The Bhagavad Gita (translated “The Song of the Adorable One” and “The Divine Lay”) is rightly regarded as the gem of all Hindu sacred literature. Hindus maintain (and few will question them) that in beauty of language and in elevation of thought it stands supreme among their Shastras, or sacred writings.

Educated Hindus proudly claim for it superiority to all sacred books of other faiths.

Of all ancient Brahmanical writings it is to-day the most cherished by the members of that faith. The ancient Rig Veda is at present only a book of antiquarian interest. The Upanishads, which are the fountainhead of Hindu thought and philosophy, are only the text-books and treasure-houses of philosophers and metaphysicians. But the Divine Lay is extolled and used alike by men of western culture, by conservative pandits, and by the masses as their highest book of doctrine and their richest treasury of devotion.

Even many Hindus who have come under the fascination of the Christ, carry with them upon their journeyings the New Testament in one pocket and the Bhagavad Gita in the other, as the common guide and inspiration of their quiet hours of meditation.

It is thus universally recognized that there is no book which wields a larger influence than this in the religious life of the two hundred and thirty millions of Hindus to-day; and there is none which is more worthy to be called the Hindu Bible.

I

In strange contrast with the bulky tomes of Brahmanism and of the great epic, Mahabharata (which, with its two hundred and forty thousand lines, is the longest epic ever written, being eight times as long as the Odyssey and the Iliad put together), the Bhagavad Gita contains only seven hundred slohams, and is not as long as the Gospel of St. Mark.

The date of the origin of the Song is very much disputed. There are Hindu authorities who would carry it back to the fifth century B.C., the time which is assigned for the first recension of the Mahabharata, of which the Bhagavad Gita is a very small part. But the highest authorities find conclusive proof that it originated about the second or third century of our era, and was then inserted as a part of an episode in the narrative of the great epic.

The Mahabharata is a great poetic narrative of a conflict between the two branches of the Bharata family the Pandavas and the Kauravas for the petty kingdom of Hastinapura, near the modern city of Delhi.

The two forces are already, in counter array, eager for the fray on the battle-field of Kuruchetra. The call to battle has already been blown upon the miraculous conchs of the leaders of both sides, who are seated in their chariots drawn by white horses. Over each one waves his personal ensign. Arjuna, the noblest of the five brave Pandava leaders, is a man of heroic traits of character; and yet within him breathes the tenderest sentiment of humanity. He pauses a moment ere he leads his mighty hosts against the enemy; and, as he looks upon his own kith and kin in the opposing ranks, he is overcome by the stern voice of conscience blending with humanitarian impulses. Is it right, can it possibly be right, for him to go forth to destroy his own friends and relatives; shall he shed the blood of those who are nearest and dearest to him upon the earth? This is the agonizing doubt which seizes upon him at this time. And in his distress he turns to his friend and relative, Krishna, who has declined to participate in the war, but who had volunteered to act as Arjuna’s charioteer. And he says unto him: “Seeing these kinsmen, O Krishna, standing (here) desirous to engage in battle, my limbs droop down; my mouth is quite dried up; a tremor comes on my body; and my hairs stand on end; the Gandiva (bow) slips from my hand; my skin burns intensely; I am unable, too, to stand up; my mind whirls round, as it were. Even those for whose sake we desire sovereignty, enjoyments, and pleasures, are standing here for battle, abandoning life and wealth preceptors, fathers, sons as well, grandfathers, maternal uncles, fathers-in-law, grandsons, brothers-in-law, as also other relatives. These I do not wish to kill, though they kill me, O destroyer of Madhu! even for the sake of sovereignty over the three worlds, how much less than for this earth (alone)?”

Krishna replied, with a view to soothe Arjuna’s perturbed mind, and to urge him on to battle.

It is this dialogue between the hero and the god which constitutes the Bhagavad Gita. And yet one can hardly call it a dialogue, since Krishna’s remarks make up more than nine-tenths of the book.

The dialogue is one of the favourite forms of Hindu literature. Most of the Puranas and the Tantras are cast in that form.

It seems very strange that this book, which is the favourite exponent of a faith whose very essence is non-resistance, whose genius is to inculcate the passive virtues, should have found its motive in the purpose of the god Krishna to overcome, in the warrior Arjuna, those worthy, humane sentiments of peace and kindness and that noble resolution to forego even the kingdom rather than to acquire it through the shedding of the blood of his relatives. How incongruous to build up the lofty structure of a faith upon so unethical, unsocial, and cruel a foundation!

