LITERATURE. Radha Soami Mat Prakash, by Rai Salig Ram Bahadur, Benares, 1896, for private circulation, 10 annas. (This is by far the best presentation of Rādhā Soāmi Doctrine in English.) Discourses of Radhasoami Faith, by Pandit Brahm Sankar Misra, Benares, The Satsang, 1909. This very verbose volume has a Prefatory Note which contains details about the three gurus. For the other works of the gurus, see above, pp. 114, 115, 116. The Radha Swami Sect, by the Rev. H. D. Griswold, Ph. D., Cawnpore Mission Press.

IO. THE DEVA SAMĀJ

1. Śiva Nārāyaṇa Agnihotri was born in a Kanauji Brāhman family in 1850, in a small town in the Cawnpore district of the United Provinces. When he was sixteen, he entered the Government Engineering College at Rurki, and got the degree of Overseer after some years of study and service there. Before the close of his course, he came greatly under the religious influence of the Curator of the Instrument Depot of the College, and through him became convinced of the truth of the Vedanta philosophy as taught by Sankarāchārya, namely, that God is impersonal, and that the human spirit is God. In 1871, while he was acting as a master in the College, both he and his wife underwent a ceremony of initiation and became disciples of the Curator-guru. He also began to see clearly the need of religious and social reform. Hence he banished idolatry from his household and set his wife free from the restrictions of the zenana.

In 1873, now 23 years of age, he was appointed Drawingmaster in the Government School, Lahore; and in that city he has lived ever since. Here he at once came under the influence of the Brahma Samāj, with its doctrine that God is essentially personal. Both he and his capable wife became active Brahma workers. In 1875 he was appointed honorary minister of the Lahore Samāj, and soon became well known in the city as a man of character and a good speaker. Wherever

he went, large audiences gathered to hear him. The Arya Samāj was planted in Lahore in 1877, as we have already seen, and very soon rose to great influence. The following year, Agnihotri began a long-continued crusade against its false pretences about the Veda. In January, 1880, he attended the anniversary meetings of the recently founded Sādhāran Brahma Samāj in Calcutta ;1 and he and three others were ordained as the first missionaries of the movement.2 For two years longer he gave all his leisure to work for the Lahore Samāj; but in 1882 he gave up the post of Drawing-master in the Government School, in order that his full time might be devoted to missionary labour. We are also informed in the recent literature of the Samaj that on his birthday, the 20th of December of the same year, he took his great vow, expressed in a Hindi couplet, the translation of which runs :

The supreme object of my Life is to serve the world by establishing the kingdom of Truth and Goodness on this earth and by destroying what is opposed to them; may I spend my whole life for the fulfilment of this supreme object!

In any case his full powers now began to make themselves manifest. He proved effective as a writer as well as a speaker. Books, pamphlets and tracts poured from the press. For a little time a sort of simple copy of the Salvation Army, called the Brahma Sena or Brahma Army, was used as an auxiliary. He made his influence felt in every section of public life in Lahore. But it was not long before difficulties arose within the Samāj. His methods displeased the quieter members; and his forceful will and autocratic temper led to constant friction with the other leaders. He wanted to rule. He would often be heard to say, "I am born to command not to obey." Most of the members were apprehensive that he would soon set up as the authoritative guru of the Samaj. The way his followers now express this is: "His life-mission was unique 1P. 55, above. 2 HBS., II, 144.

and quite different from the object of the Brahmo Samāj.” A split became inevitable.

2. Accordingly, he seceded from the Brahma Samāj, taking with him a fair number of followers, and organized, on the Queen's Jubilee day,1 February 16th, 1887, a new society to be known as the Deva Samaj. The name was clearly chosen in order to distinguish the new society from the old, and yet to indicate its close relationship to it. Brahma is an adjective formed from the word Brahman, the name of the supreme God of the Upanishads. Deva is the ordinary Sanskrit word for one of the innumerable gods of the Hindu pantheon, but is probably used in the name of the society as an adjective. So that the whole name means the Divine Society. A creed was soon issued, which showed that the aims and beliefs of the new community were very similar to those of the Brahma Samāj; yet there were significant differences. The Deva Dharma, the divine religion of the divine society, is a special divine dispensation, and so is distinct from the Brahma Dharma. The doctrines are Brahma doctrines; yet the beginnings of a guru-doctrine are perceptible; and, within a few years, the leader could say of himself, "My mission is unique"; "I am free from sin"; and "I am a ship of hope and a leaven for elevating nations." The work of the Samāj ran along the usual lines: only Agnihotri dabbled in spiritualism.

3

In 1893 he became involved in a libel case which, dragging on for five long years, greatly hindered the work of the Samāj. During this period Agnihotri's mind underwent a very serious change; and at its close a new period opens.

3. From 1898 down to the present day the Deva Samāj has been an atheistic society, working for educational and moral ends. Yet the members attribute to the guru such a supreme place in human evolution and give him such a position in their 2 Cf. Keshab's idea, above, p. 55. Dharma Jivan, 4th October, 1892.

1 As celebrated in India.

own minds and devotional practice that we are fully justified in saying that, practically, he is regarded and worshipped as a god. Indeed, they call him sattya deva, a real god.1 The literature of the earlier period was at once withdrawn from circulation as far as possible; a new creed, quite different from the previous one was promulgated; and, for several years, there was no public preaching or disputation. The literature of the sect is now sold publicly and many of the meetings are public; but the devotional meetings and the worship of the guru are held in private. The chief book of the Samaj is called the Deva Sastra, or Divine Scripture, and the teaching, Deva Dharma, or Divine Religion.

4. The teaching of the sect is that the universe consists of matter and force, which are uncreated and indestructible, and which manifest themselves in four forms, inorganic, vegetable, animal, human. Man's life or soul is the builder of his body, the most essential part of his existence. The soul develops if it possess the necessary capacity and unite with the right evolutionary environment; but if it lacks the capacity or fails to grasp the environment, it degenerates; and if degeneration is not checked, it will become extinct. A soul that rises to the Complete Higher Life is thereby raised above the danger of degeneration and extinction. The soul then survives in the form of a refined human body.

Good action leads to development, evil action to degeneration. When a man reaches a certain height of development, he is entirely beyond the danger of degeneration and dissolution. In order to reach this higher life, it is necessary to unite with one who has already risen to these heights. The guru of the Deva Samāj has risen to the highest possible heights, and thus is the true environment for souls eager for progress. He is an unprecedented manifestation of the powers of the highest life.

1 He is so called in a letter sent me by the Secretary of the Samāj.