Volume 1 / Part 2 — PART II. (continued 2)

§ XII.—The Religion of the Ilahiahs.

Akbar was the greatest among the Moghul emperors of India. He began in his fourteenth year a reign environed by war and rebellion. After having vanquished all his enemies and established peace and security around him, he turned his attention to religion. He soon found it right to grant unlimited toleration to all religions in his empire. Called the “shade of God,” he took the resolution to realise in himself the otherwise vain title bestowed by slavish flattery upon all sovereigns of Asia, and to imitate, according to his faculties, him who bestows the blessings of his merciful providence on all creatures without distinction. This he declared to his fanatic son Jehangir, who did not conceal his discontent about the building of an Hindu temple in cxlviii Benares: “Are not,” said Akbar, “five-sixths of all mankind either Hindus or unbelievers? If I were actuated by motives similar to those which thou ownest, what would remain to me but to destroy them all?”

The inquisitive emperor was acquainted with the religious history of the Persian empire; he surrounded himself with men of all religions—Muhammedans of all sects, Hindus, Jews, and Christians, as well as with philosophers free from superstition; he liked to question them all, and to encourage public polemical discussions in his presence. The Sonnites and Shiâhs reviled reciprocally the chief personages of their adherence, the three first khalifs and Ali; Muhammed himself was not more spared than his companions and successors. The errors of their doctrine, the vices of their character, and the irregularities of their conduct were freely exposed, severely blamed, and wittily ridiculed. If Muhammedism was treated in such a manner, other religions could not claim more indulgence. The dramatic form, which Mohsan Fani gives to the religious controversies, is certainly curious; we can scarce suppose his having known the dialogues of Lucian, nor is it in the least probable that a late French author ever saw the Dabistán and took from this book the idea of the twenty-first chapter of his celebrated work, entitled “Problem of religious cxlix “contradictions.”[174] The object aimed at by these three authors was the same; but their compositions differ from each other as much as the genius and character of the Greeks, French, and Persians, in whose language each of them respectively wrote. In whatsoever point Mohsan Fani may yield to the Greco-Syrian, or to the French author, he, certainly, I will venture to say, equals them in force, boldness, and sincerity; and perhaps surpasses either in pointed application of truth. His objections are not vague attempts of witticism with the intention to ridicule: they are special and serious, directed to real and patent falsehood or prejudice; he does not fence with imaginary shadowy adversaries, but he strikes a present and tangible foe; his style, never tainted by affectation, is plain and blunt, such as becomes a reformer combating popular superstition. The controversies, the scene of which is placed before the throne, or rather tribunal, of Akbar, obtain the imperial sanction: Muhammedism is condemned.

Indeed, the emperor abrogated several practices of that religion to which he had been devoted in his first years; he confined the cultivation of science, as taken from the Arabs, to astronomy, geography, medicine, and philosophy, and cl wished to prevent the waste of life in futile and useless studies. At last, in the month of December, A. D. 1579, twenty-six years before his death, he substituted for the common profession of the Muhammedans the new: “There is no God but God, and Akbar his khalif (or deputy).” He received from a great number of Amirs and distinguished persons the voluntary agreement and consent to four conditions, namely, the sacrifice of property, life, reputation, and religion, by entering into the new religious pact, called Ilahi, “divine.” Moreover, he introduced in lieu of the former, a new era, to begin from the death of his father Huinayún, that is from the year of the Hejira 963, (A. D. 1555): it was to be called Ilahi; the months were regulated according to the mode of Irán, and fourteen festivals established in concordance with those of Zoroaster’s religion. It was to this ancient Persian creed, that he gave the preference, having been instructed in its sacred tenets and practices by a learned fire-worshipper who had joined him; and from books which were sent to him from Persia and Kirmán. He received the sacred fire, and committed it to the faithful hands of Abu’l fazil, his confidential minister: the holy flames of Zardusht blazed again upon the altars of Aria, and, after a separation of many centuries, Persians and Indians were reunited in a common worship.

