Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch Volume I Part 10

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We have now said something of two aspects of Indian religion-ritual and asceticism-and must pa.s.s on to the third, namely, knowledge or philosophy. Its importance was recognized by the severest ritualists.

They admitted it as a supplement and crown to the life of ceremonial observances and in the public estimation it came to be reputed an alternative or superior road to salvation. Respect and desire for knowledge are even more intimately a part of Hindu mentality than a proclivity to asceticism or ritual. The sacrifice itself must be understood as well as offered. He who _knows_ the meaning of this or that observance obtains his desires[166].

Nor did the Brahmans resent criticism and discussion. India has always loved theological argument: it is the national pa.s.sion. The early Upanishads relate without disapproval how kings such as Ajatasatru of Kasi, Pravaha?a Jaivali and Asvapati Kaikeya imparted to learned Brahmans philosophical and theological knowledge previously unknown to them[167] and even women like Gargi and Maitreyi took part in theological discussions. Obviously knowledge in the sense of philosophical speculation commended itself to religiously disposed persons in the non-sacerdotal castes for the same reason as asceticism.

Whatever difficulties it might offer, it was more accessible than the learning which could be acquired only under a Brahman teacher, although the Brahmans in the interests of the sacerdotal caste maintained that philosophy like ritual was a secret to be imparted, not a result to be won by independent thought.

Again and again the Upanishads insist that the more profound doctrines must not be communicated to any but a son or an accredited pupil and also that no one can think them out for himself[168], yet the older ones admit in such stories as those mentioned that the impulse towards speculation came in early periods, as it did in the time of the Buddha, largely from outside the priestly clans and was adopted rather than initiated by them. But in justice to the Brahmans we must admit that they have rarely-or at any rate much less frequently than other sacerdotal corporations-shown hostility to new ideas and then chiefly when such ideas (like those of Buddhism) implied that the rites by which they gained their living were worthless. Otherwise they showed great pliancy and receptivity, for they combined Vedic rites and mythology with such systems as the Sankhya and Advaita philosophies, both of which really render superfluous everything which is usually called religion since, though their language is decorous, they teach that he who _knows_ the truth about the universe is thereby saved.

The best opinion of India has always felt that the way of knowledge or Jnana was the true way. The favourite thesis of the Brahmans was that a man should devote his youth to study, his maturity to the duties and ceremonies of a householder, and his age to more sublime speculations.

But at all periods the idea that it was possible to know G.o.d and the universe was allied to the idea that all ceremonies as well as all worldly effort and indeed all active morality are superfluous[169]. All alike are unessential and trivial, and merit the attention only of those who know nothing higher. Human feelings and interests qualified and contradicted this negative and unearthly view of religion, but still popular sentiment as well as philosophic thought during the whole period of which we know something of them in India tended to regard the highest life as consisting in rapt contemplation or insight accompanied by the suppression of desire and by disengagement from mundane ties and interests. But knowledge in Indian theology implies more intensity than we attach to the word and even some admixture of volition. The knowledge of Brahman is not an understanding of pantheistic doctrines such as may be obtained by reading _The Sacred Books of the East_ in an easy chair but a realization (in all senses) of personal ident.i.ty with the universal spirit, in the light of which all material attachments and fetters fall away.

The earlier philosophical speculations of the Brahmans are chiefly found in the treatises called Upanishads. The teaching contained in these works is habitually presented as something secret[170] or esoteric and does not, like Buddhism or Jainism, profess to be a gospel for all. Also the teaching is not systematized and has never been unified by a personality like the Buddha. It grew up in the various _parishads_, or communities of learned Brahmans, and perhaps flourished most in north western India[171]. There is of course a common substratum of ideas but they appear in different versions: we have the teaching of Yajnavalkya, of Uddalaka aru?i and other masters and each teaching has some individuality. They are merely reported as words of the wise without an attempt to harmonize them. There are many apparent inconsistencies due to the use of divergent metaphors to indicate different aspects of the indescribable, and some real inconsistencies due to the existence of different schools. Hence, attempts whether Indian or European to give a harmonious summary of this ancient doctrine are likely to be erroneous.

