Hinduism / by Monier Williams.

  • Monier Monier-Williams
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hinduism / by Monier Williams. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    preach the impossibility of vicarious suffering; the transmigration of souls ; the necessity that every man should suffer himself, and in his own person, for his own sins, either in this or future lives ; the unity of all being ; the identity of the human soul with the Divine, and the consequent absurdity of caste-distinc- tions. All idea of the need of an atoning sacrifice was rendered preposterous ; for when every man was believed to be a part of God, what necessity was there that God should propitiate Himself? If a portion of the One Universal Soul chose for a time to ignore itself, to enclose itself in a body, to fetter itself with actions and their inevitable results, the consequent suffering could only be borne by itself in its passage through numerous existences, and there could be no release—no final emancipation—till action ceased,and the consciousness of identity with the one universal soul returned. Hence the abolition of animal sacrifices throughout India, except at the altars of the fierce and destructive goddess Kail or Durga, who is supposed to delight in blood, and, if satiated by the immolation of goats and buffaloes, to abstain from causing further destruction. But at no other temples are victims now killed, and even such propitiatory slaughtering of animals is utterly repugnant to the present feelings and opinions of the better classes of Hindus. Such was the great revolution effected by Buddha and the Brahman philosophers together. It will be necessary to give fuller consideration to the new ideas thus introduced into Brahmanism. But before describing them more in detail, we must first glance at the third or Upanishad portion of the Veda, which was really the source whence they sprang.
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