cli As a proof of Akbar’s expansive mind, directed to all subjects which may interest mankind, I shall mention his having sequestered a number of children, before they could speak, from all communition with the rest of society, in order to know whether they would form a language. After fourteen years of seclusion, it was found that they were dumb: “which made it evident,” says Mohsan Fani, “that language and letters are not natural to man—that language is of a long date and the world very ancient.”[175]

In the third section of the tenth chapter, the author treats of the influences of the stars upon the nether world, a very ancient superstition, common to most nations. Every master of fame is said to have worshipped particularly one of the stars; Akbar also received divine commands with regard to them. We find, in a digression of this section, curious historical details respecting the person of Jangis khan, his adoration of the celestial bodies, epilepsy, and singular superstition of combs. The great conqueror addressed to his sons the most clii earnest admonitions to remain faithful to the religion of the stars, to which their fortune was attached; but fifty-three years after his death one of his successors and a great part of his nation embraced Muhammedism.

The fourth section of the tenth chapter contains important information upon the administration of India. Akbar was the first of the Moghul emperors who considered India as his native country, and directed his best efforts to the amelioration of its condition. Exalted to the highest rank, not only by his birth, but also by his personal acquirements; assisted, besides, by a train of devoted and enlightened servants, he could promise himself duration of the new religion, which he had fondly labored to found. In vain: it disappeared with him. Private persons, camel-drivers, and robbers, emerging from obscurity, such as Muhammed, and others before and after that Arabian leader, effected more than an emperor, with every possible advantage united in and around his person! Human intellect was perhaps then satiated with religion; its measure was full: it could not receive any more. In fact, after Muhammed a number of sects, but no new religion, arose: in this sense he may, with some appearance of truth, be called the last of prophets, or the Khátim, “the seal of prophetism.”

Akbar died in 1605 A. D., eight or ten years cliii before the birth of the author of the Dabistán. The latter passed his youth and manhood in India, under the reigns of that emperor’s son, Jehangir, and grand-son, Shah Jehan, and great-grandson Aurengzeb; and was in personal connection with the latter’s brother, the religious Darashukoh. Mohsan Fani had therefore good opportunities to be informed of the events of their days. The religion of the Ilahiahs is properly the last of which he treats; for what relates to the religions of the philosophers and Súfis, the subjects of the two last chapters, are rather selections of all creeds and opinions, than particular religions. It will be remembered that sir W. Jones supposed these two last chapters not to have been written by the author of the rest of the Dabistán, which I dare neither affirm nor deny.[176]

“Mutum ac turpe pecus — — — —

Donec Verba quibus voces sensusque notarent

Nominaque invenere.”

§ XIII.—The Religion of the Philosophers.

In the eleventh chapter, entitled “Of the religion of the Wise,” we find it repeated that Philosophers were divided into two great classes: “the Eastern and the Western.” The first are the Hushangians, teachers of the Greeks until the time of Plato and Aristotle; it is believed that their philosophy, cliv modified and refined, returned from Greece to Asia, and was received by the Muhammedan scholars to be adapted to their own creed. Then took place a singular mixture and confusion of Siderism, Judaism, Christianity, Muhammedism, and all sorts of philosophic opinions. The cosmology of the Hushangians was preserved. Seven special prophets, Ismâil, Jesus, Joseph, Enoch, Aaron, Moses, and Abraham, inhabit the seven heavens,[177] to begin from that of the Moon, which is the lowest, and rising upwards. If, in general, ten spheres are assumed,[178] they are made the dwellings of so many intelligences. These ideas, so clv ancient, as we have seen, were not disowned by eminent men in much later times. The great Kepler, and after him Reaumur, believed that intelligences or souls directed the movements of celestial bodies. Philosophers, struck with the marvellous order of nature, were adverse to admitting any mechanism—the very name of which frightened them; they therefore called all occult powers souls or spirits. The same idea is adopted in morality: whatever is praiseworthy is angelic, whatever blamable, satanic. From goodness arises an angel; from badness, a Satan: so said the prophet. Such simple and truth-like ideas were either originally disguised under the vest of fiction; or existing traditions of various origin were afterwards more or less ingeniously interpreted as allegories. Thus, the ordinary names, expressions, tenets, traditions, and practices of the Arabian prophet received symbolic, allegoric, mystic interpretations. The Kabah (the square temple of Mecca), the holy centre of a living, circumambulating world, becomes an emblem of the sun; its famous black stone, hollowed by the kisses of the pious, represents Venus, the bright star on the borders of heaven; paradise, its milk, honey, wine, Tuba (tree of beatitude), Hur and Kasur (nymphs and palaces) allude to intellectual delights; hell, its Zakum (tree of nature), and torments, are explained as unavoidable consequences of depravity. clvi Such interpretations of the Muhammedans seem often to be like their bridge Sirat, which connects heaven and hell, sharp as a razor and thin as a hair. Transmigration, or rather reproduction, is admitted, although not easily reconciled with the resurrection of the same body. The blasts of the trumpet, and the whole scene of the resurrection lose their materialism in a sort of rational allegory. The other world is the destruction and renovation of nature at the completion and renewal of great periods of time, one of which comprised 360,000 solar years. Resurrection is “the wakening from the sleep of heedlessness;” whenever an intellect attained that degree of perfection, it has returned to its origin; it is restored to life; this indubitably happens when nothing material exists: for, “where there is no body, there is no death.”

