we may well be excused for dwelling chiefly on that theme. Since it can be no insult to describe a people exactly as they are, and no abuse to designate things by their proper names; and, since this is all that we have done, or ever will do, to charge us with insulting and abusing millions of our fellow-creatures, is only to indulge in railing accusation,' which it would ill become us to retaliate.' Compelled to acknowledge that idolatry is not merely tolerated, but largely inculcated in the original standards of Hinduism, Orientalists still cling, with almost parental fondness, to the assertion of one Supreme God, as a sufficient counterpoise to all polytheism. What eulogies have they not pronounced on the sublimity and grandeur wherewith his attributes have been pourtrayed! How many, in consequence, have been led into the profoundest admiration of Hindu theism! But lest any one should be carried away by an impression which may rest on nothing better than the principle of the adage, that "whatever is unknown is held as magnificent," it is proper briefly to approach, and narrowly to scan the subject. It is freely and fully conceded that to Brahm, the Universal Lord," all natural divine attributes are constantly ascribed in detail. He is represented as without beginning or end, eternal; that which is and must remain, unchangeable ; without dimensions, infinite; without parts, immaterial, invisible; omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent; enjoying ineffable felicity. After listening to such a description, do you begin to think that you have been introduced into the society of beings, who, speaking with no mortal voice, have given utterance to the language of a sublime theism? Or, has experience taught you to pause ere you allow that the mere ascription of epithets, however expressive of grandeur and excellence, necessarily constitutes an infallible evidence of the existence of corresponding conceptions? Or, supposing the conceptions to have once existed, have you learnt from the history of the past, that language, more stable than fleeting thought, has often outlived primitive ideas; and that, like an antique casket of rare workmanship, which may have been the receptacle of precious jewels now no more, a language may continue to retain the loftiest terms which can now only be viewed as venerable relics of what was once the vehicle of conceptions correspondent in sublimity? Or, does memory recall from the classic pages of Greece and Rome, many a passage illumined with the brightest portraiture of divinity;-but illumined only to contrast the more strongly with the gloom of others which embody conceptions the most derogatory to the divine character and perfections? And are you thus prepared to anticipate a like interblending of colours in the portrait of the Indian Brahm? It is well that you should; for on further inquiry, you soon find that there are no epithets more frequently applied to the Supreme Brahm, than such as signify that he is without qualities or attributes. Are you startled at the apparent contradiction? The Hindu replies, that contradiction there is none. If, indeed, the Supreme were represented as "invested with qualities and attributes," and "devoid of these" at one and the same instant of time, such representation would be self-contradictory. But these different, or rather opposite and mutually destructive states, or modifications of being, are not cotemporaneous, but successive; each of them being assumed alternately after immense intervals of time. The primary and proper state of Brahm's being, is that in which he exists wholly without qualities or attributes. When he thus exists, there is no visible external universe. He is then denoted emphatically THE ONE-without a second. Not merely one, generically, as being truly possessed of a divine nature;-not merely one, hypostatically, as being simple, uncompounded, and, therefore, without parts;-not merely one, numerically, as being, in point of fact, the only actually existing deity. No. He is simply, absolutely, and by necessity of nature, one ;-and not only so, but he is one in the sense of excluding the very possibility of the existence of any other god. Thus far a Christian might accord in the definition of the divine unity. It is, in words, the very definition which the Bible gives of the unity of the only living and true God." But the Hindu advances a step farther. He conceives, that when Brahm exists in his proper and characteristic state, he is one; not merely in the sense of excluding other gods, but in the sense of excluding the possibility of the existence of any other being whatever. He is thus not merely one, but the one, the single and sole entity in the universe,—yea more, the only possible entity, whether created or created. His oneness is so absolute, that it not only excludes the possibility of any other god, co-ordinate, or subordinate, but excludes the possibility of the existence of any other being, human or angelic, material or immaterial. un The Hindu theologist does not stop even here. His Brahm, as already stated, exists "without qualities or attributes." What!