Vol. 3 · pages 26–30

13 PHILOSOPHY OF HINDUISM into two, antique society and modern society, so that instead of speaking of the religion of the civilized society it becomes necessary to speak of the religion of antique society as against the religion of modern society. The religious revolution which marks off antique society from modern society is far greater than the religious revolution which divides savage society from civilized society. Its dimensions will be obvious from the differences it has brought about in the conceptions regarding the relations between God, Society and Man. The first point of difference relates to the composition of society. Every human being, without choice on his own part, but simply in virtue of his birth and upbringing, becomes a member of what we call a natural society. He belongs that is to a certain family and a certain nation. This membership lays upon him definite obligations and duties which he is called upon to fulfil as a matter of course and on pain of social penalties and disabilities while at the same time it confers upon him certain social rights and advantages. In this respect the ancient and modern worlds are alike. But in the words of Prof. Smith 1:— “There is this important difference, that the tribal or national societies of the ancient world were not strictly natural in the modern sense of the word, for the gods had their part and place in them equally with men. The circle into which a man was born was not simply a group of kinsfolk and fellow citizens, but embraced also certain divine beings, the gods of the family and of the state, which to the ancient mind were as much a part of the particular community with which they stood connected as the human members of the social circle. The relation between the gods of antiquity and their worshippers was expressed in the language of human relationship, and this language was not taken in a figurative sense but with strict literality. If a god was spoken of as father and his worshippers as his offsprings, the meaning was that the worshippers were literally of his stock, that he and they made up one natural family with reciprocal family duties to one another. Or, again, if the god was addressed as king, and worshippers called themselves his servants, they meant that the supreme guidance of the state was actually in his hands, and accordingly the organisation of the state included provision for consulting his will and obtaining his direction in all weighty matters, also provision for approaching him as king with due homage and tribute. “Thus a man was born into a fixed relation to certain gods as surely as he was born into relation to his fellow men; and his 1 Smith Ibid

14 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES religion, that is, the part of conduct which was determined by his relation to the gods, was simply one side of the general scheme of conduct prescribed for him by his position as a member of society. There was no separation between the spheres of religion and of ordinary life. Every social act had a reference to the gods as well as to men, for the social body was not made up of men only, but of gods and men.” Thus in ancient Society men and their Gods formed a social and political as well as a religious whole. Religion was founded on kinship between the God and his worshippers. Modern Society has eliminated God from its composition. It consists of men only. The second point of difference between antique and modern society relates to the bond between God and Society. In the antique world the various communities “believed in the existence of many Gods, for they accepted as real the Gods of their enemies as well as their own, but they did not worship the strange Gods from whom they had no favour to expect, and on whom their gifts and offerings would have been thrown away…. Each group had its own God, or perhaps a God and Goddess, to whom the other Gods bore no relation whatever.” 1 The God of the antique society was an exclusive God. God was owned by and bound to one singly community. This is largely to be accounted for by “the share taken by the Gods in the feuds and wars of their worshippers. The enemies of the God and the enemies of his people are identical; even in the Old Testament ‘the enemies of Jehovah’ are originally nothing else than the enemies of Israel. In battle each God fights for his own people, and to his aid success is ascribed; Chemosh gives victory to Moab, and Asshyr to Assyria; and often the divine image or symbol accompanies the host to battle. When the ark was brought into the camp of Israel, the Philistines said, “Gods are come into the camp; who can deliver us from their own practice, for when David defeated them at Baalperazim, part of the booty consisted in their idols which had been carried into the field. When the Carthaginians, in their treaty with Phillip of Macedon, speak of “the Gods that take part in the campaign, “they doubtless refer to the inmates of the sacred tent which was pitched in time of war beside the tent of the general, and before which prisoners were sacrificed after a victory. Similarly an Arabic poet says, “Yaguth went forth with us against Morad” ; that is, the image of the God Yaguth was carried into the fray” Smith Ibid

15 PHILOSOPHY OF HINDUISM This fact had produced a solidarity between God and the community. “Hence, on the principle of solidarity between Gods and their worshippers, the particularism characteristic of political society could not but reappear in the sphere of religion. In the same measure as the God of a clan or town had indisputable claim to the reverance and service of the community to which he belonged, he was necessarily an enemy to their enemies and a stranger to those to whom they were strangers”. 1 God had become attached to a community, and the community had become attached to their God. God had become the God of the Community and the Community had become the chosen community of the God. This view had two consequences. Antique Society never came to conceive that God could be universal God, the God of all. Antique Society never could conceive that there was any such thing as humanity in general. The third point of difference between ancient and modern society, has reference to the conception of the fatherhood of God. In the antique Society God was the Father of his people but the basis of this conception of Fatherhood was deemed to be physical. “In heathen religions the Fatherhood of the Gods is physical fatherhood. Among the Greeks, for example, the idea that the Gods fashioned men out of clay, as potters fashion images, is relatively modern. The older conception is that the races of men have Gods for their ancestors, or are the children of the earth, the common mother of Gods and men, so that men are really of the stock or kin of the Gods. That the same conception was familiar to the older Semites appears from the Bible. Jeremiah describes idolaters as saying to a stock, Thou art my father; and to a stone, Thou hast brought me forth. In the ancient poem, Num. xxi. 29, The Moabites are called the sons and daughters of Chemosh, and at a much more recent date the prophet Malachi calls a heathen woman “the daughter of a strange God”. These phrases are doubtless accommodations to the language which the heathen neighbours of Israel used about themselves. In Syria and Palestine each clan, or even complex of clans forming a small independent people, traced back its origin to a great first father; and they indicate that, just as in Greece this father or progenitor of the race was commonly identified with the God of the race. With this it accords that in the judgment of most modern enquirers several names of deities appear in the old genealogies of nations in the Book of Genesis. Edom, 1Smith Ibid

