many times into the bodies of dogs, insects, spiders, snakes or grasses. This change relates to the crime. One who steals grain shall be born a rat. One who steals meat shall become a vulture. One who indulges in forbidden pleasures of the senses shall have his senses rendered acute to endure intense pain.

The highest virtue is doing good because it is right goodness done from the love of God and based on the knowledge of the Vedas. A religious act performed simply with the expectation of reward in the next world, will only give one a place in the lowest heaven. But one doing good deeds without the hope of reward, "perceiving the supreme soul in all beings, and all beings in the supreme soul, fixing his mind on God approaches the Divine Nature."

"Let every Brahman, with fixed attention, consider all nature as existing in the Divine Spirit; all worlds as seated in him; he alone as the whole assemblage of gods; and he the author of all human actions."

"Let him consider the supreme omnipresent intelligence as the sovereign lord of the universe, by whom alone it exists, an incomprehensible spirit; pervading all beings in five elemental forms, and causing them to pass through birth, growth and decay, and so to solve like the wheels of a car."

"Thus the man who perceives in his own soul the supreme soul present in all creatures, acquires equanimity toward them all, and shall be absolved at last in the highest essence, even that of the Almighty himself."

We now come to the three systems of Hindoo philosophy-Sánkhya, Vedanta and Nyaya. Duncker says that the Hindoo system of philosophy arose in the sixth or seventh century before Christ. As the Buddhist religion implies the existence of the Sánkhya philosophy, this philosophy must have existed prior to Buddhism. Kapila and his two principles are likewise mentioned in the Laws of Manu and in the later Upanishads. This would bring it to the Brahmana period, according to Max Müller, from B. C. 800 or B. C. 600, and perhaps earlier. Cole

brooke says that Kapila is mentioned in the Veda. Kapila was even regarded as an incarnation of Vishnu, or of Agni. Lassen says that the Vedanta philosophy is mentioned in the Laws of Manu. This philosophy is based on the Upanishads, and would appear to be later than that of Kapila, as it criticises his philosophy. Nevertheless Duncker regards it as the oldest system, and as already commencing in the Upanishads of the Vedas.

The Sánkhya philosophy of Kapila is contained in numerous works, particularly in the Sankhya-Káriká by Iswara-Krishna, which consists of eighty-two memorial verses with a commentary. The Vedanta philosophy is contained in the Sutras, the Upanishads, and especially in the BrahmaSutra ascribed to Nyaya. The Nyaya philosophy is found in the Sutras of Gautama and Canade.

It is not known when the three systems of Hindoo philosophy arose, or who were their founders. They agree in some points, but differ in others. They all three agree in having for their object deliverance from the evils of time, change, sorrow, into an everlasting rest and peace. Their aim is practical, not speculative. All agree in regarding existence as an evil, meaning by existence a life in time and space. All are idealistic, in which the world of matter and time is a delusion and a snare, and in which ideas are considered the only substance. All agree in accepting the doctrine of the metempsychosis, or transmigration of the soul, the end of which transmigration only brings final rest and deliverance. All agree that the means of this deliverance is to be found in knowledge, in a perfect knowledge in reality and not in appearance. All three systems are held by Brahmans who regard themselves as orthodox, who esteem the Vedas above all other books, who pay complete respect to the Brahmanism of the day, who perform the daily ceremonies and observe the usual rules of caste. The three systems of philosophy supplement the religious worship, but are not designed to destroy it. The Vedantists maintain that

while there is really only one God, the various forms of worship in the Vedas, of Indra, Agni, the Maruts, etc., were all designed for those who could not comprehend this sublime monotheism. Those who believe in the Sánkhya hold that though their system entirely ignores God, and is called "the system without a God," it simply ignores, but does not deny the Divine existence.

Each of the three philosophies has a speculative and a practical side. The speculative is, How did the Universe come into existence? The practical is, How is man to be delivered from evil?

The Vedanta, or Mimansa, doctrine reasons from a single eternal and uncreated principle, and asserts that there is only being in the universe, God or Brahm, and that everything else is Maya, or illusion. The Sánkhya teaches that there are two eternal and uncreated substances, Soul and Nature. The Nyaya asserts that there are three eternal aud uncreated substancesAtoms, Souls and God.