II

The Song evidently belongs to the tendensschrift school of literature. It is written with a definite aim and purpose. It is the highest exponent of Hindu Eclecticism. The three great schools of Brahmanical thought and philosophy the Sankya, the Yoga, and the Vedanta were founded more than twenty-five centuries ago and have wielded resistless power in the shaping of religious thought in India. And perhaps this power was never more manifest than at the present time.

But these schools are, in their main issues, mutually antagonistic. The Sankya philosophy is severely dualistic and even has little use, if indeed it has any place, for the Divine Being. On the other hand, the Vedanta is uncompromisingly monistic. Its pantheism is of the highest spiritualistic type and is radically opposed to the materialism of the Sankya school. In one school the Divine Being is nothing and materialism has full sway; while in the other Brahm is everything, and all that appears to men the phenomenal is false and illusive.

Again, as to the method of redemption, the Yoga philosophy advocates renunciation, self-effacement, and all the forms of asceticism. On the other hand, the Sankya philosophy inculcates action as the embodiment of the duty of man, through which alone he can attain unto absorption.

Even to the present time these different schools of thought not only prevail; they have also begotten and are nourishing different schools of religious life and practice which present different ideals and enforce different methods.

The Brahman author, or authors, of the Bhagavad Gita was inspired with the laudable ambition of harmonizing these conflicting teachings and of blending their peculiarities into one consistent whole, which would appeal to all the followers of the many-sided Brahmanical faith. This he accomplished with rare beauty of language, and with a success which has won admiration and acceptance by nearly all the people of India. And this is the more remarkable since the worship of Krishna is distinctly a part of the Vaishnavite cult of Hinduism, and as such does not appeal to the Saivites, or the worshippers of Siva.

But the author, naturally and inevitably, failed to produce a congruous scheme of saving truth and religious appeal. The result is that we see, on almost every page, contradictory teachings and conflicting methods of salvation. This, of course, is by no means fatal to it in the estimation of Hindus, with whom consistency has never been a foible, and in the eyes of whom two mutually contradictory teachings can rest peacefully side by side.

Here we find dualism and monism locking hands together, and the three ways of liberation that of ritual, of asceticism, and of knowledge not only find full expression, but are also supplemented by the inculcation of faith and of the obligations of caste. To a Westerner, this jumbling together of such antagonistic ideas and methods would be as repulsive as it would be absurd. But the Oriental mind works on different lines from the Occidental, and is never hampered by logical inconsistency.

The Song of the Adorable One is divided into three chapters, of six divisions each.

The first extols the benefits of the Yoga method; but it also adds that action should be supplemented to Yoga for the speediest attainment of beatification.

In the second part, the pantheism of the Vedanta is inculcated, and Krishna identifies himself with the universal Spirit and claims adoration as such.

In the third part, an effort is made to blend the Sankya and the Vedanta conceptions, an effort which largely permeates the whole book. That is, it claims that prakriti, or elemental nature, and the soul, or atma, find their source in Brahm; and thus it practically vitiates the fundamental teachings of both systems. At the same time, it also teaches the separate existence of individual souls, which is anti-Vedantic.

As we study carefully the contents of this remarkable work, we are impressed equally with its excellences and defects, with its sublime teachings and absurd contentions. Generally speaking, it may be said to be characterized by notions which are, at the same time, supremely attractive to the East and unintelligible and repellent to the West.

1. Considering first its teaching concerning God, we find emphasized that monistic teaching of Hindu Pantheism which has been the dominant note in the faith of India from the first. But it is not the strictly spiritual and the unequivocal Pantheism of Vedantism, which is purely idealistic and which bluntly denies the existence of everything but Brahm itself. It is rather a mixture of the dual and the non-dual teaching of the two dominant, contending philosophies of the land. Krishna tells us that he is not only the supreme Spirit, but also that the material universe is a part of himself. “O Son of Pritha! I am the Kratu, I am the Yagna, I am the Svadha, I am the product of the herbs, I am the sacred verse. I too am the sacrificial butter, I the fire, I the offering. I am the father of this universe, the mother, the creator, the grandsire, the thing to be known, the means of sanctification, ... the source and that in which it merges, the support, the receptacle, and the inexhaustible seed.... All entities which are of the quality of goodness, and those which are of the quality of passion and of darkness, know that they are, indeed, all from me; I am not in them, but they are in me. The whole universe, deluded by these three states of mind, develops from the qualities, does not know me who am beyond them and inexhaustible; for this delusion of mine, ... is divine and difficult to transcend.”

“There is nothing else higher than myself; all this is woven upon me like numbers of pearls upon a thread. I am the taste in water, I am the light in the sun and the moon."

These and many other similar expressions represent an evident effort to graft the materialistic conceptions of the Sankya upon the Vedanta, which is in nothing more emphatic than in denying the existence of all that is phenomenal and material.

