Page:An Essay On Hinduism.pdf/173

Hindu world what the religions gave to the Western world. Ideas on epistemology, theology and other philosophies were given by religions to Europe, while India had all these without the sampradāya. For the same reasons Christianity and Mohamedanism have failed to eradicate the Indian philosophy and thought. Each of these foreign sampradāyas has absorbed men from the ignorant multitude, but the former did not appeal to the intellectual class, as the latter regard these religions as merely tribal and inconsistent cults with nothing new that is valuable. As the sampradāya system has failed, some new system needs to be devised.

But what is the cause of this lack of integration? First of all, a philosophy which could teach the people to absorb tribes and nations into one strong nation was lacking. It has been shown that Hinduism did not produce any idea of nationality. They had only one conception of unity above the conception of jāti, and it was the conception of humanity. They had a conception of welding the whole of humanity into one people, divided into a hierarchy of four varṇas or classes, with the Brāhmaṇas at the top. This was their theory of the social ideal, but the way in which it worked was to create a society in India and in neighbouring countries, such as the islands in the Indian Ocean in Further India, perpetuating a number of castes hierarchically superposed, with the Brāhmaṇa at the top. The Brāhmaṇas' ideal was not to maintain castes but to maintain four varṇas or, if possible, only two varṇas, namely, Brāhmaṇas and the Shūdras. But this ideal has failed. The status of a Shūdra has not been flattering enough for all castes to lose their individuality under the name Shūdra.

Until the rise of Mohamedanism and the immigration of