The three philosophies agree that only by knowledge can the soul be freed from the body or matter or nature. Worship is not sufficent, though it must not be despised. Action is injurious, because it implies desire. Only knowledge can lead to complete rest and peace.

The three philosophies teach that the soul's transmigration through different bodies is an evil resulting from desire. So long as the soul desires anything, it will continue to migrate and suffer in consequence. When it attains clear insight, it ceases to wander and finds repose.

Duncker supposed the Vedanta, or Mimansa, philosophy to be referred to in Manu. Mimansa means searching. In its logical forms, after stating the question, giving the objection and the answer to the objection, it gives the conclusion. The first portion of the Vedanta relates to worship and to the ceremonies and the ritual of the Vedas. The second portion teaches the doctrine of Brahma. Brahma is the one, eternal, absolute, unchangeable Being. He first be1—31.-U. H.

comes ether, then air, then fire, then water, then earth. All bodily existence proceeds from these five elements. "Souls are sparks from the central fire of Brahma, separated for a time, to be absorbed again at last.”

"Brahma, in his highest form as ParaBrahm, stands for the Absolute Being." Haug has translated the following from the Sáma-Veda: "The generation of Brahma was before all ages, unfolding himself evermore in a beautiful glory; everything which is highest and everything which is deepest belongs to him. Being and Not Being are unveiled through Brahma."

Windischmann has translated the following passage from a Upanishad: "How can any one teach concerning Brahma? He is neither the known nor the unknown. That which cannot be expressed by words, but through which all expression comes, this I know to be Brahma. That which cannot be thought by the mind, but by which all thinking comes, this I know is Brahma. That which cannot be seen by the eye, but which the eye sees, is Brahma. If thou thinkest that thou canst know it, then in truth thou knowest it very little. To whom it is unknown, he knows it; but to whom it is known, he knows it not."

Windischmann has also translated the following from the Kathaka-Upanishad: "One cannot attain to it through the word, through the mind, or through the eye. It is only reached by him who says, 'It is! It is!' He perceives it in its essence. Its essence appears when one perceives it as it is."

According to Bunsen, the old German expression Istigkeit corresponds to this. This is also the name of Jehovah given by Moses from the burning bush, thus: "And God said unto Moses, I AM THE I AM. Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you." The idea here is that only God really exists, and that He is the origin of all being. The same is expressed in another Upanishad thus: "HE WHO EXISTS is the root of all creatures; HE WHO EXISTS is their foundation, and in him they rest."

This speculative pantheism is carried stili

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farther in the Vedanta philosophy. Thus says Sankara, the principal teacher of this philosophy: "I am the great Brahma, eternal, pure, free, one, constant, happy, existing without end. He who ceases to contemplate other things, who retires into solitude, annihilates his desires, and subjects his passions, he understands that Spirit is the One and the Eternal. The wise man annihilates all sensible things, and contemplates that one spirit who resembles pure space. Brahma is without size, quality, character, or division."

According to this philosophy, says Bunsen, the world is the Not-Being. It is, says Sankara, "appearance without Being; it is like the deception of a dream." He says further: "The soul itself has no actual being."

According to a Hindoo authority, Shoshee Chunder Dutt: "Dissatisfied with his own solitude, Brahma feels a desire to create worlds, and then the volition ceases so far as he is concerned, and he sinks again into his apathetic happiness, while the desire, thus willed into existence, assumes an active character. It becomes Maya, and by this was the universe created, without exertion on the part of Brahma. This passing wish of Brahma carried, however, no reality with it. And the creation proceeding from it is only an illusion. There is only one absolute Unity really existing, and existing without plurality. But he is like one asleep. Krishna, in the Gita, says: "These works (the universe) confine not me, for I am like one who sitteth aloof uninterested in them all.' The universe is therefore all illusion, holding a position between something and nothing. It is real as an illusion, but unreal as being. It is not true, because it has no essence; but not false, because its existence, even as illusion, is from God. The Vedanta declares: 'From the highest state of Brahma to the lowest condition of a straw all things are delusion.'"'

