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THEOSOPHY IS DIFFERENTLY PERCEIVED IN WEST AND EAST


In this article William Judge indicates the difference how theosophy is perceived by Westerners and Orientals.
 
The Rev. Mr. Ashburner, in the Independent of a recent date, indulged in very congratulatory reflections upon the collapse in India of theosophy since the learned report of the London Psychical Research Society. Mr. Ashburner styles himself. a missionary to the heathen of the blessed religion of Jesus the Jew, and pleasantly supposes that because the London expert, in a truly British style, declares that Madame Blavatsky invented the Mahatmas and adepts, therefore the Hindus will now abandon this new delusion called theosophy.
 
This idea, although ridiculous, leads us to a point which ought to be cleared up in our inquiry into the cultivation of theosophy in Hindustan. Theosophy presents itself in one aspect to the Hindu, and in quite a different one to the European and American.
 
In this country and in Europe, the doctrines which have filtered out to the world, through theosophical literature, seem to us new. They are in fact quite novel to us, so they color our conception of what theosophy is, representing themselves to us to be theosophy. And, as we have nothing in our past, in our literature, or in our ideas like them, it is quite natural that an ignorant missionary, learned in Christian rhetoric, should imagine, when a reputable Englishman declares the Mahatmas to have been evolved from Blavatsky’s brain, that therefore there are no Mahatmas, because his first knowledge of them came from her.
 
Even the learned Swedenborg, who saw many things clearly, did not speak of these great Beings. He only said that, “if the Freemasons desired to find the lost word, they must search for it in the deserts of Tibet.” However, he did not explain himself; and our only conclusion must be, that in some way he found out that in Tibet exist persons who are so far advanced in knowledge that they are acquainted with that much-sought-for lost word.
 
 
The aspect in which theosophy presents itself to the Oriental is quite different from our appreciation of it. He sees in it that which will help him to inquire into his own religion and philosophy. The numerous books which have issued from our various presses here, would make him laugh in their endeavors to lay before readers, subjects which, with him, have been household words for ages.
 
If Marion Crawford’s novels, Mr. Isaacs, and Zoroaster, were respectively translated into Persian and Sanskrit or Singhalese, the Hindus, Ceylonese, and Parsees would burst with laughter at such struggling with an ancient plot, as if it were new.
 
So a thousand reports of the Psychical Society would not for an instant shake the faith of Hindus that there are Mahatmas. The word is a common one, derived from two others (Maha and Atma) meaning together Great Soul. In some parts of India, it grew so common, in the lapse of centuries, that now and then it is used in derision of blusterers or those who are given to placing themselves on a pinnacle.
 
Many Hindus have told me of various Mahatmas whom they had heard of in various parts of India. One lived on an island, another in a forest, another in a cave, and so on.
 
In Bombay, a Hindu related to me a story, whether false or true I know not, of a man whose wife was dying. In despair, he went into the forest where a Mahatma was said to live, and had the happiness to meet a man of calm and venerable aspect. Convinced that this was the one he had heard of, he implored him to cure his wife. The sage repulsed him; and, in sorrow, he returned home, to find that the wife had suddenly completely recovered at the time when he had been refused by the sage. Next day, he returned to the forest to offer thanks, but the so-called Mahatma had disappeared.
 
This is only one of a thousand such stories, many of them being filled in with details of a highly sensational character, and all of them very old. The very children know that their forefathers believed in Mahatmas or Arhats or Rishees, or whichever be the name, all meaning the same.
 
If, then, we assume, as some malignant persons have asserted, that Blavatsky, aided by Olcott, introduced this cult into India with a design of mere personal aggrandizement, it must be further admitted that they displayed a deep knowledge of Indian life and manners in thus adopting the Mahatmas. But neither of them can be proved to have been in India before 1878. Certainly, Olcott had, up to that year, to my certain knowledge, but a limited knowledge of the subject.
 
Yet at the same time there were many Brahmins who had about given up beliefs in Mahatmas now; for they said, “This is Kali Yuga (the dark age), and no Mahatmas will work with men until the next yuga.” So, of course, they, while thoroughly appreciating the object which theosophy had in the revivification of Aryan thought, remained agnostics as to Arhats and Mahatmas being in the society.
 
Others had never lost their faith in them; and a great body of Hindus, unknown before the advent of the society, for years had had personal knowledge of those great beings, had been in their company, and now have, in several instances, publicly declared their belief. Some of these declarations are contained in protests published in India, deprecating the constant degradation of the names of their teachers. To this last class belonged a Brahmin friend of mine, who said to me, in Central India, “I have been for fifteen years personally convinced of the existence of Mahatmas, and have had messages from them.”
 
And the class of agnostics mentioned above, is fitly described in a letter, now in print, from a Brahmin holding an official position, running thus:
 
“Many of my friends, out of sheer love to me, take me to task for being a member of the Theosophical Society. ... Theosophy means “a science of divine things.” ... The society has no Pope, no Grand Lama, no Saviour, no Mohammed, no Buddha, no Sankara Chariar, no Ramanuja Chariar, no Madhwa Chariar. ... It is a society for the inculcation of universal brotherhood and its actual practice. Of this society I am a member, and shall continue one so long as the object of the society is not changed, whether I be blamed or pitied or loved in consequence.”
 
Among this class of men, then, the society was hailed as a benefactor just as soon as they became convinced by deeds of the founders, that it was not another European trick for acquiring money, or territory, or power. And, in consequence of the old-time knowledge of the various doctrines which seem new to the Western mind, the Hindu section of our society regards theosophy as a power which has begun to make it respectable once more to be an Aryan who believes in Aryan literature.
 
It rose upon the devoted minds of India as a lamp which would help them and their fellows to unearth the ancient treasures of the golden age, and has now become, for even the young men who had begun to follow the false gods of English money and English culture, a society, the initials of which, “F.T.S.” (Fellow of the Theosophical Society) can be appended to their names as an honorable title.
 
(Boston Index, June 3, 1886; Echoes III, p.129-132)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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