India: What can it teach us? Part 13

B1: La.s.sen, i. p. 1029; Mahabh. III. 117, v. 12,350; vol. i. p. 619.

B2: Mahabh. V. 18, v. 584; vol. ii. p. 106.

B3: See Va_k_aspatya s. v.; Ka_sk_it Kar_n_ikaragaura_h_.

Chinese scholars tell us that the name of China is of modern origin, and only dates from the Thsin dynasty or from the famous Emperor Shi hoang-ti, 247 B.C. But the name itself, though in a more restricted sense, occurs in earlier doc.u.ments, and may, as La.s.sen thinks,(B4) have become known to the Western neighbors of China. It is certainly strange that the _Sinim_ too, mentioned in Isaiah xlix. 12, have been taken by the old commentators for people of China, visiting Babylon as merchants and travellers.

B4: La.s.sen, vol. i. p. 1029, n. 2.]

[Footnote 140: I prefer now the reading of the Ka_n_va-_s_akha, abhidudrava, instead of atidudrava or adhidudrava of the other MSS.

See Weber, Ind. Streifen, i. p. 11.]

[Footnote 141: It is not necessary to establish literary borrowing; for on the theory of Bible inspiration and trustworthiness we must a.s.sume that the Aryans as well as the Semites were saved in the ark.

The story of _a_ flood supports the story of _the_ flood to a certain extent.--AM. PUBS.]

[Footnote 142: VII. 1, 5, 1 seq.; Muir, i. p. 52; Colebrooke, Essays, i. 75.]

[Footnote 143: VII. 5, 1, 5; Muir, "Original Sanskrit Texts," i. p.

54.]

[Footnote 144: Weber, "Indische Streifen," i. p. 11.]

[Footnote 145: See Lecture V. p. 172.]

[Footnote 146: More accurately Ramanu, the Vul or storm-G.o.d of George Smith; and the G.o.d of the Mind and higher intellect at Babylon. His arcane name is said to have been Yav, ??? or ???.--A. W.]

[Footnote 147: See Haupt, "Der Keilinschriftliche Sintfluthbericht, 1881," p. 10.]

[Footnote 148: See M. M., "Genesis and Avesta" (German translation), i. p. 148.]

[Footnote 149: No one is more competent than the learned author to give a verdict on all the evidence which has been gathered; but we are only at the beginning of research into the intercourse of mankind in remote times, and much that was once thought home-grown has already been traced to distant points. It is in the general line of progress in research that more evidence may be expected to connect Vedic thought with other cultures.--AM. PUBS.]

LECTURE V.

THE LESSONS OF THE VEDA.

Although there is hardly any department of learning which has not received new light and new life from the ancient literature of India, yet nowhere is the light that comes to us from India so important, so novel, and so rich as in the study of religion and mythology. It is to this subject therefore that I mean to devote the remaining lectures of this course. I do so, partly because I feel myself most at home in that ancient world of Vedic literature in which the germs of Aryan religion have to be studied, partly because I believe that for a proper understanding of the deepest convictions, or, if you like, the strongest prejudices of the modern Hindus, nothing is so useful as a knowledge of the Veda. It is perfectly true that nothing would give a falser impression of the actual Brahmanical religion than the ancient Vedic literature, supposing we were to imagine that three thousand years could have pa.s.sed over India without producing any change. Such a mistake would be nearly as absurd as to deny any difference between the Vedic Sanskrit and the spoken Bengali. But no one will gain a scholarlike knowledge or a true insight into the secret springs of Bengali who is ignorant of the grammar of Sanskrit; and no one will ever understand the present religious, philosophical, legal, and social opinions of the Hindus who is unable to trace them back to their true sources in the Veda.

I still remember how, many years ago, when I began to publish for the first time the text and the commentary of the Rig-Veda, it was argued by a certain, perhaps not quite disinterested party, that the Veda was perfectly useless; that no man in India, however learned, could read it, and that it was of no use either for missionaries or for any one else who wished to study and to influence the native mind. It was said that we ought to study the later Sanskrit, the Laws of Manu, the epic poems, and, more particularly, the Pura_n_as. The Veda might do very well for German students, but not for Englishmen.

