॥ मतपरीक्षा ॥

भारतीयशास्त्रविचारात्मकः

। प्रथमः खण्डः ।

AN

EXAMINATION OF RELIGIONS:

PART THE FIRST ;

CONTAINING

ACONSIDERATION OF THE HINDU SASTRAS,

WITH

An English Version and Preface.

MIRZAPORE:

ORPHAN PRESS :- R. C. MATHER, SUPT.

"Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God: even as I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved. Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ."

ST. PAUL TO THE CORINTHIANS, X. 32-XI. 1.

PREFACE.

scope

THE present Tract agrees only in name and general with the one I published in 1840. The arrangement and treatment of the topics, and, in a good measure, the topics themselves embraced in the two works are different. The present work is, moreover, incomplete, as it only contains the argument in refutation of Hinduism, the statement of the evidences of Christianity being reserved for a future opportunity.

The first and largest portion of this Tract is taken up with an historical review of the Hindu religion in its principal successive phases, as represented in the Vedic hymns, the Upanishads, the six Darsanas, the Epic poems, and the Puránas; and with an indication of the arguments against the divine authority of the Hindu religion derivable from the absence of any evidence of its supernatural origin, from its continual mutations, from the appearance which some of its developments present of being nothing more than the results of progressive human thought, and the mutual contradictions which are apparent, in facts and doctrines, between the various Sástras philosophical and popular. The concluding portion is occupied with the