There are a great number of Upanishads, composed at various dates and not all equally revered. They represent different orders of ideas and some of the later are distinctly sectarian. Collections of 45, 52 and 60 are mentioned, and the Muktika Upanishad gives a list of 108. This is the number currently accepted in India at the present day. But Schrader[172] describes many Upanishads existing in MS. in addition to this list and points out that though they may be modern there is no ground for calling them spurious. According to Indian ideas there is no _a priori_ objection to the appearance now or in the future of new Upanishads[173]. All revelation is eternal and self-existent but it can manifest itself at its own good time.

Many of the more modern Upanishads appear to be the compositions of single authors and may be called tracts or poems in the ordinary European sense. But the older ones, unless they are very short, are clearly not the attempts of an individual to express his creed but collections of such philosophical sayings and narratives as a particular school thought fit to include in its version of the scriptures. There was so to speak a body of philosophic folk-lore portions of which each school selected and elaborated as it thought best. Thus an apologue proving that the breath is the essential vital const.i.tuent of a human being is found in five ancient Upanishads[174]. The Chandogya and B?ihad-ara?yaka both contain an almost identical narrative of how the priest aru?i was puzzled and instructed by a king and a similar story is found at the beginning of the Kausihtaki[175]. The two Upanishads last mentioned also contain two dialogues in which king Ajatasatru explains the fate of the soul after death and which differ in little except that one is rather fuller than the other[176]. So too several well-known stanzas and also quotations from the Veda used with special applications are found in more than one Upanishad[177].

The older Upanishads[178] are connected with the other parts of the Vedic canon and sometimes form an appendix to a Brahma?a so that the topics discussed change gradually from ritual to philosophy[179]. It would be excessive to say that this arrangement gives the genesis of speculation in ancient India, for some hymns of the Rig Veda are purely philosophic, but it ill.u.s.trates a lengthy phase of Brahmanic thought in which speculation could not disengage itself from ritual and was also hampered by physical ideas. The Upanishads often receive such epithets as transcendental and idealistic but in many pa.s.sages-perhaps in the majority-they labour with imperfect success to separate the spiritual and material. The self or spirit is sometimes identified in man with the breath, in nature with air, ether or s.p.a.ce. At other times it is described as dwelling in the heart and about the size of the thumb but capable of becoming smaller, travelling through the veins and showing itself in the pupil: capable also of becoming infinitely large and one with the world soul. But when thought finds its wings and soars above these material fancies, the teaching of the Upanishads shares with Buddhism the glory of being the finest product of the Indian intellect.

In India the religious life has always been regarded as a journey and a search after truth. Even the most orthodox and priestly programme admits this. There comes a time when observances are felt to be vain and the soul demands knowledge of the essence of things. And though later dogmatism a.s.serts that this knowledge is given by revelation, yet a note of genuine enquiry and speculation is struck in the Vedas and is never entirely silenced throughout the long procession of Indian writers. In well-known words the Vedas ask[180] "Who is the G.o.d to whom we shall offer our sacrifice? ... Who is he who is the Creator and sustainer of the Universe ... whose shadow is immortality, whose shadow is death?"

or, in even more daring phrases[181], "The G.o.ds were subsequent to the creation of this universe. Who then knows whence it sprang? He who in the highest heaven is the overseer of this universe, he knows or even he does not know." These profound enquiries, which have probably no parallel in the contemporary literature of other nations, are as time goes on supplemented though perhaps not enlarged by many others, nor does confidence fail that there is an answer-the Truth, which when known is the goal of life. A European is inclined to ask what use can be made of the truth, but for the Hindus divine knowledge is an end and a state, not a means. It is not thought of as something which may be used to improve the world or for any other purpose whatever. For use and purpose imply that the thing utilized is subservient and inferior to an end, whereas divine knowledge is the culmination and meaning of the universe, or, from another point of view, the annihilation of both the external world and individuality. Hence the Hindu does not expect of his saints philanthropy or activity of any sort.

As already indicated, the characteristic (though not the only) answer of India to these questionings is that nothing really exists except G.o.d or, better, except Brahman. The soul is identical with Brahman. The external world which we perceive is not real in the same sense: it is in some way or other an evolution of Brahman or even mere illusion. This doctrine is not universal: it is for instance severely criticized and rejected by the older forms of Buddhism but its hold on the Indian temperament is seen by its reappearance in later Buddhism where by an astounding transformation the Buddha is identified with the universal spirit.

