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Title: The Religions of India
Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow
Author: Edward Washburn Hopkins
Release Date: December 28, 2004 [EBook #14499]
Language: English
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HANDBOOKS ON THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS
EDITED BY MORRIS JASTROW, JR., PH.D.
_Professor of Semitic Languages
in the University of Pennsylvania_
VOLUME I
HANDBOOKS ON THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS
THE
RELIGIONS OF INDIA
BY
EDWARD WASHBURN HOPKINS
Ph.D. (LEIPSIC)
PROFESSOR OF SANSKRIT AND COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY IN BRYN MAWR COLLEGE
_"This holy mystery I declare unto you:
There is nothing nobler than humanity."_
THE MAH[=A]BH[=A]RATA.
LONDON
EDWARD ARNOLD
37 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND
PUBLISHER TO THE INDIA OFFICE
1896
_(All rights reserved)_
COPYRIGHT, 1895, BY
EDWARD WASHBURN HOPKINS
TO THE MEMORY OF
WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY
THIS VOLUME
IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
BY THE AUTHOR
PREFATORY NOTE
BY THE EDITOR.
The growing interest both in this country and abroad in the historical
study of religions is one of the noticeable features in the
intellectual phases of the past decades. The more general indications
of this interest may be seen in such foundations as the Hibbert and
Gifford Lectureships in England, and the recent organization of an
American committee to arrange in various cities for lectures on the
history of religions, in the establishment of a special department for
the subject at the University of Paris, in the organization of the
Musée Guimet at Paris, in the publication of a journal--the _Revue de
l'Histoire des Religions_--under the auspices of this Museum, and in
the creation of chairs at the Collège de France, at the Universities
of Holland, and in this country at Cornell University and the
University of Chicago,[1] with the prospect of others to follow in the
near future. For the more special indications we must turn to the
splendid labors of a large array of scholars toiling in the various
departments of ancient culture--India, Babylonia, Assyria, Egypt,
Palestine, Arabia, Phoenicia, China, Greece, and Rome--with the result
of securing a firm basis for the study of the religions flourishing in
those countries--a result due mainly to the discovery of fresh sources
and to the increase of the latter brought about by exploration and
incessant research. The detailed study of the facts of religion
everywhere, both in primitive society and in advancing civilization,
and the emphasis laid upon gathering and understanding these facts
prior to making one's deductions, has succeeded in setting aside the
speculations and generalizations that until the beginning of this
century paraded under the name of "Philosophy of Religion."
Such has been the scholarly activity displayed and the fertility
resulting, that it seems both desirable and timely to focus, as it
were, the array of facts connected with the religions of the ancient
world in such a manner that the summary resulting may serve as the
point of departure for further investigations.
This has been the leading thought which has suggested the series of
Handbooks on the History of Religions. The treatment of the religions
included in the series differs from previous attempts in the aim to
bring together the ascertained results of scholarship rather than to
make an additional contribution, though the character of the scholars
whose coöperation has beep secured justifies the hope that their
productions will also mark an advance in the interpretation of the
subject assigned to each. In accord with this general aim, mere
discussion has been limited to a minimum, while the chief stress has
been laid upon the clear and full presentation of the data connected
with each religion.
A uniform plan has been drawn up by the editor for the order of
treatment in the various volumes, by following which it is hoped that
the continuous character of the series will be secured.
In this plan the needs of the general reader, as well as those of the
student, for whom, in the first place, the series is designed, have
been kept in view. After the introduction, which in the case of each
volume is to be devoted to a setting forth of the sources and the
method of study, a chapter follows on the land and the people,
presenting those ethnographical and geographical considerations,
together with a brief historical sketch of the people in question, so
essential to an understanding of intellectual and religious life
everywhere.
In the third section, which may be denominated the kernel of the book,
the subdivisions and order of presentation necessarily vary, the
division into periods being best adapted to one religion, the
geographical order for another, the grouping of themes in a logical
sequence for a third; but in every case, the range covered will be the
same, namely, the beliefs, including the pantheon, the relation to the
gods, views of life and death, the rites--both the official ones and
the popular customs--the religious literature and architecture. A
fourth section will furnish a general estimate of the religion, its
history, and the relation it bears to others. Each volume will
conclude with a full bibliography, index, and necessary maps, with
illustrations introduced into the text as called for. The Editor has
been fortunate in securing the services of distinguished specialists
whose past labors and thorough understanding of the plan and purpose
of the series furnish a guarantee for the successful execution of
their task.
It is the hope of the Editor to produce in this way a series of
manuals that may serve as text-books for the historical study of
religions in our universities and seminaries. In addition to supplying
this want, the arrangement of the manuals will, it is expected, meet
the requirements of reliable reference-books for ascertaining the
present status of our knowledge of the religions of antiquity, while
the popular manner of presentation, which it will be the aim of the
writers to carry out, justifies the hope that the general reader will
find the volumes no less attractive and interesting.
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: In an article by the writer published in the
_Biblical World_ (University of Chicago Press) for January,
1893, there will be found an account of the present status
of the Historical Study of Religions in this country.]
* * * * *
CHAPTER I.--INTRODUCTION.
SOURCES.--DATES.--METHODS OF INTERPRETATION.--DIVISIONS OF SUBJECT.
SOURCES.
India always has been a land of religions. In the earliest Vedic
literature are found not only hymns in praise of the accepted gods,
but also doubts in regard to the worth of these gods; the beginnings
of a new religion incorporated into the earliest records of the old.
And later, when, about 300 B.C, Megasthenes was in India, the
descendants of those first theosophists are still discussing, albeit
in more modern fashion, the questions that lie at the root of all
religion. "Of the philosophers, those that are most estimable he terms
Brahmans ([Greek: _brachmanas_]). These discuss with many words
concerning death. For they regard death as being, for the wise, a
birth into real life--into the happy life. And in many things they
hold the same opinions with the Greeks: saying that the universe was
begotten and will be destroyed, and that the world is a sphere, which
the god who made and owns it pervades throughout; that there are
different beginnings of all things, but water is the beginning of
world-making, while, in addition to the four elements, there is, as
fifth, a kind of nature, whence came the sky and the stars.... And
concerning the seed of things and the soul they have much to say also,
whereby they weave in myths, just as does Plato, in regard to the
soul's immortality, judgment in hell, and such things."[1]
And as India conspicuously is a country of creeds, so is its
literature preëminently priestly and religious. From the first Veda to
the last Pur[=a]na, religion forms either the subject-matter of the
most important works, or, as in the case of the epics,[2] the basis of
didactic excursions and sectarian interpolations, which impart to
worldly themes a tone peculiarly theological. History and oratory are
unknown in Indian literature. The early poetry consists of hymns and
religious poems; the early prose, of liturgies, linguistics, "law,"
theology, sacred legends and other works, all of which are intended to
supplement the knowledge of the Veda, to explain ceremonies, or to
inculcate religious principles. At a later date, formal grammar and
systems of philosophy, fables and commentaries are added to the prose;
epics, secular lyric, drama, the Pur[=a]nas and such writings to the
poetry. But in all this great mass, till that time which Müller has
called the Renaissance--that is to say, till after the Hindus were
come into close contact with foreign nations, notably the Greek, from
which has been borrowed, perhaps, the classical Hindu drama,[3]--there
is no real literature that was not religious originally, or, at least,
so apt for priestly use as to become chiefly moral and theosophic;
while the most popular works of modern times are sectarian tracts,
Pur[=]nas, Tantras and remodelled worldly poetry. The sources, then,
from which is to be drawn the knowledge of Hindu religions are the
best possible--the original texts. The information furnished by
foreigners, from the times of Ktesias and Megasthenes to that of
Mandelslo, is considerable; but one is warranted in assuming that what
little in it is novel is inaccurate, since otherwise the information
would have been furnished by the Hindus themselves; and that,
conversely, an outsider's statements, although presumably correct,
often may give an inexact impression through lack of completeness; as
when--to take an example that one can control--Ktesias tells half the
truth in regard to ordeals. His account is true, but he gives no
notion of the number or elaborate character of these interesting
ceremonies.
The sources to which we shall have occasion to refer will be, then,
the two most important collections of Vedic hymns--the Rig Veda and
the Atharva Veda; the Brahmanic literature, with the supplementary
Upanishads, and the S[=u]tras or mnemonic abridgments of religious and
ceremonial rules; the legal texts, and the religious and theological
portions of the epic; and the later sectarian writings, called
Pur[=a]nas. The great heresies, again, have their own special
writings. Thus far we shall draw on the native literature. Only for
some of the modern sects, and for the religions of the wild tribes
which have no literature, shall we have to depend on the accounts of
European writers.
DATES.
For none of the native religious works has one a certain date. Nor is
there for any one of the earlier compositions the certainty that it
belongs, as a whole, to any one time. The Rig Veda was composed by
successive generations; the Atharvan represents different ages; each
Br[=a]hmana appears to belong in part to one era, in part to another;
the earliest S[=u]tras (manuals of law, etc.) have been interpolated;
the earliest metrical code is a composite; the great epic is the work
of centuries; and not only do the Upanishads and Pur[=a]nas represent
collectively many different periods, but exactly to which period each
individually is to be assigned remains always doubtful. Only in the
case of the Buddhistic writings is there a satisfactorily approximate
terminus a quo, and even here approximate means merely within the
limit of centuries.
Nevertheless, criteria fortunately are not lacking to enable one to
assign the general bulk of any one work to a certain period in the
literary development; and as these periods are, if not sharply, yet
plainly distinguishable, one is not in so desperate a case as he might
have expected to be, considering that it is impossible to date with
certainty any Hindu book or writer before the Christian era. For,
first, there exists a difference in language, demarcating the most
important periods; and, secondly, the development of the literature
has been upon such lines that it is easy to say, from content and
method of treatment, whether a given class of writings is a product of
the Vedic, early Brahmanic, or late Brahmanic epochs. Usually, indeed,
one is unable to tell whether a later Upanishad was made first in the
early or late Brahmanic period, but it is known that the Upanishads,
as a whole, _i.e._, the literary form and philosophical material which
characterize Upanishads, were earlier than the latest Brahmanic period
and subsequent to the early Brahmanic period; that they arose at the
close of the latter and before the rise of the former. So the
Br[=a]hmanas, as a whole, are subsequent to the Vedic age, although
some of the Vedic hymns appear to have been made up in the same period
with that of the early Br[=a]hmanas. Again, the Pur[=a]nas can be
placed with safety after the late Brahmanic age; and, consequently,
subsequent to the Upanishads, although it is probable that many
Upanishads were written after the first Pur[=a]nas. The general
compass of this enormous literature is from an indefinite antiquity to
about 1500 A.D. A liberal margin of possible error must be allowed in
the assumption of any specific dates. The received opinion is that
the Rig Veda goes back to about 2000 B.C., yet are some scholars
inclined rather to accept 3000 B.C. as the time that represents this
era. Weber, in his _Lectures on Sanskrit Literature_ (p. 7), rightly
says that to seek for an exact date is fruitless labor; while Whitney
compares Hindu dates to ninepins--set up only to be bowled down again.
Schroeder, in his _Indiens Literatur und Cultur_, suggests that the
prior limit may be "a few centuries earlier than 1500," agreeing with
Weber's preferred reckoning; but Whitney, Grassmann, and Benfey
provisionally assume 2000 B.C. as the starting point of Hindu
literature. The lowest possible limit for this event Müller now places
at about 1500, which is recognized as a very cautious view; most
scholars thinking that Müller's estimate gives too little time for the
development of the literary periods, which, in their opinion, require,
linguistically and otherwise, a greater number of years. Brunnhofer
more recently has suggested 2800 B.C. as the terminus; while the last
writers on the subject (Tilak and Jacobi) claim to have discovered
that the period from 3500 to 2500 represents the Vedic age. Their
conclusions, however, are not very convincing, and have been disputed
vigorously.[4] Without the hope of persuading such scholars as are
wedded to a terminus of three or four thousand years ago that we are
right, we add, in all deference to others, our own opinion on this
vexed question. Buddhism gives the first semblance of a date in Hindu
literature. Buddha lived in the sixth century, and died probably about
480, possibly (Westergaard's extreme opinion) as late as 368.[5]
Before this time arise the S[=u]tras, back of which lie the earliest
Upanishads, the bulk of the Br[=a]hmanas, and all the Vedic poems. Now
it is probable that the Brahmanic literature itself extends to the
time of Buddha and perhaps beyond it. For the rest of pre-Buddhistic
literature it seems to us incredible that it is necessary to require,
either from the point of view of linguistic or of social and religious
development, the enormous period of two thousand years. There are no
other grounds on which to base a reckoning except those of Jacobi and
his Hindu rival, who build on Vedic data results that hardly support
the superstructure they have erected. Jacobi's starting-point is from
a mock-serious hymn, which appears to be late and does not establish,
to whatever date it be assigned, the point of departure from which
proceeds his whole argument, as Whitney has shown very well. One is
driven back to the needs of a literature in respect of time sufficient
for it to mature. What changes take place in language, even with a
written literature, in the space of a few centuries, may be seen in
Persian, Greek, Latin, and German. No two thousand years are required
to bridge the linguistic extremes of the Vedic and classical Sanskrit
language.[6] But in content it will be seen that the flower of the
later literature is budding already in the Vedic age. We are unable to
admit that either in language or social development, or in literary or
religious growth, more than a few centuries are necessary to account
for the whole development of Hindu literature (meaning thereby
compositions, whether written or not) up to the time of Buddha.
Moreover, if one compare the period at which arise the earliest forms
of literature among other Aryan peoples, it will seem very strange
that, whereas in the case of the Romans, Greeks, and Persians, one
thousand years B.C. is the extreme limit of such literary activity as
has produced durable works, the Hindus two or three thousand years
B.C. were creating poetry so finished, so refined, and, from a
metaphysical point of view, so advanced as is that of the Rig Veda.
If, as is generally assumed, the (prospective) Hindus and Persians
were last to leave the common Aryan habitat, and came together to the
south-east, the difficulty is increased; especially in the light of
modern opinion in regard to the fictitious antiquity of Persian
(Iranian) literature. For if Darmesteter be correct in holding the
time of the latter to be at most a century before our era, the
incongruity between that oldest date of Persian literature and the
"two or three thousand years before Christ," which are claimed in the
case of the Rig Veda, becomes so great as to make the latter
assumption more dubious than ever.
We think in a word, without wishing to be dogmatic, that the date of
the Rig Veda is about on a par, historically, with that of 'Homer,'
that is to say, the Collection[7] represents a long period, which was
completed perhaps two hundred years after 1000 B.C, while again its
earliest beginnings precede that date possibly by five centuries; but
we would assign the bulk of the Rig Veda to about 1000 B.C. With
conscious imitation of older speech a good deal of archaic linguistic
effect doubtless was produced by the latest poets, who really belong
to the Brahmanic age. The Brahmanic age in turn ends, as we opine,
about 500 B.C., overlapping the S[=u]tra period as well as that of the
first Upanishads. The former class of writings (after 500 B.C. one may
talk of writings) is represented by dates that reach from circa
600-500 B.C. nearly to our era. Buddhism's _floruit_ is from 500 B.C.
to 500 A.D., and epic Hinduism covers nearly the same centuries. From
500 to 1000 Buddhism is in a state of decadence; and through this time
extend the dramatic and older Puranic writings; while other Pur[=a]nas
are as late as 1500, at which time arises the great modern reforming
sect of the Sikhs. In the matter of the earlier termini a century may
be added or subtracted here and there, but these convenient divisions
of five hundreds will be found on the whole to be sufficiently
accurate.[8]
METHODS OF INTERPRETATION.
At the outset of his undertaking a double problem presents itself to
one that would give, even in compact form, a view of Hindu religions.
This problem consists in explaining, and, in so far as is possible,
reconciling opposed opinions in regard not only to the nature of these
religions but also to the method of interpreting the Vedic hymns.
That the Vedic religion was naturalistic and mytho-poetic is doubted
by few. The Vedic hymns laud the powers of nature and natural
phenomena as personified gods, or even as impersonal phenomena. They
praise also as distinct powers the departed fathers. In the Rig Veda
I. 168, occur some verses in honor of the storm-gods called Maruts:
"Self-yoked are they come lightly from the sky. The immortals urge
themselves on with the goad. Dustless, born of power, with shining
spears the Maruts overthrow the strongholds. Who is it, O Maruts, ye
that have lightning-spears, that impels you within? ... The streams
roar from the tires, when they send out their cloud-voices," etc.
Nothing would seem more justifiable, in view of this hymn and of many
like it, than to assume with Müller and other Indologians, that the
Marut-gods are personifications of natural phenomena. As clearly do
Indra and the Dawn appear to be natural phenomena. But no less an
authority than Herbert Spencer has attacked this view: "Facts imply
that the conception of the dawn as a person results from the giving of
dawn as a birth-name."[9] And again: "If, then, Dawn [in New Zealand
and elsewhere] is an actual name for a person, if where there prevails
this mode of distinguishing children, it has probably often been given
to those born early in the morning; the traditions concerning one of
such who became noted, would, in the mind of the uncritical savage ...
lead to identification with the dawn."[10] In another passage: "The
primitive god is the superior man ... propitiated during his life and
still more after his death."[11] Summing up, Spencer thus concludes:
"Instead of seeing in the common character of so-called myths, that
they describe combats of beings using weapons, evidence that they
arose out of human transactions; mythologists assume that the order of
Nature presents itself to the undeveloped mind in terms of victories
and defeats."[12] Moreover (_a posteriori_), "It is not true that the
primitive man looks at the powers of Nature with awe. It is not true
that he speculates about their characters and causes."[13] If Spencer
had not included in his criticism the mythologists that have written
on Vedic religion, there would be no occasion to take his opinion into
consideration. But since he claims by the light of his comparative
studies to have shown that in the Rig Veda the "so-called nature
gods,"[14] were not the oldest, and explains Dawn here exactly as he
does in New Zealand, it becomes necessary to point out, that apart
from the question of the origin of religions in general, Spencer has
made a fatal error in assuming that he is dealing in the Rig Veda with
primitive religion, uncritical savages, and undeveloped minds. And
furthermore, as the poet of the Rig Veda is not primitive, or savage,
or undeveloped, so when he worships _Dyaus pitar_ [Greek: Zeùs patáer]
as the 'sky-father,' he not only makes it evident to every reader that
he really is worshipping the visible sky above; but in his
descriptions of gods such as Indra, the Dawn, and some other new gods
he invents from time to time, long after he has passed the savage,
primitive, and undeveloped state, he makes it no less clear that he
worships phenomena as they stand before him (rain, cloud, lightning,
etc.), so that by analogy with what is apparent in the case of later
divinities, one is led inevitably to predicate the same origin as
theirs in the case of the older gods.
But it is unnecessary to spend time on this point. It is impossible
for any sober scholar to read the Rig Veda and believe that the Vedic
poets are not worshipping natural phenomena; or that the phenomena so
worshipped were not the original forms of these gods. Whether at a
more remote time there was ever a period when the pre-historic Hindu,
or his pre-Indic ancestor, worshipped the Manes exclusively is another
question, and one with which at present we have nothing to do. The
history of Hindu religions begins with the Rig Veda, and in this
period the worship of Manes and that of natural phenomena were
distinct, nor are there any indications that the latter was ever
developed from the former. It is not denied that the Hindus made gods
of departed men. They did this long after the Vedic period. But there
is no proof that all the Vedic gods, as claims Spencer, were the
worshipped souls of the dead. No _argumentum a fero_ can show in a
Vedic dawn-hymn anything other than a hymn to personified Dawn, or
make it probable that this dawn was ever a mortal's name.
In respect of that which precedes all tradition we, whose task is not
to speculate in regard to primitive religious conceptions, but to give
the history of one people's religious progress, may be pardoned for
expressing no opinion. But without abandoning history (i.e.,
tradition) we would revert for a moment to the pre-Indian period and
point out that Zarathustra's rejection of the _daevas_ which must be
the same _devas_ that are worshipped in India, proves that
_deva_-worship is the immediate predecessor of the Hindu religion. As
far back as one can scrutinize the Aryan past he finds, as the
earliest known objects of reverence, 'sun' and 'sky,' besides and
beside the blessed Manes. A word here regarding the priority of
monotheism or of polytheism. The tradition is in favor of the latter,
while on _a priori_ grounds whoever thinks that the more primitive the
race the more apt it is for monotheism will postulate, with some of
the older scholars, an assumed monotheism as the pre-historic religion
of the Hindus; while whosoever opines that man has gradually risen
from a less intellectual stage will see in the early gods of the
Hindus only another illustration of one universal fact, and posit even
Aryan polytheism as an advance on the religion which it is probable
that the remoter ancestors of the Aryans once acknowledged.
A word perhaps should be said, also, in order to a better
understanding between the ethnologists as represented by Andrew Lang,
and the unfortunate philologists whom it delights him to pommel.
Lang's clever attacks on the myth-makers, whom he persistently
describes as the philologists--and they do indeed form part of that
camp--have had the effect of bringing 'philological theories' into sad
disrepute with sciolists and 'common-sense' people. But the sun-myths
and dawn-myths that the myth-makers discover in Cinderella and Red
Riding Hood, ought not to be fathered upon all philologists. On the
other hand, who will deny that in India certain mythological figures
are eoian or solar in origin? Can any one question that Vivasvant the
'wide gleaming' is sun or bright sky, as he is represented in the
Avesta and Rig Veda? Yet is a very anthropomorphic, nay, earthly
figure, made out of this god. Or is Mr. Lang ignorant that the god
Yima became Jemshid, and that Feridun is only the god Trita? It
undoubtedly is correct to illuminate the past with other light than
that of sun or dawn, yet that these lights have shone and have been
quenched in certain personalities may be granted without doing
violence to scientific principles. All purely etymological mythology
is precarious, but one may recognize sun-myths without building a
system on the basis of a Dawn-Helen, and without referring Ilium to
the Vedic _bila_. Again, myths about gods, heroes, and fairies are to
be segregated. Even in India, which teems with it, there is little, if
any, folklore that can be traced to solar or dawn-born myths. Mr. Lang
represents a healthy reaction against too much sun-myth, but we think
that there are sun-myths still, and that despite his protests all
religion is not grown from one seed.
There remains the consideration of the second part of the double
problem which was formulated above--the method of interpretation. The
native method is to believe the scholiasts' explanations, which often
are fanciful and, in all important points, totally unreliable; since
the Hindu commentators lived so long after the period of the
literature they expound that the tradition they follow is useful only
in petty details. From a modern point of view the question of
interpretation depends mainly on whether one regard the Rig Veda as
but an Indic growth, the product of the Hindu mind alone, or as a work
that still retains from an older age ideas which, having once been
common to Hindu and Iranian, should be compared with those in the
Persian Avesta and be illustrated by them. Again, if this latter
hypothesis be correct, how is one to interpret an apparent likeness,
here and there, between Indic and foreign notions,--is it possible
that the hymns were composed, in part, before the advent of the
authors into India, and is it for this reason that in the Rig Veda are
contained certain names, ideas, and legends, which do not seem to be
native to India? On the other hand, if one adopt the theory that the
Rig Veda is wholly a native work, in how far is he to suppose that it
is separable from Brahmanic formalism? Were the hymns made
independently of any ritual, as their own excuse for being, or were
they composed expressly for the sacrifice, as part of a formal cult?
Here are views diverse enough, but each has its advocate or advocates.
According to the earlier European writers the Vedic poets are
fountains of primitive thought, streams unsullied by any tributaries,
and in reading them one quaffs a fresh draught, the gush of
unsophisticated herdsmen, in whose religion there is to be seen a
childlike belief in natural phenomena as divine forces, over which
forces stands the Heaven-god as the highest power. So in 1869
Pfleiderer speaks of the "primeval childlike naïve prayer" of Rig Veda
vi. 51. 5 ("Father sky, mother earth," etc.);[15] while Pictet, in his
work _Les Origines Indo-Européennes_, maintains that the Aryans had a
primitive monotheism, although it was vague and rudimentary; for he
regards both Iranian dualism and Hindu polytheism as being
developments of one earlier monism (claiming that Iranian dualism is
really monotheistic). Pictet's argument is that the human mind must
have advanced from the simple to the complex! Even Roth believes in an
originally "supreme deity" of the Aryans.[16] Opposed to this, the
'naïve' school of such older scholars as Roth, Müller,[17] and
Grassmann, who see in the Rig Veda an ingenuous expression of
'primitive' ideas, stand the theories of Bergaigne, who interprets
everything allegorically; and of Pischel and Geldner, realists, whose
general opinions may thus be formulated: The poets of the Rig Veda are
not childlike and naïve; they represent a comparatively late period of
culture, a society not only civilized, but even sophisticated; a mode
of thought philosophical and sceptical a religion not only ceremonious
but absolutely stereotyped. In regard to the Aryanhood of the hymns,
the stand taken by these latter critics, who renounce even Bergaigne's
slight hold on mythology, is that the Rig Veda is thoroughly Indic. It
is to be explained by the light of the formal Hindu ritualism, and
even by epic worldliness, its fresh factors being lewd gods, harlots,
and race-horses. Bloomfield, who does not go so far as this, claims
that the 'Vedic' age really is a Brahmanic age; that Vedic religion is
saturated with Brahmanic ideas and Brahmanic formalism, so that the
Rig Veda ought to be looked upon as made for the ritual, not the
ritual regarded as ancillary to the Rig Veda[18]. This scholar
maintains that there is scarcely any chronological distinction between
the hymns of the Rig Veda and the Br[=a]hmana, both forms having
probably existed together "from earliest times"; and that not a single
Vedic hymn "was ever composed without reference to ritual
application"; nay, all the hymns were "liturgical from the very
start"[19]. This is a plain advance even on Bergaigne's opinion, who
finally regarded all the family-books of the Rig Veda as composed to
subserve the _soma_-cult.[20]
In the Rig Veda occur hymns of an entirely worldly character, the
lament of a gambler, a humorous description of frogs croaking like
priests, a funny picture of contemporary morals [describing how every
one lusts after wealth], and so forth. From these alone it becomes
evident that the ritualistic view must be regarded as one somewhat
exaggerated. But if the liturgical extremist appears to have stepped a
little beyond the boundary of probability, he yet in daring remains
far behind Bergaigne's disciple Regnaud, who has a mystical 'system,'
which is, indeed, the outcome of Bergaigne's great work, though it is
very improbable that the latter would have looked with favor upon his
follower's results. In _Le Rig Veda_ [Paris, 1892] Paul Regnaud,
emphasizing again the connection between the liturgy and the hymns,
refers every word of the Rig Veda to the sacrifice in its simplest
form, the oblation. According to this author the Hindus had forgotten
the meaning of their commonest words, or consistently employed them in
their hymns in a meaning different to that in ordinary use. The very
word for god, _deva_ [deus], no longer means the 'shining one' [the
god], but the 'burning oblation'; the common word for mountain,
_giri_ also means oblation, and so on. This is Bergaigne's allegorical
mysticism run mad.
At such perversion of reasonable criticism is the exegesis of the Veda
arrived in one direction. But in another it is gone astray no less, as
misdirected by its clever German leader. In three volumes[21]
Brunnhofer has endeavored to prove that far from being a Brahmanic
product, the Rig Veda is not even the work of Hindus; that it was
composed near the Caspian Sea long before the Aryans descended into
India. Brunnhofer's books are a mine of ingenious conjectures, as
suggestive in detail as on the whole they are unconvincing. His
fundamental error is the fancy that names and ideas which might be
Iranian or Turanian would prove, if such they really could be shown to
be, that the work in which they are contained must be Iranian or
Turanian. He relies in great measure on passages that always have been
thought to be late, either whole late hymns or tags added to old
hymns, and on the most daring changes in the text, changes which he
makes in order to prove his hypothesis, although there is no necessity
for making them. The truth that underlies Brunnhofer's extravagance is
that there are foreign names in the Rig Veda, and this is all that he
has proved thus far.
In regard to the relation between the Veda and the Avesta the
difference of views is too individual to have formed systems of
interpretation on that basis alone. Every competent scholar recognizes
a close affinity between the Iranian Yima and the Hindu Yama, between
the _soma_-cult and the _haoma_-cult, but in how far the thoughts and
forms that have clustered about one development are to be compared
with those of the other there is no general agreement and there can be
none. The usual practice, however, is to call the Iranian _Yima,
haoma_, etc., to one's aid if they subserve one's own view of _Yama,
soma,_ and other Hindu parallels, and to discard analogous features as
an independent growth if they do not. This procedure is based as well
on the conditions of the problem as on the conditions of human
judgment, and must not be criticized too severely; for in fact the two
religions here and there touch each other so nearly that to deny a
relation between them is impossible, while in detail they diverge so
widely that it is always questionable whether a coincidence of ritual
or belief be accidental or imply historical connection.
It is scarcely advisable in a concise review of several religions to
enter upon detailed criticism of the methods of interpretation that
affect for the most part only the earliest of them. But on one point,
the reciprocal relations between the Vedic and Brahmanic periods, it
is necessary to say a few words. Why is it that well-informed Vedic
scholars differ so widely in regard to the ritualistic share in the
making of the Veda? Because the extremists on either side in
formulating the principles of their system forget a fact that probably
no one of them if questioned would fail to acknowledge. The Rig Veda
is not a homogeneous whole. It is a work which successive generations
have produced, and in which are represented different views, of local
or sectarian origin; while the hymns from a literary point of view are
of varying value. The latter is a fact which has been ignored
frequently, but it is more important than any other. For one has
almost no criteria, with which to discover whether the hymns precede
or follow the ritual, other than the linguistic posteriority of the
ritualistic literature, and the knowledge that there were priests with
a ritual when some of the hymns were composed. The bare fact that
hymns are found rubricated in the later literature is surely no reason
for believing that such hymns were made for the ritual. Now while it
can be shown that a large number of hymns are formal, conventional,
and mechanical in expression, and while it may be argued with
plausibility that these were composed to serve the purpose of an
established cult, this is very far from being the case with many
which, on other grounds, may be supposed to belong severally to the
older and later part of the Rig Veda. Yet does the new school, in
estimating the hymns, never admit this. The poems always are spoken of
as 'sacerdotal', ritualistic, without the slightest attempt to see
whether this be true of all or of some alone. We claim that it is not
historical, it is not judicious from a literary point of view, to
fling indiscriminately together the hymns that are evidently
ritualistic and those of other value; for, finally, it is a sober
literary judgment that is the court of appeals in regard to whether
poetry be poetry or not. Now let one take a hymn containing, to make
it an unexceptionable example, nothing very profound or very
beautiful. It is this well-known
HYMN TO THE SUN (_Rig Veda_, I. 50).
Aloft this all-wise[22] shining god
His beams of light are bearing now,
That every one the sun may see.
Apart, as were they thieves, yon stars,
Together with the night[23], withdraw
Before the sun, who seeth all.
His beams of light have been beheld
Afar, among [all] creatures; rays
Splendid as were they [blazing] fires,
Impetuous-swift, beheld of all,
Of light the maker, thou, O Sun,
Thou all the gleaming [sky] illum'st.
Before the folk of shining gods
Thou risest up, and men before,
'Fore all--to be as light beheld;
[To be] thine eye, O pure bright Heaven,
Wherewith amid [all] creatures born
Thou gazest down on busy [man].
Thou goest across the sky's broad place,
Meting with rays, O Sun, the days,
And watching generations pass.
The steeds are seven that at thy car
Bear up the god whose hair is flame
O shining god, O Sun far-seen!
Yoked hath he now his seven fair steeds,
The daughters of the sun-god's car,
Yoked but by him[24]; with these he comes.
For some thousands of years these verses have been the daily prayer of
the Hindu. They have been incorporated into the ritual in this form.
They are rubricated, and the nine stanzas form part of a prescribed
service. But, surely, it were a literary hysteron-proteron to conclude
for this reason that they were made only to fill a part in an
established ceremony.
The praise is neither perfunctory nor lacking in a really religious
tone. It has a directness and a simplicity, without affectation, which
would incline one to believe that it was not made mechanically, but
composed with a devotional spirit that gave voice to genuine feeling.
We will now translate another poem (carefully preserving all the
tautological phraseology), a hymn
To DAWN _(Rig Veda_ VI. 64).
Aloft the lights of Dawn, for beauty gleaming,
Have risen resplendent, like to waves of water;
She makes fair paths, (makes) all accessible;
And good is she, munificent and kindly.
Thou lovely lookest, through wide spaces shin'st thou,
Up fly thy fiery shining beams to heaven;
Thy bosom thou reveals't, thyself adorning,
Aurora, goddess gleaming bright in greatness.
The ruddy kine (the clouds) resplendent bear her,
The blessed One, who far and wide extendeth.
As routs his foes a hero armed with arrows,
As driver swift, so she compels the darkness.
Thy ways are fair; thy paths, upon the mountains;
In calm, self-shining one, thou cross'st the waters.
O thou whose paths are wide, to us, thou lofty
Daughter of Heaven, bring wealth for our subsistence.
Bring (wealth), thou Dawn, who, with the kine, untroubled
Dost bring us good commensurate with pleasure,
Daughter of Heaven, who, though thou art a goddess,
Didst aye at morning-call come bright and early.
Aloft the birds fly ever from their dwelling,
And men, who seek for food, at thy clear dawning.
E'en though a mortal stay at home and serve thee,
Much joy to him, Dawn, goddess (bright), thou bringest.
The "morning call" might, indeed, suggest the ritual, but it proves
only a morning prayer or offering. Is this poem of a "singularly
refined character," or "preëminently sacerdotal" in appearance? One
other example (in still a different metre) may be examined, to see if
it bear on its face evidence of having been made with "reference to
ritual application," or of being "liturgical from the very start."
To INDRA _(Rig Veda_, I.11).
'Tis Indra all (our) songs extol,
Him huge as ocean in extent;
Of warriors chiefest warrior he,
Lord, truest lord for booty's gain.
In friendship, Indra, strong as thine
Naught will we fear, O lord of strength;
To thee we our laudations sing,
The conqueror unconquered.[25]
The gifts of Indra many are,
And inexhaustible his help
Whene'er to them that praise he gives
The gift of booty rich in kine.
A fortress-render, youthful, wise,
Immeasurably strong was born
Indra, the doer of every deed,
The lightning-holder, far renowned.
'Twas thou, Bolt-holder, rent'st the cave
Of Val, who held the (heavenly) kine;[26]
Thee helped the (shining) gods, when roused
(To courage) by the fearless one.[27]
Indra, who lords it by his strength,
Our praises now have loud proclaimed;
His generous gifts a thousand are,
Aye, even more than this are they.
This is poetry. Not great poetry perhaps, but certainly not ground out
to order, as some of the hymns appear to have been. Yet, it may be
said, why could not a poetic hymn have been written in a ritualistic
environment? But it is on the hymns themselves that one is forced to
depend for the belief in the existence of ritualism, and we claim that
such hymns as these, which we have translated as literally as
possible, show rather that they were composed without reference to
ritual application. It must not be forgotten that the ritual, as it is
known in the Br[=a]hmanas, without the slightest doubt, from the point
of view of language, social conditions, and theology, represents an
age that is very different to that illustrated by the mass of the
hymns. Such hymns, therefore, and only such as can be proved to have a
ritualistic setting can be referred to a ritualistic age. There is no
convincing reason why one should not take the fully justified view
that some of the hymns represent a freer and more natural (less
priest-bound) age, as they represent a spirit freer and less
mechanical than that of other hymns. As to the question which hymns,
early or late, be due to poetic feeling, and which to ritualistic
mechanism or servile imitation, this can indeed be decided by a
judgment based only on the literary quality, never on the accident of
subsequent rubrication.
We hold, therefore, in this regard, that the new school, valuable and
suggestive as its work has been, is gone already farther than is
judicious. The Rig Veda in part is synchronous with an advanced
ritualism, subjected to it, and in some cases derived from it; but in
part the hymns are "made for their own sake and not for the sake of
any sacrificial performance," as said Muller of the whole; going in
this too far, but not into greater error than are gone they that
confuse the natural with the artificial, the poetical with the
mechanical, gold with dross. It may be true that the books of the Rig
Veda are chiefly family-books for the _soma_-cult, but even were it
true it would in no wise impugn the poetic character of some of the
hymns contained in these books. The drag-net has scooped up old and
new, good and bad, together. The Rig Veda is not of one period or of
one sort. It is a 'Collection,' as says its name. It is essentially
impossible that any sweeping statement in regard to its character
should be true if that character be regarded as uniform. To say that
the Rig Veda represents an age of childlike thought, a period before
the priestly ritual began its spiritual blight, is incorrect. But no
less incorrect is it to assert that the Rig Veda represents a period
when hymns are made only for rubrication by priests that sing only for
baksheesh. Scholars are too prone to-day to speak of the Rig Veda in
the same way as the Greeks spoke of Homer. It is to be hoped that the
time may soon come when critics will no longer talk about the
Collection as if it were all made in the same circumstances and at the
same time; above all is it desirable that the literary quality of the
hymns may receive due attention, and that there may be less of those
universal asseverations which treat the productions of generations of
poets as if they were the work of a single author.
In respect of the method of reading into the Rig Veda what is found in
parallel passages in the Atharva Veda and Br[=a]hmanas, a practice
much favored by Ludwig and others, the results of its application have
been singularly futile in passages of importance. Often a varied
reading will make clearer a doubtful verse, but it by no means follows
that the better reading is the truer. There always remains the lurking
suspicion that the reason the variant is more intelligible is that its
inventor did not understand the original. As to real elucidation of
other sort by the later texts, in the minutiae of the outer world, in
details of priestcraft, one may trust early tradition tentatively,
just as one does late commentators, but in respect of ideas tradition
is as apt to mislead as to lead well. The cleft between the theology
of the Rig Veda and that of the Br[=a]hmanas, even from the point of
view of the mass of hymns that comprise the former, is too great to
allow us with any content to explain the conceptions of the one by
those of the other. A tradition always is useful when nothing else
offers itself, but traditional beliefs are so apt to take the color of
new eras that they should be employed only in the last emergency, and
then with the understanding that they are of very hypothetical value.
In conclusion a practical question remains to be answered. In the few
cases where the physical basis of a Rig Vedic deity is matter of
doubt, it is advisable to present such a deity in the form in which he
stands in the text or to endeavor historically to elucidate the figure
by searching for his physical prototype? We have chosen the former
alternative, partly because we think the latter method unsuitable to a
handbook, since it involves many critical discussions of theories of
doubtful value. But this is not the chief reason. Granted that the
object of study is simply to know the Rig Veda, rightly to grasp the
views held by the poets, and so to place oneself upon their plane of
thought, it becomes obvious that the farther the student gets from
their point of view the less he understands them. Nay, more, every bit
of information, real as well as fancied, which in regard to the poets'
own divinities furnishes one with more than the poets themselves knew
or imagined, is prejudicial to a true knowledge of Vedic beliefs. Here
if anywhere is applicable that test of desirable knowledge formulated
as _das Erkennen des Erkannten_. To set oneself in the mental sphere
of the Vedic seers, as far as possible to think their thoughts, to
love, fear, and admire with them--this is the necessary beginning of
intimacy, which precedes the appreciation that gives understanding.
DIVISIONS OF THE SUBJECT.
After the next chapter, which deals with the people and land, we shall
begin the examination of Hindu religions with the study of the beliefs
and religious notions to be found in the Rig Veda. Next to the Rig
Veda in time stands the Atharva Veda, which represents a growing
demonology in contrast with _soma_-worship and theology; sufficiently
so at least to deserve a special chapter. These two Vedic Collections
naturally form the first period of Hindu religion.
The Vedic period is followed by what is usually termed Brahmanism, the
religion that is inculcated in the rituals called Br[=a]hmana and its
later development in the Upanishads. These two classes of works,
together with the Yajur Veda, will make the next divisions of the
whole subject. The formal religion of Brahmanism, as laid down for
popular use and instruction in the law-books, is a side of Brahmanic
religion that scarcely has been noticed, but it seems to deserve all
the space allotted to it in the chapter on 'The Popular Brahmanic
Faith.' We shall then review Jainism and Buddhism, the two chief
heresies. Brahmanism penetrates the great epic poem which, however, in
its present form is sectarian in tendency, and should be separated as
a growth of Hinduism from the literature of pure Brahmanism.
Nevertheless, so intricate and perplexing would be the task of
unraveling the theologic threads that together make the yarn of the
epic, and in many cases it would be so doubtful whether any one thread
led to Brahmanism or to the wider and more catholic religion called
Hinduism, that we should have preferred to give up the latter name
altogether, as one that was for the most part idle, and in some degree
misleading. Feeling, however, that a mere manual should not take the
initiative in coining titles, we have admitted this unsatisfactory
word 'Hinduism' as the title of a chapter which undertakes to give a
comprehensive view of the religions endorsed by the many-centuried
epic, and to explain their mutual relations. As in the case of the
'Popular Faith,' we have had here no models to go upon, and the mass
of matter which it was necessary to handle--the great epic is about
eight times as long as the Iliad and Odyssey put together--must be our
excuse for many imperfections of treatment in this part of the work.
The reader will gain at least a view of the religious development as
it is exhibited in the literature, and therefore, as, far as possible,
in chronological order. The modern sects and the religions of the hill
tribes of India form almost a necessary supplement to these nobler
religions of the classical literature; the former because they are the
logical as well as historical continuation of the great Hindu
sectarian schisms, the latter because they give the solution of some
problems connected with Çivaism, and, on the other hand, offer useful
un-Aryan parallels to a few traits which have been preserved in the
earliest period of the Aryans.[28]
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Megasthenes, Fr. XLI, ed. Schwanbeck.]
[Footnote 2: Epic literature springs from lower castes than
that of the priest, but it has been worked over by
sacerdotal revisers till there is more theology than epic
poetry in it.]
[Footnote 3: See Weber, _Sanskrit Literature_, p. 224;
Windisch, _Greek Influence on Indian Drama_; and Lévi, _Le
théâtre indien_. The date of the Renaissance is given as
"from the first century B.C. to at least the third century
A.D." (_India_, p. 281). Extant Hindu drama dates only from
the fifth century A.D. We exclude, of course, from "real
literature" all technical hand-books and commentaries.]
[Footnote 4: Jacobi, in Roth's _Festgruss_, pp. 72, 73
(1893); Whitney, _Proceed. A.O.S._, 1894, p. lxxii; Perry,
_P[=u]shan,_ in the _Drisler Memorial_; Weber, _Vedische
Beiträge._]
[Footnote 5: Westergaard, _Ueber Buddha's Todesjahr_. The
prevalent opinion is that Buddha died in 477 or 480 B.C.]
[Footnote 6: It must not be forgotten in estimating the
_broad_ mass of Br[=a]hmanas and S[=u]tras that each as a
school represents almost the whole length of its period, and
hence one school alone should measure the time from end to
end, which reduces to very moderate dimensions the
literature to be accounted for in time.]
[Footnote 7: _'Rig Veda Collection'_ is the native name for
that which in the Occident is called Rig Veda, the latter
term embracing, to the Hindu, all the works (Br[=a]hmanas,
S[=u]tras, etc.) that go to explain the 'Collection' (of
hymns).]
[Footnote 8: Schroeder, _Indiens Literatur und Cultur,_
p.291, gives: Rig-Veda, 2000-1000 B.C.; older Br[=a]hmanas,
1000-800; later Br[=a]hmanas and Upanishads, 800-600;
S[=u]tras, 600-400 or 300.]
[Footnote 9: _Principles of Sociology_, I. P.448 (Appleton,
1882).]
[Footnote 10: Ib. p. 398.]
[Footnote 11: Ib. p. 427.]
[Footnote 12: Ib. p. 824.]
[Footnote 13: Ib.]
[Footnote 14: Ib. p. 821.]
[Footnote 15: Compare Muir, _Original Sanskrit Texts_, V. p.
412 ff., where are given the opinions of Pfleiderer, Pictet,
Roth, Scherer, and others.]
[Footnote 16: ZDMG., vi. 77: "Ein alter gemeinsam arischer
[indo-iranic], ja vielleicht gemeinsam indo-germanischer
oberster Gott, Varuna-Ormuzd-Uranos."]
[Footnote 17: In his _Science of Language_, Müller speaks of
the early poets who "strove in their childish way to pierce
beyond the limits of this finite world." Approvingly cited,
SBE. xxxii. p. 243 (1891).]
[Footnote 18: The over view may be seen in Müller's _Lecture
on the Vedas_ (Chips, I. p. 9): "A collection made for its
own sake, and not for the sake of any sacrificial
performance." For Pischel's view compare _Vedische Studien_,
I. Preface.]
[Footnote 19: Bloomfield, JAOS xv. p. 144.]
[Footnote 20: Compare Barth (Preface): "A literature
preeminently sacerdotal.... The poetry ... of a singularly
refined character, ... full of ... pretensions to
mysticism," etc.]
[Footnote 21: _Iran und Turan_, 1889; _Vom Pontus bis zum
Indus_, 1890; _Vom Aral bis zur Gang[=a]_ 1892.]
[Footnote 22: Or "all-possessing" [Whitney]. The metre of
the translation retains the number of feet in the original.
Four [later added] stanzas are here omitted.]
[Footnote 23: So P.W. possibly "by reason of [the sun's]
rays"; _i.e._, the stars fear the sun as thieves fear light.
For 'Heaven,' here and below, see the third chapter.]
[Footnote 24: Yoked only by him; literally "self-yoked."
Seven is used in the Rig Veda in the general sense of
"many," as in Shakespeare's "a vile thief this seven
years."]
[Footnote 25: _jet[=a]ram [=a]par[=a]jitam_.]
[Footnote 26: The rain, see next note.]
[Footnote 27: After this stanza two interpolated stanzas are
here omitted. Grassman and Ludwig give the epithet
"fearless" to the gods and to Vala, respectively. But
compare I.6.7, where the same word is used of Indra. For the
oft-mentioned act of cleaving the cave, where the dragon Val
or Vritra (the restrainer or envelopper) had coralled the
kine(i.e. without metaphor, for the act of freeing the
clouds and letting loose the rain), compare I.32.2, where of
Indra it is said: "He slew the snake that lay upon the
mountains ... like bellowing kine the waters, swiftly
flowing, descended to the sea"; and verse 11: "Watched by
the snake the waters stood ... the waters' covered cave he
opened wide, what time he Vritra slew."]
[Footnote 28: Aryan, Sanskrit _aryà, árya_, Avestan _airya_,
appears to mean the loyal or the good, and may be the
original national designation, just as the Medes were long
called [Greek: _Arioi_]. In late Sanskrit _[=a]rya_ is
simply 'noble.' The word survives, perhaps, in [Greek:
_aristos_], and is found in proper names, Persian
Ariobarzanes, Teutonic Ariovistus; as well as in the names
of people and countries, Vedic [=A]ryas, [=I]ran, Iranian;
(doubtful) Airem, Erin, Ireland. Compare Zimmer, BB. iii. p.
137; Kaegi, _Der Rig Veda_, p. 144 (Arrowsmith's
translation, p. 109). In the Rig Veda there is a god
Aryaman, 'the true,' who forms with Mitra and Varuna a triad
(see below). Windisch questions the propriety of identifying
[=I]ran with Erin, and Schrader (p. 584^2) doubts whether
the Indo-Europeans as a body ever called themselves Aryans.
We employ the latter name because it is short.]
* * * * *
CHAPTER II.
PEOPLE AND LAND.
The Aryan Hindus, whose religions we describe in this volume[1],
formed one of the Aryan or so-called Indo-European peoples. To the
other peoples of this stock, Persians, Armenians, Greeks, Italians,
Kelts, Teutons, Slavs, the Hindus were related closely by language,
but very remotely from the point of view of their primitive religion.
Into India the Aryans brought little that was retained in their
religious systems. A few waning gods, the worship of ancestors, and
some simple rites are common to them and their western relations; but
with the exception of the Iranians (Persians), their religious
connection with cis-Indic peoples is of the slightest. With the
Iranians, the Hindus (that were to be) appear to have lived longest in
common after the other members of the Aryan host were dispersed to
west and south[2]. They stand in closer religious touch with these,
their nearest neighbors, and in the time of the Rig Veda (the Hindus'
earliest literature) there are traces of a connection comparatively
recent between the pantheons of the two nations.
According to their own, rather uncertain, testimony, the Aryans of the
Rig Veda appear to have consisted of five tribal groups[3]. These
groups, _janas_, Latin gens, are subdivided into _viças_, Latin vicus,
and these, again, into _gr[=a]mas_. The names, however, are not
employed with strictness, and _jana_, etymologically gens but
politically tribus, sometimes is used as a synonym of _gr[=a]ma_.[4]
Of the ten books of the Rig-Veda seven are ascribed to various
priestly families. In the main, these books are rituals of song as
inculcated for the same rites by different family priests and their
descendants. Besides these there are books which are ascribed to no
family, and consist, in part, of more general material. The
distinction of priestly family-books was one, possibly, coextensive
with political demarcation. Each of the family-books represents a
priestly family, but it may represent, also, a political family. In at
least one case it represents a political body.[5]
These great political groups, which, perhaps, are represented by
family rituals, were essentially alike in language, custom and
religion (although minor ritualistic differences probably obtained, as
well as tribal preference for particular cults); while in all these
respects, as well as in color and other racial peculiarities, the
Aryans were distinguished from the dark-skinned aborigines, with whom,
until the end of the Rig Vedic period, they were perpetually at war.
At the close of this period the immigrant Aryans had reduced to
slavery many of their unbelieving and barbarian enemies, and formally
incorporated them into the state organization, where, as captives,
slaves, or sons of slaves, the latter formed the "fourth caste." But
while admitting these slaves into the body politic, the priestly
Aryans debarred them from the religious congregation. Between the
Aryans themselves there is in this period a loosely defined
distinction of classes, but no system of caste is known before the
close of the first Vedic Collection. Nevertheless, the emphasis in
this statement lies strongly upon system, and it may not be quite idle
to say at the outset that the general caste-distinctions not only are
as old as the Indo-Iranian unity (among the Persians the same division
of priest, warrior and husbandman obtains), but, in all probability,
they are much older. For so long as there is a cult, even if it be of
spirits and devils, there are priests; and if there are chieftains
there is a nobility, such as one finds among the Teutons, nay, even
among the American Indians, where also is known the inevitable
division into priests, chiefs and commons, sometimes hereditary,
sometimes not. There must have been, then, from the beginning of
kingship and religious service, a division among the Aryans into
royalty, priests, and people, i.e., whoever were not acting as priests
or chieftains. When the people becomes agricultural, the difference
tends to become permanent, and a caste system begins. Now, the Vedic
Aryans appear in history at just the period when they are on the move
southwards into India; but they are no irrupting host. The battles led
the warriors on, but the folk, as a folk, moved slowly, not all
abandoning the country which they had gained, but settling there, and
sending onwards only a part of the people. There was no fixed line of
demarcation between the classes. The king or another might act as his
own priest--yet were there priestly families. The cow-boys might
fight--yet were there those of the people that were especially
'kingsmen,' _r[=a]janyas_, and these were, already, practically a
class, if not a caste[6]. These natural and necessary social
divisions, which in early times were anything but rigid, soon formed
inviolable groups, and then the caste system was complete. In the
perfected legal scheme what was usage becomes duty. The warrior may
not be a public priest; the priest may not serve as warrior or
husbandman. The farmer 'people' were the result of eliminating first
the priestly, and then the fighting factors from the whole body
politic. But these castes were all Aryans, and as such distinguished
most sharply, from a religious point of view, from the "fourth caste";
whereas among themselves they were, in religion, equals. But they were
practically divided by interests that strongly affected the
development of their original litanies. For both priest and warrior
looked down on the 'people,' but priest and warrior feared and
respected each other. To these the third estate was necessary as a
base of supplies, and together they guarded it from foes divine and
mortal. But to each other they were necessary for wealth and glory,
respectively. So it was that even in the earliest period the religious
litany, to a great extent, is the book of worship of a warrior-class
as prepared for it by the priest. Priest and king--these are the main
factors in the making of the hymns of the Rig Veda, and the gods
lauded are chiefly the gods patronized by these classes. The third
estate had its favorite gods, but these were little regarded, and were
in a state of decadence. The slaves, too, may have had their own gods,
but of these nothing is known, and one can only surmise that here and
there in certain traits, which seem to be un-Aryan, may lie an
unacknowledged loan from the aborigines.
Between the Rig Veda and the formation or completion of the next Veda,
called the Atharvan, the interval appears to have been considerable,
and the inherent value of the religion inculcated in the latter can be
estimated aright only when this is weighed together with the fact,
that, as is learned from the Atharvan's own statements, the Aryans
were now advanced further southwards and eastwards, had discovered a
new land, made new gods, and were now more permanently established,
the last a factor of some moment in the religious development.
Indications of the difference in time may be seen in the geographical
and physical limitations of the older period as compared with those of
the later Atharvan. When first the Aryans are found in India, at the
time of the Rig Veda, they are located, for the most part, near the
Upper Indus (Sindhu). The Ganges, mentioned but twice, is barely
known. On the west the Aryans lingered in East Kabulistan (possibly in
Kashmeer in the north); and even Kandahar appears, at least, to be
known as Aryan. That is to say, the 'Hindus' were still in
Afghanistan, although the greater mass of the people had already
crossed the Indus and were progressed some distance to the east of the
Punj[=a]b. That the race was still migrating may be seen from the
hymns of the Rig Veda itself.[7] Their journey was to the south-east,
and both before and after they reached the Indus they left
settlements, chiefly about the Indus and in the Punj[=a]b (a
post-Vedic group), not in the southern but in the northern part of
this district.[8]
The Vedic Aryans of this first period were acquainted with the Indus,
Sutlej (Çutudri), Beas (Vip[=a]ç, [Greek: Yphtsis]), Ravi (Parushni or
Ir[=a]vat[=i]); the pair of rivers that unite and flow into the Indus,
viz.: Jhelum (Vitast[=a], Behat), and Chin[=a]b (Asikni,[9] Akesines);
and knew the remoter Kubh[=a] ([Greek: Kôphhên], Kabul) and the
northern Suv[=a]stu (Swat); while they appear to have had a legendary
remembrance of the Ras[=a], Avestan Ra[.n]ha (Rangha), supposed by
some to be identical with the Araxes or Yaxartes, but probably (see
below) only a vague 'stream,' the old name travelling with them on
their wanderings; for one would err if he regarded similarity or even
identity of appellation as a proof of real identity.[10] West of the
Indus the Kurum and Gomal appear to be known also. Many rivers are
mentioned of which the names are given, but their location is not
established. It is from the district west of the Indus that the most
famous Sanskrit grammarian comes, and long after the Vedas an Indic
people are known in the Kandahar district, while Kashmeer was a late
home of culture. The Sarasvati river, the name of which is transferred
at least once in historical times, may have been originally one with
the Arghand[=a]b (on which is Kandahar), for the Persian name of this
river (_s_ becomes _h_) is Harahvati (Arachotos, Arachosia), and it is
possible that it was really this river, and not the Indus which was
first lauded as the Sarasvat[=i]. In that case there would be a
perfect parallel to what has probably happened in the case of the
Ras[=a], the name--in both cases meaning only 'the stream' (like
Rhine, Arno, etc.)--being transferred to a new river. But since the
Iranian Harahvati fixes the first river of this name, there is here a
stronger proof of Indo-Iranian community than is furnished by other
examples.[11]
These facts or suggestive parallels of names are of exceeding
importance. They indicate between the Vedic Aryans and the Iranians a
connection much closer than usually has been assumed. The bearings of
such a connection on the religious ideas of the two peoples are
self-evident, and will often have to be touched upon in the course of
this history. It is of less importance, from the present point of
view, to say how the Aryans entered India, but since this question is
also connected with that of the religious environment of the first
Hindu poets, it will be well to state that, although, as some scholars
maintain, and as we believe, the Hindus may have come with the
Iranians through the open pass of Herat (Haraiva, Haroyu), it is
possible that they parted from the latter south of the Hindukush[12]
(descending through the Kohistan passes from the north), and that the
two peoples thence diverged south-east and south-west respectively.
Neither assumption would prevent the country lying between the
Harahvati and Vitast[=a][13] from being, for generations, a common
camping-ground for both peoples, who were united still, but gradually
diverging. This seems, at least, to be the most reasonable explanation
of the fact that these two rivers are to each people their farthest
known western and eastern limits respectively. With the exception of
the vague and uncertain Ras[=a], the Vedic Hindu's geographical
knowledge is limited by Kandahar in the west, as is the Iranian's in
the east by the Vitast[=a].[14] North of the Vitast[=a] Mount Tricota
(Trikakud, 'three peaks') is venerated, and this together with a Mount
M[=u]javat, of which the situation is probably in the north, is the
extent of modern knowledge in respect of the natural boundaries of the
Vedic people. One hears, to be sure, at a later time, of 'northern
Kurus,' whose felicity is proverbial; and it is very tempting to find
in this name a connection with the Iranian Kur, but the Kurus, like
the Ras[=a] and Sarasvat[=i], are re-located once (near Delhi), and no
similarity of name can assure one of a true connection. If not
coincidences, such likenesses are too vague to be valuable
historically.[15]
Another much disputed point must be spoken of in connection with this
subject. In the Veda and in the Avesta there is mentioned the land of
the 'seven rivers.' Now seven rivers are often spoken of in the Rig
Veda, but only once does this term mean the country, while in the
'Hymn to the Rivers' no less than twenty-one streams are enumerated
(RV. X. 75). In order to make out the 'seven rivers' scholars have
made different combinations, that most in favor being Müller's, the
five rivers of the Punj[=a]b together with the Kabul and (Swat or)
Sarasvat[=i]. But in point of fact 'seven' quite as often means many,
as it does an exact number, and this, the older use, may well be
applied here. It is quite impossible to identify the seven, and it is
probable that no Vedic poet ever imagined them to be a group of this
precise number. It would be far easier to select a group of seven
conspicuous rivers, if anywhere, on the west of the Indus. A very
natural group from the Iranian side would be the Her[=i]r[=u]d,
Hilmund, Arghand[=a]b, Kurum, Kabul, Indus, and Vitast[=a]. Against
this, however, can be urged that the term 'seven rivers' may be
Bactrian, older than the Vedic period; and that, in particular, the
Avesta distinguishes Vaikerta, Urva, and other districts from the
'seven rivers.' It is best to remain uncertain in so doubtful a
matter, bearing in mind that even Kurukshetra, the 'holy land,' is
said to-day to be watered by 'seven streams,' although some say nine;
apropos of which fact Cunningham remarks, giving modern examples, that
"the Hindus invariably assign seven branches to all their rivers."[16]
Within the Punj[=a]b, the Vedic Aryans, now at last really 'Hindus,'
having extended themselves to the Çutudri (Çatadru, Sutlej), a
formidable barrier, and eventually having crossed even this, the last
tributary's of the Indus, descended to the jumna (Yamun[=a]), over the
little stream called 'the Rocky' (Drishadvat[=i]) and the lesser
Sarasvat[=i], southeast from Lahore and near Delhi, in the region
Kurukshetra, afterwards famed as the seat of the great epic war, and
always regarded as holy in the highest degree.
Not till the time of the Atharva Veda do the Aryans appear as far east
as Benares (V[=a]r[=a]nas[=i], on the 'Varan[=a]vat[=i]'), though the
Sarayu is mentioned in the Rik. But this scarcely is the tributary of
the Ganges, Gogra, for the name seems to refer to a more western
stream, since it is associated with the Gomat[=i] (Gomal). One may
surmise that in the time of the Rig Veda the Aryans knew only by name
the country east of Lucknow. It is in the Punj[=a]b and a little to
the west and east of it (how far it is impossible to state with
accuracy) where lies the real theatre of activity of the Rig Vedic
people.
Some scholars believe that this people had already heard of the two
oceans. This point again is doubtful in the extreme. No descriptions
imply a knowledge of ocean, and the word for ocean means merely a
'confluence' of waters, or in general a great oceanic body of water
like the air. As the Indus is too wide to be seen across, the name may
apply in most cases to this river. An allusion to 'eastern and western
floods,'[17] which is held by some to be conclusive evidence for a
knowledge of the two seas, is taken by others to apply to the
air-oceans. The expression may apply simply to rivers, for it is said
that the Vip[=a]ç and Çutudr[=i] empty into the 'ocean', i.e., the
Indus or the Çutudr[=i]'s continuation.[18] One late verse alone
speaks of the Sarasvat[=i] pouring into the ocean, and this would
indicate the Arabian Sea.[19] Whether the Bay of Bengal was known,
even by hearsay and in the latest time of this period, remains
uncertain. As a body the Aryans of the Rig Veda were certainly not
acquainted with either ocean. Some straggling adventurers probably
pushed down the Indus, but Zimmer doubtless is correct in asserting
that the popular emigration did not extend further south than the
junction of the Indus and the Pa[=n]canada (the united five
rivers).[20] The extreme south-eastern geographical limit of the Rig
Vedic people may be reckoned (not, however, in Oldenberg's opinion,
with any great certainty) as being in Northern Beh[=a]r (M[=a]gadha).
The great desert, Marusthala, formed an impassable southern obstacle
for the first immigrants.[21]
On the other hand, the two oceans are well known to the Atharva Veda,
while the geographical (and hence chronological) difference between
the Rik and the Atharvan is furthermore illustrated by the following
facts: in the Rig Veda wolf and lion are the most formidable beasts;
the tiger is unknown and the elephant seldom alluded to; while in the
Atharvan the tiger has taken the lion's place and the elephant is a
more familiar figure. Now the tiger has his domicile in the swampy
land about Benares, to which point is come the Atharvan Aryan, but not
the Rig Vedic people. Here too, in the Atharvan, the panther is first
mentioned, and for the first time silver and iron are certainly
referred to. In the Rig Veda the metals are bronze and gold, silver
and iron being unknown.[22] Not less significant are the trees. The
ficus religiosa, the tree later called the 'tree of the gods'
(_deva-sadana, açvattha_), under which are fabled to sit the
divinities in heaven, is scarcely known in the Rig Veda, but is well
known in the Atharvan; while India's grandest tree, the _nyagrodha_,
ficus indica, is known to the Atharvan and Brahmanic period, but is
utterly foreign to the Rig Veda. Zimmer deems it no less significant
that fishes are spoken of in the Atharvan and are mentioned only once
in the Rig Veda, but this may indicate a geographical difference less
than one of custom. In only one doubtful passage is the north-east
monsoon alluded to. The storm so vividly described in the Rig Veda is
the south-west monsoon which is felt in the northern Punj[=a]b. The
north-east monsoon is felt to the southeast of the Punj[=a]b, possibly
another indication of geographical extension, withal within the limits
of the Rig Veda itself.
The seat of culture shifts in the Brahmanic period, which follows that
of the Vedic poems, and is found partly in the 'holy land' of the
west, and partly in the east (Beh[=a]r, Tirhut).[23] The literature of
this period comes from Aryans that have passed out of the Punj[=a]b.
Probably, as we have said, settlements were left all along the line of
progress. Even before the wider knowledge of the post-Alexandrine
imperial age (at which time there was a north-western military
retrogression), and, from the Vedic point of view, as late as the end
of the Brahmanic period, in the time of the Upanishads, the northwest
seems still to have been familiarly known.[24]
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: We take this opportunity of stating that by the
religions of the Aryan Hindus we mean the religions of a
people who, undoubtedly, were full-blooded Aryans at first,
however much their blood may have been diluted later by
un-Aryan admixture. Till the time of Buddhism the religious
literature is fairly Aryan. In the period of "Hinduism"
neither people nor religion can claim to be quite Aryan.]
[Footnote 2: If, as thinks Schrader, the Aryans' original
seat was on the Volga, then one must imagine the
Indo-Iranians to have kept together in a south-eastern
emigration.]
[Footnote 3: That is to say, frequent reference is made to
'five tribes.' Some scholars deny that the tribes are Aryan
alone, and claim that 'five,' like seven, means 'many.']
[Footnote 4: RV. III. 33. 11; 53. 12. Zimmer, _Altindisches
Leben_, p. 160, incorrectly identifies _viç_ with tribus
(Leist, _Rechtsgeschichte_, p. 105).]
[Footnote 5: Viçv[=a]mitra. A few of the hymns are not
ascribed to priests at all (some were made by women; some by
'royal-seers,' _i.e._ kings, or, at least, not priests).]
[Footnote 6: Caste, at first, means 'pure,' and signifies
that there is a moral barrier between the caste and outcast.
The word now practically means class, even impure class. The
native word means 'color,' and the first formal distinction
was national, (white) Aryan and 'black-man.' The precedent
class-distinctions among the Aryans themselves became fixed
in course of time, and the lines between Aryans, in some
regards, were drawn almost as sharply as between Aryan and
slave.]
[Footnote 7: Compare RV. iii. 33, and in I. 131. 5, the
words: 'God Indra, thou didst help thy suppliants; one river
after another they gained who pursued glory.']
[Footnote 8: Thomas, _Rivers of the Vedas_ (JRAS. xv. 357
ff.; Zimmer, loc. cit. cap. 1).]
[Footnote 9: Later called the Candrabh[=a]ga. For the Jumna
and Sarayu see below.]
[Footnote 10: This is the error into which falls Brunnhofer,
whose theory that the Vedic Aryans were still settled near
the Caspian has been criticised above (p. 15).]
[Footnote 11: Compare Geiger, _Ostiranische Cultur_, p. 81.
See also Muir, OST. ii. p. 355.]
[Footnote 12: Lassen, I. p. 616, decided in favor of the
western passes of the Hindukush.]
[Footnote 13: From Kandahar in Afghanistan to a point a
little west of Lahore. In the former district, according to
the Avesta, the dead are buried (an early Indian custom, not
Iranian).]
[Footnote 14: Geiger identifies the Vita[=g]uhaiti or
Vitanghvati with the Oxus, but this is improbable. It lies
in the extreme east and forms the boundary between the true
believers and the 'demon-worshippers' (Yasht, 5, 77; Geiger,
_loc. cit._ p. 131, note 5). The Persian name is the same
with Vitast[=a], which is located in the Punj[=a]b.]
[Footnote 15: On the Kurus compare Zimmer (loc. cit.), who
thinks Kashmeer is meant, and Geiger, loc. cit. p. 39. Other
geographical reminiscences may lie in Vedic and Brahmanic
allusions to Bactria, Balkh (AV.); to the Derbiker (around
Meru? RV.), and to Manu's mountain, whence he descended
after the flood (Naubandhana): _Çatapatha Br[=a]hmana_, I.
8. 1, 6, 'Manu's descent'.]
[Footnote 16: _Arch. Survey_, xiv. p. 89; Thomas, loc. cit.
p. 363.]
[Footnote 17: RV. x. 136. 5.]
[Footnote 18: RV. iii. 33. 2.]
[Footnote 19: RV. vii. 95. 2. Here the Sarasvat[=i] can be
only the Indus.]
[Footnote 20: Pa[=n]ca-nada, Punjnud, Persian 'Punj[=a]b,'
the five streams, Vitas[=a], Asikn[=i], Ir[=a]vat[=i],
Vip[=a]ç, Çutudr[=i]. The Punjnud point is slowly moving up
stream; Vyse, JRAS. x. 323. The Sarayu may be the
Her[=i]r[=u]d, Geiger, loc. cit. p. 72.]
[Footnote 21: Muir, OST. ii. 351; Zimmer, loc. cit. p. 51
identifies the _K[=i]katas_ of RV. iii. 53. 14 with the
inhabitants of Northern Beh[=a]r. Marusthala is called
simply 'the desert.']
[Footnote 22: The earlier _áyas_, Latin _aes_, means bronze
not iron, as Zimmer has shown, loc. cit. p. 51. Pischel,
_Vedische Studien_, I, shows that elephants are mentioned
more often than was supposed (but rarely in family-books).]
[Footnote 23: Weber, _Indische Studien,_ I. p. 228;
Oldenberg, _Buddha_, pp. 399 ff., 410.]
[Footnote 24: Very lately (1893) Franke has sought to show
that the P[=a]li dialect of India is in part referable to
the western districts (Kandahar), and has made out an
interesting case for his novel theory (ZDMG. xlvii. p.
595).]
* * * * *
CHAPTER III.
THE RIG VEDA. THE UPPER GODS.
The hymns of the Rig Veda may be divided into three classes, those in
which are especially lauded the older divinities, those in which
appear as most prominent the sacrificial gods, and those in which a
long-weakened polytheism is giving place to the light of a clearer
pantheism. In each category there are hymns of different age and
quality, for neither did the more ancient with the growth of new
divinities cease to be revered, nor did pantheism inhibit the formal
acknowledgment of the primitive pantheon. The cult once established
persisted, and even when, at a later time, all the gods had been
reduced to nominal fractions of the All-god, their ritualistic
individuality still was preserved. The chief reason for this lies in
the nature of these gods and in the attitude of the worshipper. No
matter how much the cult of later gods might prevail, the other gods,
who represented the daily phenomena of nature, were still visible,
awe-inspiring, divine. The firmest pantheist questioned not the
advisability of propitiating the sun-god, however much he might regard
this god as but a part of one that was greater. Belief in India was
never so philosophical that the believer did not dread the lightning,
and seek to avert it by praying to the special god that wielded it.
But active veneration in later times was extended in fact only to the
strong Powers, while the more passive divinities, although they were
kept as a matter of form in the ceremonial, yet had in reality only
tongue-worshippers.
With some few exceptions, however, it will be found impossible to say
whether any one deity belonged to the first pantheon.
The best one can do is to separate the mass of gods from those that
become the popular gods, and endeavor to learn what was the character
of each, and what were the conceptions of the poets in regard both to
his nature, and to his relations with man. A different grouping of the
gods (that indicated below) will be followed, therefore, in our
exposition.
After what has been said in the introductory chapter concerning the
necessity of distinguishing between good and bad poetry, it may be
regarded as incumbent upon us to seek to make such a division of the
hymns as shall illustrate our words. But we shall not attempt to do
this here, because the distinction between late mechanical and poetic
hymns is either very evident, and it would be superfluous to burden
the pages with the trash contained in the former,[1] or the
distinction is one liable to reversion at the hands of those critics
whose judgment differs from ours, for there are of course some hymns
that to one may seem poetical and to another, artificial. Moreover, we
admit that hymns of true feeling may be composed late as well as
early, while as to beauty of style the chances are that the best
literary production will be found among the latest rather than among
the earliest hymns.
It would, indeed, be admissible, if one had any certainty in regard to
the age of the different parts of the Rig Veda, simply to divide the
hymns into early, middle, and late, as they are sometimes divided in
philological works, but here one rests on the weakest of all supports
for historical judgment, a linguistic and metrical basis, when one is
ignorant alike of what may have been accomplished by imitation, and of
the work of those later priests who remade the poems of their
ancestors.
Best then, because least hazardous, appears to be the method which we
have followed, namely, to take up group by group the most important
deities arranged in the order of their relative importance, and by
studying each to arrive at a fair understanding of the pantheon as a
whole. The Hindus themselves divided their gods into highest, middle,
and lowest, or those of the upper sky, the atmosphere, and the earth.
This division, from the point of view of one who would enter into the
spirit of the seers and at the same time keep in mind the changes to
which that spirit gradually was subjected, is an excellent one. For,
as will be seen, although the earlier order of regard may have been
from below upwards, this order does not apply to the literary
monuments. These show on the contrary a worship which steadily tends
from above earthwards; and the three periods into which may be divided
all Vedic theology are first that of the special worship of sky-gods,
when less attention is paid to others; then that of the atmospheric
and meteorological divinities; and finally that of terrestrial powers,
each later group absorbing, so to speak, the earlier, and therewith
preparing the developing Hindu intelligence for the reception of the
universal god with whom closes the series.
Other factors than those of an inward development undoubtedly were at
work in the formation of this growth. Especially prominent is the
amalgamation of the gods of the lower classes with those of the
priest-hood. Climatic environment, too, conditioned theological
evolution, if not spiritual advance. The cult of the mid-sphere god,
Indra, was partly the result of the changing atmospheric surroundings
of the Hindus as they advanced into India. The storms and the sun were
not those of old. The tempests were more terrific, the display of
divine power was more concentrated in the rage of the elements; while
appreciation of the goodness of the sun became tinged with
apprehension of evil, and he became a deadly power as well as one
beneficent. Then the relief of rain after drought gave to Indra the
character of a benign god as well as of a fearful one. Nor were
lacking in the social condition certain alterations which worked
together with climatic changes. The segregated mass of the original
people, the braves that hung about the king, a warrior-class rapidly
becoming a caste, and politically the most important caste, took the
god of thunder and lightning for their god of battle. The fighting
race naturally exalted to the highest the fighting god. Then came into
prominence the priestly caste, which gradually taught the warrior that
mind was stronger than muscle. But this caste was one of thinkers.
Their divinity was the product of reflection. Indra remained, but
yielded to a higher power, and the god thought out by the priests
became God. Yet it must not be supposed that the cogitative energy of
the Brahman descended upon the people's gods and suddenly produced a
religious revolution. In India no intellectual advance is made
suddenly. The older divinities show one by one the transformation that
they suffered at the hands of theosophic thinkers. Before the
establishment of a general Father-god, and long before that of the
pantheistic All-god, the philosophical leaven was actively at work. It
will be seen operative at once in the case of the sun-god, and,
indeed, there were few of the older divinities that were untouched by
it. It worked silently and at first esoterically. One reads of the
gods' 'secret names,' of secrets in theology, which 'are not to be
revealed,' till at last the disguise is withdrawn, and it is
discovered that all the mystery of former generations has been leading
up to the declaration now made public: 'all these gods are but names
of the One.'
THE SUN-GOD.
The hymn which was translated in the first chapter gives an epitome of
the simpler conceptions voiced in the few whole hymns to the sun. But
there is a lower and a higher view of this god. He is the shining god
_par excellence_, the _deva, s[=u]rya_,[2] the red ball in the sky.
But he is also an active force, the power that wakens, rouses,
enlivens, and as such it is he that gives all good things to mortals
and to gods. As the god that gives life he (with others)[3] is the
author of birth, and is prayed to for children. From above he looks
down upon earth, and as with his one or many steeds he drives over the
firmament he observes all that is passing below. He has these, the
physical side and the spiritual side, under two names, the glowing
one, S[=u]rya, and the enlivener, Savitar;[4] but he is also the good
god who bestows benefits, and as such he was known, probably locally,
by the name of Bhaga. Again, as a herdsman's god, possibly at first
also a local deity, he is P[=u]shan (the meaning is almost the same
with that of Savitar). As the 'mighty one' he is Vishnu, who measures
heaven in three strides. In general, the conception of the sun as a
physical phenomenon will be found voiced chiefly in the family-books:
"The sightly form rises on the slope of the sky as the swift-going
steed carries him ... seven sister steeds carry him."[5] This is the
prevailing utterance. Sometimes the sun is depicted under a medley of
metaphors: "A bull, a flood, a red bird, he has entered his father's
place; a variegated stone he is set in the midst of the sky; he has
advanced and guards the two ends of space."[6] One after the other the
god appears to the poets as a bull, a bird,[7] a steed, a stone, a
jewel, a flood, a torch-holder,[8] or as a gleaming car set in heaven.
Nor is the sun independent. As in the last image of a chariot,[9] so,
without symbolism, the poet speaks of the sun as made to rise by
Varuna and Mitra: "On their wonted path go Varuna and Mitra when in
the sky they cause to rise Surya, whom they made to avert darkness";
where, also, the sun, under another image, is the "support of the
sky."[10] Nay, in this simpler view, the sun is no more than the "eye
of Mitra Varuna,"[11] a conception formally retained even when the sun
in the same breath is spoken of as pursuing Dawn like a lover, and as
being the 'soul of the universe' (I. 115. 1-2). In the older passages
the later moral element is almost lacking, nor is there maintained the
same physical relation between Sun and Dawn. In the earlier hymns the
Dawn is the Sun's mother, from whom he proceeds.[12] It is the "Dawns
produced the Sun," in still more natural language;[13] whereas, the
idea of the lover-Sun following the Dawn scarcely occurs in the
family-books.[14] Distinctly late, also, is the identification of the
sun with the all-spirit _([=a]tm[=a],_ I. 115. 1), and the following
prayer: "Remove, O sun, all weakness, illness, and bad dreams." In
this hymn, X. 37. 14, S[=u]rya is the son of the sky, but he is
evidently one with Savitar, who in V. 82. 4, removes bad dreams, as in
X. 100. 8, he removes sickness. Men are rendered 'sinless' by the sun
(IV. 54. 3; X. 37. 9) exactly as they are by the other gods, Indra,
Varuna, etc. In a passage that refers to the important triad of sun,
wind and fire, X. 158. I ff., the sun is invoked to 'save from the
sky,' _i.e._ from all evils that may come from the upper regions;
while in the same book the sun, like Indra, is represented as the
slayer of demons _(asuras)_ and dragons; as the slayer, also, of the
poet's rivals; as giving long life to the worshipper, and as himself
drinking sweet _soma_. This is one of the poems that seem to be at
once late and of a forced and artificial character (X. 170).
Although S[=u]rya is differentiated explicitly from Savitar (V. 81. 4,
"Savitar, thou joyest in S[=u]a's rays"), yet do many of the hymns
make no distinction between them. The Enlivener is naturally extolled
in fitting phrase, to tally with his title: "The shining-god, the
Enlivener, is ascended to enliven the world"; "He gives protection,
wealth and children" (II. 38.1; IV. 53. 6-7). The later hymns seem, as
one might expect, to show greater confusion between the attributes of
the physical and spiritual sun. But what higher power under either
name is ascribed to the sun in the later hymns is not due to a higher
or more developed homage of the sun as such. On the contrary, as with
many other deities, the more the praise the less the individual
worship. It is as something more than the sun that the god later
receives more fulsome devotion. And, in fact, paradoxical as it seems,
it is a decline in sun-worship proper that is here registered. The
altar-fire becomes more important, and is revered in the sun, whose
hymns, at most, are few, and in part mechanical.
Bergaigne in his great work, _La Religion Védique_, has laid much
stress on sexual antithesis as an element in Vedic worship. It seems
to us that this has been much exaggerated. The sun is masculine; the
dawn, feminine. But there is no indication of a primitive antithesis
of male and female in their relations. What occurs appears to be of
adventitious character. For though sun and dawn are often connected,
the latter is represented first as his mother and afterwards as his
'wife' or mistress. Even in the later hymns, where the marital
relation is recognized, it is not insisted upon. But Bergaigne[15] is
right in saying that in the Rig Veda the sun does not play the part of
an evil power, and it is a good illustration of the difference between
Rik and Atharvan, when Ehni cites, to prove that the sun is like
death, only passages from the Atharvan and the later Brahmanic
literature.[16]
When, later, the Hindus got into a region where the sun was deadly,
they said, "Yon burning sun-god is death," but in the Rig Veda' they
said, "Yon sun is the source of life,"[17] and no other conception of
the sun is to be found in the Rig Veda.
There are about a dozen hymns to S[=u]rya, and as many to Savitar, in
the Rig Veda.[18] It is noteworthy that in the family-books the hymns
to Savitar largely prevail, while those to S[=u]rya are chiefly late
in position or content. Thus, in the family-books, where are found
eight or nine of the dozen hymns to Savitar, there are to S[=u]rya but
three or four, and of these the first is really to Savitar and the
Açvins; the second is an imitation of the first; the third appears to
be late; and the fourth is a fragment of somewhat doubtful antiquity.
The first runs as follows: "The altar-fire has seen well-pleased the
dawns' beginning and the offering to the gleaming ones; come, O ye
horsemen (Açvins), to the house of the pious man; the sun (S[=u]rya),
the shining-god, rises with light. The shining-god Savitar has
elevated his beams, swinging his banner like a good (hero) raiding for
cattle. According to rule go Varuna and Mitra when they make rise in
the sky the sun (S[=u]rya) whom they have created to dissipate
darkness, being (gods) sure of their habitation and unswerving in
intent. Seven yellow swift-steeds bear this S[=u]rya, the seer of all
that moves. Thou comest with swiftest steeds unspinning the web,
separating, O shining-god, the black robe. The rays of S[=u]rya
swinging (his banner) have laid darkness like a skin in the waters.
Unconnected, unsupported, downward extending, why does not this (god)
fall down? With what nature goes he, who knows (literally, 'who has
seen')? As a support he touches and guards the vault of the sky" (IV.
13).
There is here, no more than in the early hymn from the first book,
translated in the first chapter, any worship of material phenomena.
S[=u]rya is worshipped as Savitar, either expressly so called, or with
all the attributes of the spiritual. The hymn that follows this[19] is
a bald imitation. In V. 47 there are more or less certain signs of
lateness, _e.g.,_ in the fourth stanza ("four carry him, ... and ten
give the child to drink that he may go," etc.) there is the juggling
with unexplained numbers, which is the delight of the later
priesthood. Moreover, this hymn is addressed formally to Mitra-Varuna
and Agni, and not to the sun-god, who is mentioned only in metaphor;
while the final words _námo divé_, 'obeisance to heaven,' show that
the sun is only indirectly addressed. One cannot regard hymns
addressed to Mitra-Varuna and S[=u]rya (with other gods) as primarily
intended for S[=u]rya, who in these hymns is looked upon as the
subject of Mitra and Varuna, as in VII. 62; or as the "eye" of the two
other gods, and 'like Savitar' in VII. 63. So in VII. 66. 14-16, a
mere fragment of a hymn is devoted exclusively to S[=u]rya as "lord of
all that stands and goes." But in these hymns there are some very
interesting touches. Thus in VII. 60. 1, the sun does not make
sinless, but he announces to Mitra and Varuna that the mortal is
sinless. There are no other hymns than these addressed to S[=u]rya,
save those in the first and tenth books, of which nine stanzas of I.
50 (see above) may be reckoned early, while I. 115, where the sun is
the soul of the universe, and at the same time the eye of
Mitra-Varuna, is probably late; and I. 163 is certainly so, wherein
the sun is identified with Yama, Trita, etc.; is 'like Varuna'; and is
himself a steed, described as having three connections in the sky,
three in the waters, three in the sea. In one of the hymns in the
tenth book, also a mystical song, the sun is the 'bird' of the sky, a
metaphor which soon gives another figure to the pantheon in the form
of Garutman, the sun-bird, of whose exploits are told strange tales in
the epic, where he survives as Garuda. In other hymns S[=u]rya averts
carelessness at the sacrifice, guards the worshipper, and slays
demons. A mechanical little hymn describes him as measuring the
'thirty stations.' Not one of these hymns has literary freshness or
beauty of any kind. They all belong to the class of stereotyped
productions, which differ in origin and content from the hymns first
mentioned.[20]
SAVITAR.
Turning to Savitar one finds, of course, many of the same descriptive
traits as in the praise of S[=u]rya, his more material self. But with
the increased spirituality come new features. Savitar is not alone the
sun that rises; he is also the sun that sets; and is extolled as such.
There are other indications that most of the hymns composed for him
are to accompany the sacrifice, either of the morning or of the
evening. In II. 38, an evening song to Savitar, there are inner signs
that the hymn was made for rubrication, but here some fine verses
occur: "The god extends his vast hand, his arms above there--and all
here obeys him; to his command the waters move, and even the winds'
blowing ceases on all sides." Again: "Neither Indra, Varuna, Mitra,
Aryaman, Rudra, nor the demons, impair his law" We call attention here
to the fact that the Rig Veda contains a strong(stong in the original)
current of demonology, much stronger than has been pointed out by
scholars intent on proving the primitive loftiness of the Vedic
religion.
In III. 62. 7-9 there are some verses to P[=u]shan, following which is
the most holy couplet of the Rig Veda, to repeat which is essentially
to repeat the Veda. It is the famous G[=a]yatr[=i] or S[=a]vitr[=i]
hymnlet (10-12):
Of Savitar, the heavenly, that longed-for glory may we win,
And may himself inspire our prayers.[21]
Whitney (loc. cit.) says of this hymn that it is not remarkable in any
way and that no good reason has ever been given for its fame. The good
reason for this fame, in our opinion, is that the longed-for glory was
interpreted later as a revealed indication of primitive pantheism, and
the verses were understood to express the desire of absorption into
the sun, which, as will be seen, was one of the first divine bodies to
be accepted as the type of the All-god. This is also the intent of the
stanzas added to I. 50 (above, p. 17), where S[=u]rya is "the highest
light, the god among gods," mystic words, taken by later philosophers,
and quite rightly, to be an expression of pantheism. The esoteric
meaning of the G[=a]yatr[=i] presumably made it popular among the
enlightened. Exoterically the sun was only the goal of the soul, or,
in pure pantheism, of the sight. In the following[22] the
sin-forgiving side of Savitar is developed, whereby he comes into
connection with Varuna:
God Savitar deserveth now a song from us;
To-day, with guiding word, let men direct him here.
He who distributes gifts unto the sons of men,
Shall here on us bestow whatever thing is best;
For thou, O Savitar, dost first upon the gods
Who sacrifice deserve, lay immortality,
The highest gift, and then to mortals dost extend
As their apportionment a long enduring life.
Whatever thoughtless thing against the
race of gods We do in foolishness and human insolence,
Do thou from that, O Savitar, mid gods and men
Make us here sinless, etc.
But if this song smacks of the sacrifice, still more so does V. 81,
where Savitar is the 'priest's priest,' the 'arranger of sacrifice,'
and is one with P[=u]shan. He is here the swift horse (see above) and
more famous as the divider of time than anything else. In fact this
was the first ritualistic glory of Savitar, that he divides the time
for sacrifice. But he receives more in the light of being the type of
other luminous divinities. In the next hymn, another late effort (V.
82; see the dream in vs. 4), there may be an imitation of the
G[=a]yatr[=i]. Savitar is here the All-god and true lord, and frees
from sin. There is nothing new or striking in the hymns VI. 71; VII.
38 and 45. The same golden hands, and references to the sacrifice
occur here. Allusions to the Dragon of the Deep, who is called upon
with Savitar (VII. 38. 5), and the identification of Savitar with
Bhaga (ib. 6) are the most important items to be gleaned from these
rather stupid hymns. In other hymns not in the family-books
(II.-VIII.), there is a fragment, X. 139. 1-3, and another, I. 22.
5-8. In the latter, Agni's (Fire's) title, 'son of waters,' is given
to Savitar, who is virtually identified with Agni in the last part of
the Rig Veda; and in the former hymn there is an interesting
discrimination made between Savitar and P[=u]shan, who obeys him. The
last hymn in the collection to Savitar, X. 149, although late and
plainly intended for the sacrifice (vs. 5), is interesting as showing
how the philosophical speculation worked about Savitar as a centre.
'He alone, he the son of the waters, knows the origin of water, whence
arose the world.' This is one of the early speculations which recur so
frequently in the Brahmanic period, wherein the origin of 'all this'
(the universe) is referred to water. A hymn to Savitar in the first
book contains as excellent a song as is given to the sun under this
name. It is neither a morning nor an evening song in its original
state, but mentions all the god's functions, without the later moral
traits so prominent elsewhere, and with the old threefold division
instead of thrice-three heavens.
TO SAVITAR (I. 35).
I call on Agni first (the god of fire) for weal;
I call on Mitra-Varuna to aid me here;
I call upon the Night, who quiets all that moves;
On Savitar, the shining god, I call for help.
After this introductory invocation begins the real song in a different
metre.
Through space of darkness wending comes he hither,
Who puts to rest th' immortal and the mortal,
On golden car existent things beholding,
The god that rouses, Savitar, the shining;
Comes he, the shining one, comes forward, upward,
Comes with two yellow steeds, the god revered,
Comes shining Savitar from out the distance,
All difficulties far away compelling.
His pearl-adorned, high, variegated chariot,
Of which the pole is golden, he, revered,
Hath mounted, Savitar, whose beams are brilliant,
Against the darksome spaces strength assuming.
Among the people gaze the brown white-footed
(Steeds) that the chariot drag whose pole is golden.
All peoples stand, and all things made, forever,
Within the lap of Savitar, the heavenly.
[There are three heavens of Savitar, two low ones,[23]
One, men-restraining, in the realm of Yama.
As on (his) chariot-pole[24] stand all immortals,
Let him declare it who has understood it!]
Across air-spaces gazes he, the eagle,
Who moves in secret, th' Asura,[25] well-guiding,
Where is (bright) S[=u]rya now? who understands it?
And through which sky is now his ray extending?
He looks across the earth's eight elevations,[26]
The desert stations three, and the seven rivers,
The gold-eyed shining god is come, th' Arouser,
To him that worships giving wealth and blessings.
The golden-handed Savitar, the active one,
Goes earth and heaven between, compels demoniac powers,
To S[=u]rya gives assistance, and through darksome space
Extends to heaven, etc.[27]
P[=U]SHAN AND BHAGA AS SUN-GODS.
With P[=u]shan, the 'bestower of prosperity,' appears an ancient side
of sun-worship. While under his other names the sun has lost, to a
great extent, the attributes of a bucolic solar deity, in the case of
P[=u]shan he appears still as a god whose characteristics are bucolic,
war-like, and priestly, that is to say, even as he is venerated by the
three masses of the folk. It will not do, of course, to distinguish
too sharply between the first two divisions, but one can very well
compare P[=u]shan in these rôles with Helios guiding his herds, and
Apollo swaying armed hosts. It is customary to regard P[=u]shan as too
bucolic a deity, but this is only one side of him. He apparently is
the sun, as herdsmen look upon him, and in this figure is the object
of ridicule with the warrior-class who, especially in one family or
tribe, take a more exalted view of him. Consequently, as in the case
of Varuna, one need not read into the hymns more than they offer to
see that, not to speak of the priestly view, there are at least two
P[=u]shans, in the Rig Veda itself.[28]
As the god 'with braided hair,' and as the 'guardian of cattle,'
P[=u]shan offers, perhaps, in these particulars, the original of
Rudra's characteristics, who, in the Vedic period, and later as
Rudra-Çiva, is also a 'guardian of cattle' and has the 'braided hair.'
Bergaigne identifies P[=u]shan with Soma, with whom the poets were apt
to identify many other deities, but there seems to be little
similarity originally.[29] It is only in the wider circles of each
god's activity that the two approach each other. Both gods, it is
true, wed S[=u]rya (the female sun-power), and Soma, like P[=u]shan,
finds lost cattle. But it must be recognized once for all that
identical attributes are not enough to identify Vedic gods. Who gives
wealth? Indra, Soma, Agni, Heaven and Earth, Wind, Sun, the Maruts,
etc. Who forgives sins? Agni, Varuna, Indra, the Sun, etc. Who helps
in war? Agni, P[=u]shan, Indra, Soma, etc. Who sends rain? Indra,
Parjanya, Soma, the Maruts, P[=u]shan, etc. Who weds Dawn? The Açvins,
the Sun, etc. The attributes must be functional or the identification
is left incomplete.
The great disparity in descriptions of P[=u]shan may be illustrated by
setting VI. 48. 19 beside X. 92. 13. The former passage merely
declares that P[=u]shan is a war-leader "over mortals, and like the
gods in glory"; the latter, that he is "distinguished by all divine
attributes"; that is to say, what has happened in the case of Savitar
has happened here also. The individuality of P[=u]shan dies out, but
the vaguer he becomes the more grandiloquently is he praised and
associated with other powers; while for lack of definite laudation
general glory is ascribed to him. The true position of P[=u]shan in
the eyes of the warrior is given unintentionally by one who says,[30]
"I do not scorn thee, O P[=u]shan," _i.e.,_ as do most people, on
account of thy ridiculous attributes. For P[=u]shan does not drink
_soma_ like Indra, but eats mush. So another devout believer says:
"P[=u]shan is not described by them that call him an eater of
mush."[31] The fact that he was so called speaks louder than the pious
protest. Again, P[=u]shan is simply bucolic. He uses the goad, which,
however, according to Bergaigne, is the thunderbolt! So, too, the cows
that P[=u]shan is described as guiding have been interpreted as clouds
or 'dawns.' But they may be taken without 'interpretation' as
real cows.[32] P[=u]shan drives the cows, he is armed with a goad, and
eats mush; bucolic throughout, yet a sun-god. It is on these lines
that his finding-qualities are to be interpreted. He finds lost
cattle,[33] a proper business for such a god; but Bergaigne will see
in this a transfer from P[=u]shan's finding of rain and of _soma_.[34]
P[=u]shan, too, directs the furrow[35]
Together with Vishnu and Bhaga this god is invoked at sacrifices, (a
fact that says little against or for his original sun-ship),[36] and
he is intimately connected with Indra. His sister is his mistress, and
his mother is his wife (Dawn and Night?) according to the meagre
accounts given in VI. 55. 4-5.[37] As a god of increase he is invoked
in the marriage-rite, X. 85. 37.
As Savitar and all sun-gods are at once luminous and dark, so
P[=u]shan has a clear and again a revered (terrible) appearance; he is
like day and night, like Dyaus (the sky); at one time bright, at
another, plunged in darkness, VI. 58. 1. Quite like Savitar he is the
shining god who "looks upon all beings and sees them all together"; he
is the "lord of the path," the god of travellers; he is invoked to
drive away evil spirits, thieves, footpads, and all workers of evil;
he makes paths for the winning of wealth; he herds the stars and
directs all with _soma_. He carries a golden axe or sword, and is
borne through air and water on golden ships; and it is he that lets
down the sun's golden wheel. These simpler attributes appear for the
most part in the early hymns. In what seem to be later hymns, he is
the mighty one who "carries the thoughts of all"; he is
like _soma_ (the drink), and attends to the filter; he is "lord of the
pure"; the "one born of old," and is especially called upon to help
the poets' hymns.[38] It is here, in the last part of the Rig Veda,
that he appears as [Greek: psuchopompós], who "goes and returns,"
escorting the souls of the dead to heaven. He is the sun's messenger,
and is differentiated from Savitar in X. 139. 1.[39] Apparently he was
a god affected most by the Bharadv[=a]ja family (to which is ascribed
the sixth book of the Rig Veda) where his worship was extended more
broadly. He seems to have become the special war-god of this family,
and is consequently invoked with Indra and the Maruts (though this may
have been merely in his rôte as sun). The goats, his steeds, are also
an attribute of the Scandinavian war-god Thor (Kaegi, _Rig Veda_, note
210), so that his bucolic character rests more in his goad, food, and
plough.
Bhaga is recognized as an [=A]ditya (luminous deity) and was perhaps a
sun-god of some class, possibly of all, as the name in Slavic is still
kept in the meaning 'god,' literally 'giver.' In the Rig Veda the word
means, also, simply god, as in _bhágabhakta_, 'given by gods'; but as
a name it is well known, and when thus called Bhaga is still the
giver, 'the bestower' _(vidhart[=á])_. As _bhaga_ is also an epithet
of Savitar, the name may not stand for an originally distinct
personality. Bhaga has but one hymn.[40] There is in fact no reason
why Bhaga should be regarded as a sun-god, except for the formal
identification of him as an [=A]dityà, that is as the son of Aditi
(Boundlessness, see below); but neither S[=u]rya nor Savitar is
originally an [=A]dityà, and in Iranic _bagha_ is only an epithet of
Ormuzd.
HYMNS TO P[=U]SHAN AND BHAGA.
To P[=U]SHAN (vi. 56).
The man who P[=u]shan designates
With words like these, 'mush-eater he,'
By him the god is not described.
With P[=u]shan joined in unison
That best of warriors, truest lord,
Indra, the evil demons slays.
'T is he, the best of warriors, drives
The golden chariot of the sun
Among the speckled kine (the clouds).
Whate'er we ask of thee to-day,
O wonder-worker, praised and wise,
Accomplish thou for us that prayer.
And this our band, which hunts for kine,[41]
Successful make for booty's gain;
Afar, O P[=u]shan, art thou praised.
We seek of thee success, which far
From ill, and near to wealth shall be;
For full prosperity to-day;
And full prosperity the morn.[42]
To BHAGA (vii. 41).
Early on Agni call we, early Indra call;
Early call Mitra, Varuna, the Horsemen twain;
Early, too, Bhaga, P[=u]shan, and the Lord of Strength;
And early Soma will we call, and Rudra too.
This stanza has been prefixed to the hymn by virtue of the catch-word
'early' (in the morning), with which really begins this prosaic poem
(in different metre):
The early-conquering mighty Bhaga call we,
The son of Boundlessness, the gift-bestower,[43]
Whom weak and strong, and e'en the king, regarding,
Cry _bhágam bhakshi_, 'give to me the giver.'[44]
O Bhaga, leader Bhaga, true bestower,
O Bhaga, help this prayer, to us give (riches),
O Bhaga, make us grow in kine and horses,
O Bhaga, eke in men, men-wealthy be we!
And now may we be rich, be _bhaga_-holders,[45]
Both at the (day's) approach, and eke at midday,
And at the sun's departure, generous giver.
The favor of the gods may we abide in.
O gods, (to us) be Bhaga really _bhaga_,[46]
By means of him may we be _bhaga_-holders.
As such an one do all, O Bhaga, call thee,
As such, O Bhaga, be to-day our leader.
May dawns approach the sacrifice, the holy
Place, like to Dadhikr[=a],[47] like horses active,
Which bring a chariot near; so, leading Bhaga,
Who finds good things, may they approach, and bring him.
As this is the only hymn addressed to Bhaga, and as it proves itself
to have been made for altar service (in style as well as in special
mention of the ceremony), it is evident that Bhaga, although called
Aditi's son, is but a god of wealth and (like Ança, the Apportioner)
very remotely connected with physical functions. But the hymn appears
to be so late that it cannot throw much light on the original
conception of the deity. We rather incline to doubt whether Bhaga was
ever, strictly speaking, a sun-god, and think that he was made so
merely because the sun (Savitar) was called _bhaga_. A (Greek: Zehys)
Bagaios was worshipped by the Phrygians, while in the Avesta and as a
Slavic god Bhaga has no especial connection with the sun. It must be
acknowledged, however, that every form of the sun-god is especially
lauded for generosity.
VISHNU.
In the person of Vishnu the sun is extolled under another name, which
in the period of the Rig Veda was still in the dawn of its glory. The
hymns to Vishnu are few; his fame rests chiefly on the three strides
with which he crosses heaven, on his making fast the earth, and on his
munificence.[48] He, too, leads in battle and is revered under the
title Çipivishta,[49] of unknown significance, but meaning literally
'bald.' Like Savitar he has three spaces, two called earthly, and one,
the highest, known only to himself. His greatness is inconceivable,
and he is especially praised with Indra, the two being looked upon as
masters of the world.[50] His highest place is the realm of the
departed spirits.[51] The hymns to him appear to be late (thus I. 155.
6, where, as the year, he has four seasons of ninety days each). Like
P[=u]shan (his neighbor in many lauds) he is associated in a late hymn
with the Maruts (V. 87). His later popularity lies in the importance
of his 'highest place' (or step) being the home of the departed
spirits, where he himself dwells, inscrutable. This led to the
spirit's union with the sun, which, as we have said, is one of the
first phases of the pantheistic doctrine. In the family-books Vishnu
gets but two hymns, both in the same collection, and shares one more
with Indra (VII. 99-100; VI. 69). In some of the family-collections,
notably in that of the Visvamitras, he is, if not unknown, almost
ignored. As Indra's friend he is most popular with the Kanva family,
but even here he has no special hymn.
None born, God Vishnu, and none born hereafter
E'er reaches to the limit of thy greatness;
Twas thou establish'st yon high vault of heaven,
Thou madest fast the earth's extremest mountain. (VII. 99. 2.)
Three steps he made, the herdsman sure,
Vishnu, and stepped across (the world). (I. 22. i8.)
The mighty deeds will I proclaim of Vishnu,
Who measured out the earth's extremest spaces,
And fastened firm the highest habitation,
Thrice stepping out with step all-powerful.
O would that I might reach his path beloved,
Where joy the men who hold the gods in honor. (I. 154. 1, 5.)
Under all these names and images the sun is worshipped. And it is
necessary to review them all to see how deeply the worship is
ingrained. The sun is one of the most venerable as he is the most
enduring of India's nature-gods.[52] In no early passage is the sun a
malignant god. He comes "as kine to the village, as a hero to his
steed, as a calf to the cow, as a husband to his wife."[53] He is the
'giver,' the 'generous one,' and as such he is Mitra, 'the friend,'
who with Varuna, the encompassing heaven, is, indeed, in the Rig Veda,
a personality subordinated to his greater comrade; yet is this,
perhaps, the sun's oldest name of those that are not descriptive of
purely physical characteristics. For Mithra in Persian keeps the
proof that this title was given to the Indo-Iranic god before the
separation of the two peoples. It is therefore (perhaps with Bhaga?)
one of the most ancient personal designations of the sun,--one,
perhaps, developed from a mere name into a separate deity.
HEAVEN AND EARTH.
Not only as identical with the chief god of the Greeks, but also from
a native Indic point of view, it might have been expected that Dyaus
(Zeus), the 'shining sky,' would play an important rôle in the Hindu
pantheon. But such is not the case. There is not a single hymn
addressed independently to Dyaus, nor is there any hint of especial
preeminence of Dyaus in the half-dozen hymns that are sung to Heaven
and Earth together. The word _dyaus_ is used hundreds of times, but
generally in the meaning sky (without personification). There is, to
be sure, a formal acknowledgment of the fatherhood of Dyaus (among
gods he is father particularly of Dawn, the Açvins, and Indra), as
there is of the motherhood of Earth, but there is no further
exaltation. No exaggeration--the sign of Hindu enthusiasm--is
displayed in the laudation, and the epithet 'father' is given to half
a dozen Vedic gods, as in Rome Ma(r)spiter stands beside Jup(p)iter.
Certain functions are ascribed to Heaven and Earth, but they are of
secondary origin. Thus they bring to the god he sacrifice,[54] as does
Agni, and one whole hymn may thus be epitomized: 'By the ordinance of
Varuna made firm, O Heaven and Earth, give us blessings. Blest with
children and wealth is he that adores you twain. Give us sweet food,
glory and strength of heroes, ye who are our father and mother.'[55]
The praise is vague and the benevolence is the usual 'bestowal of
blessings' expected of all the gods in return for praise. Other hymns
add to this something, from which one sees that these deities are not
regarded as self-created; for the seers of old, or, according to one
poet some wonderful divine artisan, "most wondrous worker of the
wonder-working gods," created them. Their chief office is to exercise
benign protection and bestow wealth. Once they are invited to come to
the sacrifice "with the gods," but this, of course, is not meant to
exclude them from the list of gods[56].
The antithesis of male and female, to Bergaigne's insistence on which
reference was made above (p. 43), even here in this most obvious of
forms, common to so many religions, shows itself so faintly that it
fails utterly to support that basis of sexual dualism on which the
French scholar lays so much stress. Dyaus does, indeed, occasionally
take the place of Indra, and as a bellowing bull impregnate earth, but
this is wholly incidental and not found at all in the hymns directly
lauding Heaven and Earth. Moreover, instead of "father and mother"
Heaven and Earth often are spoken of as "the two mothers," the
significance of which cannot be nullified by the explanation that to
the Hindu 'two mothers' meant two parents, and of two parents one must
be male,--Bergaigne's explanation. For not only is Dyaus one of the
'two mothers,' but when independently used the word Dyaus is male or
female indifferently. Thus in X. 93. I: "O Heaven and Earth be wide
outstretched for us, (be) like two young women." The position of
Heaven and Earth in relation to other divinities varies with the fancy
of the poet that extols them. They are either created, or they create
gods, as well as create men. In accordance with the physical reach of
these deities they are exhorted to give strength whereby the
worshipper shall "over-reach all peoples"; and, as parents, to be the
"nearest of the gods," to be "like father and mother in kindness." (I.
159; 160. 2, 5.)
One more attribute remains to be noticed, which connects Dyaus morally
as well as physically with Savitar and Varuna. The verse in which this
attribute is spoken of is also not without interest from a
sociological point of view: "Whatsoever sin we have committed against
the gods, or against a friend, or against the chief of the clan
(family)[57] may this hymn to Heaven and Earth avert it." It was shown
above that Savitar removes sin. Here, as in later times, it is the
hymn that does this. The mystery of these gods' origin puzzles the
seer: "Which was first and which came later, how were they begotten,
who knows, O ye wise seers? Whatever exists, that they carry."[58] But
all that they do they do under the command of Mitra.[59]
The most significant fact in connection with the hymns to Heaven and
Earth is that most of them are expressly for sacrificial intent. "With
sacrifices I praise Heaven and Earth" (I. 159. 1); "For the sake of
the sacrifice are ye come down (to us)" (IV. 56. 7). In VI. 70 they
are addressed in sacrificial metaphors; in VII. 53. 1 the poet says:
"I invoke Heaven and Earth with sacrifices," etc. The passivity of the
two gods makes them yield in importance to their son, the active
Savitar, who goes between the two parents. None of these hymns bears
the impress of active religious feeling or has poetic value. They all
seem to be reflective, studied, more or less mechanical, and to belong
to a period of theological philosophy. To Earth alone without Heaven
are addressed one uninspired hymn and a fragment of the same
character: "O Earth be kindly to us, full of dwellings and painless,
and give us protection."[60] In the burial service the dead are
exhorted to "go into kindly mother earth" who will be "wool-soft, like
a maiden."[61] The one hymn to Earth should perhaps be placed
parallel with similar meditative and perfunctory laudations in the
Homeric hymns:
To EARTH (V. 84).
In truth, O broad extended earth,
Thou bear'st the render of the hills,[62]
Thou who, O mighty mountainous one,
Quickenest created things with might.
Thee praise, O thou that wander'st far,
The hymns which light accompany,
Thee who, O shining one, dost send
Like eager steeds the gushing rain.
Thou mighty art, who holdest up
With strength on earth the forest trees,
When rain the rains that from thy clouds
And Dyaus' far-gleaming lightning come.[62]
On the bearing of these facts, especially in regard to the secondary
greatness of Dyaus, we shall touch below. He is a god exalted more by
modern writers than by the Hindus!
VARUNA.
Varuna has been referred already in connection with the sun-god and
with Heaven and Earth. It is by Varuna's power that they stand firm.
He has established the sun 'like a tree,' i.e., like a support, and
'made a path for it.'[63] He has a thousand remedies for ills; to his
realm not even the birds can ascend, nor wind or swift waters attain.
It is in accordance with the changeless order[64] of Varuna that the
stars and the moon go their regular course; he gives long life and
releases from harm, from wrong, and from sin.[65]
Varuna is the most exalted of those gods whose origin is physical. His
realm is all above us; the sun and stars are his eyes; he sits above
upon his golden throne and sees all that passes below, even the
thoughts of men. He is, above all, the moral controller of the
universe.
To VARUNA (i. 25).
Howe'er we, who thy people are,
O Varuna, thou shining god,
Thy order injure, day by day,
Yet give us over nor to death,
Nor to the blow of angry (foe),
Nor to the wrath of (foe) incensed.[66]
Thy mind for mercy we release--
As charioteer, a fast-bound steed--
By means of song, O Varuna.
* * * * *
('Tis Varuna) who knows the track
Of birds that fly within the air,
And knows the ships upon the flood;[67]
Knows, too, the (god) of order firm,
The twelve months with their progeny,
And e'en which month is later born;[68]
Knows, too, the pathway of the wind,
The wide, the high, the mighty (wind),
And knows who sit above (the wind).
(God) of firm order, Varuna
His place hath ta'en within (his) home
For lordship, he, the very strong.[69]
Thence all the things that are concealed
He looks upon, considering
Whate'er is done and to be done.
May he, the Son of Boundlessness,
The very strong, through every day
Make good our paths, prolong our life.
Bearing a garment all of gold,
In jewels clothed, is Varuna,
And round about him sit his spies;
A god whom injurers injure not,
Nor cheaters cheat among the folk,
Nor any plotters plot against;
Who for himself 'mid (other) men
Glory unequalled gained, and gains
(Such glory) also 'mid ourselves.
Far go my thoughts (to him), as go
The eager cows that meadows seek,
Desiring (him), the wide-eyed (god).
Together let us talk again,
Since now the offering sweet I bring,
By thee beloved, and like a priest
Thou eat'st.
I see the wide-eyed (god):
I see his chariot on the earth,
My song with joy hath he received.
Hear this my call, O Varuna,
Be merciful to me today,
For thee, desiring help, I yearn.
Thou, wise one, art of everything,
The sky and earth alike, the king;
As such upon thy way give ear,
And loose from us the (threefold) bond;
The upper bond, the middle, break,
The lower, too, that we may live.
In the portrait of such a god as this one comes very near to
monotheism. The conception of an almost solitary deity, recognized as
watcher of wrong, guardian of right, and primitive creator, approaches
more closely to unitarianism than does the idea of any physical power
in the Rig Veda.
To the poet of the Rig Veda Varuna is the enveloping heaven;[70] that
is, in distinction from Dyaus, from whom he
differs _toto caelo_, so to speak, the invisible world, which embraces
the visible sky. His home is there where lives the Unborn, whose place
is unique, above the highest heaven.[71]
But it is exactly this loftiness of character that should make one shy
of interpreting Varuna as being originally the god that is presented
here. Can this god, 'most august of Vedic deities,' as Bergaigne and
others have called him, have belonged as such to the earliest stratum
of Aryan belief?
There are some twelve hymns in the Rig Veda in Varuna's honor. Of
these, one in the tenth book celebrates Indra as opposed to Varuna,
and generally it is considered late, in virtue of its content. Of the
hymns in the eighth book the second appears to be a later imitation of
the first, and the first appears, from several indications, to be of
comparatively recent origin.[72] In the seventh book (vii. 86-89) the
short final hymn contains a distinctly late trait in invoking Varuna
to cure dropsy; the one preceding this is _in majorem gloriam_ of the
poet Vasistha, fitly following the one that appears to be as new,
where not only the mysticism but the juggling with "thrice-seven,"
shows the character of the hymn to be recent.[73] In the first hymn of
this book the late doctrine of inherited sin stands prominently forth
(vii. 86. 5) as an indication of the time in which it was composed.
The fourth and sixth books have no separate hymns to Varuna. In the
fifth book the position of the one hymn to Varuna is one favorable to
spurious additions, but the hymn is not otherwise obnoxious to the
criticism of lateness. Of the two hymns in the second book, the first
is addressed only indirectly to Varuna, nor is he here very prominent;
the second (ii. 28) is the only song which stands on a par with the
hymn already translated. There remain the hymns cited above from the
first, not a family-book. It is, moreover, noteworthy that in ii. 28,
apart from the ascription of general greatness, almost all that is
said of Varuna is that he is a priest, that he causes rivers to flow,
and loosens the bond of sin.[74] The finest hymn to Varuna, from a
literary point of view, is the one translated above, and it is mainly
on the basis of this hymn that the lofty character of Varuna has been
interpreted by occidental writers. To our mind this hymn belongs to
the close of the first epoch of the three which the hymns represent.
That it cannot be very early is evident from the mention of the
intercalated month, not to speak of the image of Varuna eating the
sweet oblation 'like a priest.' Its elevated language is in sharp
contrast to that of almost all the other Varuna hymns. As these are
all the hymns where Varuna is praised alone by himself, it becomes of
chief importance to study him here, and not where, as in iii. 62, iv.
41, vi. 51, 67, 68, and elsewhere, he is lauded as part of a
combination of gods (Mitra or Indra united with Varuna). In the last
book of the Rig Veda there is no hymn to Varuna,[75] a time when
pantheistic monotheism was changing into pantheism, so that, in the
last stage of the Rig Veda, Varuna is descended from the height.
Thereafter he is god and husband of waters, and punisher of secret sin
(as in ii. 28). Important in contrast to the hymn translated above is
v. 85.
TO VARUNA.
"I will sing forth unto the universal king a high deep prayer, dear to
renowned Varuna, who, as a butcher a hide, has struck earth apart
(from the sky) for the sun. Varuna has extended air in trees, strength
in horses, milk in cows, and has laid wisdom in hearts; fire in water;
the sun in the sky; _soma_ in the stone. Varuna has inverted his
water-barrel and let the two worlds with the space between flow (with
rain). With this (heavenly water-barrel) he, the king of every created
thing, wets the whole world, as a rain does a meadow. He wets the
world, both earth and heaven, when he, Varuna, chooses to milk out
(rain)--and then do the mountains clothe themselves with cloud, and
even the strongest men grow weak. Yet another great and marvellous
power of the renowned spirit (Asura) will I proclaim, this, that
standing in mid-air he has measured earth with the sun, as if with a
measuring rod. (It is due to) the marvellous power of the wisest god,
which none ever resisted, that into the one confluence run the rivers,
and pour into it, and fill it not. O Varuna, loosen whatever sin we
have committed to bosom-friend, comrade, or brother; to our own house,
or to the stranger; what (we) have sinned like gamblers at play, real
(sin), or what we have not known. Make loose, as it were, all these
things, O god Varuna, and may we be dear to thee hereafter."
In this hymn Varuna is a water-god, who stands in mid-air and directs
the rain; who, after the rain, reinstates the sun; who releases from
sin (as water does from dirt?). According to this conception it would
seem that Varuna were the 'coverer' rather than the 'encompasser.' It
might seem probable even that Varuna first stood to Dyaus as cloud and
rain and night to shining day, and that his counterpart, (Greek:
Hohyranhos), stood in the same relation to (Greek: Zehys); that were
connecte(Greek: Hohyranhos)d with (Greek: hyrheô) and Varuna with
_vari_, river, _v[=a]ri_, water.[76]
It is possible, but it is not provable. But no interpretation of
Varuna that ignores his rainy side can be correct. And this is fully
recognized by Hillebrandt. On account of his "thousand spies," _i.e.,_
eyes, he has been looked upon by some as exclusively a night-god. But
this is too one-sided an interpretation, and passes over the
all-important, fact that it is only in conjunction with the sun
(Mitra), where there is a strong antithesis, that the night-side of
the god is exclusively displayed. Wholly a day-god he cannot be,
because he rules night and rain. He is _par excellence_ the Asura,
and, like Ahura Mazdao, has the sun for an eye, _i.e.,_ he is heaven.
But there is no Varuna in Iranian worship and Ahura is a sectarian
specialization. Without this name may one ascribe to India what is
found in Iran?[77] It has been suggested by Bergaigne that Varuna and
Vritra, the rain-holding demon, were developments from the same idea,
one revered as a god, the other, a demon; and that the word means
'restrainer,' rather than 'encompasser.'
From all this it will be evident that to claim an original monotheism
as still surviving in the person of Varuna, is impossible; and this is
the one point we would make. Every one must admire the fine hymn in
which he is praised, but what there is in it does not make it seem
very old, and the intercalated month is decisive evidence, for here
alone in the Rig Veda is mentioned this month, which implies the
five-year cyclus, but this belongs to the Brahmanic period (Weber,
_Vedische Beiträge_, p. 38). Every explanation of the original nature
of Varuna must take into consideration that he is a rain-god, a
day-god, and a night-god in turn, and that where he is praised in the
most elevated language the rain-side disappears, although it was
fundamental, as may be seen by comparing many passages, where Varuna
is exhorted to give rain, where his title is 'lord of streams,' his
position that of 'lord of waters.' The decrease of Varuna worship in
favor of Indra results partly from the more peaceful god of rain
appearing less admirable than the monsoon-god, who overpowers with
storm and lightning, as well as 'wets the earth.'
The most valuable contribution to the study of Varuna is Hillebrandt's
'Varuna and Mitra.' This author has succeeded in completely
overthrowing the old error that Varuna is exclusively a night-god.[78]
Quite as definitively he proves that Varuna is not exclusively a
day-god.
Bergaigne, on the other hand, claims an especially tenebrous character
for Varuna.[79] Much has been written on luminous deities by scholars
that fail to recognize the fact that the Hindus regard the night both
as light and as dark. But to the Vedic poet the night, star-illumined,
was bright. Even Hillebrandt speaks of "the bright heaven" of day as
"opposed to the dark night-heaven in which Varuna also shows
himself."[80]
In the Rig Veda, as it stands, with all the different views of Varuna
side by side, Varuna is a universal encompasser, moral as well as
physical. As such his physical side is almost gone. But the conception
of him as a moral watcher and sole lord of the universe is in so sharp
contrast to the figure of the rain-god, who, like Parjanya, stands in
mid-air and upsets a water-barrel, that one must discriminate even
between the Vedic views in regard to him.[81]
It is Varuna who lets rivers flow; with Indra he is besought not to
let his weapons fall on the sinner; wind is his breath.[82]
On the other hand he is practically identified with the sun.[83] How
ill this last agrees with the image of a god who 'lives by the spring
of rivers,' 'covers earth as with a garment,' and 'rises like a secret
sea (in fog) to heaven'![84] Even when invoked with the sun, Mitra,
Varuna still gives rain: "To whomsoever ye two are kindly disposed
comes sweet rain from heaven; we beseech you for rain ... you, the
thunderers who go through earth and heaven" (v. 63),--a strange prayer
to be addressed to a monotheistic god of light: "Ye make the lightning
flash, ye send the rain; ye hide the sky in cloud and rain" (_ib_.).
In the hymn preceding we read: "Ye make firm heaven and earth, ye give
growth to plants, milk to cows; O ye that give rain, pour down rain!"
In the same group another short hymn declares: "They are universal
kings, who have _ghee_ (rain) in their laps; they are lords of the
rain" (v. 68). In the next hymn: "Your clouds (cows) give nourishment,
your streams are sweet." Thus the twain keep the order of the seasons
(i. 2. 7-8) and protect men by the regular return of the rainy season.
Their weapons are always lightning (above, i. 152. 2, and elsewhere).
A short invocation in a family-book gives this prayer: "O
Mitra-Varuna, wet our meadows with _ghee_; wet all places with the
sweet drink" (iii. 62. 16).
The interpretation given above of the office of Varuna as regards the
sun's path, is supported by a verse where is made an allusion to the
time "when they release the sun's horses," _i.e_., when after two or
three months of rain the sun shines again (v. 62. 1). In another verse
one reads: "Ye direct the waters, sustenance of earth and heaven,
richly let come your rains" (viii. 25. 6).
Now there is nothing startling in this view. In opposition to the
unsatisfactory attempts of modern scholars, it is the traditional
interpretation of Mitra and Varuna that Mitra was god of day (_i.e.,_
the sun), and Varuna the god of night (_i.e.,_ covering),[85] while
native belief regularly attributes to him the lordship of water[86].
The 'thousand eyes' of Varuna are the result of this view. The other
light-side of Varuna as special lord of day (excluding the all-heaven
idea with the sun as his 'eye') is elsewhere scarcely referred to,
save in late hymns and VIII. 41.[87] In conjunction with the
storm-god, Indra, the wrath-side of Varuna is further developed. The
prayer for release is from 'long darkness,' _i.e._, from death; in
other words, may the light of life be restored (II. 27. 14-15; II. 28.
7). Grassmann, who believes that in Varuna there is an early
monotheistic deity, enumerates all his offices and omits the giving of
rain from the list;[88] while Ludwig derives his name from _var_ (=
velle) and defines him as the lofty god who wills!
Varuna's highest development ushers in the middle period of the Rig
Veda; before the rise of the later All-father, and even before the
great elevation of Indra. But when S[=u]rya and Dawn were chief, then
Varuna was chiefest. There is no monotheism in the worship of a god
who is regularly associated as one of a pair with another god. Nor is
there in Varuna any religious grandeur which, so far as it exceeds
that of other divinities, is not evolved from his old physical side.
One cannot personify heaven and write a descriptive poem about him
without becoming elevated in style, as compared with the tone of one
that praises a rain-cloud or even the more confined personality of the
sun. There is a stylistic but not a metaphysical descent from this
earlier period in the 'lords of the atmosphere,' for, as we shall
show, the elevation of Indra and Agni denotes a philosophical
conception yet more advanced than the almost monotheistic greatness
attained by Varuna. But one must find the background to this earlier
period; and in it Varuna is not monotheistic. He is the covering sky
united with the sun, or he whose covering is rain and dew. Indra
treats Varuna as Savitar treats Mitra, supplants him; and for the same
reason, because each represents the same priestly philosophy.
In the one extant hymn to Mitra (who is Indo-Iranian) it is Mitra that
'watches men,' and 'bears earth and heaven.' He is here (iii. 59) the
kindly sun, his name (Mitra, 'friend') being frequently punned upon.
The point of view taken by Barth deserves comment. He says:[89] "It
has sometimes been maintained that the Varuna of the hymns is a god in
a state of decadence. In this view we can by no means concur; ... an
appeal to these few hymns is enough to prove that in the consciousness
of their authors the divinity of Varuna stood still intact." If,
instead of 'still intact,' the author had said, 'on the increase, till
undermined by still later philosophical speculation,' the true
position, in our opinion, would have been given. But a distinction
must be made between decadence of greatness and decadence of
popularity. It has happened in the case of some of the Vedic inherited
gods that exactly in proportion as their popularity decreased their
greatness increased; that is to say, as they became more vague and
less individual to the folk they were expanded into wider circles of
relationship by the theosophist, and absorbed other gods' majesty.[89]
Varuna is no longer a popular god in the Rig Veda. He is already a god
of speculation, only the speculation did not go far enough to suit the
later seers of Indra-Savitar-hood. Most certainly his worship, when
compared in popularity with that of Agni and Indra, is unequal. But
this is because he is too remote to be popular.
What made the popular gods was a union of near physical force to
please the vulgar, with philosophical mysticism to please the priest,
and Indra and Agni fulfilled the conditions, while awful, but distant,
Varuna did not.
In stating that the great hymn to Varuna is not typical of the
earliest stage of religious belief among the Vedic Aryans, we should
add one word in explanation. Varuna's traits, as shown in other parts
of the Rig Veda, are so persistent that they must be characteristic of
his original function. It does not follow, however, that any one hymn
in which he is lauded is necessarily older than the hymn cited from
the first book. The earliest stage of religious development precedes
the entrance into the Punj[=a]b. It may even be admitted that at the
time when the Vedic Aryans became Hindus, that is, when they settled
about the Indus, Varuna was the great god we see him in the great hymn
to his honor. But while the relation of the [=A]dityas to the spirits
of Ahura in Zoroaster's system points to this, yet it is absurd to
assume this epoch as the starting point of Vedic belief. Back of this
period lies one in which Varuna was by no means a monotheistic deity,
nor even the greatest divinity among the gods. The fact, noticed by
Hillebrandt, that the Vasishtha family are the chief praisers of
Varuna, may also indicate that his special elevation was due to the
theological conceptions of one clan, rather than of the whole people,
since in the other family books he is worshipped more as one of a
pair, Varuna and Mitra, heaven and sun.
ADITI.
The mother of Varuna and the luminous gods is the 'mother of kings,'
Boundlessness (_aditi_)[90] a product of priestly theosophy. Aditi
makes, perhaps, the first approach to formal pantheism in India, for
all gods, men, and things are identified with her (i. 89. 10). Seven
children of Aditi are mentioned, to whom is added an eighth (in one
hymn).[91] The chief of these, who is, _par excellence_ the [=A]ditya
(son of Aditi), is Varuna. Most of the others are divinities of the
sun (x. 72). With Varuna stands Mitra, and besides this pair are found
'the true friend' Aryaman, Savitar, Bhaga, and, later, Indra, as sun
(?). Daksha and Ança are also reckoned as [=A]dityas, and S[=u]rya is
enumerated among them as a divinity distinct from Savitar. But the
word _aditi,_ 'unbound,' is often a mere epithet, of Fire, Sky, etc.
Moreover, in one passage, at least, _aditi_ simply means 'freedom' (i.
24. 1), less boundlessness than 'un-bondage'; so, probably, in i. 185.
3, 'the gift of freedom.' Ança seems to have much the same meaning
with Bhaga, _viz.,_ the sharer, giver. Daksha may, perhaps, be the
'clever,' 'strong' one ([Greek: dexios]), abstract Strength; as
another name of the sun (?). Aditi herself (according to Müller,
Infinity; according to Hillebrandt, Eternity) is an abstraction that
is born later than her chief sons, Sun and Varuna.[92] Zarathustra
(Zoroaster, not earlier than the close of the first Vedic period) took
the seven [=A]dityas and reformed them into one monotheistic
(dualistic) Spirit (Ahura), with a circle of six moral attendants,
thereby dynamically destroying every physical conception of them.
DAWN.
We have devoted considerable space to Varuna because of the
theological importance with which is invested his personality. If one
admit that a monotheistic Varuna is the _ur_-Varuna, if one see in him
a sign that the Hindus originally worshipped one universally great
superior god, whose image effaced that of all the others,[93] then the
attempt to trace any orderly development in Hindu theology may as well
be renounced; and one must imagine that this peculiar people, starting
with monotheism descended to polytheism, and then leapt again into the
conception of that Father-god whose form, in the end of the Rig Vedic
period, out-varunas Varuna as encompasser and lord of all. If, on the
other hand, one see in Varuna a god who, from the 'covering,' heaven
and cloud and rain, from earliest time has been associated with the
sun as a pair, and recognize in Varuna's loftier form the product of
that gradual elevation to which were liable all the gods at the hands
of the Hindu priests; if one see in him at this stage the highest god
which a theology, based on the worship of natural phenomena, was able
to evolve; then, for the reception of those gods who overthrew him
from his supremacy, because of their greater freedom from physical
restraints, there is opened a logical and historical path--until that
god comes who in turn follows these half-embodied ones, and stands as
the first immaterial author of the universe--and so one may walk
straight from the physical beginning of the Rig Vedic religion to its
spiritual Brahmanic end.
We turn now to one or two phenomena-deities that were never much
tampered with by priestly speculation; their forms being still as
bright and clear as when the first Vedic worshipper, waiting to salute
the rising sun, beheld in all her beauty, and thus praised
THE DAWN.[94]
As comes a bride hath she approached us, gleaming;
All things that live she rouses now to action.
A fire is born that shines for human beings;
Light hath she made, and driven away the darkness.
Wide-reaching hath she risen, to all approaching,
And shone forth clothed in garments white and glistening,
Of gold her color, fair to see her look is,
Mother of kine,[95] leader of days she gleameth.
Bearing the gods' eye, she, the gracious maiden,
--Leading along the white and sightly charger[96]
--Aurora, now is seen, revealed in glory,
With shining guerdons unto all appearing.
O near and dear one, light far off our foes, and
Make safe to us our kines' wide pasture-places.
Keep from us hatred; what is good, that bring us,
And send the singer wealth, O generous maiden.
With thy best beams for us do thou beam widely,
Aurora, goddess bright, our life extending;
And food bestow, O thou all goods possessing,
Wealth, too, bestowing, kine and steeds and war-cars
Thou whom Vasistha's[97] sons extol with praises,
Fair-born Aurora, daughter of Dyaus, the bright one,
On us bestow thou riches high and mighty,
--O all ye gods with weal forever guard us.
In the laudation of Varuna the fancy of the poet exhausts itself in
lofty imagery, and reaches the topmost height of Vedic religious
lyric. In the praise of Dawn it descends not lower than to interweave
beauty with dignity of utterance. Nothing in religious poetry more
graceful or delicate than the Vedic Dawn-hymns has ever been written.
In the daily vision of Dawn following her sister Night the poet sees
his fairest goddess, and in his worship of her there is love and
admiration, such as is evoked by the sight of no other deity. "She
comes like a fair young maiden, awakening all to labor, with an
hundred chariots comes she, and brings the shining light; gleam forth,
O Dawn, and give us thy blessing this day; for in thee is the life of
every living creature. Even as thou hast rewarded the singers of old,
so now reward our song" (I. 48).
The kine of Dawn are the bright clouds that, like red cattle, wander
in droves upon the horizon. Sometimes the rays of light, which stretch
across the heaven, are intended by this image, for the cattle-herding
poets employed their flocks as figures for various ends.
The inevitable selfish pessimism of unripe reflection is also woven
into the later Dawn-hymns: "How long will it be ere this Dawn, too,
shall join the Dawns departed? Vanished are now the men that saw the
Dawns of old; we here see her now; there will follow others who will
see her hereafter; but, O Dawn, beam here thy fairest; rich in
blessings, true art thou to friend and right. Bring hither (to the
morning sacrifice) the gods" (I. 113).
Since the metre (here ignored) of the following hymn is not all of one
model, it is probable that after the fourth verse a new hymn began,
which was distinct from the first; but the argument from metre is
unconvincing, and in any event both songs are worth citing, since they
show how varied were the images and fancies of the poets: "The Dawns
are like heroes with golden weapons; like red kine of the morning on
the field of heaven; shining they weave their webs of light, like
women active at work; food they bring to the pious worshipper. Like a
dancing girl is the Dawn adorned, and opens freely her bosom; as a cow
gives milk, as a cow comes forth from its stall, so opens she her
breast, so comes she out of the darkness (verses 1-4) ...She is the
ever new, born again and again, adorned always with the same color. As
a player conceals the dice, so keeps she concealed the days of a man;
daughter of Heaven she wakes and drives away her sister (Night). Like
kine, like the waves of a flood, with sunbeams she appears. O rich
Dawn, bring us wealth; harness thy red horses, and bring to us
success" (I. 92). The homage to Dawn is naturally divided at times
with that to the sun: "Fair shines the light of morning; the sun
awakens us to toil; along the path of order goes Dawn arrayed in
light. She extendeth herself in the east, and gleameth till she fills
the sky and earth"; and again: "Dawn is the great work of Varuna and
Mitra; through the sun is she awakened" (I. 124; III. 61. 6-7). In the
ritualistic period Dawn is still mechanically lauded, and her beams
"rise in the east like pillars of sacrifice" (IV. 51. 2); but
otherwise the imagery of the selections given above is that which is
usually employed. The 'three dawns' occasionally referred to are, as
we have shown elsewhere,[98] the three dawn-lights, white, red, and
yellow, as they are seen by both the Vedic poet and the Florentine.
Dawn becomes common and trite after awhile, as do all the gods, and is
invoked more to give than to please. 'Wake us,' cries a later poet,
'Wake us to wealth, O Dawn; give to us, give to us; wake up, lest the
sun burn thee with his light'--a passage (V. 79) which has caused much
learned nonsense to be written on the inimical relations of Sun and
Dawn as portrayed here. The dull idea is that Dawn is lazy, and had
better get up before S[=u]rya catches her asleep. The poet is not in
the least worried because his image does not express a suitable
relationship between the dawn and the sun, nor need others be
disturbed at it. The hymn is late, and only important in showing the
new carelessness as regards the old gods.[99] Some other traits appear
in VII. 75. 1 ff., where Dawn is 'queen of the world,' and banishes
the _druhs_, or evil spirit. She here is daughter of Heaven, and wife
of the sun (4, 5); _ib_. 76. 1, she is the eye of the world; and _ib_
81. 4, she is invoked as 'mother.'
There is, at times, so close a resemblance between Dawn-hymns and
Sun-hymns that the imagery employed in one is used in the other. Thus
the hymn VI. 64 begins: "The beams of Dawn have arisen, shining as
shine the waters' gleaming waves. She makes good paths, ... she
banishes darkness as a warrior drives away a foe (so of the sun, IV.
13. 2; X. 37. 4; 170. 2). Beautiful are thy paths upon the mountains,
and across the waters thou shinest, self-gleaming" (also of the sun).
With the last expression may be compared that in VI. 65. 5: "Dawn,
whose seat is upon the hills."
Dawn is intimately connected not only with Agni but with the Twin
Horsemen, the Açvins (equites)--if not so intimately connected as is
Helen with the Dioskouroi, who, _pace_ Pischel, are the Açvins of
Hellas. This relationship is more emphasized in the hymns to the
latter gods, but occasionally occurs in Dawn-hymns, of which another
is here translated in full.
TO DAWN (IV. 52).
The Daughter of Heaven, this beauteous maid,
Resplendent leaves her sister (Night),
And now before (our sight) appears.
Red glows she like a shining mare,
Mother of kine, who timely comes--
The Horsemen's friend Aurora is.
Both friend art thou of the Horsemen twain,
And mother art thou of the kine,
And thou, Aurora, rulest wealth.
We wake thee with our praise as one
Who foes removes; such thought is ours,
O thou that art possesst of joy.
Thy radiant beams beneficent
Like herds of cattle now appear;
Aurora fills the wide expanse.
With light hast thou the dark removed,
Filling (the world), O brilliant one.
Aurora, help us as thou us'st.
With rays thou stretchest through the heaven
And through the fair wide space between,
O Dawn, with thy refulgent light.
It was seen that Savitar (P[=u]shan) is the rising and setting sun.
So, antithetic to Dawn, stands the Abendroth with her sister, Night.
This last, generally, as in the hymn just translated, is lauded only
in connection with Dawn, and for herself alone gets but one hymn, and
that is not in a family-book. She is to be regarded, therefore, less
as a goddess of the pantheon than as a quasi-goddess, the result of a
poet's meditative imagination, rather than one of the folk's primitive
objects of adoration; somewhat as the English poets personify "Ye
clouds, that far above me float and pause, ye ocean-waves ... ye
woods, that listen to the night-bird's singing, O ye loud waves, and O
ye forests high, and O ye clouds that far above me soared; thou rising
sun, thou blue rejoicing sky!"--and as in Greek poetry, that which
before has been conceived of vaguely as divine suddenly is invested
with a divine personality. The later poet exalts these aspects of
nature, and endows those that were before only half recognized with a
little special praise. So, whereas Night was divine at first merely as
the sister of divine Dawn, in the tenth book one poet thus gives her
praise:
HYMN TO NIGHT (X. 127).
Night, shining goddess, comes, who now
Looks out afar with many eyes,
And putteth all her beauties on.
Immortal shining goddess, she
The depths and heights alike hath filled,
And drives with light the dark away.
To me she comes, adorned well,
A darkness black now sightly made;
Pay then thy debt, O Dawn, and go.[100]
The bright one coming put aside
Her sister Dawn (the sunset light),
And lo! the darkness hastes away.
So (kind art thou) to us; at whose
Appearing we retire to rest,
As birds fly homeward to the tree.
To rest are come the throngs of men;
To rest, the beasts; to rest, the birds;
And e'en the greedy eagles rest.
Keep off the she-wolf and the wolf,
Keep off the thief, O billowy Night,
Be thou to us a saviour now.
To thee, O Night, as 'twere an herd,
To a conqueror (brought), bring I an hymn
Daughter of Heaven, accept (the gift).[101]
THE AÇVINS.
The Açvins who are, as was said above, the 'Horsemen,' parallel to the
Greek Dioskouroi, are twins, sons of Dyaus, husbands, perhaps brothers
of the Dawn. They have been variously 'interpreted,' yet in point of
fact one knows no more now what was the original conception of the
twain than was known before Occidental scholars began to study
them.[102] Even the ancients made mere guesses: the Açvins came before
the Dawn, and are so-called because they ride on horses _(açva,
equos)_ they represent either Heaven and Earth, or Day and Night, or
Sun and Moon, or two earthly kings--such is the unsatisfactory
information given by the Hindus themselves.[103]
Much the same language with that in the Dawn-hymns is naturally
employed in praising the Twin Brothers. They, like the Dioskouroi, are
said to have been incorporated gradually into the pantheon, on an
equality with the other gods,[104] not because they were at first
human beings, but because they, like Night, were adjuncts of Dawn, and
got their divinity through her as leader.[105] In the last book of the
Rig Veda they are the sons of Sarany[=u] and Vivasvant, but it is not
certain whether Sarany[=u] means dawn or not; in the first book they
are born of the flood (in the sky).[106] They are sons of Dyaus, but
this, too, only in the last and first books, while in the latter they
are separated once, so that only one is called the Son of the
Sky.[107] They follow Dawn 'like men' (VIII. 5. 2) and are in
Brahmanic literature the 'youngest of the gods.'[108]
The twin gods are the physicians of heaven, while to men they bring
all medicines and help in times of danger. They were apparently at
first only 'wonder-workers,' for the original legends seem to have
been few. Yet the striking similarity in these aspects with the
brothers of Helen must offset the fact that so much in connection with
them seems to have been added in books one and ten. They restore the
blind and decrepit, impart strength and speed, and give the power and
seed of life; even causing waters to flow, fire to burn, and trees to
grow. As such they assist lovers and aid in producing offspring.
The Açvins are brilliantly described, Their bird-drawn chariot and all
its appurtenances are of gold; they are swift as thought, agile,
young, and beautiful. Thrice they come to the sacrifice, morning,
noon, and eve; at the yoking of their car, the dawn is born. When the
'banner before dawn' appears, the invocation to the Açvins begins;
they 'accompany dawn.' Some variation of fancy is naturally to be
looked for. Thus, though, as said above, Dawn is born at the Açvins
yoking, yet Dawn is herself invoked to wake the Açvins; while again
the sun starts their chariot before Dawn; and as sons of Zeus they are
invoked "when darkness still stands among the shining clouds
(cows)."[109]
Husbands or brothers or children of Dawn, the Horsemen are also
S[=u]ry[=a]'s husbands, and she is the sun's daughter (Dawn?) or the
sun as female. But this myth is not without contradictions, for
S[=u]ry[=a] elsewhere weds Soma, and the Açvins are the bridegroom's
friends; whom P[=u]shan chose on this occasion as his parents; he who
(unless one with Soma) was the prior bridegroom of the same
much-married damsel.[110]
The current explanation of the Açvins is that they represent two
periods between darkness and dawn, the darker period being nearer
night, the other nearer day. But they probably, as inseparable twins,
are the twinlights or twilight, before dawn, half dark and half
bright. In this light it may well be said of them that one alone is
the son of bright Dyaus, that both wed Dawn, or are her brothers. They
always come together. Their duality represents, then, not successive
stages but one stage in day's approach, when light is dark and dark is
light. In comparing the Açvins to other pairs[111] this dual nature is
frequently referred to; but no less is there a triality in connection
with them which often in describing them has been ignored. This is
that threefold light which opens day; and, as in many cases they join
with Dawn, so their color is inseparable. Strictly speaking, the break
of red is the dawn and the white and yellow lights precede this[112].
Thus in V. 73. 5: "Red birds flew round you as S[=u]ry[=a] stepped
upon your chariot"; so that it is quite impossible, in accordance with
the poets themselves, to limit the Açvins to the twilight. They are a
variegated growth from a black and white seed. The chief function of
the Açvins, as originally conceived, was the finding and restoring of
vanished light. Hence they are invoked as finders and aid-gods in
general (the myths are given in Myriantheus).
Some very amusing and some silly legends have been collected and told
by the Vedic poets in regard to the preservation and resuscitating
power of the Açvins--how an old man was rejuvenated by them (this is
also done by the three Ribhus, master-workmen of the gods); how brides
are provided by them; how they rescued Bhujyu and others from the
dangers of the deep (as in the classical legends); how they replaced a
woman's leg with an iron one; restored a saint's eye-sight; drew a
seer out of a well, etc, etc. Many scholars follow Bergaigne in
imagining all these miracles to be anthropomorphized forms of solar
phenomena, the healing of the blind representing the bringing out of
the sun from darkness, etc. To us such interpretation often seems
fatuous. No less unconvincing is the claim that one of the Açvins
represents the fire of heaven and the other the fire of the altar. The
Twins are called _n[=a]saty[=a],_ the 'savers' (or 'not untrue
ones[113]'); explained by some as meaning 'gods with good noses[114].'
HYMN TO THE HORSEMEN.
Whether ye rest on far-extended earth, or on the sea in house upon it
made, 'come hither thence, O ye that ride the steeds. If ever for man
ye mix the sacrifice, then notice now the Kanva [poet who sings]. I
call upon the gods [Indra, Vishnu[115]] and the swift-going
Horsemen[116]. These Horsemen I call now that they work wonders, to
seize the works (of sacrifice), whose friendship is preëminently ours,
and relationship among all the gods; in reference to whom arise
sacrifices ... If, to-day, O Horsemen, West or East ye stand, ye of
good steeds, whether at Druhyu's, Anu's, Turvaça's, or Yadu's, I call
ye; come to me. If ye fly in the air, O givers of great joy; or if
through the two worlds; or if, according to your pleasure, ye mount
the car,--thence come hither, O Horsemen.
From the hymn preceding this, the following verses[117]:
Whatever manliness is in the aether, in the sky, and among
the five peoples, grant us that, O Horsemen ... this hot
_soma_-drink of yours with laudation is poured out; this
_soma_ sweet through which ye discovered Vritra ... Ascend
the swift-rolling chariot, O Horsemen; hither let these my
praises bring ye, like a cloud ... Come as guardians of
homes; guardians of our bodies. Come to the house for (to
give) children and offspring. Whether ye ride on the same
car with Indra, or be in the same house with the Wind;
whether united with the Sons of Boundlessness or the Ribhus,
or stand on Vishnu's wide steps (come to us). This is the
best help of the horsemen, if to-day I should entice them to
get booty, or call them as my strength to conquer in
battle.... Whatever medicine (ye have) far or near, with
this now, O wise ones, grant protection.... Awake, O Dawn,
the Horsemen, goddess, kind and great.... When, O Dawn, thou
goest in light and shinest with the Sun, then hither comes
the Horsemen's chariot, to the house men have to protect.
When the swollen _soma_-stalks are milked like cows with
udders, and when the choric songs are sung, then they that
adore the Horsemen are preëminent....
Here the Açvins are associated with Indra, and even find the evil
demon; but, probably, at this stage Indra is more than god of storms.
Some of the expanded myths and legends of the Açvins may be found in
i. 118, 119, 158; x. 40. Here follows one with legends in moderate
number (vii. 71):
Before the Dawn her sister, Night, withdraweth;
The black one leaves the ruddy one a pathway.
Ye that have kine and horses, you invoke we;
By day, at night, keep far from us your arrow.
Come hither, now, and meet the pious mortal,
And on your car, O Horsemen, bring him good things;
Keep off from us the dry destroying sickness,
By day, at night, O sweetest pair, protect us.
Your chariot may the joy-desiring chargers,
The virile stallions, bring at Dawn's first coming;
That car whose reins are rays, and wealth upon it;
Come with the steeds that keep the season's order.
Upon the car, three-seated, full of riches,
The helping car, that has a path all golden,
On this approach, O lords of heroes, true ones,
Let this food-bringing car of yours approach us.
Ye freed from his old age the man Cyav[=a]na;
Ye brought and gave the charger swift to Pedu;
Ye two from darkness' anguish rescued Atri;
Ye set J[a=]husha down, released from fetters.[118]
This prayer, O Horsemen, and this song is uttered;
Accept the skilful[sic] poem, manly heroes.
These prayers, to you belonging, have ascended,
O all ye gods protect us aye with blessings![119]
The sweets which the Açvins bring are either on their chariot, or, as
is often related, in a bag; or they burst forth from the hoof of their
steed. Pegasus' spring in Helicon has been compared with this. Their
vehicles are variously pictured as birds, horses, ships, etc. It is to
be noticed that in no one of their attributes are the Açvins unique.
Other gods bring sweets, help, protect, give offspring, give healing
medicines, and, in short, do all that the Açvins do. But, as Bergaigne
points out, they do all this pacifically, while Indra, who performs
some of their wonders, does so by storm. He protects by not injuring,
and helps by destroying foes. Yet is this again true only in general,
and the lines between warlike, peaceful, and 'sovereign' gods are
often crossed.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Such for instance as the hymn to the Açvins,
RV. ii. 39. Compare verses 3-4: 'Come (ye pair of Açvins)
like two horns; like two hoofs; like two geese; like two
wheels; like two ships; like two spans'; etc. This is the
content of the whole hymn.]
[Footnote 2: _Deva_ is 'shining' (deus), and _S[=u]rya_
(sol, [Greek: áelios]) means the same.]
[Footnote 3: Let the reader note at the outset that there is
scarcely an activity considered as divine which does not
belong to several gods (see below).]
[Footnote 4: From _su, sav_, enliven, beget, etc. In RV. iv.
53.6 and vii, 63.2, _pra-savitar_.]
[Footnote 5: RV. VII. 66. 14-15; compare X. 178. 1. In the
notes immediately following the numbers all refer to the Rig
Veda.]
[Footnote 6: V. 47, 3; compare vs. 7, and X. 189. 1-2.]
[Footnote 7: Compare X. 177. 1.]
[Footnote 8: X. 37. 9.]
[Footnote 9: V. 63. 7. Varuna and Mitra set the sun's car in
heaven.]
[Footnote 10: 1 IV. 13. 2-5; X. 37, 4; 85, 1. But _ib_. 149.
1. Savitar holds the sky 'without support.']
[Footnote 11: VII 63.1; I. 115.11; X. 37. 1.]
[Footnote 12: III. 61.4; VII. 63. 3.]
[Footnote 13: VII 78.3.]
[Footnote 14: I. 56,4; IX. 84. 2; Compare I. 92. 11; 115, 2;
123. 10-12. V. 44. 7, and perhaps 47.6, are late. VII. 75.
5, is an exception (or late).]
[Footnote 15: _La Religion Védique_, I.6; II. 2.]
[Footnote 16: Ehni, _Yama,_ p. 134.]
[Footnote 17: RV., IV. 54. 2. Here the sun gives life even
to the gods.]
[Footnote 18: Ten hundred and twenty-eight hymns are
contained in the 'Rig Veda Collection.']
[Footnote 19: IV. 14.]
[Footnote 20: X. 37; 158; 170; 177; 189. Each has its own
mark of lateness. In 37, the dream; in 158, the triad; in
170, the sun as _asurah[=a]_; in 177, the mystic tone and
the bird-sun (compare Garutman, I. 164; X. 149); in 189, the
thirty stations.]
[Footnote 21: See Whitney in _Colebrooke's Essays_, revised
edition, ii. p. 111.]
[Footnote 22: iv. 54]
[Footnote 23: Two 'laps' below, besides that above, the word
meaning 'middle' but also 'under-place.' The explanation of
this much-disputed passage will be found by comparing I.
154. 5 and VII. 99. 1. The sun's three places are where he
appears on both horizons and in the zenith. The last is the
abode of the dead where Yama reigns. Compare IV. 53. The
bracketed verses are probably a late puzzle attached to the
word 'lap' of the preceding verse.]
[Footnote 24: Doubtful.]
[Footnote 25: The Spirit, later of evil spirits, demons (as
above, the _asurah[=á]_). Compare Ahura.]
[Footnote 26: A numerical conception not paralleled in the
Rig Veda, though mountains are called protuberances
('elevations') in other places.]
[Footnote 27: The last stanza is in the metre of the first;
two more follow without significant additions.]
[Footnote 28: The texts are translated by Muir, OST, V. p.
171 ff.]
[Footnote 29: _La Religion Védique_, II. p. 428. Compare
Hillebrandt, _Soma_ p. 456.]
[Footnote 30: I. 138. 4.]
[Footnote 31: VI. 56. 1.]
[Footnote 32: In I. 23. 13-15 P[=u]shan is said to bring
king _(soma),_ "whom he found like a lost herd of cattle."
The fragment is late if, as is probable, the 'six' of vs. 15
are the six seasons. Compare VI. 54. 5, "may P[=u]shan go
after our kine."]
[Footnote 33: Compare VI. 54.]
[Footnote 34: He is the 'son of freeing,' from darkness? VI.
55. 1.]
[Footnote 35: IV. 57. 7.]
[Footnote 36: VI. 17. 11; 48. 11 ff.; IV. 30. 24 ff. He is
called like a war-god with the Maruts in VI. 48.]
[Footnote 37: So, too, Bhaga is Dawn's brother, I. 123. 5.
P[=u]shan is Indra's brother in VI. 55. 5. Gubernatis
interprets P[=u]shan as 'the setting sun.']
[Footnote 38: Contrast I. 42, and X. 26 (with 1. 138. 1). In
the first hymn P[=u]shan leads the way and drives away
danger, wolves, thieves, and helps to booty and pasturage.
In the last he is a war-god, who helps in battle, a
'far-ruler,' embracing the thoughts of all (as in III. 62.
9).]
[Footnote 39: For the traits just cited compare IV. 57. 7;
VI. 17. 11; 48. 15; 53; 55; 56. I-3; 57. 3-4; 58. 2-4; II.
40; X. 17. 3 ff.; 26. 3-8; I. 23. 14; all of I. 42, and 138;
VIII. 4. 15-18; III. 57. 2. In X. 17. 4, Savitar, too,
guides the souls of the dead.]
[Footnote 40: That is to say, one hymn is addressed to Bhaga
with various other gods, VII. 41. Here he seems to be
personified good-luck ("of whom even the king says,' I would
have thee,'" vs. 2). In Ihe Br[=a]hmanas 'Bhaga is blind,'
which applies better to Fortune than to the Sun.]
[Footnote 41: The hymn is sung before setting out on a
forray for cattle. Let one observe how unsupported is
the assumption of the ritualists as applied to this hymn,
that it must have been "composed for rubrication."]
[Footnote 42: After Muir, V. p. 178. The clouds and cattle
are both called _gàs_ 'wanderers,' which helped in the
poetic identification of the two.]
[Footnote 43: Compare IX. 97. 55, "Thou art Bhaga, giver of
gifts."]
[Footnote 44: _Bhágam bhakshi_! Compare baksheesh. The word
as 'god' is both Avestan, _bagha_, and Slavic, _bogu_ (also
meaning 'rich'). It may be an epithet of other gods also,
and here it means only luck.]
[Footnote 45: Literally 'possessed of _bhaga,' i.e_.,
wealth.]
[Footnote 46: May Bhaga be _bhágav[=a]n, i.e_., a true
_bhaga_-holder. Here and below a pun on the name (as
above).]
[Footnote 47: Mythical being, possibly the sun-horse.
According to Pischel a real earthly racer.]
[Footnote 48: I.22.17, etc; 154 ff.; VII. too.]
[Footnote 49: VII. 100. 5-6. Vishnu (may be the epithet of
Indra in I.61.7) means winner (?),]
[Footnote 50: VI. 69; VII. 99. But Vishnu is ordered about
by Indra (IV. 18. 11; VIII. 89. 12).]
[Footnote 51: I.154. 5. In II. 1. 3, Vishnu is one with Fire
(Agni).]
[Footnote 52: Thus, for example, Vishnu in the Hindu
trinity, the separate worship of the sun in modern sects,
and in the cult of the hill-men.]
[Footnote 53: X. 149.]
[Footnote 54: II.41.20.]
[Footnote 55: vi.70.]
[Footnote 56: I.160.4; IV. 56.1-3; VII. 53. 2.]
[Footnote 57: I. 185. 8. _(J[=a]spati)._ The expiatory power
of the hymn occurs again in I. 159.]
[Footnote 58: I. 185. 1.]
[Footnote 59: IV. 56. 7.]
[Footnote 60: I. 22. 15.]
[Footnote 61: X. 18. 10 (or: "like a wool-soft maiden").]
[Footnote 62: The lightning. In I. 31. 4, 10 "(Father) Fire
makes Dyaus bellow" like "a bull" (v. 36. 5). Dyaus "roars"
in vi. 72. 3. Nowhere else is he a thunderer.]
[Footnote 63: 1. 24. 7-8. The change in metaphor is not
unusual.]
[Footnote 64: This word means either order or orders (law);
literally the 'way' or 'course.']
[Footnote 65: 1. 24 (epitomized).]
[Footnote 66: Perhaps better with Ludwig "of (thee) in
anger, of (thee) incensed."]
[Footnote 67: Or: "Being (himself) in the (heavenly) flood
he knows the ships." (Ludwig.)]
[Footnote 68: An intercalated month is meant (not the
primitive 'twelve days').]
[Footnote 69: Or 'very wise,' of mental strength.]
[Footnote 70: VIII. 41. 7; VII. 82. 6 (Bergaigne); X. 132.
4.]
[Footnote 71: Compare Bergaigne, _La Religion Védique_, iii.
pp. 116-118.]
[Footnote 72: The insistence on the holy seven, the 'secret
names' of dawn, the confusion of Varuna with Trita. Compare,
also, the refrain, viii. 39-42. For X. 124, see below.]
[Footnote 73: Compare Hillebrandt's Varuna and Mitra, p. 5;
and see our essay on the Holy Numbers of the Rig Veda (in
the _Oriental Studies_).]
[Footnote 74: Varuna's forgiving of sins may be explained as
a washing out of sin, just as fire burns it out, and so
loosens therewith the imagined bond, V. 2. 7. Thus, quite
apart from Varuna in a hymn addressed to the 'Waters,' is
found the prayer, "O waters, carry off whatever sin is in me
... and untruth," I. 23. 22.]
[Footnote 75: But as in iv. 42, so in x. 124 he shares glory
with Indra.]
[Footnote 76: Later, Varuna's water-office is his only
physical side. Compare [=A]it. [=A]r. II. I. 7. 7, 'water
and Varuna, children of mind.' Compare with _v[=a]ri, oùrá_
= _v[=a]ra_, and _var[=i]_, an old word for rivers,
_var[s.]_ (= _var_ + _s_), 'rain.' The etymology is very
doubtful on account of the number of _var_-roots. Perhaps
dew _(ersa)_ and rain first as 'coverer.' Even _var = vas_
'shine,' has been suggested (ZDMG. XXII. 603).]
[Footnote 77: The old comparison of _Varena cathrugaosha_
turns out to be "the town of Varna with four gates"!]
