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Charlotte Holmes
and
the Locked Box

By Sherry Thomas
“Madame Gascoigne will be making sablé biscuits for our
afternoon tea,” said Mrs. John Watson to her young friend, Miss
Charlotte Holmes.

Few things galvanized Miss Holmes as easily and consistently as

rich, sweet confections. Of course, it wasn’t easy to discern her
excitement — the non-reactions in her repertoire were legion.
But Mrs Watson knew Miss Holmes well enough now to remark
the momentary wistfulness in her wide, blue eyes. “I’ve never
had sablé biscuits.”

“Madame Gascoigne has been wasted on me,” said Mrs

Watsons wryly. She might have had an unconventional past,
but her dining habits were terribly unadventurous. “I believe
your appetite and sheer interest in every variety of food have
given her a much needed jolt of stimulation. Mr. Mears tells me
she has been reading her collection of French cookery books
in the servants’ hall, a sight he had never seen before.”

Miss Holmes nodded solemnly. “That is welcome news. The

French are very fond of butter and cream and so am — ”

The bell rang. It must be their client Mrs Gleason, who,

according to the grandfather clock in the corner, was ten
minutes late to her appointment.
Mrs Watson answered the front door. Mrs. Gleason was a small,
faded-looking woman of about forty, her face framed in a
halo of frizzy, reddish hairs that had escaped the confines of
her coiffure. Beyond her, the street was awash in rain, a solid
downpour rather than the usual drizzle.

“I’m sorry I’m so late — I can never seem to leave the house
on time,” said Mrs Gleason breathlessly. “And sorry to bring rain
inside.”

Mrs Watson took her umbrella. “This is an English house -- it

doesn’t mind a little rain around the periphery. Do please
come up. Miss Holmes is waiting for you.”

“Miss Holmes? Is Mr Holmes not home then?”

“It’s a bit complicated. I’ll let Miss Holmes explain.”

Miss Holmes greeted Mrs Gleason cordially and did the usual
song-and-dance about her brother Sherlock’s ill health. “But
he is in the next room. We have set it up so that he can see
and hear everything. And while he isn’t well enough to receive
guests, he will be able to convey to me his thoughts and
deductions.”

“I see,” said Mrs Gleason uncertainly.

“Would you like to know for certain that Sherlock’s powers of

observation and deduction are very much intact?”

It was the question Miss Holmes asked all her clients. If they said
yes, then Miss Holmes proceeded to lay out what she already
knew of them by observation.

Mrs. Gleason glanced at Mrs Watson, as if hoping Mrs Watson

might tell her what to say. Mrs Watson smiled as encouragingly
as she could—it hurt her to see a grown woman so unsure of
herself, of whether she even ought to have a firm opinion.

“I — I don’t wish to give Mr. Holmes any extra trouble. It must

be trying for him to be unwell.”

Miss Holmes rearranged the long, glossy ends of the big bow
that sat low on her bodice. “It really won’t be any trouble at
all.”

Her calmness seemed to discompose Mrs Gleason further.

“You have — you have already assured me that everything will
work. That’s enough for me, Miss Holmes.”

Miss Holmes gazed at her a moment. “In that case, would you
like to show us what you’ve been given for your birthday?”

In Mrs Gleason’s letter seeking an appointment with “Sherlock

Holmes”, she had written about a birthday present from a
good friend that she couldn’t open. After much careful
unwrapping, Mrs Gleason brought out a small wooden box
secured by a largish word lock.

Mrs Watson raised a brow. The lock, which featured five

rotating disks, each with ten or twelve letters, appeared plenty
sturdy. But the box it kept shut looked like an oversized
matchbox, so flimsy that any halfway decent parasol ought to
be able to smash it in.

“And this is the clue.” Mrs Gleason handed over a slip of

paper.

Miss Holmes and Mrs Watson examined the writing on the

paper, which consisted of a four digit number and, on the next
line, a row of dashes and spaces.
 1651
-------
“My friend is terribly kind to remember me,” said Mrs Gleason in
a small voice. “And I wish very much to thank her. But I have
been dragging my feet on the matter because I have no idea
what her gift is.”

Miss Holmes rose from her chair. “Do excuse me, Mrs. Gleason.
I will show everything to my brother.”

She departed to the next room and closed the door. Mrs
Watson urged a cup of tea and a slice of Madeira cake on
Mrs Gleason.

“I do hope,” whispered their client all of a sudden, “that I

haven’t offended Miss Holmes when I said I didn’t need to be
reassured.”

“Not at all.”

“Are you sure?”

Mrs Watson leaned in an inch. “Between you and me, I do not

believe Miss Holmes knows how to take offense.”

It was an exaggeration, but not, Mrs. Watson felt, an egregious

one.

Miss Holmes returned after precisely two minutes. “Sherlock has

given me the solution to the puzzle. But first he’d like me to ask
you if by some chance you lived with this friend of yours for a
time.”

Mrs Gleason was taken aback. “Yes, I did. The first few years
after my husband passed away.”
“And you were there until your parents summoned you home
to look after them?”

“Yes. Well, not exactly. I wouldn’t say they summoned me

home. I volunteered, of course — duties of a daughter.”

“Your mother passed away a little more than a year ago and
your father isn’t in terribly optimistic shape either,” announced
Miss Holmes.

“How — how does Mr Holmes know that?”

“You were in a hurry as you left home, were you not? In your
haste, you took a pair of mourning gloves on your way out.”
Miss Holmes laced her fingers together in her lap. “The rest of
your attire is normal, which implies the mourning period for your
mother must have passed. It’s considered unlucky to keep
mourning wear in the house after mourning has ended. I
imagine you got rid of your mourning gowns but hesitated on
also getting rid of the accessories, because you might need
them again soon.”

Mrs Gleason shrank before this tide of logic. “I shouldn’t have

kept them, should I? It was wrong of me.”

“You didn’t do anything blameworthy — it’s wasteful to

acquire an entirely new mourning wardrobe each time a close
relation dies. And Sherlock only meant to convey that it has
been a difficult few years for you, having to look after two ill
and distempered parents. Very different from the easy
compatibility you shared with your friend.”

