Vol. 3 · pages 96–100

83 PHILOSOPHY OF HINDUISM individual recognizes the right or chooses the good, and freely devotes himself heartily to its fulfilment. He does not merely accept what is inevitable or follow what is approved by society. He values and chooses the end and becomes personally responsible. His is reflective morality. On what level does Hindu morality stand ? Obviously it is not on the third level. This means that a Hindu is social but not moral in the strict sense of the term. A Hindu takes no responsibility for the ends he serves. He is a willing tool in the hands of his society, content to follow. He is not a free agent not afraid to differ. His notions of sin give remarkable proof of his unmoral character. Institutes of Vishnu gives a list of sins which are divided into nine classes:— 1. Deadly sins— atipataka. These are certain forms of incest, to be atoned for only by burning. 2. Great sins— mahapataka. These are killing a Brahman, drinking spirituous liquor, stealing the gold of a Brahman, connexion with a Guru’s wife; also social intercourse with those guilty of such sins. 3. Minor sins of a similar character— anupataka. These include the killing of certain other classes of persons, giving false evidence and killing a friend, stealing lands or deposits of a Brahman, certain forms of incest and adultery. 4. Minor sins— upapataka. Sins of false statement, neglect of certain religious duties, adultery, unlawful occupation, offences connected with marrying before an elder brother &c, not paying one’s debts to the Gods, and manes, atheism & c. 5. Sins effecting loss of caste— jatibramsakara. Causing bodily pain to a Brahman, smelling things which should not be smelt, dishonest dealing, certain unnatural crimes. 6. Sins which degrade to a mixed caste— samkarikarana. Killing domestic or wild animals. 7. Sins which render one unworthy to receive alms—apatrikarana. Receiving presents and alms from despicable persons, trade, money— lending, lying, serving a Shudra. 8. Sins causing defilment— malavaha. Killing birds, amphibious animals, and aquatic animals, worms and insects; eating nutmegs or other plants similar in their effects to intoxicating liquors. 9. Miscellaneous sins— prakirnaka. Those not already mentioned. This list of sins is not exhaustive but it, is long enough and illustrative enough to give us the idea which underlies the Hindu notion of Sin. In the first place it connotes the fall of man from a prescribed form of conduct. In the second place it means to be defiled, to become unclean. This is the root meaning of the term Patak. It

84 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES means Patana (falling away) and it means Asowcha (being rendered unclean). In either case sin according to Hindu notion is a desease of the soul. In the first sense it is merely breach of a rule of external conduct. In the other sense it is a defilement of the body to be cleaned and purified by both or by pilgrimage or by sacrificial offering. But it is never the spiritual defilement which is associated with the harbouring of evil thoughts and purposes. This shows the morality of the Hindu is purely social. This means that the level of his morality is purely traditional and customary. There are two evils of customary morality. In the first place there is no surety that it will always be charged with sincerity and purity of motive. For it is only when morality penetrates to the deepest springs of purpose and feeling in the individual that pretense will cease to find a place in human behaviour. In the second place customary morality is an anchor and a drag. It holds up the average man and holds back the man who forges ahead. Customary morality is only another name for moral stagnation. This is true of all cases where morality is only customary morality. But the customary morality of the Hindus has an evil feature which is peculiar to it. Customary morality is a matter of meritorious conduct. Ordinarily this meritorious conduct is something which is good from the general or public point of view. But among the Hinduism the meritorious conduct is not concerned with the worship of God or the general good of community. Meritorious conduct in Hinduism is concerned with the giving of presents, of good and of honour to the Brahmins. Hindu Ethics is worship of the superman. What difference would it have made if I had taken Hindu Ethics as the basis for deducing the philosophy of Hinduism ? Most students of Hinduism forget that just as in Hinduism there is no difference between law and Religion so there is no difference between law and ethics. Both are concerned with the same thing namely regulating the conduct of the low class Hindus to subserve the ends of high Caste Hindus. Thirdly it will be objected that I presented an altogether false picture of Hinduism in as much as I have omitted to take into account the Upanishads which are the true source of Hindu philosophy. I admit that I have not taken the Upanishads into account. But I have a reason and I believe very good reason for doing so. I am concerned with the philosophy of Hinduism as a part of the philosophy of Religion. I am not concerned with Hindu philosophy. If I was, it would have been necessary to examine the Upanishads. But I am quite willing to deal with it so as to leave no doubt that what I have shown to be the philosophy of Hinduism is the philosophy of Upanishads.