Krishna gave to Arjuna, at the latter’s request, a vision of his true Self separate from, and infinitely higher than, the humble and illusive garb of his incarnation. And it was to him “as if in the heavens the lustre of a thousand suns burst forth all at once.” And what a vision! Gazing upon it, Arjuna exclaims, “O God! I see within your body the gods, as also all the groups of various being; and the lord Brahm seated on his lotus seat, and all the sages and celestial snakes. I see you, who are of countless forms, possessed of many arms, stomachs, mouths, and eyes on all sides. And, O Lord of the Universe, O you of all forms! I do not see your end, middle, or beginning.... I believe you to be the eternal being. I see you void of beginning, middle, or end of infinite power, of unnumbered arms, and having the sun and the moon for eyes, and having a mouth like a blazing fire and heating the universe with your radiance. For this space between heaven and earth and all the quarters are pervaded by you alone. Looking at this wonderful and terrible form of yours, O high-souled one! the three worlds are affrighted. For here these groups of gods are entering into you.... Our principal warriors, also, are rapidly entering your mouths, fearful and horrific by reason of your jaws. And some with their heads smashed are seen stuck in the spaces between the teeth. As the many rapid currents of a river’s waters run toward the sea alone, so do the heroes of this human world enter your mouths blazing all around. As butterflies, with increased velocity, enter a blazing fire to their destruction, so too do these people enter your mouths with increased velocity, only to their destruction. Swallowing all these people, you are licking them over and over again from all sides with your blazing mouths!”

Here we verily have a fine combination of the sublime and the ridiculous! The Apostle of Jesus was given to witness a vision of heavenly things such as could not be uttered. This disciple of Krishna does not hesitate to paint in such glowing terms a vision of the divine, that, to all but a Hindu, the picture seems not only incongruous but highly absurd and disgusting. One can hardly imagine that any mortal, to whom a vision of the divine being had been granted, could fail so utterly to furnish us with an edifying description of the same.

In this Song, Krishna claims to be, at the same time, absolute Deity and the supreme incarnation. In nothing do the East and the West differ more radically than in their teaching concerning incarnation or “descent.” In Christianity, God only once became incarnate; and in that Incarnation every believing soul has found its needs fully satisfied. Never, in all these two thousand years, did our Lord Christ satisfy more completely the human soul and bring rest to more human hearts than at the present time.

To the Christian, Jesus represents the ultimate of God’s earthly manifestation, as He does the complete realization of human salvation.

But in Hinduism, incarnation is presented as a continuous passion of the Deity. The absolute Spirit forever amuses itself with the “sacred sport” of ever changing emanations and manifestations. Myriads of “descents” are recorded in their sacred books, of all degrees and forms of grotesqueness, and not a few of unblushing vileness. It is an interesting fact that the same Krishna who poses, and by millions of Hindus is accepted, as the Supreme Deity, is nevertheless represented in the most popular books of Hinduism to-day the Puranas, which are known in their legends to all Hindus and which wield a supreme influence over them in their life as a very different being. In these books the story of Krishna is one of fetid, unblushing immorality and voluptuousness. The publishing of these narratives in the English language in a western land at the present time would be considered a crime punishable with imprisonment. And thus this Hindu god, who is the most popular in India and who appeals most to the imagination of the people, led a life upon earth whose record is a story of immorality which brings a crimson blush to the pure.

But, to return to the Hindu conception of incarnation, it must be remembered that it is unique in this particular; viz. that it regards the Deity as continually returning to the world to visit and to help human beings. In the Gita, Krishna remarks:

“Whensoever, O Descendant of Bharata! piety languishes and impiety is in the ascendant, I create myself. I am born, age after age, for the protection of the good, for the destruction of evil-doers, and the establishment of piety.”

The inadequacy of any one incarnation is here proclaimed, and the idea of constant communication with and impartation of himself to humanity through repeated descents is here inculcated. And it is a fundamental conception of Hinduism a conception which differentiates it essentially from the Christian religion.

