krishna. Rama is
the hero of the great epic, the Ramayana (4.24). It is interesting to
notice that there are two more avataras, beyond Krishna. The ninth
avatara is the Buddha, who seems to have been incorporated into the
Vaishnavite scheme as a result of the tolerance which undoubtedly
existed between the adherents of the two traditions (and in the later
period the dividing line was not always very clear) and possibly in
acknowledgement, conscious or unconscious, of what the Vishnu cult
had taken over from Buddhism. The tenth avatara is the Kalkin - who
is yet to come, at the close of the present dark age, to destroy evil and
bring back goodness.

3.38 Factors in the emergence ofbhakti mythology

The notion of a periodical reappearance of one who embodies the truth
was very probably derived from the Buddhist doctrine of the regular
appearance, in every era, of a Buddha (3.29). The character which each
of these avataras possesses, namely that of a divine saviour, may
possibly owe something to the Zoroastrian doctrine of the Saoshyant
(2.28), or Saviour, whose coming meant defeat for all forces of evil.
The influence of this idea is seen most clearly in the tenth avatara. It was
in the north oflndia, that is in an area exposed to Persian influence, that
the avatara doctrine developed, at a time when Zoroastrian religion
was in the ascendant in Persia. Vaishnavism may, however, have
derived these beliefs at second-hand through Buddhism, with its
doctrine of the coming Buddha, Maitreya, who was to appear at the
end of the present age; for Zoroastrian influences possibly shaped this
Buddhist doctrine ofMaitreya.
The incongruity of the beliefs which were brought into juxtaposition
in the Krishna mythology was characteristic of the incongruity of the
whole range of the brahmanisation of local cults and mythologies, or
Factors in the emergence ofbhakti mythology 149
what is more accurately described as the process of reciprocal accultura-
tion, which was going on at this time. Kosambi has described the
process in some detail (1965; 170), commenting that 'this conglomera-
tion goes on for ever, while all the tales put together form a senseless,
inconsistent, chaotic mass.' From the sociologist's point of view this can
be seen as the form in which a religious tradition was likely to develop
in the social situation provided by a widely extended political empire
based on a rural, village economy; or as Kosambi describes it, in
economic terms, 'a highly composite society with a relatively primitive
level of production' (1965; 115). On the other hand, some other factor
beside the social and economic was undoubtedly also present, main-
taining the need for such a religious 'superstruct-ure' of beliefs and
myths: to put this at the lowest and most general level, an unsatisfied
search for the meaning of human existence, with all its injustices, its
frailty, its sorrows, its transience; this is a search which men seem to
have embarked on whenever the most elementary needs have been met
and there is time for reflection. Economic activity may have remained
at a primitive agrarian level so far as the villagers were concerned, but
it was apparently adequate in terms of food production; the India of
the centuries immediately B.c. was considerably better fed than the
India of today. Certainly so far as India is concerned some of its most
religiously fertile periods have been periods of economic adequacy, even
though they may also have been periods of psychological or social
malaise. Indian religion, that is to say, is not necessarily associated with
Indian poverty, as some Westerners tend so easily to assume; for India's
present dire poverty is a relatively modem phenomenon.

3.39 The development ofHindu ethics

By the beginning of the Christian period our survey has reached a stage
in the history of Indian religion when what is known now as Hinduism
was recognisably beginning to emerge. Its full emergence is to be seen
a few centuries later, in the time of the great Gupta dynasty (320-650
C.E.) (4.26). One feature which remains to be noted in the period with
which we are at present concerned, however, is the development of a
formal concern with questions of right conduct. A certain number of
brahman manuals dealing with religious matters made their appearance
during the centuries immediately before the Christian period. These
150 Scribes, Monks and Priests
were, first, the Srauta-Sutras and the Grhya-Sutras, which consisted of
explanations of scripture (sruta) and rules for household religious
rituals and ceremonials. But somewhere between the sixth and the
second century B.C. there appeared also a third type of secondary sacred
literature called Dharma-Sutras, or discourses on right conduct. Until
this time brahman literature had not shown any great concern with
ethical questions; in the Upani~ads, for example, it was acknowledged
that immoral conduct was a serious hindrance to the realisation of
brahman (1.58). Whatever aided the meditative life was regarded as
morally good, and whatever detracted from it was bad; but beyond
this there was no positive teaching on ethical conduct until Buddhism
had appeared, with its clear moral obligations for monks and laymen
(2.33). From this time Brahmanism also develops a more formal system
of ethics, or rather, systems of ethics, for what is very characteristic of
the brahman approach to the subject is the idea that for every man there
is an appropriate course of right conduct according to his situation in
society (his vat:J.la, or class) and the stage in life which he has reached.
The notion of the four stages of life, or asramas, also appears in
Brahmanism during this period: namely, those of the pupil, the
householder, the ascetic, and the homeless one who seeks only for
union with Brahman. Every individual's dharma, or right course of
conduct, thus has a double reference - what is appropriate to his class
{varl.J.a), and within his class what is appropriate to his age (asrama).
It is therefore properly described as varl).a-asrama-dharma (usually
written as a compound: 'varl.J.asramadharma'). It may be significant
that this positive concern of the brahmans with matters of conduct
coincides with the ascendancy of Buddhism and the period of its
greatest popular appeal as a social philosophy (3.26).
The reciprocal interpenetration of the Buddhist and Brahmanical
ways of life was thus well advanced by the beginning of the Christian
era, and the major themes of both Mahayana Buddhism and of what is
properly known as Hinduism (especially in its theistic form) were
already in evidence by the time Christianity had possibly made some
small initial impact in South India. It is claimed that the apostle Thomas
made his way eastwards from Palestine and arrived on the Malabar
coast, journeying thence across India to somewhere near Madras. His
preaching of a new religion was, according to the tradition, violently
resisted, and Thomas himself martyred about 68 C.E. That a Christian
apostle should have reached India during this period is not impossible,
The development ofHindu ethics 151
but nothing at all is known with certainty. That his preaching is likely
to have met with such violent opposition is doubtful. We must turn
now to a consideration of what it was that he would have preached.

3.4 THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY, TO 70 c.E.

3.40 Sources for the life of]esus

The central figure of Christianity is Jesus of Nazareth. Materials for a
life ofJesus are virtually non-existent, as T. W. Manson stated:
Not a single chronological point can be fixed with certainty. The life of
Jesus lasted probably between thirty and forty years: concerning at least
twenty-eight of them we know precisely nothing at all. What informa-
tion we have is mostly concerned with the public career ofJesus, that is,
with the last period of his life, a period whose length is uncertain, but
probably not less than one year nor more than about three. But there is
not even enough material for a full account of the Ministry. (Manson,
1943; 323)

The reason for this, as Manson goes on to point out, is paradoxically

that the major sources of material are Christian sources, namely the
documents of the New Testament and the apocryphal gospels; in using
the former the modern reader has to ask, 'What allowances must we
make for the editorial activities of Evangelists and the compilers of the
sources which they used? How has the material been affected- perhaps
even created- by the practical needs of the Early Church?' Thus, one
is uncertain of the historical value of the material available. With
regard to the apocryphal gospels, these consist very often of stories
which are bizarre, grotesque, revolting, and inspire only mistrust.

3.41 The non-Christian testimony

Beyond these Christian sources there is material of two kinds: first,
Jewish accounts, Talmudic and later, mainly hostile and tendentious,
(and it is significant that the later they are the more hostile they become);
second, very brief references in the works of the non-Christian
historians, Tacitus and Josephus. Tacitus (c. 60 to c. 120) in his Annals
152 Scribes, Monks and Priests
writes, in explanation of the name 'Christians': 'Christus, from whom
their name is derived, was executed at the hands of the procurator
Pontius Pilate in the reign ofTiberius' (Bettenson, 1963; 2). Incidentally,
it is worth noting that the second-century Latin historian, Suetonius,
writing of the Neronian persecution, referred to the Christians simply
as 'a set of men adhering to a novel and mischievous superstition',
without mentioning Christ. The Jewish historian Josephus's work
Antiquities ofthe Jews includes a passage which runs as follows:
Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call
him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works - a teacher of such
men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many
of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was Christ; and when Pilate,
at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us had condemned him
to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he
appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had
foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him;
and the tribe of Christians, so named a&er him, are not extinct at this
day. (Whiston,n.d.; 379)

It has been suggested that this passage is a later Christian interpolation,

even though, as T. W. Manson points out, it is 'cool, objective,
patronising and faintly contemptuous'. Nevertheless, he agrees that 'it is
quite likely that the passage as it now stands is not what Josephus wrote:
that, in fact, the original was even cooler and more contemptuous than
the existing text, and that the features most objectionable to Christian
piety have been toned down or removed' (Manson, 1943; 329). There
is, however, a small but important common element in these non-
Christian references: they both affirm that Jesus was a crucified teacher.

3.42 The New Testament documents

Apart from these brief references, then, the main sources for our
knowledge ofJesus of Nazareth are the Christian Gospels, that is to say,
documents of a missionary character written by Christians for the
furtherance of their movement. The reader who is unacquainted with
the technicalities of theological study, and is disposed to believe that the
writers of the Gospels were honest men who would only have put down
what they knew to be true, may see no reason why these documents
may not be taken at their face value as straightforward historical
 The New Testament documents 153
testimony. The position is not quite so simple, however, honest and
devout though the Gospel writers undoubtedly were. It is not merely
that they do not always agree among themselves on matters of fact; but
rather that the composition of these narratives took place several
decades after the death ofJesus, and after important developments had
taken place within the Christian society and in the nature of Christianity.
When the Gospels came to be written (after 65 c.E.) it was inevitable
that this internal development should affect the way the historical facts
were presented. What Edwyn Bevan wrote in 1932 on this subject is
still cogent: 'While we have documents to show us the Christianity of
the Gentile churches - most notably the letters of Paul himself- we
have no document which emanates from the primitive Jerusalem
community without having passed through a Gentile-Christian
medium' (Bevan, 1932; 24). Nevertheless, as we shall see (3.46) this
need not imply that it is entirely impossible to recover anything of the
earliest disciples' understanding of the significance ofJesus.

3.43 The evidence of St Paul's letters

The oldest evidence we have for the nature of the early Christian
society and its beliefs is to be found in the letters of St Paul. These have
the advantage, from the point of view of historical inquiry, that (apart
from Romans) they are not self-conscious literary productions, shaped
by a missionary purpose, but fragments of spontaneous writing called
forth largely by the demands of ongoing internal controversies. Of
such a character are the undoubtedly Pauline letters- to the Corinthians,
Galatians, Thessalonians, and Philippians. The letter to the Romans is
more consciously theological in purpose, but even here controversy
keeps breaking in. (The letters to the Colossians and Ephesians may or
may not be Pauline, or incorporate Pauline thought; the letter to the
Hebrews and those to Timothy and Titus, while they were once
attributed to Paul, are fairly generally agreed to be non-Pauline.) From
the evidence of those documents which are undoubtedly of Pauline
authorship it appears that during the first four decades of the Christian
movement's history it consisted of two main streams. One was that of
Jerusalem; essentially this was the community of those who had been
associated with Jesus of Nazareth as his disciples during his lifetime.
These were Jews by upbringing, outlook, and belief, who within the
154 Scribes, Monks and Priests
continuing context of traditional Jewish life and worship were com-
mitted to proclaiming to their fellow Jews the transformation of the
whole contemporary Jewish view of things which had come to them
through the life, teaching and death of Jesus. The other stream was
made up of the communities outside Palestine, largely Gentile in
composition, which had resulted from the religious preaching and
propaganda carried on by Paul, himself a non-Palestinian Jew who,
after an initial period of hostility towards the Jewish disciples of Jesus,
had experienced a vision ofJesus which led him also to believe in Jesus
as the Messiah.

3.44 Two types ofearly Christianity

The difference between the two wings of the movement- the Jerusalem
community and the Pauline Gentile communities - was avowedly one
of attitudes to the Jewish Law. The Jerusalem disciples held that the
transformation in their lives which had resulted from belief in Jesus as
the Christ did not mean that they could become indifferent to the
observance of the Law; this for them was still the divine Law and its
importance was by no means diminished but, if anything, enhanced by
the new impetus to faith in the divine ordering of things which their
view ofJesus entailed. To some extent their religious position has to be
a matter of conjecture for the reason already given (3.42); we can infer
it only from the nature of their disagreement with St Paul, together
with the positive quality of their conviction regarding the significance
ofJesus. They remained Jews, in intention and in obedience to the Law
and in their participation in the worship of God in the Temple, but
Jews with a difference, that much is very clear; and it is that difference
which on the one hand set them apart from their fellow Jews who did
not acknowledge the significance of Jesus, and on the other hand led
them to recognise St Paul and his Gentile communities as in some sense
fellow-travellers. It was because of this affinity between them, based on
a common devotion to Jesus, that they found it necessary to be critical
of what in their view was incongruous with such devotion, namely the
Pauline-Gentile attitude of indifference to certain aspects of the Law of
God.
 St Paul's view ofthe significance ofjesus 155

3.45 St Paul's view ofthe significance ofjesus

An important question still remains to be answered, however: how
was it that devotion to Jesus as Messiah should in the case of the
Jerusalem community have led to different conclusions about the
importance of the Law from those reached by St Paul starting from
similar convictions about Jesus. The answer which has suggested itself
to some scholars is that St Paul's view of the significance ofJesus was in
fact somewhat different from that of the Jerusalem community
(Brandon, 1957). It is clear from Paul's letters that he fairly soon began
to conceive of Jesus in terms of the central Saviour-figure of Jewish
apocalyptic thought (3.19). Since his death Jesus had become, according
to Paul, an exalted, heavenly being who would before long appear in
glory 'from heaven with the angels ofhis power in flaming fire'. Such a
conception is particularly clear in the second letter to the Thessalonians.
In Paul's view the power of the Jewish Law was that it was able to
bring man under sentence of death, because of man's inability to fulfil
the Law. In this view it was virtually a demonic power, and it was this
power which had been supernaturally conquered in the death ofJesus,
so that for those who had faith in him the heavenly Jesus was their
vindicator, their Saviour from the power of death and sin. It is this
conception of faith in the heavenly Jesus as the way to deliverance from
the penalty for transgression of the Law which is at the root of Paul's
attitude to the Law. It was an attitude which was easily misunderstood
and apparently led some of his converts to the conclusion which is
known as antinomianism. The basic difference between this Pauline
view and that of the Jerusalem disciples was that Paul's theology was
based on a vision, whereas theirs was based on a knowledge of the
historical Jesus. Paul's claim (Gal. 1: 12) was that his theology was by
direct revelation, quite independent of the Jerusalem tradition and of
equal status with it.

3.46 How did the Jerusalem community think ofjesus?

Since the Jerusalem community differed very strongly from Paul over
the status of the Law, it would seem likely that they had not at that
time come to share this view ofJesus as the supernatural Saviour who
156 Scribes, Monks and Priests
had conquered the demonic power of sin, a view which he had come to
'by revelation'. What then would their view ofJesus have been? This is
to ask the question, What was their 'Messiah-doctrine'? or, to use the
Greek form of title instead of the Hebrew, What was their Christology?
Some scholars take the view that this is a question that can never be
answered. We cannot, they say, pierce the layers of Pauline and
Hellenistic interpretation and re-presentation of Jesus which now lie
very thick over all the New Testament documents, to get at the earlier,
pre-Pauline view ofJesus held by the disciples in Jerusalem. To try to
discover what really were the Christological ideas of the early disciples
is an enterprise whose folly is exceeded only by that of trying to get
one stage further back and discover anything about the historical Jesus
himsel£ Noble attempts have been made, it is said, at both of these
projects. The Jesus of History is the title of a book by T. R. Glover of
Cambridge, in which an attempt was made to get behind the Jesus of
the Church's preaching to fmd the real, human, historical Jesus. In the
light of New Testament scholarship since then, Glover's work, and the
attitude of the Liberal Protestantism which it represented, now looks
very naive and unsophisticated. It was said of the Liberal Protestant who
thought he had discovered the Jesus of history that he had seen only his
own face at the bottom of a deep well. In 1934 R. H. Lightfoot
concluded his Bampton Lectures with some words which have since
become notorious. The form of the earthly Jesus is, he said, no less than
that of the heavenly Christ, for the most part hidden from us. 'For all
the inestimable value of the gospels, they yield us little more than a
whisper of his voice; we trace in them but the outskirts of his ways'
(Lightfoot, 1934; 225). Interest since then has switched to the possibility
of discovering, if not the historical Jesus, at least what the earliest
community proclaimed about him. The great work in this connection
was C. H. Dodd's The Apostolic Preaching and its Development (1936).
On the basis of an analysis of the speeches in the book of Acts attributed
to the early apostles, speeches setting out the early missionary preaching
about Jesus, and on the basis of the New Testament epistles, Dodd
arrived at what he identified as the primitive Kerygma (lit. 'that which
is preached'), that is the basic pattern of ideas about Jesus which
underlay all the missionary work of the early, apostolic community.
This basic pattern was, according to Dodd, that Jesus was the fulfilment
of Old Testament prophecy, the events of whose life, death, resurrection
and ascension into heaven constituted a call to men to repent, to
How did the Jerusalem community think ofjesus? 157
acknowledge Jesus as Lord and Messiah, and to obtain forgiveness of
sins. This view was challenged by the German scholar and form-critic,
Martin Dibelius, who argued that the speeches in Acts are not reliable
evidence for the pattern or content of the preaching of the early
apostles: they represent very largely, he claimed, the kind of preaching
that would have been going on at the time the Acts of the Apostles was
composed towards the end of the first century; these were typical
sermons of about 90 C.E., put into the mouths of the apostles who
preached some fifty-five years earlier; they were no proof that that in
fact was how the apostles did preach about Jesus in the years just after
his death. In general, German New Testament scholarship has tended
to develop this line of argument, and to say, in effect: we can only
know the Christ who is proclaimed by the Church. What the Church
preaches is the 'Christ-event' and how this is relevant for modern man's
experience. This, broadly, is the Lutheran existentialist kind of argu-
ment which has been developed by Dibelius' s colleague, Rudolf
Bultmann.
New Testament scholars are not all, however, entirely agreed to
leave the matter there, and abandon altogether the quest for the
historical Jesus. One group of scholars in England has recently re-
examined the possibility of this quest in a volume of essays entitled
Vindications (Hanson, 1966). Another New Testament scholar has
suggested that it is possible to discern certain primitive and genuinely
early ideas of the church ofJerusalem about Jesus embedded within the
speeches in Acts which are not those of the Church in 90 C.E. (]. A. T.
Robinson, 1962; 139-53). The argument in this case is based on the
speech found in Acts 3: 12-26. This speech, John Robinson points out,
possesses certain curious features. There is not the space here to go into
the technicalities of Robinson's argument; sufficient to say that he has
made a strong case in support of the view that there was an extremely
primitive Christology in the community of disciples at Jerusalem,
'whose essence may be summed up in the proclamation: We know
who the Messiah will be' (present writer's emphasis). This was a view of
Jesus as the Prophet of God, who appeared among men with the good
news of God and with a fmal call to repentance, in preparation for the
final eschatological event which lay in the not too distant future 'which
would inaugurate the messianic rule of God and vindicate him as the
Christ'. This certainly would accord better with the Messianic ideas of
the Old Testament and of the apocalyptic literature (3.19), that the
158 Scribes, Monks and Priests
Messiah, as Messiah, would appear once and finally. The later Christian
view is that there is a Second Corning of the Messiah, based on the
assumption that the ministry of Jesus was the First Corning of the
Messiah as Messiah. This notion 'that the Christ was to come, not only
once, but twice' was, as Robinson comments, 'unprecedented in
Judaism'. Hence what we may have in Acts 3 (together with Acts 7) is
something which may be described as the original Christology of the
early community in Jerusalem, the Christology of the Prophet, 'which
lies embedded in the book of Acts like the fossil of a by-gone age'.

3.47 A possible answer

The question remains whether it is possible, even now, to discover
anything of the original historical realities which lie beneath the later
theological interpretation of them. Some Christian scholars take the
view that this is unnecessary and pointless, since, they say, it is only in
the perspective of fuller experience and the development of the
Christian community that the historical reality is properly understood.
In this view, the modem Christian is nearer to a proper appreciation of
Jesus than was the first generation of disciples in Jerusalem. There is, on
the other hand, the possibility that the passage of time has the effect of
obscuring as well as illuminating earlier insights. The impact of great
moments of religious experience can be weakened by the many other
forces which intervene to influence individuals and societies, forces
which are historical, political, economic and social. Too often orthodox
Christian theologians seem to assume that Christian history has taken
place in a clear vacuum, so that the farther we move away from the
historical Jesus, the fuller and more complete is the view of him that we
shall obtain. This is to deny the existence of the intervening factors and
forces which may have rolled in like fog to blot out or obscure the
distant scene; it is also to deny the value ofhistorical research.
There is, as we have seen, evidence that until the beginning of the
activities of one who had had no experience of the original events, the
non-Palestinian Jew, Paul, the disciples ofJesus ofNazareth considered
themselves to be witnesses to a great Prophet who had brought to men
a new and supremely important revelation of God. Like the Hebrew
prophets of an earlier period, he had achieved this both by his teaching,
and by his personal involvement in the affairs of men and his fate at
A possible answer 159
their hands. There is a stubborn element of the historical material that
has survived more strongly in the earlier synoptic Gospels (Mark,
Matthew and Luke) than in the later Gospel of StJohn, where it has
been smoothed away by a developing theology, namely the rejection
of the notion of power as this is commonly understood, especially as it
is understood by those who exercise secular power. What the Prophet
seemed to be teaching was very hard for even those closest to him to
grasp: that the kingship (or kingly rule, or kingdom) of God is no
kingship at all as this is generally thought o£ Monarchy had corrupted
Israel's monotheism; Yahweh had become an oriental potentate: such
was the view of God which had come to be accepted; such were the
ideas which underlay the Jewish attitude which, even at that time, can
be called a kind of Zionism. The reality of which this Prophet spoke,
however, was one which was most compellingly encountered in the
situation where all the normal criteria ofpower were most conspicuously
absent. It was a form of teaching which vindicated itself to the Prophet's
followers most clearly in the Prophet's own suffering and violent death.
A humble birth, an upbringing in a particularly despised village
(John 1: 46), the patient acceptance of suffering and violence, and
finally, a broken human body hanging on a post: here is a very different
picture of the divine nature from that held by most of the Jews of the
time, and one which has not always been accepted by the Christian
Church. This was an overturning of the Near Eastern potentate
conception of the divine being, but in spite ofit the potentate conception
has persisted in Western theology.

3.48 The fusion cfthe two types ofearly Christianity

In his book The Fall of Jerusalem and the Christian Church, S. G. F.
Brandon has shown that there was a period in the early development of
Christianity when the two types of thought, the Pauline and that of the
Jerusalem church, existed side by side. St Paul, who had not known the
historical Jesus, had by virtue of a visionary experience come to believe
that Jesus of Nazareth had been the messianic Saviour-God through
whom the demonic powers had been conquered and the messianic era
inaugurated. On the basis of this belief he had built up communities of
Gentile Christians in various cities of the Mediterranean world. Over
these communities he exerted considerable personal authority. Their
160 Scribes, Monks and Priests
most important devotional practice was 'the Supper of the Lord' which
Paul explained as a regular 'showing-forth of the death of the Lord'
until his full manifestation, or parousia, which was expected to occur at
any time. In the community of disciples at Jerusalem the emphasis was
upon the figure of the historical Jesus of Nazareth, prophet of God to
the Jewish people. This community originally regarded itself as a
challenging and revitalising sect within Judaism, recalling Jews to a true
and proper allegiance to God.
For a while these two movements existed side by side, each influencing
the other to some extent, but also conscious of serious differences and
tensions with regard to the question whether or not Gentiles should be
admitted, and with regard to the importance of the Torah. The arrest
of Paul and his removal from the scene meant a temporary eclipse of
the Pauline Gentile-Christian communities, so that by about 65 c.E.,
just before the outbreak of Jewish revolt against the Romans in
Jerusalem, 'the future of the nascent movement appeared to lie
irretrievably in the hands of the Jewish Christians' (Brandon, 1957;
249). The Jewish revolt, however, involving war with the Romans and
the destruction ofJerusalem in 70 C.ll. 'dynamically changed the whole
constitution of the Church, and vitally affected the future development
of its organisation' by 'the complete obliteration of the Church of
Jerusalem' (Brandon, 1957; 250). The fall of the Jewish state and the
destruction of Jerusalem had the effect also among the Christian
communities of rehabilitating St Paul's reputation, argues Brandon,
and of reviving the influence of his teaching. After 70 C.E., therefore,
the Christian movement was reborn: there was a fusion of the Pauline
idea of the Saviour-God, and of devotion to the historical person of
Jesus which had been characteristic of the Jerusalem Church, a fusion
which finds expression in the canonical Gospels. It was this which now
transformed the early Christian movement, removing it once and for
all from the old context of Judaism, and allowing it to move out
unhindered into the Hellenistic-Roman world as a universalist Saviour-
Godcult.

3.49 The increasing importance of Rome

Even before the fall ofJerusalem in 70 C.E. the Christian movement had
its adherents in many of the larger cities of the Graeco-Roman
 The increasing importance of Rome 161
Mediterranean world: Antioch, Caesarea, Alexandria, Corinth,
Ephesus, Philippi and Rome. In all these and other cities and towns
small groups of Christians were to be found, mostly from the lower
classes of society, meeting together in private houses for prayer, for
teaching and discussion, and for participation in the Supper of the Lord.
Christianity from this time is a religion which has its greatest appeal to
people of urban areas. Especially in Romf", the imperial capital, there
seems to have been a community of considerable size, or a group of
communities, associated with various households, to judge from the list
of greetings which St Paul adds at the end of his letter to the Christians
at Rome (Rom. 16: 3-16). Christians had become numerous enough
there for the Roman authorities to be aware of their existence. They
seemed to be a secret society, which as Tacitus noted (3.41) derived its
name from a criminal who had been 'executed at the hands of the
procurator Pontius Pilate in the reign ofTiberius'. From past experience,
the Romans had a horror of religious secret societies. The Christians of
Rome therefore provided the emperor Nero with a convenient
scapegoat: in 65 c.E. he declared they had tried to set fire to the city,
and punished them by having them smeared with pitch and burned at
night in his own gardens. The Neronian persecution did not destroy
the Christian community at Rome, however, and after the fall of
Jerusalem in 70 C.E. the community of Christians in Rome emerged as
one of special importance with the removal from the scene of what had
until then always been regarded, especially after St Paul's arrest, as the
source of authority, namely the mother-church of Jerusalem. The
centre of gravity for Christians now shifted, therefore, to the imperial
city, a shift with very important consequences for the subsequent
development of the Christian religion.

SUMMARY AND COMMENT ON CHAPTER THREE

At the conclusion to Chapter Two (p. 110) it was noted that prophetic
breakthrough, the reception by a particular individual of some new
insight into the human condition and situation, does not occur
universally; that is to say, historically it has occurred in some societies
but not in others. We have now to take account of what is a com-
plementary factor, one that makes possible the correcting of the balance
162 Scribes, Monks and Priests
of knowledge and insight between one tradition or society and another,
namely the fact of diffusion. By the diffusion of ideas and new dis-
coveries, what was originally peculiar to one society can come to be
shared by all. A great deal of the history of religion is in fact the history
of the diffusion of religious ideas beyond the culture in which they
originated.
Jewish thought, for example, in the period after the Exile in Babylon
(sixth-fifth centuries B.c.) and before the rise of the Christian Church,
was considerably influenced, especially during the Persian ascendancy,
by Zoroastrian ideas. On the whole, as we have seen, the Jews had good
reason to be well disposed towards things Persian, since it was the
Emperor Cyrus who had enabled Jews to return from Babylon and set
about the rebuilding of their desolated city and Temple. This was at a
time when Zoroastrian religion was in its early vigour; the Prophet of
Persia had set men's minds thinking in new ways about the spiritual
forces that shaped men's lives. Human life was seen within the context
of a cosmic struggle between good and evil powers; man's vocation
was to take his part in the struggle, resisting the evil powers and aided
by the good. It was a struggle which was to culminate in the victory of
good at the end of the age; all that was good, including the physical
creation, the work of the Lord of Wisdom, and man's physical bodies,
would be restored and established and the evil powers banished for
ever. Hence we find in Jewish thought during the centuries before the
Christian era the emergence of ideas of angels and archangels, including
angels of darkness; ideas of a final consummation and resurrection. Not
all Jews accepted these new ideas; some accepted the doctrine of
physical resurrection, others, the Sadducees, rejected it. Jewish apo-
calyptic literature was full of the warfare of the spirit powers, and the
great eschatological events that were to bring this warfare to an end.
It was expressed in Jewish terms, it was developed within the context of
characteristically religious ideas concerning God and man; but it was in
very large measure a way of thought which had developed first in
Persia.
Such diffusion of religious beliefs, of which many other examples are
to be found in the history of religion, requires the presence of certain
favourable conditions: a predisposition in favour of the culture from
which the ideas come, or, at least, the absence of actual antipathy; a
situation within the receiving culture that provides a fertile ground for
the incoming ideas to take root. One of the most favourable situations
Summary and comment on Chapter Three 163
is that in which there is a sense of inadequacy of old ways of thinking,
or the breakdown of existing moral or social structures, the condition
known to sociologists as anomie. But there must also be sufficient
strength and coherence and cogency in the new ideas, for sometimes
the favourable conditions may be present without any really satisfactory
new doctrines; in that case no new development can take place. When
it does this is partly at least a tribute to the worth of the imported ideas.
The fact that they are welcomed and accepted, as in the case of
Zoroastrian ideas in Judaism, indicates that they have a power of appeal
beyond the confmes of their area of origin, a cogency which is
recognised even in alien cultures, providing men with a way of
understanding the human situation which they recognise as an advance
on earlier ways of thought. This is true, of course, ofhuman knowledge
in general. The making of new discoveries and their dissemination and
acceptance over a wide area is a large part of the story of civilisation.
In principle, therefore, one cultural area has no sufficient reason to be
suspicious of ways of thought that are until now alien to it, simply
because they are alien. To give a modern illustration of this, theWest has
no grounds for entertaining suspicion of Buddhist ideas simply because
they are Buddhist, rather than Semitic, or Greek, or even modern
Western scientific. Buddhist ways of thought are not necessarily in
conflict with Western ideas, and may in fact be capable in certain ways
of enriching Western thought.
Another important point which must be noticed in connection with
the diffusion of doctrines is that such diffusion entails also differentiation.
Men become aware of contrasting views of life, or theories of human
destiny. An example of this we have seen in Judaism: the influx of
Persian ideas in the post-Exilic period brought about a sharp differen-
tiation between those who accepted the doctrine of resurrection,
mainly the Pharisees and their sympathisers, and those who did not,
mainly the Sadducees. In modern times the knowledge of Buddhist
doctrines has spread to the West, just as some knowledge of Western
religious ideas has spread to Asia, with the result that there has been a
sharpening of the difference between on the one hand the ancient
Near Eastern doctrine of an omnipotent creator, and on the other hand
agnosticism about such a doctrine. To the Jew and the Muslim, and to
many Christians, especially of the more Augustinian type, it seems that
human life would be deprived of all ultimate meaning without the
basic notion of an omnipotent being who by his own word of authority
G L.H.R.
164 Scribes, Monks and Priests
had brought the universe into existence, and who directs and is
responsible for all that happens. To the Buddhist on the other hand, it
seems that it is the acceptance of such a doctrine which deprives life of
any intelligible meaning and evacuates it of spiritual purpose. In the
Pali Buddhist scriptures the argument used is based on the presence of
evil in the world; it is a familiar one, apart from its use by Buddhists:
if God is really lord of the whole world, then why has he ordained
misfortune in the world? For what purpose has he made the world full
of injustice, deceit, falsehood and conceit? Is not the creator of all things
evil in that he has ordained injustice when there could have been
justice? (Jayatilleke, 1963; 260f., 410f.) More positively, the objection
from the Buddhist point of view is to what may be called 'theistic
determinism', that is to say the theism which means accepting un-
questionably all that happens in the world as being God's will, whether
it be good or evil. ('Does evil befall a city, unless the LORD has done it?
Amos 3: 6) This basically Jewish view, the corollary of belief in a god
who is an absolute potentate, modified in post-Exilic times by the
influence of Zoroastrian dualism, but reappearing later in a more
vigorous form in Islam, when it is encountered by Buddhists meets
with the objection from them that it is likely 'to stifle the human liberty
to investigate, to analyse, to scrutinise, to see what is beyond this naked
eye, and so to retard insight' (Piyadassi, 1964; 59). The Buddhist objects
to a theism which implies that man is not responsible for his actions.
This latter is considered by Buddhists a false proposition, and any
theism which depends on it must therefore be rejected.
These, then, are some of the immediate results of diffusion of
doctrines - the interplay of criticism among the various points of view
which are thus thrown into contact with each other. Another important
result is not only the acceptance of new doctrines in the way we have
already noticed in connection with post-Exilic Judaism, but also the
provision of the conditions for the emergence of wholly new insights -
or, to resume the earlier terminology, ofa new prophetic breakthrough.
Historically this is what appears in the case of emergent early Christian
belief. As far as it is possible now to recover the belief of the Jerusalem
community this appears to have centred around the conception ofJesus
as the Prophet in whom was glimpsed the Messiah who was to come
(3.47), that is, at the end of the age, at the consummation of human
history. In distinction from this was the Pauline conception of the
heavenly Jesus, the divine Saviour of man. Now it has to be recalled
Summary and comment on Chapter Three 165
that there was nothing new in Jewish thought in the idea of God as
saviour, nor in human saviours raised up by God as instruments of his
purpose. It has been pointed out that this was the message of Israel's
religion: 'Its history is the history of saviours, i.e., of organs and
instruments of the divine salvation, human all of them .. .' (E.R.E.,
XI, 115). What was new in the Pauline doctrine was the assertion that
Jesus, as saviour, was not merely a human agent, but was himself divine.
For the Christians God was no longer a being whose attributes were
described by seers and prophets; their primary knowledge of the
character of God was derived from what they knew of the victory of
this crucified teacher. A new position was established in the realm of
theology: the essentials of man's knowledge of the divine are derived
from the essentials of men's knowledge of Jesus. It is basically this
position which is affirmed by the modem theologian Karl Barth, who
strenuously argues against every attempt, such as that of 'natural
theology', to establish human knowledge of God other than by what is
known ofJesus.
The diffusion of religious ideas had brought together a very rich
mixture in Palestine at the time of the emergence of the Christian
community. In some senses there was nothing new in the Christian
religion - nothing, that is to say, which could not be traced to its roots
in some other religious tradition - the ideas of Messiah, Saviour,
resurrection from the dead, the ethical teaching ofJesus, the conception
of the infinitely loving nature of God- for all of these we need look no
further than Judaism itself, as it had developed by that time, enriched
to no little degree by the infusion of ideas from elsewhere. Yet there
was in another sense a real prophetic breakthrough, and it is this which
was the primary reason for the initial expansion of the Christian faith in
the Mediterranean world. The conviction that a totally new strain of
humanity had appeared in Jesus of Nazareth was held with such
intensity that it could only be expressed by speaking of his nature as
divine. Moreover, along with this among the earliest disciples there
was the conviction that it was this Man who was to be the eschatological
figure, the Messiah, whose future appearance would inaugurate the
consummation of all things. This future appearance of the Man they
had glimpsed in Jesus, the Messiah, would contrast with the brief
glimpse they had received, which had been partial, limited to a few
people, and of temporary duration; for it would be complete, universal
and of an eternal nature. These were the convictions which fused
166 Scribes, Monks and Priests
together in the faith of the early Christians, and in their view it was not
a new doctrine or set of doctrines, but Jesus ofNazareth himselfwho was
the 'prophetic breakthrough'. It was for this reason, they held, that at
his name 'every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the
earth'.
It is important to note the distinction between this faith and the
earlier forms of theistic faith. In the latter the conception of deity had
been derived in no small measure from the manner in which power was
exercised by human potentates, for the historical reasons we have
noted. The Christian conception of deity is derived from the strange
kind of power exercised by Jesus, the crucified, helpless, yet strangely
powerful victim of violence. These two conceptions of deity are by no
means reconcilable; but that is not to say that the attempt to reconcile
them has not been made. It has frequently been made in the course of
European Christian history, as we shall shortly observe.
4 Creeds and Conformity

4.1 CHRISTIANITY: FROM JEWISH SECT TO

ROMAN STATE-RELIGION (70-500 c.E.)

4.10 The Jewish basis ofthe Christian concept ofscripture

F 0 R the reason given in the Introduction (p. xxiii ), we shall not at this
point attempt to engage in anything like the full study of Christian
history that the abundance of material makes possible, or even to
provide a complete outline survey. Rather, in accordance with a more
limited purpose, we shall merely touch on some of the more important
issues in Christian history which are specially appropriate to a com-
parative historical study of religion.
One of the most important of these, for the period we are now
surveying, is the growth of a body of sacred literature, and the
movement towards a general consensus on which books were and
which were not to be included as canonical. It is important, in the first
place, to notice that this is something that the early Christian sect
inherited from its parent Judaism. The concept of 'holy scripture' was
central to Judaism, with its preoccupation with the books of the Law,
and its unceasing study of them, since they were held to provide basic
guidance on all affairs ofhuman conduct and relationships. This attitude
to scripture is something which originally was peculiar to Judaism,
although it passed from Judaism into Christianity and Islam. As
Bethune-Baker put it, for the Christian as for the Jew, 'a kind of
glamour hung over the written words. They were invested with an
importance and impressiveness which did not attach to any spoken
words, giving them an existence of their own' (Bethune-Baker, 1903;
49). The reason for this lay in the idea that these writings were divinely
inspired down to the last jot and tittle, a view which was fostered by
the Jewish scribes from Ezra (3.13) onwards. The Alexandrian Jew,
Philo, regarded even the grammatical errors of the Septuagint, the
Greek translation of the Jewish scriptures, as divinely inspired, for he
168 Creeds and Conformity
said they provided a basis for religiously valuable allegorical inter-
pretation.

4.11 The development ofChristian literature

At first, Christians adhered to the Jewish 'Law and Prophets' as the
definitive form of inspired writing, and sought to prove all controversial
questions on matters of belief and practice by an appeal to these.
Traditions about Jesus were seen in the light of the idea that the events
of his life happened 'in order that it might be fulfilled as it was spoken
by the prophet .. .'. Then, as Christian literature began to accumulate,
the practice of venerating a sacred text began to attach itself to Christian
writings also. The maxim 'All scripture is inspired by God' (2 Tim. 3:
16) used by an early Christian meant originally 'All jewish scripture is
inspired by God' - rather than, for example, the writings of Homer,
though these too were, for the Greeks, invested with the glamour of
divine inspiration. But the application of this maxim by Christians to
certain writings of their own did eventually follow, although the
process of deciding which were and which were not to be so regarded
took some time. Among the earliest to gain this status were the letters
of certain apostles: 'a letter coming from a teacher or a church of great
authority would interest Christians generally, and so get copied and
circulated and read, long after the original occasion of its dispatch had
passed by, in churches other than that to which it had first come'
(Bevan, 1932; 44).
Besides the primary interest in the Pauline supernatural Christ, the
Saviour who had conquered the demonic forces of sin and death, and
the explication of these ideas for Christian believers that the apostolic
letters were concerned to convey (as well as instruction in Christian
conduct), there was also a very natural interest among Christians in the
historical Jesus, that is, in that element which was contributed especially
by the Jerusalem community; this too began to be reflected in the
appearance of a narrative type ofliterature which, since such books had
as their object the setting forth of the historical basis of the 'good news',
became known by the short title, 'Good News' or 'Gospel'. There were
many of them; some were eventually relegated to the position of
private or 'apocryphal' works; others were accepted as authoritative
and acceptable for public reading in the communities. These were
The development ofChristian literature 169
fmally four in number, attributed to Mark, Matthew, Luke and John
respectively. The last named, written towards the end of the first
Christian century (? 95 C.E.), and differing considerably in outlook
from the other three, was only accepted after some hesitation. The
process of sacralisation of these books was fairly slow; there was an
intermediate stage at which it became necessary simply to make some
kind of distinction between accepted and non-accepted books, because
of the need to distinguish between authoritative Christian teaching and
ideas of teachers who, while claiming to be Christian, were seen by the
majority to be subverting the essential historical basis of the Christian
faith. We must now consider how this came about.

4.12 The challenge ofGnosticism

At least since the time of the Persian empire of Cyrus (3.12), on through
the time of the Greek empire of Alexander and his successors (3.15),
religious ideas and practices from India (mainly Hindu) and Persia
(mainly Zoroastrian) had been spreading westwards to mingle with
Greek and Minoan elements to form a new religious syncretism which
was found throughout the Mediterranean world. One of the most
outstanding products of this is the family of cults and doctrines known
as Gnosticism. The basic theme of Gnosticism was that of escape from
the present material world, which was regarded as basically evil, the
creation of a demiurge or inferior god, into another sphere where it
would be possible to enjoy the pure life of the spirit, a sphere which was
held to be the true home of the divine spark within man. How to attain
this higher, spiritual realm was the concern of the various Gnostic cults;
in general its attainment was believed to be by knowledge (gnosis) of a
divine saviour who alone could effect the soul's release. Such salvation
was for the 'spirit' of man; not for the flesh or the body. The flesh is
evil, said the Gnostics, and only by breaking free from it can man fmd
the life of the spirit, and return to his true home. He cannot break free
himself; a divine saviour must come from above, from the realm of
pure spirit down through the increasingly gross emanations which lie
between the spiritual realm and the evil world, a saviour who will
rescue the soul of man and return it to its home. Knowledge of the
saviour was the all-important requirement so far as men were concerned.
To those who thought in these terms, the Christian gospel, especially
170 Creeds and Conformity
as preached by St Paul, appeared to be an excellent Gnostic system. In
Pauline soteriology men whose thoughts were moulded in this way
recognised the gnosis they had been seeking and were strongly attracted
to it; not only for its central Saviour-figure, the Christ who had
conquered sin and death and all the stoicheia, or elementary spirits of
this world, and was able to guarantee man's entry into 'the life of the
ages', but also for its strict asceticism, its insistence upon the need to
crucify the flesh, and its encouragement of celibacy.
There thus developed by the second Christian century what may be
described as a Gnosticised version of Christian belief and practice.
It must be added that the foregoing is the more commonly accepted
view of the relationship between Gnosticism and early Christian belief,
but another view is that Gnosticism was itself a Christian heresy,
produced, that is to say, within the Christian community from an over-
emphasis on certain elements of Pauline Christology; it has been
suggested that the Gnostic development within Christianity was the
work of over-zealous apologists, men who were concerned at all costs
to make the Christian faith relevant to men of the second-century
Mediterranean world.
Whichever of these views is the more accurate, the fact remains that
there had developed by the second century a Gnostic version of
Christian belief and practice which was condemned by non-Gnostic
Christians as a deviation from the original doctrine. It was in this
connection that the use of the word 'heresy' first appeared in Christian
usage to describe such deviation, a term which once introduced was to
enjoy currency for a long period of Christian history, and even today
is still regarded in some Christian circles as a relevant, necessary and
very useful concept.
From the perspective of the modem situation, perhaps the most
important Christian response to the challenge of Gnosticism can be
seen to be that made by St Irenaeus, bishop ofLyons (c. 130-c. 202 c.E.).
Man does not live in this world as a prisoner within alien territory,
territory which is ruled over by an inferior deity or evil power from
which he must be liberated and taken back to his true home, as the
Gnostics affirmed; in Irenaeus's view the whole history of human
existence is one of progress from immaturity towards perfection, and
it is this which explains life's present imperfections: 'by nature we are
adapted for virtue; not so as to be possessed of it from our birth, but so
as to be adapted for acquiring it.' Man, said Irenaeus, 'was not perfect in
The challenge ofGnosticism 171
his creation, but adapted to the reception ofvirtue .. .' (Hick, 1966; 222).
It has recently been pointed out that this view of the human situation
provides, within Christian theology, a very important alternative to
that other view which has largely dominated the thought of the
Christian West, namely that ofAugustine (4.18). 'Instead of the doctrine
that man was created finitely perfect and then incomprehensibly
destroyed his own perfection and plunged into sin and misery (i.e., the
doctrine of Augustine), Irenaeus suggests that man was created as an
imperfect, immature creature who was to undergo moral development
and growth and finally be brought to the perfection intended for him
by his Maker' (Hick, 1966; 220). Irenaeus was the first Christian
theologian to work out such a view of man's nature and destiny; it is a
view which for various reasons has been obscured in the West by that
of Augustine.

4.13 Christian resistance to Gnosticism

It is clear from the anti-Gnostic Christian writings of the second
century that Christian leaders were seriously concerned at the threat of
a Gnostic take-over. The local communities of believers were often
exposed to infiltration by Gnostic teaching; some Christians succumbed
to the new trend; others saw that it was a serious distortion of the
original tradition. There were three major issues between the latter and
the Gnostic Christians. First, the Gnostics identified Yahweh, the God
oflsrael, with the inferior god, the creator of the evil, physical world,
and for this reason Gnosticism was on the whole strongly anti-Jewish.
Second, the Christian idea that the divine Saviour had actually suffered
and died was rejected by the Gnostics: a divine being could not suffer,
and most certainly could not suffer death. They therefore introduced
the idea that the Jesus of Christian tradition had been not a real human
being but only by outward appearance human. (From the Greek verb
dokein 'to seem' this doctrine became known as Docetism.) Another
Gnostic idea was that the divine Saviour who had inhabited the body
ofJesus had returned to heaven before the Passion so that it was only a
'seeming' death, an illusion to deceive the evil spirit-powers of this
world. Third, since it was held by the Gnostics that it was by sexual
reproduction that the divine spark imprisoned in man was transmitted
to other bodily prisons, their attitude to married life such as Jews and
G2 L.H.R.
172 Creeds and Conformity
Christians normally practised was one of hostility: some sought to
prevent procreation by taking refuge in celibacy, while others debased
the sexual relationship with the aid of some rather disagreeable
contraceptive practices (Bevan, 1932; 69).
It is worth noting that the resistance to Gnosticism on these three
fronts came pre-eminently from that tradition within the Christian
community which owed most to the Jerusalem disciples. Primarily it
was by emphasis upon the Jewish idea of the goodness of the created
world, on the real humanity and real death of the historical Jesus, and
on the moral law, that Christians succeeded in countering the subversive
Gnostic influences. It was pointed out that the deliverance man needs is
not from his sinful flesh but from his own state of moral discord, his
lack of harmony with the life of God, so that salvation is not a release
from the physical conditioning of bodily life, but a transforming of
this, and a redirection of effort. It was further argued against the Gnostics
that in the Christian view the divine life is not far off, remote from this
empirical world, and separated from it by countless emanations; this was
reinforced by the Christian insistence that Jesus was a real man in the
fullest possible sense, who demonstrated the quality of the divine life in
his own real death. It is significant that the theology ofRudolfBultmann
with its reliance upon the idea of an existential Christ-event, not
dependent on historical verification, has been seen by some as a new
form of Gnosticism, to be met in the same way in the twentieth century
as in the second, by an insistence upon the reality of the historical Jesus,
and on those things concerning him which can be known from the
testimony of contemporary witnesses.

4.14 The importance ofOrigen

One of the great names in the Christian struggle with Gnosticism - and
there are many - was Origines Adamantius, known in the West now
simply as Origen. Born in Alexandria about 186 c.E., he died some
seventy years later after imprisonment and torture. He has been
described as 'the first theologian to put out a full and methodical
exposition of the whole intellectual framework of the Christian faith'
(Prestige, 1940; 60). If the danger of Gnosticism lay in its uncontrolled
emotionalism, its obscurantism, and its wild speculation, the proper
response was that which Origen exemplified - a balanced emphasis on
The importance ofOrigen 173
the rational, historical and experiential elements in Christian thought
and practice. The rational power of the human mind was, Origen
maintained, capable of a genuine apprehending of truth. It has been
said that the Church owes it first and foremost to Origen that, whenever
Christianity is true to itself, it shows itself to be a rational faith. But
there were also Christian presuppositions which inevitably rendered
Origen' s task extremely difficult, if they were accepted. For Origen
was faced with the task of reconciling virtually irreconcilable data.
These data were: the notion of an absolutely omnipotent Creator God;
the notion that this God is one and indivisible (monotheism); the
notion that Jesus, a real human person, was also identical with the God
who had already been defined in these terms; and, finally, the literal
truth of the inspired sacred writings, the Bible. Origen's exposition
was successful and coherent in its way, but was based on a modified
view of the literal truth of the Bible. Whatever presented historical
difficulties or was morally offensive Origen interpreted in an allegorical
way. He treated much of the Book of Revelation, for example, in this
fashion. In his doctrine of God he distinguished between the Father who
alone is God, and unbegotten, and the Son, or Logos who is a second
god, the divine Wisdom, subordinate to God. The Logos brought into
existence a multitude of souls, who thereafter adhered more or less
closely to the author of their being; those who adhered less closely
tended to fall away and developed material forms within a physical
universe. Such souls are credited by Origen with the ability to rise or
fall in the scale in a way that is very closely related to the Indian notion
of karma and rebirth (1.32). At the highest level are ethereal souls,
angels and principalities; then men of varying degrees of goodness;
animals; and lowest in the scale, the demons and Satan. All, however,
would at last return to a state of communion with the Logos.
For the vast majority ofhis contemporaries Origen's exposition was
too metaphysical. It is perhaps significant that the people of Egypt, and
Syria (Origen removed to Caesarea at the age of forty-six and died in
Tyre at the age of sixty-nine) did not respond favourably to what was
virtually an exposure to Hindu thought; they believed and insisted on
believing in a God whom they thought of as an anthropomorphic
celestial being. Above all, such philosophising conflicted with many
statements in the scriptures about God which they took in a literal sense.
This was one of the Christian presuppositions Origen was prepared to
dispense with, but the majority were not, and such metaphysical
174 Creeds and Conformity
speculation was therefore largely rejected. The Catholic Church does
not afford Origen the title of Saint.

4.15 The routinisation ofthe Christian religion

The Christian struggle against Gnosticism coincided with the process of
routinisation of the religious life of Christianity, and to some extent
helped to accelerate it. By this is meant the process, observable in
various religious systems, whereby after a new breakthrough (1.26) of
religious thought and practice there follows a settling down to accepted
forms of organisations and patterns ofthought. In the period represented
by the New Testament writings, that is, up to the last decade of the first
century, the Christian communities were largely independent local
groups, acknowledging, however, that they together formed a single
community of believers, the ecclesia, among whom a special authority
belonged to those who had experienced the vision of the risen Jesus, the
apostles. With the passing away of the apostolic generation, combined
with the threat of subversion by Gnosticism, there was a need for some
way of safeguarding the essentials of Christian faith, and thus we fmd
in the letters of Ignatius the bishop of Antioch (who was martyred in
Rome in 115 C.E.) a.new development: the Christian communities were
being urged to be loyal to the leadership of their local 'pastors' or
'bishops' and to acknowledge their authority, and so to hold together
against the threat of heresy and disintegration. Among the local
churches one in particular was singled out by Ignatius as possessing
special authority, namely the church in Rome, the church associated
especially with one of the foremost of the disciples, StPeter, which was
to be regarded by Christians as the guardian of the true faith. Thus,
towards the close of the second Christian century St Irenaeus, bishop of
Lyons, names the church in Rome as the special bearer of the historical
Christian faith, and able to provide guidance and sound teaching in the
conflict with Gnosticism. The rudiments of a hierarchical structure now
began to appear: the president or 'bishop' of the local community as
the authority within that community, to whom its members must rally
in loyalty and obedience; and among communities the gradual further
emergence, after the fall of Jerusalem, of Rome as the pre-eminently
authoritative bearer of the orthodox faith.
Another aspect of the process of routinisation was the trend towards
The routinisation ofthe Christian religion 175
an established consensus on the canon of scripture. By the end of the
second Christian century this was virtually complete and most of the
books of the New Testament as it now exists had been afforded
universal recognition, although a few were still accepted in one place
but not in another, notably James, Jude, Hebrews and the Apocalypse.
Christianity was thus well on the way to becoming, like Judaism, the
religion of a book (or, more exactly, a collection ofbooks).
Yet another development was the routinisation of practice. Certain
ways of carrying out the important devotional ceremonies such as
baptism and the Supper of the Lord (by this time known as the
Eucharist) were prescribed. A document discovered in 1875 at
Constantinople, known as the Didache, or Teaching (of the Twelve
Apostles), sets out in systematic fashion the essential procedure for the
rite of baptism, for the celebration of the Eucharist, the correct attitudes
to leaders and teachers, and so on.
It was the Eucharist which undoubtedly by the end of the second
century, if not earlier, had become the focal point of Christian religion,
the specifically Christian rite which drew together the various strands
that went to make up the religious life and belief of the Christian. The
word 'Eucharist' means thanksgiving, and the fact that this was the
central rite characterises the religion of the early Christian community
as pre-eminently the religion of thanksgiving: thanks rendered to God
for the objective fact of man's salvation which the events of the life and
death of Jesus were seen to be; thanks for the new life together into
which the followers of Jesus had entered; thanks shown in practical
terms by the rendering up of themselves to God's service, and their
economic resources for the use of the needy, the sick and the distressed.
'The one word "Eucharist" fitly described the mood and quality of
Christian devotion .... The Eucharist, whether as the great moment of
the cult, or as the chief food of the individual, constituted the essential
thing in the regimen of Christian living and conduct, as well as the
empowering motive of action ... at the Eucharistic service the Gospel
was expounded, Christian ideals of belief and conduct were explained,
exhortation and instruction given.' Nor was this all. 'Succouring the
needy, assisting the distressed, caring for the helpless and wronged were
not thought of as by-products of Christianity. This type of social
activity was of the very stuff not only of the Church's actions but of the
Church's worship. "Gifts", "offerings" and "oblations" were carried to
the very altar itself' (Gavin, 1932; 109£). The Church was thus
176 Creeds and Conformity
essentially a community, but it was a community within which
distinctions had already been made between 'clergy' and 'laity'; the
Eucharist was by the end of the second century a formal act of worship
which could not take place, as the epistles oflgnatius make clear, 'apart
from the bishop' (Srawley, 1947; 27). And it was a community
distinguished from the rest of men in that only he could be a member
of it, as St Justin said, 'who believes that the things we teach are true,
and who has been washed (i.e. baptised) with the washing for the
remission of sins, and for regeneration, and who is so living as Christ
enjoined' (Gavin, 1932; 93). It was a community, membership of which
was already beginning to be controlled by certain external forms, or
institutions, namely the Creed, the rite ofbaptism, and church discipline.
These things presupposed the exercise of authority within the Church;
the principle is present at this period in embryo only, but from that
embryo was to grow the ecclesiastical system of the Augustinian (or
Constantinian) and medieval Church. In such ways as these, therefore,
the scattered communities of Christians which were to be found in
various parts of the Mediterranean world not only resisted disintegration
by an alien ideology but also strengthened their position, internally and
externally.

4.16 Controversies concerning the nature ofChrist

One of the problems which Christians were forced to think out in their
controversy with the Gnostics was that of the nature ofJesus, whether
human, or divine, or both, and if so, how the natures were related in
him. If he was really human, as Christians asserted against Gnostic
docetic ideas (4.13), what then was his relation to God? How could the
assertion ofhis real humanity be reconciled with the Christian tendency
to regard him as revealing the divine nature? And how were the
references in the New Testament writings to Jesus as the 'Son' of God
to be interpreted? These are some of the questions considered, for
example, by Origen (4.14), questions which continued to exercise the
Church from the third century onwards, without fully satisfactory
answers being worked out. The controversy in this area of Christian
thought became extremely acrimonious at times, to say the least; it has
to be noted, however, that the bitterness that was engendered among
Christian leaders and pastors frequently had underlying causes other
Controversies concerning the nature ofChrist 177
than theological disagreement; diplomatic intrigues, political conflict,
and personal prestige can be seen to have been at least as important in
the disputes that dragged on over the centuries as was concern for true
doctrine. The course of the controversies was long and involved, and of
a kind which cannot be summarised. An account which combines
eminent readability with realism as to the underlying political issues as
well as fair assessment of the religious values at stake was provided by
G. L. Prestige in his Fathers and Heretics (1940).
Two aspects of these Christological controversies call for comment
here. One is that the Christian community inherited a mixed bag of
theological data which, if it is all accepted as of equal worth and
indispensability, would probably defy indefinitely any fully logical or
systematic presentation. From Judaism Christians inherited the idea of
the literal truth of the Scriptures. The specifically Christian element
was the conviction that Jesus was divine, and, as the Christian Scriptures
from the Pauline epistles onwards declare, that he was the son of God.
This specifically Christian contribution seemed incompatible with the
monotheistic ideas of the Jews. Jews and Muslims therefore reject the
idea of the divinity ofJesus, for it seems to them to involve the separate
existences of two Gods. To say, on the other hand, that the only
knowledge we have of the divine is from what we see in Jesus of
Nazareth must involve at least a serious modification of the idea,
inherited from the Near East, of God as an arbitrary, all-powerful
monarch. The history of Christian thought shows, however, that
Christians have tried to combine all these ideas, with the result that one
of the great preoccupations ofWestern theology has been theodicy, the
attempt to justify the ways of God to man. The attempt has failed as
often as it has succeeded; yet the attempt has to continue, since the
sacred tradition stemming from the period of the Hebrew monarchy
seems to affirm this kind of potentate deity. And who may challenge
anything contained in Scripture? The fact that Jesus of Nazareth did
challenge this conception in particular has failed to gain full recognition.
Among those for whom he is not an authority in religious matters,
Jews and Muslims, this is perhaps inevitable. Again, for those Christians
who do not accept that he challenged conceptions of God found in
Hebrew scripture the potentate conception of deity remains. But for all
of these kinds of Western religion the problems connected with belief
in deity in terms of sovereign power remain, and will continue to
embarrass those who hold this view, and will continue to repel many
178 Creeds and Conformity
others to whom religious scepticism is preferable to religious belief of
this kind.
In parenthesis it may be added that thoroughly consistent mono-
theism, that is, one based on the Eastern potentate conception of God,
is found more clearly than anywhere else in Western religion in that
tradition which rejects the reality of Jesus' crucifixion, namely Islam.
In Islamic orthodoxy, one may see perhaps the ultimate form of
monotheism of the kind that has its roots in the centralised political
power structure of Egypt. The history of Islamic theology shows too
that there is an inevitable implication of this kind of belief, namely, the
complete and absolute predestination by the sovereign deity of all that
happens in the world. Monotheism of this kind, if consistent, leaves no
place for human freedom.
The challenging of the potentate concept of deity which is found
whenever Christians say ofJesus Christ ('the Lamb that has been slain
from the foundation of the world'), 'Here is deity', or simply jesus is
Lord', is something which perhaps needs to be given much greater
place in systematic theology than it has received in the past. The old,
naturalistic potentate conception of a king has been allowed to invade
what is meant by the kingship of Christ. In the latter case, the term
'king' is used, but almost in a satirical sense so far as the potentate
concept is concerned, though not entirely. For there is kingship here,
there is power; but not the quality of absolute omnipotence which
some systematic theology seems to assume is a necessary presupposition
about the nature of God.
The second main aspect of the Christological controversies which is
important for the student of the history of religion is the depressing
effect which all this had on the quality of religious life of Christendom.
Here was one of the main factors which by the seventh century had
predisposed large areas of the Mediterranean world that were nominally
Christian, but weary of Christian theology's apparently endless dis-
putations and feuds, to accept what to them appeared as the simpler,
more straightforward and religiously more vital faith of Islam (5.16).
This was specially true of Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt, where
theological disputes were accompanied by public disorder.
Another theological product of these controversies was the doctrine
of the Holy Trinity: God as Father, as Son, and as Holy Spirit. This has
become an item of orthodox belief for Churches which adhere to the
conciliar creeds, although the practical working belief of many
Controversies concerning the nature ofChrist 179
theologically unsophisticated Christians more often approximates to a
binitarian view, that is, a belief in God the Father, and in Jesus as God,
the Second Person, but with a much diminished concern with God the
Holy Spirit as a separate person. Belief in the threefold nature of the
divine being is, however, not an uncommon phenomenon in ancient
religion. The better known parallel cults are those of the Egyptian Isis,
Serapis and the divine child Horus, or the Indian trinity of gods,
Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva; when Brahma became less important the
trio changed to Vishnu, Shiva, and Shakti the female deity. Mahayana
Buddhist doctrine developed a conception of the three bodies of the
Buddha, or Tri-kaya (4.34); the Neoplatonic theory of the Good, the
Intelligence and theWorld-Soul is regarded by some as another parallel.
It is important to notice that this Christian doctrine of the Trinity is one
of the major grounds for Islamic criticism of Christian theology. To the
Muslim it seems no better than equivocation to say that this is not a
doctrine of three gods, and thus a movement towards polytheism. The
Hindu, on the other hand, who is much more ready to affirm the
existence of divine being in many forms, asks: If the Christian allows
that God may exist as three persons, why not more? To Christians who
held that the doctrine of the triune God was the ultimate truth Islam
had to be rejected as a unitarian heresy.
Historically, the movement or system of thought known as
Unitarianism emerged as a feature of the Protestant Reformation of the
sixteenth century in many countries of Europe, although its adherents
claim for their view an antiquity reaching back to before the age of the
creeds. In the sixteenth century Unitarianism was one of the particular
forms taken by the revolt against authoritarian and ecclesiastically
controlled religion; in this case the emphasis was primarily intellectual.

4.17 The emperor Constantine and Christianity

During the first three centuries the attitude of the Roman imperial
authorities towards Christianity had varied from indifference towards a
harmless superstition or contempt for its apparent extravagances of
thought, to active hostility and persecution when it appeared to be a
danger to the state. Under the emperor Decius (249-52), for example,
the full resources of the state were used in order to make Christians
conform to the state religion. Some were tortured and killed rather
180 Creeds and Conformity
than conform, though many others took the easy course. But this was
soon over and the Church quickly regained its lost adherents. The last
such persecution was in the reign of Diocletian; it began in 303 and
lasted for ten years until in 313 the emperor Constantine granted full
freedom of worship to Christians by the Edict of Milan.
Constantine is an enigmatic figure in his relation to Christianity.
Proclaimed emperor of the western provinces of the Roman empire at
York in 306, he granted Christians equality of religious rights in 313;
in 324 he succeeded Licinius as emperor of the eastern provinces also
and thus became the sole ruler of the whole Roman world. It was in the
eastern provinces that disagreements among Christians were particularly
fierce (4.16). Since the Christian population of the empire was now
large and extensive, Constantine, desirous of securing peace in his
realm, called a council of bishops from all parts of the empire which
met at Nicaea in 325 and over which he presided; the majority of the
bishops, however, were from the eastern part of the empire, with only
a few from the Latin west. The council succeeded in framing a creed
which was intended to provide an agreed statement of universal
Christian belief, and thus to secure peace and harmony among the
Christians of the empire. In fact, as the subsequent history of disputes
shows, it failed to do this for more than a short period.
The question whether Constantine himself was a Christian is capable
of various answers. There are broadly three views on the subject. The
first is that he had a genuine conversion experience, a view which the
story of his vision of the Cross in the sky is intended to support.
Certainly the cross now became the symbol of the Church of the
empire, but there is a possibility that its associations were with sun-
worship as much as with Christianity (the symbol used by the early
Christians had been the fish, since the letters of the Greek word ichthus
(fish) were also the initial letters of the phrase Iesous Christos Theou
Uios Soter -Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour); there is also the fact
that the day for worship was called by its pagan name, in honour of the
sun-god, Sunday. Constantine certainly continued to act as pontifex
maximus of the pagan state religion; he received Christian baptism on
his death-bed, but other Christians used to postpone baptism in this
way in order to reduce the possibility of post-baptismal sin, so this in
itself is not decisive. A second view is that he was a far-seeing statesman
who perceiving that the future lay with the Christian religion rather
than the old pagan state religion of Rome decided to gain the support
The emperor Constantine and Christianity 181
of the everywhere increasing number of Christian citizens for the
Roman state by giving Christianity an officially recognised position.
A third view is that he remained thoroughly pagan at heart, a super-
stitious man who had a taste for collecting any new kind of religious
talisman (Baynes, 1939}.
Among the important results of the official Roman recognition of
Christianity were, briefly, on the one hand a considerable improvement
in the moral condition of Roman society, and on the other a greater
degree ofRomanisation ofWestem Christianity which now took into
its system not only a good deal of state ceremonial, the use of Roman
vestments at the liturgy, and so on, but also much of the spirit ofRoman
organisation - its hierarchical structure and its domination by legal
principles and procedures. It had also the effect of assisting the growth
of the Christian Church throughout the area ruled by Rome. Other
results were the increasing use of force by the Church in the suppression
of men of unorthodox religious opinions, or heretics; the increasingly
enhanced role of the Christian priest so that he became elevated into a
privileged position, and more and more distinguished and separated
from his 'lay' fellow-Christians. Christianity became a state church, its
ministers paid from official funds - some of which came from the old
pagan temples - and the bishops important state officials, with the
bishop of Rome continuing to grow in importance. Finally, while the
empire now called itself Christian, its inhabitants were far from being
Christian in any other sense, a fact which in subsequent history has
affected the nature of the empirical reality called Christianity, especially
as the non-Christian world sees it.
The history of Christianity in Europe is not one of sudden and
dramatic conversions of large numbers of the native peoples to the
Christian faith. The beginning was more tentative, and the whole story
has been that of a gradual process of the Christianising of one area after
another. In Britain, for example, during the period of Roman rule
there would have been not a few servants of the empire and soldiers
from Rome and Gaul who came to settle in this province and who were
Christians. These people would have formed a kind of Christian
aristocracy in Britain, so that even before Constantine made Christianity
the official religion of the empire it would already have been growing
in social esteem. But the new religion did not radically displace earlier
pagan beliefs and customs; rather these were incorporated and
Christianised. Many features of Christian religion as it emerged in the
182 Creeds and Conformity
course of European history were adaptations of earlier beliefs and cults.
Pagan polytheism found a new outlet in the veneration of the saints.
Poseidon-Neptune, the guardian of sailors and boatmen, was succeeded
by St Nicholas as their patron saint. The cult of the goddess Diana of
Ephesus looks very strongly like a prototype of the cult of the Virgin
Mary, who was first honoured as 'the mother of God' in that city. The
idea of a virgin mother-goddess was by no means strange to the Roman
world. The characteristic features of the Roman festival of Parentalia
become transferred to the feast of All Souls, although on a different
date in the calendar. Saturnalia, the festival of the promise of the sun's
return, just after the shortest day, becomes the Christian festival of the
birth of the Light of the World. The spring festival of the return of life,
possibly in Britain the feast of the Saxon goddess Oestre, becomes the
celebration of the risen life of Christ at Easter, linked with the spring
festival of the Jews, Passover, which provided the authentically
historical occasion for the remembering of the death of Jesus, even
though at first the early Church had confmed its celebration to the first
day of the week as the day of resurrection, the Lord's Day. In these and
many other ways local, national, or regional observances of a pre-
Christian religious kind were absorbed and given a Christian aspect.
The contribution which the pagan religious beliefs and practices of
Europe have made to the actual historical character and shape of
Christianity is an important one, one that is sometimes overlooked, and
which still provides a rich field for study.

4.18 Monotheism, sin and St Augustine

One of the most notable first-fruits of Constantinian Christianity was
St Augustine (354-430 c.E.). Born at Tagaste in North Africa, he is the
last in the line of outstanding Fathers of the Church which North
Africa produced. In his youth he was strongly attracted to the system of
belief known as Manichaeism (from the name of its founder, Manes,
born about 216 C.E.). This consisted basically of a dualistic view of the
universe, of the kind in which the material world was regarded as the
source of evil, and good was to be found only in the realm of spirit.
The material, physical world was the realm of Satan; the spiritual
world was God's realm; and these two were eternally at war with each
other, both within the human individual and in the universe beyond.
Monotheism, sin and St Augustine 183
The ideas of Manichaeism may have been derived ultimately from
Zoroastrian dualism (2.23; 2.24), but this non-Zoroastrian, peculiarly
pessimistic form of dualism, in which matter was regarded as inherently
evil, is more properly regarded as part of the whole complex of
Gnosticism (4.12). For nine years Augustine was an adherent of
Manichaeism, and seems to have absorbed much of its characteristic
outlook, especially its view of the fundamentally evil nature of the
physical body. He went to Rome at about the age of twenty-nine, as a
teacher of rhetoric. After a while his interest in Manichaeism waned in
favour ofNeoplatonic thought, which increasingly engaged his interest;
this, too, subsequently provided an important element in Augustine's
theology. In Milan he met and was powerfully influenced by Ambrose,
the bishop of that city, and there experienced a dramatic conversion.
He was baptised as a Christian in 387 C.E., to the joy of his pious
Christian mother, and then returned to North Africa, where in 391 he
was ordained priest in the diocese ofHippo. Four years later he succeeded
to the bishopric ofHippo, where he remained for most of the remaining
thirty-five years ofhis life.
Through his writings Augustine exercised a profound and long-
lasting influence on Roman Christianity. During his lifetime the final
collapse of the Roman secular power occurred, and when Rome was
sacked by the Visigoth king Alaric in 410, and then North Africa
invaded by Vandals in 430, the political empire of Rome was in ruins.
But Christianity had been the official religion of the empire long
enough to have absorbed its authoritarian spirit. By the time the
political empire collapsed, the Church had gained positions of influence
throughout the provinces over which Rome had ruled (6.20), so that,
as H. A. L. Fisher puts it, 'the chaos of Empire was the opportunity of
the Church'. Augustine's conception of the Church is, in a sense, an
idealised version of the Roman empire: the City of God, embattled
against the forces of evil and barbarism, but destined ultimately (unlike
the Roman empire which collapsed because of internal corruption) to
triumph over its enemies. It is not improper to ask who, in this
conception of the Church, held the place corresponding with that of
the emperor. In Augustine's view the ruler of the Church was, of
course, God, and it can be seen how difficult it would have been for
Augustine's conception of God to have escaped being shaped to some
extent by the idea of an all-powerful emperor. All other considerations
were sacrificed to the principle of 'God's sovereignty, which he
184 Creeds and Conformity
maintained unflinchingly'. The Church thus becomes a theocratic state,
and it is this idea which looms all-important in Augustinian thought;
the secular state was regarded as an auxiliary, which might or might not
serve the purposes of the eternal theocracy. Outside the Church there
was certainly no salvation, in Augustine's view, and in the last resort
physical force was justifiable against rebels or, in theological language,
heretics. In keeping with Augustine's monarchical conception of God-
for which he could certainly find support in the Scriptures, especially in
the Jewish Scriptures, as we have already seen (2.18)- was his view of
man as the humble subject of this heavenly monarch. Once again, as in
the ascendancy of the monarchical idea of God in the time of the
Hebrew monarchy (2.19), the notion of man's wretchedness and
sinfulness was emphasised. By the fall, man lost all power to do
anything good; all that he wills and does is evil. Man is the humble,
even base creature, the subject who deserves only the penalty for his
wickedness. God is the all-sufficient potentate, and it is solely by means
of the grace which the monarch extends to his subject that there can be
any relationship at all between them. The sinfulness of man was
identified very closely in Augustine's thought with man's physical
nature, and in particular with his sensuous and sexual nature; it was
this emphasis which powerfully reinforced Western Christian tendencies
to regard sexual activity as wicked, and celibacy as the ideal - in
contrast to Jewish and Eastern Orthodox Christian attitudes. The grace
of God, by means of which alone man has any freedom worth the
name, that is, the state of freedom from any desire for sin, is extended
to man in God's own wisdom; it is extended to some, but not to others.
God's will alone decides the matter.
It is worth recalling that the tenor of Augustine's extremely
authoritarian theology produced a reaction from a British monk,
Pelagius. The story of Pelagius' s resistance belongs to a more detailed
history of Christian doctrine than can be provided here. That Pelagius
found others to agree with him in regarding Augustine's theology as
shocking and ultimately immoral and degrading is fairly clear; it is also
clear that their protest was successfully muffled in a characteristically
authoritarian way- by force (Bethune-Baker, 1903; 312-20). In both
religious theory and in practical affairs Augustine was the product of
Constantinian Christianity, and it was he who was to have the most
powerful single influence on Western Christianity for at least a
thousand years.
The beginnings of Christian monasticism 185

4.19 The beginnings ofChristian monasticism

Mention has just been made of the British monk, Pelagius. This serves
as a reminder that by the time of Augustine monasticism had become a
fairly familiar feature of the Christian religion in Europe, and was to
become so increasingly during the medieval period (6.22).
The beginnings of Christian monasticism were in Egypt in the third
century. The full significance of this fact becomes apparent only when
two other facts are considered together with it. The first of these is that
the monastic way of life, by which is meant one of withdrawal from
the world to a life of asceticism within a community of fellow ascetics,
was alien to the early spirit, principles, and development of Christianity.
At the close of the second century Tertullian made it his boast that
'among us are no Brahman or Indian gymnosophists, no forest hermits
or anchorites ... we abjure neither forum nor market-place nor baths
nor books nor factories nor inns nor fairs nor the exchange. We sojourn
with you in the world .. .' (Kirk, 1931; 179). The other fact to be noted
is that there had been ascetic communities in Egypt long before
Christians began to withdraw to the Egyptian desert to live the ascetic
life. In other words, the monasticism of Egypt was in origin a non-
Christian religious phenomenon. The ascetic community was, as
Flinders Petrie (1909) showed, foreign to Egypt before the fourth
century B.c. It was, however, established in Egypt by about 340 B.c.,
and it is dear that it had not come to Egypt from Palestine or Greece.
Petrie therefore made the suggestion that the most obvious source of
this newly appearing phenomenon in the Egypt of the fourth century
B.C. was India. 'Figures of Indians have been found in Memphis,
certainly dating from 200 B.C., and probably also earlier.' The most
obvious period for the influx of Indian religious practices would have
been the time when the Persian empire extended from North Africa to
north-west India, that is, between 500 and 400 B.c. Moreover, the
features of the life of the ascetic communities of Egypt correspond
almost exactly with those oflndian asceticism: the celibate community,
recruited regularly by converts; the renunciation of family and
possessions, the rejection of wealth, the avoidance of bloodshed, and
the vegetarian diet; the regular observance of a holy day; 'practically
the whole system of life was that of Indian asceticism, planted as an
ethical system, as it was preached later by Asoka .. .'(Petrie, 1909; 83).
186 Creeds and Conformity
All this looks certainly remarkably like Indian Buddhist monasticism of
the early period between the decease of the Buddha and the reign of
Asoka (3.21; 3.26). In the early years of the first century c.E. there were
Egyptian ascetic communities known as the Therapeutae in the region
of Alexandria, and the tradition seems to have been continuous up to
the time it was taken over by Christianity in the fourth century (Petrie,
1909; 59-84).
For the first three centuries from its birth Christian religion appears
to have been non-monastic, as Tertullian asserted. Towards the end of
the third century the young Egyptian Christian, Antony, contrasting
the life of the apostles with the comfort and superficiality of life in
urban Egypt, withdrew to the neighbouring desert to live an ascetic
life. While there is some doubt concerning the details of Antony's life
there is no doubt that in broad outline the story is authentic, and that
there were at that time others like him. By the early fourth century
groups of Christian ascetics were living the common life (koinos bios)
of asceticism, and hence were called cenobites. The real founder of the
cenobitic, organised monastic life is usually held to be a contemporary
of Antony, named Pachomius (d. 346 C.E.), who instituted monastic
settlements in upper Egypt; these were independent communities
linked by the observance of a common rule of life, not unlike that of
the Buddhist Vinaya rules (3.21) (Kirk, 1931; 258). From the Egyptian
desert the practice spread to other parts of the Christian world in the
fourth century, and by the end of the century monastic life had become
a feature of Christianity from the farthest east to the farthest west and
north of the Roman empire, including Britain.

4.2 THE EMERGENCE OF HINDUISM (7o-soo c.E.)

4.20 The caste system: further ramifications

We have seen that by the beginning of the Christian era the charac-
teristics of Hinduism as it is known in modem times had begun to be
recognisable (3.39). One of the most important aspects of the reciprocal
acculturation which had been going in the centuries before the Christian
era between Brahmanism and the local village cultures was the further
development of the caste system. There were various reasons for this.
The caste system: further ramijications 187
One was the growth of formalised systems of ethics for particular
classes of society (3 .39); this would have had the effect of emphasising
already existing differences among social classes. Another was the
bringing within Hindu social structure of formerly non-brahmanised
tribes and groups as a result of the brahman enterprise which was
described earlier (3.33). In addition to the contribution to the already
vast mythology which each of these might make, they would also
result in a further multiplication of the number of jati (castes, or
sub-castes), since each group, with its special beliefs and observances,
would be incorporated bodily as a new sub-caste. A further reasoning
for the hardening of caste differences was the continually increasing
prosperity of the vaisya or merchant castes; this would have the effect
of making the brahmans more than ever careful to defend their
privileged position and emphasise their social superiority. In all of this
it will be seen that there was very little which could be called a religious
factor in the growth and elaboration of the caste system - a fact which
needs to be borne in mind when the nature of the Indian caste system is
being assessed. It was, however, provided with a general religious
rationale by the doctrine of karma and rebirth, which afforded a
convenient explanation of why some men enjoyed membership of a
superior caste while others were less privileged: it was all the outworking
of men's karma, good and bad. There is also an economic correlation so
far as the lowest castes are concerned; the 'untouchables' whose touch
is believed to pollute Hindus of other castes, are also the most economic-
ally depressed sector of society.

4.21 The growth ofHindu philosophy and literature

In the early years of the Christian era a classification of various Indian
religious schools of thought was made from a brahman point of view.
The existing known schools of thought or philosophies of salvation
were divided into two classes: those which were affirmed (astika), that
is, the orthodox schools; and those which were not affirmed (niistika),
that is, the heterodox schools, such as the Jain and Buddhist, and the
Carvakas, or materialists. The orthodox schools were held to be six in
number and were collectively known as the saMadana (six-viewpoints).
They were set out in three groups of two, as follows. First, Nyiiya and
Vaisesika; Nyaya is a system of logic and barely merits inclusion in a
188 Creeds and Conformity
scheme of salvation-philosophies; its inclusion was defended on the
grounds that clear thinking was necessary to enlightenment; Vaisesika
is a doctrine ofatoms similar in some ways to the Buddhist Abhidhamma
(3.22), in which the whole material universe is held to be composed of
atoms with special characteristics (visesas) and all of which are subject
to the four non-material realities, namely, the soul, the mind, time, and
space. The second pair of schools is Siil;lkhya and Yoga. Sfu).khya is
probably the oldest of the six, and is ascribed to a mythical teacher
named Kapila; its origin is probably to be found at the time of the
Buddha. It is an atheistic philosophy, which regards the universe as
having evolved from a basic given substance, prakrti, not through any
divine creative activity or direction, but in accordance with its own
inherent nature. Alongside prakrti there is puru~a, the soul, an entity
which exists in infinite numbers, independent of prakrti just as prakrti
is independent of puru~a. However, the soul tends to become involved
in the material processes of prakrti, and salvation consists in being made
aware of its separateness from and independence of the material
universe. The Yoga school of thought, which is paired with Sat;tkhya,
taught that control and discipline of the body enabled the soul (puru~a)­
which normally fails to distinguish itself from the world of matter
(prakrti) - to do so, or to 'unveil the essence of the soul'. The main
difference between Sfu).khya and Yoga is that the former is atheistic,
while the latter is not, but allows the existence of a being called iSvara
(God) in the contemplation of whom the soul finds its own true nature,
and thus release, mok~a, or salvation. The third pair of viewpoints are
Mimiif!!sii and Vedanta. Mima1psa is based on the view that the Vedas
are eternal and authoritative and that salvation begins from a rigorous
observance ofVedic rules; in other words, Mima1psa is a philosophical
form of Brahmanism. The Vedanta similarly accepts the authority of
the Veda, as its name indicates (veda-anta, the end, or consummation,
of the Veda) and is based particularly on the teaching of the Upani~ads;
the Upani~adic teaching is summed up in the Vedanta basic text, the
Brahma Siitras of Badarayana, dating probably from the first century
of the Christian era. The Vedanta school is the most influential and
important of the six today, and forms the philosophical basis for most
modem Hindu thought (7.29). Its basic philosophy is that which has
already been described in connection with the Upani~ads (1.58). The
characteristically popular Hindu sacred literature (if by this we mean
the literature known to the masses of the people either directly or
The growth ofHindu philosophy and literature 189
indirectly) is not the ancient Vedic books (1.34) and their appendages in
the form of Upani~ads, (1.57) however, but the two great religious
epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana; which in tum form part of
the Puranas, or chronicles of ancient times; there are also the manuals
of ethics, the Dharma Siitras and Dharma Sastras. Like the inchoate
mass of mythology which resulted from the process of reciprocal
acculturation between the Great and the Little Traditions (3.38), this
popular literature is the result of the same process. The two great epics
were originally secular sagas, which were taken over by the brahmans
and given a new look, or more precisely, made to serve as literary
reinforcements of the priestly point of view. For example, into the
Mahabharata (an immensely long verse saga of some of the heroes of
the Indian past) was introduced a lengthy interpolation which we know
as the Bhagavad-Gita, the Song of the Lord (Krishna).

