The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul Part 16

In referring to a religious debate between a missionary and a Brahman, and the universal interest manifested among all cla.s.ses as to the outcome of the encounter, "hooting the vanquished in either case with strict impartiality," Jacolliot adds, "We shall be less surprised at this when it is known that there is not a Hindoo, whatever his rank or caste, who does not know the principles of the Holy Scripture, that is, the Vedas, and who does not _perfectly know how to read and write_."

Three hundred and forty millions of people, thousands of them pariahs and outcasts, sharing refuse with the dogs, with no rights that any one else is bound to respect, bowing their faces in the dust when a Brahman pa.s.ses ten paces away--and yet everyone can read and write!

Max Muller said he had had in his study at Oxford a young Hindoo who could repeat the whole of the Mahabharata _without missing a word or an inflection_ from beginning to end.

These are some of the _remnants_ in the decline of old India after thousands of years of Brahman rule and slavish domination of the people to preserve their own exclusive caste and exploitation. Western people have yet to learn the inevitable tendency, and the invariable rule of exploitation of the people, by a dominant priesthood, and the poverty and degradation of the ma.s.ses that always results. It has never once failed in this result in three thousand years.

The whole of Southern Europe is already awakening to a realization of this result to-day. It is accomplished in the name of "Religion" by those who call themselves "Viceregents of G.o.d," and who arrogantly trample on the rights of conscience, and the freedom of man.

Brahmanism first set the example as originators of this slavish abomination.

The studies and investigations of Jacolliot in India, go back to the Vedic or pre-Brahmanic age; then to the rise, development, and slow decline of Brahmanism; then the epoch of Christna; the influence of Buddha, and his being driven out of India by the powerful Brahmans; and finally, to the present poverty and degradation of the millions through foreign invasion and domination.

The ruling Brahmans had neither thought nor desire for _Constructive Nationality_. In their pride and l.u.s.t for power and gold, even in their just pride over their inheritance from Vedic ancestors, and wisdom, Patriotism was unknown to them. Invaders contended with them in robbing and enslaving the people.

The people who despised and hated the foreign invader dare not, even yet, to rise against their real despoilers--the Brahmans--or defy or break their power.

It is the Vedic literature, and the earliest, or pre-Brahmanic time that Jacolliot lauds so highly, and in which he finds and demonstrates, the existence of the sources of all human knowledge.

It will be ignorant folly, therefore, for the bigot and the sectarian to attempt to answer or oppose him, by referring to the condition of the people of India as it is to-day.

Jacolliot simply shows the causes that have led to the present degradation.

It is _priestcraft_, despite the Vedic wisdom, and the missions and teaching of Christna and Buddha.

All this Jacolliot demonstrates beyond all controversy.

The bulk of his work consists in demonstrating the source of Greek and Roman Mythology, Language, Law, Philosophy, etc., and equally of every Jewish and Christian doctrine and tradition.

Jacolliot shows that as the French code is copied or adapted from the Justinian, so equally the Justinian was derived from that of Manu, many centuries previously. And what is true of Law is equally true of philosophy, theology, morals, and the principles of science, art, architecture, and all the rest.

The Hindoos were demoralized by the priests, but the moral degradation extended even to them, and the arms they employed were turned against themselves.

"The first result of the baneful domination of priests in India was the abas.e.m.e.nt and moral degradation of woman, so respected and honored during the Vedic period.

"If you would reign over the persons of slaves, over brutalized intelligence, the history of these infamous epochs presents a means of unequaled simplicity. _Degrade and demoralize the woman_, and you will soon have made of man a debased creature, without energy to struggle against the darkest despotisms; for, according to the fine expression of the Vedas, 'the woman is the soul of humanity.'"

As did the Brahman priesthood, when through greed and ambition they forsook the ancient wisdom, so do the priesthood of Rome, with their celibacy added to the abominations and opportunities of the confessional.

Search the records of all time, and the traditions and customs of every people, and you will find nowhere else such recognition and reverence paid to woman as in the early Vedic days.

"Let it be well understood," says Jacolliot, "that it was but sacerdotal influence and Brahminical decay that, in changing the primitive condition of the East, reduced woman to a state of subordination which has not yet disappeared from our social system.

"Let us read these maxims taken at hazard from the sacred books of India."