From this remark of Krishna, who speaks here as the Supreme Being, one would suppose that Hindu incarnations have been, and still are, definitely intended to enhance human piety upon earth, and have been such as to accomplish this purpose. As a matter of fact, the historic or legendary incarnations of India, as they are now recorded in their sacred books, have practically no ethical or spiritual content. I defy any Hindu to take the narratives of these descents, as found in the Puranas and other books, and show from them that there was anything more than physical and social relief to men intended by them or accomplished through them. I have yet to find, in those narratives, the conception of human sin and moral depravity and of the purpose of the incarnation to break the fetters of sin and to bring spiritual light and moral beauty to those among whom it manifested itself. The gulf which thus stands between the Hindu ideal of incarnation and the real incarnations which are recorded in Hindu literature, including that of Krishna himself, is wide and impassable. One has well said that the incarnation of Krishna is an incarnation of lust, and the record of his 16,100 wives and 180,000 sons is but a suggestion of the correctness of this estimate. Even the incarnation of Buddha, which, doubtless, is the highest and best among those incorporated into the Hindu Pantheon, is expressly stated by Hindu authorities to be for the purpose of deceiving and destroying the people.

When one begins to compare the picture of the Christian Incarnation with that of any and of all those that occupy the Hindu mind, and fill many volumes of Hindu literature, we pass from noon-day light into Egyptian darkness.

2. The doctrine of atma, or the human self, or soul, is more in accordance with the Sankya than the Vedantic school. The individual soul is represented, not as a part of the Supreme Soul, which is the distinct doctrine of the Adwaitha philosophy, but as a separate entity which is immutable and eternal. Listen to Krishna’s argument to Arjuna, in order to urge him into battle and to shed the blood of his friends: “Learned men grieve not for the living nor the dead. Never did I not exist, nor you, nor these rulers of men; nor will any of us ever hereafter cease to be. As in this body, infancy and youth and old age come to the embodied self, so does the acquisition of another body; a sensible man is not deceived about that.... There is no existence for that which is unreal; there is no non-existence for that which is real.... These bodies, appertaining to the embodied self which is eternal, indestructible, and indefinable, are said to be perishable; therefore do engage in battle, O descendant of Bharata! He who thinks it to be the killer and he who thinks it to be killed, both know nothing. It kills not, is not killed. It is not born, nor does it ever die, nor, having existed, does it exist no more. Unborn, everlasting, unchangeable, and primeval, it is not killed when the body is killed.... But even if you think that it is constantly born, and constantly dies, still, O you mighty man of arms! you ought not to grieve thus. For to one that is born, death is certain; and to one that dies, birth is certain.”

There is a great deal more in this line of the indestructibility of the soul; but nothing is said of the Vedantic idea that the soul has no real, separate existence, and that even this illusory existence, in human conditions, will terminate when the self shall be recognized to be, as it really is, an unsevered and inseparable part of the Supreme Soul.

The eternal existence of the soul is posited by every school of Hindu thought. In the Sankya philosophy, the human self, as we have seen, is a separate, uncreated entity; and the teaching of the Divine Lay concerning it is in harmony with this. And it must be confessed that in many respects this doctrine is inferior to the Vedantic, which emphasizes the spiritual character, and the divine origin and destiny, of the soul.

3. The doctrine of Liberation, or of Redemption, as found in the Bhagavad Gita, is a strange combination of all the ways which Brahmanism has inculcated through its many schools, with other ways here added. “In every way men follow in my path,” declared Krishna. In the pursuance of any religious practices whatever, men were assured that they would be acceptable if they were only Krishna-olaters.

(1) But the highest path which leads unto God is the path of knowledge (Gnana). “Sacrifices of various sorts are laid down in the Védas. Know them all to be produced from action, and knowing this you will be released from the fetters of this world. The sacrifice of knowledge is superior to the sacrifice of wealth, for action is wholly and entirely comprehended in knowledge.... Even if you are the most sinful of all sinful men, you will cross over all trespasses by means of the boat of knowledge alone. As a fire well kindled, O Arjuna! reduces fuel to ashes, so the fire of knowledge reduces all actions to ashes. For there is in this world no means of sanctification like knowledge, and that one perfected by devotion finds within one’s self in time. He who has faith, whose senses are restrained, and who is assiduous, obtains knowledge. Obtaining knowledge he acquires, without delay, the highest tranquillity.... Therefore, O descendant of Bharata! destroy with the sword of knowledge these misgivings of yours which fill your mind, and which are produced from ignorance.” “He who is possessed of knowledge, who is always devoted, and whose worship is addressed to one only, is esteemed highest. For to the man of knowledge I am dear above all things, and he is dear to me. All these are noble, but the man possessed of knowledge is deemed by me to be my own self.”

From time immemorial Indian sages have looked upon God as the Supreme Intelligence; He is the absolute Wisdom, and to know Him or it, and to know that “I am it” (Tat twam así), this is the highest wisdom (Brahma Gnana), and it gives immediate entrance into the heaven of beatification or of absorption. And the only sin which such a man, and which this system of thought, recognizes is the sin of ignorance (Avidia); that is, the folly, or stupidity, of thinking that one’s soul is separate from the divine Soul. To know, under these mundane conditions of delusion (Maya), and while under the tyranny of passion and of action (Karma), that I am, after all, identical with the divine Spirit, and that the thought of a separate existence is a snare and a bondage, this is the immediate shattering of my earthly bondage and the full entrance of my soul (like a drop of water to its mother ocean) into the eternal peace and tranquillity (Sayutcha) of the godhead a state of unconscious calm which shall never after be disturbed.

