Myth, Ritual And Religion Volume I Part 22

Another famous, and almost comic, example of the difficulty of Vedic interpretation is well known. In Rig-Veda, x. 16, 4, there is a funeral hymn. Agni, the fire-G.o.d, is supplicated either to roast a goat or to warm the soul of the dead and convey it to paradise. Whether the soul is to be thus comforted or the goat is to be grilled, is a question that has mightily puzzled Vedic doctors.(1) Professor Muller and M. Langlois are all for "the immortal soul", the goat has advocates, or had advocates, in Aufrecht, Ludwig and Roth. More important difficulties of interpretation are ill.u.s.trated by the att.i.tude of M. Bergaigne in La Religion Vedique, and his controversy with the great German lexicographers. The study of mythology at one time made the Vedas its starting-point. But perhaps it would be wise to begin from something more intelligible, something less perplexed by difficulties of language and diversities of interpretation.

(1) Muir, v. 217.

In attempting to criticise the various Aryan myths, we shall be guided, on the whole, by the character of the myths themselves. Pure and elevated conceptions we shall be inclined to a.s.sign to a pure and elevated condition of thought (though such conceptions do, recognisably, occur in the lowest known religious strata), and we shall make no difficulty about believing that Rishis and singers capable of n.o.ble conceptions existed in an age very remote in time, in a society which had many of the features of a lofty and simple civilisation. But we shall not, therefore, a.s.sume that the hymns of these Rishis are in any sense "primitive," or throw much light on the infancy of the human mind, or on the "origin" of religious and heroic myths. Impure, childish and barbaric conceptions, on the other hand, we shall be inclined to attribute to an impure, childish, and barbaric condition of thought; and we shall again make no difficulty about believing that ideas originally conceived when that stage of thought was general have been retained and handed down to a far later period. This view of the possible, or rather probable, antiquity of many of the myths preserved in the Brahmanas is strengthened, if it needed strengthening, by the opinion of Dr.

Weber.(1) "We must indeed a.s.sume generally with regard to many of those legends (in the Brahmanas of the Rig-Veda) that they had already gained a rounded independent shape in tradition before they were incorporated into the Brahmanas; and of this we have frequent evidence in the DISTINCTLY ARCHAIC CHARACTER OF THEIR LANGUAGE, compared with that of the rest of the text."

(1) History of Indian Literature, English trans., p. 47.

We have now briefly stated the nature and probable relative antiquity of the evidence which is at the disposal of Vedic mythologists. The chief lesson we would enforce is the necessity of suspending the judgment when the Vedas are represented as examples of primitive and comparatively pure and simple natural religion. They are not primitive; they are highly differentiated, highly complex, extremely enigmatic expressions of fairly advanced and very peculiar religious thought. They are not morally so very pure as has been maintained, and their purity, such as it is, seems the result of conscious reticence and wary selection rather than of primeval innocence. Yet the bards or editors have by no means wholly excluded very ancient myths of a thoroughly savage character.

These will be chiefly exposed in the chapter on "Indo-Aryan Myths of the Beginnings of Things," which follows.

CHAPTER VIII. INDIAN MYTHS OF THE ORIGIN OF THE WORLD AND OF MAN.

Comparison of Vedic and savage myths--The metaphysical Vedic account of the beginning of things--Opposite and savage fable of world made out of fragments of a man--Discussion of this hymn--Absurdities of Brahmanas--Praj.a.pati, a Vedic Unkulunkulu or Qat--Evolutionary myths--Marriage of heaven and earth--Myths of Puranas, their savage parallels--Most savage myths are repeated in Brahmanas.

In discussing the savage myths of the origin of the world and of man, we observed that they were as inconsistent as they were fanciful. Among the fancies embodied in the myths was noted the theory that the world, or various parts of it, had been formed out of the body of some huge non-natural being, a G.o.d, or giant, or a member of some ancient mysterious race. We also noted the myths of the original union of heaven and earth, and their violent separation as displayed in the tales of Greeks and Maoris, to which may be added the Acagchemem nation in California.(1) Another feature of savage cosmogonies, ill.u.s.trated especially in some early Slavonic myths, in Australian legends, and in the faith of the American races, was the creation of the world, or the recovery of a drowned world by animals, as the raven, the dove and the coyote. The hatching of all things out of an egg was another rude conception, chiefly noted among the Finns. The Indian form occurs in the Satapatha Brahmana.(2) The preservation of the human race in the Deluge, or the creation of the race after the Deluge, was yet another detail of savage mythology; and for many of these fancies we seemed to find a satisfactory origin in the exceedingly credulous and confused state of savage philosophy and savage imagination.

