RELIGIONS OF THE EMPIRE

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 146, 17 December 1924, Page 6

RELIGIONS OF THE EMPIRE

A UNIQUE CONFERENCE

TRIBUTE TO BRITISH IMPARTI-

ALITY.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.).

LONDON, Ist October.

A conference of representatives of all the great religions has begun in the Imperial Institute. On the opening day one of the strangest tea parties ever held in London took place. There were Indians in richly embroidered robes and vivid turbans; holy men of Eastern Asia in dark robes proclaiming their sects by their coloured headgear; Oriental scholars with long white beards; and a number of young English women.

. One of the most picturesque figures present was that of his Holiness the Khalifat-ul-Messih, Al ha] el Mivza, Bashir ud-din Mahmud Ahmad, head of the Ahmadiyya movement in Islam. The Khalifa wore a snow-white turban, and his retinue of thirteen secretaries, who have accompanied him from India, wore headgear of bright green. Near the Khalifa sat Pundit Shyam Shankar, a barrister and the official exponent of Orthodox Hinduism. The Pundit was in straw-coloured satin robes encrusted with gold ornaments worked into a rosepink background and a flowing turban of deep rose-pink fell to his shoulders.

The conference, held under the auspices of the School of Oriental Studies, and promoted by Sir Denison Boss, is one ,of the largest religious gatherings ever held. Some of the- holy men attending it have left their mosques and temples for the first time and travelled thousands of miles to hear other religions discussed by their exponents. Sir Francis Younghusband, addressing the meeting, pointed out that included in the Empire were adherents of all the great religions, and though the Government had to show strict impartiality between them, that did not mean indifference to religion on the part of ihe British people. The ultimate basis on which the British Empire should stand must be religion. Political constitutions and trade agreements were merely the bones. The motive power, must be the most exalted spirit. Even patriotism was not enough.

RELIGION NOT A WANING

FORCE.

In all the great religions men with fiery zeal were reaching after purer re*ligion. In the process of regenerating and developing religion there always had been, and there always would be, clash and conflict of opinion. Each religion would have its own way of worship. Nevertheless, there was unity, as well as diversity, both of inspiration and of aspiration. In that conference agreement was not expected. There was need not for agreement but for stimulation. They hoped that the proceedings would stir in men and in nations a spirit of emulation in capturing more successively the divine spirit which animated the world. They hoped also that the conference would prove that religion was no waning force in human affairs, but that it should be a vital and determining factor in human progress. Men of religious genius were the very embodiment of the living spirit of the world. They were prone to assume that those divine men who had appeared in the past had been a full revelation of the Power that governed the world. But men of the highest religious genius were just as likely to appear in the future. Such men, however, would never be a complete manifestation of the spirit, because the spirit was infinite. The pioneering leaders seemed to be finding their way to religion of greater depth and wider scope than man had hitherto known.

A lecture on "Orthodox Hinduism"— or Sanatan Dharma—was given by Pundit Shyam Shankar. He paid tribute to the i impartiality of the British Government in the matter of religions. Hinduism, he said, was not the outcome of one preacher or of one Gospel. Tho seers who received the re-velaticm did not pretend to have a thorough- knowledge of the mysterious power ir. the universe. It bad been admitted to be indefinable, unknowable, and indescribable. The Hindus had all the conceptions of divinity and were free to adopt any form of worship. The one central doctrine was that of Kharma, which regulated tho reincarnation _ arid transmigration of the soul. Hinduism was a genus religion, of which many other religions were the species. It was ,not necessary for a Hindu to profess any faith, and he could remain a Hindu even though outcasted by his own community.