After having treated in this way the great dogmas of religion, the Muhammedan philosophers found it not more difficult to rationalise every circumstance respecting their prophet, he who obeyed the voice of an invisible speaker. Did Muhammed really split the moon? Not in the least—splitting is penetrating from the exterior into the interior; the fissure of the moon typifies nothing else but the renunciation of the external for the internal, which is “the superior wisdom;” who possessed it more than the prophet (the peace of God be with him!) clvii he, the master of the lunar sphere? This, with the Orientals, is the seat of human intelligence and perfection.[179] One of their greatest scholars, or as they say “the learned of the world,” known to us under the name of Avisenna, undertook to give a reasonable account of Muhammed’s ascent to heaven, and framed a wonderful romance of mystic spiritualism. He terminates by explaining how the prophet, after his return from such a journey, could find his bed-clothes still warm: “He had travelled with his mind, and when he had completed his mental task, returned back to himself, and in less than an eye’s twinkling recovered his former state; whoever knows, understands why he went; and whoever knows not, looks in vain for an explanation.”

We may, not without interest, observe the natural process of the human mind in reviewing and reforming conceptions, the original form of which is not seldom entirely obliterated. The author of the Dabistán does more than satiate the most inquisitive clviii reader with allegoric, now and then very fanciful, interpretations, which he continues, not without repetitions of the same subjects, through the subsequent chapter, upon which I am about to touch. Mohsan Fani, here as elsewhere, fails not to adduce several philosophers of more ancient as well as of his own times. Among the latter is Hakim Kamran, whose free and sound opinions, about the origin of societies and the prophets regulating them, will be read with some interest; as will also the account of the books which Kamran read and explained, whence the state of literature of those times may be inferred.

Planets: According to the Desatir. According to Muhammedan Authorities.

Saturn, Inhabited by Gilshaw. Inhabited by Abraham.

Jupiter, — Siamok. — Moses.

Mars, — Hushang. — Aaron.

The Sun, — Tahmuras. — Idris.

Venus, — Jemshid. — Joseph.

Mercury, — Feridun. — Jesus, St. John.

The Moon, — Minocheher. — Adam.

Sol la Pazzia non v’è poca, nè assai,

Chè stà quaggiù, nè se ne parte mai.

§ XIV.—The Religion of the Sufis.

We arrive at the last chapter, “Upon the Sufis;” the most abstruse of the twelve, but to which we are well enough prepared by the contents of the former.