Mrs Gleason’s lips quivered. “She is ill, too, unfortunately.

Gravely so. But I cannot get away to see her. My father
wouldn’t like it — he needs me here.”
“But he wouldn’t be uncared for — there will be others in the
house to look after his wellbeing.” Miss Holmes laid her hand on
top of the box. “He may not like your absence, but he cannot
stop you from going, just as this word lock only appears to be
an obstacle.”

“How — how so?” Mrs Gleason seemed utterly confused.

“The box will break apart with the slightest application of

force.”

“But — ”

“Mrs Watson, please hand me one of Sherlock’s walking

sticks.”

Mrs Watson complied with great alacrity. Mrs Gleason stared

at the walking stick as if it were a cobra about to strike. “What -
- what if I damage the contents?”

“You must have shaken the box, Mrs Gleason, as I have. You
know there is at most one or two pieces of paper inside,
nothing that can be shattered by a quick blow.”

Mrs Gleason chewed her lower lip and made no response.

“Your beloved friend, in her failing health, sent you a box that
is difficult to open but easy to destroy,” said Miss Holmes, very
softly. “Do you believe she wishes you to reflect — or to act?”

Mrs Gleason’s mouth opened and closed several times. “But if I

do as you suggest, I might damage your table.”

Miss Holmes laid the box on the padded arm of a sofa. “Here
then. You will damage nothing.”
Mrs Gleason glanced at Mrs Watson again. Mrs Watson
nodded at her, her own hands clenched together. But her
support, instead of spurring Mrs Gleason to action, only made
the latter take a step back.

Miss Holmes, undeterred, held out the walking stick. “Aim at

the center and take a good whack.”

Miss Gleason accepted the walking stick, but in the manner

with which she must accept everything else in her life: by a
lack of resistance.

“Wouldn’t you prefer to give me the combination to the lock,

Miss Holmes? It would be so much neater that way.”

The piteous way she pleaded her case — she might as well be
on her knees, tears flowing freely, her arms wrapped around
Miss Holmes’s knees.

“Do you wish to see your friend as desperately as she wishes to

see you, Mrs Gleason?”

Mrs. Gleason shut her eyes tight. “Yes.”

“Have you given a thought, perhaps, to the idea that inside

the box, there is a railway ticket for you?

“I don’t know. I don’t know what’s inside.”

“What would you have done, had she sent a ticket in an

envelope?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think you do. You would have thanked her and thanked her,
then told her that you couldn’t possibly go — that your father
wouldn’t hear of it. But the woman who ignores the lock,
breaks the box, and puts her hand on the ticket inside? She will
use that ticket. Do you wish to be someone who keeps the
ticket and looks upon it with regret or someone who goes on a
journey?”

Mrs Gleason shook. The frizzy halo around her face, the still
damp edges of her skirt, the walking stick in her hand —
everything vibrated with such fearfulness that Mrs. Watson
couldn’t breathe. She nearly screamed when Mrs Gleason’s
first blow landed against the back of the sofa.

Her second attempt hit the word lock squarely. The third strike
smashed the box, sending it to the floor in pieces. As it fell, two
pieces of paper floated out, a railway ticket, and a note that
said, Please come, my dear Eliza.

Very careful, Mrs Gleason set aside the walking stick. Then she
picked up both the note and the ticket. “It’s for three days
hence,” she murmured, panting as if she had fought twelve
rounds in the ring. “I will go. I will not disappoint her again.”

After Mrs Watson saw Mrs Gleason out, she allowed herself a
moment at the foot of the stairs to wipe away her tears. She
returned to the parlor to see Miss Holmes collecting pieces of
the box from the floor.

“What of the lock? Did you solve the combination?” She

smacked herself on the forehead. “But of course you solved
the combination. That’s how you knew there was a rail ticket
inside.”

Miss Holmes pitched a two-hand scoop of box fragments into

a wastebasket. “My sister and I were both shameless snoops. It
would seem I still am.”
Mrs Watson picked up the clue again and studied it.

1651
-------

“A clue for the old lady, perhaps?”

Miss Holmes looked around. “Where is she?”

Mrs Watson laughed, delighted by the compliment. “All right, a

clue for your partner, Miss Holmes.”

“All the letters in the solution happen to be Roman numerals.”

Mrs Watson gasped. Of course, now it was so obvious. 1651

represented the total of all the numbers and the groups of
dashes gave the number of digits of each roman numeral. The
one in the leftmost spot was M, for 1000, the rightmost I for 1.
The two-digit number must be 50, L in Caesar’s day. The two
three digit-numbers needed to add up to six hundred, so C
and D, which meant the solution was either MCDLI or MDCLI.

The lock came undone obligingly.

Mrs Watson glanced at Miss Holmes. “Did it cross your mind to

simply open the lock for Mrs Gleason?”

“Of course. But she was meant to break the box, wasn’t she?”
Miss Holmes was in front of the mirror by the door, fastening her
hat. “Let’s go home. I’m ready for sablé biscuits.”
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Gita and
gospel
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
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included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you
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laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.

Title: Gita and gospel

Author: J. N. Farquhar

Release date: February 28, 2024 [eBook #73070]

Language: English

Original publication: Calcutta: Thacker, Spink & Co, 1903

Credits: Andrew Sly, MFR, David King, and the Online

Distributed Proofreading Team at
https://www.pgdp.net. (This file was produced from
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GITA AND

GOSPEL ***
 Gita and Gospel

GITA AND GOSPEL.

BY

NEIL ALEXANDER.

Calcutta
THACKER, SPINK & CO.
1903.

CALCUTTA:
PRINTED BY THACKER, SPINK AND CO.
 TABLE OF CONTENTS.

Chap. I.—What is the Bhagavadgītā? . . . 1

Chap. II.—Plato’s Just Man . . . 21
Chap. III.—The Servant of Jehovah . . . 26
Chap. IV.—Virgil’s New Age of Justice and Peace 36
Chap. V.—Jesus of Nazareth . . . 41
APPENDIX.—Neo-Krishna Literature . . . 67
 ABBREVIATIONS.

