India: What can it teach us? Part 21

Whatever exists, therefore, of Vedic literature must be accommodated within the centuries preceding the rise of Buddhism, and if I tell you that there are three periods of Vedic literature to be accommodated, the third presupposing the second, and the second the first, and that even that first period presents us with a collection, and a systematic collection of Vedic hymns, I think you will agree with me that it is from no desire for an extreme antiquity, but simply from a respect for facts, that students of the Veda have come to the conclusion that these hymns, of which the MSS. do not carry us back beyond the fifteenth century after Christ, took their origin in the fifteenth century before Christ.

One fact I must mention once more, because I think it may carry conviction even against the stoutest skepticism.

I mentioned that the earliest inscriptions discovered in India belong to the reign of King A_s_oka, the grandson of _K_andragupta, who reigned from 259-222 before Christ. What is the language of those inscriptions? Is it the Sanskrit of the Vedic hymns? Certainly not. Is it the later Sanskrit of the Brahma_n_as and Sutras? Certainly not.

These inscriptions are written in the local dialects as then spoken in India, and these local dialects differ from the grammatical Sanskrit about as much as Italian does from Latin.

What follows from this? First, that the archaic Sanskrit of the Veda had ceased to be spoken before the third century B.C. Secondly, that even the later grammatical Sanskrit was no longer spoken and understood by the people at large; that Sanskrit therefore had ceased, nay, we may say, had long ceased to be the spoken language of the country when Buddhism arose, and that therefore the youth and manhood of the ancient Vedic language lie far beyond the period that gave birth to the teaching of Buddha, who, though he may have known Sanskrit, and even Vedic Sanskrit, insisted again and again on the duty that his disciples should preach his doctrines in the language of the people whom they wished to benefit.

And now, when the time allotted to me is nearly at an end, I find, as it always happens, that I have not been able to say one half of what I hoped to say as to the lessons to be learned by us in India, even with regard to this one branch of human knowledge only, the study of the origin of religion. I hope, however, I may have succeeded in showing you the entirely new aspect which the old problem of the _theogony_, or the origin and growth of the Devas or G.o.ds, a.s.sumes from the light thrown upon it by the Veda. Instead of positive theories, we now have positive facts, such as you look for in vain anywhere else; and though there is still a considerable interval between the Devas of the Veda, even in their highest form, and such concepts as Zeus, Apollon, and Athene, yet the chief riddle is solved, and we know now at last what stuff the G.o.ds of the ancient world were made of.

But this theogonic process is but one side of the ancient Vedic religion, and there are two other sides of at least the same importance and of even a deeper interest to us.

There are in fact three religions in the Veda, or, if I may say so, three naves in one great temple, reared, as it were, before our eyes by poets, prophets, and philosophers. Here too we can watch the work and the workmen. We have not to deal with hard formulas only, with unintelligible ceremonies, or petrified fetiches. We can see how the human mind arrives by a perfectly rational process at all its later irrationalities. This is what distinguishes the Veda from all other Sacred Books. Much, no doubt, in the Veda also, and in the Vedic ceremonial, is already old and unintelligible, hard, and petrified.

But in many cases the development of names and concepts, their transition from the natural to the supernatural, from the individual to the general, is still going on, and it is for that very reason that we find it so difficult, nay almost impossible, to translate the growing thoughts of the Veda into the full-grown and more than full-grown language of our time.

Let us take one of the oldest words for G.o.d in the Veda, such as d e v a, the Latin _deus_. The dictionaries tell you that d e v a means G.o.d and G.o.ds, and so, no doubt, it does. But if we always translated d e v a in the Vedic hymns by G.o.d, we should not be translating, but completely transforming the thoughts of the Vedic poets. I do not mean only that _our_ idea of G.o.d is totally different from the idea that was intended to be expressed by d e v a; but even the Greek and Roman concept of G.o.ds would be totally inadequate to convey the thoughts imbedded in the Vedic d e v a. D e v a meant originally bright, and nothing else. Meaning bright, it was constantly used of the sky, the stars, the sun, the dawn, the day, the spring, the rivers, the earth; and when a poet wished to speak of all of these by one and the same word--by what we should call a general term--he called them D e v a s. When that had been done, D e v a did no longer mean "the Bright ones," but the name comprehended all the qualities which the sky and the sun and the dawn shared in common, excluding only those that were peculiar to each.

Here you see how, by the simplest process, the D e v a s, the bright ones, might become and did become the D e v a s, the heavenly, the kind, the powerful, the invisible, the immortal--and, in the end, something very like the ?e?? (or _dii_) of Greeks and Romans.

In this way one Beyond, the Beyond of Nature, was built up in the ancient religion of the Veda, and peopled with Devas, and Asuras, and Vasus, and adityas, all names for the bright solar, celestial, diurnal, and vernal powers of nature, without altogether excluding, however, even the dark and unfriendly powers, those of the night, of the dark clouds, or of winter, capable of mischief, but always destined in the end to succ.u.mb to the valor and strength of their bright antagonists.

