India: What can it teach us? Part 19

We have thus seen from the hymns and prayers preserved to us in the Rig-Veda, how a large number of so-called Devas, bright and sunny beings, or G.o.ds, were called into existence, how the whole world was peopled with them, and every act of nature, whether on the earth or in the air or in the highest heaven, ascribed to their agency. When we say _it_ thunders, they said Indra thunders; when we say, _it_ rains, they said Par_g_anya pours out his buckets; when we say, _it_ dawns, they said the beautiful Ushas appears like a dancer, displaying her splendor; when we say; _it_ grows dark, they said Surya unharnesses his steeds. The whole of nature was alive to the poets of the Veda, the presence of the G.o.ds was felt everywhere, and in that sentiment of the presence of the G.o.ds there was a germ of religious morality, sufficiently strong, it would seem, to restrain people from committing as it were before the eyes of their G.o.ds what they were ashamed to commit before the eyes of men. When speaking of Varu_n_a, the old G.o.d of the sky, one poet says:[256]

"Varu_n_a, the great lord of these worlds, sees as if he were near. If a man stands or walks or hides, if he goes to lie down or to get up, what two people sitting together whisper to each other, King Varu_n_a knows it, he is there as the third.[257] This earth too belongs to Varu_n_a, the King, and this wide sky with its ends far apart. The two seas (the sky and the ocean) are Varu_n_a's loins; he is also contained in this small drop of water. He who should flee far beyond the sky, even he would not be rid of Varu_n_a, the King.[258] His spies proceed from heaven toward this world; with thousand eyes they overlook this earth. King Varu_n_a sees all this, what is between heaven and earth, and what is beyond. He has counted the twinklings of the eyes of men. As a player throws down the dice, he settles all things (irrevocably). May all thy fatal snares which stand spread out seven by seven and threefold, catch the man who tells a lie, may they pa.s.s by him who speaks the truth."

You see this is as beautiful, and in some respects as true, as anything in the Psalms. And yet we know that there never was such a Deva, or G.o.d, or such a thing as Varu_n_a. We know it is a mere name, meaning originally "covering or all-embracing," which was applied to the visible starry sky, and afterward, by a process perfectly intelligible, developed into the name of a Being, endowed with human and superhuman qualities.

And what applies to Varu_n_a applies to all the other G.o.ds of the Veda and the Vedic religion, whether three in number, or thirty-three, or, as one poet said, "three thousand three hundred and thirty-nine G.o.ds."[259] They are all but names, quite as much as Jupiter and Apollo and Minerva; in fact, quite as much as all the G.o.ds of every religion who are called by such appellative t.i.tles.

Possibly, if any one had said this during the Vedic age in India, or even during the Periklean age in Greece, he would have been called, like Sokrates, a blasphemer or an atheist. And yet nothing can be clearer or truer, and we shall see that some of the poets of the Veda too, and, still more, the later Vedantic philosopher, had a clear insight that it was so.

Only let us be careful in the use of that phrase "it is a mere name."

No name is a mere name. Every name was originally meant for something; only it often failed to express what it was meant to express, and then became a weak or an empty name, or what we then call "a mere name." So it was with these names of the Vedic G.o.ds. They were all meant to express the _Beyond_, the Invisible behind the Visible, the Infinite within the Finite, the Supernatural above the Natural, the Divine, omnipresent, and omnipotent. They failed in expressing what, by its very nature, must always remain inexpressible. But that Inexpressible itself remained, and in spite of all these failures, it never succ.u.mbed, or vanished from the mind of the ancient thinkers and poets, but always called for new and better names, nay calls for them even now, and will call for them to the very end of man's existence upon earth.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 221: Muir, iv. p. 209]

[Footnote 222: Muir, iv. p. 214.]

[Footnote 223: Hibbert Lectures, p. 307.]

[Footnote 224: X. 168, 3, 4.]

[Footnote 225: See Kaegi, Rig-Veda, p. 61.]

[Footnote 226: Rig-Veda II. 13, 12; IV. 19, 6.]

[Footnote 227: Joshua x. 13.]

[Footnote 228: Rig-Veda IV. 30, 3; X. 138, 3.]

[Footnote 229: L. c. VIII. 37, 3.]

[Footnote 230: L. c. VIII. 78, 5.]

[Footnote 231: I am very strongly inclined to regard these names as Kus.h.i.te or Semitic; Hermes, from ???, the sun; Dionysos, from _dyan_, the judge, and _nisi_, mankind; Orpheus, from _Orfa_, the Arabic name of Edessa; Prometheus, from _pro_ and _manthano_, to learn.--A. W.]

[Footnote 232: Muir, iv. p. 23.]

