"He must beg his meals, and so be dependent upon the charity of others for his very life. He must own nothing but his yellow robe, his staff and bowl, perhaps a few very simple utensils, a rosary for his prayers, and one or two symbolic objects correspond

ing to the crucifix of Christian monks. Sometimes he will wear in place of the yellow robe only a loin-cloth, or sometimes nothing at all-for in India nakedness is a token that one has learned so to despise the body that he has almost forgotten its existence. To it and to all the pleasures of life he must study indifference. Indifference is one of his greatest virtues; for, it is the negative side of that positive searching after God, that realization of the divine within himself, which is his one great business" (pp. 147148).

"Doubtless for the great majority of India's 'holy men' to-day meditation means merely a kind of lazy day-dreaming; yet there are still some, perhaps many, to whom meditation means a state of the most intense absorption, the depth of which we Westerners can hardly conceive. It is related of Swami Vivekananda that he sometimes became so lost in thought that his body would be black with mosquitoes without any consciousness on his part of the fact; and in this he is only representative of the sanyasi tradition which has had innumerable examples through the ages" (p. 153).

"The hair of holy men is usually very long. They wear it in a highly matted condition, and wind it about the back of their heads somewhat as European women do. Usually they wear nothing but an exceedingly small loin-cloth, and we saw one at the mela who had dispensed even with that. The priest told me that at the mela of the preceding year there was a procession of two hundred of these wonderfully holy and absolutely stark naked saints. Of course, one is supposed to contribute to the support of these good men; and they regularly have a cloth spread out in front of them for the reception of the coins thrown to them by the passing crowd. If you contribute, however, you must not expect them to thank you not they! The pleasure and profit are yours, and the favor all on their side-as you can see by the expression on their faces. For, have they not enabled you thereby to acquire merit? And they know very well that it is far more blessed to give than to receive. So most of the passing pilgrims contribute to at least a few of the many saints, and go onward in increasing blessedness" (pp. 3940).

Beggary to investigate the situation and to propose remedial measures. The root of the matter, of course, is religious; Hinduism upholds and even enjoins this ideal of uselessness to the world. The condemnation of this particular part of the system is being made now, not only by Christian. foreigners, but also by progressive Indians themselves. Says Govinda Das in his Hinduism and India (Benares, 1908, page 178):

"The number of Sadhus returned by the census of 1901 is 5,200,000. Every fellow who is too worthless to be a good citizen shirks his civil duties, and forthwith dons the ochre-colored robe, thus becoming mukta, 'free',-free to live in luxury and vice at the expense of his better but more credulous fellow citizens."

But false prophets and so-called saints have always appeared whereever there has been any kind of a high ideal. The second great heretic in Hinduism, Gautama the Buddha (560480 B.C.), who initiated the most powerful reform movement of Hinduism, leveled his attacks against this very abuse.

"393. A man does not become a Brahman by his platted hair. In whom there is truth and righteousness, he is blessed; he is a Brahman.

"394. What is the use of platted hair, O fool! what of the raiment of goat-skins? Within thee there is ravening, but the outside thou makest clean." 3

Indeed, within the Sacred Scriptures of Hinduism itself can be found striking condemnations of the travesty which can be made, and which alas has been made, of the best Hindu ideal of a holy man.

"61. The fools desire to obtain the Invisible by single meals, fasts and other restraints, and by the emanciation of the body.

"63. The hypocrites, putting on appearances, and wearing quantities of matted hair, and using antelope skins, wander about like knowers, and even delude people.

"65. Donkeys walk about among people, in forests and among houses, quite naked and unashamed. Are these free from attachment?

3 Dhammapada, as translated in Max Müller's Sacred Books of the East, vol. 10, part 1.

"66. If men are to be liberated by earth, ashes, and dust, does the dog, which always lives among earth and ashes, become liberated?

“67. The jackals, rats, deer and others which feed upon grass, leaves and water, and always live in forests-do these become ascetics?"

An admirable summary and interpretation of the Hindu religious ideal of asceticism is to be found in W. E. S. Holland's The Goal of India (London, United Council for Missionary Education, 1918, pp. 34-36):

"The climax of India's religious ideal has ever been renunciation (sanyas). You will see sanyasis, wandering hermits, along any road in India, in their orange robes, often vicious and impudent imposters, but not a few with a benign serenity that breathes the atmosphere of another world. And if you

will follow the sacred Ganges up to where it issues from the snow-clad mountains into the sunny plains, you will find at Rishikesh a scattered colony of them, including some who as Diwan have ruled native states, or who have been decorated by the king-emperor for imperial service. The census reveals that there are no less than 5,200,000 of them in India.

"And the sanyasi still holds sway over the Indian soul. There is not a Hindu graduate of our Indian universities, no matter how western, notions may jostle up against the instinct of his soul, who does not in his heart of hearts revere the ascetic as the true example of what is perfectness for man. That is the standard by which he unconsciously tries all other scales of virtue.

"Incidentally, that life of absorbed (albeit wholly selfish) indifference to the things around him fixes for him the value to be set on philanthropy and science, sanitation and material progress, and every form of strenuousness. The sanyasi never seeks to save others.

"Many of them show their indifference to the world by wearing only a single shred of clothing. I have even seen twentythousand of such, stark naked, marching in procession to bathe at the junction of the Ganges and the Jumna.