[Footnote 78: In _India: What Can it Teach us_, pp. 197,
200, Müller tacitly recognizes in the physical Varuna only
the 'starry' night-side.]
[Footnote 79: _Loc. cit._, III. 119. Bergaigne admits Varuna
as god of waters, but sees in him identity with Vritra a
'restrainer of waters.' He thinks the 'luminous side' of
Varuna to be antique also (III. 117-119). Varuna's cord,
according to Bergaigne, comes from 'tying up' the waters;
'night's fetters,' according to Hillebrandt.]
[Footnote 80: _Loc. cit._, p. 13.]
[Footnote 81: One of the chief objections to Bergaigne's
conception of Varuna as restrainer is that it does not
explain the antique union with Mitra.]
[Footnote 82: II. 28. 4, 7; VII. 82. 1, 2; 87.2]
[Footnote 83: vii. 87. 6; 88. 2.]
[Footnote 84: viii. 41. 2, 7, 8. So Varuna gives _soma_,
rain. As a rain-god he surpasses Dyaus, who, ultimately, is
also a rain-god (above), as in Greece.]
[Footnote 85: Compare Çat. Br. V. 2.5.17, "whatever is dark
is Varuna's."]
[Footnote 86: In II. 38. 8 _varuna_ means 'fish,' and 'water
in I.184. 3.]
[Footnote 87: V. 62. I, 8; 64.7; 61. 5; 65. 2; 67. 2; 69.1;
VI. 51.1; 67. 5. In VIII. 47.11 the [=A]dityas are
themselves spies.]
[Footnote 88: Introduction to Grassmann, II. 27; VI. 42.
Lex. s. v.]
[Footnote 89: _Religions of India,_ p. 17.]
[Footnote 90: The Rik knows, also, a Diti, but merely as
antithesls to Aditi--the 'confined and unconfined.' Aditi is
prayed to (for protection and to remove sin) in sporadic
verses of several hymns addressed to other gods, but she has
no hymn.]
[Footnote 91: Müller (_loc. cit._, below) thinks that the
'sons of Aditi' were first eight and were then reduced to
seven, in which opinion as in his whole interpretation of
Aditi as a primitive dawn-infinity we regret that we cannot
agree with him.]
[Footnote 92: See Hillebrandt, _Die Göttin Aditi_; and
Müller, SBE, xxxii., p. 241, 252.]
[Footnote 93: That is to say, if one believe that the
'primitive Aryans' were inoculated with Zoroaster's
teaching. This is the sort of Varuna that Koth believes to
have existed among the aboriginal Aryan tribes (above, p.
13, note 2).]
[Footnote 94: VII. 77.]
[Footnote 95: Clouds.]
[Footnote 96: The sun.]
[Footnote 97: The priest to whom, and to whose family, is
ascribed the seventh book.]
[Footnote 98: JAOS., XV. 270.]
[Footnote 99: Much theosophy, and even history (!), has been
read into II. 15, and IV. 30, where poets speak of Indra
slaying Dawn; but there is nothing remarkable in these
passages. Poetry is not creed. The monsoon (here Indra) does
away with dawns for a time, and that is what the poet says
in his own way.]
[Footnote 100: Transferred by Roth from the penultimate
position where it stands in the original. Dawn here pays
Night for the latter's malutinal withdrawing by withdrawing
herself. Strictly speaking, the Dawn is, of course, the
sunset light conceived of as identical with that preceding
the sunrise ([Greek: usas, hêôs], 'east' as 'glow').]
[Footnote 101: Late as seems this hymn to be, it is
interesting in revealing the fact that wolves (not tigers or
panthers) are the poet's most dreaded foes of night. It
must, therefore have been composed in the northlands, where
wolves are the herdsman's worst enemies.]
[Footnote 102: Myriantheus, _Die Açvins_; Muir, OST. v.
p.234; Bergaigne, _Religion Védique,_ II. p. 431; Müller,
_Lectures_, 2d series, p. 508; Weber, _Ind. St_. v. p. 234.
S[=a]yana on I. 180. 2, interprets the 'sister of the
Açvins' as Dawn.]
[Footnote 103: Muir, _loc. cit_. Weber regards them as the
(stars) Gemini.]
[Footnote 104: Weber, however, thinks that Dawn and Açvins
are equally old divinities, the oldest Hindu divinities in
his estimation.]
[Footnote 105: In the Epic (see below) they are called the
lowest caste of gods (Ç[=u]dras).]
[Footnote 106: X. 17. 2; I. 46. 2.]
[Footnote 107: I. 181. 4 (Roth, ZDMG. IV. 425).]
[Footnote 108: T[=a]itt. S. VII. 2. 7. 2; Muir, _loc. cit_.
p. 235.]
[Footnote 109: vii. 67. 2; viii. 5. 2; x. 39. 12; viii. 9.
17; i. 34. 10; x. 61. 4. Muir, _loc. cit._ 238-9. Compare
_ib_. 234, 256.]
[Footnote 110: Muir, _loc. cit_. p. 237. RV. vi. 58. 4; x.
85. 9ff.]
[Footnote 111: They are compared to two ships, two birds,
etc.]
[Footnote 112: In _Çat. Br_. V. 5. 4. it to the Açvins a
red-white goat is sacrificed, because 'Açvins are
red-white.']
[Footnote 113: Perhaps best with Brannhofer, 'the savers'
from _nas_ as in _nasjan_ (AG. p. 99).]
[Footnote 114: _La Religion Védique_, II. p. 434. That
_n[=a]snya_ means 'with good noses' is an epic notion,
_n[=a]satyadasr[=a]u sunas[=a]u,_ Mbh[=a]. I. 3. 58, and for
this reason, if for no other (though idea is older), the
etymology is probably false! The epithet is also Iranian.
Twinned and especially paired gods are characteristic of the
Rig Veda. Thus Yama and Yam[=i] are twins; and of pairs
Indra-Agni, Indra-V[=a]yu, besides the older Mitra-Varuna,
Heaven-Earth, are common.]
[Footnote 115: Perhaps to be omitted.]
[Footnote 116: _Pischel_, Ved. St. I. p. 48. As swift-going
gods they are called 'Indra-like.']
[Footnote 117: VIII. 9 and 10.]
[Footnote 118: Doubtful]
[Footnote 119: The last verse is not peculiar to this hymn,
but is the sign of the book (family) in which it was
composed.]
* * * * *
CHAPTER IV.
THE RIG VEDA (CONTINUED).--THE MIDDLE GODS.
Only one of the great atmospheric deities, the gods that preëminently
govern the middle sphere between sky and earth, can claim an Aryan
lineage. One of the minor gods of the same sphere, the ancient
rain-god, also has this antique dignity, but in his case the dignity
already is impaired by the strength of a new and greater rival. In the
case of the wind-god, on the other hand, there is preserved a deity
who was one of the primitive pantheon, belonging, perhaps, not only to
the Iranians, but to the Teutons, for V[=a]ta, Wind, may be the
Scandinavian Woden. The later mythologists on Indian soil make a
distinction between V[=a]ta, wind, and V[=a]yu (from the same root; as
in German _wehen_) and in this distinction one discovers that the old
V[=a]ta, who must have been once _the_ wind-god, is now reduced to
physical (though sentient) wind, while the newer name represents the
higher side of wind as a power lying back of phenomena; and it is this
latter conception alone that is utilized in the formation of the Vedic
triad of wind, fire, and sun. In short, in the use and application of
the two names, there is an exact parallel to the double terminology
employed to designate the sun as S[=u]rya and Savitar. Just as
S[=u]rya is the older [Greek: hêlios] and sol (acknowledged as a god,
yet palpably the physical red body in the sky) contrasted with the
interpretation which, by a newer name (Savitar), seeks to
differentiate the (sentient) physical from the spiritual, so is
V[=a]ta, Woden, replaced and lowered by the loftier conception of
V[=a]yu. But, again, just as, when the conception of Savitar is
formed, the spiritualizing tendency reverts to S[=u]rya, and makes of
him, too, a figure reclothed in the more modern garb of speech, which
is invented for Savitar alone; so the retroactive theosophic fancy,
after creating V[=a]yu as a divine power underlying phenomenal
V[=a]ta, reinvests V[=a]ta also with the garments of V[=a]yu. Thus,
finally, the two, who are the result of intellectual differentiation,
are again united from a new point of view, and S[=u]rya or Savitar,
V[=a]yu or V[=a]ta, are indifferently used to express respectively the
whole completed interpretation of the divinity, which is now visible
and invisible, sun and sun-god, wind and wind-god. In these pairs
there is, as it were, a perspective of Hindu theosophy, and one can
trace the god, as a spiritual entity including the physical, back to
the physical prototype that once was worshipped as such alone.
In the Rig Veda there are three complete hymns to Wind, none of these
being in the family books. In x. 186, the poet calls on Wind to bring
health to the worshipper, and to prolong his life. He addresses Wind
as 'father and brother and friend,' asking the power that blows to
bring him ambrosia, of which Wind has a store. These are rather pretty
verses without special theological intent, addressed more to Wind as
such than to a spiritual power. The other hymn from the same book is
directed to V[=a]ta also, not to V[=a]yu, and though it is loftier in
tone and even speaks of V[=a]ta as the soul of the gods, yet is it
evident that no consistent mythology has worked upon the purely poetic
phraseology, which is occupied merely with describing the rushing of a
mighty wind (x. 168). Nevertheless, V[=a]ta is worshipped, as is
V[=a]yu, with oblations.
HYMN TO WIND (V[=a]ta).
Now V[=a]ta's chariot's greatness! Breaking goes it,
And thundering is its noise; to heaven it touches,
Goes o'er the earth, cloud[1] making, dust up-rearing;
Then rush together all the forms of V[=a]ta;
To him they come as women to a meeting.
With them conjoint, on the same chariot going,
Is born the god, the king of all creation.
Ne'er sleepeth he when, on his pathway wandering,
He goes through air. The friend is he of waters;
First-born and holy,--where was he created,
And whence arose he? Spirit of gods is V[=a]ta,
Source of creation, goeth where he listeth;
Whose sound is heard, but not his form. This V[=a]ta
Let us with our oblations duly honor.
In times later than the Rig Veda, V[=a]yu interchanges with Indra as
representative of the middle sphere; and in the Rig Veda all the hymns
of the family books associate him with Indra (vii. 90-92; iv. 47-48).
In the first book he is associated thus in the second hymn; while, ib.
134, he has the only remaining complete hymn, though fragments of
songs occasionally are found. All of these hymns except the first two
simply invite V[=a]yu to come with Indra to the sacrifice, It is
V[=a]yu who with Indra obtains the first drink of soma (i. 134. 6). He
is spoken of as the artificer's, Tvashtar's, son-in-law, but the
allusion is unexplained (viii. 26. 22); he in turn begets the
storm-gods (i. 134. 4).
With V[=a]yu is joined Indra, one of the popular gods. These
divinities, which are partly of the middle and partly of the lower
sphere, may be called the popular gods, yet were the title 'new gods'
neither wholly amiss nor quite correct. For, though the popular
deities in general, when compared with many for whom a greater
antiquity may be claimed, such as the Sun, Varuna, Dyaus, etc., are of
more recent growth in dignity, yet there remains a considerable number
of divinities, the hymns in whose honor, dating from the latest
period, seem to show that the power they celebrate had been but lately
admitted into the category of those gods that deserved special
worship. Consequently new gods would be a misleading term,
as it should be applied to the plainer products of theological
speculation and abstraction rather than to Indra and his peers, not to
speak of those newest pantheistic gods, as yet unknown. The
designation popular must be understood, then, to apply to the gods
most frequently, most enthusiastically revered (for in a stricter
sense the sun was also a popular god); and reference is had in using
this word to the greater power and influence of these gods, which is
indicated by the fact that the hymns to Agni and Indra precede all
others in the family books, while the Soma-hymns are collected for the
most part into one whole book by themselves.
But there is another factor that necessitates a division between the
divinities of sun and heaven and the atmospheric and earthly gods
which are honored so greatly; and this factor is explanatory of the
popularity of these gods. In the case of the older divinities it is
the spiritualization of a sole material appearance that is revered; in
the case of the popular gods, the material phenomenon is reduced to a
minimum, the spirituality behind the phenomenon is exalted, and that
spirituality stands not in and for itself, but as a part of a union of
spiritualities. Applying this test to the earlier gods the union will
be found to be lacking. The sun's spiritual power is united with
Indra's, but the sun is as much a physical phenomenon as a
spirituality, and always remains so. On the other hand, the equation
of Varunic power with Indraic never amalgamated the two; and these are
the best instances that can be chosen of the older gods. For in the
case of others it is self-evident. Dyaus and Dawn are but material
phenomena, slightly spiritualized, but not joined with the
spirit-power of others.
Many have been the vain attempts to go behind the returns of Vedic
hymnology and reduce Indra, Agni, and Soma to terms of a purely
naturalistic religion. It cannot be done. Indra is neither sun,
lightning, nor storm; Agni is neither hearth-fire nor celestial fire;
Soma is neither planet nor moon.
Each is the transient manifestation of a spirituality lying behind and
extending beyond this manifestation. Here alone is the latch-key of
the newer, more popular religion. Not merely because Indra was a
'warrior god,' but because Indra and Fire were one; because of the
mystery, not because of the appearance, was he made great at the hands
of the priests. It is true, as has been said above, that the idol of
the warriors was magnified because he was such; but the true cause of
the greatness ascribed to him in the hymns lay in the secret of his
nature, as it was lauded by the priest, not in his form, as it was
seen by the multitude. Neither came first, both worked together; but
had it not been for the esoteric wisdom held by the priests in
connection with his nature, Indra would have gone the way of other
meteorological gods; whereas he became chiefest of the gods, and, as
lord of strength, for a time came nearest to the supreme power.
INDRA.
Indra has been identified with 'storm,' with the 'sky,' with the
'year'; also with 'sun' and with 'fire' in general.[2] But if he be
taken as he is found in the hymns, it will be noticed at once that he
is too stormy to be the sun; too luminous to be the storm; too near to
the phenomena of the monsoon to be the year or the sky; too rainy to
be fire; too alien from every one thing to be any one thing. He is too
celestial to be wholly atmospheric; too atmospheric to be celestial;
too earthly to be either. A most tempting solution is that offered by
Bergaigne, who sees in Indra sun or lightning. Yet does this
explanation not explain all, and it is more satisfactory than others
only because it is broader; while it is not yet broad enough. Indra,
in Bergaigne's opinion, stands, however, nearer to fire than to
sun.[3] But the savant does not rest content with his own explanation:
"Indra est peut-être, de tous les dieux védiques, celui qui résiste le
plus longtemps à un genre d'analyse qui, appliqué à la plupart des
autres, les résout plus ou moins vite en des personnifications des
éléments, soit des phénomènes naturels, soit du culte" (ibid. p. 167).
Dyaus' son, Indra, who rides upon the storm and hurls the lightnings
with his hands; who 'crashes down from heaven' and 'destroys the
strongholds' of heaven and earth; whose greatness 'fills heaven and
earth'; whose 'steeds are of red and gold'; who 'speaks in thunder,'
and 'is born of waters and cloud'; behind whom ride the storm-gods;
with whom Agni (fire) is inseparably connected; who 'frees the waters
of heaven from the demon,' and 'gives rain-blessings and wealth' to
man--such a god, granted the necessity of a naturalistic
interpretation, may well be thought to have been lightning itself
originally, which the hymns now represent the god as carrying. But in
identifying Indra with the sun there is more difficulty. In none of
the early hymns is this suggested, and the texts on which Bergaigne
relies besides being late are not always conclusive. "Indra clothes
himself with the glory of the sun"; he "sees with the eye of the
sun"--such texts prove little when one remembers that the sun is the
eye of all the gods, and that to clothe ones' self with solar glory is
far from being one with the sun. In one other, albeit a late verse,
the expression 'Indra, a sun,' is used; and, relying on such texts,
Bergaigne claims that Indra is the sun. But it is evident that this is
but one of many passages where Indra by implication is compared to the
sun; and comparisons do not indicate allotropy. So, in ii. II. 20,
which Bergaigne gives as a parallel, the words say expressly "Indra
[did so and so] _like a sun_."[4] To rest a building so important on a
basis so frail is fortunately rare with Bergaigne. It happens here
because he is arguing from the assumption that Indra primitively was a
general luminary. Hence, instead of building up Indra from early
texts, he claims a few late phrases as precious confirmation of his
theory.[5] What was Indra may be seen by comparing a few citations
such as might easily be amplified from every book in the Rig Veda.
According to the varying fancies of the poets, Indra is armed with
stones, clubs, arrows, or the thunderbolt (made for him by the
artificer, Tvashtar), of brass or of gold, with many edges and points.
Upon a golden chariot he rides to battle, driving two or many red or
yellow steeds; he is like the sun in brilliancy, and like the dawn in
beauty; he is multiform, and cannot really be described; his divine
name is secret; in appearance he is vigorous, huge; he is wise and
true and kind; all treasures are his, and he is a wealth-holder, vast
as four seas; neither his greatness nor his generosity can be
comprehended; mightiest of gods is he, filling the universe; the
heavens rest upon his head; earth cannot hold him; earth and heaven
tremble at his breath; he is king of all; the mountains are to him as
valleys; he goes forth a bull, raging, and rushes through the air,
whirling up the dust; he breaks open the rain-containing clouds, and
lets the rain pour down; as the Açvins restore the light, so he
restores the rain; he is (like) fire born in three places; as the
giver of rain which feeds, he creates the plants; he restores or
begets Sun and Dawn (after the storm has passed);[6] he creates (in
the same way) all things, even heaven and earth; he is associated with
Vishnu and P[=u]shan (the sun-gods), with the Açvins, with the Maruts
(storm-gods) as his especial followers, and with the artisan Ribhus.
With Varuna he is an Adityá, but he is also associated with another
group of gods, the Vasus (x. 66. 3), as Vasupati, or 'lord of the
Vasus.' He goes with many forms (vi. 47. 18).[7]
The luminous character[8] of Indra, which has caused him to be
identified with light-gods, can be understood only when one remembers
that in India the rainy season is ushered in by such displays of
lightning that the heavens are often illuminated in every direction at
once; and not with a succession of flashes, but with contemporaneous
ubiquitous sheets of light, so that it appears as if on all sides of
the sky there was one lining of united dazzling flame. When it is said
that Indra 'placed light in light,' one is not to understand, with
Bergaigne, that Indra is identical with the sun, but that in day
(light) Indra puts lightning (x. 54. 6; Bergaigne ii. p. 187).
Since Indra's lightning[9] is a form of fire, there is found in this
union the first mystic dualism of two distinct gods as one. This comes
out more in Agni-worship than in Indra-worship, and will be treated
below. The snake or dragon killed by Indra is Vritra, the restrainer,
who catches and keeps in the clouds the rain that is falling to earth.
He often is called simply the snake, and as the Budhnya Snake, or
snake of the cloud-depths, is possibly the Python (=Budh-nya).[10]
There is here a touch of primitive belief in an old enemy of man--the
serpent! But the Budhnya Snake has been developed in opposite ways,
and has contradictory functions.[11]
Indra, however, is no more the lightning than he is the sun. One poet
says that he is like the sun;[12] another, that he is like the
lightning (viii. 93. 9), which he carries in his arms (viii. 12. 7);
another, that he is like the light of dawn (x. 89. 12). So various are
the activities, so many the phenomena, that with him first the seer is
obliged to look back of all these phenomena and find in them one
person; and thus he is the most anthropomorphized of the Vedic gods.
He is born of heaven or born of clouds (iv. 18), but that his mother
is Aditi is not certain. As the most powerful god Indra is again
regarded as the All-god (viii. 98. 1-2). With this final supremacy,
that distinction between battle-gods and gods sovereign, which
Bergaigne insists upon--the sovereign gods belonging to _une
conception unitaire de l'ordre du monde_ (iii. p. 3; ii. p.
167)--fades away. As Varuna became gradually greatest, so did Indra in
turn. But Varuna was a philosopher's god, not a warrior's; and Varuna
was not double and mystical. So even the priest (Agni) leaves Varuna,
and with the warrior takes more pleasure in his twin Indra; of him
making an All-god, a greatest god. Varuna is passive; Indra is
energetic; but Indra does not struggle for his lordship. Inspired by
_soma_, he smites, triumphs, punishes. Victor already, he descends
upon his enemies and with a blow destroys them. It is rarely that he
feels the effect of battle; he never doubts its issue.
There is evidence that this supremacy was not gained without
contradiction, and the novelty of the last extravagant Indra-worship
may be deduced, perhaps, from such passages as viii. 96. 15; and 100.
3, where are expressed doubts in regard to the existence of a real
Indra. How late is the worship of the popular Indra, and that it is
not originality that causes his hymns to be placed early in each
collection, may be judged from the fact that only of Indra (and Agni?)
are there idols: viii. 1. 5; iv. 24. 10: "Who gives ten cows for my
Indra? When he has slain his foe let (the purchaser) give him to me
again."[13] Thus it happens that one rarely finds such poems to Indra
as to Dawn and to other earlier deities, but almost always stereotyped
descriptions of prowess, and mechanical invitations to come to the
altar and reward the hymn-maker. There are few of Indra's many hymns
that do not smack of _soma_ and sacrifice. He is a warrior's god
exploited by priests; as popularly conceived, a sensual giant, friend,
brother, helper of man. One example of poetry, instead of ritualistic
verse-making to Indra, has been translated in the introductory
chapter. Another, which, if not very inspiring, is at least free from
obvious _soma_-worship--which results in Indra being invoked chiefly
to come and drink--is as follows (vi. 30):
Great hath he grown, Indra, for deeds heroic;
Ageless is he alone, alone gives riches;
Beyond the heaven and earth hath Indra stretched him,
The half of him against both worlds together!
So high and great I deem his godly nature;
What he hath stablished there is none impairs it.
Day after day a sun is he conspicuous,
And, wisely strong, divides the wide dominions.
To-day and now (thou makest) the work of rivers,
In that, O Indra, thou hast hewn them pathway.
The hills have bowed them down as were they comrades;
By thee, O wisely strong, are spaces fastened.
'Tis true, like thee, O Indra, is no other,
Nor god nor mortal is more venerable.
Thou slew'st the dragon that the flood encompassed,
Thou didst let out the waters to the ocean.
Thou didst the waters free, the doors wide opening,
Thou, Indra, brak'st the stronghold of the mountains,
Becamest king of all that goes and moveth,
Begetting sun and heaven and dawn together.
THE MARUTS.
These gods, the constant followers of Indra, from the present point of
view are not of great importance, except as showing an unadulterated
type of nature-gods, worshipped without much esoteric wisdom (although
there is a certain amount of mystery in connection with their birth).
There is something of the same pleasure in singing to them as is
discernible in the hymns to Dawn. They are the real storm-gods,
following Rudra, their father, and accompanying the great
storm-bringer, Indra. Their mother is the variegated cow Priçni, the
mother cloud. Their name means the shining, gleaming ones.
HYMN TO THE MARUTS (vii. 56. 1-10).
Who, sooth, are the gleaming related heroes,
the glory of Rudra, on beauteous chargers?
For of them the birthplace no man hath witnessed;
they only know it, their mutual birthplace.
With wings expanded they sweep each other,[14]
and strive together, the wind-loud falcons.
Wise he that knoweth this secret knowledge,
that Priçni the great one to them was mother.[15]
This folk the Maruts shall make heroic,
victorious ever, increased in manhood;
In speed the swiftest, in light the lightest,
with grace united and fierce in power--
Your power fierce is; your strength, enduring;
and hence with the Maruts this folk is mighty.
Your fury fair is, your hearts are wrothful,
like maniacs wild is your band courageous.
From us keep wholly the gleaming lightning;
let not your anger come here to meet us.
Your names of strong ones endeared invoke I,
that these delighted may joy, O Maruts.
What little reflection or moral significance is in the Marut hymns is
illustrated by i. 38. 1-9, thus translated by Müller:
What then now? When will ye take us as a dear father takes
his son by both hands, O ye gods, for whom the sacred grass
has been trimmed?
Where now? On what errand of yours are you going, in heaven,
not on earth? Where are your cows sporting? Where are your
newest favors, O Maruts? Where are blessings? Where all
delights? If you, sons of Priçni, were mortals and your
praiser an immortal, then never should your praiser be
unwelcome, like a deer in pasture grass, nor should he go on
the path of Yama.[16] Let not one sin after another,
difficult to be conquered, overcome us; may it depart,
together with greed. Truly they are terrible and powerful;
even to the desert the Rudriyas bring rain that is never
dried up. The lightning lows like a cow, it follows as a
mother follows after her young, when the shower has been let
loose. Even by day the Maruts create darkness with the
water-bearing cloud, when they drench the earth, etc.
The number of the Maruts was originally seven, afterwards raised to
thrice seven, and then given variously,[17] sometimes as high as
thrice sixty. They are the servants, the bulls of Dyaus, the glory of
Rudra (or perhaps the 'boys of Rudra'), divine, bright as suns,
blameless and pure. They cover themselves with shining adornment,
chains of gold, gems, and turbans. On their heads are helmets of gold,
and in their hands gleam arrows and daggers. Like heroes rushing to
battle, they stream onward. They are fair as deer; their roar is like
that of lions. The mountains bow before them, thinking themselves to
be valleys, and the hills bow down. Good warriors and good steeds are
their gifts. They smite, they kill, they rend the rocks, they strip
the trees like caterpillars; they rise together, and, like spokes in a
wheel, are united in strength. Their female companion is Rodas[=i]
(lightning, from the same root as _rudra_, the 'red'). They are like
wild boars, and (like the sun) they have metallic jaws. On their
chariots are speckled hides; like birds they spread their wings; they
strive in flight with each other. Before them the earth sways like a
ship. They dance upon their path. Upon their chests for beauty's sake
they bind gold armor. From the heavenly udder they milk down rain.
"Through whose wisdom, through whose design do they come?" cries the
poet. They have no real adversary. The kings of the forest they tear
asunder, and make tremble even the rocks. Their music is heard on
every side.[18]
RUDRA.
The father of the Maruts, Rudra, is 'the ruddy one,' _par excellence_
and so to him is ascribed paternity of the 'ruddy ones.' But while
Indra has a plurality of hymns, Rudra has but few, and these it is not
of special importance to cite. The features in each case are the same.
The Maruts remain as gods whose function causes them to be invoked
chiefly that they may spare from the fury of the tempest. This idea is
in Rudra's case carried out further, and he is specially called on to
avert (not only 'cow-slaying' and 'man-slaying' by lightning,[19] but
also) disease, pestilence, etc. Hence is he preeminently, on the one
hand, the kindly god who averts disease, and, on the other, of
destruction in every form. From him Father Manu got wealth and health,
and he is the fairest of beings, but, more, he is the strongest god
(ii. 33. 3, 10). From such a prototype comes the later god of healing
and woe--Rudra, who becomes Çiva.[20]
RAIN-GODS.
There is one rather mechanical hymn directed to the Waters themselves
as goddesses, where Indra is the god who gives them passage. But in
the unique hymn to the Rivers it is Varuna who, as general god of
water, is represented as their patron. In the first hymn the
rain-water is meant.[21] A description in somewhat jovial vein of the
joy produced by the rain after long drought forms the subject matter
of another lyric (less an hymn than a poem), which serves to
illustrate the position of the priests at the end of this Vedic
collection. The frogs are jocosely compared to priests that have
fulfilled their vow of silence; and their quacking is likened to the
noise of students learning the Veda. Parjanya is the god that, in
distinction from Indra as the first cause, actually pours down the
rain-drops.
THE FROGS.[22]
As priests that have their vows fulfilled,
Reposing for a year complete,
The frogs have now begun to talk,--
Parjanya has their voice aroused.
When down the heavenly waters come upon him,
Who like a dry bag lay within the river,
Then, like the cows' loud lowing (cows that calves have),
The vocal sound of frogs comes all together.
When on the longing, thirsty ones it raineth,
(The rainy season having come upon them),
Then _akkala_![23] they cry; and one the other
Greets with his speech, as sons address a father.
The one the other welcomes, and together
They both rejoice at falling of the waters;
The spotted frog hops when the rain has wet him,
And with his yellow comrade joins his utterance.
When one of these the other's voice repeateth,
Just as a student imitates his teacher,
Then like united members with fair voices,
They all together sing among the waters.
One like an ox doth bellow, goat-like one bleats;
Spotted is one, and one of them is yellow;
Alike in name, but in appearance different,
In many ways the voice they, speaking, vary.
As priests about th' intoxicating[24] _soma_
Talk as they stand before the well-filled vessel,
So stand ye round about this day once yearly,
On which, O frogs, the time of rain approaches.
(Like) priests who _soma_ have, they raise their voices,
And pray the prayer that once a year is uttered;
(Like) heated priests who sweat at sacrifices,
They all come out, concealed of them is no one.
The sacred order of the (year) twelve-membered,
These heroes guard, and never do neglect it;
When every year, the rainy season coming,
The burning heat receiveth its dismission.[25]
In one hymn no less than four gods are especially invoked for
rain--Agni, Brihaspati, Indra, and Parjanya. The two first are
sacrificially potent; Brihaspati, especially, gives to the priest the
song that has power to bring rain; he comes either 'as Mitra-Varuna or
P[=u]shan,' and 'lets Parjanya rain'; while in the same breath Indra
is exhorted to send a flood of rain,--rains which are here kept back
by the gods,[26]--and Agni is immediately afterwards asked to perform
the same favor, apparently as an analogue to the streams of oblation
which the priest pours on the fire. Of these gods, the pluvius is
Parjanya:
Parjanya loud extol in song,
The fructifying son of heaven;
May he provide us pasturage!
He who the fruitful seed of plants,
Of cows and mares and women forms,
He is the god Parjanya.
For him the melted butter pour
In (Agni's) mouth,--a honeyed sweet,--
And may he constant food bestow![27]
This god is the rain-cloud personified,[28] but he is scarcely to be
distinguished, in other places, from Indra; although the latter, as
the greater, newer god, is represented rather as causing the rain to
flow, while Parjanya pours it down. Like Varuna, Parjanya also upsets
a water-barrel, and wets the earth. He is identical with the Slavic
Perkuna.
For natural expression, vividness, energy, and beauty, the following
hymn is unsurpassed. As a god unjustly driven out of the pantheon, it
is, perhaps, only just that he should be exhibited, in contrast to
the tone of the sacrificial hymnlet above, in his true light.
Occasionally he is paired with Wind; and in the curious tendency of
the poets to dualize their divinities, the two become a compound,
_Parjanyav[=a]t[=a]_ ("Parjanya and V[=a]ta"). There is, also, vii.
101, one mystic hymn to Parjanya. The following, v. 83, breathes quite
a different spirit:[29]
Greet him, the mighty one, with these laudations,
Parjanya praise, and call him humbly hither;
With roar and rattle pours the bull his waters,
And lays his seed in all the plants, a foetus.
He smites the trees, and smites the evil demons, too;
While every creature fears before his mighty blow,
E'en he that hath not sinned, from this strong god retreats,
When smites Parjanya, thundering, those that evil do.
As when a charioteer with whip his horses strikes,
So drives he to the fore his messengers of rain;
Afar a lion's roar is raised abroad, whene'er
Parjanya doth create the rain-containing cloud.
Now forward rush the winds, now gleaming lightnings fall;
Up spring the plants, and thick becomes the shining sky.
For every living thing refreshment is begot,
Whene'er Parjanya's seed makes quick the womb of earth.
Beneath whose course the earth hath bent and bowed her,
Beneath whose course the (kine) behoofed bestir them,
Beneath whose course the plants stand multifarious,
He--thou, Parjanya--grant us great protection!
Bestow Dyaus' rain upon us, O ye Maruts!
Make thick the stream that comes from that strong stallion!
With this thy thunder come thou onward, hither,
Thy waters pouring, a spirit and our father.[30]
Roar forth and thunder! Give the seed of increase!
Drive with thy chariot full of water round us;
The water-bag drag forward, loosed, turned downward;
Let hills and valleys equal be before thee!
Up with the mighty keg! then pour it under!
Let all the loosened streams flow swiftly forward;
Wet heaven and earth with this thy holy fluid;[31]
And fair drink may it be for all our cattle!
When thou with rattle and with roar,
Parjanya, thundering, sinners slayest,
Then all before thee do rejoice,
Whatever creatures live on earth.
Rain hast thou rained, and now do thou restrain it;
The desert, too, hast thou made fit for travel;
The plants hast thou begotten for enjoyment;
And wisdom hast thou found for thy descendants.
The different meters may point to a collection of small hymns. It is
to be observed that Parjanya is here the fathergod (of men); he is the
Asura, the Spirit; and rain comes from the Shining Sky (Dyaus). How
like Varuna!
The rain, to the poet, descends from the sky, and is liable to be
caught by the demon, Vritra, whose rain-swollen belly Indra opens with
a stroke, and lets fall the rain; or, in the older view just
presented, Parjanya makes the cloud that gives the rain--a view united
with the descent of rain from the sky (Dyaus). With Parjanya as an
Aryan rain-god may be mentioned Trita, who, apparently, was a
water-god, [=A]ptya, in general; and some of whose functions Indra has
taken. He appears to be the same with the Persian Thraetaona
[=A]thwya; but in the Rig Veda he is interesting mainly as a dim
survival of the past.[32] The washing out of sins, which appears to be
the original conception of Varuna's sin-forgiving,[33] finds an
analogue in the fact that sins are cast off upon the innocent waters
and upon Trita--also a water-god, and once identified with Varuna
(viii. 41. 6). But this notion is so unique and late (only in viii.
47) that Bloomfield is perhaps right in imputing it to the [later]
moralizing age of the Br[=a]hmanas, with which the third period of the
Rig Veda is quite in touch.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Compare I. 134. 3.]
[Footnote 2: For the different views, see Perry, JAOS. xi.
p. 119; Muir, OST. v. p. 77.]
[Footnote 3: _La Religion Védique_, ii. pp. 159, 161, 166,
187.]
[Footnote 4: The chief texts are ii. 30. 1; iv. 26. 1; vii.
98. 6; viii. 93. 1, 4; x. 89. 2; x. 112. 3.]
[Footnote 5: Other citations given by Bergaigne in
connection with this point are all of the simile class. Only
as All-god is Indra the sun.]
[Footnote 6: i. 51. 4: "After slaying Vritra, thou did'st
make the sun climb in the sky."]
[Footnote 7: [=A]dityá, only vii. 85. 4; V[=a]l. 4. 7. For
other references, see Perry (loc. cit.).]
[Footnote 8: Bergaigne, ii. 160. 187.]
[Footnote 9: Indra finds and begets Agni, iii. 31. 25.]
[Footnote 10: Unless the Python be, rather, the Demon of
Putrefaction, as in Iranian belief.]
[Footnote 11: Demons of every sort oppose Indra; Vala,
Vritra, the 'holding' snake (_áhi_=[Greek: echis]), Çushna
('drought'), etc.]
[Footnote 12: So he finds and directs the sun and causes it
to shine, as explained above (viii. 3. 6; iii. 44. 4; i. 56.
4; iii. 30. 12). He is praised with Vishnu (vi.69) in one
hymn, as distinct from him.]
[Footnote 13: Bollensen would see an allusion to idols in i.
145. 4-5 (to Agni), but this is very doubtful (ZDMG. xlvii.
p. 586). Agni, however, is on a par with Indra, so that the
exception would have no significance. See Kaegi, Rig Veda,
note 79a.]
[Footnote 14: Or 'pluck with beaks,' as Müller translates,
SBE. xxxii. p. 373.]
[Footnote 15: "Bore them" (gave an udder). In v. 52. 16
Rudra is father and Priçni, mother. Compare viii. 94. 1:
"The cow ... the mother of the Maruts, sends milk (rain)."
In x. 78. 6 the Maruts are sons of Sindhu (Indus).]
[Footnote 16: I.e., die.]
[Footnote 17: The number is not twenty-seven, as Muir
accidentally states, OST. v. p. 147.]
[Footnote 18: v. 58. 4, 5; I. 88. 1; 88. 5; v. 54. 11; viii.
7. 25; i. 166. 10; i. 39. 1; 64. 2-8; v. 54. 6; i. 85. 8;
viii. 7. 34; v. 59. 2.]
[Footnote 19: He carries lightnings and medicines together
in vii. 46. 3.]
[Footnote 20: Çiva is later identified with Rudra. For the
latter in RV. compare i. 43; 114, 1-5, 10; ii. 33. 2-13.]
[Footnote 21: vii. 47, and x. 75.]
[Footnote 22: vii. 103.]
[Footnote 23: _Akhkhala_ is like Latin _eccere_ shout of joy
and wonder(_Am.J. Phil._ XIV. p. 11).]
[Footnote 24: Literally, 'that has stood over-night,' i.e.,
fermented.]
[Footnote 25: To this hymn is added, in imitation of the
laudations of generous benefactors, which are sometimes
suffixed to an older hymn, words ascribing gifts to the
frogs. Bergaigne regards the frogs as meteorological
phenomena! It is from this hymn as a starting-point proceed
the latter-day arguments of Jacobi, who would prove the
'period of the Rig Veda' to have begun about 3500 B.C. One
might as well date Homer by an appeal to the
Batrachomyomachia.]
[Footnote 26: x. 98. 6.]
[Footnote 27: vii. 102.]
[Footnote 28: Compare Bühler, _Orient and Occident_, I. p.
222.]
[Footnote 29: This hymn is another of those that contradict
the first assumption of the ritualists. From internal
evidence it is not likely that it was made for baksheesh.]
[Footnote 30: _[A]suras, pit[=a] nas_.]
[Footnote 31: Literally, 'with _ghee_'; the rain is like the
_ghee_, or sacrificial oil (melted butter).]
[Footnote 32: Some suppose even Indra to be one with the
Avestan _A[.n]dra_, a demon, which is possible.]
[Footnote 33: Otherwise it is the 'bonds of sin' which are
broken or loosed, as in the last verse of the first Varuna
hymn, translated above. But the two views may be of equal
antiquity (above, p. 69, note). On Trita compare JRAS. 1893,
p. 419; PAOS. 1894 (Bloomfield).]
* * * * *
CHAPTER V.
THE RIG VEDA (CONTINUED).--THE LOWER GODS.
AGNI.
Great are the heavenly gods, but greater is Indra, god of the
atmosphere. Greatest are Agni and Soma, the gods of earth.
Agni is the altar-fire. Originally fire, Agni, in distinction from sun
and lightning, is the fire of sacrifice; and as such is he great. One
reads in v. 3. 1-2, that this Agni is Varuna, Indra; that in him are
all the gods. This is, indeed, formally a late view, and can be
paralleled only by a few passages of a comparatively recent period.
Thus, in the late hymn i. 164. 46: "Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni, they
say; he is the sun (the bird in the sky); that which is but one they
call variously," etc. So x. 114. 5 and the late passage iii. 38. 7,
have reference to various forms of Agni.
Indra had a twofold nature in producing the union of lightning and
Agni; and this made him mysteriously great. But in Agni is found the
first triality, which, philosophically, is interpreted as a trinity.
The fire of the altar is one with the lightning, and, again, one with
the sun. This is Agni's threefold birth; and all the holy character of
three is exhausted in application where he is concerned. It is the
highest mystery until the very end of the Vedic age. This Agni it is
that is the real Agni of the Rig Veda--the new Agni; for there was
probably an Agni cult (as simple fire) long before the _soma_ cult.
Indra and Agni are one, and both are called the slayers of the
demons[1]. They are both united as an indissoluble pair (iii. 12,
etc.). Agni, with, perhaps, the exception of Soma, is the most
important god in the Rig Veda; and it is no chance that gives him the
first place in each family hymn-book; for in him are found, only in
more fortunate circumstances, exactly the same conditions as obtain in
the case of Indra. He appealed to man as the best friend among divine
beings; he was not far off, to be wondered at; if terrible, to be
propitiated. He was near and kind to friends. And as he seemed to the
vulgar so he appealed to the theosophy which permeates the spirit of
the poets; for he is mysterious; a mediator between god and man (in
carrying to heaven the offerings); a threefold unity, typical of
earth, atmosphere, and heaven. From this point of view, as in the case
of Indra, so in the case of Agni, only to a greater extent, it becomes
impossible to interpret Agni as one element, one phenomenon. There is,
when a distinction is made, an _agni_ which is single, the altar-fire,
separate from other fires; but it is seldom that Agni is not felt as
the threefold one.
And now for the interpretation of the modern ritualists. The Hindu
ritual had 'the three fires,' which every orthodox believer was taught
to keep up. The later literature of the Hindus themselves very
correctly took these three fires as types of the three forms of Agni
known in the Rig Veda. But to the ritualists the historical precedence
is inverted, and they would show that the whole Vedic mythological
view of an Agni triad is the result of identifying Agni with the three
fires of the ritual. From this crass method of interpretation it would
result that all Vedic mythology was the child of the liturgy[2].
As earthly fire Agni is first ignis:[3] "Driven by the wind, he
hastens through the forest with roaring tongues.... black is thy path,
O bright immortal!" "He mows down, as no herd can do, the green
fields; bright his tooth, and golden his beard." "He devours like a
steer that one has tied up." This is common fire, divine, but not of
the altar. The latter Agni is of every hymn. For instance, the first
stanza of the Rig Veda: "Agni, the family priest, I worship; the
divine priest of sacrifice; the oblation priest, who bestows riches,"
where he is invoked under the names of different priests. But Agni is
even more than this; he is the fire (heat) that causes production and
reproduction, visibly manifest in the sun. This dual Agni, it is to be
noticed, is at times the only Agni recognized. The third form is then
added, lightning, and therewith Agni is begotten of Indra, and is,
therefore, one with Indra: "There is only one fire lighted in many
places" (V[=a]l. 10. 2). As a poetical expression, Agni in the last
form is the 'Son of Waters,' an epithet not without significance in
philosophical speculation; for water, through all periods, was
regarded as the material origin of the universe.
Agni is one with the sun, with lightning (and thunder), and descends
into the plants.[4] To man he is house-priest and friend. It is he
that has "grouped men in dwelling-places" (iii. 1. 17) like
Prometheus, in whose dialectic name, Promantheus, lingers still the
fire-creator, the twirling (_math_) sticks which make fire in the
wood. He is man's guest and best friend (Mitra, iv. 1. 9; above).
An hymn or two entire will show what was Agni to the Vedic poet. In
the following, the Rig Veda's first hymn, he is addressed, in the
opening stanza, under the names of house-priest, the chief sacrificial
priest, and the priest that pours oblations. In the second stanza he
is extolled as the messenger who brings the gods to the sacrifice,
himself rising up in sacrificial flames, and forming a link between
earth and heaven. In a later stanza he is called the Messenger
(Angiras =[Greek: aggelos]),--one of his ordinary titles:
To AGNI (i. 1).
I worship Agni; house-priest, he,
And priest divine of sacrifice,
Th' oblation priest, who giveth wealth.
Agni, by seers of old adored,
To be adored by those to-day--
May he the gods bring here to us.
Through Agni can one wealth acquire,
Prosperity from day to day,
And fame of heroes excellent.
O, Agni! whatsoe'er the rite
That thou surround'st on every side,
That sacrifice attains the gods.
May Agni, who oblation gives--
The wisest, true, most famous priest--
This god with (all) the gods approach I
Thou doest good to every man
That serves thee, Agni; even this
Is thy true virtue, Angiras.
To thee, O Agni, day by day,
Do we with prayer at eve and dawn,
Come, bringing lowly reverence;
To thee, the lord of sacrifice,
And shining guardian of the rite,[5]
In thine own dwelling magnified.
As if a father to his son,
Be easy of access to us,
And lead us onward to our weal.
This is mechanical enough to have been made for an established ritual,
as doubtless it was. But it is significant that the ritualistic gods
are such that to give their true character hymns of this sort must be
cited. Such is not the case with the older gods of the pantheon.
Ritualistic as it is, however, it is simple. Over against it may be
set the following (vi. 8): "Now will I praise the strength of the
variegated red bull (Agni), the feasts of the Knower-of-beings[6]
(Agni); to Agni, the friend of all men, is poured out a new song,
sweet to him as clear _soma_. As soon as he was born in highest
heaven, Agni began to protect laws, for he is a guardian of law (or
order). Great in strength, he, the friend of all men, measured out the
space between heaven and earth, and in greatness touched the zenith;
he, the marvellous friend, placed apart heaven and earth; with light
removed darkness; separated the two worlds like skins. Friend of all
men, he took all might to himself.... In the waters' lap the mighty
ones (gods) took him, and people established him king. M[=a]tariçvan,
messenger of the all-shining one, bore him from afar, friend of all
men. Age by age, O Agni, give to poets new glorious wealth for feasts.
O ever-youthful king, as if with a ploughshare, rend the sinner;
destroy him with thy flame, like a tree! But among our lords bring, O
Agni, power unbent, endless strength of heroes; and may we, through
thy assistance, conquer wealth an hundredfold, a thousandfold, O Agni,
thou friend of all; with thy sure protection protect our royal lords,
O helper, thou who hast three habitations; guard for us the host of
them that have been generous, and let them live on, friend of all, now
that thou art lauded."
Aryan, as Kuhn[7] has shown, is at least the conception if not the
particular form of the legend alluded to in this hymn, of fire brought
from the sky to earth, which Promethean act is attributed elsewhere to
the fire-priest.[8] Agni is here Mitra, the friend, as sun-god, and as
such takes all the celestials' activities on himself. Like Indra he
also gives personal strength: "Fair is thy face, O Agni, to the mortal
that desires strength;--they whom thou dost assist overcome their
enemies all their lives" (vi. 16. 25, 27). Agni is drawn down to earth
by means of the twirling-sticks, one the father, one the mother[9].
"The bountiful wood bore the fair variegated son of waters and
plants;[10] the gods united in mind, and payed homage to the glorious
mighty child when he was born" (iii. 1. 13). As the son of waters,
Agni loves wood but retreats to water, and he is so identified with
Indra that he 'thunders' and 'gives rain' (as lightning; ii. 6. 5;
iii. 9. 2).
The deeper significance of Agni-worship is found not alone in the fact
that he is the god in whom are the other gods, nor in that he is the
sun alone, but that "I am Agni, immortality is in my mouth; threefold
my light, eternal fire, my name the oblation (fire)," iii. 26. 7. He
is felt as a mysterious trinity. As a sun he lights earth; and gives
life, sustenance, children, and wealth (iii. 3. 7); as lightning he
destroys, as fire he befriends; like Indra he gives victory (iii. 16.
1); like Varuna he releases the bonds of sin; he is Varuna's brother
(v. 2. 7; vi. 3. 1; iv. 1. 2); his 'many names' are often alluded to
(iii. 20. 3, and above). The ritualistic interpretation of the priest
is that the sun is only a sacrificial fire above lighted by the gods
as soon as the corresponding fire is lighted on earth by men (vi. 2.
3). He is all threefold; three his tongues, his births, his places;
thrice led about the sacrifice given thrice a day (iii. 2. 9; 17. 1;
20. 2; iv, 15. 2; 1. 7; 12. 1). He is the upholder of the religious
order, the guest of mortals, found by the gods in the heavenly waters;
he is near and dear; but he also becomes dreadful to the foe (iii. 1.
3-6; 6. 5; vi. 7. 1; 8. 2; iii. 1. 23; 22. 5; vi. 3. 7; iii. 18. 1;
iv. 4. 4; 1. 6).
It is easy to see that in such a conception of a triune god, who is
fearful yet kind, whose real name is unknown, while his visible
manifestations are in earth, air, and heaven, whose being contains all
the gods, there is an idea destined to overthrow, as it surpasses, the
simpler conceptions of the naturalism that precedes it. Agni as the
one divine power of creation is in fact the origin of the human race:
"From thee come singers and heroes" (vi. 7. 3). The less weight is,
therefore, to be laid on Bergaigne's 'fire origin of man'; it is not
as simple fire, but as universal creator that Agni creates man; it is
not the 'fire-principle'[11] philosophically elicited from connection
of fire and water, but as god-principle, all-creative, that Agni gets
this praise.
Several hymns are dedicated to _Indr[=a]gni_, Indra united with Agni;
and the latter even is identified with Dyaus (iv. 1. 10), this
obsolescent god reviving merely to be absorbed into Agni. As water
purifies from dirt and sin (Varuna), so fire purifies (iv. 12. 4). It
has been suggested on account of v. 12. 5: 'Those that were yours have
spoken lies and left thee,' that there is a decrease in Agni worship.
As this never really happened, and as the words are merely those of a
penitent who has lied and seeks forgiveness at the hands of the god of
truth, the suggestion is not very acceptable. Agni comprehends not
only all naturalistic gods, but such later femininities as Reverence,
Mercy, and other abstractions, including Boundlessness.
Of how great importance was the triune god Agni may be seen by
comparing his three lights with the later sectarian trinity, where
Vishnu, originally the sun, and (Rudra) Çiva, the lightning, are the
preserver and destroyer.
We fear the reader may have thought that we were developing rather a
system of mythology than a history of religion. With the close of the
Vedic period we shall have less to say from a mythological point of
view, but we think that it will have become patent now for what
purpose was intended the mythological basis of our study. Without this
it would have been impossible to trace the gradual growth in the
higher metaphysical interpretation of nature which goes hand in hand
with the deeper religious sense. With this object we have proceeded
from the simpler to the more complex divinities. We have now to take
up a side of religion which lies more apart from speculation, but it
is concerned very closely with man's religious instincts--the worship
of Bacchic character, the reverence for and fear of the death-god, and
the eschatological fancies of the poets, together with those first
attempts at creating a new theosophy which close the period of the Rig
Veda.
SOMA.
Inseparably connected with the worship of Indra and Agni is that of
the 'moon-plant,' _soma_, the intoxicating personified drink to whose
deification must be assigned a date earlier than that of the Vedas
themselves. For the _soma_ of the Hindus is etymologically identified
with the _haoma_ of the Persians (the [Greek: omomi] of Plutarch[12]),
and the cultus at least was begun before the separation of the two
nations, since in each the plant is regarded as a god. The inspiring
effect of intoxication seemed to be due to the inherent divinity of
the plant that produced it; the plant was, therefore, regarded as
divine, and the preparation of the draught was looked upon as a sacred
ceremony[13].
This offering of the juice of the _soma_-plant in India was performed
thrice daily. It is said in the Rig Veda that _soma_ grows upon the
mountain M[=u]javat, that its or his father is Parjanya, the rain-god,
and that the waters are his sisters[14]. From this mountain, or from
the sky, accounts differ, _soma_ was brought by a hawk[15]. He is
himself represented in other places as a bird; and as a divinity he
shares in the praise given to Indra, "who helped Indra to slay
Vritra," the demon that keeps back the rain. Indra, intoxicated by
_soma_, does his great deeds, and indeed all the gods depend on _soma_
for immortality. Divine, a weapon-bearing god, he often simply takes
the place of Indra and other gods in Vedic eulogy. It is the god Soma
himself who slays Vritra, Soma who overthrows cities, Soma who begets
the gods, creates the sun, upholds the sky, prolongs life, sees all
things, and is the one best friend of god and man, the divine drop
(_índu_), the friend of Indra[16].
As a god he is associated not only with Indra, but also with Agni,
Rudra, and P[=u]shan. A few passages in the later portion of the Rig
Veda show that _soma_ already was identified with the moon before the
end of this period. After this the lunar yellow god regularly was
regarded as the visible and divine Soma of heaven, represented on
earth by the plant[17].
From the fact that Soma is the moon in later literature, and
undoubtedly is recognized as such in a small number of the latest
passages of the Rig Veda, the not unnatural inference has been drawn
by some Vedic scholars that Soma, in hymns still earlier, means the
moon; wherever, in fact, epithets hitherto supposed to refer to the
plant may be looked upon as not incompatible with a description of the
moon, there these epithets are to be referred directly to Soma as the
moon-god, not to _soma_, the mere plant. Thus, with Rig Veda, X. 85 (a
late hymn, which speaks of Soma as the moon "in the lap of the stars,"
and as "the days' banner") is to be compared VI. 39. 3, where it is
said that the drop (_soma_) lights up the dark nights, and is the
day's banner. Although this expression, at first view, would seem to
refer to the moon alone, yet it may possibly be regarded as on a par
with the extravagant praise given elsewhere to the _soma_-plant, and
not be so significant of the moon as it appears to be. Thus, in
another passage of the same book, the _soma_, in similar language, is
said to "lay light in the sun," a phrase scarcely compatible with the
moon's sphere of activity[18].
The decision in regard to this question of interpretation is not to be
reached so easily as one might suppose, considering that a whole book,
the ninth, of the Rig Veda is dedicated to Soma, and that in addition
to this there are many hymns addressed to him in the other books. For
in the greater number of passages which may be cited for and against
this theory the objector may argue that the generally extravagant
praise bestowed upon Soma through the Veda is in any one case
merely particularized, and that it is not incongruous to say of the
divine _soma_-plant, "he lights the dark nights," when one reads in
general that he creates all things, including the gods. On the other
hand, the advocate of the theory may reply that everything which does
not apply to the moon-god Soma may be used metaphorically of him.
Thus, where it is said, "Soma goes through the purifying sieve," by
analogy with the drink of the plant _soma_ passing through the sieve
the poet may be supposed to imagine the moon passing through the
sieve-like clouds; and even when this sieve is expressly called the
'sheep's-tail sieve' and 'wool-sieve,' this may still be,
metaphorically, the cloud-sieve (as, without the analogy, one speaks
to-day of woolly clouds and the 'mare's tail').
So it happens that, with an hundred hymns addressed to Soma, it
remains still a matter of discussion whether the _soma_ addressed be
the plant or the moon. Alfred Hillebrandt, to whom is due the problem
in its present form, declares that everywhere[19] in the Rig Veda Soma
means the moon. No better hymn can be found to illustrate the
difficulty under which labors the _soma_-exegete than IX. 15, from
which Hillebrandt takes the fourth verse as conclusive evidence that
by _soma_ only the moon is meant. In that case, as will be seen from
the 'pails,' it must be supposed that the poet leaps from Soma to
_soma_ without warning. Hillebrandt does not include the mention of
the pails in his citation; but in this, as in other doubtful cases, it
seems to us better to give a whole passage than to argue on one or two
verses torn from their proper position:
HYMN TO SOMA (IX. 15).
QUERY: Is the hymn addressed to the plant as it is pressed
out into the pails, or to the moon?
1. This one, by means of prayer (or intelligence), comes
through the fine (sieve), the hero, with swift car, going to
the meeting with Indra.
2. This one thinks much for the sublime assembly of gods,
where sit immortals.
3. This one is despatched and led upon a shining path, when
the active ones urge (him).[20]
4. This one, shaking his horns, sharpens (them), the bull of
the herd, doing heroic deeds forcibly.
5. This one hastens, the strong steed, with bright golden
beams, becoming of streams the lord.
6. This one, pressing surely through the knotty (sieve?) to
good things, comes down into the vessels.
7. This one, fit to be prepared, the active ones prepare in
the pails, as he creates great food.
8. Him, this one, who has good weapons, who is most
intoxicating, ten fingers and seven (or many) prayers
prepare.
Here, as in IX. 70, Hillebrandt assumes that the poet turns suddenly
from the moon to the plant. Against this might be urged the use of the
same pronoun throughout the hymn. It must be confessed that at first
sight it is almost as difficult to have the plant, undoubtedly meant
in verses 7 and 8, represented by the moon in the preceding verses, as
it is not to see the moon in the expression 'shaking his horns.' This
phrase occurs in another hymn, where Hillebrandt, with the same
certainty as he does here, claims it for the moon, though the first
part of this hymn as plainly refers to the plant, IX. 70. 1, 4. Here
the plant is a steer roaring like the noise of the Maruts (5-6), and
then (as above, after the term steer is applied to the plant), it is
said that he 'sharpens his horns,' and is 'sightly,' and further, 'he
sits down in the fair place ... on the wooly back,' etc., which bring
one to still another hymn where are to be found like expressions,
used, evidently, not of the moon, but of the plant, _viz._ to IX. 37,
a hymn not cited by Hillebrandt:
This strong (virile) _soma_, pressed for drink, flows into
the purifying vessel; this sightly (as above, where
Hillebrandt says it is epithet of the moon), yellow, fiery
one, is flowing into the purifying vessel; roaring into its
own place (as above). This strong one, clear, shining (or
purifying itself), runs through the shining places of the
sky, slaying evil demons, through the sheep-hair-sieve. On
the back of Trita this one shining (or purifying itself)
made bright the sun with (his) sisters.[21] This one,
slaying Vritra, strong, pressed out, finding good things (as
above), uninjured, _soma_, went as if for booty. This god,
sent forth by seers, runs into the vessels, the drop
(_indu_) for Indra, quickly (or willingly).
So far as we can judge, after comparing these and the other passages
that are cited by Hillebrandt as decisive for a lunar interpretation
of _soma_, it seems quite as probable that the epithets and
expressions used are employed of the plant metaphorically as that the
poet leaps thus lightly from plant to moon. And there is a number of
cases which plainly enough are indicative of the plant alone to make
it improbable that Hillebrandt is correct in taking Soma as the moon
'everywhere in the Rig Veda.' It may be that the moon-cult is somewhat
older than has been supposed, and that the language is consciously
veiled in the ninth book to cover the worship of a deity as yet only
partly acknowledged as such. But it is almost inconceivable that an
hundred hymns should praise the moon; and all the native commentators,
bred as they were in the belief of their day that _soma_ and the moon
were one, should not know that _soma_ in the Rig Veda (as well as
later) means the lunar deity. It seems, therefore, safer to abide by
the belief that _soma_ usually means what it was understood to mean,
and what the general descriptions in the _soma_-hymns more or less
clearly indicate, _viz._, the intoxicating plant, conceived of as
itself divine, stimulating Indra, and, therefore, the _causa movens_
of the demon's death, Indra being the _causa efficiens_. Even the
allusions to _soma_ being in the sky is not incompatible with this.
For he is carried thence from the place of sacrifice. Thus too in 83.
1-2: "O lord of prayer[22], thy purifier (the sieve) is extended.
Prevailing thou enterest its limbs on all sides. Raw (_soma_), that
has not been cooked (with milk) does not enter into it. Only the
cooked (_soma_), going through, enters it. The sieve of the hot drink
is extended in the place of the sky. Its gleaming threads extend on
all sides. This (_soma_'s) swift (streams) preserve the man that
purifies them, and wisely ascend to the back of the sky." In this, as
in many hymns, the drink _soma_ is clearly addressed; yet expressions
are used which, if detached, easily might be thought to imply the moon
(or the sun, as with Bergaigne)--a fact that should make one employ
other expressions of the same sort with great circumspection.
Or, let one compare, with the preparation by the ten fingers, 85. 7:
"Ten fingers rub clean (prepare) the steed in the vessels; uprise the
songs of the priests. The intoxicating drops, as they purify
themselves, meet the song of praise and enter Indra." Exactly the same
images as are found above may be noted in IX. 87, where not the moon,
but the plant, is conspicuously the subject of the hymn: "Run into the
pail, purified by men go unto booty. They lead thee like a swift horse
with reins to the sacrificial straw, preparing (or rubbing) thee. With
good weapons shines the divine (shining) drop (_Indu_), slaying
evil-doers, guarding the assembly; the father of the gods, the clever
begetter, the support of the sky, the holder of earth.... This one,
the _soma_ (plant) on being pressed out, ran swiftly into the purifier
like a stream let out, sharpening his two sharp horns like a buffalo;
like a true hero hunting for cows; he is come from the highest
press-stone," etc. It is the noise of _soma_ dropping that is compared
with 'roaring.' The strength given by (him) the drink, makes
him appear as the 'virile one,' of which force is the activity, and
the bull the type. Given, therefore, the image of the bull, the rest
follows easily to elaborate the metaphor. If one add that _soma_ is
luminous (yellow), and that all luminous divinities are 'horned
bulls[23],' then it will be unnecessary to see the crescent moon in
_soma_. Moreover, if _soma_ be the same with Brihaspati, as thinks
Hillebrandt, why are there three horns in V. 43. 13? Again, that the
expression 'sharpening his horns' does not refer necessarily to the
moon may be concluded from x. 86. 15, where it is stated expressly
that the _drink_ is a sharp-horned steer: "Like a sharp-horned steer
is thy brewed drink, O Indra," probably referring to the taste. The
sun, Agni, and Indra are all, to the Vedic poet, 'sharp-horned
steers[24],' and the _soma_ plant, being luminous and strong
(bull-like), gets the same epithet.
The identity is rather with Indra than with the moon, if one be
content to give up brilliant theorizing, and simply follow the poets:
"The one that purifies himself yoked the sun's swift steed over man
that he might go through the atmosphere, and these ten steeds of the
sun he yoked to go, saying Indra is the drop (_Indu_)." When had ever
the moon the power to start the sun? What part in the pantheon is
played by the moon when it is called by its natural name (not by the
priestly name, _soma_)? Is _m[=a]s_ or _candramas_ (moon) a power of
strength, a great god? The words scarcely occur, except in late hymns,
and the moon, by his own folk-name, is hardly praised except in
mechanical conjunction with the sun. The floods of which _soma_ is
lord are explained in IX. 86. 24-25: "The hawk (or eagle) brought thee
from the sky, O drop (_Indu_[25]), ... seven milk-streams sing to the
yellow one as he purifies himself with the wave in the sieve of
sheep's wool. The active strong ones have sent forth the wise seer in
the lap of the waters." If one wishes to clear his mind in respect of
what the Hindu attributes to the divine drink (expressly drink, and
not moon), let him read IX. 104, where he will find that "the twice
powerful god-rejoicing intoxicating drink" finds goods, finds a path
for his friends, puts away every harmful spirit and every devouring
spirit, averts the false godless one and all oppression; and read also
ix. 21. I-4: "These _soma_-drops for Indra flow rejoicing, maddening,
light-(or heaven-) finding, averting attackers, finding desirable
things for the presser, making life for the singer. Like waves the
drops flow into one vessel, playing as they will. These _soma_-drops,
let out like steeds (attached) to a car, as they purify themselves,
attain all desirable things." According to IX. 97. 41^2 and _ib._ 37.
4 (and other like passages, too lightly explained, p. 387, by
Hillebrandt), it is _soma_ that "produced the light in the sun" and
"makes the sun rise," statements incompatible with the (lunar) Soma's
functions, but quite in accordance with the magic power which the
poets attribute to the divine drink. Soma is 'king over treasure.'
Soma is brought by the eagle that all may "see light" (IX. 48. 3-4).
He traverses the sky, and guards order--but not necessarily is he here
the moon, for _soma_, the drink, as a "galloping steed," "a brilliant
steer," a "stream of pressed _soma_," "a dear sweet," "a helper of
gods," is here poured forth; after him "flow great water-floods"; and
he "purifies himself in the sieve, he the supporter, holder of the
sky"; he "shines with the sun," "roars," and "looks like Mitra"; being
here both "the intoxicating draught," and at the same time "the giver
of kine, giver of men, giver of horses, giver of strength, the soul of
sacrifice" (IX. 2).
Soma is even older than the Vedic Indra as slayer of Vritra and
snakes. Several Indo-Iranian epithets survive (of _soma_ and _haoma_,
respectively), and among those of Iran is the title 'Vritra-slayer,'
applied to _haoma_, the others being 'strong' and 'heaven-winning,'
just as in the Veda[26]. All three of them are contained in one of the
most lunar-like of the hymns to Soma, which, for this reason, and
because it is one of the few to this deity that seem to be not
entirely mechanical, is given here nearly in full, with the original
shift of metre in the middle of the hymn (which may possibly indicate
that two hymns have been united).
To SOMA (I. 91).
Thou, Soma, wisest art in understanding;
Thou guidest (us) along the straightest pathway;
'Tis through thy guidance that our pious[27] fathers
Among the gods got happiness, O Indu.
Thou, Soma, didst become in wisdom wisest;
In skill[28] most skilful, thou, obtaining all things.
A bull in virile strength, thou, and in greatness;
In splendor wast thou splendid, man-beholder.
Thine, now, the laws of kingly Varuna[29];
Both high and deep the place of thee, O Soma.
Thou brilliant art as Mitra, the belovèd[30],
Like Aryaman, deserving service, art thou.
Whate'er thy places be in earth or heaven,
Whate'er in mountains, or in plants and waters,
In all of these, well-minded, not injurious,
King Soma, our oblations meeting, take thou.
Thou, Soma, art the real lord,
Thou king and Vritra-slayer, too;
Thou art the strength that gives success.
And, Soma, let it be thy will
For us to live, nor let us die[31];
Thou lord of plants[32], who lovest praise.
Thou, Soma, bliss upon the old,
And on the young and pious man
Ability to live, bestowest.
Do thou, O Soma, on all sides
Protect us, king, from him that sins,
No harm touch friend of such as thou.
Whatever the enjoyments be
Thou hast, to help thy worshipper,
With these our benefactor be.
This sacrifice, this song, do thou,
Well-pleased, accept; come unto us;
Make for our weal, O Soma, thou.
In songs we, conversant with words,
O Soma, thee do magnify;
Be merciful and come to us.
* * *[33]
All saps unite in thee and all strong powers,
All virile force that overcomes detraction;
Filled full, for immortality, O Soma,
Take to thyself the highest praise in heaven.
The sacrifice shall all embrace--whatever
Places thou hast, revered with poured oblations.
Home-aider, Soma, furtherer with good heroes,
Not hurting heroes, to our houses come thou.
Soma the cow gives; Soma, the swift charger;
Soma, the hero that can much accomplish
(Useful at home, in feast, and in assembly
His father's glory)--gives, to him that worships.
In war unharmed; in battle still a saviour;
Winner of heaven and waters, town-defender,
Born mid loud joy, and fair of home and glory,
A conqueror, thou; in thee may we be happy.
Thou hast, O Soma, every plant begotten;
The waters, thou; and thou, the cows; and thou hast
Woven the wide space 'twixt the earth and heaven;
Thou hast with light put far away the darkness.
With mind divine, O Soma, thou divine[34] one,
A share of riches win for us, O hero;
Let none restrain thee, thou art lord of valor;
Show thyself foremost to both sides in battle[35].
Of more popular songs, Hillebrandt cites as sung to Soma (!) VIII. 69.
8-10:
Sing loud to him, sing loud to him;
Priyamedhas, oh, sing to him,
And sing to him the children, too;
Extol him as a sure defence....
To _Indra_ is the prayer up-raised.
The three daily _soma_-oblations are made chiefly to Indra and
V[=a]yu; to Indra at mid-day; to the Ribhus, artisans of the gods, at
evening; and to Agni in the morning.
Unmistakable references to Soma as the moon, as, for instance, in X.
85. 3: "No one eats of that _soma_ which the priests know," seem
rather to indicate that the identification of moon and Soma was
something esoteric and new rather than the received belief of
pre-Vedic times, as will Hillebrandt. This moon-_soma_ is
distinguished from the "_soma_-plant which they crush."
The floods of _soma_ are likened to, or, rather, identified with, the
rain-floods which the lightning frees, and, as it were, brings to
earth with him. A whole series of myths depending on this natural
phenomenon has been evolved, wherein the lightning-fire
as an eagle brings down _soma_ to man, that is, the heavenly drink.
Since Agni is threefold and the G[=a]yatri metre is threefold, they
interchange, and in the legends it is again the metre which brings the
_soma_, or an archer, as is stated in one doubtful passage[36].
What stands out most clearly in _soma_-laudations is that the
_soma_-hymns are not only quite mechanical, but that they presuppose a
very complete and elaborate ritual, with the employment of a number of
priests, of whom the _hotars_ (one of the various sets of priests)
alone number five in the early and seven in the late books; with a
complicated service; with certain divinities honored at certain hours;
and other paraphernalia of sacerdotal ceremony; while Indra, most
honored with Soma, and Agni, most closely connected with the execution
of sacrifice, not only receive the most hymns, but these hymns are,
for the most part, palpably made for ritualistic purposes. It is this
truth that the ritualists have seized upon and too sweepingly applied.
For in every family book, besides this baksheesh verse, occur the
older, purer hymns that have been retained after the worship for which
they were composed had become changed into a trite making of phrases.
Hillebrandt has failed to show that the Iranian _haoma_ is the moon,
so that as a starting-point there still is plant and drink-worship,
not moon-worship. At what precise time, therefore, the _soma_ was
referred to the moon is not so important. Since drink-worship stands
at one end of the series, and moon-worship at the other, it is
antecedently probable that here and there there may be a doubt as to
which of the two was intended. Some of the examples cited by
Hillebrandt may indeed be referable to the latter end of the series
rather than to the former; but that the author, despite the learning
and ingenuity of his work, has proved his point definitively, we are
far from believing. It is just like the later Hindu speculation to
think out a subtle connection between moon and _soma_-plant because
each was yellow, and swelled, and went through a sieve (cloud), etc.
But there is a further connecting link in that the divinity ascribed
to the intoxicant led to a supposition that it was brought from the
sky, the home of the gods; above all, of the luminous gods, which the
yellow _soma_ resembled. Such was the Hindu belief, and from this as a
starting-point appears to have come the gradual identification of
_soma_ with the moon, now called Soma. For the moon, even under the
name of Gandharva, is not the object of especial worship.
The question so ably discussed by Hillebrandt is, however, one of
considerable importance from the point of view of the religious
development. If _soma_ from the beginning was the moon, then there is
only one more god of nature to add to the pantheon. But if, as we
believe in the light of the Avesta and Veda itself, _soma_ like
_haoma_, was originally the drink-plant (the root _su_ press, from
which comes _soma_, implies the plant), then two important facts
follow. First, in the identification of yellow _soma_-plant with
yellow moon in the latter stage of the Rig Veda (which coincides with
the beginning of the Brahmanic period) there is a striking
illustration of the gradual mystical elevation of religion at the
hands of the priests, to whom it appeared indecent that mere drink
should be exalted thus; and secondly, there is the significant fact
that in the Indic and Iranian cult there was a direct worship of
deified liquor, analogous to Dionysiac rites, a worship which is not
unparalleled in other communities. Again, the surprising identity of
worship in Avesta and Veda, and the fact that hymns to the earlier
deities, Dawn, Parjanya, etc, are frequently devoid of any relation to
the _soma_-cult not only show that Bergaigne's opinion that the whole
Rig Veda is but a collection of hymns for _soma_-worship as handed
down in different families must be modified; but also that, as we have
explained _apropos_ of Varuna, the Iranian cult must have branched off
from the Vedic cult (whether, as Haug thought, on account of a
religious schism or not); that the hymns to the less popular deities
(as we have defined the word) make the first period of Vedic cult; and
that the special liquor-cult, common to Iran and India, arose after
the first period of Vedic worship, when, for example, Wind, Parjanya,
and Varuna were at their height, and before the priests had exalted
mystically Agni or Soma, and even Indra was as yet undeveloped.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: viii. 38. 4; i. 108. 3; Bergaigne, ii. 293.]
[Footnote 2: On this point Bergaigne deprecates the
application of the ritualistic method, and says in words
that cannot be too emphasized: "Mais qui ne voit que de
telles exptications n'expliquent rien, ou plutôt que le
détail du rituel ne peut trouver son explication que dans le
mythe, bien loin de pouvoir servir lui-mêmes à expliquer le
mythe?... Ni le ciel seul ni la terre seule, mais la terre
et le ciel étroitement unis et presque confondus, voilà le
vrai domaine de la mythologie védique, mythologie dont le
rituel n'est que la reproduction" (i. p. 24).]
[Footnote 3: i. 58. 4; v. 7. 7; vi. 3. 4.]
[Footnote 4: iii. 14. 4; i. 71. 9; vi. 3. 7; 6. 2; iv. 1.
9.]
[Footnote 5: Or of time or order.]
[Footnote 6: Or 'Finder-of-beings.']
[Footnote 7: _Herabkunft des Feuers und des Göttertrankes_.]
[Footnote 8: RV. vi. 16. 13: "Thee, Agni, from out the sky
Atharvan twirled," _nir amanthata_ (cf. Promantheus). In x.
462 the Bhrigus, [Greek: phleghyai], discover fire.]
[Footnote 9: Compare v. 2. 1. Sometimes Agni is "born with
the fingers," which twirl the sticks (iii. 26. 3; iv. 6.
8).]
[Footnote 10: Compare ii. 1: "born in flame from water,
cloud, and plants ... thou art the creator."]
[Footnote 11: Bergaigne, i. p. 32 ff. The question of
priestly names (loc. cit. pp. 47-50), should start with
Bharata as [Greek: purphoros], a common title of Agni (ii.
7; vi. 16. 19-21). So Bhrigu is the 'shining' one; and
Vasishtha is the 'most shining' (compare Vasus, not good but
shining gods). The priests got their names from their god,
like Jesuits. Compare Gritsamada in the Bhrigu family (book
ii.); Viçv[=a]-mitra, 'friend of all,' in the Bharata family
(book iii.); Gautama V[=a]madeva belonging to Angirasas
(book iv.); Atri 'Eater,' epithet of Agni in RV. (book v.);
Bharadv[=a]ja 'bearing food' (book vi.); Vasishtha (book
vii.); and besides these Jamadagni and Kaçyapa,
black-toothed (Agni).']
[Footnote 12: De Isid. et Osir. 46. Compare Windischmann,
_Ueber den Somacultus der Arier_ (1846), and Muir, _Original
Sanskrit Texts_, vol. ii. p. 471. Hillebrandt, _Vedische
Mythologie_, i. p. 450, believes _haoma_ to mean the moon,
as does _soma_ in some hymns of the Rig Veda (see below).]
[Footnote 13: Compare Kuhn, _Herabkunft des Feuers und des
Göttertrankes_ (1859); Bergaigne, _La Religion Védique_, i.
148 ff.; Haug's _[=A]itareya Br[=a]hmana_, Introduction, p.
62; Whitney in _Jour. Am. Or. Soc_. III. 299; Muir,
_Original Sanskrit Texts_, vol. V. p. 258 ff., where other
literature is cited.]
[Footnote 14: RV. X. 34. 1; IX. 98. 9; 82.3. The Vedic plant
is unknown (not the _sarcostemma viminale_).]
[Footnote 15: RV. III. 43. 7; IV. 26.6 (other references in
Muir, _loc. cit._ p. 262.) Perhaps rain as _soma_ released by
lightning as a hawk (Bloomfield).]
[Footnote 16: See the passages cited in Muir, _loc. cit_.]
[Footnote 17: A complete account of _soma_ was given by the
Vedic texts will be found in Hillebrandt's _Vedische
Mythologie_, vol. I., where are described the different ways
of fermenting the juice of the plant.]
[Footnote 18: Although so interpreted by Hillebrandt, _loc.
cit._ p. 312. The passage is found in RV. VI. 44. 23.]
[Footnote 19: _Loc. cit._ pp. 340, 450.]
[Footnote 20: Compare IX. 79. 5, where the same verb is used
of striking, urging out the _soma_-juice, _r[=a]sa_.]
[Footnote 21: Compare IX. 32. 2, where "Trita's maidens urge
on the golden steed with the press-stones, _índu_ as a drink
for Indra."]
[Footnote 22: On account of the position and content of this
hymn, Hillebrandt regards it as addressed to
Soma-Brihaspati.]
[Footnote 23: So the sun in I. 163. 9, II. 'Sharpening his
horns' is used of fire in i. 140. 6; v. 2. 9.]
[Footnote 24: VI. 16. 39; vii. 19. I; VIII. 60. 13.]
[Footnote 25 3: IX. 63. 8-9; 5. 9. Soma is identified with
lightning in ix. 47. 3.]
[Footnote 26: _Hukhratus, verethrajao, hvaresa_.]
[Footnote 27: Or: wise.]
[Footnote 28 3: Or: strength. Above, 'shared riches,'
perhaps, for 'got happiness.']
[Footnote 29: Or: thine, indeed, are the laws of King
Varuna.]
[Footnote 30: Or: brilliant and beloved as Mitra (Mitra
means friend); Aryaman is translated 'bosom-friend'--both
are [=A]dityas.]
[Footnote 31: Or: an thou willest for us to live we shall
not die.]
[Footnote 32: Or: lordly plant, but not the moon.]
[Footnote 33: Some unessential verses in the above metre are
here omitted.]
[Footnote 34: Or: shining.]
[Footnote 35: The same ideas are prominent in viii. 48,
where Soma is invoked as '_soma_ that has been drunk,'
_i.e.,_ the juice of the ('three days fermented') plant.]
[Footnote 36: In the fourth book, iv. 27. 3. On this myth,
with its reasonable explanation as deduced from the ritual,
see Bloomfield, JAOS. xvi. I ff. Compare also Muir and
Hillebrandt, loc. cit.]
* * * * *
CHAPTER VI.
THE RIG VEDA (CONCLUDED).--YAMA AND OTHER GODS, VEDIC PANTHEISM,
ESCHATOLOGY.
In the last chapter we have traced the character of two great gods of
earth, the altar-fire and the personified kind of beer which was the
Vedic poets' chief drink till the end of this period. With the
discovery of _sur[=a], humor ex hordeo_ (oryzaque; Weber,
_V[=a]japeya_, p. 19), and the difficulty of obtaining the original
_soma_-plant (for the plant used later for _soma_, the _asclepias
acida_, or _sarcostemma viminale_, does not grow in the Punj[=a]b
region, and cannot have been the original _soma_), the status of
_soma_ became changed. While _sur[=a]_ became the drink of the people,
_soma_, despite the fact that it was not now so agreeable a liquor,
became reserved, from its old associations, as the priests' (gods')
drink, a sacrosanct beverage, not for the vulgar, and not esteemed by
the priest, except as it kept up the rite.
It has been shown that these gods, earthly in habitation, absorbed the
powers of the older and physically higher divinities. The ideas that
clustered about the latter were transferred to the former. The
altar-fire, Agni, is at once earth-fire, lightning, and sun. The drink
_soma_ is identified with the heavenly drink that refreshes the earth,
and from its color is taken at last to be the terrestrial form of its
aqueous prototype, the moon, which is not only yellow, but even goes
through cloud-meshes just as _soma_ goes through the sieve, with all
the other points of comparison that priestly ingenuity can devise.
Of different sort altogether from these gods is the ancient
Indo-Iranian figure that now claims attention. The older religion had
at least one object of devotion very difficult to reduce to terms of a
nature-religion.
YAMA
Exactly as the Hindu had a half-divine ancestor, Manu, who by the
later priests is regarded as of solar origin, while more probably he
is only the abstract Adam (man), the progenitor of the race; so in
Yama the Hindu saw the primitive "first of mortals." While, however,
Mitra, Dyaus, and other older nature-gods, pass into a state of
negative or almost forgotten activity, Yama, even in the later epic
period, still remains a potent sovereign--the king of the dead.
In the Avesta Yima is the son of the 'wide-gleaming' Vivanghvant, the
sun, and here it is the sun that first prepares the _soma (haoma)_ for
man. And so, too, in the Rig Veda it is Yama the son of Vivasvant (X.
58. 1; 60. 10) who first "extends the web" of (_soma_) sacrifice (VII.
33. 9, 12). The Vedic poet, not influenced by later methods of
interpretation, saw in Yama neither sun nor moon, nor any other
natural phenomenon, for thus he sings, differentiating Yama from them
all: "I praise with a song Agni, P[=u]shan, Sun and Moon, Yama in
heaven, Trita, Wind, Dawn, the Ray of Light, the Twin Horsemen" (X.
64. 3); and again: "Deserving of laudation are Heaven and Earth, the
four-limbed Agni, Yama, Aditi," etc. (X. 92. 11).
Yama is regarded as a god, although in the Rig Veda he is called only
'king' (X. 14. 1, 11); but later he is expressly a god, and this is
implied, as Ehni shows, even in the Rig Veda: 'a god found Agni' and
'Yama found Agni' (X. 51. 1 ff.). His primitive nature was that of the
'first mortal that died,' in the words of the Atharva Veda. It is
true, indeed, that at a later period even gods are spoken of as
originally 'mortal,'[1] but this is a conception alien from the early
notions of the Veda, where 'mortal' signifies no more than 'man.' Yama
was the first mortal, and he lives in the sky, in the home that "holds
heroes," _i.e._, his abode is where dead heroes congregate (I. 35. 6;
X. 64. 3)[2]. The fathers that died of old are cared for by him as he
sits drinking with the gods beneath a fair tree (X. 135. 1-7). The
fire that devours the corpse is invoked to depart thither (X. 16. 9).
This place is not very definitely located, but since, according to one
prevalent view, the saints guard the sun, and since Yama's abode in
the sky is comparable with the sun in one or two passages, it is
probable that the general idea was that the departed entered the sun
and there Yama received him (I. 105. 9, 'my home is there where are
the sun's rays'; X. 154. 4-5, 'the dead shall go, O Yama, to the
fathers, the seers that guard the sun'). 'Yama's abode' is the same
with 'sky' (X. 123. 6); and when it is said, 'may the fathers hold up
the pillar (in the grave), and may Yama build a seat for thee there'
(X. 18. 13), this refers, not to the grave, but to heaven. And it is
said that 'Yama's seat is what is called the gods' home' (X. 135.
7)[3]. But Yama does not remain in the sky. He comes, as do other
Powers, to the sacrifice, and is invited to seat himself 'with
Angirasas and the fathers' at the feast, where he rejoices with them
(X. 14. 3-4; 15. 8). And either because Agni devours corpses for Yama,
or because of Agni's part in the sacrifice which Yama so joyfully
attends, therefore Agni is especially mentioned as Yama's friend (X.
21. 5), or even his priest (_ib_. 52. 3). Yama stands in his relation
to the dead so near to death that 'to go on Yama's path' is to go on
the path of death; and battle is called 'Yama's strife.' It is even
possible that in one passage Yama is directly identified with death
(X. 165. 4, 'to Yama be reverence, to death'; I. 38. 5; _ib_. 116.
2)[4]. There is always a close connection between Varuna and Yama, and
perhaps it is owing to this that parallel to 'Varuna's fetters' is
found also 'Yama's fetter,' i.e., death (x. 97. 16).
As Yama was the first to die, so was he the first to teach man the
road to immortality, which lies through sacrifice, whereby man attains
to heaven and to immortality. Hence the poet says, 'we revere the
immortality born of Yama' (i. 83. 5). This, too, is the meaning of the
mystic verse which speaks of the sun as the heavenly courser 'given by
Yama,' for, in giving the way to immortality, Yama gives also the
sun-abode to them that become immortal. In the same hymn the sun is
identified with Yama as he is with Trita (i. 163. 3). This particular
identification is due, however, rather to the developed pantheistic
idea which obtains in the later hymns. A parallel is found in the next
hymn: "They speak of Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni ... that which is one,
the priests speak of in many ways, and call him Agni, Yama, Fire" (or
Wind, i. 164. 46).
Despite the fact that one Vedic poet speaks of Yama's name as 'easy to
understand' (x. 12. 6), no little ingenuity has been spent on it, as
well as on the primitive conception underlying his personality.
Etymologically, his name means Twin, and this is probably the real
meaning, for his twin sister Yami is also a Vedic personage. The later
age, regarding Yama as a restrainer and punisher of the wicked,
derived the name from _yam_ the restrainer or punisher, but such an
idea is quite out of place in the province of Vedic thought. The
Iranian Yima also has a sister of like name, although she does not
appear till late in the literature.
That Yama's father is the sun, Vivasvant (Savitar, 'the artificer,'
Tvashtar, x. 10. 4-5),[5] is clearly enough stated in the
Rik; and that he was the first mortal, in the Atharvan. Men come from
Yama, and Yama comes from the sun as 'creator,' just as men elsewhere
come from Adam and Adam comes from the Creator. But instead of an
Hebraic Adam and Eve there are in India a Yama and Yam[=i], brother
and sister (wife), who, in the one hymn in which the latter is
introduced _(loc. cit.),_ indulge in a moral conversation on the
propriety of wedlock between brother and sister. This hymn is
evidently a protest against a union that was unobjectionable to an
older generation. In the Yajur Veda Yami is wife and sister both. But
sometimes, in the varying fancies of the Vedic poets, the artificer
Tvashtar is differentiated from Vivasvant, the sun; as he is in
another passage, where Tvashtar gives to Vivasvant his daughter, and
she is the mother of Yama[6].
That men are the children of Yama is seen in X. 13. 4, where it is
said, 'Yama averted death for the gods; he did not avert death for
(his) posterity.' In the Brahmanic tradition men derive from the sun
(T[=a]itt. S. VI. 5. 6. 2[7]) So, in the Iranian belief, Yima is
looked upon, according to some scholars, as the first man. The funeral
hymn to Yama is as follows:
Him who once went over the great mountains[8] and spied out
a path for many, the son of Vivasvant, who collects men,
King Yama, revere ye with oblations. Yama the first found us
a way ... There where our old fathers are departed.... Yama
is magnified with the Angirasas.... Sit here, O Yama, with
the Angirasas and with the fathers.... Rejoice, O king, in
this oblation. Come, O Yama, with the venerable Angirasas. I
call thy father, Vivasvant, sit down at this sacrifice.
And then, turning to the departed soul:
Go forth, go forth on the old paths where are gone our old
fathers; thou shalt see both joyous kings, Yama and God
Varuna. Unite with the fathers, with Yama, with the
satisfaction of desires, in highest heaven.... Yama will
give a resting place to this spirit. Run past, on a good
path, the two dogs of Saram[=a], the four-eyed, spotted
ones; go unto the fathers who rejoice with Yama.
Several things are here noteworthy. In the first place, the Atharva
Veda reads, "who first of mortals died[9]," and this is the meaning of
the Rig Veda version, although, as was said above, the mere fact that
Varuna is called a god and Yama a king proves nothing[10]. But it is
clearly implied here that he who crossed the mountains and 'collected
men,' as does Yima in the Iranian legend, is an ancient king, as it is
also implied that he led the way to heaven. The dogs of Yama are
described in such a way as to remind one of the dogs that guard the
path the dead have to pass in the Iranian legend, and of Kerberus,
with whose very name the adjective 'spotted' has been compared[11].
The dogs are elsewhere described as white and brown and as barking
(VII. 55. 2), and in further verses of the hymn just quoted (X. 14)
they are called "thy guardian dogs, O Yama, the four-eyed ones who
guard the path, who look on men ... broad-nosed, dark messengers of
Yama, who run among the people."
These dogs are due to the same fantasy that creates a Kerberus, the
Iranian dogs[12], or other guardians of the road that leads to heaven.
The description is too minute to make it probable that the Vedic poet
understood them to be 'sun and moon,' as the later Brahmanical
ingenuity explains them, and as they have been explained by modern
scholarship. It is not possible that the poet, had he had in mind any
connection between the dogs and the sun and moon (or 'night and day'),
would have described them as 'barking' or as 'broad-nosed and dark';
and all interpretation of Yama's dogs must rest on the interpretation
of Yama himself[13].
Yama is not mentioned elsewhere[14] in the Rig Veda, except in the
statement that 'metres rest on Yama,' and in the closing verses of the
burial hymn: "For Yama press the _soma_, for Yama pour oblation; the
sacrifice goes to Yama; he shall extend for us a long life among the
gods," where the pun on Yama (_yamad á_), in the sense of 'stretch
out,' shows that as yet no thought of 'restrainer' was in the poet's
mind, although the sense of 'twin' is lost from the name.
In recent years Hillebrandt argues that because the Manes are
connected with Soma (as the moon), and because Yama was the first to
die, therefore Yama was the moon. Ehni, on the other hand, together
with Bergaigne and some other scholars, takes Yama to be the sun.
Müller calls him the 'setting-sun[15].' The argument from the Manes
applies better to the sun than to the moon, but it is not conclusive.
The Hindus in the Vedic age, as later, thought of the Manes living in
stars, moon, sun, and air; and, if they were not good Manes but dead
sinners, in the outer edge of the universe or under ground. In short,
they are located in every conceivable place[17].
The Yama, 'who collects people,' has been rightly compared with the
Yima, who 'made a gathering of the people,' but it is doubtful whether
one should see in this an Aryan trait; for [Greek: Aidaes Agaesilaos]
is not early and popular, but late (Aeschylean), and the expression
may easily have arisen independently in the mind of the Greek poet.
From a comparative point of view, in the reconstruction of Yama there
is no conclusive evidence which will permit one to identify his
original character either with sun or moon. Much rather he appears to
be as he is in the Rig Veda, a primitive king, not historically so,
but poetically, the first man, fathered of the sun, to whom he
returns, and in whose abode he collects his offspring after their
inevitable death on earth. In fact, in Yama there is the ideal side of
ancestor-worship. He is a poetic image, the first of all fathers, and
hence their type and king. Yama's name is unknown outside of the
Indo-Iranian circle, and though Ehni seeks to find traces of him in
Greece and elsewhere,[18] this scholar's identifications fail, because
he fails to note that similar ideas in myths are no proof of their
common origin.
It has been suggested that in the paradise of Yama over the mountains
there is a companion-piece to the hyperboreans, whose felicity is
described by Pindar. The nations that came from the north still kept
in legend a recollection of the land from whence they came. This
suggestion cannot, of course, be proved, but it is the most probable
explanation yet given of the first paradise to which the dead revert.
In the late Vedic period, when the souls of the dead were not supposed
to linger on earth with such pleasure as in the sky, Yama's abode is
raised to heaven. Later still, when to the Hindu the south was the
land of death, Yama's hall of judgment is again brought down to earth
and transferred to the 'southern district.'
The careful investigation of Scherman[19] leads essentially to the
same conception of Yama as that we have advocated. Scherman believes
that Yama was first a human figure, and was then elevated to, if not
identified with, the sun. Scherman's only error is in disputing the
generally-received opinion, one that is on the whole correct, that
Yama in the early period is a kindly sovereign, and in later times
becomes the dread king of horrible hells. Despite some testimony to
the contrary, part of which is late interpolation in the epic, this is
the antithesis which exists in the works of the respective periods.
The most important gods of the era of the Rig Veda we now have
reviewed. But before passing on to the next period it should be
noticed that no small number of beings remains who are of the air,
devilish, or of the earth, earthy. Like the demons that injure man by
restraining the rain in the clouds, so there are _bh[=u]ts_, ghosts,
spooks, and other lower powers, some malevolent, some good-natured,
who inhabit earth; whence demonology. There is, furthermore, a certain
chrematheism, as we have elsewhere[20] ventured to call it, which
pervades the Rig Veda, the worship of more or less personified things,
differing from pantheism in this,[21] that whereas pantheism assumes a
like divinity in all things, this kind of theism assumes that
everything (or anything) has a separate divinity, usually that which
is useful to the worshipper, as, the plough, the furrow, etc. In later
hymns these objects are generally of sacrificial nature, and the
stones with which _soma_ is pressed are divine like the plant. Yet
often there is no sacrificial observance to cause this veneration.
Hymns are addressed to weapons, to the war-car, as to divine beings.
Sorcery and incantation is not looked upon favorably, but nevertheless
it is found.
Another class of divinities includes abstractions, generally female,
such as Infinity, Piety, Abundance, with the barely-mentioned
Gung[=u], R[=a]k[=a], etc. (which may be moon-phases). The
most important of these abstractions[22] is 'the lord of strength,' a
priestly interpretation of Indra, interpreted as religious strength or
prayer, to whom are accredited all of Indra's special acts.
Hillebrandt interprets this god, Brahmanaspati or Brihaspati, as the
moon; Müller, somewhat doubtfully, as fire; while Roth will not allow
that Brihaspati has anything to do with natural phenomena, but
considers him to have been from the beginning 'lord of prayer.' With
this view we partly concur, but we would make the important
modification that the god was lord of prayer only as priestly
abstraction Indra in his higher development. It is from this god is
come probably the head of the later trinity, Brahm[=a], through
personified _brahma_, power; prayer, with its philosophical
development into the Absolute. Noteworthy is the fact that some of the
Vedic Aryans, despite his high pretensions, do not quite like
Brihaspati, and look on him as a suspicious novelty. If one study
Brihaspati in the hymns, it will be difficult not to see in him simply
a sacerdotal Indra. He breaks the demon's power; crushes the foes of
man; consumes the demons with a sharp bolt; disperses darkness; drives
forth the 'cows'; gives offspring and riches; helps in battle;
discovers Dawn and Agni; has a band (like Maruts) singing about him;
he is red and golden, and is identified with fire. Although 'father of
gods,' he is begotten of Tvashtar, the artificer.[23]
Weber has suggested (V[=a]japeya Sacrifice, p. 15), that Brihaspati
takes Indra's place, and this seems to be the true solution, Indra as
interpreted mystically by priests. In RV. i. 190, Brihaspati is looked
upon by 'sinners' as a new god of little value. Other minor deities
can be mentioned only briefly, chiefly that the extent of the pantheon
may be seen. For the history of religion they are of only collective
importance. The All-gods play an important part in the sacrifice, a
group of 'all the gods,' a priestly manufacture to the end that no god
may be omitted in laudations that would embrace all the gods. The
later priests attempt to identify these gods with the clans, 'the
All-gods are the clans' (_Çat. Br._ v. 5. 1.10), on the basis of a
theological _pun_, the clans, _viças_, being equated with the word for
all, _viçve_. Some modern scholars follow these later priests, but
without reason. Had these been special clan-gods, they would have had
special names, and would not have appeared in a group alone.
The later epic has a good deal to say about some lovely nymphs called
the Apsarasas, of whom it mentions six as chief (Urvaç[=i], Menak[=a],
etc.).[24] They fall somewhat in the epic from their Vedic estate, but
they are never more than secondary figures, love-goddesses, beloved of
the Gandharvas who later are the singing guardians of the moon, and,
like the lunar stations, twenty-seven in number. The Rik knows at
first but one Gandharva (an inferior genius, mentioned in but one
family-book), who guards Soma's path, and, when Soma becomes the moon,
is identified with him, ix. 86. 36. As in the Avesta, Gandharva is
(the moon as) an evil spirit also; but always as a second-rate power,
to whom are ascribed magic (and madness, later). He has virtually no
cult except in _soma_-hymns, and shows clearly the first Aryan
conception of the moon as a demoniac power, potent over women, and
associated with waters.
Mountains, and especially rivers, are holy, and of course are deified.
Primitive belief generally deifies rivers. But in the great river-hymn
in the Rig Veda there is probably as much pure poetry as prayer. The
Vedic poet half believed in the rivers' divinity, and sings how they
'rush forth like armies,' but it will not do to inquire too strictly
in regard to his belief.
He was a poet, and did not expect to be catechized. Of female
divinities there are several of which the nature is doubtful. As Dawn
or Storm have been interpreted Saram[=a] and Sarany[=u], both meaning
'runner.' The former is Indra's dog, and her litter is the dogs of
Yama. One little poem, rather than hymn, celebrates the 'wood-goddess'
in pretty verses of playful and descriptive character.
Long before there was any formal recognition of the dogma that all
gods are one, various gods had been identified by the Vedic poets.
Especially, as most naturally, was this the case when diverse gods
having different names were similar in any way, such as Indra and
Agni, whose glory is fire; or Varuna and Mitra, whose seat is the sky.
From this casual union of like pairs comes the peculiar custom of
invoking two gods as one. But even in the case of gods not so
radically connected, if their functions were mutually approximate,
each in turn became credited with his neighbor's acts. If the traits
were similar which characterized each, if the circles of activity
overlapped at all, then those divinities that originally were tangent
to each other gradually became concentric, and eventually were united.
And so the lines between the gods were wiped out, as it were, by their
conceptions crowding upon one another. There was another factor,
however, in the development of this unconscious, or, at least,
unacknowledged, pantheism. Aided by the likeness or identity of
attributes in Indra, Savitar, Agni, Mitra, and other gods, many of
which were virtually the same under a different designation, the
priests, ever prone to extravagance of word, soon began to attribute,
regardless of strict propriety, every power to every god. With the
exception of some of the older divinities, whose forms, as they are
less complex, retain throughout the simplicity of their primitive
character, few gods escaped this adoration, which tended to make them
all universally supreme, each being endowed with all the attributes of
godhead. One might think that no better fate could happen to a god
than thus to be magnified. But when each god in the pantheon was
equally glorified, the effect on the whole was disastrous. In fact, it
was the death of the gods whom it was the intention of the seers to
exalt. And the reason is plain. From this universal praise it resulted
that the individuality of each god became less distinct; every god was
become, so to speak, any god, so far as his peculiar attributes made
him a god at all, so that out of the very praise that was given to him
and his confreres alike there arose the idea of the abstract godhead,
the god who was all the gods, the one god. As a pure abstraction one
finds thus Aditi, as equivalent to 'all the gods,'[25] and then the
more personal idea of the god that is father of all, which soon
becomes the purely personal All-god. It is at this stage where begins
conscious premeditated pantheism, which in its first beginnings is
more like monotheism, although in India there is no monotheism which
does not include devout polytheism, as will be seen in the review of
the formal philosophical systems of religion.
It is thus that we have attempted elsewhere[26] to explain that phase
of Hindu religion which Müller calls henotheism.
Müller, indeed, would make of henotheism a new religion, but this, the
worshipping of each divinity in turn as if it were the greatest and
even the only god recognized, is rather the result of the general
tendency to exaltation, united with pantheistic beginnings. Granting
that pure polytheism is found in a few hymns, one may yet say that
this polytheism, with an accompaniment of half-acknowledged
chrematheism, passed soon into the belief that several divinities were
ultimately and essentially but one, which may be described as
homoiotheism; and that the poets of the Rig Veda were unquestionably
esoterically unitarians to a much greater extent and in an earlier
period than has generally been acknowledged. Most of the hymns of the
Rig Veda were composed under the influence of that unification of
deities and tendency to a quasi-monotheism, which eventually results
both in philosophical pantheism, and in the recognition at the same
time of a personal first cause. To express the difference between
Hellenic polytheism and the polytheism of the Rig Veda the latter
should be called, if by any new term, rather by a name like
pantheistic polytheism, than by the somewhat misleading word
henotheism. What is novel in it is that it represents the fading of
pure polytheism and the engrafting, upon a polytheistic stock, of a
speculative homoiousian tendency soon to bud out as philosophic
pantheism.
The admission that other gods exist does not nullify the attitude of
tentative monotheism. "Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods?"
asks Moses, and his father-in-law, when converted to the new belief,
says: "Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods."[27] But
this is not the quasi-monotheism of the Hindu, to whom the other gods
were real and potent factors, individually distinct from the one
supreme god, who represents the All-god, but is at once abstract and
concrete.
Pantheism in the Rig Veda comes out clearly only in one or two
passages: "The priests represent in many ways the (sun) bird that is
one"; and (cited above) "They speak of him as Indra, Mitra, Varuna,
Agni, ... that which is but one they call variously." So, too, in the
Atharvan it is said that Varuna (here a pantheistic god) is "in the
little drop of water,"[28] as in the Rik the spark of material fire is
identified with the sun.
The new belief is voiced chiefly in that portion of the Rig Veda which
appears to be latest and most Brahmanic in tone.
Here a supreme god is described under the name of "Lord of Beings,"
the "All-maker," "The Golden Germ," the "God over gods, the spirit of
their being" (x. 121). The last, a famous hymn, Müller entitles "To
the Unknown God." It may have been intended, as has been suggested,
for a theological puzzle,[29] but its language evinces that in
whatever form it is couched--each verse ends with the refrain, 'To
what god shall we offer sacrifice?' till the last verse answers the
question, saying, 'the Lord of beings'--it is meant to raise the
question of a supreme deity and leave it unanswered in terms of a
nature-religion, though the germ is at bottom fire: "In the beginning
arose the Golden Germ; as soon as born he became the Lord of All. He
established earth and heaven--to what god shall we offer sacrifice? He
who gives breath, strength, whose command the shining gods obey; whose
shadow is life and death.... When the great waters went everywhere
holding the germ and generating light, then arose from them the one
spirit (breath) of the gods.... May he not hurt us, he the begetter of
earth, the holy one who begot heaven ... Lord of beings, thou alone
embracest all things ..."
In this closing period of the Rig Veda--a period which in many ways,
the sudden completeness of caste, the recognition of several Vedas,
etc., is much farther removed from the beginning of the work than it
is from the period of Brahmanic speculation--philosophy is hard at
work upon the problems of the origin of gods and of being. As in the
last hymn, water is the origin of all things; out of this springs
fire, and the wind which is the breath of god. So in the great hymn of
creation: "There was then neither not-being nor being; there was no
atmosphere, no sky. What hid (it)? Where and in the protection of
what? Was it water, deep darkness? There was no death nor immortality.
There was no difference between night and day. That One breathed ...
nothing other than this or above it existed. Darkness was concealed in
darkness in the beginning. Undifferentiated water was all this
(universe)." Creation is then declared to have arisen by virtue of
desire, which, in the beginning was the origin of mind;[30] and "the
gods," it is said further, "were created after this." Whether entity
springs from non-entity or vice versa is discussed in another hymn of
the same book.[31] The most celebrated of the pantheistic hymns is
that in which the universe is regarded as portions of the deity
conceived as the primal Person: "Purusha (the Male Person) is this
all, what has been and will be ... all created things are a fourth of
him; that which is immortal in the sky is three-fourths of him." The
hymn is too well known to be quoted entire. All the castes, all gods,
all animals, and the three (or four) Vedas are parts of him.[32]
Such is the mental height to which the seers have raised themselves
before the end of the Rig Veda. The figure of the Father-god,
Praj[=a]pati, 'lord of beings,' begins here; at first an epithet of
Savitar, and finally the type of the head of a pantheon, such as one
finds him to be in the Br[=a]hmanas. In one hymn only (x. 121) is
Praj[=a]pati found as the personal Father-god and All-god. At a time
when philosophy created the one Universal Male Person, the popular
religion, keeping pace, as far as it could, with philosophy, invented
the more anthropomorphized, more human, Father-god--whose name is
ultimately interpreted as an interrogation, God Who? This trait lasts
from now on through all speculation. The philosopher conceived of a
first source. The vulgar made it a personal god.
One of the most remarkable hymns of this epoch is that on V[=a]c,
Speech, or The Word. Weber has sought in this the prototype of the
Logos doctrine (below). The Word, V[=a]c (feminine) is introduced as
speaking (x. 125):
I wander with the Rudras, with the Vasus,[33] with the
[=A]dityas, and with all the gods; I support Mitra,
Va['r]una, Indra-Agni, and the twin Açvins ... I give wealth
to him that gives sacrifice, to him that presses the _soma_.
I am the queen, the best of those worthy of sacrifice ...
The gods have put me in many places ... I am that through
which one eats, breathes, sees, and hears ... Him that I
love I make strong, to be a priest, a seer, a wise man. 'Tis
I bend Rudra's bow to hit the unbeliever; I prepare war for
the people; I am entered into heaven and earth. I beget the
father of this (all) on the height; my place is in the
waters, the sea; thence I extend myself among all creatures
and touch heaven with my crown. Even I blow like the wind,
encompassing all creatures. Above heaven and above earth, so
great am I grown in majesty.
This is almost Vedantic pantheism with the Vishnuite doctrine of
'special grace' included.
The moral tone of this period--if period it may be called--may best be
examined after one has studied the idea which the Vedic Hindu has
formed of the life hereafter. The happiness of heaven will be typical
of what he regards as best here. Bliss beyond the grave depends in
turn upon the existence of the spirit after death, and, that the
reader may understand this, we must say a few words in regard to the
Manes, or fathers dead. "Father Manu," as he is called,[34] was the
first 'Man.' Subsequently he is the secondary parent as a kind of
Noah; but Yama, in later tradition his brother, has taken his place as
norm of the departed fathers, Pitaras.
These Fathers (Manes), although of different sort than the gods, are
yet divine and have many godly powers, granting prayers and lending
aid, as may be seen from this invocation: "O Fathers, may the
sky-people grant us life; may we follow the course of the living" (x.
57. 5). One whole hymn is addressed to these quasi-divinities (x. 15):
Arise may the lowest, the highest, the middlemost Fathers,
those worthy of the _soma_, who without harm have entered
into the spirit (-world); may these Fathers, knowing the
seasons, aid us at our call. This reverence be to-day to the
Fathers, who of old and afterwards departed; those who have
settled in an earthly sphere,[35] or among peoples living in
fair places (the gods?). I have found the gracious Fathers,
the descendant(s) and the wide-step[36] of Vishnu; those
who, sitting on the sacrificial straw, willingly partake of
the pressed drink, these are most apt to come hither....
Come hither with blessings, O Fathers; may they come hither,
hear us, address and bless us.... May ye not injure us for
whatever impiety we have as men committed.... With those who
are our former Fathers, those worthy of _soma_, who are come
to the _soma_ drink, the best (fathers), may Yama rejoicing,
willingly with them that are willing, eat the oblations as
much as is agreeable (to them). Come running, O Agni, with
these (fathers), who thirsted among the gods and hastened
hither, finding oblations and praised with songs. These
gracious ones, the real poets, the Fathers that seat
themselves at the sacrificial heat; who are real eaters of
oblation; drinkers of oblation; and are set together on one
chariot with Indra and the gods. Come, O Agni, with these, a
thousand, honored like gods, the ancient, the original
Fathers who seat themselves at the sacrificial heat....
Thou, Agni, didst give the oblations to the Fathers, that
eat according to their custom; do thou (too) eat, O god, the
oblation offered (to thee). Thou knowest, O thou knower (or
finder) of beings, how many are the Fathers--those who are
here, and who are not here, of whom we know, and of whom we
know not. According to custom eat thou the well-made
sacrifice. With those who, burned in fire or not burned,
(now) enjoy themselves according to custom in the middle of
the sky, do thou, being the lord, form (for us) a spirit
life, a body according to (our) wishes.[37]
Often the Fathers are invoked in similar language in the hymn to the
"All-gods" mentioned above, and occasionally no distinction is to be
noticed between the powers and attributes of the Fathers and those of
the gods. The Fathers, like the luminous gods, "give light" (x. 107.
1). Exactly like the gods, they are called upon to aid the living, and
even 'not to harm' (iii. 55. 2; x. 15. 6). According to one verse, the
Fathers have not attained the greatness of the gods, who impart
strength only to the gods.[38]
The Fathers are kept distinct from the gods. When the laudations
bestowed upon the former are of unequivocal character there is no
confusion between the two.[39]
The good dead, to get to the paradise awaiting them, pass over water
(X. 63. 10), and a bridge (ix. 41. 2). Here, by the gift of the gods,
not by inherent capacity, they obtain immortality. He that believes on
Agni, sings: "Thou puttest the mortal in highest immortality, O Agni";
and, accordingly, there is no suggestion that heavenly joys may cease;
nor is there in this age any notion of a _Götterdämmerung_.
Immortality is described as "continuing life in the highest sky,"
another proof that when formulated the doctrine was that the soul of
the dead lives in heaven or in the sun.[40]
Other cases of immortality granted by different gods are recorded by
Muir and Zimmer. Yet in one passage the words, "two paths I have heard
of the Fathers (exist), of the gods and of mortals," may mean that the
Fathers go the way of mortals or that of gods, rather than, as is the
usual interpretation, that mortals have two paths, one of the Fathers
and one of the gods,[41] for the dead may live on earth or in the air
as well as in heaven. When a good man dies his breath, it is said,
goes to the wind, his eye to the sun, etc.[42]--each part to its
appropriate prototype--while the "unborn part" is carried
"to the world of the righteous," after having been burned and heated
by the funeral fire. All these parts are restored to the soul,
however, and Agni and Soma return to it what has been injured. With
this Muir compares a passage in the Atharva Veda where it is said that
the Manes in heaven rejoice with all their limbs.[43] We dissent,
therefore, wholly from Barth, who declares that the dead are conceived
of as "resting forever in the tomb, the narrow house of clay." The
only passage cited to prove this is X. 18. 10-13, where are the words
(addressed to the dead man at the burial): "Go now to mother earth ...
she shall guard thee from destruction's lap ... Open wide, O earth, be
easy of access; as a mother her son cover this man, O earth," etc.
Ending with the verse quoted above: "May the Fathers hold the pillar
and Yama there build thee a seat."[44] The following is also found in
the Rig Veda bearing on this point: the prayer that one may meet his
parents after death; the statement that a generous man goes to the
gods; and a suggestion of the later belief that one wins immortality
by means of a son.[45]
The joys of paradise are those of earth; and heaven is thus described,
albeit in a late hymn:[46] "Where is light inexhaustible; in the world
where is placed the shining sky; set me in this immortal, unending
world, O thou that purifiest thyself (Soma); where is king (Yama), the
son of Vivasvant, and the paradise of the sky;[47] where are the
flowing waters; there make me immortal. Where one can go as he will;
in the third heaven, the third vault of the sky; where are worlds full
of light, there make me immortal; where are wishes and desires
and the red (sun)'s highest place; where one can follow his own habits
[48] and have satisfaction; there make me immortal; where exist
delight, joy, rejoicing, and joyance; where wishes are obtained, there
make me immortal."[49] Here, as above, the saints join the Fathers,
'who guard the sun.'
There is a 'bottomless darkness' occasionally referred to as a place
where evil spirits are to be sent by the gods; and a 'deep place' is
mentioned as the portion of 'evil, false, untruthful men'; while Soma
casts into 'a hole' (abyss) those that are irreligious.[50]
As darkness is hell to the Hindu, and as in all later time the demons
are spirits of darkness, it is rather forced not to see in these
allusions a misty hell, without torture indeed, but a place for the
bad either 'far away,' as it is sometimes said _(par[=a]váti)_, or
'deep down,' 'under three earths,' exactly as the Greek has a hell
below and one on the edge of the earth. Ordinarily, however, the gods
are requested simply to annihilate offenders. It is plain, as Zimmer
says, from the office of Yama's dogs, that they kept out of paradise
unworthy souls; so that the annihilation cannot have been imagined to
be purely corporeal. But heaven is not often described, and hell
never, in this period. Yet, when the paradise desired is described, it
is a place where earthly joys are prolonged and intensified. Zimmer
argues that a race which believes in good for the good hereafter must
logically believe in punishment for the wicked, and Scherman,
strangely enough, agrees with this pedantic opinion.[51] If either of
these scholars had looked away from India to the western Indians he
would have seen that, whereas almost all American Indians believe in a
happy hereafter for good warriors, only a very few tribes have any
belief in punishment for the bad. At most a Niflheim awaits the
coward. Weber thinks the Aryans already believed in a personal
immortality, and we agree with him. Whitney's belief that hell was not
known before the Upanishad period (in his translations of the _Katha
Upanishad_) is correct only if by hell torture is meant, and if the
Atharvan is later than this Upanishad, which is improbable.
The good dead in the Rig Veda return with Yama to the sacrifice to
enjoy the _soma_ and viands prepared for them by their descendants.
Hence the whole belief in the necessity of a son in order to the
obtaining of a joyful hereafter. What the rite of burial was to the
Greek, a son was to the Hindu, a means of bliss in heaven. Roth
apparently thinks that the Rig Veda's heaven is one that can best be
described in Dr. Watt's hymn:
There is a land of pure delight
Where saints immortal reign,
Eternal day excludes the night,
And pleasures banish pain;
and that especial stress should be laid on the word 'pure.' But there
is very little teaching of personal purity in the Veda, and the poet
who hopes for a heaven where he is to find 'longing women,' 'desire
and its fulfillment' has in mind, in all probability, purely impure
delights. It is not to be assumed that the earlier morality surpassed
that of the later day, when, even in the epic, the hero's really
desired heaven is one of drunkenness and women _ad libitum_. Of the
'good man' in the Rig Veda are demanded piety toward gods and manes
and liberality to priests; truthfulness and courage; and in the end of
the work there is a suggestion of ascetic 'goodness' by means of
_tapas_, austerity.[52] Grassman cites one hymn as dedicated to
'Mercy.' It is really (not a hymn and) not on mercy, but a poem
praising generosity. This generosity, however (and in general this is
true of the whole people), is not general generosity, but liberality
to the priests.[53] The blessings asked for are wealth (cattle,
horses, gold, etc.), virile power, male children ('heroic offspring')
and immortality, with its accompanying joys. Once there is a tirade
against the friend that is false to his friend (truth in act as well
as in word);[54] once only, a poem on concord, which seems to partake
of the nature of an incantation.
Incantations are rare in the Rig Veda, and appear to be looked upon as
objectionable. So in VII. 104 the charge of a 'magician' is furiously
repudiated; yet do an incantation against a rival wife, a mocking hymn
of exultation after subduing rivals, and a few other hymns of like
sort show that magical practices were well known.[55]
The sacrifice occupies a high place in the religion of the Rig Veda,
but it is not all-important, as it is later. Nevertheless, the same
presumptuous assumption that the gods depend on earthly sacrifice is
often made; the result of which, even before the collection was
complete (IV. 50), was to teach that gods and men depended on the will
of the wise men who knew how properly to conduct a sacrifice, the
key-note of religious pride in the Brahmanic period.
Indra depends on the sacrificial _soma_ to accomplish his great works.
The gods first got power through the sacrificial fire and _soma_.[56]
That images of the gods were supposed to be powerful may be inferred
from the late verses, "who buys this Indra," etc. (above), but
allusions to idolatry are elsewhere extremely doubtful.[57]
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Compare T[=a]itt. S. VII. 4.2.1. The gods win
immortality by means of 'sacrifice' in this later
priest-ridden period.]
[Footnote 2: Ludwig (IV. p. 134) wrongly understands a hell
here.]
[Footnote 3: 'Yama's seat' is here what it is in the epic,
not a chapel (Pischel), but a home.]
[Footnote 4: This may mean 'to Yama (and) to death.' In the
Atharva Veda, V. 24. 13-14, it is said that Death is the
lord of men; Yama, of the Manes.]
[Footnote 5: It is here said, also, that the 'Gandharva in
the waters and the water-woman' are the ties of
consanguinity between Yama and Yam[=i], which means,
apparently, that their parents were Moon and Water; a late
idea, as in viii. 48. 13 (unique).]
[Footnote 6: The passage, X. 17, 1-2, is perhaps meant as a
riddle, as Bloomfield suggests (JAOS. XV. p. 172). At any
rate, it is still a dubious passage. Compare Hillebrandt,
_Vedische Mythologie_, I. p. 503.]
[Footnote 7: Cited by Scherman, _Visionslitteratur_, p.
147.]
[Footnote 8: Possibly, 'streams.']
[Footnote 9: AV. XVIII. 3. 13.]
[Footnote 10: Compare AV. VI. 88. 2: "King Varuna and God
Brihaspati," where both are gods.]
[Footnote 11: [Greek: Kerberos](=Çabala)=_Ç[=a]rvara_.
Saram[=a] is storm or dawn, or something else that means
'runner.']
[Footnote 12: Here the fiend is expelled by a four-eyed dog
or a white one which has yellow ears. See the _Sacred Books
of the East_, IV. p. IXXXVII.]
[Footnote 13: Scherman proposes an easy solution, namely to
cut the description in two, and make only part of it refer
to the dogs! (_loc. cit_. p. 130).]
[Footnote 14: The dogs may be meant in I. 29. 3, but compare
II. 31. 5. Doubtful is I. 66. 8, according to Bergaigne,
applied to Yama as fire.]
[Footnote 15: _India_, p. 224.]
[Footnote 17: Barth, p. 23, cites I. 123. 6; X. 107. 2; 82.
2, to prove that stars are souls of dead men. These passages
do not prove the point, but it may be inferred from X. 68.
11. Later on it is a received belief. A moon-heaven is found
only in VIII. 48.]
[Footnote 18: Especially with Ymir in Scandinavian
mythology.]
[Footnote 19: _Visionslitteratur_, 1892.]
[Footnote 20: _Henotheism in the Rig Veda_, p. 81.]
[Footnote 21: This religious phase is often confounded
loosely with pantheism, but the distinction should be
observed. Parkman speaks of (American) Indian 'pantheism';
and Barth speaks of ritualistic 'pantheism,' meaning thereby
the deification of different objects used in sacrifice (p.
37, note). But chrematheism is as distinct from pantheism as
it is from fetishism.]
[Footnote 22: Some seem to be old; thus Aramati, piety, has
an Iranian representative, [=A]rma[=i]t[=i]. As masculine
abstractions are to be added Anger, Death, etc.]
[Footnote 23: Compare iv. 50; ii. 23 and 24; v. 43. 12; x.
68. 9; ii. 26. 3; 23. 17; x. 97. 15. For interpretation
compare Hillebrandt, _Ved. Myth._ i. 409-420; Bergaigne, _La
Rel, Vèd._ i. 304; Muir, OST, v. 272 ff. (with previous
literature).]
[Footnote 24: _Mbh[=a]_.i. 74. 68. Compare Holtzmann, ZDMG.
xxxiii. 631 ff.]
[Footnote 25: i. 89. 10: "Aditi is all the gods and men;
Aditi is whatever has been born; Aditi is whatever will be
born."]
[Footnote 26: _Henotheism in the Rig Veda_ (Drisler
Memorial).]
[Footnote 27: Ex. xv. 11; xviii. 11.]
[Footnote 28: RV. x. 114. 5; i. 164. 46; AV. iv. 16. 3.]
[Footnote 29: Bloomfield, JAOS. xv. 184.]
[Footnote 30: "Desire, the primal seed of mind," x. 129. 4.]
[Footnote 31: x. 72 (contains also the origin of the gods
from Aditi).]
[Footnote 32: x. 90, Here _chand[=a][.m]si_, carmina, is
probably the Atharvan.]
[Footnote 33: Rudras, Vasus, and [=A]dityas, the three
famous groups of gods. The Vasus are in Indra's train, the
'shining,' or, perhaps, 'good' gods.]
[Footnote 34: ii. 33. 13; x. 100. 5, etc. If the idea of
manus=bonus be rejected, the Latin _manes_ may be referred
to _m[=a]navas_, the children of Manu.]
[Footnote 35: Or: "in an earthly place, in the atmosphere,
or," etc.]
[Footnote 36: That is where the Fathers live. This is the
only place where the Fathers are said to be _náp[=a]t_
(descendants) of Vishnu, and here the sense may be "I have
discovered _Náp[=a]t_ (fire?)" But in i. 154. 5 Vishnu's
worshippers rejoice in his home.]
[Footnote 37: Or: "form as thou wilt this body (of a corpse)
to spirit life."]
[Footnote 38: x. 56. 4; otherwise, Grassmann.]
[Footnote 39: vi. 73. 9 refers to ancestors on earth, not in
heaven.]
[Footnote 40: Compare Muir, OST. v. 285, where i. 125. 5 is
compared with x. 107. 2: "The gift-giver becomes immortal;
the gift-giver lives in the sky; he that gives horses lives
in the sun." Compare Zimmer, _Altind. Leben_ p. 409; Geiger,
_Ostiran. Cultur_, p. 290.]
[Footnote 41: x. 88. 15, word for word: "two paths heard of
the Fathers I, of the gods and of mortals." Cited as a
mystery, Brih. [=A]ran. Up. vi. 2. 2.]
[Footnote 42: x. 16. 3: "if thou wilt go to the waters or to
the plants," is added after this (in addressing the soul of
the dead man). Plant-souls occur again in x. 58. 7.]
[Footnote 43: A V. XVIII.4.64; Muir, Av. _loc. cit._ p. 298.
A passage of the Atharvan suggests that the dead may have
been exposed as in Iran, but there is no trace of this in
the Rig Veda (Zimmer, _loc. cit._ p. 402).]
[Footnote 44: Barth, _Vedic Religions_, p. 23; _ib._, the
narrow 'house of clay,' RV. VII. 89. 1.]
[Footnote 45: I. 24. 1; I. 125.6; VII. 56.24; cited by
Müller, _Chips_, I. p. 45.]
[Footnote 46: IX. 113. 7 ff.]
[Footnote 47: _Avar[=o]dhana[.m] divás_, 'enclosure of the
sky.']
[Footnote 48: Literally, 'where custom' (obtains), _i.e._,
where the old usages still hold.]
[Footnote 49: The last words are to be understood as of
sensual pleasures (Muir, _loc. cit._ p. 307, notes 462,
463).]
[Footnote 50: RV. II. 29. 6; VII. 104. 3, 17; IV. 5. 5; IX.
73. 8. Compare Mulr, _loc. cit_. pp. 311-312; and Zimmer,
_loc. cit._ pp. 408, 418. Yama's 'hero-holding abode' is not
a hell, as Ludwig thinks, but, as usual, the top vault of
heaven.]
[Footnote 51: _loc. cit._ p. 123.]
[Footnote 52: X. 154. 2; 107. 2. Compare the mad ascetic,
_múni_, VIII. 17. 14.]
[Footnote 53: X. 117. This is clearly seen in the seventh
verse, where is praised the 'Brahman who talks,' _i.e._, can
speak in behalf of the giver to the gods (compare verse
three).]
[Footnote 54: X. 71. 6.]
[Footnote 55: Compare X. 145; 159. In X. 184 there is a
prayer addressed to the goddesses Sin[=i]v[=a]l[=i] and
Sarasvat[=i] (in conjunction with Vishnu, Tvashtar, the
Creator, Praj[=a]pati, and the Horsemen) to make a woman
fruitful.]
[Footnote 56: II. 15. 2; X. 6. 7 (Barth, _loc. cit._ p. 36).
The sacrifice of animals, cattle, horses, goats, is
customary; that of man, legendary; but it is implied in X.
18.8 (Hillebrandt, ZDMG. Xl p. 708), and is ritualized in
the next period (below).]
[Footnote 57: Phallic worship may be alluded to in that of
the 'tail-gods,' as Garbe thinks, but it is deprecated. One
verse, however, which seems to have crept in by mistake, is
apparently due to phallic influence (VIII. 1. 34), though
such a cult was not openly acknowledged till Çiva-worship
began, and is no part of Brahmanism.]
* * * * *
CHAPTER VII.
THE RELIGION OF THE ATHARVA VEDA.
The hymns of the Rig Veda inextricably confused; the deities of an
earlier era confounded, and again merged together in a pantheism now
complete; the introduction of strange gods; recognition of a hell of
torture; instead of many divinities the One that represents all the
gods, and nature as well; incantations for evil purposes and charms
for a worthy purpose; formulae of malediction to be directed against
'those whom I hate and who hate me'; magical verses to obtain
children, to prolong life, to dispel 'evil magic,' to guard against
poison and other ills; the paralyzing extreme of ritualistic reverence
indicated by the exaltation to godhead of the 'remnant' of sacrifice;
hymns to snakes, to diseases, to sleep, time, and the stars; curses on
the 'priest-plaguer'--such, in general outline, is the impression
produced by a perusal of the Atharvan after that of the Rig Veda. How
much of this is new?
The Rig Veda is not lacking in incantations, in witchcraft practices,
in hymns to inanimate things, in indications of pantheism. But the
general impression is produced, both by the tone of such hymns as
these and by their place in the collection, that they are an addition
to the original work. On the other hand, in reading the Atharvan hymns
the collective impression is decidedly this, that what to the Rig is
adventitious is essential to the Atharvan.
It has often been pointed out, however, that not only the practices
involved, but the hymns themselves, in the Atharvan, may have existed
long before they were collected, and that, while the Atharvan
collection, as a whole, takes historical place after the Rig Veda,
there yet may be comprised in the former much which is as old as any
part of the latter work. It is also customary to assume that such
hymns as betoken a lower worship (incantations, magical formulae,
etc.) were omitted purposely from the Rig Veda to be collected in the
Atharvan. That which eventually can neither be proved nor disproved
is, perhaps, best left undiscussed, and it is vain to seek scientific
proof where only historic probabilities are obtainable. Yet, if a
closer approach to truth be attractive, even a greater probability
will be a gain, and it becomes worth while to consider the problem a
little with only this hope in view.
Those portions of the Rig Veda which seem to be Atharvan-like are, in
general, to be found in the later books (or places) of the collection.
But it would be presumptuous to conclude that a work, although almost
entirely given up to what in the Rig Veda appears to be late, should
itself be late in origin. By analogy, in a nature-religion such as was
that of India, the practice of demonology, witchcraft, etc., must have
been an early factor. But, while this is true, it is clearly
impossible to postulate therefrom that the hymns recording all this
array of cursing, deviltry, and witchcraft are themselves early. The
further forward one advances into the labyrinth of Hindu religions the
more superstitions, the more devils, demons, magic, witchcraft, and
uncanny things generally, does he find. Hence, while any one
superstitious practice may be antique, there is small probability for
assuming a contemporaneous origin of the hymns of the two collections.
The many verses cited, apparently pell-mell, from the Rig Veda, might,
it is true, revert to a version older than that in which they are
found in the Rig Veda, but there is nothing to show that they were not
taken from the Rig Veda, and re-dressed in a form that rendered them
in many cases more intelligible; so that often what is respectfully
spoken of as a 'better varied reading' of the Atharvan may be better,
as we have said in the introductory chapter, only in lucidity; and the
lucidity be due to tampering with a text old and unintelligible.
Classical examples abound in illustrations.
Nevertheless, although an antiquity equal to that of the whole Rig
Veda can by no means be claimed for the Atharvan collection (which, at
least in its tone, belongs to the Brahmanic period), yet is the mass
represented by the latter, if not contemporaneous, at any rate so
venerable, that it safely may be assigned to a period as old as that
in which were composed the later hymns of the Rik itself. But in
distinction from the hymns themselves the weird religion they
represent is doubtless as old, if not older, than that of the Rig
Veda. For, while the Rig Vedic _soma-_cult is Indo-Iranian, the
original Atharvan (fire) cult is even more primitive, and the basis of
the work, from this point of view, may have preceded the composition
of Rik hymns. This Atharvan religion--if it may be called so--is,
therefore, of exceeding importance. It opens wide the door which the
Rik puts ajar, and shows a world of religious and mystical ideas which
without it could scarcely have been suspected. Here magic eclipses
Soma and reigns supreme. The wizard is greater than the gods; his
herbs and amulets are sovereign remedies. Religion is seen on its
lowest side. It is true that there is 'bad magic' and 'good magic'
(the existence of the former is substantiated by the maledictions
against it), but what has been received into the collection is
apparently the best. To heal the sick and procure desirable things is
the object of most of the charms and incantations--but some of the
desirable things are disease and death of one's foes. On the higher
side of religion, from a metaphysical point of view, the Atharvan is
pantheistic. It knows also the importance of the 'breaths,'[1] the
vital forces; it puts side by side the different gods and says that
each 'is lord.' It does not lack philosophical speculation which,
although most of it is puerile, sometimes raises questions of wider
scope, as when the sage inquires who made the body with its wonderful
parts--implying, but not stating the argument, from design, in its
oldest form.[2]
Of magical verses there are many, but the content is seldom more than
"do thou, O plant, preserve from harm," etc. Harmless enough, if
somewhat weak, are also many other hymns calculated to procure
blessings:
Blessings blow to us the wind,
Blessings glow to us the sun,
Blessings be to us the day,
Blest to us the night appear,
Blest to us the dawn shall shine,
is a fair specimen of this innocuous sort of verse.[3] Another example
may be seen in this hymn to a king: "Firm is the sky; firm is the
earth; firm, all creation; firm, these hills; firm the king of the
people (shall be)," etc.[4] In another hymn there is an incantation to
release from possible ill coming from a foe and from inherited ill or
sin.[5] A free spirit of doubt and atheism, already foreshadowed in
the Rig Veda, is implied in the prayer that the god will be merciful
to the cattle of that man "whose creed is 'Gods exist.'"[6]
Serpent-worship is not only known, but prevalent.[7] The old gods
still hold, as always, their nominal places, albeit the system is
pantheistic, so that Varuna is god of waters; and Mitra with Varuna,
gods of rain.[8] As a starting-point of philosophy the dictum of the
Rig Veda is repeated: 'Desire is the seed of mind,' and 'love, _i.e._,
desire, was born first.' Here Aditi is defined anew as the one in
whose lap is the wide atmosphere-- she is parent and child, gods and
men, all in all--'may she extend to us a triple shelter.' As an
example of curse against curse may be compared II. 7:
The sin-hated, god-born plant, that frees from the curse as
waters (wash out) the spot, has washed away all curses, the
curse of my rival and of my sister; (that) which the Brahman
in anger cursed, all this lies under my feet ... With this
plant protect this (wife), protect my child, protect our
property ... May the curse return to the curser ... We smite
even the ribs of the foe with the evil (_mantra_) eye.
A love-charm in the same book (II. 30) will remind the classical
student of Theocritus' second idyl: 'As the wind twirls around grass
upon the ground, so I twirl thy mind about, that thou mayst become
loving, that thou mayst not depart from me,' etc. In the following
verses the Horsemen gods are invoked to unite the lovers.
Characteristic among bucolic passages is the cow-song in II. 26, the
whole intent of which is to ensure a safe return to the cows on their
wanderings: 'Hither may they come, the cattle that have wandered far
away,' etc.
The view that there are different conditions of Manes is clearly
taught in XVIII. 2. 48-49, where it is said that there are three
heavens, in the highest of which reside the Manes; while a distinction
is made at the same time between 'fathers' and 'grandfathers,' the
fathers' fathers, 'who have entered air, who inhabit earth and
heaven.' Here appears nascent the doctrine of 'elevating the Fathers,'
which is expressly taught in the next era. The performance of rites in
honor of the Manes causes them to ascend from a low state to a higher
one. In fact, if the offerings are not given at all, the spirits do
not go to heaven. In general the older generations of Manes go up
highest and are happiest. The personal offering is only to the
immediate fathers.
If, as was shown in the introductory chapter, the Atharvan represents
a geographical advance on the part of the Vedic Aryans, this fact
cannot be ignored in estimating the primitiveness of the collection.
Geographical advance, acquaintance with other flora and fauna than
those of the Rig Veda, means--although the argument of silence must
not be exaggerated--a temporal advance also. And not less significant
are the points of view to which one is led in the useful little work
of Scherman on the philosophical hymns of the Atharvan. Scherman
wishes to show the connection between the Upanishads and Vedas. But
the bearing of his collection is toward a closer union of the two
bodies of works, and especially of the Atharvan, not to the greater
gain in age of the Upanishads so much as to the depreciation in
venerableness of the former. If the Atharvan has much more in common
with the Br[=a]hmanas and Upanishads than has the Rig Veda, it is
because the Atharvan stands, in many respects, midway in time between
the era of Vedic hymnology and the thought of the philosophical
period. The terminology is that of the Br[=a]hmanas, rather than that
of the Rig Veda. The latter knows the great person; the Atharvan, and
the former know the original great person, _i.e._., the _tausa movens_
under the _causa efficiens_, etc. In the Atharvan appears first the
worship of Time, Love, 'Support' (Skambha), and the 'highest _brahma_.
The cult of the holy cow is fully recognized (XII. 4 and 5). The late
ritualistic terms, as well as linguistic evidence, confirm the fact
indicated by the geographical advance. The country is known from
western Balkh to eastern Beh[=a]r, the latter familiarly.[9] In a
word, one may conclude that on its higher side the Atharvan is later
than the Rig Veda, while on its lower side of demonology one may
recognize the religion of the lower classes as compared with that of
the two upper classes--for the latter the Rig Veda, for the
superstitious people at large the Atharvan, a collection
of which the origin agrees with its application. For, if it at first
was devoted to the unholy side of fire-cult, and if the fire-cult is
older than the _soma_-cult, then this is the cult that one would
expect to see most affected by the conservative vulgar, who in India
hold fast to what the cultured have long dropped as superstition, or,
at least, pretended to drop; though the house-ritual keeps some magic
in its fire-cult.
In that case, it may be asked, why not begin the history of Hindu
religion with the Atharvan, rather than with the Rig Veda? Because the
Atharvan, as a whole, in its language, social conditions, geography,
'remnant' worship, etc., shows that this literary collection is
posterior to the Rik collection. As to individual hymns, especially
those imbued with the tone of fetishism and witchcraft, any one of
them, either in its present or original form, may outrank the whole
Rik in antiquity, as do its superstitions the religion of the Rik--if
it is right to make a distinction between superstition and religion,
meaning by the former a lower, and by the latter a more elevated form
of belief in the supernatural.
The difference between the Rik-worshipper and Atharvan-worshipper is
somewhat like that which existed at a later age between the
philosophical Çivaite and Durg[=a]ite. The former revered Çiva, but
did not deny the power of a host of lesser mights, whom he was ashamed
to worship too much; the latter granted the all-god-head of Çiva, but
paid attention almost exclusively to some demoniac divinity.
Superstition, perhaps, always precedes theology; but as surely does
superstition outlive any one form of its protean rival. And the simple
reason is that a theology is the real belief of few, and varies with
their changing intellectual point of view; while superstition is the
belief unacknowledged of the few and acknowledged of the many, nor
does it materially change from age to age. The rites employed among
the clam-diggers on the New York coast, the witch-charms they use, the
incantations, cutting of flesh, fire-oblations, meaningless formulae,
united with sacrosanct expressions of the church, are all on a par
with the religion of the lower classes as depicted in Theocritus and
the Atharvan. If these mummeries and this hocus-pocus were collected
into a volume, and set out with elegant extracts from the Bible, there
would be a nineteenth century Atharva Veda. What are the necessary
equipment of a Long Island witch? First, "a good hot fire," and then
formulae such as this:[10]
"If a man is attacked by wicked people and how to banish
them:
"Bedgoblin and all ye evil spirits, I, N.N., forbid you my
bedstead, my couch; I, N.N., forbid you in the name of God
my house and home; I forbid you in the name of the Holy
Trinity my blood and flesh, my body and soul; I forbid you
all the nail-holes in my house and home, till you have
travelled over every hill, waded through every water, have
counted all the leaves of every tree, and counted all the
stars in the sky, until the day arrives when the mother of
God shall bare her second son."
If this formula be repeated three times, with the baptismal name of
the person, it will succeed!
"To make one's self invisible:
"Obtain the ear of a black cat, boil it in the milk of a
black cow, wear it on the thumb, and no one will see you."
This is the Atharvan, or fire-and witch-craft of to-day--not differing
much from the ancient. It is the unchanging foundation of the many
lofty buildings of faith that are erected, removed, and rebuilt upon
it--the belief in the supernatural at its lowest, a belief which, in
its higher stages, is always level with the general intellect of those
that abide in it.
The latest book of the Atharvan is especially for the warrior-caste,
but the mass of it is for the folk at large. It was long before it was
recognized as a legitimate Veda. It never stands, in the older period
of Brahmanism, on a par with the S[=a]man and Rik. In the epic period
good and bad magic are carefully differentiated, and even to-day the
Atharvan is repudiated by southern Br[=a]hmans. But there is no doubt
that _sub rosa_, the silliest practices inculcated and formulated in
the Atharvan were the stronghold of a certain class of priests, or
that such priests were feared and employed by the laity, openly by the
low classes, secretly by the intelligent.
In respect of the name the magical cult was referred, historically
with justice, to the fire-priests, Atharvan and Angiras, though little
application to fire, other than in _soma_-worship, is apparent. Yet
was this undoubtedly the source of the cult (the fire-cult is still
distinctly associated with the Atharva Veda in the epic), and the name
is due neither to accident nor to a desire to invoke the names of
great seers, as will Weber.[11] The other name of Brahmaveda may have
connection with the 'false science of Brihaspati,' alluded to in a
Upanishad.[12] This seer is not over-orthodox, and later he is the
patron of the unorthodox C[=a]rv[=a]kas. It was seen above that the
god Brihaspati is also a novelty not altogether relished by the Vedic
Aryans.
From an Aryan point of view how much weight is to be placed on
comparisons of the formulae in the Atharvan of India with those of
other Aryan nations? Kuhn has compared[13] an old German magic formula
of healing with one in the Atharvan, and because each says 'limb to
limb' he thinks that they are of the same origin, particularly since
the formula is found in Russian. The comparison is interesting, but it
is far from convincing. Such formulae spring up independently all over
the earth.
Finally, it is to be observed that in this Veda first occurs the
implication of the story of the flood (xix. 39. 8), and the saving of
Father Manu, who, however, is known by this title in the Rik. The
supposition that the story of the flood is derived from Babylon,
seems, therefore, to be an unnecessary (although a permissible)
hypothesis, as the tale is old enough in India to warrant a belief in
its indigenous origin.[14]
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: XV. 15.]
[Footnote 2: X. 2.]
[Footnote 3: VII. 69. Compare RV. VII. 35, and the epic
(below).]
[Footnote 4: X. 173.]
[Footnote 5: V. 30.]
[Footnote 6: XI. 2. 28.]
[Footnote 7: XI. 9; VIII. 6 and 7, with tree-worship.]
[Footnote 8: V. 24. 4-5. On 'the one god' compare X. 8. 28;
XIII. 4. 15. Indra as S[=u]rya, in VII. 11; cf. xiii. 4;
XVII. 1. 24. Pantheism in X. 7. 14. 25. Of charms, compare
ii. 9, to restore life; III. 6, a curse against 'whom I
hate'; III. 23, to obtain offspring. On the stars and night,
see hymn at XIX. 8 and 47. In V. 13, a guard against poison;
_ib._ a hymn to a drum; _ib._ 31, a charm to dispel evil
magic; VI. 133, magic to produce long life; V. 23, against
worms, etc., etc. Aditi, VII. 6. 1-4 (partly Rik).]
[Footnote 9: Compare Muir, OST. II. 447 ff.]
[Footnote 10: This old charm is still used among the
clam-diggers of Canarsie, N.Y.]
[Footnote 11: _Ind. Lit_^2 p. 164.]
[Footnote 12: _M[=a]it. Up._. vii. 9. He is 'the gods'
Brahm[=a]' (Rik.)]
[Footnote 13: _Indische und germanische Segenssprüche_; KZ.
xiii. 49.]
[Footnote 14: One long hymn, xii. 1, of the Atharvan is to
earth and fire (19-20). In the Rik, _átharvan_ is
fire-priest and bringer of fire from heaven; while once the
word may mean fire itself (viii. 9, 7). The name Brahmaveda
is perhaps best referred to _brahma_ as fire (whence
'fervor,' 'prayer,' and again 'energy,' 'force'). In
distinction from the great _soma_-sacrifices, the fire-cult
always remains the chief thing in the domestic ritual. The
present Atharvan formulae have for the most part no visible
application to fire, but the name still shows the original
connection.]
* * * * *
CHAPTER VIII.
EARLY HINDU DIVINITIES COMPARED WITH THOSE OF OTHER ARYANS.
Nothing is more usual than to attempt a reconstruction of Aryan ideas
in manners, customs, laws, and religious conceptions, by placing side
by side similar traits of individual Aryan nations, and stating or
insinuating that the result of the comparison shows that one is
handling primitive characteristics of the whole Aryan body. It is of
special importance, therefore, to see in how far the views and
practices of peoples not Aryan may be found to be identical with those
of Aryans. The division of the army into clans, as in the Iliad and
the Veda; the love of gambling, as shown by Greeks, Teutons, and
Hindus; the separation of captains and princes, as is illustrated by
Teuton and Hindu; the belief in a flood, common to Iranian, Greek, and
Hindu; in the place of departed spirits, with the journey over a river
(Iranian, Hindu, Scandinavian, Greek); in the after-felicity of
warriors who die on the field of battle (Scandinavian, Greek, and
Hindu); in the reverence paid to the wind-god (Hindu, Iranian, and
Teutonic, V[=a]ta-Wotan); these and many other traits at different
times, by various writers, have been united and compared to illustrate
primitive Aryan belief and religion.
The traits of the Five Nations of the Veda for this reason may be
compared very advantageously with the traits of the Five Nations of
the Iroquois Indians, the most united and intelligent of American
native tribes. Their institutions are not yet extinct, and they have
been described by missionaries of the 17th century and by some modern
writers, to whom can be imputed no hankering after Aryan primitive
ideas.[1] It is but a few years back since the last _avat[=a]r_ of the
Iroquois' incarnate god lived in Onondaga, N.Y.
First, as an illustration of the extraordinary development of memory
among rhapsodes, Vedic students, and other Aryans; among the Iroquois
"memory was tasked to the utmost, and developed to an extraordinary
degree," says Parkman, who adds that they could repeat point by point
with precision any address made to them.[2] Murder was compromised for
by _Wehrgeld_, as among the Vedic, Iranic, and Teutonic peoples. The
Iroquois, like all Indians, was a great gambler, staking all his
property[3] (like the Teutons and Hindus). In religion "A mysterious
and inexplicable power resides in inanimate things ... Lakes, rivers,
and waterfalls [as conspicuously in India] are sometimes the
dwelling-place of spirits; but more frequently they are themselves
living beings, to be propitiated by prayers and offerings."[4] The
greatest spirit among the Algonquins is the descendant of the moon,
and son of the west-wind (personified). After the deluge (thus the
Hindus, etc.) this great spirit (Manabozho, _mana_ is Manu?) restored
the world; some asserting that he created the world out of water. But
others say that the supreme spirit is the sun (Le Jeune, Relation,
1633). The Algonquins, besides a belief in a good spirit (_manitou_),
had also a belief in a malignant _manitou_, in whom the missionaries
recognized the devil (why not Ormuzd and Ahriman?). One tribe invokes
the 'Maker of Heaven,' the 'god of waters,' and also the 'seven
spirits of the wind' (so, too, seven is a holy number in the Veda,
etc.).
The Iroquois, like the Hindu (later), believe that the earth rests on
the back of a turtle or tortoise[5], and that this is ruled over by
the sun and moon, the first being a good spirit; the second,
malignant. The good spirit interposes between the malice of the moon
and mankind, and it is he who makes rivers; for when the earth was
parched, all the water being held back from earth under the armpit of
a monster frog, he pierced the armpit and let out the water (exactly
as Indra lets out the water held back by the demon). According to
some, this great spirit created mankind, but in the third generation a
deluge destroyed his posterity[6]. The good spirit among the Iroquois
is the one that gives good luck (perhaps Bhaga). These Indians believe
in the immortality of the soul. Skillful hunters, brave warriors, go,
after death, to the happy hunting-grounds (as in India and
Scandinavia); the cowardly and weak are doomed to live in dreary
regions of mist and darkness (compare Niflheim and the Iranian
eschatology?). To pass over other religious correspondences, the
sacrifice of animals, use of amulets, love-charms, magic, and sorcery,
which are all like those of Aryans (to compare, also, are the burying
or exposing of the dead and the Hurons' funeral games), let one take
this as a good illustration of the value of 'comparative Aryan
mythology':
According to the Aryan belief the soul of the dead passes over a
stream, across a bridge, past a dog or two, which guard the gate of
paradise. The Hindu, Iranian, Greek, and Scandinavian, all have the
dog, and much emphasis has been laid on the 'Aryan' character of this
creed. The native Iroquois Indians believed that "the spirits on their
journey (to heaven) were beset with difficulties and perils. There was
a swift river to be crossed on a log that shook beneath the feet,
while a ferocious dog opposed their passage[7]." Here is the Persians'
narrow bridge, and even Kerberos himself!
It is also interesting to note that, as the Hindus identify with the
sun so many of their great gods, so the Iroquois "sacrifices to some
superior spirit, or to the sun, with which the superior spirits were
constantly confounded by the primitive Indian[8]."
Weber holds that because Greek and Hindu gave the name 'bear' to a
constellation, therefore this is the "primitive Indo-Germanic name of
the star[9]." But the Massachusetts Indians "gave their own name for
bear to the Ursa major" (Williams' 'Key,' cited Palfrey, I. p. 36; so
Lafitau, further west).
Again, three, seven, and even 'thrice-seven,' are holy not only in
India but in America.
In this new world are found, to go further, the analogues of Varuna in
the monotheistic god Viracocha of the Peruvians, to whom is addressed
this prayer: "Cause of all things! ever present, helper, creator, ever
near, ever fortunate one! Thou incorporeal one above the sun,
infinite, and beneficent[10]"; of the Vedic Snake of the Deep, in the
Mexican Cloud-serpent; of the Vedic Lightning-bird, who brings fire
from heaven, in the Indian Thunder-bird, who brings fire from
heaven[11]; of the preservation of one individual from a flood (in the
epic, Manu's 'Seven Seers') in the same American myth, even including
the holy mountain, which is still shown[12]; of the belief that the
sun is the home of departed spirits, in the same belief all over
America;[13] of the belief that stars are the souls of the dead, in
the same belief held by the Pampas;[14] and even of the late Brahmanic
custom of sacrificing the widow (suttee), in the practice of the
Natchez Indians, and in Guatemala, of burning the widow on the pyre of
the dead husband.[15] The storm wind (Odin) as highest god is found
among the Choctaws; while 'Master of Breath' is the Creeks' name for
this divinity. Huraka (hurricane, ouragon, ourage) is the chief god in
Hayti.[16] An exact parallel to the vague idea of hell at the close of
the Vedic period, with the gradual increase of the idea, alternating
with a theory of reincarnation, may be found in the fact that, in
general, there is no notion of punishment after death among the
Indians of the New World; but that, while the good are assisted and
cared for after death by the 'Master of Breath,' the Creeks believe
that the liar, the coward, and the niggard (Vedic sinners _par
excellence!_) are left to shift for themselves in darkness; whereas
the Aztecs believed in a hell surrounded by the water called 'Nine
Rivers,' guarded by a dog and a dragon; and the great Eastern American
tribes believe that after the soul has been for a while in heaven it
can, if it chooses, return to earth and be born again as a man,
utilizing its old bones (which are, therefore, carefully preserved by
the surviving members of the family) as a basis for a new body.[17]
To turn to another foreign religion, how tempting would it be to see
in Nutar the 'abstract power' of the Egyptian, an analogue of _brahma_
and the other 'power' abstractions of India; to recognize Brahm[=a] in
El; and in Nu, sky, and expanse of waters, to see Varuna; especially
when one compares the boat-journey of the Vedic seer with R[=a]'s boat
in Egypt. Or, again, in the twin children of R[=a] to see the Açvins;
and to associate the mundane egg of the Egyptians with that of the
Brahmans.[18] Certainly, had the Egyptians been one of the Aryan
families, all these conceptions had been referred long ago to the
category of 'primitive Aryan ideas.' But how primitive is a certain
religious idea will not be shown by simple comparison of Aryan
parallels. It will appear more often that it is not 'primitive,' but,
so to speak, per-primitive, aboriginal with no one race, but with the
race of man. When we come to describe the religions of the wild tribes
of India it will be seen that among them also are found traits common,
on the one hand, to the Hindu, and on the other to the wild tribes of
America. With this warning in mind one may inquire at last in how far
a conservative judgment can find among the Aryans themselves an
identity of original conception in the different forms of divinities
and religious rites. Foremost stand the universal chrematheism,
worship of inanimate objects regarded as usefully divine, and the cult
of the departed dead. This latter is almost universal, perhaps
pan-Aryan, and Weber is probably right in assuming that the primitive
Aryans believed in a future life. But Benfey's identification of
Tartaras with the Sanskrit Tal[=a]tala, the name of a special hell in
very late systems of cosmogony, is decidedly without the bearing he
would put upon it. The Sanskrit word may be taken directly from the
Greek, but of an Aryan source for both there is not the remotest
historical probability.
When, however, one comes to the Lord of the Dead he finds himself
already in a narrower circle. Yama is the Persian Yima, and the name
of Kerberos may have been once an adjective applied to the dog that
guarded the path to paradise; but other particular conceptions that
gather about each god point only to a period of Indo-Iranian unity.
Of the great nature-gods the sun is more than Aryan, but doubtless was
Aryan, for S[=u]rya is Helios, but Savitar is a development especially
Indian. Dy[=a]ús-pitar is Zeús-pater, Jupiter.[19] Trita, scarcely
Triton, is the Persian Thraetaona who conquers Vritra, as does Indra
in India. The last, on the other hand, is to be referred only
hesitatingly to the demon A[=n]dra of the Avesta. Varuna, despite
phonetic difficulties, probably is Ouranos; but Asura (Asen?) is a
title of many gods in India's first period, while the corresponding
Ahura is restricted to the good spirit, [Greek: kat hexochên]. The
seven [=A]dityas are reflected in the _Amesha Çpentas_ of Zoroastrian
Puritanism, but these are mere imitations, spiritualized and moralized
into abstractions. Bhaga is Slavic Bogu and Persian Bagha; Mitra is
Persian Mithra. The Açvins are all but in name the Greek gods
Dioskouroi, and correspond closely in detail (riding on horses,
healing and helping, originally twins of twilight). Tacitus gives a
parallel Teutonic pair (Germ. 43). Ushas, on the other hand, while
etymologically corresponding to Aurora, Eos, is a specially Indian
development, as Eos has no cult. V[=a]ta, Wind, is an aboriginal god,
and may perhaps be Wotan, Odin.[20] Parjanya, the rain-god, as Bühler
has shown, is one with Lithuanian Perkúna, and with the northern
Fiögyu. The 'fashioner,' Tvashtar (sun) is only Indo-Iranian;
Thw[=a]sha probably being the same word.
Of lesser mights, Angiras, name of fire, may be Persian _angaros_,
'fire-messenger' (compare [Greek: haggelos]), perhaps originally one
with Sk. _ang[=a]ra_, 'coal.'[21] Hebe has been identified with
_yavy[=a]_, young woman, but this word is enough to show that Hebe has
naught to do with the Indian pantheon. The Gandharva, moon, is
certainly one with the Persian Gandarewa, but can hardly be identical
with the Centaur. Saram[=a] seems to have, together with S[=a]rameya,
a Grecian parallel development in Helena (a goddess in Sparta),
Selene, Hermes; and Sarany[=u] may be the same with Erinnys, but these
are not Aryan figures in the form of their respective developments,
though they appear to be so in origin. It is scarcely possible that
Earth is an Aryan deity with a cult, though different Aryan (and
un-Aryan) nations regarded her as divine. The Maruts are especially
Indian and have no primitive identity as gods with Mars, though the
names may be radically connected. The fire-priests, Bhrigus, are
supposed to be one with the [Greek: phlegixu]. The fact that the fate
of each in later myth is to visit hell would presuppose, however, an
Aryan notion of a torture-hell, of which the Rig Veda has no
conception. The Aryan identity of the two myths is thereby made
uncertain, if not implausible. The special development in India of the
fire-priest that brings down fire from heaven, when compared with the
personification of the 'twirler' (Promantheus) in Greece, shows that
no detailed myth was current in primitive times.[22] The name of the
fire-priest, _brahman_ = fla(g)men(?), is an indication of the
primitive fire-cult in antithesis to the _soma_-cult, which latter
belongs to the narrower circle of the Hindus and Persians. Here,
however, in the identity of names for sacrifice (_yajna, yaçna_) and
of _barhis_, the sacrificial straw, of _soma = haoma_, together with
many other liturgical similarities, as in the case of the metres, one
must recognize a fully developed _soma_-cult prior to the separation
of the Hindus and Iranians.
Of demigods of evil type the _Y[=a]tus_ are both Hindu and Iranian,
but the priest-names of the one religion are evil names in the other,
as the _devas_, gods, of one are the _daevas_, demons, of the
other.[23] There are no other identifications that seem at
all certain in the strict province of religion, although in myth the
form of Manus, who is the Hindu Noah, has been associated with
Teutonic Mannus, and Greek Minos, noted in Thucydides for his
sea-faring. He is to Yama (later regarded as his brother) as is Noah
to Adam.
We do not lay stress on lack of equation in proper names, but, as
Schrader shows (p. 596 ff.), very few comparisons on this line have a
solid phonetic foundation. Minos, Manu; Ouranos, Varuna; Wotan,
V[=a]ta, are dubious; and some equate flamen with blôtan, sacrifice.
Other wider or narrower comparisons, such as Neptunus from _náp[=a]t
ap[=a]m,_ seem to us too daring to be believed. Apollo (_sapary_),
Aphrodite (Apsaras), Artamis (non-existent _[r.]tam[=a]l_), P[=a]n
(_pavana_), have been cleverly compared, but the identity of forms has
scarcely been proved. Nor is it important for the comparative
mythologist that Okeanus is 'lying around' (_[=a]çáy[=a]na_). More
than that is necessary to connect Ocean mythologically with the demon
that surrounds (swallows) the waters of the sky. The Vedic parallel is
rather Ras[=a], the far-off great 'stream.' It is rarely that one
finds Aryan equivalents in the land of fairies and fays. Yet are the
Hindu clever artizan Ribhus[24] our 'elves,' who, even to this day,
are distinct from fairies in their dexterity and cleverness, as every
wise child knows.
But animism, as simple spiritism, fetishism, perhaps ancestor-worship,
and polytheism, with the polydaemonism that may be called
chrematheism, exists from the beginning of the religious history,
undisturbed by the proximity of theism, pantheism, or atheism; exactly
as to-day in the Occident, beside theism and atheism, exist spiritism
and fetishism (with their inherent magic), and even ancestor-worship,
as implied by the reputed after-effect of parental curses.
When the circle is narrowed to that of the Indo-Iranian connection the
similarity in religion between the Veda and Avesta becomes much more
striking than in any other group, as has been shown. It is here that
the greatest discrepancy in opinion obtains among modern scholars.
