Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 54:216 (Oct 1897)
Article: Early Religion Of The Hindus
Author: Herbert William Magoun

BSac 54:216 (Oct 1897) p. 603

Early Religion Of The Hindus

H. W. Magoun

First Paper1

The religion of any people is not a thing to be easily mastered. The early religion of a heathen people is a matter which may well require careful and painstaking study if it is to be understood in any but the most superficial manner. The best that can be done, as a rule, in conducting an investigation of this kind, is to study all the objects of a religious nature that have come down to us; but, especially, to examine the religious literature, where such exists, and endeavor to comprehend what it meant to the people who used it.

This in itself is no easy task; for it means the shutting out of all extraneous ideas and the confining of the text

BSac 54:216 (Oct 1897) p. 604

strictly within its original bounds, so far as it is possible to do so. In other words, the investigator must put himself in the place of the heathen whose religion he wishes to become acquainted with, and must, for the time being, empty himself of all his modern ideas and standards; lest, in the course of his study, he read into the original that of which its authors and users never dreamed; for it must be remembered that there is a perspective in religion and in morals just as truly as in art.

To ignore in the slightest detail the laws of perspective may mar or even spoil an otherwise beautiful picture, and in a similar way the failure to perceive the true position in intellectual or moral space, so to speak, of any given fact may vitiate results which might otherwise be considered admirable. It is therefore evident that a mere knowledge of the religious literature of a people is not of itself sufficient; indeed, every possible means must be used at the very beginning to obtain a faithful picture of the people themselves, and even of their history and environment; for

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nothing which may enter as a factor into the final result can afford to be ignored.

In the case of the Hindus, the student has an unusually favorable field. The literature of the people, religious and otherwise, is enormous and reaches back indefinitely into the past: some have even placed parts of the sacred writings as early as 3500 B.C. In all of the literature, which has a distinct individuality of its own, the marvelous holds an important place: in fact, the Arabian Nights is so strikingly Indian in its construction and general character that many students of the Aryan tongues would not be surprised if a manuscript should some day be found in India which would go to show that the Arabian tale was simply an extension and adaptation of a Hindu story.<...