cent Hindu historian supplies. In a different
context altogether, he declares: "The doctrine of bhakti (Faith) now
rules the Hindu to the almost utter exclusion of the higher and more
intellectual doctrine of gnan (Knowledge of the Supreme Soul)." The
conception of the all-comprehending impersonal Brahma has, indeed, lost
vitality; for the educated also the externals of the popular religion
have lost their significance and become puerile. But for them also, the
objects of popular bhakti, Ram and Krishna, are as much epical as
religious heroes. Hinduism needs an object of bhakti for her educated
people. The fact explains several of the novel religious features of the
past half-century. The great jogi, Buddha, although not a brahman, was
rediscovered as a religious hero for Hindus; at the commencement of the
century he was a heretic to the brahmans. "The head of a sect inimical
to Hinduism," the great Rammohan Roy calls him. So Sir Edwin Arnold's
_Light of Asia_ had a great vogue some twenty years ago. Then Krishna
has had his life re-written and his cult revived--purged of the old
excesses of the Krishna-bhakti. More recently, Chaitanya, the religious
teacher in Bengal in the fifteenth century, has been adopted by certain
of the educated class in Bengal as an object of bhakti. Here, it seems
to me, is found the place of Christ in the mind of educated India. They
are fairly familiar now with the story of the New Testament, and Jesus
Christ stands before them as the supereminent object of bhakti; and I
venture to say is generally regarded as such, although comparatively few
as yet have adopted the bhakti attitude towards Him. The _Imitatio
Christi_, however, is a well-known book to the spiritually minded among
the educated classes. India has advanced beyond the cold, intellectual,
Unitarian appreciation of Jesus Christ that marked the early Br[=a]hma
and Pr[=a]rthan[=a] Sam[=a]j movements and manifested itself in their
creeds in express denial of any incarnation. For Br[=a]hma worship, I
have seen the hymn, "Jesus, lover of my soul," transformed into "Father,
lover of my soul." Hindus of the newer bhakti attitude to Christ would
find no difficulty in singing the hymn as Christians do, provided the
doctrinal background be not obtruded upon them. Sober faith has dawned,
and will formulate itself by and by.

CHAPTER XXI

CONCLUSION

"Draw the curtain close,
And let us all to meditation."

SHAKESPEARE, _Hen.