-literally and absolutely without qualities or attributes? Yes, literally and absolutely so. The possession of qualities or attributes implies multiplicity and diversity of some kind. But Brahm's unity is so perfectly pure, so essentially simple, that it must exclude multiplicity or diversity of any kind. Consequently, he is represented as existing without intellect, without intelligence, without even the consciousness of his own existence! Surely this is the very transcendentalism of unity. No wonder though the Hindu often exclaim that his Supreme Brahm is "nothing." In any sense, within the reach of human understanding, he is "nothing." For the mind of man can form no notion of matter or spirit apart from its properties or attributes. Let Brahm, therefore, be represented as utterly devoid of attributes, and, to human apprehension, he must be actually as nothing,-a mere abstract negation more absolute than darkness, of which it has been remarked, that it is endowed with the property of at any time admitting light; or than silence, which has the quality of admitting sound; or than space, which has the capacity of admitting extension. No wonder though the Hindu confess, with a peculiar emphasis of meaning, that his Supreme Brahm is "incomprehensible." There is a sense in which we, too, apply this term to the true God-Jehovah. But with us it simply imports that we can have no perfect, complete, or adequate notion of His nature and attributes. Though the Great Jehovah be, in this qualified sense, incomprehensible by finite intelligences, He is not, on that account, utterly unintelligible. We may know Him in part; that is, so far as He has been pleased to reveal Himself in His works and Word. And such knowledge, graciously suited to our limited faculties, so far as it goes, is at once correct and true, though not by any means full, complete, or adequate to the transcendent Majesty of heaven. But the Brahm of Hindu theology is not incomprehensible merely; he is utterly unintelligible. As represented in his proper and characteristic state, he is in reality neither more nor less than an infinite negation, an infinite nothing. Yet he is described as positively existing, and that, too, in the enjoyment of ineffable bliss. This bliss or felicity is not, cannot be of a positive, but of a negative character— not active, but passive. Stripped of all attributes, he cannot exercise any; consequently, he is wholly inoperative. Unincumbered by the cares of empire, or the functions of a superintending providence, he effectuates no good, inflicts no evil, suffers no pain, experiences no emotion. He exists in a state of unbroken quiescence,-tranquil unruffled serenity, --undisturbed repose. In a word, his beatitude is represented as consisting in a languid, monotonous, and uninterrupted sleep,—a sleep so very deep as never to be disturbed by the visitation of a dream. Such a state of unvaried, unimpassioned blessedness, must ever remain really unimagined, as it is in itself unimaginable. To us it can seem little better than the bliss of a motionless rock in the dark caverns of earth, or a decayed trunk in the forest, or an insensate pebble on the sea-shore. Unlike the Supreme Divinity of Epicurus,-who, though idle and unfettered by the agencies of government, enjoyed, at least, a conscious and comprehensible bliss, occupying, as he did, some bright and balmy region where the cloudless ether ever smiled in calm effulgence, the Indian Brahm is represented as dwelling mysteriously throughout the boundless solitudes of spaceimmersed in an abyss of darkness-and steeped in the felici -- ties of a slumber so profound, as to be not only without a dream, but without any consciousness of his own existence ! Yet this simple, unextended, indivisible-this formless, motionless, qualityless being does not always continue to exist amid the rayless gloom, in a state of dreamless imperturbable repose. No: After the lapse of unnumbered ages, he some how or other, suddenly awakes. Becoming for a moment apprehensive or conscious of his own existence, he breaks the death-like universal silence, by uttering the words, "Brahm is," or, "I am." "I am." No longer quiescent,— motion being now excited in him—he assumes and exhibits active qualities and attributes. "Dissatisfied," says the sacred oracle," with his own solitariness, a wish or desire for duality arises in his mind. In a moment, though himself devoid of form, he in sport imagines a form."-It is the universal form; or the ideal form, model, or exemplar of the subsequently manifested universe. "The question," as an eminent Orientalist has remarked, "the question, how does desire or volition arise in this simple being?-forms the subject of many disputes; but I believe that even the subtilty of Hindu metaphysics has not yet furnished a satisfactory reply." Be this as it may, the desire, when the destined period arrives, does arise. In obedience to it, the ideal form or image of the universe presents itself to the divine conception. For a moment it exists merely as an unmanifested image, without any correspondent reality. Speedily, however, the desire which originated the image or ideal form, is succeeded by an act of volition-willing the ideal form to be realized in actual visible manifestation. To the process of production. we shall immediately refer. For the present, we must call upon you specially to remark, that when the universe has once been manifested, the Supreme Brahm instantly relinquishes his assumed condition of wakefulness and activity -instantly renounces all his assumed qualities and attributes, or rather unitizes them into the simplicity of his own proper abstract essence-once more "changing," agreeably to the words of the divine Manu, 66 changing the time of |
