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- THE MASSES AND THE CLASSES.

The next familiar objection against India's advance towards self-government is the conflict of interest that is supposed to exist between the classes and the masses. Since Lord Curzon's great heart cried for the "dumb millions" of India, there has been no lack of repeating the argument, in season, and out of season, that the masses will suffer at the hands of the classes unless the British Government takes them under its protecting wings. But unfortunately for those who flourish this argument, they do not take note of facts. It is the educated classes which moved heaven and earth to introduce mass education in India, and it is the bureaucracy which threw out the Bill framed for the purpose. To try to introduce education among a people as the "classes" did in India, is not, we hope, quite the way to rob it. But apart from this, there are solid reasons why there cannot be any conflict of interest between the classes and the masses. A little reflection will show that the interests of the masses and the classes in India are intertwined. The lawyer, the doctor, and the trader-all get their supply of money in India from the masses, and need we impress it upon anybody that prosperity or adversity of the latter means exactly the same to the former ?

But is that also the condition in England? Not so we believe. The trading classes in that country have not to depend on the pecuniary condition of the labouring classes, as they get their supply of money from outside. The House of Commons is as yet mainly a capitalist body, and no wonder the interests of labour go to the wall. Is it not a fact that the labour population is ever suspicious of the House of Commons. What do then trade unions and syndicalism prove? And is not this suspicion, to a certain extent, justified by the past history of England. Did not John Bright declare on one occasion that the House of Commons was "a club of landowners legislating for landowners?"

Then, again, take the story of the Anti-Corn Law agitation. What does it prove? Well, let the facts answer. It is well known that at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, import duties were placed on corn. The corn of the foreigner was kept out of England, and the value of the homegrown article was greatly enhanced. Prices went up and rents went up. The following touching lines of a poet of the poor will indicate the nature of the distress that prevailed:

Child, is thy father dead?

God's will be done.
Mother has sold her bed.

Better to die than wed.
Where shall she lay her head?
Home she has none.

We are told that the expedients to which the poor were reduced for the sake of food almost exceed belief. "Children fought each other in the streets for the offal which rich men do not allow their dogs to touch." "A gentleman saw a labourer standing over his swill-tub voraciously devouring the wash intended for the pigs." Twenty women begged a farmer to allow them to disinter the body of a cow, which he had buried thirty-six hours before as unfit for human food.' And so on. Yet it required seven years' constant agitation to make Sir Robert Peel and Lord John Russel free-traders! Did anyone then suggest that England was not fit for self-rule?

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NEPOTISM.

"Nepotism is the curse of your country"-we have heard this is also one of the objections against Home Rule. But is nepotism the monopoly of this country? History does not say so. We all know that a Reform Bill was carried through the English Parliament in 1832, causing a liberal extension of franchise in Great Britain. If we study the conditions in England preceding that year, we shall know that nepotism was not unknown in that country. The abuses that were practised there at the time were of a far greater magnitude than any obtaining here now, and the history of that country ought to be a lesson to

those who are prone to lose the balance of mind at every delinquency of our people.

There was a man living, speaking, and preaching in those days in England, who could convey more wisdom in a jest, more pathos in a burlesque sketch, than other men could impress through more ordinary forms; and he has left a picture of what he called the "borough market," which remains to this day unsurpassed in describing the details of the time. We quote a few extracts from this picture which is to be found in Writes Miss Martineau's Thirty Years of Peace. she:

So far from its being a merely theoretical improvement, I put it to any man who is himself embarked if a profession, or has sons in the same situation, in the unfair influence of borough-mongers has not perpetually thwarted him in his lawful career of ambition and professional emolument? I have been in the three general engagements at sea,' said on old soldier-'I have been twice wounded;-I commanded the boats when the French frigate, the Astrolabe, was cut out so_gallantly.' 'Then you are made a post-captain?' 'No: I was very near it; but Lieutenant Thomson cut me out, as I cut out the French frigate : his father is town clerk of the borough for which Lord F-is member; and there my chance was finished.' In the same manner, all over England, you will find great scholars rotting on curacies-brave captains starving in garrets-profound lawyers decayed and mouldering in the Inns of Court, because the parsons, warriors, advocates of borough-mongers must be crammed to saturation, before there is a morsel of bread for the man who does not sell his votes and put his country up to auction; and though this is of every-day occurrence, the borough system, we are told, is no practical evil.

