Vol. 3 · pages 31–35

18 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES piety, for no amount of discussion can carry a man beyond the plain rule, to “fear God and keep His Commandments”. This counsel the author puts into the mouth of Solomon, and so represents it, not unjustly, as summing up the old view of religion, which in more modern days had unfortunately begun to be undermined.” The sixth point of difference relates to the place of belief in Religion. In ancient Society :-— “ritual and practical usages were, strictly speaking, the sum total of ancient religions. Religion in primitive times was not a system of belief with practical applications; it was a body of fixed traditional practices, to which every member of society conformed as a matter of courage. Men would not be men if they agreed to do certain things without having a reason for their action; but in ancient religion the reason was not first formulated as a doctrine and then expressed in practice, but conversely, practice preceded doctrinal theory. Men form general rule of conduct before they begin to express general principles in words; political institutions are older than political theories and in like manner religious institutions are older than religious theories. This analogy is not arbitrarily chosen, for in fact the parallelism in ancient society between religious and political institutions is complete. In each sphere great importance was attached to form and precedent, but the explanation why the precedent was followed consisted merely of legend as to its first establishment. That the precedent, once established, was authoritative did not appear to require any proof. The rules of society were based on precedent, and the continued existence of the society was sufficient reason why a precedent once set should continue to be followed.” The seventh point of difference relates to the place of individual conviction in Religion. In ancient Society:— “Religion was a part of the organised social life into which a man was born, and to which he conformed through life in the same unconscious way in which men fall into any habitual practice of the society in which they live. Men took the Gods and their worship for granted, just as they took the other usages of the state for granted, and if they reason or speculated about them, they did so on the presupposition that the traditional usages were fixed things, behind which their reasonings must not go, and which no reasoning could be allowed to overturn. To us moderns religion is above all a matter of individual conviction and reasoned belief, but to the ancients it was a part of the citizen’s public life, reduced to fixed forms, which

19 PHILOSOPHY OF HINDUISM he was not bound to understand and was not at liberty to criticise or to neglect. Religious non-conformity was an offence against the state; for if sacred tradition was tampered with the bases of society were undermined, and the favour of the Gods was forfeited. But so long as the prescribed forms were duly observed, a man was recognised as truly pious, and no one asked how his religion was rooted in his heart or affected his reason. Like political duty, of which indeed it was a part, religion was entirely comprehended in the observance of certain fixed rules of outward conduct.” The eighth point of difference pertains to the relation of God to Society and man, of Society to Man in the matter of God’s Providence. First as to the difference in the relation of God to Society. In this connection three points may be noted. The faith of the antique world “Sought nothing higher than a condition of physical bien etre... . The good things desired of the Gods were the blessings of earthly life, not spiritual but carnal things.” What the antique societies asked and believed themselves to receive from their God lay mainly in the following things: “Abundent harvests, help against their enemies and counsel by oracles or scoothsayers in matters of natural difficulty.” In the antique world “Religion was not the affair of the individual but of the Community.... It was the community, and not the individual, that was sure of the permanent and the unfailing hand of the deity.” Next as to the difference in the relation of God to man. “It was not the business of the Gods of heathenism to watch, by a series of special providences, over the welfare of every individual. It is true that individuals laid their private affairs before the Gods, and asked with prayers and views for strictly personal blessings. But they did this just as they might crave a personal boon from a king, or as a son craves a boon from a father, without expecting to get all that was asked. What the Gods might do in this way was done as a matter of personal favour, and was no part of their proper function as heads of the community.” “The Gods watched over a man’s civic life, they gave him his share in public benefits, the annual largess of the harvest and the vintage, national peace or victory over enemies, and so forth, but they were not sure helpers in every private need, and above all they would not help him in matters that were against the interests of the community as a whole. There was therefore a whole region of

20 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES possible, needs and desires for which religion could and would do nothing.” Next the difference in the attitude of God and Society to man. In the antique world Society was indifferent to individual welfare. God was no doubt bound to Society. But “The compact between the God and his worshippers was not held to pledge the deity to make the private cares of each member of the Community his own.” “The benefits expected of God were of a public character affecting the whole community, especially fruitful seasons, increase of flocks of herds and success in war. So long as community flourished the fact that an individual was miserable reflected no discredit on divine providence.” On the contrary the antique world looked upon the misery of a man as proof. “That the sufferer was an evil-doer, justly hateful to the Gods. Such a man was out of place among the happy and the prosperous crowd that assembled on feast days before the alter.” It is in accordance with this view that the leper and the mourner were shut out from the exercise of religion as well as from the privileges of social life and their food was not brought into the house of God. As for conflict between individual and individual and between society and the individual God had no concern. In the antique world: “It was not expected that (God) should always be busy righting human affairs. In ordinary matters it was men’s business to help themselves and their own kins folk, though the sense that the God was always near, and could be called upon at need, was a moral force continually working in some degree for the maintenance of social righteousness and order. The strength of this moral force was indeed very uncertain, for it was always possible for the evil-doer to flatter himself that his offence would be overlooked.” In the antique world man did not ask God to be righteous to him. “Whether in civil or in profane matters, the habit of the old world was to think much of the community and little of the individual life, and no one felt this to be unjust even though it bore hardly on himself. The God was the God of the nationl or of the tribe, and he knew and cared for the individual only as a member of the community.” That was the attitude that man in the antique world took of his own private misfortune. Man came to rejoice before his God and “in rejoicing before his God man rejoiced with and for the welfare of his kindred, his neighbours and his country, and, in renewing by

