In all these cases where hymns were written about all these gods, the Being perceived was one and the same; it was the perceiver who made the difference. It was the hymnist,the sage, the poet,who sang in different languages and different words, the praise of one and the same Being. "That which exists is One; sages call It by various names." Tremendous results have followed from that one verse. Some of you,perhaps,are surprised to think that India is the only country where there never has been a religious persecution, where never was any man disturbed for his religious faith. Theists or atheists, monists, dualists, monotheists are there and always live unmolested.



Materialists were allowed to preach from the steps of Brahminical temples,against the gods, and against God Himself; they went preaching all over the land that the idea of God was a mere superstition,and that gods, and Vedas, and religion were simply superstitions invented by the priests for their own benefit,and they were allowed to do this unmolested. And so, wherever he went, Buddha tried to pull down every old thing sacred to the Hindus to the dust,and Buddha died of ripe old age. So did the Jains,who laughed at the idea of God. "How can it be that there is a God?" they asked; "it must be a mere superstition." So on,endless examples there are.

Before the Mohammedan wave came into India,it was never known what religious persecution was; the Hindus had only experienced it as made by foreigners on themselves. And even now it is a patent fact how much Hindus have helped to build Christian churches, and how much readiness there is to help them. There never has been bloodshed. Even heterodox religions that have come out of India have been likewise affected; for instance, Buddhism.

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