India: What can it teach us? Part 20

LECTURE VII.

VEDA AND VEDANTA.

I do not wonder that I should have been asked by some of my hearers to devote part of my last lecture to answering the question, how the Vedic literature could have been composed and preserved, if writing was unknown in India before 500 B.C., while the hymns of the Rig-Veda are said to date from 1500 B.C. Cla.s.sical scholars naturally ask what is the date of our oldest MSS. of the Rig-Veda, and what is the evidence on which so high an antiquity is a.s.signed to its contents. I shall try to answer this question as well as I can, and I shall begin with a humble confession that the oldest MSS. of the Rig-Veda, known to us at present, date not from 1500 B.C., but from about 1500 A.D.

We have therefore a gap of three thousand years, which it will require a strong arch of argument to bridge over.

But that is not all.

You may know how, in the beginning of this century, when the age of the Homeric poems was discussed, a German scholar, Frederick August Wolf, asked two momentous questions:

1. At what time did the Greeks first become acquainted with the alphabet and use it for inscriptions on public monuments, coins, shields, and for contracts, both public and private?[260]

2. At what time did the Greeks first think of using writing for literary purposes, and what materials did they employ for that purpose?

These two questions and the answers they elicited threw quite a new light on the nebulous periods of Greek literature. A fact more firmly established than any other in the ancient history of Greece is that the Ionians learned the alphabet from the Phenicians. The Ionians always called their letters Phenician letters,[261] and the very name of Alphabet was a Phenician word. We can well understand that the Phenicians should have taught the Ionians in Asia Minor a knowledge of the alphabet, partly for commercial purposes, _i.e._ for making contracts, partly for enabling them to use those useful little sheets, called _Periplus_, or _Circ.u.mnavigations_, which at that time were as precious to sailors as maps were to the adventurous seamen of the middle ages. But from that to a written literature, in our sense of the word, there is still a wide step. It is well known that the Germans, particularly in the North, had their Runes for inscriptions on tombs, goblets, public monuments, but not for literary purposes.[262] Even if a few Ionians at Miletus and other centres of political and commercial life acquired the art of writing, where could they find writing materials? and still more important, where could they find readers? The Ionians, when they began to write, had to be satisfied with a hide or pieces of leather, which they called _diphthera_, and until that was brought to the perfection of vellum or parchment, the occupation of an author cannot have been very agreeable.[263]

So far as we know at present the Ionians began to write about the middle of the sixth century B.C.; and, whatever may have been said to the contrary, Wolf's _dictum_ still holds good that with them the beginning of a written literature was the same as the beginning of prose writing.

Writing at that time was an effort, and such an effort was made for some great purpose only. Hence the first written skins were what we should call Murray's Handbooks, called _Periegesis_ or _Periodos_, or, if treating of sea-voyages, _Periplus_, that is, guide-books, books to lead travellers round a country or round a town. Connected with these itineraries were the accounts of the foundations of cities, the _Ktisis_. Such books existed in Asia Minor during the sixth and fifth centuries, and their writers were called by a general term, _Logographi_, or ?????? or ????p????,[264] as opposed to ???d??, the poets. They were the forerunners of the Greek historians, and Herodotus (443 B.C.), the so-called father of history, made frequent use of their works.

The whole of this incipient literary activity belonged to Asia Minor.

From "Guides through towns and countries," literature seems to have spread at an early time to Guides through life, or philosophical dicta, such as are ascribed to Anaximander the Ionian (610-547 B.C.[265]), and Pherekydes the Syrian (540 B.C.). These names carry us into the broad daylight of history, for Anaximander was the teacher of Anaximenes, Anaximenes of Anaxagoras, and Anaxagoras of Perikles. At that time writing was a recognized art, and its cultivation had been rendered possible chiefly through trade with Egypt and the importation of _papyros_. In the time of aeschylos (500 B.C.) the idea of writing had become so familiar that he could use it again and again in poetical metaphors,[266] and there seems little reason why we should doubt that both Peisistratos (528 B.C.) and Polykrates of Samos (523 B.C.) were among the first collectors of Greek ma.n.u.scripts.

In this manner the simple questions asked by Wolf helped to reduce the history of ancient Greek literature to some kind of order, particularly with reference to its first beginnings.