(1) Bancroft, v. 162.

(2) Sacred Books of the East, i. 216.

The question now to be asked is, do the traditions of the Aryans of India supply us with myths so closely resembling the myths of Nootkas, Maoris and Australians that we may provisionally explain them as stories originally due to the invention of savages? This question may be answered in the affirmative. The Vedas, the Epics and the Puranas contain a large store of various cosmogonic traditions as inconsistent as the parallel myths of savages. We have an Aryan Ilmarinen, Tvashtri, who, like the Finnish smith, forged "the iron vault of hollow heaven"

and the ball of earth.(1) Again, the earth is said to have sprung, as in some Mangaian fables, "from a being called Uttanapad".(2) Again, Brahmanaspati, "blew the G.o.ds forth like a blacksmith," and the G.o.ds had a hand in the making of things. In contrast with these childish pieces of anthropomorphism, we have the famous and sublime speculations of an often-quoted hymn.(3) It is thus that the poet dreams of the days before being and non-being began:--

(1) Muir, v. 354.

(2) Rig-Veda, x. 72, 4.

(3) Ibid., x. 126.

"There was then neither non-ent.i.ty nor ent.i.ty; there was no atmosphere nor sky above. What enveloped (all)?... Was it water, the profound abyss? Death was not then, nor immortality: there was no distinction of day or night. That One breathed calmly, self-supported; then was nothing different from it, or above it. In the beginning darkness existed, enveloped in darkness. All this was undistinguishable water. That One which lay void and wrapped in nothingness was developed by the power of fervour. Desire first arose in It, which was the primal germ of mind (and which) sages, searching with their intellect, have discovered to be the bond which connects ent.i.ty with non-ent.i.ty. The ray (or cord) which stretched across these (worlds), was it below or was it above? There were there impregnating powers and mighty forces, a self-supporting principle beneath and energy aloft. Who knows? who here can declare whence has sprung, whence this creation? The G.o.ds are subsequent to the development of this (universe); who then knows whence it arose? From what this creation arose, and whether (any one) made it or not, he who in the highest heaven is its ruler, he verily knows, or (even) he does not know."(1)

(1) Muir, Sanskrit Texts, 2nd edit., v. 357.

Here there is a Vedic hymn of the origin of things, from a book, it is true, supposed to be late, which is almost, if not absolutely, free from mythological ideas. The "self-supporting principle beneath and energy aloft" may refer, as Dr. Muir suggests, to the father, heaven above, and the mother, earth beneath. The "bond between ent.i.ty and non-ent.i.ty" is sought in a favourite idea of the Indian philosophers, that of tapas or "fervour". The other speculations remind us, though they are much more restrained and temperate in character, of the metaphysical chants of the New Zealand priests, of the Zunis, of Popol Vuh, and so on. These belong to very early culture.

What is the relative age of this hymn? If it could be proved to be the oldest in the Veda, it would demonstrate no more than this, that in time exceedingly remote the Aryans of India possessed a philosopher, perhaps a school of philosophers, who applied the minds to abstract speculations on the origin of things. It could not prove that mythological speculations had not preceded the attempts of a purer philosophy. But the date cannot be ascertained. Mr. Max Muller cannot go farther than the suggestion that the hymn is an expression of the perennis quaedam philosophia of Leibnitz. We are also warned that a hymn is not necessarily modern because it is philosophical.(1) Certainly that is true; the Zunis, Maoris, and Mangaians exhibit amazing powers of abstract thought. We are not concerned to show that this hymn is late; but it seems almost superfluous to remark that ideas like those which it contains can scarcely be accepted as expressing man's earliest theory of the origin of all things. We turn from such ideas to those which the Aryans of India have in common with black men and red men, with far-off Finns and Scandinavians, Chaldaeans, Haidahs, Cherokees, Murri and Maori, Mangaians and Egyptians.

(1) History of Sanskrit Literature, p. 568.