[Footnote 233: Ibid. p. 142. An excellent paper on Par_g_anya was published by Buhler in 1862, "Orient und Occident," vol. i. p. 214.]

[Footnote 234: Rig-Veda VII. 101, 6.]

[Footnote 235: Rig-Veda V. 63, 3-6.]

[Footnote 236: L. c. I. 38, 9.]

[Footnote 237: L. c. I. 164, 51.]

[Footnote 238: L. c. X. 98, 1.]

[Footnote 239: Rig-Veda V. 83. See Buhler, "Orient und Occident," vol.

i. p. 214; Zimmer, "Altindisches Leben," p. 43.]

[Footnote 240: Both Buhler ("Orient und Occident," vol. i, p. 224) and Zimmer (Z. f. D. A. vii. p. 169) say that the lightning is represented as the son of Par_g_anya in Rig-Veda VII. 101, 1. This seems doubtful.]

[Footnote 241: Rig-Veda VII. 102, 1.]

[Footnote 242: L. c. VIII. 6, 1.]

[Footnote 243: See Max Muller, Sanskrit Grammar, -- 174, 10.]

[Footnote 244: Cf. Gobh. G_ri_hya S. III. 3, 15, vidyut--stanayitnu--p_ri_s.h.i.teshu.]

[Footnote 245: U_gg_valadatta, in his commentary on the U_n_adi-sutras, iii. 103. admits the same transition of sh into _g_ in the verb p_ri_sh, as the etymon of par_g_anya.]

[Footnote 246: For different etymologies, see Buhler, "Orient und Occident," i. p. 214; Muir, "Original Sanskrit Texts," v. p. 140; Gra.s.smann, in his Dictionary to the Rig-Veda, s. v.; Zimmer, "Zeitscrift fur Deutsches Alterthum, Neue Folge," vii. p. 164.]

[Footnote 247: In order to identify Perkunas with Par_g_anya, we must go another step backward, and look upon _g_ or g, in the root parg, as a weakening of an original k in park. This, however, is a frequent phonetic process. See Buhler, in Benfey's "Orient und Occident," ii.

p. 717.]

[Footnote 248: Lituanian perkun-kulke, thunder-bolt, perkuno gaisis, storm. See Voelkel, "Die lettischen Sprachreste," 1879, p. 23.]

[Footnote 249: "Perkuno, war der dritte Abgott und man ihn anruffte um's Gewitters willen, damit sie Regen hatten und schon wetter zu seiner Zeit, und ihn der Donner und blix kein schaden thett." Cf.

"Gottesides bei den alten Preussen," Berlin, 1870, p. 23. The triad of the G.o.ds is called Triburti, Tryboze; l. c. p. 29.]

[Footnote 250: Grimm, "Teutonic Mythology," p. 175; and Lasitzki (Lasicius) "Joannes De Russorum, Moscovitarum et Tartarorum religione, sacrificiis, nuptiarum et funerum ritu, Spirae Nemetum," 1582; idem De Diis Samagitarum.]

[Footnote 251: Grimm, l. c. p. 176, quoting from Joh. Gutslaff, "Kurzer Bericht und Unterricht von der falsch heilig genannten Bache in Liefland Wohhanda," Dorpat, 1644, pp. 362-364.]

[Footnote 252: In modern Esthonian Pitkne, the Finnish Pitcainen(?).]

[Footnote 253: On foreign influences in Esthonian stories, see "Ehstniche Marchen," von T. Kreutzwald, 1869, Vorwort (by Schiefner), p. iv.]

[Footnote 254: Grimm suggests in his "Teutonic Mythology" that Par_g_anya should be identified with the Gothic fairguni, or mountain.

He imagines that from being regarded as the abode of the G.o.d it had finally been called by his name. Ferg_unn_a and V_ir_gu_n_ia, two names of mountains in Germany, are relics of the name. The name of the G.o.d, if preserved in the Gothic, would have been Fairguneis; and indeed in the Old Norse language Fiorgynn is the father of Frigg, the wife of Odin, and Fiorgynnior, the Earth-G.o.ddess, is mother of Thor.

Professor Zimmer takes the same view. Grimm thinks that the Greeks and Romans, by changing _f_ into _h_, represented Fergunni by Hercynia, and, in fine, he traces the words _ber_g and _bur_g back to Parganya.--A. W.]

[Footnote 255: Rig-Veda II. 28.]

[Footnote 256: Atharva-Veda IV. 16.]

[Footnote 257: Psalm cx.x.xix. 1, 2, "O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off."]

[Footnote 258: Psalm cx.x.xix. 9, "If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me."]

[Footnote 259: Rig-veda III. 9, 9; X. 52, 6.]