Thus the highest way of salvation, as taught by Hindus of all classes, is the way of knowledge. It is the highest step in the progress of human redemption. All other ways of salvation are but preliminary, or stepping-stones, to this. There is no return to the bondage of this world of Him who has crossed the river of death “in the boat of knowledge.” All others must again return and further, by new births, the cause of the soul’s emancipation.

(2) The second path of liberation here inculcated is that of self-restraint, of asceticism. From time immemorial the ascetic has been India’s ideal of a man of piety. He is a man who has turned his back upon the pleasures of the world, even its harmless amusements and physical enjoyments, and has given himself to stern rigid self-denial. By thus denying himself every pleasure that body can bring and every satisfaction that human society can furnish; yea, more, by a renunciation of everything worldly to the extent of supreme physical pain and social deprivation, he separates and weans himself from all that is temporal, that he may pass on in sadness up the pathway of redemption. This is the way of Yoga; and the Yogi to-day finds highest admiration in India as its ideal of life.

In the Divine Lay also this pathway of Yoga finds emphasis and exaltation.

“The devotee whose self is contented with knowledge and experience, who is unmoved, who has restrained his senses, and to whom a sod, a stone, and gold are alike, is said to be devoted.... A devotee should constantly devote himself to abstraction, remaining in a secret place, alone, with his mind and self restrained, without expectations and without belongings. Fixing his seat firmly in a clean place, not too high nor too low, and covered over with a sheet of cloth, a deerskin, and kusa grass and there seated on that seat, fixing his mind exclusively on one point with the working of the mind and sense restrained, he should practise devotion for the purity of self.... Thus constantly devoting himself to abstraction, a devotee whose mind is restrained attains that tranquillity which culminates in final emancipation and assimilation with me.... The self-restrained, embodied self lies at ease within the city of nine portals, renouncing all actions by the mind, not doing or causing anything to be done.”

This path of abstraction and asceticism leaves the soul to theosophic knowledge, which is consummated in the supreme bliss of assimilation with the Divine.

So enamoured has India been of this method of life throughout the centuries that Yoga has been reduced to a science, and has been elaborated to a degree which is ridiculous and almost idiotic. Listen, for instance, to Krishna’s instructions where he speaks of the ascetic as “holding his body, head, and neck even and unmoved, remaining steady, looking at the tip of his own nose,” etc. These ridiculous posturings and idiotic attitudes cannot, as has been well said by Barth, but lead to idiocy or to a loss of all mental aptitude.

The ultimate aim of Yoga is to reduce the soul to tranquillity and quiescence, by abstracting the mind from all things earthly, and thus leading to cessation from action; for action is said to lead to new fruit, which must be eaten by the soul; and for this purpose new births are necessary, which delay final absorption in the deity.

The spirit of Hinduism is thus evident in its exaltation of this method of life. It has made the path of abstraction and the elimination of every thought, emotion, and ambition, its ideal. In other words, man, by self-repression and the effacement of every faculty of mind and body, is to attain unto final beatification or emancipation. This is an end in itself, according to the Hindu plan of life.

In Christianity, on the other hand, self-realization and not self-effacement must be the consummation of life. The way of the Cross, that is, the path of self-denial, is indeed most rigidly enjoined; but it is the denial of the lower self, the meanest passions of the soul, in order that the highest faculties may find complete realization. Thus, in Christianity, also, asceticism has a place of value; but it is as a means to a higher end, and that is, perfect growth and development of the man unto the “measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.”

(3) It also possesses the distinction of emphasizing works or action as necessary to salvation. Indeed, the Bhagavad Gita is unique among the books of India in teaching that action is superior to renunciation.

Sri Krishna says: “Renunciation and pursuit of action are both instruments of happiness. But of the two, pursuit of action is superior to renunciation of action.”