Súfism, according to the Dabistán, belongs to all religions; its adherents are known, under different names among the Hindus, Persians, and Arabians; it appears to be nothing else but the rationalism of any sort of doctrine. It could never be the religion of a whole nation; it remained confined to the precincts of schools and societies.

clix In the work before us we find it stated, that the belief of the pure Súfis was the same as that of the Ashrakians (Platonists): we know what the Muhammedans have made of it. According to the Imám Koshairi, quoted by Jâmi,[180] the Muselmans, after Muhammed’s death, distinguished the eminent men among them by no other title but that of “the companions of God’s apostle.” These were, in the second generation, called Tábáyún, “followers.” Afterwards the Islamites were divided into divers classes; those among them who particularly devoted themselves to the practice of religion, were named “servants of God,” which name was, after the rise of numerous sects, claimed by some from among all the different sectaries. It was then that the followers of the orthodox doctrine, in order to preserve the purity of their faith and the strength of their piety, assumed the name of Súfis, which name became celebrated before the end of the second century of the Hejira, that is, before the year 815 of our era. We may believe one of the greatest scholars of Muhammedism, Ghazáli, who ranged himself among the Súfis of his time towards the end of our eleventh century, when he declares that in their society he found rest in believing one God, the prophet, clx and the last judgment: this is the faith of the orthodox Súfis.

The assumption of any particular name carries men, who so distinguish and separate themselves from their fellows, much further than they themselves at first intended, particularly when the distinction and separation are founded upon vague and indeterminate notions of metaphysics. Under the impression, that there are secrets upon which their salvation depends, they will stretch reason and imagination to penetrate them. The Súfis are divided, according to their own phraseology,[181] into three classes: “the attracted, the travellers,” and “the attracted travellers;” the last of whom combine the qualities of the two former. I will class them here, with respect to their doctrine and manners, into five orders.

1. The religious Súfis, in general, are occupied with something beyond the limits of our natural consciousness; they exercise to the utmost their inward organ or inner sense, and acquire a philosophic imagination—

Such was the prophetic gift of Muhammed, and as clxi long as they adhere to his sayings, they are the orthodox Súfis, whom I have already mentioned.

2. Another order endeavor to comprehend, to fix, and to explain the attributes of God; the holy object sanctifies their efforts; unattainable, it exalts their souls above themselves; incomprehensibility yields to the sacred power of self-intuition; mysterious darkness to celestial light; their intellect, no more terrestrial, “knows its own sun and its own stars;”[183] by continual mental excitement they produce in themselves (according to their own phraseology) a state of intoxication; in the full enjoyment of their liberty, they approach the Supreme Being, and finally fancy an intimate union with their Creator. These are the mystic Sufis.

Man, to express his most fervent adoration of the Divinity, uses the expressions by which he is wont to address the object of his most tender affections; he has but the fire of earth to kindle in sacrifice to heaven; and to elevate his soul to the Supreme Being, he makes wings of the most lively sentiments which he ever experienced, and can excite in himself. The intensity of inward feeling breaks loose in outward demonstrations, gesture, song, and dance—

clxii

Such in the poet’s eye is the dance of angels, but less refined must be that of mortals, and really one sort of it strangely contrasts with the usually grave deportment of bearded ample-robed Muselmans, from Muhammed, who gave the example, down to the Durvishes of our days, who, with frantic howls and vehement whirling motions, by ludicrous and unseemly exhibition, destroy the whole gravity of inward intention. Mohsan Fani adduces some instances of dancing, and quotes throughout his work verses of mystical poetry upon Divine love, in glowing expressions belonging to profane passion. It is known how equivocal in their meaning they appear in the works of Jelal eddin Rumi, Sâdi, Hafiz, and others.[185]

3. It was not always vehement enthusiasm which was nourished in the contemplation of one Supreme Being; mysticism, in Súfis of a milder character, became quietism: he to whom all things are one, who draweth all things to one, and seeth all things in one, may clxiii enjoy peace and rest of spirit. I have quoted the words of an English bishop, Jeremy Taylor, and might borrow similar passages from a more ancient Christian bishop, Synesius,[186] for expressing a sort of purely spiritual pantheism. But there is another, which seems not to exclude materialism: the great cause from which the infinite series of all material and spiritual existences originates, is enveloped, as it were, with the vest of the universe; never known as to its essence, but always felt in its manifestations; it is

In short, God is all, and all is God. This appeared not more incomprehensible, but less complicated than any other system to the pantheistical Súfis.

