t intention of identifying the person deified with the Supreme
Being, and odd as it may seem, the worship of such "gods" is compatible
with monotheism or atheism. In China, Shang-ti is less definite than
God[105] and it does not appear that he is thought of as the creator of
the world and of human souls. Even the greater Hindu deities are not
really God, for those who follow the higher life can neglect and almost
despise them, without, however, denying their existence. On the other
hand Brahman, the pantheos of India, though equal to the Christian God
in majesty, is really a different conception, for he is not a creator in
the ordinary sense: he is impersonal and though not evil, yet he
transcends both good and evil. He might seem merely a force more suited
to be the subject matter of science than of religion, were not
meditation on him the occupation, and union with him the goal, of many
devout lives. And even when Indian deities are most personal, as in the
Vishnuite sects, it will be generally found that their relations to the
world and the soul are not those of the Christian God. It is because the
conception of superhuman existence is so different in Europe and Asia
that Asiatic religions often seem contradictory or corrupt: Buddhism and
Jainism, which we describe as atheistic, and the colourless respectable
religion of educated Chinese, become in their outward manifestations
unblushingly polytheistic.

Similar difficulties and ambiguities attend the use of the word soul,
for Buddhism, which is supposed to hold that there is no soul, preaches
retribution in future existences for acts done in this, and seeks to
terrify the evil doer with the pains of hell; whereas the philosophy of
the Brahmans, which inculcates a belief in the soul, seems to teach in
some of its phases that the disembodied and immortal soul has no
consciousness in the ordinary human sense. Here language is dealing with
the same problems as those which we describe by such phrases as the
soul, immortality and continuous existence, but it is striving to
express ideas for which we have little sympathy and no adequate
terminology. They will be considered later.

But one attitude towards that which survives death is almost universal
in Eastern Asia and also easily intelligible. It finds expression in the
ceremonies known as ancestor worship. This practice has attracted
special attention in China, where it is the commonest and most
conspicuous form of rel