4.22 The Bhagavad-Gitii

This long poem takes the form of a dialogue between the perplexed
nobleman, Arjuna, and Krishna, disguised as his charioteer. Arjuna, on
the eve of battle, faced with the possibility of doing his duty and yet
slaughtering his own kin within the opposing army, is inclined to
withdraw from the battle. Krishna's advice to Arjuna, which forms the
substance of the book, consists of an amalgam of virtually every point
of view within Hinduism; the purport of it is that a man should do his
duty, according to his class and his stage oflife (3.39). R.N. Dandekar
has pointed out two ways in which the ethics of the Gita differs from
the Vedic, Upani~adic thought. First, the Upani~adic attitude to life is
fundamentally individualistic, whereas that of the Gita is that Man has a
duty to promote loka-sangraha, the stability and solidarity of society,
recognising the necessary part which every caste and occupation plays
within the social system. Second, whereas the Upani~adic view oflife is
one in which the phenomenal world is seen as unreal, the attitude which
the Gita seeks to foster is that of an acceptance of the world and of
active engagement. However, this is an activism tinged with renuncia-
tion: one should engage in good actions without interest in personally
reaping the fruits of one's actions; above all, this is all to be done in
devotion to the Lord, the personal god, Vishnu.
190 Creeds and Conformity

4.23 Varying views ofthe Bhagavad-Gitii

It is sometimes said that the great virtue of the Gita is that instead of
endless discussion of the points of disagreement between the various
systems of thought, it emphasises their points of agreement, since the
many different doctrines are enunciated as though from the one divine
source. It is undoubtedly for this reason, and for the quality of its style
and its aesthetic appeal, that it has been the Hindus' best known and
most highly esteemed devotional book. On the other hand there is the
minority of modern Indians who take the view that it is an overrated
work which attempts unsuccessfully to reconcile many irreconcilable
Indian religious points of view. In modern times both B. G. Tilak and
M. K. Gandhi drew from the Gita totally different conclusions
concerning the course of action for the Indian independence movement
(7.25; 7.27). In its perplexing and yet beautiful inconsistency it is a
typical expression ofHinduism as a whole. In the theological incongruities
of this long poem, and in the variegated social patchwork of the caste
system and its duties, we see the two major features of that tolerant
acculturation inspired by the brahmans which go to make up Hinduism
as it is known today.

4.24 The Riimiiyana

The other major epic poem of Hinduism is the Ramayana. This is only
a quarter of the length of the Mahabharata (24,000 as against 100,000
verses) but comes a close second to the Gita in popularity. It is generally
held to have originated during roughly the same period (not earlier
than the second century B.c. nor later than the second c.E.) Unlike the
Mahabharata it is regarded as having a single author, the poet-sage
Valmiki. The poem consists of the story ofRama the king (the avatara
of Vishnu), and his wife Sita; the enmity ofRavana, the demon king;
and the trials and tribulations which this hostility brings upon Rama
and his queen. Rama represents the ideal ruler, virtuous, brave,
resourceful; his wife Sita is the Indian ideal of womanhood, faithful,
devoted and chaste. The virtues which the poem inculcates are those of
ardent piety, patient endurance in adversity, and the proper performance
of duty. The story has become known to Indians, many of whom are
The Ramayana 191
illiterate, through the public recitations of it which are frequently given
on great festival occasions, and through dramatic performances. In this
way it has constituted one of the major means of communicating the
ethics of Hinduism over a wide social area.

4.25 The Hindu Law Books

More prosaic are the ethical teachings contained in the Dharma Siitras
and Grhya Siitras, already mentioned (3.39), and in the later expansions
of these dating from the first two centuries of the Christian era, known
as the Dharma Sastras. Of these the most outstanding and important is
that attributed to Manu, and known as the Manava Dharma Sastra.
Manu is a legendary figure, the first man, the Hindu Adam, of whom
it is related in the Mahabharata that at the beginning of human society
Brahma, the high god, appointed him to control the affairs of men,
direct their relationships, rights and so on. The law code attributed to
him (translated into English in the Sacred Books of the East series,
Vol. xxv, 'The Laws of Manu') sets out the duties of the various classes
of Hindu society as it was at about the beginning of the Christian era,
with the penalties, fmes and punishments which are to be inflicted upon
offenders; it was this law code which was to remain normative through
the subsequent centuries of Hindu history, both in its original form and
in the form of subsequent elaborations and commentaries (Basham,
1954; 112£).
It is important to notice that a distinction was made by the brahrnans
between the Vedic literature down to the Upani~ads (1.33; 1.54-1.57)
and this later literature consisting of the Puranas, Epics, Siitras and
Sastras. The Vedic literature is given a higher status, being classified as
sruti, or 'heard' (that is, directly revealed), whereas the Puranic literature
is described as smrti, or 'remembered' that is, only in a secondary sense
revealed.

4.26 The golden age ofHinduism

About the year 320 C.E. a new dynasty arose, which restored the former
splendour of the Mauryan rulers. The capital of the Magadhan empire,
Pataliputra (Patna) which had declined almost to a village, now became
192 Creeds and Conformity
once again the imperial court. The new rulers were the Guptas, Hindu
by religion and adherents of the cult of Vishnu. The early part of the
dynasty was the most notable, under Chandragupta I and his successor
Samudra Gupta. Towards the end of the three centuries through which
it lasted the dynasty grew weaker; but the period of Gupta rule has
been regarded by modem Indian historians as the golden age of
Hinduism. It was so in the sense that this was the period in which
Hindu culture reached its normative form in north India; it has to be
remembered, however, that the most prosperous and vigorous period
of Hindu culture in the Deccan and in South India came somewhat
later.
Vaishnavism, or the cult of Vishnu, had by now come to cover a
fairly wide range of originally separate cults, or 'sects' as they are
sometimes called- Bhagavatas; Paficaratrikas; worshippers ofKrishna,
or of Vasudeva, of Rama, Narayana, or of Vishnu. It has to be
remembered, however, that these were not sects in the sense of
divisions of the Vishnu cult; they were in origin separate cults of
independent origin which had all by this time begun to be regarded as
being cults of the one god Vishnu. The other principal form of deity
worshipped by Hindus is Siva (anglicised, Shiva).

4.27 The cult oJShiva

The characteristics of the deity who in classical Hinduism is known as
Shiva are, as we have seen (1.19), of a kind which are found associated
with what seems to be a deity of the Indus valley civilisation. In classical
Hinduism, as it is found at the time of the Guptas (4.26), Shiva
incorporates a number of features: he is sometimes regarded as a god of
love and grace, but he has a darker side to his nature, which he seems to
have inherited from the Vedic Indra, the storm god and destroyer; Shiva
is the god of destruction also, whose realm is the battlefield, the
cemetery and the burning-ghat. It is for this reason that he is sometimes
depicted with a garland of skulls. Since he is the 'destroyer' he is thought
of as the power which destroys the world at the end of the kalpa (the
Hindu 'era', almost immeasurably long by Western standards). But he
is thought of also as the great ascetic, who by his yogic meditation
keeps the world in existence. He has also the character of a fertility god:
he is Lord of the beasts, the patron of procreation, and his symbol by
 The cult ofShiva 193
the Gupta period had become the lingam, the symbol of the male organ
of reproduction.

4.28 Shiva, Vishnu and their consorts

The cult of Shiva is strongest in Kashmir and in southern India (Andhra
Pradesh, Mysore, Madras and Kerala); in southern India especially he is
worshipped as the compassionate one, the one who is gracious and
cares for all life. Clearly we have here another example of the wide
variety of features that the brahmanical process of acculturation has
brought together to form, in this case, one outstanding figure in the
Sanskritic Great Tradition (3.33).
By the Gupta period another of the characteristic features of Hinduism
had made its appearance, namely the associating of what were originally
mother-goddesses with the two principal gods, Vishnu and Shiva, as
their consorts. In the case of Vishnu it is the goddess Sri, or Lalqmi who
has now come to be the partner; in the case of Shiva it is Sakti (Shakti),
the female personification of the divine energy or power, known also
under the names ofParvati, Kali and Durga (a fact which indicates the
great variety of goddess cults which have thus been brought into
association with that ofShiva).

4.29 Brahmanism and South-East Asia

What the brahman tolerance of the village cults or little traditions
throughout the whole of north India had achieved was the triumph ofa
form of religion which, while paying lip service to the Vedas and
acknowledging the special importance of the brahman, yet preserved
and continued the ancient non-brahman cults oflndia under new names,
and accepted the social allocation of groups and tribes within the great
system of caste over which the brahman class presided. This meant that
the challenge to Brahmanism which the Buddhists and to a lesser extent
the Jains (2.40; 2.41) represented had been successfully met and
overcome. The enduring presence ofBrahmanism as a strongly resistant
religious and social force had prevented the Buddhist social philosophy
(and the religious philosophy which underlay it) from becoming a
really determining force in Indian society. Hinduism, its mythology
194 Creeds and Conformity
and its caste-structure were now becoming firmly established; the
brahmans were important functionaries in the state, advising the kings,
administering the laws, transmitting the sacred texts, and controlling
the teaching of the now very prestigious priestly language of Sanskrit.
The mechanism by which they achieved this end was, as we have seen,
the careful and clever process of reciprocal acculturation. The reasons
which underlay this achievement were various; prominent among
them were their own determination to maintain their status; the
attitude of religious tolerance which comes very easily to brahman
philosophy, rather than any rigid and doctrinaire exclusivism; and
fmally, at the political level, the fact that the village remained the
fundamental unit of Indian society, a feature which Kosambi describes
as 'the idiocy of village life'- that is, its isolated, autonomous character.
One further point which remains to be mentioned in connection
with the importance which the brahmans had achieved, especially in
the courts of kings, is the brahmanisation of a number of South-East
Asian countries during this period. In Burma, Thailand, Cambodia,
Java and Sumatra there is evidence of extensive cultural influence from
India. This shows itself in various ways: in the Hindu architecture of
the massive ruined temples which are still to be found in the jungles of
South-East Asia- Angkor Wat in Cambodia or Borobodur in Java for
example; in Sanskrit linguistic remains in the languages of these
countries; and in the medieval cosmology centred upon the king and
the royal palace as the centre of the cosmos, evidence of which is still to
be found in popular religious ideas (7.41).
How this Indian influence came into South-East Asia has been a
matter of controversy. At one time it was claimed that it was the result
of Indian political expansion, that is, empire-building by Hindu kings.
Thanks to the research of scholars such as J. C. van Leur (1955) and
Georges Coedes (1964; 1966) it is now fairly certain that the Indianised
culture of these South-East Asian countries was largely a matter of
brahmanisation. The initiative for this lay with the local South-East
Asian rulers. Traders from India visited these countries regularly and
the fame of Indian culture and especially the prestige of brahmanic
rituals in connection with king-making gradually spread eastwards,
with the result that South-East Asian rulers began to summon brahman
priests and architects to their courts, in order that their dynasties might
be given the highly prestigious sacral legitimation for which the
brahmans were renowned. What thus came to be imported from India
 Brahmanism and South-East Asia 195
consisted, says Coedes, of: (a) a concept of royalty based on Hindu
cults; (b) a mythology which gave legitimation to royal genealogies
which were taken from Sanskrit works and bestowed on the South-
East Asian kings; (c) the use of Sanskrit language; and (d) the use of the
Hindu law books, the Dharma Sastras, particularly thatofManu(4.25).
The importation of Hindu culture to these areas was thus not due to
Indian political expansion or popular missionary activity by Hindus,
but was a matter mainly involving native princes and Indian priests.
The purpose of these rulers in obtaining Hindu sacral legitimation was
that it placed them in a stronger position to assert their superiority over
other local rulers who may not have obtained it, and as D. G. E. Hall
says, thereby dominate them 'into a state of vassalage' (Hall, 1968;
19).

4.3 THE HINDUISA TION OF BUDDHISM

(7o-6oo c.E.)

4.30 The further development ofthe Mahayana

The growing ascendancy of Brahmanism during the early centuries of
the Christian era is also reflected indirectly in some of the developments
which took place among the Buddhists during this period, and which
eventually produced a separate system of Buddhism, namely the
Mahayana or 'Great Vehicle'. The name is deceptive, for it suggests
that this now became the dominant form of Buddhist life and doctrine.
In fact the 'Great Vehicle', so described by its own adherents, remained
a minority party in Buddhist India up to at least 500 C.E. The Chinese
pilgrim-monk, Hsuan-tsang (5.25) who visited India about 640 C.E.
records that even then at least half the Buddhist monks belonged to
schools which were non-Mahayanist, and only a fifth at the most were
zealous Mahayanists. So far as the allegiance which this Great Vehicle
commanded, therefore, it was in no position to call itself 'Great' on
account of its extent within the monastic communities. Nor were its
adherents justified on these grounds in applying the derogatory term
Hinayana, or Lesser Vehicle, to the monks who adhered to the
traditional doctrine and monastic rules. The claim to 'greatness' on the
part of the Mahayanists was based on other considerations.
H L.H.R.
196 Creeds and Conformity

4.31 In what sense was the Mahayana 'Great'?

It is necessary at this point to recall in the first place that the Mahayana
was the continuation of the Mahasanghika or Great Sangha party- the
faction which had separated itself from the main body of Buddhism
after the Council ofVesali (3 .21) and which had subsequently continued
to criticise the orthodox for their literalism (3.29). They claimed to be
the Great Vehicle in so far as their appeal was potentially wider and
more popular; that is to say, they adopted an attitude which laid less
emphasis upon the importance of the monastic life and discipline. (This,
however, was only relative, for they too maintained the monastic life;
the difference between them lay in the greater laxity the Mahayana
allowed in the interpretation of monastic rules.)
Another sense in which the Mahayana was the Great Vehicle was
that its doctrines became very much more comprehensive than those of
the traditional schools. The two regions in which the Mahayana
developed most strongly were north-west and southern India. In
north-west India there was lively contact with Persian (i.e. Zoroastrian)
ideas, and with ideas originating from even further west, from Greece.
Gandhara especially was an area of Greek influence, and here Buddhism
absorbed the doctrines of the Asian-Greek Sophia, or Wisdom, together
with possible elements of Manichaeism and N eoplatonism (Dutt, 1962;
262). In southern India Mahayana thought was influenced by the strong
mother-goddess cults.

4.32 Mahayana and the Great Tradition ofHinduism

Perhaps the most important single factor, however, in the emergence
of this 'Greater' Buddhism was the discussion and debate that was going
on during this period between brahmans and Buddhists. Such debates
with brahmans were not confmed to Buddhists of the Mahayana
school, but it was they who were prepared to go further towards
meeting the brahmans in matters of philosophy. It was they who were
prepared to make Sanskrit the medium for their new scriptures and
commentaries, while the Theravadins stuck to Pali. The Mahayana
wholeheartedly adopted Sanskrit, the prestige language for intellectual
discourse in brahman India. In their dialogue with the brahmans the
Mahayana and the Great Tradition ofHinduism 197
Mahayanists learnt several lessons. Like the brahrnans they too began to
admit new gods into the pantheon, as subordinate to the Buddha, who
was now increasingly regarded by the Mahayanists as quasi-divine at
least. Later the new gods, joined now by goddesses, were identified
with bodhisattvas, once this doctrine had been fully developed and the
bodhisattvas had come to be regarded by the Mahayanists as heavenly
beings. In the Mahayana, though it was still a minority movement,
during the first five centuries of the Christian era, Buddhism was
developing a form of religious life which was more and more like
Brahmanism, and less and less distinctively Buddhist. The fmal outcome
of this process was reached in a later period, when the Buddhism that
remained distinctive had grown weak, and Brahmanism fmally
triumphed throughout most of India (6.41).

4.33 Niigiirjuna and the Miidhyamika school

We have seen (3.29) that one of the earliest developments in Buddhist
thought in the Mahayana direction was the idea that even dhammas
(regarded by the Theravadins as the indivisible ultimate events of
which all existence is composed) are in fact substanceless; all things,
even dhammas, are void of substance, or siifiya. This idea is first found
in a Mahayana text which was translated into Chinese at the end of the
second century c.E. and which may therefore be regarded as having
had its origin somewhere in north-west India in the first century c.E.
Those who assert (vadin) this doctrine of the voidness of substance
(siifiya) even in dhammas, are called siifiyavadins. Another name for
this school of thought is the Madhyamika school, or school of the
'middle position' (madhya is cognate with Latin media). The middle
position referred to was not that of the earlier period of Buddhism,
when the Buddha's teaching was known as 'the Middle Way', that is,
between self-mortification and sensuality, but between the complete
realism of the Sarvastivadins (3.24; 3.26) who asserted that all dhamrnas,
past, present and future, were real; and the absolute idealism of the
Yogacarin school (4.35).
The Madhyamika school is generally regarded as having been
founded by Nagarjuna in the second century c.E. It is significant that
Nagarjuna was a brahman from south central India (Andhra) who had
thrown in his lot with Buddhism. The school of thought which he
198 Creeds and Conformity
developed certainly has affmities with brahman philosophical thought;
although it was developed in opposition to certain of the orthodox
brahman philosophies (S~hya and Vaisesika) (4.21), it was generally
more akin to these schools than to the early Abhidhamma of Pali
Buddhism. An excellent account of the Madhyamika school has been
provided by T. R. V. Murti (1955). His view of the development of
this school is that it may be described in terms of a dialectic. The
original thesis was the atma-affirming doctrine of the Upani~ads; the
antithesis to this was the denial of any enduring atta (atma) in early
Buddhism, formalised in the Abhidhamma; the synthesis is found in
the Madhyamika. According to Murti it was the inadequacy and
inconsistency of the Abhidhamma system, especially the Sarvastivadin
Abhidhamma, which led to the development of the Madhyamika. The
essential concern of the Madhyamika is with the relation between the
empirical world of the senses, which in Buddhist thought generally is
known as sa1p.sara (the continued round of existence), and the trans-
cendental reality nirv3.t).a. According to the Madhyamika, nirv3.t).a is
present in sa1p.sara, but men are prevented from recognising this and
entering into it because of the false constructions they put upon the
world. The removal of these false constructions (the negation of the
negation) and the attainment of nirv3.t).a is the religious goal, in the
Madhyamika Buddhist view. The way to do this is by cultivating a
view of the substanceless nature of things. To accomplish this, they
hold, needs a long course of meditational training.

4.34 Two new Mahayana emphases

In addition to the metaphysical analysis developed in the Mahayana
type ofBuddhism two important new emphases were also characteristic
of this variety of Buddhism. These were, (1) an emphasis on the virtue
of'great compassion' (mahakaruna) towards all living beings, a virtue
which every Buddhist monk and householder was enjoined to cultivate;
and (2) the bringing into prominence of the doctrine of the Three
Bodies (Tri-kaya) of the Buddha. According to this doctrine, it is
possible to distinguish three different aspects of the Buddha-nature:
there is the eternal dharma (the dharma-kaya); there is the historical
manifestation of this in a Buddha, that is, in a human existence (the
nirmana-kaya, or appearance-body); and there is thirdly, beyond this
Two new Mahayana emphases 199
manifestation for the benefit of mortals another manifestation for the
benefit of those in the heavens, or those far advanced in spirituality;
this is a refmed and refulgent body and is known as the bliss-body
(sambhoga-kaya). This doctrine indicates the extent to which Buddhism
in some of its schools was becoming theological; the doctrine is an
example of the kind of purely speculative activity which has often
characterised theology, of whatever tradition.
These two doctrines sometimes seem to Christians to indicate an
influence of Christian thought on Buddhism. But the conception of
karuna, or compassion, as a virtue is found in earlier, Pali Buddhism,
and does not need to be explained as being derived from Christianity;
the doctrine of the 'three bodies', moreover, though it suggests the idea
of the Trinity has very little in common with that doctrine as it was
hammered out by Christian theologians in the early centuries, other
than the common element 'three'; the roots of this conception of the
Tri-kaya are in fact to be found in the earliest form of Buddhism
(Conze, 1960; 36).
According to T. R. V. Murti it was the combination ofthe speculative
metaphysic of the Madhyamika school with the emphasis on 'great
compassion' and the doctrine of the 'three bodies' which provided the
characteristically Buddhist basis for the culture of a large part of Asia.

4.35 The Yogacara school

The other of the two main philosophical schools of Mahayana Buddhism
was the Y ogacara school, or Vijfiana-vadins. The school is generally
regarded as having been founded by Maitreyanatha in the third century
C.E. but it was his disciple AsaJ]ga in the fourth century who, with his
brother Vasubandhu, continued and developed the work of the founder,
and were the first well-known teachers of this school. The name
Y ogacara indicates that there is an emphasis on the practical technique
of meditation, and means 'practioner of Yoga', that is, as a means of the
attainment of enlightenment. The additional name Vijfiana-vada was
used by the second of the two brothers, Vasubandhu, to emphasise the
view of this school that consciousness (vijfiana) alone is real: nothing in
the way of external 'objects' has any reality; they are real only within
the consciousness of the subject. This contention was directed against
both the Abhidhamma school, for whom dhammas were external, real
200 Creeds and Conformity
entitles, and also against the Madhyamika school, for whom both
subject and object were unreal, substanceless, Siifiya. This kind of
philosophy may therefore be described as a form of idealism: ideas
alone are real; according to this school the basic perversion consists of
mistaking what is an idea for a real object having external existence.
Ordinary sense-perception is illusory; 'the yogacara sees what is, as it
really is'. That is to say, according to this view, a man engaged in deep
meditation is nearer to the truth than one who is distracted by concern
with external 'objects'. It has been pointed out that whereas the
Madhyamika critique of the Abhidhamma position was based on logic
(the pressing of the Abhidhamma method of analysis to its logical
conclusion), the Yogacara or Vijfianavadin critique was based on a
certain kind of psychology.
It was this development of thought in the Mahayana, with its strong
emphasis on the necessity for purging the consciousness, which led to
the development of the later Vajrayana, or Tantric Buddhism (5.26).

4.36 The spread ofBuddhism to China

The geographical expansion of the Buddhist Sangha had been fairly
continuous throughout the Mauryan period and after. By the second
century B.C. it was well established in the Indo-Greek Bactrian kingdom
in the north-west of India, and from there passed easily into Central
Asia. Another considerable advance took place from the second century
of the Christian era, when Buddhism began to enter China from
Central Asia. The circumstance which assisted its initial entry was the
very considerable trade between north-west India, Central Asia and
China. Merchants from this cosmopolitan area to the north of India
moved back and forth with ease along the trade route into western
China. It is notable, however, that of the various religious traditions of
India at the beginning of the Christian era, Buddhism alone succeeded
in establishing itself in China. Various factors combined to make this
possible from about the middle of the second century c.E. onwards.
First, China was passing through a period of cultural unrest, or anomie,
as the Han dynasty declined and old traditional moral and social
structures were weakened. Many in China at this time were seeking for
some more satisfactory way of life, such as would enable them to see
meaning and significance in human existence. Second, Buddhist
The spread oJBuddhism to China 201
religion met just this need in a way that no other Indian religion could-
particularly because it was not rooted in local cults in the way that
brahmanical Hinduism was, and was more flexible and adaptable
socially. Third, the Buddhist monks were the inheritors of a missionary
tradition; the obligation to spread the Dhamma was integral to all the
schools of Buddhism. It is this which throughout the history of
Buddhism has frequently impelled its monks to travel beyond the
confines of their own territory whenever the opportunity has arisen,
even although there have also been long periods when the missionary
spirit has sunk to a low ebb. But the second century of the Christian era
and the immediately succeeding centuries were a period of opportunity,
and of readiness to meet the opportunity on the part of the Buddhist
monks, who now began to travel the long mountainous routes through
Central Asia and into China; first a few pioneers, and then, as the
Chinese people welcomed this new faith, in increasing numbers in
response to beckoning opportunity.

4.37 Establishment and growth ofBuddhism in China up to 600 C.B.

Although, as we have seen (4.36), certain general conditions favoured
the spread of Buddhism to China, there were also severe difficulties
attending its introduction. Of all the countries outside India into which
Buddhism has spread China was notable for having already, before the
entry of Buddhism, an ancient and well-established culture and its own
indigenous philosophy and national religion. Confucian scholars, who
constituted the most influential sector of society, were inclined to look
askance on this foreign (and therefore in Chinese eyes barbarian)
religion. But it was precisely because of its religious character that
Buddhism appealed to the Chinese masses other than the Confucian
literati and governing classes; for Confucianism was by its nature
incapable of being invested with a popular religious quality. On the
other hand, China's own popular religion, Taoism (2.47), had not the
rational and philosophical basis which characterised Buddhism and
gave it greater prestige. Another point in Buddhism's favour was the
standard of morality which it inculcated and which was exemplified in
its Indian missionary monks.
The process by which Buddhism gained acceptance in China, and
eventually came to be regarded as almost an indigenous religion,
202 Creeds and Conformity
continued over many centuries, but an important early step was the
translation into Chinese of numerous Buddhist texts. These were from
various schools, but predominantly from the Mahayana wing. Most
notable in this connection was the work ofKumarajiva (344-413 C.E.)
during the early years of the fifth century. The son of an Indian, he was
originally a Sarvastivadin who had later accepted the doctrines of
Nagarjuna (4.33). He is credited with having translated about a hundred
Buddhist works into Chinese; other Indian monks in China were
engaged in the same work throughout the early centuries. Towards the
end of the fourth century C.E. the Chinese were allowed (by their
rulers) to become Buddhist monks, and Buddhism had thus become a
genuinely Chinese religion. During the sixth century the popular
Chinese Buddhist cults such as the 'Pure land' began to develop, but
these will be dealt with in later sections (5.22; 5.23).

4.38 Mahiiyiina Buddhist influence in Ceylon

During the second, third, and fourth centuries of the Christian era,
Buddhism in Ceylon passed through a period of upheaval and turmoil.
The kings of Ceylon, the monks, and the people are the three factors in
the situation, and the religious history of the period is one of shifting
alliances among these three. So far as the monks are concerned there
are the two factions, those of the Great Monastery (Maha-vihara), and
those of the rival Abhayagiri Monastery. The former, as we have seen,
was broadly orthodox Theravadin, while the latter tended to follow
the Mahayana form of Buddhism, which continued to make its way
into Ceylon from India throughout these three centuries. Successive
kings of Ceylon favoured first one, then the other of these two monastic
centres; some supported both. In the second century C.E., it was the
Abhayagiri Monastery which received special royal support and was
considerably enlarged. In the early part of the third century, however, a
form of teaching which claimed to be Buddhist, and which is known in
Ceylon as Vaitulya, appears to have been introduced. Exactly what this
teaching was is unclear. It seems to have had some affmities with Indian
Brahmanism, and its sacred texts were probably in Sanskrit (Rahula,
1956; 89). The term 'vaitulya', or 'vetulla', is still used in Ceylon of
ideas which are contrary to accepted beliefs, and means literally
'dissenting'. It is highly probable, therefore, that this was some form of
Mahiiyiina Buddhist influence in Ceylon 203
Mahayana doctrine which had recently arisen in India, possibly that of
Nagarjuna (4.33). The king of Ceylon at the time, Voharika Tissa, gave
his authority for the suppression of the Vaitulya. Towards the end of
the third century and the beginning of the fourth, exponents of
Vaitulya again began to assert their views in Ceylon; the king held an
enquiry, the Vaitulya texts were burnt, and sixty monks who upheld
this doctrine were banished. An Indian monk named Sanghamitra,
hearing of this, came to Ceylon with the intention of winning the
king's support for Mahayana Buddhism; his learning impressed the
king and he was favourably received. He made the Abhayagiri
Monastery his centre, and became tutor to the prince, Mahasena. When
the latter became king Sanghamitra's influence over his former pupil
enabled him to persuade the king to forbid the giving of alms by the
people to the monks of the Great Monastery, whom Sanghamitra had
failed to convert to his Mahayanist views. The monks were therefore
forced to abandon the Great Monastery and take refuge in an area
somewhat removed from Anuradhapura the capital, where the lay
people were prepared to disregard the royal command and to continue
to support the Theravadins. For a period of nine years the Great
Monastery was deserted, and during that time was despoiled by the
king to benefit the Abhayagiri Monastery. Popular support for the
Theravadin monks was so great, however, and resentment at the king' s
action so strong, that the king was eventually forced to admit that he
had acted wrongly, and to promise to restore the Great Monastery and
allow its monks to return. Reaction against Sanghamitra welled up, and
he was murdered by a carpenter, at the instigation of the queen. An
elder monk who had been honoured by the king was disrobed and
expelled from the Order by one of the king' s chief ministers. That this
could be done is an indication of the weight of public opinion against
the king's religious policy. Mahasena's son, who succeeded him during
the fourth century C.E., went to considerable lengths to make amends
for his father's action, and established what he decreed was to be a great
annual festival and procession in honour of Mahinda (3.27) the
missionary monk who had first brought Theravada Buddhism to
Ceylon (Rahula, 1956; 96).
The lesson which the monks of the Great Monastery learnt from
these events was that some more positive development in Theravada
learning and scholarship was necessary if the Theravada was to hold its
own against further infiltration of Mahayana Buddhism from India.
H2 L.H.R.
204 Creeds and Conformity
The medium in which Mahayana doctrines were taught was Sanskrit, a
language whose prestige was now internationally higher than that of
Pali, the language of the Theravada texts. Moreover, even the use of
Pali had fallen into neglect in Ceylon for purposes of teaching, Sinhalese
being used instead. As NyaiJ-amoli points out, 'Theravada centres of
learning on the mainland (i.e. India) were also much interested and
themselves anxious for help in a repristinisation (i.e. of Pali)'
(Ny:il).amoli, 1964; xiv). It was at this time, the early part of the fifth
century c.E., and in such a situation that the great Buddhaghosa came
from India to Ceylon to embark on his monumental work of Pali
Buddhist scholarship.

4.39 The work ofBuddhaghosa

Buddhaghosa' s name is best known for his great compendium of
Theravada Buddhist thought and practice entitled Visuddhimagga -
'The Path ofPurification'. This is not so much a theological treatise as a
manual of Theravada spirituality, based on the whole of the Pali
Tipitaka and, as he himself says, 'on the teaching of the dwellers in the
Great Monastery' (Vishuddhimagga. 1.1.4.). It is a work of considerable
size, amounting to 838 pages in its English translation by Bhikkhu
Ny:il).amoli (1964). The material is arranged in three main sections,
Morality, Meditation and Wisdom, the bulk of the work being devoted
to the latter two subjects. By virtue of its principles and method it
belongs broadly to the Abhidhamma type of literature, although of
course it is not included among the canonical Abhidhamma books, and
in some respects it goes beyond the Abhidhamma-pitaka. In a sense it is
the summa ofTheravada Buddhism, and is to the Pali Buddhist Tipitaka
as Shankara's work (6.12) is to the Up~ads (1.57; 1.58). Certainly
Buddhaghosa' s name is held in as great esteem in all the lands of
Theravada Buddhism today as those of Aquinas (6.24) and Shankara
are in the Catholic and Hindu communities respectively. Since this is
so, even a rapid survey of the contents of the Visuddhimagga will
enable us to see what were, and have remained, the central concerns of
the Theravada.
The work is divided into twenty-three chapters. Of these, the first
two deal with Morality, as the indispensable basis of the holy life. The
twenty-one chapters which form the bulk of the work are divided
The work ofBuddhaghosa 205
fairly evenly between Meditation, eleven chapters (3 to 13), and
Wisdom, ten chapters (14 to 23). The eleven chapters on Meditation
are taken up largely with a description of the process and method of
meditation. After some general introductory observations on the
subject, preliminary matters are dealt with: impediments to meditation;
meditation subjects; the suiting of meditation subject to the tem-
perament of the one who meditates, the necessity for sincerity of
purpose, and an attitude of goodwill. What is said on this last-named
topic will perhaps be surprising to those who think of the Theravada
monastic ideal as somehow 'selfish':

When a monk takes up a meditation subject, he should first develop

loving-kindness towards the Community of monks within the boundary
(that is, approximately, 'within the parish of his monastery') limiting it
at first to 'all monks in this monastery', in this way: 'May they be
happy and free from affliction'. Then he should develop it towards all
deities within the boundary. Then to all the principal people in the
village that is his alms-resort; then to all human beings there, and to all
living beings dependent on human beings. (Visuddhimagga TIL 58)

Detailed instructions concerning the development of concentration are

given, the stages of increasing absorption, and so on. The last two
chapters of these eleven remind the monk of the spiritual rewards of
meditatiol;l.
The ten chapters on Wisdom consist, first, of four chapters setting
forth the truths which constitute spiritual wisdom, and then a further
four chapters (18 to 21) in which these truths are related to the individual
experience of the one who meditates. Chapter 22 describes the stage
where nibbana begins to be 'seen' for the first time, at a distance as it
were, having until then been known intellectually only, that is, by
hearsay. Finally chapter 23 sets forth the rewards of spiritual wisdom,
of which the ultimate is the attainment ofnibbana.
The Visuddhimagga is thus an explication of the Buddhist life, and
therefore essentially a manual of Buddhist meditation. Theravada
Buddhist thought and practice has found in the subject matter of this
great work enough and more than enough to occupy its attention, and
has not felt the need for further speculation, logical analysis, or meta-
physical enquiry. Since its goals are still well ahead of the achievement
of the vast mass of mortals, the Theravadin maintains that it is more
206 Creeds and Conformity
appropriate to undertake the spiritual enterprise that is indicated here,
than to engage in ever more subtle theorising.
Besides his original work, the Visuddhimagga, Buddhaghosa pro-
duced numerous commentaries on the Pali canonical books. His works
were preserved more completely in Burma than in Ceylon, and from
there were transmitted to Cambodia and Thailand. So highly is
Buddhaghosa's work valued in Burma that he is claimed as a man of
Burmese origin. The Pali historical chronicles of Ceylon say he came
from Magadha, the Buddha's own homeland, but in fact the evidence
points more clearly to somewhere in southern India as the place of his
origin, probably the east coastal region of Andhra (Dutt, 1962; 255 £).

SUMMARY AND COMMENT ON CHAPTER FOUR

The period we have just surveyed is one in which two of the world's
major religious systems, Christianity and Hinduism, reached an
important stage of their development. Both were in the ascendancy in
their respective areas, and both were developing the normative features
that were to continue to characterise them throughout the medieval
and early modern periods. Both received the support of the secular
imperial power in the early years of the fourth century: Christianity,
under the emperor Constantine from 313; Hinduism under the Gupta
emperors from 320. The favoured position into which the two religions
thus moved involved in both cases more than patronage: it entailed
something more like an invasion of religious belief and practice by the
norms and standards of political power. It was more blatant in the case
of Christianity, with the emperor presiding over councils of bishops
and church leaders, urging them to produce creedal formulas that
would put an end to dissension and division within the empire; more
subtle in the case ofHinduism, where it resulted in the enhancement of
the value of the Hindu law books (4.25) and of that work of supreme
religious compromise, the Bhagavad-Gita (4.22), in which everyone
could find his views approved, and all good Hindus were encouraged
to fight for the state as their sacred duty. In India and South-East Asia
emperors and brahman priests engaged in reciprocal support and
validation of each other's status and office; in the Mediterranean world
and Europe the political ruler, whether emperor or king, became a
Summary and comment on Chapter Four 207
Christian leader, while the bishop became a state official, and each took
into his system something from the other side of the partnership.
In particular, this meant for Christianity that the accepted norm was
assent to certain propositions: he is a Christian 'who believes the things
we teach are true' (4.15), and as the inhabitants of new territories were
led by their kings into the Christian fold it was assumed that they would
accept as true the things they were taught by those who baptised them
into their new faith. Thus Christianity in the course of its routinisation
moved still further in the direction of giving prior place to certain
external authorities, a process which had already begun in the special
status given by the Church to the canon of sacred writings. In theory
the Christian Church adheres also to the idea ofan internally experienced
authority, that of the Holy Spirit, but for long periods of its history the
appeal to this internal authority was labelled enthusiasm and looked on
with disfavour. More usually it has been the external authority to
which appeal has been made: Bible, or Creed, or bishop; and sometimes
all three. The orthodox view has been that the internal testimony of the
Holy Spirit could not possibly be in conflict with these: these, it is held,
are the channels through which God speaks to men. Those who
disagree and who consider that this is tantamount to laying down the
conditions under which the Holy Spirit can operate have to be content
to accept that they are unorthodox from the point of view of the
institutional Church. In medieval times their lot was less happy than it
is today.
In the case of Hinduism conformity was achieved with somewhat
more subtlety, and with less show of the outward persuasion of force.
For here the conformity required was not so much to standards of
belief as to standards of social conduct. The Hindu was required to
conform very much more to the requirements of caste and custom. So
long as he did not overstep these bounds, but performed the duties and
rituals required of him as a Hindu, it mattered much less what
intellectual speculations he might engage in, if any. We see why,
therefore, in this period of Hindu ascendancy, Buddhism developed as
it did. The essential nature of Buddhism, as constituting both a social
philosophy and a religious discipline, was denied fulfilment so far as the
first part was concerned. For the Buddhist doctrine of society was
incompatible with a caste system, and it was the caste system which the
brahmans had succeeded in establishing. Hence Buddhism retreated to
the side-lines and concerned itself more and more with intellectual
208 Creeds and Conformity
speculation of the Mahayana variety. There were periods and places
where exceptions to this general trend occurred, but by and large it was
the partnership of brahman and king which increasingly dominated the
medieval scene in India. It was the strength of this alliance, once
established, which in principle had already sealed the fate of Buddhism
throughout most oflndia.
 5 Religion and
Civilisation

5.1 THE RISE OF ISLAM (600-750 c.E.)

5.10 Arabia at the beginning of the seventh century C.E.

ATTENTION must now be turned to the Arabian peninsula, the

birthplace of the religious tradition of Islam, today found in countries
as diverse as Turkey, Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaya, India, Persia, China,
the U.S.S.R., the older Mediterranean countries of North Africa, and
in the newly emerging states of Africa south of the Sahara; a tradition
which has left its mark on the culture and history of Europe, notably,
though by no means exclusively, in Spain and the Balkans.
The Arabian peninsula about the year 600 c.E., was not, as it is
sometimes imagined, a desert area remote from the mainstreams of
civilisation. The south of Arabia, known generally as Arabia Felix, and
especially that south-western region of mountain and valley called the
Yemen, had already attracted the attention of neighbouring powers,
notably Persia and Christian Abyssinia, by the end of the sixth century.
Both of these had been responsible for introducing Zoroastrian and
Christian influences into south Arabia; Persia, moreover, was Arabia's
neighbour on the north-east and Persian religious ideas at least would
not have been unknown in the north of the peninsula. Jews also had
been moving into Arabia for some centuries and settling to form
Jewish communities. And on the north-western frontier of Arabia was
Christian Egypt, one of the great centres of Greek Christianity. In
many and subtle ways the ancient religion of Arabia had thus by about
the beginning of the seventh century been subjected to outside
influences: Zoroastrian, Jewish and Christian. The ancient religion,
often described as a form of paganism, consisted of the worship of
various numinous entities of the earth and the sky, together with a
strong element of what has been called tribal humanism, a way of life
in which there was a strong sense of brotherhood and a high valuation
of such virtues as courage, manliness and generosity. By the end of the
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The Near East in early Islamic Times

Arabia at the beginning ofthe seventh century C.E. 211
sixth century this was already permeated by a belief in a powerful deity,
Allah, who was the creator of all things. Moreover, throughout Arabia
both Judaism and Christianity, in various forms, were being practised.
What room was there, or what need, for a new form of religion, and
wherein lay the secret of its success, soon to be manifested not only
throughout Arabia, but through the whole of the Near East and
beyond?

5.11 The social situation in Mecca

In order to find the answer to this question we have to consider the
social situation in Arabia at this time, and in Mecca in particular. On
this subject there is a mass of information in the traditions (hadith) of
Islam, which preserve many sayings of Muhammad and stories about
the prophet and the early Islamic community in Arabia. Next to the
Qur'an itself (5.12) this is the most important of Islamic source
materials. These traditions have throughout the years been subjected to a
process of sifting and testing by European as well as by Muslim
scholars, and a fairly coherent account of the social situation in Mecca
at the beginning of the seventh century has been produced (Watt, 1953).
Mecca was an ancient centre of pilgrimage for the inhabitants of
Arabia. In its shrine, the Ka'ba, was the Black Stone, an object of
veneration which later tradition associated with Adam who, it was
said, had brought this sacred object with him from Paradise. Probably
the stone was a burnt-out comet and was regarded with awe because it
had fallen from the sky. The importance of Mecca had increased by
about 600 c.E. for other reasons, however, namely as a town favourably
situated for the control of the caravan trade route which ran north and
south along the western edge of the Arabian peninsula and along which
the commodities of south Arabia, and also goods brought to the south
Arabian coast by sea from Abyssinia and India, were carried overland
to the Mediterranean world. Another route which led north-westwards
from the Persian Gulf was closed by the conflict between Persia and the
Byzantine empire during the latter part of the sixth century, and the
route that passed through Mecca thus increased correspondingly in
importance, largely because Mecca remained neutral in the Greek-
Persian conflict. The result was that Mecca became a commercial
centre, a place where considerable fmancial transactions were under-
212 Religion and Civilisation
taken by increasingly wealthy Arabian merchants. These were a new
phenomenon in Arabian society. Previously a man's prosperity con-
sisted in the camels he possessed. But there was a limit to the number
of camels a man could own., since camels need caring for and even if
this is deputed to others, there is a limit to the number of camel-
keepers that one man can effectively supervise, and over whom he can
exert the kind of control that must be largely of a personal kind. The
merchants of Mecca, however, dealt in luxury goods of small bulk -
such as spices, incense and silk, and this made it possible for one man to
operate on a much larger fmancial scale. Hence there was a great
increase in personal wealth among a relatively small number of mer-
chants who were able to benefit from the concentration of trade on the
Meccan route, organising the caravans to their own convenience.
With this increase of personal wealth went, apparently, a disregard
for traditional ties of family and clan. Men who had become rich by
their individual efforts were less and less inclined to take kinship
responsibilities seriously, and the number of kinsmen who thus lost
their natural protectors, according to tribal tradition, increased. Watt
has shown that this situation constituted a crisis for Arab society. The
new individualism based on money undermined the old cultural
structure, and resulted in a growing sense of social malaise, disharmony
and personal insecurity. Metaphysical questions were raised by the
breaking down of the traditional idea of immortality within the life of
the clan and in the memory of one's clan descendants; ethical questions
were raised as ideals of manliness and generosity were eclipsed by the
growing status of money as an indicator of social importance. In short,
this was a situation of anomie, and it resulted in the formation of a new
religious movement led by a native of Mecca named Muhammad.

5.12 Muhammad, the prophet of Mecca

Muhammad, a member of the Quraysh tribe in Mecca, born about the
year 570 C.E., was an orphan; that is to say, his father AbdAllah died
before he was born and his mother died when he was six years of age.
He was thus one of the 'weak', or relatively exposed and unprotected
members of Meccan society. In his youth he was poor and without
influence. However, he found employment with a wealthy widow
named Khadija, a woman some years older. than he, who had already
 Muhammad} the prophet ofMecca 213
had two husbands. Eventually, at the age of twenty-five, Muhammad
married Khadija, and there thus opened up for him new possibilities for
leisure and reflection. He appears to have spent long periods in meditat-
ing, perhaps upon the unhappy condition of Meccan society, during
the ensuing fifteen years, until the experience which he underwent at
the age of forty which he interpreted as a call to prophethood.
The message of the prophet was delivered by him in the form of
Arabic verses or suras, which, gathered together, form the Qur' an
(5.16). The suras which belong to the early Meccan period show that
Muhammad was concerned to proclaim the reality of one who has
created all things, and before whom every individual must at the last
appear, and before whom in that day ofjudgment personal wealth will
count for nothing. The prophet's mission was at first to warn the men of
Mecca of this. The first person to recognise his prophethood was his
wife. Another early convert was Abu Bakr, a small-scale businessman
who became one of the pillars of the early community and eventually
succeeded Muhammad in the leadership.
Watt has examined the composition of the congregation offollowers
which eventually gathered round the prophet in Mecca in response to
his preaching (Watt, 1961). Some were young men of the leading clans
of Mecca, but who were not themselves within the circle of the
merchant monopolists. The second and largest group were leading men
from less influential clans, clans which had failed to make the grade in
the jostle for power and position in Mecca. The third group, amounting
to less than ten per cent of the whole congregation, were people of the
'weak' or unprotected type. From this analysis it is clear that
Muhammad's role in Mecca was certainly not that of the leader of a
proletariat rising against capitalists.

5.13 The religious ideas of the Meccan period

It is important to realise that the religious ideas which Muhammad
was most concerned to proclaim during the Meccan period do not
extend to the full range of Islamic religious ideas that developed later,
some of them after the prophet's death. If Western scholars are correct
in the broad measure of agreement they have reached in identifying
certain suras of the Qur' an as Meccan and others as Medinan, it is
possible to reconstruct the pattern of Muhammad's preaching in
214 Religion and Civilisation
Mecca. Certain major emphases have been discerned (Watt, 1961), and
they are as follows: God is the creator of the world and of man, and is
its active controller; He will also bring the world to an end, and all men
will be raised to appear before him to be judged according to the lives
they have lived, and on that day wealth and power will count for
nothing. Hence men must live with this end in view, desist from
unscrupulous money-making, and instead practise generosity. Of all
this Muhammad is sent to warn the men of Mecca, especially those
whose profiteering was responsible for the disintegration of Meccan
society and the resultant loss of a sense of meaning and purpose in
human life.
About this pattern of religious ideas that was produced by
Muhammad in Mecca two observations need to be made. The first is
that there is little that is novel-little, that is to say, that had not already
been proclaimed by the Hebrew prophets and by Zoroaster in areas
adjacent to Arabia. The second is that Muhammad himself appears to
have recognised that it was not novel, that he stood in the tradition of
the earlier prophets; the essential feature of his mission was that it was
now necessary that these truths should be proclaimed in Arabia by
an Arab. He was conscious of speaking these truths to men to whom
no prophet had as yet been sent. This can be seen very clearly from the
words of Sura 93, 'Thus unto thee (i.e. Muhammad) as unto those who
preceded thee doth God, the Mighty, the Wise reveal himsel£ ...
Thus have we revealed to thee an Arabian Qur'an, that thou mayest
warn the mother city [i.e. Mecca] and all those around it.'
It should be noted that the adherence of Meccans to either of the
already existing systems of monotheistic belief, Jewish and Christian,
even though it had been urged as the answer to the ills of the Meccan
society (and there are indications that both of these courses were urged),
would have been seen by Meccans as politically unwise. Mecca's
prosperity as a trading centre depended on her neutrality in the conflict
between Persia and Byzantium. For Meccans to have turned in large
numbers to the Jewish faith would have meant becoming associated
with the strongly Jewish element in Persia; on the other hand, if
Meccans had turned to the Christian faith they would immediately
have identified themselves with Christian Byzantium. In either case
Meccan neutrality would have been lost, Mecca drawn into the conflict
between Persia and Byzantium on one side or the other, and her
privileged economic position overthrown.
The religious ideas of the Meccan period 215
From the content of his preaching in the early, Meccan, period
therefore, Muhammad appears as a man profoundly disturbed by the
irreligious quality of the contemporary life of Mecca; a man who fmds
this intolerable, and who feels himself constrained to appeal to men on
the basis of religious ideas already received - certainly in other places,
if not in their fullness in Arabia - ideas which had to be drawn together
and combined in a way that was relevant and meaningful for the
Arabian situation. He accepted, though not without the reluctance and
even fear characteristically felt by prophets, the task of speaking to men
of his day and his country, of the things of religion; that is of the
necessity to see their lives in other than a purely materialistic context.
The view that he was challenging was, as we have noted, one which
saw the course of human events as controlled entirely by wealth and
irresponsible individual power, a view characteristic of the merchant
princes in particular, but from them spreading into and corrupting
society as a whole. Over against this he believed that men should
acknowledge that there is a greater power who controls events and by
whom man is ultimately confronted and judged. His prophetic mission
was directed primarily against the unscrupulous and irresponsible
pursuers of wealth. These he seems to have believed had to be opposed
and resisted by every means possible because of the harm they were
doing. So far as the rest of Meccan society was concerned, their
acceptance of what he was urging, their acknowledgement of the power
of God as the real power, would in itself be a denial of the orrmi-
competence of wealth and personal privilege.
Individualism as such, as it had now emerged in seventh-century
Mecca, was not challenged by Muhammad. Nor was the possession of
wealth denounced. Individualism was accepted, but it was placed
firmly within a theocratic instead of a materialistic context. Each human
individual must at the last, Muhammad proclaimed, stand alone
before God to be judged entirely on the moral record of his life. In this
sense there is no religious tradition that is more individualistic than
Islam, for this element of belief persists to the present day. But
primarily it was to his own day and to the needs of his own generation
that Muhammad spoke in his Meccan preaching, re-expressing known
religious ideas in terms relevant to local conditions, and in this most
characteristically he is a prophet.
216 Religion and Civilisation

5.14 Muhammad, the statesman-prophet of Medina

The response to Muhammad's preaching in Mecca was, on the one
hand, the growth of a congregation of followers, the Muslims, i.e.
those who were 'surrendered' to God, and on the other the hardening
of the attitude of the mercantile monopolists. These latter not only
rejected Muhammad's idea that man's life must be seen within the
context of the divine rule of the universe, with the assertion that 'there
is nothing but this life of ours', but they also rejected the claim implicit
in such preaching - namely that Muhammad was a man of greater
insight than they, whose advice on the conduct of human affairs should
be listened to with respect. Their operations, they claimed, brought
them wealth and success, and that in itself was a guarantee of the
superiority of their attitude to life. There appears also to have been
some resistance to Muhammad from upholders of the worship of the
pagan deities of Mecca, and perhaps this was closely connected with the
resistance of the monopolists. In response to this opposition two new
emphases appeared in Muhammad's preaching, namely, that God will
vindicate his prophet, as he has always done, against the prophet's
opponents, and that pagan deities or idols can avail nothing, since
'there is no god but God'. This emphasis upon the unity of God be-
comes one of the two main assertions of Muslim belief, but it had not
at this time assumed its later well-known creedal form.
Although the opposition became serious, it did not deter other
Meccans from joining Muhammad, and for some years the prophet
enjoyed the firm protection which his uncle Abu Talib now afforded
him. But when both Abu Talib and Muhammad's wife and faithful
supporter Khadija died within the same year, things became more
difficult for the prophet. There are indications that these events
deepened his religious feelings, but on the other hand, the new head of
Abu Talib's clan withdrew support for Muhammad and the prophet
was eventually forced to leave Mecca. It was a dark period in the
prophet's life, but encouragement came in the form of an appeal from
the men of the neighbouring town of Medina, to the north of Mecca,
who were impressed by his sagacity, and who invited him to come and
help them with the affairs of their town. So in the year 622 Muhammad
and his followers in Mecca migrated to Medina, and there established
what was to be known as the new community of Islam, the umma. It
 Muhammad, the statesman-prophet ofMedina 217
is this year of the migration, or Hijra, 622 c.E., that marks the beginning
of the Muslim chronology and from which all subsequent dates in the
Muslim era are reckoned.
In Medina the situation which confronted Muhammad was one of
conflict between the two major Arab groups which he had been called
upon to deal with. His task was virtually the integration of Medinan
society (Watt, 1961; 59); there was also a considerable Jewish popula-
tion which might have come within the scope of his integrating work.
His qualifications for the task in the eyes of the Medinan Arabs lay in
his religious charisma, and in the wisdom, impartiality, and powers of
conciliation that he seemed to them to possess.
The basic feature in Muhammad's programme of action was the
formal establishment of the umma.

5.15 The Islamic theocracy

The principles governing the life of the new community were set out in
a document drawn up by Muhammad known as the Constitution of
Medina (Watt, 1956; Levy, 1957). In its own words it is 'a charter of
Muhammad the prophet (applicable) amongst the believers and the
Muslims of the Quraysh and of Yathrib (Medina), and amongst those
who follow them and attach themselves to them and fight along with
them. They are one umma [community] over against mankind.' What
had formerly not been given conscious expression was now made
explicit, namely that men were divided into two kinds, those who
accepted the prophethood of Muhammad and responded to his
message, shaping their lives according to the prophetic revelations
which he delivered from time to time, and those who did not. The
charter is largely concerned with the collective security which member-
ship of the Islamic umma affords to those who acknowledge the over-
lordship of God and the apostleship of Muhammad. The idea of an
'overlord' was one which was foreign to the Arabs, among whom
leaders emerged by virtue of their possession of a special measure of
courage or whatever other quality was regarded as the tribe's
characteristic par excellence; such men were leaders, rather than over-
lords. The fact that in the new umma political power was exercised by
the prophet meant, moreover, that there was no separation of the
religious and political realms. It was a political community whose
218 Religion and Civilisation
ruler derived his authority from his prestige as a prophet. It was thus
similar in character to the amphictyony in ancient Israel, the political
confederation whose centre was the Yahweh cultus and whose authori-
tative figures were men inspired by the spirit of Yahweh (1.40, 1.42).
In this case it was certainly the charismatic personality of Muhammad
which provided the cohesion.
An important aspect of the response of those who thus became
Muslims was the adoption of certain specifically Islamic practices,
namely the recitation of the simple formula 'There is no god but God,
Muhammad is His Apostle'; prayer at certain set times every day;
fasting; the contribution of money to a fund for the use of the com-
munity; and, later, pilgrimage to the shrine at Mecca. In this way the
special religious ideas (5.13) which had been combined in the preaching
of Muhammad were given regular outward expression in practical
ways that would have the dfect of strengthening an attitude of assent
to these ideas.
The extent to which Medinan society was thus integrated within the
life of the umma was, however, limited in one important direction:
that of the Jews. Contrary to Muhammad's hopes that the Jewish
groups in Medina would be included within the new unity of Medinan
society, they formed a dissident element. They did not accept
Muhammad's self-assessment as a prophet in the true line of Abraham,
Moses, and the prophets of Israel. From their own greater familiarity
with this tradition they pointed out the discrepancies between
Muhammad's revelations on the subject of the earlier prophets and
their own scriptures. This constituted another severe disappointment
and setback for the prophet, and his grappling with this challenge led
him to the view that such discrepancies must be due to the Jewish
scriptures having been tampered with or corrupted in some way. From
this point onwards, in the second year of the settlement in Medina, the
centre towards which Muslims turned in devotion was no longer
Jerusalem as hitherto, but the shrine of the Ka'ba in Mecca.
On the other hand the new community did extend to include other
Arabian tribes in the vicinity of Medina. Impressed by Muhammad's
achievements especially in the unification of Medina, and possibly to
a lesser degree by his charismatic qualities, they sought entry into the
umma and were admitted upon their acceptance of the duties oflslam
which were enumerated above. In this way the umma developed into
a federation of Arabian tribes, and again, this was very similar to the
The Islamic theocracy 219
pattern of the Yahwistic federation of tribes in ancient Israel (1.42).
As a further expression of Muhammad's opposition to the merchant
monopolists of Mecca, raids were organised from Medina upon the
Meccan trade caravans travelling in the vicinity. It is possible to see that
in doing this Muhammad was still prompted by his original conviction
that the Meccan merchant princes who were responsible for the ills of
the society of his day had to be opposed and resisted by every means
possible. That he should also at this time have made the shrine at
Mecca the focal point for Islamic devotions (its direction indicated by
a mark known as the qibla on the wall of the mosque from this time
on) indicates that his concern was with Arabian society. Formerly
Arabians had converged upon a pagan Mecca; this practice was now to
be Islamised, in that devotions expressive of a new Arabian religious
system were directed towards Arabia's ancient shrine, and also in that
actual pilgrimage to Mecca was to become a practice of the new
religion. The true centre for the monotheism that began with Abraham
was now to be found within Arabia.
It was during this Medinan period also that the vigorous pursuit of
Islamic goals by every means possible, including armed warfare, was
given formal recognition in the idea of jihad, a word which means
'striving' or 'effort'. In the course oflslamic history the term acquired
the connotation of 'holy war' and it is in this sense that it is better
known to non-Muslim readers. How it came to have this specialised
meaning can be seen by reference to pre-Islamic Arabia. The practice
of making raids (razzias) on neighbouring tribes was a common feature
of Arab life; apart from any economic gains these raids provided an
outlet for the energy of the Arab men. This practice was now harnessed
to the needs of the Islamic community; frequently the phrase used in
this connection in the Qur' an is 'striving in the way of God', that is, in
furtherance of the theocratic ideals oflslam. ('Islam' means submission;
to become Muslim meant the decision not to struggle against the power
of God and his community, and instead to exert one's effort in harmony
with them.)
Another aspect of this matter is that such tribal raids or attacks were
forbidden within the confederation of the Islamic umma, and among
the tribes which now began, if not to become fully part of the umma,
at least to enter into treaty relations with Muhammad, as its leader.
This meant that the old predilection for raiding needed a new outlet, so
far as Islamic Arabian tribes and their allies were concerned. This they
220 Religion and Civilisation
began to fmd by directing their efforts northwards and thus expanding
the range of the influence and authority of the theocratic confederation.
On one occasion during the later Medinan period Muhammad,
accompanied by a thousand men, is said to have made an expedition
to a place as far as four hundred miles north of Medina. In this way
more and more tribes came to submit to Muhammad, and became
nominally Islamic. The results of this nominal Islamisation were soon
to be seen at the prophet's death in 632 c.E. But two years before that
event one further notable victory was gained for the prophet which
demands mention here, and that was the submission of Mecca in 630
c.E. This made possible the reconstitution of the ancient shrine of the
Ka'ba as an Islamic shrine, to which in future pilgrimage was to be
made by Muslims, at first from all parts of Arabia, and later from all
the regions into which Islam spread.

5.16 The Jour 'rightly guided' caliphs of Medina (632-661)

European historians of religion are agreed that the death of Muhammad
in the year 632 C.E. constituted a major crisis for Islam. Often this is said
to be due to the fact that the Prophet had no surviving son, and had made
no arrangement for anyone to succeed him in the leadership of the
community, and what went with this, the command of the army. But
it was equally a crisis in another sense, that there was no one with the
same charismatic endowment as he, and this was possibly even more
ominous for the future of Islam. It was not to be expected that there
should be, of course, for it is the nature of charisma that apparently it
cannot be controlled or arranged to suit human convenience. However,
since it was the prophetic charisma of Muhammad that had been
decisive in winning first the Meccans and then the Medinans and after
that many other Arabian tribes to the new theocratic community, it
was the withdrawal of this element which now resulted in the im-
mediate defection of some of the tribes, and later on, in the next few
decades, various other rebellious or dissenting groups.
The question of leadership of the community was eventually, after
some difficulty, decided in favour of Abu Bakr, one of Muhammad's
earliest supporters in Mecca and his faithful friend throughout. As
'successor' or 'representative' of the prophet he was known as khalifa
(caliph), a title which for the next six centuries and a quarter was to be
 The four' rightly guided' caliphs ofMedina 221
given to the acknowledged leader of the Islamic community. His
caliphate lasted only two years, however, and the time between the
Prophet's death in 632 and his own death in 634 was spent largely in
seeking to regain the allegiance of Arab tribes who considered their
allegiance to the umma was at an end when Muhammad died. So well
did he succeed in putting down apostasy that at the end of his caliphate
Arabia was even more firmly united than ever before, at least in a
political sense. It might have seemed that the crisis had been successfully
overcome.
Moreover, during the rule of the next two caliphs, namely Umar for
ten years and then Uthman for twelve years, the Islamic state went
from strength to strength. During these twenty-two years the extent
of Islamic territory (dar-al-Islam) was increased in a spectacular
manner.
The expansion of the Islamic community beyond Arabia into the
richer lands of Egypt to the north-west, Syria to the north, and
Mesopotamia to the north-east can be explained in a number of ways.
Economic historians have tended to see the process as a further example
of population overspill from the Arabian peninsula of the kind that is a
characteristic feature of the history of the Near East. The dry and
infertile nature of most of Arabia severely limits the number of humans
it can support. By the time of the Arab caliphs Umar and Uthman two
other factors due to Islam had been seen to operate in a way that
exacerbated the problem: internecine conflict between tribes in the days
before the Islamic unification had reduced the number of the male
population from time to time, while the practice of female infanticide
by exposure had kept the balance fairly even. But Islam meant the
cessation of the former and the prohibition of the latter. An already
overstrained territory thus became further over-populated. Hence,
inevitably, the Arab breakthrough into the neighbouring more fertile
lands. On the other hand Christian writers with an antipathy towards
Islam have fastened on the fact that large numbers of the formerly
Christian population of Egypt and Syria became Muslims in this period,
and connecting this with the military methods of the Arabs have con-
cluded that the expansion of Islam is to be understood primarily as a
religious campaign carried out by means of the sword.
The truth probably lies somewhere between these two explanations.
As we have already noted, jihad, or 'striving in the way of God' was an
important motive in the northward thrust of the Islamic state.
222 Religion and Civilisation
Religious sanction was given to the well-established Arab practice of
raiding, and the Islamic unity of the tribes generated a massive force
and gave this force its only possible geographical direction. And under
the new umbrella oflslamic jihad there were no doubt many Bedouin
tribes, men whose motive was self-interest rather than the God-fearing
zeal which characterised the prophet and his companions (B. Thomas,
1937). Another fact, not always very clearly perceived or recognised
by Christian writers, is that the Christian population of Syria and
Egypt turned to Islam not by coercion but by choice (Arnold, 1913).
Islam is a missionary religion, and as Arnold pointed out in his classic
work, the Qur' an enjoins preaching and persuasion, and discounten-
ances force in the conversion of non-Muslims, and for this reason the
history of the expansion oflslam is in fact very much more a history of
missions than a history of violence or persecutions.
During the caliphate of Uthman (644-56 c.E.), however, internal
conflicts within the Islamic community reached serious proportions.
Uthman was of the Umayyad clan, one of the more powerful and
influential in pagan Mecca, and which in the early days had been among
the foremost of the Prophet's opponents. Later, in the days of his
success, they had become Muslims, still retaining their aristocratic and
influential position. Uthman appears to have been a rather insignificant
member of this clan and perhaps for this reason the more zealous
Muslims agreed to his election to the caliphate in the hope that he
would be an easier representative of this clan to deal with. But in fact
his rule was that of his Umayyad kinsmen; and the more religious
members of the community, especially Ali the Prophet's nephew and
son-in-law, soon found themselves in opposition to the irreligious and
worldly character ofUthman's caliphate. They looked for charismatic
leadership of the kind they had known in the Prophet's day, and Uthman
seems to have been totally lacking in prophetic charisma. Insurrection
led to Uthman' s murder in June 656 C.E. in his own house, while he
was at prayer. A detail of the incident was that his blood is said to have
flowed out over a copy of the Qur' an which was by his side - a
reminder to us of the fact that it was during his caliphate that the text
of the Qur'an (5.12) was, at his command, fixed by a committee of men
from the Quraysh tribe, and the new official recension sent from Medina
to all the main Islamic cities. (This at least is the orthodox view of the
finalising of the text, although it has been questioned in modem times
at some points.)
TheJour 'rightly guided' caliphs ofMedina 223
On the day ofUthman's murder Ali received an oath of allegiance
as caliph from his supporters in Medina. But Uthman's brother
Mu' awiya, who held the post of governor of Damascus, contested Ali's
claim to the caliphate; the struggle between them continued for the next
five years until in January 661 Ali was assassinated in the mosque at
Kufah in Iraq. Mu' awiya had already been acclaimed caliph by his
troops; he now became the uncontested leader of the Islamic state,
which from 661 onwards for the next ninety years was ruled from
Damascus. Thus began a new chapter in Islamic history, but before we
turn to that it is important to review briefly the development of
religious ideas in Islam since the Prophet's death.

5.17 Muslim religious ideas during the Medinan caliphate

At the death of Muhammad the dominant religious ideas in the
Islamic community were the omnipotence of God and the unity of
God. To put this another way, it was monotheism in one of its purest
and most consistent forms. Emphasis upon the unity of God was not so
marked in the earliest preaching at Mecca, according to Watt, but
developed very quickly in Muhammad's early controversy with the
alliance of merchant princes and religious conservatives - that is, the
upholders of the traditional Arabian polytheism. If, as Robertson Smith
argued (1927), monotheism among the Semites has usually emerged
from an association of religion and monarchy, it is not difficult to see
that in Medina Muhammad's role was perhaps nearer to that of a
monarch than was the role of the traditional Arabian tribal head. Watt
has suggested that one of the reasons that attracted the men of southern
Arabia to Muhammad was that in the south there was a strong tradition
of 'large political units with a high degree of civilisation' owing to the
occupation of this region by both Persians and Abyssinians, and that
associated with this was a tradition of the king as a superhuman, semi-
divine, charismatic figure; hence the men of the southern part of the
peninsula would readily have turned to this new charismatic leader,
Muhammad, bringing such conceptions with them into the Islamic
umma (Watt, 1961; 105f.). There is at least an interesting correlation
here between the increased degree of overlordship exercised by
Muhammad compared with the absence of the idea of overlordship
among the Bedouin, and the great emphasis which now came to be
224 Religion and Civilisation
placed on the doctrine of the unity of the divine being. Such correlation
is not, however, the only factor to be taken into account; at least
equally important is the positive rejection of polytheism by
Muhammad, both on account of its social consequences and because of
the common cause of the monopolists and the polytheists.
Allied to this emphasis upon the unity of God is the emergence of
'shirk' as the great sin, that is, the associating of any other being with
the single unique divine being. No sin was so serious as this; no virtue
was so great as the confession of God's unity. This was Islamic faith
par excellence.
A further important idea to emerge during the Medinan period was,
as we have seen (5.15) that of jihad, or holy striving. Such striving
came to mean vigorous prosecution of the task of extending the
dar-al-Islam, the area of society surrendered to God. This could be
both by preaching and controversy and also by military means. Next
to the confession of God's unity came the virtue of fighting for the
community of this faith.
These notions of what was the great sin and what were the great
virtues underlie a good deal of the development oflslam during the rule
of the first four, or 'rightly guided', caliphs who ruled from Medina.
For such emphasis led to a correspondingly more lenient attitude to
moral shortcomings which by comparison could be regarded as
'venial' sins (to use a Catholic term), compared with the 'mortal' sin of
shirk. Among the hadith, or traditions, is one related by Abu Dharr, a
Muslim who laid stress upon the importance of a wider range of moral
virtues as essential to Islam. Abu Dharr narrates the tradition as follows:
I came to the Prophet and fmmd him sleeping in a white garment. I
came a second time and found him still sleeping. The third time I found
him awake. When Isatdownnearhim, he said to me: Whosoever sayeth:
There is no God but God and dieth in this belief, will enter Paradise. I
replied: Even if he should have fornicated and stolen? He answered:
Even if he should have fornicated and stolen. [The question and answer
are repeated three times.] The fourth time Muhammad added: Even
though Abu Dharr should tum up his nose. (Wensinck, 1932; 46)
The tradition is intended to combat a puritan strain within early Islam
which before long manifested itself in one of the first sectarian move-
ments, that of the Kharijites.
The Kharijites were the 'Seceders' or Separatists. One of the first
groups thus to secede from the main body of the community 'went out'
 Muslim religious ideas during the Medinan caliphate 225
during the caliphate of Ali (656-61 C.E.). The roots of their discontent
lay in the preceding caliphate of Uthman, who was regarded with
disapproval for his unfairness, favouritism, and worldliness. These
Kharijites claimed that leadership of the Umma had fallen into the
hands of those among the Meccan aristocrats who in the early days had
opposed the Prophet. In the rapid expansion oflslam to neighbouring
lands under Umar and Uthman orthodoxy had come to mean primarily
faith, (sc., the confession of God's unity) and secondly jihad; with less
emphasis on works, that is of moral righteousness. According to the
Kharijites the true Umma was not to be found where such formalism
was the rule; the true Umma consisted of those whose conduct went
beyond the avoidance of the primary sin of polytheism. The conception
is in some ways similar to one emphasised at certain periods of
Christian history, under Oliver Cromwell for example-the community
of the saints. The basis of the Kharijite position is to be seen in a
tradition which lists not one mortal sin (shirk) but seven, namely:
polytheism, magic, unlawful manslaughter, spending the money of
orphans, usury, desertion from battle, and slandering chaste but
heedless women who are faithful (Wensinck, 1932; 39). Among the
majority, however, the emphasis remained upon the one mortal sin of
shirk.
A contributory factor in the emergence of the Kharijites may also
possibly be found in the growing sense of dissatisfaction and insecurity
felt by former nomadic tribesmen who had now become absorbed in a
vast authoritarian organisation, whose officials had, inevitably perhaps,
become preoccupied with fmancial and administrative affairs. If we
remind ourselves of the extent of the territory controlled by Islam at
this time - most of Egypt, Syria and Iraq, as well as Arabia - it will be
realised that such a feeling would be by no means unlikely.
For these reasons, then, an extreme puritan strain begins to show
itself towards the end of the period of the Medinan caliphate, a strain
which continues to be seen at various times in the subsequent history of
Islam. It is one of two opposite tendencies within the Islamic world,
namely emphasis upon the charismatic community on the one hand, and
on the other emphasis upon the charismatic leader (Watt, 1960). The
tendency to emphasise the importance of the charismatic leader is
represented principally by the Shi'ites. For them charismatic leadership
of the Islamic community was found only in Muhammad, in his
surviving male relative Ali, and after the murder of Ali, in his descen-
226 Religion and Civilisation
dants. That is to say they rejected the claim to the caliphate made by
Mu'awiya and his Umayyad descendants. The Shi'ites' high valuation
of the charisma of the Prophet and of Ali may possibly have been to
some extent due to their having been predominantly South Arabian in
origin (Watt, 1961; 105£), for in that region, as we have seen, the
conception of the superhuman, semi-divine king was fairly well
established. Whereas the Kharijites with their emphasis on the charis-
matic community distrusted the rule of the individual, the Shi'ites took
the view that only the inspired leader could safely be entrusted with the
guidance of the community. It will be noticed, however, that theirs
was a view of charisma as something hereditary; the Prophet, in this
understanding of the matter, is the founder of a charismatic dynasty, a
conception which lies very close to Kingship. Associated with this is
the Shi'ite idea of the infallibility of Ali's leadership; he had 'the guid-
ance ofheaven'; this infallibility was attributed by the Shi'ites to Ali's
descendants, the Imams.

5.18 Islam under the Umayyad caliphs (661-750)

With the seizure of power by Mu' awiya, governor of Damascus, on
the assassination of Ali in 661, the centre of activity of the Islamic state
now shifts to Damascus. Islam was already developing that dual aspect
which has characterised so much of its subsequent history. There is, on
the one hand, the religious factor in Islam. This has its roots in the
prophetic mission of Muhammad at Mecca (5.13), the recalling of men
to a dimension in human life other than that to be found in immediate
material interests and concerns. And there is, on the other hand, the
political factor in Islam, which has its roots in the reorganisation of
Medinan society by Muhammad and the creation of a new super-tribe
as the context in which Muslim religious life and practice were to be set
(5.15). Inevitably this creation by Muhammad of a political reality, the
Islamic state, attracted those whose principal interest lay in the
political power of this increasingly strong and increasingly pan-
Arabian community. In any society religious belief and practice will
inevitably tend to influence and be influenced by the economic and
political structure of that society. But here we have a case in which the
two are deliberately brought into conscious relationship with each other:
a religious system which is internationally organised as a political
 Islam under the Umayyad caliphs 227
entity, a state. It is this dual aspect oflslam that has to be borne in mind
when one studies its history. For in this case, a marriage had been
arranged between religion and politics; and fairly soon the two partners
began to show signs of disagreement.
The Umayyads ruled from Damascus the Islamic empire, an empire
then consisting of Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and much of Persia, but
it was not a case of political power in Damascus in conflict with
religious interests in Medina and Mecca. Rather, the two elements,
religious and political, were present throughout the empire. In Arabia
just as much as in Damascus there were Arabs who had become
Muslims out oflargely political or secular considerations, and what the
more pious Muslims considered worldliness was to be found just as
easily in Medina as in Damascus. Under the Umayyads Arabs every-
where fell in with the hedonism of the caliphs; the development of
Arab love poetry celebrating the joys of flirtation was a notable feature
of the caliphate of Abdal Malik (685-705 C.E.); and even drinking
songs emerged during the last decade ofUmayyad rule- an indication
that the Prophet's prohibition of the drinking of wine was largely
disregarded, especially in Iraq. On the other hand, there were the
faithful, whether Arabs or non-Arabs, who had been attracted to
Islam for religious reasons, those who had turned to this sytem of belief
and practice from paganism or from a superficial or formal adherence
to Christianity or Zoroastrianism or even Judaism. With the kind of
protests that the faithful raised we shall be concerned later (5.19, 6.36).
Some eleven Umayyad caliphs ruled from Damascus and among
these the most important reigns are those of Mu'awiya (661-80 C.E.),
Abdal Malik (685-705 C.E.) and Walid I (705-15 C.E.). It is proper to
peak of their 'reigns' for they were in all but name autocratic kings from
Abdal Malik onwards. During the caliphate ofWalid I Islamic political
control was extended in the West to include most of Spain, and in the
East to the area of north-west India known as Sind.
In the case of Spain, the crossing of the Muslim Arab army from the
north coast of Mrica in 711 C.E. under a general named Tariq and their
victorious landing at the Rock (which was thereupon named Jabal
Tariq, hence Gibraltar), was seen in religious terms as a fulfilment of
the Muslim duty of jihad - vigorous striving on behalf of God and
Islam. The Muslim occupation of Spain was very rapid and was
largely complete by 714 C.E., it was followed by the accession to
Islam of large numbers of the population of Spain, both during these
L.H.R.
228 Religion and Civilisation
and the succeeding years. Those who became Muslims did not do so,
however, out of fear or threat of violence. There was a considerable
Jewish population who had been subjected to severe discrimination and
disability under Christian rule; there were many Spaniards whose
adherence to Christianity was, at the most, formal; and there were not
a few slaves - brought to Spain by a flourishing trade in captives taken
in wars elsewhere in Europe - whose condition was, to say the least,
not too happy. The Jews openly co-operated with the advancing
Muslim armies; some embraced Islam, as did numbers of the formal
Christians and slaves; while some non-Muslims became known as
'near-Arabs' or Mozarabs, that is to say, they continued to adhere to
their former faith, which they were allowed to practise, while be-
coming loyal subjects of the Muslim ruler. Forced conversion to Islam
or persecution of non-Muslims is not a feature of the Arabs' occupation
of Spain, and in T. W. Arnold's view 'it was probably in a great
measure their tolerant attitude towards the Christian religion that
facilitated their rapid acquisition of the country' (Arnold, 1913; 136).
The entry of Islam into the Indian subcontinent was rich in con-
sequences which have continued down to the most recent times, and
are seen, for example, in the partition of India and the creation of
Pakistan in 1947. In the case of India Islam entered sometimes peace-
fully, sometimes violently: five important phases can be distinguished:
1. In the first Islamic centurythesettlementofMuslimArab traders
in the coastal regions of South India
2. The campaign in Sind under Muhammad ibn Qasim in the
eighth century C.E.
3. The violent invasion under Muhammad of Ghazni at the
beginning of the eleventh century
4. The missionary work of the Sufis, spread over a fairly long period
5. The invasion by Muslim Turks which resulted in the setting up
of the Mughal empire in the early sixteenth century.
In all of these cases except the first Islam entered by land routes via
the north-western region of India. The first two of these phases come
within the period of the Umayyad caliphate, and in these two in-
stances the bearers oflslam were Arabs.
Before the time of Muhammad Arabs had traded with the countries
of the East, notably India :md China, to bring to South Arabia for
transhipment overland the spices, gems and silk which were highly
Islam under the Umayyad caliphs 229
valued in the Mediterranean world. In the course of their trading
activities the Arabs formed settlements on the coasts of South India. One
reason for this was that timber for shipbuilding was scarce in Arabia
whereas a plentiful supply was to be had from the Indian tropical
forests. Thus at the time Arabia became Muslim there were already
established natural bridgeheads in South India for the entry of Islam.
Arabs now came as Muslims. Their settlements constituted only a
small minority of the population and the new religion seemed to offer
no threat to a resurgent Brahmanism which was now making inroads
into South Indian Buddhism and Jainism. Moreover, the Arabs were
seen to be making a contribution to the prosperity of the land, and they
were consequently treated with considerable honour. During the first
three centuries of the Islamic era there was a steady growth of the
Arab settlements, a growth which Muslim historians have seen to be a
result of the 'quickening of the constructive spirit among the Arabs
after their conversion to Islam' (Qureshi, 1962; 12). They now built
mosques in their settlements and were by the Hindu rulers allowed the
right to manage their own civil and personal legal affairs. They were
allowed also to take wives from among the local high-caste Nair
women, and in this way the Muslim population grew, and there
gradually came into being the strongly established Muslim community
of Malabar.
Meanwhile the Arabs had experienced a different kind of encounter
with Hindus in north India. On the whole Hindus had an aversion to
travelling to foreign countries because of the caste taboos and the ritual
impurity such travel incurred, and this is why it was the Arabs who
carried on the sea trade between India and Arabia. In the north, in the
region of the lower Indus valley known as Sind, there appears to have
been among the Hindus less disinclination to seafaring, at least to the
extent that some of the men of Sind had taken to piracy. Hence it
came about that when some Arab vessels sailing westwards from
Ceylon, carrying gifts from the king of Ceylon to the Arab viceroy of
the eastern Umayyad empire, and carrying also the widows and
families of some Arab mariners who had died in Ceylon, were blown
off course towards the coast of Sind, they fell into the hands of some of
these Indian pirates who plundered the gifts and carried off the women
and children. The caliph W alid I was persuaded to take strong action
against the Hindu raja of Sind, who had refused to reply to a protest
from the Arab viceroy. A special expedition of Arab troops was sent
230 Religion and Civilisation
under the command of the youthful and extremely able young general,
Muhammad ibn Qasim. In spite of strong resistance the well-fortified
town ofDebul fell to the Arabs in 711, and then, after a long siege
followed by a vigorous battle, the capital of Sind, Brahmanabad, in
712 c.E. The raja was killed, Muhammad ibn Qasim married the rani,
the dead king's widow, and himself became the ruler of lower Sind.
After a while he turned his attention to upper Sind, and in 713 extended
his rule there, and over part of the Punjab. The raja of Kashmir became
alarmed and appealed for help to the emperor of China. No help came
from that quarter, but in 715 the caliph Walid I died, and was succeeded
by Sulaiman, a bitter enemy of Muhammad ibn Qasim's family. The
latter was therefore recalled, and imprisoned in Iraq; there he died, and
this brought to a halt for a while the Muslim invasion of India.
The success of ibn Qasim was due partly to his spirited generalship
and the ability and enthusiasm ofhis troops, and partly to his considerate
treatment of the local population which was still predominantly
Buddhist, and who welcomed relief from the rule of a Hindu raja.
Qasim did not discriminate between Hindus and Buddhists, and learn-
ing that they had their own sacred scriptures is said to have treated
them as dhimmis or 'protected peoples', that is, as 'people of a book',
just as Jews and Christians had been treated in other parts of the empire.
It is possible to see in Muhammad ibn Qasim a representative of Islam
at its best during the Umayyad period; vigorous, resourceful, hardy,
possibly aggressive, but also tolerant of the religious attitudes of other
worshippers of God. However, it is also possible that his tolerance of
Buddhist and Hindu practices, which appeared to later Muslim
invaders as idolatrous, may have been due to religious indifference.
This certainly would be more in line with the prevailing attitude of the
Umayyad rulers. We know that the caliph Abdal Malik had trouble
with some of the more pious Muslims of Medina; his son W alid I whom
ibn Qasim served was a man of similar disposition. Subsequent phases
of the Muslim conquest of India belong to a later period and will be
dealt with in Chapter six (6.38).

