the Devata [minor
Gods] as that between an official and his orderlies, and another popular
simile often used is that of the Government and the district
officer."[65] The polytheism of the masses may thus blend with the
theism which is the ordinary intellectual standpoint of the educated
classes.

[Sidenote: Monotheism with Polytheism.]

Rising to the next stage, namely, the theism of the educated class--the
blending of their theism with the polytheism of the masses is
illustrated in the July number of the magazine of the Hindu College,
Benares, the headquarters of the late Hindu revival and of the
pantheistic philosophy. In answer to an inquirer's question--"Is there
only one God?" the reply is, "There is one supreme Lord or Ishvara of
the universe, and there are minor deities or devas who intelligently
guide the various processes of nature in their different departments in
willing obedience to Ishvara." The Hindu College, Benares, be it
remembered, is primarily one of the modern colleges whence the modern
new-Indians come.

[Sidenote: Monotheism with Pantheism.]

Again, the modern theism of the educated, in like manner, very readily
passes into the pantheism of the philosophers and of those educated in
Sanscrit, which I have described as part of the accepted Hindu
orthodoxy. For, whatever its origin, an observer finds the pantheistic
idea emerge all over educated India. The late Sir M. Monier Williams
speaks of pantheism as a main root of the original Indo-Aryan creed,
which has "branched out into an endless variety of polytheistic
superstitions." Whether that be so, or whether, as is now more generally
believed, the polytheism is the aboriginal Indian plant into which the
pantheistic idea has been grafted as communities have become
brahmanised, the pantheistic idea very readily presents itself to the
mind of the educated Hindu. In any discussion regarding human
responsibility the idea crops up that _all_ is God, "There is One only,
and no second." We can scarcely realise how readily it comes to the
middle-class Hindu's lips that God is all, and that there can be no such
thing as sin. The pantheists are thus no separate sect from the theists,
any more than the theists are from the polytheists. The same man, if a
member of the educated class, will be polytheist in his established
domestic religion, theist in his personal standpoint and general
profession, and probably a pantheist in a controversy regarding moral