The writer proceeds :

But the thing I cannot and will not bear, is this:— What right has this Lord, or that Marquess, to buy ten seats in parliament, in the shape of borough and then to make laws to govern me? And how are these masses of power redistributed? The eldest son of my Lord is just come from Eton-he knows a great deal about Aeneas and Dido, Apollo and Daphne -and that is all: and to this boy his father gives a sixhundredth part of the power of making laws, as he would give him a horse, or a double-barrelled gun. Then Vellum, the steward, is put on an admirable man;--he has raised the estates-watched the progress of the family Road and Canal Bills-and Vellum shall help to rule over the people of Israel. A neighbouring country gentleman, Mr. Plumpkin, hunts with my Lord-opens him a gate or two while the hounds are running-dines with my Lord-agrees with my Lord-wishes he could rival the Southdown sheep of my Lord-and upon Plumpkin is conferred a position of the Government.

Such were the conditions in England while the Reform Bill of 1832 was on the legislative anvil.

But England did not consider herself unfit for self-government because of them. In fact, she suggested more of self-government as remedy, and got it too. Cannot a similar remedy be applied in the case of India? What is sauce for the gander ought also to be sauce for the goose.

There were doubters in Eugland as there are in this country. In the course of the debates on the Bill in the House of Lords, Lord Sidmouth told Lord Grey: "I hope God will forgive you on account of this Bill; I don't think I can." Lord Grey replied: "Mark my words. Within two years you will find that we have become unpopular, for having brought forward the most aristocratic measure that was proposed in Parliament." The world knows to-day that Grey's prophecy was fulfilled as truly as Lord Sidmouth's fears proved groundless. Such is the uplifting influence of trusting the people with real power.

CONDITIONS OF HOME RULE.

John Stuart Mill is of opinion that that representative government must fulfil three conditions. The people should be willing to receive it. They should be willing and able to do what is necessary for its preservation. They should be willing and able to fulfil the duties and discharge the functions which it imposes on them. We accept these conditions with only this addition that, a sympathetic government can create these conditions in a reasonably short time in a country inhabited by intelligent people. In fact, creation of these conditions in a standard by which we shall character of a government. conditions, if India is not now able to do everything to preserve her self-government, it is so much the fault of England; but as no responsible Indian has ever asked the Englishmen to leave by the earliest P and O boat available, this question does not arise in practical politics. No impartial observer has doubted the ability of the Indian,

reasonable time is the

judge the beneficent But coming to the

and as regards the desire for free institutions and to fulfil its duties, can it be doubted that it is not the predominating feature of the India of to-day? All that is required is, that the things in the country must be so arranged as to enable the right man to go to the right place.

We have tried to meet all possible arguments

against Home Rule. But one more still remainsthe condition of India is "peculiar." Well, if the disease appears to the Anglo-Indian as "peculiar," we suggest a remedy which will appear to him equally "peculiar." Cannot the "peculiar” remedy cure the "peculiar " disease? It ought to. Similia similibus curantur-they say in Homeopathy.

YOGA IN THE BHAGAVAD-GITA BY PROF. T. RAJAGOPALACHARIAR, M.A., B.L.

N reviewing Professor Rangachariar's commentaries on the Bhagavad-Gita in a recent issue of the Indian Review, we had occasion to examine the meaning of a text in Ch. IV, which refers to the system of castes in India.

We propose now to dwell on our author's interpretations of one or two other contexts on account of their great importance. Our author, in commenting on II, 46.

