Quakers in rejecting all externals. These
singular features are connected with the ascendancy of the Brahman
caste. The Brahmans are an interesting social phenomenon without exact
parallel elsewhere. They are not, like the Catholic or Moslem clergy, a
priesthood pledged to support certain doctrines but an intellectual,
hereditary aristocracy who claim to direct the thought of India whatever
forms it may take. All who admit this claim and accord a nominal
recognition to the authority of the Veda are within the spacious fold or
menagerie. Neither the devil-worshipping aboriginee nor the atheistic
philosopher is excommunicated, though neither may be relished by average
orthodoxy.

Though Hinduism has no one creed, yet there are at least two doctrines
held by nearly all who call themselves Hindus. One may be described as
polytheistic pantheism. Most Hindus are apparently polytheists, that is
to say they venerate the images of several deities or spirits, yet most
are monotheists in the sense that they address their worship to one god.
But this monotheism has almost always a pantheistic tinge. The Hindu
does not say the gods of the heathen are but idols, but it is the Lord
who made the heavens: he says, My Lord (Rama, Krishna or whoever it may
be) is all the other gods. Some schools would prefer to say that no
human language applied to the Godhead can be correct and that all ideas
of a personal ruler of the world are at best but relative truths. This
ultimate ineffable Godhead is called Brahman[7].

The second doctrine is commonly known as metempsychosis, the
transmigration of souls or reincarnation, the last name being the most
correct. In detail the doctrine assumes various forms since different
views are held about the relation of soul to body. But the essence of
all is the same, namely that a life does not begin at birth or end at
death but is a link in an infinite series of lives, each of which is
conditioned and determined by the acts done in previous existences
(karma). Animal, human and divine (or at least angelic) existences may
all be links in the chain. A man's deeds, if good, may exalt him to the
heavens, if evil may degrade him to life as a beast. Since all lives,
even in heaven, must come to an end, happiness is not to be sought in
heaven or on earth. The common aspiration of the religious Indian is for
deliverance, that is release from the round of births and repose in some
changeless state called by such name