It would therefore seem but reasonable that the two first questions to be asked by the students of Sanskrit literature should have been:

1. At what time did the people of India become acquainted with an alphabet?

2. At what time did they first use such alphabet for literary purposes?

Curiously enough, however, these questions remained in abeyance for a long time, and, as a consequence, it was impossible to introduce even the first elements of order into the chaos of ancient Sanskrit literature.[267]

I can here state a few facts only. There are no inscriptions to be found anywhere in India before the middle of the third century B.C.

These inscriptions are Buddhist, put up during the reign of A_s_oka, the grandson of _K_andragupta, who was the contemporary of Seleucus, and at whose court in Patalibothra Megasthenes lived as amba.s.sador of Seleucus. Here, as you see, we are on historical ground. In fact, there is little doubt that A_s_oka, the king who put up these inscriptions in several parts of his vast kingdom, reigned from 259-222 B.C.

These inscriptions are written in two alphabets--one written from right to left, and clearly derived from an Aramaaean, that is, a Semitic alphabet; the other written from left to right, and clearly an adaptation, and an artificial or systematic adaptation, of a Semitic alphabet to the requirements of an Indian language. That second alphabet became the source of all Indian alphabets, and of many alphabets carried chiefly by Buddhist teachers far beyond the limits of India, though it is possible that the earliest Tamil alphabet may have been directly derived from the same Semitic source which supplied both the _dextrorsum_ and the _sinistrorsum_ alphabets of India.

Here then we have the first fact--viz. that writing, even for monumental purposes, was unknown in India before the third century B.C.

But writing for commercial purposes was known in India before that time. Megasthenes was no doubt quite right when he said that the Indians did not know letters,[268] that their laws were not written, and that they administered justice from memory. But Nearchus, the admiral of Alexander the Great, who sailed down the Indus (325 B.C.), and was therefore brought in contact with the merchants frequenting the maritime stations of India, was probably equally right in declaring that "the Indians wrote letters on cotton that had been well beaten together." These were no doubt commercial doc.u.ments, contracts, it may be, with Phenician or Egyptian captains, and they would prove nothing as to the existence in India at that time of what we mean by a written literature. In fact, Nearchus himself affirms what Megasthenes said after him, namely that "the laws of the sophists in India were not written." If, at the same time, the Greek travellers in India speak of mile-stones, and of cattle marked by the Indians with various signs and also with numbers, all this would perfectly agree with what we know from other sources, that though the art of writing may have reached India before the time of Alexander's conquest, its employment for literary purposes cannot date from a much earlier time.

Here then we are brought face to face with a most startling fact.

Writing was unknown in India before the fourth century before Christ, and yet we are asked to believe that the Vedic literature in its three well-defined periods, the Mantra, Brahma_n_a, and Sutra periods, goes back to at least a thousand years before our era.

Now the Rig-Veda alone, which contains a collection of ten books of hymns addressed to various deities, consists of 1017 (1028) poems, 10,580 verses, and about 153,826 words.[269] How were these poems composed--for they are composed in very perfect metre--and how, after having been composed, were they handed down from 1500 before Christ to 1500 after Christ, the time to which most of our best Sanskrit MSS.

belong?

_Entirely by memory._[270] This may sound startling, but--what will sound still more startling, and yet is a fact that can easily be ascertained by anybody who doubts it--at the present moment, if every MS. of the Rig-Veda were lost, we should be able to recover the whole of it--from the memory of the _S_rotriyas in India. These native students learn the Veda by heart, and they learn it from the mouth of their Guru, never from a MS., still less from my printed edition--and after a time they teach it again to their pupils.

I have had such students in my room at Oxford, who not only could repeat these hymns, but who repeated them with the proper accents (for the Vedic Sanskrit has accents like Greek), nay, who, when looking through my printed edition of the Rig-Veda, could point out a misprint without the slightest hesitation.

I can tell you more. There are hardly any various readings in our MSS.

of the Rig-Veda, but various schools in India have their own readings of certain pa.s.sages, and they hand down those readings with great care. So, instead of collating MSS., as we do in Greek and Latin, I have asked some friends of mine to collate those Vedic students, who carry their own Rig-Veda in their memory, and to let me have the various readings from these living authorities.