5.19 Muslim religious ideas during the Umayyad period (661-750)

The seizure of power by the Umayyads had a notable effect in the
realm of Muslim religious ideas, namely the questioning of the ortho-
Muslim religious ideas during the Umayyad period 231
dox doctrine of the predestination of good and evil by God. The
references in the Qur' an upon which this doctrine is built, when they
are set out in full and with nothing that is relevant ignored, leave no
doubt that the Qur' an is overwhelmingly in favour of the idea that all
that happens in the world, whether it appears to man to be good or
evil, is the direct activity of God (Sweetman, 1947; 157ff.). A
characteristic saying occurring in a number of suras is: 'God leads
astray whom He pleases and guides whom He pleases.' A. Jeffery
comments that Muhammad seems in the course of his prophetic
mission to have expressed more and more definitely this doctrine of
predetermination of all things by God (Jeffery, 1958). There is an
irresistible logic in this orthodox Islamic doctrine, granted the premise:
that God is all-dominant power. Clearly God cannot be subject to the
action of any other being, and nothing can be incumbent upon him
(Sweetman, 1947; 167). As a modern Muslim writer has put it, what-
ever man does God is doing; and, moreover, God's ordering of events
is not based on benevolence or goodwill (Sweetman, 1947;
168).
Such a doctrine was very congenial to the Umayyad caliphs at
Damascus. Mu' awiya, the first of these Umayyads, who had resisted
and overthrown Ali, was far from being a man of pious life, nor
apparently did he care very much one way or the other about ortho-
doxy, but he ruled the community of God. What could the faithful say in
criticism, for according to orthodox doctrine he could only hold such
a position by the will of God?
However, Muslim opposition to the Umayyads did arise: not in
Mecca, certainly, nor in Medina, still less in Damascus, but in Basra, an
Islamic military town on the lower Euphrates. This opposition took
the form of a questioning of the orthodox doctrine of divine pre-
destination and the asserting of the possibility of human free-will.
According to traditions quoted by W ensinck discussions on human
freedom of action were initiated by a man named Ma'bad who had
discussed these matters with a Christian from Mesopotamia who had
become a Muslim, and who later returned to Christianity. But it was
not enough to assent to the possibility ofhuman free-will; it had to be
justified from the Qur' an. Recourse to the Qur' an showed that there were
some passages which were capable of being interpreted in a sense that
allowed man some real freedom of action and choice (Watt, 1948; 14).
Man, it was asserted, on the basis of such passages as could be collected,
232 Religion and Civilisation
had the power (qadar) of free action. Those who taught this view came
to be known as Qadarites.
To the majority of the orthodox, however, such views were
anathema. To say that men. had power to act freely was tantamount to
ascribing to men a power to initiate, to create: it was virtually to give
man a place alongside the Creator himself, and this was shirk, the first
(and, for many, the only) deadly sin. Yet the Qadarites maintained
their view, against great odds; in so doing they initiated one of the most
important theological controversies in Islam; and they suffered for
their views. Ma'bad, according to one report, was killed by order of
the caliph, Abdal Malik, in 705 C.E. Nevertheless, the controversy
went on, and we shall return to it in a later chapter (6.35).

5.2 THE EXPANSION OF BUDDHISM (6oo-11oo c.E.)

5.20 Buddhism in China, 600-1000

During the century and a half from 600 to 750 c.E., the period during
which Islam arose in Arabia and was carried by Arab armies, colonisers
and missionaries to an area extending from Spain to India, Buddhism
was in decline in the Indian subcontinent, but was still increasing in
influence in China and was establishing itself in Japan. It is significant
that a good deal of useful information about the condition of Buddhism
in India during this period is derived from the accounts of their travels
given by Chinese Buddhist pilgrims such as Hsuan-tsang and I-Tsing
(5.25).
In China Buddhism had, by about 600 C.E., been known for some
five centuries (4.36). In 618 C.E. began one of the most notable
Chinese dynasties, the T' ang, which lasted until 907 c.E. In terms of art,
literature and intellectual activity it was one of the great periods in
China's history. The capital of the empire, Ch'ang-an (Sian), had a very
cosmopolitan character, and is said to have been probably the most
civilised city in the world at that time. It was also a time of continued
growth and prosperity for Buddhism, both monastic and lay, and this
in spite of two outstanding disadvantages from which Buddhism
suffered in China: first, the strongly Confucian tradition of China's
rulers, which from time to time resulted in their active hostility towards
Buddhism in China 233
this foreign religion from India; and second, the conflict between the
traditional Chinese social pattern with its emphasis on the family on the
one hand, and the Buddhist celibate and economically non-productive
monastic life on the other. As far as China's rulers were concerned, how-
ever, Buddhism commended itselfto them by its encouragement ofpeace
among their subjects; this was a valuable adjunct to effective govern-
ment. As far as the peasants and artisans were concerned, it offered
them comfort and hope within a convincing and coherent view of
human life and the human situation. Buddhism was, moreover, able
to accommodate itself to indigenous Chinese religious customs to some
extent. In the latter half of the eighth century, for example, Buddhist
monks began to give official recognition to the ceremonies in honour
of the dead {sometimes referred to as the Chinese 'All Souls' Day')
which remained a feature of popular Chinese religion up to modern
times. On the other hand, as more and more of the Chinese people
turned to Buddhism and sought refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma
and the Sangha, so the Buddhist monasteries became more numerous,
with the eventual result that more and more men and women were
drawn into these places of contemplation and study to become monks
and nuns, and more and more of China's resources were devoted to
building and extending the monasteries and temples, and making them
more elaborate and ornate.
The process brought its nemesis in the form of government
disapproval of the way things were going. This became severest in the
middle of the ninth century C.E. under the emperor Wu Tsung
{841-7). The Muslim Arabs, by their conquest of western Turkestan
in the middle of the eighth century, had cut off China's contact with
western and southern Asia. Moreover, the decline of Buddhism's
vitality in India meant that there was now less impetus for the flow of
Buddhist scholars and ideas from India. Added to these things there
was rebellion within China, led by An Lu-Shan; this had weakened
central control in the T' ang empire and led to the growth of provincial
centres of power. China became turned in upon herself and 'the
cosmopolitanism of the great days of the dynasty gave way to a
cultural defensiveness which occasionally turned into xenophobia'
{Wright, 1959; 83). Hence it was that at the instigation of Taoist
priests the emperor Wu Tsung launched campaigns against both
Manichaeism in 843 and Buddhism in 845. His hostility to Buddhism
as a 'foreign superstition' was proclaimed in an edict which spoke of
 234 Religion and Civilisation
the dangers to the country of the vast numbers of monks and nuns
needing economic support; it spoke also of the innumerable crowds of
lay people who helped to perpetuate this state of affairs as they thronged
the great temples which had absorbed so much of the national re-
sources. Four thousand of the larger temples and forty thousand
smaller rural temples were to be demolished, and a quarter of a million
monks and nuns were to be returned to secular occupations. The figures
may be exaggerated but they are an indication of the wide support
Buddhism was receiving from the Chinese people, and of the extent to
which it had been welcomed by them. Wu Tsung himself, however,
was of Taoist inclination, and like other Chinese emperors sought to
perpetuate his rule by drinking the Taoist elixir of immortality (2.47).
It appears, as in most other cases, to have had a deleterious effect upon
his health, and shortly after the promulgation of his edict he lost the
power of speech and was deposed in favour of his uncle Hsuan Tsung,
who immediately reversed the anti-Buddhist enactment and punished
the Taoist priests who had instigated the persecution, but not before
thousands of monasteries and temples had been destroyed. The new
emperor did, however, take measures to control the numbers of men
and women entering the Buddhist Sangha. No further large-scale
persecution of Buddhism took place during the remainder of the period
of the T' ang dynasty. Just over a century later, in 960 c.E., as a result of
the increasingly ineffective rule of its later emperors, the dynasty
collapsed and the Chinese empire fell into disorder.
From 960, however, the fortunes of the empire improved once
again under the Sung dynasty which was to last for just over three
centuries, until the growing strength of the Mongols brought it to an
end in 1280 with the establishment by Kublai Khan of Mongol rule.
The Sung dynasty is notable for further tributes to the prestige of
Buddhism; particularly for instance the printing in 972 c.E. by the
newly developed technique of printing blocks, of the Buddhist
scriptures, the Tripitaka, to which the first Sung emperor, Tai Tsu,
himself contributed a foreword; and the building by the second Sung
emperor at very great expense, of a magnificent Buddhist stupa, 360
feet in height, in his capital city. During the Sung dynasty, moreover,
the Ch' an school of Buddhism, a peculiarly Chinese development,
succeeded in making its way and becoming accepted among the upper
classes of Chinese society. This is another indication of the ability of
Buddhism to establish itself within Chinese culture, and to adapt itself
 Buddhism in China 235
to Chinese conditions. However, before a brief account of the Ch' an
system is given, it will be convenient to note two other character-
istically Chinese developments in Buddhism under the T' ang dynasty.
Within any given society in which it becomes influential Buddhism
tends to manifest itself in two main forms, monastic and lay. In the
period under review Buddhism developed its characteristically Chinese
variants in both the monastic sphere, in the Vinaya school, and in the
lay sphere, in Amida or Pure Land Buddhism, and fmally in a form
which in a sense is a peculiarly Chinese attempt to abolish the distinc-
tion between monastic and lay, in the Ch' an system. We shall deal with
each of these in turn.

5.21 The Vinaya school

In the purely monastic sphere the Lii-tsung school, founded by Tao
Hsiian (595-667 C.E.), laid great emphasis upon the Vinaya (3.21), the
canonical collection of rules governing the life of the Sangha. Against
a growing laxity in monastic life, Tao Hsiian urged a more faithful
adherence to ascetic discipline and morality as the essential condition
for the Buddhist life. In Indian Buddhism there was no Vinaya school
as such, although this kind of emphasis on the importance of monastic
morality and discipline is very characteristic of the Theravada. The
fact that in China such an emphasis emerged as a special school
indicates how liberal and possibly how lax Buddhist monastic life in
China had become. Whether monastic laxity was due to the swollen
size of the Buddhist Sangha by this time, or whether the large numbers
who entered the monasteries were a result of lowered standards of
discipline and morality it would be difficult to decide. The existence of
the Lii-tsung, virtually as a protest movement, is at any rate an indica-
tion there was some correlation between hypertrophy of the Sangha
and laxity of discipline. The Sangha is essential to Buddhism, and
essential to the Sangha is ascetic discipline. It is difficult to see that the
emphasis of the Lii-tsung was anything other than wholly proper,
except in so far as excessive emphasis upon discipline might detract
from that other equally essential feature of the Sangha's life, namely,
meditation. Eliot sees some evidence that Tao Hsiian was not much
inclined to the mystical life but was a man of practical temperament
for whom asceticism was by itself a sufficient concern (Eliot, 1921; iii,
12 L.H.R.
236 Religion and Civilisation
316). But there was a connection, which we shall note later (5.23),
between the Lii-tsung and the Ch' an with its emphasis on inward
enlightenment, and this also may be significant.

5.22 The Pure Land school

In the purely lay sphere, on the other hand, the proper emphasis for a
Buddhist must be on achieving a good rebirth hereafter. In early
Buddhism this meant rebirth of the kind that would make possible a
life of contemplation as a monk and so, ultimately, lead to nirvana. But
in Chinese Buddhism a more immediate religious goal appears -
rebirth in Paradise, or more precisely in one of several possible
paradises. Common to most forms of lay Buddhism is the idea of
rebirth in the world of the coming Buddha (3.29), Meitreya, a kind
of messianic age. But added to this in China were two yet more immed-
iate paradises- those of the bodhisattvas (3.29) known as Akshobhya
and Amitabha (or Amida). The second of these hopes became very
widespread among lay Buddhists in China during the T'ang dynasty.
The idea of a paradise or 'Pure Land' to which the bodhisattva can
bring men at death is to be found in China before the T'ang period;
it was, for example, taught by Hui-yiian in the fourth century: its
emergence as the doctrine of a school, however, is usually connected
with a man named Tao-ch' o (562-645 c.E.). Even more prominent a
'patriarch' of this school was Shan-tao (613-81 C.E.). There is a striking
similarity between the Islamic idea of the bridge a hairsbreadth wide
over the gulf of Hell across which men must pass in the Last Day and
which only believers will traverse successfully, and the idea taught by
Shan-tao (who was born at about the time Muhammad began his
preaching in Mecca) that there is a 'White Way' or bridge which leads
to the Pure Land, or Paradise, over which the faithful will be guided by
Amida. The school of Shan-tao is sometimes spoken of as the school of
the 'Short Cut', that is, the short cut to Paradise. So far as the lay
Buddhist was concerned it was required of him only that he should
have faith in Amida and call upon Amida by name.
What was being affirmed was the power of a supremely holy and
enlightened being (a bodhisattva) to create by virtue of his own merit
and holiness a realm, or an environment, or a 'field' of blessedness - a
doctrine which was wholly characteristic of the Mahayana. In addition
The Pure Land school 237
it was now being afftrmed that the bodhisattva's merit was such that
he was able to introduce into this realm of blessedness all who had
faith in him. In other words, what had developed in China was a
doctrine of salvation by heavenly grace, through faith in Amida.
It is not necessary to suppose that this doctrine of the heavenly
saviour must have been borrowed from Christianity. True, Nestorians
were to be found in China early in the seventh century, and they
received a certain degree of patronage from some of the T' ang
emperors. But an account of the doctrines of the Nestorian church
given in the inscription dating from 781 C.E. found at Hsian-fu, while
it deals with the life of Christ, omits all reference to the crucifixion and
explains the Christian symbol, the cross, as a representation of the four
cardinal points of the created world. Eliot suggests that the Christian
doctrine of the atonement was probably felt to be unacceptable in
Buddhist China, and was for that reason suppressed by the Nestorians
(Eliot, 1935; 149).
Certainly, however, the doctrine of salvation by faith in Amida,
once formulated in China, appealed very strongly, especially to the
poor and unsophisticated, among whom it met with widespread
acceptance. It was never even in the early days of its development
wholly confmed to one sect, and after the ninth century c.E. Amidism
ceased to be a separate school and became an all-pervasive mood in the
popular lay Buddhism of China, and subsequently ofJapan.

5.23 The Ch' an school

The Ch' an (Japanese, Zen) school of Buddhism is in Chinese tradition
regarded as having been founded by an Indian named Bodhidharma
who arrived in Canton about the year 520 c.E. There is little evidence
about Bodhidharma outside the Chinese sources, and there is much in
these that appears to be legendary. There seems to be no certainty that
his teaching was Buddhist; it may well have been Indian Vedantist,
from what accounts there are of it. Certainly the period of the most
characteristic and vigorous development of the Ch' an was during the
T' ang dynasty. As it then developed this school showed itself to be a
very Chinese form of Buddhism, though not necessarily any the less
Buddhist on that account.
Its peculiarly Chinese character is revealed in several ways. There was
238 Religion and Civilisation
a feeling ofimpatience with the elaborate Indian system of scholasticism
which required a Buddhist monk to spend years and years poring over
scriptural texts, commentaries and sub-commentaries, and impatience
also with the equally elaborate systematisation of the long slow
processes of meditation, possibly (it was assumed) through a succession
of rebirths. Over against this there developed a conviction that en-
lightenment could be gained here and now in this life, by concentrating
on one or two Sutras at the most, and giving even these a place
subordinate to the essential activity, namely the earnest seeking of
enlightenment. The word used for this in Indian Buddhism is bodhi;
literally, the state ofbeing 'awakened'. The Chinese word used by the
Ch'an School was wu, that is, awareness (in Japanese, Satori). It was
with this kind of emphasis that Ch'an developed from the time of
Hui-neng (638-713 C.E.), who is virtually the patriarch of this school,
although it was claimed that he received the Ch' an method by an
esoteric transmission 'from mind to mind' going back to the Buddha
Shakyamuni himsel£
An even more characteristically Chinese aspect of Ch' an was
introduced by Po-chang (720-814 c.E.). In reaction to the overgrown
system of scholasticism of the monasteries, he taught that the Buddhist
monk should engage in some economically useful occupation; his
slogan was: 'a day without work is a day without food'. This was
possible if the monk was not tied to the study of scripture and the long
routine of monastic meditation and ifhe could instead concentrate on a
single sutra so far as the Buddha-word was concerned, and on a form of
mental discipline which left his hands free to work. The mental
discipline was provided by the use of the koan - a statement or
proposition presented to the aspirant for enlightenment by his Ch' an
master, usually a statement of the kind which affronted the reason. In
wrestling with this, and possibly with further such koans (which would
progressively undermine the assumptions of worldly 'commonsense')
the aspirant would suddenly, so it was held, experience illumination.
Meanwhile his feet and hands could be at work, ploughing any
number offields. The possibility of the monk thus becoming economic-
ally productive once more represents no less characteristically Chinese
an interest than does the impatience with the over-elaborate systematisa-
tion of monastic thought.
Great importance still attached, however, to the moral discipline
which was part of the necessary preparation for enlightenment, and it is
 The Ch' an school 239
interesting to note that during the earlier period of the development of
Ch'an, its monks were to be found in the monasteries of the Lii-tsung,
the Vinaya-emphasising school (5.21). On the other hand Ch'an
stands in contrast to the Pure Land school in two ways. First, it is
much more clearly dependent on the master-pupil relationship, and in
this sense more obviously a religious order, with an important place for
the Sangha, whereas the Pure Land school is a form of devotion open
to all without the necessity for a spiritual master; second, in the Ch'an
system much greater emphasis is laid upon the spiritual effort of the
aspirant after enlightenment,whereas the Pure Land makes salvation
possible on what looks like easier terms - simply the repetition of the
name of Amida, and the cultivation of an attitude of devotion.

5.24 Buddhism in Japan, 600-800

Buddhism arrived in Japan about the middle of the sixth century C.E.
from Korea. Prince Shotoku (574-621) who became the ruler of Japan
in 593 c.E. and reigned for nearly thirty years, was the son of Buddhist
parents, and is remembered not only for his statesmanship but also for
his energetic furtherance of Buddhist ideals and policies. Anesaki (1963)
describes him as 'the founder of Japanese civilisation as well as of a
united Japanese nation'. One of his first acts as a ruler was to proclaim
Buddhism the state religion, and to found a great Buddhist institution
consisting of a religious centre, an orphanage and old people's home,
a hospital, and a dispensary. This was on the west coast, on the shore of
the inland sea which separates Japan from the Asian continent; it was
thus conveniently situated for the reception of Buddhist immigrants
and monks from Korea and China, and for the despatch of Japanese
monks and pilgrims to the continent, where they went to study and to
acquire and bring back to Japan the civilised arts and sciences of
Buddhist China.
Buddhism in Japan during the reign of Shotoku was primarily a
religion of the aristocracy. The Lotus Sutra provided its scriptural basis
and motivation, and it was characterised by a strong social conscious-
ness, which received expression in the kind of welfare institution we
have just mentioned. The Buddhist Order became virtually a state
church, with the ruler protecting, encouraging and supporting the
work of the monks, and the monks willingly giving their allegiance.
240 Religion and Civilisation
and support to the ruler. The actions and attitudes of Shotoku were
those of the sincere Buddhist ruler; for instance, he was criticised for
not taking revenge upon the murderers of his uncle (as the old tribal
morality of Japan would have required); for him such action would
only be to perpetuate evil karma, and would remedy nothing.
In the early eighth century a new capital, Nara, was established, and
it is as 'the Nara period' that the years from 710-84 C.E. are known.
During this time Buddhism in Japan began to develop a more popular
character, alongside the official, aristocratic state church. This took two
main forms: (1) the Pure Land cult of devotion to Amida and reliance
upon his saving grace was gradually introduced from China, where it
had by this time been flourishing for about a century (5.22); and
(2) from about 750 onwards, a gradual growth in numbers of lay
Buddhist ascetics known as the Ubasoku-zenji, that is, the upasaka-
(or layman-) ascetics. These were men often of humble social origin
who by private ascetic discipline aimed at achieving superhuman
powers. Later on they came to be known as hijiri, or 'holy-men' (Hori,
1958).
Alongside these developments during the latter part of the Nara
period one more must be mentioned: the gradual adaptation of the
indigenous tribal religion ofJapan to Buddhist forms and names. Until
the introduction of Buddhism there was no need for a special designation
for the peculiarly Japanese corpus of beliefs, myths and ritual practices,
but now, in order to distinguish it from the Buddhist way, it came to
be known as 'the way of the kami'. The kami were, as we have seen
(2.48), the gods; or more exactly the exalted or superior beings, or
heavenly beings. The Chinese character for 'heavenly beings' was shin,
and for 'way' tao, and so the native Japanese religion became known as
Shin-to. (It is tautologous to add the ending 'ism' although it is not
uncommon among Western writers.) Among the mass of the Japanese
people this system of belief and practice retained its hold in spite of the
introduction of Buddhism, and indeed it has persisted right up to
modem times. The reason why it survived the period of Buddhist
ascendancy was that its guardians and officials, the priests of the local
shrines, did not resist the Buddhist invasion, but bowed to it, came to
terms with it, agreed with it, adopted its names and even some of its
ideas - and thus avoided open conflict. In all this Shinto was aided, of
course, by the tolerant attitudes of Buddhists. Indeed, the process may
even be seen as an example, of which there are others, notably in
Buddhism in Japan 241
South-East Asia (6.45; 6.46) and in the Tantra (5.26), of the Buddhist
readiness to admit pre-Buddhist elements into Buddhist ideas and
attitudes. This process had certainly begun in the Nara period; it was in
the next, the Heian period, to be dealt with later (5.28), that it is most
clearly recognisable.

5.25 Buddhism in India, 600-1100

Some of the most important sources ofinformation about the condition
of Buddhism in India during this period are the accounts provided by
Chinese Buddhist monk-pilgrims of their travels in India, notably those
ofHsuan-tsang and I-Tsing.
These, and many other Chinese monks like them, made the long and
hazardous journey from China westwards through the mountainous
regions of central Asia and thence into India by the north-western
passes into Kashmir and the Punjab. Some made the long sea voyage
from China southwards, round Malaya to the east coast of India. They
went to what was for them the Holy Land, in search of deeper know-
ledge of Buddhist truth and of Buddhist texts. Hsuan-tsang left China
about 629 C.E., and returned there in 645 after having travelled round
most of the Indian subcontinent. I-Tsing was in India from about 671
to 695 C.E. (An earlier pilgrim-monk, whose record of his travels was
somewhat briefer, was Fa-hsien, who was in India and Ceylon from
399 to 414 C.E.) I-Tsing in the epilogue to his account tells of the
difficulties of the expedition: 'It is an extremely difficult and perilous
undertaking . . . only with the help of elephants can the desert be
crossed. Nothing can be seen there except the sun.... Many days I have
passed without food and even without a drop of water.... When I left
China I had fifty companions with me, but when I reached the Western
Country [India] only two or three were left' (Dutt, 1962, 311f.).
India itself, however, both Hsuan-tsang and I-Tsing found to be a
pleasant and prosperous country. Their accounts are particularly
valuable for the information they give us concerning the number and
size of Buddhist monasteries in India in the seventh century. This is one
of the reasons why our picture of Indian Buddhism is clearer for the
seventh century c.E. than for the immediately preceding or following
centuries. The first half of the century was the time of the emperor of
northern India Harsha-vardhana (606-646), who is said to have written
242 Religion and Civilisation
some Buddhist poems and, even in the midst of a busy life of campaign-
ing and governing, three plays, the third of which is of a religious
character, largely Buddhist but with some elements of Shaivism also.
The Buddhism of the emperor was, like that of many of his subjects, of
an eclectic and tolerant nature; in fact it was only in the latter part of his
life that he became markedly Buddhist, and modelled his activities on
those of his predecessor Asoka. Hsuan-tsang devotes a good deal of
space to the city of Kanauj, on the upper Ganges, which Harsha-
vardhana had made his capital (rather than Patna, which had been the
earlier capital of the north Indian empire). Hsuan-tsang records that
under Harsha's patronage the number of Buddhist monasteries there
had increased to about one hundred, housing ten thousand monks of
both the Hinayana and the Mahayana. {In Fa-hsien's time there had
been only two monasteries with a few Hinayana monks.) But this was
exceptional; in some places Hsuan-tsang found only deserted and ruined
monasteries. What was perhaps typical was the growth ofthe Mahayana
at the expense of the Hinayana. At Shravasti, one of the famous names
in Buddhist history, where the Buddha had spent much of his time and
where many of his discourses had been delivered, were now to be seen
only the ruins of once large and important monasteries. Even in
Fa-hsien' s time there had been a few monks there who had received
him courteously, but now the place seems to have been deserted by the
Buddhists; on the other hand, Brahmanic temples abounded.
Kapilavastu, the birthplace of the Buddha, Hsuan-tsang found desolate,
its former buildings almost completely ruined, and only a very few
monks still surviving.
One notable exception to this general decline of Buddhist monastic
centres in India in the seventh century was Nalanda. Here, on the
Ganges plain a few miles south ofPatna {Pataliputra), a monastery had
been founded in the fifth century C.E. by a Gupta king (probably
Kumara Gupta I, who reigned from 415 to 455 c.E.). Other Gupta
kings added further monasteries adjoining the first one, and had also
endowed these monastic corporations with considerable lands and
villages. S. Dutt points out the probable reason for this generous royal
munificence, namely that Nalanda and possibly some other Buddhist
monasteries like it were by this time developing as seats of higher
learning {Dutt, 1962; 331). That is to say a process of what amounts
almost to the secularisation of the Buddhist monastery in India had
begun. They were turning away from the earlier ideal, of being centres
Buddhism in India 243
of'study for faith', to that ofbeing centres of'study for knowledge',
away from monastic life proper to that of institutions of secular learning
in many ways similar to universities. Certainly this is what Nalanda,
the greatest monastic centre in India at this time, had become. Two
other monastic universities of this kind were Vikramasila and
Odantapura, also in eastern Bihar. The grouping of several neighbouring
monasteries into a single organisation called a Mahavihara had begun
some time in the Gupta period, and with this process of enlargement
went another, namely enlargement of the scope and content oflearning.
The master-pupil relationship of the cloister, which had originally a
spiritual end in view, was now adapted to the acquisition of a wider
range of scholarship by much larger numbers of students. Thus while
Buddhist culture and general education flourished Buddhist spirituality
declined. The former, more even distribution of Buddhist centres of
influence, certainly throughout northern India, gave way to a pattern
of opulence in a few places and desolation in many others. While he
was staying at Nalanda Hsuan-tsang dreamt that he saw its magnificent
courts deserted and become the haunt of wild animals; in a vision he
saw too the state of confusion in north India that would follow the
emperor Harsha-vardhana' s death. 'The dream and the vision,'
comments S. Dutt, 'must have been prompted by Hsuan-tsang's own
haunting thoughts of a dark future- a time when Buddhism would fall
into eclipse and Buddhist culture into neglect.'
The change which had begun to come over the monastic life by the
seventh century is only one aspect of the process of the decline of
Buddhism in India. Another was the growing strength of pagan
practices and ideas which by this time were beginning to fmd their way
into Buddhism, and were bringing about its destruction as surely as the
jungle that overwhelmed its neglected monasteries. Just how this
triumph of paganism came about is still not fully understood; we can
only try to trace some of the factors involved, and to this we now turn.

5.26 The growth ofTantric ritual

From the sixth to the ninth century of the Christian era Nalanda grew
in size, prestige and influence as a centre of Mahayana philosophy and
secular learning. It was the strongly Mahayanist emphasis which made
possible the development within Buddhism of a cult known as the
244 Religion and Civilisation
Tantra. In its earlier form this is known as Mantrayiina, that is, the use of
mantras (sacred chants that were invested with a mysterious quality and
efficacy of their own) as a yana, or 'vehicle' of salvation. The Tantra's
later form is Vajrayiina, which is an attempt to systematise the vast
number of mantrayana ritual practices and relate them to five principal
Bodhisattvas.
The Vajrayana had affmities with one of the principal Mahayanist
school, the Yogadra (4.35). The yogic practices which were a feature
of the latter led to great importance being attached to mystic devices
and diagrams of a geometrical kind. Such symbols, or mal).~alas, were
made use of especially in the setting forth of the inter-relationships of
the principal bodhisattvas. A basic type of diagram, according to
Snellgrove (1957), consists of the Buddha Vairocana as the central
figure, with four others round him at the main points of the compass,
each with attendant bodhisattvas. With each of the four surrounding
buddha-figures are two goddesses, and together these eight goddesses
symbolise the act of worship. This is reflected in their names: Vajra-
Gaiety, Vajra-Garland, -Song, -Dance, -Flower, -Incense, -Lamp,
-Perfume. Each of the four groups has also its own special mantra, or
magical chant, and mudra (hand-gestures), which were used in the
performance of the Tantric ritual.
While this systematisation is indebted to the yogic mal).~ala-symbols,
the materials which are thus subjected to a systematic arrangement, the
magical chants and the gestures, are derived from Indian folk-religion.
One of the important aspects of Tantra is that it belongs to the lay-
Buddhist tradition, in which as we have noted before (5.22) the main
emphasis until now was upon the achievement of a good rebirth. But
the Tantra provides a parallel with the Ch'an system of China, in that
the purpose of the Tantric ritual was the achievement not simply of a
good rebirth, but, by the inducing of yogic trance, possible enlighten-
ment here and now in this life, and in this the Tantra cuts across the
distinction between lay and monastic spirituality with their lower and
higher religious goals respectively. The Tantra has its own three grades
of human beings: non-adepts, adepts and super-adepts.
Yogic trance, and possibly enlightenment, were only the highest
aims of Tantric ritual. There were others. Many of the magical spells
which were included in Tantra had less exalted purposes in view. 'The
acquisition of buddhahood was merely a special application of a
general magical practice, for there were ffial).~as of all sorts and sizes.
The growth of Tantric ritual 245
The tantras refer to rites of all kinds: petrifying, subduing, exorcising,
causing hatred amongst one's enemies, mesmerising, slaying, propitiat-
ing, causing prosperity, bringing rain, winning a woman, fmding a
thing which was lost and so on (Snellgrove, 1957; 76). There is much in
this kind of list that reminds one of the Atharva-veda (1.59); we are
here in the same world of magical incantations and charms. In other
words, Tantra represents a frontier between on the one hand Buddhist
belief and practice, and on the other the ancient magical practices of the
Indian peasantry. It is another example of the kind of Buddhist bridge-
building, between the Dharma and local indigenous culture, that has
been noted already in other connections (5.22; 5.24).
To put the matter another way, we have here an example of the
strong affmity which exists between the peasant class and magic (or
forms of religion that have a large admixture of magic), an affmity
which was discussed earlier, in connection with the Atharva-veda
(1.59). This is the form which lay Buddhism very understandably
assumes in a predominantly agricultural economy and a peasant society.
But north-eastern India (Bihar and Bengal), where the Tantra developed
most notably, had not recently become agricultural. It had been so for
centuries. Yet in the accounts of Indian Buddhism given by the Chinese
travellers Fa-hsien in the fifth century, and Hsuan-tsang and 1-Tsing in
the seventh, there is no evidence of the development of Tantra. The
question which thus arises is: why do we not hear of the Tantric form
of Buddhism until about the middle of the eighth century? This is
when the earliest available Tantric texts are dated (Dutt, 1962; 349).
One possible answer is that this form of Buddhist practice tended to be
esoteric, and disclosed only to the properly initiated. So behind the
earliest texts there may be a period ofhidden, or at least undocumented,
development. Another possible factor in the Tantra's emerging when
it did is that by the middle of the eighth century the process ofsecularisa-
tion of the Buddhist monasteries had been going on for about three
hundred years- Nalanda was founded in the middle of the fifth century
(5.25). That is to say, during the earlier period of Buddhist history in
India the frontier between Buddhist truth and the magical folk-lore of
the Indian peasant had been effectively controlled by the Sanghas, by
monks whose religious life and practice had been centred in the
Dharma, whose study of it had been 'study for faith', and whose goal
had been nirvana. This is not to say that popular folk-lore and magical
practices were not associated with lay Buddhism in the earlier period;
246 Religion and Civilisation
almost certainly they were from the earliest days, but they were held
in check, and allowed only a subordinate position. Now with the decline
of the monastic life the check was removed, and these popular magical
practices came flooding in, and produced this late form of Indian
Buddhism we know as the Tantra.
Besides the spells and charms and incantations which were one of its
most prominent features was the importance given to the feminine
partners of the buddhas, to which brief reference was made above.
Female deities are a persistent feature of the religious traditions of east
India, as of southern India also (1.31). Just as in the Hindu bhakti cults
the god has his consort, so now the buddhas began to be represented as
having female partners, who were usually some form of Prajfia
paramita, the Transcendental Wisdom. This partnership between the
masculine Buddha and the feminine Transcendental Wisdom introduced
an element of sexual symbolism into Tantric Buddhism, and permitted
the development of certain aspects ofTantric practice which have filled
early European commentators with horror, and which have also
probably been highly exaggerated. Sexual symbolism was used to
convey what was held to be the characteristic feature of existence:
unity in apparent duality. This was worked out in various ways. For
example, combining of consonants and vowels gives birth to the mystic
syllables of the mantra and hence affects the intentions of the user of
these sacred sounds. So too the buddha and the bodhisattva were
represented together in the ecstasy of union, a reminder to the devotee
that oneness in the state ofenlightenment is the highest bliss {mahasukha).
In some cases these ideas may have led to the performance of erotic
rituals culminating in the intercourse of the yogin and his female
partner, but in fact very little is known of such rituals in Buddhist
contexts.
The whole question of sexual symbolism within religion is a vast and
complicated one, but it is worth remembering {especially for those
whose cultural environment is that of European Protestantism) that
sexual forces are too real and powerful simply to be dismissed as having
no part in religion; that there is perhaps an excessively masculine
quality about much ofWestern monotheism; that there is on the other
hand a persistent strain in other religious traditions which links holy
Wisdom, as an aspect of deity, with feminine qualities - notably, both
motherhood and virginity; that while the complete repression and
denial of sexual activity may possibly, in some cases, lead to sublimation,
The growth oJTantric ritual 247
it can also lead in less desirable directions; and, fmally, that there is a
good deal of undisguised sexual symbolism in mystical experience and
writing in all traditions. All this suggests that the place given to the two
principles, the feminine and the masculine, in Tantric Buddhism, is
neither entirely unusual in the history of religion, nor necessarily
surprising.
In conclusion certain general observations need to be made concerning
Tantric Buddhism. The first is that the so-called 'immoral practices'
over which some early European writers professed their disgust were
probably not typical or representative of Tantra as a whole, and that
where they existed they may be seen as an example of antinomianism,
the idea that out of the whole-hearted embracing of moral evil will
come redemption from it (an idea found elsewhere in the history of
religion). The second point to be made is that while the use ofTantric
forms and rituals undoubtedly increased from the eighth century
onwards, such usage was by no means universal among Buddhists in
India. The Tantra implies a recognition of the principle which is
widespread in Indian religion, that there are different types of human
beings, and that the forms of religious life and practice which suit one
will not suit another. Finally, Tantric Buddhism was associated with
certain regions oflndia rather than others, and most prominent among
these was that area of eastern India which we call West Bengal and
Bihar.

5.27 Buddhism in Tibet and South-East Asia, 600-1000

Buddhism was by the beginning of the seventh century well established
in Central Asia, i.e. in the region to the north-west of India through
which it had passed to China. But it had as yet not been received in
Tibet. The first efforts to introduce it there are associated with the
Tibetan king, Sron-btsan-sgam-po (b. 617 C.E.). By his military success
he had considerably increased the prestige of his kingdom among
neighbouring rulers, so that the king of Nepal and the emperor of
China each considered it prudent to effect an alliance with him by
offering him a daughter in marriage. These two princesses brought
with them to the capital at Llasa Buddha-rupas (or 'images') and their
knowledge of Buddhist belief and devotion. It became the Tibetan
king' s desire to introduce the spiritual and cultural benefits ofBuddhism
248 Religion and Civilisation
to his own country, and this he tried to do, but in spite of its royal
patronage the new faith encountered strong opposition from the priests
of the indigenous Bon religion of Tibet. A visiting Indian Buddhist
teacher from Nalanda (5.25) realised that for people such as the
Tibetans, whose culture was so deeply engrained with magical practices,
the form of Buddhism which was most likely to meet with success was
the Tantra. Hence it was that Padma-Sambhava, a well known
exponent and teacherofTantricBuddhism, was invited from U4c;liyana,
a region to the west of Tibet. Padma-Sambhava met with much greater
success, and his name continued for many centuries to be highly
venerated among Tibetans. The form ofBuddhism which he introduced
in the middle of the eighth century, the Vajrayana (5.26), gave Tibetan
Buddhism two of its characteristic features, its non-celibate monks and
its magical rituals. Buddhism was no means permanently established in
Tibet however, and after Padma-Sambhava' s death there was a period
of fierce persecution and a Tibetan king who was a royal patron of the
Sangha was murdered by a rival for the throne. Mter a time of internal
confusion, during which Buddhism virtually disappeared, peace
returned, and by the beginning of the eleventh century scholar-
missionaries were arriving in Tibet from the Pala kingdom of Bihar
and Bengal, to reintroduce and re-establish Buddhism in the Tantric
form that flourished in north-east India at that time. Outstanding
among them was Dipankara Srijnana, (980-1053) or Atisha (the
venerable Lord) as he later came to be known by the Tibetans. Atisha
was a Bengali monk who had been head of the monastic university of
Vikramasila in eastern Bihar and who is said to have studied earlier at
Thaton, in Burma (or possibly at a Buddhist centre in Indonesia; there
is some uncertainty). Influential in persuading Atisha to go and live in
Tibet was a member of the Tibetan royal family who had renounced
his claim to the throne in order to become a monk. Thus the Tantric
Buddhism which at that time flourished in the Pala Kingdom of Bihar
and Bengal in the eleventh century became the predominant religion of
Tibet; it is in the Buddhism of Tibet, as it is known to modem scholars,
that perhaps we come nearest to popular Buddhism as it existed in India
before its virtual disappearance there (6.41).
In connection with Tibet, it will be appropriate at this point to tum
to that area of continental South-East Asia which now forms the Union
of Burma. Into this area had been moving during the early centuries of
the Christian era a branch of the Tibetan peoples known today as the
Buddhism in Tibet and South-East Asia 249
Burmese. They came southwards from the mountainous Himalayan
region of the north, into the river valley of the Irrawaddy where,
possibly in the second century of the Christian era, their capital city of
Pagan was founded on the east bank of the Irrawaddy just below its
confluence with the Chindwin. Ahead of these immigrants into Burma
by land was another group, the Pyus, whose capital had been established
at Prome, in the lower Irrawaddy valley. Before the coming of the
Pyus the whole oflower Burma had been occupied by another ethnic
group, the Mons, whose territory also extended east into what is now
Thailand. Possibly the Mons were the first of the peoples of the Indo-
China subcontinent to receive Buddhism. (There is a legend that the
emperor Asoka of India in the third century B.c. (3.27) sent two
Buddhist monks, Sona and Uttara, to 'Suvanna-bhumi', the Golden
Land, which may have been Burma, but there is no other evidence
apart from this story, which is found in the Ceylonese Buddhist
chronicles.) Burma would not have been too difficult to reach by sea
from Southern India, and possibly by land and sea from north-east
India. Throughout the period up to about 1000 c.E. then, it seems that
Buddhists from various places on the eastern side of India found their
way to Burma: first of all Theravadins from the south of India and
Ceylon; then as the Mahayana developed, Buddhism was introduced
into Burma in this form also; and finally, from about the eighth
century, in the Tantric form. The Mons, the earlier occupants of the
deltaic region oflower Burma, appear to have accepted the Theravadin
form. Their capital, Sudhammavati (modem Thaton, on the eastern
side of the Gulf of Martaban) was a centre of Theravada Buddhism
until the eleventh century. At Hmawza, five miles east ofProme in the
Irrawaddy valley, the earliest archaeological evidence of Buddhism in
Burma has been found, in the form of fragments of (Theravada) Pali
canonical scriptures dating from the fifth century C.E. There is evidence
that among the Pyus both the Theravadin and the Sarvastivadin (3.24)
schools of Buddhism had their adherents. Architectural remains and
statues exhibit the style of north-east India and the Orissa coast of the
late Gupta age (Coedes, 1966). Early ninth-century Chinese accounts
record that there were at this time in the Pyu kingdom over a hundred
Buddhist monasteries at which education was given to young people,
both boys and girls, up to the age of twenty.
Although the Burmese chronicles claim a date as early as the second
century for the founding of the Burmese capital, Pagan, in the upper
250 Religion and Civilisation
Irrawaddy valley, the generally accepted date is 849 c.E. By this time it
was the Mahayana form of Buddhism which was coming to Burma
from north-east India, and from this time more particularly the Tantric
form. The Buddhism of central Burma practised by these Tibeto-
Burmese immigrants from the ninth to the middle of the eleventh
century c.E. seems to have been very strongly Tantric; associated with
it was a class of religious functionaries about whom not a great deal is
known, but who seem to have combined something of the roles of
guru, lama and priest, and who were known as 'aris' (a corruption of
the word 'arya', in the sense ofholy man). The region now known as
Thailand was also one which, lying on the western side of the Indo-
China peninsula, was open to Indian influences from an early period,
but particularly during the time of the Guptas onwards. Archaeological
discoveries in the area west of modem Bangkok indicate that Buddhist
forms of devotion were practised here from the first or second century
C.E. Sanctuaries, Buddha-rupas, and the characteristically Buddhist
symbol of the Dharma-cakra (the 'wheel of the law'), and a number of
fine pieces of sculpture of the Gupta period have been discovered both
here and in the neighbouring areas now known as Laos and Cambodia.
Possibly the greatest centre of Buddhist learning and culture in South-
East Asia between the seventh and the eleventh centuries C.E. was in the
islands of Sumatra and Java, where the influence of eastern India
(especially Bengal) was also fairly strong. The Chinese pilgrim I-Tsing,
who visited this area as well as India towards the end of the seventh
century, records that its rulers favoured Buddhism, and that it was the
Hinayana form which flourished there. A later dynasty, the Sailendras,
who ruled over Malaya and a large part of what is now Indonesia, were
patrons of the Mahayana form, and maintained close connections with
eastern India, especially with the great centre at Nalanda. From that
area of north-east India came also to Indonesia the Tantric form of
Buddhist belief and practice which eventually became predominant in
Indonesia and, as in India, preceded the gradual disappearance of
Buddhism within a form of religion that was dominated by brahman
priests and Hindu cults (6.41).

5.28 Buddhism in Japan in the Heian period (794-1185)

In the period up to 794 c.E. Nara had been the centre of Japan's life,
political and religious. In that year the political capital was moved to
Buddhism in Japan in the Heian period 251
Miyako, the modern Kyoto, the poetical name of which was Heian.
This remained the capital of Japan tmtil 1868, the beginning of the
Meiji period (7.43). The period to which Heian gives its name is
remembered as one of 'peace and ease' (Anesaki, 1930}, and as the
classical age ofJapanese art, literature and religion.
During this period the 'catholic' school of Buddhism, the Tientai,
introduced from China into Japan (where it was known as Tendai),
was the most influential form of Buddhist religion. The Rosso, the
most influential school in the previous (Nara} period, was a religion for
the spiritually elite only, whereas the characteristic feature of the Tendai
was its tmiversalism; it emphasised that all sentient beings were capable
of attaining salvation. A Buddhist monk named Saicho (posthumously
known by the honorific title Dengyo Daishi, i.e. 'The Propagator of
the True Religion') was largely responsible for introducing the Tendai
and for its rapid spread. Of Chinese immigrant stock, Saicho was born
in 767 near Motmt Hiei, and in 785 at the age of eighteen was ordained
into the Buddhist monkhood. There followed ten 'hidden years' during
which Saicho lived a life of solitude and contemplation. When in 794
the capital was moved to Heian, Saicho identified himself with the new
political regime and began to develop a monastic institution close to the
new capital; at the end of a further ten years this had become a thriving
centre of Buddhist religious life and was officially designated 'Chief
Seat of the Buddhist Religion for Ensuring the Security of the Cotmtry'.
Saicho was a remarkable combination of saint, philosopher and
organiser, and after a visit to China in 803 in search of deeper tmder-
standing of Buddhist truth this remarkable man introduced the broad
and very catholic synthesis of doctrine and practice which became for
the next five centuries the main stream ofBuddhism in Japan.
A notable yotmger contemporary was Kukai, born seven years after
Saicho, in 774. Schooled in Confucianism, he turned to Taoism (2.47)
in his youth in search of spiritual satisfaction; not finding it he passed
through a period of mental struggle tmtil at the age of twenty-two his
conversion to Buddhism occurred, as the result of a vision he had of a
certain great Buddhist saint. Like Saicho he too went to China in search
of deeper tmderstanding. There he was introduced to the Chinese form
ofMantrayana (5.26), which in China was known as the Chen-yen, and
it was this combination of the practical, the popular and the mystical
that after his return to Japan he began to teach, with great success. The
Japanese name for Chen-yen is Shingon, and from the time ofKukai's
252 Religion and Civilisation
return from China its centre was the monastery which he founded on
Mount Koya (fifty miles south of the new capital), and where for thirty
years he trained disciples in this new mystical syncretism, the great
strength ofwhich lay in its blend ofcontemplative, undogmatic thought,
and ritual practice. Kukai was successful too in reconciling Buddhist
and Shinto groups. A notable feature of this bringing together of
Buddhist with Shinto traditions was the identification of the old gods
ofJapanese Shinto with the bodhisattvas of Buddhism. Another feature
of the synthesis was the provision of an inner, Buddhist sanctum within
the shrines where the Shinto gods were worshipped. This system
whereby the Japanese people accepted Buddhist names for Shinto
deities and incorporated Buddhist devotion into the Shinto ritual
system is known as Ryobu (or Dual Aspect) Shinto. At his death in 835,
in the monastery at Mount Koya, Kukai had achieved such spiritual
prestige that he is regarded even now in Japan as a kind of saviour, who
could come forth from the deep trance (rather than death) into which
he is believed to have passed to exercise miraculous powers. He too,
like Saicho, is known by a posthumous name - Kobo Daishi, 'The
Propagator of the Law'. By many he is regarded as a manifestation of
the bodhisattva Vairocana.
The Shingon in Japan, like the Mantrayana in India from which its
principles were ultimately derived, was a form of religious practice for
laymen as well as for monks. Alongside it, and not always entirely
distinct from it, there further developed during this period devotion to
Amida. It was mainly during the tenth century, however, that this
popular system of salvation by faith in the Lord of the Western
Paradise really began to gain ground, and the story of its full flowering
in Japan belongs properly to the next period (6.48). It is clear that the
credit for the gain in the popularity of Buddhism in Japan belongs
initially to the monks of the Tendai and the Shingon during the period
we have been reviewing. It was they who by their efforts adapted
Buddhist ideas and practice to the Japanese environment.

5.29 Buddhism in Ceylon, 600-1000

Similar developments to those already noted in South-East Asia and
Japan are evident in Ceylon during this period. After Buddhaghosa
(4.39) there are no great figures in the Buddhist literature of Ceylon
Buddhism in Ceylon 253
until Anuruddha (6.43) in the eleventh or twelfth century, nor were
there in this period any notable developments in Buddhist thought in
Ceylon. But during these four centuries there was the same growth of
Mahayanist and Tantric influence that was going on elsewhere. One of
the most important factors in the situation was the relationship between
the Sinhalese rulers and those of South India. Towards the end of the
seventh century, after some decades of instability, a ruler named
Manavamma succeeded, with the help of troops provided by a South
Indian ally, in establishing himself in power and initiating a period of
internal peace for Ceylon which lasted for about two centuries. After
this, from the end of the ninth century onwards, Ceylon was very
closely involved in the inter-state rivalries of South India and had a keen
interest in the political balance of power between these various states.
This meant an increasing exposure to South Indian influences, not only
political but also cultural and religious.
Hence we fmd that the Abhayagiri monastery, the rival to the Great
Monastery (Mahavihara) of Anuradhapura, and stronghold of the
Theravadin tradition (4.38), became increasingly influential as a centre
of the Mahayana, and throughout these centuries of the political
involvement of Ceylon with South India, tended to enjoy the favour of
the Sinhalese rulers. During the ninth century an Indian monk residing
there introduced elements of the Vajrayana (5.26). This had the
patronage of the Sinhalese king and also met with ready acceptance
among the Sinhalese peasants for whom it provided, as elsewhere, a
means of holding together Buddhist doctrine and their own popular
cults, which were strongly intermixed with magic. It is during these
centuries that the recital of paritta, or charms against evil powers,
becomes overt in Sinhalese Buddhism.
Involvement in the politics of South India led eventually, during the
tenth century, to the disturbed period in which invasions of South
India led to counter-invasions of Ceylon and fmally to the retreat of the
Sinhalese rulers from their capital at Anuradhapura, south-eastwards to
a new capital at Polonnaruwa, and to the domination of northern
Ceylon by the Tamils. Anuradhapura continued for a while to be a
Buddhist centre and a place of pilgrimage. But it could not maintain
itselfindefmitely, once the centre ofthe state had shifted to Polonnaruwa,
and so the great shrines and monasteries of Anuradhapura were
abandoned and for many centuries engulfed by the tropical jungle.
What is clear from our survey of Buddhism in Tibet, South-East
254 Religion and Civilisation
Asia and Ceylon during these centuries is the continuing influence of
India. Developments in India in Mahayana, and especially Mantrayana
and Vajrayana, are faithfully reflected in these surrounding countries.
Sometimes, however, the newer developments met with resistance,
notably in the case of Ceylon, where the Great Monastery of Anurad-
hapura remained predominantly Theravadin, and where in the mid-
seventh century its monks protested against the royal patronage of
their Mahayanist rival, the Abhayagiri monastery, by taking the drastic
step of 'turning down the alms-bowl' to the king, the most extreme
sanction open to them. The spread of Vajrayana among the lay people
of Ceylon was also deplored by the Theravadin chronicler who
recorded that it had become prevalent 'among the foolish and
ignorant people of this country' and his attitude is undoubtedly
representative of the Theravadin monks of Ceylon of that period.

SUMMARY AND COMMENT ON CHAPTER FIVE

During the period we have been reviewing both Islam and Buddhism,
which in some ways are so unlike each other, succeeded in gaining the
adherence of large numbers of the population of those new areas into
which they expanded: the Near East, Middle East, North Africa and
Spain in the case oflslam; China, Japan, Tibet and South-East Asia in
the case of Buddhism. For the more partisan Christian church-historian
the successes of Islam in areas which had for some centuries been
regarded as Christian is disconcerting, and is explained away as the
achievement of military conquerors who forced their religion on the
inhabitants of the regions they conquered. This is a view which, as
T. W. Arnold has shown, does not bear prolonged examination. The
reasons for the successes both oflslam outside Arabia and of Buddhism
outside India are to be found in the readiness of the peoples of the areas
into which these faiths penetrated to receive and embrace new systems
of belief and practice because of the superior appeal and attraction
which the new faiths possessed, compared with the systems to which
nominal recognition was being given. The appeal of the new faiths in
both cases lay, first, in the simple standard of morality which was
inculcated and exemplified, especially by their humbler rank and file
representatives (Indian Buddhist monks or Arab traders and settlers);
Summary and comment on Chapter Five 255
and second, in the convincing, rational, and coherent view of human
life and its meaning which each of these systems offered. One of the
lessons of this chapter of religious history is that a system of religious
thought and practiceemanatingfromaforeign source is capable of being
received and naturalised given two major conditions: a situation in
the receiving area of social, intellectual, or moral disturbance, unease,
or discontent; and a sufficiently dynamic, intellectually self-consistent,
morally and emotionally satisfying system of religion capable of being
transmitted, by reason both of openness of access, and of resources of
personnel prepared to act as its bearers or transmitters.
It is noteworthy also that in the cases of Islam and Buddhism the
effect of the influx of these faiths into the new areas was in each case the
emergence of a new chapter in the civilisation of those countries. With
Islamic civilisation and learning in the Mediterranean area and the
Middle East we shall deal in the next chapter (6.32). In the case of China,
Buddhism entered a country which already possessed an ancient and
well-established civilisation, but even there Buddhism made some
significant contributions, especially to the popular art and culture. It
was, writes C. P. Fitzgerald 'until modem times the major, almost the
only strong foreign influence affecting the Chinese culture, and the
only one which left a permanent mark'. This influence was, however,
as he adds, confined in China to art and religious thought, and did not
extend to social and political thought (Fitzgerald, 1964; 10). In this
latter respect Buddhism was, in China as in Japan, prevented from
being altogether true to itself, for it is essentially, as we have seen
(2.38), a social doctrine as well as a religious discipline (6.44). So far as
Japan was concerned, D. C. Haltom's testimony regarding the general
effect of Buddhism's entry into that country is impressive:
Buddhism brought with it literature, art, astronomy, medicine, educa-
tion and more definite and humane social and political institutions. It
stimulated compassion through its central teaching of Jihi, or bene-
volence, and deepened the sense of human equality.••• It established
monasteries and alms houses and brought relief to famine and pestilence.
• . . It introduced Japan to a noble ethical code and heightened the
expectation of life beyond death. No other influence, with the single
exception of the modem scientific-industrial revolution has so modified
Japanese civilisation. (Holtom, 1938; 32 £)
Something very similar was true in parts of Christian Europe,
especially those areas which, unlike the Hellenistic world, had been
256 Religion and Civilisation
relatively barbarous. Here too Christian religion had a civilising effect'
mainly through the spread of the monastic system (6.22). Greece and
Rome already had rich civilisations of their own to which Christianity
made an additional contribution, but in northern Europe especially it
was the abbeys and monasteries which were the centres from which
learning and literature, arts and sciences of all kinds were communicated
to the surrounding areas. And, as we shall see in the next chapter, the
Hindu mathas or monasteries, adapted from earlier Buddhist models,
similarly served as medical and educational and cultural centres in
medieval India (6.12; 6.13).
This aspect of the history of religion is one which serves as a valuable
corrective to the modern, reduced view of religion as a mainly private,
individual affair between a man and his God, a view which has been
particularly characteristic of Christianity in the period since the
sixteenth century. In Islam and Buddhism especially it is possible to see
what a genuinely popular, religiously inspired culture could be; a broad
fair river, providing for the surrounding area a means ofcommunication,
fertility, and vitality; in contrast with this was the severely confmed
and sterile culvert which religion had become in Europe by the
nineteenth century. It is possible that the two destructive deluges called
communism and secularism were partly due to the fact that the channd
of religion had in Europe become so artificially narrow.
 6 Theologians, Poets and
Mystics

6.1 MEDIEVAL HINDUISM (500-1500 c.E.)

6.10 Medieval Hinduism: majorfactors andfeatures

THE period in the history of Hinduism which we are now to consider
(500-1500 C.E.) may be described broadly as the medieval period,
although it includes also the beginnings of the modem period. During
this thousand years the Indian subcontinent consisted, politically, of a
number of independent monarchies. Most of these were Hindu, though
from the twelfth century onwards there was also the Muslim kingdom
or sultanate in north India, which was growing in extent and influence
throughout the centuries. It would be difficult to summarise the
political history oflndia during this period; it is however important to
note some of the more outstanding dynasties. With the decline of the
Gupta dynasty (4.26), north India was divided between a number of
independent kingdoms, some large, some small, one of the most
important of which during this period was that of the religiously
eclectic ruler Harsha-vardhana (606-46 C.E.), whose capital was Kanauj,
a city on the upper Ganges which had superseded Pataliputra (Patna) as
the most important city of the Gangetic plains (5.25). In the lower
Ganges plain, in the area covered approximately by modem Bihar and
Bengal, the Pala dynasty was important and influential during the
eighth and ninth centuries. The Pala kings seem to have been adherents
of the cult of Chandi, a goddess who was now regarded as the consort
of Shiva. The Pala kingdom had trading connections with South-East
Asia from a port near the modem Calcutta, and in this way exerted a
religious and cultural influence in South-East Asia during this period.
In South India the dominant kingdom from the seventh to the tenth
century was that of the Pallavas, a Hindu dynasty established by
Mahendra-Varman I (600-30 c.E.), whose capital was at Kanchipuram
(about seventy miles south-west ofmodem Madras) in the Tamil region.
Mahendra-Varman I was thus a South-Indian contemporary of Harsha,
258 Theologians, Poets and Mystics
of north India, and is noteworthy in that he was originally an adherent
of the Jains, but later became a Shaivite, ostensibly under the influence
of the Shaiva saint Appar (6.11). His conversion could also be taken as
an indicator of the religious trends of the times: Jainism, like Buddhism,
was beginning to lose influence at the expense of the bhakti cults of
Vishnu and Shiva. In the south the Pallava dynasty was succeeded by
that of the Cholas, who were the dominant power in peninsular India
from the tenth to the twelfth century C.E. This, too, was a Tamil
dynasty, and during this period Tamil culture and religion was at the
height of its vigour, with an influence extending beyond India to
South-East Asia and Ceylon (5.29). One further dynasty demands
mention for its great importance in the history of Hinduism, namely
that of Vijayanagar, which began in the early fourteenth century and
lasted until the middle of the seventeenth. The role of Vijayanagar
in the defence of Hinduism belongs properly, however, to a slightly
later period, and will be dealt with in that connection (6.53).
The mention of these outstanding dynasties serves as a reminder that
medieval India was a land of monarchies and that this was the important
background to the religious situation during those centuries. Two other
major elements in the picture were (1) the brahmans, who were closely
associated with kings as their advisers; and (2) the popular bhakti
cults. These tended increasingly to be favoured and supported by the
kings, with the result that the brahmans found it necessary to make large
concessions to the cults religiously, while seeking to preserve their own
status socially. The essential point of issue between the adherents and
exponents of the bhakti cults on the one hand and the brahmans on the
other was that of caste; brahmanic orthodoxy upheld the caste structure,
while many of the Vaishnavite and Shaivite teachers and cult-leaders
tended wherever possible to adopt a liberal attitude to caste differences.

6.11 The songs of the Tamil saints of the seventh century

From the seventh century onward the most vigorous religious activity
occurred in the Tamil region of South India. This centred upon the
ardent devotionalism of a class of religious virtuosi known among the
Vaishnavites as alvars, or 'divers' (that is, into the divine depths), and
among the Shaivites as niiyaniirs, or 'leaders'. The wave of theistic
devotion connected with these 'saints', as they are often called, was in
 The songs ofthe Tamil saints ofthe seventh century 259
southern India to some extent an expression of a reaction against the
theological radicalism of the Buddhists and the Jains, and to some
extent due to the peculiarly fervent form which the bhakti type of
Hinduism assumed as it spread into the south from north India.
The literature of this Tamil devotionalism is contained in collections
of hymns composed by the Tamil saints of the seventh century. As
well as the expression of the most ardent devotion to God they contain
a good deal of animosity against the Buddhists. This was expressed
also in public debates, a frequent condition of which was that the one
who was worsted in the debate should transfer his allegiance to the
religion of his opponent. There appear also to have been public
competitions in the performance of miracles, and trials of doctrine by
means of ordeals (Sastri, 1963; 40). The collections ofhymns composed
by the various bhakti saints now form the major part of the Vaishnavite
and Shaivite canons of scripture. The composers were men of all
castes, including the lowest; sometimes they were people of doubtful
parentage, and in one or two cases, women. In some respects they
resemble the ecstatic prophets of the Near East; they are described as
dancing, laughing, weeping and singing 'like people who had lost
their senses' (Cultural Heritage of India, 1958-62; vol. iv, p. 166).
They were greatly venerated, and their compositions are accorded by
Vaishnavites and Shaivites the same status as those of the Vedic ni or
seers (1.35), the entire collection of hymns sometimes being referred
to as 'the Vaishnava (or Shaiva) Veda'. For the people of medieval
India one of the attractive features of this kind of religious devotion was
that it was open to all: to those of the lowest castes, to women or to
men, and to the fallen and sinful. The leaders of the movement, the
great alvars of Tamil Vaishnavism, are traditionally twelve in number;
among the nayanars, or adiyars, of the Shaivite movement three are
regarded with special veneration, namely Sambandha, Appar who is
said to have converted Mahendra-Varman to Shaivism (6.10), and
Sundara. Of these three Sambandha, a brahman of the seventh century,
is afforded very high honour: his image is to be found in Shaiva
temples, and subsequent Tamil writers frequently begin their work
with an ascription of homage to him. He is said to have been a strong
opponent of the Buddhists and Jains, and included in his hymns
frequent imprecations against them. His victory in debate with the
Jains is said to have resulted in the punishment of 8,000 of them; this,
according to the story, took the form of death by impalement, an
K L.H.R.
260 Theologians, Poets and Mystics
event which is said to be commemorated still in an annual festival in
the temple at Madurai. A modern Hindu, however, finds this 'a
shocking legend', and 'can hardly believe' such 'intolerance of heresy';
it must be, he claims, 'the product of orthodox imagination of a later
time animated by a false scale of values' (Sastri, 1963; 43).

6.12 The philosopher Shankara (788-820 C.E.)

Seldom does a single personality affect the subsequent course of
religious development so powerfully as Shankara has done. A Shaivite
brahman from Kerala, his great achievement was the reinstatement of
Upani~adic ideas in opposition both to Buddhism on the one hand, and
the excessive devotionalism of the popular cults on the other. It is
significant that he came of a Shaivite family, for the Shiva cult, having
its roots in the pre-Aryan proto-Shiva of the Harappa culture (1.19),
had always somewhat more affmity with the method of yoga than
with that of bhakti. That is to say, the emphasis in Shaivism is placed
more upon asceticism and yogic self-realisation than upon devotional
fervour towards God, as is the case in the Vaishnavite cults, although
Shaivism did assimilate some of this Vaishnavite fervour, especially in
the seventh century. Shankara's teacher, or guru, is said to have been
Govinda Yogin. Certainly Shankara' s own doctrine lays stress on the
importance of asceticism, and yogic realisation of the individual self as
brahman. This doctrine he expounded in the manner which has become
almost de rigueur for Hindu philosophers and theologians, namely, that
of an exposition of the famous Brahma Siitras of Badarayana (4.21).
What prevents men from realising that reality is one and indivisible,
namely, brahman (the impersonal absolute), and that nothing else
exists but brahman, is the factor which Shankara identifies as maya -
the quality of illusion which makes the One appear as many separate,
independent entities. It is maya which is the cause of all man's futile
strivings after so-called pleasures, and of all his sufferings and troubles.
The senses are deceived by maya, and only by ascetic practice and
contemplation can brahman be realised. This doctrine has strong
affinities with that of the Yogacarin and Madhyamika schools of
Mahayana Buddhism (4.33; 4.35), and Shankara was in fact accused by
his religious opponents of being a Crypto-Buddhist. He seems to have
learnt some practical lessons also from the Buddhists, for he established
The philosopher Shankara 261
a number of mathas or monastic settlements which became centres for
the propagation of his characteristic teaching, with its strong emphasis
upon asceticism and yogic practice rather than on devotionalism or
ritual. These mathas were situated strategically at certain great centres
of religious pilgrimage - Badrinath in the Himalayan region;
Dwaraka on the west coast; Puri on the east coast; and Shringeri and
Kancipuram in the south. At the last-named of these he is said to have
spent some years teaching his doctrine of Advaita (non-dual) Vedanta.
In this way Brahmanism, in the person of Shankara, once again
showed its perennial ability to survive by assimilating the ideas and
practices of a rival system and making them its own. In this case
Buddhism was the victim, and the work of Shankara marks more
clearly perhaps than any other single factor the beginning of the decline
of Buddhism's status in India.

6.13 Medieval Hindu temples and monasteries

In borrowing from the Buddhists the idea of the monastic settlement
and incorporating it into his organisation, Shankara was responsible
for inaugurating what became a characteristic feature of medieval
Hinduism. Hindu monasteries, or mathas, were religious centres which
served a number of purposes. They were at first located near famous
shrines, and provided places where pilgrims could rest, and find food;
they were also centres of education, and helped to propagate the
doctrines of the religious sects which maintained them. From the tenth
century onwards it was regarded as a meritorious use of capital on the
part of the wealthier classes to endow a matha, so that by the thirteenth
century almost every important place of pilgrimage was provided with
an adjacent religious settlement of this kind. In some cases Buddhist
monasteries were actually turned into Hindu mathas as Buddhism
declined; since the Hindu ascetics who inhabited them devoted them-
selves to very much the same kind of social programme as the Buddhist
monks had done (giving medical aid, feeding the very poor, and
educating the young), the local community would scarcely notice the
transition (Sastri, 1963; 118).
The other major religious institution which was developing during
this period was the temple. Little is known of the early history of
Hindu temples, for up to the Gupta period (4.26) they were built of
262 Theologians, Poets and Mystics
wood or clay, materials which do not survive easily in India. The
classical stone-built Hindu temple appears to date from about the
sixth century c.E. An earlier preliminary form was that of the cave-
temple, hewn out of solid rock; this was a type of shrine which Hindus
had adopted from the Buddhist prototype. As in Europe so in India
the medieval period was one of vast temple-building, once the tech-
nique of building free-standing structures had been developed. An
example of a transitional stage between the rock-hewn and the free-
standing types is the Kailashanatha temple at Ellora in western India
(about 200 miles north-east of Bombay), a temple hewn from the
surrounding rock, but open to the sky, and partly free-standing. The
cost of building it must have been very great, and indicates resources
such as only a king could have commanded (Thapar, 1966; 192).
The subject of the style and architecture of Hindu temples is a large
one, and the reader must be referred to specialist works for an adequate
account of what is a fascinating aspect oflndian culture (Basham, 1954;
355-64; Sastri, 1963; 97-112). The central feature within the shrine-
room (which may be vast in size) is the vigraha, or image - the symbol
of the deity, rather than a representation. That this instead of an altar
was the central feature, indicates where the prime emphasis in popular
Hinduism now lay: not in sacrifice, but in devotional ceremonial, or
bhakti. The larger temples had an important economic function as
well as a religious one; the temple at Tanjore during the Chola period,
for example, is said to have had attached to it and economically
dependent on it, a staff of various class of attendants, musicians, dancers,
readers and so on totalling about 570; in addition to these there were
hundreds of priests, also living off the income of the temple. Not all
temples were of this size; but by the ninth or tenth century there were
Vaishnava or Shaiva temples in almost every small town or village; the
cost ofbuilding them was usually borne by rich merchants or merchant-
guilds, the furnishing of them with images, lamps and so on was the
responsibility of less wealthy local people. The existence of temples in
such large numbers in northern India, often the repositories of a great
deal ofwealth in the form ofjewels which adorned the images, provided
one of the major incentives to frequent Turkish Muslim raids from the
north-west, beginning from about the end of the tenth century C.E.
(6.38).
The development ofHindu theology: Riimiinuja 263

6.14 The development of Hindu theology: Riimiinuja

Before the time of Shankara is the pre-theological period in the
history of the bhakti cults. From the time of Shankara onwards,
bhakti was forced to develop a theological defence and exposition of
its principles, for Shankara' s teaching was seen to be a threat to the
devotional cults and the principle of bhakti, no less than to Buddhism.
The reply from the upholders of devotionalism took some time to
develop, and its first clear formulation is associated with Ramanuja,
who lived some two and a half centuries after Shankara, and died in
1137 C.E. approximately. The hymns of the alvars (6.11), which were
known collectively as the Prabandham, had by this time had ascribed
to them the authority of sacred scripture, and in this connection there
had emerged the office ofacarya, or teacher, whose expositions of the
sacred text and whose rulings in matters of worship were regarded as
authoritative for adherents of the Vaishnava cult. The great acaryas
were also the rulers of the temple at Srirangam, the most important
of the south Indian Vaishnava shrines. One of these was Yamunacarya.
He was succeeded in his office by Ramanuja, to whom one of his last
injunctions before his death was that Ramanuja should compose a
commentary on the Brahma Siitras (4.21). Yamunacarya was conscious
of the need for this because of the difficulty of maintaining the doctrine
and practice ofbhakti, oflove and devotion for the deity, in the face of
Shankara' s absolute monism. Since, in Shankara' s teaching, there exists
one reality alone, and the true self within man is identical with this
reality, there can be no place for the exercise oflove and piety towards
God on the part of a worshipper, nor any consciousness of the separate
being of God and man.
The work ofRamanuja, and of the Hindu theologians who succeeded
him, was to work out a reconciliation of the Upani~adic doctrine
(basically that atman equals brahman), with the bhakti doctrine that
man gains release, or salvation (mok~a), through devotion to God, and
by God's grace.
Ramanuja, born probably in the middle of the eleventh century,
lived in Kanchipuram and was himself the pupil of an Advaita
Vedanta (4.21) teacher. He became dissatisfied with the doctrine of
monism, however, and turned towards Vaishnavism. Eventually he
separated from his teacher and concentrated all his attention on the
264 Theologians, Poets and Mystics
songs of the alvars (6.11), absorbing their spirit of ardent devotion. He
settled at Srirangam, and there spent the major part ofhis life, occasion-
ally making a pilgrimage to some of the shrines of north India.
The doctrine which Ramanuja developed was one which he learnt
from his Vaishnava teacher Yamunacarya, whom he succeeded as
ruler of the Srirangam temple. This doctrine is described as visi~ta­
advaita (anglicised, Vishishtadvaita), that is to say, the a-dvaita (non-
dualism) of qualities (visiga). Basically, it affirms a monistic view of the
universe: there is only one reality, brahman. But within this reality,
three principles or qualities may be distinguished. These are, the
individual soul, the insensate world, and the Supreme Soul (or Ishvara).
The Supreme Soul is the controller of the individual soul and of the
insensate world, which are regarded also as attributes of the Supreme
Soul. They are the body of the Supreme Soul, and together the three
constitute all that is, or brahman. Salvation consists in the individual
soul's seeing itself as distinct from matter and as an attribute of the
Supreme Soul. The way to salvation was not only, as in Shankara' s
system, by knowledge (jfiana) but also by karma, which in this
context meant the actions of worship: temple-devotion (piija),
austerities, pilgrimage, almsgiving and so on. It is this, as the basis of
the religious life, which leads to knowledge, and hence to bhakti,
understood as contemplation of the Supreme Soul.
It is interesting to notice the convergence of various streams in
Ramanuja's system. The alvars (6.11) had emphasised only pure
bhakti, adoration of God; the acaryas had added to this the practice of
karma, or religious duties and ceremonies; now, in the system worked
out by Ramanuja, to the combination of bhakti and karma is added
jfiana, the way of salvation emphasised by Shankara and the Upani~ads,
that of special knowledge. The comprehensiveness of Ramanuja's
doctrine, with its combination of philosophical monism and popular
devotion, justifies the description of it as an amplified form of the
teaching of the Bhagavad-Gita (4.22), upon which Ramanuja wrote a
lengthy commentary.
A further point of interest in Ramanuja' s teaching is his emphasis on
the necessity of complete self-surrender; such self-surrender is to a
spiritual preceptor, who is trusted by the devotee as able to do all that is
necessary for his salvation, that is, to bring him to mok~a, or release.
R. G. Bhandarkar considers that if we could be sure of the extent of the
influence of Christianity in the country about Madras during the
The development ofHindu theology: Riimiinuja 265
eleventh century, this emphasis might possibly be traced to Christian
salvation ideas (Bhan&irkar, 1913; 57).

6.15 The continuing influence of Riimiinuja

Ramanuja has become as venerable a figure in Vaishnavism as is any of
the great saints within the Christian tradition. A modern Hindu (V.
Rangacarya, Professor of the History of Economics in the University of
Trivandrum) writes: 'No Vaishnava temple is considered perfect with-
out his image, no festival proper without the celebration of his great-
ness, and no ceremonial occasion adequately solemn without the invoca-
tion of his blessing and favour' (Cultural History of India, vol. iv, p. 177).
Most ofhis followers have been, or are, found in the south of India.
They fairly early divided into two main schools, the Vadagalai and the
Tengalai. The principal difference between them was, originally, in
their respective conceptions of how divine grace operates. The differ-
ence between the two conceptions was illustrated by reference to the
differing ways a cat and a monkey carry their young. The Vadagalai
believe that the process of salvation must be initiated by the man who
seeks salvation; he must first take hold of God's grace, as a young monkey
takes hold with his hands around his mother's neck, and is then carried
by her. The Tengalai believe that the process is initiated by God him-
self, in his grace, taking hold of man; man can only be ready to be
possessed by God, like the kitten who is taken up by the mother cat
and carried by her.
A further important distinction relates to caste. The Vadagalai
uphold the position that only the three upper classes (brahmans,
k~atriyas, and vai~yas) can become devotees and live the holy life. The
Tengalai took the view that there could be no difference in this matter
between one man and another whatever his caste-status. Ramanuja,
while accepting that there were some privileges proper to the three
upper classes, had tried to end the exclusion of the sudras (the fourth,
or lowest class) from temple worship, but without success. A further
distinction which indicates the slightly more popular, peasant affiliation
of the Tengalai, is that they use the Tamil language to a much greater
extent than the Vadagalai, who tend to use Sanskrit. Itinerant Vaish-
nava mendicants known as dasas were generally Tengalais (Sastri,
1963; 116£).
266 Theologians, Poets and Mystics

6.16 Brahmans and caste in medieval south India

It is important at this point to notice that the four classes or varna of
Aryan society were much less marked a feature of south India. What
was more characteristic were the divisions between brahmans and
non-brahmans, and between clean sudras and unclean sudras. In other
words, the distinction was much more clearly between caste-groups
than between the theoretical and Vedic-scriptural four classes. This is
a further indication that the caste (jati) system was not an elaboration
of the Vedic four classes, but another system, with origins elsewhere.
The essential difference between clean and unclean sudras is a matter of
pollution. The touch of an unclean sudra was regarded as polluting to
one of a higher caste, especially a brahman; the touch of a clean sudra
was not. This distinction was itself closely connected with occupation.
So far as the castes other than brahman and sudra were concerned there
seems to have been much less rigidity about their statuses and their
intermixing. Strictness about caste-distinction is associated primarily
with the brahmans, who regarded themselves as the upholders and
enforcers of the caste system; others, however, were inclined to take a
less rigorous view, especially in the middle ranges of the system. As
A. L. Basham points out, early Tamil literature gives no evidence of
caste in that region; it was the growth of Aryan influence, that is, the
influence of the brahman and his sacred Vedic texts, which resulted in
the rigid distinctions which had developed by the period we are now
concerned with (eleventh and twelfth centuries c.E.).

6.17 Further developments in Hindu theology: Madhva and Ramananda

Ramanuja' s harmonisation of philosophical monism with theistic
devotion appears to have gone too far in the direction of monism to be
acceptable to some devotees of the bhakti cult. Evidence of this is to be
found in the system worked out by a thirteenth-century Vaishnavite
from Kanara. He is usually known as Madhva, though he wrote under
the name of Ananda Tirtha. Trained in his youth in the philosophy of
Shankara (6.12), he reacted against this and became a fervent devotee of
Krishna. He came under the influence of the Tengalai wing of
Ramanuja' s followers and in his own teaching laid great emphasis upon
Further developments in Hindu theology: Madhva and Riimiinanda 267
the idea that Vishnu by his grace alone saves those who lead pure lives.
Evil souls are regarded as eternally damned. Madhva questioned
Ramanuja's doctrine that God has for his body the individual souls of
men and the inanimate world. This, he considered, tended to blur the
essential otherness of God, and detract from his independent greatness
and majesty. A curious feature of Madhva's conception of God is that
he deals with the world through his agent Vayu, the wind-god.
Madhva regarded himself as an avatara of Vayu. The very striking
resemblance between the theology worked out by Madhva and certain
Christian ideas has led some to suggest a direct Christian influence
through the Syrian community of Malabar (Basham, 1954; 333). It is
equally possible, however, that the similarities are due to develop-
mental parallels. The followers of Madhva constitute a Vaishnavite
sect (the Madhvas) found in fairly large numbers around Bombay and
the west coast.
In the north a new chapter in the history of Vaishnavism began in
the fifteenth century with the religious activity of Ramananda. Born
towards the end of the fourteenth century (his dates are possibly
1370-1440) he was sent to Banaras to be educated as a brahman, and
for a time was a teacher of the doctrine of Ramanuja (6.14). He was,
however, more critical of distinctions of caste than Ramanuja had been,
and gave up the restrictive practices with regard to commensality, or
table-fellowship (that is, who may eat with whom). He insisted also on
admitting members of the sudra class as his disciples. The exponents of
Vaishnavism had always shown a general sympathy for the lower
classes, but in so far as they had not permitted the study of Vedic
literature by these classes they had to that extent excluded them from
the full scope of the methods by which mok~a or salvation was to be
attained. Ramananda, moreover, gave a great impetus to the use of
Hindi, the vernacular language, by his own example in using it rather
than Sanskrit in his teaching. Another important aspect of the move-
ment he founded was the replacement of the erotic cult of Krishna's
consort Radha with that of the more chaste Sita, the consort of Rama.
The Vaishnava religion taught and practised by Ramananda was a
movement away from the older orthodoxy in the direction of mystical
devotion.

K2 L.H.R.
268 Theologians, Poets and Mystics

6.18 The Lingiiyata: a Shaiva sect

Among the Shaivites the most important development during this
period was the emergence, in the twelfth century, of the Lingayata or
Virashaiva sect, which remained until the present day an important
religious movement in south India, especially in Mysore. Nilakanta
Sastri sums up their position neatly in describing them as 'a peaceable
race of Hindu puritans who deny the supremacy of the Brahmins'
{Sastri, 1963; 64). With their rejection of the authority of the brahmans
went a high regard for precisely those features ofbhakti faith which are
most un-Aryan. They worshipped Shiva alone, whom they regarded as
the sole supreme deity, they practised strict vegetarianism and were
total abstainers from alcohol, and they greatly venerated their own
religious functionaries, their gurus or preceptors. Every Lingayata was
connected with a local matha (6.13), there being one of these in every
Lingayata village. The religious symbol most characteristic of the sect
was the lingam or phallus, a small version of which was worn round
the neck by every member of the sect. Caste distinctions were not
important among them. The founder of the sect is generally held to be
a Shaivite of the twelfth century named Basava, who founded a
religious centre from which this reformed Shaivism spread to various
parts of India, but mainly to Kamataka. The five features of the
religious discipline of the sect as it exists today are: daily worship; a
virtuous life of abstinence, hard work and thrift; responsibility for
feeding and clothing the gurus of the sect; the disregard of caste
distinctions within the Lingayata community; the cultivation of habits
of humility and kindness; and fmally continual defence of the faith,
both in its doctrines and its human representatives. It is possible that
the rise of this reformed Shaivism may have been at least partly due to
the influence of Islam in India, and the impression made by its mono-
theism, its spirit ofbrotherhood, and its puritan ethic.

6.19 The Shiikta cult

A feature of late medieval Hinduism is the coming into somewhat
greater prominence of the cult of Shiva's consort. She is known by the
general term Shakti, that is, the active principle within the divine
The Shiikta cult 269
partnership. She is known also by a number of personal names, such
as Kali, Durga, Parvati, Chandi, Kumari and others. The consort of a
god was, of course, honoured by those who worshipped one of the
male deities; the special nature of the cult of the Shaktas was that they
honoured the goddess as the principal form of deity. The coming into
prominence of such a cult can be seen as the resurgence of the Dravidian
or non-Aryan element in Indian religion, in which the mother-goddess
had always been the central figure (1.30). In the Shakta cult the qualities
associated with Shiva are transferred to Shakti. The goddess represents
the force of Nature, upon which the life of man was seen to depend.
As the goddess of Nature, she creates only in order to destroy, and she
creates because she destroys. The goddess is thus thought of by the
Shaktas as fierce and hungry and violent, needing to be appeased by
offerings of some form oflife, animal or human.
It is in this connection that human sacrifices were a feature of the
Shakta cult. The Chinese pilgrim Hsuan-tsang travelling in seventh-
century India records how he narrowly escaped being sacrificed to
Durga by Ganges river pirates. The notorious Thugs of north India
were devotees of Kali, who dedicated their victims to her in sacrifice.
The earliest known reference to the Thugs is in the twelfth century. In
sixteenth-century Bengal the invading Muslims discovered that human
sacrifice to the goddess was not uncommon. The practice was made
illegal in 1835, and survives only in the form of animal sacrifices, as at
the Kali Ghat at Calcutta.
The other major feature for which the Shakta cult is known is a
form of Tantric practice, possibly derived from late Mahayana
Buddhism in India (5.26). Among Shaktas this was called Chakra-piija
(circle-worship) and consisted of a closely guarded esoteric rite based on
the supposedly magical qualities of the rnal).~ala or circular diagram
developed in Buddhist Tantra. The initiates were men and women of
various castes, the idea of ritual pollution being rejected by the
Shaktas. The purpose of the rite was apparently the achievement of
spiritual exaltation and moral purification through ritual indulgence
in 'the five Ms': madya (intoxicating drink), miimsa (meat), matsya
(fish), mudra (stylised hand gestures), and maithuna (copulation). The
principle underlying the ritual was held to be that of destroying poison
by the use of poison as antidote.
Europeans have tended to dismiss the Shakta cult in disgust. E. A.
Payne sums up his important survey of the whole subject (Payne, 1933)
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The Shakta cult 271
by pointing out that the Shakta cult has certain affmities with simi-
lar religious phenomena elsewhere; it is in essence the worship of
the numinous, here seen as the forces of Nature; it has parallels in the
mother-goddess worship of the Mediterranean and Near East; it has
parallels also with the mystery religions of the Hellenistic world, with
their emphasis upon divine grace; and it has a certain parallel within the
Christian tradition in the Roman Catholic cult of the Virgin Mary.

