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SIR ANDREW WINGATE, K.C.I. E., ON INDIA. 



In this sixth century B.C. a people of education, known as 

 Aryans and later as Brahmans, closely akin to the Iranians or 

 Persians, were established in Hindustan. They had come from 

 the north-west, doubtless bringing with them their priestly 

 ritual and some of their ancient odes. The general idea of the 

 Rigveda (meaning Hymn-knowledge) was based on fireworship 

 — still maintained by the Parsees — but behind the personified 

 powers of Nature was the reasoning that compelled back to the 

 primal knowledge of one God. The celebrated Creation Hymn 

 expresses this conclusion : " Whence this manifold creation 

 sprang ? The gods themselves came later into being." We 

 are familiar with the same degeneration from the original 

 knowledge of one God in the Old Testament. 



This intellectual priestly community, keeping itself strictly 

 apart from the population, had slowly penetrated along the 

 courses of the Indus and Ganges. The gradual compilation of 

 its worship and ritual into the four Vedas preserved cohesion 

 between its members while the rhythm and perfect structure 

 of its language captivated successive multitudes. Consequently, 

 just as most of the chief languages of Northern India derive 

 from the Sanskrit, so the marked features of Hinduism, social 

 and religious, have been impressed on the private and public 

 life of all Indians by the Brahmans. Against this enslavement, 

 Buddhism and Jainism rose in revolt, as there have been attempts 

 to get free both then and since. 



The Brahmans worked not by conversion but by absorption. 

 This led to an immense multiplication of deities, from the 

 conception of one God to serpent worship. The cobra is the 

 power represented in most Hindu idols. Both Moses and 

 Paul testify that the sacrifices are literally made to devils and 

 not to God (Deut. xxxii, 17 ; 1 Cor. x, 20). Originally, Brahmans 

 neither worshipped the cow nor refused meat. Perhaps these 

 early habits and their cruel sacrifices ran counter to local senti- 

 ment. They were also forging caste. The intensity with which 

 they protected their blood against intermarriage no doubt 

 helped the belief that they were of divine origin. This would 

 incline other societies to adopt similar means of elevation in 

 the social scale. There is perhaps a universal distaste for inter- 

 marriage, but nowhere else has this become a part of the religious, 

 social and economic life as in India. The other factor in the 

 production of caste was the teaching that food contaminates, 

 and that the body must be protected as rigorously as the 



