Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch Volume II Part 18

This veneration or deification of the Guru is found in most sects and a.s.sumes as extreme a form among the Saivas as among the Vaishn?avas.

The Saiva Siddhanta teaches that divine instruction can be received only from one who is both G.o.d and man, and that the true Guru is an incarnation of Siva. Thus the works of Man?ikka-Vacagar and Umapati speak of Siva coming to his devotees in the form of the Guru. In the sects that worship Kr?ishn?a the Gurus are frequently called Gosain (Goswami).[436] Sometimes they are members of a particular family, as among the Vallabhacaryas. In other sects there is no hereditary principle and even a Sudra is eligible as Guru.

One other feature of Sectarian Hinduism must be mentioned. It may be described as Tantrism or, in one of its aspects, as the later Yoga and is a combination of practices and theories which have their roots in the old literature and began to form a connected doctrine at least as early as the eighth century A.D. Some of its princ.i.p.al ideas are as follows: (i) Letters and syllables (and also their written forms and diagrams) have a potent influence both for the human organism and for the universe. This idea is found in the early Upanishads[437] and is fully developed in the later Sectarian Upanishads. (ii) The human organism is a miniature copy of the universe.[438] It contains many lines or channels (nad?i) along which the nerve force moves and also nervous centres distributed from the hips to the head, (iii) In the lowest centre resides a force identical with the force which creates the universe.[439] When by processes which are partly physical it is roused and made to ascend to the highest centre, emanc.i.p.ation and bliss are obtained. (iv) There is a mysterious connection between the process of cosmic evolution and sound, especially the sacred sound _Om._

These ideas are developed most thoroughly in Saktist works, but are by no means peculiar to them. They are found in the Pancaratra and the later Puranas and have influenced almost all modern sects, although those which are based on emotional devotion are naturally less inclined to favour physical and magical means of obtaining salvation.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 401: The population of India (about 315 millions) is larger than that of Europe without Russia.]

[Footnote 402: But compare the English poet

"Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies, ... but if I could understand What you are, root and all, and all in all I should know what G.o.d and man is."]

[Footnote 403: Efforts are now being made by Hindus to suppress this inst.i.tution.]

[Footnote 404: In the Vedic funeral ceremonies the wife lies down by her dead husband and is called back to the world of the living which points to an earlier form of the rite where she died with him. But even at this period, those who did not follow the Vedic customs may have killed widows with their husbands (see too Ath. Veda, XII. 3), and later, the invaders from Central Asia probably reinforced the usage. The much-abused Tantras forbid it.]

[Footnote 405: For the history of the Ramayan?a and Mahabharata and the dates a.s.signable to the different periods of growth, see Winternitz, _Gesch. Ind. Lit._ vol. I. p. 403 and p. 439. Also Hopkins' _Great Epic of India_, p. 397. The two poems had a.s.sumed something like their present form in the second and fourth centuries A.D. respectively. These are probably the latest dates for any substantial additions or alterations and there is considerable evidence that poems called Bharata and Ramayan?a were well known early in the Christian era. Thus in Asvaghosha's Sutralankara (story XXIV) they are mentioned as warlike poems inculcating unbuddhist views. The Ramayan?a is mentioned in the Mahavibhasha and was known to Vasubandhu (_J.R.A.S._ 1907, p. 99). A Cambojan inscription dating from the first years of the seventh century records arrangements made for the recitation of the Ramayan?a, Puran?a and complete (asesha) Bharata, which implies that they were known in India considerably earlier. See Barth, _Inscrip. Sanscrites de Cambodge_, pp. 29-31. The Mahabharata itself admits that it is the result of gradual growth for in the opening section it says that the Bharata consists of 8,800 verses, 24,000 verses and 100,000 verses.]

[Footnote 406: Hardy, _Indische Religionsgeschichte_, p. 101.]

[Footnote 407: But some of these latter sacrifice images made of dough instead of living animals.]

[Footnote 408: It is said that the Agnishtoma was performed in Benares in 1898, and in the last few years I am told that one or two Vedic sacrifices have been offered annually in various parts of southern India. I have myself seen the sites where such sacrifices were offered in 1908-9 in Mysore city and in Chidambaram, and in 1912 at Wei near Poona. The most usual form of sacrifice now-a-days is said to be the Vaj.a.peya. Much Vedic ritual is still preserved in the domestic life of the Nambathiri and other Brahmans of southern India. See Cochin, _Tribes and Castes_, and Thurston, _Castes and Tribes of southern India._]

[Footnote 409: The outline of a stupa may be due to imitation of houses constructed with curved bamboos as Vincent Smith contends (_History of Fine Art_, p. 17). But this is compatible with the view that stone buildings with this curved outline had come to be used specially as funeral monuments before Buddhism popularized in India and all Eastern Asia the architectural form called stupa.]

[Footnote 410: The temple of Aihole near Badami seems to be a connecting link between a Buddhist stupa with a pradakshin?a path and a Hindu shrine.]

[Footnote 411: In most temples (at least in southern India) there are two images: the _mula-vigraha_ which is of stone and fixed in the sanctuary, and the _utsava-vigraha_ which is smaller, made of metal and carried in processions.]

