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 ANCIENT IDEALS IN MODERN LIFE
 
 ANCIENT IDEALS 
 
 IN 
 
 MODERN LIFE 
 
 FOUR LECTURES DELIVERED AT THE TWENTY-FIFTH 
 
 ANNIVERSARY MEETING OF THE THEOSO- 
 
 PHICAL SOCIETY, AT BENARES, 
 
 DECEMBER, 1900. 
 
 BY 
 
 ANNIE BESANT 
 
 Theosophical Publishing Society 
 London and Benares 
 
 I 90 I
 
 DS 
 
 1645*60. 
 n 01 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Lecture I. 
 
 The Four Ashramas. 
 
 Lecture IL 
 
 TE^fPLEs, Priests, and Worship. 
 
 Lecture IIL 
 
 The Caste System. 
 
 Lecture IV. 
 
 Womanhood. 
 
 830362
 
 FOREWORD. 
 
 In the following lectures I have endeavoured to 
 discharge the duty incumbent on the spiritual 
 Teacher — however humble the grade — of holding 
 up the ideal to be aimed at, of reproving the evils 
 of the day, of indicating the path along which the 
 ideal may be approached. The task is one beset 
 with difficulties, but not for that reason may it 
 be avoided ; cowards shrink back, appalled by 
 obstacles ; heroes overcome them. 
 
 At the dawning of the twentieth century, India 
 stands near the parting of the ways ; one way 
 leads downwards to death, the other upwards to 
 life. Many of her noblest children are hopeless of 
 her future, and would let her expire peacefully 
 rather than prolong the death-passage by remedies 
 deemed useless. Others, loving her well but 
 ignorantly, would, in the effort to save her, cast 
 aside to the winds all her traditions, and seek by 
 modern western medicines her cure — but really her 
 death. Others, yet again, believe that before her 
 there dawns a new era of spiritual life and of 
 material greatness, and would seek to revive her 
 ancient ideals and wed to them all that is best in
 
 viii. Foretvord. 
 
 modern life. Of these am I, who have spoken 
 these discourses, as a first contribution to that end. 
 For I am a humble servant of the great Masters 
 who declared that they would welcome any who 
 would aid them in the task of regenerating India, 
 and I would fain have humble share in that mighty 
 endeavour. 
 
 Hitherto in my lectures, during seven years, 1 
 have been content to raise the old ideals before 
 the eyes of India and of the world, and to seek to 
 inspire the Hindus with love and reverence for 
 their ancient faith. The work has not been un- 
 fruitful. The impulse given to Hinduism by the 
 teaching of H. P. Blavatsky and the work of 
 Colonel H. S. Olcott has been strengthened, and 
 the part played by the Theosophical Society in the 
 revival of Hinduism is admitted by friends and 
 foes alike. But I have observed with regret, 
 though without surprise, that evil has trodden close 
 on the heels of good, and that while religion has 
 been vivified, abuses and superstitions have also 
 shown more vitality. Hence the duty becomes 
 incumbent on me to speak as plainly against these 
 abuses and superstitions, as in favour of the ancient 
 faith. I may not let them be confounded with the 
 Truth I teach, nor may I stand as endorsing them 
 because reproclaiming the immemorial Dharma.
 
 Foreiuord. ix. 
 
 If they triumph, or remain welded mto the fabric of 
 Hmduism, India will perish, and perish shamefully. 
 To separate the rotting from the pure is the con- 
 dition of life, and those love not India wisely who 
 would leave the rotten, veiling it from public gaze, 
 because attached to that which is pure. Corrup- 
 tion spreads, and its spread is death, whether in 
 the body of the individual or in that of the nation. 
 Hence I have spoken plainly of the abuses, and of 
 the need for their extirpation. 
 
 A few points, on which I had intended to touch 
 but which were omitted for lack of time, have been 
 added to the lectures, and are distinguished by 
 enclosure within square brackets. 
 
 Though the lectures are addressed to Hindus, 
 many of the matters dealt with, specially in the 
 first and last lectures, are applicable outside 
 Hinduism, and describe ideals that might be incor- 
 porated generally in modern life, to its great 
 improvement. And, m any case, the raising of 
 India must interest all who belong to the great 
 Empire of which India forms a part. 
 
 May the proposals here made, if wise and good, 
 win the assent and support of India's children, and 
 so prove a step towards her redemption. 
 
 Annie Besant.
 
 ANCIENT IDEALS 
 
 IN 
 
 MODERN LIEE. 
 
 First Lpxture. 
 
 THE FOUR ASHRAMAS. 
 Brothers : 
 
 For five and twenty years the Theosophical 
 Society has been at work in the world, carrying 
 out, amid many difficulties and against many 
 obstacles, the great work entrusted to its charge. 
 During these five and twenty years it has been 
 gathering experience, it has been learning its 
 strength and its weakness, it has found out many 
 mistakes, it has corrected many blunders, it has 
 learned the lessons of experience, which will serve 
 it well in the centuries that lie ahead. The ending 
 of the twenty-fifth year of the Society coincides 
 with the ending of the century as marked by the 
 Western calculation, and, as you know, just about 
 the same time there ends one of the smaller cycles 
 reckoned from the Eastern standpoint. So we find
 
 2 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 ourselves to-day at one of those periods in the 
 world's history at which great changes are initiated, 
 and great impulses given for the forward move- 
 ment of humanity. It is a time of great opportuni- 
 ties, but also a time of great responsibilities, when 
 choices made are full of great results, when steps 
 taken decide the path along which nations 
 will go for many a year, perhaps for many a 
 century to come. 
 
 At this standpoint, tlien, I ask you with me to 
 look forward as well as backward. I ask you to 
 look forward to that which India may become for 
 the world ; I ask you to look forward to that 
 destiny which it is within her power to accomplish, 
 if she takes the right step. I call you to stand for 
 a moment at this meeting of the ways, and see 
 along which way you will elect to tread. The 
 choices that the Gods give to the nations are 
 choices which cannot be avoided, but upon the 
 nature of the choice which answers to the summons 
 from above depends the immediate destiny of the 
 nation, and the part which it will have to play in 
 the near future of the world. 
 
 The Society founded by some of the great 
 Rishis of India to do certain work in the world is 
 a Society that by its very nature and constitution 
 should be prepared to take a leading part in this
 
 The Four AsJiranias. 3 
 
 choice. If among the Hindus who have come into 
 the Society there is not the courage of initiation 
 and the power to help India at this stage of her 
 destiny, then for the East the Society will largely 
 have failed in its purpose, and its failure in the 
 East will bring about its failure in the West. For 
 as momentous to the Society is the way along 
 which it elects to go, as is momentous for the 
 nation the path along which it decides to tread. 
 
 For the last seven years I have been living and 
 working among you, trying to understand, trying 
 to grasp the conditions and the difficulties of the 
 situation, trying to see along which road the re- 
 demption for India may possibly be found. Surely 
 during these years I may at least have so lived 
 as to win from you trust enough to believe that my 
 heart is Hindu as yours, my faith and my hope the 
 same as yours ; and if in the study that lies before 
 us I speak words with which any of you may 
 disagree — and on such topics disagreement is 
 inevitable — I pray you to believe that I speak with 
 pure intent, with love for India, and for India's 
 faith. Any errors I may make are errors of the 
 head, not of the heart, and if on some points I have 
 to speak on facts that I — and I think most of you 
 — look on with grief and shame, it is in the hope 
 that, recognising the facts, we may find a way to
 
 4 Ancient Ideals m Modern Life. 
 
 lead India out of her present condition, that we 
 may find the road where the blessings of the Gods 
 may rest on India, leading her to take her right 
 place amid the nations, and fitting her to be the 
 spiritual teacher of mankind. 
 
 In speaking of the subjects there is a definite 
 plan that I propose to follow. First, I shall sketch 
 the ancient ideal, so far as I can, of course — for 
 no tongue of man may sketch that divine ideal 
 as it really is in the eyes of the Gods and in the 
 hearts of the great Rishis who threw down the 
 reflection of that miage on the world. But at 
 least I hope so to speak of that ideal that you may 
 see its beauty, that, above all, you may estimate its 
 value, not only to India, but to the whole world at 
 large. It does not exist for any one land, thouj^h 
 it was given to one land ; it exists for all the 
 world ; but it cannot spread over the world unless 
 it spreads from its centre. The ancient ideals are 
 in your charge, placed in your hands by Those 
 who gave them to the Indian people ; and it must 
 not be that, in any change needed to adapt India 
 to modern environment, those great ideals shall be 
 blurred or their brightness diminished. They 
 must keep their full spiritual glory, their fair pro- 
 portions, and their pure outlines. All changes 
 must be to make them again shine out in practice.
 
 The Four Ashra})ias. 5 
 
 and not to alter or lower them according to the 
 passing fashions and fancies of the day. 
 
 I shall, in every case, first try to put the ancient 
 ideal before you, and then, in sad and bitter con- 
 trast, the present as it is — a contrast so terrible and 
 so heart-breaking that any lover of India might 
 well weep tears of blood over what might be the 
 ideal and what is the actual in India, a contrast so 
 terrible indeed that, were it not that we believe 
 that the Gods are ever watching over India, we 
 might sink down and say that no revival for India 
 is possible. But since we believe that the spiritual 
 forces are mighty enough to subdue all things, 
 there still lingers in the hearts of some of us the 
 hope that India may yet produce children spiritual 
 enough to lead the necessary changes along the 
 right road, with hearts heroic enough to sacrifice 
 themselves for the mother of us all, and so make 
 possible the redemption of which we dream, for 
 which we dare to hope. 
 
 The third part of each discourse, then, after the 
 ideal and the actual, will deal with the changes 
 which may lead India from her present position 
 to the height which is her rightful place, and which 
 she ought to occupy in the world of the future, in 
 the evolution of humanity, her rightful place as the 
 teacher, the spiritual teacher, of mankind. This is
 
 6 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 the study to which we are going to devote our- 
 selves, and to this I shall try to win your assent 
 and sympathy, and more, your active work. The 
 first lecture will be largely of the nature of an 
 introduction, and I fear it may tax your patience 
 by its length, for I want to put before you a world- 
 picture. Unless I can show you the great goal at 
 which we are to aim, all the later proposals will be 
 unintelligible, and will lose their power to attract 
 you by their fitness for the proposed end. You 
 must see the goal, before you can estimate the 
 Tightness or the wrongness of the path that 
 assumes to lead to it. And that goal is a greater 
 one than many of you dream. 
 
 1 must open by asking you to take a wider look 
 at history than you are wont to do, and that not 
 from the standpoint of the physical plane, where 
 nation is warring against nation, where one is 
 jealous of the other, where the desire of one is to 
 rule the other, where there is the hatred of the 
 oppressed and the tyranny of the strong. Leave 
 all these things aside ; they are but the things of 
 the physical plane. Let us rise to a point whence 
 some glimpses of the divine plan may be seen, so 
 that we may be able to recognise at least some- 
 thing of the part to be played in connection with 
 it by the nation with which we are concerned.
 
 The Four Ashraiitas. 7 
 
 Where is India standing now ? what is her 
 environment ? Looking back over the past cen- 
 turies, we see that nation after nation has invaded 
 India, has tried to settle in her, and has tried to 
 rule her. One nation after another has been, as it 
 were, tried, in order to find out whether it had the 
 qualities in it which made a common future with 
 India possible. See how one nation after another 
 from the West has tried to establish itself within 
 her borders. You need not go so far back as to 
 the invasion of the Greeks, to see how one 
 European nation after another has made a little 
 footing on India's soil, and then has fallen into the 
 background. You only need to look two or three 
 centuries back to see how the Portuguese, the 
 Dutch, the French, have made attempts to dwell 
 on Indian soil, and yet have well-nigh disappeared. 
 Then there came a colony from the far West, the 
 colony of England, and that has grown, has spread, 
 has increased its power, until at the present day 
 we find the great dominant power of England 
 extending directly over the greater portion of 
 India, and influencing very largely those portions 
 of the country which are not under her immediate 
 sway. As a result of this we find here East and 
 West living side by side, England and India 
 established in this vast peninsula — parts, as it were.
 
 8 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 of one great Empire, an Empire which shows signs 
 of becoming one of the great world-empires of 
 history. 
 
 We see as we glance backwards, that from time 
 to time on the stage of history there arises a power 
 which moulds into one nationality many nations, 
 and builds up a mighty fabric of a world-empire, 
 ruling undisputed over the earth. You will find 
 that every sub-race of what the Theosophists 
 call our great Aryan Race has had such a world- 
 empire in connection with its own development. 
 The first branch of the Aryan people who settled to 
 the south of the Himalayas built a mighty empire. 
 Though the Aryan civilisation was not far extended, 
 and outside the borders of India most of the 
 people were uncivilised, and there existed great 
 masses who were barbarians, still we find them 
 paying tribute and under due subordination, and 
 the great rulers of the earth were along the line of 
 the past monarchs of India. When we follow the 
 birth of one sub-race after another, the same truth 
 comes out. The world-empire of the Accadians, 
 the Babylonian, which joined Babylon and 
 Chaldea, is another world-empire belonging to 
 another sub-race. Then, coming to the sub-race of 
 the Iranians, we have the empire of Persia dominat- 
 ing the civilised world and ruling over the subject
 
 The Four Ashramas. 9 
 
 nations. Then we find the world-empire of the 
 Keltic sub-race, with its centre in Rome, dominat- 
 ing the world as did the other empires that had 
 passed away before it. Each of these world- 
 empires nursed in itself the growth of its own 
 sub-race, and formed the guard around the cradle 
 in which the new sub-race was born. The fifth 
 sub-race, the Teutonic, has not yet completed itself, 
 and already signs are visible that it has to accom- 
 plish this same destiny in human evolution. There 
 is dawning now on the vision of tlie earth a vast 
 Teutonic world-empire, formed by the English and 
 their Colonies, with their huge offshoot the United 
 States, and with the Germans bound in close 
 alliance. That world-empire will be the next to 
 dominate humanity, in order that, by its power 
 imposing peace upon the world, it may be the 
 cradle of the next sub-race, whose watchword is 
 Peace instead of war, whose watchword is Brother- 
 hood instead of competition. That race will be 
 born in the midst of the world-peace, and peace 
 will be characteristic of its civilisation. What 
 is the part that India is to play therein ? 
 
 You find her a conquered nation, won by the 
 sword, ruled by the sword, and that sword held in 
 the hand of the dominant factor in the coming 
 world-empire. But at the same time you find her
 
 10 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 thought, her teaching, her ancient hterature, trans- 
 lated into the Enghsh tongue — which is the most 
 widely-spread tongue on the earth, and is fast 
 becoming the world-language, which is spreading 
 in every direction, which is talked by the foremost 
 nations of the world. Thus, while politically she 
 is subject, her thought is beginning to dominate 
 the whole of that Western civilisation. That is the 
 first point which marks the place that India will 
 have in this great evolution. In the older days she 
 was the spiritual teacher of the world, and now 
 nations are being prepared to recognise her again 
 in that loftiest and most sacred of characters. Her 
 great teachings are becoming assimilated all over 
 the world through this vehicle of a world-language 
 which is being made part of our own national life. 
 As her teachings are more and more widely 
 accepted, what will be the one supreme teaching 
 which will come as the key-note of the next 
 civilisation ? 
 
 The great teaching of India, the most precious, 
 the most vital, and the most far-reaching, is the 
 unity of the Self, the one Self in which all things 
 are, and which lives and moves in all. That is 
 India's central and most important teaching. 
 There is one Self, one Existence. In that Life all 
 other lives inhere. In that consciousness all other
 
 TJie Four Asliranias. 1 1 
 
 consciousnesses have their roots. There is but 
 One, without a second, and in That all things exist. 
 
 That is the teaching which, spoken by the 
 mouth of India, is spreading over the whole world, 
 and behold ! that is the very key-note of the race 
 that is to be born. That race will recognise the 
 spiritual unity of all humanity. Therefore is that 
 unity the one obligatory object of the Theosophical 
 Society, the recognition of the Brotherhood of 
 man, which can only be defended on the ground 
 of a spiritual imity. All men are brothers, no 
 matter what their colour may be, no matter what 
 their race, no matter what their traditions, customs, 
 and origin may be ; they all are within the spiritual 
 unity which underlies all mankind. That is the 
 keynote of the next sub-race, the mark of the 
 coming civilisation. Is it without significance that 
 the key-note of the coming sub-race is the supreme 
 teaching of India } 
 
 If this possession of the teaching is to bear fruit, 
 what is the next step that India must take ? India 
 must fit herself for her great position, and build 
 up a nation worthy to be the spiritual teacher of 
 mankind. If India can do that, if she can build 
 up again her religion in the purity of ancient ideals, 
 in possession of all the spiritual forces contained 
 in the inheritance of the past ; if India can train
 
 12 Ancioit Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 her sons to be noble in character, pure in hfe, lofty 
 in intelligence, spiritual in aspiration ; then India's 
 part in the world-empire will be not the part of a 
 conquered nation, but of an integral part of that 
 empire, honoured as the teacher and religious guide 
 of the nations of the world. She will be no longer 
 a subject nation, but will be a part of a mighty 
 commonwealth, some of her sons sharing the 
 burden of the world-empire as counsellors and 
 rulers, while her teachers bring their great religion 
 to spiritualise every other faith, bring the wisdom 
 of the past to enlighten the ignorance of the 
 present, noble, honoured, and everywhere revered. 
 That is the possibility before you, but only if you 
 rise to the height of your destiny, and ht yourselves 
 to be entrusted with such mighty power. 
 
 That, then, is the goal to be aimed at. And 
 the means is the training, the education of the 
 people, the raising of man by man until the whole 
 nation is raised. Do not deceive yourselves by 
 imagining that the greatness of the past will make 
 by itself the greatness of your future. \i you can- 
 not rise to greatness, there is no greatness possible 
 for India. For the greatness of a nation is 
 measured by the individual greatness of her sons, 
 and unless Indians can be great how can India be 
 mighty.^ Have you tire stuff in you to make part
 
 Tlic Four Ashramas. 13 
 
 of such a world-empire ? Only the Gods can tell. 
 But they have given you the opportunity, which 
 shows that the possibility is there. For the Gods 
 never offer opportunity, unless the one to whom 
 it is offered has in him the possibility of success. 
 It is for us to try to build that success, not only 
 into a possibility, but into a certainty, as may be 
 done if our hearts are heroic, and if we are willing 
 to strive to make ourselves worthy of that future. 
 Such, then, the goal. The critical question now 
 is : Can India adapt herself to this modern 
 environment ^ A part of India is determined not to 
 move at all, but to stay where it is. That means 
 death ! Life may be measured by the power to 
 adapt the body, the mind, and the whole nature, to 
 the environment in which by the divine Providence 
 an organism is placed. People talk of " the spirit 
 of the age "—some with enthusiasm, some with 
 contempt ; some with love, some with hatred ; 
 some with a desire to go with it, and some with a 
 desire to oppose it. What is then " the spirit of 
 the age " ? Fundamentally, it is the divine impulse 
 carrying man along the road of evolution. It is 
 often surrounded by blunders, often hidden by 
 mistakes, often impeded by the childish ignorance 
 of those whom Ishvara is endeavouring to guide. 
 The true " spirit of the age " should and must be
 
 14 Anciejit Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 studied, in order that we may see whither the 
 divine Will is leading the world. Do you think 
 that any other will can guide this world, save the 
 Will of Ishvara Mimself ? Are men so strong, do 
 you imagine, that they can turn the car of evolution 
 against the Will of Ishvara ? Amidst the jarring 
 wills, the foolish deeds, the mistakes, the blunders, 
 and the sins of mankind, that one divine Will is 
 working out its unchangeable purpose, and mould- 
 ing even men's follies and crimes to the working 
 out of its own supreme purpose. For humanity is 
 the potter's clay which is set on the wheel, and as 
 the potter turns his wheel so does Ishvara turn 
 the world-wheel, whereon the clay is human heart 
 and human mind, and the vessels are formed by 
 Him and by none other. We are blind and foolish 
 if we set ourselves against the deep-running ten- 
 dencies of the day. Many tendencies are super- 
 ficial, but our duty is to study and to understand the 
 main current, the current of evolution, and then to 
 bring our energies to co-operate with the Divine 
 purpose ; for all that goes against that Will must 
 be shattered into pieces, while all that goes with it 
 is part of His life and an organ of His work. To 
 set ourselves stubbornly to stand in one place, and 
 to say : " Because this in the past was good, there- 
 fore it must be good for the present and the future.
 
 The Fotir Ashramas. 15 
 
 therefore I will not mould myself to the tendencies 
 of the age, nor adapt myself to my environment " — 
 that is to be dead, that is to be fossilised, that is to 
 be left behind in the forward march of evolution. 
 On the other hand, to go forward with headlong 
 precipitancy, without thought or consideration, 
 without reverence for the past, without understand- 
 ing the causes it has set up, the tendencies it has 
 bequeathed— that spells ruin, as much as immove- 
 ability and fossilisation spell death. 
 
