Myth, Ritual And Religion Volume II Part 13

CHAPTER XVII. G.o.dS OF THE ARYANS OF INDIA.

Difficulties of the study--Development of clan-G.o.ds-- Departmental G.o.ds-Divine patronage of morality--Immorality mythically attributed to G.o.ds--Indra--His love of Soma-- Scandal about Indra--Attempts to explain Indra as an elemental G.o.d--Varuna--Ushas--The Asvins--Their legend and theories about it--Tvashtri--The Maruts--Conclusions arrived at.

Nothing in all mythology is more difficult than the attempt to get a clear view of the G.o.ds of Vedic India. The perplexed nature of the evidence has already been explained, and may be briefly recapitulated.

The obscure doc.u.ments on which we have to rely, the Vedas and the Brahmanaa, contain in solution the opinions of many different ages and of many different minds. Old and comparatively modern conceptions of the deities, pious efforts to veil or to explain away what seemed crude or profane, the puerilities of ritual, half-conscious strivings in the direction of monotheism or pantheism, clan or family prejudices, rough etymological guesses, and many other elements of doubt combine to confuse what can never have been clear. Savage legends, philosophic conjectures, individual predilections are all blended into the collection of hymns called the _Rig- Veda_. Who can bring order into such a chaos?

An attempt to unravel the tangled threads of Indian faith must be made.

The G.o.ds of the Vedas are, on the whole, of the usual polytheistic type, though their forms mix into each other like shadows cast by a flickering fire. The ideas which may be gathered about them from the ancient hymns have, as usual, no consistency and no strict orthodoxy. As each bard of each bardic family celebrates a G.o.d, he is apt to make him for the occasion the pre-eminent deity of all.* This way of conceiving of the G.o.ds leads naturally (as thought advances) in the direction of a pantheistic monotheism, a hospitable theology which accepts each divine being as a form or manifestation of the supreme universal spirit. It is easy, however, to detect certain attributes more or less peculiar to each G.o.d. As among races far less forward in civilisation, each of the greater powers has his own special department, however much his worshippers may be inclined to regard him as really supreme sovereign.

Thus Indra is mainly concerned with thunder and other atmospheric phenomena: these are his department; but Vayu is the wind or the G.o.d of the wind, and Agni as fire or the G.o.d of fire is necessarily not unconnected with the lightning. The Maruts, again, are the storm-winds, or G.o.ds of the storm-winds; Mitra and Varuna preside over day and night; Ushas is the dawn or the G.o.ddess of dawn, and Tvashtri is the mechanic among the deities, corresponding more or less closely to the Greek Hephaestus.

* Muir, v. 125. Compare Muir, i. 348, on the word _Kusikas_, implying, according to Benfey, that Indra "is designated as the sole or chief deity of this tribe ". Cf, also Hang, Ait. Br., ii. 384.

Though many of these beings are still in Vedic poetry departmental powers with provinces of their own in external Nature, they are also supposed to be interested not only in the worldly, but in the moral welfare of mankind, and are imagined to "make for righteousness ". It is true that the myths by no means always agree in representing the G.o.ds as themselves moral. Incest and other hideous offences are imputed to them, and it is common to explain these myths as the result of the forgotten meanings of sayings which originally were only intended to describe processes of nature, especially of the atmosphere. Supposing, for the sake of argument, that this explanation is correct, we can scarcely be expected to think highly of the national taste which preferred to describe pure phenomena like dawn and sunset in language which is appropriate to the worst crimes in the human calendar. It is certain that the Indians, when they came to reflect and philosophise on their own religion (and they had reached this point before the Veda was compiled), were themselves horrified by the immoralities of some of their G.o.ds. Yet in Vedic times these G.o.ds were already acknowledged as beings endowed with strong moral attributes and interested in the conduct of men. As an example of this high ethical view, we may quote Mr. Max Muller's translation of part of a hymn addressed to Varuna.*

* Rig-Veda, ii. 28; _Hibbert Lectures_, p. 284.