This is, indeed, strange teaching in the realm of Hindu literature, where action is universally taught to be both in itself an evil and to be the cause of sin. Krishna, by some magic of his own power, here reverses the ordinary Hindu teaching. “He who has controlled his senses and who identifies his self with every being, is not tainted, though he performs actions.” “He who, casting off all attachment, performs actions, dedicating them to Brahm, is not tainted by sin, as the lotus leaf is not tainted by water.” Indeed, we are told that some “perform actions for attaining purity of self.” Thus we see inculcated the peculiarly un-Hindu doctrine that he who works for God is for that reason absolved from the fruit of his action; yea, more, by his very acts attains unto purity, and approaches the consummation of absorption. Still more, the very motive of Krishna, in this Divine Song, is to stir up the warlike courage of Arjuna and to lead him into the bloody activities of war. “Therefore do you, too, perform actions, as was done by men of olden times.”

But action, in order that it may be effective, must be according to prescribed rules. Any work which is inculcated in the sacred books is both sacred and useful in the scheme of redemption. And among these prescribed works, few are more useful than the performance of sacrifice. Men “have their sins destroyed by sacrifice. Those who eat the nectar-like leavings of the sacrifice prepare for the eternal Brahm. This world is not for those who perform no sacrifice. Thus sacrifices of various sorts are laid down in the Védas. Know them all produced from action, and knowing this you will be released from the fetters of this world.”

Idolatry, also, is a part of this sacred duty. “Desiring the success of action, men in this world worship the divinities, for in this world of the mortals, the success produced by action is soon obtained.” “Those who worship the divinities go to the divinities, and my worshippers, too, go to me.” “Even those, O Son of Kunti, who being devotees of other divinities worship with faith, worship me only, but irregularly. For I am the enjoyer as well as Lord of all sacrifices. But they know me not truly, therefore do they fall,” i.e. they return to the world of mortals. This teaching may be called polytheism rather than idolatry. And yet at the time this book was written, polytheism had already degenerated into idolatry.

The most definite and multitudinous courses of action are those enforced by the caste system. And these also are emphasized in this song. Krishna here informs us that he is the author of the caste system. “The four-fold division of castes was created by me according to the apportionment of qualities and duties.” Elsewhere, in Hindu writings, we are abundantly informed that Brahm created these four divisions of men from his head, his shoulders, his loins, and his feet, respectively.

He only lives well and works worthily who lives in strict accordance with caste rules, and who works in obedience to the dictates of caste tyranny. We are here informed that “one’s own duty, though defective, is better than another’s duty well performed. Death in performing one’s own duty is preferable; the performance of the duty of others is dangerous.” Here, of course, “one’s own duty” is the duty prescribed to a man by the Hindu caste system. “The duties of Brahmáns, Kshatriyas, and Vaisyas, and of Sudras, too, O terror of your foes, are distinguished according to the qualities born of nature. Tranquillity, restraint of the sense, penance, purity, forgiveness, straightforwardness, also knowledge, experience, and belief in the future world, this is the natural duty of the Brahmáns. Valour, glory, courage, dexterity, not slinking away from battle, gifts, exercise of lordly power, this is the natural duty of Kshatriyas. Agriculture, tending cattle, trade, this is the natural duty of Vaisyas. And the natural duty of Sudras, too, consists in service. Every man intent on his own respective duties obtains perfection.” And, again, “One’s duty, though defective, is better than another’s duty well performed. Performing the duty prescribed by nature one does not incur sin. One should not abandon a natural duty though tainted with evil.”

Thus the most stupendous system of social and religious evil that the world has ever known the Hindu caste system is here boldly taught and inculcated as the most sacred duty of life. One man is born for pious leadership, another born to fight, another born for menial service; and woe be to any one of them who abandons this so-called “natural duty” and strives for a betterment or a change of life! This is the divinely inculcated system of bondage which has enthralled India for twenty-five centuries.

But it is gratifying to know that, though taught and inculcated in this highest book of their faith, Hindus are beginning to denounce the whole system. Both a social and a religious consciousness are beginning to rebel against its very existence.

But we pass from this lowest aspect of “action” to the highest when we remark that all acts should, according to Krishna, be free from attachment. No duty is more frequently enforced in the Bhagavad Gita than that of detachment in religious activity; nor is there any higher than this within the whole compass of this Song. It is the duty of man to work out righteousness and to exercise virtue without regard to the results or the fruits of his action. It is the high-water mark of the teaching of the book.

“Your business is with action alone; not by any means with fruit. Let not the fruit of action be your motive to action.” “Wretched are those whose motive to action is the fruit of action.” Therefore, perform all action, which must be performed, without attachment. For a man, performing action without attachment, attains the Supreme. “Forsaking all attachment to the fruit of action, always contented, dependent on none, he does nothing at all, though he engages in action. Devoid of expectations, restraining the mind and the self, and casting off all belongings, he incurs no sin.”