 Between these two dangers, then, the nation has 
 to steer its way. Between those who will change 
 nothing, so that India cannot live ; and those who 
 will change everything, so that India will practi- 
 cally disappear. Neither of these roads is the road 
 that the wise should tread. We should preserve 
 the Indian type, the Indian spirituahty — that is the 
 problem. For spirituality is India's special charge 
 in the world's future. But while preserving India's 
 type and India's spirituality, we should weave into 
 India's national life everything good, everything 
 valuable that every other nation has to give, every 
 thing of value that modern progress has acquired ; 
 we should choose and discriminate, take what is 
 good and reject what is evil ; neither become 
 Westernised by swallowing everything that the 
 West has, without regard to India's type ; nor
 
 1 6 Ancient /deals in Modern Life. 
 
 become a dead fossil, interesting to the geologists 
 of the future, bearing no part in the living evolution 
 of the race. This is the problem. If we can solve 
 it rightly, then India has a future, a future so 
 glorious that it will be greater than her past. If 
 we cannot solve it, then India falls out of the 
 nations of the world, and some other nation, taking 
 up her knowledge and welding it with all that is 
 good in the West, will take the place that is India's 
 birthright, as eldest son of the Aryan race. But 
 surely that shall never be her fate ! She cannot 
 disappear from the world — India, beloved of the 
 Gods! She cannot thus vanish from the world's 
 history, while They are ruling! 
 
 Make no mistake ; if this is to be done, it is to 
 be done by sacrifice ; for no good thing is won 
 without sacrifice, no great gift is given save when 
 the fire of sacrifice has gone up to heaven and 
 made its appeal to the mighty Ones there. India 
 cannot be redeemed, unless India's sons are ready 
 to give themselves for their race, to offer them- 
 selves up on tlie altar of sacrifice for India's future. 
 For prejudices are strong ; there is a mass of 
 ignorant prejudices and conventions against which 
 the bravest hearts must dash themselves, in order 
 to break it down. Some hearts will be broken in 
 the attempt, but as they break they will leave their
 
 The Font- Ashranias, 17 
 
 impress on that wall of dogged prejudice, and it 
 will be the weaker because they have suffered. 
 Are there any among you prepared to act as well 
 as speak, prepared to live as well as talk ? Vv'ill 
 you give merely what is so easy to give — the 
 applause of your hands, instead of the work of your 
 lives ? Will you speak warmly in this hall for the 
 changes that must be made in order that India may 
 live, and then go out into the world outside and 
 live the life of the majority, as though the ideal 
 was never put before you, doing what everybody 
 does ' Have you not in you the courage and the 
 devotion to set an example and to give up your 
 own social position, nay, even your lives — or far 
 far harder, your children's lives — to sacrifice those 
 on the altar in order that India may survive ? If 
 some of you will do that, then the future is secure. 
 But if you are all cowards at heart, then the 
 sentence will pass, destiny will put its pen through 
 India's name, and India will exist no more. 
 
 Such, then, are the introductory ideas that 
 govern these lectures. Let us pass from them to 
 the ideals of the past, to the actual of the present, 
 and to the future that we are going to try to build. 
 [I shall not in this quote many texts, and thus enter 
 into a war with commentators. Texts may be 
 found in support of opposed views, if taken alone,
 
 1 8 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 without context and qualification. Persons of 
 most divergent ideas appeal to the same authorities. 
 I shall put the ideal before you, as I have been 
 taught of it, as I have seen it, letting its own beauty 
 and sweet reasonableness recommend it to your 
 hearts and consciences. Here and there I may 
 refer to .sacred literature for illustration, but I am 
 not building up these ideals by a laborious com- 
 parison of texts, but from a knowledge of the 
 facts.] 
 
 The special part of our subject that we are going 
 to study to-day is comparatively easy. No very 
 serious opposition in the minds of many is likely 
 to arise about it. There is one point, however, 
 which will need the sacrifice of which i have just 
 been speaking, in order that it may be practically 
 worked out. But for the most part the road is 
 fairly clear with regard to the four great ideals m 
 life. 
 
 A life which is well-ordered from beginning to 
 end — that is what is implied in the phrase, " the 
 Four Ashramas." Two of them — namely that of 
 the student and that of the householder — these 
 two may be said to represent in the life of an 
 individual that outward-going energy which carries 
 the Jiva into what we call the Pravritti Marga — 
 that great path of action along which the world
 
 The Four Aslirainas. 19 
 
 rolls, and which each individual man treads within 
 the limit of a life in his own little way. The life of 
 the student and the life of the householder, these 
 form the Pravritti Marga of the individual. 
 The two later stages — the life of the Vanaprastha 
 and that of the Sannyasi — these are the stages 
 of withdrawal from the world, and may be said to 
 represent the Nivritti Marga in the life of the 
 individual. It is well to recognise this, so as to 
 have an orderly view of life. So wisely did the 
 ancient ones mark out the road along which a man 
 should tread, that any man who takes this plan of 
 life, divided into four stages, will find his outgoing 
 and indrawing energies rightly balanced. First, 
 the student stage, properly lived and worthily 
 carried out ; then the householder stage, with all 
 its busy activity in every direction of worldly busi- 
 ness ; then the gradual withdrawal from activity, 
 the turning inward, the life of comparative 
 seclusion, of prayer and of meditation, of the 
 giving of wise counsel to the younger generation 
 engaged in worldly activities ; and then, for some 
 at least, the life of complete renunciation. Any 
 man who takes this plan of life and lives it out 
 will find that he cannot have a life which should 
 be more wisely ordered, which should be made 
 better than that, in which to spend his days from
 
 20 Ancient Ideals in Modem Life. 
 
 birth to death. This is not an ideal for one nation 
 only, but for all nations, not for one time, but for 
 all times ; one half of the life active and stirring, 
 the other half quiet, self-controlled, and self- 
 contained. In the East and in the West alike this 
 ancient ideal of a well-ordered life might well be 
 revived, might well be again practised ; and then 
 we should not see on the one hand the pitiable 
 spectacle of boys thrown into the life of the house- 
 holder before their time has come ; and on the 
 other, the equally pitiable spectacle of the old man, 
 whose heart should be turned to the higher life. 
 still grasping money and power, until death 
 wrenches away what he will not voluntarily loose. 
 Let us take the four stages in order, and consider 
 each. First the student life. What was the ideal 
 of the past .' That you may read in detail in your 
 books ; here I shall outline it only. The boy was 
 placed in the hands of his teacher to be trained 
 and educated on every side of his nature. The 
 education given to him was one which drew out his 
 powers in the four great factors which form the 
 human constitution. First, we always read of boys 
 that they were versed in the Vedas. The boys 
 were taught religion ; they were trained in the 
 sacred literature of their faith, and in the actual 
 daily practice of their religious ceremonies. Thus
 
 The Four Ashramas. 21 
 
 we find that Rama Chandra was not only 
 thoroughly trained in the knowledge of the Scrip- 
 tures, but also that He performed His Sandhya 
 morning and evening ; and was thus trained in the 
 outer religious duties, as well as in sacred learning, 
 both being necessary for the evolution of 
 spirituality. You know how, under the wise hands 
 of His teacher, He learned the great Science of 
 the Self, the Secret of Peace ; how His religious 
 nature was trained and developed — He who 
 needed no education save for the instruction that 
 His example might give as to how the young 
 should be trained. That is the first note of ancient 
 education. 
 
 The next point is, that the boys were trained 
 in morality. The moral nature was trained as well 
 as the spiritual. They were taught to be obedient, 
 reverent, truthful, brave, courteous, to love and 
 respect their parents and teachers, to be unselfish, 
 to concern themselves with the welfare of those 
 around them. " He was intent on the welfare of 
 others." That is given as the crown of the moral 
 education of the boy. 
 
 In the third place, the intellect was trained. 
 The boys were taught the different branches of 
 science and instructed in various kinds of theo- 
 retical and practical knowledge. Intelligence, the
 
 22 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 ihird part of human nature, received its proper 
 training along with the spiritual and the moral. 
 
 Lastly, the body was trained. The physical 
 part received due attention. They were taught 
 games and manly exercises, to ride, to drive, to 
 manage their own bodies, and the bodies of the 
 animals who serve the needs of man. 
 
 Thus the education given was all-round educa- 
 tion. Every part of man's nature received its 
 proper training. The result was, that when the 
 boys went out into the world, they went out ready 
 to play their parts as members of a great state, as 
 citizens of a great nation — highly pious, moral, 
 learned, and strong. These four great charac- 
 teristics marked the result of education in ancient 
 India. 
 
 What do we find in modern India ? An educa- 
 tion directed to one part of the boy's nature only, 
 developing the intelligence, training the intellect, 
 but leaving entirely on one side the spiritual nature, 
 and the moral or emotional nature disregarded. 
 The education as now given disregards for the 
 most part the physical nature also, centring itself 
 on the growth of intelligence, on the development 
 of intellect alone. Even that, I may say in passing, 
 is not done in the best possible way. 
 
 Such an education as that can never build up a
 
 The Four Ashramas. 23 
 
 true man of the world, able to discharge his duties 
 in the world. Only one part of him has been 
 developed, only one quarter of his whole nature 
 has been trained ; moral character has been 
 neglected, spirituality has been ignored, body has 
 been left weak, overstrained, overworked. What 
 sort of a nation can you have where the education 
 given to its young is but one quarter of what it 
 should be — one-fourth only given, and that, too, 
 imperfectly and inadequately } What is the result ? 
 You get plenty of clever men, but for the most 
 part they are selfish, thinking only of their own 
 aims, each man fighting for his own hand, careless 
 of the welfare of the nation as a whole, gaining for 
 himself or for his family, caring not how others 
 suffer provided that he succeeds, looking on with 
 cold and indifferent eyes at all wrongs perpetrated 
 around him, his heart not moved with sympathy 
 for the trouble and the misery of the people. He 
 is a man developed in intelligence, but lacking in 
 character, in self-respect, in public spirit, in 
 straightforward speaking of truth, in uprightness 
 of words and life. That is the result we see 
 around us, the result of the neglect of religion and 
 of morality. How many men to-day are " intent 
 upon the welfare of others," forgetful of their own 
 success } How many realise that no man can
 
 24 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 truly succeed, unless he raises others with him at 
 the same time ? how many remember that there is 
 only one Life, that the man who tries to wrench 
 himself away from it, in selfishness and indifference, 
 only succeeds in shutting out much of the Life 
 from himself, and that the wall that he builds to 
 exclude his neighbour from himself excludes him- 
 self from the Life that flows around him ? 
 
 What are we then to do — to do practically, and 
 not in theory only, not leaving for the future 
 that work which must be done now ? As 
 you know, the attempt to bring back the ancient 
 ideal is already being made in your midst. This 
 very College, in the hall of which I am now speak- 
 ing, is the work of those who are vowed to the 
 restoration of the ancient type of education, of that 
 four-fold training of the nature which alone can 
 build up the India of the future, though not seeking 
 to reproduce entirely the old models. It is the 
 ideal that we must see, and that we must reproduce 
 in modern garb, adapting it to the times. Would 
 it surprise you to know that in the English nation 
 this four-fold education is even now being: Sfiven, 
 in the Public Schools and Universities } If you 
 go to any English Public School, you will find that 
 it begins its work every day with the worship of 
 God and the reading of the Christian Scriptures.
 
 The Four Ashranias. 25 
 
 Every boy is taught to worship, and is trained in 
 definite moral ideals. You will find that not only 
 is religion thus taught along with morality, but that 
 a good physical training is also given, and insisted 
 upon in the great Public Schools. Every boy is 
 made to play, to exercise his body, to work his 
 limbs, and strengthen his muscles. And if you go 
 to Harrow, Eton, Rugby, or Winchester, you will 
 find the four-fold education there, though of course 
 on Christian lines. The old ideal is being worked 
 out there in principle, and the fundamental 
 ground-plan of the education is right and sound, 
 and it makes patriots as well as all-round 
 developed men. While they nourish love of 
 religion, they nourish patriotism at the same time. 
 If you go to Harrow School Chapel, you will find 
 its walls decorated with brass plates, bearing the 
 names of old Harrow boys who have served their 
 country well. So that when the boys worship God, 
 they see before their eyes the names of the old 
 Harrow boys who once sat where they sit, who as 
 men have given up their lives in times of need for 
 Queen and Country, who have died for Father- 
 land, and who have held the name of England 
 high among the nations. No boy can worship in 
 that Chapel without receiving some inspiration to 
 heroic living, without welding his love of country
 
 26 Ancient Ideals iJi Modern Life. 
 
 into his religion. The boys' ideals are moulded in 
 this way, and they grow up country-loving, 
 patriotic, proud of their land, and so worthy to be 
 citizens of their country. We must revive this 
 education here. 
 
 How is this to be done } Is it to be done by 
 forty or fifty people like ourselves, who are weak 
 in number and in intellectual power, if we be left 
 unsupported ? No. Do you not realise that this 
 question is your question, not ours only ? Your 
 boys are the future citizens of India. What are 
 you doing to educate them in the ancient ideals, 
 which will make them worthy citizens .■* It is not 
 enough to applaud me! Are you working for this 
 education } Are you giving to it your time, your 
 labour, as you would give them to some object 
 which would go to make your own happiness } If 
 you do not do that, what right have you to cheer 
 when other people work, and give mere empty 
 applause .' 
 
 With regard to this education I have somewhat 
 more to say ; and here comes a point for which I 
 ask your careful, your thoughtful, attention. I 
 find, when I read the old Scriptures, that during 
 the period of student life, the student was always 
 under the vow of Brahmacharya. I find every 
 student was under that vow of virginity, of absolute
 
 The Four Ashrainas. 27 
 
 celibacy ; and until the student period was over 
 he was not permitted to enter the household life. 
 Thirty-six, eighteen, or nine years — these are the 
 periods given for the student life. During that 
 period absolute celibacy was imposed upon the 
 student. Until that period was over he was not 
 allowed to take a wife, and we often read of a man 
 as a warrior, before he became a husband. What 
 has become of that old ideal in modern India } 
 Boys in school are found to be fathers of children ; 
 boys who have not yet even passed into College 
 are found with a baby at home, a child the son of 
 a child. It is utterly against the old ideals. It is 
 destructive of India's life. What is the result ? 
 That a boy, at the end of his College life, is often 
 weak in body, his nervous system is weakened, his 
 brain-power is exhausted, and he is a wreck 
 physically when he ought to be in the full flush 
 and vigour of manhood. The pressure of modern 
 education puts a heavy strain upon him, and then, 
 added to that, are the duties of the husband, the 
 responsibility of the father. My brothers, it is not 
 right. It means the ruin of India. You find your- 
 selves old, when you ought to be but of middle age. 
 Do you not see that you are not what you should 
 be } Do you not see that the brain does not and 
 cannot bear the tremendous strain put upon it ?
 
 28 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 Do you not see that the stature of Indians is 
 growing less ? Where the marriages are the 
 earhest, there the stature is the lowest, and it is 
 getting worse and worse. In some parts of India 
 the marrying of a baby in the cradle is permitted, 
 and this is followed by very early parent-hood. Is 
 that a part of India's life, as it was meant to be 
 moulded by the great Gods who gave Their laws 
 through ancient legislators ? 
 
 This is a question the answer to which is in 
 your own hands. The difficulty we know well 
 enough. For a man who dares to act according to 
 the ancient ideals will find himself surrounded by 
 hundreds of unkind critics, men who have not the 
 courage to act, although in their hearts often 
 longing for and desiring change. How many 
 fathers have told me : " Yes, we know that it is 
 necessary ; " but how few have the courage to act 
 upon their opinion, and face the social difficulties 
 that action would bring. Yet only by such 
 courage are great changes made, and nations 
 redeemed. We have come down through cowar- 
 dice, wc must mount through courage. We have 
 become degraded through ignorance, we must rise 
 again by education and restoring the old ideals. 
 If some of you have the courage to say : " We will 
 not act against the ancient rules ; we will not do
 
 The Four Ashraums. 29 
 
 that which we know to be wrong morally and to 
 be evil physically," and if you will therefore make 
 the marriage period later, no matter who may 
 oppose, then you will begin to take the first 
 practical step towards the training of a stronger, 
 manlier, and more vigorous race. I am not asking 
 you to throw off the old customs and to adopt new 
 ones, as some others have advised. I am asking 
 you to restore the old. And I suggest as a step 
 that the first marriage of a girl might be at 14 and 
 of a boy at 18, and the second actual marriage 
 two years later for both. If this rule were fol- 
 lowed, you would soon see the effects in the 
 strengthening of the race. I do most earnestly 
 hope that we may begin to set this example 
 gradually in this School and College. We cannot 
 make the full change back to the old ideal at once, 
 but I do trust that we may be able gradually to 
 work towards the ancient ideal, and thus may set 
 an example which all lovers of India will venture 
 to follow, that we may strike the key-note of a 
 better physical future for India, and build up a 
 stronger manhood.* 
 
 After the student stage was accomplished, and 
 
 * Since these words were spoken, the Managing Committee of 
 the C. H. College has decided to admit no married boys to the 
 Middle Division of the School.
 
 30 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 the boy had grown to manhood, then he had to 
 enter upon household life. What influence that 
 household life has upon the evolution of character, 
 you must know if you realise its intention. It is 
 the great school of unselfishness, of temperance, of 
 learning to help the weak, of learning self-sacrifice 
 in the easiest way, where love leads to sacrifice 
 and rewards it as it is made. The love of husband 
 and wife, the purest and noblest of earthly feelings, 
 nearest the love of the soul to God Himself ; the 
 love of father for children, of children for father, 
 with the protection given on the one side and the 
 gratitude and veneration given on the other ; these 
 are the household educators of the soul. It is said 
 truly that all the other Ashramas take refuge in 
 this, as their strong support. Learning to be 
 detached in the middle of attachment, learning the 
 lesson of chastity where all power of enjoyment is 
 held — these are some of the lessons of family life. 
 But how much change is wanted, if the old 
 beautiful ideal is to shine out clearly. On this I 
 shall have to speak more when I come to deal with 
 India's Womanhood. There is no ideal of marriage 
 like the Indian ideal, only that ideal is rarely found 
 fulfilled to-day. 
 
 Consider the father and the children. Is the 
 ideal of that relationship carried out in modern
 
 The Fo74r Ashramas. 3^ 
 
 India? Is not there too much reserve on the one 
 side, and too much timidity on the other? Is not 
 the relationship of father and son too often lacking 
 in frank confidence on the side of the son ? Do 
 the fathers think enough of the happiness and 
 amusement of the son, making the home-hfe bright 
 and attractive ? Are they not too often self- 
 centred and indifferent to the wants of the sons, 
 too forgetful of the cravings of youth ? The boy 
 is often too shy, alas! to speak to the father, and 
 so the son goes out and finds amusement hand-in- 
 hand with vice, where he ought to have found it 
 with his father's sympathy, and so hand-in-hand 
 with virtue. Indian boys too often go astray 
 because of the want of sympathy and frank friend- 
 ship with their parents — by the parents laying all 
 stress on authority and little stress on tenderness. 
 Boys need tenderness and sympathy, and loving 
 guidance in the hot days of youth. I say this, 
 because boys sometimes come to me with com- 
 plaints on their lips that their home life is so dull 
 and dreary that they long to get away from it. 
 Authority is too stringent and too unsympathetic, 
 and hence a tendency in sons to rebel. Where the 
 son shows rebellion, the father is often far more to 
 be blamed than the son. It is the lack of 
 sympathy with the impulses and cravings of youth
 
 32 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life, 
 
 that often leads to revolt. The father's lack of 
 tenderness and sympathy has as its inevitable 
 result the rebellion of the son, not always 
 expressed, but none the less dangerous. The 
 father ought to be his truest friend, his dearest 
 sympathiser, his most loving counsellor, and where 
 a son finds his father to be such tluit son is never 
 rebellious. When we find trouble in the home, we 
 must look for its cause to the superior rather than 
 to the inferior. Most breaches in relationship 
 begin in the fault of the higher, and not in that of 
 the lower. When the higher fails in his duty, it 
 is then that the lower begins to fail also. 
 
 That is a matter for each man to think out for 
 himself. For the ideal is where the father is his 
 son's best friend, and the son is the father's most 
 loved companion. Let every one see how far this 
 is true in his own home. There is a fatherly love 
 where uttermost tenderness meets folly and trans- 
 gression, and redeems them by its divine force. If 
 that true household life could be restored, then the 
 active life in the world will be led as it should be, 
 and we shall see everywhere the ancient models of 
 the true grihastha ; then will be seen at the end of 
 the household life a readiness to pass on into the 
 next stage, where active life is given up, and the 
 life of religious meditation is carried on.
 
 The Four AsJiranias. 33 
 
 How shall we adapt the Vanaprastha stage to 
 modern life ? It is scarcely in accordance with the 
 modern idea to go into a jungle, to take refuge in 
 a cave, in order to spend in seclusion the later 
 years of life. Modern civilisation trains men in a 
 way which scarcely leaves them fit to take to that 
 actual mode of life, so complex have grown men's 
 wants in modern times. But might it not be 
 possible for the elders amongst us to gradually let 
 go all money-making, to let go all household 
 authority, to let go all business and the taking of 
 an active part in life, letting the younger ones take 
 their places in these respects 1 Can they not turn 
 to the Nivritti Marga ? Might it not be that 
 they should pass into a life of quiet and dignified 
 partial seclusion, where their lives might be chiefly 
 given to worship, meditation, thought, and develop- 
 ment of the higher nature, and where they would 
 always be available as the wisest of counsellors, rich 
 in life's experience, and all the better counsellors 
 because their personal interest had gone in the 
 matters on which they gave counsel, and thus the 
 advice would be free from prejudice and bias. 
 Would not India be the richer if the old men per- 
 formed that part of their duty, if, withdrawing from 
 activity, they became the guides and advisers of 
 the young, trusted and loved because they had
 
 34 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 experience and wisdom, and were willing to give 
 them to the young ? Would not the re-establish- 
 ment of that Ashrama be a great blessing in 
 modern life ? 
 
