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The Ninth Lesson: The Religions of India. Part I.1295
countless religious sects and cults, with their hair-splitting points of doctrinal
difference; also the schools of the agnostics, or those who hold that Truth is
Unknowable; the Skeptics whose business it is to deny and refute all that the
others claim, without offering any theory of interpretation of their own; also
the school of Charvakas or Materialists, whose teachings are akin to those of
the Western Materialistic school; also representatives of the Buddhists, who
are dying out in central India, but who have some ten millions of followers in
Burmah and adjacent sections, and a number in the Himalayas and Thibet;
and all respecting the opinions of the others, and not attempting to interfere
with them or to restrain their activities. India has never offered the religious
reformer or heretic the stake; the scaffold; the cross; the dungeon; as the
reward for his energy. While the Mohammedans proselyted by the sword
and spear, and destroyed their enemies as the grasshoppers destroy the
fields of grain before them—while Christianity, contrary to the teachings of
The Master who founded it, punished heresy and schism by the most cruel
methods and practices, even to-day in Western lands there being boards of
Heresy-Hunters in the churches, and punishers of unbelievers and infidels
among the people—”heathen” India has maintained perfect freedom of
religious conscience and worship throughout all the many centuries of her
history, and has always met the new-comer, not with sword, fire or gibbet,
but with argument, free-discussion, and earnest thought, friendly rivalry,
and striving for success in gaining followers.
Among the Hindus the words “Hinduism,” and “Brahminism” are never
used in connection with their Universal Religion, in its many forms. The word
“Hindu” was applied to the people of India by the Persians and Greeks, the
term having its origin in the name of the “Sindu” or “Indus” River. The natives
of India called themselves Aryans, or Aryas, the name of their original race.
They also resent the term “Brahminism,” which was given to their religious
system by the missionaries, who held that it was the religion of the “Brahmins”
or native priests, while the Hindus claim that it existed long before the days
of priests and was divine in its origin, having no founder, no special creed,