21 PHILOSOPHY OF HINDUISM a solemn act of worship the bond that united him to God, he also renewed the bonds of family, social and national obligation.” Man in the antique world did not call upon his maker to be righteous to him. Such is this other Revolution in Religion. There have thus been two Religious Revolutions. One was an external Revolution. The other was an internal Revolution. The External Revolution was concerned with the field within which the authority of Religion was to prevail. The Internal Revolution had to do with the changes in Religion as a scheme of divine Governance for human society. The External Revolution was not really a Religious Revolution at all. It was a revolt of science against the extra territorial jurisdiction assumed by Religion over a field which did not belong. The Internal Revolution was a real Revolution or may be compared to any other political Revolution, such as the French Revolution or the Russian Revolution. It involved a constitutional change. By this Revolution the Scheme of divine governance came to be altered, amended and reconstituted. How profound have been the changes which this internal Revolution, has made in the antique scheme of divine governance can be easily seen. By this Revolution God has ceased to be a member of a community. Thereby he has become impartial. God has ceased to be the Father of Man in the physical sense of the word. He has become the creator of the Universe. The breaking of this blood bond has made it possible to hold that God is good. By this Revolution man has ceased to be a blind worshipper of God doing nothing but obeying his commands. Thereby man has become a responsible person required to justify his belief in God’s commandments by his conviction. By this Revolution God has ceased to be merely the protector of Society and social interests in gross have ceased to be the centre of the divine Order. Society and man have changed places as centres of this divine order. It is man who has become the centre of it. All this analysis of the Revolution in the Ruling concepts of Religion as a scheme of divine governance had one purpose namely to discover the norm for evaluating the philosophy of a Religion. The impatient reader may not ask where are these norms and what are they? The reader may not have found the norms specified by their names in the foregoing discussion. But he could not have failed to notice that the whole of this Religious Revolution was raging around the norms for judging what is right and what is wrong. If he has not, let me make explicit what has been implicit in the whole of this discussion. We began with the distinction between antique society and

22 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES modern society as has been pointed out they differed in the type of divine governance they accepted as their Religious ideals. At one end of the Revolution was the antique society with its Religious ideal in which the end was Society. At the other end of the Revolution is the modern Society with its Religious ideal in which the end is the & individual. To put the same fact in terms of the norm it can be said that the norm or the criterion, for judging right and wrong in the Antique Society was utility while the norm or the criterion for judging right and wrong in the modern Society is justice. The Religious Revolution was not thus a revolution in the religious organization of Society resulting in the shifting of the centre—from society to the individual—it was a revolution in the norms. Some may demur to the norms I have suggested. It may be that it is a new way of reaching them. But to my mind there is no doubt that they are the real norms by which to judge the philosophy of religion. In the first place the norm must enable people to judge what is right and wrong in the conduct of men. In the second place the norm must be appropriate to current notion of what constitutes the moral good. From both these points of view they appear to be the true norms. They enable us to judge what is right and wrong. They are appropriate to the society which adopted them. Utility as a criterion was appropriate to the antique world in which society being the end, the moral good was held to be something which had social utility. Justice as a criterion became appropriate to the Modern World in which individual being the end, the moral good was held to be something which does justice to the individual. There may be controversy as to which of the two norms is morally superior. But I do not think there can be any serious controversy that these are not the norms. If it is said that these norms are not transcendental enough; my reply is that if a norm whereby one is to judge the philosophy of religion must be Godly, it must also be earthly. At any rate these are the norms I propose to adopt in examining the philosophy of Hinduism. II This is a long detour. But it was a necessary preliminary to any inquiry into the main question. However, when one begins the inquiry one meets with an initial difficulty. The Hindu is not prepared to face the inquiry. He either argues that religion is of no importance or he takes shelter behind the view—fostered by the study of comparative Religion—that all religions are good. There is no doubt that both these views are mistaken and untenable.