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Facts illustrative of its power over the features, character, and life, not only of individuals but of communities, are patent to all. Whatever heredity can do it does in infusing the spirit of Hinduism into the very blood of the people of Benares, who have been so long dominated by it.
It is arguable that this condemnation is unjust, for like other forms of Hinduism the Tantras make the liberation of the soul their object and prescribe a life of religious observances including asceticism and meditation, after which the adept becomes released even in this life.
The end came, after many vicissitudes, with Baz Bahadur, chiefly known for his passionate devotion to the fair Hindu, Rup Mati, for whom he built on the very crest of the hill, so that from her windows she might worship the waters of the sacred Nerbudda, the only palace now surviving in Mandu which bears a definite impress of Hinduism. Baz Bahadur surrendered to the Emperor Akbar in 1562.
To such interpretations of contemporary events young Indians, who at school read Burke and Byron and Mill "On Liberty," and in secret the lives of Garibaldi and Mazzini, were bound to be receptive, and they soon reached from a different base along different lines the same ground on which the old orthodox foes not only of British rule but of Western civilisation stood who appealed to the Baghavat-Ghita and exhorted India to seek escape from the foreign domination that had enslaved her, body and soul, by clinging to the social and religious ark of Hinduism which in her golden age had made her wise and wealthy and free beyond all the nations of the earth.
So they pulled it down and prepared to build a new house in another garden. I had an opportunity of watching the whole progress of this project, and it gave me a good deal of insight into the character that Hinduism creates. Babaji having seen something of English ways during his term of office as collector, prepared to build the sort of house which would suit an Englishman.
It is one of the many strange anomalies of Gandhiism that it should have elected to concentrate its wrecking policy on the very universities in which Islam and Hinduism respectively have been conceded a closer preserve than anywhere else for the training of Indian youths in the spirit of the two great national religions of India.
Even if they acquit us of any deliberate purpose, are they not at any rate entitled to say that such have been too often the results? Did not the incipient revolt against all the traditions of Hinduism that followed the introduction of Western education help to engender the wholesale reaction against Western influences which, underlies the present unrest?
Thus the works of Mâṇikka-Vâçagar and Umâpati speak of Śiva coming to his devotees in the form of the Guru. Sometimes they are members of a particular family, as among the Vallabhâcâryas. In other sects there is no hereditary principle and even a Sudra is eligible as Guru. One other feature of Sectarian Hinduism must be mentioned.
At the same time it is insisted that true Hinduism has the same ideals and the same spiritual advantages that are offered by Christianity.
But the beliefs and practices of popular Hinduism are obviously irreconcilable with the principles of modern civilization; and the various indications of a desire to reform and purify their ancient religion may be partly due to the perception among educated Hindus that so contradictory a position is ultimately untenable, that the incongruity between sacrifices to the goddess Kali and high University degrees is too manifest.