Though the form in which I have quoted the doctrine above is an epitome of the Vedanta, it is hardly correct historically to give it as an epitome of the older Upanishads. Their teaching is less complete and uncompromising, more veiled, tentative and allusive, and sometimes c.u.mbered by material notions. But it is obviously the precursor of the Vedanta and the devout Vedantist can justify his system from it.

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Instead of attempting to summarize the Upanishads it may be well to quote one or two celebrated pa.s.sages. One is from the B?ihad-ara?yaka[182] and relates how Yajnavalkya, when about to retire to the forest as an ascetic, wished to divide his property between his two wives, Katyayani "who possessed only such knowledge as women possess" and Maitreyi "who was conversant with Brahman." The latter asked her husband whether she would be immortal if she owned the whole world. "No," he replied, "like the life of the rich would be thy life but there is no hope of immortality." Maitreyi said that she had no need of what would not make her immortal. Yajnavalkya proceeded to explain to her his doctrine of the atman, the self or essence, the spirit present in man as well as in the universe. "Not for the husband's sake is the husband dear but for the sake of the atman. Not for the wife's sake is the wife dear but for the sake of the atman. Not for their own sake are sons, wealth, Brahmans, warriors, worlds, G.o.ds, Vedas and all things dear, but for the sake of the atman. The atman is to be seen, to be heard, to be perceived, to be marked: by him who has seen and known the atman all the universe is known.... He who looks for Brahmans, warriors, worlds, G.o.ds or Vedas anywhere but in the atman, loses them all...."

"As all waters have their meeting place in the sea, all touch in the skin, all tastes in the tongue, all odours in the nose, all colours in the eye, all sounds in the ear, all percepts in the mind, all knowledge in the heart, all actions in the hands....As a lump of salt has no inside nor outside and is nothing but taste, so has this atman neither inside nor outside and is nothing but knowledge. Having risen from out these elements it (the human soul) vanishes with them. When it has departed (after death) there is no more consciousness." Here Maitreyi professes herself bewildered but Yajnavalkya continues "I say nothing bewildering. Verily, beloved, that atman is imperishable and indestructible. When there is as it were duality, then one sees the other, one tastes the other, one salutes the other, one hears the other, one touches the other, one knows the other. But when the atman only is all this, how should we see, taste, hear, touch or know another? How can we know him by whose power we know all this? That atman is to be described by no, no (neti, neti). He is incomprehensible for he cannot be comprehended, indestructible for he cannot be destroyed, unattached for he does not attach himself: he knows no bonds, no suffering, no decay. How, O beloved, can one know the knower?" And having so spoken, Yajnavalkya went away into the forest. In another verse of the same work it is declared that "This great unborn atman (or Self) undecaying, undying, immortal, fearless, is indeed Brahman."

It is interesting that this doctrine, evidently regarded as the quintessence of Yajnavalkya's knowledge, should be imparted to a woman.

It is not easy to translate. atman, of course, means self and is so rendered by Max Muller in this pa.s.sage, but it seems to me that this rendering jars on the English ear for it inevitably suggests the individual self and selfishness, whereas atman means the universal spirit which is Self, because it is the highest (or only) Reality and Being, not definable in terms of anything else. Nothing, says Yajnavalkya, has any value, meaning, or indeed reality except in relation to this Self[183]. The whole world including the Vedas and religion is an emanation from him. The pa.s.sage at which Maitreyi expresses her bewilderment is obscure, but the reply is more definite.

The Self is indestructible but still it is incorrect to speak of the soul having knowledge and perception after death, for knowledge and perception imply duality, a subject and an object. But when the human soul and the universal atman are one, there is no duality and no human expression can be correctly used about the atman. Whatever you say of it, the answer must be _neti, neti_, it is not like that[184]; that is to say, the ordinary language used about the individual soul is not applicable to the atman or to the human soul when regarded as identical with it.