 The last stage of Sannyasa needs such high 
 spiritual development that few probably would be 
 able to pass into it. But if that is not now quite 
 possible, it would become possible a few genera- 
 tions hence, when the general level of spirituality 
 had risen under the right living of the three 
 preceding Ashramas. 
 
 [As the name of Sannyasi is common enough 
 in modern India, it may be well to say here that 
 household life is a stage which very few can afford 
 to avoid, so important is it as a spiritual school. 
 Wisely did the Indian Sages prescribe it as of 
 well-nigh universal obligation, for few and far 
 between are those who can lead the life of the true 
 Sannyasi even in old age, and still fewer are those 
 who can safely embrace it in youth. It is true that 
 there is no fairer ideal than that of the Bala Yogi, 
 the spotless Kumara, the boy Saint. When a 
 great Soul incarnates for the helping of the world, 
 he may lead the ascetic life from childhood. But 
 too many lads and young men hastily take the 
 garb of the Sadhu in modern days, allured by 
 its outer freedom and absence of care and
 
 The Four Asliramas. 35 
 
 responsibility, adopting it in order to avoid burden, 
 and not in order to bear a heavier one. Robust 
 and lazy, such men swarm over the country by 
 thousands, living on the earnings of others, and 
 giving nothing back in benefit to the community ; 
 too often profligate, taking advantage of their 
 sacred garb to corrupt and lead astray, sensualists 
 not ascetics, luxurious not self-controlled. The 
 true Sannyasi is of priceless value, and the poorest 
 may rejoice to share with him his scanty meal ; 
 his spiritual value outweighs a millionfold any 
 physical need he may have ; his piurity and devo- 
 tion still purify the atmosphere, and preserve 
 spirituality from perishing outright. But the 
 Sadhus who are vicious and lazy, useless alike 
 to the Gods and to men, these shame the old ideal 
 and turn men's hearts against the very name of 
 Sannyasa. For the young men then, except in 
 rare cases, the life of the household, with its com- 
 pulsory responsibilities and inevitable burdens. 
 Through these a man learns to rule himself, to 
 master his lower nature, and then he can be free 
 without danger to himself and to the community.] 
 The great ideals of the past, adapted to the 
 present and worked out in modern India, would 
 spread from India to other nations of the world 
 and would gradually mould them into the same
 
 36 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 rational, wholesome method of living, and thus the 
 whole world would be changed and carried on. 
 We should gradually see in the Western world, as 
 well, the purity of youth, the unselfish, generous 
 life of the householder, replacing the competitive 
 ideals of modern civilisation. We should see old 
 men retiring, and becoming counsellors and guides 
 of families, and a few here and there showing the 
 great ideal of complete renunciation, of utter 
 indifference to all that the world can give. Is it 
 not worth while to rebuild that ideal here^ where 
 its roots are still struck, and where men's heai'ts 
 still cherish it, and thus give to the world a bright 
 object lesson of human life led in a reasonable 
 spiritual fashion, of every part of man developed 
 in its place and used for the good of the 
 community 't 
 
 That is the thought that I would ask you to 
 take away from this first of our evenings together. 
 Study your own practical daily life, and see where 
 it fails, and when you have seen this, then steadily 
 walk along the road which will bring the ancient 
 ideal back amongst us as a living fact. Do not 
 act impulsively, but carefully think out the question, 
 and when you have thought it out, then act. Do 
 not be content with idle dreaming ; do not be 
 content with simple aspiration and pious hope.
 
 The Four Ashramas. ^y 
 
 Do not say : " We hope that in the future India 
 will go along these lines." But rather say : " By 
 the blessings of the Gods, India, which is ourselves, 
 shall enter upon these lines in the persons of us, 
 her living sons. We shall take these Httle boys 
 who are the citizens of the future India, and 
 educate them upon ancient models, so that they 
 shall be trained as India's boys should be. We 
 shall bring them under the influence of the old 
 inspiration, so that when they become heads of 
 households, they shall be examples of what Indian 
 husbands and fathers should be. We will hold up 
 before them the ideal of honoured old age, 
 respected, loved, reverenced by all. In the plastic 
 years of youth, we shall hold up this ideal before 
 them ; nay, we shall ourselves live the ideal before 
 them, imperfectly though it may be. They will 
 work it out better ; with better opportunities, they 
 will produce nobler models ; and the next genera- 
 tion will be higher still, and the generation succeed- 
 ing it will be loftier still, and thus a new India will 
 be built up generation after generation. But the 
 foundation shall be laid now v/ithout delay, without 
 putting it off to the future ; we will lay the 
 foundation, we, the living people of modern India, 
 without shrinking from what it costs us ; we will 
 lay the foundation, and on that our boys shall build,
 
 38 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 and on their work our grand-children shall build, 
 and on that again our great-grand-children, and 
 thus shall be made a noble, purer, and more 
 spiritual India." 
 
 Such an India will be fit to be the spiritual 
 teacher of all nations. Such an India will be the 
 Brahmana of humanity, her voice the voice of 
 the Gods. That is the glorious ideal of which 
 I call you to lay the foundation. Set you firm the 
 stones on which the edifice shall rest, and they who 
 come after us shall build the temple above them.
 
 Lecture II. 
 TEMPLES, PRIESTS, AND WORSHIP. 
 
 Brothers : — 
 
 If you look back to India twenty-five years ago, 
 you will be struck with the fact that the growing 
 youths of India at that time were very largely 
 materialised through the influence of purely secular 
 and Western training ; that the tendency of the 
 intelligent men of the time was to turn more and 
 more away from their ancestral faith, and to take 
 as their prophets Huxley, Spencer, Mill, and Hegel, 
 rather than the great Rishis of the past. That 
 tendency, fatal to all spiritual life, and there- 
 fore to the very life of India herself, has now most 
 happily been checked ; and we find, as we look 
 round the young men of the day, that there is more 
 and more inclination among them to learn about 
 their religion, to respect the great vScriptures, to 
 regard the past with the reverence that is its due, 
 and to nurse some dawning hopes of the revival 
 D
 
 40 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 of past spirituality and past glory. That change 
 is so clear, so marked, so indisputable, that it is 
 recognised on all hands alike ; some speak of it 
 with rejoicing, others with disapproval. But 
 whether it be looked at by friend or by foe, by 
 those who praise or by those who blame it, 
 there is equally the recognition of the fact. On 
 that point no challenge, no dispute arises. 
 
 Side by side with this great revival of Hinduism, 
 there has, of course, been a revival also of some 
 things that are regrettable ; for evil follows good 
 as the shadow follows the body, and we know 
 from the highest authority, that all actions are 
 enveloped in evil, as fire is surrounded by smoke. 
 It is one of the conditions of action in an imperfect 
 world that evil shall ever tread on the heels of 
 good, and all that we can hope to do is to get the 
 preponderance of good. If we expect undiluted 
 good, then we are doomed to disappointment. We 
 must be content to win the most good with the 
 least possible evil, and if we succeed in that, we 
 shall have served our generation well. 
 
 It is equally clear, I think, that all who take part 
 in that great revival of religion, in however humble 
 a way, must also do their utmost to minimise any 
 evils which may follow on its progressive path. 
 Those who have a share in the work of recalling the
 
 Tetnples, Pries/s, and Worship. 41 
 
 Indian people to their great ideals, and of striving 
 to fan into flame the smouldering spark of spiritual 
 life, have certainly the duty of giving warning 
 of the dangers that attend on the revival, of trying 
 to check abuses, at the same time that they stimu- 
 late religious fervour and true spirituality. 
 
 Religion has two great enemies, that have ever 
 accompanied it along its path throughout the 
 history of humanity — materialism on the one side, 
 superstition on the other. Both are dangerous to 
 true religion ; both hold v/eapons whereby to 
 destroy the work of religion, to render her useless 
 to mankind. Materialism stands out a pronounced 
 and open enemy, with sword uplifted, trying to 
 strike her down. Superstition more insidiously 
 creeps up behind her, and veiling her own face in 
 the mask of piety, offers the poisoned cup to her 
 lips, striving to weaken, if not wholly to destroy. 
 Those who are servants of rehgion must seek to 
 guard her alike against the sword of the open foe 
 and the poisoned cup of the secret enemy ; for life 
 may be destroyed whether by sword-thrust or by 
 poison, and the faithful servant must guard the life 
 of his mistress against both enemies, and warn the 
 world of the double peril that assails her. 
 
 But in dealing with such a subject as that to 
 which we turn our thoughts this evening, we are
 
 42 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 faced with the greatest and subtlest of difficulties. 
 I know of no subject which is harder to deal with 
 rightly, than the one to which we are now to devote 
 our attention. Bound up as it is with all the feel- 
 ings of reverence and devotion that ennoble and 
 elevate humanity, sacred beyond all sacredness to 
 those who know something of what lies beyond 
 the visible, with the power of words too feeble to 
 describe all that it includes, all that it indicates, 
 how can one deal with those errors that injure it 
 without seeming to touch the sacred ark in which 
 the life of the nation is enclosed .' There is a story 
 in an ancient Hebrew Scripture that once the ark 
 of the Lord was being taken along the road to its 
 resting-place, and as the oxen drew the ark, some 
 roughness in the road made it shake backward and 
 fopward, so that it seemed in peril of falling. A 
 man, moved by hasty impulse, put forward rough 
 and careless hand to touch the ark of the Lordu 
 The motive was good, but the action mistaken ; 
 and as he touched the ark, the power of the life 
 that was within it smote him, and he fell to the 
 ground, senseless and slain, having touched unpre- 
 pared the holy ark of Israel.* So great is the 
 
 * Objects which have been consecrated effectively are like very 
 powerful batteries, and their contact is fatal to lives that cannot 
 vibrate sympathetically. Hence the warnings to "the profane," 
 meant only to protect them from danger.
 
 Temples^ Priests, and Worship. 43 
 
 danger of touching these arks of spiritual hfe, 
 unless the hand be purified, unless the heart be 
 devoted. May the great Gods protect me who 
 speak and you who listen, lest, in our very desire 
 of serving the great faith of our forefathers, any 
 irreverence should enter our hearts and wrong that 
 which we earnestly desire to serve. 
 
 If there were a great one whose limbs were 
 loaded with fetters, who was chained so that he 
 could not move to do his beneficent work, he would 
 do a useful service who strove to file away the 
 fetters that loaded his limbs and prevented them 
 from moving. And so it may be that as in the 
 course of thousands of years the great truths of 
 Hinduism have become surrounded on some points 
 by errors, by superstitions, and by evil practices, 
 we may be able, with all reverence for truth, to 
 file av/ay the fetters that clog the limbs of this 
 greatest of religions, and so set her free in modern 
 days, as she was in the ancient, to bless all India 
 with her power, and to draw the hearts of all men 
 to herself. Just because the religion is so high, 
 there is danger lest the errors encumbering her 
 should injure more than if the religion were less 
 lofty. A man who is standing on the ground can- 
 not be much injured by a fall ; but a man who 
 has climbed up high may shatter his limbs in the
 
 44 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 falling. So it has ever been the case, that where 
 the holiest is degraded, the most harm is done, 
 the loftier and the greater the ideal, the more fatal 
 is the degradation of that ideal in its injurious 
 power over the hearts and lives of men. 
 
 What was the Temple in the ancient days } 
 What the Image of the God .'' What the sacred 
 shrine wherein It dwelt } What the holy places of 
 pilgrimage, the Tirthas whither men went to 
 cleanse alike the body and the mind .'' What were 
 all these in the wonderful past, when every priest 
 was a true knower of the Supreme, and when the 
 sacred Science of the Self shone in all its glory 
 over the sacred land of India 1 
 
 What the temple was in those ancient days 
 those perhaps best can tell, who know what the 
 Temples are to-day in the higher regions of the 
 universe, the faint reflection of whose glory was 
 once seen in the Temples of Hinduism, in the 
 sounding of the mantras uttered by lips worthy to 
 recite them. 
 
 What, then, was the Temple in those days ? The 
 Temple was the centre of Divine influence, the 
 place where the presence of the Gods was known 
 and felt, where the glory of the Gods would now 
 and again shine forth in the eyes of the wor- 
 shippers, and where the love of the Bliakta would
 
 Temples, Priests, and Worship. 45 
 
 draw down a visible manifestation of the compas- 
 sion of Deity. Every one coming with love and 
 devotion to such a Temple, found descending upon 
 him a celestial influence, that calmed the mind, that 
 elevated the spirit, that changed all thoughts of 
 the world into thoughts of heaven, and that made 
 prayer arise unchecked by any obstacle, so that 
 the man felt for the time being as if he had 
 entered within the very gates of Svarga. So 
 mighty a power was there that even the most care- 
 less man who came there was for the moment 
 changed and spiritualised, by the wondrous force 
 which dwelt in the Temple, by the power radiated 
 from the Image of the God within it. 
 
 Such was the consecration in the ancient days, 
 when wisdom and purity were always present in 
 the leaders, in the days when knowledge spoke the 
 mantra, when none might come near the Temple 
 as priest whose heart and lips were not purified 
 with the Divine fire, when the priest who took the 
 offerings of the faithful stood with outstretched 
 hands that were pure, when every offering was 
 sanctified by the love of the giver, and sanctified 
 still further by the priest's hands as he took them 
 to pass them on as offering to the Gods. So all 
 alike were blest, and the holy influence radiated 
 all around the Temple. Naturally men dreamed
 
 46 Ancient Ideals ui Modern Life. 
 
 that in the Temple — and it was not all a dream — 
 with the chanting of the mantras, the music of 
 the Devas mingled its heavenly strain, and that 
 worshippers unseen, but not unfelt, joined in the 
 worship of men. 
 
 Such was the ancient Temple — a centre of 
 spiritual life. And the Images that in those 
 Temples stood to remind the worshippers of those 
 mighty Ones — some of whose attributes were 
 shown forth by symbols, by signs, by gestures — 
 those great Images were full of that power, which, 
 in its lowest form, we speak of as magnetic, but 
 which, in its highest form, is a mighty spiritual 
 force. For just as on the physical plane a man 
 may take an object, may magnetise it and give it 
 power to heal diseases by mere contact ; so can 
 great Rishis, servants of the high Gods, use the 
 spiritual forces of which the physical magnetism is 
 the faintest reflection, can pour that on the sacred 
 Image, can vivify it, can give it mighty power, so 
 that the vibrations coming from it harmonise every- 
 thing that approaches it : the bodies of the wor- 
 shippers — the subtle body as well as the physical 
 — are thus made to vibrate rhythmically with those 
 higher vibrations, and thus cease to be obstacles 
 to the spiritual life, and serve instead as vehicles 
 wliereby the spirit may reach them. So great is
 
 Temples, Priests, and Worship. 47 
 
 the force of such an Image, so mighty the power 
 that it can exercise over worshippers who come 
 with faith and devotion, such the idea of what the 
 Image of a God should be. Such in truth it was 
 in the old days, and such it might be to-day. 
 
 Then there were the sacred Tirthas to which 
 men and women made pilgrimage, where they 
 found some great Rishi, who, going down into the 
 water, consecrated that water by his own spiritual 
 influence and force, and gave it power which the 
 bare water could by itself never have ; who, by 
 the pouring out of the spiritual life within him, 
 imparted to the fluid the sacred power which 
 afi^ected the body, the mind, and the very spirit 
 of those who went into it. In the ancient days, 
 when the Rishi had done his consecrating work, 
 his disciples went into the water after him, and 
 then the crowd of pilgrims, treading with rever- 
 ence, with solemnity, with dignity, entered into 
 the flood thus rendered magnetic by the spiritual 
 force poured out into it. Image to yourself 
 those ceremonies of the past ; see how they were 
 pure, see how they were holy, see how no hard 
 words were ever heard, how there was no rough- 
 ness, no jostling — nothing that could disturb the 
 sacred peace, the perfect harmony, of the place ; 
 and then you may dimly feel what pilgrimage
 
 48 A}icie7it Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 meant in those days. Then you may dimly feel 
 what power of holiness came down on men in such 
 a place to raise them above the world in which 
 they were living. You can catch some faint idea, and 
 it can only be the faintest, of what the Gods can 
 do for man, if man will only make the conditions 
 that render it possible for Xhem to act : if they 
 will but prepare the physical world, so that the 
 celestial life may flow down into clean vessels, that 
 will not pollute the holy flood that pours into 
 them. 
 
 If in those days of the past, you could have 
 attended one of the ancient sacrifices, if you could 
 have been present at one of the ceremonies in 
 those days when the priests who served at the 
 altar were every one of them learned in the Vedas, 
 every one of them pure in heart and in life — at 
 such a ceremony what would you have seen ? You 
 would have seen earthly priests serving at the 
 earthly altar ; and then, if your eyes were open, 
 you would have seen the high Gods who had 
 come down in order to be partakers of the offer- 
 ings that were laid on the altar. The great 
 Rishis, the Sages, the mighty Ones of the older 
 days came to bless those who were truly wor- 
 shipping, to give the celestial benediction to the 
 sacrifice that was pure, and to the worshippers
 
 Temples^ Priests, and Worship. 49 
 
 who were worthy to receive it. Vast hosts of 
 heavenly visitors and heavenly choristers, singing 
 in harmony with the mantras sung below, and rain 
 of flowers — celestial flowers — as the sign that the 
 sacrifice was accepted, that the Gods were well 
 pleased. So great was this religion in its older 
 days, a copy of that which is mightiest in the 
 unseen world : its Temples models of celestial 
 Temples, its ceremonies a reflection of the cere- 
 monies by which the spiritual evolution of the 
 world is carried on, its priests representatives of 
 that high priesthood who in the very presence of 
 the Gods perform the Yajfta and the Yoga by 
 which alone the races of men arc led along the 
 path of the higher life, and are guided from the 
 state of the brutes to the state of the Gods them- 
 selves. This religion of Hinduism is the nearest 
 copy of that divine ritual that exists on earth, 
 given to man more perfectly modelled by the 
 Gods themselves than is the case with any other 
 faith that has been given to human race, and 
 therefore is Hinduism dear to the heart of the 
 occultist. Divine in its ideas, sacred and spiritual 
 in its ceremonies, with all the mighty powers of 
 the Gods within it, that is the religion which your 
 fathers have bequeathed to you. What have you 
 done with that inheritance, Oh ! you who boast 
 yourselves their children ?
 
 50 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 Nor was that great and magnificent ritual and 
 public religious life the only thing that they gave 
 to their beloved sons and daughters of the Indian 
 land. They came into the family, as they came 
 into the Temples. They gave them Gurus to 
 teach them, to guard from dawn to sunset the life 
 of men and women, to guide from conception to 
 cremation. They gave to the family, Gurus who 
 should lead them step b)' step along the sacred 
 path of life. There was no incident in the life 
 that was not consecrated by the touch of the 
 Guru's hand. He gave the second birth, while the 
 father and mother gave the physical birth only, 
 and so was this the highest and most sacred of all 
 earthly ties — the tie between the Guru and the 
 Shishya. It was the holiest of all charges, tiie 
 charge placed in the Guru's hand to train the soul, 
 to guide the feet along the ancient narrow path, 
 sharp as the edge of the razor. 
 
 Such was the Guru in the olden days. Such 
 his place in the family. Such his help to those to 
 whom he was sent. Nor may the Purohita be 
 ignored, who performed the household ceremonies 
 of religion, as the Guru gave the training to the 
 soul. He also was wise and pure, he also learned 
 and noble. If I name the name of Vasishtha, I 
 name one of those who was household priest in 
 the elder days.
 
 Temples, Priests, and Worship. 5 1 
 
 Such, then, was this mighty religion, nay, a 
 milhon times more than this, if only I had words 
 whereby to tell it. No thought of yours can paint 
 a picture more divine than was once seen in 
 ancient India. All words fail in telling of its 
 beauty, all language is cold to describe the glory 
 of its power. 
 
 What are the Temples now, and what their 
 servants ? What the Images and the Tirthas ? 
 Wliat the family Guru, and the family Purohita t 
 Let us, remembering that great ideal, touch with 
 careful hands all that represents it, but none the 
 less let us see whether there do not exist to-day 
 evils of the gravest character which are preventing 
 the work of this great religion, which are alien- 
 ating the minds of some of the brightest children 
 of India from their ancestral faith, which are 
 weapons whereby those who believe not in this 
 faith try to turn men's heart against it. 
 
 I know, and you know it also too well, that 
 when those who are not Hindus in belief speak of 
 Hinduism, they do not speak of the glory of its 
 Scriptures, or of the greatness of its philosophy, 
 or of the wonders of its spiritual devotion ; they 
 do not dwell on all these great things which can- 
 not be separated from any true view of ?Iinduism. 
 They take up certain abuses, they point to
 
 52 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 scandals that dishonour ancient fanes and pollute 
 holy places ; and bringing those out into the light 
 of day, they make them stand as the marks of this 
 holy religion. We cannot answer them, alas ! we 
 cannot answer them, because their reproaches are 
 based on facts that we know to be true. 
 