6.2. THE RISE AND FALL OF MEDIEVAL

CHRISTENDOM (500-1500 c.E.)

6.20 The primacy of Rome

The barbarian invasion of Rome, and the collapse of the Empire, had
an important result in the history of European religion. 'As the emperor
vanished from the West, the empty place was taken by the descendant
ofSt Peter' (Fisher, 1936; 172). The primacy of the bishop ofRome was
not easily established, was not fully accepted outside the churches of
the West. However, there were certain strong reasons for the assertion
of this primacy. There was the tradition that the apostle St Peter who
died in Rome had commissioned his successor in the office of bishop,
and that from him there had continued an unbroken line of bishops of
Rome. And as in other religious traditions, so here too the presence of
the bones of holy men - in particular of St Peter and St Paul - made
Rome a very holy place. Above all, there was the fact that the Christian
Church of the West, after the collapse of the Roman empire, was the
only unifying force left in Western Europe.
Modelled on the lines of the Imperial administration, with its dioceses
and provinces, corresponding to Roman divisions, it was able to main-
tain its cohesion while the Empire crumbled. It was therefore the main
bastion of order and administration, able to take charge of cities and
regions. This ability, together with its unique spiritual authority, was to
make the Church the most influential power in preserving the past and
refashioning the future. (Leff, 1958; 25 f.)
It was this which both enhanced the power of the bishop of Rome and
ensured the predominantly Roman character of medieval Western
Christianity (6.23).
272 Theologians, Poets and Mystics

6.21 The political importance of the Roman Church in medieval Europe

Two of the most important factors determining the course of the
development of religion in Europe during the medieval period were
enhancement of the status of the Church which followed the collapse
of Rome, on the one hand, and on the other, the rise of Islam in the
seventh century (5.1) and the growth of Muslim political power and
cultural influence in the Mediterranean region. During the early
medieval period the focus of European culture was no longer in Greece
and Italy, but the north-west, especially in France; during the latter
part of the period from the twelfth century onwards, with the decline
oflslarnic influence in the western Mediterranean, Italy regained some
of its former cultural importance.
By the time the Muslim armies had occupied most of Spain (5.18)
the emergence of the Carolingian empire in France had at least to some
extent filled the gap left by the disappearance of Roman power in the
West; the king of the Franks, Charles Martel, was able to halt the
advance of Islam at the battle of Poitiers in 732. The power of the
Franks commended this empire of the north-west to the Pope, who
recognised in it a possible successor to the empire of the Caesars. There
happened also to be very strong reasons for this recognition of the
Carolingians by the Pope. In the east, the emperor Leo the !saurian,
whose capital was Constantinople, had successfully resisted the attack
of the Muslim Arab armies; he had, however, also become convinced
that Islam was a scourge sent by God to punish the idolatrous use of
images in the Christian Church. He thereupon embarked on a cam-
paign of iconoclasm, which he extended to the Church in Italy also.
This was not well received by the Italians, especially of Lombardy,
whose kings had now become the chief contestants for political power
in Italy. There are certain ethnic links between the Mediterranean
people and the Dravidians of India (1.30). Nowhere does this show
itself more plainly than in the deeply-rooted polytheism of both Italy
and India, the 'ineradicable polytheism of Mediterranean man' as
H. A. L. Fisher called it (1936; 152£). 'The pagan genius became the
Christian angel, the pagan Isis the Christian Madonna, the pagan hero
became the Christian saint, the pagan festival the Christian feast.' Not
surprisingly, therefore, the Lombards vigorously repudiated this
attempt of a Greek tyrant to interfere with their religion; those
The political importance ofthe Roman Church in medieval Europe 273
iconoclasts in Italy who had co-operated with the eastern emperor were
excommunicated, and in 731 Pope Gregory III anathematised the
emperor himsel£ This was a diplomatic move, designed to avoid any
immediate trouble with the Lombards. As a long-term policy, however.
the Pope preferred for various reasons to look elsewhere than to the
Lombards for political support; having turned his back on Constanti-
nople, he turned to the new power in north-west Europe, the empire of
the Franks. In 739 Gregory III invited Charles Martel to assume the
title of emperor. This invitation was declined, but eleven years later
Charles Martel's son Pippin agreed to be crowned king by authority of
the Pope; and fmally, at Mass on Christmas Day 800, his son Charle-
magne was crowned emperor of the 'Holy Roman Empire' by the
Pope in St Peter's at Rome, The idea of a Roman empire had thus been
revived; it was, however, beyond the ability of Charlemagne's
successors to give it political reality in the highly fragmented condition
of feudal Europe. The result was that although the theory of an empire
persisted for the next five hundred years, there was no effective
emperor, unless it was the Pope. 'Only an international body like the
Church could effectively transcend local boundaries, and the Pope alone
was able to make his voice heard throughout Christendom' (Leff, 1958;
30). It is this fact which lies at the root of the predominantly Roman
character of Western European Christianity during the medieval
period.

6.22 The growth of Christian monasticism

Papal Christianity, dominant in Europe from the fifth century for the
reasons which have just been outlined, was territorial, authoritarian and
priestly. In the situation of the sixth and seventh centuries in which the
Church was an effective agency of social control, it attracted into its
service as bishops and senior dignitaries considerable numbers of noble-
men and others of high social standing. But during the sixth century,
and indeed throughout the succeeding centuries of the medieval period~
monastic organisation also continued to increase and constituted an
element in the religious life of Europe which was not always entirely
compatible with the Papal and episcopal authoritarian system.
The monastic life was essentially the pursuit of contemplative
religion; the inmates of the monastery were not necessarily priests, and
274 Theologians, Poets and Mystics
were therefore not subject to episcopal discipline in the same way as
the priest. For many who, in the unsettled and difficult conditions of
social life in the early medieval period, wished to live a religious life,
the monastic centres provided havens of peace and light and order. At
the same time it became a work of merit on the part of princes and
wealthy rulers to endow an abbey or a monastery, and their number
multiplied. Various reforms and reorganisations of the monastic life,
notably that of St Benedict (480-540 C.E.), were aimed among other
things at a close co-ordination of monastic life with that of the
episcopal, secular system. The doctrinal clash between Augustine and
Pelagius (4.18) was in a sense a manifestation of the disagreement be-
tween the authoritarian and sacramental priestly system of Papal
Christianity, and the more independent, individualistic, almost lay
character of the monastic life. The principle which underlay
Augustinian religion was that man was utterly incapable of any good,
apart from the grace of God mediated to him through the sacramental
system of the Church. The principle which underlay monastic life was
that man had it in him to achieve moral and spiritual perfection and
attain to the vision of God through the exercise of asceticism and
contemplation. In two outstanding respects the monasteries were a
benefit to medieval Christianity: they were centres of learning and
culture, and their function in keeping scholarship alive during the
Dark Ages is well known; they were also centres of missionary activity,
from which monks went forth into new areas, to establish new monas-
teries and to Christianise the surrounding territories. But the medieval
monasteries were always to some extent, because of the above men-
tioned differences of principle, a potential source of what in a later age
would be called nonconformity, but which, because of the special
associations of that term, it is better to describe as alternative religious
attitudes to that of authoritarian Papal and priestly religion, the main
features of which it will be convenient at this point to summarise.

6.23 Medieval Roman Christian orthodoxy

We have now reached a point where it is possible to understand how a
man born during the medieval period in Europe (rather than in, say,
India or Persia) unless he were a Jew would fmd himself, so far as his
religious life was concerned, required to believe certain propositions
Medieval Roman Christian orthodoxy 275
about the world in which he lived. These were: that it was ruled by a
single, absolutely powerful divine being who had created all things
ex nihilo; that the human race was in a chronic condition of rebellion
against this omnipotent deity, and was deserving of eternal torment
therefore; that the deity, in compassion for the weakness of the creatures
he had made, was prepared to give men a second chance, if they
responded favourably to the declaration of forgiveness which had been
made in the words and in the death, resurrection and ascension of the
man Jesus, who was also God incarnate; that this second chance, this
recovery of good standing with God, man's 'justification', which was
also the earnest of his eternal salvation, could be received through the
sacraments of the institutional Church, and in no other way at all; and
that as a result of men's reception, or alternatively refusal, of the Grace
available through the sacerdotal ministry of the Church, they would
be destined after death to enjoy the eternal bliss of heaven, or to suffer
the everlasting torments of hell (with a third alternative- purgatory-
in which there was still some hope of heaven). We have seen that some
of this doctrine was bequeathed to the medieval Church by the Jews
(especially through the elevation to canonical status of the Jewish
scriptures, wherein the doctrine of the omnipotent creator deity was
dominant), some by St Paul and some by St Augustine. We have seen
(4.18) that the doctrines of the latter, especially, were very influential
in the development of this predominantly authoritarian, institutional
and sacramental form of religion which has just been outlined.
A question which arises in this connection is how far these were the
universally accepted religious beliefs of the men of medieval Europe.
It is easy to assume that they were, but there are indications that even in
those times Augustinian orthodoxy had to contend with scepticism,
intellectual unrest, and outright disregard by those whose spirit would
not allow them to be forced into this particular religious mould,
however strongly it might be asserted by the theologians that this and
no other was the eternal divine truth. Some of the evidence for this
dissent is oblique (6.24); some is direct (6.25; 6.26).

6.24 The significance of medieval catholic theology

The oblique evidence of religious dissent from medieval Roman
orthodoxy is to be found in the preoccupation of theologians them-
276 Theologians, Poets and Mystics
selves. A brief reference to two of these, St Anselm and St Thomas
Aquinas, will serve to illustrate the point.
Anselm (1033-1109) was born in north Italy, became a Benedictine
monk, and was successively prior of the abbey ofBec in Normandy, its
abbot, and finally Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 onwards. The
theological position which he set out to defend was broadly that of
Augustinian orthodoxy (6.23). The existence of dissentient religious
views in Anselm's time can be inferred from the special areas of empha-
sis in his teaching. In general he made use of reason only to explicate
what had already been accepted in faith. First of all believe as a
Christian, and then use the method of reason to show how coherent
and self-consistent is the Christian creed: this was Anselm's position.
'If you do not believe, you will not understand', he said. Another
maxim for which he is remembered is his credo ut intelligam - 'I believe
in order that I may understand'. Evidently faith in the Augustinian
God was not without its difficulties for some of Anselm's contempor-
aries. It is for his attempt to use rational argument in proof of the
existence of God that he is best remembered. The type of argument
used by Anselm, set out in one of his major works, the Proslogion, is
known as the ontological argument, that is, an argument from the
nature of being itsel£ He begins by affirming 'That God really exists,
even if the foolish man said in his heart "There is no God"' (an ad-
mission of contemporary scepticism as much as a quotation from
scripture). His argument for the existence of God was on the grounds
that God must exist, since he is 'that than which no greater can be
conceived' (id quo nihil maius cogitari potest). Something than which no
greater can be conceived can exist in the understanding, i.e. it is
conceivable, as all will agree, he argued. Now if it exists not only in
the understanding, but in being, then this is even greater than mere
conceivability. The God who is, the existent God, is the one than whom
no greater can be conceived. In this way Anselm believed he had proved
that the God of Augustinian orthodoxy must really exist. The
criticisms which have been levelled at Anselm's argument do not
concern us here (but see, for example, Smart, 1962; 57£ and 1964(1),
89ff.); what is important is the implication, from the great emphasis
which Anselm laid on this point, that it was a belief that was felt by his
contemporaries to require some rational support.
Some two centuries later another Italian, St Thomas of Aquino,
(1225-74) went considerably beyond Anselm in seeking to establish
The significance ofmedieval catholic theology 277
the preliminaries of Christian belief by rational argument based upon
empirical evidence. Like Anselm he too was a monk, of the Dominican
Order, and like Anselm he held that the most characteristically
Christian doctrines, such as those of the Trinity, the Incarnation and
the Last Judgment, came to men by revelation alone (although they
could be demonstrated to be reasonable) ; but he held also that it was
possible to arrive at a theistic prolegomena to Christian belief by a
process of observation and reason. The existence of God could, he
held, be demonstrated in five ways (Smart, 1962; 61-70). This was the
kind of truth about God which human reason could investigate (other
truths about God it could not, but had to accept in faith). In this way,
by what is referred to as 'natural theology', he demonstrated the exist-
ence of one who is the prime mover of all things; the first efficient
cause of all things, the ground of all necessary being (as distinct from
contingent being); the source of all perfection; and the director of all
that happens. These arguments of Aquinas, like those of Anselm, have
been criticised by both Christians and non-Christians (Smart, 1964(1);
94ff.); it is worth recalling the general criticism levelled by the modern
German theologian Karl Barth, namely that although Aquinas may
have been justified in claiming that he had demonstrated the existence
of a prime mover, a first cause, etc., he was not justified in making the
leap involved in identifying this prime mover, etc., with the God
revealed by Jesus Christ. However, what is important for our present
concern is the fact that Aquinas did thus labour to establish the reason-
able nature of Augustinian orthodoxy, both in his Summa contra
Gentiles (1259-64) and in his Summa Theologica (1272-3). Who the
'Gentiles' were whom he was attempting to convince of the intellectual
respectability of catholic orthodoxy is not altogether clear, but in
view of the dominant position which Muslim Aristotelian philo-
sophers had held in the medieval intellectual world until then it is more
than likely that if anyone was the 'cultured despiser' of the Christian
religion in those days it was the Muslim philosopher, especially in
connection with such characteristically Christian doctrines as those of
the Trinity and the Incarnation, which to the Muslim monotheist
looked too much like the ideas of pagan polytheism.
It was not only Anselm and Aquinas who were engaged so stren-
uously in trying to demonstrate that orthodox catholic belief was
intellectually respectable; other theologians of the medieval period
also took part in what was obviously a very important and necessary
278 Theologians, Poets and Mystics
task. Their efforts are significant simply because they were necessary,
even in the so-called ages of faith. For men do not commonly expend
great effort in seeking to prove what is generally accepted as true.
Catholic orthodox bishops and priests might demand that all Europeans
should believe in the God of Augustine, but evidently even they could
not procure such universal belie£
It is important to notice that there is a parallel to this enterprise
within Judaism. Maimonides (1135-1204), a Jewish rabbi, Talmudic
scholar, and philosopher, was similarly concerned to work out a
harmonisation of empirical human knowledge and faith in an omni-
potent deity, by the use of rational arguments. His Guide to the
Perplexed was, he said in the preface to it, intended for the reader who
had some acquaintance with philosophy and was concerned to reconcile
this with monotheistic faith. Maimonides anticipates Aquinas in hold-
ing that reason can uphold monotheism, but that there are also certain
aspects of the faith which have come to men by revelation alone and
are inaccessible to reason. Here again is evidence that the theology of
the omnipotent creator deity, in its Jewish context as well as in the
Augustinian form which was derived from it, was among educated
Jews of the twelfth century presenting intellectual difficulties, and was
not easy to accept. Another indication, in the case of medieval Judaism
as well as in that of Christianity, was the appeal of the alternative form
of belief provided by mysticism, to which reference will be made later
(6.27).

6.25 Religious alternatives: anti-sacerdotal

Evidence of a direct kind, that not all men in medieval Europe held to
the Papal pattern of religious belief and practice, is to be found in a
number of movements of dissent which occurred from time to time
and in various places, but most characteristically in the cities. In view of
the power of the Church and the very harsh penalties for religious
deviation it is not to be expected that there would be any widespread
expression of alternative religious ideas and practices; the wonder is
that there were so many. Such, for example, were the Waldenses, a
sect whose founder Peter Waldo, a merchant of the French city of
Lyons, in 1173 underwent a religious experience of a profound kind
which resulted in his adoption of a life of simple piety and spirituality.
Religious alternatives: anti-sacerdotal 279
He gathered others who were attracted by the character of his life, and
they too adopted his way of simple piety and joined him in preaching
and ministering to the people of the city. By the time the archbishop
expelled them from Lyons they were a community of some thousands.
The points on which they differed from the official religion included
their refusal of obedience to the Pope and to bishops; their insistence
that religious exhortation and teaching was open to all to undertake
who were fit to do so, including women; that masses, prayers and alms
for the dead were of no avail; and that prayer outside church is as
efficacious as prayer within church. Official sentence was pronounced
on them in 1184: 'these are eternally anathema' and with them all
others 'not having the authority of the Apostolic See or of the Bishop
of the diocese.' It is worth noting that the notion of'authority' here is
one that is primarily institutional. The view of the W aldenses was that
spiritual power is not conferred by ordination at the hands of a bishop,
but was bestowed by Christ directly upon an individual. Their quality
oflife is well attested, and it became the common practice of orthodox
catholic priests to apply to a man of good moral character the smear,
'He is a Waldensian' (Jones, 1923; 142, 144). Various other forms of
anti-sacerdotalism appeared in the thirteenth century. 'The priestly
monopoly in sacramental grace, coupled with its sordid financial
operations, provoked a full-blown storm of protest, at the very time
when the papacy was advancing to the climax of its earthly power'
{Walker, 1961; 143).

6.26 Religious alternatives: mystical

Another kind of religious practice which earned the displeasure of the
ecclesiastical authorities was that of the Brotherhood groups, the
Beguines (women) and the Beghards (men). They emerged in the
early thirteenth century in northern France. The Beguines were women
who lived a kind of monastic life, and devoted themselves to works of
charity and religion. The Beghards, similarly, formed an independent
order, living in communities, vowed to poverty and good works.
More serious from the official point of view even than the fact that
they took no vows of obedience to authority was that their communities
were hot-beds of heresy. Mystical ideas had begun to provide a real
alternative to Roman institutional religion, and in a popular form were
280 Theologians, Poets and Mystics
penetrating everywhere; 'every time we get a glimpse of the doctrine
the central idea is the same. God is all. ... In this universe of multiplicity
everything real is divine. The end of all things is a return to the divine
unity. Man has within himself the possibility of such return- he can
become like Christ, like God. He can even become God.... The
Church therefore is unnecessary. Heaven and hell are allegories .. .'
(Jones, 1923; 206). Another popular religious society of this kind in
the early thirteenth century was one which a university professor in
Paris named Amaury had brought into being by means of his teaching.
The official condemnation of Amaury was on the grounds that he had
declared 'that God is called the End of all things, because all things are
to return into Him and to remain unchangeable in Him.... He holds
that God is the essence of every creature, and the ultimate reality of
everything that is ... .' The society which was formed of his disciples,
many of them university students, believed that the highest spiritual
experience was that of realising the divine life within one's own being,
and in pursuit of this goal practised silence and contemplation. Another
teacher of a similar popular doctrine was David Dinant, also of the
early thirteenth century, who according to Aquinas held that 'God,
intelligence and matter are identical in essence', and that 'individual
qualities which distinguish beings are only appearances due to an
illusion of sense' {Jones, 1923; 184). This is remarkably similar to the
monistic doctrine of Shankara, the great brahman philosopher of
India of the ninth and tenth centuries (6.12). In spite of the official
persecution of such mysticism, in spite of the Papal denunciations, the
Inquisition, the burning of books and of men, it continued to provide a
powerful and attractive alternative religious system to the authoritarian
Augustinian orthodoxy.
By the fourteenth century it is this view of spiritual reality which
attracted the Dominican monk, Heinrich Eckhart. Creatures share in
real being, according to Eckhart, only as they share in the nature of
God. In order to reach God man has to turn inward, realising the divine
reality within himself, and renouncing all desire. It is easy to see how
such views led to a devaluation of sacraments, the official channels of
grace, and consequently the challenge to priestly authority which this
ascetic, contemplative system implied. Eckhart's mysticism was con-
demned by Papal Bull in 1329. It was not thereby destroyed, however,
as the mysticism of at least two of the more famous of his immediate
disciples shows -John Tauler (1300-61) and John Ruysbreck (1293-
Religious alternatives: mystical 281
1381). The mystical tradition continued to attract many men and
women in various countries of Europe throughout the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, many of whom will remain unknown by name,
like the author of the mystical treatise, The Cloud of Unknowing; those
whose names are known include Thomas a Kempis, Henry Suso,
Margaret and Christina Ebner, and in England, Richard Rolle of
Yorkshire, Walter Hilton of N ottinghamshire, and Julian of Norwich.

6.27 Jewish medieval mysticism

It is one of the characteristics of mysticism, of the kind described above
(6.26), that it cuts across traditional, institutional boundaries. In the
medieval period the mystical tradition within Jewish religion is known
as the Kabbalah. The word means 'tradition', and its use in this con-
nection refers to the claim that this was an element of religious life
which had been handed down orally from earlier times. In the eleventh
century Jewish mystical ideas and practices had something of an
esoteric quality, but by the fourteenth century they had become 'the
manifest pursuit of the many' (Epstein, 1959; 223).
In so far as the historical transmission of mystical ideas can be traced,
Jewish mysticism appears to have developed first in Iraq and from
there to have been carried in the ninth century C.E. to Italy and thence
in the tenth century to Germany. Another form coming from Iraq
appears to have reached Provence in the twelfth century and from
there to have spread to Spain where it became prominent in the four-
teenth century. In Germany, owing to the persecution the Jews
suffered, and to their more socially withdrawn and inward-looking
condition, mysticism developed in a predominantly practical, ecstatic
and sometimes magical direction. In Provence and Spain, where the
Jews enjoyed relatively more favourable conditions (especially in
Muslim Spain) mysticism developed in a more metaphysical and
speculative direction. Influential in this development were Isaac the
Blind of Provence in the middle of the twelfth century, and his disciple
Azriel (c. 1160-1238 c.E.) who in turn numbered among his disciples
Moses Nachmanides, who in the thirteenth century was responsible
for spreading among the Jews of Spain the mystical doctrines which, he
declared, were the real essence of Judaism. Most influential of all,
however, was the compilation which appeared about 1300, known as
282 Theologians, Poets and Mystics
the Zohar, made by Leon of Granada; this was a work which 'very
soon became the textbook ofJewish mystics, and after the Talmud has
exercised the profoundest influence in Judaism' (Epstein, 1959; 234),
especially after 1492, when, the Jews being expelled from Spain as a
result of the Catholic Inquisition, they spread abroad into other
countries of the Mediterranean region and of northern Europe, carry-
ing with them into these countries the mysticism of the Zohar, by
which they had been fortified to bear persecution and to view their
sufferings in a wide perspective.

6.28 The disintegration of the Christian medieval pattern

It is possibly significant that the period of greatest intellectual influence
of Augustinian theology, the theology of the omnipotent deity,
coincided with the period of greatest political influence of the Papacy.
There is not the space to do more than note this fact, beyond remarking
that the decline of the one also accompanied the decline of the other.
The Church was the City of God, of God the omnipotent ruler; the
Church was also, in the period which began towards the end of
Augustine's own lifetime, the undisputed successor to the Roman
empire, and its earthly ruler was Caesar's heir during the centuries
when there was virtually no single secular power strong enough to
resist ecclesiastical control. The two realms, the theological and the
political, manifest some striking parallels. By the fourteenth century
challenges to the supremacy both of the theology and Papal secular
control had begun to appear. Since the days of Augustine a new
intellectual force had entered the European arena in the shape of
Aristotelian thought - preserved and transmitted to Western Europe
by Islamic philosophers. In Anselm's day reason was very clearly
subordinate to revelation; it was a useful tool for explicating what was
known by revelation. By the time of Aquinas, two centuries later, we
see reason admitted to something approaching a partnership with
revelation (6.24). By the following century faith based on revelation,
and knowledge based on reason, were beginning to be regarded as
separate and distinct from each other. Aquinas's system of philo-
sophical theology may be seen as a valiant attempt to stave off the day
of the divorce of reason and faith. Nevertheless in the thought-systems
of men such as William of Ockham (1300-49) and his disciples it is
The disintegration ofthe Christian medieval pattern 283
axiomatic that reason and faith operate in entirely different realms, and
are independent of each other. William of Ockham (the name of his
birthplace in Surrey) was a member of the Franciscan Order, who at the
age of twenty-four was charged by the Papal court at Avignon with
unorthodoxy. Two years later his writings were condemned, and two
years later still he fled from Avignon to Germany, to spend the remain-
ing twenty-one years of his life in controversy with orthodox theology
and in assisting the temporal ruler to resist Papal political claims.
Ockham' s position with regard to the natural world was that of the
empiricist; observation of individual objects, their properties, and their
relation with other individual objects was the only method to be
followed. The metaphysical idea of universals, of which individual
objects were particular expressions, he rejected. Such an empirical
approach to the natural world ruled out the possibility of natural
theology such as Aquinas had believed possible, that is, the demonstra-
tion of the existence of God from the rational use of evidence derived
from that natural order. So far as knowledge of God was concerned,
this was, according to Ockham, entirely a matter of faith. The elaborate
schemes of medieval theology, which analysed God's being and his
attributes, were ruled out. The only affirmation to be made about God
was that he is absolute power (potentia absoluta) and this for Ockham
was a matter of faith alone. God was otherwise utterly unknowable
and unpredictable; he could do whatever pleased him at any time.
'Where reason ended, God's potentia absoluta began, taking charge of
what was not subject to verification and showing how uncertain and
unknown it was. It removed all effective standards ofjudgment. In that
sense the God of scepticism ceased to be the God of tradition: He was
so unknowable that His attributes melted in the blaze of His omni-
potence, leaving no certainty' (Leff, 1958; 290). It is important to
notice the one positive note that remains in this late medieval scepticism
about the nature of God, when all else has been dissolved away- God
as absolute power. Ockham did not cease to believe in God; faith had
still its object, and for a medieval man the one enduring characteristic
possessed by this object of faith was omnipotence. This is interesting
confirmation of where the emphasis ultimately lay in medieval
Christian theology; when all other characteristics of God had gone,
this one remained, not to be surrendered; and even this could only be
affirmed by faith.
The religious scepticism which Ockham represented had certain
284 Theologians; Poets and Mystics
affmities with the mysticism which, as we have seen, was also a feature
of the times, and which also provided an alternative to the Augustinian
and Thomist schemes of theology. The opponents of this scepticism,
such as Thomas Bradwardine (1290-1349), Archbishop of Canterbury,
denounced it as Pelagianism (4.18). The reason for this lay in the
similarity of practical effect - the Ockhamists denied any certainty or
regularity about the working of God in relation to man, and hence
virtually denied the whole scheme of institutional grace. In this, as in
the mood of agnosticism about the nature of God, there is a connection
between the Ockhamists and those who were inclined to mysticism as
an alternative to orthodoxy, for as Josiah Royce put it, 'The mystic is
a thorough-going empiricist' (Jones, 1923; xx).
The denial of a metaphysical hierarchy ranging from truths of
revelation down through truths of reason, and the establishing of a
divorce between them, had its parallels in other directions; for instance,
there was a tendency to pay less attention to the established hierarchical
structure which had until now characterised medieval society. The
political authority of the Popes began to be challenged by various
secular rulers. Towards the end of the fourteenth century there were
signs of social unrest; the fixed order of society (which, justified as a
divinely ordained structure, was in some ways curiously like the caste-
system of India) was beginning to be challenged in such movements as
the Peasants' Revolt in England, and by similar movements in France
and Flanders. As we have seen, those who took part in the rebellion
against theological and sacramental authority were not infrequently
involved also in the rejection of the social and political authority of the
Papal Church.

6.29 Eastern and Western Christianity

One important point remains to be touched upon in connection with
the religion of medieval Europe, and that is the alienation which
occurred during this period between the Church of the Latin West and
that of the Greek East. This is a handy distinction, but should not be
pressed too far, for the East had absorbed elements of Latin culture,
just as the West had inherited much that was Greek. The rift between
Rome and Byzantium which occurred in 731 has already been noted
(6.21); it continued to grow, and was aggravated both by political
Eastern and Western Christianity 285
factors and by certain differences of culture and outlook. The East
criticised the Papal Church for a number of what it considered to be
departures from Christian principles - the notion of Purgatory, the
compulsory celibacy of the clergy, and the denial of the right of the
priest to confirm the baptised, for example. The final separation
occurred when the Eastern Church objected to the Pope's having, as
they held, taken upon himself to add the word Filioque to the Nicene
Creed, to indicate that the Holy Spirit proceeds from (God) the Father,
and the Son. The repudiation of this idea by the East enabled the
Western Church, whose political strength lay with Charlemagne and
his successors, to accuse the East of heresy in response to the Eastern
Church's criticisms of Papal religion. The traditional date for the
schism is 1054, when the Papal legate to Constantinople, Cardinal
Humbert, laid on the altar of St Sophia a letter of excommunication of
the Patriarch of Constantinople and his associates. Four centuries later
when Constantinople was threatened by Turkish Muslim armies,
negotiations with Rome were entered upon in the hope of gaining
Western help, and it is to be noted that the four major points which were
declared to be at issue between the two Churches were the Papal claim
to supremacy, the Filioque clause, the doctrine of Purgatory, and the
question of the use ofleavened or unleavened bread in the Eucharist.
The differences between the two Churches, apart from these matters,
are differences of emphasis within Christian religion; some of these,
however, are matters of such primary importance that these two wings
of Christendom have developed into almost separate types of religion.
The differences have been summarised as follows (Zaehner, 1959, 76-9).
In theW est the essential feature of the Christian life is man's justification,
whereas in the East it is his divinisation ('God became man in order that
man might become God'). Connected with this is the Western
Christian view of man which lays stress on his original guilt, whereas the
Eastern Church emphasises man's potential goodness. Western theology
tends towards a dualism of matter and spirit (as in Augustine), whereas
the East holds to the idea of the unity of matter and spirit, or at least
their interdependence. In the West it is most important that the right
dogmas are held, whereas in the East it is in worshipping aright and in
the true experience of worship that orthodoxy (literally, 'right-praise')
consists. In keeping with the West's emphasis on the guilt of man and
his prime need being for justification it is the idea of Christ as the victim,
the sacrifice to God which cancels man's sin, which is emphasised;
286 Theologians, Poets and Mystics
whereas in the East it is the idea of Christ as Victor over the forces of
evil, which is more strongly emphasised. Finally, there is a contrast in
ecclesiastical structure. The Western Church is characterised by a
monarchical authoritarian system, that is, authority with a recognised
focus, namely the Papacy; whereas in the East authority is vested in the
whole congregation of the faithful, and there is no one visible head,
no authoritarian individual who is regarded as Christ's vicar. This shows
itself in another way in the strong sense of identification with the
community which is characteristic of the Eastern Church, whereas
Western Christendom has tended to emphasise the individual.

6.3 ISLAM COMES OF AGE (750-1500 c.E.)

6.30 The social basis of Islamic civilisation

An account of the orthodox beliefs and practices of Islam, such as will
be given later (6.34) would show us only the bare bones of what was
in fact a living religious culture, and certainly from the period of the
Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad, a vigorous and distinctive Islamic
civilisation. The Arabs had brought to Iraq and Persia a new religion, a
language, and a social system: a religion whose creed had the attraction
of simplicity and rationality; a language which, as B. Thomas says,
was by reason of its richness and flexibility well fitted for becoming
'the scientific and classical as well as the religious idiom of an empire in
much the same way as Latin served for medieval Europe' (1937; 124);
and a social system which was in essence democratic, based upon a
strong sense of brotherhood, and able to reach across national loyalties.
The religion of Islam is unfavourable to discrimination between men
on the grounds either of social class, or of race and colour. This is not
to say that Islam has never been affected by such kinds of discrimination,
but more often than not its coming has meant to the people of the
territory into which it came a sense of social release. This wide human-
ity is undoubtedly one of the principal factors in the success of the
Islamic community in absorbing peoples of diverse types from Spain
to Indonesia, and from Mongolia to equatorial Africa.
Islam in Iraq 287

6.31 Islam in Iraq

We have seen (5.11-5.13) that Islam arose as a specifically religious
response to the condition of Meccan society at the beginning of the
seventh century C.E. Muhammad's religious experience had as its
background his awareness of the irreligious and materialistic trends of
the time in Arabia. His prophetic role consisted initially of his pro-
claiming to his contemporaries the reality of a transcendent being to
whom all men were responsible and whose judgment ultimately they
must encounter. We saw also that the initially religious movement
which he inaugurated very soon assumed a political character, in the
new integration of Medinan society which Muhammad saw to be his
task. A new religio-political state developed, consciously organised as
a theocracy. The success which this achieved in integrating the Arab
tribes of Medina soon attracted neighbouring Arab tribes, and the
process of growth was considerably stimulated by the idea of jihad,
or striving in the way of God (5.15). Arab tribesmen began to be
drawn into the new community for reasons that were primarily
political rather than religious. What had begun as a prophetic religious
movement became thus at a very early stage a community combining
both religious and political interests and aims. Before long these two
elements had their recognisable representatives: those who were
attracted on religious grounds and regarded this as the essential
element in Islam; and those who, when they saw howthingsweregoing,
had jumped on to the pan-Arab political bandwagon which Islam
appeared to them to be.
By the time of the Umayyad caliphs this duality had become
obvious to all; the protest of the Qadarites and the puritan Kharijites
at the blatant secularism of the Umayyad rulers and their party was an
expression of this awareness. What we now have to consider during
the period of the Abbasid caliphs (750-1258) is the growth of inter-
action between the political and the religious elements, and how this
affected, in particular, the religious development oflslam.
The caliph transferred his capital from Damascus to Baghdad in
762 c.E., and from then onwards for the next two and a half centuries
it was in Iraq and Persia that some of the most important developments
in Islam took place. The scene is that of the former Sassanid Persian
empire, conquered by the Muslim Arabs and progressively occupied
288 Theologians} Poets and Mystics
and brought under their rule during the caliphate of Umar (634--44
C.E.) (5.18). Up to this point our study oflslam has been concerned
mainly with its Arabian origin and with Arabs as its bearers. We have
now to take account of the fact that it soon came to be embraced by
peoples of non-Arab stock, a fact which is significant for two reasons:
first, it reminds us of the ability of this Arabian system of religious
belief and practice to appeal to men outside the culture in which it
originated - a further example of the principle of diffusion and a
demonstration oflslam' s character as a missionary religion; and second,
the obverse side, the effect upon the nature oflslam as a religion of this
spread into other cultural regions. Not only have we to note the impact
of Islam on Persia and Iraq, but also their impact on Islam.
At the time of the Muslim military occupation of this area four classes
in Persian, or Persianised, society may be distinguished: the Zoro-
astrian clergy; the army; the secretaries or civil servants; and the mass
of the people, both artisans and peasants. Zoroastrianism had been the
established religion; its clergy had the support of, and themselves
supported the secular power and because of this alliance were able to
oppress dissident religious minorities, such as Christians and Jews;
these therefore were by no means sorry to see Sassanid Persian-
Zoroastrian rule replaced by that of Arab Muslims, who here as else-
where showed a very tolerant attitude towards these minority religious
groups, 'peoples of the book' as they were. Moreover there was
apparently no great respect among the common people for state
Zoroastrianism; many of the artisans by reason of their occupation
were regarded with disfavour by religious officials, and these too were
inclined to welcome their new Muslim masters. The army and the
Zoroastrian clergy were now dispossessed of power and hence receded
in importance; the crucial case among these various social classes was
that of the secretaries. Those were the public administrators upon whose
knowledge and skill the functioning of the Persian state had depended;
they were the real bearers of Persian culture, the literati; to a large
extent they correspond with that class in modem western society called
'the professionals', 'the salariat' or 'the pace-makers'. Their attitude
towards Islam was more complicated. Previously many of them had
been formally Zoroastrian, since that had been the established form of
religion. Some of these when they saw it was in their interest to do so,
became Muslims. Others, however, resisted Islamisation. To them the
Arabs were their cultural inferiors and this new religion of the Arabs a
 Islam in Iraq 289
matter for contempt. Their rejection of Muslim belief and practice
was mostly, however, not from a Zoroastrian position, but rather
from that of Manichaeism, the dualistic religious system which had its
origin in third-century Babylon and which had a strong appeal for
these Persian literati; in somecasesitwas from the position of intellectuals
who had now turned to Hellenistic philosophy. Among those of the
secretary class who were thus critical of Muslim religion there was a
further reason which sharpened their criticism: a class of religious
specialists, the ulama, had emerged within Islam and these men were
now succeeding to the place in Persian society formerly held by the
Zoroastrian clergy, and some also were being appointed to adminis-
trative posts in the Muslim state. Intellectual controversy thus developed
between the Muslim religious institution and the Persian secretaries, and
it was in the course of this, and also to some extent in controversy with
Christians and Jews, that the Muslims were forced to engage in the
study of Greek philosophy, and especially in the art oflogical disputa-
tion.

6.32 Islamic civilisation and learning

There were, however, other reasons for the growth oflslamic learning,
one of the most important of which was the openness of Islamic
society (6.30). Islamic civilisation under the Abbasids was a compound
in which three elements can be distinguished: the ancient culture of
Persia, the philosophy and science of the Greeks, and the stimulus to
both of these within the Persian environment provided by the spirit of
Islam and the new degree of socialisation of knowledge that became
possible within the relatively free society of the Islamic cities, especially
in Baghdad. It is to the credit of the Muslim Arabs, moreover, that
when they came into contact with other systems of thought and men of
keen intellect they did not evade the challenge to their Arab culture
which this presented, for fear that alien philosophies should upset
revealed truth. On the contrary their leaders, particularly the early
caliphs of Baghdad, gave positive encouragement to the pursuit of
classical Persian and Hellenistic learning. In particular, possibly through
the Nestorian Christians ofPersia, the Arabs discovered the philosophy
of Aristotle, whose works now began to be translated into Arabic.
This led to the discovery of other fields of classical Greek learning and
290 Theologians, Poets and Mystics
literature. Islamic cities in Persia became free meeting places for wander-
ing scholars from Greece, Persia and India. We are told that 'philo-
sophers, mathematicians, astronomers, medical scientists' and other
scholars of wide reputation in the Greek sciences moved freely into this
area throughout the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries of the Christian
era. Great libraries ofleamed works were built up at centres of scholar-
ship throughout the Muslim world, such as Baghdad, Cairo and
Cordova, and to a lesser degree in many of the mosques.

6.33 Islamic thought in Iraq

It thus came about that the rising class of Muslim ulama acquired a
considerable knowledge of Greek philosophical concepts at a time
when their own religious ideas needed to be restated and possibly
reinterpreted in the interests of religious apologetic, and it was in this
situation that a new school of Islamic doctrine arose from about 800
C.E. onwards, known as the Mutazila. The meaning of this name is
uncertain and various explanations have been offered, none of which
commands universal acceptance. What is known of the Mutazilites,
however, is that they made use of Greek philosophical concepts in the
exposition oflslamic dogma, partly in debate with other Muslims, and
partlyinthedialoguewith other faiths; it is known also that in the course
of this dialogue they were concerned above all to uphold (a) the unity
of God, and (b) the justice of God.
With regard to the first of these, the Mutazilites were in controversy
with other Muslims. The point at issue is one which illustrates the kind
of difficulty which religious thought gets into when a prophet's words
have become canonised as sacred scripture and the original situation to
which they were addressed has passed away, leaving only the words
themselves which, while they had an immediate relevance and vitality
in that original situation, have now lost it, but have gained an independ-
ent existence and are being cogitated upon, and systematised, and
shaped into dogmas. This is what had happened to a number of the
ways in which the Prophet had spoken of the divine being.
In the Qur' an God is sometimes described in highly anthropomorphic
terms: he hears, and sees, and speaks, he comes down and seats himself
upon his throne, and so on. The Mutazilites maintained that such
descriptions should be interpreted allegorically. One of the most
Islamic thought in Iraq 291
important points in this connection is that seven names for God (out
of a very much larger number of what were called 'the beautiful names
of God') had been fastened upon: the Knowing, the Powerful, the
Willing, the Living, the Seeing, the Hearing, the Speaking. From the
fact that these names were used of God in the Qur' an it was deduced
that God must be thought of as possessing the 'attributes' indicated by
these names: Knowledge, Power, Will, and so on. The seventh
attribute of God was thus that of Speech, or Word. This 'Word' of
God was then identified as being, in fact, the Qur' an. But since God is
eternal and uncreated, His attributes must also be eternal, and uncreated;
so it was argued. Hence the Qur' an was eternal and uncreated. To some
Muslims, possibly to those who were conversant with Greek thought
and especially Greek Christian thought, there was a danger here. Such
Muslims would know that Christians believed in a Logos or divine
Word, and that such belief appeared to imply a second God. This
multiplicity of attributes might well seem to them to endanger the
doctrine of the unity of God, especially when one of the attributes was
identified with an entity known to men as the Qur'an. The Mutazilites
therefore denied that the Qur'an was eternal and uncreated; it had
appeared, they said, at a certain point in time, and was not identical
with the 'speech' of God, which had to be understood as part of God
himself, not a separate attribute.
It so happened that this assertion by the Mutazilites suited very well
the purposes of the Abbasid caliph at the time; for reasons of govern-
mental policy he was concerned to reduce the supreme status of the
Qur' an. From about 830 c.E., therefore, Mutazilites seem to have been
very much in favour with the Abbasid caliph, and were appointed to
important administrative posts in the state; all officials were required
to make an assertion to the effect that the Qur' an was created and not
eternal; those who refused to do so were imprisoned.
As the second main point in their doctrine, they emphasised the
justice of God. This, perhaps more than the first point, was for apolo-
getic reasons in connection with their disputations with Manichaeans
and Christians. They were concerned to refute the charge that the
omnipotent God of the Qur'an was unjust in his dealings with men;
God, they said, could will only what was for man's good. In support
of their view they, like the Qadarites (with whom they had a close
connection) asserted the freedom of the human will. Man's destiny,
they argued, depended on his actions; God has shown man how to live
L L.H.R.
292 Theologians, Poets and Mystics
so as to gain Paradise; it was therefore for man to heed God's word and
live accordingly. Their orthodox Muslim opponents had also learnt
the use oflogic in doctrinal disputes, and they began to raise awkward
questions concerning the fate of children who died before they could be
held responsible for their actions. The story of the three brothers is an
example of the kind of argument used by the orthodox against the
Mutazilites. There were three brothers, one good, one wicked, and one
who died as a child; the good one went to Paradise when he died, the
wicked one to Hell, and the one who died as a child to Limbo.
According to the story, the third brother complained that God had been
less than fair to him, in making him die as a child and thus be unable to
gain Paradise. The reply he received was that God knew that had he
lived he would have grown up to be wicked and would in fact have
gone to Hell. At this, the second brother complained that God had
dealt less than fairly with him, since he had not caused him to die in
infancy like his brother but had allowed him to grow up, become
wicked, and be sent to Hell. Why had God seen fit to deal so unfairly
with him? To this there was no answer, and the Mutazilite doctrine,
that God must deal with men for their good, was shown to involve God
in a charge of injustice, a charge to which it appeared God would have
to plead guilty. The orthodox opponents of the Mutazilites were also
beginning to learn to use the methods of rational argument in defence
of their orthodoxy; for them the important truth to be defended was
that nothing is incumbent on an omnipotent God and no charge of
injustice can therefore be made against Him.
The favour of the caliph which the Mutazilites had enjoyed came to
an end after about 848 c.E., when the caliphs were no longer concerned,
as they had been previously, with lowering the status of the Qur' an,
and the Mutazilites' views were no longer of importance to them. After
about 850 C.E. they therefore ceased to have much popular influence,
but one lasting result of the controversies they had stirred up was the
use of philosophical methods, and in particular logic, in the exposition
of orthodox doctrine. It was the excessive use of philosophywhichlater,
as we shall see, resulted in a reaction towards mysticism (6.36; 6.37).

6.34 The emergence of normative Islam

By the second century after the Hijra (5.14) or the ninth century of the
Christian era, Islam may be said to have reached the fully developed
The emergence ofnormative Islam 293
form in which it was to persist down to modern times. This full
development was reached when the major items of belief and practice
had been settled and an agreed body of authoritative sources had
emerged. For in addition to the Qur' an, orthodox Islam accepts also
certain collections of the Hadith (5.11) or traditions about the Prophet
Muhammad which are regarded as genuine and authentic, namely
those compiled by al-Bukhari, who died in 870 C.E. and those compiled
by Muslim, who died in 889. These constitute a canonical authority
secondary to the Qur' an, and are the source for ascertaining the Sunna,
or customs, of the Prophet and the forefathers. The orthodox Muslim,
in questions of theology and of law, appeals to the Qur' an and the
Sunna, and it is from the latter term that the orthodox community of
Islam is named the Sunni.
It will be convenient at this point to summarise the main items of
belief and practice in orthodox Islam as they had by this time developed.
The major items ofbelief are seven in number:
1. God; above all the Muslim believes in the unity of God, the
creator of all things, who in his omnipotence overrules all things.
2. Angels; who are God's servants and messengers, the chief of
whom is Gabriel; this is in contrast to Judaism, where Michael
is regarded as the chief of the angels. A. I. Katsh (1954) has
suggested that the reason for the primacy of Gabriel in Islam is
that he is traditionally the guardian angel of Abraham, who is
regarded by Muslims as 'the father oflslam'.
3. The prophets; a large number of whom are recognised but seven
of whom are given special prominence, namely, Adam, Seth,
Enoch, Abraham, Moses, David and Jesus, with Muhammad as
the fmal prophet, after whom there are no more.
4. The holy books, containing the words of the prophets, again
culminating in the Qur' an, delivered through Muhammad and
regarded as either abrogating or superseding the previous
prophetic books, some of which, however, are regarded as
having been already either 'withdrawn' by God, since they are
not known to exist (e.g. a book written by Adam) or corrupted
in the course of transmission and no longer trustworthy (those
concerning Jesus, for example).
5. The doctrine of the predestination by God of good and evil.
6. The doctrine of the Last Day, the Day ofjudgment.
7. The doctrine of bodily resurrection of all men at the Last Day.
294 Theologians, Poets and Mystics
The main items of religious practice, the 'Five Pillars oflslam', are:
1. The confession of faith, or shahada: 'There is no god but God,
and Muhammad is his apostle'.
2. Prayer, at the five set times daily.
3. Almsgiving.
4. Fasting, especially during the daylight hours of the month of
Ramadan, when it is compulsory for all but certain exempted
individuals, such as pregnant women, and the sick, who must
make it up later.
5. Pilgrimage, if possible at least once in life, to the holy city and
shrine at Mecca.

6.35 The work ofAl Ashari (873-935)

The Mutazilites, in their attempt to expound the Qur'anic revelation by
the use of reason, raised as many difficulties as they solved - as, for
example, in the case of the story of the three brothers, where their
efforts to uphold the idea that God is just and can will only what is good
for man appeared to involve them in the end in demonstrating God's
unfairness (6.33). It was dissatisfaction with this method ofinterpretation
of the Qur' an which led AI Ashari, one of the most brilliant pupils of
the leading Mutazilite teacher in Basra, to abandon this kind of
approach. This happened about the year 912 c.E., when AI Ashari was
nearly forty. By this time the Mutazilites had ceased to enjoy the favour
of the caliph, and between their philosophical ideas and the religious
beliefs of the ordinary Muslims there was a wide gulf. Nor was the
Mutazilite philosophical position sufficiently philosophical for the
minority who were inclined towards Greek ideas. AI Ashari's 'con-
version' to orthodoxy and his rejection of the philosophising methods
of the Mutazilites is connected with a series of dreams in which
Muhammad is said to have appeared and spoken to him. He became
convinced that the Qur' anic revelation must be restored to its proper
place in Islamic religion: it must be held to be the uncreated Word of
God; it must be given absolute priority; and it must be understood not
metaphorically or as allegory but literally. One of the most important
implications of this was that the Mutazilite doctrine of human free will
had to be rejected. As we have seen (5.19) the Qur' an is overwhelmingly
in favour of the doctrine of divine predestination of all the actions of
The work ofAl Ashari 295
men. In the view of the orthodox, the Mutazilite doctrine of free will
endangered the supremely important Islamic idea of the absolute
omnipotence of God. Nevertheless, some way had to be found to
explain the apparent freedom of choice man has, and a certain degree of
human moral responsibility postulated by the injunctions to man
contained in the Qur' an. AI Ashari' s reconciliation of the Qur'anic data
shows that he did not in fact altogether reject the use of rational
methods of exposition; they were however assigned a completely
subordinate position to the Word, that is the Qur' an itself. His view
was that God provides all the attendant circumstances for a man's
action; man then enters into those circumstances and 'acquires' the acts
which God has made possible for him. Thus man does not create his
actions, and God's sole Creatorship is safeguarded. God allows man
room within which to act, but since it is God who does this, God's
omnipotence is maintained. On the other hand, in AI Ashari' s view
man has a certain degree of accountability for his actions (whether he
does willingly act as God has made it possible for him to act or not), and
this is sufficient to form the criterion for man's punishment or reward
at the Last Judgment. This view of the matter expounded by AI Ashari
was, says Wensinck, one which 'determined the direction in which
dogmatic Islam was to move for centuries' (Wensinck, 1932; 86£).
Orthodox Islam was committed to a literal interpretation of words
spoken in an Arabian situation by an Arab prophet. Within the limits
of the literal acceptance of these words Muslim theologians were free
to engage in philosophical argument and reasoned exposition of the
data. With such theological orthodoxy many, apparently, were satisfied;
but not all, as we shall see.

6.36 The Sufis

The division between the religious and the political elements in Islam,
which was mentioned earlier (6.31), becomes particularly noticeable in
the Sufi movement. The Sufis are sometimes described as the mystics of
Islam but this is perhaps too restrictive a description. Their origins are
to be found in the ascetic religious tradition of early Islam, and in the
growing dissatisfaction which the more faithful Muslims felt in a
situation where the rulers of the Islamic community were becoming
increasingly secular and irreligious. Discontent of this kind began, as
296 Theologians, Poets and Mystics
we have seen, with the Umayyad caliphs. The faithful were very
unhappy with the tum events had taken; a few minorities such as the
Shia, the Qadarites, and the Kharijites expressed their discontent during
the Umayyad period; others may have hoped for better days. When
the Umayyads in their Damascus capital were succeeded in the leader-
ship of the Islamic community by the Abbasids in their new capital of
Baghdad these hopes sank very low. Power, wealth, luxury and
ostentation were now the most characteristic features of the life of the
men who had seized control of the Muslim community. 'I will tell a
tale of long ago,' wrote Ahmad ben Asim of Antioch (757-830 C.E.),
'how first the Faith began, and how it grew to full perfection; yea, and
I will tell how next it withered, till it hath become e'en' as a faded
garment.' He goes on to tell how he lived in 'an age become exceeding
strange, cruel and terrible'. Men might eulogise Islam, but it was 'as
mourners praise the dear, departed dead!' (Arberry, 1950; 31).
Out of such dissatisfaction and protest, out of a desire for the recovery
of the religious dimension to life, out of a situation, that is to say, not
unlike that in which the Prophet himself had been inspired to embark
on his mission, there emerged a new emphasis on the virtues of
abstinence and self-denial, on simplicity of life and the disciplines of
prayer and fasting. Men recalled that though the first caliph Abu Bakr
had been a great ruler, he had worn only a simple garment held
together by two pins; the caliph Umar, who had ruled even greater
territory, had lived on the simplest food and had worn patched clothes;
these had been in the tradition of the prophets of God before them who
had practised austerities and cared only for the service of God. The men
who recalled these things did so in explanation of their own austere
practice, undertaken in the first instance as a protest against the stifling
atmosphere of worldliness and more formal adherence to Islam. To this
ascetic, and to some extent negative attitude of protest there came to be
added a more positive fervour, a desire 'to know God' in some way
more direct and real than that set forth by the theologians and lawyers.
The ascetic protest began in Iraq in the towns of Basra and Kufa during
the eighth century, whence it spread to Syria and Persia, especially to the
region of Khorasan. The devotional, or mystical, development of the
movement had its centre in Baghdad whence originated much of the
early devotional literature of the Sufis, as these men had now come to
be called. This positive emphasis on direct, inner knowledge of God
developed a theory of union with God which had strong affmities with
 The Sufis 297
the idea of theosis, or the divinisation of man, that is emphasised in the
Christian East (6.29). It led some of the Sufis to express their position in
terms that sounded to the majority of Muslims like blasphemy. Thus,
al-Hallaj, who expressed his inner experience by saying 'I am the Truth'
was crucified in 922 C.E. Others were similarly executed for heresy.
However, Sufi holy men continued to teach their doctrine and their
practice to groups of disciples, and by the eleventh century C.E. a
number of Sufi schools were in existence, in which the teaching of the
Sufi masters was transmitted. This led to the development of established
Orders by the twelfth century; these were religious communities or
brotherhoods (though not celibate) with their own distinctive mode of
initiation, and a common discipline and doctrine. Four such great
Orders emerged in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries:
1. The Quadiris, owing their original inspiration to the life and
preaching of a Persian Muslim, al-Quadir (1078-1166 c.E.).
2. The Suhrawardiya, named after another Persian, al-Suhrawadi
(1144-1234 C.E.).
3. The Shadhiliya, founded by al-Shadhili (1196-1258 c.E.), who
gained a large following in Tunis, fled to Alexandria and there
was even more successful in the number of disciples he gained.
4. The Order whose founder was the great Jalal al-Din Riimi,
perhaps the greatest of all the mystical poets ofPersia, who died
in 1273 C.E.; this was the Order known as the Maulawiya.
The first two of these subsequently became important in India, the
third in Egypt and North Africa, and the fourth in Turkey.
The man who more than any other perhaps was responsible for
Sufism gaining a firm footing within Islam was the great teacher and
mystic Al Ghazali and to a brief account of this man's religious
experience we now turn.

6.37 AI Ghazali and the philosophers

It is sometimes said that if anyone in Islamic history was to be held a
prophet after Muhammad it would have to be Al Ghazali (1058-1111
c.E.). He is usually regarded as the greatest and most original of the
scholars in the orthodox tradition of AI Ashari (6.35) and the highest
authority of the Sunni school. In order to understand the characteristic
ideas and emphases which Ghazali succeeded in establishing within
298 Theologians, Poets and Mystics
Islam it is necessary to know something of his own history and personal
religious experience. The five hundred years which separate Muhammad
and Al Ghazali were a period in which the relationship of reason and
faith was being constantly explored. Some of this exploration we have
already reviewed in connection with the Mutazilites (6.33). More
especially, however, under the influence of Greek thought mediated
through the translations of Aristotle and Plato that became available to
the Arabs during this period, a tradition of Islamic philosophy
developed. The great figures in this tradition were concerned not only
with the theological problem of relating reason and faith, but also with
the nature of the world, its phenomena and its laws, their approach to
the subject being entirely empirical and rational.
The outstanding names in this tradition are, in the ninth century,
Al Kindi; in the early tenth century Al Farabi; in the eleventh Ibn Sina
(Avicenna) and in the twelfth Ibn Rushd (Averroes). Al Ghazali, born
twenty years after the death of Ibn Sina, began by being keenly
interested in philosophical problems, and became perplexed and
unhappy as the result of his study of contemporary philosophy at
Baghdad, so that he came to doubt even the evidence of his senses and
the workings of his own mind. 'My sickness was too much for me', he
wrote. 'It lasted for almost two months during which I was a sceptic....
In the end God cured me of my sickness .... But this did not happen
through systematic processes of proof or through the weight of
arguments but through a light which God (to Whom be Praise) cast
into my breast .. .' (Hottinger, 1963; 92). He came to the conclusion
that the philosophers were basically unbelievers. They denied the
resurrection of the body, they denied that God concerns himself with
individual happenings and they affirmed that the world was eternal,
without beginning and without end, all of which was, said Ghazali, in
the light of the Qur' an sheer unbelief. He wrote a critical attack on the
position represented by Ibn Sina in particular, which he entitled The
Incoherence of the Philosophers. A reply to this was produced somewhat
later by the philosopher Ibn Rushd, entitled The Incoherence of the
Incoherence.
From the philosophers Ghazali turned to the mystics. He gave up his
post as lecturer in Baghdad, and went to Mecca where for ten years he
lived the life of the ascetic. 'I realised with certainty', he wrote, 'that it
is the mystics above all others who are on God's Path. Their life is the
best life, their methods the best methods and their character the purest
AI Ghazali and the philosophers 299
character. Were the intelligence of all intellectuals, the wisdom of all
scholars and the scholarship of all professors who are experienced in the
profundities of the Revealed Truth brought together in an effort to
improve the mystics' conduct and character they would achieve
nothing, for all movement and all rest, both external and internal,
illuminate the mystic with light from the Lamp ofProphetic Revelation
and there is no light on the face of this earth which illuminates more
than this Light of Prophetic Revelation.
How must one follow this mystic path? Purity, the first condition,
means complete purification of the heart from everything but God (to
Whom be praise). The key thereto, and also the password of the ritual
prayer, is to sink one's heart in the contemplation of God; its goal is
complete identification with God' (Hottinger, 1963; 94).
Later, Ghazali endeavoured to popularise the subject-matter and
methods of philosophy; he tried to make it intelligible to ordinary
people in order that they should understand its inherent weaknesses.
His great influence was, however, in the direction away from philo-
sophy, to a renewed study of the Qur' an and the Hadith. He brought
into prominence again an element which had been neglected, at least
among the educated, namely the healthy sensation of fear, as he
regarded it: the fear and horror ofhell as a motive force to a moral life.
Above all his influence helped a great deal in establishing the position of
Sufism within orthodox Islam. In the tension created by the attempt to
reconcile a monistic philosophy with belief in the God of the Qur'an,
Creator, Almighty, Determiner of all that happens, mysticism provided
a great release to others like Ghazali, vexed by the same problems.
Different types of religious thought have found different ways of
resolving this tension; some have accommodated a popular devotional
cult to a basically monistic philosophy; this was the method followed
by Ramanuja, for example (6.14); others have categorically rejected the
idea of a unitive principle and have affrrmed various forms of absolute
dualism; others again have found a modus vivendi in mysticism, affrrming
what they regard as unchallengeable truths of revelation about an
omnipotent God on the one hand, and the idea of the unity of all things
on the other. It is in this last direction that a good deal oflslamic thought
has moved, especially from the time of Ghazali.

L2 L.H.R.
300 Theologians, Poets and Mystics

6.38 The Muslim Turks in north India

About the year 1000 c.E. the plains of the Punjab began once again as
so often before in the history of India to be the scene of violent raids
carried out from the mountains to the west, this time from the Muslim
Turkish kingdom of Ghazni in what is now Afghanistan. The purpose
of Mahmud, the ruler of Ghazni, in carrying out these raids was to
seize the treasure that was known to be available in the form of gold
and jewels in the Hindu temples of the Punjab (6.13). It so happened
that the Islamic concept of jihad (5.15), now interpreted as 'holy war',
provided a religious motivation for the raids; for as Mahmud' s own
account ofhis activities makes clear, he regarded himself as engaged in a
war against infidels and idolaters. The nature of his operations has
earned him the title of 'Mahmud the idol-smasher'. He is said also to
have ordered the slaughter of many brahman priests. The part which he
played in the coming of the Muslim Turks to north India is of the kind
which has too often been taken to be typical of the advance of Islam
everywhere- by the sword. It was against this view that T. W. Arnold's
account of the expansion of Islam (1913) provided so valuable a
corrective.
Success in his operations against the Hindu rajas of the Punjab led
Mahmud to extend his activities further into India, and by the time he
died in 1030 c.E. he had established a Muslim governor at Lahore and
incorporated all this area into the Ghaznavid kingdom. For a century
and a half after this there were no more Turkish attacks and Hindu
India enjoyed a respite from invasion. A Muslim writer of that period,
AI Biruni, who spent some time in the Punjab, has left a useful account
of Indian customs and manners in the eleventh century. While he is
ready to praise whatever in Hindu culture seems to be praiseworthy -
their philosophy, mathematics, astrology, and even their art -he does
not hesitate to point out their shortcomings. In a frequently quoted
passage AI Biruni says of the Hindus: 'They are haughty, foolishly vain,
self-conceited and stolid. They are by nature niggardly in communicat-
ing that which they know, and they take the greatest possible care to
withhold it from men of another caste among their own people, still
much more of course, from any foreigner' (Ikram, 1964; 28). This is a
verdict worth pondering. Why, when Indian skill in logic and
mathematics was so great, did not natural science develop in India?
The Muslim Turks in north India 301
One possible reason may lie in this lack of social openness among
Hindus, the lack of the facility for the socialisation of knowledge. It
is on this score that Islamic civilisation was at an advantage
compared with Hindu society in that it was an open society, prepared
to adopt ideas and practices from a variety of sources (Ikram, 1964;
28).
Towards the end of the twelfth century C.E. a new wave of invasions
by the Turks began. North India at this time was divided between
numerous Hindu kingdoms of varying size. They seem to have been
incapable of making common cause against the Muslim invaders, who
now once again began to come in increasing numbers. As P. Hardy
points out, the Turkish raids began as a financial enterprise, continued
as a profitable outdoor occupation for Muslim adventurers, and ended
with the colonisation of the north of India and the eventual provision
of a home for large numbers of Muslim refugees from Persia at the time
of the fall of Baghdad to the Mongols in 1285 (deBary, 1958; 378). By
the beginning of the thirteenth century most of north India, from Sind
to Bengal, had passed into the control of Muslim soldier-rulers. The
reasons for their success were various. They were aidedbythepeasantry,
many of whom in north-west India and in Bengal were nominally
Buddhist lay followers, but who also heartily disliked their Hindu
rulers and were glad to see them worsted; the Muslims had certain
physical advantages - their horses had greater mobility than Hindu
elephants and they had the advantage of the offensive; and added to
this was their religious-military ardour. In 1206 C.E., a Muslim general
named Aibak established his rule in the defeated Hindu city of Delhi
and thus began the Sultanate, the rule of Turkish Muslim soldiers and
noblemen over a vast indigenous population of Hindus and Buddhists
with whom they began to intermarry and many of whom also they
converted to the faith of Islam, so that the numbers of indigenous
Muslims now began to grow, and continued to do so throughout the
succeeding centuries of Muslim rule. There thus came into being a new
kind of Muslim - the Indian Muslim, some of whose descendants were
to be the citizens of the modem state ofPakistan.
A further factor in the growth of the Islamic community in India was
the deliberate missionary activity undertaken during the period by the
Sufis. These often began by identifying themselves with the beliefs and
practices of the Vaishnavites and Shaivites, and then, having persuaded
the Hindus that they were sincere religious teachers, they went on to
302 Theologians, Poets and Mystics
tell of a new name for the supreme God, namely Allah, of a new avatara
named Muhammad, and ofhis law and way oflife.

6.39 The diversification ofIslamic culture

By the end of the eleventh century C.E. the unity of the Arab Muslim
empire was beginning to crumble. Since the Islam of the early centuries
was both a religion and a political community, this meant that Islam
henceforth began to exhibit that variety of regional and cultural forms
which have continued to the present day. In the far west the invasions
of Spain by the Berber Muslim tribesmen from north Africa gave to
Spanish Islam a new, fiercer and more intolerant character. It was this
which forced Jews such as the philosopher Maimonides out of Spain to
seek refuge in another part of the Islamic empire, more congenial to the
Jew, namely Egypt. In the Near East Islam now confronted a new
enemy from the West, in the form of the Crusaders, Christian soldiers
who were inspired by a determination to drive Islam out of Palestine at
least, and remove the hindrances which at that time stood in the way of
Christian pilgrimages to the holy places. In accordance with the
medieval penitential system, Pope Urban II promised a plenary
indulgence to all who enlisted for the Crusade, a declaration of freedom
from debt and the maintenance of their wives and families. The
Crusades thus attracted a motley collection, including not a few debtors
and criminals who seized the opportunity with which a man was thus
provided, as Ernest Barker has commented, 'to indulge the bellicose
side of his nature ... at the bidding of the Church' -in much the same
way that the Muslim Turks of Ghazni had descended on the Hindu
temples of the Punjab (6.38). The Franks constituted the predominant
element among the Crusaders so that Ferenghi came to be the common
Arabic term for any European foreigner. Whatever importance these
expeditions may have had for Christian Europe, they were, so far as
Islam was concerned, however, only one of a number of contestants for
power and territory within the Islamic world.
An enduring result of the Crusades was the embittering of relations
between Christians and Muslims for many generations and a vast
amount of misrepresentation and misunderstanding on both sides.
More damaging to the unity of Islam was the wave of Mongol
invasion under Genghiz Khan which swept into Persia in the mid-
The diversijication ofIslamic culture 303
thirteenth century. The Arab historian AI Athir said of the Mongols
that their coming was the greatest calamity to civilisation that he knew.
The whole of Persia was laid waste; Baghdad was destroyed, and the
caliph was executed together with many of his kinsmen. So long as the
caliphate lasted, some semblance of an undivided Islam remained, but
now the commonwealth of Islam was seen to be shattered. Many
Persian Muslims fled eastward into India, to fmd a home within the
sultanate of Delhi, and to enrich Indian Islam by their coming. From
that time onwards Delhi grew in importance as the cultural and
religious centre of Islam in Asia. Many of those who took refuge there
were accomplished scholars and artists. The Muslim historian Barani
tells at length of'the scholars, poets, preachers, philosophers, physicians,
astronomers and historians who thronged Delhi' as a result of the sack
of Baghdad (Ikram, 1964; 112). The Muslim community in Asia now
looked to the sultan of Delhi as its head, in place of the caliph. To him
were ascribed those functions which formerly had been performed by
the caliph, namely 'the defence and maintenance of true religion and
the Holy Law (Sharia), the dispensing of justice and the appointing of
the godfearing to office' (deBary, 1958; 465). From this development
there was to follow, in due course the emergence of a new variant of
Islam, an Indian variant, for no more than any other of the invaders of
India did the Muslims remain unaffected by the many subtle influences
at work upon their faith and their culture.
In the Middle East, the centre oflslamic affairs now moved to Cairo,
and the cities of Syria and Iraq which had formerly been the great
centres now became provincial towns on the outskirts of Egyptian
Islamic civilisation. Here now were to be found large numbers of
schools and colleges which were strongholds of Sunni orthodoxy, and
religious houses where Sufi communities lived and prayed. The
architecture of old Cairo dating from this time suggests something of
the mood Egyptian Islam was experiencing: 'The domes and walls of
Mameluke buildings have something overwhelmingly repressive and
blocklike about them ... they are citadels, refuges of the spirit, richly
decorated cells of ascetics, places of segregation. As such theyaresignsof
a narrowing world. Life is approached defensively; a spirit of un-
certainty and suspicion prevails; confronted with it, people tend to
withdraw to a circumscribed realm which they adorn and furnish for
themselves' (Hottinger, 1963; 112).
304 1heologians, Poets and Mystics

6.4 BUDDHIST CIVILISATION IN ASIA BEYOND

INDIA (10oo-18oo c.E.)

6.40 The further development ofBuddhism in South-East Asia

Buddhists sometimes adopt a division of their history into periods of
five hundred years. In each of the first three periods, namely 500 B.C.
to 0, 0 to 500 c.E., and 500 to 1000 c.E., a new form of Buddhism
appeared. The Theravada, represented most strongly in the continuous
tradition of Ceylon where it was planted in the third century B.C. (3.26),
is the product of the first period. The second period saw the rise of the
major Mahayana schools (4.3). In the third period there was the
development of two extreme forms of Mahayana: Ch' an (5.23) or Zen
in Japan, and the Tantra or Vajrayana (5.26). The last thousand years up
to the present day, however, are sometimes regarded as blank, that is to
say, it is held that in these two periods of five hundred years no new
development took place. This may be true so far as the appearance of
radically new ideas is concerned, but on the other hand there was
development in the pattern of Buddhist cultural and social structure
during the period 1000-1500 c.E., especially in South-East Asia; and,
from about 1800 C.E. onwards, there was in some places the forging of a
new and more committed form of what might be called lay Buddhism,
in the face of the disruption of the old political and social patterns which
was brought about by the coming of the Europeans to Asia.
Before we turn to these aspects of Buddhist history, however, we
have to take account of the fact that the period 1000-1500 witnessed the
virtual disappearance of Buddhism from India.

6.41 The disappearance of Buddhism from India

Buddhism as an institutional religion had ceased to be a feature of the
Indian scene by about 1200 c.E. The reasons for this are various and
complex. It is sometimes held that the Muslim Turkish invasions of
India (6.38) were largely responsible, and that Buddhist religious
institutions, centred upon the monasteries, were more vulnerable than
other religious systems to the pillaging and plundering of what the
 The disappearance ofBuddhism from India 305
Turks regarded as pagan shrines. There is some truth in this, and it may
go a long way towards explaining why Buddhism disappeared while
Hinduism and Jainism, which were subject to the same violent attack,
survived. Another reason which has been suggested (Thapar, 1966;
260) is that the militaristic values which the feudal system of medieval
Indian society required were not supported by Buddhism, and that it
was thus at a severe disadvantage compared with Hinduism whose ethic,
as set forth in the Bhagavad-Gita for example (4.22), is by no means
unfavourable to militaristic activities. The same argument would not,
however, apply to Jainism, where the doctrine of non-violence (ahirp.sa)
is basic; yetJainism survived in India. Perhaps more important was the
extent of the assimilation to Hindu popular devotional cults and magical
practices which had occurred in Buddhism in its Mahayana form. With
this growing emphasis on the use of magical mantras and rituals there
went a corresponding decline in the importance of the Buddhist ethic;
this too was a trend which the Mahayana obsession with metaphysics
did little to check (3.21; 4.33-4.35). Another possible reason that has
been seen for the Buddhist decline is that so long as the Buddhist
religion had the patronage or support oflndian kings it prospered, and
when it was deprived of this it languished. Thus, it is pointed out that
the Pala kings of eastern India (6.10) tended to support Buddhism and
kept it going in that region when it had disappeared elsewhere. It
cannot be concluded from this, however, that Buddhism has never
survived loss of royal patronage - indeed it is precisely the ability to
maintain itself in the face of a government alien to it which characterised
Buddhism in Ceylon during the period of British imperial rule (7.40).
But in India in the eleventh and twelfth centuries Buddhism had not
developed this capacity and the circumstances were against such a
development. Most important of its disabilities was the concentration
of the monastic life in certain great centres such as Nalanda, together
with the decline of the local 'parish' monastery devoted to 'study for
faith' (5.25). This had the result that over large areas there was no local
centre of Buddhist life to act as a focus, to stimulate Buddhist piety, and
to maintain a community of lay adherents. It was this development
which made Buddhism so vulnerable to the Muslim Turkish attack,
concentrated as it had become in large wealthy centres whose riches
provided an irresistible temptation to plunderers. One final point which
has to be mentioned is that once the situation had become so difficult
because of the Muslim invasions, those Buddhist monks who were left
306 Theologians, Poets and Mystics
and who maintained their serious resolve to pursue the Buddhist way
had only one course open to them - to leave India and settle in some
other region where the practice of Buddhist monasticism was still
possible. Since there was nothing in the nature of their faith to attach
them to one area of the world rather than another it was in the natural
course of things that they made their way north and east, beyond the
borders oflndia, to Nepal and Tibet, to China and to Burma. A few
remained in those border areas oflndia such as the parts of East Bengal
and Assam where the monastic life had survived; in some of these places
a small Buddhist population has persisted, and in the modem period
(7.41) has begun to grow again.

6.42 The growing influence of Theravada Buddhism in South-East Asia

While Buddhism had thus virtually disappeared from India by the
beginning of the thirteenth century C.E. it persisted elsewhere, and in
fact increased in the extent of its influence upon the culture and societies
of Tibet and those parts of South-East Asia which are now known as
Burma, Thailand, and Cambodia. In these countries the period from
about 1000 C.E. onwards was, so far as Buddhism was concerned, one of
consolidation. The traditions of Buddhist moral discipline, doctrine and
meditation were preserved and transmitted from generation to genera-
tion, and continued to influence the culture and social structure of these
regions. The history of the growing influence ofTheravada Buddhism
upon the countries of South-East Asia during this period is particularly
instructive as an example of the way a Great Tradition enters into
relationship with local Little Traditions (3.31). There are thus two
important aspects of the history of Theravada Buddhism during this
period: one is the preservation and transmission of the central ideas of
the Theravada, in the form known as Abhidhamma; the other is the
way in which the Theravada entered into the cultural situations of these
different countries in such a way as to produce local variants of the
Theravadin Great Tradition, variants which are sufficiently distinct
from each other and sufficiently dependent on the local cultures to be
known severally as 'Burmese Buddhism', 'Thai Buddhism', 'Sinhalese
Buddhism', and so on. First, however, we must note the fact that in all
areas there was a single common Great Tradition of the monasteries,
namely the Abhidhamma.
The continuance ofthe Abhidhamma tradition in Ceylon and Burma 307

6.43 The continuance ofthe Abhidhamma tradition in Ceylon and Burma

One of the outstanding features of Buddhist monastic life in Ceylon
and Burma throughout the medieval period (and indeed during the
modern period also), is the study of the Abhidhamma (3.22; 3.24; 4.39).
It is known from the accounts of Chinese pilgrims' travels in India
(5.25) that at that time (fifth to seventh centuries C.E.) the Abhidhamma
was regarded very highly in certain monasteries and certain areas. In
central India the monks who specialised in the Abhidhamma even had
stupas built to the glory of the Abhidhamma, and on fast days they
performed special devotions at the stupas in its honour (Goonesekere,
1961; 54). In Ceylon the continuance of the Abhidhamma tradition is
attested by the text-book for monks called the Abhidhammattha-
Sangaha which came into use there from the twelfth century C.E.
onwards. This is a digest or summary of the whole of the subject matter
contained in the seven books of the Abhidhamma-pitaka (the third
section of the Buddhist Pali canon) (3.24). The work is ascribed to an
elder (thera) named Anuruddha, a senior monk in Ceylon, and it seems
from its introduction to have superseded the only manual on the subject
in existence until then, a similar summary called 'A descent into the
Abhidhamma' (Abhidhammavatara), attributed to a contemporary of
the great Buddhaghosa (4.39) named Buddhadatta. This new digest (it
can scarcely be called literature) has continued for eight centuries to be
the generally recognised introduction to the Abhidhamma, especially
in Ceylon and Burma, and has produced a rich crop of commentaries
and interpretations. It is briefer and much more concise than
Buddhaghosa's Visuddhimagga (4.39), although of course the two
works have the same purpose, that of teaching the way to enlightenment
through the proper understanding of psychological processes, through
the pursuit of a moral life, and through meditational practices. The
Abhidhammattha-Sangaha (translated into English by the Burmese
scholar Shwe Zan Aung as Compendium ofPhilosophy) is a tabulation or
digest of the contents of the Abhidhamma-pitaka books. It is thus
excessively condensed, and can only be studied under the supervision of
a tutor, and this is how it has been used, and still is used, in the Theravada
Buddhist countries, where it is held in the highest possible esteem. The
method which it follows is to list the four categories of dharmas, or
ultimately real factors of existence: (1) consciousness, (2) mental
308 Theologians, Poets and Mystics
properties, (3) material qualities, and (4) the one unconditioned and
uncaused factor, nibbana. After the exhaustive listing of all these classes
of consciousness, and mental and material qualities, it is shown how
they interact, their various possible combinations, how the good
combinations are to be encouraged, and so on. This kind of analysis
demands good memorising ability; hence the existence of this manual,
with its frequent mnemonic summaries in doggerel verse - the nearest
approach it makes to literature. What must not be forgotten is that this
sort of study has been one of the principal preoccupations of Buddhist
monks in Ceylon and Burma; this is not because they were so devoid
of imagination that they could think of nothing better to do, but rather
because it was an important discipline of the religious life. A modem
Ceylonese writer puts it thus: 'what is essential for the seeker after
ethical and spiritual perfection is to understand the nature and functions
of psychological processes. In the view of the Abhidhamma, the study
of ethics and psychology is not an academic pursuit but something that
is essentially relevant to the progress and harmony of individual and
social life' (Karunaratne, 1961; 48). It is only in the light of these
considerations, and when the study of Abhidhamma is seen as an
occupation of the monastery, that we are able to understand what was
being pursued by these monks of Ceylon and Burma, namely the full
integration of ethics, psychology and religion. Those monks who were
specially proficient in such study were known as Abhidhammikas, and
as such were highly honoured, especially in Burma, a country
particularly renowned in Buddhist Asia for its Abhidhamma studies.

6.44 The religious role ofthe Buddhist kings of South-East Asia

As in India, so also in Ceylon and South-East Asia, an important factor
in the maintenance of Buddhist religion was the adherence of the ruler
to the Buddhist faith. The reason for this was that Buddhism in Asia has
always in its periods of greatest vigour and prosperity shown itself to be
a social ethic as well as a religious faith. More precisely, one should say
that the Buddhist social ethic is a desideratum of healthy Buddhist
religion. This is one of the points which earlier European observers
failed to appreciate. Max Weber, from what he knew of Buddhist ideas,
assumed that a social ethic could not possibly be derived from them.
He failed to see that the maintenance of a well-ordered and stable
The religious role ifthe Buddhist kings of South-East Asia 309
society, in which there were no great extremes of economic and social
privilege, and in which every member could count on social justice and
a sufficient livelihood, was adumbrated in the teaching of the Buddha,
and that it was the responsibility of any ruler who was a devout
Buddhist to seek to ensure these things for his subjects (Sarkisyanz,
1965; 37ff., 43ff., 56ff.). The social ethic was not derived from the
Buddhist way proclaimed by the Buddha; it was regarded by him as a
highly desirable condition, if not a prerequisite for its proper pursuit.
It is for this reason that in the history of Buddhist South-East Asia great
importance attaches to the names of the more devout of its kings,
especially those whose Buddhist devotion was undergirded by their
establishment and maintenance of social harmony, good order and
public welfare.

6.45 The medieval Buddhist rulers of Ceylon

In Ceylon, such a king was Parakkama Bahu (Bahu=the Great), who
in the twelfth century restored independence and peace to the island
after a long period of invasion by and subjection to the Chola kings of
South India (6.10). He restored the ruined capital of Polonnaruwa,
revived agriculture by the construction of extensive irrigation works,
and thus alleviated famine. The account of his many nndcrtakings for
the reform of the Sangha, the rebuilding of monasteries, the establish-
ment of almshouses and hospitals and provision for medical care of the
sick, the restoration of temples and villages, and rest-houses for
travellers, fill seven chapters of the Pali chronicles of Ceylon entitled
Culavarp.sa (one hundred and twenty pages in English translation); the
account concludes: 'Thus Parakkama Bahu, the Ruler of men, by
whom were performed divers and numerous kinds of meritorious
works, who continually found the highest satisfaction in the teaching of
the Master [that is, the Buddha], who was endowed with extraordinary
energy and discernment, carried on the government for thirty-three
years' (Culava1J1sa; lxxix, 86). Other kings of Ceylon were remembered
similarly, although none with greater respect from monks and laymen
alike than Parakkama. Some, inevitably, were bad rulers; a few were
wicked; but others were remembered for their devout lives, their
scholarly achievements, and their support and maintenance of the
Sangha. There were times during this period when the vitality of
310 Theologians, Poets and Mystics
Buddhist religion in Ceylon sank to a low ebb, but these were followed
by times of recovery, and more than once Ceylon provided the
resources for the infusion of new life into the Buddhism of South-East
Asia.
Superficially the religious culture of Ceylon appears to be one in
which the honours are shared between the Buddha and various local
Sinhalese deities. Besides the respect which the villager pays to the
Buddha at the Buddhist shrine, in the form of the offering of flowers
and lights and incense, and in meditation, or the chanting ofPali verses,
there is the same villager's worshipful approach to what he regards as
the deities of Ceylon, from whom he expects certain well-defined
temporal benefits; this kind of worship he will offer at a shrine close to
or adjoining the Buddhist one. One interpretation of this which is
sometimes suggested is that because as a Buddhist he has no omnipotent
deity to worship he has to turn elsewhere in search of deity. But to take
this view of the matter is to lose sight of the actual historical develop-
ment of religious practices in Ceylon. From an initial complete adher-
ence to the deities of Ceylon the Buddhist layman has moved at least as
far as a recognition of the absolute superiority of the way of the Buddha.
Buddhist values have gradually permeated the entire cultural system
and now provide the moral framework and the ultimate religious
goals; meanwhile, some temporal benefits are still sought by the use of
non-Buddhist (and therefore in this context virtually secular) means,
that is, in the approach to local deities. In a similar way many Christians
who believe in God nevertheless also visit the doctor from time to time.
The latter may or may not be a Christian; he may be an atheist or a
Marxist, but Christians see nothing religiously incongruous in thus
seeking a temporal benefit from a non-Christian source. Nor does the
villager of Ceylon in following a similar procedure.

