Page:An Essay On Hinduism.pdf/151

The main distinction between a religion and the tradition of a tribe is that religion is a self-defined thing, and the followers are supposed to follow the religion as it is. In the case of a tribal tradition, the tribe is a self-defined object, and the tribal tradition is variable. It is what the tribe will make. The sampradāyas in course of time may become tribal traditions, in case the sampradāya restricts the membership and allows the ideas and traditions to change freely and openly. If they do so they cease to be sampradāyas or religions. On the other hand, if a tribe opens its doors to other people on their acceptance of the tradition of the theological doctrines and the worship of the tribe, then the tribe becomes a religion or theophratry.

A sampradāya or theophratry expands and produces a common culture among a large number of heterogeneous tribes. But that process is materially different from the process which led to the formation of Hinduism. In one case the different tribes are made to accept uniform ideas by a conscious effort, and the admission of the foreign individuals to the theophratry is made expressly on that condition. In the other case the unity of ideas, thoughts, and manners results from the intercourse, spread of literature, arts, etc., from a tribe which may have superiority in this matter over the sister-tribes.

The Christian world and the Mohamedan world are thus creations of the sampradāya method, and Hinduism is the creation of the other process.

Theophratries have some advantages over the unification brought by the process of contact which is a characteristic of Hinduism. They try to abolish uncompromisingly indigenous civilizations of the tribes, calling them Heathenism; and thus the amount of uniformity which they are