There was no excuse for such ignorant a.s.sertions even thirty years ago, for in these very books, in the Laws of Manu, in the Mahabharata, and in the Pura_n_as, the Veda is everywhere proclaimed as the highest authority in all matters of religion.[150] "A Brahman," says Manu, "unlearned in holy writ, is extinguished in an instant like dry gra.s.s on fire." "A twice-born man (that is, a Brahma_n_a, a Kshatriya, and a Vai_s_ya) not having studied the Veda, soon falls, even when living, to the condition of a _S_udra, and his descendants after him."

How far this license of ignorant a.s.sertion may be carried is shown by the same authorities who denied the importance of the Veda for a historical study of Indian thought, boldly charging those wily priests, the Brahmans, with having withheld their sacred literature from any but their own caste. Now, so far from withholding it, the Brahmans have always been striving, and often striving in vain, to make the study of their sacred literature obligatory on all castes except the _S_udras, and the pa.s.sages just quoted from Manu show what penalties were threatened if children of the second and third castes, the Kshatriyas and Vai_s_yas, were not instructed in the sacred literature of the Brahmans.

At present the Brahmans themselves have spoken, and the reception they have accorded to my edition of the Rig-Veda[151] and its native commentary, the zeal with which they have themselves taken up the study of Vedic literature, and the earnestness with which different sects are still discussing the proper use that should be made of their ancient religious writings, show abundantly that a Sanskrit scholar ignorant of, or, I should rather say, determined to ignore the Veda, would be not much better than a Hebrew scholar ignorant of the Old Testament.

I shall now proceed to give you some characteristic specimens of the religion and poetry of the Rig-Veda. They can only be few, and as there is nothing like system or unity of plan in that collection of 1017 hymns, which we call the Sa_m_hita of the Rig-Veda, I cannot promise that they will give you a complete panoramic view of that intellectual world in which our Vedic ancestors pa.s.sed their life on earth.

I could not even answer the question, if you were to ask it whether the religion of the Veda was _polytheistic_ or _monotheistic_.

Monotheistic, in the usual sense of that word, it is decidedly not, though there are hymns that a.s.sert the unity of the Divine as fearlessly as any pa.s.sage of the Old Testament, or the New Testament, or the Koran. Thus one poet says (Rig-Veda I. 164, 46): "That which is _one_, sages name it in various ways--they call it Agni, Yama, Matari_s_van."

Another poet says: "The wise poets represent by their words Him who is one with beautiful wings, in many ways."[152]

And again we hear of a being called Hira_n_yagarbha, the golden germ (whatever the original of that name may have been), of whom the poet says:[153] "In the beginning there arose Hira_n_yagarbha; he was the one born lord of all this. He established the earth and this sky. Who is the G.o.d to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?" That Hira_n_yagarbha, the poet says, "is alone G.o.d above all G.o.ds" (ya_h_ deveshu adhi deva_h_ eka_h_ asit)--an a.s.sertion of the unity of the Divine which could hardly be exceeded in strength by any pa.s.sage from the Old Testament.

But by the side of such pa.s.sages, which are few in number, there are thousands in which ever so many divine beings are praised and prayed to. Even their number is sometimes given as "thrice eleven"[154] or thirty-three, and one poet a.s.signs eleven G.o.ds to the sky, eleven to the earth, and eleven to the waters,[155] the waters here intended being those of the atmosphere and the clouds. These thirty-three G.o.ds have even wives apportioned to them,[156] though few of these only have as yet attained to the honor of a name.[157]

These thirty-three G.o.ds, however, by no means include all the Vedic G.o.ds, for such important deities as Agni, the fire, Soma, the rain, the Maruts or Storm-G.o.ds, the A_s_vins, the G.o.ds of Morning and Evening, the Waters, the Dawn, the Sun are mentioned separately; and there are not wanting pa.s.sages in which the poet is carried away into exaggerations, till he proclaims the number of his G.o.ds to be, not only thirty-three, but three thousand three hundred and thirty-nine.[158]

If therefore there must be a name for the religion of the Rig-Veda, polytheism would seem at first sight the most appropriate. Polytheism, however, has a.s.sumed with us a meaning which renders it totally inapplicable to the Vedic religion.