6.46 Buddhist values and the South-East Asian state

In Burma, a Buddhist king of the kind already described (6.44) was
Anawratha (Pali, Anuruddha), who lived in the century before
Parakkama of Ceylon (and was roughly contemporary with William
the Conqueror, of England). Until that time a debased form of
Mahayana existed in upper Burma (5.27), the practitioners of which
were called 'Aris'. Anawratha was converted by a Theravadin monk
Buddhist values and the South-East Asian state 311
from the Mon kingdom ofThaton (5.27), and thereupon set about the
religious reformation of his kingdom, discouraging the Tantric practices
of the Aris and establishing the Theravadin order, bringing copies of
the Pali sacred scriptures from Thaton, which he now absorbed into the
Burmese kingdom which he ruled from Pagan. The effect of his
:onversion upon Burma is likened by Burmese Buddhist chroniclers to
that of Asoka upon India. Anawratha and his successors in Pagan formed
a dynasty (1044-1287) which for its activity in the building of great and
impressive pagodas has been compared with the Gothic period in
medieval Europe. The dynasty accepted the notion of kingship set out
in the early Buddhist texts, according to which a king rules by
contractual agreement between the ruler and the people (Sarkisyanz,
1965; 15). In one respect the king enjoyed an extremely exalted status
as the central figure of the Indo-Burmese cosmology (4.29), but so far
as the Sangha was concerned the king had the inferior status of a layman
and, as Buddhist laymen, kings were required to accept the moral
guidance of the monks, and frequently did. When a king was disposed
to rule despotically and violently the monks of Burma would intervene
to promote justice and save life. E. Sarkisyanz, who has made an
intensive and authoritative study of medieval Buddhism in Burma, on
the basis of extensive evidence considers that 'Burma's Buddhist
monkhood went further in the protection of human life than did the
historical Churches of Christendom who have hardly resisted and on
the whole tacitly recognised the claims of temporal powers to inflict
death' (Sarkisyanz, 1965; 76). The Roman Catholic missionary
Sangermano, who was in Burma at the end of the eighteenth and
beginning of the nineteenth century, comments on the curious
behaviour of the monks in saving even 'the lives of criminals'.
The pattern of Buddhist development in Thailand and Cambodia
was similar to that in Burma. The Theravadin form was introduced
from Ceylon into Thailand in the fourteenth century, to replace a
Mahayana form; as a result of Thai influence the same thing happened
also in Cambodia, where a form ofTantric Buddhism had been known
since the eleventh century.
In all these countries, throughout the period when the Theravada
was more and more thoroughly permeating the fabric of society, the
monks were the public educators. Almost every village had its
monastery, however small, and to it the village children went for their
lessons, with the result that these countries are among the most highly
312 Theologians, Poets and Mystics
literate in Asia. The village monasteries have been the agents of a two-
way process of cultural interpenetration between Buddhism and local
indigenous beliefs, similar to that which has been noted in connection
with Ceylon (6.45), a process whose result has been not the corruption
of Buddhist values but rather the civilising by the Buddhist presence of
what was formerly barbaric (Ling, 1966; 57 f.).

6.47 The decline ofBuddhism in China

Whereas the Theravadin countries of South-East Asia looked to Ceylon
as the source of Buddhist learning and the homeland of their religion,
Chinese Buddhists had always looked to India for inspiration, as the
place of pilgrimage and the source of Buddhist scripture and commen-
tary. The consequence was that with the virtual disappearance of
Buddhism from India Chinese Buddhism was deprived of what had
been an important factor in the continuance of a live tradition, and
from the thirteenth century onwards began to show signs of decline
and decay.
Other factors were involved in this process. The political condition
of the Chinese empire had become more stable with the establishment
of the Sung dynasty (960-1279 c.E.), and throughout this period
Buddhism enjoyed a certain modest prestige, even among the upper
classes (5.20). The favoured condition of Buddhism under this dynasty
had, however, something in the nature of a sunset glow about it:
K. K. S. Ch' en characterises this period of Chinese Buddhism as one of
'Memories of a Great Tradition' (Ch'en, 1964; 389ff.), and it was the
prelude to periods of more serious recession and decline. The very
recognition which Buddhism had gained for itself in official quarters
had to some extent prepared the way for its decline. This is illustrated
by the practice which was adopted during the Sung dynasty of selling
ordination certificates for monks. Previously these had been gained by
the candidate's passing an examination on the Buddhist scriptures. This
was now replaced by the payment ofa sum ofmoney to the government
for the privilege of holding an ordination certificate. The certificates
had an economic value, since they exempted the possessor from tax and
from a spell of national labour service. Increasingly ordination came to
be regarded as something economically advantageous; the fact that a
man could now become a Buddhist monk without knowing anything
 The decline ofBuddhism in China 313
of the Buddhist faith or practice had the result of allowing easy entry
into the Order of any number of criminals and vagabonds (Ch'en,
1964; 391 f.).
There was an important difference in the relationship of Buddhism
and the state in China during this period compared with that which
existed in the South-East Asian countries. In the latter, as we have seen,
the ruler was usually himself a Buddhist and as often as not a devoutly
practising one; as a layman, moreover, he was required to and usually
did acknowledge the superior status of the monks. In China on the
other hand what was developing throughout this period was what
C. K. Yang has described as the stabilisation of government control
over religion (Yang, 1961; 106). There was, moreover, during this
period a general reassertion of the superiority of what was Chinese over
what was foreign. This tendency is seen in relation to Buddhism in
China in two ways: (1) all the religions became increasingly eclectic as
Confucian ideas came again into prominence and the classical belief in
the emperor as the Son of Heaven dominated religio-political life;
(2) within Buddhist circles there was a tendency towards those forms of
the religion which were more Chinese than Indian in origin, namely
Ch'an (5.23) and Amidism (5.22). Even the latter was no longer the
popu1ar mass movement it had once been, but was beginning to decline
in importance. A curious feature of Amidism during this period was
the transformation of the coming Buddha, Maitreya, into the figure of
the Laughing Buddha, or Hemp-bag Bonze (monk). This was a
legendary figure who was said to have been the Maitreya Buddha and
who had appeared wandering about China as the laughing, pot-bellied
fool Mi-lo, surrounded by hordes of children, and who thus symbolised
the values upheld by Chinese society: his hemp-bag fu11 of miscellaneous
objects symbolising wealth, his fat stomach the sign of contentment,
and the crowd of children surrmmding him the high value placed on a
large family (Ch' en, 1964; 405-8). This provides an illustration of the
way Buddhism was now becoming more and more assimilated to
Taoism and Confucianism just as in India in its later years it had been to
Hinduism.
The Sangha in so far as it retained its original nature and purpose
became increasingly marginal, a refuge for those who had become
social or economic casualties; it served also to preserve and transmit
some Buddhist tradition, albeit feebly. Its one remaining positive
function during this period was from time to time to foster rebellions
314 Theologians, Poets and Mystics
and harbour secret organisations (Yang, 1961; 126). Ch'an (Zen) alone
really flourished in China during the Sung period. That is to say the
practice of it became more widespread, but it also became more
mechanical, with less emphasis upon the meditation necessary to
prepare the mind for enlightenment, and more upon the use of riddles,
known as koans, and the use by the master of such techniques as
shouting and beating the disciple with a stick. It was during this period
of its history in China that Ch'an was successfully introduced into
Japan by Japanese monks who had been visiting China for study (6.48).
Ch'an had great prestige in China at that time, but 'inner impoverish-
ment accompanied outer splendour' (Dumoulin, 1963; 124).

6.48 Buddhism in Japan, 1200-1868

The six centuries with which we are here concerned, the thirteenth to
the nineteenth, were in Japanese history a period first of great upheaval,
feudal strife, and social disintegration, which reached a climax in the
fifteenth century; and then a period of peace and order during the
Tokugawa regime from 1600 to 1868. The major religious develop-
ments occurred during the first period; under the Tokugawa regime
Buddhist religious life was severely controlled by the state and tended
to become over-refmed and degenerate.
In the earlier more stormy period Buddhism developed the three
major forms in which it is found in modem Japan. These may be
characterised as intuitionist (Zen), pietist (Pure Land), and revivalist
(Nichiren). The practices of Ch' an (5.23) were introduced from China
by Eisai (1141-1215 c.E.) in 1191 on his return from a period of study;
he is regarded as the founder of Zen Buddhism in Japan, although there
had been some attempts to introduce it before that time. But this was a
period of much warfare, and among the Shoguns the Rinzai form of
Zen introduced by Eisai had considerable success. One of these,
Tokimune (1251-84) successfully defended his country against the
attack of the Mongols in the strength of mind and calmness that the
practice of Zen is said to have enabled him to cultivate (Dumoulin,
1963; 142£). Zen has continued to have a great appeal for the military
class in Japan. Another form of Zen was introduced by Dogen (1200-
1253), on his return from China in 1228. Unlike Eisai he deliberately
avoided contacts with Japanese of the ruling and military class, and it is
 Buddhism in Japan 315
traditionally to farmers rather than soldiers that the Soto type of Zen
which he founded makes its appeal. Dogen disliked also any sectarian
emphasis within Buddhism; he regarded Zen simply as the essence of
Buddhism- 'the great way of the Buddha and the patriarchs'- and was
critical of some of the deviant features of Ch' an as it had developed in
China in the Sung period; but in spite of this Soto Zen has, ironically,
become strongly sectarian in Japan.
Meanwhile it was the pietism of the Pure Land School that made the
greatest appeal to the peasants and lower classes of Japanese society
during this period of internal strife and uncertainty. We saw earlier
(5.28) that faith in Amida, the bodhisattva Lord of the Pure Land, or
Western Paradise, had been gaining ground from the tenth century C.E.
Now, after 1200, it began to have the appeal of a messianic religion, the
one hope for men in disturbed and dark days: 'The fateful days have
arrived; we, the weak and vicious people of the latter days could not be
saved but by invoking the name of the Lord Amita', said Genshin
(Anesaki, 1963; 170). This was a simple way of salvation that differed
very considerably from the severe disciplines of Zen. It was a simple
gospel, the assurance of salvation by calling upon the name of Amida in
faith; and in the view of its many preachers and adherents this was the
only way of salvation from the troubles of the present life: man could
achieve nothing by his own efforts, and only Amida could save. The
German theologian Karl Barth in his Church Dogmatics has noted the
striking resemblance between this development in Japanese religion and
evangelical piety of the Christian kind. Both Amidism and Zen are
more correctly described as Japanese religions; they can hardly be called
Buddhist except in so far as historically their roots were in a Buddhist
tradition. Amidism is about as much an authentic form of Buddhism as
the sect of Jehovah's Witnesses is an authentic form of Christianity.
Amidism's great exponent was Honen (1133-1212), a man whose spirit
was disgusted with the warlike temper of his times and who saw no
hope for men but in turning with simple love to the saviour and
trusting in his free gift of salvation in the Western Paradise. This gave
him great peace of mind; his own personal serenity attracted many to
his teaching and to faith in Amida (Anesaki, 1963; 175). His gospel was
taken up by disciples and was preached over a wide area ofJapan, with
great success. Differences of opinion on matters of doctrine appeared
before long, however, and an independent form known as Shinshu (the
True Doctrine) emerged in opposition to Jodo (Pure Land) as Honen's
316 Theologians, Poets and Mystics
gospel of pietism was called. Shinshu was founded by Shinran {1173-
1263), a disciple of Honen who emphasised even more strongly the
necessity for utter reliance on the grace of the Lord, to the extent of
rejecting celibacy as a sign of trust in one's own powers and lack of trust
in the Lord's grace, and thus gave doctrinal justification to married life
for priests, which was in practice not altogether unknown. Shinran
himself married and his descendants continued as teachers of the J odo
Shinshu, down to modem times.
Both Zen intuitionism and Jodo pietism were attacked by the founder
of another Japanese religious tradition, Nichiren {1222-83). Owing to
the imminent threat of Mongol invasion patriotism was very strong in
Japan at that time. Nichiren, who was a combination of prophet,
scholar and reformer, also lived a very adventurous life in the course of
propounding his new doctrine of patriotism. He declared that the
contemporary religions ofJapan were leading the nation to the verge of
disaster. He rejected both the ritualism of the old priestly religion and
the sentimentalism of the Pure Land pietists. His was a gospel of struggle
and aggression- the struggle of the 'pure' community ofJapan against
all foes. Violent and aggressive methods continued to characterise the
Nichiren sect long after his death. All other denominations were 'hell
... devils ... ruin ... traitors'. The Nichiren sect drew its followers
from the warriors, the more independent of the peasants, and the
tougher kinds of women, for all of whom Nichiren' s combative and
exclusive patriotism had a powerful appeal. A modem Mahayana
scholar, Edward Conze, comments sadly that all this is very un-
Buddhistic. One scripture alone was venerated by Nichiren, the Lotus
of the Good Law Siitra, and the slogan of the sect is 'Homage to the
Lotus of the Good Law!' The sect continued to grow, especially during
the period of violence and war which Japan suffered in the latter half of
the fifteenth century and most of the sixteenth, up to the establishment
of the Tokugawa regime, although they were subjected to great
persecution and even torture at the hand of the Pure Land Buddhists.
As in religious wars elsewhere (6.50) 'many died on either side, each
believing that the fight was for the glory of Buddha and that death
secured his birth in paradise' {Anesaki, 1963; 230). The most famous of
the modem sects ofJapan is the Nichirenite Soka Gakkai (7.48).
Buddhist Tibet 317

6.49 Buddhist Tibet, 1000-1800

It was not until the time of Atisa, in the eleventh century c.E., that
Buddhism could claim to be fully established in Tibet (5.27). The form
of Buddhism which Tibet then adopted was, as we have seen, the
Tantric variety practised in the Pala kingdom and eastern India at that
time; based on the Yogacara (4.35) type of teaching favoured by Atisa.
After Atis a's time a number of schools of Tibetan Buddhism developed;
only two of these need concern us. The tradition which derives from
the work of Padma-Sambhava (5.27) is called the Old School, and its
followers were known as the 'red-hats'. The school of Atisa, known as
the 'yellow-hats', discouraged the magical practices which were a
feature of the old school, and incorporated teachings of the Hinayana
into their doctrine. It is this school, the Gelugpa (virtuous ones), which
dominated Tibet down to modem times, having the Dalai Lama as its
spiritual head.
Tibetan Buddhism provides another illustration of the principle
which underlay the relationship between religion and secular power in
South-East Asian Buddhist countries (6.44). Even in those countries the
king' s activity in creating within his realm the proper conditions for the
pursuit of the Buddhist by his subjects was based on the idea of the king
as a bodhisattva (3.29), one who desired the welfare of all beings and
bent all his efforts to this end. In Tibet, however, this conception was
developed further. The ruler of the country must be a bodhisattva; it
was therefore necessary to discover in which individual Tibetan the
bodhisattva had been re-born, and when he had been discovered,
prepare him to be the ruler and eventually install him as such. This is the
theory which underlay the search for a new Dalai Lama, or spiritual-
temporal head of the Tibetan state, which took place whenever the
previous ruler's life came to an end. Succession to the rulership was
not hereditary; a Dalai Lama did not rule because his father had ruled,
but because he was considered by the spiritual leaders of the country to
possess the necessary qualifications - the marks of bodhisattvahood.
There was a recognised procedure for establishing the presence or
otherwise of these qualities when a new Dalai Lama was being sought, a
procedure which was carried out with great care.
The culture of Tibet through the centuries since Atisa has been in
essence Buddhist, although it has incorporated elements of the indigen-
318 Theologians, Poets and Mystics
ous pre-Buddhist culture also, just as happened in the South-East Asian
countries (6.46). Thus, in its origins and in its characteristic structure
Tibetan Buddhism is derived, like the Buddhism of South-East Asia,
from the Indian model seen at its clearest in Asoka (3.26). It has made of
the mountain tribes of the Himalayan plateau whose ancestors were
exceedingly warlike a people whom European travellers agree in
describing as kindly, cheerful and contented (Richardson, 1962; 27).
The monk-rulers of Tibet have through the centuries, writes Andre
Migot, 'used their power wisely and humanely'. In his view the social
harmony and peace which have characterised the life of the Tibetan
people deserve the recognition that Buddhist Tibet was 'one of the best
governed countries in the world' (Migot, 1955; 104). The attempt in
modem times of a powerful neighbour, China, to destroy such a
culture and such a society raises important questions about the values
entertained and upheld by the massive states of the modem world, and
is itself a powerful indictment of modem secularism.

6.5 RELIGIOUS CONTRASTS AND CONFLICTS

(1500-1800 C.E.)

6.50 Conflict within Christendom in the sixteenth century

The medieval pattern of Christendom was, as we have seen, exclusive
and authoritarian. The Church was the ark outside which there was no
salvation. Truth was what the Church taught, on the basis of its
traditions and its holy scriptures. Man was entirely sinful and could be
saved only by the grace of an omnipotent deity. Such grace was
mediated to men through the sacraments of the Church, seven in
number: baptism, confirmation, the Mass, penance, ordination to the
priesthood, matrimony, and unction or anointing. The mediation of
grace through the sacramental system was by the agency of the duly
and properly ordained priest who owed obedience to his bishop and to
the head of the hierarchy, the Pope. At the Council of Florence in 1439
it was declared that 'the Roman Pontiffholds the primacy in the whole
world ... is the true Vicar of Christ and head of the Church, father and
teacher of all Christians, and ... to him in the blessed Peter has been
given by our Lord Jesus Christ the full power of shepherding, ruling
Conflict within Christendom in the sixteenth century 319
and governing the whole Church' (Bullough, 1963; 195 £). The making
of this declaration reflected the fact that there were some who dis-
agreed with such a view. For some centuries before Martin Luther
(1483-1546) made his famous protest there had been, as we have seen,
signs of dissatisfaction with this monopolistic orthodoxy (6.25; 6.26).
Secular rulers had already for some time been rejecting Papal ecclesias-
tical influence in the affairs of government. Such rejection of the autho-
rity of Rome increased during the sixteenth century in various parts of
Europe, and constituted one of the main features of the disintegration of
the Roman authoritarian system. An accompanying feature was the
establishment of national churches, independent of Rome, such as the
Church of England. Alongside this kind of rejection of Papal claims
went another. This was the expression of protest against the system of
salvation by sacramental grace as it was by then being practised. The
tendency during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, represented by
such philosophers as William of Ockham (6.28), to drive a wedge
between faith and reason had the effect of leaving the religious practice
of the Roman Church open to invasion by superstition; this in turn
led only too easily to commercial exploitation of the priestly craft and
the development of such practices as the sale of indulgences which
brought the whole sacramental system into disrepute. Men of sincerity
and religious integrity now found it impossible to regard such a
racketeering enterprise as the one and only channel of divine grace.
Such was the basis ofLuther's protest, and it soon found a response in
many other places. Those who sought to reform religious practice,
however, saw no reason to depart from the Augustinian doctrine of
the salvation of man by God's grace alone. It was because they seriously
affirmed this doctrine that they were concerned at its prostitution by
the Roman Church. It has been pointed out that what is called the
Reformation can be considered as 'the ultimate triumph of Augustine's
doctrine of grace over Augustine's doctrine of the Church' (Warfield,
1909; 224). On its theological side the Protestant revival of the sixteenth
century was a revival of the Augustinian emphasis that man, who is
entirely sinful, depends wholly on the free grace of an omnipotent and
inscrutable God. Calvin, in his Institutes, quotes copiously from
Augustine. But Protestants such as Luther and Calvin insisted that the
grace of God was appropriated by man not primarily through the
institutional Church, but by the individual's own response of faith.
This placing of the prime responsibility upon the individual was
320 Theologians, Poets and Mystics
criticised by Keble in the nineteenth century as a doctrine of'Everyman
his own absolver'. The Roman Church, on the other hand, re-
emphasised Augustine's doctrine of the Church as the City of God,
outside of which there was no salvation, and following Augustine's
precedent used every means available, including physical force, to put
down heretical attacks upon the Church of Rome's nature as the divine
institution. Forced by ecclesiastical authority to justify their views,
Protestants appealed to the canon of scripture, since this was an
authority accepted by both sides. Protestantism thus became character-
ised by the appeal to scripture alone, over against the Roman Church
which appealed both to scripture and the tradition of the fathers. Both
sides thus accepted the principle of an external objective authority
which could be invoked as the last word on any subject relatmg to
religion. To any question relating to religion the ultimate answer which
a Protestant will give is that 'this is what the Bible says'; similarly the
ultimate answer of a Roman Catholic has tended to be that 'this is
what the Pope says'. However, it was on the authority of the Church
that the authority of this particular collection of writings called the Bible
rested, a point recognised by Augustine when he said, 'I should not
believe the gospel did not the authority of the Catholic Church move
me thereto.' The Protestants were therefore compelled eventually to
seek some other authority than that of the Church for accepting the
authority of the Bible, and this they found in the 'internal testimony
of the Holy Spirit', convincing them of the divine inspiration of these
writings. This is an argument which is not without its difficulties
when other large communities in the world are equally convinced
that another set of writings, the Qur' an for example, is the fmal, and
truly divinely inspired book. However, the assurance with which an
infallible book provided Protestants concerning the rightness of their
position, and the assurance with which an infallible Church and an in-
fallible book provided Catholics concerning the rightness of theirs, led to
many bloody battles and burning of men as heretics. One of the last
of these was Servetus, burned in Calvinist Geneva for suggesting in
his scholarly works that the doctrine of the Trinity, three Persons in
one God, was a corruption of authentic Christianity. This serves as
a reminder that in addition to the two great parties in the religious
conflicts of Reformation Europe there were others, both individuals
and minority groups such as the Anabaptists, and in the seventeenth
century the Quakers, who belonged to neither camp, but whose
Cof!flict within Christendom in the sixteenth century 321
emergence was a feature of the fmal falling apart of the Augustinian
system of authoritarian orthodoxy.

6.51 The Catholic Counter-Reformation

One thing which the protest of men like Luther and Calvin made clear
to the Roman ecclesiastical hierarchy, even though Rome did not accept
what it regarded as the heresies they had propounded, was that the
Catholic Church was in need of reform. A general council of the
Church was called, to seek remedies for its troubles, the Council of
Trent, which met at intervals from 1545 onwards. Among the matters
it dealt with were abuses in the Church, and the orthodox doctrines of
the Church. Another event of some importance in Catholicism's
recovery was the founding in 1540 of the Society ofJesus. Its founder,
a Spanish nobleman known by the Latin name Ignatius de Loyola
(1491-1556), was a soldier. Convalescing from wounds received in
battle he turned to religious matters. The society, originally of ten
members meeting in the University of Paris, was organised on military
lines, and was dedicated to a warfare against the powers of evil in the
name of Christ, the great captain of the powers of good. The discipline
of the Society was laid down in the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius, a
system of will-training, study, prayer and meditation, centring
especially on the example of Christ. The Society met a great need of
the time within Catholicism and eventually became a powerful force
in the educational and intellectual spheres. One of its most famous early
members was Francis Xavier, who in 1542 was sent by Ignatius de
Loyola to Asia. The Portuguese had begun to establish settlements on
the west coast of India, and beginning from Goa Xavier carried out his
missionary activities down the west coast, and then beyond India to
Malacca and Indo-China and eventually to Japan, establishing the
Society both in India and Japan; in the latter country the work of its
missionaries was brought to an end by the Tokugawa regime (6.48;
6.59). Other Jesuits who followed Francis Xavier in seeking to establish
Christianity in Asia include Matteo Ricci, who in the sixteenth century
had considerable initial success in propagating Christian ideas in terms
of Confucian thought and practice, and Roberto de Nobili, who in the
seventeenth century went to India and adopted the life of a brahman
(Cronin, 1955; 1959).
322 Theologians, Poets and Mystics
By the eighteenth century, however, a new anti-ecclesiastical spirit
was making itself felt in Europe; the Jesuits were the target for special
attack, and in 1773 the Pope was forced to suppress the Society.

6.52 The sectarian religion of the disinherited

The Protestant movement led by Luther, Calvin and Zwingli left the
lowest classes of society largely untouched. Both Lutheranism and
Calvinism quickly showed themselves to be primarily middle-class
religions. The religious movements of protest which were able to
appeal to what are described as the 'disinherited classes' of their time
(that is, peasants, labourers, lower-paid craftsmen, and casual workers
in the towns), were the Anabaptists in the sixteenth century and the
Quakers in the seventeenth. But the movement of the disinherited of
one century became the middle-class church of the next; the Quakers
provide an example of that upward social mobility which was the
inevitable consequence of hard work, thrift and a sober life. By the
eighteenth century the Protestant churches, Presbyterian, Independent
and Quaker, consisted very largely of men of trade and business, not a
few of whom were moderately prosperous. Respectability, sobriety,
caution, and good sense were the Protestant virtues; whereas passion,
extravagance or excess of any kind, and above all enthusiasm, were to
be avoided at all costs. England had increased in prosperity, but this
increase was not shared by all. 'The wage system and uncertainty of
employment, rising capitalism and the competitive order, the growth
of the cities and the increase of poverty widened the cleft between the
classes' (Niebuhr, 1929; 59). A large section of society existed for
whom the churches of the time had no appeal; they had nothing to
offer that would meet an emotional need for a religion of salvation. It
was this need which early Methodism met. Although John Wesley
(1703-91) was an ordained clergyman of the Church of England his
work was done mainly outside the normal life of the English Church.
Nevertheless, as Niebuhr has pointed out, while the Methodist
revival was a movement among the disinherited, it was not a popular
movement in the sense of having its origins within this class. Its
leaders were middle-class, and this fact helped to ensure that Method-
ism became socially respectable even more quickly than had earlier
movements. It was a revolution so far as the religious life and ethos of
The sectarian religion ofthe disinherited 323
eighteenth-century England were concerned: instead of the cold,
rationalistic tone which dominated most English religion in the
eighteenth century it offered men a warm, emotional religion of
salvation, a salvation which was freely available to all. What gave
Wesleyan Methodism its subsequent quick rise to social respectability
was perhaps more than anything the view which Wesley had of the
evil from which men needed to be saved. In this connection Niebuhr's
words are of importance for the student of religion: 'The primary
question to be asked for the understanding of a Fox, a Paul, a Luther, a
Wesley, as well as of Old Testament prophets and of the founders of
non-Christian religions, such as Buddha, Zoroaster, Mohammed, is
this: what did they mean by sin or evil? from what did they want to
save men? Now it is evident in Wesley's case that he envisaged sin as
individual vice and laxity, not as greed, oppression or social maladjust-
ment. Sin meant sensuality rather than selfishness to him and from
Wesley the entire Methodist movement took its ethical character'
(Niebuhr, 1929; 67) (see also 7.12). Nevertheless, it was the reality of
salvation which was emphasised by John and Charles Wesley, both in
their preaching and in the vast number of hymns which they composed
for the use of Methodists. It was both the reality of the salvation
accomplished for men by Christ as an objective fact which was empha-
sised, and also (and this is an important characteristic of Methodism) the
possibility of receiving subjective or personal assurance of this,
especially through the emotions. Men were not invited to participate
in a religion of sheer emotion as such (which Wesley called 'wanting
the end without the means'); emotional assurance was second in order
of importance to the establishing of the external, objective fact of
salvation, and the convincing of men of this primary fact (Kent, 1959;
123f.). It was in this respect especially that Methodism helped to
revitalise the older, Calvinistic bodies.

6.53 The nature of the sixteenth-century Hindu revival in South India

As in Europe so also in India, the sixteenth century was a period which
saw the rise of movements of religious revival and reform. These were
mainly movements within Hindu society, rather than Islamic, but they
cannot properly be said to constitute a self-generated revival of
Hinduism; rather they should be seen as the result of the impact upon
M L.H.R.
324 Theologians, Poets and Mystics
Hindus oflslamic religion and culture. The important names are those
ofKabir, born in Banaras in 1440, Nanak, a man of the Punjab, born in
1469, and Chaitanya, ofBengal, born in 1485. (The work ofChaitanya
bears interesting comparison with that ofWesley.) In the case ofKabir
the connection with Islam is indicated by the confusion about whether
he was in fact a Muslim or a Hindu. It will be noticed that all of these,
(to whom further reference will be made - 6.54) were men of north
India, that is to say of the region under the political rule and cultural
influence of the Muslim sultanate of Delhi (6.38). It is sometimes
asserted that it was the south of India which was the scene of a con-
sciously Hindu revival, during the period of the Vijayanagar kingdom
(1336-1565). The assertion is that the kings ofVijayanagar consciously
saw themselves in the role of defenders of Hinduism against the
encroachment of Islam. In fact their policy seems to have been one of
religious tolerance, even though they themselves were either Shaivites
or Vaishnavites. One of the Shaiva rulers, Krishnadeva Raya (1509-30)
was noted for his liberal attitude: 'The king allows such freedom that
every man may come and go, and live according to his own creed
without suffering any annoyance and without injury, whether he is a
Christian, Jew, Moor (i.e. Muslim) or Heathen (i.e. Hindu)', recorded
Duarte Barbosa (Sastri, 1963; 127). Krislmadeva's son-in-law, Rama
Raya, even refused to follow the suggestion of Hindu advisers that
Muslims should be forbidden to slaughter cows in their own precincts.
Barbosa's words, quoted above, are a reminder that the south contained
some of the oldest Christian and Muslim communities in India: the
Syrian Christians claiming a tradition going back to the apostle
Thomas (3.39), and the Arab Muslims who had been in Malabar since
the earliest days of Islam (5.18). The relations between them and the
Hindu rulers were generally those of tolerance and respect. The kings
of Vijayanagar were more concerned with preserving unity and peace
among their subjects in order the more easily to defend their northern
frontier against the aggressive Muslim kings of the Deccan. If Shaivism
and Vaishnavism seem to have received special patronage from the
kings of Vijayanagar this was most probably because they, more than
other Hindu monarchs, had the funds at their disposal to endow shrines
and temples (Stein, 1960), and to commission and support a syndicate
of scholars to compose a full-scale commentary on the entire Vedic
literature (4.21). Certainly during this period there was a great expan-
sion of temple-building and restoration. Worship became more
The nature ofthe sixteenth-century Hindu revival in South India 325
elaborate, and increasing numbers of people of all kinds entered the
employment of the temples - musicians, dancers, florists, goldsmiths,
and jewellers, as well as priests. But endowments were made to Muslim
shrines also (Sastri, 1963; 127), and the whole of this upsurge of religious
activity in the Vijayanagar kingdom is probably best seen as an aspect
of the revitalisation of Hindu theistic cults under the stimulus of Islam,
especially through such sects as the Lingayata (6.18). It was not an
exclusive or intolerant Hinduism; the sixteenth century saw also the
arrival of the Portuguese, and with them their Catholic priests, who
were encouraged by the South Indian rulers to take part in public
debates with Hindu religious leaders. It was to Madura, in South India,
that Roberto de Nobili (6.51) came in the seventeenth century, to live
among brahmans as a Christian missionary 'brahman'.

6.54 The proliferation of devotional cults in North India

The sixteenth century was a period in north Indian history which saw
the rise of a multitude of sects which combined devotional fervour with
social protest. These sects generally consisted of the followers of some
religious reformer and mystic who was frequently also a poet. There
is not the space to mention more than a few of these by name. The best
known are perhaps Kabir (1440-1518), Namdev (b. 1470), Vallabha
(dates uncertain), Nanak (1469-1538), Chaitanya (1485-1533), Tulasi
Dasa (1532-1620), Rai Dasa (dates uncertain) and Dadu (1544-1603).
Most of these were sudras, men of the urban artisan class; Kabir was a
weaver ofBanaras, Namdev was of a family of doth-dealers and tailors
in Ahmadabad, Dadu was a Muslim cotton-carder, and Rai Dasa a
leatherworker (a very low-class occupation in Hindu society). With
these may be included also Tuka Rama (1598-1649), a trader born in a
small town near Poona, whose devotional songs in Marathi (a language
of western India) exist in two collections printed in Bombay, one
containing over four thousand and the other over eight thousand songs.
These songs, like those ofDadu and Namdev, are characterised by great
devotional fervour, single-minded piety, and a desire to serve one's
fellow men.
Extreme displays of emotion were a characteristic of Chaitanya' s
sect in Bengal. The occasion for this was the kirtana, or song-session.
The fervour displayed is said to have been so intense, and the singing of
326 Theologians, Poets and Mystics
such vigour that the participants would sometimes swoon and fall to the
ground; such phenomena link Chaitanya's sect on the one hand with
the ancient Hebrew guilds of ecstatic prophets and on the other with
modem Pentecostal sects within the Christian tradition. The deity to
whom the devotion is expressed is usually either Rima or Krishna, but
these are understood as names for the one divine being. 'He is one, but
fills and encompasses many; wherever you look, you find him there'
(Namdev). '0 God, whether Allah or Rama, I live by thy name'
(Kabir). 'There is but one God, whose name is true ... God the great
and bountiful' (Nanak). '0 Rama! Thou dwellest in the hearts of
those who have no lust, anger, infatuation, pride, delusion ... who
are dear to all, benevolent to all ... who have no other resort but
Thyself; in their minds 0 Rama, dost Thou dwell' (Tulasi Dasa).
Kabir was a disciple of the fifteenth-century teacher and mystic
Ramanda, and he and these other sixteenth-century religious leaders
used the vernacular languages of their regions, Hindi and Marathi
especially, instead of Sanskrit, the language of the brahmans and of
orthodoxy. Tulasi Dasa is remembered for his Hindi translation of the
Ramayana (4.24). This use of the vernacular is in keeping with the
popular character of these devotional sects, and so also is the opposition
which they all show to ceremonial and ritual practices, and especially
the use of idols. It is hard to avoid seeing the influence of Islam, and
especially that of the Sufis, at work here; Muslim rule had now for
several centuries been established in the north and west oflndia (6.;8).
Many of the sects founded in this way in the sixteenth century have
continued in existence to the present day.

6.55 The Sikhs

Of special importance among these sects founded in the sixteenth
century is the community of the Sikhs, which developed from the sect
of Nanak' s disciples. Both Kabir' s and Nanak' s lives provide abundant
evidence of the interpenetration of the Hindu and Muslim communities
in the Punjab (deBary, 1958; 360ff. 531ff.). The Sikhs, however, while
combining elements from both Hinduism and Islam, have become a
separate community, cut off from both of these other traditions, and
have now their own sacred book, form of worship and succession of
prophets, gurus, or leaders; these are regarded as ten in number, the
The Sikhs 327
last of whom, Guru Gobind Singh, born in 1666, transformed the
Sikhs into a quasi-military sect. This was a result of the opposition of
the Mughal rulers to the emergence of the Sikhs as an organised
community. Sikhism is a brotherhood in which there is no caste
distinction, and whose members, distinguished from both Hindus and
Muslims by the uncut beard and hair, have held that to die fighting in
the Sikh cause is to gain Paradise. Predominant in the Punjab, they
form a community of some seven millions, found now in many parts
of India and elsewhere. They take pride in the fact that 'one of the
central points of the Sikh faith is the ideal of service to be given freely
and disinterestedly to one's fellow men, no matter to what religion,
race, political group, sex or sect they may belong', as one of their own
publications expresses it (Sikh Courier, London, Spring 1967), although
it is admitted that this is an ideal not easily realised.

6.56 The interaction of Hinduism and Islam in India

Much of this bhakti sectarian fervour which has just been described
can no doubt be attributed to the influence of Islam upon north
Indian Hinduism, especially through the agency of the Sufis. The
general effect of Islam in India at this time was to make Hindus
sensitive to any suggestion of idolatry, and even to lead the more
educated among them to reject the idea of any human representation or
incarnation of the divine- even the avatara (3.37). There was thus a
tendency to affirm the doctrine of an impersonal absolute, the philo-
sophical monism whose Indian name is Advaita Vedanta (4.21). There
was also, however, a Hindu impact upon Islam. Converts to Islam from
among the Hindu peasantry and urban lower classes and intermarriage
of Muslim men and Hindu women were not uncommon during the
period of Muslim rule. These, on becoming Muslim, did not always
leave behind their old ways of life. This applied not only to matters
of belief, but even more strongly to social practices and social structure.
It is this which explains something approaching distinctions of caste
among Indian Muslims. However, it never became a rigid caste
system, and there was always a measure of openness and the possibility
of social mobility, given a few good harvests or a run of success in
business. Another important effect of Hinduism upon the Muslims was
the gradual softening of the originally intolerant spirit of the Turkish
328 Theologians, Poets and Mystics
conquerors, especially in the matter of the encounter of religions. It is
this which enables us to see the controversial figure, Akbar, in proper
perspective, and to this we now turn.

6.57 The heterodoxy of Akbar (1543-1605), and the orthodox Muslim

reaction
Modern Indian history may conveniently be regarded as beginning
with the establishment of Mughal rule in 1526. Like the sultanate of
Delhi which preceded it, the Mughal empire (1526-1858) was Muslim.
The most immediate major difference was that there was a new
dynastic line, founded by Babur, the Turkish ruler of a kingdom to the
north-west of India, who had attacked and overthrown the sultanate,
even though the sultan was his co-religionist. One of the most basic
factors in human affairs is the desire for the control of territory, a
desire which may very easily, in this as in many other cases, prove
stronger than a shared ideology.
The third Mughal emperor was the grandson of Babur, the famous
Akbar (1556-1605). At his accession in 1556 he was thirteen years of
age. He seems to have been a deeply religious Muslim, so far as the
practice of his faith was concerned: he was meticulous about the five
daily prayers, and sometimes swept out the palace mosque, an act of
great piety. He was engaged regularly in devotions at the tombs of
great Muslim saints. Yet he was to be charged later by Abdulla Khan
Uzbek, ruler of Transoxania, with being a renegade from Islam. His
contemporary Badauni, accused by Akbar of narrow-mindedness,
declared he was an apostate. Jesuit priests found him religiously
interesting, but perplexing; often they thought he was about to
become a Catholic, but were always disappointed. European historians
(Vincent Smith, for example) have been inclined to support the
apostasy charge. Hindu historians have regarded him as a liberal,
open-minded Muslim. Probably they are nearest the truth.
The grounds for these charges were the religious innovations which
Akbar appears to have introduced in his attempt to be a worthy
spiritual leader of his people. In this connection he issued a decree in
1579 sometimes referred to as the 'Infallibility' decree. This was aimed
at giving more religious authority to Akbar and less to some of the
orthodox theologians. In fact it did not claim any infallibility for Akbar
The heterodoxy ofAkbar, and the orthodox Muslim reaction 329
but appealed to the established Islamic principle that when there is
uncertainty about how to apply the words of the Qur' an and the
Hadith to a given situation, a 'just sultan' has the right to accept any
one of the interpretations offered him by the theologians. The crucial
question is whether he deliberately planned to establish a new religion
other than Islam, a religion of his own concocting. His projected
Din-i-Ilahi or 'Divine Faith', about which the evidence is very un-
certain, may have been an attempt to provide religion with a new look,
but neither Akbar nor the few members of the new Order appear to
have taken it very seriously. It is fairly clear, however, that on the
whole he acted in ways which frequently offended the more orthodox
Muslim theologians. Three mitigating circumstances can be mentioned
in this connection.
1. It was not, as has been suggested, that religious laxity had become
general among the Muslims oflndia by this time; rather, there was a
genuine desire for better Hindu-Muslim relations, evidence of which is
seen in the rise of the sects (6.54).
2. Akbar, because of the unsettled conditions of the time when he
was a youth, had received no formal education and had an ill-disciplined
mind.
3. He had married a Hindu princess who, together with her relatives
living in the palace, continued to practise the Hindu religion, and would
appear to pious Muslims to be an undesirable alien influence, whether in
fact she was or not.
On balance it seems that there is sufficient evidence of Akbar's
loyalty to Islam to the last, but it was an open-minded loyalty, and it
was thrown under suspicion by his indiscretion and lack of good
judgment. He certainly succeeded in giving great offence to an
influential and determined section of the Muslim population, and after
his death this resulted in a reaction which destroyed much of the good
Akbar had done in the improvement of Hindu-Muslim-Christian
relations in India.
Revived orthodoxy showed itself in the religious policies of the
succeeding Mughal emperors: Jahangir (1605-27), Shah Jahan (1627-
!658), and Aurangzeb (1658-1707). Together these three reigns covered
the seventeenth century. In many ways it is a fascinating period of
Indian history and has been acclaimed as the 'great age' of the Mughals.
But the liberalism represented by Akbar was not dead, and between
this and the orthodoxy of these three rather puritanical emperors there
330 Theologians, Poets and Mystics
existed a state of considerable tension. It reached its climax with
Aurangzeb, whose extremely orthodox Islamic puritanism alienated
the large Hindu population over which he ruled and was one of the
contributory factors in the disintegration of the Mughal empire.

6.58 Islam and Christianity in Eastern Europe, 1500-1800

In an introductory study of the present kind it is not possible to do
more than mention some of the main points of the geographical
expansion of Islam during the medieval and early modem periods. A
concise but fairly detailed account of this expansion will be found in
the introduction to Levy's The Social Structure of Islam. The story is
given in greater detail in the classic work The Preaching of Islam, by
T. W. Arnold (5.16). For the present purpose it may be recorded that
from India Islam had spread to Malaya and Indonesia by the fourteenth
century, with a further expansion there in the seventeenth and eight-
eenth centuries as a result of the missionary activity of Arab traders.
From central Asia Islam spread into the west and north of China from
the time of Kublai Khan in the thirteenth century; from the Middle
East into East Africa from the tenth century onwards, and into the
northern part of Nigeria and other parts of West Africa from the
fifteenth century. This process of expansion has usually been effected
in one of two ways; either (1) by Muslim traders and merchants who,
as in the case of the modem growth oflslam in Africa, have commended
their faith to others in the course of their business activities and have
married local women who, with their children, have then become
Muslims; or (2) by the political control of new territory by Muslim
rulers and the subsequent adherence to Islam of the inhabitants of the
region. In neither case has conversion to the Islamic religion usually
been the result of persecution or force; where there have been occasion-
al exceptions to this rule the conversions have not lasted and those
forcibly converted ceased to be Muslims at the earliest opportunity.
The present extent of the Muslim population of the world is due
almost entirely to missionary activity, persuasion, and the attraction
which Islam has exerted, for one reason or another.
The case of eastern Europe serves as an interesting example. The
first factor in the growth oflslam there during the early modem period
was the extending of the political power of the Ottoman Turks,
Islam and Christianity in Eastern Europe 331
especially from the early fifteenth century. From the north-west of
Turkey the Ottoman Sultans extended their territory by the conquest
in 1453 of Constantinople, and thereafter of much of the Balkan
peninsula. The conquests of the famous Sultan Sulayman the Magnifi-
cent (1520-66) extended the kingdom further into the Balkans. By the
middle of the seventeenth century Turkish territory reached from
Azov (on the north-east coast of the Black Sea) almost to Venice and
Vienna in the west. It was in the first instance a military occupation,
the primary purpose of which was the enlargement of Ottoman
political power, an imperialist drive like any other, but certainly no
worse than most in its effects on the inhabitants of the conquered areas.
If there was also something of the spirit of the jihad, the specifically
Muslim holy war, it did not show itself in violent conversions to
Islam in the manner which Europeans sometimes imagine to be wholly
characteristic of the working ofjihad. The Ottoman rulers secured the
allegiance of Christians in the conquered area by proclaiming them-
selves protectors of the Greek Church. Macarious, the Orthodox
Patriarch of Antioch in the seventeenth century, compared the harsh
treatment received by the Russians of the Orthodox Church at the
hands of the Roman Catholic Poles with the tolerant attitude towards
Orthodox Christians shown by the Sultan: 'God perpetuate the empire
of the Turks for ever and ever! For they take their impost and enter
into no account of religion, be their subjects Christians or Nazarenes,
Jews or Samaritans: whereas these accursed Poles were not content
with taxes and tithes from the brethren of Christ, though willing to
serve them .. .' for 'thousands of martyrs were killed by those impious
wretches .. .' (Arnold, 1913; 158£). If many of the Christian inhabi-
tants of the Balkans turned to Islam and became eventually fanatical
devotees it was certainly not because they were compelled to renounce
their former faith. A German traveller in the Ottoman empire in the
middle of the seventeenth century asks in connection with the
Christians - what has become of them? He provides the answer:
'They are not expelled from the country, neither are they forced to
embrace the Turkish faith; then they must of themselves have been
converted into Turks' (Arnold, 1913; 160). A modem member of the
Eastern Orthodox Church has recently written with genuinely
scholarly fairness towards the Muslims, of a kind not frequently found
among Christian writers, who are more often given to emphasising
the cunning or the wickedness of the 'infidel Turk'. After the capture
M2 L.H.R.
332 Theologians, Poets and Mystics
of Constantinople, the Turks, he writes, 'treated their Christian
subjects with remarkable generosity. The Mohammedans in the
fifteenth century were far more tolerant towards Christianity than
Western Christians were towards one another during the Refotmation
and the seventeenth century' (Ware, 1963; 96).
One important point which needs to be carefully weighed in the
consideration of the expansion of Islam in eastern Europe is that Islam
may have provided for Eastern Orthodox Christians a substitute for a
Protestant reformation. For the Orthodox Church had in some ways
absorbed the spirit of the Roman Church in becoming hierarchical in
structure; it had also developed to major proportions in its religious
life the worship of images, relics and saints; intellectual life was op-
pressed by the dogmatism of the ecclesiastical authorities, and super-
stition had largely taken its place. Movements to purge the Church's
life of its excessive attachment to ikons arose from time to time; one of
these, initiated by Leo the !saurian in the eighth century, we have
already noted (6.21). There were sects in the Balkan countries, as in
the West, who rejected the religion of priest and pontiff, and to whom
the Protestant doctrine that man was saved through faith in God's
prevenient grace, rather than by his own works and merit, had a strong
appeal. Cyril Lucaris, who was Patriarch of Constantinople between
1621 and 1638, had as a young man studied in the universities of
Wittenberg and Geneva, and was greatly attracted to the doctrine of
John Calvin (6.50). He sought to introduce into the Greek Church the
doctrines of predestination and salvation by faith alone, and to repudiate
the authoritarian view of the Church which had by now been accepted
in the East also. But the attempt failed: the Greek Church had in its
thought and practice become remote from anything like a Calvinist
position. A few weeks after his death a synod of Orthodox clergy
pronounced Cyril's Calvinistic doctrines anathema. There is evidence,
however, that he had a considerable following, for they, too, were
subsequently anathematised by the Orthodox hierarchy. Any potential
Protestantism in the East was thus effectively stifled. Yet it cannot be
assumed that such a potential thereby ceased to exist. It is perhaps
pertinent to mention that the Calvinists of Europe, especially of
Hungary and Silesia, were inclined to prefer the prospect of living
under Islamic than under Roman Catholic rule (Arnold, 1913; 157£).
It is not altogether surprising, then, that there were considerable
numbers among the population of the Balkan countries who, when
Islam and Christianity in Eastern Europe 333
Muslim rule overtook them, found themselves turning away from a
priestly religion, a religion which had become so excessively one of
outward forms, a religion ofsalvation by endless works, a religion made
wearisome by the interminable controversies of its leaders on minute
matters of doctrine - away from this to a normally attractive, simple
and intelligible religion which bade men have faith in an almighty
God whose will predestined all things and by whose mercy alone a man
could be saved. If it is one of the curious and possibly momentous facts
of Christian history that no Protestant Reformation occurred in the
Eastern Church, it is also not altogether impossible to see at least part
of the reason for this - in the substitute-Calvinism from Arabia that
was more readily available to the men of south-eastern Europe.

6.59 The early interaction of European Christianity and Asian religions

The early years of the sixteenth century saw the arrival of the
Portuguese in India, Ceylon and South-East Asia. They came as
traders, empire-builders, and missionaries of Catholicism, and were
the forerunners of various other European powers, Dutch, French and
British, who in the next two or three centuries were to oust them and
also to continue what the Portuguese had begun - the exposure, for
good or ill, of Asian cultures to early modem European civilisation.
In Akbar's day (6.57) India was relatively prosperous; Asia possessed
much that Europe wanted in the way of merchandise - cotton cloth,
indigo, spices, precious stones, silk and many other commodities.
Stuart England sent an ambassador, Sir Thomas Roe, to the court of the
Mughal emperor Jahangir in 1615 to try for a favourable commercial
treaty, since so much gold and silver was leaving Europe to pay for
Indian goods. 'Europe bleedeth to enrich Asia', Sir Thomas complained.
If at the end of the European occupation of Asian countries, they were
no longer prosperous but sadly impoverished, the reason for this mod-
em state of affairs is fairly clear. It is an aspect of human relationships
which concerns the student of religion, in so far as religion embraces
ethics. On this fact of international economic affairs was based a good
deal of the increasing prosperity of England, for example, by the time
of the high noon of imperialism in the late nineteenth century. England
was now visibly stronger than and superior to Asian countries, and it
was easy to assume that the Christian ideals which had, it was believed,
334 Theologians, Poets and Mystics
made England what she was, should be imparted to poor, inferior
Muslim and Hindu 'natives'.
The religious cultures of Asia, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist, all
without exception suffered disintegration from the European presence.
In Ceylon and Burma, for example, the structure of the Buddhist
Sangha and its sensitive relationship with the kings meant that the
overthrow by the British of these monarchs (for resisting British
invasion) seriously upset the traditional functioning of the Sangha
within Sinhalese and Burmese society. Moreover, the cultural accom-
modation which was a feature of the gradual, peaceful penetration of
Sinhalese and Burmese indigenous religion (6.46) gave Buddhism the
appearance, to Europeans, of unalloyed idolatry; a very few of the
more discerning appreciated the nature of the situation, but by and
large the religious life of Burma and Ceylon was dismissed as simply
a case of the heathen in his blindness bowing down to wood and stone.
Japan's rulers, however, saw the danger and took action. When
Francis Xavier (6.51) with his missionary companions arrived at
Satsuma in Japan in 1549, they were received 'as men from India
preaching a Tenjiku-shu, the religion of India' (Anesaki, 1963; 241).
Towards the end of the sixteenth century the arrival of Spanish friars,
Dominican and Franciscan, resulted in dissension among Christians on
Japanese soil. The Jesuits were critical of the friars' policy of working
among the poorest classes; added to this was the general antipathy
between Portuguese and Spaniards. The Spanish friars criticised the
Portuguese Jesuits for their worldliness, and both sides thereupon
engaged in a campaign of innuendo. It was hinted that Spanish friars
were frequently the forerunners of Spanish imperialism. In 1597 many
of the Spaniards and their converts were arrested, and some were
executed. Dutch and English Protestant traders andsailorsvisitingJapan
were only too willing to enlighten the Japanese ruler on the fact that
both Spaniards and Portuguese Catholics were regarded in Europe as
dangerous imperialists. In 1637 a popular insurrection at Shimabara was
identified as Portuguese-inspired. Spaniards had already been expelled
from Japan; now it was the turn of the Portuguese. After this the
Tokugawa rulers resolved to have no further dealings with the outside
world. Christianity was prohibited and Japan was declared to be 'the
land of the kami (2.48) and of the Buddha'. The entire religious life of
Japan was 'frozen'; all had to keep to their own faith and all foreign
influences were henceforth excluded. In the course of time this policy
The early interaction ofEuropean Christianity and Asian religions 335
had the effect of stifling Japanese religion, notably Buddhism, which
was 'protected' as virtually the official religion, but which, under this
kind of protection, sank into a condition of torpor.
The effect of British rule in India upon Hindu and Islamic religion
is seen more clearly after 1800, and will be dealt with in that connection
(7.20; 7.30).

Summary and comment on Chapter Six

The period which has been surveyed in this chapter is one in which
some striking resemblances are to be seen between most of the major
religious traditions we have studied. An excessive sophistication in the
intellectual formulation of religious ideas (coupled, in the case of
Christianity at least, with an excessively authoritarian control of
religious institutions) provoked, as a reaction, a turning towards
mysticism, which was sometimes linked with a defiantly literalist view
of religious texts (scriptures), and sometimes with a proliferation of
devotional sects.
In the case of Hinduism it was largely the sophistication of religious
thought begun by Shankara which produced the reaction. The aware-
ness that Shankara' s intellectually refined monism was inimical to
devotional practice of the bhakti kind led first to the fairly mild protest
ofRamanuja (6.14), and later on to the more critical attitude adopted
by Madhva and Ramananda (6.17) and the latter's movement away
from the position of the older orthodoxy of karma and caste towards
a more mystical and socially uninhibited devotionalism. The Shakta cult
may also be seen as to some extent deriving its vitality from a reaction
to an excessively rationalistic type of religion.
In Islam the sophistication of theology under the influence of Greek,
especially Aristotelian modes of thought produced, by way of reaction,
first, the conversion of AI Ashari to a literalist orthodoxy (6.35), and
then in the case of AI Ghazali (whose crisis of personal experience
represents a crisis within Islam itself) a turning away from philosophical
theology to the pursuit of mystical experience, where he believed the
true heart of religion was to be found.
In Christianity the acute necessity laid upon Aquinas (by the
intellectual sophistication of Islamic thought) to demonstrate the
reasonableness of Christian theology gave rise to a massive and
336 Theologians, Poets and Mystics
monumental scholasticism. It may be only a legend, as modern Catholic
scholars are inclined to assert that it is, that Aquinas, when his Summa
Theologica was nearing completion, had an overwhelming spiritual
experience one day while he was at Mass, and commanded his scribe to
abandon the work, saying that all that he had written was but as straw
compared with what he had now seen in the experience which had
come to him. Legend it may be, but it may also be a parable of the
condition oflate medieval Christian theology. For after Aquinas came
William of Ockham, and the divorce of faith from reason, a divorce
which was conducive to the development of mystical tendencies (6.28),
tendencies which were nourished by reaction, conscious or unconscious,
against the straitjacket of the authoritarian dogmatic system. Associated
with this fourteenth-century development of mysticism in the Christian
tradition was the similar movement in Judaism, which had its focus in
the Zohar (6.27), and which followed upon the excessively intellectual
preoccupations of the thirteenth century with which Maimonides
(6.24) had endeavoured to deal.
These parallel developments within Hinduism, Islam, Christianity
and Judaism during roughly the same period cannot fail to provoke
some interpretative comment. To some extent no doubt the movements
were interdependent; especially this is true of the three traditions that
were in fairly close contact in Europe- Islam, Christianity and Judaism.
The influx into European Judaism of mystical thought from Babylon
may have stimulated mystical thought among Christians, for example.
The situation is complex, and presents a fruitful field for further study.
But certain general observations concerning the sources from which
religious traditions are nourished may also be offered. It will be seen
that the doctrines which are affirmed in any religion are derived from
one or more of the following sources:
1. The direct first-hand religious experience of individuals.
2. Received traditions, consisting of the accumulated deposit of such
experiences, which may be embodied in some agreed corpus of
sacred writings (the Veda, the Torah, the Tipitaka, the New
Testament, the Qur' an, etc.) or may be transmitted from person
to person in an oral tradition or in some institutional form such
as the traditions of the scribes in Judaism, or the tradition of the
Church in Christianity.
3. The exercise of reason upon the data ofhuman existence.
In one type of religion one of these sources of religious knowledge
Summary and comment on Chapter Six 337
may be predominant. In Judaism, for instance, it is the Torah, rather
than inner personal experience or the use of reason, but nevertheless
those other two potential sources of knowledge still have some con-
tribution to make, the extent of which will vary from time to time;
in one period the exercise of reason may be allowed a greater place in
the interpretation of the tradition (the Torah) than in another period.
In another type of religion the relative importance of the three sources
may be quite different. Most of the major religions have, in the course
of their histories, allowed some place for all three.
Some religions, however, rely almost exclusively on the authority
of the received tradition, represented either by scriptures, or institutional
tradition, or both. Of such a kind, in the main, have been Judaism.
Christianity, and Islam. During the period we have been reviewing all
of these had, however, passed through a phase when the dominant
preoccupation of their major exponents was with the rational exposition
of the faith. The reaction against this excessively speculative, intellectual
mood was in some cases to reaffirm the scriptural tradition in its literal
form; in other cases it showed itself in a turning towards personal,
mystical experience as the ultimate and only sure source of religious
knowledge. The latter kind of reaction against the authoritarian
dogmatism of scripture and against its authorised, official exponents,
whether bishops or brahmans, is closely associated with the rise of
sectarian groups especially among socially subordinate or disinherited
classes; examples of this are the Waldenses (6.25) the Brotherhood
groups (6.26), the Sufis (6.36) the Hindu devotional sects of north
India (6.54) and the Quakers (6.52).
No mention has been made in all this of the Buddhists. This is
because in their case no absolute canon of authority was ever held to be
necessary or desirable. Even among the Theravadins, who are some-
times wrongly accused of resembling fundamentalist Protestants in
their attitude to scripture, it is clearly acknowledged and accepted that
even the words of the Buddha contained in the Vinaya and the Suttas
are to be accepted as authentic only in so far as a man is prepared to go
on to investigate and prove their truth for himself in his own religious
experience, and by the use ofhis own reason.
What was 'revealed' to the Buddha is not given uncritical acceptance;
it is held to be important that the greatest attention should be paid to his
teaching, for it is clearly acknowledged that few individuals can gain
such insight unaided and alone; on the other hand the teaching is
338 Theologians, Poets and Mystics
neither to be accepted nor rejected on any external authority, but it is
to be put to the test experientially, that is, in the living of the Buddhist
life. It is clearly acknowledged also that by the use of reason alone man
cannot discover the most important truths; this is why in the first
instance men need to hear the teaching of the Buddha, but to hear it as
the word of a guide which is to be verified personally in the only way
that such knowledge can be verified - in religious experience. An
excellent account of the Buddhist position in these matters has recently
been made available by K.N. Jayatilleke in his Early Buddhist Theory of
Knowledge, especially in chapter viii, 'Authority and Reason within
Buddhism'.
In Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, however, the
situation is rendered more complicated by the very great veneration
which has been afforded to the canonical scriptures in each case. The
complication is increased by the fact that each of these bodies of sacred
scriptures is not a homogeneous whole, but embodies elements of an
ancient and sometimes religiously incompatible kind. Even the
Qur'an, homogeneous as it is in the sense ofhaving been produced by
one man within a short period of time, lacks real homogeneity in the
sense that it too embodies a great deal that is derived from a variety of
earlier traditions, and is therefore not the expression of a completely
unified radical religious insight.
For this reason these faiths have all in the modern period been faced
with the necessity of making a drastic reappraisal of the status of their
sacred scriptures. In every tradition there have been the literalists,
Hindu, Jewish, Christian and Muslim, who have thought that the only
reliable course is to affirm piously all that is contained in sacred
scripture, and adopt a piecemeal defence of inconsistencies where this
is forced upon them. Others have been prepared to acknowledge in
the light of historical research that some elements in the sacred tradition
are to be given greater importance than others, and that ultimately
the criteria for doing this must be religious insight coupled with human
reason. Among the literalists of the various religions there can be little
common ground; among those who follow a more discriminating
policy there is, as the adherents of these various faiths encounter one
another in the modern world, at least some possibility of dialogue and
exploration.
7 Religion and Industrial
Society

7.1 RELIGION IN THE WEST: 1800 TO THE

PRESENT

7.10 Protestantism and Capitalism

F 0 R the Christian religion the nineteenth century was perhaps the
period of its greatest success, if by that we mean the growth of its
institutions and outward observances, its spread in Asia and Africa,
and the respect generally accorded to it. After the religious lethargy
of the early eighteenth century in northern Europe a new mood had
characterised the close of that century. Some would say that in England,
at least, this was due in part to the Methodist movement, and in part
to the shock produced by the French Revolution of 1789. The upper
classes in England saw the writing on the wall; it seemed that atheism
went hand in hand with loss of respect for the hallowed institutions
of society, and that religious indifference and moral laxity among the
upper classes encouraged revolutionary tendencies among the common
people. There was a turning to more serious ways oflife and thought:
Calvinism came into its own. For here was a doctrine that was serious
in its view of man's situation, simple and rational in its principles, and
challenging in its implications for everyday life. In its simplest form,
that men exist for the sake of God, that some are saved and others are
damned, and that assurance of salvation can be found in the success
which attends application to one's secular calling, it had the effect of
encouraging the serious use of time and resources, and of discouraging
expenditure of either of these on worldly pleasures. This Puritan
doctrine, which had its adherents in one section of society in the six-
teenth and seventeenth centuries, from the beginning of the nineteenth
century gained wide acceptance in certain countries of northern
Europe. Associated fairly closely with the acceptance of such a doctrine
was an economic phenomenon: the growth of private capital. By the
1840s, when Karl Marx was pondering these facts, it seemed to him that
340 Religion and Industrial Society
the religious ideas ofProtestantism were nothing more than the spiritual
rationalisation of the brute facts of economic existence: the capitalist
economy meant an alienation within humanity, the alienation of the
capitalist master from the servant who had only his labour to sell; this,
said Marx, was given an epiphenomenal religious form in the idea of a
god to whom man owed everything, on whom he was completely
dependent, before whom he was but a servile, sinful wretch, and from
whom he might expect such scraps of comfort as the god by sheer
virtue of his grace might bestow on man. Protestantism, Marx
maintained, was precisely the form of religion one might expect to
fmd associated with a capitalist system. A critique ofProtestant religion
was the way to understand the whole social and economic situation:
'The criticism of religion is the beginning of all (i.e. social) criticism'.
A somewhat different view was suggested by Max Weber (1930}.
The emergence of the capitalist could be seen, he said, as the result of
the outworking of Protestant ideas stemming in the first instance from
Calvin. Weber left open the question of howJar the ideas of the Reform-
ation might themselves be shown to be due to economic and social
factors (Bendix, 1959; 69). Instead of religious ideas being regarded as
epiphenomenal upon economic realities, Weber argued, they could
justly be regarded as themselves constituting a real factor in the
European situation.
Certainly an outstanding feature of Protestantism, especially in the
nineteenth century, was its strongly individualistic spirit. Some see this
today as a good feature, a guarantee against the possible evils of mass
society and dictatorships; others see it as a regrettable feature, leading
to social irresponsibility and a cover for selfishness. In nineteenth-
century Protestant countries there was certainly a tendency to explain
the inequalities of rich and poor in terms of individual merit. The rich,
so it was argued, had become rich by their serious devotion to duty,
hard work, sobriety and thrift, while the poor had become poor by
reason of fecklessness, laziness, moral corruption, drunkenness and
other vices. Such moralistic individualism, widespread as it was,
seriously hindered a more realistic analysis of the ills of nineteenth-
century society and the working out of measures to deal with them.
One other feature of nineteenth-century Protestantism which is too
important in its social effects not to be mentioned was the impetus it
gave to the attitude which Matthew Arnold characterised as 'Philistine'.
For men whose principal concern was unremitting devotion to business
Protestantism and Capitalism 341
affairs, in an age increasingly conscious of the marvels of machinery,
there was little or no place in life for art or beauty, especially since the
ascetic Puritan tradition of religion was positively hostile to anything
remotely likely to constitute an indulgence of the senses, a glorifying
of the flesh rather than of God. Preoccupation with 'the rational pursuit
of economic gain', together with suspicion of all aesthetic interests,
combined to produce on the one hand the ugliness of the industrial
cities which grew up in nineteenth-century Britain, especially in the
midlands and the north, and on the other hand an insensitiveness to
the place which art may have in the life of religion. That Protestant-
ism thus succeeded in alienating men of artistic sensibility from the
Christian religion would in no way dismay such Philistines, confident
as they were of their own election, and of the idolatry and folly of
using the arts as an aid to the religious life. A great deal is often made of
the intellectual conflicts of the nineteenth century, while this aspect of
Protestantism too often goes unremarked; nevertheless such aesthetic
insensitivity continues to alienate the sons and daughters of Protestant-
ism, some of whom turn to Catholicism, while others drift away from
the life of religion altogether.

7.11 Evangelicalism, Agnosticism and American revivalism

One of the important features of Christian religious history during the
first half of the nineteenth century, both on the continent of Europe
and in Britain, was a movement which is known as Evangelicalism.
This had certain widely recognisable characteristics: a strongly lay
rather than clerical emphasis (although clergymen were of course
affected by the movement and in certain notable cases such as that of
Charles Simeon of Cambridge took a leading part in it); a concern for
the righting of social injustice such as slavery, and with education; and,
above all, the respect given to the Christian Bible as the inspired word
of God and the criterion of all truth. Evangelicalism's most character-
istic rite was Family Prayers, including reading aloud from the Bible;
its most characteristic social location was in the middle and upper
classes. Thus it was Evangelicalism which moulded the characters of
many of Britain's nineteenth-century administrators, army officers,
public school masters and philanthropic aristocrats. In its social
function as the religious cult of a privileged elite the movement bore
342 Religion and Industrial Society
a certain resemblance to early Arab Islam during the period of the four
rightly guided caliphs (5.16). This is seen most clearly perhaps in the
dependence on a Book which was held to contain the ipsissima verba of
God. And as in the case of Islam, in this lay both its strength and its
weakness.
The extent to which Evangelicalism succeeded in inculcating the idea
of the central and exclusive importance of a verbally inspired, literally
true corpus of sacred literature is also a measure of the extent to which
nineteenth-century Protestant Christianity was rendered unfit to give a
fair hearing to the scientific theories put forward in England by Charles
Darwin in his Origin of Species, published in 1859. Having committed
itself to belief in the literal inerrancy of the Christian Bible, Protestant-
ism (like Roman Catholicism, from whom the doctrine was received)
was forced to see Darwin's theory of evolution as a direct attack on the
historical accuracy of the early chapters of Genesis (which it was) and
therefore as an attack on the very foundations of Christianity (which
it was not).
Here then was one of the principal reasons why the Protestant
Churches reacted so sharply to new theories concerning the natural
world that were being put forward by scientists, and why Christians
found it necessary to defend with such passion positions which they
have now come to see were by no means so crucial as was then believed.
It is also one of the reasons for the opposition to traditional religious
ideas shown by serious writers such as Hardy, Meredith, Stevenson and
Housman.
Evangelicalism found strongest expression in America, where it took
a socially lower-class form commonly known as 'revivalism'. This was
generated in frontier situations, as pioneers pushed westwards across the
American continent. Various factors combined to produce this type of
American Christianity: the personal qualities of the pioneers, partly
their independence and self-reliance, partly perhaps their discontent
and frustration and disappointments born of the difficulties of frontier
life; the easy informality of the camp-fire where the only portable
religious equipment necessary was a Bible; the Methodist belief that
all men might be saved, which implied the necessity of preaching
forgiveness of sins and the cultivation of holiness of life. Great
emphasis came thus to be laid on conversion experience or on 'getting
religion'; and on emotional fervour in the expression of such religion
once obtained.
Evangelicalism, Agnosticism and American revivalism 343
Later, in the more settled conditions of urban life, revivalism was
deliberately organised on a large scale and became formalised in its
non-ritualistic rituals in the campaigns and revival meetings of such
men as D. L. Moody and his partner Ira Sankey, Billy Sunday, and in
the twentieth-century Billy Graham. Such campaigns succeeded to
some extent in attracting those of the masses who in Britain and
America were largely beyond the reach of more conventional church
life; they also had a strong influence on the ethos and methods of
Nonconformist Protestant bodies such as the Baptists.

7.12 Methodism and Socialism

It has been said that 'the coincidence in time of Wesley and the
Industrial Revolution had profound effects upon England for genera-
tions to come' (Trevelyan, 1946; 362). It might be added that the
effects were certainly not confmed to England. The movement which
had begun with such remarkable vitality in the eighteenth century
(6.52) continued to grow throughout the nineteenth. The impact made
by Methodism, great though it was in Britain, was even greater in the
United States. In Britain Methodism reached out, as the Established
Church could not, to affect the condition of the working classes both
in the newly industrialised areas and in rural areas. It continued to grow
in strength throughout the nineteenth century. Between 1800 and 1860
its numbers increased four hundred per cent. Not only did it succeed
in providing philanthropic care for the poor, the sick, and the unfor-
tunate; it succeeded also in bringing about a change in the moral and
social condition of its largely working-class members, by instilling
into them its attitude of religious seriousness, and inspiring them with
the notion of holiness as a realisable religious goal. Methodism
succeeded where the Established Church in nineteenth-century
England largely failed. The alienation of the working classes from the
Church was well advanced by mid-century. This was a period of great
social unrest in many parts of Europe; in England such unrest was to
some extent mitigated by the influence of Methodism.
Methodism had a notable influence also on the older Nonconformist
bodies, such as the Baptists and Congregationalists, both in Europe and
America, who shared in the wave of 'chapel' life which Methodism
had set in motion, a particular feature of nineteenth-century Britain
344 Religion and Industrial Society
which had visible embodiment in the many Nonconformist chapels
built during the period, especially in the midlands and the north. The
predominantly lay character of Evangelicalism (7.11) even among
Anglicans, with the emphasis on family worship and house prayer-
meetings, was also due to the influence of Methodism. The movement
contributed in an important way also to the revivalism of the newly
developing American continent (7.11). Finally out of the Methodist
milieu came in 1865 the Salvation Army, characterised by its street
preaching, its emphasis on hymn-singing and music, and its social
relief work among the poorest classes. Founded by William Booth
(1829-1912) in Nottingham, the Salvation Army has since spread into
other English-speaking countries, to the continent of Europe and
through missionary activity, into Asia.
About the year 1835 a new word had entered the English vocabulary,
the word 'socialism'. The ideas and principles of the socialists developed
first on the continent of Europe, where they had a strong association
with movements of violent revolution. In their Marxian form these
ideas became known to some extent in England through Karl Marx's
presence in London as a writer from 1849 to his death in 1883, but by
the time this had happened the most critical years were past, that is the
years from about 1847 to 1850 when revolutionary movements were
active in various countries of Europe. The blunting of the force of this
revolutionary mood so far as England was concerned may have been in
large measure due to the hold of Nonconformity and especially
Methodism upon many of the working classes. The Church of England
threw up its Christian Socialists, notably Frederick Denison Maurice
(1805-72) and Charles Kingsley (1819-75), but their effect upon the
situation was marginal compared with the role of Methodism.
0 ne effect of Methodism upon its working-class members which
had been remarked upon by John Wesley himself was a strong tendency
towards the erection of a new petty bourgeoisie: 'For the Methodists
in every place grow diligent and frugal; consequently they increase in
goods. Hence they proportionately increase in pride, in anger, in the
desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes and the pride of life. So
although the form of religion remains, the spirit is swiftly vanishing
away. '
Finally, it may be noted that the associational experience which
laymen gained in their Methodist societies was also an important
factor in the development of the trade unions in Britain.
Catholicism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries 345

7.13 Catholicism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

The close of the eighteenth century had been marked by the 'Terror'
which in France followed the Revolution, when many Catholic
priests were expelled from the country or executed, religious orders
were destroyed and, in 1793, the Goddess of Reason was exalted on the
altar of Notre-Dame in Paris and religion declared to be abolished.
One faint light in what for Catholics was a dark period was the
publication in 1802 of an important work by Chateaubriand (1768-
1848), Le Genie du Christianisme, which sought to show the reasonable-
ness of Christianity, presenting it as a civilising power, the inspiration of
poets and artists, and the basis of European culture. Nevertheless the
political subjection of the Catholic Church continued. Although
Napoleon had been crowned emperor by the Pope in 1804 (since
Catholicism was still the religion of the majority of his subjects), in the
course of his territorial aggression into Italy in 1808-9 he found the
Pope a sufficient inconvenience to make it necessary for him to
imprison the Holy Father, who remained in prison until1815, when on
Napoleon's abdication he was released. The Jesuit Order, which an
earlier Pope had been forced to suppress in 1773, was now reinstated.
The effect of Napoleon's action against the Pope was to make many of
the French clergy look to the Pope as their protector, the one to whom
they owed supreme obedience, and whose authority they honoured
above all. This looking beyond France, 'beyond the mountains'
(Ultramontanism), i.e. to Italy, became a characteristic attitude in the
French Catholic Church of the nineteenth century.
In England the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 restored to
Catholics some of their lost rights and began an improvement of their
social position. Within the Anglican Church a movement aro~e in
1833 under the leadership first of Richard Hurrell Froude, Fellow of
Oriel College, Oxford, and then of certain other Oxford dons,
notably John Henry Newman and John Keble, which became known
as the Oxford Movement. It was in origin a movement of protest
against the interference of the state in the affairs of the Church, and
the Assize Sermon preached by Keble in StMary's, Oxford, in 1883,
may be regarded as its charter (Bettenson, 1963; 445ff:). The leaders of
the movement were prompted also by a desire to see the Church of
England aroused from its lethargy and restored to its place as the divine
346 Religion and Industrial Society
society of Christ, governed by its bishops, and providing men with what
they had found 'the best road to the preservation of purity oflife in the
services and sacraments, the round of fasts and festivals that formed the
daily routine of the Church' (Wand, 1952; 212). To this end they pub-
lished a series of tracts which gained them and their movement the
name 'Tractarian'. The publication of these tracts came to an end in
1841 with Tract 90 (Bettenson, 1963; 448££), an interpretation of the
Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles in a sense which to many seemed
clearly Roman, and was certainly offensive to some Evangelical
members of parliament. The Bishop of Oxford intervened, and the
movement suffered the loss of Newman, who resigned his living in
1843 and then entered the Roman Catholic Church in 1845. His Essay
on the Development of Christian Doctrine, written in 1844 before he
actually made his submission to Rome, had a considerable influence on
Catholic thought in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Newman's
activities as a Roman Catholic, together with those of Manning, were
an important factor in stimulating the growth of the Roman confession
in England, a growth which was aided also throughout the nineteenth
century by the influx of Irish immigrants.
The latter half of the century was characterised by what can be seen
as a long process of interaction between traditional Roman Catholic
orthodoxy and various aspects of modern, and increasingly industrial-
ised, European life. A group of writers of whom de Lammenais
(1782-1854) is the best known had attempted to work out a synthesis of
Catholic and liberal ideas; de Lammenais, however, was condemned
and excommunicated by Pope Gregory XVI (1831-46). In 1854 the
Pope declared the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed
Virgin Mary an article of faith. Catholics maintain that nothing new
was being introduced into the doctrine of their Church, but that the
Church's growth in understanding the implications of Christian
doctrine was receiving full and official recognition. The growth of
Rome's confidence is seen also in the publication in 1864 of a 'Syllabus
ofErrors', denouncing such contemporary liberal ideas as the separation
of Church and State, primary education on a common secular basis,
and the recognition ofvalue in non-Catholic religion. What does appear
in the declaration of1864, and even more clearly in the decisions of the
Vatican Council of 1869-70, is the growing strength of the Pope's
position in Europe, after the events with which the eighteenth century
closed. The Council of 1869-70 discussed matters of the Faith, and of
Catholicism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries 347
the Church and its powers, and in 1870 affirmed the infallibility of
statements uttered by the Pope ex cathedra. This was carried almost
unanimously, but with some opposition from German Catholics. In
this way Roman Catholic doctrine gained an authoritativeness which
has proved to have a considerable appeal to modem men unable to
bear the uncertainties and perplexities of contemporary currents of
thought; many of these have been intellectuals- for they more than
most have been aware of the full extent of the uncertainties of secular-
Ism.
Matters of social justice in an industrial society were dealt with by
Pope Leo XIII's famous encyclical Rerum Novarum of 1891, which
condemned the tendency of modem states to usurp the rights of the
individual but in which the state's protection of the interests of the
wage-earning class was urged and trade unionism was commended.
On the other hand, a movement to interpret Catholic ideas in terms of
contemporary thought, generally known as Catholic Modernism, a
movement which had exponents and adherents in Germany, France,
Italy and Spain, was condemned by Pope Pius X in 1907 in his
encyclical Pascendi.
Meanwhile the Roman Catholic community continued to grow in
numbers, especially in the United States and Britain. In the former,
Catholics now comprise about a fifth of the total population and
Catholicism is recognised as one of the three principal faiths of modem
America (together with those of the Jews and the Protestants), a fact
which Catholics claim as an indication that Catholicism can flourish in a
genuinely democratic country as well as anywhere.

7.14 Religion in Russia, 1721-1917

If any country can be said to be the bridge between East and West it
is Russia. The vastness of Russian territory is such that its frontier is with
Protestant and Catholic Europe in the west, with Buddhist Japan and
Korea in the east, and with the Muslim lands of Persia, Afghanistan
and Pakistan to the south. Russia's peoples include, or have included
in the past, Buddhists and Muslims as well as Jews and Christians. These
facts need to be borne in mind when one is considering the religious
history of this very important area of the world's surface.
Predominantly, religion in Russia has meant Christianity of the
348 Religion and Industrial Society
Eastern Orthodox tradition. Here again the meeting of East and West
may be discerned. Two features of Eastern Orthodoxy in Russia may
possibly help one to understand its tortuous and often troubled history;
these are, first the Church concept, which has been a very strong factor
in Russian religious history, and second, the powerful influence of a
spirituality which not infrequently reminds one of Asia rather than
Europe.
The concept of the Church as a powerful institution, hierarchically
organised and constituting something sufficiently resembling an empire
to make it appear a rival to the secular state, is a legacy from Rome. If
Byzantium was the second Rome, its loss to Christendom meant that
the centre of gravity of Eastern Orthodoxy shifted to Moscow, which
thus became in some Russian Orthodox eyes 'the third Rome'. While
the Orthodox churches do not acknowledge a supreme head, or Pope,
and the five patriarchs of Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Constan-
tinople and Moscow are in theory on terms of equality, nevertheless
within Russia itself the position of the patriarch was closely similar to
that of the Pope in southern Europe; he was the head of a hierarchical
institution. 'The Orthodox Church', writes Timothy Ware, 'is a
hierarchical Church. An essential element in its structure is the Apostolic
Succession of bishops.' Ware goes on to explain that 'a bishop is
appointed by God to guide and to rule the flock committed to his
charge; he is a "monarch" in his own diocese' (Ware, 1963; 252f.). So
far as the scope of such hierarchical power was concerned, the Church
in Russia was reckoned to be not inferior to the secular state, but on an
equality with it. As in Byzantium, Church and State constituted 'a
dyarchy or symphony of two co-ordinated powers, sacerdotium and
imperium, each supreme in its own sphere' (Ware, 1963; 124). This was
symbolised in the two equal thrones which used to be placed in the
Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin, 'one for the Patriarch and one
for the Tsar'.
It was this institutional-power aspect of Russian Christianity which,
when pushed too far by the seventeenth-century Patriarch Nicon
{1605-81), resulted in the subjugation of the Church by the emperor
Peter the Great, who reigned from 1682 to 1725. So greatly had Nicon
sought to extend the patriarch's power that Peter abolished the office
altogether, and thus settled the issue of Church-state power-rivalry. In
1721 Peter issued a declaration, known as the Spiritual Regulation, to the
effect that the office of patriarch was to be replaced by a commission of
Religion in Russia 349
twelve men nominated by him, to be known as the Holy Synod. Any
member of the commission could, of course, be dismissed at any time
by the Tsar. Meetings of the Synod were to be attended by the Tsar's
representative, the chief procurator, who would not take part but
would 'observe' on behalf of the Tsar. This official came to be known
as 'the Tsar's eye' and did in fact wield considerable power in the
Church. During the nineteenth century the complete subservience of
the Church dignitaries to the emperor was abundantly clear in the
relationships which existed between one procurator in particular, who
was a colonel of the guards, and the members of the Synod, whom he
treated 'as if they were cavalry subalterns' (Florinsky, 1959; ii, 798).
Thus from 1721 the Orthodox Church in Russia was a department of
the state. Unlike some other 'establishment' churches, however, the
Russian Church's relationship was one not of privilege but of sub-
jugation. During the eighteenth century one of the main results of this
was that the admiration of the upper class for all things French and, to a
lesser degree, for things European, meant an 'ill-advised W esternisation'
of Church art, music and theology (Ware, 1963; 128). By the reign of
Alexander I (1801-25) there had appeared in Russia 'a body of genuinely
Westernised people' (Zernov, 1961; 175). During the nineteenth
century a reaction to this arose within the Russian Church. One of the
leading figures was Alexey Khomiakov (1804-60) a wealthy landlord,
poet, amateur physician, and orientalist (he compiled the first Russian-
Sanskrit dictionary). 'For Khomiakov the Church was not an institution,
but a living organism. He dismissed as wrong the search for an external
source of infallibility in which the Christian West had been engaged
since its separation from the Orthodox Church' (Zernov, 1961; 187).
Those who joined together in the movement of which he was the
leader were known as the Slavophils. It was a minority movement, but
a similar rediscovery of those elements in the life of the Russian Church
which are more characteristic ofthe East, than ofWestern Christendom,
was a marked feature of the nineteenth century, quite apart from the
Slavophil movement. There was a growth in monastic life: in 1810
there were 452 monasteries; in 1914 there were 1,025 (Ware, 1963; 130).
With this went also a development of the principle ofspiritual direction,
exercised in Russia by the staretz, a religious figure in many ways like
the guru of Asia. One of the greatest of these startsi was St Seraphim
(1759-1833) whose life and activities are seen by Ware, rather signifi-
cantly, as resembling those of Antony of Egypt- where monastic life
350 Religion and Industrial Society
had developed partly from an Asian, possibly Buddhist stimulus.
Another feature of this kind was the emphasis by nineteenth-century
Russian Orthodoxy on the practice of the 'Jesus Prayer' - that is the
continual repetition of the words 'Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy
on me', a form of religious exercise which has parallels in the use of the
mantra in Asian religion, and especially in Amidism (6.48).
Thus the nineteenth century was a period in the history of Russian
Orthodoxy when, in spite of subjugation to the state, and perhaps even
to some extent because of it, there was a turning away from the religious
ideas and institutions of theW est and a rediscovery of, and a re-emphasis
upon, elements of spirituality which were more characteristic of the
East than of Europe.
Another aspect of the recovery of religious vitality in Russia during
the nineteenth century was the rise of sectarian movements charac-
terised by a rejection of state supremacy in religion, and of the need for
priests and sacraments, and an emphasis upon the interior spiritual life.
The beginnings of what is sometimes called Spiritual Christianity in
Russia are to be found as early as the seventeenth century, such as the
rise of the Dukhobors, or 'Wrestlers by the Spirit'. Count Leo Tolstoi's
interpretation of Christianity as a way of peaceful non-resistance to
violence, and his rejection of the need for sacraments, had an affmity
with the Dukhobors. The official Russian Church disliked Tolstoi and
lost no opportunity to discredit him. Significantly, perhaps, it was a
Hindu, Mahatma Gandhi (7.27), who was strongly influenced by
Tolstoi's version of Christianity, and incorporated it into his own
reformed version of Hinduism. The attitudes of the authorities to the
Dukhobors led many of them to emigrate to Canada in 1899.