"But the sanyasi or sadhu (wrongly called the fakir) stands not only for poverty and other worldiness. He has set us, on the merely physical plane, an unsurpassable standard of asceticism; 'sacrifice' we should like to call it, but that is wholly selfish. There is no austerity or torture that Indians have not endured, and are not enduring today, for the compassing of salvation. Here

4 Garuda Purana, Chap. 16; as translated by Ernest Wood and S. V. Subrahmanyam in vol. 9 of The Sacred Books of the Hindus, Allahabad, Panini Office, 1911.

is a people to whom pain and privation simply do not count, if a spiritual aim is to be accomplished. There is something of the magnificent in the Sadhu's measureless contempt for suffering and hardship."

The preeminent Christian critic on Hinduism as a whole, viz., J. N. Farquhar's The Crown of Hinduism (Oxford University Press, 1913) devotes its entire chapter 7 to The Yellow Robe.

II. THE CHRISTIAN SADHU OR HOLY MAN: It is against the background of the Hindu ideal of a holy man, indeed from out of the very determination to become an Indian Sadhu, that there has arisen a new type of religionist in India in the person of Sadhu Sunder Singh. He applies to Christianity the Hindu ideal, which is sheer renunciation. Probably no Indian Christian has ever made so deep and so wide an impression in his native land. And in the United States, before the summer of 1920 is ended, he may become better known and admired than any one else of his fellow countrymen or countrywomen, even exceeding the fame of Pandita Ramabai who came to this country many years ago. In India, besides his Life and his Sermons in the vernaculars, there have appeared two English Lives, viz., Mrs. Arthur Parker's Sadhu Sunder Singh: Called of God (Madras, Christian Literature Society for India), and Sadhu Sunder Singh: A Lover of the Cross, by Alfred Zahir of St. John's College, Agra. Both of them have been practically reproduced in this country, the former appearing under the title of Sunder Singh, The Apostle of the Bleeding Feet (Abingdon Press, 61 pages), while Mrs. Parker's biography is published by Fleming H. Revell Company (144 pages). The latter is a photographic reproduction of an edition put forth in England, and appeared opportunely about ten days after the arrival of the Sadhu himself from from a successful three

months' evangelistic campaign in Great Britain.

Robed in saffron down to his bare feet, with a saffron-colored Indian turban, and his girdle thrown over his right shoulder in characteristic Indian style when in the house, the Sadhu presents a remarkable Oriental appearance. As Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick remarked on the day of his arrival, the Sadhu possesses "a singularly sweet, a beautifully benign, countenance." A four-year old little American girl, after seeing him a while, was moved to run up to him, and put her arms around him, and exclaim to him, "Why, you look just like the Jesus book!" Indeed, many persons are struck with the similarity between the Sadhu's appearance and the traditional pictures of the tuniced, blackbearded Christ. He became a Christian because he felt that he saw and heard the Christ; and for the past fifteen years the Bible and the Christ have been his daily companions. Perhaps there is no other person living, certainly there is no American living -who has had so many and so remarkable Biblical experiences.

At sixteen years of age Sunder Singh was earnestly seeking for religious light and peace, which he had not found in any of the indigenous religions of India. On account of his religious temperament, both he and his devout mother had determined that he should become a sadhu or holy man. At seven years of age he had committed to memory the eighteen chapters of the Bhagavad Gita (translated as The Lord's Song by L. D. Barnett in the Temple Classics, and as The Song Celestial by Sir Edwin Arnold; this is the most popular and influential Scripture of Hinduism). Later, when he came into contact with Christianity, that did not satisfy; but the alien religion did rather only dissatisfy his spirit the more.

"Openly he tore up the hated pages of the New Testament, and burned them in the fire. Soon he became the ring-leader of the boys in the school who hated Christianity.

"Again Sunder turned to his own sacred books, this time with an abhorrence for Christ and a greater determination to find the peace of which his mother had taught him. He not only arduously studied the Indian religious systems and holy books, but also practised 'yoga' under a Hindu sadhu, and learned how to throw himself into mystic trances, which brought temporary relief. On one occasion, when the shadow of a Christian missionary fell across him, he spent a whole hour in washing away the pollution." "

But early one morning, just two days after he had poured kerosene oil on a copy of the New Testament and burned it up, he had the experience of a bright figure appearing unto him, which he recognized as the Christ, and which said unto him, "Sunder Singh, why persecutest thou me? Come unto me, and I will give thee peace." So he responded, "All right. I will come. Give me peace." Immediately there came into his heart a peace which has suffused his life ever since.

He tells the present writer that he is sure the experience could not have been one of hallucination or dreaming, because he was wide awake, having taken a cold morning bath only a short time previously. It could not have been autosuggestion, nor in any way psychologically self-induced by expectation, for the reason that he had been hating the Christ and had burned up his book only two days before; the appearance could not have been that of Buddha or Mohammed or Zoroaster or any other great religious founder, because it has been continually connected up with the Bible. It was a reality, because it has stayed with him consistently; never once has he lost that original peace, and he has variously undergone the reported experiences of Christ and of his apostles.

Forthwith he began to testify of his great religious experience. His family expected that it was some crazy 5 Mrs. Parker's American Life, pp. 19-20.