Here then we are not dealing with theories, but with facts, which anybody may verify. The whole of the Rig-Veda, and a great deal more, still exists at the present moment in the oral tradition of a number of scholars who, if they liked, could write down every letter, and every accent, exactly as we find them in our old MSS. Of course, this learning by heart is carried on under a strict discipline; it is, in fact, considered as a sacred duty. A native friend of mine, himself a very distinguished Vedic scholar, tells me that a boy, who is to be brought up as a student of the Rig-Veda, has to spend about eight years in the house of his teacher. He has to learn ten books: first, the hymns of the Rig-Veda; then a prose treatise on sacrifices, called the Brahma_n_a; then the so-called Forest-book or ara_n_yaka; then the rules on domestic ceremonies; and lastly, six treatises on p.r.o.nunciation, grammar, etymology, metre, astronomy, and ceremonial.

These ten books, it has been calculated, contain nearly 30,000 lines, each line reckoned as thirty-two syllables.

A pupil studies every day during the eight years of his theological apprenticeship, except on the holidays, which are called "non-reading days." There being 360 days in a lunar year, the eight years would give him 2880 days. Deduct from this 384 holidays, and you get 2496 working days during the eight years. If you divide the number of lines, 30,000, by the number of working days, you get about twelve lines to be learned each day, though much time is taken up, in addition, for practising and rehearsing what has been learned before.

Now this is the state of things at present, though I doubt whether it will last much longer, and I always impress on my friends in India, and therefore impress on those also who will soon be settled as civil servants in India, the duty of trying to learn all that can still be learned from those living libraries. Much ancient Sanskrit lore will be lost forever when that race of _S_rotriyas becomes extinct.

But now let us look back. About a thousand years ago a Chinese of the name of I-tsing, a Buddhist, went to India to learn Sanskrit, in order to be able to translate some of the sacred books of his own religion, which were originally written in Sanskrit, into Chinese. He left China in 671, arrived at Tamralipti in India in 673, and went to the great College and Monastery of Nalanda, where he studied Sanskrit. He returned to China in 695, and died in 703.[271]

In one of his works which we still possess in Chinese, he gives an account of what he saw in India, not only among his own co-religionists, the Buddhists, but likewise among the Brahmans.[272]

Of the Buddhist priests he says that after they have learned to recite the five and the ten precepts, they are taught the 400 hymns of Mat_rik_eta, and afterward the 150 hymns of the same poet. When they are able to recite these, they begin the study of the Sutras of their Sacred Canon. They also learn by heart the _G_atakamala,[273] which gives an account of Buddha in former states of existence. Speaking of what he calls the islands of the Southern Sea, which he visited after leaving India, I-tsing says: "There are more than ten islands in the South Sea. There both priests and laymen recite the _G_atakamala, as they recite the hymns mentioned before; but it has not yet been translated into Chinese."

One of these stories, he proceeds to say, was versified by a king (_K_ie-zhih) and set to music, and was performed before the public with a band and dancing--evidently a Buddhist mystery play.

I-tsing then gives a short account of the system of education.

Children, he says, learn the forty-nine letters and the 10,000 compound letters when they are six years old, and generally finish them in half a year. This corresponds to about 300 verses, each _s_loka of thirty-two syllables. It was originally taught by Mahe_s_vara. At eight years, children begin to learn the grammar of Pa_n_ini, and know it after about eight months. It consists of 1000 _s_lokas, called Sutras.

Then follows the list of roots (dhatu) and the three appendices (khila), consisting again of 1000 _s_lokas. Boys begin the three appendices when they are ten years old, and finish them in three years.

When they have reached the age of fifteen, they begin to study a commentary on the grammar (Sutra), and spend five years on learning it. And here I-tsing gives the following advice to his countrymen, many of whom came to India to learn Sanskrit, but seem to have learned it very imperfectly. "If men of China," he writes, "go to India, wishing to study there, they should first of all learn these grammatical works, and then only other subjects; if not, they will merely waste their labor. These works should be learned by heart. But this is suited for men of high quality only.... They should study hard day and night, without letting a moment pa.s.s for idle repose. They should be like Confucius, through whose hard study the binding of his Yih-king was three times cut asunder, being worn away; and like Sui-shih, who used to read a book repeatedly one hundred times." Then follows a remark, more intelligible in Chinese than in English: "The hairs of a bull are counted by thousands, the horn of a unicorn is only one."

I-tsing then speaks of the high degree of perfection to which the memory of these students attained, both among Buddhists and heretics.

