Shakti and Shâkta : essays and addresses on the Shâkta Tantrashâstra

SHAKTI AND SHAKTA

Mahommedanism. Not that all these are purely Semitic. Christianity became in part Aryanised when it was adopted by the Western Aryans, as also happened with Mahommedanism when accepted by such Eastern Aryans as the Persians and the Aryanised peoples of India.

Thus Sufiism is either a form of Vedanta or indebted to it. The general Indian religion or Bharata Dharma holds that the world is an Order or Cosmos. It is not a Chaos of things and beings thrown haphazard together, in which there is no binding relation or rule. The worldorder is Dharma, which is that by which the universe is upheld (Dharyate). Without Dharma it would fall to pieces and dissolve into nothingness. But this is not possible, for though there is Disorder (Adharma), it exists, and can exist only locally, for a time, and in particular parts of the whole. Order however will and, from the nature of things, mst ultimately assert itself. And this is the meaning of the saying that Righteousness or Dharma prevails. This is in the nature of things, for Dharma is not a law imposed from without by the Ukase of some Celestial Czar. It is the nature of things; that which constitutes them what they are (Svalakshanadh4ranat Dharma). It is the expression of their true being and can only cease to be, as regards them, when they themselves cease to be. Belief in righteousness is then in something not arbitrarily imposed from without by a Law-giver, but belief in a Principle of Reason which all men can recognise for themselves if they will. Again Dharma is not only the law of each being but necessarily also of the whole, and expresses the right relations of each part to the whole. This whole is again harmonious, otherwise it would dissolve. The principle which holds it together as one mighty organism is Dharma. The particular Dharma calls for such recognition and action in accordance therewith. Religion, therefore, which etymologically means that which obliges or binds together, is in its most fundamental sense the recognition

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