4. After excessive efforts to transcend the limits of his nature, the philosophic inquirer re-enters into himself, and coerces his futile attempts by the precept: “Know thyself.” Having, as it were, recovered himself, and feeling that every thing proceeds from the depth of his mind, he sees himself in every thing; heaven and earth are his own; “he demands from himself whatever he wishes;” for he is every thing; he finds the God whom he sought clxiv in himself, in his own heart, and says, “Who knows himself, knows God.” This is religious psychology, the creed of the egotist class of Súfis.

It is a fact which appears incredible, but is too well attested for the admission of a doubt, that Súfis believed themselves to be gods, and adhered to their belief, amid torments, until death.[188] This psychological fact may be explained by considering that, according to Súfism, God is nothing else but an idea of the highest perfection; he, says our author, from whose sight both worlds vanished, who in the steps of right faith arrived at the rank of perfect purity, from truth to truth, became God; that is, he became one with his own idea of perfection, which cannot be disputed to him; his divinity is an illusion, but nothing else to him is the world; it is all and nothing, dependent upon his own creation and annihilation.

V. Transacting as it were directly with the Divine Being, the Súfis throw off the shackles of the positive religion; pious rebels, they neither fast nor make pilgrimages to the temple of Mecca, nay, they forget their prayers; for with God there is no other but the soundless language of the heart. From excess of religion they have no religion at all. Thus is confirmed the trite saying that “extremes meet.” “The perfection of a man’s state,” says Jami, “and the utmost degree to which saints may attain, is to be without clxv an attribute, and without a mark.” The most fervent zeal sinks into the coldest indifference about religion. The author of the Dabistán declares positively,[189] that “whoever says that the Muselmans are above the Christians, does not know the true Being.” But the whole creed of an emancipated (this is the name I give to one belonging to the fifth order of Súfis) uniting in himself the egotist, pantheistic, and mystical Súfi will be found in the following verses of Jelal-eddin Rúmi, before mentioned:

[190]“O Moslims! what is to be done? I do not know myself; I am neither Jew, nor Christian, nor Gueber, nor Moslim; I am not from the East nor from the West; nor from land nor sea; neither from the region of nature nor from that of heaven; not from Hind nor China; not from Bulgaria nor Irak, nor from the towns of Khorassan. I am neither water nor dust, wind nor fire; not from the highest nor deepest, neither self-existent nor created; I am not from the two worlds, no son of Adam, not from hell nor from heaven, nor paradise. He is the first, the last, the interior, the exterior; I know but him, Yahu! Yahu! Menhu! I looked up, and saw both worlds to be one; I see but one—I seek but one—I know but one. My station is without space, my mark without impression; it is not soul nor body; I am the soul of souls. If I had passed one single day without thee, I would repent to have lived one single hour. When one day the friend stretches out his hand clxvi to me in solitude, I tread the worlds under my feet, and open my hands. O Shams Tabrizi,[191] I am so intoxicated here that, except intoxication, no other remedy remains to me.”

We know, by the preceding, what the Súfi is not; we shall now learn what he is.

“O Moslims! I am intoxicated by love in the world. I am a believer—an unbeliever—a drunken monk; I am the Shaikhs Bayazid, Shubli, Juneid, Abu Hanifa, Shafei, Hanbeli; I the throne and tent of heaven, from the dust up to the Pleyads; I am whatever thou seest in separation and enjoyment; I am the distance of two bows-length[193] around the throne; I am the Gospel, the Psalter, the Koran; I am Usa and Lat,[194] the cross, the Bál and Dagon,[195] the Kâbah, and the place of sacrifice. The world is divided into seventy-and-two sects, but there is but one God; the believer in him am I; I am the lie, the truth, the good, the evil, the hard and the soft, science, solitude, virtue, faith, the deepest pit of hell, the greatest torment of flames, the highest paradise, Huri, Risvan,[196] am I. What is the intent clxvii of this speech? Say it, O Shams Tabrizi! The intended meaning is: I am the soul of the world.”

After having sounded human nature in its depth, and viewed it in its various forms, the Muhammedan philosophers conceived a high idea of man in general, and call him insan kamil, “the perfect man.” He is the reunion of all the worlds, divine and naturaf, universal and partial; he the book, the pure, sublime, and venerable pages of which are not to be touched, nor can be comprehended, but by those who have thrown off the dark veils of ignorance. His soul is to his body what the universal soul is to the great world, which bears the name of “the great man.”