"Take from me my sin like a fetter, and we shall increase, O Varuna, the spring of thy law. Let not the thread be cut while I weave my song! Let not the form of the workman break before the time.... Like as a rope from a calf, remove from me my sin, for away from thee I am not master even of the twinkling of an eye.... Move far away from me all self-committed guilt, and may I not, O king, suffer for what others have committed. Many dawns have not yet dawned; grant me to live in them, O Varuna." What follows is not on the same level of thought, and the next verse contains an appeal to Varuna to save his worshipper from the effect of magic spells. "Whether it be my companion or a friend who, while I was asleep and trembling, uttered fearful spells against me, whether it be a thief or a wolf who wishes to hurt me, protect us against them, O Varuna."* Agni, again, the G.o.d of fire, seems to have no original connection with righteousness. Yet even Agni** is prayed to forgive whatever sin the worshipper may have committed through folly, and to make him guiltless towards Aditi.*** The G.o.ddess Aditi once more, whether her name (rendered the "boundless") be or be not "one of the oldest names of the dawn,"**** is repeatedly called on by her worshippers to "make them sinless". In the same way sun, dawn, heaven, soma, and earth are implored to pardon sin.

* An opposite view is expressed in Weber's Hist, of Sansk.

Literature.

** Rig- Veda, iv. 12, 4; viii. 93, 7.

*** For divergent opinions about Aditi, compare _Revue de l'Histoire des Religions_, xii. 1, pp. 40-42; Muir, v. 218.

**** Max Muller, _Hibbert Lectures_, p. 228.

Though the subject might be dwelt on at very great length, it is perhaps already apparent that the G.o.ds of the Vedic poetry are not only potent over regions of the natural world, but are also conceived of, at times, as being powers with ethical tendencies and punishers of mortal guilt.

It would be difficult to overstate the ethical n.o.bility of certain Vedic hymns, which even now affect us with a sense of the "hunger and thirst after righteousness" so pa.s.sionately felt by the Hebrew psalmists. How this emotion, which seems naturally directed to a single G.o.d, came to be distributed among a score, it is hard to conjecture. But all this aspect of the Vedic deities is essentially the province of the science of religion rather than of mythology. Man's consciousness of sin, his sense of being imperfect in the sight of "larger other eyes than ours," is a topic of the deepest interest, but it comes but by accident into the realm of mythological science. That science asks, not with what feelings of awe and grat.i.tude the worshipper approaches his G.o.ds, but what myths, what stories, are told to or told by the worshipper concerning the origin, personal characteristics and personal adventures of his deities.

As a rule, these stories are a mere _chronique scandaleuse_, full of the most absurd and offensive anecdotes, and of the crudest fictions. The deities of the Vedic poems, so imposing when regarded as vast natural forces, or as the spiritual beings that master vast natural forces, so sympathetic when looked on as merciful G.o.ds conscious of, yet lenient towards, the sins of perishing mortals, have also their mythological aspect and their _chronique scandaleuse_.*

* Here we must remind the reader that the Vedas do not offer us all these tales, nor the worst of them. As M. Barth says, "Le sentiment religieux a ecarte la plupart de ces mythes ainsi que beaucoup d'autres qui le choquaient, mais il ne les a pas ecartes tous" (_Religions de l'Inde_, p. 14).

It is, of course, in their anthropomorphic aspect that the Vedic deities share or exceed the infirmities of mortals. The G.o.ds are not by any means always regarded as practically equal in supremacy. There were great and small, young and old G.o.ds,* though this statement, with the habitual inconsistency of a religion without creeds and articles, is elsewhere controverted. "None of you, O G.o.ds, is small or young; you are all great."** As to the immortality and the origin of the G.o.ds, opinions are equally divided among the Vedic poets and in the traditions collected in the Brahmanas. Several myths of the origin of the G.o.ds have already been discussed in the chapter on "Aryan Myths of the Creation of the World and of Man". It was there demonstrated that many of the Aryan myths were on a level with those current among contemporary savages all over the world, and it was inferred that they originally sprang from the same source, the savage imagination.

