Shakti and Shâkta : essays and addresses on the Shâkta Tantrashâstra

SHAKTI AND SHAKTA

rubbish fulfilling no useful purpose whatever: only adding to the general burden of existence borne by Humanity in its struggle for existence.” In another it is said to be “a weltering chaos of terror, darkness, and uncertainty.” It is a religion without the apprehension of a moral evolution, without definite commandments, without a _ religious sanction in the sphere of morals, without a moral code and without a God: such so-called God, as there is, being “a mixture of Bacchus, Don Juan and Dick Turpin.” It is there further described as the most material and childishly superstitious animalism that ever masqueraded as idealism ; not another path to God but a pit of abomination as far set from God as the mind of man can go; staggering the brain of a rational man; filling his mind with wild contempt for his species and which has only endured “because it has failed.” Except for the purpose of fanatical polemic, one would assume that the endurance of a faith was in some reasure the justification of it. It is still more wonderful to learn from this work (“ The Light of India” written by Mr. Harold Begbie and published by the Christian Literature Society for India) that out of this weltering chaos of all that is ignominious, immoral and crassly superstitious, come forth men who (in the words of the author) “standing at prayer startle you by their likeness to the pictures of Christ —eyes large, luminous and tranquil—the whole face exquisite with meekness and majestic with spirit.” One marvels how these perfect men arise from such a worthless and indeed putrescent source. This absurd picture was highly coloured in a journalistic spirit and with a purpose. In other cases, faulty criticism is due to supercilious ignorance. As another writer says (the italics are mine) “For an Englishman to get a plain statement of what Brahmanism really means is far from easy. The only wonder is that people who have to live on nine pence a week, who marry when they are ten years old, are prevented from caste life from rising out of what is often, if not 36