We must not, however, give to this detachment a Christian value. For it is a part of Hindu thought to condemn every emotion and sentiment, however lofty as an asset of life. It regards every desire, however noble in itself, and every sentiment, however exalted, as essentially evil; for it is a momentary barrier to that equilibrium and quiescence of soul which the Hindu has always maintained to be the highest cultivation of the self. Therefore, action, in order to be of any permanent value, must be severed from every passion, desire, or expectation. And thus the Hindu does not here seek so much the existence of pure altruism as he does the absence of desire, which means soul unrest and the removal of one of the barriers to soul emancipation. It is, he says, when love and every other passion cools off into a quiet intellectual calm, and the soul is animated, not by sentiment, but by clear vision, that Sayutcha, or absorption into the Brahm, is attained.

If, then, detachment is a keyword to Higher Hinduism and man is forbidden to seek after any good, even the highest, in connection with his religious activities, what then can be an adequate motive to a religious life of good works?

Here is introduced another keyword of this Eclecticism the word Bhakti.

The doctrine of Bhakti finds a supreme place in the Divine Song. Bhakti means devotion or love to Krishna himself. Perhaps the Christian word “Faith” best expresses the full meaning of the word Bhakti. Krishna says, in substance, Have no attachment to the results of your acts; but be attached to me who am the supreme God, and live and act according to the noble impulse of that attachment.

“Among all devotees, he who being full of faith worships me, with his inmost self intent on me, is esteemed by me to be the most devoted.” “Even if a very ill-conducted man worships me, not worshipping any one else, he must certainly be deemed to be good, for he has well resolved.” “Place your mind on me, become my devotee, my worshipper; reverence me, and thus making me your highest goal, and devoting yourself to abstraction, you will certainly come to me.” “On me place your mind, become my devotee, sacrifice to me, reverence me, you will certainly come to me. I declare to you truly, you are dear to me. I will release you from all sins. Be not grieved.” “No one amongst men is superior to him in doing what is dear to me.”

It is probable that the Bhagavad Gita was the first to introduce this doctrine of faith. It is, of course, a doctrine possible only in connection with a personal God, and was doubtless introduced through the new cult of Krishna-olatry. It is foreign to Vedantism, whose God is the Impersonal and the Ineffable One; foreign also to the Sankya school, where God is neither known nor needed. It is essentially a new teaching, and is a peculiar feature of the worship of the incarnations of Vishnu.

But, introduced by this Song of the Adorable One, it has been incorporated into the Hindu religion, and figures now as one of the most powerful motives of that faith. And this new doctrine brings the Hindu religion into warmer relationship to Christianity than at any other point. Sir Monier Williams truly claims that Hinduism, in no other teaching, so closely approaches Christianity as in the doctrine of faith.

But, like all other teachings of Hinduism, this doctrine also has been considerably distorted in the process of appropriation; so that “faith” in the worship of Vishnu’s incarnations, to-day, is more potential as an act than is “faith” in Christianity. For, in Hinduism, it matters not on what god or ritual the Bhakthan places his faith, it has power to redeem him from all troubles.

It should be remembered that Bhakti is perhaps the most distinctive and mighty influence in Vaishnavism, if not in all Hinduism, at the present time.

(4) Little is said in Hinduism with a view to inculcate and to reveal the efficiency of altruism, or the love of man for man. In the Bhagavad Gita hardly any reference is made to this which is so dominant a note in the Christian faith. Krishna does remark that one should have “regard also to keeping people to their duties,” in performing action. “Whatever a great man does, that other men also do; ... wise men should not shake the convictions of the ignorant who are attached to action, but acting with devotion should make them apply themselves to all action.” “He who identifies himself with every being is not tainted, though he performs actions.” “The sages who are intent on the welfare of all the beings obtain the Brahmic bliss.”

This certainly is neither very clear, nor at all adequate, as the inculcation of the most fundamental of all duties, the love of our fellow-men and the sacrifice of self in the interest of common humanity. The Vedantin claims that the unity of all being, as taught by him, is a strong injunction upon him to love all the parts of that unity. But the Bhagavad Gita does not teach clearly even this Vedantic doctrine. Selfishness is too much stamped upon the Hindu faith. It is too exclusively an individualistic religion. It is every one for himself in the great struggle of man for redemption. It pre-eminently tends to cultivate in man both pride in his own achievement and an exclusively selfish devotion to the consummation of his own redemption.

4. In the Bhagavad Gita little is said of the character of the salvation which is to be achieved by the devotee of Krishna. Indeed, the nature of this consummation is left very much in mystery. We are told that Krishna’s worshipper will come to him. “He who, with the highest devotion to me, will proclaim this supreme mystery among my devotees will come to me freed from all doubts.” Again we are taught that such a devotee, “understanding me, truly enters into my essence.” This carries the definite and universal thought of Hinduism, that man will be absorbed in the Deity. In another place we are told that the worshipper “who is purified by the penance of knowledge has come into my essence.”