Our ideas of polytheism being chiefly derived from Greece and Rome, we understand by it a certain more or less organized system of G.o.ds, different in power and rank, and all subordinate to a supreme G.o.d, a Zeus or Jupiter. The Vedic polytheism differs from the Greek and Roman polytheism, and, I may add, likewise from the polytheism of the Ural-Altaic, the Polynesian, the American, and most of the African races, in the same manner as a confederacy of village communities differs from a monarchy. There are traces of an earlier stage of village-community life to be discovered in the later republican and monarchical const.i.tutions, and in the same manner nothing can be clearer, particularly in Greece, than that the monarchy of Zeus was preceded by what may be called the septarchy of several of the great G.o.ds of Greece. The same remark applies to the mythology of the Teutonic nations also.[159] In the Veda, however, the G.o.ds worshipped as supreme by each sept stand still side by side. No one is first always, no one is last always. Even G.o.ds of a decidedly inferior and limited character a.s.sume occasionally in the eyes of a devoted poet a supreme place above all other G.o.ds.[160] It was necessary, therefore, for the purpose of accurate reasoning, to have a name, different from _polytheism_, to signify this worship of single G.o.ds, each occupying for a time a supreme position, and I proposed for it the name of _Kathenotheism_, that is, a worship of one G.o.d after another, or of _Henotheism_, the worship of single G.o.ds. This shorter name of _Henotheism_ has found more general acceptance, as conveying more definitely the opposition between _Monotheism_, the worship of one only G.o.d, and _Henotheism_, the worship of single G.o.ds; and, if but properly defined, it will answer its purpose very well. However, in researches of this kind we cannot be too much on our guard against technical terms. They are inevitable, I know; but they are almost always misleading. There is, for instance, a hymn addressed to the _Indus_ and the rivers that fall into it, of which I hope to read you a translation, because it determines very accurately the geographical scene on which the poets of the Veda pa.s.sed their life. Now native scholars call these rivers d e v a t a s or deities, and European translators too speak of them as G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses. But in the language used by the poet with regard to the Indus and the other rivers, there is nothing to justify us in saying that he considered these rivers as _G.o.ds_ and _G.o.ddesses_, unless we mean by _G.o.ds_ and _G.o.ddesses_ something very different from what the Greeks called River-G.o.ds and River-G.o.ddesses, Nymphs, Najades, or even Muses.

And what applies to these rivers applies more or less to all the objects of Vedic worship. They all are still oscillating between what is seen by the senses, what is created by fancy, and what is postulated by the understanding; they are things, persons, causes, according to the varying disposition of the poets; and if we call them G.o.ds or G.o.ddesses, we must remember the remark of an ancient native theologian, who reminds us that by d e v a t a or deity he means no more than the object celebrated in a hymn, while _R i_ s h i or seer means no more than the subject or the author of a hymn.

It is difficult to treat of the so-called G.o.ds celebrated in the Veda according to any system, for the simple reason that the concepts of these G.o.ds and the hymns addressed to them sprang up spontaneously and without any pre-established plan. It is best perhaps for our purpose to follow an ancient Brahmanical writer, who is supposed to have lived about 400 B.C. He tells us of students of the Veda, before his time, who admitted three deities only, viz., A g n i or fire, whose place is on the earth; V a y u or I n d r a, the wind and the G.o.d of the thunderstorm, whose place is in the air; and S u r y a, the sun, whose place is in the sky. These deities, they maintained, received severally many appellations, in consequence of their greatness, or of the diversity of their functions, just as a priest, according to the functions which he performs at various sacrifices, receives various names.

This is _one_ view of the Vedic G.o.ds, and, though too narrow, it cannot be denied that there is some truth in it. A very useful division of the Vedic G.o.ds might be made, and has been made by Yaska, into _terrestrial_, _aerial_, and _celestial_, and if the old Hindu theologians meant no more than that all the manifestations of divine power in nature might be traced back to three centres of force, one in the sky, one in the air, and one on the earth, he deserves great credit for his sagacity.

