Page:The Religion of the Veda.djvu/24

The Religion of the Veda
is shut forever. There is little chance for national or
patriotic combination.
Moreover the laws, or rather the vagaries of caste
have taken largely the place of practical religion in
the mind of the average Hindu who has not eman-
cipated himself through higher philosophy. The
supreme law which really concerns him in his daily
life is, to eat correctly; to drink correctly; to marry
correctly. The broader, more usual, dictates of
religion, such as worship of the gods and ethical
conduct, are not ignored, but they take a distinctly
secondary place. India has at all times put the
stamp of religion upon much that Europe counts as
social habit, or social institution. There is not, and
there seems never to have been, fixed creed in India.
Hinduism has always been tolerant, liberal, latitud-
inarian in matters of abstract belief; tyrannous,
illiberal, narrow-minded as regards such social prac-
tices as can be in any way connected with religion.
Fluidity of doctrine, rigidity of practice may be
regarded as the unspoken motto of Hindu religion
at all times.
8
Fortunately there are not wanting signs of a revul-
sion of feeling which bids fair to sweep the entire
system of caste with all its incredible foolishness off
the face of the earth. The great Hindu reformer
Raja Rammohun Roy declared as early as the year