Some are inclined to refer all that smacks of Persia to a remote
period of Indo-Iranian unity, and, in consequence, to connect all
tokens of contact with the west with far-away regions out of India. It
is scarcely possible that such can be the case. But, on the other
hand, it is unhistorical to connect, as do some scholars, the worship
of _soma_ and Varuna with a remote period of unity, and then with a
jump to admit a close connection between Veda and Avesta in the Vedic
period. The Vedic Aryans appear to have lived, so to speak, hand in
glove with the Iranians for a period long enough for the latter to
share in that advance of Varuna-worship from polytheism to
quasi-monotheism which is seen in the Rig Veda. This worship of Varuna
as a superior god, with his former equals ranged under him in a group,
chiefly obtains in that family (be it of priest or tribe, or be the
two essentially one from a religious point of view) which has least to
do with pure _soma_-worship, the inherited Indo-Iranian cult; and the
Persian Ahura, with the six spiritualized equivalents of the old Vedic
[=A]dityas, can have come into existence only as a direct
transformation of the latter cult, which in turn is later than the
cult that developed in one direction as chief of gods a Zeus; in
another, a Bhaga; in a third, an Odin. On the other hand, in the
gradual change in India of Iranic gods to devils, _asuras_, there is
an exact counterpart to the Iranian change of meaning from _deva_ to
_daeva_. But if this be the connection, it is impossible to assume a
long break between India and the west, and then such a sudden tie as
is indicated by the allusions in the Rig Veda to the Persians and
other western lands. The most reasonable view, therefore, appears to
be that the Vedic and Iranian Aryans were for a long time in contact,
that the contact began to cease as the two peoples separated to east
and west, but that after the two peoples separated communication was
sporadically kept up between them by individuals in the way of trade
or otherwise. This explains the still surviving relationship as it is
found in later hymns and in thank-offerings apparently involving
Iranian personages.
They that believe in a monotheistic Varuna-cult preceding the Vedic
polytheism must then ignore the following facts: The Slavic equivalent
of Bhaga and the Teutonic equivalent of V[=a]ta are to these
respective peoples their highest gods. They had no Varuna. Moreover,
there is not the slightest proof that Ouranos in Greece[25] was ever a
god worshipped as a great god before Zeus, nor is there any
probability that to the Hindu Dyaus Pitar was ever a great god, in the
sense that he ever had a special cult as supreme deity. He is
physically great, and physically he is father, as is Earth mother, but
he is religiously great only in the Hellenic-Italic circle, where
exists no Uranos-cult[26]. Rather is it apparent that the Greek raised
Zeus, as did the Slav Bhaga, to his first head of the pantheon. Now
when one sees that in the Vedic period Varuna is the type of
[=A]dityas, to which belong Bhaga and Mitra as distinctly less
important personages, it is plain that this can mean only that Varuna
has gradually been exalted to his position at the expense of the other
gods. Nor is there perfect uniformity between Persian and Hindu
conceptions. Asura in the Veda is not applied to Varuna alone. But in
the Avesta, Ahura is the one great spirit, and his six spirits are
plainly a protestant copy and modification of Varuna and his six
underlings. This, then, can mean--which stands in concordance with the
other parallels between the two religions--only that Zarathustra
borrows the Ahura idea from the Vedic Aryans at a time when Varuna was
become superior to the other gods, and when the Vedic cult is
established in its second phase[27]. To this fact points also the
evidence that shows how near together geographically were once the
Hindus and Persians. Whether one puts the place of separation at the
Kabul or further to the north-west is a matter of indifference. The
Persians borrow the idea of Varuna Asura, whose eye is the sun. They
spiritualize this, and create an Asura unknown to other nations.
Of von Bradke's attempt to prove an original Dyaus Asura we have said
nothing, because the attempt has failed signally. He imagines that the
epithet Asura was given to Dyaus in the Indo-Iranian period, and that
from a Dyaus Pitar Asura the Iranians made an abstract Asura, while
the Hindus raised the other gods and depressed Dyaus Pitar Asura;
whereas it is quite certain that Varuna (Asura) grew up, out, and over
the other Asuras, his former equals.
And yet it is almost a pity to spend time to demonstrate that
Varuna-worship was not monotheistic originally. We gladly admit that,
even if not a primitive monotheistic deity, Varuna yet is a god that
belongs to a very old period of Hindu literature. And, for a worship
so antique, how noble is the idea, how exalted is the completed
conception of him! Truly, the Hindus and Persians alone of Aryans
mount nearest to the high level of Hebraic thought. For Varuna beside
the loftiest figure in the Hellenic pantheon stands like a god beside
a man. The Greeks had, indeed, a surpassing aesthetic taste, but in
grandeur of religious ideas even the daring of Aeschylus becomes but
hesitating bravado when compared with the serene boldness of the Vedic
seers, who, first of their race, out of many gods imagined God.
In regard to eschatology, as in regard to myths, it has been shown
that the utmost caution in identification is called for. It may be
surmised that such or such a belief or legend is in origin one with a
like faith or tale of other peoples. But the question whether it be
one in historical origin or in universal mythopoetic fancy, and this
latter be the only common origin, must remain in almost every case
unanswered[28]. This is by far not so entertaining, nor so picturesque
a solution as is the explanation of a common historical basis for any
two legends, with its inspiring 'open sesame' to the door of the
locked past. But which is truer? Which accords more with the facts as
they are collected from a wider field? As man in the process of
development, in whatever quarter of earth he be located, makes for
himself independently clothes, language, and gods, so he makes myths
that are more or less like those of other peoples, and it is only when
names coincide and traits that are unknown elsewhere are strikingly
similar in any two mythologies that one has a right to argue a
probable community of origin.
But even if the legend of the flood were Babylonian, and the Asuras as
devils were due to Iranian influence--which can neither be proved nor
disproved--the fact remains that the Indian religion in its main
features is of a purely native character.
As the most prominent features of the Vedic religion must be regarded
the worship of _soma_ of nature-gods that are in part already more
than this, of spirits, and of the Manes; the acknowledgment of a moral
law and a belief in a life hereafter. There is also a vaguer nascent
belief in a creator apart from any natural phenomenon, but the creed
for the most part is poetically, indefinitely, stated: 'Most
wonder-working of the wonder-working gods, who made heaven and
earth'(as above). The corresponding Power is Cerus in Cerus-Creator
(Kronos?), although when a name is given, the Maker, Dh[=a]tar, is
employed; while Tvashtar, the artificer, is more an epithet of the sun
than of the unknown creator. The personification of Dh[=a]tar as
creator of the sun, etc., belongs to later Vedic times, and foreruns
the Father-god of the last Vedic period. Not till the classical age
(below) is found a formal identification of the Vedic nature-gods with
the departed Fathers (Manes). Indra, for example, is invoked in the
Rig Veda to 'be a friend, be a father, be more fatherly than the
fathers';[29] but this implies no patristic side in Indra, who is
called in the same hymn (vs. 4) the son of Dyaus (his father); and
Dyaus Pitar no more implies, as say some sciolists, that Dyaus was
regarded as a human ancestor than does 'Mother Earth' imply a belief
that Earth is the ghost of a dead woman.
In the Veda there is a nature-religion and an ancestor-religion. These
approach, but do not unite; they are felt as sundered beliefs.
Sun-myths, though by some denied _in toto_, appear plainly in the
Vedic hymns. Dead heroes may be gods, but gods, too, are natural
phenomena, and, again, they are abstractions. He that denies any one
of these sources of godhead is ignorant of India.
Müller, in his _Ancient Sanskrit Literature_, has divided Vedic
literature into four periods, that of _chandas_, songs; _mantras_,
texts; _br[=a]hmanas;_ and _s[=u]tras_. The _mantras_ are in
distinction from _chandas_, the later hymns to the earlier gods.[30]
The latter distinction can, however, be established only on subjective
grounds, and, though generally unimpeachable, is sometimes liable to
reversion. Thus, Müller looks upon RV. VIII. 30 as 'simple and
primitive,' while others see in this hymn a late _mantra_. Between the
Rig Veda and the Br[=a]hmanas, which are in prose, lies a period
filled out in part by the present form of the Atharva Veda, which, as
has been shown, is a Veda of the low cult that is almost ignored by
the Rig Veda, while it contains at the same time much that is later
than the Rig Veda, and consists of old and new together in a manner
entirely conformable to the state of every other Hindu work of early
times. After this epoch there is found in the liturgical period, into
which extend the later portions of the Rig Veda (noticeably parts of
the first, fourth, eighth, and tenth books), a religion which, in
spiritual tone, in metaphysical speculation, and even in the
interpretation of some of the natural divinities, differs not more
from the bulk of the Rig Veda than does the social status of the time
from that of the earlier text. Religion has become, in so far as the
gods are concerned, a ritual. But, except in the building up of a
Father-god, theology is at bottom not much altered, and the
eschatological conceptions remain about as they were, despite a
preliminary sign of the doctrine of metempsychosis. In the Atharva
Veda, for the first time, hell is known by its later name (xii. 4.
36), and perhaps its tortures; but the idea of future punishment
appears plainly first in the Brahmanic period. Both the doctrine of
re-birth and that of hell appear in the earliest S[=u]tras, and
consequently the assumption that these dogmas come from Buddhism does
not appear to be well founded; for it is to be presumed whatever
religious belief is established in legal literature will have preceded
that literature by a considerable period, certainly by a greater
length of time than that which divides the first Brahmanic law from
Buddhism.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Compare the accounts of Lafitau; of the native
Iroquois, baptized as Morgan; and the works of Schoolcraft
and Parkman.]
[Footnote 2: _Jesuits in North America_, Introduction, p.
lxi.]
[Footnote 3: "Like other Indians, the Hurons were desperate
gamblers, staking their all,--ornaments, clothing, canoes,
pipes, weapons, and wives," _loc. cit._ p. xxxvi. Compare
Palfrey, of Massachusetts Indians. The same is true of all
savages.]
[Footnote 4: _Ib._ p. lxvii.]
[Footnote 5: Compare _Çat. Br_. VI. 1. 1, 12; VII. 5. 1, 2
_sq_., for the Hindu tortoise in its first form. The
totem-form of the tortoise is well known in America.
(Brinton, _Myths of the New World_, p. 85.)]
[Footnote 6: Charlevoix ap. Parkman.]
[Footnote 7: Parkman, _loc. cit_. p. LXXII; Brinton, _Myths
of the New World_, p. 248. A good instance of bad comparison
in eschatology will be found in Geiger, _Ostir. Cult_. pp.
274-275.]
[Footnote 8: Parkman, _loc. cit_. p. LXXXVI.]
[Footnote 9: _Sits. Berl. Akad_. 1891, p. 15.]
[Footnote 10: Brinton, _American Hero Myths_, p. 174. The
first worship was Sun-worship, then Viracocha-worship arose,
which kept Sun-worship while it predicated a 'power beyond.]
[Footnote 11: Brinton, _Myths of the New World_, pp. 85,
203.]
[Footnote 12: _Ib_. pp. 86, 202.]
[Footnote 13: Brinton, _Myths of the New World_, p. 243. The
American Indians "uniformly regard the sun as heaven, the
soul goes to the sun."]
[Footnote 14: _Ib._ p. 245.]
[Footnote 15: _Ib._ p. 239-40.]
[Footnote 16: _Ib._ p. 50, 51.]
[Footnote 17: _Ib._ pp. 242, 248, 255; Schoolcraft, III.
229.]
[Footnote 18: Renouf, _Religion of Ancient Egypt_; pp. 103,
113 ff.]
[Footnote 19: Teutonic Tuisco is doubtful, as the identity
with Dyaus has lately been contested on phonetic grounds.]
[Footnote 20: V[=a]ta, ventus, does not agree very well with
Wotan.]
[Footnote 21: _[=A]it. Br._ III, 34. [Greek: haggaron pur]
is really tautological, but beacon fires gave way to
couriers and [Greek: haggaros] lost the sense of fire, as
did [Greek: haggelos].]
[Footnote 22: But the general belief that fire (Agni, Ignis,
Slavic ogni) was first brought to earth from heaven by a
half-divine personality is (at least) Aryan, as Kuhn has
shown.]
[Footnote 23: Compare the _kavis_ and _ugijs_ (poets and
priests) of the Veda with the evil spirits of the same names
in the Avesta, like _daeva_ = _deva_. Compare, besides, the
Indo-Iranian feasts, _medha_, that accompany this
Bacchanalian liquor-worship.]
[Footnote 24: Ludwig interprets the three Ribhus as the
three seasons personified. Etymologically connected is
Orpheus, perhaps.]
[Footnote 25: [Greek: o de chalkeos asphales aien edos menei
ouranos], Pind. N. vi. 5; compare Preller[4], p.40.]
[Footnote 26: Wahrscheinlich sind Uranos und Kronos erst aus
dem Culte des Zeus abstrahirt worden. Preller[4], p. 43.]
[Footnote 27: When Aryan deities are decadent, Trita, Mitra,
etc.]
[Footnote 28: Spiegel holds that the whole idea of future
punishment is derived from Persia (_Eranische
Altherthumskunde_, I. p. 458), but his point of view is
naturally prejudiced. The allusion to the supposed
Babylonian coin, _man[=a]_, in RV. VIII. 78. 2, would
indicate that the relation with Babylon is one of trade, as
with Aegypt. The account of the flood may be drawn thence,
so may the story of Deucalion, but both Hindu and Hellenic
versions may be as native as is that of the American
redskins.]
[Footnote 29: IV. 17. 17.]
[Footnote 30: _loc. cit._ pp. 70, 480.]
* * * * *
CHAPTER IX.
BRAHMANISM.
Besides the Rig Veda and the Atharva Veda there are two others, called
respectively the S[=a]ma Veda and the Yajur Veda.[1] The former
consists of a small collection of verses, which are taken chiefly from
the eighth and ninth books of the Rig Veda, and are arranged for
singing. It has a few more verses than are contained in the
corresponding parts of the Rik, but the whole is of no added
importance from the present point of view. It is of course made
entirely for the ritual. Also made for the ritual is the Yajur Veda,
the Veda of sacrificial formulae. But this Veda is far more important.
With it one is brought into a new land, and into a world of ideas that
are strange to the Rik. The period represented by it is a sort of
bridge between the Rik and the Br[=a]hmanas. The Yajus is later than
Rik or Atharvan, belonging in its entirety more to the age of the
liturgy than to the older Vedic era. With the Br[=a]hmanas not only is
the tone changed from that of the Rig Veda; the whole moral atmosphere
is now surcharged with hocus-pocus, mysticism, religiosity, instead of
the cheerful, real religion which, however formal, is the soul of the
Rik. In the Br[=a]hmanas there is no freshness, no poetry. There is in
some regards a more scrupulous outward morality, but for the rest
there is only cynicism, bigotry, and dullness. It is true that each of
these traits may be found in certain parts of the Rig Veda, but it is
not true that they represent there the spirit of the age, as they do
in the Brahmanic period. Of this Brahmanic stoa, to which we now turn,
the Yajur Veda forms the fitting entrance. Here the priest is as much
lord as he is in the Br[=a]hmanas. Here the sacrifice is only the act,
the sacrificial forms (_yajus_), without the spirit.
In distinction from the verse-Veda (the Rik), the Yajur Veda contains
the special formulae which the priest that attends to the erection of
the altar has to speak, with explanatory remarks added thereto. This
of course stamps the collection as mechanical; but the wonder is that
this collection, with the similar Br[=a]hmana scriptures that follow
it, should be the only new literature which centuries have to show.[2]
As explanatory of the sacrifice there is found, indeed, a good deal of
legendary stuff, which sometimes has a literary character. But nothing
is for itself; everything is for the correct performance of the
sacrifice.[3]
The geographical centre is now changed, and instead of the Punj[=a]b,
the 'middle district' becomes the seat of culture. Nor is there much
difference between the district to which can be referred the rise of
the Yajur Veda and that of the Br[=a]hmanas. No less altered is the
religion. All is now symbolical, and the gods, though in general they
are the gods of the Rig Veda, are not the same as of old. The priests
have become gods. The old appellation of 'spirit,' _asura_, is
confined to evil spirits. There is no longer any such 'henotheism' as
that of the Rig Veda. The Father-god, 'lord of beings,' or simply 'the
father,' is the chief god. The last thought of the Rig Veda is the
first thought of the Yajur Veda. Other changes have taken place. The
demigods of the older period, the water-nymphs of the Rik, here become
seductive goddesses, whose increase of power in this art agrees with
the decline of the warrior spirit that is shown too in the whole mode
of thinking. Most important is the gradual rise of Vishnu and the
first appearance of Çiva. Here _brahma_, which in the Rik has the
meaning 'prayer' alone, is no longer mere prayer, but, as in later
literature, holiness. In short, before the Br[=a]hmanas are reached
they are perceptible in the near distance, in the Veda of Formulae,
the Yajus;[4] for between the Yajur Veda and the Br[=a]hmanas there is
no essential difference. The latter consist of explanations of the
sacrificial liturgy, interspersed with legends, bits of history,
philosophical explanations, and other matter more or less related to
the subject. They are completed by the Forest Books, [=A]ranyakas,
which contain the speculations of the later theosophy, the Upanishads
(below). It is with the Yajur Veda and its nearly related literature,
the Br[=a]hmanas, that Brahmanism really begins. Of these latter the
most important in age and content are the Br[=a]hmanas (of the Rig
Veda and Yajur Veda), called [=A]itareya and Çata-patha, the former
representing the western district, the latter, in great part, a more
eastern region.
Although the 'Northerners' are still respectfully referred to, yet, as
we have just said, the people among whom arose the Br[=a]hmanas are
not settled in the Punj[=a]b, but in the country called the 'middle
district,' round about the modern Delhi. For the most part the
Punj[=a]b is abandoned; or rather, the literature of this period does
not emanate from the Aryans that remained in the Punj[=a]b, but from
the still emigrating descendants of the old Vedic people that used to
live there. Some stay behind and keep the older practices, not in all
regards looked upon as orthodox by their more advanced brethren, who
have pushed east and now live in the country called the land of the
Kurus and Pa[.n]c[=a]las.[5] They are spread farther east, along the
banks of the Jumna and Ganges, south of Nep[=a]l; while some are still
about and south of the holy Kurukshetra or 'plain of Kurus.' East of
the middle district the Kosalas and Videhas form, in opposition to the
Kurus and Pa[.n]c[=a]las, the second great tribe (Tirh[=u]t). There
are now two sets of 'Seven Rivers,' and the holiness of the western
group is perceptibly lessened. Here for the first time are found the
_Vr[=a]tya_-hymns, intended to initiate into the Brahmanic order
Aryans who have not conformed to it, and speak a dialectic
language.[6] From the point of view of language and geography, no less
than from that of the social and spiritual conditions, it is evident
that quite a period has elapsed since the body of the Rig Veda was
composed. The revealed texts are now ancient storehouses of wisdom.
Religion has apparently become a form; in some regards it is a farce.
"There are two kinds of gods; for the gods are gods, and priests that
are learned in the Veda and teach it are human gods." This sentence,
from one of the most important Hindu prose works,[7] is the key to the
religion of the period which it represents; and it is fitly followed
by the further statement, that like sacrifice to the gods are the fees
paid to the human gods the priests.[8] Yet with this dictum, so
important for the understanding of the religion of the age, must be
joined another, if one would do that age full justice: 'The sacrifice
is like a ship sailing heavenward; if there be a sinful priest in it,
that one priest would make it sink' (_Çat. Br_. IV. 2. 5. 10). For
although the time is one in which ritualism had, indeed, become more
important than religion, and the priest more important than the gods,
yet is there no lack of reverential feeling, nor is morality regarded
as unimportant. The first impression, however, which is gained from
the literature of this period is that the sacrifice is all in all;
that the endless details of its course, and the petty questions in
regard to its arrangement, are not only the principal objects of care
and of chief moment, but even of so cardinal importance that the whole
religious spirit swings upon them. But such is not altogether the
case. It is the truth, yet is it not the whole truth, that in these
Br[=a]hmanas religion is an appearance, not a reality. The sacrifice
is indeed represented to be the only door to prosperity on earth and
to future bliss; but there is a quiet yet persistent belief that at
bottom a moral and religious life is quite as essential as are the
ritualistic observances with which worship is accompanied.
To describe Brahmanism as implying a religion that is purely one of
ceremonies, one composed entirely of observances, is therefore not
altogether correct. In reading a liturgical work it must not be
forgotten for what the work was intended. If its object be simply to
inculcate a special rite, one cannot demand that it should show
breadth of view or elevation of sentiment. Composed of observances
every work must be of which the aim is to explain observances. In
point of fact, religion (faith and moral behavior) is here assumed,
and so entirely is it taken for granted that a statement emphasizing
the necessity of godliness is seldom found.
Nevertheless, having called attention to the religious spirit that
lies latent in the pedantic Br[=a]hmanas, we are willing to
admit that the age is overcast, not only with a thick cloud of
ritualism, but also with an unpleasant mask of phariseeism. There
cannot have been quite so much attention paid to the outside of the
platter without neglect of the inside. And it is true that the priests
of this period strive more for the completion of their rites than for
the perfection of themselves. It is true, also, that occasionally
there is a revolting contempt for those people who are not of especial
service to the priest. There are now two godlike aristocrats, the
priest and the noble. The 'people' are regarded as only fit to be the
"food of the nobility." In the symbolical language of the time the
bricks of the altar, which are consecrated, are the warrior caste; the
fillings, in the space between the bricks, are not consecrated; and
these "fillers of space" are "the people" (_Çat. Br_. VI. 1. 2. 25).
Yet is religion in these books not dead, but sleeping; to wake again
in the Upanishads with a fuller spiritual life than is found in any
other pre-Christian system. Although the subject matter of the
Br[=a]hmanas is the cult, yet are there found in them numerous
legends, moral teachings, philosophical fancies, historical items,
etymologies and other adventitious matter, all of which are helpful in
giving a better understanding of the intelligence of the people to
whom is due all the extant literature of the period. Long citations
from these ritualistic productions would have a certain value, in
showing in native form the character of the works, but they would make
unendurable reading; and we have thought it better to arrange the
multifarious contents of the chief Br[=a]hmanas in a sort of order,
although it is difficult always to decide where theology ends and
moral teachings begin, the two are here so interwoven.
BRAHMANIC THEOLOGY AND THE SACRIFICE.
While in general the pantheon of the Rig Veda and Atharva Veda is that
of the Br[=a]hmanas, some of the older gods are now reduced in
importance, and, on the other hand, as in the Yajur Veda, some gods
are seen to be growing in importance. 'Time,' deified in the Atharvan,
is a great god, but beside him still stand the old rustic divinities;
and chrematheism, which antedates even the Rig Veda, is still
recognized. To the 'ploughshare' and the 'plough' the Rig Veda has an
hymn (IV. 57. 5-8), and so the ritual gives them a cake at the
sacrifice (_Çun[=a]ç[=i]rya, Çat. Br._ II. 6. 3. 5). The number of the
gods, in the Rig Veda estimated as thirty-three, or, at the end of
this period, as thousands, remains as doubtful as ever; but, in
general, all groups of deities become greater in number. Thus, in TS.
I. 4. 11. 1, the Rudras alone are counted as thirty-three instead of
eleven; and, _ib._ V. 5. 2. 5, the eight Vasus become three hundred
and thirty-three; but it is elsewhere hinted that the number of the
gods stands in the same relation to that of men as that in which men
stand to the beasts; that is, there are not quite so many gods as men
(_Çat. Br._ II. 3. 2. 18).
Of more importance than the addition of new deities is the subdivision
of the old. As one finds in Greece a [Greek: Zeus katachthonios]
beside a [Greek: Zeus xenios], so in the Yajur Veda and Br[=a]hmanas
are found (an extreme instance) hail 'to K[=a]ya,' and hail 'to
Kasm[=a]i,' that is, the god Ka is differentiated into two divinities,
according as he is declined as a noun or as a pronoun; for this is the
god "Who?" as the dull Br[=a]hmanas interpreted that verse of the Rig
Veda which asks 'to whom (which, as) god shall we offer sacrifice?'
(M[=a]it. S. III. 12. 5.) But ordinarily one divinity like Agni is
subdivided, according to his functions, as 'lord of food,' 'lord of
prayer,' etc.[9]
In the Br[=a]hmanas different names are given to the chief god, but he
is most often called the Father-god (Praj[=a]pati, 'lord of
creatures,' or the Father, _pit[=a]_). His earlier Vedic type is
Brihaspati, the lord of strength, and, from another point of
view, the All-god.[10] The other gods fall into various groups, the
most significant being the triad of Fire, Wind, and Sun.[11] Not much
weight is to be laid on the theological speculations of the time as
indicative of primitive conceptions, although they may occasionally
hit true. For out of the number of inane fancies it is reasonable to
suppose that some might coincide with historic facts. Thus the
All-gods of the Rig Veda, by implication, are of later origin than the
other gods, and this, very likely, was the case; but it is a mere
guess on the part of the priest. The _Çatapatha_, III. 6. 1. 28,
speaks of the All-gods as gods that gained immortality on a certain
occasion, _i.e._, became immortal like other gods. So the [=A]dityas
go to heaven before the Angirasas (_[=A][=i]t. Br_. IV. 17), but this
has no such historical importance as some scholars are inclined to
think. The lesser gods are in part carefully grouped and numbered, in
a manner somewhat contradictory to what must have been the earlier
belief. Thus the 'three kinds of gods' are now Vasus, of earth,
Rudras, of air, and [=A]dityas, of sky, and the daily offerings are
divided between them; the morning offering belonging only to the
Vasus, the mid-day one only to (Indra and) the Rudras, the third to
the [=A]dityas with the Vasus and Rudras together.[12] Again, the
morning and mid-day pressing belong to the gods alone, and strict rule
is observed in distinguishing their portion from that of the Manes
(_Çat. Br_. IV. 4. 22). The difference of sex is quite ignored, so
that the 'universal Agni' is identified with (mother) earth; as is
also, once or twice, P[=u]shan (_ib._ III. 8. 5. 4; 2. 4. 19; II. 5.
4. 7). As the 'progenitor,' Agni facilitates connubial union, and is
called "the head god, the progenitor among gods, the lord of beings"
(_ib._ III. 4. 3. 4; III. 9. 1. 6). P[=u]shan is interpreted to mean
cattle, and Brihaspati is the priestly caste (_ib_. III. 9. 1. 10
ff.). The base of comparison is usually easy to find. 'The earth
nourishes,' and 'P[=u]shan nourishes,' hence Pushan is the earth; or
'the earth belongs to all' and Agni is called 'belonging to all'
(universal), hence the two are identified. The All-gods, merely on
account of their name, are now the All; Aditi is the 'unbounded' earth
(_ib_. III. 9. 1. 13; IV. 1. 1. 23; i. 1. 4. 5; III. 2. 3. 6). Agni
represents all the gods, and he is the dearest, the closest, and the
surest of all the gods (_ib_. I. 6. 2. 8 ff.). It is said that man on
earth fathers the fire (that is, protects it), and when he dies the
fire that he has made his son on earth becomes his father, causing him
to be reborn in heaven (_ib_. II. 3. 3. 3-5; VI. 1. 2. 26).
The wives of the gods _(dev[=a]n[=a]m patn[=i]r yajati)_, occasionally
mentioned in the Rig Veda, have now an established place and cult
apart from that of the gods (_ib_. I. 9. 2. 11). The fire on the
hearth is god Agni in person, and is not a divine or mystic type; but
he is prayed to as a heavenly friend. Some of these traits are old,
but they are exaggerated as compared with the more ancient theology.
When one goes on a journey or returns from one, 'even if a king were
in his house' he should not greet him till he makes homage to his
hearth-fires, either with spoken words or with silent obeisance. For
Agni and Praj[=a]pati are one, they are son and father (_ib_. II. 4.
1. 3, 10; VI. 1. 2. 26). The gods have mystic names, and these 'who
will dare to speak?' Thus, Indra's mystic name is Arjuna (_ib_. II. 1.
2. 11). In the early period of the Rig Veda the priest dares to speak.
The pantheism of the end of the Rig Veda is here decided and
plain-spoken, as it is in the Atharvan. As it burns brightly or not
the fire is in turn identified with different gods, Rudra, Varuna,
Indra, and Mitra (_ib_. II. 3. 2. 9 ff.). Agni is all the gods and the
gods are in men (_ib_. III. 1. 3. 1; 4. 1. 19; II. 3. 2. 1: Indra and
King Yama dwell in men). And, again, the Father (Praj[=a]pati) is the
All; he is the year of twelve months and five seasons(_ib_. I. 3. 5.
10). Then follows a characteristic bit. Seventeen verses are to be
recited to correspond to the 'seventeenfold' Praj[=a]pati. But 'some
say' twenty-one verses; and he may recite twenty-one, for if 'the
three worlds' are added to the above seventeen one gets twenty, and
the sun (_ya esa tapati_) makes the twenty-first! As to the number of
worlds, it is said (_ib_. I. 2. 4. 11, 20-21) that there are three
worlds, and possibly a fourth.
Soma is now the moon, but as being one half of Vritra, the evil demon.
The other half became the belly of creatures (_ib_. I. 6. 3. 17).
Slightly different is the statement that Soma was Vritra, IV. 2. 5.
15. In _[=A]it. Br._ I. 27, King Soma is bought of the Gandharvas by
V[=a]c, 'speech,' as a cow.[13] With phases of the moon Indra and Agni
are identified. One is the deity of the new; the other, of the full
moon; while Mitra is the waning, and Varuna the waxing moon (_Çat.
Br._ II. 4. 4. 17-18). This opposition of deities is more fully
expressed in the attempt to make antithetic the relations of the gods
and the Manes, thus: 'The gods are represented by spring, summer, and
rains; the Fathers, by autumn, winter, and the dewy season; the gods,
by the waxing; the Fathers, by the waning moon; the gods, by day; the
Fathers, by night; the gods, by morning; the Fathers, by afternoon'
(_Çat. Br._ II. 1.-31; _ib_. II. 4. 2. 1. ff.: 'The sun is the light
of the gods; the moon, of the Fathers; fire, of men'). Between morning
and afternoon, as representative of gods and Manes respectively,
stands midday, which, according to the same authority (II. 4. 2. 8),
represents men. The passage first cited continues thus: 'The seasons
are gods and Fathers; gods are immortal; the Fathers are mortal.' In
regard to the relation between spring and the other seasons, the fifth
section of this passage may be compared: 'Spring is the priesthood;
summer, the warrior-caste; the rains are the (_viç_) people.'[14]
Among the conspicuous divine forms of this period is the Queen of
Serpents, whose verses are chanted over fire; but she is the earth,
according to some passages (_[=A]it. Br._. V. 23; _Çat. Br._ II. 1. 4.
30; IV. 6. 9. 17). In their divine origin there is, indeed, according
to the theology now current, no difference between the powers of light
and of darkness, between the gods and the 'spirits,' _asuras, i.e._,
evil spirits. Many tales begin with the formula: 'The gods and evil
spirits, both born of the Father-god' (_Çat. Br._ I. 2. 4. 8). Weber
thinks that this implies close acquaintance with Persian worship, a
sort of tit-for-tat; for the Hindu would in that case call the holy
spirit, _ahura_, of the Persian a devil, just as the Persian makes an
evil spirit, _daeva_, out of the Hindu god, _deva_. But the relations
between Hindu and Persian in this period are still very uncertain. It
is interesting to follow out some of the Brahmanic legends, if only to
see what was the conception of the evil spirits. In one such
theological legend the gods and the (evil) spirits, both being sons of
the Father-god, inherited from him, respectively, mind and speech;
hence the gods got the sacrifice and heaven, while the evil spirits
got this earth. Again, the two entered on the inheritance of their
father in time, and so the gods have the waxing moon, and the evil
spirits, the waning moon (_ib._ III 2. 1. 18; I. 7. 2. 22).
But what these Asuras or (evil) spirits really are may be read easily
from the texts. The gods are the spirits of light; the Asuras are the
spirits of darkness. Therewith is indissolubly connected the idea that
sin and darkness are of the same nature. So one reads that when the
sun rises it frees itself 'from darkness, from sin,' as a snake from
its slough (_ib._ II. 3. I. 6). And in another passage it is said that
darkness and illusion were given to the Asuras as their portion by the
Father-god _(ib._ II. 4. 2. 5). With this may be compared also the
frequent grouping of The Asuras or Rakshas with darkness (_e.g., ib._
III. 8. 2. 15; IV. 3. 4. 21). As to the nature of the gods the
evidence is contradictóry. Both gods and evil spirits were originally
soulless and mortal. Agni (Fire) alone was immortal, and it was only
through him that the others continued to live. They became immortal by
putting in their inmost being the holy (immortal) fire (_ib._ II. 2.
2. 8). On the other hand, it is said that Agni was originally without
brightness; and Indra, identified with the sun, was originally dark
(_ib._ IV. 5.4.3; III. 4. 2. 15). The belief in an originally human
condition of the gods (even the Father-god was originally mortal) is
exemplified in a further passage, where it is said that the gods used
to live on earth, but they grew tired of man's endless petitions and
fled; also in another place, where it is stated that the gods used to
drink together with men visibly, but now they do so invisibly (_ib_.
II. 3. 4. 4; III. 6. 2. 26). How did such gods obtain their supremacy?
The answer is simple, 'by sacrifice' (_Çat. Br_. III. 1. 4. 3;
_[=A]it. Br_. II. I. I). So now they live by sacrifice: 'The sun would
not rise if the priest did not make sacrifice' (_Çat. Br_. II. 3. 1.
5). Even the order of things would change if the order of ceremonial
were varied: Night would be eternal if the priests did so and so; the
months would not pass, one following the other, if the priests walked
out or entered together, etc. (_ib._ IV. 3. 1. 9-10). It is by a
knowledge of the Vedas that one conquers all things, and the sacrifice
is part and application of this knowledge, which in one passage is
thus reconditely subdivided: 'Threefold is knowledge, the Rig Veda,
the Yajur Veda, and the S[=a]ma Veda.[15] The Rig Veda, _i.e_., the
verses sung, are the earth; the Yajus is air; the S[=a]man is the sky.
He conquers earth, air, and sky respectively by these three Vedas. The
Rik and S[=a]man are Indra and are speech; the Yajus is Vishnu and
mind' (_ib._ IV. 6. 7. 1 ff.). An item follows that touches on a
modern philosophical question. Apropos of speech and mind: 'Where
speech (alone) existed everything was accomplished and known; but
where mind (alone) existed nothing was accomplished or known' (_ib._
I. 4. 4. 3-4, 7). Mind and speech are male and female, and as
yoke-fellows bear sacrificed to the gods; to be compared is the
interesting dispute between mind and speech (_ib._ 5. 8). As dependent
as is man on what is given by the gods, so dependent are the gods on
what is offered to them by men (_T[=a]itt. Br._ II. 2. 7. 3; _Çat.
Br._ I. 2. 5. 24). Even the gods are now not native to heaven. They
win heaven by sacrifice, by metres, etc. (_Çat. Br._ IV. 3. 2. 5).
What, then, is the sacrifice? A means to enter into the godhead of the
gods, and even to control the gods; a ceremony where every word was
pregnant with consequences;[16] every movement momentous. There are
indications, however, that the priests themselves understood that much
in the ceremonial was pure hocus-pocus, and not of such importance as
it was reputed to be. But such faint traces as survive of a freer
spirit objecting to ceremonial absurdities only mark more clearly the
level plain of unintelligent superstition which was the feeding-ground
of the ordinary priests.
Some of the cases of revolted common-sense are worth citing.
Conspicuous as an authority on the sacrifice, and at the same time as
a somewhat recalcitrant priest, is Y[=a]j[.n]avalkya, author and
critic, one of the greatest names in Hindu ecclesiastical history. It
was he who, apropos of the new rule in ethics, so strongly insisted
upon after the Vedic age and already beginning to obtain, the rule
that no one should eat the flesh of the (sacred) cow ('Let no one eat
beef.... Whoever eats it would be reborn (on earth) as a man of ill
fame') said bluntly: 'As for me I eat (beef) if it is good (firm).[17]
It certainly required courage to say this, with the especial warning
against beef, the meat of an animal peculiarly holy (_Çat. Br._ III.
I. 2. 21). It was, again, Y[=a]jñavalkya (_Çat. Br_., I. 3. I. 26),
who protested against the priests' new demand that the benefit of the
sacrifice should accrue in part to the priest; whereas it had
previously been understood that not the sacrificial priest but the
sacrificer (the worshipper, the man who hired the priest and paid the
expenses) got all the benefit of the ceremony. Against the priests'
novel and unjustifiable claim Y[=a]jñavalkya exclaims: 'How can people
have faith in this? Whatever be the blessing for which the priests
pray, this blessing is for the worshipper (sacrificer) alone.[18] It
was Y[=a]jñavalkya, too, who rebutted some new superstition involving
the sacrificer's wife, with the sneer, 'who cares whether the wife,'
etc. (_kas tad [=a]driyeta, ib._ 21). These protestations are naïvely
recorded, though it is once suggested that in some of his utterances
Y[=a]jñavalkya was not in earnest (_ib._ IV. 2. 1. 7). The high mind
of this great priest is contrasted with the mundane views of his
contemporaries in the prayers of himself and of another priest; for it
is recorded that whereas Y[=a]jñavalkya's prayer to the Sun was 'give
me light' (or 'glory,' _varco me dehi_), that of [=A]upoditeya was
'give me cows' (_ib_. I. 9. 3. 16). The chronicler adds, after citing
these prayers, that one obtains whatever he prays for, either
illumination or wealth.[19] Y[=a]jñavalkya, however, is not the only
protestant. In another passage, _ib_. ii. 6. 3. 14-17, the sacrificer
is told to shave his head all around, so as to be like the sun; this
will ensure his being able to 'consume (his foes) on all sides like
the sun,' and it is added: But [=A]suri said, 'What on earth has it to
do with his head? Let him not shave.'[20]
'Eternal holiness' is won by him that offers the sacrifice of the
seasons. Characteristic is the explanation, 'for such an one wins the
year, and a year is a complete whole, and a complete whole is
indestructible (eternal); hence his holiness is indestructible, and he
thereby becomes a part of a year and goes to the gods; but as there is
no destruction in the gods, his holiness is therefore indestructible'
(_ib._ ii. 6. 3. 1).
Not only a man's self but also his Manes are benefited by means of
sacrifice.[21] He gives the Manes pleasure with his offering, but he
also raises their estate, and sends them up to live in a higher
world.[22] The cosmological position of the Manes are the
_av[=a]ntaradiças_, that is, between the four quarters; though,
according to some, there are three kinds of them, _soma_-Manes,
sacrifice-Manes (Manes of the sacrificial straw), and the burnt,
_i.e_., the spirits of those that have been consumed in fire. They
are, again, identified with the seasons, and are expressly mentioned
as the guardians of houses, so that the Brahmanic Manes are at once
Penates, Lares, and Manes.[23]
The sacrifice is by no means meant as an aid to the acquirement of
heavenly bliss alone. Many of the great sacrifices are for the gaining
of good things on earth. In one passage there is described a ceremony,
the result of which is to be that the warrior, who is the sacrificer,
may say to a man of the people "fetch out and give me your store"
(_ib._ i. 3. 2. 15; iv. 3. 3. 10). Everybody sacrifices, even the
beasts erect altars and fires![24] That one should sacrifice without
the ulterior motive of gain is unknown. Brahmanic India knows no
thank-offering. Ordinarily the gain is represented as a compensating
gift from the divinity, whom the sacrificer pleases with his
sacrifice. Very plainly is this expressed. "He offers the sacrifice to
the god with this text: 'Do thou give to me (and) I (will) give to
thee; do thou bestow on me (and) I (will) bestow on thee'" (_V[=a]j.
S._ iii. 50; _Çat. Br_. ii. 5. 3. 19). But other ends are
accomplished. By the sacrifice he may injure his enemy, but in
offering it, if he leaves too much over, that part accrues to the good
of his foe (_Çat. Br_. i. 2. 1.7; 9. 1. 18).
The sacrifice is throughout symbolical. The sacrificial straw
represents the world; the metre used represents all living creatures,
etc.,--a symbolism frequently suggested by a mere pun, but often as
ridiculously expounded without such aid. The altar's measure is the
measure of metres. The cord of regeneration (badge of the twice-born,
the holy cord of the high castes) is triple, because food is
threefold, or because the father and mother with the child make three
(_Çat. Br._ iii. 5. 1. 7 ff.; 2. 1. 12); the _jagati_ metre contains
the living world, because this is called _jagat_ (_ib._ i. 8. 2. 11).
Out of the varied mass of rules, speculations, and fancies, a few of
general character may find place here, that the reader may gain a
collective impression of the religious literature of the time.
The fee for the sacrifice is mentioned in one place as one thousand
cows. These must be presented in groups of three hundred and
thirty-three each, three times, with an odd one of three colors. This
is on account of the holy character of the numeral three. 'But
[=A]suri (apparently fearful that this rule would limit the fee) said
"he may give more"' (_Çat. Br._ iv. 5. 8. 14). As to the fee, the
rules are precise and their propounders are unblushing. The priest
performs the sacrifice for the fee alone, and it must consist of
valuable garments, kine, horses,[25] or gold--when each is to be given
is carefully stated. Gold is coveted most, for this is 'immortality,'
'the seed of Agni,' and therefore peculiarly agreeable to the pious
priest.[26] For his greed, which goes so far that he proclaims that he
who gives a thousand kine obtains all things of heaven (_ib._ iv. 5.
1. 11), the priest has good precept to cite, for the gods of heaven,
in all the tales told of them, ever demand a reward from each other
when they help their neighbor-gods. Nay, even the gods require a
witness and a vow, lest they injure each other. Discord arose among
them when once they performed the guest-offering; they divided into
different parties, Agni with the Vasus, Soma with the Rudras, Varuna
with the [=A]dityas, and Indra with the Maruts. But with discord came
weakness, and the evil spirits got the better of them. So they made a
covenant with each other, and took Wind as witness that they would not
deceive each other. This famous covenant of the gods is the prototype
of that significant covenant made by the priest, that he would not,
while pretending to beseech } good for the sacrificer,[27] secretly do
him harm (as he could by altering the ceremonial).[28] The theory of
the fee, in so far as it affects the sacrifices, is that the gods, the
Manes, and men all exist by what is sacrificed. Even the gods seek
rewards; hence the priests do the same.[29] The sacrificer sacrifices
to get a place in _devaloka_ (the world of the gods). The sacrifice
goes up to the world of gods, and after it goes the fee which the
sacrificer (the patron) gives; the sacrificer follows by catching hold
of the fee given to the priests (_ib._. i. 9. 3. 1). It is to be
noted, moreover, that sacrificing for a fee is recognized as a
profession. The work (sacrifice is work, 'work is sacrifice,' it is
somewhere said) is regarded as a matter of business. There are three
means of livelihood occasionally referred to, telling stories, singing
songs, and reciting the Veda at a sacrifice (_Çat. Br_. iii. 2. 4.
16).
As an example of the absurdities given as 'the ways of knowledge'
(absurdities which are necessary to know in order to a full
understanding of the mental state under consideration) may be cited
_Çat. Br_. iv. 5. 8. 11, where it is said that if the sacrificial cow
goes east the sacrificer wins a good world hereafter; if north, he
becomes more glorious on earth; if west, rich in people and crops; if
south, he dies; 'such are the ways of knowledge.' In the same spirit
it is said that the sun rises east because the priest repeats certain
verses _([=A]it. Br_. i. 7. 4). No little stress is laid on
geographical position. The east is the quarter of the gods; the north,
of men; the south, of the dead (Manes; _Çat. Br_. i. 2. 5. 17); while
the west is the region of snakes, according to _ib_. iii. 1. 1. 7. On
account of the godly nature of the east ("from the east came the gods
westward to men," _ib_. ii. 6. 1. 11) the sacrificial building, like
occidental churches, is built east and west, not north and south. The
cardinal points are elsewhere given to certain gods; thus the north is
Rudra's.[30]
It has been said that the theological ideas are not clear. This was
inevitable, owing to the tendency to identify various divinities.
Especially noticeable is the identification of new or local gods with
others better accredited, Rudra and Agni, etc. Rudra is the god of
cattle, and when the other gods went to heaven by means of sacrifice
he remained on earth; his local names are Çarva, Bhava, 'Beast-lord,'
Rudra, Agni (_Çat. Br_. i. 7. 3. 8; M[=a]it. S. i. 6. 6). Indra is the
Vasu of the gods. The gods are occasionally thirty-four in number,
eight Vasus, eleven Rudras, twelve [=A]dityas, heaven and earth, and
Praj[=a]pati as the thirty-fourth; but this Praj[=a]pati is the All
and Everything (_Çat. Br_. i. 6. 4. 2; iv. 5. 7. 2 ff.). Of these
gods, who at first were all alike and good, three became superior,
Agni, Indra, and S[=u]rya. But, again, the Sun is death, and Agni is
head of all the gods. Moreover, the Sun is now Indra; the Manes are
the seasons, and Varuna, too, is the seasons, as being the year (_Çat.
Br._ iv. 5. 4. 1; i. 6. 4. 18; iv. 4. 5. 18). Aditi, as we have said,
is the Earth; the fee for an offering to her is a cow. Why? Because
Earth is a cow and Aditi is Earth; Earth is a mother and a cow is a
mother. Hence the fee is a cow.[31]
The tales of the gods, for the most part, are foolish. But they show
well what conception the priests had of their divinities.
Man's original skin was put by the gods upon the cow; hence a cow runs
away from a man because she thinks he is trying to get back his skin.
The gods cluster about at an oblation, each crying out 'My name,'
_i.e._, each is anxious to get it. The gods, with the evil
spirits--'both sons of the Father'--attract to themselves the plants;
Varuna gets the barley by a pun. They build castles to defend
themselves from the evil spirits. Five gods are picked out as worthy
of offerings: Aditi, Speech, Agni, Soma, the Sun (five, because the
seasons are five and the regions are five). Indra and Wind have a
dispute of possession; Praj[=a]pati, the Father, decides it. The
heavenly singers, called the Gandharvas, recited the Veda to entice
(the divine female) Speech to come to them; while the gods, for the
same purpose, created the lute, and sang and played to her. She came
to the gods; hence the weakness of women in regard to such things.
Indra is the god of sacrifice; the stake of the sacrifice is Vishnu's;
V[=a]yu (Wind) is the leader of beasts; Bhaga is blind;[32] P[=u]shan
(because he eats mush) is toothless. The gods run a race to see who
shall get first to the sacrifice, and Indra and Agni win; they are the
warrior-caste among the gods, and the All-gods are the people (_viçve,
viç._). Yet, again, the Maruts are the people, and Varuna is the
warrior-caste; and, again, Soma is the warrior-caste. The Father-god
first created birds, then reptiles and snakes. As these all died he
created mammalia; these survived because they had food in themselves;
hence the Vedic poet says 'three generations have passed away.'[33]
Varuna is now quite the god of night and god of purification, as a
water-god. Water is the 'essence (sap) of immortality,' and the bath
of purification at the end of the sacrifice (_avabh[r.]tha_) stands in
direct relation to Varuna. The formula to be repeated is: "With the
gods' help may I wash out sin against the gods; with the help of men
the sin against men" (_Çat. Br_. iv. 4. 3. 15; ii. 5. 2. 47). Mitra
and Varuna are, respectively, intelligence and will, priest and
warrior; and while the former may exist without the latter, the latter
cannot live without the former, 'but they are perfect only when they
coöperate' (_ib_. iv. 1. 4. 1).
Of the divine legends some are old, some new. One speaks of the
sacrifice as having been at first human, subsequently changing to
beast sacrifice, eventually to a rice offering, which last now
represents the original sacrificial animal, man.[34] Famous, too, is
the legend of the flood and Father Manu's escape from it (_Çat. Br_.
i. 8. 1. 1 ff.). Again, the Vedic myth is retold, recounting the rape
of _soma_ by the metrical equivalent of fire (_T[=a]itt. Br_. i. 1. 3.
10; _Çat. Br_. i. 8. 2. 10). Another tale takes up anew the old story
of Cupid and Psyche (Pur[=u]ravas and Urvaç[=i]); and another that of
the Hindu Prometheus story, wherein M[=a]tariçvan fetches fire from
heaven, and gives it to mortals (_T[=a]itt. Br_. iii. 2. 3. 2; _Çat.
Br_. xi. 5. 1. 1; i. 7. 1. 11).[35]
Interesting, also, is the tale of Vishnu having been a dwarf, and the
tortoise _avatar_, not of Vishnu, but of Praj[=a]pati; also the
attempt of the evil spirits to climb to heaven, and the trick with
which Indra outwitted them.[36] For it is noticeable that the evil
spirits are as strong by nature as are the gods, and it is only by
craft that the latter prevail.[37]
Seldom are the tales of the gods indecent. The story of Praj[=a]pati's
incest with his daughter is a remnant of nature worship which
survives, in more or less anthropomorphic form, from the time of the
Rig Veda (x. 61.) to that of mediaeval literature,[38] and is found in
full in the epic, as in the Brahmanic period; but the story always
ends with the horror of the gods at the act.[39]
Old legends are varied. The victory over Vritra is now expounded thus:
Indra, who slays Vritra, is the sun. Vritra is the moon, who swims
into the sun's mouth on the night of the new moon. The sun rises after
swallowing him, and the moon is invisible because he is swallowed ("he
who knows this swallows his foes"). The sun vomits out the moon, and
the latter is then seen in the west, and increases again, to serve the
sun as food. In another passage it is said that when the moon is
invisible he is hiding in plants and waters (_Çat. Br._ i. 6. 3. 17;
4. 18-20).
BRAHMANIC RELIGION.
When the sacrifice is completed the priest returns, as it were, to
earth, and becomes human. He formally puts off his sacrificial vow,
and rehabilitates himself with humanity, saying, "I am even he that I
am."[40] As such a man, through service to the gods become a divine
offering, and no longer human, was doubtless considered the creature
that first served as the sacrificial animal. Despite protestant
legends such as that just recorded, despite formal disclaimers, human
sacrifice existed long after the period of the Rig Veda, where it is
alluded to; a period when even old men are exposed to die.[41] The
_anaddh[=a]purusha_ is not a fiction; for that, on certain occasions,
instead of this 'man of straw' a real victim was offered, is shown by
the ritual manuals and by Brahmanic texts.[42] Thus, in _Çat. Br_. vi.
2. 1. 18: "He kills a man first.... The cord that holds the man is the
longest." It is noteworthy that also among the American Indians the
death of a human victim by fire was regarded as a religious ceremony,
and that, just as in India the man to be sacrificed was allowed almost
all his desires for a year, so the victim of the Indian was first
greeted as brother and presented with gifts, even with a wife.[43]
But this, the terrible barbaric side of religious worship, is now
distinctly yielding to a more humane religion. The 'barley ewe'[44] is
taking the place of a bloodier offering. It has been urged that the
humanity[45] and the accompanying silliness of the Brahmanic period as
compared with the more robust character of the earlier age are due to
the weakening and softening effects of the climate. But we doubt
whether the climate of the Punj[=a]b differs as much from that of
Delhi and Patna as does the character of the Rig Veda from that of the
Br[=a]hmanas. We shall protest again when we come to the subject of
Buddhism against the too great influence which has been claimed for
climate. Politics and society, in our opinion, had more to do with
altering the religions of India than had a higher temperature and
miasma. As a result of ease and sloth--for the Brahmans are now the
divine pampered servants of established kings, not the energetic peers
of a changing population of warriors--the priests had lost the
inspiration that came from action; they now made no new hymns; they
only formulated new rules of sacrifice. They became intellectually
debauched and altogether weakened in character. Synchronous with this
universal degradation and lack of fibre, is found the occasional
substitution of barley and rice sacrifices for those of blood; and it
may be that a sort of selfish charity was at work here, and the priest
saved the beast to spare himself. But there is no very early evidence
of a humane view of sacrifice influencing the priests.
The Brahman is no Jain. One must read far to hear a note of the
approaching _ahims[=a]_ doctrine of 'non-injury.' At most one finds a
contemptuous allusion, as in a pitying strain, to the poor plants and
animals that follow after man in reaping some sacrificial benefit from
a ceremony.[46] It does not seem to us that a recognized respect for
animal life or kindness to dumb creatures lies at the root of proxy
sacrifice, though it doubtless came in play. But still less does it
appear probable that, as is often said, aversion to beast-sacrifice is
due to the doctrine of _karma_, and re-birth in animal form. The
_karma_ notion begins to appear in the Brahmanas, but not in the
_sams[=a]ra_ shape of transmigration. It was surely not because the
Hindu was afraid of eating his deceased grandmother that he first
abstained from meat. For, long after the doctrine of _karma_ and
_sams[=a]ra_[47] is established, animal sacrifices are not only
permitted but enjoined; and the epic characters shoot deer and even
eat cows. We think, in short, that the change began as a sumptuary
measure only. In the case of human sacrifice there is doubtless a
civilized repugnance to the act, which is clearly seen in many
passages where the slaughter of man is made purely symbolical. The
only wonder is that it should have obtained so long after the age of
the Rig Veda. But like the stone knife of sacrifice among the Romans
it is received custom, and hard to do away with, for priests are
conservative. Human sacrifice must have been peculiarly horrible from
the fact that the sacrificer not only had to kill the man but to eat
him, as is attested by the formal statement of the liturgical
works.[48] But in the case of other animals (there are five
sacrificial animals, of which man is first) we think it was a question
of expense on the part of the laity. When the _soma_ became rare and
expensive, substitutes were permitted and enjoined. So with the great
sacrifices. The priests had built up a great complex of forms, where
at every turn fees were demanded. The whole expense, falling on the
one individual to whose benefit accrued the sacrifice, must have been
enormous; in the case of ordinary people impossible. But the priests
then permitted the sacrifice of substitutes, for their fees still
remained; and even in the case of human sacrifice some such caution
may have worked, for ordinarily it cost 'one thousand cattle' to buy a
man to be sacrificed. A proof of this lies in the fact that animal
sacrifices were not forbidden at any time, only smaller (cheaper)
animals took the place of cattle. In the completed Brahmanic code the
rule is that animals ought not to be killed except at sacrifice, and
practically the smaller creatures were substituted for cattle, just as
the latter had gradually taken the place of the old horse (and man)
sacrifice.
If advancing civilization results in an agreeable change of morality
in many regards, it is yet accompanied with wretched traits in others.
The whole silliness of superstition exceeds belief. Because
Bh[=a]llabheya once broke his arm on changing the metre of certain
formulae, it is evident to the priest that it is wrong to trifle with
received metres, and hence "let no one do this hereafter." There is a
compensation on reading such trash in the thought that all this
superstition has kept for us a carefully preserved text, but that is
an accident of priestly foolishness, and the priest can be credited
only with the folly. Why is 'horse-grass' used in the sacrifice?
Because the sacrifice once ran away and "became a horse." Again one is
thankful for the historical side-light on the horse-sacrifice; but the
witlessness of the unconscious historian can but bring him into
contempt.[49] Charms that are said against one are of course cast out
by other charms. If one is not prosperous with one name he takes
another. If the cart creaks at the sacrifice it is the voice of evil
spirits; and a formula must avert the omen. _Soma_-husks are liable to
turn into snakes; a formula must avert this catastrophe. Everything
done at the sacrifice is godly; _ergo_, everything human is to be done
in an inhuman manner, and, since in human practice one cuts his left
finger-nails first and combs the left side of the beard first, at the
sacrifice he must cut nails and beard first on the other side, for
"whatever is human at a sacrifice is useless" (_vy[r.]ddhain v[=a]i
tad yajñasya yad m[=a]nu[s.]am_). Of religious puns we have given
instances already. Agni says: "prop me on the propper for that is
proper" (_hita_), etc, etc.[50] One of these examples of depraved
superstition is of a more dangerous nature. The effect of the
sacrifice is covert as well as overt.
The word is as potent as the act. Consequently if the sacrificer
during the sacrifice merely mutter the words "let such an one die," he
must die; for the sacrifice is holy, godly; the words are divine, and
cannot be frustrated (_Çat. Br_. iii. 1. 4. 1; iv. 1. 1. 26).
All this superstition would be pardonable if it were primitive. But
that it comes long after the Vedic poets have sung reveals a
continuance of stupidity which is marvellous. Doubtless those same
poets were just as superstitious, but one would think that with all
the great literature behind them, and the thoughts of the philosophers
just rising among them, these later priests might show a higher level
of intelligence. But in this regard they are to India what were the
monks of mediaeval times to Europe.
We turn now to the ethical side of religion. But, before leaving the
sacrifice, one point should be explained clearly. The Hindu sacrifice
can be performed only by the priest, and he must be of the highest
caste. No other might or could perform it. For he alone understood the
ancient texts, which to the laity were already only half intelligible.
Again, as Barth has pointed out, the Hindu sacrifice is performed only
for one individual or his family. It was an expensive rite (for the
gaining of one object), addressed to many gods for the benefit of one
man. To offset this, however, one must remember that there were
popular fêtes and sacrifices of a more general nature, to which many
were invited and in which even the lower castes took part; and these
were also of remote antiquity.
Already current in the Br[=a]hmanas is the phrase 'man's debts.'
Either three or four of such moral obligations were recognized, debts
to the gods, to the seers, to the Manes, and to men. Whoever pays
these debts, it is said, has discharged all his duties, and by him all
is obtained, all is won. And what are these duties? To the gods he
owes sacrifices; to the seers, study of the Vedas; to the Manes,
offspring; to man, hospitality (_Çat. Br_. i. 7. 2. 1 ff.; in
_T[=a]itt. Br_. vi. 3. 10. 5, the last fails). Translated into modern
equivalents this means that man must have faith and good works. But
more really is demanded than is stated here. First and foremost is the
duty of truthfulness. Agni is the lord of vows among the gods (RV.
viii. 11. 1; _Çat. Br_. iii. 2. 2. 24), and speech is a divinity
(Sarasvat[=i] is personified speech, _Çat. Br_. iii. 1. 4. 9, etc).
Truth is a religious as well as moral duty. "This (All) is two-fold,
there is no third; all is either truth or untruth; now truth alone is
the gods (_satyam eva dev[=a]s_) and untruth is man."[51] Moreover,
"one law the gods observe, truth" (_Çat. Br_. i. 1.1. 4; iii. 3. 2. 2;
4. 2. 8). There is another passage upon this subject: "To serve the
sacred fire means truth; he who speaks truth feeds the fire; he who
speaks lies pours water on it; in the one case he strengthens his
vital (spiritual) energy, and becomes better; in the other he weakens
it and becomes worse" (_ib_. ii. 2. 2. 19). The second sin, expressly
named and reprobated as such, is adultery. This is a sin against
Varuna.[52] In connection with this there is an interesting passage
implying a priestly confessional. At the sacrifice the sacrificer's
wife is formally asked by the priest whether she is faithful to her
husband. She is asked this that she may not sacrifice with guilt on
her soul, for "when confessed the guilt becomes less."[53] If it is
asked what other moral virtues are especially inculcated besides truth
and purity the answer is that the acts commonly cited as
self-evidently sins are murder, theft, and abortion; incidentally,
gluttony, anger, and procrastination.[54]
As to the moral virtue of observing days, certain times are allowed
and certain times are not allowed for worldly acts. But every day is
in part a holy-day to the Hindu. The list of virtues is about the
same, therefore, as that of the decalogue--the worship of the right
divinity; the observance of certain seasons for prayer and sacrifice;
honor to the parents; abstinence from theft, murder, adultery. Envy
alone is omitted.[55]
What eschatological conceptions are strewn through the literature of
this era are vague and often contradictory. The souls of the departed
are at one time spoken of as the stars (_T[=a]itt. S_. v. 4. 1. 3.); at
another, as uniting with gods and living in the world of the gods
_(Çal. Br._. ii. 6. 4. 8).
The principle of _karma_ if not the theory, is already known, but the
very thing that the completed philosopher abhors is looked upon as a
blessing, viz., rebirth, body and all, even on earth.[56] Thus in one
passage, as a reward for knowing some divine mystery (as often
happens, this mystery is of little importance, only that 'spring is
born again out of winter'), the savant is to be 'born again in this
world' _(punar ha v[=a] 'asmin loke bhavati, Çat. Br._ i. 5. 3. 14).
The esoteric wisdom is here the transfer of the doctrine of
metempsychosis to spring. Man has no hope of immortal life (on
earth);[57] but, by establishing the holy fires, and especially by
establishing in his inmost soul the immortal element of fire, he lives
the full desirable length of life (_ib_. ii. 2. 2. 14. To the later
sage, length of life is undesirable). But in yonder world, where the
sun itself is death, the soul dies again and again. All those on the
other side of the sun, the gods, are immortal; but all those on this
side are exposed to this death. When the sun wishes, he draws out the
vitality of any one, and then that one dies; not once, but, being
drawn up by the sun, which is death, into the very realm of death (how
different to the conception of the sun in the Rig Veda!) he dies over
and over again.[58] But in another passage it is said that when the
sacrificer is consecrated he 'becomes one of the deities'; and one
even finds the doctrine that one obtains 'union with Brahm[=a],' which
is quite in the strain of the Upanishads; but here such a saying can
refer only to the upper castes, for "the gods talk only to the upper
castes" (_Çal. Br._. xi. 4. 4. 1; iii. 1. 1. 8-10). The dead man is
elsewhere represented as going to heaven 'with his whole body,' and,
according to one passage, when he gets to the next world his good and
evil are weighed in a balance. There are, then, quite diverse views in
regard to the fate of a man after death, and not less various are the
opinions in regard to his reward and punishment. According to the
common belief the dead, on leaving this world, pass between two fires,
_agniçikhe_ raging on either side of his path. These fires burn the
one that ought to be burned (the wicked), and let the good pass by.
Then the spirit (or the man himself in body) is represented as going
up on one of two paths. Either he goes to the Manes on a path which,
according to later teaching, passes southeast through the moon, or he
goes northeast (the gods' direction) to the sun, which is his 'course
and stay.' In the same chapter one is informed that the rays of the
sun are the good (dead), and that every brightest light is the
Father-god. The general conception here is that the sun or the stars
are the destination of the pious. On the other hand it is said that
one will enjoy the fruit of his acts here on earth, in a new birth; or
that he will 'go to the next world'; or that he will suffer for his
sins in hell. The last is told in legendary form, and appears to us to
be not an early view retained in folk-lore, but a late modification of
an old legend. Varuna sends his son Bhrigu to hell to find out what
happens after death, and he finds people suffering torture, and,
again, avenging themselves on those that have wronged them. But,
despite the resemblance between this and Grecian myth, the fact that
in the whole compass of the Rik (in the Atharvan perhaps in v. 19)
there is not the slightest allusion to torture in hell, precludes, to
our mind, the possibility of this phase having been an ancient
inherited belief.[59]
Annihilation or a life in under darkness is the first (Rik) hell. The
general antithesis of light (as good) and darkness (as bad) is here
plainly revealed again. Sometimes a little variation occurs. Thus,
according to _Çat. Br._ vi. 5. 4. 8, the stars are women-souls,
perhaps, as elsewhere, men also. The converse notion that darkness is
the abode of evil appears at a very early date: "Indra brought down
the heathen, _dasyus_, into the lowest darkness," it is said in the
Atharva Veda (ix. 2. 17).[60]
In the later part of the great 'Br[=a]hmana of the hundred paths'
there seems to be a more modern view inculcated in regard to the fate
of the dead. Thus, in vi. 1. 2. 36, the opinion of 'some,' that the
fire on the altar is to bear the worshipper to the sky, is objected
to, and it is explained that he becomes immortal; which antithesis is
in purely Upanishadic style, as will be seen below.
BRAHMANIC THEORIES OF CREATION.
In Vedic polytheism, with its strain of pantheism, the act of creating
the world[61] is variously attributed to different gods. At the end of
this period theosophy invented the god of the golden germ, the great
Person (known also by other titles), who is the one (pantheistic) god,
in whom all things are contained, and who himself is contain in even
the smallest thing. The Atharvan transfers the same idea in its
delineation of the pantheistic image to Varuna, that Varuna who is the
seas and yet is contained "in the drop of water" (iv. 16), a Varuna as
different to the Varuna of the Rik as is the Atharvan Indra to his
older prototype. Philosophically the Rik, at its close, declares that
"desire is the seed of mind," and that "being arises from not-being."
In the Br[=a]hmanas the creator is the All-god in more anthropomorphic
form. The Father-god, Praj[=a]pati, or Brahm[=a] (personal equivalent
of _brahma_) is not only the father of gods, men, and devils, but he
is the All. This Father-god of universal sovereignty, Brahm[=a],
remains to the end the personal creator. It is he who will serve as
creator for the Puranic S[=a]nkhya philosophy, and even after the rise
of the Hindu sects he will still be regarded in this light, although
his activity will be conditioned by the will of Vishnu or Çiva. In
pure philosophy there will be an abstract First Cause; but as there is
no religion in the acknowledgment of a First Cause, this too will soon
be anthropomorphized.
The Br[=a]hmanas themselves present no clear picture of creation. All
the accounts of a personal creator are based merely on
anthropomorphized versions of the text 'desire is the seed.'
Praj[=a]pati wishes offspring, and creates. There is, on the other
hand, a philosophy of creation which reverts to the tale of the
'golden germ.'[62] The world was at first water; thereon floated a
cosmic golden egg (the principle of fire). Out of this came Spirit
that desired; and by desire he begat the worlds and all things. It is
improbable that in this somewhat Orphic mystery there lies any
pre-Vedic myth. The notion comes up first in the golden germ and
egg-born bird (sun) of the Rik. It is not specially Aryan, and is
found even among the American Indians.[63] It is this Spirit with
which the Father-god is identified. But guess-work philosophy then
asks what upheld this god, and answers that a support upheld all
things. So Support becomes a god in his turn, and, since he must reach
through time and space, this Support, Skambha, becomes the All-god
also; and to him as to a great divinity the Atharvan sings some of its
wildest strains. When once speculation is set going in the
Br[=a]hmanas, the result of its travel is to land its followers in
intellectual chaos.[64] The gods create the Father-god in one passage,
and in another the Father-god creates the gods. The Father creates the
waters, whence rises the golden egg. But, again, the waters create the
egg, and out of the egg is born the Father. A farrago of
contradictions is all that these tales amount to, nor are they
redeemed even by a poetical garb.[65]
In the period immediately following the Br[=a]hmanas, or toward the
end of the Brahmanic period, as one will, there is a famous
distinction made between the gods. Some gods, it is said, are
spirit-gods; some are work-gods. They are born of spirit and of works,
respectively. The difference, however, is not essential, but
functional; so that one may conclude from this authority, the Nirukta
(a grammatical and epexigetical work), that all the gods have a like
nature; and that the spirit-gods, who are the older, differ only in
lack of specific functions from the work-gods. A not uninteresting
debate follows this passage in regard to the true nature of the gods.
Some people say they are anthropomorphic; others deny this. "And
certainly what is seen of the gods is not anthropomorphic; for
example, the sun, the earth, etc."[66] In such a period of theological
advance it is matter of indifference to which of a group of gods, all
essentially one, is laid the task of creation. And, indeed, from the
Vedic period until the completed systems of philosophy, all creation
to the philosopher is but emanation; and stories of specific acts of
creation are not regarded by him as detracting from the creative
faculty of the First Cause. The actual creator is for him the factor
and agent of the real god. On the other hand, the vulgar worshipper of
every era believed only in reproduction on the part of an
anthropomorphic god; and that god's own origin he satisfactorily
explained by the myth of the golden egg. The view depended in each
case not on the age but on the man.
If in these many pages devoted to the Br[=a]hmanas we have produced
the impression that the religious literature of this period is a
confused jumble, where unite descriptions of ceremonies, formulae,
mysticism, superstitions, and all the output of active bigotry; an
_olla podrida_ which contains, indeed, odds and ends of sound
morality, while it presents, on the whole, a sad view of the
latter-day saints, who devoted their lives to making it what it is; we
have offered a fairly correct view of the age and its priests, and the
rather dreary series of illustrations will not have been collected in
vain. We have given, however, no notion at all of the chief object of
this class of writings, the liturgical details of the sacrifices
themselves. Even a résumé of one comparatively short ceremony would be
so long and tedious that the explication of the intricate formalities
would scarcely be a sufficient reward. With Hillebrandt's patient
analysis of the New-and Full-Moon sacrifice,[67] of which a sketch is
given by von Schroeder in his _Literatur und Cultur_, the curious
reader will be able to satisfy himself that a minute description of
these ceremonies would do little to further his knowledge of the
religion, when once he grasps the fact that the sacrifice is but show.
Symbolism without folk-lore, only with the imbecile imaginings of a
daft mysticism, is the soul of it; and its outer form is a certain
number of formulae, mechanical movements, oblations, and
slaughterings.
But we ought not to close the account of the era without giving
counter-illustrations of the legendary aspect of this religion; for
which purpose we select two of the best-known tales, one from the end
of the Br[=a]hmana that is called the [=A]itareya; the other from the
beginning of the Çatapatha; the former in abstract, the latter in
full.
THE SACRIFICE OF DOGSTAIL (_[=A]it. Br._ vii. 13).
Hariçcandra, a king born in the great race of Ikshv[=a]ku, had no son.
A sage told him what blessings are his who has a son: 'He that has no
son has no place in the world; in the person of a son a man is reborn,
a second self is begotten.' Then the king desired a son, and the sage
instructed him to pray to Varuna for one, and to offer to sacrifice
him to the god. This he did, and a son, Rohita, at last was born to
him. God Varuna demanded the sacrifice. But the king said: 'He is not
fit to be sacrificed, so young as he is; wait till he is ten days
old.' The god waited ten days, and demanded the sacrifice. But the
king said: 'Wait till his teeth come.' The god waited, and then
demanded the sacrifice. But the king said: 'Wait till his teeth fall
out'; and when the god had waited, and again demanded the sacrifice,
the father said: 'Wait till his new teeth come.' But, when his teeth
were come and he was demanded, the father said: 'A warrior is not fit
to be sacrificed till he has received his armor' (_i.e._, until he is
knighted). So the god waited till the boy had received his armor, and
then he demanded the sacrifice. Thereupon, the king called his son,
and said unto him: 'I will sacrifice thee to the god who gave thee to
me.' But the son said, 'No, no,' and took his bow and fled into the
desert. Then Varuna caused the king to be afflicted with dropsy.[68]
When Rohita heard of this he was about to return, but Indra, disguised
as a priest, met him, and said: 'Wander on, for the foot of a wanderer
is like a flower; his spirit grows, and reaps fruit, and all his sins
are forgiven in the fatigue of wandering.'[69] So Rohita, thinking
that a priest had commanded him, wandered; and every year, as he would
return, Indra met him, and told him still to wander. On one of these
occasions Indra inspires him to continue on his journey by telling him
that the _krita_ was now auspicious; using the names of dice
afterwards applied to the four ages.[70] Finally, after six years,
Rohita resolved to purchase a substitute for sacrifice. He meets a
starving seer, and offers to buy one of his sons (to serve as
sacrifice), the price to be one hundred cows. The seer has three sons,
and agrees to the bargain; but "the father said, 'Do not take the
oldest,' and the mother said, 'Do not take the youngest,' so Rohita
took the middle son, Dogstail." Varuna immediately agrees to this
substitution of Dogstail for Rohita, "since a priest is of more value
than a warrior."
The sacrifice is made ready, and Viçv[=a]mitra (the Vedic seer) is the
officiating priest. But no one would bind the boy to the post. 'If
thou wilt give me another hundred cows I will bind him,' says the
father of Dogstail. But then no one would kill the boy. 'If thou wilt
give me another hundred cows I will kill him,' says the father. The
[=A]pri verses[71] are said, and the fire is carried around the boy.
He is about to be slain. Then Dogstail prays to 'the first of gods,'
the Father-god, for protection. But the Father-god tells him to pray
to Agni, 'the nearest of the gods.' Agni sends him to another, and he
to another, till at last, when the boy has prayed to all the gods,
including the All-gods, his fetters drop off; Hariçcandra's dropsy
ceases, and all ends well.[72] Only, when the avaricious father
demands his son back, he is refused, and Viçv[=a]mitra adopts the boy,
even dispossessing his own protesting sons. For fifty of the latter
agree to the exaltation of Dogstail; but fifty revolt, and are cursed
by Viçv[=a]mitra, that their sons' sons should become barbarians, the
Andhras, Pundras, Çabaras, Pulindas, and M[=u]tibas, savage races (of
this time), one of which can be located on the southeast coast. The
conclusion, and the matter that follows close on this tale, is
significant of the time, and of the priest's authority. For it is said
that 'if a king hears this story he is made free of sin,' but he can
hear it only from a priest, who is to be rewarded for telling it by a
gift of one thousand cows, and other rich goods.
The matter following, to which we have alluded, is the use of
sacrificial formulae to defeat the king's foes, the description of a
royal inauguration, and, at this ceremony, the oath which the king has
to swear ere the priest will anoint him (he is anointed with milk,
honey, butter, and water, 'for water is immortality'): "I swear that
thou mayst take from me whatever good works I do to the day of my
death, together with my life and children, if ever I should do thee
harm."[73]
When the priest is secretly told how he may ruin the king by a false
invocation at the sacrifice, and the king is made to swear that if
ever he hurts the priest the latter may rob him of earthly and
heavenly felicity, the respective positions of the two, and the
contrast between this era and that of the early hymns, become
strikingly evident. It is not from such an age as this that one can
explain the spirit of the Rig Veda.
The next selection is the famous story of the flood, which we
translate literally in its older form.[74] The object of the legend in
the Br[=a]hmana is to explain the importance of the Id[=a] (or Il[=a])
ceremony, which is identified with Id[=a], Manu's daughter.
"In the morning they brought water to Manu to wash with, even as they
bring it to-day to wash hands with. While he was washing a fish came
into his hands. The fish said, 'Keep me, and I will save thee.' 'What
wilt thou save me from?' 'A flood will sweep away all creatures on
earth. I will save thee from that.' 'How am I to keep thee?' 'As long
as we are small,' said he (the fish), 'we are subject to much
destruction; fish eats fish. Thou shalt keep me first in a jar. When I
outgrow that, thou shalt dig a hole, and keep me in it. When I outgrow
that, thou shalt take me down to the sea, for there I shall be beyond
destruction.'
"It soon became a (great horned fish called a) _jhasha_, for this
grows the largest, and then it said: 'The flood will come this summer
(or in such a year). Look out for (or worship) me, and build a ship.
When the flood rises, enter into the ship, and I will save thee.'
After he had kept it he took it down to the sea. And the same summer
(year) as the fish had told him he looked out for (or worshipped) the
fish; and built a ship. And when the flood rose he entered into the
ship. Then up swam the fish, and Manu tied the ship's rope to the horn
of the fish; and thus he sailed swiftly up toward the mountain of the
north. 'I have saved thee' said he (the fish). 'Fasten the ship to a
tree. But let not the water leave thee stranded while thou art on the
mountain (top). Descend slowly as the water goes down.' So he
descended slowly, and that descent of the mountain of the north is
called the 'Descent of Manu.' The flood then swept off all the
creatures of the earth, and Manu here remained alone. Desirous of
posterity, he worshipped and performed austerities. While he was
performing a sacrifice, he offered up in the waters clarified butter,
sour milk, whey and curds. Out of these in a year was produced a
woman. She arose when she was solid, and clarified butter collected
where she trod. Mitra and Varuna met her, and said: 'Who art thou?'
'Manu's daughter,' said she. 'Say ours,' said they. 'No,' said she; 'I
am my father's.' They wanted part in her. She agreed to this, and she
did not agree; but she went by them and came to Manu. Said Manu: 'Who
art thou?' 'Thy daughter,' said she. 'How my daughter, glorious
woman?' She said: 'Thou hast begotten me of the offering, which thou
madest in the water, clarified butter, sour milk, whey, and curds. I
am a blessing; use me at the sacrifice. If thou usest me at the
sacrifice, thou shalt become rich in children and cattle. Whatever
blessing thou invokest through me, all shall be granted to thee.' So
he used her as the blessing in the middle of the sacrifice. For what
is between the introductory and final offerings is the middle of the
sacrifice. With her he went on worshipping and performing austerities,
wishing for offspring. Through her he begot the race of men on earth,
the race of Manu; and whatever the blessing he invoked through her,
all was granted unto him.
"Now she is the same with the Id[=a] ceremony; and whoever, knowing
this, performs sacrifice with the Id[=a], he begets the race that Manu
generated; and whatever blessing he invokes through her, all is
granted unto him."
There is one of the earliest _avatar_ stories in this tale. Later
writers, of course, identify the fish with Brahm[=a] and with Vishnu.
In other early Br[=a]hmanas the _avatars_ of a god as a tortoise and a
boar were known long before they were appropriated by the Vishnuites.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: In _[=A]it. Br_. I. 22, there is an unexplained
antithesis of Rik, Yajus, S[=a]man, Veda, and Brahma; where
the commentator takes Veda to be Atharva Veda. The priests,
belonging respectively to the first three Vedas, are for the
Rig Veda, the Hotar priest, who recites; for the S[=a]man,
the Udg[=a]tar, 'the singer'; for the Y[=a]jus, the
Adhvaryu, who attends to the erection of the altar, etc.
Compare Müller, ASL. p. 468.]
[Footnote 2: It is the only literature of its time except
(an important exception) those fore-runners of later
S[=u]tra and epic which one may suppose to be in process of
formation long before they come to the front.]
[Footnote 3: There are several schools of this Veda, of
which the chief are the V[=a]jasaneyi, or 'White Yajus,'
collection; the T[=a]ittir[=i]ya collection; and the
M[=a]itr[=a]yan[=i] collection; the first named being the
latest though the most popular, the last two being the
foremost representatives of the 'Black Yajus.']
[Footnote 4: The different traits here recorded are given
with many illustrative examples by Schroeder, in his
_Literatur und Cultur_, p. 90 ff.]
[Footnote 5: Compare Weber, _Ind. Streifen_, II. 197.]
[Footnote 6: Weber, _Lit_. p. 73.]
[Footnote 7: The _Çata-patha Br[=a]hmana_ (or "Br[=a]mana of
the hundred paths") II. 2. 2. 6; 4.3.14.]
[Footnote 8: The chief family priest, it is said in the
_Çat. Br_. II. 4. 4. 5, is a man of great influence.
Sometimes one priest becomes religious head of two clans (an
extraordinary event, however; only one name is reported) and
then how exalted is his position. Probably, as in the later
age of the drama, the chief priest often at the same time
practically prime minister. It is said in another part of
the same book that although the whole earth is divine, yet
it is the priest that makes holy the place of sacrifice
(III. 1. 1. 4). In this period murder is defined as killing
a priest; other cases are not called murder. Weber, _IS_. X.
66.]
[Footnote 9: Barth, _loc. cit._ p. 42.]
[Footnote 10: He has analogy with Agni in being made of
'seven persons (males),' _Çat. Br._ X. 2. 2. 1.]
[Footnote 11: Compare M[=a]it. S. IV. 2. 12, 'sons of
Praj[=a]pati, Agni, V[=a]yu, S[=u]rya.']
[Footnote 12: _Çat. Br._ I. 3. 4. 12; IV. 3. 5. 1.]
[Footnote 13: Interesting is the fact that only priests may
eat sacrificial food and drink _soma_ at this period. When
even the king should drink _soma_, he is made to drink some
transubstantiated liquor which, the priests inform him, has
been 'made into _soma_' for him by magic, for the latter is
too holy for any warrior really to drink (VII. 19; VIII.
20). But in the more popular feasts there are indications
that this rule is often broken. Compare Weber,
_R[=a]jas[=u]ya_ p. 98.]
[Footnote 14: For the relations of the different castes at
this period, see Weber, in the tenth volume of the _Indische
Studien_.]
[Footnote 15: The Atharvan is not yet recognized as a Veda.]
[Footnote 16: And even the pronunciation of a word or the
accent is fateful. The famous godly example of this is where
Tvashtar, the artificer, in anger mispronounced
_indra-çátru_ as _indraçatru,_ whereby the meaning was
changed from 'conqueror of Indra' to 'Indra-conquered,' with
unexpected result (_Çat. Br._ I. 6. 3. 8; _T[=a]itt. S._ II.
4. 12. 1).]
[Footnote 17: The word is _a[.m]sala_, strong, or 'from the
shoulder' (?). In III. 4. 1. 2 one cooks an ox or a goat for
a very distinguished guest, as a sort of guest-sacrifice. So
the guest is called 'cow-killer' (Weber, _Ved. Beiträge_, p.
36).]
[Footnote 18: Compare _ib_. I. 9. 1. 21, "let the priest not
say 'guard me (or us),' but 'guard this worshipper
(sacrificer),' for if he says 'me' he induces no blessing at
all; the blessing is not for the priest, but for the
sacrificer." In both passages, most emphatically,
_yajam[=a]nasy[=a]iva_, 'for the sacrificer alone.']
[Footnote 19: _Ya[.m] k[=a]ma[.m] k[=a]mayate so 'sm[=a]i
k[=a]ma[h.] sam[r.]dhyate_.]
[Footnote 20: [=A]suri's name as a theologian is important,
since the S[=a]nkhya philosophy is intimately connected with
him; if this [=A]suri be not another man with the same name
(compare Weber, _Lit_. p. 152).]
[Footnote 21: The regular sacrifices to the Manes are daily
and monthly; funerals and 'faith-feasts,' _çr[=a]ddha_, are
occasional additions.]
[Footnote 22: Each generation of Manes rises to a better
(higher) state if the offerings continue. As a matter of
ceremonial this means that the remoter generations of
fathers are put indefinitely far off, while the immediate
predecessors of a man are the real beneficiaries; they climb
up to the sky on the offering.]
[Footnote 23: Compare _Çat. Br_. i. 8. 1. 40; ii. 6. 1. 3,
7, 10, 42; ii. 4. 2. 24; v. 5. 4. 28.]
[Footnote 24: This passage (_ib_. ii. 1. 2. 7) is preceded
by a typical argument for setting up the fires under the
Pleiades, the wives of the Great Bear stars. He may do or he
may not do so--the reasons contradict each other, and all of
them are incredibly silly.]
[Footnote 25: This last fee is not so common. For an
oblation to S[=u]rya the fee is a white horse or a white
bull; either of them representing the proper form of the sun
(_Çat. Br_. ii. 6. 3. 9); but another authority specifies
twelve oxen and a plough (T[=a]itt. S. i. 8. 7).]
[Footnote 26: _Çat. Br_. ii. 1. 1. 3; 2. 3. 28; iv. 3. 4.
14; 5. 1. 15; four kinds of fees, _ib_. iv. 3. 4. 6, 7, 24
ff. (Milk is also 'Agni's seed,' _ib_. ii. 2. 4. 15).]
[Footnote 27: Yet in _[=A]it. Br_. iii. 19, the priest is
coolly informed how he may be able to slay his patron by
making a little change in the invocations. Elsewhere such
conduct is reprobated.]
[Footnote 28: For other covenants, see the epic (chapter on
Hinduism).]
[Footnote 29: _Çat. Br_. iii. 4. 2. 1 ff.; iii. 6. 2. 25;
iv. 3. 3. 3; iv. 4.1.17; 6. 6. 3; 7. 6, etc.; iii. 8. 2. 27;
3. 26; _[=A]it. Br._. i. 24.]
[Footnote 30: _ib_. ii. 6. 2. 5. Here Rudra (compare Çiva
and Hekate of the cross-roads) is said to go upon
'cross-roads'; so that his sacrifice is on cross-roads--one
of the new teachings since the time of the Rig Veda. Rudra's
sister, Ambik[=a], _ib_. 9, is another new creation, the
genius of autumnal sickness.]
[Footnote 31: _Çat. Br_. ii. 2. 1. 21. How much non-serious
fancy there may be here it is difficult to determine. It
seems impossible that such as follows can have been meant in
earnest: "The sacrifice, _pray[=a]ja,_ is victory, _jaya_,
because _yaja_ = _jaya_. With this knowledge one gets the
victory over his rivals" (_ib_. i. 5. 3. 3, 10).]
[Footnote 32: Although Bhaga is here (_Çat. Br_. i. 7. 4. 6-7,
_endho bhagas_) interpreted as the Sun, he is evidently the same
with Good Luck [Greek: typhlhos ghar ho Êlohhytos] or wealth.]
[Footnote 33: _Çat. Br_. iii. 1. 2. 13 ff.; l. 1. 2. 18;
iii. 6. 1. 8 ff.; ii. 5. 2. 1; iv. 2. 1. 11; iii. 4.4. 3
ff.; 2. 3. 6-12, 13-14; iv. 5. 5. 12; 1.3. 13 ff.; iii. 2.
4. 5-6; 3. 2. 8; 7. 1. 17; iv. 2. 5. 17; 4. 1. 15; i. 7. 4.
6-7; ii. 4. 3. 4 ff.; li. 5.2.34; 5. 1. 12; 5. 1. 1 ff.; RV.
viii. 104. 14. The reader must distinguish, in the name of
Brahm[=a], the god from the priest, and this from
_brahm[=a]_, prayer. The first step is _brahma_--force,
power, prayer; then this is, as a masculine Brahm[=a], the
one who prays, that is, prayer, the Brahman priest, as, in
the Rig Veda, x. 141. 3. Brihaspati is the 'Brahm[=a] of
gods.' The next (Brahmanic) step is deified _brahma_, the
personal Brahm[=a] as god, called also Father-god
(Praj[=a]pati) or simply The Father (_pit[=a]_).]
[Footnote 33: _Çat. Br_. iii. 1. 2. 13 ff.; l. 1. 2. 18;
iii. 6. 1. 8 ff.; ii. 5. 2. 1; iv. 2. 1. 11; iii. 4.4. 3
ff.; 2. 3. 6-12, 13-14; iv. 5. 5. 12; 1.3. 13 ff.; iii. 2.
4. 5-6; 3. 2. 8; 7. 1. 17; iv. 2. 5. 17; 4. 1. 15; i. 7. 4.
6-7; ii. 4. 3. 4 ff.; li. 5.2.34; 5. 1. 12; 5. 1. 1 ff.; RV.
viii. 104. 14. The reader must distinguish, in the name of
Brahm[=a], the god from the priest, and this from
_brahm[=a]_, prayer. The first step is _brahma_--force,
power, prayer; then this is, as a masculine Brahm[=a], the
one who prays, that is, prayer, the Brahman priest, as, in
the Rig Veda, x. 141. 3. Brihaspati is the 'Brahm[=a] of
gods.' The next (Brahmanic) step is deified _brahma_, the
personal Brahm[=a] as god, called also Father-god
(Praj[=a]pati) or simply The Father (_pit[=a]_).]
[Footnote 34: Compare _M[=a]it. S_ iii. 10. 2; _[=A]it.
Br_. ii. 8; _Çat. Br_. i. 2. 3. 5; vi. 2. 1. 39; 3. 1. 24;
ii. 5. 2. 16, a ram and ewe 'made of barley.' On human
sacrifices, compare Müller, ASL. p. 419; Weber. ZDMG. xviii.
262 (see the Bibliography); _Streifen_, i.54.]
[Footnote 35: Weber has translated some of these legends.
_Ind. Streifen_, i. 9 ff.]
[Footnote 36: _T[=a]itt. Br_. iii. 2. 9. 7; _Çat. Br_. i. 2.
5. 5; ii. 1. 2. 13 ff.; vii. 5. 1. 6.]
[Footnote 37: Compare _M[=a]it. S_. i. 9. 8; _Çat. Br_. i.
6. 1. 1 ff. The seasons desert the gods, and the demons
thrive. In _Çat. Br._ i. 5. 4. 6-11, the Asuras and Indra
contend with numbers.]
[Footnote 38: Müller, ASL. p. 529.]
[Footnote 39: _M[=a]it. S_. iv. 2. 12; _Çat. Br_. i. 7. 4.
1; ii. 1. 2. 9; vi. 1. 3. 8; _[=A]it. Br_. iii. 33. Compare
Muir, OST. iv. p. 45. At a later period there are frequently
found indecent tales of the gods, and the Br[=a]hmanas
themselves are vulgar enough, but they exhibit no special
lubricity on the part of the priests.]
[Footnote 40: _Idam aham ya èv[=a] smi so asmi, Çat. Br_. i.
1. 1. 6; 9. 3. 23.]
[Footnote 41: RV. viii. 51. 2; Zimmer, _loc. cit_. p. 328.]
[Footnote 42: Compare Weber, _Episch. in Vedisch. Ritual_,
p. 777 (and above). The man who is slaughtered must be
neither a priest nor a slave, but a warrior or a man of the
third caste (Weber, _loc. cit_. above).]
[Footnote 43: _Le Mercier_, 1637, ap. Parkman, _loc. cit_.
p. 80. The current notion that the American Indian burns his
victims at the stake merely for pleasure is not incorrect.
He frequently did so, as he does so to-day, but in the
seventeenth century this act often is part of a religious
ceremony. He probably would have burned his captive, anyway,
but he gladly utilized his pleasure as a means of
propitiating his gods. In India it was just the other way.]
[Footnote 44: Substitutes of metal or of earthen victims are
also mentioned.]
[Footnote 45: That the Vedic rite of killing the sacrificial
beast (by beating and smothering) was very cruel may be seen
in the description, _[=A]it. Br_. ii. 6.]
[Footnote 46: _Çat. Br._ i. 5. 2. 4.]
[Footnote 47: _Sams[=a]ra_ is transmigration; _karma_,
'act,' implies that the change of abode is conditioned by
the acts of a former life. Each may exclude the other; but
in common parlance each implies the other.]
[Footnote 48: Weber, _Indischt Streifen_, i. p. 72.]
[Footnote 49: _Çat. Br_. i. 7. 3. 19: iii. 4. 1. 17.]
[Footnote 50: _Çaf. Br_. iii. 5. 4. 10; 6. 2. 24; 5. 3. 17
(compare 6. 4. 23-24; 3. 4. 11; 2. 1. 12); iii. 1. 2. 4; 3.
14; i. 7. 2. 9; vi. 1. 2. 14. The change of name is
interesting. There is a remark in another part of the same
work to the effect that when a man prospers in life they
give his name also to his son, grandson, _and to his father
and grandfather_ (vi. 1. 2. 13). On the other hand, it was
the custom of the Indian kings in later ages to assume the
names of their prosperous grandfathers (JRAS. iv. 85).]
[Footnote 51: Were it not for the first clause it would be
more natural to render the original 'The gods are truth
alone, and men are untruth.']
[Footnote 52: In _Çat. Br_. ii. 4. 2. 5-6 it is said that
the Father-god gives certain rules of eating to gods, Manes,
men, and beasts: "Neither gods, Manes, nor beasts transgress
the Father's law, only some men do."]
[Footnote 53: _Çat. Br_. ii. 5. 2. 20. Varuna seizes on her
paramour, when she confesses. _T[.a]itt. Br_. i. 6. 5. 2.
The guilt confessed becomes less "because it thereby becomes
truth" (right).]
[Footnote 54: See _Çat. Br._. ii. 4. 2. 6; 4. 1. 14; 1. 3.
9; 3. 1. 28: "Who knows man's morrow? Then let one not
procrastinate." "Today is self, this alone is certain,
uncertain is the morrow."]
[Footnote 55: Some little rules are interesting. The
Pythagorean abstinence from _m[=a][s.][=a]s_, beans, for
instance, is enjoined; though this rule is opposed by Barku
V[=a]rshna, _Çat. Br_. i. 1. 1. 10, on the ground that no
offering to the gods is made of beans; "hence he said 'cook
beans for me.'"]
[Footnote 56: Animals may represent gods. "The bull is a
form of Indra," and so if the bull can be made to roar
(_Çat. Br._ ii. 5. 3. 18), then one may know that Indra is
come to the sacrifice. "Man is born into (whatever) world is
made (by his acts in a previous existence)," is a short
formula (_Çat. Br._. vi. 2. 2. 27), which represents the
_karma_ doctrine in its essential principle, though the
'world' is here not this world, but the next. Compare Weber,
ZDMG. ix. 237 ff.; Muir, OST. v. 314 ff.]
[Footnote 57: Though youth may be restored to him by the
Açvins, _Çat. Br._. iv. i. 5. 1 ff. Here the Horsemen are
identified with Heaven and Earth (16).]
[Footnote 58: _Cal. Br_. ii. 3. 3. 7. Apropos of the
Brahmanic sun it may be mentioned that, according to _Ait.
Br._ iii. 44, the sun never really sets. "People think that
he sets, but in truth he only turns round after reaching the
end of the day, and makes night below, day above; and when
they think he rises in the morning, he having come to the
end of the night, turns round, and makes day below, night
above. He never really sets. Whoever knows this of him, that
he never sets, obtains union and likeness of form with the
sun, and the same abode as the sun's." Compare Muir, OST. v.
521. This may be the real reason why the Rig Veda speaks of
a dark and light sun.]
[Footnote 59: _Çat. Br._. i. 4. 3. 11-22 ('The sinner shall
suffer and go quickly to yonder world'); xi. 6. 1 (compare
Weber, _loc. cit._ p. 20 ff.; ZDMG. ix. 237), the Bhrigu
story, of which a more modern form is found in the Upanishad
period. For the course of the sun, the fires on either side
of the way, the departure to heaven 'with the whole body,'
compare _Çat. Br._ i. 9. 3. 2-15; iv. 5. 1. 1; vi. 6. 2. 4;
xi. 2. 7. 33; Weber, _loc. cit._: Muir, _loc. cit._ v. p.
314. Not to have all one's bones in the next world is a
disgrace, as Muir says, and for that reason they are
collected at burial. Compare the custom as described by the
French missionaries here. The American Indian has to have
all his bones for future use, and the burying of the
skeleton is an annual religious ceremony.]
[Footnote 60: Compare RV. iv. 28. 4: 'Thou Indra madest
lowest the heathen.' Weber has shown, _loc. cit._, that the
general notion of the Br[=a]hmanas is that all are born
again in the next world, where they are rewarded or punished
according as they are good or bad; whereas in the Rig Veda
the good rejoice in heaven, and the bad are annihilated.
This general view is to be modified, however, by such
side-theories as those just mentioned, that the good (or
wise) may be reborn on earth, or be united with gods, or
become sunlight or stars (the latter are 'watery' to the
Hindu, and this may explain the statement that the soul is
'in the midst of waters').]
[Footnote 61: There is in this age no notion of the repeated
creations found in later literature. On the contrary, it is
expressly said in the Rig Veda, vi. 48. 22, that heaven and
earth are created but once: "Only once was heaven created,
only once was earth created," Zimmer, AIL. 408.]
[Footnote 62: When the principle of life is explained it is
in terms of sun or fire. Thus Praj[=a]pati, Lord of beings,
or Father-god, is first an epithet of Savitar, RV. iv. 53.
2; and the golden germ must be fire.]
[Footnote 63: Schoolcraft, _Historical and Statistical
Information_, i. 32. As examples of the many passages where
'water is the beginning' may be cited _Çat. Br._ vi. 7. 1.
17; xi. 1. 6. 1. The sun, born as Aditi's eighth son, is the
bird, 'egg-born,' RV. x. 72. 8.]
[Footnote 64: Among the new curators of Atharvan origin are,
for instance, the sun under the name of Rohita, Desire
(Love), etc., etc.]
[Footnote 65: Illustrations of these contradictions may be
found in plenty _apud_ Muir iv. p. 20 ff.]
[Footnote 66: Nirukta, vii. 4; Muir, _loc. cit._ p. 131 and
v. 17.]
[Footnote 67: _Neu-und Vollmonds Opfer_, 1880. The
_D[=i]ksh[=a]_, or initiation, has been described by
Lindner; the _R[=a]jas[=u]ya_ and _Vajapeya_, by Weber.]
[Footnote 68: The water-sickness already imputed to this god
in the Rig Veda. This tale and that of Bhrigu (referred to
above) show an ancient trait in the position of Varuna, as
chief god.]
[Footnote 69: This is the germ of the pilgrimage doctrine
(see below).]
[Footnote 70: Perhaps (M. ix. 301) interpolated; or the
first allusion to the Four Ages.]
[Footnote 71: These (compare _afri_, 'blessing,' in the
Avesta) are verses in the Rig Veda introducing the
sacrifice. They are meant as propitiations, and appear to be
an ancient part of the ritual.]
[Footnote 72: A group of hymns in the first book of the Rig
Veda are attributed to Dogstail. At any rate, they do allude
to him, and so prove a moderate antiquity (probably the
middle period of the Rik) for the tale. The name, in
Sanskrit Çunasçepa, has been ingeniously starred by Weber as
Cynosoura; the last part of each compound having the same
meaning, and the first part being even phonetically the same
_çunas, [Greek: kunhos]_.]
[Footnote 73: _Ait. Br._ viii. 10, 15, 20.]
[Footnote 74: The epic has a later version. This earlier
form is found in _Çat. Br._ i. 8. 1. For the story of the
flood among the American Indians compare Schoolcraft
(_Historical and Statistical Information_), i. 17.]
* * * * *
CHAPTER X.
BRAHMANIC PANTHEISM.--THE UPANISHADS.
In the Vedic hymns man fears the gods, and imagines God. In the
Br[=a]hmanas man subdues the gods, and fears God. In the Upanishads
man ignores the gods, and becomes God.[1]
Such in a word is the theosophic relations between the three periods
represented by the first Vedic Collection, the ritualistic
Br[=a]hmanas, and the philosophical treatises called Upanishads. Yet
if one took these three strata of thought to be quite independent of
each other he would go amiss. Rather is it true that the Br[=a]hmanas
logically continue what the hymns begin; that the Upanishads logically
carry on the thought of the Br[=a]hmanas. And more, for in the oldest
Upanishads are traits that connect this class of writings (if they
were written) directly, and even closely with the Vedic hymns
themselves; so that one may safely assume that the time of the first
Upanishads is not much posterior to that of the latest additions made
to the Vedic collections, though this indicates only that these
additions were composed at a much later period than is generally
supposed.[2] In India no literary period subsides with the rise of its
eventually 'succeeding' period. All the works overlap. Parts of the
Br[=a]hmanas succeed, sometimes with the addition of whole books,
their proper literary successors, the Upanishads. Vedic hymns are
composed in the Brahmanic period.[3] The prose S[=u]tras, which, in
general, are earlier, sometimes post-date metrical Ç[=a]stra-rules.
Thus it is highly probable that, whereas the Upanishads began before
the time of Buddha, the Çatapatha Br[=a]hmana (if not others of this
class) continued to within two or three centuries of our era; that the
legal S[=u]tras were, therefore, contemporary with part of the
Br[=a]hmanic period;[4] and that, in short, the end of the Vedic
period is so knit with the beginning of the Br[=a]hmanic, while the
Br[=a]hmanic period is so knit with the rise of the Upanishads,
S[=u]tras, epics, and Buddhism, that one cannot say of any one: 'this
is later,' 'this is earlier'; but each must be taken only for a phase
of indefinitely dated thought, exhibited on certain lines. It must
also be remembered that by the same class of works a wide geographical
area may be represented; by the Br[=a]hmanas, west and east; by the
S[=u]tras, north and south; by the Vedic poems, northwest and east to
Benares (AV.); by the epics, all India, centred about the holy middle
land near Delhi.
The meaning of Upanishad as used in the compositions themselves, is
either, as it is used to-day, the title of a philosophical work; that
of knowledge derived from esoteric teaching; or the esoteric teaching
itself. Thus _brahma upanishad_ is the secret doctrine of _brahma_,
and 'whoever follows this _upanishad_' means whoever follows this
doctrine. This seems, however, to be a meaning derived from the nature
of the Upanishads themselves, and we are almost inclined to think that
the true significance of the word was originally that in which alone
occurs, in the early period, the combination _upa-ni-[s.]ad_, and this
is purely external: "he makes the common people _upa-ni-s[=a]din,"
i.e_., 'sitting below' or 'subject,' it is said in _Çat. Br_. ix. 4.
3. 3 (from the literal meaning of 'sitting below').[5] Instead,
therefore, of seeing in _upan[=i]sad_, Upanishad, the idea of a
session, of pupils sitting down to hear instruction (the prepositions
and verb are never used in this sense), it may be that the Upanishads
were at first _subsidiary_ works of the ritualistic Br[=a]hmanas
contained in the [=A]ranyakas or Forest Books, that is, appendices to
the Br[=a]hmana, ostensibly intended for the use of pious
forest-hermits (who had passed beyond the need of sacrifice); and
this, in point of fact, is just what they were; till their growth
resulted in their becoming an independent branch of literature. The
usual explanation of 'Upanishad,' however, is that it represents the
instruction given to the pupil 'sitting under' the teacher.
Although at present between two and three hundred Upanishads are
known, at least by name, to exist, yet scarcely a dozen appear to be
of great antiquity. Some of these are integral parts of Br[=a]hmanas,
and apparently were added to the ritualistic works at an early
period.[6]
While man's chief effort in the Brahmanic period seems to be by
sacrifice and penance to attain happiness hereafter, and to get the
upper hand of divine powers; while he recognizes a God, who, though
supreme, has yet, like the priest himself, attained his supremacy by
sacrifice and penance; while he dreams of a life hereafter in heavenly
worlds, in the realm of light, though hardly seeking to avoid a
continuation of earthly re-births; nevertheless he frees himself at
times from ritualistic observances sufficiently to continue the
questioning asked by his Vedic ancestors, and to wonder whither his
immortal part is definitively going, and whether that spirit of his
will live independently, or be united with some higher power, such as
the sun or Brahm[=a].
The philosophical writings called Upanishads[7] take up this question
in earnest, but the answer is already assured, and the philosophers,
or poets, of this period seek less to prove the truth than to expound
it. The soul of man will not only join a heavenly Power. It is part of
that Power. Man's spirit (self) is the world-spirit. And what is this?
While all the Upanishads are at one in answering the first question,
they are not at one in the method by which they arrive at the same
result. There is no systematic philosophy; but a tentative, and more
or less dogmatic, logic. In regard to the second question they are
still less at one; but in general their answer is that the
world-spirit is All, and everything is a part of It or Him. Yet,
whether that All is personal or impersonal, and what is the relation
between spirit and matter, this is still an unsettled point.
The methods and results of this half-philosophical literature will
most easily be understood by a few examples. But, before these are
given, it will be necessary to emphasize the colloquial and scrappy
nature of the teaching. Legend, parable, ritualistic absurdities,
belief in gods, denial of gods, belief in heaven, denial of heaven,
are all mingled, and for a purpose. For some men are able, and some
are unable, to receive the true light of knowledge. But man's fate
depends on his knowledge. The wise man becomes hereafter what his
knowledge has prepared him to be. Not every spirit is fitted for
immortality, but only the spirit of them that have wisely desired it,
or, rather, not desired it; for every desire must have been
extinguished before one is fitted for this end. Hence, with advancing
belief in absorption and pantheism, there still lingers, and not as a
mere superfluity, the use of sacrifice and penance. Rites and the
paraphernalia of religion are essential till one learns that they are
unessential. Desire will be gratified till one learns that the most
desirable thing is lack of desire. But so long as one desires even the
lack of desire he is still in the fetters of desire. The way is long
to the extinction of emotion, but its attainment results in happiness
that is greater than delight; in peace that surpasses joy.
In the exposition of this doctrine the old gods are retained as
figures. They are not real gods. But they are existent forms of God.
They are portions of the absolute, a form of the Eternal, even as man
is a form of the same. Absolute being, again, is described as
anthropomorphic. 'This is that' under a certain form. Incessantly made
is the attempt to explain the identity of the absolute with phenomena.
The power _brahma_, which is originally applied to prayer, is now
taken as absolute being, and this, again, must be equated with the
personal spirit (ego, self, _[=a]tm[=a]_). One finds himself back in
the age of Vedic speculation when he reads of prayer (or penance) and
power as one. For, as was shown above, the Rig Veda already recognizes
that prayer is power. There the word for power, _brahma_, is used only
as equivalent of prayer, and Brihaspati or Brahmanaspati is literally
the 'god of power,' as he is interpreted by the priests. The
significance of the other great word of this period, namely
_[=a]tm[=a]_, is not at all uncertain, but to translate it is
difficult. It is breath, spirit, self, soul. Yet, since in its
original sense it corresponds to spiritus (comparable to athmen), the
word spirit, which also signifies the real person, perhaps represents
it best. We shall then render _brahma_ and _[=a]tm[=a]_ by the
absolute and the ego or spirit, respectively; or leave them, which is
perhaps the best way, in their native form. The physical breath,
_pr[=a]na,_ is occasionally used just like _[=a]tm[=a]._ Thus it is
said that all the gods are one god, and this is _pr[=a]na,_ identical
with _brahma_ (Brihad [=A]ranyaka Upanishad, 3.9.9); or _pr[=a]na_ is
so used as to be the same with spirit, though, on the other hand,
'breath is born of spirit' (Praçna Up. 3.3), just as in the Rig Veda
(above) it is said that all comes from the breath of God.
One of the most instructive of the older Upanishads is the
Ch[=a]ndogya. A sketch of its doctrines will give a clearer idea of
Upanishad philosophy than a chapter of disconnected excerpts:
All this (universe) is _brahma_. Man has intelligent force (or will).
He, after death, will exist in accordance with his will in life. This
spirit in (my) heart is that mind-making, breath-bodied, light-formed,
truth-thoughted, ether-spirited One, of whom are all works, all
desires, all smells, and all tastes; who comprehends the universe, who
speaks not and is not moved; smaller than a rice-corn, smaller than a
mustard-seed, ... greater than earth, greater than heaven. This
(universal being) is my ego, spirit, and is _brahma,_ force (absolute
being). After death I shall enter into him (3.14).[8] This all is
breath (==spirit in 3.15.4).
After this epitome of pantheism follows a ritualistic bit:
Man is sacrifice. Four and twenty years are the morning libation; the
next four and forty, the mid-day libation; the next eight and forty,
the evening libation. The son of Itar[=a], knowing this, lived one
hundred and sixteen years. He who knows this lives one hundred and
sixteen years (3.16).
Then, for the abolition of all sacrifice, follows a chapter which
explains that man may sacrifice symbolically, so that, for example,
gifts to the priests (a necessary adjunct of a real sacrifice) here
become penance, liberality, rectitude, non-injury, truth-speaking
(_ib._ 17. 4). There follows then the identification of _brahma_ with
mind, sun, breath, cardinal points, ether, etc, even puns being
brought into requisition, _Ka_ is _Kha_ and _Kha_ is _Ka_ (4. 10.
5);[9] earth, fire, food, sun, water, stars, man, are _brahma_, and
_brahma_ is the man seen in the moon (4. 12. I). And now comes the
identity of the impersonal _brahma_ with the personal spirit. The man
seen in the eye is the spirit; this is the immortal, unfearing
_brahma_ (4. 15. I = 8. 7. 4). He that knows this goes after death to
light, thence to day, thence to the light moon, thence to the season,
thence to the year, thence to the sun, thence to the moon, thence to
lightning; thus he becomes divine, and enters _brahma_. They that go
on this path of the gods that conducts to _brahma_ do not return to
human conditions _(ib._ 15. 6).
But the Father-god of the Br[=a]hmanas is still a temporary creator,
and thus he appears now (_ib._ 17): The Father-god brooded over[10]
the worlds, and from them extracted essences, fire from earth, wind
from air, sun from sky. These three divinities (the triad, fire, wind,
and sun) he brooded over, and from them extracted essences, the Rig
Veda from fire, the Yajur Veda from wind, the S[=a]ma Veda from sun.
In the preceding the northern path of them that know the absolute
(_brahma_) has been described, and it was said that they return no
more to earth. Now follows the southern path of them that only partly
know _brahma_:
"He that knows the oldest, _jye[s.]tham_ and the best, _çre[s]tham,_
becomes the oldest and the best. Now breath is oldest and best" (then
follows the famous parable of the senses and breath, 5. 1. I). This
(found elsewhere) is evidently regarded as a new doctrine, for, after
the deduction has been made that, because a creature can live without
senses, and even without mind, but cannot live without breath,
therefore the breath is the 'oldest and best,' the text continues, 'if
one told this to a dry stick, branches would be produced and leaves
put forth' (5. 2. 3).[11]] The path of him that partly knows the
_brahma_ which is expressed in breath, etc, is as follows: He goes to
the moon, and, when his good works are used up, he (ultimately mist)
rains down, becoming seed, and begins life over again on earth, to
become like the people who eat him (5. 10. 6); they that are good
become priests, warriors, or members of the third estate; while the
bad become dogs, hogs, or members of the low castes.[12] A story is
now told, instructive as illustrating the time. Five great doctors of
the law came together to discuss what is Spirit, what is _brahma_. In
the end they are taught by a king that the universal Spirit is one's
own spirit (5. 18. 1).
It is interesting to see that, although the Rig Veda distinctly says
that 'being was born of not-being' (_ásatas sád aj[=a]yata_, X. 72.
3),[13] yet not-being is here derived quite as emphatically from
being. For in the philosophical explanation of the universe given in
6. 2. 1 ff. one reads: "Being alone existed in the beginning, one, and
without a second. Others say 'not-being alone' ... but how could being
be born of not-being? Being alone existed in the beginning."[14] This
being is then represented as sentient. "It saw (and desired), 'may I
be many,' and sent forth fire (or heat); fire (or heat) desired and
produced water; water, food (earth); with the living spirit the
divinity entered fire, water, and earth" (6. 3). As mind comes
from food, breath from water, and speech from fire, all that makes a
man is thus derived from the (true) being (6. 7. 6); and when one dies
his speech is absorbed into mind, his mind into breath, his breath
into fire (heat), and heat into the highest godhead (6. 8. 7). This is
the subtle spirit, that is the Spirit, that is the True, and this is
the spirit of man. Now comes the grand conclusion of the Ch[=a]ndogya.
He who knows the ego escapes grief. What is the ego? The Vedas are
names, and he that sees _brahma_ in the Vedas is indeed (partly) wise;
but speech is better than a name; mind is better than speech; will is
better than mind; meditation, better than will; reflection, than
meditation; understanding, than reflection; power, than understanding;
food, than power; water, than food; heat (fire), than water; ether,
than heat; memory, than ether; hope, than memory; breath (=spirit),
than hope. In each let one see _brahma_; ego in All. Who knows this is
supreme in knowledge; but more supreme in knowledge is he that knows
that in true (being) is the highest being. True being is happiness;
true being is ego; ego is all; ego is the absolute.[15]
The relativity o£ divinity is the discovery of the Upanishads. And the
relativity of happiness hereafter is the key-note of their religious
philosophy. Pious men are of three classes, according to the completed
system. Some are good men, but they do not know enough to appreciate,
intellectually or spiritually, the highest. Let this class meditate on
the Vedas. They desire wealth, not freedom. The second class wish,
indeed, to emancipate themselves; but to do so step by step; not to
reach absolute _brahma_, but to live in bliss hereafter. Let these
worship the Spirit as physical life. They will attain to the
bliss of the realm of light, the realm of the personal creator. But
the highest class, they that wish to emancipate themselves at once,
know that physical life is but a form of spiritual life; that the
personal creator is but a form of the Spirit; that the Spirit is
absolute _brahma_; and that in reaching this they attain to
immortality. These, then, are to meditate on spirit as the highest
Spirit, that is, the absolute. To fear heaven as much as hell, to know
that knowledge is, after all, the key to _brahma_; that _brahma_ is
knowledge; this is the way to emancipation. The gods are; but they are
forms of the ego, and their heaven is mortal. It is false to deny the
gods. Indra and the Father-god exist, just as men exist, as transient
forms of _brahma_. Therefore, according to the weakness or strength of
a man's mind and heart (desire) is he fitted to ignore gods and
sacrifice. To obtain _brahma_ his desires must be weak, his knowledge
strong; but sacrifice is not to be put away as useless. The
disciplinary teaching of the sacrifice is a necessary preparation for
highest wisdom. It is here that the Upanishads, which otherwise are to
a great extent on the highway to Buddhism, practically contrast with
it. Buddhism ignores the sacrifice and the stadia in a priest's life.
The Upanishads retain them, but only to throw them over at the end
when one has learned not to need them. Philosophically there is no
place for the ritual in the Upanishad doctrine; but their teachers
stood too much under the dominion of the Br[=a]hmanas to ignore the
ritual. They kept it as a means of perfecting the knowledge of what
was essential.
So 'by wisdom' it is said 'one gets immortality.' The Spirit develops
gradually in man; by means of the mortal he desires the immortal;
whereas other animals have only hunger and thirst as a kind of
understanding, and they are reborn according to their knowledge as
beasts again. Such is the teaching of another of the Upanishads, the
[=A]itareya [=A]ranyaka.
This Upanishad contains some rather striking passages: "Whatever man
attains, he desires to go beyond it; if he should reach heaven itself
he would desire to go beyond it" (2. 3. 3. 1). "_Brahma_ is the A,
thither goes the ego" (2. 3. 8. 7). "A is the whole of Speech, and
Speech is Truth, and Truth is Spirit" (2. 3. 6. 5-14).[16] "The Spirit
brooded over the water, and form (matter) was born" (2. 4. 3. 1 ff.);
so physically water is the origin of all things" (2. 1. 8. 1).[17]
"Whatever belongs to the father belongs to the son, whatever belongs
to the son belongs to the father" (_ib_.). "Man has three births: he
is born of his mother, reborn in the person of his son, and finds his
highest birth in death" (2. 5).
In the exposition of these two Upanishads one gets at once the sum of
them all. The methods, the illustrations, even the doctrines, differ
in detail; but in the chief end and object of the Upanishads, and in
the principle of knowledge as a means of attaining _brahma_, they are
united. This it is that causes the refutation of the Vedic 'being from
not-being.' It is even said in the [=A]itareya that the gods
worshipped breath (the spirit) as being and so became gods (great);
while devils worshipped spirit as not-being, and hence became
(inferior) devils (2. 1. 8. 6).
It was noticed above that a king instructed priests. This interchange
of the rôles of the two castes is not unique. In the K[=a]ush[=i]taki
Upanishad (4. 19), occurs another instance of a warrior teaching a
Brahman. This, with the familiar illustration of a Gandh[=a]ra
(Kandahar) man, the song of the Kurus, and the absence of Brahmanic
literature as such in the list of works, cited vii. 1, would indicate
that the Ch[=a]ndogya was at least as old as the Br[=a]hmana
literature.[18]
In their present form several differences remain to be pointed out
between the Vedic period and that of the Upanishads. The goal of the
soul, the two paths of gods and of _brahma_, have been indicated. As
already explained, the road to the absolute _brahma_ lies beyond the
path to the conditioned _brahma_. Opposed to this is the path that
leads to the world of heaven, whence, when good works have been
exhausted, the spirit descends to a new birth on earth. The course of
this second path is conceived to be the dark half of the moon, and so
back to man. Both roads lead first to the moon, then one goes on to
_brahma_, the other returns to earth. It will be seen that good works
are regarded as buoying a man up for a time, till, like gas in a
balloon, they lose their force, and he sinks down again. What then
becomes of the virtue of a man who enters the absolute _brahma,_ and
descends no more? He himself goes to the world where there is "no
sorrow and no snow," where he lives forever (_Brihad [=A]ran_. 5. 10);
but "his beloved relations get his virtue, and the relations he does
not love get his evil" (_K[=a]ush[=i]t. Up_. 1. 4). In this Upanishad
fire, sun, moon, and lightning die out, and reappear as _brahma_. This
is the doctrine of the _Götterdämmerung_, and succession of aeons with
their divinities (2. 12). Here again is it distinctly stated that
_pr[=a]na_, breath, is _brahma_; that is, spirit is the absolute (2.
13).
What becomes of them that die ignorant of the ego? They go either to
the worlds of evil spirits, which are covered with darkness--the same
antithesis of light and darkness, as good and evil, that was seen in
the Br[=a]hmanas--or are reborn on earth again like the wicked
(_[=I]ç[=a]_, 3).
It is to be noted that at times all the parts of a man are
said to become immortal. For just as different rivers enter the ocean
and their names and forms are lost in it, so the sixteen parts of a
man sink into the godhead and he becomes without parts and immortal
(_Praçna Up_. 6. 5); a purely pantheistic view of absorption, in
distinction from the Vedic view of heaven, which latter, in the form
of immortal joy hereafter, still lingers in the earlier Upanishads.
It is further to be observed as the crowning point of these
speculations that, just as the bliss of emancipation must not be
desired, although it is desirable, so too, though knowledge is the
fundamental condition of emancipation, yet is delight in the true a
fatal error: "They that revere what is not knowledge enter into blind
darkness; they that delight in knowledge come as it were into still
greater darkness" (_Iç[=a]_, 9). Here, what is not real knowledge
means good works, sacrifice, etc. But the sacrifice is not discarded.
To those people capable only of attaining to rectitude, sacrifices,
and belief in gods there is given some bliss hereafter; but to him
that is risen above this, who knows the ego (Spirit) and real being,
such bliss is no bliss. His bliss is union with the Spirit.
This is the completion of Upanishad philosophy. Before it is a stage
where bliss alone, not absorption, is taught.[19] But what is the ego,
spirit or self (_[=a]tm[=a]_)? First of all it is conscious; next it
is not the Person, for the Person is produced by the _[=a]tm[=a]_.
Since this Person is the type of the personal god, it is evident that
the ego is regarded as lying back of personality. Nevertheless, the
teachers sometimes stop with the latter. The developed view is that
the immortality of the personal creator is commensurate only with that
of the world which he creates. It is for this reason that in the
Mundaka (1. 2. 10) it is said that fools regard fulfillment of desire
in heavenly happiness as the best thing; for although they have their
'reward in the top of heaven, yet, when the elevation caused by their
good works ends, as it will end, when the buoyant power of good works
is exhausted, then they drop down to earth again. Hence, to worship
the creator as the _[=a]tm[=a]_ is indeed productive of temporary
pleasure, but no more. "If a man worship another divinity,
_devat[=a]_, with the idea that he and the god are different, he does
not know" (_Brihad [=A]ran. Up_. 1. 4. 10). "Without passion and
without parts" is the _brahma (Mund_. 2. 2. 9). The further doctrine,
therefore, that all except _brahma_ is delusion is implied here, and
the "extinction of gods in _brahma_" is once or twice formulated.[20]
The fatal error of judgment is to imagine that there is in absolute
being anything separate from man's being. When personified, this being
appears as the supreme Person, identical with the ego, who is lord of
what has been and what will be. By perceiving this controlling spirit
in one's own spirit (or self) one obtains eternal bliss; "when
desires cease, the mortal becomes immortal; he attains _brahma_ here"
in life (_Katha Up_. 2. 5. 12; 6. 14; _Br. [=A]ran. Up_. 4. 4. 7).
How inconsistent are the teachings of the Upanishads in regard to
cosmogonic and eschatological matters will be evident if one contrast
the statements of the different tracts not only with those of other
writings of the same sort, but even with other statements in the same
Upanishads. Thus the Mundaka teaches first that Brahm[=a], the
personal creator, made the world and explained _brahma_ (1. 1. 1). It
then defines _brahma_ as the Imperishable, which, like a spider, sends
out a web of being and draws it in again (_ib_. 6, 7). It states with
all distinctness that the (neuter) _brahma_ comes from The (masculine)
One who is all-wise, all-knowing (_ib_. 9). This heavenly Person is
the imperishable ego; it is without form; higher than the imperishable
(1. 2. 10 ff.; 2. 1. 2); greater than the great (3. 2. 8). Against
this is then set (2. 2. 9) the great being _brahma_, without passions
or parts, _i.
e_., without intelligence such as was predicated of the
_[=a]tm[=a]_; and (3. 1. 3) then follows the doctrine of the personal
'Lord, who is the maker, the Person, who has his birth in _brahma'
(purusho brahmayonis_). That this Upanishad is pantheistic is plain
from 3. 2. 6, where Ved[=a]nta and Yoga are named. According to this
tract the wise go to _brahma_ or to ego (3. 2. 9 and 1. 2. 11), while
fools go to heaven and return again.
On the same plane stands the [=I]ç[=a], where _[=a]tm[=a]_, ego,
Spirit, is the True, the Lord, and is in the sun. Opposed to each
other here are 'darkness' and 'immortality,' as fruit, respectively,
of ignorance and wisdom.
In the K[=a]ush[=i]taki Upanishad, taken with the meaning put into it
by the commentators, the wise man goes to a very different sort of
_brahma_--one where he is met by nymphs, and rejoices in a kind of
heaven. This _brahma_ is of two sorts, absolute and conditioned; but
it is ultimately defined as 'breath.' Whenever it is convenient,
'breath' is regarded by the commentators as ego, 'spirit'; but one can
scarcely escape the conviction that in many passages 'breath' was
meant by the speaker to be taken at its face value. It is the vital
power. With this vital power (breath or spirit) one in dreamless sleep
unites. Indra has nothing higher to say than that he is breath
(spirit), conscious and immortal. Eventually the soul after death
comes to Indra, or gains the bright heaven. But here too the doctrine
of the dying out of the gods is known (as in _T[=a]tt_. 3. 10. 4).
Cosmogonically all here springs from water (1. 4, 6, 7; 2. 1, 12; 3.
1, 2; 4. 20).
Most striking are the contradictions in the Brihad [=A]ranyaka: "In
the beginning there was only nothing; this (world) was covered with
death, that is hunger;[21] he desired," etc. (1. 2. 1). "In the
beginning there was only ego (_[=a]tm[=a])." [=A]tm[=a]_ articulated
"I am," and (finding himself lonely and unhappy) divided himself into
male and female,[22] whence arose men, etc. (1. 4. 1). Again: "In the
beginning there was only _brahma_; this (neuter) knew _[=a]tm[=a] ...
brahma_ was the one and only ... it created" (1. 4. 10-11); followed
immediately by "he created" (12). And after this, in 17, one is
brought back to "in the beginning there was only _[=a]tm[=a]_; he
desired 'let me have a wife.'"
In 2. 3. 1 ff. the explicitness of the differences in _brahma_ makes
the account of unusual value. It appears that there are two forms of
_brahma_, one is mortal, with form; the other is immortal, without
form. Whatever is other than air and the space between (heaven and
earth) is mortal and with form. This is being, its essence is in the
sun. On the other hand, the essence of the immortal is the person in
the circle (of the sun). In man's body breath and ether are the
immortal, the essence of which is the person in the eye. There is a
visible and invisible _brahma ([=a]tm[=a])_; the real _brahma_ is
incomprehensible and is described only by negations (3. 4. 1; 9. 26).
The highest is the Imperishable (_neuter_), but this sees, hears, and
knows. It is in this that ether (as above) is woven (3. 8. 11). After
death the wise man goes to the world of the gods (1. 5. 16); he
becomes the _[=a]tm[=a]_ of all beings, just like that deity (1. 5.
20); he becomes identical ('how can one know the knower?'
_vijñ[=a]tar_) in 2. 4. 12-13; and according to 3. 2. 13, the doctrine
of _sams[=a]ra_ is extolled ("they talked of _karma_, extolled _karma_
secretly"), as something too secret to be divulged easily, even to
priests.
That different views are recognized is evident from _Taitt_. 2. 6: "If
one knows _brahma_ as _asat_ he becomes only _asat_ (non-existence);
if he knows that '_brahma_ is' (_i.e._, a _sad brahma_), people know
him as thence existing." Personal _[=a]tm[=a]_ is here insisted on
("He wished 'may I be many'"); and from _[=a]tm[=a]_, the conscious
_brahma_, in highest heaven, came the ether (2. 1, 6). Yet,
immediately afterwards: "In the beginning was the non-existent; thence
arose the existent; and That made for himself an ego (spirit,
conscious life, _[=a]tm[=a]; tad [=a]tm[=a]nain svayam akuruta_, 2.
7). In man _brahma_ is the sun-_brahma_. Here too one finds the
_brahma[n.]a[h.] parimaras_ (3. 10. 4 = K[=a]ush[=i]t. 2. 12,
_d[=a]iva_), or extinction of gods in _brahma_. But what that _brahma_
is, except that it is bliss, and that man after death reaches 'the
bliss-making _[=a]tm[=a],_' it is impossible to say (3. 6; 2. 8).
Especially as the departed soul 'eats and sits down singing' in heaven
(3. 10. 5).
The greatest discrepancies in eschatology occur perhaps in the
[=A]itareya [=A]ranyaka. After death one either "gets _brahma_" (i. 3.
1. 2), "comes near to the immortal spirit" (1. 3. 8. 14), or goes to
the "heavenly world." Knowledge here expressly conditions the
hereafter; so much so that it is represented not (as above) that fools
go to heaven and return, but that all, save the very highest, are to
recognize a personal creator (Praj[=a]pati) in breath (=ego=_brahma_),
and then they will "go to the heavenly world" (2. 3. 8. 5), "become
the sun" (2. 1. 8. 14), or "go to gods" (2. 2. 4. 6). Moreover after
the highest wisdom has been revealed, and the second class of men has
been disposed of, the author still returns to the 'shining sky,'
_svarga_, as the best promise (3). Sinners are born again (2. 1. 1. 5)
on earth, although hell is mentioned (2. 3. 2. 5). The origin of world
is water, as usual (2. 1. 8. 1). The highest teaching is that all was
_[=a]tm[=a],_ who sent forth worlds (_lok[=a]n as[r.]jata_), and
formed the Person (as guardian of worlds), taking him from waters.
Hence _[=a]tm[=a],_ Praj[=a]pati (of the second-class thinkers), and
_brahma_ are the same. Knowledge is _brahma_ (2. 4. 1. 1; 6. 1. 5-7).
In the Kena, where the best that can be said in regard to _brahma_ is
that he is _tadvana_, the one that 'likes this' (or, perhaps, is 'like
this'), there is no absorption into a world-spirit. The wise 'become
immortal'; 'by knowledge one gets immortality'; 'who knows this stands
in heaven' (1. 2; 2. 4; 4. 9). The general results are about those
formulated by Whitney in regard to the Katha: knowledge gives
continuation of happiness in heaven; the punishment of the unworthy is
to continue _sams[=a]ra_, the round of rebirths. Hell is not mentioned
in the [=A]itareya Upanishad itself but in the [=A]ranyaka[23] (2. 3.
2. 5). That, however, a union with the universal _[=a]tm[=a]_ (as well
as heaven) is desired, would seem to be the case from several of the
passages cited above, notably Brihad [=A]ran., i. 5. 20 (_sa
eva[.m]vit sarve[s.][=a]m bh[=u]t[=a]n[=a]m [=a]tm[=a] bhavati,
Yath[=a] i[s.][=a] devat[=a]ivam sa_); 'he that knows this becomes the
_[=a]tm[=a]_ of all creatures, as is that divinity so is he'; though
this is doubtless the _[=a]nandamaya [=a]tm[=a]_, or joy-making Spirit
(T[=a]itt. 2. 8).
Again two forms of _brahma_ are explained (M[=a]it. Up. 6. 15 ff.):
There are two forms of _brahma_, time and not-time. That which was
before the sun is not-time and has no parts. Time and parts begin with
the sun. Time is the Father-god, the Spirit. Time makes and dissolves
all in the Spirit. He knows the Veda who knows into what Time itself
is dissolved. This manifest time is the ocean of creatures. But
_brahma_ exists before and after time.[24]
As an example of the best style of the Upanishads we will cite a
favorite passage (given no less than four times in various versions)
where the doctrine of absorption is most distinctly taught under the
form of a tale. It is the famous
DIALOGUE OF Y[=A]JÑAVALKYA AND M[=A]ITREY[=I].[25]
Y[=a]jñavalkya had two wives, M[=a]itrey[=i] and K[=a]ty[=a]yani. Now
M[=a]itrey[=i] was versed in holy knowledge (_brahma_), but
K[=a]ty[=a]yani had only such knowledge as women have. But when
Y[=a]jñavalkya was about to go away into the forest (to become a
hermit), he said: 'M[=a]itrey[=i], I am going away from this
place. Behold, I will make a settlement between thee and that
K[=a]ty[=a]yani.' Then said M[=a]itrey[=i]: 'Lord, if this whole earth
filled with wealth were mine, how then? should I be immortal by reason
of this wealth?' 'Nay,' said Y[=a]jñavalkya. 'Even as is the life of
the rich would be thy life; by reason of wealth one has no hope of
immortality.' Then said M[=a]itrey[=i]: 'With what I cannot be
immortal, what can I do with that? whatever my Lord knows even that
tell me.' And Y[=a]jñavalkya said: 'Dear to me thou art, indeed, and
fondly speakest. Therefore I will explain to thee and do thou regard
me as I explain.' And he said: 'Not for the husband's sake is a
husband dear, but for the ego's sake is the husband dear. Not for the
wife's sake is a wife dear; but for the ego's sake is a wife dear; not
for the son's sake are sons dear, but for the ego's sake are sons
dear; not for wealth's sake is wealth dear, but for the ego's sake is
wealth dear; not for the sake of the Brahman caste is the Brahman
caste dear, but for the sake of the ego is the Brahman caste dear; not
for the sake of the Warrior caste is the Warrior caste dear, but for
love of the ego is the Warrior caste dear; not for the sake of the
worlds are worlds dear, but for the sake of the ego are worlds dear;
not for the sake of gods are gods dear, but for the ego's sake are
gods dear; not for the sake of _bh[=u]ts_ (spirits) are _bh[=u]ts_
dear, but for the ego's sake are _bhuts_ dear; not for the sake of
anything is anything dear, but for love of one's self (ego) is
anything (everything) dear; the ego (self) must be seen, heard,
apprehended, regarded, M[=a]itrey[=i], for with the seeing, hearing,
apprehending, and regarding of the ego the All is known.... Even as
smoke pours out of a fire lighted with damp kindling wood, even so out
of the Great Being is blown out all that which is, Rig Veda, Yajur
Veda, S[=a]ma Veda, Atharva (Angiras) Veda, Stories, Tales, Sciences,
Upanishads, food, drink, sacrifices; all creatures that exist are
blown (breathed) out of this one (Great Spirit) alone. As in the
ocean all the waters have their meeting-place; as the skin is the
meeting-place of all touches; the tongue, of all tastes; the
nose, of all smells; the mind, of all precepts; the heart, of all
knowledges; ... as salt cast into water is dissolved so that one
cannot seize it, but wherever one tastes it is salty, so this
Great Being, endless, limitless, is a mass of knowledge. It arises out
of the elements and then disappears in them. After death there is no
more consciousness.[26] I have spoken.' Thus said Y[=a]jñavalkya. Then
said M[=a]itrey[=i]: 'Truly my Lord has bewildered me in saying that
after death there is no more consciousness.' And Y[=a]jñavalkya said:
'I say nothing bewildering, but what suffices for understanding. For
where there is as it were duality (_dv[=a]itam_), there one sees,
smells, hears, addresses, notices, knows another; but when all the
universe has become mere ego, with what should one smell, see, hear,
address, notice, know any one (else)? How can one know him through
whom he knows this all, how can he know the knower (as something
different)? The ego is to be described by negations alone, the
incomprehensible, imperishable, unattached, unfettered; the ego
neither suffers nor fails. Thus, M[=a]itrey[=i], hast thou been
instructed. So much for immortality.' And having spoken thus
Y[=a]jñavalkya went away (into the forest).
Returning to the Upanishad, of which an outline was given in the
beginning of this chapter, one finds a state of things which, in
general, may be said to be characteristic of the whole Upanishad
period. The same vague views in regard to cosmogony and eschatology
obtain in all save the outspoken sectarian tracts, and the same
uncertainty in regard to man's future fate prevails in this whole
cycle.[27] A few extracts will show this. According to the
Ch[=a]ndogya (4. 17. 1), a personal creator, the old Father-god of the
Br[=a]hmanas, Praj[=a]pati, made the elements proceed from the worlds
he had 'brooded' over (or had done penance over, _abhyatapat_). In 3.
19. 1, not-being was first; this became being (with the mundane egg,
etc.). In sharp contradiction (6. 2. 1): 'being was the first thing,
it willed,' etc., a conscious divinity, as is seen in _ib_. 3. 2,
where it is a 'deity,' producing elements as 'deities' (_ib._ 8. 6)
which it enters 'with the living _[=a]tm[=a]_,' and so develops names
and forms (so _T[=a]itt_. 2. 7). The latter is the prevailing view of
the Upanishad. In 1. 7. 5 ff. the _[=a]tm[=a]_ is the same with the
universal _[=a]tm[=a]_; in 3. 12. 7, the _brahma_ is the same with
ether without and within, unchanging; in 3. 13. 7, the 'light above
heaven' is identical with the light in man; in 3. 14. 1, all is
_brahma_ (neuter), and this is an intelligent universal spirit. Like
the ether is the _[=a]tm[=a]_ in the heart, this is _brahma_ (_ib_. 2
ff.); in 4. 3. air and breath are the two ends (so in the argument
above, these are immortal as distinguished from all else); in 4. 10. 5
_yad v[=a]v[=a] ka[.m] tad eva kham_ (_brahma_ is ether); in 4. 15. 1,
the ego is _brahma_; in 5. 18. 1 the universal ego is identified with
the particular ego (_[=a]tm[=a]_); in 6. 8 the ego is the True, with
which one unites in dreamless sleep; in 6. 15. 1, into _par[=a]
devat[=a]_ or 'highest divinity' enters man's spirit, like salt in
water (_ib_. 13). In 7. 15-26, a view but half correct is stated to be
that 'breath' is all, but it is better to know that _yo bh[=u]m[=a]_
_tad am[r.]tam_, the immortal (all) is infinity, which rests in its
own greatness, with a corrective 'but perhaps it doesn't' (_yadi v[=a]
na_). This infinity is ego and _[=a]tm[=a]_.[28]
What is the reward for knowing this? One obtains worlds, unchanging
happiness, _brahma_; or, with some circumnavigation, one goes to the
moon, and eventually reaches _brahma_ or obtains the worlds of the
blessed (5. 10. 10). The round of existence, _sams[=a]ra_, is
indicated at 6. 16, and expressly stated in 5. 10. 7 (insects have
here a third path). Immortality is forcibly claimed: 'The living one
dies not' (6. 11. 3). He who knows the sections 7. 15 to 26 becomes
_[=a]tm[=a]nanda_ and "lord of all worlds"; whereas an incorrect view
gives perishable worlds. In one Upanishad there is a verse (_Çvet_. 4.
5) which would indicate a formal duality like that of the
S[=a]nkhyas;[29] but in general one may say that the Upanishads are
simply pantheistic, only the absorption into a world-soul is as yet
scarcely formulated. On the other hand, some of the older Upanishads
show traces of an atheistic and materialistic (_asad_) philosophy,
which is swallowed up in the growing inclination to personify the
creative principle, and ultimately is lost in the erection of a
personal Lord, as in the latest Upanishads. This tendency to
personify, with the increase of special sectarian gods, will lead
again, after centuries, to the rehabilitation of a triad of gods, the
_trim[=u]rti_, where unite Vishnu, Çiva, and, with these, who are more
powerful, Brahm[=a], the Praj[=a]pati of the Veda, as the All-god of
purely pantheistic systems. In the purer, older form recorded above,
the _purusha_ (Person) is sprung from the _[=a]tm[=a]_. There is no
distinction between matter and spirit. Conscious being (_sat_) wills,
and so produces all. Or _[=a]tm[=a]_ comes first; and this is
conscious _sat_ and the cause of the worlds; which _[=a]tm[=a]_
eventually becomes the Lord. The _[=a]tm[=a]_ in man, owing to his
environment, cannot see whole, and needs the Yoga discipline of
asceticism to enable him to do so. But he is the same ego which is the
All.
The relation between the absolute and the ego is through will. "This
(neuter) _brahma_ willed, 'May I be many,' and created" _(Ch[=a]nd_.,
above). Sometimes the impersonal, and sometimes the personal "spirit
willed" _(T[=a]iit._ 2. 6). And when it is said, in _Brihad [=A]ran_.
1. 4. 1, that "In the beginning ego, spirit, _[=a]tm[=a],_ alone
existed," one finds this spirit (self) to be a form of _brahma (ib._
10-11). Personified in a sectarian sense, this spirit becomes the
divinity Rudra Çiva, the Blessed One (_Çvet[=a]çvatara,_ 3. 5.
11).[30]
In short, the teachers of the Upanishads not only do not declare
clearly what they believed in regard to cosmogonic and eschatological
matters, but many of them probably did not know clearly what they
believed. Their great discovery was that man's spirit was not
particular and mortal, but part of the immortal universal. Whether
this universal was a being alive and a personal _[=a]tm[=a]_, or
whether this personal being was but a transient form of impersonal,
imperishable being;[31] and whether the union with being, _brahma_,
would result in a survival of individual consciousness,--these are
evidently points they were not agreed upon, and, in all probability,
no one of the sages was certain in regard to them. Crass
identifications of the vital principle with breath, as one with ether,
which is twice emphasized as one of the two immortal things, were
provisionally accepted. Then breath and immortal spirit were made one.
Matter had energy from the beginning, _brahma_; or was chaos, _asat_,
without being. But when _asat_ becomes _sat_, that _sat_ becomes
_brahma_, energized being, and to _asat_ there is no return. In
eschatology the real (spirit, or self) part of man (ego) either
rejoices forever as a conscious part of the conscious world-self, or
exists immortal in _brahma_--imperishable being, conceived as more or
less conscious.[32]
The teachers recognize the limitations of understanding: "The gods are
in Indra, Indra is in the Father-god, the Father-god (the Spirit) is
in _brahma_"--"But in what is _brahma?_" And the answer is, "Ask not
too much" (_Brihad. [=A]ran. Up_. 3. 6).
These problems will be those of the future formal philosophy. Even the
Upanishads do not furnish a philosophy altogether new. Their doctrine
of _karma_ their identification of particular ego and universal ego,
is not original. The 'breaths,' the 'nine doors,' the 'three
qualities,' the _purusha_ as identical with ego, are older even than
the Br[=a]hmanas (Scherman, _loc. cit_. p. 62).
It is not a new philosophy, it is a new religion that the Upanishads
offer.[33] This is no religion of rites and ceremonies, although the
cult is retained as helpful in disciplining and teaching; it is a
religion for sorrowing humanity. It is a religion that comforts the
afflicted, and gives to the soul 'that peace which the world cannot
give.' In the sectarian Upanishads this bliss of religion is ever
present. "Through knowing Him who is more subtile than subtile, who is
creator of everything, who has many forms, who embraces everything,
the Blessed Lord--one attains to peace without end" (_Çvet_. 4.
14-15). These teachers, who enjoin the highest morality
('self-restraint, generosity, and mercy' are God's commandments in
_Brihad [=A]ran_. 5. 2) refuse to be satisfied with virtue's reward,
and, being able to obtain heaven, 'seek for something beyond.' And
this they do not from mere pessimism, but from a conviction that they
will find a joy greater than that of heaven, and more enduring, in
that world where is "the light beyond the darkness" (_Çvet_. 3. 8);
"where shines neither sun, moon, stars, lightning, nor fire, but all
shines after Him that shines alone, and through His light the universe
is lighted" (_Mund_. 2. 2. 10). This, moreover, is not a future joy.
It is one that frees from perturbation in this life, and gives relief
from sorrow. In the Ch[=a]ndogya (7. 1. 3) a man in grief comes
seeking this new knowledge of the universal Spirit; "For," says he, "I
have heard it said that he who knows the Spirit passes beyond grief."
So in the [=I]ç[=a], though this is a late sectarian work, it is
asked, "What sorrow can there be for him to whom Spirit alone has
become all things?' (7). Again, "He that knows the joy of _brahma_,
whence speech with mind turns away without apprehending it, fears not"
(_T[=a]itt_. 2. 4); for "fear comes only from a second" (_Brihad
[=A]ran. Up_. 1. 4. 2), and when one recognizes that all is one he no
longer fears death (_ib_. 4. 4. 15).
Such is the religion of these teachers. In the quiet assumption that
life is not worth living, they are as pessimistic as was Buddha. But
if, as seems to be the case, the Buddhist believed in the eventual
extinction of his individuality, their pessimism is of a different
sort. For the teacher of the Upanishads believes that he will attain
to unending joy; not the rude happiness of 'heaven-seekers,' but the
unchanging bliss of immortal peace. For him that wished it, there was
heaven and the gods. These were not denied; they were as real as the
"fool" that desired them. But for him that conquered passion, and knew
the truth, there was existence without the pain of desire, life
without end, freedom from rebirth. The spirit of the sage becomes one
with the Eternal; man becomes God.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Compare _Çal. Br._ ii. 4. 2. 1-6, where the
Father-god gives laws of conduct; and Kaush[=i]taki Brahmana
Upanishad, 3. 8: "This spirit (breath) is guardian of the
world, the lord of the world; he is my spirit" (or, myself),
_sa ma [=a]tm[=a]_. The Brahmanic priest teaches that he is a
god like other gods, and goes so far as to say that he may
be united with a god after death. The Upanishad philosopher
says 'I am God.']
[Footnote 2: Compare Scherman, _Philosophische Hymnen_, p.
93; above, p. 156.]
[Footnote 3: Or, in other words, the thought of the
Brahmanic period (not necessarily of extant Br[=a]hmanas) is
synchronous with part of the Vedic collection.]
[Footnote 4: The last additions to this class of literature
would, of course, conform in language to their models, just
as the late Vedic Mantras conform as well as their composers
can make them to the older song or _chandas_ style.]
[Footnote 5: Cited by Müller in SBE. i. _Introd_. p.
lxxxii.]
[Footnote 6: Compare Weber, _Ind. Lit_. p. 171; Müller,
_loc. cit._ p. lxviii.]
[Footnote 7: The relation between the Br[=a]hmanas (ritual
works discussed in the last chapter) and the early
Upanishads will be seen better with the help of a concrete
example. As has been explained before, Rig Veda means to the
Hindu not only the 'Collection' of hymns, but all the
library connected with this collection; for instance, the
two Br[=a]hmanas (of the Rig Veda), namely, the Aitareya and
the K[=a]ush[=i]taki (or Ç[=a]nkh[=a]yana). Now, each of
these Br[=a]hmanas concludes with an [=A]ranyaka, that is, a
Forest-Book (_ara[n.]ya_, forest, solitude); and in each
Forest Book is an Upanishad. For example, the third book of
the K[=a]ush[=i]taki [=A]ranyaka is the K[=a]ush[=i]taki
Upanishad. So the Ch[=a]ndogya and Brihad [=A]ranyaka belong
respectively to the S[=a]man and Yajus.]
[Footnote 8: This teaching is ascribed to Ç[=a]ndilya, to
whose heresy, as opposed to the pure Vedantic doctrinc of
Çankara, we shall have to revert in a later chapter. The
heresy consists, in a word, in regarding the individual
spirit as at any time distinct from the Supreme Spirit,
though Ç[=a]ndilya teaches that it is ultimately absorbed
into the latter.]
[Footnote 9: "God' Who' is air, air (space) is God 'Who',"
as if one said 'either is aether.']
[Footnote 10: 'Did penance over,' as one doing penance
remains in meditation. 'Brooded' is Müller's apt word for
this _abhi-tap._]
[Footnote 11: Compare _Brihad [=A]ran. Up_. 6. 3. 7.]
[Footnote 12: This is the _karma_ or _sams[=a]ra_ doctrine.]
[Footnote 13: In J.U.B. alone have we noticed the formula
asserting that 'both being and not-being existed in the
beginning' (1. 53. 1; JAOS. XVI. 130).]
[Footnote 14: Opposed is 3. 19. 1 and _T[=a]itt. Up_. 2. 7.
1 (_Br_. II. 2. 9. 1, 10): "Not-being was here in the
beginning. From it arose being." And so _Çat. Br_. VI. 1. 1.
1 (though in word only, for here not-being is the seven
spirits of God!)]
[Footnote 15: As the Vedic notion of not-being existing
before being is refuted, so the Atharvan homage to Time as
Lord is also derided (_Çvet._ 6) in the Upanishads. The
supreme being is above time, as he is without parts (_ib_.).
In this later Upanishad wisdom, penance, and the grace of
God are requisite to know _brahma_.]
[Footnote 16: This Vedic [Greek: Adgos] doctrine is
conspicuous in the Br[=a]hmana. Compare _Çat. Br_. VII. 5.
2. 21: "V[=a]c ([Greek: Adgos]) is the Unborn one; from
V[=a]c the all-maker made creatures." See Weber, _Ind.
Stud_. IX. 477 ff.]
[Footnote 17: Compare J.U.B. i. 56. 1, 'Water (alone)
existed in the beginning.' This is the oldest and latest
Hindu explanation of the matter of the physical universe.
From the time of the Vedas to mediaeval times, as is
recorded by the Greek travellers, water is regarded as the
original element.]
[Footnote 18: The Gandh[=a]ra might indicate a late
geographical expansion as well as an early heritage, so that
this is not conclusive.]
[Footnote 19: Gough, _Philosophy of the Upanishads_, has
sought to show that the pure Vedantism of Çankara is the
only belief taught in the Upanishads, ignoring the weight of
those passages that oppose his (in our view) too sweeping
assertion.]
[Footnote 20: See the Parimara described, _[=A]it. Br_.
VIII. 28. Here _brahma_ is wind, around which die five
divinities--lightning in rain, rain in moon, moon in sun,
sun in fire, fire in wind--and they are reborn in reverse
order. The 'dying' is used as a curse. The king shall say,
'When fire dies in wind then may my foe die,' and he will
die; so when any of the other gods dies around _brahma_.]
[Footnote 21: Compare sterben, starve.]
[Footnote 22: The androgynous creator of the Br[=a]hmanas.]
[Footnote 23: We cannot, however, quite agree with Whitney
who, _loc. cit._ p. 92, and Journal, xiii, p. ciii ff.,
implies that belief in hell comes later than this period.
This is not so late a teaching. Hell is Vedic and
Brahmanic.]
[Footnote 24: This, in pantheistic style, is expressed thus
(Çvet. 4): "When the light has arisen there is no day no
night, neither being nor not-being; the Blessed One alone
exists there. There is no likeness of him whose name is
Great Glory."]
[Footnote 25: Brihad [=A]ranyaka Upanishad, 2.4; 4. 5.]
[Footnote 26: _Na pretya sa[.m]jñ[=a] 'sti._]
[Footnote 27: Some of the Upanishads have been tampered
with, so that all of the contradictions may not be due to
the composers. Nevertheless, as the uncertainty of opinion
in regard to cosmogony is quite as great as that in respect
of absorption, all the vagueness cannot properly be
attributed to the efforts of later systematizers to bring
the Upanishads into their more or less orthodox Vedantism.]
[Footnote 28: In 4. 10. 5 _kam_ is pleasure, one with ether
as _brahma_, not as wrongly above, p. 222, the god Ka.]
[Footnote 29: This Upanishad appears to be sectarian,
perhaps an early Çivaite tract (dualistic), if the allusion
to Rudra Çiva, below, be accepted as original.]
[Footnote 30: As is foreshadowed in the doctrine of grace by
V[=a]c in the Rig Veda, in the _Çvet_, the _Katha_, and the
_Mund_. Upanishads (_K. 2. 23; M_. 3. 2. 3), but nowhere
else, there enters, with the sectarian phase, that radical
subversion of the Upanishad doctrine which becomes so
powerful at a later date, the teaching that salvation is a
gift of God. "This Spirit is not got by wisdom; the Spirit
chooses as his own the body of that man whom He chooses."]
[Footnote 31: See above. As descriptive of the immortal
conscious Spirit, there is the famous verse: "If the slayer
thinks to slay, if the slain thinks he is slain; they both
understand not; this one (the Spirit) slays not, and is not
slain" (_Katha_, 2. 19); loosely rendered by Emerson, 'If
the red slayer think he slays,' etc.]
[Footnote 32: The fact remarked by Thibaut that radically
different systems of philosophy are built upon the
Upanishads is enough to show how ambiguous are the
declarations of the latter.]
[Footnote 33: Compare Barth, _Religions_, p. 76.]
* * * * *
CHAPTER XI.
THE POPULAR BRAHMANIC FAITH
For a long time after the Vedic age there is little that gives one an
insight into the views of the people. It may be presumed, since the
orthodox systems never dispensed with the established cult, that the
form of the old Vedic creed was kept intact. Yet, since the real
belief changed, and the cult became more and more the practice of a
formality, it becomes necessary to seek, apart from the inherited
ritual, the faith which formed the actual religion of the people.
Inasmuch as this phase of Hindu belief has scarcely been touched upon
elsewhere, it may be well to state more fully the object of the
present chapter.
We have shown above that the theology of the Vedic period had
resulted, before its close, in a form of pantheism, which was
accompanied, as is attested by the Atharva Veda, with a demonology and
witch-craft religion, the latter presumably of high antiquity.
Immediately after this come the esoteric Br[=a]hmanas, in which the
gods are, more or less, figures in the eyes of the priests, and the
form of a Father-god rises into chief prominence, being sometimes
regarded as the creative force, but at all times as the moral
authority in the world. At the end of this period, however, and
probably even before this period ended, there is for the first time,
in the Upanishads, a new religion, that, in some regards, is esoteric.
Hitherto the secrets of religious mysteries had been treated as hidden
priestly wisdom, not to be revealed. But, for the most part, this
wisdom is really nonsense; and when it is said in the Br[=a]hmanas, at
the end of a bit of theological mystery, that it is a secret, or
that 'the gods love that which is secret,' one is not persuaded by the
examples given that this esoteric knowledge is intellectually
valuable. But with the Upanishads there comes the antithesis of
inherited belief and right belief. The latter is public property,
though it is not taught carelessly. The student is not initiated into
the higher wisdom till he is drilled in the lower. The most unexpected
characters appear in the rôle of instructors of priests, namely,
women, kings, and members of the third caste, whose deeper wisdom is
promulgated oftentimes as something quite new, and sometimes is
whispered in secret. Pantheism, _sams[=a]ra_,[1] and the eternal bliss
of the individual spirit when eventually it is freed from further
transmigration,--these three fundamental traits of the new religion
are discussed in such a way as to show that they had no hold upon the
general public, but they were the intellectual wealth of a few. Some
of the Upanishads hide behind a veil of mystery; yet many of them, as
Windisch has said, are, in a way, popular; that is, they are intended
for a general public, not for priests alone. This is especially the
case with the pantheistic Upanishads in their more pronounced form.
But still it is only the very wise that can accept the teaching. It is
not the faith of the people.
Epic literature, which is the next living literature of the Brahmans,
after the Upanishads, takes one, in a trice, from the beginnings of a
formal pantheism, to a pantheism already disintegrated by the newer
worship of sectaries. Here the impersonal _[=a]tm[=a]_, or nameless
Lord, is not only an anthropomorphic Çiva, as in the late Upanishads,
where the philosophic _brahma_ is equated with a long recognized type
of divinity, but _[=a]tm[=a]_ is identified with the figure of a
theomorphic man.
Is there, then, nothing with which to bridge this gulf?
In our opinion the religion of the law-books, as a legitimate phase of
Hindu religion, has been too much ignored. The religion of Upanishad
and Ved[=a]nta, with its attractive analogies with modern speculation,
has been taken as illustrative of the religion of a vast period, to
the discrediting of the belief represented in the manuals of law. To
these certainly the name of literature can scarcely be applied, but in
their rapport with ordinary life they will be found more apt than are
the profounder speculations of the philosophers to reflect the
religious belief taught to the masses and accepted by them.
The study of these books casts a broad light upon that interval
between the Vedic and epic periods wherein it is customary to imagine
religion as being, in the main, cult or philosophy. Nor does the
interest cease with the yield of necessarily scanty yet very
significant facts in regard to eschatological and cosmogonic views.
The gods themselves are not what they are in the rites of the cunning
priests or in the dogmas of the sages. In the Hindu law there is a
reversion to Vedic belief; or rather not a reversion, but here one
sees again, through the froth of rites and the murk of philosophy, the
under-stream of faith that still flows from the old fount, if somewhat
discolored, and waters the heart of the people.
At just what time was elaborated the stupendous system of rites, which
are already traditional in the Br[=a]hmanas, can never be known. Some
of these rites have to do with special ceremonies, such as the royal
inauguration, some are stated _soma_-sacrifices.[2] Opposed to these
_soma_-feasts is the simpler and older fire-cult, which persists in
the house-rituals. All of these together make up a sightly array of
sacrifices.[3] The _soma_-ritual is developed in the Br[=a]hmanas. But
with this class of works there must have been from ancient times
another which treated of the fire-ritual, and of which the more modern
representatives are the extant S[=u]tras. It is with S[=u]tras that
legal literature begins, but these differ from the ritualistic
S[=u]tras. Yet both are full of religious meat. In these collections,
even in the more special, there is no arrangement that corresponds to
western ideas of order. In a completed code, for example, there is a
rough distribution of subjects under different heads, but the attempt
is only tentative, and each work presents the appearance of a
heterogeneous mass of regulations and laws, from which one must pick
out the law for which he is seeking. The earlier legal works were in
prose; the later evolved codes, of which there is a large number, in
metre. It is in these two classes of house-ritual and law-ritual,
which together constitute what is called Smriti, tradition-ritual (in
distinction from the so-called Çruti, revelation-ritual), that one may
expect to find the religion of the time; not as inculcated by the
promoters of mystery, nor yet as disclosed by the philosopher, but as
taught (through the priest) to the people, and as accepted by them for
their daily guidance in matters of every-day observance. We glance
first at the religious observances, for here, as in the case of the
great sacrifices, a detailed examination would be of no more value
than a collective impression; unless, indeed, one were hunting for
folk-lore superstitions, of which we can treat now only in the mass.