But he himself perceived evidently that this generalization was not quite applicable to all the G.o.ds, and he goes on to say: "Or, it may be, these G.o.ds are all distinct beings, for the praises addressed to them are distinct, and their appellations also." This is quite right.

It is the very object of most of these divine names to impart distinct individuality to the manifestations of the powers of nature; and though the philosopher or the inspired poet might perceive that these numerous names were but names, while that which was named was _one_ and _one_ only, this was certainly not the idea of most of the Vedic _Ri_shis themselves, still less of the people who listened to their songs at fairs and festivals. It is the peculiar character of that phase of religious thought which we have to study in the Veda, that in it the Divine is conceived and represented as manifold, and that many functions are shared in common by various G.o.ds, no attempt having yet been made at organizing the whole body of the G.o.ds, sharply separating one from the other, and subordinating all of them to several or, in the end, to one supreme head.

Availing ourselves of the division of the Vedic G.o.ds into terrestrial, aerial, and celestial, as proposed by some of the earliest Indian theologians, we should have to begin with the G.o.ds connected with the earth.

Before we examine them, however, we have first to consider one of the earliest objects of worship and adoration, namely _Earth and Heaven_, or _Heaven and Earth_, conceived as a divine couple. Not only in India, but among many other nations, both savage, half-savage, or civilized, we meet with Heaven and Earth as one of the earliest objects, pondered on, transfigured, and animated by the early poets, and more or less clearly conceived by early philosophers. It is surprising that it should be so, for the conception of the Earth as an independent being, and of Heaven as an independent being, and then of both together as a divine couple embracing the whole universe, requires a considerable effort of abstraction, far more than the concepts of other divine powers, such as the Fire, the Rain, the Lightning, or the Sun.

Still so it is, and as it may help us to understand the ideas about Heaven and Earth, as we find them in the Veda, and show us at the same time the strong contrast between the mythology of the Aryans and that of real savages (a contrast of great importance, though I admit very difficult to explain), I shall read you first some extracts from a book, published by a friend of mine, the Rev. William Wyatt Gill, for many years an active and most successful missionary in Mangaia, one of those Polynesian islands that form a girdle round one quarter of our globe,[161] and all share in the same language, the same religion, the same mythology, and the same customs. The book is called "Myths and Songs from the South Pacific,"[162] and it is full of interest to the student of mythology and religion.

The story, as told him by the natives of Mangaia, runs as follows:[163]

"The sky is built of solid blue stone. At one time it almost touched the earth; resting upon the stout broad leaves of the t e v e (which attains the height of about six feet) and the delicate indigenous arrow-root (whose slender stem rarely exceeds three feet).... In this narrow s.p.a.ce between earth and sky the inhabitants of this world were pent up. Ru, whose usual residence was in Avaiki, or the shades, had come up for a time to this world of ours. Pitying the wretched confined residence of the inhabitants, he employed himself in endeavoring to raise the sky a little. For this purpose he cut a number of strong stakes of different kinds of trees, and firmly planted them in the ground at Rangimotia, the centre of the island, and with him the centre of the world.

This was a considerable improvement, as mortals were thereby enabled to stand erect and to walk about without inconvenience. Hence Ru was named 'The sky-supporter.'

Wherefore Teka sings (1794):

'Force up the sky, O Ru, And let the s.p.a.ce be clear!'

"One day when the old man was surveying his work, his graceless son Maui contemptuously asked him what he was doing there. Ru replied: 'Who told youngsters to talk? Take care of yourself, or I will hurl you out of existence.'

"'Do it, then,' shouted Maui.

"Ru was as good as his word, and forthwith seized Maui, who was small of stature, and threw him to a great height. In falling Maui a.s.sumed the form of a bird, and lightly touched the ground, perfectly unharmed. Maui, now thirsting for revenge, in a moment resumed his natural form, but exaggerated to gigantic proportions, and ran to his father, saying:

'Ru, who supportest the many heavens, The third, even to the highest, ascend!'