यावानर्थ उदपाने सर्वतः संप्लुतोदके ।
तावान्सर्वेषु वेदेषु ब्राह्मणस्य विजानतः ॥

rightly refers to two possible interpretations of this verse which lead to two opposite views of Vedic rituals. One meaning is, that the Vedas are of as little utility as an Udapana (tank or well) in a place flooded with water, i.e., their utility is nil, and they may be discarded. The other meaning is, that they are just of as much utility to a man as an overflooded reservoir of water, i.e., that, after all, the thirsty man can use only a few handfuls in spite of the vastness of the store before him. Our author favours the second meaning as he says (p. 131): "Sri Krishna has not proclaimed that the Vedic religion is utterly wrong and useless." That being his view, we may remark that his translation is inaccurate and conveys the first meaning distinctly, a meaning which has not

the support of either Sankara or Ramanuja. If the Vedic ritual is not overthrown, it follows that the preceding verse (II. 45)

" त्रैगुण्यविषयावेदाः निस्त्रौ गुण्यो भवार्जुन cannot be taken to pronounce the inutility of the Vedas entirely, and to contain an authoritative doom of the Vedic religion by the Bhagavad Gita, as is sometimes supposed. Rather, the Gita contains in these lines a complete refutation of the Purva Mimamsic view that the Vedas are all in all, and that Brahman, Moksha, etc., are mere names; and hence the hit against "वेदवादरताः पार्थ नान्यदस्तीति वादिनः "

The author's conclusion as to the Gita view of ritualism is contained at p. 410: "We are thus clearly led to see that even the ritualistic religion of Vedic sacrifices must have been held in due respect by Sri Krishna, as a religion that is well capable of raising the worl.ipper, who fitly adapts it, from a lower to a comparatively higher state of moral advancement and spiritual realisation." This being his view we consider his translation of II. 53, "when your firm mind has thus discarded Vedic and other revealed teaching" as altogether inconsistent and improper. The better translation would be "when your mind intensely settled by hearing

(proper instruction) and unshaken, stands firmly in concentration (Samadhi), then you will attain self-realisation."

and

There are two contexts in the Bhagavad-Gita where, in sublime language, the states of selfconcentration and self-realisation are described. The They are Verses II, 55-58, and VI, 29-32. four verses of each of these two sets seem apparently to be repetitions of the same ideas but really they are on different matters, the author's exposition of these verses is eminently full, eloquent, and inspiring. We consider that they furnish the key to the solution of the question how far the Gita adopts the Yoga It would be seen that philosophy and its tenets. the method of the Yoga is fully utilised by Sri Krishna, and the best interpretation of these verses is that which correlates the Vedanta and the Yoga philosophies. In the first place, what is the Yoga intended in the first context? In Verse II, 39, we are told of Sankhyabudhi, and Yogabudhi, which are correctly explained (p. 109) as theory and practice, and not the Sankhya and Yoga systems of philosophy, as some suppose. Yoga in this verse is the Karma-Yoga, i.e., the practice of Karma without regard to fruits. This is emphasised in II, 47.

कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते माफलेषु कदाचन । Then II, 48 says:

योगस्थः कुरुकर्माणि संगत्यक्त्वा धनंजय |
सिद्ध्यसिद्धयोः समो भूत्वा समत्वं योग उच्यते ॥

Here again Yoga is used twice, but it means the same thing here as before, i.e., the particular budhi or attitude of mind in practice; and the last few words define Yoga for this purpose as " evenness of mind in relation to success and failure,' i.e., practically absence of attachment to fruits. Then II, 50 enjoins Yoga, for, "Yoga in works is cleverness." Here again Yoga means Practising work without attachment, not the

practice of Yoga as in the directly. The last three words

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Yoga philosophy

"à: ¬ày “àn: xùg à

शलम् are not correctly translated by our author, though here he follows the general interpretation. The Gita clearly means that doing work without attachment is a mark of cleverness, as it attains its object of liberation from the bondage of Karma, not mere inaction, as that is impossible, not wishing for fruits, as that only tightens the bond. The interpretation, कर्मसु यागे : is कौशल, is so appropriate that we are surprised it is not generally appreciated. Where a man practices Karma as prompted by his nature but still abandons fruits, that indeed is cleverness, as he thereby attains his cherished object of freedom, and still does not violate his nature. The other meaning "cleverness in performance is Yoga" is an unnecessary attempt at definition of what is already defined as A and leads to the uncalled. for injunction of "clever, complete, and effective performance," (p. 139) which is unmeaning unless the standard of cleverness is non-attachment. The Yoga in the instances is therefore merely the Budhiyoga, i.c., the attitude of non-attachment to fruits (II-49), and is certainly not Yoga in the sense of union with the self or God. The latter meaning will make an utter confusion of the whole argument of the Gita so far. Now, in Verse II. 53, nischala budhi is said to lead to Yoga. Here are two states of mind mentioned as cause and effect. The first is stability of mind, the second is Yoga: continued stableness of the mind is Samadhi, and the state of such a mind is described in II. 55-58. Yoga, the second idea, is selfrealisation, i.e., the result of the steady fixing of the mind on the self, which process being well practised, leads to the seeing