It is sufficient to understand that, according to the house-ritual
(_g[r.]hya-s[=u]tra_) and the law-ritual (_dharma-s[=u]tra_, and
_dharma-ç[=a]stra_),[4] for every change in life there was an
appropriate ceremony and a religious observance; for every day,
oblations (three at least); for every fortnight and season, a
sacrifice. Religious formulae were said over the child yet unborn.
From the moment of birth he was surrounded with observances.[5] At
such and such a time the child's head was shaved; he was taken out to
look at the sun; made to eat from a golden spoon; invested with the
sacred cord, etc, etc. When grown up, a certain number of years were
passed with a Guru, or tutor, who taught the boy his Veda; and to whom
he acted as body-servant (a study and office often cut short in the
case of Aryans who were not priests). Of the sacraments alone, such as
the observances to which we have just alluded, there are no less than
forty according to Gautama's laws (the name-rite, eating-rite, etc.).
The pious householder who had once set up his own fire, that is, got
married, must have spent most of his time, if he followed directions,
in attending to some religious ceremony. He had several little rites
to attend to even before he might say his prayers in the morning; and
since even to-day most of these personal regulations are dutifully
observed, one may assume that in the full power of Brahmanhood they
were very straitly enforced.[6]
It is, therefore, important to know what these works, so closely in
touch with the general public, have to say in regard to religion. What
they inculcate will be the popular theology of completed Brahmanism.
For these books are intended to give instruction to all the Aryan
castes, and, though this instruction filtrates through the hands of
the priest, one may be sure that the understanding between king and
priest was such as to make the code the real norm of justice and
arbiter of religious opinions. For instance, when one reads that the
king is a prime divinity, and that, _quid pro quo_, the priest may be
banished, but never may be punished corporally by the king, because
the former is a still greater divinity, it may be taken for granted
that such was received opinion. When we come to take up the Hinduism
of the epic we shall point out that that work contains a religion more
popular even than that of the legal literature, for one knows that
this latter phase of religion was at first not taught at all, but grew
up in the face of opposition. But for the present, before the rise of
epic 'Hinduism,' and before taking up the heretical writings, it is a
great gain to be able to scan a side of religion that may be called
popular in so far as it evidently is the faith which not only was
taught to the masses, but which, as is universally assumed in the law,
the masses accept; whereas philosophers alone accept the _[=a]tm[=a]_
religion of the Upanishads, and the Br[=a]hmanas are not intended for
the public at all, but only for initiated priests.
What, then, is the religious belief and the moral position of the
Hindu law-books? In how far has philosophy affected public religion,
and in what way has a reconciliation been affected between the
contradictory beliefs in regard to the gods; in regard to the value of
works on the one hand, and of knowledge on the other; in regard to
hell as a means of punishment for sin on the one hand, and
reincarnation (_sams[=a]ra_) on the other; in regard to heaven as a
reward of good deeds on the one hand, and absorption into God on the
other; in regard to a personal creator on the one hand, and a First
Cause without personal attributes on the other?
For the philosophical treatises are known and referred to in the early
codes; so that, although the completed systems post-dated the
S[=u]tras, the cosmical and theological speculations of the earlier
Upanishads were familiar to the authors of the legal systems.
The first general impression produced by a perusal of the law-books is
that the popular religion has remained unaffected by philosophy. And
this is correct in so far as that it must be put first in describing
the codes, which, in the main, in keeping the ancient observances,
reflect the inherited faith. When, therefore, one says that
pantheism[7] succeeded polytheism in India, he must qualify the
assertion. The philosophers are pantheists, but what of the vulgar? Do
they give up polytheism; are they inclined to do so, or are they
taught to do so? No. For there is no formal abatement in the rigor of
the older creed. Whatever the wise man thought, and whatever in his
philosophy was the instruction which he imparted to his peers, when he
dealt with the world about him he taught his intellectual inferiors a
scarcely modified form of the creed of their fathers. How in his own
mind this wise man reconciled the two sets of opinion has been shown
above. The works of sacrifice, with all the inherited belief implied
by them, were for him preparatory studies. The elasticity of his
philosophy admitted the whole world of gods, as a temporary reality,
into his pantheistic scheme. It was, therefore, neither the hypocrisy
of the Roman augur, nor the fear of results that in his teaching held
him to the inheritance he had received. Gods, ghosts, demons, and
consequently sacrifices, rites, ordeals, and formulae were not
incongruous with his philosophical opinions. He himself believed in
these spiritual powers and in the usefulness of serving them. It is
true that he believed in their eventual doom, but so far as man was
concerned they were practically real. There was, therefore, not only
no reason why the sage should not inculcate the old rites, but there
was every reason why he should. Especially in the case of pious but
ignorant people, whose wisdom was not yet developed to a full
appreciation of divine relativity, was it incumbent on him to keep
them, the lower castes, to the one religion that they could
comprehend.
It is thus that the apparent inconsistency in exoteric and esoteric
beliefs explains itself. For the two are not contradictory. They do
not exclude each other. Hindu pantheism includes polytheism with its
attendant patrolatry, demonology, and consequent ritualism.[8]
With rare exceptions it was only the grosser religion that the vulgar
could understand; it was only this that they were taught and believed.
Thus the old Vedic gods are revered and worshipped by name. The Sun,
Indra, and all the divinities embalmed in ritual, are placated and
'satiated' with offerings, just as they had been satiated from time
immemorial. But no hint is given that this is a form; or that the
Vedic gods are of less account than they had been. Moreover, it is not
in the inherited formulae of the ritual alone that this view is
upheld. To be sure, when philosophical speculation is introduced, the
Father-god comes to the fore; Brahm[=a][9] sits aloft, indulgently
advising his children, as he does in the intermediate stage of the
Br[=a]hmanas; and _[=a]tm[=a] (brahma)_ too is recognized to be the
real being of Brahm[=a], as in the Upanishads.[10] But none of this
touches the practice of the common law, where the ordinary man is
admonished to fear Yama's hell and Varuna's bonds, as he would have
been admonished before the philosopher grew wiser than the Vedic
seers. Only personified Right, Dharma, takes his seat with shadowy
Brahm[=a] among the other gods.[11]
What is the speech which the judge on the bench is ordered to repeat
to the witnesses? Thus says the law-giver Manu: "When the witnesses
are collected together in the court, in the presence of the plaintiff
and defendant, the (Brahman) judge should call upon them to speak,
kindly addressing them in the following manner: 'Whatever you know has
been done in this affair ... declare it all. A witness who in
testifying speaks the truth reaches the worlds where all is plenty ...
such testimony is honored by Brahm[=a]. One who in testifying speaks
an untruth is, all unwilling, bound fast by the cords of Varuna,[12]
till an hundred births are passed.' ... (Then, speaking to one
witness): 'Spirit (soul) is the witness for the Spirit, and the Spirit
is likewise the refuge of the Spirit. Despise not, therefore, thine
own spirit (or soul), the highest witness of man. Verily, the wicked
think 'no one sees us,' but the gods are looking at them, and also the
person within (conscience). _Dyaus, Earth, the Waters_, (the person in
the) heart, _Moon, Sun, Fire, Yama, Wind, Night, the twin Twilights_,
and Dharma know the conduct of all corporeal beings.... Although, O
good man, thou regardest thyself, thinking, 'I am alone,' yet the holy
one (saint) who sees the evil and the good, stands ever in thy heart.
It is in truth god Yama, the son of Vivasvant, who resideth in thy
heart; if thou beest not at variance with him (thou needest) not (to)
go to the Ganges and to the (holy land of) the Kurus (to be
purified).'"
Here there is no abatement in Vedic polytheism, although it is circled
round with a thin mist from later teachings. In the same way the
ordinary man is taught that at death his spirit (soul) will pass as a
manikin out of his body and go to Yama to be judged; while the feasts
to the Manes, of course, imply always the belief in the individual
activity of dead ancestors. Such expressions as 'The seven daughters
of
Varuna' (_sapta v[=a]ru[n.][=i]r im[=a]s,_ [=A]çv. _Grih. S_. 2. 3. 3)
show that even in detail the old views are still retained. There is no
advance, except in superstitions,[13] on the main features of the old
religion. So the same old fear of words is found, resulting in new
euphemisms. One must not say 'scull,' _kap[=a]la_, but call it
_bhag[=a]la_, 'lucky' (Gaut. 9. 21); a factor in the making of African
languages also, according to modern travellers. Images of the gods are
now over-recognized by the priest, for they must be revered like the
gods themselves (_ib_. 12; P[=a]r. _Grih. S_. 3. 14. 8. etc.). Among
the developed objects of the cult serpents now occupy a prominent
place. They are mentioned as worshipful in the Br[=a]hmanas. In the
S[=u]tra period offerings are made to snakes of earth, air, and
heaven; the serpents are 'satiated' along with gods, plants, demons,
etc. (Ç[=a][.n]kh. 4. 9. 3; 15. 4; [=A]çv. 2. 1. 9; 3. 4. 1;
P[=a]rask. 2. 14. 9) and blood is poured out to them ([=A]çv. 4. 8.
27.).[14] But other later divinities than those of the earliest Veda,
such as Wealth (Kubera), and Dharma, have crept into the ritual. With
the Vedic gods appears as a divinity in Kh[=a]d. 1. 5. 31 the love-god
K[=a]ma, of the Atharvan; while on the other hand Rudra the beast-lord
(Paçupati, Lord of Cattle), the 'kindly' Çiva, appears as 'great god,'
whose names are Çankara, Prish[=a]taka, Bhava, Çarva, Ugra, Iç[=a]na
(Lord); who has all names and greatness, while he yet is described in
the words of the older text as 'the god that desires to kill' ([=A]çv.
2. 2. 2; 4. 8. 9, 19,[15] 29, 32; _[=A]it. Br_. 3. 34). On the other
hand Vishnu is also adored, and that in connection with the [Greek:
logos], or V[=a]c (_ib_. 3. 3. 4). Quite in Upanishad manner--for it
is necessary to show that these were then really known--is the formula
'thou art a student of _pr[=a][n.]a_ (Breath,) and art given over to
Ka' (_ib_. 1. 20. 8.), or _'whom?'_ In [=A]çval[=a]yana no Upanishads
are given in the list of literature, which includes the 'Eulogies of
men,' Itih[=a]sas, Pur[=a]nas, and even the Mah[=a]bh[=a]rata (3. 3.
1; 4. 4). But in 1. 13. 1, _Upanishad-rites_ (and that of a very
domestic nature) are recognized, which would corroborate the
explanation of Upanishad given above, as being at first a subsidiary
work, dealing with minor points.[16] Something of the sciolism of the
Upanishads seems to lie in the prayer that of the four paths on which
walk the gods the mortal may be led in that which bestows 'freedom
from death' (P[=a]r. 3. 1. 2); and many of the teachers famous in the
Upanishads are now revered by name like gods ([=A]çv. 3. 4. 4, etc.).
On turning from these domestic S[=u]tras to the legal S[=u]tras it
becomes evident that the pantheistic doctrine of the Upanishads, and
in part the Upanishads themselves, were already familiar to the
law-makers, and that they influenced, in some degree, the doctrines of
the law, despite the retention of the older forms. Not only is
_sams[=a]ra_ the accepted doctrine, but the _[=a]tm[=a]_, as if in a
veritable Upanishad, is the object of religious devotion. Here,
however, this quest is permitted only to the ascetic, who presumably
has performed all ritualistic duties and passed through the stadia
that legally precede his own.
Of all the legal S[=u]tra-writers Gautama is oldest, and perhaps is
pre-buddhistic. Turning to his work one notices first that the
M[=i]m[=a]msist is omitted in the list of learned men (28. 49);[17]
but since the Upanishads and Ved[=a]nta are expressly mentioned, it is
evident that the author of even the oldest S[=u]tra was acquainted
with whatever then corresponded to these works.[18] The opposed
teaching of hell versus _sams[=a]ra_ is found in Gautama. But there is
rather an interesting attempt to unite them. Ordinarily it is to hell
and heaven that reference is made, _e.g_., 'the one that knows the law
obtains the heavenly world' (28. 52); 'if one speak untruth to a
teacher, even in thought, even in respect to little things, he slays
seven men after and before him' (seven descendants and seven
ancestors, 23. 31). So in the case of witnesses: 'heaven (is the
fruit) for speaking the truth; otherwise hell' (13. 7); 'for stealing
(land) hell' (is the punishment, _ib_. 17). Now and then comes the
philosophical doctrine: 'one does not fall from the world of
Brahm[=a]' (9. 74); 'one enters into union and into the same world
with Brahm[=a]' (8. 25).
But in 21. 4-6 there occurs the following statement: 'To be an outcast
is to be deprived of the works of the twice-born, and hereafter to be
deprived of happiness; this some (call) hell.' It is evident here that
the expression _asiddhis_ (deprivation of success or happiness) is
placed optionally beside _naraka_ (hell) as the view of one set of
theologians compared with that of another; 'lack of obtaining success,
_i.e_., reward' stands parallel to 'hell.' In the same chapter, where
Manu says that he who assaults a Brahman "obtains hell for one hundred
years" (M. xi. 207), Gautama (21. 20) says "for one hundred years,
lack of heaven" (_asvargyam_), which may mean hell or the deprivation
of the result of merit, _i.e_., one hundred years will be deducted
from his heavenly life. In this case not a new and better birth but
heaven is assumed to be the reward of good acts. Now if one turns to
11. 29-30 he finds both views combined. In the parallel passage in
[=A]pastamba only better or worse re-births are promised as a reward
for good or evil (2. 5. 11. 10-11); but here it is said: "The castes
and orders that remain by their duty, having died, having enjoyed the
fruits of their acts, with the remnant of their (merit) obtain
re-birth, having an excellent country, caste, and family; having long
life, learning, good conduct, wealth, happiness, and wisdom. They of
different sort are destroyed in various ways." Here, heavenly joys
(such as are implied by _ni[h.]çreyasam_ in 26) are to be enjoyed
first, and a good birth afterwards, and by implication one probably
has to interpret the next sentence to mean 'they are sent to hell and
then re-born in various low births.' This, too, is Manu's rule
(below). At this time the sacred places which purify are in great
vogue, and in Gautama a list of them is given (19. 14), viz.: "all
mountains, all rivers, holy pools, places of pilgrimage (_i.e_.,
river-fords, _tirth[=a]ni_), homes of saints, cow-pens, and altars."
Of these the _tirthas_ are particularly interesting, as they later
become of great importance, thousands of verses in the epic being
devoted to their enumeration and praise.
Gautama says also that ascetics, according to some teachers, need not
be householders first (3. 1), and that the Brahman ascetic stays at
home during the rainy season, like the heretic monks (_ib_. 13). If
one examine the relative importance of the forms and spirit of
religion as taught in this, the oldest _dharma-s[=u]tra_,[19] he will
be impressed at first with the tremendous weight laid on the former as
compared with the latter. But, as was said apropos of the Brahmanic
literature, one errs who fails to appreciate the fact that these works
are intended not to give a summary of religious conduct, but to
inculcate ceremonial rules. Of the more importance, therefore, is the
occasional pause which is made to insist, beyond peradventure, on the
superiority of moral rules. A very good instance of this is found in
Gautama. He has a list of venial sins. Since lying is one of the most
heinous offences to a Hindu lawgiver, and the penances are severe, all
the treatises state formally that an untruth uttered in fun, or when
one is in danger, or an oath of the sort implied by Plato: [Greek:
_aphrodision orkon ou phasin einai_],--all these are venial, and so
are lies told to benefit a (holy) cow, or to aid a priest; or told
from religious motives of any sort without self-interest. This is
almost the only example of looseness in morals as taught in the law.
But the following case shows most plainly the importance of morality
as opposed to formal righteousness. After all the forty sacraments (to
which allusion was made above), have been recounted, there are given
'eight good qualities of the soul,' viz., mercy, forbearance, freedom
from envy, purity, calmness, correct behavior, freedom from greed and
from covetousness. Then follows: "He that has (performed) the forty
sacraments but has not the eight good qualities enters not into union
with Brahm[=a], nor into the heaven of Brahm[=a].[20] But he that has
(performed) only a part of the forty sacraments and has the eight good
qualities enters into union with Brahm[=a], and into the heaven of
Brahm[=a]." This is as near to heresy as pre-buddhistic Brahmanism
permitted itself to come.
In the later legal S[=u]tra of the northern Vasistha[21] occurs a rule
which, while it distinctly explains what is meant by liberality, viz.,
gifts to a priest, also recognizes the 'heavenly reward': "If gifts
are given to a man that does not know the Veda the divinities are not
satisfied" (3. 8). In the same work (6. 1) 'destruction' is the fate
of the sinner that lives without observance of good custom; yet is it
said in the same chapter (27): "If a twice-born man dies with the food
of a Ç[=u]dra (lowest caste) in his belly, he would become a village
pig, or he is born again in that (Ç[=u]dra's) family"; and, in respect
to sons begotten when he has in him such food: "Of whom the food, of
him are these sons; and he himself would not mount to heaven ... he
does not find the upward path" (29, 28). In _ib_. 8. 17 the Brahman
that observes all the rules 'does not fall from _brahmaloka,' i.e_.,
the locality of Brahm[=a]. Further, in 10. 4: "Let (an ascetic) do
away with all (sacrificial) works; but let him not do away with one
thing, the Veda; for from doing away with the Veda (one becomes) a
Ç[=u]dra." But, in the same chapter: "Let (the ascetic) live at the
end of a village, in a temple ('god's house'), in a deserted house, or
at the root of a tree; there in his mind studying the knowledge (of
the _[=a]tm[=a]_) ... so they cite (verses): 'Sure is the freedom from
re-birth in the case of one that lives in the wood with passions
subdued ... and meditates on the supreme spirit' ... Let him not be
confined to any custom ... and in regard to this (freedom from worldly
pursuits) they cite these verses: 'There is no salvation (literally
'release') for a philologist (_na çabdaç[=a]str[=a]bhiratasya
mokshas_), nor for one that delights in catching (men) in the world,
nor for one addicted to food and dress, nor for one pleased with a
fine house. By means of prodigies, omens, astrology, palmistry,
teaching, and talking let him not seek alms ... he best knows
salvation who (cares for naught)' ... (such are the verses). Let him
neither harm nor do good to anything.... Avoidance of disagreeable
conduct, jealousy, presumption, selfishness, lack of belief, lack of
uprightness, self-praise, blame of others, harm, greed, distraction,
wrath, and envy, is a rule that applies to all the stadia of life. The
Brahman that is pure, and wears the girdle, and carries the gourd in
his hand, and avoids the food of low castes fails not of obtaining the
world of Brahm[=a]" (_ib_. 10. 18 ff.). Yama, the Manes, and evil
spirits (_asuras_) are referred to in the following chapter (20, 25);
and hell in the same chapter is declared to be the portion of such
ascetics as will not eat meat when requested to do so at a feast to
the Manes or gods (11. 34),--rather an interesting verse, for in
Manu's code the corresponding threat is that, instead of going to hell
'for as long, _i.e_., as many years, as the beast has hairs,' as here,
one shall experience 'twenty-one rebirths,' _i.e_., the hell-doctrine
in terms of _sams[=a]ra_; while the same image occurs in Manu in the
form 'he that slaughters beasts unlawfully obtains as many rebirths as
there are hairs on the beast' (v. 35. 38). The passive attitude
sometimes ascribed to the Manes is denied; they rejoice over a
virtuous descendant (11. 41); a bad one deprives them of the heaven
they stand in (16. 36). The authorities on morals are here, as
elsewhere, Manu and other seers, the Vedas, and the Father-god, who
with Yama gives directions to man in regard to lawful food, etc. (14.
30). The moral side of the code, apart from ritual impurities,
is given, as usual, by a list of good and bad qualities (above),
while formal laws in regard to theft, murder (especially of a
priest), adultery and drunkenness (20. 44; i. 20), with violation
of caste-regulations by intercourse with outcasts, are 'great
crimes.' Though older than [=A]pastamba, who mentions the
P[=u]rva-m[=i]m[=a]ms[=a], Vasistha, too, knows the Ved[=a]nta (3.
17), and the M[=i]m[=a]ms[=a] (_vikalpin--tarkin_, 3. 20, M. XII.
111).
From the S[=u]tras of B[=a]udh[=a]yana's probably southern school
something of additional interest is to be gained. Here 'darkness'
takes the place of hell (2. 3. 5. 9), which, however, by a citation is
explained (in 2. 2. 3. 34) as 'Yama's hall.' A verse is cited to show
that the greatest sin is lack of faith (1. 5. 10. 6) and not going to
heaven is the reward of folly (_ib_. 7); while the reward of virtue is
to live in heaven for long (4. 8. 7). The same freedom in regard to
ascetics as occurs in other S[=u]tra works is to be found in this
author, not in the more suspicious final chapters, but in that part of
the work which is accepted as oldest,[22] and agrees with the data
found in the Br[=a]hmanas, where the pre-buddhistic monk is called
Bhikshu, 'beggar/or Sanny[=a]sin 'he that renounces,' just as these
terms are employed in the heretical writings. As among the Jains (and
Buddhists), the Brahmanic ascetic carries a few simple utensils, and
wanders about from house to house and village to village, begging
food. Some authorities (among the Brahmans) say that one may become an
ascetic as soon as he has completed his study, though ordinarily this
may be done only after passing through the householder stadium. On
becoming an ascetic the beggar takes the vow not to injure any living
thing (B[=a]udh. II.10.17.2. 11, 29), exactly as the Jain ascetic
takes the vow of non-injury. More than this, as will be seen below,
the details of the Brahman ascetic's vows are almost identical with
those of the Jain ascetic. He vows not to injure living beings, not to
lie, not to steal, to be continent, to be liberal; with the five minor
vows, not to get angry, to obey the Teacher, not to be rash, to be
cleanly and pure in eating.[23] To this ascetic order in the Brahman
priesthood may be traced the origin of the heretical monks. Even in
the Br[=a]hmanas occur the termini technici of the Buddhist
priesthood, notably the Çramana or ascetic monk, and the word
_buddha_, 'awakened' (_pratibudh_). The 'four orders' are those
enumerated as the householder, student, ascetic, and forest-hermit. If
one live in all four orders according to rule, and be serene, he will
come to peace, that is, salvation ([=A]pastamba, 2. 9. 21. I, 2).
According to this later legal writer, who belongs to Southern
India,[24] it is only after one has passed through all the preceding
stadia that he may give up works (sacrifice, etc.) and devote himself
to seeking the [=a]tm[=a],'wandering about, without caring for earth
or heaven, renouncing truth and falsehood, pleasure and pain' (_ib_.
10, 13). There follows this passage one significant of the opposition
between purely Upanishad-ideas and those of the law-givers:
'Acquirement of peace (salvation) depends, it is said, on knowledge;
this is opposed by the codes. If on knowledge (depended) acquirement
of peace, even here (in this world) one would escape grief' (_ib._
14-16). Further, in describing the forest-hermit's austerities (_ib._
23. 4 ff.), verses from a Pur[=a]na are cited which are virtually
Upanishadic: 'The eight and eighty thousand seers who desired
offspring (went) south on Aryaman's path, and obtained (as their
reward) graves; (but) the eight and eighty thousand who did not desire
offspring (went) north on Aryaman's path and make for themselves
immortality,' that is to say 'abandon desire for offspring; and of the
two paths (which, as the commentator observes, are mentioned in the
Ch[=a]ndogya Upanishad), that which gives immortality instead of death
(graves) will be yours.' It is admitted that such ascetics have
miraculous powers; but the law-maker emphatically protests in the
following S[=u]tra against the supposition that a rule which stands
opposed to the received rites (marriage, sacrifice, etc.) is of any
power, and asserts that for the future life an endless reward
('fruit'), called in revelation 'heavenly,' is appointed (_ib._ 8-11).
The next chapter, however, limits, as it were, this dogma, for it is
stated that immortality is the re-birth of one's self in the body of
one's son, and a verse is cited: 'Thou procreatest progeny, and that's
thy immortality, O mortal,' with other verses, which teach that sons
that attend to the Vedic rites magnify the fame and heaven of their
ancestors, who 'live in heaven until the destruction of creation'
_([=a] bh[=u]tasamptav[=a]t_, 2. 9. 24. 5), But 'according to the
Bhavishyat-Pur[=a]na' after this destruction of creation 'they exist
again in heaven as the cause of seed' (_ib._) 6. And then follows a
quotation from the Father-god: 'We live with those people who do these
(following) things: (attend to) the three Vedas, live as students,
create children, sacrifice to the Manes, do penance, make sacrifice to
the gods, practice liberality; he that extols anything else becomes
air (or dust) and perishes' (_ib._) 8; and further: 'only they that
commit sin perish' (not their ancestors).
The animus of this whole passage is apparent. The law-maker has to
contend with them that would reject the necessity of following in
order the traditional stadia of a priest's life; that imagine that by
becoming ascetics without first having passed through the preliminary
stadia they can by knowledge alone attain the bliss that is obtained
by union with _brahma_ (or Brahm[=a]). In other words the jurist has
to contend with a trait eminently anti-Brahmanistic, even Buddhistic.
He denies this value of knowledge, and therewith shows that what he
wishes to have inculcated is a belief in the temporary personal
existence of the Manes; in heaven till the end of the world-order; and
the annihilation of the wicked; while he has a confused or mixed
opinion in regard to one's own personal immortality, believing on the
one hand that there is a future existence in heaven with the gods, and
on the other (rather a materialistic view) that immortality is nothing
but continued existence in the person of one's descendants, who are
virtually one's self in another body: _dehatvam ev[=a]'nyat,_ "only
the body is different" (_ib_) 2. As to cosmogony it is stated to be
(not the emanation of an _[=a]tm[=a]_) but the "emission (creation) of
the Father-god and of the seers" (the latter being visible as stars,
_ib_. 13, 14). In this there is plainly a received popular opinion,
which reflects the Vedic and Brahmanic stage, and is opposed to the
philosophical views of the Upanishads, in other words of the first
Vedantic philosophy; while it is mixed up with the late doctrine of
the cataclysms, which ruin each succeeding^ creation. The equal
annihilation of the wicked (_dhvamsanti_) and unorthodox (_dhvamsate_)
is to be noticed. They are here subject neither to hell nor to
rebirth, but they "become dust and perish" (_ib_. 8. 9).
Throughout the whole legal literature one will find this same
antithesis of views in regard to the fate of good and bad, although it
is seldom that annihilation is predicated of the latter. Usually hell
or rebirth are their fate--two views, which no one can really
reconcile. They are put side by side; exactly as in priestly
discussion in India and Europe it still remains an unsettled question
as to when the soul becomes immortal.[25] Occidental experience
teaches how easy it is for such views to stand together unattacked,
although they are the object of speculation. This passage is perhaps,
historically, the most satisfactory (as it is philosophically
unsatisfactory) that can be cited in answer to the questions that were
posed above. But from other parts of legal literature a few more
statements may be culled, to illustrate still further the lack of
uniformity not only in popular belief, but in the teaching provided
for the public. First from the same work of [=A]pastamba, in 2. 11.
29. 9-10 it is said that if a witness in court perjure himself he
shall be punished by the king, "and further, in passing to the next
world, hell" (is his portion); whereas "(the reward) for truth is
heaven, and praise on the part of all creatures." Now, let one compare
first _ib_. 2. 5. 11. 10-11: "Men of low castes are reborn in higher
castes in successive births, and men of high castes in low castes, if
they respectively perform and neglect their duties." And then this
Vedantic passage of the same author (1. 8. 22 ff.): "Let one (as
penance for sin) devote himself to the Yoga (mental discipline) which
has to do with the highest _[=a]tm[=a]_ ... Nothing is known higher
than the acquisition of _[=a]tm[=a]_. We shall (now) cite some
_[=a]tm[=a]_-acquisition-verses, viz.: All living creatures (are) the
citadel of him that rests in secret, the indestructible one, the
immaculate one. Immortal they that devote themselves to the moveless
one who has a movable dwelling ... the great one whose body is light,
universal, free ... the eternal (part) in all creatures, the wise,
immortal, unchanging one, limbless, voiceless, formless, touchless,
purest, the highest goal. He that everywhere devotes himself to Him
(_[=a]tm[=a]_ as Lord), and always lives accordingly; that by virtue
of Yoga recognizes Him, the subtile one, shall rejoice in the top of
heaven ... He, _[=a]tm[=a],_ comprehends all, embraces all, more
subtile than a lotus-thread and huger than the earth ... From him are
created all bodies; he is the root, he the Everlasting, the Eternal
One."
This discipline it will be observed is enjoined as penance and to get
rid of faults, that is, to subdue the passions. As the same chapter
contains a list of the faults which are to be overcome before one
"arrives at peace" (salvation) they may be cited here: "Anger, joy,
wrath, greed, distraction, injury, threats, lying, over-eating,
calumny, envy, sexual desire, and hate, lack of studying _[=a]tm[=a],_
lack of Yoga--the destruction of these (faults) is based on Yoga"
(mental concentration). On the other hand: "He that devotes himself,
in accordance with the law, to avoiding anger, joy, wrath, greed,
distraction, injury, threats, lies, over-eating, calumny and envy; and
practices liberality, renunciation, uprightness, kindness, subduing
(of the passions), self-control; and is at peace with all creatures;
and practices Yoga; and acts in an [=A]ryan (noble) way; and does not
hurt anything; and has contentment--qualities which, it is agreed,
appertain to all the (four) stadia--he becomes _s[=a]rvag[=a]min"
(ib._ 23.6), that is 'one belonging to the all-pervading' (All-soul).
There appears to be a contradiction between the former passage, where
Yoga is enjoined on ascetics alone; and this, where Yoga is part of
the discipline of all four stadia. But what was in the author's mind
was probably that all these vices and moral virtues are enumerated as
such for all; and he slips in mental concentration as a virtue for the
ascetic, meaning to include all the virtues he knows.
A few further illustrations from that special code which has won for
itself a preeminent name, 'the law-book of Manu,'[26] will give in
epitome the popular religion as taught to the masses; withal even
better than this is taught in the S[=u]tras. For Father Manu's
law-book, as the Hindus call it, is a popular Ç[=a]stra or metrical[27]
composite of law and religion, which reflects the opinion of
Brahmanism in its geographical stronghold, whereas the S[=u]tras
emanate from various localities, north and south. To Manu there is but
one Holy Land, the Kurus' plain and the region round-about it (near
Delhi).
The work takes us forward in time beyond even the latest S[=u]tras,
but the content is such as to show that formal Brahmanism in this
latest stage still keeps to its old norm and to Brahmanic models.
It deserves therefore to be examined with care from several points of
view if one would escape from the belief of the philosopher to the
more general teaching. In this popular religion all morality is
conditioned by the castes,[28] which is true also to a certain degree
of the earlier Sutras, but the evil fruit of this plant is not there
quite so ripe as it is in the later code. The enormity of all crimes
depends on who commits them, and against whom they are committed. The
three upper castes alone have religious privileges. The lowest caste,
outcasts, women, and diseased persons are not allowed to hear the holy
texts or take part in ceremonies.[29] As to the rites, they are the
inherited ones, sacrifices to gods, offerings to Manes and spirits,
and all the ceremonies of house and individual, as explained above;
with especial and very minute rules of observance for each of the four
stadia of a priest's life.[30] There is no hint in any of this of the
importance of the knowledge of the _[=a]tm[=a]._ But in their proper
place the rules of morality and the higher philosophical views are
taught. The doctrine of re-birth is formally stated, and the
attainment of the world of Brahm[=a] _(brahma)_ by union of ceremonies
and knowledge is inculcated. The ascetic should seek, by meditation,
to go to Brahm[=a] (or _brahma_) for when he is utterly indifferent,
then, both here and after death, he gains everlasting happiness.
Therefore he should study the Vedas, but especially the teachings in
regard to the Supreme Spirit, and the Upanishads; studying the
Ved[=a]nta is a regular part of his final discipline (VI, 74-94). In
another part of the work the distinction made in the Upanishads is
upheld, that religious acts are of two sorts, one designed to procure
bliss, and cause a good man to reach equality with the gods; the other
performed without selfish motive; by which latter "even the five
elements are overcome," that is, the absorption into _brahma_ is
effected. For "among all virtuous acts the knowledge of the spirit,
_[=a]tm[=a],_ is highest; through this is obtained even immortality.
One that sees spirit in all things and all things in spirit sacrifices
to spirit and enters Brahm[=a] (or _brahma_)" "The spirit (or self) is
all divinities; the All is based on spirit." And in Upanishadic vein
the Person is then proclaimed as lord of gods, whom "some call fire,
some call Manu, some call Indra, some call air, and some call eternal
_brahma._" But though this be the view of the closing verses, yet in
the beginning of the work is this Person represented as being produced
from a First Cause. It would be out of place here to analyse the
conflicting philosophical views of the Manu code. Even his
commentators are uncertain whether he belonged to the pantheistic
Ved[=a]nta or dualistic S[=a]nkhya school. For them that believe in no
Manu the solution is simpler. Although Manu is usually called a
Puranic Sankhyan, yet are both schools represented, and that without
regard to incongruous teaching. Manu is no more Sankhyan than
Vedantic. Indeed in the main part of the work the teaching is clearly
more Vedantic. But it suffices here to point out that the
_[=a]tm[=a]_-philosophy and religion is not ignored; it is taught as
essential. Nevertheless, it is not taught in such a way as to indicate
that it is requisite for the vulgar. On the contrary, it is only when
one becomes an ascetic that he is told to devote himself to the
pursuit of the knowledge of _[=a]tm[=a]_. In one passage there is
evidence that two replies were given to this fundamental question in
regard to works and knowledge. For after enumerating a list of good
acts, among which are knowledge and Vedic ceremonies, it is asked
which among them most tends to deliverance. The answer is vital. Or it
should be, but it is given in an ambiguous form (xii. 85-6): "Amid all
these acts the knowledge of self, _[=a]tm[=a],_ is the highest, for it
produces immortality. Amid all these acts the one most productive of
happiness, both after death and in this life, is the Vedic ceremony."
Knowledge gives real immortality; rites give temporary bliss. The
Upanishads teach that the latter is lower than the former, but each
answers the question. There were two answers, and Manu gives both.
That is the secret of many discrepancies in Hindu rules. The law-giver
cannot admit absolutely and once for all that the Vedic ceremony is of
no abiding use, as it can be of no use to one that accepts the higher
teaching. He keeps it as a training and allows only the ascetic to be
a philosopher indeed. But at the same time he gives as a sort of
peroration to his treatise some 'elegant extracts' from philosophical
works, which he believes theoretically, although practically he will
not allow them to influence his ritualism. He is a true Brahman
priest.
It is this that is always so annoying in Brahmanic philosophy. For the
slavery of tradition is everywhere. Not only does the ritualist, while
admitting the force of the philosopher's reasons, remain by Vedic
tradition, and in consequence refuse to supplant 'revelation' with the
higher wisdom and better religion, which he sees while he will not
follow it; but even the philosopher must needs be 'orthodox,' and,
since the scriptures themselves are self-contradictory, he is obliged
to use his energies not in discovering truth, but in reconciling his
ancestors' dogmas, in order to the creation of a philosophical system
which shall agree with everything that has been said in the Vedas and
Upanishads. When one sees what subtlety and logical acumen these
philosophers possessed, he is moved to wonder what might have been the
outcome had their minds been as free as those of more liberal Hellas.
But unfortunately they were bound to argue within limits, and were as
much handicapped in the race of thought as were they that had to
conform to the teachings of Rome. For though India had no church, it
had an inquisitorial priestly caste, and the unbeliever was an
outcast. What is said of custom is true of faith: "Let one walk in the
path of good men, the path in which his father walked, in which his
grandfathers walked; walking in that path one does no wrong" (Manu iv.
178). Real philosophy, unhampered by tradition, is found only among
the heretics and in the sects of a later time.
The gods of old are accepted by the orthodox as a matter of course,
although theoretically they are born of the All-god, who is without
the need of ceremonial rites. To the other castes the active and most
terrible deity is represented as being the priest himself. He not only
symbolizes the fire-god, to whom is offered the sacrifice, but he
actually is the divinity in person. Hence there is no greater merit
than in giving gifts to priests. As to eschatology, opinions are not
contrasted any more. They are put side by side. In morality truth,
purity, and harmlessness are chiefly inculcated. But the last
(ascribed by some scholars to Buddhistic influence) is not permitted
to interfere with animal sacrifices.
Some of the rules for the life of a householder will show in brief the
moral excellence and theoretical uncertainty of Manu's law-code. The
following extracts are from the fourth, the Ten Commandments from the
sixth, and the description of the hells (twenty-two in all)[31] from
the fourth and twelfth books of Manu's code. These rules may be
accepted as a true reflexion of what was taught to the people by
stringent Brahmanism as yet holding aloof from Hinduism.
A householder must live without giving any pain (to living creatures).
He must perform daily the ceremonies ordained in the Veda. In this way
he obtains heaven. Let him never neglect the offerings to seers, gods,
spirits (sprites), men, and Manes. Some offer sacrifice only in their
organs of sense (not in external offerings); some by knowledge alone.
Let him not explain law and rites to the Ç[=u]dra (slave) caste; if he
does so, he sinks into the hell Boundless. Let him not take presents
from an avaricious king who disobeys the law-codes; if he does so, he
goes to twenty-one hells (called Darkness, Dense-darkness, Frightful,
Hell, Thread of Death, Great Hell, Burning, Place of Spikes,
Frying-pan, River of Hell, etc., etc., etc.). Let him never despise a
warrior, a snake, or a priest. Let him never despise himself. Let him
say what is true and what is agreeable, but not disagreeable truth or
agreeable false-hood. Let him not dispute with anybody, but let him
say 'very well.' Let him not insult anybody. Remembering his former
births, and studying the Veda again and again, he gets endless
happiness. Let him avoid unbelief and censure of the Vedas, reviling
of gods, hatred, pride, anger, and cruelty. He that even threatens a
priest will go to the hell Darkness for one hundred years; if he
strikes him he will be born in twenty-one sinful rebirths (according
to another passage in the eleventh book he goes to hell for a thousand
years for the latter offence). Priests rule the world of gods. But
deceitful, hypocritical priests go to hell. Let the householder give
gifts, and he will be rewarded. One that gives a garment gets a place
in the moon; a giver of grain gets eternal happiness; a giver of the
Veda gets union with Brahm[=a] (_brahma_; these gifts, of course, are
all to priests). He that gives respectfully and he that receives
respectfully go to heaven; otherwise both go to hell. Let him, without
giving pain to any creature, slowly pile up virtue, as does an ant its
house, that he may have a companion in the next world. For after death
neither father, nor mother, nor son, nor wife, nor relations are his
companions; his virtue alone remains with him. The relations leave the
dead body, but its virtue follows the spirit: with his virtue as his
companion he will traverse the darkness that is hard to cross; and
virtue will lead him to the other world with a luminous form and
ethereal body. A priest that makes low connections is reborn as a
slave. The Father-god permits a priest to accept alms even from a bad
man. For fifteen years the Manes refuse to accept food from one that
despises a free gift. A priest that sins should be punished (that is,
mulcted, a priest may not be punished corporally), more than an
ordinary man, for the greater the wisdom the greater the offence. They
that commit the Five Great Sins live many years in hells, and
afterwards obtain vile births; the slayer of a priest becomes in turn
a dog, a pig, an ass, a camel, a cow, a goat, a sheep, etc, etc. A
priest that drinks intoxicating liquor becomes various insects, one
after another. A priest that steals becomes a spider, snake, etc, etc.
By repeating sinful acts men are reborn in painful and base births,
and are hurled about in hells; where are sword-leaved trees, etc, and
where they are eaten, burned, spitted, and boiled; and they receive
births in despicable wombs; rebirth to age, sorrow, and unquenchable
death. But to secure supreme bliss a priest must study the Veda,
practice austerity, seek knowledge, subdue the senses, abstain from
injury, and serve his Teacher. Which of these gives highest bliss? The
knowledge of the spirit is the highest and foremost, for it gives
immortality. The performance of Vedic ceremonies is the most
productive of happiness here and hereafter. The Ten Commandments for
the twice-born are: Contentment, patience, self-control, not to steal,
purity, control of passions, devotion (or wisdom), knowledge,
truthfulness, and freedom from anger. These are concisely summarized
again in the following: 'Manu declared the condensed rule of duty for
(all) the four castes to be: not to injure a living thing; to speak
the truth; not to steal; to be pure; to control the passions' (VI. 92;
X. 63). The 'non-injury' rule does not apply, of course, to sacrifice
(_ib_. III. 268). In the epic the commandments are given sometimes as
ten, sometimes as eight.
In order to give a completed exposition of Brahmanism we have passed
beyond the period of the great heresies, to which we must soon revert.
But, before leaving the present division of the subject, we select
from the mass of Brahmanic domestic rites, the details of which offer
in general little that is worth noting, two or three ceremonies which
possess a more human interest, the marriage rite, the funeral rite,
and those strange trials, known among so many other peoples, the
ordeals. We sketch these briefly, wishing merely to illustrate the
religious side of each ceremony, as it appears in one or more of its
features.
THE MARRIAGE RITE.
Traces of exogamy may be suspected in the bridegroom's driving off
with his bride, but no such custom, of course, is recognized in the
law. On the contrary, the groom is supposed to belong to the same
village, and special rites are enjoined 'if he be from another
village.' But again, in the early rule there is no trace of that taint
of family which the totem-scholars of to-day cite so loosely from
Hindu law. The girl is not precluded because she belongs to the same
family within certain degrees. The only restriction in the
House-rituals is that she shall have had "on the mother's and father's
side" wise, pious, and honorable ancestors for ten generations
([=A]çvl. I. 5). Then comes the legal restriction, which some scholars
call 'primitive,' that the wife must not be too nearly related. The
girl has her own ordeal (not generally mentioned among ordeals!): The
wooer that thus selects his bride (this he does if one has not been
found already either by his parents or by his own inclination) makes
eight balls of earth and calls on the girl to choose one ('may she get
that to which she is born'). If she select a ball made from the earth
of a field that bears two crops, she (or her child) will be rich in
grain; if from the cow-stall, rich in cattle; if from the place of
sacrifice, godly; if from a pool that does not dry, gifted; if from
the gambler's court, devoted to gambling; if from cross-roads,
unfaithful; if from a barren field, poor in grain; if from the
burying-ground, destructful of her husband. There are several forms of
making a choice, but we confine ourselves to the marriage.[32] In
village-life the bridegroom is escorted to the girl's house by young
women who tease him. The bridegroom presents presents to the bride,
and receives a cow. The bridegroom takes the bride's hand, saying 'I
take thy hand for weal' (Rig Veda, X. 85. 36), and leads her to a
certain stone, on which she steps first with the right foot (toe).
Then three times they circumambulate the fire, keeping it to the
right, an old Aryan custom for many rites, as in the _deisel_ of the
Kelts; the bride herself offering grain in the fire, and the groom
repeating more Vedic verses. They then take together the seven solemn
steps (with verses),[33] and so they are married. The groom, if of
another village, now drives away with the bride, and has ready Vedic
verses for every stage of the journey. After sun-down the groom points
out the north star, and admonishes the bride to be no less constant
and faithful. Three or twelve days they remain chaste, some say one
night; others say, only if he be from another village. The new husband
must now see to the house-fire, which he keeps ever burning, the sign
of his being a householder.
THE FUNERAL CEREMONY.
Roth has an article in the Journal of the German Oriental Society
(VIII. 467) which is at once a description of one of the funeral hymns
o£ the Rig Veda (X. 18) with the later ritual, and a criticism of the
bearing of the latter on the former.[34] He shows here that the
ritual, so far from having induced the hymn, totally changes it. The
hymn was written for a burial ceremony. The later ritual knows only
cremation. The ritual, therefore, forces the hymn into its service,
and makes it a cremation-hymn. This is a very good (though very
extreme) example of the difference in age between the early hymns of
the Rig Veda and the more modern ritual. Müller, _ib_. IX. p. I
(_sic_), has given a thorough account of the later ritual and
ritualistic paraphernalia. We confine ourselves here to the older
ceremony.
The scene of the Vedic hymn is as follows: The friends and relatives
stand about the corpse of a married man. By the side of the corpse
sits the widow. The hymn begins: "Depart, O Death, upon some other
pathway, upon thy path, which differs from the path of gods ... harm
not our children, nor our heroes.... These living ones are separated
from the dead; successful today was our call to the gods. (This man is
dead, but) _we_ go back to dancing and to laughter, extending further
our still lengthened lives." Then the priest puts a stone between the
dead and living: "I set up a wall for the living, may no one of these
come to this goal; may they live an hundred full harvests, and hide
death with this stone...."
The matrons assembled are now bid to advance without tears, and make
their offerings to the fire, while the widow is separated from the
corpse of her husband and told to enter again into the world of the
living. The priest removes the dead warrior's bow from his hand: "Let
the women, not widows, advance with the ointment and holy butter; and
without tears, happy, adorned, let them, to begin with, mount to the
altar (verse 7, p. 274, below). Raise thyself, woman, to the world of
the living; his breath is gone by whom thou liest; come hither; of the
taker of thy hand (in marriage), of thy wooer thou art become the
wife[35] (verse 8). I take the bow from the hand of the dead for our
(own) lordship, glory, and strength." Then he addresses the dead:
"Thou art there, and we are here; we will slay every foe and every
attacker (with the power got from thee). Go thou now to Mother Earth,
who is wide opened, favorable, a wool-soft maiden to the good man; may
she guard thee from the lap of destruction. Open, O earth, be not
oppressive to him; let him enter easily; may he fasten close to thee.
Cover him like a mother, who wraps her child in her garment. Roomy and
firm be the earth, supported by a thousand pillars; from this time on
thou (man) hast thy home and happiness yonder; may a sure place remain
to him forever. I make firm the earth about thee; may I not be harmed
in laying the clod here; may the fathers hold this pillar for thee,
and Yama make thee a home yonder."
In the Atharva Veda mention is made of a coffin, but none is noticed
here.
Hillebrandt (_loc. cit_. xl. 711) has made it probable that the eighth
verse belongs to a still older ritual, according to which this verse
is one for human sacrifice, which is here ignored, though the text is
kept.[36] 'Just so the later ritual keeps all this text, but twists it
into a crematory rite. For in the later period only young children are
buried. Of burial there was nothing for adults but the collection of
bones and ashes. At this time too the ritual consists of three parts,
cremation, collection of ashes, expiation. How are these to be
reconciled with this hymn? Very simply. The rite is described and
verses from the hymn are injected into it without the slightest
logical connection. That is the essence of all the Brahmanic
ritualism. The later rite is as follows: Three altars are erected,
northwest, southwest, and southeast of a mound of earth. In the fourth
corner is the corpse; at whose feet, the widow. The brother of the
dead man, or an old servant, takes the widow's hand and causes her to
rise while the priest says "Raise thyself, woman, to the world of the
living." Then follows the removal of the bow; or the breaking of it,
in the case of a slave. The body is now burned, while the priest says
"These living ones are separated from the dead"; and the mourners
depart without looking around, and must at once perform their
ablutions of lustration. After a time the collection of bones is made
with the verse "Go thou now to Mother Earth" and "Open, O earth." Dust
is flung on the bones with the words "Roomy and firm be the earth";
and the skull is laid on top with the verse "I make firm the earth
about thee." In other words the original hymn is fitted to the ritual
only by displacement of verses from their proper order and by a forced
application of the words. After all this comes the ceremony of
expiation with the use of the verse "I set up a wall" without
application of any sort. Further ceremonies, with further senseless
use of other verses, follow in course of time. These are all explained
minutely in the essay of Roth, whose clear demonstration of the
modernness of the ritual, as compared with the antiquity of the hymn
should be read complete.
The seventh verse (above) has a special literature of its own, since
the words "let them, to begin with, mount the altar," have been
changed by the advocates of _suttee_, widow-burning, to mean 'to the
place of fire'; which change, however, is quite recent. The burning of
widows begins rather late in India, and probably was confined at first
to the pet wife of royal persons. It was then claimed as an honor by
the first wife, and eventually without real authority, and in fact
against early law, became the rule and sign of a devoted wife. The
practice was abolished by the English in 1829; but, considering the
widow's present horrible existence, it is questionable whether it
would not be a mercy to her and to her family to restore the right of
dying and the hope of heaven, in the place of the living death and
actual hell on earth in which she is entombed to-day.
ORDEALS.[37]
Fire and water are the means employed in India to test guilt in the
earlier period. Then comes the oath with judgment indicated by
subsequent misfortune. All other forms of ordeals are first recognized
in late law-books. We speak first of the ordeals that have been
thought to be primitive Aryan. The Fire-ordeal: (1) Seven fig-leaves
are tied seven times upon the hands after rice has been rubbed upon
the palms; and the judge then lays a red-hot ball upon them; the
accused, or the judge himself, invoking the god (Fire) to indicate the
innocence or the guilt of the accused. The latter then walks a certain
distance, 'slowly through seven circles, each circle sixteen fingers
broad, and the space between the circles being of the same extent,'
according to some jurists; but other dimensions, and eight or nine
circles are given by other authorities. If the accused drop the ball
he must repeat the test. The burning of the hands indicates guilt. The
Teutonic laws give a different measurement, and state that the hand is
to be sealed for three days (manus sub sigillo triduum tegatur) before
inspection. This sealing for three days is paralleled by modern Indic
practice, but not by ancient law. In Greece there is the simple
[Greek: _mudrous airein cheroin_] (Ant. 264) to be compared. The
German sealing of the hand is not reported till the ninth century.[38]
(2) Walking on Fire: There is no ordeal in India to correspond to the
Teutonic walking over six, nine, or twelve hot ploughshares. To lick a
hot ploughshare, to sit on or handle hot iron, and to take a short
walk over coals is _late_ Indic. The German practice also according to
Schlagintweit "war erst in späterer Zeit aufgekommen."[39]
(3) Walking through Fire: This is a Teutonic ordeal, and (like the
conflict-ordeal) an Indic custom not formally legalized. The accused
walks directly into the fire. So [Greek: _pur dierpein] (loc. cit_.).
Water-ordeals: (1) May better be reckoned to fire-ordeals. The
innocent plunges his hand into boiling water and fetches out a stone
(Anglo-Saxon law) or a coin (Indic law) without injury to his hand.
Sometimes (in both practices) the plunge alone is demanded. The depth
to which the hand must be inserted is defined by Hindu jurists.
(2) The Floating-ordeal. The victim is cast into water. If he floats
he is guilty; if he drowns he is innocent. According to some Indic
authorities an arrow is shot off at the moment the accused is dropped
into the water, and a 'swift runner' goes after and fetches it back.
"If at his return he find the body of the accused still under water,
the latter shall be declared to be innocent."[40] According to Kaegi
this ordeal would appear to be unknown in Europe before the ninth
century. In both countries Water (in India, Varuna) is invoked not to
keep the body of a guilty man but to reject it (make it float).
Food-ordeal: Some Hindu law-books prescribe that in the case of
suspected theft the accused shall eat consecrated rice. If the gums be
not hurt, no blood appear on spitting, and the man do not tremble, he
will be innocent. This is also a Teutonic test, but it is to be
observed that the older laws in India do not mention it.
On the basis of these examples (not chosen in historical sequence)
Kaegi has concluded, while admitting that ordeals with a general
similarity to these have arisen quite apart from Aryan influence, that
there is here a bit of primitive Aryan law; and that even the minutiae
of the various trials described above are _un_-Aryan. This we do
not believe. But before stating our objections we must mention another
ordeal.
The Oath: While fire and water are the usual means of testing crime in
India, a simple oath is also permitted, which may involve either the
accused alone or his whole family. If misfortune, within a certain
time (at once, in seven days, in a fortnight, or even half a year)
happen to the one that has sworn, he will be guilty. This oath-test is
also employed in the case of witnesses at court, perjury being
indicated by the subsequent misfortune (Manu, viii. 108).[41]
Our objections to seeing primitive Aryan law in the minutiae of
ordeals is based on the gradual evolution of these ordeals and of
their minutiae in India itself. The earlier law of the S[=u]tras
barely mentions ordeals; the first 'tradition law' of Manu has only
fire, water, and the oath. All others, and all special descriptions
and restrictions, are mentioned in later books alone. Moreover, the
earliest (pre-legal) notice of ordeals in India describes the carrying
of hot iron (in the test of theft) as simply "bearing a hot axe,"
while still earlier there is only walking through fire.[42]
To the tests by oath, fire, and water of the code of Manu are soon
added in later law those of consecrated water, poison, and the
balance. Restrictions increase and new trials are described as one
descends the series of law-books (the consecrated food, the hot-water
test, the licking of the ploughshare, and the lot), Some of these
later forms have already been described. The further later tests we
will now sketch briefly.
Poison: The earliest poison-test, in the code of Y[=a]jñavalkya (the
next after Manu), is an application of aconite-root, and as the poison
is very deadly, the accused is pretty sure to die. Other laws give
other poisons and very minute restrictions, tending to ease the
severity of the trial.
The Balance-test: This is the opposite of the floating-test. The
man[43] stands in one scale and is placed in equilibrium with a weight
of stone in the other scale. He then gets out and prays, and gets in
again. If the balance sinks, he is guilty; if it rises, he is
innocent.
The Lot-ordeal: This consists in drawing out of a vessel one of two
lots, equivalent respectively to _dharma_ and _adharma_, right and
wrong. Although Tacitus mentions the same ordeal among the Germans, it
is not early Indic law, not being known to any of the ancient legal
codes.
One may claim without proof or disproof that these are all 'primitive
Aryan'; but to us it appears most probable that only the idea of the
ordeal, or at most its application in the simplest forms of water and
fire (and perhaps oath) is primitive Aryan, and that all else
(including ordeal by conflict) is of secondary growth among the
different nations.
As an offset to the later Indic tendency to lighten the severity of
the ordeal may be mentioned the description of the floating-test as
seen by a Chinese traveller in India in the seventh century A.D.:[44]
"The accused is put into a sack and a stone is put into another sack.
The two sacks are connected by a cord and flung into deep water. If
the sack with the man sinks and the sack with the stone floats the
accused is declared to be innocent."
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Literally, transmigration, the doctrine of
metempsychosis, successive births; first, as in Plato:
[Greek: _metabolê tis tugchanei ousa kai metoikêois tê
psuchê ton topon tou enthende eis allon tochon_], then
_metabole_, from 'the other place,' back to earth; then,
with advancing speculation, fresh _metabole_ again, and so
on; a theory more or less clumsily united with the
bell-doctrine.]
[Footnote 2: Weber has lately published two monographs on
the sacrifices, the R[=a]jas[=u]ya and the V[=a]japeya
rites, both full of interesting details and popular
features.]
[Footnote 3: The traditional sacrifices are twenty-one in
number, divided into three classes of seven each. The formal
divisions are (1) oblations of butter, milk, corn, etc.; (2)
_soma_ sacrifices; (3) animal sacrifices, regarded as part
of the first two. The sacrifice of the new and full moon is
to be repeated on each occasion for thirty years. A
_sattra_, session, is a long sacrifice which may last a year
or more.]
[Footnote 4: The latter are the metrical codes, a part of
Smriti (sm[r.]ti).]
[Footnote 5: The Five Paramount Sacrifices (Observances)
are, according to Manu III. 70, study of the Veda (or
teaching it); sacrifice to the Manes and to the gods;
offerings of foods to ghosts (or spirits); and hospitality.]
[Footnote 6: In the report of the Or. Congress for 1880, p.
158 ff., Williams has a very interesting account of the
daily rites of the modern orthodox Hindu ('_Rig Veda in
Religious Service_').]
[Footnote 7: We ignore here the later distinction between
the Ved[=a]nta and S[=a]nkhya systems. Properly speaking,
the latter is dualistic.]
[Footnote 8: At a later date Buddha himself is admitted into
the Brahmanic pantheon as an _avatar_ of the All-god!]
[Footnote 9: Sometimes regarded as one with Praj[=a]pati,
and sometimes treated as distinct from him.]
[Footnote 10: Thus (for the priestly ascetic alone) in M.
vi. 79: 'Leaving his good deeds to his loved ones and his
evil deeds to his enemies, by force of meditation he goes to
the eternal _brahma_.' Here _brahma_; but in Gautama perhaps
Brahm[=a].]
[Footnote 11: That is, when the latter are grouped as in the
following list. Our point is that, despite new faith and new
gods, Vedic polytheism is taught not as a form but as a
reality, and that in this period the people still believe as
of old in the old gods, though they also acknowledge new
ones (below).]
[Footnote 12: Compare Manu, ix. 245: "Varuna is the lord of
punishment and holdeth a sceptre (punishment) even over
kings."]
[Footnote 13: In new rites, for instance. Thus in P[=a]rask.
_Grih. S_. 3. 7 a silly and dirty rite 'prevents a slave
from running away'; and there is an ordeal for girls before
becoming engaged (below).]
[Footnote 14: Blood is poured out to the demons in order
that they may take this and no other part of the sacrifice,
_[=A]it. Br_. ii. 7. 1.]
[Footnote 15: Here. 4. 8. 19, Çiva's names are Hara, Mrida,
Çarva, Çiva, Bhava, Mah[=a]deva, Ugra, Bhima, Paçupati,
Rudra, Çankara, Içana.]
[Footnote 16: These rites are described in 6. 4. 24 of the
_Brihad [=A]ranyaka Upanishad_ which consists both of
metaphysics and of ceremonial rules.]
[Footnote 17: Especially mentioned in the later Vasistha
(see below); on _m[=i]m[=a]ms[=a]_ a branch of the
Ved[=a]nta system see below.]
[Footnote 18: The commentator here (19. 12, cited by Bühler)
defines Ved[=a]nta as the part of the [=A]ranyakas which are
not Upanishads, that is, apparently as a local 'Veda-end'
(_veda-anta_), though this meaning is not admitted by some
scholars, who will see in _anta_ only the meaning 'goal,
aim.']
[Footnote 19: The Rudra (Çiva) invocation at 26. 12 ff. is
interpolated, according to Bühler.]
[Footnote 20: Here there is plainly an allusion to the two
states of felicity of the Upanishads. Whether the law-giver
believes that the spirit will be united with Brahm[=a] or
simply live in his heaven he does not say.]
[Footnote 21: Gautama, too, is probably a Northerner. The
S[=u]tra, it should be observed, are not so individual as
would be implied by the name of the teachers to whom they
are credited. They were each texts of a school, _carana_,
but they are attributed uniformly to a special teacher, who
represents the _cara[n.]a_, as has been shown by Müller. For
what is known in regard to the early 'S[=u]tra-makers' see
Bühler's introductions to volumes ii. and xiv. of the Sacred
Books.]
[Footnote 22: Compare Bühler's Introduction, p. XXXV, SBE.
vol. XIV.]
[Footnote 23: B[=a]udh. II. 18. 2-3. Compare Jacobi's
Introduction, p. XXIII ff. of SBE. vol. XXII.]
[Footnote 24: Bühler (Introduction, p. XXXI) gives as the
district of the [=A]pastamb[=i]ya school parts of the Bombay
Presidency, the greater parts of the Niz[=a]m's possessions,
and parts of the Madras Presidency. Apastamba himself refers
to Northerners as if they were foreigners (_loc. cit.)_.]
[Footnote 25: In India the latter question is: does the soul
immediately at death unite with the _[=a]tm[=a]_ or does it
travel to it. In Europe: does the soul wait for the Last
Day, or get to heaven immediately? Compare Maine, _Early Law
and Custom_, p. 71.]
[Footnote 26: Thought by some scholars to have been
developed out of the code of The M[=a]navas; but ascribed by
the Hindus to Father Manu, as are many other verses of legal
character contained in the epic and elsewhere.]
[Footnote 27: Although S[=u]tras may be metrical too in
part, yet is the complete metrical form, as in the case of
still later Ç[=a]stra, evidence that the work is intended
for the general public.]
[Footnote 28: The priest alone, in the post-Vedic age, has
the right to teach the sacred texts; he has immunity from
bodily punishment; the right to receive gifts, and other
special privileges. The three upper castes have each the
right and duty of studying the sacred texts for a number of
years.]
[Footnote 29: Weber has shown, _loc. cit_., that the
Ç[=u]dras did attend some of the more popular ceremonies,
and at first apparently even took a part in them.]
[Footnote 30: The 'four orders' or stadia of a priest's
life, student, householder, hermit, ascetic, must not be
confused with the 'four (political) orders' (castes),
priest, warrior, farmer, slave--to which, from time to time,
were added many 'mixed castes,' as well as 'outcasts,' and
natural pariahs. At the time of Manu's code there were
already many of these half-assimilated groups.]
[Footnote 31: Theoretically, twenty-one; but an extra one
has slipped in by mistake.]
[Footnote 32: The girl is given or bought, or may make her
own choice among different suitors. Buying a wife is
reprehended by the early law-givers (therefore, customary).
The rite of marriage presupposes a grown girl, but
child-marriages also were known to the early law.]
[Footnote 33: The groom 'releases her from Varuna's fetter,'
by symbolically loosening the hair. They step northeast, and
he says: 'One step for sap; two for strength; three for
riches; four for luck; five for children; six for the
seasons; seven for friendship. Be true to me--may we have
many long-lived sons.']
[Footnote 34: There is another funeral hymn, X. 16, in which
the Fire is invoked to burn the dead, and bear him to the
fathers; his corporeal parts being distributed 'eye to the
sun, breath to the wind,' etc.]
[Footnote 35: See below.]
[Footnote 36: Compare Weber, _Streifen_, I. 66; The king's
first wife lies with a dead victim, and is bid to come back
again to life. Levirate marriage is known to all the codes,
but it is reprehended by the same code that enjoins it. (M.
ix. 65.)]
[Footnote 37: The ordeal is called _divyam_
(_pram[=a][n.]am_) 'Gottesurtheil.' This means of
information is employed especially in a disputed debt and
deposit, and according to the formal code is to be applied
only in the absence of witnesses. The code also restricts
the use of fire, water, and poison to the slaves (Y[=a]j.
ii. 98).]
[Footnote 38: Kaegi. _Alter und Herkunft des Germanischen
Gottesurtheils_, p. 50. We call especial attention to the
fact that the most striking coincidences in details of
practice are not early either in India or Germany.]
[Footnote 39: Schlagintweit, _Die Gattesurtheile der
Indier_, p. 24.]
[Footnote 40: This is the earliest formula. Later law-books
describe the length and strength of the bow, and some even
give the measure of distance to which the arrow must be
shot. Two runners, one to go and one to return, are
sometimes allowed. There is another water-ordeal "for
religious men." The accused is to drink consecrated water.
If in fourteen (or more or less) days no calamity happen to
him he will be innocent. The same test is made in the case
of the oath and of poison (below).]
[Footnote 41: In the case of witnesses Manu gives seven days
as the limit. When one adopts the oath as an ordeal the
misfortune of the guilty is supposed to come 'quickly.' As
an ordeal this is not found in the later law. It is one of
the Greek tests (_loc. cit_.). When swearing the Hindu holds
water or holy-grass.]
[Footnote 42: AV. ii. 12 is not a certain case of this, but
it is at least Brahmanic. The carrying of the axe is alluded
to in the Ch[=a]ndogya Upanishad (Schlagintweit, _Die
Gattesurtheile der Indier_, p. 6).]
[Footnote 43: Y[=a]jñavalkya (_loc. cit_.) restricts this
test to women, children, priests, the old, blind, lame, and
sick. On _ph[=a]la_ for _agni, ib._ ii. 99, see ZDMG. ix.
677.]
[Footnote 44: Schlagintweit, _loc. cit_. p. 26 (Hiouen
Thsang).]
* * * * *
CHAPTER XII.
JAINISM.[1]
One cannot read the Upanishads without feeling that he is already
facing an intellectual revolt. Not only in the later tracts, which are
inspired with devotion to a supreme and universal Lord, but even in
the oldest of these works the atmosphere, as compared with that of the
earlier Brahmanic period, is essentially different. The close and
stifling air of ritualism has been charged with an electrical current
of thought that must soon produce a storm.
That storm reached a head in Buddhism, but its premonitory signs
appear in the Upanishads, and its first outbreak preceded the advent
of Gautama. Were it possible to draw a line of demarcation between the
Upanishads that come before and after Buddhism, it would be
historically more correct to review the two great schisms, Jainism and
Buddhism, before referring to the sectarian Upanishads. For these
latter in their present form are posterior to the rise of the two
great heresies. But, since such a division is practically uncertain in
its application, we have thought it better in our sketch of the
Upanishads and legal literature to follow to the end the course of
that agitated thought, which, starting with the great identification
of _jiva_, the individual spirit, and _[=a]tm[=a]_, the world-spirit,
the All, continues till it loses itself in a multiplication of
sectarian dogmas, where the All becomes the god that has been elected
by one communion of devotees.[2]
The external characteristics of Upanishad thought are those of a
religion that has replaced formal acts by formal introspection. The
Yogin devotee, who by mystic communion desires absorption into the
world-spirit, replaces the Sanny[=a]sin and Yati ascetics, who would
accomplish the same end by renunciation and severe self-mortification.
This is a fresh figure on the stage of thought, where before were mad
Munis, beggars, and miracle-mongers. On this stage stands beside the
ascetic the theoretical theosophist who has succeeded in identifying
himself, soberly, not in frenzy, with God.[3] What were the practical
results of this teaching has been indicated in part already. The
futility of the stereotyped religious offices was recognized. But
these offices could not be discarded by the orthodox. With the lame
and illogical excuse that they were useful as discipline, though
unessential in reality, they were retained by the Brahman priest. Not
so by the Jain; still less so by the Buddhist.
In the era in which arose the public revolt against the dogmatic
teaching of the Brahman there were more sects than one that have now
passed away forgotten. The eastern part of India, to which appertain
the later part of the Çatapatha Br[=a]hmana and the schismatic
heresies, was full of religious and philosophical controversy. The
great heretics were not innovators in heresy. The Brahmans permitted,
encouraged, and shared in theoretical controversy. There was nothing
in the tenets of Jainism or of Buddhism that from a philosophical
point of view need have caused a rupture with the Brahmans.
But the heresies, nevertheless, do not represent the priestly caste,
so much as the caste most apt to rival and to disregard the claim of
the Brahman, viz., the warrior-caste. They were supported by kings,
who gladly stood against priests. To a great extent both Jainism and
Buddhism owed their success (amid other rival heresies with no less
claim to good protestantism) to the politics of the day. The kings of
the East were impatient of the Western church; they were pleased to
throw it over. The leaders in the 'reformation' were the younger sons
of noble blood. The church received many of these younger sons as
priests. Both Buddha and Mah[=a]v[=i]ra were, in fact, revolting
adherents of the Brahmanic faith, but they were princes and had
royalty to back them.
Nor in the Brahmanhood of Benares was Brahmanhood at its strongest.
The seat of the Vedic cult lay to the westward, where it arose, in the
'holy land,' which received the Vedic Aryans after they had crossed
out of the Punj[=a]b. With the eastward course of conquest the
character of the people and the very orthodoxy of the priests were
relaxed. The country that gave rise to the first heresies was one not
consecrated to the ancient rites. Very slowly had these rites marched
thither, and they were, so to speak, far from their religious base of
supplies. The West was more conservative than the East. It was the
home of the rites it favored. The East was but a foster-father. New
tribes, new land, new growth, socially and intellectually,--all these
contributed in the new seat of Brahmanhood to weaken the hold of the
priests upon their speculative and now recalcitrant laity. So before
Buddha there were heretics and even Buddhas, for the title was
Buddha's only by adoption. But of most of these earlier sects one
knows little. Three or four names of reformers have been handed down;
half a dozen opponents or rivals of Buddha existed and vied
with him. Most important of these, both on account of his probable
priority and because of the lasting character of his school, was the
founder or reformer of Jainism, Mah[=a]v[=i]ra Jñ[=a]triputra,[4] who
with his eleven chief disciples may be regarded as the first open
seceders from Brahmanism, unless one assign the same date to the
revolt of Buddha. The two schisms have so much in common, especially
in outward features, that for long it was thought that Jainism was a
sub-sect of Buddhism. In their legends, in the localities in which
they flourished, and in many minutiae of observances they are alike.
Nevertheless, their differences are as great as the resemblance
between them, and what Jainism at first appeared to have got of
Buddhism seems now to be rather the common loan made by each sect from
Brahmanism. It is safest, perhaps, to rest in the assurance that the
two heresies were contemporaries of the sixth century B.C, and leave
unanswered the question which Master preceded the other, though we
incline to the opinion that the founder of Jainism, be he
Mah[=a]v[=i]ra or his own reputed master, P[=a]rçvan[=a]tha, had
founded his sect before Gautama became Buddha. But there is one good
reason for treating of Jainism before Buddhism,[5] and that is, that
the former represents a theological mean between Brahmanism and
Buddhism.
Mah[=a]v[=i]ra, the reputed founder of his sect, was, like Buddha
and perhaps his other rivals, of aristocratic birth. His father is
called king, but he was probably hereditary chief of a district
incorporated as a suburb of the capital city of Videha, while by
marriage he was related to the king of Videha, and to the ruling house
of M[=a]gadha. His family name was Jñ[=a]triputra, or, in his own
Prakrit (Ardham[=a]gadh[=i]) dialect, N[=a]taputta; but by his sect he
was entitled the Great Hero, Mah[=a]v[=i]ra; the Conqueror, Jina; the
Great One, Vardham[=a]na (Vardahmana in the original), etc. His sect
was that of the Nirgranthas (Nigganthas), _i.e_., 'without bonds,'
perhaps the oldest name of the whole body. Later there are found no
less than seven sub-sects, to which come as eighth the Digambaras, in
contradistinction to all the seven Çvet[=a]mbara sects. These two
names represent the two present bodies of the church, one body being
the Çvet[=a]mbaras, or 'white-attire' faction, who are in the north
and west; the other, the Digambaras, or 'sky-attire,' _i.e_., naked
devotees of the south. The latter split off from the main body about
two hundred years after Mah[=a]v[=i]ra's death; as has been thought by
some, because the Çvet[=a]mbaras refused to follow the Digambaras in
insisting upon nakedness as the rule for ascetics.[6] The earlier
writings show that nakedness was recommended, but was not
compulsory.[7] Other designations of the main sects, as of the
sub-sects, are found. Thus, from the practice of pulling out the hairs
of their body, the Jains were derisively termed Luñcitakeças, or
'hair-pluckers.' The naked devotees of this school are probably the
gymnosophists of the Greek historians, although this general term may
have been used in describing other sects, as the practice of
dispensing with attire is common even to-day with many Hindu
devotees.[8]
An account of the Jain absurdities in the way of speculation would
indeed give some idea of their intellectual frailty, but, as in the
case of the Buddhists, such an account has but little to do with their
religion. It will suffice to state that the 'ages' of the Brahmans
from whom Jain and Buddhist derived their general conceptions of the
ages, are here reckoned quite differently; and that the first Jina of
the long series of pre-historic prophets lived more than eight million
years and was five hundred bow-lengths in height. Monks and laymen now
appear at large in India, a division which originated neither with
Jain nor Buddhist,[9] though these orders are more clearly divided
among the heretics, from whom, again, was borrowed by the Hindu sects,
the monastic institution, in the ninth century (A.D.), in all the
older heretical completeness. Although atheistic the Jain worshipped
the Teacher, and paid some regard to the Brahmanical divinities, just
as he worships the Hindu gods to-day, for the atheistical systems
admitted gods as demi-gods or dummy gods, and in point of fact became
very superstitious. Yet are both founder-worship and superstition
rather the growth of later generations than the original practice. The
atheism of the Jain means denial of a divine creative Spirit.[10]
Though at times in conflict with the Brahmans the Jains never departed
from India as did the Buddhists, and even Brahmanic priests in some
parts of India serve today in Jain temples.
In metaphysics as in religion the Jain differs radically from the
Buddhist. He believes in a dualism not unlike that of the S[=a]nkhyas,
whereas Buddhistic philosophy has no close connection with this
Brahmanic system. To the Jain eternal matter stands opposed to eternal
spirits, for (opposed to pantheism) every material entity (even water)
has its own individual spirit. The Jain's Nirv[=a]na, as Barth has
said, is escape from the body, not escape from existence.[11] Like the
Buddhist the Jain believes in reincarnation, eight births, after one
has started on the right road, being necessary to the completion of
perfection. Both sects, with the Brahmans, insist on the non-injury
doctrine, but in this regard the Jain exceeds his Brahmanical
teacher's practice. Both heretical sects claim that their reputed
founders were the last of twenty-four or twenty-five prophets who
preceded the real founder, each successively having become less
monstrous (more human) in form.
The Jain literature left to us is quite large[12] and enough has been
published already to make it necessary to revise the old belief in
regard to the relation between Jainism and Buddhism.
We have said that Jainism stands nearer to Brahmanism (with which,
however, it frequently had quarrels) than does Buddhism.[13] The most
striking outward sign of this is the weight laid on asceticism, which
is common to Brahmanism and Jainism but is repudiated by Buddhism.
Twelve years of asceticism are necessary to salvation, as thinks the
Jain, and this self-mortification is of the most stringent sort. But
it is not in their different conception of a Nirv[=a]na release rather
than of annihilation, nor in the S[=a]nkhya-like[14] duality they
affect, nor yet in the prominence given to self-mortification that the
Jains differ most from the Buddhists. The contrast will appear more
clearly when we come to deal with the latter sect. At present we take
up the Jain doctrine for itself.
The 'three gems' which, according to the Jains,[15] result in the
spirit's attainment of deliverance are knowledge, faith, and virtue,
or literally 'right knowledge, right intuition, and right practices.'
Right knowledge is a true knowledge of the relation of spirit and
not-spirit (the world consists of two classes, spirit and non-spirit),
the latter being immortal like the former. Right intuition is absolute
faith in the word of the Master and the declarations of the [=A]gamas,
or sacred texts. Right practices or virtue consists, according to the
Yogaç[=a]stra, in the correct fivefold conduct of one that has
knowledge and faith: (1) Non-injury, (2) kindness and speaking which
is true (in so far as the truth is pleasant to the hearer),[16] (3)
honorable conduct, typified by 'not stealing,' (4) chastity in word,
thought, and deed, (5) renunciation of earthly interests.
The doctrine of non-injury found but modified approval among the
Brahmans. They limited its application in the case of
sacrifice, and for this reason were bitterly taunted by the Jains as
'murderers.' "Viler than unbelievers," says the Yogaç[=a]stra, quoting
a law of Manu to the effect that animals may be slain for sacrifice,
"all those cruel ones who make the law that teaches killing."[17] For
this reason the Jain is far more particular in his respect for life
than is the Buddhist. Lest animate things, even plants and
animalculae, be destroyed, he sweeps the ground before him as he goes,
walks veiled lest he inhale a living organism, strains water, and
rejects not only meat but even honey, together with various fruits
that are supposed to contain worms; not because of his distaste for
worms but because of his regard for life. Other arguments which,
logically, should not be allowed to influence him are admitted,
however, in order to terrify the hearer. Thus the first argument
against the use of honey is that it destroys life; then follows the
argument that honey is 'spit out by bees' and therefore it is
nasty.[18]
The Jain differs from the Buddhist still more in ascetic practices. He
is a forerunner, in fact, of the horrible modern devotee whose
practices we shall describe below. The older view of seven hells in
opposition to the legal Brahmanic number of thrice seven is found (as
it is in the M[=a]rkandeya Pur[=a]na), but whether this be the rule we
cannot say.[19] It is interesting to see that hell is prescribed with
metempsychosis exactly as it is among the Brahmans.[20] Reincarnation
onearth and punishment in hells between reincarnation seems to be the
usual belief. The salvation which is attained by the practice of
knowledge, faith, and five-fold virtue, is not immediate, but it will
come after successive reincarnations; and this salvation is the
freeing of the eternal spirit from the bonds of eternal matter; in
other words, it is much more like the 'release' of the Brahman than it
is like the Buddhistic Nirv[=a]na, though, of course, there is no
'absorption,' each spirit remaining single. In the order of the
Ratnatraya or 'three gems' Çankara appears to lay the greatest weight
on faith, but in Hemacandra's schedule knowledge[21] holds the first
place. This is part of that Yoga, asceticism, which is the most
important element in attaining salvation.[22]
Another division of right practices is cited by the Yogaç[=a]stra (I.
33 ff.): Some saints say that virtue is divided into five kinds of
care and three kinds of control, to wit, proper care in walking,
talking, begging for food, sitting, and performing natural functions
of the body--these constitute the five kinds of care, and the kinds of
control are those of thought, speech, and act. This teaching it is
stated, is for the monks. The practice of the laity is to accord with
the custom of their country.
The chief general rules for the laity consist in vows of obedience to
the true god, to the law, and to the (present) Teacher; which are
somewhat like the vows of the Buddhist. God here is the Arhat, the
'venerable' founder of the sect. The laic has also five lesser vows:
not to kill, not to lie, not to steal, not to commit adultery or
fornication, to be content with little.
According to the Ç[=a]stra already cited the laic must rise early in
the morning, worship the god's idol at home, go to the temple and
circumambulate the Jina idol three times, strewing flowers, and
singing hymnsand then read the Praty[=a]khy[=a]na (an old P[=u]rva,
gospel).[23] Further rules of prayer and practice guide him through
his day. And by following this rule he expects to obtain spiritual
'freedom' hereafter; but for his life on earth he is "without praise
or blame for this world or the next, for life or for death, having
meditation as his one pure wife" (iii. 150). He will become a god in
heaven, be reborn again on earth, and so, after eight successive
existences (the Buddhistic number), at last obtain salvation, release
(from bodies) for his eternal soul (153).
As in the Upanishads, the gods, like men, are a part of the system of
the universe. The wise man goes to them (becomes a god) only to return
to earth again. All systems thus unite hell and heaven with the
_karma_ doctrine. But in this Jain work, as in so many of the orthodox
writings, the weight is laid more on hell as a punishment than on
rebirth. Probably the first Jains did not acknowledge gods at all, for
it is an early rule with them not to say 'God rains,' or use any such
expression, but to say 'the cloud rains'; and in other ways they avoid
to employ a terminology which admits even implicitly the existence of
divinities. Yet do they use a god not infrequently as an agent of
glorification of Mah[=a]v[=i]ra, saying in later writings that Indra
transformed himself, to do the Teacher honor; and often they speak of
the gods and goddesses as if these were regarded as spirits. Demons
and inferior beings are also utilized in the same way, as when it is
said that at the Teacher's birth the demons (spirits) showered gold
upon the town.
The religious orders of the Çvet[=a]mbara sect contained nuns as well
as monks, although, as we have said, women are not esteemed very
favorably: "The world is greatly troubled by women. People say that
women are vessels of pleasure. But this leads them to pain, to
delusion, to death, to hell, to birth as hell-beings or brute-beasts."
Such is the decision in the [=A]e[=a]r[=a]nga S[=u]tra, or book of
usages for the Jain monk and nun. From the same work we extract a few
rules to illustrate the practices of the Jains. This literature is the
most tedious in the world, and to give the gist of the heretic
law-maker's manual will suffice.
Asceticism should be practiced by monk and nun, if possible. But if
one finds that he cannot resist his passions, or is disabled and
cannot endure austerities, he may commit suicide; although this
release is sometimes reprehended, and is not allowable till one has
striven against yielding to such a means. But when the twelve years of
asceticism are passed one has assurance of reaching Nirv[=a]na, and so
may kill himself. Of Nirv[=a]na there is no description. It is
release, salvation, but it is of such sort that in regard to it
'speculation has no place,' and 'the mind cannot conceive of it'
(copied from the Upanishads). In other regards, in contrast to the
nihilistic Buddhist, the Jain assumes a doubtful attitude, so that he
is termed the 'may-be philosopher,' _sy[=a]dv[=a]din_,[24] in
opposition to the Buddhist, the philosopher of 'the void.'
But if the Jain may kill himself, he may not kill or injure anything
else. Not even food prepared over a fire is acceptable, lest he hurt
the 'fire-beings,' for as he believes in water-beings, so he believes
in fire-beings, wind-beings, etc. Every plant and seed is holy with
the sacredness of life. He may not hurt or drive away the insects that
torment his naked flesh. 'Patience is the highest good,' he declares,
and the rules for sitting and lying conclude with the statement that
not to move at all, not to stir, is the best rule. To lie naked,
bitten by vermin, and not to disturb them, is religion. Like a true
Puritan, the Jain regards pleasure in itself as sinful. "What is
discontent, and what is pleasure? One should live subject to neither.
Giving up all gaiety, circumspect, restrained, one should lead a
religious life. Man! Thou art thine own friend; why longest thou for a
friend beyond thyself?... First troubles, then pleasures; first
pleasures, then troubles. These are the cause of quarrels." And again,
"Let one think, 'I am I.'" _i.e_., let one be dependent on himself
alone. When a Jain monk or nun hears that there is to be a festival
(perhaps to the gods, to Indra, Skahda, Rudra, Vishnu,[25] or the
demons, as in [=A]c[=a]r[=a]nga S[=u]tra, ii. 1. 2) he must not go
thither; he must keep himself from all frivolities and entertainments.
During the four months of the rainy season he is to remain in one
place,[26] but at other times, either naked or attired in a few
garments, he is to wander about begging. In going on his begging tour
he is not to answer questions, nor to retort if reviled. He is to
speak politely (the formulae for polite address and rude address are
given), beg modestly, and not render himself liable to suspicion on
account of his behavior when in the house of one of the faithful.
Whatever be the quality of the food he must eat it, if it be not a
wrong sort. Rice and beans are especially recommended to him. The
great Teacher Jñ[=a]triputra (Mah[=a]v[=i]ra), it is said, never went
to shows, pantomines, boxing-matches, and the like; but, remaining in
his parents' house till their death, that he might not grieve his
mother, at the age of twenty-eight renounced the world with the
consent of the government, and betook himself to asceticism;
travelling naked (after a year of clothes) into barbarous lands, but
always converting and enduring the reproach of the wicked. He was
beaten and set upon by sinful men, yet was he never moved to anger.
Thus it was that he became the Arhat, the Jina, the Kevalin (perfect
sage).[27] It is sad to have to add, however, that Mah[=a]v[=i]ra is
traditionally said to have died in a fit of apoplectic rage.
The equipment of a monk are his clothes (or, better, none), his
alms-bowl, broom, and veil. He is 'unfettered,' in being without
desires and without injury to others. 'Some say that all sorts of
living beings may be slain, or abused, or tormented, or driven
away--the doctrine of the unworthy. The righteous man does not kill
nor cause others to kill. He should not cause the same punishment for
himself.'
The last clause is significant. What he does to another living being
will be done to him. He will suffer as he has caused others to suffer.
The chain from emotion to hell--the avoidance of the former is on
account of the fear of the latter--is thus connected: He who knows
wrath knows pride; he who knows pride knows deceit; he who knows
deceit knows greed (and so on; thus one advances) from greed to love,
from love to hate, from hate to delusion, from delusion to conception,
from conception to birth, from birth to death, from death to hell,
from hell to animal existence, 'and he who knows animal existence
knows pain.'
The five great vows, which have been thought by some scholars to be
copies of the Buddhistic rules, whereas they are really modifications
of the old Brahmanic rules for ascetics as explained in pre-Buddhistic
literature, are in detail as follows:[28]
The First vow: I renounce all killing of living beings, whether
subtile or gross, whether movable or immovable. Nor shall I myself
kill living beings nor cause others to do it, nor consent to it. As
long as I live I confess and blame, repent and exempt myself of these
sins in the thrice threefold way,[29] in mind, speech, and body.
The five 'clauses' that explain this vow are: (1) the Niggantha (Jain)
is careful in walking; (2) he does not allow his mind to act in a way
to suggest injury of living beings; (3) he does not allow his speech
to incite to injury; (4) he is careful in laying down his utensils;
(5) he inspects his food and drink lest he hurt living beings.
The Second Vow: I renounce all vices of lying speech arising from
anger, or greed, or fear, or mirth. I confess (etc, as in the first
vow).
The five clauses here explain that the Niggantha speaks only after
deliberation; does not get angry; renounces greed; renounces fear;
renounces mirth--lest through any of these he be moved to lie.
The Third Vow: I renounce all taking of anything not given, either in
a village, or a town, or a wood, either of little or much, or small or
great, of living or lifeless things. I shall neither take myself what
is not given nor cause others to take it, nor consent to their taking
it. As long as I live I confess (etc., as in the first vow).
The clauses here explain that the Niggantha must avoid different
possibilities of stealing, such as taking food without permission of
his superior. One clause states that he may take only a limited ground
for a limited time, _i.e_., he may not settle down indefinitely on a
wide area, for he may not hold land absolutely. Another clause insists
on his having his grant to the land renewed frequently.
The Fourth Vow: I renounce all sexual pleasures, either with gods, or
men, or animals. I shall not give way to sensuality (etc).
The clauses here forbid the Niggantha to discuss topics relating to
women, to contemplate the forms of women, to recall the pleasures and
amusements he used to have with women, to eat and drink too highly
seasoned viands, to lie near women.
The Fifth Vow: I renounce all attachments, whether little or much,
small or great, living or lifeless; neither shall I myself form such
attachments, nor cause others to do so, nor consent to their doing so
(etc.).
The five clauses particularize the dangerous attachments formed by
ears, eyes, smell, taste, touch.
It has been shown above (following Jacobi's telling comparison of the
heretical vows with those of the early Brahman ascetic) that these
vows are taken not from Buddhism but from Brahmanism. Jacobi opines
that the Jains took the four first and that the reformer
Mah[=a]v[=i]ra added the fifth as an offset to the Brahmanical vow of
liberality.[30] The same writer shows that certain minor rules of the
Jain sect are derived from the same Brahmanical source.
The main differences between the two Jain sects have been catalogued
in an interesting sketch by Williams,[31] who mentions as the chief
Jain stations of the north Delhi (where there is an annual gathering),
Jeypur, and [=A]jm[=i]r. To these Mathur[=a] on the Jumna should be
added.[32] The Çvet[=a]mbaras had forty-five or forty-six [=A]gamas,
eleven or twelve Angas, twelve Up[=a]ngas, and other scriptures of the
third or fourth century B.C., as they claim. They do not go naked
(even their idols are clothed), and they admit women into the order.
The Digambaras do not admit women, go naked, and have for sacred texts
later works of the fifth century A.D. The latter of course assert that
the scriptures of the former sect are spurious.[33]
In distinction from the Buddhists the Jains of to-day keep up caste.
Some of them are Brahmans. They have, of course, a different
prayer-formula, and have no St[=u]pas or D[=a]gobas (to hold relics);
and, besides the metaphysical difference spoken of above, they differ
from the Buddhists in assuming that metempsychosis does not stop at
animal existence, but includes inanimate things (as these are regarded
by others). According to one of their own sect of to-day,
_ahi[.m]s[=a] paramo dharmas_, 'the highest law of duty is not to hurt
a living creature.'[34]
The most striking absurdity of the Jain reverence for life has
frequently been commented upon. Almost every city of western India,
where they are found, has its beast-hospital, where animals are kept
and fed. An amusing account of such an hospital, called Pi[=n]jra Pol,
at Saurar[=a]shtra, Surat, is given in the first number of the
_Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_.[35] Five thousand rats were
supported in such a temple-hospital in Kutch.[36]
Of all the great religious sects of India that of N[=a]taputta is
perhaps the least interesting, and has apparently the least excuse for
being.[37] The Jains offered to the world but one great moral truth,
withal a negative truth, 'not to harm,' nor was this verity invented
by them. Indeed, what to the Jain is the great truth is only a
grotesque exaggeration of what other sects recognized in a reasonable
form. Of all the sects the Jains are the most colorless, the most
insipid. They have no literature worthy of the name. They were not
original enough to give up many orthodox features, so that they seem
like a weakened rill of Brahmanism, cut off from the source, yet
devoid of all independent character. A religion in which the chief
points insisted upon are that one should deny God, worship man, and
nourish vermin, has indeed no right to exist; nor has it had as a
system much influence on the history of thought. As in the case of
Buddhism, the refined Jain metaphysics are probably a late growth.
Historically these sectaries served a purpose as early protestants
against ritualistic and polytheistic Brahmanism; but their real
affinity with the latter faith is so great that at heart they soon
became Brahmanic again. Their position geographically would make it
seem probable that they, and not the Buddhists, had a hand in the
making of the ethics of the later epic.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: We retain here and in Buddhism the usual
terminology. Strictly speaking, Jainism is to Jina (the
reformer's title) as is Bauddhism to Buddha, so that one
should say Jinism, Buddhism, or Jainism, Bauddhism. Both
titles, Jina and Buddha ('victor' and 'awakened'), were
given to each leader; as in general many other mutual titles
of honor were applied by each sect to its own head, Jina,
Arhat ('venerable'), Mah[=a]v[=i]ra ('great hero'), Buddha,
etc. One of these titles was used, however, as a title of
honor by the Jains, but to designate heretics by the Buddhists,
viz., T[=i]rthankara (T[=i]rthakara in the original), 'prophet'
(see Jacobi, SBE. xxii. Introd. p. xx).]
[Footnote 2: It is possible, however, on the other hand,
that both Vishnuite and Çivaite sects (or, less anglicized,
Vaishnavas, Çaivas, if one will also say Vaidic for Vedic),
were formed before the end of the sixth century B.C. Not
long after this the divinities Çiva and Vishnu receive
especial honor.]
[Footnote 3: The Beggar (Çramana, Bhikshu), the Renunciator
(Sanny[=a]s[=i]n), the Ascetic (Yati), are Brahmanic terms
as well as sectarian.]
[Footnote 4: The three great reformers of this period are
Mah[=a]v[=i]ra, Buddha, and Gos[=a]la. The last was first a
pupil and then a rival of Mah[=a]v[=i]ra. The latter's
nephew, Jam[=a]li, also founded a distinct sect and became
his uncle's opponent, the speculative sectarian tendency
being as pronounced as it was about the same time in Hellas.
Gos[=a]la appears to have had quite a following, and his
sect existed for a long time, but now it is utterly
perished. An account of this reformer and of Jam[=a]li will
be found in Leumann's essay, _Indische Studien_, xvii. p. 98
ff. and in the appendix to Rockhill's _Life of Buddha_.]
[Footnote 5: The Nirgranthas (Jains) are never referred to
by the Buddhists as being a new sect, nor is their reputed
founder, N[=a]taputta, spoken of as their founder; whence
Jacobi plausibly argues that their real founder was older
than Mah[=a]v[=i]ra, and that the sect preceded that of
Buddha. Lassen and Weber have claimed, on the contrary, that
Jainism is a revolt against Buddhism. The identification of
N[=a]taputta (Jñ[=a]triputra) with Mah[=a]v[=i]ra is due to
Bühler and Jacobi (Kalpas[=u]tra, Introd. p.6).]
[Footnote 6: According to Jacobi, ZDMG. xxxviii. 17, the
split in the party arose in this way. About 350 B.C. some
Jain monks under the leadership of Bhadrab[=a]hu went south,
and they followed stricter rules of asceticism than did
their fellows in the north. Both sects are modifications of
the original type, and their differences did not result in
sectarian separation till about the time of our era, at
which epoch arose the differentiating titles of sects that
had not previously separated into formal divisions, but had
drifted apart geographically.]
[Footnote 7: Compare Jacobi, _loc. cit_. and Leumann's
account of the seven sects of the Çvet[=a]mbaras in the
essay in the _Indische Studien_ referred to above. At the
present day the Jains are found to the number of about a
million in the northwest (Çvet[=a]mbaras), and south
(Digambaras) of India. The original seat of the whole body
in its first form was, as we have said, near Benares, where
also arose and flourished Buddhism.]
[Footnote 8: Hemacandra's Yogaç[=a]stra, edited by Windisch,
ZDMG. xxviii. 185 ff. (iii. 133). The Jain's hate of women
did not prevent his worshipping goddesses as the female
energy like the later Hindu sects. The Jains are divided in
regard to the possibility of woman's salvation. The
Yogaç[=a]stra alludes to women as 'the lamps that burn on
the road that leads to the gate of hell,' ii. 87. The
Digambaras do not admit women into the order, as do the
Çvet[=a]mbaras.]
[Footnote 9: _Die Bharata-sage_, Leumann, ZDMG. xlviii.
p.65. See also above in the S[=u]tras. With the Jains there
is less of the monastic side of religion than with the
Buddhists.]
[Footnote 10: Jains are sometimes called Arhats on account
of their veneration for the Arhat or chief Jina (whence
Jain). Their only real gods are their chiefs or Teachers,
whose idols are worshipped in the temples. Thus, like the
Buddhist and some Hindu sects of modern times, they have
given up God to worship man. Rather have they adopted an
idolatry of man and worship of womanhood, for they also
revere the female energy. Positivism has ancient models!]
[Footnote 11: The Jain sub-sects did not differ much among
themselves in philosophical speculation. Their differences
were rather of a practical sort.]
[Footnote 12: See the list of the Bertin MSS.; Weber,
_Berlin MSS_. vol. ii. 1892; and the thirty-third volume of
the German Oriental Journal, pp. 178, 693. For an account of
the literature see also Jacobi's introduction to the SBE.
vol. xxii; and Weber, _Ueber die heiligen Schriften der
Jaina_ in vols. xvi, xvii of the _Indische Studien_
(translated by Smyth in the Indian Antiquary); and the
Bibliography (below).]
[Footnote 13: A case of connection in legends between
Buddhist and Jain is mentioned below. Another is the history
of king Paêsi, elaborated in Buddhistic literature
(Tripitaka) and in the second Jain Up[=a]nga alike, as has
been shown by Leumann.]
[Footnote 14: The Jain's spirit, however, is not a
world-spirit. He does not believe in an All-Spirit, but in a
plurality of eternal spirits, fire-spirits, wind-spirits,
plant-spirits, etc.]
[Footnote 15: Compare Colebrooke's _Essays_, vol. II. pp.
404, 444, and the Yogaç[=a]stra cited above.]
[Footnote 16: This is not in the earlier form of the vow
(see below).]
[Footnote 17: II. 37 and 41. Although the Brahman ascetic
took the vow not to kill, yet is he permitted to do so for
sacrifice, and he may eat flesh of animals killed by other
animals (Gautama, 3. 31).]
[Footnote 18: _Loc. cit_. III. 37-38. The evening and night
are not times to eat, and for the same reason "The Gods eat
in the morning, the Seers at noon, the Fathers in the
afternoon, the devils at twilight and night" (_ib_. 58). For
at night one might eat a a living thing by mistake.]
[Footnote 19: _Loc. cit_. II. 27.]
[Footnote 20: The pun _m[=a][.m]sa, "Me eat_ will be
hereafter whose _meat_ I eat in this life" (Lanman), shows
that Jain and Brahman believed in a hell where the injured
avenged themselves (Manu, V. 55; HYÇ. III. 26), just as is
related in the Bhrigu story (above).]
[Footnote 21: By intuition or instruction.]
[Footnote 22: _Loc. cit_. I. 15 ff.]
[Footnote 23: _Loc. cit_. 121 ff. Wilson, _Essays_, I. 319,
gives a description of the simple Jain ritual.]
[Footnote 24: Who says "may be."]
[Footnote 25: Mukunda.]
[Footnote 26: This 'keeping _vasso_' is also a Brahmanic
custom, as Bühler has pointed out. But it is said somewhere
that at that season the roads are impossible, so that there
is not so much a conscious copying as a physical necessity
in keeping _vasso_; perhaps also a moral touch, owing to the
increase of life and danger of killing.]
[Footnote 27: In the lives of the Jinas it is said that
Jñ[=a]triputra's (N[=a]taputta's) parents worshipped the
'people's favorite,' P[=a]rçva, and were followers of the
Çramanas (ascetics). In the same work (which contains
nothing further for our purpose) it is said that Arhats,
Cakravarts, Baladevas, and Vasudevas, present, past, and
future, are aristocrats, born in noble families. The
heresies and sectaries certainly claim as much.]
[Footnote 28: [=A]c[=a]r[=a]nga S. ii. 15. We give Jacobi's
translation, as in the verses already cited from this work.]
[Footnote 29: Acting, commanding, consenting, past, present,
or future (Jacobi).]
[Footnote 30: SBE. xxii. Introd. p. xxiv.]
[Footnote 31: JRAS. xx. 279.]
[Footnote 32: See Bühler, the last volume of the
_Epigraphica Indica_, and his other articles in the WZKM. v.
59, 175. Jeypur, according to Williams, is the stronghold of
the Digambara Jains. Compare Thomas, JRAS. ix. 155, _Early
Faith of Açoka_.]
[Footnote 33: The redaction of the Jain canon took place,
according to tradition, in 454 or 467 A.D. (possibly 527).
"The origin of the extant Jaina literature cannot be placed
earlier than about 300 B.C." (Jacobi, Introduction to _Jain
S[=u]tras_, pp. xxxvii, xliii). The present Angas
('divisions') were preceded by P[=u]rvas, of which there are
said to have been at first fourteen. On the number of the
scriptures see Weber, _loc. cit_.]
[Footnote 34: Williams, _loc. cit._ The prayer-formula is:
'Reverence to Arhats, saints, teachers, subteachers, and all
good men.']
[Footnote 35: 'A place which is appropriated for the
reception of old, worn-out, lame, or disabled animals. At
that time (1823) they chiefly consisted of buffaloes and
cows, but there were also goats and sheep, and even cocks
and hens,' and also 'hosts of vermin.']
[Footnote 36: JRAS. 1834, p. 96. The town was taxed to
provide the food for the rats.]
[Footnote 37: Because the Jains have reverted to idolatry,
demonology, and man-worship. But at the outset they appear
to have had two great principles, one, that there is no
divine power higher than man; the other, that all life is
sacred. One of these is now practically given up, and the
other was always taken too seriously.]
* * * * *
CHAPTER XIII.
BUDDHISM.
While the pantheistic believer proceeded to anthropomorphize in a
still greater degree the _[=a]tm[=a]_ of his fathers, and eventually
landed in heretical sectarianism; while the orthodox Brahman simply
added to his pantheon (in Manu and other law-codes) the Brahmanic
figure of the Creator, Brahm[=a]; the truth-seeker that followed the
lines of the earlier philosophical thought arrived at atheism, and in
consequence became either stoic or hedonist. The latter school, the
C[=a]rv[=a]kas, the so-called disciples of Brihaspati, have, indeed, a
philosophy without religion. They simply say that the gods do not
exist, the priests are hypocrites; the Vedas, humbug; and the only
thing worth living for, in view of the fact that there are no gods, no
heaven, and no soul, is pleasure: 'While life remains let a man live
happily; let him not go without butter (literally _ghee_) even though
he run into debt,' etc.[1] Of sterner stuff was the man who invented a
new religion as a solace for sorrow and a refuge from the nihilism in
which he believed.
Whether Jainism or Buddhism be the older heresy, and it is not
probable that any definitive answer to this question will ever be
given, one thing has become clear in the light of recent studies,
namely, the fact already shown, that to Brahmanism are due some of the
most marked traits of both the heretical sects. The founder of
Buddhism did not strike out a new system of morals; he was not a
democrat; he did not originate a plot to overthrow the Brahmanic
priesthood; he did not invent the order of monks.[2] There is,
perhaps, no person in history in regard to whom have arisen so many
opinions that are either wholly false or half false.[3]
We shall not canvass in detail views that would be mentioned only to
be rejected. Even the brilliant study of Senart,[4] in which the
figure of Buddha is resolved into a solar type and the history of the
reformer becomes a sun-myth, deserves only to be mentioned and laid
aside. Since the publication of the canonical books of the southern
Buddhists there is no longer any question in regard to the human
reality of the great knight who illumined, albeit with anything but
heavenly light, the darkness of Brahmanical belief. Oldenberg[5] has
taken Senart seriously, and seriously answered him. But Napoleon and
Max Müller have each been treated as sun-myths, and Senart's essay is
as convincing as either _jeu d'esprit._
In Nep[=a]l, far from the site of Vedic culture, and generations after
the period of the Vedic hymns, was born a son to the noble family of
the Ç[=a]kyas. A warrior prince, he made at last exclusively his own
the lofty title that was craved by many of his peers, Buddha, the
truly wise, the 'Awakened.'
The Ç[=a]kyas' land extended along the southern border of Nep[=a]l and
the northeast part of Oude (Oudh), between the Ir[=a]vat[=i] (Rapti)
river on the west and south, and the Rohini on the east; the district
which lies around the present Gorakhpur, about one hundred miles
north-northeast of Benares. The personal history of the later Buddha
is interwoven with legend from which it is not always easy to
disentangle the threads of truth. In the accounts preserved in regard
to the Master, one has first to distinguish the P[=a]li records of the
Southern Buddhists from the Sanskrit tales of the Northerners; and
again, it is necessary to discriminate between the earlier and
later traditions of the Southerners, who have kept in general the
older history as compared with the extravagant tradition preserved in
the Lalita Vistara, the Lotus of the Law, and the other works of the
North. What little seems to be authentic history is easily told; nor
are, for our present purpose, of much value the legends, which
mangonize the life of Buddha. They will be found in every book that
treats of the subject, and some of the more famous are translated in
the article on Buddha in the Encyclopædia Brittanica. We content
ourselves with the simplest and oldest account, giving such facts as
help to explain the religious significance of Buddha's life and work
among his countrymen. Several of these facts, Buddha's place in
society, and the geographical centre of Buddhistic activity, are
essential to a true understanding of the relations between Buddhism
and Brahmanism.
Whether Buddha's father was king or no has rightly been questioned.
The oldest texts do not refer to him as a king's son, and this
indicates that his father, who governed the Ç[=a]kya-land, of which
the limits have just been specified,[6] was rather a feudal baron or
head of a small clan, than an actual king. The Ç[=a]kya power was
overthrown and absorbed into that of the king of Oude (Kosala) either
in Buddha's own life-time or immediately afterwards. It is only the
newer tradition that extols the power and wealth which the Master gave
up on renouncing worldly ties, a trait characteristic of all the later
accounts, on the principle that the greater was the sacrifice the
greater was the glory. Whether kings or mere chieftains, the Ç[=a]kyas
were noted as a family that cared little to honor the Brahmanic
priests. They themselves claimed descent from Ikshv[=a]ku, the ancient
seer-king, son of Manu, and traditionally first king of Ayodh[=a]
(Oude). They assumed the name of Gautama, one of the Vedic seers, and
it was by the name of 'the Ascetic Gautama' that Buddha was known to
his contemporaries; but his personal name was Siddh[=a]rtha 'he that
succeeds in his aim,' prophetic of his life! His mother's name
M[=a]y[=a] (illusion) has furnished Senart with material for his
sun-theory of Buddha; but the same name is handed down as that of a
city, and perhaps means in this sense 'the wonderful.' She is said to
have died when her son was still a boy. The boy Siddh[=a]rtha, then,
was a warrior _r[=a]jput_ by birth, and possibly had a very
indifferent training in Vedic literature, since he is never spoken of
as Veda-wise.[7] The future Buddha was twenty-nine when he resolved to
renounce the world. He was already married and had a son (R[=a]hula,
according to later tradition). The legends of later growth here begin
to thicken, telling how, when the future Buddha heard of the birth of
his son, he simply said 'a new bond has been forged to hold me to the
world'; and how his mind was first awakened to appreciation of sorrow
by seeing loathy examples of age, sickness, and death presented to him
as he drove abroad. Despite his father's tears and protests
Siddh[=a]rtha, or as one may call him now by his patronymic, the man
Gautama, left his home and family, gave up all possessions, and
devoted himself to self-mortification and Yoga discipline of
concentration of thought, following in this the model set by all
previous ascetics. He says himself, according to tradition, that it
was a practical pessimism which drove him to take this step. He was
not pleased with life, and the pleasures of society had no charm for
him. When he saw the old man, the sick man, the dead man, he became
disgusted to think that he too would be subject to age, sickness, and
death: "I felt disgust at old age; all pleasure then forsook me." In
becoming an ascetic Gautama simply endeavored to discover some means
by which he might avoid a recurrence of life, of which the
disagreeable side in his estimation outweighed the joy. He too had
already answered negatively the question Is life worth living?
We must pause here to point out that this oldest and simplest account
of Gautama's resolve shows two things. It makes clear that Gautama at
first had no plan for the universal salvation of his race. He was
alert to 'save his own soul,' nothing more. We shall show presently
that this is confirmed by subsequent events in his career. The next
point is that this narration in itself is a complete refutation of the
opinion of those scholars who believe that the doctrine of _karma_ and
reincarnation arose first in Buddhism, and that the Upanishads that
preach this doctrine are not of the pre-Buddhistic period. The last
part of this statement of opinion is, of course, not touched by the
story of Gautama's renunciation, but the first assumption wrecks on
it. Why should Gautama have so given himself to Yoga discipline? Did
he expect to escape age, sickness, death, in this life by that means?
No. The assumption from the beginning is the belief in the doctrine of
reincarnation. It was in order to free himself from future returns of
these ills that Gautama renounced his home. But nothing whatever is
said of his discovering or inventing the doctrine of reincarnation.
Both hell and _karma_ are taken for granted throughout the whole early
Buddhistic literature. Buddha discovered neither of them, any more
than he discovered a new system of morality, or a new system of
religious life; although more credit accrues to him in regard to the
last because his order was opposed to that then prevalent; yet even
here he had antique authority for his discipline.
To return to Gautama's[8] life. Legend tells how he fled away on his
horse Kanthaka, in search of solitude and the means of salvation, far
from his home to the abode of ascetics, for he thought: "Whence comes
peace? When the fire of desire is extinguished, when the fire of hate
is extinguished, when the fire of illusion is extinguished, when all
sins and all sorrows are extinguished, then comes peace." And the only
means to this end was the renunciation of desire, the discipline of
Yoga concentration, where the mind fixed on one point loses all else
from its horizon, and feels no drawing aside to worldly things.
What then has Gautama done from the point of view of the Brahman? He
has given up his home to become an ascetic. But this was permitted by
usage, for, although the strict western code allowed it only to the
priest, yet it was customary among the other twice-born castes at an
earlier day, and in this part of India it awakened no surprise that
one of the military caste should take up the life of a philosopher.
For the historian of Indic religions this fact is of great
significance, since such practice is the entering wedge which was to
split the castes. One step more and not only the military caste but
the lower, nay the lowest castes, might become ascetics. But, again,
all ascetics were looked upon, in that religious society, as equal to
the priests. In fact, where Gautama lived there was rather more
respect paid to the ascetic than to the priest as a member of the
caste. Gautama was most fortunate in his birth and birth-place. An
aristocrat, he became an ascetic in a land where the priests were
particularly disregarded. He had no public opinion to contend against
when later he declared that Brahman birth and Brahman wisdom had no
value. On the contrary, he spoke to glad hearers, who heard repeated
loudly now as a religious truth what often they had said to themselves
despitefully in private.
Gautama journeyed as a _muni_, or silent ascetic sage, till after
seven years he abandoned his teachers (for he had become a disciple of
professed masters), and discontentedly wandered about in M[=a]gadha
(Beh[=a]r), 'the cradle of Buddhism,' till he came to Uruvel[=a],
Bodhi Gay[=a].[9] Here, having found that concentration of mind,
Yoga-discipline, availed nothing, he undertook another method of
asceticism, self-torture. This he practiced for some time. But it
succeeded as poorly as his first plan, and he had nearly starved
himself to death when it occurred to him that he was no wiser than
before. Thereupon he gave up starvation as a means of wisdom and began
to eat. Five other ascetics, who had been much impressed by his
endurance and were quite ready to declare themselves his disciples,
now deserted him, thinking that as he had relaxed his discipline he
must be weaker than themselves. But Gautama sat beneath the sacred
fig-tree[10] and lo! he became illumined. In a moment he saw the Great
Truths. He was now the Awakened. He became Buddha.
The later tradition here records how he was tempted of Satan. For
M[=a]ra (Death), 'the Evil One' as he is called by the Buddhists,
knowing that Buddha had found the way of salvation, tempted him to
enter into Nirv[=a]na at once, lest by converting others Buddha should
rob M[=a]ra of his power and dominion. This and the legend of storms
attacking him and his being protected by the king of snakes,
Mucalinda, is lacking in the earlier tradition.
Buddha remains under the _bo_-tree fasting, for four times seven days,
or seven times seven, as says the later report. At first he resolves
to be a 'Buddha for himself.'[11] that is to save only himself, not to
be 'the universal Buddha,' who converts and saves the world. But the
God Brahm[=a] comes down from heaven and persuades him out of pity for
the world to preach salvation. In this legend stands out clearly the
same fact we have animadverted upon already. Buddha had at first no
intention of helping his fellows. He found his own road to salvation.
That sufficed. But eventually he was moved through pity for his kind
to give others the same knowledge with which he had been
enlightened.[12]
Here is to be noticed with what suddenness Gautama becomes Buddha. It
is an early case of the same absence of study or intellectual
preparation for belief that is rampant in the idea of ictic
conversion. In a moment Gautama's eyes are opened. In ecstacy he
becomes illuminated with the light of knowledge. This idea is totally
foreign to Brahmanism. It is not so strange at an earlier stage, for
the Vedic poet often 'sees' his hymn,[13] that is, he is inspired or
illumined. But no Brahman priest was ever 'enlightened' with sudden
wisdom, for his knowledge was his wisdom, and this consisted in
learning interminable trifles. But the wisdom of Buddha was this:
I. Birth is sorrow, age is sorrow, sickness is sorrow, death
is sorrow, clinging to earthly things is sorrow.
II. Birth and re-birth, the chain of reincarnations, result
from the thirst for life together with passion and desire.
III. The only escape from this thirst is the annihilation of
desire.
IV. The only way of escape from this thirst is by following
the Eightfold Path: Right belief, right resolve, right word,
right act, right life, right effort, right thinking, right
meditation.[14]
But Buddha is said to have seen more than these, the Four Great
Truths, and the Eightfold Path, for he was enlightened at the same
time (after several days of fasting) in regard to the whole chain of
causality which is elaborated in the later tradition.
The general result of this teaching may be formulated thus, that most
people are foolishly optimistic and that the great awakening is to
become a pessimist. One must believe not only that pain is inseparable
from existence, but that the pleasures of life are only a part of its
pain. When one has got so far along the path of knowledge he traverses
the next stage and gets rid of desire, which is the root of
life,--this is a Vedic utterance,--till by casting off desire,
ignorance, doubt, and heresy, as add some of the texts,[15] one has
removed far away all unkindness and vexation of soul, feeling
good-will to all.
Not only in this scheme but also in other less formal declarations of
Buddha does one find the key-note of that which makes his method of
salvation different alike to that of Jain or Brahman. Knowledge is
wisdom to the Brahman; asceticism is wisdom to the Jain; purity and
love is the first wisdom to the Buddhist. We do not mean that the
Brahman does not reach theoretically a plane that puts him on the same
level with Buddhism. We have pointed out above a passage in the work
of the old law-giver Gautama which might almost have been
uttered by Gautama Buddha: "He that has performed all the forty
sacraments and has not the eight good qualities enters not into union
with Brahm[=a] nor into the heaven of Brahm[=a]; but he that has
performed only a part of the forty sacraments and has the eight good
qualities, enters into union with Brahm[=a] and into the heaven of
Brahm[=a]"; and these eight good qualities are mercy, forbearance,
freedom from envy, purity, calmness, correct behavior, freedom from
greed and from covetousness. Nevertheless with the Brahman this is
adventitious, with the Buddhist it is essential.
These Four Great Truths are given to the world first at Benares,
whither Buddha went in order to preach to the five ascetics that had
deserted him. His conversation with them shows us another side of
Buddhistic ethics. The five monks, when they saw Buddha approaching,
jeered, and said: "Here is the one that failed in his austerities."
Buddha tells them to acknowledge him as their master, and that he is
the Enlightened One. "How," they ask, "if you could not succeed in
becoming a Buddha by asceticism, can we suppose that you become one by
indulgence?" Buddha tells them that neither voluptuousness nor
asceticism is the road that leads to Nirv[=a]na; that he, Buddha, has
found the middle path between the two extremes, the note is struck
that is neither too high nor too low. The five monks are converted
when they hear the Four Great Truths and the Eightfold Path, and there
are now six holy ones on earth, Buddha and his five disciples.
Significant also is the social status of Buddha's first conversion. It
is 'the rich youth' of Benares that flock about him,[16] of whom sixty
soon are counted, and these are sent out into all the lands to preach
the gospel, each to speak in his own tongue, for religion was from
this time on no longer to be hid behind the veil of an unintelligible
language. And it is not only the aristocracy of wealth that attaches
itself to the new teacher and embraces his doctrines with enthusiasm.
The next converts are a thousand Brahman priests, who constituted a
religious body under the leadership of three ascetic Brahmans. It is
described in the old writings how these priests were still performing
their Vedic rites when Buddha came again to Bodhi Gay[=a] and found
them there. They were overcome with astonishment as they saw his power
over the King of Snakes that lived among them. The gods--for Buddhism,
if not Buddha, has much to do with the gods--descend from heaven to
hear him, and other marvels take place. The Brahmans are all
converted. The miracles and the numbers may be stripped off, but thus
denuded the truth still remains as important as it is plain. Priests
of Brahman caste were among the first to adopt Buddhism. The popular
effect of the teaching must have been great, for one reads how, when
Buddha, after this great conversion, begins his victorious wanderings
in Beh[=a]r (M[=a]gadha), he converted so many of the young nobles
that--since conversion led to the immediate result of
renunciation--the people murmured, saying that Gautama (Gotama) was
robbing them of their youth.[17]
From this time on Buddha's life was spent in wandering about and
preaching the new creed mainly to the people of Beh[=a]r and Oude
(K[=a]çi-Kosala, the realm of Benares-Oude), his course extending from
the (Ir[=a]vati) Rapti river in the north to R[=a]jagriha (_gaha,_ now
Rajgir) south of Beh[=a]r, while he spent the _vasso_ or rainy season
in one of the parks, many of which were donated to him by wealthy
members of the fraternity.[18]
Wherever he went he was accompanied with a considerable number of
followers, and one reads of pilgrims from distant places coming to see
and converse with him. The number of his followers appears to have
been somewhat exaggerated by the later writers, since Buddha himself,
when prophesying of the next Buddha, the "Buddha of love" (Maitreya)
says that, whereas he himself has hundreds of followers, the next
Buddha will lead hundreds of thousands.
Although, theoretically, all the castes give up their name, and, when
united in the Buddhistic brotherhood, become "like rivers that give up
their identity and unite in the one ocean," yet were most of the early
recruits, as has been said, from influential and powerful families;
and it is a tenet of Buddhism in regard to the numerous Buddhas, which
have been born[19] and are still to be born on earth, that no Buddha
can be born in a low caste.
The reason for this lies as much as anything in the nature of the
Buddhistic system which is expressly declared to be "for the wise, not
for the foolish." It was not a system based as such on love or on any
democratic sentiment. It was a philosophical exposition of the causal
nexus of birth and freedom from re-birth. The common man, untrained in
logic, might adopt the teaching, but he could not understand it. The
"Congregation of the son of the Ç[=a]kyas"--such was the earliest name
for the Buddhistic brotherhood--were required only to renounce their
family, put on the yellow robe, assume the tonsure and other outward
signs, and be chaste and high-minded. But the teachers were instructed
in the subtleties of the 'Path,' and it needed no little training to
follow the leader's thought to its logical conclusion.
Of Buddha's life, besides the circumstances already narrated little is
known. Of his disciples the best beloved was [=A]nanda, his own
cousin, whose brother was the Judas of Buddhism. The latter, Devadatta
by name, conspired to kill Buddha in order that he himself might get
the post of honor. But hell opened and swallowed him up. He appears to
have had convictions of Jain tendency, for before his intrigue he
preached against Buddha, and formulated reactionary propositions which
inculcated a stricter asceticism than that taught by the Master.[20]
It has been denied that the early church contained lay members as well
as monks, but Oldenberg appears to have set the matter right (p. 165)
in showing that the laity, from the beginning, were a recognized part
of the general church. The monk (_bhikshu, bhikku_) was formally
enrolled as a disciple, wore the gown and tonsure, etc. The lay
brother, 'reverer' (_up[=a]saka_) was one that assented to the
doctrine and treated the monks kindly. There were, at first, only men
in the congregation, for Buddhism took a view as unfavorable to woman
as did Jainism. But at his foster-mother's request Buddha finally
admitted nuns as well as monks into his fold. When [=A]nanda asks how
a monk should act in presence of a woman Buddha says 'avoid to look at
her'; but if it be necessary to look, 'do not speak to her'; but if it
be necessary to speak, 'then keep wide awake, [=A]nanda.'[21]
Buddha died in the fifth century. Rhys Davids, who puts the date later
than most scholars, gives, as the time of the great Nirv[=a]na, the
second decade from the end of the fourth century. On the other hand,
Bühler and Müller reckon the year as 477, while Oldenberg says 'about
480.'[22] From Buddha's own words, as reported by tradition, he was
eighty years old at the time of his death, and if one allots him
thirty-six years as his age when he became independent of masters, his
active life would be one of forty-four years. It was probably less
than this, however, for some years must be added to the first seven of
ascetic practices before he took the field as a preacher.
The story of Buddha's death is told simply and clearly. He crossed the
Ganges, where at that time was building the town of Patna
(P[=a]taliputta, 'Palibothra'), and prophesied its future greatness
(it was the chief city of India for centuries after); then, going
north from R[=a]jagriha, in Beh[=a]r, and V[=a]iç[=a]l[=i], he
proceeded to a point east of Gorukhpur (Kasia). Tradition thus makes
him wander over the most familiar places till he comes back almost to
his own country. There, in the region known to him as a youth, weighed
down with years and ill-health, but surrounded by his most faithful
disciples, he died. Not unaffecting is the final scene.[23]
'Now the venerable [=A]nanda (Buddha's beloved disciple) went into the
cloister-building, and stood leaning against the lintel of the door
and weeping at the thought: "Alas! I remain still but a learner, one
who has yet to work out his own perfection. And the Master is about to
pass away from me--he who is so kind." Then the Blessed One called the
brethren and said: "Where then, brethren, is [=A]nanda?" "The
venerable [=A]nanda (they replied) has gone into the cloister-building
and stands leaning against the lintel of the door, weeping." ... And
the Blessed One called a certain brother, and said "Go now, brother,
and call [=A]nanda in my name and say, 'Brother [=A]nanda, thy Master
calls for thee.'" "Even so, Lord," said that brother, and he went up
to where [=A]nanda was, and said to the venerable [=A]nanda: "Brother
[=A]nanda, thy Master calls for thee." "It is well, brother," said the
venerable [=A]nanda, and he went to the place where Buddha was. And
when he was come thither he bowed down before the Blessed One, and
took his seat on one side. Then the Blessed One said to the venerable
[=A]nanda, as he sat there by his side: "Enough, [=A]nanda, let not
thyself be troubled; weep not. Have I not told thee already that we
must divide ourselves from all that is nearest and dearest? How can it
be possible that a being born to die should not die? For a long time,
[=A]nanda, hast thou been very near to me by acts of love that is kind
and good and never varies, and is beyond all measure. (This Buddha
repeats three times.) Thou hast done well. Be earnest in effort. Thou,
too, shalt soon be free." ... When he had thus spoken, the venerable
[=A]nanda said to the Blessed One: "Let not the Blessed One die in
this little wattle and daub town, a town in the midst of the jungle,
in this branch township. For, Lord, there are other great cities such
as Benares (and others). Let the Blessed One die in one of them."'
This request is refused by Buddha. [=A]nanda then goes to the town and
tells the citizens that Buddha is dying. 'Now, when they had heard
this saying, they, With their young men and maidens and wives were
grieved, and sad, and afflicted at heart. And some of them wept,
dishevelling their hair, and stretched forth their arms, and wept,
fell prostrate on the ground and rolled to and fro, in anguish at
the thought "Too soon will the Blessed One die! Too soon will the
Happy One pass away! Full soon will the Light of the world vanish
away!"' ... When Buddha is alone again with his disciples, 'then the
Blessed One addressed the brethren and said "It may be, brethren, that
there may be doubt or misgiving in the mind of some brother as to the
Buddha, the truth, the path or the way. Inquire, brethren, freely. Do
not have to reproach yourselves afterwards with this thought: 'Our
Teacher was face to face with us, and we could not bring ourselves to
inquire of the Blessed One when we were face to face with him.'" And
when he had thus spoken they sat silent. Then (after repeating these
words and receiving no reply) the Blessed One addressed the brethren
and said, "It may be that you put no questions out of reverence for
the Teacher. Let one friend communicate with another." And when he had
thus spoken the brethren sat silent. And the venerable [=A]nanda said:
"How wonderful a thing, Lord, and how marvellous. Verily, in this
whole assembly, there is not one brother who has doubt or misgiving as
to Buddha, the truth, the path or the way." Then Buddha said: "It is
out of the fullness of thy faith that thou hast spoken, [=A]nanda. But
I know it for certain." ... Then the Blessed One addressed the
brethren saying: "Behold, brethren, I exhort you saying, transitory
are all component things; toil without ceasing." And these were the
last words of Buddha.'
It is necessary here to make pause for a moment and survey the
temporal and geographical circumstances of Buddha's life. His lifetime
covered the period of greatest intellectual growth in Athens. If, as
some think, the great book of doubt[24] was written by the Hebrew in
450, there would be in three lands, at least, about the same time the
same earnestly scornful skepticism in regard to the worn-out teachings
of the fathers. But at a time when, in Greece, the greatest minds were
still veiling infidelity as best they could, in India atheism was
already formulated.
It has been questioned, and the question has been answered both
affirmatively and negatively, whether the climatic conditions of
Buddha's home were in part responsible for the pessimistic tone of his
philosophy. If one compare the geographical relation of Buddhism to
Brahmanism and to Vedism respectively with a more familiar geography
nearer home, he will be better able to judge in how far these
conditions may have influenced the mental and religious tone. Taking
Kabul and Kashmeer as the northern limit of the period of the Rig
Veda, there are three geographical centres. The latitude of the Vedic
poets corresponds to about the southern boundary of Tennessee and
North Carolina. The entire tract covered by the southern migration to
the time of Buddhism, extending from Kabul to a point that corresponds
to Benares (35° is a little north of Kabul and 25° is a little south
of Beh[=a]r), would be represented loosely in the United States by the
difference between the northern line of Mississippi and Key West. The
extent of Georgia about represents in latitude the Vedic province (35°
to 30°), while Florida (30° to 25°) roughly shows the southern
progress from the seat of old Brahmanism to the cradle of young
Buddhism. These are the extreme limits of Vedism, Brahmanism and
proto-Buddhism. South of this the country was known to Brahmanism only
to be called savage, and not before the late S[=u]tras (c. 300 B.C.)
is one brought as far south as Bombay in the West. The [=A]itareya
Br[=a]hmana, which represents the old centre of Brahmanism around
Delhi, knows of the [=A]ndhras, south of the God[=a]var[=i] river in
the southeast (about the latitude of Bombay and Hayti), only as outer
'Barbarians.' It is quite conceivable that a race of hardy
mountaineers, in shifting their home through generations from the
hills of Georgia and Tennessee to the sub-tropical region of Key West
(to Cuba), in the course of many centuries might become morally
affected. But it seems to us, although the miasmatic plains of Bengal
may perhaps present even a sharper contrast to the Vedic region than
do Key West and Cuba to Georgia, that the climate in effecting a moral
degradation (if pessimism be immoral) must have produced also the
effect of mental debility. Now to our mind there is not the slightest
proof for the asseveration, which has been repeated so often that it
is accepted by many nowadays as a truism, that Buddhism or even
post-Buddhistic literature shows any trace of mental decay.[25] There
certainly is mental weakness in the Br[=a]hmanas, but these cannot all
be accredited to the miasms of Bengal. They are the bones of a
religion already dead, kept for instruction in a cabinet; dry, dusty,
lifeless, but awful to the beholder and useful to the owner. Again,
does Buddhism lose in the comparison from an intellectual point of
view when set beside the mazy gropings of the Upanishads? We have
shown that dogma was the base of primal pantheism; of real logic there
is not a whit. We admire the spirit of the teachers in the Upanishads,
but we have very little respect for the logical ability of any early
Hindu teachers; that is to say, there is very little of it to admire.
The doctors of the Upanishad philosophy were poets, not dialecticians.
Poetry indeed waned in the extreme south, and no spirited or powerful
literature ever was produced there, unless it was due to foreign
influence, such as the religious poetry of Ramaism and the Tamil
_Sittars_. But in secondary subtlety and in the marking of
distinctions, in classifying and analyzing on dogmatic premises, as
well as in the acceptance of hearsay truths as ultimate verities--we
do not see any fundamental disparity in these regards between the mind
of the Northwest and that of the Southeast; and what superficial
difference exists goes to the credit of Buddhism. For if one must have
dogma it is something to have system, and while precedent theosophy
was based on the former it knew nothing of the latter. Moreover, in
Buddhism there is a greater intellectual vigor than in any phase of
Brahmanism (as distinct from Vedism). To cast off not only gods but
soul, and more, to deny the moral efficacy of asceticism this was a
leap into the void, to appreciate the daring of which one has but to
read himself into the priestly literature of Buddha's rivals, both
heterodox and orthodox. We see then in Buddhism neither a debauched
moral type, nor a weakened intellectuality. The pessimism of Buddhism,
so far as it concerns earth, is not only the same pessimism that
underlies the religious motive of Brahmanic pantheism, but it is the
same pessimism that pervades Christianity and even Hebraism. This
world is a sorry place, living is suffering; do thou escape from it.
The pleasures of life are vanity; do thou renounce them. "To die is
gain," says the apostle; and the Preacher: "I have seen all the works
that are done under the sun and behold all is vanity and vexation of
spirit. He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. For what hath
man of all his labor and of the vexation of his heart, wherein he hath
laboured under the sun? For all his days are sorrows and his travail
grief. That which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one
thing befalleth them: as the one dieth so dieth the other; yea, they
have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast:
for all is vanity. All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all
turn to dust again. Who knoweth the spirit of man whether it goeth
upward? I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living
which are yet alive. The dead know not anything, their love and their
hatred and their envy is now perished; neither have they any more a
portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun. The
wandering of the desire, this also is vanity."
The Preacher is a fairly good Buddhist.
If pessimism be the conviction that life on earth is not worth living,
this view is shared alike by the greatest of earth's religions. If
pessimism be the view that all beauty ends with life and that beyond
it there is nothing for which it is worth while to live, then India
has no parallel to this Homeric belief. If, however, pessimism mean
that to have done with existence on earth is the best that can happen
to a man, but that there is bliss beyond, then this is the opinion of
Brahmanism, Jainism, and Christianity. Buddhism alone teaches that to
live on earth is weariness, that there is no bliss beyond, and that
one should yet be calm, pure, loving, and wise.
How could such a religion inspire enthusiasm? How could it send forth
jubilant disciples to preach the gospel of joy? Yet did Buddhism do
even this. Not less happy and blissful than were they that received
the first comfort of pantheism were the apostles of Buddha. His
progress was a triumph of gladness. They that believed in him rejoiced
and hastened to their fellows with the good tidings. Was it then a new
morality, a new ethical code, that thus inspired them? Let one but
look at the vows and commandments respectively taken by and given to
the Buddhist monk, and he will see that in Buddhism there is no new
morality.
The Ten Vows are as follows:
I take the vow not to kill; not to steal; to abstain from
impurity; not to lie; to abstain from intoxicating drinks
which hinder progress and virtue; not to eat at forbidden
times; to abstain from dancing, singing, music and stage
plays; not to use garlands, scents, unguents, or ornaments;
not to use a high or broad bed; not to receive gold or
silver.
The Eight Commandments are as follows:
Do not kill; do not steal; do not lie; do not drink
intoxicating drinks; do not commit fornication or adultery;
do not eat unseasonable food at night; do not wear garlands
or use perfumes; sleep on a mat spread on the ground.
The first five of these commands are given to every Buddhist, monk, or
layman; the last three are binding only on the monk.[26]
These laws and rules were, however, as we have indicated in
the chapter on Jainism, the common property, with some unimportant
variations and exceptions, of the Brahman ascetic, the Jain, and the
Buddhist. There was surely nothing here to rouse especial interest.
No. But there was one side of Buddhism that was new, not absolutely
new, for it formed part of the moral possession of that early band
which we may call the congregation of the Spirit. The Brahman
theoretically had done away with penance and with prayer, with the
Vedic gods and with the Vedic rites. Yet was it impossible for him
practically to absolve the folk of these. The priest might admit that
he knew a better way to salvation, but he still led the people over
the hard old road, and he himself went that way also, because it was
the way of the fathers, because it was the only way for them that were
unwise, and perhaps, too, because it was the only way in which the
priest could keep his place as guide and leader of the people.
Jainism smote down some of the obstacles that the Brahman had built
and kept. Mah[=a]v[=i]ra made the way to salvation shorter, but he did
not make it easier for the masses. Asceticism, self-mortification,
starvation, torture,--this was his means of gaining happiness
hereafter.
But Buddha cut down all obstacles. He made the lowest equal with the
highest. It is true that he was no democrat. It is true that his
success depended, in great part, on political influence, on the
conversion of kings and nobles, men of his own class. It is true also
that Buddha at first, like every other Hindu theosophist, sought no
salvation for the world around him, but only for himself. But he was
moved with pity for the multitude. And why? The sages among them knew
no path to happiness save through life-long torture; the common people
knew only a religion of rites in which they took no interest, the very
words of which were unintelligible; and its priests in their eyes, if
not contemptible, at least were unsympathetic. And at the same time
the old caste-system oppressed and insulted them. It is evident that
the times were ripe for a more humane religion and a new distribution
of social privileges. Then Buddha arose and said: "He that is pure in
heart is the true priest, not he that knows the Veda. Like unto one
that standeth where a king hath stood and spoken, and standing and
speaking there deems himself for this a king, seems to me the man that
repeateth the hymns, which the wise men of old have spoken, and
standing in their place and speaking, deems himself for this a sage.
The Vedas are nothing, the priests are of no account, save as they be
morally of repute. Again, what use to mortify the flesh? Asceticism is
of no value. Be pure, be good; this is the foundation of wisdom--to
restrain desire, to be satisfied with little. He is a holy man who
doeth this. Knowledge follows this."
Here is the essence of Buddhism, here is its power; and when one
reflects that Buddha added: "Go into all lands and preach this gospel;
tell them that the poor and lowly, the rich and high, are all one, and
that all castes unite in this religion, as unite the rivers in the
sea"--he will understand what key was used to open the hearts of
Buddha's kinsmen and people.
But, it will be said, there is nothing in this of that extreme
pessimism, of which mention has just been made. True. And this, again,
is an important point to bear in mind, that whereas the logic of his
own system led Buddha into a formal and complete pessimism, which
denies an after-life to the man that finds no happiness in this, he
yet never insists upon this. He not only does not insist, but in his
talks with his questioners and disciples he uses all means to evade
direct inquiry in regard to the fate of man after death. He believed
that Nirv[=a]na (extinction of lust) led to cessation of being; he did
not believe in an immortal soul. But he urged no such negative
doctrine as this. What he urged repeatedly was that every one
accepting the undisputed doctrine of _karma_ or re-birth in its full
extent (i.e., that for every sin here, punishment followed in the
next existence), should endeavor to escape, if possible, from such an
endless course of painful re-births, and that to accomplish this it
was necessary first to be sober and good, then to be learned, but not
to be an ascetic. On the other hand the doctrine, in its logical
fullness, was a teaching only for the wise, not for fools. He imparted
it only to the wise. What is one to understand from this? Clearly,
that Buddha regarded the mass of his disciples as standing in need
merely of the Four Great Truths, the confession of which was the sign
of becoming a disciple; while to the strong and wise he reserved the
logical pessimism, which resulted from his first denials and the
premises of causality on which was created his complicated system.
Only thus can one comprehend the importance of Buddhism to his own
time and people, only in this light reconcile the discrepancy between
the accounts of a religion which roused multitudes to enthusiasm and
joy, while on the other hand it stood on the cold basis of complete
nihilism. Formally there was not an esoteric[27] and exoteric
Buddhism, but practically what the apostles taught, what Buddha
himself taught to the mass of his hearers was a release from the
bondage of the law and the freedom of a high moral code as the one
thing needful. But he never taught that sacrifice was a bad thing; he
never either took the priest's place himself or cast scorn upon the
Brahman caste: "Better even than a harmless[28] sacrifice is
liberality" he says, "better than liberality is faith and kindness
(non-injury) and truth, better than faith, kindness, and truth is
renunciation of the world and the search for peace; best of all, the
highest sacrifice and greatest good, is when one enters Nirv[=a]na,
saying "I shall not return again to earth." This is to be an Arhat
(Perfect Sage).
These are Buddha's own words as he spoke with a Brahman priest,[29]
who was converted thereby and replied at once with the Buddhist's
confession of faith: "I take refuge in Buddha, in the doctrine, in the
church."
A significant conversation! In many ways these words should be
corrective of much that is hazarded today in regard to Buddhism. There
is here no elaborate system of metaphysics. Wisdom consists in the
truth as it is in Buddha; and before truth stand, as antecedently
essential, faith and kindness; for so may one render the passive
non-injury of the Brahman as taught by the Buddhist. To have faith and
good works, to renounce the pomps and vanities of life, to show
kindness to every living thing, to seek for salvation, to understand,
and so finally to leave no second self behind to suffer again, this is
Buddha's doctrine.
We have avoided thus far to define Nirv[=a]na. It has three distinct
meanings, eternal blissful repose (such was the Nirv[=a]na of the
Jains and in part of Buddhism), extinction and absolute annihilation
(such was the Nirv[=a]na of some Buddhists), and the Nirv[=a]na of
Buddha himself. Nirv[=a]na meant to Buddha the extinction of lust,
anger, and ignorance. He adopted the term, he did not invent it. He
was often questioned, but persistently refused to say whether he
believed that Nirv[=a]na implied extinction of being or not. We
believe that in this refusal to speak on so vital a point lies the
evidence that he himself regarded the 'extinction' or 'blowing out'
(this is what the word means literally) as resulting in annihilation.
Had he believed otherwise we think he would not have hesitated to say
so, for it would have strengthened his influence among them to whom
annihilation was not a pleasing thought.
But one has no right to 'go behind the returns' as these are given by
Buddha. The later church says distinctly that Buddha himself did not
teach whether he himself, his ego, was to live after death or not; or
whether a permanent ego exists. It is useless, therefore, to inquire
whether Buddha's Nirv[=a]na be a completion, as Müller defines it, or
annihilation. To one Buddhistic party it was the one; to the other,
the other; to Buddha himself it was what may be inferred from his
refusal to make any declaration in regard to it.
The second point of interest is not more easily disposed of. What to
the Buddhist is the spirit, the soul of man? It certainly is not an
eternal spirit, such as was the spirit of Brahmanic philosophy, or
that of the Jain. But, on the other hand, it is clear that something
survived after death till one was reborn for the last time, and then
entered Nirv[=a]na. The part that animates the material complex is to
the Buddhist an individuality which depends on the nature of its
former complex, home, and is destined to project itself upon futurity
till the house which it has built ceases to exist, a home rebuilt no
more to be its tabernacle. When a man dies the component parts of his
material personality fall apart, and a new complex is formed, of which
the individuality is the effect of the _karma_ of the preceding
complex. The new person is one's karmic self, but it is not one's
identical ego. There appears, therefore, even in the doctrine of
Nirv[=a]na, to lie something of that altruism so conspicuous in the
insistence on kindness and conversion of others. It is to save from
sorrow this son of one's acts that one should seek to find the end.
But there is no soul to save.
We cannot insist too often on the fact that the religion of Buddha was
not less practical than human. He practiced, as he taught, that the
more one worked for others, was devoted to others, the less he cared
for himself, the less was he the victim of desire. Hence he says that
a true Nirv[=a]na may come even in one's own lifetime--the utter
surrender of one's self is Nirv[=a]na,[30] while the act of dying only
draws the curtain after the tragedy has ended. "Except," Buddha says,
"for birth, age, and death, there would be no need of Buddha."
A review of Buddha's system of metaphysics is, therefore, doubly
unnecessary for our present purpose.[31] In the first place we believe
that most of the categories and metaphysical niceties of Buddhism, as
handed down, are of secondary origin; and, were this not so, it is
still evident that they were but the unimportant, intellectual
appendage of a religion that was based on anything but metaphysical
subtleties. Buddha, like every other teacher of his time, had to have
a 'system,' though whether the system handed down as his reverts to
him it is impossible to say. But Buddha's recondite doctrine was only
for the wise. "It is hard to learn for an ordinary person," says
Buddha himself. But it was the ordinary person that Buddhism took to
its bosom. The reason can be only the one we have given. For the last
stage before Arhat-ship Buddha had ready a complicate system. But he
did not inflict it on the ordinary person.[32] It was not an essential
but the completing of his teaching; in his own eyes truth as
represented by the Four Great Truths was the real doctrine.
The religion of Buddha, for the mass of people, lies in the Four Great
Truths and their practical application to others, which implies
kindness and love of humanity. For Buddha, whatever may have been the
reluctance with which he began to preach, shows in all his teachings
and dealings with men an enduring patience under their rebuffs, a
brotherly sympathy with their weakness, and a divine pity for their
sorrows. Something, too, of divine anger with the pettiness and
meanness of the unworthy ones among his followers, as when, after
preaching with parable and exhortation to the wrangling brothers of
the monastery of Kosamb[=i], he left them, saying, "'Truly these fools
are infatuate; it is no easy task to administer instruction to them,'
and," it is added simply, "he rose from his seat and went away."[33]
The significance of the church organization in the development of
Buddhism should not be under-estimated. Contrasted with the lack of an
organized ecclesiastical corporation among the Brahmans the Buddhistic
synod, or congregation, Sangha, exerted a great influence. In
different places there would be a park set apart for the Buddhist
monks. Here they had their monastery buildings, here they lived during
the rainy season, from this place out as a centre the monks radiated
through the country, not as lone mendicants, but as members of a
powerful fraternity. To this monastery came gifts, receipts of all
kinds that never would have been bestowed upon individuals.
Undoubtedly organization did much for the spread of Buddhism. Yet we
think its influence has been emphasized almost too much by some
scholars, or rather the effect has been represented as too radical.
For the monasteries, as represented by tradition, with their immense
wealth and political importance as allies of the heretical kings of
the East, are plainly of secondary growth. If one limit their national
and political importance to a period one or two hundred years after
the Master's time, he will not err in attributing to this cause, as
does Barth, the reason for the rapid rise and supremacy of Buddhism
over India. But the first beginnings of the institution were small,
and what is to be sought in the beginning of Buddhism is rather
the reason why the monasteries became popular, and what was the hold
which Buddha had upon the masses, and which induced the formation of
this great engine of religious war. And when this first question is
raised the answer must still be that the banding together of the monks
was not the cause but the effect of the popularity of Buddhism. The
first monasteries, as Barth well says, were only assemblies of pious
men who formed a spiritual band of religious thinkers, of men who
united themselves into one body to the end that they might study
righteousness, learning together how to imitate the Master in holiness
of living. But the members converted soon became so many that formal
assemblies became a necessity to settle the practical disputes and
theoretical questions which were raised by the new multitude of
believers, some of whom were more factious than devout. Brahmanism had
no need of this. The Brahman priest had his law in tradition; his life
and conduct were regulated by immemorial law. The corporations of
these priests were but temporary organizations for specific purposes.
They made no attempt to proselytize. Their members never exceeded the
bounds of the caste. The cause, then, of the rapid spread of Buddhism
at the beginning of its career lies only in the conditions of its
teaching and the influential backing of its founder. It was the
individual Buddha that captivated men; it was the teaching that
emanated from him that fired enthusiasm; it was his position as an
aristocrat that made him acceptable to the aristocracy, his magnetism
that made him the idol of the people. From every page stands out the
strong, attractive personality of this teacher and winner of hearts.
No man ever lived so godless yet so godlike. Arrogating to himself no
divinity, despairing of future bliss, but without fear as without
hope, leader of thought but despising lovingly the folly of the world,
exalted but adored, the universal brother, he wandered among men,
simply, serenely; with gentle irony subduing them that opposed him, to
congregation after congregation speaking with majestic sweetness, the
master to each, the friend of all. His voice was singularly vibrant
and eloquent;[34] his very tones convinced the hearer, his looks
inspired awe. From the tradition it appears that he must have been one
of those whose personality alone suffices to make a man not only a
leader but a god to the hearts of his fellows. When such an one speaks
he obtains hearers. It matters little what he says, for he influences
the emotions, and bends whoever listens to his will. But if added to
this personality, if encompassing it, there be the feeling in the
minds of others that what this man teaches is not only a verity, but
the very hope of their salvation; if for the first time they recognize
in his words the truth that makes of slaves free men, of classes a
brotherhood, then it is not difficult to see wherein lies the
lightning-like speed with which the electric current passes from heart
to heart. Such a man was Buddha, such was the essential of his
teaching; and such was the inevitable rapidity of Buddhistic
expansion, and the profound influence of the shock that was produced
by the new faith upon the moral consciousness of Buddha's people.
The literature of early Buddhism consists of a number of historical
works embodying the life and teaching of the master, some of more
didactic and epigrammatic intent, and, in the writings of the Northern
Buddhists, some that have given up the verbose simplicity of the first
tracts in favor of tasteless and extravagant recitals more stagey than
impressive. The final collection of the sacred books (earlier is the
Suttanta division into Nik[=a]yas) is called Tripitaka, 'the three
baskets,' one containing the tracts on discipline; one, the talks of
Buddha; and one, partly metaphysical; called respectively Vinaya,
Sutta, and Abhidhamma. The Southern[35] P[=a]li redaction--for the
writings of the Northern[36] Buddhists are in Sanskrit--was commented
upon in the fifth century of this era by Buddha-gosha ('Buddha's
glory'), and appears to be older than the Sanskrit version of
Nep[=a]l. Some of the writings go back as far as the Second Council,
and their content, so far as it concerns Buddha's own words, in many
cases is doubtless a tradition that one should accept as
authoritative. The works on discipline, instead of being as dull as
one might reasonably expect of books that deal with the petty details
of a monastery, are of exceeding interest (although whole chapters
conform to the reasonable expectation), for they contain fragments of
the work and words of Buddha which give a clearer idea of his
personality and teaching than do his more extended, and perhaps less
original discourses. They throw a strong light also on the early
church, its recalcitrant as well as its obedient members, the quarrels
and schisms that appear to have arisen even before Buddha's death.
Thus in the _Mah[=a]vagga_ (ch. X) there is found an account of the
schism caused by the expulsion of some unworthy members. The brethren
are not only schismatic, some taking the side of those expelled, but
they are even insolent to Buddha; and when he entreats them for the
sake of the effect on the outer world to heal their differences,[37]
they tell him to his face that they will take the responsibility, and
that he need not concern himself with the matter. It is on this
occasion that Buddha says, "Truly, these fools are infatuate," leaves
them, and goes into solitude, rejoicing to be free from souls so
quarrelsome and contentious. Again these tracts give a picture of how
they should live that are truly Buddha's disciples. Buddha finds three
disciples living in perfect harmony, and asks them how they live
together so peaceably and lovingly. In quaint and yet dignified
language they reply, and tell him that they serve each other. He that
rises first prepares the meal, he that returns last at night puts the
room in order, etc. (_ib_. 4). Occasionally in the account of unruly
brothers it is evident that tradition must be anticipating, or that
many joined the Buddhist fraternity as an excuse from restraint. The
_Cullavagga_ opens with the story of two notorious renegades, 'makers
of strife, quarrelsome, makers of dispute, given to idle talk, and
raisers of legal questions in the congregation.' Such were the
infamous followers of Panduka and Lohitaka. Of a different sort,
Epicurean or rather frivolous, were the adherents of Assaji and
Punabbasu, who, according to another chapter of the _Cullavagga_ (I.
13), 'cut flowers, planted cuttings of flowers, used ointment and
scents, danced, wore garlands, and revelled wickedly.' A list of the
amusements in which indulged these flighty monks includes 'games
played with six and ten pieces, tossing up, hopping over diagrams,
dice, jackstraws,[38] ball, sketching, racing, marbles, wrestling,'
etc; to which a like list (_Tevijja_, II) adds chess or checkers
('playing with a board of sixty-four squares or one hundred squares'),
ghost stories, and unseemly wrangling in regard to belief ("I am
orthodox, you are heterodox"), earning a living by prognostication, by
taking omens 'from a mirror' or otherwise, by quack medicines, and by
'pretending to understand the language of beasts.' It is gratifying to
learn that the scented offenders described in the first-mentioned work
were banished from the order. According to the regular procedure, they
were first warned, then reminded, then charged; then the matter was
laid before the congregation, and they were obliged to leave the
order. Even the detail of Subhadda's insolence is not wanting in these
records _(Cull_. XI. 1. and elsewhere). No sooner was Buddha dead than
the traitor Subhadda cries out: "We are well rid of him; he gave us
too many rules. Now we may do as we like." On which the assembly
proceeded to declare in force all the rules that Buddha had given,
although he had left it to them to discard them when they would. The
Confessional (P[=a]timokkha), out of which have been evolved in
narrative form the Vinaya texts that contain it, concerns graded
offences, matters of expiation, rules regarding decency, directions
concerning robes, rugs, bowls, and other rather uninteresting topics,
all discussed in the form of a confession.[39] The church-reader goes
over the rules in the presence of the congregation, and asks at the
end of each section whether any one is guilty of having broken this
rule. If at the third repetition no one responds, he says, 'They are
declared innocent by their silence.' This was the first public
confessional, although, as we have shown above, the idea of a partial
remission of sin by means of confession to the priest is found in
Brahmanic literature.[40] The confession extends to very small
matters, but one sees from other texts that the early congregation
laid a great deal of weight on details, such as dress, as the sign of
a sober life. Thus in _Mah[=a]vagga_, V. 2 ff., certain Buddhists
dress in a worldly way. At one time one is informed of the color of
their heretical slippers, at another of the make of their wicked
gowns. All this is monastic, even in the discipline which 'sets back'
a badly behaved monk, gives him probation, forces him to be
subordinate. In _Cullavagga_, I. 9, there is an account of stupid
Seyyasaka, who was dull and indiscreet, and was always getting 'set
back' by the brethren. Finally they grow weary of probating him and
carry out the _nissaya_ against him, obliging him to remain under the
superintendence of others. For, according to Buddha's rule, a wise
novice was kept under surveillance, or rather under the authority of
others, for five years; a stupid uninformed monk, forever. Buddha's
relations with society are plainly set forth. One reads how his
devoted friend, King Seniya Bimbis[=a]ra, four years younger than
Buddha, and his protector (for he was King of M[=a]gadha), gives him a
park, perhaps the first donation of this sort, the origin of all the
monastic foundations: "The King of M[=a]gadha, Bimbis[=a]ra, thought
'here is this bamboo forest Venuvana, my pleasure-garden, which is
neither too near to the town nor too far from it.... What if I were to
give it to the fraternity?' ... And he took a golden vessel (of water)
and dedicated the garden to Buddha, saying, 'I give up the park to the
fraternity with Buddha at its head.' And the Blessed One accepted the
park" (_Mah[=a]vagga_, i. 22).[41] Another such park Buddha accepts
from the courtezan, Ambap[=a]li, whose conversation with Buddha and
dinner-party to him forms a favorite story with the monks (_Mah[=a]v._
v. 30; _Cull_. ii). The protection offered by Bimbis[=a]ra made the
order a fine retreat for rogues. In _Mah[=a]v._ 1. 41 ff. one reads
that King Seniya Bimbis[=a]ra made a decree: "No one is to do any harm
to those ordained among the Ç[=a]kya-son's monks.[42] Well taught is
their doctrine. Let them lead a holy life for the sake of complete
extinction of suffering." But robbers and runaway slaves immediately
took advantage of this decree, and by joining the order put the police
at defiance. Even debtors escaped, became monks, and mocked their
creditors. Buddha, therefore, made it a rule that no robber, runaway
slave, or other person liable to arrest should be admitted into the
order. He ordained further that no son might join the order without
his parents' consent (_ib_. 54). Still another motive of false
disciples had to be combated. The parents of Up[=a]li thought to
themselves: "What shalt we teach Up[=a]li that he may earn his living?
If we teach him writing his fingers will be sore; if we teach him
arithmetic his mind will be sore; if we teach him money-changing his
eyes will be sore. There are those Buddhist monks; they live an easy
life; they have enough to eat and shelter from the rain; we will make
him a monk." Buddha, hearing of this, ordained that no one should be
admitted into the order under twenty (with some exceptions).
The monks' lives were simple. They went out by day to beg, were locked
in their cells at night (_Mah[=a]v_. i. 53), were probated for light
offences, and expelled for very severe ones.[43] The people are
represented as murmuring against the practices of the monks at first,
till the latter were brought to more modest behavior. It is perhaps
only Buddhist animosity that makes the narrator say: "They did not
behave modestly at table.... Then the people murmured and said, 'These
Buddhist monks make a riot at their meals, _they act just like the
Brahman priests.'" (Mah[=a]v_. i. 25; cf. i. 70.)
We turn from the Discipline to the Sermons. Here one finds everything,
from moral exhortations to a book of Revelations.[44] Buddha sometimes
is represented as entering upon a dramatic dialogue with those whom he
wishes to reform, and the talk is narrated. With what soft irony he
questions, with what apparent simplicity he argues! In the
_Tevijja_[45] the scene opens with a young Brahman. He is a pious and
religious youth, and tells Buddha that although he yearns for 'union
with Brahm[=a],'[46] he does not know which of the different paths
proposed by Brahman priests lead to Brahm[=a]. Do they all lead to
union with Brahm[=a]? Buddha answers: 'Let us see; has any one of
these Brahmans ever seen Brahm[=a]?' 'No, indeed, Gautama.' 'Or did
any one of their ancestors ever see Brahm[=a]?' 'No, Gautama.' 'Well,
did the most ancient seers ever say that they knew where is
Brahm[=a]?' 'No, Gautama.' 'Then if neither the present Brahmans know,
nor the old Brahmans knew where is Brahm[=a], the present Brahmans say
in point of fact, "We can show the way to union with what we know not
and have never seen; this is the straight path, this is the direct way
which leads to Brahm[=a]"--and is this foolish talk?' 'It is foolish
talk.' 'Then, as to yearning for union with Brahm[=a], suppose a man
should say, "How I long for, how I love the most beautiful woman in
this land," and the people should ask, "Do you know whether that
beautiful woman is a noble lady, or a Brahman woman, or of the trader
class, or a slave?" and he should say, "No"; and the people should
say, "What is her name, is she tall or short, in what place does she
live?" and he should say, "I know not," and the people should say,
"Whom you know not, neither have seen, her you love and long for?" and
he should say, "Yes,"--would not that be foolish? Then, after this is
assented to, Buddha suggests another parallel. 'A man builds a
staircase, and the people ask, "Do you know where is the mansion to
which this staircase leads?" "I do not know." "Are you making a
staircase to lead to something, taking it for a mansion, which you
know not and have never seen?" "Yes." Would not this be foolish
talk?... Now what think you, is Brahm[=a] in possession of wives and
wealth?' 'He is not.'
'Is his mind full of anger or free from anger? Is his mind full of
malice or free from malice?' 'Free from anger and malice.' 'Is his
mind depraved or pure?' 'Pure.' 'Has he self-mastery?' 'Yes.' 'Now
what think you, are the Brahmans in possession of wives and wealth, do
they have anger in their hearts, do they bear malice, are they impure
in heart, are they without self-mastery?' 'Yes.' 'Can there then be
likeness between the Brahmans and Brahm[=a]?' 'No.' 'Will they then
after death become united to Brahm[=a] who is not at all like them?'
Then Buddha points out the path of purity and love. Here is no
negative 'non-injury,' but something very different to anything that
had been preached before in India. When the novice puts away hate,
passion, wrong-doing, sinfulness of every kind, then: 'He lets his
mind pervade the whole wide world, above, below, around and
everywhere, with a heart of love, far-reaching, grown great, and
beyond measure. And he lets his mind pervade the whole world with a
heart of pity, sympathy, and equanimity, far-reaching, grown great,
and beyond measure.' Buddha concludes (adopting for effect the
Brahm[=a] of his convert): 'That the monk who is free from anger, free
from malice, pure in mind, and master of himself should after death,
when the body is dissolved, become united to Brahm[=a] who is the
same--such a condition of things is quite possible' Here is no
metaphysics, only a new religion based on morality and intense
humanity, yet is the young man moved to say, speaking for himself and
the friend with him: 'Lord, excellent are the words of thy mouth. As
if one were to bring a lamp into the darkness, just so, Lord, has the
truth been made known to us in many a figure by the Blessed One. And
we come to Buddha as our refuge, to the doctrine and to the church.
May the Blessed One accept us as disciples, as true believers, from
this day forth, as long as life endures.'