Amalnerkar: Amalnerkar, Priority of the Vedanta-Sutras over the

Bhagavadgītā.
Bose, H. C.: Bose, Hindu Civilization under British Rule.
Deussen: Deussen, Sechzig Upanishad’s des Veda.
Dutt, C. A. I.: Dutt, Civilization in Ancient India.
G.: The Gītā.
Garbe: Garbe, The Philosophy of Ancient India.
Gough: Gough, The Philosophy of the Upanishads.
Hopkins, R. I.: Hopkins, The Religions of India.
Hopkins, G. E. I.: Hopkins, The Great Epic of India.
Kaegi: Kaegi, The Rigveda (Arrowsmith’s translation).
Kidd, P. W. C.: Kidd, Principles of Western Civilization.
Krishnacharitra: Bunkim Chundra Chatterji, Krishnacharitra, fourth
edition.
Macdonell: Macdonell, Sanskrit Literature.
Mommsen: Mommsen, History of Rome.
Monier-Williams: Monier-Williams, Brahmanism and Hinduism.
Müller, A. S. L.: Müller, Ancient Sanskrit Literature, second edition.
Müller, S. S. I. P.: Müller, Six Systems of Indian Philosophy.
S. B. E.: The Sacred Books of the East.
Schürer, H. J. P.: Schürer, History of the Jewish People in the Time of
Jesus Christ.
Seal: Brajendra Nath Seal, Comparative Studies in Vaishnavism and
Christianity.
Telang: Telang, The Bhagavadgītā, &c. (Sacred Books of the East,
vol. VIII.)
Weber, I. L.: Weber, Indian Literature.
 CHAPTER I.
WHAT IS THE BHAGAVADGITA?