7.15 Nineteenth-century Christian missions

Not until it was eighteen centuries old did Christianity begin to make
any large-scale contact with the Orient. Buddhism, emerging just five
centuries before Christianity, had by the second century of the Christian
era begun to enter China, and before long was strongly established
among the Chinese and the Koreans. Islam arose six centuries later than
Christianity, and in the same area, but before two centuries had passed
Islam had begun to establish itself and to grow steadily, in north-west
India and in South India and Ceylon. But apart from the small fairly
Nineteenth-century Christian missions 351
static community of Syrian Christians in South India, and some
Nestorians in China, the entry of Christianity into the Orient did not
begin seriously until the end of the fifteenth century and beginning of
the sixteenth.
By that time the Great religious traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism
and Islam had already made advances in Asia, and between them
commanded the allegiance oflarge numbers of the population oflndia,
South-East Asia and China, where they had replaced the earlier Little
Traditions of primitive tribal religion. Christianity thus arrived rather
late on the scene; it was not until after 1800 that its Asian missionary
effort seriously began, and it was in those areas where tribal cultures
were still untouched by the other Great Traditions that it made most of
its converts during the modem period. There were a few attempts to
spread the Christian faith among the peoples of the already well-
established Great Traditions, attempts which were not highly successful
but which had important consequences for our contemporary religious
situation.
The reasons for the great expansion of Christian missionary activity
from the beginning of the nineteenth century onward are various. For
two centuries until then Europe had been 'discovering' Asia, and the
European presence was now fairly well established. The rise of
Protestantism in Europe is closely connected with the presence of
Europe in Asia (and Africa), for the principal reason for that presence
was desire for commercial profit. The growth of Evangelicalism,
especially in England, is a second important factor. Both to the Calvinist
Puritan, and the Evangelical of more Methodist persuasion, profit-
making was a righteous activity, almost a religious duty. In 1797
Charles Grant, a director of the East India Company, had written:

In considering the affairs of the world as rmder the control of the

Supreme Disposer, and those distant territories ... providentially put
into our hands ... is it not necessary to conclude that they were given
to us, not merely that we might draw an annual profit from them, but
that we might diffuse among their inhabitants, long sunk in darkness,
vice and misery, the light and benign influence of the truth, the blessings
of well-regulated society, the improvements and comforts of active
industry? .•. In every progressive step of this work, we shall also serve
the original design with which we visited India, that design still so im-
portant to this cormtry - the extension of our commerce. (Edwards,
1961; 109)
352 Religion and Industrial Society
Out of considerations such as these emerged the decision to confer
upon the inhabitants of India the benefits of English education - that
they might read the Bible and be weaned away from idolatry and
superstition; also that there might be a ready supply of educated natives
to fill minor administrative posts and, as Macaulay said in a speech in
1833, that they might eventually proceed to self-government, for as he
shrewdly pointed out, it would be far better for them to be ruled by
their own kings, leaving the English free to get on with the business of
trading with them. 'It would be ... better for us that the people of
India were well governed and independent of us . . . that they were
ruled by their own kings, but wearing our broadcloth.... To trade
with civilised men is infinitely more profitable than to govern savages.'
Belief in the enlightening power of education was for many of the
evangelical officials and administrators closely connected with belief in
the Christian Gospel. A great stimulus was thus given to the setting up
of schools and colleges, both government and missionary. Some of the
Hindus, who predominated in the areas of strongest British influence
(Calcutta, Bombay and Madras), took advantage of the new education
offered (7.20). Muslims were more reserved in their attitude, even
where English schools and colleges were accessible to them; they feared
that the intention was to win them away from Islam to an alien culture.
The tone of Christian evangelical missionary preaching had already
aroused the suspicions of the Muslims and, in time, of Hindus also.
Lord Minto, governor-general 1807-13, had been led to complain
about this in a letter to the chairman of the East India Company.
Sending a missionary tract as an example of the approach used, he drew
attention to the 'miserable stuff addressed to the Hindus, in which
without one word to convince or satisfy the mind of the heathen
reader, without proof or argument of any kind, the pages are filled with
hell fire, and hell fire, and still hotter fire, denounced against a whole
race of men for believing in the religion which they were taught by
their fathers and mothers' (Edwards, 1961; 106).
By 1830 the vernacular newspapers were bitterly opposed to
Christianity on account of its more bigoted representatives, and this
resentment by Hindu and Muslim alike of the insulting attitude of the
missionaries was a contributory factor to the Mutiny of 1857. After
that event the confidence of the various religious communities of India
was restored to some extent by Queen Victoria's proclamation that
none should 'be in any wise favoured, none molested or disquieted by
Nineteenth-century Christian missions 353
reason of their religious faith or observance, but that all alike shall
e~oy the equal and impartial protection of the law.'
The result of the kind of encounter which took place between
nineteenth-century Christianity and the great religious traditions of
Asia was that missionary activities, meeting with little or no response
among more cultured and influential Asians, turned to the lower classes
of society and to the less sophisticated tribal peoples of the remoter hill
and jungle areas, where a greater gain in terms of converts was found.
This was to some extent also an embarrassment. As Bishop Stephen
Neil points out: 'Almost every mission started with an attempt to reach
the higher castes; when movements started among the poor, they were
viewed with anxiety and a measure of embarrassment by the mis-
sionaries, who saw that their whole cause might be prejudiced by the
influx of masses of ignorant and despised people' (Neil, 1964; 364). This
happened quite frequently whenever the leaders of the tribes were
converted, as the figures for the German Rhenish mission in the Batak
area of Sumatra, for example, indicate. After the first twenty years of
missionary activity, up to 1881, 7,500 converts had been gained; in the
next twenty years this became a mass movement, with an influx of
103,000. Since Protestant Christianity had in view the conversion of
individuals, and their being brought into the Church one by one as
individuals, such mass movements presented problems with which
Protestantism was ill-equipped to deal. In some areas, such as Sumatra,
initial Christianisation was followed by the adherence of these peoples
to Islam (7.38).
The years after 1858 were the period of the greatest Christian
missionary activity throughout Asia and Africa. In China the treaties of
1858 opened the doors for trade and missionary activity; in Africa the
missionary travels and journeys of exploration of David Livingstone
kindled enthusiasm for European and American Christian activity in
the interior of what was regarded as 'the Dark Continent'.
The most vigorous missionary organisations stemmed from those
areas of society where religious vitality was strongest; and in Britain
and the United States during the nineteenth century this was pre-
dominantly among Methodists and the growing Nonconformist
churches of the industrial areas. Their adherents - and therefore their
potential missionaries -were drawn largely from the lower-middle and
working classes, and were not necessarily men of educated mind, nor
did they have great opportunities to become so; men of the calibre of
354 Religion and Industrial Society
William Carey, the cobbler who became a great orientalist in the
course of his missionary activity, are rare. Moreover, after the early
years it was mostly among the lower classes of natives that they worked.
This, combined with the evangelical's conviction of being in full,
absolute, and exclusive possession of the truth, meant the development
towards the religious traditions of Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam of
what can only be described as 'the missionary attitude'. Since funds for
the maintenance of missionary work had to be coaxed from not always
very enthusiastic supporters in the homeland, this has meant that 'the
missionary attitude' to the religious faiths of Asia has tended to lay
great emphasis on the dire need of the adherents of these faiths for the
blessings of Western religion. In this way, any clear idea of the true
nature of these faiths and the civilisations which they have produced
has been rendered impossible for many people in the West; only in
recent times has a more accurate view begun to supersede the idea of
the benighted heathen in his blindness bowing down to wood and
stone (a description which, by the hymn-writer's criteria, would have
to include, of course, Rabindranath Tagore, Aurobindo Ghose, S.
Radhakrishnan, Mohammad Iqbal, Dr Malalasekera, and U Thant, to
name only a few).
Roman Catholicism entered Asia principally, as we have seen,
through Portuguese colonial expansion from about 1500 onwards.
During the nineteenth century, however, Roman Catholic missions
following in the wake of Protestantism were developed; instead of
missionary activity being the concern primarily of the religious orders,
as hitherto, it was now given a wider basis, and was supported very
much more by the whole body of the faithful and paid for by the
pennies of the poor. France took the lead in this respect, and one of the
pioneer organisations was the Society for the Propagation of the Faith,
founded in 1822 in Lyons. Indo-China, from Burma to Vietnam, was
an important area in which French Roman Catholic missionaries
worked; there were also missions in India itself and in China.
The Eastern Orthodox Church also developed missionary activities
from about the middle of the nineteenth century. The Altay mountains
in Central Siberia were the scene of some of the earliest missionary
work, undertaken at first by a saintly monk and linguist, Makary
Glukharev {1792-1847), and then by his disciples, Landisher and
Vladimir, so that eventually more than half the inhabitants of the Altay
mountains became Christians. Another pioneer missionary of this kind
Nineteenth-century Christian missions 355
was John Veniaminor (1797-1879), as a result of whose work in Alaska
(part of Russia until 1864), many Aleutians were converted to
Christianity. The most outstanding success of Russian Orthodox
missions was in Japan, from 1868 onwards, when at the end of the
Tokugawa period Japan was once more open to the outside world. By
1912 there was an Eastern Orthodox community in Japan of about
thirty thousand; following the difficult years after the Revolution and
those of the Second World War, this has now grown a little to about
thirty-six thousand. Christianity, in all its varieties, Protestant, Catholic
and Orthodox, has always remained an even smaller minority in Japan
than in other Asian countries.

7.16 Judaism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

The French Revolution was by no means for Jews the disaster that it
was for the Catholics of France (7.13). In 1791 the new French state
granted Jews equality of rights with Christians, and thus began the
series of such emancipations ofJews from their medieval ghettos which
followed in other European countries in the early nineteenth century.
In England complete civic equality for Jews was resisted for some time
by the bishops of the Church of England, acting in their capacity as
members of the Parliamentary House of Lords, but was eventually
granted in 1866. Significant of the new spirit which emerged during
this century was the Assembly of Notables and Rabbis called together
by Napoleon in Paris in 1807, which made an official statement
declaring the end of 'the Jewish nation' and declaring individual Jews
to be 'citizens of the Jewish religion'; in France their religion was to be
regarded as coming within the framework of the state. In this way
many of the Jews of France, and in similar ways Jews in other European
countries, acquired a new role and a new outlook, that of patriotic
citizens of this or that European country. In Germany, however, civic
rights were not quickly gained or easily preserved, and many Jews
made their way from that country to the United States, especially after
the failure of the revolutionary movement of 1848 and the reaction
against Jews which followed. In Tsarist Russia the position of the Jews
became even more miserable than before. The Christian masses of
Russia had few enough political rights; the Jews even less. They were
there an unwanted people (Parkes, 1964; 148) and provided a convenient
N L.H.R.
356 Religion and Industrial Society
scapegoat for assassinations which were the work of revolutionaries,
such as that of Tsar Alexander II in 1881. With the accession of
Alexander III in the same year a number of harsh laws were enacted
against the Jews of Russia, imposing on them very severe restrictions of
movement, occupation, and of property rights. There were two
important results of this discrimination against the Jews. First, the
number of Russian Jews emigrating westwards increased, especially to
the United States, where by their religious learning and piety they
considerably stimulated the Jewish community, and to parts of Britain.
Second, an impetus was given to the idea that in the modern world the
Jews must have a land of their own; in 1884 at Kattowitz, an Odessan
Jew named Leo Pinsker founded the Zion Movement, which from
Russia spread to other countries of Europe and to America. The story of
the Zionist Movement will be dealt with later (7.19); meanwhile it is
necessary to note the effect upon Jewish religion of the new conditions
which Judaism encountered in the nineteenth century.

7.17 Jewish reform and counter-reform movements ofthe nineteenth century

The emancipation of the Jews in Europe, which began with the French
National Assembly's granting offull civic rights to them in 1791, had
the effect of liberating them suddenly into the wider world of non-
Jewish nineteenth-century civilisation, a process which has been called
the explosion of the ghetto. The new situation meant that the individual
Jew was involved in what was often a painful tension, between on the
one hand the deeply-rooted religious tradition of Judaism, and on the
other the contemporary secular world ofEurope after the Enlightenment
and the Revolution. This tension is reflected within Judaism in the
movements of reform and counter-reform which developed during the
nineteenth century.
The reform movement began in Germany. Moses Mendelssohn
(1729-86) had prepared the way with his translation of the Jewish Bible
into good German, and thus encouraged the Jews of Germany to use a
language which opened a door into a new world of literature. In this
way they became familiar with contemporary scientific ways of
thought. The leaders of the reform movement were men who had
become convinced that Jewish ways of thought and practice had
become archaic and needed to be reformulated, so that the newly
Jewish reform and counter-reform movements ofthe nineteenth century 357
emancipated Jews should not drift away from Judaism, and so that Jews
should not stand out from the rest of their fellow-Germans as men of an
obviously alien culture. The pioneer in this direction was David
Friedlander (1756-1834) a disciple of Moses Mendelssohn; his plans for
the Germanising of the Jewish religion were extreme and few Jews
dared to support him. The first practical reform was introduced by
Israel Jacobson (1768-1828), who built a 'Reform Temple' in Brunswick
in 1810. The use of the name 'temple', which had until then been
applied only to the Temple in Jerusalem, showed that Reform Judaism
no longer entertained the idea of its possible restoration and of the Jews'
return there; they had now accepted for Judaism the status of a religious
sect within the European state. The worship of the new temple was
assimilated to that of the German churches, with sermon, prayers and
chorales in German, with an organ accompaniment to the singing.
Similar developments of Reform Judaism took place in England in the
1840s and 50s, in London, Manchester, Liverpool and Bradford.
Another important name in Germany is that of Samuel Goldheim
(1806-60), who sought to sweep away a great deal that was Talmudic,
especially powers of rabbinic jurisdiction; Goldheim disregarded even
the rite of circumcision, as being an alien cultural characteristic. In some
ways even more radical was Abraham Geiger (1810-74), for whom
'the spirit of the age' was the primary determinant of the forms of
religion, and even more important than the prescriptions of the Bible
or the Talmud.
Inevitably this was regarded by more conservative Jews as the
betrayal of Judaism, and there arose a counter-reform which aimed at
preserving and defending traditional practices and beliefs. Such Jews
reacted to the new world which had been thrown open to them by
rejecting what they saw as its shoddy goods and inferior values. A
French Jewish writer has described their attitude as follows:
The great masters of Talmudism and Hasidism were too aware of the
vanities of the century and of the world to accept any alteration in a
dialogue that, although perhaps too sublime for the ears of man, Israel
would continue with its God. In many a ghetto of Eastern Europe time
stood still from the time of the ardent mysticism of the sixteenth and
eighteenth centuries nntil annihilation by the Nazis. (Chouraqui, 1962;
132)
An intermediate position between the two extremes of over-eager
modernisation and absolute rejection of the new was taken by Samson
358 Religion and Industrial Society
Hirsch (1808-88) whose middle path is known as Neo-Orthodoxy. He
was concerned to remind the emancipated Jews of the great spiritual
heritage ofJudaism; he was opposed to the new communities ofReform
Judaism with their extreme tendencies. Another central but somewhat
more reformist movement is known (somewhat confusingly) as the
Conservative movement, associated with the name of Solomon
Schechter (1830-1915); this has become a prominent feature of
American Jewry especially.
It was in the United States that Reform Judaism also developed most
vigorously, for here orthodox resistance was much less strong. Reform
congregations were founded as early as 1824 in Charleston, and 1842 in
New York. Moreover, the greater cultural openness of the American
situation removed the need for such rigorous rejection of Jewishness
that Reform had felt in Germany; hence the more extreme forms of the
European Reform movement were avoided. In America Reform
Judaism developed as a liberal religious system modern in outlook but
drawing its inspiration and its values from the heritage oflsrael.

7.18 Contrasting trends in institutional Christianity in the twentieth century

On 23 August 1948, at Amsterdam, the World Council of Churches
came into existence. Many Christians consider this to be the most
important religious event of the twentieth century in the Western
world. The World Council is the organisational expression of a
movement which had been going on since the Missionary Conference
at Edinburgh of1910, a movement to bring together the many churches
and denominations of which Protestantism consisted. This plurality of
Christian bodies was, it was argued, a scandal and an embarrassment,
especially in missionary areas. The movement was strongly supported
by evangelicals; the Student Christian Movement had an important
part to play in preparing the way, and especially in bringing Anglicans
into what was until then largely a movement for co-operation among
evangelical Protestant bodies; at the time of its inception the World
Council of Churches did not include the Orthodox Church of Russia or
the Roman Catholic Church; the latter is still outside the Council. The
movement has two main aspects; the first has itself been an important
factor in its growth, namely the formation of national Councils of
Churches, especially in the United States and Britain, for joint action
Contrasting trends in institutional Christianity in the twentieth century 359
over a wide area of Protestant church life within the national context;
the second has been stimulated by the existence of the World Council,
namely the movement towards organic church union. Schemes of
union have been worked out for particular groups of churches, and
some have been put into effect, notably in the Church of South India.
This emphasis on church union is a sign of an increase in concern with
ecclesiastical structures which now characterises many Protestant bodies
which in their earlier and more vigorous periods of growth were much
more consciously anti-ecclesiastical.
The first of these two main features, the 'conciliar' movement, is
particularly characteristic of American Protestantism and seems to be
connected with the emergence of what has been called 'common-core
Protestantism', that is, the appearance of a widespread type of faith and
practice whose ascendancy 'signifies the erosion of Protestant particu-
larity' (Lee, 1960; 83). Just as it is possible to see the old denominational
differences among Protestants as being to some extent the product of
social class divisions (Niebuhr, 1929), so also in the later period it is
possible to see the emergence of common-core Protestantism as, to
some extent at least, the product of a growing cultural unity in
American life (Lee, 1960).
It has been pointed out that the period in which Protestant bodies
have been coming together in conciliar and unitive movements has
also been the period of declining vigour in faith and practice among the
older denominations who have been principally concerned. In Britain
the main Nonconformist bodies have tended to approximate more and
more to the 'church-type'; there has been, writes Erik Routley, (a
British Congregationalist) 'a movement towards higher forms of
church music, more frequent Communion, and more dogmatically-
based Baptism' (Routley, 1962; 38). Bryan Wilson, a sociologist of
religion, comments that this approximation to the Established Church
may be explained 'in terms of the changing circumstances of Non-
conformity and its increasing loss of social base in a society facing
steady secularisation, in which religion is becoming compartmentalised,
and in which, in becoming marginal to the dominant social concerns,
its internal divisions lose meaning and relevance' (Wilson, 1966; 156).
In America the declining vigour of faith and practice has been masked
to some extent by the social conformity to religious practice in terms of
church attendance, and what is almost the social obligation to belong to
a religious organisation. To be a complete American, it has been said,
360 Religion and Industrial Society
includes religious commitment of some kind, usually in one of the
three acceptable forms, Protestant, Catholic or Jew (Herberg, 1955).
Nevertheless, a recent survey showed that although in the United
States 57 per cent of the population are members of a Christian church,
and 43 per cent regularly attend church every week, only 35 per cent
could so much as name the four Gospels (Argyle, 1958; 35). Something
has evidently happened to the Bible-centred Protestantism of earlier
days. The basis on which the various bodies forming the World Council
of Churches came together would appear to be an absolutely minimal
doctrinal requirement, namely acceptance ofJesus Christ as Saviour and
God, a far cry from the ancient Christian creeds, and from the Calvinistic
doctrine of, for example, the Church of England's Thirty-Nine
Articles. Much more than this would have been necessary as a doctrinal
basis for some of the member churches to accept even fifty years ago.
Over against what seems to many Christian critics of the World
Council of Churches its reductionist Christianity there has to be set the
enhanced sense of belonging to a world community which membership
involves for the member churches. Even in Britain, where the
Established Church is still well entrenched in national institutions, there
may often be strong disagreements between groups of thoughtful
Christians and the policies of a virtually secular government. Through
theW orld Council of Churches its members are aware of being able to
express Christian opinions and sometimes even take action on matters
of contemporary social or international concern - as Christians, rather
than as subjects of a secular state.
The movement which began as predominantly Protestant has now
drawn Eastern Orthodoxy more fully into its membership, and because
of its obviously important nature has gained the sympathetic interest
also of the Roman Catholic Church. This is no doubt partly due to a
new theological climate, a greater openness and sympathy among
Christians of different traditions; it may also be due to some extent to
the increasing pressure of secularisation in modem life and the awareness
by all these bodies that Christian ecclesiastical institutions have much in
common and much to contend with in an age of secularism.
In contrast to the ecumenical trends in the major, old-established
Christian bodies, there has also occurred a rapid growth ofnew Christian
sectarian movements. These are usually offshoots from conventional
Protestantism, although not always: the 'Spiritists' of Brazil are in
origin Roman Catholics who have combined elements of orthodox
 Contrasting trends in institutional Christianity in the twentieth century 361
Catholic belief and practice with elements of tribal religion and some of
the emotionalism of Pentecostal sects. It is this latter feature which, if
anything, provides the common feature among these sects. In addition,
they are almost always extremely conservative in their theology and
literalist in their use of the Bible. With their high valuation of spiritual
ardour and emotion goes their poor opinion of the conventional
Protestant bodies in general, for their worldliness and lack of fervour,
and of the World Council of Churches in particular for its reduced
theology. Other characteristic features of these new sects are their
predominantly lay character, in contrast to the organisation of the
conventional denominations around a full-time professional ministry;
the promise to new adherents of immediate 'spiritual' experience; an
intimate group-fellowship into which newcomers are welcomed and
quickly incorporated; and an intense seven-days-a-week devotion to
the service of God.
Such new sects are widespread; it is said that they are now to be
found on almost every continent. They are not so prominent in some
areas, for example, in Britain; in countries south of the equator,
however, they are said to outnumber conventional Protestants by four
to one. In New York the students of Union Theological Seminary
found in 1960 that in one of the most thickly populated districts of the
city (East Harlem) there were fifty such sectarian groups, meeting in
'store-fronts' taken over for the purpose, while there was not a single
Protestant church of the traditional type. This underlines two features
of the newer sects: their appeal is largely to the working class, and often
to that section of the population found in 'down-town' urban areas,
namely poor-class immigrants (possibly from small towns or rural
areas); second, they do not need to rely on permanent church buildings
or provide formal services of worship; it is largely the quality of the
group-life which constitutes their appeal.
T awards the other end of the social scale there is to be found another
type of sect, although not nearly so extensive in its world-distribution
as the working-class sect. This is the type of which the Theosophical
Society provides a ready example: usually there are dozens of such
upper-middle-class cults or sects in the big cities of the West, often the
primary interest is in some aspect of oriental religion. Their members,
too, will usually be persons who fail to fmd satisfaction in the traditional
ecclesiastical bodies. In general there has been a steady growth of these
during the twentieth century.
362 Religion and Industrial Society

7.19 Religion and the new state ofIsrael

In Tel Aviv, on 14 May 1948, David Ben Gurion proclaimed the new
Jewish state oflsrael to have come into being. It was thereupon officially
recognised by the United States and the U.S.S.R., and the next day was
officially invaded by the neighbouring Arab countries. Of the many
questions which arise out of the existence of the new state we are here
concerned with what was the religious significance, if any, of this event.
First, what place has religion had in the bringing into existence of the
new Israel, and second, what place has religion in its continuing life.
A brief review of the events leading up to the proclamation of 14 May
1948 will help to answer the first question.
For our purpose the story may be regarded as beginning in 1884 with
the founding of the Zion Movement in Russia (7.16), (although an
earlier beginning might be taken- for instance, the fall ofJerusalem in
A.D. 70). Anti-Semitism, which Pinsker called 'Judeophobia' and regarded
as an endemic European social disease (Epstein, 1959; 309), did not
disappear with the emancipation of the Jews in the various European
countries in which they were found. The reason for this may well be
that from time to time men need a scapegoat for the economic and
political ills of society, and the Jews, because they often constitute an
easily identifiable and compact minority, provide the most convenient
scapegoat, especially as there is always the lurking idea in men's minds
that Jews are somehow 'foreign'. (It is conveniently forgotten that
many of the rest of the population, Anglo-Saxons, Scots, Irish, etc., are
equally 'foreign' to the countries where they now live.) Jewish
agricultural settlements were founded in Palestine in the 1880s, and
from time to time the influx of immigrant Jewish settlers received a
boost from some new wave of anti-Semitism, such as that in France
which followed the Dreyfus Affair of1891. It was this, occurring in so
otherwise 'enlightened' a country as France, that persuaded a visiting
Viennese Jewish journalist Theodor Herzl (1860-1904) that the only
solution to Gentile attitudes to the Jews was the setting up once again of
a Jewish state, a view argued in his book The Jewish State (1896). In 1897
a Zionist Congress was held in Basle, which resulted in the formal
declaration of policy: 'Zionism aims to establish a publicly and loyally
assured home for the Jewish people in Palestine'. Not all Jews were in
agreement with this policy. It was opposed on religious grounds,
 Religion and the new state ofIsrael 363
namely that the return of the Jews to the Holy Land would follow the
appearance of the Messiah, and therefore could not and should not be
anticipated. Zionists replied that the Jewish state was the form in which
Messianic hopes should now be understood. Others, such as the
philosopher Herman Cohen (1842-1918), maintained that the Messianic
destiny of the Jewish people was to be fulfilled by their presence within
various national states as an element working for the unity of all
mankind. However, a great stimulus to the Zionist movement came
through the initiative ofChaim Weizmann (1874-1952), who created a
Jewish National Fund for the purchase ofland in Palestine, and whose
advocacy of a Jewish national home in Palestine persuaded the British
government through its foreign secretary, Arthur Balfour, in 1917, to
declare in favour of such a policy. Its implementation was not easy,
however, and was strongly resisted by various interests, especially by
the Arabs. Then came the tragedy of the Jewish people in Nazi
Germany, where they were dispossessed, dishonoured, and put to death
(six million in number, of whom many were children under fourteen)
for no other crime than that of being Jewish.
After the Second World War the work of rescuing Jews from all
over Europe, many of whom were separated from their families, and of
making possible their escape from Europe and immigration into
Palestine was carried on by the Mossad, a Jewish organisation, until as
we have seen, in 1948 the Jewish state was proclaimed. There are now
12 million Jews in the world, of whom 5! million are in the United
States, about 2 million in the U.S.S.R. and a further 2 million in Israel,
which thus comprises one of the three largest groups of Jews in the
world.
It will be seen, therefore, that the factors which brought the new
Jewish state into being and which produced a flow of immigrants into
it were not primarily religious. Israel is not, as Pakistan is, a state whose
constitution is based on religious principles. There is no 'state religion';
religious freedom is guaranteed to all Israel's citizens (for these include
Arabs), and the form of government is democratic. Widespread
indifference to religious observances among its Jewish citizens has led
some observers to describe Israel not only as secular, in the sense that
there is no state religion, but also as 'secularised' in the sense that
religious beliefs and observances play very little part in the life of its
people. Others are inclined to the view that in Israel the Jewish religious
tradition is being rediscovered and reformulated. Isidore Epstein points
N2 L.H.R.
364 Religion and Industrial Society
to the extent of such religious observance as the use of Saturday as a
national day of rest, when government offices, public transport, shops,
and cinemas all cease to function, and the adherence to Jewish dietary
laws in all public institutions (Army, police, hospitals, etc.} as evidence
that the Jewish way of life is influencing the character of the state
{Epstein, 1959; 319}. Religious schools and places of higher learning
have been set up, and rabbis and Jewish scholars from various parts of
the world are 'all contributing to the enrichment of spiritual life and to
the fostering of religious knowledge throughout the length and breadth
of the country'. Some observers see a significance in the richness of the
many traditions ofJudaism which the nation's life now embraces: the
Yemenite Jews, with their tradition reminiscent of the Mishna; North
African Jews with the liberalism inherited from the religious tolerance
of the great days of Islamic Spain; Kabbalists, Talmudists, Hasidim -
all are there (Chouraqui, 1962; 135f.). Others consider that the Judaism
of the new state is still strongly influenced by the traditions of the
ghetto, and that its religion has yet to fmd expression in ways that are
completely relevant to the conditions of the modem world (Parkes,
1964; 234}. What is generally agreed among various observers is that
the Jews ofisrael are rediscovering their own scriptural traditions; there
is a fascination with the Bible as history, which may well become the
basis for a new unity among men of the different religious traditions
represented in Israel and the Middle East: Christian and Muslim as well
as Jewish.

7.2 HINDUISM IN THE MODERN PERIOD,

1800 TO THE PRESENT

7.20 Hinduism at the end ofthe eighteenth century

The modem period, from the beginning of British rule in India, has
been a time of important developments in the history of Hinduism. In
1805, when the British had become the dominant power in India, the
reforms and adaptations which Hindu religion and society were to
undergo in response to Western influences had still scarcely begun. At
the end of the eighteenth century, Hindu society was in the position of
having successfully learnt to adjust to the presence of a large alien
Hinduism at the end ifthe eighteenth century 365
religious community, that of the Muslims. Mughal power had waxed
and waned; Islam had made an indelible impression on Indian culture;
but Hinduism remained the dominant religious tradition. The Hindu
sponge may have failed in the case oflslam to absorb the alien element;
on the other hand Islam had failed to win all India, and Hinduism
remained firmly entrenched as the religion of the masses throughout
the greater part of the subcontinent; it had made some concessions
during the Mughal period to monotheistic ideas; but even these were
made from within Hinduism's own treasury of beliefs, which included
theism, along with polytheism and atheism. The religious practices and
social institutions of Hinduism went on as before, largely unaffected by
the Islamic presence.
A new and more serious challenge to the Hindu view of life was,
however, about to be felt. It came not from European religion, which
had made no very great impression on Hindu India, but from English
education and the entry which this provided into European thought.
But even earlier than the growth of English education, from the second
quarter of the nineteenth century onwards, was the effect upon Indians,
especially in the areas around Calcutta and Bombay, of contact with
English government, methods, and ideas. This process, which went on
throughout the nineteenth century, produced three kinds of response
from Hindu India.
The earliest response, apparent in the 1820s and 1830s, was almost
complete surrender to the values ofEuropean liberalism and rationalism
by a small minority of Hindus in those parts of India where British
influence was strongest, and notably in Bengal. The most characteristic
of the Hindus who reacted in this way was Raja Ram Mohan Roy.

7.21 Riim Mohan Roy: Hindu unitarianism

Ram Mohan Roy (1772-1833) is sometimes described as the inaugurator
of the modern age, or the father of modern India, but these are mis-
leading descriptions. A native of Bengal, the gifted son of Hindu
parents, he studied Persian and Arabic at Patna, and then Sanskrit. In
the service of the East India Company he reached the highest rank
possible for an Indian; in 1814, at the age of forty-two, he was able to
retire from government service and, living on his private income, to
devote himself to various religious and social enterprises. He had a large
366 Religion and Industrial Society
part in the founding in 1822 of the Hindu College in Calcutta, a secular
college where Bengalis could receive English education. So successful
was this institution in imbuing its pupils with European liberal ideas
that some young Hindus of Bengal began behaving in a blatantly
un-Hindu manner in order to shock their conservative elders. Renounc-
ing the whole system of Hinduism they declared themselves free seekers
after truth. Ram Mohan Roy's religious position was very close to the
unitarianism of some of his English friends. So persuasive an advocate
was he that in a discussion with a Presbyterian missionary on the
Christian doctrine of the Trinity he won the latter over to unitarian
views. In 1827 he founded the British India Unitarian Association, later
the Briihma Samiij, or 'Spiritual Association'. In his campaigning for
social reform he was a prominent advocate of the abolition of sati (the
voluntary immolation ofHindu widows). He believed very strongly in
the virtues of British rule, and it is for this reason that he is unlike most
of the W esternised Hindus of the latter part of the nineteenth century
who took part in the struggle for swaraj or independence. But it has to
be remembered that he died in 1833 (in Bristol, on a visit to England),
twenty-four years before the outbreak of the Mutiny of 1857; it was
only after the Mutiny that British rule really became imperialistic. His
religious attitude, and that of the Brahma Samaj movement which he
founded, consisted of a spiritual monism of the kind found in the
Upani~ads, influenced also to some extent in Ram Mohan Roy's case by
the Islamic doctrine of the unity of God and by the unitarian views of
some ofhis Christian friends. He was a firm opponent of the polytheism
of popular Hindu practice, and especially opposed to the Hindu use of
idols. It was an intellectualised religion, austere and cultless, which had
much in common with eighteenth-century European deism.

7.22 Europeanised Hinduism: later developments

This early response of some Hindus to European thought and practice-
iconoclastic, critical of authority and of Hindu social tradition - was
continued in the Brahma Samaj movement after Ram Mohan Roy's
death.
The Brahma Samaj was never, however, in any sense a mass
movement. It was an association of those who had come under the
influence of the liberal and individualistic outlook of early nineteenth-
Europeanised Hinduism: later developments 367
century Europe. V. P. Varma evaluates it thus: 'It was a deeply
individualistic protest and signified the rise of individual reason, heart
and conscience against what it considered degrading and barbarising
customs' (Varma, 1964; 39). The history of the movement is best told
therefore in the history of the ideas and attitudes of some of its out-
standing individual members, and of these the two most representative
are generally taken to be Debendranath Thakur (Tagore) and Keshab
Chandra Sen.
Debendranath Thakur (1817-1905) represented those who were more
inclined to emphasise the value of the Upani~ads as a source of mystical
religious teaching. Debendranath rejected the polytheism and cere-
monial ritual of the Vedas; he was critical also of the idea of the
empirical world as sheer maya, or illusion; his thought had a great
affinity with the theology ofRamanuja (6.14). He was opposed to the
rigours of the caste system, but on the other hand he sought to give the
Brahma Samaj movement a more defmitely Indian basis, and to
eliminate Christian influences.
Keshab Chandra Sen (1838-84) represented a different tendency, one
which sought to reconcile indigenous Indian ideas with Christian
teaching, and to do this more deliberately and consciously than Ram
Mohan Roy had done. He was the son of a very W esternised Bengali
family, and studied at the Hindu College of Calcutta. In 1866, when he
was twenty-eight, he withdrew from the Calcutta Brahma Samaj and
inaugurated a movement which later (in 1880) became known as the
Nava Vidhana or New Dispensation. The new movement was charac-
terised by a religious eclecticism, expressed in the anthology of
scriptures of various traditions- Christian, Zoroastrian and Islamic, as
well as Hindu, which Keshab put together under the name of Sloka-
Sa1J1graha (compendium of verses), published in 1866. He even embodied
in the ceremonies of the new movement a form of baptism and a
communion service based on Christian models. On the other hand he
was not opposed to rituals involving the use of idols. Halfhis heart, he
said, was in sympathy with Europe, and the other half with Asia. The
movement which he led was limited to an educated and Western-
educated minority, and its importance lay chiefly in liberalising the
attitudes of Hindu intellectuals to caste, the social position of women,
child-marriages, temperance and similar matters. In 1875, nine years
before his death, he came under the influence of Ramakrishna, and
moved away from Christianity in the direction of a more positively
368 Religion and Industrial Society
Vedantist position. In protest against the use of idolatrous rituals, and
against the autocratic nature ofKeshab' s leadership another group broke
away from his movement in 1878 and formed the Sadharan (General)
Brahma Samaj upon a more equalitarian and democratic basis. The
name Nava Vidhana which Keshab gave to his movement in 1880
indicated his intention to replace the Christian church with this
Indianised facsimile, with its own revelation, apostolic order, mis-
sionaries and doctrines of sin and salvation.

7.23 Reformed Hinduism: the Arya Samiij

A few years before the events just mentioned were taking place in
Bengal, another new movement had emerged on the other side of
India, in the area around Bombay. This was the Arya Samaj, formed in
1875 by Dayananda Saraswati (1824-83). Its name indicates the intention
of the movement: to work for the restoration of Aryan Vedic religion
(1.33-1.35), and to reject all the later developments of post-Vedic
Hinduism. The earlier response of educated and thoughtful Hindus to
European influence, which had been one of admiration and whole-
hearted acceptance, was giving way to something rather different. It
was not necessary to Europeanise Hindu religion and culture, it was
now being recognised; Hinduism might stand in need of reform, but
the inspiration for such reform could be found in an appeal to the Vedic
tradition. This was the attitude adopted by Dayananda, the son of a
brahman family of Gujerat. Idol-worship, untouchability, child-
marriage and other corrupt features of Hinduism were not to be found
in the Vedas, he argued. He claimed also that the study of the Vedas
should be made open to all, and not to brahmans only. For reasons such
as these he was later known by his followers as 'the Luther of India'.
The Arya Samaj which he founded continued after his death to provide
a channel for those Indians who were concerned for the reform of
Hinduism without resort to foreign ideas or models. Its strength was in
the west of India and the Punjab, but even so its members were but a
small minority even of educated Hindus. The influence of the Arya
Samaj, however, was important beyond its numerical size; its re-
assertion of India's own Vedic heritage coincided with growing Hindu
dislike and distrust of British imperial rule in the last quarter of the
nineteenth century, and led to the militant Hinduism associated with
the name of B. G. Tilak (7.25).
Hindu universalism: Ramakrishna and Vivekananda 369

7.24 Hindu universalism: Ramakrishna and Vivekananda

Gradually Hinduism was recovering from its initial exposure to
European thought, an exposure which had been the more severe in that
the alien influence had come in a subtle, secular form, rather than in the
recognisable and resistible form of a closed system of belief and practice
such as Islam or Christianity. In the latter half of the nineteenth century
the pressure of Western ways of thought was still as strong as, if not
stronger than, before but now Hindus were recovering their composure
and were learning how to meet subtle challenge with even subtler
weapons from their own armoury. The part played by Christian
missions in this process is capable of more than one interpretation. In
general, the policy of the missions was to point out the shortcomings of
Hinduism and the superiority of Christianity. With the enlargement of
British governmental control there went at first a fear among both
Hindus and Muslims of religious discrimination against their faiths.
This was set at rest by Queen Victoria's proclamation on the subject
(7.15), but the long-term effect of Christian propaganda, proceeding
from an ever-enlarging missionary force, was to develop a Hindu
resistance to Christian ideas once the first wounding effects of Christian
criticism had been absorbed. Regained Hindu confidence found expres-
sion in the Ramakrishna Mission, founded in 1897. Ramakrishna
(1834-86) was in every sense the representative Hindu holy man: a
brahman of Bengal, schooled only in Bengali; with an ardent devotional
and mystical attachment to the mother-goddess Kali, at whose temple
near Calcutta he served as a priest; deeply influenced by the monism of
Shankara; given to asceticism and meditation. What really places him
in the India of the nineteenth century is his awareness of other, non-
Hindu, non-Indian faiths, notably Christianity, and also Islam. It was
his attitude towards these that became, after his death in 1886, one of
the principal features of the movement founded in 1897 by one of his
most able and accomplished followers, Vivekananda. Ramakrishna's
attitude was, in brief, the Hindu affirmation that all the many forms of
faith in God are different paths to the same goal. This may be called
universalism, but it is Hindu universalism, for it proceeds from
characteristically Hindu assumptions about the underlying unity of the
manifold, and the relative nature of all formulated creeds. It is an
attitude which replies to Christian and Islamic exclusiveness by
370 Religion and Industrial Society
affirming the adequacy ofHinduism- on the grounds of its catholicity.
It was this message which Vivekananda carried to the Parliament of
Religions which met in Chicago in 1893, and which he there proclaimed
with impressive eloquence.
The Ramakrishna Mission, with what has been called its 'religion of
Mysticism and Charity' (Radhakrishnan, 1941) became the visible
embodiment ofa new, awakened Hinduism- awakened by Christianity
and by government agencies to social concern for the sick and the
needy especially, but awakened also to the need for a religion of
reconciliation, a religion of tolerance and charity. Its dispensaries and
welfare centres throughout India and the neighbouring lands express
the first; its well-stocked public libraries and lecture halls exist to
encourage the second; the name of its journal published in Calcutta,
Prabuddha Bhiirata (Awakened India), indicates the Mission's continuing
overall purpose.

7.25 Militant Hinduism: B. G. Tilak

The more aggressive aspect ofHindu India's awakening is to be seen in
the activities ofBal Gangadhar Tilak (1856-1920). To adapt a phrase of
the apostle Paul, Tilak may be described as 'a Hindu of the Hindus'; the
aim of all his activities was that Hindus in every part of India should be
united 'into a mighty Hindu nation'. Although he proclaimed the
eternal, unchanging nature of Hindu religion (the term 'sanatana
dharma', he said, 'shows that our religion is very old- as old as the
history of the human race itself'), he also instituted and organised two
new religious festivals; one in honour of the Hindu god Ganesh, and
the other in honour of the Hindu Maratha hero and opponent of
Mughal rule, Shivaji. The Ganesh festival was inaugurated by Tilak so
that it was a direct imitation of the Muslim festival of Muharram. To
the Muslim historian (as to Muslims generally) 'the object was to make
it pointedly offensive to the Muslims and to leave no doubt in the mind
of the Hindus that the aim ... was to prepare them for a struggle
against the Muslims' (Qureshi, 1962; 250). The extolling of a Hindu
who had fought fiercely against Muslim rule also indicates clearly
enough what kind of Hinduism was here finding expression; a variety
rather different from the benevolent universalism of Ramakrishna, but
one which had a wide appeal and following, especially in Tilak' s native
Militant Hinduism: B. G. Tilak 371
Maharashtra and in Bengal. Militancy was a Hindu virtue in Tilak's
view; accused of fanning hatred against non-Hindus, and of being
implicated in assassination plots, he was imprisoned twice by the
British. The second of these periods was spent in the jail at Mandalay in
Burma, where he wrote a long commentary on the Hindu scripture
which appealed to him most- the Bhagavad-Gita. His interpretation of
it emphasised the necessity for political action in the name of religion,
and that in such a cause the most violent action was fully justifiable.
That he may justly be called a Hindu of the Hindus is evident from the
title by which he was, and still is, popularly known by his co-religionists:
Lokamanya (Honoured by the People).

7.26 Modern Hindu hero-worship

There is more than one India, and there were many places where far
from the excitement and turbulence stirred up by Tilak and his followers
Hindu village life continued almost unchanged throughout the period
of British rule. In such places the villagers' appreciation of the benefits
of such rule sometimes took a very characteristically Hindu form: the
deification of the officials of the Raj. Thus, Tilman Henckel, an
Englishman who was district officer of Jessore in Bengal, and whose
administration of the district was notably just and fair, was subsequently
honoured as a god by a class of poor salt-manufacturers who had
previously been much oppressed; an image ofHenckel was made, which
these people then worshipped (O'Malley, 1935; 171). A British officer
in the PurUab,John Nicholson, was venerated by his Indian troops even
during his lifetime; in spite of the flogging with which Nicholson
punished such action his sepoys would sometimes fall down and
prostrate themselves before him in worship or prayer. After his death
some of them formed a sect known as the 'Nikalsenis'. Another officer,
Colonel William Wallace, who died in 1809 and was buried in the
cantonment at Sirur, in the Poona district, is revered as a holy man;
'all Hindus of Sirur and its neighbourhood, except Brahmans and
Marwaris, worship at the tomb' wrote L. S. O'Malley in 1935, 'while
at harvest time the villagers bring first-fruits of the grain as food for his
spirit' (see further, O'Malley, 1935; 176). Attempted interference with
these practices by an American missionary was promptly followed by
his death from cholera, 'which, of course, greatly enhanced Wallace's
372 Religion and Industrial Society
posthumous reputation'. Missionaries themselves, however, have also
on numerous occasions been deified and worshipped. Queen Victoria,
whom most of her Indian subjects had never seen, was regarded by
many of them with the greatest veneration. 'Even during her lifetime
she received a kind of apotheosis. Hindu women are known to have
prayed to her for sons' (O'Malley, 1941; 86).
Here then was another aspect of the British impact on India, not only
the impression made by British power from the decisive year of 1857
onwards, but also the effect upon unsophisticated Indians of outstanding
or unusual personalities, an effect which showed itself in hero-worship.
This tells us as much or more about Hindu villagers and sepoys as it
does about the British; it is an interesting piece of modern evidence of
the tendency which unsophisticated people have to deify the great. It
also helps us to understand the basis of Mahatma Gandhi's wide
popularity with the masses, and therefore the tremendous influence he
was able to exert.

7.27 Neo-Hinduism: M. K. Gandhi

To the story of modern Hinduism, and the gradual emergence of that
curious blend of reform, adaptation, reappraisal and aggressive re-
assertion which has come to be called nee-Hinduism, belong a number
of other names. Included among them are those of M. G. Ranade
(1842-1901) and G. K. Gokhale (1866-1915), partners in religious and
social reform; B. C. Chatterjee (1838-98), who into the cult of the
mother-goddess introduced the concept of the divine Motherland,
India; Aurobindo Ghose (1872-1950), mystic and Hindu nationalist;
and Rabindranath Thakur (Tagore) (1861-1941), the youngest but one
of Debendranath Thakur's fllteen children, poet, playwright, Nobel
Prizewinner for literature, whose steady conviction it was that from
Asia, the cradle of the world's great religions, must come mankind's
spiritual renewal. But all of these represented, or appealed to, special
sectors of Hindu society; none of them is quite so fully the representative
of nee-Hinduism as M. K. Gandhi.
Known by Indians as Mahatma (Maha, great; atman, soul), Mohendas
Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948) had earlier in life been a student in
London for three years, a barrister in South Africa for more than
twenty, and a newspaper editor. He returned to India in 1915 at a time
Neo-Hinduism: M. K. Gandhi 373
when Tilak' s policy of violent nationalism was still one of the strongest
influences in all-India Hinduism. Gandhi was a man of different spirit.
He too regarded the Bhagavad-Gita as one of the great sources of
religious ideals and values, but his interpretation of it, unlike Tilak' s,
was strongly influenced by the New Testament, by Tolstoi, and by
Ruskin. Gandhi, on his return to India, adopted peasant dress and a very
simple mode of life. In this way he illustrated his own message: that
India had been corrupted by her contact with Western materialistic
civilisation, and must return to simplicity of life and to spiritual values.
He believed that the encouragement of India's village industries,
especially the hand-spinning of cotton cloth, was a way by which India
could escape the evils of industrialisation, and did all in his power to
realise his plan. He devoted himself also to the cause ofthe untouchables,
those who were relegated by Hindu caste society to the very lowest
place, where their status was barely that of human beings. Among his
plans for combating peasant poverty was the prohibition of liquor.
Above all, the method which Hindus should use in their struggle for
freedom from foreign rule must be, he insisted, non-violence. From the
time of Tilak's death in 1920, Gandhi became the undisputed moral
leader ofHindu India; not only of the intellectuals, or of the nationalists,
or of the new middle class, or of the peasants, but of all of these. In
popular estimation he was a saint, at least: to the untouchables and the
peasants, an incarnation of God, come to put right the evils of the
world; he was, to them, another illustration of the principle announced
in the Bhagavad-Gita by the Lord Krishna: 'As often as virtue declines
or vice increases I create myself anew, and I appear again from age to
age for the preservation of the just, the destruction of the wicked, and
the establishment of virtue.'
When independence came to India in 1947, however, it was to a land
partitioned into the Republics of India and of Pakistan (7.39). The
communal violence between Hindus and Muslims which accompanied
partition is a complex chapter in the modem political history of Asia:
to Gandhi it was simply a bitter grief and a denial of a great deal that he
had sought to establish. He fasted, as he had done many times before
during the struggle for independence; this time in an effort to bring the
two sides to their senses and end the violence. He had tried to teach
India a different method from that advocated by Tilak; but Hindu and
Muslim communalism were forces too strong to be tamed even by a
Gandhi. From Maharashtra, the same area of India as both Tilak and
374 Religion and Industrial Society
Gandhi, came the fanatical Hindu nationalist who, opposed to Gandhi's
policy of conciliation towards Muslims, shot the Mahatma dead at the
close of his open-air prayer meeting on 30 January 1948.

7.28 Hinduism in the new India

In many respects it is a new India which has come into being since 1947:
geographically depleted by the loss of those areas in the north-west and
the north-east which have become Pakistan; constitutionally democratic
and secular; in theory, economically and politically free to develop as
an independent modern state - with all the complicated relationships
with other world powers in which that involves her. In this new India
Hinduism too is undergoing changes which are to some extent a
continuation of trends that were already present in the period of British
rule, and to some extent the result of the new situation.
Modern India is officially a secular state. This means that no one
religion has a place of privilege, but that all the religious traditions now
found in India are accorded respect: every religious denomination has
freedom to practise and to propagate, and there is no discrimination
among citizens on religious grounds. Since Hindus form an over-
whelming majority of the population, there are some among them who
hold that Hinduism should at least be given preferential treatment; the
more extreme wing, represented by the political parties Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), and the Hindu Mahasabha, are opposed to
the present separation of the Indian state from Hindu religion. Other
Hindu intellectuals are opposed to the principle of a secular state on
grounds of private and public morality. Representative of this point of
view, which has behind it the strength of Hindu tradition, is Professor
P. Sankara Narayan of the University of Madras, who in 1957 expressed
the classical Hindu view as follows:
In the last analysis, religion alone can answer the question, Why should
I be moral? The justification of morality is to be sought in the sphere of
religion and this holds good both in the private sector of the individual
and in the public sector of the State. It is this idea that is emphasised by
the Hindu view of the character of a state, that not the least of its duties
is dharma samstthapana, the establishment of the reign of religion in the
hearts of its subjects. Loud and frequent announcements of the 'secular'
nature of the State are likely to sap the springs of morality in religion. It
Hinduism in the new India 375
is neither proper nor expedient for a State to forswear its association
with religion and parade its purely 'secular' character.
He sees the Hindu spirit of tolerance as the answer to the problem of
assuring equal rights for different religious traditions within a single
state:

Necessary as it doubtless is to be impartial to all religions, it ought not to

be beyond human capacity to devise a scheme by which the fundamentals
of religion have a determining place in the secular administration. Else,
spiritual values will be starved to their ultimate annulment in the hearts
and minds of men. In this context the Hindu idea of identity in dif-
ference, of manifold paths to the same goal is a useful guide in approach-
ing this not unsolvable, though knotty problem. (Devanandan and
Thomas, 1957; 72-4)

Another major criticism of the secular constitution of modern India

comes from the extreme Hindu orthodoxy associated with the political
right wing, mentioned above. Briefly, this consists of opposition to the
secular state's policy with regard to caste. The view of the extreme
Hindu orthodoxy is that the caste system is an essential part of Hindu
religion, and that in seeking to impose a social pattern in which caste is
disregarded, the secular state strikes at the root of Hindu religion.
Against this view, and in support of the present policy is the whole
tradition ofHindu reformers from Ram Mohan Roy (7.21} to Mahatma
Gandhi (7.27}, whose view was that the rigid structure of caste and sub-
caste was not a necessary feature of Hindu religion. This view has
recently found vigorous expression in the writings ofK. M. Panikkar.
Constantly reiterated, his argument is that 'religion has but little to do
with the social institutions of the Hindus, and a man can remain a
Hindu even if he repudiates its social institutions. Many sects of
Hinduism actually so repudiate them and are still considered Hindu,
which is clear enough evidence that these institutions are unrelated to
religion' (Panikkar, 1961; 49).
Meanwhile secular forces of the kind that are common to all
developing societies in a technological age are at work to undermine
the barriers of caste and sub-caste. Life in the cities and in the growing
industrialised areas makes the observance of caste distinction difficult, if
not virtually impossible. Even in rural areas these same forces are at
work. A survey of village life in a traditionally strong Hindu area -
Tanjore, in South India -leads an American anthropologist Kathleen
376 Religion and Industrial Society
Gough to conclude that the social and economic structure of caste is
breaking down even there:

It is clear that, in general, the social structure of the Tanjore village is

changing from a relatively closed, stationary system, with a feudal
economy and co-operation between ranked castes in ways ordained by
religious law, to a relatively 'open' changing system, governed by
secular law, with an expanding capitalist economy and competition
between castes which is sometimes reinforced and sometimes obscured
by the new struggle between economic classes. (Marriott, 1955; 52)

If the caste system has been a blot on the name of Hindu religion, as
the reformers have insisted, then what is happening today in the
operation of these 'secular' forces may be seen as a purifying and a
liberation of religion, enabling it to express more clearly its essential
moral and spiritual insights.
Meanwhile, as Hindu religion seeks to adapt itself to the increasingly
urban conditions which are developing in many parts of India, new
movements and patterns of religious association are emerging which
may have great potential for the future of Hinduism. Among the most
notable of these are the congregational, devotional meetings in private
houses, known as bhajans (a word cognate with Bhagavad, and bhakti)
(3.34). Milton Singer has described the recent growth in popularity of
these devotional meetings in the area of Madras City (Singer, 1963).
The devotional meetings are true to the bhakti tradition in their
indifference to caste and sect distinctions, and in providing a means of
cultivating and strengthening a devotional religious attitude. 'Each local
bhajan group', writes Singer, 'usually begins with a family household',
but 'it quickly expands to include neighbours and friends from office
and shop who are not kin and who may even come from a different
caste, sect or linguistic region.' There are various levels of association.
'The weekly bhajan remains essentially a neighbourhood group; the
monthly bhajan overflows neighbourhood lines, and the annual bhajan
festival draws crowds from all parts of the city' (Singer, 1963; 213). He
considers the question whether or not these are likely to become the
basis of a new casteless and sectless ecumenical form of Hinduism, and
concludes that this is unlikely, since sectarian forms are already
beginning to appear among them; but he adds that to many Hindus the
bhajans constitute 'the timely instrument of an integrative and unifying
religious movement'.
Hinduism outside India 377

7.29 Hinduism outside India

Up to the present time Hinduism can hardly be called a missionary
religion, that is, in theW estern sense of a proselytising faith. Hindus are
found outside Indian territory: notably in parts of South-East Asia and
East Africa, but this is because they or their forebears have settled in
those regions as immigrants and have continued to regard themselves as
Hindus, and to practise their ancestral rituals. But broadly speaking
Hinduism does not seek to make converts to the Hindu community
outside the motherland. To a large extent this has been because in the
past to be a Hindu has meant necessarily to be integrated into Hindu
society. As a religious system Hinduism may be seen as a Great
Tradition which has developed over a long period of time on the basis
of the many local Little Traditions of village India, and therefore
depends for its life on the nourishment which it derives, as it were, from
the soil oflndia. There has to be some connection with the soil of India,
even though, as in the case of immigrant communities in other lands,
it is an hereditary link. The outward forms of Hinduism, 'the worship
in temples, the great festivals, the outward symbols of sects and groups,
the mutts, monasteries and ashrams', these, says Panikkar, 'are the
things which differentiate Hinduism from all other religions' (Panikkar,
1961; 125). Without these it would no longer be Hinduism.
Nevertheless, there are forms in which Indians are seeking to convey
to the Western world what some of them hold to be the unique and
vitally important contribution which Hindu religion can and should
make to world society. There is, of course, theW estern vogue for yogic
exercises, but these are usually carried out by Westerners simply as a
form of physical or mental culture, and are not necessarily related to the
school of religious philosophy which gives yoga its religious aspect in
India. If there is one form of Hinduism which is to be regarded as being
for export to the West, it is Vedanta (4.21). This has in fact its
missionaries, notably the swamis of the Ramakrishna Mission who are
to be found in some of the larger cities of the Western world, and here
and there a few pundits of the Arya Samaj. Beyond these identifiable
forms of Hindu influence on the West - which are still only barely
marginal- there is, however, the indirect influence which is exerted
through Hindu literature, both through English and other European
translations of Hindu religious classics, and also through the writings of
378 Religion and Industrial Society
outstanding modern authors: Indian, such as Sir S. Radhakrishnan,
Aurobindo Ghose, and Western interpreters of Vedanta, such as
Gerald Heard, Christopher Isherwood and Aldous Huxley. In general
this influence may be said to be one which supports a view oflife which
sees behind the manifold and transient forms of empirical existence a
reality that is unchanging, blissful and eternal.

7.3 ISLAM IN THE MODERN PERIOD,

1707 TO THE PRESENT

7.30 Islamic reform: the setting

A.D. 1707 was the year of the death of Aurangzeb the Mughal emperor
at the age of ninety. Aurangzeb, the last really great name among the
Muslim rulers of India, who by his puritan legislation had tried to check
the moral decline of Islamic society in India, was followed by a
succession of corrupt and ineffective rulers until, in 1858, the emperor
Bahadur Shah was deposed by the British and exiled to Rangoon,
where he died in poverty. The corruption of Islam in India, which was
evident in Aurangzeb' s time, and which continued into the eighteenth
century, was eventually during that century challenged by movements
of revival from within Indian Islam. They were contemporaneous with
similar movements of revival elsewhere in the Muslim world - in
Central Arabia and in the Yemen. In the nineteenth century came the
modernist reform movement in Egypt associated with the name of
Muhammad Abduh and his Syrian pupil Rashid Rida, a movement
which had a strong influence upon Islam in South Asia, especially in
Indonesia.
These various movements for the reform of Islam which occurred
during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have two outstanding
common features: one is the rejection of the accretions which Islam had
suffered during its medieval period, and the other is the reformulation
oflslamic beliefand practice in terms ofmodern thought and civilisation.
A further feature which occurs in many although not all of these
movements is the political aim, that of the restoration of Muslim
government. The background to all this is European colonial expansion
in Asia and the Middle East during these two centuries. This provided
Islamic reform: the setting 379
the occasion, the stimulant, or possibly the irritant; but the Islamic
reform movements of this period are not simply due to the impact of
the West; they are equally the result of resources provided from within
Islam itsel£
The revival of Islam in India, which began in the dark days of the
mid-eighteenth century when the Muslim empire was rapidly dis-
integrating and when faithful Muslims were, in the words of Fazlur
Rahman, 'almost literally left in a dismal wilderness, not knowing
whither to turn', continued into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
and may perhaps be seen as having as one ofits results the emergence of
the modern state ofPakistan in 1947.

7.31 Early reform movements in India and Arabia

Five years before the emperor Aurangzeb died, there was born one
who became known as the leader of Muslim reform in India, W ali
Allah of Delhi (A.D. 1702-62). Shah Wali Allah was a Sufi thinker,
writer and teacher. He was responsible for a reformulation oflslam on a
broader basis than that of the traditional theology. In his system 'a broad,
humanistic sociological base is overlain by a doctrine of social and
economic justice in Islamic terms and crowned by a Sufi world-view'
(Rahman, 1967; 203). He was concerned also to purify Indian Islam of
the many alien beliefs and practices which it had acquired from its
Indian environment. The influence of his work was widely felt through
his writings and through his pupils. His hope for Indian Islam was the
restoration of Muslim government, and to this end he urged his views
on leading Muslim rulers and soldiers. In a period of depression for
Muslims in India it was Wali Allah who gave them a vision of a
renewed and reinvigorated Islam. A modern Pakistani historian,
Professor S. M. Ikram, considers that 'more than anyone else he is
responsible for the religious regeneration oflndian Islam' (Ikram, 1964;
262). The movement which he began was continued after his death by
his sons and his disciples.
The other notable reform movement of the eighteenth century was
that which owed its inspiration to al-W ahhab of Arabia (1703-92). In
early manhood al-W ahhab travelled in Iraq and Persia, and after
returning to Arabia at about the age of forty he began, by preaching
and writing, to advocate a purified Islam. In a treatise entitled The
380 Religion and Industrial Society
Book of Unity he attacked many features of popular Islamic religion in
the Middle East, such as worship by Muslims at the tombs of saints,
belief in the powers of saints, Muslims' calling upon the Prophet and
the saints to make intercession for them, and various other forms of
what he held to be superstitious practice. With this went an attack upon
moral laxity, and upon the accretions to Islamic belief for which the
Sufis and the philosophical and theological schools had, in his view,
been responsible. The movement which he began was characterised by
its rejection of all Muslim medieval authorities and tradition, and
appealed exclusively to the authority of the Qur' an and the Sunna; all
else was held to be superfluous. As a result of the opposition of some of
his own kinsmen al-W ahhab moved to eastern Arabia, and there his
views found acceptance by the local chief, ibn Sa'ud. It was this which
gave reality to his programme of reform, and enabled the W ahhabi
movement to bring the holy cities of Mecca and Medina within its field
of influence. The present Saudi Arabian dynasty is descended from this
early convert of al-W ahhab' s. This movement, too, was carried on by
his disciples after the death of its leader, and it continued to be of some
influence in Arabia. It was by no means generally accepted by Arab
Muslims, and in fact was strongly opposed by those whose moral laxity
it challenged, and by those who did not accept its puritanical attitude to
the popular cults. Thus, the W ahhabis were driven out of Mecca about
the year 1813. Nevertheless the challenge of the Wahhabi movement to
moral corruption within Islam, and its emphasis upon the importance
of the moral element in Muslim life and thought, had a lasting effect, in
that this became an almost universal feature of subsequent reform
movements, both in Arabia and elsewhere in the Muslim world.

7.32 Some religious issues leading to the events of1857

Old prejudices die hard, and in some British ears the words 'Indian
Mutiny' may still suggest the idea that Muslims are a stubborn, sullen,
rebellious people dominated by irrational superstitions. Just how
arbitrary in the case oflslam is the line which W estemers like to draw
between religion and politics may be seen very well in the case of the
Indian Muslims' situation in the mid-nineteenth century. It is only by
recognition of this dual aspect of Islam, the political and the religious,
which we have had occasion to note several times already, that one can
Some religious issues leading to the events of 1857 381
make sense of Indian Muslim history, and of the kind of reform
movements which emerged in the nineteenth century.
From the beginning of the century Mughal power continued to
decline. The capture of Delhi by the British in 1803 emphasised how
low Muslim power had sunk. In the same year W ali Allah's son Abd' al
Aziz (1746-1824) issued a declaration announcing that India was no
longer dar-al-Islam, that is Islamic territory; it had become dar-al-harb,
alien territory, and must therefore be regained so that an Islamic society
could once again be set up. One of the notable achievements of W ali
Allah's sons was their translation of the Qur' an into idiomatic Urdu, so
that it might be read and understood by the Muslim rank and file. The
interlinear method of translation which they adopted, with one line in
Arabic followed by its translation into Urdu, had the effect of enabling
the ordinary Indian Muslim to gain some familiarity with the Arabic
original ofhis holy book.
Another religious reform movement parallel to that which owed its
inspiration to Wali Allah in north-western India was one which
emerged in East Bengal from about 1820 onwards. This was inaugurated
by Shariat Allah, a Bengali Muslim who returned in that year from
pilgrimage to Mecca, where he had studied for some years under
famous and learned Muslim theologians. In East Bengal he built up a
following from among the lowest classes of Muslims, and the com-
munity thus formed adopted certain well-defined objectives. First, they
pledged themselves to perform regularly and faithfully the religious
duties required of them as Muslims. These duties are known as the
fara-id, so the group became known as the faraidis. There was also the
negative aim, of renouncing various practices which had come to be
adopted by East Bengali Muslims under the strong influence of the
Hindu environment, practices which were alien to Islam, especially
certain celebrations and festivities. The movement aimed at purifying
Islam not only from Hindu but also from Sufi practices and influence.
It included also certain socio-economic reforms among its objectives;
these came from the conviction that inequality of wealth was contrary
to the spirit of Islam. Finally, it had the aim of restoring Muslim
political power in Bengal; as in north-west India, so here also it was
declared that the land in which these Muslims lived had, under the
British, reverted to the status of dar-al-harb, and had to be reconquered
for Islam.
Not only in Bengal, of course, but everywhere in what had been the
382 Religion and Industrial Society
Mughal empire the memory of past grandeur lingered in the memories
oflndian Muslims; it was not merely the lost grandeur they lamented,
however, but the loss of a genuinely Islamic society, ruled by Muslims,
however individually unworthy some of these might have been.
A new threat had now appeared. From about the beginning of the
nineteenth century Christian missionaries from Europe began their
activities in India, and in Bengal in particular. This led Muslims to fear
that the growth of British political power would mean also an attempt
to convert the people of India to Christianity. There was some
justification for their view. Mr Mangles, the chairman of the Board of
Directors of the East India Company, said in Parliament in 1857:
'Providence has entrusted the extensive empire ofHindustan to England
that the banner of Christ should wave triumphant from one end of
India to the other' (Qureshi, 1962; 226).
In 1835, as a result of Macaulay's famous recommendation, English
was declared the official language of India and the medium in which
education in India was to be carried out. It was not long before Indians
began to avail themselves of the entree into Western literature and
learning which this provided, but it was the Hindus rather than the
Muslims who took advantage of the opportunity. For one thing, the
areas of strongest British influence, Bombay, Madras and above all
Calcutta and West Bengal, were areas of predominantly Hindu
population. Another reason was that Hindus were less suspicious than
Muslims of the alien culture to which such education exposed them- in
the early days, at least. Militant Hindu resistance, represented by the
Arya Samaj, belongs, as we have seen, to the latter part of the nineteenth
century (7.23). From the early days Muslims were less willing to share
in the 'blessings' ofWestern culture offered in Christian missionary or
government schools. The Muslim suspected, as Qureshi points out, that
if he sent his children to these schools they would be taught to despise
their own faith, and be 'weaned away from the religious values of
Islam' (Qureshi, 1962; 224). Certainly among the Hindus there was in
the mid-nineteenth century a considerable crop of conversions to
Christianity. One of the aims of the British educational policy was to
provide recruits for the colonial government service, and these were in
fact found from among the Hindu rather than the Muslim community.
Thus Muslims, in addition to their sense of humiliation at the loss of
their empire, now had also the feeling that they were being discriminated
against in favour of the Hindus.
Beginnings ofa new era for Muslims 383

7.33 Beginnings ofa new era for Muslims

It is all the more remarkable, in view of what has just been recounted,
that there were Muslims who believed in the possibility of better
relations with the British. The most notable and influential of these was
Sayyid Ahmad Khan, born in Delhi in 1817, a greatly venerated name
among Indian Muslims (Qureshi, 1962; 236-52). In a book published in
Calcutta in 1860, The Causes of the Indian Revolt, he sought to show
British readers that the fundamental cause of the revolt had been British
failure to understand the religious views and moral sentiments of the
Muslim population and the extent to which these had been affronted by
the course which government measures had taken. He believed too that
Muslim aversion to the British administration was due to ignorance of
the nature of Christian civilisation, and therefore set out to write an
interpretation of the Bible to show Muslims that the two religious
systems, Islamic and Christian, had much in common. A few years later
he visited England and studied for a while at Cambridge. Here he came
upon the account oflslam given by Sir William Muir in his book The
Life ofMuhammad. Muir, like that other Western critic oflslam, Ernest
Renan, looking at the later stages of medieval Islamic society saw only
what seemed a backward and inferior system of thought and practice,
based on a primitive religion of Bedouin tribesmen. Sayyid Ahmad
Khan therefore undertook to correct this view in a work which was
published in London in 1870 under the title of Essays on the Life of
Mohammed. It was a book characterised by 'fair literary argument and
the beginning of scholarly exegesis' according to Sir Alfred Lyall, and
constituted a sincere attempt to give Western readers a rational account
oflslamic religion and its values.
Sayyid Ahmad Khan was convinced of the ultimate compatibility of
modern scientific knowledge and the religion of Islam. It was such
knowledge, he was convinced, that explained the greater progress of
the West, rather than any superiority of Christianity over other
religions. On his return to India, therefore, he embarked upon the
building at Aligarh of a centre of learning where modern knowledge
and Islamic culture might be fruitfully related to each other. This
became known as the Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College, an
institution which 'played an important role in the development of the
Muslim community after it had reached so near the brink ofthe abyss ....
384 Religion and Industrial Society
It brought up a generation of Muslims who were aware of the new
developments in the world and its thought without undermining their
fundamental loyalty to Islam' (Qureshi, 1962; 242). By many of the
more conservative Muslim religious leaders of India, however, the ideas
and teaching of Sayyid Ahmad Khan were regarded with great suspicion
and dislike. He was an outstanding early 'modernist' among Indian
Muslims: He was criticised for dabbling in theology, for which it was
said he had no qualifications. Nevertheless he was a learned man, with
sincere religious convictions, and with a firm belief in the value of
Islamic society, and it is to him that a great deal of the credit must be
given for the awakening of the Muslims oflndia to a new understanding
of the possible place oflslamic religion in the modern world.
A Muslim of similar views concerning the need for relating intel-
lectual and scientific thought to the values of Islamic religion was his
contemporary, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1839-97). Faith in the God
revealed in Islam was for Afghani blended with a conviction concerning
the importance of the right moral and social ordering of the life of man,
and of rational and scientific methods. Afghani's role was not so much
to demonstrate the compatibility of science and Islamic religion (in the
sense that this was one of the main actual preoccupations of the
Aligarh movement founded by Sayyid Ahmad Khan), as the strengthen-
ing oflslam socially and politically. His name is associated particularly
with the 'pan-Islam' movement, that is, the reassertion of the unity of
the Muslim world as a safeguard against the invasion oflslam by alien
forces, political, cultural and religious. He was also an exponent of the
idea of the 'people's government' within Islam, as the most effective
guarantee of political cohesion and strength; in this connection his
influence was felt in Egypt, in Persia, in Turkey and in India.

7.34 Islamic riform in Egypt

The stimulus towards Islamic reformulation which contact with
Western civilisation had given to Indian Muslims was felt also in
Egypt - another country which at this time was being subjected to
European colonial expansion. Here the reform and reinterpretation of
Islam was largely led and inspired by Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905),
a disciple of al-Afghani (7.33), who during the 1880s co-operated with
him in the production of an Islamic journal. Muhammad Abduh was a
Islamic reform in Egypt 385
trained theologian and a teacher at the famous Muslim centre at Cairo,
al-Azhar. More securely perhaps than Sayyid Ahmad Khan he had a
foot in both worlds, that of traditional Islamic orthodoxy (thus a man
to whom some at least of the Egyptian ulama were prepared to listen),
and that of modem knowledge. Faith and reason, he maintained, do
not conflict but co-operate for the advancement of both true religion
and a well-ordered society. He argued that Islam is a religion which
calls upon man to use his reason to investigate the world of nature, since
this is God's creation. The reformulation of Islamic thought which he
believed was possible and necessary was not, however, easily to be
achieved, and his ideas met with considerable opposition from the more
conservative of the ulama. H. A. R. Gibb sees two consequences of
Abduh's influence: one, the growth of secular modernism in the
Islamic countries of the Middle East, with a tendency towards the
separation of religion and the state; the other the growth ofa fundamen-
talist theological party known as the Salafiya which rejected all medieval
authorities and took its stand upon the Qur' an and the Surma alone.
One of the leaders of this movement was a disciple of Abduh named
Rashid Rida (1865-1935), and under his leadership the Salafiya move-
ment approached more and more closely to the puritan fundamentalism
of the W ahhabis. The movement exerted a wide influence by means of
its journal, al-Manar, which circulated throughout the Muslim world
of the Middle East and South Asia, where it appealed not to the most
highly educated but to religiously enthusiastic middle-class Muslims.

7.35 Muslim India: the late nineteenth century

To return to India: we noted in an earlier section (7.23) the growing
strength of Hindu communal self-awareness seen for example in the
Arya Samaj, founded in 1875; it is now possible to see that while this
was to some extent due to the self-assertion of cultural forces having
deep and ancient roots in the history of India, it was also the response to
a revived Muslim communalism, which had by this time recovered
from the shock of the loss of political power. Sayyid Ahmad Khan
(7.33), liberal in outlook and generous in spirit as he was, nevertheless
has to be recognised as 'the first modem Muslim to suggest that Hindus
and Muslims constituted two separate nations in India' (Ahmad, 1964;
265). The Indian National Congress, the political organisation which
386 Religion and Industrial Society
was largely responsible for winning India's independence from British
colonial rule, was established in 1885 on a broad basis which included
both Hindus and Muslims. But when, two years later, a Muslim was
elected to its presidency, it seemed to Sayyid Ahmad Khan that there
was a danger that Muslim participation in the Congress would lead to a
blurring of essential issues and would prove detrimental to the Indian
Muslims' hopes of the recovery of an Islamic society. In speeches
delivered at Lucknow in 1887 and Meerut in 1888 he declared his policy
of political separation as the only way for the preservation of essential
Islamic interests, a policy which immediately found widespread support
throughout Muslim India. The growing aggressiveness of the more
extreme Hindus led by Tilak (7.25) after the riots of 1893 served to
strengthen the demand which Muslims were now making, in pursuance
of this policy of separatism, for regional political representation. In
response to this Muslim demand the British government eventually
conceded a separate electoral area for Muslims in East Bengal, only to
withdraw the concession shortly afterwards in 1911, in response to
bitter Hindu opposition. Sayyid Ahmad Khan had died in 1898, but his
place as the intellectual champion of Islam in India had been taken by
Amir Ali (1849-1928), who in 1877founded the 'NationalMuhammedan
Association' with its headquarters in Calcutta, a movement having an
appeal to younger middle-class Muslims. Amir Ali exerted considerable
influence through his writings, notably The Spirit of Islam published in
1891. Developing a line of thought already suggested by Muhammad
Abduh in Egypt, Amir Ali argued that Islam was essentially a pro-
gressive, civilising force. Had it not been prevented from spreading
into Europe by 'the barrier which was raised against it by a degraded
Christianity', he wrote, it would have proved its progressive character
there also. 'Islam, wherever it has found its way among culturable and
progressive nations, has shown itselfin complete accord with progressive
tendencies, it has assisted civilisation, it has idealised religion' (Amir Ali,
1922; 180). Unitarianism (4.16) he saw as a kind of European Islam,
without Islam's religious discipline. While he wrote with Western
readers to some extent in mind, it was primarily to Indian Muslims that
his work was addressed, with the purpose of showing them that in
Muhammad they had a Prophet of whom they could be proud, and in
Islam a religion that enlightens and elevates mankind (W. C. Smith,
1947;49£).
Muhammad Iqbal and the Muslim League 387

7.36 Muhammad Iqbal and the Muslim League

The Muslim League, founded in 1906, had as its main purpose the
promotion of the political aspect ofindian Muslim aspirations. It served
also, however, as a channel for the general effort and thought of all
those Muslims in India who were convinced that their destiny lay in a
separate political and cultural community united by common allegiance
to Islam. Its most outstanding leader was Muhammad Iqbal (1873-1938),
although his pre-eminence rests more upon his achievements as poet
and philosopher. His poetry is ranked next to the Qur' an in its influence
upon the Indian Muslim intelligentsia of the twentieth century, and
Iqbal is generally acknowledged as the spiritual founder of the state of
Pakistan. Like Sayyid Ahmad Khan he had spent a time studying in
Europe, at Cambridge and in Germany. He is said to have been
influenced by the work of Bergson and of Nietzsche, but the more
important formative influence, apart from the Qur' an and his pious
Muslim upbringing in the Punjab, was the work of the medieval
Muslim mystic Jalal ud-Din Rumi (6.36). He was, however, strongly
critical of the influence of the Sufis, and considered that their quietism
and inaction more than anything else had been responsible for the
weakening ofislam. His interpretation of what it meant to be a Muslim
was in decidedly this-worldly terms: strife with evil is the purpose of
human existence, and it is this that Islam makes possible. He had no
time for beliefs that did not express themselves in action. In his earlier
years he was a great advocate of Hindu-Muslim unity, but later on he
came to the view that the force of extreme and reactionary Hinduism
was a threat to the existence of the Muslim community in India, and
hence, from 1930, when as president of the Muslim League he made a
notable speech on the subject, he became a great advocate of the idea of
a separate Muslim state embracing north-west India and the adjacent
regions. He was, nevertheless, a man of great breadth of vision to whom
nationalism was the most destructive of all the false gods worshipped by
man (Qureshi, 1962; 263). Since he was a Muslim his attitude to life
was framed in Muslim terms, but this was in fact only the starting point
for what for him was a religious view of much wider dimensions. In his
own words:
My real purpose is to look for a better social order and to present a
universally acceptable ideal [of life and action] before the world, but it is
0 L.H.R.
388 Religion and Industrial Society
impossible for me, in this effort to outline this ideal, to ignore the social
system and values of Islam whose most important objective is to de-
molish all the artificial and pernicious distinctions of caste, creed, colour
and economic status .... No doubt I am intensely devoted to Islam but
I have selected the Islamic community as my starting point not because
ofany national or religious prejudice but because it is the most practicable
line of approach to the problem. (Wheeler, 1962; 198)
The influence of Iqbal provided some of the higher idealism
motivating the Muslim League's struggle for a separate independent
Islamic state to be formed when British rule in India was withdrawn.
There were no doubt other motives, such as fear of being dominated by
Hindus, a fear which was fed by the growing strength of the Hindu
extremists. The history of that struggle, especially in its culminating
stage in the closing years of the Second World War, lies outside the
scope of this book; we are here concerned only to point out that this is a
major example of how religious issues have affected human history:
there is, of course, the other side of the picture namely the way that
political, social and economic factors have affected religious issues.
With that side of the story, so far as Pakistan is concerned, we shall deal
later (7.39).

7.37 Modern syncretistic seds: Babism-Baha' ism, and the Ahmadiya

The modern period has seen the growth of several sects which might be
considered as further examples of reform movements in Islam in the
modern period; an additional reason for their mention is that two of
them, Baha'ism and the Ahmadiya movement, are both active in the
West and constitute two more of the multitude of sects to be found in
theWestern world.
The founder ofBabism was a Muslim named Sayyid Ali Muhammad
who was born in Shiraz, in southern Persia, in 1819. At the age of
twenty-four he assumed the title 'Bah', which means 'the Gate' through
whom knowledge of the Twelfth Imam was to be gained. Later, after a
pilgrimage to Mecca, he declared to the religious authorities in Persia
that he had superseded Muhammad as the Prophet of God and had
inaugurated a new era. His preaching was addressed mainly to the
middle classes (he himself was the son of a grocer) and gave a high place
in his ideas to the activity of trade; his ideas were heterodox from an
Modern syncretistic sects: Babism-Baha' ism and the Ahmadiya 389
Islamic point of view in that he regarded interest on loans as lawful. He
proclaimed also that commercial correspondence should not be
tampered with. Recent research suggests that in the 1840s Persia was
undergoing a severe economic crisis and that the Babi movement was
partly a response to this. The Bab and his followers at first hoped to
convert the religious leaders and rulers of Persia to their ideas. The
result was, however, that the Bab was pronounced insane and put in
prison. After this the movement took on an increasingly radical
character, as the Bah's followers advocated the abolition of private
property. The Bab was removed to another prison, and finally, in 1850,
was shot. There were various risings and conspiracies as a result, which
were violently dealt with by the Shah and his government. The
followers of the Bab then divided into two factions; the majority-group
was led by one of the most prominent of the Bab' s disciples, Baha-Allah
(1817-92), and developed into a sect whose doctrines were rather milder
and vaguer, of a somewhat universalistic humanitarian nature, but no
longer Islamic in any orthodox sense. The Bab had produced a new
holy book, the Bey an, which superseded the Qur' an, and consisted
largely of the laws governing the life of the new theocracy. This in tum
was superseded by a new and fuller revelation produced by Baha-Allah,
known as the Kitab Akdas, the 'Most Holy Book', which also took the
form of regulations for a theocratic community. Most of the adherents
of the Bahai faith are found in Persia, although there are some in other
Muslim countries and, as has already been noted, some are even to be
found in Europe and America.
The Ahmadiya movement, or Quadiyani sect, was founded by
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1839-1908), has the support of only a very
small minority of Muslims, and is regarded by the majority as heretical.
At about the age of forty Mirza Ghulam Ahmad began to engage in
controversy with the Hindu Arya Samaj supporters, and also with
Christians. In 1889, when he was fifty, he declared himself to be the
Messiah whose advent is foretold in the Qur' an. He proclaimed a
revived and reformed Islam in keeping with the conditions of a modem
technological society. He gained a certain following which after his
death became divided; one half, the Quadiyani, continued to uphold
the claim of the founder to be the Messiah; the other half, centred on
Lahore, formed a new 'Society for the Propagation of Islam', and
eventually moved towards reconciliation with traditional Sunni Islam.
Both halves of the movement have engaged in missionary activity not
390 Religion and Industrial Society
only in India but also in the West. Perhaps one of the most significant
features of the history of the movement is the very slight measure of
success it has had - almost negligible - in spite of its claim to present a
form oflslam for the modern age.