The next Vedic account of creation which we propose to consider is as remote as possible in character from the sublime philosophic poem. In the Purusha Sukta, the ninetieth hymn of the tenth book of the Rig-Veda Sanhita, we have a description of the creation of all things out of the severed limbs of a magnified non-natural man, Purusha. This conception is of course that which occurs in the Norse myths of the rent body of Ymir. Borr's sons took the body of the Giant Ymir and of his flesh formed the earth, of his blood seas and waters, of his bones mountains, of his teeth rocks and stones, of his hair all manner of plants, of his skull the firmament, of his brains the clouds, and so forth. In Chaldean story, Bel cuts in twain the magnified non-natural woman Omorca, and converts the halves of her body into heaven and earth. Among the Iroquois in North America, Chokanipok was the giant whose limbs, bones and blood furnished the raw material of many natural objects; while in Mangaia portions of Ru, in Egypt of Set and Osiris, in Greece of Dionysus Zagreus were used in creating various things, such as stones, plants and metals. The same ideas precisely are found in the ninetieth hymn of the tenth book of the Rig-Veda. Yet it is a singular thing that, in all the discussions as to the antiquity and significance of this hymn which have come under our notice, there has not been one single reference made to parallel legends among Aryan or non-Aryan peoples. In accordance with the general principles which guide us in this work, we are inclined to regard any ideas which are at once rude in character and widely distributed, both among civilised and uncivilised races, as extremely old, whatever may be the age of the literary form in which they are presented. But the current of learned opinions as to the date of the Purusha Sukta, the Vedic hymn about the sacrifice of Purusha and the creation of the world out of fragments of his body, runs in the opposite direction. The hymn is not regarded as very ancient by most Sanskrit scholars. We shall now quote the hymn, which contains the data on which any theory as to its age must be founded:--(1)

(1) Rig-Veda, x. 90; Muir, Sanskrit Texts, 2nd edit., i. 9.

"Purusha has a thousand heads, a thousand eyes, a thousand feet. On every side enveloping the earth, he overpa.s.sed (it) by a s.p.a.ce of ten fingers. Purusha himself is this whole (universe), whatever is and whatever shall be.... When the G.o.ds performed a sacrifice with Purusha as the oblation, the spring was its b.u.t.ter, the summer its fuel, and the autumn its (accompanying) offering. This victim, Purusha, born in the beginning, they immolated on the sacrificial gra.s.s. With him the G.o.ds, the Sadhyas, and the Rishis sacrificed. From that universal sacrifice were provided curds and b.u.t.ter. It formed those aerial (creatures) and animals both wild and tame. From that universal sacrifice sprang the Ric and Saman verses, the metres and Yajush. From it sprang horses, and all animals with two rows of teeth; kine sprang from it; from it goats and sheep. When (the G.o.ds) divided Purusha, into how many parts did they cut him up? What was his mouth? What arms (had he)? What (two objects) are said (to have been) his thighs and feet? The Brahman was his mouth; the Rajanya was made his arms; the being (called) the Vaisya, he was his thighs; the Sudra sprang from his feet. The moon sprang from his soul (Mahas), the sun from his eye, Indra and Agni from his mouth, and Yaiyu from his breath. From his navel arose the air, from his head the sky, from his feet the earth, from his ear the (four) quarters; in this manner (the G.o.ds) formed the world. When the G.o.ds, performing sacrifice, bound Purusha as a victim, there were seven sticks (stuck up) for it (around the fire), and thrice seven pieces of fuel were made. With sacrifice the G.o.ds performed the sacrifice. These were the earliest rites. These great powers have sought the sky, where are the former Sadhyas, G.o.ds."

The myth here stated is plain enough in its essential facts. The G.o.ds performed a sacrifice with a gigantic anthropomorphic being (Purusha = Man) as the victim. Sacrifice is not found, as a rule, in the religious of the most backward races of all; it is, relatively, an innovation, as shall be shown later. His head, like the head of Ymir, formed the sky, his eye the sun, animals sprang from his body. The four castes are connected with, and it appears to be implied that they sprang from, his mouth, arms, thighs and feet. It is obvious that this last part of the myth is subsequent to the formation of castes. This is one of the chief arguments for the late date of the hymn, as castes are not distinctly recognised elsewhere in the Rig-Veda. Mr. Max Muller(1) believes the hymn to be "modern both in its character and in its diction," and this opinion he supports by philological arguments. Dr. Muir(2) says that the hymn "has every character of modernness both in its diction and ideas".

Dr Haug, on the other hand,(3) in a paper read in 1871, admits that the present form of the hymn is not older than the greater part of the hymns of the tenth book, and than those of the Atharva Veda; but he adds, "The ideas which the hymn contains are certainly of a primeval antiquity....