The god Brahm[=a] of this dialoge is for the time being playfully
accepted by Buddha as the All-god. To the Buddhist himself Brahm[=a]
and all the Vedic gods are not exactly non-existent, but they are dim
figures that are more like demi-gods, fairies, or as some English
scholars call them, 'angels.' Whether Buddha himself really believed
in them, cannot be asserted or denied. This belief is attributed to
him, and his church is very superstitious. Probably Buddha did not
think it worth while to discuss the question. He neither knew nor
cared whether cloud-beings existed. It was enough to deny a Creator,
or to leave no place for him. Thaumaturgical powers are indeed
credited to the earliest belief, but there certainly is nothing in
harmony with Buddha's usual attitude in the extraordinary discourse
called _[=A]kankheyya_, wherein Buddha is represented as ascribing to
monks miraculous powers only hinted at in a vague 'shaking of the
earth' in more sober speech.[47] From the following let the 'Esoteric
Buddhists' of to-day take comfort, for it shows at least that they
share an ancient folly, although Buddha can scarcely be held
responsible for it: "If a monk should desire to become multiform, to
become visible or invisible, to go through a wall, a fence, or a
mountain as if through air; to penetrate up or down through solid
ground as if through water ... to traverse the sky, to touch the moon
... let him fulfil all righteousness, let him be devoted to that
quietude of heart which springs from within ... let him look through
things, let him be much alone." That is to say, let him aim for the
very tricks of the Yogis, which Buddha had discarded. Is there not
here perhaps a little irony? Buddha does not say that the monk will be
able to do this--he says if the monk wishes to do this, let him be
quiet and meditate and learn righteousness, then perhaps--but he will
at least have learned righteousness!
The little tract called _Cetokhila_ contains a sermon which has not
lost entirely its usefulness or application, and it is characteristic
of the way in which Buddha treated eschatological conundrums: 'If a
brother has adopted the religious life in the hope of belonging to
some one of the angel (divine) hosts, thinking to himself, "by this
morality or by this observance or by this austerity or by this
religious life I shall become an angel," his mind does not incline to
zeal, exertion, perseverance and struggle, and he has not succeeded in
his religious life' (has not broken through the bonds). And,
continuing, Buddha says that just as a hen might sit carefully
brooding over her well-watched eggs, and might content herself with
the wish, 'O that this egg would let out the chick,' but all the time
there is no need of this torment, for the chicks will hatch if she
keeps watch and ward over them, so a man, if he does not think what is
to be, but keeps watch and ward of his words, thoughts, and acts, will
'come forth into the light.'[48]
The questions in regard to Buddha's view of soul, immortality, and
religion are answered to our mind as clearly in the following passages
as Buddha desired they should be. 'Unwisely does one consider: "Have I
existed in ages past ... shall I exist in ages yet to be, do I exist
at all, am I, how am I? This is a being, whence is it come, whither
will it go?" Consideration such as this is walking in the jungle of
delusion. These are the things one should consider: "This is
suffering, this is the origin of suffering, this is the cessation of
suffering, this is the way that leads to the cessation of suffering."
From him that considers thus his fetters fall away' (_Sabb[=a]sava_).
In the _Vang[=i]sa-sutta_ Buddha is asked directly: "Has this good
man's life been vain to him, has he been extinguished, or is he still
left with some elements of existence; and how was he liberated?" and
he replies: "He has cut off desire for name and form in this world. He
has crossed completely the stream of birth and death." In the
_Salla-sutta_ it is said: "Without cause and unknown is the life of
mortals in this world, troubled, brief, combined with pain.... As
earthen vessels made by the potter end in being broken, so is the life
of mortals." One should compare the still stronger image, which gives
the very name of _nir-v[=a]na_ ('blowing out') in the
_Upas[=i]vam[=a]navapucch[=a]_: "As a flame blown about by wind goes
out and cannot be reckoned as existing, so a sage delivered from name
and body disappears, and cannot be reckoned as existing." To this
Upas[=i]va replies: "But has he only disappeared, or does he not
exist, or is he only free from sickness?" To which Buddha: "For him
there is no form, and that by which they say he is exists for him no
longer." One would think that this were plain enough.
Yet must one always remember that this is the Arhat's death, the death
of him that has perfected himself.[49] Buddha, like the Brahmans,
taught hell for the bad, and re-birth for them that were not
perfected. So in the _Kok[=a]liya-sutta_ a list of hells is given, and
an estimate is made of the duration of the sinner's suffering in them.
Here, as if in a Brahman code, is it taught that 'he who lies goes to
hell,' etc. Even the names of the Brahmanic hells are taken over into
the Buddhist system, and several of those in Manu's list of hells are
found here.
On the other hand, Buddha teaches, if one may trust tradition, that a
good man may go to heaven. 'On the dissolution of the body after death
the well-doer is re-born in some happy state in heaven'
(_Mah[=a]parinibb[=a]na,_ i. 24).[50] This, like hell, is a temporary
state, of course, before re-birth begins again on earth. In fact,
Buddhist and Brahmanic pantheists agree in their attitude toward the
respective questions of hell, heaven, and _karma_. It is only the
emancipated Arhat that goes to Nirv[=a]na.[51]
When it is said that Buddha preaches to a new convert 'in due course,'
it means always that he gave him first a lecture on morality and
religion, and then possibly, but not necessarily, on the 'system.' And
Buddha has no narrow-minded aversion to Brahmans; he accepts 'Brahman'
as he accepts 'Brahm[=a],' only he wants it to be understood what is a
real Brahman: 'A certain Brahman once asked Buddha how one becomes a
Brahman,--what are the characteristics that make a man a Brahman. And
the Blessed One said: "The Brahman who has removed all sinfulness, who
is free from haughtiness, free from impurity, self-restrained, who is
an accomplished master of knowledge, who has fulfilled the duties of
holiness,--such a Brahman justly calls himself a Brahman."'[52] "The
_Mah[=a]vagga_, from which this is taken, is full of such sentiments.
As here, in i. 2, so in i. 7: "The Blessed One preached to Yasa, the
noble youth, 'in due course,'" that is to say, "he talked about the
merit obtained by alms-giving, the duties of morality, about heaven,
about the evils of vanity and sinfulness of desire," and when the
Blessed One saw that the mind of Yasa, the noble youth, was prepared,
"then he preached the principal doctrine of the Buddhists, namely,
suffering, and cause of suffering, the cessation of suffering, the
Path;" and "just as a clean cloth takes the dye, thus Yasa, the noble
youth, even while sitting there, obtained the knowledge that
whatsoever is subject to birth is also subject to death."[53]
The "spirit and not the letter of the law" is expressed in the formula
_(Mah[=a]vagga_, i. 23): "Of all conditions that proceed
from a cause, Buddha has explained the cause, and he has explained
their cessation." This is the Buddhist's _credo_.
In several of the sermons the whole gist is comprised in the
admonition not to meddle with philosophy, nor to have any 'views,' for
"philosophy purifies no one; peace alone purifies."[54]
Buddha does not ignore the fact that fools will not desire salvation
as explained by him: "What fools call pleasure the noble say is pain;
this is a thing difficult to understand; the cessation of the existing
body is regarded as pleasure by the noble, but those wise in this
world hold the opposite opinion" (_Dvayat[=a]nup. sutta_, 38).[55] But
to him the truly wise is the truly pure: "Not by birth is one a
Brahman, not by birth is one an outcast; by deeds is one a Brahman, by
deeds is one an outcast" (_Vasala-sutta_); and not alone in virtue of
_karma_ of old, for: "The man who knows in this world the destruction
of pain, who lays aside the burden and is liberated, him I call a
Brahman; whosoever in this world has overcome good and evil, both
ties, who is free from grief and defilement, and is pure,--him I call
a Brahman; the ignorant say that one is a Brahman by birth, but one is
a Brahman by penance, by religious life, by self-restraint, and by
temperance" (_V[=a]settha-sutta_).
The penance here alluded to is not the vague penance of austerities,
but submission to the discipline of the monastery when exercised for a
specific fault.
Later Buddhism made of Buddha a god. Even less exaltation than this is
met by Buddha thus: S[=a]riputta says to him, "Such faith have I,
Lord, that methinks there never was and never will be either monk or
Brahman who is greater and wiser than thou," and Buddha responds:
"Grand and bold are the words of thy mouth; behold, thou hast burst
forth into ecstatic song. Come, hast thou, then, known all the Buddhas
that were?" "No, Lord." "Hast thou known all the Buddhas that will
be?" "No, Lord." "But, at least, thou knowest me, my conduct, my mind,
my wisdom, my life, my salvation (i.e., thou knowest me as well as I
know myself)?" "No, Lord." "Thou seest that thou knowest not the
venerable Buddhas of the past and of the future; why, then, are thy
words so grand and bold?" (_Mah[=a]parinibb[=a]na_.)
Metaphysically the human ego to the Buddhist is only a collection of
five _skandhas_ (form, sensations, ideas, faculties of mind, and
reason) that vanishes when the collection is dispersed, but the
factors of the collection re-form again, and the new ego is the result
of their re-formation. The Northern Buddhists, who turn Buddha into a
god, make of this an immortal soul, but this is Buddhism in one phase,
not Buddha's own belief. The strength of Northern Buddhism lies not,
as some say, in its greater religious zeal, but in its grosser
animism, the delight of the vulgar.
It will not be necessary, interesting as would be the comparison, to
study the Buddhism of the North after this review of the older and
simpler chronicles. In Hardy's _Manual of Buddhism_ (p. 138 ff.) and
Rockhill's _Life of Buddha_ will be found the weird and silly legends
of Northern Buddhism, together with a full sketch of Buddhistic ethics
and ontology (Hardy, pp. 460, 387). The most famous of the Northern
books, the Lotus of the Law and the Lalita Vistara, give a good idea
of the extravagance and supernaturalism that already have begun to
disfigure the purer faith. According to Kern, who has translated the
former work again (after Burnouf), the whole intent of the Lotus is to
represent Buddha as the supreme, eternal God. The works, treating of
piety, philosophy, and philanthropy, contain ancient elements, but in
general are of later form. To this age belongs also the whole
collection of J[=a]takas, or 'birth-stories,' of the Buddhas that were
before Gautama, some of the tales of which are historically important,
as they have given rise to Western fables.[56] These birth-stories
represent Buddha (often as Indra) as some god or mortal, and tell what
he did in such or such a form. It is in a future form that, like
Vishnu, who is to come in the _avatar_ of Kalki, the next Buddha will
appear as Maitreya, or the 'Buddha of love.'[57] Some of the stories
are very silly; some, again, are beautiful at heart, but ugly in their
bizarre appearance. They are all, perhaps, later than our era.[58]
The history of Buddhism after the Master's death has a certain analogy
with that of Mohammedanism. That is to say it was largely a political
growth. Further than this, of course, the comparison fails. The
religion was affected by heretical kings, and by _nouveaux riches_,
for it admitted them all into its community on equal terms--no slight
privilege to the haughty nabob or proud king who, if a believer and
follower of Brahman orthodoxy, would have been obliged to bend the
head, yield the path, and fear the slightest frown of any beggar
priest that came in his way.
The M[=a]ruya monarch Açoka adopted Buddhism as a state religion in
the third century B.C., and taught it unto all his people, so that,
according to his own account, he changed the creed of the country from
Brahmanism to Buddhism.[59] He was king over all northern India, from
Kabul to the eastern ocean, from the northern limit of Brahmanic
civilization to its southern boundary. Buddhist missionaries were now
spread over India and beyond it. And here again, even in this later
age, one sees how little had the people to do with Buddha's
metaphysical system. Like the simple confession 'I take refuge in
Buddha, in the doctrine, and in the church' was the only credo
demanded, that cited above: "Buddha has explained the cause of
whatever conditions proceed from a cause, and he has declared their
cessation." In this credo, which is en-graved all over India,
everything is left in confidence to Buddha. However he explained the
reason, that creed is to be accepted without inquiry. The convert took
the patent facts of life, believing that Buddha had explained all, and
based his own belief not on understanding but on faith.
With the council of Patna, 242 B.C, begins at thousands of the
missionaries the geographical separation of the church, which results
in Southern and Northern Buddhism.[60]
It is at this period that the monastic bodies become influential. The
original Sangha, congregation, is defined as consisting of three or
more brethren. The later monastery is a business corporation as well
as a religious body. The great emperors that now ruled India (not the
petty clan-kings of the centuries before) were no longer of pure
birth, and some heresy was the only religion that would receive them
with due honor. They affected Buddhism, endowed the monasteries, in
every was enriched the church, built for it great temples, and in turn
were upheld by their thankful co-religionists. Among the six[61] rival
heresies that of Buddha was predominant, and chiefly because of royal
influence. The Buddhist head of the Ceylon church was Açoka's own son.
Still more important for Buddhism was its adoption by the migratory
Turanians in the centuries following. Tibet and China were opened up
to it through the influence of these foreign kings, who at least
pretended to adopt the faith of Buddha.[62] But as it was adopted by
them, and as it extended beyond the limits of India, just so much
weaker it became at home, where its strongest antagonists were the
sectarian pantheistic parties not so heterodox as itself.
Buddhism lingered in India till the twelfth or thirteenth century,
although in the seventh it was already decadent, as appears from the
account of Hiouen-Thsang, the Chinese pilgrim. It is found to-day in
Tibet, Ceylon, China, Japan, and other outlying regions, but it is
quite vanished from its old home. The cause of its extinction is
obvious. The Buddhist victorious was not the modest and devout
mendicant of the early church. The fire of hate, lighted if at all by
Buddhism,[63] smouldered till Brahmanism, in the form of Hinduism, had
begotten a religion as popular as Buddhism, or rather far more
popular, and for two reasons. Buddhism had no such picturesque tales
as those that enveloped with poetry the history of the man-god
Krishna, Again, Buddhism in its monastic development had separated
itself more and more from the people. Not mendicant monks, urging to a
pure life, but opulent churches with fat priests; not simple
discourses calculated to awaken the moral and religious consciousness,
but subtle arguments on discipline and metaphysics were now what
Buddhism represented. This religion was become, indeed, as much a
skeleton as was the Brahmanism of the sixth century. As the Brahmanic
belief had decomposed into spiritless rites, so Buddhism,
changed into dialectic and idolatry (for in lieu of a god the later
church worshipped Buddha), had lost now all hold upon the people. The
love of man, the spirit of Buddhism, was dead, and Buddhism crumbled
into the dust. Vital and energetic was the sectarian 'love of God'
alone (Hinduism), and this now became triumphant. Where Buddhism has
succeeded is not where the man-gods, objects of love and fear, have
entered; but where, without rivalry from more sympathetic beliefs, it
has itself evolved a system of idolatry and superstition; where all
that was scorned by the Master is regarded as holiest, and all that he
insisted upon as vital is disregarded.[64] One speaks of the millions
of Buddhists in the world as one speaks of the millions of Christians;
but while there are some Christians that have renounced the bigotry
and idolatry of the church, and hold to the truth as it is in the
words of Christ, there are still fewer Buddhists who know that their
Buddhism would have been rebuked scornfully by its founder.
The geographical growth of formal Buddhism is easily sketched. After
the first entrance into Kashmeer and Ceylon, in the third century
B.C., the progress of the cult, as it now may be called, was steadily
away from India proper. In the fifth century A.D., it was adopted in
Burmah,[65] and in the seventh in Siam. The Northern school kept in
general to the 'void' doctrine of N[=a]g[=a]rjuna, whose chief texts
are the Lotus and the Lalita Vistara, standard works of the Great
Vehicle.[66] In Tibet Lamaism is the last result of this hierarchical
state-church.[67] We have thought it much more important to give a
fuller account of early Buddhism, that of Buddha, than a full account
of a later growth in regions that, for the most part, are not Indic,
in the belief that the P[=a]li books of Ceylon give a truer picture of
the early church than do those of Kashmeer and Nep[=a]l, with their
Çivaite and Brahmanic admixture. For in truth the Buddhism of China
and Tibet has no place in the history of Indic religions. It may have
been introduced by Hindu missionaries, but it has been re-made to suit
a foreign people. This does not apply, of course, to the canonical
books, the Great Vehicle, of the North, which is essentially native,
if not Buddhistic. Yet of the simple narrative and the adulterated
mystery-play, if one has to choose, the former must take precedence.
From the point of view of history, Northern Buddhism, however old its
elements, can be regarded only as an admixture of Buddhistic and
Brahmanic ideas. For this reason we take a little more space, not to
cite from the Lotus or the grotesque Lalita Vistara,[68] but to
illustrate Buddhism at its best. Fausböll, who has translated the
dialogue that follows, thinks that in the Suttas of the
Sutta-nip[=a]ta there is a reminiscence of a stage of Buddhism before
the institution of monasteries, while as yet the disciples lived as
hermits. The collection is at least very primitive, although we doubt
whether the Buddhist disciples ever lived formally as individual
hermits. All the Samanas are in groups, little 'congregations,' which
afterwards grew into monasteries.
This is a poetical (amoebic) contest between the herdsman Dhaniya and
Buddha, with which Fausböll[69] compares St. Luke, xii. 16, but which,
on the other hand reminds one of a spiritualized Theocritus, with whom
its author was, perhaps, contemporary.
I have boiled the rice, I have milked the kine--so said the
herdsman Dhaniya--I am living with my comrades near the
banks of the (great) Mah[=i] river; the house is roofed, the
fire is lit--then rain if thou wilt, O sky!
I am free from anger, free from stubbornness--so said the
Blessed One--I am abiding for one night near the banks of
the (great) Mah[=i] river; my house has no cover, the fire
(of passion) is extinguished--then rain if thou wilt, O sky!
Here are no gad-files--so said the herdsman Dhaniya--The
cows are roaming in meadows full of grass, and they can
endure the rain--then rain if thou wilt, O sky!
1 have made a well-built raft--so said the Blessed One--I
have crossed over, I have reached the further bank, I have
overcome the torrent (of passions); I need the raft no
more--then rain if thou wilt, O sky!
My wife is obedient, she is not wanton--so said the herdsman
Dhaniya--she has lived with me long and is winning; no
wickedless have I heard of her--then rain if thou wilt, O
sky!
My mind is obedient, delivered (from evil)--so said the
Blessed One--it has been cultivated long and is
well-subdued; there is no longer anything wicked in me--then
rain if thou wilt, O sky!
I support myself by my own earnings--so said the herdsman
Dhaniya--and my children are around me and healthy; I hear
no wickedness of them--then rain if thou wilt, O sky!
I am the servant of none--so said the Blessed One--with what
I have gained I wander about in all the world; I have no
need to serve--then rain if thou wilt, O sky!
I have cows, I have calves--so said the herdsman
Dhaniya--cows in calf and heifers also; and I have a bull as
lord over the cows--then rain if thou wilt, O sky!
I have no cows, I have no calves--so said the Blessed
One--no cows in calf, and no heifers; and I have no bull as
a lord over the cows--then rain if thou wilt, O sky!
The stakes are driven in and cannot be shaken--so said the
herdsman Dhaniya--the ropes are made of holy-grass, new and
well-made; the cows will not be able to break them--then
rain if thou wilt, O sky!
Like a bull I have rent the bonds--so said the Blessed
One--like an elephant I have broken through the ropes, I
shall not be born again--then rain if thou wilt, O sky!
Then the rain poured down and filled both sea and land. And
hearing the sky raining, Dhaniya said: Not small to us the
gain in that we have seen the Blessed Lord; in thee we take
refuge, thou endowed with (wisdom's) eye; be thou our
master, O great sage! My wife and myself are obedient
to thee. If we lead a pure life we shall overcome birth and
death, and put an end to pain.
He that has sons has delight in sons--so said the Evil
One--he that has cows has delight in cows, for substance is
the delight of man, but he that has no substance has no
delight.
He that has sons has care with his sons--so said the Blessed
One--he that has cows has likewise care with his cows, for
substance is (the cause of) care, but he that has no
substance has no care.
From Buddha's sermons choice extracts were gathered at an early date,
which, as well as the few longer discourses, that have been preserved
in their entirety, do more to tell us what was the original Buddha,
before he was enwrapped in the scholastic mysticism of a later age,
than pages of general critique.
Thus in the _Mah[=a]parinibb[=a]na_ casual allusion is made to
assemblies of men and of angels (divine beings), of the great
thirty-three gods, Death the Evil One and Brahm[=a] (iii. 21). Buddha,
as we have said, does not deny the existence of spiritual beings; he
denies only their power to affect the perfect man and their
controlling part in the universe. In the same sermon the refuge of the
disciple is declared to be truth and himself (ii. 33): "Be ye lamps
unto yourselves. Betake yourselves to no external refuge. Hold fast to
the truth as to a lamp."
And from the famous 'Path of Duty' or 'Collection of truths':[70]
All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is
founded on our thoughts; it is made up of our thoughts. If a
man speaks or acts with an evil thought pain follows him as
the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the
carriage, (but) if a man speaks or acts with a pure thought
happiness follows him like a shadow that never leaves him.
Earnestness is the path that leads to escape from death,
thoughtlessness is the path that leads to death. Those who
are in earnest do not die;[71]
those who are thoughtless are as if dead already. Long is
the night to him who is awake; long is a mile to him who is
tired; long is life to the foolish.
There is no suffering for him who has finished his journey
and abandoned grief, who has freed himself on all sides and
thrown off the fetters.
Some people are born again; evil-doers go to hell; righteous
people go to heaven; those who are free from all worldly
desires attain Nirv[=a]na.
He who, seeking his own happiness, punishes or kills beings
that also long for happiness, will not find happiness after
death.
Looking for the maker of this tabernacle I shall have to run
through a course of many births, so long as I do not find;
and painful is birth again and again. But now, maker of the
tabernacle, thou hast been seen; thou shalt not make up this
tabernacle again. All thy rafters are broken, thy ridge-pole
is sundered; thy mind, approaching Nirv[=a]na, has attained
to extinction of all desires.[72]
Better than going to heaven, better than lordship over all
worlds, is the reward of entering the stream of holiness.
Not to commit any sin, to do good, and to purify one's mind,
that is the teaching of the Buddhas.
Let us live happily, not hating them that hate us. Let us
live happily, though we call nothing our own. We shall be
like bright gods, feeding on happiness.
From lust comes grief, from lust comes fear; he that is free
from lust knows neither grief nor fear.
The best of ways is the eightfold (path); this is the way,
there is no other that leads to the purifying of
intelligence. Go on this way! Everything else is the deceit
of Death. You yourself must make the effort. Buddhas are
only preachers. The thoughtful who enter the way are freed
from the bondage of Death.[73]
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Compare Colebrooke's _Essays_, vol. ii. 460;
and Muir, OST. iv. 296]
[Footnote 2: Compare Oldenberg. _Buddha_, p. 155.]
[Footnote 3: Especially Köppen views Buddha as a democratic
reformer and liberator.]
[Footnote 4: Emile Senart, _Essai sur la légende du Buddha_.
1875.]
[Footnote 5: _Buddha_ (1881), p.73 ff.]
[Footnote 6: The exact position of Kapilavastu, the capital
of the Ç[=a]kyas, is not known, although it must have been
near to the position assigned to it on Kiepert's map of
India (just north of Gorakhpur). The town is unknown in
Brahmanic literature.]
[Footnote 7: This is Oldenberg's opinion, for the reason
here stated. On the other hand it may be questioned whether
this negative evidence be conclusive, and whether it be not
more probable that a young nobleman would have been well
educated.]
[Footnote 8: Siddhartha, the boy, Gautama by his family
cognomen, the Ç[=a]kya-son by his clan-name, was known also
as the Ç[=a]kya-sage, the hermit, Samana (Çrama[n.]a); the
venerable, Arhat (a general title of perfected saints);
Tath[=a]gata 'who is arrived like' (the preceding Buddhas,
at perfection); and also by many other names common to other
sects, Buddha, Jina, The Blessed One (Bhagavat), The Great
Hero, etc. The Buddhist disciple may be a layman, _çravaka_;
a monk, _bhikshu_; a perfected saint, _arhat_; a saintly
doctor of the law, _bodhisattva_; etc.]
[Footnote 9: South of the present Patna. Less correct is the
_Buddha_ Gay[=a] form.]
[Footnote 10: The famous _bo_ or Bodhi-tree, ficus
religiosa, _pippala_, at Bodhi Gay[=a], said to be the most
venerable and certainly the most venerated tree in the
world.]
[Footnote 11: A _pacceka_ Buddha (Oldenberg. _Buddha_,
p.122).]
[Footnote 12:
"Then be the door of salvation opened!
He that hath ears to hear let him hear.
I thought of my own sorrow only, and, therefore,
Have not revealed the Word to the world."]
[Footnote 13: He sometimes, however, quite prosaically
'makes' or 'manufactures' it.]
[Footnote 14: _Dhammacakkappavattana_. Rhys Davids in his
introduction to this _sutta_ gives and explains the eight as
follows (SBE. XI. p.144): 1, Right views; freedom from
superstition or delusion. 2, Right aims, high and worthy of
the intelligent, earnest man. 3, Right speech, kindly, open,
truthful. 4, Right conduct, peaceful, honest, pure. 5, Right
livelihood, bringing hurt to no living thing. 6, Right
effort in self-training and in self-control. 7, Right
mindfulness, the active watchful mind. 8, Right
contemplation, earnest thought on the deep mysteries of
life.]
[Footnote 15: Hardy, _Manual,_, p.496.]
[Footnote 16: "A decided predilection for the aristocracy
appears to have lingered as an heirloom of the past in the
older Buddhism," Oldenberg, _Buddha_, p.157.]
[Footnote 17: _Mah[=a]vagga,_ 1.24. On the name (Gautama)
Gotama, see Weber, _IS_. L 180.]
[Footnote 18: The parks of Venuvana and Jetavana were
especially affected by Buddha. Compare Oldenberg, _Buddha_,
p.145.]
[Footnote 19: Like the Jains the Buddhists postulate
twenty-four (five) precedent Buddhas.]
[Footnote 20: Buddha's general discipline as compared with
that of the Jains was much more lax, for instance, in the
eating of meat. Buddha himself died of dysentery brought on
by eating pork. The later Buddhism interprets much more
strictly the rule of 'non-injury'; and as we have shown,
Buddha entirely renounced austerities, choosing the mean
between laxity and asceticism.]
[Footnote 21: Or 'take care of yourself';
_Mah[=a]parinibb[=a]na_, v. 23.]
[Footnote 22: The chief Buddhistic dates are given by Müller
(introduction to _Dhammapada_, SBE. vol. X.) as follows:
557, Buddha's birth; 477, Buddha's death and the First
Council at R[=a]jagriha; 377, the Second Council at
V[=a]iç[=a]l[=i]; 259, Açoka's coronation; 242, Third
Council at P[=a]taliputta; 222, Açoka's death. These dates
are only tentative, but they give the time nearly enough to
serve as a guide. From the Buddhists (Ceylon account) it is
known that the Council at V[=a]iç[=a]li was held one hundred
years after Buddha's death (one hundred and eighteen years
before the coronation of Açoka, whose grandfather,
Candragupta, was Alexander's contemporary). The interval
between Nirvana and Açoka, two hundred and eighteen years,
is the only certain date according to Köppen, p.208, and
despite much argument since he wrote, the remark still
holds.]
[Footnote 23: Englished by Rhys Davids,
_Mah[=a]parinibb[=a]na-sutta_ (SBE. XI. 95 ff.).]
[Footnote 24: _Ecclesiastes_.]
[Footnote 25: The common view is thus expressed by
Oldenberg: "In dem schwülen, feuchten, von der Natur mit
Reichthümern üppig gesegneten Tropenlande des Ganges hat das
Volk, das in frischer Jugendkraft steht, als es vom Norden
her eindringt, bald aufgehört jung und stark zu sein.
Menschen und Völker reifen in jenem Lande ... schnell heran,
um ebenso schnell an Leib und Seele zu erschlaffen" (_loc.
cit_. p. 11).]
[Footnote 26: Rhys Davids, _Buddhism_, pp. 160,139.]
[Footnote 27: Buddha taught, of course, nothing related to
the thaumaturgy of that folly which calls itself today
'Esoteric Buddhism.']
[Footnote 28: That is a sacrifice where no cattle are slain,
and no injury is done to living beings.]
[Footnote 29: _K[=u]tadanta-sutta_ Oldenberg, _Buddha_, p.
175.]
[Footnote 30: Sometimes distinguished from
_pari-nirv[=a][n.]a_ as absolute annihilation.]
[Footnote 31: Some scholars think that the doctrine of
Buddha resembles closely that of the S[=a]nkhya philosophy
(so Barth, p. 116), but Müller, Oldenberg, and others,
appear to be right in denying this. The Sankhyan 'spirit'
has, for instance, nothing corresponding to it in Buddha's
system.]
[Footnote 32: The twelve Nid[=a]nas are dogmatic, and withal
not very logical. "From ignorance arise forms, from forms
arises consciousness, from consciousness arise name and
bodiness; from name and bodiness arise the six senses
(including understanding as the sixth) and their objects;
from these arises contact; from this, feeling; from this,
thirst; from this, clinging; from clinging arises becoming;
from becoming arises birth; from birth arise age and
sorrow." One must gradually free himself from the ten
fetters that bind to life, and so do away with the first of
these twelve Nid[=a]nas, ignorance.]
[Footnote 33: _Mah[=a]vagga_, X. 3 (SBE. XVII. 306).]
[Footnote 34 36 1: Compare Kern, the _Lotus_, III. 21, and
Fausböll, _P[=a]r[=a]yana-sutta_, 9 (1131), the "deep and
lovely voice of Buddha." (SBE. XXI. 64, and X. 210.)]
[Footnote 35: As Southern Buddhists are reckoned those of
Ceylon, Burmah, Siam, etc.]
[Footnote 36: As Northern Buddhists are reckoned those of
Nep[=a]l, Tibet, China, Corea, Japan, Java, Sumatra, Annam,
and Cambodia.]
[Footnote 37: "Let your light so shine before the world,
that you, having embraced the religious life according to so
well-taught a doctrine and discipline, may be seen to be
forbearing and mild." (SBE. XVII. 305, David's and
Oldenberg's translation.)]
[Footnote 38: 'Removing pieces from a pile without moving
the remainder' must, we presume, be jackstraws.]
[Footnote 39: For instance, rules for eating, drinking
(liquor), and for bathing. The Buddhist monk, except in
summer, bathed once a fortnight only.]
[Footnote 40: No one is so holy that sin does not hurt him,
according to Buddhistic belief. The Brahman, on the
contrary, was liable to become so holy that he could commit
any sin and it did not affect his virtue, which he stored up
in a heap by cumulative asceticism.]
[Footnote 41: The offering and reception of gifts is always
accompanied with water, both in Buddhistic and Brahmanic
circles. Whether this was a religious act or a legal sign of
surrender we have not been able to discover. Perhaps it
arose simply from water always being offered as refreshment
to a guest (with fruit), as a sign of guest-friendship.]
[Footnote 42: Sakyaputtiya Samanas, _i.e_., Buddhists.]
[Footnote 43: In the case of a monk having carnal connection
with a nun the penalty was instant expulsion(_ib_. 60). The
nuns were subject to the monks and kept strictly in hand,
obliged always to greet the monks first, to go to lessons
once a fortnight, and so forth.]
[Footnote 44: Mah[=a]sudassana, the great King of Glory
whose city is described with its four gates, one of gold,
one of silver, one of Jade and one of crystal, etc. The
earlier Buddha had as 'king of glory' 84,000 wives and other
comforts quite as remarkable.]
[Footnote 45: Translated by Davids, _Buddhist Suttas_ and
_Hibbert Lectures_.]
[Footnote 46: What we have several times had to call
attention to is shown again by the side light of Buddhism to
be the case in Brahmanic circles, namely, that even in
Buddha's day while Brahm[=a] is the god of the thinkers
Indra is the god of the people (together with Vishnu and
Çiva, if the texts are as old as they pretend to be).]
[Footnote 47: _Mah[=a]parinibb[=a]na_ iii, to which Rhys
Davids refers, is scarcely a fair parallel.]
[Footnote 48: The imitation of the original play on words is
Rhys Davids', who has translated these Suttas in SBE. vol.
XI. For the following see Fausböll, _ib_. vol. X.]
[Footnote 49: After one enters on the stream of holiness
there are only seven more possible births on earth, with one
in heaven; then he becomes _arhat_, venerable, perfected,
and enters Nirv[=a]na.]
[Footnote 50: Compare the fairies and spirits in _ib_. v.
10; and in i. 31, 'give gifts to the gods.']
[Footnote 51: We agree with Rhys Davids, _Buddhism_, pp.
111, 207, that Buddha himself was an atheist; but to the
statement that Nirv[=a]na was the "extinction of that
sinful, grasping condition of mind and heart which would
otherwise be the cause of renewed individual existences"
should in our opinion be added "and therewith the extinction
of individuality." Compare Rhys Davids' _Hibbert Lectures_,
p. 253.]
[Footnote 52: Compare the definition of an 'outcast' in the
_Vasala-sutta_: "He that gets angry and feels hatred, a
wicked man, a hypocrite, he that embraces wrong views and is
deceitful, such an one is an outcast, and he that has no
compassion for living things."]
[Footnote 53: Compare _ib_. 5. 36: "In due course he spoke,
of charity, morality, heaven, pleasure, and the advantage of
renunciation."]
[Footnote 54: See especially the _Nandaman., Paramatthaka,
M[=a]gandiya_, and _Suddhatthaka Suttas_, translated by
Fausböll, SBE. vol. X.]
[Footnote 55: Fausböll, in SBE. vol. X, Suttanip[=a]ta.]
[Footnote 56: The distinction between the Northern and
Southern doctrine is indicated by the terms 'Great Vehicle'
and 'Little Vehicle' respectively, the former the works of
N[=a]g[=a]rjuna's school (see below).]
[Footnote 57: As M[=a]itrakanyaka Buddha came once to earth
"to redeem the sins of men."]
[Footnote 58: Of historic interest is the rapport between
Brahmanic, Jain. and Buddhist tales. A case of this sort has
been carefully worked out by Leumann, _Die Legende von Citta
und Sambh[=u]ta_, WZKM. v. III; vi. 1.]
[Footnote 59: "The gods who were worshipped as true
divinities in India have been rendered false ... by my
zeal"; inscription cited by Barth, p. 135. But Açoka was a
very tolerant prince. Barth's notion of Buddhistic
persecution can hardly be correct.]
[Footnote 60: Köppen, _Die Religion des Buddha_, p. 198.]
[Footnote 61: Not to be confused with the seventeen heresies
and sixty-three different philosophical systems in the
church itself.]
[Footnote 62: For more details see Barth, _loc. cit_., p.
130 ff. According to tradition Buddhism was introduced into
Tibet in the fourth century, A.D., the first missionaries
coming from Nep[=a]l (Rockhill, p. 210).]
[Footnote 63: Barth justly discredits the tale of Buddhism
having been persecuted out of India. In this sketch of later
Buddhism we can but follow this author's admirable summary
of the causes of Buddhistic decline, especially agreeing
with him in assigning the first place to the torpidity of
the later church in matters of religion. It was become a
great machine, its spiritual enthusiasm had been exhausted;
it had nothing poetical or beautiful save the legend of
Buddha, and this had lost its freshness; for Buddha was now,
in fact, only a grinning idol.]
[Footnote 64: Here are developed fully the stories of hells,
angels, and all supernatural paraphernalia, together with
theism, idolatry, and the completed monastic system; magic,
fable, absurd calculations in regard to nothings, and
spiritual emptiness.]
[Footnote 65: At the same time the Ceylon canon was fixed by
the commentary of Buddhaghosha.]
[Footnote 66: Later it follows the mystical school. Both
schools have been affected by Brahmanism. The Great Vehicle,
founded by N[=a]g[=a]rjuna, was recognized at a fourth
council in Kashmeer about the time of the Christian era.
Compare Köppen, p. 199.]
[Footnote 67: On the Lamaistic hierarchy and system of
succession see Mayers, JRAS. IV. 284.]
[Footnote 68: For the same reason we do not enter upon the
outer form of Buddhism as expressed in demonology,
snake-worship (JRAS. xii. 286) and symbolism (_ib_. OS.
xiii. 71, 114).]
[Footnote 69: SBE. vol. x, part ii, p. 3.]
[Footnote 70: Dhammapada (Franke, ZDMG. xlvi, 731). In
Sanskrit one has _dharmapatha_ with the same sense. The text
in the main is as translated by Müller, separately, 1872,
and in SBE., voL x. It was translated by Weber, _Streifen_.
i. 112, in 1860.]
[Footnote 71: That is, they die no more; they are free from
the chain; they enter Nirv[=a]na.]
[Footnote 72: Buddha's words on becoming Buddha.]
[Footnote 73: It is to be observed that transmigration into
animal forms is scarcely recognized by Buddha. He assumes
only men and superior beings as subjects of _Karma_. Compare
Rhys Davids' _Lectures_, pp. 105,107. To the same scholar is
due the statement that he was the first to recognize the
true meaning of Nirv[=a]na, 'extinction (not of soul but) of
lust, anger, and ignorance.' For divisions of Buddhist
literature other than the Tripitaka the same author's
_Hibbert Lectures_ may be consulted (see also Müller, SBE.
X, Introduction, p. i).]
* * * * *
CHAPTER XIV.
EARLY HINDUISM.
While the great heresies that we have been describing were agitating
the eastern part of India,[1] the old home of Brahmanism in the West
remained true, in name if not in fact, to the ancient faith. But in
reality changes almost as great as those of the formal heresies were
taking place at the core of Brahmanism itself, which, no longer able
to be the religion of a few clans, was now engaged in the gigantic
task of remodelling and assimilating the indigenous beliefs and
religious practices of its new environment. This was not a conscious
act on the part of Brahmanism. At first it was undertaken almost
unwittingly, and it was accomplished later not without repugnance. But
to perform this task was the condition of continued existence.
Brahmanism had to expand, or shrink, wither, and die.
For a thousand years almost the only source of information in regard
to this new growth is contained in the epic poetry of the time, with
the help of a few additional facts from the law, and some side light
from inscriptions. It is here that Vishnuism and Çivaism are found as
fully developed sectarian beliefs, accepted by Brahmanism with more or
less distrust, and in more or less fulness of faith. It is to the epic
that one must turn to study the budding and gradual flowering of the
modern religions, which have cast strict orthodoxy into the shade.
Of the two epics, one, the R[=a]m[=a]yana,[2] has become the Old
Testament of the Ramaite Vishnuites of the present day. The
Bh[=a]rata,[3] on the other hand, is scriptural for all sects, because
it is more universal. The former epic, in its present form, is what
the Hindus call an 'art-poem,' and in its finish, its exclusively
romantic style, and its total lack of nervous dramatic power, it is
probably, as the Hindus claim, the work of one man, V[=a]lm[=i]ki, who
took the ancient legends of Eastern India and moulded them into a
stupid sectarian poem. On the other hand, the Bh[=a]rata is of no one
hand, either in origin or in final redaction; nor is it of one sect;
nor has it apparently been thoroughly affected, as has the
R[=a]m[=a]yana, by Buddhistic influences. Moreover, in the huge
conglomeration of stirring adventure, legend, myth, history, and
superstition which goes to make up the great epic there is contained a
far truer picture of the vulgar custom, belief, and religion of the
time than the too polished composition of V[=a]lm[=i]ki is able to
afford, despite the fact that the latter also has many popular
elements welded into it. There are, in fact, only two national works
in India, only two works which, withal, not in their entirety, but in
their nucleus, after one has stripped each of its priestly toggery,
reflect dimly the heart of the people, not the cleverness of one man,
or the pedantry of schools. For a few Vedic hymns and a few Bh[=a]rata
scenes make all the literature, with perhaps the exception of some
fables, that is not markedly dogmatic, pedantic, or 'artificial.'[4]
So true is this that even in the case of the R[=a]m[=a]yana one never
feels that he is getting from it the genuine belief of the people, but
only that form of popular belief which V[=a]lm[=i]ki has chosen to let
stand in his version of the old tale. The great epic is heroic,
V[=a]lm[=i]ki's poem is romantic; the former is real, the latter is
artificial; and the religious gleaning from each corresponds to this
distinction.[5]
Ths Bh[=a]rata, like other Hindu works, is of uncertain date, but it
was completed as a 'Great Bh[=a]rata' by the end of the sixth century
A.D., and the characters of the story are mentioned, as well known, by
P[=a]nini, whose work probably belongs to the fourth century B.C.
Furthermore, Dio Chrysostomos, probably citing from Megasthenes,
refers to it; and the latter authority describes the worship of the
chief gods of the epic; while the work is named in one of the domestic
S[=u]tras, and a verse is cited from it in the legal Sutra of
B[=a]udh[=a]yana.[6] On the other hand, in its latest growth it is on
a par with the earlier Pur[=a]nas, but it is not quite so advanced in
sectarianism as even the oldest of these writings. It may, then, be
reckoned as tolerably certain that the beginnings of the epic date
from the fourth or fifth century before the Christian era, and that it
was quite a respectable work by the time that era began; after which
it continued to grow for five centuries more.[7] Its religious
importance can scarcely be overestimated. In 600 A.D., far away from
its native home, in Cambodia, it was encircled with a temple, and an
endowment was made by the king providing for the daily recitation of
the poem. Its legal verses are authoritative; its religion is to-day
that of India as a whole. The latest large additions to it were, as we
think, the Book of Laws, the Book of Peace, and the genealogy of
Vishnu, which together form a sort of pseudo-epic. But portions of
other books, notably the first, fourth, and seventh, are probably
almost as recent as are the more palpable interpolations.
The Bh[=a]rata (or the epic [Greek: _kat exochên_] gives us our first
view of Hinduism in its sectarian developments. But no less does it
show us a changing Brahmanism. The most typical change in the
Brahmanism of this period, which covers all that time called by Müller
the era of the Renaissance, and ends with the pedantically piquant
literature of the drama,[8] is the abnormal growth of the ascetic
religious exercise. Older Brahmanism, like the sects, admitted Yogis
and ascetics of various kinds, but their aim was to attain oneness
with God; and 'union' (with God) is the _yoga_ (Latin _jugum_ has the
same origin) which they sought. But it was not long before the starved
ascetic, with his wild appearance and great reputation for sanctity,
inspired an awe which, in the unscrupulous, was easily turned to
advantage. The Yogi became more or less of a charlatan, more or less
of a juggler. Nor was this all. Yoga-practices began to take
precedence before other religious practices. In the Br[=a]hmanas it is
the sacrifice that is god-compelling; but in the epic, although
sacrifice has its place, yet when miraculous power is exerted, it is
due chiefly to Yoga concentration, or to the equally general use of
formulae; not formulae as part of a sacrifice, but as in themselves
potent; and mysterious _mantras_, used by priest and warrior alike,
serve every end of magic.[9] Apart from acquisition of power, this
Yoga-training is, moreover, all that is needful from the point of view
of righteousness. Physical prowess here is the one thing admirable. To
stand for years on one leg, to be eaten by ants, to be in every way an
ascetic of the most stoical sort, is the truest religion. Such an
ascetic has no ordinary rules of morality. In fact, his practices are
most peculiar, for to seduce young women is one of his commonest
occupations; and in his anger to cause an injury to his foes is one of
the ends for which he toils. The gods are nothing to him. They are
puppets whom he makes shake and tremble at will. As portrayed in the
epic, in terms of common sense, the Muni (silent saint) is a
morose[10] and very vulgar-minded old man, who seeks to intimidate
others by a show of miraculous power. In the matter of penances those
of the law are extended beyond all bounds. The caste-restrictions are
of the closest, and the most heinous crime is to commit an offence
against caste-order. On the other hand, the greatest merit is to give
gifts to priests. This had already proceeded far enough, as was
indicated by a passage cited above from Manu. But in the epic the
greed and capacity of the priest exceeds all imaginable limits. He
takes whatever he can get and asks for more. He has, by his own
showing, scarcely one estimable trait. Avarice, cupidity, sensuality,
gluttony, love of finery, effeminacy, meanness, and pride--everything
charged against him by the Buddhist--are his most marked
characteristics. He appears, however, to be worse than he always was.
For nothing is plainer, from this very epic, than that the priests,
although united as a caste, were sharply distinguished in their lives.
The ascetic described above represents the fourth period of the
priestly life. Below these stood (apart from students)[11] hermits and
householders. The householders, or such of them as the epic
unfortunately is busied with, the royal priests, seem to be those that
are in reality priests only in name. In the king's palace, his
constant advisors, his most unscrupulous upholders in wickedness, they
gave themselves up to quest of wealth and power. But one would err if
he thus dismissed them all. There were others that had no preferment,
who lived in quiet content in their own houses, and deserved none of
the opprobrium rightly bestowed upon their hypocritical brothers. The
hermits, too, appear to have been a mild and inoffensive race, not
presuming too much on their caste-privileges.
To offset rapaciousness there are tomes of morality of the purest
sort. Even in the later additions to the epic one reads: "Away with
gifts; receiving gifts is sinful. The silkworm dies of its wealth"
(xii. 330. 29). One should compare, again, the exalted verse
(Buddhistic in tone) of _ib_. 321. 47: "The red garment, the vow of
silence, the three-fold staff, the water-pot--these only lead astray;
they do not make for salvation." There were doubtless good and bad
priests, but the peculiarity of the epic priest, rapacious and
lustful, is that he glories in his sins.
The chief objects of worship (except for the influence of the
sectarian religions) were priests, Manes, and, for form's sake, the
Vedic gods. These gods, with the addition of the Hindu Plutus (Kubera,
the god of riches), are now called the eight 'world-guardians,' viz.,
Indra, Yama, Varuna, Kubera, Agni, S[=u]rya, V[=a]yu, Soma, and are
usually simple and shadowy subordinates of the greater new gods.
In the shifting of religious opinion and in the development of
theological conceptions what difference can be traced between the same
gods as worshipped in the Veda and as worshipped in the epic? Although
the Vedic divinities have been twice superseded, once by the
Father-god and again by the _[=a]tm[=a]_, Lord, they still remain
adorable and adored, active in many ways, though passive before the
great All-god. It is, indeed, extremely difficult, owing to the
superstruction of sectarian belief, to get down to the
foundation-religion of the epic. The best one can do is to see in what
way the old gods differ, as represented in the poem, from their older
selves of the Rig Veda. From this point of view alone, and entirely
irrespective of the sects, manifold changes will be seen to have taken
place. Great Soma is no more. Soma is there, the moon, but the glory
of the Vedic Soma has departed. His lunar representative is of little
importance. Agni, too, is changed. As Fire in the Rig Veda is not only
the altar-fire, but also common, every-day fire, so, too, in the epic
this god is the material flame, and as such even performs his greatest
deeds for his worshippers. He takes on every form, even becoming a
priest, and a dove. He remains the priest of the gods, but his day of
action in war is over. He no longer wins battles. But he burns down a
forest to aid his party. For the Vedic gods are now but weak partizans
of the combatants. In the sectarian parts of the epic Agni is only a
puppet. His new representative, Skanda, is the chief battle-god, a
name almost unknown before. He himself is either the son of Vishnu or
a form of Çiva. He is the All-god, the _[=a]tm[=a]_. It is he who
burns the world when the time shall have come for the general
destruction.
The high and mighty Varuna of the Rig Veda is no longer great. He is
no longer serene. He descends and fights on earth. Indra, too, battles
with Vritra as of old, but he is quite anthropomorphic, and of no
marked value in the contest of heroes. Not only this, but all the gods
together are represented as weaker than a good hero, not to speak of a
priestly ascetic. In a word, the gods are believed in, but with what a
belief! They no longer, as natural powers, inspire special respect.
Their nature-origin is for the most part lost. They are thoroughly
anthropomorphic. Even S[=u]rya, the sun, in action if not in
laudation, is often more man than god. This gives a strange effect to
the epic battle-scenes as compared with those of Homer. Unless Vishnu
is active on the field the action is essentially human. No great god
or goddess stands ready to save the fainting warrior. He fights and
falls alone. Save for the caresses and plaudits of the half-gods, the
most that the Vedic gods can do is to wipe away the sweat from the
hero's brow.[12] The All-god does not take the place of the band of
watchful and helpful gods pictured by Homer. Vishnu fights on the
field; he saves only his protégés, and much as a mortal warrior would
do it. But the Vedic gods hang like a mist upon the edge of battle,
and are all but idle spectators of the scene. Abstractions, as well as
the All-god, have routed them, and Dharma or Duty is a greater god
than Indra. But there is an older side to this, as we shall presently
show. On the moral side the heroes of the epic profess great belief in
the power and awfulness of this god Duty. And so far as go rules of
chivalry, they are theoretically moral. Practically they are savage,
and their religion does not interfere with their brutal barbarity. The
tendency to cite divine instances of sin as excuse for committing it
is, however, rebuked: "One should neither practice nor blame the
(wrong) acts of gods and seers," xii. 292. 17-18.
From an eschatological point of view it is most difficult to get back
of the statements made by the priestly composers,[13] who, in their
various reëditings of the epic, uniformly have given the pantheistic
goal as that in which the characters believe. But it is evident that
the warriors were not much affected by this doctrine. To them there
was one law of righteousness exceeding all others--to die on the field
of battle. And for such as did so, over and over again is the
assurance given that 'happiness in Indra's heaven' is their reward.
And probably a true note is struck in this reiterated promise. To the
mass of the vulgar, union with _brahma_ would have been no attractive
end.
It is interesting to see the remains of the older belief still
flourishing in midst of epic pantheism. Although Indra has no such
hymn as has S[=u]rya, yet is he still lauded, and he is a very real
person to the knight who seeks his heaven.[14] In fact, so long as
natural phenomena were regarded as divine, so long as thunder was
godly, it was but a secondary question which name the god bore;
whether he was the 'chief and king of gods,' or Vishnu manifesting
himself in a special form. This form, at any rate, was to endure as
such till the end of the cycle. There are other Indras. Each cycle has
its own (i. 197. 29). But sufficient unto the age is the god thereof.
If, relinquishing the higher bliss of absorption, the knight sought
only Indra's heaven, and believed he was to find it, then his belief
practically does not differ much from that of his ancestor, who
accepts Indra as an ultimate, natural power. The question arises
whether, after all, the Indra-worship of the epic is not rather
popular than merely old and preserved. Certainly the reality of the
belief seems quite as strong as that of the ever-newly converted
sectary. It may be doubted whether the distribution of theological
belief is very different in the epic and Vedic ages. Philosophical
pantheism is very old in India. The priest believes one thing; the
vulgar, another. The priest of the Vedic age, like the philosopher of
the next age, and like the later sectarian, has a belief which runs
ahead of the popular religion. But the popular religion in its salient
features still remains about the same. Arjuna, the epic hero, the pet
of Krishna, visits Indra's heaven and stays there five years. It is
the old Vedic gods to whom he turns for weapons, till the Çivaite
makes Indra send the knight further, to Çiva himself. The old name,
king of the Vasus, is still retained for Indra; and though the 'divine
weapons,' which are winged with sacred formulae, are said to be more
than a match for the gods; though in many a passage the knight and the
saint make Indra tremble, yet still appear, through the mists of
ascetic and sectarian novelties, Indra's heaven and his grandeur,
shining with something of their old glory. Vishnu still shows his
solar origin. Of him and of the sun is it said in identical words:
"The sun protects and devours all," and " Vishnu protects and devours
" (of Vishnu, passim; of the sun, iii. 33. 71). A good deal of old
stuff is left in the Forest Book amongst the absurd tales of holy
watering places. One finds repeated several times the Vedic account of
Indra's fight with Vritra, the former's thunderbolt, however, being
now made of a saint's bones (ii. ch. 100-105). Agni is lauded (_ib_.
ch. 123). To the Açvins[15] there is one old hymn which contains Vedic
forms (i. 3). Varuna is still lord of the West, and goes accompanied
with the rivers, 'male and female,' with snakes, and demons, and
half-gods _(d[=a]ityas, s[=a]dhyas, d[=a]ivatas_). Later, but earlier
than the pseudo-epic, there stands with these gods Kubera, the god of
wealth, the 'jewel-giver,' who is the guardian of travellers, the king
of those demons called Yakshas, which the later sect makes servants of
Çiva. He is variously named;[16] he is a dwarf; he dwells in the
North, in Mt. K[=a]il[=a]sa, and has a demoniac gate-keeper,
Macakruka. Another newer god is the one already referred to, Dharma
V[=a]ivasvata, or Justice (Virtue, Right), the son of the sun, a title
of Yama older than the Vedas. He is also the father of the new
love-god, K[=a]ma. It is necessary to indicate the names of the gods
and their functions, lest one imagine that with pantheism the Vedic
religion expired. Even that old, impious Brahmanic fable crops out
again: "The devils were the older brothers of the gods, and were
conquered by the gods only with trickery" (in. 33. 60), an interesting
reminiscence of the fact that the later name for evil spirit was
originally the one applied to the great and good spirit (Asura the
same with Ahura).[17] According to a rather late chapter in the second
book each of the great Vedic gods has a special paradise of his own,
the most remarkable feature of the account being that Indra's heaven
is filled with saints, having only one king in it--a view quite
foreign to the teaching that is current elsewhere in the epic. Where
the sectarian doctrine would oppose the old belief it set above
Indra's heaven another, of Brahm[=a], and above that a third, of
Vishnu (i. 89. 16 ff.). According to one passage Mt. Mandara[18] is a
sort of Indian Olympus. Another account speaks of the Him[=a]layas,
Himavat, as 'the divine mountain, beloved of the gods,' though the
knight goes thence to Gandham[=a]dana, and thence to Indrak[=i]la, to
find the gods' habitat (III. 37. 41). Personified powers lie all
around the religious Hindu. And this is especially true of the epic
character. He prays to Mt. Mandara, and to rivers, above all to the
Ganges. Mt. Kol[=a]hala is divine, and begets divine offspring on a
river (I. 63). The Vindhya range of mountains rivals the fabled Meru
(around which course the sun and all the heavenly bodies), and this,
too, is the object of devotion and prayer.[19] In one passage it is
said that in Beh[=a]r (M[=a]gadha) there was a peak which was
continuously 'worshipped with offerings of flowers and perfumes,'
exactly as if it were a god. The reason why flowers are given and worn
is that they bring good luck, it is said in the same chapter (II. 21.
15, 20, 51).
What is, perhaps, the most striking feature of Hindu religious
thought, as a whole, is the steadfastness with which survive, even in
the epic and in Buddhism, the forms and formulae of the older faith.
At a time when pantheism or nihilism is the avowed creed the ancient
gods still exist, weak, indeed, yet infused with a true immortality.
This is noticeable even more in unnoticeable ways, in the turns of
speech, in little comparisons, in the hymns, in short, in the by-play
of the epic. 'Withered are the garlands of the gods, and their glory
is departed,'[20] but they still receive homage in time of need. And
in that homage is to be seen, and from the same cause, the revived or
surviving worship of the Veda. Each god in turn is mighty, though Agni
is the mightiest of the old divinities. In an epic hymn to him it is
said: "Thou art the mouth of the worlds; the poets declare thee to be
one and three-fold; as carrier of the sacrifice they arrange thee
eight-fold. By thee was all created, say the highest seers. Priests
that have made reverence to thee attain the eternal course their acts
have won, together with their wives and sons. They call thee the
water-giver in the air, together with lightning. On thee first depends
water. Thou art the creator and Brihaspati, thou art the two Horsemen,
the two Yamas, Mitra, Soma, Wind" (i. 229. 23 ff.).[21] And yet this
is in a pantheistic environment! The Rig Veda is directly invoked,
though, of course, not directly cited, in the old hymn to the
Horsemen, who are, however, elsewhere put with low animals and
Guhyakas, demons (i. 66).[22] They are the "physicians of the gods,"
the "first-born" the golden birds which weave the white and black of
time, create the wheel of time with all its seasons, and make the sun
and sky (i. 3. 55 ff., "_v[=a]gbhir [r.]gbhis_"). Indra himself is
extolled in Kadr[=u]'s hymn; he is the slayer of Namuci, the lord of
Çac[=i]; he is the great cloud, cloud and its thunder, creator and
destroyer; he is Vishnu, 'Soma, greatly praised,' as well as fire,
air, time in all its divisions, earth and ocean; when lauded he drinks
the _soma_, and he is sung in the Ved[=a]ngas (i. 25. 7 ff.). Praised
with this hymn in time of need of rain, Indra "commanded the clouds,
saying, 'rain down the ambrosia'" (26. 2); where there is still the
rain as synonymous with ambrosia, and Indra not very differently
conceived from his Vedic self. Thus in comparisons: "As Indra standing
in heaven brings bliss to the world of the living, so Vidura ever
brought bliss to the Pandus" (i. 61. 15). But at the same time what
changes! The gods assemble and sing a hymn to Garuda, the epic form of
Garutman, the heavenly bird, who here steals the _soma_ vainly guarded
by the gods. Garuda, too, is Praj[=a]pati, Indra, and so forth.[23]
The gods are no longer divinities distinct from the dead Fathers, for
they are "identical in being." So Agni says when the latter is cursed
by Bhrigu: "The divinities and the Manes are satisfied by the oblation
in fire. The hosts of gods are waters, so, too, are the Manes. The
feasts of the new and full moon belong to the gods with the Manes;
hence the Manes are divinities and the divinities are Manes. They are
of one being (_ek[i]bh[=u]t[=a]s_). I (Fire) am the mouth of both, for
both eat the oblation poured upon me. The Manes at the new moon, the
gods at the full, are fed by my mouth" (i. 7. 7 ff.).[24] Such gods
the epic hero fears not (i. 227. 38 ff.). Hymns to them are paralleled
by hymns to snakes, as in i. 3. 134 ff., against whom is made the
"_sarpasattram_ (snake sacrifice) of the Pur[=a]nas" (i. 51. 6).
Divinity is universal. Knights are as divine as the divinest god, the
All-god. Arjuna, the god-born man, to whom Krishna reveals the Divine
Song, is himself god.[25] In this case whether god becomes human, or
_vice versa_, no one knows.
Under the all embracing cloak of pantheism the heart of the epic
conceals many an ancient rite and superstition. Here is the covenant
of blood, the covenant of death (represented by the modern
'sitting'[26]), and the covenant of water, which symbolizes both
friendship and the solemnity of the curse. The former are illustrated
by Bhima's drinking blood as a sign that he will fulfil his vow,[27]
and by R[=a]ma lying by Ocean to die unless Ocean grants his wish. Of
the water-rite that of offering water in hospitality and as a form in
reception of gifts is general; that of cursing by 'touching water'
(_v[=a]ry upasp[r.]çya_), occurs in iii. 10. 32. For this purpose
holy-grass and other symbols are known also,[28] and formulae yield
only in potency to love-philters and magic drugs. Another covenant
besides those just noticed seems to lie concealed in the avoidance of
the door when injury is intended. If one goes in by the door he is a
guest who has anticipated hospitality, and then he dares not refuse
the respect and offering of water, etc, which makes the formal pact of
friendship. If, on the contrary, he does not go in by the door he is
not obliged to receive the offering, and may remain as a foe in the
house (or in the city) of his enemy, with intent to kill, but without
moral wrong. This may be implied in the end of the epic, where
Açvatth[=a]man, intent on secret murder of his foe, is prevented by
god Çiva from entering in at the gate, but going in by stealth, and
'not by the door' of the camp, gets to his foe, who lies asleep, and
kills him (x. 8. 10). This might be thought, indeed, to be merely
strategic, but it is in accordance with the strict law of all the
law-books that one, in ordinary circumstances, shall avoid to enter a
town or a house in any other way than through the door (Manu, iv. 73;
Gaut. 9. 32, etc.), and we think it has a moral significance, for this
_a-dv[=a]ra_ (non-door) rule occurs again in the epic in just the
circumstances we have described. The heroes in this case are not
afraid of their foe, who is in his town. They insult every one as they
approach, but they find some other way of getting in than by passing
through the gate, for the express purpose of being morally able to
make the king fight with them after they have entered his city. And
they cite the rule 'according to law,' which is that one may enter his
foe's house by _a-dv[=a]ra,_ 'not by door,' but his friend's house
only 'by door.' As they have not entered 'by door' they say they may
refuse the hospitality which the king urges them to accept, and so
they kill him (ii. 21. 14, 53). Stepping in through the door seems,
therefore, to be a tacit agreement that one will not injure the
resident.[29]
In the epic, again, fetishism is found. The student of the 'science of
war,' in order to obtain his teacher's knowledge when the latter is
away, makes a clay image of the preceptor and worships this clay idol,
practicing arms before it (i. 132. 33). Here too is embalmed the
belief that man's life may be bound up with that of some inanimate
thing, and the man perishes with the destruction of his psychic
prototype (iii. 135). The old ordeals of fire and water are
recognized. "Fire does not burn the house of good men." "If (as this
man asserts) he is Varuna's son, then let him enter water and let us
see if he will drown" (iii. 134. 27 ff.). A human sacrifice is
performed (iii. 127); although the priest who performs it is cast into
hell (_ib_. 128).[30] The teaching in regard to hells is about the
same with that already explained in connection with the law-books, but
the more definite physical interpretation of hell as a hole in the
ground (_garta_, just as in the Rig Veda) is retained. Agastya sees
his ancestors 'in a hole,' which they call 'a hell' (_n[=i]ray[=a]_).
This is evidently the hell known to the law-punsters and epic (i. 74.
39) as _puttra_, 'the _put_ hell' from which the son (_putra_)
delivers (_tra_). For these ancestors are in the 'hole' because
Agastya, their descendant, has not done his duty and begotten sons (i.
45. 13; iii. 96. 15); one son being 'no son' according to law and epic
(i. 100. 68), and all the merit of sacrifice being equal to only
one-sixteenth of that obtained by having a son. The teaching, again,
in regard to the Fathers themselves (the Manes), while not differing
materially from the older view, offers novelties which show how little
the absorption-theory had taken hold of the religious consciousness.
The very fact that the son is still considered to be as necessary as
ever (that he may offer food to his ancestors) shows that the
believer, whatever his professed faith, expects to depend for bliss
hereafter upon his _post mortem_ meals, as much as did his fathers
upon theirs. In the matter of the burial of the dead, one finds, what
is antique, that although according to the formal law only infants are
buried, and adults are burned, yet was burial known, as in the Vedic
age. And the still older exposure of the body, after the Iranian
fashion, is not only hinted at as occurring here and there even before
the epic, but in the epic these forms are all recognized as equally
approved: "When a man dies he is burned or buried or exposed"
(_nik[r.][s.]yate_)[31] it is said in i. 90. 17; and the narrator goes
on to explain that the "hell on earth," of which the auditor "has
never heard" (vs. 6) is re-birth in low bodies, speaking of it as a
new doctrine. "As if in a dream remaining conscious the spirit enters
another form"; the bad becoming insects and worms; the good going to
heaven by means of the "seven gates," viz., penance, liberality,
quietism, self-control, modesty, rectitude, and mercy. This is a union
of two views, and it is evidently the popular view, that, namely, the
good go to heaven while the bad go to new existence in a low form, as
opposed to the more logical conception that both alike enter new
forms, one good, the other bad. Then the established stadia, the
pupil, the old teaching (_upanishad_) of the householders, and the
wood-dwellers are described, with the remark that there is no
uniformity of opinion in regard to them; but the ancient view crops
out again in the statement that one who dies as a forest-hermit
"establishes in bliss" ten ancestors and ten descendants. In this part
of the epic the Punj[=a]b is still near the theatre of events, the
'centre region' being between the Ganges and Jumna (I. 87. 5);
although the later additions to the poems show acquaintance with all
countries, known and unknown, and with peoples from all the world.
Significant in xii. 61. 1, 2 is the name of the third order
_bh[=a]ikshyacaryam_ 'beggarhood' (before the forest-hermit and after
the householder).
It was said above that the departed Fathers could assume a mortal
form. In the formal classification of these demigods seven kinds of
Manes are enumerated, the title of one subdivision being 'those
embodied.' Brahm[=a] is identified with the Father-god in connection
with the Manes: "All the Manes worship Praj[=a]pati Brahm[=a]," in the
paradise of Praj[=a]pati, where, by the way, are Çiva and Vishnu (II.
11. 45, 50, 52; 8. 30). According to this description 'kings and
sinners,' together with the Manes, are found in Yama's home, as well
as "those that die at the solstice" (II. 7 ff.; 8. 31). Constantly the
reader is impressed with the fact that the characters of the epic are
acting and thinking in a way not conformable to the idea one might
form of the Hindu from the law. We have animadverted upon this point
elsewhere in connection with another matter. It is this factor that
makes the study of the epic so invaluable as an offset to the
verisimilitude of belief, even as belief is taught (not practiced) in
the law. There is a very old rule, for instance, against slaughtering
animals and eating meat; while to eat beef is a monstrous crime. Yet
is it plain from the epic that meat-eating was customary, and Vedic
texts are cited (_ iti çrutis_) to prove that this is permissible;
while a king is extolled for slaughtering cattle (III. 208. 6-11). It
is said out and out in iii. 313. 86 that 'beef is food,' _g[=a]ur
annam_. Deer are constantly eaten. There is an amusing protest against
this practice, which was felt to be irreconcilable with
the _ahims[=a]_ (non-injury) doctrine, in III. 258, where the remnant
of deer left in the forest come in a vision and beg to be spared. A
dispute between gods and seers over vegetable sacrifices is recorded,
XII. 338. Again, asceticism is not the duty of a warrior, but the epic
hero practices asceticism exactly as if he were a priest, or a Jain,
although the warning is given that a warrior 'obtains a better lot'
(_loka_) by dying in battle than by asceticism. The asceticism is, of
course, exaggerated, but an instance or two of what the Hindu expects
in this regard may not be without interest. The warrior who becomes an
ascetic eats leaves, and is clothed in grass. For one month he eats
fruits every third day (night); for another month every sixth day; for
another month every fortnight; and for the fourth month he lives on
air, standing on tiptoe with arms stretched up. Another account says
that the knight eats fruit for one month; water for one month; and for
the third month, nothing (III. 33. 73; 38. 22-26; 167). One may
compare with these ascetic practices, which are not so exaggerated, in
fact, as might be supposed,[32] the 'one-leg' practice of virtue,
consisting in standing on one leg, _ekap[=a]dena_, for six months or
longer, as one is able (I. 170. 46; III. 12. 13-16). Since learning
the Vedas is a tiresome task, and ascetic practice makes it possible
to acquire anything, one is not surprised to find that a devotee
undertakes penance with this in view, and is only surprised when
Indra, who, to be sure has a personal interest in the Vedas, breaks in
on the scene and rebukes the ascetic with the words: "Asceticism
cannot teach the Vedas; go and be tutored by a teacher" (III. 135.
22).
One finds in the epic the old belief that the stars are the souls of
the departed,[33] and this occurs so often that it is another sign of
the comparative newness of the pantheistic doctrine. When the hero,
Arjuna, goes to heaven he approaches the stars, "which seen from earth
look small on account of their distance," and finds them to be
self-luminous refulgent saints, royal seers, and heroes slain in
battle, some of them also being nymphs and celestial singers. All of
this is in contradiction both to the older and to the newer systems of
eschatology; but it is an ancient belief, and therefore it is
preserved. Indra's heaven,[34] Amar[=a]vati, lies above these
stars[35]] No less than five distinct beliefs are thus enunciated in
regard to the fate of 'good men after death. If they believe in the
All-god they unite with him at once. Or they have a higher course,
becoming gradually more elevated, as gods, etc, and ultimately 'enter'
the All-god. Again they go to the world of Brahm[=a]. Again they go to
Indra's heaven. Again they become stars. The two last beliefs are the
oldest, the _brahmaloka_ belief is the next in order of time, and the
first-mentioned are the latest to be adopted. The hero of the epic
just walks up to heaven, but his case is exceptional.
While angels and spirits swarm about the world in every shape from
mischievous or helpful fairies to R[=a]hu, whose head still swallows
the sun, causing eclipses (I. 19. 9), there are a few that are
especially conspicuous. Chief of the good spirits, attendants of
Indra, are the Siddhas[36] 'saints,' who occasionally appear to bless
a hero in conjunction with 'beings invisible' (III. 37. 21). Their
name means literally 'blessed' or 'successful,' and probably, like the
seers, Rishis, they are the departed fathers in spiritual form. These
latter form various classes. There are not only the 'great seers,' and
the still greater '_brahma_-seers,' and the 'god-seers,' but there are
even 'devil-seers,' and 'king-seers,' these being spirits of priests
of royal lineages.[37] The evil spirits, like the gods, are sometimes
grouped in threes. In a blessing one cries out: "Farewell (_svasti
gacchahy an[=a]mayam_); I entreat the Vasus, Rudras, [=A]dityas,
Marut-hosts and the All-gods to protect thee, together with the
S[=a]dhyas; safety be to thee from all the evil beings that live in
air, earth, and heaven, and from all others that dog thy path."[38] In
XII. 166. 61 ff. the devils fall to earth, mountains, water, and other
places. According to I. 19. 29. it is not long since the Asuras were
driven to take refuge in earth and salt water.[39]
These creatures have every kind of miraculous power, whether they be
good or bad. Hanuman, famed in both epics, the divine monkey, with
whom is associated the divine 'king of bears' J[=a]mbavan (III. 280.
23), can grow greater than mortal eye can see (III. 150. 9). He is
still worshipped as a great god in South India. As an illustration of
epic spiritism the case of Ilvala may be taken. This devil,
_d[=a]iteya_, had a trick of cooking his embodied younger brother, and
giving him to saints to eat. One saint, supposing the flesh to be
mutton (here is saintly meat-eating!), devours the dainty viand; upon
which the devil 'calls' his brother, who is obliged to come, whether
eaten or not, and in coming bursts the saint that has eaten him (iii.
96). This is folk-lore; but what religion does not folk-lore contain!
So, personified Fate holds its own as an inscrutable power, mightier
than others.[40] There is another touch of primitive religious feeling
which reminds one of the usage in Iceland, where, if a stranger knocks
at the door and the one within asks 'who is there?' the guest answers,
'God.' So in the epic it is said that 'every guest is god Indra'
(_Parjanyo nn[=a]nusa[.m]caran_, iii. 200. 123. In the epic Parjanya,
the rain-god, and Indra are the same). Of popular old tales of
religious bearing may be mentioned the retention and elaboration of
the Brahmanic deluge-story, with Manu as Noah (iii. 187); the Açvins'
feats in rejuvenating (iii. 123); the combats of the gods with the
demons (Namuci, Çambara, Vala, Vritra, Prahl[=a]da, Naraka), etc.
(iii. 168).
Turning now to some of the newer traits in the epic, one notices first
that, while the old sacrifices still obtain, especially the
horse-sacrifice, the _r[=a]jas[=u]ya_ and the less meritorious
_v[=a]japeya,_ together with the monthly and seasonal sacrifices,
there is in practice a leaning rather to new sacrifices, and a new
cult. The _soma_ is scarce, and the _p[=u]tika_ plant is accepted as
its substitute (iii. 35. 33) in a matter-of-course way, as if this
substitution, permitted of old by law, were now common. The sacrifice
of the widow is recognized, in the case of the wives of kings, as a
means of obtaining bliss for a woman,[41] for the religion of the epic
is not entirely careless of woman. Somewhat new, however, is the
self-immolation of a man upon the pyre of his son. Such a case is
recorded in iii. 137. 19. where a father burns his son's body, and
then himself enters the fire. New also, of course, are the sectarian
festivals and sacrifices; and pronounced is the gain in the godhead of
priests, king, parents, elder brother, and husband. The priest has
long been regarded as a god, but in the epic he is god of gods,
although one can trace even here a growth in adulation.[42] The king,
too, has been identified before this period with the gods. But in the
epic he is to his people an absolute divinity,[43] and so are the
parents to the son;[44] while, since the elder brother is the same
with a father, when the father is dead the younger brother worships
the elder. So also the wife's god is her husband; for higher even than
that of the priest is the husband's divinity (III. 206). The wife's
religious service is not concerned with feasts to the Manes, with
sacrifice to the gods, nor with studying the Veda. In all these she
has no part. Her religion is to serve her husband (III. 205. 23), and
to die, if worthy of the honor, on his funeral pyre. Otherwise the
epic woman has religious practices only in visiting the holy
watering-places, which now abound, and in reading the epic itself. For
it is said of both practices: "Whether man or woman read this book (or
'visit this holy pool') he or she is freed from sin" (so in III. 82.
33: "Every sin committed since birth by man or woman is absolved by
bathing in 'holy Pushkara"). It may be remarked that as a general
thing the deities invoked by women are, by predilection, female
divinities, some of them being mere abstractions, while 'the Creator'
is often the only god in the woman's list, except, of course, the
priests: "Reverence to priests, and to the Creator ... May Hr[=i],
Çr[=i] (Modesty and Beauty), Fame, Glory, Prosperity, Um[=a] (Çiva's
wife), Lakshmi (Vishnu's wife), and also Sarasvat[=i], (may all these
female divinities) guard thy path, because thou reverest thy elder
brother," is a woman's prayer (III. 37. 26-33).[45]
Of the sectarian cults just mentioned the _brahmamaha_, I. 164. 20,
elsewhere referred to, is the all-caste[46] feast in honor of
Brahm[=a] (or of the Brahmans); as _ib_. 143. 3 one finds a
_sam[=a]ja_ in honor of Çiva; and distinctly in honor of the same god
of horror is the sacrifice, _i.e._, immolation, of one hundred kings,
who are collected "in the temple of Çiva," to be slaughtered like
cattle in M[=a]gadha (II. 15. 23); an act which the heroes of the epic
prevent, and look upon with scorn.[47] As a substitute for the
_r[=a]jas[=u]ya_, which may be connected with the human sacrifice
(_Ind. Streifen_, I. 61), but is the best sacrifice because it has the
best largesse (III. 255. 12), the Vaishnava is suggested to
Duryodhana. It is a great _sattram_ or long sacrifice to Vishnu (_ib_.
15 and 19); longer than a Vishnuprabodha (26 Oct.). There is a Smriti
rite described in III. 198. 13 as a _svastiv[=a]canam_, a ceremony to
obtain a heavenly chariot which brings prosperity, the priests being
invoked for blessings (_svasti_). Quite modern, comparatively
speaking, is the cult of holy pools; but it is to be observed that the
blessings expected are rarely more than the acquirement of
_brahma_-worlds, so that the institution seems to be at least older
than the sectarian religions, although naturally among the holy pools
is intruded a Vishnu-pool. This religious rite cannot be passed over
in silence. The custom is late Brahmanic (as above), and still
survives. It has been an aspect of Hindu religion for centuries, not
only in the view taken of the pools, but even occasionally in the
place itself. Thus the Ganges, Gay[=a], Pray[=a]ga, and Kuru-Plain are
to-day most holy, and they are mentioned as among the holiest in the
epic catalogue.[48] Soma is now revamped by a bath in a holy pool (IX.
35. 75). As in every antithesis of act and thought there are not
lacking passages in the epic which decry the pools in comparison with
holy life as a means of salvation. Thus in III. 82. 9 ff., the poet
says: "The fruit of pilgrimage (to holy pools)--he whose hands, feet,
and mind are controlled;[49] he who has knowledge, asceticism, and
fame, he gets all the fruit that holy pools can give. If one is averse
from receiving gifts, content, freed from egoism, if one injures not,
and acts disinterestedly, if one is not gluttonous, or carnal-minded,
he is freed from sin. Let one (not bathe in pools but) be without
wrath, truthful, firm in his vows, seeing his self in all beings."
This is, however, a protest little heeded.[50] Pilgrimage is made to
pool and plain, to mountain, tree, and river. Even then, as now, of
all pilgrimages that to Ganges was most esteemed: "Originally all were
holy; in the second age Pushkara[51] was holy; in the third age the
Plain of the Kurus was holy; and in this age Ganges is holy" (III. 85.
90).[52] Besides Ganges, the Plain of the Kurus and Pray[=a]ga, the
junction of Ganges and Jumna, get the highest laudation. Other rivers,
such as the Gomal and Sarasvat[=i], are also extolled, and the list is
very long of places which to see or to bathe in releases from sin. "He
who bathes in Ganges purifies seven descendants.[53] As long as the
bones of a man touch Ganges-water so long that man is magnified in
heaven." Again: "No place of pilgrimage is better than Ganges; no god
is better than Vishnu; nothing is better than _brahma_--so said the
sire of the gods" (iii. 85. 94-96). The very dust of Kuru-Plain makes
one holy, the sight of it purifies; he that lives south of the
Sarasvat[=i], north of the Drishadvat[=i] (_i.e_., in Kuru-Plain), he
lives in the third heaven (iii. 83. 1-3=203-205[54]). This sort of
expiation for sin is implied in a more general way by the remark that
there are three kinds of purity, one of speech, one of act, and one of
water (iii. 200. 82). But in the epic there is still another means of
expiating sin, one that is indicated in the Brahmanic rule that if a
woman is an adulteress she destroys half her sin by confessing it (as
above), where, however, repentance is rather implied than commanded.
But in the epic Pur[=a]na it is distinctly stated as a Çruti, or trite
saying, that if one repents he is freed from his sin; _na tat
kury[=a]m punar_ is the formula he must use, 'I will not do so again,'
and then he is released from even the sin that he is going to commit a
second time, as if by a ceremony--so is the Çruti in the laws,
_dharmas_ (iii. 207. 51, 52).[55] Confession to the family priest is
enjoined, in xii. 268. 14, to escape punishment.
Two other religious practices in the epic are noteworthy. The first is
the extension of idolatry in pictures. The amiable 'goddess of the
house' is represented, to be sure, as a R[=a]kshas[=i], or demoniac
power, whose name is Jar[=a]. But she was created by the
Self-existent, and is really very friendly, under certain conditions:
"Whoever delineates me with faith in his house, he increases in
children; otherwise he would be destroyed." She is worshipped, _i.e_.,
her painted image is worshipped, with perfumes, flowers, incense,
food, and other enjoyable things (II. 18).[56] Another practice that
is very common is the worship of holy trees. One may compare the
banyan at Bodhi Gay[=a] with the 'worshipful' village-tree of II. 24.
23. Seldom and late is the use of a rosary mentioned (_e.g_., III.
112. 5, _aksham[=a]l[=a]_, elsewhere _aksha_), although the word is
employed to make an epithet of Çiva, Aksham[=a]lin.[57]
As has been said already, an extraordinary power is ascribed to the
mere repetition of a holy text, _mantra_. These are applied on all
occasions without the slightest reference to the subject. By means of
_mantra_ one exorcises; recovers weapons; calls gods and demons,
etc.[58] When misfortune or disease arrives it is invariably ascribed
to the malignant action of a devil, although the _karma_ teaching
should suggest that it was the result of a former misdeed on the
victim's part. But the very iteration, the insistence on new
explanations of this doctrine, show that the popular mind still clung
to the old idea of demoniac interference. Occasionally the naïveté
with which the effect of a _mantra_ is narrated is somewhat amusing,
as, for instance, when the heroine Krishn[=a] faints, and the
by-standers "slowly" revive her "by the use of demon-dispelling
_mantras_, rubbing, water, and fanning" (iii. 144. 17). All the
weapons of the heroes are inspired with and impelled by _mantras_.
Sufficient insight into the formal rules of morality has been given in
the extracts above, nor does the epic in this regard differ much from
the law-books. Every man's first duty is to act; inactivity is sinful.
The man that fails to win a good reputation by his acts, a warrior,
for example, that is devoid of fame, a 'man of no account,' is a
_bh[=u]mivardhana, [Greek: achthos arourês]_ a cumberer of earth (iii.
35. 7). A proverb says that man should seek virtue, gain, and
pleasure; "virtue in the morning; gain at noon; pleasure at night,"
or, according to another version, "pleasure when young, gain in
middle-age, and virtue in the end of life" (iii. 33. 40, 41). "Virtue
is better than immortality and life. Kingdom, sons, glory, wealth, all
this does not equal one-sixteenth part of the value of truth" (_ib_.
34. 22).[59] One very strong summing up of a discourse on virtuous
behavior ends thus: "Truth, self-control, asceticism, generosity,
non-injury, constancy in virtue--these are the means of success, not
caste nor family" (_j[=a]ti, kula_, iii. 181. 42).
A doctrine practiced, if not preached, is that of blood-revenge. "The
unavenged shed tears, which are wiped away by the avenger" (iii. 11.
66); and in accordance with this feeling is the statement: "I shall
satiate my brother with his murderer's blood, and thus, becoming free
of debt in respect of my brother, I shall win the highest place in
heaven" (_ib_. 34, 35).
As of old, despite the new faith, as a matter of priestly, formal
belief, all depends on the sacrifice: "Law comes from usage; in law
are the Vedas established; by means of the Vedas arise sacrifices; by
sacrifice are the gods established; according to the rule of Vedas,
and usage, sacrifices being performed support the divinities, just as
the rules of Brihaspati and Uçanas support men" (iii. 150. 28, 29).
The pernicious doctrine of atonement for sin follows as a matter of
course: "Whatever sin a king commits in conquering the earth is atoned
for by sacrifices, if they are accompanied with large gifts to
priests, such as cows and villages." Even gifts to a sacred bull have
the same effect (iii. 33. 78, 79; _ib_. 35. 34; iii. 2. 57), the
occasion in hand being a king's violation of his oath.[60] Of these
sacrifices a great snake-sacrifice forms the occasion for narrating
the whole epic, the plot of which turns on the national vice of
gambling.[61] For divine snakes are now even grouped with other
celestial powers, disputing the victory of earthly combatants as do
Indra and S[=u]rya: "The great snakes were on Arjuna's side; the
little snakes were for Karna" (viii. 87. 44, 45).[62] They were
(perhaps) the local gods of the Nagas (Snakes), a tribe living between
the Ganges and Jumna.
The religion of the epic is multiform. But it stands, in a certain
sense, as one religion, and from two points of view it is worthy of
special regard. One may look upon it either as the summing up of
Brahmanism in the new Hinduism, as the final expression of a religion
which forgets nothing and absorbs everything; or one may study it as a
belief composed of historical strata, endeavoring to divide it into
its different layers, as they have been super-imposed one upon another
in the course of ages. From the latter point of view the Vedic
divinities claim the attention first. There are still traces of the
original power of Agni and S[=u]rya, as we have shown, and Wind still
makes with these two a notable triad,[63] whereas Indra, impotent as
he is, hymnless as he is,--save in the oldest portions of the
work,--still leads the gods, now godkins, of the ancient pantheon, and
still, in theory, at least, off a paradise to the knight that dies
nobly on the field.[64] But one sees at once that the preservation of
the dignity of these deities is due to different causes. Indra cannot
even save a snake that grasps his hand for safety; he wages war
against the demons' 'triple town,' and signally fails of his purpose,
for the demons are as strong as the gods, and there are D[=a]navendras
as well as D[=a]navarshis.[65] But Indra is the figure-head of the
whole ancient pantheon, and for this reason he plays so constant, if
so weak, a rôle, in the epic. The only important thing in connection
with him is his heaven. As an individual deity Indra lives, on the
whole, only in the tales of old, for example, in that of his cheating
Namuci (ix. 43. 32 ff.). Nothing new and clever is told of him which
would indicate power, only a new trick or two, as when he steals from
Karna. It is quite otherwise with Agni and S[=u]rya. They are not so
vaguely identified with the one god as is 'Indra and the other Vasus.'
It is merely because these gods are prominently forms of Vishnu that
they are honored with hymns in the epic. This is seen from the nature
of the hymns, and also from the fact that it is either as fire or as
sun that Vishnu destroys at the end of the aeons. For it is, perhaps,
somewhat daring to say, and yet it seems to be the fact, that the
solar origin of Vishnu is not lost sight of.
The pantheistic Vishnu is the _[=a]tm[=a]_, and Vishnu, after all, is
but a form of fire. Therefore is it that the epic Vishnu is
perpetually lapsing into fire; while fire and sun are doubly honored
as special forms of the highest. It is, then, not so much on account
of a survival of ancient dignity[66] that sun and fire stand so high,
but rather because they are the nearest approach to the effulgence of
the Supreme. Thus while in one place one is told that after seven suns
have appeared the supreme gods become the fire of destruction and
complete the ruin, in another he reads that it is the sun alone which,
becoming twelvefold, does all the work of the Supreme.[67]
Indra has hymns and sacrifices, but although he has no so exalted hymn
as comes to his 'friend Agni,' yet (in an isolated passage) he has a
new feast and celebration, the account of which apparently belongs to
the first period of the epic, when the worship of Indra still had
significance. In i. 63, an _Indramaha_, or 'glorification of Indra,'
is described a festivity extending over two days, and marked by the
erection of a pole in honor of the god--a ceremony which 'even
to-day,' it is said, is practiced.[68] The old tales of the fire-cult
are retold, and new rites are known.[69] Thus in iii. 251. 20 ff.,
Prince Duryodhana resolves to starve to death (oblivious of the rule
that 'a suicide goes to hell'), and since this is a religious
ceremony, he clothes himself in old clothes and holy-grass, 'touches
water,' and devotes himself with intense application to heaven. Then
the devils of Rudra called D[=a]iteyas and D[=a]navas, who live
underground ever since they were conquered by the gods, aided by
priests, make a fire-rite, and with _mantras_ "declared by Brihaspati
and Uçanas, and proclaimed in the Atharva-Veda," raise a ghost or
spirit, who is ordered to fetch Duryodhana to hell, which she
immediately does.[70] The frequent connection of Brihaspati with the
Atharva-Veda is of interest (above, p. 159). He is quite a venerable,
if not wholly orthodox, author in the epic, and his 'rules' are often
cited.[71]
That Vedic deity who, alone of pre-Vedic powers, still holds his proud
place, Yama, the king of departed spirits, varies in the epic
according to the period represented. In old tales he is still quite
Vedic in character; he takes the dead man's soul off to his own realm.
But, of course, as pantheism prevails, and eschatology becomes
confused, Yama passes into a shadow, and at most is a bugbear for the
wicked. Even his companions are stolen from another realm, and one
hears now of "King Yama with his Rudras" (III. 237. 11),[72] while it
is only the bad[73] that go to Yama (III. 200. 24), in popular belief,
although this view, itself old, relapses occasionally into one still
older, in accordance with which (_ib_. 49) all the world is hounded on
by Yama's messengers, and comes to his abode. His home[74] in the
south is now located as being at a distance of 86,000 leagues over a
terrible road, on which passes a procession of wretched or happy
mortals, even as they have behaved during life; for example, if one
has generously given an umbrella during life he will have an umbrella
on this journey, etc. The river in Yama's abode is called Pushpodaka,
and what each drinks out of it is according to what he deserves to
drink, cool water or filth (_ib._ 46, 58).[75] In the various
descriptions it is not strange to find discordant views even in
portions belonging approximately to the same period. Thus in
contradistinction to the prevailing view one reads of Indra himself
that he is _Yamasya net[=a] Namuceçca hant[=a]_ 'Yama's leader,
Namuci's slayer' (iii. 25. 10.), _i.e._, those that die in battle go
to Yama.
On the other hand, in the later speculative portions, Yama is not
death. "Yama is not death, as some think; he is one that gives bliss
to the good, and woe to the bad."[76] Death and life are foolishness
and lack of folly, respectively (literally, 'non-folly is
non-mortality'), while folly and mortality are counter opposites. In
pantheistic teaching there is, of course, no real death, only change.
But death is a female power, personified, and sharply distinguished
from Yama. Death as a means of change thus remains, while Yama is
relegated to the guardianship of hell. The difference in regard to the
latter subject, between earlier and later views, has been noted above.
One comparatively early passage attempts to arrange the incongruous
beliefs in regard to _sams[=a]ra_ (re-birth) and hell on a sort of
sliding scale, thus: "One that does good gets in the next life a good
birth; one that does ill gets an ill birth"; more particularly: "By
good acts one attains to the state of gods; by 'mixed' acts, to the
state of man; by acts due to confusion of mind, to the state of
animals and plants (_viyon[=i][s.]u_); by sinful acts one goes to
hell" (_adhog[=a]mi_, iii. 209. 29-32).[77] Virtue must have been, as
the epic often declares it to be, a 'subtile matter,' for often a tale
is told to illustrate the fact that one goes to hell for doing what he
thinks (mistakenly) to be right. Thus K[=a]uçika is sent to hell for
speaking the truth, whereas he ought to have lied to save life (viii.
69. 53), for he was "ignorant of virtue's subtilty."[78] A passage (i.
74. 27 ff.) that is reflected in Manu (viii. 85-86) says that Yama
V[=a]ivasvata takes away the sin of him with whom is satisfied "the
one that witnesses the act, that stands in the heart, that knows the
ground"; but Yama tortures him with whom this one (personified
conscience) is dissatisfied. For "truth is equal to a thousand
horse-sacrifices; truth is highest _brahma_" (_ib._ 103, 106).
Following downward the course of religious development, as reflected
in the epic, one next finds traces of Brahmanic theology not only in
the few passages where (Brahm[=a]) Praj[=a]pati remains untouched by
sectarianism, but also in the harking back to old formulae. Thus the
insistence on the Brahmanical sacredness of the number seventeen is
preserved (xii. 269. 26; iii. 210. 20, etc); and Upanishadic is the
"food is Praj[=a]pati" of iii. 200. 38 (Yama in 40). There is an
interesting rehabilitation of the primitive idea of the Açvins in the
new ascription of formal divinity to the (personified) Twilights
(Sandhy[=a]) in iii. 200. 83, although this whole passage is more
Puranic than epic. From the same source is the doctrine that the fruit
of action expires at the end of one hundred thousand _kalpas_ (_ib._
vs. 121). One of the oddest religious freaks in the epic is the sudden
exaltation of the Ribhus, the Vedic (season-gods) artisans, to the
position of highest gods. In that heaven of Brahm[=a], which is above
the Vedic gods' heaven, there are the holy seers and the Ribhus, 'the
divinities of the gods'; who do not change with the change of _kalpas_
(as do other Vedic gods), III. 261. 19-23. One might almost imagine
that their threefoldness was causative of a trinitarian identification
with a supreme triad; but no, for still higher is the 'heaven of
Vishnu' (vs. 37). The contrast is marked between this and _[=A]it.
Br._ III. 30, where the Ribhus with some difficulty obtain the right
to drink _soma_.
There is an aspect of the epic religion upon which it is necessary to
touch before treating of the sectarian development. In the early
philosophical period wise priests meet together to discuss theological
and philosophical questions, often aided, and often brought to grief,
by the wit of women disputants, who are freely admitted to hear and
share in the discussion. When, however, pantheism, nay, even
Vishnuism, or still more, Krishnaism, was an accepted fact upon what,
then, was the wisdom of the priest expended? Apart from the epic, the
best intellects of the day were occupied in researches, codifying
laws, and solving, in rather dogmatic fashion, philosophical
(theological) problems. The epic presents pictures of scenes which
seem to be a reflection from an earlier day. But one sees often that
the wisdom is commonplace, or even silly. In dialectics a sophistical
subtlety is shown; in codifying moral rules, a tedious triteness; in
amoebic passes of wit there are astounding exhibitions, in which the
good scholiast sees treasures of wisdom, where a modern is obliged to
take them in their literal dulness. Thus in III. 132. 18, a boy of
twelve or ten (133. 16), who is divinely precocious, defeats the wise
men in disputation at a sacrifice, and in the following section (134.
7 ff.) silences a disputant who is regarded as one of the cleverest
priests. The conversation is recorded in full. In what does it
consist? The opponent mentions a number of things which are one; the
boy replies with a verse that gives pairs of things; the other
mentions triads; the child cites groups of fours, etc., until the
opponent, having cited only one half-verse of thirteens, can remember
no more and stops, on which the child completes the verse, and is
declared winner. The conundrums which precede must have been
considered very witty, for they are repeated elsewhere: What is that
wheel which has twelve parts and three hundred and sixty spokes, etc.?
Year. What does not close its eye when asleep, what does not move when
it is born, what has no heart, what increases by moving? These
questions form one-half verse. The next half-verse gives the answers
in order: fish, egg, stone, river. This wisdom in the form of puzzles
and answers, _brahmodya_, is very old, and goes back to the Vedic
period. Another good case in the epic is the demon Yaksha and the
captured king, who is not freed till he answers certain questions
correctly.[79] But although a certain amount of theologic lore may be
gleaned from these questions, yet is it of greater interest to see how
the priests discussed when left quietly to their own devices. And a
very natural description of such a scene is extant. The priests
"having some leisure"[80] or vacation from their labors in the king's
house, sit down to argue, and the poet calls their discussion
_vita[n.][d.][=a], i.e_., tricky sophistical argumentation, the
description bearing out the justness of the phrase: "One cried, 'that
is so,' and the other, 'it is not so'; one cried, 'and that is so,'
and the other, 'it must be so'; and some by arguments made weak
arguments strong, and strong weak; while some wise ones were always
swooping down on their opponent's arguments, like hawks on meat."[81]
In III. 2. 15, the type of clever priest is 'skilled in Yoga and
S[=a][.n]khya,' who inculcates renunciation. This sage teaches that
mental diseases are cured by Yoga; bodily, by medicine; and that
desire is the root of ill.
But by far the most interesting theological discussion in the epic, if
one except the Divine Song, is the conversation of the hero and
heroine in regard to the cause of earthly happiness. This discussion
is an old passage of the epic. The very fact that a woman is the
disputant gives an archaic effect to the narration, and reminds one of
the scenes in the Upanishads, where learned women cope successfully
with men in displays of theological acumen. Furthermore, the
theological position taken, the absence of Vishnuism, the appeal to
the 'Creator' as the highest Power, take one back to a former age. The
doctrine of special grace, which crops out in the Upanishads,[82] here
receives its exposure by a sudden claim that the converse of the
theory must also be true, viz., that to those not saved by grace and
election God is as cruel as He is kind to the elect. The situation is
as follows: The king and queen have been basely robbed of their
kingdom, and are in exile. The queen urges the king to break the vow
of exile that has been forced from him, and to take vengeance on their
oppressors. The king, in reply, sings a song of forgiveness:
"Forgiveness is virtue, sacrifice, Veda; forgiveness is holiness and
truth; in the world of Brahm[=a] are the mansions of them that
forgive." This song (III. 29. 36 ff.) only irritates the queen, who at
once launches into the following interesting tirade (30. 1 ff.):
"Reverence to the Creator and Disposer[83] who have confused thy mind!
Hast thou not worshipped with salutation and honored the priests,
gods, and manes? Hast thou not made horse-sacrifices, the
_r[=a]jas[=u]ya_-sacrifice, sacrifices of every sort
(_pu[n.][d.]arika,[84] gosava_)? Yet art thou in this miserable
plight! Verily is it an old story (_itih[=a]sa_) that 'the worlds
stand under the Lord's will.' Following the seed God gives good or ill
in the case of all beings. Men are all moved by the divinity. Like a
wooden doll, moving its limbs in the hands of a man, so do all
creatures move in the Creator's hands. Man is like a bird on a string,
like a bead on a cord. As a bull is led by the nose, so man follows
the will of the Creator; he never is a creature of free will
(_[=a]tm[=a]dhina_). Every man goes to heaven or to hell, as he is
sent by the Lord's will. God himself, occupied with noble or with
wicked acts, moves about among all created things, an unknown power
(not known as 'this one'). The blessed God, who is self-created, the
great forefather (_prapit[=a]maha_), plays with his creatures just as
a boy plays with toys, putting them together and destroying them as he
chooses. Not like a father is God to His creatures; He acts in anger.
When I see the good distressed, the ignoble happy, I blame the Creator
who permits this inequality. What reward does God get that he sends
happiness to this sinful man (thy oppressor)? If it be true that only
the individual that does the act is pursued by the fruit of that act
(_karma_ doctrine) then the Lord who has done this act is defiled by
this base act of His. If, on the other hand, the act that one has done
does not pursue and overtake the one that has done it, then the only
agency on earth is brute force (this is the only power to be
respected)--and I grieve for them that are without it!"
To this plea, which in its acknowledgment of the Creator as the
highest god, no less than in its doubtful admission of the _karma_
doctrine, is of peculiar interest, the king replies with a refutation
no less worthy of regard: "Thy argument is good, clear and smooth, but
it is heterodox (_n[=a]stikyam_). I have sacrificed and practiced
virtue not for the sake of reward, but because it was right. I give
what I ought to give, and sacrifice as I should. That is my only idea
in connection with religious observances. There is no virtue in trying
to milk virtue. Do not doubt. Do not be suspicious of virtue. He that
doubts God or duty goes to hell (confusion), but he that does his duty
and is free from doubt goes to heaven (becomes immortal). Doubt not
scriptural authority. Duty is the saving ship. No other gets to
heaven. Blame not the Lord Creator, who is the highest god. Through
His grace the faithful gets immortality. If religious observances were
without fruit the universe would go to destruction. People would not
have been good for so many ages if there had been no reward for it.
This is a mystery of the gods. The gods are full of mystery and
illusion."
The queen, for all the world like that wise woman in the Upanishads,
whose argument, as we showed in a preceding chapter, is cut short not
by counter-argument, but by the threat that if she ask too much her
head will fall off, recants her errors at this rebuke, and in the
following section, which evidently is a later addition, takes back
what she has said. Her new expression of belief she cites as the
opinion of Brihaspati (32. 61, 62); but this is applicable rather to
her first creed of doubt. Perhaps in the original version this
authority was cited at the end of the first speech, and with the
interpolation the reference is made to apply to this seer. Something
like the queen's remarks is the doubtful saying of the king himself,
as quoted elsewhere (III. 273. 6): "Time and fate, and what will be,
this is the only Lord. How else could this distress have come upon my
wife? For she has been virtuous always."
We turn now to the great sectarian gods, who eventually unite with
Brahm[=a] to form a pantheistic trinity, a conception which, as we
shall show, is not older than the fifth or sixth century after Christ.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: The rival heresies seem also to belong to the
East. There were thus more than half a dozen heretical
bodies of importance agitating the region about Benares at
the same time. Subsequently the Jains, who, as we have
shown, were less estranged from Brahmanism, drifted
westward, while the Buddhist stronghold remained in the East
(both, of course, being represented in the South as well),
and so, whereas Buddhism eventually retreated to Nep[=a]l
and Tibet, the Jains are found in the very centres of old
and new (sectarian) Brahmanism, Delhi, Mathur[=a], Jeypur,
[=A]jm[=i]r.]
[Footnote 2: 'The wandering of R[=a]ma,' who is the
sectarian representative of Vishnu.]
[Footnote 3: The 'Bh[=a]rata (tale)', sometimes called
Mah[=a]-Bh[=a]rata, or Great Bh[=a]rata. The Vishnuite
sectarianism here advocated is that of Krishna. But there is
as much Çivaism in the poem as there is Vishnuism.]
[Footnote 4: Dramatic and lyric poetry is artificial even in
language.]
[Footnote 5: Schroeder, p. 453, compares the mutual relation
of the Mah[=a]bh[=a]rata and R[=a]m[=a]yana to that of the
Nibelungenlied and the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach.
Jacobi, in his 'R[=a]m[=a]yana,' has lately claimed a
considerable antiquity for the foundation legends of the
R[=a]m[=a]yana, but he does not disprove the late completed
form.]
[Footnote 6: i. 78. 10; see Bühler's Introduction.]
[Footnote 7: Jacobi seeks to put the completed nucleus at
the time of the Christian era, but it must have been quite a
large nucleus in view of the allusions to it in precedent
literature. Holtztmann puts the completion at about 1000
A.D.; but in 700 A.D., it was complete, and most scholars
will agree with Bühler that the present Mah[=a]-Bh[=a]rata
was completed by the sixth or seventh century. In 533 A.D.
it contained 100,000 distichs, that is, it was about the
size it is now.]
[Footnote 8: By the time the drama began the epic was become
a religious storehouse, and the actual epic story
represented not a fifth of the whole work, so that, with its
simple language, it must have seemed, as a literary
production, very wearisome to the minds that delighted in
the artificial compounds and romantic episodes of the drama
and lyric. But even to-day it is recited at great fêtes, and
listened to with rapt attention, as the rhapsodes with more
or less dramatic power recite its holy verses.]
[Footnote 9: The later law-books say expressly that women
and slaves have a right to use _mantra,
mantr[=a]dhik[=a]ri[n.]as._ But the later legal Smritis are
no more than disguised sectarian Pur[=a]nas.]
[Footnote 10: Compare the visit of the old Muni on the
prince in iii. 262. 8. He is _paramakopana_, 'extremely
irritable'; calls for food only to reject it; growls at the
service, etc. Everything must be done 'quickly' for him. "I
am hungry, give me food, _quick_," is his way of speaking,
etc. (12). The adjective is one applied to the All-gods,
_paramakrodhinas._]
[Footnote 11: Each spiritual teacher instructed high-caste
boys, in classes of four or five at most. In xii. 328. 41
the four students of a priest go on a strike because the
latter wants to take another pupil besides themselves and
his own son.]
[Footnote 12: The saints in the sky praise the combatants
(vii. 188. 41; viii. 15. 27); and the gods roar approval of
prowess "with roars like a lion's" (viii. 15. 33). Indra and
S[=u]rya and the Apsarasas cool off the heroes with heavenly
fans (_ib_. 90. 18). For the last divinities, see
Holtzmann's essays, ZDMG. xxxii. 290; xxxiii. 631.]
[Footnote 13: The original author of the Mah[=a]bh[=a]rata
is reputed to be of low caste, but the writers of the text
as it is to-day were sectarian priests. It was written down,
it is said, by Ganeça, 'lord of the troops' of Çiva, i. 1.
79, and some historic truth lies in the tale. The priests of
Çiva were the last to retouch the poem, as we think.]
[Footnote 14: Agni-worship is partly affected by the
doctrine that the Samvartaka fire (which destroys the world
at the cycle's end) is a form of Vishnu. In Stambamitra's
hymn it is said: "Thou, O Agni, art the all, in thee rests
the universe ... Sages know thee as single yet manifold. At
the expiration of time thou burnest up the three worlds,
after having created them. Thou art the originator and
support of all beings" (i. 232. 12). Elsewhere more Vedic
epithets are given, such as 'mouth of the gods' (ii. 31.
42), though here 'the Vedas are produced for Agni's sake.'
In this same prayer one reads, 'may Agni give me energy;
wind, give me breath; earth, give me strength; and water,
give me health' (45). Agni, as well as Çiva, is the father
of Kum[=a]ra K[=a]rtikeya, _i.e_., Skanda (_ib_. 44).]
[Footnote 15: But the Açvins are Ç[=u]dras In the 'cast-hood
of gods' (the caste-order being Angirasas, [=A]dityas,
Maruts and AÇvins), xii. 208. 23-25; and Indra in one
passage refuses to associate with them, xiii. 157. 17 (cited
by Holtzmann, ZDMG. xxxii. 321).]
[Footnote 16: Manibhadra, in iii. 64, is king of Yaksash; he
is the same with Kubera, _ib_. ch. 41 (V[=a]içinavana).]
[Footnote 17: In the Cosmogony the gods are the sons of the
Manes, xii. 312. 9.]
[Footnote 18: When the gods churn the ocean to get ambrosia,
an ancient tale of the epic, Mandara is the twirling-stick.
It is situated in modern Beh[=a]r, near Bhagalpur.]
[Footnote 19: III. 42; 139. 14, where the Ganges and Jumna
are invoked together with the Vedic gods. So in III. 104
(Vindhya); and Damayanti prays to mountains. Mt. Meru is
described in III. 163. 14 (compare I. 17. 5 ff.). In I. 18.
1 ff., is related the churning of the ocean, where Indra
(vs. 12) places Mt. Mandara on Vishnu, the tortoise.]
[Footnote 20: Mbh. I. 30. 37, _mamlur m[=a]ly[=a]ni
dev[=a]n[=a]m_, etc. The older belief was that the gods'
garlands never withered; for the gods show no mortal signs,
cast no shadows, etc.]
[Footnote 21: Compare the four hymnlets to Agni in i. 232. 7
ff.]
[Footnote 22: After the mention of the thirty-three gods,
and Vishnu 'born after them,' it is said that the Açvins,
plants, and animals, are Guhyakas (vs. 40), though in vs.
35: "Tvashtar's daughter, the wife of Savitar, as a mare
(_va[d.]av[=a]_) bore in air the two Açvins" (see above), in
Vedic style. For Çruti compare iii. 207. 47; 208. 6, 11.]
[Footnote 23: i. 23. 15 ff. His name is explained fancifully
in 30. 7.]
[Footnote 24: It is at the funeral feasts to the Manes that
the Mah[=a]bh[=a]rata is to be recited (i. 62. 37).]
[Footnote 25: Arjuna is an old name of Indra, and in the
epic Arjuna is Indra's son.]
[Footnote 26: The legal _dharma_ or sitting at a debtor's
door, which still obtains in India, is, so far as we know,
not a very ancient practice. But its application in the case
of heralds (who become responsible) is epic.]
[Footnote 27: This is the covenant (with friends) of
revenge; the covenant of mutual protection in the sacrifice
is indicated by the 'protection covenant' of the gods (see
the chapter on Brahmanism above, p. 192).]
[Footnote 28: See an essay on the Ruling Caste in the epic,
in JAOS. xiii. 232 ff.]
[Footnote 29: Reverend Doctor H.C. Trumbull has kindly
called our attention to Robert's _Oriental Illustrations_,
p. 148 ff., where it is said that in India today the
threshold is sacred. In reference to threshold offerings,
common in the law, Dr. Trumbull's own forthcoming book on
Covenants may be compared.]
[Footnote 30: But these are by no means the last examples of
human sacrifices. Several of the modern Hindu sects have
caused to be performed such sacrifices, even in this
century.]
[Footnote 31: This can hardly mean 'put out on the river' as
has been suggested as an explanation of the corpse 'thrown
aside' in accordance with the earlier text, AV. xviii. 2. 34
(_paropta_), where the dead are 'buried, thrown aside,
burned, or set out.']
[Footnote 32: It is assumed in XII. 364. 2 that "leaves and
air" are food enough for a great saint. Compare below the
actual asceticism of modern devotees.]
[Footnote 33: III. 25. 14: _saptar[s.]ayas ... divi
viprabh[=a]nti_. Compare _ib._ 261. 13, and the apocalypse
in VII. 192. 52 ff., where Drona's soul ascends to heaven, a
burning fire like a sun; In sharp contrast to the older
'thumbkin' soul which Yama receives and carries off in the
tale of Satyavant. Compare also Arundhati in I. 233. 29.]
[Footnote 34: Described, as above, as a place of singers and
dancers, where are the Vedic gods and sages, but no sinners
or cowards (III. 42. 34 ff.).]
[Footnote 35: From another point of view the stars are of
interest. They are favorable or unfavorable, sentient, kind,
or cruel; influential in man's fate. Compare III. 200. 84,
85, where the sun is included with the _grahas_ (planets)
which influence men, and ib. 209. 21,
_tulyanak[.s]atrama[.n]gala_.]
[Footnote 36: Other of Indra's spirits are the singers,
Gandharvas and Apsarasas; also the horse-headed Kinnaras and
C[=a]ranas, who, too, are singers; while later the
Vidy[=a]dharas belong both to Indra and to Çiva. In modern
times the South Indian Sittars, 'saints,' take their name
from the Siddhas.]
[Footnote 37: In _d[=a]nnavar[s.]i_ there is apparently the
same sort of compound as in _devar[s.]i_ and _brahmar[s.]i_,
all associated with the _siddhas_ in III. 169. 23. But
possibly 'demons and seers' may be meant.]
[Footnote 38: III. 37. 32-35 (_prapadye viçvedev[=a]n!_).]
[Footnote 39: Weber finds in the Asuras' artisan, Asura
Maya, a reminiscence of Ptolemaios. He is celebrated in I.
228. 39, and II. 1, and is the generai leader of the
_d[=a]navas_, demons, perhaps originally a folk-name of
enemies.]
[Footnote 40: See below. The formal division is, _d[=a]iva,
hatha, karma, i.e._, man's fate depends on gods, Fate, and
his own acts; although _hatha_, Fate, is often implied in
_d[=a]iva_, 'the divine power.' But they are separated, for
example, in iii. 183. 86.]
[Footnote 41: Compare the tales and xii. 148. 9, _sat[=i]_
(suttee). In regard to the horse-sacrifice, compare Yama's
law as expounded to Gautama: "The acts by which one gains
bliss hereafter are austerities, purity, truth, worship of
parents, and the horse-sacrifice." xii 129. 9, 10.]
[Footnote 42: Compare III. 200. 88, even _pr[=a]k[r.]ta_
priests are divine and terrible (much more in later books).
Here _pr[=a]k[r.]ta_, vulgar, is opposed to _samsk[r.]ta_,
refined, priests.]
[Footnote 43: III. 185. 26-31.]
[Footnote 44: "My father and mother are my highest idol; I
do for them what I do for Idols. As the three and thirty
gods, with Indra foremost, are revered of all the world, so
are my parents revered by me" (III. 214. 19, 20). The
speaker further calls them _paramam brahma_, absolute
godhead, and explains his first remark by saying that he
offers fruits and flowers to his parents as if they were
idols. In IV. 68. 57 a man salutes (_abhivadya_) his
father's feet on entering into his presence. For the worship
of parents compare XII. 108. 3; 128. 9, 10; 267. 31, XIII.
75. 26: "heroes in obedience to the mother."]
[Footnote 45: The marked Brahm[=a] Creator-worship is a bit
of feminine religious conservatism (see below).]
[Footnote 46: Weber has shown that men of low caste took a
subordinate part even in the _r[=a]jas[=u]ya_ sacrifice.]
[Footnote 47: In II. 18. there is a brand-new festival
appointed in honor of a female fiend, etc.]
[Footnote 48: III. 84. 83 (87. 11). We see the first idea in
the injunction of Indra to 'wander,' as told in the tale of
Dogstail in the Brahmana (see above).]
[Footnote 49: The usual formula (also Avestan) is 'pure in
thought, speech, and act.' The comparison of the six senses
to unrestrained wild horses is familiar (III. 211. 24).]
[Footnote 50: There is, further, no unanimity in regard to
the comparative value of holy places. In XII. 152. 11,
Sarasvat[=i] is holier than Kurukshetra, etc.]
[Footnote 51: At Pushkara is Brahm[=a]'s only (?)
shrine--the account is legendary, but half historical. The
modern shrine at Ajm[=i]r seems to be meant.]
[Footnote 52: Ganges, according to epic legend, was a
goddess who sacrificed herself for men when the earth was
parched and men perished. Then Ganges alone of immortals
took pity on men, and flinging herself from heaven became
the stream divine. Her name among the gods is Alakanand[=a],
the 'Blessed Damosel.']
[Footnote 53: In iii. 87.10, "ten descendants and ten
ancestors." The epic, i. 170. 19, regards the Sarasvat[=i]
and Jumna as parts of the sevenfold Ganges, which descends
from the heavens as these three, and also as the Vitasth[=a]
(Rathasth[=a]), Saray[=u], Gomat[=i], and Gan[d.]ak[=i];
being itself 'V[=a]itara[n.][=i] among the Manes.' So xii.
322. 32.]
[Footnote 54: According to the commentator the "(northern
altar of the Father-god) Kurukshetra-Samantapañcakam,
between Tarantuka, Arantuka, R[=a]mahrada, and Macakruka,"
mentioned in iii. 83. 208, lies in Benares; but this must be
a late addition, as Kurukshetra's position is without doubt.
Compare i. 2. i ff.; ix. 53. i, 23-25.]
[Footnote 55:
In _ib_. 47, _mah[=a] d[r.]tiriv[=a]dhm[=a]ta[h.]
p[=a]pas_, there is an interesting
reminiscence of Rig Veda, vii. 89. 2. The rules of virtue
are contained in Vedas and law-books, and the practice of
instructed men, _ib_. 83 (the 'threefold sign of
righteousness'). A Çruti cited from _dharmas_ is not
uncommon, but the latter word is not properly used in so
wide a sense. See note below, p. 378.]
[Footnote 56: Some scholars see in the use of the verb,
_piç_, a Vedic picturing of gods; but in all instances where
this occurs it may be only the poet's mind-picture of the
god 'adorned' with various glories.]
[Footnote 57: In VII. 201. 69, Çiva wears an
_aksham[=a]l[=a]._ In XII. 38. 23, the C[=a]rv[=a]ka wears
an _aksha_, for he is disguised as a _bhikshu_, beggar.]
[Footnote 58: It must be remembered that the person using
the _mantra_ probably did not understand what the words
meant. The epic says, in fact, that the Vedas are
unintelligible: _brahma pracuracchalam_, XII. 329. 6. But an
older generation thought the same. In Nirukta, I. 15,
K[=a]utsa is cited as saying that the _mantras_ are
meaningless.]
[Footnote 59: Compare xii. 174. 46: "The joy of earth and
heaven obtained by the satisfaction of desire is not worth
one-sixteenth of the bliss of dead desire."]
[Footnote 60: By generosity the Hindu poet means 'to
priests.' In III. 200, where this is elaborated, sixteen
persons are mentioned (vs. 4) to whom to give is not
meritorious.]
[Footnote 61: Little is known in regard to the play. The
dice are thrown on a board, 'odd and even' determine the
contest here (III. 34. 5) _ayuja and yuja_. At times speed
in counting is the way to win (Nala). Dicing is a regular
part of the _r[=a]jas[=u]ya_ sacrifice (Weber, p. 67), but
not, apparently, an ancient trait.]
[Footnote 62: The snakes belong to Varuna and his region, as
described in v. 98. It is on the head of the earth-upholding
snake Çesha that Vishnu muses, III. 203.12. The reverence
paid to serpents begins to be ritual in the Atharva Veda.
Even in the Rig Veda there is the deification of the
cloud-snake. In later times they answered to the Nymphs,
being tutelary guardians of streams and rivers (Buhler). In
i. 36, Çesha Ananta supports earth, and it is told why he
does so.]
[Footnote 63: These three are the witnesses for the soul at
the judgment, xii. 322. 55. V[=a]yu, Wind, is said to be
even mightier than Indra, Yama, Indra and Varuna, _ib._ 155.
9, 10.]
[Footnote 64: But (in a later account) not if he dies
ignobly; for if one is slain by a man of low caste he goes
to hell, xii. 298. 7.]
[Footnote 65: Demoniac Indras (_i.e._, demon-leaders) and
seers, xii. 166. 26.]
[Footnote 66: 'The god of gods,' who rains blood in i. 30.
36, is declared by the commentator to be--Parjanya! The gods
are here defending Soma from the heavenly bird, Garuda, and
nearly die of fright.]
[Footnote 67: xii. 313. 1-7, with the same watery finale as
is usual.]
[Footnote 68: The morning prayer, etc, to the sun is, of
course, still observed, _e.g._, vii. 186. 4. Indra is
thanked for victory and invoked for rain (iii. 117. 11; i.
25. 7; Holtzmann, _loc. cit._ p. 326) in an hymn that is
less fulsome than those to Agni and S[=u]rya.]
[Footnote 69: 111. 222, Atharvan's rediscovery of fire. As
to Çrutis they are probably no more valuable than Smritis.
The one given in iii. 208. 11, _agnayo
in[=a]i[.n]sak[=a]m[=a]s_, seems to be adapted (_cf._
[=A]çv. Gs. iv. 1; the adjective, by the way, is still
starred in Pw.). So [=A]çv. Gs. i. 15. 9, is repeated
Mbh[=a]; i. 74. 63, as a "Vedic _mantragr[=a]ma_ "
_(ang[=a]d ang[=a]t sambhavasi_, etc.).]
[Footnote 70: The devils are on the Prince's side, and wish
to keep him from death. The proverb is found _ib_. 252. 2;
_[=a]tmaty[=a]g[=i] hy adho y[=a]ti_. The holy-grass is used
in much the same way when R[=a]ma lies down by Ocean,
resolved to die or persuade Ocean to aid him. The rites (vs.
24) are "in the Upanishad."]
[Footnote 71: According to XII. 59. 80-84, the 'treatise of
Brihaspati' comes from Çiva through Brahm[=a] and Indra.]
[Footnote 72: In Buddhism Yama's messengers are Yakkhas.
Scherman, _loc. cit_. p. 57.]
[Footnote 73: Compare II. 22. 26: _gaccha yamak[s.]ayam_,
'go to Yama's destruction'; whereas of a good man it is
said, 'I will send Indra a guest' (VII, 27.8).]
[Footnote 74: _Yamasya sadana_. III. 11. 66. He now has
hells, and he it is who will destroy the world. He is called
'the beautiful' (III. 41. 9), so that he must, if one take
this Rudrian epithet with the citation above, be loosely
(popularly) identified with Çiva, as god of death. See the
second note below.]
[Footnote 75: The old story of a mortal's visit to Yama to
learn about life hereafter (_Çat. Br._ xi. 6.1; Katha Up.,
of N[=a]ciketas) is repeated in xiii. 71.]
[Footnote 76: v. 42. 6: _Çiva[h.] çiv[=a]n[=a]m açivo
'çiv[=a]n[=a]m_ (compare xii 187. 27: 'only fools say that
the man is dead'). Dharma (Justice) seems at times to be the
same with Yama. M[=a]ndavya goes to Dharma's _sadana_, home
(compare Yama's _sadana_), just as one goes to Yama's, and
interviews him on the justice of his judgments. As result of
the angry interview the god is reborn on earth as a man of
low caste, and the law is established that a child is not
morally responsible for his acts till the twelfth year of
his age (i.108. 8 ff.). When Kuru agrees to give half his
life in order to the restoration of Pramadvar[=a], his wife,
they go not to Yama but to Dharma to see if the exchange may
be made, and he agrees (i. 9. 11 ff., a masculine
S[=a]vitr[=i]i).]
[Footnote 77: The hells are described in xii. 322. 29 ff.
The sight of 'golden trees' presages death (_ib._ 44).]
[Footnote 78: The ordinary rule is that "no sin is greater
than untruth," xii. 162. 24, modified by "save in love and
danger of life" (Laws, _passim_).]
[Footnote 79: The same scenes occur in Buddhistic writings,
where Yakkhas ask conundrums. For example, in the
_Hemavatasutta_ and _[=A]tavakasutta_ the Yakkha asks what
is the best possession, what brings bliss, and what is
swettest, to which the answer is: faith, law, and truth,
respectively.]
[Footnote 80: _Karm[=a]ntaram up[=a]santas, i.e.,
vir[=a]mak[=a]lam upagacchantas_.]
[Footnote 81: II. 36. 3 ff. The phraseology of vs. 5 is
exactly that of [Greek: _ton êttô ldgon kreittô poithnsi_],
but the Pundit's arguments are 'based on the law.']
[Footnote 82: See above. In a later period (see below) the
question arises in regard to the part played by Creator and
individual in the workings of grace, some claiming that man
was passive; some, that he had to strive for grace.]
[Footnote 83: Perhaps ironical. In V. 175. 32, a woman cries
out: "Fie on the Creator for this bad luck," conservative in
belief, and outspoken in word.]
[Footnote 84: III. 30. 17. The _gosava_ is a
'cow-sacrifice.' The _pu[n.][d.]ar[=i]ka_ is not explained
(perhaps 'elephant-sacrifice').]
* * * * *
CHAPTER XV.
HINDUISM (CONTINUED).--VISHNU AND ÇIVA.
In the epic the later union of the sectarian gods is still a novelty.
The two characters remain distinct enough. Vishnu and Çiva are
different gods. But each in turn represents the All-god, and
consequently each represents the other. The Vishnu-worship which grew
about Krish[n.]a, originally a friend of one of the epic characters,
was probably at first an attempt to foist upon Vedic believers a
sectarian god, by identifying the latter with a Vedic divinity. But,
whatever the origin, Krishna as Vishnu is revered as the All-god in
the epic. And, on the other hand, Çiva of many names has kept the
marks of Rudra. Sometimes one, sometimes another, is taken as the
All-god. At times they are compared, and then each sect reduces the
god of the other to an inferior position. Again they are united and
regarded as one. The Vishnu side has left the best literary
representation of this religion, which has permeated the epic. It is
pantheism, but not an impersonal pantheism. The Blessed Lord is the
All. This is the simple base and crown of its speculation. It is like
the personal development of Vedantic philosophy, only it is here
degraded by the personality of the man-god, who is made the incarnate
All-god. The Krishna of the epic as a man is a sly, unscrupulous
fellow, continually suggesting and executing acts that are at variance
with the knightly code of honor. He is king of Dv[=a]rak[=a] and ally
of the epic heroes. But again, he is divine, the highest divinity, the
_avatar_ of the All-god Vishnu. The sectaries that see in Çiva rather
than in Vishnu the one and only god, have no such representative to
which to refer. For Çiva, as the historical descendant of the Vedic
Rudra,--although even in his case there is an intrusion of local
worship upon an older Vedic belief,--represents a terror-god, either
the lightning, the fairest of the gods, or, when he appears on earth,
a divine horror, or, again, "a very handsome young man."[1] These two
religions, of Vishnu as Krishna and of Çiva alone, are not so much
united in the epic as they are super-imposed upon the older worship of
Brahm[=a], and indeed, in such a way that Çiva-worship, in a
pantheistic sense, appears to be the latest of the three beliefs that
have influenced the story.[2]
The personal pantheism of the older Vishnuism has in its form and
teachings so close a resemblance to the Christian religion that it has
always had a great attraction for occidental readers; while the real
power of its "Divine Song" gives the latter a charm possessed by few
of the scriptures of India. This Divine Song (or Song of the Blessed
One) is at present a Krishnaite version of an older Vishnuite poem,
and this in turn was at first an unsectarian work, perhaps a late
Upanishad. It is accepted by Vishnuites as a kind of New Testament;
and with the New Testament it has in truth much in common. It must be
pointed out at the outset that there is here the closest connection
with the later Upanishads. The verse, like that of the Katha Upanishad
(quoted above), which stands almost at the beginning of the Song, is
typical of the relation of the Song to the Upanishad. It will be
noticed how the impersonal 'That,' _i.e_., absolute being, _brahma_,
changes almost at once to the personal He (_[=a]tm[=a]_ as Lord). As
shows the whole Song, _brahma_ throughout is understood to be
personal.[3] The caste-position of the priest in the Git[=a] is owing
to the religious exaltation of the poem; and the precedence of
S[=a]man is not unusual in the latest portions of the epic (see
below).]
To understand the religion which reaches its culmination in the epic
no better course could be pursued than to study the whole of the
Divine Song. It is, however, too long a production to be introduced
here in its entirety; but the following extracts give the chief
features of the work, than which nothing in Hindu literature is more
characteristic, in its sublimity as in its puerilities, in its logic
as in its want of it. It has shared the fate of most Hindu works in
being interpolated injudiciously, so that many of the puzzling
anomalies, which astound no less the reader than the hero to whom it
was revealed, are probably later additions. It is a medley of beliefs
as to the relation of spirit and matter, and other secondary matters;
it is uncertain in its tone in regard to the comparative efficacy of
action and inaction, and in regard to the practical man's means of
salvation; but it is at one with itself in its fundamental thesis,
that all things are each a part of One Lord, that men and gods are but
manifestations of the One Divine Spirit, which, or rather whom, the
Vishnuite re-writer identifies with Krishna, as Vishnu's present form.
The Divine Song, as it is revealed in the epic by Vishnu (-Krishna) to
his favorite knight, Arjuna, begins thus: "Know that the 'That' in
which is comprised the 'This' is indestructible. These bodies of the
indestructible Eternal One have an end: but whoso knows Him as slayer,
and whoso thinks Him to be slain, these two have not true wisdom. He
slays not and is not slain. He is not born, he does not die at any
time; nor will He, having been born, cease to be. Unborn, everlasting,
eternal, He, the Ancient One, is not slain when the body is slain. As
one puts away an old garment and puts on another that is new, so He,
the embodied (Spirit), puts away the old body and assumes one that is
new. Everlasting, omnipresent, firm, unchanging is He, the Eternal;
indiscernible is He called, inconceivable, unchangeable."[4]
The Song now turns into a plea that the warrior who is hearing it
should, as one born to be a soldier, be brave and fight, lest his
sorrow for the slain be taken for fear; since "nothing is better for a
warrior than a just fight," and "loss of fame is worse than death."
Then follows (with the usual inconsequential 'heaven') "If thou art
slain thou wilt obtain heaven, and if thou art victorious thou shalt
enjoy earth; therefore, careless of pleasure and pain, get ready for
the fight, and so thou wilt not incur sin. This is the knowledge
declared in the S[=a]nkhya; hear now that of the Yoga," and the Divine
Lord proceeds:
"Some are pleased with Vedic words and think that there is nothing
else; their souls are full of desires; and they think that going to
heaven is the chief thing. Yet have the Vedas reference only to the
three qualities (of which all things partake). Be free from the three
qualities (do not care for rewards). In action, not in fruit, is the
chief thing. Do thy work, abiding by serene devotion (Yoga), rejecting
every tie; be indifferent to success and failure. Serene devotion is
called indifference (to such things). Action is lower than devotion of
mind. Devotion is happiness. Do thou, wise in devotion, abandon the
fruit that is sprung from action, and, freed from the bonds of birth,
attain a perfect state."
S[=a]nkhya here means the philosophy of religion; Yoga is the
philosophical state of mind, serene indifference, religious
_sang-froid_ the practical result of a belief in the S[=a]nkhya
doctrine of the indestructibility of the spirit. In the following
there is Vedantic teaching, as well as Sankhyan in the stricter sense.
On the warrior's asking for an explanation of this state of equipoise,
the Deity gives illustrations of the balanced mind that is free from
all attachments, serene, emancipated from desires, self-controlled,
and perfectly tranquil. As the knight is astonished and confused at
the contradiction, action and inactivity both being urged upon him,
the Deity replies that there is a twofold law, that of S[=a]nkhyas
consisting in knowledge-devotion, and that of Yogis in
action-devotion. Idleness is not freedom from action. Freedom from
attachment must be united with the accomplishment of such acts as
should be performed. The deluded think that they themselves perform
acts, but acts are not done by the spirit (self); they are done only
by nature's qualities (this is S[=a]nkhya doctrine). "One should know
the relation between the individual and Supreme Spirit, and with
tranquil mind perform good acts. Let the deluded ones be, who are
erroneously attached to action. The wise man should not cause those of
imperfect knowledge to be unsettled in their faith, but he should
himself not be attached to action. Each man should perform his own
(caste) duties. One's own duty ill done is better than doing well
another man's work."
The knight now asks what causes one to sin. The Deity answers: "Love
and hate; for from love is born hate; and from anger, ignorance in
regard to right and wrong; whence comes lack of reason, and
consequently destruction. The knowledge of a man is enwrapped with
desire as is fire with smoke. Great are the senses; greater, the mind;
greater still, the understanding; greatest of all is 'That'"
(_brahma_; as above in the _Ch[=a]ndogya)._ The Deity begins again:[5]
"This system of devotion I declared to Vivasvant (the sun); Vivasvant
declared it to Manu, and Manu to kingly seers." (The same origin is
claimed for itself in Manu's lawbook.) The knight objects, not yet
knowing that Krishna is the All-god: "How did'st thou declare it
first? thy birth is later than the sun's." To whom the Deity: "Many
are my births, and I know them all; many too are thine, but thou
knowest them not; unborn and Lord of all creatures I assume phenomena,
and am born by the illusion of the spirit. Whenever there is lack of
righteousness, and wrong arises, then I emit (create) myself.[6] I am
born age after age for the protection of the good, for the destruction
of the wicked, and for the sake of establishing righteousness. Whoso
really believes in this my divine birth and work, he, when he has
abandoned his body, enters no second birth, but enters Me. Many there
are who, from Me arising, on Me relying, purified by the penance of
knowledge, with all affections, fear, and anger gone, enter into my
being. As they approach Me so I serve them.[7] Men in all ways follow
after my path. Some desire the success that is of action, and worship
gods; for success that is born of action is speedy in the world of
men. Know Me as the maker of the four castes, know Me as the unending
one and not the maker. Action stains Me not, for in the fruit of
action I have no desire. He that thus knows Me is not bound by
acts.[8] So he that has no attachment is not bound by acts. His acts
become naught. _Brahma_ is the oblation, and with _brahma_ is it
offered; _brahma_ is in the fire, and by _brahma_ is the oblation
made. Sacrifices are of many kinds, but he that sacrifices with
knowledge offers the best sacrifice. He that has faith has knowledge;
he that has knowledge obtains peace. He that has no knowledge and no
faith, whose soul is one of doubt, is destroyed. Action does not
destroy him that has renounced action by means of indifference. Of the
two, renunciation of action and indifference, though both give bliss,
indifference in action is better than renunciation of action.
Children, not Pundits, proclaim S[=a]nkhya and Yoga to be distinct. He
that is devoted to either alone finds the reward of both. Renunciation
without Yoga is a thing hard to get; united with Yoga the seer enters
_brahma_. ... He is the renouncer and the devotee who does the acts
that ought to be done without relying on the reward of action, not he
that performs no acts and builds no sacrificial fires. Through his
self (spirit) let one raise one's self. Conquer self by self (spirit).
He is the best man who is indifferent to external things, who with
equal mind sees (his spirit) self in everything and everything in self
(God as the Spirit). Such an one obtains the highest bliss, _brahma_.
Whoso sees Me in all and all in Me I am not destroyed for him, and he
is not destroyed for Me."
The knight now asks how it fares with a good man who is not equal to
the discipline of Yoga, and cannot free himself entirely from
attachment. Does he go to destruction like a cloud that is rent,
failing on the path that leads to _brahma_? The Deity replies:
"Neither in this world nor in the beyond is he destroyed. He that acts
virtuously does not enter an evil state. He obtains the heaven that
belongs to the doers of good, and after living there countless summers
is reborn on earth in the family of pure and renowned men, or of pious
devotees. There he receives the knowledge he had in a former body, and
then strives further for perfection. After many births he reaches
perfection and the highest course (union with _brahma_). There are but
few that strive for perfection, and of them only one here and there
truly knows Me. Earth, water, fire, air, space, mind, understanding,
and egoism (self-consciousness)--so is my nature divided into eight
parts.[9] But learn now my higher nature, for this is my lower one. My
higher nature is alive, and by it this world is supported. I am the
creator and destroyer of all the world. Higher than I is nothing. On
Me the universe is woven like pearls upon a thread. Taste am I, light
am I of moon and sun, the mystic syllable _[=O]m_ ([)a][)u]m), sound
in space, manliness in men; I am smell and radiance; I am life and
heat. Know Me as the eternal seed of all beings. I am the
understanding of them that have understanding, the radiance of the
radiant ones. Of the strong I am the force, devoid of love and
passion; and I am love, not opposed to virtue. Know all beings to be
from Me alone, whether they have the quality of goodness, of passion,
or of darkness (the three 'qualities' or conditions of all things). I
am not in them; but they are in Me. Me, the inexhaustible, beyond
them, the world knows not, for it is confused by these three qualities
(conditions); and hard to overcome is the divine illusion which
envelops Me, while it arises from the qualities. Only they pass
through this illusion who come to Me alone. Wicked men, whose
knowledge is taken away by illusion, relying on a devilish (demoniac)
condition, do not come to Me. They that have not the highest knowledge
worship various divinities; but whatever be the form that any one
worships with faith I make his faith steady. He obtains his desires in
worshipping that divinity, although they are really bestowed upon him
by Me.[10] But the fruit of these men, in that they have little
wisdom, has its end. He that sacrifices to (lesser) gods goes to those
gods; but they that worship Me come to Me. I know the things that
were, that are, and are to be; but Me no one knoweth, for I am
enveloped in illusion. I am the supreme being, the supreme godhead,
the supreme sacrifice, the Supreme Spirit, _brahma_."
The knight asks "What is _brahma_, the Supreme Spirit, the supreme
being, the supreme sacrifice?" The Deity: "The supreme, the
indestructible, is called _brahma_. Its personal existence is Supreme
Spirit (self). Destructible existence is supreme being (all except
_[=a]tm[=a]_). The Person is the supreme godhead. I myself am the
supreme sacrifice in this body."
Then follow statements like those in the Upanishads and in Manu,
describing a day of _brahma_ as a thousand ages; worlds are renewed;
they that go to the gods find an end of their happiness with the end
of their world; but they that go to the indestructible _brahma_, the
Deity, the entity that is not destroyed when all else is destroyed,
never again return. There are two roads (as in the Upanishads above),
one, the northern road leading to _brahma_; one, the southern road to
the moon, leading back to earth. At the end of a period of time all
beings reënter the divine nature (Prakriti[11]), and at the beginning
of the next period the Deity emits them again and again (they being
without volition) by the volition of his nature. "Through Me, who am
the superintendent, nature gives birth to all things, and for that
cause the world turns about. They of demoniac nature recognize me not;
they of god-like nature, knowing Me as the inexhaustible source,
worship Me. I am the universal Father, the Vedas, the goal, the
upholder, the Lord, the superintendent, the home, the asylum, the
friend. I am the inexhaustible seed. I am immortality and death. I am
being and not-being. I am the sacrifice and he that offers it. Even
they that, with faith, sacrifice to other gods, even they (really)
sacrifice to Me. To them that ever are devout and worship Me with love
(faith), I give the attainment of the knowledge by which they come to
Me" (again the doctrine of special grace). "I am the beginning, the
middle, and the end of all created things. I am Vishnu among sun-gods;
the moon among the stars; Indra among the (Vedic) gods; the S[=a]man
among the Vedas; among the senses, mind; among created beings,
consciousness; among the Rudras I am Çiva (Çankara); among
army-leaders I am Skanda; among the great sages I am Bhrigu (who
reveals Manu's code); among the Siddhas[12] I am Kapila the Muni.... I
am the love that begets; I am the chief (V[=a]suki and Ananta) among
the serpents; and among them that live in water I am Varuna; among the
Manes I am Aryaman; and I am Yama among controllers;[13] among demons
I am Prahl[=a]da ...; I am R[=a]ma; I am the Ganges. I am among all
sciences the highest science (that in regard to the Supreme Spirit); I
am the word of the speakers; I am the letter A among the letters, and
the compound of union among the compounds.[14] I am indestructible
time and I am the Creator. I am the death that seizes all and I am the
origin of things to be. I am glory, fortune, speech, memory, wisdom,
constancy, and mercy.... I am the punishment of the punisher and the
polity of them that would win victory. I am silence. I am knowledge.
There is no end of my divine manifestations."
The knight now asks to see the real form of the deity, which was
revealed to him. "If in heaven the glory of a thousand suns should
appear at once, such would be his glory."
After this comes the real animus of the Divine Song in its present
shape. The believer that has faith in this Vishnu is even better than
the devotee who finds _brahma_ by knowledge.
The philosophy of knowledge (which here is anything but Vedantic) is
now communicated to the knight, in the course of which the distinction
between nature and spirit is explained: "Nature, Prakriti, and spirit,
Purusha (person), are both without beginning. All changes and
qualities spring from nature. Nature is said to be the cause of the
body's and the senses' activity. Spirit is the cause of enjoyment
(appreciation) of pleasure and pain; for the Spirit, standing in
nature, appreciates the nature-born qualities. The cause of the
Spirit's re-birth is its connection with the qualities, (This is
S[=a]nkhya doctrine, and the same with that propounded above in regard
to activity.) The Supreme Spirit is the Support and great Lord of all,
the _[=a]tm[=a]_, while _brahma_ (=_prakriti_) is the womb in which I
place My seed, and from that is the origin of all things. The great
_brahma_ is the womb, and I am the seed-giving father of all the forms
which come into being. The three 'qualities' (conditions, attributes),
goodness, passion, and darkness, are born of nature and bind the
inexhaustible incorporate (Spirit) in the body. The quality (or
attribute) of goodness binds the soul with pleasure and knowledge;
that of passion (activity), with desire and action; that of darkness
(dulness), with ignorance. One that has the attribute of goodness
chiefly goes after death to the highest heaven; one that has chiefly
passion is born again among men of action; one that has chiefly
darkness is born among the ignorant. One that sees that these
attributes are the only agents, one that knows what is higher than the
attributes, enters into my being. The incorporate spirit that has
passed above the three attributes (the origin of bodies), being
released from birth, death, age, and pain, obtains immortality. To
pass above these attributes one must become indifferent to all change,
be undisturbed by anything, and worship Me with devotion.... I am to
be learned from all the Vedas; I made the Ved[=a]nta; I alone know the
Vedas. There are two persons in the world, one destructible and one
indestructible; the destructible one is all created things; the
indestructible one is called the Unchanging one. But there is still a
third highest person, called the Supreme Spirit, who, pervading the
three worlds, supports them, the inexhaustible Lord. Inasmuch as I
surpass the destructible and am higher than the indestructible,
therefore am I known in the world and in the Veda as the Highest
Person."
The references to the S[=a]nkhyas, or S[=a]nkhya-Yogas, are not yet
exhausted. There is another in a following chapter (vi. 18. 13) which
some scholiasts say refers to the Ved[=a]nta-system, though this is in
direct contradiction to the text. But the extracts already given
suffice to show how vague and uncertain are, on the whole, the
philosophical views on which depends the Divine Song. Until the end of
these citations one hears only of nature and spirit, the two that have
no beginning, but here one finds the Supreme Spirit, which is as
distinct from the indestructible one as from the destructible.
Moreover, 'nature' is in one place represented as from the beginning
distinct from spirit and entirely apart from it, and in another it is
only a transient phase. The delusion (illusion) which in one passage
is all that exists apart from the Supreme Spirit is itself given up in
favor of the S[=a]nkhya Prakriti, with which one must imagine it to be
identified, although from the text itself it cannot be identical. In a
word, exactly as in Manu, there are different philosophical
conceptions, united without any logical basis for their union. The
'system' is in general that of the S[=a]nkhya-Yogas, but there is much
which is purely Ved[=a]nta. The S[=a]nkhya system is taught elsewhere
as a means of salvation, perhaps always as the deistic Yoga (i. 75. 7:
"He taught them the Sankhya-knowledge as salvation"). It is further
noticeable that although Krishna (Vishnu) is the ostensible speaker,
there is scarcely anything to indicate that the poem was originally
composed even for Vishnu. The Divine Song was probably, as we have
said, a late Upanishad, which afterwards was expanded and put into
Vishnu's mouth. The S[=a]nkhya portions have been redressed as far as
possible and to the illusion doctrine is given the chief place. But
the Song remains, like the Upanishads themselves, and like Manu, an
ill-assorted cabinet of primitive philosophical opinions. On the
religious side it is a matter of comparative indifference whether that
which is not the spirit is a delusive output of the spirit or
indestructible matter. In either case the Spirit is the goal of the
spirit. In this personal pantheism absorption is taught but not death.
Immortality is still the reward that is offered to the believer that
is wise, to the wise that believes. Knowledge and faith are the means
of obtaining this immortality; but, whereas in the older Upanishads
only wisdom is necessary (wisdom that implies morality), here as much
stress, if not more, is laid upon faith, the natural mark of all
sectarian pantheism.
Despite its occasional power and mystic exaltation, the Divine Song in
its present state as a poetical production is unsatisfactory. The same
thing is said over and over again, and the contradictions in
phraseology and in meaning are as numerous as the repetitions, so that
one is not surprised to find it described as "the wonderful song,
which causes the hair to stand on end." The different meanings given
to the same words are indicative of its patchwork origin, which again
would help to explain its philosophical inconsistencies. It was
probably composed, as it stands, before there was any formal
Ved[=a]nta system; and in its original shape without doubt it precedes
the formal S[=a]nkhya; though both philosophies existed long before
they were systematized or reduced to Sutra form. One has not to
imagine them as systems originally distinct and opposed. They rather
grew out of a gradual intensification of the opposition involved in
the conception of Prakriti (nature) and M[=a]y[=a] (illusion), some
regarding these as identical, others insisting that the latter was not
sufficient to explain nature. The first philosophy (and philosophical
religion) concerned itself less with the relation of matter to mind
(in modern parlance) than with the relation of the individual self
(spirit) to the Supreme Spirit. Different explanations of the relation
of matter to this Supreme Spirit were long held tentatively by
philosophers, who would probably have said that either the S[=a]nkhya
or Ved[=a]nta might be true, but that this was not the chief question.
Later came the differentiation of the schools, based mainly on a
question that was at first one of secondary importance. In another
part of the epic Krishna himself is represented as the victim of
'illusion' (iii. 21. 30) on the field of battle.
The doctrine of the Bhagavad G[=i]t[=a], the Divine Song, is by no
means isolated. It is found in many other passages of the epic,
besides being imitated in the Anug[=i]t[=a] of the pseudo-epic. To one
of these passages it is worth while to turn, because of the form in
which this wisdom is enunciated. The passage immediately following
this teaching is also of great interest. Of the few Vedic deities that
receive hymnal homage chief is the sun, or, in his other form, Agni.
The special form of Agni has been spoken of above. He is identified
with the All in some late passages, and gives aid to his followers,
although not in battle. It will have been noticed in the Divine Song
that Vishnu asserts that the Song was proclaimed to the sun, who in
turn delivers it through Manu to the king-seers, the sun being
especially the kingly god.[15] In the third book there is an hymn to
the sun, in which this god is addressed almost in the terms of the
Divine Song, and immediately preceding is the doctrine just alluded
to. After the explanation is given that re-birth affects creatures and
causes them to be born in earth, air, or water, the changes of
metempsychosis here including the vegetable world as well as the
animal and divine worlds,[16] the very essence of the Divine Song is
given as "Vedic word," viz., _kuru karma tyajeti ca_, "Perform and
quit acts," _i.e._, do what you ought to do, but without regard to the
reward of action (iii. 2. 72, 74). There is an eightfold path of duty,
as in Buddhism, but here it consists in sacrifice, study, liberality,
and penance; truth, mercy, self-control, and lack of greed. As the
result of practicing the first four, one goes on the course that leads
to the Manes; as the result of practicing the last four, one goes on
the course that leads to the gods. But in practicing any virtues one
should practice them without expectation of reward (_abhim[=a]na_,
arrière pensée). The Yogi, the devotee, who renounces the fruit of
everything, is the greatest man; his powers are miraculous.
There follows (with the same light inconsistency to be found in the
Divine Song) the appeal for action and the exhortation to pray to the
sun for success in what is desired. For it is explained that the sun
is the father of all creation. The sun draws up clouds with his heat,
and his energy, being transmuted into water, with the help of the
moon, is distilled into plants as rain, and in this way the food that
man eats is full of solar energy, and man and all that live by food
must regard the sun as their father. Preliminary to the hymn to the
sun is given a list of his hundred and eight names,[17] among which
are to be noticed: Aryaman, Soma, Indra, Yama, Brahm[=a], Vishnu,
Çiva, Death, Time, Creator, the Endless One, Kapila, the Unborn One,
the Person (Purusha; with which are to be compared the names of Vishnu
in the Divine Song), the All-maker, Varuna, the Grandfather, the Door
of Heaven, etc. And then the Hymn to the Sun (iii. 3. 36 ff.):[18]
"Thou, O Sun, of creatures art the eye; the spirit of all that have
embodied form; thou art the source of all created things; thou art the
custom of them that make sacrifice; thou art the goal of the
S[=a]nkhyas and the hope of the Yogis; the course of all that seek
deliverance ... Thou art worshipped by all; the three and thirty
gods(!) worship thee, etc.... I think that in all the seven worlds[19]
and all the _brahma_-worlds there is nothing which is superior to the
sun. Other beings there are, both powerful and great, but they have no
such glory as the sun's. Father of light, all beings rest in thee; O
Lord of light, all things, all elements are in thee. The disc of
Vishnu was fashioned by the All-maker (one of the sun's names!) with
thy glory. Over all the earth, with its thirteen islands, thou shinest
with thy kine (rays)....[20] Thou art the beginning and the end of a
day of Brahm[=a].... They call thee Indra; thou art Rudra, Vishnu, the
Father-god, Fire, the subtile mind; thou art the Lord, and thou,
eternal _brahma_."
There is here also a very significant admixture of Vedic and
Upanishadic religion.
In Krishna, who in the Upanishads is known already by his own and his
mother's name, pantheism is made personal according to the teaching of
one sect. But while the whole epic is in evidence for the spuriousness
of the claim of Krishna to be regarded as incarnate Vishnu (God),
there is scarcely a trace in the original epic of the older view in
regard to Vishnu himself. Thus in one passage he is called "the
younger brother of Indra" (iii. 12. 25). But, since Indra is at no
time the chief god of the epic, and the chapter in which occurs this
expression is devoted to extolling Krishna-Vishnu as the All-god, the
words appear to be intended rather to identify Krishna with Vishnu,
who in the Rig Veda is inferior to Indra, than to detract from
Vishnu's glory. The passage is cited below.
What now is the relation of Vishnu-Krishna to the other divinities?
Vishnuite and Çivaite, each cries out that his god includes the other,
but there is no current identity of Brahm[=a], Vishnu, Çiva as three
co-equal representations of one God. For example, in iii. 189. 5, one
reads: "I am Vishnu, I am Brahm[=a], and I am Çiva," but one cannot
read into this any trinitarian doctrine whatever, for in context the
passage reads as a whole: "I am N[=a]r[=a]yana, I am Creator and
Destroyer,
I am Vishnu, I am Brahm[=a], I am Indra, the master-god, I am king
Kubera, Yama, Çiva, Soma, Kaçyapa, and also the Father-god." Again,
Vishnu says that the Father-god, or grandparent of the gods, is
'one-half of my body," and does not mention Çiva (iii. 189. 39). Thus,
also, the hymn to Çiva in iii. 39. 76 ff. is addressed "to Çiva having
the form of Vishnu, to Vishnu having the form of Çiva, to the
three-eyed god, to Çarva, the trident-holder, the sun, Ganeça," but
with no mention of Brahm[=a]. The three gods, Brahm[=a], Vishnu, Çiva,
however, are sometimes grouped together (but not as a trinity) in late
passages, in contrast to Indra, _e.g._, ix. 53. 26. There are many
hymns to Vishnu and Çiva, where each is without beginning, the God,
the uncreated Creator. It is only when the later period, looking back
on the respective claims of the sects, identifies each god with the
other, and both with their predecessor, that one gets even the notion
of a trinity. Even for this later view of the pseudo-epic only one
passage will be found (cited below).
The part of Brahm[=a] in the epic is most distinctly in process of
subordination to the sectarian gods. He is holy and eternal, but not
omniscient, though wise. As was shown above, he works at the will of
Vishnu. He is one with Vishnu only in the sense that all is one with
the All-god. When Vishnu 'raises the earth' as a boar, Brahm[=a] tells
the gods to go to him.[21] He councils the gods. His heaven is above
Indra's, but he is really only an intermediary divinity, a passive
activity, if the paradox may be allowed. Not like Indra (to whom he is
superior) does he fight with All-gods, or do any great act of his own
will. He is a shadowy, fatherly, beneficent advisor to the gods, his
children; but all his activity is due to Vishnu. This, of course, is
from the point of view of the Vishnuite.
But there is no Brahm[=a]ite to modify the impression. There existed
no strong Brahm[=a] sect as there were Vishnu and Çiva sects.
Brahm[=a] is in his place merely because to the preceding age he was
the highest god; for the epic regards Creator, Praj[=a]pati,
Pit[=a]maha, Brahm[=a] as synonymous.[22] The abstract _brahma_, which
in the Upanishads is the same with the Supreme Spirit, was called
personally Brahm[=a], and this Brahm[=a] is now the Brahmanic
Father-god. The sects could never get rid of a god whose being was
rooted alike in the preceding philosophy and in the popular conception
of a Father-god. Each age of thought takes the most advanced views of
the preceding age as its axioms. The Veda taught gods; the
Br[=a]hmanas taught a Father-god above the gods; the Upanishads taught
a Supreme Godhead of which this Father-god was the active
manifestation. The sects taught that their heroes were incarnations of
this Supreme, but they carried with them the older pantheon as well,
and, with the pantheon, its earlier and later heads, Indra and
Brahm[=a]. Consequently each sect admits that Brahm[=a] is greater
than the older Vedic gods, but, while naturally it identifies its
special incarnation first with its most powerful opponent, and thus,
so to speak, absorbs its rival, it identifies this incarnation with
Brahm[=a] only as being chief of lesser divinities, not as being a
rival. One may represent the attitude of a Krishna-worshipper in the
epic somewhat in this way: "Krishna is a modern incarnation of Vishnu,
the form which is taken in this age by the Supreme Lord. You who
worship Çiva should know that your Çiva is really my Krishna, and
the chief point is to recognize my Krishna as the Supreme Lord. The
man Krishna is the Supreme Lord in human form. Of course, as such,
being the One God in whom are all things and beings, he is also all
the gods known by names which designate his special functions. Thus he
is the head of the gods, the Father-god, as our ancestors called him,
Brahm[=a]; and he is all the gods known by still older names, who are
the children of the secondary creator, Brahm[=a], viz., Agni, Indra,
S[=u]rya, etc. All gods are active manifestations of the Supreme God
called Vishnu, who is born on earth to-day as Krishna." And the
Çivaite says: "Çiva is the manifestation of the All-god," and repeats
what the Vishnuite says, substituting Çiva for Vishnu,[23] but with
the difference already explained, namely, that the Çiva-sect has no
incarnation to which to point, as has the Vishnuite. Çiva is modified
Rudra, and both are old god-names. Later, however, the Çivaite has
also his incarnate god. As an example of later Çiva-worship may be
taken Vishnu's own hymn to this god in vii. 80. 54 ff.: "Reverence to
Bhava, Çarva, Rudra (Çiva), the bestower of gifts, the lord of cattle,
the terrible, great, fearful, god of three wives;[24] to him who is
peace, the Lord, the slayer of sacrifices (_makhaghna_)[25] ... to the
blue-necked god; to the inventor (or author) ... to truth; to the red
god, to the snake, to the unconquerable one, to the blue-haired one,
to the trident-holder; ... to the inconceivable one ... to him whose
sign is the bull; ... to the creator of all, who pervades all, who is
worshipped by all, Lord of all, Çarva, Çankara, Çiva, ... who has a
thousand heads a thousand arms, and death, a thousand eyes and legs,
whose acts are innumerable." In vii. 201. 71, Çiva is the unborn Lord,
inconceivable, the soul of action, the unmoved one; and he that knows
Çiva as the self of self, as the unknowable one, goes to
_brahma_-bliss. This also is late Çivaism in pantheistic form. In
other words, everything said of Vishnu must be repeated for Çiva.[26]
As an example of the position of the lowest member of the later
trinity and his very subordinate place, may be cited a passage from
the preceding book of the epic. According to the story in vi. 65. 42
ff., the seers were all engaged in worshipping Brahm[=a], as the
highest divinity they knew, when he suddenly began to worship "the
Person (Spirit), the highest Lord"; and Brahm[=a] then lauds Vishnu as
such: "Thou art the god of the universe, the All-god, V[=a]sudeva
(Krishna). Therefore I worship thee as the divinity; thou, whose soul
is devotion. Victory to thee, great god of all; thou takest
satisfaction in that which benefits the world.... Lord of lords of
all, thou out of whose navel springs the lotus, and whose eyes are
large; Lord of the things that were, that are, that are to be; O dear
one, self-born of the self-born ... O great snake, O boar,[27] O thou
the first one, thou who dwellest in all, endless one, known as
_brahma_, everlasting origin of all beings ... destroyer of the
worlds! Thy feet are the earth ... heaven is thy head ... I,
Brahm[=a], am thy form ... Sun and moon are thy eyes ... Gods and all
beings were by me created on earth, but they owe their origin to thy
goodness." Then the creation of Vishnu through Pradyumna as a form of
the deity is described, "and Vishnu (Aniruddha) created me, Brahm[=a],
the upholder of the worlds; so am I made of Vishnu; I am caused only
by thee."
While Brahm[=a] is represented here as identical with Vishnu he is at
the same time a distinctly inferior personality, created by Vishnu for
the purpose of creating worlds, a factor of inferior godliness to that
of the World-Spirit, Krishna-Vishnu.
It had been stated by Holtzmann[28] that Brahm[=a] sometimes appears
in the epic as a god superior to Vishnu, and on the strength of this
L. von Schroeder has put the date of the early epic between the
seventh and fourth centuries B.C, because at that time Brahm[=a] was
the chief god.[29] von Schroeder rather exaggerates Holtzmann's
results, and asserts that "in the original form of the poem Brahm[=a]
appears _throughout_ as the highest and most revered god, while the
worship of Vishnu and Çiva as great gods is apparently a later
intrusion" (_loc. cit._). This asseveration will have to be taken _cum
grano_. Had von Schroeder said 'pantheistic gods' he would have been
correct in this regard, but we think that both Vishnu and Çiva were
great gods, equal, if not superior to Brahm[=a], when the epic proper
began. And, moreover, when one speaks of the original form of the poem
he cannot mean the pseudo-epic or the ancient legends which have been
woven into the epic, themselves of earlier date. No one means by the
'early epic' the tales of Agastya, of the creation of Death, of the
making of ambrosia, but the story of the war in its earliest shape;
for the epic poem must have begun with its own subject-matter. Now it
is not true that Brahm[=a] is regarded 'throughout' the early poem as
a chief god at all. If one investigate the cases where Vishnu or Çiva
appears 'below' Brahm[=a] he will see, in almost every case that
Holtzmann has registered, that this condition of affairs is recorded
not in the epic proper but in the Brahmanic portions of the
pseudo-epic, or in ancient legends alone. Thus in the story of the
winning of ambrosia, of Agastya drinking ocean, and of R[=a]ma,
Brahm[=a] appears to be above Vishnu, and also in some extracts from
the pseudo-epic. For the real epic we know of but two cases that can
be put into this category, and neither is sufficient to support the
hypothesis built upon it.