"Such men," he says, "could commit to memory the contents of two volumes, learning them only once."

And then turning to the _heretics_, or what we should call the orthodox Brahmans, he says: "The Brahma_n_as are regarded throughout the five divisions of India as the most respectable. They do not walk with the other three castes, and other mixed cla.s.ses of people are still further dissociated from them. They revere their Scriptures, the four Vedas, containing about 100,000 verses.... The Vedas are handed down from mouth to mouth, not written on paper. There are in every generation some intelligent Brahmans who can recite those 100,000 verses.... I myself saw such men."

Here then we have an eye-witness who, in the seventh century after Christ, visited India, learned Sanskrit, and spent about twenty years in different monasteries--a man who had no theories of his own about oral tradition, but who, on the contrary, as coming from China, was quite familiar with the idea of a written, nay, of a printed literature: and yet what does he say? "The Vedas are not written on paper, but handed down from mouth to mouth."

Now, I do not quite agree here with I-tsing. At all events, we must not conclude from what he says that there existed no Sanskrit MSS. at all at his time. We know they existed. We know that in the first century of our era Sanskrit MSS. were carried from India to China, and translated there. Most likely therefore there were MSS. of the Veda also in existence. But I-tsing, for all that, was right in supposing that these MSS. were not allowed to be used by students, and that they had always to learn the Veda by heart and from the mouth of a properly qualified teacher. The very fact that in the later law-books severe punishments are threatened against persons who copy the Veda or learn it from a MSS., shows that MSS. existed, and that their existence interfered seriously with the ancient privileges of the Brahmans, as the only legitimate teachers of their sacred scriptures.

If now, after having heard this account of I-tsing, we go back for about another thousand years, we shall feel less skeptical in accepting the evidence which we find in the so-called Prati_s_akhyas, that is, collections of rules which, so far as we know at present, go back to the fifth century before our era, and which tell us almost exactly the same as what we can see in India at the present moment, namely that the education of children of the three twice-born castes, the Brahma_n_as, Kshatriyas, and Vai_s_yas, consisted in their pa.s.sing at least eight years in the house of a Guru, and learning by heart the ancient Vedic hymns.

The art of teaching had even at that early time been reduced to a perfect system, and at that time certainly there is not the slightest trace of anything, such as a book, or skin, or parchment, a sheet of paper, pen or ink, being known even by name to the people of India; while every expression connected with what we should call literature, points to a literature (we cannot help using that word) existing in memory only, and being handed down with the most scrupulous care by means of oral tradition.

I had to enter into these details because I know that, with our ideas of literature, it requires an effort to imagine the bare possibility of a large amount of poetry, and still more of prose, existing in any but a written form. And yet here too we only see what we see elsewhere, namely that man, before the great discoveries of civilization were made, was able by greater individual efforts to achieve what to us, accustomed to easier contrivances, seems almost impossible. So-called savages were able to chip flints, to get fire by rubbing sticks of wood, which baffles our handiest workmen. Are we to suppose that, if they wished to preserve some songs which, as they believed, had once secured them the favor of their G.o.ds, had brought rain from heaven, or led them on to victory, they would have found no means of doing so? We have only to read such accounts as, for instance, Mr. William Wyatt Gill has given us in his "Historical Sketches of Savage Life in Polynesia,"[274] to see how anxious even savages are to preserve the records of their ancient heroes, kings, and G.o.ds, particularly when the dignity or n.o.bility of certain families depends on these songs, or when they contain what might be called the t.i.tle-deeds to large estates. And that the Vedic Indians were not the only savages of antiquity who discovered the means of preserving a large literature by means of oral tradition, we may learn from Caesar,[275] not a very credulous witness, who tells us that the "Druids were said to know a large number of verses by heart; that some of them spent twenty years in learning them, and that they considered it wrong to commit them to writing"--exactly the same story which we hear in India.

We must return once more to the question of dates. We have traced the existence of the Veda, as handed down by oral tradition, from our days to the days of I-tsing in the seventh century after Christ, and again to the period of the Prati_s_akhyas, in the fifth century before Christ.

In that fifth century B.C. took place the rise of Buddhism, a religion built up on the ruins of the Vedic religion, and founded, so to say, on the denial of the divine authority ascribed to the Veda by all orthodox Brahmans.