In fact, the hymn is found in the Yajur-Veda among the formulas connected with human sacrifices, which were formerly practised in India." We have expressly declined to speak about "primeval antiquity,"

as we have scarcely any evidence as to the myths and mental condition for example, even of palaeolithic man; but we may so far agree with Dr. Haug as to affirm that the fundamental idea of the Purusha Sukta, namely, the creation of the world or portions of the world out of the fragments of a fabulous anthropomorphic being is common to Chaldeans, Iroquois, Egyptians, Greeks, Tinnehs, Mangaians and Aryan Indians. This is presumptive proof of the antiquity of the ideas which Dr. Muir and Mr. Max Muller think relatively modern. The savage and brutal character of the invention needs no demonstration. Among very low savages, for example, the Tinnehs of British North America, not a man, not a G.o.d, but a DOG, is torn up, and the fragments are made into animals.(4) On the Paloure River a beaver suffers in the manner of Purusha. We may, for these reasons, regard the chief idea of the myth as extremely ancient--infinitely more ancient than the diction of the hymn.

(1) Ancient Sanskrit Literature, 570.

(2) Sanskrit Texts, 2nd edit., i. 12.

(3) Sanskrit Text, 2nd edit., ii. 463.

(4) Hearne's Journey, pp. 342-343.

As to the mention of the castes, supposed to be a comparatively modern inst.i.tution, that is not an essential part of the legend. When the idea of creation out of a living being was once received it was easy to extend the conception to any inst.i.tution, of which the origin was forgotten. The Teutonic race had a myth which explained the origin of the cla.s.ses eorl, ceorl and thrall (earl, churl and slave). A South American people, to explain the different ranks in society, hit on the very myth of Plato, the legend of golden, silver and copper races, from which the ranks of society have descended. The Vedic poet, in our opinion, merely extended to the inst.i.tution of caste a myth which had already explained the origin of the sun, the firmament, animals, and so forth, on the usual lines of savage thought. The Purusha Sukta is the type of many other Indian myths of creation, of which the following(1) one is extremely noteworthy. "Praj.a.pati desired to propagate. He formed the Trivrit (stoma) from his mouth. After it were produced the deity Agni, the metre Gayatri,... of men the Brahman, of beasts the goat;...

from his breast, and from his arms he formed the Panchadasa (stoma).

After it were created the G.o.d Indra, the Trishtubh metre,... of men the Rajanya, of beasts the sheep. Hence they are vigorous, because they were created from vigour. From his middle he formed the Saptadasa (stoma).

After it were created the G.o.ds called the Yisvadevas, the Jagati metre,... of men the Vaisya, of beasts kine. Hence they are to be eaten, because they were created from the receptacle of food." The form in which we receive this myth is obviously later than the inst.i.tution of caste and the technical names for metres. Yet surely any statement that kine "are to be eaten" must be older than the universal prohibition to eat that sacred animal the cow. Possibly we might argue that when this theory of creation was first promulgated, goats and sheep were forbidden food.(2)

(1) Taittirya Sanhita, or Yajur-Veda, vii. i. 1-4; Muir, 2nd edit., i.

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(2) Mr. M'Lennan has drawn some singular inferences from this pa.s.sage, connecting, as it does, certain G.o.ds and certain cla.s.ses of men with certain animals, in a manner somewhat suggestive of totemism (Fornightly Review), February, 1870.

Turning from the Vedas to the Brahmanas, we find a curiously savage myth of the origin of species.(1) According to this pa.s.sage of the Brahmana, "this universe was formerly soul only, in the form of Purusha". He caused himself to fall asunder into two parts. Thence arose a husband and a wife. "He cohabited with her; from them men were born. She reflected, 'How does he, after having produced me from himself, cohabit with me? Ah, let me disappear.' She became a cow, and the other a bull, and he cohabited with her. From them kine were produced." After a series of similar metamorphoses of the female into all animal shapes, and a similar series of pursuits by the male in appropriate form, "in this manner pairs of all sorts of creatures down to ants were created". This myth is a parallel to the various Greek legends about the amours in b.e.s.t.i.a.l form of Zeus, Nemesis, Cronus, Demeter and other G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses. In the Brahmanas this myth is an explanation of the origin of species, and such an explanation as could scarcely have occurred to a civilised mind. In other myths in the Brahmanas, Praj.a.pati creates men from his body, or rather the fluid of his body becomes a tortoise, the tortoise becomes a man (purusha), with similar examples of speculation.(2)

(1) Satapatha Brahmana, xiv. 4, 2; Muir, 2nd edit., i. 25.

(2) Similar tales are found among the Khonds.

Among all these Brahmana myths of the part taken by Praj.a.pati in the creation or evoking of things, the question arises who WAS Praj.a.pati?