This is the eschatology of all Hindu Shastras. The peculiar teaching of the Bhagavad Gita concerning action and its emphasis upon a strenuous life in this world would have led us to expect the teaching of a future of some kind of activity. Instead of that, it falls back upon the old and hackneyed pantheistic idea, that the human soul, being ultimately divested of its human bodies, both gross and fine, passes on in its nakedness into oneness with the Absolute, and thus loses all the faculties which, so far as we know, constitute its greatness, power, and glory. In this condition of absorption the human soul is not only deprived of its separate existence, but also of all self-knowledge, which is the true basis of personality.

As to the process of this salvation we are here taught, as in all Hindu writing, that it is attained through metempsychosis, or reincarnation. The human soul, like the divine, in Brahmanism, passes through many incarnations (some writers say 8,400,000) before it receives the crown of perfection, or of absorption. Krishna says: “As a man, casting off old clothes, puts on others and new ones, so the embodied self, casting off old bodies, goes to others and new ones.” “I have passed through many births, O Arjuna, and you, also,” says Krishna; “I know them all, but you, O terror of your foes! do not know them.”

This devious and tedious path of reincarnation is the one over which every soul must pass. And between every incarnation and that which follows, the soul, clothed upon with a subtle body, passes through many heavens and hells in order to eat the fruits of its past actions. And there is a remnant of these fruits left which necessitates the return to a new body and a new human existence.

These upper and nether regions through which the soul passes and settles its accounts with the past, are not in any sense permanent. Concerning this, the Bhagavad Gita says that men, “reaching the holy world of the Lord of Gods, they enjoy in the celestial regions the celestial pleasures of the gods. And having enjoyed that great heavenly world, they enter the mortal world when their merit is exhausted.” After, perhaps, millions of these human incarnations (and, indeed, the incarnation may be of lower animal and of vegetable), the self will gradually be perfected, they say, and will pass on into the calm essence of the supreme Soul, as a drop of water descends in rain and blends again with the ocean. I see absolutely no reason why this interminable process of metempsychosis should lead to the perfection of the soul rather than to its complete demoralization. Indeed, there is nothing ethical at all in the character of these réincarnations, so far as they are described by Hindu writers.

III

This, then, is the “Divine Lay” of the Hindu religion, the book most cherished and most highly extolled by more than two hundred and thirty million Hindus.

We are, first of all, impressed by the many contradictions which disfigure the book. Hardly a page is free from conflicting doctrines and methods of life. It could not be otherwise in any effort to harmonize the mutually contradictory teachings of the conflicting schools of religious thought and practice in this complicated faith.

On the other hand, we see in this Song an honest and an able attempt to bring the many tenets of that faith into a consistent whole. And we cannot help feeling that, while the view of God and man here presented, and the ways of salvation here enunciated, are not satisfactory, yet we find scattered through its pages gems of thought and beauties of religious conceptions and instruction which are beyond cavil, and which to-day seem to satisfy many millions of our fellow-men.

But, at the close of a careful perusal of the book, one feels that it is radically unsatisfying.

In the first place, it is wanting in any power for life. In order to feel this, one has only to compare it, for a moment, with the Gospels of Christianity. We find here philosophical disquisitions on the Divine Being which few men can understand and none can hope to harmonize. In the Gospels, on the other hand, we see presented a scheme of life which, at the same time, satisfies the highest philosophy and is perfectly intelligible to the most simple-minded. Here a bewildering number of mutually contradictory ways of life are urged upon us, not one of which can appeal in fulness and power to the common man. There do we find one clear way of salvation the way of faith in Christ; and in order to walk in that way the power of the Divine Spirit is promised to every one, even to the humblest soul and to the greatest sinner, that he might accept the Christ and live in and through Him a holy and a righteous life.

Above all, we have here represented an incarnation the records of whose doings, in the sacred writings of the Hindus, shock us by their immorality and disgust us by their coarseness. And yet he arrogates to himself the nature and the functions, as he makes upon us the demands, of the supreme Deity. There, on the other hand, we witness the spectacle of the Christ who so lived the divine life, and whose immaculate holiness is so overwhelming, that His claim to be one with the Godhead brings no shock or sense of incongruity to any one to-day. He has so impressed men of all generations that untold millions, in all lands, have felt no hesitation in believing Him when He says, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” Here do we indeed find the supreme contrast between the manual of Hindu faith and the Gospels of Christianity; and it is a contrast at the most vital point of religion.