In this place, while examining the wilder divine myths, we need only repeat that, in one legend, heaven and earth, conceived of as two sentient living beings of human parts and pa.s.sions, produced the Aryan G.o.ds, as they did the G.o.ds of the New Zealanders and of other races.

Again, the G.o.ds were represented in the children of Aditi, and this might be taken either in a high and refined sense, as if Aditi were the infinite region from which the solar deities rise,*** or we may hold that Aditi is the eternal which sustains and is sustained by the G.o.ds,**** or the Indian imagination could sink to the vulgar and half-magical conception of Aditi as a female, who, being desirous of sons, cooked a Brahmandana oblation for the G.o.ds, the Sadhyas.*****

* Rig-Veda, i. 27,13.

** Ibid., viii. 30; Muir, v. 12.

*** Max Muller, _Hibbert Lectures_, p. 230.

**** Roth, in Muir, iv. 56.

***** _Taittirya Brahmana_, i. 1, 9, 1; Muir, v. 55, 1, 27.

Various other G.o.ds and supernatural beings are credited with having created or generated the G.o.ds. Indra's father and mother are constantly spoken of, and both he and other G.o.ds are often said to have been originally mortal, and to have reached the heavens by dint of that "austere fervour," that magical asceticism, which could do much more than move mountains. The G.o.ds are thus by no means always credited in Aryan mythology with inherent immortality. Like most of the other deities whose history we have been studying, they had struggles for pre-eminence with powers of a t.i.tanic character, the Asuras. "Asura, 'living,' was originally an epithet of certain powers of Nature, particularly of the sky," says Mr. Max Muller.** As the G.o.ds also are recognised as powers of Nature, particularly of the sky, there does not seem to be much original difference between Devas and Asuras.*** The opposition between them may be "secondary," as Mr. Max Muller says, but in any case it too strongly resembles the other wars in heaven of other mythologies to be quite omitted. Unluckily, the most consecutive account of the strife is to be found, not in the hymns of the Vedas, but in the collected body of mythical and other traditions called the Brahmanas.****

** Hibbert Lectures, p. 318.

*** In the _Atharva Veda_ it is said that a female Asura once drew Indra from among the G.o.ds (Muir, v. 82). Thus G.o.ds and Asuras are capable of amorous relations.

**** _Satapatha Br_.

The story in the Brahmana begins by saying that throughout. See the Oxford translation. Praj.a.pati (the producer of things, whose acquaintance we have made in the chapter on cosmogonic myths) was half mortal and half immortal. After creating things endowed with life, he created Death, the devourer. With that part of him which was mortal he was afraid of Death, and the G.o.ds were also "afraid of this ender, Death".

The G.o.ds in this tradition are regarded as mortals. Compare the _Black Yajur Veda_:* "_The G.o.ds were formerly just like men_. They desired to overcome want, misery, death, and to go to the divine a.s.sembly.

They saw, took and sacrificed with this Chaturvimsatiratra, and in consequence overcame want, misery and death, and reached the divine a.s.sembly." In the same Veda we are told that the G.o.ds and Asuras contended together; the G.o.ds were less numerous, but, as politicians make men peers, they added to their number by placing some bricks in the proper position to receive the sacrificial fire. They then used incantations: "Thou art a multiplier"; and so the bricks became animated, and joined the party of the G.o.ds, and made numbers more equal.**

* _Taittirya Sanhita_; Muir, v. 15, note 22.

** According to a later legend, or a legend which we have received in a later form, the G.o.ds derived immortality from drinking of the churned ocean of milk. They churned it with Mount Mandara for a staff and the serpent Hasuki for a cord.

The _Ramayana and Mahabharata_ ascribe this churning to the desire of the G.o.ds to become immortal. According to the _Mahabharata_, a Daitya named Rahu insinuated himself among the G.o.ds, and drank some of the draught of immortality.

Vishnu beheaded him before the draught reached lower than his throat; his _head_ was thus immortal, and is now a constellation. He pursues the sun and moon, who had spied him among the G.o.ds, and causes their eclipses by his ferocity. All this is on a level with Australian mythology.

To return to the G.o.ds in the _Satapatha Brahmana_ and their dread of death. They overcame him by certain sacrifices suggested by Praj.a.pati.