[Footnote 412: Thus Bhat?t?acharya (_Hindu Castes and Sects_, p. 127) enumerates eleven cla.s.ses of Brahmans, who "have a very low status on account of their being connected with the great public shrines," and adds that mere residence in a place of pilgrimage for a few generations tends to lower the status of a Brahmanic family.]

[Footnote 413: Thus in Bengal there is a special cla.s.s, the Barna Brahmans, who perform religious rites for the lower castes, and are divided into six cla.s.ses according to the castes to whom they minister. Other Brahmans will not eat or intermarry with them or even take water from them.]

[Footnote 414: This is extraordinarily like the temple ritual of the ancient Egyptians. For some account of the construction and ritual of south Indian temples see Richards in _J. of Mythic Soc_. 1919, pp.

158-107.]

[Footnote 415: But Vedic mantras are used in these ceremonies. The libations of water or other liquids are said to be accompanied by the mantras recited at the Soma sacrifice.]

[Footnote 416: At these sacrifices there is no elaborate ritual or suggestion of symbolism. The animal is beheaded and the inference is that Kali likes it. Similarly simple is the offering of coco-nuts to Kali. The worshipper gives a nut to the pujari who splits it in two with an axe, spills the milk and hands back half the nut to the worshipper. This is the sort of primitive offering that might be made to an African fetish.]

[Footnote 417: See especially the Ambat?t?ha Sutta (Dig. Nik. 3) and Rhys Davids's introduction.]

[Footnote 418: See Weber, _Die Vajrasuchi_ and Nanjio, Catal. No.

1303. In Ceylon at the present day only members of the higher castes can become Bhikkhus.]

[Footnote 419: But it is said that in Southern India serious questions of caste are reported to the abbot of the Sringeri monastery for his decision.]

[Footnote 420: The modern Lingayats demur to the statement that their founder rejected caste.]

[Footnote 421: So too in the cakras of the Saktists all castes are equal during the performance of the ceremony.]

[Footnote 422: Some (Khandelwals, Dasa Srimalis and Palliwals) include both Jains and Vaishnavas: the Agarwals are mostly Vaishnavas but some of them are Jains and some worship Siva and Kali. Jogendra Nath Bhattacharya, _Hindu Castes and Sects_, pp. 205 ff.]

[Footnote 423: The names used are not the same. The four Vedic castes are called _Varn?a_: the hundreds of modern castes are called _Jati._]

[Footnote 424: Sampradaya seems to be the ordinary Sanskrit word for sectarian doctrine. It means traditional teaching transmitted from one teacher to another.]

[Footnote 425: I am discussing elsewhere the possible debt which Christianity and Hinduism may owe to one another.]

[Footnote 426: Pan?ini, IV. 3. 95-98.]

[Footnote 427: Kat?ha Up. I. 1. 2, 23.]

[Footnote 428: R.V. X. 125.]

[Footnote 429: Compare too the hymns of the R.V. to Varun?a as a rudimentary expression of Bhakti from the worshipper's point of view.]

[Footnote 430: _E.g._ Theragatha, 818-841 and 1231-1245.]

[Footnote 431: I. 2.]

[Footnote 432: They are called the Sandilya Sutras and appear to be not older than about the twelfth century A.D., but the tradition which connects them with the School of Sandilya may be just, for the teaching of this sage (Chandog. Up. III. 14) lays stress on will and belief. Ramanuja (Sribhashya, II. 2. 43) refers to Sandilya as the alleged author of the Pancaratra. There are other Bhakti sutras called Naradiya and ascribed to Narada, published and translated in _The Sacred Books of the Hindus_, No. 23. They consist of 84 short aphorisms. Raj. Mitra in his notices of Sanskrit MSS. describes a great number of modern works dealing with Bhakti.]

[Footnote 433: Yet it is found in Francis Thompson's poem called _Any Saint_

So best G.o.d loves to jest With children small, a freak Of heavenly hide and seek Fit For thy wayward wit.]

[Footnote 434: Pope, _The History of Manikka-Vacagar_, p. 23. For the 64 sports of Siva see Siddhanta Dipika, vol. IX.]

[Footnote 435: _E.g._ Ramanuja, Nammar?var, Basava.]

[Footnote 436: Apparently meaning "possessor of cows," and originally a t.i.tle of the youthful Kr?ishn?a. It is also interpreted as meaning Lord of the Vedas or Lord of his own senses.]

[Footnote 437: _E.g._ the beginning of the Chand. Up. about the syllable _Om._ See too the last section of the Aitareya aran. The Yoga Upanishads a.n.a.lyse and explain _Om_ and some Vishnuite Upanishads (Nr?isim?ha and Ramata-paniya) enlarge on the subject of letters and diagrams.]

[Footnote 438: The same idea pervades the old literature in a slightly different form. The parts of the sacrifice are constantly identified with parts of the universe or of the human body.]

[Footnote 439: The cakras are mentioned in Act V of Malati and Madhava written early in the eighth century. The doctrine of the nad?is occurs in the older Upanishads (_e.g._ Chand. and Maitrayan?a) in a rudimentary form.]

CHAPTER XXVII