Shoshee Chunder Dutt, however, contradicts Bunsen's assertion that the soul also is an illusion according to the Vedanta. He says: "The soul is not subject to birth or

death, but is in its substance, from Brahma himself." The truth appears to be that the Vedanta considers the individuality of the soul as from Maya and illusive, but regards the substance of the soul as from Brahma, and as destined to be absorbed into him. As the body of man is to be resolved into its material elements, so the soul of man is to be resolved into Brahma. This substance of the soul is neither born nor dies, nor is it a thing of which it can be said: "It was, is, or shall be." In the Gita, Krishna tells Arjun that he and the other princes of the world never were not."

The Vedantist philosopher, nevertheless that he regards all souls as emanations from God, does not believe that all of them will be absorbed into God at death. Only such as have obtained a knowledge of God are rewarded by absorption into Deity, the others continuing to migrate from one body to another as long as they remain unfit for absorption. "The knower of God becomes God." This union with Deity is the complete loss of all personal identity, and is the attainment of the highest bliss, in which there are no grades, and from which there is no return. This absorption does not come from good works or penances, as these confine the soul and do not free it. "The confinement of fetters is the same whether the chain be of gold or iron." "The knowledge which realizes that everything is Brahm alone liberates the soul. It annuls the effect both of our virtues and vices. We traverse thereby both merit and demerit, the heart's knot is broken, all doubts are split, and all our works perish. Only by perfect abstraction, not merely from the senses, but also from the thinking intellect and by remaining in the knowing intellect, does the devotee become identified with Brahm. He then remains as pure glass when the shadow has left. He lives destitute of passions and affections. lives sinless; for as water wets not the leaf of the lotus, so sin touches not him who knows God." He needs no more of virtue, for "of what use can be a winnowing fan when the sweet southern wind is blowing."

He

His meditations are of this kind: "I am Brahm, I am life. I am everlasting, perfect, self-existent, undivided, joyful."

Virtue, penance, sacrifices, worship, effect a happy transmigration from lower forms of bodily life to higher ones; but do not accomplish the end which is the soul's great aim and desire-absorption into the Universal Supreme Being. They simply prepare the way for such absorption by causing one to be born in a higher state of being. The Sánkhya philosophy of Kapila is founded on two principles, not on simply one, as is the Vedanta. According to the seventy aphorisms, Nature is one of these principles. Nature is uncreated and eternal; being one, active, creating, non-intelligent. Souls are the other of the two principles, and are likewise uncreated and eternal. Souls are many, passive, not creative, intelligent, and the opposite of Nature in everything. But the union of the two is that from which all nature proceeds, in accordance with the law of cause and effect.

This system is frequently called atheism, as God is not recognized in it. It thus argues that no one perfect being could create the universe. Desire implies want, or imperfection. Then if God wished to create, He would not be able to do so. If He were able, He would have no desire to do it. Therefore, in neither case, could God have created the universe. The gods are generally spoken of by the well-known names of Brahma, Indra, etc.; but all are finite beings, belonging to the order of human souls, though of a superior kind.

"Every soul is clothed in two bodiesthe interior original body, the individualizing force, which is eternal as itself and accompanies it through all its migrations; and the material, secondary body, made of the five elements-ether, air, fire, water and earth.

The original body is subtile and spiritual. It is the office of Nature to liberate the Soul. Nature is not what we perceive by the senses, but an invisible plastic principle behind, which must be known by the intellect. As the Soul ascends by goodness, it is freed by knowledge. The final The final

result of this emancipation is the certainty of non-existence-neither I am, nor is aught mine, nor do I exist,'-which seems to be the same result as that of Hegel, Being=Not-Being."

The result of knowledge is to put an end to creation, leaving the Soul freed from desire, from change, from the material body, in a state which is Being, but not Existence.

The Sankhya philosophy was very important as it was the source of Buddhism, and the doctrine thus described was the basis of Buddhism.

M. Cousin has called it the sensualism of India. But it is as purely an ideal doctrine as that of the Vedas. Both its eternal principles are ideal. Kapila asserts that the one which is a plastic force can not be perceived by the senses. Soul, the other eternal and uncreated principle, who "is witness, solitary, bystander, spectator and passive, is itself spiritual, and clothed with a spiritual body, within a material body. The Karika declares the material universe to be the result of the contact of the Soul with Nature, and consists in chains with which Nature binds herself, for the purpose of freeing the Soul. When through knowledge the Soul looks through these, and sees the final principle beyond, the material universe is at an end; both Soul and Nature are freed.