This ident.i.ty is stated more precisely in another pa.s.sage[185] where first occurs the celebrated formula Tat tvam asi, That art Thou, or Thou art It[186], _i.e._ the human soul is the atman and hence there is no real distinction between souls. Like Yajniavalkya's teaching, the statement of this doctrine takes the form of an intimate conversation, this time between a Brahman, Uddalaka aru?i, and his son Svetaketu who is twenty-four years of age and having just finished his studentship is very well satisfied with himself. His father remarks on his conceit and says "Have you ever asked your teachers for that instruction by which the unheard becomes heard, the unperceived perceived and the unknown known?" Svetaketu enquires what this instruction is and his father replies, "As by one lump of clay all that is made of clay is known, and the change[187] is a mere matter of words, nothing but a name, the truth being that all is clay, and as by one piece of copper or by one pair of nail-scissors all that is made of copper or iron can be known, so is that instruction." That is to say, it would seem, the reality is One: all diversity and multiplicity is secondary and superficial, merely a matter of words. "In the beginning," continues the father, "there was only that which is, one without a second. Others say in the beginning there was that only which is not (non-existence), one without a second, and from that which is not, that which is was born. But how could that which is be born of that which is not[188]? No, only that which is was in the beginning, one only without a second. It thought, may I be many: may I have offspring. It sent forth fire." Here follows a cosmogony and an explanation of the const.i.tution of animate beings, and then the father continues--"All creatures have their root in the Real, dwell in the Real and rest in the Real. That subtle being by which this universe subsists, it is the Real, it is the atman, and thou, Svetaketu, art It."

Many ill.u.s.trations of the relations of the atman and the universe follow. For instance, if the life (sap) leaves a tree, it withers and dies. So "this body withers and dies when the life has left it: the life dies not." In the fruit of the Banyan (fig-tree) are minute seeds innumerable. But the imperceptible subtle essence in each seed is the whole Banyan. Each example adduced concludes with the same formula, Thou art that subtle essence, and as in the B?ihad-ara?yaka salt is used as a metaphor. "'Place this salt in water and then come to me in the morning.' The son did so and in the morning the father said 'Bring me the salt.' The son looked for it but found it not, for of course it was melted. The father said, 'Taste from the surface of the water. How is it?' The son replied, 'It is salt.' 'Taste from the middle. How is it?'

'It is salt.' 'Taste from the bottom, how is it?' 'It is salt.' ... The father said, 'Here also in this body you do not perceive the Real, but there it is. That subtle being by which this universe subsists, it is the Real, it is the atman and thou, Svetaketu, art It.'"

The writers of these pa.s.sages have not quite reached Sankara's point of view, that the atman is all and the whole universe mere illusion or Maya. Their thought still tends to regard the universe as something drawn forth from the atman and then pervaded by it. But still the main features of the later Advaita, or philosophy of no duality, are there.

All the universe has grown forth from the atman: there is no real difference in things, just as all gold is gold whatever it is made into.

The soul is identical with this atman and after death may be one with it in a union excluding all duality even of perceiver and perceived.

A similar union occurs in sleep. This idea is important for it is closely connected with another belief which has had far-reaching consequences on thought and practice in India, the belief namely that the soul can attain without death and as the result of mental discipline to union[189] with Brahman. This idea is common in Hinduism and though Buddhism rejects the notion of union with the supreme spirit yet it attaches importance to meditation and makes Samadhi or rapture the crown of the perfect life. In this, as in other matters, the teaching of the Upanishads is manifold and unsystematic compared with later doctrines.

The older pa.s.sages ascribe to the soul three states corresponding to the bodily conditions of waking, dream-sleep, and deep dreamless sleep, and the B?ihad-ara?yaka affirms of the last (IV. 3. 32): "This is the Brahma world. This is his highest world, this is his highest bliss. All other creatures live on a small portion of that bliss." But even in some Upanishads of the second stratum (Ma??ukya, Maitraya?a) we find added a fourth state, Caturtha or more commonly Turiya, in which the bliss attainable in deep sleep is accompanied by consciousness[190]. This theory and various practices founded on it develop rapidly.

