t, and to the cult of Buddhism again succeeded the glorification of
ancient Hinduism and now also apologies of Hinduism as it is; and to
Madras as chief centre of Theosophy succeeded Benares, metropolis of
Hinduism. Mrs. Besant proclaimed herself the reincarnation of some
ancient Hindu pandit, and called upon Hindus to devote themselves to the
study of the Sacred Sanscrit. Supported by many well-to-do Hindus, in
1900 she founded a college at Benares in which Hinduism might be lived
and inculcated as Christianity is inculcated in the Indian Missionary
Colleges. In the beginning of 1904 a great figure of the goddess
Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of Learning, was being erected in the
grounds of the College. The subordination of the Indian Theosophical
Society, at least in the person of Mrs. Besant, to the pro-Hindu
national movement may be pronounced complete. In the sphere of religion,
this new Indian consciousness which has enveloped the Theosophists is a
force opposed to change and reform. The Theosophical Society, which at
the outset professed to be the nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood, is
now fostering caste and Hindu exclusiveness, the antitheses of the idea
of humanity. Yet, as we shall see, even in the text-books of Hindu
Religion prepared for use in the Hindu College, Benares, Christian
thought is not difficult to discover. And its meed of praise must not be
withheld from the attempts of Theosophists and the Hindu College,
Benares, to rationalise current Hindu customs and to reduce the chaos of
Hindu beliefs to some system that will satisfy New India. Fain would the
Theosophists propound, as we have already noted in the chapter, "New
Social Ideas," that caste should be determined by character and
occupation, not by birth. That being impossible, they would fain see the
myriad of castes reduced to the original four named in Manu. To quote
again the summing up regarding the caste system in the chief Hindu
text-book referred to--"Unless the abuses which are interwoven with caste
can be eliminated, its doom is certain." That is much from the leaders
of the Hindu reaction. In Hinduism they may often see only what they
wish to see, but they are not wholly blinded.

The Theosophists, it should be noted, do not figure as such in the
Census. Indian Christians, Brahmas, and [=A]ryas have all taken up a
definite new position in respect of religion, and ticket themselves as
such; the Theosophists are now at least mainly the ap