We now come to the second nave of the Vedic temple, the second _Beyond_ that was dimly perceived, and grasped and named by the ancient Rishis, namely the world of the Departed Spirits.[276]

There was in India, as elsewhere, another very early faith, springing up naturally in the hearts of the people, that their fathers and mothers, when they departed this life, departed to a Beyond, wherever it might be, either in the East from whence all the bright Devas seemed to come, or more commonly in the West, the land to which they seemed to go, called in the Veda the realm of Yama or the setting sun.

The idea that beings which once had been, could ever cease to be, had not yet entered their minds; and from the belief that their fathers existed somewhere, though they could see them no more, there arose the belief in another Beyond, and the germs of another religion.

Nor was the actual power of the fathers quite imperceptible or extinct even after their death. Their presence continued to be felt in the ancient laws and customs of the family, most of which rested on their will and their authority. While their fathers were alive and strong, their will was law; and when, after their death, doubts or disputes arose on points of law or custom, it was but natural that the memory and the authority of the fathers should be appealed to to settle such points--that the law should still be their will.

Thus Manu says (IV. 178): "On the path on which his fathers and grandfathers have walked, on that path of good men let him walk, and he will not go wrong."

In the same manner then in which, out of the bright powers of nature, the Devas or G.o.ds had arisen, there arose out of predicates shared in common by the departed, such as p i t _r i_ s, fathers, p r e t a, gone away, another general concept, what we should call _Manes_, the kind ones, _Ancestors_, _Shades_, _Spirits_, or _Ghosts_, whose worship was nowhere more fully developed than in India. That common name, P i t _r i_ s or _Fathers_, gradually attracted toward itself all that the fathers shared in common. It came to mean not only fathers, but invisible, kind, powerful, immortal, heavenly beings, and we can watch in the Veda, better perhaps than anywhere else, the inevitable, yet most touching metamorphosis of ancient thought--the love of the child for father and mother becoming transfigured into an instinctive belief in the immortality of the soul.

It is strange, and really more than strange, that not only should this important and prominent side of the ancient religion of the Hindus have been ignored, but that of late its very existence should have been doubted. I feel obliged, therefore, to add a few words in support of what I have said just now of the supreme importance of this belief in and this worship of ancestral spirits in India from the most ancient to the most modern times. Mr. Herbert Spencer, who has done so much in calling attention to ancestorship as a natural ingredient of religion among all savage nations, declares in the most emphatic manner,[277] "that he has seen it implied, that he has heard it in conversation, and that he now has it before him in print, that no Indo-European or Semitic nation, so far as we know, seems to have made a religion of the worship of the dead." I do not doubt his words, but I think that on so important a point, Mr. Herbert Spencer ought to have named his authorities. It seems to me almost impossible that anybody who has ever opened a book on India should have made such a statement. There are hymns in the Rig-Veda addressed to the Fathers.

There are full descriptions of the worship due to the Fathers in the Brahma_n_as and Sutras. The epic poems, the law books, the Pura_n_as, all are brimful of allusions to ancestral offerings. The whole social fabric of India, with its laws of inheritance and marriage,[278] rests on a belief in the Manes--and yet we are told that no Indo-European nation seems to have made a religion of the worship of the dead.

The Persians had their Fravashis, the Greeks their e?d??a, or rather their ?e?? pat???? and their da???e?,

?s????, ?p????????, f??a?e? ???t?? ?????p??; ?? ?a f???ss??s?? te d??a? ?a? s??t??a ???a, ???a ?ss?e??? p??t? f??t??te? ep' a?a?, p???t?d?ta? (Hesiodi Opera et Dies, vv. 122-126);[279]

while among the Romans the _Lares familiares_ and the _Divi Manes_ were worshipped more zealously than any other G.o.ds.[280] Manu goes so far as to tell us in one place (III. 203): "An oblation by Brahmans to their ancestor transcends an oblation to the deities;" and yet we are told that no Indo-European nation seems to have made a religion of the worship of the dead.

Such things ought really not to be, if there is to be any progress in historical research, and I cannot help thinking that what Mr. Herbert Spencer meant was probably no more than that some scholars did not admit that the worship of the dead formed the whole of the religion of any of the Indo-European nations. That, no doubt, is perfectly true, but it would be equally true, I believe, of almost any other religion.

And on this point again the students of anthropology will learn more, I believe, from the Veda than from any other book.

In the Veda the Pit_ri_s, or fathers, are invoked together with the Devas, or G.o.ds, but they are not confounded with them. The Devas never become Pit_ri_s, and though such adjectives as d e v a are sometimes applied to the Pit_ri_s, and they are raised to the rank of the older cla.s.ses of Devas (Manu III. 192, 284, Ya_gn_avalkya I. 268), it is easy to see that the Pit_ri_s and Devas had each their independent origin, and that they represent two totally distinct phases of the human mind in the creation of its objects of worship. This is a lesson which ought never to be forgotten.

We read in the Rig-Veda, VI. 52, 4: "May the rising Dawns protect me, may the flowing Rivers protect me, may the firm Mountains protect me, may the Fathers protect me at this invocation of the G.o.ds." Here nothing can be clearer than the separate existence of the Fathers, apart from the Dawns, the Rivers, and the Mountains, though they are included in one common Devahuti, however, or invocation of the G.o.ds.

