Worship

is due to God alone: for he is all truth, and all knowledge, all ble edne , boundle , almighty, just, merciful, unbegotten, infinite, unchaogeable, and without beginning: incomparable: the support and Lord of All: all-pervading, omniscient, imperishable, immortal, eternal, holy; and the cause of the universe. III. The Vedas are the books of “knowledge” which it is the paramount duty of the Arya to read, or hear read, to teach, and to preach. IV. The Arya must be ready to accept truth, and to renounce un-truth when seen. V. Truth, reached through full consideration, must guide the Arya. VI. The primary object of the Somaj is to do good to the world, by improving the physical, intellectual, spiritual, moral, and social, conditions of all. VII. The Arya must in his conduct manifest love and appreciation to all. VIII. He must strive to diffuse knowledge and to dispel ignorance. IX. He must not be content with his own improvement but seek it also in that of others. X. He ought, in matters affecting the well-being of our race, to discard all differences; not allowing his individuality to intervene. But in strictly personal matters each may have his own way, Aryas teach that a man’s caste, or rank in society, depends on his profe ion, or calling, and not on his birth: they therefore ignore the four great castes (Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaishnavas, and Sudras); but these may not mix (especially at meals) with Moslem foreigners. The Arya denounces the law that forbids the second, and third, castes to read the Vedas, and the Sudra even to hear them chanted. Day an and called all Brahmans who did not know the Vedas “Sudras.” But he held that to sit at table with a Mlecha or “out-caste” did not affect religion. The sect strive to effect changes, under the cover of old names, without fully declaring their intention. They object to revolutionary _ language, and to any government interference in matters affecting the religious feelings of the people: and they make no advances till they are a ured of being largely followed. (See Mr Fateh-chand’s paper, Indian Mag., August 1881.) They urge education of men and women, especially in sacred literature: they denounce child-marriages, and compulsory widowhood; also idolatry and the building of temples; but they keep the old sacred days, on which they meet for worship. These methods, and a free distribution of educational tracts, they regard as the best means of reforming the people. Aryans. [It should be noted that this name, as popularised by Max Miiller, was intended to embrace all those whose languages, in Europe, in Persia, and in India, spring from a single original speech, distinct from other Asiatic families, Turanian or Semitic. But on the one hand it is often loosely used to describe many long-headed races of Europe and Asia, even those of early geological ages; while, on the other, it has been restricted to that branch of the Iranian race which spoke the language of the Vedas, or other dialects of the Sanskrit—Ep.] We can only here treat briefly of this great linguistic division of mankind (see special articles on the various races; and consult Rivers of Life). We see no reason materially to depart from what we wrote in 1878 and 1880; or to admit that Arya means either an “ honourable man,” or a “ ploughman.” ‘The great Dravidian princes regarded them as an inferior, or “third cla ,” race of immigrants entering the sunny lands of India, some you sands of years ago, from the cold sterile wilderne es and uplands of Skuthia, Sogdiana, and Trans-Kaspia, ‘As intruders into India (see Rivers of Life, ii, p. 150) they were not “nobles,” but rather very inferior to the Dravido-Turanian settlers of the Panjab, at whose feet they sat to learn arts of government, agriculture, building, war, and even religion. As Max Miiller (in agreement with Profe or The ring) says, the “ Aryas would never have got beyond the civilisation... of shepherds and cultivators, would never in fact have reached their eminence in political and commercial life, art, science, and literature, unle they had got into contact with Semitic races”; and, in India, with superior Dravidians. The Indo-Aryans were e entially lovers of nomadik life, who rejected agricultural pursuits. While their Iranian brethren settled down on reaching Kaspiana, the Aryans moved away east, till they reached the N.W. 184