 Temples throughout modern India : how far 
 does the old consecrating influence still live in 
 them to-day .'' In some it is still found. In going 
 into some of the Indian Temples, one feels coming 
 down into them — even in the outer courts, where 
 stand those who are not Hindus by birth, and who 
 are therefore not permitted to enter the sanctuary 
 — one feels even there the holy influence which 
 once was so potent ; but it is faint and feeble, as 
 though preparing to depart and to be felt no more. 
 I have been into some of the Temples here, where 
 there is still some touch of the ancient power, still 
 some vibrations of the ancient spiritual magnetism, 
 still some influence that calms the muid and fills 
 the heart with emotions of Bhakti, with love to 
 God and man. But those Temples are few and 
 far between, are in a small minority, instead of 
 being everywhere as they were in the older days. 
 In a vast number, there is no influence at all, no 
 more than is in the world around them. In some, 
 at least, the influence is of positive evil, and not
 
 Temples^ Priests, and Worship. 53 
 
 of good, magnetism, where want of learning and 
 want of purity have poHuted the ancient 
 magnetism that once dwelt therein. 
 
 Why ? Because when this great blessing of 
 spiritual force is given to any material object or 
 place, it is not given as a force that remains there 
 unchanged, no matter what the surroundings. It 
 tends — as do all energies — gradually to dissipate ; 
 unless it is reinforced, unless it is renewed, it 
 lessens in its potency. That there is still left some 
 of it in these Temples is chiefly due to the crowds 
 of pious worshippers who go thither to make their 
 offerings to the Gods. Their love and their 
 devotion reinforce the spiritual power that still 
 remains in some holy places, and the possibility 
 is thus shown of what might return, if duty were 
 done on every hand. 
 
 What is true of the Temples is true of too many 
 of the sacred Images. They, too, have lost their 
 ancient power and no longer radiate much of the 
 celestial energy ; but still, when a man with a 
 heart of love goes to bow down before such an 
 Image, the God will send him blessing even 
 though He dwells not there habitually. For love 
 in the human heart attracts the love of the great 
 Ones, and They answer, however unworthy the 
 surroundings, where any soul of man is seeking 
 after God.
 
 54 /hicient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 And the Temple Brahmanas ? You know as 
 1 know, that both in the south and ui the north, 
 it is no word of reverence that springs to the Ups 
 when people speak about the Temple Brahmanas. 
 Have I not been told in southern India, by man 
 after man, religious, devoted, at heart thoroughly 
 Hindu, worshippers in the Temples, worshippers 
 of the Gods, that their great difficulty is that their 
 Temple priests are unlearned, that they are 
 profligate in life, as well as unversed in the know- 
 ledge that should be theirs ? Have they not 
 complained, in bitter grief, that this is the great 
 hindrance to religion, that shame is continually 
 being brought upon them ? Have they not prayed 
 that some help may be given them to educate the 
 priesthood, and to render those pure who serve 
 the Gods ? For if a man of evil life and foul 
 thought stand beside the Image of a God, recei\'- 
 ing the offerings that are made, the foulness of his 
 magnetism pours out upon the sacred Image, and 
 blasphemes it with a blasphemy worse a thousand- 
 fold than any attacks of missionaries can be ; for 
 no words of theirs can injure it much, but the 
 ignorance and the impurity of the priests drive 
 away the celestial energy. 
 
 Do we not know that the very names of 
 Mahants and Pandas carry to the ears of many
 
 Temples, Priests, and Worship. 55 
 
 who hear them associations of degradation and 
 not of spiritual power, of shame and not of pride ? 
 Do we not know that if we stand at a sacred 
 Tirtha, we see there scenes that make us turn 
 away in bitter shame, shocked at the rapacity of 
 those who gather round the pilgrims, and who, in 
 the very water that should be sacred to the 
 blessed Gods, absolutely strive with each other 
 physically to drag the pilgrims into their own 
 hands, for the sake of money. 
 
 Can the Gods come down to such places ? Why, 
 there are Temples, where learned and devout 
 Hindus will not allow the women of their families 
 even to go. Can the Gods come down to places 
 where women are not safe ? Can the holy Ones 
 descend, where shame is wrought in the name of 
 piety and religion ? My brothers, these are the 
 scandals that are hindering the growth of 
 Hinduism. They are known, they are whispered 
 from one to another ; they are the cankers of this 
 great religion, and they are eating away its heart 
 and turning against it its own children, who ought 
 lo be its most faithful lovers and most ardent 
 admirers. 
 
 Do we not know that too often the family Guru 
 is not even looked on with love and honour, not 
 always because of Western education and falling 
 E
 
 $6 Ancietit Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 away from religion, but because it is hard to give 
 respect where there is nothing that is respectable. 
 And that most sacred of all names, the name of 
 Guru, has come to be a name that some men 
 shrink from using to any teacher they revere, 
 because of the shame that has been brought upon 
 it by those who bear it unworthily. 
 
 If a man has in him a heart that is strong 
 enough, a faith that is heroic enough, to look 
 through the unworthy Guru to the great Guru, 
 whose power may come down even through that 
 unworthy channel ; if a man has courage, devotion, 
 and insight enough to disregard the unworthy 
 form, and see in it merely a channel for the power 
 that is divine ; then the mantra given by even 
 such a Guru will purify and spiritualise the man 
 who takes it, and he will not suffer because the 
 one who gave it was not worthy to be the giver. 
 Do not, then, break the tie of love, the tie of duty, 
 even when the representative is unworthy. Be 
 patient for a little time. Bear with these unworthy 
 ones for the sake of the ideal they represent, for 
 the sake of the glory of the past, and for the 
 holiness of the name that is cast as a veil over 
 the unworthiness of the present. Remember that 
 blessing will come to you even through these if 
 you are worthy to receive it. But for those who
 
 Teynples, Priests, a?id Worship. 57 
 
 thus prostitute the hohest of names, who by 
 ignorance and profligacy blaspheme the most 
 sacred of relations, for them there lies in the 
 future the lowest of Narakas, the doom of those 
 who have blasphemed the Divine in man, and 
 have outraged that which is the holiest and the 
 most pregnant with the salvation of mankind. 
 
 Do you dream, because you live in modern 
 days, that these great things are but shadows of 
 their former selves ? Do you dream that they 
 have lost their real force, that the great truths 
 have lost their vital energy, that the holy mantras 
 have now no power, that the sacred Scriptures 
 have now no magic and no strength ? The change is 
 not in them, but in those who use them, in whose 
 hands they are as forms empty of all life, these 
 things which once brought down the very powers 
 of God before the senses of men. I who speak 
 to you, I bear you witness that these Scriptures, 
 which are yours, but whose powers you know not, 
 are still as mighty as ever they were in ancient 
 days ; that these mantras have still as much of 
 the ancient power as ever, if only they are rightly 
 uttered. For I know, that where sacred shlokas 
 have been chanted by lips that were wise and 
 pure, all that is said of the old days is true to-day, 
 as really as ever it was in the past ; even now
 
 58 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 to hear such chanting, the Devas throng from 
 every quarter, making the air vibrant with the 
 rustle of their celestial garments, filling the whole 
 air with perfume, while the silver tinklings of the 
 bells of the heavenly choristers chime in har- 
 moniously with the sonorous chanting of the 
 Samskrit shlokas by the priest. That still is true. 
 It is not the form that is wanting ; it is the life 
 that should animate the form. There is the 
 difficulty. It is that which we have to seek. 
 
 My brothers! is it possible for us to find out a 
 remedy, without breaking the old ideals, and while 
 keeping them still sacred ? Is it possible to get 
 rid of the abuses which are strangling them to 
 death, and to give back to India what she once 
 possessed } 
 
 I know well that it would be easy enough to 
 sweep away all these abuses, for it would not take 
 much to stir the Indian heart to anger, so that it 
 should sweep them all away. But it would at the 
 same time sweep away all the forms that need to 
 be revivified, all me ideals, and not only the 
 abuses. There is the difficulty that faces us. 
 Better be patient, and bear much, working slowly 
 for change, than break all the vessels which con- 
 tain the possibilities of Indian spirituality for the 
 future. It is easy enough by Acts and Laws to
 
 Temples^ Priests^ and Worship, 59 
 
 change the outer things, to stop the outer scandals. 
 Easy enough by Acts, that might be passed by a 
 Christian Government, to say that a man once 
 convicted of crime should not be again placed on 
 the gaddi. But are you sure that in that quick 
 and hasty method of reform, you would not destroy 
 the very thing that we must preserve, if India's 
 spirituality is to survive ? It is not always the 
 outwardly quickest way that is the best way to 
 take, especially in matters spiritual, which count 
 time but little, which regard the ideal as vital. 
 Therefore it is that in the lines that I suggest, I 
 put on one side the rough and ready methods, 
 whereby politicians correct political abuses, in 
 matters where the conditions may be changed by 
 enacting laws. The evil here lies deeper than any 
 law can touch. The harm is rooted in regions in 
 which no act can run. Slow must be the methods 
 by which the deep change can be brought about. 
 Can we not be patient in our workings, if we see 
 the goal at which we aim ''. 
 
 Two things are chiefly wanted in order that the 
 abuses I have spoken of may be cleared away. 
 One is the slow method of education ; the other 
 a rise in the spirituality of the people, of the 
 Hindus themselves. I know full well that these 
 methods will not recommend themselves to those
 
 6o Ancient Ideals m Modern Life. 
 
 who are so angry with the evils that they see, that 
 they would strike quickly, in order to get rid of 
 them at once. I do not plead for the abuse, when 
 I ask you to be patient in bearing it. The words 
 of a wise Teacher of the ancient times should be 
 remembered, when He told His disciples not to 
 pull up too hastily the weeds that had grown 
 along with the wheat, lest they should also pull up 
 the young corn ; but rather wait until the corn was 
 strong enough to bear the movement around its 
 roots, so that the weeds might be gathered and 
 thrown into the fire, which was their proper place, 
 without injuring the corn. 
 
 Education is the first thing wanted. When 1 
 speak of the ignorance of the priesthood, I refer to 
 the priestly class spoken of above, and not, of 
 course to those learned Pandits, profound in their 
 scholarship, whose learning is a glory to their land, 
 and who have kept alive Indian philosophy. I am 
 not speaking of these great lights of modern India, 
 but I speak of the Temple priests ; that is where 
 education must begin in order to strike at the very 
 root of mischief. You must remember that 
 significant declaration of Manu, when he said that 
 " As an elephant made of wood, as an aaleiopc 
 made of leather, so is an ignorant Brahmana ; 
 these three have only the names." 1 have met
 
 Temples, Priests, and Worship. 6i 
 
 many a Brahmana in southern India who was 
 ignorant even of Sarhskrit, and who knew not the 
 very meaning of the mantras that he repeated, 
 even in the mere outward meaning of their words, 
 far less the spiritual meaning that underlies them. 
 I have seen Brahmanas officiate at sacred cere- 
 monies, who could not even pronounce aright their 
 Samskrit words, and who used wrong words 
 in the midst of the mantras, so taking away the 
 little efficacy that they might have had, had they 
 been rightly pronounced. Other words of Manu 
 come to my mind, certainly not lacking in 
 strength : " As a eunuch is unproductive with 
 women, and a cow with a cow is unprolific, even 
 so useless is the Brahmana who is not instructed 
 in the Vedas." No words of mine are these, but 
 words of that mighty Teacher who stands at the 
 head of Hinduism, nay at the head of the present 
 race. Shall we not then try to win the priests to 
 submit to education ? shall we not try to make it 
 easy, so that education shall be open to them on 
 every side ? It is not for us to reform the priest- 
 hood ; not from below may the purifying fire 
 ascend. It is for the priesthood to reform itself, 
 and this it will do if educated. The fire must come 
 from the heart of the priestly community to purify 
 it, otherwise the work will be ill-done and the 
 results will be transitory and poor.
 
 62 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 But there is already a movement in southern 
 India among the religious Hindu community, and 
 they have appealed to us here to lend them a 
 helping hand in gaining a learned priesthood. 
 Some of the Trustees of Temples have come and 
 asked us whether it was not possible, in connec- 
 tion with this Central Hindu College, to open a 
 Theological Department, where sons of priests 
 might be trained and educated, and then go back 
 to the Temples and take up their fathers' work, 
 worthy to be servants of the high Gods. The 
 working out of that plan is already in contem- 
 plation. There will be here made arrangements 
 by which the sons of priests will be taken, sup- 
 ported by those who send them, in order that they 
 may be trained in the elements of general morality 
 and religion, and also in Western knowledge — for 
 it is necessary that the priest should not be 
 divided from the people, by knowing nothing of 
 that which they know. And therefore it is pro- 
 posed, with the approval of those who have spoken 
 to us, that the boys should be first trained in the 
 ordinary curriculum, and should then pass into the 
 Theological Department, and there be trained 
 further in Sarnskrit learning, as well as in the 
 ceremonial knowledge pertaining to the duties of 
 the priesthood. If that scheme be carried out, if
 
 Temples, Priests^ and Worship. (>}y 
 
 the College here co-operate with our brothers in 
 the south in this respect, surely that will be the 
 beginning of brighter days. If we can send forth 
 a learned priesthood, such a priesthood will be 
 purer in life than if it is utterly ignorant, for with 
 ignorance goes degradation. If that task can be 
 accomplished here, then a great work will be 
 done for India's future, when the priests thus 
 trained will go back to the Temples that they 
 serve, and there lead lives respected by the com- 
 munity, honourable, upright, pious, examples to 
 those who throng to the Temples. 
 
 So, in other parts of India, similar movements 
 might be begun. There is possibility of reform 
 here. Let us then plead w^ith the priests to 
 educate themselves, let us make it easy for them 
 to do it. There are plenty of funds contributed 
 by pious people ; why should not these be used 
 for the benefit of the priesthood, so that the 
 Temples may be served by learned and pious 
 Brahmanas ? This is dealing with the very root 
 of the evil. Is it not a thousand times better to 
 do this, than to appeal to Government to pass 
 Acts which simply cut off the heads of abuses 
 while the roots remain untouched } Let us work 
 patiently then, and within thirty years the priests 
 will be changed without giving religious feeling a 
 shock, without outraging its sensibilities,
 
 64 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 That is not all. Every nation has as its 
 teachers, the teachers that it deserves. If there 
 are serving in the Temples many who have no 
 right to be there, it is because of the low level of 
 spirituality in the masses of the people. Karma 
 gives to every nation that which that nation has 
 earned. The priesthood given to India is fitted 
 to the degraded spiritual life among her people. 
 It is the way of the West to see the outer evils 
 only and to try to destroy them. It is the way of 
 the East to study the law of Karma, and to sow 
 seeds that shall bring forth fair harvest. The 
 interests of our lives are not centred in one life, 
 as the West thinks ; but we are taught that we 
 are not bounded by these bodies, we are living 
 life after life, and so we can afford to work for the 
 future, as men work who know that their life goes 
 on growing and evolving. Let us then turn our 
 hearts and lives towards ancient ideals, let us 
 begin by spiritualising ourselves, let us worship 
 faithfully and with devotion, let us meditate daily, 
 steadily, and perseveringly for spiritual fervour, let 
 us purify our lives and learn charity, tenderness, 
 love of all that is around us. Let us improve our- 
 selves, and Karma will and must send us priests 
 who will be worthy to serve at the altar and in the 
 family. Let us trust the good Law, and the Gods
 
 Temples, Priests, and Worship. 65 
 
 behind every phenomenon ; Their power is real, 
 the power that guides all nations. Let us offer 
 pure lives of devotion, and They will give us back 
 as reward a pure priesthood, and teachers who are 
 learned and spiritual men. Those two methods 
 of change I venture to recommend to you — the 
 education of the priesthood, and the raising of the 
 standard of spirituality in the nation. 
 
 Let each man take this to himself, and not put 
 it off on his neighbour. Let us not say, " India 
 has sunk low ; " but rather let us say, " I have 
 sunk low, and I must rise." If every man says 
 that, then India will rise. If each man will culti- 
 vate the vineyard of his own life, the whole area 
 will be cultivated, and the blessings of the Gods 
 will be once more upon the people. 
 
 So with regard to the family Guru and the 
 family priests. Rather work hard and wait, than 
 hastily break up and destroy. But there is one 
 outer thing that you might fairly do. In every 
 ceremony where choice is yours, when there are 
 ceremonies to which you invite Brahmanas, and 
 you choose them from among the great mass 
 around you, then without transcending your own 
 proper duty, you could always choose only the 
 learned and the pure. You should on such 
 occasions leave on one side the illiterate and the
 
 66 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 profligate. Where choice is yours, why should 
 you not choose the useful, instead of those that are 
 branded as useless ? Thus you will bring about 
 some changes that will come more rapidly, without 
 touching the holy ideals, that we all feel the 
 necessity of preserving. 
 
 Still further, it seems to me, it may be possible 
 to go. But here I speak with something of doubt, 
 because of the exceeding difficulty of finding any 
 person who has a right to move in the matter, of 
 finding any recognised authority. Is it quite 
 impossible that we might win the more thoughtful, 
 the more learned of the priesthood, to join with us 
 and give us their helping hand in stopping some 
 of the worst scandals that go on around us day by 
 day "i Might it not be possible that a body of good 
 Mahants and Pandas should as a first step exclude 
 from his office a Mahant or Panda who has been 
 condemned by law for some shameful crime .'' I do 
 not see any lack of readiness on their part to go to 
 the Courts where their own interests are concerned, 
 so that they already have recourse to the ruling 
 power with regard to temporalities. We all know 
 how the money offered to the Gods is squandered 
 in courts, in litigating cases ; and how the offerings 
 of the faithful are spent on the law and the lawyers. 
 We all know also, that priests themselves some-
 
 Temples, Priests, and Worship. 6y 
 
 times mortgage away their rights to receive such 
 offerings, and that the offerings of Hindus, intended 
 to support their rehgion, go to persons outside 
 Hinduism, to those who are not even of the Hindu 
 faith. It does not seem impossible, therefore, that 
 the same power might be invoked by the more 
 worthy of the priests to redress flagrant scandals, 
 to interfere with and prevent unworthy priests 
 from continuing to receive emoluments belonging 
 to their office. It does not seem impossible that 
 the honourable men might make a tribunal whose 
 voice should be recognised as authoritative by the 
 civil government, so that when it pronounced a man 
 unworthy, its decision should be recognised as 
 barring him from bringing a suit to claim any place 
 in a Temple, or any maintenance, or proprietary 
 rights. It seems to me not impossible that such a 
 thing might be done. Applied first to a man con- 
 demned by the law for a crime, it might be applied 
 gradually, as the standard rises, to less flagrant 
 cases. But this plan can only be worked out by 
 those who are learned alike in religion and in law. 
 I can only in this give hints and suggestions. It 
 is for wise and learned Hindus to see if anything 
 can be done practically in this direction, without 
 injuring the ideal of a true priesthood, and without 
 destroying anything that is worthy of preservation.
 
 68 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 If some such immediate changes can be brought 
 about, anci if the growing spirituahty of the people 
 and improved education raise the status of the 
 priesthood, if these purifying forces go on, step by 
 step, then it would seem that brighter days will 
 dawn again for Hindu faith and Hindu practice. 
 
 [Apart from the ignorance and the immorality 
 of the priesthood, there are other things that need 
 to be changed in connection with some few of the 
 Temples, though happily only found in compara- 
 tively few — animal sacrifice and nautch-girls. 
 
 I know well — perhaps better than many of those 
 who defend it — the hidden truth out of which 
 animal sacrifice has arisen. But the slaying of 
 animals as now performed is utterly indefensible, 
 and the shedding of their blood pollutes and defiles 
 the Temples where it takes place. Asuric are 
 these animal sacrifices of the Kali Yuga, " torment- 
 ing the aggregated elements forming the body, and 
 Me also, seated in the inner body," and they should 
 be entirely discontinued. 
 
 So with the nautch-girls. Originally there 
 existed in connection with the Temples a band of 
 pure maidens, vestal virgins, through whose 
 unsullied lips, from time to time, a God or a great 
 Rishi would speak, warning or teaching the 
 worshippers. Only a pure virgin could serve as
 
 Temples, Priests, and Worship. 69 
 
 such a vehicle, for the temporary embodiment of a 
 great One whose physical body was far away. 
 These virgins were guarded with the greatest care, 
 and were looked on with the greatest reverence. 
 Theirs it was to serve the priests ministering at the 
 shrine and to weave the mystic dance with sacred 
 garlands, moving to the measure of the music that 
 they chanted, amid the fragrant smoke of incense, 
 as the stately procession moved from fane to fane. 
 
 As the priests degenerated they dragged down 
 the Temple maidens with them, until now their 
 name carries wnth it only suggestions of shameful 
 vice. Little wonder that all good influences have 
 fled where womanhood is thus degraded, and the 
 highest spiritual uses have been changed into 
 lowest sin.] 
 
 Is it all a dream, impossible of realisation, that 
 Indian Temples shall again be what once they 
 were ; that Indian sacred Images again shall have 
 their divine power ; that Indian priests shall again 
 be what they ought to be — models for those for 
 whom they minister ; that Gurus shall be wise, 
 pious, and learned, worthy to train their Shishyas 
 along the path of wisdom, virtue, and piety ? Is 
 this only a Utopian dream ? 
 
 My brothers, I cannot think it. For in this land 
 there still remains what no other land in the world
 
 yo Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 possesses. There is still a spiritual life hidden 
 within the hearts of men. There are still places 
 where it makes itself felt. There are still spots 
 which are Koly, and which are kept holy for the 
 sake of the future, that yet shall be born. There 
 is still in the hearts of the Indian people a spiritual 
 fibre that elsewhere is not found. There is still 
 response from them to a spiritual appeal, that no 
 other nation in the world is as yet able to give. Is 
 all that to be wasted } all these to be lost, at the 
 very moment when Indian thought is penetrating 
 the world ? Is India herself to be excluded from 
 that great life, that through her is pouring out to 
 the nations of the West } That need not be ; that 
 shall not be. 
 