7.38 Islam in Indonesia

Indonesia, with its seventy-seven million Muslims forming something
like ninety per cent of the total population, is obviously a numerically
important sector of the Muslim world. The growth of Islam in Malaya
and the South-East Asian archipelago was a gradual process from the
fourteenth century c.E. onwards, the chief agents of which were traders
from South India and Arabia. The process has continued steadily
throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and during this
period the Islamisation oflndonesia has increased not only in its extent
but also in depth, that is, in deeper penetration into the life of the
people. Islam's initial strength in Indonesia was in the ports to which
the traders came and in which they settled, and from these urban centres
it spread out into the countryside. As in the earlier period, so in the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries this expansion has been effected by
Muslim traders, minor government officials and teachers.
One of the most important factors was the increase in the number of
Muslim pilgrims from Indonesia to Mecca from the middle of the
nineteenth century onwards. In 1852 the Dutch government rescinded
the order requiring the payment of 110 florins for a passport by any
Indonesian wishing to make the pilgrimage to Mecca {Arnold, 1913;
410), with the result that from that date many more Indonesian Muslims
began to make the pilgrimage. A further factor was the greater
opportunities of steamship travel which were open to pilgrims from
about this time onwards. By the 1880s the Indonesians were the largest
and most active group of pilgrims from any part of the Muslim world
to be found residing in Mecca. By the year 1926-7 they constituted
more than forty per cent of Mecca's foreign population. Throughout
the past century, therefore, Indonesia has been exposed to a steadily
growing stream of returning pilgrims {hajjis) who have brought back
to Indonesia the influence, first, of the W ahhabi reform movement still
active in Arabia, and then that of the Egyptian modernist reforms
emanating from Al-Azhar in Cairo associated especially with
Islam in Indonesia 391
Muhammad Abduh (7.34). Some Indonesians during their travels in the
Middle East managed to include a period of study at the great university
of Cairo itsel£ The same improved facilities for sea travel also brought
increasing numbers of Arab traders from the Hadhramaut area of
southern Arabia to Indonesia, to settle there and to infuse their very
orthodox Islam into the Indonesian situation.
The growth in numbers of Muslims in the various parts ofindonesia
has been one result of such influences. In some places, in Sumatra for
example, this has been at the expense of the Christian community,
where an initial Christianisation of heathen tribes has paved the way for
their later conversion to Islam by Muslim missionaries far more skilled
in relating the Islamic faith to the tribal life of these people {Arnold,
1913; 374). But in most of Indonesia it has been the school which has
served as the channel for the new enthusiasm flowing into Indonesia
from the Middle East.
During the earlier period the typical Islamic school of Indonesia was
the pesantren (from the word 'santri' by which Muslims are known in
Indonesia). The pesantren was an institution very similar to the
Buddhist monastery in its combination of religious and educational
activities, and in fact was derived directly from the tradition ofBuddhist
monastic centres of medieval Java; that is, places where holy writings
were studied, where travellers were refreshed and given lodging, and
where local boys received instruction and education. As a result of the
increasing numbers of returned pilgrims, more knowledgeable about
their religion, more aware of its essentials, and bringing with them
Muslim literature from the Middle East, these pesantrens gradually
became centres of a more orthodox Islamic teaching, which thus
displaced the somewhat mystical tradition from South India which had
characterised them until that time.
Alongside the pesantrens, however, there gradually grew up a
somewhat different type of Islamic school, modelled in the case of
Indonesia on government and Christian schools, and intended by
reformist Muslims to provide an education both more liberal and more
modem than that of the pesantrens with their strongly medieval flavour,
and also more purely Islamic in the kind of religious teaching imparted:
pure, in the sense of more Qur' anic and less mystical and Sufistic.
Secular subjects (arithmetic, history, geography, Latin script), were
taught, and Islamic religious instruction was given in the form of
exposition of the Qur' an and its precepts, rather than a verse-by-verse
392 Religion and Industrial Society
chanting of the Arabic text which was the method followed in the
pesantren.
Such schools, given by the reformers who established them the name
of madrasa to indicate their genuinely Islamic character, were instru-
mental in the spread of modernist religious ideas. In this the urban
Muslims have led the way. Largely men of the middle classes, they are
principally interested in Islamic religion as a moral code, a social
doctrine, and a source of values for a modem culture. In the twentieth
century rural Islam has more and more followed this urban lead and
there are now said to be schools of the madrasa type in almost every
Muslim village in the rural areas of Java, for example (Geertz, 1962;
104).
Another important factor in the vitality oflslam in Indonesia in the
twentieth century has been the formation of religious organisations.
The most notable of these is the association known as Muhammadiya.
This was founded in 1912 by a returned pilgrim, and in the same year a
parallel organisation with a predominantly political character was
founded, known as Sarekat Islam, or 'Islamic Union'. From 1923
onwards the Muhammadiya grew very rapidly and by the 1930s had
some nine hundred local branches, supported largely by middle-class
members (tradesmen, school-teachers, clerks, etc.) who welcomed the
modernising emphasis of the movement, and the important place given
to reason in its intellectual programme. The activities which the
Muhammadiya organisation sponsored grew continually: schools,
religious publications, orphanages, asylums and hospitals, special
organisations for women and girls, a boy-scout movement, and mass
open-air meetings. Through these various media the strength of Islam
was built up in many villages and towns ofJava, and its adherents were
made increasingly aware of their role as Muslims and that they belonged
to a unique, exclusive and universal religion. The Muhammadiya, while
it was religiously radical, was politically conservative and did not
encourage emphasis on the political aspect of Islam. The idea of an
Islamic state in Indonesia has had its champions in the period of
independence, but it has not had the widespread support which the idea
had, for example, in India. When the Indonesian Republic failed to
come up to the expectations of some Muslims that it would be an
Islamic state, a party of violent revolt called Dar Ul Islam emerged in
western Java, northern Sumatra and southern Celebes, with the aim of
forcing the government to adopt a 'purer' Islamic constitution. Many
Islam in Indonesia 393
Indonesian Muslims, however, are unconcerned about the political
aspect oflslam. Among Muslim intellectuals in Indonesia some have to
a large extent lost interest in Islam, and either have become indifferent
or have consciously adopted an atheist and in some cases communist
outlook. Others, still interested in Islam, have expressed vigorous
criticism of it and are looking for a reinterpretation more appropriate
to modern thought than the old-fashioned liberalism of the Egyptian
reform movements; a few have been attracted to the thought of
Muhammad Iqbal (7.36) as it is expressed in his book, The Reconstruction
of Religious Thought in Islam.

7.39 Islam in the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent since 1947

As the result of a long and exceedingly complex series of events,
political, economic, religious, the hopes of many Muslims in the
subcontinent of India were realised when in 1947 a separate, sovereign
Islamic state known as Pakistan was carved out of what had been
British India and the princely states. The idea of the Islamic state,
believed by many to be integral to the religion of the Prophet, had once
more returned as a reality. At least, Pakistan was a state which set out to
be Islamic, which existed for the purpose of becoming fully Islamic; for
it would not be such immediately. But by the mid-1950s there were
many who were beginning to feel that the attempt was not succeeding.
The problem was how to create a genuinely Islamic state, based on the
values and the law oflslam, amid the pressures of the modern world -
secularist, international, economic, technological, to name a few.
In the struggle for independence the traditional religious leaders, the
ulama, had played some part, it is true, especially those connected with
the Dar al-ulum (an institution of higher learning) at Deoband; these
formed the spearhead of the popular movement for Muslim indepen-
dence and thus contributed to the eventual setting up of Pakistan. But
the moulding of the new state was largely in the hands not of
traditionalist conservative ulama such as these, but ofWestern-educated,
liberal-minded Muslims who had been trained for secular occupations,
the leaders of the Muslim League political party. These men, comments
Wilfred Cantwell Smith, were fitted for making the new state viable;
they were not fitted for making it Islamic.
The principle of government on which the new state emerged was
394 Religion and Industrial Society
that of democracy. Its policies, it was believed, were to express the will
of the people - that is of the Muslim people who were its citizens. In
acquiring the competence which qualified them to run a state its leaders
had cut themselves off to a very considerable degree from the Muslim
basis of their support. On the other hand the traditional religious leaders,
the ulama, remained absorbed in 'the forms, the idiom, the milieu, the
personnel of an earlier age' (W. C. Smith, 1957; 226). The divergence
was manifest in the educational realm; secular education on the one
hand and classical Islamic education on the other each had their distinct
methods, subjects studied, teachers, and pupils. The stresses in the
situation lay not in the impact of modernity upon traditional Islam, but
in the rigid separation of the two. The result, comments Wilfred
Cantwell Smith, has been a 'failure to generate an interpretation of
Islam that could serve as an effective, realistic, meaningful ideology, or
framework for ideology' (W. C. Smith, 1957; 227f.). The failure has
been on both sides; not only have the secular, bourgeois leaders of
Pakistan pursued the interests of their own class or family; the ulama
also have contributed nothing positive. In 1953 rioting broke out in the
Punjab which was ostensibly directed against the unorthodox Ahmadiya
sect (7.37}; the riots served as an outlet for the disappointment and
discontent felt by the rank and file Muslims at the failure of the political
leaders to fulfil the hopes of the people for a genuinely Islamic state; the
unorthodoxy of the Ahmadiya sect served as a symbol against which
orthodox Muslims could direct all their resentment. After the riots a
court of enquiry was set up. Its report, known as the Munir Report
from the name of the court's president, mentioned among other things
the failure of the ulama in the difficult contemporary situation, in that
they were unable 'to give realistic guidance on elementary matters of
Islam', and that no two of them could even agree on the definition of a
Muslim!
Another manifestation of orthodox Islamic discontent is that of the
Jama'at-i-Islami (Community of Islam) movement, founded by
Maulana Maudiidi (1903-) (Mujeeb, 1967; W. C. Smith, 1957). This
began in 1941 as an alternative organisation to the Muslim League. At
that time Maududi was opposed to the League on the grounds that its
policy involved the setting up of a nationalistic Indian Muslim state,
and that nationalism was incompatible with Islam. Since the establish-
ment of Pakistan in 1947 Maududi, who has continued to be the inspirer
and guiding force of Jama'at-i-Islami, has had to change his ground
Islam in the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent since 1947 395
somewhat and now advocates what may be called the thorough
Islamisation of the government of Pakistan and its purging from all
Western moral, social and political values and practices. His ideas have
been expressed in numerous pamphlets and books and in a monthly
journal issued from Lahore. By profession a journalist, he has gained a
reputation for Islamic scholarship in spite of having had little formal
schooling. His view of Islam is that it is essentially a revealed faith,
having a social system as its corollary, what he calls a 'theo-democratic'
state; this has a fixed, once-for-all character, and is the God-given
means for the reformation of human society. The Islamic state which
he describes is an ideal which has in fact never existed; an Indian Muslim
writer has commented that 'any reference to history or actual fact is
incompatible with the method Maulana Maududi has adopted'
(Mujeeb, 1967; 402). This Islamic state which Maududi advocates is to
be ruled by a Muslim who is elected by his Muslim fellow-citizens on
the grounds of the purity of his faith and the righteousness of his
conduct - an interesting modern reappearance of the political doctrine
of the Kharijites (5.17). The Islamic state, Maududi maintains, has no
frontiers, and any Muslim anywhere in the world is entitled to its
citizenship. In the present situation, therefore, the aim of Maududi and
his followers has to be the conversion of the existing state of Pakistan
into the truly Muslim universalist state. In the furtherance of this aim
he appeals immediately to that section of Muslims in the subcontinent
which he considers most likely and able to respond: in his view ninety
per cent of the Muslims of Pakistan are poor, and ignorant of the true
nature of Islam; of the remaining ten per cent approximately half are
relatively uncontaminated by Western values and ideas, and it is to
this section that he appeals primarily. Support for the Jama' at-i-Islami
is found mainly in the cities, among the lower middle class; a certain
amount of support comes also from urban malcontents of various
kinds, and from some young Muslims, attracted by the idealism of his
programme and the personal honesty and integrity of life which is a
much-emphasised feature of the Jama' at-i-Islami membership. Accord-
ing to Wilfred Cantwell Smith this movement is 'one of the most
significant developments in contemporary Islam and one of the most
significant forces in contemporary Pakistan' (W. C. Smith, 1957;
235n).

02 L.H.R.
396 Religion and Industrial Society

7.4 BUDDHISM IN THE MODERN PERIOD, 1800

TO THE PRESENT

7.40 Ceylon in the British colonial period

The beginning of the nineteenth century coincided with the establish-
ment of British colonial rule in Ceylon. In 1796 the British East India
Company succeeded in gaining control of the coastal areas which until
then had been under Dutch rule, and in 1802 this territory came under
the control of the British crown. In 1815 the British extended their rule
beyond the coastal area which the Portuguese and the Dutch had
controlled, and by defeating the Kandyan kingdom in the central area
brought the whole of Ceylon for the first time under a European
government.
British attitudes to Buddhist religion in Ceylon were of two kinds:
liberal and tolerant, represented by the commercial and governing
British community in the island; and evangelical and intolerant,
represented by British Protestant missionaries, and by the government
at Westminster in the early part of the nineteenth century. Three
features of Buddhist life in Ceylon made it particularly vulnerable to the
European presence: its dependence on the support of the Sinhalese
kings; the economic basis of the Sangha, which required for its healthy
functioning an undisturbed and fairly prosperous peasantry; and its
involvement in the indigenous local cults and beliefs of Ceylon
(6.45; 6.46). Under the Dutch and Portuguese governments Buddhist
life had already suffered dislocation from the reduction of the Sinhalese
political structure and loss of royal patronage in much of Ceylon,
although patronage continued in central Ceylon so long as the dimin-
ished kingdom of Kandy survived. The British, in displacing the
Kandyan kings, at first accepted responsibility for the control of
Buddhist institutions as a proper part of the function of the ruler of
Ceylon. In Article 5 of the Kandyan Convention (an agreement made
by the British in 1815) it was stated that 'the religion of the Buddhoo
professed by the chiefs and inhabitants of these provinces is declared
inviolable and its rites and ministers and places of worship are to be
maintained and protected'. This tolerant attitude of the British, who
at this stage were interested mainly in commercial profit and with
Ceylon in the British colonial period 397
strengthening their position in Asia against their French competitors,
had the effect of encouraging numbers of Sinhalese families who had in
the Portuguese period been forced to become nominal Christians and
adopt Portuguese names to return to their original Buddhist faith and
culture; this was in fact the accelerating of a process which had begun
in the latter part of the period of Dutch rule, when similar tolerance
had been shown towards Buddhism. From this time onwards can be
discerned the beginning, although slight, of Buddhist recovery in
Ceylon (Mendis, 1963; 112).
The Sangha, however, was at a very low ebb, especially in the coastal
provinces where the economic basis of its support had been badly
upset during the Portuguese and Dutch periods. But in 1802 it was
given a new infusion oflife by the introduction from Burma of monks
able to give Buddhist ordination into the Amarapura nikaya (or sect),
procured by a Ceylonese Buddhist novice of the Salagama caste, who
went to Burma with five others and returned to Ceylon to provide
such ordination to all castes. This was contrary to the practice of the
until then predominant Kandyan nik:aya, which ordained only members
of the Goigama caste (to such an extent had Buddhist Ceylon become
infected by the Hindu caste system from southern India).
Christian missionary activity was established in Ceylon in the
second decade of the nineteenth century. The missionaries soon began
to take strong exception to the British government's having assumed
responsibility for the protection of the religion of the majority of the
Sinhalese people. The duties which the government had undertaken in
this connection included the appointing and dismissing of monks in
official positions, the enforcing of the decisions of certain Buddhist
monastic chapters, the protection of the religious ceremonies at Kandy,
supervision of Buddhist temporalities on behalf of the monasteries, and
patronage of the pirivenas or Buddhist institutions of higher learning.
To missionaries of such enthusiastically Christian disposition as Spence
Hardy this was a very shocking situation. Moreover, the openness of
Sinhalese Buddhism to the indigenous culture of Ceylon gave it, in the
eyes of these missionaries, a clearly idolatrous appearance; Buddhist
tolerance in this matter, wrote Spence Hardy, 'must have been greatly
offensive in the sight of Him before whom idolatry is the abominable
thing, utterly hated' (Hardy, 1860; 321). Buddhist life and practice was,
in the view of the missionaries 'opposed to the truth', that is, to the
'only way of salvation by faith'; it must be utterly destroyed in Ceylon
398 Religion and Industrial Society
and throughout the world, for it was part of'the empire ofhell'. Such
British Christian imperialism eventually succeeded in gaining the
support of like-minded evangelicals in Whitehall and W estrninster.
Meanwhile Christian missions in Ceylon were growing considerably
in the extent of their activities and in the support received from the
West to carry on their work. This, and other factors such as the use of
English as the language of administration and education, made
Buddhist recovery doubly difficult, since the Buddhist leaders used only
the Sinhalese and Pali languages, and were thus cut off from some of the
new developments in public life and education.
About the middle of the nineteenth century the evangelical dislike
of British protection for Buddhist institutions, coinciding with equal
misgivings among liberals and secularists in Britain about government
involvement in religious affairs, resulted in the repudiation of the
Kandyan agreement. The British government dissociated itself from
Buddhism, but without providing the proper machinery by which the
Buddhists of Ceylon could organise the affairs which the British were
now abandoning.
In spite of these handicaps, however, Buddhism in Ceylon did
continue to show signs of revival. In 1839 a new Buddhist institution
of higher learning, the Parama Dhamma Cetiya Pirivena, was set up
at Ratmalana. In 1865 a reformed sect of Buddhist monks was founded,
the Ramanya nikaya; since the traditional method of reforming the
life of the Sangha through government supervision was no longer
possible, and because this disability was already resulting in a deterior-
ation of the purity of the monastic life, the matter had to be taken in
hand by those Buddhists who had a mind to, 'without tarrying for any'.
The Ramanya sect represents also a return to a basic 'pure' form of
Buddhist life, in contrast to the amalgam of Buddhist and indigenous
forms which is characteristic of Sinhalese Buddhism. In the years 1872
and 1876 two more pirivenas were established, the Vidyadaya and the
Vidyalankara; these are today Buddhist institutions of university
status. In the early 1870s the opposition of learned Buddhists to the
ideas and values and social practices of the West, which they regarded
as selfish and immoral, took the form of public disputations with
Christian missionaries and clergymen, and in these public controversies
some of the latter were worsted (Ludowyk, 1962; 277: Men dis, 1963;
164). Then in 1880 Colonel Olcott, of the American Theosophical
Society, arrived in Ceylon to take part in the defence of Buddhism,
Ceylon in the British colonial period 399
and was instrumental in gathering together a number oflay Buddhists
of Ceylon to form the Buddhist Theosophical Society, an organisation
which has played an important part in Buddhist revival in Ceylon
since that time.
Moreover, there were British officials and administrators in the
Civil Service of Ceylon who, in the tradition oflearning, research and
writing which has often characterised their kind, developed an
appreciation of the Buddhist culture of Ceylon. Among their number
were T. W. Rhys-Davids, the great Pali scholar, W. T. Stace, the
philosopher, and Leonard Woolf. These and others like them were,
says Ludowyk 'an intelligent, responsible and enlightened body of
men', who, he adds, 'came closest of all their fellows to knowing and
understanding the country where they served' (Ludowyk, 1962; 232).

7.41 India and Burma in the British colonial period

Considerable space has been devoted to the one relatively small country
of Ceylon, partly because the clash of Buddhist and modern
Western influences can be most clearly seen there, and is most fully
documented, and partly because of the important influence which
Ceylon has in modern times exerted in other parts of the Buddhist
world.
One of these has been India. The most notable movement ofBuddhist
growth in India took place in the period of independence, after the end
of British colonial rule (7.46). But mention must be made at this point
of the founding and growth in India of the Maha Bodhi Society.
India is a predominantly Hindu country, but with its fourteen states and
its 400 million population it includes a variety of religious traditions;
apart from the Muslims, who in the whole subcontinent number
approximately 120 million, there are of course the Jains, the Sikhs, the
Jews, the Christians - and the Buddhists. Some of these Buddhists, in
Bengal and Assam, where Buddhism has never entirely disappeared,
constitute a direct link with the early period of Indian Buddhism.
Others, in Kashmir and the Darjeeling district in north Bengal, are
overspills from Tibet. In the heartland of Buddhism, however, namely
the lower Ganges valley and Bihar, there were so few Buddhists during
the British colonial period as to be negligible. This meant that the
ancient sites connected with the life of the Buddha, notably Gaya, the
400 Religion and Industrial Society
place of the Buddha's enlightenment, had by the nineteenth century
fallen into neglect. In 1885 this fact was pointed out by Sir Edwin
Arnold (the author of the long poem about the Buddha, The Light of
Asia), in a series of articles in the London Telegraph. The British
authorities had restored the temple at Bodh-Gaya, but the place was in
the hands of Hindu Shaivites, who were exploiting it as best they could
as a centre of pilgrimage. A young Buddhist of Ceylon, Anagarika
Dharmapala, then about twenty-one, hearing of this, visited Bodh-
Gaya and was so dismayed at what he saw that he pledged himself to
the task of restoring it to Buddhist hands as a worthy place of pilgrim-
age. He returned to Ceylon in May 1891 and there gathered together a
group which became the Maha Bodhi Society. An international
conference of Buddhists was called together at Bodh-Gaya by the new
society, and representatives came from China, Japan, Ceylon and East
Bengal. The Society set itself the task not only of restoring Bodh-Gaya
as a Buddhist place of pilgrimage but also of making the Buddha-
Dharma known once again throughout India, and even possibly
wherever English was spoken. A journal was launched in the following
year in furtherance of this aim. The Society set up headquarters in
Calcutta, and in the famine of 1897 undertook relief work, appealing
for help to all the Buddhist countries of Asia. Further branches of the
Society were opened in 1900, two in India, at Madras and Kusinagara,
and one in Ceylon, at Anuradhapura. Substantial financial help came
from wealthy Americans. A series oflegal actions were undertaken for
securing the temple at Bodh-Gaya for the possession of Buddhists, but
these were resisted by the Hindu landlord, and in spite of the powerful
advocacy given by Sir Edwin Arnold and Colonel Olcott (7.40) the
Society had no success in this direction during the period of British rule.
However, the publicity given to the case aroused the interest of
educated Bengalis in Buddhism; a Buddhist vihara was built in
Calcutta, and was opened in 1920; and at Sarnath near Benares, the
place of the Buddha's first public preaching of the Dharma, which by
the early twentieth century had become a grazing ground for pigs, and
surrounded by jungle, a Buddhist vihara was built in 1931, to which
were added in subsequent years a library, a free dispensary, a primary
school and a training college.
During the period of British colonial rule in India Burma also became
a part of the Indian empire: first, the coastal areas of Arakan and of the
south, then the Rangoon area and lower Burma, and fmally, in 1885,
India and Burma in the British colonial period 401
the central area around the capital at Mandalay where the Burmese
kings had their court. They, together with about eighty-five per cent
of the Burmese, were Buddhists. Until 1885, therefore, the Buddhist
Sangha in Burma enjoyed royal patronage and protection. What is
more, the medieval Buddhist cosmology (4.29) was still an important
feature of Burmese popular belief and culture, and according to this the
royal palace and throne represented Mount Meru, the centre of the
cosmos. The defeat and dethronement by the British of the last
Burmese king, Thibaw, constituted an ideological crisis for the mass of
the Burmese Buddhist people, the effects of which have continued in
various forms into recent times. E. Sarkisyanz summarises what it
meant to the Burmese:
When the Palace stopped being a cosmocentric symbol, the traditional
semi-Ptolemiac world conception centering on Mount Meru collapsed.
With it fell the prototype of the historical Burmese state. The word
'revolution' (in an astronomical sense) is first used by Copernicus and
Galilei. As in the Occident, so in Burma the history of political revolu-
tions corresponds to the process of man's turning away from cosmic
archetypes associated with 'Ptolemaic' views of the universe. Ever since
the Mandalay Palace is no longer the centre of the universe, ever since
the constellations are no longer grouped around the Cosmic Mountain
Meru, Burma's society and culture was being shaken by revolutionary
transformations when that Buddhism which had been a 'cosmological
morality rooted in spatial-temporal regularity' came to be questioned.
(Sarkisyanz, 1965; 107)
In this way a political and military event - the British defeat of
Thibaw and the capture of Mandalay - had had an ideological and
religious entail reaching far beyond its apparently 'secular' character.
Religion in Burma had come to be identified with a certain kind of
cosmology; the dislocation of the cosmology has to some extent meant
the weakening of traditional religion among the Burmese. Another
consequence has been a predisposition towards the support of Messianic
movements which have arisen in various parts of Burma from time to
time, for associated with this cosmological tragedy is the notion of a
coming Buddha-king (Buddha-Raja). But, as Sarkisyanz comments, it
was also possible for many Burmese Buddhists to view the end of the
Mandalay kingdom rationally, as another example of the Buddhist
notion of the impermanence of all things. In fact, having to accustom
themselves to a Buddhism without a royal 'cosmocentric' patronage,
402 Religion and Industrial Society
many Burmese Buddhists have returned to the more rational basic
principles of the Theravada, and this has in turn helped towards the
modern renaissance of Buddhism in Burma. Another contributory
factor in Buddhist revival was the struggle for independence from
British colonial rule, in which Buddhism was seen to be a large part of
the cultural heritage the Burmese were struggling to maintain and
defend against what to them was decadent and immoral Western
materialism. As in Ceylon, so in Burma also there were among British
civil servants men of scholarly bent who developed great sympathy
for the religion and culture of the people they lived among; a notable
example was Fielding Hall, whose book The Soul of a People, with its
very perceptive and sensitive presentation of Burmese Buddhism, was
influential in the reawakening of the Burmese to the value of their
religious heritage. One fmal point to be noted in connection with the
struggle for independence into which the Burmese were forced by
British colonial rule is that as this developed during the early part of the
twentieth century it tended to bring Burmese Buddhism into an
alliance with Asian Marxism, which, because the latter was anti-
imperialist, anti-capitalist and anti-Christian, had a strong appeal for
many of the younger Burmese Buddhist intellectuals, and the effects of
this alliance have continued into the life of independent Burma.

7.42 China and Vietnam

Revival and reform have been characteristics ofBuddhism in China and
Vietnam during the modern period, especially since the revolution of
1911 which brought the Republic of China into being. Buddhist
thought and practice, so long dominated by Ch' an (5.23) which placed
a low value on intellectual pursuits, was challenged by a new intellectual
climate in which whatever was conservative and traditional was being
rejected, and more especially in the 1920s by the infusion of Marxist
ideas into the Chinese 'cultural renaissance'. In response to the challenge
a remarkable Chinese Buddhist monk emerged, named T' ai-hsu
(1889-1947), who succeeded in rallying his fellow Buddhists and
inspiring them to carry out a programme of reform. His aims are
expressed in his own words as follows: 'Aroused by the destruction of
temples ... I launched the movement to defend the religion, propagate
the faith, reform the order and promote education' (Chan, 1953; 56).
China and Vietnam 403
In 1929 he organised the Chinese Buddhist Society, which by 1947
had a membership qf over four-and-a-half million. He emphasised the
international character of Buddhism and opened up new contacts
between Chinese Buddhists and those of other Asian countries
particularly Ceylon, Thailand and Japan. It was his conviction that
'Buddhist doctrine is fully capable of uniting all the existing forms of
civilisation, and should spread throughout the world so that it may
become a compass, as it were, for the human mind' (Hamilton, 1946;
297). Institutes for the training of Buddhist leaders were set up in
various parts of China, with the aim of reforming the Buddhist Sangha,
and iu these Institutes large numbers of new leaders were trained
(Ch'en, 1964; 456f.), and Buddhist texts were studied in a way that
had not happened for a very long time. A notable feature of the revival
which was thus stimulated was the appearance of increasing numbers of
Buddhist periodicals devoted largely to the exposition of Buddhist
thought and to the refuting of critics. Between 1920 and 1935 fifty-
eight such periodicals were in publication.
The revival was apparent in two areas of Chinese Buddhism in
particular: a rediscovery of the monistic philosophy of Mahayana
Buddhism and the awakening of interest in Buddhist philosophical
ideas among young intellectuals; and secondly, a revival of religious
life in the Pure Land tradition (5.22), with a growth of new societies
which existed for the purpose of revitalising what had become merely
formal outward practices and the achievement of deeper religious
experience and holiness oflife. In the 1930s between sixty and seventy
per cent of China's lay Buddhists are estimated to have belonged to
these Pure Land groups (Ch' en, 1964; 460).
Stimulated to some extent by this Buddhist revival in China, similar
movements appeared from 1920 onwards in Vietnam. These move-
ments took formal shape in 'Associations for Buddhist Studies'
founded in Saigon in 1931, in Hue in 1932, and in Hanoi in 1934. In
these laymen and monks met together to work for the purifying of
monastic life and the return to proper Buddhist disciplines, and for the
training of a new generation of pious and well-instructed monks (Mai-
Tho-Truyen, 1959; 807). Numerous periodicals and translations of
Buddhist canonical texts, both Theravadin and Mahayanist, began to
be published, using Vietnamese rather than, as in past days, Chinese
language. Here as in China there was a great revival of interest in the
devotional Buddhism of the Pure Land school, and a decline in the
404 Religion and Industrial Society
influence of the Ch' an. The movement came to a halt at the outbreak
of the Second World War, but was resumed in 1948. From about 1950
Buddhist monks from Vietnam began to go abroad tostudy,muchmore
than formerly, mainly to India, Ceylon and the West. At about this
time also various organisations and periodicals aimed at the modern-
isation of Vietnamese Buddhism began to appear. In 1951, after a
national conference of representatives from the Buddhist organisations
of northern, central and southern Vietnam, the All-Vietnam Buddhist
Association was formed. Since 1963 the Buddhists ofVietnam have had
unwelcome world publicity thrust upon them. In that year, President
Ngo Dinh Diem, a Roman Catholic in control of a nation a substantial
proportion of whom are Buddhists, unwisely attempted to forbid the
public celebration of the Buddhist festival ofWesak. (This represented
a far more serious religious affront than if the President of the United
States, for instance, were to forbid the celebration of Christmas.) The
Buddhists protested; the government took military action against a
number of Saigon pagodas. From then onwards Buddhist monks
have been increasingly drawn into public affairs in Vietnam. InNovember
1963 the Diem regime was overthrown, and the popularity which
Buddhist leaders enjoyed after this might have made possible the
rebuilding of a Buddhist Vietnamese society after these long years of
French colonial and Roman Catholic domination. American inter-
vention in the affairs of Vietnam has, however, at the time of writing,
physically and morally devastated the country. Buddhist monks and
nuns have now achieved notoriety by their protests against this foreign
destruction of their culture and people in order to defend American
democracy. Their protest has frequently taken the form of suicide by
self-immolation. The Vietnamese monks and nuns who make this
ultimate form of protest for the sake of their religion are reviving an
ancient Chinese Mahayana cult. It is a practice which possibly origin-
ated in India and made its way with the Mahayana to China. An
Indian ascetic is said to have burned himself to death in Athens around
the year 20 B.C. (A knowledge of this or some similar event is perhaps
reflected in St Paul's words: 'Though I give my body to be burned,
but have not love, it profits me nothing.') A Ceylonese Buddhist,
W alpola Rahula, commenting on this practice, acknowledges that
those monks who took this course did so 'in order to protect and
perpetuate their religion' and that it demanded of them 'immense
courage, faith, determination, inner purification, and development
China and Vietnam 405
through lone purification', but that nevertheless 'it is not in keeping
with the pure and original teaching of the Buddha.' However, he adds,
'it is better to bum oneself than to bum others.'

7.43 Japan, 1868-1947

The circumscribed condition of the Buddhist Sangha during the long
period of the Tokugawa regime (1603-1867) (6.59) prevented any
growth, but with an assured, fixed income the Sangha did just keep
alive. In 1868, with the beginning of the Meiji (literally 'Enlightened
Government') period, the Sangha was disendowed and for a while even
appeared to be in danger of being destroyed:
A reign of persecution was started. Buddhists were driven out of the syn-
cretic Shinto sanctuaries which they had been serving for ten centuries
or more. Buddhist statues, scriptures, and decorations in those temples
were taken out and set on fire or thrown into the water. The 'purifica-
tion' of the Shinto temples was achieved and the severance of Buddhism
and Shinto ruthlessly carried out, thus bringing to an end Ryobu Shinto,
which had ruled the faith of the nation for ten centuries. (Anesaki, 1930;
334£)
Buddhism survived, however. The danger stirred leading monks to
come together in common action to preserve their religious life and
traditions, and after a while the frenzy of Shinto restoration abated.
Buddhist ideas and practices were deeply rooted among the people,
and the effect upon Buddhist leaders of their initial period of persecution
was to stir them not only to resist, but also to a new and more vigorous
advocacy of their faith. The opening up of Japanese life to the outside
world once again which was a feature of the regime brought a decade
of full exposure to European thought, culture and religion, but it was
followed by a reaction against Europeanisation and Christianity. This
was a conscious reaction,expressed through patriotic organisations created
for the purpose, and a feature of the movement was the re-affirm-
ing of the religious traditions of Japan, especially of Buddhism. This
special valuation of Buddhism was due to the fact that its philosophy
was considered to have a special and striking affinity with certain trends
in advanced European secular thought, namely the evolution theory
of Darwin, the agnosticism of Spencer and the logic of Hegel. Thus
Buddhism gradually regained its status as one of the major religious
406 Religion and Industrial Society
traditions of Japan, a status which in 1868 it had seemed in danger of
losing altogether, although from the closing years of the nineteenth
century onwards a strong opposition to all religion began to arise.
This was from the ultra-nationalists, a group of heterogeneous elements
whose common theme was described as Japanism' (Nippon Shugi) and
whose creed was 'the glorification of the state and the rejection of all
spiritual ideals aiming at anything beyond it'. It was this spirit which led
Japan into the Second World War, and it is important to remember
that this happened in spite of the place which Buddhism had held in the
life of the nation for some centuries. By the second quarter of the
twentieth century Buddhism was still a recognised feature of the life
ofJapan, but it could no longer be said to be exercising any pronounced
or positive influence on the national life. Its condition in 1928 was
described by Anesaki as follows:

It is hopelessly divided and each branch ofJapanese Buddhism remains

faithful too much to the subtleties of its ancient teaching, not simply the
spiritual legacy of its founder but much more its traditions and conven-
tions accumulated during the centuries of its existence. Ecclesiastical
Buddhism, represented by its sects and sub-sects amounting to nearly
sixty, still retains much of the indolence it acquired under the high
patronage of the government which it enjoyed during the past three
centuries. The reinvigorated Buddhism of several revivals and various
social works is almost entirely the work of those outside the organised
bodies, or of those who have revolted against them. (Finally he adds] Its
weakness in face of the industrial regime is too evident to need comment.
(Anesaki, 1930;406£)

7.44 Thailand in the modern period

Like Japan, Thailand ('the land of the free') reached the twentieth
century without having been subjected to Western colonial treatment.
Unlike Japan, Thailand had a tradition of Buddhist rulers, and of royal
patronage and protection of the Buddhist Sangha; in other words, of
Buddhism as the state religion. The modern tradition of royal patron-
age may be regarded as having begun in 1782 with King Rama I who
in the first decade of his reign promulgated ten edicts declaring to the
Thai nation his intention to purge the Sangha of unworthy members,
to purify monastic practice, and to encourage study and meditation.
Thailand in the modern period 407
Broadly speaking this has continued to be the policy of the Thai royal
house to the present day. Prince Dhanivat writing in 1965 expressed it
thus: 'The constructive protection of the Church given by the mon-
archy lies principally in the civil aspect wherein the state supports the
Church in the performance of its duties and in education.' It is
customary for kings of Thailand, like the great majority of the male
population, to spend a period in their youth as members of the Sangha,
living in a monastery; in this way they come to have a close personal
interest in the affairs of the monks. There is also a more formal link
between the royal government and the Sangha in the Religious Affairs
Department of the Ministry of Education. This culture, in the form of
art, architecture, and literature, is almost entirely Buddhist, and the
religious element is much in evidence in public life in the form of
processions with banners and music, and temple festivals at set times in
the year. For the majority of the people of modern Thailand Buddhism
has provided them with the framework oflife, a heritage which 'meets
emotional needs and provides answers to the mysteries of life....
supplies a doctrine of man, a metaphysics, a moral law, and an ultimate
goal' (Wells, 1960; 6).
Only recently, however, has Thailand begun to experience the effects
of modern technology and Western secularism. This has occurred mainly
in the urban areas, and notably in the capital, Bangkok, since the end
of the Second World War. But industrialisation and the secularising of
life that usually goes with it have so far touched the Thai people as a
whole only very lightly. A visitor to Bangkok in 1958 was told by a
university lecturer that 'extremely few Buddhists had any real intel-
lectual knowledge of the Buddhist scriptures, and that the religion did
not make great demands on them. Superstition had almost become a
religion in its own right, and as a directive force was confused with
Buddhism. Astrology governed the life of thousands' (Thomson,
1961; 125). It is therefore difficult to forecast how Thai Buddhism
would respond to a thoroughgoing encounter with Western secular-
ism, and no other country in Buddhist Asia can serve as a guide.

7.45 Ceylon since independence

Buddhism had been disabled institutionally and handicapped education-
ally during the period of colonial rule in Ceylon, more perhaps than in
408 Religion and Industrial Society
any other country in Asia, for Europeanisation had been greatest in
Ceylon. These were disabilities which could not easily be removed.
The upper classes of Ceylon, to whom the British handed over the
reins of government, were English-educated, highly W esternised and
in some senses more European than Sinhalese. The view of one of
them was that Ceylon was 'a little bit of England'. But the majority of
the middle class had remained predominantly Sinhalese and Buddhist,
and it was these who now looked for the restoration of Buddhism's
place in the life of Ceylon. The revival which had begun in small ways
in the mid-nineteenth century began to bear fruit. But it was by no
means an automatic process, nor was it initiated by the ruling class of
the newly independent Ceylon in any way comparable to the royal
patronage of religion in the pre-European period, or in contemporary
Thailand. To some extent it was the disappointment of the middle-
class, largely Sinhalese-educated Buddhists of Ceylon, that more was
not being done to restore Buddhist values and institutions to their
proper place in the life of the nation that stirred them to action and was
responsible for an accelerated revival of Buddhism.
It was in Ceylon in 1950 that the World Fellowship of Buddhists was
formed, with the aim of bringing together Buddhists of various
countries in a common endeavour to promote Buddhist ideas and
values throughout the world. But there was much to be done in this
direction in Ceylon itsel£ An All-Ceylon Buddhist Congress had been
organised and in April1954 this body set up a Committee ofEnquiry,
'to enquire into the present state of Buddhism in Ceylon and to report
on the conditions necessary to improve and strengthen the position of
Buddhism, and the means whereby those conditions may be fulfilled'.
The Committee was made up of six leading monks and six laymen. It
held sittings throughout Ceylon between June 1954 and May 1956,
and travelled approximately 6,300 miles. Its Report published in
February 1956, under the significant title The Betrayal of ]!uddhism,
while recognising that the most creative and fruitful period of Buddhist
history in Ceylon had been prior to 1505 and the coming of the
Portuguese, did not envisage a return to the pattern of state Buddhism
or the restoration of institutions that had perished under colonial rule.
The Ceylon historian G. C. Mendis comments on the Report that 'the
Buddhist Commissioners in many respects make a definite break with
the past'. The spirit of the recommendations is summed up in the
Report's final paragraph:
Ceylon since independence 409
... we wish to state with all the authority at our command that this
struggle which the Buddhists must make is not a struggle to obtain a
favoured position at the expense of other religious groups, however
much we may have suffered at their hands in former times. We ask for
... the right to be allowed to profess and practise our religion without
let or hindrance, material or spiritual, secular or religious, in a free and
democratic Ceylon.
In the years since 1956 there has been a continuing sense among the
sincere Buddhists of Ceylon that there was much to be done - in the
purifying and reforming of the Sangha, to begin with. This was
brought home dramatically by the murder of the Prime Minister of
Ceylon, S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, by a bhikkhu who had been
disappointed in his ambition of preferment. This event produced a
shock of horror and a public demand for the purging of the Sangha.
On the other hand lay Buddhists have been active in the rediscovery of
Buddhist teaching and practice, especially in relating the Abhidhamma
(3.22; 6.43) to modern thought and in emphasising the importance of
meditation. A notable example of this is a work by a retired member of
the Government Medical Service, W. F. Jayasuriya, in which he
relates Buddhist psycho-physical analysis and moral philosophy to
modern medical and scientific knowledge (Jayasuriya, 1963).
Ceylon has also played a larger part than any other Buddhist country
in making known to some of the non-Buddhist areas of the world the
principles and practice of Buddhism. Ceylonese monks have left their
own land to reside in London and Washington and other Western
cities, as well as India; and monthly journals such as World Buddhism
published in Colombo are read by increasing numbers in Europe,
America and other parts of the English-speaking world.

7.46 India since independence

In the post-war period Buddhism has certainly risen in status in India.
This has been at two different levels of Indian society. First, among the
intellectuals, and here a characteristic case would be that of India's
post-war Prime Minister, Pandit Nehru. Of a Kashmiri Brahman
family, he, like many of Ceylon's post-war leaders, was as much
English as Asian in his education, tastes and outlook. At his death in
1964 he was cremated with Hindu rites, but during his lifetime he does
410 Religion and Industrial Society
not seem to have been a Hindu by belief or practice. He himself said
that the one religion which attracted him was Buddhism. Another
indication of the respect which Buddhism is given among the educated
class in India was the publication in 1956 by the government of India
of a special volume, 2,500 Years ofBuddhism, in honour of the Buddha-
Jayanti, or 2,500th anniversary of the Buddha's enlightenment (or
victory, jayanti', over Mara the Evil One) according to the Theravada
reckoning. A large number of Indian scholars contributed to the
volume and the President of India, Dr Radhakrishnan (who himself
has translated and commented on Buddhist texts) wrote a foreword
acknowledging India's continuing debt to the Buddha.
The other level at which there has been a Buddhist recovery in
India is among the former 'untouchable' castes (4.20). This may really
be said to have begun with the conversion of Dr B. R. Ambedkar, a
cabinet minister in the government of the post-war, secular state of
India, and the leader of the untouchables. On 14 October 1956, at
Nagpur, he formally declared his adherence to Buddhism, together
with a large number of the movement which he led. This event was
followed by a fast-growing number of similar conversions among
untouchables, and Buddhist monks began to arrive to undertake the
task of instructing these new adherents and exhorting them to fulfil
their duties as Buddhist laymen. By 1965 there were about four
million ex-untouchable caste Buddhists in India, mainly in Maharash-
tra, but similar movements are going on in other states of the Indian
Republic. Sangharakshita, a Buddhist monk from north-east India who
has had much to do with this new movement, has commented that
formerly these untouchable castes, as the result of centuries of con-
ditioning by caste Hinduism, regarded themselves as low and despicable.
'But with conversion to Buddhism all that is changed at a stroke,
overnight.... For the first time he feels free. As a result of this feeling
of freedom, of liberation from age-old shackles, a tremendous energy
is released which finds expression in all fields of life, social, political,
cultural and educational, as well as religious.'
A final brief word must be said concerning Tibetan Buddhism which
now fmds itself transplanted to Indian soil. Although China claims
Tibet politically, it is with India and South-East Asia that Tibet's real
affmities lie. When, in the 1950s, the modern Chinese war-lords
overran the territory of Tibet, it was to India that her people, both
monks and laymen, fled. There they found refuge from the persecution
India since independence 411
they experienced in their own land under the Chinese communists,
and there they found a welcome from a country which, while itself no
longer Buddhist, yet takes pride in one of its greatest sons of old, the
Buddhist emperor Asoka (3.26). In the hill country of north India
Tibetan Buddhists are fashioning a Buddhist community, the existence
of which within the borders of India may well be a factor of potential
importance in the future of Indian Buddhism.

7.47 Burma since independence

In post-war Burma, with its long tradition of Buddhist history and its
large Buddhist majority in the population, the story has been rather
different both from that of Ceylon and oflndia. In 1947, when Burma
achieved independence, the days of the Burmese kings were not so very
long past. It was only sixty-two years since Thibaw had been defeated
and dethroned by the British and the palace at Mandalay abandoned,
and although there would not have been many in 1947 who still
remembered the days of the Burmese kings there would have been
some; and there were certainly many, who in 1947 were in the prime
of life, who had heard their fathers speak of those days. While there
had, under British rule, been an acceptance by Buddhists of the
new situation and a coming to terms with it, there were also strong
enough memories of the Burmese Buddhist kingdom to provide
powerful hopes that the old days of Buddhism were to return with
independence.
It is this which explains the great popularity of the pious Buddhist,
U Nu, who was Prime Minister of Burma for most of the period up to
1962. It explains too the importance attached by so many of the
Burmese Buddhists (eighty-five per cent of the total population of the
Union of Burma) to the idea of making Buddhism the state religion.
This was in fact achieved during the last years of U N u' s premiership,
against the opposition of minority religious groups - and paradoxically
with a great display of armed force. On the day the necessary Bill came
before the Parliament of the Union in Rangoon the streets of the city
were deserted for fear of the violence that was expected, and it was the
tanks and armoured cars and infantrymen of the Burmese Army who
were most in evidence. Soon after U Nu was deposed by the Army
coup of March 1962, the measure was withdrawn. A great deal of the
412 Religion and Industrial Society
agitation for making Buddhism the state religion had come from the
more vociferous sections of the Sangha; under the Army regime from
1962 these have been resentful but less demonstrative.
Meanwhile in quieter ways, the recovery of Buddhism after the
dislocation it suffered under British rule and its adaptation to the
modern world has gone on. There has been a continued interest in and
study of the Abhidhamma among the more learned monks, and govern-
ment examinations in the Abhidhamma are held, for which all are
encouraged to sit. There has been an even greater emphasis upon the
practice of meditation in certain sections of the lay community.
Meditation centres for laymen have sprung up in many places, notably
near the great centres of Rangoon and Mandalay, and increasingly
these are resorted to by Buddhist civil servants, teachers, and others of
the professional or semi-professional class. A notable piece of missionary
work on behalf of Buddhism was undertaken by a retired service
officer, Colonel Ba Than (now Dhammika - ? 'evangelist' - U Ba
Than). Unlike many Buddhists in Burma who have talked of the
importance of missionary work in the West, Ba Than has turned his
attention to the non-Buddhist tribes of the frontier and hill areas of
Burma. A Buddhist writer in the Rangoon Guardian commends the
realism of U Ba Than's enterprise, for, he comments 'the future of
the Buddhasasana [Buddhist religion] in Burma is dark and gloomy.
There is much to be done for the renascence of the Buddhist church.
Young men are becoming sceptical about the teaching of the monks
and their ignorance of Buddhism is appalling.' This was perhaps an
unnecessarily pessimistic picture but it expressed the mood of some of
the more thoughtful Buddhists of Burma.
The Sixth Buddhist Council held in Rangoon in 1956-7 to com-
memorate the Buddha-Jayanti year was partly an attempt to provide
Burmese Buddhism with a stimulus, partly an attempt to assure the
Burmese people that their government under U Nu as Prime Minister
was taking seriously its role as protector and promoter of the faith. In
addition the government had established the Buddha Sasana Council
to co-ordinate the various aspects of encouraging and propagating the
religion, some of which have already been mentioned, such as Buddhist
studies, missionary work, maintaining of pagodas, and so on. All this
is based on the assumption expressed by a Burmese cabinet minister,
U Win: 'The prosperity of a religion ... depends on the presence of
a ruler who is genuinely inclined to promote it.' This assumption is an
Burma since independence 413
inheritance from Burma's past. It may or may not be true of the modern
world; its unqualified acceptance would throw serious doubt on the
prospects for the survival of Buddhism in those countries whose
governments are, at best, religiously uncommitted.

7.48 New religions ofJapan since 1947

On New Year's Day 1946, soon after the defeat ofJapan in the Second
World War, the emperor ofJapan broadcast a message to his people in
which he renounced his divine status as emperor. The tie between
Shinto religion and the Japanese state was thus officially brought to an
end. In the course of the change-over to democratic institutions, the
United States General MacArthur gave permission for the Japanese to
form religious groups quite freely, however they might wish. All
religious denominations in Japan are required to register with the
Ministry of Education, and in 1945 the number registered was forty-
three, made up of thirteen Shinto, twenty-eight Buddhist and two
Christian. By 1951 this had increased to a total of720 made up of258
Shinto-type, 260 Buddhist, 46 Christian and 156 'others'. This looks
like an explosion of some magnitude, but can be explained to some
extent as the result of greater variety in classification, and also of the
registering of groups which had previously existed only 'underground'
and had not registered. Ten years later, in 1961, the total number of
denominations had settled down to about 170, as against 43 in 1945.
When all the necessary allowances have been made the fact remains that
a very considerable number of new religious movements or sects have
come into existence in Japan in the post-war period.
Undoubtedly one of the basic factors has been the 'crisis of meaning'
which the Japanese people experienced in the years following 1945.
The shock of Japan's defeat, and the loss over-night of the national
figure-head, the divine emperor, have produced a sense of loss of all
stability. Pere Heinrich Dumoulin suggests that Japan's defeat in the
last war and the subsequent collapse of a traditional order has shaken
many to the core so that the chaos of post-war time is also experienced
as a personal crisis of existence' (Dumoulin, 1963; 21).
Similarly Miss Carmen Blacker, on the basis of her personal
observation in Japan, notes that all the new religions appear to have as
their starting point the feeling of anxiety, insecurity, and the fear of the
414 Religion and Industrial Society
unknown which afflicts so many people in post-war Japan (Blacker,
1962). There are few social services (except for those provided by
certain large organisations for their own employees) and little security.
To the shock of defeat and the unsettled post-war conditions has thus
to be added the fact that living is insecure. Such general conditions as
these frequently produce a situation of acute individual crisis for the
Japanese, a feeling of being at the end of one's tether, of not knowing
where to tum; in the Japanese expression, the experience of 'all eight
ways blocked'. It is this personal crisis which usually provides the
occasion for entry into one of the new religious sects, which are
'religious' in the very general sense that they offer their adherents a
way of coping with the difficulties of life. Usually the moment of
personal crisis is observed by some friend or neighbour who is already
a member of one of the new groups, and the opportunity is seized of
commending its attractions to the potential convert.
Common elements in the appeal of the new sects are: first, a very
simple, positive message which forms the central teaching, often
consisting of emphasis upon some single virtue, such as faith or
humility, as the universal solvent of problems; and second, the prospect
of actual mundane benefits here and now. The latter is often made
possible by the large funds which many of the new sects have built up.
There is no clear line of demarcation between what the West regards as
'religious' and 'secular' concerns. For many people in Japan the appeal
of the new sects lies in their ability to provide alternative solutions 'to
the economic as well as the spiritual ills of unorganised workers'.
Sheldon comments: 'Labour leaders complain that when union mem-
bers are converted they lose their fighting spirit.' The majority of the
converts to the cults are of low social status. Here one would seem to
have confirmation of the Marxist view of religion as an expression of
the protest of the oppressed soul (that is, socially and economically
oppressed), and of Troeltsch's view that new religious sects most
commonly find their adherents among the dispossessed.
A futher reason for the appeal of the sects lies precisely in their
newness. The old religious traditions of Japan are regarded by many
industrial workers as spiritually bankrupt. On the other hand Western
religion- in its traditional Christian forms- is not seen by the Japanese
worker or peasant as having much relevance to his situation (Howe,
1964). Norbeck points out that 'Total membership in the numerous
Christian sects totals only about seven hundred thousand persons, less
New religions ofJapan since 1947 415
than the membership of any one of a number of the new Japanese sects
that have risen to prominence since the end ofWorld War II' (Norbeck,
1965; 18).
The new sects can be classified according to three main types,
although there are no clear distinctions; first there are those which are in
some way derived from a Buddhist milieu, historically, and this is
usually the Nichiren (6.48) type of Buddhism (the least 'Buddhist' and
most Japanese); second, there are those which stem from the Shinto
tradition in some way; and third, those with no clear historical roots in
any one tradition. Hammer describes post-war Japanese religion as
both 'a living museum and a living laboratory'; that is, new blends of
faith are constantly being thrown up out of old materials to form what
he describes as 'transitional compounds' (Hammer, 1961). Even
those sects which have some historical connection with Nichiren
Buddhism or with Shinto display their eclectic quality.
The largest numerically and the best known of these newly arisen
sects is the Soka Gakkai (Value-creating academic-society). The move-
ment was founded in 1931 but its leader was put in jail and only in 1945
when he was released did it really begin to grow. By 1965 it claimed a
membership of thirteen million persons. It offers the panacea of faith
to all who fmd themselves in the situation of' all eight ways blocked'.
The object of faith is a sacred formula Namu Myoho Rengekyo
inscribed by the Buddhist leader Nichiren on a strip of paper. It is
strongly nationalistic in character, it has also a strong millenarian
quality and proclaims a coming millennium towards which men must
direct all their efforts. Its appeal is felt largely by small traders, business
men and certain special groups of industrial workers, notably miners.
It has a strong appeal also to young people for whom there is a special
youth corps. The technique by which its converts are won is known as
Shaku baku, and consists of bombarding the potential convert with
high-pressure propaganda until his resistance is overcome and he is
'converted'. A large headquarters at Mount Fuji provides spiritual
refreshment for those who can make the trip from time to time. Its
three most important features are: faith, activity, organisation. The
last of these now includes political organisation, and its vast membership
has enabled it to return its own candidates to parliament. The movement
seems to have no clear political programme, but seeks mainly to fill the
house with men of integrity and 'sound judgment'. It is feared and
disliked by other sections ofJapanese society on account of this political
416 Religion and Industrial Society
activity, especially now that the Soka Gakkai constitutes the third
largest group in parliament, after the Liberals and the Socialists.
While most of the spectacular achievements in the post-war period
are to be found among these new sects of the Soka Gakkai type, the
older traditional faiths have also experienced a mild revival. There has
been a growth of more specifically Shinto sects (with the end of state
Shinto) and among the Buddhists there has been a limited degree of
revival: lay people have learnt to take a more active part in Buddhist
organisations, groups have been organised for study, or fellowship or
retreats; Buddhist scholars have devoted themselves to the reinter-
pretation of Buddhist ideas, and this has helped to bring about a
deepened religious concern; there has also developed a new interest in
Buddhism outside Japan, and an awareness of Buddhism in its inter-
national dimension. It is significant that all this post-war vitality of
religious movements has occurred in the Asian country which has
been undergoing the most rapid industrialisation - so rapid that it is
now a serious and often successful rival to the industrial nations of the
West.

7.49 Buddhism and modern thought

An important and interesting feature of Buddhism in post-war
Ceylon has been the growing literature of exposition of Buddhist
thought, of a fairly popular kind, for English readers both in Ceylon
and elsewhere. It is particularly significant that nowadays this is
produced by both English-speaking monks and laymen; perhaps atleast
as much comes from the latter. Outstanding among such laymen is
Dr G. P. Malalasekere, formerly Professor ofPali at the University of
Ceylon, and more recently the diplomatic representative ofhis country
abroad, first in Moscow and then in London, and a governor of the
School of Oriental and African Studies of London University. He was
one of the lay members of the Buddhist commission of 1954 (7.45),
and the first President of the World Fellowship of Buddhists, which
was founded in Ceylon. Dr Malalasekere' s writings are characterised
by both scientific scholarship of the highest order and a deep conviction
concerning the Buddhist view oflife and its importance for the modern
world. What is noteworthy about the presentation of Buddhist ideas
that is found in his work is the high place he gives to integrating them
Buddhism and modern thought 417
with modern scientific thought. In order to do this effectively, he says,
Buddhist doctrines must be given continual reformulation and re-
interpretation. Moreover, as a Buddhist he welcomes the increasing
attention given by Western scientists to the human mind; it is here that
he fmds the convergence of scientific and Buddhist thought most likely.
It is noteworthy too that much of the writing of this thoroughly
Buddhist scholar and man of affairs reveals a keen concern with the
processes and patterns of contemporary history.
Another important exponent of Buddhism in terms of modern
science is Dr W. F. Jayasuriya, whose book The Psychology and Philo-
sophy of Buddhism is an exposition of the Abhidhamma (3.22) for an
educated English readership and intended to appeal especially to those
who have received some training in science. The book originated in a
series of talks broadcast by Radio Ceylon. The Buddhist Abhidhamma
is expounded as a system of science. The traditional method of analysis
is taken as a starting point: there are four categories in the Buddhist
analysis, namely cognition, mental factors, matter and nibbana. These
four groups are the 'reals'; the first three groups are mundane and
exist in a context of strict causal relationships; the fourth is supra-
mundane, 'existing without cause, and hence external'. Another way of
describing the first three groups, in Buddhist terminology, is to say
they are conditioned phenomena; this is in agreement with (what Jaya-
suriya regards as) 'the deterministic position of most contemporary
scientists that no event is without a cause', for 'if we did not believe in
Causality there would be no Science' (Jayasuriya, 1963; 5). It is the
unique achievement of the Buddha, he claims, to have perceived this
truth more than two thousand years ago. Where Buddhist analysis goes
beyond that of natural science, says Jayasuriya, is in respect of the
fourth category: 'the Buddha claimed in addition that there was one
Unconditioned or Uncaused element, namely Nibbana, which comes
into its own only when we have understood the conditioned
elements.'
Other examples of contemporary lay Buddhist writing could be
quoted, but even from this brief extract it will be seen what is the gen-
eral tenor and direction of such modern exposition. Whether the
agreement between Buddhist Abhidhamma and modern scientific
thought is ultimately as close as such writers would claim or whether
there is only an initial or superficial resemblance makes no difference
to the fact that for many of those to whom such modern Buddhist
418 Religion and Industrial Society
writing is addressed it seems that here is a system of religious thought
and practice which is both scientifically respectable and spiritually
satisfying. It is noteworthy, too, that such laymen of the Theravadin
tradition find the Abhidhamma fully sufficient as a religious and
philosophical system, and see no need to venture further into the field
of metaphysical speculation as the Mahayanists did (4.33-4.35).

Summary and comment on Chapter Seven

Traditional forms of religious belief and practice maintain their
existence in the modern world with varying degrees of vitality: this
much our survey can thus far be said to have shown. We must now
consider whether it is possible to draw any useful conclusions from
so general a survey. In particular, the question arises as to whether it is
possible to suggest any reasons for these variations in vitality, either
within one tradition of religion - between, for example, Thailand and
Ceylon, or Pakistan and Indonesia, or Israel and the United States; or
across the frontiers of religious tradition, as between Japan (where new
religions are booming) and Great Britain (where religious institutions
are mainly old and depressed).
One of the possible lines of inquiry that suggests itself is that of the
varying relations between religion and the state, and what bearing this
relation may have on the vitality of religion in the modern world. If
we look first at the 'Indianised' area of South Asia, that is, those
countries which have in the past come under the cultural influence of
India (India, Pakistan, Ceylon, Burma, Thailand and Indonesia), we
shall be studying an area that is both geographically compact, and also
religiously varied, in the types of tradition represented (Hindu,
Buddhist, Muslim), and also in the varying degrees of vitality within
those traditions. If any useful general conclusions can be drawn con-
cerning the variations in a relatively homogeneous cultural area, they
can then be tested elsewhere.
Geographically, the area is large, but no greater in extent than, say,
the United States. Its economy is mainly rural and agricultural rather
than industrial, although it contains one or two important industrial
areas, mostly in India. Its population is predominantly peasant, but
with a recently emerged, or emerging, middle class, mainly in India,
Ceylon and Indonesia.
Summary and comment on Chapter Seven 419
Within this area Islam is the dominant religious tradition in Pakistan
and Indonesia, with an important minority of about 40 million Muslims
in India. Pakistan has 82 million Muslims, and Indonesia about 88
million, where they form ninety per cent of the population. For Muslims
the question whether the state shall be religious or secular would seem
to be important, in view of the close connection between political and
religious leadership in Islamic tradition, and of the fact that in origin
Islam was, so to speak, the sect that became a state. Islamic theory would
appear to require a form of government which could be described as
'theocratic' (so long as the term is dissociated from its secondary
meaning, that of the rule of a priestly class). In practice, however,
theocracy, if by this we mean government strictly in accordance with
divine precepts, through the medium of the Prophet or his successors
(caliphs), has not been characteristic of Islam since the Umayyads
seized power in A.D. 661 (5.18). Nevertheless, minorities of Muslims
have from time to time affirmed that this is the only form of govern-
ment proper to Islam. In modem times such a minority is to be found
in the 'theocratic' sects: the Bab movement in Persia in the early
nineteenth century (7.37), the Ahmadiya and some Shia groups,
although, as we have seen, some of these are now only very loosely
'Islamic' (7.38).
However, the idea that Islamic religion requires for its proper
fulfilment an Islamic state, even though this be democratic in con-
stitution, found expression in 1947 in the creation of the state of
Pakistan. The twenty years of its existence have not, as we have seen
(7.39), provided much evidence that Islamic religion flourishes in a
modem Islamic state, although it has to be remembered that in the eyes
of some Muslims, Pakistan is still far from being Islamic in fact.
Nevertheless, Pakistan is constitutionally Islamic in a way that
Indonesia is not; yet it would be difficult to maintain that Islam is
healthier or more vigorous in Pakistan.
Indonesian Muslims, the majority of whom do not seem to be very
much concerned about making their country constitutionally Islamic,
have tended to devote their efforts to voluntary Muslim organisations
such as the Muhammadiya and in doing so have in effect given their
assent to an alternative type of relationship between Islamic religion
and the state - namely that of the Muslim individual in a free, demo-
cratic society. This, too, is the relationship which is emerging in Islam
in the Republic of India, which in the view of some observers may
p L,H.R,
420 Religion and Industrial Sodety
prove to be a more significant and important development than that of
Pakistan (7.39).
Turning to the Buddhist countries of South Asia we fmd a somewhat
similar pattern. At one extreme is the classical, medieval pattern which
is still maintained in Thailand, with Buddhism as the state religion and
the necessity for the monarch to be a Buddhist written into the
constitution. At the other extreme is Ceylon, where the medieval
pattern was broken with the coming of European imperial rule, and
where after independence it has not been restored, but instead,
Buddhism is regarded as the way of life practised by the majority of
the citizens in this free democratic republic. In between the two
extremes is Burma, where too the medieval pattern was broken by the
British, and where after independence an attempt was made to restore
it; an attempt which has now been abandoned. Nevertheless there re-
mains a hankering after the medieval idea of the Buddhist-Brahrn.anical
ruler who was also a cosmic figure, and this, as we have seen, has given
rise to sporadic messianic movements. If in the case of Buddhism one
asks where is the religion strongest and most vigorous, it is difficult not
to answer that it is so in Ceylon, where the constitutional Buddhist
state now no longer exists (7.45). In putting the answer thus one has to
allow for the possibility that other factors, besides that of the free
relation between religion and the state in Ceylon, have contributed to
the vitality of Buddhism there. Some that might be considered are:
the longer period in Ceylon in which Western education has been
stimulating Buddhist minds to a new kind of response, compared with
Burma and Thailand; the geographical features which with the building
of roads throughout Ceylon have made easy communication possible,
and produced a community in which ideas can be cross-fertilised more
readily; and perhaps most important, the presence in Ceylon of a
sizeable middle class, the class that tends to be the upholder of tradi-
tional religion and also tends to produce progressive restatements of its
ideas and attitudes.
It is worth noticing that of these factors in Ceylon which may be
held to have contributed to the vitality of Buddhism there, two are
found also in Indonesia: one is, as has already been mentioned, that
there is no official state patronage oflslam; the other is the emergence
of a middle class which has promoted new religious activities and
re-formulations of orthodox belie£
In this matter of the relationship between religion and the state a
Summary and comment on Chapter Seven 421
tentative conclusion may therefore be suggested: that the vitality of
a religious tradition is not enhanced by too close an identification with
the state. On the other hand attention has to be given to the fact that it
is equally unlikely to be enhanced where the religion is subject to
persecution by the state. The prospect for Buddhist religious life in Tibet
is such that Tibetans, both monks and laymen, continue to escape when
they can to the more congenial atmosphere of India, where Tibetan
Buddhism is managing to maintain its existence. In the U.S.S.R., while
the Orthodox Church continues to exist, although in a much reduced
and circumscribed form, religious persecution especially of the
Protestant sects continues sporadically. At the time of writing com-
munications reaching the Western Churches from the Baptists of the
Soviet Union reveal a continuing campaign by the authorities against
them over the past five years, a campaign which has taken the more
extreme forms of persecution, imprisonment and torture.
The optimum conditions for the future free development of religious
life might therefore be thought to exist in those countries of the non-
communist world where religious institutions are free from state
patronage or state control. The most obvious example of such a
situation is in the United States. Certainly religious institutions appear
to be more lively and more widely supported there than in those
countries of the West where Christianity or Judaism receives state
patronage and protection - in .Britain, for example, or Israel. It can be
argued, however, that in this connection appearances in the United
States are misleading. Bryan Wilson, for instance, suggests that there
are special reasons for the success of institutional religion in that
country, and that these are closely connected with the fact that
religious institutions provide the most convenient form of social
'belonging', of identifying oneself as a complete American, in a
society which is very mobile, both socially and geographically. He
takes a critical view of the religiously superficial nature of most of the
booming religious institutions, and adds the (mainly impressionistic)
comment that the United States is 'a country in which instrumental
values, rational procedures and technical methods have gone furthest,
and the country in which the sense of the sacred, the sense of the
sanctity of life, and deep religiosity are most conspicuously absent'
(Wilson, 1966).
This brings us to the issue which provides the most important single
problem in the study of religion in its modem context throughout the
422 Religion and Industrial Sodety
world, especially in industrial society, namely that of the phenomenon
which has come to be known as secularisation, and how it is to be regard-
ed.
The problem arises from the fact that the term as used in this
connection has conflicting connotations. For Wilson it means 'the
process whereby religious thinking practice and institutions lose social
significance' (1966; xiv). He acknowledges, however, that the same
range of phenomena which he interprets in this way may be seen by
other observers in a different light. Those who regard religion, as some
sociologists do, as a necessary function of any human society (so that
without some form of religion, quasi-religion, or other functional
substitute for religion the society concerned would disintegrate), would
see the present decline in support for the institutional forms and practices
of religion in the West as a phase of transition between one pattern of
institutionalised religion and another, and not a final evaporation of all
religious concern. Certainly, as will have become apparent from this
introductory study, this is not an unfamiliar situation in the history of
religion; as one religious structure disintegrates it is often, though not
always, succeeded by another. This functionalist argument, from the
nature of religious history in the past and throughout the world, is
countered by Wilson with the assertion that though human societies
until now may have needed some sort of religious system to provide
social and psychological cohesion, this cannot be accepted as an argu-
ment concerning what is happening now, for, he says, human needs
can change; or at least they do not necessarily continue to be felt in the
same way. But he acknowledges, and it is in the light of the religious
history of mankind a very important acknowledgement, that there is a
problem which is left unsolved when men in a modem industrial
society have no religious framework to life, and have to live 'in a
world in which ultimate explanations and ultimate satisfactions are
denied them'. In saying this he is implicitly acknowledging the strength
of the objection that might be made against his view that religion may
cease to be one of man's needs: namely, that he has made the entirely
gratuitous assumption that it is proven that religion is not a permanent
need of man. This is by no means proven; the run of the historical
evidence, including that from modem times, is against it,andtheonusof
prooflies with those who would challenge the functionalist view. Even
in the case of modem Europe the evidence is ambiguous and capable of
more than one interpretation.
Summary and comment on Chapter Seven 423
Harvey Cox, in his book The Secular City, has in fact suggested that
what is happening in the modern West is the liberation of religion
from mythological and quasi-magical ways of thinking and acting, and
the liberation of religious life and practice from the ecclesiastical forms
in which it had become imprisoned. In his view 'secularisation' must
be clearly distinguished from 'secularism'; the latter is an ideology or a
quasi-religion, dogmatic, exclusive and intolerant as ideologies
usually are. Secularisation on the other hand, which is a term to
describe what is happening to conventional religion in the modern
world, according to Cox, is a continuation of the process begun in
Biblical religion, whereby man's life is set free from the social tyrannies
and false world-views of paganism.
It is significant that something of the same kind of process which
Cox sees with Christian eyes is happening in Ceylon, where the
introduction of modern scientific knowledge and medicine is having a
corroding effect on the old indigenous pagan beliefs and practices,
which Buddhism also has been slowly andquietlyunderminingthrough
the centuries. Modern thought is not having this effect on Buddhism
however, but rather is enabling it to be expressed less ambiguously, and
without the admixture of paganism which has characterised it in the
past. New social and educational patterns may well lead, however, to a
restructuring of Buddhism in Ceylon, and elsewhere; especially in
connection with the emergence of a sophisticated middle-class lay
intelligentsia. It would certainly be as shortsighted and unwise as it
would be un-Buddhistic for Buddhists to assume that the structure of
their institutions is sacrosanct.
The same is true for Western religion. It would be a mistake to
identify the reality of religion with any one institutional form which it
may have assumed in the past: the national Churches, or the confessional
denominations of Christianity, for example. Ecclesiastical leaders
sometimes convey the impression that the disappearance of the Church
in its present form would be the ultimate tragedy in the religious life
of man; or that religion will die out if it is not kept going and organised
on an authoritarian ecclesiastical and dogmatic basis. This kind of view,
besides showing a singular lack of faith in the God who is proclaimed as
'living', could also be the reverse of the truth. It may be that religion
will die out wherever this is the case.
Epilogue: Religious Belief
and the Future

THE comparative study of religion is an academic discipline and is not

properly undertaken in order to promote or boost any one particular
kind of religious belie£ What such study can do, however, is to provide
us with a less restricted and parochial view of religion than that in
which we were brought up (this includes those brought up as human-
ists or atheists), a wider range of evidence than we might have had
otherwise, and some understanding of the historical development and
consequences, good and ill, of the various forms of religious belief
which exist in the modem world. In this way the comparative study of
religion can materially assist the religious thinking of the modem
generation.
There are some who would have universities teach only Christian
theology. For example, Laurence Bright, 0 .P., recently dismissed the idea
that comparative religion could take the place of Christian theology as
the proper approach to the study of religion in an academic context by
saying that religious systems other than Christianity do not lie 'at the
roots of our culture', and that it 'is artificial to treat Buddhism or
Hinduism as other than of slight importance for the majority of people
in the West'. (Slant, London, Dec. 1966/Jan. 1967, p. 14). This is a
curiously weak argument but not uncommon among theologians. It
also assumes a static view of the situation. The inhabitants of Britain
at the beginning of the Christian era might have objected that this new
faith from the Mediterranean did not lie at the roots of their culture.
Because Buddhism is a view of the human situation which had its origins
in an area which is geographically remote from Britain (though less
so now than it used to be), it can therefore be of little interest to little
Englanders. One has to note also that Christian theology, which is
assumed, rightly or wrongly, to lie 'at the roots of our culture', has a
rapidly declining appeal in its orthodox church-theological form as a
convincing and coherent view oflife. A religious knowledge teacher in a
girls' grammar school in Cheshire recently conducted an enquiry
Epilogue: Religious Beliefand the Future 425
among the sixth-formers to find out where their interests lay in the
field of religion, and was surprised to find that, as he put it,' there seem-
ed to be about forty potential Buddhists among them'. However
inaccurately they may have heard about Buddhism, they were
evidently not discouraged from an interest in this alternative to the
theology they had been brought up in by the fact that it did not lie at
the roots ofEnglish culture.
From the brief survey of religious beliefs and traditions which has
been undertaken here it is possible to distinguish three main types of
developed belief, each of which has a body of adherents in the modem
world. First, there is the simple, majestic transcendentalism oflslam: a
ruthlessly logical belief in the one, undivided god who is utterly
omnipotent, who created and rules over all things, so that everything
which happens is his will, who is in no way affected by anything men
may or may not do, and who, when the moment comes that it pleases
him to do so, will dispose of this world and its inhabitants according
to his own predetermining of their fates. Second, and in contrast with
this, is the Buddhist doctrine that man's destiny is to become 'awakened'
(Buddha) to the nature ofhis cosmic situation; that he is to achieve this
by the suppression of evil tendencies and the encouragement of good
tendencies, both through moral conduct and meditational practices;
in this way man will eventually come to partake of a life that is no
longer individualistic but of a universal kind. In both of these types of
religious belief the time-process is not of primary importance; there is
little sense of historical development, although there is slightly more
in Buddhism than in Islam. Finally, there is the messiah doctrine which
focuses in Jesus of Nazareth; here the pattern of existence seen in the
life and death of Jesus is affirmed as the pattern of a new humanity
which has yet to emerge, and towards the emergence of which there is
a power at work who 'fathers' the new man. Jesus is he-who-is-to-
come (the Christ), and men are called upon to place their lives within
the realm of this developing new humanity in confident expectation
of the day that is to come.
These three types of religious belief may be characterised as (1) the
theology of the omnipotent; (2) the anthropology of the 'awakened';
and (3) the christology ofJesus, or the new man. Empirical Christianity
has, however, tried to combine elements ofboth (1) and (3), for various
discernible, historical, social and political reasons; incompatible ele-
ments of belief have to be found room for within ecclesiastical
426 Epilogue: Religious Beliefand the Future
Christianity, in unstable and uneasy co-existence; so uneasy in fact
that an intelligent child of ten fmds the tenets of orthodox Christian
theology highly unsatisfactory and contradictory.
An important point made by Bryan Wilson in his study of religion
and secularisation is that a religious system cannot be emotionally
reassuring (as it should be) if it is intellectually unsatisfying. There is
plenty of evidence that in Western Europe people desire to fmd a
coherent and meaningful system of values; in overwhelming numbers,
however, they vote with their feet against ecclesiastical orthodoxy.
Antony Flew, in his book God and Philosophy, has set out very clearly
the logical weakness of Augustinian Christian theology; the replies
made by orthodox theologians and philosophers appear to the present
writer to have been largely casuistical, issue-evading and unconvincing.
Those who adhere to orthodox Christianity usually do so nowadays for
reasons other than that of the coherence of theology; because they
need some sort of a refuge from nihilism and secularism, because they
have been visited and asked to come to church by a friendly represent-
ative, because they have personal or family ties, and so on. Identified
with the church for these kinds of reasons they then seek to understand
and make sense of its ideology, not always, however, with great success,
as anyone who has talked to generation after generation of students
knows. So long as the proper concerns of religious discourse in the
West are held to be the upholding of the particular, Western, and
historically-conditioned theology of one ecclesiastical institution and
its sacred books and formularies, this situation is likely to continue, and
religious belief will languish more and more.
We have seen that for many centuries now Judaism, Christianity and
Islam have accepted the belief which has passed into their scriptures
(and thus been hallowed) from ancient Near Eastern religion, that of
the absolute potentate who is affirmed to be the creator-deity. Islam
alone is fully consistent in its logical development of this belief, that is
in maintaining that nothing man has ever done or can do will ever
affect this Almighty Being in any way whatsoever. So far as Christian
faith is concerned this belief in an all-powerful cosmic lord accords ill
with the special insight of the early Christians regarding the cosmic
meaning and the ultimate supremacy of the crucified Jesus, as the Christ
who is to come, and the new view of deity which this entails. Modem
scientific ways of thought have now invaded Christian thinking at least,
and Christian theology is at last beginning to divest itself of this ancient
Epilogue: Religious Beliefand the Future 427
pagan encumbrance which it has borne for so long. The result has been
a certain sense of release, expressed in the idea of the 'death of God', the
death, that is to say, of this absolute potentate whose nature and being
Christians had been trying for so long to reconcile somehow with the
original conviction that in the righteous, suffering, crucified Jesus men
were given a glimpse of the 'open secret' of the universe.
The controversy concerning the 'death of God', associated with the
names of van Buren, Altizer, and Hamilton especially, has been
interpreted by some observers as an aspect of secularisation - in this
case, the secularisation of theology. This agrees with Harvey Cox's use
of the term, to mean release from magical and non-Christian ecclesias-
tical structures and the beliefs which underlie them. There is a
fundamental liaison between, on the one hand, the potentate concept of
God, and on the other all the paraphernalia of cosmogony, magic, the
debasement of man and the denial to him of any virtue whatsoever, and
an authoritarian ecclesiastical type of religion. Much of this emerges in
disguised form in Augustinian types of religion, Catholic or Calvinistic.
The view of God and of man's situation which was held by those who
had known Jesus of Nazareth was, however, radically new. This can be
apprehended most clearly in the mood of expectancy which had been
engendered among them. There is a strongly forward-looking emphasis
in the New Testament writings. St Paul writes to the Christians of
Philippi of his confidence that the 'good work' which has been begun
in them will be continued 'until the day of Christ'. To those at Rome he
writes of the whole creation waiting 'with eager longing for the
revealing of the sons of God', and goes on to speak of the whole
creation suffering, as it were, its birth-pangs as a new creation comes
into being; included in this cosmic travail are those who already have
an 'earnest' or a 'pledge' in their experience of the Holy Spirit; even
they too 'wait for adoption as sons'. To the Christians in Galatia he
writes concerning the ongoing spiritual life as something which is to
continue 'until Christ be formed in you'. He reminds the Christians of
Colossre that 'when Christ who is our life appears, then you will also
appear with him in glory'. Similarly, John, the writer of the First
Epistle which bears his name, says: 'We are God's children now; it does
not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we
shall be like him.'
The Christian revelation can thus be seen to have two important
distinguishing characteristics; it is radical in its view of God; and it is
P2 L.H.R.
428 Epilogue: Religious Beliefand the Future
open-ended towards what is yet to come. First, it is radical, in that it
entails a new conception of God, not as the power who reigns like a
potentate, but the power who produces the Christ-humanity. This is
seen first in Jesus, who is to be 'the first-born among many brethren' as
the Epistle to the Hebrews puts it, so that God's Christ is also the
corporate new humanity which is yet to appear. The appearance of this
new humanity is the cosmic goal towards which all the life of mankind
moves, so that the life of the present is always to be understood in the
light of this 'until'. The early Christians had caught a glimpse of the
Christ who is to come, 'the Messiah', and through him had glimpsed
what to them was a radically new conception of the nature of God..
(It is for this reason that the modem theologian Karl Barth emphasises
endlessly that all Christian theology - or talk about God - must start
from the Word-made-flesh, that is, from the datum provided in Christ,
and from nowhere else.) The Christ who is to come is the new humanity;
to put it another way, this is a corporate conception, Jesus of Nazareth
together with his 'many brethren', the glorified 'new people'. The
time-scale of the Christian expectation has been expanded since the days
of the first disciples, but the essential principle, the expectation of the
appearing of the sons of God as the cosmic climax, remains. The
authentic Christian revelation is therefore also open-ended. There is
much more yet to be known and experienced; a little has been glimpsed,
but there are yet 'those things which eye has not seen, nor ear heard and
which it has not entered into the heart of man to conceive, but which
God has prepared for them who love him'; the little light has yet to
grow into 'the perfect day', the eschatological day of Christ. Among
the Christian fathers it is Irenaeus, the first great theologian, who most
clearly represents this optimism concerning the nature and destiny of
man.
There had been a similar insight in early Buddhism. The ideal, the
new type of humanity, the nibbuta-man, had been seen exemplified in
one life, it was claimed, and the highest destiny of men was to be found
as men listened to the Buddha-word, followed the Buddha-sasana and,
denying the old, private life of selfish individualism, entered into the
fuller and wider life of nibbuta-humanity, in which the fundamental
roots of evil, namely greed, hatred, and illusion, were conquered and
exterminated by the power of the positive forces of good, namely
generosity, magnanimity and clear insight.
There is thus a double aspect to the 'death of God' theology. It may
Epilogue: Religious Beliefand the Future 429
serve to emphasise that the concept of God which is finally proving to
be Wltenable in the light of man's scientific Wlderstanding of the nature
of the Wliverse is a concept which is also alien to authentic Christian
revelation; it may serve also to point to the original emphasis among
Christians, that beyond the news of this 'death' is the expectation of
new birth, the coming into being of a humanity whose nature has been
briefly glimpsed in Christ.
It may be that the encoWlter of religions, East and West, may assist
the necessary reinterpretation. Religious truths do not always im-
mediately come into their own, sometimes they wait, preserved and
cherished in one particular tradition, Wlril the time of opportWlity and
need comes, when they become part of the heritage of a much wider
society. It may be that the words and the way of the Buddha have much
to contribute at this moment of history to the religious life of theWest.
Karl Barth, in one of his later writings, has pointed out that there are
other witnesses to the truth of Christ outside the Bible and outside the
Church. He speaks of the commWlity of Christ recognising 'with joy
something of its own most proper message' or 'being forced to recognise
this with shame because by [these other voices] it is shown and made to
realise the omissions and trWlcations of its own message' (Church
Dogmatics, iv, 3(1), 124). Perhaps one of the most important and urgent
fWlctions of the comparative study of religion is to assist this widening
of horizons, this sharing by East and West of their deepest religious
insights, anc:l thus help to save men from that bleak and nihilistic
secularism, whose tenets have already deeply affected the thinking and
the ways of living of Western man. The results are seen in the world
wars which have erupted from the West, the increasing chronic
alcoholism, and, more recently, the growing drug addiction; these are
but the more sensational ways of escape from what is felt to be the
meaninglessness of existence. In other quarters there is a suspicion that
religion in the West has betrayed man at the most important point in
life, and consequently a tendency to find meaning in Eastern religion.
Yet there is still readiness to accord honour to the figure ofJesus Christ,
and to believe that in this man human life finds meaning and purpose.
So long as this is so there is hope that in spite of ecclesiastical orthodoxy
the truth will out, the false god of Christian theology will be rejected,
and a new chapter in the history ofhuman spiritual progress will open.
The West has its own traditions of spirituality, just as has the East.
But Latin Christianity has accepted a tradition of another kind, which
430 Epilogue: Religious Belief and the Future
the East has not, a tradition of institutional and intellectual authori-
tarianism. We have seen that in the fourteenth century these two
traditions within the Latin Church began to emerge as alternatives, but
in the convulsions which shook the Church in the sixteenth century the
emphases of the Catholic mystical tradition were lost sight of; Catholics
and Protestants alike became preoccupied with institutional forms,
dogmatic orthodoxy, and political advantage. Perhaps the greatest
need today is for the West to recollect the wisdom it once had and has
almost lost in the pursuit of power (and latterly in its concessions to
secular ideologies, concessions which are themselves due to spiritual
impoverishment). Western religion could, if it were not too proud to
do so, find itself fortified in the recovery of its own spirituality by
considering the testimony of the traditions of the East.
General Bibliography

The following list includes both works referred to in the text (by means of the
author's name and date of publication), and also works recommended for
further reading.

