And history has a way of repeating itself. Luther appeared when his appearance and bold championship of what he conceived to be the Truth, were badly needed. Daya Nanda appeared in India, when it was time that the stagnant pools of a decadent tradition must be troubled. Both had great strength of will, tenacity of purpose, personal magnetism of an extraordinary kind, and a bold, far reaching vision. Both had their conception of truth, limited by the theological pre-conceptions peculiar to their respective epochs and countries, and both made a dash forward in the direction of progress and achieved a considerable measure of emancipation.
" Yesterday was the four-hundredth anniversary," says The Times Literary Supplement of ist November, 1917, " of a religious action which convulsed the whole life of Europe and started movements which have revolutionised the course of history. On the eve of All Saints' Day, 1517, an Augustinian monk, who was also an influential professor in the young University of Wittenberg, in Saxony, affixed to the door of the University Church of All Saints ninety five theses, or propositions ' from love and zeal for the elucidation of truth.' " No less startling and epoch-making was the day when Swami Daya Nanda Saraswati, fearlessly proclaimed, on November 17th, 1879, before a vast assemblage of Hindus, presided over by the Maharajah of Benares, that polytheism was a monstrous fraud devised by priests that were blind leaders of the blind ; that caste, that iniquitous system that has lain like an incubus on social relations in India, was originally designed to be only a scientific division of labour on the basis of inherited and developed skill,and on the various aptitudes that people respectively acquired ; that ancient Hindu women were free and equals of men, entitled to respect, honour and the fullest use of their oppor tunities ; that only those could be called priests that were pure, learned and industrious ; that social degradation was possible only by reason of wasted talent and atrophied powers ; that social elevation to the highest caste of the twice-born was open, even according to Manu's Dharama Shastra to the meanest of pariahs ; that India's downfall was owing to her disloyalty to her splendid heritage ; that the path of salvation lay along a restored loyalty to the priceless revelations of truth as embodied in the Vedas.
The people listened with tense interest. Priests had mustered in strength from all parts of India, men of renown and vast erudition, whose very names were uttered with bated breath. Grammarians and schoolmen too, that never tired of verbal jugglery and the infinite conjugations of sacred verbs. It was, indeed, an ordeal by battle, the unpopular David meeting the Goliaths of the old order in mortal combat, confident that on his heroic stand hung the issues of the day. A good deal of hair-splitting distinctions were made as also a brave display of sham learning.
Amid ridicule and jeers, the verdict of the assembly was given against the enthusiastic reformer. His enemies made an open show of his supposed defeat when he stumbled upon some phrases, in an attempt to give a reply that might have silenced their clamour.
He was given no time ; so with loud acclaims of victory, the throng left the vanquished hero.
There are very interesting side-issues which might be profitably discussed perhaps in another book such as : What part has idolatry played in moulding the Hindu tradition ? Is it possible to conceive of idolatry as " the outward symbol of an inward grace " and as part of the Hindu's artistic heritage, quite apart from religious considerations ? Does the Hindu worshipper when he bows down before an idol, consciously pay homage to the idol as if it were to him a god in its own essence, by its own virtue, so to speak, or only as a symbol reflecting one or more of the numerous attributes of divinity ? The elaborate ritual and the extremely fascinating though complicated ceremonial of both the Roman and High Anglican Churches might possibly suggest points of affinity, however remote or far-fetched the affinity, with Hindu rites. Is it desirable to retain the one as artistic accompaniments to religious worship, as the paraphernalia of outward, co-operate devotion, and at the same time to denounce even the less gross and more pardonable forms of idolatry as debasing, in the name, both of rationalism and pure, undefiled religion ? But, quite obviously, the above issues are altogether beyond the scope of the present book, which deals with outstanding facts and forces, and views these facts and forces, and passes judg ments on their result according as they make the convergence towards national solidarity easier or else thwart and hamper unification.