 If only India's children will do what they should 
 do, by virtue of the past behind them, by virtue 
 of the Gods above them, by virtue of the great 
 Rishis who still live, and who love their ancient 
 fatherland, who even in their high estate turn eyes 
 of tenderest love on India's children, and welcome 
 them with a greater joy than they welcome the 
 children of other lands- — then shall India rise, i 
 cannot believe that India has no future, that this 
 greatest of all faiths has no revival possible, which 
 shall place her on the pinnacle where all the world 
 shall worship her, as a mighty power for spirituality.
 
 Temples, Priests, and Worship. 71 
 
 Surely she shall, despite all, be the mother of 
 spiritual races yet unborn. 
 
 I dream of a time when Temples again shall be 
 centres of spiritual life, when the sacred mantras 
 shall ring out again in all their purifying, harmonis- 
 ing force, when the language of the Devas shall 
 regain its ancient power, when the hearts of men 
 shall bow in worship before the great Gods who rule 
 over mankind, and before the Divine Teachers who 
 are their nearest Priests. Of that I dream, my 
 Brothers. 
 
 And I know that even if this dream be but a 
 dream — which may the Gods forbid — even then it 
 is good to work for spiritual regeneration. Whether 
 this dream be true or not, no force can be wasted, 
 no change that is for good can be lost. Spirituality 
 growing here shall cause spirituality to grow all 
 the world over. Even if the crown of spirituality 
 may not be India's, nay, may go elsewhere, those 
 who work for her to-day will be content that some- 
 where there will rise a spiritual Teacher before 
 whom all the world shall bow in homage. That 
 spiritual Teacher may wear an Indian body, may be 
 in the likeness of the Rishis of old ; for that I 
 pray the Gods, for that I work, for that I give the 
 life that now I hold. And I pray you that you also 
 will give your lives, you who have the privilege of
 
 72 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 Hindu birth, which in this Hfe I have not, you who 
 can go into the Temples where I may not go, who 
 may worship where I may not worship. I am 
 pleading for that which should be dearer to you 
 than it is to me. Will you be deaf to the pleadings 
 of love, and let India perish, as she must perish, if 
 her religion dies .'
 
 Lecture III. 
 
 THE CASTE SYSTEM. 
 
 My Brothers : — 
 
 We are to study to-night that characteristic 
 system of caste, which we find in India from tlie 
 very earliest days of the Aryan civih'sation, which 
 has persisted in its form down to the present time, 
 and which is probably the chief reason for the 
 stability of Indian Society. In studying this system 
 we shall proceed along the same lines that we have 
 hitherto followed. First we shall look at it in its 
 state of perfection ; then we shall see it as it has 
 degenerated until it reached its present position ; 
 then we shall consider whether any changes are 
 practicable which should restore it to its former 
 usefulness and glory, and deprive it of the many 
 disadvantages and mischiefs at present connected 
 with it. 
 
 Any subject that deals with the social life of a 
 people needs very careful consideration, and sug-
 
 74 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 gestions of the introduction of any changes must 
 be made with the greatest caution, with the greatest 
 dehberation. Therefore, in deahng with the latter 
 part of this subject, I shall put before you tenta- 
 tively certain propositions, which may serve, at 
 least as the basis for discussion, even if not 
 accepted in the form in which they are originally 
 presented. 
 
 It seems to me necessary, in dealing with a point 
 of this kind, and with all questions like this, that 
 we should distinguish very clearly between that 
 which is essential and that which is non-essential. 
 That is, we must divide our subject into those parts 
 which are vital, those parts which are permanent, 
 and the parts which are non-essential, which are 
 temporary, which do not spring out of the original 
 principles, but have to do with the more modern 
 conditions — accretions that have grown up around 
 the system, and which by no means are essential to 
 its vitality, but rather detrimental to its life. 
 
 Now, as regards the original idea of the caste 
 system, it is laid down exceedingly carefully and 
 clearly among many other passages in the Bhaga- 
 vad-Gztd, Fourth Discourse ; here SJiri^-^ishn^ 
 Himself says : " The four castes were emanated 
 from Me by the different distribution of energies 
 and actions ; know Me to be the author of them."
 
 The Caste System. 75 
 
 That is a distinct declaration from the Hps of Shri 
 Krishna Himself, as to the origin of the system. 
 He puts Himself forward as the author, and He 
 states that the division rests on certain fundamental 
 principles in Nature, and follows a certain distri- 
 bution of qualities, or energies, and actions. We 
 find, if we take the terms there used, that it is the 
 distribution of the Gunas and the Karmas that 
 determine castes ; these are the essential funda- 
 mental qualities in Nature, and the actions arising 
 from them which cause certain inevitable results. 
 On these two things the four castes. He declares, 
 are based. They are not, according to this, 
 arbitrary distinctions ; they are not, according to 
 this, artificial creations of Society. They are funda- 
 mental natural divisions, based on differences of 
 materials, based on resulting differences of actions. 
 Such is declared, by the mouth of the Great 
 Teacher, to be the foundation of the four castes. 
 
 In many other passages we find the same idea 
 worked out. Some of the great Teachers give 
 certain qualities, as characteristic of each of the 
 four castes. Some go so far as to say, that if these 
 qualities do not exist in a man, born in any 
 particular caste, then he is not really a member of 
 that caste. To take a case from the Mahdbhdrata. 
 After reciting the qualities belonging to a Brah-
 
 jG Ancient Ideals in Moder7i Life. 
 
 mana, and the qualities belonging to a Shudra, 
 the teacher declared : " If these qualities are seen 
 in a Shudra and are not found in a Brahmana, 
 then that Shudra is not a Shudra, nor is that 
 Brahmana a Brahmana." So we see, that this 
 view of the system is put forward : that there are 
 certain fundamental differences in Nature, and the 
 caste system being based on these, should show out 
 the same characteristic differences. 
 
 If we study the system carefully, we shall find 
 that these four castes present the path of Evolution, 
 along which a human Soul develops. We shall 
 find, in fact, that these fundamental divisions are 
 by no means peculiar to Hinduism, are not only 
 to be found in India, but that they are universal 
 in their nature ; they are recognisable over the 
 whole of the countries of the world. The difference 
 that we see between India and the other States of 
 the West is simply this : that in the Hindu system 
 these differences are recognised, and Society is 
 definitely organised on their basis ; while in the 
 other countries these differences are not definitely 
 recognised, and the social order is not connected 
 with them. 
 
 Where you get a system in which these differ- 
 ences are recognised, and the social order is based 
 upon them, it is spoken of as a system of castes.
 
 The Caste System. yy 
 
 Where you have a society without this recognition, 
 but where the quahties assert themselves in spite 
 of the ignoring of them, we speak of a system of 
 classes. But the lines are easy to be seen, and may 
 be definitely recognised. And you find in all past 
 civilisations, as well as in the present civilisation, 
 the same lines of cleavage, the same natural funda- 
 mental distinctions. 
 
 Now, in the definite recognition of these lines 
 of cleavage, there is a distinct social value. It 
 tends towards the stability of society, it tends to 
 contentment, to the absence of continual compe- 
 tition and strife, and it makes society orderly and 
 progressive at the same time. It is not without 
 significance, that in one of the social Utopias, which 
 have been sketched in the West, we find a system 
 of society — outlined by the great French Philoso- 
 pher Auguste Comte, whose philosophy is called 
 the Positive Philosophy, and who founded on that 
 philosophy the re-organisation of society — it is not 
 without significance, that the caste system is there 
 definitely revived, and the characteristic marks 
 imprinted on it by Hindu Sages are found re- 
 appearing in this latest offspring of Western 
 politico-social thought. We have there a well- 
 organised priestly class, on the lines of the caste of 
 Brahmanas. I have not time to tell you the
 
 78 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 details of that system, of which one note is the 
 mystical one of organising in sevens. But it is 
 important that the man at the head of that class is 
 to appoint one of his fellow priests as his successor, 
 so that the authority is always from above and 
 never from below. The whole control over com- 
 merce is to be in a class corresponding to that 
 which we here call the Vaishya caste — great 
 capitalists, who organise labour ; and again, in a 
 separate body, we have the proletariat, representing 
 the Shudra caste. The only caste that does 
 not appear in this Utopia, is the Kshattriya, because 
 the whole of this system is based on the supposition 
 that society will be peaceful. There being an 
 absence of war, there is no need for a military class. 
 We have thus a definite caste system re-established 
 on purely scientific lines, and the motto of the 
 Positive Society is " Order with Progress." 1 liis 
 is the same fundamental notion as we have in 
 connection with the great Indian system of 
 caste. 
 
 The next thing to remember is that this system, 
 as regards the soul, is a great educative system. 
 Re-incarnation is always implied in it. The soul 
 passes from one caste to another, according to the 
 qualities it has developed, according to the actions 
 it has performed. It may rise upwards, or it may
 
 The Caste System. 79 
 
 sink downwards, but always the effect of one birth 
 shows itself in another birth, and the soul is led, 
 stage by stage, along the pathway of evolution. 
 And very plainly is this shown when you look upon 
 the caste system in its pure form. The higher the 
 caste, the greater the restrictions, the heavier the 
 duties, the more burdensome the weight of 
 responsibility placed on its shoulders. This system 
 in its original form was not a system of rights 
 claimed by a caste, but a system of duties imposed 
 077 a caste ; the higher the caste, the heavier the 
 duties.. 
 
 As you study it, you find that the easiest life, 
 the life with the least responsibility, with the least 
 difficulty, with the least restriction, was the life of 
 a member of the lowest caste, and not of the 
 highest. As a man rose from one caste to another, 
 as the soul grew older and stronger, he was made 
 to resign more and more. Every restriction that 
 was put upon a man was put on him in order to 
 make him of greater service, and not to minister 
 to his vanity or pride. If the Brahmana were 
 surrounded with respect, it was on his shoulders 
 that lay the burden of renunciation and sacrifice, 
 of poverty and learning. All these restrictions 
 were not made that he might be separated from the 
 people, and pride himself on his separateness ; but
 
 8o Ancient Ideals in Modern Lije. 
 
 that he might be kept pure as a channel through 
 which Divine hfe might flow to the people. And 
 a man could only pass into that caste, when he had 
 learned the lesson of sacrifice ; when he had learned 
 to serve as a Shudra, when he had learned to 
 give and be charitable as a Vaishya, when he had 
 learned to sacrifice life itself as a Kshattriya ; then, 
 when he had become a lover of asceticism and 
 learning, then was he permitted to pass into the 
 order of Brahmanas, to give himself to the 
 people as their teacher, counsellor, and guide. 
 That was the original idea of the system, that 
 the kind of way in which the system worked. 
 
 It is well that you should be aware in connection 
 with it that a certain definite type of subtle body 
 belonged to each caste. According to the quali- 
 ties, we read, the castes were emanated. But the 
 qualities are expressed in the subtle invisible 
 bodies, and the type of each caste is marked in 
 the nature of the invisible bodies that belong to it. 
 The Sukshma Sharira — the subtle body — was 
 different in the four castes, was built up according 
 to the qualities of each special caste, so that four 
 types of Sukshma Shariras belonged to the four 
 castes, and the qualities were expressed in appro- 
 priate organisms, and had each their appropriate 
 vehicle, in which they could manifest.
 
 The Caste System. 8 1 
 
 What, then, was the part which heredity played 
 in this system ? Heredity was the obvious, neces- 
 sary way of providing suitable physical bodies to 
 suit each type of subtle bodies, in which the quali- 
 ties were manifested. It was necessary to build up 
 by physical heredity the kind of physical body 
 which should answer to the type of the invisible 
 body ; and so heredity became a part, a necessary 
 part, of this system, in order thai the physical body 
 might be suited to the subtle body, that the whole 
 of the man might be consistent, and that there 
 might not be incongruity between the subtle and 
 the gross vehicles. How enormous was the diffi- 
 culty of changing from one caste to another, you 
 may estimate by the famous and well-known case 
 of Vi.shvamitra. If you realise this difference 
 of bodies, then you will be able to understand why 
 it was so difficult for a man to pass from one caste 
 to another. Vishvamitra having been born in 
 the Kshattriya caste, with the Sukshma Sharira 
 of the Kshattriya, and the physical body fitted by 
 Kshattriya heredity to serve in correspondence 
 with that subtle body, it was by no means an easy 
 thing for him to change from the caste of 
 Kshattriyas into the caste of Brahmanas. It 
 needed, you may remember, a process of Yoga, 
 prolonged through an enormous number of years.
 
 82 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 in order to make the necessary changes in those 
 bodies, which might render the transition possible. 
 It was not a thing of a day or a month or a year ; 
 it was not that a man should merely show the 
 qualities of the higher order ; but it was only 
 definite yogic practices prolonged through enor- 
 mous periods of time, by which changes were made 
 in the type, which rendered it possible for the 
 Gods to greet him with the title of a Brahmarshi. 
 Looking backwards, we cannot but recognise these 
 fundamental types, these great lines of cleavage, 
 and the place of heredity as an essential part of 
 the system, in the well-organised arrangement of 
 the whole. [A man who did not perform the 
 dharma of his caste, and thus made a discord 
 between the invisible and visible bodies, was, in 
 the old days, outcasted, and thus the purity of 
 caste was maintained. Thus suitable physical 
 bodies were continually produced by heredity, and 
 pure heredity was protected by outcasting.] Thus 
 studying, we begin to see how and why this system 
 was formed, how and why it has given to 
 Indian Society such remarkable stability. 
 
 Further than this, we may notice that, from a 
 true Hindu's standpoint, one particular life in a 
 body was not regarded of such great importance, 
 as it is now generally regarded in modern India.
 
 TJic Caste System. 83 
 
 A man who, by his past, was born in a body of a 
 particular caste, did not look upon that as a matter 
 of such vital import, as people are inclined to do 
 in these degenerate days. The man took the 
 kajma of his body with perfect cheerfulness, knew 
 it was only for a short time, was content to accept it 
 for that time, and to build for himself a better body 
 in the future, if he found that in the past he had 
 built a body which was unsatisfactory to him. 
 You find a man, in any order, willingly taking up 
 the duties of that order and discharging them with 
 contentment, and recognising his place in the 
 Commonwealth. If I wanted to give an example, 
 I might take the very speaker of Bhagavad Gttd, 
 Shri Krishna Himself, who having chosen to be 
 born in the caste of a Kshattriya because that was 
 the best body for the work which was to be done, 
 never dreamed of asserting His own inner 
 superiority, His own divine nature, but willingly 
 bowed down and washed the feet of Brahmanas, 
 showing an example which was due from the body 
 which He had chosen to take, and which was 
 appropriate to the situation which He held in life. 
 I say that, in order that this old view may be 
 before you, in its various aspects, and that you may 
 realise how, in those days, when the spiritual laws 
 were better understood, the castes worked without
 
 84 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 rebellion or discontent on the part of any member, 
 however great or low his position, for it was 
 recognised that all souls passed through all castes 
 in turn ; that if a man was born in a low caste 
 to-day, he had only to evolve a higher nature, in 
 order to be born in a higher caste hereafter. Men 
 did not look on birth as a matter of chance, but as 
 a matter of law, and they accepted the working of 
 the Good Law, and conformed themselves to its 
 provisions. 
 
 Gradually, however, a change arose. This 
 system, originally founded and worked by great 
 Rishis, the different castes inhabited by souls 
 of strongly marked and different characteristics^ 
 worked well enough in those days. But as less 
 and less developed souls were born into the system, 
 their qualities no longer coincided with the special 
 caste into which they were born. Less and less 
 evolved souls came into Indian bodies, for training 
 and instruction, and were no longer able to fulfil 
 the dharma of the caste in which they were born. 
 Then began the time of the multiplication of 
 castes, and the subdivisions of the original four 
 great orders. Men who could not show out the 
 qualities, which in themselves would win the 
 respect generally due to their caste, began invent- 
 ing artificial barriers, by which they might separate
 
 The Caste System. $5 
 
 themselves from others. Not showing out any 
 difference in the soul, they laid more and more 
 stress on social and personal advantages ; they 
 built up wall after wall, they built up distinction 
 after distinction, to extort respect where their 
 qualities did not naturally win it, and so introduced 
 artificial distinctions, which were not present in 
 nature, and had no basis in the facts of life. 
 
 Then there grew up these endless subdivisions, 
 which are the great and very baneful characteristics 
 of the caste system in the modern days — hundreds 
 upon hundreds of sub-castes, effacing the original 
 order, hundreds of sub-castes blurring all the 
 natural lines, and resting on unreal, unnatural, 
 purely artificial foundations, increased in their 
 number by vanity and pride, continually multiplied 
 by the spirit of exclusiveness, as men lost sight of 
 the unity of the Self, and forgot that the Four 
 Castes were the four ways of expressing His quali- 
 ties. Thus, multiplied by this spirit of difference 
 and separateness, the numbers of sub-castes and 
 sub-divisions grew more and more. - Exclusiveness 
 grew up in the heart. A man prided himself on 
 the particular sub-division in which he was born, 
 and put out his brothers, excluding them from his 
 own sub-division, and ever striving to multiply dis- 
 tinctions, as separateness grew ever more plainly 
 marked.
 
 86 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 Hence we find to-day that the spirit of caste 
 is essentially a spirit of exclusiveness, a spirit of 
 pride and vanity, of indifference to the feelings of 
 others, of harshness and contempt towards those 
 who are excluded from special privileges. We find 
 in it an indifference to the feelings of those who are 
 shut out, and instead of a man thinking that he 
 was born a Brahmana in order that he should 
 serve those around him, he prides himself on being 
 a Brahmana, in order to stand apart from them 
 and above them, claiming for himself privileges 
 and distinctions that they are not allowed to 
 acquire. At the same time that this has been done 
 the dharma of the caste has been utterly neglected. 
 That a man should be poor and learned, that used 
 to be the glory of a Brahmana. But in modern 
 days, that he should be rich and ignorant is 
 generally his pride . Instead of finding the 
 Brahmana versed in the Vedas, you find him 
 pleading in the Law Courts and versed in the 
 western civilisation. Can you wonder that when 
 the dharma of the caste is thrown aside, the 
 respect which was once shown to the caste should 
 also at the same time disappear ? Can you wonder 
 that when a Brahmana has abandoned his duty, 
 others should refuse to him the privileges that he 
 still claims ? When you cannot distinguish him uy
 
 The Caste System. 87 
 
 his qualities from the Shudra, why should he be 
 treated with respect by the Shudra ? Can you 
 wonder that the Shudra should revolt against 
 the superiority claimed, but not manifested, against 
 the privilege extorted instead of being gladly given 
 to well- acknowledged merit ? Where a Brahmana 
 is found who is as he ought to be — learned, frugal, 
 wise, pure in heart, all men are still willing to show 
 him reverence, to bow down to him and recognise 
 him as a leader and teacher. Men are not, as a 
 rule, unwilling to recognise excellence. Men are 
 sometimes but too ready to be led, too glad to be 
 guided. The human heart is always seeking for 
 some one to lead it, some one to teach it, some one 
 to guide it ; and how exceedingly strong is this 
 yearning in humanity may be seen in the pitiful 
 spectacle of crowds bowing down to sorry heroes 
 and heroines, not worthy of their respect, for lack 
 of true heroes of the right kind. When we find 
 in Indian Society to-day continual complaints 
 against Brahmanas, a feeling of anger, a feeling 
 of jealousy, a feeling of envy, a desire to throw all 
 castes aside, we should see in that the result of the 
 fact that men are unreasonably demanding respect 
 where others are unwilling to yield it ; that men 
 demand every privilege, forgetful of every duty, 
 and that where privilege is grudgingly yielded, 
 G
 
 88 AHciettt Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 resentment grows up in the place of reverence and 
 of love. 
 
 [From time to time it was as though the Gods 
 themselves protested against the growing degene- 
 racy and falsehood of the system, by sending some 
 of the noblest souls to take birth in low-caste 
 bodies, or even in those out of caste altogether. 
 Thus several of the holiest and most revered saints 
 in Southern India wore the bodies of pariahs.] 
 
 Let us also remember, in connection with this, 
 the distinction between the essential and the non- 
 essential, of which I spoke in the beginning. The 
 essential is the great four-fold division, because 
 this is founded in Nature. The non-essential is 
 the innumerable artificial sub-divisions, chiefly 
 founded on vanity and on the spirit of exclusive- 
 ness. Let us then separate, in our thought, the 
 four-fold system of caste from the hundreds of 
 sub-castes that we see around us on all sides ; and 
 let us lay down as one possible line of improving 
 the present system, the recognition of the four-fold 
 division only, and the gradual ignoring of those 
 hundreds of sub-divisions that have arisen. Now, 
 on this point, an authority worthy of all respect in 
 the orthodox Hindu community has spoken clearly 
 and distinctly. In Southern India there is at the 
 head of one of the great Maths one who holds
 
 The Caste System. 89 
 
 the honoured name of Shii Shankaracharya — a 
 name which has come down as that of the head of 
 that Math from the time of the great teacher of 
 Advaita — who is recognised as the man who stands 
 as the head of the whole rehgious community, and 
 whose words are Hstened to with reverence by the 
 whole body of the Southern Hindus. Only a few 
 years ago, speaking with all the weight of that 
 authority, he declared that the Hindus should drop 
 this modern system of sub-castes, and that, within 
 the limit of each caste, there should be inter- 
 marriage and inter-dining. All Brahmanas should 
 be willing to inter-marry with all Brahmanas 
 and to inter-dine with all Brahmanas. And 
 so with the other three castes. In recommending 
 this change I am therefore but repeating what has 
 been suggested by one of the recognised orthodox 
 authorities. This change is in no way detrimental 
 to Hinduism, but is necessary to meet the con- 
 ditions of modern days. It is not the four great 
 divisions that raise so much antagonism, but these 
 lines of artificial sub-division that separate man 
 from man, and split the whole Indian community 
 into small fragments and associations. These sub- 
 divisions go against the possibility of national 
 spirit, against the growing up of social unity ; they 
 make it almost impossible to weld the people into
 
 go Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 one ; for where a community is divided into 
 innumerable parts, all possibility of national and 
 social unity disappears. 
 