(I quote only a few.) "Man is strength--woman is beauty; he is the reason that governs, but she is the wisdom that moderates; the one cannot exist without the other, and hence the Lord created them two, for the one purpose.

"He who despises woman, despises his mother.

"Who is cursed by a woman, is cursed by G.o.d.

"The tears of woman call down the fire of heaven on those who make them flow.

"The songs of women are sweet in the ears of the Lord; men should not, if they wish to be heard, sing the praise of G.o.d without women.

"Women should be protected with tenderness, and gratified with gifts, by all who wish for length of days.

"It was at the prayer of a woman that the Creator pardoned man; cursed be he who forgets it." (See the Vedic "Garden of Eden.")

Moses, trained only in the decay of the old religion by the degenerate priests of Egypt, while drawing his legend of creation from the ancient Vedic source, reverses all this and places the blame of the "Fall" on woman, and the women of the Bible are more often concubines and prost.i.tutes than Love's pure evangels as in the ancient days. Jacolliot proves this from many citations, as witness also the following: (Numbers, Chapter XXI.)

"And Moses was enraged against the chief officers of the army, against the tribunes, and the centurions who returned from battle.

"And he said unto them, Why have you saved the women and the children?

"Slay therefore all the males amongst the children, and the women who have been married.

"But reserve for yourselves all the young girls who are still virgins."

Moses spoke "in the name of G.o.d," as does his Holiness at Rome to-day.

Comment is hardly necessary. A few more quotations from the Vedas:

"A virtuous woman needs no purification, for she is never defiled, even by contact with impurity.

"Women should be s.h.i.+elded by fostering solicitude by their fathers, their brothers, their husbands, and the brothers of their husbands, if they hope for great prosperity.

"When women are honored, the divinities are content, but where they are not honored, all undertakings fail."

The sacerdotal caste in Egypt followed the inspiration of the Brahmans, and took care to make no change in that situation.

And Moses followed the example of the priests of Egypt, where woman was a slave or a prost.i.tute in the temples as out.

The degeneracy of a people, the decay of religion, and the degradation of woman are inseparable, and it is so-called "religion" that inst.i.tutes the change, and sets the pace, "down the steep descent."

The Brahmans "forgot G.o.d" and inst.i.tuted the wors.h.i.+p of saints and holy men, and mythological characters, just as Rome does to-day. The women of America to-day by a consensus of public opinion should make auricular confession _disreputable_.

Excommunication, which is such a power in the hands of Rome, is merely a subterfuge and subst.i.tute for the degradation of "outcasts," and pariahs, inst.i.tuted by the Brahman priests to terrify the disobedient and retain their power.

If the reader cares to know the danger and the degradation to woman fostered and protected through the Confessional by the Celibate Roman priesthood, he should read "The History of Auricular Confession," by De Lasteyrie, translated into English and printed in London in 1848. Now and then a Pope or a council undertook to inst.i.tute reform, but found, as in Spain, prost.i.tution of women by priests through the confessional so widespread and universal that they more often gave up the attempt through fear of scandal and contempt for the Church itself.

Lecky, in his "History of European Morals," records the case of "the abbot-elect of St. Augustine, at Canterbury, who in 1171 was found on investigation to have _seventeen illegitimate children in a single village_; or, an abbot of St. Pelayo, in Spain, who in 1130 was proved to have kept no less than seventy concubines; or Henry III, Bishop of Liege, who was deposed in 1274 for having sixty-five illegitimate children."

(History of European Morals. P. 350.)

If the reader remarks that "this is ancient history," he should remember that a celibate priesthood to-day have the same opportunity, through the secrecy and power of the Confessional, as ever.

I have barely touched on this disgusting but all-important question on the general thesis of Jacolliot, viz.: "The first result of the baneful domination of priests in India was the abas.e.m.e.nt and moral degradation of woman."

Rome, who derived her religious code from paganized Egypt, added celibacy to the opportunities and inducements for the degradation of woman. Rome never attained the heights from which the Brahman priesthood plunged into debauchery. Even to-day in the festivals in the Brahman temples wholesale orgies of prost.i.tution are sometimes found, as witnessed and recorded by Jacolliot. From the first, Brahman priests have married and reared families. Their degradation and debauchery, therefore, cannot be charged to their original "Divine Revelation," but to their corruption of it.