16 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES for example, the progenitor of the Edomites, was identified by the Hebrews with Esau the brother of Jacob, but to the heathen he was a God, as appears from the theophorous proper name Obededom, “worshipper of Edom”, the extant fragments of Phoenician and Babylonian cosmogonies date from a time when tribal religion and the connection of individual Gods with particular kindreds was forgotten or had fallen into the background. But in a generalised form the notion that men are the offspring of the Gods still held its ground. In the Phoenician cosmogony of Philo Bablius it does so in a confused shape, due to the authors euhemerism, that is, to his theory that deities are nothing more than deified men who had been great benefactors to their species. Again, in the Chaldaean legend preserved by Berosus, the belief that men are of the blood of the Gods is expressed in a form too crude not to be very ancient; for animals as well as men are said to have been formed out of clay mingled with the blood of a decapitated deity.” 1 This conception of blood kinship of Gods and men had one important consequence. To the antique world God was a human being and as such was not capable of absolute virtue and absolute goodness. God shared the physical nature of man and was afflicted with the passions infirmities and vices to which man was subject. The God of the qntique world had all the wants and appetites of man and he often indulged in the vices in which many revelled. Worshipers had to implore God not to lead them into temptations. In modern Society the idea of divine fatherhood has become entirely dissociated from the physical basis of natural fatherhood. In its place man is conceived to be created in the image of God; he is not deemed to be begotten by God. This change in the conception of the fatherhood of God looked at from its moral aspect has made a tremendous difference in the nature of God as a Governor of the Universe. God with his physical basis was not capable of absolute good and absolute virtue. With God wanting in righteousness the universe could not insist on righteousness as an immutable principle. This dissociation of God from physical contact with man has made it possible for God to be conceived of as capable of absolute good and absolute virtue. The fourth point of difference relates to the part religion plays when a change of nationality takes place. In the antique world there could be no change of nationality unless it was accompanied by a change of Religion. In the antique world, 1Smith Ibid

17 PHILOSOPHY OF HINDUISM “It was impossible for an individual to change his religion without changing his nationality, and a whole community could hardly change its religion at all without being absorbed into another stock or nation. Religions like political ties were transmitted from father to son; for a man could not choose a new God at will; the Gods of his fathers were the only deities on whom he could count as friendly and ready to accept his homage, unless he forswore his own kindred and was received into a new circle of civil as well as religious life.” How change of religion was a condition precedent to a Social fusion is well illustrated by the dialogue between Naomi and Ruth in the Old Testament. “Thy Sister” says Naomi to Ruth, “is gone back unto her people and unto her Gods” ; and Ruth replies, “Thy people shall be my people and thy God my God.” It is quite clear that in the ancient world a change of nationality involved a change of cult. Social fusion meant religious fusion. In modern society abandonment of religion or acceptance of another is not necessary for social fusion. This is best illustrated by what is in modern terminology and naturalization, whereby the citizen of one state abandons his citizenship of the state and becomes a citizen of a new state. In this process of naturalization religion has no place. One can have a social fusion—which is another name for naturalization—without undergoing a religious fusion. To distinguish modern society from antique society it is not enough to say that Modern Society consists of men only. It must be added that it consists of men who are worshippers of different Gods. The fifth point of difference relates to the necessity of knowledge as to the nature of God as part of religion. “From the antique point of view, indeed the question what the Gods are in themselves is not a religious but a speculative one; what is requisite to religion is a practical acquaintance with the rules on which the deity acts and on which he expects his worshippers to frame their conduct—what in 2 Kings xvii. 26 is called the “manner” or rather the “customary law” (misphat) of the God of the land. This is true even of the religion of Israel. When the prophets speak of the knowledge of the laws and principles of His government in Israel, and a summary expression for religion as a whole is “the knowledge and fear of Jehovah,” i.e. the knowledge of what Jehovah prescribes, combined with a reverent obedience. An extreme scepticism towards all religious speculation is recommended in the Book of Ecclesiastes as the proper attitude of