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The explanation of dreamless sleep as supreme bliss and Yajnavalkya's statement that the soul after death cannot be said to know or feel, may suggest that union with Brahman is another name for annihilation. But that is not the doctrine of the Upanishads though a European perhaps might say that the consciousness contemplated is so different from ordinary human consciousness that it should not bear the same name. In another pa.s.sage[191] Yajnavalkya himself explains "when he does not know, yet he is knowing though he does not know. For knowing is inseparable from the knower, because it cannot perish. But there is no second, nothing else different from him that he could know." A common formula for Brahman in the later philosophy is Saccidananda, Being, Thought and Joy[192]. This is a just summary of the earlier teaching. We have already seen how the atman is recognized as the only Reality. Its intellectual character is equally clearly affirmed. Thus the B?ihad-ara?yaka (III. 7. 23) says: "There is no seer beside him, no hearer beside him, no perceiver beside him, no knower beside him. This is thy Self, the ruler within, the immortal. Everything distinct from him is subject to pain." This idea that pain and fear exist only as far as a man makes a distinction between his own self and the real Self is eloquently developed in the division of the Taittiriya Upanishad called the Chapter of Bliss. "He who knows Brahman" it declares, "which exists, which is conscious, which is without end, as hidden in the depth of the heart, and in farthest s.p.a.ce, he enjoys all blessings, in communion with the omniscient Brahman.... He who knows the bliss (anandam) of that Brahman from which all speech and mind turn away unable to reach it, he never fears[193]."

Bliss is obtainable by union with Brahman, and the road to such union is knowledge of Brahman. That knowledge is often represented as acquired by tapas or asceticism, but this, though repeatedly enjoined as necessary, seems to be regarded (in the n.o.bler expositions at least) as an indispensable schooling rather than as efficacious by its own virtue.

Sometimes the topic is treated in an almost Buddhist spirit of reasonableness and depreciation of self-mortification for its own sake.

Thus Yajnavalkya says to Gargi[194]: "Whoever without knowing the imperishable one offers oblations in this world, sacrifices, and practises asceticism even for a thousand years, his work will perish."

And in a remarkable scene described in the Chandogya Upanishad, the three sacred fires decide to instruct a student who is exhausted by austerities, and tell him that Brahman is life, bliss and s.p.a.ce[195].

a.n.a.logous to the conception of Brahman as bliss, is the description of him as light or "light of lights." A beautiful pa.s.sage[196] says: "To the wise who perceive him (Brahman) within their own self, belongs eternal peace, not to others. They feel that highest, unspeakable bliss saying, this is that. How then can I understand it? Has it its own light or does it reflect light? No sun shines there, nor moon nor stars, nor these lightnings, much less this fire. When he shines everything shines after him: by his light all the world is lighted."

In most of the texts which we have examined the words Brahman and atman are so impersonal that they cannot be replaced by G.o.d. In other pa.s.sages the conception of the deity is more personal. The universe is often said to have been emitted or breathed forth by Brahman. By emphasizing the origin and result of this process separately, we reach the idea of the Maker and Master of the Universe, commonly expressed by the word isvara, Lord. But even when using this expression, Hindu thought tends in its subtler moments to regard both the creator and the creature as illusions. In the same sense as the world exists there also exists its creator who is an aspect of Brahman, but the deeper truth is that neither is real: there is but One who neither makes nor is made[197]. In a land of such multiform theology it would be hazardous to say that Monotheism has always arisen out of Pantheism, but in the speculative schools where the Upanishads were composed, this was often its genesis.

The older idea is that a subtle essence pervades all nature and the deities who rule nature: this is spiritualized into the doctrine of Brahman attributed to Yajnavalkya and it is only by a secondary process that this Brahman is personified and sometimes identified with a particular G.o.d such as Siva. The doctrine of the personal isvara is elaborated in the Svetasvatara Upanishad of uncertain date[198]. It celebrates him in hymns of almost Mohammedan monotheism. "Let us know that great Lord of Lords, the highest G.o.d of G.o.ds, the Master of Masters, the highest above, as G.o.d, as Lord of the world, who is to be glorified[199]." But this monotheistic fervour does not last long without relapsing into the familiar pantheistic strain. "Thou art woman," says the same Upanishad[200], "and Thou art man: Thou art youth and maiden: Thou as an old man totterest along on thy staff: Thou art born with thy face turned everywhere. Thou art the dark-blue bee: Thou the green parrot with the red eyes. Thou art the thunder cloud, the seasons and the seas. Thou art without beginning because Thou art infinite, Thou, from whom all worlds are born."