In the whole literature of the world there are few poems worthy of
comparison, either in point of general interest, or of practical
influence, with the Bhagavadgītā. It is a philosophical work, yet fresh
and readable as poetry; a book of devotion, yet drawing its main
inspiration from speculative systems; a dramatic scene from the
most fateful battle of early Indian story, yet breathing the leisure and
the subtleties of the schools; founded on a metaphysical theory
originally atheistic,[1] yet teaching the most reverent adoration of the
Lord of all: where shall we find a more fascinating study? Then its
influence on educated India has been and still is without a rival.
Everybody praises the Upanishads, but very few read them; here
and there one finds a student who turns the pages of a Sūtra or
looks into Sankara or Rāmānuja, but the most are content to believe
without seeing. The Gītā, on the other hand, is read and loved by
every educated man. Nor is there any need to apologize for this
partiality: the Divine Song is the loveliest flower in the garden of
Sanskrit literature.
For the Western mind also the poem has many attractions. The lofty
sublimity to which it so often rises, the practical character of much
of its teaching, the enthusiastic devotion to the one Lord which
breathes through it, and the numerous resemblances it shows to the
words of Christ, fill it with unusual interest for men of the West. But
while it has many points of affinity with the thought and the religion
of Europe, it is nevertheless a genuine product of the soil;[2] indeed
it is all the more fit to represent the genius of India that its thought
and its poetry are lofty enough to draw the eyes of the West.
What, then, is the Gītā? Can we find our way to the fountain whence
the clear stream flows?
A. When the dwelling-place of the ancient Aryan tribes was partly on
the outer, partly on the inner, side of the Indus (primeval patronymic
of both India and her religion), and the tribesmen were equally at
home on the farm and on the battlefield, then it was that the mass
of the lyrics that form the Rigveda were made. We need not stay to
set forth the various ways in which this unique body of poetry is of
value to modern thought. For us it is of interest because it gives us
the earliest glimpse of the religion of the Indo-Aryans. That religion
is polytheistic and naturalistic. The Vedic hymns laud the powers of
nature and natural phenomena as personal gods. They praise also,
as distinct powers, the departed fathers. Such is undoubtedly the
general character of the religion of that age. On the other hand, the
hymns to Varuna bring us very near monotheism indeed.[3]
It is, however, only at a later period when the Aryan conquest had
moved out of the Punjab to the South and West, and just on the eve
of the formation of the Rigveda as a collection of religious hymns,
that we find the beginnings of philosophic speculation.[4] A few
hymns, chiefly in the tenth Mondol, ask questions about the origin of
the universe, and venture some naive guesses on that tremendous
subject. Some of the hymns[5] take for granted the existence of
primeval matter, and ask how or by whom it was transformed into a
cosmos. In others[6] there is more monotheistic feeling, and a
Creator, either Hiranyagarbha or Visvakarman, is described. In
others[7] the strain of thought is agnostic.
B. With the collection of the hymns of the Rigveda we pass into a
new and very different period, the literature of which is altogether
priestly. To this age belong the two great sacerdotal manuals, the
Sāmaveda[8] or Chant-book, and the Yajurveda[9] or Sacrifice-book,
and those extraordinary collections of priestly learning, mythology
and mysticism, the Brāhmanas.[10] These books introduce us to
changed times and changed men, to new places and a new range of
ideas. The fresh poetry of the youth of India has given place to the
most prosaic and uninteresting disquisitions in the whole world.[11]
The home of this literature is the great holy land of Brahman culture,
stretching from the Sutlej on the West to the junction of the Jumna
and the Ganges at Prayāga.[12] In this period the doctrine of the
transmigration of the soul first appears.[13]
C. The Aranyakas[14] and Upanishads[15] place before us a further
development of Indian religion. Reflection led to the perception of
the great truth, that the kernel of religion is not the ritual act but the
heart of piety behind it. Many a man who had found the endless
formulæ and the showy ceremonial of the sacrifice a serious
hindrance to real religion, sought refuge from the noise and
distraction of the popular cult in the lonely silence of forest or
desert. To run over the sacrifice in one’s own mind, they reasoned,
was as acceptable to the gods as to kill the horse or to pour the
ghee upon the altar fire. But they soon reached the further position,
that for the man who has attained TRUE KNOWLEDGE sacrifice is
altogether unnecessary. For knowledge of the world-soul
emancipates a man from the chain of births and deaths and leads to
true felicity. The main purpose, thus, of the Upanishads, is to
expound the nature of the world-soul. Their teaching is by no means
uniform. Not only do the separate treatises differ the one from the
other; contradictory ideas are frequently to be met with in the same
book. They all tend to idealistic monism; they all agree in identifying
the soul of man with the world-soul; but on the questions, whether
the latter is personal or impersonal, how spirit and matter are
related, and how the human soul will join the divine soul after death,
there is no unanimity.[16]
There is thus no speculative system to be drawn from these books.
Those of their ideas that are held with settled, serious conviction,
are taught rather dogmatically than philosophically; and, on the
other hand, where there is freedom of thought, there is rather a
groping after the truth than any definite train of illuminative
reasoning. Yet this occasional, conversational, unconventional
character gives these simple and sincere treatises their greatest
charm, and fits them for that devotional use to which so many
generations of pious readers have put them. To this early period
there belong only the first great group of prose Upanishads, the
Brihadāranyaka, Chāndogya, Taittirīya, Aitareya, Kaushītaki and parts
of the Kena.[17]
D. In bold contrast to this unsystematic meditation on the Eternal
Spirit there stands out the severe, clear-cut, scientific system of
Kapila,[18] the first Indian thinker who dared to trust the unaided
human mind. Buddhist tradition recognizes that he preceded
Buddha, and connects him with Kapila-vastu, the birth-place of
Buddha, the site of which was discovered as recently as December
1896.[19] He drew a sharp distinction between matter and spirit and
declared both to be eternal, without beginning and without end. The
material universe develops in accordance with certain laws out of
primeval matter, prakriti. Spirit, on the other hand, exists as an
indefinite number of individual souls, each eternal. There is no
supreme divine spirit. The value of this system lies chiefly in its
severely logical method, which demands that all reasoning shall
proceed from the known elements of experience. It has exercised a
very great influence on Indian thought, partly by its method, but still
more perhaps through its cardinal ideas, the eternity of matter, the
eternity of individual souls, the three gunas, the great cosmic
periods, and kaivalya, i. e., the attainment of salvation through the
separation of the soul from matter. This great system is known by
the name Sānkhya, i. e., enumeration, seemingly on account of the
numbering of the twenty-five tattvas, or principles, which it sets
forth.[20]
Such is the Sānkhya system; but it would be dangerous to affirm
that the whole came from Kapila; for no treatise written by him has
come down. The earliest systematic manual of the philosophy extant
to-day is the Sānkhya-Kārikā of Isvara-Krishna, which dates from the
early Christian centuries.[21]
E. Shortly after the Sānkhya system, and in close dependence upon
it, there appeared Buddhism and Jainism; but as these great
religions exercised no very definite influence on the main stream of
Indian thought for several centuries, we shall not linger over them.
F. We notice next the second great group of Upanishads, the Katha,
Isā, Svetāsvatara, Mundaka, Mahānārāyana,[22] which are all written
in verse. That this group is later than the great prose Upanishads is
abundantly clear from the changed form as well as from the more
developed matter. “As contrasted with the five above-mentioned
Upanishads with their awkward Brāhmana style and their allegorical
interpretations of the ritual, the Katha Upanishad belongs to a very
different period, a time in which men began to coin the gold of
Upanishad thought into separate metrical aphorisms, and to arrange
them together in a more or less loose connection.”[23] Further signs
of their belonging to another stage of thought are their references,
more or less clear, to the Sānkhya and Yoga philosophies,[24] and
their tendency to adopt the doctrine of Grace,[25] i.e., that salvation
is not a fruit of true knowledge, but a gift of God. The idea of Bhakti,
which became afterwards so popular, appears in this group of
Upanishads only once.[26] Here also for the first time in Sanskrit
literature the word Sānkhya occurs as the name of a system.[27]
But while these five metrical treatises are clearly later than the prose
Upanishads, scholars are not agreed on the question of their relation
to the great systems. Some[28] hold that the Katha is earlier,
others[29] that it is later, than Buddhism; Weber[30] believes that the
Svetāsvatara, Mundaka, and Mahānārāyana depend not only on
Kapila’s system, but also on the Yoga Sūtras of Patanjali (see below),
while others[31] believe that in these Upanishads we have scattered
pieces of teaching which were later systematized. But whatever be
the truth on these points, it is clear that these five are posterior to
the first group, that their relative age is Katha, Isā, Svetāsvatara,
Mundaka and Mahānārāyana,[32] and that this last belongs to quite a
late date.[33] Along with these verse Upanishads we may take three
prose works, which are manifestly still later,[34] the Prasna,
Maitrāyanīya and Māndūkya.
G. Several centuries after the Sānkhya there appeared the Yoga
philosophy, the text-book of which is the Yoga Sūtras. According to
Indian tradition the founder of the school and the author of the
Sūtras was Patanjali,[35] the well-known scholar who wrote the
Mahābhāshya on Pānini’s grammar. He accepts the metaphysics of
the Sānkhya system, but postulates the existence of a personal god,
and urges the value of Yoga practices for the attainment of Kaivalya,
that isolation of the soul from matter, which, according to Kapila, is
true salvation. Thus not one of the three main elements of his
system is original; for Yoga practices have existed from a very early
date in India. Yet his system is sufficiently marked off from others,
first by his combination of Yoga practices with Sānkhya principles
and a theistic theology, and, secondly, by his systematic treatment of
Yoga methods.[36]
H. Later still than the Yoga philosophy is the systematic statement of
the Vedānta point of view by Bādarāyana in his Sūtras, which are
known either as Brahma-sūtras, Sārīraka-sūtras or Vedānta-sūtras.[37]
I. We next notice the latest development of Upanishad teaching,
namely, that found in the Upanishads of the Atharvaveda. With the
exception of three, namely, the Mundaka, Prasna and Māndūkya
Upanishads, which we have already noticed, they are all very late.[38]
They fall into four great groups, according as they teach (a) pure
Vedantism, (b) Yoga practices, (c) the life of the Sannyāsin, or (d)
Sectarianism.[39] For our purpose the last of the four is of the most
importance. “These sectarian treatises interpret the popular gods
Siva (under various names, such as Isāna, Mahesvara, Mahādeva)
and Vishnu (as Nārāyana and Nrishinha) as personifications of the
Atman. The different Avatārs of Vishnu are here regarded as human
manifestations of the Atman.”[40] Let readers note that the doctrine
of Avatārs is quite unknown in the Vedas, the Brāhmanas, the early
Upanishads and the Sūtras.[41] We may also note that in groups (a)
and (b) we find what is not found in earlier Upanishads, namely, the
phrase Sānkhya-Yoga used as the name of a system.[42] Here also
the doctrines of Grace and Bhakti, the beginnings of which we found
in the verse Upanishads, are regularly taught.
J. The last development that we need mention is the teaching of the
Mahābhārata and Manu. We take them together, not only because
each of them is the final product of long centuries of growth and
compilation, but because they are so closely related to each other in
origin, that it is hardly possible to take them separately.[43] In the
first book of the Mahābhārata we are told that the poem originally
consisted of only 8,800 slokas, and that at a later date the number
was 24,000. The complete work now contains over 100,000 slokas.
[44]
We need not here enquire when the simple heroic lays were
composed, which lie at the basis of the great composition as it has
come down to us; nor need we stay to decide at what period it
finally reached its present labyrinthine structure and immense
dimensions.[45] It is sufficient for our purpose to notice that scientific
investigations have laid bare four stages in the formation of the Epic:
—(a) early heroic songs, strung together into some kind of unity:
this is the stage recognised in Book I, when the poem had only
8,800 slokas, and is in all probability the point at which it is referred
to by Asvalāyana; (b) a Mahābhārata story with Pandu heroes, and
Krishna as a demi-god: this is the form in which it had 24,000
slokas, and is the stage of the poem referred to by Pānini; (c) the
Epic re-cast, with Krishna as All-god, and a great deal of didactic
matter added; (d) later interpolations.[46] Scholars are able to fix,
within certain limits, the dates of these various stages. We need not
attempt to be so precise: for us it is enough that the representation
of Krishna as the Atman belongs to the third stage of the growth of
the Epic. Parallel with this third stage is the final redaction of Manu.
[47]
The philosophic standpoint of these two great works is practically
the same, being now the Sānkhya-Yoga, now a mixture of Sānkhya,
Yoga and Vedantic elements.[48]
But the main thing to notice is that in these books we are already in
modern Hinduism. Turning from the Vedas to them we find ourselves
in an altogether new world. There are many new gods; most of the
old divinities have fallen to subordinate places. New customs, new
names and ideas are found everywhere. The language too has
changed: new words, new expressions and new forms occur in
plenty; old words occur in new senses; while many others have
disappeared.[49]

