PHILOSOPHY OF HINDUISM 19
he was not bound to understand and was not at liberty to criticise or to neglect. Religious non-conformity was an offence against the state; for if sacred tradition was tampered with the bases of society were undermined, and the favour of the Gods was forfeited. But so long as the prescribed forms were duly observed, a man was recognised as truly pious, and no one asked how his religion was rooted in his heart or affected his reason. Like political duty, of which indeed it was a part, religion was entirely comprehended in the observance of certain fixed rules of outward conduct.”
The eighth point of difference pertains to the relation of God to Society and man, of Society to Man in the matter of God’s Providence.
First as to the difference in the relation of God to Society. In this connection three points may be noted.
The faith of the antique world
“Sought nothing higher than a condition of physical bien etre... . The good things desired of the Gods were the blessings of earthly life, not spiritual but carnal things.” What the antique societies asked and believed themselves to receive from their God lay mainly in the following things:
“Abundent harvests, help against their enemies and counsel by oracles or scoothsayers in matters of natural difficulty.”
In the antique world
“Religion was not the affair of the individual but of the Community.... It was the community, and not the individual, that was sure of the permanent and the unfailing hand of the deity.”
Next as to the difference in the relation of God to man.
“It was not the business of the Gods of heathenism to watch, by a series of special providences, over the welfare of every individual. It is true that individuals laid their private affairs before the Gods, and asked with prayers and views for strictly personal blessings. But they did this just as they might crave a personal boon from a king, or as a son craves a boon from a father, without expecting to get all that was asked. What the Gods might do in this way was done as a matter of personal favour, and was no part of their proper function as heads of the community.”
“The Gods watched over a man’s civic life, they gave him his share in public benefits, the annual largess of the harvest and the vintage, national peace or victory over enemies, and so forth, but they were not sure helpers in every private need, and above all they would not help him in matters that were against the interests of the community as a whole. There was therefore a whole region of