Scotus Erigena, the great Irish philosopher of the ninth century of our era, made a fourfold division of the universe-1, a Nature which creates and is not created; 2, a Nature which is created and creates; 3, a Nature which is created and does not create; 4, a Nature which neither creates nor is created. In the same way Kapila says: "Nature, the root of all things, is productive but not a production. Seven principles are productions and productive. Sixteen. are productions but not productive. Soul is neither a production nor productive."

The Sánkhya philosophy is often likewise noticed in the Mahabharata. The Nyaya philosophy differs from that of Kapila in assuming that there is a third eternal and indestructible principle as the basis of matter, namely, Atoms. It likewise assumes the

existence of a Supreme Soul, Brahma, who is almighty and allwise. It agrees with Kapila in making all souls eternal, and distinct from the body. It has the same evil to overcome -transmigration. It has the same method of release-Buddhï, or knowledge. It is a more dialectic system than the others, and is more of a logic than a philosophy.

The Nyaya philosophy has been compared to the Buddhist system. The Buddhist Nirvana has been regarded as equivalent to the emancipation of the Nyaya philosophy. the Nyaya philosophy. Apavarga, or emancipation, is asserted in the Nyaya system to be ultimate deliverance from pain, birth, activity, fault and death.

So the Pali doctrinal books of Buddhism refer to Nirvana as an exemption from old age, disease and death. "In it desire, anger and ignorance are consumed by the fire of knowledge. Here all selfish distinctions of mine and thine, all evil thoughts, all slander and jealousy, are cut down by the weapon of knowledge. Here we have an experience of immortality which is cessation of all trouble and perfect felicity."

We now come to the origin of the Hindoo Triad. A worship founded on that of the ancient Vedas had gradually risen among the Hindoos. In the West of India the god Rudra, mentioned in the Vedic hymns, had become transformed into Siva. In the RigVeda, Rudra is sometimes the name for Agni. He is described as father of the winds. He is the same as Maha-deva. He is at the same time fierce and benevolent. He presides over medicinal plants. Weber and Professor Whitney consider him the Storm-god. But his worship extended by degrees, until under the name of Siva, the Destroyer, he became one of the chief deities of the Hindoos. In the meantime, in the Ganges valley, a similar devotion had risen for the Vedic God, Vishnu, who in the same way had been elevated to the front rank in the Hindoo pantheon. He had been raised to the character of a Friend and Protector, "gifted with mild attributes and worshiped as the life of Nature." By accepting the popular worship, the Brahmans were enabled to successfully oppose Buddhism.

It is believed that the Hindoo Triad arose from the efforts of the Brahmans to unite all the Hindoos under one system of religion, and it may have succeeded for a time. Images of the Trimurtti, or three-faced God, are often seen in India, and this is yet the object of Brahmanical worship. Thought invariably tends toward a triad of law, force or elemental substance, as the best explanation of the universe. For this reason there have been triads in so many religions. In Egypt there was the Triad of Osiris the Creator, Typhon the Destroyer, and Horus the Preserver. In Persia was the Triad of Ormazd the Creator, Ahriman the Destroyer, and Mithra the Restorer. In Buddhism is the Triad of Buddha, the Divine Man, Dharmma the Word, and Sangha the Communion of Saints. Pure monotheism is not long satisfactory to the speculative mind, because it does not explain the discords of the universe, though it accounts for its harmonies. A dualism of antagonistic forces does not afford any better satisfaction, because the world does not seem to be such a scene of complete discord and warfare as is here assumed. Therefore the mind is ready to accept a Triad, in which the unities of life and development proceed from one element, the antagonisms from a second, and the harmonies of reconciled oppositions from a third. In this very manner arose the Brahmanical Triad.

Thus arose from the spiritual pantheism into which all Hindoo religion appeared to settle, another system, that of the Trimurtti, or Divine Triad-the Hindoo Trinity of Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, and Siva the Destroyer. A foundation for the unity of Creation, Preservation and Destruction already existed in a Vedic saying, that the highest being exists in three states-creation, preservation and destruction.

None of these three supreme deities of Brahmanism ranked very highly in the Vedas. Siva is not named once therein. Lassen says that Brahma is not noticed in any Vedic hymn, but first in a Upanishad. Vishnu is mentioned in the Rig-Veda as one