Sir William Jones refers,[197] for a particular detail of Súfi metaphysics and theology, to the Dabistán. These are given with a particular phraseology, for which it is not easy to find corresponding expressions in any European language; and which I have endeavored, to the best of my power, to explain in my notes. A particular signification is attached even to the most common terms, such as state, station, time, duration, existence, non-existence, possibility, presence, absence, testimony, sanctity, annihilation, etc., etc. Besides, we find particular divisions and classifications: different attributions clxviii and names of the Deity, the unity of which is to be preserved in all; the division of spirits, prophetism, true and false miracles, revelation, inspiration; four sorts of mankind, as many of life and death; seven degrees of contemplative life, in each of which degrees the Súfi sees a different color; four lights of God; four sorts of manifestations, the sign of which is annihilation, called “the science,” or “positive knowledge.” Further we meet with a metempsychosis for the imperfect soul, and an appearance for the perfect; even with a geography of the invisible, the land of shades in the towns of Jabilkha, Jabilsa, and Barzah, etc., etc.; and, in addition, manifo I pinions of Asiatic philosophy.

Here should be pointed out how Muhammedan or other Súfis may be confounded with the Hindu Yogis or Sanyásis, although in reality distinguishable from each other. The Yajur veda, and other sacred books of the latter inculcate the precept that a man ought to acquire perfect indifference concerning the whole exterior world, and in all places to lay aside the notion of diversity. This is what a Yogi or Sanyasi endeavors to attain: he quits every thing, house, wife, children, even his caste; the world has no more right upon him than he upon the world. In this he agrees with the Súfi; but the latter generally aspires to the divine gift of inspiration, prophetism, mystical enthusiasm, whilst the common clxix state of a Yogi is that of complete impassiveness or torpor.

It is only towards the end of the Dabistán that Mohsan Fani mentions particularly the Sabeans, whose religion was, from the very beginning of the work, treated of under different names of the ancient Persian religions, such as Yezdanians, Jamsaspians, etc., etc.

“— — — Solemque suum, sua sidera norunt.”

Æneis, c. VI. v. 641.

§ XV.—Recapitulation of the contents of the Dabistan.

Thus I have indicated the principal contents of the Dabistán. Considering the philosophic opinions touched upon, we may remark that truth, although in different times and places variously colored, veiled, sometimes mutilated, often running into falsehood, is nevertheless widely diffused, inasmuch as it reappears in the concurring declarations of the greatest thinkers of all times. Thus, among the notions of the Asiatics, we find implied the sense of the ἐντελέχεια (entelechia) of Aristotle, this untranslatable word,[198] which however can but signify “some continued clxx and perennial motion,[199] activity, moving force, perfection, principle of things”[200]—we find time and space, the necessary substrata of all our notions, as taught by the Kantians—the want of substantial reality in the objects of senses, maintained by the sceptics in general—the prototypes and ideas of the Pythagoreans and Platonists—the necessary connections of all things of the Stoics—the atomic doctrine of Moschus, Leucippus, Democritus, Empedocles, etc.—the universality of sensation and life of the Hermetites—the preformation and pre-existence of the soul, alleged by Synesius, Leibnitz, and others—the successive transformation, transmigration, gradual perfection of beings; the periodical renovation of the world professed by many Greek schools—the palingenesis of Bonnet—the one and the all of Parmenides, Plotinus, Synesius, Spinoza, not to omit the refined Egoismus of Fichte, etc., etc. I shall not proceed further in the enumeration of opinions ascribed in the Dabistán to different sects, and reproduced in the doctrine of clxxi celebrated ancient and modern philosophers of Europe. Who will realize that criterion of true philosophy indicated by the great Leibnitz, namely, that which would at once collect and explain the fragments of truth scattered through all, and apparently the most incongruous, systems?