For Krishna, when he ingeniously plots to have Bh[=i]ma slay
Jar[=a]sandha, is said to have renounced killing Jar[=a]sandha
himself, 'putting Brahm[=a]'s injunction before him' (ii. 22. 36),
_i.e._ recalling Brahm[=a]'s admonition that only Bh[=i]ima was fated
to slay the foe. And when Krishna and S[=a]tyaki salute Krishna's
elder brother they do so (for being an elder brother Baladeva is
Krishna's _Guru_) respectfully, 'just as Indra and Upendra salute
Brahm[=a] the lord of _devas_' (ix. 34. 18). Upendra is Indra's
younger brother, _i.e._, Vishnu (above). But these passages are scanty
proof for the statement that Brahm[=a] appears throughout the early
epic as the highest god;[30] nor is there even so much evidence as
this in the case of Çiva. Here, too, it is in the tale of the churning
of ocean, of Sunda and Upasunda, of the creation of the death-power,
and in late didactic (Brahmanic) passages, where Brahm[=a] makes Çiva
to destroy earth and Çiva is born of Brahm[=a], and only in such
tales, or extracts from the Book of Peace, etc, that Brahm[=a] appears
as superior. In all other cases, in the real action of the epic, he is
subordinate to Vishnu and Çiva whenever he is compared with them. When
he is not compared he appears, of course, as the great old Father-god
who creates and foresees, but even here he is not untouched by
passion, he is not all-knowing, and his rôle as Creator is one that,
with the allotment of duties among the gods, does not make him the
highest god. All the old gods are great till greater appear on the
scene. There is scarcely a supreme Brahm[=a] in the epic itself, but
there is a great Brahm[=a], and a greater (older) than the sectarian
gods in the old Brahmanic legends, while the old Brahmanhood reasserts
itself sporadically in the Ç[=a]nti, etc, and tells how the sectarian
gods became supreme, how they quarrelled and laid the strife.
Since the adjustment of the relations between the persons of the later
trinity is one of the most important questions in the theology of the
completed epic, it will be necessary to go a little further afield and
see what the latest books, which hitherto we have refrained as much as
possible from citing, have to say on the subject. As it seems to be
true that it was felt necessary by the Çivaite to offset the laud of
Vishnu by antithetic laud of Çiva,[31] so after the completion of the
Book of Peace, itself a late addition to the epic, and one that is
markedly Vishnuitic, there was, before the Genealogy of Vishnu, an
antithetic Book of Law, which is as markedly Çivaitic. In these books
one finds the climax of sectarianism, in so far as it is represented
by the epic; although in earlier books isolated passages of late
addition are sporadically to be found which have much the same nature.
Everywhere in these last additions Brahm[=a] is on a plane which is as
much lower than that of the Supreme God as it is higher than that of
Indra. Thus in viii. 33. 45, Indra takes refuge with Brahm[=a], but
Brahm[=a] turns for help to Çiva (Bhava, Sth[=a]nu, Jishnu, etc.) with
a hymn sung by the gods and seers. Then comes a description of
Çankara's[32] (Çiva's) war-car, with its metaphorical arms, where
Vishnu is the point of Civa's arrow (which consists of Vishnu, Soma,
Agni), and of this war-car Brahm[=a] himself is the charioteer (_ib._
34. 76). With customary inconsistency, however, when Çiva wishes his
son to be exalted he prostrates himself before Brahm[=a], who then
gives this youth (_kum[=a]ra_), called K[=a]rtikeya, the 'generalship'
over all beings _(s[=a]in[=a]patyam_, ix. 44. 43-49). There is even a
'celebration of Brahm[=a],' a sort of harvest festival, shared, as the
text tells, by all the castes; and it must have been something like
the religious games of the Greeks, for it was celebrated by athletic
contests.[33] Brahm[=a], as the old independent creator, sometimes
keeps his place, transmitting posterity through his 'seven mind-born
sons,' the great seers (iii. 133; xii. 166. 11 ff.). But Brahm[=a]
himself is born either in the golden egg, as a secondary growth (as in
xii. 312. 1-7), or, as is usually the case, he is born in the lotus
which springs from the navel of musing[34] Vishnu (iii. 203. 14). In
this passage Brahm[=a] has four faces (Vedas) and four forms,
_caturm[=u]rtis_ (15), and this epithet in other sections is transferred
to Vishnu. Thus in vii. 29. 26, Vishnu(Vishu in the original) says
_caturm[=u]rtir aham_, "I have four forms," but he never says
_trim[=u]rtir aham_ ('I have three forms'). There is one passage,
however, that makes for a belief in a trinity. It stands in contrast
to the various Vishnuite hymns, one of which may well be reviewed as
an example of the regular Vishnuite laudation affected by the Krishna
sect (iii. 12. 21 ff.): "Krishna is Vishnu, Brahm[=a], Soma, the Sun,
Right, the Creator ('founder'), Yama, Fire, Wind, Çiva, Time, Space,
Earth, and the cardinal points. Thou, Krishna, art the Creator
('emitter'); thou, chief of gods, didst worship the highest; thou,
Vishnu called, becamest Indra's younger brother, entering into sonship
with Aditi; as a child with three steps thou didst fill the sky,
space, and earth, and pass in glory.... At the end of the age thou
returnest all things into thyself. At the beginning of the age
Brahm[=a] was born from thy lotus-navel as the venerable preceptor of
all things (the same epithet is in vs. 22 applied to Vishnu himself);
and Çiva sprang from thy angry forehead when the demons would kill him
(Brahm[=a]); both are born of thee, in whom is the universe." The
following verses (45 ff.) are like those of the Divine Song: "Thou,
Knight Arjuna, art the soul of Krishna; thou art mine alone and thine
alone am I; they that are mine are thine; he that hates thee hates Me,
and he that is for thee, is for Me; thou art Nara ('man') and I am
N[=a]r[=a]yana ('whose home is on the waters,' god);[35] we are the
same, there is no difference between us." Again, like the Divine Song
in the following verses (51-54) is the expression 'the sacrifice and
he that sacrifices,' etc, together with the statement that Vishnu
plays 'like a boy with playthings,' with the crowds of gods,
Brahm[=a], Çiva, Indra, etc. The passage opposed to this, and to other
identifications of Vishnu with many gods, is one of the most flagrant
interpolations in the epic. If there be anything that the Supreme God
in Çivaite or Vishnuite form does not do it is to extol at length,
without obvious reason, his rivals' acts and incarnations, Yet in this
clumsy passage just such an extended laudation of Vishnu is put into
the mouth of Çiva. In fact, iii. 272, from 30 to 76, is an
interpretation of the most naïve sort, and it is here that we find the
approach to the later _trim[=u]rti_ (trinity): "Having the form of
Brahm[=a] he creates; having a human body (as Krishna) he protects, in
the nature of Çiva he would destroy--these are the three appearances
or conditions (_avasth[=a]s_) of the Father-god". (Praj[=a]pati).[36]
This comes after an account of the four-faced lotus-born Brahm[=a],
who, seeing the world a void, emitted his sons, the seers, mind-born,
like to himself (now nine in number), who in turn begot all beings,
including men (vss. 44-47). If, on the other hand, one take the later
sectarian account of Vishnu (for the above is more in honor of Krishna
the man-god than of Vishnu, the form of the Supreme God), he will see
that even in the pseudo-epic the summit of the theological conceptions
is the emphasis not of trinity or of multifariousness but of unity.
According to the text the P[=a]ñcak[=a]lajñas are the same with the
Vishnuite sect called P[=a]ñcar[=a]tras, and these are most
emphatically _ek[=a]ntinas, i.e_., Unitarians (xii. 336; 337. 46; 339.
66-67).[37] In this same passage 341. 106, Vishnu is again
_caturm[=u]rtidh[r.]t_, 'the bearer of four forms,' an entirely
different conception of him (below). So that even in this most
advanced sectarian literature there is no real threefoldness of the
Supreme as one in three. In the following chapter (xii. 335. 1 ff.)
there is a passage like the great Ka hymn of the Rig Veda, 'whom as
god shall one worship?' The sages say to Vishnu: "All men worship
thee; to whom dost thou offer worship?" and he says, 'to the Eternal
Spirit.' The conception of the functions of Brahm[=a] and Çiva in
relation to Vishnu is plainly shown in xii. 342. 19: "Brahm[=a] and
Çiva create and destroy at the will of Vishnu; they are born of his
grace and his anger." In regard to Çiva himself, his nature and place
in Vishnuism have been sufficiently explained. The worship of this god
is referred to 'Vedic texts' (the _çata-rudriyam_, vii. 202. 120);[38]
Vishnu is made to adore the terrible god (_ib_. 201. 69) who appears
as a mad ascetic, a wild rover, a monster, a satire on man and gods,
though he piously carries a rosary, and has other late traits in his
personal appearance.[39] The strength of Çivaism lay in the eumenidean
(Çiva is 'prospering,' 'kindly') euphemism and fear alike, which
shrank in speech and mind from the object of fear. But this religion
in the epic had a firmer hold than that of fear. It was essentially
phallic in its outward form (VII. 201. 93-96), and as such was deeply
rooted in the religious conscience of a people to whom one may venture
perhaps to ascribe such a form of worship even in the time of the Rig
Veda, although the signs thereof in great part have been suppressed.
This may be doubted,[40] indeed, for the earlier age; but there is no
question that epic Çivaism, like Çivaism to-day, is dependent wholly
on phallic worship (XIII. 14. 230 ff.). It is the parallel of Bacchic
rites and orgies, as well as of the worship of the demons in
distinction from that of good powers. Çiva represents the ascetic,
dark, awful, bloody side of religion: Vishnu, the gracious, calm,
hopeful, loving side; the former is fearful, mysterious, demoniac; the
latter is joyful, erotic, divine. In their later developments it is
not surprising to see that Vishnuism, in the form of Krishnaism,
becomes more and more erotic, while Çivaism becomes more and more
ghastly and ghoulish. Wild and varied as are the beliefs of the epic,
there is space but to show a few more characteristic sides of its
theology--a phase that may seem questionable, yet, since the devout
Hindu believes the teachings of the epic, they must all to him
constitute one theology, although it was gradually amalgamated out of
different creeds.
In connection with Çiva stands, closely united, his son, Ganeça,
"leader of troops," still worshipped as one of the popular gods, and
the battle-god, Skanda, the son first of Agni then of Çiva, the
conqueror of the demons, _d[=a]navas_, and later representative of
Indra, with whom the epic identifies him. For it is Skanda that is the
real battle-god of the later epic; though in its original form Indra
was still the warrior's refuge, as attests the stereotyped
phraseology. In III. 225-232 honor and praise are ascribed to Skanda
in much the same language with that used to portray his father, Çiva.
"The god of a thousand arms, the Lord of all, the creator of gods and
demons" are phrases used in his eulogy. He too has a list of names;
his nurse is the "maiden of the red (bloody) sea," called
Loh[=i]t[=a]yan[=i]. His terrible appearance and fearful acts make him
the equal of Çiva.[41] His sign is a _kukku[t.]a_, cock; _ib_. 229.
33.
Associated, again, with Skanda are the spirits or 'mothers,' which
afflict people. The belief in mother-gods is old, but its epic form is
new. The exactness and detail in regard to these beautiful monsters
show at least a real belief, which, as one on a lower plane besides
the higher religion, cannot be passed over without notice. As in other
lands, people are 'possessed' by evil spirits, called possessors or
seizers (_grahas_). These are Skanda's demons,[42] and are both male
and female. Until one reaches the age of sixteen he is liable to be
possessed by one group of 'seizers,' who must be worshipped in proper
form that their wrath may be averted. Others menace mortals from the
age of sixteen to seventy. After that only the fever-demon is to be
feared. Imps of this sort are of three kinds. One kind indulge only in
mischievous sport: another kind lead one to gluttony; the third kind
are devoted to lust. They are known as Piç[=a]cas, Yakshas, etc., and
when they seize a person he goes mad. They are to be kept at bay by
self-restraint and moderation (III. 230. 43-56). In IX. 46 and III.
226 the 'mothers' are described. They are witches, and live in
cross-roads, cemeteries, and mountains. They may be of Dravidian
origin, and in their epic form, at any rate, are a late intrusion.[43]
Just before the Divine Song begins, the knight who is about to become,
illuminated or 'disillusioned' offers a prayer to the terrible goddess
Durg[=a], also one of the new, popular, and horrible forms of divine
manifestation. In this hymn, VI. 23, Durg[=a] (Um[=a], P[=a]rvat[=i],
K[=a]li, etc.) is addressed as "leader of the armies of the blessed,
the dweller in Mandara, the youthful woman, K[=a]li, wife of Çiva, she
who is red, black, variegated; the savior, the giver of gifts,
K[=a]ty[=a]yan[=i], the great benefactress, the terrible one, the
victorious one, victory itself ... Um[=a], the slayer of demons,"[44]
and the usual identification and theft of epithets then follows: "O
thou who art the Vedas, who art Revelation, who art virtue,
J[=a]tavedasi, ... thou art _brahma_ among the sciences, thou art the
sleep of incorporate beings, the mother of Skanda, the blessed one,
Durg[=a] ... thou art the mother of the Vedas and Ved[=a]nta ... thou
art sleep, illusion, modesty, happiness ... thou art satisfaction,
growth, contentment, light, the increaser of moon and sun."
Turning from these later parasites,[45] which live on their parent
gods and yet tend to reduce them, we now revert to that happiness
hereafter to which looks forward the epic knight that has not been
tempted to 'renounce' desire. In pantheistic passages he is what the
later remodeller makes him. But enough of old belief remains to show
that the warrior really cared a great deal more for heaven than he did
for absorption. As to the cause of events, as was said above, it is
Fate. Repeatedly is heard the lament, "Fate (impersonal) is the
highest thing, fie on vain human effort." The knight confesses with
his lips to a belief in the new doctrine of absorption, but at heart
he is a fatalist. And his aim is to die on the field of battle, that
he may go thence directly to the heaven that awaits the good and the
brave.[46] Out of a long description of this heaven a few extracts
here selected will show what the good knight anticipates:
"Upward goes the path that leads to gods; it is inhabited by
them that have sacrificed and have done penance. Unbelieving
persons and untruthful persons do not enter there; only they
that have duteous souls, that have conquered self, and
heroes that bear the marks of battle. There sit the seers
and gods, there are shining, self-illumined worlds, made of
light, resplendent. And in this heaven there is neither
hunger, nor thirst, nor weariness, nor cold, nor heat, nor
fear; nothing that is terrible is there, nothing unclean;
but pleasing sights, and sounds, and smells. There is no
care there, nor age, nor work, nor sorrow. Such is the
heaven that is the reward of good acts. Above this is
Brahm[=a]'s world, where sit the seers and the three and
thirty gods," etc.
Over against this array of advantages stands the one great "fault of
heaven," which is stated almost in the words of "nessun maggior
dolore," "the thought (when one lives again on the lower plane) of
former happiness in the higher life is terrible grief" (vs. 30),
_i.e_., this heaven will pass away at the end of the world-period,
when the Eternal draws all in to himself again (iii. 261); and the
thought that one has been in heaven, while now he is (re-born) on
earth, is a sorrow greater than the joy given by heaven.[47]
One is reminded by the epic description of heaven of that poet of the
Upanishads who describes his heavenly bliss as consisting in the fact
that in that world "there is neither snow nor sorrow." The later
version is only an amplification. Even with the assurance that the
"fault of heaven" is the disappointment of being dropped to earth
again in a new birth, the ordinary mortal is more averse from the
bliss of absorption than from the pleasure of heaven. And in truth,
except to one very weary of his lot in life, it must be confessed that
the religion here shown in all its bearings is one eminently pleasant
to believe. Its gist, in a word, is this: "If you feel able to endure
it, the best thing to do is to study the plan of the universe, and
then conform to it. By severe mental discipline you can attain to this
knowledge, and for reward you will be immortally united with God." To
this the sectarian adds: "Or believe in my god and the result will be
the same." But both philosopher and sectarian continue: "If, however,
you do not want to be united with the Supreme Spirit so soon as this,
then be virtuous and devout, or simply be brave if you are a warrior;
do whatever the rules of morality and caste-custom bid you do, and you
will go to heaven for thousands of ages; at the end of which time you
will be re-born in a fine family on earth, and may again decide
whether to repeat the process of gaining heaven or to join God and
become absorbed into the World-Spirit at once." There were probably
many that chose rather to repeat their agreeable earthly experience,
with an interlude of heaven after each death, than to make the
renunciation of earth and heaven, and be absorbed once for all into
the All-god.
The doctrine of 'the ages'[48] is so necessary to a true understanding
of the rotative immortality offered as a substitute for the higher
bliss of absorption (that is, genuine immortality), that an account of
the teaching in this regard will not be out of place. The somewhat
puzzling distinction between the happy life of them that fail to
desire absorption, and yet are religious men, and the blissful life of
those people that do attain absorption, is at once explained by a
clear understanding of the duration of the time of the gods' own life
and of the divine heaven. Whereas the Greek notion of four ages
includes within the four all time, all the four ages of the Hindu are
only a fraction of time. Starting at any one point of eternity, there
is, according to the Hindu belief, a preliminary 'dawn' of a new cycle
of ages. This dawn lasts four hundred years, and is then followed by
the real age (the first of four), which lasts four thousand years, and
has again a twilight ending of four hundred years in addition. This
first is the Krita age, corresponding to the classical Golden Age. Its
characteristics are, that in it everything is perfect; right eternal
now exists in full power. In this age there are neither gods nor
demons (D[=a]navas, Gandharvas, Yakshas, R[=a]kshas, Serpents),
neither buying nor selling. By a _lucus a non_ the derivation of the
name Krita is _k[r.]tam eva na kartavyam, i.e_., with a pun, it is
called the '_sacred_ age' because there are no _sacrifices_ in that
age. No S[=a]ma Veda, Rig Yeda, or Yajur Veda exist as distinct
Vedas.[49] There is no mortal work. Fruit comes by meditation; the
only duty is renunciation. Disease, lack of mental power, moral
defects (such as pride and hate) do not exist; the highest course of
the ascetic Yogis is universally _brahma (paramakam_). In this age
come into existence the Brahman, Kshatriya, V[=a]içya, Ç[=u]dra,
_i.e_., the distinct castes of priest, warrior, husbandman, and slave;
all with their special marks, and all delighted with their proper
occupations. Yet have all the castes like occupations, like refuge,
practice, and knowledge. They are joined to the one god (_eka deva_),
and have but one _mantra_ in their religious rites. Their duties are
distinct, but they follow only one Veda and one rule. The four orders
(of the time of life) are duly observed; men do not desire the fruit
of their action, and so they obtain the highest course, _i.e_.,
salvation by absorption into _brahma_. In this age the 'three
attributes' (or qualities) are unknown. After this age follows the
dawn of the second age, called Tret[=a], lasting three hundred years,
then the real age of Tret[=a], three thousand years, followed by the
twilight of three hundred years. The characteristics of this age are,
that men are devout; that great sacrifices begin (_sattram
pravartate_); that Virtue decreases by one quarter; that all the
various rites are produced, together with the attainment of salvation
through working for that end, by means of sacrifice and generosity;
that every one does his duty and performs asceticism. The next age,
Dv[=a]para, is introduced by a dawn of two hundred years, being itself
two thousand years in duration, and it closes with a twilight of two
hundred years. Half of Virtue fails to appear in this age, that is,
the general virtue of the world is diminished by a half ('the Bull of
Justice stands on two legs'). The Veda is now subdivided into four.
Instead of every one having one Veda, four Vedas exist, but some
people know only three, or two, or one, or are even Veda-less
(_an[r.]cas_). Ceremonies become manifold, because the treatises on
duty are subdivided(!). The attribute of passion influences people,
and it is with this that they perform asceticism and are generous (not
with disinterestedness). Few (_kaçcit_) are settled in truth;
ignorance of the one Veda causes a multiplication of Vedas (_i.e_., as
Veda means 'knowledge,' the Vedas result from ignorance of the
essential knowledge). Disease and sin make penance necessary. People
sacrifice only to gain heaven. After this age and its twilight
are past begins the Kali, last of the four ages, with a dawn of one
hundred, a course of one thousand, and a subsequent twilight of one
hundred years. This is the present sinful age, when there is no real
religion, when the Vedas are ignored, and the castes are confused,
when _itis_ (distresses of every form) are rife; when Virtue has only
one leg left to stand upon. The believer in Krishna as Vishnu, besides
this universal description, says that the Supreme Lord in the Krita
age is 'white' (pure); in the Tret[=a] age, 'red'; in the Dv[=a]para
age, 'yellow'; in the Kali age, 'black, _i.e_., Vishnu is Krishna,
which means 'black.'[50] This cycle of ages always repeats itself
anew. Now, since the twelve thousand years of these ages, with their
dawns and twilights, are but one of countless cycles, when the Kali
age and its twilight have brought all things into a miserable state,
the universe is re-absorbed into the Supreme Spirit. There is then a
universal (apparent) destruction, _pralaya_, of everything, first by
fire and then by a general flood. Seven suns appear in heaven, and
what they fail to burn is consumed by the great fire called Samvartaka
(really a manifestation of Vishnu), which sweeps the world and leaves
only ashes; then follows a flood which completes the annihilation.
Thereafter follows a period equal to one thousand cycles (of twelve
thousand years each), which is called 'Brahm[=a]'s night,' for during
these twelve million years Brahm[=a] sleeps; and the new Krita age
begins again "when Brahm[=a] wakes up" (iii. 188. 29, 69; 189.
42).[51] All the gods are destroyed in the universal destruction, that
is, re-absorbed into the All-god, for there is no such thing as
annihilation, either of spirit or of matter (which is illusion).
Consequently the gods' heaven and the spirits of good men in that
heaven are also re-absorbed into that Supreme, to be re-born in the
new age. This is what is meant by the constant harping on
quasi-immortality. Righteousness, sacrifice, bravery, will bring man
to heaven, but, though he joins the gods, with them he is destroyed.
They and he, after millions of years, will be re-born in the new
heaven and the new earth. To escape this eventual re-birth one must
desire absorption into the Supreme, not annihilation, but unity with
God, so that one remains untouched by the new order at the end of
Brahm[=a]'s 'day.' There are, of course, not lacking views of them
that, taking the precept grossly, give a less dignified appearance to
the teaching, and, in fact, upset its real intent. Thus, in the very
same Puranic passage from which is taken the description above (III.
188), it is said that a seer, who miraculously outlived the universal
destruction of one cycle, was kindly swallowed by Vishnu, and that, on
entering his stomach (the absorption idea in Puranic coarseness), he
saw everything which had been destroyed, mountains, rivers, cities,
the four castes engaged in their duties, etc. In other words, only
transference of locality has taken place. But this account reads
almost like a satire.
One of the most striking features of the Hindu religions, as they have
been traced thus far, is the identification of right with light, and
wrong with darkness. We have referred to it several times already. In
the Vedic age the deities are luminous, while the demons and the abode
of the wicked generally are of darkness. This view, usually considered
Iranian and Zoroastrian, is as radically, if not so emphatically,
Indic. It might be said, indeed, that it is more deeply implanted in
the worship of the Hindus than in that of the Iranians, inasmuch as
the latter religion enunciates and promulgates the doctrine, while the
former assumes it. All deeds of sin are deeds of darkness, _tamas_.
The devils live underground in darkness; the hells are below earth and
are gloom lighted only by torture-flames.
The development of devil-worship (the side-scenes in the theatre of
Çivaism) introduces devils of another sort, but the general effect
remains. The fire-priest Bhrigu says: "Untruth is a form of darkness,
and by darkness one is brought to hell (downwards); veiled in darkness
one sees not the light. Light is heaven, they say, and darkness is
hell," xii. 190. 2-3. This antithesis of evil as darkness, good as
light, is too native to India to admit of the suggestion that it might
have been borrowed. But an isolated and curious Puranic chapter of the
epic appears to have direct reference to the Persian religion. All
Hindu gods have sacrifices, even Çiva the 'destroyer of sacrifice.'
Now in iii. 220, after a preliminary account of the _p[a]ñcajanya_
fire (vs. 5 ff.) there is given a list of 'gods that destroy
sacrifice,' _dev[=a]s yajñamu[s.]as,_ fifteen in number, who 'stand
here' on earth and 'steal' the sacrifice. They extend over the five
peoples in three divisions of five each. The first and third group
contain names compounded with Bh[=i]ma and S[=u]ra respectively; while
the third group is that of Sumitra, Mitravan, Mitrajña, Mitravardhana,
Mitradharman. There are others without the _mitra_ (vs. 10). The
appellation _dev[=a]s_ seems to take them out of connection with
Çiva's demoniac troops, and the persistency of _mitra_ would look as
if these 'gods' were of Iranian origin. There may have been (as are
possibly the modern S[=a]uras) believers in the Persian religion
already long established among the Hindus.
The question will naturally present itself whether in the religious
_olla podrida_ known as the Mah[=a]bh[=a]rata there are distinct
allusions to Buddhism, and, if so, in how far the doctrines of this
sect may have influenced the orthodox religion. Buddhism does not
appear to have attacked or to have attracted the 'holy land,' whence,
indeed, according to law, heretics are 'banished.' But its influence
of course must have embraced this country, and it is only a question
of in how far epic Brahmanism has accepted it. At a later period
Hinduism, as has been observed, calmly accepts Buddha as an _avatar_
of Vishnu. Holtzmann, who is inclined to attribute a good deal to
Buddhism, sees signs of it even in the personal characteristics of the
epic heroes, and believes the whole poem to have been more or less
affected by anti-Buddhistic feeling. If this were so one would have to
give over to Buddhism much also of the humanitarianism to be found in
the moral precepts that are so thickly strewn through the various
books. In our opinion these signs-manual of Buddhism are not
sufficiently evident to support Holtzmann's opinion for the whole
poem, and it is to be noted that the most taking evidence is drawn
from the latest parts of the work. It is just here that we think it
necessary to draw the line, for while much of late date has been added
in earlier books, yet in the books which one may call wholly late
additions appear the strongest indications of Buddhistic
influence.[52] A great deal of the Book of Peace is Puranic, the book
as a whole is a Vishnuite addition further enlarged by Çivaite
interpolation. The following book is, again, an offset to the Book of
Peace, and is as distinctly Çivaite in its conception as is the Book
of Peace Vishnuite.[53] It is here, in these latest additions, which
scarcely deserve to be ranked with the real epic, that are found the
most palpable touches of Buddhism. They stand to the epic proper as
stands to them the Genealogy of Vishnu, a further addition which has
almost as much claim to be called 'part of the epic' as have the books
just mentioned, only that it is more evidently the product of a later
age, and represents the Krishna-Vishnu sect in its glory after the
epic was completed. Nevertheless, even in these books much that is
suspected of being Buddhistic may be Brahmanic; and in any concrete
case a decision, one way or the other, is scarcely to be made on
objective grounds. Still more is this the case in earlier books. Thus,
for instance, Holtzmann is sure that a conversation of a slave and a
priest in the third book is Buddhistic because the man of low caste
would not venture to instruct a Brahman.[54] But it is a command
emphasized throughout the later Brahmanism that one must take refuge
in the ship that saves; and in passages not suspected of Buddhistic
tendency Bh[=i]shma takes up this point, and lays down the rule that,
no matter to which caste a man belongs, his teaching if salutary is to
be accepted. It is even said in one passage of the Book of Peace that
one ought to learn of a slave, and in another that all the four castes
ought to hear the Veda read:[55] "Let him get instruction even from a
Ç[=u]dra if he can thereby attain to salvation"; and again: "Putting
the Brahman first, let the four castes hear (the Veda); for this
(giving first place to the priest) is (the rule in) reading the
Veda."[56] And in many places are found instructions given by
low-caste men. It may be claimed that every case which resembles
Buddhistic teaching is drawn from Buddhism, but this would be to claim
more than could be established. Moreover, just as the non-injury
doctrine is prior to Buddhism and yet is a mark of Buddhistic
teaching, so between the two religions there are many points of
similarity which may be admitted without compromising the genuineness
of the Brahmanic teaching. For Buddhism in its morality is anything
but original.[57]
Another bit of instruction from the Book of Peace illustrates the
attitude of the slave just referred to. In sharp contrast to what one
would expect from a Buddhist, this slave, who is a hunter, claims that
he is justified in keeping on with his murderous occupation because it
is his caste-occupation; whereas, as a Buddhist he ought to have
renounced it if he thought it sinful, without regard to the
caste-rule. The Book of Peace lays it down as a rule that the giving
up of caste-occupation is meritorious if the occupation in itself is
iniquitous, but it hedges on the question to the extent of saying
that, no matter whether the occupation be sinful or not, if it is an
inherited occupation a man does not do wrong to adhere to it. This is
liberal Brahmanism. The rule reads as follows: "Actors,
liquor-dealers, butchers, and other such sinners are not justified in
following such occupations, _if they are not born to the profession
(i.e_., if they are born to it they are justified in following their
inherited occupation). Yet if one has inherited such a profession it
is a noble thing to renounce it."[58]
The marks of Buddhistic influence on which we would lay greater stress
are found not in the fact that Mudgala refuses heaven (iii. 261. 43),
or other incidents that may be due as well to Brahmanism as to
Buddhism, but in such passages of the pseudo-epical Book of Peace as
for example the _dharmyas panth[=a]s_ of xii. 322. 10-13; the
conversation of the female beggar, _bhikshuk[=i]_, with the king in
321. 7, 168; the _buddha_ of 289. 45; the Buddhistic phraseology of
167. 46; the remark of the harlot Pingal[=a] in 174. 60:
_pratibuddh[=a] 'smi j[=a]g[r.]mi_ (I am 'awakened' to a sense of sin
and knowledge of holiness), and the like phrase in 177. 22:
_pratibuddho 'smi_.[59] Of especial importance is the shibboleth
Nirv[=a]na which is often used in the epic. There seems, indeed, to be
a subtile connection between Çivaism and Buddhism. Buddhism rejects
pantheism, Çivaism is essentially monotheism. Both were really
religions of the lower classes. It is true that the latter was
affected and practiced by those of high rank, but its strength lay
with the masses. Thus while Vishnuism appealed to the contemplative
and philosophical (R[=a]maism), as well as to the easy-going middle
classes (Krishinaism), Çivaism with its dirty asceticism, its orgies
and Bacchanalian revels, its devils and horrors generally, although
combined with a more ancient philosophy, appealed chiefly to the
magic-monger and the vulgar. So it is that one finds, as one of his
titles in the thirteenth book, that Çiva is 'the giver of Nirv[=a]na,'
(xiii. 16. 15). But if one examines the use of this word in other
parts of the epic he will see that it has not the true Buddhistic
sense except in its literal physical application as when the
_nirv[=a][n.]a_ (extinguishing) of a lamp, iv. 22. 22, is spoken of;
or the _nirv[=a][n.]a_ of duties (in the Pañcar[=a]tra 'Upanishad,'
xii. 340. 67). On the other hand, in sections where the context shows
that this must be the case, Nirv[=a]na is the equivalent of 'highest
bliss' or 'highest _brahma_,' the same with the felicity thus named in
older works. This, for instance, is the case in xii. 21. 17; 26. 16,
where Nirv[=a]na cannot mean extinction but absorption, _i.e_., the
'blowing out' of the individual flame (spirit) of life, only that it
may become one with the universal spirit. In another passage it is
directly equated with _sukham brahma_ in the same way (_ib_. 189. 17).
If now one turn to the employment of this word in the third book he
will find the case to be the same. When the king reproaches his queen
for her atheistic opinions in iii. 31. 26 he says that if there were
no reward for good deeds hereafter "people would not seek Nirv[=a]na,"
just as he speaks of heaven ('immortality') and hell, _ib_. 20 and 19,
not meaning thereby extinction but absorption. So after a description
of that third heaven wherein is Vishnu, when one reads that Mudgala
"attained that highest eternal bliss the sign of which is Nirv[=a]na"
(iii. 261. 47), he can only suppose that the word means here
absorption into _brahma_ or union with Vishnu. In fact Nirv[=a]na is
already a word of which the sense has been subjected to attrition
enough to make it synonymous with 'bliss.' Thus "the gods attained
Nirv[=a]na by means of Vishnu's greatness" (iii. 201. 22); and a
thirsty man "after drinking water attained Nirv[=a]na," _i.e_., the
drink made him happy (_ib_. 126. 16). One may best compare the Jain
Nirv[=a]na of happiness.
While, therefore, Buddhism seems to have left many manifest traces[60]
in the later epic the weight of its influence on the early epic may
well be questioned. The moral harangues of the earlier books show
nothing more than is consistent with that Brahmanism which has made
its way unaided through the greater humanitarianism of the earlier
Upanishads. At the same time it is right to say that since the poem is
composed after Buddha's time there is no historical certainty in
regard to the inner connection of belief and morality (as expounded in
the epic) with Buddhism. Buddhism, though at a distance, environed
epic Brahmanism, and may well have influenced it. The objective proofs
for or against this are not, however, decisive.
Whether Christianity has affected the epic is another question that
can be answered (and then doubtfully) only by drawing a line between
epic and pseudo-epic. And in this regard the Harivança legends of
Krishna are to be grouped with the pseudo-epic, of which they are the
legitimate if late continuation. Again one must separate teaching from
legend. To the Divine Song belong sentiments and phrases that have
been ascribed to Christian influence. Definitive assurance in this
regard is an impossibility. When Vishnu says (as is said also in the
Upanishads) "I am the letter A," one may, and probably will, decide
that this is or is not an imitation of "I am alpha," strictly in
accordance with his preconceived opinions. There are absolutely no
historical data to go upon. One may say with tolerable certainty that
the Divine Song as a whole is antique, prior to Christianity. But it
is as unmistakably interpolated and altered. The doctrine of _bhakti_,
faithful love as a means of salvation, cannot be much older than the
Song, for it is found only in the latest Upanishads (as shown by
comparing them with those undoubtedly old). But on the other hand the
_pras[=a]da_ doctrine (of special grace) belongs to a much earlier
literature, and there is no reason why the whole theory with its
startling resemblance to the doctrine of grace, and its insistence on
personal affection for the Lord should not have been self-evolved. The
old omnipotence of inherited knowledge stops with the Upanishads, To
their authors the Vedas are but a means. They desired wisdom, not
knowledge. They postulated the desire for the Supreme Spirit as the
true wisdom. From this it is but a step to yearning and love for the
Supreme. That step is made in the Divine Song. It is recognized by
early Buddhism as a Brahmanic trait. Is it necessarily imported from
Christianity? The proof is certainly lacking. Nor, to one accustomed
to the middle literature of Hindu religion, is the phraseology so
strikingly unique as would appear to be the case. Taken all in all,
the teaching of Christianity certainly may be suspected, but it cannot
be shown to exist in the Divine Song.
Quite different is the case with the miraculous matter that grew up
about the infant Krishna. But here one is out of the epic and dealing
with the latest literature in regard to the man-god. This distinction
cannot be too much insisted upon, for to point first to the teaching
of the Divine Song and then to the Krishna legends as equally
reflecting Christianity is to mix up two periods as distinct as
periods can be established in Hindu literature. And the result of the
whole investigation shows that the proofs of borrowing are as
different as these
periods. The inner Christianity thought to be copied by the re-writer
of the Divine Song is doubtful in the last degree. The outer
Christianity reflected in the Puranic legends of Krishna is as
palpable as it is shocking. Shocking, for here not only are miracles
treated grotesquely, but everything that is meant spiritually in the
Occident is interpreted physically and carnally. The love of the
Bridegroom is sensual; the brides of God are drunken dancing girls.
The 'coincidences,' as some scholars marvellously regard them, between
the legends of Christ and Krishna are too extraordinary to be accepted
as such. They are direct importations, not accidental coincidences.
Whatever is most marvellous in the accounts of Christianity finds
itself here reproduced in Krishnaism. It is not in the doctrine of
_avatars_, which resembles the doctrine of the Incarnation,[61] it is
in the totality of legends connected with Krishna that one is forced
to see Christian influence. The scenes of the nativity, the adoration
of the magi, the miracles during the Saviour's childhood, the
transfiguration, and other stories of Christ are reproduced with
astonishing similarity. One may add to this the Christmas festival,
where Krishna is born in a stable, and the use of certain
church-utensils in the temple-service. Weber has proved by collecting
and explaining these 'coincidences,'[62] that there must be identity
of origin. It remains only to ask from which side is the borrowing?
Considering how late are these Krishna legends in India[63] there can
be no doubt that the
Hindu borrowed the tales, but not the name; for the last assumption is
quite improbable because Krishna (=Christ?) is native enough, and
Vishnu is as old as the Rig Veda. That these tales are of secondary
importance, as they are of late origin, is a matter of course. They
are excrescences upon real Vishnuism (Krishnaism) and the result of
anthropomorphizing in its fullest extent the image of the man-god, who
is represented in the epic as the incarnation of the Supreme Spirit.
The doctrine of the incarnation is thoroughly Indic. It is Buddhistic
as well as Brahmanic, and precedes Vishnuism as it does Christianity.
The legends are another matter. Here one has to assume direct contact
with the Occident.[64] But while agreeing with Weber and disagreeing
with Barth in the determination of the relation of this secondary
matter, we are unable to agree with Weber in his conclusions in regard
to the one passage in the pseudo-epic that is supposed by him[65] to
refer to a visit to a Christian church in Alexandria. This is the
famous episode of the White Island, which, to be sure, occurs in so
late a portion of the Book of Peace (xii. 337. 20 ff) that it might
well be what Weber describes it as being. But to us it appears to
contain no allusion at all to Christianity. The account in brief is as
follows: Three priests with the insignificant names "First, Second,
Third,"[66] go to the far North (_diç uttar[=a]_) where, in the "Sea
of Milk," they find an Albion called 'White Island,' perhaps regarded
as one of the seven or thirteen 'islands,' of which earth consists;
and there Vishnu is worshipped as the one god by white men of
extraordinary physical characteristics.
The fact that the 'one god' is already a hackneyed phrase of
philosophy; that there is no resemblance to a trinitarian god; that
the hymn sung to this one god contains no trace of Christian
influence, but is on the other hand thoroughly native in tone and
phraseology, being as follows: "Victory to thee, thou god with
lotus-eyes; Reverence to thee, thou creator of all things; Reverence
be to thee, O Vishnu;[67] thou Great Person; first-born one"; all
these facts indicate that if the White-islanders are indeed to be
regarded as foreigners worshipping a strange god, that god is strictly
monotheistic and not trinitarian. Weber lays stress on the expression
'first-born,' which he thinks refers to Christ; but the epithet is old
(Vedic), and is common, and means no more than 'primal deity.'
There is much that appears to be foreign in the epic. This passage
seems rather to be a recollection of some shrine where monotheism
without Christianity was acknowledged. On the other hand, even in the
pseudo-epic, there is much apparently borrowed which yet is altogether
native to Brahmanic land and sect. It is not in any passage which is
proved to be of foreign origin that one reads of the boy of twelve
years who entered among the wise men and confuted their reasoning
(above, p. 382). It is not of course due to Christian influence that
the great 'saint of the stake' is taken by the 'king's men,' is
crucified (or literally impaled) among thieves, and lives so long that
the guard go and tell the king of the miracle;[68] nor is it necessary
to assume that everything elevated is borrowed. "When I revile, I
revile not again," sounds indeed like an echo of Christian teaching,
but how thoroughly Hindu is the reason. "For I know that self-control
is the door of immortality." And in the same breath, with a connection
of meaning patent only when one regards the whole not as borrowed but
as native, follow the words that we have ventured to put upon the
title-page of this volume, as the highest and at the same time the
truest expression of a religion that in bringing the gods to men
raised man to equally with God--"This is a holy mystery which I
declare unto you: There is nothing nobler than humanity."[69]
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: He appears in different complete
manifestations, while Vishnu appears only in part, as a
'descent,' _avatar, i.e_., Vishnu is incarnate, Çiva appears
whole.]
[Footnote 2: The original story perhaps antedates the
Brahmanic Brahm[=a]. But, for all one knows, when the poem
was first written Brahm[=a] was already decadent as chief
god. In that case two strata of religious belief have been
formally super-imposed, Vishnuism and Çivaism.]
[Footnote 3: While agreeing with Telang that the original
G[=i]t[=a] is an old poem, we cannot subscribe to his
argument (SBE. VIII. p. 19) that the priority of the
S[=a]man over the Rig Veda is evidence of antiquity; still
less to the argument, p. 21, from the castes.]
[Footnote 4: Compare Manu, i. 7: "He the subtile,
indiscernible, eternal, inconceivable One, who makes all
creatures."]
[Footnote 5: Possibly the original opening of another poem.]
[Footnote 6: The _avatars_ of Vishnu are meant. The very
knight to whom he speaks is later regarded (in South India)
as incarnate god, and today is worshipped as an _avatar_ of
Vishnu. The idea of the 'birth-stories' of the Buddhists is
thought by some scholars to have been connected historically
with the _avatars_ of Vishnu.]
[Footnote 7: This is one of the notes struck in the later
Upanishads, the doctrine of 'special grace,' originating
perhaps still earlier in the V[=a]c hymn (see above).]
[Footnote 8: That is, one that also has no desires may act
(without desiring the fruit of action.)]
[Footnote 9: This is a S[=a]nkhya division.]
[Footnote 10: This cleverly contrived or profound
universality of Vishnuism is one of the greatest obstacles
to missionary effort. The Vishnuite will accept Christ, but
as a form of Vishnu, as here explained. Compare below: "Even
they that sacrifice to other gods really sacrifice to Me."]
[Footnote 11: Prakriti (_prak[r.]t[=i]_), nature; the term
belongs to the S[=a]nkhya philosophy, which recognizes
nature as distinct from spirit, a duality, opposed to
_adv[=a]ita_, the non-duality of the Ved[=a]nta system,
where the S[=a]nkhya 'nature' is represented by
_m[=a]y[=a]_, 'illusion.' Otherwise the word Prakrit is the
'natural,' vulgar dialect, opposed to Sanskrit, the refined,
'put-together' language.]
[Footnote 12: Saints, literally 'the successful ones.']
[Footnote 13: Alluding to the later derivation of Yama from
_yam_, control.]
[Footnote 14: "The letter A," as in the Upanishads (see
above, p. 226).]
[Footnote 15: Compare a parallel list of diadochoi in xii.
349. 51.]
[Footnote 16: One of the Jaina traits of the epic,
_brahm[=a]di[s.]u t[r.]u[=a]nte[s.]u bh[=u]te[s.]u
parivartate_, in distinction from the Buddhistic
metempsychosis, which stops short of plants. But perhaps it
is rather borrowed from the B[.r]ahman by the Jain, for
there is a formal acknowledgment that _sth[=a]var[=a]s_
'stationary things,' have part in metempsychosis, Manu, xii.
42, although in the distribution that follows this is almost
ignored (vs. 58).]
[Footnote 17: It is rather difficult to compress the list
into this number. Some of the names are perhaps later
additions.]
[Footnote 18: In contrast one may note the frequent boast
that a king 'fears not even the gods,' _e.g._, i. 199. 1.]
[Footnote 19: Later there are twenty-one worlds analogous lo
the twenty-one hells.]
[Footnote 20: Elsewhere, oh the other hand, the islands are
four or seven, the earlier view.]
[Footnote 21: iii. 142. The boar-shape of Vishnu is a
favorite one, as is the dwarf-incarnation. Compare
V[=a]mana, V[=a]manaka, Vishnupada, in the list of holy
watering-places (iii. 83). Many of Vishnu's acts are simply
transferred from Brahm[=a], to whom they belonged in older
tales. Compare above, p.215.]
[Footnote 22: In i. 197, Praj[=a]pati the Father-god, is the
highest god, to whom Indra, as usual, runs for help. Çiva
appears as a higher god, and drives Indra into a hole, where
he sees five former Indras; and finally Vishnu comes on to
the stage as the highest of all, "the infinite,
inconceivable, eternal, the All in endless forms." Brahm[=a]
is invoked now and then in a perfunctory way, but no one
really expects him to do anything. He has done his work,
made the castes, the sacrifice, and (occasionally)
everything. And he will do this again when the new aeon
begins. But for this aeon his work is accomplished.]
[Footnote 23: Thus in XII. 785. 165: "Neither Brahm[=a] nor
Vishnu is capable of understanding the greatness of Çiva."]
[Footnote 24: Or "three eyes."]
[Footnote 25: Compare III. 39. 77: "The destroyer of
Daksha's sacrifice." Compare the same epithet in the hymn to
Çiva, X. 7. 3, after which appear the devils who serve Çiva.
Such devils, in the following, feast on the dead upon the
field of battle, though, when left to themselves, 'midnight
is the hour when the demons swarm,' III. 11. 4 and 33. In X.
18 and XIII. 161 Çiva's act is described in full.]
[Footnote 26: Çiva, called Bhava, Çarva, the trident-holder,
the Lord ([=I]ç[=a]na), Çankara, the Great God, etc.,
generally appears at his best where the epic is at its
worst, the interpolations being more flagrant than in the
case of Vishnuite eulogies. The most devout worshipper of
Vishnu is represented as an adherent of Çiva, as invoking
him for help after fighting with him. He is "invincible
before the three worlds." He is the sun; his blood is ashes.
All the gods, with Brahm[=a] at their head, revere him. He
has three heads, three faces, six arms (compare iii. 39. 74
ff.; 83. 125); though other passages give him more.]
[Footnote 27: Çiva has as sign the bull: Vishnu, the boar.]
[Footnote 28: ZDMG. xxxviii. pp. 197, 200.]
[Footnote 29: _Lit. u. Cultur_, p. 461.]
[Footnote 30: Holtzmann now says (in _Neunzehn Bücher_, p.
198) that the whole episode which terminates with Baladeva's
visit an addition to the original. Holtzmann's monograph on
Brahm[=a] is in ZDMG. xxxviii. 167.]
[Footnote 31: A good example is that of the two visions of
Arjuna, first the vision of Vishnu, then another vision of
Çiva, whom Arjuna and Vishnu visit (vii. 80).]
[Footnote 32: Çankara and Çiva mean almost the same; 'giver
of blessings' and 'prospering' (or 'kindly'), respectively.]
[Footnote 33: _Brahma[n.]as sumahotsavas_ (compare the
commentator). The _sam[=a]ja_ of Brahm[=a] may be explained
by that of Çiva mentioned in the same place and described
elsewhere (iv. 13. 14 ff.; i. 164. 20).]
[Footnote 34: Not _sleeping_, Vishnu, despite _svapimi_,
does not slumber; he only muses.]
[Footnote 35: Man (divine) and god human, but N[=a]r[=a]yana
is a new name of Vishnu, and the two are reckoned as two
inseparable seers (divinities).]
[Footnote 36: This is the only really trinitarian passage in
the epic. In i. 1. 32; xiii. 16. 15, the belief may be
indicated, but not certainly, as it is in Hariv. 10,662. See
on this point Holtzroann, ZDMG. xxxviii. p. 204. In xiv. 54.
14 the form is V[=i]shnu, Brahm[=a], Indra.]
[Footnote 37: Compare 339. 114, "thou art
_pañcamah[=a]kalpa_." The commentator gives the names of
five sects, S[=a]ura, Ç[=a]kta, G[=a]neça, Ç[=a]iva,
Vaishnava. The 'five times,' implied in Pañcak[=a]ta, he
says are day, night, month, seasons, and year (_ib_. 66). In
340. 117 (which chapter is Pancar[=a]tric), Brahm[=a] "knows
that Vishnu is superior."]
[Footnote 38: V[=a]j. S. xvi. 1-66; T[=a]itt. S. iv. 5.
1-11.]
[Footnote 39: Çiva has no ordinary sacrifice: he is (as
above) in general a destroyer of sacrifice, _i.e_., of Vedic
sacrifice; but as Paçupati, "Lord of beasts," he claims the
bloody sacrifice of the first beast, man.]
[Footnote 40: The usual opinion is that phallic worship was
a trait of southern tribes foisted upon northern Çivaism.
Philosophically Çivaism is first monotheistic and then
pantheistic, To-day it is nominally pantheistic but really
it is dualistic.]
[Footnote 41: There are indications in this passage of some
sectarian feeling, and the fear of partisan warfare (229);
in regard to which we add from Muir and Holtzmann the
passage XII. 343. 121, where is symbolized a peaceful issue
of war between Vishnuism and Çivaism.]
[Footnote 42: Grahas are also planets, but in this cult they
are not astrological, as show their names.]
[Footnote 43: They are possibly old, as Weber thinks, but
they seem to have nothing in common with the ancient female
divinities.]
[Footnote 44: Compare another hymn to Durg[=a] in IV. 6. 5
ff. (late). Durgi was probably an independent local deity,
subsequently regarded as Çiva's female side. She plays a
great rôle, under various names, in the 'revived'
literature, as do the love-god and Ganeça. In both hymns she
is 'Vishnu's sister,' and in IV. 6 a 'pure virgin.']
[Footnote 45: One comparatively new god deserves a passing
mention, Dharma's son, K[=a]ma, the (Grecian?) love-god,
'the mind-shaker,' 'the limbless one,' whose arrows are like
those of Cupid (I. 66. 32; 171. 34; III. 46. 2). He is an
adventitious addition to the epic. His later name of Ananga
occurs in XII. 59. 91. In I. 71. 41 and 171. 40 he is
Manmatha. The Atharvan god also has darts, III. 25, a mark
of this latest Veda.]
[Footnote 46: Compare ii. 22. 18: "Great holiness, great
glory, penance, death in battle, these are each respectively
productive of heaven; the last alone is a sure cause."]
[Footnote 47: This description and the sentiments are quite
late. The same sort of heaven (without the philosophical
bitterness, with which compare above, p. 229) is, however,
found in other passages, somewhat augmented with nymphs and
facile goddesses.]
[Footnote 48: This doctrine is supposed by some scholars to
be due to outside influence, but the doubt is not
substantiated, and even in the Rig Veda one passage appears
to refer to it. Doubtless, however, the later expanded view,
with its complicated reckonings, may have been touched by
foreign influence.]
[Footnote 49: _Na [=a]san s[=a]ma-[r.]g-yajur-varn[=a]s_. In
xii. 342. 8 the order is Rik-Yajus-Atharvan-S[=a]man. The
habit of putting S[=a]man instead of Rik at the head of the
Vedas is still kept in the late litany to Çiva, who is "the
S[=a]man among the Vedas" meaning, of course, the first and
best. In the same place, "Çiva is the Itih[=a]sa" epic
(xiii. 14. 323; and _ib_. 17. 78, 91), for the epic
outweighs all the Vedas in its own estimation.]
[Footnote 50: iii. 149. 14; 188. 22; 189. 32; probably with
a recollection of the colors of the four castes, white, red,
yellow, black. According to xii. 233. 32, there is no
sacrifice in the Krita age, but, beginning with the Tret[=a]
age, there is a general diffusion of sacrifice in the
Dv[=a]para age. In another passage of the same book it is
said that marriage laws arose in the Dv[=a]para age (207. 38
ff.).]
[Footnote 51: The teaching varies somewhat in the allotment
of years. See Manu, I. 67.]
[Footnote 52: Weber thinks, on the other hand, that the
parties represent respectively, Çiva and Vishuu worship,
_Ind. St_. i. 206.]
[Footnote 53: This book also is closely in touch with the
later Pur[=a]nas. For instance, Citragupta, Yama's
secretary, is known only to the books of the pseudo-epic,
the Vishnu Pur[=a]na, the Padma Pur[=a]na, etc.]
[Footnote 54: _Neunzehn Bücher_, p. 86.]
[Footnote 55: The epic does not care much for castes in some
passages. In one such it is said that members of all castes
become priests when they go across the Gomal, iii. 84. 48.]
[Footnote 56: xii. 319. 87 ff. _(pr[=a]pya j[=n][=a]nam_ ...
_ç[=u]dr[=a]d api_); xii. 328. 49 (_çr[=a]vayee caturo
var[n.][=a]n_). The epic regards itself as more than
equivalent (_adhikam)_ to the four Vedas, i. 1. 272.]
[Footnote 57: Some ascribe the _sams[=a]ra_ doctrine to
Buddhistic influence--a thesis supported only by the fact
that this occurs in late Brahmanic passages and Upanishads.
But the assumption that Upanishads do not precede Buddha is
scarcely tenable. The Katha, according to Weber (_Sits.
Berl. Ak._ 1890, p. 930), is late (Christian!): according to
Oldenberg and Whitney, early (_Buddha_, p. 56; _Proc. AOS._
May, 1886).]
[Footnote 58: xii. 295. 5-6.]
[Footnote 59: Noteworthy is the fact that parts of the
Çivaite thirteenth book seem to be most Buddhistic (ch. i.;
143. 48, etc.), and monotheistic (16. 12 ff.): though the
White Islanders are made Vishnuite in the twelfth. Compare
Holtzmann, _ad. loc_.]
[Footnote 60: Nirv[=a]na, loosely used; termini technici;
possibly the evils of the fourth age; the mention of
(Buddhist) temples, etc.]
[Footnote 61: On this point we agree neither with Weber, who
regards the _avatars_ as an imitation of the Incarnation
(_Ind. St._ ii. p. 169), nor with Schroeder, who (_Literatur
und Cultur_, p. 330) would derive the notion from the
birth-stories of Buddha. In our opinion the _avatar_-theory
is older than either and is often only an assimilation of
outlying totem-gods to the Brahman's god, or as in the case
of the flood-story the necessary belief that the 'fish' must
have been the god of the race. Some of these _avatars_ are
Brahmanic, presumably pre-Buddhistic.]
[Footnote 62: Krishna's Geburtsfest (_janm[=a][s.]tam[=i]),_
1867.]
[Footnote 63: Since they do not appear till after the real
epic we date them tentatively as arising after 600 A.D. Most
of them are in still later Pur[=a]nas.]
[Footnote 64: Incidental rapport with the Greeks has been
pointed out in other instances; the _surang[=a]_, a mine, of
the late tale in i. 148. 12, etc (_Ind. St._ ii. p. 395),
has been equated with syrinx; Skanda with Alexander, etc. It
is needless to say that each of these is only a guess in
etymology. But Greek influence is perceptible in the Greek
soldiers and names of (Greek) kings that are found in the
epic.]
[Footnote 65: _Ind. St._ i. 423; ii. 169. Weber believes
that little is native to India which resembles Christianity
in the way of theology; lore of God, special grace,
monotheism, all to him are stolen. We regret that we must
disagree with him in these instances.]
[Footnote 66: Ekata, Dvita, Trita. A Dvita appears as early
as the Rig Veda. Ekata is an analogous formation and is old
also.]
[Footnote 67: Hrish[=i]keça is 'lord of senses,' a common
epithet of Vishnu (Krishna).]
[Footnote 68: i. 107. 1 ff. The spirits of the dead come to
him and comfort him in the shape of birds--an old trait,
compare B[=a]udh. Dh. Ç[=a]st. ii. 8. 14. 10; Çat. Br. vi.
1. 1. 2.]
[Footnote 69: xii. 300. 20.]
* * * * *
CHAPTER XVI.
THE PUR[=A]NAS.--EARLY SECTS, FESTIVALS, THE TRINITY.
Archaeologia, 'ancient lore,' is the meaning of Pur[=a]na
_(pur[=a]na_, 'old'). The religious period represented by the extant
writings of this class is that which immediately follows the
completion of the epic.[1] These works, although they contain no real
history, yet reflect history very plainly, and since the advent and
initial progress of Puranic Hinduism, with its various cults, is
contemporary with important political changes, it will be necessary
briefly to consider the circumstances in which arose these new creeds,
for they were destined to become in the future the controlling force
in the development of Hindu religion.
In speaking of the extension of Buddhism we showed that its growth was
influenced in no small degree by the fact that this caste-less and,
therefore, democratic religion was adopted by post-Alexandrine rulers
in the Graeco-Bactrian period. At this time the Aryans were surrounded
with foreigners and pagans. To North and South spread savage or half
Hinduized native tribes, while soldiers of Greece and Bactria encamped
in the valley of the Ganges. Barbarians had long been active in the
North, and some scholars have even claimed that Buddha's own family
was of Turanian origin. The Brahmans then as now retained their
prestige only as being repositories of ancient wisdom; and outside of
their own 'holy land' their influence was reduced to a minimum by the
social and political tendencies that accompanied the growth of
Buddhism. After the fourth century B.C. the heart of India, the
'middle district,' between the Him[=a]laya and Vindhya mountains from
Delhi to Benares,[2] was trampled upon by one Graeco-Bactrian horde
after another. The principal effect of this rude dominion was
eventually to give political equality to the two great rival
religions. The Buddhist and the Brahman lived at last if not
harmoniously, at least pacifically, side by side. Members of the same
reigning family would profess Buddhism or Brahmanism indifferently.
One king would sometimes patronize both religions. And this continued
to be the case till Buddhism faded out, replaced by that Hinduism
which owed its origin partly to native un-Aryan influence (paganism),
partly to this century-long fusion of the two state religions.
To review these events: In the first decades of the fourth century
(320 or 315-291 B.C.) Candragupta, Sandrocottos, had built up a
monarchy in Beh[=a]r[3] on the ruins left by the Greek invasion,
sharing his power with Seleucus in the Northwest, and had thus
prepared the way for his grandson, Açoka, the great patron of Buddhism
(264 or 259). This native power fell before the hosts of Northern
barbarians, which, after irruptions into India in the second century,
got a permanent foothold there in the first century B.C. These
Northern barbarians (their nationality is uncertain), whose greatest
king was Kanishka, 78 A.D., ruled for centuries the land they had
seized; but they were vanquished at last in the sixth century,
probably by Vikram[=a]ditya,[4] and were driven out. The
breathing-space between Northern barbarian and Mohammedan was
nominally not a long one, but since the first Moslem conquests had no
definitive result the new invaders did not quite overthrow Hindu rule
till the end of the tenth century. During this period the native
un-Aryan tribes, with their Hinduizing effect, were more destructive
as regards the maintenance of the old Brahmanic cult than were
outsiders.[5]
When Tamerlane invaded India his was the fourth invasion after the
conquest of the Punj[=a]b by the Moslem in 664.[6] In 1525 the fifth
conqueror, Baber, fifth too in descent from Tamerlane, founded the
Mogul empire that lasted till the fall of this dynasty (nominally till
1857). But it must be remembered that each new conqueror from 997 till
1525 merely conquered old Mohammedan dynasties with new invasions. It
was all one to the Hindu. He had the Mohammedan with him all this time
only each new rival's success made his lot the harder, But Baber's
grandson, the Great Mogul, Akbar (who reigned from 1556 to 1605), gave
the land not only peace but kindness; and under him Jew, Christian,
Hindu, and Mohammedan at last forgot to fear or fight. After this
there is only the overthrow of the Mohammedan power to record; and the
rise of the Mahratta native kingdoms. A new faith resulted from the
amalgamation of Hinduism with Mohammedism (after 1500), as will be
shown hereafter. [8] In the pauses before the first Mohammedan
invasion, and between the first defeat of the Mohammedans and their
successful second conquest, the barbarians being now expelled and
Buddhism being decadent, Brahmanism rallied. In the sixth century
there was toleration for all faiths. In the seventh century
Kum[=a]rila renewed the strength of Brahmanism on the ritualistic side
with attacks on Buddhism, and in the ninth century Çankara placed the
philosophy of unsectarian pantheism on a firm basis by his commentary
on the Ved[=a]nta S[=u]tra.[7] These two men are the re-makers of
ancient Brahmanism, which from this time on continued in its
stereotyped form, adopting Hindu gods very coyly, and only as spirits
of small importance, while relying on the laws as well as the gods of
old, on holy _[=a]c[=a]ra_ or 'custom,' and the now systematized
exposition of its old (Upanishad) philosophy.[8] Its creative force
was already spent. Buddhism, on the other hand, was dying a natural
death. The time was ripe for Hinduism, which had been gathering
strength for centuries. After the sixth century, and perhaps even as
late as 1500, or later, were written the modern Pur[=a]nas, which
embody the new belief.[9] They cannot, on account of the distinct
advance in their cult, have appeared before the end of the epic age.
The breathing spell (between barbarian and complete Mohammedan
conquest) which gave opportunity to Kum[=a]rila to take a high hand
with Buddhism, was an opportunity also for the codification of the new
creeds. It is, therefore, to this era that one has probably to refer
the first of the modern sectarian Pur[=a]nas, though the ritualistic
Tantras and [=A]gamas of the lower Çivaite sects doubtless belong
rather to the end than to the beginning of the period. We are
strengthened in this belief by the fact that the oldest of these works
do not pretend to antedate Kum[=a]rila's century, though the sects
mentioned in the epic are known in the first centuries of the
Christian era. The time from the first to the seventh centuries one
may accordingly suppose to have been the era during which was
developing the Brahmanized form of the early Hindu sects, the
literature of these and subsequent sects being composed in the
centuries succeeding the latter term. These sects again divide into
many subdivisions, of which we shall speak below. At present we take
up the character of the Pur[=a]nas and their most important points of
difference as compared with the sectarian parts of the earlier
pseudo-epic, examining especially the trinitarian doctrine, which they
inculcate, and its history.
Save in details, even the special 'faith-scriptures' called Tantras go
no further than go the Pur[=a]nas in advocating the cult of their
particular divinities. And to this advocacy of special gods all else
in this class of writings is subordinated. The ideal Pur[=a]na is
divided into five parts, cosmogony, new creations, genealogies of gods
and heroes, _manvantaras_ (descriptions of periodic 'ages,' past and
future), and dynasties of kings. But no extant Pur[=a]na is divided
thus. In the epic the doctrine of trinitarianism is barely formulated.
Even in the Harivança, or Genealogy, _va[.n]ça_, of Vishnu, there is
no more than an inverted triunity, 'one form, three gods,' where, in
reality, all that is insisted upon is the identity of Vishnu and Çiva,
Brahm[=a] being, as it were, perfunctorily added.[10] In the
Pur[=a]nas, on the other hand, while the trinity is acknowledged,
religion is resolved again into a sort of sectarian monotheism, where
the devotee seems to be in the midst of a squabbling horde of
temple-priests, each fighting for his own idol. In the calmer aspects
of religion, apart from sectarian schism, these writings offer,
indeed, much that is of second-rate interest, but little that is of
real value. The idle speculations in regard to former divinities are
here made cobweb thin. The philosophy is not new, nor is the spirit of
religion raised, even in the most inspired passages, to the level
which it has reached in the Divine Song. Some of these Pur[=a]nas, of
which eighteen chief are cited, but with an unknown number of
subordinate works,[11] may claim a respectable age; many of them are
the most wretched stuff imaginable, bearing about the same literary
and historical relation to earlier models as do the later legal
Smritis. In fact, save for their religious (sectarian) purport, the
Pur[=a]nas for sections together do not differ much in content from
legal Smritis, out of which some may have been evolved, though,
probably, they were from their inception legendary rather than
didactic. It is more probable, therefore, that they appropriated
Smriti material just as they did epic material; and though it is now
received opinion that legal Smritis are evolved out of S[=u]tras, this
yet can be the case only with the oldest, even if the statement then
can be accepted in an unqualified form. In our own opinion it is
highly probable that Pur[=a]nas and later legal Smritis are divergent
developments from the same source.[12] One gives an account of
creation, and proceeds to tell about the social side; the other sticks
to the accounts of creation, goes on to theology, takes up tales of
heroes, introduces speculation, is finally wrenched over to and
amplified by sectarian writers, and so presents a composite that
resembles epic and law, and yet is generally religious and
speculative.
A striking instance of this may be seen in the law-book of 'Vishnu.'
Here there is an old base of legal lore, S[=u]tra, interlarded with
Puranic material, and built up with sectarianism. The writer is a
Vishnuite, and while recognizing the trinity, does not hesitate to
make his law command offerings to Krishna V[=a]sudeva, and his family
(Pradyumna, Aniruddha), along with the regular Brahmanic oblations to
older spirits.[13] Brahmanism recognized Hindu deities as subordinate
powers at an early date, at least as early as the end of the S[=u]tra
period; while Manu not only recognizes Vishnu and Çiva (Hara), but
recommends an oblation to Çr[=i] and K[=a]l[=i] (Bhadrak[=a]li, here,
as elsewhere, is Durg[=a]).[14]
In their original form the Pur[=a]nas were probably Hesiodic in a
great extent, and doubtless contained much that was afterwards
specially developed in more prolix form in the epic itself. But the
works that are come down as Pur[=a]nas are in general of later
sectarian character, and the epic language, phraseology, and
descriptions of battles are more likely taken straight from the epic
than preserved from ante-epic times. Properly speaking one ought to
give first place to the Pur[=a]nas that are incorporated into the
epic. The epic M[=a]rkandeya Pur[=a]na, for instance, is probably a
good type of one of the earlier works that went by this name. That the
present Pur[=a]nas are imitations of the epic, in so far as they treat
of epic topics, may be presumed from the fact that although they often
have the formulae intact of the battlefield,[15] yet do they not
remain by epic descriptions but add weapons, etc., of more modern date
than are employed in the original.[16]
The sectarian monotheism of the Pur[=a]nas never resulted in
dispensing with the pantheon. The Hindu monotheist is a pantheist, and
whether sectarian or philosophical, he kept and added to his
pantheon.[17] Indra is still for warriors, Maruts for husbandmen,
although old views shift somewhat. So for example, in the K[=u]rma
Pur[=a]na the Gandharvas are added for the Ç[=u]dras.[18] The
fourfoldness, which we have shown in the epic to be characteristic of
Vishnu, is now represented by the military epithet _caturvy[=u]has_
(agmen quadratum), in that the god represents peace, wisdom, support,
and renunciation; though, as a matter of fact, he is _avy[=u]ha,
i.e_., without any of these.[19] Starting with the physical 'god of
the four quarters,' one gets even in the epic the 'controller of
four,' or perfect person, conceived like [Greek: anêr tetragônos].
Tennyson's 'four-square to all the winds that blow' is a good
connecting link in the thought. The Pur[=a]nas are a mine of legend,
although most of the stories seem to be but epic tales, more or less
distorted. Nala 'the great-great-grandson of R[=a]ma' is described
after the history of R[=a]ma himself; the installation of P[=u]ru,
when his father had passed over his eldest son, and such reminiscences
of the epic are the stock in trade of the legendary writers.[20]
The origin of the four castes;[21] the descriptions of hell,
somewhat embellished,[22] where the 'sinful are cooked in fire';[23] the
exaltation of Vishnu as Krishna or K[=a]ma in one, and that of Çiva in
another--these and similar aspects are reflections of epic matter,
spirit, tone, and language, only the faith is still fiercer in
religious matters, and the stories are fainter in historical
references. According to the Pur[=a]na last cited: "There is no
expiation for one that bows to a phallic emblem," _i.e_., Çivaite, and
"all the B[=a]uddhas are heretics";[24] and according to the K[=u]rma
Pur[=a]na: "Vishnu is the divinity of the gods; Çiva, of the devils,"
although the preceding verses teach, in the spirit of the Divine Song,
that each man's divinity is that which he conceives to be the
divinity. Such is the concluding remark made by Vasistha in
adjudicating the strife between the Vishnuite and Çivaite sectaries of
the epic heroes.[25] The relation that the Puranic literature bears to
religion in the minds of its authors is illustrated by the remark of
the N[=a]rad[=i]ya to the effect that the god is to be honored "by
song, by music, by dance, and by recounting the Pur[=a]nas" (xvii. 9).
Some of the epic religious ceremonies which there are barely alluded
to are here described with almost the detail of a technical handbook.
So the N[=a]nd[=i]ya (xix.) gives an elaborate account of the raising
of a _dhvaja_ or standard as a religious ceremony.[26] The legal rules
affecting morality and especially caste-intercourse[27] show a laxity
in regard to the rules as formerly preached. Even the old Puranic form
of the epic is reproduced, as when M[=a]rkandeya converses again with
Yudhistris, exactly as he does in the epic.[28] The duration of the
ages; the fruit of sacrifices, among which are still mentioned the
_r[=a]jas[=u]ya, açvamedha_, and other ancient rites;[29] the virtue
of holy-places;[30] the admixture of pure pantheism with the idea of a
personal creation[31]--these traits are again just those which have
been seen already in the epic, nor is the addition of sections on
temple-service, or other more minute details of the cult, of
particular importance in a history of religious ideas.
The Pur[=a]nas for our present purpose may all be grouped with the
remark that what is ancient in them is a more or less fugitive
resemblance to the epic style and matter;[32] what is new is the more
pronounced sectarianism with its adventitious growth of subordinate
spiritualities and exaggerated miracles. Thus for instance in the
Var[=a]ha Pur[=a]na there are eleven, in the Bh[=a]gavat Pur[=a]na
twenty (instead of the older ten) _avatars_ of Vishnu. So too the god
of love--although K[=a]ma and his dart are recognized in the late
Atharvan--as a petty spirit receives homage only in the latest
S[=u]tra (as Cupid, [=A]pastamba, ii, 2. 4. 1), and in late additions
to the epic he is a little god; whereas in the drama he is prominent,
and in the Pur[=a]nas his cult is described at length (though to-day
he has no temple). The 'mother'-fiend P[=u]tan[=a], who suckles babes
to slay them, is scarcely known to the early epic, but she is a very
real personality in the late epic and Pur[=a]nas.
The addition to the trinity of the peculiar inferior godhead that is
advocated in any one Pur[=a]na, virtually making four divinities, is
characteristic of the period.
In proportion as sectarian ardor is heightened religious tone is
lowered. The Puranic votary clinging to his one idea of god curses all
them that believe in other aspects of the divinity. Blind bigotry
fills the worshipper's soul. Religion becomes mere fanaticism. But
there is also tolerance. Sometimes in one and the same Pur[=a]na rival
forms are honored. The modern Hindu sects are in part the direct
development of Puranic doctrine. But most of the sects of to-day are
of very recent date, though their principles are often of respectable
antiquity, as are too their sectarian signs, as well as the animals of
their gods, some of which appear to be totems of the wild tribes,
while others are merely objects of reverence among certain tribes.
Thus the ram and the elephant are respectively the ancient beasts of
Agni and Indra. Çiva has the bull; his spouse, the tiger. Earth and
Skanda have appropriated the peacock, Skanda having the cock also.
Yama has the buffalo (compare the Khond, wild-tribe, substitution of a
buffalo for a man in sacrifice). Love has the parrot, etc; while the
boar and all Vishnu's animals in _avatars_ are holy, being his chosen
beasts.[33]
EARLY SECTS.
A classification of older sects (the unorthodox) than those of the
present remains to us from the works of Çankara's reputed disciple,
[=A]nanda Giri, and of M[=a]dhava [=A]c[=a]rya, the former a writer of
the ninth, the latter of the fourteenth century. According to the
statements made by these writers there were a great number of sects,
regarded as partly heterodox or wholly so, and it is interesting in
examining the list of these to see that some of the epic sects (their
names at least) are still in full force, while on the other hand the
most important factions of to-day are not known at all; and that many
sects then existed which must have been at that time of great
antiquity, although now they have wholly passed away.[34] These last
are indeed to the author of the critique of the sects not wholly
heterodox. They are only too emphatic, in worshipping their peculiar
divinity, to suit the more modern conceptions of the Hindu reviewer.
But such sects are of the highest importance, for they show that
despite all the bizarre bigotry of the Pur[=a]nas the old Vedic gods
(as in the epic) still continue to hold their own, and had their own
idols and temples apart from other newer gods. The Vedic divinities,
the later additions in the shape of the god of love, the god of
wealth, Kubera,[35] the heavenly bird, Garuda, the world-snake, Çesha,
together with countless genii, spirits, ghosts, the Manes, the
heavenly bodies, stars, etc., all these were revered, though of less
importance than the gods of Vishnuite and Çivaite sects. Among these
latter the Çivaite sects are decidedly of less interest than the
corresponding Vishnuite heresies, while the votaries of Brahm[=a]
(exclusively) are indeed mentioned, but they cannot be compared with
those of the other two great gods.[36] To-day there is scarcely any
homage paid to Brahm[=a], and it is not probable that there ever was
the same devotion or like popularity in his case as in the case of his
rivals. Other interesting sects of this period are the
Sun-worshippers, who still exist but in no such numbers as when
[=A]nand[=a] Giri counted six formal divisions of them. The votaries
of these sub-sects worshipped some, the rising sun, some, the setting
sun, while some again worshipped the noonday sun, and others, all
three as a _tri-m[=u]rti._ Another division worshipped the sun in
anthropomorphic shape, while the last awakens the wrath of the
orthodox narrator by branding themselves with hot irons.[37]
Ganeça,[38] the lord of Çiva's hosts, had also six classes of
worshippers; but he has not now as he then had a special and peculiar
cult, though he has many temples in Benares and elsewhere. Of the
declared Çivaite sects of that day, six are mentioned, but of these
only one survives, the 'wandering' Jangamas of South India, the
Çivaite R[=a]udras, Ugras, Bh[=a]ktas, and P[=a]çupatis having yielded
to more modern sectaries.
Some at least among the six sects of the Vishnuite sects, which are
described by the old writers, appear to have been more ancient. Here
too one finds Bh[=a]ktas, and with them the Bh[=a]gavatas, the old
P[=a]ñcar[=a]tras, the 'hermit' V[=a]ikh[=a]nasas, and Karmah[=i]nas,
the latter "having no rites." Concerning these sects one gets scanty
but direct information. They all worshipped Vishnu under one form or
another, the Bh[=a]ktas as V[=a]sudeva, the Bh[=a]gavatas[39] as
Bhagavat. The latter resembled the modern disciples of R[=a]m[=a]nuja
and revered the holy-stone, appealing for authority to the Upanishads
and to the Bhagavad Git[=a], the Divine Song. Some too worshipped
Vishnu exclusively
as N[=a]r[=a]yana, and believed in a heaven of sensual
delights. The other sects, now extinct, offer no special forms of
worship. What is historically most important is that in this list of
sects are found none that particularly worship the popular divinities
of to-day, no peculiar cult of Krishna as an infant and no
monkey-service.
Infidel sects are numerous in this period, of which sects the worst in
the old writers' opinion is the sensual C[=a]rv[=a]ka. Then follow the
(Buddhist) Ç[=u]nyav[=a]ds, who believe in 'void,' and S[=a]ugatas,
who believe that religion consists only in kindness, the Kshapanakas,
and the Jains. The infamous 'left-hand' sectaries are also well known.
To one side of the Puranic religions, from the earlier time of which
comes this account of heresies, reference has been made above: the
development of the fables in regard to the infant Krishna. That the
cult is well known in the later Pur[=a]nas and is not mentioned in
this list of wrong beliefs seems to show that the whole cult is of
modern growth, even if one does not follow Weber in all his signs of
modification of the older practice.
RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS.
For the history of the cult there is in these works much to interest
one in the description and determination of popular festivals in honor
of the great sectarian gods. Further details of more specific nature
are given in other works which need not here be regarded. By far the
most important of these festivals are those that seem to have been
absorbed by the sectarian cults, although they were originally more
popular. Weber in the paper on the _r[=a]jas[=u]ya_, to which we have
had occasion several times to refer, has shown that a popular element
abided long in the formal celebrations of the Brahmanic ritual.[40]
is soundly beaten; that gaming creeps into the ceremony as a popular
aspect; that there was a special ceremony to care _katsenjammer_
caused by over-drinking; and that the whole ceremony was a popular
spring festival, such as is found to-day (but without the royal part
in the play).
Undoubtedly the original celebration was a popular one. Today the most
interesting of these popular fêtes is in all respects the New Year's
Festival and the Spring Festival. The latter has been cut up into
several parts, and to show the whole intent of the original ceremonial
it is necessary to take up the _disjecta membra_ and place them side
by side, as has been done by Wilson, whose sketch of these two
festivals, together with that by Gover of the New Year's Feast called
Pongol, we give in abstract, premising that, however close be the
comparison with European festivals of like nature, we doubt
whether there is any historical connection between them and the Hindu
celebrations.
We begin with the more popular New Year's, the Pongol:[41] The
interesting feature of this South India festival is that the Hindus
have done their best to alter its divinities and failed. They have,
indeed, for Indra and Agni got Krishna formally accepted as the god in
whose honor it is supposed to be held, but the feast remains a native
festival, and no one really thinks of the Puranic gods in connection
with it. Europe also has seen such dynamic alterations of divinities
in cases where feasts would insist till patrons of an orthodox kind
were foisted upon them to give an air of propriety to that which
remained heathenish.[42] The Pongol is a New Year's festival lasting
for three days. The first day is for Indra; the second, for (Agni)
S[=u]rya;[43] the third (to which is added, as a wind-up, a fourth
day), for cattle. The whole feast is a harvest-home and celebration of
cattle. The chief ceremony is the cooking of rice, which is put to
boil with great solemnity, and luck for the next year is argued from
its boiling well. If it does so a universal shout arises,[44] all rush
about, congratulate, and give presents to each other, and merry-making
follows. On the cattle-days the beasts are led about with painted
horns and decorated with ribbons, and are then chased and robbed by
the boys. The image of Ganeça is the only one seen, and his worship is
rather perfunctory. On the evening of the last day the women have a
party, paying obeisance to a peacock, and indulging in a family
reunion of very simple character. On this occasion the girl-wife may
return for a few hours to her mother. It is the only general fête for
women during the year.
Not unlike this festival of the extreme south is the New Year's
celebration at the mouth of the Ganges. Here there is a grand fair and
jewels are cast into the river as propitiation to the river-goddess.
Not long ago it was quite customary to fling children also into the
river, but this usage has now been abolished.[45] Offerings are made
to the Manes, general and particular, and to the All-gods. As with the
Pongol, the feast is one of good-fellowship where presents are
distributed, and its limit is the end of the third day. After this the
festivities have no religious character. Thousands of pilgrims
assemble for this fête. Wilson, who gives an account of this
celebration, compares the ancient Roman New Year's, with the _mutui
amoris pignora_ which were sent at that season. The gifts in India are
sweetmeats and other delicacies, ominous of good for the next
year.[46]
On the 2d of February occurs a feast to Çr[=i], or Lakshm[=i],
Vishnu's bride, patroness of all prosperity to her worshippers. At
present it is a literary festival on which all books, inkstands, pens,
etc., are cleaned and worshipped, as adjuncts to Sarasvat[=i], the
goddess of learning. This is rather significant, for Sarasvat[=i] is
properly the wife of Brahm[=a], but the Vishnuites of Bengal have made
her the wife of Vishnu, and identified her with Çr[=i]. It is to be
noticed that in this sole celebration of abstract learning and
literature there is no recognition of Çiva, but rather of his rival.
Çiva and Ganeça are revered because they might impede, not because, as
does Sarasvat[=i], they further literary accomplishment. Sarasvat[=i]
is almost the only fair goddess. She is represented not as a horror,
but as a beautiful woman sitting on a lotus, graceful in shape, a
crescent on her brow.[47] The boys, too, celebrate the day with games,
bat and ball, prisoner's base, and others "of a very European
character." The admixture of sectarian cults is shown by the
transference to this Vishnuite feast of the Çivaite (Durg[=a])
practice of casting into the river the images of the goddess.[48] When
applied distinctly to Sarasvat[=i] the feast is observed in
August-September; when to Lakshm[=i], in October-November, or in
February. There is, however, another feast, celebrated in the North
and South, which comes on the exact date fixed by the Romans for the
beginning of spring, and as an ending to this there is a feast to
K[=a]ma, Cupid, and his bride Rati ('Enjoyment'). This is the Vasanta,
or spring festival of prosperity and love, which probably was the
first form of the Lakshm[=i]-Sarasvat[=i] feast.
Another traditional feast of this month is the 10th[49] (the eleventh
lunar day of the light half of M[=a]gha). The eleventh lunar day is
particularly holy with the Vishnuites, as is said in the Brahma
Pur[=a]na, and this is a Vishnuite festival. It is a day of fasting
and prayer, with presents to priests.[50] It appears to be a mixture
of Vedic prayers and domestic Vishnu-worship. On the 11th of February
the fast is continued, and in both the object is expiation of sin. The
latter is called the feast of 'six sesamum acts,' for sesamum is a
holy plant, and in each act of this rite it plays a part. Other rites
of this month are to the Manes on the 14th, 22d, and 24th of February.
Bathing and oblation are requisite, and all are of a lustral and
expiatory nature. Wilson remarks on the fact that it is the same time
of year in which the Romans gave oblations to the Manes, and
that Februus is the god of purification. "There can be no reasonable
doubt that the Feralia of the Romans and the Çr[=a]ddha (feast to the
Manes) of the Hindus, the worship of the Pitris and of the Manes, have
a common character, and had a common origin."[51]
The 27th of February is the greatest Çivaite day in the year. It
celebrates Çiva's first manifestation of himself in phallic form. To
keep this day holy expiates from all sin, and secures bliss hereafter.
The worshipper must fast and revere the Linga. Offerings are made to
the Linga. It is, of course, a celebration formed of unmeaning
repetitions of syllables and the invocation of female Çaktis, snapping
the fingers, gesticulating, and performing all the humbug called for
by Çivaite worship. The Linga is bathed in milk, decorated, wrapped in
_bilva_ leaves, and prayed to; which ceremony is repeated at intervals
with slight changes. All castes, even the lowest, join in the
exercises. Even women may use the _mantras_.[52] Vigil and fasting are
the essentials of this worship.[53]
The next festival closes these great spring celebrations. It bears two
names, and originally was a double feast, the first part being the
Dol[=a] Y[=a]tr[=a], or 'Swing-procession,' the second part being the
execrable Holi. They are still kept distinct in some places, and when
this occurs the Dolotsava, or Dol[=a] Y[=a]tr[=a], follows the Holi.
They are both spring festivals, and answer roughly to May-day, though
in India they come at the full moon of March. We have followed
Wilson's enumeration of all the minor spring feasts, that they may be
seen in their entirety. But in ancient times there was probably one
long Vasantotsava (spring-festival), which lasted for weeks, beginning
with a joyous celebration (2d of February) and continuing with lustral
ceremonies, as indicated by the now detached feast days already
referred to. The original cult, in Wilson's opinion, has been changed,
and the Dol[=a] Y[=a]tr[=a] is now given over to the Krishna-cult,
while the Hol[=i] divinity is a hobgoblin. The Dol[=a] Yatr[=a] begins
with fasting and ends (as Hol[=i]) with fire-worship. An image of
Krishna is sprinkled with red powder (_ab[=i]r_), and after this
(religious) ceremony a bonfire[54] is made, and an effigy, Holik[=a],
is put upon it and burned. The figure is carried to the fire in a
religious procession headed by Vishnuite or Brahman priests, of course
accompanied with music and song. After seven circumambulations of the
fire the figure is burned. This is the united observance of the first
day. At dawn on the morning of the second day the image of Krishna is
placed in a swing, _dol[=a]_, and swung back and forth a few times,
which ceremony is repeated at noon and at sunset. During the day,
wherever a swing is put up, and in the vicinity, it is the common
privilege to sprinkle one's friend with the red powder or red
rose-water. Boys and common people run about the streets sprinkling
red water or red powder over all passengers, and using abusive
(obscene) language. The cow-herd caste is conspicuous at this
ceremony. The cow-boys, collecting in parties under a koryphaios,
hold, as it were, a komos, leaping, singing, and dancing[55] through
the streets, striking together the wands which they carry. These
cow-boys not only dress (as do others) in new clothes on this
occasion,[56] but they give their cattle new equipments, and regard
the whole frolic as part of a religious rite in honor of Krishna, the
cow-herd. But all sects take part in the performance (that is to say,
in the Hol[=i] portion), both Çivaites and Vishnuites. When the moon
is full the celebration is at its height. Hol[=i] songs are sung, the
crowd throws _ab[=i]r_ the chiefs feast, and an all-night orgy ends
the long carousal.[57] In the south the Dol[=a] takes place later, and
is distinct from the Hol[=i]. The burning here is of K[=a]ma,
commemorating the love-god's death by the fire of Çiva's eye, when the
former pierced the latter's heart, and inflamed him with love. For
this reason the bonfire is made before a temple of Çiva. K[=a]ma is
gone from the northern cult, and in upper India only a hobgoblin,
Hol[=i], a foul she-devil, is associated with the rite. The whole
performance is described and prescribed in one of the late
Pur[=a]nas.[58] In some parts of the country the bonfire of the
Hol[=i] is made about a tree, to which offerings are made, and
afterwards the whole is set on fire. For a luminous account of the
Hol[=i], which is perhaps the worst open rite of Hinduism,
participated in by all sects and classes, we may cite the words of the
author of _Ante-Brahmanical Religions_: "It has been termed the
Saturnalia or Carnival of the Hindus. Verses the most obscene
imaginable are ordered to be read on the occasion. Figures of men and
women, in the most indecent and disgusting attitudes, are in many
places openly paraded through the streets; the most filthy words are
uttered by persons who, on other occasions, would think themselves
disgraced by the use of them; bands of men parade the street with
their clothes all bespattered with a reddish dye; dirt and filth are
thrown upon all that are seen passing along the road; all business is
at a stand, all gives way to license and riot."[59]
Besides these the most brilliant festivals are the R[=a]s Y[=a]tr[=a]
in Bengal (September-October), commemorating the dance of Krishna
with the _gop[=i]s_ or milk-maids, and the 'Lamp-festival'
(D[=i]p[=a]l[=a]), also an autumnal celebration.
The festivals that we have reviewed cover but a part of the year, but
they will suffice to show the nature of such fêtes as are enjoined in
the Pur[=a]nas. There are others, such as the eightfold[60]
temple-worship of Krishna as a child, in July or August; the marriage
of Krishna's idol to the Tulasi plant; the Awakening of Vishnu, in
October, and so forth. But no others compare in importance with the
New Year's and Spring festivals, except the Bengal idol-display of
Jagann[=a]th, the Rath Y[=a]tr[=a] of 'Juggernaut'; and some others of
local celebrity, such as the D[=u]rg[=a]-p[=u]j[=a].[61] The temples,
to which reference has often been made, have this in common with the
great Çivaite festivals, that to describe them in detail would be but
to translate into words images and wall-paintings, the obscenity of
which is better left undescribed. This, of course, is particularly
true of the Çiva temples, where the actual Linga is perhaps, as Barth
has said, the least objectionable of the sights presented to the eye
of the devout worshipper. But the Vishnu temples are as bad.
Architecturally admirable, and even wonderful, the interior is but a
display of sensual immorality.[62]
HISTORY OF THE HINDU TRINITY.
In closing the Puranic period (which name we employ loosely to cover
such sects as are not clearly modern) we pause for a moment to cast a
glance backwards over the long development of the trinity, to the
units of which are devoted the individual Pur[=a]nas. We have shown
that the childhood-tales of Krishna are of late (Puranic) origin, and
that most of the cow-boy exploits are post-epic. Some are referred to
in the story of Çiçup[=a]la in the second book of the
Mah[=a]bh[=a]rata, but this scene has been touched up by a late hand.
The Vishnu Pur[=a]na, typical of the best of the Pur[=a]nas, as in
many respects it is the most important and interesting, represents
Krishnaite Vishnuism as its height. Here is described the birth of the
man-god as a black, _k[r.][s.][n.]a,_ baby, son of Nanda, and his real
title is here Govinda, the cow-boy.[63] 'Cow-boy' corresponds to the
more poetical, religious shepherd; and the milk-maids, _gopis_ with
whom Govinda dallies as he grows up, may, perhaps, better be rendered
shepherdesses for the same reason. The idyllic effect is what is aimed
at in these descriptions. Here Krishna plays his rude and rustic
tricks, upsetting wagons, overthrowing trees and washermen,
occasionally killing them he dislikes, and acting altogether much like
a cow-boy of another sort. Here he puts a stop to Indra-worship,
over-powers Çiva, rescues Aniruddha, marries sixteen thousand
princesses, burns Benares, and finally is killed himself, he the one
born of a hair of Vishnu, he that is Vishnu himself, who in 'goodness'
creates, in 'darkness' destroys,[64] under the forms of Brahm[=a] and
Çiva.[65]
In Vishnu, as a development of the Vedic Vishnu; in Çiva, as
affiliated to Rudra; in Brahm[=a], as the Brahmanic third to these
sectarian developments, the trinity has a real if remote connection
with the triune fire of the Rig Veda, a two-thirds connection, filled
out with the addition of the later Brahmanic head of the gods.
To ignore the fact that Vishnu and Rudra-Çiva developed inside the
Brahmanic circle and increased in glory before the rise of sectaries,
and to asseverate, as have some, that the two chief characters of the
later trinity are an unmeaning revival of decadent gods, whose names
are used craftily to veil the modernness of Krishnaism and
Çivaism,--this is to miscalculate the waxing dignity of these gods in
earlier Brahmanic literature. To say with Burnouf that the Vishnu of
the Veda is not at all the Vishnu of the mythologists, is a statement
far too sweeping. The Vishnu of the Veda is not only the same god with
the Vishnu of the next era, but in that next era he has become greatly
magnified. The Puranic All-god Vishnu stands in as close a relation to
his Vedic prototype as does Milton's Satan to the snaky slanderer of
an age more primitive.
Çiva-worship appears to have been adapted from a local cult in the
mountainous West, and at an early date to have been amalgamated with
that of his next resemblance, the Vedic Rudra; while Krishna-worship
flourished along the Ganges. These are those Dionysos and Herakles of
whom speak the old Greek authorities. One cult is possibly as
venerable as the other, but while Çivaism became Brahmanized early,
Krishnaism was adopted much later, and it is for this reason, amongst
others, that despite its modern iniquities Çiva has appealed more to
the Brahman than has Krishna.
Megasthenes tells us a good deal about these Hindu representatives of
Herakles and Dionysos. According to him there were Dionysiac festivals
in honor of the latter god (Çiva),[66] who belongs where flourishes
the wine, in the Açvaka district, north of the Kabul river. From this
place Çiva's worship extended into the East, M[=a]gadha (Beh[=a]r),
around Gokarna in the West, and even to the Kalinga country in the
extreme Southeast. But it was especially native to the mountainous
Northwest, about the 'Gate of Ganges' (north of Delhi, near
Saharampur), and still further north in Kashmeer. In the epic, Çiva
has his throne on K[=a]il[=a]sa,[67] the Northern mountain, in the
Him[=a]layas, and Ganges descend from the sky upon his head.
On the other hand, Herakles, of the Ganges land, where grows no wine,
is plainly Krishna, who carries club, discus, and conch. The Greek
cities Methora and Kleisobora are Mathur[=a] and Krishna-pur,
'Krishna-town'; the latter on the Jumna, the former near it on the
same river, capital of the clan which venerated Krishna as its chief
hero and god, the Y[=a]davas. Megasthenes says, also, that Herakles'
daughter is Pandaie, and this agrees with the P[=a]ndya, a southern
development of the epic Gangetic P[=a]ndavas, who especially worship
Krishna in conjunction with the Y[=a]davas. Their South-Indic town,
Mathur[=a], still attests their origin.
In speaking of the relative antiquity of Vishnuism and Çivaism one
must distinguish the pantheistic form of these gods from the single
forms. While Çivaism,_per se_, that is, the worship of Çiva as a great
and terrible god, preceded the same exaltation of Krishna, as is shown
by their respective literary appearance, and even by Megasthenes'
remark that the worship of Dionysos preceded that of Herakles by
fifteen generations, yet did Krishnaism, as a popular pantheism, come
before Çivaism as such. Although in the late Çvet[=a]çvatara Upanishad
Çiva is pantheistic, yet is he not so in the epic till some of the
latest passages make him the All, in imitation of Krishna as All-god.
Probably Çivaism remained by the first philosophy, Sankhyan dualism,
and was forced into Krishna's Vedantic pantheism, as this became
popular. At first neither was more than a single great god without any
philosophy.[68]
In one of the early exegetical works, which is occupied somewhat with
philosophical matter, there is evidence that a triad existed between
the Vedic triad of fires and the Puranic triad. Fire, Wind (or Indra),
and the Sun (S[=u]rya), are stated in a famous passage to be the only
real gods, all the others being but names of these. But, although in
form this triad (Nirukta, vii. 4, 5) is like the Vedic triad,[69] it
is essentially a triad in a pantheistic system like that of the epic
and Pur[=a]nas, for it is added that "all the gods are parts of one
soul." In explanation it is said: "Fire is the earth-god, Wind, or
Indra, is the god of the atmosphere, and the sun is the god of the
sky." Now in the Rig Veda Indra is closely united not only with Agni
but with Vishnu, albeit in this period Vishnu is his subordinate. The
nearest approach of this Vishnu to his classical descendant is in one
of the latest hymns of the Rig Veda, where it is said that the seven
seeds of creation are Vishnu's, as in later times he comprises seven
males. In the philosophy of the T[=a]ittir[=i]ya Samhit[=a] the three
places of Vishnu are not, as in the Rig Veda, the two points of the
horizon (where the sun sets) and the zenith, but 'earth, air, and
sky.'[70] That is to say, in the Brahmanic period Vishnu is already a
greater god than he had been. Nay, more, he is explicitly declared to
be
"the best of the gods."[71] That best means greatest may be shown from
the same work, where in savage fable it is recited that all the gods,
including Indra, ran up to him to get his strength.[72] But especially
in the Upanishads is Vishnu the one great god left from the Rig Veda.
And it is with the philosophical (not with the ritualistic) Vishnu
that Krishna is equated.
Of Çiva, on the other hand, the prototype is Rudra ('red'), his
constant sobriquet. In the Rig Veda he is the god of red lightning,
who is the father of the Maruts, the storm-gods. His attributes of a
fulgurant god are never lost. Even as Çiva the All-god he is still the
god of the blue neck, whose three-forked trident and home among the
mountains remind us of his physical origin. He is always the fairest
of the gods, and both early and late he is terrible, to be averted by
prayer, even where his magic 'medicines' are asked for. To him are
addressed the most suppliant cries: "O Rudra, spare us, strike not the
men, slay not the kine." In the Atharva Veda at every step one finds
characteristics which on the one hand are but exaggerations of the
type formulated in the Rig Veda, and on the other precursors of the
signs of the later god. In Çivaism, in contradistinction to Vishnuism,
there is not a trace of the euhemerism which has been suspected in the
Krishna-Vishnu cult. The Rudra of the Rig Veda already begins to be
identified with the triune fire, for he bears the standing epithet of
fire, "he of three mothers."[73] And this name he keeps, whether as
Rudra, who is "brilliant as the sun" (RV. i. 43. 5), whose weapon is
"the shining one that is emitted from the sky and passes along the
earth" (_ib_. vii. 46. 3); or again, as the "red boar of the sky,"
the "holder of the bolt" (_ib._ ii. 33. 3), and, above all gods, "the
terrible" (x. 126. 5).
Coming to the Brahmanic period one finds him a dweller in the mountain
tops, of a red color, with a blue neck, the especial lord of the
mountains, and so of robbers; while he is also the 'incantation-god,'
the 'god of low people.' Some of these are Rudra's attributes; but
here his name is already Çiva, so that one may trace the changes down
the centuries till he finds again in the epic that Çiva is the lord of
mountains, the patron of thieves (Hara, robber?), and endowed with the
trident, the blue neck,[74] and the three mothers of old. In the
middle period he has so many titles that one probably has to accept in
the subsequent Çiva not only the lineal descendant of the Vedic Rudra,
but also a combination of other local cults, where clan gods,
originally diverse, were worshipped as one in consequence of their
mutual likeness. One of the god's especial names is here Bhava, while
in the earlier period Bhava and Rudra are distinct, but they are
invoked as a pair (AV).[75] What gives Çiva his later tremendous
popularity, however, is the feature to which we have alluded in the
chapter on the epic. In the epic, all the strength of Çiva lies in the
Linga.[76] Both Bhava and Rudra, as Çarva, the archer--his local
eastern name--are represented as hurling the lightning, and it is
simply from identity of attributes that they have become identified in
person (AV. x. i. 23). Rudra's title of Paçupati, or 'lord of
cattle'[77] goes back to the Vedic age: "Be kind to the kine of him
who believes in the gods" is a prayer of the Atharva Veda (xi. 2. 28).
Agni and Rudra, in the Rig-Veda, are both called 'cattle-guarding,'
but not for the same reason. Agni represents a fire-stockade, while
Rudra in kindness does not strike with his lightning-bolt. The two
ideas, with the identification of Rudra and Agni, may have merged
together. Then too, Rudra has healing medicines (his magical side),
and Agni is kindest to men. All Agni's names are handed over in the
Br[=a]hmanas to Rudra-Çiva, just as Rudra previously had taken the
epithets of P[=u]shan (above), true to his robber-name. To ignore the
height to which at this period is raised the form of Rudra-Çiva is
surely unhistorical; so much so that we deem it doubtful whether
Çiva-invocations elsewhere, as in the S[=u]tra referred to above,
should be looked upon as interpolations. In the M[=a]itr[=a]yan[=i]
Collection, the Rudrajapas, the invocations to Rudra as the greatest
god, the highest spirit, the lord of beings (Bhava), are expressly to
Çiva Giriça, the mountain-lord (2. 9; Schroeder, p. 346). In the
[=A]itareya Br[=a]hmana it evidently is Rudra-Çiva, the god of ghastly
forms (made by the gods, it is said, as a composite of all the 'most
horrible parts' of all the gods), who is deputed to slay the
Father-god (when the latter, as a beast, commits incest with his
daughter), and chooses as his reward for the act the office of 'lord
of cattle.'[78] This is shown clearly by the fact that the fearsome
Rudra is changed to the innocuous Rudriya in the next paragraph. As an
example of how in the Br[=a]hmanas Rudra-Çiva has taken to himself
already the powers of Agni, the great god of the purely sacrificial
period, may be cited Çat. Br. vi. 1. 3. 10 and 2. 1. 12. Here Agni is
Kum[=a]ra, Rudra, Çarva (Sarva)[79], Paçupati (lord of beasts),
Bh[=a]irava (terrible), Açani (lightning), Bhava (lord of beings),
Mah[=a]deva (great god), the Lord--his 'thrice three names.' But where
the Br[=a]hmana assumes that these are names of Agni it is plain that
one has Rudra-Çiva in process of absorbing Agni's honors.
The third element in the Pur[=a]nic trinity,[80] identified with the
Father-god, genealogically deserves his lower position. His rivals are
of older lineage. The reason for his inferior position is,
practically, that he has little to do with man. Being already created,
man takes more interest in the gods that preserve and destroy.[81]
Even Brahm[=a]'s old exploits are, as we have shown, stolen from him
and given over to Vishnu. The famous (totemistic) tortoise legend was
originally Brahm[=a]'s, and so with others of the ten 'forms' of
Vishnu, for instance the boar-shape, in which Vishnu manifests
himself, and the fish-shape of Brahm[=a] (epic) in the flood-story.
The formal _trim[=u]rti_ or _tr[=a]ipurusha_ ('three persons') is a
late figure. It would seem that a Harihara (Vishnu and Çiva as one)
preceded the trinity, though the dual name is not found till quite
late.[82] But, as we showed above, the epic practically identifies
Vishnu and Çiva as equals, before it unites with these Brahm[=a] as an
equal third.
There arises now the further question whether sectarian Vishnuism be
the foisting of Krishnaism upon a dummy Vishnu. We think that, stated
in this way, such scarcely can have been the case. Neither of the
great sects is professedly of priestly origin, but each, like other
sects, claims Vedic authority, and finds Brahmanical support. We have
said that Vishnu is raised to his position without ictic suddenness.
He is always a god of mystic character, in short, a god for philosophy
to work upon. He is recognized as the highest god in one of the oldest
Upanishads. And it is with the philosopher's Vishnu that Krishna is
identified. Krishna, the real V[=a]sudeva (for a false V[=a]sudeva is
known also in the epic), is the god of a local cult. How did he
originate? The king of serpents is called Krishna, 'the black,' and
Vishnu reposes upon Çesha Ananta, the world-snake; but a more
historical character than this can be claimed for Krishna. This
god-man must be the same with the character mentioned in the
Ch[=a]ndogya Upanishad, 3. 17. 6. One may notice the similarities
between this Krishna and him of the epic cult. Krishna, son of
Devak[=i], was taught by his teacher, Ghora [=A]ngirasa, that
sacrifice may be performed without objective means; that generosity,
kindness, and other moral traits are the real signs of sacrifice; and
it is then said: "The priest Ghora [=A]ngirasa having said this to
Krishna, the son of Devak[=i]--and the latter was thereby freed from
(thirst) desire--said: "When a man is about to die let him resort to
this triad: 'the imperishable art thou,' 'the unmoved art thou,'
'breath's firmness art thou'; in regard to which are these two verses
in the Rig-Veda:[83] 'till they see the light of the old seed which is
kindled in the sky,' and 'perceiving above the darkness the higher
light, the sun, god among gods, we come to the highest light.'"
Krishna thus learned the abolition of sacrifice, and the worship of
the sun, the highest light (Vishnu), as true being--for this is the
meaning of the philosophical passage taken with its context. Kings and
priests discuss philosophy together in this period,[84] and it would
conform to later tradition to see in the pupil the son of a king. It
is, moreover, significant that the priest, Ghora [=A]ngirasà, is named
specially as priest of the sun-god elsewhere (K[=a]ush. Br. 30. 6), as
well as that Krishna [=A]ngirasa is also the name of a teacher. It is
said in this same Upanishad (3. 1. 1) that the sun is the honey,
delight, of the gods; and this chapter is a meditation on the sun,[85]
of which the dark (_k[r.][s.][n.]a_) form is that which comes from the
Itih[=a]sas and Pur[=a]nas, the fore-runners of the epic (3. 4. 3).
This is taught as a _brahma-upanishad_, a teaching of the absolute,
and it is interesting to see that it is handed down through Brahm[=a],
Praj[=a]pati, and Manu, exactly as Krishna says in the Divine Song
that his own doctrine has been promulgated; while (it is said further)
for him that knows the doctrine 'there is day,' his sun never sets (3.
11. 3-4). It is a doctrine to be communicated only to the eldest son
or a good student, and to no one else (_ib. 5), i.e_., it was new,
esoteric, and of vital importance. Here, too, one finds
Sanatkum[=a]ra, the 'ever young,' as Skanda,[86] yet as an earthly
student also (7. 1; 26. 2), just like Krishna.
It cannot be imagined, however, that the cult of the Gangetic Krishna
originated with that vague personage whose pupilage is described in
the Upanishad. But this account may still be connected with the epic
Krishna. The epic describes the overthrow of an old Brahmanic Aryan
race at the hands of the P[=a]ndavas, an unknown folk, whose king's
polyandrous marriage (his wife is the spouse of his four brothers as
well as of himself) is an historical trait, connecting the tribe
closely with the polyandrous wild tribes located north of the Ganges.
This tribe attacked the stronghold of Brahmanism in the holy land
about the present Delhi; and their patron god is the Gangetic Krishna.
In the course of the narrative a very few tales are told of Krishna's
early life, but the simple original view of Krishna is that he is a
god, the son of Devak[=i]. The few other tales are late and
adventitious additions, but this is a consistent trait. Modern writers
are fain to see in the antithesis presented by the god Krishna and by
the human hero Krishna, late and early phases. They forget that the
lower side of Krishna is one especially Puranic. In short, they read
history backwards, for theirs is not the Indic way of dealing with
gods. In Krishna's case the tricky, vulgar, human side is a later
aspect, which comes to light most prominently in the Genealogy of
Vishnu and in the Vishnu Pur[=a]na, modern works which in this regard
contrast strongly with the older epic, where Krishna, however he
tricks, is always first the god. It is not till he becomes a very
great, if not the greatest, god that tales about his youthful
performances, when he condescended to be born in low life, begin to
rise. An exact parallel may be seen in the case of Çiva, who at first
is a divine character, assuming a more or less grotesque likeness to a
man; but subsequently he becomes anthropomorphized, and is fitted out
with a sheaf of legends which describe his earthly acts.[87] And so
with Krishna. As the chief god, identified with the All-god, he is
later made the object of encomiums which degrade while they are meant
to exalt him. He becomes a cow-boy and acts like one, a god in a mask.
But in the epic he is the invading tribe's chief god, in process of
becoming identified with that god in the Brahmanic pantheon who most
resembles him. For this tribe, the (Yadavas) P[=a]ndavas, succeeded in
overthrowing the Brahmanic stronghold and became absorbed into the
Brahmanic circle. Their god, who, like most of the supreme gods of
this region among the wild tribes, was the tribal hero as sun-god,
became recognized by the priests as one with Vishnu. In the Upanishad
the priest-philosopher identifies Krishna with the sun as the 'dark
side' (_k[r.][s.][n.]a_, 'dark') of Vishnu, the native name probably
being near enough to the Sanskrit word to be represented by it. The
statement that this clan-god Krishna once learned the great truth that
the sun is the All-god, at the mouth of a Brahman, is what might be
expected. 'Krishna, the son of Devaki,' is not only the god, but he is
also the progenitor of the clan, the mystic forefather, who as usual
is deified as the sun. To the priest he is merely an _avatar_ of
Vishnu. The identity of Krishna with the Gangetic god described by
Megasthenes can scarcely be disputed. The latter as represented by the
Greek is too great a god to have passed away without a sign except for
a foreigner's account. And there is no figure like his except that of
Krishna.
The numerous _avatars_[88] of Vishnu are first given as ten, then as
twenty, then as twenty-two,[89] and at last become innumerable. The
ten, which are those usually referred to, are as follows: First come
the oldest, the beast-_avatars_, viz., as a fish; as a tortoise;[90]
as a boar (rescuing earth from a flood); and as a man-lion (slaying a
demon). Next comes the dwarf-_avatar_, where Vishnu cheats Bali of
earth by asking, as a dwarf, for three steps of it, and then stepping
out over all of it (the 'three strides' of the Rig Veda). Then come
the human _avatars_, that of Paraçu-R[=a]ma (R[=a]ma with the axe),
Krishna, R[=a]ma[91] (hero of the R[=a]m[=a]yana epic), Buddha, and
Kalki (who is still to come).
The parallels between the latest Krishna cult and the Biblical
narrative are found only in the Pur[=a]nas and other late works, and
undoubtedly, as we have said in the last chapter, are borrowed from
Christian sources. Krishna is here born in a stable, his father, like
Joseph, going with his virgin spouse to pay taxes. His restoring of a
believing woman's son is narrated only in the modern J[=a]imini
Bh[=a]rata, These tales might have been received through the first
distant Christian mission in the South in the sixth century, but it is
more likely that they were brought directly to the North in the
seventh century; for at that time a Northern king of the V[=a]içya
caste, Çil[=a]ditya (in whose reign the Chinese pilgrim, Hiouen
Thsang, visited India), made Syrian Christians welcome to his court
(639 A.D.).[92] The date of the annual Krishna festival, which is a
reflex of Christmastide, is variously fixed by the Pur[=a]nas as
coming in July or August.[93]
As Krishna is an _avatar_ of Vishnu[94] in the Bh[=a]rata, and as the
axe-R[=a]ma is another _avatar_ in legend (here Vishnu in the form of
Paraçu-R[=a]ma raises up the priestly caste, and destroys the
warrior-caste), so in the R[=a]m[=a]yana the hero R[=a]ma (not
Paraçu-R[=a]ma) is made an _avatar_ of Vishnu. He is a mythical prince
of Oude (hence a close connection between the R[=a]m[=a]yana
and Buddhism), who is identified with Vishnu. Vishnu wished to
rid earth of the giant R[=a]vana,[95] and to do so took the form of
R[=a]ma. As Krishnaism has given rise to a number of sects that
worship Krishna as Vishnu, so Ramaism is the modern cult of R[=a]ma as
Vishnu. Both of these sects oppose the Vishnuite that is not inclined
to be sectarian; all three oppose the Çivaite; and all four of these
oppose the orthodox Brahman, who assigns supreme godship to Çiva or
Vishnu as little as does the devotee of these gods in unsectarian form
to Krishna or R[=a]ma.
Çiva is on all sides opposed to Vishnu. The Greek account of the third
century B.C. says that he taught the Hindus to dance the kordax, but
at this time there appears to have been no such phallic worship in his
honor as is recorded in the pseudo-epic. Çiva is known in early
Brahmanic and in Buddhistic writings, and even as the
bearer-of-the-moon, Candraçekhara, he contrasts with Vishnu, as his
lightning-form and mountain-habitat differ from the sun-form and
valley-home of his rival. This dire god is conceived of as ascetic
partly because he is gruesome, partly because he is magical in power.
Hence he is the true type of the awful magical Yogi, and as such
appealed to the Brahman. Originally he is only a fearful magical god,
great, and even all-pervading, but, as seen in the Brahmanic
Çatarudriya hymn, he is at first in no sense a pantheistic deity. In
this hymn there is a significant addition made to the earlier version.
In the first form of the hymn it is said that Rudra, who is here Çiva,
is the god of bucolic people; but the new version adds 'and of all
people.' Here Çiva appears as a wild, diabolical figure, 'the god of
incantations,' whose dart is death; and half of the hymn is taken up
with entreaties to the god to spare the speaker. He is praised, in
conjunction with trees, of which he is the lord, as the one 'clad in
skins,' the 'lord of cattle,' the 'lord of paths,' the 'cheater,' the
'deceiver.' When he is next clearly seen, in the epic, he is the god
to whom are offered human sacrifices, and his special claim to worship
is the phallus; while the intermediate literature shows glimpses of
him only in his simple Brahmanic form of terror. It has long been
known that Çivaite phallic worship was not borrowed from the
Southerners, as was once imagined, and we venture with some scholars
to believe that it was due rather to late Greek influence than to that
of any native wild tribe.[96]
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Parts of the epic are called Pur[=a]nas, as
other parts are called Upanishads. These are the forerunners
of the extant Pur[=a]nas. The name, indeed, is even older
than the epic, belonging to the late Vedic period, where are
grouped together Pur[=a]nas and Itih[=a]sas, 'Ancient
History' and 'Stories'; to which are added 'Eulogies.' Weber
has long since pointed out that even when the 'deeds of
kings' were sung at a ceremony they were wont to be so
embroidered as to be dubbed 'fiction' by the Hindus
themselves. India has neither literary history (save what
can be gleaned from genealogies of doubtful worth), nor very
early inscriptions. The 'archaeology' of the Pur[=a]nas was
probably always what it is in the extant specimens,
legendary material of no direct historical value.]
[Footnote 2: Strictly speaking to the present
Allah[=a]b[=a]d, where is the Pray[=a]ga, or confluence of
Yamun[=a] and Gang[=a] (Jumna and Ganges).]
[Footnote 3: M[=a]gadha; called Beh[=a]r from its many
monasteries, _vih[=a]ras_, in Açoka's time.]
[Footnote 4: So, plausibly, Müller, _loc. cit_. below.]
[Footnote 5: The tribes became Hinduized, their chiefs became
R[=a]jputs; their religions doubtless affected the ritual
and creed of the civilized as much as the religion of the
latter colored their own. Some of these un-Aryan peoples
were probably part native, part barbaric. There is much
doubt in regard to the dates that depend on accepted eras.
It is not certain, for instance, that, as Müller claims,
Kanishka's inauguration coincides with the Çaka era, 78 A.D.
A great Buddhist council was held under him. Some
distinguished scholars still think with Bühler that
Vikram[=a]ditya's inauguration was 57 B.C. (this date that
used to be assigned to him). From our present point of view
it is of little consequence when this king himself lived. He
is renowned as patron of arts and as a conqueror of the
barbarians. If he lived in the first century B.C. his
conquest amounted to nothing permanent. What is important,
however, is that all Vikram[=a]ditya stands for in legend
must have been in the sixth century A.D. For the drama, of
which he is said to have been patron, represents a religion
distinctly later than that of the body of the epic
(completed in the sixth or seventh century, Bühler, _Indian
Studies_, No. ii.). The dramatic and astronomical era was
but introductory to Kum[=a]rila's reassertion of Brahmanism
in the seventh century, when the Northern barbarian was
gone, and the Mohammedan was not yet rampant. In the rest of
Northern India there were several native dynasties in
different quarters, with different eras; one in Sur[=a]shtra
(Gujar[=a]t), one again in the 'middle district' or 'North
Western Provinces,' one in Kutch; overthrown by Northern
barbarians (in the fifth century) and by the Mohammedans (in
the seventh and eighth centuries), respectively. Of these
the Guptas of the 'middle district,' and the Valabh[=i]s of
Kutch, had neither of the eras just mentioned. The former
dated from 320-321 (perhaps 319), the latter from 190
(A.D.). The word _samvat_, 'year,' indicates that the time
is dated from either the Çaka or Vikram[=a]ditya era. See
IA. xvii. 362; Fergusson, JRAS. xii. 259; Müller, _India,
What Can It Teach Us_? p. 282; Kielhorn, IA. xix. _24;_
xxii. 111. The Northern barbarians are called Scythians, or
Huns, or Turanians, according to fancy. No one really knows
what they were.]
[Footnote 6: The first host was expelled by the Hindus in
750. After a period of rest Mahmud was crowned in 997, who
overran India more than a dozen times. In the following
centuries the land was conquered and the people crushed by
the second great Mohammedan, Ghori, who died in 1206,
leaving his kingdom to a vassal, Kutab, the 'slave sultan'
of Delhi. In 1294, thus slave dynasty having been recently
supplanted, the new successor to the throne was slain by his
own nephew, Allah-ud-din, who is reckoned as the third
Mohammedan conqueror of India. His successor swept even the
Dekhan of all its Hindu (temple) wealth; but his empire
finally broke down under its own size; preparing the way for
Timur (Tamerlane), who entered India in 1398.]
[Footnote 7: Çankara himself was not a pure Brahman. Both
Vishnuites and Çivaites lay claim to him.]
[Footnote 8: Coy as was the Brahman in the adoption of the
new gods he was wise enough to give them some place in his
pantheon, or he would have offended his laity. Thus he
recognizes K[=a]l[=i] as well as Çr[=i]; in fact he prefers
to recognize the female divinities of the sects, for they
offer less rivalry.]
[Footnote 9: There was a general revival of letters
antedating the Brahmanic theological revival. The drama,
which reflects equally Hinduism and Brahmanism, is now the
favorite light literature of the cultured. In the sixth
century the first astronomical works are written
(Var[=a]hamihira, who wrote the _B[r.]hat Sa[.m]hit[=a]_),
and the group of writers called the Nine Gems (reckoned of
Vikram[=a]ditya's court) are to be referred to this time.
The best known among them is K[=a]lid[=a]sa, author of the
_Çakuntal[=a]_. An account of this Renaissance, as he calls
it, will be found in Müller's _India, What Can It Teach Us_?
The learned author is perhaps a little too sweeping in his
conclusions. It is, for instance, tolerably certain that the
Bh[=a]rata was completed by the time the 'Renaissance'
began; so that there is no such complete blank as he assumes
prior to Vikram[=a]ditya. But the general state of affairs
is such as is depicted in the ingenious article referred to.
The sixth and seventh centuries were eras that introduced
modern literature under liberal native princes, who were
sometimes not R[=a]jputs at all. Roughly speaking, one may
reckon from 500 B.C. to the Christian era as a period of
Buddhistic control, Graeco-Bactrian invasion, and Brahmanic
decline. The first five centuries after the Christian see
the two religions in a state of equilibrium, under Scythian
control, and the Mah[=a]-Bh[=a]rata, the expanded
Bh[=a]rata, is written. From 500 to 1000 is an era of native
rulers, Brahmanic revival in its pure form, and Hindu
growth, with little trouble from the Mohammedans. Then for
five centuries the horrors of Moslem conquest.]
[Footnote 10: Har. 10,662. Compare the laudation of 'the two
gods' in the same section.]
[Footnote 11: As the Jains have Angas and Up[=a]ngas, and as
the pseudo-epic distinguishes Nishads and Upanishads, so the
Brahman has Pur[=a]nas and Upapur[=a]nas (K[=u]rma
Pur[=a]na, i. p. 3). Some of the sects acknowledge only six
Pur[=a]nas as orthodox.]
[Footnote 12: As an example of a Puranic Smriti (legal) we
may cite the trash published as the
V[r.]ddha-H[=a]rita-Sa[.m]hit[=a]. Here there is polemic
against Çiva; one must worship Jagann[=a]th with flowers,
and every one must be branded with the Vishnu disc
(_cakra_). Even women and slaves are to use _mantras_, etc.]
[Footnote 13: The lateness of this law-book is evident from
its advocacy of _suttee_ (XXV. 14), its preference for
female ancestors (see below), etc.]
[Footnote 14: Manu, III. 89; XII. 121.]
[Footnote 15: As, for example, in K[=u]rma Pur[=a]na, XVI.
p. 186, where is found a common epic verse description of
battle.]
[Footnote 16: A good instance of this is found in Brihan
N[=a]rad[=i]ya Pur[=a]na, X., where the _churik[=a]_ and
_drugha[n.]a_ (24) appear in an imitative scene of this
sort; one of these being later, the other earlier, than the
epic vocabulary.]
[Footnote 17: Perhaps the most striking distinction between
Vedic and Puranic, or one may say, Indic Aryan and Hindu
religions, is the emphasis laid in the former upon Right; in
the latter, upon idols. The Vedic religion insists upon the
law of right (order), that is, the sacrifice; but it insists
also upon right as rectitude, truth, holiness. Puranic
Hinduism insists upon its idols; only incidentally does it
recommend rectitude, truth, abstract holiness.]
[Footnote 18: KP. i. p. 29.]
[Footnote 19: K[=u]rma, xii. p. 102. Contrast _ib_. xxii. p.
245, _caturvy[=u]hadhara Vishnur avy[=u]has procyate_
(elsewhere _navavy[=u]ha_). Philosophically, in the doctrine
of the epic P[=a]ñcar[=a]tras (still held by some
sectaries), Vishnu is to be revered as Krishna, Balar[=a]ma,
Pradymana, Aniruddha (Krishna's brother, son, and grandson),
representing, respectively, _[=a]tm[=a], j[=i]va,_ supreme
and individual spirit, perception, and consciousness.
Compare Mbh[=a]. xii. 340. 8, 72.]
[Footnote 20: KP. xxi. p. 236; xxii. p. 238, etc.]
[Footnote 21: _ib._ I, p. 23.]
[Footnote 22: Compare Brihan N[=a]radiya Pur[=a]na, xiv. 10,
_bah[=u]ni k[=a][s.][t.]hay[=a]ntr[=a][n.]i_ (torture
machines) in hell. The old tale of N[=a]çiketas is retold at
great length in the Var[=a]ha Pur[a=]na. The oldest
Pur[=a]na, the M[=a]rkandeya, has but seven hells, a
conception older than Manu's twenty-one (compare on MP. x.
80 ff., Scherman, _loc. cit_. p. 33), or the later lists of
thousands. The Padma Pur[=a]na, with celebrates R[=a]ma, has
also seven hells, and is in part old, for it especially
extols Pushkara (Brahm[=a]'s lone shrine); but it recommends
the _taptamudra_, or branding with hot iron.]
[Footnote 23: Nar. xiv. 2.]
[Footnote 24: xiv. 54 and 70.]
[Footnote 25: KP. xxii. pp, 239-241.]
[Footnote 26: As will be shown below, it is possible that
this may be a ceremony first taken from the wild tribes. See
the 'pole' rite described above in the epic.]
[Footnote 27: Compare for instance _ib_. xxviii. 68, on the
strange connection of a Ç[=u]dr[=a] wife of a Guru.]
[Footnote 28: KP. xxxvi. It is of course impossible to say
how much epic materials come from the literary epic and how
much is drawn from popular poetry, for the vulgar had their
own epoidic songs which may have treated of the same topics.
Thus even a wild tribe (Gonds) is credited with an 'epic.'
But such stuff was probably as worthless as are the popular
songs of today.]
[Footnote 29: KP. xxx. p. 305; xxxvii. p. 352.]
[Footnote 30: _ib._ p. 355.]
[Footnote 31: Compare N[=a]rad[=i]ya, xi. 23,27,31 'the one
whom no one knows,' 'he that rests in the heart,' 'he that
seems to be far off because we do not know,' 'he whose form
is Çiva, lauded by Vishnu,' xiii. 201.]
[Footnote 32: Even Vishnu as a part of a part of the Supreme
Spirit in VP. is indicated by Vishnu's adoration of
_[=a]tm[=a]_ in the epic (see above).]
[Footnote 33: Compare Williams' _Brahmanism and Hinduism_.]
[Footnote 34: Çankara's adherents are chiefly Çivaite, but
he himself was not a sectary. Williams says that at the
present day few worship Çiva exclusively, but he has more
partial adherents than has Vishnu. _Religious Thought and
Life,_ pp. 59, 62.]
[Footnote 35: The two last are just recognized in Brahmanic
legal works.]
[Footnote 36: See Wilson's sketch of Hindu sects. The author
says that there were in his day two shrines to Brahm[=a],
one in [=A]jm[=i]r (compare Pushkara in the epic), and one
on the Ganges at Bithur. The Brahma Pur[=a]na is known also
as S[=a]ura (sun). This is the first in the list; in its
present state it is Vishnuite.]
[Footnote 37: Sun-worship (Iranian?) is especially
pronounced in the Bhav[=i]shya(t) Pur[=a]na. Of the other
Pur[=a]nas the L[=i]nga is especially Çivaite (_linga_ is
phallus), as are the Matsya and older V[=a]yu. Sometimes
Çiva is androgynous, _ardhan[=a]r[=i]çvara_, 'half-female.'
But most of the Pur[=a]nas are Vishnuite.]
[Footnote 38: On the Ganeça Pur[=a]na see JRAS. 1846, p.
319.]
[Footnote 39: The worshippers of Bhagavat were originally
distinct from the P[=a]ñcar[=a]tras, but what was the
difference between them is unknown. The sect of this name in
the pseudo-epic is not Ç[=a]kta in expression but only
monotheistic. Probably the names of many sects are retained
with altered beliefs and practices. The Vishnu Pur[=a]na, i.
11. 54, gives a model prayer which may be taken once for all
as the attitude of the Vishnuite: "Glory to V[=a]sudeva, him
of perfected wisdom, whose unrevealed form is (known as)
Brahm[=a], Vishnu, and Çiva" (Hira[n.]yagarbha, Purusha,
Pradh[=a]na).]
[Footnote 40: Weber shows for instance, _loc. cit_., that
Indra takes the place of older Varuna; that the house-priest
yields to the Brahm[=a]; that in this feast in honor of the
king he]
[Footnote 41: Gover, JRAS. v. 91; IA. xx. 430.]
[Footnote 42: In Hinduism itself there is a striking example
of this. The Jagann[=a]th ('Juggernaut') temple was once
dedicated to Buddha as _loka-n[=a]th_ or _jagan-n[=a]th_,
'saviour of the world' Name, temple, and idol-car are now
all Vishnu's!]
[Footnote 43: That is, Rain and Sun, for all Indra's warlike
qualities are forgotten, absorbed into those of Çiva and his
son, the battle-god. The sun crosses the equator at noon of
the second day, the 'Mah[=a] Pongol.']
[Footnote 44: "Now every neck is bent, for the surface of
the waters disturbed. Then with a heave, a hiss, and a surge
of bubbles, the seething milk mounts to the top of the
vessel. Before it has had time to run down the blackened
sides, the air resounds with the sudden joyous cry of
'Pongol, oh Pongol, S[=u]rya, S[=u]rya, oh Pongol,' The word
Pongol means "boiling," from the Tamil word _pongu_, to
boil; so that the joyous shout is, 'It boils, oh S[=u]rya,
it boils.' In a moment a convulsion of greetings animates
the assembly. Every one seizes his neighbor and asks, 'Has
it boiled?' Both faces gleam with delight as the answer
comes--'It has boiled.' Then both shout at the top of their
voices--'Oh Pongol, Pongol, oh S[=u]rya, oh Indra, Pongol,
Pongol.'" Gorer, _loc. cit_.]
[Footnote 45: The Crocodile, _makara_, like the parrot, is
sacred to K[=a]madeva, Love. But as Ganges also is holy it
is difficult to say for which divinity the offering was
intended. Some, indeed, interpret _makara_ as dolphin.]
[Footnote 46: A feast now neglected, though kept up by
strict Brahmans, occurs on or about the 20th January. The
orthodox adherents of the Çivaite sects and Ç[=a]ktas also
observe it. It is a Çr[=a]ddha, or funeral feast to the
Manes. Also on the 26th and 30th January there are rites
nearly obsolete, the first being signalized by offerings to
Yama; the second, a Çivaite feast (to his spouse, as 'giver
of bridegrooms'). The list is more celebrated in the South
than in the North. It is interesting chiefly as a parallel
to St. Valentine's day, or, as Wilson says, the nearer feast
of St. Agnes (21st January) on the eve of which divination
is practiced to discover future husbands. It is this time
also that the Greeks call 'marriage-month' (Gamelion); and
the fourth day from the new moon (which gives the name to
this Hindu festival, _caturth[=i]_, "fourth day") is the day
when Hesiod recommends the bringing home of the bride.]
[Footnote 47: In case any writing has to be done on this day
it is done with chalk, not with the pens, "which have a
complete holiday" (Wilson).]
[Footnote 48: The invocations show very well how the worship
of Brahm[=a] has been driven out in honor of his more
powerful rivals. For Sarasvat[=i] is invoked first as "Thou
without whom Brahm[=a] never lives"; but again as "Thou of
eight forms, Lakshm[=i], Medh[=a], Dhav[=a], Pusht[=i],
G[=a]ur[=i], Tusht[=i], Prabh[=a], Dhriti, O Sarasvat[=i]."
The great festivals, like the great temples, are not very
stricly sectarian. Williams says that in Çiva's temple in
Benares are kept monkeys (sacred to Vishnu).]
[Footnote 49: Between this and the last occur minor
holidays, one to avert small-pox; one (February the 4th)
sacred to the sun (Sunday, the seventh day of each lunar
fortnight, is strictly observed); and one to the Manes.]
[Footnote 50: Fasting is not necessarily a part of civilized
religion alone. It is found in the Brahmanic and Hindu
cults, but it obtains also among the American Indians. Thus
the Dacotahs fast for two or three days at the worship of
sun and moon. Schoolcraft, _Histor. and Statist_., iii.
227.]
[Footnote 51: The last clause (meaning 'common historical
origin') were better omitted.]
[Footnote 52: Except the mystic syllable _[=O]m_, supposed
to represent the trinity (_[=O]m_ is _a, u, m_), though
probably it was originally only an exclamation.]
[Footnote 53: A small Vishnu festival in honor of Vishnu as
'man-lion' (one of his ten _avatars_) is celebrated on the
13th of March; but in Bengal in honor of the same god as a
cow-boy. On the 15th of March there is another minor
festival in Bengal, but it is to Çiva, or rather to one of
his hosts, under the form of a water pot (that is to
preserve from disease).]
[Footnote 54: The bonfire is made of fences, door posts,
furniture, etc. Nothing once seized and devoted to the fire
may be reclaimed, but the owner may defend his property if
he can. Part of the horse-play at this time consists in
leaping over the fire, which is also ritualistic with same
of the hill-tribes.]
[Footnote 55: Compare the Nautch dances on R[=a]macandra's
birthday. Religious dances, generally indecent, are also a
prominent feature of the religions of the wild tribes (as
among American and African savages, Greeks, etc., etc.).]
[Footnote 56: The 'Easter bonnet' in Indic form.]
[Footnote 57: In sober contrast stands the yearly orthodox
Çráddha celebration (August-September), though Brahmans join
in sectarian fêtes.]
[Footnote 58: Wilson draws an elaborate parallel between the
Hol[=i] and the Lupercalia, etc. (Carnival). But the points
of contact are obvious. One of the customs of the Hol[=i]
celebration is an exact reproduction of April-Fool's day.
Making "Hol[=i] fools" is to send people on useless errands,
etc. (Festum Stultorum, at the Vernal Equinos, transferred
by the Church to the first of November, "Innocents' Day").]
[Footnote 59: Stevenson, JRAS. 1841, p. 239; Williams,
_loc. cit._; Wilkins, _Modern Hinduism_, ch. III.]
[Footnote 60: The daily service consists in dressing,
bathing, feeding, etc It is divided into eight ridiculous
ceremonies, which prolong the worship through the day.]
[Footnote 61: The brilliant displays attracted the notice of
the Greeks, who speak of the tame tigers and panthers, the
artificial trees carried in wagons, the singing,
instrumental music, and noise, which signalized a fête
procession. See Williams, _loc. cit_.]
[Footnote 62: Such, for instance, is the most holy temple of
South India, the great temple of Çr[=i]rangam at
Trichinopoly. The idol car, gilded and gaudy, is carved with
obscenity; the walls and ceilings are frescoed with
bestiality. It represents Vishnu's heaven.]
[Footnote 63: From this name or title comes the Gita
Govinda, a mystic erotic poem (in praise of the cow-boy god)
exaltedly religious as it is sensual (twelfth century).]
[Footnote 64: VP.l. 2. 63. The 'qualities' or 'conditions'
of God's being are referred to by 'goodness' and
'darkness.']
[Footnote 65: All this erotic vulgarity is typical of the
common poetry of the people, and is in marked contrast to
the chivalrous, but not love-sick, Bh[=a]rata.]
[Footnote 66: Compare Duncker, LII^5. p. 327, More doubtful
is the identification of Nysian and Nish[=a]dan, _ib_. note.
Compare, also, Schroeder, _loc. cit._ p. 361. Arrian calls
(Çiva) Dionysos the _[Greek: oitou dotêra Iudêis]_
(Schwanbeck, Fig. 1.).]
[Footnote 67: This remains always as Çiva's heaven in
distinction from Goloka or V[=a]ikuntha, Vishnu's heaven.
Nowadays Benares is the chief seat of Çivaism.]
[Footnote 68: The doctrine of the immaculate conception,
common to Vishnuism and Buddhism (above, p.431), can have no
exact parallel in Çivaism, for Çiva is not born as a child;
but it seems to be reflected in the laughable ascription of
virginity to Um[=a] (Civa's wife), when she is revered as
the emblem of motherhood.]
[Footnote 69: In RV. v. 41. 4, the Vedic triad is Fire,
Wind, and (Tr[=i]ta of the sky) Indra; elsewhere Fire, Wind,
and Sun (above, p. 42), distinct from the triune fire.]
[Footnote 70: In the Rig Veda the three steps are never thus
described, but in the later age this view is common. It is,
in fact, only on the 'three steps' that the identity with
the sun is established. In RV. 1. 156. 4, Vishnu is already
above Varuna.]
[Footnote 71: Çat. Br. xiv. 1. 1. 5.]
[Footnote 72: For other versions see Mulr, _Original
Sanskrit Texts_, iv. p. 127 ff.]
[Footnote 73: Later interpreted as wives or eyes.]
[Footnote 74: For an epic guess at the significance of the
title _n[=i]laka[n.][t.]ha_, 'blue-throated,' see Mbh[=a] i.
18. 43.]
[Footnote 75: AV. iv. 28; viii. 2; xi. 2. Thus even in the
Rig Veda pairs of gods are frequently besung as one, as if
they were divinities not only homogeneous but even
monothelous.]
[Footnote 76: Brahm[=a]'s mark in the lotus; Vishnu's, the
discus (sun); Çiva's, the Linga, phallic emblem.]
[Footnote 77: The grim interpretation of later times makes
the cattle (to be sacrificed) _men_. The theological
interpretation is that Çiva is the lord of the spirit, which
is bound like a beast.]
[Footnote 78: The commenter, horrified by the murder of the
Father-god, makes Rudra kill 'the sin'; but the original
shows that it is the Father-god who was shot by this god,
who chose as his reward the lordship over kine; and such
exaltation is not improbable (moreover, it is historical!).
The hunting of the Father-god by Rudra is pictured in the
stars (Orion), Ait. Br. iii. 33.]
[Footnote 79: See Weber. _Ind. St._ ii. 37; Muir, iv. 403.
Çarva (Çaurva) is Avestan, but at the same time it is his
'eastern' name, while Bhava is his western name. Çat. Br. i.
7. 3. 8.]
[Footnote 80: The epic (_loc. cit_. above), the Pur[=a]nas,
and the very late Atharva Çiras Upanishad and M[=a]itr. Up.
(much interpolated). Compare Muir, _loc. cit_. pp. 362-3.]
[Footnote 81: According to the epic, men honor gods that
kill, Indra, Rudra, and so forth; not gods that are passive,
such as Brahm[=a], the Creator, and P[=u]shan (xii. 15. 18),
_ya eva dev[=a] hant[=a]ras t[=a]l loko 'rcayate
bh[=r.]ça[=.m], na Brahm[=a][n.]am_.]
[Footnote 82: Barth seems to imply that Harihara (the name)
is later than the _trim[=u]rti_ (p. 185), but he has to
reject the passage in the Hari-va[.n]ça to prove this. On
Ayen[=a]r, a southern god said to be Hari-Hara
(Vishnu-Çiva), see Williams, _loc. cit_.]
[Footnote 83: RV. viii. 6. 30; 1. 50. 10. Weber refers
Krishna further back to a priestly Vedic poet of that name,
to whom are attributed hymns of the eighth and tenth books
of the Rig Veda (_Janm[=a][s.][t.]am[=i]_, p. 316). He
interprets Krishna's mother's name, Devak[=i], as 'player'
_(ib)_ But the change of name in a Vedic hymn has no special
significance. The name Devak[=i] is found applied to other
persons, and its etymology is rather _deva_, divine, as
Weber now admits (Berl. Ak. 1890, p. 931).]
[Footnote 84: In the epic, also, kings become hermits, and
perform great penance just as do the ascetic priests.
Compare the heroes themselves, and i. 42. 23 _raja
mah[=a]tap[=a]s_; also ii. 19, where a king renounces his
throne, and with his two wives becomes a hermit in the
woods. In i. 41. 31 a king is said to be equal to ten
priests!]
[Footnote 85: In fact, the daily repetition of the
S[=a]vitr[=i] is a tacit admission of the sun god as the
highest type of the divine; and Vishnu is the most
spiritualized form of the sun-god, representing even in the
Rig-Veda the goal of the departing spirit.]
[Footnote 86: Skanda (Subrahmanya) and Ganeça are Çiva's two
sons, corresponding to Krishna and R[=a]ma. Skanda's own son
is Viç[=a]kha, a _graha_ (above, p. 415).]
[Footnote 87: Çiva at the present day, for instance, is
represented now and then as a man, and he is incarnate as
V[=i]rabhadra. But all this is modern, and contrasts with
the older conception. It is only in recent times, in the
South, that he is provided with an earthly history. Compare
Williams, _Thought and Life,_ p. 47.]
[Footnote 88: _Ava-t[=a]ra_, 'descent,' from _ava_, 'down,'
and _tar_, 'pass' (as in Latin in-_trare_).]
[Footnote 89: In the _Bh[=a]gavata Pur[=a]na_.]
[Footnote 90: The tortoise _avatar_ had a famous temple two
centuries ago, where a stone tortoise received prayer. How
much totemism lies in these _avatars_ it is guess-work to
say.]
[Footnote 91: Balar[=a]ma (or Baladeva), Krishna's elder
brother, is to be distinguished from R[=a]ma. The former is
a late addition to the Krishna-cult, and belongs with Nanda,
his reputed father. Like Krishna, the name is also that of a
snake, Naga, and it is not impossible that Naga worship may
be the foundation of the Krishna-cult, but it would be hard
to reconcile this with tradition. In the sixth century
Var[=a]hamihira recognizes both the brothers.]
[Footnote 92: Edkins, cited by Müller, _India_, p. 286.]
[Footnote 93: Weber, _Janm[=a][s.][t.]am[=i]_, pp. 259, 318.
Weber describes in full the cult of the "Madonna with the
Child," according to the Pur[=a]nas.]
[Footnote 94: On the subsequent deification of the Pandus
themselves see 1A. VII. 127.]
[Footnote 95: Hence the similarity with Herakles, with whom
Megasthenes identifies him. The man-lion and hero-forms are
taken to rid earth of monsters.]
[Footnote 96: Greek influence is clearly reflected in
India's architecture. Hellenic bas-reliefs representing
Bacchic scenes and the love-god are occasionally found.
Compare the description of Çiva's temple in Orissa, Weber,
_Literature_, p. 368; _Berl. Ak._, 1890, p, 912. Çiva is
here associated with the Greek cult of Eros and Aphrodite.]
* * * * *
CHAPTER XVII.
MODERN HINDU SECTS.[1]
Although the faith of India seems to have completed a circle, landing
at last in a polytheism as gross as was that of the Vedic age, yet is
this a delusive aspect, as will appear if one survey the course of the
higher intellectual life of the people, ignoring, as is right, the
invariable factor introduced by the base imaginings of the vulgar. The
greater spirituality has always expressed itself in independent
movement, and voiced itself in terms of revolution. But in reality
each change has been one of evolution. To trace back to the Vedic
period the origin of Hindu sectarianism would, indeed, be a nice task
for a fine scholar, but it would not be temerarious to attempt it. We
have failed of our purpose if we have not already impressed upon the
reader's mind the truth that the progress of Brahmanic theology (in
distinction from demonology) has been one journey, made with rests and
halts, it is true, and even with digressions from the straight path;
but without abatement of intent, and without permanent change of
direction. Nor can one judge otherwise even when he stands before so
humiliating an exhibition of groundling bigotry as is presented by
some of the religious sects of the present day. The world of lower
organisms survives the ascent of the higher. There is always
undergrowth; but before the fall of a great tree its seeds sprout,
withal in the very soil of the weedy thicket below. So out of
the rank garden of Hindu superstitions arise, one after another, lofty
trees of an old seed, which is ever renewed, and which cultivation has
gradually improved.
We have shown, especially in the chapters on the Atharva Veda and on
Hinduism, as revealed in epic poetry, how constant in India is the
relation between these two growths. If surprised at the height of
early Hindu thought, one is yet more astonished at the permanence of
the inferior life which flourishes beneath the shady protection of the
superior. Even here one may follow the metaphor, for the humbler life
below is often a condition of the grander growth above.
In the Rig Veda there is an hymn of faith and doubt
To INDRA.[2]
He who, just born, with thought endowed, the foremost,
Himself a god hemmed in the gods with power;
Before whose breath, and at whose manhood's greatness,
The two worlds trembled; he, ye folk, is Indra.
He who the earth made firm as it was shaking,
And made repose the forward tottering mountains;
Who measured wide the inter-space aerial,
And heaven established; he, ye folk, is Indra.
Who slew the dragon, loosed the rivers seven,
And drove from Vala's hiding place the cattle;[3]
Who fire between the two stones[4] hath engendered,
Conqueror in conflicts; he, ye folk, is Indra.
Who all things here, things changeable, created;
Who lowered and put to naught the barbarous color,[5]
And, like victorious gambler, took as winnings
His foe's prosperity; he, ye folk, is Indra.
Whom, awful, they (yet) ask about: 'where is he?'
And speak thus of him, saying, 'he exists not'--
He makes like dice[6] his foe's prosperity vanish;
Believe on him; and he, ye folk, is Indra.
In whose direction horses are and cattle;
In whose, the hosts (of war) and all the chariots;
Who hath both S[=u]rya and the Dawn engendered,
The Waters' leader; he, ye folk, is Indra.
Both heaven and earth do bow themselves before him,
And at his breath the mountains are affrighted;
Who bolt in arms is seen, the _soma_-drinker,
And bolt in hand; ('tis) he, ye folk, is Indra.
Who helps the _soma_-presser, (_soma_)-cooker,
The praiser (helps), and him that active serveth;
Of whom the increase _brahma_ is and _soma_,
And his this offering; he, ye folk, is Indra.
Here _brahma_, which word already in the Yajur Veda has taken to
itself the later philosophical signification, is merely prayer, the
meaning which in the Rig Veda is universal.
The note struck in this hymn is not unique:
(THE POET.)
Eager for booty proffer your laudation
To Indra; truth (is he),[7] if truth existeth;
'Indra is not,' so speaketh this and that one;
'Who him hath seen? To whom shall we give praises?'
(THE GOD.)
I am, O singer, he; look here upon me;
All creatures born do I surpass in greatness.
Me well-directed sacrifices nourish,
Destructive I destroy existent beings.[8]
These are not pleas in behalf of a new god. It is not the mere god of
physical phenomena who is here doubted and defended. It is the god
that in the last stage of the Rig Veda is become the Creator and
Destroyer, and, in the light of a completed pantheism, is grown too
great to retain his personality. With such a protest begins the great
revolt that is the sign of an inner evolution extending through the
Br[=a]hmanas and Upanishads. Indra, like other gods,[9] is held by the
rite; to the vulgar he is still the great god;[10] to the philosopher,
a name. The populace respect him, and sacerdotalism conserves him,
that same crafty, priestly power, which already at the close of the
Rig Vedic period dares to say that only the king who is subject to the
priest is sure of himself, and a little later that killing a priest is
the only real murder. We have shown above how the real divinity of the
gods was diminished even at the hands of the priests that needed them
for the rites and baksheesh, which was the goal of their piety. Even
Praj[=a]pati, the Father-god, their own creation, is mortal as well as
immortal.[11] We have shown, also, how difficult it must have been to
release the reason from the formal band of the rite. Socially it was
impossible to do so. He that was not initiated was excommunicated, an
outcast. But, on the other hand, the great sacrifices gradually fell
over from their own weight. Cumbersome and costly, they were replaced
by proxy works of piety; _vidh[=a]nas_ were established that obviated
the real rite; just as to-day, 'pocket altars' take the place of real
altars.[12] There was a gradual intrusion of the Hindu cult; popular
features began to obtain; the sacrifice was made to embrace in its
workings the whole family of the sacrificer (instead of its effect
being confined to him alone, as was the earlier form); and finally
village celebrations became more general than those of the individual.
Slowly Hinduism built itself a ritual,[13] which overpowered the
Brahmanic rite. Then, again, behind the geographical advance of
Brahmanism[14] lay a people more and more prone to diverge from the
true cult (from the Brahmanic point of view). In the latter part of
the great Br[=a]hmana[15] there is already a distrust of the Indus
tribes, which marks the breaking up of Aryan unity; not that breaking
up into political division which is seen even in the Rig Veda, where
Aryan fights against Aryan as well as against the barbarian, but the
more serious dismemberment caused by the hates of priests, for here
there was no reconciliation.
The cynical scepticism of the Brahmanic ritualists, as well as the
divergence of opinions in regard to this or that sacrificial
pettiness, shows that even where there was overt union there was
covert discord, the disagreement of schools, and the difference of
faith. But all this does but reflect the greater difference in
speculation and theology which was forming above the heads of the
ritualistic bigots. For it is not without reason that the Upanishads
are more or less awkwardly laid in as the top-stone on the liturgical
edifice. They belong to the time but they are of it only in part. Yet
to dissociate the mass of Brahmanic priestlings from the Upanishad
thinkers, as if the latter were altogether members of a new era, would
be to lose the true historical perspective. The vigor of protest
against the received belief continues from the Rig Veda to Buddha,
from Buddha till to-day.
The Vedic cult absorbed a good deal of Hinduism, for instance the
worship of Fate,[16] just as Hinduism absorbed a good deal of Vedic
cult. Nor were the popular works obnoxious to the priest. In the
Ch[=a]ndogya Upanishad[17] the Itih[=a]sas and Pur[=a]nas
(fore-runners of the epic) are already reckoned as a fifth Veda, being
recognized as a Veda almost as soon as was the Atharvan,[18] which
even in Manu is still called merely 'texts of Atharvan and Angiras'
(where texts of Bhrigu might as well have been added). Just as the
latter work is formally recognized, and the use of its magical
formulas, if employed for a good purpose, is enjoined in epic[19] and
law (_e.g._ Manu, xi. 33), so the Hinduistic rites crept gradually
into the foreground, pushing back the _soma_-cult. Idols are formally
recognized as venerable by the law-makers;[20] even before their day
the 'holy pool,' which we have shown to be so important to Hinduism,
is accepted by Brahmanism.[21] Something, too, of the former's
catholicity is apparent in the cult at an early date, only to be
suppressed afterwards. Thus in [=A]it. Br. II. 19, the slave's son
shares the sacrifice; and the slave drinks _soma_ in one of the
half-Brahmanical, half-popular festivals.[22] Whether human sacrifice,
sanctioned by some modern sects, is aught but pure Hinduism, Çivaism,
as affected by the cult of the wild-tribes, it is hard to say. At any
rate, such sacrifices in the Brahmanic world were obsolete long before
one finds them in Hinduism. Of Buddhistic, Brahmanic, and Hinduistic
reciprocity we have spoken already, but we may add one curious fact,
namely, that the Buddhism of Çivaism is marked by its holy numbers.
The Brahmanic Rudra with eight names[23] and eight forms[24] is
clearly Çivaite, and the numbers are as clearly Buddhistic[25] Thus,
as Feer has shown, Buddhist hells are eight, sixteen, etc, while the
Brahmanic hells are seven, twenty-one, etc. Again, the use of the
rosary was originally Çivaite, not Buddhisttc;[26] and Buddha in Bali,
where they live amicably side by side, is regarded as Çiva's
brother.[27]
Two things result from this interlocking of sectarian Brahmanism with
other sects. First, it is impossible to say in how far each influenced
the other; and, again, the antiquity of special ideas is rendered
doubtful. A Brahmanic idea can pretty safely be allotted to its first
period, because the literature is large enough to permit the
assumption that it will appear in literature not much later than it
obtains. But a sectarian idea may go back centuries before it is
permanently formulated, as, for example, the doctrine of special grace
in a modern sect.
One more point must be noticed before we proceed to review the sects
of to-day. Hindu morality, the ethical tone of the modern sects, is
older than the special forms of Hindu viciousness which have been
received into the cult. A negative altruism (beyond which Brahmanism
never got) is characteristic of the Hindu sects. But this is already
embodied in the golden rule, as it is thus formulated in the epic
'Compendium of Duty':
Not that to others should one do
Which he himself objecteth to.
This is man's duty in one word;
All other rules may be ignored.[28]
The same is true of the 'Ten Commandments' of one of the modern sects.
It is one of the strong proofs that Christian morals did not have much
effect upon early Hinduism, that, although the Christian Church of St.
Thomas, as is well established, was in Malabar as early as 522,[29]
and Christians were in the North in the seventh century, yet no trace
of the active Christian benevolence, in place of this abstention from
injury, finds its way into the epic or Pur[=a]nas. But an active
altruism permeates Buddhism, and one reads in the birth-stories even
of a saviour Buddha, not the Buddha of love, M[=a]itreya, who was to
be the next Buddha on earth, but of that M[=a]itrakanyaka, who left
heaven and came to earth that he might redeem the sins of others.[30]
Whether there is any special touch between the older sects and those
of modern days[31] that have their headquarters in the same districts
is a question which we have endeavored to investigate, but we have
found nothing to substantiate such an opinion. Buddhism retired, too
early to have influence on the sects of to-day, and between Jainism
and the same sects there does not seem to be any peculiar rapport even
where the sect is seated in a Jain stronghold.[35]] The Jains occupy,
generally speaking, the Northwest (and South), while the Buddhists
were located in the Northeast and South. So Çivaism may be loosely
located as popular in the Northeast and South, while Vishnuism has its
habitat rather in the jain centres of the Northwest (and South).
We have mentioned in the preceding chapter the sects of a few
centuries ago, as these have been described in Brahmanic
literature.[33] The importance, and even the existence of some of the
sects, described in the _Conquest of Çankara_, has been questioned,
and the opinion has been expressed that, since they are described only
to be exposed as heretical, they may have been creations of fancy,
imaginary sects; the refutation of their principles being a _tour de
force_ on the part of the Brahmanic savant, who shows his acumen by
imagining a sect and then discountenancing it. It does not, indeed,
seem to us very probable that communities were ever formed as 'Agnis'
or 'Yamas,' etc, but on the other hand, we think it is more likely
that sects have gone to pieces without leaving any trace than that
those enumerated, explained, and criticised should have been mere
fancies.[46]] Moreover, in the case of some of these sects
there are still survivors, so that _a fortiori_ one may presume the
others to have existed also, if not as sects or communities, yet as
bodies professing faith in Indra or Yama, etc. The sects with which we
have to deal now are chiefly those of this century, but many of these
can claim a definite antiquity of several centuries at least. They
have been described by Wilson in his famous _Sketch_, and, in special
cases, more recently and more fully by Williams' and other writers.
THE ÇIVAITES.
While the Vishnuites have a dualistic, as well as idealistic
background, they are at present Vedantic, and may be divided to-day
simply into intelligent and unintelligent adherents of pantheism, the
former comprising the R[=a]ma sects, and the latter most of the
Krishnaites. On the other hand, in Çivaism one must distinguish quite
sharply in time between the different sects that go by Çiva's name. If
one look at the sects of modern times he will find that the most
degraded are dualistic, in so far as they may be said to have any
philosophy, and that idealistic Çivaism is a remnant of the past. But
he will not find a pronounced sectarianism in any of these old
Vedantic aspects of Çivaism. On the contrary, wherever Çivaism is
pantheistic it is a Çivaism which obtains only in certain ancient
schools of philosophy; where it is monotheistic it is among leaders
who have been influenced by the modern teaching of Islam, and regard
Çiva merely as a name for the One God. It is necessary, therefore, as
it is everywhere in India, to draw as sharp a line as possible between
the beliefs of the vulgar and the learned. For from the earliest
period the former accepted perfunctorily the teaching of the latter,
but at heart and in cult they remained true to their own lights.
The older S[=a]nkhya form of Çivaism was still found among the
P[=a]çupatas,'adherents of the Lord' (Paçupati) and Maheçvaras
('adherents of the great Lord'), who are mentioned in the epic and in
inscriptions of the fifth century. In the ninth century there was a
purely philosophical Çivaism which is Vedantic. But neither in the
fact (which is by no means a certainty) that Çankara accepted Çiva as
the name of the All-god, nor in the scholastic Çivaite philosophy of
Kashmeer, which in the next two centuries was developed into a purely
idealistic system at the hands of Abhinavagupta and Som[=a]nanda, is
there any trace of a popular religion. Çiva is here the pantheistic
god, but he is conceived as such only by a coterie of retired
schoolmen. On the other hand, the popular religions which spring up in
the twelfth century are, if Vedantic, chiefly Vishnuite, or, if
Çivaite, only nominally Vedantic. Thus what philosophy the Jangamas
professedly have is Vedantic, but in fact they are deistic (not
pantheistic) disciples of Çiva's priest, Basava (Sanskrit Vrishabha),
who taught Çiva-worship in its grossest form, the adoration of the
Linga (phallus); while his adherents, who are spread over all India
under the name of Jangamas, 'vagrants,' or Ling[=a]yits,
'phallus-wearers,' are idolatrous deists with but a tinge of Vedantic
mysticism. So in the case of the Tridandins, the Daçan[=a]mis, and
other sects attributed to Çivaism, as well as the Sm[=a]rtas (orthodox
Brahmans) who professed Çivaism. According to Wilson the Tridandins
(whose triple, _tri_, staff, _da[n.][d.]i_, indicates control of word,
thought, and deed) are Southern Vishnuites of the R[=a]m[=a]nuja sect,
though some of them claim to be Vedantic Çivaites. Nominally Çivaite
are also the Southern 'Saints,' Sittars (Sanskrit Siddhas), but these
are a modern sect whose religion has been taught them by Islam, or
possibly by Christianity.[36] The extreme North and South are the
districts where Çivaism as a popular religion has, or had, its firmest
hold, and it is for this reason that the higher religions which obtain
in these districts are given to Çiva. But in reality they simply take
Çiva, the great god of the neighborhood, in order to have a name for
their monotheistic god, exactly as missionaries among the American
Indians pray to the Great Spirit, to adapt themselves to their
audience's comprehension. In India, as in this country, they that
proselyte would prefer to use their own terminology, but they wisely
use that of their hearers.
We find no evidence to prove that there were ever really sectarian
Çivaites who did not from the beginning practice brutal rites, or else
soon become ascetics of the lowest and most despicable sort. For
philosophical Çivaites were never sectaries. They cared little whether
the All-god or One they argued about was called Vishnu or Çiva. But
whenever one finds a true Çivaite devotee, that is, a man that will
not worship Vishnu but holds fast to Çiva as the only manifestation of
the supreme divinity, he will notice that such an one quickly becomes
obscene, brutal, prone to bloodshed, apt for any disgusting practice,
intellectually void, and morally beneath contempt. If the Çivaite be
an ascetic his asceticism will be the result either of his lack of
intelligence (as in the case of the sects to be described immediately)
or of his cunning, for he knows that there are plenty of people who
will save him the trouble of earning a living. Now this is not the
case with the Vishnuites. To be sure there are Vishnuites that are no
better than Çivaites, but there are also strict Vishnuites,
exclusively devotees of Vishnu, who are and remain pure, not brutal,
haters of bloodshed, apt for no disgusting practices, intellectually
admirable, and morally above reproach. In other words, there are
to-day great numbers of Vishnuites who continue to be really
Vishnuites, and yet are really intelligent and moral. This has never
been the case with real Çivaites. Again, as Willams[37] has pointed
out, Çivaism is a cheap religion; Krishnaism is costly. The Çivaite
needs for his cult only a phallus pebble, _bilva_ leaves and water.
