History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c95.321

v7.c95.321

Long before MacNicol wrote and since his days numerous Western scholars brought up in Christian surroundings have expressed their view that the ancient Indian doctrine as regards man's destiny after death is far more preferable to Biblical ideas on the same subject. It is enough to refer to only two or three authors. Arberry in his 'Asiatic Jones' quotes (p. 37) from Sir William Jones' letter to Earl Spencer the following passage 'I am no Hindu, but I hold the doctrine of the Hindus concerning a future state to be incomparably more rational, more pious and more likely to deter men from vice, than the horrid opinions inculcated by Christians on punishments without end'. Lowes Dickinson in 'Religion and Immortality' (Dent and Sons, 1911) observes (on p. 74) 'it is really a consoling idea that our present capacities are determined by our previous actions and that our present actions again will determine our future character'. Owen Rutter, author of 'the scales of Karma' (London, 1925) says that Christianity has failed to solve the intellectual and moral problems which beset those who live in the complexities of the modern world, that he began to study the doctrine of Karma and reincarnation seven years before he wrote the book, which is a personal statement rather than an essay on Karma (pp. 12-13). Many who have written against this doctrine, while conceding that the Upaniṣadic doctrine is an ancient and serious attempt to solve the problem of injustice and evil in the world, call it a weak one and beset with difficulties. One should like to ask, what systems of religion and philosophy are not beset with difficulties? One may take the Christian doctrines for example. To all non-Christians (and to several Christians also in modern times) its doctrine of original sin, its damnation of unbaptized infants, of predestination deduced from 'the' belief that God is an Omniscient and Omnipotent Creator of heaven and earth appear strange and unjustified. L. T. Hobhouse in 'Morals in Evolution' part II (1906) pp. 130 ff points out how all systems with a personal God, particularly Christianity, are beset with difficulties, such as making the problem of evil urgent, eternal punishment for a great sinner in one life suggestive of a moral impossibility, the inescapable conclusion that all men, however good, that did not or could not or do not believe in Christ and are not members of the Christian Church by baptism are irrevocably doomed. That Christianity is unique and that Christians are God's chosen people are beliefs which would make God appear quite unjust and therefore some Christian writers like Prof. Toynbee in 'Christianity among the religions of the world' (Oxford Un. Press, 1958) have begun to urge that Christianity must be purged of such beliefs (pp. 13 and 95).