This is perhaps the prize to be gained, not by one mortal, but by a series of generations, in a laborious task, so often interrupted and recommenced, but never abandoned. The struggle of the human mind is without term, but not without aim. We see two principal movers of human intellect—PHILOSOPHY and RELIGION. The one employs reason as a sufficient power for the solution of a solvable problem, which comprehends knowledge, morality, and civilisation. The other distrusts reason, and relies upon a supernatural power for the revelation of a secret, or for the word of an enigma, which relates to a destination beyond the bounds of this world. The philosopher, self-confident, is liable to error for various reasons; but always capable of correction and improvement, in the only possible way, that of self-activity, the virtuous exertions of his faculties towards attainable perfection in his whole condition. The religionist is exposed to deception by his gratuitous faith in superhuman guidance, and, if mistaken, is precluded from regress and improvement by his essential virtue, fidelity; clxxii that is, the pious surrender of his soul to a spiritual and mystical sovereignty. The Dabistán shows us more religionists than philosophers; it is the school of sects, or rather that of inveterate superstition, with which, in spite of the correctives which human nature affords to its errors, the general character of the Asiatics remains stamped, from time immemorial to the present day.

Although the twelve chapters of the Dabistán bear the titles of as many religions, the author says himself, at the end of his work, that there are only five great religions—those of the Hindus, Persians, Jews, Nazareans, and Muselmans. He no where mentions the Egyptians nor the Chinese, apparently because, in his times and long before, no trace of the Egyptian religion existed, although it certainly had once occupied a great circle of influence, and because the Chinese creed was known to be Buddhism.

The five religions mentioned constitute indeed so many bases, upon which the whole creed of mankind has been, and remains founded. They comprise, in general, polytheism and monotheism. In all times and places, the religion of the “Enlightened” was distinguished from that of the “Vulgar;” the first as interior, being the product of universal reason, was every where nearly uniform; the second, as exterior, being composed of particular and arbitrary clxxiii rites and ceremonies, varied according to the influence of the climate, and the character, history, and civilisation of a people. But, in the course of time, no religion remained entirely the same, either in principle or form. Polytheism, by mere simplification, tended to monotheism; this itself, in its awful incomprehensibility, was modified according as it originated, or assumed its notions, from anthropomorphism, hylozoism, spiritualism, or pantheism. Nor did any religion remain simple and pure, as proceeding from only one principle; all religious ideas, elemental, sidereal, allegorical, symbolical, mystical, philosophical, and others were mixed, as well as all sorts of worship interwoven. It is now impossible to range in chronological order their rise and transition into different forms. Still the one or the other of these kinds predominated: thus physiolatry, or “the adoration of personified nature,” in India; astrolatry, or “the worship of stars,” in Arabia and Iran; none of the religions entirely disclaimed monotheism, which was positively and exclusively professed in Judaism, Christianity, and Muhammedanism.

Magism and the three last-named religions were founded or modified by holy personages, or prophets, that is, by individuals whose historical existence in more or less remote times is positively fixed; Hinduism alone acknowledges Manu as an ideal clxxiv or mythological person, whose laws are however derived from Brahma himself. This may perhaps be assumed as a proof of its remotest antiquity; and India, having been less disturbed by invasions, and conquered in much later times by foreign nations, preserved its institutes complete in their originality. There is scarcely a tenet to be found in any other creed which does not, at least in its germ, exist in the Hindu religion.

It is most remarkable that, although men revered as divine messengers of religion have existed, still the works containing the heaven-sent doctrine are, either not at all or not incontestably, ascribed to them; and in any case devolved upon posterity in a more or less corrupted and mutilated state; so as to entail for ever an inexhaustible subject of dispute, a heavy task for belief, and severe trial of faith. If the Vedas are the best preserved, it is to no general purpose, inasmuch as they are the least known and most obscure. These facts the author of the Dabistán has set in full light, and says,[201] as it were to tranquillise mankind with regard to the multifarious inheritance of their prophets: “The varieties and multitudes of the rules of prophets proceed only from the plurality of names; and as in names there is no mutual opposition or contradiction, the superiority in rank among them is clxxv only the predominance of a name. To this I subjoin another passage, although it occurs in connection with another subject:[202] “The time of a prophet is a universal one, having neither priority nor posteriority—neither morning nor evening:” that is, if I understand these words: As the same sun ever shines upon us, so shines the same wisdom of all times, incorruptible in its divine source.

