at he is and ever has
been Brahma, veiled from himself by Avidy[=a]" (that is, Ignorance or
Maya). Our point is that the _Text-book of Hindu Religion_ is
professedly pantheistic, and the above is clearly pantheism and its
postulate Maya. But in the final exposition of this pantheism, what do
we find? To meet the modern thought of educated India, the pantheism is
virtually given up.[82] Brahma, the One and the All, becomes simply _the
Deity Unmanifested_; who shone forth to men as _the Deity Manifested_,
Parameswar; of whom the Hindu Triad, Brahm[=a] and Vishnu and Siva, are
only three _names_. Maya or Delusion, the foundation postulate of
pantheism, by which things _seem_ to be,--by which the One seems to be
many,--is identified with the creative will of Parameswar. In fact,
Pantheism has been virtually transformed into Theism, Brahma into a
Creator, and Maya into his creative and sustaining fiat. The _Text-book
of the Hindu Religion_ is finally monotheistic, as the times will have
it.

[Sidenote: A Parsee claiming to be a monotheist.]

As further confirmation of the change in the Indian mind, we may cite
the paper read at the Congress on the History of Religions, Basel, 1904,
by the Deputy High-priest of the Parsees, Bombay. The dualism of the
Zoroastrian theology has hitherto been regarded as its distinctive
feature, but the paper sought to show "that the religion of the Parsees
was largely monotheistic, not dualistic."

The theistic standpoint of the younger members of the educated class of
to-day is easily discoverable. The word _God_ used in their English
compositions or speeches, plainly implies a person. The commonplace of
the anxious student is that the pass desired, the failure feared, is
dependent upon the will of God--language manifestly not pantheistic.
Religious expressions, we may remark, are natural to a Hindu.

[Sidenote: The conception of the Deity as female has gone from the minds
of the educated.]

In the new theism of educated Indians we may note that the conception of
the deity as female is practically gone. Not so among the masses,
particularly of the provinces of Bengal and Gujerat, the provinces
distinctively of goddesses. The sight of a man in Calcutta in the first
hour of his sore bereavement calling upon Mother Kali has left a deep
impression upon me.[83] Be it remembered, however, what his cry meant,
and what the name _Mother_ in such cases means. It is a honorific form
of address, not