CHAPTER VI

RELIGIOUS LIFE IN PRE-BUDDHIST INDIA

In reading the Brahma?as and older Upanishads we often wish we knew more of the writers and their lives. Rarely can so many representative men have bequeathed so much literature and yet left so dim a sketch of their times. Thought was their real life: of that they have given a full record, imperfect only in chronology, for though their speculations are often set forth in a narrative form, we hear surprisingly little about contemporary events.

The territory familiar to these works is the western part of the modern United Provinces with the neighbouring districts of the Panjab, the lands of the Kurus, Pancalas, and Matsyas, all in the region of Agra and Delhi, and further east Kasi (Benares) with Videha or Tirhut. Gandhara was known[201] but Magadha and Bengal are not mentioned. Even in the Buddha's lifetime they were still imperfectly brahmanized.

What we know of the period 800 to 600 B.C. is mostly due to the Brahmans, and many Indianists have accepted their view, that they were then socially the highest cla.s.s and the repository of religion and culture. But it is clear from Buddhist writings (which, however, are somewhat later) that this pre-eminence was not unchallenged[202], and many admissions in the Brahma?as and Upanishads indicate that some centuries before the Buddha the Kshatriyas held socially the first rank and shared intellectual honours with the Brahmans. Janaka, king of Videha[203], and Yajnavalkya, the Brahman, meet on terms of mutual respect and other Kshatriyas, such as Ajatasatru of Kasi and Pravaha?a Jaivali are represented as instructing Brahmans, and the latter in doing so says "this knowledge did not go to any Brahman before but belonged to the Kshatriyas alone[204]." But as a profession theology, both practical and speculative, was left to the Brahmans.

The proper relation between the n.o.bles and Brahmans finds expression in the office of Purohita[205] or domestic chaplain, which is as old as the Vedas and has lasted to the present day. In early times he was not merely a spiritual guide but also a councillor expected to advise the king as to his enterprises and secure their success by appropriate rites. By king we should understand a tribal chief, entrusted with considerable powers in the not infrequent times of war, but in peace obliged to consult the clan, or at least the aristocratic part of it, on all matters of importance. A Purohita might attain a very high position, like Devabhaga, priest of both the Kurus and Srinjayas[206]. The Brahmans did not attempt to become kings, but the sacred books insist that though a Brahman can do without a king, yet a king cannot do without a Brahman. The two castes are compared to the deities Mitra and Varu?a, typifying intelligence and will. When they are united deeds can be done[207]. But "the G.o.ds do not eat the food of a king who is without a Purohita." Other castes can offer sacrifices only by the mediation of Brahmans, and it does not appear that kings disputed this, though they claimed the right to think for themselves and may have denied the utility of sacrifice[208]. Apart from kings the duties and claims of the Brahman extend to the people at large. He has four virtues, "birth, deportment, fame and the perfecting of the people," and in return the people owe him respect, liberality, security against oppression and against capital punishment.

Towns in this period must have been few and those few essentially forts, not collections of palaces and temples. We hear of Kasi (Benares) but the name may signify a district. People are said to go to the Kurus or Pancalas, not to Mithila or any other city. It was in village life-which is still the life of the greater part of India-that Brahmanism grew up.

Probably then as now Brahman families occupied separate villages, or at least quarters, and were allowed to hold the land rent free as a reward for rendering religious services to the king. They followed various professions but the life which was most respected, and also most lucrative, was that devoted to the study and practice of sacred science, that is the learning and recitation of sacred texts, performance of ceremonies, and theological discussion. The later law books divide a Brahman's life into four stages or asramas in which he was successively a student, a householder, a hermit and an ascetic[209]. The third and fourth stages are not very clearly distinguished. A hermit is supposed to renounce family life and live in the forest, but still to perform sacrifices, whereas the Sannyasi or perfect ascetic, in many ways the ideal of India, subsists on alms, freed alike from duties and pa.s.sions and absorbed in meditation. In the older Upanishads three stages are indicated as part of contemporary practice[210]. For a period of from nine to thirty-six years, a Brahman dwelt with a teacher. While his state of pupilage lasted he lived on alms and was bound by the severest vows of obedience and chast.i.ty. The instruction given consisted in imparting sacred texts which could be acquired only by hearing them recited, for writing, though it may have been known in India as early as the seventh century B.C., was not used for literature. The Satapatha Brahma?a recommends the study not only of the four Vedas but of the precepts (perhaps grammar, etymology, etc.), the sciences (perhaps philosophy), dialogues (no doubt such as those found in the Upanishads), traditions and ancient legends, stanzas and tales of heroes[211], showing that, besides the scriptures, more popular compositions which doubtless contained the germs of the later Epics and Puranas were held in esteem.