We must distinguish, however, from the very first, between two cla.s.ses, or rather between two concepts of Fathers, the one comprising the distant, half-forgotten, and almost mythical ancestors of certain families or of what would have been to the poets of the Veda, the whole human race, the other consisting of the fathers who had but lately departed, and who were still, as it were, personally remembered and revered.

The old ancestors in general approach more nearly to the G.o.ds. They are often represented as having gone to the abode of Yama, the ruler of the departed, and to live there in company with some of the Devas (Rig-Veda VII. 76, 4, devana_m_ sadhamada_h_; Rig-Veda X. 16, 1, devana_m_ va_s_ani_h_).

We sometimes read of the great-grandfathers being in heaven, the grandfathers in the sky, the fathers on the earth, the first in company with the adityas, the second with the Rudras, the last with the Vasus. All these are individual poetical conceptions.[281]

Yama himself is sometimes invoked as if he were one of the Fathers, the first of mortals that died or that trod the path of the Fathers (the pit_ri_ya_n_a, X. 2, 7) leading to the common sunset in the West.[282] Still his real Deva-like nature is never completely lost, and, as the G.o.d of the setting sun, he is indeed the leader of the Fathers, but not one of the Fathers himself.[283]

Many of the benefits which men enjoyed on earth were referred to the Fathers, as having first been procured and first enjoyed by them.

They performed the first sacrifices, and secured the benefits arising from them. Even the great events in nature, such as the rising of the sun, the light of the day and the darkness of the night, were sometimes referred to them, and they were praised for having broken open the dark stable of the morning and having brought out the cows, that is, the days (X. 68, 11).[284] They were even praised for having adorned the night with stars, while in later writing the stars are said to be the lights of the good people who have entered into heaven.[285] Similar ideas, we know, prevailed among the ancient Persians, Greeks, and Romans. The Fathers are called in the Veda truthful (satya), wise (suvidatra), righteous (_ri_tavat), poets (kavi), leaders (pathik_ri_t), and one of their most frequent epithets is somya, delighting in Soma, Soma being the ancient intoxicating beverage of the Vedic _Ri_shis, which was believed to bestow immortality,[286] but which had been lost, or at all events had become difficult to obtain by the Aryans, after their migration into the Punjab.[287]

The families of the Bh_ri_gus, the Angiras, the Atharvans[288] all have their Pit_ri_s or Fathers, who are invoked to sit down on the gra.s.s and to accept the offerings placed there for them. Even the name of Pit_ri_ya_gn_a, sacrifice of the Fathers, occurs already in the hymns of the Rig-Veda.[289]

The following is one of the hymns of the Rig-Veda by which those ancient Fathers were invited to come to their sacrifice (Rig-veda X.

15):[290]

1. "May the Soma-loving Fathers, the lowest, the highest, and the middle, arise. May the gentle and righteous Fathers who have come to life (again), protect us in these invocations!

2. "May this salutation be for the Fathers to-day, for those who have departed before or after; whether they now dwell in the sky above the earth, or among the blessed people.

3. "I invited the wise Fathers ... may they come hither quickly, and sitting on the gra.s.s readily partake of the poured-out draught!

4. "Come hither to us with your help, you Fathers who sit on the gra.s.s! We have prepared these libations for you, accept them! Come hither with your most blessed protection, and give us health and wealth without fail!

5. "The Soma-loving Fathers have been called hither to their dear viands which are placed on the gra.s.s. Let them approach, let them listen, let them bless, let them protect us!

6. "Bending your knee and sitting on my right, accept all this sacrifice. Do not hurt us, O Fathers, for any wrong that we may have committed against you, men as we are.

7. "When you sit down on the lap of the red dawns, grant wealth to the generous mortal! O Fathers, give of your treasure to the sons of this man here, and bestow vigor here on us!

8. "May Yama, as a friend with friends, consume the offerings according to his wish, united with those old Soma-loving Fathers of ours, the Vasish_th_as, who arranged the Soma draught.

9. "Come hither, O Agni, with those wise and truthful Fathers who like to sit down near the hearth, who thirsted when yearning for the G.o.ds, who knew the sacrifice, and who were strong in praise with their songs.

10. "Come, O Agni, with those ancient fathers who like to sit down near the hearth, who forever praise the G.o.ds, the truthful, who eat and drink our oblations, making company with Indra and the G.o.ds.

11. "O Fathers, you who have been consumed by Agni, come here, sit down on your seats, you kind guides! Eat of the offerings which we have placed on the turf, and then grant us wealth and strong offspring!

12. "O Agni, O _G_atavedas,[291] at our request thou hast carried the offerings, having first rendered them sweet.

Thou gavest them to the Fathers, and they fed on their share. Eat also, O G.o.d, the proffered oblations!

13. "The Fathers who are here, and the Fathers who are not here, those whom we know, and those whom we know not, thou _G_atavedas, knowest how many they are, accept the well-made sacrifice with the sacrificial portions!

14. "To those who, whether burned by fire or not burned by fire, rejoice in their share in the midst of heaven, grant thou, O King, that their body may take that life which they wish for!"[292]