 Supposing one of the possible reforms to be, that 
 we put forward this idea of preserving the four- 
 fold order, but gradually abolishing the numerous 
 sub-divisions ; might it not be possible to win the 
 educated opinion of India to that idea, and so 
 gradually to restore some vitality to this system ? 
 Might it not be possible that these innumerable 
 sub-divisions should be gradually abolished, with- 
 out shaking the foundation of the four-fold order 
 which Shri Krishna declared to be established by 
 Himself. 
 
 Then a question is continually raised — Can there 
 not be transition from caste to caste ? I cannot 
 but ask you in answer : Where would the authority 
 be found which would be capable of guiding such 
 a transition, and would be recognised by all as 
 truly authoritative ? Frankly speaking, I do not 
 believe that it is practicable, until a great authority, 
 a true spiritual authority, is once more manifested 
 and recognised through India, which will speak 
 with the Divine Voice, and be able to give the 
 recognition which is based on knowledge. You 
 may remember that in the famous case of Vish- 
 vamitra, before mentioned, it was not a recognition
 
 The Caste System. 91 
 
 from those around him that he sought, but a 
 recognition from the Gods Themselves, and from 
 no lower authority. Tt was only when They pro- 
 claimed him a Brahmarshi, that the transition was 
 recognised ; and only true spiritual knowledge 
 would be able to decide on such a point. Rather 
 would I suggest the old and wise way of looking 
 at this matter, that whatever be the body one is 
 born with, one should, cheerfully accepting the 
 karma of that body, work in that body with all its 
 advantages and disadvantages, whatever they ma}^ 
 be. If a bad body be what is obtained by one's 
 karma, then one should cheerfully pay the karmic 
 debt and hope for a better body in the future. If 
 the soul has taken a lower body than that to which 
 his qualities entitle him, then it is proper to apply 
 to such a case the theory that the soul has made 
 the sacrifice for the sake of rendering some service 
 to humanity ; and having made the sacrifice, why 
 should he grudge the payment of that sacrifice, 
 and why should he not accept the karma of that 
 body, and willingly take upon himself all the dis- 
 advantages it may entail } If we were more 
 spiritual in our vision, and not so limited by the 
 illusion of the body, we should not lay so much 
 stress on these bodily distinctions, but should 
 cheerfully accept the working of the Law and 
 follow where the Law may lead.
 
 92 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 Now we come to another fundamental point, one 
 of the most practical we can consider. In the old 
 days, there was a definite discipline in each caste. 
 How was that discipline exercised ?■ In the old 
 days, outcasting was the instrument of discipline. 
 What were the causes of which outcasting was the 
 effect ? This was necessary, as we have seen, in 
 order to maintain the purity of the caste. Where 
 the qualities of the caste were not shown, there 
 the man was outcasted, and was not allowed to 
 injure the family heredity by passing on the type 
 of a body polluted by his evil qualities. There is 
 still that old machinery, there is still that old name 
 of outcasting, but the question arises to-day : By 
 whom is that authority used ? On whom is that 
 authority exercised 't Those who wield the 
 authority of caste, are by no means, in the present 
 day, for the most part, the true leaders of the caste, 
 in learning, in wisdom, in purity, in the respect of 
 their fellows. I speak what many of you know 
 to be the fact, that over and over again, when 
 decision is given in one of these caste sub-divisions, 
 that decision is brought about by those who are 
 by no means the worthiest members of that caste. 
 It is largely a matter of intrigue and private 
 interest, a matter of active exertion by some who 
 have personal motives behind tlie work that they
 
 The Caste System. 93 
 
 are doing ; this is a well-known fact, and too often 
 the decision of a caste is swayed by men who by 
 outer formality of religion gain an outer respect, 
 not warranted by purity of life, by learning, by 
 wisdom and nobility of character. You know, 
 further, as well as I do, that when you come to deal 
 with outcasting, as now practised, it is not only that 
 the people who practically control the decision are 
 those who ought not to do it, but also that they 
 exercise their authority over those over whom that 
 authority should not be exercised. You know 
 perfectly well that within the limits of caste a man 
 may outrage every principle of morality, and yet 
 no man will think of outcasting him. In life he 
 may practically disregard all the caste principles, 
 but if he keeps up an outward show, he is not 
 outcasted. That man may go to a hotel, may eat 
 beef, may get drunk ; but provided he goes in by 
 the back door and not by the front door, his caste- 
 men will shut their eyes to his errors. Whereas if 
 a man travels out of India, however well educated 
 he may be, however pure the life he may lead, 
 however useful he may be to his community, you 
 will find that in some sub-divisions of a caste, he is 
 outcasted for the mere fact of travelling. How 
 can a system last where such injustice is done } If 
 a young man leaves his country and goes abroad,
 
 94 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 when he returns, it is a mere question of chance 
 whether he should be outcasted or not. Some ' 
 men, when they have come back, have again been 
 received by their caste-men, while others have not 
 been. I do not wish to mention any names, but I 
 could quote name after name of men who have 
 travelled abroad, and are known to have so 
 travelled, and who have been received by their 
 own caste with welcome on their return. And I 
 could also quote you a long number of names of 
 those who have been treated in exactly the 
 opposite way, who have been outcasted on their 
 return, although no challenge has been made 
 against their morality except that they have 
 crossed " the black water." Sometimes a Vaishya 
 goes abroad, comes back, and is welcomed in his 
 caste ; while in another case a Vaishya goes and is 
 outcasted on his return. Only the other day in 
 Calcutta, a Shraddha was performed in which 
 five hundred orthodox Brahmanas were present. 
 And yet it was the Shraddha of the father of 
 a man who had taken a degree in Europe, while 
 there are many who, for the same reason, have 
 been outcasted and shut away from all sacred rites. 
 I know of two Brahmanas of Southern India, 
 one of whom was taken back into caste, and the 
 other outcasted.
 
 The Caste System. 95 
 
 You must distinguish here between the question 
 of travelling and the question of the result of 
 European life on some of those who go, a result 
 arising out of the evil conditions under which they 
 live in Europe. That is quite a different matter, 
 and should not be dealt with under this head ; I 
 will speak of that presently. 
 
 Let me speak to you for a moment on this 
 question of travelling itself, which is moving young 
 India more and more. You know that in the army, 
 recruiting goes on largely among Brahmanas ; now 
 every soldier has to take the oath to serve abroad, 
 as well as here, but no one dreams of outcasting 
 soldiers when they return from foreign service, 
 though the same Brahmanas would be out-casted 
 if they had travelled abroad as civilians. There is 
 no rational basis, no recognised standard, no real 
 judgment, in such matters. Is it not true that, 
 according to the ignorance of the sub-caste is the 
 cruelty of its outcasting ; the less the sub-caste is 
 educated, the more bigoted is it with regard to this 
 particular question. 
 
 In the old days, Indians were not tied down 
 within the limits of India ; Indians went freely out 
 from India and travelled in the different countries 
 of the world. You find stories of ship-wreck, 
 curious incidents in foreign lands, showing that in
 
 96 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 those days Indians travelled freely in all directions, 
 and no man dreamed of making the fact of travel- 
 ling an accusation against his fellow Hindu. Not 
 only was that the case in the past ; it is the case to 
 a considerable extent, even in the present, in some 
 sub-castes. A large number of Vaishyas are 
 travelling through Persia, following out their busi- 
 ness, on matters of commerce. Large numbers of 
 Southern Indians, of all castes, are travelling to 
 and living in Burma at the present time, and are 
 forming there a definite Hindu community, where 
 all ordinary Hindu customs are observed and 
 marriages are carried out. You find both in the 
 past and in the present that Hindus travelled into 
 foreign parts, and no man injured them because 
 of it. 
 
 But this is not the only thing to consider. I ask 
 you whether, in modern times, it is not clearly a 
 part of the advancing march of the world that 
 nations should mingle with nations, and learn to 
 know each other better than they have done } Can 
 you not see, on all sides, that nations are being 
 drawn together, that walls of separation are being 
 broken down, that they are learning to know each 
 other, to understand each other, and so preparing 
 to live together more peacefull)' than in the past ? 
 Over and over again, war breaks out through mis-
 
 The Caste System. 97 
 
 understanding ; where nations are separated from 
 nations, they suspect each other, they mistrust each 
 other, they hate each other, until such suspicion, 
 mistrust, and hatred break out into international 
 conflict. When nations know each other better, 
 they learn to love and trust each other more. All 
 the nations of the world are beginnmg to mingle 
 with each other ; why should India alone be 
 excluded from this great family of nations, and be 
 shut up within her own limits, within her own 
 borders, instead of sharing with others all the 
 advantages that different nations possess ? This 
 question of travelling is one of greater importance 
 at the present time, than perhaps you may think. 
 The mind is enlarged, the character grows wider 
 and nobler by travel. How can you know the 
 great forward movement of the world, if you are 
 entirely shut out from it 't The world is moving, 
 whether you move or not ; other nations are grow- 
 ing, whether you grow or not ; you may turn your 
 back on them, but they will go on growing all the 
 same ; and the danger is that they are assimilating 
 Indian thought, they are assimilating Indian 
 philosophy, and are beginning to share something 
 of the spirituality of Indian religion. They are 
 getting from you all they want, and you are get- 
 ting nothing in return, because you shut yourselves
 
 98 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 in. Do you know that your ideas of the outer 
 world are exceedingly erroneous and exceedingly 
 mistaken ? Over and over again, among educated 
 and thoughtful men, I find most absurd ideas of 
 foreign nations, and suspicions that have no basis 
 in reality. We cannot have brotherhood, until we 
 learn to know each other, and learn to love each 
 other. And shall India be excluded from the 
 Human Brotherhood, and be marked off by selfish 
 isolation in the centuries to come .'' 
 
 No, I do not believe that this is possible. But 
 a definite change in this respect should be made 
 by the thoughtful, and this tyranny of outcasting 
 for travel should be thrown off. 
 
 It is fair to say that the prejudice against foreign 
 travel has a real foundation, in the results that it 
 too often has upon those who go, under the present 
 conditions. I admit, as far as the most orthodox 
 Hindu admits, that the effect of Western travel on 
 many young men is deplorable to the very last 
 extent. But that is not because of the travel ; it 
 is because of the conditions with which that travel 
 is surrounded. When your young sons go abroad, 
 when they are thrown into foreign society, without 
 any elders to take care of them, finding everything 
 around them different from what they left at home, 
 having no public opinion to control them, no family
 
 The Caste System. 99 
 
 love to hold them, thrown into utterly new con- 
 ditions, what wonder is it that they break down 
 morally, that they become deteriorated, and pick 
 up the worst, and not the best, of European civili- 
 sation ? I know from experience, that these young 
 men, coming to London, go into the very worst 
 conditions that London has to offer for young men 
 of gentle birth. Crowded into lodging-houses kept 
 by people who are of fifth or sixth-rate grade in 
 society, of the status of small shop-keepers and 
 nothing more, they find in them all that they see 
 of English Society and English social life. They 
 do not mingle with the cultivated classes, they do 
 not mingle with the better type of English men 
 and English women. They go to London as 
 strangers, with none to help and guide them. They 
 are not to be blamed, but rather they are to be 
 pitied, that they often pick up European vices and 
 very rarely assimilate European virtues, that they 
 come back with the manners of the stable and the 
 kitchen. That state of things is to be corrected. 
 If residence in Europe is to be made useful, they 
 must not go as they go to-day. They must go 
 into conditions carefully made for them, where the 
 influence should be moral, where the training 
 should be religious, and where the atmosphere 
 should be refined, and then they will no longer
 
 lOO Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 come back, as too often they come back now, 
 having lost Hindu virtues and acquired European 
 vices. On the contrary, they will maintain their 
 Hindu virtues and add to them useful European 
 qualities ; and thus the prejudice against travel 
 will disappear, and you will reap its useful charac- 
 teristics instead of the mischiefs that are found 
 to-day. 
 
 There is another point, then, that I ask you 
 carefully to consider. Will you introduce into the 
 caste system uniformity of practice ? Will you 
 introduce the recognition of merits and demerits, 
 instead of being swayed by prejudice and ignor- 
 ance } Will you outcast for profligacy, for dis- 
 honouring the dharma of the caste ? If that were 
 done, outcasting would still have a useful part to 
 play. Whereas, as used to-day, it is an instrument 
 too often of social tyranny, of petty persecution 
 and not of religion, and it does not really guard 
 the purity of the castes. If it is seen that this 
 change should be brought about, then practical 
 steps should be taken to bring it about. Thought- 
 ful, educated, and religious Hindus should mark 
 out lines of action, and then deliberately walk along 
 them, and stand by them, whatever it may cost. 
 They should try to prevent outcasting for travel, 
 and if it be done they should ignore it, and behave
 
 Tlie Caste System. lOi 
 
 as if it had not occurred. The men who are 
 leaders in such changes must themselves be models, 
 spotless in life, and examples to others, in order 
 that they may carry with them public opinion, in 
 order that they may gradually restore all that is 
 good in the system, while eliminating all that is 
 evil. Hypocrisy, at present rampant, must be 
 destroyed ; that which we so often find — mere pre- 
 tence of penance where no remorse is felt — must 
 utterly be done away with. A man should be 
 looked upon as an outcast, not because he travels, 
 but because after he travels he performs a sham 
 of a penance, time after time, as is too often done 
 at the present day, with no intention in future to 
 avoid the cause of the penance. [I have heard a 
 man boast that he travels backwards and forwards 
 constantly, and pays Rs. 5 on his return to his 
 priest and performs Prayashchitta, and then is 
 received without demur. Such Prayashchittas are 
 blasphemies, and dishonour all who take part in 
 them.] 
 
 There is one other point which I must touch 
 upon before leaving the subject. Outside of all 
 castes, there are thousands and millions of men and 
 women born in India who are utterly neglected and 
 treated with callous indifference. I know that in 
 these Provinces, this question has not the same
 
 I02 Ancient Ideals hi Modern Life. 
 
 urgency as in the South. But a common interest 
 should be felt in the questions affecting the South 
 of India by the people of the North, as the 
 Southern people should feel for the questions 
 specially affecting the Northern. The vast mass 
 of the neglected pariahs in the South are at once 
 a menace and a disgrace to Hinduism throughout 
 the whole country. It is among them that the 
 missionaries gain most of their converts, not from 
 the standpoint of religion, but from the standpoint 
 of society. For so short-sighted are the Hindus 
 there, that they will exclude from their houses 
 pariahs even of decent life ; but the same man who 
 has thus been excluded will be received in their 
 house when he is a convert to Christianity or to 
 Islam. What is the result ? That Hinduism is 
 becoming undermined, and Mahummedans and 
 Christians are increasing in the South. In the 
 South, you find the Christian converts are num- 
 bered by thousands and thousands, and when you 
 ask about them you hear that they are drawn 
 mostly from the pariahs. When they are con- 
 verted, they take a social step upwards. And what 
 wonder that they take that step, when they find no 
 other way of inclusion in society open to them } 
 Is it wise to undermine Hinduism in that fashion } 
 And as this pariah population increases, and the
 
 The Caste System. 103 
 
 relative proportion changes between it and the 
 castes, we shall find Hinduism becoming weaker 
 and weaker, and larger and larger masses of people 
 growing up outside it, instead of within it. Would 
 it not be wiser for the learned amongst you to 
 devise some way in which it would be possible to 
 reach these people, to teach them, to give them 
 simple principles of religion and some moral and 
 religious training, and to treat them with such 
 respect as they can win by their character ? Would 
 it not be wiser to do this from within Hinduism, 
 rather than multiply other religions which are 
 inimical to Hinduism, and which undermine 
 Hinduism, and threaten its social stability ? 
 
 Such, then, are some of the problems that lie 
 before you, problems certainly not so deep as those 
 with which before we have been dealing in previous 
 Conventions, but problems that are being discussed 
 more than ever in India, and which are dividing 
 society into those who will have no change on one 
 side, and those who demand a total abolition of 
 caste on the other. Here lies the peril of India — 
 this division of her people into two opposing camps, 
 this division into two parties — one which will not 
 move at all, the other which wants to move away 
 from all the old ideals, from all that has made 
 India distinctive among the nations of the world, 
 H
 
 104 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 I am trying to win you to a medium course, to one 
 which shall cling to the old ideals, shall purify the 
 modern actualities, shall re-establish the ancient 
 religion and the ancient social system, instead of 
 the mere burlesques of them, which is all we have 
 in modern days. I know that these social changes 
 are perhaps the most difficult of all, because they 
 are so mixed up with family traditions, with social 
 customs, with the whole fabric of ordinary daily 
 life ; yet the question is one of life or death, one 
 of progress or extinction. It is because of that, 
 that I have used such plain words in speaking to 
 you of it, and that I have described some of the 
 scandals and the evils that we see around us. 
 
 You know well enough, that all through India, 
 I have spoken in favour of the ancient system, the 
 essential system of the four great castes, that I 
 hold the restoration of that system to be vital to 
 the welfare of India, that I believe it to be the 
 best system that was ever organised, that the 
 evolution of the soul can go on within it better than 
 in any other. Just because I hold it so valuable, 
 just because 1 believe it to be so vital, I desire 
 to preserve it in India. But I tell you it cannot 
 be preserved much longer under the present con- 
 ditions, and that it is already tottering to its fall, 
 owing to the justifiable attacks that are assailing
 
 The Caste System. 105 
 
 it from all sides. Among the educated classes, it 
 is becoming more and more disapproved ; con- 
 tinually among thoughtful men we find a gi'owing 
 rebellion, a growing revolt against that which can- 
 not be justified either by religion or by reason. 
 And just because it is valuable, let us try to pre- 
 serve it ; do not let abuses destroy it, do not let 
 the most ignorant be the most powerful and rule 
 the caste. Let the educated take the question into 
 their own hands ; let the learned decide, and not 
 the ignorant multitude ; it is for the learned to 
 lead, and it is for the ignorant to follow. Wisdom 
 is the only true basis of authority. By right 
 thinking and right reason must the Caste System 
 be reformed, if it is to be reformed at all. [The 
 educated and pure living members of a caste are 
 seriously in fault when they stand idly aside and 
 allow the authority of their caste to be wielded 
 unfairly, cruelly, and inappropriately. Here, as in 
 so many cases, the lethargy and want of public 
 spirit of the educated Indian are to blame.] 
 
 Inasmuch as it is interwoven with the very life 
 of India, inasmuch as Hinduism without caste is 
 practically unthinkable, I ask you, I plead with 
 you, that you will not let prejudice stand in the 
 way, nor let tradition blind you to the necessity of 
 the times ; discuss the question earnestly, seriously,
 
 I06 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 without passion, without antagonism, and in your 
 wisdom devise some remedy for the evils, so that 
 we may again feel, with the great Author of the 
 system, that it emanates from Him ; then will the 
 system flourish as it was intended to do, and again 
 the four-fold order may regenerate the future 
 India.
 
 Lecture IV. 
 WOMANHOOD. 
 
 My BROTHERS: — 
 
 It has been said that the position of woman in 
 any civilisation shows the stage of evolution at 
 which that civilisation has arrived ; and if that 
 maxim be taken as accurate, then there can be no 
 kind of doubt as to the height of civilisation 
 attained in ancient India, when we contemplate 
 the position which there was held by women, and 
 study the types that then were found in the 
 land. You may search the history of the world, 
 you may turn over the pages of the world's litera- 
 ture ; nowhere will you find stronger, sweeter, and 
 more beautiful types of womanhood than you find 
 in the ancient literature of India. It seems as if 
 every ideal virtue, as if every possible grace, had 
 been gathered together, had been welded into 
 human forms, and then those forms set on high 
 to attract the admiration of the world. The names
 
 Io8 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 of some of those great women are " familiar as 
 household words " both in the East and in the 
 West. Western writers, western thinkers, western 
 philosophers, have not been slow to recognise their 
 ideal beauty, and to point to them as showing out 
 the perfection of womanhood, as giving to the 
 world types which have never been excelled. I 
 might quote to you passage after passage from 
 western writers, showing you the impression made 
 upon the mind of the West by these sublime types 
 of womanhood. I want to lay stress upon them 
 in the beginning of this discourse ; because here, 
 as elsewhere, I look to ancient India for the model 
 and ideal, in order to give reason and inspiration 
 why modern India should change her ways in some 
 very definite respects. Only as we realise the 
 greatness of the past, only as we contrast it with 
 the poverty of the present, can we see clearly the 
 road along which we should direct our steps, if we 
 desire to bring back in modern days the glory of 
 those ancient times. For, as I told you in the 
 beginning, in regard to these important questions 
 of the day, there is a party that desires to change 
 everything, and a party that desires to change 
 nothing, and between these two unpractical 
 schools, the future destiny of India is swinging 
 to-day. How shall we know what reforms io
 
 Womaiiliood. 1 09 
 
 choose and what to reject, unless we are familiar 
 with the ancient ideals, unless we are able, by 
 studying them, to recognise the goal to which our 
 steps are to be directed ? Only as these inspire 
 us, can changes be wisely chosen, and steadily 
 carried out. Only as these draw our hearts by 
 their beauty, shall we be able to raise our mother 
 India to the position that she should occupy amid 
 the nations of the world. 
 