Let us now turn to the Gītā. What is its place in this long succession?
Clearly it is posterior, not only to our first, but also to our second
group of Upanishads. For it echoes the Katha, the Svetāsvatara, and
several of the others repeatedly;[50] its versification is decidedly later
in character;[51] the doctrines of Grace and of Bhakti, which are
found in these Upanishads only in germ, are fully developed in the
Gītā;[52] while the whole theory of Krishna is a fresh growth.
The Gītā may also be shewn to belong to the same age as the
Atharvan Upanishads. It has in common with them (a) the
identification of Krishna and Vishnu with the Atman, (b) the doctrine
of Avatārs,[53] (c) the doctrines of Grace and Bhakti, (d) the Sānkhya-
Yoga.
But we may go further, and show that the Gītā is in its teaching, in
general, parallel with the third stage of the Mahābhārata and with
Manu. For while the usual philosophic standpoint in the Song is
Sānkhya-Yoga, there are frequent lapses to the Vedānta; and there
is an evident effort here and there to combine all three.[54] This is
precisely the position of Manu and the Epic, as we have seen. Note
that in the Gītā the Yoga philosophy is already old, so old that it has
fallen into decay, and requires to be resuscitated.[55] The Sānkhya is
not a loose group of ideas, but a formed system, as appears from
the phrases Sānkhya-Kritānta[56] and Guna-sankhyāna.[57] Kapila, its
author, is so far in the past that he is canonized as the chief of the
Siddhas.[58] There are many minor points which the Gītā holds in
common with the Mahābhārata, and which are not found earlier. The
latter half of the tenth chapter is full of Epic mythology. There
Skanda is the great warrior-god,[59] as in the Mahābhārata,[60] there
too we find the horse Uccaihsravas,[61] the elephant Airāvata,[62] the
snake Vāsuki,[63] the fish Makara.[64] Nirvāna is used in the Gītā[65] for
‘highest bliss,’ ‘Brahmic bliss,’ precisely as in the Epic.[66] In the
Mahābhārata Bhīshma, after receiving his mortal wound, has to wait
for the Uttarāyana (the northward journey of the sun), i. e., he has
to wait until the sun passes the southern solstice, before he can die
in safety.[67] In the Gītā we find a similar idea: only those devotees
who die during the Uttarāyana go to Brahman; those who die during
the Dakshināvana return to earth.[68] This dogma is not found in the
early Upanishads nor yet in the Sūtras.[69]
A study of the language of the Gītā[70] leads to the same conclusion.
A portion of its vocabulary is the same as that of the first group of
Upanishads; a larger portion coincides with our second group; a still
larger coincides with the diction of the Atharvan group; and finally,
much that is found in no Upanishad is characteristic of the Epic.
We need not attempt to fix the date[71] of the poem, for that is not
only impossible as yet, but is quite unnecessary for our purpose.
What we wish to do is to show that the religious literature of India
displays a long, regular, evolutionary process, that the Gītā belongs
to the same period as the third stage of the Mahābhārata, and is
itself clearly the result of all the preceding development.

