Chapter (অধ্যায়): ON THE BOUNDS OF HINDUISM PAGE-235Page: 235 of 537
religious belief out of many-visaged Hinduism, or would you chalk out a religion for them?"
"Can you ask that?" he said. "They will choose for themselves. For unless a man chooses for himself, the very spirit of Hinduism is destroyed. The essence of our Faith consists simply in this freedom of the Ishta."
I thought the utterance a weighty one, for the man before me has spent more years than any one else living, I fancy, in studying the common bases of Hinduism in a scientific and sympathetic spirit-and the freedom of the Ishta is obviously a principle big enough to accommodate the world.
But the talk passed to other matters, and then with a cordial good night this great teacher of religion lifted his lantern and went back into the monastery, while I, by the pathless paths of the Ganga, in and out amongst her crafts of many sizes, made the best of my way back to my Calcutta home.