The Krishnaite is expected to pay heavily for _leitourgiai_. But
Çivaism is cheap because Çivaites are poor, the dregs of society; it
is not adopted because it is cheap.
We think, therefore, that to describe Çivaism as indifferently
pantheistic or dualistic, and to argue that it must have been
pantheistic a few centuries after the Christian era because Çiva at
that time in scholastic philosophy and among certain intellectual
sects was regarded as the one god, tends to obscure the historical
relation of the sects. Without further argumentation on this point, we
shall explain what in our view is necessary to a true understanding of
the mutual relations between Çivaites and Vishnuites in the past.
Monotheism[38] and pantheism are respectively the religious expression
of the S[=a]nkhya and Ved[=a]nta systems of philosophy. Çivaism,
Krishnaism, and R[=a]maism are all originally deistic. Pure Çivaism
has remained so to this day, not only in all its popular sectarian
expressions, but also in the Brahmanic Çivaism of the early epic, and
in the Çivaism which expresses itself in the adoration-formulae of the
literature of the Renaissance. But there is a pseudo-Çivaism which
starts up from the ninth to the twelfth centuries, and tries to work
Çiva's name into a pantheistic system of philosophy. Every such
attempt, however, and all of them are the reflex of the growing
importance of Vedantic ideas, fails as such to produce a religion. If
the movement becomes popular and develops into a religious system for
the masses, it at once gives up Çiva and takes up Vishnu, or, keeping
Çiva, it drops pantheism and becomes a low form of sectarian ascetism.
Çivaism is, therefore, fundamentally non-Vedantic, and Unitarian.[39]
On the other hand, while Krishnaism and Ramaism begin as deistic
(tribal) cults, they are soon absorbed into Brahmanic Vishnuism. Now
Vishnuism is essentially Brahmanistic, and the only orthodox
(Brahmanic) system is that which holds to the completion of Vedic
pantheism. The first systematic philosophy, however, was not orthodox.
It was the S[=a]nkhya, which peeps out in the dualism of the oldest
distinctly philosophical works, and lingers in the Puranic S[=a]nkhya.
The marks of this dualism we have shown in the Divine Song of the
epic. It is by means of it that Krishnaism as an expression of this
heterodox Vishnuism became possible. Vishnuism was soon rescued from
the dualists, and became again what it was originally, an expression
of pantheism. But Vishnu carried Krishna with him as his _alter ego_,
and in the epic the two are finally one All-god. Vedantic philosopliy
continued to present Vishnu rather than Çiva as its All-god, until
to-day Vishnuism is the sectarian aspect of the Ved[=a]nta system. But
with Vishnu have risen Krishna and R[=a]ma as still further types of
the All-god. Thus it is that Vishnuism, whether as Krishnaism or as
Ramaism, is to-day a pantheistic religion. But, while R[=a]ma is the
god of the philosophical sects, and, therefore, is almost entirely a
pantheistic god; Krishna, who was always a plebeian, is continually
reverting, so to speak, to himself; that is to say, he is more
affected by the vulgar, and as the vulgar are more prone, by whatever
sectarian name they call themselves, to worship one idol, it happens
that Krishna in the eyes of his following is less of a pantheistic god
than is R[=a]ma. Here again, therefore, it is necessary to draw the
line not so much between names of sects as between intelligent and
unintelligent people. For Krishnaism, despite all that has been done
for Krishna by the philosophers of his church, in this regard
resembles Çivaism, that it represents the religion of unintelligent
(though wealthy) classes, who revere Krishna as their one pet god,
without much more thought of his being an All-god _avatar_ than is
spent by the ordinary Çivaite on the purely nominal trinitarianism
which has been foisted upon Çiva.
But we must now give an account of the low sectaries, the
miracle-mongers, jugglers,[40] and ascetic whimsicalities, which
together stand under the phallic standard of Çivaism. Ancient and
recent observers enumerate a sad list of them. The devotees of the
'highest bird' are a low set of ascetics, who live on voluntary alms,
the result of their affectation of extreme penance. The
[=U]rdhvab[=a]hus, 'Up-arms,' raise their arms till they are unable to
lower them again. The [=A]k[=a]çamukhas, 'Sky-facers,' hold their
faces toward the sky till the muscles stiffen, and they live thus
always. The Nakhls, 'Nail' ascetics, allow their nails to grow through
their clenched hands, which unfits them for work (but they are all too
religiously lazy to work), and makes it necessary for the credulous
faithful to support them. Some of these, like the K[=a]naph[=a]ts,
'Ear-splitters,' who pierce the ear with heavy rings, have been
respectable Yogis in the past, but most of them have lost what sense
their philosophic founders attached to the sign, and keep only the
latter as their religion. Some, such as the [=U]kharas and
S[=u]kharas, appear to have no distinctive features, all of them being
the 'refuse of beggars' (Wilson). Others claim virtue on the strength
of nudity, and subdue their passions literally with lock and key. The
'Potmen,' the 'Skull-men,' G[=u]daras and K[=a]p[=a]likas, are
distinguished, as their names imply, only by their vessels. The
former, however, are the remnant of a once thoughtful sect known by
name since the sixth century, and K[=a]naph[=a]ts and K[=a]p[=a]likas
both show that very likely others among these wretches are but the
residue of ancient Çivaite sects, who began as philosophers (perhaps
Buddhists), and became only ascetic and thus degraded; for, Çiva
apparently has no power to make his worshippers better than himself,
and he is a dirty monster, now and then galvanized into the
resemblance of a decent god.
There is a well-known verse, not in Manu, but attributed to him (and
for that reason quite a modern forgery),[41] which declares that
Çambhu (Çiva) is the god of priests; Vishnu, the god of warriors;
Brahm[=a], the god of the V[=a]içyas (farmers and traders); and
Ganeça, the god of slaves. It is, on the contrary, Çiva himself, not
his son Ganeça, who is the 'god of low people' in the early
literature. It is he who 'destroys sacrifice,' and is anything but a
god of priests till he is carefully made over by the latter. Nowadays
some Brahmans profess the Çivaite faith, but they are Vishnuite if
really sectarian.
No Brahman, for instance, will serve at a Çiva shrine, except possibly
at Benares, where among more than an hundred shrines to Çiva and his
family, Vishnu has but one; and though he will occasionally perform
service even in a heretic Jain temple he will not lower himself to
worship the Linga. Nor is it true that Çiva is a patron of literature.
Like Ganeça, his son, Çiva may upset everything if he be not properly
placated, and consequently there is, at the beginning of every
enterprise (among others, literary enterprises) in the Renaissance
literature, but never in the works of religion or law or in any but
modern profane literature, an invocation to Çiva. But he is no more a
patron of literature than is Ganeça, or in other words, Çivaism is not
more literary than is Ganeçaism. In a literary country no religion is
so illiterate as Çivaism, no writings are so inane as are those in his
honor. There is no poem, no religious literary monument, no Pur[=a]na
even, dedicated to Çiva, that has any literary merit. All that is
readable in sectarian literature, the best Pur[=a]nas, the Divine
Song, the sectarian R[=a]m[=a]yana, come from Vishnuism. Çivaism has
nothing to compare with this, except in the works of them that pretend
to be Çivaites but are really not sectaries, like the Sittars and the
author of the Çvet[=a]çvatara. Çiva as a 'patron of literature' takes
just the place taken by Ganeça in the present beginning of the
Mah[=a]bh[=a]rata. Vy[=a]sa has here composed the poem[42] but Ganeça
is invoked as Vighneça, 'Lord of difficulties,' to help the poet write
it out. Vy[=a]sa does the intellectual work and Ganeça performs the
manual labor. Vishnuism, in a word, is the only cultivated (native)
sectarian religion of India; and the orthodox cult, in that it is
Vedantic, lies nearer to Vishnuism than to Çivaism. Why then does one
find Çiva invoked by philosophy? Because monotheism in distinction
from pantheism was the belief of the wise in the first centuries after
the Christian era, till the genius of Çankara definitively raised
pantheism in alliance with orthodoxy to be the more esteemed; and
because Çiva alone, when the choice lay between him and Vishnu, could
be selected as the One God. For Vishnuism was now merged with
Krishnaism, a new vulgar cult, and Çiva was an old and venerated god,
long since a member of the Brahmanic pantheon. The connection between
Çivaism and the S[=a]nkhya system gave it a more respectable and
archaic appearance in the eyes of the conservative Brahman, while the
original asceticism of Çiva undoubtedly appealed much more to
Brahmanic feeling than did the sentimentalism of the Vishnuite. In the
extreme North, in the ninth century, philosophy and Çivaism are
nominally allied, but really sectarian Çivaism was the cult of the
lowest, not of the highest classes. Many of the professed Çivaites are
to-day tending to Vedantism, which is the proper philosophy of the
Vishnuite; and the Çivaite sects are waning before the Vishnuite
power, not only in the middle North, where the mass of the population
is devoted to Vishnu, but even in Çiva's later provinces in the
extreme South. The social distribution of the sectaries in the Middle
Ages was such that one may assign older Vishnuism to the middle
classes, and Çivaism to the highest on its philosophical and decently
ascetic side, but to the lowest on its phallic and magical side.
But none of the Çivaite sects we have mentioned, imbecile as appear to
be the impostors that represent them, are equal in despicable traits
to the Ç[=a]ktas. These worshippers of the androgynous Çiva (or of
Çakti, the female principle alone), do, indeed, include some
Vishnuites among themselves, but they are originally and prevailingly
Çivaite.[43] Blood-offerings and human sacrifices are a modern and an
ancient Trait of Çiva-worship;[44] and the hill-tribes of the Vindhya
and the classical drama show that the cult of Aghor[=i] is a Çivaite
manifestation which is at once old and derived from un-Aryan sources.
Aghor[=i] and all female monsters naturally associate with Çiva, who
is their intellectual and moral counterpart. The older Aghoris exacted
human sacrifice in honor of Devi, P[=a]rvat[=i], the wife of Çiva.[2]
The adoration of the female side of a god is as old as the Rig Veda,
but Çivaism has combined this cult with features probably derived from
other independent local cults, such as that of P[=a]rvat[=i], the
'mountain goddess.' They are all united in the person of Çiva's wife
of many names, the 'great goddess,' Mah[=a]dev[=i], the 'hard'
Durg[=a], K[=a]l[=i], Um[=a], etc.[45] And it is to this ferocious
she-monster that the most abject homage of the Çivaites is paid. So
great is the terror inspired by Durg[=a] that they that are not
Çivaites at all yet join in her festival; for which purpose,
apparently, she is dubbed Vishnu's 'sister.' But it is not
blood-guiltiness alone which is laid at the door of this cult. The
sectarian religions have an exoteric and an esoteric side, the
religion of the 'right hand' and of the 'left hand.' It is the latter
(to which belong many that deny the fact) wherein centre the
abominations of Çivaism; in less degree, those of Vishnuism also.
Obscenity is the soul of this cult. Bestiality equalled only by the
orgies of the Indic savages among the hill-tribes is the form of this
'religion.'[47] It is screened by an Orphic philosophy, for is not
Nature or Illusion the female side of the Divine Male? It is screened
again by religious fervor, for it is pious profligacy that prompts the
rites. It is induced practically by an initial carousal and
drunkenness; and this is antique, for even the old _soma_-feasts were
to a great extent drunken revels, and the gods have got drunk from the
time of the Vedas[48] to do their greatest deeds. But in practice,
Çakti-worship, when unveiled, amounts to this, that men and women of
the same class and family indulge in a Bacchanalian orgy, and that, as
they proceed, they give themselves over to every excess which liquor
and lust can prompt. A description of the different rites would be to
reduplicate an account of indecencies, of which the least vile is too
esoteric to sketch faithfully. Vaguely to outline one such religious
festival will suffice. A naked woman, the wife of the chief priest,
sits in the middle of the 'holy circle.' She represents Durg[=a], the
divine female principle. The Bacchic orgy begins with hard drinking.
Çiva as Bh[=a]irava, 'the dreadful,' has his human counterpart also,
who must then and there pair with the impersonated Durg[=a]. The
worship proper consists in the repetition of meaningless _mantra_
syllables and yells; the worship improper, in indulgence in 'wine and
women' (particularly enjoined in the rite-books called Tantras). Human
sacrifice at these rites is said to be extinct at the present day.[49]
But blood-lust is appeased by the hacking of their own bodies.
Garments are cast in a heap. Lots are drawn for the women's
garments[50] by the men. With her whose clothes he gets each man
continues the debauch, inviting incest in addition to all other
excess.[51]
The older Vishnuite sects (P[=a][=n]car[=a]tras, etc.) may have had
some of this filth in their make-up; but mass for mass the practices
are characteristic of Çivaism and not of Vishnuism.[52] Especially
Çivaite, however, is the 'mother worship,' to which reference was made
in the chapter on epic Hinduism. These 'mothers' are guardian
goddesses, or fiends of disease, etc. One may not claim that all
Ç[=a]ktas are Çivaites, but how small a part of Vishnuism is occupied
with Çakti-worship can be estimated only by surveying the whole body
of worshippers of that name.
We cannot leave the lust and murder of modern Çivaism without speaking
of still another sect which hangs upon the heels of K[=a]l[=i], that
of the Thugs. It may, indeed, be questioned whether Çiva should be
responsible for the doings of his spouse, K[=a]l[=i]. But like seeks
like, and there is every historical justification in making out Çiva
to be as bad as the company he keeps. Durg[=a] and K[=a]l[=i] are not
vainly looked upon as Çiva's female side. So that a sect like the
Thugs,[53] which worshipped K[=a]li, may, it is true, be taken out of
the Çivaite sects, but only if one will split Çivaism in two and
reproduce the original condition, wherein Çiva was one monster and
K[=a]li was another; which is scarcely possible after the two have for
centuries been looked upon as identical. With this in mind it may be
granted that the Thugs payed reverence to K[=a]li, rather than to her
lord. Moreover, many of them were Mohammedans; but, for our purpose,
the significant fact is that when the Thugs were Hindus they were
K[=a]li-Çivaites. And we believe that these secret murderers, strange
as it seems, originated in a reformatory movement. As is well known,
it was a religious principle with them not to spill blood.[54] They
always throttled. They were, of course, when they first became known m
1799 (Sherwood's account), nothing but robbers and murderers. But,
like the other Çivaite monstrosities, they regarded their work as a
religious act, and always invoked K[=a]li if they were Hindus. We
think it probable, therefore, that the sect originated among the
K[=a]li-worshippers as a protest against blood-letting. Admitting that
robbery is under Çiva's protection (Çiva is 'god of robbers'), and
that K[=a]li wanted victims, a sect probably claimed that the victims
should be throttled, and not bled. Not that this was necessarily a new
reform. There is every reason to suppose that most of Çiva's females
are aboriginal wild-tribe divinities. Now among these savages one sees
at times a distinct refusal to bleed human victims. Thuggery may then
have been the claim of an old conservative party, who wished to keep
up the traditional throttling; though this is pure speculation, for,
at the time when the sect became exposed, this means of death was
merely the safest way to kill. They insisted always on being called
Thugs, and scorned the name of thief. They were suppressed by 1840.
Reynolds describes them as "mostly men of mild and unobtrusive
manners, possessing a cheerful disposition."[55]
THE VISHNUITE SECTS.
There is a formal idealistic Çivaism, as we have shown, and there was
once a dualistic Vishnuism; but in general the Vishnuite is an
idealist. To comprehend the quarrels among the sects of this religion,
however, it will be necessary to examine the radical philosophical
differences of their founders, for one passes, in going from modern
Çivaism to Vishnuism, out of ignorant superstition into philosophical
religion, of which many even of the weaker traits are but recent
Hinduistic effeminacy substituted for an older manly thinking.
The complex of Vishnuite sects presents at first rather a confused
appearance, but we think that we can make the whole body separate
itself clearly enough into its component parts, if the reader will
pause at the threshold and before entering the edifice look at the
foundation and the outer plan of Vedantic philosophy.
At the beginning of Colebrooke's essays on Hindu philosophy he
thus describes four of the recognized systems: "The two
M[=i]m[=a]ms[=a]s... are emphatically orthodox. The prior one,
_p[=u]rva_[56] which has J[=a]imini for its founder, teaches the art
of reasoning, with the express view of aiding the interpretation of
the Vedas. The latter, _uttara_[57] commonly called Ved[=a]nta, and
attributed to Vy[=a]sa (or B[=a]dar[=a]yana), deduces from the text of
the Indian scriptures a refined psychology, which goes to a denial of
a material world. A different philosophical system, partly heterodox,
and partly conformable to the established Hindu creed, is the
S[=a]nkhya; of which also, as of the preceding, there are two schools;
one usually known by that name,[58] the other commonly termed
Yoga."[59]
The eldest of these systems, as we have already had occasion to state,
is the dualistic S[=a]nkhya. It was still highly esteemed in the ninth
century, the time of the great Vedantist, Çankara.[60] A theistic form
of this atheistic philosophy is called the Puranic S[=a]nkhya, and
Pata[.n]jali's Yoga is thoroughly theistic. Radically opposed to the
dualistic S[=a]nkhya stands the Ved[=a]nta,[61] based on the
Upanishads that teach the identity of spirit and matter.
As representative of the metaphysics of the S[=a]nkhya and Ved[=a]nta
systems respectively stand in general the two great religions of
India. The former, as we have shown, is still potent in the great Song
of the epic, and its principles are essentially those of early
Çivaism. The latter, especially in its sectarian interpretation, with
which we have now to deal, has become the great religion o£ India. But
there are two sectarian interpretations of Vishnu, and two
philosophical interpretations of the All-spirit in its relation to the
individual soul or spirit.[62] Again the individual spirit of man
either enjoys after death immortal happiness, as a being distinct from
the All-spirit; or the _jiva_, individual spirit, is absorbed into the
All-spirit (losing all individuality, but still conscious of
happiness); or the individual spirit is absorbed into an All-spirit
that has no happiness or affection of any kind.
Now the strict philosophy of the Ved[=a]nta adopts the last view _in
toto_. The individual spirit (soul, self) becomes one with the
universal Spirit, losing individuality and consciousness, for the
universal Spirit itself is not affected by any quality or condition. A
creative force without attributes, this is the All-spirit of Çankara
and of the strict Vedantist. To Çankara the Creator was but a phase of
the All-spirit, and the former's immortality ended with his creation;
in other words, there is no immortal Creator, only an immortal
creative power.
In the twelfth century arose another great leader of thought,
R[=a]m[=a]nuja. He disputed the correctness of Çankara's
interpretation of Vedantic principles. It is maintained by some that
Çankara's interpretation is really correct, but for our purpose that
is neither here nor there.[63] Çankara's _brahma_ is the
one and only being, pure being, or pure thought. Thought is not an
attribute of _brahma_, it is _brahma_. Opposed to this pure being
(thought) stands _m[=a]y[=a]_, illusion, the material cause of the
seen world. It is neither being nor not-being; it is the cause of the
appearance of things, in that it is associated with _brahma_, and in
so far only is _brahma_ rightly the Lord. The infinite part of each
individual is _brahma_; the finite part is _m[=a]y[=a]._ Thus
B[=a]dar[=a]yana (author of the Ved[=a]nta S[=u]tras) says that the
individual is only illusion.
R[=a]m[=a]nuja[64], on the other hand, teaches a _brahma_ that is not
only universal, but is the universal personal Lord, a supreme
conscious and willing God. Far from being devoid of attributes, like
Çankara's _brahma_, the _brahma_ of R[=a]m[=a]nuja has all attributes,
chief of which is thought or intelligence. The Lord contains in
himself the elements of that plurality which Çankara regards as
illusion. As contrasted with the dualistic S[=a]nkhya phiiosophy both
of these systems inculcate monism. But according to Çankara all
difference is illusion; while according to R[=a]m[=a]nuja _brahma_ is
not homogeneous, but in the diversity of the world about us he is
truly manifested. Çankara's _m[=a]y[=a]_ is R[=a]m[=a]nuja's body of
_(brahma)_ the Lord. Çankara's personal god exists only by collusion
with illusion, and hence is illusory. The _brahma_ of R[=a]m[=a]nuja
is a personal god, the omnipotent, omniscient, Lord of a real world.
Moreover, from an eschatological point of view, Çankara explains
salvation, the release from re-birth, _sams[=a]ra_, as complete union
with this unqualified _brahma_, consequently as loss of individuality
as well as loss of happiness. But R[=a]m[=a]nuja defines salvation as
the departure from earth forever of the individual
spirit, which enters a heaven where it will enjoy perennial bliss[65].
R[=a]m[=a]nuja's doctrine inspires the sectarian pantheism of the
present time. In this there is a metaphysical basis of conduct, a
personal god to be loved or feared, the hope of bliss hereafter. In
its essential features it is a very old belief, far older than the
philosophy which formulates it[66]. Thus, after the hard saying "fools
desire heaven," this desire reasserted itself, and under
R[=a]m[=a]nuja's genial interpretation of the Ved[=a]nta S[=u]tras the
pious man was enabled to build up his cheerful hope again, withal on
the basis of a logic as difficult to controvert as was that of Çankara
himself[67].
Thus far the product of Vedantism is deism. But now with two steps one
arrives at the inner portal of sectarianism. First, if _brahma_ is a
personal god, which of the gods is he, this personal All-spirit? As a
general thing the Vedantist answers, 'he is Vishnu'; and adds,
'Vishnu, who embraces as their superior those other gods, Çiva, and
Brahm[=a].' But the sectary is not content with making the All-god one
with Vishnu. Vishnu was manifested in the flesh, some say as Krishna,
some say as R[=a]ma[68]. The relation of sectary to Vishnuite, and to
the All-spirit deist, may be illustrated most clearly by comparison
with Occidental religions. One may not acknowledge any personal god as
the absolute Supreme Power; again, one may say that this Supreme Power
is a
personal god, Jehovah; again, Jehovah may or may not be regarded as
one with Christ. The minuter ramifications of the Christian church
then correspond to the sub-sects of Krishnaism or Ramaism.[69]
The Occidental and Oriental conceptions of the trinity are, however,
not identical. For in India the trinity, from the Vishnuite point of
view, is an amalgamation of Çiva and Brahm[=a] with Vishnu,
irrespective of the question whether Vishnu be manifest in Krishna or
not; while the Christian trinity amalgamates the form that corresponds
to Vishnu with the one that corresponds to Krishna.[70] To the
orthodox Brahman, on the other hand, as Williams has very well put it,
Krishna is an incarnation of Vishnu, who is himself only an
incarnation, that is, a form, of God.
Having now explained the two principal divisions of the modern sects,
we can lead the reader into the church of Vishnu. It is a church of
two great parties, each being variously subdivided. Of these two
parties the Krishnaites are intellectually the weaker, and hence
numerically the stronger. All Krishnaites, of course, identify the
man-god Krishna with Vishnu, and their sub-sects revert to various
teachers, of whom the larger number are of comparatively recent date,
although as a body the Krishnaites may claim an antiquity as great, if
not greater, than that of the Ramaites.
But the latter party, in their various sub-sects, all claim as
their founder either R[=a]m[=a]nuja himself or one of his followers;
and since, if the claim be granted, the R[=a]ma sects do but continue
his work, we shall begin by following out the result of his teaching
as it was interpreted by his disciples; especially since the
Krishnaites have left to the Ramaites most of the philosophizing of
the church, and devoted themselves more exclusively to the moralities
and immoralities of their more practical religion. As a matter of
fact, the Ramaites to-day are less religious than philosophical, while
in the case of the Krishnaites, with some reservations, the contrary
may be said to be the case.
THE RAMAITES.
Since the chief characteristic of growth among Hindu sectaries is a
sort of segmentation, like that which conditions the development of
amoebas and other lower organisms, it is a forgone conclusion that the
Ramaites, having formed one body apart from the Krishnaites, will
immediately split up again into smaller segments. It is also a
foregone conclusion, since one is really dealing here with human
types, that these smaller segments will mutually hate and despise each
other much more than they hate their common adversaries. Just as, in
old times, a Calvinist hated a Lutheran more than he did a Russian
Christian (for he understood his quarrel better), so a 'cat-doctrine'
Ramaite hates a 'monkey-doctrine' Ramaite far more than he hates a
Krishnaite, while with a Çivaite he often has an amicable union;
although the Krishnaite belittles the Ramaite's manifestation of
Vishnu, and the Çivaite belittles Vishnu himself.[71]
The chief point of difference theologically between the Ramaites is
the one just mentioned. The adherents of the 'cat-doctrine' teach that
God saves man as a cat takes up its kitten, without free-will on the
part of the latter. The monkey-doctrinaires teach that man, in order
to be saved, must reach out to their God (R[=a]ma, who is Vishnu, who,
again, is All-god, that is, _brahma_), and embrace their God as a
monkey does its mother.[72] The resemblance to the Occidental sects
here becomes still more interesting. But we have given an earlier
example of the doctrine of free grace from the epic, and can now only
locate the modern sects that still argue the question. The 'monkey'
Ramaites are a sect of the North (_vada_), and hence are called
Vada-galais;[73] the 'cat' or Calvinistic Ramaites of the South
(_ten_), are called Ten-galais. Outwardly these sects differ in having
diverse _mantras_, greetings, dress, and especially in the
forehead-signs, which show whether the 'mark of Vishnu' shall
represent (Vadagal belief) one or (Tengal) two feet of the god
(expressed by vertical lines[74] painted fresh daily on the forehead).
The Ten-galais, according to a recent account, are the more numerous
and the more materialistic.[75]
All the Ramaites, on the other hand, hold that (1) the deity is not
devoid of qualities; (2) Vishnu is the deity and should be worshipped
with Lakshm[=i], his wife; (3) R[=a]ma is the human _avatar_ of
Vishnu; (4) R[=a]m[=a]nuja and all the great teachers since his day
are also _avatars_ of Vishnu.
In upper India, about the Ganges, R[=a]m[=a]nuja's disciple,
R[=a]m[=a]nand (fifth in descent), who lived in the fourteenth
century, has more followers than has the founder. His disciples
worship the divine ape, Hanuman[76] (conspicuous in both epics), as
well as R[=a]ma. They are called 'the liberated,' Avadh[=u]tas, but
whether because they are freed from caste-restrictions,[77] or from
the strict rules of eating enjoined by R[=a]m[=a]nuja, is doubtful.
R[=a]m[=a]nand himself had in turn twelve disciples. Of these the most
famaous is Kab[=i]r, whose followers, the Kab[=i]r Panth[=i]s (sect),
are widely spread, and of whom no less a person than N[=a]nak, the
Sikh, claimed to be a successor. But it will be more convenient to
describe the Sikhs hereafter. Of R[=a]m[=a]nand's other disciples that
founded sects may be mentioned Kil, whose sectaries, the Kh[=a]kis, of
Oude, unite successfully R[=a]ma-worship, Hanuman-worship, and Çivaite
fashions (thus presenting a mixture like that of the southern
M[=a]dhvas, who unite the images of Çiva and Vishnu). The R[=a]s
D[=a]sa sect, again, owes to its founder the black Ç[=a]lagr[=a]ma
pebble, an object of reverent awe, which gives rise to a sort of
sub-cult subsequently imitated by others.[78] Another widely-spread
sect which claim R[=a]m[=a]nand as their founder's teacher is that of
the D[=a]d[=u] Panth[=i]s. This branch also of the Ramaites we shall
more appropriately discuss under the head of deism (below). Finally,
we have to mention, as an outcome of the R[=a]m[=a]nand faith, the
modern R[=a]m[=a]yana, Ramcaritmanas, the new bible of the sect,
composed in the sixteenth century by Tulas[=i]d[=a]sa ('slave of
Vishnu'),the greatest of modern Hindu poets. What the Divine Song and
the Bh[=a]gavata Pur[=a]na are to the Krishnaite, the older (epic)
R[=a]m[=a]yana of V[=a]lm[=i]ki and Tulas[=i]d[=a]sa's new poem (of
the same name) are to the Ramaite.[79]
THE KRISHNAITES.
There are two great sects that worship Vishnu as especially manifested
in the human form of Krishna. But, as distinguished from the
philosophical Ramaite, the Krishnaite is not satisfied with a
declaration of faith in the man-god, and in fact his chief cult is of
the child-god Krishna, the B[=a]la Gop[=a]la or Infant Shepherd. This
recalls the older Krishna (of the Harivança), whose sporting with the
milk-maids is a favorite topic in later Krishnaite literature. As a
formulated cult, consisting for the most part of observances based on
the mystic side of affection for the personal saver of man (the
_bhakti_ principle of 'devotion,' erotically expanded[80]), this
worship obtains both among C[=a]itanyas and Vallabhas, sects that
arose in the sixteenth century.[81]
C[=a]itanya, born in Bengal in 1485, of whom it is fabled that wise
men came and gave homage to him while he was yet a child, was active
in Bengal and Orissa, where his sect (named after him) is one of the
most important at the present day. C[=a]itanya preached a practical as
well as a theoretical reform. He taught the equality of all
worshippers of whatever caste, and the religious virtue of marriage.
At the present day caste-feeling and religious profession are somewhat
at variance. But a compromise is affected. While in the temple the
high-caste C[=a]itanyas regard their lowly co-religionists as equals;
when out of it they become again arrogantly high-caste, Making a
virtue of marriage instead of celibacy caused the sect to become
popular with the middle and lower classes, but its adherents are
usually drawn from the dregs of the populace.[82] The principle of
love for God (that is, for Krishna) is especially dwelt upon by
C[=a]itanya. The devotee should feel such affection as is felt by a
young man for a girl. To exercise or inspire this rapt and mystic
devotion, recourse is had to singing, dancing. and other familiar
means of arousing religious fervor. If the dancing devotee swoons it
is a sign that God accepts his love. At the present day C[=a]itanya
himself is regarded as the incarnate deity. He and his two chief
disciples, who (like all Gosains, religious Teachers) are divine, form
a little sub-trinity for the sect.[83] This sect, like so many others,
began as a reform, only to become worse than its rivals.
Vallabha or Vallabh[=a]e[=a]rya, 'Teacher Vallabha,' was also of the
sixteenth century, but his sect belongs especially to the Northwest,
while the sphere of C[=a]itanya's influence was in the Northeast. He
lived near the Ganges, is said to have been a scholar, and wrote a
commentary on the early life of Krishna in the tenth book of the
Bh[=a]gavata Pur[=a]na, and on the Divine
Song. In Bombay and Kutch his disciples are most numerous, the
Epicureans of Vishnuism. For their precept is 'eat and enjoy.' No
mortification of the senses is allowed. Human love typifies divine
love.[84] The teachers acquired great renown and power, assuming and
maintaining the haughty title of _mah[=a] r[=a]jas_ ('great kings').
They are as gods, and command absolutely their devotees.[85] Here the
worship of the Infant Krishna reaches its greatest height (or depth).
The image of the infant god is daily clothed, bathed, anointed, and
worshipped. Religious exercises have more or less of an erotic
tendency, and here, if anywhere, as one may learn from Wilson,
Williams, and other modern writers on this sect, there are almost as
great excesses as are committed among the Çivaite sects. As a sect it
is an odd combination of sensual worship and theological speculation,
for they have considerable sectarian literature. The most renowned
festival of the Infant Krishna is the celebration of the stable-birth
of Krishna and of the Madonna (bearing him on her breast), but this we
have discussed already. Besides this the Jagann[=a]th procession in
Bengal and Orissa, and the great autumnal picnic called the R[=a]s
Y[=a]tra, are famous occasions for displaying Krishnaite, or, indeed,
general Vishnuite zeal. At the R[=a]s Y[=a]tra assemble musicians,
dancers, jugglers, and other joy-creating additions to the religious
feast, the ostensible reason for which is the commemoration of
Krishna's dances with the milk-maids. The devotees belong chiefly to
the wealthy middle classes. These low sects worship Krishna
with R[=a]dh[=a] (his mistress, instead of Lakshm[=i], Vishnu's wife).
Here, too, as Krishnaites rather than as Vishnuites, are found the
'left-hand' worshippers of the female power.[86]
This sensual corruption of Vishnuism, which is really not Vishnuism
but simple Krishnaism, led to two prominent reforms within the fold.
Among the Vallabhas arose in protest the Caran D[=a]s[=i]s, who have
taken from the M[=a]dhvas of the South their Ten Commandments (against
lying, reviling, harsh speech, idle talk, theft, adultery, injury to
life, imagining evil, hate, and pride); and evolved for themselves the
tenet that faith without works is dead. The same protest was made
against the Vallabhas by Sv[=a]mi N[=a]r[=a]yana. He was born about
1780 near Lucknow, and advocated a return to Vallabha's purer faith,
which had been corrupted. Probably most of the older reformers have
had much the same career as had Sv[=a]mi N[=a]r[=a]yana. Exalted by
the people, who were persuaded by his mesmeric eloquence, he soon
became a political figure, a martyr of persecution, a triumphant
victor, and then an ascetic, living in seclusion; whence he emerged
occasionally to go on tours "like a bishop visiting his diocese"
(Williams). He is worshipped as a god.[87] The sect numbers to-day a
quarter of a million, some being celibate clergy, some householders.
In contrast to Vishnuism the following points are characteristic of
orthodox Brahmanism (Çankara's Vedantism): The orthodox believe that
there is one spirit in three forms, co-eternal impersonal
essences--being, knowledge, and joy. When it wills it becomes
personal, exists in the object, knows, rejoices, associating itself
with illusion. In this state it has three corporeal forms, causal,
subtile, gross. With the causal body (identified with illusion,
ignorance) it becomes the Supreme Lord, that is, the totality of
dreamless human spirits. With the subtile form it becomes the golden
seed, or thread-spirit (dreaming spirits); with the gross form it
becomes V[=i]r[=a]j, V[=a]içv[=a]nara, the waking spirit. The lowest
state is that of being wide awake. The personal god (Brahm[=a],
Vishnu, Çiva, of the sectaries) is this it as influenced by the three
qualities, _rajas, sattva, tamas_ (passion, truth, and ignorance),
respectively. Three essences, three corporeal forms, and three
qualities constitute, therefore, the threefold trinity of the
orthodox, who are called Sm[=a]rtas, they that 'hold to
tradition.'[88] What the sectary rejects, namely, the scriptures (Veda
and Upanishads, etc.) and the caste system, that the orthodox retains;
what the sectary holds, namely, R[=a]m[=a]nuja's qualified
non-duality, and absolute godhead in Çiva or Krishna, that the
orthodox rejects (although he may receive the sectary's god into his
pantheon). Some of the sects still keep respect for caste, excusing
their respect on the ground that "it is well enough for God to ignore
social distinctions, but not for man." But caste-distinctions are
generally ignored, or there is positive hate of the Brahman. In
antithesis to the orthodox, the sectaries all hold one other important
tenet. From the idea of _bhakti_, faith or devotion, was developed
that of love for Krishna, and then (as an indication of devotion) the
confession of the name of the Lord as a means of grace. Hence, on the
one hand, the meaningless repetition of the sect's special _kirttan_
or liturgies, and _mantra,_ or religious formula; the devotion,
demanded by the priest, of _man, tan, dhan_ (mind, body,[89] and
property); and finally, the whole theory of death-bed confessions.
Sinner or heretic, if one die at last with Krishna's name upon the
lips he will be saved.[90]
Of the sub-divisions of the sub-sects that we have described, the
numbers often run into scores. But either their differences are based
on indifferent matters of detail in the cult and religious practice;
or the new sect is distinguished from the old simply by its endeavor
to make for greater holiness or purity as sub-reformers of older
sects. For all the sects appear to begin as reformers, and later to
split up in the process of re-reformation.
Two general classes of devotees, besides these, remain to be spoken
of. The Sanny[=a]sin, 'renouncer,' was of old a Brahman ascetic.
Nowadays, according to Wilson, he is generally a Çivaite mendicant.
But any sect may have its Sanny[=a]sins, as it may have its
V[=a]ir[=a]gins, 'passionless ones'; although the latter name
generally applies to the Vishnuite ascetics of the South.
Apart from all these sects, and in many ways most remarkable, are the
sun-worshippers. All over India the sun was (and is) worshipped,
either directly (as to-day by the Sauras),[91] or as an incarnate
deity in the form of the priest Nimba-[=a]ditya, who is said to have
arrested the sun's course at one time and to be the sun's
representative on earth. Both Puranic authority and inscriptional
evidence attest this more direct[92] continuance of the old Vedic
cult. Some of the finest old temples of India, both North and South,
were dedicated to the sun.
DEISTIC REFORMING SECTS.
We have just referred to one or two reforming sects that still hold to
the sectarian deity. Among these the M[=a]dhvas, founded by (Madhva)
[=A]nandat[=i]rtha, are less Krishnaite or R[=a]maite than
Vishnuite,[93] and less Vishnuite than deist in general; so much so
that Williams declares they must have got their precepts from
Christianity, though this is open to Barth's objection that the
reforming deistic sects are so located as to make it more probable
that they derive from Mohammedanism. Madhva was born about 1200 on the
western coast, and opposed Çankara's pantheistic doctrine of
non-duality. He taught that the supreme spirit is essentially
different to matter and to the individual spirit.[94] He of course
denied absorption, and, though a Vishnuite, clearly belonged in spirit
to the older school before Vishnuism became so closely connected with
Ved[=a]nta doctrines. It is the same Sankhyan Vishnuism that one sees
in the Divine Song, that is, duality, and a continuation of
Ç[=a]ndilya's ancient heresy.[95]
Here ends the course of India's native religions. From a thousand
years B.C. to as many years after she is practically uninfluenced by
foreign doctrine, save in externals.
It is of course permissible to separate the reforming sects of
the last few decades from the older reformers; but since we see both
in their aim and in their foreign sources (amalgamation with cis-Indic
belief) only a logical if not an historical continuance of the older
deists, we prefer to treat of them all as factors of one whole; and,
from a broader point of view, as successors to the still older
pantheistic and unitarian reformers who first predicated a supreme
spirit as _ens realissimum_, when still surrounded by the clouds of
primitive polytheism. Kab[=i]r and D[=a]d[=u], the two most important
of the more modern reformers, we have named above as nominal adherents
of the R[=a]m[=a]nand sect. But neither was really a sectarian
Vishnuite.[96] Kab[=i]r, probably of the beginning of the fifteenth
century, the most famous of R[=a]m[=a]nand's disciples, has as
religious descendants the sect of the Kab[=i]r Panth[=i]s. But no less
an organization than that of the Sikhs look back to him, pretending to
be his followers. The religious tenets of the Kab[=i]r Panth[=i]s may
be described as those of unsectarian Unitarians. They conform to no
rites or _mantras_. Kab[=i]r assailed all idolatry, ridiculed the
authority of all scriptures, broke with Pundit and with Mohammedan,
taught that outer form is of no consequence, and that only the 'inner
man' is of importance. These Panth[=i]s are found in the South, but
are located chiefly in and about Benares, in Bengal in the East, and
in Bombay in the West. There are said to be twelve divisions of them.
Kab[=i]r assailed idolatry, but alas! Discipline requires
subordination. The Guru, Teacher, must be obeyed. It was not long
before he who rejected idolatry became himself a deity. And in fact,
every Teacher, Guru, of the sect was an absolute master of thought,
and was revered as a god.[97]
In the fifteenth century, near Laho[.r]e, was born N[=a]nak (1469),
who is the nominal founder of the Sikhs, a body which, as N[=a]nak
claimed, was a sect embodying the religion of Kab[=i]r himself, of
whom he claimed to be a follower. The Granth, or bible of the Sikhs,
was first compiled by the pontiff Arjun, in the sixteenth century.
Besides the portions written by N[=a]nak and Arjun himself, there were
collected into it extracts from the works of 'twelve and a half' other
contributors to the volume, Kab[=i]r, R[=a]m[=a]nand, etc.[98] This
Granth was subsequently called the [=A]digranth, or First Book, to
distinguish it from the later, enlarged, collection of several books,
one of which was written by Guru Govind, the tenth Sikh pontiff. The
change from a religious body to a church militant and political body
was made by this Govind in the eighteenth century.[99] The religious
sect settled in the Punj[=a]b, became wealthy, excited the greed of
the government, was persecuted, rose in revolt, triumphed, and
eventually ruled the province. One of the first to precipitate the
uprising was the above-mentioned Arjun (fourth pontiff after
N[=a]nak). He played the king, was accused of rebellion, imprisoned,
and probably killed by the Mohammedans. The Sikhs flew to arms, and
from this time on they were perforce little more than robbers and
plunderers. Govind made the final change in organization, and,
so to speak, at one blow created a nation, for the church at his hands
was converted into the united militant body called Kh[=a]ls[=a] under
the Guru as pontiff-king, with a 'council of chiefs.' They were vowed
to hate the Mohammedan and Hindu. All caste-distinctions were
abrogated. Govind instituted the worship of Steel and Book (sword and
bible). His orders were: "If you meet a Mohammedan, kill him; if you
meet a Hindu, beat and plunder him." The Sikhs invoked the 'Creator'
as 'highest lord,' either in the form of Vishnu or R[=a]ma. Their
founder, N[=a]nak, kept, however, the Hindu traditions in regard to
rites. He was a travelled merchant, and is said to have been in
Arabia. As an example of the Sikh bible may serve the following
extracts, translated from the original dialect by Trumpp and Prinsep
respectively:
_From Trumpp_:
True is the Lord, of a true name,
But the import of (this) language is Infinite.
They say and beg, give, give!
The Liberal gives presents.
What may again be put before (him)
By which his court may be seen?
What word may be spoken by the mouth,
Which having heard he may bestow love?
Early reflect on the greatness of the True Name.[100]
From his beneficence comes clothing,
From his look the gate of salvation.
N[=a]nak (says): Thus it is known,
That he himself is altogether truthful.
_From Prinsep_:
Thou art the Lord, to thee be praise;
All life is with thee.
Thou art my parents; I, thy child.
All happiness is from thy mercy.
No one knows God.
Highest Lord among the highest,
Of all that is thou art the regulator,
And all that is from thee obeys thy will,
Thy movements, thy pleasure; thou alone knowest.
N[=a]nak, thy slave is a free-will offering unto thee.[101]
The religious side of this organization remained under the name of
Ud[=a]sis,[102] or Nirmalas ('spotless ones'). The [=A]digranth was
extended by other additions, such as that of Govind (above), and now
constitutes a large heterogeneous collection of hymns and moral rules.
Seven sub-sects of the religious body were developed in course of
time. The military body has a well-known history. They were complete
masters of the Punj[=a]b in 1764, and remained there as an independent
race till that province was occupied by the British in 1848. Both
Kab[=i]r and his follower N[=a]nak were essentially reformers. They
sought for a religion which should rest on the common truths of
Hinduism and Mohammedanism.[103] As a matter of form the political
party of Govind, the Govind Singhs, or Simhis, worshipped the Hindu
gods, and they showed respect for the Brahman priests for a long
while; but they rejected the Vedas and caste--the two most essential
features of orthodoxy.[104]
D[=a]d[=u], the second great reformer, who shows Mohammedan influence
quite as plainly as does Kab[=i]r, also claimed R[=a]m[=a]nand as his
teacher. The sects that revert to D[=a]d[=u], D[=a]d[=u] Panth[=i]s,
now number more than half an hundred. Some of the votaries are
soldiers; some are mendicants. The founder lived about the end of the
sixteenth century. The outward
practices of the sects differ somewhat from those of other sects. Like
Persians, they expose their dead. They are found about [=A]jm[=i]r and
other districts of the North, in the seats of the Jains. Their faith
and reformatory tendency may be illustrated by the following extract,
as translated by Wilson:[105]
"He is my God who maketh all things perfect. O foolish one, God is not
far from you. He is near you. God's power is always with you. Whatever
is to be is God's will. What will be will be. Therefore, long not for
grief or joy, because by seeking the one you may find the other. All
things are sweet to them that love God. I am satisfied with this, that
happiness is in proportion to devotion. O God, Thou who art truth,
grant me contentment, love, devotion, and faith.... Sit ye with
humility at the feet of God, and rid yourselves of the sickness of
your bodies. From the wickedness of the body there is much to fear,
because all sins enter into it. Therefore, let your dwelling be with
the fearless, and direct yourselves toward the light of God. For there
neither sword nor poison have power to destroy, and sin cannot enter.
The greatest wisdom is in preventing your minds from being influenced
by bad passions, and in meditating upon the One God. Afford help also
to the poor stranger. Meditate on Him by whom all things were
made."[106]
This tradition of reform is maintained by others without intermission
down to the present century, and the M[=a]dhvas and Sv[=a]mi
N[=a]r[=a]yana, of whom we have spoken above as being more directly
connected with sectarian bodies, are, in fact, scarcely more concerned
with the tenets of the latter than were Kab[=i]r and D[=a]d[=u]. Thus
the seventeenth century sees the rising of the B[=a]b[=a]l[=a]ls and
S[=a]dhus; and the eighteenth, of the Satn[=a]mis, 'worshippers of the
true name,' who, with other minor bodies, such as the N[=a]ngi
Panthis, founded by Dedr[=a]j in this century, are really pure
deists, although some of them, like the Vi[t.]h[t.]hals, claim to be
followers of Kab[=i]r. And so they are, in spirit at least.
THE DEISM OF TO-DAY.[107]
And thus one arrives at modern deism, not as the result of new
influences emanating from Christian teaching, but rather as the
legitimate successor of that deism which became almost monotheistic in
the first centuries after our era, and has ever since varied with
various reformers between two beliefs, inclining now to the
pantheistic, now to the unitarian conception, as the respective
reformers were influenced by Ved[=a]nta or S[=a]nkhya (later
Mohammedan) doctrine.
The first of the great modern reformers is R[=a]mmohun Roy, who was
born in 1772, the son of a high-caste Krishnaite Brahman. He studied
Persian and Arabic literature at Patna, the centre of Indic Mohammedan
learning. When a mere boy, he composed a tract against idolatry which
caused him to be banished from home. He lived at Benares, the
stronghold of Brahmanism, and afterwards in Tibet, the centre of
Buddhism. "From his earliest years," says Williams, "he displayed an
eagerness to become an unbiassed student of all the religions of the
globe." He read the Vedas, the P[=a]li Buddhist works, the Kur[=a]n,
and the Old Testament in the original; and in later years even studied
Greek that he might properly understand the New Testament. The
scholastic philosophy of the Hindus appeared to him, however, as
something superior to what he found elsewhere, and his efforts were
directed mainly to purifying the national faith, especially from
idolatry. It was at his instigation that the practice of widow-burning
was abolished (in 1829) by the British. He was finally ostracized from
home as a schismatic, and retired to Calcutta, uniting about him a
small body of Hindus and Jains, and there established a sort of church
or sect, the [=A]tm[=i]ya Sabh[=a],'spiritual society' (1816), which
met at his house, but eventually was crushed by the hostility of the
orthodox priests. He finally adopted a kind of Broad-church
Christianity or Unitarianism, and in 1820, in his 'Precepts of Jesus'
and in one of his later works, admits that the simple moral code of
the New Testament and the doctrines of Christ were the best that he
knew. He never, however, abjured caste; and his adoption of
Christianity, of course, did not include the dogma of the trinity:
"Whatever excuse may be pleaded in favor of a plurality of persons of
the Deity can be offered with equal propriety in defence of
polytheism" (Final Appeal). Founded by him, the first theistic church
was organized in 1828 at Calcutta, and formally opened in 1830 as the
Br[=a]hma Sam[=a]j; ('the Congregation of God'). In doing this he
wished it to be understood that he was not founding a new sect, but a
pure monotheistic worship. The only creed was a confession of faith in
the unity of God. For himself, he abandoned pantheism, adopted the
belief in a final judgment, in miracles, and in Christ as the 'Founder
of true religion.' He died in 1833 in England. His successor,
Debendran[=a]th T[=a]gore,[108] was not appointed leader of the
Br[=a]hma Sam[=a]j; till much later; after he had founded a church of
his own ('the Truth-teaching Society'), which lasted for twenty years
(1839-1859), before it was united with the Br[=a]hma Sam[=a]j. In the
meantime Debendran[=a]th become a member of the latter society (1841).
He established the covenant of the Sam[=a]j, a vow taken by every
member to lead holy lives, to abstain from idolatry, to worship no
created object, but only God, the One without a second,[109] the
Creator, Preserver, Destroyer, the Giver of Emancipation.
The church was newly organized in 1844 with a regularly appointed
president and minister, and with the administration of the oath to
each believer. This is the [=A]di Br[=a]hma Sam[=a]j, the First
Congregation, in distinction from the schism which soon took place.
The first quarrel in this church was due to a difference of opinion in
regard to the authority of the Vedas. Some members rejected them,
others maintained their infallibility; while between these extremes
lay various other opinions, some members questioning the infallibility
of the Vedas but maintaining their authority. By a majority vote it
was eventually decided that the Vedas (and Upanishads) were not
infallible.
In the meantime in other provinces rival Sam[=a]jas had been formed,
and by 1850 there were several of these broad-minded Congregations,
all trammelled by their environment, but doing their best to be
liberal.
We pause here in the compilation of the data recorded in this
paragraph to assert, independently of Professor Williams, who has
given us the historical facts, but would doubtless not wish to have
imputed to himself the following judgment which we are led to pass,
that the next step of the Sam[=a]j; placed it upon the only ground
where the objects of this church can be attained, and that in the
subsequent reform of this reform, which we shall have to record below,
a backward step has been taken. For Debendran[=a]th changed the
essential character of the Sam[=a]j from pantheistic theism to pure
deism. The inner circle of the society had a narrower declaration of
faith, but in his Br[=a]hma Dharma, published about 1850,
Debendran[=a]th formulated four articles of faith, to subscribe to
which admitted any one into the Sam[=a]j. These articles read as
follows: (t) Brahma (neuter) alone existed in the beginning before the
universe; naught else existed; It [He] created all the universe. (2)
It [He] is eternal, intelligent, infinite, blissful, self-governed
(independent), without parts, just one (neuter) without a second,
all-pervading, the ruler (masculine noun) of all, refuge of all,
omniscient, omnipotent, immovable, perfect, without parallel (all
these adjectives are neuter). (3) By worship of this One alone can
bliss be obtained in the next world and in this. (4) The worship of
this (neuter) One consists in love toward this (One) and in performing
works pleasant (to this One).
This deism denies an incarnate God, scriptural authority, and the good
of rites and penance; but it teaches the efficacy of prayer and
repentance, and the belief in God as a personal Creator and Heavenly
Father.[110] Intellectual--anything but emotional--it failed to
satisfy many worshippers. And as a church it was conservative in
regard to social reforms.
In 1858 Keshub Chunder Sen, a Vishnuite by family, then but twenty,
joined the Sam[=a]j, and being clever, young, eloquent, and
cultivated, he, after the manner of the Hindus, undertook to reform
the church he had just entered, first of all by urging the abolition
of caste-restrictions. Debendran[=a]th was liberal enough to be
willing to dispense with his own thread (the caste-mark), but too
wisely conservative to demand of his co-religionists so complete a
break with tradition and social condition. For the sacred thread to
the Hindu is the sign of social respectability. Without it, he is out
of society. It binds him to all that is dearest to him. The leader of
the older Sam[=a]j; never gave up caste; the younger members in
doing so mix religion with social etiquette, and so hinder the advance
they aim at. Sen urged this and other reforms, all repugnant to the
society in which he lived, changes in the rite at the worship of
ancestors, alterations in the established ritual at birth-ceremonies
and funerals, abolition of polyandry and of child-marriages, and,
worst of all, granting permission to marry to those of different
castes. His zeal was directed especially against caste-restrictions
and child-marriages. Naturally he failed to persuade the old Sam[=a]j
to join him in these revolutionary views, to insist on which, however
sensible they seem, cannot be regarded otherwise than as indiscreet
from the point of view of one who considers men and passions. For the
Sam[=a]j, in the face of tremendous obstacles, had just secured a
foot-hold in India. Sen's headlong reforms would have smashed to
pieces the whole congregation, and left India more deeply prejudiced
than ever against free thought. Sen failed to reform the old church,
so in 1865 he, with some ardent young enthusiasts, reformed themselves
into a new church, ceremoniously organized in 1866 as the Br[=a]hma
Sam[=a]j; of India, in distinction from the Calcutta Sam[=a]j, or
[=A]di Sam[=a]j. A futile effort was made to get all the other local
congregations to join the new Sam[=a]j, the last, of course, to be the
first and head of the organization.
The new Sam[=a]j renounced caste-restrictions and Brahmanism
altogether, but it was tainted with the hysterical _bhakti_ fervor
which Sen inherited from his childhood's religion, and which (if one
may credit Williams' words) "brought the latest development of Indian
Theism into closer harmony with Christian ideas." The chief leader of
this Sam[=a]j besides Sen was his cousin Prot[=a]p Chunder Mozoomdar,
official secretary of the society. Its literary organ is the _Indian
Mirror_.
The reform of this reform of course followed before long. The new
Sam[=a]j was accused of making religion too much a matter of emotion
and excitement. Religious fervor, _bhakti_, had led to "rapturous
singing of hymns in the streets"; and to the establishment of a kind
of love-feasts ('Brahma-feasts' they were called) of prayer and
rejoicing; and, on the other hand, to undue asceticism and
self-mortification.[111] Sen himself was revered too much. One of the
most brilliant, eloquent, and fascinating of men, he was adored by his
followers--as a god! He denied that he had accepted divine honors, but
there is no doubt, as Williams insists, that his Vishnuite tendency
led him to believe himself peculiarly the recipient of divine favors.
It was charged against him that he asserted that all he did was at
God's command, and that he believed himself perennially inspired.[112]
If one add to this that he was not only divinely inspired, but that he
had the complete control of his society, it would appear to be easy to
foresee where the next reformer might strike. For Sen "was not only
bishop, priest, and deacon all in one," says Williams, "he was a Pope,
from whose decision there was no appeal." But it was not this that
caused the rupture. In 1877 this reformer, "who had denounced early
marriages as the curse of India," yielded to natural social ambition
and engaged his own young daughter to a Koch (R[=a]jbanshi) prince,
who in turn was a mere boy. The Sam[=a]j protested with all its might,
but the marriage was performed the next year, withal to the
accompaniment of idolatrous rites.[113] After this Sen became somewhat
theatrical. In 1879 he recognized (in a proclamation) God's
Motherhood--the old dogma of the female divine. In 1880 he announced,
in fervid language, that Christianity was the only true religion: "It
is Christ who rules British India, and not the British Government.
England has sent out a tremendous moral force in the life and
character of that mighty prophet to conquer and hold this vast empire.
None but Jesus, none but Jesus, none but Jesus, ever deserved this
bright, this precious diadem, India, and Jesus shall have it....
Christ is a true Yogi." He accepts Christ, but not as God, only as
inspired saint (as says Williams). More recently, Sen proposed an
amalgamation of Hinduism, Mohammedanism, and Christianity as the true
religion.
Meanwhile the Sam[=a]j was rent by discord. Sen's opponents, the new
reformers, were unable, however, to oust the brilliant leader from the
presidency. Consequently they established a new church, intended to be
a General Congregation, the fourth development (1878) of the Br[=a]hma
Sam[=a]j. And so the fight has gone on ever since. At the present day
there are more than a hundred deistic churches, in which the
devotional exercises consist in part of readings from the Vedas,
Bible, Kur[=a]n, and Avesta. The [=A]rya Sam[=a]j is one of the most
important of the later churches, some of which endeavor to obtain
undefiled religion by uniting into one faith what seems best in all;
others, by returning to the Vedas and clearing them of what they think
to be later corruptions of those originally pure scriptures. Of the
latter sort is the [=A]rya Sam[=a]j. Its leader, Day[=a]nanda, claims
that the Vedas are a true revelation. The last reformer of which we
have knowledge is a bright young high-caste Hindu of upper India, who
is about to found a 'world-religion,' for which task he is now making
preliminary studies. He has visited this country, and recently told us
that, if he had time, he could easily convert America. But his first
duty lies, of course, in the reformation of India's reformations,
especially of the Sam[=a]jas!
The difficulty with which all these reformers and re-reformers have to
contend is pitifully clear. Their broad ideas have no fitting
environment. Their leaders and thinkers may continue to preach deism,
and among their equals they will be heard and understood. They are,
however, not content with this. They must form churches. But a church
implies in every case an unnatural and therefore dangerous growth,
caused by the union either of inferior minds (attracted by eloquence,
but unable to think) with those that are not on the same plane, or of
ambitious zealots with reluctant conservatists. Many join the church
who are not qualified to appreciate the leader's work. They overload
the founder's deism with the sectarian theism from which they have not
really freed themselves. On the other hand, younger men, who have been
educated in English colleges and are imbued with the spirit of
practical reform, enter the church to use it as an instrument for
social progress. So the church is divided, theists and reformers both
being at odds with the original deists; and the founder is lucky if he
escapes being deified by one party and being looked upon by the other
as too dull.[114]
India is no more prepared as a whole for the reception of the liberal
views of the Sam[=a]j; than was the negro for the right to vote.
Centuries of higher preliminary education are needed before the people
at large renounce their ancestral, their natural faith. A few earnest
men may preach deism; the people will remain polytheists and
pantheists for many generations. Then, again, the Sam[=a]jas have to
contend not only with the national predisposition, but with every
heretical sect, and, besides these, with the orthodox church. But thus
far their chief foe is, after all, their own heart as opposed to their
head. As long as deistic leaders are deified by their followers, and
regard themselves as peculiarly inspired, they will preach in vain.
Nor can they with impunity favor the substitution of emotion for ideas
in a land where religious emotion leads downwards as surely as falls a
stone that is thrown.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: In the following we keep to the practice we
have adopted in the early part of the work, giving
anglicized words without distinction of vowel-length, and
anglicizing as far as possible, writing thus S[=a]nkhya but
Sankhyan, Ved[=a]nta but Vedantist. In modern proper names
we have adopted in each case the most familiar form.]
[Footnote 2: Rig Veda, II. 12. Compare X. 121. We omit some
of the verses.]
[Footnote 3: See note, p. 20, above.]
[Footnote 4: Metaphor from earthly fire-making; cloud and
cliff (Ludwig); or, perhaps, heaven and earth.]
[Footnote 5: 'Made low and put in concealment' the D[=a]sa
color, _i.e._ the black barbarians, the negroes. 'Color'
might be translated 'race' (subsequently 'caste').]
[Footnote 6: D[=i]ce, _vijas_, literally 'hoppers' (and so
sometimes, interpreted as birds). The same figure occurs not
infrequently. Compare AV. iv. 16. 5, _ak[s.][=a]n iva_.
'Believe,' _çr['a]d-dhatta, i.e_., cred-(d)[=i]te, literally
'put trust.']
[Footnote 7: Sometimes rendered, "a true (laudation) if any
is true."]
[Footnote 8: viii. 100. 3-4. The penultimate verse is
literally 'the direction(s) of the order magnify me,' the
order being that of the seasons and of seasonable rites.]
[Footnote 9: Compare the 'devil-worship of Uçanas,' and the
scoffs at P[=u]shan. The next step in infidelity is denial
of a future life and of the worth of the Vedas.]
[Footnote 10: In the Buddhistic writings Indra appears as
the great popular god of the Brahmans (with Brahm[=a] as the
philosophical god).]
[Footnote 11: His body is mortal; his breaths immortal, Çat.
Br. x. 1. 4. 1; xi. 1. 2. 12.]
[Footnote 12: On these curious pocket-altars, double
triangles representing the three gods and their wives, with
Linga and Yon[=i], see JRAS. 1851, p. 71.]
[Footnote 13: In the Tantras and late Pur[=a]nas. In the
earlier Pur[=a]nas there is as yet no such formal cult.]
[Footnote 14: Embodied in the tale of Agni's advance, IS. i.
170.]
[Footnote 15: Çat Br. ix. 3.1. 18.]
[Footnote 16: On this _quasi_ deity in modern belief compare
IA. XVIII. 46. It has happened here that a fate Providence
has become supreme. Thus, too, the Mogul Buddha is realty
nothing more or less than Providence.]
[Footnote 17: 7. I. 2.]
[Footnote 18: In RV. X. 90. 9, _chandas_, songs,
incantations, imply a work of this nature.]
[Footnote 19: Unless it be distinctly _good_ magic the epic
heroes are ashamed to use magical rites. They insist on the
intent being unimpeachable.]
[Footnote 20: [=A]p. I. II. 30, 20, etc. Compare Weber,
_Omina_ p. 337, and see the Bibliography.]
[Footnote 21: T[=a]itt. S. VI. I. 1, 2, 3,
_t[=i]rthesn[=a]li._]
[Footnote 22: Compare Weber's account of the R[=a]jas[=u]ya,
p. 98; and, apropos of the Daçapeya, _ib._ 78, note; where
it is stated that _soma_-drinking for the warrior-caste is
still reflected in this (originally independent) ceremony.]
[Footnote 23: The list given above (p. 464) of the 'thrice
three names' is made eight by suppressing Kum[=a]ra, and the
'eight names' are to-day the usual number.]
[Footnote 24: Ç[=a]nkh. (K[=a]nsh.) Br. vi. 1.]
[Footnote 25: The Brahmanic multiple by preference is (three
and) seven (7,21,28,35), that of the Buddhist, eight. Feer,
JA., 1893, p. 113 ff., holds the Svargaparva of the epic to
be Buddhistic on account of the hells. More probably it is a
Çivaite addition. The rule does not always hold good, for
groups of seven and eight are sometimes Buddhistic and
Brahmanic, respectively.]
[Footnote 26: Leumann, _Rosaries_.]
[Footnote 27: Friederich,; JRAS. viii. 157; ix. 59. The only
established reference to Buddha on the part of Brahmanism,
with the exception of late Pur[=a]nas of uncertain date, is
after Kshemendra (1066 A.D.). Compare Holtzmann, s.
_Geschichte_, p. 103.]
[Footnote 28: _Na tat parasya sandadhy[=a]t pratik[=u]la[.m]
yad [=a]tmanas_. This is a favorite stanza in the epic, and
is imitated in later literature (Sprüche, 3253, 6578,
6593).]
[Footnote 29: Burnell in the _Indian Antiquary_, second and
following volumes; Swanston, JRAS. 1834; 1835; Germann, _Die
Kirche der Thomaschristen_.]
[Footnote 30: Above, cited from Hardy.]
[Footnote 31: Some of the multitudinous subcastes
occasionally focus about a religious principle to such an
extent as to give them almost the appearance of religious
devotees. Thus the Bhats and Ch[=a]rans are heralds and
bards with the mixed faith of so many low-caste Hindus. But
in their office of herald they have a religious pride, and,
since in the present day they are less heralds than
expressmen, they carry property with religious reverence,
and are respected in their office even by robbers; for it
this caste that do not hesitate to commit _traga_, that is,
if an agreement which they have caused to be made between
two parties is not carried out they will kill themselves and
their families, with such religious effect that the guilt
lies upon the offending party in the agreement, who expiates
it by his own life. They are regarded as a sort of divine
representative, and fed themselves to be so. A case reported
from India in this year, 1894, shows that the feeling still
exists. The herald slew his own mother in the presence of
the defaulting debtor, who thereupon slew himself as his
only expiation.]
[Footnote 32: As, for example, between the D[=a]d[=u]
Panth[=i]s and the Jains in Ajmir and Jeypur. The last was a
chief Digambara town, while Mathur[=a] (on the Jumna) was a
Çret[=a]mbara station. For a possible survival of Buddhism,
see below, p. 485, note.]
[Footnote 33: The _Sarcadarça[n.]asa[=n.]graha_ of S[=a]yana
(fourteenth century) and the _Ça[=n.]kara-vijaya,_ or
'Conquest of Çankara.']
[Footnote 34: Thus the Dabist[=a]n enumerates as actual
sects of the seventeenth century, 'moon-worshippers,'
'star-worshippers,' 'Agni-worshippers,' 'wind-worshippers,'
'water-worshippers,' 'earth-worshippers,' '_trip[=u]jas_'
(or worshippers of all the three kingdoms of nature), and
'worshippers of man' (_manu[s.]yabhakt[=a]s_), "who
recognise the being of God in man, and know nothing more
perfect than mankind" (ii. 12), a faith which, as we have
shown, is professed in the Mah[=a]bh[=a]rata.]
[Footnote 35: _Religious Thought and Life_.]
[Footnote 36: The Kashmeer Çivaites claim Çankara as their
teacher. The sect of Basava started in the south, Mysore.
They have some trashy literature (legends, etc.) which they
dignify by the name of Pur[=a]nas. Bühler has given an
account of the Kashmeer school. For further details see
Barth, pp. 184, 206.]
[Footnote 37: _Brahmanism and Hinduism_, p.62 ff. To this
and to the same author's _Thought and Life_, we are indebted
for many facts concerning the sects as they appear to-day,
though much in these books is said after Wilson or other
scholars, whose work is now common property, and calls for
no further acknowledgment.]
[Footnote 38: It is, perhaps, necessary to keep repeating
that Hindu monotheism does not exclude other gods which, at
the hands of the one god, are reduced to sprites, angels,
demons, etc. But it ought not to be necessary to insist on
this, for an American monotheist that believes in angels and
devils is the same sort of monotheist. The Hindu calls the
angels 'gods' or 'divinities,' but they are only attendant
hosts of the One.]
[Footnote 39: Some of the Çivaite sects are, indeed,
Buddhistic in origin, a fact which raises the question
whether Buddhism, instead of disappearing from India, was
not simply absorbed; much as Unitarianism in New England has
spent its vitality in modifying the orthodox creed. Thus the
_karma_ of Buddhism may still be working in the person of
some modern Hindu sects. See the next note below.]
[Footnote 40: Most of the Yogi jugglers are Çivaites (when
they are not Buddhistic), and to-day they share with the
(Mohammedan) fakirs the honor of being not only ascetics but
knaves. The juggler Yogi is, however, a figure of
respectable antiquity. The magical tricks practiced on the
epic heroes are doubtless a reflex of the current mesmerism,
which deceives so cleverly to-day. We have shown above a
Buddhistic strain of Mah[=a]tmaism in an early Buddhistic
tract, and Barth, p. 213, suggests a Buddhistic origin for
the K[=a]naph[=a]ts. See also Holtzmann, _loc. cit._ The
deistic Yogis of Gorakhn[=a]th's sect are respectable enough
(see an account of some of this sort in the Dabist[=a]n, II.
6), but they are of Buddhistic origin. The K[=a]naph[=a]ts
of Kutch (Danodhar) were once a celibate brotherhood. JRAS.
1839, p. 268.]
[Footnote 41: See JAOS. xi. 272. To ascribe this verse to
the 'older Manu' would be a grave slip on the part of a
Sanskrit scholar.]
[Footnote 42: i. 1. 76.]
[Footnote 43: The Dabist[=a]n, without any animus, reports
of the Ç[=a]ktas of the seventeenth century that "Çiva is,
in their opinion, _with little exception_, the highest of
the deities" (II. 7). Williams calls Ç[=a]ktaism "a mere
offshoot of Çivaism" _Religious Thought and Life_, p. 184.]
[Footnote 44: The Dabist[=a]n rather assumes as a matter of
course that a body of Yogis would kill and eat a boy of the
Mohammedan faith (II. 12); but here the author may be
prejudiced.]
[Footnote 45: The present sect of this name consists only of
a few miserable mendicants, particularly savage and filthy
(Wilson).]
[Footnote 46: All of them now represent Çakti, the female
principle. Linga-worship has also its counterpart,
Bhaga-worship (here Yoni), perhaps represented by the altar
itself. Compare the Dabist[=a]n, II. 7, on the Çivaite
interpretation of the Mohammedan altar. To Durga human
beings were always sacrificed. After mentioning a gold idol
of Durg[=a] (to whom men were sacrificed yearly), the author
adds: "Even now they sacrifice in every village of the
Kohistan of Nandapur and the country adjacent, a man of
good family" (_ib._). Durg[=a] {above, p. 416) is Vishnu's
sister.]
[Footnote 47: The sexual antithesis, so unimportant in the
earliest Aryan nature-hymns, becomes more and more
pronounced in the liturgical hymns of the Rig Veda, and may
be especially a trait of the older fire-cult in opposition
to _soma_-cult (compare RV. X. 18. 7). At any rate it is
significant that Yoni means the altar itself, and that in
the fire-cult the production of fire is represented as
resulting from the union of the male and female organs.]
[Footnote 48: Nevertheless the Brahmanic, and even the
Hinduistic, law-codes condemn all intoxicating liquors
except in religious service. To offer such drink to a man of
the lower castes, even to a Ç[=u]dra, is punishable with a
fine; but to offer intoxicating liquor to a priest is
punishable with death (Vishnu, V. 100).]
[Footnote 49: Formerly performed by the Kar[=a]ris. "The
Ç[=a]ktas hold the killing of a man to be permitted,"
Dabist[=a]n, II. 7. "Among them it is a meritorious act to
sacrifice a man," _ib_.]
[Footnote 50: Hence the name of K[=a][=n]culiyas
_[ka[=n]culi_, a woman's garment).]
[Footnote 51: This has no parallel in Vishnuism except among
some of the R[=a]dh[=a] devotees. Among the R[=a]dh[=a]
Vallabh[=i]s the vulgarities of the Çivaites are quite
equalled; and the assumption of women's attire by the
Sakh[=i] Bh[=a]vas of Benares and Bengal ushers in rites as
coarse if less bloody than those of the Çivaites.]
[Footnote 52: Of course each god of the male trinity has his
Çakti, female principle. Thus Brahm[=a]'s Çakt[=i] is
S[=a]vitr[=i] (in the epic), or Sarasvat[=i], or V[=a]c;
that of Vishnu is Çr[=i], or Lakshm[=i], or R[=a]dh[=a];
that of Çiva is Um[=a], Durg[=a], K[=a]l[=i], etc. Together
they make a female trinity (Barth, p. 199); So even the
Vedic gods had their (later) wives, who, as in the case of
S[=u]ry[=a], were probably only the female side of a god
conceived of as androgynous, like Praj[=a]pat[=i] in the
Brahmanic period.]
[Footnote 53: Historically, Thags, like Panj[=a]b,
Santh[=a]ls, etc, is the more correct form, but phonetically
the forms Thugs, Punj[=a]b, Sunth[=a]ls or Sonth[=a]ls, are
correct, and [=a], the indeterminate vowel (like o in
London), is generally transcribed by u or o (in Punj[=a]b,
Nep[=a]l, the [=a] is pronounced very like au, and is
sometimes written so, Punjaub, etc).]
[Footnote 54: The Jemidar, captain, gives the order to the
Buttoat, strangler, who takes the _rumal_ (yard of cotton)
with a knot tied in the left end, and, holding his right
hand a few inches further up, passes it from behind over the
victim's head. As the latter falls the strangler's hands are
crossed, and if done properly the Thugs say that "the eyes
stand out of the head and life becomes extinct, before the
body falls to the ground" (Notes on the 'Thags, Thugs, or
Thegs,' by Lieutenant Reynolds; of whom Lieutenant-Colonel
Smythe says that he knew more than any other European about
the Thugs, 1836). The Buttoat received eight annas extra for
his share. Each actor in the scene had a title; the victim
was called Rosy. For their argot see the R[=a]maseeana.]
[Footnote 55: Thugs (defined as 'knaves' by Sherwood, more
probably 'throttlers') must be distinguished from Decoits.
The latter (Elphinstone, i. 384) are irreligious gangs,
secretly bound together to sack villages. Peaceable citizens
by day, the Decoits rise at night, attack a village, slay,
torture, rob, and disappear before morning, 'melting into
the population' and resuming honest toil. When the police
are weak enough they may remain banded together; otherwise
they are ephemerally honest and nocturnally assassins. The
Thugs or Ph[=a]ns[=i]gars (_ph[=a]ns[=i]_, noose) killed no
women, invoked K[=a]li (as Jay[=i]), and attacked
individuals only, whom the decoys, called Tillais, lured
very cleverly to destruction. They never robbed without
strangling first, and always buried the victim. They used to
send a good deal of what they got to K[=a]li's temple, in a
village near Mirz[=a]pur, where the establishment of priests
was entirely supported by them. K[=a]li (or Bhav[=a]n[=i])
herself directed that victims should be strangled, not bled
(so the Thug legend). Their symbol was a pick, emblem of the
goddess, unto whom a religious ceremony was performed before
and after the murder was committed. Local small bankers
often acted as fence for them.]
[Footnote 56: This is called either
P[=u]rva-m[=i]m[=a]ms[=a] (Karma-m[=i]m[=a]ms[=a]) or simply
M[=i]m[=a]ms[=a].]
[Footnote 57: Or Ç[=a]r[=i]raka-m[=i]m[=a]msa, or
Brahma-m[=i]m[=a]ms[=a] (_m[=i]m[=a][=m.]sa,_ reflexion,
philosophy).]
[Footnote 58: Kapila's system, usually known as the
S[=a]nkhya.]
[Footnote 59: And attributed to Pata[=n.]jali. Compare
Deussen, _System des Ved[=a]nta,_ p. 20.]
[Footnote 60: Born In 788. But some scholars refer him to
the seventh century. See IA. xiii. 95; xvi. 41. His name, a
title of Çiva, indicates his nominal sect.]
[Footnote 61: For the meaning of Ved[=a]nta (whether 'end of
Veda,' or 'goal of Veda') compare Deussen, _loc. cit._ p. 3,
note (above, p. 253, note).]
[Footnote 62: The Supreme Spirit or All-Spirit is either
purely non-dualistic or qualifiedly non-dualistic; in the
latter event he is, says the sectary, identical with Vishnu,
who may be represented either by Krishna or R[=a]ma
(sub-sects). Pure non-duality (unconditioned _[=a]tm[=a]_)
was taught by Çankara.]
[Footnote 63: Gough, _Philosophy of the Upanishads_..
Compare Williams, _loc. cit_. In our own view the
unsystematic Upanishads teach both doctrines (above, p. 228,
note).]
[Footnote 64: Before K[=a]m[=a]nuja it was taught by
Ç[=a]ndilya that _brahma_ (and the individual spirit) was
conditioned, a doctrine supposed to be that of the old
Bh[=a]gavatas or P[=a][.n]car[=a]tras; but this is quite
uncertain. The Ç[=a]ndilyan chapter of the Ch[=a]ndogya
Upanishad (above, p. 221) may be thus interpreted, _vis_,
that the (conditioned) individual spirit is identical with
_brahma_.]
[Footnote 65: Thibaut, _Introduction to the Ved[=a]nta
S[=u]tras_, SBE. XXXIV. p. XXXI; Deussen, _System des
Ved[=a]nta_, p.469.]
[Footnote 66: Philosophical illusion, _m[=a]n[=a]_, appears
first in late Upanishads.]
[Footnote 67: The author of the Dabist[=a]n (seventeenth
century) tells a Berkeleyan story in regard to Çankara's
doctrine of illusion. His enemies wished to test his belief
in his own philosophy; so they drove an elephant at him, on
which the philosopher ran away. "Ho!" they jeered, "Did you
not maintain that all was a mere illusion? Then an elephant
is illusion. Yet you take to flight before it." "Yes,"
replied the philosopher, "all is illusion; there was no
elephant, and there was no flight" (II. 4).]
[Footnote 68: The Sm[=a]rta (orthodox) Brahman believes, on
the other hand, that Vishnu, Çiva, and Brahm[=a] are all
mere forms of the Supreme [=A]lm[=a].]
[Footnote 69: If Mohammed were regarded as one with Allah
there would be an Occidental parallel to the Krishna and
R[=a]ma sects.]
[Footnote 70: Whether the Hindu trinitarianism derives from
the Occident or not (the former view being historically
probable, but not possible to prove) the importance of the
dogma and its place in Hindu theology is very different to
the condition of things in the Christian church. In India
trinitarianism is merely a convenience in adjusting the
claims of two heterodox sects and orthodoxy, each believer
being willing to admit that the god of the other is his own
god, only with the understanding that the last is a superior
manifestation. In late Çivaism both Vishnu and Brahm[=a] are
indeed called the 'sons of God' (Çiva). but in the sense
that they are distinctly subordinate creatures of Çiva
(JAOS. iv. 147).]
[Footnote 71: But some Hindus worship both Vishnu and Çiva
without insisting that one is higher than the other.
Moreover, there is a Mahratta sect of Vishnuites who
complacently worship Buddha (Vishnu's ninth _avatar_) as
Vi[t.]h[t.]hala or P[=a]ndura[.n]ga. These are simply
eclectic, and their god is without or with quality. Buddha
is here not a deceiver, but an instructor (JRAS. 1842, p.
66; IA. XI. 56, 149).]
[Footnote 72: The Çivaites, too, are divided on the
questions both of predestination and of free grace. The
greater body of them hold to the 'monkey doctrine'; the
Paçupatas, to the 'cat.']
[Footnote 73: Sanskrit _kal[=a]_, school
(_marka[t.]a-ny[=a]ya_ and _m rj[=a]ra-ny[=a]ya_). The
Southern school has its own Veda written in Tamil. Williams,
JRAS. xiv. 301. According to the same writer the Ten-galais
hold that Vishnu's wife is finite, created, and a mediator;
the Vada-galais, that she is infinite, and uncreated.]
[Footnote 74: All Vishnuites have the vertical sign;
Çivaites have a horizontal sign (on the forehead).]
[Footnote 75: _Proceed. AOS_. 1894, p. iii. The Vada-school
may be affected by Çivaism.]
[Footnote 76: A divine monkey appears in the Rig Veda, but
not as an object of devotion.]
[Footnote 77: The teachers of the Ramaites are generally
Brahmans, but no disciples are excluded because of their
caste. R[=a]m[=a]nuja adopted the monastic system, which
Çankara is said to have taken from the Buddhists and to have
introduced into Brahmanic priestly life. Both family priests
and cenobites are admitted into his order.]
[Footnote 78: What the Linga is to Çivaite the
Ç[=a]lagr[=a]ma is to the Vishnuite (who also reveres the
_tulas[=i]_ wood). The Ç[=a]lagr[=a]ma is a black pebble;
the L[=i]nga is a white pebble or glass (Williams). The
Çivaites have appropriated the _d[=u]rv[=a]_ grass as sacred
to Ganeça. Sesamum seeds and _d[=u]rv[=a]_ are, however,
Brahmanically holy. Compare Çat. Br. iv. 5-10, where
_d[=u]rv[=a]_ grass is even holier than _kuça_-grass. The
rosaries used by the sects have been the subject of a paper
by Leumann, and are described by Williams. Thirty-two or
sixty-four berries of _eleocapus ganitrus (rudr[=a]ksha_)
make the Çivaite rosary. That of the Vishnuite is made of
lotus-seeds or of _tuls[=a]_ wood in one hundred and eight
pieces.]
[Footnote 79: For an account and list of the works of
Tulas[=i]d[=a]s[=a] (Tuls[=i]d[=a]s), compare IA. xxii. 89,
122, 227. Jayadeva (twelfth century), the author of the
G[=i]ta Govinda (translated by Jones, Lassen, and Ruckert),
is sometimes reckoned falsely to the adherents of
R[=a]m[=a]nand, but he is really a Krishnaite.]
[Footnote 80: The _bhakti_ doctrine is that of the extant
Ç[=a]ndilya S[=u]tras, which make faith and not works or
knowledge a condition of salvation. They are modern, as
Cowell, in his preface to the work, has shown. Cowell here
identifies K[=a]çyapa with Ka[n.][=a]da, the V[=a]içeshika
philosopher, his school holding that the individual spirits
are infinite in number, distinct from the Supreme Spirit.]
[Footnote 81: The infant-cult is of course older than these
sects. For an account of the ritual, as well as its
intrusion into the earlier cult of the Pur[=a]nas, with the
accompanying resemblances to Madonna-cult, and the new
features (the massacre of the innocents, the birth in the
stable, the three wise men, etc.) that show borrowing from
Christianity, compare Weber's exhaustive treatise referred
to above, the _K[=r.][=s.][n.]ajanm[=a][=s.][=t.]am[=i],
Krishna's Geburtsfest_.]
[Footnote 82: Williams, _loc. cit._]
[Footnote 83: 'Gosain' means shepherd, like Gop[=a]la. Some
of the sects, like the Kart[=a]bh[=a]js, recognize only the
Teacher as God. Williams states that in Bengal a fourth
member has been added to this sect-trinity. On Dancing-girls
see IA. XIII-165.]
[Footnote 84: The philosophical tenet of this sect 'pure
_adv[=a]ita_' (non-duality) distinguishes it from the
qualified duality taught by R[=a]m[=a]nuja. This is a
reversion to Çankara. The C[=a]itanya sect teaches not
absorption but individual existence in a heaven of sensuous
(sensual) pleasure.]
[Footnote 85: "In the temples where the Mah[=a]r[=a]jas
(priests) do homage to the idols men and women do homage to
the Mah[=a]r[=a]jas.... The best mode of propitiating the
god Krishna is by ministering to the sensual appetites of
his vicars upon earth. Body and soul are literally made over
to them, and women are taught to deliver up their persons to
Krishna's representatives," Williams, _loc. cit_. p. 309.]
[Footnote 86: On these sects see Wilson, Hunter (Statistical
Account), Williams, JRAS. xiv. 289. The festival verses in
honor of the Madonna are: "Honor to thee, Devak[=i], who
hast borne Krishna; may the goddess who destroys sin be
satisfied, revered by me. Mother of God art thou, Adit[=i],
destroying sin. I will honor thee as the gods honor thee,"
_etc_. (Weber, _Janm[=a][s.][t.]am[=i]_, p. 286). The
birth-day celebration is not confined to Krishnaites; but in
the R[=a]ma sect, though they celebrate the birth, they do
not represent the man-god as a suckling. In other respects
this feast is imitated from that of Krishna (Weber, p. 310,
note). The R[=a]macandra celebration takes place in the
spring. The birth-day of Ganeça is also celebrated by the
Çivaites (in August-September).]
[Footnote 87: He himself claimed to be an incarnate god. He
adopted the qualified non-duality of R[=a]m[=a]nuja. See
Williams' account of him and of the two great temples of the
sect, _loc. cit_.]
[Footnote 88: From Williams, _loc. cit_. p. 291 ff. The
three qualities (sometimes interpreted as activity, purity,
and indifference) are met with for the first time in the
Atharva Veda, where are found the Vedantic 'name' and 'form'
also; Muir, v. p. 309. The three qualities that condition
the idealist Vedantist's personal Lord in his causal body
are identical with those that constitute the 'nature,'
_prak[=r.]ti_, of the S[=a]nkhya dualist.]
[Footnote 89: Among the Vallabhas (above, p. 505). The
Teacher is the chief god of most of the Vallabhas (Barth, p.
235}. For the Vi[t.]h[t.]hal view of caste see 1A. XI.152.]
[Footnote 90: It is true of other sectaries also, Ramaites
and Çivaites, that the mere repetition of their god's name
is a means of salvation.]
[Footnote 91: Now chiefly in the South. The Dabist[=a]n
gives several divisions of sun-worshippers. For more details
see Barth, p. 258. Apollonius of Tyana saw a sun-temple at
Taxila, JRAS. 1859, p. 77.]
[Footnote 92: More direct than in the form of Vishnu, who at
first is merely the sun. Of the relation with Iranian
sun-worship we have spoken above.]
[Footnote 93: They brand themselves with the Vishnu-mark,
are generally high-caste, live in monasteries, and profess
celibacy. They are at most unknown in the North. They are
generally known by their founder's name, but are also called
Brahma-Samprad[=a]yins, 'Brahma-adherents.']
[Footnote 94: So the P[=a]çupata doctrine is that the
individual spirit is different to the supreme lord and also
to matter (_p[=a]ça_, the fetter that binds the individual
spirit, _paçu_, and keeps it from its Lord, _paçupat[=i]_).
The fact is that every sectary is more a monotheist than a
pantheist. Especially is this true of the Çivaite. The
supreme is to him Çiva.]
[Footnote 95: Wilson gives a full account of this sect in
the _As[=i]atick Researches_, xvi, p. 100.]
[Footnote 96: Of the Kab[=i]r Panth[=i]s Wilson says: "It is
no part of their faith to worship any Hindu deity." A glance
at the Dabist[=a]n will preclude the possibility of claiming
much originality for the modern deism of India. This work
was written in 1645, and its Persian author describes, as a
matter of every-day occurrence, religious debates between
'Jews, Nazarines, Mussulmen, and Hindus,' who meet more to
criticise than to examine, but yet to hear explained in full
the doctrines of their opponents, in just such tourneys of
argument as we showed to be popular among the priests of the
Upanishads and epic. Speaking of the Vedas, the author says
that every one derives from them arguments in favor of his
own creed, whether it be philosophical, mystical, unitarian,
atheistic, Judaic, or Christian. Dabist[=a]n, vol. II, p.
45.]
[Footnote 97: Before election the Guru must be examined. If
the faithful are not satisfied, they may reject him. but,
having elected him, they are bound to obey him implicitly.
He can excommunicate, but he may not punish corporally. This
deification of the Guru was retained by the Sikhs, and the
office was made hereditary among them (by Arjun), till
Govind, the tenth pontiff, who left no successor, declared
that after his death the Granth (bible) should be the sole
authority of the church.]
[Footnote 98: The 'half' contributor was a woman, and hence
was not reckoned as a complete unit.]
[Footnote 99: The word Sikh means 'disciple' (of N[=a]nak).
The name the Sikhs assumed as a nation was Singhs
(_si[.m]has_), 'Lions of the Punj[=a]b.']
[Footnote 100: The 'true name,' _sat n[=a]m_, is the
appellation of God.]
[Footnote 101: JRAS. 1846, p. 43, Prinsep's compilation
(Wilson). Compare Trumpp, ib. V. 197 (1871); and
[=A]digranth, 1877.]
[Footnote 102: This sect was founded by a descendant of
N[=a]nak.]
[Footnote 103: It was not till Mohammedan persecution
influenced them that the religious Sikhs of N[=a]nak became
the political haters and fighters of Govind.]
[Footnote 104: It is said that Govind sacrificed to Durg[=a]
the life of one of his own disciples to prepare himself for
his ministry. Trumpp, [=A]digranth; Barth, p. 204. The lives
of the later Gurus will be found in Elphinstone's history
and Prinsep's sketch (a _résumé_ by Barth, p. 248 ff.).]
[Footnote 105: With some small verbal alterations.]
[Footnote 106: The conclusion of this extract shows the
narrower polemic spirit: "Pundits and Q[=a]z[=i]s are fools.
What avails it to collect a heap of books? Let your minds
freely meditate on the spirit of God. Wear not away your
lives by studying the Vedas."]
[Footnote 107: For the data of the following paragraphs on
the deistic reformers of to-day we are indebted to an
article of Professor Williams, which first appeared in the
thirteenth volume of the _Journal of the Royal Asiatic
Society,_ and has since been published in the same author's
_Brahmanism and Hinduism._]
[Footnote 108: Born in 1818.]
[Footnote 109: _ekam[=a]tr[=a]dvit[=i]ya_ (masculine); with
this form contrast below, in the Br[=a]hma Dharma (religion)
of Debendran[=a]th, the neuter _ekam ev[=a]dvit[=i]yam_. The
only God of the first Sam[=a]j; is a person; that of the
reform is exoterically Nature.]
[Footnote 110: But, as will be noticed in the four articles
(which are in part a compilation of phrases from the
Upanishads) the personality of Brahm[=a] is not insisted on
for the outer church. For this reason, although the inner
church doubtless understands It as He, yet this neuter
should be preserved in the translation. The articles are so
drawn up as to enable any deist to subscribe (without
Vedantic belief as a condition of acceptance) to the
essential creed of the Congregation. One or two sentences in
the original will reveal at a glance the origin of the
phraseology: _brahma_ (being) _v[=a] ekam idam-agra
[=a]s[=i]t; tad ida[.m] sarvam as[r.]jal; tad eva nityam,
ekam ev[=a]dvit[=i]yam; tasmia pr[=i]tis ...
tadup[=a]sanam_. Compare Ch[=a]ndogya Upanishad: _sad_
(being) _idam agra [=a]s[=i]d ekam ev[=a]dvit[=i]yam_; and
the V[=a]jasaney[=i]-Br[=a]hmana Upanishad: _brahma v[=a]
idam-agra [=a]s[=i]t_, etc.]
[Footnote 111: It is interesting to see this fervor, or
ecstatic delirium, surviving from the time of the Rig Veda,
where already (albeit only in the latest hymns, which are
quite Brahmanic) flourishes the mad _muni:_ and fervid
ascetism ('heat,'_tapas_) begins to appear as a means of
salvation. RV. x. 109, 136.]
[Footnote 112: "I regard myself as Christ and C[=a]itanya,"
reported by Sen's own missionary as the words of the former.
Sen's disciples deny some of these assertions, but they seem
to be substantiated, and Sen's own language shows that he
claimed miraculous powers. Compare the discussions on this
point, JRAS. xiii. 281 ff.]
[Footnote 113: This was afterwards excused on the ground
that the marriage would not have been legal without these
rites. But Sen presumably was aware of this in advance. From
the performance of the rites he had the decency to absent
himself. It should be said, however, in Sen's behalf, that
the marriage itself had nothing revolting about it, and
though in consenting to it Sen violated his faith, as is
evident from the protest of the Sam[=a]j, yet was the
marriage not an extreme case of child-marriage, for both the
'children' were sixteen. Sen's own excuse (he thought excuse
necessary) was that he was inspired when he consented to the
nuptials.]
[Footnote 114: The theistic tendency in the Hindu mind is so
exaggerated that even now it is with the greatest difficulty
that the vulgar can be restrained from new idolatry. Not
only priests, but even poets are regarded as gods.
Jñ[=a]ndev and Tuk[=a]r[=a]m, the hymn-makers of the
Mahratta Vi[t.]h[t.]hals, are demi-gods to-day (IA. xi. 56.
149). A few striking examples are almost requisite to make
an Occidental reader understand against what odds the deism
of India has to contend. In 1830 an impudent boy, who could
train snakes, announced that he could also work miracles.
The boy was soon accepted as Vishnu's last _avatar_; hymns,
_abhangs_, were sung to him, and he was worshipped as a god
even after his early demise (from a snake-bite). A weaver
came soon after to the temple, where stood the boy's now
vacant shrine, and fell asleep there at night. In the
morning he was perplexed to find himself a god. The people
had accepted him as their snake-conquering god in a new
form. The poor weaver denied his divinity, but that made no
difference. In 1834 the dead boy-god was still receiving
flowers and prayers. Another case: In the eighties some
Englishmen on entering a temple were amazed to see revered
as an _avatar_ of Vishnu the brass castings of the arms of
the old India Co. This god was washed and anointed daily.
Even a statue of Buddha (with the inscription still upon it)
was revered as Vishnu. In 1880 a meteorite fell in Beh[=a]r.
In 1882 its cult was fully established, and it was
worshipped as the 'miraculous god.' A Mohammedan inscription
has also been found deified and regularly worshipped as a
god, JRAS. 1842, p. 109; 1884, pt. III, pp. I, LIX.]
* * * * *
CHAPTER XVIII.
RELIGIOUS TRAITS OF THE WILD TRIBES.
Besides the phases of pure Aryan and modified Aryan religions which
have already been examined, there are represented in India several
other aspects of civilized religion; for, apart from Brahmanic and
sectarian worships, and apart from Tamil (southern) imitations of
these, there are at present in the country believers of the Jewish
religion to the number of seventeen thousand; of Zoroastrianism,
eighty-seven thousand; of Christianity, two and a quarter millions; of
Mohammedanism, more than fifty-seven millions. But none of these
faiths, however popular, comes into an historical account of India's
religions in a greater extent than we have brought them into it
already, that is, as factors of minor influence in the development of
native faiths till, within the last few centuries, Mohammedanism,
which has been the most important of them all in transfiguring the
native theistic sects, draws a broad line across the progress of
India's religious thought.
All these religions, however, whether aboriginal or imported, must
again be separated from the more general phenomena of superstition
which are preserved in the beliefs of the native wild tribes. One
descends here to that lowest of rank undergrowth which represents a
type of religious life so base that its undifferentiated form can be
mated with like growths from all over the world. These secondary
religions are, therefore, important from two points of view, that of
their universal aspect, and, again, that of their historical
connection with the upper Indic growth above them;[1] for it is almost
certain that some
of their features have conditioned the development of the latter.
The native wild tribes of India (excluding the extreme Northern
Tibeto-Burman group) fall into two great classes, that of the
Kolarians and that of the Dravidians, sometimes distinguished as the
Yellow and the Black races respectively. The former, again, are called
Indo-Chinese by some writers, and the geographical location of this
class seems, indeed, to show that they have generally displaced the
earlier blacks, and represent historically a yellow wave of
immigration from the Northeast (through Tibet) prior to the Aryan
white wave (from the Northwest), which latter eventually treated them
just as they had treated the aboriginal black Dravidians.[2] Of the
Kolarians the foremost representatives are the Koles, the Koches, the
Sunth[=a]ls, and the Sav[=a]ras (Sauras), who are all regarded by
Johnston as the yellow Dasyus, barbarians, of the earliest period;
while he sees in the V[=a]içyas, or third caste of the Hindu political
divisions, the result of a union of the Northwest and Northeast
conquerors. But, although the V[=a]içyas are called 'yellow,' yet,
since they make the most important numerical factor of the Aryans,
this suggestion can scarcely be accepted, for there is no evidence to
show that the yellow Mongoloid barbarians were amalgamated so early
with the body politic of the Aryans. The chief representatives of the
Dravidians,
on the other hand, are the Khonds and Gonds of the middle of
the peninsula, together with the Or[=a]ons and the Todas of the
extreme South.[3] All of these tribes are of course sub-divided, and
in some degree their religious practices have followed the bent of
their political inclinations. We shall examine first the religions of
the older tribes, the Dravidians, selecting the chief features or such
traits as have peculiar interest.
THE DRAVIDIANS.
Gonds: These savages, mentioned in early literature, are the most
numerous and powerful of the wild tribes, and appear to have been less
affected by outside belief than were any other, except the related
Khonds. Their religion used to consist in adoring a representation of
the sun, to which were offered human sacrifices.[4] As among the
Or[=a]ons, a man of straw (literally) is at the present day
substituted for the human victim. Besides the sun, the moon and stars
are worshipped by them. They have stones for idols, but no temples.[5]
Devils, witchcraft, and the evil eye also are feared. They sacrifice
animals,
and, with the exception of the R[=a]j Gonds,[6] have been so little
affected by Hindu respect for that holiest of animals, that they
slaughter cows at their wedding-feasts, on which occasion the
bacchanalian revels in which they indulge are accompanied with such
excess as quite to put them upon the level of Çivaite bestiality. The
pure Gonds are junglemen, and have the virtues usually found among the
lowest savages, truth, honesty, and courage. Murder is no crime, but
lying and stealing are sinful; for cowardice is the greatest crime,
and lying and stealing (instead of straightforward and courageous
robbery and murder) are regarded as indications of lack of courage.
But the 'impure,' that is the mixed Gonds that have been corrupted by
mingling with Hindus and other tribes, lie and steal like civilized
people. In fact, the mixed Gonds are particularly noted for servility
and dishonesty. The uncivilized Gonds of the table-lands are said
still to cut up and eat their aged relatives and friends, not to speak
of strangers unfortunate enough to fall into their hands. Among the
pure Gonds is found the practice of carrying an axe, which is the sign
of their religious devotion to the sacrifice-god.[7] The favorite
religious practice used to be to take a prisoner alive, force him to
bow before the god-stone, and at the moment when he bent his head, to
cut it off. To this and to self-defence against other gods (wild
beasts) the hatchet is devoted, while for war are used the bow and
knife. One particular celebration of the Gonds deserves special
notice. They have an annual feast and worship of the snake. The
service is entirely secret, and all that is known
of it is that it is of esoteric, perhaps phallic character. Both at
the sun-feast and snake-feast[8] licentious and bacchanalian worship
are combined, and the latter trait is also the chief feature of
wedding and funeral sports. In the former case (the natives of the
same tribe intermarry, but with the same pretence of running off with
the bride that is found in the Hindu ritual)[9] there is given a
wedding feast by the bridegroom's father, and the feast ends with a
_causerie de lundi_ (the favorite drink of the Gonds is called
_lundi_); while on the latter occasion there is a mourning feast, or
wake, which also ends in general drunkenness.
The Khonds: Even more striking is the religion of the Khonds. Their
chief rite is human sacrifice to the earth-goddess,[10] Tari; but,
like the Gonds, they worship the sun as chief divinity. Other gods
among them are the river-god, rain-god, spring, wealth, hill-god, and
smallpox-god. All their religious feasts are excuses for excess both
in drinking and otherwise. One of their beliefs is that there is a
river of hell, which flows around a slippery rock, up which climbs the
one that would escape torment. Their method of sacrificing a human
victim is to put him into the cleft of a tree, where he is squashed,
or into fire. They seem to have an odd objection to shedding blood for
this purpose, and in this respect may be compared with the Thugs.
Another very interesting trait is the religion which is intertwined
with business, and its peculiar features. Victims offered either to
the sun or to the war-god serve to mark boundary lines. Great is the
patience with which
these victims, called _merias_, are waited for. The sacrificer
captures fit specimens when they are young, and treats them with
particular kindness till they are almost grown up. Indeed, they are
treated thus by the whole village. At the appointed time they are
slowly crushed to death or smothered in a mud bath, and bits of their
flesh are then cut out and strewn along the boundary lines. Boys are
preferred, but either boys or girls may be used. This sacrifice is
sometimes made directly to the 'Boundary-god,'[11] an abstraction
which is not unique; for, besides the divinities recorded above,
mention is made also of a 'Judgment-god.' Over each village and house
preside the Manes of good men gone; while the 'father is god on earth'
to every one. They used to destroy all their female children, and
this, together with their national custom of offering human
sacrifices, has been put down with the greatest difficulty by the
British, who confess that there is every probability that in reality
the crime still *obtains among the remoter clans. These Khonds are
situate in the Madras presidency, and are aborigines of the Eastern
Gh[=a]ts. The most extraordinary views about them have been published.
Despite their acknowledged barbarity, savageness, and polytheism, they
have been soberly credited with a belief in One Supreme God, 'a theism
embracing polytheism,' and other notions which have been abstracted
from their worship of the sun as 'great god.'
Since these are by far the most original savages of India, a completer
sketch than will be necessary in the case of others may not be
unwelcome. The chief god is the light-or sun-god. "In the beginning
the god of light created a wife, the goddess of earth, the source of
evil." On the other hand, the
sun-god is a good god. Tari, the earth-divinity, tried to prevent
Bella[12] Pennu (sun-god) from creating man. But he cast behind him a
handful of earth, which became man. The first creation was free of
evil; earth gave fruit without labor (the Golden Age); but the dark
goddess sowed in man the seed of sin. A few were sinless still, and
these became gods, but the corrupt no longer found favor in Bella (or
Boora) Pennu's eyes. He guarded them no more. So death came to man.
Meanwhile Bella and Tari contended for superiority, with comets,
whirlwinds, and mountains, as weapons. According to one belief, Bella
won; but others hold that Tari still maintains the struggle. The
sun-god created all inferior deities, of rain, fruit, *hunt,
boundaries, etc., as well as all tutelary local divinities.[13] Men
have four kinds of fates. The soul goes to the sun, or remains in the
tribe (each child is declared by the priest to be N.N. deceased and
returned), or is re-born and suffers punishments, or is
annihilated.[14] The god of judgment lives on Grippa Valli, the
'leaping rock,' round which flows a black river, and up the rock climb
the souls with great effort. The Judgment-god
decides the fate of the soul); sending it to the sun (the
sun-soul), or annihilating it, etc. The chief sins are, to be
inhospitable, to break an oath, to lie except to save a guest, to
break an old custom, to commit incest, to contract debts (for which
the tribe has to pay), to be a coward, to betray council. The chief
virtues are, to kill in battle, to die in battle, to be a priest, to
be the victim of a sacrifice. Some of the Khonds worship the sun-god;
some the earth-goddess, and ascribe to her all success and power,
while they hold particularly to human sacrifice in her honor. They
admit (theoretically) that Bella is superior, but they make Tari the
chief object of devotion, and in her honor are held great village
festivals. They that do not worship Tari do not practice human
sacrifice. Thus the Çivaite sacrifice of man to the god's consort is
very well paralleled by the usage that obtains among them. The Khond
priests may indulge in any occupation except war; but some exercise
only their priestcraft and do nothing else. The chief feast to the
sun-god is Salo Kallo (the former word means 'cow-pen'; the latter, a
liquor), somewhat like a _soma_-feast. It is celebrated at harvest
time with dancing, and drinking, "and every kind of licentious
enjoyment." Other festivals of less importance celebrate the
substitution of a buffalo for human sacrifice (not celebrated, of
course, by the Tari worshippers). The invocation at the harvest is
quite Brahmanic: "O gods, remember that our increase of rice is your
increase of worship; if we get little Rice we worship little." Among
lesser gods the 'Fountain-god' is especially worshipped, with a sheep
or a hog as sacrifice. Female infanticide springs from a feeling that
intermarriage in the same tribe is incest (this is the meaning of the
incest-law above; it might be rendered 'to marry in the tribe').
Of the Or[=a]ons, or Dhangars,[15] we shall mention but one or
two good parallels to what is found in other religions. These
Dravidians live in Bengal, and have two annual festivals, a harvest
feast and one celebrating the marriage of heaven and earth. Like the
Khonds, they recognize a supreme god in the sun, but, just as we
showed was the case with the Hindus, who ignore Brahm[=a] because they
do not fear him, so here, the Or[=a]ons do not pray to the sun, on the
ground that he does them no harm; but they sacrifice to evil spirits
because the latter are evil-doers. These savages, like the Burmese
Mishmis, have no idea of a future life in heaven; but in the case of
people killed in a certain way they believe in a sort of
metempsychosis; thus, for instance, a man eaten by a tiger becomes a
tiger. In the case of unfortunates they believe that they will live as
unhappy ghosts; in the case of other men they assume only annihilation
as their fate.[16] It is among this tribe that the mouse-totem is
found, which is Çiva's beast and the sign of Ganeça.[17]
THE KOLARIANS.
The Sunth[=a]ls: These are immigrants into the West Bengal jungles,
and have descended from the North to their present site. They are
called the finest specimens of the native savage. The guardian of the
tribe is its deceased ancestor, and his ghost is consulted as an
oracle. Their race-god is the 'Great Mountain,' but the sun represents
the highest spirit; though they
worship spirits of every sort, and regard beasts as divine; the men
revering the tiger, and the women, elephants. The particularly nasty
festival called the _bandana_, which is celebrated annually by this
tribe, is exactly like the 'left-hand' cult of the Çaktas, only that
in this case it is a preliminary to marriage. All unmarried men and
women indulge together in an indescribable orgie, at the end of which
each man selects the woman he prefers.[18]
The Koles ('pig-stickers'): Like the last, this tribe worship the sun,
but with the moon as his wife, and the stars as their children.
Besides these they revere Manes, and countless local and sylvan
deities. Like Druids, they sacrifice only in a grove, but without
images.[19]
All these tribes worship snakes and trees,[25]] and often the only
oath binding upon them is taken under a tree.[21] The
sun-worship, which is found alike in Kolarian and Dravidian tribes,
may be traced through all the ramifications of either. In most of the
tribes the only form of worship is sacrifice, but oaths are taken on
rice, beasts, ants, water, earth, etc. (among some P[=a]h[=a]riahs on
the arrow). Some have a sort of belief in the divinity of the chief,
and among the Lurka Koles this dignity is of so much importance that
at a chief's death the divine dignity goes to his eldest son, while
the youngest son gets the property. In regard to funeral rites, the
Koles first burn and then bury the remains, placing a stone over the
grave.
Besides the Or[=a]ons' totem of the mouse, the Sunth[=a]ls have a
goose-totem, and the Garos and Kassos (perhaps not to be included in
either of the two groups), together with many other tribes, have
totems, some of them _avatars_, as in the case of the tortoise. The
Garos, a tribe between Assam and Bengal, are in many respects
noteworthy. They believe that their vessels are immortal; and, like
the Bh[=a]rs, set up the bamboo pole, a religious rite which has crept
into Hinduism (above, p. 378). They eat everything but their totem,
immolate human victims, and are divided into 'motherhoods,'
M[=a]h[=a]ris, particular M[=a]h[=a]ris intermarrying. A man's sister
marries into the family from which comes his wife, and that sister's
daughter may marry his son, and, as male heirs do not inherit, the
son-in-law succeeds his father-in-law in right of his wife, and gets
his wife's mother (that is, his father's sister) as an additional
wife.[22] The advances are always made by the girl. She and her party
select the groom, go to his house, and carry him off, though he
modestly pretends to run away. The sacrifice for the
wedding is that of a cock and hen, offered to the sun. The god they
worship most is a monster (very much like Çiva), but he has no local
habitation.
Of the Sav[=a]ras or Sauras of the Dekhan the most interesting deity
is the malevolent female called Th[=a]kur[=a]n[=i], wife of Th[=a]kur.
She was doubtless the first patroness of the throttling Thugs (_thags_
are _[t.]haks_, assassins), and the prototype of their Hindu
K[=a]l[=i]. Human sacrifices are offered to Th[=a]kur[=a]n[=i], while
her votaries, as in the case of the Thugs, are noted for the secrecy
of their crimes.
Birth-rites, marriage-rites, funeral rites (all of blood), human
sacrifice, _tab[=u]_ (especially among the Burmese), witchcraft,
worship of ancestors, divination, and demonology are almost universal
throughout the wild tribes. In most of the rites the holy stone[23]
plays an important part, and in many of the tribes dances are a
religious exercise.
Descendants of the great Serpent-race that once ruled M[=a]gadha
(Beh[=a]r), the Bh[=a]rs, and Ch[=i]rus (Cheeroos) are historically of
the greatest importance, though now but minor tribes of Bengal. The
Bh[=a]rs, and Koles, and Ch[=i]rus may once have formed one body, and,
at any rate, like the last, the Bh[=a]rs are Kolarian and not
Dravidian. This is not the place to argue a thesis which might well be
supported at length, but in view of the sudden admixture of foreign
elements with the Brahmanism that begins to expand at the end of the
Vedic period it is almost imperative to raise the question whether the
Bh[=a]rs, of all the northern wild tribes the most cultivated, whose
habitat
extended from Oude (Gorakhpur) on both sides of the Ganges over all
the district between Benares and Allah[=a]b[=a]d, and whose name is
found in the form Bh[=a]rats as well as Bh[=a]rs, is not one with that
great tribe the history of whose war has been handed down to us in a
distorted form under the name of Bh[=a]rata (Mah[=a]bh[=a]rata). The
Bh[=a]ratas, indeed, claim to be Aryans. But is it likely that a race
would have come from the Northeast and another from the Northwest, and
both have the same name? Carnegy believed, so striking was the
coincidence, that the Bh[=a]rats were a R[=a]jput (Hindu) tribe that
had become barbaric. But against this speaks the type, which is not
Aryan but Kolarian.[24] Some influence one may suppose to have come
from the more intelligent tribes, and to have worked on Hindu belief.
We believe traces of it may still be found in the classics. For
instance, the famous Frog-maiden, whose tale is told in the
Mah[=a]bh[=a]rata, reminds one rather forcibly of the fact that in
Oude and Nep[=a]l frog-worship (not as totem) was an established cult.
The time for this worship to Begin is October; it is different to
thunder-worship (July, the _n[=a]ga_-feast), and the frog is
subordinate to the snake. And, again, the snake-worship that grows so
rapidly into the Hindu cult can scarcely have been uninfluenced by the
fact that there are no less than thirty snake-tribes.[2]
But despite some interesting points of view besides those
touched upon here, details are of little added value, since it is
manifest that, whether Kolarian or Dravidian, or, for the matter of
that, American or African, the same rites will obtain with the same
superstition, for they belong to every land, to the Aryan ancestor of
the Hindu as well as to the Hindu himself. Even totemism as a survival
may be suspected in the 'fish' and 'dog' people of the Rig Veda, as
has recently been suggested by Oldenberg. In the Northeast of India
many tribes worship only mountains, rivers, and Manes, again a trait
both Vedic and Hinduistic, but not necessarily borrowed. Some of these
tribes, like the Kh[=a]s[=i]as of Oude, may be of R[=a]jput descent
(the Khasas of Manu, X. 22), but it is more likely that more tribes
claim this descent than possess it. We omit many of the tribal customs
lest one think they are not original; for example, the symbol of the
cross among the [=A]bors, who worship only diseases, and whose symbol
is also found among the American Indians; the sun-worship of the
Katties, who may have been influenced by Hinduism; together with the
cult of Burmese tribes too overspread with Buddhism. But often there
is a parallel so surprising as to make it certain that there has been
influence. The Niadis (of the South), for example, worship only the
female principle. Many other tribes worship _çakti_ almost
exclusively. The Todas worship stone images, buffaloes, and even
cow-bells, but they have a celibate priesthood! We do not hesitate to
express our own belief that the _çakti_-worship is native and drawn
from similar cults, and that the celibate priesthood, on the other
hand, is taken from civilization.
Such a fate appears to have happened in modern times to several
deities, now half Brahmanized. For example, Vet[=a]la (worshipped in
many places) is said in the Dekhan to be an _avatar_, or, properly
speaking, a manifestation of Çiva. What is he in reality? A native
wild god, without a temple, worshipped in the open air under the shade
of a tree, and in an
enclosure of stones. Just such a deity, in other words, as we have
shown is worshipped in just such a way by the wild tribes. A
monolith[26] in the middle of twelve stones represents this primitive
Druidic deity. The stones are painted red in flame-shape for a certain
distance from the ground, with the upper portion painted white.
Apparently there is here a sun-god of the aborigines. He is worshipped
in sickness, as is Çiva, and propitiated with the sacrifice of a cock,
without the intervention of any priest. The cock to Aesculapius
("_huic gallinae immolabantur_") may have had the same function
originally, for the cock is always the sun-bird. Seldom is Vet[=a]la
personified. When he has an image (and in the North he sometimes has
temples) it is that of an armless and legless man; but again he is
occasionally represented as a giant 'perfect in all his parts.'[27] To
the Brahman, Vet[=a]la is still a mere fiend, and presides over
fiends; nor will they admit that the red on his stones means aught but
blood. In such a god, one has a clue to the gradual intrusion of Çiva
himself into Brahmanic worship. At first a mountain lightning fiend,
then identified with Rudra, a recognized deity, then made
anthropomorphic. There are, especially in the South, a host of minor
Hindu deities, half-acknowledged, all more or less of a fiendish
nature in the eyes of the orthodox or even of the Çivaite. Seen
through such eyes they are no longer recognizable, but doubtless in
many instances they represent a crude form of nature-worship or
demonology, which has been taken from the cult of the wild
tribes, and is now more or less thoroughly engrafted upon that of
their civilized neighbors.[28]
One of the most interesting, though not remarkable, cases of
similarity between savage and civilized religions is found in the
worship of snakes and trees.[29] In the N[=a]ga or dragon form the
latter cult may have been aided by the dragon-worshipping barbarians
in the period of the northern conquest. But in essentials not only is
the snake and dragon worship of the wild tribes one with that of
Hinduism, but, as has been seen, the tatter has a root in the cult of
Brahmanism also, and this in that of the Rig Veda itself. The
poisonous snake is feared, but his beautiful wave-like motion and the
water-habitat of many of the species cause him to be associated as a
divinity with Varuna, the water-god. Thus in early Hinduism one finds
snake-sacrifices of two sorts. One is to cause the extirpation of
snakes, one is to propitiate them, Apart from the real snake, there is
revered also the N[=a]ga, a beautiful chimerical creature, human,
divine, and snake-like all in one. These are worshipped by sectaries
and by many wild tribes alike. The N[=a]ga tribe of Chota N[=a]gpur,
for instance, not only had three snakes as its battle-ensign, but
built a serpent-temple.[30]
Tree and plant worship is quite as antique as is snake-worship. For
not only is _soma_ a divine plant, and not only does Yama sit in
heaven under his 'fair tree' (above, p. 129), but 'trees and plants'
are the direct object of invocation in the Rig Veda (V. 41. 8); and
the Brahmanic law enjoins upon the faithful to fling an offering,
_bali_, to the great gods, to the waters, and 'to the trees';[31] as
is the case in the house-ritual. We shall seek, therefore, for the
origin of tree-worship not in the character of the tree, but in that
of the primitive mind which deifies mountains, waters, and trees,
irrespective of their nature. It is true, however, that the greater
veneration due to some trees and plants has a special reason. Thus
_soma_ intoxicates: and the _tulas[=i]_, 'holy basil,' has medicinal
properties, which make it sacred not only in the Krishna-cult, but in
Sicily.[32] This plant is a goddess, and is wed annually to the
Ç[=a]lagr[=a]ma stone with a great feast.[33] So the _çam[=i]_ plant
is herself divine, the goddess Çam[=i]. Again, the mysterious rustle
of the _bo_ tree, _pipal_ may be the reason for its especial
veneration; as its seeming immortality is certainly the cause of the
reverence given to the banian. It is not necessary, however, that any
mystery should hang about a tree. The palm is tall, (Çiva's) _açoka_
is beautiful, and no trees are more revered. But trees are holy _per
se_. Every 'village-tree' (above, p. 374, and Mbh[=a]. ii. 5. 100) is
sacred to the Hindu. And this is just what is found among the wild
tribes, who revere their hut-trees and village-trees as divine,
without demanding a special show of divinity. The birth-tree (as in
Grecian mythology) is also known, both to Hindu sect and to wild
tribe. But here also
there is no basis of Aryan ideas, but of common human experience. The
ancestor-tree (totem) has been noticed above in the case of the Gonds,
who claim descent from trees. The Bh[=a]rs revere the (Çivaite!)
_bilva_ or _bel_, but this is a medicinal tree. The marriage-tree is
universal in the South (the tree is the male or female ancestor), and
even the Brahmanic wedding, among its secondary after-rites, is not
without the tree, which is adorned as part of the ceremony.
Two points of view remain to be taken before the wild tribes are
dismissed. The first is that Hindu law is primitive. Maine and Leist
both cite laws as if any Hindu law were an oracle of primitive Aryan
belief. This method is ripe in wrong conclusions. Most of the matter
is legal, but enough grazes religion to make the point important. Even
with the sketch we have given it becomes evident that Hindu law cannot
be unreservedly taken as an exponent of early Brahmanic law, still
less of Aryan law. For instance, Maine regards matriarchy as a late
Brahmanic intrusion on patriarchy, an inner growth.[34] To prove this,
he cites two late books, one being Vishnu, the Hindu law-giver of the
South. But it is from the Southern wild tribes that matriarchy has
crept into Hinduism, and thence into Brahmanism. Here prevails the
matriarchal marriage*rite, with the first espousal to the
snake-guarded tree that represents the mother's family. In many cases
geographical limitations of this sort preclude the idea that the
custom or law of a law-book is Aryan.[35]
The second point of view is that of the Akkadists. It is claimed by
the late Lacouperie, by Hewitt, and by other well-known writers that a
primitive race overran India, China, and the rest of the world,
leaving behind it traces of advanced religious ideas and other marks
of a higher civilization. Such a cult may have existed, but in so far
as this theory rests, as in a marked degree it does rest, on
etymology, the results are worthless. These scholars identify
Gandharva with Gan-Eden, K[=a]çi (Benares) with the land of the sons
of Kush; Gautama with Chinese ('Akkadian') _gut_, 'a bull,' etc. All
this is as fruitful of unwisdom as was the guess-work of European
savants two centuries ago. We know that the Dasyus had some religion
and some civilization. Of what sort was their barbaric cult, whether
Finnish (also 'Akkadian')[36] or aboriginal with themselves, really
makes but little difference, so far as the interpretation of Aryanism
is concerned; for what the Aryans got from the wild tribes of that day
is insignificant if established as existent at all. A few legends, the
Deluge and the Cosmic Tree, are claimed as Akkadian, but it is
remarkable that one may grant all that the Akkadian scholars claim,
and still deny that Aryan belief has been essentially affected by
it.[37] The Akkadian theory will please them that cannot reconcile the
Rig Veda with their theory of Brahmanic influence, but the fault lies
with the theory.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: The Dasyus, heathen, or pagans, are by no means
a wholly uncivilized mass to the poets of the Rig Veda. They
have wealth, build forts, and are recognized as living in
towns or forts. We learn little about them in Brahmanic
literature, except that they bury their dead and with them
their trinkets. Their graves and dolmen gray-stones are
still found.]
[Footnote 2: Some scholars think that the Dravidians entered
from the Northwest later than the Kolarians, and, pushing
them to either side of the peninsula, descended through them
to the South. The fact that some Kolarian tribes closely
related by language are separated (to East and West) by
hundreds of miles, and have lost all remembrance of their
former union, favors this view of a Dravidian wedge
splitting and passing through the Kolarian mass. But all
here is guess-work. The Dravidians may have been pushed on
by Kolarians that entered later, while the latter may have
been split by the Aryan invasion; and this seems to us more
probable because the other theory does not explain why the
Kolarians did not go South instead of taking to the hills of
the East and West.]
[Footnote 3: The whole list of these tribes as given by
Cust, _Sketch of the Modern Languages of the East Indies_,
is as follows: The Kolarians include the Sunth[=a]ls,
Mund[=a]ri Koles (Koches), Kh[=a]rians, Juangs, Korwas,
Kurs, Sav[=a]ras, Mehtos, Gadabas, P[=a]h[=a]rias; the
Dravidians include the tribes called Tamil, Telugu,
Kanarese, Malay[=a]lim, Tulu, Kudagu, Toda, Kota, Khond,
Gond, Or[=a]on, R[=a]jmah[=a]li, Keik[=a]di, Yeruk[=a]la.]
[Footnote 4: The sacrifices of the wild tribes all appear to
have the object of pleasing or placating the god with food,
animal or vegetable; just as the Brahmanic sacrifice is made
to please, with the secondary thought that the god will
return the favor with interest; then that he is bound to do
so. Sin is carried away by the sacrifice, but this seems to
be merely an extension of the simpler idea; the god condones
a fault after an expression of repentance and good-will.
What lies further back is not revealed in the early texts,
though it is easy to make them fruitful in "theories of
sacrifice."]
[Footnote 5: Of course no tribe has what civilization would
call a temple, but some have what answer to it, namely, a
filthy hut where live the god and his priest. Yet the Gonds
used to build roads and irrigate very well.]
[Footnote 6: The (R[=a]j) Gonds were first subdued by the
R[=a]jputs, and where the Hindus and Gonds have intermarried
they are known as R[=a]j Gonds. Others have become the
'Mohammedan Gonds.' Otherwise, in the case of the pure or
'[=A]ssul' (the greater number), neither Hindu nor
Mohammedan has had much influence over them, either socially
or religiously. The Gonds whipped the British in 1818; but
since then they have become 'pacified.']
[Footnote 7: It is often no more than a small hatchet stuck
in the belt, if they wear the latter, which in the jungle is
more raiment than they are wont to put on.]
[Footnote 8: The snake in the tree is common to many tribes,
both being tutelary. The Gonds are 'sons of the forest
Trees,' and of the northern bull.]
[Footnote 9: It seems to us that this feature need not be
reckoned as a sign of exogamy. It is often, so far as we
have observed, only a stereotyped form to express
bashfulness.]
[Footnote 10: Some say earth-_god._ Thus the account given
in JRAS. 1842, p. 172, says 'male earth-god as ancestor,'
but most modern writers describe the divinity as a female.
Some of the Khonds worship only earth (as a peacock). This
is the peacock revered at the Pongol.]
[Footnote 11: The Gonds also have a boundary-god. Graves as
boundaries are known among the Anglo-Saxons. Possibly Hermes
as boundary-god may be connected with the Hermes that
conducts souls; or is it simply as thief-god that he guards
from theft? The Khond practice would indicate that the
corpse (as something sacred) made the boundary, not that the
boundary was made by running a line to a barrow, as is the
case in the Anglo-Saxon connection between barrow and
bound.]
[Footnote 12: Some may compare Bellerophon !]
[Footnote 13: Tutelary deities are of house, village,
groves, etc. The 'House-god' is, of course, older than this
or than Hinduism. The Rig Veda recognizes V[=a]stoshpati,
the 'Lord of the House,' to whom the law (Manu, III. 89,
etc.) orders oblations to be made. But Hinduism prefers a
female house-goddess (see above, p. 374). Windisch connects
this Vedic divinity, V[=a]stos-pati, with Vesta and Hestia.
The same scholar compares Keltic _vassus, vassallus_,
originally 'house-man'; and very ingeniously equates
Vassorix with Vedic _vas[=a][.m] r[=a]j[=a]--viç[=a][.m]
r[=a]j[=a]_, 'king of the house-men' (clan), like
_h[.u]skarlar_,'house-fellows,' in Scandinavian (domesticus,
*_ouk(tes)_). Windisch, _Vassus und Vassallus_, in the
_Bericht. d. k. Sächs. Gesell_. 1892, p. 174.]
[Footnote 14: That is to say, a dead man's spirit goes to
heaven, or is re-born whole in the tribe, or is re-born
diseased (anywhere, this is penal discipline), or finally is
annihilated. Justly may one compare the Brahmanic division
of the Manes into several classes, according to their
destination as conditioned by their manner of living and
exit from life. It is the same idea ramifying a little
differently; not a case of borrowing, but the growth of two
similar seeds. On the other hand, the un-Aryan doctrine of
transmigration may be due to the belief of native wild
tribes. It appears first in the Çatapatha, but is hinted at
in the 'plant-souls' of the RV. (above, pp. 145,204,432),
possibly in RV. I. 164. 30,38; Bötlingk, _loc. cit_., 1893,
p. 88.]
[Footnote 15: This tribe now divides with the Lurka Koles
the possession of Chota Nagpur, which the latter tribe used
to command entire. The Or[=a]ons regard the Lurka Koles as
inferiors. Compare JRAS. 1861, p. 370 ff. They are sometimes
erroneously grouped with the Koles, ethnographically as well
as geographically. Risley, _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_, p.
XXXII.]
[Footnote 16: Something like this is recorded by Brinton,
_Myths of the New World_, p. 243, as the belief of an
American tribe, which holds that the fate of the dead
depends on the manner of death, the funeral rites, or "some
such arbitrary circumstance" (as in Greece).]
[Footnote 17: Compare the epic 'Mouse-people,' M[=u]shikas,
as well as Apollo's mouse. Possibly another Hindu mark of
sectarianism may be traced to the wild tribes, the use of
vermilion markings. This is the most important element in
the Bengal wedding rite (Risley).]
[Footnote 18: Above the Sunth[=a]ls, who inhabit the jungle
and lower slopes of the R[=a]jmah[=a]l hills, live the
P[=a]h[=a]r[=i]as, who never tell a lie (it is said), and
whose religion in some aspects is worth noticing. They
believe in one god (over each village god), who created
seven brothers to rule earth. The P[=a]h[=a]r[=i]as descend
from the eldest of these brothers. They believe in
transmigration, a future state, and oracles. But it is
questionable whether they have not been exposed to
Buddhistic influence, as 'Budo Gosain' is the name of the
supreme (sun-)god.]
[Footnote 19: In the ninth century Orissa was formed of the
territories of Khonds, Koles, and Sav[=a]ras. In the old
grouping of tribes these, together with the Gonds and Bhils,
were the "five children of the soil" between the Vindhya
mountains, the east chain of the Gh[=a]ts, and the mouth of
the God[=a]var[=i] to the centre of the valley of the
Nerbudda. The last mentioned tribe of Bhils (Bheels) is
almost devoid of native religion, but is particularly noted
for truth, honesty, and fidelity. JRAS. 1844, pp. 181, 189,
192; 1852, p. 216 ff. It is an ancient race, but its origin
is not certain.]
[Footnote 20: Trees are revered by the Brahmans also, as by
the American Indians. Schoolcraft, i. 368. The tree-spirit
is an advance on this (Brahmanic and Hinduistic).]
[Footnote 21: Thus the Bhils' wedding is simply a mutual
promise under the _sing[=a]_ tree. These savages, however,
live together only so long as they choose. When the family
separates, the father takes the elder children, and the
mother takes the younger ones. They are polygamous. It is
from this tribe that the worship of Aghor[=i], the Vindhya
fiend, accepted as a form of K[=a]l[=i], was introduced into
Çivaite worship. At present their religion is a mixture of
Hindu and native superstition. Thus, like the Gonds, they
worship stone images of gods placed in a circle, but they
recognize among these gods several of the Hindu divinities.]
[Footnote 22: Rowney, _Wild Tribes_, p. 194. The goose-totem
of the Sunth[=a]ls is also Brahm[=a]'s sign. As Vishnu is
carried on an eagle, and Çiva on a bull, so Brahm[=a] rides
a goose (or flamingo). The 'ten ancestors' demanded of the
Brahman priest were originally on the mother's side as well
as on the father's. Weber, _R[=a]jas[=u]ya_, p. 78. The
matriarchal theory is, however, southern. (Compare the
oblations to the ancestresses in Vishnu's law-book, 74.)]
[Footnote 23: The marriage-stone, as in the Hindu rite is
quite common. Of lesser superstitions the _tab[=u]_,
analogous to the avoidance of unlucky names among the
Hindus, may be mentioned. Friendship among girls is cemented
by a religious ceremony. After this, among the Or[=a]ons,
the two avoid each other's name, calling each other only 'my
flower' or 'my meet-to-smile' (Rowney). In this tribe
exogamy is 'more respectable,' but not necessary. The girls
are generally bought, and have fixed prices, but we have
seen the customary price (twenty-five pigs) cited only for
Assam among the Meeris. If one man cannot pay so much,
several unite, for polyandry prevails all through the
northern tribes (JRAS. XI. 38), and even in the Punj[=a]b.]
[Footnote 24: Sherring (JRAS. V. 376) says decidedly that
Bh[=a]rs, or Bh[=a]rats, and Ch[=i]rus cannot be Aryans.
This article is one full of interesting details in regard to
the high cultivation of the Bh[=a]rat tribe. They built
large stone forts, immense subterranean caverns, and made
enormous bricks for tanks and fortifications (19 X 11 X
2-1/2 inches), the former being built regularly to east and
west (_surajbedi_). One of their chief cities lay five miles
west of Mirz[=a]pur, and covered several miles, entirely
surrounding the Puranic city of Vindhyacal, built in the
midst of it. Six or seven hundred years ago the Bh[=a]rs
held Oude and Benares. Carnegy's opinion is given in his
_Races, Tribes, and Castes of the Province of Oude_ (Oudh).
The Bh[=a]rs, says Elliot, _Chronicles of Oonayo_, built all
the towns not ending in _pur_, _mow_, or _[=a]b[=a]d_
(Hindu, Mongol, Mohammedan). Their sacra (totems?) are the
bamboo, _bel_-tree, tortoise, and peacock.]
[Footnote 25: JRAS. XII. 229; IA. XXII. 293.]
[Footnote 26: Among the southern Koders the dolmen form
grave-stones; perhaps the religious employment of them in
this wise led to the idea of the god-stone in many cases;
but it is difficult to say in monolith-worship whether the
stone itself be not a god; not a fetish, for (as has been
said by others) a fetish is a god only so long as he is
regarded as being useful, and when shown to be useless he is
flung away; but a god-stone is always divine, whether it
grants prayers or not.]
[Footnote 27: Wilson's note to Stevenson's description,
JRAS. 1838, p. 197. The epic disease-gods are not unique.
The only god known to the Andaman Islanders (Bay of Bengal)
was a disease-devil, and this is found as a subordinate
deity in many of the wild tribes.]
[Footnote 28: In the current _Indian Antiquary_ there is an
exceedingly interesting series of papers by the late Judge
Burnell on Devil-worship, with illustrations that show well
the character of these lower objects of worship.]
[Footnote 29: The standard work on this subject is
Fergusson's _Tree and Serpent Worship_, which abounds in
interesting facts and dangerously captivating fancies.]
[Footnote 30: JRAS. 1846, p. 407. The ensign here may be
totemistic. In Hinduism the epic shows that the standards of
battle were often surmounted with signa and effigies of
various animals, as was the case, for example, in ancient
Germany. We have collected the material on this point in a
paper in JAOS. XIII. 244. It appears that on top of the
flag-staff images were placed. One of these is the
Ape-standard; another, the Bull standard; another, the
Hoar-standard. Arjuna's sign was the Ape (with a lion's
tail); other heroes had peacocks, elephants, and fabulous
monsters like the _çarabha_. The Ape is of course the god
Hanuman; the Boar, Vishnu; the Bull, Çiva; so that they have
a religious bearing for the most part, and are not
totemistic. Some are purely fanciful, a bow, a swan with
bells, a lily; or, again, they are significant of the
heroe's origin (Drona's 'pot'). Trees and flowers are used
as standards just like beasts. Especially is the palm a
favorite emblem. These signa are in addition to the
battle-flags (one of which is blue, carried with an ensign
of five stars). On the plants compare Williams, _Brahmanism
and Hinduism_, p. 338.]
[Footnote 31: [=A]pastambo, 2. 2. 3. 22; Manu, III. 88.]
[Footnote 32: Vule _apud_ Williams.]
[Footnote 33: _ib_. The Rig Veda, X. 81. 4, knows also a
'tree of creation.']
[Footnote 34: _Early Law and Custom_, p. 73 ff.]
[Footnote 35: Thus it is common Aryan law that, on the birth
of a child, the mother becomes impure for ten days, either
alone or with the father. But the latter's impurity is only
nominal, and is removed by bathing (Manu, V. 62, and
others). B[=a]udh[=a]yana alone states that "according to
some" only the father becomes impure (1. 5. 11. 21). This is
the custom of a land described by Apollonius Rhodius (II.
1010}, "where, when women bear children, the men groan, go
to bed, and tie up the head; but the women care for them."
Yet B[=a]udh[=a]yana is a Southerner and a late writer. The
custom is legalized only in this writer's laws. Hence it
cannot be cited as Brahmanic or even as Aryan law. It was
probably the custom of the Southern half-Hinduized
environment.]
[Footnote 36: American Indians are also Dravidian, because
both have totems![* unknown symbol]]
[Footnote 37: For the Akkadist theory may be consulted
Lacouperie in the _Babylonian and Oriental Record_, i. 1,
25, 58; iii. 62 ff.; v. 44, 97; vi. 1 ff.; Hewitt, in
reviewing Risley's _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_, JRAS.
1893, p. 238 ff. See also Sayce's _Hibbert Lectures_. On the
Deluge and Tree of Life, compare the _Babylonian and
Oriental Record_, iv. 15 and 217.]
* * * * *
CHAPTER XIX.
INDIA AND THE WEST.
If in Hinduism, and even in Brahmanism, there are certain traits
which, with some verisimilitude, may be referred to the immediate
environment of these religions, how stands it in respect of that wider
circle of influence which is represented by the peoples of the West?
With Egypt and Phoenicia, India had intercourse at an early date, but
this appears to have been restricted to mercantile exchange; for India
till very late was affected neither by the literature nor by the
religion of Egyptians or Syrians.[1] Of a more direct sort seem to
have been the relations between India and Babylon, and the former may
owe to the latter her later astronomy, but no definitive proof exists
(or even any great historical probability) that Babylon gave India
even legendary additions to her native wealth of myths.[2] From the
Iranians the Hindus parted too early to receive from Zoroastrianism
any influence. On the contrary, in our opinion the religion of
Zoroaster budded from a branch taken from Indic soil. Even where
Persian influence may, with propriety, be suspected, in the later
Indic worship of the sun, India took no new religion from Persia; but
it is very possible that her own antique and preserved heliolatry was
aided, and acquired new strength from more modern contact with the
sun-worshippers of the West. Of Iranian influence in early times,
along the line of Hindu religious development, there is scarcely a
trace, although in 509 B.C. Darius's general conquered the land about
the Indus.[3] But the most zealous advocate of Persia's prestige can
find little to support his claims in pre-Buddhistic Brahmanic
literature, though such claims have been made, not only in respect of
the position of secondary divinities, but even as regards
eschatological conceptions. It is not so easy to refute an improbable
historical theory as it is to propound it, but, on the other hand, the
_onus probandi_ rests upon him that propounds it, and till now all
arguments on this point have resulted only in increasing the number of
unproved hypotheses, which the historian should mention and may then
dismiss.
The Northern dynasty that ruled in India in the sixth century seems to
have had a hand in spreading Iranian sun-worship beyond the Indus, but
we doubt whether the radical effect of this dominion and its belief
(it is described by Kosmas, an Egyptian traveller of the time) is as
great as has been claimed.[4]
From Greece, the Hindus received architectural designs, numismatic,
and perhaps a few literary hints, but they got thence neither
religious myths, nor, with the possible exception of the cult of the
later Love-god and fresh encouragement to phallic
-worship, new rites;[5] though they may have borrowed some fables, and
one even hears of a Buddhistic king endeavoring to buy a sophist of
Antiochus. But there is no ground for assuming philosophical influence
on Brahmanism.
Christianity came late into the religious life of India, and as a
doctrine made upon her no deep or lasting impression. Certain details
of Christian story have been woven into the legends of Krishna, and
some scholars believe that the monotheistic worshippers depicted in
the pseudo-epic were Christians. But in respect of the latter point it
is enough to say that this account of foreign belief had no new
monotheizing effect upon the pantheism of India; the strange
(unbrahmanic) god was simply accepted as Vishnu. Nor do we believe
that the faith-doctrine of Hindu sectarianism and the trinitarianism
of India were derived from Christian sources. But it must be admitted
to be historically possible that the creed of the Christians, known to
the Hindus of the sixth and seventh centuries, may have suggested to
the latter the idea of the trinity as a means of adjusting the claims
of Brahmanism, Krishnaism, and Çivaism.[6]
But from the Mohammedan India has taken much, albeit
only in the last few centuries. When Alexander entered India there
were still two bodies of Indic people west of the Indus. But the trend
was eastward, as it had been for centuries, and the first inroad of
the Mohammedan had little further effect than to seize a land forsaken
by Aryans and given over to the hordes of the North. The foundation of
the new empire was not laid till the permanent occupation of the
Punj[=a]b and annexation of Lahore in 1022-23. In the thirteenth
century all Hindustan acknowledged the authority of the slave sultan
of Delhi.[7] Akbar died in 1605. By the end of the century the Mogul
rule was broken; the Mahratta princes became imperial. It is now just
in this period of Mohammedan power when arise the deistic reforming
sects, which, as we have shown, were surrounded with deists and
trinitarians. Here, then, we draw the line across the inner
development of India's religions, with
Kab[=i]r, N[=a]nak, D[=a]du, and perhaps even Basava. In the
philosophy of the age that succeeds the epic there are but two phases
of religion, pantheism for the wise, a more or less deistic polytheism
for the vulgar[8] (in isolated cases may be added the monotheism of
certain scholastic philosophers); and so Indic religion continued till
the advent of Islamism. Nevertheless, though under Mohammedan
influence,[9] the most thoughtful spirits of India received monotheism
and gave up pantheism, yet was the religious attitude of these
thinkers not averse from that taken by the Sankyan philosophers and by
the earlier pantheists. From a philosophical point of view one must,
indeed, separate the two. But all these, the Unitarian Hariharaist,
the real pantheist of the Upanishads, who completed the work of the
Vedic quasi-pantheist, and the circle that comprises Kab[=i]r,
N[=a]nak, and D[=a]du, were united in that they stood against
encircling polytheism. They were religiously at one in that they gave
up the cult of many divinities, which represented respectively
nature-worship and fiend-worship (with beast-worship), for the worship
of one god. Therefore it is that, while native advance stops with the
Mohammedan conquest, one may yet claim an uninterrupted progress for
the higher Indic religion, a continual elevation of the thoughts of
the wise; although at the same time, beside and below this, there is
the circle of lower beliefs that continually revolves upon itself. For
in the zoölatry[10] and polytheism that adores monsters to-day
it is difficult to see a form of religion higher in any respect than
that more simple nature-polytheism which first obtained.[11]
This lower aspect of Indic religions hinges historically on the
relation between the accepted cults of Hinduism[12] and those of the
wild tribes. We cannot venture to make any statements that will cast
upon this question more light than has been thrown by the above
account of the latter cults and of their points of contact with
Hinduism. It may be taken for granted that with the entrance into the
body politic of a class composed of vanquished[13] or vanquishing
natives, some of the religion of the latter may have been received
also. Such, there is every reason to believe, was the original worship
of Çiva as Çarva, Bhava, and of Krishna; in other words, of the first
features of modern sectarian Hinduism, though this has been so
influenced by Aryan civilization that it has become an integral part
of Hindu religion.[14]
But, again, for a further question here presents itself, how much in
India to-day is Aryan? We are inclined to answer that very little of
blood or of religion is Aryan. Some priestly families keep perhaps a
strain of Aryan blood. But Hindu literature is not afraid to state how
many of its authors are of low caste, how many of its priests were
begotten of mixed marriages, how many formed low connections; while
both legendary and prophetic (_ex post facto_) history speak too often
of slave-kings and the evil times when low castes will reign, for any
unprejudiced person to doubt that the Hindu population, excluding many
pure priests but including many of the priests and the R[=a]jputs
('sons of kings'), represents Aryanhood even less than the belief of
the Rig Veda represents the primitive religion; and how little of
aboriginal Aryan faith is reflected in that work has been shown
already.
As one reviews the post-Vedic religions of civilized India he is
impressed with the fact that, heterogeneous as they are, they yet in
some regards are so alike as to present, when contrasted with other
beliefs, a homogeneous whole. A certain uniqueness of religious style,
so to speak, differentiates every expression of India's theosophy from
that of her Western neighbors. What is common and world-wide in the
forms of Indic faith we have shown in a previous chapter. But on this
universal foundation India has erected many individual temples,
temples built after designs which are not uniform, but are all
self-sketched, and therefore peculiar to herself. In each of these
mental houses of God there is revealed the same disposition, and that
disposition is necessarily identical with that expressed in her
profane artistry,[15] for the form of religion is as much a matter of
national taste as is that which is embodied in literature,
architecture, and painting. And this taste, as expressed in religion,
isolates Brahmanic and Hinduistic India,
placing her apart, both from the gloom of Egypt and the grace of
Greece; even as in her earliest records she shows herself individual,
as contrasted with her Aryan kinsfolk. Like Egypt, she feels her dead
ever around her, and her cult is tinged with darkness; but she is fond
of pleasure, and seeks it deliriously. Like Greece, she loves beauty,
but she loves more to decorate it; and again, she rejoices in her
gods, but she rejoices with fear; fear that overcomes reason, and
pictures such horrors as are conjured up by the wild leaps of an
uncurbed fancy. For an imagination that knows no let has run away with
every form of her intellectual productivity, theosophy as well as art.
This is perceptible even in her ritualistic, scientific, and
philosophical systems; for though it is an element that at first seems
incongruous with such systems, it is yet in reality the factor that
has produced them. Complex, varied, minute, exact, as are the details
which she loves to elaborate in all her work, they are the result of
this same unfettered imagination, which follows out every fancy,
pleased with them all, exaggerating every present interest, unconfined
by especial regard for what is essential.[16] This is a heavy charge
to bring, nor can it be passed over with the usual remark that one
must accept India's canon as authoritative for herself, for the taste
of cosmopolitan civilization is the only norm of judgment, a norm
accepted even by the Hindus of the present day when they have learned
what it is. But we do not bring the charge of extravagance for the
sake of comparing India unfavorably with the Occident. Confining
ourselves to the historical method of treatment which we have
endeavored heretofore to maintain, we wish to point out the important
bearings which this intellectual trait has had upon the lesser
products of India's religious activity.
Through the whole extent of religious literature one finds what are
apparently rare and valuable bits of historical information. It is
these which, from the point of view to which we have just referred,
one must learn to estimate at their real worth. In nine cases out of
ten, these seeming truths are due only to the light imagination of a
subsequent age, playing at will over the records of the past, and
seeking by a mental caper to leap over what it fails to understand. To
the Oriental of an age still later all the facts deducible from such
statements as are embodied in the hoary literature of antiquity appear
to be historical data, and, if mystic in tone, these statements are to
him an old revelation of profoundest truth. But the Occidental, who
recognizes no hidden wisdom in palpable mystification, should hesitate
also to accept at their face value such historical notes as have been
drafted by the same priestly hand.
Nor would we confine the application of this principle to the output
of extant Brahmanic works. The same truth cuts right and left among
many utterances of the Vedic seers and all the theories built upon
them. To pick out here and there an _ipse dixit_ of one of the later
fanciful Vedic poets, who lived in a period as Brahmanic (that is, as
ritualistic) as is that which is represented by the actual
ritual-texts, and attempt to reconstruct the original form of
divinities on the basis of such vagaries is useless, for it is an
unhistorical method which ignores ancient conditions.
In less degree, because here the conditions are more obvious, does
this apply to the religious interpretation of the great body of
literature which has conserved for posterity the beginnings of
Hinduism. But upon this we have already animadverted, and now need
only range this literature in line with its predecessors. Not because
the epic pictures Krishna as making obeisance to Çiva is Krishna here
the undeveloped man-god, who represents but the beginning of his
(later) greatness, and is still subject to the older Çiva. On the
contrary, it is the
epic's last extravagance in regard to Çiva (who has already bowed
before the great image of Krishna-Vishnu) that demands a furious
counter-blast against the rival god. It is the Çivaite who says that
Krishna-Vishnu bows; and because it is the Çivaite, and because this
is the national mode of expression of every sectary, therefore what
the Çivaite says is in all probability historically false, and the
sober historian will at least not discover 'the earlier Krishna' in
the Krishna portrayed by his rival's satellites.
But when one comes to the modern sects, then he has to deplore not so
much the lack of historical data as the grotesque form into which this
same over-vivid imagination of the Hindu has builded his gods. As the
scientific systems grow more and more fancifully, detailed, and as the
liturgy flowers out into the most extraordinary bloom of weird legend,
so the images of the gods, to the eye in their temples, to the mind in
the descriptions of them, take to themselves the most uncouth details
imagined by a curious fancy. This god is an ascetic; he must be
portrayed with the ascetic's hair, the ascetic's wild appearance. He
kills; he must be depicted as a monster, every trait exaggerated,
every conceivable horror detailed. This god sported with the
shepherdesses; he must have love-adventures related in full, and be
worshipped as a darling god of love; and in this worship all must be
pictured in excess, that weaker mortal power may strive to appreciate
the magnitude of the divine in every fine detail.
These traits are those of late Vedism, Brahmanism, and Hinduism. But
how marked is the contrast with the earlier Vedic age! The grotesque
fancy, the love of minutiae, in a word, the extravagance of
imagination and unreason are here absent, or present only in hymns
that contrast vividly with those of the older tone. This older tone is
Aryan, the later is Hindu, and it is another proof of what we have
already emphasized, that the Hinduizing influence was felt in the
later Vedic
or Brahmanic period. There is, indeed, almost as great a gulf between
the Dawn-hymns and the Çatapatha as there is between the latter and
the Pur[=a]nas. One may rest assured that the perverted later taste
reproduces the advance of Hindu influence upon the Aryan mind exactly
in proportion to the enormity displayed.
On the other hand, from the point of view of morality, Brahmanic
religion is not in any way individual. The race, whether Aryan or
Hinduistic, had as fragile virtue as have other folks, and shows the
same tentative efforts to become purer as those which characterize
every national advance. There is, perhaps, a little too much formal
insistence on veraciousness, and one is rather inclined to suspect,
despite Müllers brave defence of the Hindu in this regard, that lying
came very naturally to a people whose law-givers were so continuously
harping on the beauty of truth. The vicious caste-system necessarily
scheduled immorality in accordance with the caste order, as certain
crimes in other countries are estimated according to the race of the
sinner rather than according to any abstract standard. In the matter
of precept we know no better moral laws than those promulgated by the
Brahmans, but they are the laws that every people evolves for itself.
Religious immorality, the excess of Çakti worship, is also not
peculiar to the Hindu. If one ask how the morality of India as a whole
compares with that of other countries, we reply that, including
religious excesses, it stands level with the personal morality of
Greece in her best days,[17]
and that without the religiously sensual (Hindu) element, it is
_nominally_ on a par with that of London or New York. There are good
and bad men, and these make good and bad coteries, which stand inside
the pale of a religious profession. There is not much theoretical
difference. Few of the older gods are virtuous, and Right, even in the
Rig Veda, is the moral power, that is, Right as Order, correct
behavior, the prototype both of ritual and of _[=a]c[=a]ra,_ custom,
which rules the gods. In the law-court the gods are a moral group, and
two of them, Varuna and Agni, hate respectively the sins of adultery
and untruth. In the law it is, however, Dharma and the Father-god or
his diadochos, who, handing down heavenly precepts, gives all moral
laws, though it must be confessed that the Father-god is almost the
last to care for morality. And pure Brahmanism stops with Brahm[=a].
In modern Hinduism, to kill, lust, steal, drink, so far from
offending, may please a god that is amorous, or bloodthirsty, or, like
Çiva, is 'the lord of thieves.' Morality here has God himself against
it. In the Rig Veda, to sin is merely to displease a god. But even in
Brahmanism, as in Buddhism, there is not that intimate connection
between goodness and godness that obtains in Christianity. The
Brahman, like the Buddhist, was self-controlled, in order to exert
control upon the gods and the course of his own future life. He not
only, as is perhaps the case elsewhere, was moral with an ulterior
motive, but his moral code lacked the divine hand. It was felt as a
system which he applied to himself for his own good. He did not assume
that he offended a god by not following it, except in two special
cases, as in sins against Agni and Varuna. Ulterior motives are
deprecated, but because he that seeks absorption into God must quit
desires.[18]
We have said that the moral code of the Hindus at its best seems to be
on a par with the best as found elsewhere. Not to lie, not to steal,
not to injure another illegally,[19] to be brave, to be loyal, to be
hospitable,--these are the factors of its early and late law. In
certain late cases may be added 'to be self-restrained.' But if these
laws be compared with those of the savage races it will be found that
most of them are also factors of primitive ethics. Therefore we say
that the Hindu code as a whole is savage and antique, and that,
excluding religious excess and debauchery, it is on a par with the
modern ethical code only nominally. In reality, however, this savage
and ancient code is not on a level with that of to-day. And the reason
is that the ideal of each is different. In the savage and old-world
conception of morality it is the ideal virtue that is represented by
the code. It was distinct laudation to say of a man that he did not
lie, or steal, and that he was hospitable.[20] But to-day, while these
factors remain to formulate the code, they no longer represent ideal
virtue. Nay rather, they are but the assumed base of virtue, and so
thoroughly is this assumed that to say of a gentleman that he does not
lie or steal is not praise, but rather an insult, since the imputation
to him of what is but the virtue of children is no longer an encomium
when applied to the adult, who is supposed to have passed the point
where theft and lying are moral temptations, and to have reached a
point where, on the basis of these savage, antique, and now childish
virtues, he strives for a higher moral ideal. And this ideal of
to-day, which makes fair-mindedness, liberality of thought, and
altruism the respective representatives of the savage virtues of
manual honesty, truth-speaking, and hospitality, is just what
is lacking in the more primitive ideal formulated in the code of
savages and of the Brahman alike.[21] It is not found at all among
savages, and they may be left on one side. In India all the factors of
the modern code are entirely lacking at the time when the old code was
first completely formulated. Liberality of thought comes in with the
era of the Upanishads, but it is a restricted freedom. Altruism is
unknown to pure Brahmanism. But it obtains among the Buddhists, who
also have liberality of thought and fair-mindedness. Hence, from the
point of view of the higher morality, one must confess that Buddhism
offers the best parallel to the best of to-day. On the other hand,
Buddhistic altruism exceeds all other.
We have sketched the sphere of influence exerted by the West upon
India, and found it on the whole inconsiderable. The Indic religions
till the twelfth century assimilated what little they drew from
foreign sources, and stand before the world as a peculiar growth,
native to the soil in all their essential characteristics.[22]
But to the other side of India's contact with the West we have as yet
barely alluded. India has given as she has received. What influence
has she had upon Western cults and beliefs? The worship that
substituted idols for ideal forms we have traced back to the end of
the Vedic period. It is not, however, a mark of early Brahmanism, nor
is it a pronounced feature before the age of Buddhism. But in Buddha's
time, or soon after, flourished the worship of images, and with it the
respect for relics. The latter feature of the new religion made
necessary shrines to keep the holy objects, sacred museums, which soon
became the formal _st[=u]pas,_ above-ground
and under-ground, and these made the first temples of India.[23] Fully
developed, they became the great religious buildings affected by
Buddhism, with their idol service, prostrations, repetitions of
prayers, dim religious light (lamp-service), offerings of flowers,
fruits, etc. From this source may have been derived many of the
details in the Roman Catholic worship, which appears to have taken
from Buddhism the rosary, originally a mark of the Çivaite.[24] By
what is, to say the least, an extraordinary coincidence, each of these
churches is conspicuous for its use of holy water, choirs, sacred
pictures, tonsure, vestments, the bell in religious service, the
orders of nuns, monks, and the vows of the monastic system.[25] The
most curious loan made by the Roman and Greek churches is, however,
the quasi-worship of Gotama Buddha himself (in so far as a Romanist
worships his saints), for, under cover of the Barlaam and Josaphat
story, Buddha has found a niche as a saint in the row of canonized
Catholic worthies, and has his saint-day in the calendar of the Greek
and Roman churches.[26] But it is not his mother who is the Virgin of
Lamaism, which has made of Buddha the Supreme God.
Besides external phases of the religious cult, India has given
to the West a certain class of literary works and certain
philosophical ideas. The former consists, of course, in the
fable-literature, which spread from India to Eastern Europe (Babrius)
and has preserved in many tales of to-day nothing more than Buddhistic
Birth-stories or other Indic tales (the Pa[.n]catantra) and
legends.[27] Of these we can make only passing mention here, to turn
at once to the more important question of philosophical and religious
borrowing.
It has been claimed, as we have incidentally stated, that the Logos
doctrine was imported from India. Were this so, it would, indeed, be a
fact of great historical importance, but, interesting as would be such
a loan, we cannot see that the suggestion is based on data of cogent
character. The history of the doctrine in India and Greece is simply
this: V[=a]c, Speech or Word, appears in the Rig Veda (in the hymn
cited above, p. 143) as an active female divine power, showing grace
to mortals. In the Brahmanic period V[=a]c becomes more and more like
the Greek Logos, and it may truthfuly be said that in this period "the
Word was God." In Greece, on the other hand, the conception of Logos
begins with Heraclitus, passes on to the Stoics; is adopted by Philo;
becomes a prominent feature of Neo-Platonism; and reappears in the
Gospel of St. John. It is certainly legitimate to suppose that
Heraclitus might have received the idea indirectly, if not directly,
from contemporary Eastern philosophers; but the fact that he did so
remains unproved; nor is there any foundation for the assumption of
borrowing other than the resemblance between the Grecian and Indic
conceptions. But this resemblance is scarcely marked enough in
essential features to prejudice one in favor of Weber's theory
(amplified by Garbe), as it is not detailed enough to be striking, for
V[=a]c is never more than one of many female abstractions.
With the exception of the one case to be mentioned immediately, we are
forced to take the same position in regard to the similarity between
other forms of early Greek and Hindu philosophy. Both Thales and
Parmenides were indeed anticipated by Hindu sages, and the Eleatic
school seems to be but a reflexion of the Upanishads. The doctrines of
Anaximander and Heraclitus are, perhaps, not known first in Greece,
but there is no evidence that they were not original to Greece, or
that they were borrowed from India, however much older may be the
parallel trains of thought on Indic soil.
Quite as decidedly, however, as we deny all appearance of borrowing on
the part of the founders of other early Grecian schools, must we claim
the thought of India to be the archetype of Pythagorean philosophy.