Can we then accept the declaration of the poem itself, that it was
uttered by Krishna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra?—That
necessarily depends upon the history and the chronology. At what
point then in the historical development of the literature which we
have been studying does the famous battle stand?—According to all
scholars the great war and the compilation of the Vedas both belong
to the same period.[72]
The results of our study may, therefore, be tabulated as follows, with
the proviso that the long process of the growth of the Epic cannot be
fully represented:—

The Hymns of the Vedas.

Compilation of the Vedas . . . KURUKSHETRA.
The Brāhmanas.
The prose Upanishads.
Kapila.
 Buddhism and Jainism.
The verse Upanishads.
Patanjali.
Bādarāyana.
The Atharvan Upanishads.
The third stage of the Epic and Manu . . . THE GITA.

It has thus become perfectly clear that The Gītā cannot have been
uttered on the battlefield of Kurukshetra; for it is the last member of a
long series, the final product of a clearly defined and elaborate
process of development. To ascribe the Gītā to the age of
Kurukshetra is much the same as if one were to ascribe the poetry
of Tennyson to the age of Alfred the Great. A thousand years
intervene; the thought and toil of a millennium were needed to
produce the great result.
Had Krishna uttered these doctrines on the famous battlefield, we
should inevitably have found references to them in the literature
produced during the following centuries. But where in the
Brāhmanas do we find any of the leading ideas of the Gītā? Even if
men had disbelieved Krishna, his claim to be God incarnate would at
least have drawn out a protest; but in no single Brāhmana or early
Upanishad is there the slightest hint of anything of the kind. So far
from there being any corroboration of the great myth in early
literature, there is the clearest proof that it is false. In the Kāthaka
recension of the Black Yajur Veda king Dhritarāshtra is mentioned as
a well-known person[73]; yet in the whole literature of the Black Yajur
there is no suggestion that Krishna claimed divine honours. The
Satapatha Brāhmana, which is a product of the Kuru-Panchāla
country,[74] contains the names of a number of the heroes of the
great war,[75] but never refers to Krishna as God incarnate; while in
the Chāndogya Upanishad,[76] which belongs to the same district,[77]
he is spoken of merely as a man: he is mentioned as a pupil of
Ghora Angirasa and is called Krishna Devakiputra.[78] Nay, even in
the earliest part of the Mahābhārata itself Krishna is only a great
chief, and not a deity at all.[79] Finally, the references to Pandu
heroes and to the worship of Krishna and Arjuna in Pānini,[80] would
lead to the conclusion that in Pānini’s day Krishna was not regarded
as the supreme God, but as one among many;[81] and this cautious
inference is corroborated by the fact that the Mahābhāshya itself
does not recognize him as the incarnation of Brahma, but as a hero
and demi-god.[82] Thus the whole of the Vedic literature, and the
whole of the Sūtra literature, are destitute of a single reference to
Krishna as the incarnation of the Supreme. There is only one
conclusion to be drawn from this overwhelming mass of evidence.[83]
It is strange that educated Hindus should have clung so long to the
idea that the Gītā is a real utterance of Krishna. The very fact that
the poem has always been regarded, not as Sruti, but simply as
Smriti, should have been enough to suggest the truth. A piece of
genuine divine teaching, uttered in such circumstances, and before
the composition of the earliest Upanishads, would have inevitably
found a place among the most authoritative scriptures of the faith.
The fact of its having been always regarded as Smriti is sufficient
proof by itself that the book does not belong to the Vedic age at all.
Another consideration ought also by itself to have been sufficient to
save Hindus from such a grave error, namely, this, that no great
religious advance or upheaval followed the time when Krishna is
supposed to have lived and taught. Contrast the mighty revolutions
that followed the work of Buddha, of Christ and of Mahommed; and
the emptiness of the Krishna claim will become at once apparent.
Again, the subject of all the early Upanishads is the nature of the
Supreme Spirit, whether called the Atman or Brahma. If on the field
of Kurukshetra, Krishna had claimed to be the Supreme, as the Gītā
says he did, can any one believe that the claim could have been
passed unnoticed in the Upanishads? Krishna is mentioned in the
Chāndogya; Brahma is the subject of the Chāndogya: yet there is
not the slightest hint anywhere that Brahma has been incarnated,
far less that Krishna is Brahma. Such evidence is surely irresistible.
One reason why the truth about this myth has been so long in
finding its way into the minds of educated Hindus is undoubtedly to
be found in the wretchedly inadequate way in which Sanskrit
literature is taught in the Universities of India. In Calcutta at least
most men who take Sanskrit as one of their subjects for the B. A.
Degree get through their examination without having the slightest
knowledge of the history of the literature.[84] For some curious
results of this very deficient training, see the Appendix.
With Krishna, all the other so-called Avatārs vanish; for they rest on
foundations still more flimsy and fanciful. They merely serve as
signal proofs of the tendency inherent in the Hindu mind to believe
in incarnations and to see such around them. This tendency was
already living and creative long before the Christian era, and it has
kept its vitality down to the present day; for though Chaitanya, the
sixteenth-century reformer, is the most noteworthy of those who
within recent times have been counted Avatārs, he is by no means
the last: the late Ramkrishna Paramhamsa was regarded as such,[85]
and some of her admirers claim the same honour for Mrs. Annie
Besant.[86] Further, this making of Avatārs is but one aspect of that
passion for deifying men which has characterized Hinduism from first
to last,[87] a passion which has set many a modern Englishman
among the gods. Even such a whole-hearted Christian as John
Nicholson did not escape.[88]
The story, then, that Krishna uttered the Song on the battlefield, is a
pious imagination. All scholars hold the war to be historical; Krishna’s
name can be traced in the literature from the Upanishads
downwards; it is possible, or even probable, that he was a Kshattriya
prince[89] who fought in the war; but the assertion that on the field
he claimed to be the supreme being, is absolutely negatived by all
the early history and literature of India.

