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The Religion of the Veda
so-called religion in India: Brahmanical hierarchy,
sacerdotalism, asceticism, caste; infinitely diversified
polytheism and idolatry; cruel religious practices;
and bottomless superstition. All this the higher
Hindu religions, or rather religious philosophies,
blow away as the wind does chaff. In their view such
religiosity is mere illusion or ignorance, to save from
which is their profession. But they can save only
the illumined of mind. On the real life of India the
great philosophies are merely a thin film. Anyhow
they have not as yet penetrated down to the Hindu
people, and we may question whether India's salva-
tion will come that way, rather than through the
growth of social and political intelligence which so
gifted a people is sure, in the long run, to obtain.
The student of the History of Religions has good
reason to think of India as the land of religions in
yet another sense. Not only has India produced
out of its own mental resources many important
religions and theosophic systems, but it has carried
on these processes continuously, uninterrupted by
distracting outside influences. The Moghul con-
quests in Northern India introduced Mohammedan-
ism to a limited extent, and Mohammedanism fused
with Hinduism in the hybrid religion of the Sikhs.
A small number of Zoroastrian Parsis, driven from
Persia during the Mohammedan conquest, found
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