After a careful review of the points of contact, and weighing as
dispassionately as possible the historical evidence for and against
the originality of Pythagoras, we are unable to come to any other
conclusion than that the Greek philosopher took his whole system
indirectly from India. His 'numbers,' indeed, are the S[=a]nkhya only
in appearances.[28] But his theory of metempsychosis is the Indic
_sams[=a]ra_, and Plato is full of Sankhyan thought, worked out by him
but taken from Pythagoras. Before the sixth century B.C. all the
religious-philosophical ideas of Pythagoras are current in India (L.
von Schroeder, _Pythagoras_). If there were but one or two of these
cases, they might be set aside as accidental coincidences, but such
coincidences are too numerous to be the result of chance. Even in
details the transmigration theory of Pythagoras harmonizes with that
of India. Further (after Schroeder und Garbe) may be mentioned the
curious prohibition against eating beans; the Hesiodic-Pythagorean
[Greek: _pros êlion mê omichein_]; the vow of silence, like that taken
by the Hindu _muni_; the doctrine of _five_ elements (aether as
fifth); above all, the so-called Pythagorean Theorem, developed in the
mathematical
Çulvas[=u]tras[29] of India; the irrrational number [square root
symbol]2; then the whole character of the religious-philosophical
fraternity, which is exactly analogous to the Indic orders of the
time; and finally the mystic speculation, which is peculiar to the
Pythagorean school, and bears a striking resemblance to the
fantastical notions affected by the authors of the Br[=a]hmana.[30]
Greek legend is full of the Samian's travels to Egypt, Chaldaea,
Phoenicia, and India. The fire beneath this smoke is hidden. One knows
not how much to believe of such tales. But they only strengthen the
inference, drawn from 'the Pythagorean school,' the man's work itself,
that the mysticism and numbers with which he is surrounded are taken
from that system of numbers and from that mysticism which are so
astonishingly like his own. All subsequent philosophies borrowed from
Pythagoreanism, and in so far has India helped to form the mind of
Europe.[31]
But we cannot omit a yet more important religious influence exerted by
India upon the West. As is well known, Neo-Platonism and Christian
Gnosticism owe much to India. The Gnostic ideas in regard to a
plurality of heavens and spiritual worlds go back directly to Hindu
sources. Soul and light are one in the S[=a]nkhya system before they
become so in Greece, and when they appear united in Greece it is by
means of the thought which is borrowed from India. The famous 'three
qualities' of the S[=a]nkhya reappear as the Gnostic 'three classes,'
[Greek: pneumagikoi], [Greek: psuchikoi], [Greek: ulikoi].[32] In
regard to Neo-Platonism, Garbe
says: "The views of Plotinus are in perfect agreement with those of
the S[=a]nkhya system."[33] Porphyry, the disciple of Plotinus, has
the Yoga doctrine of immediate perception of truth leading to union
with the deity. As is well known and undisputed, this Porphyry copies
directly from the treatise of Bardesanes, which contains an account of
the Brahmatis;[34] while in many instances he simply repeats the
tenets of the S[=a]nkhya philosophy. The means of communication may
have been Alexandria, where met the trades of the East and West.
Perhaps the philosophers of India as well as of Greece were brought
together there. But, if the East and West had a mutual meeting-ground,
the ideas common to both occupy no common place in their respective
homes. In Greece, Pythagoreanism and Gnosticism are strange, and are
felt as such by the natives. In India these traits are founded on
ancient beliefs, long current, universal, nationally recognized. The
question of giver and receiver, then, admitting the identity of
thought, can scarcely be raised. If two men meet, one a Methodist and
one a Baptist, and after they have conversed the Methodist be found
totally immersed, he will not be credited with having invented
independently his new mode of baptism.
India's influence as an intellectual factor in modern European thought
has thus far been of the slightest. Her modern deism is borrowed, and
her pantheism is not scientific. Sanskrit scholars are rather fond of
citing the pathetic words of Schopenhauer, who, speaking of the
Upanishads, says that the study of these works "has been the solace of
my life; it will be the solace of my death"; but Schopenbauer knew the
Upanishads only in a very free form of translation, and it can
scarcely have been the loose philosophy so much as the elevated spirit
of
these works that solaced the unphilosophical bitterness of his life.
This general impression will doubtless continue to be felt by all that
study the best works of Brahmanism. The sincerity, the fearless search
of the Indic sages for truth, their loftiness of thinking, all these
will affect the religious student of every clime and age, though the
fancied result of their thinking may pass without effect over a modern
mind. For a philosophy that must be orthodox can never be definitive.
But, if one turn from the orthodox completed systems to the tentative
beginnings of the Ved[=a]nta (in the Upanishads), he finds as the
basis of this earlier speculation only an _a priori_ meta-physical
assumption.[35]
Apart from philosophical influence there is at present more or less
interest in Europe and America in Indic superstition and spiritualism,
and half-educated people will doubtless be influenced for some time to
come by Mah[=a]tmaism and Yogism, just as they are moved by native
séance-spirits and mesmerism. Blavatskyism (which represents no phase
of Buddhism) will always find disciples among the ignorant classes,
especially in an agnostic or atheistic environment, so that one should
attribute the mental attitude of such minds to their lack of culture
rather than to India; for if Mah[=a]tmaism had not been discovered,
they would still profess it under another name. Buddhism, too, apart
from Hartmann, may be said to have some influence on popular thought,
yet it is a very unreal Buddhism, which amounts only to the adoption
of an altruistic creed. But we know of none among the many that
profess themselves 'Buddhists' who has really adopted Buddhistic
principles, and but few who even understand those principles. A bar to
the adoption of Buddhism lies in the implicit necessity
of renunciation for all who would become perfected, and in the
explicit doctrine of _karma_ in its native form. The true Buddhist is
not satisfied to be a third-class Buddhist, that is, simply a man that
seeks to avoid lust, anger, and ignorance. He will become a
second-class Buddhist and renounce the world, give up all family ties
and earthly affections, and enter the Order. But he will not do this,
thinking that he is thereby to become perfect. For, to be a
first-class Buddhist, he must get wisdom. He must believe in the
impermanence of everything, and in the awful continuation of his own
_karma_ as a resultant group, which, as such, will continue to exist
if, to the purity and peace of the lower classes of Buddhists, he fail
to add in his own case the wisdom that understands the truth of this
_karma_ doctrine.[36] Now no modern mind will believe this hypothesis
of _karma_ and no modern will even enter the Order. Nevertheless,
while one may not become a true Buddhist in the native sense, it is
possible to be a Buddhist in a higher sense, and in its new form this
is a religion that will doubtless attract many Occidentals, though it
is almost too chaste to win adherents where marriage is not regarded
as detrimental to high thinking. But if one substitute for the
Buddhistic _karma_ the _karma_ of to-day, he may well believe that his
acts are to have effect hereafter, not as a complex but as individual
factors in determining the goodness of his descendants and indirectly
of his environment. Then there remains the attainment of purity,
kindness,[37] and wisdom, which last may be interpreted, in accordance
with the spirit of the Master, as seeing things in their
true relations, and the abandonment of whatever prevents such
attainment, namely, of lust, anger, and ignorance. But to be a true
Buddhist one must renounce, as lust, all desire of evil, of future
life, which brings evil; and must live without other hope than that of
extinguishing all desire and passion, believing that in so doing he
will at death be annihilated, that is, that he will have caused his
acts to cease to work for good or ill, and that, since being without a
soul he exists only in his acts, he will in their cessation also cease
to be.
At least one thing may be learned from Buddhism. It is possible to be
religious without being devout. True Buddhism is the only religion
which, discarding all animism, consists in character and wisdom. But
neither in sacrificial works, nor in kindness alone, nor in wisdom
alone, lies the highest. One must renounce all selfish desires and
live to build up a character of which the signs are purity, love for
all, and that courageous wisdom which is calm insight into truth. The
Buddhist worked out his own salvation without fear or trembling. To
these characteristics may be added that tolerance and freedom of
thought which are so dissimilar to the traits of many other religions.
So much may be learned from Buddhism, and it were much only to know
that such a religion existed twenty-four centuries ago. But in what,
from a wider point of view, lies the importance of the study of Hindu
religions? Not, we venture to think, in their face value for the
religious or philosophical life of the Occident, but in the
revelation, which is made by this study, of the origin and growth of
theistic ideas in one land; in the light these cast by analogy on the
origin of such ideas elsewhere; in the prodigious significance of the
religious factor
in the development of a race, as exhibited in this instance; in the
inspiring review of that development as it is seen through successive
ages in the loftiest aspirations of a great people; and finally in the
lesson taught by the intellectual and religious fate of them among
that people that have substituted, like the Brahman ritualist, form
for spirit; like the Vedantist, ideas for ideals; like the sectary,
emotion for morality. But greatest, if woeful, is the lesson taught by
that phase of Buddhism, which has developed into Lamaism and its
kindred cults. For here one learns how few are they that can endure to
be wise, how inaccessible to the masses is the height on which sits
the sage, how unpalatable to the vulgar is a religion without
credulity.
Ever since Cotton Mather took up a collection to convert the
Hindus,[38] Americans have felt a great interest in missionary labor
in India. Under the just and beneficent rule of the British the Hindus
to-day are no longer plundered and murdered in the way they once were;
nor is there now so striking a contrast between the invader's precept
and example as obtained when India first made the acquaintance of
Christian militants.
The slight progress of the missionaries, who for centuries have been
working among the Hindus, is, perhaps, justified in view of this
painful contrast. In its earlier stages there can be no doubt that all
such progress was thereby impeded. But it is cause for encouragement,
rather than for dismay, that the slowness of Christian advance is in
part historically explicable, sad as is the explanation. For against
what odds had not the early missionaries to struggle! Not the heathen,
but the Christian, barred the way against Christianity. Four hundred
years ago the Portuguese descended upon the Hindus, cross and sword in
hand. For a whole century these victorious immigrants, with unheard-of
cruelty and tyranny, cheated, stripped, and slaughtered the natives.
After them came the Dutch, but, Dutch or Portuguese, it was the same.
For it was merely another century, during which a new band of
Christians hesitated at no crime or outrage, at no meanness or
barbarity, which should win them power in India. In 1758 the Dutch
were conquered by the English, who, becoming now the chief
standard-bearers of the Christian church, committed, Under
Varisittart, more offences against decency, honor, honesty, and
humanity than is pleasant for believer or unbeliever to record; and,
when their own theft had brought revolt, knew no better way to impress
the Hindu with the power of Christianity than to revive the Mogul
horror and slay. (in their victims' fearful belief) both soul and body
alike by shooting their captives from the cannon's mouth. Such was
Christian example. It is no wonder that the Christian precept ('thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself') was uttered in vain, or that the
faith it epitomized was rejected. The hand stole and killed; the mouth
said, 'I love you.' The Hindu understood theft and murder, but it took
him some time to learn English. One may hope that this is now
forgotten, for the Hindu has not the historical mind. But all this
must be remembered when the expenditures of Christianity are weighed
with its receipts.[39]
In coming to the end of the long course of Hindu religious thought, it
is almost inevitable that one should ask what is the present effect of
missionary effort upon this people, and what, again, will eventually
be the direction which the native religious sense, so strongly
implanted in this folk, will take, whether aided or not by influence
from without.
Although it is no part of our purpose to examine into the workings of
that honest zeal which has succeeded in planting so many stations up
the Indic coast, there are yet some obvious truths which, in the light
of religious history, should be an assistance to all whose work lies
in making Hindu converts. To compile these truths from this history
will not be otiose. In the first place, Christian dogma was formally
introduced into South India in the sixth century; it was known in the
North in the seventh, and possibly long before this; it was the topic
of debate by educated Hindus in the sixteenth and seventeenth. It has
helped to mould the Hindus' own most intellectual sects; and, either
through the influence of Christian or native teaching, or that of
both, have been created not only the Northern monotheistic schools,
but also the strict unitarianism of the later Southern sects, whose
scriptures, for at least some centuries, have inculcated the purest
morality and simplest monotheistic creed in language of the most
elevated character.[40] In the second place, the Hindu sectary has
interwoven with
his doctrine of pantheism that of the trinity. In the third place, the
orthodox Brahman recognizes in the cult of Christianity, as that cult
is expressed, for instance, in Christmas festivities, one that is
characteristic, in outward form and inner belief, of a native
heterodox sect. In the fourth place, the Hindu sectary believes that
the native expression of trinitarian dogma, faith-doctrine, child-god
worship, and madonna-worship takes historical precedence over that of
Christianity; and the orthodox Hindu believes the same of his
completed code of lofty moral teachings. Vishnuism is, again, so
catholic that it will accept Christ as an _avatar_ of Vishnu, but not
as an exclusive manifestation of God. In the fifth place, the Hindu
doctors are very well educated, and often very clever, both delighting
in debate and acute in argument It follows, if we may draw the obvious
inference, that, to attack orthodox Brahmanism, or even heterodox
Hinduism, requires much logical ability as well as learning, and that
the best thing a missionary can do in India, if he be not conscious of
possessing both these requisites, is to let the native scholars alone.
But native scholars make but a small part of the population, and among
the uneducated and 'depressed' classes there is plenty for the
missionary to do. Here, too, where caste is hated because these
classes suffer from it, there is more effect in preaching equality and
the brotherly love of Christianity, doctrines abhorrent to the social
aristocrats, and not favored even by the middle classes. But what here
opposes Christian efforts is the splendid system of devotion, the
magnificent fêtes, the gorgeous shows, and the tickling ritualism,
which please and overawe the fancy of the native, who is apt to desire
for himself a pageant of religion, not to speak of a visible god in
idol form; while from his religious teacher he demands either an
asceticism which is no part of the Christian faith, or a leadership in
sensuous and sensual worship.
What will be the result of proselytizing zeal among these variegated
masses?[41] Evidently this depends on where and how it is exercised.
The orthodox theologian will not give up his inherited faith for one
that to him is on a par with a schismatic heresy, or take dogmatic
instruction from a level which he regards as intellectually below his
own. From the Sam[=a]jas no present help will come to the missionary;
for, while they have already accepted the spirit of Christianity,
liberal Hindus reject the Christian creed.[42] At a later day they
will join hands with the missionary, perhaps, but not before the
latter is prepared to say: There is but one God, and many are his
prophets.
There remain such of the higher classes as can be induced to prefer
undogmatic Christianity to polytheism, and the lowest class, which may
be persuaded by acts of kindness to accept the dogmas with which these
are accompanied. It is with this class that the missionary has
succeeded best. In other cases his success has been in inverse ratio
to the amount of his dogmatic teaching. And this we believe to be the
key to the second problem. For, if one examine the maze of India's
tangled creeds, he will be surprised to find that, though dogmatic
Christianity has its Indic representative, there yet is no indigenous
representative of undogmatic Christianity. For a
god in human form is worshipped, and a trinity is revered; but this is
not Christianity. Love of man is preached; but this is not
Christianity. Love of God and faith in his earthly incarnation is
taught; but this, again, is not Christianity. No sect has ever
formulated as an original doctrine Christ's two indissoluble
commandments, on which hang all the law and the prophets.
It would seem, therefore, that to inculcate active kindness, simple
morality, and the simplest creed were the most persuasive means of
converting the Hindu, if the teacher unite with this a practical
affection, without venturing upon ratiocination, and without seeking
to attract by display, which at best cannot compete with native
pageants.[43] Moreover, on the basis of undogmatic teaching, the
missionary even now can unite with the Sam[=a]j and Sittar church,
neither of which is of indigenous origin, though both are native in
their secondary growth. For it is significant that it is the Christian
union of morality and altruism which has appealed to each of these
religious bodies, and which each of them has made its own. In
insisting upon a strict morality the Christian missionary will be
supported by the purest creeds of India itself, by Brahmanism,
unsectarian Hinduism, the Jain heretics, and many others, all of whom
either taught the same morality before Christianity existed, or
developed it without Christian aid. The strength of Christian teaching
lies in uniting with this the practical altruism which was taught by
Christ. In her own religions there is no hope for India, and her best
minds have renounced them. The
body of Hinduism is corrupt, its soul is evil. As for Brahmanism--the
Brahmanism that produced the Upanishads--the spirit is departed, and
the form that remains is dead. But a new spirit, the spirit of
progress and of education, will prevail at last. When it rules it will
undo the bonds of caste and do away with low superstition. Then India
also will be free to accept, as the creed of her new religion,
Christ's words, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, and thy neighbor as
thyself.' But to educate India up to this point will take many
centuries, even more, perhaps, than will be needed to educate in the
same degree Europe and America.[44]
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Lassen interprets _ophir_ as Abh[=i]ras, at the
mouth of the Indus. The biblical _koph_ is Sanskrit _kapi_,
ape. Other doubtful equivalents are discussed by Weber,
_Indische Skizzen_, p. 74.]
[Footnote 2: The legend of the Flood and the fancy of the
Four Ages has been attributed to Babylon by some writers.
Ecstein claims Chaldean influence in Indic atomic
philosophy, _Indische Studien_, ii. 369, which is doubtful;
but the Indic alphabet probably derived thence, possibly
from Greece. The conquests of Semiramis (Serimamis in
the original) may have
included a part of India, but only Brunnhofer finds trace of
this in Vedic literature, and the character of his work we
have already described.]
[Footnote 3: Senart attributes to the Achaemenides certain
Indic formulae of administration. IA. xx. 256.]
[Footnote 4: Certain Hindu names, like those to which we
called attention in the epic, containing Mihira, _i.e.,_
Mithra; the Magas; _i.e.,_ Magi; and recommendations of
sun-worship in the Pur[=a]nas are the facts on which Weber
bases a theory of great influence of Persia at this later
period. Weber claims, in fact, that the native sun-worship
was quite replaced by this importation (_Indische Skizzen_,
p. 104). This we do not believe. Even the great number of
Persians who, driven out by Arabians, settled in Gujar[=a]t
(the name of Bombay is the same with Pumbadita, a Jewish
settlement in Mesopotamia) had no other effect on the
Brahmanic world that absorbed them (_ib._ p. 109) than to
intensify the fervor of a native cult.]
[Footnote 5: Weber ascribes to Greek influence the Hindus
first acquaintance with the planets. On a possible dramatic
loan see above, p. 2, note. The Greeks were first to get
into the heart of India (as far as Patna), and between the
court of Antiochus the Great and the king S[=a]ubhagasena
there was formal exchange of ambassadors in the third
century B.C. The name of Demetrius appears as Datt[.a]mitra
in the Hindu epic. He had "extended his rule over the Indus
as far as the Hydaspes and perhaps over M[=a]lava and
Gujarat" (about 200 B.C.; Weber, _Skizzen_). In the second
century Menandros (the Buddhists' 'Milinda') got as far as
the Jumna; but his successors retreated to the Punj[=a]b and
eventually to Kabul (_ib_.) Compare also Weber, _Sitz. d.
könig. Preuss. Akad_., 1890, p. 901 ff., _Die Griechien in
Indien_. The period of Greek influence coincides with that
of Buddhist supremacy in its first vigor, and it is for this
reason that Brahmanic literature and religion were so
untouched by it. There is to our mind no great probability
that the Hindu epic owes anything to that of Greece,
although Weber has put in a strong plea for this view in his
essay _Ueber das R[=a]m[=a]ya[n.]a_.]
[Footnote 6: The romance of a Russian traveller's late
'discovery,' which Sanskrit scholars estimate at its true
value, but which may seem to others worthy of regard, is
perhaps, in view of the interest taken in it, one that
should be told correctly. Nicholas Notovitch asserts that he
discovered seven years ago in the Tibetan monastery of
Himis, a work which purports to give a life of Christ from
birth to death, including sixteen years spent in India. This
life of 'Issa' (Jesus) is declared to have been written in
the first century of the Christian era. Unfortunately for
the reputation of the finder, he made a mistake in
exploiting his discovery, and stated that his manuscript had
been translated for him by the monks of Himis 'out of the
original P[=a]li,' a dialect that these monks could not
understand if they had specimens of it before them. This
settled Notovitch's case, and since of course he did not
transcribe a word of the MS. thus freely put at his
disposal, but published the forgery in a French
'translation,' he may be added to the list of other
imposters of his ilk. The humbug has been exposed for some
time, and we know of no one who, having a right to express
an opinion, believes Notovitch's tale, though some ignorant
people have been hoaxed by it. If the blank sixteen years in
Christ's life ever be explained, it may be found that they
were passed in a Zoroastrian environment; but until real
evidence be brought to show that Christ was in India, the
wise will continue to doubt it. As little proof exists, it
may be added, of Buddhistic influence in the making of the
Gospels. But this point is nowadays scarcely worth
discussing, for competent scholars no longer refer vague
likenesses to borrowing. Certain features are common to the
story of Christ and to the legends of Buddha; but they are
common to other divine narratives also. The striking
similarities are not found in the earliest texts of the
Southern Buddhists. [=I]ça for Jesus is modern, Weber, _loc.
cit._, p. 931.]
[Footnote 7: Elphinstone, I. pp, 140, 508; II. chap. I. The
'slave dynasty' of Kutab, 1206-1288. It was the bigoted
barbarity of these Mohammedans that drove Brahmanic religion
into the South.]
[Footnote 8: Though immediately before it the Harihara cult,
survival of Sankhyan dualism, is practically monotheistic.
Basava belongs to the twelfth century.]
[Footnote 9: The literary exchange in the realm of fable
between Arabia and later Sanskrit writers (of the twelfth
century) is very evident. Thus in Indic dress appear at this
time the story of Troy, of the passage over the Red Sea, of
Jonas, etc. On the other hand, the Arabians translated
native Hindu fables. See Weber, IS. iii. 327, _Ueber den
Zusammenhang griechischer Fabeln mit indischen_, and
_Indische Skizzen_, p. 111, and _Die Griechen in Indien_.
Arabia further drew on India for philosophical material, and
Alber[=u]ni himself translated Kapila's work (Weber,_loc.
cit_.).]
[Footnote 10: Whereby cows, snakes, cats (sacred to one of
the Çivaite 'mothers'), crocodiles, monkeys, etc, are
worshipped.]
[Footnote 11: Pantheists in name alone, most of the lower
caste-men are practically polytheists, and this means that
they are at bottom dualists. They are wont to worship
assiduously but one of the gods they recognize.]
[Footnote 12: Where Brahmanism may be said to cease and
Hinduism to begin can be defined but vaguely. Krishnaism is
rank Hinduism. But Çivaism is half Brahmanic. For the rest,
in its essential aspects, Hinduism is as old as the Hindus.
Only the form changes (as it intrudes upon Brahmanism).]
[Footnote 13: It is highly probable that the mention of the
Northwestern Ç[=u]dras in Mbh[=a]. VI. 9. 67 refers to the
Afghan S[=u]droi, and that the slave-caste as a whole, which
bears the name Ç[=u]dra, received this appellation first as
conquered tribes of Afghanistan.]
[Footnote 14: Brahmanism has always been an island in a sea.
Even in the Brahmanic age there is evidence to show that it
was the isolated belief of a comparatively small group of
minds. It did not even control all the Aryan population.]
[Footnote 15: We refer partly to literature, that of the
drama and novel, for instance; and partly to the fine arts.
But in connection with the latter it may be remarked that
painting, and the fine arts generally, are expressly
reckoned as the pursuit of slaves alone. For instance, even
as late a jurist as he that wrote the law-code of 'Vishnu'
thus (chap. ii.) parcels out the duties and occupations of
the four castes: The duty of a priest is to teach the Veda,
his means of livelihood is to sacrifice for others and to
receive aims; the duty of the warrior is to fight, his means
of livelihood is to receive taxes for protecting the other
castes; the duty of the V[=a]içya is to tend cattle, his
means of livelihood 1s gain from flocks, farm, trade, or
money-lending. The duty of a slave, Çudra, is to serve the
three upper castes; his means of livelihood is the fine
arts.]
[Footnote 16: It is this that has exaggerated, though not
produced, that most marked of native beliefs, a faith which
Intertwines with every system, Brahmanic, Buddhistic, or
Hinduistic, a belief in an ecstatic power in man which gives
him control over supernatural forces. Today this Yogism and
Mah[=a]tmaism, which is visible even in the Rig Veda, is
nothing but unbridled fancy playing with mesmerism and
lies.]
[Footnote 17: The Hindu sectarian cults are often strangely
like those of Greece in details, which, as we have already
suggested, must revert to a like, though not necessarily
mutual, source of primitive superstition. Even the sacred
free bulls, which roam at large, look like old familiar
friends, [Greek: aphetôn dniôn taurôn en tps tou IIoseidônos
Ierps] (Plato, _Kritias_, 119); and we have dared to
question whether Lang's 'Bull-roarer' might not be sought in
the command that the priest should make the bull roar at the
sacrifice; and in the verse of the Rig Veda which says that
the priests "beget (produce) the Dawn by means of the roar
of a bull" (vii. 79. 4); or must the bull be _soma_? For
Müller's defence of the Hindu's veraciousness, see his
_/India, What Can It Teach Us_, p. 34.]
[Footnote 18: Some exception may be taken to this on the
ground that moral laws really are referred to the Creator in
one form or another, This we acknowledge as a theory of
authority, but it so seldom comes into play, and there is so
little rapport between gods and moral goodness, that the
difference in this regard is greater by far than the
resemblance. A Christian sins against God, a Hindu sins
against himself. The Christian may be punished by God; the
Hindu punishes himself (the _karma_). The latter may say
that moral laws are of God, but he means that they are
natural laws, the violation of which has the same effect as
touching fire.]
[Footnote 19: The _lex talionis_ is in full force in Hindu
law, even in the codes of Hinduism; for example, 'Vishnu,'
V. 19.]
[Footnote 20: Deceit of a foe is no sin in any system. "All
is fair in war."]
[Footnote 21: This idea may be carried out in other
instances. The bravery of civilization is not the bravado
that savages call bravery, and modesty is now a virtue where
boasting used to be reckoned as the necessary complement of
bravery. As for hospitality in the old sense, it is not now
a 'virtue' not to kill a guest.]
[Footnote 22: India's relations with Rome were late and
wholly of mercantile character.]
[Footnote 23: It is interesting, as showing incidentally the
close connection between Buddhism and Çivaism in other than
philosophical aspects, that the first Indic grotto-temple
mentioned by foreigners (in the third century A.D.) was one
which contained a statue of an androgynous (Çivaite) deity
(Weber, _Indische Skizzen_, p. 86, note).]
[Footnote 24: Rosaries are first mentioned in the AV.
Pariçista, XLIII. 4. 11 (Leumann, Rosaries).]
[Footnote 25: In Lamaism there is also the tiara-crowned
pope, and the transubstantiation theory; the reverence to
Virgin and Child, confessions, fasts, purgatory, abbots,
cardinals, etc. Compare David's _Hibbert Lectures_, p. 193.]
[Footnote 26: The literature on this subject is very
extensive (see the Bibliography). On Buddhism and
Christianity see Bohlen's _Altes Indien_, I. 334 (Weber,
_Indische Skizzen_, p. 92). At a recent meeting of the
British Association E.B. Tylor presented a paper in which is
made an attempt to show Buddhistic influence on
pre-Columbian culture in America. On comparing the Aztec
picture-writing account of the journey of the soul after
death with Buddhistic eschatology, he is forced to the
conclusion that there was direct transmission from Buddhism.
We require more proof than Aztec pictures of hell to believe
any such theory; and reckon this attempt to those already
discussed in the eighth chapter.]
[Footnote 27: It is a mooted question in how far the
influence in this line has been reciprocal. See _Indische
Studien_, iii. 128.]
[Footnote 28: The S[=a]nkhya has no systematic connection
with the 'numbers' of Pythagoras.]
[Footnote 29: Compare on the Çulvas[=u]tras, Thibaut, J.A.
Beng. xliv. p. 227; Von Schroeder, _Pythagoras und die
Inder; Literatur und Cultur_, p. 718 ff, who also cites
Cantor, _Geschichte der Mathematik_, p. 540, and refutes the
possibility, suggested by the latter, of the loan being from
Greece to India on the ground that the Çulvas[=u]tra are too
old to belong to the Alexandrine period, and too essentlal a
part of the religious literature to have been borrowed; and
also on the ground that they are not an addition to the
Çr[=a]utas[=u]tra, but they make an independent portion (p.
721, note).]
[Footnote 30: Compare Garbe (_loc. cit_. below), and his
_S[=a][.m]khya Philosophic_, p. 94.]
[Footnote 31: This view is not one universally accepted by
Sanskrit scholars. See, for instance, Weber, _Die Griechen
in Indien_. But to us the minute resemblance appears too
striking to be accidental.]
[Footnote 32: Lassen, and Weber, _Indische Skizzen, p_. 91.]
[Footnote 33: Garbe, in a recent number of the _Monist_,
where is given a _résumé_ of the relations between Greek and
Hindu philosophical thought.]
[Footnote 34: Weber, _loc. cit._]
[Footnote 35: The existence of a soul (spirit) in man is
always assumed in the Upanishads. In the pantheistic system
(the completed Ved[=a]nta) the verity of traditional belief
is also assumed. The latter assumption is made, too, though
not in so pronounced a manner, in the Upanishads.]
[Footnote 36: The Upanishad philosopher sought only to save
his life, but the Buddhist, to lose it.]
[Footnote 37: This is not a negative 'non-injury' kindness.
It is a love 'far-reaching, all*pervading' (above, p. 333).
The Buddhist is no Stoic save in the stoicism with which he
looks forward to his own end. Rhys Davids has suggested that
the popularity of Tibet Buddhism in distinction from
Southern Buddhism may have been due to the greater weight
laid by the former on altruism. For, while the earlier
Buddhist strives chiefly for his own perfection, the
spiritualist of the North affects greater love for his kind,
and becomes wise to save others. The former is content to be
an Arhat; the latter desires to be a Bodhisat, 'teacher of
the law' (_Hibbert Lectures_, p. 254). We think, however,
that the latter's success with the vulgar was the result
rather of his own greater mental vulgarity and animism.]
[Footnote 38: Hurst's _Indika_, chap. XLIX, referring to
_India Christiana_ of 1721, and the correspondence between
Mather and Ziegenbalg, who was then a missionary in India.
The wealthy 'young men' who contributed were, in Hurst's
opinion, Harvard students.]
[Footnote 39: The Portuguese landed in Calcutta in 1498.
They were driven out by the Dutch, to whom they ceded their
mercantile monopoly, in 1640-1644. The Dutch had arrived in
1596, and held their ground till their supremacy was wrested
from them by Clive in 1758, The British had followed the
Dutch closely (arriving in 1600), and were themselves
followed soon after by the Germans and Danes (whose activity
soon subsided), and by the French. The German company, under
whose protection stood Ziegenbalg, was one of the last to
enter India, and first to leave it (1717-1726). The most
grotesquely hideous era in India's history is that which was
inaugurated by the supremacy of the Christian British. Major
Munroe's barbaric punishment of the Sepoys took place,
however, in Clive's absence (1760-1765). Marshman, I, p.
305, says of this Munroe only that he was "an officer of
undaunted resolution"! Clive himself was acquitted by his
own countrymen of theft, robbery, and extortion; but the
Hindus have not acquitted him or Hastings; nor will
Christianity ever do so.]
[Footnote 40: For specimens of the sacred Kural of
Tiruvalluvar N[=a]r[=a]yana*N[=a]yan[=]r, see the examples
given by Pope, _Indian Antiquary_, seventh and following
volumes. The Sittars, to whom we have referred above, are a
more modern sect. Their precept that love is the essential
of religion is not, as in the case of the Hindu idolators,
of erotic nature. They seem to be the modern representatives
of that Buddhistic division (see above) called S[=a]ugatas,
whose religion consists in 'kindness to all.' In these sects
there is found quietism, a kind of quakerism, pure morality,
high teaching, sternest (almost bigoted) monotheism, and the
doctrine of positive altruism, strange to the Hindu idolator
as to the Brahman. The Prem S[=a]gar, or 'Ocean of Love,' is
a modern Hindu work, which illustrates the religious love
opposed to that of the Sittars, namely, the mystic love of
the Krishnaite for his savior, whose grace is given only to
him that has faith. It is the mystic rapt adoration that in
expression becomes erotic and sensual.]
[Footnote 41: Hinduism itself is unconsciously doing a
reforming work among the wild tribes that are not touched by
the Christian missionary. These tribes, becoming Hinduized,
become civilized, and, in so far as they are thus made
approachable, they are put in the way of improvement; though
civilization often has a bad effect upon their morals for a
season.]
[Footnote 42: The substitution of the doctrine of redemption
for that of _karma_ is intellectually impossible for an
educated Hindu. He may renounce the latter, but he cannot
accept the former. The nearest approach to such a conception
is that of the Buddhistic 'Redeemer' heresy referred to
above. In all other regards Samaj and pantheism are too
catholic to be affected; In this regard they are both
unyielding.]
[Footnote 43: We question, for instance, the advisability of
such means to "fill up the church" as is described in a
missionary report delivered at the last meeting of the
Missionary Union of the Classis of New York for the current
year: "A man is sent to ride on a bicycle as fast as he can
through the different streets. This invariably attracts
attention. Boys and men follow him to the church, where it
is easy to persuade them to enter." But this is an admission
of our position in regard to the classes affected. The
rabble may be Christianized by this means, but the
intelligent will not be attracted.]
[Footnote 44: After the greater part of our work had passed
the final revision, and several months after the whole was
gone to press, appeared Oldenberg's _Die Religion des Veda_,
which, as the last new book on the subject, deserves a
special note. The author here takes a liberal view, and does
not hesitate to illustrate Vedic religion with the light
cast by other forms of superstition. But this method has its
dangers, and there is perhaps a little too much straining
after original types, giant-gods as prototypes and totemism
in proper names, where Vedic data should be separated from
what may have preceded Vedic belief. Oldenberg, as a
ritualist, finds in Varuna, Dawn, and the Burial Service the
inevitable stumbling-blocks of such scholars as confuse
Brahmanism with early Vedism. To remove these obstacles he
suggests that Varuna, as the moon, was borrowed from the
Semites or Akkadians (though be frankly admits that not even
the shadow of this moon lingers in Vedic belief); explains
Dawn's non-participation in _soma_ by stating that she never
participates in it (which explains nothing); and jumps over
the Burial Hymn with the inquiry whether, after all, it
could not be interpreted as a cremation-hymn (the obvious
answer being that the service does imply burial, and does
not even hint at cremation). On the other hand, when
theoretical barbarism and ritualism are foregone, Oldenberg
has a true eye for the estimation of facts, and hence takes
an unimpeachable position in several important particulars,
notably in rejecting Jacobi's date of the Rig Veda; in
rejecting also Hillebrandt's moon-_soma_; in denying an
originally supreme Dy[=a]us; in his explanation of
henotheism (substantially one with the explanation we gave a
year ago); and in his account of the relation of the Rig
Veda to the (later) Atharvan. Despite an occasional
brilliant suggestion, which makes the work more exciting
than reliable, this book will prove of great value to them
that are particularly interested in the ritual; though the
reader must be on his guard against the substitution of
deduction for induction, as manifested in the confusion of
epochs, and in the tendency to interpret by analogy rather
than in accordance with historical data. The worth of the
latter part of the book is impaired by an unsubstantiated
theory of sacrifice, but as a whole it presents a clear and
valuable view of the cult.]
* * * * *
ADDENDA.
Page 154, note 3: Add to (RV.) x. 173, AV. vi. 88.
Page 327, third line from the top: Read Buddhaghosha. According to
Chalmers, as quoted by T.W. Rhys Davids in his recent lectures, traces
of mysticism are found in some of the early texts (as yet
unpublished). The fact that the canonical P[=a]li books know nothing
of the controversy (involving the modification of traditional rules)
of the second council gives a terminus to the canon. Senart, on the
other hand, thinks that the vague language of the Açoka inscriptions
precludes the fixing of the canon at so early a date.
Page 340, note 4: The gods here are priests. The real meaning seems to
be that the Brahman priests, who were regarded as gods, have been put
to naught in being reduced to their true estate. Compare Senart,
(revised) _Inscriptions de Piyadasi_, third chapter. Açoka dismissed
the Brahman priests that his father had maintained, and substituted
Buddhist monks.
Page 436, note 2: From B[=e]r[=u]n[=i] it would appear that the Gupta
and Valabh[=i] eras were identical (319-20 A.D). See Fleet, Indian
Antiquary, xvii. 245. Many scholars now assign Kum[=a]rila to the
eighth century rather than to the end of the seventh.
* * * * *
BIBLIOGRAPHY.[1]
GENERAL WORKS.
#Journals#: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Soctety (JRAS.);[2] Journal of
the German Oriental Society (Zeitschrift der Deutschen
Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, ZDMG.); Journal Asiatique (JA.);
Journal of the American Oriental Society (JAOS.); Branch-Journals of
the JRAS.; Calcutta Review; Madras Journal; Indian Antiquary (IA.).
Some of the articles in the defunct Zeitschrift für die Kunde des
Morgenlandes (ZKM.), and in the old Asiatick Researches (AR.) are
still worth reading. Besides these, the most important modern journals
are the transactions of the royal Austrian, Bavarian, Prussian, and
Saxon Academies, the Muséon and the Revue de l'histoire des religions.
Occasional articles bearing on India's religions or mythology will be
found in the American Journal of Philology (AJP.); the Wiener
Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes (WZKM.); the Babylonian and
Oriental Record (BOR.); Kühn's Zeitschrift für vergleichende
Sprachforschuhg (KZ.); Bezzenberger's Beiträge (BB.); and the
Indogermanische Forschungen (IF.).
#Histories, studies, etc.#: Prinsep, Essays (Indian Antiquities);
Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde. Histories of India by Elphinstone
(religious material, chapters iv book i, and iv book ii), by
Elliot, by Marshman (complements Elphinstone), and by Wheeler
(unreliable); The Rulers of India; Hunter's Indian Empire and Brief
History. Mill's excellent History of India is somewhat prejudiced.
Dutt's History of Civilization in Ancient India is praise-worthy
(1890). Invaluable are the great descriptive Archaeological Surveys by
Cunningham, Burgess, and Bühler, and Hunter's Statistical Account of
Bengal. Literary History:[3] Colebrooke, Essays, reedited by Cowell,
with notes by Whitney; Wilson, Essays; Weber, Indische Studien (IS.);
Benfey, Orient and Occident (OO.); Müller, Ancient Sanskrit Literature
(ASL.), Science of Religion; Weber, Vorlesungen über Indische
Literaturgeschichte (also translated), Indische Streifen, Indische
Skizzen; L. von Schroeder, Indiens Literatur und Cultur; Whitney,
Oriental and Linguistic Studies, Language and the Study of Language;
Duncker, Geschichte des Alterthums (third volume, may be bought
separately); Williams, Indian Wisdom (inaccurate but readable).
VEDIC RELIGION.
#Literature#: Roth, Zur Literatur und Geschichte des Weda;[4] Benfey,
Vedica und Verwandtes; Zimmer, Altindisches Leben (AIL.);
R[=a]jendralala Mitra, Indo-Aryans(unreliable); Bergaigne, La Religion
Védique (also JA. ix, xiii); De Gubernatis, Letture sopra la Mitologia
Vedica; Pischel and Geldner, Vedische Studien;[5] Regnaud, Le Rig Veda
et les origines de la mythologie indo-européenne, and Les hymnes du
Rig Veda, sont-ils prières? (Ann. d. Mus. Guimet, Bibl. d'études, t.
i, and special studies). Regnaud's point of view renders nugatory most
of what he writes on the Veda.[6] The most useful collection of Vedic
and Brahmanic Texts that illustrate Hindu Mythology and Religion is to
be found in Muir's Original Sanskrit Texts (OST.), especially the
fourth and fifth volumes.[7] For the Sacred Books of the East (SBE.)
see Hems below.
#Translations of the rig veda#: Complete, by Grassmann and by Ludwig;
partial, by Roth, Benfey, Langlois, Bergaigne; in English chiefly by
Wilson, Müller, Muir, Peterson, Griffith. Of these the German
translation of Grassmann is often inaccurate;[8] that of Ludwig, often
unintelligible. Benfey has translated a number of specimens, OO., BB.,
i, vii, and in Kleinere Schriften. The incomplete translation of
Wilson has been carried on by Cowell; those of Peterson and Griffith
are publishing in India; Langlois' is useless. Müller's partial
translations will be found in various volumes, Ancient Sanskrit
Literature, India: What Can it Teach Us, Chips, Hibbert Lectures,
JRAS. ii. 448, iii. 199, etc.; and all the Hymns to the Maruts, SBE.
xxxii. Whitney has translated the cosmogonic hymn, PAOS., May, 1882;
and Deussen has just published the philosophical hymns, Geschichte der
Philosophie, i, 1. A group of Vedic hymns in English dress will be
found in Muir, OST. v.; extracts (without connection) are given by
Bergaigne, in La Religion Védique, and special essays in JA. (above).
In German a capital little collection is the Siebzig Lieder of Geldner
and Kaegi. The best general introductory manual for the study of the
Rig Veda, accompanied with frequent translations, is Kaegi's Der Rig
Veda (translated into English by Arrowsmith).
#Translations of the atharva veda# are all partial. The handiest
collection is Grill's Hundert Lieder des Atharva Veda. Specimens will
be found translated by Aufrecht, IS. i. 121 (book xv); (Roth) Bruce,
JRAS. 1862, p. 321 (book xii. 1); Kuhn, Indische und Germanische
Segensspriiche, KZ. xiii. 49, 113; Weber, IS. iv. 393, v. 195, 218,
xiii. 129, xvii. 178 (books i-iii, xiv); Grohmann, _ib._ ix. 381;
Ludwig, vol. iii, of his translation of the Rig Veda; Zimmer, AIL.:
Victor Henry, books vii and xiii (Les hymnes Rohitas);[9] Bloomfield,
Seven Hymns, and Contributions AJP. vii. 466, xi. 319, xii. 414, JAOS.
xv. 143, xvi. 1; ZDMG. xlviii. 541; Florenz, BB. xii. 249 (book vi.).
Of The S[=a]ma V[=e]da: Stevenson (1842) in English (inaccurate) and
Benfey (1848) in Gcrman have made translations. On the Yajur Veda
see Schroeder, Literatur und Cultur, and below.
#Vedic mythology#: Windischmann, Ursagen der Arischen Völker, Bay.
Ak., 1858; Kuhn, KZ. iv. 88, Herabkunft des Feuers (Prometheus);[10]
Roth, Die höchsten Götter der Arischen Völker, ZDMG. vi. 67 (_ib._
vii. 607); Wilson, Preface of Langlois: Cox, Aryan Mythology; Whitney,
Oriental and Linguistic Studies, ii. p. 149, JAOS. iii. 291, 331;
Müller, Second Series of Science of Language, Biographies of
Words.[11] General interpretation of divinities, Müller, Muir,
Bergaigne, Kaegi, Pischel-Geldner, _loc. cit._ The last books on the
subject are Oldenberg's scholarly volume, Die Religlon des Veda (note,
p. 571, above), and Phillip's The Teaching of the Vedas (1895), the
work of a charlatan.
SPECIAL STUDIES OF VEDIC DIVINITIES:
#Aditi#: Roth, IS. xiv. 392; Hillebrandt, Ueber die Göttin Aditi;
Müller, SBE. xxxii. 241; Colinet, Étude sur le mot Aditi, Muséon, xii.
81. [=A]dityas, Roth, ZDMG. vi. 67 (above); Darmesteter, Ormazd et
Ahriman.
#Agni#: L. von Schroeder, Apollon-Agni, KZ. xxix. 193[12] (see epic,
below).
#Apsaras# (see Gandhanas).
#Aryaman# (Açvins, Mitra, etc.): Bollensen, ZDMG. xli. 494.
#Asura# as Asen, Schrader, p. 599; P. von Bradke, Dy[=a]us Asura. See
Dy[=a]us.
#Açvins#: Myriantheus, Die Açvins oder Arischen Dioskuren; _not_
Dioskuroi, Pischel, Vedische Studien, Preface, p. xxvii; as
constellation, etc., Benfey, OO. ii. 245, iii. 159; Gemini, Weber,
last in R[=a]jas[=u]ya, p. 100; as Venus, 'span-god,' Bollensen, ZDMG.
xli. 496; other literature, Muir, OST. v. 234; Colinet, Vedic Chips,
BOR. iii. 193 (n[=a]satya, Avestan n[=a]onhaithya, n[=a] as
'very').[13]
#Brihaspati#: Roth, ZDMG. i. 66; Muir, v. 272; Hillebrandt, Vedische
Mythologie, i. 404.
#Dawn# (see Ushas).
#Dy[=a]us#: P. von Bradke, Dy[=a]us Asura, also Beiträge, ZDMG. xl.
347; not the same with Teutonic Tiu, Bremer, IF. iii. 301; as
'all-father' of primitive Aryans, Müller, Origin of Religion, p. 209;
followed by Tiele, Outlines of History of Ancient religions, p. 106;
see Hopkins, PAOS. Dec. 1894; form of Word, Collitz. KZ. xxvii. 187;
BB. xv. 17.
#Earth# (see Nritus).
#Gandharvas#: KZ. i. 513; Meyer, Gandharven-Kentauren (list of
Apsarasas); Pischel, VS. i. 78; Hillebrandt, Vedische Mythologie, i.
427.
#Haritas# (sun's steeds) as Charites, KZ. x. 96; ib. 365; Sonne, _loc.
cit. s_. S[=u]ryra; Müller, Science of Language, ii. 388.
#Heaven# (see Dy[=a]us and Varuna).
#Indra# (etymology, Benfey, OO. i. 49; PW. sv.; añdra, A.-Sax. 'ent,'
'giant,' BB. i. 342;[17]] nar, [Greek: _anor-_, Jacobi, KZ. xxxi. 316;
Indra's bolt, vadha, 'wetter,' Delbrück, KZ. xvi. 266): Perry, Indra
in the Rig Veda, JAOS. xi. 117 (see epic, below).
#K[=a]ma#: Weber, ZDMG. xiv. 269, IS. v. 224, xvii. 290; Muir, v. 402.
#Manu#:[15] Roth, ZDMG. iv. 430; Weber, IS. i. 194 ('man and moon'),
ZDMG. iv. 302; Muir, OST. i. 161; Kuhn, KZ. iv. 91; Burnouf, Preface
of Bh[=a]g. Pur[=a]na, p. iii; Ascoli (m[=a]nus, mactus), KZ. xvii.
334; Maspiter as 'man,' Corssen, KZ. ii. 32;[16] Manu's wife, Weber,
ZDMG. xviii. 286. Compare also KZ. xii. 293, xix. 156, Mannus (see
Laws, below).
#Maruts# (dubious etymology, Grassmann, KZ. xvi. 161; P. von Bradke,
_loc. cit. s._. Dy[=a]us): von Bradke, Wunderliche Geburt, Festgruss
an Roth, p. 117 (Brahmanic, same point of view in parody, RV. x. 102,
ZDMG. xlvi. 445). Hymns to Maruts, translated by Müller, SBE. xxxii.
#Mitra#: Windischmann, Abh. K.M., 1857; Weber, IS. xvii. 212 (see
Varuna).
#Namuci#: Lanman, JAS. Beng. viii. 1889; Bloomfield, JAOS. xv. 143.
#Nritus# as Nerthus, Hoffmann; (Roth) Bruce, Vedic Conceptions of the
Earth, JRAS. 1862, p. 321; Prithiv[=i], ZDMG. xli. 494.
#Parjanya#: Bühler, Zur Mythologic des Rig Yeda, OO. i. 214; Hirt, 1F.
i. 481, 'oak-god.'[4]
#Purandhi#: Pischel, VS. i. 202; Hillebrandt, WZKM. iii. 188, 259;
Colinet, BOR. ii. 245, iv. 121 ('abundance'), Congress, 1892.
#Priçni# (p[r.]çni) as Frigy, KZ. ii. 478; 'freckles,' KZ. xix. 438.
#P[=u]shan#: Muir, OST. v. 171; Bergaigne, La Relig. Vèd. ii. 420;
Hillebrandt, ved. myth., i. 456 (with soma); gubernatis, letture, p.
82 (as setting sun); pischel, vs. i. 11 (s[=u]ry[=a] and p[=u]shan);
perry, notes on the vedic deity p[=u]shan, drisler memorial, p. 240.
#Ribhus# ([r.]bhavas, etymology, 'alf,' 'Orpheus'; or Orpheus from
[r.]gh, [Greek: orchietai], Kuhn KZ. iv. 103; Wackernagel, KZ. xxiv.
297); Ludwig, iii. 187, as Seasons. Nève, Études sur les hymnes
(1842), and Essai sur le mythe des Ribhavas (1847, misleading, Ribhu
as apotheosis).
#Rohitas#: Henry (above).
#Rudra# (etymology, Pischel, VS. i. 57[18]): Weber, Vedic Conception
of, IS. ii. 19; Pischel, Vedica, ZDMG. xl. 120; Rudra's mouse
and Smintheus, KZ. iii. 335; Grohmann, Apollo Smintheus und die
Bedeutung der Mäuse in der Mythologie der Indogermanen.
#Sarany[=u]# (sara[n.]y[=u]): [Greek: ertngis], ZDA. vi. 117; KZ. i.
439 (storm; riddle, _ib_. 440); Bloomfield, JAOS. xv. 172; as Dawn,
Müller, Lectures, Second Series; Saram[=a], and S[=a]rameyas as
Hermeias, _ib._; Aufrecht, ZDMG. xiii. 493 (RV. x. 108, translated).
#Soma#: Windischmann, Ueber den Somacultus der Arier, Abh. Münch. Ak.,
iv; Roth, ZDMG. xxxv. 681, xxxviii. 134; Ehni, _ib._ xxxiii. 166;
Hillebrandt, Vedische Mythologie, i; Soma and the eagle, Kuhn,
Herabkunft (above); Roth, ZDMG. xxxvi. 353; Bloomfield, JAOS. xvi (p.
1, further literature), Festgruss an Roth, p. 149; Weber, Vedische
Beiträge, p. 3 (Sitz. Berl. Ak. 1894, p. 775); and Agni ritual,
Knauer, Vedische Fragen, Festgruss an Roth, p. 61.
#Surya# (see Haritas): sonne, hymn to, kz. xii-xv; form of word, j.
schmidt, kz. xxvi. 9. see p[=u]shan (and hinduism, below).
s[=a]vitr[=i], whitney, colebrooke's essays, ii. iii.
#Trita#: Macdonnell, Mythological Studies, JRAS. 1893, p. 419 (ap[=a]m
nap[=a]t, lightning; Trita as Thridhi, name of Odin, 'third' form of
fire); form of word, BB. ix. 99; Perry, see Indra (p. 26); Bloomfield,
PAOS. 1894, p. cxix. Other literature, Kaegi, _loc. cit._, note 112 d.
#Ushas# (U[S.]AS): Muir, v. 181; Bergaigne, i. 241, etc; Sonne, KZ. x.
416; Müller, Science of Language, ii. 391, etc.
#Vv[=a]c#: logos, Weber, IS. ix. 473.
#Varuna# (varu[n.]a): Roth, ZDMG. vi. 71; Weber, IS. xvii. 212; Muir,
v. 58; Bergaigne, iii. 110; Hillebrandt, Varu[n.]a und Mitra;
Darmesteter, Ormazd et Ahriman; Sonne, KZ. xii. 364; Pischel, VS. i.
188; Geldner, _ib_. 142; Ludwig, iii. 314; Oldenberg as a borrowed god
(PAOS. 1894); as water, Geldner, BB. xi. 329; form of word, Bolensen,
ZDMG. xli. 504 (var 'hell sein'); Bohnenberger (Roth), Varu[n.]a nach
den Liedern des Rig Veda (Mitra as appellative becomes a new god, p.
85);[19] as svar, Regnaud, Rev. xix. 79.
#Vastoshpati# ('house-lord'): Windisch, Vassus und Vassallus, Bericht.
d. k. Säch. Gesell. 1892, p. 174 (vassus for vast).
#V[=a]ta#, vayu (v[=a]ta is [Greek: aêtês], 'wind'): Stokes, BB. xix.
74, compares Irish fath, 'breath,' but gives also fáth, a kind of poem
(vates, vôds, English 'wood' as 'mad'). V[=a]ta, Wuotan, Zimmer, ZDA.
vii. (19) 179
#Vishnu# (vi[s.][n.]u like jishnu, ji[s.][n.]u, vi, 'fly,' the
heavenly bird?): Muir, iv and v (older texts relative to Vishnu),
PAOS. Dec. 1894.
#Yama#: Roth, ZDMG. ii. 216, iv, 417 (Jemshid), JAOS. iii. 335, IS.
xiv. 393; Whitney, Oriental and Linguistic Studies, i. 46; Müller,
Science of Language, ii. 528, 534; Westergaard, with Weber's notes,
IS. iii. 402; Muir, JRAS. i. 287; OST. v. 284; Bergaigne, i. 86, ii.
96, etc; Grassmann, KZ. xi. 13, 'binder'; Ehni, Der Vedische Mythus
des Yama; Hillebrandt, Vedische Mythologie, i. 489; Bloomfield, JAOS.
xv. 163, 172; Hopkins, PAOS. 1891, p. xciv; Scherman,
Visionsliteratur; Leumann, KZ. xxxii. 301 (Yam[=i][20]); L. von
Schroeder, Literatur, p. 217 (Ymir, Praj[=a]pati); Bréal, Hercule et
Circus; Benfey, Vedica, 149; Van den Gheyn, Cerbère (1883);
Casartelli, Dog of Death, BOR. iv. 265.[21] Yama's sadana, Pischel,
VS. i. 242.[22]
#Veda and brahmanism#: Oldenberg, Die Hymnen des Rig Veda, and ZDMG.
xlii. 199, Ueber die Liedverfasser des Rig Yeda (see Hinduism, below);
Roth, _ib_. iv. 514, divisions of the Rig Veda; Bergaigne, Recherches
sur l'histoire de la Samhit[=a] du Rig Veda, JA. (1886 and following
years), also on the liturgy, _ib_. 1888; JA. x. No. 3; Pincott, JRAS.
xvi. 381; Hillebrandt, Spuren einer älteren Rig Veda Recension, BB.
viii. 195; Lanman, JAOS. x. 580; Brunnhofer, KZ, xxv. 374, BB. x. 234
(Collitz, BB. vii. 183); Roth, on the worth of tradition, ZDMG. xxi.
1; Whitney, on Translation of Veda, OLS.; PAOS. Oct. 1867; Goldstücker
on S[=a]ya[n.]a, in Preface to P[=a][n.]ini. Cult against mantra,
Roth, ZDMG. vii. 604; viii. 467; Weber, _ib._ viii. 389; Pischel and
Geldner, Preface to Vedische Studien and ZDMG. xlviii. 702; Colinet,
Les Principes de I'exégèse védique, Muséon, 1890; Bloomfield,
Contributions (above); E. Hardy, Die Vedisch-brahmanische Periode d.
Relig. d. Alt. Ind.; Muir, Priests and Interpreters of the Veda, JRAS.
ii. 257, 303; Haug, Contribution, 1863, and Interpretation of the
Veda, Congress, 1874; Ludwig, Die philosophischen und religiösen
Anschanungen des Veda; also Ludwig, Rig-Veda, iii (Mantra-Literatur),
pp. 262, 284, 301, and his works, Ueber Methode bei Interpretationen
des Rig Veda, and Ueber die neuesten Arbeiten auf dem Gebiet der RV.
Forschung. Further (Vedic and later literature), Oldenberg, ZDMG.
xxxvii. 54; _ib_. xxxix. 52; Windisch, Verh. d. Geraer Philologen
Versammlung, Vedische Wettfahrtt in Festgruss an Roth; Weber, Episches
im Vedischen Ritual, Sitz. Berl. Ak., 1891; Schermann, Philosophische
Hymnen (also Visionsliteratur).
#Vedic and brahmanic belief#: Pott, Vedic and Orphic Kosmic Egg,
Ovidiana, KZ. viii. 179 (Peleus as _Urschlamm I_); von Bradke,
Beiträge z. altind. Religions und Sprachgescbichte, ZDMG. xl. 347,
655; Schrader, chapter xiii; Zimmer, AIL.; Roth and Böhtlingk,
Vedische Räthsel, ZDMG. xxxvii. 109; (and eschatology) xlvi. 759;
Windisch, _ib_. xlviii. 353.[23] Eschatology: Weber, Eine Legende,
ZDMG. ix. 237 (Bhrigu) and 308; Burnell, a Legend from the
Talavak[=a]ra, Congress, 1880, IA. xiii. 16, 21; Benfey, Orient und
Occident, iii. 169, and Hermes, Minos, Tartaros; Whitney, PAOS., Nov.,
1858, May, 1886; Böhtlingk, Bericht d. k. Sächs. Gesell, 23. April,
1893, p. 88; Henotheism: Whitney, _loc. cit_., Oct. 1881, see IA.
xi. 146; Hopkins, Drisler Memorial. Social position of priests
(castes), Weber,[24] Nachträge, p. 795; Collectanea, IS. x; Muir,
JRAS. ii. 257; OST. i; Hopkins, Four Castes, also JAOS. xiii;
Schlagintweit (Caste at Present), ZDMG. xxxiii. 549. Cult: E. Hardy,
_loc. cit_. above; on _Om_ see Bloomfield, PAOS. Oct. 1889; Cult of.
Manes, Caland, Altind. Ahnencult, and Ueber Totenverehrung bei Einigen
der IE. Völker; Winternitz, WZKM. iv. 199; Whitney, OLS. i. 46; Kaegi,
_loc. cit_., note 265, with literature. Funeral: Roth, ZDMG. viii.
467; Müller, _ib_. ix. pp. i and xiiii (sic); Wilson, JRAS. 1854, p.
201; Regnaud, Çr[=a]ddha védique, Rev. d'hist. d. relig. xxv. 1;
Donner, pi[n.][d.]apit[r.]yajña; Lanman, Mortuary Urns, PAOS. May,
1891. Wedding: Weber, Hochzeitssprüche, IS. v. 177; Stenzler,
P[=a]raskara, ZDMG. vii. 527; Haas, Heiratsgebräuche d. alten Inder,
IS. v. 267; Schröder, Die Hochzeitsbräuche der Esten; Winternitz, Das
Ai. Hochzeitsrituell. Omens, Ordeals, etc.: Weber, Zwei Vedische
Texte über Omina und Portenta, Wurfel-Orakel, Vedische Beiträge;[25]
Schlagintweit, Gottesurtheile; Stenzler, ZDMG. ix. 661; Kaegi, Alter
und Herkunft der germanischen Gottesurtheile (with further
literature); Jolly, Beiträge zur Rechtsgeschichte, ZDMG. xliv. 347.
The earliest essay on Ordeals was presented by Warren Hastings, 1784,
Asiatick Researches, i. 389. Star-lore: Colebrooke; Weber, IS. ii.
236; Haug, Introduction to [=A]it. Br.; Weber, Die Vedischen
Nachrichten von d. Nakshatra; Sitz. Berl. Ak. 1861, p. 267;[26]
Müller, Ancient Hindu Astronomy and Chronology; Burgess, JRAS. xxv.
717; Jacobi, Methods and Tables. Witchcraft, Medicine: Kuhn, KZ.
xiii. 49; Grohmann, IS. ix. 381; Bloomfield, Contributions, AJP. vii,
xi, xii; Pictet, KZ. v. 24, 321; Jolly, Knoblauch, Festgruss an Roth,
p. 18; medicine and divination, Bower MS.,
JASB. 1891; IA. xxi. 29, 129; WZKM. v. 103. Blood-money: Roth, ZDMG.
xli. 672; Aryan and Indic, Bühler and Schroeder, Festgruss an Roth;
Jolly, _loc. cit._., p. 339. Sacrifices: Hillebrandt, Das altind.
Neu-u. Vollmondsopfer, and Nationale Opfer, Festgruss an Böhtlingk;
Lindner, Die Diksk[=a], and _loc. cit._, Ernteopfer; Weber,
V[=a]japeya and R[=a]jas[=u]ya, Sitz. Berl. Ak., 1892, 1893, and Zur
Kenntniss d. Ved. Opferrituals, IS. x. 321, xiii. 217; Schwab, Das
Altindische Thieropfer. Suttee and Human Sacrifices: Colebrooke,
Duties of Faithful Hindu Widow, Asiatick Researches, iv. 209; Wilson,
JRAS. 1851, p. 96, 1854, p. 201, 1859, p. 209; Müller, Chips, ii. 34;
Hall, JRAS. iii. 183, 193; R[=a]jendral[=a]la Mitra, Indo-Aryans, ii.
114; Weber, ZDMG. vii. 585, xviii. 262 (Manu, Minotaur, _ib._ p. 286),
Ind. Streifen, i. 54; Zimmer, AIL. p. 328; Hillebrandt, ZDMG. xl. 711.
#Ritual, etc#: (above and) Müller, ZDMG. ix. p. xliii; Garbe, ZDMG.
xxxiv. 319 (Pravargya); Rarity of Soma-sacrifice, Haug, ZDMG. xvi.
273; Hindu Doctrine of Atonement, Stenzler, Congress, 1874, p. 205;
Atharva Ritual, Garbe, V[=a]it[=a]na S[=u]tra; Magoun, Asur[=i] Kalpa;
Agni Sacrifice, Thibaut, Agni Citi, Pandit, JAS. Beng., xliv, 1875,
Çulva S[=u]tra; Koulikovski, Les Trois Feux Sacrés, Rev. xx. 121.
Serpent-worship: Stier, Sarpedon, KZ. xi. 234; Fergusson, Tree and
Serpent Worship; Cuthbert, Serpent Temples, JRAS. 1846, p. 407;
compare _ib_, 1891; Winternitz, Sarpabali, Schlangencult, Mit. d.
anthrop. Gesell., Wien, xviii; IA. xv. 258; Bühler, _ib_. vi. 270;
Snakes and Buddha, Bendall, Meghas[=u]tra, JRAS. xii. 286; Senart,
Buddha; Oldham, JRAS. xxiii. 361. Idols: Weber, Omina und Portenta,
p. 337; Ludwig, Nachrichten; Bollensen, ZDMG. xxii. 587, xlvii. 586;
Müller, Chips, i. 37;[27] Muir, OST., v. 453; Kaegi, Rig Veda, note
79^a. Ages and Holy Numbers:[28] Roth, Ueber den AV., and Ueber den
Mythus von den fünf Menschen-Geschlechtern bei Hesiod; Weber, Cycles,
IS. ix. 460; ZDMG. xv. 132; Kaegi, Die Neunzahl; Schroeder, seven as
holy number, KZ. xxix. 224; Hopkins, Holy Numbers of the Rig Veda.[29]
See Star-lore, above.
#Brahmanism#: Specimens, Muir, OST. iv; S[=a]man, Benfey, Griffith;
Sha[d.]vi[.m]ça, Weber, Omina (above); M[=a]it. S., Haug, IS. ix. 174;
von Schroeder, Literatur, and ZDMG. xxxiii. 177; Çatapatha, partial
translation, Eggeling, SBE., xii, xxvi, xli; Muir, JRAS. 1862, p. 31
(OST.); Weber, IS. i. 161 and Ind. Streifen, i. 9; first chapter,
ZDMG. iv. 289; Brunnhofer (relation of parts), BB. x. 234; [=A]it.
Br., Haug; Weber, IS. ix. 177; Deluge, etc., Bopp, Sündflüt; Weber,
ZDMG. v. 525, Ind. Streifen, i. 9; Roth, ZDMG. vi. 243; Lindner, Ir.
Fluthsage, Festgruss an Roth. Upanishads:[30] Cowell, Roer, Bib.
Ind.; Whitney, Böhtlingk (Ka[t.]ha, Ch[=a]ndogya, Ait
K[=a]ush[=i]tak[=i], Kena, B[r.]had[=a]ra[n.]yaka); Weber, IS. i, ii,
ix; Müller, SBE., i, xv (all the chief works);[31] Oertel,
J[=a]imin[=i]ya, PAOS. 1894; list of, Müller, ZDMG. xix. 137;
Concordance of Upanishads, Jacob. For a general introduction the best
work in English are the translations in the Sacred Books. Gough's
Philosophy of the Upanishads has many translations, but the book is
otherwise not to be recommended. On [=a]tm[=a] as [Greek: autmên], see
KZ. xvii 145. Philosophy: Deussen, Das System des Ved[=a]nta, 1883,
is now the standard work;[32] to which should be added the same
author's S[=u]tra; Jacob's Ved[=a]ntas[=a]ra; and Thibaut, Ved[=a]nta
S[=u]tra, SBE. xxxiv.[33] For the S[=a]nkhya, Davies, S[=a]nkhya; and
Ballantyne, Aphorisms; but the best work is now Garbe, Die S[=a]mkhya
Philosophie (1894). A good general introduction to Hindu Pantheism has
been given by Lanman, Beginnings of Hindu Pantheism. The best general
summary[34] of Hindu philosophies is found in the revised edition of
Colebrooke's Essays. Other special studies include Roth, Brahma und
die Brahmanen,[35] ZDMG. i. 66 (on _brahma_); Müller, _ib_. vi. 1,
219, vii. 287 (Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Ind. Phil.); Roer, _ib_.
xxi. 309, xxii. 383 (Die Lehrsprüche der Vaiçeshika Philosophie);
Muir, Theism in Vaiçeshika Philosophy, JRAS. 1862, p. 22; Ballantyne,
Ny[=a]yas[=u]tras; Windisch, Ueber das Ny[=a]yabh[=a]shya, 1888, an
Sitz der denkenden Seele, Beitr. d. k. Sächs. Gesell., 1891, p. 55;
Ballantyne and Cowell, Ç[=a][n.][d.]ilya's Aphorisms (text by B.,
translation by C., Bib. Ind.); Regnaud, Le Pessimisme Br[=a]hmanique,
Ann. du Mus. Guimet, i, and Matériaux pour servir à l'histoire de la
philosophie d'Inde. The Sarvadarçanasa[.n]graha is translated by
Cowell and Gough. The S[=u]tras of the six systems have all been
translated (with the texts) in India. On the date of Çankara see
Pathak, IA. xi. 174; and Telang and Fleet, _ib_. xiii. 95, xvi. 41;
Logan, _ib_. xvi. 160.
#House-rules and law#: All the most important manuals of custom and
law have been translated by Stenzler, Bühler, Jolly, Oldenberg,
Bloomfield and Knauer (SBE. ii, vii, xiv, xxv, xxix, xxx, xxxiii;
Stenzler, P[=a]raskara, [=A]çval[=a]yana and Y[=a]jñavalkya;
Oldenberg, IS. xv. 1, Ç[=a]ñkh[=a]yana; Knauer, Gobhila, also Vedische
Fragen, Festgruss an Roth; Bloomfield, Gobhila, ZDMG. xxxv. 533).[36]
JAINISM.
Colebrooke's Essays (Cowell), ii. 402; Lassen, iv. 763; Wilson,
Essays, i. 319; Weber, IS. xv. 263, xvi. 211, xvii. 1,[37] and Berlin
MSS., vol. ii, 1892; Klatt, Stotra (MSS.), ZDMG. xxxiii. 445; Leumann,
Berichte von den Schismen der Jaina, IS. xvii. 91; Jacobi, Stutayas
and Stotra, ZDMG. xxxii. 509, IS. xiv. 359, also origin of sects,
ZDMG. xxxviii. 1, Introduction to Kalpa S[=u]tra (Abh. k. M.,[38]
1879, Mab[=a]v[=i]ra is N[=a]taputta). Compare also Jacobi, ZDMG.
xxxiv. 247; Oldenberg, _ib_. 748; Jacobi, _ib_. xxxv. 667, xl. 92;
Burnell, IA. i. 354; Rice and Bühler, _ib_. iii. 153, vii. 28, 143,
etc; Burgess, _ib._ xiii. 191; Windisch, Hemacandra's Yogaç[=a]stra,
ZDMG. xxviii. 185. Jacobi has translated Ac[=a]r[=a]nga and Kalpa
S[=u]tras for SBE. xxii. Hoernle, Digambara Pattavalis, IA. xx. 341,
xxi. 57. A popular essay on Jains by Williams appeared JRAS. xx. 279.
On Jain tradition compare Bühler, Sitz. Wien. Ak. 1883, WZKM. i. 165,
ii. 141, iii. 233, iv. 313, v. 59, 175 (Mathur[=a], Congress, 1892, p.
219). On Gos[=a]la compare Hoernle, Bib. Ind., Uv[=a]saga Das[=a]o
(seventh Anga) with Leumann's review; and Rockhill, Life of Buddha, p.
249. Compare also Jain Bh[=a]rata and R[=a]m[=a]ya[n.]a of Pampa,
Rice, JRAS. xiv. 19; Leumann, Daçavaikalika-S[=u]tra und Niryukti,
Jinabhadra's J[=i]takalpa, Sitz. Berl. Ak. 1892, Die Legende von Citta
und Sa[.m]bh[=u]ta, WZKM. v. 111, vi. 1; Thomas, Early Faith of Açoka
(to show prior Jainism; a dubious contention) JRAS. ix. 155. On the
Jain nurture of vermin see JRAS. 1834, p. 96. On dates compare Jacobi,
Kalpas[=u]tra and Oldenberg (above). The Çatruñjaya M[=a]h[=a]tmyam
(Weber, Abh. k. M., 1858) is probably not an early work (Bühler, Three
New Edicts, IA. vi. 154). On Weber's view in regard to Jain-Greek
legends see his essay Ahaly[=a]-Achilleus, Sitz. Berl. Ak., 1887. See
too Barth, Revue, xix. 292 ff., xx. 332.
BUDDHISM.
Colebrook's Essays; Wilson, Buddha and Buddhism, JRAS., 1856, pp. 229,
357; Bennett, Gaudama, JAOS. ii. 3; R. Spence Hardy, Eastern
Monarchism and Manual of Buddhism; E. Hardy, Der Buddhismus nach
älteren P[=a]liwerken; Burnouf, Le Lotus de la Bonne Loi and
Introduction à l'histoire du Bouddhisme indien (Nepal); Köppen, Die
Religion des Buddha; Weber, Ueber den Buddhismus, Ind. Skizzen, and
Streifen, i. 104; Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire, Le Bouddha et sa religion
(now antiquated); Oldenberg, Buddha; Kern, Der Buddhismus; T.W. Rhys
Davids, Manual of Buddhism, and Hibbert Lectures; Copleston, Buddhism;
Monier Williams, Buddhism;[39] Mary Sumner's Histoire (ed. Foucaux);
Senart's Essai sur la légende du Buddha, JA. 1873, p. 114; 1874, p.
249; 1875, P. 97, and published separately. Valuable is the same
author's article, JA. viii, 1876, Notes, and work (containing) Les
Inscriptions de Piyadasi; compare IA. xvii. 188; ZDMG. xl. 127
(bühler). on N[=a]g[=a]rjuna (second century) see Beal, IA. xv. 353.
Of historical interest, if otherwise valueless, are Schoebel, Le
Buddha et le Bouddhisme, 1857; and Holmboe, Traces de Buddhisme en
Norvège avant l'introduction du christianisme. Lillie, Buddha and
Early Buddhism, also influence of Buddhism on Christianity, and JRAS.
xiv. 218, Buddhist Saint Worship, and _ib_. xv. 419, on Ceylon
Buddhism; Beal, Schools, IA. ix. 299.
#Buddhist texts#: Burnouf, Foucaux, above; Weber, Dhammapada,[40]
ZDMG. xiv. 29: Müller, Science of Religion, and SBE. x, with
Fanshöll's Sutta Nip[=a]ta; J. Weber and Huth, Tib. Buddhist
S[=u]tras, ZDMG. xlv. 577; Pischel, Assal[=a]yana Sutta; Childers,
Khuddaka P[=a]tha, JRAS. iv. 309.; Davids, Buddhist Suttas translated
from the P[=a]li; and Davids and Oldenberg,[41] Vinaya Texts, SBE. xi,
xiii, xvii, xx; Kern, Lotus, _ib_. xxi; Davids, Milinda, _ib_. xxxv;
Cowell and Müller, Mah[=a]y[=n]na S[=u]tras, _ib_. xlix; Foucaux,
Lalita Vistara, Ann. du MG. vi, xix; Pratimokha, above, and Beal and
Gogerly, JRAS. 1862, p. 407; Dickson, _ib_. vii. 1, viii. 62;
Childers, _ib_. vii. 49; viii. 219; Rogers (and Müller),
Buddhaghosha's Parables; Foulkes, IA. xix. 105; Carus, Gospel of
Buddha.
#Nirv[=a][n.]a#: Out of the immense literature we select Müller
(Buddhist Nihilism), Science of Religion, p. 141; Oldenberg, Buddha,
p. 273; Frankfurter, JRAS. xii. 548; Rhys Davids, Manual, and Hibbert
Lectures, tenth Appendix.
#Date of nirv[=a][n.]a#: Westergaard, Buddha's Totesjahr, Ueber den
ältesten Zeitraum der Ind. Geschichte; Cunningham, Bhilsa Topes;
Bühler IA. vi. 149 ff., Three New Edicts of Açoka; Kern, Jaar-telling;
Müller, Acad. March 1, 1884, SBE. x.: Davids, Ancient Coins and
Measures of Ceylon, p. 57; Oldenberg, Vinaya Pitaka, SBE. xiii. p.
xxii.[42]
#Foreign buddhism#: Stan. Julien, Histoire de la vie de Hiouen Thsang,
Mémoires (compare JA. Dec. 1857), Voyages des Pélerins Bouddhistes;
Wassiljew, Der Buddhismus; Bigandet, Life of Gaudama; Fergusson,
Hiouen Thsang's Journey from Patna, JRAS. vi. 213, 396; Wilson, _ib._
1859, p. 106 ('Summary Account'); JAS. Beng. i; As. Researches, xx
(Csoma, Asiatic Buddhism); Beal, Diamond S[=u]tras (etc., JRAS.);
Gutzlatf (Sykes), Buddhism in China, JRAS. 1854, p. 73; 1856, pp. 316,
357 (Wilson, Notes, Inscriptions); Edkins, Chinese Buddhism; Beal
(Chinese), Dhammapada, The Romantic Legend, and Travels of the
Buddhist Pilgrim Fah-Hian,[43] Life of Buddha, BOR. _passim_; Müller,
Buddhist Pilgrims, Chips, i; Köppen (above); Hodgson, Memoirs; Burnouf
(above); Schlagintweit, Buddhistic Idols in Tibet, JRAS. 1863, p. 437,
and (Ann. du Musée Guimet, iii) Buddhism in Tibet (Lamaism in the
second part); Rockhill, The Life of Buddha, and The Land of the Lamas;
Lamaistic succession, Mayers, JRAS. iv. 284; Lamaist extension of
Buddhist Confession, IA. xxiii. 73; Lamaism and Catholicism, Davids,
Hibbert Lectures; Modern Lamaism, Waddell, Buddhism of Thibet or
Lamaism; Schiefner, T[=a]ran[=a]tha's Geschichte (and Tibetische
Lebensbeschreibung); Tibet texts (above); Bastian, Buddhist Literature
of the Burmese, ZDMG. xvii. 697, and Buddhist Psychology, _ib._ xx.
419; Führer, Buddhist Manu, BBRAS. xv. 329; Jardine and Forchhammer,
Notes on Buddhist Law (in Burmah); Friederich, Buddhism in Bali, JRAS.
viii 158, ix. 59; dharmaç[=a]stra, IA. xiii. 24; Crawfurd, Hindu
Religion in Bali, AR. xiii. 128;[44] in Ceylon, Foulkes, IA. xvii.
100.
#Buddhist legends#: Burnouf, Introduction; Davids, Buddhist Birth
Stories, and BOR. iv. 9; Beal, JRAS. vi. 377; Fausböll, Two
J[=a]takas, JRAS. v. i., Five and Ten (1872); Feer, JA. 1875
(v, vi);[45] Fausböll, Weber, IS. v. 412; Açvaghosha (fifth ccntury);
Weber, Streifen, i. 186; Cowell, Açvaghosha; Lévi, JA. 1892, p. 201;
Beal, SBE. xix. Hells: Feer, Études Bouddhiques, l'Enfer indien, JA.
1892, p. 185, 1893, p. 112;[46] Köppen, p. 239; Senart, Notes, JA.
viii. 477. Symbols: Cunningham, JRAS. 1851, pp. 71, 114; Hodgson,
_ib._ 1861, p. 393; Sewell and Pincott, _ib._ xix. 238 and xxii.
299;[47] IA. vii. 176; _ib._ xv. 61, 89, 217, and following volumes
(sacred trees); Lillie, Saints and Trees, JRAS. xiv. 218. Topes,
Temples: Cunningham, above, p. 108, and St[=u]pa of Bharhut, Bhilsa
Topes (synods, schisms); Fergusson, Rock-cut Temples of India, JRAS.
1844, p. 30, and Topes of S[=a]nchi and Amar[=a]vat[=i]; Beal, JRAS.
v. 164; Burgess, Arch. Surv. of Western India, and Cave Temples of
India (symbols) with Fergusson; the latter, History of Indian and
Eastern Architecture, Tree and Serpent Worship; Simpson, JRAS. xxi. 49
(temples from tombs); Müller, Dagobas from Ceylon, ZDMG. xii. 514[48]
(also dates). Women leaders of Buddhist Reformation, Miss Bode, JRAS.
xxv. 517.
#Brahmanism and Buddhism#: Burnouf, Bh. P. Introd. p. 137 (Indra
highest god); Williams, JRAS. xviii. 127; Holtzmann, Zur Geschichte,
p. 103; (and Jainism) Leumann, Die Legende von Citta und Sambh[=u]ta,
WZKM (above); Bastian, Brahmanic Inscriptions in Buddhist Temples (of
Siam), JAOS. viii. 377.
#Buddhist heresies#, D[=i]pava[.m]sa (above); doctrines, Wassiljew
(above); Le Buddhisme et les Grecs, Lévi, Revue, xxiii. 36.
HINDUISM.
EPIC: Ktesias, IA. x. 296 ff.; McCrindle, Ancient India as
described by Ktesias and by Megasthenes and Arrian;[49] date of
Bh[=a]rata, Bühler, Kirste, Ind. Studies, No. ii; in Cambodia,
Barth, Inscriptions Sanskrites du Cambodge; of R[=a]m[=a]ya[n.]a,
Weber, R[=a]m[=a]ya[n.]a, IA., reprint; Jacobi, R[=a]m[=a]ya[n.]a,[50]
Festgruss an Böhtlingk, p. 44, GGA., Nos. 16 of 1892, 1893; epic
language, Franke, Was ist Sanskrit? BB. xvii. 54; epos and Veda,
Oldenberg, ZDMG. xxxvii. 54, xxxviii. 439, xxxix. 52; Weber, Episches
im Vedischen Ritual,[51] Sitz, Berl. Ak. 1891; Ludwig, Ironie,
Festgruss an Böhtlingk. Résumé, Wheeler, History (unreliable);
Williams, Indian Wisdom. Translations, Wilson, Sabh[=a], JRAS. 1842,
p. 137; Thomson (1855), Davies, Lorinser, and Telang (SBE. viii),
Bhagavad G[=i]ta, etc; Milman, Nala; Muir, IA. vii, viii, Metrical
Translations, and OST.; Arnold, S[=a]vitr[=i], Idylls, etc. (free);
Holtzmann (Sr.), Indische Sagen; Foucaux, 'Kairata Parva'; Sadous,
fragments (1858); H. Fauche (several books of Bh[=a]rata); Pratapa
Chandra Roy (almost all); Griffith, R[=a]m[=a]ya[n.]a, Schoebel. (Mus.
Guimet, xiii), Gorresio, Fauche, _id_. Studies, Holtzmann, Indra,
Apsaras, Brahm[=a],[52] ZDMG. xxxii. 290, xxxiii. 631, xxxviii. 167,
Agni, Arjuna (each separately), Zur Geschichte, Neunzehn Bücher
(literature); Hopkins, Manu in Epic, JAOS. xi. 239, Ruling Caste,
_ib_. xiii, etc.; Sauer, Mah[=a]bh[=a]rata and Wate (primitive epic,
unconvincing); Nève, Morals and Women (antiquated); Weber,
Mother-Worship, Zwei Ved. Texte, and West, IA. x. 245; Roussel, Les
idées religieuses, Muséon, xii. 263, 295. For Philosophy, see above.
Pur[=a][n.]as, Modern Sects: Lassen, i. 481; Wilson, Analysis,
1838-39 (essays); Burnouf, Bh[=a]gavata; Wilson, Vishnu; Rückert,
M[=a]rka[n.][d.]eya, Wortham, JRAS. xiii. 103, 355 (partial); _ib_.
xvii. 221; Wolheim, Padma (Latin, partial); Stevenson, Ga[n.]eça,
JRAS. 1846, p. 319; Ante-Brahmanic Religions, and Feudalism, _ib_.
1846, pp. 330, 390; in Dekhan, _ib_. 1838, p. 189; Sykes, Traits,
_ib_. 1860, p. 223; G[=i]ta-Govinda, Lassen (Latin), Rückert,
ZKM. i. 132. Fables: WZKM. vii. 215; Pratapa Chandra Gosha,
Durg[=a]p[=u]j[=a]; T[=i]rtha: Williams, Hinduism (list), IA. v. 209,
Cunningham, Survey; Hunter, Indian Empire (sects), Orissa, and Report;
Çivaite sects, Sen[=a]th[=i] R[=a]ja, Mus. Guim. vii; Krishna, Weber,
ZDMG. vi. 92; Berl. Ak., 1867, p. 217, IS. xiii. 354; Nève, Des
éléments étrangers, etc; Phallus, IA. iv. 211, v. 183, Kittel, Ueber
d. Ursprung des Linga Cultus (refutes Wurm, Geschichte der Indischen
Religion); Stevenson, JRAS. 1846, p. 337; P[=a]ñcar[=a]tra, Hall,
V[=a]savadatta. C[=a]rv[=a]ka, Colebrooke, Muir, _loc. cit_.
Var[=a]hamihira, see above. Fate: IA. xviii. 46. Sects: Jones, AR. ii.
334; names of week-days, Cunningham, IA. xiv. i; Grierson, _ib_. 322;
Dikshit, _ib_. xvi. 113; Wilson's Sketch of the Religious Sects of the
Hindus, AR., Essays; Hunter's Statistical Account of Bengal; Kitt's
Compendium of Castes and Tribes; Elphinstone's History; Müller, Chips,
iv. 329; Williams, Religious Thought and Life, and Brahmanism and
Hinduism; W.J. Wilkins, Modern Hinduism; Wilson, On the Sikhs, JRAS.
1846, p. 43; Prinsep, Origin of Sikh Power; MacGregor, History of
Sikhs;[53] Kab[=i]r; Trumpp, [=A]digranth, JRAS. v. 197, Congress,
1880, p. 159, and [=A]digranth (complete), IA. vi ff.; Die Religion
der Sikhs. Vishnuism, Williams, JRAS. xiv. 289. Mohammedanism in
Hinduism, Dabist[=a]n, vol. ii.[54] Ritual: Bühler, IA. 1883; temples;
Hurst, Indika (especially p. 294); Burgess, IA. xii. 315; Williams,
Thought and Life, p. 448 (see Buddhism). Thugs: Reynolds, JRAS. 1837,
p. 200; Sherwood, AR. xiii. 25, Ph[=a]ns[=i]gars; Shakespear, _ib_.
xiii. 282; also Sleeman, Report, and Ramaseeana (Thugs' Argot and
papers on Thugs); Elphinstone, i. 369, 371 (Bh[=a]ts and Ch[=a]rans),
384 (Thugs and Decoits). C[=a]itanyas, Hunter, Statistical Account,
Williams and Wilkins, _loc. cit_.; On 'pocket-altars,' JRAS. 1851, p.
71; Vidh[=a]nas, Burnell, Meyer; K[=a]nph[=a]tis, Celibates, of Kutch,
JRAS. 1839, p. 268; Ling[=a]yits, Kittel, above, and IA. iv, v; Tulsi
D[=a]s, R[=a]m[=a]ya[n.]a, works of Ramavat sect, Grierson, IA. xxii.
89, 122, 227; Pandus as gods, IA, vii. 127; their fish-emblems, _ib_.
xxii. 61; Bombay Dancing Girls, IA. xiii. 165; Sun-worship, temples,
St. Julien, Voy. iii. 172; Burgess, Survey, p. 216; in Taxila, JRAS.
1859, p. 77; in Pur[=a][n.]as, Lassen, ii. 832, 919; IA. vi. 11, vii.
69, 71, viii. 30 ([=a]dityabhaktas). Theistic Reformers: Wilson,
Essays; Hunter, Account; Müller, Chips; Williams, JRAS. xiii. I, 281;
Tiru Valluvar, Graul, Kural, and Pope, IA. vii ff.; N[=a]ngi
Panth[=i]s, IA. xiii. 1; Tamil Çivaites, Foulkes, Catechism; JAOS. iv.
129; Ph[=a]ndarpur Vishnuites, Vi[t.]h[t.]ala Bhaktas (Kab[=i]r),
Stevenson, JRAS. 1842 p. 64; especially Mitchell, IA. xi. 56, 149,
hyrons of Tuk[=a], and celebration, Congress, 1892, p. 282.
Festivals:[55] above, V[=a]japeya; Hillebrandt, Sonnwendfeste; JRAS.
1846, p. 60; Gover, _ib_. v. 91; IA. xx. 430; Holi, JRAS. 1838, p.
189; 1841, p. 239; Vet[=a]la, _ib_. 1838, p. 192; Dekhan deities,
_ib_. 1842, p. 105.
WILD TRIBES.
Johnston. Yellow Men of India; Hunter, _loc. cit_.; Hewitt, Early
History of Northern India (speculative), JRAS. xx. 321, etc.; Oppert,
Original Inhabitants, Madras Journal, 1887, 1888; Breeks, Account of
Primitive Tribes, etc. (Nilagiris, Todas); Hodgson, Aboriginal Tribes,
JAS. Beng., xxv. 31; Samuelis, Native Dress and Religious Dances,
_ib_. 295; Neumann, English Realm in India, ii; Latham, Ethnology of
India; Macpherson, JRAS. 1842, p. 172, and 1852, p. 216(Khonds);
Briggs, Aboriginal Races, _ib_. 275; Sherring, Hindu (Bengal) Tribes;
the Sacred City of the Hindus; also Bhar-tribe by the same, JRAS. v.
376; Risley, Tribes and Castes of Bengal; Rowney, Wild Tribes; Khonds,
Koles,[56] S[=a]uras, Gonds (and Bh[=i]ls) JRAS. 1852, p, 216 (1844,
p. 181); also _ib_. 1842, p. 172; Marshman, History, iii. p. 108
(Khonds); thirty Snake-tribes, JRAS. xii. 229; _ib_. 1859, p.1,[57]
Frye, Uriya and Khonds, religious dances, p. 16; creed and sacrifice,
pp. 20, 36; Marshman ii. p. 164 (infanticide); Kitt, Compendium of
Castes and Tribes found in India; Santh[=a]ls, JRAS. 1852, p. 285; IA.
xxii. 294 (emigration); Avery, Aboriginal Tribes, IA. xiv. 125;
Carnegy, Races Tribes and Castes (Oude); Dalton (Bengal), Descriptive
Ethnology; Social Customs in Kashmeer and Oude, IA. xviii. 287, 386;
Campbell, Sant[=a]l folklore (totemistic origin from goose);[58]
Kork[=u]s, Kolarian Tribe in middle of (Dravidian) Gonds, JRAS. xvi.
164; Newbold, Chenchwars, wild tribe in forests of eastern Ghauts,
JRAS. 1845, p. 271; Cain, Koi, southern tribe of Gonds, JRAS. xiii.
410 (witches, Pandus, etc); Dunbar, Lurka Koles, JRAS., 1861, p. 370;
Dravidians, Kittel, and Caldwell, _loc. cit._; Polyandry, Thomas,
JRAS. xi. 37; Simpson (rites, sacrifices, etc.), P[=u]jas in the
Sutlej valley, JRAS. xvi. 13; Burnell, Devil-worship of Tuluvas, IA.
1894; Waddell, Frog-worship (Nepal), IA. xxii. 293; Steere, Swahili
Tales, IA. _passim_.[59] A volume has lately been published on the
Chittagong Hill Tribes[60] by Riebeck with superb illustrations; and
photographic illustrations of racial types may be studied in Watson's
and Kaye's volumes, The People of India. Discussion (biassed) of
_r[=a]jputs_ of Scythian origin, Elphinstone, i. 440. On Dravidian
literature, see Elliot, IA. xvi. 158. On Gipsies, Grierson, _ib._ 35;
etymology, _ib._ 239.
GEOGRAPHY, INDIA AND THE WEST.
Schmidt, Die Urheimath d. Indog. u. d. europäische Zahlsystem, Sitz.
Berl. Akad. 1890, p. 297; Hirt,[61] Die Urheimath d. Indogermanen, IF.
i. 464; Schrader, Sprachvergleichung und Urgeschlchte, p. 616; Lassen,
Indische Alterthumskunde, i. 643; Vivien de Saint Martin, Études sur
la Géographie du Véda; Zimmer, Altindisches Leben, p. 3; Aufrecht,
ZDMG. xiii. 498 (Ras[=a] as Milky Way); Ludwig, Nachrichten über
Geographie, etc.; Whitney, Language and the Study of Language;
Oldenberg, Buddha, p. 399 (we cite from the first edition); Thomas,
Rivers of the Rig Veda, JRAS. xv. 357.[62] On the relations of the
Hindus and the West: Weber (relations with Semites), Indische
Skizzen, and Die Griechen in Indien, in Sitz. Berl. Akad. 1890, p.
901; Steinthal, ZDMG. xi. 396; Grill, _ib_. xxvii. 425; Stein, IA.
xvii. 89. Leo's view in regard to German-Indian unity (reviewed, ZDMG.
viii. 389) is worth citing as a curioslty.[63] Brunnhofer's works have
been cited above, p. 15. On the Beziehungen der Indier zum Westen a
valuable article has lately been written by Franke (ZDMG. xlvii. 595).
Weber, Ueber d. P[=a]ras[=i]prakaça d. K[r.][s.][n.]ad[=a]sa, as well
as in his R[=a]jas[=u]ya, V[=a]japeya, Vedische Beiträge, etc., has
treated of the relations with Persia (Fables, IS. iii. 327). In the
works cited above the same author has discussed the relations with all
other Western nations, including the Greeks, on which Sykes, Notes on
Religious State of India, JRAS. 1841, p. 243, is readable; Bohlen,
_Altes-Indien,_ and Lévi, La Grèce et I'lnde d'après les documents
indiens (revue des études grecques, 1891) should be read.[64] The
subject of Early Christianity in India has been treated by Burnell,
IA. iii. 308, iv. 153, etc. (see also above, p. 479); while Priaulx,
in JRAS. 1861, 1862, has written a series of interesting articles on
India's Connection with Rome. The Indian travels of Apollonius of
Tyana, JRAS. 1859, p. 70, etc., are of no value beside those of
Ktesias and Megasthenes. The origin of the Hindu Alphabet and the
native system of Dates have to do with the originality of parts of
Hindu literature, but these outlying subjects, which have a literature
of their own, we can only touch upon. A good _résumé_ of the
discussion in regard to the alphabet will be found in JRAS. xvi. 325,
by Cust; a new theory of Franke's, ZDMG. xlvi. 731. Halévy derives the
alphabet from Greece. But see now Bühler, Ind. Studies, iii, 1895
(North Semitic, seventh century, B.C.) The native eras are discussed
by Cunningham, Book of Indian Eras; and in Müller's India, What Can It
Teach Us? p. 282. On the native date for the beginning of the
Kali-yuga, _i.e._ this age (the year 3101 or 3102 B.C), JRAS. iv. 136,
and Thomas, edition of Prinsep's Antiquities, may be read.[65] A
general survey of primitive Aryan culture will be found in Schrader,
_loc. cit._, to which may be added on Vedic (Aryan) metres, Westphal,
KZ. ix. 437; and Allen, _ib._ xxiv. 556 (style, Heinzel, Stil d.
altgerm. Poesie). On the name [=A]rya, besides _loc. cit._ above, p.
25, may be added, Windisch, Beitr. z. Geschichte d. D. Sprache, iv.
211; Pott, Internat. Zt. für allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, ii. p. 105
ff. Criticism of a too great confidence in the results of the
comparattve method, AJP. xv. 154; PAOS. 1895.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: This bibliography is meant only to orient the
reader in regard to exegetical literature. It is not
complete, nor does it give editions of texts. The order
follows in general that of the chapters, but the second and
last paragraphs respectively must be consulted for
interpretation and geography. Works that cover several
fields are placed under the literature of the first. The
special studies on Vedic divinities have been arranged
alphabetically.]
[Footnote 2: On account of the inconvenient form in which
appeared the earlier numbers of the JRAS. we cite the Old
Series only by date. All references without date refer to
the New Series (vol i, NS., 1864).]
[Footnote 3: On the artistic side Emil Schlagintweit's great
work, Indien in Wort und Bild, contains much of interest to
the student of religious paraphernalia. See also below under
wild tribes.]
[Footnote 4: Roth, Morality of the Veda; Whitney, Result of
Vedic Researches (JAOS. iii. 289 and 331); Whitney, History
of the Vedic Texts, _ib_. iv. 245.]
[Footnote 5: Under this title Roth has an essay (on the
comparison of texts), KZ. xxvi. 45.]
[Footnote 6: See below. Defence of the same by the author,
WZKM. vii. 103.]
[Footnote 7: JRAS, i. 51 ff., and subsequent volumes,
Contributions to a Knowledge of the Vedic Theogony and
Mythology and Progress of the Vedic Religion toward Abstract
Conceptions of the Deity.]
[Footnote 8: It cannot be too much emphasized that
Grassmann's translation should never be used for comparative
purposes. At the same time, for a general understanding of
the contents of the whole Rig Veda it is the only book that
can be recommended. Ludwig's translation is so uncouth that
without a controlling knowledge of the original it is often
meaningless.]
[Footnote 9: Bloomfield, AJP. xii. 429. Compare also
Regnaud, Le Mythe de Rohita. The same author has published
various Vedic articles in the Rev. de l'histoire des
religions, vols. xv-xxvi. Whitney's complete translation of
AV. will soon appear.]
[Footnote 10: Sexual side of fire-cult; whirlwind of fire,
M[=a]tariçvan, Schwartz, KZ. xx. 202; compare Hillebrandt,
ZDMG. xxxiii. 248.]
[Footnote 11: Neisser's Vorvedisches im Veda, BB. xvii. 244,
is not a mythological study.]
[Footnote 12: Apollon here is Saparye[n.]ya, 'worshipful.'
This derivation is attacked by Froehde, Apollon, BB. xix.
230 (compare Fick, _ib._ xviii. 138), who derives Apollon
from [Greek: phellhôn], 'word,' comparing [Greek: hapellhaxein],
'conciliare,' _pell_ being 'spell' (in Gospel, etc.),
'inter-pellare.' Thus Apollo would be 'prophet,' 'wârspello.'
On _vahni_, Agni, compare Neisser, Vedica, BB. xviii. 301
(xix. 120, 248).]
[Footnote 13: Oldenberg, _loc. cit_., interprets Açvins as
morning and evening stars! The epithet (of Agni and Açvins)
_bhura[n.]yu_ has been equated with Phor[=o]neus, we forget
by whom.]
[Footnote 14: Oldenberg's (Die Religion des Veda)
Old-Man-of-the-Mountains-Indra thus gets etymological
support.]
[Footnote 15: For convenience included in this list.]
[Footnote 16: Maspiter is Mars-pater.]
[Footnote 17: Hirt equates Parjanya, Perkunas, Fjörgyn, as
originally epithet of Dy[=a]ns-Zeus, with [Greek:
phêgotaios], the 'Oak-god.' See also Zimmer, ZDA. vii. (19)
164.]
[Footnote 18: Müller explains Rudra as 'howler'; Leo
identifies him with Wuotan; Jones with Apollo, Kuhn. KZ.
iii. 335; as A. Sax. Rodor, _ib_. ii. 478: P. von Bradke.
ZDMG. xi. 361. Oldenberg's delineation of Rudra in Die
Religion des Veda is based on the Brahmanic Rudra-Çiva (see
PAOS. Dec 1894).]
[Footnote 19: Kerbaker, Varuna e gli Aditya (Naples,
Proceedings of the Royal Academy) is known to us only by
title.]
[Footnote 20: The author justly remarks that no sociological
data can be made of Yama's wife or sister.]
[Footnote 21: Dog sees Death, sharp sight of dog causes
myth.]
[Footnote 22: Other less important examples of etymological
ingenuity are Scherer, Brahman as flamen ([Greek: Brhagkos],
Bragi, see Kaegi, Rig Veda, note 82); abhrad[=i]t[=a] as
Aphrodite, Sonne, KZ. x. 415; Ahaly[=a] as Achilleus, Weber,
Sitz. Berl. Ak., 1887; Id[=a] as Iris (Windischmann),
Poseidon, potídas, i[=d.]aspati (Fick, KZ. xxi. 462); but in
KZ. i. 459 Poseidon is patye davan. On the form compare BB.
viii. 80; x. 237; KZ. xxx. 570. Prellwitz, BB. ix. 327,
agrees with Fick and Pott as to i[d.]as representing
[Greek: oidma] and compares [prosklhôtios]. Garga is Gorgo,
Kern, JRAS. iv. 431; P[=a]jasya is Pegasos, etc, KZ. i. 416,
xxix. 222; Parvata is Pelasgos, Burda, KZ. xxi. 470; but
compare Stier, _ib_. xi. 229, where Pelasgoi are 'cranes';
and Pische, _ib_. xx. 369, where they are [Greek:
parhrhhasioi]. Sabheya is Yavi[s.][t.]ha (not Hephaistos, as
says Kuhn), Müller, _ib._ xviii. 212; and v[r.]trahan is not
Bellerophon (as says Pott), _ib_. iv. 416, v. 140 (bellero
is varvara). Çarád is Ceres, Müller, _ib_. xviii. 211;
svav[=a]n is [Greek: enas], Autrecht, ZDMG. xiii 499; svar
'sing' in Silenus, Siren: Buddhaguru in Pythagoras, etc.
Helena is Saram[=a], and Hermes 1s S[=a]rameya. Müller,
Chips, ii. 138, note. Compare for further clever guesses
Cox's Aryan Mythology, Müller's Lectures, Second Series, and
Biographies of Words.]
[Footnote 23: Compare Deussen, Geschichte der Philosophie,
i. 105. On Vedic and Sanskrit Riddles, _loc. cit_.; also
Haug, Vedische Räthselfragen (also Brahma und die
Brahmanen); Führer, ZDMG. xxxix. 99.]
[Footnote 24: There is an essay on this subject by Kern,
Ind. Theorieen over de Standenverdeeling, which we have not
seen.]
[Footnote 25: Sitz. Berl. Ak. 1858, 1859, and 1894,
respectively. The Wurfel-Orakel (and Schiefner) is published
also in Ind. Streifen, i. 274. The essay on Omina and
Portenta contains translations of parts of the
Sha[d.]vi[.m]ça Br[=a]hma[n.]a, of the S[=a]ma Veda, and of
the K[=a]uçika (AV.) S[=u]tra.]
[Footnote 26: (Whitney) Burgess, S[=u]ryasiddh[=a]nta,
JAOS. vi; JRAS. 1863, p. 345; Whitney, _ib_. i. 316; Lunar
Zodiac, Or. Ling. St., ii. 341; Kern, translation of BS.,
JRAS. iv-vii; IS. x, xiv, xv; Weber, Ueber altir[=a]nische
Sternnamen, Sitz. Berl. Ak., 1888; see also Whitney, JAOS.
viii. 1, 382; Burgess, _ib_. 309; Weber, IS. ix. 424, x.
213; Whitney _vs_. Ludwig, PAOS., 1885. On the twelve
intercalated days, 'Twelfth Night,' see Weber, IS. v. 437
(Çabal[=i]-homa), xvii. 224.]
[Footnote 27: The statement is here made that the Vedic
religion knows nothing of idols; but see the other cited
works which seem to disprove this.]
[Footnote 28: The 'Fifteen Puzzle' is Indic (IA. x. 89, xi.
83).]
[Footnote 29: Triton und Euphemos, oder Die Argonauten in
Libyen, by Water, in 1849, treats of the holy seven in a
ridiculous way. Not less ridiculous is the author's attempt
to explain everything by the Moon-Cult, thus anticipating
modern vagaries.]
[Footnote 30: A curious though useless classic is Anquetil
du Perron's Oupnekhat, 1801, the first European version of
the Upanishads (through the Persian).]
[Footnote 31: Whitney, AJP. vii. 1, xi. 407; Jacob, IA. xv.
279; Whitney Trans. Phil. Ass. xxi. 88; Böhtlingk, Bericht
d. k. Sächs. Gesellschaft, 1890, and separately.]
[Footnote 32: Compare Windischmann, Sancara, 1833; Ecstein,
IS. ii. 369; and Bruining-Bijdrage tot de Kennis van den
Ved[=a]nta, 1871.]
[Footnote 33: Compare two native expositions, JRAS. x. 33
(Vedantic conception of _brahma_), and WZKM. ii. 95
(Çankara's _advaita_ philosophy); also Müller, Three
Lectures.]
[Footnote 34: Compare Ballantyne's Hindu Philosophy,
Williams' Indian Wisdom, Brahmanism and Hinduism, Religious
Thought and Life, and also the excellent chapters in Weber's
Lectures (above), and in Schroeder's Literatur und Cultur.
Of Deussen's Allgemeine Geschichte der Philosophie one half
volume has appeared.]
[Footnote 35: Haug has an article on the M[=a]it. Sa[.m]h.
with the same title, Brahma und Die Brahmanen.]
[Footnote 36: House-ritual: [=A]çval[=a]yana, Gobhila,
Ç[=a][.n]kh[=a]yana, P[=a]raskara, Kh[=a]dira,
Hira[n.]yakeçin, [=A]pastamba. Law: [=A]pastamba,
G[=a]utama, Vasistha, B[=a]udh[=a]yana, Y[=a]jñavalkya,
Vishnu, N[=a]rada, Brihaspati, Manu. The last is also
translated by Loiseleur, Jones, Burnell and Hopkins (besides
Bühler, SBE., above).]
[Footnote 37: Ueber die heiligen Schriften, translated into
English by Smyth in the Indian Antiquary, 1893.]
[Footnote 38: Feer, JA. 1888 (xii), p. 209. Leumann has
published in the same German series the Aupap[=a]tika
S[=u]tra, but as yet only the text (1883) has appeared.]
[Footnote 39: Of the many manuals we recommend especially
those of Rhys Davids for ontology (also J[=a]takis. First
Part) and Oldenberg (now in second edition). For Northern
Buddhism Köppen's Religion is still excellent, although it
is vitiated by the point of view taken by the author, who
regards Buddha as an emancipator, a political innovator,
etc. Davids has two recent articles on Buddhist sects, JRAS.
xxiii. 409; xxiv. 1 (see abo below).]
[Footnote 40: L. von Schroeder, Worte der Wahrheit. On the
word Dhammapada, Franke ZDMG. xlvi. 734.]
[Footnote 41: Also Oldenberg, D[=i]pava[.m]sa, with text.]
[Footnote 42: For Nirv[=a]na and its date all the manuals
may be consulted. See also D'Alwis, Nirv[=a]na (with
translation); Edkins, JRAS. xiii. 59, Congress, 1880, p.
195; Childers, Dictionary, JRAS. v. 219, 289, vii. 49, etc.;
Fergusson, _ib._ iv. 81 (Indic Chronology); Müller, Origin
of Religion, p. 130, note, and Introduction to Buddhaghosha,
and to Dhammapada (above). We incline to accept 471 to 483
as the extreme limits of the date of Buddha's death (Kern,
380; Davids, 412).]
[Footnote 43: On Hsing (671) see Beal, IA. x. 109, 194;
Müller, India. 'Fà-Hien's travels are now published by
Legge, 'Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms.' There are other
editions. See also Sykes, JRAS. 1841, p. 248; Beal, _ib._
xix. 191.]
[Footnote 44: On Japanese Buddhism there have been published
some texts by Japanese scholars (ed. Müller, Aryán Series of
Anecdota Oxoniensia). See JRAS. xii. 153.]
[Footnote 45: Chalmers, J[=a]takas (ed. Cowell, vol. 1) is
announced. Compare JRAS. xxiv. 423. On Barlaam u. Joasaph
see now the exhaustive essay of Kuhn, Abh. d.k. Bayerisch.
Ak. 1894 (with all literature).]
[Footnote 46: By the same, Avad[=a]naçataka, Mus. Guimet,
xviii (JA. 1879, xiv). The Da[t.]havamça, Melloné, Ann. du
MG. vii.]
[Footnote 47: Triratna and triçula. The articles following
are by Murray-Aynsley (Asiatic Symbolism), on svastika,
trees, serpents, evil eye, etc. On the evil eye and the
poison-girl, vi[s.]akany[=a], see now the interesting essay
of Hertz (Abh. d. Bayern. Akad, 1894), who connects the
superstition with the religious practice described above, p.
505, note 2.]
[Footnote 48: For older essays see also Schönberg, ZDMG.
vii. 101 (rock-temples); JAS. Beng. xxv. 222 (Khandgiri
temples); Yule, JAS. Beng., 1857, Ancient Buddhistic Remains
(on the Irawady): Sykes, Miniature Caityas in Buddhist
topes, JRAS. 1854, pp. 37, 227.]
[Footnote 49: Çiva is here falsely interpreted as Herakles,
p. 39. Compare too Weber, IS. ii. 409, and his
Ahaly[=a]-Achilleus, Berl. Ak. 1887. The original Greek is
edited by Schwanbeck. On Darius' conquest see Marshman, i.
p. 10.]
[Footnote 50: Sixth or eighth century, developed with
Buddhistic or Greek influence.]
[Footnote 51: An example of the survival of the Hindu cult
in the Çr[=a]uta ritual is given by Weber, IS. v. 437,
Çabal[=i]-homa.]
[Footnote 52: Weber on Skanda, IS. iii. 478.]
[Footnote 53: Compare also Malcolm, AR. xi (1812), 197; ZKM.
v. 1, Die Religion und der Staat der Sikh.]
[Footnote 54: The Dalast[=a]n or School of Manners,
translated from the Persian, with notes by Shea and Troy,
1843.]
[Footnote 55: Williams' Hinduism and the third chapter of
Wilkins' Modern Hinduism contain a list of the modern
festivals. Grierson, Peasant Life, describes Beh[=a]r.]
[Footnote 56: M[=o]ns and Koles, JRAS. x, 234. Lards,
Congress, 1874, by Drew; 1880, by Leitner.]
[Footnote 57: Snake-nation in America, Shoshone, Clark,
Sign-language, p. 337; snake-symbol of life, Schoolcraft, i.
375.]
[Footnote 58: Totemism repudiated, Kennedy, on N[=a]gas,
JRAS. xxiii. 480.]
[Footnote 59: The Indian Antiquary contains a vast fund of
folk-lore stones of more or less religious importance. See
Barth's note, Rev. xxix. 55, for the Orientalist.]
[Footnote 60: Early accounts of Burmah will be found in
Buchanan's Religion and Literature of the Burmas, AR. vi.
163; of the R[=a]jmahal tribes, T. Shaw, _ib._ iv. 45; of
the inhabitants of the Garrow Hills, Eliot, _ib._ iii. 17;
of the Kookies, MacRae (or McRae), _ib._ vii. 183; of Nepal
(temples, etc.), _ib._ ii. 307. An account of the
Tibeto-Burman tribes by Damant will be found in JRAS. xii.
228.]
[Footnote 61: Compare a suggestive paper by the same author,
IF. iv, p. 36 (1894), on Die Verwandtschaftsverhältnisse der
Indogermanen (linguistic, but historically important).]
[Footnote 62: Volga as 'Pâ, Ranha, Ras[=a], Kuhn, KZ. xxviii
214; the Sarasvat[=i] and the lost river, Oldham, JRAS. xxv.
49.]
[Footnote 63: Another curiosity will be found in JRAS.,
1854, p. 199, where Curzon claims that the Aryan Hindus are
autochthonous.]
[Footnote 64: Leitner, Greek Influence on India, Congress,
1880, p. 113. On the Drama see above, pp. 2 and 438.]
[Footnote 65: Further, Westergaard, Ueber den ältesten
Zeitraum der Indischen Geschichte; Fergusson, JRAS. xii.
259; Fleet, _samvat_ for Çaka-era, JRAS., 1884, p. lxxi;
Gupta, IA. xv. 189, and xvi. 141; (B[=e]r[=u]n[=i]), _ib._
xvii. 243, 359; also Kielhorn, Vikrama, IA. xix. 24 ff.;
xxii. III; Bühler, WZKM. v. 215. Methods and Tables for
Computing Hindu Dates, Jacobi, IA. xvii. 145; and Epigraphia
ind. I. 430. Last literature on date of Rig Veda, above, p.
5, and add now Oldenberg, ZDMG. xlviii. 629. Further
references, above, pp. 436, 571, notes.]
* * * * *
INDEX.
A (alpha), 226, 397.
abbots, 557.
abhangs, 522.
abhidhamma, 326.
Abhinavagupta, 482.
Abh[=i]ras, 543.
ab[=i]r, 454, 455.
absorption, 496
abstractions,112, 135.
[=a]c[=a]ra, 554.
Achaemenides, 544.
[=A]di Br[=a]hma Sam[=a]j, 517, 519.
[=A]digranth, 511 ff.
Aditi, 55, 73, 139, 142, 154
[=A]dityas (see Aditi, Varu[n.]a, etc), 55
(A[.n]ça), 143, 167;
[=a]dityabhaktas, see sun and S[=a]uras.
adultery, 203
adv[=a]ita, 396, 496, 505.
Aesculapius, 538.
Afghanistan, 30, 548.
[=a]gamas, 295, 439.
ages, 227, 259, 418 ff., 444, 530.
Aghor[=i], 490, 533.
Agnes, saint, 451.
Agni, 43, 101, 105 ff., 123, 144, 168, 353,
356, 377, 401, 414. 445, 449, 476, 480, 554.
ahimas[=a], 199, 287, 310, 365.
Ahura Mazd[=a]o, 49, 67, 167. 170.
[=A]k[=a]çamukhas, 486.
Akbar, 437, 546.
Akkadians, Akkadists, 542, 571.
ak[s.]am[=a]la (see rosary) 374.
Al B[=e]r[=u]n[=i], 547, Addenda.
Alexander, 431, 546.
Alexandria, 431, 561.
All-god, 139, 141, 496.
All-gods, 137, 144, 450.
Allah [=u]d d[=i]n, 437.
alphabet, 543, 595.
altars, 475. 490
altruism, 478, 555, 556, 563, 567.
American Indians, see Indians.
[=A]nanda, 309, 311;
[=A]nanda Giri, 445, 447;
[=A]nandat[=i]rtha, 509.
Ananta, 397.
ancestors (see female, Manes), ten, 534.
Anaximander, 559.
ancestor-tree, 541.
Andaman gods, 538.
androgynous, 447, 492, 557.
a[.n]gas,440.
A[.n]g[=i]ras, 108, 167, 477.
A[n.][=i]m[=a][n.][d.]avya, 432.
Aniruddha, 441, 442, 457.
annihilation (see Nirv[=a][n.]a), 421, 531, 532.
ant-oath, 534.
Antiochus, 545.
Anug[=i]t[=a], 401.
Aphrodite, 471.
Apollonius, 508.
April-Fool, 455.
Apsaras, 137, 169, 355, 365.
Arabia, 547.
[=A]ra[n.]yakas, 178, 219.
ardhan[=a]r[=i]çvara, 447.
Arhat, 280, 285, 303, 320, 564.
Arjun, 511.
Arjuna, 361.
Arrian, 459.
arrow-oath, 534.
art, artists, 549.
Aryaman, 46, 121, 397.
Aryan, 11, 26, 548.
[=A]rya Sam[=a]j, 521.
açani, 464.
ascetics, 148, 254, 258, 304, 352 ff.;
asceticism, 287, 366, 470, 520.
açoka, 540.
Açoka, 311, 340, 341, 435.
astrology, 256, 438, 543.
Asuras, 42, 49, 104, 170 ff., 186 ff., 358
Asura Maya, 368.
Açvins, 38, 54, 78, 80, 381.
Atharva Veda, 3, 29, 43, 151, 175, 419, 477, 571.
Atharvan, 110, 378, 477.
[=A]tm[=a], 42, 47 (soul), 56, 220 ff., 232,
249, 354, 396, 398, 442.
[=A]tm[=i]ya Sabh[=a], 516.
atonement, 376.
Avadh[=u]tas, 502.
avasthas, 412.
avatar, 162, 196, 215, 340, 389, 393, 404, 424,
430;
number of, 444, 468;
Vishnu's last avatar, 522.
Avesta (see Iranian), 12, 16, 422.
avy[=u]ha 442.
Ayenar, 464.
axe (see Paraçu R[=a]ma), 527.
Aztecs, 557.
B[=a]b[=a]l[=a]ls, 514.
Baber, 437.
Babrius, 558.
Babylon, 543.
Bacchic rites, 414, 427, 528.
Bactria, 32, 33, 434.
B[=a]dar[=a]ya[n.]a, 495, 497.
B[=a]la Gop[=a]la, 503.
Balar[=a]ma, 442, 469.
bali, 540.
Bali, 478.
bamboo (see pole-rite), 536.
bandana, 533.
banian, 540.
Bardesanes, 561.
Barlaam, 557.
Basava, 482, 547.
basil, see tulas[=i].
Baskets, see Tripi[t.]aka.
Beh[=a]r, 435.
bel-tree, 453, 536, 541.
bell, 557.
Bella Pennu, 530.
Bellerophon, 530.
Benares, 459.
Bhaga, 41, 50 ff.;
bhaga, 490.
Bhagavad G[=i]t[=a], 389 ff., 399, 400, 401, 447.
Bhagavat, 303, 389.
Bh[=a]gavatas, 447, 497.
Bh[=a]irava, 464, 491.
Bh[=a]ktas, 447.
bhakti (see faith), 429, 503, 519.
Bh[=a]rata, 349 ff., 438, 457.
Bh[=a]rs, 534, 535 ff.
Bh[=a]ts, 479.
Bhava, 462, 464, 548.
Bhav[=a]n[=i], 494.
bhik[s.]u, 258, 281, 303, 310, 374;
bhik[s.]uk[=i], 426.
Bhils, 533.
Bh[r.]gu, 168, 397, 423.
bicycle, used to make converts, 570.
bigotry, 445.
bila, 12.
bilva, see bel.
bird (of the sky) 45, 49, 113, 124, 140, 164;
birds as spirits, 432.
birth-impurity, 541.
Birth-stories, see J[=a]takas.
birth-tree, 540.
Blavatskyism, 562.
Blessed One, 19, 388 ff.
blood-money, 162.
blood-revenge, 375.
bloodless sacrifice (see ahi[.m]s[=a], Thugs),
528.
boar, 404, 407, 445.
Bodhisat, bodhisattva, 303, 564.
Bhodhi-tree, bo-tree, Bodhi Gay[=a], 304, 308,
540.
boundary-god, 529.
brahma, 156, 178, 195, 217, 220 ff., 231 ff.,
381, 389, 393 ff., 398, 403, 419, 420, 474,
496, 518.
Brahm[=a], 195, 218, 332, 346, 372, 403 ff.,
407, 412, 421, 446, 451, 458 ff.,
464 ff., 487, 492, 499, 518, 534.
Br[=a]hma Dharma, 517.
Brahmaloka, 256.
Brahmamaha, 371, 411.
Br[=a]hma[n.]as, 4, 5, C^ 22, 23, 174, 219, 502.
Brahmanism, 24, 176 ff., 548.
Br[=a]hma Sam[=a]j, 516;
of India, 519.
Bahmasamprad[=a]yins, 509.
brahmodya, 383.
branding, 440, 447.
B[r.]haspati, 54 (Lord of Strength), 101, 136,
159, 379, 386.
B[=r.]hat Sa[.m]hit[=a], 438.
brothers, 370.
Buddha, 258, 280, 303 ff., 426;
precedent Buddhas, 309, 523, 557;
avatar of Vishnu, 469, 500;
brother of Çiva, 478.
Buddhagho[s.]a, 327, 343.
Buddhism, 4, 5, 6, 7, 26, 225, 298 ff., 310,
401, 448;
Northern and Southern, 326, 327, 341;
esoteric, 320, 334;
epic, 423 ff.;
Çivaite, 485, 486;
morals of, 554, 556;
Occidental, 563;
lesson of, 564.
Budo Gosain, 533.
buffalo (see cow-bells), 445, 531, 537.
bull, 407, 445, 528, 534.
bull-roarer, 204, 553.
burial, 60, 271, 364, 528, 534, 571.
buttoat, 493.
Calvinism, 501.
Candragupta, 311, 434.
Candraçekhara, 470.
cara[n.]a, 255.
C[=a]ra[n.]as, 367.
Caran D[=a]s[=i]s, 506.
Cardinals, 557.
Carnival, 455.
C[=a]rv[=a]ka, 298, 374, 448.
castes, 27, 28, 29, 40, 141, 226, 263, 426,
507, 571;
duties and occupations of, 549.
cat, holy, 547.
cat-doctrine, 500.
cataclysms, 259, 260.
cattle (see cow), 50, 462 ff., 450.
caturm[=u]rti, 413.
caturthi, 451.
caturvy[=u]ha, 442.
celibates (see monks), 537.
Ceylon, Buddhism of, 341.
C[=a]itanya, 503.
chandas, 142, 174, 477.
Ch[=a]rans, 479.
chief, divinity of, 534.
child-marriages, 519.
children, sacrifice of (see merias), 450.
Ch[=i]rus, 535.
choirs, 557.
chrematheism, 135, 166.
Christ, Christianity, 389, 395, 428 ff., 431,
479, 482, 503, 524, 545, 566, 569, 570;
and Buddhism, 546, 557.
Christmas, 430, 568.
churik[=a], 441.
circumambulations, 271, 454.
Citragupta, 424.
Clive, 566.
cock, 415, 535, 538.
commandments (see morals), 267, 317, 401, 479,
506.
confessional, 203, 373, 557.
cosmic tree, see tree.
courage, 527.
covenants, 192, 361 ff.
cow, 156, 189, 527, 547.
cow-bells, worship of buffalo cow-bells, 537.
cow-boys, 454.
creation, 60, 141, 173, 207 ff., 216, 540.
creator, 384, 444.
crocodile, 450, 547.
cross, 537.
Cupid, see Love.
custom, 531, 554.
Dabist[=a]n, 480, 510.
D[=a]d[=u] Panth[=i]s, 480, 502, 510, 513, 547.
daevas, 10, 168.
Dak[s.]a, 406.
D[=a]navas, see devils.
dance, 443, 454, 456, 504, 535.
Darius, 544.
darkness (as hell and evil), 147, 206, 227, 422.
Daçan[=a]mis, 482.
Daçapeya, 477.
Dasyus, 524, 542.
dates, 3-8, 434 ff., 571, 595, note.
Datt[=a]mitra, 545.
Dawn (see Ushas), hymns, character of, 553, 571.
Day[=a]nanda, 521.
Death (see dogs, M[=a]ra), 43, 129, 136.
Debendran[=a]th, 516 ff.
Decoits, 494.
Dedr[=a]j, 514.
deism, 498, 515, 523.
deluge, 160, 162 214, 369, 421, 542, 543.
demons, see devils.
demonology, 46, 135, 168, 538.
Demetrius, 545.
depressed classes, 568.
devas, 10, 168.
Devadatta, 309.
Devak[=i], 465, 467.
devils, 368, 414, 423, 475, 526, 539.
Dhammapada,346.
dhan, 508.
Dha[=n.]gars, 531.
Dharma, dharma (see Path, Right), 249 ff.,
358, 373, 380 417, 420, 554.
dharma, 361.
Dhav[=a], 452.
Dh[r.]ti, 452.
dhvaja, 443.
Digambaras, 284 ff., 480.
Dionysos, 458 ff.
D[=i]p[=a]l[=a], 456.
discus, 440, 462.
disease (see small-pox god), 452 ff., 538.
divination, 535.
dogs of Death, 132, 138, 147, 163.
Dol[=a] Y[=a]tr[=a], dolotsava, 453 ff.
dolmen, 538.
dolphin, 450.
dragon (see N[=a]ga, snake), 42, 48, 165, 539.
drama, 2, 436, 438.
Dravidian religion, 416, 425, 426 ff., 542.
dreams, 42.
drugha[n.]a, 441.
Druids, 533.
drunkenness, 491.
dualism (see ptak[r.]ti, S[=a][.n]khya), 13,
396, 414.
Durg[=a], 416, 451, 456, 490, 492, 513.
d[=u]rv[=a], 502.
Dutch rule in India, 566.
dv[=a]para, 420.
Dy[=a]us, 9, 19 (heaven), 58, 172, 571.
eagle (see soma), 534.
Earth, 58 ff., 168, 445;
earth-worshippers, 480, 531.
Easter, 454.
education, salvation of, 571.
egg, mundane, 166, 208, 411.
Egypt, 543, 550.
ek[=a]ntinas, 413;
eka deva, 420.
Eleatics, 559.
elements, 1, 559.
elephant, 445, 533.
eleocarpus ganitrus, 502.
emperors, imperialism, 36, 435 ff.
English rule in India, 566.
ensigns, 539.
epic, 2, 25, 348 ff., 425, 444, 496;
Greek influence on, 545.
Epicureans, 505.
eras, 436.
Eros, see Love.
eschatology (see Heaven, Hell, Manes),
173, 204, 216, 253, 367, 394, 496, 530.
ethnologists, 11.
euphemism, 251.
Europe and India, 556 ff.
evil eye, 155, 526, 589, note 3.
exogamy (see marriage), 534, 535.
fables, 545, 558.
faith, bhakti, 396, 506, 507, 545.
fakirs, 486.
family, see matriarchy.
fasting, 452, 557.
fate (see karma), 369, 417, 477.
Father-god, see Praj[=a]pati;
Fathers, see Manes;
father (see parents), 529.
fauna, 35.
fees, 192.
female (see abstractions, infanticide,
mothers, çakti), divinities, 51, 138,
184, 416;
female ancestors, 441, 534.
Feridun, 11.
festivals, 202, 448.
fetishism, 169, 363;
distinction between fetish and god-stone, 538.
fire (see Agni), as germ of life, 141;
fire-cult, 158, 378;
destroys world, see Sa[.m]vartaka;
cult, 454, 460, 491.
flood, see deluge.
flowers, 440, 540, 557.
forest (see wood), 528.
fountain-god, 531.
free-will, 384.
frogs, 14, 100 ff.;
frog-maiden, frog-feast, 536.
funeral, see burial.
gambler, 14, 162, 376.
games, 328, 451.
Gandharva, 125, 130, 167, 367, 419, 442, 542.
Gan-eden, 542.
Ga[n.]eça, 414, 416, 447, 450 ff., 456, 466, 487, 506, 532.
G[=a][n.]eças, 413.
Ganges, 30, 372, ff., 450.
Garos, 534.
Garutman, Garuda, 45, 360, 378, 446.
G[=a]ur[=i], 452.
Gautama, 302 ff.;
Gotama, 308, note; 542.
g[=a]yatr[=i], 46, 124.
generosity, 374.
geography, 28, 29, 177, 193, 314, 342 ff.
Ghori, 437.
ghosts, 532.
giants, 470, 571.
Giriça, 463.
g[=i]t[=a], see Bhagavad.
G[=i]ta Govinda, 457, 503.
Gnosticism, 560.
gods (see devas), 29, 90, 141, 182, 209, 395, 402.
golden age, see ages.
golden germ, 141, 208, 507.
golden rule, 479.
Gonds, 444, 526 ff.
goose-totem, 534.
gop[=i]s, 456.
Gorakhn[=a]th, 486.
gosain, 504.
Gos[=a]la, 283.
gospels, 546.
Gotama, see Gautama.
Govind, 511.
grace of God, 143, 384, 393, 396, 413, 429.
grahas (see planets), 415.
gr[=a]mas, 27.
Greece, Greeks, 1, 3, 6, 416, 431, 434 ff.,
458 ff., 470, 471, 544 ff., 550.
Grippa Valli, 530.
G[=u][d.]aras, 487.
guest, 369, 531.
gu[n.]as, 507.
Gupta era, 436, Addenda.
guru, 246, 510.
Hanuman (see monkey), 368, 502.
haoma, 16.
Hara, 462.
Harahvati, 31.
Harihara, 464, 547.
Hariva[.n]ça, 424, 428, 439, 464, 467.
H[=a]r[=i]ta, 440.
Hartmann, 562.
Harvard students, 565.
harvest (see festival), 531, 532.
Hastings, 567.
Heathen, 524.
Heaven (see Dy[=a]us, Varu[n.]a, eschatology),
48, 143, 145 ff., 253,
365, 417, 448.
Helen, 12, 168.
Hell, 147, 165, 206, 232 ff., 253, 267,
336, 363, 381, 402, 443, 478,
528, 557.
henotheism, 139, 177, 571.
Herakles, 458 ff., 470.
Heraklitus, 558.
Hestia, 530.
hills, see mountains and wild tribes.
Hinduism, 24, 348 ff., 434 ff., 548, 568 ff.
Hindukush, 31.
Hira[n.]yagarbha (see golden germ), 447.
history, 434.
holiness, 442.
Holl, 453.
holy-days, 204, 248 ff.
holy-places, 444.
holy-stone, see Ç[=a]lagr[=a]ma and stone.
holy-water, 557.
horse-sacrifice, 444.
honesty, 527, 555.
hospitality (see guest), 555, 556.
house-god, 374, 530.
H[r.][s.]ikeça, 432.
humanitarianism, 428.
humanity, 433.
idealism, see adv[=a]ita.
idolatry, modern, 522.
idols, 95, 370, 371, 374, 442, 446, 477, 537, 556 ff.
Ilium, 12.
illusion, 395, 396, 401, 421, 497.
immaculate conception, 431, 460.
immortality (see Heaven), 141, 396, 422;
immortality of pots, 534.
incarnation (see magic), 470.
Incarnation, see avatar.
incest (see commandments, left-hand), 531.
Indians, 161 ff., 452, 532, 533, 542.
Indra, 10, 20, 39, 56, 57, 89, 91 ff.,
101, 123, 332, 353, 355 ff., 69, 377,
404, 405, 412, 414, 445, 448, 449, 473 ff.
Indramaha, 378, 457, 460.
Indus, 30.
infanticide, 529, 531.
infidelily, 448, 475.
Innocents day, 455.
inspiration, 305.
Iranians, 6, 15, 26, 32 ff., 67, 132, 168, 170, 186, 422, 543.
[=I]ça, 546.
islands, 431.
Issa, 546.
Itih[=a]sa, 434, 477.
Jagann[=a]th, 440, 449, 456, 505.
J[=a]imini, 495.
Jainism, 280, 318, 348, 401, 448, 480.
Jam[=a]li, 283.
J[=a]mbavan, 368.
janas, 26, 27.
Jangamas, 447, 482.
Janm[=a][s.][t.]am[=i], 465, 469.
J[=a]takas, 339 ff., 393, 430, 558.
J[=a]tavedas, 416.
Jayadeva, 503.
Jay[=i], 494.
Jem[=i]dar, 493.
Jemshid, 11.
Jews, 524, 544.
j[=i]va, 442, 496.
J[.n][=a]ndev, 522.
J[.n][=a]triputra, 292.
John, saint, 558.
Jonas, story of, 547.
Josaphat, 557.
Judgment-god (see Dharma), 529, 531.
Juggernaut, see Jagann[=a]th.
jugglers, see Yogi.
Justice, see Dharma.
Ka, 182, 413.
Kab[=i]r (Panthis), 502, 510, 514, 547.
Kabul, Kabulistan, 30.
kal[=a], 501.
K[=a]la, see Time.
kali, 421.
K[=a]l[=i], 416, 438, 441, 490, 492, 533.
K[=a]lid[=a]sa, 438.
Kalki, 340, 469.
kalpa, see ages.
K[=a]ma, see Love.
Ka[n.][=a]da, 503.
K[=a]naph[=a]ts, 486, 487.
K[=a][.n]culiyas, 492.
Kani[s.]ka, 435, 436.
K[=a]p[=a]likas, 487.
kapi, 543.
Kapila. 397, 402, 495, 547.
Kapilavastu, 300.
karma, 199, 231, 253, 302, 319, 369, 374. 401.
Karmah[=i]nas, 447.
Karmam[=i]m[=a][.m]s[=a], 495.
Kart[=a]bh[=a]ja, 504.
K[=a]rttikeya, see Skanda.
K[=a]çyapa, 503.
Kashmeer, 31, 314, 482.
Kassos, 534.
Katties, 537.
Kh[=a]kis, 502.
Kh[=a]ls[=a], 512.
Khasas, Kh[=a]s[=i]as, 537.
Khonds, 445, 526, 528 ff.
Kil, 502.
kindness (see love), 448.
kings, 226 465.
Kinnaras, 367.
kirttan, k[=i]rtan, 508.
Koches, 525.
Koles, Kolarians, 525, 531, 532 ff.
koph, 543.
Kosmas, 544.
Krishna (k[r.][s.][n.]a), 349, 361, 388 ff,
399, 401, 405, 411, 412, 429, 448, 449,
456, 457, 465, 498, 548, 551.
Krishnaism, 427, 464, 484 ff., 548.
Krishnaite[s.], 503 ff.
k[r.]ta, 419.
K[s.]apanakas, 448.
K[s.]atriya, 419.
K[s.]emendra, 478.
Kubera, 251, 353, 358, 446.
kukkuja, see cock.
Kum[=a]ra K[=a]rttikej-a (see Skanda), 356, 463.
Kum[=a]rila, 436, 437, 572.
Kural, 567.
Kurus, 32, 179.
Kuruk[s.]etra, 33, 263, 372 ff.
kush, 542.
Lak[s.]m[=i], 451, 492, 501, 506.
Lalita Vistara, 343.
Lamaistn, 343, 557, 565.
Lamp-festival, 456;
service, 557.
Law-books, religion of, 247 ff.;
Aryanism of, 541.
Left-hand cult, 490, 506, 533.
lex talionis, 555.
liberality of thought, 556.
light, as right, 422.
li[.n]ga (see phallus), 447, 453, 456, 462, 475, 488, 502.
Li[.n]g[=a]yits, 482.
liquor, 491, 531.
literature, celebration of, 451.
Logos, V[=a]c, 142, 195, 251, 492, 558.
Lohit[=a]yan[=i], 415.
lotus, 411, 451, 462, 502.
Lotus of the Law, 343.
Love, 154;
love-charm, 155;
love as god, 156, 416, 444, 445, 446,
450, 452, 455, 471, 544.
lundi, 528.
Lupercalia, 455.
Lurka Koles, 531, 534.
M[=a]dhava [=A]c[=a]rya, 445.
M[=a]dhvas, 502, 506, 509, 514.
Madonna-worship, 469, 503, 505, 506, 557.
M[=a]gadha, 435.
Magas, Magi, 544.
magic, witchcraft, 135, 137, 149, 151 ff., 477, 526.
Mah[=a]deva, 464;
mah[=a]dev[=i], 490.
Mah[=a]bh[=a]rata, see Bh[=a]rata.
Mah[=a]r[=a]jas, 505.
m[=a]h[=a]ris, 534.
mah[=a]tmaism, 486, 550, 562.
Mah[=a]v[=i]ra, 280 ff.
Maheçvaras, 482.
Mahmud, 436.
Mahrattas, 437.
M[=a]itreya, M[=a]itrakanyaka, 340, 479.
makara, 450.
Man, 508,
worshippers of, 481.
Manes (see Çr[=a]ddha), 10, 11, 132,
143 ff., 155, 173, 190, 250, 361,
364, 365, 446, 450, 452, 529, 530,
532, 533, 537.
Man-lion, 453, 470.
mantra, 174, 374, 440, 453, 491, 508.
Manu, 32, 128, 143, 169, 392;
code of, 263 ff., 391, 397, 399, 401;
verse attributed to, 487.
manvantara, 439.
M[=a]ra, 304, 346.
m[=a]rj[=a]ra ny[=a]ya, 501.
marka[t.]a ny[=a]ya, 501.
marriage-rites, 270, 421, 533.
marriage-tree, 541.
Maruts, 8, 56, 97 ff.
Mather, Cotton, 565.
matriarchy, 441, 541.
matter (see prak[r.]ti), 400.
M[=a]y[=a], see illusion.
May-day, 453.
meat-eating (see ahi[.m]s[=a]), 365, 368.
medh[=a], 452.
Megasthenes, 1, 458 ff.
Menandros, 545.
merias, 529.
metals, 35.
metempsychosis, 175, 199, 204, 286, 302, 347,
364, 401, 532, 533, 559;
in the Veda, 145, 432, 530.
methods of interpretation, 8, 12 ff., 22, 551.
Mihira, see Mithra.
Milinda, 545.
M[=i]m[=a][.m]s[=a], 495.
miracles, 430.
missionaries, 566 ff.
Mitra (see Varu[n.]a), 41, 44, 57, 60, 71, 138;
mitra, mihira, 423, 544.
Mohammedans, 436 ff., 482, 509, 524, 546 ff.
monks (see ascetic, bhik[s.]u, Sanny[=a]sin), 285, 324;
monasticism, 502, 557.
monkey (see Hanuman), 448, 452, 502, 547;
monkey-doctrine, 500.
monolith, worship of, 538.
monotheism, 11, 13, 67, 70, 139, 172, 413, 414,
427, 432, 442, 481, 483, 509, 547.
monsoon, 35.
moon (see eschalology, Gandharva, Soma), 185,
470, 480, 526, 533.
morals (see commandments, sin), 14, 143, 180,
203, 353, 375, 401, 443, 553, 570.
mother-divinities, 415, 492;
motherhoods, 534.
mountains, divine, 137, 359, 416, 461, 463, 528, 532, 537.
mouse, 532.
Mozoomdar, 519.
muni, 148, 520.
Munroe, Major, 566.
murder, 179, 475, 527.
music, 443.
M[=u][s.]ikas, 532.
mysticism (see Yoga), 504.
N[=a]gas (see dragon, snake), 536, 539.
N[=a]g[=a]rjuna, 340, 343.
Nakh[=i]s, 486.
name of the Lord, call upon, 507.
names, 201.
N[=a]nak, 502, 511 ff., 547.
N[=a][.n]gi Panthis, 514.
Nara, N[=a]r[=a]ya[n.]a, 412, 448;
Sv[=a]mi N[=a]raya[n.]a, 506, 514.
Nature, 397.
nautch, 454.
Neo-Platonism, 558, 560.
New Year's festival, 449, 456.
Niadis, 537.
nid[=a]nas, chain of causality, 323.
Night, 48, 76, 79.
Nik[=a]ya, 326.
Nimb[=a]ditya, 508.
Nirgrantha, 283.
Nirmalas, 513.
Nirv[=a][n.]a, 286, 310, 319, 321 ff., 336, 346, 347, 426 ff.
Ni[s.]ads, 440.
non-duality, see adv[=a]ita.
Notovitch, 546.
numbers, 478.
nuns, 290, 310, 330, 557.
nymphs, in heaven, 417.
Nysian, 458.
oath (see ordeals), of king, 213;
may be broken, 255;
water in oath, 362;
other forms of oath, 533, 534.
observances, 246.
oceans, 34.
offerings, 183.
Om, 395, 453.
Omens (see magic), 256, 328.
ophir, 543.
oracles, 533, 534.
Or[=a]ons, 526, 531, 535.
ordeals, 3, 270, 275, 363.
orders, politica), priestly stadia, 264, 353, 365.
orthodoxy, 507, 562.
pacceka, 305.
P[=a]h[=a]rias, 533.
pairs of gods, 83, 102, 138, 462.
palm, 540.
palmistry (sce omens), 256.
P[=a][.n]cajanya fire, 423.
Pa[.n]cak[=a]la, Pa[.n]cak[=a]j[.n]as, 413.
Pa[.n]camah[=a]kalpa, 413.
Pa[.n]catantra, 558.
P[=a][.n]car[=a]tra, 413, 427, 442, 447, 492, 497.
P[=a][n.][d.]avas, 466, 469.
P[=a][n.]dur[=a][.n]ga, 500.
pantheism (see K[r.][s.][n.]a, R[=a]ma,
Vi[s.][n.]u), 37, 47, 57, 138, 140, 248,
356, 407, 414, 484 ff., 498, 547.
Paradise, see Heaven.
Paraçu R[=a]ma, 469.
parents, 370.
parimata, 227, 229, 232.
Parjanya, 100 ff., 369, 378.
Parmenides, 559.
parrot, 445, 450.
P[=a]rvat[=i], (goddess) 'of mountains,' 416.
Paçupati, 413, 462, 463.
P[=a]çupata, 447, 482, 509.
P[=a]taliputta, 311.
Pata[.n]jali, 495.
Path, holy, 305 ff., 401,426.
peacock, 445, 450, 528, 536.
Persian, see Darius, Iranian.
pessimism, 306, 314, 316 ff.
phallus (see li[.n]ga), 150, 414, 443, 470. 471, 528, 544.
Ph[=a]nsigars, 494.
Philo, 555.
philosophy (see S[=a][.n]khya, Ved[=a]nta), 141, 495.
Phoenicia, 543.
picture-worship, 374, 557.
pipal-tree, see bo-tree.
Piç[=a]cas (see devils), 415.
planets, 367, 415, 545.
plants, worship of (see trees), 540;
plant-souls, see metempsychosis.
Plato, 2, 559.
Plotinus, 561.
pocket-altars, 475.
pole-rite, 378, 443, 534.
political divisions, 26, 27.
polyandry, 467, 535.
polygamy, 533.
polytheism, 11, 13, 529, 547.
Pongol, 449, 528.
pools, 254. 370, 372, 404, 444, 478.
pope, 557.
Porphyry, 561.
Portuguese rule in India, 566.
Prabh[=a], 452.
Pradyumna, 441, 442.
Prabl[=a]da, 397.
Praj[=a]pati, 142, 182 ff., 196 ff., 404, 412,475, 492, 554.
prak[=r.]ti, 396, 397, 399, 507.
pras[=a]da (see grace) 429.
pray[=a]ga, 435.
Prem S[=a]gar, 567.
priest, 28, 29, 40, 176, 179, 370;
privileges of, 263,549;
epic priest, 352.
P[=r.]çn[=i], 97.
Prometheus, 107, 165.
Punj[=a]b, 30, 33, 34.
Pur[=a][n.]as, 2, 3, 424, 430, 434 ff., 476, 503.
Puranic S[=a]nkhya, 495.
purity, 148, 369.
purgatory, 557.
Purusa, 142, 397, 447.
P[=u]rvam[=i]m[=i]m[=a]ms[=a], 495.
P[=u][s.]an, 5, 41, 47, 50 ff., 80, 101, 463, 464, 475.
Pu[s.]kara, 372.
Pu[s.][t.]i, 452.
P[=u]lan[=a], 444.
p[=u]tika, 369.
Pythagoras, 209, 559 ff., 580, note 3.
quakerism, 567.
quietism (see Yoga), 567.
R[=a]dh[=a], R[=a]dh[=a] Vallabhis, 492, 506.
R[=a]hu, 367.
rain-gods, 99, 528.
rajas, 507.
R[=a]jas[=u]ya, 444, 448, 477.
R[=a]k[s.]as (see devils), 419.
ram, 445.
R[=a]ma, 349, 397, 498.
R[=a]macandra, 454, 506.
Ramaism, 315, 349, 427, 485, 500 ff.
R[=a]m[=a]nand, 502, 510, 513.
R[=a]m[=a]nuja, 447, 482, 496 ff., 505, 507.
R[=a]m[=a]ya[n.]a, 349 ff.
Ramcaritmanas, 503.
R[=a]mmohun Roy, 515.
Ras[=a] (Volga, 26), 30, 169.
R[=a]s D[=a]sas, 502.
R[a=]s Y[=a]tr[=a], 456, 505.
Rath Y[=a]tr[=a], 456.
Rail, 452.
R[=a]udras,447.
R[=a]vana, 470.
redemption, doctrine of, 569.
reformation of sects, 508, 522.
relics, 556.
remnant-worship, 151, 157.
Renaissance, 2, 435.
renunciation (see Yogi, Sanny[=a]si), 394.
responsability, moral, 380.
Ribhus ([R.]bhavas), 93, 123, 169, 382.
Right (see Dharma), 249, 422, 442, 554.
Right-hand cult, 490.
Rig Veda ([r.]g), 3, 5, 7, 9, 10 ff., 22, 29, 37 ff., 44;
in epic, 360, 419.
Rishis ([R.][s.]is), see Seers.
ritual, 12 ff., 16 ff., 106, 124, 175.
ritualism, 568.
rivers, divine, 30 ff., 32, 99, 138, 528. 537.
Romans, 6, 556.
rosary, 374, 413, 478. 502, 557.
rosy, 493.
Rudra (see Çatarudriya, Çiva), 50, 54, 97, 99, 379, 388, 406;
Rudra-Çiva, 458 ff.;
Rudrajapas, 463.
rudr[=a]k[s.]a, 502.
sacraments, forty, 255.
sacrifice, 47, 60, 149, 177 ff., 188, 196,
198, 211, 225, 246, 363, 369, 375, 406,
413, 420, 423, 450, 462, 471, 490 ff.,
526, 528, 529, 534, 571.
S[=a]dhus, 514.
Ç[=a]ivas (see Çivaites), 413.
Çaka era, 436.
Sakh[=i] bh[=a]vas, 492.
Ç[=a]ktas, 413, 489, 533.
çakti, 489, 490, 537, 553.
Çakuntal[=a], 438.
Ç[=a]kya, 300, 302.
ç[=a]lagr[=a]ma, holy stone, 447, 502, 540.
sallo kallo, 531.
Sam[=a]jas, 516 ff., 369, 570.
S[=a]ma Veda, 176, 389, 396, 419.
Samana, 302, 344.
Çambhu, 487.
Çam[=i] çam[=i]-plant, 540.
sa[.m]vartaka fire, 421.
sa[.m]s[=a]ra. 175, 199, 231, 253, 380, 425.
sa[.m]sk[r.]ta, 396.
sa[.m]vat, 436.
Sanatkum[=a]ra, 466.
Ç[=a][n.][d.]ila, 221, 497, 509;
s[=u]tras, 503.
Sandrocottos, 435.
Sa[.n]gha, 324, 341.
Ça[n.]kara, 289, 437, 445;
vijaya, 480; 482, 495, 505, 506.
S[=a][.n]khya, 323, 365, 391 ff., 396, 399,
400, 402, 460, 482, 484, 489, 495, 509,
547, 560.
Sanny[=a]s[=i]n, 258, 281, 508.
Sara[n.]y[=u], 81, 138.
Saram[=a], S[=a]rameya, 131, 132, 138.
Sarasvat[=i], 31 ff., 149, 451, 492.
Ç[=a]r[=i]rakam[=i]m[=a][.m]s[=a], 495.
Çarva, 462, 463, 548.
Sarvadarça[n.]asangraha, 480.
Çatarudriya, 413, 470.
Sat n[=a]m, 512.
sattra, 371, 420.
sattva, 507.
Saturnalia, 455.
S[=a]ubhagasena, 545.
S[=a]ugatas, 448, 567.
S[=a]uras, 413,423, 508.
Sav[=a]ras, Sauras, 535.
Savitar (see Sun), 41 ff., 46 ff.
S[=a]vitr[=i], 46, 466, 492.
S[=a]ya[n.]a, 480.
Schopenhauer, 561.
sects, 445.
Seers, 368.
Semiramis, 543.
Semites, 571.
Sen, 518.
sesamum, 452, 502.
Çesa, 446, 465.
seven, 18, 26, 32, 49, 64, 98, 162, 533.
Seypoys, 566.
sex, 43, 59, 183, 490.
Siddhas, 367, 397, 482.
Sikhs (Singhs, Si[.m]has), 8, 502, 510-513.
sin (see commandments, vows), 42, 47,
51, 60, 65, 329, 376, 392, 530, 554;
venial, 254;
sin and sacrifice, 526.
si[.n]g[=a]-tree, 533.
Çiçup[=a]la, 457.
Sittars, 315, 367, 482, 488, 567, 570.
Çiva, 25, 50, 99, 112, 150, 178, 251,
332, 354, 365, 374, 388 ff., 397,
404, 406, 412 ff. 487, 532-534.
Çivaism (see Ç[=a]ivas), 348, 389,
407, 413, 423, 427, 446, 451, 453,
466, 480, 484, 488, 496, 548;
sacrifice of, 371, 453, 459, 462, 492.
Çivaites, 481 ff., 483.
Skanda (K[=a]rttikeya), 354, 410, 414, 445, 466.
slaves, 29, 425, 477, 548, 549.
small-pox god, 452, 528.
Sm[=a]rtas, 482, 507.
Sm[r.]ti, 440.
snake (see dragon, N[=a]ga), 20, 94,
154, 164, 186, 344, 361, 376, 397,
419, 446, 469, 527, 533, 536, 539, 547.
sociological data, 27, 60, 524 ff.
solar mylhs, 11.
Soma, 14, 16, 42, 50, 112 ff., 185, 354,
369, 378, 477, 491, 531, 540, 571.
Som[=a]nanda, 482.
son, importance of, 148, 363.
sophistry, 383.
sorcery, see magic.
soul (see [=a]tm[=a], j[=i]va), 530.
sources, 3.
spirit (see [=a]tm[=a]), 400, 442.
spring, god of, 528.
spring-festival, 449, 452, 456.
Çr[=a]ddha (see Manes), 451, 453, 455.
Çrama[n.]a, 281, 292, 302.
çravaka, 303.
Çr[=i], 438, 441, 451, 492.
Çr[=i]ra[n.]ga, 456.
Çruti, 245 ff., 373, 378.
star-souls, 204, 366, 446.
star-worshippers, 480, 526, 533.
Stoics, 558, 563.
stone, worship of (see ç[=a]lagr[=a]ma), 526,
533, 538;
marriage-stone, 271, 535.
straw (victim), 526.
st[=u]pas, 556.
Subrahma[n.]ya, 466
Ç[=u]dra (see slave), 419;
S[=u]droi, 548.
suicide, 378.
S[=u]kharas, 487.
Çulvasutra, 560.
Sun, 17, 39, 40 ff., 47, 51, 56, 57, 82, 164,
205, 354, 377, 401, 402, 446, 449, 452,
460, 492, 508, 509, 526, 528, 530, 532,
534, 543 ff.
Sunday, 452.
Sunth[=a]ls, 532.
Ç[=u]nyav[=a]ds, 448.
sur[=a], 127.
S[=u]ry[=a] (see Sun), 51, 82, 449, 492.
Sutta, 326.
suttee, 165, 274, 369, 441.
S[=u]tras, 3, 4, 5, 7, 174. 245 ff.
Sv[=a]mi, see N[=a]r[=a]ya[n.]a.
svastiv[=a]canam, 371.
Çvet[=a]mbaras, 284 ff., 480.
swing, see D[=o]l[=a].
tab[=u], 251, 535.
tamas (see darkness), 507.
Tamerlane, 436.
Tamil,
poetry, 315;
religion, 524.
tan, 508.
Tantras, 2, 439, 476, 491
tapas (see asceticism), 520.
Tari, 528, 530.
Tath[=a]gata, 303.
temples, 428, 444, 447, 452, 456, 471, 526, 557;
snake-temple, 539.
Ten-galais, 501.
[t.]haks, 535.
[T.]h[=a]kur[=a][n.][=i], 535.
Thales, 559.
theft (see commandments, morals), 527, 554.
theosophy, 40, 112, 384.
thieves, god of. 554.
Thomas, church of, 479.
three, 42, 49, 110, 164.
Time, see fate.
Thugs, 492 ff., 528, 535.
thunder-worship, 536.
tiger, 533.
tillais, 494.
t[=i]rtha, see pools.
Tiru-valluvar, 567.
Todas, 526, 537.
tonsure, 557.
tortoise (see avatar), 536.
totem, totemism, 163, 430, 445, 464, 468, 532, 534, 537, 557.
traga, 479.
tr[=a]ipuru[s.]a, 464.
transmigration, see metempsychosis.
transubstantiation, 557.
trees, worship of, 35, 154, 470, 528, 533, 540;
tree of creation, 540, 542.
tret[=a], 420.
triad, 42, 46, 183, 377, 404, 460.
tribes, 26 ff.
Trida[n.][d.]is, 482.
trim[=u]rti (see trinity), 447, 464.
trinity (see triad, trim[=u]rti, tr[=a]ipuru[s.]a),
57, 105, 237, 387, 404, 410, 411, 412, 432, 439,
507, 516, 545;
four members, 445;
prayer to, 447;
history of, 457 ff.;
female, 492, 499.
Tripi[t.]aka, 326, 347.
Trip[=u]jas, 480.
Trita, 11, 45, 104, 431.
Troy, story of, 547.
truth, 203, 369, 381, 527, 533, 553.
Tuk[=a]r[=a]m, 524.
tulas[=i], 456, 502, 540.
Tulas[=i]d[=a]sa, 503.
Turanian, 15, 435.
Tu[s.][t.]i, 452.
tutelary gods, 530.
Ud[=a]sis, 513.
Ugras, 447.
[=U]kharas, 487.
Um[=a], 416, 460, 490, 492.
Unitarians, 413, 485, 547.
Up[=a][.n]gas, 440.
Upani[s.]ads, 3, 4, 5, 7, 24, 181, 216 ff.,
389, 399, 405, 434, 447, 518.
Upapur[=a][n.]as, 440.
up[=a]saka, 310.
Upendra, 409.
[=U]rdhvab[=a]hus, 486.
Uçanas, see B[r.]haspati.
Ushas (U[s.]as), Dawn, 9, 10, 19, 73 ff.
Uttaram[=i]m[=a][.m]s[=a],495.
V[=a]c, see Logos.
Vada-galais, 501.
V[=a]ikh[=a]nasas, 447.
V[=a]ir[=a]gins, 508.
V[=a]içe[s.][=i]ka, 503.
V[=a]i[s.][n.]ava, 371, 413.
V[=a]içv[=a]nara (see Agni), 507.
V[=a]içya, 419, 487, 525.
Vala, 20.
Valabh[=i] era, 436, 572.
Valentine, saint, 451.
Vallabhas, 504-508.
V[=a]lm[=i]ki, 503.
Var[=a]hamihira, 438.
Varu[n.]a, 18, 41, 42, 44, 47, 58,
61 ff., 138, 170, 196, 353,
354, 397, 448, 539, 554;
as the moon, 571.
vasanta, see spring festival.
V[=a]sto[s.]pati, 530.
vassallus, vassus, 530.
vasso, 292.
V[=a]suki, 397.
V[=a]ta, V[=a]yu, see Wind-god.
Veda, 12, 15 ff., 142, 174, 188, 222, 256,
374, 401, 420, 425, 510.
Ved[=a]nta, 143, 228, 264, 365, 396, 398 ff.,
416, 460, 484, 495 ff.;
s[=u]tra, 437.
'Vehicles,' 340.
vermilion, 532.
Vesta, 530.
Vet[=a]la, 537.
Vidy[=a]dharas, 367.
Vighneça, 488.
vih[=a]ra, 435.
Vikram[=a]ditya, 436.
village-tree, 540.
Vinaya, 326.
Virabhadra, 467.
Vir[=a]j, 507.
Virgin-worship, 557.
virtue (see commandments, dharma, morals), ideals of, 555.
viças, 27, 194.
Viç[=a]kha, 466.
Vishnu (Vi[s.][n.]u), 41, 52, 56, 112, 144, 178, 251, 332, 354,
365, 388 ff., 412 ff., 451 ff.;
feast of, 456; 460, 487, 492, 498, 508, 534.
Vishnuism, 143, 348, 389, 413, 446, 464, 480, 494 ff.
Vishnu's law-book, 441.
Viçv[=a]mitra, 27.
Vi[t.]h[t.]hala, 500, 508, 514, 522.
Vivasvant, 81, 128 ff., 146, 392.
void, see Ç[=u]nya.
Volga, see Ras[=a].
vows, 293, 317, 378.
V[r.][s.]abha, 482.
Vr[=a]tya-hymns, 179.
Vritra (V[r.]tra), 20, 120, 185, 357, 369.
Vy[=a]sa, 488, 495.
warriors, 28, 29, 419.
water (origin of all things), 48, 107, 141, 330, 362, 378.
waters, 99.
water-pot, 453.
water-worshippers, 480.
wealth (see Bhaga), 528.
White Island, 413, 426 ff:, 431, 545.
wife, see woman.
wild-tribes, 471, 490, 493, 534 ff.,
569.
wind-god, 87 ff., 123, 165, 354, 460;
worshippers, 480.
witchcraft, see magic.
witness (see oath), 250.
women (authors of Rig Veda), 27;
burned, see suttee; as nuns, 291,
310; religion of, 370; use mantra,
440, 450, 453; price of wife, 270,
535.
wood, see trees.
wood-goddess, 138, 530.
worlds, number of, 402.
writing, 4, 7, 331, 544. 595.
Yajur Veda, 24, 176 ff., 419.
Yak[s.]as, 415.
Yama (see Citragupta, Hell), 16, 45,
49, 128 ff., 144, 146, 353, 365, 378ff.,
397, 451, 480, 540.
Yima, 11, 16,128 ff.
Yoga, yogin or yogi, 262, 281, 304,
351, 391 ff., 399, 402, 470, 486,
495, 550.
yoni, vulva, 475,490.
yuga, see ages.
Zarathustra, Zoroaster (see Iranian),
10, 72, 524.
Zeus, 9, 66.
Ziegenbalg. 565.
Zoölatry, 547.
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