 In studying ancient India, there are certain 
 points about the womanhood of that time that 
 come out very clearly and distinctly : the theory 
 of womanhood, that which you may call the 
 philosophical view ; the place that woman occu- 
 pies in Nature ; the functions that are especially 
 woman's to discharge ; the great division of sexes 
 that we find in humanity, nay, in all Nature, a 
 distinction certainly not without the profoundest 
 meaning, certainly not without its great signili- 
 cance in evolution. Any attempt to bridge over 
 that difference, any attempt to turn a man into a 
 woman, or a woman into a man, means the throw- 
 ing back of humanity, a check on its orderly, on 
 its progressive evolution. Certain distinct quali- 
 ties are evolved in each sex ; certain distinct 
 powers are found assigned to the one sex or to the 
 other. To try to unsex either, is to make a
 
 f lo A 71 dent Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 fundamental blunder ; and we need to have our 
 theory clear and distinct, ere our practices can be 
 wisely and rightly directed. 
 
 What, then, is the ancient Hindu theory as 
 regards the nature and function of womanhood ? 
 We are told at the very beginning of creative 
 work, wlien humanity was to be produced, the 
 Creator divided himself into two halves, one half 
 male and the other female. This division of the 
 Divine into two, marks, as it were, the very basis 
 of our theory. Both sexes are equally Divine, 
 each is one half of God ; both sexes have their 
 part to play in human evolution, and in the evolu- 
 tion of the world as a whole. The sex distinction 
 is not simply found in humanity, it goes through 
 all the kingdoms of Nature, even though the name 
 of sex is not universally applied. The two great 
 sides of the manifested God in Nature are found 
 in the sexes ; on one side show the different 
 attributes and functions which in humanity are 
 found in the male, and on the other side the 
 attributes and functions which in humanity are 
 found in the female. So also we know that in the 
 whole theory of the Devas, you do not find a Deva 
 without a Devi. These two are inseparable, 
 indivisible : the dual manifestation of one life, of 
 one Being.
 
 Womanhood. 1 1 i 
 
 [The difference of the qualities evolved renders 
 it impossible to develop both sets simultaneously 
 in the same physical form ; hence two series of 
 forms, in which the predominant physical charac- 
 teristics differ ; in one of these series the intellec- 
 tual qualities find their best expression, in the 
 other the emotional. These forms are the male 
 and female, and their value to evolution lies in 
 their difference. As evolution nears its ending, 
 the differences become less marked, until the two 
 are united, the halves of one body as at first.] 
 
 Half of the Divine nature, then, comes forth in 
 womanhood ; that side of the Divine nature which 
 is connected with the making of forms, which gives 
 the soil in which forms are developed, which 
 nourishes them, guards them, protects them ; in 
 a word, the Mother-side of Nature. That is the 
 fundamental distinction, then, that we find in the 
 ancient writings, that the woman represents the 
 material side of the manifested universe, which is 
 necessary for the manifestation of spirit — the 
 Mother-side of Nature, that nutritive, protective 
 side. This is the fundamental type of woman- 
 hood, and marks out woman's functions in the 
 universe. 
 
 So as we study further the ancient teachings, we 
 notice that wherever divine power is to be mani-
 
 112 Ancient Ideals in Modern Lif^. 
 
 fested, wherever there is a need for the exertion of 
 Divine energy, there the female Divine manifesta- 
 tion is called forth, appears, and executes that 
 which needs to be done. If you turn to the well- 
 known story of the coming forth of Durga, 
 what do you find ? You find that the world was 
 terribly oppressed by the Asuras, and that the 
 Devas did not know how to protect themselves. 
 You find them going to the great Gods for help, 
 appealing to those Divine powers for protection. 
 And then, as the story unfolds, you find that out 
 •of the Gods Themselves there comes forth the 
 mighty radiant form of Durga ; that in Her 
 the Divine forces were embodied. It was Durga 
 who, by those forces and energies, delivered the 
 world from the terror under which it was panic- 
 stricken. It was that mighty Durga who swept 
 out of the path of the Gods the terrible antagonists 
 who then were barring the way. Thus is shown 
 out the idea for all times, that in the Divine 
 Woman, the Goddess-side of Nature, all power is 
 manifested, all protection is to be sought. There 
 is the remover of obstacles, there the one who lifts 
 us over dangers. The Divine Womanhood is the 
 refuge of the world, and at the feet of the Goddess 
 all the worlds find rest. 
 
 Such is the thought, then, which continually
 
 Womanhood. 1 1 3 
 
 comes out m Hindu teachings, as underlying the 
 Hindu idea of Womanhood. 
 
 When we pass on still further to see how in the 
 human being this is manifested, we find the ideal 
 of marriage held up as constituting the complete 
 true human being. Husband and wife are not 
 thought of as two, but they are thought of as one. 
 Husband and wife are not thought of as separate, 
 they are thought of as united. Husband and wife 
 are not thought of as capable of division, they are 
 but two halves constituting an entire, a single 
 whole. Just as in the Deva and Devi one Diviwe 
 life is manifested, so in the husband and wife the 
 perfect type of humanity is shown forth. There 
 is no idea of possible antagonism. There 
 is no idea of possible rivalry. Man and woman, 
 husband and wife, are two halves of the complete 
 Man, of the complete Human Life — that perfect 
 Union, that true Unity, gave the Hindu Ideal of 
 Marriage. 
 
 Then we study the very form and physical 
 constitution of woman, we find that this, her 
 function in Nature, is marked on her very body, 
 as well as her inner nature. We find that the 
 whole body of the ideal woman is formed to typify, 
 to express, to show forth, all the grace and 
 strength of emotion, all the profundity aftd height
 
 1 14 Ancieut Ideals in Modem Life. 
 
 of love. The woman typifies, in the perfect human 
 being, the side of emotion, just as the man typifies, 
 in that same human being, the type of intellect. 
 Both are equally necessary, both form parts of the 
 perfect whole, and both are constituted in their 
 several physical composition for the showing forth 
 of these two characteristic marks of humanity. 
 When the two are united, when the intellect gives 
 the directing force, and the emotion gives the 
 impulsive force, then only is right action possible, 
 then only can humanity fulfil its function in the 
 world. The two thus blended together, the two 
 thus working as a perfect whole, give us the ideal 
 human type towards which humanity is approach- 
 ing. Anything that destroys that unity, anything 
 that separates one sex from the other in life or 
 interest, anything that tends to draw them apart, 
 to bring them into competition, to set them in 
 rivalry the one against the otlier, anything of that 
 kind is fatal to the progress of the race, and is 
 turning evolution along the road that tends 
 downwards and not upwards. 
 
 This fundamental, this true, theory is one which 
 has to be grasped, which has to be clung to, 
 through the whole of our study of the subject. In 
 woman you will find the emotions most strongly 
 shown, most fully developed ; she suffers more
 
 Womanhood. 1 1 5 
 
 keenly, she enjoys more keenly, than man either 
 suffers or enjoys. Therefore, in dealing with her, 
 when we come to consider the question of educa- 
 tion, we have to take care to the utmost to draw 
 out her especial capacity, but also, and this is vital, 
 to take care that it is not developed without also 
 developing in her the other, though the subordi- 
 nate, side of her nature, the intellectual. Just as 
 in man you have to prevent him from becoming 
 hard and selfish, by training and developing his 
 emotional and moral nature, so in woman it is also 
 necessary to train and develop the side of 
 intelligence, else she will be unregulated and 
 unbalanced. For though in man the intellect 
 should dominate emotion, yet both are necessary 
 for an all-round character ; and though in woman 
 emotion should be more highly developed than 
 intellect, yet both should also be found in her. 
 Then when man and woman thus developed are 
 joined together there is a perfect marriage, both 
 are able to work together and to understand each 
 other, to be true companions, friends, and help- 
 mates along the path of life. Whereas the 
 exaggerated development of the specific side of 
 either, and the non-development of the secondary 
 side, makes a perfect union of lives impossible ; 
 they are too far apart, have too little common
 
 ii6 Ancient Ideals hi Modern Life. 
 
 ground, and there is therefore always the HkeH- 
 hood of jarring and disagreement, making the 
 marriage less perfect than it ought to be, making 
 the note that is struck less rich and less 
 harmonious than it should be. 
 
 When we come to look at the ideal of marriage 
 union as shown forth in Hindu literature what do 
 we find ? We find most perfect, most unbounded 
 love, the deepest reverence, as parts of the 
 character of the ideal wife ; a fidelity that knows 
 no possibility of change, a courage that can hold 
 to the one against every opposing circumstance, a 
 love that does not falter even under the uttermost 
 strain, a strength that never wavers, no matter how 
 great the difficulty, how sore the trial. Then on 
 the side of the husband, we find unfailing tender- 
 ness, continual protection, power and will to guide, 
 unfaltering love ; so that in this union all the 
 noblest relations of humanity are gathered up, and 
 the ideal Hindu husband and the ideal Hindu wife 
 make the most perfect picture of the marriage 
 union that has ever served as ideal of a nation, that 
 has ever inspired practice in right living. 
 
 And when from that theory, we turn to the 
 practice in ancient India, what there do we find } 
 The study of the ancient books shows us that 
 woman in ancient India shines out strongly in
 
 Womanhood. 1 1 7 
 
 practice, shows the characteristics of the ideal 
 woman, in all the functions, in all the duties of life. 
 The law is laid down as to her position in the 
 famous shlokas of Manu, where it is declared 
 that : — 
 
 " Women are to be honoured and adorned by 
 fathers and brothers, by husbands, as also by 
 brothers-in-law, who desire much prosperity. 
 
 " Where women are honoured, there the Gods 
 rejoice ; but where they are not honoured, there 
 all rites are fruitless. 
 
 " Where women grieve, that family quickly 
 perishes ; but where they do not grieve, that 
 (family) ever prospers. 
 
 " Houses which women, not honoured, curse, 
 those, as if blighted by magic, perish utterly." 
 (Manu, III., 55, 56, 5;, 58.) 
 
 Passing from these precepts, which embody the 
 theory, to the practice whereof I spoke, I want to 
 put before you certain definite facts as regards 
 the life of woman in ancient India. The 
 first point is as to the position of women in ancient 
 India, in the home and outside the home, the latter 
 a type of women who have almost entirely dis- 
 appeared from modern India. You find in ancient 
 India that there existed a class of women who did 
 not enter into the marriage relation. They were
 
 Ii8 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 called by the specific name of Brahmavadinis, 
 teachers of the Veda. Their position was recog- 
 nised, clear, and distinct. They are spoken of in 
 the ancient Law books. The special privileges 
 that they enjoyed are clearly laid down in the 
 Shastras. We are told that women were divided 
 into two classes, Brahmavadinis and the married. 
 The first class wore the sacred thread, had the 
 right of kindling the sacrificial fire, studied and 
 taught the Vedas, and lived unmarried in their own 
 houses. I am quoting, as regards their rights and 
 privileges, from the writings of Harita as trans- 
 lated. Other authorities might be quoted on the 
 same lines. There were female ascetics as well as 
 male ascetics ; you will remember, for instance, 
 the one who came into the court of King Janaka, 
 carrying the danda, wearing the ascetic robes, 
 going her way as a teacher, appearing in the very 
 court of the king to carry on discussion on subtle 
 points of religion and philosophy. This class of 
 women in ancient India, these knowers of the 
 Supreme, show clearly and definitely that women 
 in those ancient days were not excluded from the 
 knowledge of the Vedas, were not excluded from 
 taking part in the great discussions upon 
 philosophy and religion, proving that the precepts 
 against a woman studying, or even hearing, the
 
 Womanhood. 1 1 9 
 
 Vedas must be interpolations of a later date. They 
 were learned as men were learned, and they even 
 taught the Vedas as men were teachers. Some 
 of the Mantras of the Vedas, some of the hymns 
 of the Rig Veda, were originally given through 
 women ; through their mouths the sacred Mantras 
 were spoken, which in these modern days their 
 daughters may not study nor repeat. Not only is 
 it true that some of the Rig verses were given by 
 women, but we also find their names in the list 
 of spiritual teachers, in the list of great Acharyas, 
 who form the chain of spiritual teachers. I need 
 hardly remind you that in the UpanLshads you 
 read of such a knovver of Brahman as Gargi, 
 who questioned Yagnyavalkya in the great 
 assembly of sages, being given her place there to 
 put questions as she would. 
 
 Even without looking on that special class, even 
 without taking those noble types of Virgin 
 Womanhood, we find that the women of the house- 
 hold — the wives and mothers— also enjoyed a 
 large amount of liberty and took their part in a 
 number of public ceremonies. Some of the hymns 
 of the Rig Veda indeed, just mentioned, were 
 written by wives. We also find records in the 
 Rig Veda itself of great festivals attended 
 by women who were wives and mothers. We find 
 I
 
 I20 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 in the Rdindyana, that Kaushalya, the mother 
 of Rama Chandra, was actually the officiating 
 priestess at a great sacrifice at which were gathered 
 vast crowds of kings, of nobles, of Brahmanas, 
 and of the people at large. She performed the 
 act of sacrifice, hers was the hand of the officiator. 
 We find they took part in the discussions that 
 occurred between their husbands and sages, as in 
 the cases of Draupadi and Sita. We find them 
 advising and counselling their husbands in matters 
 of difficulty, in matters concerning the outer world. 
 Both Sita and Draupadi showed knowledge of 
 the world, understood the ways in which things 
 went on in the external world, were able to give 
 wise counsel to their husbands, to estimate tiie 
 forces of opposing opinions, and to exercise 
 judgment as to the path which it was best to 
 follow. You find a woman called into a great 
 assembly to give counsel when Duryodhana Had 
 set himself against Shri Kri.shna, and his father, 
 his preceptor, and his elders had all striven in vain 
 to turn him from his purpose ; as the last resort, 
 his mother, Gandhari, was sent for ; she came 
 into that great asemblage, and there addressed her 
 son in words of remonstrance, reproof, and counsel, 
 showing how in those days women were really wise 
 and great, that their counsel was highly valued.
 
 Womanhood. 1 2 1 
 
 that their advice was respectfully listened to and 
 followed, because knowledge gave them the power 
 to speak, and learning and wisdom gave them the 
 authority to pronounce their opinion. 
 
 Studying these cases, which can be multiplied a 
 hundredfold, we come to a very definite opinion 
 with regard to the position of women in ancient 
 India, and we see that they enjoyed a wide and 
 deep education and a dignified liberty. While the 
 marriage relation was close and indivisible, while 
 the husband was regarded as the head, as the Lord 
 and as the Guru, nay, even as representing 
 God Himself, while there was that complete 
 unity, which we find in India alone, and 
 a complete subordination of the wife to the 
 husband, yet this did not prevent woman 
 from exercising lofty functions, from playing 
 her part in the family and in the world, and 
 so in making up that perfect human judgment and 
 action which only come where both sexes are 
 joined together, and where the wisdom of each 
 conduces to right judgment and to right activity. 
 That is but a poor imperfect picture of the part 
 that women played in those ancient days. Clearly 
 here we have the signs of high intelligence ; 
 clearly here we have the signs of deep and wide 
 education of women in ancient days ; we have
 
 122 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 here nobly developed types of womanhood, women 
 of heroic stature, women of grand and inspiring 
 power. No wonder that Indian marriage has won 
 the admiration of the world, when such types of 
 womanhood and wifehood are found scattered 
 throughout the records of ancient literature, and 
 when all this greatness and nobility form an 
 integral part of the woman's life. 
 
 When we contrast with this the position of 
 women in modern India, how great, how sadden- 
 ing, is the change. Woman still keeps her 
 exquisite spirituality, she still shows forth her 
 strong and perfect devotion. Looking over all the 
 types of women that the modern world presents, 
 travelling as I have done in country after country, 
 and coming into contact with all the different types 
 of womanhood, evolved under different civilisa- 
 tions, I bear you witness that I have found 
 nowhere spirituality so pure and lofty, devotion so 
 strong and tender, purity so unsullied and spotless, 
 patience so wise and beautiful, as are found even 
 in the modern women of India. 
 
 Undeveloped and restricted as are now their 
 lives, yet they present a most gracious type, and 
 when sometimes I have been thinking of one or 
 another whom I have met, sometimes when I have 
 been studying the beauty of character of the type
 
 Womanhood. 123 
 
 — of the unique type of Indian womanhood — I 
 have thought what India might be if all the possi- 
 bilities in India's women had an opportunity of 
 flowing out and actually coming into manifestation. 
 When I have seen what they are under circum- 
 stances so disadvantageous, when I have seen what 
 still they are, despite the narrow environment into 
 which they are penned, I have thought that it may 
 be that India's redemption may still be brought 
 about by India's women ; for when once the 
 woman's heart is touched, she is a thousand times 
 more devoted than are men. She is willing to 
 sacrifice herself as a man will never sacrifice him- 
 self. Through thousands of years, through 
 thousands of generations, women have learned the 
 lesson of self-sacrifice, in the home, with the 
 husband, with the child ; and when that spirit of 
 self-sacrifice, now instinctive, a part of her spiritual 
 nature, is turned to the highest object, is directed 
 to the noblest ends, there is then a power for good 
 that nothing else can give to the world. In the 
 self-sacrifice and devotion of her women, it may 
 be that India's redemption will find its real 
 instrument. 
 
 But in order that it may be so, some of the 
 conditions under which women are growing up 
 must be changed. And this change is necessitated
 
 124 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 largely by the changes which are passing over the 
 whole of India at the present time — by the pres- 
 sure of Western education on the fathers and 
 husbands, on the brothers and sons. These 
 changes in the men necessitate certain changes in 
 the women also, else too wide a gulf is made 
 between man and woman, their lives grow utterly 
 apart, are carried on along too much separated lines 
 The woman, not knowing of the larger interests 
 of the man's life, is not capable of the wise counsel 
 that in older days she was ever ready to give to 
 husband and son. Shut out as she is to-day, but 
 as she was not in the past, from the reasonable 
 enjoyment of and participation in the world around 
 her, you find her growing narrower in mind, whilst 
 still she keeps her purity in heart. We have to 
 deal with that modern innovation, in order to 
 prevent the evil results growing out therefrom. 
 
 Now, we all know that some of the conditions 
 that are to be eliminated have rather been imposed 
 from without, than evolved from within. The 
 conditions under which large parts of the country 
 have had to live, the Mussulman invasion, the 
 lack of safety of life and honour, dearer still than 
 life — these are the causes which have brought 
 about the system of seclusion, which is not Aryan. 
 The Zenana is not a Hindu custom, but pre-
 
 Womanhood. 125 
 
 eminently a Mussulman custom. The system of 
 Zenana does not belong to ancient India. All the 
 literature of ancient India gives proofs to the 
 contrary on that point. It has grown out of 
 danger, in times when it became absolutely neces- 
 sary to put a wall of that sort round womanhood, 
 in order to preserve her from perils which it would 
 have been impossible for her to face. It is not 
 a matter for blame, it is only a matter for regret, 
 that those conditions became necessary in some 
 parts of the country. In parts of the country where 
 there has not been Mussulman dominion, the 
 Hindu women have kept a large part of the ancient 
 self-respect, dignity, and liberty, and are not under 
 the very narrow seclusion system which is the 
 characteristic of those parts of the coimtry where 
 the Mussulman has ruled for long. That is a point 
 to bear in mind very clearly. For if it were 
 possible, however slowly and however gradually, to 
 enlarge these restrictive limits, to gradually widen 
 out the life of the woman, you would not be 
 following the West, but following your own 
 ancestral custom ; you would only be giving back 
 to the modern women what the ancient Indian 
 women continually enjoyed. 
 
 Of course, the greatest difficulty of any change 
 in this respect will come from the women them-
 
 126 Ancient Ideals ifi Modei'n Life. 
 
 selves, and not from the men. I know that, in 
 many cases, husbands and fathers would be very 
 glad to widen out the restrictions, but the opposi- 
 tion comes from those who have grown up in them, 
 who for generations have been trained on these 
 lines. The only way of bringing about a gradual 
 change, which will not do more harm than good, is 
 to educate, educate, educate, and so slowly and 
 gradually evolve the intelligence of women, bring- 
 ing them back to the high level which once they 
 occupied here. 
 
 Let me point out to you that the present 
 condition of women in India, as regards education, 
 is far worse than it was even two or three genera- 
 tions ago. We know that the elder women are 
 better educated than the younger generation. The 
 younger generation has fallen, as it were, between 
 two stools. The old education is no longer 
 imparted ; the modern education does not take its 
 place. 
 