On terminating his apprenticeship the young Brahman became a householder and married, moderate polygamy being usual. To some extent he followed the occupations of an ordinary man of business and father of a family, but the most important point in establishing a home of his own was the kindling of his own sacred fire[212], and the householder's life was regarded as a series of rites, such as the daily offering of milk, the new and full moon ceremonies, seasonal sacrifices every four months and the Soma sacrifice once a year, besides oblations to ancestors and other domestic observances. The third stage of life should begin when a householder sees that his hair is turning grey and a grandson has been born. He should then abandon his home and live in the forest. The tradition that it is justifiable and even commendable for men and women to abandon their families and take to the religious life has at all times been strong in India and public opinion has never considered that the deserted party had a grievance. No doubt comfortable householders were in no hurry to take to the woods and many must always have shirked the duty. But on the other hand, the very pious, of whom India has always produced a superabundance, were not willing to bear the cares of domestic life and renounced the world before the prescribed time. On the whole Brahmanic (as opposed to Buddhist) literature is occupied in insisting not so much that the devout should abandon the world as that they must perform the ritual observances prescribed for householders before doing so.

The Brahman's existence as drawn in the law-books is a description of what the writers thought ought to be done rather than of the general practice. Still it cannot be dismissed as imaginary, for the Nambutiri[213] Brahmans of Travancore have not yet abandoned a mode of life which is in essentials that prescribed by Manu and probably that led by Brahmans in the seventh century B.C. or earlier[214].

They are for the most part landowners dwelling in large houses built to accommodate a patriarchal family and erected in s.p.a.cious compounds. In youth they spend about eight years in learning the Veda, and in mature life religious ceremonies, including such observances as bathing and the preparation of meals, occupy about six hours of the day. As a profession, the performance of religious rites for others is most esteemed. In food, drink and pleasures, the Nambutiris are almost ascetics: their rect.i.tude, punctiliousness and dignity still command exaggerated respect. But they seem unproductive and petrified, even in such matters as literature and scholarship, and their inability to adapt themselves to changing conditions threatens them with impoverishment and deterioration.

Yet the ideal Brahmanic life, which by no means excludes intellectual activity, is laid out in severe and n.o.ble lines and though on its good side somewhat beyond the reach of human endeavour and on its bad side overloaded with pedantry and superst.i.tion, it combines in a rare degree self-abnegation and independence. It differs from the ideal set up by Buddhism and by many forms of Hinduism which preach the renunciation of family ties, for it clearly lays down that it is a man's duty to continue his family and help his fellow men just as much as to engage in religious exercises. Thus, the Satapatha Brahma?a[215] teaches that man is born owing four debts, one to the G.o.ds, one to the Rishis or the sages to whom the Vedic hymns were revealed, one to his ancestors and one to men. To discharge these obligations he must offer sacrifices, study the Veda, beget a son and practise hospitality.

The tranquil isolation of village life in ancient India has left its mark on literature. Though the names of teachers are handed down and their opinions cited with pious care, yet for many centuries after the Vedic age we find no books attributed to human authors. There was an indifference to literary fame among these early philosophers and a curious selflessness. Doctors disputed as elsewhere, yet they were at no pains to couple their names with theories or sects. Like the Jewish Rabbis they were content to go down to posterity as the authors of a few sayings, and these are mostly contributions to a common stock with no pretension to be systems of philosophy. The Upanishads leave an impression of a society which, if reposeful, was also mentally alert and tolerant to an unusual degree. Much was absent that occupied the intelligence of other countries. Painting, sculpture and architecture can have attained but modest proportions and the purview of religion included neither temples nor images. India was untroubled by foreign invasions and all cla.s.ses seem to have been content to let the Kshatriyas look after such internal politics as there were. Trade too was on a small scale. Doubtless the Indian was then, as now, a good man of business and the western coast may have been affected by its relations with the Persian Gulf, but Brahmanic civilization was a thing of the Midland and drew no inspiration from abroad. The best minds were occupied with the leisurely elaboration and discussion of speculative ideas and self-effacement was both practised and preached.