Ahmad, Aziz, Studies in Islamic Culture in the Indian Environment, Oxford, 1964
Amir Ali, The Spirit ofIslam, London, 1922 (repr. 1967)
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Childe, V. Gordon, New Light on the Most Andent East (new edn.), London, 1952
Chouraqui, Andre, A History ofludaism, New York, 1962
Coedes, Georges, Les Etats Hindouises d'Indochine et d'Indonesie, Paris,
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Conze, E., Buddhist Meditation, London, 1956
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Cronbach, A., Reform Movements in Judaism, New York, 1963
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Dibelius, Martin, Studies in the Acts ofthe Apostles, London, 1956
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Eichrodt, W., Theology ofthe Old Testament, voL I (trans.]. A. Baker), London,
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Eliade, Mircea, Yoga, Immortality and Freedom, New York, 1958
Eliot, C., Hinduism and Buddhism, 3 vols. London, 1921 (repr. 1957)
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Gilson, E., History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages, London, 1955
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1946
Hammer, R.,Japan's Religious Ferment, London, 1961
Hanson, A. (ed. ), Vindications, London, 1966
Hardy, R. Spence, Eastern Monarchism, Edinburgh, 1860
Hare, E. M., Woven Cadences ofEarly Buddhism, Oxford, 1945
Herberg, Will, Protestant, Catholic, Jew, New York, 1955
Hick, John, Evil and the God ofLove, London, 1966
Holtom, D. C., The National Faith ofJapan, London, 1938
Modern Japan and Shinto Nationalism, Revised edn., New York, 1947 (repr.
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Hooke, S. H. (ed.), Myth and Ritual, London, 1933
Hori, 1., 'On the Concept ofHijiri (holy-man)', in Numen, vol. v, Leiden, 1958
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Ikram, S.M., Muslim Civilisation in India, New YorkfLondon, 1964
434 General Bibliography
James, Fleming, Personalities ofthe Old Testament, London, 1947
Jayasuriya, W. F., The Psychology and Philosophy of Buddhism, Colombo,
1963 -
Jayatilleke, K. N., Early Buddhist Theory cifKnowledge, London, 1963
Jeffery, A., The Qur' an as Scripture, New York, 1952
Islam: Muhamad and his religion, New York, 1958
Jones, Rufus M., Studies in Mystical Religion, London, 1923
Josephus, The Works cifFlaviusJosephus (trans. W. Whiston), Edinburgh, n.d.
Karunaratne, W. S., 'Abhidhamma' in Encyclopaedia cif Buddhism, ed. G. P.
Malalasekere, Fascicule A-Aca, Colombo, 1961
Katsh, A. l.,Judaism and the Koran, New York, 1954
Kelly,]. N.D., Early Christian Creeds, London, 1950
Kent, John, 'Christianity: Protestantism', in Zaehner, 1959
Kirk, K. E., The Vision cifGod, London, 1931
Kosambi, D. D., The Culture and Civilisation ofAncient India, London, 1965
Kramer, Samuel Noah, History Begins at Sum;r, London, 1958
Lee, Robert, The Social Sources cifChurch Unity, New York, 1960
Leff, G., Medieval Thought: St Augustine to Ockham, London, 1958
Leur,J. C. van, Indonesian Trade and Society, The HaguefBandung, 1955
Levy, R., The Social Structure cifislam, Cambridge, 1957
Lightfoot, R. H., History and Interpretation in the Gospels, London, 1934
Lindblom,]., Prophecy in Ancient Israel, Oxford, 1963
Ling, Trevor, The Significance cifSatan, London, 1961
Buddhism and the Mythology cifEvil, London, 1962
Buddha, Marx and God, London, 1966
Liu Wu-Chi, A Short History cifConfucian Philosophy, London, 1955
Ludowyk, E. F. C., The Story ofCeylon, London, 1962
McNeill, J. T., Spinka, M. and Willoughby, H. R., Environmental Factors in
Christian History, Chicago, 1939
Mai-Tho-Truyen, 'Le Bouddhisme au Viet-Nam' in Presence du Bouddhisme, ed.
Rene de Berval, Saigon, 1959
Malinowski, B., 'Magic, Science and Religion', in Science, Religion and Reality,
ed. J. Needham, London, 1926
Manson, T. W., The Teaching cifJesus, Cambridge, 1931
'The Life ofJesus: A Study of the Available Materials', in The Bulletin cif the
John Ryland Library, Manchester, vol. 27, no. 2,June 1943
Marriott, McKim, Village India (American Anthropol. Association Memoir
No. 83), Menasha, Wisconsin, 1955
Mendis, G. C., Ceylon Today and Yesterday, 2nd edn., Colombo, 1963
Migot, Andre, 'Le Bouddhisme en Chine', in Presence du Bouddhisme, ed. Rene
de Berval, Saigon, 1959
Tibetan Marches (trans. P. Fleming), London, 1955
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Moore, G. F., Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era (2 vols. ), Cam-
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The Literature of the Old Testament, London, 1914 (2nd edn., revised,
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Mowinckel, S., He That Cometh, Oxford, 1956
Mujeeb, M., The Indian Muslims, London, 1967
Murti, T. R. V., The Central Philosophy ofBuddhism, London, 1955
Neil, S., A History ofChristian Missions, London, 1964
Niebuhr, H. Richard, The Social Sources ofDenominationalism, New York, 1929
Nock, A. D., St Paul, London, 1946
Norbeck, Edward, Changing Japan, New YorkfLondon, 1965
North, C. R., 'Pentateuchal Criticism', in The Old Testament and Modem Study,
ed. H. H. Rowley, London, 1951
Noth, Martin, The History of Israel, 2nd edn. (trans. P.R. Ackroyd), London,
1960
Ny~amoli, The Path of Purification (trans. from the Pall Visuddhimagga of
Buddhaghosa) Colombo, 1964
Nyanaponika, Abhidhamma Studies, Colombo, 1949
O'Malley, L. S., Popular Hinduism: The Religion of the Masses, Cambridge, 1935
(ed. ), Modem India and the West, Oxford, 1941
Otto, Rudolph, The Idea ofthe Holy, London, 1923
Panikkar, K. M., Hindu Society at Cross Roads, 3rd (revised) edn., Bombay,
1961
Parkes, James, A History ofthe Jewish People, London, 1964
Payne, E. A., The Saktas, Calcutta, 1933
Petrie, W. M. Flinders, Personal Religion in Egypt before Christianity, London,
1909
Piggott, Stuart, Prehistoric India, London, 1950
Piyadassi, The Buddha's Ancient Path, London, 1964
Pratt, James Bissett, The Pilgrimage ofBuddhism, New York, 1928
Prestige, G. L., Fathers and Heretics, London, 1940
Qureshi, I. H., The Muslim Community of the Indo-Pakistan Sub-Continent
(610-1947), The Hague, 1962
Rad, von, Gerhard, Old Testament Theology, vol. i, Edinburgh and London, 1962
Radhakrishnan, S., 'Hinduism and the West', in Modern India and the West, ed.
L. S. O'Malley, Oxford, 1941
·Rahman, F., Islam, London, 1967
Rahula, W alpola, History ofBuddhism in Ceylon, Colombo, 1956
Redfield, Robert, Peasant Society and Culture, Chicago, 1956
Reichelt, Karl Ludwig, Religion in a Chinese Garment, London, 1951
Renou, L., Religions ofAncient India, London, 1953
Richardson, H. E., Tibet and its History, London, 1962
436 General Bibliography
Ringgren, H., Israelite Religion (trans. David Green), London, 1966
Robinson,]. A. T., Twelve New Testament Studies, London, 1962
Robinson, T. H., Prophecy and the Prophets, London, 1923
Routley, Erik, Hymns and Human Life, London, 1962
Rowley, H. H. (ed.), The Old Testament and Modern Study, London, 1951
Prophecy and Religion in Andent China and Israel, London, 1956
Runciman, S., A History ofthe Crusades, Cambridge, 1951-1954
Russell, D. S., Between the Testaments, London, 1960
Sarkisyanz, E., Buddhist Backgrounds ofthe Burmese Revolution, The Hague, 1965
Sastri, K. A. Nilakanta, Development of Religion in South India, Orient Long-
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Scholem, G., Major Trends in Jewish Mystidsm, rev. edn., New York, 1941
Scott,]. G. (Shway Yoe), The Burman: his life and notions, 3rd edn., London,
1909
Sen, K. M., Hinduism, London, 1961
Shryock,]. K., The Origin and Development of the State Cult ofConfodus, New
York, 1932 (repr. 1966)
Singer, Milton, 'The Radha-Krishna Bhajans of Madras City', in History of
Religions, vol. 2, no. 2, Chicago, 1963
Slater, Gilbert, The Dravidian Element in Indian Culture, London, 1924
Slater, R. H. L., Paradox and Nirvana, Chicago, 1951
Smart, Ninian, Historical Selections in the Philosophy ofReligion, London, 1962
Philosophers and Religious Truth, London, 1964 (1)
Doctrine and Argument in Indian Philosophy, London, 1964 (2)
Smith, Vincent A., The Oxford History ofIndia, 3rd edn., Oxford, 1958
Smith. Wilfred Cantwell, Modern Islam in India: A Soda[ Analysis (rev. edn.),
London,1947
Islam in Modern History, Princeton, 1957
Smith. William Robertson, Lectures on the Religion of the Semites, 3rd edn.,
London,1927
Snellgrove, David, Buddhist Himalaya, Oxford, 1957
Srawley,J. H., The Early History ofthe Liturgy, Cambridge, 1947
Stein, Burton, 'The Economic Function ofa Medieval South Indian Temple', in
Journal ofAsian Studies, xix, no. 2, Feb. 1960
Stevenson, S., The Heart ofJainism, Oxford, 1915
Stone, Darwell, A History of the Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist, 2 vols., London,
1909
Straelen, Henry van, The Religion ofDivine Wisdom, Kyoto, 1957
Swanson, Guy, The Birth ofthe Gods, Michigan University Press, 1960
Sweetman, J. W., Islam and Christian Theology, Part One, vol. ii, London, 1947
Thapar, Romila, A History ofIndia, vol. i, London, 1966
Thomas, Bertram, The Arabs, London, 1937
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Thomas, D. Winton, Documents.from Old Testament Times, London, 1958
Thomas, E. J., The Life ofBuddha, 3rd edn., London, 1949
The History ofBuddhist Thought, 2nd edn., London, 1951
Thomson, Ian, Changing Patterns in South Asia, London, 1961
Trevelyan, G. M., English Social History, 3rd edn., London, 1946
Varma, V. D., Modern Indian Political Thought, 2ndedn., Agra,1964
Walker, G. S.M., The Growing Storm, London, 1961
W and,J. W. C., A History ofthe Modern Church, 6th edn., London, 1952
Ware, Timothy, The Orthodox Church, London, 1963
Warfield, Benjamin B., 'Augustine', in Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics,
Edinburgh and New York, 1909, vol. ii.
Warren, Max, Social History and Christian Mission, London, 1967
Watt, W. Montgomery, Free Will and Predestination in Early Islam, London,1948
Muhammad at Mecca, London, 1953
Muhammad at Medina, London, 1956
'The conception of the charismatic community in Islam', Numen (Leiden)
VII, fasc. I, Jan. 1960
Muhammad, Prophet and Statesman, London, 1961 (1}
Islam and the Integration ofSociety, London, 1961 (2}
Islamic Philosophy and Theology, Edinburgh, 1962
Weber, Max, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit ofCapitalism, London, 1930
The Religion of China, Glencoe, 1951
Ancientjudaism, Glencoe, 1952
The Religion ofIndia, Glencoe, 1958
The Sociology of Religion, Boston, 1963
Wells, K. E., Thai Buddhism, Bangkok, 1960
Wensinck, A. J., The Muslim Creed, Cambridge, 1932
Wheeler, H. Mortimer, Early India and Pakistan, London, 1959
Civilizations ofthe Indus Valley and Beyond, London, 1966
Wheeler, RichardS., 'The Individual and Action in the Thought of Iqbal', in
The Muslim World, London, 1962
Wilhelm, Richard, A Short History of Chinese Civilisation, London, 1929
Williams, G. H., The Radical Reformation, London, 1962
Wilson, Bryan, Religion in Secular Society, London, 1966
Wittfogel, Karl, Oriental Despotism, London, 1957
Wright, Arthur F., Buddhism in Chinese History, n.p., 1959
Yang, C. K., Religion in Chinese Society, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1961
Zaehner, R. C., Zurvan: A Zoroastrian Dilemma, Oxford, 1955
(ed.) The Concise Encyclopaedia ofLiving Faiths, London, 1959
Hinduism, London, 1962
Hindu Scriptures, London and New York, 1966
Zemov, N., Eastern Christendom, London, 1961
Sectional Bibliography:
Suggested Further Reading
Details of the books here referred to by author and date will be found in the
General Bibliography.
Chapter One
1.1 Brandon, 1963. Frankfort, 1946. Kramer, 1958. Piggott, 1950.
Wheeler, 1959, 1966.
1.2 Bright, 1960. Eichrodt, 1961. Noth, 1960. Ringgren, 1966.
Rowley, 1951.
1.3 Basham, 1954. Dasgupta, 1922; 1933. Kosambi, 1965. Sen, 1961.
Zaehner, 1962.
1.4 as for 1.2.
1.5 as for 1.3.
Chapter Two
2.1 Lindblom, 1963. Robinson, 1923. Weber, 1952. And as for 1.2.
2.2 Zaehner, 1955; 1959.
2.3 Chattopadhyaya, 1959. Conze, 1957. Davids, 1959. Dutt, 1957.
Eliot, 1921. Kosambi, 1965. Thomas, 1949.
2.4 Anesaki, 1963. Aston, 1905. Liu Wu-Chi, 1955. Reichelt, 1951.
Stevenson, 1915. Wilhelm, 1929.
Chapter Three
3.1 Bevan, 1904. Burrows, 1956. Russell, 1960. And as for 1.2.
3.2 Conze, 1962. Dutt, 1957; 1962. Jayatilleke, 1963. Nyanaponika, 1949.
Thomas, 1951.
3.3 Basham, 1954. Kosambi, 1965. Thapar, 1966. Zaehner, 1962.
3.4 Bevan, 1932. Dodd, 1936. Hanson, 1966. Lightfoot, 1934.
Manson, 1931; 1943. Scott, 1909.

Chapter Four
4.1 Bethune-Baker, 1903. Bevan, 1932. Dix, 1945. Hick, 1966. Kelly, 1950.
Prestige, 1940.
Sectional Bibliography: Suggested Further Reading 439
4.2 As for 3.3.
4.3 Conze, 1960; 1962. Dutt, 1957; 1962. Murti, 1955. Smart, 1964.
Thomas, 1951.

Chapter Five
5.1 Arnold, 1913.Jeffery, 1958. Levy, 1957. Rahman, 1967. Thomas, 1937.
Watt, 1953; 1956; 1961 (I) Wensinck, 1932.
5.2 Anesaki, 1963. Coedes, 1966. Dutt, 1962. Eliot, 1921; 1935.
Snellgrove, 1957. Thomas, 1951. Wright, 1959.

Chapter Six
6.1 Basham, 1954. Eliot, 1921. Sastri, 1963. Thapar, 1966.
6.2 Copleston, 1955. Epstein, 1959. Gilson, 1955. Jones, 1923. Leff, 1958.
Runciman, 1951-54. Smart, 1962; 1964 (I). Walker, 1961. Ware, 1963.
Zernov, 1961.
6.3 Arberry, 1950. Arnold, 1913. deBary, 1958. von Grunebaum, 1955.
Hottinger, 1963.Ikram, 1964. Watt, 1961.
6.4 Anesaki, 1963. Chan, 1953. Ch'en, 1964. Conze, 1960.
Eliot, 1921; 1935. Sarkisyanz, 1965. Thapar, 1966.
6.5 Anesaki, 1963. Arnold, 1913. deBary, 1958. Niebuhr,1929.
Sastri, 1963. Ware, 1963. Williams, 1962.

Chapter Seven
7.1 Bettenson, 1963. Chouraqui, 1962. Epstein, 1959. Florinsky, 1959.
Lee, 1960.Parkes, 1964. Wand, 1952. Ware, 1963. Wilson, 1966.
Zemov, 1961.
7.2 Farquar, 1929. Marriott, 1955. O'Malley, 1935. Qureshi, 1962.
Singer, 1963. Varma, 1964.
7.3 Ahmad, 1964. Ali, 1922. Arnold, 1913. Geertz, 1960. Gibb, 1947.
Ikram, 1964. Mujeeb, 1967. Qureshi, 1962. Rahman, 1967.
Smith, 1946; 1957.
7.4 Anesaki, 1963. Chan, 1953. Ch'en, 1964. Hammer, 1961. Mendis, 1963.
Pratt, 1928. Sarkisyanz, 1965. Wells,1960.
Index and Glossary

Note: Foreign names and terms, where used in their original linguistic
form (that is, transliterated but not anglicised) appear in italics; thus,
Km;ta
Names of authors mentioned in the Bibliography are shown in
capitals, thus, AUNG, S. Z.

Abbasid caliphate, 286£, 289, 291, Acarya, a teacher, term used

296 especially of Vaisnavite ex-
AbdAllah, 212 positors of sacred texts, 263
Abdal Malik, 227, 230, 232 Accad,2
Abduh, Muhammad, 378, 384, Acts, Book of, 156 £
386 Adam, 211, 293 ·
Abdullah Khan Uzbek, 328 Adiyars, 259
Abhayagiri monastery (Ceylon), Advaita Vediinta, one of the six
202f., 253f. orthodox Hindu schools of
Abhidhamma, the essence, or ab- philosophy; non-dualism, 263,
stract of the Buddhist Dhamma, 327
arranged in systematic and Afghanistan, 79,300
mnemonic form in the third of Mrica, East, 330; Hinduism in,
the Pitakas of the Buddhist 377
canon, 130, 188, 198ff., 306ff., Africa, West, 330
412, 417f. Agag, 43
Abhidhamma literature, 93, 131 £, Agni, Vedic god of fire, 30
204,307£ Ahab, King, 63 £
Abhidhammattha-Sangaha, 94, Ahimsa, non-violence, basic tenet
307 of the Jains, q.v.
Abhidhammavatara, 307 AHMAD, A., 385
Abner, 44 Ahmad ben Asim, 296
Abraham,17ff., 218,293 Ahmadabad,325
Abu Bakr, 213, 220, 296 Ahmadiya,388,394,419
Abu Dharr, 224 Ahura, good spirit in Iranian
Abu Talib, 216 mythology, 77,80£
Abyssinia, 209,211,223 Ahura Mazda, 'the Wise Lord',
442 Index
name of god in Zoroastrian- Amir Ali, 386
ism, 77 f., 82 Amitabha, 236. See also Amida
Aibak, 301 Amorites, 2
Ajatasattu, 85, 96, 126 Amos,22,65,68, 70,109
Akbar, 328 f., 333 Amphictyony, Hebrew, 218£
Akra, the, 119 Amsterdam, 358
Akshobhya, 236 Anabaptists, 320, 322
AI-Afghani, 383 f. Anagarika Dharmapala, 400
AI Ashari, 294, 297,335 Ananda Tirtha, 266
AI Athir, 303 Anatta, Buddhist doctrine of
Al-Azhar, 385, 390 denial of any permanent indi-
AI Biruni, 300 vidual soul, 86, 134
Al-Bukhari, 293 Anawratha, King, 310 f.
AI Farabi, 298 Ancient judaism (Max Weber),
Al Ghazali, 297 f£, 335 14
Al-Hallaj, 297 Andhra Pradesh, 193,206
Al K.indi, 298 ANESAKI, M., 239, 251, 315, 334,
Al-Wahhab, 379£ 405f.
Alaric, 183 Angels, 162; in Islamic belief, 293
Alaska, 355 Angkor Wat, 194
Albright,W. E., 15 Angra Mainyu (Iranian), the Evil
Alexander the Great, 116£, 126, Spirit, 77
136 Anicca (Pali), Buddhist doctrine of
Alexandria, 118, 161, 172, 186, the non-permanence (a-nicca)
297 of all compounded things, 86,
Ali, Caliph, 222 £, 225 £ 134
Aligarh, 383 Anselm, St, 276 £, 282
All Souls, feast of, 182 Anthropomorphic conception of
Allah (Arabic for God), 302, 326 god, in Islam, 290
Almsgiving, in Islam, 294 Antinomianism, 155, 247
Altizer, T., 427 Antioch, 118, 161, 174, 296;
Alvars, Vaisnavite poet-saints, patriarch of, 331
258,263f. Antiochus Epiphanes, 117£
Amarapura sect (Buddhist), 397 Antisemitism, 362
Amaterasu, Japanese sun goddess, Antony, St, 186, 349
107 Anuradhapura, 203, 253£, 400
Amaury,280 Anuruddha,253,307
Ambedkar, B. R., 410 Apocalyptic, Jewish, 123-5, 155,
Ambrose,St, 183 157,162
America, 342£,347,355£, 358f£ Apocryphal Gospels, 151
See also U.S.A. Appar,259
Amida (Amitabha), 235 f£, 239£, Aquinas, St Thomas, 204, 276 f£,
252,313,315 282, 335f.
Index 443
Arabia, 209ff., 214£, 221, 225, Athens, 404
228 f., 254, 287' 333 Atisha, 248,317
Arabians, 212, 217 ff., 223, 228, Atman (Skt), soul or self, 86, 131
288; Arabian polytheism, 223 Atta, Pali form of iitman, q.v., 86
Arabic, 213 Augustine, St, 182-4, 274f., 282,
Arabs, 111 320; doctrine of grace and
Arak:an, 400 Church, 319
Aramean, 17 Augustinian Christianity, 163,
Aranyakas, 'the forest-treatises', 171,176, 183f., 274f., 276,280,
Hindu sacred texts, 54 282, 319ff., 426£
ARBERRY, A.J., 296 AUNG, S. Z., 307
ARDREY, R., 1 Aurangzeb, 329£, 378£
ARGYLE, M., 360 Aurobindo, 378
Arhat, early Buddhist ideal type Australoid, 26
of man, 140 Avatiira, a 'descent', i.e., of the
Aris, 250, 310 Hindu god, Vishnu, in animal
Aristotelian philosophy, 277, 282, or human form; ten such
289,298,335 avataras are traditionally recog-
Arjuna, an avatara (q.v.) of the nised, 147 f., 302,327
Hindu god Vishnu, 189 Averroes (Ibn Rushd), 298
Ark, Hebrew, 45 Avicenna (Ibn Sina), 298
Arnold, Sir Edwin, 400 Avidya (Skt), ignorance, in the
Arnold, Matthew, 340 sense of not perceiving the
ARNOLD, T. w., 222, 228, 254, true nature of things, 88
300, 330ff., 390£ Avignon, 283
Artaxerxes, 115 Avijja, Pali form of Avidya (Skt),
Arya Samaj, 368, 382, 385, 389 q.v.
Aryans, 3, 26, 29, 35, 41, 48f., 50, Azazel, 124
53,60, 77 Azov,331
Asanga, 199 Azriel, 281
Asceticism, 261,274
Ashari. See Al Ashari Ba Than, Col., 412
Asoka,126,136-9,249,318,411 Babism, 388 £, 419
Asrama, an abode; a stage oflife Babur,328
ace. to Hindu theory, of which Babylon, 2, 3, 6£, 9£, 16, 34, 60,
there are four, 150 70, 75, 79, 111£, 162,336
Assam, 306, 399 Badarayana,188,260
Assyria, 69 Badauni, 328
Asuras, demons, in popular Indian Baghdad, 286£, 289£, 298, 301,
mythology, 77, 80 303
Atharva-veda, last of the four col- Bahadur Shah, 378
lections of Vedic hymns, 32, 56, Baha'ism, 388£
245 Balfour, A., 363
444 Index
Balkans, 209, 331 £ Bhikkhu (Pali), Bhikshu (Skt),
Banaras, 267,324£ Buddhist monk (lit., 'almsman'),
Bandaranaike, S. W. R. D., 409 90
Bangkok, 350 , 407 Bible,207,320,352,357,361,364
Baptism, 175; Baptists, 343 Bihar, 35, 134, 245, 247£, 257
Barani,303 Bimbisara, King of Magahda, 85
Barbosa, 324 Biruni, 300
BARKER, E., 302 BLACKER, C., 413
BARTH, K., 277,315, 428f. Blackman, A.M., 7
BARY,W.DE,301,303,326 Blasphemy, in Islam, 297
Basava, 268 Bloomfield, M., 57
BASHAM, A. L., 30, 32, 34, 54, 57£, Bodhi, Buddhist term for 'awaken-
191,262, 266f. ing' or 'enlightenment', the
Basle, 362 goal of the B. religious life, 238
Basra, 231, 294, 296 Bodhidharma, 237
BAYNES, N.H., 181 Bodhisattva (Skt), Bodhisatta (Pali),
Bec,276 a being who has attained the
Bedouin, 222 £ essence of bodhi (q.v.), but
Beliar, 124 renounces entry into the full
Ben Sira, 117£ nirvana, in order to help other
BENDIX, R., 340 beings, 140 f., 236£, 244
Benedictine Order, 274,276 Boghazkoi, 34
Bengal, 35, 134, 245, 247£, 250, Bombay,325,352,365,382
257, 269, 301, 306, 325, 367ff., Bon religion (Tibet), 248
371,381,399 Booths, feast of, 39
Benveniste, E., 34 Borobodur, 194
Berbers, 302 Bradford, 357
Bergson, 387 Bradwardine, Thomas, 284
BETHUNE-BAKER,]. F., 167,184 Brahma, name of one of the three
BETTENSON. H., 345 major gods of Hinduism, 146,
BEVAN, E., 117, 119, 121, 153, 168, 179,191
172 Brahma Samaj, modem Hindu
Bhagavad-Gitii, 147, 189£, 206, sect, 366 ff.
264,305,371 Brahma Siitras, Hindu text, con-
Bhagavat, 145 taining essence of Upani~ads,
Bhagavatas, Hindu sect, 192 188, 260
Bhajan, Hindu devotional session, Brahman, sacred force, power in-
376 herent in the priestly chant in
Bhakti, way of salvation by de- Vedic religion, 32, 52, 56, 260
votion to god, 145, 246, 258, BriihmatJ, priestly class in India,
327 one of the four classes, or
BHANDARKAR, R. G., 264£ vartJa, 143ff., 258,266
Bharadvaja, 92 Brahmanabad,230
Index 445
Briihmm;tas, sacred texts of the Cambodia, 194, 206, 250, 306,
priestly class, 51 f. 311
Brahmanism, 127, 142, 145, 150, Canaan, 36, 71; religion of, 47
186, 193,195££,229 Canada,350
BRANDON, s. G. F., 9, 31, 59, 114, Canterbury, 276, 284
155, 159f. Canton, 237
Brazil, 360 Carey,William, 354
BRIGHT,}., 16 Carmel, Mt, 64
Bright, L., 424 Carolingian empire, 272
Brihaspati, Vedic deity, 49 Caste, Indian, 34, 51, 186£, 266,
British rule, and Buddhism, 305, 375f.
333f., 396££,402 Catholic Church, 320£
Brunswick, 357 Catholic Modernism, 347
Buddha, the, Gautama, 83ff., Celebes, 392
143f. Celibacy, 316; ofclergy, 285
Buddhadatta, 307 Ceylon, xxi, 138, 202£, 229,
Buddha-dhamma, the doctrine of 241-9, 252, 258, 304, 307-10,
the Buddha, 88 333 £, 396 ££, 407£, 420, 423
Buddhaghosa, 95, 204, 252, 307 Chaitanya, 324£
Buddha-jayanti 2500th anniver- CHAN, w. T., 402
sary of the Buddha's enlighten- Ch'an Buddhism, 234££, 238,
ment, celebrated 1956/7,410 244, 313£, 402, 404
Buddha-rupa, Buddha figure or Chandi, 269
icon, 135, 250 Chandogya Upani~ad, 55
Buddha-sasana, Buddhist disci- Chandragupta, 126, 146,192
pline, way of life, or 'religion', Changan, 232
88 Charismatic leadership, 225 £
Bukhari. See Al-Bukhari Charlemagne, 273, 285
BuLLOUGH, S., 318£ Chateaubriand, 345
Bultmann, R., 157,172 CHATTOPADHYAYA, D.P., 96£
Buren, P. van, 427 CH'EN, K. K. s.. 312£,403
Burma, 194, 248, 306£, 310, 334, Chen-yen, 251
397,400,411 Chicago, 370
BURROWS, M., 123 Children of Light, .•. of Dark-
Byzantium, 211,214,348 ness, 124
China, 101-6, 200 ff., 209, 228,
Caesarea, 161, 173 232,239,241,251,312-14,318,
Cairo, 290, 303, 385, 390£ 350, 402; Islam in, 330
Calcutta, 257, 269, 352, 365£, Chinese Buddhist pilgrims, 232,
370,382,400 241,245,307
Caliphate, 221,224,286 Chola dynasty, 258, 262, 309
Calvin, John, 319, 321£, 332, 340 Chou dynasty, 104
Calvinism, 332£, 339 CHOURAQUI, A., 357,364
446 Index
Christianity, 75, 206, 227, 237, Crusades, 302
267, 284ff. Culavarpsa, 309
Christological controversy, 178 Cullavagga, 129
Christology, 156 Cyprus, 41
Chuang-tzu, 105,109 Cyrus, King, 75, 114, 162, 169
Church history, xxv
Church, medieval, 275, 320 Dadu,325
Circumcision, 357 Daevas, evil spirits in Iranian
City ofGod, 282, 320 mythology, 77,80
Class system, Indian, 90, 266 Dalai Lama, 317
Classes, social, Persian, 288 Damascus, 223, 226£, 231, 287
COEDES, G., 194f., 249 DANDEKAR, R. N., 189
Cohen, H., 363 Daniel, Book of, 119 f£, 123
Colombo, 409 Dar-al-harb, territory not yet
Colossians, epistle to, 153 surrendered to God, i.e., non-
Communion, 256 Islamic territory, 381
Confucianism, 108, 201, 232ff., Dar-al-Islam, territory surrend-
251,313,321 ered to God, i.e. Islamic, 221,
Confucius, 101-4, 109 224
Congregationalists, 343 Darjeeling, 399
Conservative Judaism, 358 Dar Ul Islam, political party, 392
Constantine, emperor, 180£, 206 Darwin, C., 342, 405
Constantinian Christianity, 184 Dasas, aboriginal peoples oflndia,
Constantinople, 175, 285, 331 £; conquered by the Aryans, 33
patriarch of, 332 DASGUPTA, S., 50£,54£,56
Constitution of Medina, 217 David, King, 43 f., 47, 62, 71,
CONZE, E., 87£, 91, 199, 316 293
Cordova, 290 Davidic: dynasty, 111; kingship,
Corinth, 161 124
Corinthians, epistle to, 153 Dayananda, 368
Cosmology, Buddhist, 401 Dead Sea Scrolls, 123
Council, Buddhist, at Rangoon, Deborah, Song of, 16,38
412 Debul, 230
Councils, Buddhist, 129,137£ Decius, Emperor, 179
Cox, H., 423, 427 Delhi, 301, 303, 328, 381
Creation myths, 9 £ Demonology, Jewish, 124
Creeds, Christian, 176, 207, 285, Dengyo Daishi, 251
360 Deoband, 393
Crete, 41 Deutero-Isaiah, 116
Cromwell, Oliver, 225 Devanampiya-Tissa, 138
CRONBACH, A., 121 DEVANANDAN, P. D., 375
CRONIN, v., 321 Devas, divine beings in Indian
Cross, as Christian symbol, 237 mythology, 77,80
Index 447
Dhamma (Pali), Dharma (Skt), evil in Buddhist thought, with
that which is self-subsistent; lobha and moha; 89
universal law; righteousness or Dravidians, 26, 35, 48, 50, 134,
right conduct (Hindu); the 272
doctrine of the Buddha, 86 f., DREKMEIER, C., 97
109,127 Dreyfus affair, 362
dhamma, a discrete psychological Dualism, 79, 115, 123
event, or 'atom', 132, 141 DucHESNE-GUILLEMIN, J., 76, 79,
Dhanivat, Prince, 407 81 Dukhobors, 350
Dharma. See Dhamma dukkha (Pali), dubkha (Skt), char-
Dharma-cakra, 'Wheel of the Doc- acteristic of all empirical exist-
trine (or Law)', Buddhist sym- ence in Buddhist thought; ill,
bol,250 evil, pain, 86 £, 134
Dharma-kaya, one of the three Dumezil,34
'bodies' (kaya q.v.) of the DuMOULIN, H., 314, 413
Buddha; the eternal, unmani- Durga, Hindu goddess, one of the
fested ~ody, 198 forms of Shakti the female
Dharma-Siistras, Hindu ethical aspect of divinity, 193, 269
treatises, 189, 195 DuRKHEIM, E., xxii
Dharma-Siitras, Hindu discourses Dutch colonial power, 333£, 390,
on ethics, 150, 189, 191 396
Diana ofEphesus, 182 DuTT, Sukumar, 196, 206, 241 f.,
DIBELIUS, M., 157 245
Didache, 175 Dyaus-pitar, Vedic god, the 'sky-
Digambaras, one of the two main father', 30, 33
divisions of the Jain ascetics, 100
Digha Nikaya, one of the five East Africa, 330; Hinduism in,
Nikayas, or collections of suttas 377
making up the Sutta-pitaka of East India Company, 351 f., 382,
the Buddhist canon of scripture, 396
131 Easter, 182
Dinant, David, 280 Eastern Orthodox Christianity,
Din-i-Ilahi, 329 184, 347 ff., 354; compared
Diocletian, 180 with Roman, 284 if.; relations
Dipankara, 248 with Islam, 331£; and World
Discrimination (racial, etc.), ab- Council of Churches, 360
sence of in Islam, 286 Ebner, M. and C., 281
Docetism, 171, 176 Ecclesiasticus, book of, 117
DoDD, C. H., 156 Eckhart, Heinrich, 280
Dagen, 314 f. Ecstatic prophets, 259, 326
Dominican Order, 277,280,334 Edict of Milan, 180
dosa, hatred, animosity; one of the Edinburgh, 358
three basic divisions of moral EDWARDS, M., 352
448 Index
Egypt, 4-7, 9£, 15, 19£, 27, 36, Flew, A., 426
60, 173, 178, 185, 221 £, 225, Florence, Council of, 318
297,303,384 FLORINSKY, M. T., 349
Eichrodt, W., 21 Four Holy Truths, Buddhist, 87
Eisai, 314 France,272,279,284,355,362
Eissfeldt, 0., 66 Franciscan Order, 283, 334
ElAmama, 16 FRANKFORT, H., 4, 6
El Elyon, Canaanite deity, 45 Franks, 302
Eli, the priest, 40 Free-will, doctrine of, Islamic,
Elijah, 63-7 294[.
ELIOT, C., 235, 237 French colonial power, 333
Ellora, 262 French Revolution, 339, 345
Encyclicals, 347 Friars, Spanish, 334
England, Church of, 319, 322, 355 Friedlander, D., 357
Enoch, 123, 293 Froude, Richard Hurrell, 345
Ephesians, epistle to the, 153 Fundamentalists, 337 £
Ephesus, 161, 182
EPSTEIN, 1., 281£, 362f£ Galatians, epistle to, 153
Erotic rituals, 246 Gandhara, 135,137£,143,196
Eschatology, Islamic, 236 Gandhi, M. K., 190,350,372£
Eshbaal,44 Ganges, 83, 85, 126
Essenes, 123 Garbe, R., 55
Eucharist, 175 £, 285 Giithiis, songs which form part
Euhemerus, 102£ of the Y asna, the Zoroastrian
Euphrates, 1, 231 liturgical text, 76, 80
Europe, Eastern, Islam in, 330 Gaul, 181
European presence, in Asia, 334 Gautama, the Buddha, 83 f£
Evangelicalism, 341£, 344, 346, GAVIN, F., 175£
398 Gaya, 85, 399 £
Execration texts, 15 GEERTZ, c., 392
Exile,Jewish, 113 Geiger, A., 357
Exodus, Hebrew, 21 Genesis, book of, 16, 19
Ezra,115,123,167 Geneva, 320, 332
Genghiz Khan, 302
Fa-hsien, 241 £, 245 Gentiles, 153£, 160
Farabi, 298 German Catholics, 347
Faraidis, 381 Germany, 281, 283, 356, 363
Fasting, Islamic, 294 Ghazali. See AI Ghazali
Ferenghi, 302 Ghazni,300
Filioque clause, 285 Ghetto, explosion of, 356
FISHER, H. A. L., 183, 271 £ Ghose, Aurobindo, 378
FITZGERALD, c. P., 255 GIBB, H. A. R., 385
Flanders, 284 Gibraltar, 227
Index 449
Gideon, 39£,41 HALL, D. G. E., 195
Gita (Bhagavad-Gita), 147 Hall, H. Fielding, 402
Glover, R. T., 156 Hallaj, Muslim crucified for heresy,
Glukharev, M., 354 297
Gnosticism, 169-72, 174, 176, 183 HAMILTON, C. H., 403
Goa,321 Hamilton, H., 427
God, in Islamic belief, 290, 293 HAMMER, R., 415
Goddess, 58, 196, 269 Hammurabi,3, 16
Goldheim, S., 357 Han dynasty, 200
Gospel according to StJohn, 159, Hanoi,403
169 HANSON, A., 157
Gospels, Christian, 152; Synoptic, Hanukkah, Jewish festival, 120
159, 169 Haoma (Iranian), sacred plant, 30,
Gough, K., 375 f. 82 (cf. soma)
Govinda Yogin, 260 Harappa, 10
Grace: sacramental, 275; Hindu Hardy, P., 301
theories of, 265, 267 HARDY, S., 397
Graham, Billy, 343 Hardy, Thomas, 342
Griimadevata, village god in HARE, E. M., 92
Hinduism, 27 Hari, 146
Grant, C., 351 Harsha-vardhana, 241 ff., 257£
Great and little traditions, 142, Hashmon family, 120
306 Hasidim, 'the godly ones', Jewish
Greece, 272 sect, 118, 121
Greek influence, 196, 289,294 Hasidism, 357
Greek Orthodox Church, 332. Heard, G., 378
Su also Eastern Orthodox Hebrew prophecy, 22, 66£
Christianity Hebrew religion, 19
Greek-Persian conflict, 211 Hebrews, epistle to, 153, 175
Greek rule of Palestine, 111, 116 Hegel,405
Grhya-Sutras, Hindu texts dealing Heian period, 241, 251
with ethics of household life, Heliodorus, 146
150,191 Hellenism, 117-20, 126, 288
Gupta dynasty, 149, 192£, 206, Henckel, T., 371
242,250,257 Henning, W. B., 79
Gurian, D. Ben, 362 Herakles, 147
Guru; a spiritual instructor in HERBERG, W., 360
Hinduism, 260 Herod the Great, 122
Hertzl, Theodore, 362
I;Iadith, the traditions (Islamic), HrcK,J., 171
second in authority only to the Hijra (Arabic), migration (i.e.
~ur'an,211,293,299,329 from Mecca to Medina), from
Haggai, 114 the date of which (622 c.E.)
450 Index
Islamic chronology begins, 217 Ibn Rushd (Averroes), 298
Hilton, Walter, 281 Ibn Sina (Avicenna), 298
Hinayana, term used by Maha- Ichthus, early Christian anagram,
yana Buddhists to describe the 180
older schools, 195, 242, 250 Iconoclasm, 272
Hindi, use ofby sects, 267, 326 Iconography, Buddhist, 135£
Hindu, term used from 8th cent. Idealism, 197
c.E. (first by Arabs) to des- Ignatius, St, 174, 176
cribe those who lived beyond Ignatius de Loyola, 321
Sind river, 142, 173, 195, 229, IKRAM, s. M., 300£,379
327 Immaculate conception, doctrine
Hindu culture, 300 of, 346
Hindu temples, 261 £, 300 Incarnation, Christian doctrine of,
Hinduism, 150,186£,193 f., 206£, 277
257 ff., 305, 323 f. Independent churches, 322
Hippo,183 India, 209, 211, 228£, 232, 249,
Hirsch, S., 357 £ 253 £, 266, 304; former econ-
Hmawza,249 omic prosperity of, 149, 333.
Holiness Code, 72 See also Andhra, Bengal, Bihar,
HaLTOM, D. C., 108, 255 Magadha
Holy Roman Empire, 273 Indian National Congress, 385£
Holy Spirit, 178 f., 207 Individualism, Protestant, 340,
Holy Trinity, doctrine of, 178£ 353
Holy Truths, Four, Buddhist, 87 Indo-China, 321
Homer, 168 Indonesia, 209, 250, 330, 390 ff.,
Honen, 31Sf. 419
HooKE, S. H., 8 Indra, god worshipped by various
Horeb, Mt, 65 Aryan peoples, 3, 33 £, 35, 38,
Horu, 1., 240 91, 192
Horites,2 Indulgences, sale of, 319
Horus, 7,179 Indus valley, 25£, 59, 116
Hosea, 65, 70, 109 Infallibility, 328, 347
Hosso, 251 Iqbal, Muhammad, 387£,393
HoTTINGER, A., 298 £, 303 Iran, 2, 29, 34, 75, 79, 162, 209,
Housman, L., 342 214,286,384
Hsian-fu, 237 Iraq, 223, 225, 227, 281, 286, 296,
Hsuan-tsang, 234 303
Hue,403 kenaeus,St,170,174,428
Hui-neng, 238 Irrawaddy, 249£
Humbert, Cardinal, 285 Isaac, 17
Hungary, 332 Isaac the Blind, 281
Huxley, A., 378 Isaiah, 65, 68, 109
Hyrcanus,John, 121 Isherwood, C., 378
Index 451
Isis, 179 118£,121£, 153ff., 157, 160f.,
Islam, 209-19 ; in India, 268, 172,174,218,362
327-30, 378£, 381£, 384f£; Jesuits, 321 £, 328, 334, 345
methods of expansion, 330 Jesus of Nazareth, 151-60, 164f£,
Islamic belief, 293; learning, 290; 168, 171, 173, 177£, 293
philosophy, 277; theology, 178, Jews, 228; in Spain, 302; in
213; State, 226£ England, 355; in France, 355;
Israel, 43, 362; religion of, 19 in Russia, 355£; in Germany,
Iivara, name used in Hinduism for 356; in U.S.A., 334£,358
supreme being, 264 Jezebel, 63
Italy,272,345 jihad (Arabic), 'striving' or 'effort'
1-Tsing, 232,241,245,250 (i.e. for God), especially politi-
lzanagi and lzanami, 107 cal conquest on behalf oflslam,
219, 221£, 224f., 227, 287,300,
Jacob, 17£ 331
Jacobson, I., 357 jniina (Skt), knowledge, as a way
Jahangir, 329 of salvation in Indian religion,
Jahweh. See Yahweh 264
Jains, Jainism, 98 f£, 110, 143 f., Job, book of, 116, 123
193,229,258,305 Jodo,315
Jalal-al-Din Rumi, 297, 387 JoNES, R., 279 £, 284
Jama'at-i-Islami, 394£ Josephus, 123, 151 f.
James, epistle of, 175 Joshua, book of, 18, 21, 37, 39
James, E. 0., xxi Judaism, 75£, 82, 160, 211, 214,
jAMEs, Fleming, 65 227, 278, 281; Reformed, 357£
Japan, 106,237,250,314-16,321, Judas~accabeus, 120
334£, 355; new religions of, Jude, epistle of, 175
413£ Judea, 119, 122
Japanese Buddhism, 239-41, 250- Judges, Hebrew, 38
252,413£ Judgment, Last: in Islamic theol-
Japanese reaction to colonialism, ogy, 293; Christian doctrine of,
334 277
Japanism, 406 Julian ofNorwich, 281
Jati, 187, 266 Jupiter, 30
Java,194,250,392 Justin, 176
JAYASURIYA, W. f., 409,417
JAYATILLEKE, K. N., 164,338 Ka'ba, 211, 218, 220
Jayawickrama, N. A., 92 Kabbalah, 281
JEFFERY, A., 231 Kabir, 324f£
Jehovah's Witnesses, 315 Kailashanatha temple, 262
Jereboam, 46 Kiili, Hindu goddess, one of
Jeremiah, 69, 71, 109 names for consort of Siva, 193,
Jerusalem, 46£, 62, 111, 113f£, 269,369
Q L.H.R.
452 Index
Kalkin, final avatara of Vi¥.JU, yet Koan, verbal device used by cer-
to come, 148 tain Zen Buddhists, 238
Kami, spirit-lords, or 'superior Kobo Daishi, 252
ones' in Japanese mythology, Koran. See Qur' an
240,334 Korea,239
Kanauj, 242, 257 Kosala, 83
Kanchipuram, 257,263 KosAMBr, D. D., 27, 51, 53, 55,
Kandy (Ceylon),Kingdom of,396 83,86,90
Kapila, 188 Koya, Mt, 252
Kapilavastu, 242 KRAMER, s. N., 2
Karma, Indian theory of moral Krishnadeva, King, 324
retribution, 27£, 173, 187 Kr~t;za (Skt, Anglicised, Krishna),
Karnataka, 268 one of the avataras of the Hindu
KARUNARATNE, W. S., 308 god Vi~t;zu, 147£,189,266
Kashi, 83 ~atriya, one of the vart;zas or
Kashmir, 137 f., 193, 230,241,399 social classes in India, the
Kay a. See Dharma-kaya, Nirmana- nobility, 52 f., 55, 143
kaya. Sambhoga-kaya Kublai Khan, 234, 330
Kempis, Thomas 281a, Kufah, 223, 296
Kerala, 193,260 Kukai, 251
Kerygma (Gk.), 'the preaching' or Kumarajiva, 202
'that which is preached' (sc. Kumari,269
about Jesus ofNazareth), 156 Kusinagara, 86
Khadija, 212£,216 Kutadanta Sutta, 130, 143
Khalifa (Arabic), successor, or Kyoto,251
representative of Muhammad,
220. See also Caliphate Lahore,300,395
Khandha (Pali), Skandha (Skt), Lammenais, de, 346
constituent of a human 'indi- Lanka (Ceylon), 138
vidual' in Buddhist analysis, of Laos,250
which there are five, 87, 131 Lao-tzu, 105, 109
Kharijites, Islamic sect, 224££287, Last Judgment: Christian doctrine
Khomiakov, A., 349 of, 277; in Islamic theology,
Khorasan, 296 293
Kindi (Al-Kindi), 298 Laughing Buddhha, 313
Kings: Burmese, 310£, 401, 411; Law,Jewish, 154f.
Sinhalese, see Kandy, Kingdom LEE,R.,359
of; Jewish, see Davidic LEFF, G., 271, 273, 283
Kingsley, Charles, 344 Lenski, G., xxii
Kiriath-jearim, 45 Leo the !saurian, 272, 332
KIRK, K. E., 185£ Leon of Granada, 282
Kirtana, Hindu song-session and Leur,J. C. van, 194
devotions, 325 LEVY, R., 217,330
Index 453
Lhasa, 247 Madras, 150, 193, 257, 264, 352,
Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, 106 376,382,400
Liberal Protestantism, 156 Madurai, 260, 325
Licinius, 180 Magadha, heartland of early
Lieh-tzu, 105, 109 Buddhism, 83 ff., 126 £, 136 £,
LIGHTFOOT, R. H., 156 143,145,191,206
LING, T., 80, 312 Magic,8f.
Lingam, 193,268 Mahii-Bhiirata, ancient Indian epic
Lingayata, a sect of Shaivites poem, 189 ff.
(Hindu), 268,325 Maha Bodhi Society, 399£
Liverpool, 357 Mahakassapa, 129
Livingstone, D., 353 Mahiiparinibbiina Sutta, 96
Lobha (Pali), greed, one of the Maharashtra, 373 f.
three basic divisions of moral Maha Sabha, Hindu political
evil in Buddhist thought, with party, 374
dosa and moha, 89 Mahiisanghikii, school of early
Logos the Word, concept of a Buddhism, 129, 137, 139 ff.,
universal principle, used in 196
Hellenistic Christian thought, Mahasena, king of Ceylon, 203
87,173,291 Maha-vihara, monastic centre in
Lombardy, 272 Ceylon, 202
London,357 Mahavira, leader of the early Jain
Lord's Day, 182 community,99,109
Lords, House of, 355 Mahayana Buddhism, 127, 129,
Lotus Sutra, 239, 316 139, 141,150, 195ff.,236, 242£,
Lucaris, Cyril, 332 249£, 253f., 304,310
LUDOWYK, E. F. c., 398£ Mahendra-Varman, 257,259
Luther, Martin, 319,321 f. Mahinda, 138,203
Lti-tsung, school of Buddhism in Mahmud of Ghazni, 228
China, 235 £, 239 Maimonides, 278, 302, 336
Lyall, A., 383 Mai-Tho-Truyen, 403
Lyons, 174,278 Maitreya, the Buddha who is to
come,148,236,313
Ma'bad, 231 £ Maitreyanatha, 199
Macarious, 331 Malabar, 150, 229, 267, 324
MacArthur, Gen., 413 Malacca, 321
Macaulay,Lord,352,382 Malachi, book of, 123
Maccabeus: Jonathan, 120f.; Malalasekere, G. P., 416£
Judas, 120; Simon, 121 Malaya, 106,209,241,330
Madhva, 266 f., 335 MALINOWSKI, B., 8
Miidhyamika, prominent school of Mamelukes, 303
philosophy in Mahayana Budd- Manava Dharma Sastras, 191
hism, 197£,200, 260 Manchester, 357
454 Index
MatJiJala, 244, 269 Melkart, god ofTyre, 64
Mandalay, 371,401,411£ Memphis, 185
Manichaeism, 78, 182£, 196, 233, Menander,138
289,291 Mendelssohn, Moses, 356 £
Manning, 346 MENDIS, G. c., 397 f., 408
MANSON, T. w., 151 £ Meredith, G., 342
Mantrayiina, later development of Meru, Mt, 401
Mahayana Buddhism, 244, Mesopotamia, 1--4, 18£, 59, 114,
251£,254 221
Manu, in Hindu mythology the Messiah, 124, 154£, 157£, 164£,
primal man, 191, 195 363
Manu, laws of, xxiv Metempsychosis, 28
Mara, in Buddhist mythology, Methodism, 322£, 339, 343£,
the evil one, 85 353
Marathi, 325 f. Methodist, view of Salvation, 323,
Marduk, 2, 3, 7 342
Mari texts, 15 Micah, 65, 69, 109
MARRIOTT, McK., 376 Micaiah ben Imlah, 67
Martaban, Gulf of, 249 Michal,44
Martel, Charles, 272£ Middle class, inS. Asia, 418
Marx, K., xix, 339 f., 344 Middle Way, title used to
Marxism, 402,414 describe Buddhist teaching and
Mastema, 124 discipline, 88, 197
Matha, Hindu religious centre and M:!GOT, A., 318
monastery, 261,268 Milan, 183; Edict of, 180
Mathura, 137 Milinda, Questions of, 138
Maudiidi, Maul ana, 394£ Mi-lo, 31
Maulawiya, 297 Mimamsa, school of Indian phil-
Maurice, F. D., 344 osophy, 188
Maya, illusory structure of the Minto, Lord, 352
empirical world by which the Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, 389
One appears as many, ace. to Missionaries, Christian, 350-5,
Hindu philosophy, 260 382,396f£
Mecca, 211-19,222£, 225f£, 294, Mithras,30
298,390 Mitra, god worshipped by various
Medina, 213-20, 223, 225 ff., 287 Aryan peoples, 3, 30, 34
Meditation, Buddhist, 88£, 204£, Mittani, 34
238 Miyako,251
Mediterranean, 26, 143, 159, 165, Moggallana,127
169, 176, 178, 206, 211, 229, Moha (Pali), delusion, one of the
271£ three basic divisions of moral
Megasthenes, 146 evil in Buddhist thought, with
Meijiperiod,251,405 dosa and lobha, 89
Index 455
Mok~a (Skt), in Indian religious Nachmanides, Moses, 281
thought, release, salvation from Nagarjuna, 197,202£
the round of rebirth, 56, 263 £ Nagasena, 138
Monasteries, Hindu (matha), 261, Nairs, 229
268 Nalanda, 242£, 245, 248, 250, 305
Monasticism: Buddhist, 128, 137, Namdev, 325 f.
139, 195£, 202£,305£; Christ- Nanak, 324 ff.
ian, 138, 185 £, 256, 273 £, Napoleon, 345, 355
279 Nara, 240£, 250
Mongolian races, 26 Narayan, P. S., 374
Mongols, 234, 301£, 314, 316 Narayana, 146£,192
Monks, Buddhist, 238. See also Nathan, 47, 67
Monasticism Nayanars, 258
Mons (people of S. E. Asia), 249, Nehemiah, 115
311 Nehru, Pandit J., 409£,
Moody, D. L., 343 NEIL, S., 353
MooRE, G. F., 65£ Neoplatonism, 179,183,196
Morality, Buddhist, 88,204£ Nepal,247
Mother-goddesses, 58, 196,271 Neranjara, river, 85
MOWINCKEL, S., 125 Nero, 161
Mozarabs, 228 Nestorians, 237,289
Mu'-awiya, 223, 226 £ New Testament, 124,174£
Mughal empire, 228, 328-30, 365, New York, 361
382 Newman,}. H., 345£
Muhammad, 211 ff., 224-36, 287, N go Dinh Diem, 404
293 Nibbana (Pali), Nirvat;ta (Skt), in
Muhammad ibn Qasim, 228, Buddhist thought, the goal of
230 the religious life, 86£, 91
Muhammadiya movement, 392, Nibbuta (Pali), term describing
419 the ideal of humanity, in
Muir, W., 383 Buddhist thought, 92 £, 140
MUJEEB, M., 394 Nicaea, 180
Munir Report, 394 Nichiren, 314,316,415
MuRTI, T. R. V., 198£ Nicholas, St, 182
Muslim, one who is 'surrendered' Nicholson,]., 371
to God, an adherent of Islam, NIEBUHR, H. R., 322£
216,218£ Nietzsche, 81,387
Muslim League, 387£, 393 Nigeria, 330
Mutazilites, 290-2, 294 Nikaya (Pali), an assemblage, esp.
Mutiny, Indian, 352, 366, 380 of Buddhist discourses and
Mysore, 193,268 texts, 98
Mysticism: Christian, 278-81; Nile,4, 7
Jewish, 281 f. Nirmana-kaya (Skt); one of the 3
456 Index
bodies (kaya) of the Buddha; Pala dynasty, 257,305,317
the manifested, historical Pali, 196,204,398
Buddha, 198. Pali canon (Buddhist scriptures),
Nirvafia (Skt), 87. See Nibbana 206,249
Nobili, Roberto de, 321, 325 Pallava dynasty, 257£
NocK, A. D., 125 Paiicaratrikas, 192
Nonconformists, 343£ Paficasila, 'the five moral precepts',
NORTH, C. R., 114 i.e. to be observed by all
NOTH, M., 23,45 Buddhists, 88
Nu, U,411£ PANIKKAR, K. M., 375, 377
NYA~AMOLI, 204 Panini, 144
NYANAPONIKA, 132 Pan-Islam movement, 384
Nyaya, school of Indian philoso- Papacy, 282f., 286
phy, 187 Paradise, Islamic, 292
Paradise, Sikh religious goal, 327
Ockham, William of, 282££,319, Paradise, Western. See Pure Land
336 Parakkama Bahu, 309
Odantapura, 243 Parentalia, 182
Oestre, Saxon goddess, 182 Paris, 321, 345
Ohrmazd, alternative form of PARKES,]., 355,364
Ahura Mazda, q.v. Parsees, 75
Olcott, Col., 398, 400 Parsons, Talcott, xxii, 20
Old Testament, 113£ Par5va, early Jain teacher, 99
O'MALLEY, L. s., 371£ Parvati, Hindu goddess, one of:
Omri,63 names for consort of Siva, 193,
Ordination certificates (Chinese 269
Buddhist), 312 Pascendi, Papal encyclical, 347
Origen, 172£, 176 Passover, 65
Orissa, 249 Pataliputra, 126,137£,146,191
Orthodoxy, medieval Christian, Patimokkha (Pali), code of disci-
274f. pline for Buddhist monks, 128
Osiris, 7 Patna,127, 137,242
OTTo,R., 72 Patriarchs, Eastern Orthodox,
Ottoman empire, 330£ 331f., 348
Ouranos,30 Paul, St, 153 ff., 158 £, 160, 271,
Oxford Movement, 345 404,427
Pauline theology, 170
Pachomius, 186 PAYNE, E. A., 269f.
Padma-Sambhava, 248, 317 Peasants' Revolt, 284
Pagan (Burma), 249, 311 Pelagianism, 284
Pagoda, 135 Pelagius, 184, 274
Pakistan, 209, 228, 301, 379, Pentecostal sects, 326
393f£, 419f. Persia. See Iran
Index 457
Persians, 111,114£,122,196 Prafimok~a (Skt). See Patimokkha
Pesantren, Islamic schools in Prayers, 5; daily, Islamic, 294
Indonesia, 3-91 f. Predestination, 231, 293 f.
Peter, St, 174,271 Presbyterians, 322
Peter the Great, 348 PRESTIGE, G. L., 172, 177
PETRIE,W. M. F., 185£ Priesthood: Jewish, 46; Indian,
Phallic symbols, 12 53. See also Brahma~;t
Pharisees, 121 f., 163 Prome,249
Philippi, 161 Prophecy, Hebrew, 156
Philippians, epistle to, 153 Prophetic literature, 123
Philistines, 41, 44 Prophets, 109, 214; in Islam, 293
Philo, 167 Protestant Reformation, 179,319,
Phoenicia, 63 322,332
PIGGOTT, s., 11 Protestantism, 156, 319 f., 339 ff.,
Pilate, Pontius, 152, 161 359
Pilgrimage, Islamic, 294 Provence,281
Pillars oflslam, five, 294 Pudgalavadins, the 'personalists',
Pinsker,Leo,356,362 a Buddhist school, 133
Pipal, Hindu sacred tree, 12 PCija (Skt), worship, in Indian
Pippin, 273 religion, 264
Pirivena, Buddhist institution of Punjab, 10, 29, 34f., 116,230,241,
higher learning, 398 300,326
Plato, 298 Puranas, 189, 191
Po-chang, 238 Pure Land school of Buddhism,
Poitiers, 272 235f., 239f., 314ff., 403
Poles, Roman Catholic, 331 Purgatory, 285
Polonnaruwa, 253, 309 Pyus,249
Polytheism, 223
Pompey, 122 Qadarites, 232,287,291
Pope, 272,279, 284f., 322, 345f.; Qasim, Muhammad ibn, 228, 230
Gregory III, 273; Gregory XVI, Quadir, Quadiris, 297
346; Leo XIII, 347; Pius X, Quadiyanimovement,389
347; Urban II, 302 Quakers (Society of Friends), 320,
Portuguese, 321, 325, 333£, 354, 322,337
396f. Qumran, 123
Poseidon, 182 Qur'an, 211, 213, 219, 222, 231,
Prabandham, collection of hymns 290ff., 293f., 299,329,338,381
oftheAlvars (q.v.), 263 Quraysh,212,217,222
Practices, religious, Islamic, 294 QuREsm, I. H., 229, 370, 382ff.,
Prajapati (Skt), Vedic god, 'Lord 387
of Creation), 49
Prajiia-paramita (Skt), transcen- Rad, G. Von, 23,47
dental wisdom, 246 Radha, 147, 267
458 Index
Radhakrishnan, S., 378,410 RINGGREN, H., 63, 71 f., 74,
RAHMAN, F., 379 124£
RA.HULA, w., 202,404£ Rinzai Zen, 314
Rai Dasa, 325 ROBINSON,]. A. T., 157
Rajgir, 126; Buddhist Council at, ROBINSON, T. H., 66, 69
129 Roe, Sir Thomas, 333
Rama,148,190,192,326 Rolle, Richard, 281
Rama Raya, 324 Roman Christianity, 181; com-
Ramadan, 294 pared with Eastern Orthodoxy,
Ramakrishna, 367, 369 284££
Ramakrishna Mission, 377 Roman rule ofPalestine, 111, 122,
Ramananda,13,267,335 160
Ramanuja, 13, 263ff., 299, 335, Romans, epistle to, 153
367 Rome, 161, 174, 183, 319, 348;
Ramanya sect {Buddhist), 398 pagan religion of, 180; primacy
Ramayana, 148, 189 £, 326 of,271
Rangacarya, V., 265 Routley, E., 359
Rangoon,378,400,411£ ROWLEY, H. H., 16, 101
Ras Shamra, 16 Roy, Ram Mohan, 365 f£
Rashid Rida, 378, 385 Royce, Josiah, 284
Ravana, 190 R.S.S. {Hindu political party),
Razzias, 219 374
Rebirth. See Karma IJ_ta, cosmic law or principle in
Rechabites, 68 Vedic religion, 51
REDFIELD, R., 142 Russia: religion in, 347££, 421;
Reform Judaism, 357 f. Jews in, 355 £, 362
Reformation, 179, 319£, 332, Russian Orthodox Church, 331,
340 347-50,358
Rehoboam, 46 Ruysbroek,John, 280
Renan, E., 383 Ryobu Shinto, 252
RENOU, L., 31 £
Rerum Nov arum encyclical, 347 Sabbath, 119
Resurrection, 162f.; in Islamic Sabaoth, Yahweh, 71 £
belief, 293 Sacraments, Christian, 318
Revelation, Book of {The Apo- Sacrifice, Vedic, 55
calypse), 173, 175 Sadducees, 121 f£, 162
Revivalism, 342 Saicho,251
Revolution, French, 339, 345 Saigon, 403 £
Rg-Veda, 29 f., 48 f., 50, 52, 73, Sakka, chief of the devas, or
.146 heavenly beings in Buddhist
Rhys-Davids, T. W., 399 mythology, 91
Ricci, M., 321 Sakya clan, 83
RIC.HARDSON, H. E., 318 Salome, Queen, 122
Index 459
Salvation: bhakti doctrine of Siistras, type of Sanskrit literature,
(mokfa), 263f.; by works, 333; 191
Methodist doctrine of, 323, SASTRI, N., 260, 262, 265, 268,
342; through Church and sacra- 324f.
ments, 184, 275, 320 Satan,124,173,182
Salvation Army, 344 Sati, 366
Samiidhi (Skt), intense contempla- Satori, 238
tion, term used in Buddhism, Saturnalia, 182
88 Saul, King, 42£, 62
Samaria,63, 70,111 Sautrantikas, Buddhist school
Siima-veda, one of the 4 collections which affirmed the Sutras only,
of Vedic hymns, 32 and rejected the Abhidhamma,
Sambandha, 259 134
Sambhoga-kiiya, one of the three Sayyid Ahmad Khan, 383, 385 £
'bodies' (kiiya, q.v.) of the Sayyid Ali Muhammad, 388
Buddha; the 'bliss' or 'heavenly' Schechter, S., 358
body, 199 Scriptures, veneration of, 338
Sammana-phala Sutta, 130 Sects: Christian, 335, 360£;
Samudra Gupta, 192 Hindu, 325£, 337; Japanese,
Samuel, 40 f., 43, 72 post-war, 414£; Russian, 350
Sangermano, 311 Secularisation, 422£
Sangha, the Buddhist order of Secularism, 256
monks, 85, 89, 95-8, 125 f£, Sedek,45
136,139,239 Seleucids, 117 £
Sanghamitra, 203 Self-immolation, Buddhist, 404
Sangharakshita, 410 Sen, Keshab Chandra, 367
Sangiti Sutta, 131 Septuagint, 167
Sankey, Ira, 343 Seraphim,St,349
Siil}khya, School of Indian philo- Serapis, 179
sophy, 188, 198 Servetus, 320
Sanskrit, 26, 29, 41, 48, 143f., 194, Seth, 293
196,202,204,265,326 Sexual symbolism, 246£
Sanskrit literature, 31 shadhiliya, 297
Saoshyant, 82, 148 Shah Jahan, 329
Sarekat Islam, 392 Shahiida (Arabic), Islamic con-
Sariputta, 127 fession of faith in God, 294
SARKISYANZ, E., 309,311,401 Shaivites, Shaivism, 144, 242, 258,
Sarnath, 85, 400 301,324
Sarviistiviidins, one of the schools Shiiktas, Hindu sect, worshippers
of early Buddhism, 132, 134, of female deity Shakti, 268 £,
137,202,249 335
Sassanian era, 81 Shakti, in Hinduism the female,
Sassanid empire, 287 £ active principle in deity, 269
460 Index
Shalem, 45 SMITH, Vincent A., 328
Shankara, Hindu philosopher, SMITH, W. Cantwell, 386, 393 ff.
204,260,263,266,280,335 Smrti {Skt), term used in Hindu-
Shan-tao, 236 ism for 'tradition' - that which
Sharia, the law oflslam, 303 is remembered, as distinct from
Shariat Allah, 381 revealed truth (5ruti), 191
Sheba, Queen of, 46 SNELLGROVE, D., 244f.
Shechem,37 Social classes, Persian, 288
Sheol {Hebrew), abode of the Socialisation of knowledge,
dead,29,44, 73 300
Shi'ites, 225£,419 Socialism, 344
Shiloh, 40, 42 Society of Friends (Quakers), 320,
Shingon, 251 £ 322,337
Shinran,316 Society of Jesus (Jesuits), 321£,
Shinsu, 315£ 328,334,345
Shinto, 106-8,110,240,252,413, Soka Gakkai, 316,415£
415£ Solomon, 45 £, 62, 64
Shirk {Arabic), the supreme sin, Soma (Skt), sacred plant in India,
in Islam, of identifying a also Vedic deity, 30, 82
created being with God, 224£ Son of Man, 120, 125
Shivaji, 370 Sophia (Gk), wisdom, 196
Shotoku, Prince, 239 f. Sophistication of religious
Shravasti, 242 thought, 335
SHRYOCK,}. K., 102 Soto Zen, 315
Siam. See Thailand South-East Asia, Hinduism in,
Siberia, 354 194,377
Sikhs, 326£ South India, Church of, 359
Silesia, 332 Spain, 209, 227£, 272, 281 £,
Simeon, Charles, 341 302
Sin: idea of, 72-5, 182ff.; forgive- Spanish imperialism, 334
ness of, 342 Spencer, H., 405
Sinai, 18, 23£, 37, 39 Spenta Mainyu, holy spirit, in
Sind, 227 f£, 230, 301 Zoroastrianism, 77
SINGER, M., 376 Spiegal, Fr, 79
Sinhalese indigenous religion, 310 Spirit, Holy, 178£
Sita, wife ofRama, 190,267 Srauta-Siitras, 150
Siva {Shiva), one of the three SRAWLEY,J. H., 176
major gods of Hinduism, 12, Srirangam, 263 £
146,179,192£,258,268 Sruti (Skt), term used in Hinduism
Slater, G., 28 for revealed scripture, 191
Slavophils, 349 Stace, W. T., 399
SMART, N., 276£ State, the: and Buddhism, 305,
SMITH, RoBERTSON, 223 309, 317, 406, 411 £; and
Index 461
Church, 346; and Hindu Suvanna-bhumi, 138, 249
religion, 374£; and Islam, Svetiimbara, one of the two main
226 f. ; and religion, 418 £ divisions ofJains, 100
Stevenson, R. L., 342 SwANsoN, G., Sf.
Sthaviras, early Buddhist school, SwEETMAN,]. W., 231
128£, 137, 139£ Syllabus ofErrors, 346
Stratification, social, in ancient Synagogue, 113
India, 52 Syria, 173, 178, 221f., 225, 303;
Student Christian Movement, 358 Syrian Christians (S. India), 351
Stupa, reliquary mound used as
cult-object by Buddhists, 135 Tacitus, 151, 161
Sudhammavati, 249 Tagaste, 182
Sudra, lowest of the 4 social classes Tagore (Thakur), Debendranath,
ofHindu society, 266 367
Suetonius, 152 Tai-hsu, 402
Sufis, 228, 295 f., 337 Tai-tsu, 234
Suhrawadiya movement, 297 Talmud, 151, 282, 357
Sulayman, Sultan, 331 Tamil language and literature,
Sultanate: of Delhi, 303, 328; 256,266
Ottoman, 331 Tamil Vaishnavism, 259
Sumatra,194,250,353,390,392 Tamils, 253, 257 ff.
Sumer,2 Tang dynasty, 232 ff., 235 ff.
Summa contra Gentiles, 277 Tat;~hii (Pali), TrSIJii {Skt), 'thirst',
Summa theologica, 277, 336 i.e., in Buddhist terminology,
Sundara, 259 craving, that which binds one
Sunday, 180 to the cycle of rebirths, 87
Sunday, Billy, 343 Tanjore, 262
Sung dynasty, 234, 312 Tantric Buddhism, 200, 241,
Sunga dynasty, 146 244ff., 249£,253,311,317
Sunna, traditional wing oflslamic Tantric cults, Hindu, 269
community,293 Tao, Taoism, 104£, 110, 201,
Sunni, 293, 303 233£,251
Suiiyii, Buddhist doctrine of, 141 Tao-ch'o, 236
Supper of the Lord, 160£, 175 Tao Hsiian, 235
Susanoo, 107 Tariq, 227
Suso, Henry, 281 Tauler,J., 280
SUtra (Skt), 191; See also Sutta Tawney, R. H., xxii
Sutta (Pali), Buddhist term for a Tel Aviv, 362
connected discourse, unit of Temple, Jewish, 46, 69, 114, 119,
Buddhist scriptures, 130, 143, 154,162,357
337 Temples, Hindu, 261 £, 300,
Sutta Nipiita, one of the earliest 324f.
Buddhist texts, 91 ff. Tendai, 251£
462 Index
Tengalai, 265£ Tokugawa period, 314, 316, 321,
Tertullian, 185£ 334,355,405
Thailand, 194, 206, 249£, 306, Tolstoi, Leo, 350, 373
311,406£ Torah,114£, 119,123,160
THAPAR, R., 136, 143, 262, 305 Tractarianism, 346
Thaton, 248£,311 Trade unions, 344
Theocracy, Islamic, 287 Transmigration, 28, 55£, 187
Theosis, 297 Transoxania, 328
Theosophical Society, 361, 398 £ Trent, Council of, 321
Therapeutae, 138, 186 TREVELYAN, G. M., 343
Theraviida (Pali), the doctrine of Tri-kiiya (Skt), Buddhist doctrine
the Elders; school of Buddhism of the 'three bodies', 179,198£
predominant in Ceylon and Trinity, Holy, Christian doctrine
S. E. Asia, 128, 235, 249, 304, of, 178 f., 199,277, 320
306 Tripi{aka (Skt) = Tipitaka (Pali),
Theravadins, adherents of the q.v.
Theravada, 128, 196£, 202f£, Troeltsch, E., 414
205,249,253£,337 Tsar, 348 f., 356
Thessalonians, epistle to, 153, 155 Tulasi Dasa, 325 £
Thibaw, King, 411 Tunis, 297
Thirty-nine Articles, 346, 360 Turkestan, 233
THOMAS, B., 222, 286 Turkey,209,297,384
THOMAS, M. M., 375 Turkish Muslims, 262, 285, 300£,
Thomas, St, the Apostle, 150, 324 304
Thomas, St. See Aquinas Turks, 111,228,300£,304,331
Thomas, Winton, 16 Tyre, 46, 173
THOMSON, 1., 407
Thronbesteigungifest, 7 Ulamii (Arabic), learned men,
Thugs, a Hindu sect devoted to particularly those learned in
the goddess Kali, 269 Islamic study, guardians of
Tiamat, 7 Islamic custom and usage, 385,
Tiberius, 161 394
Tibet, 247,306, 317£, 399, 431 Ultramontanism, 345
Tibetan Buddhism, 248, 410, 421 Umar, Caliph, 221, 225, 288, 296
Tientai school ofBuddhism, 251 Umayyads, 222,227£,230£,287,
Tilak, B. G., 190,368,370,386 295
Timothy, epistle to, 153 Umma (Arabic), the Islamic com-
Tipi{aka (Pali), 'three baskets', munity, 216f£, 223,225
comprehensive title for the Unitarianism, 179
Buddhist canon of scripture, Untouchables, Hindu social class,
137 187
Titus, epistle to, 153 Upanishadicphilosophy, 54,188£,
Tokimune, 314 260,263
Index 463
Upanishads, Sanskrit philosophi- Vegetarianism, 268
cal texts, 49, 54£, 56, 150, 189, Venice, 331
191,198 Vesali, Council of(Buddhist), 129
Upiisaka (Pall and Skt), Buddhist Vibhajya-vadins, school of early
lay devotee, 90, 240 Buddhism, 131
Urdu,381 Victoria, Queen, 352, 369, 372
U.S.A., xxi, 347, 355£, 358 ff., Videvdat, 76
362,421 Vidyadaya, 398
Vidyalankara, 398
Vadagalai, 265 Vienna,331
V airocana, 244 Vietnam, 402 ff.
Vaise~ika (Skt), school of Indian Vigraha, Hindu image, or symbol
philosophy, 187, 198 of deity, 262
Vaisnavite, Vaisnavism, 144, 148, Vihiira (Pali and Skt), an abode or
192,258,267,301 station; hence in Buddhism, a
Vaisya (Skt), one of the var~Jas or monastic hall, and a stage in
social classes in India; the spiritual life, 202
merchants, 80 Vijayanagar, 258, 324f.
Vaitulya, 202£ Vijfiana-vadins, school of Mahay-
Vajji tribal republic, 96, 129 ana Buddhism. See Y ogacara
Vajrayiina (Skt), school of Mahay- Vikramasila, 243,248
ana Buddhism, 200, 244, 248, Vinaya (Pali and Skt), disciplinary
253f. code for Buddhist monks set
Vallabha, 325 out in Vinaya-pitaka, one of
Valmiki, 190 three main divisons of the
Vandals, 183 canon, 127 ff., 131, 186, 235,
VARMA, V.P.,367 239,337
Var(1a (Skt), a traditional division Virgin Mary, cult of, 182, 271,
of Hindu society of which 346
there were four, briihma(1, Visigoths, 183
~atriya, vaisya and Siidra (q.v.), Visi~tiidviiita, system of Hindu
150,265 philosophical theology, 264
Varuna, Vedic god of the sky, 3, V4(1U (Vishnu), one of the three
29,33f., 73 major deities of Hinduism, 33,
Vasubandhu, 199 146,179,192£,258,267
Vasudeva, 146, 192 Visuddhimagga, 94£, 204f., 307
Vatican Council (1869-70), 346 Visvakarman, 'maker of the
Vayu,267 universe', Vedic deity, 49
Vedanta (Skt), school of Indian Vivekananda, 369 f.
philosophy, 188,237,377
Vedic literature, 30-2, 143, 266£, W ahhabi movement, 280, 385
324; sacri£ce, 143£; Sanskrit, W aldenses, 278, 337
29 Waldo, Peter, 278
464 Index
Wali Allah, 379,381 Yahweh (Hebrew), the divine
W alid I, 227, 229 f. name, in Hebrew religion, 22-
wALKER, G. s. M., 279 25, 30, 36£, 42, 47, 60, 69£,
Wallace, W., 371 71, 112, 119, 124, 171, 218;
WAND,]. W.C.,346 abode of, 65; prophets of, 64,
WARE, T., 332, 348£ 66
WARFIELD, B. B., 319 Yahwism, 62£, 66, 68
WATT, W. M., 211, 213£, 217, Y ajur-veda, one of the 4 collections
223, 225 f., 231 of Vedic hymns, 32
WEBER, M., xix, xxii, xxiv, 5, Yamunacarya, 263£
13 £, 20, 70, 90, 95, 308, 340 YANG, C. K., 102,106, 313f.
Weeks, festival of, 39 Yasa, 129
W eizmann, C., 363 Yasna, liturgical portion of
WELLS, K. E., 407 Zoroastrian scriptures, 76
WENSINCK, A. J., 224£, 231, 295 Yathrib (Medina), 217
Wesak (Vesak, Visakha), Buddhist Yemen,209
annual festival of, 404 Yoga, school oflndian philosophy,
Wesley,]., 322£, 343f. 188, 260f.
WHEELER, H. M., 11 Yogiiciira, School of Mahayana
WHEELER, R. s., 388 Buddhism, 197, 199, 244, 260,
WILHELM, R., 104 317
WILSON, B., 359, 421 £, 426 York,180
Win, U.,412£
Winternitz, M., 55 ZAEHNER, R. c., 13, 48£, 52,
Wisdom, Buddhist, 205, 246 75 £, 77 f., 82, 285
Wisdomliterature,Jewish, 117 Zarathustra, 25, 75 £, 80£, 83,
Wisdom (Sophia), 196 109,214
Wittenberg, 332 Zealots, 123
WITTFOGEL, K., 4 Zechariah, 114
Woolf, L., 399 Zen Buddhism, 237, 314£
World Buddhism, 409 ZERNOV, N., 349
World Council of Churches, 358, Zeus, 30,119
360f. Zion, 71
World Fellowship of Buddhists, Zionism, 47, 159, 356, 362
408 Zohar, 282,336
WRIGHT, A. F., 233 Zoroaster, 75. See Zarathustra
Wu Tsung,233£ Zoroastrianism, 75-8, 124, 148,
162 ff., 288 £, 183, 196, 227
Xavier, St Francis, 321, 334 Zwingli, 322