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BELIEF OF THE HINDOOS

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Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · Sep 11, 1879

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 5, No. 35.

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BELIEF OF THE HINDOOS.

To-day the doctrine of the soul's immortality is not universally nor even generally believed, though it has been industriously propagated for over two thousand years, from the time of the school of Plato down to that of the modern theological seminaries. Nearly the whole of the Asiatic nations reject it, and hold to the total annihilation of all souls! That this is not merely my assertion will be seen from the following testimonies, all from men who hold to the immortality of the soul. Mr. Watson's testimony will not be questioned. Hear him:—
"With us, this [the doctrine of the soul's immortality] is a matter of general belief; but not so with the generality of either ancient or modern pagans. The same darkness which obscured the glory of God, proportionately diminished the glory of man,—his true and proper immortality. The very ancient notion of an absorption of souls back again into the divine Essence was with the ancients what we know it to be now in the metaphysical system of the Hindoos, a denial of individual immortality; nor have the demonstrations of reason done anything to convince the other grand division of metaphysical pagans into which modern heathenism is divided, the followers of Buddha who believe in the total annihilation of both men and gods after a series of ages,—a point of faith held probably by the majority of the present race of mankind." (Theol. Inst., vol. i. part i. chap. iv. p. 22.)
This is a valuable testimony, especially coming from one who is such good authority. This alone gives a majority at the present day against the doctrine of the soul's immortality.
Mr. Davy says: "The religion of Buddha is more widely extended than any other religion. It appears to be the religion of the whole of Tartary, China, Japan, and their dependencies, and of all the countries between China and the Brahmapootra. . . . They appear to be materialists in the strictest sense of the term, and to have no notion of pure spirit or mind. . . . Ordinary death is merely a change of form, and this change is almost infinite, and bounded only by annihilation, which they esteem the acme of happiness." (Ibid.)
Then a majority of the race are materialists, instead of immortal-soulists!
Our next witness is that candid author, Henry Howe. He writes: "Boodhism, the religion of Burmah, has the greatest number of disciples of any on the globe, among whom is half of the people of China, Laos, Cochin China, and Ceylon; all of Cambodia, Siam, Burmah, Thibet, Tartary, and Loo-Choo; and a great part of Japan, and most of the islands of the Southern seas." (Travels of Celebrated Travelers, p. 596.)
"Existence and sorrow are declared to be necessary concomitants; and therefore 'the chief end of man' is to finish this eternal round of changes, and be annihilated. The great doctrines of this faith are five; viz., 1. The eternal existence of the universe and all things; 2. Metempsychosis; 3. Nicban, or annihilation," etc. (Travels of Celebrated Travelers, pp. 597, 598.)
Of this religion, Alger says, "It is the basis and motive of the most extensive disbelief of individual immortality the world has known." (Future Life, part v. chap. viii. p. 615.) Kœpen, in his work on the "Religion of Buddha," says, "Buddhism is the gospel of annihilation." (Ibid., part ii. chap. vi. pp. 111-127.)
In the Methodist of April 16, 1870, Bishop Thomson publishes a sermon in which he says: "As to the existing systems of India, China, and Japan, Hindooism, Confucianism, and Buddhism are all, as every intelligent man knows, decaying and ready to perish, without satisfying the wants of mankind. They hinder human development, and must be swept from the earth by human progress. Nor need we lament; nay, we should rejoice in the prospect, for they offer no salvation to man in this life, but by the extinction of all interests in this life,—its duties, responsibilities, and possibilities,—and no salvation beyond the grave but annihilation, the blowing out of the soul as the blowing out of a candle."
Then the bishop understood them to teach the annihilation of the soul after death, and they do not believe in the immortality of the soul.
In the same paper I find still further unquestionable proof of the belief of the Hindoos on this point. A new sect has lately originated in India called the "Church of the One God." Says the Methodist: "Representatives of the 'Church,' learned in the Sanscrit, were sent to the sacred city of Benares to study more fully the Vedas—the supreme scriptures of Brahmanism—in order to ascertain if the new movement could not be reconciled to the primitive and purest faith of the country; but they reported that these ancient documents taught Pantheism, Metempsychosis, and the annihilation of the soul.
"The Hindoo books describe several different degrees or states of happiness for mankind after death. Of these the highest state is called Mooktee, and consists of union with the Deity, or absorption into the infinite Spirit. This state is the result or reward of attaining divine knowledge. As soon as any man acquires a knowledge of Brahma, it overcomes or extinguishes all sin within him, and its influence upon him; he disregards all work, however meritorious in general opinion, and, emancipated from all worldly desires and bodily passions, his spirit becomes united with Brahma, or is absorbed into him, 'as a drop of water when it falls into the ocean.' He loses all personal identity. He is no longer, and will never again be, a conscious and separate being, and so is not subject to any further transmigrations or changes."
"The third and fourth states of happiness are in the heaven, or abode of the gods, called the Swurg. Some few persons who in this life have performed works of extraordinary merit, after death proceed to Swurg, and reside there till the close of the present Kapla, when Swurg and all its residents, whether gods or saints, will be annihilated." (India, Ancient and Modern, pp. 408, 409.)
This is the faith held by the majority of the human race to-day. Is this the doctrine of the immortality of the soul? It is just the opposite. Do not our orthodox friends know these facts? How, then, can they have the face to claim a universal belief in their notion of the soul's immortality--when all the facts are the other way!

(To be Continued.)