How then are we to account for the Gītā? Whence came its power
and its beauty? and how did it reach the form it has?—We must
recognise the action of three factors in the formation of the Song,
the philosophy, the worship of Krishna, and the author. We have
already traced in outline the genesis of the philosophy; there remain
the cult and the author.
All our scholars recognize that Krishna-worship has existed in India
since the fourth century B. C. at least; for there can be no doubt
that, when Megasthenes says that Herakles was worshipped in
Methora and Kleisobora,[90] he means that Krishna was worshipped
in Mathura and Krishnapur. How much further back the cult goes we
have no means of learning. Nor does it really matter for our purpose.
The important thing to realize is the existence of this worship of
Krishna, before his identification with Vishnu[91] and final exaltation
to the place of the supreme pantheistic divinity.
The author of the Gītā was clearly a man of wide and deep culture.
He had filled his mind with the best religious philosophy of his
country. He was catholic rather than critical, more inclined to piece
things together than to worry over the differences between them.
Each of the philosophic systems appealed to his sympathetic mind:
he was more impressed with the value of each than with the
distinctions between them. But his was not only a cultured but a
most reverent mind. He was as fully in sympathy with Krishna-
worship as with the philosophy of the Atman. Indeed, it was the
union of these qualities in him that fitted him to produce the noblest
and purest expression of modern Hinduism. For Hinduism is just the
marriage of ancient Brāhmanical thought and law with the popular
cults. But without his splendid literary gifts the miracle would not
have been possible. The beauty, precision and power of the diction
of the poem, and its dignity of thought, rising now and then to
sublimity, reveal but one aspect of his masterly literary ability. Much
of the success of the poem arises from his genuine appreciation of
the early heroic poems, which he heard recited around him, and
from his consequent decision to make his own Song, in one sense at
least, a heroic poem. Lastly, there is the shaping spirit of
imagination, without which no man can be a real poet. With him this
power was introspective rather than dramatic. No poet with any
genuine dramatic faculty would have dreamed of representing a
warrior as entering on a long philosophic discussion on the field of
battle at the very moment when the armies stood ready to clash. On
the other hand, what marvellous insight is displayed in his
representation of Krishna! Who else could have imagined with such
success how an incarnate god would speak of himself? Nor must we
pass on without noticing that, though the situation in which the
Song is supposed to have been produced is an impossible one, yet
for the author’s purpose it is most admirably conceived: how
otherwise could the main thought of the book—philosophic calm
leading to disinterested action—have been so vividly impressed on
the imagination?
This author, then, formed the idea of combining the loftiest
philosophy of his country with the worship of Krishna. He would
intertwine the speculative thought that satisfied the intellect with the
fervid devotion which even the uncultured felt for a god who was
believed to have walked the earth. Philosophy would thus come
nearer religion, while religion would be placed on far surer
intellectual ground. His tastes led him to connect his work with the
romantic poems of the day; his genius suggested the situation, a
dialogue between a noble knight and the incarnate divinity; his
catholicity taught him to interweave the Sānkhya with the Yoga and
both with the Vedānta; and as we have seen, his penetrative
imagination was equal to the creation of the subjective
consciousness of a god-man.
We can now answer the question which stands at the head of this
chapter, What is the Bhagavadgītā? It consists of two distinct
elements, one old, one original. The philosophy is old; for it is only a
very imperfect combination[92] of what is taught in earlier books. The
original element is the teaching put into Krishna’s mouth about his
own person and the relation in which he stands to his own
worshippers and to others. Of this part of the teaching of the Gītā
we here give a brief analysis:—

Krishna is first of all the source of the visible world. All comes
from him,[93] all rests in him.[94] At the end of a Kalpa everything
returns to him,[95] and is again reproduced.[96] He pervades all
 things;[97] and again, in another sense, he is all that is best and
most beautiful in nature and in man.[98] But while Krishna is thus
the supreme power in the universe,[99] he is altogether without
personal interest in the activity therein displayed:[100] he sits
unconcerned,[101] always engaged in action,[102] yet controlling his
own nature,[103] and therefore never becoming bound by the
results of his action.[104] This conception of the Supreme, as at
once the centre of all activity and yet completely detached,
enables the author, on the one hand, to soften the seemingly
hopeless contradiction involved in identifying the king, warrior
and demon-slayer, Krishna, with the passionless, characterless
Atman[105] of the Upanishads, and, on the other to hold up
Krishna as the supreme example of Action Yoga.
We now turn to Krishna’s relation to his worshippers. Knowledge
is good;[106] mental concentration is better;[107] disinterested
action is better than either;[108] but the supreme wisdom is faith
in Krishna and boundless devotion to him.[109] Such is the
teaching of the Gītā. The worst epithets are kept for those who
fail to recognise him as the Supreme, who disregard him, carp at
him, hate him.[110] To those who resort to Krishna,[111] who place
faith in him,[112] who shower on him their love, devotion and
worship,[113] who rest on him,[114] think of him[115] and remember
him[116] at all times,—to them are promised forgiveness,[117]
release from the bonds of action,[118] attainment of tranquillity,
[119]
true knowledge[120] and final bliss[121] in Krishna.[122]
Since all the gods come from Krishna,[123] and since he is in the
last resort the sole reality,[124] worship offered to other gods is in
a sense offered to him.[125] He accepts it and rewards it.[126] This
is in accordance with his indifference to men: to him no one is
hateful, no one dear.[127] Yet the highest blessings fall only to
those who recognize him directly.[128]

Clearly our author formed his conception of the man-god with great
skill, and fitted it into his general scheme with all the care and
precision he was capable of. On this elaboration of the self-
consciousness of Krishna he concentrated all his intellectual and
imaginative powers. And with what unequalled success! Could any
greater compliment be paid an author than to have sixty generations
of cultured readers take the creation of his mind for a transcript from
history?