of the self, the realisation of the self; and the attainment of this state and its characteristics are described in VI, 29-32, though just referred to here. The first stage is described as ब्राहमी

ff-the state of mental stability leading to

com

or self-realisation. The Yoga of II, 53 is consequently not the Samatva of II. 48, however much it may imply the latter. It is nearly the same as the Yoga of Patanjali, whose definition is योगश्चित्तवृत्तिनिरोधः – Yoga is the plete restriction of the outside activity of the mind. We say nearly, as the Yoga of the Gita in II, 53 and in Chapter VI is a result of the control of mind by its concentration on the self. Getting two new ideas mentioned to him, स्थित

, stability of mind and Yoga, Arjuna tackles the first and asks for a full explanation of that state, and Verses II, 55-58 are the result.

Taking up these verses 55 to 58 in order, their central ideas are feeling of complete internal satisfaction, unruffledness by joy and sorrow, cessation of attachment to pleasure and pain, and gradual withdrawal of will with regard to objects of pleasure and pain. Ramanuja's and Vedanta Desika's commentaries bring out forcibly the essentials of these states. It is there pointed out that these states are called in Yoga philosophy the वशीकार, एकेन्द्रिय, व्यतिरेक, and यतमान states respectively, and that they are reached by the aspirant in the order inverse to that mentioned here. As the author points out (p. 152), the last state is the very first to be accomplished by the aspirant. He has, however, not developed the idea that these are progressive and not simultaneous states. Thus here are four stages of the fЯs or Gnanatnishta, as it has been called.

It must be mentioned that the confusion as to the meanings of Yoga is repeated in Chapter V, where सांख्य and योग are again contrasted. Here Yoga means the same as the Budhi Yoga of Ch. II, i.e., Karma Yoga or performance of Karma without attachment to fruits. The Sankhya however means the state of one who has realised the truth of things and has reached the stability of mind referred to before in Chapter II. This

is made clear by V. 11.
योगिनः कर्म कुर्वेति संगत्य चात्मशुद्धये ।

where the Yogin is the doer of Karma without attachment, who by gradual degrees passes into the state of yogin in the other sense, i.e., one who realises his self or sees his self. In fact, Chap. VI., opens with the assertion that the Sanyasin and Yogin are one, i.e., that one who controls his mind and secures stability of mind, and one who is in the midst of worldly activity with non-attachment, equally reach the Yoga state, the capacity to realise the self. It is this latter sense of Yoga that rules throughout Chapter VI. Thus VI. 3 refers clearly to Yoga, which is the result of Karma performed without attachment, and which is the state of self-realisation, or one just preliminary to it. The blissful state of one who essays to realise the self is vividly described in VI, 20 to 23, where the language forcibly depicts the state as one of extreme bliss, 'a state on attaining which one does not consider any other gain as superior.' This is the experience of the yogin in the course of his practice. But verses 29-32 that we referred to already describe some of the highest stages of the practitioner. These are also considered as successive stages, and their characteristics are fully analysed by our author at pages 609 and 610 of his book. Verses 29 to 32 refer, in order, to self-realisation, God-realisation, freedom in choice of life, and universal sympathy. We have already noted that the highest stage in Yoga is said to be reached only when the happiness or misery of others is identical with one's own joy

or sorrow.

Having described in verses 20 to 23 of Ch. VI, the bliss of the Yogic state, and in verses 29 to 32 following, the highest Yogic states possible to reach, Sri Krishna proceeds in verse 46 to compare the Yogin with other practitioners of austerities, the tapasvin, the Jnani, and the doer of works for fruits, and declares that the Yogin is

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