If we take a rapid comparative view of the principal features of the five religions mentioned, we find emanation of all beings, intellectual and material, from one great source, to be the fundamental and characteristic dogma of Hinduism, established and developed in the most explicit and positive manner. The division of supernatural beings in good and bad is adopted in the five religions, but in Magism it is of a somewhat different origin: for Ahriman and his host are not rebellious or fallen good genii; they are an original creation. A primitive innocence and posterior corruption is generally believed; but by the Hindus as coming from riches and abundance, by the other nations as caused by seduction of the bad spirits. The destruction of mankind by a deluge is no part of the Persian creed; it occurs in the Indian as one of the past periodical renovations of the world, which are to be followed by others, and is also admitted by the Persians, whilst the Jews, clxxvi Christians, and Muhammedans believe a deluge not very ancient, as a punishment of human depravity. Incarnations of the Deity for the benefit of mankind, are believed only by Hindus and Christians; to the latter belongs exclusively the dogma of a propitiatory sacrifice. Human souls, immaterial, have pre-existence according to the Vedas and the Zand-Avesta; in the first, as parts of the Divinity; in the latter, as created in their fervers, or “pre-established ideals” at the beginning of the world. Transmigration is taught in the sacred books of the Hindus and Persians. The immortality of the soul, reserved to future beatitude or damnation, is maintained generally, less positively, by the ancient Jews; the righteous are cheered by the prospect of the same heaven, the wicked threatened by the same punishments, which are held to be eternal by Christians and Muhammedans; the Hindus and Persians place the future life in a long series of purifications or purgatories, leading, howsoever late, finally to heaven, to which, according to the first, the most perfect only are admitted immediately after their terrestrial life, and are not to be born again, except by their own choice. The resurrection with the same body, and the last judgment, are among the most essential tenets of the Magi, Christians, and Muhammedans; the other world is vaguely represented among the ancient Hebrews. It is just to attribute to the Persians exclusively one clxxvii of the most beautiful personifications that was ever imagined:[203] the soul of the deceased meets at the bridge of eternity an apparition either of an attractive or repulsive form; “Who art thou?” asks the uncertain spirit, and hears the answer: “I am thy life.”

Although the variety and multitude of human conceptions may appear boundless, yet they may perhaps be reduced to a few fundamental principles. In general, there is one object common to all sorts of religion: this is to detach man from gross sensual matters, and to accustom him to hold converse with holy supernatural beings, guides to salvation, omnipresent witnesses of all his actions, remunerators of good, punishers of bad deeds; the belief in such beings, one or more, is in fact the most essential support of morality, which, being fixed in each individual, insures the peace and happiness of all. In short, the most important object of all religion is to ennoble, refine, and sanctify man’s inmost thoughts and feelings, as well as his exterior actions. No wonder, that the same virtues are recommended by all religions.

But, if these virtues be the same as to names, there is a great difference as to their practical application. Thus, the Hindus, tending excessively to the extinction of sensual propensities, and a contemplative clxxviii life, destroy spontaneity, and produce apathy. The Persians recommend more practical virtues. Both nations, however, as well as the Jews and Muhammedans, are subject to a great number of dietetical and ritual observances, which divert them from useful activity, confine their practical sense, and render inert the innate perfectibility, the most precious prerogative of mankind. Among all the Asiatic nations, considered in this work, theocracy, that is, the junction of the religious and civil laws, doubles the power of despotism, and commands equally the spiritual and material, the present and the future world. The Western Christians were in the course of time fortunate enough to modify the Asiatic morals, to enlarge the circle of civilization, and to open to themselves a boundless prospect of progressive knowledge, morality, and happiness.

Finally, there is one idea common as an adjunct to the five religions of mankind. Common are their failings, common their sufferings, common is also their consolation—hope. Always regretting a purity, simplicity, and independence, supposed to have been lost in the past, because not to be found any where in the present, and never exempt from oppression, men look to the future, and listen gladly to the promise of universal reform and restoration to one rule, which each religionist says, will be his own, clxxix to be effected among the Hindus by Kalki, an incarnation of Brahma[204], among the other nations by the reappearance of their respective prophet, Messiah, Mahdi.