But movement and circulation prevented this calm rustic world from becoming stagnant. Though roads were few and dangerous, a habit of travel was conspicuous among the religious and intellectual cla.s.ses. The Indian is by nature a pilgrim rather than a stationary monk, and we often hear of Brahmans travelling in quest of knowledge alone or in companies, and stopping in rest houses[216]. In the Satapatha Brahma?a[217], Uddalaka aru?i is represented as driving about and offering a piece of gold as a prize to those who could defeat him in argument. Great sacrifices were often made the occasion of these discussions. We must not think of them as mere religious ceremonies, as a sort of high ma.s.s extending over several days. The fact that they lasted so long and involved operations like building sheds and altars made them unlike our church services and gave opportunities for debate and criticism of what was done. Such compet.i.tion and publicity were good for the wits. The man who cut the best figure in argument was in greatest demand as a sacrificer and obtained the highest fees. But these stories of prizes and fees emphasize a feature which has characterized the Brahmans from Vedic times to the present day, namely, their shameless love of money. The severest critic cannot deny them a disinterested taste for intellectual, religious and spiritual things, but their own books often use language which shows them as professional men merely anxious to make a fortune by the altar. "The sacrifice is twofold," says the Satapatha Brahma?a, "oblations to the G.o.ds and gifts to the priests. With oblations men gratify the G.o.ds and with gifts the human G.o.ds. These two kinds of G.o.ds when gratified convey the worshipper to the heavenly world[218]." Without a fee the sacrifice is as dead as the victim. It is the fee which makes it living and successful[219].

Tradition has preserved the names of many of these acute, argumentative, fee-loving priests, but of few can we form any clear picture. The most distinguished is Yajnavalkya who, though seen through a mist of myths and trivial stories about the minutiae of ritual, appears as a personality with certain traits that are probably historical. Many remarks attributed to him are abrupt and scornful and the legend indicates dimly that he was once thought a dangerous innovator. But, as has happened so often since, this early heretic became the corner stone of later orthodoxy. He belonged to the school of the Yajur Veda and was apparently the main author of the new or White recension in which the prayers and directions are more or less separate, whereas in the old or Black recension they are mixed together. According to the legend he vomited forth the texts which he had learnt, calling his fellow pupils "miserable and inefficient Brahmans," and then received a new revelation from the Sun[220]. The quarrel was probably violent for the Satapatha Brahma?a mentions that he was cursed by priests of the other party. Nor does this work, while recognizing him as the princ.i.p.al teacher, endorse all his sayings. Thus it forbids the eating of beef but adds the curious remark "Nevertheless Yajnavalkya said, I for one eat it, provided it is tender[221]." Remarkable, too, is his answer to the question what would happen if all the ordinary materials for sacrifices were absent, "Then indeed nothing would be offered here, but there would be offered the truth in faith[222]." It is probable that the Black Yajur Veda represents the more western schools and that the native land of the White recension and of Yajnavalkya lay further east, perhaps in Videha.

But his chief interest for us is not the reforms in text and ritual which he may have made, but his philosophic doctrines of which I have already spoken. Our princ.i.p.al authority for them is the B?ihad-ara?yaka Upanishad of which he is the protagonist, much as Socrates is of the Platonic dialogues. Unfortunately the striking picture which it gives of Yajnavalkya cannot be accepted as historical. He is a prominent figure in the Satapatha Brahma?a which is older than the Upanishad and represents an earlier stage of speculation. The sketch of his doctrines which it contains is clearly a preliminary study elaborated and amplified in the Upanishad. But if a personage is introduced in early works as expounding a rudimentary form of certain doctrines and in later works is credited with a matured philosophy, there can be little doubt that he has become a great name whose authority is invoked by later thought, much as Solomon was made the author of the Proverbs and Ecclesiastes and the Song which bears his name.