Death resented this, and complained that men would now become immortal and his occupation would be gone. To console him the G.o.ds promised that no man in future should become immortal with his body, but only through knowledge after parting with his body. This legend, at least in its present form, is necessarily later than the establishment of minute sacrificial rules. It is only quoted here as an example of the opinion that the G.o.ds were once mortal and "just like men". It may be urged, and probably with truth, that this belief is the figment of religious decadence. As to the victory of the G.o.ds over the Asuras, that is ascribed by the _Satapatha Brahmana_* to the fact that, at a time when neither G.o.ds nor Asuras were scrupulously veracious, the G.o.ds invented the idea of speaking the truth. The Asuras stuck to lying. The first results not unnaturally were that the G.o.ds became weak and poor, the Asuras mighty and rich. The G.o.ds at last overcame the Asuras, not by veracity, but by the success of a magical sacrifice. Earlier dynasties of G.o.ds, to which the generation of Indra succeeded, are not unfrequently mentioned in the _Rig- Veda_.**

* Muir, iv. 6a.

** Ibid., v. 16.

On the whole, the accounts of the G.o.ds and of their nature present in Aryan mythology the inconsistent anthropomorphism, and the mixture of incongruous and often magical and childish ideas, which mark all other mythological systems. This will become still more manifest when we examine the legends of the various G.o.ds separately, as they have been disentangled by Dr. Muir and M. Bergaigne from the Vedas, and from the later doc.u.ments which contain traditions of different dates.

The Vedas contain no such orderly statements of the divine genealogies as we find in Hesoid and Homer. All is confusion, all is contradiction.*

In many pa.s.sages heaven and earth, Dyaus and Prithivi, are spoken of as parents of the other G.o.ds. Dyaus is commonly identified, as is well known, with Zeus by the philologists, but his legend has none of the fulness and richness which makes that of Zeus so remarkable. Before the story of Dyaus could become that of Zeus, the old Aryan sky or heaven G.o.d had to attract into his cycle that vast collection of miscellaneous adventures from a thousand sources which fill the legend of the chief h.e.l.lenic deity. In the Veda, Dyaus appears now, as with Prithivi,**

the parent of all, both men and G.o.ds, now as a created thing or being fashioned by Indra or by Tvashtri.*** He is "essentially beneficent, but has no marked individuality, and can only have become the Greek Zeus by inheriting attributes from other deities ".****

Another very early divine person is Aditi, the mother of the great and popular G.o.ds called Adityas. "Nothing is less certain than the derivation of the name of Aditi," says M. Paul Regnaud.*****

* Certain myths of the beginnings of things will be found in the chapter on cosmogonic traditions.

** Muir, v. 21-24.

*** Ibid., v. 30.

**** Bergaigne, iii. 112.

***** _Revue de l'Histoire des Religions_, xii. 1, 40.

M. Regnaud finds the root of Aditi in _ad_, to shine. Mr. Max Muller looks for the origin of the word in _a_, privative, and _da_, to bind; thus Aditi will mean "the boundless," the "infinite," a theory rejected by M. Regnaud. The expansion of this idea, with all its important consequences, is worked out by Mr. Max Muller in his _Hibbert Lectures_.

"The dawn came and went, but there remained always behind the dawn that heaving sea of light or fire from which she springs. Was not this the invisible infinite? And what better name could be given than that which the Vedic poets gave to it, Aditi, the boundless, the yonder, the beyond all and everything." This very abstract idea "may have been one of the earliest intuitions and creations of the Hindu mind" (p. 229). M.

Darmesteter and Mr. Whitney, on the other hand, explain Aditi just as Welcker and Mr. Max Muller explain Cronion. There was no such thing as a G.o.ddess named Aditi till men asked themselves the meaning of the t.i.tle of their own G.o.ds, "the Adityas". That name might be interpreted "children of Aditi," and so a G.o.ddess called Aditi was invented to fit the name, thus philologically extracted from Adityas.*

M. Bergaigne** finds that Aditi means "free," "untrammelled," and is used both as an adjective and as a name.