The masses of evidence we have marshalled to prove that Krishna

never claimed to be God, may be briefly summarised as follows:—
1. The situation in which the Gītā is said to have been uttered at
once strikes the historical student as suspicious: one can scarcely
believe that there was ever a battle in which such a thing could have
taken place; and, on the other hand, it makes such an excellent
background to the theory of Action Yoga, that one cannot help
believing that it was invented for the very purpose. Further
investigation leads to the following results:—
2. The characteristic religious and philosophical ideas of the Gītā are
not found in any books produced immediately after the age of
Kurukshetra. If we start with the teaching of that age, we have to
trace the stages of a long and clearly-marked development before
we reach the ideas of the Gītā.
3. The diction of the Gītā is not the Vedic Sanskrit of the early
Brāhmanas (which are the literature of the period following
Kurukshetra), but belongs to a very much later stage of the
language.
4. The fact that the Gītā is not sruti, but smriti, proves that it comes
neither from Krishna, nor from the time of Kurukshetra.
5. Krishna Devakiputra is known in the later Vedic literature as a
man, and in the Sūtra literature as a hero or demi-god, but never as
the supreme being.
6. The fact that there is not a single reference in the whole of the
Vedic literature, nor yet in the Sūtra literature, to Krishna as the
incarnation of Brahma, makes it impossible for us to believe that at
the battle of Kurukshetra he claimed to be such.
7. The fact that there was no revival or reformation of religion in the
age of Kurukshetra proves that God was not incarnated then.
 CHAPTER II.
PLATO’S JUST MAN.

We must now leave the land of Bhārata and seek the shores of
Greece.
In the fifth century, B. C., Athens became the focus of Hellenic
culture. Her achievements in the Persian wars had given her very
distinctly the leadership of all the Greek states; and the steady
progress of her commerce brought her not only wealth but abundant
intercourse with other cities. So that in the latter half of the century
we find the peculiar genius of Hellas displayed in Athens with
unexampled vigour, variety and splendour. But space will not allow
us even to outline the achievements of that incomparable age in the
various provinces of human culture. We must confine our attention
to philosophy.
The general advance of intelligence, education and culture in Greece
produced the only result possible in communities whose religion was
a traditional polytheism and whose morality rested merely on custom
and proverbial wisdom: scepticism, both religious and ethical, broke
in like a flood. Tradition and custom could not withstand the
corrosive influences of fresh thought fed by deepening experience
and widening science. The Sophists were the exponents, but
scarcely the creators, of this sceptical habit of thought. The
philosophers had not done much to cause it, and they could do as
little to cure it. Their theories dealt with nature rather than man, and
stood in no clear relation to the problems that agitated every
thinking mind.
It was at Athens that this sceptical spirit showed itself most
conspicuously, now in the lectures of the chief Sophists of Hellas,
naturally drawn to the centre of intellectual ferment, now in the
stately tragedies of her Dionysiac festivals, now in the fin-de-siècle
conversation of her gilded youth. The timid, the old-fashioned, the
conservative scolded and sputtered and threatened, blaming
individuals instead of the time spirit, but had no healing word to
utter.[129]
From the very centre of the disturbance came the new spirit of order
and restoration: Socrates, the Athenian, saved Greece. The older
philosophers had discussed nature; he turned all his attention to
practical human life. Like the Sophists, he trusted human reason;
but unlike them, he aimed not at a display of intellectual dexterity
but at reaching the actual basis of human morality, society and
politics. Human conduct was the sole subject of his thought and his
conversation. Hence the definite, practical value of his influence: his
teaching stood in the closest possible relation to life and to the
problems of the time. On the other hand, he began with
introspection; self-knowledge was what he demanded of every
disciple. Hence the inexhaustible significance of his work for
philosophy. He gave no set lessons to his pupils, delivered no
lectures, wrote no books. He spent his whole time in conversation
with individuals, proceeding always by question and answer, thus
compelling his companion to think for himself. His extraordinary
intellectual skill and the loftiness and simplicity of his character drew
all the best intellects of Athens around him. But what gives him his
unchallenged supremacy in the history of Greek thought is the fact,
that in his hands the sceptical thought, which had caused such
dismay everywhere, proved to be the very means of revealing the
great realities which men had feared for.[130]
In 399 B. C., when he was an old man of seventy years of age, a
number of his fellow-citizens brought a criminal case against him,
charging him with corrupting the youth of Athens and with impiety.
He was tried, found guilty and sentenced to death. A month later he
drank the hemlock—such was the Athenian mode of execution—
surrounded by his friends.[131]
How tragic! Athens, “the school of Hellas,”[132] kills her greatest
teacher! Socrates, the father of ethical philosophy, the founder of
the critical method, the ideal instructor, dies as an impious corruptor
of the youth of Athens!
But Socrates was not merely the greatest teacher of his day. All
subsequent Greek philosophy is filled with his spirit; indeed the
leading schools of thought were founded by his pupils.[133]
Consequently he is the fountain-head of all Western philosophy and
science; for in both Greece was the school-mistress of Europe.
Among all the disciples, Plato best represents the master’s spirit. The
Megarians, the Cynics, the Cyrenaics, and, at a later date, the Stoics
and the Epicureans, certainly carried on the work of Socrates, but
they are deflections from the straight line: they are “imperfect
schools,” as Zeller calls them.[134] Plato is in the direct line of
succession.
He was about twenty years of age when he began to listen to
Socrates. Eight years later came the death of the great teacher. Plato
then left Athens and spent a number of years in travel and in study
in different places. About 390 B. C., however, he returned to the city
and set up a philosophical school in a garden called Academia. For
forty years thereafter he was the acknowledged leader of philosophic
thought and teaching in Athens.[135] His influence since his death has
rested chiefly on his Dialogues, one of the most perfect literary
treasures in the Greek language. The form of these beautiful
compositions still reflects the question-and-answer method of Plato’s
master; and the debt of the pupil is everywhere acknowledged; for
in most of the Dialogues Socrates is the chief interlocutor.[136] Among
the Dialogues the Republic is universally recognized as the most
precious; for it shows us not only his literary art at its highest, but
the thought of his matured mind: it represents Plato in his strength.
[137]