85 PHILOSOPHY OF HINDUISM The philosophy of the Upanishads can be stated in very few words. It has been well summarized by Huxley 1 when he says that the Upanishd philosophy agreed:— “In supposing the existence of a permanent reality, or ‘substance’, beneath the shifting series of phenomena, whether of matter or of mind. The substance of the cosmos was’ Brahma’, that of the individual man ‘Atman’; and the latter was separated from the former only, if I may so speak, by its phenomenal envelope, by the casing of sensations, thoughts and desires, pleasures and pains, which make up the illusive phantasmagoria of life. This the ignorant, take for reality; their ‘Atman’ therefore remains eternally imprisoned in delusions, bound by the fetters of desire and scourged by the whip of misery. Of what use is this philosophy of the Upanishadas ? The philosophy of the Upanishadas meant withdrawal from the struggle for existence by resort to asceticism and a destruction of desire by self mortification. As a way of life it was condemned by Huxley 2 in scathing terms:— “No more thorough mortification of the flesh has ever been attempted than that achieved by the Indian ascetic anchorite; no later monachism has so nearly succeeded in reducing the human mind to that condition of impassive quasi-somnambulism, which, but for its acknowledged holiness, might run the risk of being confounded with idiocy.” But the condemanation of the philosophy of the Upanishads is nothing as compared to the denunciation of the same by Lala Hardyal 3:— “The Upanishads claim to expound ‘that, by knowing which everything is known’. This quest for ‘the absolute’ is the basis of all the spurious metaphysics of India. The treatises are full of absurd conceits, quaint fancies, and chaotic speculations. And we have not learned that they are worthless. We keep moving in the old rut; we edit and re-edit the old books instead of translating the classics of European social thought. What could Europe be if Frederic Harrison, Brieux, Bebel, Anatole France, Herve, Haekel, Giddings, and Marshall should employ their time in composing treatises on Duns, Scotus and Thomas Aquinas, and discussing the merits of the laws of the Pentateuch and the poetry of Beowulf ? Indian pundits and graduates seem to suffer from a kind of mania for what is effete and antiquated. Thus an institution, established by progressive men, aims at leading our youths through Sanskrit grammar to the Vadas 1 Evolution and Ethics, p. 63. 2 Evolution and Ethics p. 64 3 Modern Review. July. 1912.

86 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES via the Six Darshanas! What a false move in the quest for wisdom! It is as if a caravan should travel across the desert to the shores of the Dead Sea in search of fresh water! Young men of India, look not for wisdom in the musty parchments of your metaphysical treatises. There is nothing but an endless round of verbal jugglary there. Read Rousseau and Voltaire, Plato and Aristotle, Haeckel and Spencer, Marx and Tolstoi, Ruskin and Comte, and other European thinkers, if you wish to understand life and its problems.” But denunciations apart, did the Upanishad philosophy have any influence on Hinduism as a social and political system? There is no doubt that it turned out to be most ineffective and inconsequential piece of speculation with no effect on the moral and social order of the Hindus. It may not be out of place to inquire into the reasons for this unfortunate result. One reason is obvious. The philosophy of Upanishad remained incomplete and therefore did not yield the fruit which it ought to have done. This will be quite clear if one asks what is the key-note of the Upanishads. In the words of Prof. Max Muller 1 the key note of the Upanishads is ‘Know thy Self”. The ‘Know thy Self of the Upanishads, means, know thy true Self, that which underlies thine ego and find it and know it in the highest, the eternal self, the One without a Second, which underlies the whole world.” That Atman and Brahman were one was the truth, the great truth which the Upanishads said they had discovered and they asked man to know this truth. Now the reasons why the philosophy of Upanishads, became ineffective are many. I will discuss them elsewhere. At this place I will mention only one. The philosophers of Upanishads did not realize that to know truth was not enough. One must learn to love truth. The difference between philosophy and religion may be put in two ways. Philosophy is concerned with knowing truth. Religion is concerned with the love of truth. Philosophy is static. Religion is dynamic. These differences are merely two aspects of one and the same thing. Philosophy is. static because it is concerned only with knowing truth. Religion is dynamic beause it is concerned with love of truth. As has been well said by Max Plowman 2:— “....... Unless religion is dynamic and begets in us the emotion of love for something, then it is better to be without any thing that we can call religion; for religion is perception of truth and if our perception of truth is not accompanied by our love for it then it were better not seen at all; The Devil himself is one who has seen 1 Hibbert lectures 1878. p. 3I7. 2 “The Nemesis of Ineffectual Religion”— Adelphi, January 1941.

87 PHILOSOPHY OF HINDUISM the truth only to hate it. Tennyson said “We must love the highest when we see it”. It does not follow. Seen in pure objectivity the highest repels by its difference and distance; what we fear it, and what we fear we come to hate ......” This is the fate of all treanscendal philosophies. They have no influence on the way of life. As Blake said “ Religion is politics and politics is Brotherhood. Philosophy must become Religion that is it must become a Working Ethic. It must not remain mere metaphysics. As Mr. Plowman says— “If religion were a Metaphysic and nothing else, one thing is certain, it would never be the concern of the simple and humble men. “To keep it wholly in the realm of Metaphysic is to make nonsense of it. For belief in religion as in something not directly and vitally effective of politics is ultimately belief that is strictly speaking idiotic; because in the effective sense such a belief makes no difference, and in the world of time and space what ‘makes no difference’ does not exist.” It is for these very reasons that the philosophy of the Upanishads proved so ineffective. It is therefore incontrovertible that notwithstanding the Hindu Code of Ethics, notwithstanding the philosophy of the Upanishads not a little not a jot did abate from the philosophy of Hinduism as propounded by Manu. They were ineffective and powerless to eraze the infamy preached by Manu in the name of religion. Notwithstanding their existence one can still say “Hinduism! Thy name is inequality!” V Inequality is the soul of Hinduism. The morality of Hinduism is only social. It is unmoral and unhuman to say the least. What is unmoral and unhuman easily becomes immoral, inhuman and infamous. This is what Hinduism has become. Those who doubt this or deny this proposition should examine the social composition of the Hindu Society and ponder over the condition of some of the elements in it. Take the following cases. First as to the Primitive Tribes. In what state of civilization are they ? The history of human civilization includes the entire period of human progress from Savagery to Barbarism and from Barbarism to Civilization. The transition from one to other has been marked by