 With regard to that modern education, permit 
 me to say that you will be most unwise, if you 
 adopt for the education of your women, a mere 
 copy of the education given to Western women. 
 That is not the kind of education that you need. 
 It would not build up women of the ancient Aryan 
 type. Think for a moment what female education
 
 Womanhood. 127 
 
 is meant to do in the West. Owing to the social 
 conditions there, a very large number of women 
 remain unmarried. There is an enormous class of 
 unmarried women there, who practically have no 
 supporters. They are not supported as to their 
 ordinary livelihood by fathers, who pass away, by 
 brothers who have their own households to look 
 after, and they are left to support themselves and 
 to gain their own livelihood. Now, that gaining of 
 their livelihood leads them necessarily into com- 
 petition with men. They enter the labour market, 
 and they have to follow the trading conditions in 
 regard to the various means of gaining a livelihood. 
 Out of that competition, out of that struggle for 
 existence, out of that passing of women into 
 the public arena of life-struggle, where they have 
 to gain their own livelihood and fight for their own 
 hands against the competition of men, out of that 
 has arisen the demand for what is called the higher 
 education of women. Its object is that the women, 
 educated on the same lines as men, may be able to 
 compete with them in the various walks of life, 
 and earn their own livelihood, as men earn theirs. 
 That is the economic reason underlying the 
 demand for higher education. I presume that no 
 Hindu, unless he has lost the Hindu heart, desires 
 to bring about that economic condition of things
 
 128 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 here. I presume that he does not desire to educate 
 his daughters, and then to send them out into the 
 world to struggle with men for gaining a livelihood, 
 to compete with men in the various learned pro- 
 fessions, in the various commercial undertakings. 
 Truly, no Hindu can desire to brmg about such a 
 regrettable stage of social evolution. But if not, 
 why adopt a type of education designed for such 
 a stage .'' It is undesirable that Indian girls should 
 be trained along those unsuitable lines. What you 
 want to do is to devise a system of education which 
 shall make them ideal Indian women of ancient 
 types, fitting them, for the most part, for the life 
 of wives and mothers, and, in rare cases, for that 
 knowledge of Brahman which may make them, 
 under these conditions as it did under the older 
 conditions, the spiritual teachers and helpers of 
 humanity. 
 
 But for that, what ought to be the education } 
 First, it is clear that the elements of the ordinary 
 vernacular education must be given to them, with 
 a knowledge of Sarhskrit and its literature, so that 
 they may be able to read of the great ideals of 
 Womanhood and desire to reproduce those in their 
 own lives. This should be the foundation of 
 woman's education : a knowledge of the vernacular, 
 from the literary standpoint ; and a knowledge of
 
 I Voinanhood. 1 29 
 
 the mother language Samskrit, in which is stored 
 up the sacred Hterature of India. It would oe 
 wise, though many of you will probably disagree 
 with that, as a novel idea, if you introduced also 
 the knowledge of the English tongue. By doing 
 that, you would bring them into touch with the 
 lines of thought along which their husbands and 
 their sons are travelling, and would thus enable 
 them to appreciate the tendencies and influences 
 which are playing upon the men, and to neutralise 
 some of the evils which arise from those influences 
 when left unchecked. At the present time, men 
 are too much inclined to go along sceptical and 
 materialistic lines, because of the education they 
 receive. Women, utterly shut out of all know- 
 ledge, cannot mentally meet them anywhere, and 
 appeal to them by that which has influence over 
 them. Shut up into a narrow, lonely, unthinking 
 life, left often superstitious rather than enlightened 
 in their faith, they fail to influence men, for the 
 man puts aside the opinion of women, generally 
 thinking that it is not worthy of consideration 
 because of their lack of education. With extreme 
 care, then, so that you may not injure the type of 
 womanhood, as the type of manhood has been 
 injured, you might introduce the nobler, purer side 
 of European thought, and bring that within the
 
 130 Ancient Ideals in Moderti Life. 
 
 reach of the women of India. Then they would 
 know something of modern hfe, and they would be 
 able to appreciate better the conditions amidst 
 which their husbands have to live and work. They 
 would again become counsellors at home, as they 
 cannot be now that they are utterly excluded from 
 all knowledge of the outer world. Now-a-days, 
 from ignorance of outside conditions, they con- 
 tinually press for things that are impossible, and 
 often make difficulties where none should exist, in 
 regard to the training and instruction of the 
 young. 
 
 Then you should add to that education, an 
 education scientific in its character, along the hnes 
 which should make the women more useful as the 
 queens of the home. She should be taught in 
 modern India, as she was taught in ancient India, 
 the elements of hygiene, physiology, and nutrition, 
 so that she may guide the household wisely 
 and well, so that you may not have to call in a 
 doctor for every trivial ailment and difficulty. The 
 older women still are wiser than many of the 
 younger generation, who are ignorant, and there- 
 fore useless. In tracing out education for the 
 women, this ancient element ought again to be 
 included, so that you may build up a wise, patient, 
 religious, clear-judging woman, who shall be her
 
 Womanhood. 1 3 1 
 
 husband's friend, counsellor, and helper, as well as 
 the joy of his heart, and the delight of his life. 
 
 It might be well, in addition, if you added to 
 that literary, scientific, and religious education, 
 some elements also of artistic training. How much 
 might be added to the happiness and brightness of 
 the home, if the girls of the home were trained, to 
 some extent, along artistic lines ' I know how 
 much prejudice there is in India against artistic 
 training, especially where music is concerned, 
 because of the shameful associations that have 
 grown up in connection with vocal and instru- 
 mental music. But those do not belong to the Art 
 itself ; they are part of the degradation of modern 
 India, of the degradation of Indian men and 
 women. Your sons, if they would have music, 
 must go into bad and degraded conditions. If 
 they would have emotional delight, and all young 
 men crave it, they cannot have it at home ; and so 
 they go for it amid the lowest of the population, 
 and mix with the most shameful of companions. 
 Is that wise ? Is that right ? So strongly is tiiis 
 felt, that in some parts of India, men of high and 
 respectable families have started classes, where 
 girls of similar families may be trained in instru- 
 mental and vocal music. Although at first the 
 movement met with very great opposition,
 
 132 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 although at first harsh and cruel things were said 
 about those who led it, yet gradually it is making 
 its way ; and girls thus taught — I was told in 
 Madras by the very Brahmana who was 
 instructing them — those girls are most eagerly 
 sought in marriage, because of this accomplish- 
 ment, which has made them a bright adornment 
 of the home. More and more in Madras, this kind 
 of education is spreading, and is breaking down 
 prejudice, and is making the homes brighter for 
 the young, more attractive especially to the 
 Western-educated boys. 
 
 Along these lines, then, I would suggest that 
 education should go, and not along the lines along 
 which, to a very small extent, it is now-a-days 
 carried out in India. 
 
 But I should not be dealing fairly with you, if 
 I did not say that there is one tremendous obstacle 
 in the way of this — an obstacle which I know not 
 if you will be strong enough and wise enough to 
 surmount — that is, that such an education cannot 
 be given, if child-motherhood is to remain a part 
 of Indian life. If the girl-child is to be made a 
 mother, then she can never grow to the real height 
 of motherhood ; so that here again the question 
 turns on this same pivot of early marriage that I 
 spoke of in the first lecture, and will have to be
 
 Womanhood. 1 3 3 
 
 decided by your own thoughtful and dehberate 
 consideration. 
 
 There are two ways in which a woman may be 
 treated — one the ancient way, one the modern 
 way ; one, I venture to say, a natural and so a wise 
 way, the other an artificial and so a foolish way ; 
 one that makes for construction, and the other that 
 makes for gradual destruction. The ancient and 
 wise way was training, educating, raising the 
 woman, putting her more and more on a high level, 
 and then giving her a reasonable and dignified 
 liberty. The modern and foolish way is keeping 
 her ignorant and undeveloped, childish and 
 irrational, and then shutting her in within a narrow 
 environment. There are few things more beautiful 
 in life than the way in which the Indian son loves, 
 reverences, and obeys his mother. But if that 
 most beautiful of relations is to continue under the 
 modern conditions for boys in India, you will have 
 to meet their needs by educating the women who 
 are their mothers. You all know the obedience 
 that the Indian son shows to the mother, how he 
 treats her practically as a Goddess, whose words 
 must npt be challenged, whose lightest wish must 
 be utterly and completely obeyed. If that 
 exquisite relation is to preserve its life under the 
 changed conditions, you will have to get rid of the
 
 134 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 narrowness that too often marks the woman's 
 opinion at present, because of her utter shutting 
 out from the external world, her shutting into the 
 in-door life. If you would preserve that — and to 
 lose it would be the saddest of losses, one that 
 India would scarcely survive — you must gradually 
 raise the womanhood of India, so that the mother's 
 words may be wise as well as loving, may be broad 
 instead of narrow, may meet the conditions of the 
 day instead of entirely ignoring them, may not 
 make unreasonable demands, demands which are 
 sometimes felt to be unreasonable, even while the 
 man yields himself to them from the instinct of 
 love and obedience. This is a necessary condition 
 for preserving that exquisite relationship, one that 
 the men must take into their hands ; for all the 
 power is lodged in their hands. While a woman 
 is very very young and very fair, unreasonableness 
 may seem almost an added charm in the eyes of 
 some ; the petulance of a graceful child is felt as 
 amusing and pretty ; but when the child has 
 grown to a woman of mature years, that lack of 
 judging impartially and reasonably is felt as a 
 difficulty, is felt as a hindrance, is felt as a disad- 
 vantage and annoyance. In order that the 
 woman's influence may be preserved ; in order 
 that she may not lose her hold over the respect
 
 Womanhood. 1 3 5 
 
 as well as the hearts of her husband and her sons : 
 in order that she may really be one half of 
 humanity, as she ought to be ; in order that she 
 may play her part well in the home, may train up 
 her sons as they ought to be trained ; in order 
 that she may exercise an elevating power over the 
 children round her knees, may prove a worthy 
 mother to worthy sons ; this question must be 
 considered and dealt with by the wise amongst 
 you ; else the gulf between Western-trained men 
 and uneducated women will widen, despite all love, 
 despite all tenderness, despite all longing to remain 
 together. For the influences are mighty which are 
 tending to divide, and unless those influences are 
 checked, that old great Ideal of marriage will 
 disappear and be seen no more. 
 
 This, then, is the line of thought that I would 
 suggest to you with regard to the Womanhood of 
 India : that you should study and realise the old 
 Ideal, and that you should then ^ee how it may be 
 re-introduced ; that you should educate women 
 everywhere, and choose wisely the kind of educa- 
 tion that you give ; that you should keep in mind 
 the capacities that they have, that you should 
 evolve those to the utmost of your ability ; so that 
 in the future, as in the past, there may be great, 
 heroic, strong, pure, and devoted women in India ; 
 K
 
 136 Ajicient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 for sooner or later, weakness means degradation ; 
 sooner or later, the lack of strength leads to lack 
 of love and lack of fidelity. 
 
 My Brothers, I have gone over in these lectures 
 many difficult problems, many thorny questions, 
 on which inevitably much difference of opinion 
 must arise. The slow deterioration of centuries, 
 of thousands of years, cannot be undone in a 
 moment, cannot be changed by a single effort ; 
 nay, the very need of changing is not seen by very 
 many of you, so thoroughly are you the men of 
 your own times — the result of this long course of 
 change. The more the ancient Ideals can be 
 studied, the more will these modern spectacles drop 
 from your eyes, and you will see the need for 
 change, you will see the necessity for exertion. It 
 is to the elders I appeal, for in your hands is the 
 power, and in your hands ought to be the power 
 and in the hands of none other. On this point, 
 I do not appeal to the young, to the growing lads. 
 It is not for them to deal with these questions, it 
 is not for them to initiate reforms. If you leave 
 it to them, the reforms will be hasty, ill-considered, 
 headlong, with all the natural impulsive hasty 
 judgment of youth. It is to you, the fathers, 
 mature men, men of middle age, it is for you to 
 consider these questions, and to look into the
 
 Womanhood. 137 
 
 immediate future. You are responsible for sending 
 your boys to an education which is changing their 
 views of life. You are responsible for sending 
 them to Missionary Schools or to Government 
 Schools and Colleges, where their faith is under- 
 mined, where the old Ideals are destroyed, where 
 the new thoughts are poured into them, without 
 any restriction or limitation ; then, looking at the 
 results, you are inclined to complain. Large 
 numbers of them are thoroughly Westernised ; 
 large numbers care nothing for the old Ideals ; 
 large numbers are bent upon reproducing the social 
 and economic conditions of the West, of which 
 they know so little, of which they dream and 
 imagine so much. 
 
 What will be the result ? You are going to pass 
 away from India, and are leaving the future in 
 these young hands. You cannot long stand where 
 you are standing to-day, you cannot stand there 
 for ever ; you will have to leave your places for 
 that where the fire will receive you, and whence 
 your ashes will be cast into Ganga. Then these 
 young men will make the India of the future, and 
 mould that India as they will. Therefore it is to 
 you I plead. If you will deal with them aright, if 
 you will put before them in your own lives the 
 old Ideals, that they may: imitate them ; if at all
 
 138 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 times you will recognise what there is of justice in 
 their longings, and feel sympathy with their 
 aspirations ; if you will not turn a deaf ear to 
 everything that they say ; if, when they want to 
 go forward, you will share to some extent in their 
 hopes, and guide them, and not turn a deaf ear to 
 all they plead for ; then you may direct and mould 
 them, and so turn the future of India into the right 
 path. If you will not, then you are digging the 
 grave of India, and she will go down into that 
 grave after you have passed away. 
 
 It is all very well to say that all social reform 
 is bad. I grant that much of the spirit in which it 
 is now carried on is bad and mischievous. It is 
 foolish that the old Ideals should be utterly dis- 
 regarded, and it is true that the acceptance of many 
 of these reforms, in the spirit in which they are 
 made, would be the ruin of India as a people, would 
 be the destruction of her religion as a living force. 
 I grant all that. But I tell you that there is equal 
 danger on the other side. Dogged conservatism, 
 fossilised orthodoxy which will not move, men who 
 will only stand fixed in their conceit where they 
 are, while all around them is moving, men who will 
 not consider the moving wheels of time — those 
 men are as dangerous to India's religious future, as 
 those who will utterly Westernise her, and so wipe
 
 Womanhood. 1 39 
 
 her out from among the nations. It is because of 
 that, that I have spoken upon these subjects to-day, 
 in what is the most conservative city in the whole 
 of India. It is because of this danger to India that 
 Hes in the future, this growing up of the young 
 generation under the glamour of Western civilisa- 
 tion, Western thought, apart from all Hindu tradi- 
 tions, that I have spoken to-day. Unless you can 
 win it to the old Ideals, and penetrate it with the 
 spirit of the ancient faith, there is no hope for the 
 future of India. 
 
 There is what you really need. There is the 
 path that wisdom points out for your treading. Be 
 willing to get rid of your bias, be willing to intro- 
 duce reforms, and change the customs which are 
 harmful and mischievous. Do not be frightened 
 away from change by the red rag of " social 
 reform " ; do not be deceived into the idea that 
 because one kind is bad, therefore all change is 
 dangerous. You must admit that India is not what 
 she ought to be. You must admit that there are 
 abuses on every side. You must know that a dis- 
 tinctly large number of educated youths are 
 becoming more and more alienated from the 
 ancient modes of life. It is no good to blame 
 them : it is no good to denounce them. You 
 should try to win them, try to induce them to follow
 
 140 Ancient Ideals in lVIoder?i Life. 
 
 the wiser path. Show sympathy and not 
 antagonism, and so you gain influence over their 
 hearts and their hves. Is India to be spht up into 
 two parts, one which will change nothing, and the 
 other which will change all ? If that be the future 
 that you deliberately choose, then indeed the 
 destiny of India is fixed and will not alter ; then 
 her place will go to another nation ; her function 
 of teaching will pass to another people. Stones 
 that will not move are left behind by the current ; 
 and if the current be not wisely directed, but a dam 
 be built across it, then after a while, when the 
 current gets enough strength, the dam is swept 
 away and the waters flood the country, and destroy 
 instead of fertilising. It is that great danger 
 which the educational movement started by us in 
 this Central Hindu College is intended to ward off. 
 It is intended to weld together the old Ideals and 
 the modern spirit ; that is what we are doing in 
 this place ; it is that road along which lies India's 
 salvation. While we are dealing with the young, 
 it would not be wise to leave out of account the 
 mature. While we are trying to educate the future, 
 the present should be modified as the field wherein 
 that future must express itself. 
 
 My last words to you, my Brothers, are words 
 of appeal, not to let prejudice blind you, not to let
 
 Womanhood. 141 
 
 custom be an obstacle in the way. Let not the 
 conservative instinct of the ancient civilisation 
 make you utterly close your eyes to the needs of 
 the present, to the demands of the future. I make 
 my appeal to you, because I love ancient India so 
 well, because I still nurse within my heart the hope 
 of India's resurrection. As she is lying to-day, she 
 is prone on the ground, helpless, degraded, without 
 power, with only the forms, the shells of the 
 ancient, the mighty religion that was once her 
 glory ; nothing scarcely of its power, and little of 
 its knowledge remain. Strangled in the fetters of 
 customs that have grown around her limbs through 
 centuries and millenniums, bound by these iron 
 fetters so that she can scarcely move either hands 
 or feet — is she to lie there till her swoon passes 
 into death, so that the only light that India shall 
 again give to the world shall be the light of her 
 funeral pyre, the flames in which is perishing a 
 dead civilisation ? Some say that is inevitable ; 
 some declare that there is no hope of her resurrec- 
 tion ; that the life has gone from her, and will pass 
 into one or other of the nations of the world. I 
 cannot believe it, I will not accept it, imtil all forces 
 to rouse her have proved fruitless, until all struggles 
 cease, and no sign of life is seen. If there be but 
 a few hundred hearts among India's children, who
 
 142 Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. 
 
 love their country better than they love them- 
 selves ; if there be here and there hearts that can 
 be set on fire with enthusiasm, with devotion, clean 
 and strong hearts that can place themselves on the 
 altar as an offering to the High Gods that India 
 may live, although some of her sons may perish ; 
 if India has still in her something of her ancient 
 spirit of love, of patriotism, and of devotion, then 
 it is possible that the change we long for may 
 come, and India, re-born into the modern world, 
 may be greater than ever she was in her glorious 
 past. I believe that still the choice lies before 
 her : still there are two paths before her — one 
 leading upwards, and the other downwards ; one 
 rising gradually up till she shall stand again on 
 the pinnacle of the spiritual teacher of mankind, 
 the other sinking slowly downwards through the 
 throes of dying agony to the place where she shall 
 perish, and only her ashes shall remain. 
 
 Choose you — the choice is yours and not mine. 
 One human tongue can do but little, one human 
 heart has but little force in it ; it may break, but it 
 cannot make a nation, if the nation will not make 
 itself. I can but speak to you ; I cannot do your 
 work. I can bring to you the message of truth ; I 
 cannot make you accept it. Yours is the responsi- 
 bihty, not mine ; yours the choice, not mine. I
 
 Womanhood. 1 4 3 
 
 have done my duty when I have spoken, and 
 pointed out to you the path which will lead to the 
 redemption of India. If you see that path to be 
 right, but shrink from taking it because of the 
 difficulties and the oppositions that cumber it, then 
 indeed you are not worthy to tread it, for it is a 
 path for heroes and not for feeble souls. Choose 
 you your answer, for it is an answer alike to Karma, 
 to the world, and to the Gods, and take the 
 responsibility which is on you, and act as you will. 
 For me, so long as breath remains in me, I shall 
 strive to help this land, the greatest of all lands in 
 the past, the greatest of all lands in the future, if 
 you will. Those who will work, let them come and 
 work ; those who will sleep, let them sleep until 
 their country dies. Then, in far other births and 
 other lands, you may look backwards with sorrow 
 and regret to what India once was, but what again 
 she shall never be. For the choice that the Gods 
 give is a choice that, once made, is endless in its 
 results. Choose you, then, what you will, and may 
 the High Gods inspire you to choose aright. •
 
 AFTERWORD. 
 
 The suggestions put forward in these lectures 
 are meant to be Hved, not merely read, and that 
 by men who love Hinduism, who are religious as 
 well as moral. They may be summed up under 
 the following heads : 
 
 I. — A resolve not to marry their sons before i8, 
 nor to allow the marriage to be consummated 
 before 20 ; the first marriage (betrothal) of their 
 daughters to be thrown as late as possible, from 
 II to 14, and the second (consummation) from 
 14 to 16. 
 
 2. — To promote the maintenance of caste rela- 
 tions with those who have travelled abroad, 
 providing they conform to Hindu ways of living. 
 
 3. — To promote intermarriage and interdining 
 between the sub-divisions of the four castes. 
 
 4. — Not to emplo)- in any ceremon}' (where 
 choice is possible) an illiterate or immoral Brah- 
 mana. 
 
 5. — To educate their daughters and to promote 
 the education of the women of their families. 
 
 6. — Not to demand any money consideration for 
 the marriage of their children.
 
 Afterword. 145 
 
 If pious men in all parts of India carried out 
 these reforms individually, a vast change would be 
 made without disturbance or excitement, but they 
 would need to be men of clear heads and strong 
 hearts, to meet and conquer the inevitable opposi- 
 tion from the ignorant and the bigoted. The 
 worst customs that prevail are comparatively 
 modern, but they are regarded as marks of 
 orthodoxy and so are difficult to put aside. 
 
 I need scarcely add that I should be very happy 
 to hear from any reader who agrees with some or 
 all the suggestions made, or who has thoughtful 
 criticism to offer. For only by the efforts of brave 
 and true men can the great work outlined be 
 accomplished. 
 
 Peace to all Beings.
 
 ,L ^^ 
 
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