Part 5 (2/2)
We must not, however, suppress the fact that, under certain circ.u.mstances, a lie was allowed, or, at all events, excused by Indian lawgivers. Thus Gautama says:[76] ”An untruth spoken by people under the influence of anger, excessive joy, fear, pain, or grief, by infants, by very old men, by persons laboring under a delusion, being under the influence of drink, or by madmen, does not cause the speaker to fall, or, as we should say, is a venial, not a mortal sin.”[77]
This is a large admission, yet even in that open admission there is a certain amount of honesty. Again and again in the Mahabharata is this excuse pleaded.[78] Nay, there is in the Mahabharata[79] the well-known story of Kau_s_ika, called Satyavadin, the Truth-speaker, who goes to h.e.l.l for having spoken the truth. He once saw men flying into the forest before robbers (dasyu). The robbers came up soon after them, and asked Kau_s_ika, which way the fugitives had taken. He told them the truth, and the men were caught by the robbers and killed.
But Kau_s_ika, we are told, went to h.e.l.l for having spoken the truth.
The Hindus may seem to have been a priest-ridden race, and their devotion to sacrifice and ceremonial is well known. Yet this is what the poet of the Mahabharata dares to say:
”Let a thousand sacrifices (of a horse) and truth be weighed in the balance--truth will exceed the thousand sacrifices.”[80]
These are words addressed by _S_akuntala, the deserted wife, to King Dushyanta, when he declined to recognize her and his son. And when he refuses to listen to her appeal, what does she appeal to as the highest authority?--_The voice of conscience._
”If you think I am alone,” she says to the king, ”you do not know that wise man within your heart. He knows of your evil deed--in _his_ sight you commit sin. A man who has committed sin may think that no one knows it. The G.o.ds know it and the old man within.”[81]
This must suffice. I say once more that I do not wish to represent the people of India as two hundred and fifty-three millions of angels, but I do wish it to be understood and to be accepted as a fact, that the damaging charge of untruthfulness brought against that people is utterly unfounded with regard to ancient times. It is not only not true, but the very opposite of the truth. As to modern times, and I date them from about 1000 after Christ, I can only say that, after reading the accounts of the terrors and horrors of Mohammedan rule, my wonder is that so much of native virtue and truthfulness should have survived. You might as well expect a mouse to speak the truth before a cat, as a Hindu before a Mohammedan judge.[82] If you frighten a child, that child will tell a lie; if you terrorize millions, you must not be surprised if they try to escape from your fangs. Truthfulness is a luxury, perhaps the greatest, and let me a.s.sure you, the most expensive luxury in our life--and happy the man who has been able to enjoy it from his very childhood. It may be easy enough in our days and in a free country, like England, never to tell a lie--but the older we grow, the harder we find it to be always true, to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. The Hindus too had made that discovery. They too knew how hard, nay how impossible it is, always to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
There is a short story in the _S_atapatha Brahma_n_a, to my mind full of deep meaning, and pervaded by the real sense of truth, the real sense of the difficulty of truth. His kinsman said to Aru_n_a Aupave_s_i, ”Thou art advanced in years, establish thou the sacrificial fires.” He replied: ”Thereby you tell me henceforth to keep silence. For he who has established the fires must not speak an untruth, and only by not speaking at all, one speaks no untruth. To that extent the service of the sacrificial fires consists in truth.”[83]
I doubt whether in any other of the ancient literatures of the world you will find traces of that extreme sensitiveness of conscience which despairs of our ever speaking the truth, and which declares silence gold, and speech silver, though, in a much higher sense than our proverb.
What I should wish to impress on those who will soon find themselves the rulers of millions of human beings in India, is the duty to shake off national prejudices, which are apt to degenerate into a kind of madness. I have known people with a brown skin whom I could look up to as my betters. Look for them in India, and you will find them, and if you meet with disappointments, as no doubt you will, think of the people with white skins whom you have trusted, and whom you can trust no more. We are all apt to be Pharisees in international judgments. I read only a few days ago in a pamphlet written by an enlightened politician, the following words:
”Experience only can teach that nothing is so truly astonis.h.i.+ng to a morally depraved people as the phenomenon of a race of men in whose word perfect confidence may be placed[84].... The natives are conscious of their inferiority in nothing so much as in this. They require to be taught rect.i.tude of conduct much more than literature and science.”
If you approach the Hindus with such feelings, you will teach them neither rect.i.tude, nor science, nor literature. Nay, they might appeal to their own literature, even to their law-books, to teach us at least one lesson of truthfulness, truthfulness to ourselves, or, in other words, humility.
What does Ya_gn_avalkya say?[85]
”It is not our hermitage,” he says--our religion we might say--”still less the color of our skin, that produces virtue; virtue must be practiced. Therefore let no one do to others what he would not have done to himself.”
And the laws of the Manavas, which were so much abused by Mill, what do they teach?[86]
”Evil-doers think indeed that no one sees them; but the G.o.ds see them, and the old man within.”
”Self is the witness of Self, Self is the refuge of Self. Do not despise thy own Self, the highest witness of men.”[87]
”If, friend, thou thinkest thou art self-alone, remember there is the silent thinker (the Highest Self) always within thy heart, and _he_ sees what is good and what is evil.”[88]
”O friend, whatever good thou mayest have done from thy very birth, all will go to the dogs, if thou speak an untruth.”
Or in Vasish_th_a, x.x.x. 1:
”Practice righteousness, not unrighteousness; speak truth, not untruth; look far, not near; look up toward the highest, not toward anything low.”
No doubt there is moral depravity in India, and where is there no moral depravity in this world? But to appeal to international statistics would be, I believe, a dangerous game. Nor must we forget that our standards of morality differ, and, on some points, differ considerably from those recognized in India; and we must not wonder if sons do not at once condemn as criminal what their fathers and grandfathers considered right. Let us hold by all means to _our_ sense of what is right and what is wrong; but in judging others, whether in public or in private life, whether as historians or politicians, let us not forget that a kindly spirit will never do any harm. Certainly I can imagine nothing more mischievous, more dangerous, more fatal to the permanence of English rule in India, than for the young civil servants to go to that country with the idea that it is a sink of moral depravity, an ants' nest of lies; for no one is so sure to go wrong, whether in public or in private life, as he who says in his haste: ”All men are liars.”
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 17: Mill's ”History of British India,” ed. Wilson, vol. i., p. 375.]
[Footnote 18: Keshub Chunder Sen is the present spiritual director of the Brahmo Sama_g_, the theistic organization founded by the late Rammohun Roy.--A. W.]
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